will@cvradio.com
While the confrontation between militants and police in Grozny was only the fourth conflict-related incident in the republic during 2016, it demonstrates that ISIS still has the capacity to target Chechen security forces.
On December 17, 2016, a shootout in central Grozny between members of the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and local security forces claimed the lives of three militants and one police officer. On December 18, a counter-terrorist operation (CTO) launched in the aftermath resulted in the death of four more insurgents, whereas four remaining members of a militant cell were arrested. Three police officers were killed and one injured.
BACKGROUND: The shootout in downtown Grozny took place soon after a group of three males attacked and killed a police officer in central Grozny. The assailants took the police officers weapon and vehicle. In the evening, the group was spotted in the city center and all three militants were killed during the exchange of fire with security forces. The following night, four members of the same cell disarmed and murdered a member of Chechen police in a Grozny suburb. The same night, four militants broke into the house of another police officer and left with his weapon after having failed to locate the house owner. In the afternoon, militants ambushed and killed a second police officer and, like in the previous case, took his weapon and vehicle. All four militants were killed, along with one member of the security forces, when the group was found in the outskirts of Grozny. By the end of the day, security forces had managed to round up four remaining members of the militant cell, including one female.
Following the confrontation, over a dozen male family members of the slain militants were apprehended by security forces. A number of protests were organized both by the families of the deceased police officers demanding blood revenge and by the families of the suspected militants, requesting the release of the detained relatives.
On December 28, a video clip showing 11 individuals pledging allegiance to the head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was posted on ISIS-affiliated websites and on YouTube. During a 14-minute video, young men vow to attack security forces not only in Chechnya, but also in other parts of Russia, particularly in Volgograd. All militants slain on December 17-18 appeared in the recording. Since the militants had no firearms before their attacks on police (the men in the video were only holding knives), it seems that the cell did not receive direct material support from either Chechen insurgents or ISIS. Unlike most previous insurgent attacks on security forces in Chechnya, the militants of the Grozny cell were primarily interested in ambushing lone police officers and capturing their weapons, rather than attacking police patrols or armed convoys. The police investigation revealed that none of the militants was known to have links with armed groups in Chechnya or elsewhere. The group was allegedly receiving orders over the Internet from a Syria-based Chechen Islamist, identified as Zelimkhan Bakharchiyev.
IMPLICATIONS: In contrast to neighboring Dagestan, which lost 56 people as a result of armed conflict only during the fall of 2016, Chechnya remained relatively calm throughout the year. Aside from the December 17-18 confrontation, three other conflict-related incidents that took place in the republic were rather low-profile cases, with no casualties among the security forces. However, each of the previous armed incidents involved individuals pledging allegiance to ISIS and, in two cases, unrelated to the Chechen militant underground.
Two general observations emerge from these developments. First, following the effective crackdown on Chechen Islamists by Ramzan Kadyrovs security forces over the past ten years, members of Chechen militant groups tend to avoid confrontations with the police and prefer to retain a low profile. A number of Chechen militant leaders, who pledged allegiance to ISIS during 2014-15, were killed during special operations along with numerous killed or arrested rank-and-file members of militant groups. The return of Syrian Chechens Chechen volunteers who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight in the ranks of ISIS and other Jihadi groups predicted by some analysts, has thus far had no notable effect on the security situation in the republic. Second, the December 2016 events in Grozny indicate that self-organized cells, possibly radicalized by online Jihadi propaganda and lacking a direct line of contact with either ISIS in the Middle East, or with the remnants of Chechen militants, seem to be the current trend in the republic. According to Chechen journalist Orkhan Jamal, interviewed by the Caucasus Knot, there are no active ISIS recruiters in Chechnya who would try to attract people with offers of financial or heavenly rewards. Rather, young men and women radicalize through social media and online propaganda.
After the Grozny CTO, security forces undertook a series of arrests of male relatives of the suspected militants. According to a source within the Chechen security forces, quoted by the Caucasus Knot, male relatives of slain insurgents were detained in order to protect them from blood revenge, which the families of the deceased police officers pledged to undertake. As reported by the Human Rights Analysis Center, over 100 people were held in custody for over two weeks. Most of the detained relatives were released by December 30. However, a large demonstration was organized in a village where one of the militants resided, demanding the eviction of the deceased militants family. The meeting was attended by officials from the Chechen Ministry of Interior and senior religious figures. The fact that broader circles of the Chechen public appear to support Kadyrovs policy of collective punishment against families of suspected militants is yet another worrisome trend in the republic. The events of December 2016 show that the principle of collective punishment, first officially endorsed by Kadyrov in 2014, continues to be applied in practice.
CONCLUSIONS: Attacks by Islamist militants on security forces close to New Years Eve have been a common occurrence in the North Caucasus. For example, militants conducted a large-scale operation in Grozny in early December 2014, whereas militants opened fire on residents of Dagestans city of Derbent in December 2015. The December 2016 incident differs from previous confrontations in that it was organized and implemented not by well-armed and trained members of the armed underground, but by self-radicalized individuals, possibly inspired by ISIS propaganda. The other possible conclusion to be drawn from the December attack is that despite its failure to invigorate experienced Chechen Islamists, ISIS still succeeds in its social media recruitment among the Chechen youth.
AUTHOR'S BIO: Huseyn Aliyev is a conflict and area-studies expert currently based at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford. Huseyns recent publications appeared in Security Dialogue, International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies and Studies of Terrorism and Political Violence.
Image source: Christiaan Triebert on Flickr, accessed on February 3, 2017
Cafebabel is recruiting! German Editorial Liaison for a network of journalists
Published on February 13, 2017
Story by cafebabel DE Translation by: Emily Spencer
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Cafebabel is currently looking for a young, energetic and creative native German speaker to work with us in Paris. Apply now if you think you have what it takes.
Cafebabel is Europe's first online participatory media, now over 15 years old. Its publication is maintained by a highly motivated network of around 1,500 volunteers from all over Europe and boasts a professional editorial team based in Paris. The goal of the magazine is to offer a platform for civic expression to young Europeans and to promote the development of a European public opinion.
Cafebabel is a project run by Babel International, a not-for-profit organisation. Babel International organises debates, training sessions and reporting excursions all over Europe, runs cafebabel and supports a team of volunteers throughout the continent.
We are hiring one native German speaker (mandatory) to the role of Editorial Liaison for a "civic service" contract over a period of 6 months.
What does it mean to do a "civic service" placement with Cafebabel?
"Civic service" is a programme run by the French government, which is one step up from an internship. 18- to 25-year-olds can work with an organisation to carry out a mission in the public interest. Cafebabels mission is to promote European citizenship, and to offer a platform for young Europeans to express themselves through participatory journalism.
This non-renewable, 6-month contract is open to all candidates, regardless of education or experience. The only pre-requisite is that you must be a native German speaker.
In order to be eligible for a civic service contract, you must be younger than 26 (born after 1st March 1991) and hold European citizenship. It is preferred that you also speak good English, as well as any of our other publication languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Polish).
Your profile
You are interested in news and different forms of online expression, you have strong connections with young people on different social networks, and you are interested in engaging with the first European online participatory media that lets young people across the continent speak their minds.
Under the supervision of the Editorial Coordinator, your tasks will include:
- Raising awareness of active citizenship and European issues: You will suggest articles aimed at a European youth audience, alongside encouraging young people to spontaneously pitch articles with a European perspective.
- Supporting the writing of our volunteer authors: You will support our young authors in their written work, proofreading their contributions, proposing improvements (such as sources and photos), and suggesting European angles for their pieces.
- Encouraging contributions from youth: You will publish the best articles on the cafebabel home page, while mobilising our network of translators to translate articles. You will promote published articles on social media platforms.
- Informing youth about news in Europe: You will contribute articles on themes related to youth and European citizenship. If the opportunity presents itself, you will participate in our reporting projects across Europe.
- Actively participating in the life of the network: You will actively participate in the organisation's activities (training sessions, events, debates, etc.).
Your contract and benefits
The position consists of a civic service contract lasting 6 months, 24 hours per week beginning on March 1st 2017 in our Paris office.
Monthly salary and benefits: 582.17 net.
472.97 net contributed by the French state.
74,20 in the form of 14 restaurant tickets per month.
35 in travel expenses (half of the Pass Navigo, covering all zones).
Address: 226 rue Saint Denis, 75002, Paris, France
Interested? Apply Now!
Send your application (CV and cover letter) before March 15th 2017 to k.kloss@cafebabel.com.
Story by cafebabel DE
Translated from Paris: Cafebabel sucht deutschen Animateur fur Journalistennetzwerk
'The Other Immigrant List' Is An Inspiring F-You To Trump's Weekly Crime Roundup
By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 13, 2017 8:53PM
Photo: Tyler LaRiviere
After President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in the United States, a group of Chicago-area writers and activists banded together to publish a weekly list of their own, one to counteract the anti-immigration sentiment that Trump continues to fuel.
The Other Immigrant List collects and publishes not only stories of isolated positive contributions of immigrants as submitted by readers and fellow writers, but also the broader struggles and hardships that immigrant families have endured in order to arrive and flourish here.
We know the immigrant community, said Alma Campos, a copywriter now based in Joliet and a former longtime resident of Pilsen, McKinley Park and South Chicago. From my and my friends experiences and, from living in a Mexican-American communities, they are some of the most peaceful people out there. If such crimes exist, most are minor offenses.
Indeed, a recent Sun-Times investigation found the majority of deportation cases that go before Immigration Court do not involve violent offenders. And fears are surging locally ICE raids have led to the arrest of hundreds of undocumented immigrants in Midwest states within the last week alone and Trump has proclaimed a "crackdown."
The project is intended to be more than just a counter-list, Campos said, but a collection of the real stories of immigrants living in the U.S. from all walks of life and backgroundMexican, Muslim, Irish, everything. Not surprisingly, several of the stories so far pack a wallop: the grandfather of one contributor had to drink his own urine to survive en route from Mexico, eventually forging a career in the Chicago-area steel mills.
"They have all made their own lives," wrote Judy Melgarejo on the site. "Theyve built their own families and many successful businesses. They have all gone on to have successful and educated children, like myself. I recently received my Masters degree in Counseling and I owe it to the sacrifices that my grandfather made for our family."
Like Trump's proposed list, The Other Immigrant List will be update once a week with new accounts and photos. Organizers are in contact with universities and immigrant organizations to spread the word. Meanwhile, anyone interested in contributing is encouraged to submit.
"[Immigrants are] not here to commit crimes, but to live our lives and provide for our families. That's a human right, and thats what we want to show," Campos said.
2022 election guide: Here are Pueblo County's top races, ballot issues
Here's what you need to know about the local candidates and ballot questions in the 2022 election, as well as how to vote in Pueblo, Colorado.
CAMEROUN :: Consortium Leader Barrister Felix Agbor Balla Nkongho tribute to his late dad :: CAMEROON
10th of December 2016 is a day that I normally celebrate because it is the international human rights day, but this particular 10th of December 2016 will have a double significance in my life. It is a day that my hero, my mentor, my role model, my biggest supporter and my father joined his ancestors. It is very significant that you joined your ancestors on the 10th of December, a day that we celebrate all over the world as international human rights day. The theme for this particular year is Stand Up For Someone. You have always stood up for someone; you always stood up for the oppressed, the suppressed and the marginalized. You stood up for your co-workers, you stood up for your children. I buy into the philosophy of standing up for someone because of you. That is why as you leave this world, I can assure you that I will always stand up for someone.
You were a fada fada, an example of a loving, caring, devoted and committed dad. I learned a lot from you: your mastery of the queens language, the way you would write letters to me. Notwithstanding the fact that you were not certificated, you were highly educated and very wise. I will miss you, we shall miss you.
The legacy that you have left behind will last forever, you thought us to be hardworking, to be honest, to be committed and to do whatever we do to the best of our abilities. And that is the driving spirit that I will always remember.
You were called SN Brown, I am called Agbor Balla and we have lots of things in common. I remember how you told me I was a blessing to you as a child and I replied you are a blessing to me as a father. The best dad I could ever have. I remind my kids that I know I will never leave up to the highest standards of my father, because you were a fathers father. You spoiled me as a child; I grew up as a very privileged kid notwithstanding the difficulties you might have been facing financially. You made sure that I had the money to foster my education. I remember in 1996 when things were tough in the country, you could still afford to pay my school fees of $1000 at the Nigerian Law School. I remember you visiting me in Sasse and CCAST Kumba; you will always encourage, motivate and support me. I owe my success; I owe whoever I am today because you were there to support me. I know that wherever you are, you will be smiling.
You were a keen supporter of the Anglophone struggle. I know you will be proudly saying that is my son Balla. Some people are surprised, shocked and stunned that whilst I was running around criss-crossing the south and north west regions, organizing, you were in the mortuary. Yes you were in the mortuary, but I know you, I know that you were supporting me and you will be happy and proud of what I am doing. You spent your entire life praying and working for the success of your people. I remember the stories you told me of how you never had the opportunity to go to school but you vowed to educate all your kids. For that reason you sent them to the best schools. We will always remember you.
I wish I was there to pay you my last respect , I wish I was there to read my eulogy in church. I wish I was there to see you being buried. But you know what we stand for is bigger than me, it is bigger than you. You know that when you are fighting for your people, there will be sacrifices to be made and this is one of them I am making.
Although you died in my arms, I will not have the opportunity to bury you. So is life, but one day when we meet I will explain to you how the struggle went. I will tell you in detail how I was kidnapped and incarcerated in Yaounde and that I could not attend your burial. But I know that I will do everything to ensure you have a befitting burial. I will always love you. You will always be my mentor, my hero and my role model. When you get to the promise land dont forget to say hi to my favourite woman, Comfort Brown. Tell her that Show Boy is doing what Show Boy knows best: to speak for the voiceless, fight against marginalization, oppression and suppression and to defend the rights of our people.
I wish you a safe journey until we meet again. Adieu S N Brown. Bye bye Pa Brown. Rest in Peace Pa Brown.
Unusual Ceremonial Grounds In SW and NW Regions Wilson MUSA
It was unprecedented in the history of Youth Day celebration since 1966; schools in the English sub system of Education for the first time boycotted the celebration in the two English Speaking regions of Cameroon.
The 51st edition of National Youth Day was specific in these regions; Grand Stands were practically empty in the various ceremonial grounds with just a handful of dignitaries including Governors in regional Head quarters, SDOs in Divisional and Sub Divisional Officers.
While some schools in the English sub system of education were marked absent, some Francophone schools and Youth Associations stole the show especially in Buea where activities were chaired by Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai. Schools like Bilingual Grammar Schhol Molyko and other Bilingual High schools took part; students of the University of Buea with most boys shaving their heads also took part in the parade.
Mr Okalia told the Press that he was happy with the students and pupils who braved the odds amidst threats to take part in the National event.
In Bamenda where Governor Adolphe LELE LAfrique presided, ceremony lasted for less than 20 minutes, only few Government Bilingual High School Francophone Students took part with Regional Delegation staff taking part to fill in the blank spaces, an association to support the Lionesses also took part in the match.
In Bangem, in Kupe Muanenguba Division in the South West region, the SDO Handerson Ketong Konge frowned expressed his dissatisfaction after he met an empty Grand Stand with just a handful of pupils and students in French sub system of education answering Present. The SDO said Parents were supposed to have listened to the message of the Head of State to the Youths which was according to him pregnant with positive promises.
Dos of Nkambe, Belo,Ndu and Bafut declared end of ceremony after broadcast of President Paul Biyas speech.
There was drama in Bali after DO and other dignitaries were forced to flee for their lives after dozens of youths stormed the place throwing stones, some hoisted the SCNC flag but dozens were arrested amid gun shots throughout the day. Security forces went from one house to another Saturday evening conducting massive arrest of young boys, some had to spend the night in coffee farms.
The now trouble ridden Ndop witnessed chaos as gun shots were fired the whole morning of Saturday, DO had to lead match.
In Batibo, stench from faeces dropped in Grand Stand disrupted the event as DO and others left in anger.
In all, 11 February celebration in SW and NW was unpopular amid ghost town organized by outlawed Consortium of Anglophone Cameroon Civil Society.
Barrister Agbor Balla Middle Leader of CACSC Wilson MUSA
Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla, Dr Fontem Neba and Mancho Bibixy will be arraigned for the first time when the case opens today at the military court in Yaounde.
The president of the Fako Lawyers Association (FAKLA), Agbor-Balla and scribe of the University of University of Buea teachers syndicate ( SYNES), Dr Fontem Neba together with Mancho Bibixy will answer charges of terrorism.
The leaders of the now outlawed Anglophone Consortium of Civil Society Organisations and coffin revolution initiator could face death penalty under the 2014 anti-terrorism law.
Hearing of the case that was due to start on February 3 failed.
About 100 lawyers who had constituted as defence counsel stormed the military and were only informed it had been to February 13.
Besides the lawyers, the hearing that never took place attracted family, friends of the detained activists and a good number of media practitioners.
Some lawyers will not however be able to attend the trial in Yaounde, fearing arrest by regime forces.
According to The Voice newspaper, their names are included in a list of wanted layers and activists who championed or tele-guided the lawyers strike which has for the fourth month now, grounded courts in the two English speaking regions.
Les avocats anglophones marchent a Bamenda Archives
The crowd-pulling trial finally opened this Monday after the fiasco recorded on February 3.
The president and secretary general of the outlawed Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla and Dr Fontem Neba were respectively arraigned at the Yaounde military court today together with Mancho Bibixy.
The activists who were arrested in the regional capitals of the two Anglophone regions, Bamenda and Buea and promptly whisked off to Yaounde are charged among other things for terrorism in connection with the ongoing crisis in the regions. They all pleaded not guilty.
Sources say before the accused pleaded their case, the counsel for the defence objected the courts attempt to read the charges in the French language.
A battery of advocates from the Cameroon Bar Association including former Batonniers are defending the leaders.
| BY Lynchy |
New research finds LGBTIQ community twice as likely to feel uncomfortable holding hands in public. As the LGBTIQ community on both sides of the Tasman get ready to celebrate love at
the Auckland Pride Festival and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG), the majority still struggle with the smallest acts of public affection.
This insight is the inspiration behind ANZs latest campaign in support of the LGBTIQ community, a joint effort between agencies TBWA Melbourne and TBWA Auckland. #HoldTight aims to highlight this disparity and encourages all people across New Zealand and Australia and beyond to show their support.
The campaign launches with a hero piece of film accompanied by heartfelt stories told by ANZ staff.
Research commissioned by ANZ has revealed in New Zealand that the LGBTIQ community is three times more likely (39%) than non-LGBTI (18%) and in Australia more than twice as likely (52%) than non-LGBTI (14%) to have felt uncomfortable performing the most basic gesture of love: holding hands in public.
Statistics also show that while the vast majority of New Zealanders (95%) agree that everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, should feel comfortable holding hands in public, less than half of the LGBTI community (39%) are truly at ease. Similarly, in Australian, a large majority (94%) support everyone feeling comfortable with this show of affection, but only (43%) actually say they feel very comfortable.
The disconnect between perception and reality is saddening. Holding hands is the simplest expression of affection, whether it be a family member, friend, first date or lifelong partner. Its hard to fathom, in 2017, that not everyone is comfortable with this small but significant gesture.
Commenting on the campaign, Astrud Burgess, Head of Marketing New Zealand at ANZ said: ANZ is using #HoldTight as a platform to share an important message about diversity, inclusion and respect and to help people understand the challenges that many members of the LGBTIQ community face.
Its also an important message of support to our diverse customers and staff. We hope to make a difference by encouraging the wider public to join in the conversation and show their support.
This highlights the daily pressures that the LGBTIQ community faces. Its a simple and loving gesture to hold your partners hand, however for fear of discrimination, and experiences in violence and abuse the reality is that many in the community still dont feel safe. We love the awareness that ANZ is raising about this issue for the community, said Julian Cook, the Festival Director for the Auckland Pride Festival.
As ANZ celebrates eleven years of supporting the SGLMG, nine years backing the Wellington Festival and five years actively participating in the Auckland Pride Festival, the #HoldTight campaign will be a constant theme over the coming months activity. To celebrate at the parades in Auckland and Sydney a limited edition, custom wristband will be worn by ANZ marchers in the parade. The wristbands will be exclusively distributed to spectators on the nights. This unique piece of wearable tech uses infrared to detect when two wearers are close together and lights up when they hold hands. The wristbands will create a spectacle on the night whenever people en masse hold tight.
As part of a broader social campaign, in collaboration with Twitter, a custom emoji has been developed to appear when people use the hashtag #HoldTight.
The world-famous GAYTMs will be back again in Auckland and in Sydney, outside the Ponsonby Road and 45 Queen Street ANZ branches. Once again 50 cents from every non-ANZ customer GAYTM transaction fee will be donated to LGBTI services provider OUTLine.
ANZ looks forward to celebrating the simple act of holding hands, making it part of mainstream conversation and encouraging the LGBTIQ community to stay strong and be resilient, added Burgess.
CREDITS:
Client: ANZ
Creative Agency: TBWA
TBWA\Melbourne:
Executive Creative Director: Paul Reardon
Creative Director: Tara Ford
Creatives: Tim Woolford. Scott Canning
Social Creative: Max Reed
Production:
Head of Broadcast: Margot Ger
Head of Integrated Production: Dave Keating
Content Director: Harrison Webster
Content Producer: Stephanie Leddin
Content Creator / Editor: Jesse Richards
Film Production Company: Revolver/Will ORourke
Director: The Glue Societys Pete Baker
Managing Director/Executive Producer: Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer/Head of Projects: Josh Mullens
Producer: Jasmin Helliar
DOP: Geoffrey Simpson
Edit House: The Glue Society Studios
Editor: Philip Horn
Colourist: Christine Trodd
Online: Lee Sandiford
Music & Sound: Level 2
Composer: Michael Edwards
Wristbands:
Production: Clear Systems Tim Boss
GAYTM Production Company: Revolver/Will ORourke
Artistic, Design & Project Director: The Glue Societys Pete Baker & Luke Nuto
Managing Director/EP: Michael Ritchie
EP/Head of Projects: Josh Mullens
Producer: Phoebe Marks
Production Designer: Sam Hobbs
Construction Manager/Art Director: Cameron Stanton
Scenic Artists: Andrea Davies, Alejandro Peque Martinez
Graphic Designer: Robyn Schremmer
Account Service & Planning:
Regional Group Head: Ricci Meldrum
Group Business Director: Claire Tenzer
Project Director: Amelia Van Veenendaal
Project Manager: Todd McLerie
Digital Planner: Paul Arena
TBWA\New Zealand:
Executive Creative Director: Christy Peacock
Creative Director: Karen Maurice OLeary
Digital production: Farah Iqbal, Marianne Short
Group Business Director: Robyn Budd
Senior Account Management: Maike Blackman
Project Director: Ruby Soole
Head of production: Mark Paisey
Eleven PR:
Managing Director Melbourne: Fee Townshend
Managing Director A
uckland: Angelina Farry
Senior Account Director: Louise Cargo
Account Director: Jade Glashoff
Senior Account Manager: Andrew Sanders
Account Manager: Samuel Levi
| BY Lynchy |
Bunnings UK has officially launched with a campaign created by Australias The Brand Agency, the WPP owned agency which recently set up shop in London to service the business.
The first Bunnings store is on Griffiths Way, St. Albans, just north of London. The launch spot invites UK punters to discover more about the leading home improvement and outdoor living retailer in Australia and New Zealand, and learn what to expect from the new UK store as the staff share their first thoughts.
| BY Ricki Green |
Clockwork Films has snared Damien Whitney for executive producer role.
Whitney, who has more than 20 years experience in the industry, brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Clockwork Films. Having cut his teeth in the advertising industry in London where he worked for over 10 years, Whitney returned to Sydney where he quickly gained respect as a creative producer. At BWM he built a highly respected production department, which he managed for 10 years, before being head hunted to the role of national head of broadcast, JWT, which he held for nearly four years. From there, he transitioned to the dark side (production), taking the reigns at Invisible Artists, growing its live action capabilities.
When co-founders of Clockwork Films, Jamie Cohen and Heath George went looking for an EP, they decided that with Whitneys experience and respect in the industry, it was an easy choice.
Says Cohen: Apart from being ridiculously handsome, Damiens built a reputation for being an excellent producer, a straight shooter and is widely respected throughout the business. The fact that he has a lot of friends and not colleagues throughout the industry says a lot about his character. He is not only passionate about making great work, but his deep understanding of agency and client needs and machinations will make him an invaluable asset to our offering.
| BY Ricki Green |
An older piece taken from the archives of damonsbrain a blog written by Damon Stapleton, chief creative officer of DDB New Zealand
Growing up I was always fascinated by stand up comedy.
I would watch early Saturday Night Live tapes of Belushi at his best and his worst. Bill Hicks destroying audiences and them laughing and thanking him for it. Richard Pryor being a free basing genius. I think it was the mixture of sheer terror of actually getting up there and the power you could have when the room was in the palm of your hand that amazed me.
I used to go to a lot of open mike nights. One of the places I used to go was Cool Runnings in Johannesburg. It was a dank little basement in Melville. It was underneath a Jamaican eatery that sold everything on the menu and quite a few things off it.
You would see guys like Jon Vlismas, Trevor Noah, David Kau or Bevan Cullinan hosting the night. They were amazing because they could bring the crowd back after somebody sucked. Just think how hard it is to do that. Just for a second, picture yourself going on after somebody has bombed.
And boy did some of the guys bomb. I remember one 50 year old freaky German guy in a full lederhosen outfit getting lynched after telling inappropriate jokes about kids.
Night after night, you would get guys who were dry heaving backstage because they were so nervous. They would force themselves to get on that stage and be terrible. The audience would throw ice at them. They would stumble off the stage, broken. And they would be back the following week like a junkie hunting for a needle. And when they were done, Vlismas would walk on stage and fix the mess of their addiction.
I really tried to learn from all these guys. What made some so good? What made some so bad?
I had to present every day of my life in boardrooms to people who tried very hard not to show any emotion. You would often be presenting in a very tense atmosphere because of timings or just general pressure. And, if you think its not that hard to do this, try presenting some creative after a client has argued about the strategy. Or worse still the brief. And my favourite, when a client argues with his or her own people.
And now, heres the creative to inspire you.
To be able to cope with situations like this you need to develop skills.
So, what makes a good comic? Obviously, the material. Without that, you are dead. However, I have seen the same joke delivered on consecutive nights and seen it bomb the second night. I have also seen people incredibly prepared for presentations fail badly.
So, although material and preparation are vital, these guys had something else. Firstly, fear was not a factor.
They either had mastered the feeling of fear or they were very good at faking it. Showing fear was the first step to a routine going South. If you are afraid people will not laugh or listen. Fake it, create a different persona or learn to enjoy the fear but dont show it.
Two, they could read a room. They had the ability to be consistent but still respond to what was happening in the room. They could adapt. This was the biggest mistake rookies made. If they got heckled or the audience didnt laugh, they couldnt recover. It is the same with presentations. If you have learnt the presentation off by heart and something changes, you have to be able to adapt. You find out if you have any skills when things go wrong.
Being able to deal with whats in your head and whats happening in reality is probably the hardest skill to master.
Lastly, the great comics give the impression they dont care if you laugh. Some even give the impression they are not really interested if there is an audience. This gives the material power and in a way gives the comic power too. To do this and still respond to whats happening in the room takes years of practice. You watch Robin Williams in full manic flow. You think he is in his own crazy world. Yet, he is still listening and adjusting his timing to the audience. Genius.
So, I am no comic, I dont have that strange obsession or perhaps the inexhaustible courage you need to do it.
What I do know is they have taught me hundreds of lessons through the cigarette smoke and drunk heckling. They taught me a whole lot about speaking to a room of people you have to win over. And I am pretty sure what they taught me has saved my ass hundreds of times.
| BY Ricki Green |
The One Club for Creativity, the worlds foremost non-profit organization recognizing creative excellence in advertising and design, has today announced its global Portfolio Night 2019 will take place in Melbourne on May 22, 2019.
Host, location and other details for the event will be finalized shortly.
The club has already confirmed hosts in 19 cities to participate and is seeking agencies, schools and creative organizations in other locations worldwide to participate (host details available here).
Hosts for the 19 confirmed cities to date are AlmapBBDO (Sao Paulo); Arnold (Boston); B&W (Beirut, Dubai); BETC (Paris); Brokaw (Cleveland); Circulo de Creativos (Buenos Aires); Clube Criativos de Portugal (Lisbon); Edelman (Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco); TBWA\Groupe (Lyon); The One Club for Creativity-Cairo chapter (Cairo) and Lanfranco/Cordova (Lima).
Hosts for Shanghai, Beijing and Melbourne will be finalized shortly, followed soon by additional cities.
Long recognized as the worlds largest advertising portfolio review program, Portfolio Night is a fast-paced evening of advice, networking and recruitment that takes place in dozens of cities all across the globe on the same date to help the next generation of creative talent entering the industry.
Since starting in 2003, Portfolio Night has happened in 70 cities across 45 countries, where 8,751 portfolios have been reviewed.
Portfolio Night is an important event in advertising because it serves as the gateway for young talent to enter the industry, enabling the best of the present hundreds of renowned international creative directors to meet and mentor the leaders of the future in industry hubs around the world.
It has also become a crucial tool for agencies in recruiting top young talent, providing a platform for recognition from local industry peers, and giving agencies a place on the global stage as the ad world tunes in to this one-of-a-kind event.
The program also includes Portfolio Night All-Stars, where each city host selects one young creative in their market with the best portfolio. These lucky All-Stars are flown to New York from around the world to work for a week as a team on a creative assignment for a major global brand.
Says Kevin Swanepoel, CEO, The One Club for Creativity: Portfolio Night is a unique global event that serves as a high-visibility opportunity for agencies and creative directors to give back to the industry by guiding the earliest steps of future copywriters, art directors and technologists.
We are very grateful to all the agencies and organizations who have already confirmed to make this important global event possible so far and look forward to hearing from others who want to host Portfolio Night to their market.
In addition to this years hosts, past Portfolio Night city hosts include Ogilvy, DDB, McCann, BBDO, J. Walter Thompson, CP+B, Jung von Matt, Sid Lee, Perfect Fools, Whyness Worldwide, Perth Advertising & Design Club, Chicago Portfolio School, ADCN Netherlands and others.
Tickets for young creatives interested in attending Portfolio Night 2019 will be available in April, after all city hosts are determined.
| BY Ricki Green |
Christine Koole (right) has been snapped-up by Surry Hills production company, Visceral Films for its executive producer role.
Says Skip Waterhouse (left), creative director, Visceral: Its great having Christine on board. Shes not only an incredible commercials/content producer, but thanks to her time at Resolution, she knows VFX, animation and the complexities of heavy post like the back of her hand.
Koole cut her production teeth in Amsterdam, and over her career shes produced on both agency and production sides, covering all facets from live-action, to post-heavy, short-form and long-form projects. Previously Koole worked at Resolution Design where she produced high-end VFX projects and prior to that, she produced at Luscious International.
Adds Waterhouse: Like anyone at the top of their game, Christine has an amazing passion for the industry and it shows in her work. Her attention to detail, and her ability to pull together the right team for each job, meant that her appointment was literally a no brainer.
Shes also amazingly well-connected and respected by her peers something that came to light whilst doing the ring around prior to her appointment.
Says Koole: Its great to be part of the Visceral team. We have an incredible offering, along with a great roster of high-profile freelance directors. Our full-service model is designed for the current climate I mean, the fact that we have all our own production and post facilities and a vast amount of Avids, Flames, DaVincis and more makes us super-competitive.
Its also great to be partnering with someone of Skips vast agency experience. As a team, well provide a service-driven environment where agencies, ideas and directors are given the care, attention and space to create the best possible result.
Koole will also form an integral part of Eden Creative, Viscerals sister company, which has been around for over 20 years. Eden Creative offers full-service production for content and smaller budget work.
Says Koole: Visceral and Eden Creative have their own respective positioning within the industry, each offering different products, which means were able to provide a quality solution for any size project, that comes through the door. Which is very exciting.
Monday, February 13, 2017 at 12:06PM
Every move Apple makes is a seismic one in the industry and usually a hint of things to come or a glimpse on what the company is working on next. Apple has reportedly joined the Wireless Charging Consortium, lending credence to the possibility that upcoming iPhones and possibly iPads will be able to use wireless charging technology.
While wireless charging has been available for smartphones for a long time now, Apple has resisted in putting the technology in its iOS devices. Although the Apple Watch has always been charged using an inductive charger, iPhones and iPads have solely relied on Lightning connectors.
Apple joining the Wireless Charging Consortium is a vital clue into its future plans. Apple usually adopts standards and then improves on them or at least tweaks them to work with its devices. It would be nice to see wireless charging that's just as quick as wired charging on iOS devices and this is likely a necessary step towards that reality.
Source: Engadget
Monday, February 13, 2017 at 9:10AM
Google's Pixel has currently available sporadically in Quite Black and Very Silver, Google announced that it is finally bringing the Really Blue Pixel north of the border at Rogers locations. Formerly sold as an exclusive to American carriers, the Really Blue Pixel will bundle unlimited storage space for full resolution videos and photos. Check out our review of the Pixel XL. More details on pricing and availability coming soon.
Monday, February 13, 2017 at 2:25AM
REUTERS/Daniel Becerril
Not wanting to be left behind in the self-driving car race, Ford is pouring a US$1 billion investment over five years at Argo AI. The previously unheard of startup is led by Uber and Google veterans. They will be working with Fords team to create a fully self-driving car by 2021. The cars will be used for commercial ride sharing fleets. Argo AI wont be owned by Ford but the company is the largest shareholder. The startup will be focusing on artificial intelligence and robotics side of the system to help develop Fords virtual driver system.
Argo AI plans to hire 200 more employees to get the job done. A possible enticement when it comes to recruitment is that employees could have equity stake in the company. "They have the opportunity to run it pretty independently with a board, but because it is a separate company or subsidiary, it has the opportunity to go out and recruit with competitive compensation packages and equity, Ford Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields says at a press conference.
During his speech to the house, Mr Wilkie rubbished the government's claim that anyone who received a notice for debt they believed they did not owe, could simply get in touch with Centrelink and sort out the problem.
"Looking for someone to pick up and deliver a burrito to my girlfriend for her birthday. Burrito can be purchased anywhere then delivered to her office ... Will provide words for a note to accompany the burrito. You'll get $25 for the delivery + reimbursed for burrito cost (keep the receipt)," another post describes.
UK-headquartered Lycamobile, which operates in 21 countries worldwide, launched an MVNO in Belgium in 2007, operating on Oranges network.
As part of the MVNO agreement, Lycamobiles customers will be able to access Telenets mobile network, which it acquired from KPN last year.
Lycamobile will also strengthen its position in Belgium with the acquisition of Ortel, a direct subsidiary of Telenet. The deal will see Lycamobiles combined customer base top one million in the country.
It is already Belgiums biggest MVNO, with a share of around 37% of the virtual market, with Ortel in second place.
Lyca Group Chairman, Allirajah Subaskaran, commented: We have been active in Belgium since 2007 and are now delighted to announce our partnership with Telenet and acquisition of Ortel Mobile, which significantly enhances Lycamobiles offering in the region. This will all be to the ultimate benefit of our customers.
"We're delighted to welcome this new partner", John Porter, CEO of Telenet, added. "By acquiring BASE, Telenet has become an important partner in the MVNO market and intends to stay that way. Telenet's aim is to operate the best mobile network and we plan to invest up to 250 million in the upgrade of our mobile infrastructure of which most will be completed by mid-2018. These targeted investments, combined with the reputation inherited from BASE in terms of partnerships, will attract new partners, thus creating new opportunities for us.
The sale of our direct subsidiary Ortel Mobile to Lycamobile represents a logical step in our strategy as Telenet has the strong ambition to grow in the wholesale business preferring to concentrate on new MVNO partnerships instead of investing in separate prepaid international mobile communication business units."
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 ...
This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.
Valentine's day and love are not complete without chocolates. Are you waiting for a better reason to make your life chocolaty? A UK university is offering a research opportunity in chocolates for students who would like to take up a profession in making new varieties of chocolates and improving its taste.
PhD in Chocolate
The University of the West of England is offering 15,000 pounds per year grant just for chocoholics to take up a PhD in chocolate. The research involves studying the genetic factors that influence the flavour of world's favourite treat, chocolate.
According to the university's prospectus, the candidate who successfully gets admission will study how the fermentation of cacao beans leads to specific flavour profiles.
Whats with PhD in Chocolate?
The course has been created in order to meet the chocolate industry demand for more forensic knowledge of different cocoa strains.
Deadline to apply for PhD in Chocolate
The last date for candidates to apply for the course is February 27
Where to Apply?
Apply to the university's Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences in Bristol
Why do PhD in Chocolate?
The enticing opportunity comes close on the heels of the job offer by Mondelez International - behind some of the world's most famous sugary treats like Cadbury, Milka, Prince and Oreo - of a part-time chocolate taster.
Job Role for Chocoholics
The firm, which posted the role on LinkedIn, is looking for someone who can taste its delicacies and deliver honest and objective feedback within its team of skilled panellists. The successful candidate will then help Mondelez perfect and launch brand new products all over the world for years to come.
Hone the Art Lover in You: Become an Art Conservationist
In an industry-academia tie-up, Rubber Skill Development Council (RSDC), the sector skill council for Rubber sector in India, has joined hands with Hindustan University, Chennai for imparting programmes in Rubber Technology. RSDC has been set up by All India Rubber Industries Association (AIRIA) and Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) in collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and is focussed on skill development & training needs of the rubber sector.
Why this programme?
The purpose of the collaboration is to impart education for rubber sector, rubber skills training and programmes in rubber technology and polymer science to meet the growing demand for rubber industry professionals in the country.
MoU
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect was exchanged between Vinod Simon, Chairman RSDC and Dr Pon Ramalingam, Registrar Hindustan University Chennai in the presence of Hindustan University management represented by Dr. Anand Jacob Verghese and Mr. Ashok Verghese, Dr. S. Ramachandran - Vice Chancellor, Dr. V.Ravi Kumar - HOD Chemical and Mr. Milton Gerard Huggins - Head Training, Hindustan University.
The MoU also provides for certification and assessment support to the University by RSDC. The university will organise internships and industry placements for students in consultation with RSDC.
On its part, RSDC will facilitate training of trainers and help in the provisioning of Master Trainers from the industry as required. RSDC will also ensure a quality of training delivery by adopting a stringent process for accreditation of training providers and assessment and certification of trainees.
About the collaboration
"The collaboration between RSDC and Hindustan University represents an important step in the advancement of rubber education in the country. It will help impart education in rubber technology courses in accordance with National Occupational Standards (NOS) and help meet the demand for certified manpower by the industry", said Mr Simon.
Why take the course?
"The courses and programmes aligned to the cutting edge curricula developed by RSDC would enhance the employability of students of Hindustan University by equipping them with industry/ business relevant skills", said Ashok Verghese.
About Rubber Industry
Rubber industry is manpower intensive and currently, two million people are directly employed in the industry, a large percentage of which are unskilled. The industry is dominated by small & medium sector as out of approx. 6000 Rubber products manufacturing units, 90% are Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Rubber industry fits in perfectly with the Government's initiatives of Make in India and Skill India as rubber units spread across the country manufacture around 35000 different rubber products which find usage in Auto, defence, healthcare, agriculture and in various other critical sectors.
Also Read: IIM Kashipur Offers Online Marketing Analytics Course: Apply Now!
Vega began with a parent whose child developed an aversion to his school. The parent was denied access to his child's classroom - to understand what might be causing the trauma and terror. The school being one of the highest rated schools in Delhi didn't make things easy, it looked like there were no alternatives.
Therefore, the birth of Vega schools, a collaborative effort by some of the best schools in the world, was to create an Indian member that would be contextually relevant yet progressive. Vega also values progressive and immersive learning. Progressive 21st century schools recognise that future work environments will demand a different skill set from young people. These skills include leadership, teamwork, strong communication skills, problem-solving, and positive work ethics etc.
Research program to explore the various components vital to 're-tooling' the Indian students, to make them future ready. Collaboration to evaluate ambiguous and rigid educational structures that limit the latent potential in students across the sub-continent.
Vega schools one of the pioneers in reinventing the Indian primary education sector, today announced its plans to revolutionize the Indian primary education vertical in association with Harvard Graduate school of education.
Sharing his thoughts on the collaboration, Christopher Williams, Doctorate of Education Learship Program, Harvard University said, "Aaron Jennings, (Harvard Graduate School of Education), Himanshu Joshi (Columbia University Teachers College) and I have proposed a partnership with Vega School. After visiting, Aaron and I was struck by the similarities between the PBL approach at Vega and some of the primary tenets and authors being studied in the Doctorate of Education Leadership Program (EdLD) at Harvard. Moreover, Vega's approach to hiring and training staff is exceedingly similar to the approach of many Deliberately Developmental Organizations, and the description of Adult Development put forth by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, both of Harvard."
As a first step, Christopher Williams, MSW and Aaron Jennings, MSW, visited Vega Schools in Gurgaon to discuss and deliberate on the widening skill-job gap in India. Additionally, they took note of the unique open classroom approach adopted by the school to imbed 'real life' skills in its students. Furthermore, they lauded the school's commitment towards connecting the Indian education system with the global knowledge economy.
Extensive research in progressive schools across the world have concluded that confined learning is not effective. The real world is far more ambiguous and rigid structures that impose extrinsic discipline are, in fact, not equipping to learners to develop intrinsic discipline to deal with the world, manage their own time and schedule, or even set their own goals and paths.
Commenting on the development, Mr. Sandy Hooda, Co-Founder, Vega Schools said "It comes as no surprise to us that our teaching techniques, infrastructure and classroom culture are getting the desired positive response from both Christopher and Aaron.
Furthermore, it gives us immense pride to associate ourselves with the Harvard Graduate School of Education, to collaborate and raise the benchmark for the Indian primary education vertical. The research team will have members from both Vega Schools and HGSE and will aim to study new paradigms, which could possibly solve problems such as mass global unemployment and creating a new kind of workforce for the 21st century knowledge economy. We are optimistic, that the research will shed new light on how India can become an education hub and a human capital resource pool for the world, by 2020."
Thousands of forged terracotta warriors were on exhibition in Taihu county, East China's Anhui province, without the consent or authorization of officials overseeing the real ones. Beijing News commented on Saturday:
Photo of forged terracotta warriors' exhibition in Taihu county, East China's Anhui province. [Photo / Chinanews.com]
In a statement, the management of the mausoleum of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, which is the official site of the relics under the trademark Terra Cotta Warriors, denied any connection with the counterfeit statues, which it said constitute a "conspicuous violation" of its rights.
Yet the supervisor of the unauthorized exhibition in Taihu county argued that the forged statues are "exclusive creations", such as a sculpture of Qinshihuang, or the first Qin emperor, waving his hand atop the city wall and as such do not infringe any copyrights.
But such an argument does not hold water. Even with the addition of creative element the statues are unauthorized copies of the originals, and so the Taihu exhibition is displaying counterfeits.
What is even worse, the supervisor went further to "prove his point" saying tourists would be informed that the statues were replicas in a display of "sincerity".
Admitting plagiarism does not make any difference to the fact that fake cultural relics are illegal. Only by gaining the consent of the copyright owners is there a license for a cultural relic to be replicated.
Unfortunately, similar violations of intellectual property rights are not only common, but also often not taken seriously by local governments.
Local authorities should not only fulfill their duty to keep unauthorized copycats at bay, they should also put more effort into nipping such counterfeiting in the bud. In Taihu's case, the grand "cultural park" should not have been approved in the first place if the officials concerned were aware of what was going to be displayed.
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Tiffany Trump, the youngest daughter of the US president, came out in support of Chinese fashion designer Wang Tao on Saturday.
Tiffany Trump, daughter of the US president, with fashion designer Wang Tao in New York City on Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]
Along with her mother Marla Maples and boyfriend Ross Mechanic, Trump sat in the front row at the Taoray Wang show for New York Fashion Week.
"She's an amazing designer," Trump said backstage before the show, explaining that she became a fan of Shanghai-based Wang after a show in September.
Last month, she wore a custom-made white, double-breasted Taoray Wang coat to the inauguration of her father Donald Trump as president of the United States.
US airstrikes in Afghanistans Helmand province may have been responsible for the deaths of at least 18 civilians, mostly women and children, according to the UN and local sources.
Airstrikes took place late on Thursday in Sangin district, which has been highly contested for most of the Afghan war.
It is the first claim of civilian casualties at the hands of US forces in Afghanistan since Donald Trump assumed the US presidency, and comes two weeks after a
allegedly killed dozens of civilians.
Brig Gen Charles H Cleveland, a spokesman for the international coalition, confirmed that the US conducted approximately 30 airstrikes in Sangin last week.
We are investigating the allegations and working diligently to determine whether civilians were killed or injured as a result of US airstrikes conducted in support and defence of Afghan forces in or around Sangin, he said. - Read More
A jobseeker fills up an application form at a job fair in Wenxian county, Henan province. [Photo/China Daily]
Pressure on China's labor market is showing signs of easing, according to the 2016 Global Skills Index by Hays, a human resources consultant that assesses efficiency of skilled labor markets in 33 countries.
The data suggested that risks of a hard landing of the Chinese economy have abated, thanks to improving exports and steady infrastructure investment that offset downward pressure.
Seven indicators, including labor market participation and wage pressure, make up the ranking. Each indicator receives a score on a scale of 0 to 10. A score closer to 0 means almost no pressure, while a score closer to 10 suggests severe pressure.
China ranks 31st out of 33 countries, suggesting robust labor market performance with an overall score of 4.3, down from 4.7 last year.
"Easing pressures in China are due to slower economic growth, higher labor market participation rates and reducing wage pressure," said Simon Lance, managing director of Hays in China.
The index shows that in China, pressure on labor market mainly comes from "labor market flexibility", which measures the legal and regulatory environment faced by businesses, in which China scored 8.1.
The biggest change from a year ago is the dramatic decline in "overall wage pressure", suggesting that wages are not rising as quickly as rates seen in the past. Labor market participation also fell by 0.9, meaning that labor supply has slightly improved.
"This reflects what we're seeing on the ground, where employers in softening industries such as traditional manufacturing and industrial sectors are facing talent challenges in a climate of tight cost control," said Lance.
In terms of other indicators, the existing education system is very well equipped to meet future talent needs. Labor market participation is fairly flexible and job applicants usually possess the skills employers are looking for.
In industries requiring high-skilled workers, however, there is still talent shortage, particularly in high-tech, industrial, internet, e-commerce and lifestyle services sectors, the study showed.
"Recruitment is driven by the need to increase productivity, with employers focused on boosting and up-skilling their leadership and technical teams to navigate economic conditions," Lance said.
Ferdinand Piech, ex-Volkswagen Chairman and predecessor of Martin Winterkorn, refused to testify to German authorities investigating the possibility of a government role in the companys emissions scandal.
Piechs last testimonies were given last year to lawyers from a U.S. law firm Jones Day last April and to German prosecutors last December, according to his lawyers who spoke to Reuters.
These comments were solely directed at the inquirers of Jones Day and the prosecutors respectively. They were not directed at the public media, Piechs lawyer, Gerhard Strate, said in a statement.
He also added that Piech has no intention to comment in public on what is being circulated as the alleged content of the questioning.
An earlier report from German Bild am Sonntag said that Piech had informed top directors at VW about the possibility of cheating diesel emissions tests in the U.S. six months before the scandal went public in September 2015.
The same report goes on saying that Piech talked about the issue with Winterkorn and then informed members of the supervisory board in March 2015, a month before he was forced out of his position as Chairman.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that after Piech talked with Winterkorn about the excess diesel emissions in U.S. vehicles, Winterkorn said that a recall of the affected vehicles was already planned and that the problem would be resolved.
VW has since said that they consider taking legal action against Piech over his reported assertions. The supervisory boards labor representatives have already denied the reported allegations, with Stephan Weil, a member of the steering committee and Prime Minister of Lower Saxony state (which is VWs second-largest stakeholder), doing the same.
PHOTO
While some teasers leave us more or less intrigued than others, we have to admit that the announcement of the Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo concept has captivated our attention.
This project is spearheaded by the talented hands of Emerson Fittipaldi, with engineering work carried out by Mercedes racing specialist HWA and the design by Pininfarina.
Now, the carrozzeria has given us not only another look at the forthcoming supercar concept, but some more salient details as well. For starters, the EF7 is being built around a carbon-fiber monocoque just like an F1 car with carbon bodywork as well.
The lightweight construction is earmarked to keep the weight down to around 1,000 kilograms (or 2,200 lbs) which would make it significantly lighter than, say, a LaFerrari, which tips the scales at 1,255 kg dry (or 1,585 kg with fluids).
Power will be provided naturally by an atmospheric V8 engine good for over 600 horsepower. Pininfarina says both the engine and gearbox will be entirely unique to Fittipaldi, though we wouldnt be surprised (given HWAs ties) if it were at least based in part on a Mercedes block which seems to be working out well for the Aston Martin DB11 and Pagani Huayra.
What was important to me in creating the EF7 is that the car not only provides pure passion and adrenaline but will also be forgiving and safe for drivers of all skill levels, said Fittipaldi. Owner-drivers can expect reliability, lower maintenance cost and minimal mechanic and tech teams which means more time and elation on the track.
In other words, while the vehicle well be seeing in Geneva will be a concept, it will lead to a (limited) production version as well. And from the teaser images weve seen so far, it looks like itll be quite the extreme piece of performance machinery as well. We would expect no less, after all, from one of the most accomplished racing drivers ever to come out of Brazil.
Photo Gallery
Two men have been killed following a crash at the SpeedVegas racetrack in Las Vegas.
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the driver was under the instruction of an employee from the SpeedVegas driving experience at the time of the incident. It is reported that the driver of the white Lamborghini crashed the Italian exotic into a barrier before it swiftly burst into flames.
It has been confirmed that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration will investigate the incident and until these investigations are completed, full details surrounding the crash wont be known.
In a statement, SpeedVegas chief executive and co-founder Aaron Fessler expressed his sympathy to the families struck by the tragedy.
Today, an accident on the track resulted in the deaths of a SpeedVegas employee and a customer. We are fully cooperating with investigators at this time. We are devastated by this tragic event and extend our heartfelt sympathy to the families and to our SpeedVegas team members who have lost a beloved colleague.
@SPEEDVEGAS everybody okay? Looks like some one wrecked pretty hard . pic.twitter.com/HY5jWR0qsS DronExposed (@Dron_Exposed) February 12, 2017
PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: File photo
The public is being warned to keep an eye out for scam artists posing as Canada Revenue officials.
Tax time is almost upon us and now is the opportune time to talk to all family members about potential scams. Young or old, everyone needs to be educated about fraudsters, stated Cpl. Jodi Shelkie with the Kamloops RCMP.
Scams can take different forms; some are threatening phone calls where the caller alleges to be with the CRA and demands money for taxes not paid or claiming the victim has committed tax fraud.
The scammer will say that there is a warrant for their arrest and unless money is wired to them or prepaid credit card codes are supplied, the police will be coming to arrest them.
Alternately, scammers pose as CRA employees and advise the citizen that they have a tax refund and then ask for all of their personal information. This information can then be used in identity theft.
There are also credit card scams, said Shelkie. A victim receives a phone call from someone claiming to be with a credit card financial company. The scammer says they can help the person with credit debt by transferring all of their debt unto a new credit card for a one-time fee, often a fee of up to $1,000.
Shelkie said neither the CRA nor credit card companies will ask for any kind of payment to be wired to them or for prepaid credit cards or gift cards.
Photo: Claude Rioux
It's almost time to get counting.
The 2017 Great Backyard Bird Count begins soon and anyone can take part.
Simply count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more of the count days Feb. 17-20 - and report your sightings online.
Around the globe, tens of thousands of volunteers, young and old, will take part.
You can even take part from inside for those who feel it is too cold or snowy. Just count those you spot from the window.
More information can be found online or you can email Canadian co-ordinator Kerrie Wilcox.
There is also a GBBC photo contest. Last year's contest winners can be found online.
The Great Backyard Bird Count is a joint project of Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology with Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada.
Photo: Google Images
A picture is worth a thousand words and in this case may even save a life.
Especially if you live far from medical care.
Prof. Kathy Rush of UBC Okanagans School of Nursing recently completed a study with older patients who live with atrial fibrillation a chronic condition that causes irregular heartbeat, fatigue, dizziness and shortness of breath.
Rush gave cameras to 10 rural patients in varying stages of health. Participants were asked to take daily photos and mail in a memory card every two weeks for six months.
These photo journeys give patients a voice and makes visible what can be invisible when someone is suffering, says Rush. You dont always get the full story or picture of what is really going on in their lives. These photos gave us considerable information about the environmental context of living with an illness in rural communities, where there is limited access to services.
While many of the photos portrayed people waiting for, or travelling to appointments, Rush says other images told a much more stark story.
The photos gave us access to their days, to things that wouldnt be reported in a doctors office, or on a medical chart, but were an important part of their day-to-day care, says Rush. The images brought to life their social supports and the gaps in service.
On days when patients felt healthy, often the images were of places in their community or the participants outside doing something they enjoyed. On symptomatic days, images were of pills, reminders of medical appointments or people resting at home.
There is certainly a rural context, like being transferred by ambulance or traveling for hours to get to a health clinic, says Rush. We knew we couldnt capture their health care journeys with words alone and this project really opened windows into their lives.
Photo: The Canadian Press
Two weeks after a gunman killed six Muslim men as they prayed in Quebec City, mosques around Montreal held open door events aimed at fostering understanding in the wake of the tragedy.
The Quebec City shooting was a "wake up call" that highlighted the need for more dialogue between cultural communities, according to Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal.
"We want to deconstruct these false stereotypes and break that link of disinformation and misinformation within our society," he said Sunday at the Assuna Annabawiyah mosque.
"There's a lot of it, and now we know it's not just talk."
About 14 mosques were to participate in Sunday's event, which in some cases included meals, presentations, and meet-and-greets.
Visitors arriving at the Assuna mosque in the Parc-Extension neighborhood were offered Tim Hortons coffee and doughnuts, spicy tea, and answers to their questions.
One visitor, who only identified herself as Luce and indicated she was 77, said the shooting in Quebec City prompted her to visit a mosque for the first time.
"It makes you wonder what you can do to be closer to these people instead of looking at them from a distance," she said.
Luce, who attended with her daughter Yolande, said she asked mosque members about their beards and attire, as well as "why they don't shake hands with women."
She said she was told the no-touching policy was "all about keeping the respect between men and women" which she deemed a "very good answer."
At the Islamic Centre of Quebec in the Saint-Laurent borough, Danish Muzaffar said he wanted people to know they can visit any day, not just once a year.
"It's always been an open house," he said as he set out a tray of vegetarian samosas. "As long as you take off your shoes at the entrance, you're welcome."
Photo: The Canadian Press
President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the workforce Monday, showing the rising policy influence of the first daughter who has stressed her commitment to issues like child care.
A White House official said the two countries would launch a new task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The official said Trudeau's office reached out to discuss working on a joint effort, noting that this was seen as an area of shared interest between both leaders.
Ivanka Trump, who has been a vocal advocate for policies benefiting working women, was involved in recruiting participants and setting the agenda for the meeting and will attend, the official said. Ivanka Trump stressed the importance of maternity leave and child care on the campaign trail, and has recently been meeting with business leaders to discuss those issues.
The White House official said that Trump's economic agenda will include a "focus on ensuring women enter and stay in the work force and addressing barriers facing female entrepreneurs." The official requested anonymity to provide details in advance of the meeting.
Advancing women has been a clear priority for Trudeau. In late 2015, he drew attention for naming a Cabinet that was 50 per cent women, saying that he chose a group that "looks like Canada." Trump did not promise to appoint a gender-balanced cabinet and has named a smaller number of women and minorities to top jobs.
"Our team reached out and suggested as it is an important part of the prime minister's agenda and of our economic growth plan," a Canadian official said. "It seemed like a natural fit given their commitments in their platform as well." The official requested anonymity to discuss the meeting in advance.
Trump has offered a childcare plan and has signalled an interest in working on those issues.
The business round table will be part of an itinerary that includes a bilateral meeting and a working lunch. The visit is crucial for Canada, which relies heavily on the United States for trade. Trump has said he wants to discuss his plan to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, which involves the United States, Canada and Mexico. There are fears Canada could unintentionally be sideswiped as Trump negotiates with Mexico.
Female executives from the United States and Canada are expected for the round table, including General Electric Canada CEO Elyse Allan, TransAlta Corp. CEO Dawn Farrell, Linamar Corp. CEO Linda Hasenfratz, T&T Supermarket Inc. Tina Lee and Schnitzer Steel Industries CEO Tamara Lundgren.
Also expected are Julie Sweet, CEO-North America for Accenture, NRStor CEO Annette Verschuren, Monique Leroux, chair of the board of directors for Investissement Quebec. Carol Stephenson, of the board of directors for General Motors Co. will attend in place of the GM CEO, among others.
Topics at the event will likely include issues like providing maternity leave and childcare, how to recruit and retain women and how to better support women entrepreneurs.
Ivanka Trump does not have an official White House role. But her husband, Jared Kushner, is a senior adviser to the president and she stepped away from her executive positions at the Trump Organization and her lifestyle brand to move her family to Washington. She has been at several public White House events so far and has been privately sitting down with CEOs and thought leaders as she weighs how to pursue her policy interest.
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Spring Festival has become an increasingly popular time for Chinese people to take a well-earned holiday with family.
The China National Tourism Administration said the domestic tourism industry earned 423 billion yuan ($61.6 billion) in revenue, and tourists made 344 million trips during the holiday.
According to data from tourism companies, here are the 10 hottest tourist destinations in China.
1. Sanya
Foreigners enjoy sunshine in Sanya, South China's Hainan province. [Photo/Xinhua]
Photo: The Canadian Press File photo
A school board in southwestern Ontario says it has cancelled a handful of school trips to the United States due to "safety and equity" concerns.
Greater Essex County District School Board trustee Clara Howitt said Sunday that the decision has affected trips to the U.S. that were scheduled for February, as well as a trip to Washington, D.C. in April.
Howitt said the April trip was cancelled because it would have coincided with a march on Washington that is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the U.S. capital.
She said the board, which covers Windsor, Ont., and the surrounding area, was worried about students' safety because of the size of the rally.
The February trips, she said, were cancelled because of concerns about equity.
While an executive order put in place by U.S. President Donald Trump banning travel from citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries is not currently in effect and it didn't affect citizens and permanent residents of Canada when it was being enforced Howitt said the board feels things are still too uncertain.
The board is being cautious because school trips have been affected before, Howitt said.
"There were buses detained for a significant period of time, and students turned away. That was shortly after 9/11," she said. "So we've been in this circumstance before."
She said the board is trying to prevent that from happening again.
Howitt said the cancellations are just an "interim" measure, and the board will re-evaluate going forward. She didn't say when that would be.
A pickup truck went up in flames Sunday night.
The blaze happened just after 10 p.m. in a residential complex parking lot along Carrington Road in West Kelowna.
Firefighters put out the fire.
The truck, though, was likely a write off.
Photo: The Canadian Press
Atlantic Canada was being blasted by a powerful winter storm Monday that cancelled flights and shuttered everything from schools and municipal offices to businesses and hospital services throughout the region.
In Nova Scotia, Environment Canada meteorologist Tracey Talbot said winds were gusting to 110 kilometres per hour in Osborne Head, just outside of Halifax, and up to 20 centimetres of snow had already fallen with the storm not expected to move out until Tuesday.
"With the reduced visibilities and the heavy snow and the strong winds, it's a pretty intense storm," she said. "This is definitely a very intense storm for this winter and even for last winter."
Talbot said blizzard and winter storm warnings have been issued for much of the region, prompting the Nova Scotia government to close all of its mainland offices Monday and authorities in Halifax to close schools, shut down transit, ferries and other municipal services as a precaution.
Snowfall totals across the province are expected to range from 20 to 60 centimetres, however, some areas could be buried under as much as 75 centimetres. Storm surges were also expected along much of the Atlantic coast.
Police were urging people to stay off the roads due to blowing snow that was creating whiteouts throughout Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I.
Peter Spurway, who lives about 35 minutes outside Halifax in West Lawrencetown, said the visibility at his property was near zero as winds whipped around his home while he tried to get to his barn to feed three ponies. He said he had to drive a truck to the barn, adding that it was tough to stand up in the face of the fierce winds.
"Snow is going parallel to the ground at this point," he said from his home, that was seeing drifts build up several feet high. "We just drove back into the open which was treacherous in that it was very, very hard to see because of the big gusts."
Spurway, who is also communications advisor for Halifax Stanfield International Airport, said the airport departures and arrivals boards were "a sea of red" as flights were being cancelled one by one due to the poor visibility. He said thousands of passengers would be affected by the cancellations.
Phil Mooney, deputy mayor of Yarmouth, N.S., said winds were blowing around his house since the storm set in at about midnight. But he said most people were heeding warnings to stay put.
"It's blowing, but not as hard as I thought it would be it's not over yet though, " he said. "We just got to hunker down."
New Brunswick and P.E.I. are looking at totals ranging from 25 to 40 centimetres, with wind gusts up to 100 km/h blowing the white stuff around.
Photo: Contributed
The NDP leadership race is off the ground with its first contestant along with a campaign of soul-searching to map out the party's future identity, experts say.
British Columbia MP Peter Julian officially announced Sunday his bid to replace Tom Mulcair as the party's leader come October.
Julian said his vision of the country is one "where everyone matters and no one is left behind." He promised to get rid of tuition fees at post-secondary institutions and oppose pipeline projects such as Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain project.
Max Cameron, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia, said Julian's announcement speech signalled a desire to move the NDP back towards the left of the political spectrum.
"I think the NDP has to do that in the current circumstances. Sometimes people talk about the NDP being torn between power and principle, but at this moment in time, the NDP really doesn't have much of a choice, I don't think," he said.
Both the NDP and Conservatives are being pushed to the outer edges of the political spectrum by the governing Liberals, which occupies the centre, Cameron added.
But creating a party that's a viable challenger to the Liberals didn't come across in Julian's announcement, he said.
"I certainly don't hear Peter Julian speaking in tones that suggest he's applying for the job of prime minister," Cameron said.
Several others have expressed interest in running for the NDP leadership, including Quebec MP Guy Caron, Ontario MP Charlie Angus, Manitoba MP Niki Ashton and Ontario deputy NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
What issues will determine who becomes the next leader remain to be seen, but Christopher Cochrane, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said there could be a disagreement between the "old left and the new left" on what the party should stand for.
The NDP has been moving its agenda toward the centre for years, but that movement was interrupted by the 2015 election, Cochrane said.
"The progress that the NDP had been making towards victory really came crashing down in the last election and that's an opportunity for the ideologues to reclaim the party," he said.
The results of the last federal election put both the NDP and the Conservative party in unique positions, he added.
The Conservatives currently have a leadership race of their own underway one with more than a dozen candidates, including a reality TV personality and an MP known for offering polarizing opinions on Canadian values.
Both the NDP and Conservative leadership races show a struggle to define their parties, Cochrane said.
"That's not the case with all leadership races," he said. "I think most times leadership races revolve around the question of who's most likely to win for the party or who in the party do folks like the most. They're not the same kind of existential choices that candidates are now presenting to the parties."
Photo: The Canadian Press
There is no shortage of advice being offered to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he prepares to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday at the White House in Washington. Here are five pieces of advice from a variety of pundits, politicians and diplomats:
1. Focus on the jobs. Nine million of them in the United States depend on trade with Canada. That's been one of the key talking points the Trudeau government has been hammering at home and in meetings with Trump's people in the U.S. People like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson already know this, but don't take it for granted that Trump has received the message.
2. Don't preach on values. Trump may offend many Canadians with his much-publicized views towards Muslims, women and Mexicans. Ian Lee, a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa says it would be "childish and juvenile and irresponsible" for anyone to think Trudeau's job is to go to Washington to preach Canadian values to Trump when a renegotiated NAFTA, a possible import tax and Buy America protectionism are on the table.
3. Focus on tone, go easy on the substance, for now. It could take Trump several more months to fill the thousands of top-level government jobs in his new administration, says former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Derek Burney.
4. Commit more money for the military. Trump has called NATO obsolete and bemoaned the fact that most of its 27 other members Canada included have failed to meet the alliances spending target of two per cent of GDP. Canada spends less than one per cent. Roland Paris, Trudeau's former foreign policy adviser, says it is time to boost defence spending because Trump's rhetoric "poses a signal challenge to all of America's partners."
5. Steer clear of talk of climate change. Trump is no fan of this. He's threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. Canada worked alongside Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, to get the deal done in late 2015. Georganne Burke, an American-born Trump supporter who is a vice-president of a Toronto public relations firm, says Trudeau needs to tone down the rhetoric on climate change because most U.S. conservatives were angered when Obama labelled it the greatest threat to the world.
Photo: The Canadian Press
UPDATE: 10:30 a.m.
Justin Trudeau sat next to Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka as the two leaders met Monday with a group of female business executives, one of several events on day marked by the first face-to-face encounters between the prime minister and the U.S. president.
Perfunctory handshakes and smiles for the cameras outside the doors to the West Wing were followed by much the same thing inside the Oval Office before the pair sat down to talk about the advancement of women entrepreneurs and business leaders.
"I'm very honoured to be here with Prime Minister Trudeau," Trump said during a brief photo op prior to the roundtable talks.
"His father I knew, and respected greatly. And he gave me a picture of myself and your father (Pierre Trudeau)."
That photo was taken in 1981 at the Family of Man award ceremony in New York City, where the elder Trudeau was honoured as "an outstanding example of excellence in society," according to White House officials.
Trudeau came bearing gifts as well: a sculpture of a lion made out of Berea sandstone, the same material from an Ohio quarry that was used to construct Canada's three original Parliament Buildings.
Trudeau and Trump also took part in private meetings and a working lunch before a joint news conference scheduled for later Monday.
Earlier in the day, both leaders smiled and appeared to greet each other warmly as they shook hands at the door to the West Wing before the president ushered the prime minister inside.
Trudeau was accompanied by a who's who of the Canadian government, including Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
Trudeau and his senior cabinet ministers are in Washington with one overarching goal: keep Canada out of the U.S president's protectionist trade crosshairs.
That's because Trump wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, has mused about a border tax, and could bring back "Buy American" protectionism.
That is widely viewed as a major threat to the more than $2 billion in daily trade that flows across the world's longest undefended border the gateway to the biggest trading relationship on the planet.
Those high stakes prompted Freeland to reach out to interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose in a Jan. 23 letter asking for the input of the official Opposition.
"The importance of the relationship must transcend partisanship," Freeland said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.
"While these fundamental principles of our relationship with the United States endure beyond any change in government, the prospect of a new U.S. administration has prompted our government to actively engage with the incoming administration in order to ensure Canada's interests are best promoted and defended."
Ambrose replied with a letter to the prime minister over the weekend proposing they work together on a bipartisan basis to build a relationship.
Photo: Instagram
A downtown Toronto bar issued a public apology Monday after displaying a sign that was denounced online as promoting sexual assault.
Photos began circulating on social media on Sunday of a sign inside the venue that included the words "no means yes" and also alluded to a sex act.
Management for the bar Locals Only then posted on Facebook that they were "deeply saddened, shocked and appalled" that an unsupervised staff member made the sign, which they described as "disgusting, derogatory and insensitive towards a serious issue."
"Most importantly, we extend our deepest apology to anyone who may have been affected or offended by this," said the statement, which was posted on several social media platforms.
"It is unfathomable and completely disheartening to think that we would ever have to be writing something like this, as we take extreme measures to ensure the safety of our patrons in our establishment at all times."
In the statement, management also said the employee responsible for the sign would be fired and remaining staff would undergo further training on appropriate workplace practices.
But many online called for the bar to be shut down and questioned the sincerity of the apology.
The bar's management did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The venue's website and its Instagram account were updated late Sunday with photos bearing the message "No means no."
The controversy comes roughly two months after the owner and an employee of another downtown Toronto bar were charged with forcible confinement and sexual assault, prompting calls for a boycott of that establishment.
Photo: Contributed
A school board in southwestern Ontario says it has cancelled a handful of school trips to the United States due to "safety and equity" concerns.
Clara Howitt, a superintendent with the Greater Essex County District School Board, said Sunday that the decision has affected trips to the U.S. that were scheduled for February, as well as a trip to Washington, D.C. in April.
Howitt said the April trip was cancelled because it would have coincided with a march on Washington that is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the U.S. capital.
She said the board, which covers Windsor, Ont., and the surrounding area, was worried about students' safety because of the size of the rally.
The February trips, she said, were cancelled because of concerns about equity.
While an executive order put in place by U.S. President Donald Trump banning travel from citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries is not currently in effect and it didn't affect citizens and permanent residents of Canada when it was being enforced Howitt said the board feels things are still too uncertain.
The board is being cautious because school trips have been affected before, Howitt said.
"There were buses detained for a significant period of time, and students turned away. That was shortly after 9/11," she said. "So we've been in this circumstance before."
She said the board is trying to prevent that from happening again.
Howitt said the cancellations are just an "interim" measure, and the board will re-evaluate going forward. She didn't say when that would be.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said Clara Howitt was a school board trustee.
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Tourists release sky lanterns to celebrate the Lantern Festival in New Taipei City, southeast China's Taiwan, Feb. 11, 2017. The Pingxi sky lantern festival kicked off here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)
Flash
German Federal Assembly on Sunday elected former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier as German president.
Steinmeier won absolute majority with 931 of 1239 votes, far beyond the votes got by candidates from other parties or as independents.
German local media have long speculated Steinmeier as the obvious winner, since he got the grand governing coalition as well as the influential Social Democratic Party of Germany on his back.
On Saturday evening, Angela Merkel and Horst Lorenz Seehofer, representing the center-left and center-right political union, called for support for Steinmeier, saying he would be the right person to represent Germany.
Steinmeier is one of Germany's well known politicians, having twice served as foreign minister, from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 until this year, and was known for his efforts trying to mediate the crisis in Ukraine. Also he once served as vice chancellor from 2007 to 2009.
Some German media described him as "pragmatic, assertive and popular."
Steinmeier is set to formally assume office on March 18.
The outgoing president Gauck announced last year he would not seek another five-year tenure citing his age as the reason.
Germany's presidential post is more ceremonial than executive, giving direction to general political and societal debates. But the vote is widely seen as a test for the unity of Merkel's political coalition, as well as a prelude for Merkel's campaign seeking her fourth term in the federal election in September.
Flash
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey's ultimate goal in its military operation in northern Syria is not the town of al-Bab alone but clearing the region of terrorism.
"The ultimate goal is to establish a 5,000-kilometre terror-free zone," the president told reporters at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport prior to his departure for Bahrain.
"In the following period, toward the east, there are Manbij and Raqqa," Erdogan said of Turkey's next targets.
Manbij is currently under the control of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, which is seen by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party. Raqqa is a stronghold of the Islamic State (IS).
For months, Turkish troops, sent into northern Syria in August last year for a military offensive and backed by the rebel Free Syrian Army militants, have been battling for IS-held al-Bab, about 30 km from the Turkish border.
In his last remarks in late January, Erdogan reportedly said that Turkish troops would not go any further than al-Bab into the Syrian territory.
The president said at Ataturk Airport that Turkey had shared the idea of going further in northern Syria with the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), adding Ankara "will be follower of these thoughts."
New CIA Director Mike Pompeo was in Turkey for a visit on Thursday and Friday.
Erdogan said his country has already started to do the infrastructure work for terror-free zone in Syria's north so that Syrian refugees who are finding refuge in Turkey could return home.
He described Ankara's second goal as the establishment of a no fly zone in Syria, saying, "Unless you declare a no fly zone, the region couldn't be secured."
Currently al-Bab is being besieged by Turkish troops and the Free Syrian Army and retaking the town is "a matter of time," as IS forces have begun to leave the town, according to the president.
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Flash
Chinese President Xi Jinping Sunday extended congratulations to former Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on his election as German president.
In a congratulatory message, Xi said China-Germany relations has entered a stage of high-level development featuring close high-level exchange and increasingly deepened cooperation in various fields.
Enhanced cooperation between China and Germany will not only be in the interest of promoting the well-being of both the Chinese and German peoples, but will also be conducive to promoting world peace, stability and prosperity, Xi said.
Xi expressed the willingness to work with Steinmeier to jointly promote the China-Germany all-around strategic partnership toward the achievement of better development.
German Federal Assembly on Sunday elected Steinmeier as new president, succeeding Joachim Gauck who has decided not to run for a second term.
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Flash
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang [Photo: fmprc.gov.cn]
China was opposed to the test-launch of a ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday.
China calls for all parties concerned to exercise restraint and jointly maintain stability in the region, spokesperson Geng Shuang told a routine press briefing.
The U.N. Security Council will hold consultations on the missile test, he said, adding that China will participate in relevant consultations in a responsible and constructive manner.
The DPRK on Monday claimed it had successfully test-fired Pukguksong-2, a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range ballistic missile, and its top leader Kim Jong Un guided the test firing, according to the state news agency KCNA.
Prime minister plans to discuss Canadian values and jobs during his 1st face-to-face with new U.S. president
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will discuss Canadian values and jobs with U.S. President Donald Trump when the pair meets in person for the first time Monday in Washington.
During a visit to Iqaluit Thursday, Trudeau was asked whether he would raise the controversial U.S. travel ban with Trump, which affects people from seven majority-Muslim countries, as well as all refugees.
"As everyone in Canada knows, I have two important responsibilities that stand out in the way we engage our neighbours to the south. The first is, of course, to highlight Canadian values and principles and the things that keep our country strong," he said.
"The second responsibility that I have, which we will very much be engaged in, is creating jobs and opportunity for Canadian citizens through the continued close integration on both sides of the border."
Conservative MP Gerry Ritz said Trudeau should avoid the temptation to go "overboard" in confronting the new president, despite the feedback he may be getting on social media. - CBC
Food City named Rick Bishop as Executive Vice President of Store Operations for their Chattanooga Division. Mr. Bishop brings more than 34 years of industry experience to the newly created position.
Were really excited about the opportunity for Rick to lead our newly formed Chattanooga Division. Rick is a proven leader, having grown up with our company, served as district manager and promoted so many of his associates into key roles throughout our organization. He will bring a keen insight to this new role and will become an active member of the Greater Chattanooga community, says Steven C. Smith, Food City president and chief executive officer.
Born and raised in Rogersville, TN, Mr. Bishop began his career at 18 years of age, accepting a position as courtesy clerk for Super Dollar Markets, which was later acquired by Food City. He was quickly promoted through the ranks, serving as cashier, front-end manager, bakery manager, seafood manager and assistant store manager. Within five years, he secured his first assignment as store manager and managed ten locations over the next sixteen years. In June of 2004, he was promoted to his most recent position as District Manager, responsible for the operation of 13 Food City locations and 2 convenience stores throughout Washington, Green, Carter and Sullivan County, TN.
Mr. Bishops new duties include oversight of store operations for Food Citys Chattanooga based division, which is comprised of 27 Food City locations, as well as their pharmacy and Gas n Go fuel centers.
I have really enjoyed my time as a District Manager for the Tri-Cities region, working with so many outstanding people that I am fortunate to call my friends, says Mr. Bishop. Im looking forward to starting my new responsibilities in the Chattanooga market and having the opportunity to work with the great team of associates we have there and meeting many of our loyal customers.
Mr. Bishop is also an active member of his local community, having served with the Rogersville Optimist Club, Newport Kiwanis Club, Morristown Optimist Club, Rogersville Chamber of Commerce, Gray Community Chest, Johnson City Salvation Army, United Way of Johnson City, Niswonger Childrens Hospital, East Tennessee State University, two-time member of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and a number of other organizations and activities. He is a 1982 graduate of Cherokee High School and attended Walters State Community College and the University of Tennessee.
Mr. Bishop currently resides in Gray, TN with his wife, Vicki. He has three children, Lindsey, Derrick and Alexis.
1. Re-live the hardships
2. Battle for Singapore Activities
3. Stronger Together - Total Defence Exhibition 2017
'Celebrating 50 Years of National Service'
4. Kranji War Memorial
5. Syonan Gallery
6. Reflections @ Bukit Chandu
7. Battlebox Tours
8. Go on a World War II Heritage Trail
8 February 1942 nightfall marked the moment when Japanese forces began the invasion of Singapore. By 15 February, it was all over when the British officially surrendered Singapore to the Japanese.This year is a significant year because not only does it mark the, it is also the(NS50).The Fall of Singapore is considered one of the darkest moments in Singapore's short history where for the next 3 years and 7 months, life in Singapore was a period of constant fear and hardship. Which is why come every 15 February (also known as Total Defence Day), we remember the sufferings of our forefathers during the Japanese Occupation, and remind ourselves that NEVER AGAIN shall Singapore fall. We can only trust ourselves to defend Singapore and protect all that we hold dear.The current world we live presents different forms of threats - terrorism, cyber-attacks, and regional tensions - so they serve important reminders that we should never our peace for granted.But it is tough to expect the kids of today to fully understand the tough living conditions back in the days of the Japanese Occupation. Even for me, who have only heard horror stories about World War II from my grandparents.But that does not mean we do not try to expose the kids to a grimmer aspect of our nation's history.I do know that some schools have commemorated Total Defence Day by having the school canteens sell only white porridge or sweet potatoes on that day. My kids' school had switched off the fans for a few school periods as well, just to let the kids experience what it felt like to have minimal comforts.On this 75th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore, it makes for a good teaching moment to educate our kids on the history and the importance of defending what is important to us. Here are a few recommendations:Try water rationing at home, or try to cook a meal without the usual gas cooker. The latter was something that the monkies attempted over the weekend. I only provided them with a limited amount of water and other resources and they had to cook their own instant noodles for lunch.Other than the fact that they actually do love instant noodles, a huge takeaway for them was how troublesome it was to share the water among themselves.Maybe I will try something different next year and cut off the WiFi at home.To commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore, the Natonal Heritage Board and its Museum Roundtable partners will be organising a slew of activities over the next few weeks. While all of its guided tours have been fully booked, there are still many other activities happening at the various museums. For more information, visitSpecially curated to commemorate Total Defence 2017, Stronger Together features the hardship experienced in Singapore during World War II, discusses clear and present threats to Singapore and shares how our friends and community play their part to help protect our peace.While you are there, pop over the neighbouringto visit theexhibition too. Happening from now until 1 Oct 2017 (10am - 6pm), the exhibition is FREE for all.Address: Singapore Discovery CentreDates: Now until 19 Mar 2017Opening Hours: 9am to 6pm (Closed on Mondays except Public & School Term Holidays)FREE AdmissionThe Kranji War Memorial in Singapore honours the men and women from the Commonwealth who died in the line of duty during World War II. More than 4,400 white gravestones are erected in rows on the cemeterys gentle slope. The Chinese Memorial, in plot 44, marks a mass grave for 69 Chinese servicemen who were killed by the Japanese when Singapore fell in February 1942. Next to the Kranji War Memorial is the Kranji Military Cemetery, with more than 1,400 burials of soldiers who died after World War II.The Singapore State Cemetery, where the countrys first and second presidents, Encik Yusof Ishak and Dr Benjamin Henry Sheares, are buried is situated nearby as well.Address: 9 Woodlands Road, Singapore 738656Opening Hours: 8am - 6.30pm dailySyonan Gallery, which was formerly known as Memories at Old Ford Factory, is the site of the surrender of Singapore by British forces to the Japanese Imperial Army. Re-opening on 16 Feb 2017 and a national monument, its contents have been revamped and now features refreshed content and a new focus. Syonan or Syonan-to, meaning Light of the South, was the name given to Singapore by its Japanese rulers between 18 February 1942 and 12 September 1945. The gallery subtitle highlights a new area of focus for the exhibition by looking at the impact of the war and the Occupation years, including the immediate and longer-term legacies of this period on Singapore and the region.The exhibition space proper is broadly divided into three zones:- Fall of Singapore: Outlines the events leading up to that fateful moment where British forces surrendered unconditionally to the Imperial Japanese Army in the Ford Factory boardroom.- Becoming Syonan: Captures the diverse experiences of people during the Japanese Occupation.- Legacies: Highlights the various legacies of war and Occupation in Singapore, from the political and social changes that arose and the ways we remember the war in Singapore today.Address: 351 Upper Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 588192Opening Hours: Mondays to Saturdays, 9am 5.30pm | Sundays, 12 noon 5.30pmFREE AdmissionBukit Chandu (Opium Hill) was the site of one of the last battles in Singapore. The battle lasted 48 hours and the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Malay Regiment bravely but unsuccessfully attempted to defend the hill in the Battle of Pasir Panjang against Japanese in 1942. Housed in a restored black and white colonial bungalow close to the former battle site, the centre is a place for visitors to reflect upon Singapores heritage of heroism.The centre combines first-hand accounts, personal artefacts, maps and historical footage to recount the brutal fall of Singapore. In particular, Reflections pays homage to the heroism of C Company, 1st Battalion in their battles against the Japanese at Bukit Chandu. The story of 2nd Lieutenant Adnan Saidi is also highlighted as he had foiled Japanese attempts by disguising themselves as Punjabi troops and inspired his men to fight to the very end. Their courageous defence of Bukit Chandu cost the Japanese many lives.Address: 31-K Pepys Road, Singapore 118458Opening Hours: Tue - Sun 9am 5.30pm | Closed on Mon (except on PHs)Price: Free Admission for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents | $1 - $2 for Tourist & Foreign CitizensThe Battlebox is a former WWII British underground command centre inside Fort Canning Hill in the heart of Singapore City. It was part of the headquarters of Malaya Command, the army which defended Malaya and Singapore in WWII. It was inside the Battlebox that the British decided to surrender Singapore to the invading Japanese on 15 February 1942.Today, the Battlebox is a museum that unveils the true causes behind the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history. The Battlebox Tour, A Story of Strategy & Surrender, tells two stories - the fall of Malaya and Singapore in WWII, and how an underground command centre functioned during the war.Address: 2 Cox Terrace, Singapore 179622 (Fort Canning Park)Opening Hours: 9.30am - 5.30pmAdmission: From $18 (adult) and $9 (child, 7-12 yrs old)Website: www.battlebox.com.sg Launched in 2013. the World War II Trail consists of 13 spots that mark great historical events that occurred during World War II. It identifies war sites all over the island with each site marking either a battle area, such as the invasion sites at Sarimbun beach, or commemorates a significant event during the Occupation, such as the Sook Ching massacre sites.The trail is free to explore at your own time so do download the guides before you set off to explore with the family:At the end of the day, exposing our kids to Singapore's history can only do so much. Because beyond that, we can pledge to be more security conscious, to pick up lifesaving skills, or to strengthen community bonds in our personal capacity.#NeverAgainSG will we let Singapore fall. Together, we can keep our country strong.
Karla Marroquin is a customer service team leader at Perkspot and has been with the company for more than one year. (Alyssa Pointer / Blue Sky)
What's it really like to work at Chicago startups and tech companies? Blue Sky's Inside Job lets people on the ground tell us in their own words.
Karla Marroquin, 27, Customer Service Team Lead at PerkSpot
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We're close to having 30 employees. I've been the first full-time customer service person PerkSpot has ever had. On my team, the customer service team, it's just myself, for the time being. We're actually having someone onboard, so I'm super excited.
The majority of our issues come through emails. I get about 80 to 90 emails a day and 15, 20 calls. I can already envision PerkSpot having at least five, 10 people on the customer service team because we're growing so fast.
I grew up in Mid-City in Los Angeles. My parents are from El Salvador. He came undocumented, same for my mom. She was 19. My dad was 23.
During the '80s, there was a civil war in El Salvador, so it was a very rough time, and they were actually scouting young people like my dad to be part of the war. He said whenever he would walk to his parents' town where he lived, he would see a lot of dead bodies all young people so his mom told him, "You should just go to the U.S."
He came here, and I think for a really long time he couldn't go back, but now he's a U.S. citizen (through amnesty). My mom actually ended up crossing with smugglers. She's a U.S. citizen now, too.
They met in L.A., and I was born there. My boyfriend has family here. In 2014, he was like, "You know what? Let's make the jump. Let's pack our bags, sell our things, take our dogs and go to Chicago." And that's exactly what we did. Wearing coats and scarves and beanies and boots is something I cannot do in L.A. So doing it here is definitely fun. When I see snow falling, I'm in love.
I did my community college at Santa Monica College, and I actually transferred over here to DePaul University, so I'm finishing up my senior year, majoring in public relations and marketing. I'm a part-time student and full-time at PerkSpot.
When I first came from L.A., I worked at Petco. I did almost every role at that place because I got bored every year. For about eight months, I worked at Grubhub, and I really fell in love with the people. I just slowly realized I didn't want to be a number anymore, and I felt like my passion and work ethic and my energy could go into something else.
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I looked at PerkSpot, and I saw their vision and everything they were about, and I was like, "This is somewhere I would love to work."
Culture is a big thing here. We just had, last week, our chocolate bar. It was a bunch of chocolate toppings, chocolate on chocolate, and there were cinnamon sticks marshmallows and some cookies. I took over the team jar initiative. Anyone from the office can just come up to my desk, grab a chocolate and have a conversation with me and catch up for the day. Now we have them all over the office. I like going up to people just randomly and saying hi, even if it's super awkward.
I started doing my own salad creations here at the office, and I started getting better and better. I have an Instagram account with all of my creations at work. It's @eatingwithkarly. I'll bring my bag of cilantro and green peppers and tomatoes and slice them up here. If I feel it's something good, I'll make it in a bowl for my co-workers. Today, I made a cactus salad. I introduced all my co-workers to stuffed churros, like with Nutella, strawberry, pineapple.
I like being kind and generous. I hate using this word, but I'm like a people-pleaser, and I think that's why my job comes so easy to me, because that's just my personality.
As told to freelance reporter Erin Chan Ding. Stories are edited for length and clarity.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) actually bragged about introducing a measure that drove insurers out of business and forced a million Americans to find new health coverage. But the measure was just eviscerated by a U.S. judge. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
Moda Health, a small Oregon health insurer, just won a $214-million judgment against the federal government. Normally that wouldn't be worth reporting, except that in awarding Moda the money, the federal judge in the case dismantled the most cynical attack on the Affordable Care Act that congressional Republicans had devised.
The issue was the Affordable Care Act's risk corridor program, which was devised to shelter insurers from unexpected losses in covering Affordable Care Act customers from 2014 through 2016. To encourage insurers to enter an entirely novel market, the program aimed to balance risks by taking funds from insurers that turned out to be unexpectedly profitable and use the money to cushion others' losses. The model was provisionally written into Medicare's prescription drug program, Part D, which went into effect in 2006 and worked well to attract insurers.
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To say ... 'The joke is on you. You shouldn't have trusted us,' is hardly worthy of our great Government. U.S. Judge Thomas C. Wheeler
Initially, economists expected the Affordable Care Act version to be in the black overall the Congressional Budget Office forecast that the government would collect $16 billion from successful insurers and pay out only $8 billion to struggling companies over the program's three years. But if it turned out that there wasn't enough, the Department of Health and Human Services was authorized to pay out funds from general government revenues.
Although Medicare Part D had been a Republican program, this time around the GOP railed against the same risk corridor arrangement as a "bailout" of insurers. They inserted a provision in a 2014 spending bill forbidding Health and Human Services from using any money other than what came from profitable insurers. As it happened, the program ran deeply in the red. The accumulated losses for 2014 and 2015 alone are up to $8.3 billion; some estimates place the total owed over the three years at nearly $15 billion.
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Because it's hamstrung to pay the full claims, Health and Human Services has paid out only 12.6% of all claims for 2014, and nothing so far for 2015 or 2016. Moda's lawsuit claimed that it's due $214 million. It argued that the government essentially promised that the money would be paid, and that promise can't be nullified just because Congress decided to tamper with where the money came from.
Judge Thomas C. Wheeler of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed with Moda on every point. "There is no genuine dispute that the Government is liable to Moda," he ruled in a decision issued Thursday. "The Government made a promise in the risk corridor program that it has yet to fulfill." He directed the government "to fulfill that promise. After all, to say to [Moda], 'The joke is on you. You shouldn't have trusted us,' is hardly worthy of our great Government."
Wheeler also told the government where to find the money: in its Judgment Fund, which pays plaintiffs who win claims against the government in his court.
A ruling like Wheeler's was long expected by many legal experts. As Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan observed following the ruling: "It was only a matter of time before a court entered a money judgment against the United States." Two other lawsuits are pending in the Court of Federal Claims. One brought initially by two Oregon health insurance co-ops has been certified as a class action. Another, brought by the Illinois insurer Land of Lincoln, was dismissed in November, but is already under appeal.
That said, even if the insurers eventually get paid, the GOP attack on the risk corridor program, and by extension on the Affordable Care Act in general, did a lot of damage. In a survey for the New England Journal of Medicine in November, Bagley wrote that the GOP measure "hit particularly hard" at new co-op health plans, which were thinly capitalized but supported by Affordable Care Act loans. Deprived of full risk-corridor payments, "by the end of summer 2016, just seven of 23 co-ops were still in business. As the co-ops collapsed, almost a million people were forced to look elsewhere for coverage." That contributed to "a sharp reduction in competition on the [Obamacare] exchanges."
That underscores the cynicism of the Republican attack. GOP politicians such as House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) talk continually about a lack of competition on the Affordable Care Act exchanges as though that's a structural flaw in Obamacare. They don't admit that much of that lack of competition is their own handiwork.
One remarkable feature of this attack is that, even though it helped destroy some low-income insurers and harmed their customers, Republicans in Congress jostled with each other to take credit for it.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R- Fla.) made his championing of the provision a linchpin of his presidential campaign, claiming that his role in the measure saved billions for the American taxpayer. His bragging ticked off the GOP politicos who actually had sneaked the measure into law. Among them was a certain Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), then the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who, as Donald Trump's newly-minted attorney general, now will have to decide whether to appeal Wheeler's ruling to a higher court. When Sessions issued a statement listing the measure's supporters, the Washington Post reported, he "pointedly" left Rubio out.
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The risk corridor claimants aren't out of the woods yet. The Moda judgment could be appealed. Moreover, although Judge Wheeler noted that payment from the Judgment Fund is a "path Congress has left open," Congress also could block that path, simply by enacting a law barring it as a source of risk corridor claims, even with a court order. That measure would have to be signed by President Trump, but as Bagley commented, Trump hasn't been above stiffing partners in his own business ventures. Why would he stop now?
Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.
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Chicago-based hedge fund firm Rail-Splitter Capital Management is in the process of merging into RMB Capital Management, RMB confirmed Monday.
The deal is expected to be finalized March 1, with Rail-Splitter's core investment management team and founder John Croghan moving into the RMB headquarters on LaSalle Street, said Christopher Graff, RMB director of asset management.
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The Rail-Splitter team will continue to operate its hedge fund business, while RMB will provide operational support ranging from marketing to administrative functions, said Graff, who described the arrangement as a joint venture.
"The strategy will continue to stand alone and retain their name," Graff said.
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RMB was launched in 2005 by a team that had worked together at UBS. The firm, which invests in stocks, bonds and alternative strategies, has added four other hedge fund businesses since 2006. All operate independently within the RMB structure, said Graff. RMB managed about $6 billion in assets as of the end of 2016.
Rail-Splitter did not return phone calls, and Graff declined to say if the full Rail-Splitter staff would be assumed by RMB. In Rail-Splitter's February 2016 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reported that it was managing $585 million in assets.
The Rail-Splitter addition will provide RMB with investment expertise focused on the technology and health care sectors, said Kate Demet, RMB director of marketing and communications.
Besides its headquarters in Chicago, RMB has offices in Denver; Jackson Hole, Wyo.; New York; and Washington, D.C.
gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
Zillow Group, parent company of the well-known house-hunting site, was ordered to pay more than $8.2 million in damages to real estate photography company VHT after using thousands of its photos without proper permission.
Zillow said it plans to seek to overturn the verdict, which affects photographs on Zillow Digs, its home design ideas site.
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Rosemont-based VHT, which does business as VHT Studios, filed the lawsuit against Zillow in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Washington in July 2015, alleging "massive and intentional infringement of copyrights."
A jury last week sided with VHT, finding that Seattle-based Zillow "directly infringed" on 28,125 photos, and awarded VHT $8.2 million in statutory damages, according to court documents. For other photos not included in the statutory damages, VHT chose to be awarded more than $25,000 in actual damages.
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"We never had any agreement with Zillow," said VHT co-founder and CEO Brian Balduf on Monday.
Though a judge dismissed claims related to copyright infringement outside of Zillow Digs, Zillow maintains the suit lacks merit, spokeswoman Amanda Woolley said in an emailed statement. "While we are pleased that the majority of original claims were dismissed in this case, we regret that the jury did not find for us completely on those that remained, and will vigorously pursue all options to overturn their verdict," she said.
When VHT launched in the late 1990s, house hunting consisted mainly of scouring black and white exterior shots and contacting agents for more information, Balduf said. Today, listing information is widely available online, as are detailed property photos. (The Tribune has an agreement with VHT to use its photos.)
"What people don't realize is that photographs are different than listing information," Balduf said. "Photographs are actually intellectual property that are protected by copyright laws. You can't treat it the same."
Copyright infringement cases have become more common with the proliferation of the internet into nearly every sector, and most people understand they can't just "go to a website and rip off an image," said Phil Nicolosi, a Rockford-based attorney who focuses on business and e-commerce law.
But things get murkier when third parties are involved.
"You either own your creative work or you don't," he said. "And when you don't, you can have a license that can be very limited."
amarotti@chicagotribune.com
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Twitter @AllyMarotti
Lena Richard was "a Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart."
The quote from Liz Williams, president of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, is an apt comparison, for Richard was a chef, caterer, restaurateur, frozen food entrepreneur, cooking teacher, cookbook author, wife, mother, grandmother and host of her own cooking show on New Orleans television, a singular achievement for an African-American in the segregated South of the late 1940s.
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"She's important because she stepped out on the water when there was no guarantee it would hold her up," says food historian Jessica B. Harris, author of "High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America." "She was the first, an extraordinary first.
"The television thing she did makes her phenomenal," Harris says. "To be that person on-air in New Orleans at the time was extraordinary. ... She did and created so much stuff, she made a path."
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Richard "was an inspirational leader,'' agreed Toni Tipton-Martin, the Austin, Texas-based author, community activist and creator of "The Jemima Code," a pop-up exhibit, blog and upcoming book exploring the legacies of African-American cooks. "She operated her restaurant in a manner to bring along the next generation."
That intent was made clear in the preface to Richard's cookbook, "New Orleans Cook Book."
"My purpose in opening a cooking school was to teach men and women the art of food preparation and serving in order that they would become capable of preparing and serving food for any occasion and also that they might be in a position to demand higher wages,'' Richard wrote.
She was born Lena Paul in New Roads, La. (Many sources list the year as 1892 but the New Orleans Times-Picayune, in its notice of her death from a heart attack on Nov. 27, 1950, gives her age as 51.) She began her career as a domestic "like so many others of her time," wrote Harris in "High on the Hog." Her employers, the Vairin family of New Orleans, sent her for culinary training first locally and then to Boston at the school founded by Fannie Farmer.
Lena Paul returned to New Orleans after graduation in 1918 and began catering, according to Karen Trahan Leathem, author of "Two Women and their Cookbooks: Lena Richard and Mary Land," a guide to a 2001 exhibit sponsored by Tulane University's Newcomb College in New Orleans. She married Percival Richard and opened the first in a series of restaurants. The cooking school opened in 1937.
Her cookbook was published in 1939 as "Lena Richard's Cook Book." Aided by Clementine Paddleford, the New York Herald Tribune food writer, Richard landed a contract with Houghton Mifflin, which re-issued her work in 1940 under a new title, "New Orleans Cook Book."
It was also around this time, in the early 1940s, that Richard left New Orleans, first to cook at an inn in Garrison, N.Y., and then in 1943 as chef at the Travis House in Colonial Williamsburg, Va.
"But the city that inspired her creativity pulled her back, and she returned here to become a television cooking show pioneer," Leathem wrote.
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Television was in its infancy in the late 1940s. Few people had television sets. Ashley Young, who curated an exhibit, "Lena Richard: Pioneer in Food TV" for the Southern Food and Beverage museum, said there are no known clips of the 15-minute program. The show, called "New Orleans Cook Book," aired twice weekly in 1949 and 1950.
Williams rues the lack of a video record: "If we had kinescopes she would be all over YouTube."
Yet, Richard's various ventures touched many in The Crescent City, said Young, a Pittsburgh resident and doctoral candidate at Duke University in Durham, N.C.
Richard was an African American woman who made a name for herself in the Jim Crow South, said Young, adding, "She not only worked with an elite white population in New Orleans, she used that leverage to make a change for the African-American community."
wdaley@tribpub.com
Twitter @billdaley
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Creole cooked red beans
Prep: 20 minutes
Soak: Overnight
Cook: 3 to 3 1/2 hours
Makes: 8 servings
Adapted from Lena Richard's "New Orleans Cook Book." Ashley Young posted this recipe and others on a blog related to a Richard exhibit at New Orleans' Southern Food and Beverage museum. Smoked or fresh ham shank can be used. Young's big tip? Patience. Slow cooking will transform the texture of the beans from firm to "gloriously mushy" in 3 to 3 1/2 hours, she says.
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2 cups dried red beans
2 quarts water
1 large onion, diced
1 green pepper, cored, seeded, diced
pound pickled meat or ham shank
3 tablespoons shortening
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3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
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1 bay leaf
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Pepper to taste
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1. Soak beans overnight in a large pot or bowl in enough water to cover by 2 inches. Drain. (You can skip the soaking, if you like. The beans will need to cook about 30 minutes longer.)
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2. Pour the beans into a large pot along with the 2 quarts water; add remaining ingredients, except the salt, pepper and parsley. Heat to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, with the lid slightly askew, until beans are soft and soupy, 3 to 3 1/2 hours. With 10 minutes of cooking time, add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and pepper to taste. Just before ready to serve add parsley; taste for seasonings.
Nutrition information per serving: 211 calories, 6 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 8 mg cholesterol, 28 g carbohydrates, 13 g protein, 625 mg sodium, 9 g fiber
Thick veal shanks are braised in wine and broth with plenty of shallots, carrots and mushrooms providing aromatics. Gremolata finishes the dish. (Food styling by Mark Graham.) (Bill Hogan, Chicago Tribune)
We braise in January to ward off the chill, to make the house smell good, to remind ourselves of everything we love about cooking. Beef stew in the slow cooker, lamb in the tagine and pork shoulder in the copper brazier. This year, we're braising veal shanks for special occasions. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed these tender beauties until I was served a fabulous, delicate osso buco at a favorite Italian restaurant.
That dinner reminded me of Ada Boni's timeless cookbooks game changers for so many cooks. Her colorful 1969 volume, "Italian Regional Cooking," encouraged my Chicago-born mother to try her hand at cannelloni, risotto and osso buco long before they popped up on menus everywhere.
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Boni's sparely written recipes require a cook's intuitions. My mom had those in spades, somehow cooking new recipes for a hungry family of seven on a shoestring budget. Veal shanks were cheap when she was a young cook; we had them often. Today, thick shank slices (labeled osso buco) in the meat case typically sell for $16 a pound and even more from a specialty butcher.
I usually opt for my butcher's version because he sells center cut veal shanks from the hind shank, which yields a higher meat-to-bone ratio than those cut from the foreshank or narrower part of the leg. Most recipes say a slice of shank serves one, but that depends on the person. At our house, four 2 to 21/2 inch thick shank slices, weighing about 4 pounds total, with plenty of vegetables added, serve six.
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Cookbook author Molly Stevens proves more verbose than Boni. In her 2004 "All About Braising," Stevens tells us that "veal shanks are ideally suited for braising because they're so high in collagen, the connective tissue that breaks down in the moist, low heat of a braise and enriches the sauce like nothing else." She also says their luxuriousness comes from their fine meat texture.
As with most braises, browning the meat builds the first level of flavor. Both Boni and Stevens call for a light coating of seasoned flour to aid in the browning. Next come the aromatics in this case, I like the look and texture you get from using whole small shallots, chunks of carrots and halved mushrooms. Prepared this way, the vegetables remain intact throughout the braise.
White wine traditionally deglazes the pan in classic osso buco. Red wine makes a richer dish; broth can stand in if you prefer. I like to enhance the pan juices with a small amount of intensely flavored dried porcini mushrooms. They can be omitted or you can use less expensive dried mushrooms.
For the cleanest ripe tomato flavor, I prefer to use tomatoes that are canned without citric acid and calcium chloride. Look for imported Italian brands, such as Pomi, and read the labels. I found beautiful canned cherry tomatoes (by the Mutti brand from Parma, Italy) packed in tomato puree that looked and tasted great. Diced canned or plum tomatoes will work too.
I use an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven for almost all of my braising. It cooks so evenly that the meat is uniformly tender. The tight lid allows just the right amount of evaporation to make delicious pan juices. If you use a stainless steel Dutch oven, check the meat during cooking to be sure the moisture level is right. If you choose to use a slow cooker, don't skip the browning steps as they are key to the finished flavors. Set the slow cooker to low (never high) for delicate meat like veal and allow 6 to 8 hours.
Risotto typically accompanies classic osso buco. Here, I opt instead to stir chopped fresh kale and canned white beans into the pan juices. Served in wide, deep bowls and topped with a crunchy lemon-parsley-anchovy mixture known as gremolata, this dish only needs a bit of crusty bread for accompaniment. Start the meal with a green salad made from escarole and end with a tiny scoop of gelato.
While I'm cooking this dish, I recall the scent of bay laurel trees in Northern California, the first porcini I tasted in Positano, Italy, and the cooking classes I so enjoyed in southern France where I first learned to braise. Poof, there go the winter blues. Here comes dinner.
Veal osso buco with porcini, kale, white beans and gremolata crunch
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Prep: 40 minutes
Cook: 2 hours
Makes: 4 to 6 servings
4 center cut veal shanks, each about 2 to 21/2 inches thick, total weight 41/4 pounds
cup flour
teaspoon salt
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teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons each: olive oil, butter
10 to 12 small whole shallots (1 pound total), peeled
4 medium ( pound total) carrots, peeled, cut into thirds
pound baby bellas or button mushrooms, halved
cup dry white wine (or more broth)
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1 can (15 ounces) cherry tomatoes packed in tomato puree (or diced tomatoes)
cup (1/2 ounce) dried porcini mushroom pieces or other dried mushrooms
2 bay leaves
teaspoon dried rosemary
1 cup homemade or canned low-sodium chicken broth
Gremolata crunch:
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Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
cup very thinly sliced parsley
4 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
Half of a 2-ounce can anchovy fillets, patted dry, finely chopped, optional
1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil
cup panko breadcrumbs or coarse homemade dry breadcrumbs
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Finishing:
1 bunch (10 ounces) lacinato kale, tough stems removed, leaves cut into 1-inch pieces
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, drained, rinsed
1 Heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat veal dry. Mix flour, salt and pepper on a plate. Dredge veal shanks in the flour mixture.
2 Heat a large Dutch oven or deep heavy-bottomed pan until hot. Add oil and butter; when they are hot and the butter has melted, add floured shanks in a single, uncrowded layer. Cook until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Turn and brown the second side, 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
3 Stir shallots, carrots and mushrooms into pan. Cook and stir until shallots are golden, about 5 minutes. Stir in wine; heat to a boil, scraping up browned bits. Boil to reduce the wine by half, about 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, porcini, bay and rosemary. Boil hard, 2 minutes, then stir in broth.
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4 Nestle shanks down into the mixture in the pan. Put a piece of parchment paper directly over the veal to protect it and capture any condensation. Cover pan tightly with lid; slide it into the oven. Cook, checking for adequate moisture every 30 minutes, until meat is fork-tender, about 2 hours. (If your lid is tight, you will not need to add any extra liquid.) The osso buco also can be simmered over low heat on the stovetop.
5 Meanwhile for gremolata, mix lemon zest, parsley, garlic and anchovies in a bowl. When veal is done, sprinkle half of this mixture over it; cook, 15 minutes.
6 Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs; cook just until golden, 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in remaining gremolata mixture. Transfer to a serving bowl.
7 Use tongs and a spatula to gently transfer veal to a large, deep serving platter (or individual deep plates). Cover with foil to keep warm. Stir kale and beans into the mixture remaining in the pot. Simmer over medium heat until kale is tender and pan juices are thickened enough to lightly coat a spoon, about 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, usually about 1/2 teaspoon.
8 Spoon the vegetables and pan juices over the meat. Pass crispy gremolata for guests to add as they wish.
Nutrition information per serving: 577 calories, 18 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 220 mg cholesterol, 39 g carbohydrates, 64 g protein, 732 mg sodium, 8 g fiber
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Chicken osso buco: Substitute 4 whole chicken legs, separated into thighs and drumsticks, for the veal. Brown chicken and cook as directed but reduce the oven time to 1 hour in step 4. Finish as directed.
So, you know how Grape-Nuts aren't really nuts? Well, guess what, french fries aren't really French.
"When the Americans went to Belgium to help us out in World War I, they saw military guys cooking potatoes in oil," says Bart Vandaele, Belgian-born chef-owner of Belga Cafe in Washington, D.C., "and because the official language of the Belgian military was French, they called them 'french fries.'"
And as Vandaele points out, even the French don't call them french fries; in France, they're pommes frites.
Why you need to learn this:
Regardless of their provenance, there's no doubt that this European delicacy is one of America's most popular foods. The problem is, as with so many things, there are more bad examples of french fries than good. And that's why you should know how to make them yourself, because when you're really craving them, you don't want to take any chances.
That's also why we wanted to talk to some experts: Along with Vandaele, we got some tips from Ben Sheagren, executive chef at the Hop Leaf, a Chicago tavern that specializes in Belgian brews and cuisine.
The steps you take:
The first thing you want to do is choose the potato. Starchy potatoes that are lower in water content, such as russet or Idaho, work best. "And older potatoes have a lower moisture content," says Sheagren, "so if you have older potatoes, perfect. If not, not to worry."
Once you've got the spuds, the method, while exacting, is pretty straightforward.
"There are a couple key things that you're looking to accomplish in order to get the best product," Sheagren says, "and the first is to eliminate as much excess starch as you can."
Removing the starch reduces the chances that the fries will stick together, and also, according to Sheagren, gives a crisper fry.
Another important factor is frying the potatoes twice. The first time, called "blanching," involves lower-temperature, longer-duration frying to thoroughly cook the potato. The next step is to brown and crisp the outside at a higher temperature.
Vandaele blanches his fries in 250-degree oil until they are just cooked through. "They whistle to you when they're ready to come out," he says, "because the inside starts to steam, and it whistles like a steam whistle."
After the potatoes come out, they need to rest for an hour or two to come to room temperature before the final frying.
Step-by-step
1. Wash your potatoes, and peel them if you like. Leaving the peels on gives a more rustic look, while taking them off will give you a better chance of having all your pieces looking exactly alike. Your call.
2. For perfectly shaped fries, cut the potato into a box shape by first trimming off both ends, then cutting straight down along one side to create a flat surface. Roll the potato onto that surface, and cut straight down on a second side. Do that two more times, and you'll have a nice little oblong potato box. Cut the box into 1/4-inch thick planks, then lay the planks down and cut them into sticks that are as long as the potato and 1/4-inch square on the ends. These are your fries.
3. Place the fries in a large bowl of cold water. This rinses away some of the surface starch, making it more likely that the fries will not stick together while cooking.
4. Fill a large, heavy pot halfway with vegetable oil and heat it to 250 to 300 degrees. It's important to use a frying thermometer because it's vital that the first frying is done at a lower temperature than the second.
5. Add your fries in batches that will not overcrowd the pot. Fry them gently until they are cooked through but not browned at all, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove them from the oil and drain them on a paper towel-lined sheet tray. Cool them to room temperature before proceeding. (Alternately, you can hold them overnight in the refrigerator; just bring to room temp before the second frying.)
6. Just before serving, heat the oil to 325-350 degrees, and add the blanched fries in batches. Cook them until they are golden brown, about 3 to 5 minutes, then remove, season and serve immediately. "And you need to eat them with mayonnaise," says Vandaele. "That's the Belgian way, the real way."
Spice 'em up
Once you've mastered the french fry technique, you may want to branch out, flavorwise. Take inspiration from the cute little book "French Fries," by Zac Williams. You'll find dozens of seasoning ideas from Parmesan to mustard-salt.
Try the garlic fries: Saute 2 minced cloves garlic in a little olive oil. Stir in 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary and 2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley. Sprinkle over hot fries.
foods@tribune.com
Polish dumplings, pierogi, come together with an Italian tomato sauce made hearty with sauteed onions, for a soulful dish either nation might embrace. Have it with equally soul-stirring wines, picking from among these three.
MAKE THIS
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Pierogi in tomato-onion sauce
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in large skillet; add 1 sliced onion. Cook over high heat, stirring, until starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add 1 can crushed tomatoes, 1 1/2 teaspoons dried marjoram and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes. Add 12 fresh or frozen pierogi to the sauce. Reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring once or twice, until pierogi are cooked through, about 4 minutes for fresh, 10 minutes for frozen. Serve, sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese. Makes: 4 servings
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Recipe by Carol Mighton Haddix
DRINK THIS
By sommelier Michael Taylor of Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House, as told to Michael Austin:
2014 Feudi di San Gregorio Falanghina del Sannio, Campania, Italy: From the southwest coast, where tomatoes are plentiful, this is a white born to enhance the flavor of a good red sauce. The dish is rustic and simple, and requires a wine of a similar working class background. This falanghina has aromas of almond, white peach and zesty citrus, a white mineral core and acidity that will support the weight and texture of the potato in the pierogi.
2010 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir, Martinborough, New Zealand: New Zealand comes sort of close to bridging the gap between the New World and rustic grand cru Burgundy. In this wine, an earthy, forest floor mixes harmoniously with bright notes of Bing cherries and cranberries, backed by herbs and cola. Those bright fruit tones will bring together the caramelized onion and tomato in the dish while the earthy features will play up the marjoram and potato.
2010 Altamura Sangiovese, Napa Valley, California: No red sauce dish is complete without a nice sangiovese, but this is not your grandfather's Chianti. This one's from California. With a slightly tawny brown color, typical of sangiovese, it exhibits aromas of tart cherry, leather and tobacco leaf. Surprisingly more full on the palate, the wine delivers elements of sweet plum, black cherry and cigar box, making it a decadent choice for this already hearty dish.
By the time Claude McKay died in Chicago at 58, he had been homeless for a time, and penniless longer. He had been on the decline for a decade, physically, financially and culturally. He had been close with artists Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden and others instrumental in the 1935 founding of the Harlem Artists' Guild, but his own attempts at organizing a Negro Author's Guild were a bust. He had a stroke. He doubted his relevancy as a writer. He was a mess. His friend Ellen Tarry, later known as the first African-American picture book author, found him in a New York boarding house in 1942, destitute and ill. She connected him with Catholic groups, and for a time, his spiritual life flourished. Though when he moved to Chicago soon after to teach for the Catholic Youth Organization, he was too weak to carry his belongings and left everything behind.
His career was pretty short. And not entirely complete.
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"Amiable With Big Teeth," his first novel since 1940, was published posthumously last week. You should know Claude McKay. Even if you never have heard of him. He was, in a precursory way, the future of American literature, an immigrant who wrestled with ideas of home and, specifically, the best way to represent the totality of African-American life.
"Amiable with Big Teeth," by Claude McKay. (Claude McKay)
When he died of heart failure in 1948, his literary reputation was in a deep flux. Celebrated (and criticized) for his sense of everyday realism and understanding of the variety in black communities, his place as a Harlem Renaissance touchstone was firm; his poem "If We Must Die" ("Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack/ Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!") was on its way to transcending the African-American experience and speaking to resistance movements worldwide. But "Home To Harlem," his signature work, considered the first best-selling novel by a black writer, had been published 20 years earlier. And McKay, in general, had not published in years.
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His obituary in this newspaper was one paragraph long, only a handful of lines: He lived near Washington Park, he wrote a little, he died. That's about it. His obituary wasn't even the primary obituary that day in the Tribune: McKay was beaten out by a suburban businessman who had once patented an early forerunner to the air brake used on trains.
Then again, American culture has never been good about making room for more than one black writer at a time. By 1948, in Chicago alone, McKay had been eclipsed by Richard Wright's "Native Son," then by the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, who would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Within a few years of that, James Baldwin would publish his first novel ("Go Tell It on the Mountain") and Ralph Ellison would release "Invisible Man."
McKay's own work would eventually come to represent a key example of "the intersection between modernism and the Harlem Renaissance," said Kenneth Warren, who teaches African-American literature at the University of Chicago. "For anyone who wants to understand American modernism, if you want to know what was going on at a moment in the early 20th century that produces writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, you also have to understand McKay's books. And yet, when you look back at the writers who found the period influential, you don't hear how reading 'Home to Harlem' was a watershed Alice Walker might name-check someone like Zora Neale Hurston, but you still never hear anyone claim how their crucial moment was reading Claude McKay."
After his death, McKay's reputation grew more obscure with time. To the point where, many decades later, when McKay's estate was scattered and what royalties existed found their way to his distant relatives, several of them had never heard of him, either.
And that, apparently, was that.
But like many writers, McKay had work that stalled and remained stalled, novels never finished that languished in desk drawers. In fact, he had burned his first attempt at a novel. Perhaps because he published in his native Jamaica before moving to New York in the 1920s, there was some confusion about the full scope of his output: in that Tribune obituary, his third book, "Spring in New Hampshire," was noted as his first, and no mention was made of "Home to Harlem," never mind anything unfinished. While in Chicago, he was asked by a university in Georgia to contribute his papers and he replied that all he had were letters and one unpublished novel, which was his only copy.
It's unclear which book McKay referenced, but possibly it was the novel that Jean-Christophe Cloutier stumbled across in a stack of papers in 2009. That novel, "Amiable With Big Teeth," was written in 1941, a couple of years before McKay moved to Chicago. It's political satire, the story of activists in 1930s Harlem rallying to support Ethiopia, which was invaded in 1935 by the fascist forces of Italy's Benito Mussolini, a major concern at a moment when much of the black population on the planet still lived under forms of colonial rule.
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In the past couple of decades, though McKay has become something of a fixture of African-American studies scholarship, "Amiable With Big Teeth" had been completely unknown. "You don't find yourself looking for something that doesn't exist," said Cloutier, an assistant English professor at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time of the discovery, Cloutier was a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City. He was in the school's rare book and manuscript library, flipping through the archives of Samuel Roth, a notorious literary legend whose unauthorized publishing of "Ulysses" and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" later led to Supreme Court rulings that freed Americans to read what they liked, no matter how unsavory. It's still unclear why Roth had the novel.
Cloutier, who had done research on McKay, didn't recall any mention of the novel. So he brought the manuscript to Brent Hayes Edwards, his adviser at Columbia, a well-regarded expert on Harlem Renaissance literature: "Part of me half-expected him to say, 'Oh yeah, everybody knows about that book.'" But Edwards didn't know the work, either.
But if it was real, so was the significance.
"McKay might not feel contemporary like a Colson Whitehead," Edwards said, "but he has resonance. Here's a guy who is Jamaican, writing in the early 20th century about self-determination for the Caribbean, yet leaves Jamaica in his teens, never goes back. McKay was a migrant writer." Stylistically, he doesn't read like a Jhumpa Lahiri. "Amiable," in particular, can be earnest in a way that reveals its 80-year vanishing act. But thematically, McKay's book isn't so far from most contemporary immigrant literature.
Not to mention, "Amiable with Big Teeth," unlike many late-discovered works by important authors, was found intact, and finished. It just wasn't published. So Edwards and Cloutier spent years learning why and more importantly, if it was a real McKay.
They scoured archives, used handwriting experts, worked with the New York librarian who had handled what was left of his estate. Cloutier said they never did learn why the book disappeared, but they found correspondence between McKay and others that mentioned "Amiable." (Among those were labor leader A. Philip Randolph, who organized the train porters in Pullman; he wrote back that McKay's "ideas on the Negro liberation movement flash out like a diamond on the sands.") They also learned that the book had been written for E.P. Dutton (now an imprint of Penguin, which published "Amiable With Big Teeth" this month). But it was rejected, and then, never mentioned.
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Most likely it fell to the wayside as McKay's health declined in Chicago. But the novel was a real McKay, Edwards said: "Having been uprooted and thrown into global currents throughout his life, his marks were clear." Streetwise characters, labor politics, Harlem. "I couldn't come up with anyone who could have written this, and in quite this way."
Cloutier describes McKay as a "transnational literary figure," a forerunner to Zadie Smith and Junot Diaz, American authors from other countries whose ancestors never stray far from the surface, the contrasts between cultures and beliefs intimately linked in their works. Indeed, what McKay left behind is a laundry list of contrasts: Of his first books of poetry, published initially in Jamaica, the first centered on the bucolic life of the rural peasant and second was about the hardships of urban living. Though he became a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay spent its seminal years living abroad. He was as well-known as a poet as he was an author of prose; "America," one of his most cited poems, is a love-hate for his new home ("I love this cultured hell that tests my youth").
In 1922, McKay addressed the National Congress of the Communist Party in Moscow; when he moved back to New York in 1934, his agent was Maxim Lieber, later revealed to be part of the Soviet espionage ring that included Whittaker Chambers. And yet: "Amiable" is rooted in a bitter skepticism of communism, making it in some ways a fictional extension of his 1940 nonfiction "Harlem: Negro Metropolis," in which McKay calls out communists as merely interested in black Americans as propaganda tools.
Even "Home to Harlem," his one genuine classic, is focused on two protagonists, a returning soldier who finds solace with a former prostitute, and a writer whose pain over racism he experiences in the United States pushes him to immigrate to Haiti. McKay doesn't linger on circumstance, but rather, character, good and bad. W.E.B. DuBois, the African-American scholar and writer, said the book made him "feel like taking a bath."
He wanted a little uplift, some core depiction of an ideal black American life that McKay resisted showing. But Warren sees the book as not so different from Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," a modernist novel that in keeping with a basic characteristic of American modernism "gives itself the task of writing in a new way, one adequate to a changing American society, of writing at a moment when you aren't assured any more of the earlier literary models, the ones that writers had always been told they ought to follow."
And yet, Warren said, McKay doesn't stand out quite as much as a Hemingway: He has all the ambition and limitations of the period sentimentalism, valuing male characters by their toughness but none of the writerly innovations we associate with modernism.
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So McKay seems destined to remain underrated. Unless there's more McKay out there.
"I was always surprised that he seemed to have stopped writing fiction," Edwards said. "Why wouldn't he have at least tried while he lived in Chicago? He was there for years. We've stopped short of calling ('Amiable') the last McKay novel, because we don't know, do we? Maybe someone out there has the hidden Chicago novel! And I'm not even joking."
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
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About a half-decade ago, author and critic Jennifer Homans made a bold claim in the epilogue of her book "Apollo's Angels": Ballet is dying. Whether she was right has been a topic of debate ever since, sometimes ad nauseam, but the fact remains that the most widely known, and thus widely celebrated, ballets belong to the past. Wise choreographers (or at least the ones who want to make money) rely on safe remakes of the classics, and on stories and music that are hundreds of years old, believing (with good reason) that it's what audiences want.
Nostalgic art forms are slow to change; when pushing the envelope, ballet or rather, its patrons push slowly. If innovation is to happen, it's likely to be sandwiched between safe bets, or companies risk ostracizing loyal audience members who will only, ever, come for the story ballets. Companies continue to perform antiquated, often nonsensical ballets because financially they have to, not because they have nothing better to do. But building the bridge between audiences who tick the ballet box once a year on their culture card and cultivating true fans of dance is the tough part.
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The Joffrey Ballet has mastered this formula, following its month of "Nutcracker" with a winter mixed-rep program that's typically reserved for living choreographers. Titled "Game Changers," Joffrey's first program of 2017 is a direct challenge to Homans' brazen remarks with three works from some of today's most notable choreographers: Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon and Justin Peck. Artistic director Ashley Wheater carefully curated the program to show a range of possibilities in ballet today, pulling from the company's rep to revisit two works: Wheeldon's breathtaking, abstract "Fool's Paradise," premiered by the Joffrey in 2015, and McGregor's "INFRA," created for the Royal Ballet after the London bombings in 2005 and acquired into the rep in 2012. New to Joffrey is the Chicago premiere of Peck's "Year of the Rabbit," a 2012 work originally made for the New York City Ballet.
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At just 29 years old, Peck is an NYCB soloist and the company's resident choreographer. He is only the second person to hold the title, after Wheeldon (unless you unofficially include the company's founder, George Balanchine). In an interview between rehearsals, Peck commented on the impossibility of being a full-time dancer and a full-time choreographer, and the necessity of shifting his priorities when one role demands more of his attention, but said that dancing benefits his choreography, and vice versa.
What makes Peck a game changer? "You've got to ask the director, not me," he said with a laugh. "That's a tough question ... so much of the work has been in the moment." "Year of the Rabbit," after all, is just 5 years old; it was the young choreographer's first major work. "It's hard to tell what kind of long-term impact it might have," he said, but notes his enthusiasm for collaborating with living composers as a way to keep the art form relevant. Although the Sufjan Stevens' song cycle accompanying "Year of the Rabbit" was already made, Peck worked with the composer to develop a new orchestration that complements each of the dance's vignettes highlighting micronarratives and concepts from the Chinese zodiac.
The use of music by living composers is a link between the three works on the program, which are otherwise very different from each other. "This program gives a sense of the diversity and range possible within today's dance vocabulary," Wheater wrote in a statement to the Tribune, "from heartbreaking to sublimely beautiful, from fully grounded to buoyant."
But collaborating with living artists isn't a new idea. It's what ballet has been doing for hundreds of years. Petipa collaborated with Tchaikovsky, Diaghilev with Chagall and Picasso, Balanchine with Stravinsky. "What's always interested me the most about ballet is it's this great opportunity for many different artistic mediums to come together to create a cohesive experience," Peck said. "I think the future of ballet, as I would see it, is to continue the conversation between all these different worlds and have ballet be the platform for these different conversations. ... That for me is what makes it so exciting and universal. There's something for everyone to get out of it. I think the art form starts to fade when we forget that."
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The Cambrians: "Empress Archer" is the latest in a dance series directed by mastermind Benjamin Wardell. Dancers Ariel Freedman and Meredith Webster traveled the globe having duets set on them, to be used as the source material for something entirely new. 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 1 p.m. Sunday, at the Old Town School of Folk Music's Szold Music & Dance Hall, 4545 N. Lincoln Ave.; $10-$20 at 773-728-6000 or www.oldtownschool.org
Ballet de Lorraine: This French contemporary dance company makes its U.S. premiere in conjunction with the MCA's extensive exhibit highlighting the life and works of Merce Cunningham. The company will perform two signature Cunningham works along with "Untitled Partner #3," a dance and film installation navigating Freud's model of the psyche. 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E. Chicago Ave.; $30 at 312-397-4010 or www.mcachicago.org
Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.
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ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com
Joffrey Ballet's 'Game Changers'
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15-26 (also Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.)
Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Parkway.
Tickets: $34-$159 at 312-341-2300 or www.auditoriumtheatre.org
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This image released by HBO shows John Oliver on the set of "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver." (Eric Liebowitz / HBO)
Being on hiatus for the past few months, John Oliver said while promoting Sunday night's first "Last Week Tonight" of the Donald Trump presidency, was like "being tied to a train track, watching the train coming."
"And then, of course, Inauguration Day is the train hitting you, and you're thinking 'Yep that felt pretty much how I thought it was going to feel,' " he said, speaking to Stephen Colbert on CBS's "The Late Show."
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Sunday on HBO, the British comic whom America has learned to look to for perspective on our most meaningful national woes finally got to chime in on the 45th president using his own bells, his own desk, his own set and writers.
Their grand play? A fake medical ad running Monday morning on Washington, D.C.-area cable shows that will veer away from catheter talk to explain U.S. nuclear policy "in case you're the kind of person that really needs to know that."
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That kind of person, of course, would be the president of the United States, a known morning cable watcher.
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To say it was a blistering "Last Week Tonight," though, would be an overstatement. There was too much to catch up on since the show last aired in mid-November, and in Oliver, like in many comics attempting to cope with Trump these days, you sense a kind of battle fatigue. Trump has only been in office a few weeks, yet the string of falsehoods and confounding or outrageous maneuvers has become almost a duty, rather than a joy, to satirize.
It's gotten so bad, Oliver said, that when his phone buzzed with a news alert recently, he looked down and was relieved: "Oh, thank God, it's just that Mary Tyler Moore is dead," he recalled thinking.
He spoke of being jealous of Eddie, the dog from "Frasier," because of his state of blissful ignorance: "He's a dog, he's fictional, and he's almost certainly dead." (Yes, in 2006.)
"Trump has made it clear that reality is not important to him," Oliver said, citing a Politifact conclusion that two-thirds of what Trump said has been untrue. "We have a president capable of standing in the rain and saying it was a sunny day."
While Oliver has been off the air, the late-night landscape has been shifting. Colbert and Seth Meyers, performing comedy that comes from a state of genuine alarm about the meaning of a Trump presidency, have risen in ratings and in popular regard. Samantha Bee continues to tattoo the president on her weekly show, and Trevor Noah and Bill Maher aim to do so too.
The comedy of urgency is carrying the day. The comedy of tousling Donald Trump's hair looking at you, Jimmy Fallon seems naive, even a little dangerous.
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So where does Oliver, a green card holder peering at us through a long lens, fit in?
The whole answer cannot come from one "Last Week." But the show, as I said, felt a little exasperated already, because it knows this battle will be long and tiresome and very likely repetitive. Sunday's "Last Week" had the trappings of a comedy show, but it could be read also as news analysis, a PSA with high production values and a much better-than-usual timeslot.
After a video montage of Trump's genuinely off-kilter handshake techniques, Oliver settled into the main topic. It wasn't going to be one of the reported comic essays on the likes of tax-increment financing districts with which the show has made its mark. No, the subject would be the inevitable one: Trump.
Oliver's goal, he said, was to answer four basic questions: How did we get "a pathological liar" in the White House? What is the source of those lies? Why do some people believe them? And what is to be done?
And so he laid out the answers, a refresher course for those who've been following things but perhaps an eye-opener to the folks who, um, only get their news from HBO on Sundays.
Oliver laid out the case that Trump gets news from cable TV and then from the likes of adviser Steve Bannon's far-right Breitbart website and from Alex Jones' bat-guano crazy InfoWars. He showed a clip of Trump telling Jones, "You'll be very, very impressed, I hope" with what he is able to do.
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People believe these things, the host said, because they've insulated themselves from conflicting news sources and because the White House keeps insisting that what the president believes to be true that millions voted illegally, for instance is a defensible position because it is what he believes.
"Faith and facts aren't like Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton," Oliver said. "When you confuse them, it actually matters."
He showed a Texas congressmen counseling people to rely on Trump as their primary source for news without realizing the magnitude of such a statement. "Getting your news directly from the leader is basically the policy of North Korea," Oliver pointed out.
As for what to do, Oliver suggested further protests, calls to legislators and lawsuits, yes. But his show, he said, was going after Trump where he seems to live: on a sofa during the cable news morning shows.
He showed the ad scheduled to air Monday morning, the host said, in hopes of getting through to the president. It featured a cowboy type in what looked like a cheap medical ad, targeting "catheter patients." But then the cowboy explained what the "nuclear triad" is.
Other points that future such ads might make: "There are actually many non-you people," and "You're confusing climate with weather, podner."
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Most of the show's jokes about Trump have been done, in one form or another, because he is being so carefully scrutinized by programs running more regularly. That's not to say you don't keep pointing out, say, the difference between the border wall candidate Trump promised and whatever it is President Trump will build.
But crafting an actual ad targeting Trump is an innovative response, the kind of bold maneuver that can continue to give "Last Week" a distinctive identity and help it fend off Trump fatigue.
The questions for Monday morning: Will Trump tweet about catheters or about the nuclear triad? And will the ad even be allowed to air, now that Oliver has made its satirical intent clear?
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @StevenKJohnson
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Sometimes "till death do us part" just isn't soon enough.
The phenomenon of late-life divorce is growing fast -- and blowing apart a lot of divorcing spouses' retirement plans in the process.
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"It's almost like a gray divorce boom is unfolding just before our eyes," said Ann Dowd, vice president of Fidelity Investments.
Between 1990 and 2010, the divorce rate among individuals 50 and older doubled, according to the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. In part because of increased longevity, late-life breakups now account for one in four divorces.
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And they can destroy even the best financial planning.
"Most couples plan for retirement on the assumption they will be living together. When that assumption falls apart, it's not just a division of wealth but a doubling of the costs that makes both partners poorer," said Annamaria Lusardi, an economist at George Washington University.
Suddenly, it's not one house or apartment but two with all the related expenses. You're not sharing the cost of a visit to the grandchildren - you're visiting separately. Overall, estimates of how much more it costs for two people to live separately rather than together are as high as 30 to 40 percent.
"[Divorce] is the largest financial transaction of your life, because every part is moving, from car insurance to credit reports to your ability to get financing," said Jennifer Failla, a divorce financial analyst and mediator at Strada Wealth Management in Austin.
"People get into this process and they're overwhelmed," she said. "They don't know what to do, and they start making rash decisions." She and other experts advise beginning with the basics: "Start with what you own and what you owe."
Sometimes that might mean your first call should be to a financial planner or an accountant rather than a divorce lawyer -- especially if your spouse has handled most of the finances. A financial expert can help you understand what's at stake and also may also note anomalies in accounting for your assets that suggest less than full disclosure.
And it's important to understand more than just the face value of an asset, said Mark R. Parthemer, managing director and senior fiduciary counsel of Bessemer Trust of Palm Beach, Fla. "You need to understand the future value of assets because real estate perhaps is going to have a different growth than a deferred retirement account," he said. "Liquidating assets also can have different tax consequences."
For instance a Roth IRA and a regular IRA may have equal balances, but withdrawals from the regular IRA will be taxable while those from the Roth will not because taxes were paid when the money was set aside to grow forever after tax-free.
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"Try to peel away the money from the emotions and try to understand the outcome you're going to achieve and how that's going to launch you into the next stage," Failla said. She notes that going through mediation to obtain a divorce can save money, too. State court systems usually maintain lists of mediators.
She advises clients who are divorcing to not discuss details of the divorce with anyone outside the case and to not get entangled in new financial relationships right away.
Some experts say couples could learn from businesses how to anticipate future problems. "Businesses always prepare for losses, but people never set money aside to pay for divorce lawyers or two households," Atlanta divorce lawyer Randall M. Kessler said. "In fact, they always envision the exact opposite - that one of them will die and they will have to spend on one person the income meant for two."
"The number one destroyer of wealth is divorce," said Rick Kahler of the Kahler Financial Group of Rapid City, S.D. "Keeping a marriage strong is the best investment." Kahler is on the board of the Financial Therapy Association, which works to integrate financial goals with other aspects of well-being.
Kahler said couples should examine their marital partnership to see "if this is a really good business partnership, too. We tell our clients to do a 'buy-sell agreement.' " That's a type of agreement sometimes adopted by business partners looking forward to what they would do in the case of setbacks such as bankruptcy, or "if one partner wants to fire another or to leave and work for a competitor." In other words, a prenuptial agreement.
"Pre-nups are not very popular because they're not very romantic," he said. "It's a hard sell to look at the money aspect of a marriage, but those that do are better off."
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Didn't negotiate a pre-nup? Lawyer Kessler recommends a post-nup - reaching agreement on similar issues after you're already wed.
"The best advice is when you do retirement planning, do divorce planning at the same time," he said. Laws covering postnuptial agreements vary by states, as do laws governing how assets will be divided in a divorce in the absence of an agreement. In the nine states that are community property states, assets acquired during the marriage will be split 50-50. In other states, the rule is "equitable distribution," which means assets will be split fairly but not necessarily equally.
One impulse to guard against, Parthemer said, is being overly generous, which seems to be more likely the longer the marriage has lasted.
"When it's been 30 or 40 years, and you just came to the point where you've grown apart and can't recapture what you had. It's less about 'I hate you' and more about 'I need to do this for me,' " he said. "That's where you can find the higher-earning spouse wanting to do more."
But paying "more than is reasonable or required can put yourself in harm's way or jeopardy," he said.
Kessler has a different view. "To me, divorce isn't about the money, it's about happiness," he said. "No one gets divorced to be richer."
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"If someone wants out, they're probably be willing to pay more to get out or for closure," he said. "I wish we could quantify closure."
Gospel Church of Bayannur, an emerging city in western Inner Mongolia, stresses on developing young co-workers. There are eight theological students from the church, one of whom has already graduated from a seminary.
The church shares that it encourages the congregation to lead their children to study theology, realizing that pastors are the greatest need of the church.
During the Spring Festival holiday, these seven students who returned to the church participated in the church service as preachers, worship leaders and presiders, which was a new highlight for the church. Rev. Lu, the senior pastor, summarized their spiritual conditions during their internship and commented on their advantages and disadvantages of their service.
Translated by Karen Luo
Since the presidential election, health care experts have reported an upswing in women requesting long-term birth control options like an IUD, a small T-shaped device that is inserted into the uterus. (iStock)
The day after President Donald Trump's inauguration, millions of women of all ages marched in the streets of major cities. In the past few months, there's been another, quieter march that's far more personal, yet still political.
If you're not a woman of childbearing age or a health care provider, you might not have noticed it. Since the election, women have been seeing their gynecologists and visiting Planned Parenthood offices specifically to ask about birth control.
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Why the rush? For starters, if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, as Trump has promised, contraceptives could get a lot more expensive. Since 2012, the ACA has required that private health insurance plans cover prescription contraceptives with no cost-sharing for patients.
But cost isn't the only concern. Women see a Congress that is threatening to defund Planned Parenthood, a vice president who has promised to restrict access to abortion, a Supreme Court nominee who could be hostile to women's health care and they want to do whatever they can to avoid an unplanned pregnancy in the next few years.
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For some, the best options are an IUD, a small T-shaped device that is inserted into the uterus, or Nexplanon, a hormonal implant that goes in the arm. Aside from being the most effective forms of reversible birth control on the market with failure rates of under 1 percent they have another attractive selling point: For most women with health insurance, they're free. And certain versions can outlast a presidency.
Dorothy, a 25-year-old law student in Washington, D.C., who spoke on condition that only her first name be used, recently got an IUD for the first time. "I keep joking that what I'm doing is Pence-proofing my uterus," she said.
Dr. Sabrina Holmquist, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago, estimated that the number of requests for IUDs at the medical center has doubled since the election.
"(Women) will say, 'I'm worried I won't be able to get it,'" said Holmquist, adding that some students are opting for long-lasting IUDs that can work for a decade.
Health-care providers and analysts are quick to note that the use of IUDs and Nexplanon which can last from three to 12 years was growing long before Trump was elected. But, health providers add, a lot of women are concerned about losing benefits and are making long-term decisions as a result. When faced with uncertainty over coverage and access to care, they're choosing the most certain yet reversible option.
A report last month found a 19 percent increase in the number of doctors' visits related to intrauterine devices (IUDs) from October to December 2016. Planned Parenthood notes that IUD use has grown 91 percent in the past five years, with a steeper spike recently: "In the first week after the election, Planned Parenthood saw a significant increase in appointments for birth control, with a nearly tenfold increase in people seeking IUDs and we continue to see higher than average numbers," Raegan McDonald-Mosley, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
It's a personal decision that lots of women are being public about. They're sharing links on Twitter about how much an IUD would cost if the ACA were repealed (around $1,000 in most states); they're posting images of their IUDs and prompting their Facebook friends to AMA (or "ask me anything") about what it's like to get one inserted. The short answer: Insertion can be painful, side effects vary, and they're not for everyone.
Doctors' offices are also anecdotally reporting an IUD rush. Julian Safran, a doctor at Capital Women's Care in Washington, says that demand for IUDs since the election has been "huge," estimating that his office has been doing about three to four times as many insertions as compared to before the election. Dana Shanis says that her gynecological practice in Philadelphia, which has a high concentration of professional women in their 20s to 40s who are delaying childbearing, has also seen a "huge bump" in women getting IUDs and Nexplanon.
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"Women in my practice are definitely concerned about what's going to happen to their insurance," Shanis said, noting that her office used to order 15 to 20 IUDs at a time and now they're placing orders of 50 at a time.
Some women who were on the daily pill, monthly Nuvaring or quarterly hormonal injection have decided to move to long-term birth control while it's still covered. For the past five years, Rebecca Ullrich, a 28-year-old policy analyst in Washington, was on the Nuvaring, a contraceptive ring that sits inside the vagina and is replaced every month. "I really liked the medication I was on," Ullrich said, but the Nuvaring would be about $90 a month if it weren't covered by her insurance.
The week after the election, she had her annual exam and asked her gynecologist about getting an IUD. The next month, she got a Mirena, an IUD that lasts for five years. Mirena was completely covered by her insurance. "It's just nice to know that I'm not going to have to worry about that expense," she said, but added that Mirena isn't quite as good at controlling her menstrual cramps as the Nuvaring was.
How likely is it that the no-cost coverage of birth control, one of the hallmarks of ACA, will disappear? It's a popular policy: Seventy-one percent of Americans support laws requiring health insurance plans to fully cover the costs of birth control, according to a survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. But there's no guarantee it will stick around.
"It's definitely at risk," said Usha Ranji, the associate director of women's health policy at KFF, while also noting that required coverage of birth control has made quite an impact in the short amount of time it's been in place.
Dorothy, the law student, acknowledges that many others are worse off than she might be.
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"A lot of people including me are worried about losing basic bodily autonomy," she said. "I think there's a lot of uncertainty in a lot of communities right now. People are scared."
Chicago Tribune's Alison Bowen contributed.
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Who needs a sled!
In Antarctica, they're superfluous -- for both humans and penguins. The Chinstrap penguins we watch (so named because of their black markings that resemble a chin strap) effortlessly slide down a big ice floe into the water amid the floating chunks of ice, leaving tracks just like skiers on a powder day.
The 34 kids that are part of the Abercrombie and Kent family trip here, sailing on the 200-passenger Le Boreal, take their cue from the animals, sliding down the slushy hill (yes, it was warmer in Antarctica than in the Northeast) on their backsides, trudging back up so they could do it again at the bottom of the world in Neko Harbour.
"The best day of my life and that's only a little exaggeration," said Conrad Kistler, 12, from Orange County, California.
It's an Instagram-worthy day -- blue skies, water so clear we can see penguins diving, glaciers all around and, of course, the bountiful wildlife. We even witnessed glacier calves, solid ice hitting the sea with a large "boom!"
During this trip, we walked amid thousands of penguins (we saw five species) not bothered by our presence and fur seals who were. The huge elephant seals ignored us, as did the humpback whales we watched from zodiacs. They were too busy feeding to pay attention to the paparazzi snapping their photos.
Surprisingly on this trip, which lasted a little over two weeks, the teens hardly missed Wi-Fi. It's very difficult and expensive to connect here. They explained that it was too stressful to keep up with their friends on social media and, said Sean Jacobson, 15, from San Diego, the enforced break from constant texting and posting was "relaxing."
Besides, he added, "There was always something new to see and something to do." There were onboard lectures offered by Antarctica expert naturalists and historians and an excellent Young Explorers program where you had an opportunity to dissect a squid one day, identify seabirds from the deck another day and watch Orca whales from the bridge with the always enthusiastic captain the kids dubbed "Captain Wow."
Kids learned to drive a zodiac, put out fires at the Falklands Island fire station with affable firefighters and to play harmonicas with Canadian "Harmonica Mike" Stevens, who tours the world playing. In the downtime, kids could be found playing video games or teaching each other new card games with newfound friends from across the world -- Moscow to Melbourne, Australia, Shanghai to Chicago to New York. I've never seen so many teens and tweens so engaged. Antarctica has been in the news lately. There are reports that a massive ice shelf the size of Delaware -- one of Antarctica's largest -- is about to break off from the most northern major ice shelf in Antarctica, fundamentally changing the landscape of the peninsula.
At the same time, the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, formed 25 years ago to promote safe and environmentally responsible travel here, reports that tourism here is increasing, with 44,000 visitors expected this year. Just as significant, visitors are skewing younger and they're interested in more active pursuits.
That was evident aboard Le Boreal, a PONANT luxury ship. A trip that once was the purview of wealthy retirees is now is attracting well-heeled millennial families that are no longer willing to wait to take bucket list excursions. More than half the kids onboard, like Kevin Taylor, 12, from suburban Chicago, were visiting their seventh continent.
He, like the other well-traveled kids, insists everywhere he goes makes him want to dive deeper. "There are so many different countries and cultures to explore," he said.
"Travel teaches you to be flexible and compassionate, explained Kevin's dad, Mike Taylor, who added that he and his wife are glad Kevin has been privileged to learn about the world in so many different places.
"I want my kids to be exposed to other cultures and to see that the world is bigger than their world in the U.S," explained Janna Gutierrez, from Montclair, N.J. Her kids are 10 and 12, and like other millennial families, they value experiences more than "things."
"Money well spent, and much better than a shopping spree," said Kay Beal, who lives in Minneapolis and was traveling with her husband and two college-aged daughters.
Families aboard Le Boreal say they have chosen to come to Antarctica now because they worry about how fast the continent is changing and how that will impact the abundant wildlife. "Who knows what it will be like here when we're grown up," said Sky Allison, 15, who's from Troy, Michigan.
There were so many I-can't-believe-I'm-here moments. Only 100 passengers at a time are permitted on the rocky beach, and the expedition staff sets up paths so we don't disturb the animals. They, of course, have the right of way.
Valiena Allison, who recently sold her business, said that one of the best gifts parents could give their kids was to show them the world. "Seeing something first-hand is a lot different than reading about it in a book," her husband Dan added.
Obviously most families couldn't afford this trip, not at the cost of more than $50,000 for a family of four. There are less-expensive options offered by IAPPO's 120 operators, from large cruise ships that don't land at all to small boats with simple accommodations and meals. The vast majority of Antarctica visitors visit via ship.
Families chose this Abercrombie and Kent trip because it was over the holiday break and specifically for families, stopping in the Falklands and South Georgia, as well as Antarctica. Wildlife lovers especially wanted to visit South Georgia with its huge penguin colonies and seals.
But parents and grandparents were surprised by how fast new friendships were made. By the third day, kids were having lunch together at the more casual buffet on board -- the tween girls at one table; the tween boys at another, the teens together. They'd meet for dinner whenever parents permitted and at the outdoor heated pool to play "Marco Polo."
Those traveling without kids enjoyed their enthusiasm and distinct perspective. "The kids bring an added energy and excitement to everything," explained veteran cruise director Nadia Eckhardt. "It rubs off on everyone."
On our last day in Antarctica, we all went for a walk -- in the middle of the ocean, 1,500-feet deep. We were on "fast" floating ice 3-feet thick. "I'll always remember this," declared Olivia Gembarovski, 10, from Melbourne, Australia. "You don't see people walking on ice in the middle of the ocean every day."
Then there were the humpback whales. Wilhelmina Bay where we were is a kind of supermarket for whales with abundant krill that they feed on. After our walk, we cruised around the bay as whales popped up on all sides. "Really crazy!" said Marcos Gutierrez, 12.
Kyndall Beal, 18, added, "We won't even need pictures to remember this!"
(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments.)
Kim Hively had been teaching math for more than 14 years as an adjunct professor at Ivy Tech Community College when, in 2014, she found herself without a job. She sued the college, claiming she was discriminated against based on her sexual orientation. Hively discusses the issue at her home in South Bend, Ind. (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune) (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)
Every night Marsha Wetzel barricades herself in her room at Glen St. Andrew Living Community. The 69-year-old pushes a table against the door to keep out people who may want to hurt her. Since moving into the senior housing facility in Niles, Wetzel has been hit, spit on and rammed into by other residents because she is a lesbian, according to a federal lawsuit she filed against housing administrators for failing to intervene.
In South Bend, Ind., Kim Hively teaches at a high school after she wasn't promoted to full-time math professor at Ivy Tech Community College. She applied six times between 2009 and 2014 and was not granted any interviews, according to the lawsuit she filed in federal court against the institution. The reason, she alleges, is that someone saw her kissing her girlfriend goodbye.
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Both cases one pending before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, the other expected to be appealed to that same court could explicitly expand LGBT rights into federal arenas such as housing and employment. To make a ruling, however, judges must consider a core issue that rests at the heart of each case: Is discrimination against sex, which is barred in federal civil rights laws, the same as discrimination against sexual orientation?
The question comes at a time when judges nationwide are increasingly willing to see the two acts as one and the same, said Anthony Kreis, a visiting assistant professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. The semantics matter because laws on the books ban only discrimination based on sex interpreted as a person's gender not based on sexual orientation.
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"At the heart of many sex discrimination claims and sexual orientation discrimination claims is the idea that the motivating animus behind discriminatory action is all about gender stereotyping," said Kreis, who researches the law's treatment of LGBT people. "We perceive you should behave in 'x' way, and if you don't, we're going to react in a way that's contrary to fair employment practices or fair housing practices."
For example, Kreis explained, backlash stemming from a same-sex relationship is rooted in the societal expectation that men should date women and women date men. If someone is denied an opportunity for defying that gender norm, the ensuing discrimination should be seen as sex discrimination, he said.
LGBT rights advocates say momentum appears to be building for this broader interpretation.
In November, a district court judge in Pennsylvania ruled that a telemarketing employee could sue a company for sexual orientation discrimination because a manager subjected him to obscene and frequent name-calling. Meanwhile, a pending case brought by a gay and HIV-positive ad executive in New York prompted a lower court judge in March to question whether the view on sexual orientation discrimination needs to be revamped. Courts from Connecticut to Georgia also are determining such lawsuits.
In the 7th Circuit, Wetzel and Hively are the most recent examples pushing courts to "dig deeper" into the distinction of sex versus sexuality, said Karen Loewy, an attorney at Lambda Legal who worked on both lawsuits.
"It's been an evolving area of law," Loewy said. "Increasingly, we're seeing courts and federal agencies recognize that the kind of discrimination and harassment LGBT people are facing really is a form of sex discrimination."
A hostile housing environment
Wetzel's case is expected to land in the 7th Circuit after a district court judge dismissed the lawsuit last month. Loewy said she will appeal that decision.
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The lawsuit, filed in July, accuses the administration at Glen St. Andrew of violating the Fair Housing Act by failing to respond to repeated reports of harassment that impeded Wetzel's access to fair and equal lodging.
After the cancer death of her longtime partner, Wetzel started renting a room at the senior housing facility in November 2014, according to her lawsuit. Though administrators did not express any problem with her sexual orientation in an applicant interview, some residents responded violently once she moved in.
"They went World War III," Wetzel said in a recent interview. "It went through this rumor mill. It got to people. I started getting called names. And in a couple of weeks, it just kept getting worse and worse and worse."
Between April 2015 and July 2016, Wetzel was attacked from behind, knocked off her scooter and insulted with derogatory names for lesbians, among other assaults, the lawsuit says. Scared and intimidated, she skipped group meals in the dining hall to eat alone in her room as her complaints went unaddressed by the administrators.
Additionally, the lawsuit accuses the facility of retaliating against Wetzel for complaining by limiting her access to the lobby and threatening to evict her. By failing to take corrective action, attorneys argued, Glen St. Andrew created a hostile housing environment, fueled by residents who discriminated against Wetzel because she is a lesbian.
Attorneys for Glen St. Andrew did not respond to a request for comment. In court filings, lawyers do not directly contest that Wetzel suffered discrimination from other residents because of her sexual orientation. Instead, the company asserts that it can't be held liable for the discriminatory actions of its tenants.
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In dismissing the case, U.S. Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan ruled in favor of the housing company, finding that Wetzel failed to show any discriminatory intent of behalf of the administrators. He also pointed to the fact that Wetzel still resides there, saying that defeats her argument that the institution's failings created an uninhabitable environment.
"Wetzel does not allege any facts that suggest any actions taken against her by Defendants that were based on her gender or sexual orientation," Der-Yeghiayan wrote in his Jan. 18 ruling.
Wetzel and her attorneys disagree, arguing that the law allows her to hold the housing administrators accountable for perpetrating a hostile housing environment.
For her part, Wetzel said she refused to vacate her room because she didn't want to let her oppressors win.
"I don't do nothing to them. I'm just me," she said. "They are as human as me, and I am as human as them. What gives them the right? How do they get the idea that they can put somebody down for who they love?"
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Hively's case has been pending before all 12 appellate judges on the 7th Circuit since the full panel took it under advisement Nov. 30.
The 50-year-old lesbian filed her lawsuit in August 2014 after Ivy Tech Community College, where she worked as an adjunct part-time professor for 14 years, did not renew her contract.
Hively alleged she had been denied full-time employment and promotions because of her sexual orientation, pointing to an incident in 2009 when someone reported seeing Hively kiss a girlfriend goodbye. An administrator reprimanded her for the behavior, Hively has said, marking a change in her treatment at the institution.
Unlike the Wetzel case, Ivy Tech argued in their defense that the law did not protect against sexual orientation discrimination.
A district court judge in Indiana agreed. So did a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit, who affirmed the lower court's opinion but issued a 42-page ruling nudging the Supreme Court or Congress to directly address the question.
"Although it seems likely that most of the causes of discrimination based on sexual orientation ultimately stem from employers' and co-workers' discomfort with a lesbian woman's and or a gay man's failure to abide by gender norms, we cannot say that it must be so in all cases. Therefore we cannot conclude that the two must necessarily be coextensive unless or until either the legislature or the Supreme Court says it is so," wrote U.S. Judge Ilana Rovner in the opinion.
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In a rare move after the opinion came down, the entire panel voted to rehear the case and vacated its earlier ruling in October.
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Lawyers say that signals the judges are willing to reconsider key issues in the case.
Hively, who got certified for teaching high school, said she isn't overly anxious about the outcome.
"It would be nice for it to have some closure, but you go on with your life," she said.
A win for Hively or Wetzel would create precedent for lower courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin to follow. It could also embolden other circuits to revisit their laws or decisions on the topic, said John Knight, director for LGBT and HIV projects at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
Citing the 2015 Supreme Court decision that made marriage equality the law of the land, Knight said the pending cases follow "a significant number of developments in the world of civil rights and the protections of the LGBT people. The notion that someone can get married one day and get fired the next (because they are gay) has given judges pause to think, 'Huh. That's wrong.' "
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echerney@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @Elyssacherney
The new Ferris Wheel on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at Navy Pier. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune) (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
In Chicago, love is in the air for Valentine's Day.
Navy Pier is looking to make that special day a little less expensive by offering free rides on the Ferris wheel Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 2:14 p.m. or for the first 1,200 riders.
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Typically, tickets for the Centennial Wheel are $12 for adults and $10 for children ages 3 to 11 during the winter under discounted seasonal rates for Illinois residents.
On Tuesday, the Centennial Wheel will double as a spinning photo booth with Valentine's Day-themed props in each of the 42 fully enclosed, temperature-controlled gondolas. Couples waiting in line will be randomly selected for an upgrade to the VIP gondola with glass-bottom views.
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Tuesday also is National Ferris Wheel Day, honoring the first Ferris wheel showcased at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and celebrating the current 196-foot-tall Centennial Wheel named for Navy Pier's 100th anniversary which opened Memorial Day weekend in 2016.
Since it opened on May 27, nearly 800,000 people have ridden on the Centennial Wheel, according to Navy Pier spokesman Payal Patel.
It's also kept couples high on love, with more than 50 marriage proposals counted on the wheel, he said.
lvivanco@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @lvivanco
The sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth moved from their convent to provided space for a new cancer treatment center. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)
When the sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, a religious order dedicated to providing education and health care to the poor, decided to end their lease and return their West Side convent to Presence Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in West Town in 2013, they hoped it would provide a sanctuary for patients seeking physical and spiritual healing.
On Tuesday, the hospital officially will open its Center for Cancer and Specialty Care, a new all-in-one center for cancer testing and treatment inside the former convent, which will bring the sisters' ministry full circle.
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"It was a holy place, very reverent," said Sister Regina Jaszwinski, who along with the rest of the sisters now lives at a retirement center in Des Plaines. "We're glad people who are sick can go there and recover. We're so happy because that's what our Lord would want."
Dr. Korathu Thomas, medical director of the center, said the all-in-one facility has been his dream since he began working at what was then St. Mary's as a hematologist and oncologist in 1982. He said the center also helps fill the void left behind by the sisters, who used to staff the hospital adjacent to their convent. As patients bounced around floors, buildings and departments cobbling together their treatment, Thomas relied on the sisters to provide compassion and comfort.
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"When a sister is walking into a patient's room, patients get more relaxed," Thomas said. "So sisters made the rounds with me."
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 6 Nurse Sol Ruiz delivers chemotherapy to Ebony Mitchell, 39, at the new cancer treatment center at Presence Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Chicago on Jan. 18, 2017. Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth decided to end their convent lease the healing center. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
The converted convent maintains the spirit of their presence, he said. "A social worker, financial counselor, patient advocates, a nutritionist are within this building," he said.
Sister Ann Marie Cwick, an oncology nurse who worked alongside Thomas for more than 30 years, remembers when a diagnosis meant certain death.
"Our whole focus was just to be there and sit with them and spend time with them," she recalled. "We walked with them because of the whole idea you don't know where they'll go on this journey. There's no guarantee the treatment is going to work."
But much has improved since those early days, Thomas said. He remembers when outpatient treatment wasn't an option and patients with some forms of cancer lived only months, often confined to a hospital bed. Now 99 percent of chronic leukemias are cured and patients with some forms of cancer that once had six-month life expectancies now live for years.
Thomas credits early diagnoses, advancements in treatment and the availability of supportive care, all available now at the new outpatient facility serving the West Town, Humboldt Park and Ukrainian Village neighborhoods.
Oncology Nurse Sol Ruiz delivers a weekly chemotherapy treatment to patient Ebony Mitchell at the Center for Cancer and Specialty Care at Presence Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Chicago. The hospital will officially open the new center Feb. 14, 2017. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
In 2012, Presence Sts. Mary and Elizabeth launched a community health survey and a study of health trends in those neighborhoods to identify gaps in health care. The study, conducted by the Advisory Board, a consulting firm used by hospitals and other medical providers, projected a nearly 20 percent jump in cancer cases over the next decade. That included a 23 percent spike in lung and urological cancers.
Stonish Pierce, the hospital's director of ambulatory care, said the data indicated a virtual cancer care desert on the city's West and Northwest sides, between the Illinois Medical District (Rush University Medical Center and Stroger Hospital) and River Forest.
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Presence Health, which is led by a coalition of women's religious orders, put $12 million a combination of hospital funds and donations from neighbors, former patients, physicians and some sisters toward construction costs, new equipment, technology and support systems for the new cancer center.
Four of the sisters' bedrooms in the former convent were converted into private suites for patients receiving infusions of chemotherapy. Two more bedrooms were merged to become a community infusion room. For patients receiving radiation treatment, the center uses a state-of-the-art linear accelerator to deliver high-energy X-rays to a tumor.
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Hospital leaders expect the building, which also contains on-site laboratories and a pharmacy, to handle up to 50 patients a day. They expect 5,000 patients to cycle through in the first year.
Ebony Mitchell, 39, of Rogers Park, said she started going to the new center as soon as it opened on a trial basis in December. She takes advantage of the private suites converted from the sisters' bedrooms. Her mother sits by her side meditating for up to six hours at a time as she receives an infusion of chemotherapy to fight her colon cancer.
"This is how we became family," she said, referring to the doctors and nurses who oversee her care at the center. "It's where I spend most of my time."
The story behind the facility adds a dose of spiritual medicine to her treatment.
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"I know about God, and that's what's kept me going all along," she said. "We're going to do this together. I didn't get this far for nothing."
mbrachear@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @TribSeeker
Chicago's police SWAT team attempts to talk down a man threatening to kill himself with a gun in his parked car on Queen's Landing just off Lake Shore Drive on Feb. 12, 2017. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune) (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)
A man surrendered to Chicago police after officers negotiated with him while he sat in his car, causing Lake Shore Drive near Buckingham Fountain to be blocked downtown for more than an hour.
Authorities were called to the 500 block of South Lake Shore Drive about 5:05 p.m. because of a man in a vehicle parked on Queen's Landing, east of the road, according to police. Police received calls from people concerned about the man after he started broadcasting live on social media.
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A SWAT team negotiated with the man, who police said had a gun and was threatening suicide, for more than an hour, and he gave himself up about 6:40 p.m.
Lake Shore was blocked in both directions between Jackson and Balbo drives during the incident.
Chicago police are searching for a 16-year-old girl who was last seen in January leaving her home in the Little Village neighborhood. (Chicago Police Department)
Chicago police are searching for a 16-year-old girl who has been missing since last month.
Sidney Sellers was last seen Jan. 24 leaving her home near the 2100 block of South Trumbull Avenue in the Little Village neighborhood, according to a news release from police.
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The teen could be on the West Side near Ohio Street and Spaulding Avenue, police said.
She was last seen wearing a red coat, and she is described as a black teen with black hair and brown eyes. She is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 142 pounds.
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Anyone with information about the girl's whereabouts is asked to call Area Central Special Victims Unit at 312-747-8380.
A 40-year-old city worker was fatally injured when a trench he was working in collapsed around him Monday afternoon on the Northwest Side, according to authorities.
The collapse happened about 1:10 p.m. near Sauganash and Keeler avenues, just north of Peterson Avenue, on the Far Northwest Side.
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Chicago Fire Department paramedics took the man to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston in "very critical condition," said Cmdr. Curtis Hudson, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department. He was later pronounced dead, according to police and a city Water Management spokesman.
"He was working in the hole, and the hole collapsed on him," he said.
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The man was identified as Konrad Tucharski, a bricklayer for the city Water Management Department, according to Gary Litherland, a spokesman for the department. Tucharski, 40, was pronounced dead at 1:49 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
Tucharski had been involved in a sewer-replacement project when the collapse took place, Litherland said.
"Our sympathy and prayers are with his family and friends," Litherland said.
The city has contacted the Illinois Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is investigating the accident, Litherland said.
City records held by the Tribune indicate Tucharski had worked for the city since at least May 2012.
Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Subscribe here.
Topspin
Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton says he's no fan of "circus" town hall meetings and prefers a more controlled setting for town-hall-style meetings by telephone, which he will conduct on Monday night.
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Roskam has come under criticism from political opponents for refusing to appear onstage at a large event to hear from people concerned about GOP plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, in addition to budget issues, gun laws and changes to the federal tax code.
Some recent congressional town hall meetings held by Republicans have seen visible protests, in some cases a Democratic reaction to the early days of Republican President Donald Trump's administration.
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"Town hall meetings tend to be platforms for people to shout at one another and get angry at one another and leave more upset and disappointed and bent out of shape than when people came. And the proof of that is just look at the national news," Roskam said Sunday in an interview on WGN 720-AM.
Roskam said he's held only one town hall public forum during his decade in Congress representing the west and northwest suburbs and "didn't find it particularly productive." Instead, he said he favors conducting telephone town halls and held 11 of them last year.
"There's an opportunity for people who don't go to town hall meetings and don't write their congressman and don't write letters to the editor, but you go into their kitchen, so to speak, and they can actively participate. And the feedback I've gotten is terrific," he said.
"I have no plans to have one of these big, sort of circus meetings, but instead try to hear from my district both people who you know are concerned about some of the positions that I've taken from people who are going to let me hear their opinion and it's counter to mine and that's part of the democracy," he said.
Roskam said he usually has 10,000 participants in the telephonic town halls but predicted he'd "probably, based on the interest, have much higher numbers" on Monday night.
Participants for Roskam's phone meetings are asked to register through his campaign website in order to to be called for the town hall. That web site is here.
Meanwhile, Roskam's colleague, Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren of Plano, said he will soon be announcing "several opportunities for constituents to engage with me in coming days," including public meetings.
Hultgren, however, also said some of his staff members have felt "threatened and intimidated" by the actions of some political opponents, and he has beefed up security measures in his district office.
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"We unfortunately are living in a time when emotions are high and reactions can be unpredictable. At the recommendation of Capitol Police and advice of local law enforcement, I have brought my constituent office up to par with security procedures that exist in other public meeting places," Hultgren said in a statement. He added that his small office cannot accommodate large groups that recently began showing up without notice.
"We aren't quite at the level of a federal building, but my staff now has the peace of mind needed to conduct the important work they do for seniors, veterans, international travelers, and more. The vast majority of constituents are peaceful and respectful," he said. "However, there have been a couple of instances where my hard-working staff members who live in our communities have felt threatened and intimidated. No one should stand for that, and I won't either."
Hultgren said he announces public meetings through his e-newsletter, The Hultgren Huddle, and through his website at Hultgren.house.gov.
"I am very happy with the level of constituent engagement in the 14th District it's one of the best ways to ensure our democracy prospers," he said. "While constituents have communicated a high level of frustration, many offer rock solid solutions after being able to convey their concerns. Unlike other areas in the country, we are fortunate in the 14th that we haven't forgotten that in the end we are all neighbors."
While Roskam and Hultgren both have traditionally strong Republican-leaning districts, that didn't prove to be the case in the balloting for president.
Research from the FiveThirtyEight.com website shows the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, defeated Trump by 7 percentage points in Roskam's district. In Hultgren's district, regarded as more strongly Republican than Roskam's, Trump won by 3.9 percentage points over Clinton. (Rick Pearson)
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What's on tap
*Mayor Rahm Emanuel's schedule wasn't available.
*Gov. Bruce Rauner has no public schedule.
*Monday is the observation of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, a state and city holiday.
*The week ahead: The Illinois House and Senate will meet again this week, with Rauner set to deliver his budget speech to lawmakers Wednesday. He has signaled what The Illinois House and Senate will meet again this week, with Rauner set to deliver his budget speech to lawmakers Wednesday. He has signaled what might be coming
From the notebook
Follow the money
*State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, a Democrat running for mayor of Aurora, reported $17,000 in contributions across three different reports.
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*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.
Beyond Chicago
*The author of Trump's travel ban defends it Sunday.
*And a Trump friend calls Priebus "way over his head."
*Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch has defended free speech and religion.
*North Korea test-fires a missile.
The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.
This photo taken on February 12, 2017 and released on February 13 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows the launch of a surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 at an undisclosed location. (STR / AFP/Getty Images)
PYONGYANG, North Korea The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned North Korea late Monday over its latest ballistic missile launches and warned of "further significant measures" if Pyongyang doesn't stop nuclear and missile testing.
A council statement agreed to by all 15 members followed strong condemnation by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of the latest launch and U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to deal with North Korea "very strongly."
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The Security Council condemned Saturday's launch and a previous test Oct. 19, saying North Korea's activities to develop its nuclear weapons delivery systems violate U.N. sanctions and increase tensions. It called on all U.N. members "to redouble their efforts" to implement U.N. sanctions.
North Korea has repeatedly flouted six Security Council resolutions demanding an end to its nuclear and ballistic missile activities and imposing increasing tougher sanctions.
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The latest missile test is seen as an implicit challenge to Trump, who has vowed a tough line on North Korea but has yet to release a strategy for dealing with a country whose nuclear ambitions have bedeviled U.S. leaders for decades.
"North Korea is a big, big problem and we will deal with that very strongly," Trump said at a joint news conference Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Nikki Haley, his U.N. ambassador, said in a statement later: "We call on all members of the Security Council to use every available resource to make it clear to the North Korean regime and its enablers that these launches are unacceptable."
"It is time to hold North Korea accountable not with our words, but with our actions," she said.
There was no indication of what "actions" the Trump administration has in mind, and Ukraine's U.N. ambassador, Volodymyr Yelchenko, the current council president, and Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho wouldn't comment on possible "further significant measures."
Those same words were used in the last Security Council statement on the unsuccessful Oct. 17 missile test by North Korea. That was followed by the latest sanctions resolution Nov. 30 targeting North Korea's hard currency revenues by placing a cap on coal exports, cutting them by at least 62 percent or by an estimated $800 million.
The council statement issued Monday was almost exactly the same as the one adopted Oct. 17 a practice that makes it much easier for members to reach quick agreement.
Guterres called the latest launch "a further troubling violation" of council resolutions and urged North Korea to comply with its international obligations, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
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"The secretary-general appeals to the international community to continue to address this situation in a united manner," Haq said.
The United States, Japan and South Korea requested the urgent Security Council meeting.
Japan's Bessho told reporters the key is implementing sanctions to get North Korea to change course.
"I think we need to keep pushing because we're not looking for a military solution," he said. "We have to have a peaceful solution, and the Security Council ... is the body that is most suited for that role."
Monday's council statement stressed "the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in northeast Asia at large" and expressed members' "commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation."
South Korea earlier condemned what it called "serious military and security threats" and predicted more such tests. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is also the acting president, said his country would punish North Korea for the missile launch.
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In previous Security Council actions on North Korea, the United States and China, a neighbor and ally of Pyongyang, have been the key negotiators.
China said Monday that the root cause of North Korean missile launches is friction with the United States and South Korea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China opposed the launch.
North Korea already has a variety of land-based missiles that can hit South Korea and Japan, including U.S. military bases in those countries. It has also successfully tested a submarine-launched missile and development of such missiles would add a weapon that is harder to detect before launch.
North Korea's Central News Agency said the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, was at the launch site to observe Sunday's test and expressed pleasure at the North's expansion of its strategic strike capabilities. The report early Monday said Kim gave the order to fire the "Pukguksong-2," which the agency said was a "Korean style new type strategic weapon system."
It is believed to have flown about 500 kilometers (310 miles) before splashing down into the ocean in international waters.
The report said the test proved "the reliability and security" of a new mobile launching system, the solid fuel that was used, and the guidance and control features of the ballistic missile. Solid fuel can give missiles longer range and make detecting them before launch more difficult because they can be readied faster than liquid fuel missiles.
National security adviser Michael Flynn speaks at the White House on Feb. 1. Neither the president nor any of his top aides spoke in defense of Flynn this weekend. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
WASHINGTON White House national security adviser Michael Flynn is under increasing political pressure and risks losing the confidence of some colleagues following reports that he misled senior administration officials about his discussion of sanctions with a Russian envoy shortly before President Trump took office.
As White House aides scramble to get their stories straight about the exact nature of those communications and as Democrats call for Flynn's security clearance to be suspended or revoked, neither Trump nor his advisers have publicly defended Flynn or signaled that he has the president's confidence.
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Privately, some administration officials said that Flynn's position has weakened and support for him has eroded largely because of a belief that he was disingenuous about Russia and therefore could not be fully trusted going forward.
"The knives are out for Flynn," said one administration official who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly.
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On Sunday, the top White House aide dispatched to represent the administration on the political talk shows pointedly declined to defend Flynn.
Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether the president had confidence in Flynn, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said he did not know.
"It's not for me to tell you what's in the president's mind," Miller told moderator Chuck Todd. He added that his colleagues at the White House "did not give me anything to say" about Flynn.
When ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Miller about Flynn's interactions with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, Miller said, "I don't have any news to make . . . today on this point."
The Washington Post revealed last week that Flynn and Kislyak had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia in the month before Trump's inauguration.
The Post's finding, confirmed by nine current and former U.S. officials, contrasted with the assurances made publicly by Vice President Pence and other top administration officials that Flynn never talked about sanctions with Russian officials.
Based on Flynn's private assurances, Pence, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and White House press secretary Sean Spicer stated publicly that Flynn never discussed sanctions with Kislyak.
Pence spoke to Flynn twice on Friday - once face to face and by telephone, according to an administration official who declined to characterize the contents of those discussions.
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"Flynn is running out of friends, no question," a different administration official said. "The broad consensus in the White House is that he lied. The vice president feels like he lied. In a position that needs to be no drama, it's nonstop drama. I would be very surprised if he lasts much longer."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, R, an informal adviser to Trump, called on Flynn to "clear up" what happened with Trump and Pence, but he stopped short of accusing him of wrongdoing.
"I think that's the obligation of General Flynn, his national security adviser, to have those type of candid conversations with the president and the vice president," Christie said on CNN. "And then they will act as they see fit, given all the circumstances."
Over the weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, the president privately voiced frustration with Flynn and the political baggage he is hanging on the White House, according to two people familiar with his comments.
Spicer denied that Trump criticized Flynn to anyone at the club and called assertions to the contrary "fake news."
People close to Flynn said he feels confident in his position despite the swirling controversy. He flew to Florida this weekend with the president along with other National Security Council officials to engage with his Japanese counterparts during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit.
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Furthermore, people in Trump's orbit cautioned that it would not be in the president's nature to fire Flynn because doing so would amount to an admission of guilt and misjudgment in the face of media scrutiny, as well as demonstrate chaos in the early weeks of his presidency.
The doubts about the national security adviser come as Trump faces his first significant provocation from a U.S. adversary overseas. North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the weekend, a move suspected by some experts as designed to serve as a test of components of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.
Trump responded on Saturday night in a joint appearance with Abe at Mar-a-Lago, where he reassured his Japanese counterpart that the United States fully supported Japan.
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and a decorated intelligence officer, met Trump in late 2015 to offer advice about his campaign and signed on with Trump the following year. He won Trump's approval during the general election with his willingness to travel regularly and deliver fiery stump speeches trashing Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Democratic leaders have called for investigations into the Flynn's contact with Russian officials and for Trump to suspend and revoke Flynn's security clearance.
"President Trump's kowtowing to Vladimir Putin is endangering our national security and emboldening a dangerous tyrant," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Saturday.
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Rep. Elijah Cummings, Md., the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Sunday on ABC News that suspending Flynn's clearance would be "an appropriate action."
Trump has not yet issued a comment about Flynn, either on Twitter or in one of his brief appearances before journalists over the weekend. Aboard Air Force One on Friday, reporters asked Trump about The Post's report on Flynn's discussion of sanctions and the president claimed he did not know about it, even though it had by then become a major story across cable news.
"I don't know about that. I haven't seen it," Trump said during a flight to Florida from Washington. "What report is that? I haven't seen that. I'll look into that."
The Washington Post's Greg Miller contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON At least four Republican senators are still on the fence about whether to support Andrew Puzder, President Donald Trump's choice for labor secretary, putting more pressure on the restaurant executive and political novice to win over members of the president's own party to win confirmation.
The four Republicans are all members of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Puzder is set to appear Thursday to answer questions. The high level of public concern is notable, given that Republicans have for the most part supported Trump's Cabinet picks even before their confirmation hearings.
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Among the skeptics is Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who said Monday that she hasn't made up her mind on Puzder and will wait to see how he fares at his confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday.
"I'm going to wait until the issues that have arisen are fully explored at his hearing," she told reporters. Collins said she has reviewed footage of an "Oprah Winfrey Show" interview with Puzder's ex-wife, who once appeared in disguise on the program to discuss the multiple times she says that Puzder physically assaulted her in the 1980s.
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Puzder's ex-wife, Lisa Fierstein, recently retracted the allegations, and he has always denied that he abused her.
Collins added that "I am reviewing the other information that has come to light and I'm sure all of this will be explored thoroughly" - but she didn't specify what other information is of concern.
Puzder revealed last week that he once employed an undocumented immigrant to work as a housekeeper - the kind of revelation that has forced Cabinet nominees of administrations past to withdraw. He faces strong resistance from labor groups and Democrats who voice concern that he will not defend workers, citing reports of wage violations at his restaurants, his opposition to substantially raising the minimum wage and the use of sexually suggestive ads that opponents say are demeaning to women.
Puzder's personal wealth has also earned scrutiny that has delayed his nomination for several weeks. Federal disclosure forms delivered to the Senate last week show that most of his wealth is tied to CKE Restaurants, which includes the burger chains Hardee's and Carl's Jr., and that he plans to divest those holdings over the next six months if he is confirmed to lead the Labor Department.
The White House is standing by Puzder, declaring last week that he would be confirmed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters that he is "enthusiastically" supporting the nominee.
In addition to Collins, Sens. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Tim Scott, R-S.C., are withholding judgment.
"Consistent with his policy on other nominees, Senator Isakson will make a final decision after Mr. Puzder's confirmation hearing on Thursday," a spokeswoman said via email.
Murkowski "will be working to learn more about Mr. Puzder leading up to and during the upcoming hearing, as well as through additional one-one-one conversations with him," a spokeswoman said.
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"No real story here," said a spokeswoman for Scott, noting that the senator hasn't been commenting on nominees "until their confirmation hearing" with the exception of fellow South Carolina Republicans Nikki Haley, nominated to serve as U.N. ambassador, and Rep. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
But Scott also defended then-Senate colleague Jeff Sessions and his nomination for attorney general in a Washington Post article that was published before the Alabamian's confirmation hearing.
Puzder faces another challenge in a Missouri court Tuesday, when a judge will hear a case brought by the Campaign for Accountability, a Washington-based watchdog group, to unseal Puzder's divorce records.
Despite her concerns, Collins said the case shouldn't be a reason to further delay Puzder's nomination.
"His hearing's been delayed several times," she said.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus attends a meeting with small business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Jan. 30, 2017. (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA )
One of President Donald Trump's longtime friends made a striking move on Sunday: After talking privately with the president over drinks late Friday, Christopher Ruddy publicly argued that Trump should replace his White House chief of staff.
"A lot of people have been saying, 'Look, Donald has some problems,' and I think he realizes that he's got to make some changes going forward," Ruddy said in an interview with The Washington Post.
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Ruddy went on to detail his critique of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus: "It's my view that Reince is the problem. I think on paper Reince looked good as the chief of staff - and Donald trusted him - but it's pretty clear the guy is in way over his head. He's not knowledgeable of how federal agencies work, how the communications operations work. He botched this whole immigration rollout. This should've been a win for Donald, not two or three weeks of negative publicity."
Ruddy insisted that he was speaking only for himself and not the president, and he would not reveal whether Trump had confided in him about Priebus because the conversation was private.
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White House spokesmen did not respond to a request for comment on Ruddy's statement.
Early Sunday evening, Ruddy attempted to soften his criticism of the White House chief of staff, saying in a tweet that he had just spoken with Priebus.
"Reince just briefed me on new WH plans. Impressive!," he tweeted. "Told him I have 'open mind' based on his results."
Reince just briefed me on new WH plans. Impressive! CNN today my personal view. Told him I have 'open mind' based on his results.
Ruddy - who is chief executive of Newsmax Media and a member of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida - spoke to The Post shortly after appearing on CNN, where he threw Priebus under the proverbial bus.
"I think there's a lot of weakness coming out of the chief of staff," Ruddy told anchor Brian Stelter in a live interview from Miami. "I think Reince Priebus (is a) good guy, well-intentioned, but he clearly doesn't know how the federal agencies work. He doesn't have a really good system. He doesn't know how the communications flow."
Trump, Ruddy continued, is "not getting the backup he needs" from Priebus.
Ruddy said he spent about 30 minutes talking privately with Trump late Friday at Mar-a-Lago after the president's dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, after Abe had retreated to his suite for the night.
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"Since the (CNN) show, I've gotten three text messages from sitting Cabinet members praising my appearance," Ruddy said. "They realize this whole government depends on this chief of staff."
He declined to identify the Cabinet secretaries.
Ruddy praised White House press secretary Sean Spicer and other administration officials who have come under public scrutiny. He said blame for missteps at the dawn of Trump's presidency should fall squarely on Priebus.
"What I'm hearing from a lot of people on the inside is that Reince is not giving Donald the pushback that he needs," Ruddy said. "He just doesn't have the gravitas that Donald would respect at the end of the day."
Last month the world's elite listened politely as Chinese President Xi Jinping offered the keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Of course, the leader of the Chinese dictatorship didn't mention how he and his cronies jail and disappear human rights activists, persecute ethnic minorities and religious groups, and operate a vast censorship and surveillance system, among other evils. It is striking that a forum dedicated to "improving the state of the world" would offer such an important stage to the leader of a repressive regime. Xi began his remarks in part by asking "What has gone wrong with the world?" The fact is, he's part of the problem.
At present, the authoritarianism business is booming. According to the Human Rights Foundation's research, the citizens of 94 countries suffer under non-democratic regimes, meaning that 3.97 billion people are currently controlled by tyrants, absolute monarchs, military juntas or competitive authoritarians. That's 53 percent of the world's population. Statistically, then, authoritarianism is one of the largest if not the largest challenges facing humanity.
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If you are worried about public health, poverty or peace, your mandate is clear: Oppose tyranny.
Consider the scale of some of the world's other crises. About 836 million live under extreme poverty, and 783 million lack clean drinking water. War and conflict have displaced 65 million from their homes. Between 1994 and 2013 an annual average of 218 million people were affected by natural disasters. These are terrible, seemingly intractable problems but at least there are United Nations bodies, aid organizations and State Department teams dedicated to each one of them.
Dictators and elected authoritarians, by contrast, get a free pass. The World Bank bails out repressive regimes on a regular basis. There is no anti-tyrant U.N. task force, no Sustainable Development Goals against tyranny, no army of activists.
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We, the authors, have experienced the ills of authoritarianism personally. One of us has been beaten, blacklisted and forced into exile by operatives of the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin has relentlessly pushed to crush freedom of speech, brazenly annex Crimea and increase his global military activities in ways that hark back to the Cold War. The other author has seen his mother shot by Venezuelan security forces and his first cousin languish for nearly three years in a military jail as a prisoner of conscience. Today Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro runs a regime that regularly imprisons dissidents, abuses protesters and engages in such widespread graft and corruption that the country is now undergoing a catastrophic economic collapse.
Putin and Maduro have co-conspirators in all parts of the world, fellow would-be tyrants who are dismantling the free press, jailing opponents, manipulating elections and committing a host of human rights violations. In Turkey, a once-promising democracy is gasping for air. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has shut down 149 media outlets, shuttered more than 2,000 schools and universities, fired more than 120,000 civil servants and jailed more than 45,000 suspected dissenters. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un rules the most totalitarian government on Earth, brainwashing 25 million people and terrorizing them with public executions, forced famines and a vast network of concentration camps that reminded U.N. investigators of Pol Pot's Cambodia and Nazi Germany.
And there are so many lesser-known dictators in countries such as Bahrain, Kazakhstan and Equatorial Guinea, where tyrants pilfer their countries' natural resources and pocket the profits in private off-shore accounts. To cover their atrocities, they hire lobbyists, public relations firms and even policy groups in the free world to whitewash their actions.
If injustice and oppression aren't bad enough, authoritarian governments bear an enormous social cost. Dictator-led countries have higher rates of mental illness, lower levels of health and life expectancy, and, as Amartya Sen famously argued, higher susceptibility to famine. Their citizens are less educated and file fewer patents. In 2016, more patents were filed in France than in the entire Arab world not because Arabs are less entrepreneurial than the French, but because nearly all of them live under stifling authoritarianism. Clearly, the suppression of free expression and creativity has harmful effects on innovation and economic growth. Citizens of free and open societies such as Germany, South Korea and Chile witness advances in business, science and technology that Belarusans, Burmese and Cubans can only dream of.
And consider that free nations do not go to war with each other. History has shown this to be the only ironclad law of political theory. Meanwhile, dictators are always at war, often with a foreign power and always with their own people. If you are worried about public health, poverty or peace, your mandate is clear: Oppose tyranny.
Tragically, world institutions and organizations have failed to properly address authoritarianism. Western governments sometimes protest human rights violations in countries such as Russia, Iran and North Korea but routinely ignore them in places such as China and Saudi Arabia, in favor of upholding trade deals and security agreements. The United Nations, established to bring peace and justice to the world, includes Cuba, Egypt and Rwanda on its Human Rights Council. Here, a representative from a democracy carries the same legitimacy as a representative from a dictatorship. One acts on behalf of its citizens, while the other acts to silence them. Between June 2006 and August 2015 the Human Rights Council issued zero condemnations of repressive regimes in China, Cuba, Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Despite the fact that dictatorship is at the root of many global ills poor health, failing education systems and global poverty among them authoritarianism is hardly ever addressed at major conferences worldwide. And no wonder: Many, including the World Economic Forum and the now-defunct Clinton Global Initiative, receive ample funding from authoritarians. Few human rights groups focus exclusively on authoritarianism, and most establishment ones spend significant chunks of their budgets on criticizing democratic governments and their policies. Dictators are rarely in the spotlight.
The noble struggle against tyranny has fallen upon individual activists and dissidents living under authoritarian rule or working from exile. Citizen journalists Abdalaziz Alhamza and Meron Estefanos found that few people in peaceful, free countries were interested in reporting on Syria and Eritrea, so they took it upon themselves to do so, despite the enormous danger this put them in. Hyeonseo Lee defected from North Korea to find that victims of sex trafficking in China are often abandoned and ignored, so she started pressuring the Chinese government herself. When Rosa Maria Paya's father, Cuban democracy leader Oswaldo Paya, died in mysterious circumstances in 2012, it fell to her to demand a formal investigation and fair treatment for dissidents in Cuba. Such individuals are in constant need of support, because in their home countries there is no legal way to protest, no ACLU, no Washington Post and no opposition party to stand up for their rights.
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If authoritarianism and dictatorship are to be properly challenged and if so many resulting crises, including military conflict, poverty and extremism, are to be addressed at their root cause such dissidents need funding, strategic advice, technical training, attention and solidarity. To turn the tide against repression, people across all industries need to join the movement. Artists, entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, diplomats, students no matter who you are, you can reach out to a civil society organization at risk and ask how you can help by using your knowledge, resources or skills.
Today, authoritarians rule an increasingly large part of the globe, but the leaders of the free world lack the motivation and gumption to create a new U.N.-style League of Democracies. In the meantime, as individuals living in a free society, we believe it is our moral obligation to take action to expose human rights violations and to use our freedom to help others achieve theirs.
Washington Post
Garry Kasparov is chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. Thor Halvorssen is the foundation's president and chief executive.
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Bruce Rauner barnstormed his way to the governor's office by promising to "shake up Springfield." Now it seems he has a new mantra: Don't rock the boat.
A bipartisan cartel of Illinois' longest-serving and most tone-deaf politicians are plotting what they call a budget "grand bargain." Unsurprisingly, the lynchpin of the proposal is a mega income tax increase. The plan contains few fixes to our broken state government.
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Translation: We pay more for the same old, same old.
Once upon a time, this was the kind of thing Gov. Rauner would rail against. Career politicians cutting deals that perpetuate, rather than eradicate, Illinois' deep-rooted problems.
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Instead, Rauner has set up camp on the sidelines.
In a recent interview with the State Journal-Register, the Springfield newspaper, Rauner said: "I don't want to push or interfere. ... I'm cheering them on and will help if they ask, and if they don't that's great."
Rauner has made similar comments in other editorial board meetings across the state, including one with the Chicago Tribune.
So let me get this straight: The majority of Illinois voters selected a political outsider as their governor. Someone who ran on the platform of term limits because typical politicians "can't and won't" make the tough decisions needed to fix our state.
And now, this same guy is turning over the state budget to those same career politicians?
Who are you, and what have you done with Bruce Rauner?
Has the candidate of change become the governor of capitulation?
Hey, I get it. Governing is more difficult than campaigning. And yes, Illinois Democrats control the House and Senate. Turning around Illinois was never going to be easy.
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But Rauner knew this before he ran for governor. He told us that, in spite of these challenges, he was the guy who would get the job done. When he hit roadblocks, we expected him to speak truth to power.
Yet somewhere in Springfield must be a political adviser whispering in Rauner's ear, telling him to soften up. Stay out of it. Enough with the shaking things up. Follow the mold of your Republican predecessors: Former Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, former U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk and former Gov. Jim Edgar.
Except let's look at where those pols got us. Republicans are the political minority, and our state is on the verge of a total economic collapse.
This week, Rauner will deliver his third budget address. This is the speech that will define the terms of his re-election.
He should use this speech as an opportunity to return to his roots.
Then revert to Rauner circa 2014. Dig the Carhartt jacket out of the closet. Gas up that old van, the "rolling trash can." Hit the road, and lead the crusade he started in 2014.
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Remember when Rauner promised on the campaign trail to lower the state income tax rate to 3 percent by the end of his first term?
He's been in office two years and has yet to propose a plan to do so. And he apparently has nothing to say about a "grand bargain" that would increase the state income tax rate to 4.99 percent, 7 percent or higher.
Rauner should release a plan to do what he promised on the campaign trail, then take his message to the people. If career politicians and special interests stand in the way, expose them. Name names. And tell us, the voters, how we can step in and help fight.
Remember, Rauner's campaign message didn't just appeal to Republicans who had sat out the last few election cycles. He won the popular vote in 20 House districts and 10 Senate districts that simultaneously voted for a Democratic state legislator.
It means that people of all political stripes were fed up with Illinois as we know it. Rauner's message that both the Democratic and Republican parties were corrupt really resonated.
The leader Illinois needs today is the same guy who said he would take a sledgehammer to the system.
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Two years ago, I wrote in this space that Rauner needed to prove he really is the man from the campaign trail. And that if he is, the same people who voted for him in November 2014 will have his back when it comes time for him to make tough decisions.
If Rauner disappoints, though, then the best opportunity for reform in decades will be squandered.
An inspiring man once said that Illinois is ready for greatness again. That the people are ready to reclaim state government, and create a new generation of opportunity. He said it would not be easy, and that we need to be bold, tough and fundamentally change government because Springfield is broken.
A lot of us believed that guy. And we elected him as governor of Illinois.
Rauner should use his budget address to lay out a bold, if difficult, plan to once and for all solve Illinois' problems. If he does, we'll know that the inspiring Bruce Rauner is back.
If instead we get expressions of confidence in career politicians to craft a "solution" on the backs of Illinois taxpayers well, in that case, we'll know who really got shook up in Springfield.
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Diana Sroka Rickert is a writer with the Illinois Policy Institute. The opinions in this essay are her own.
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Republicans are moving to eliminate a rule instituted by the Obama administration that prevented certain people with mental illnesses from buying guns. As a researcher on firearms policy and mental health, I opposed the rule when it was first established. It wasn't supported by evidence, and it was far too broad. Now, Republicans are unlikely to revisit evidence-based gun control policy any time soon.
Under the rule, Social Security beneficiaries with psychiatric disabilities who are assigned a money manager for their disability benefits would be reported to the FBI's background check database as people ineligible to purchase firearms. House Republicans voted recently to eliminate the rule, and their counterparts in the Senate are expected to follow suit.
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The gun restriction rule is a well-meaning policy that gets some things right, notably its support of federal efforts to improve detection of risky people who should not have legal access to guns. But despite its good intentions, what the policy actually does is take away the gun rights of a large category of individuals without any evidence that they pose a risk of harm to self or others, and without legal due process protections commensurate with abridging a constitutional right.
All we really know about many people in the affected category is that they have been found unable to work full time due to a mental health problem and an examiner for Social Security has decided, with some input from a licensed medical or psychological consultant, that they need help managing money. The mental health conditions in question might range from moderate intellectual disabilities to depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Based on one person's judgment call, arrangements are made to have the government's check sent to a representative payee. But this isn't an index for whether or not someone should be allowed to own a gun.
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What research shows
Research on the relationship between gun violence and mental illness shows that the vast majority of mentally ill individuals are not violent or suicidal. Our group at Duke University recently published a study of approximately 82,000 people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses in Florida between 2002 and 2011. We found that those with serious mental health disorders with records in the public behavioral health system were no more likely than the general adult population in Florida to use a gun to harm others, and they were only slightly more likely to die in a gun-related suicide. Thus, people with mental illnesses are no more dangerous to others when they have equal access to guns.
Last year, when the Social Security rule change was proposed, the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy, of which I am a member, studied the issue and prepared a comment. The Consortium includes some of the nation's leading researchers, practitioners and advocates in gun violence prevention, public health and mental health. Our stated purpose is to advance evidence-based policy for reducing access to firearms by individuals who are at elevated risk of committing violence to themselves or others. We argued that the rule, in the form it was written, amounted to a substantially and overly broad categorical prohibition, and we recommended an improved process that would incorporate additional findings specifically related to violence risk. But the Obama administration finalized the rule as it stood, against our recommendation.
When the government takes away people's rights, usually they have a hearing, a chance to contest the proceedings and legal representation. None of those is provided when a person is assigned a money manager by the Social Security Administration, nor would it be feasible to so routinely. But when such a determination is later leveraged for a totally different purpose suspension of a person's Second Amendment rights the lack of process becomes a legitimate civil rights concern.
Veterans Affairs has recently addressed the same problem in its policy of reporting to the FBI gun background check database the names of veterans with psychiatric disabilities who have been assigned a "fiduciary" to manage their VA benefits. When VA now considers assigning a fiduciary, the veteran in question is notified of the proposed determination and the supporting evidence, and is provided with an opportunity to request a hearing, be represented by counsel and to contest the determination by presenting other relevant medical evidence.
In contrast, the Social Security policy simply assumes that people who have been determined to need assistance managing their disability benefits meet the definition of "adjudicated as a mental defective" in the 1968 Gun Control Act.
Constitutional rights
As the Supreme Court has made clear in the past, the Second Amendment to the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms, but the right is "not unlimited." If these rights are going to be limited or regulated in order to protect people and save lives, then they should be limited or regulated fairly, using evidence-based policymaking to balance risk to public safety and the rights and interests of vulnerable groups. Removing gun rights from people with mental illnesses based on a single criterion unrelated to violent histories only reinforces stigma around mental illness and exposes people struggling to overcome difficult conditions to unwarranted discrimination. And there's no proof it makes anybody safer.
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Politicians should support evidence-based policies that would improve the criteria for gun restriction, so that the criteria would identify more truly risky people, and fewer non-risky people.
In a society where guns are highly prevalent and the right to own them is constitutionally protected, solving a public health crisis that claims 35,000 lives every year (two-thirds by their own hand) is like a jigsaw puzzle. There are many causes of the problem, and many parts to an effective solution. Merely pointing the finger at "mental illness" will not solve this puzzle.
It is unfortunate that Republican lawmakers are using a rather heavy-handed regulatory tool the Congressional Review Act to repeal the gun restriction rule, rather than modifying it to reflect what the evidence tells us about mentally ill persons and violence risk. But the outgoing Democratic administration dealt their friends a bad hand: The original rule was misguided and Congress is right to repeal it.
Washington Post
Jeffery Swanson is a professor in psychiatry and behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine.
Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, center, joined by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, second from left, and Chicago State University interim president Cecil B. Lucy, right, speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017 at Chicago State University in Chicago. Rauner says he wants Vallas to be chairman of the Board of Trustees at the struggling university. (Phil Velasquez / AP)
Illinois public universities are in crisis. Colleges are slashing costs because the state's budget stalemate has strangled cash flow to higher education. Some school officials fret that they'll barely finish the academic year.
All of this should add urgency to an idea that we hope will percolate in Springfield: Streamline and consolidate the state's university and community college system to increase efficiency and accountability. Right now, there are nine governing boards for 12 Illinois public colleges. That's too many. Local control has meant expensive and redundant layers of administrative bureaucracies. Also less oversight to stop waste of school and taxpayer money on far-fetched, fiefdom-building projects.
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Latest case in point: Chicago State University's long-running effort to build a second campus, this one on Chicago's West Side. Leaders of CSU, a South Side school, spent at least $370,000 in taxpayer money in an aggressive effort to open such a campus, according to an investigation by Tribune reporters Dawn Rhodes and Peter Matuszak. CSU officials conducted a pricey feasibility study, signed an agreement to buy property in the Homan Square area and selected an architect even after a 2014 school finance committee warned that that CSU "cannot afford a drain in the budget."
That plan has stalled because state funding dried up.
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But why were CSU leaders spending money on expanding their mismanaged realm? Why weren't they focused instead on why their enrollment has plummeted by half since 2010? Or why CSU's six-year graduation rate is 11 yes, 11 percent?
Because no one stopped them, that's why. No one in Springfield no politicians, no state board of regents with rigorous control held them accountable for their many years of failure. For the cronyism and corruption that thrived on campus. For that sharply declining enrollment, that abysmal graduation rate. Worst of all: No one in Springfield held them accountable for promising big yet delivering meager results for low-income students who depended on CSU to help them succeed.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has named several new CSU board members, including former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, to halt this textbook case of educational malpractice. All of this is part of a leadership shake-up to impose oversight and accountability on a university accustomed to neither.
But as we said atop this editorial:
A bigger issue confronts Illinois pols and taxpayers, students and families.
Right now, state government oversight is weak and there are few uniform standards to ensure that students gain the best education possible at a reasonable cost. Illinois needs to "create a governing structure more responsive to public needs," Joni Finney, director of the Institute for Research on Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, tells us. "That's what the state doesn't have right." Finney, who co-authored a 2011 study on the decline of Illinois higher education, says that the earlier "system of systems" was more coordinated and effective at oversight and divvying up funding. It also delivered superior results for students, the study concluded.
Illinois once had a more centralized system. But in 1995, the General Assembly dismantled what was known as the "system of systems" four governing boards representing 12 universities to allow more local control. But there's little if any evidence that costs have been tamed or oversight improved. Witness CSU.
The 1995 change, according to the study, "exacerbated two problems that have driven Illinois' recent decline in higher education performance: An inability to establish shared state goals and priorities for higher education. A failure to allocate resources strategically to meet state goals and priorities."
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Translation: Nobody with a spine is demanding less redundancy in administrative layers or academic specialties among the schools. Nobody with a spine is asking if, given student demand, Illinois has too many universities. Nobody with a spine is warning that a school with pitiful results should be closed or swallowed by a stronger state university.
Perhaps Illinois higher ed reform should be modeled after the more streamlined university and community college systems in Wisconsin and New York. We know what would happen in either of those systems each one a great source of statewide civic pride if a public university had an 11 percent graduation rate: Angry legislators would blow the lid off their state capitol.
In Illinois, with its balkanized universities, a CSU could long avoid consequences. A more consolidated system of oversight here could hold university leaders accountable for financial and academic failure and reward success in helping students learn and graduate.
Education funding in Illinois could be front and center in the current legislative session. Good. But don't limit the reform debate to K-12, lawmakers.
Give serious thought to the educational improvements, the savings and the rigorous performance standards that robust and unified oversight could demand.
Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.
President Donald Trump's senior policy adviser Stephen Miller lied.
The ability to do so seems to be a prerequisite in the Trump administration.
On Sunday, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' "This Week," Miller repeated the completely debunked claim that a "massive" number of people voted fraudulently in the 2016 election.
He said: "George, it is a fact and you will not deny it, that there are massive numbers of non-citizens in this country, who are registered to vote. That is a scandal."
There aren't, and it isn't. More on that later.
The president's response to Miller's numerous voter fraud falsehoods came via Twitter: "Congratulations Stephen Miller on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!"
Great job? It was a disgraceful, lying-through-your-teeth job, and I bring it up in part to highlight to you kind readers why I refuse to stop writing critically about Trump and his administration.
Throughout last year's presidential campaign and since Election Day, I have regularly filled this space with columns some serious, some satirical highlighting the dishonesty and danger President Trump presents.
I could write about other things. I do sometimes.
But almost daily now, something happens in Trumpland that screams, "This is not normal!"
A dead-eyed policy adviser like Miller gets on national television and lies and lies and lies, then slips in this corker: "The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."
Oh, they'll be questioned, Mr. Miller. They'll be questioned plenty.
I think about a song by a band called The Decemberists, a song that speaks of taking a stand, not growing complacent, fighting "with our arms unbound." The chorus echoes: "This is why/This is why we fight."
That's a bit dramatic, I suppose, but what I see happening under Trump incessant lying, the unnecessary demeaning of opponents is wrong. I'm not referencing policy, just basic human behavior and a belief that facts matter.
It's a privilege to have a platform and a voice, a privilege that despite my frequent silliness I don't take lightly. So when I see Trump tweeting false information with the sole purpose of scaring the Americans who trust him, I'm going to write something. And when I see someone like Miller shamelessly repeating talking points that have been proven false over and over again, I'm going to write something.
And I'm not going to listen to people who say, "Give it a rest, Trump won." And I'm not going to grow tired of shoving the truth in the face of liars.
What I write matters little in the grand scheme. But if I get even one person to rethink his or her opinion, I'll take it, and if I merely add to the chorus of fact-advocates out there, good.
On Sunday, Miller said that "14 percent of non-citizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic." Astonishing, and completely misrepresented. One of the researchers Miller is citing said of his own study: "On the right there has been a tendency to misread our results as proof of massive voter fraud, which we don't think they are."
Miller also said that busing voters from neighboring states into New Hampshire to cast illegal votes is a "very real" and "very serious" problem. It's absolutely not.
Tom Rath, a Republican and the former attorney general of New Hampshire, wrote on Twitter: "Let me as be unequivocal as possible allegations of voter fraud in NH are baseless, without any merit it's shameful to spread these fantasies."
The fact-checking group PolitiFact gave Miller's claim a "Pants on Fire" rating, noting: "PolitiFact New Hampshire, in particular, talked to several state and local officials about whether anything fishy occurred Nov. 8. Nashua City Clerk Tricia Piecuch, who works in the state's second-largest city on the border with Massachusetts, said nothing out of the ordinary went down. Officials in the Secretary of State's office, Attorney General's office and U.S. Attorney's office all reported no complaints of voter fraud in the 2016 election."
Miller and Trump and anyone else in the administration can say there was "massive voter fraud" in the election the one that Trump won all they want. There are still no facts and no complaints from state-level Republicans or Democrats to back up that claim.
They are hammering away at a lie because they want to use it to justify unnecessarily strict voting laws across the country, laws that have been found, in repeated court rulings, to disenfranchise lower-income minority voters.
This is why we fight. Because laws shouldn't be based on lies.
When President Trump and the people around him find the moral fortitude to conduct their business with a modicum of honesty, to ground their policy decisions in factual information, I'll be more than happy to move on to other subjects.
Until then, I'm not shutting up, and I hope you don't shut up either.
What good is a voice if you don't use it when it matters most?
Listen to Rex Huppke and WGN radio host Amy Guth discuss presidential politics each week on the "Guth and Huppke on Politics" podcast at chicagotribune.com/guthhuppkepodcast.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
Related articles:
Trump needs to fire Steve Bannon
Putin getting exactly what he wants from Trump
Michael Flynn resigns and everything is fine, just fine, great
I am a deplorable, and I'm happy I voted for Trump
Like everyone in the Northwestern community, I was stunned and appalled to receive Chief of Police Bruce Lewis' security alert informing us that four students attending a Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat party were possibly given a date rape drug and that two may have been sexually assaulted. Lewis cited a second anonymous report that another student may have been drugged and raped at another unnamed frat.
What I didn't learn until I read the Chicago Tribune story on the allegations because The Daily Northwestern story doesn't make this explicit is that the first set of allegations were also made anonymously. "It's not clear how the person who reported the alleged incidents knew of them," the Tribune reports. Nor does the university know the identities of these four women. Nevertheless, the university community has leaped to action, with the Associated Student Government calling for immediately suspending SAE and another frat. Task forces are being created, social events are being suspended, there are calls to rewrite various constitutions and policies.
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If we've learned anything from the unraveling of Rolling Stone's now-retracted story about an alleged rape and cover-up at a University of Virginia frat a couple of years ago, it's that we need to slow down the rush to judgment until we're in possession of sufficient verifiable information to form solid conclusions. Students at Virginia staged protest marches too about what turned out to be a false story. As though oblivious to recent history, the Northwestern community has become a walking demonstration of what the commission that later investigated the Rolling Stone story slammed as "confirmation bias" that is, forming conclusions in advance of the facts to justify our biases. In other words, if we believe that campus culture is a rape culture, then any rape allegation has to be true.
And at this point, all we in the Northwestern community know is that anonymous charges are being investigated. We don't know what actually happened. I certainly hope we get updates as the investigation continues and that The Daily Northwestern vigorously investigates the story from every angle. But leaping to action in the absence of verified (or perhaps even verifiable) complaints is at best a failure of due process, and at worst vigilantism.
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Laura Kipnis, professor, Northwestern University
Whether you're a seasoned yogi looking for an unconventional place to stretch or you're willing to labor for your love of craft beer, a new trend gaining steam in Chicago will have you working up a sweat before sipping suds.
It's called beer yoga. And some Chicago-area breweries have already tapped into the trend, utilizing their open spaces to host yoga events, which typically start with a class and end with a round of beer for all. Motivation to exercise? Oh, yeah.
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Baderbrau Brewing Company and Begyle Brewing Company are just two breweries dabbling in the trend. In Bronzeville, the folks at Baderbrau offer Brewga the second Saturday of every month for $20, which includes a 60-minute yoga class followed by a brewery tour and sampler flight of five house beers. Patrons are encouraged to BYOM (bring your own mat) or rent one for $2. Each class takes place on the brewery floor surrounded by towering tanks and barrels, and organizers estimate that there are 10 to 25 guests per session.
In Ravenswood, Begyle Brewing Company offers Yoga at Begyle every Sunday at 11 a.m. for $20, which includes an hourlong, all-levels yoga class and a ticket to redeem either a pint of beer or a flight of three 5-ounce glasses.
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Our taproom opens at noon on Sundays, so it works out really well that yoga ends right as the taproom is opening, said Kaitlyn McQuaid, the communications and events manager for Begyle (and, full disclosure, a freelance photographer for RedEye). You can walk downstairs and go to the taproom, and get a beer or get your flight and hang out. So its beer afternot during or before.
Begyle works with four yoga instructors who rotate regularly, including 28-year-old Caitlin Kalosky.
"The last time I taught, there were 41 people that came to the class. It was huge, and just the amount of energy that's in a room like that, it was powerful," Kalosky said. "If you're 40, if you're 22, male, female, whatever kind of body you have, whatever your history is, let's just do this together. I love that it's expanding, and I love that people are all about it and willing to try. It's a really cool thing."
Kalosky described the feel of these events as both laid-back and fun, which she said often appeals to those new to or intimidated by traditional yoga classes.
"I think having that extra beer at the end just brings in a lot of new people that would never try yoga in the first place," Kalosky said. "This is just more low-key, it's more laid-back and I feel like it takes a lot of the stress and a lot of the pressure off of new people. And then you get a beer and you get to hang out, and it's pretty great."
Jamie Harvel, a 31-year-old West Town resident, found out about Yoga at Begyle on Facebook over the summer and decided to attend, figuring it would be an activity that she and her husband could enjoy together.
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"It was the only way I could get my husband to his first yoga class," Harvel said. "It was a great workout, and the beer tasting after was really fun."
While it's open for all levels, Kalosky said the majority of the people who take her beer yoga classes are beginner yogis. She tailors the classes to make everyone feel comfortable, which makes for a very social and relaxed setting.
Beer-loving yogis can purchase tickets for Yoga at Begyle and Brewga online at eventbrite.com, but walk-ins are welcome.
"I would say, bring a mat, bring some water, bring a sense of humor, bring a smile and let's just rock out," Kalosky said.
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More ways to experience beer yoga:
Yoga on Tap at Old Irving Brewing Co.
4419 W. Montrose Ave. 773-916-6421
When: 9:30-10:30 a.m. March 12
How much: $25 online or at the door
What's included: A 60-minute yoga class. With the purchase of a brunch item, you'll receive a free beer or drink at the bar.
Details: BYOM and arrive at least 10 minutes before class starts.
Temperance Trikonasana at Temperance Beer Co.
2000 Dempster St., Evanston 847-864-1000
When: 1-2:15 p.m. Feb. 18
How much: $15
What's included: A 60-minute yoga class and post-savasana beer.
Details: BYOM.
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Nels Paulson, an associate professor of sociology at UW-Stout, has been selected as a member of the first Wisconsin ThinkWater School, which aims to improve community water education and outreach and to protect the quality of the states water resources.
Twenty were chosen from a pool of 45 applicants representing organizations, agencies, institutions and municipalities from around the state. Members will attend four training and planning sessions during the next six months. A total of six regional and special teams were selected. Paulson is on the Wisconsin Lakes team.
ThinkWater is a national campaign supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, led by Cabrera Research Lab at Cornell University, along with UW-Extension in Wisconsin.
Paulson recently co-led three summers of undergraduate research on regional water issues through the federally funded LAKES REU research experience for undergraduates at UW-Stout. He also is part of the Red Cedar River Water Quality Partnership, a collaborative effort between UW-Stout, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
An Arlington Heights man has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for bilking an investor out of $600,000 in a wire fraud scheme, according to a Monday statement released by the FBI.
Sean Moran, 39, the former owner and president of the Arlington Heights-based trading and investment firm DCL Capital, defrauded and obtained money from a client with a scheme that involved misappropriating the funds for Moran's personal expenses, including paying down his hefty personal credit card debt, according to a March, 16, 2016, filing in the U.S. District Court in Chicago.
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Moran advised his client that his investment was generating positive returns from trading activity throughout 2014, when the funds had sustained substantial losses, according to court documents.
Moran also sent the client a statement in December 2014 showing a balance of nearly $819,000 in principal and a year-to-date profit of $35,000, when he knew his client had suffered total losses of more than $600,000, with only $126,000 of the investor's funds remaining.
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The federal wire fraud charge stemmed from Moran using an interstate wire transfer of about $275,000 from his client's BMO Harris Bank account, to Moran's JP Morgan Chase account.
Attempts made Monday to reach an attorney on behalf of Moran were not immediately successful.
kcullotta@tribpub.com
Twitter @kcullotta
A St. Charles massage business has had its license revoked following the January arrest of one of its female employees, who was charged with prostitution.
St. Charles Mayor Raymond Rogina, acting as Liquor Control Commissioner, "enforced local massage ordinances" against Shangri-La Massages & Spa, 215 Dean St., after a hearing at the Feb. 6 Liquor Control Commission meeting. The commission considers alcohol, tobacco and massage license issues, according to a news release from the city of St. Charles.
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"We are following precedent on this issue and will continue to enforce these ordinances," Rogina said in the news release. "We have zero tolerance for this in our community."
The commission had charged the spa with ordinance violations after one of its employees was cited on Jan. 11 for misdemeanor prostitution.
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In addition to the license revocation, the business must pay a $500 fine, according to the news release.
St. Charles police responded to Shangri-La at about 10:54 p.m. Jan. 11, to assist an investigation of a state police task force, according to police reports contained in a liquor control commission packet.
Police charged Hongbo Cui, 47, with one class A misdemeanor count of prostitution, transported her to the St. Charles Police Department, processed and released her on personal recognizance, according to the police report.
On Jan. 12, police went back to the spa for their follow up investigation planning to meet with the owner and sole manager, Lifa Jiang, but were told by a receptionist that Jiang was not there, according to police reports. The owner called police later that day and said she had not been working at the time of the incident.
A complaint filed against the business alleges that it violated several sections of the massage establishment code, including sections pertaining to supervision and to inappropriate touching.
hleone@tribpub.com
Twitter @hannahmleone
No one was hurt when a cigarette butt tossed into a canister started a fire in an eight-unit apartment complex on the Near Southwest side of Aurora Sunday, fire officials said.
Aurora firemen arrived at 1:32 p.m. at 513 Hartford Ave. where they found smoke coming out of a sliding glass door on the upper level of the two-story building.
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Battalion Fire Chief Dan Osman said the apartment complex's maintenance worker, who lives across from the unit, called 911 to report the smoke.
"Firemen made entry through the sliding glass door and extinguished the fire rather quickly," Osman said.
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He said the smoke was confined to the single apartment and the tenants were not home at the time.
Osman said with the layout of the building, each unit has its own entry way so none of the other apartments had to be evacuated. He said two apartment units each share an outdoor deck.
"The fire started in flooring below the sliding glass door and then spread into the carpet and up the wall," the fire battalion chief said.
Firemen had the fire extinguished in about 30 minutes.
"The tenant said that her cigarette smoking can is stored outside the door," Osman said. "With it being as windy as it was, the canister probably blew over."
He said one of the cigarette butts must have been hot enough to drop below the floor on the interior side of the sliding glass door. He said there is a garage directly below the floor and there may have been leaf debris that started a smoldering fire.
Osman said had the maintenance worker not seen the smoke, the fire could have caused severe damage to the unit.
"The high winds could be pushed the flames further into the apartment," he said.
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Firemen cleared the scene at around 2:30 p.m.
Osman said mainly smoke caused an estimated $25,000 in damage to the apartment and contents. He said the tenants would be able to return to their apartment.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
Under a proposed ordinance, a Buffalo Grove landlord who leased space to a massage business, which lost its license because of a prostitution arrest, would not be allowed to lease the space to another massage businesses for another two years. (Pioneer Press file / Pioneer Press)
As Buffalo Grove officials look to discourage prostitution at local businesses, property owners who lease commercial space to questionable massage parlors soon could face new restrictions.
Under a proposed ordinance being considered by village board members, a Buffalo Grove landlord who leased space to a massage business, which lost its license because of a prostitution arrest, would not be allowed to lease the space to another massage businesses for two years.
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Some trustees have raised concerns about the proposal while other officials have said that some kind of ordinance is needed to discourage prostitution at local businesses.
"One of the things we want to make certain is that no prostitution is happening," said Bill Raysa, attorney for Buffalo Grove.
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Buffalo Grove officials started looking into the ordinance after two women were charged in April 2016 with operating a massage therapy business without a license, village officials said.
One of the women also was charged with prostitution, said Meghan Hansen, outreach officer at the Buffalo Grove Police Department.
During a board discussion on the proposal Feb. 6, some trustees said a two-year prohibition would punish the property owner for a violation committed by a tenant and also could leave storefronts empty for an extended period.
Raysa noted how Chicago, Mount Prospect and Park Ridge already have similar ordinances on the books. He said he knew of no legal challenges to the ordinances in those three towns.
But trustee Jeff Berman during the Feb. 6 meeting urged his fellow board members to ignore past actions from outside communities and consider the business ramifications the proposed ordinances could bring to Buffalo Grove landlords.
"If Chicago jumped off a cliff, would you follow them?" Berman asked. "I feel like I'm talking to my kids."
Berman said the proposed ordinance could make it difficult for landlords to find a different type of business to replace a massage parlor.
Massage businesses often require additional plumbing, lighting and other amenities, making it costly to renovate and challenging to lease to a different type of business, he said.
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But Village Manager Dane Bragg said the proposed ordinance would guard against massage parlors promoting prostitution that seemingly operate by a different name but involve the same ownership.
Often times, when a massage business loses its license, the same ownership will open up a similar business under a different license and look to occupy the business space again, he said.
A few of the owners of shopping centers with massage businesses in Buffalo Grove declined to comment about the proposed ordinance.
Tim Donohue, vice president of CTK Chicago Partners, which manages Town Center, a Buffalo Grove shopping center that doesn't include any massage businesses, said the proposal likely would force landlords to do more research upfront before leasing space to a particular tenant.
But the two-year restriction could come with consequences, especially when a reputable massage business is looking to open in Buffalo Grove, he said.
"There are corporate-owned, high-end massage and spa places that sometimes get caught up in the way these things are done," Donohue said. "I'd hate to think that they'd get caught up in something like this."
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Village board members could vote on a final proposed ordinance as early as March, officials said.
rwachter@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer
Rabbi Evan Moffic speaks to the large crowd about the Jewish tradition of welcoming refugees as neighbors at Congregation Solel in Highland Park on Feb. 12, 2017. (Rob Dicker / Pioneer Press)
Rabbi Evan Moffic said when he first heard about President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries and refugees from coming to the U.S., he immediately thought of the American government's decision to turn away hundreds of German Jews fleeing Nazi Germany who arrived by boat in Miami in 1939.
Moffic, who leads Congregation Solel, spoke at an event held Sunday at his Highland Park synagogue about the importance of loving and welcoming strangers into this country. In nearby Buffalo Grove, Beth Am Congregation and other community members gathered for a rally to protest Trump's executive order.
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Both events were held in association with a major rally in New York City's Battery Park hosted by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) an organization that helps relocate refugees and displaced individuals as part of their National Day of Jewish Action for Refugees. Congregations around the country, including four in the Chicago area, hosted events in solidarity with HIAS over the weekend.
Approximately 275 people showed up to Congregation Solel Sunday afternoon exceeding the capacity of the synagogue and expectations for the turn-out, Moffic said. In his address, he focused on the 36 references in the Hebrew Bible that highlight the importance of welcoming the stranger into your community.
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"One of the American values and one of the Jewish values is to allow those who are in need, those who are in danger, to be able to come into this country and flourish as immigrants and refugees have since the beginning of our country," said Alan Greene, a Highland park resident and Solel congregant, who helped organize Sunday's event.
Green said he, Moffic and fellow congregants put together the event in the span of about 10 days.
Rabbi Lisa Sari Bellows of Congregation Beth Am said she and a group of about 40 worshippers planned their rally in a week's time and the event was directly inspired by the president's executive order. Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling that halted Trump's order.
"We have not, as a congregation, done anything like this in the past," Bellows said.
She said worshippers at the synagogue are "stepping our efforts up 120 percent because of this order" and other issues, including increasing numbers of anti-Semitic and generally hateful actions following the election. Bellows said roughly 130 people, including individuals who are not members of her congregation, showed up at Sunday's rally in Buffalo Grove.
Moffic said he sees a connection between what happened to the Jews who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and what's happening now with regard to immigration specifically Muslim immigration.
"There was a lot of anti-Semitism in the U.S. then just as there is a lot of Islamophobia now," he said. "People were fearful then as they are now."
While maintaining and bolstering national security should be a critical priority for U.S. politicians and officials, Moffic said the country must also remain a refuge for those in need no matter their religion. Barring individuals from the country on the basis of their religious beliefs "is a travesty," he said.
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U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Deerfield) spoke at both the Buffalo Grove rally and the Highland Park event and said the country already, prior to Trump's executive order, had procedures and systems in place to vet individuals who apply for refugee status in America. He said it's imperative to "make sure that process is being strengthened and that we protect ourselves, but we can't ever close our borders."
A "blanket ban" on immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries and on refugees isn't going to improve the process, Schneider said, and such an action "is more likely to radicalize people who are antagonistic to this country."
Like Moffic, Bellows also highlighted the importance of welcoming the stranger, particularly because the Jewish people have historically sought refuge and respite from persecution in foreign lands.
She said Trump's executive order "has nothing to do with American values or Jewish values."
Though immigration and the country's refugee resettlement program have become highly politicized subjects, Moffic said they are also "deeply moral and spiritual issues."
"Part of our core teaching is that every human being is created in the image of God and every human being is worthy of dignity," he said. "To create a policy that discriminates against people of a certain religion does an injustice to God."
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Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Michael G. Bronkhorst has been charged with indecent solicitation of a child and traveling to meet a minor, both felonies, police said. (Bridgeview Police Department photo.)
A truck driver from Iowa was arrested Sunday after he drove to the southwest suburbs expecting to meet a 13-year-old girl with whom he had allegedly solicited sex through cellphone text messages, Bridgeview police said.
Michael G. Bronkhorst, 46, was arrested about 2:15 p.m. at a fast-food restaurant near 77th Street and Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview, according to a news release from police.
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Bronkhorst was charged with indecent solicitation of a child and traveling to meet a minor, both felonies, police said.
Police were alerted to Bronkhorst by the girl's parents, who noticed the texts on the teen's phone. Detectives obtained permission from the parents to continue the text conversations with the girl's phone. Bronkhorst drove his semi-truck and trailer from Iowa and walked into the restaurant to meet the girl, but instead he was arrested by police, police said.
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Bridgeview police Chief Ricardo Mancha said that no harm came to the girl, who did not meet the suspect, according to the release.
Bridgeview detectives were assisted in the investigation by detectives from Oak Forest, Lyons and Forest Park, according to the release.
"The parents did the right thing and monitored their daughter's use of the cellphone and who she was texting," Mancha said. "They immediately realized their daughter was being drawn into an inappropriate situation and called the police.
"This is a common problem and a reminder that parents need to monitor the texting and social media of their underaged children to protect them from predators."
Sara Jo Schneider and Hickle, along with fellow Girl Scouts Jayna Kelley and Autumn Helgeson, were killed when a pickup truck crashed into them as the scouts cleaned up debris on the west side of Highway P at about 11 a.m. Nov. 3, 2018. All four were killed at the scene. A fifth girl was injured but later recovered. The girls attended Southview Elementary and Halmstad Elementary in Chippewa Falls. On Wednesday, a 20-foot-tall memorial was dedicated at the crash site, honoring the three scouts and mother killed that day.
Jocelyn Chan, 10, of Orland Park, performs "Ode to Joy" on her violin during a celebration of the Chinese New Year at South Suburban Chinese Church, which meets in Tinley Park. The church offers Sunday services in Mandarin as well as a monthly family and friends service in English and Mandarin. The church also sponsors a school where Chinese culture and Mandarin language are taught to those in 1st grade and up. More information is at chicago-sscc.org. (Mary Compton \ Handout)
Statewide
The Illinois Conference of Churches, a Christian ecumenical organization, will host a Rally and Prayer Service for the passage of a state budget from 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 23 in the Illinois Capitol Rotunda, 501 S. 2nd St., Springfield. Leaders of all faith groups, administrators and faculty in public education, employees of social service agencies and all citizens of Illinois are invited to participate. Following the service, the delegation will deliver letters to the governor and leadership in the House and Senate requesting passage of a fair budget. Attendees should arrive at 1 p.m. Parking is available at the Visitor's Center at the corner of Pasfield and Edwards streets.
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Homewood
First Presbyterian Church: 17929 Gottschalk Ave. Free community dinners continue through the winter from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Mondays. A Bible study group meets from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Tuesdays at Panera Bread in Cherry Creek Shopping Plaza on Governor's Highway. Information: 708-798-0490 or www.fpchw.org.
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More than 150 people attended a recent Chinese New Year Celebration at the South Suburban Chinese Church, which meets at Zion Lutheran Church of Tinley Park, 17100 69th Ave. The event included musical performances by children as well as martial arts displays and concluded with a traditional Chinese feast. Pictured at the feast are Song Wang and his 1-year-old daughter, Anna, of Frankfort. (Mary Compton \ Handout)
Joliet
Cathedral St. Raymond Nonnatus: 604 N. Raynor Ave. --- Sopranos Michelle Gliottoni Rodriguez and Lauren Rupert and pianist James Grzadzinski will perform Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and other Lenten music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Gwyneth Walker at 3 p.m. March 12. This program is part of the Cathedral Music Series and includes musical reflection on the meaning of the Stations of the Cross, the journey of Jesus through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. A freewill offering benefits the Cathedral Music Program. Free parking. Information: 815-722-6653, Ex. 222 or music@straymond.net.
Oak Lawn
Oak Lawn Bible Church: 9435 S. 54th Ave. The Moody Chorale of Moody Bible Institute will perform at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 26 under the direction of music professor Xiangtang Hong. The chorale was founded in 1946 and specializes in sacred music. Its repertoire includes music from all periods of music history. The program is free. Donations will be accepted at the door. Information: 708-857-9800 or www.oaklawnbible.org.
Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
Orland Park
Christ Lutheran Church: 14700 S. 94th Ave. --- "Voices We Raise with Joy & Praise," a contemporary Christian music concert, will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 24. Admission is free. Information: 708-349-0431.
Presbyterian Church: 13401 S. Wolf Road The Mothers of Preschoolers group will meet from 9 to 11 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. Child care is provided for children from infants to 5 years old. New moms are welcome. Winter session is underway through March 28. The Welcome on Wednesdays Arts for Kids and Little W.O.W. will be held on Wednesdays through March 15. W.O.W will be held for grades 1 through 8 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Little W.O.W. will be held for ages 4 and 5 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Supper is included for both programs. Activities include art projects, music, puppets and games. Register for all programs at www.pcorlandpark.org at the Ministries tab, Children & Youth Ministries or email Cindy at cindypcop@comcast.net.
Tinley Park
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St. Julie Billiart Church: 7399 W. 159th St. The St. Peregrine Novena for those afflicted with cancer will be at 7 p.m. Mondays through March 13 in the Sacred Heart Chapel. Information is with Mike Rubino at 708-429-6767, Ex. 212.
Staff report
What's going on at your church? Let us know at least a week in advance by sending an email to southtownreligion@tribpub.com.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel encouraged parents at Esmond Elementary School to make sure their children "show up" for school. Though the school has seen increase in reading and math scores, attendance rates have kept the school from becoming a Level 1 school Emanuel said. Emanuel and 19th Ward Alderman Matt O'Shea visited the school Saturday to announce plans for a project that includes replacing an aging annex, upgrading classrooms and a new play area. (Alicia Fabbre / Daily Southtown)
Parents at Mount Greenwood and Esmond elementary schools Saturday got some welcome news about a $40 million project that will bring new classrooms and other upgrades to both schools.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and 19th Ward Alderman Matt O'Shea visited both schools to share the news. The projects are expected to be completed in time for the 2019-2020 school year.
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"You will have a 21st century facility to match the 21st century," Emanuel told a crowd of parents at Mount Greenwood Elementary School.
At Mount Greenwood Elementary School, work will include removing modular classrooms that are currently used to house kindergarten students, and adding a new annex. The project also includes renovating existing classrooms for additional lunchroom space, and a new play area and parking lot.
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Parents, city and school officials listen as a project to expand Mount Greenwood Elementary School is discussed Saturday. (Alicia Fabbre / Daily Southtown)
The upgrades will help address the school's growing enrollment. The school, designed to house 990 students, currently has 1,100 and enrollment is expected to continue to grow.
"Every year, for the past 10 years, they've exceeded what was projected," O'Shea said.
He noted that the school has made do with art on a cart, a school library in a hallway and speech pathology sessions in a closet.
"This is exciting news," parent Michelle Bever said of Saturday's announcement at Mount Greenwood. "It shows the city is listening to us and they know we need the infrastructure. It's nice to see the city is giving back to us."
Principal Kate Reidy said the additional classrooms will allow the school to add another section of fifth through eight grade classes. She said the school has five sections each of kindergarten through fourth grades, but only four sections each in fifth through eighth grades.
At Esmond Elementary School, parents and school officials welcomed the news that a modular building constructed in 1971 will finally come down. The building was originally intended to be in use for only 10 years.
"The building had a life span of 20 years," O'Shea said. "Forty-six years later, here we are."
O'Shea shared with parents that he would "cringe" each time he walked in the aging building, which he described as a school with the greatest need.
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"I would cringe because I know that (the students) deserve better," O'Shea said, adding that he first visited Esmond his first week as an alderman and that since then he would talk to, "anyone who would listen" about the school. "I vowed to keep talking until we got some action."
News that the 46-year-old annex will be coming down was met with applause from Principal Angela Tucker, staff and parents. In it's place, Esmond will be getting a new annex that will house two classrooms, a science classroom, computer lab, library, a new lunchroom and additional restrooms. The project also includes masonry and roof repairs, updates to some existing classrooms, accessibility upgrades and a new outdoor play area.
"I think it's amazing," 10-year-old Ala Halbert said of the planned upgrades. "I know that our school will appreciate it."
Emanuel described the project as a "down payment" on the school's success, but said the school needed the help of parents in boosting attendance rates. The school of 320 students typically has an attendance rate of about 94 percent; officials want attendance at 95 percent or better. Emmanuel noted the school's reading and math scores have increased, but it's attendance rate is keeping it from being a Level 1 school.
"If they're on time and show up, they can learn in new classrooms with new windows," Emanuel said.
After the announcement, Tucker urged parents to heed Emanuel's message and make sure their children "show up" for school each day. Tucker, who has been known to pick up students who need rides to school, encouraged parents to "spread the word."
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Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Elmhurst police have charged an 18-year-old man from Chicago with weapon offenses following an accidental shooting that happened inside a car parked in the 200 block of Clinton Avenue at 10 p.m. Sunday night.
Mickiel J. Smith, of the 1300 block of North Mayfield Avenue, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a firearm without a firearm owner's identification card.
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Police Chief Michael Ruth said his department was contacted by staff of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park after Smith sought treatment in the emergency room there.
"The weapon discharged and shot him in the thigh," Ruth said. "He told us the gun went off in the car."
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Ruth said Smith was parked near a friend's house when the accidental shooting happened.
Elmhurst police officers recovered the gun, checked the serial number and found it had been reported stolen from a home in Hillside in a burglary. Ruth said Smith told officers he had acquired the gun from what Ruth called "a third party," so he was not charged in connection with the theft.
Smith was released on bond.
Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Parents, teachers and students celebrated Catholic education during Catholic Schools Week from Jan. 29 to Feb. 4.
Margie Marshall, principal at St. Cyprian School in River Grove, said during Catholic Schools Week, the school had three main focuses faith, community and academics. Each day, the school celebrated a different theme.
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"Catholic Schools Week is a week celebrated nationally by all the Catholic schools in the country," Marshall explained. "It's a time to recognize what makes us special as a Catholic school."
The week kicked off on Jan. 29 at the 9 a.m. Mass, with the theme of celebrating faith. The students acted as ushers, readers and participated in the church choir. After the Mass, St. Cyprian held an open house.
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On Jan. 30 and 31, students celebrated community and school spirit. Marshall said students brought in nonperishable items for the St. Cyprian food pantry and wore blue and white.
On Feb. 1, students gathered in the lobby for an academic bowl. Four students represented each grade level.
"We had questions for each subject from the teachers," Marshall said. "The academic bowl was a time to come together and celebrate what we're doing academically as a school."
St. Cyprian School celebrated Catholic Schools Week with an academic bowl competition. (St. Cyprian School )
Marshall said on Feb. 3, there was a visit from Ronald McDonald, who spoke to pre-school through fourth-grade students about bullying.
In the evening, there was a family bowling night at Brunswick Zone in River Grove.
"I think that what makes St. Cyprian special is our community that comes together," Marshall said. "That's what makes us great."
St. Cyprian parent Tom Tarpey said a Catholic education has benefited his children. He said attending St. Cyprian helped his children with their education, upbringing and instilling positive values
"St. Cyprian gave our kids the instruments to be who they are today," Tarpey said.
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Maryann Pisano is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Leslie Buxbaum Danzig got her start doing traditional theater, but then she saw and early Cirque du Soleil performance and became interested in physical theater and circus.
"Seeing these different influences and the possibilities made me want to train in that," she said.
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She traveled to Paris where she trained in physical theater and clown with master teachers Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier. She found ways to combine multiple aspects of theater in Chicago, co-founding the group 500 Clown and directing dance-theater shows at Lucky Plush Productions.
"The purity of any of these forms is always far less interesting than when it pushes up against another form," Buxbaum Danzig said. "Both forms are revealed by being juxtaposed. I love both the problems and solutions that arise. When you put clown and its preoccupation with presence with a planned story that theater wants to tell, you get some really exciting and productive chaos."
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For her latest project, Buxbaum Danzig wrote and directed the circus-theater production "Quest" for The Actors Gymnasium. It runs at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center in Evanston from Feb. 11 to March 19.
The show is based on Leo Tolstoy's short story "The Three Questions," which Buxbaum Danzig first encountered in a children's book of the same name by Jon J. Muth. In his adaptation, a boy accompanied by some animal friends seeks answers to the titular three questions, which are: When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? and What is the right thing to do? The conclusion is that the right time to do something is now, the most important one is the one you are with and the right thing to do is to help those around you.
"What I always responded to was it starts with these three big questions and then the story boldly says 'and here are the answers,'" Buxbaum Danzig said. "I always found the answers and the asking of the questions, the experience of reading it as a children's book to my kids was, as a parent, quite grounding and centering and did the work of drawing me into the present moment of just being with my kids and saying goodnight to them."
"Quest" has a girl seeking answers to those questions accompanied by sidekicks, though Buxbaum Danzig also pays tribute to the original Tolstoy story with a play within the play that has a king seeking the answers.
"Because I got to the Tolstoy story through knowing this book, it already invited the possibility of this story being in different worlds," she said. "It wasn't a given that we needed to set it in a kingdom. I was interested in finding a contemporary context in which to place the story to test how relevant or interesting this story is with a contemporary set of characters."
Buxbaum Danzig said she'd been considering adapting the story for some time and saw an opportunity when Actors Gymnasium asked her to direct a show for them.
"I just wanted to pursue it in a way where we're really telling a story through the languages of circus," she said. "My hope is that audiences get all the thrill, excitement and power of watching some real physically beautiful material unfold in front of them and will also be invested in a story that's being told."
Information: 847-328-2795; www.actorsgymnasium.org
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The Actors Gymnasium presents 'Quest'
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11 through March 19
Where: Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., Evanston
Tickets: $20; $15 for kids, students and seniors
Students from both East and West Leyden high schools combined to work on the Orchesis Dance Company's presentation of "Fusion," which took place Feb. 9-11 at East Leyden.
Stephanie Zeppetello, one of the co-directors of the show, in an email called it "by far the most creative show we have had." The show included student-choreographed pieces that were to "highlight a variety of dance forms, many of which are a fusion of two or more dance styles," according to a news release.
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Zeppetello said in her email that she "barely had to step in and assist in the choreographic process."
"These dancers chose themes and allowed themselves to take risks and tell a story through their movement," Zeppetello said. "I will always remember the Monday rehearsal the week of show, when every dance seemed to come together all at once and the dancers finally began to perform and get into the characters that they created all on their own."
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Performers included Sofia Flores, William Flores, Jessica Gonzalez, Nohelly Hernandez, Izabela Krzysztofek, Alexis Lopez, Jolee Martinez, Rachel Modi, Taylor Pesch, Joselyn Shapiama, Ashley Soller, Erica Stenhaug, Erica Villegas, Laylani Wilson, Jesus Delgado, Alexis Salgado and Isaias Saucedo.
Zeppetello said one of the more challenging dances was inspired by a Japanese theater form called "Butoh."
"Not only was the dance form difficult to learn because it is not a very popular or well-defined style, but the dancers had to find a way to tap into the performance art and contortionistic aspects while dancing to music that was composed of random, patternless sounds and periods of silence," she said.
Zeppetello said the goal is "for the dancers to create authentic theme-based dances in which each choreographer is in total control of how the idea unfolds into a complete work of art. They are in charge of choreographing the movement, teaching the dancers, choosing the costumes, editing the music and even sometimes involve themselves in light design."
"Each dance stands alone as its own story, with a developed beginning, middle and end," she added. "Once the dance is completed and taught, dancers focus on the performance aspect of each piece, having the choreographers further define the character and character traits of each dancer so they are then able to fully tell the story the choreographer intended."
Twice this month, felony defendants initially found fit for trial procedures following evaluation at mental health facilities have been sent back for further evaluation by Lake County Circuit Court judges.
On Friday, Michael Coffee, one of three defendants facing murder charges in the 2013 death of 20-year-old Highland Park resident Colin Nutter, was found unfit for trial by Judge Victoria Rossetti, according to prosecutors.
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Assistant State's Attorney Reginald Mathews said that after a secure mental health facility returned Coffee to Lake County Jail with a report that he is fit for trial, Rossetti determined after questioning Coffee that she felt he needs more evaluation.
Coffee was transferred to a facility last fall, and under state statute could have spent up to a year receiving treatment there before moving forward with trial or being declared unfit for trial, prosecutors have said.
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A trial date for another defendant, Philip Vatamaniuc, also of Highland Park, is scheduled April 17 after numerous delays.
The third defendant, Benjamin Schenk, of Highwood, has pleaded guilty under a negotiated agreement and is awaiting sentencing until after it is determined whether he will be needed to testify at the trials of Vatamaniuc and Coffee.
According to police reports and prosecutors, Coffee, Vatamaniuc and Schenk arranged a marijuana deal with Nutter on June 3, 2013, and when the group gathered in Nutter's car, he was shot in the head in an apparent robbery attempt.
Under state law, all three were eligible to be held accountable of first-degree murder if convicted at trial, regardless of who fired the gun.
Coffee's defense attorney, Michael Krejci, said Monday he had no comment on the judge's ruling.
Earlier this month, Judge Mark Levitt ruled that Daniel Pederson, who had been evaluated for several months and found fit for sentencing by a state mental health facility in Elgin, was still not ready for court proceedings.
The case against Pederson began Sept. 12, 2014, when prosecutors said Pederson called the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services and said he was going to "kill people" and "light up" the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan, as well as the Gurnee Police Department.
Last fall, Levitt initially found Pederson unfit for sentencing due to his behavior following his conviction by a jury on charges of making a terrorism threat, a felony that carries a potential sentence of 6 to 30 years in prison. Doctors and officials from the Elgin facility testified during Pederson's recent fitness hearing that they believed he was now fit for a sentencing hearing.
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His attorneys, however, successfully argued that Pederson wasn't legally fit and that his loud and at times profane outbursts during his fitness hearing and unwillingness to work with defense attorneys demonstrated their assertions.
Pederson initially was sent to the facility in Elgin for a 90-day review, and now the process will be repeated, with another 90-day period of evaluation and treatment.
Pederson is scheduled for another court appearance before Levitt on May 3, while Rossetti has set a March 28 status hearing for Coffee.
jrnewton@tribpub.com
Twitter @jimnewton5
A 27-year-old Waukegan man was in custody Sunday in the Hillsborough County jail in Florida after he was tracked down by the Lake County Sheriff's Gang Task Force and Lake County Sheriff's Warrants Team after he sold crack cocaine and a handgun to an undercover detective, according to authorities.
On Aug. 24, Keonte D. Wilson of the 2800 block of Darrow Lane sold cocaine and a gun to an undercover detective from the gang task force which subsequently obtained a warrant for unlawful delivery of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, according to a statement from the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
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Once the warrant was issued by a judge, the warrant team and the United States Marshals Service Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force began searching for Wilson and learned he had likely fled to Florida, according to the statement.
On Jan. 14, a no bond warrant for a parole violation warrant was issued for Wilson by the Illinois Department of Corrections for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, vehicular hijacking, reckless discharge of a firearm, attempt aggravated robbery, obstructing a peace officer, and assault, according to the statement.
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On Feb. 10, detectives developed information that Wilson was at his girlfriend's residence in Wimauma, Fla. and they worked with the U.S. Marshals Service Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force which apprehended Wilson, according to the statement.
Wilson is awaiting an extradition hearing in Florida.
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On Valentines Day, the FBI warns of romance scams on the internet and how people play the heart strings of others for big money. (Getty Images)
Especially on Valentine's Day, law enforcement officials are warning residents not to look for love in all the wrong places.
"Criminals know it's Valentine's Day," said FBI Chicago spokesman Garrett H. Croon. "People are vulnerable around Valentine's Day, and criminals are targeting people who are vulnerable."
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In Lake County, romance scams are not uncommon, Sheriff's Office Sgt. Christopher Covelli said.
"We take reports frequently from people who have been scammed out of money (or) their financial identification has been compromised," he said.
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Criminals prey largely on women over 40 who are divorced, widowed, or disabled Croon said, although all demographic groups are at risk.
Although internet and telephone scams are not uncommon, romance scams usually start through an initial contact online, such as internet dating sites, Croon said. After days, weeks or months of chats and exchanges, including sending photos and possibly flowers or other gifts, the criminals will ask for money, often claiming they want to see the victim, but don't have money to travel.
"The advice of the FBI is don't send money to people you haven't met in person," Croon said. "Tell them you're not going to send them money, and the real intention will show through."
Victims are often asked to send money through a wire transfer, which typically routes to another country, Croon said. It is "extra difficult to recover those funds" internationally, he said. Once a victim sends money, the requests continue, and often include cashing checks for the criminals, who claim to be out of the country, and sometimes forwarding packages, he said.
"In addition to losing your money to someone who had no intention of ever visiting you, you may also have unknowingly taken part in a money laundering scheme by cashing phony checks and sending the money overseas and by shipping stolen merchandise," by forwarding packages, Croon said.
Covelli advised that anyone using an online dating site should always use that site or app for their communication. The FBI said a common scam is for a criminal to make initial contact with a person through an online dating site, then move the conversation to another site, where the talk turns intimate, Croon said. The victims are then blackmailed, asked to pay ransom to have their private conversations and photos removed from public websites, Croon said.
"If someone you meet online is asking for personal information, you should be very suspect of that and you should never provide any personal info," Covelli said. "These scam artists are very good at what they do."
One option for anyone who believes they have been a victim of a scam is to file a complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at http://www.ic3.gov.
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Erin Gallagher is a freelance reporter for the Lake County News-Sun.
Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 has two "Know Your Rights" informational sessions on immigration rights and options for victims of crime planned for Wednesday.
The district is partnering with attorneys from Prairie State Legal Service to provide the sessions, which are scheduled for 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. at Juarez Middle School, 201 N. Butrick St.
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The sessions are among a number of forums that have been planned in the wake of President Donald Trump's inauguration last month, including one hosted by LULAC of Lake County, an advocacy group for area Latinos, over the weekend and another District 60 forum last week.
The last district forum drew about 15 to 20 people who asked questions about different visa types, existing and pending executive orders and more general questions about the rights of non-citizens, according to Carolina Fabian, the district's new manager of family and community engagement.
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Fabian, who was a dual language teacher at Oakdale Elementary School before starting her new job three weeks ago, said they hope the forums will help parents and other community members feel more secure in Waukegan.
"The kids albeit they were 6 years old they were very aware of the election and what was going on," she said. "When Trump won, I heard similar comments where they were very afraid, where they didn't know if they were going to be deported. We want to make sure parents understand what the law is and what the rights they have regardless of citizenship status."
The presentations will be held in English and Spanish and are open to everyone. Questions can be directed to Fabian at cfabian@wps60.org or 224-303-1036.
emcoleman@tribpub.com
Twitter @mekcoleman
The Caterpillar global headquarters building in downtown Peoria. The company announced in January its headquarters will move to the Chicago area. (Ron Johnson / AP)
The headlines must have sent shock waves through Peoria: "Caterpillar moving HQ to Chicago area."
Officials of the heavy equipment manufacturer announced earlier this month the firm was canceling plans for a new global headquarters in the central Illinois city. Instead, it will move 300 executives and support staff someplace in the Chicago region, leaving 12,000 workers in Peoria.
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Hopefully, Lake County's economic development folks are putting together a package, perhaps something with frilly incentives, to lure this Fortune 500 Company here instead of downtown Chicago. Who wouldn't want the headquarters of a firm with the pedigree of Caterpillar in their community?
The plan unveiled by Cat CEO Jim Umpleby outlined the reason why the Dow component was abandoning a new headquarters complex downstate, which it has called home for more than a century, and trekking north. It comes down to what every Realtor knows well: Location, location, location.
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Umpleby pointed out the company wants to be closer to greater choices of transportation in order to more easily touch base with Cat's global customers, dealers and employees. Besides saving money, it also might have something to do with getting employees to move to Peoria.
Nothing against Peoria, but it is a bit out of the way. Surely workers flying off to Mumbai, India, say, would have to first catch a commuter flight from Peoria International Airport to either O'Hare International Airport or Lambert International Airport in St Louis, or take the company jet.
Employees wouldn't have that problem in Lake County. They could have their choice of Mitchell Field in Milwaukee or O'Hare or Midway. Maybe the company jet could be waiting at Waukegan National Airport or, if they want to step foot in Cook County, Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling.
If you are unfamiliar with Cat, the company makes some of the best earth-moving equipment. From bulldozers to road graders to mega-dump trucks, the Cat brand is known in construction and mining circles around the globe. It's a world-class operation.
Which means Lake County, with its current lineup of global and nationally recognized companies, would be an excellent fit for Caterpillar. Cat officials say they don't plan to build a new edifice for their world headquarters. Rather, they will rent.
Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
I'm thinking Conway Farms in Lake Forest, right off Interstate 94. Possibly the languishing former WMS headquarters near Fountain Square in Waukegan. Regardless, there's plenty of room for them in Lake County.
There's also a great selection of good schools, a fair transportation network and a wide range in housing, especially homes geared toward corporate relocations. Besides, Lake County is warm and friendly, like Peoria and Tazewell counties. Or at least that's how I remember the area the last time I ventured south by Interstate 74.
Cat executives should give Lake County a gander. Compare here to there, i.e., Chicago. Here is close to Chicago, but without the problems consuming the big city: High taxes, high crime, high rents, high housing prices, high traffic, high cost of doing business. Cat shouldn't be taken in by the bright lights of the big city.
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As for Peoria residents losing Caterpillar executives, they still have the headquarters of upscale sunglasses maker Maui Jim to console them.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
Twitter: @sellenews
Protest with pocketbooks
I voted for Donald Trump, and I'm glad I did. The past few weeks have been incredible. I approve of all his presidential actions. I laugh at all the far left, the Democrats, socialists and Hollywood. Like Gen. Yamamoto of Japan said after the Pearl Harbor attack, "We have awakened a sleeping giant." While these childish protests continue, we have the power to vote with our pocketbooks. We all love our favorite television and movie actors, but when they force empty rhetoric on us, it's time to stop watching their films. You can find out who won the next day on the news and watch their movies on Netflix.
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Backlash begins
It's my understanding that President Trump was going to the Harley-Davidson plant in Milwaukee. Harley-Davidson is America like apple pie and Chevrolet. They told him they don't want him there. We have just started the backlash. Just 12 days into his presidency, and he had under a 50 percent approval rating. Congratulations to you people who elected him. Now we will have to live with him for the next four years. I don't think Trump has a clue about how much backlash he will face. That travel ban was insane.
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Disappointed in Democrats
The Democrats are such phonies. President Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch to be a Supreme Court justice. He has stood up for Christians and other religions. The Democrats criticized Trump for being against the Muslim religion, yet they are fighting against this appointment. Not only is Hollywood annoying to me, but so are the Democrats. What a bunch of crybabies.
Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
Vexed about executive orders
I agree with Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer from New York. The president signed unconstitutional executive orders and showed total disregard for our country. The only problem is I'm not talking about President Trump. I'm talking about former President Obama. He signed numerous executive orders. An executive order should not change the law. Schumer is just your typical hypocrite on the left.
Pie in the sky dreams
This is about the Sierra Club endorsing Lisa May for Waukegan mayor. You want to shut down the power plants and everything else along the lakefront. How do you expect people to keep their jobs? Oh, training programs for NRG employees who may be displaced. You have pie in the sky dreams for the lakefront, but it's not going to happen in my lifetime or yours. Realize that on the south end, you have PCB contamination at astronomical levels. If you head farther north, you have the power plant and the sanitary district. Who will build million dollar condominiums on the lakefront next to a sanitary district? If that's not enough, go north of the NRG property and see the biggest asbestos dump in the country. The pie in the sky dreams are screwing with people's jobs and energy. Wake up to the facts, people.
Twitter @NewsSun
Editor's Note
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Talk of the County is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you see something you disagree with or think is incorrect, please tell us. Call us at 312-222-4554 or email talkofthecounty@tribpub.com. For a continuously updating blog of Talk of the County comments, go to newssunonline.com/talk.
Judges a threat
The packing of the Federal courts with liberal judges has now come home to roost. Obama and Reid kept this under the radar and the liberal media gave them a pass, as usual. So, now we have a national security issue due to the horrible decision made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The president clearly has the power to ban immigration of any class of aliens that he sees as a threat. The liberal Ninth Circuit did not even mention this in their decision, but came up with a false conclusion that no acts of terror had been committed by immigrants from the seven countries in question. There have been at least 30 arrests of immigrants from these countries for terrorist activities, but the incompetent attorney from Obama's Department of Justice couldn't produce them during the review. These liberal, activist judges that were put in by Obama through Reid's nuclear option in the Senate are now the biggest threat to the security and well-being of our country.
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Here I come
Wow. I never knew that a citizen and resident of another country has the right to come here. How come we don't have the right to go there? I thought you required their government's permission to enter the country.
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Look on the bright side
President Trump tweets that Nordstroms is being very unfair to his daughter Ivanka for dropping her clothing line. Nordstroms is a publicly traded corporation and has a fiduciary duty to it's shareholders to maximize it's profit and shed failing entities from it's portfolio. Let's face it, the Ivanka Trump brand is a total disaster, very, very unpopular and a loser in the marketplace. The silver lining of course is that now Ivanka can have more free time to attend to her father and push him to do the right thing.
Some choice words
The opposite of pro-choice is not pro-life, it's anti-choice.
Picky, picky
How many immigrants and refugees were rejected at Ellis Island for trachoma, an eye problem, or other physical or mental illnesses? They were held in the hospital for days or weeks, or possibly were returned on the same ship on which they traveled. People have selective memories when saying the current immigration/refugee ban never happened before. The United States government was very selective on who they accepted. Freeloaders and anarchists need not apply. We have the right to be picky today, too.
Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >
Commercial promoting what?
I cannot understand why 84 Lumber spent $5 million to condone illegal immigration in their Super Bowl Commercial. They must want to encourage illegal immigration so that they can get cheap, off-the-books labor. I, for one, will never set foot in one of their stores again.
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Fly those flags
Why do no Beach Park schools fly the United States flag? I drove to all of the schools, and none of them were flying the flag. For the amount it costs the taxpayers for those flag polls at the middle school, I could pay my property taxes for a year.
Twitter @NewsSun
Editor's Note
Talk of the County is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you see something you disagree with or think is incorrect, please tell us. Call us at 312-222-4554 or email talkofthecounty@tribpub.com. For a continuously updating blog of Talk of the County comments, go to newssunonline.com/talk.
A group of seven northwest suburbs indefinitely suspended an alternate energy program after the municipalities couldnt secure cheaper electricity rates lower than ComEds offerings for residents this year. (Pioneer Press file / Pioneer Press)
A group of seven northwest suburbs indefinitely suspended an alternate energy program after the municipalities couldn't secure cheaper electricity rates lower than ComEd's offerings for residents this year.
The decision comes after voters from Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Lincolnshire, Long Grove, Palatine, Vernon Hills and Wheeling approved a referendum in 2012 allowing officials from those municipalities to form the "Northwest Aggregation Consortium."
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The group, like other similar ones in the Chicago area, was created to find cheaper electricity rates for residents than the ones from ComEd, the predominant supplier in the area.
The Northwest Aggregation Consortium decided to suspend the program this year because ComEd offered the lowest available fixed rates among all of the group's bidders, said Jennifer Maltas, deputy village manager for Buffalo Grove.
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Residents automatically are set to switch to ComEd in May with the rate changes reflected on bills received in June, she said.
But the consortium could return from the suspension if other fixed rates start to drop lower than ComEd's rates, said Buffalo Grove Village Manager Dane Bragg.
"The consortium is proud to have worked together to achieve significant savings for the residents and small businesses of our communities," he said. "The consortium is committed to monitoring electric rates in the future, should rates become more favorable and savings can be guaranteed."
Residents of each town will receive a letter in April informing them of the shift back to ComEd, Maltas said. The Northwest Aggregation Consortium's current contract with Constellation Energy Group expires in May, she said.
Residents of the seven communities don't need to do anything to begin receiving electricity again from ComEd, Maltas said.
Since starting in 2012, the consortium has saved its residents more than $26 million, she said.
While some other area towns bail from electricity aggregation contracts because of increasing costs, Lake Zurich users enjoyed a nearly 12 percent drop in rates last July, village officials said.
Lake Zurich electric rates dropped from 7.199 to 6.35 cents per kilowatt hour and will remain at that level at least until the village's aggregation agreement with the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative expires in June 2017, Kyle Kordell, assistant to the village manager, has said.
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Last September, Barrington entered the final year of its three-year contract with Dynegy Energy Services, according to Dynegy's website. Village users are currently paying 6.509 cents per kilowatt hour, the site said.
Residents of the seven communities who are members of the Northwest Aggregation Consortium also have the option of staying with Constellation Energy Group or choosing another supplier, said Melanie Santostefano, a spokeswoman for Buffalo Grove.
"They will automatically be moved back to ComEd but can change to another supplier at their will," she said.
During the transition, residents also may receive solicitations from electric companies, Maltas said.
"While they are encouraged to explore their options, they are strongly advised to avoid programs with monthly fees, early termination fees and variable rates that could have no upward cap," Maltas said.
Residents with questions about the Northwest Aggregation Consortium suspending its program can call the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative at 800-727-3820, she said.
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Phil Rockrohr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Lake County pantries that help feed the hungry will gladly accept food donations, but what some pantries in the area need most are monetary donations, volunteers and nonfood items.
"Our No. 1 need is dollars," said Wendy Warden, founder and director of the Avon Community Food Pantry, which she said served 21,387 residents in Avon Township in 2016.
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"Our No. 2 need is good consistent volunteers," she said.
"And our third need is items like toothpaste, shampoo, laundry detergent and diapers."
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Other food pantries in the county have said they can rely on a reliable base of donors and strong community events to try and raise donations during slower times in the year, especially after the holiday season ends.
Bill Peterson, supervisor of Vernon Township, which operates a food pantry for low-income families in the Buffalo Grove and Lincolnshire area, said his pantry is most in need of nonfood and household items, such as paper and hygiene products.
But the pantry also will turn to the community when cash and food donations slow during the year, he said. The Long Grove Lions Club usually donates cash and food throughout the year, along with other community groups, Peterson said.
"We have a great community here," he said. "The Stevenson High School Honor Society does a gigantic food collection in late November and early December."
Vernon Township Supervisor Bill Peterson holds items while at the Vernon Township Food Pantry. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press)
Demand for the Vernon Township pantry also has changed slightly in the years following the economic recession in the late 2000s. Fewer people are using the pantry as the economy has started to recovery, Peterson said.
Starting 2016, the pantry served about 350 families in the area, a total that since has declined by about 20 families, he said.
The St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, operated by the St. Francis de Sales Parish in Lake Zurich, also has seen demand drop since the holiday season ended.
They usually service about 140 area families a week, a slight decline from the 200 families the pantry serves weekly in December and January, said Kathleen Murray, director of the Lake Zurich-based food pantry.
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To ensure enough nonfood donations, the pantry relies on local businesses to donate household and other nonfood items, she said. Community groups through holiday donation drives usually help stock the shelves during the winter months, but the pantry could use more volunteers, Murray said.
"We're always looking for volunteers," Murray said. "We're doing OK there, too."
The Living Faith Cathedral Worship Center Church in Palatine runs a food pantry that services about 650 families a year in the Barrington area, said Pastor Larry Bullock.
The church in recent years has struggled to secure corporate donations since many of the larger business like to give to larger organizations, leaving smaller pantries with limited donor options, he said.
One of the county's oldest pantries, COOL Ministries, based in Waukegan and Ingleside, also struggle to secure enough monetary and nonfood donations once the holiday season ends.
"We get generous support around the holidays, but this time of year there's nothing (in monetary donations) coming in the mail," said Executive Director Diane Thackston. "And actually this is the hardest time if you're a struggling family."
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Thackston said those who work in landscaping, roofing and other seasonal trades sometimes need extra help in the cold months.
More than 50,000 Lake County residents live below the poverty line, and one of every five children is "food insecure," according to the People Lending Assistance Network, PLAN, a food pantry that's been running for 11 years in Round Lake Beach.
Many local pantries work with the Northern Illinois Food Bank, founded in 1982, which purchases food and sells it to the pantries for much less than what it costs at grocery stores.
The bank estimates that for every dollar donated to local food pantries, at least $8 worth of groceries can be purchased.
"Sometimes we can get a whole case of cereal for $5 from the food bank, and you go to the grocery store and $5 might buy you one box of cereal," Thackston said.
"Back in the early days, we had to drive to Chicago to the Greater Chicago Food Depository or take our truck and run to Aldi's or try to cut a deal at the local market," she said, adding that COOL can now purchase food, including vegetables and meats, from the depository.
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"People are starting to understand that we can get a lot more if they donate monetarily," Thackston said. "We even accept credit cards."
COOL Ministries spends several thousand dollars a month purchasing food at the bank. But funds aren't just needed to buy food, said Michael Pimpo, a Round Lake resident who founded PLAN.
Food pantries need donations to pay for rental space for stocking items, as well as refrigerators and freezers to store perishables, he said.
"We rent three units and have expenditures over $8,000 per month," he said.
PLAN serves roughly 2,000 families from Round Lake, Grayslake, Lake Villa, Antioch, Fox Lake and Wildwood.
According to Pimpo, the pantry not only purchases food from the Northern Illinois Food Bank, but also works with local stores such as Target and Big Lots to obtain diapers, paper goods and other items the food bank does not sell.
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"I have worked to create a network of local businesses that donate items we need," Pimpo said.
At many of the county's food banks, including those run at local townships, clients sign a document indicating their income level or that they are in need.
They then can come once a month to obtain a box of food that contains perishable and nonperishable items, including canned goods, juice, vegetables, cereal, pasta, rice, fresh fruit, bread and other items.
They're also offered treats such as cookies and chips, and can come in daily for donated food with short shelf-lives.
Help wanted
Picking up, storing and organizing the food and other items requires help from volunteers, Warden said, adding that, "We always need people to stock items, work in the warehouse, people who can lift heavy items and drive the trucks."
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On a recent Thursday, the Northern Illinois Food Bank delivered three pallets of purchased food to PLAN. Volunteers opened the pallets, sorted the food and placed them in boxes and refrigerators and freezers.
Howard Eiserman of Round Lake has visited PLAN to obtain food over the years, and occasionally still needs a few items including bread, he said. Now he volunteers two or three times a week helping pack boxes to give to clients.
"I came in here to pitch in," Eiserman said. "That's how it should work."
Dennyse Sanchez of Round Lake, also a volunteer, spends many hours organizing paper products, over-the-counter-medicines and diapers.
She said she enjoys helping people and listening to their stories. She met an 80-year-old man who lost his wife and needed someone to talk to.
"Now he has a lady friend," she said. "They're so cute together."
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Food pantry volunteers experience a range of emotions, Warden said.
"You feel so good, you are able to help," she said. "It's almost like a high. People are happy they get fresh broccoli, and we could give them beef."
But some volunteers say they see clients taking more than their fair share, she said.
"We cannot ask them (the clients) for a pay stub," she said. "If they sign that paper (saying they need food), we take them at face value. It's not our job to police them."
Warden said if the food pantries didn't exist, "A lot of people would be hungry; really hungry."
Said Thackston, "It doesn't take a whole lot to donate a few groceries or write a small check. There are people who faithfully send in $10 or $20 every couple of months. It makes a big difference. When we have extra, we should help others."
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Todd Shields is a Pioneer Press reporter.
The main entrance to Lake Zurich High School is near the flagpole in its circular driveway, but it cannot feature a security vestibule, District 95 officials said. (Pioneer Press file / Pioneer Press)
Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 is planning to build a new main entrance at its high school to help strengthen security measures, school officials said.
The proposed project would remodel an existing entrance at Lake Zurich High School and add a security vestibule, said Vicky Cullinan, assistant superintendent of business and operations.
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The current main entrance, located near a flagpole and circular driveway at the high school, doesn't have the space for a vestibule, creating a security concern, she said.
"The issue is that the current entrance has limitations inside the building that prevent us from creating a more secure entrance," Cullinan said.
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Itasca-based DLA Architects presented a proposal last month to a district board committee that outlined the project at an estimated cost of $700,000, she said.
Board members still have to approve the project but construction work could begin by the summer, Cullinan said.
District officials said they hope to have the newly renovated entrance open for the 2017-18 school year.
The new main entrance would be located at an opening near the gym, between the field house and current main entrance, Cullinan said.
"The current design calls for a waiting area before entering the interior of the school building," she said. "There will be a security station."
Superintendent Kaine Osburn said the new entrance is intended to allow security officials to monitor every visitor coming through Lake Zurich High School.
"Our goal is to have an entrance that requires every visitor to be approved by security before physically entering the high school," Osburn said.
Aside from stronger security measures, the construction project also allows the high school a chance to create a "more identifiable main entrance," Cullinan said.
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Phil Rockrohr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
An "I Voted!" sticker is seen on a voter at Maine South High School in Park Ridge on Nov. 8, 2016. (Tim Boyle / Pioneer Press)
No write-in candidates have registered to run in Park Ridge races this April, according to the Cook County Clerk's Office.
In order to be elected, suburban write-in candidates must submit a declaration of intent form to the clerk's downtown Chicago office, the office's website says. The last day to file that notarized declaration was Feb. 2 at 5 p.m., said Cook County Clerk's Office spokesman James Scalzitti.
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According to the website, "only votes for eligible write-in candidates are counted."
A list of registered write-in candidates in suburban Cook County races can be found on the website at www.cookcountyclerk.com under the 2017 Elections tab.
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Patrick DeStefano, a former candidate for alderman of Park Ridge's 6th Ward, had said he was considering a write-in bid after his name was removed from the ballot in January due to a lack of signatures.
DeStefano told the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate on Friday that he backed away from a write-in campaign due to personal matters. As far as a run in the future, he said it is possible, but acknowledged that four years "is a long way off."
"As long as there's improvement and everything is on the right track, I don't want to intervene with the City Council," DeStefano said.
Monica Wojnicki, who was removed from the ballot in the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 race after objections to signatures on her nominating petitions were upheld by the Cook County Electoral Board, also made statements on social media about running as a write-in candidate. She did not respond to a message from the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate, but posted on a Park Ridge Facebook group Thursday that she had decided not to pursue a write-in campaign.
She was one of 11 residents to submit her name for consideration of a short-term appointment to a vacant seat on the District 64 school board this month.
jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
Maine South High School senior Amy Rozny's love of butterflies and her background in raising them helped inspire her to visually answer the question, "How will you change the world?"
While visiting Ohio, Rozny took photographs of a variety of butterfly species and used art and computer software to create a vibrant print for her digital imaging course. In a written caption, Rozny suggested that diversity among the world's people is akin to the ecosystem's reliance on many different kinds of butterflies.
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"Like butterflies, we need everybody in this world," Rozny said. "Sometimes we forget that."
Rozny's piece is among 48 images on exhibit at Park Ridge's Brickton Art Center as part of Photo Voice 2017. Featuring the work of selected students enrolled in digital imaging courses at Maine South, Maine East and Maine West high schools, the art exhibit will be open to the public through Feb. 24 at Brickton, 306 Busse Highway. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays; and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays.
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For several years, students have participated in Photo Voice, which is a joint effort between Brickton, the Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation, Maine Township High School District 207 and the Park Ridge Police Department, said MCYAF Executive Director Teri Collins.
The project developed out of an anti-drug initiative, Collins explained, and is still used as a way to encourage teens to make positive decisions.
Each year, selected classes are chosen to create art that answers a question. This year's question was "How will you change the world?"
"The way that I introduce it to my students [is], in order to make an impact on the world, you do have to stay drug-free and make healthy choices," said Greg Regaldo, an art teacher at Maine West. "That's the angle I approach it with my students."
Below a piece entitled "Healing Touch," which depicts a hand reaching out to touch bruised fingers, Maine East junior Imaan Pajic wrote, "I'm going to change the world by helping others and spreading positivity . When you say something as simple as 'thank you for your help, I really appreciate it,' 'Let me help you carry those things,' or even 'I like your sweater,' you could end up making their day better and have their mood lifted."
Accompanying a photograph of bright yellow seedlings emerging from the forest ground, Brandon Rogerio, a Maine East sophomore, wrote, "I want to bring life to the world, like planting a tree."
Laura Hanna, an art teacher at Maine East, said she noticed many environmental themes and messages of kindness in her students' work.
"I didn't give them any prompts, so it's interesting that they chose those two," she said.
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Maine South art teacher Mary Lee Moore said one of her students used a recent O'Hare airport protest against President Donald Trump's travel ban as inspiration for her piece.
"I noticed a lot of what they were working on changed once the protests started," Moore said of her students.
Park Ridge Deputy Police Chief Duane Mellema, who introduced Photo Voice to MCYAF after learning about the program through a conference hosted by Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, said he is always amazed by the pieces students produce.
"This is just fantastic work," he said of this year's submissions. "It shatters all the preconceptions of teenagers."
Once the exhibit is over, some pieces will go on display at local businesses, Collins said. Any business in Maine Township interested in hosting some of the images can contact Collins at 847-858-7090.
jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com
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Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
Murder, attempted murder and battery charges have been filed against a Gary man who allegedly wounded his ex-girlfriend and killed the woman's boyfriend.
Anthony Harry Day, 49, was charged Monday in Lake Superior Court in the shooting death of Ajohnte J. Griffin, 36, of East Chicago, and the wounding of his girlfriend, 29.
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The woman told police she had ended her relationship with Day about two weeks before the shooting, which occurred early Feb. 10 at a residence at 359 McKinley St., in Gary. She and her friend, Griffin, had just arrived home after being out all day. The woman had checked her windows and doors to make sure they were locked, then started taking a bath, court records state. While in the bathroom, the woman said she heard commotion from a west bedroom of her home and discovered Griffin struggling with Day, records state.
After speaking with the men, they both lowered their weapons, court records said. Day kept saying he just wanted to talk to the woman, and Griffith said he wanted to get the clip to his weapon and leave, documents said.
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The woman said she got dressed, and Day continued to ask if he could talk to her, but the woman said she didn't trust him with a gun in his hands and didn't want to talk, records state.
"You played me," Day told the woman, according to court records. "I've been wanting to do this for the longest," Day repeated twice, then opened fire at the woman, who turned and ran, according to the probable cause affidavit.
After she ran outside, the woman said she heard two gunshots. The woman said she hid until she saw that police had made it to her home, documents said.
Ruth Ann Krause is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
7 out of 10 Americans Support the Heartbeat Bill
H.R. 490 to be discussed on U.S. House floor this week
Contact: Janet Porter, 202-241-2ACT (2228); Rachelle Heidlebaugh, 419-348-4787; Lori Viars, 513-932-4952
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- A stunning new national poll conducted by the Barna Group* reveals that seven out of ten Americans, 69 percent, agree with the premise of the federal Heartbeat Bill: "If a doctor is able to detect the heartbeat of an unborn baby, that unborn baby should be legally protected." H.R. 490, which would protect unborn children whose heartbeats can be heard, is supported by 86 percent of Republicans, 61 percent of Independents, and even a majority of Democrats--55 percent. The Heartbeat Bill and the poll results will be discussed on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, February 16th.
"The heartbeat is the medical measurement of life," stated Janet Porter, President of Faith2Action and author of the Heartbeat Bill, first introduced in Ohio in 2011. "It's the reason you've never been to the funeral of someone with a heartbeat."
Porter explained, "Like an SOS telegraph, the child in the womb is sending a signal we can no longer ignore. To deny it is to deny science."
"The Heartbeat Bill has given a voice to babies in the womb and to mothers like me who were never told about their unborn child's beating heart before taking their life," said Rachelle Heidlebaugh, Legislative Director of Faith2Action, who has experienced the heartbreak of an abortion.
"You can help keep hearts beating by sending 'Valentines' to Congress, encouraging their support for the Heartbeat Bill," said Lori Viars, of Warren County Right to Life. "You can click to mail pro-life 'Valentines' to all 535 members of Congress for the price of postage at www.HeartBeatBill.com ."
"I urge Congress to pass the common sense Heartbeat Bill--the first step to make America safe again," added Porter.
*The Barna Group surveyed 1,002 adults with a sampling error of +/- 3.1 percentage points. The survey was conducted from January 19-27, 2017.
Cheryl Francis Harrington, from left, as Mary, Stephen Barrington as David, Shannon Foster as Shannon, Ernest Pierce as Delonte, Karnell Matthews as Dante, Chala Savina as Margarita and Chris Triana as Alejandro hide out in a church to avoid capture in a dystopian 2021 United States in "Make America Great?" (Provided by Candice Vernon / Post-Tribune)
When Candice Vernon wrote and produced her dramatic satire film short, "Make America Great?" last October, she said she had a good idea Donald J. Trump would be her next president.
"I can't say I was 100 percent sure, but I was 80 percent or 90 percent sure. There were a lot of nay-sayers who asked, 'what are you going to do when Hillary wins, and this film is irrelevant?'" she said.
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It turns out, her short film is relevant and it will be shown opening night at the sixth annual Black Film Festival on Friday at the Glen Theater, 20 W. Ridge Road, Gary.
The two-day festival is hosted Los Angeles-based actor William L. Johnson, who said he is looking forward to returning to his Gary stomping grounds to host the event.
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Johnson works with the festival founder and organizer state Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, each year.
The opening night reception begins at 6:30 p.m.
According to Johnson, the feature film is "Love Isn't Enough." It is about an interracial couple who must face societal pressures. Writer, director and producer Saquan Jones is expected to be present at the screening of his film.
"Make America Great?" takes place in the year 2021, "it is at the beginning of the second term of the most anticipated presidential election in 2016," said Vernon, who will be present for the screening.
In the film, characters must cope with the repeal of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, and 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship rights to native-born and naturalized people.
The characters African-American and Hispanic men and women are on the run and hiding in a church to avoid capture and incarceration in a concentration camp. As they try to figure out whether to head for Canada or Mexico, they hash out issues related to race, skin color, stereotypes and politics.
"In terms of the immigration ban that is happening now did I have the foresight to see any of that?" Vernon said. "With the type of divisive rhetoric, I figured anything could be possible. As a minority and an immigrant (from Jamaica), I asked myself, what could be the worst thing to happen? All of my rights could be revoked."
"Make America Great?" is Vernon's third short film, and she describes it as part comedy-part drama.
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The screening at the Black Film Festival marks the first for this film. It will also be screened early this year at the Hollywood Black Film Festival and the National Black Film Festival in Houston.
She financed the film on her own and shot it all in one day on Oct. 29. A full-length feature version, with investors, is in development following a good response from her initial screenings in New York and Los Angeles, Vernon said.
"I got a huge response and a lot of people wanted to see more of the story," Vernon said. "I decided I'm going to make a feature out of it."
Vernon, who talked by phone from her home in Los Angeles, said her professional background includes a career as a commercial producer for New York advertising agencies.
Other Black Film Festival opening night shorts include "Rise Up," "Same Fruit Different Tree," "The Conscience," "Split Decision," "Showtime," "Gila Monster" and "Some Torches Don't Burn.
The Saturday night feature film at the Glen is "Stripes." Shorts include "The Letter Carrier," "Behind Closed Doors," "The Storyteller" and "Woman Scorned."
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Johnson credits Smith with the founding of the film festival. The festival emphasizes premieres and new works including narratives and documentary features or shorts, according to festival's criteria for entry.
"We get over 150 submissions," for consideration, said Johnson, who has been involved with the film festival since its inception.
This year, the film festival also will present a youth film festival featuring short films produced by high school or college students. Those films will be shown at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Wirt-Emerson School of the Performing Arts and High Ability Academy and at 2 p.m. at Thea Bowman Middle and High School, according to Smith.
Producer Ganeesh Genus, a student at St. John's University in New York, said he is coming to Gary for the screening of his short film "Good Morning." It is an adaptation of a short story about a young man about to be married who has a girlfriend on the side. The 8-minute short examines his ambivalence and his internal struggle.
"I'm very excited to be in an African-American-based film festival," Genus said. "It is my first time in the states getting recognition. It means a lot to have them show my work."
"Good Morning" has been shown in film festivals in Nigeria, Poland and Spain.
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Johnson, who has appeared in a variety of films, is a 1988 graduate of Emerson Visual and Performing Arts High School before it was renamed Wirt-Emerson.
He said he enjoys coming back to the city each year. Johnson will be performing at Dirtty's Jazz and Blues Club, 4601 Melton Road, in Miller on Saturday night following the film festival.
"I'll be performing with some friends of mine from Emerson. We are doing a fundraiser for our 30-year class reunion," said Johnson. "It will be a lot of fun originals and old-school stuff."
Johnson has been working on a new album and getting ready to direct a film and shooting another film in March.
Nancy Coltun Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Black Film festival
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What: The sixth annual Black Film Festival
When: The festival kicks off with an opening reception 6:30 p.m. Friday and continues through Saturday night.
Where: The Glen Theater, 20 W. Ridge Road in Gary. The youth film festival will have showings Saturday at Wirt-Emerson School and Thea Bowman School.
How much: Tickets for Friday are $20 in advance at Beautiful Things, 3570 Village Court, Gary, or $25 at the door. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door Saturday.
Gary police say they are looking for a 15-year-old girl who they believe "may be in extreme danger."
Chastinea Reeves was last seen near the 2000 block of Maine Street in Gary about 2 a.m. Monday.
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Police described her as 5-foot-2, 130 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a gray shirt and light-colored jeans, the police release states.
"It is urgent we locate Chastinea and assure she is safe from harm," police said in a release.
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Indiana State Police issued an Amber Alert shortly before 5 p.m. Monday.
Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call Detective Kristopher Adams at 219-755-3855, central dispatch at 219-660-0000 or dial 911.
rejacobs@post-trib.com
The Legacy Foundation is preparing to invite Lake County civic, religious, nonprofit and municipal participants and community residents to break bread and talk about how to make the county a better place to live and work at its first On The Table scheduled for Sept. 26.
On The Table takes place at multiple locations at the same time with many different local entities hosting the meals for participants who come from all aspects of county life. Merrillville-based Legacy expects to launch the project at its annual meeting on May 2 and follow the launch with an outreach effort via email, social media and direct mail.
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"Legacy will now be reaching out to community leaders all across Lake County and looking to partner, because they cannot do this alone," said Lilly Weinberg, director for Community Foundations for The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The concept is being introduced in Lake County with a $60,000 grant from Knight Foundation. Legacy is the Northwest Indiana organization that oversees the Knight Foundation's local grant funding. The Knight Foundation, which takes an interest in 26 cities where its founders once published newspapers, is investing $1.15 million investment in 10 of those cities Akron, Ohio, Charlotte, N.C., Columbus, Ga., Detroit, Gary, Lexington, Ky., Long Beach, Calif., Miami, Philadelphia and San Jose, Calif. The Post-Tribune was a Knight newspaper.
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"It is not just for the city of Gary," said Erica Fizer, director of communications and marketing for the Legacy Foundation. "We will be doing this in all Lake County communities. There are 16 cities and towns we are looking to reach in Lake County."
"We've been watching the Open Table Initiative the Chicago Community Trust initially launched," Weinberg said. "We were curious, and of course it grew. We flew all of our community leaders to Chicago last year to learn from On The Table and to participate. We wanted to see if our community leaders were interested. They were tremendously interested."
On The Table was conceived as a civic engagement initiative by the Chicago Community Trust four years ago. Last year, 55,000 Chicagoans sat down to share a meal and talk about community issues. The Knight Foundation also pulled up a few chairs for its 26 communities by funding the On The Table Symposium so those local leaders could experience the Chicago event and replicate it back home.
One of those leaders was Carolyn Saxton, president of the Legacy Foundation, the Northwest Indiana organization that oversees the Knight Foundation's community investments. Saxton participated in three table conversations youth services, nonprofit leaders and neighborhood groups.
"We are looking to get as diverse groups as possible," she said. "Small businesses, nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups. We are looking to hit all the sectors industry, religion, nonprofits. We want to reach as many people as we can. We've set a goal to get 1,500 residents engaged in conversations."
On The Table also includes a data component. The national research partner for On The Table is the UIC Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE). IPCE will develop a survey and collect responses for all 10 communities.
"Immediately following the actual event on Sept. 26, University of Illinois Chicago IPCE is putting together the survey and will be sending the email link to the hosts to gather feedback about what they've discussed. They'll be doing the data collection of that to make sure it's free from bias," Fizer said.
"The key will be getting more than 1,000 people to be breaking bread together and learning from their discussions and surveys (not only) to better inform the strategy of the Legacy Foundation but to bring that information back to the community leaders and let them know what the citizens are thinking," Weinberg said.
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Legacy is in the very early stages of the process, Fizer said.
"Right now we are just working to get all the materials together so we can distribute them in May. We really want to use the feedback we get from these conversations as a guide to Legacy's future grant-making."
Nancy Coltun Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
There's been a slight increase this last week of people getting flu shots from the Porter and Lake counties health departments, thanks to media coverage of flu cases increasing, county officials said.
State and local officials recommend getting a flu vaccine, but the shots won't work for the "stomach flu" that's also going around.
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True influenza is respiratory, and the so-called stomach flu is caused by a norovirus that isn't affected by vaccines, said Donna Allen, the Northwest Indiana Field Epidemiologist for the State Department of Health.
Although the true flu hasn't reached an epidemic, it has passed the state's 2 percent threshold of people checking into reporting sites and having flu-like symptoms, reaching 3.9 percent, according to the weekly report the state filed for the week ending Jan. 28.
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"Between last week and this week, it is starting to pick up," said State Department of Health Respiratory Epidemiologist Sara Hallyburton.
The state has reported 10 deaths, five facility outbreaks and one school-wide outbreak of the flu this season.
The state updates the weekly report at www.in.gov/isdh/22104.htm.
Different strains of the norovirus, which the state doesn't track by percentage of cases, have increased over the last month, said State Department of Health Outbreak Supervisor Shawn Richards.
"It's not a good situation," Richards said.
However, they can't predict whether cases of either disease will increase, peak and fizzle or hold steady, she said.
The effect of the illnesses on Northwest Indiana aren't clear yet.
Allen said doctors aren't required to report flu or norovirus cases unless there's a death or large outbreak.
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The only report so far has been 16 people in a nursing home, she said.
Jenny Harkel, the communicable disease specialist for the Porter County Health Department, said the county also hasn't seen the 10 percent absentee rate from the schools that requires reporting.
"It's been quiet, but we could see an increase," Allen said.
Allen said this year's shot is a good match for the flu strain going about, but only soap and water will protect against transmission of the norovirus by the body.
Few cleaning products work against norovirus except for a bleach solution, Allen added.
Harkel expects to see more people coming in for the vaccine as the flu becomes prevalent, but she said that the vaccine can take up to two weeks to become effective.
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James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Get your flu shot
Porter County charges $30 for the flu shot and $50 for a high-dose flu shot for those 65 years old and older, Harkel said.
She said insurance usually covers the cost, and Medicare covers it for seniors, so to make an appointment, people should call 219-465-3525.
Marianne Kundich, nursing supervisor at the Lake County Health Department, said her department doesn't charge for the vaccine for adults without insurance and doesn't charge children on Medicaid, and they take insurance from some places.
She suggested people call 219-755-3655 to see whether the Lake County accepts their insurance.
A 37-year-old Crown Point woman became the 21st person in Lake County to die from an overdose Friday, a needle and syringe still stuck in her arm, according to the Lake County Coroner's office.
With 21 fatalities in the year's first 41 days, Lake County Coroner Merrilee Frey said a heroin epidemic is claiming an unprecedented number of lives. The total confirmed overdose deaths for January and the entire month of February last year was 18, she said.
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"Know that we have many people, hundreds and hundreds in our communities who have an addiction," Frey said.
The woman's death paints a vivid picture of the problem that is expected to get worse before it gets better, she said. Heroin and opioid overdose deaths have been on the rise in recent years. There were 114 people who died from drug overdoses in Lake County in 2016. Frey fears the area is at the cusp of a spike in deaths.
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"I'm hoping with all my heart after seeing such as high a number of deaths it will make (addicts) realize their own mortality," Frey said.
Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris said heroin is a problem in his county as well, though the numbers are not as striking as those seen in Lake County.
In 2017, there have been two suspected heroin overdose deaths in Porter County, though toxicology reports are pending, he said. At this point in 2016 there were six opioid deaths -- three from heroin, one from methadone, one from tramadol and one from morphine. His office will begin testing for fentanyl this year.
Harris said in 2016 there were 48 total drug-related deaths in Porter County. Of those, 20 had heroin in their systems and 36 had some form of opioid, which in some cases in combination with the heroin, he said.
Tackling the problem will take a multi-faceted approach, Harris said.
"There's no one single answer," Harris said. "We need treatment centers. We need to get rid of the stigma. People don't want to seek help because they get labeled a drug user. It's a disease, nothing different than any other type of disease."
Harris said studies routinely show the need for long-term treatment centers.
"Instead of keep looking at it, we need to actually do it," Harris said.
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Lake County Sheriff John Buncich said the trend is alarming and it is getting worse. He said the use of fentanyl in heroin is particularly troubling. Users do not know what they are buying and what is mixed into their drugs and the extra potency is proving deadly.
"It is just going to take the community as a whole to come together and fight this," Buncich said.
Not a day goes by without an addict being incarcerated at the Lake County Jail, he said. Buncich said 42 people were being treated at the jail for serious addictions Monday. He said the expense of treatment, and of supplying the sheriff's department officers with naloxone, the heroin overdose antidote, continues to grow.
"We are facing a serious, serious situation here in Lake County. It is really hitting home here," Buncich said.
The sheriff said police are doing what they can on the enforcement end regarding the problem but the solution is not behind a badge alone.
"We have to get a message out. We need to start young. We need to start within the schools right away," Buncich said, adding the conversation in schools used to be about marijuana. Now, he said, it needs to be about the dangers of heroin.
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"It's a wake-up call," Buncich said.
Frey said part of the spike in deaths being seen now has been attributed to an increased use of heroin laced with the narcotic painkiller fentanyl, the most powerful painkiller for medical use. As early as March 2015, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued a nationwide alert warning of the dangers of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.
According to the DEA on its website, fentanyl is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.
Many of the overdose victims have a cocktail of other drugs and alcohol in their system including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana, benzodiazepine and alcohol, Frey said. In 2016, 93 of the 114 overdose deaths were attributed to controlled substance. A controlled substance can be any type of narcotic including prescription drugs not used as they are prescribed. Heroin was found in the blood streams of 55 of the 114 overdose victims in 2016. Fentanyl was discovered in 27 of the victims and benzodiazepine was discovered in 75 of the victims.
"It sends a startling message of how dangerous heroin is and how dangerous it is mixed with other substances. The combinations are proving to be deadly," Frey said.
Addicts, such as the woman who died Friday, may be falling victim to the laced heroin because of its unexpected potency, Frey said. The dose that killed the woman was so strong she died while still in the process of injecting herself, Frey said. She said the situation is tragic.
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"Guess who is finding those victims? It's the ones who love them the most - their moms and dads," Frey said.
Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
2016 Lake County drug deaths
Statistics from the Lake County Coroner's office show the deaths cross the socio-economic spectrum and touch every Lake County community. Gary saw the highest number of overdoses in 2016 with 26 followed by Hammond with 18.
Crown Point had the third highest number of overdose deaths with nine, followed by Highland with eight. Griffith and Munster tied for fifth with seven overdose deaths each and in East Chicago there were six. There were four overdose deaths each in the cities of Hobart and Lake Station, and three overdose deaths each in Schererville and Dyer. Whiting, Merrillville and Lake Village each had two deaths. Cedar Lake, Hebron and Lowell each had one. There were 10 individuals who overdosed outside of Lake County but died in a Lake County hospital and count toward the 114 total.
In 2016, the statistics from Lake County show 75 overdose victims were men while 39 were women. Eighty of the 2016 overdose victims were white, 26 where black, seven were Hispanic and one individual was Asian.
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The deaths cross all age groups. Sixteen people ranging in age from 15 to 24 died from overdoses in 2016 while another 26 died in the 25 to 34 age group; 22 in the 45 to 54 age group and 12 in the 55 to 64 age group.
The largest number of deaths appeared in the 35- to 44-year-old range where 36 people died from overdoses. Another two deaths were recorded in the 65- to 75-year-old age group. Coroner Merrilee Frey said the oldest person to die from an overdose in 2016 was 69.
--Carrie Napoleon
Trinity High School student Kristal Palacios recites a prayer during the school's "We Stand Together" prayer Feb. 10, which offered support to the Muslim community. (Steve Schering / Pioneer Press)
When Trinity High School students arrived at their River Forest campus on Jan. 30, students said there was an awkward feel going around the building.
Just three days earlier, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that suspended people living in seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the Unity States for 90 days.
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Though it is a Catholic school, Trinity's students and staff began discussing how they could show support for people of all races and religion.
"We as students really value the global community here," student Carmen Peterson said. "When we heard about the executive order being an actual thing, we were all very scared. When we all came to school, it was a very solemn day because it was hard to imagine America being so exclusive as the executive order had said."
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After discussing it with teachers, several students approached campus minister Jamie Visser about hosting a welcoming prayer service.
That service, titled "We Stand Together," was held Feb. 10 inside the school's chapel, and was meant to preach acceptance and support for all Muslim students and community members facing religious persecution.
"I think, through these tough times politically and emotionally for everyone, it was important to raise awareness and comfort for people who may feel distressed at this time," student Kavita Ram said. "It brought us together and opened our eyes. The Trinity community is really open and supportive of one another."
Though the suspension of that executive order has since been held up by a United States Appeals Court, the effects of the legislation were still felt, those in attendance said
"The world sees differences as threats," Visser said during the service. "Not all of the places in our world and our country understand the richness and unity of difference. It is our openness to becoming sisters, brothers, friends and family with people from all over the world that makes our hearts and ourselves more whole."
In addition to reciting Catholic and Muslim prayers and songs, attendees signed a large poster, which will be hung inside the school's main entrance for all to see.
"We wanted to make sure, even though we are a Catholic school, we do accept the many ranges of religion that can come here and show they are welcome here," Peterson said. "We wanted to emphasize the fact that we are very welcoming and accepting, always."
About two dozen students, staff and community members were present for the service, which concluded with a sign of peace for all.
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"I did feel a great sense of connection between everyone," Peterson said. "Having a lot of the administration here also brings a lot of hope to us. We can have a lot of trust in them that they value what we value."
sschering@pioneerlocal.com
Twitter: @steveschering
Skokie Police Chief Tony Scarpelli advises motorists to secure their vehicles and its contents -- after police said several break-ins occurred in late January near a popular movie theater.
There were four burglaries to vehicles reported in the AMC Showplace movie theater parking, located in the Village Crossing in the 7000 block of Carpenter Road, police said.
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One similar incident was reported in a nearby parking lot at nearby restaurant. Shallots Bistro, 7016 Carpenter Road.
Four of the break-ins occurred Jan. 30, one reportedly took place Jan. 28, police said.
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"Anywhere you bring together a big grouping of vehicles that are going to be unattended during a period of time, sometimes those circumstances bring opportunities," Scarpelli said. "We always encourage people to lock valuables in the trunk so they are not in view and to lock the doors."
Representatives from the movie theater's corporate office did not respond to requests for comment on this issue.
In these burglary cases reported, police said, the doors were locked but the vehicles were broken into and items were taken from inside.
In most of the incidents, vehicle windows were shattered to gain entry, in one a sharp tool was used to break the driver's side door handle to gain access, according to police.
Among the items reported stolen were multiple credit cards, a briefcase, cash and a cellphone.
A bass guitar was also reportedly stolen in one incident, though it was locked inside the trunk of the vehicle, police said.
Scarpelli said that consistent crime analysis allows police to send extra patrols to areas where a problem has been detected.
"When an individual incident happens or a grouping of incidents occur, the officers within the hour are alerted and can respond," he said.
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Independent of police patrols, Scarpelli said, there are also off-duty police who work at the movie theater.
Skokie police last year said they were at the forefront of coordinating with several police departments in combating car thefts and vehicle burglaries committed by suspects from the city who come out to the suburbs.
According to police, the department helped identify a pattern of such crimes and learned they impacted some 50 suburbs.
The Village Crossing car break-ins, however, differed from the pattern identified by police last year.
In those cases, police said, the car doors were almost always left unlocked.
"They never once smashed a window or tried to force in a door," Scarpelli said about last year's crime pattern.
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But all of the vehicle windows or door handles at Village Crossing were broken to gain entry, police said.
misaacs@pioneerlocal.com
@SKReview_Mike
Skokie trustees recently approved Community Development Block Grant funding allocations, which includes giving money to several social service agencies, paying part of village street repair projects and partially funding a village social worker's salary.
Each year, village planners divvy up federal funding the village expects to receive under the U.S. Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program. CDBG Administrator Carrie Haberstich said the exact amount the village will get is still not known, though trustees approved $538,646 to be doled out.
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The village's CDBG estimate for this year is based on last year's federal funding along with previous unused funds and a small amount of program revenue, Haberstich said.
"The original intent of the CDBG program is for bricks and mortar projects," according to Haberstich. That's why HUD caps public services funding at 15 percent of the overall budget and 20 percent for planning and administering the program, she said.
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Under the approved allocations, nearly $363,290 is designated for construction projects and $75,357 for program services.
The projects come from both outside agencies that made pitches to the village and from the village itself.
In a rare occurrence, Haberstich said, all proposed construction projects this year were approved at the full amounts requested.
"This year, probably for the first time since I've been here, we're not recommending any reductions at this point," she said. "There were a few organizations that chose not to apply for funds so we were able to consider all of the construction applications."
Village construction projects approved for funding include $230,000 for street resurfacing on Lee, Greenleaf and Crain Streets; $45,000 for the village's home improvement program; and $3,000 for the village's 50/50 sidewalk grant program.
The village allocated the remainder of construction funding to projects proposed by four outside agencies, fewer than in recent memory, officials said.
Funds totaling $40,800 were approved to go to Shore Community Services, which works with individuals with intellectual and other developmental disabilities. The money will help pay for replacement of a heating and cooling unit at its administration center in the 8300 block of Laramie Avenue, according to information officials there provided to the village.
Search Inc., which supports those with intellectual disabilities, was awarded $15,000. The funds will be used to help pay for replacement of older, deteriorating single-pane windows at a group home for women in the 8100 block of Karlov Avenue, according to the organization's pitch to the village.
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Turning Point Behavioral Health Care Center will receive its requested $19,552 to replace heating, ventilation and air conditioning units at its facility in the 8200 block of Skokie Boulevard.
Orchard Village, a long-standing social service agency in Skokie, which works with clients with developmental disabilities, was awarded $9,937 in CDBG funding. The money will be used to help pay for replacing a deteriorating roof and older windows at a group home for men with disabilities in the 3800 block of Brummel Street, according to agency officials.
Like last year, Skokie incorporated a four-tier system recommended by HUD in evaluating social service agency requests for funds.
Tier one programs are for agencies the village depends on daily, tier two for agencies recommended as needed, tier three for agencies that are important but not critical and tier four for agencies where other resources are available, according to HUD.
Haberstich said three agency requests for funding were denied because they were assessed at tier three or four: Open Communities, Maine-Niles Association of Special Recreation and Access to Care. Either similar services offered by these agencies could be received elsewhere, Haberstich said, or they were not viewed as being as critical as other applications.
Agencies that received funding for services included North Shore Senior Center, $10,000; PEER Services Inc., $7,500; YOU Youth and Opportunity United, $7,500; Metropolitan Family Services, $6,000; the Harbour Inc., $6,000; Jewish Child and Family Services, $4,000; Asian Human Services, $3,000; and Children's Advocacy Center, $3,000.
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Trustees also approved allocating $28,357 to help pay part of the salary and benefits for a villager social worker.
Haberstich said flexibility has been built into the funding allocation plan since the village doesn't know exactly how much CDBG money it will get.
If the federal government gives Skokie less than $450,000 or reductions are less than 90 percent of village's budgeted amounts for the federal funds, she said the village will have to amend allocations.
If the village gets more CDBG money than budgeted or not as low as $450,000, the village would be able to make adjustments without officially amending the plan, she said.
misaacs@pioneerlocal.com
@SKReview_Mike
Rubio Takes Senate Floor to Highlight Human Rights Contact: ChinaAid Media Team, 432-553-1080 cell, 888-889-7757, 432-689-6985, media@chinaaid.org
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Using information garnered from a meeting with a China Aid delegation, Marco Rubio recently took the Senate floor to highlight the suffering of two Christian human rights lawyers. Photo: US Senator Marco Rubio met privately with the wives of the two jailed Christian human rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jingling before he spoke at ChinaAid 15 anniversary on January 31 at Library of Congress.
Jin Bianling, Jiang's wife, last heard from her husband on the evening of Nov. 21, 2016, as he prepared to board a train back to Beijing after visiting the family of Xie Yang, an incarcerated human rights lawyer. When the train arrived the next morning, Jiang was not aboard, and officials later announced that he was being held at an undisclosed location. To this day, Jiang has not been allowed visits from his family or access to a lawyer.
Tang entered police custody on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power" in the weeks leading up to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which China still heavily censors. In January 2016, he and two other prisoners of conscience were tried, and Tang was sentenced to five years in prison.
Quoting Tang, Rubio said, "Inside the grand edifice of the court, we can see stately and ornate furnishings and decorations, and we can see the government employees in dignified attire. But we cannot see the law and we definitely cannot see justice."
Rubio concluded his address by urging government officials to take up the causes of those who suffer from persecution in China.
His full speech can be watched
China Aid works with officials such as Rubio in order to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and promote religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law.
For more information, After opening his speech with a celebration of the American freedom to agree with or openly resist governmental power, Rubio compared this situation to that of China, whose flagrant abuse of human rights criminalizes those who disagree with the Communist regime. He raised the cases of two human rights attorneys, Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jingling, honoring the requests of their wives, whom he met last week as part of a China Aid delegation.Jin Bianling, Jiang's wife, last heard from her husband on the evening of Nov. 21, 2016, as he prepared to board a train back to Beijing after visiting the family of Xie Yang, an incarcerated human rights lawyer. When the train arrived the next morning, Jiang was not aboard, and officials later announced that he was being held at an undisclosed location. To this day, Jiang has not been allowed visits from his family or access to a lawyer.Tang entered police custody on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power" in the weeks leading up to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which China still heavily censors. In January 2016, he and two other prisoners of conscience were tried, and Tang was sentenced to five years in prison.Quoting Tang, Rubio said, "Inside the grand edifice of the court, we can see stately and ornate furnishings and decorations, and we can see the government employees in dignified attire. But we cannot see the law and we definitely cannot see justice."Rubio concluded his address by urging government officials to take up the causes of those who suffer from persecution in China.His full speech can be watched here China Aid works with officials such as Rubio in order to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and promote religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law.For more information, click here
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Oliver Robinson and Lara Pira, of Skokie, got married on The Ledge at Willis Tower Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, as winners of the second annual "Love on The Ledge" contest. (Skydeck Chicago/Willis Tower / Handout)
Most love stories don't begin with one partner cutting off another in traffic, but one Skokie couple says they may never have had their special pre-Valentine's Day wedding without that encounter.
Oliver Robinson, 29, and Lara Pira, 30, tied the knot Sunday in Chicago well, high above Chicago's streetscape is more like it.
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The couple were among four announced winners of Willis Tower's annual social media contest, which awarded them "a romantic Valentine's Day 'Love on the Ledge' ceremony" on top of the highest observation deck in America, according to contest officials.
The bride and groom were each allowed to invite five guests to the event on Skydeck Chicago's 103rd floor 1,353 feet above ground, officials said .
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"We never dreamed of this," Robinson said. "I'll always remember our anniversary and Valentine's Day now."
According to the couple, though, it was that fateful moment in 2009 driving on Dempster Street in Skokie that made it all possible.
Robinson and Pira said they had been good buddies when they were Niles North High School students, but had lost contact with each other for several years after graduation.
Then in 2009, Pira admits, she cut in front of Robinson heading east on Dempster Street near Skokie Boulevard, recognized who it was and motioned for him to pull over.
"It was the first time we had seen each other in four years," Pira said. "I said, 'oh my God. You look great. Where have you been? You've lost so much weight.' He was skinny and very handsome."
Unlike in high school, they said, both of them were available now. Robinson said he had a crush on Pira at Niles North, but he couldn't act on it because she had a boyfriend. Pira also liked Robinson, she said, but they only flirted and developed a friendship.
Everything was different now.
Pira had just broken up with a boyfriend a week before the traffic encounter and Robinson said he had left a longtime relationship a few months earlier.
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They exchanged phone numbers and the next day, they remembered, he called for a date at the beach. Pira said she brought a girlfriend with her "for support," but it wasn't long after that outing that they became serious.
"Ever since then, we've been inseparable," Pira said. "Every single day since then, we've been together."
Robinson remembers Pira from high school taking cooking classes, an interest that never waned.
Pira went to Kendall College in Chicago to study culinary arts and now works as a chef at the Gardner School of Northbrook, a private preschool.
After attending Oakton Community College, Robinson now works as a bartender for a catering company, he said.
For a short time, the couple carried on a long distance relationship. Pira went to New York to help open a pizza school and work at the oldest cheese store in America, she said. Robinson stayed in Skokie, helping to take care of his grandfather.
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"I was there 11 months," Pira said. "I didn't even make it a year. I missed him too much. I couldn't do it anymore."
They got engaged in 2013 over the phone while she was away.
"I was just so lonely and I missed her so much that I called her and said, 'how would you like to have my last name?'" he said.
They talked about wedding plans for a long time mostly a back-and-forth between the couple and Pira's parents. The couple said they wanted a low-key wedding with fewer people, but her parents were interested in a larger and fancier ceremony.
"We went around on this for a few years and would probably still be discussing it for another few years," Pira joked.
But then came the Willis Tower contest.
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Pira said she heard about it over the radio, and the couple agreed to give it a shot. They submitted a two-minute video featuring only Robinson telling their story "how they met, why they want to spend their lives together, how their love has stood the test of time," as contest officials described the contest submission rules.
"We thought it would be sweeter and more romantic if it was just him telling it," Pira said.
"I'm trying to win my fiance the dream wedding that she deserves," Robinson says on his submitted video, which lasts just over a minute. "What better place to tie the knot than 103 floors above the city that we love so much. But honestly we would be happy getting married just in the lobby."
Robinson recounted how he met Pira 16 years ago on the first day of high school, describing exactly what she was wearing.
"At the time, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen," he said before telling of their unlikely reunion seven years ago.
The day they learned they had been selected, Pira said she went shopping for wedding dresses and found the right one in the first dress she tried on.
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Winning the Willis Tower contest also settled the debate over the wedding. Pira's parents were satisfied, the couple said especially since the family's own priest was to officiate.
According to Willis Tower officials, there have been 874 known marriage proposals, 90 weddings, 15 vow renewals and hundreds of private "Pie in the Sky" dates on The Ledge at the tower.
The ceremony was scheduled to last only 15 minutes, but Pira and Robinson said that suited them just fine. It would be 15 of the most memorable minutes of their lives, they said.
"There's no way we ever could have afforded to get married on the Skydeck," Robinson said. "I don't even know how much something like that costs."
Pira said this was meant to be.
"We're so lucky and we're so blessed to have this opportunity," she said. "We feel like we're one in a million."
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misaacs@pioneerlocal.com
@SKReview_Mike
Western Springs native Kerry Ipema rehearses her performance of One Woman Sex and the City: A Parody of Love, Friendship and Shoes. (Greg Gallinger)
Two huge fans of "Sex and the City" are bringing all six seasons of the popular television show to the Raue Center for the Arts in their own unique way.
TJ Dawe, director and co-creator of "One Man Star Wars Trilogy," "One Man Lord of the Rings" and "PostSecret: The Show," has teamed up with actor Kerry Ipema to create, "One Woman Sex and the City: A Parody of Love, Friendship and Shoes."
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Ipema, a Western Springs native who graduated from Lyons Township High School in 2007, praised the source program saying, "What I really love about 'Sex and the City' is that it shines a light on female friendships. I want to create an energy in the show where the audience feels like it's a bunch of friends meeting and laughing about something we can all get onboard with."
"I was really impressed by the writing. I had never experienced writing like that on TV before," Dawe said. He wanted to parody the show because he realized, "There's a lot of elements of fairy tale and fantasy in it. On one hand, the characters' lives are completely unrealistic. And, at the same time, it delves into things like divorce and infertility and impotence and heartbreak and cancer."
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He believes that the parody he created with Ipema fills a gap. "It speaks to something deep and primal in the female experience that isn't really seen that much because the stage is so male-dominated," Dawe said.
The show is heavily scripted but Ipema can veer from it, "if something comes up in my head," she said.
The actor plays over two dozen characters, her favorite being Samantha because that part is filled with puns. The wackiest scene she reenacts is the one in which Samantha and friends attend a tantric sex seminar.
Avid fans will be delighted to learn that this show has "every iconic moment from the naked dress to the Post-it note moments," Ipema revealed.
In between "seasons," there will be audience trivia contests. Audience members will also have a chance to write about their dating "deal breakers" and breakup stories before the show and Ipema will read some of their tales from the stage.
This is the first show that Ipema has written. "I come from an improv background. I did a lot of improv here in New York," she said.
Ipema connected with Dawe when she toured with him for three months in "PostSecret: The Show," an adaptation of a blog. "We wrote 'Sex and the City' while on tour with that show," she said.
They premiered the parody at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, followed by a performance at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. A producer was so interested in the show that "before you knew it we had an 11-week tour booked with over 40 cities," Ipema said.
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Dawe is touring with Ipema because the show will evolve over the course of its run, adding interesting things that occur because of interactions with the audience.
"The joy of the show," Ipema concluded, "is that these characters are totally relatable."
'One Woman Sex and the City: A Parody of Love, Friendship and Shoes'
When: 8 p.m. Feb. 18
Where: Raue Center for the Arts, 26 N. Williams St., Crystal Lake
Tickets: $20-$30
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Information: (815) 356-9212; www.rauecenter.org
Plan to Defeat ISIS
BALTIMORE, Feb. 13, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- Pastor Howie Gardner of Bel Air Assembly of God releases the following and is available for comment:
The President has given the Pentagon 30 days to develop a plan to defeat ISIS. I have spoken with several people there and am hopeful they will at least consider the following plan which would both discredit ISIS in the eyes of its followers and make it impossible for it to recruit new ones.
This plan by the way has the endorsement of the Free Muslim Coalition AGAINST Terrorism.
By Dezan Shira & Associates
Dezan Shira & Associates have reported consistent China growth in their practice and significant growth in their non-China Asian operations during 2016.
Speaking following the firms Partners Meeting in Shanghai this past weekend, Chairman Chris Devonshire-Ellis said, Overall China growth for 2016 resulted in an increase in revenues, while Asia operations year on year growth saw a significant increase in Vietnam, Singapore, and a substantial increase for India.
Devonshire-Ellis stated that while the US$-RMB exchange rate was a challenge throughout the year, the firms growth in China remained steady. He said the firm serves as a barometer for foreign investment flows into China as it possesses several thousand clients, a 25-year-old history in China, and 12 regional offices in China.
Devonshire-Ellis further stated that growth in Asian regions was strong, partly because of a smaller client base compared with China, but also because India and Vietnam were growing at a faster rate in terms of FDI than China.
In sum, he explained that growth will remain constant, and relatively vibrant over coming years, but higher and faster growth will come from our other Asian operations.
Shanghai and east China remained very particularly active, with the firm seeing stronger interest from SME companies.
South China also continued to show a process of evolution, with many manufacturing firms choosing to relocate to Vietnam, Indonesia and India.
India experienced huge growth in investment from foreign businesses as manufacturing production and organization has improved. This was most notably evidenced by Apple commencing production of the iPhone in the country, which was forecast by Devonshire-Ellis in 2013.
RELATED: Pre-Investment and Entry Strategy Advisory from Dezan Shira & Associates
Confidence is building in India, he said. Devonshire-Ellis explained, Overall productivity, reliability, and quality have all improved in Indias manufacturing sector the past few years. He further noted that Indian labor was priced at about 30% of the cost of a similar worker in Guangdong.
In terms of the firms professional services, he noted the firm performed strongly in payroll and related human resource services. He announced that the firm had received a Chinese labor dispatch license, allowing it to compete with the likes of FESCO in terms of providing contracted labor.
Devonshire-Ellis said, IT and administration services across Asia are the future companies continue to upgrade to software and web-based financial and administrative solutions. He noted that the firm has been heavily investing in its payroll software development in China over the past years, and are now rolling out total corporate payroll solutions across Asia based on that investment.
In 2016, other hot spots in Asia included Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, while certain regions of ASEAN with Chinese investment such as the Forest City and Silk Road maritime development in Malaysia offered excellent opportunities for FDI.
He said, We are also exploring new trade and investment corridors such as Russia-Asia and both the Land and Maritime Routes to China in terms of Silk Road development.
In terms of the Chinese overseas direct investment, he suggested most would be going into Silk Road infrastructure development projects and other growing markets. For example, he noted that Latin America had received more Chinese investment than the US in 2015 and that the overall trend for ODI was into developing, and not developed, markets.
Asia is the place to be, he summarized. But it is important to understand which parts are vibrant and will succeed now, and which areas are longer term developments. That applies as much to China now as it does to the total Asian region. Providing intelligent options throughout Asia based on client needs as well as delivering on IT-driven services are the way ahead.
About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight.
Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure
Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.
An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017
Doing Business in China 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in January 2017, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.
Navigating HR Audits in China
Recent changes in Chinas labor market have underscored the importance of having both an efficient HR system and a satisfied and reliable workforce, and the HR audit is a useful tool to ensure this. In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we provide a guide for conducting HR audits in China. We analyze why the HR audit is especially important for foreign companies operating in the country, and then detail the different HR audit models and procedures that are available to firms.
A record 1.2 million Chinese tourists visited Australia in 2016, according to statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday.
Jessica Noack from the ABS Migration Analysis and Reporting Team said there had been "phenomenal growth" in the number of visitor arrivals from China over the past 40 years, explaining that in 1976, just 500 Chinese tourists visited Australia.
"China has almost caught up to New Zealand as the most popular source country for visitors to Australia," Noack said in a statement released on Monday.
"After China, visitors from Vietnam had the highest growth rate over the past 40 years, growing from 100 in 1976 to 70,500 in 2016. United Arab Emirates had the next highest growth rate, increasing from 100 in 1976 to 40,900 in 2016 while visitors from South Korea grew from 1,200 in 1976 to 286,000 in 2016."
Noack said while New Zealand remained the source nation with the highest number of visitor arrivals to Australia in 2016 (with more than 1.3 million), the ABS expects China to take over the first place in the not-too-distant future.
"In 2016, New Zealand was still our top source country. After New Zealand and China, the most popular sources of travelers in 2016 were the United States (714,700), the United Kingdom (Britain)(709,600) and Singapore (443,600)," Noack said.
According to the ABS, 38 percent of all short-term trips were made to New South Wales where Sydney is state capital, followed by Victoria (Melbourne) with 25 percent and Queensland (with tourist towns Brisbane, Gold Coats and Cairns) making up 22 percent.
"The most frequently cited reason for journey was for a holiday, making up over half of all journeys, and the median amount of time people spent in Australia was 11 days," Noack said.
US President Donald Trump in Washington, January 29, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
Three months after being elected US president, Donald Trump made the wise decision to honor the United States' longstanding one-China policy, affirming it in a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The recognition that there is only one China has been US policy since 1979, when China and the United States established diplomatic relations. This evolved from their shared cause of fighting fascism during World War II, when both countries committed to returning Taiwan, which was at that time under Japanese occupation, to the mainland.
For China, Taiwan is an inalienable part of the country and a core interest with historical legitimacy.
It was based on the US' recognition of this that China and the US were able to normalize their official relations.
Since 1979, there have been seven US presidents, including Trump. From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, they all committed to the one-China policy. This doesn't mean that relations between the two countries have been conducted without ups and downs. Often when the bilateral relations have gone through a bad patch, Taiwan has loomed large. Then Beijing and Washington have had to work hard to bring their relations back on track, while deepening their understanding of the importance of upholding the principle of one China.
Obviously, maintaining the one-China policy serves the US' interests. Without a consensus on one China, peace will be endangered. And without peace there will be no assurance for development of ties.
The US' commitment to the principle of one China cannot be used as a bargaining chip with China, nor is it as a favor to China. Rather, it should be viewed as the US' rightful position.
Before his phone call with Xi, Trump had previously said that anything, including the one-China policy, was negotiable. He was wrong. China will bargain with his administration on trade and investment on a fair basis, but it will not bargain on its core legitimate interests.
Nevertheless, on the issue of legitimate US concerns and concerns of mutual interest, China is ready to talk. Trump's aim is to "make America great again", and cooperation with China can help him achieve this. The growing Chinese middle class is interested in seeing the US, as well as other foreign countries, and wants to buy high-quality US goods. With China's continuing economic growth and efforts to reform its foreign trade structure, more Chinese will be able to "buy America, and hire America". It is possible to correlate the Chinese dream of making the country rich and strong again, with Trump's dream of making America wealthy and secure again.
Trump is eager to honor his many campaign promises. However, he has already met a number of serious setbacks as some of his campaign rhetoric was out of touch with reality.
Nevertheless, as long as he is willing to learn and adjust his stance when necessary, he can avoid an unnecessary collision with China. He has to apply the same experience to other contentious issues between the two countries, and must handle the issues of the Diaoyu Islands and the South China Sea, as well as the trade balance between the two countries with prudence and a constructive not obstructive approach.
Again, China is ready to discuss all the pressing bilateral and regional security and development issues, but only so long as the US is interested in working with Beijing in a fair and honest fashion.
The author is a professor and the associate dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University.
The phone talk held by Chinese President Xi Jinpingwith his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump is a good first step in fostering the China-U.S. dialogue and provides a platform for further cooperation, U.S. experts said Friday.
"The phone call was a good first step...for fostering dialogue between Presidents Trump and Xi," Dan Mahaffee, an analyst at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua in an interview.
Trump and Xi held a lengthy and "extremely cordial" phone conversation Thursday night on numerous topics, during which they agreed that the two sides will engage in discussions on various issues of mutual interest.
"The fact that it was cordial, and the discussion' s tenor reflects that both leaders understand that while differences remain, they need to be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy," Mahaffee said.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace, told Xinhua that the call "was very important to provide a foundation of stability in the U.S.-China relations as well as a platform for further wide-ranging cooperation and the management of emerging tensions."
The call was the first between the leaders of the top two economies in the world since Trump's inauguration in late January. Before Thursday, Trump had already talked on the phone with about 20 foreign leaders except Xi, fueling concerns that the absence of contact between the two leaders could lead to renewed tensions in the China-U.S. ties.
The Xi-Trump phone conversation was important to break the ice in the China-U.S. ties, Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua in an interview.
"The call helped to open the door on high-level consultation, which is good for both countries," West said.
"It is important that China and the U.S. remain in close contact. They are the two leading nations in the world and it is crucial that there are open communications so there are no misunderstandings or (something) that could spiral out of control," he added.
The experts agreed that Trump's affirmation of the one-China policy, the bedrock of the China-U.S. ties, paved the way for the phone call, which probably came after Trump and advisers concluded that the costs of not doing so could bring greater costs than benefits.
Trump had previously aggravated China by taking a call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen after winning the U.S. presidency last November and telling the U.S. media in December that the one-China policy was open for negotiation.
"The fact that Trump now embraces the one-China policy will allow the relationship to unfold more naturally," West said, citing that resolving the issue was a prerequisite for addressing every other issue.
If Trump continues to question the one China policy, there would be no basis for President Xi to interact with him, said Paal, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Xinhua that Trump probably was convinced by his top aides that it was necessary to make the one-China statement "in order to move forward with the U.S.-China relationship in other areas."
"The costs of not adhering to the one China policy were very high," Glaser said, though adding that this should not be seen as Trump making a concession.
Media reports revealed that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said in written answers to questions after his Senate nomination hearing that the U.S. should adhere to the one-China policy.
As China and the U.S. start negotiations to address their frictions and advance cooperation on various issues of mutual interest, there is a broad range of issues that demand early attention, the experts said.
They include the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, U.S. trade deficit with China, mutual investments and boosting American exports, Paal said.
Mahaffee said at the top of the agenda of the China-U.S. talks should be the issues of maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas, cyber security, as well as trade, investment and currency.
"I think there can be discussions aimed at avoiding miscalculation between the nations in the sea, air, space and cyber domains, and I also think that agreements on trade and investment could be reached that would make it easier for companies from either country to invest in the other," he said.
In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
Flash
Chinese tourists travel abroad. (Photo/Xinhua)
"I intended to go to a quiet place with my husband, but finally our whole family flied to the United States for the Spring Festival because we bought special tickets," said Mrs. Yin from Beijing. During the Spring Festival, Spring Festival couplets and golden rooster decorations can be seen in almost every big hotel in Las Vegas, and many department stores offer discounts for the Chinese visitors.
It has become a new trend for the Chinese to celebrate the Spring Festival overseas. According to the statistics from the Chinese government, about 6.15 million Chinese citizens choose to travel abroad during the Spring Festival, up 7 percent from last year. Among them, 374,000 choose group tours, up 2.5 percent from last year. Overseas travel during the Spring Festival golden week boosts the global tourism market.
The hottest Spring Festival golden week
According to the statistics from the official website of the China National Tourism Administration, this year's Spring Festival holiday was a peak period for Chinese to travel overseas.
According to the Hong Kong Immigration Department, 697,000 mainland visitors travelled to Hong Kong during the Spring Festival, a 3.7 percent rise year-on-year. According to statistics from Macao Tourism Office, 533,000 mainland visitors travelled to Macao during the Spring Festival, a 8.5-percent rise year-on-year.
Many Chinese choose to travel abroad with their families during the Spring Festival. According to online travel agency Tuniu.com, rising income levels, improvements in transportation infrastructure, visa facilitations, popularization of the internet and smart phones are behind Chinese people's rising overseas travel trends. Southeast Asian countries are the most popular destinations, with Thailand at the top of the list.
According to statistics from online travel services provider Ctrip, during the Spring Festival in 2017, Chinese tourists from 242 domestic cities travelled to 1,254 cities in 85 countries.
Most Chinese have not travelled overseas. Therefore, the market for outbound tourism has a huge potential in the future. Chinese citizens from second-tier and third-tier cities will have a huge demand for outbound tourism in the future.
Chinese New Year highlighted by overseas merchants
In order to attract more Chinese tourists to celebrate the Spring Festival, a series of Chinese New Year tourism products are available in some countries.
In Australia, the New Year Celebration held by the Sydney government lasted from Jan. 27 to Feb. 12, with 80 traditional Chinese cultural shows. In London, Dragon and lion dance performances can be seen in Trafalgar Square. In Belgium, a cruise for the Spring Festival was hold in Brussels. In Thailand, Chinese food culture and traditional art show were popular in Thailand Spring Festival activities organized by Culture and Tourism authorities. In Singapore, the 10-day Spring Festival celebration was started by a light show.
In some hot destinations for the Chinese tourists, such as France, Italy and Switzerland, special services are arranged for Chinese visitors. For example, shopping guides who speak Mandarin are arranged in every counter in Galeries Lafayette in Paris.
"In some department stores in Thailand, we can use Alipay to buy whatever we want and the tax refund can be returned to our Alipay account. It is really convenient,' said Mrs. Liu.
US$14.55 billion spent on overseas travel
According to a report jointly compiled by the China Tourism Academy (CTA) and online travel services provider Ctrip, the average tour package for Chinese going abroad cost US$1,310 during the Spring Festival in 2017, up 12 percent year-on-year.
Outbound tourists accounted for 59 percent of its Spring Festival business. The highest cost for Spring Festival overseas travel is more than US$72,500 and the destination is the South Pole.
High quality overseas travel
More and more Chinese tourists would like to experience high quality overseas travel by customized service, instead of just shopping, sleeping in a bus and taking photos.
According to Tuniu.com, 32 percent of its clients choose a high quality group tour package. The customized service has now become the third choice for tourists, behind group tour package and DIY tour.
Polar tourism and cruises enjoyed great popularity among tourists, especially the elderly, during the 2017 Spring Festival. 34.6 percent of the tourists who joined in cruises during the Spring Festival are over 50 years old. And that proportion is over 50.6 percent for the South Pole cruise tour.
With the development of the Chinese economy and an increase in national income, tourism is more diversified, personalized and high-quality.
Flash
The Chinese concept of building "a human community with shared destiny" was on Friday incorporated into a UN resolution for the first time, mirroring the global recognition of the concept, diplomats told Xinhua.
The 55th UN Commission for Social Development (CSocD) approved a resolution by consensus, which calls for more support to Africa's economic and social development by embracing the spirit of building "a human community with shared destiny."
Since China first proposed the concept 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.
"It is the first time that a UN resolution incorporates this important Chinese concept," the diplomats said.
The fact shows the universal recognition by UN members of the Chinese concept, and manifests huge Chinese contribution to global governance, they said.
The resolution, titled "Social dimensions of the New Partnership for Africa's Development," welcomes the efforts by all the parties concerned to further promote the process of regional economic cooperation in Africa.
The UN commission approved the resolution, together with three others, for adoption by the UN Economic and Social Council, which is at the heart of the UN system to advance the three dimensions of sustainable development -- economic, social and environmental ones.
Since the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1995, the CSocD has been the key UN body in charge of the follow-up and implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Program of Action.
On Jan. 18, Chinese President Xi Jinping shed more light on the Chinese concept in his keynote speech at the UN Office at Geneva.
In a speech, titled "Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind," Xi renewed his call for building a community of shared future, another translation of the Chinese concept, offering inspiration to a world beset by rising challenges and risks.
To maintain peace, sustain development and ensure continued prosperity, China has proposed the building of "a community of shared future," and achieving shared, win-win development, he said.
Such a proposal transcends ethnic, national and ideological differences as it has been designed to help countries and regions cope with global challenges.
"Building a community of shared future is an exciting goal, and it requires efforts from generation after generation," Xi said. "China is ready to work with all the other UN member states as well as international organizations and agencies to advance the great cause of building a community of shared future for mankind."
The CSocD resolution also welcomes further world efforts to carry out China's Belt and Road Initiative, a trade and infrastructure network under the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
The network connects Asia, Europe and Africa and passes through more than 60 countries and regions with a population of about 4.4 billion.
Flash
The Kenyan government has declared the current drought affecting 23 arid and semi-arid counties and pockets of other areas a national disaster.
President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday called on all stakeholders to support the government by upscaling drought mitigation programs as the severe drought has left over 2 million people in urgent need of food assistance.
"Support from our partners would complement government's efforts in mitigating the effects of drought," he said in a statement issued in Nairobi after being briefed on the situation on the ground by Cabinet Secretaries involved in drought management and food security.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have warned that Kenya is facing a severe drought and with it a rise in food insecurity. Current estimates show some 2.1 million people are food insecure.
FAO said poor rains in 2016 and drought in 2017 has led to a significant risk of drought conditions in 2017, threatening the food security of some of the country's most vulnerable people.
"Those most at risk are small-scale herders in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), where livestock rearing can account for as much as 90 percent of employment and family income," FAO said.
According to the UN agency, the delayed onset and erratic nature of the current rains means critical pasture and water resources are not being replenished following already poor rains during the April to June 2016 rainy season.
Kenyatta also called on the local and international partners to come in and support the government's efforts to contain the situation which has not only affected human being and livestock but also the wild animals.
He said the government would fast track and upscale its mitigation programs to ensure the situation is properly contained.
He also gave a stern warning to all who are involved in food distribution that the government would take serious measures on those who would try to take advantage of the situation to enrich themselves, noting that all purchases of food and other requirements be done in a transparent and open manner and that all government agencies be involved to ensure Kenyans are not defrauded.
To stabilize the high prices of cereals, the government would allow maize importation by the licensed millers but would strictly monitor the situation to ensure it is done in a very transparent manner.
In its phase two of drought intervention covering the months of February to April, the government has allocated 110 million U.S. dollars to cater for intervention in various sectors.
National Treasury has already released the first tranche of 73 million dollars while the county governments have provided 20 million dollars.
The government intends to enhance the interventions including doubling of food rations and cash transfers among other measures.
From left: Bob Fu, Jin Bianling, the wife of human rights
lawyer Jiang Tianyong, Marco Rubio, Wang Yanfang, the
wife of China 18 member Tang Jingling, and translator David
Chen. (Photo: China Aid)
China Aid
(Washington, D.C.Feb. 13, 2017) In the midst of Chinas skyrocketing human rights abuses, a delegation hosted by China Aid traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to raise awareness about ongoing persecution and celebrate the courage of those who champion human rights at their own peril.
On Jan. 29, activities began with a worship service at The Falls Church Anglican, where Reverend John Yates introduced China Aid president Bob Fu and prayed over the delegation, which included prominent Chinese human rights defenders. Afterward, the committee held a luncheon at the Peking Gourmet Inn.
The next morning, the delegation met with Eskinder Negash, the Senior Vice President for Global Engagement of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, followed by a 1:30 p.m. appointment with Thomas Farr, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center on Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and the executive director of the Religious Freedom Institute.
Tuesday began at 9:30 a.m. with a meeting with Senator Ted Cruz, after which China Aid hosted a forum celebrating its 15th anniversary, entitled, Worsening Religious Freedom and Rule of Law in China: What Does That Mean to the United States and Free World? Held at the Library of Congress and featuring speakers such as Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Chris Smith, the event addressed Chinas human rights and religious freedom abuses and recognized seven lawyers who have routinely sacrificed their own safety to defend targeted individuals with the 2016 Courage Award.
After the forum, the delegation met with Senator John Cornyn.
On Wednesday, Reva Price, Senior Aide to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, met with the delegation just prior to their trip to the Heritage Foundation. Afterward, they attended the International Lunch for the National Prayer Breakfast, and, in the evening, the National Prayer Breakfasts Congressional Opening Dinner, which was also attended by Vice President Mike Pence.
The National Prayer Breakfast commenced at 7 a.m. on Feb. 2 and was attended by both Pence and President Donald Trump. Later that day, the delegation met with Ambassador Mike Kozak and Deputy Assistant Secretary Scott Busby of the State Department. Representative Randy Hultgren convened with them at 4:30 p.m.
Freedom House hosted the delegation at 9 a.m. on Friday, and, at 11 a.m., they visited USCIRF, followed by a trip to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
China Aid hosts delegations and meets with government officials in order to raise awareness of Chinas religious freedom and human rights abuses.
ChinaAid Media Team
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected]
For more information, click here
The test-firing of a new ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea early on Sunday has once more escalated tensions on the already volatile Korean Peninsula.
The successful test was of a new type of strategic weapon system, according to Korean Central News Agency, one powered by high thrust solid fuel rather than liquid fuel, which gives such missiles longer range and makes them harder to detect before launch by satellite surveillance.
It was the DPRK's first missile test since Donald Trump was inaugurated as US president, and it has been widely interpreted as also being a test to see what the new US administration's response will be.
While it is unrealistic to expect the new US leader to take a soft stance toward the DPRK and engage in direct talks on an official peace deal as Pyongyang seeks, Trump's initial tough talk on taking office has softened somewhat since, perhaps because he has come to better understand the complexity of the peninsula issue.
Despite countries in the region having a common sense of mission, underscored by the strengthened sanctions against the DPRK in the last UN resolution in November, the progress Pyongyang has made in its missile and nuclear programs can be partly attributed to its taking advantage of the discord among the major powers, including China and the United States, over how to deal with its nuclear weapons program.
Part of this discord has stemmed from the US' determination to apply pressure on Pyongyang using its allies Japan and the Republic of Korea, while ignoring the concerns of China and Russia.
It has been speculated that Trump may have discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula during his phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, if so he would no doubt have been reminded of China's strong opposition to the US' deployment of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in the ROK, and China's consistent advocacy of talks as the right way to ease tensions on the peninsula and maintain stability.
The possession of nuclear weapons will by no means make the DPRK safer. Rather, it will turn the peninsula into a potential tinderbox where not only the DPRK, but the region and beyond will be the losers.
The DPRK's security and regional stability rests on a shared approach that takes into account the concerns of all the countries involved.
This necessitates peace talks, not talk of war or nuclear strikes.
Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi Corp, is pictured at the company's new product release ceremony in Beijing, May 10, 2016. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]
JAKARTA - Chinese prominent smartphone producer Xiaomi Corp initiated the production at its Indonesian plant, aimed at complying with Indonesia's local content adoption obligation.
Xiaomi's Indonesian production was declared in an event themed "We are made in Indonesia" held in a lavish hotel here on Friday, attended by the firm's executives, senior government officials and Chinese ambassador to Indonesia Xie Feng.
Operating its production facility located in Indonesia's Batam industrial zone, Xiaomi embraces local partners that comprised of Erajaya Swasembada, Sat Nusapersaada and TSM Technologies.
Addressing the event, Wang Xiang, senior vice-president of Xiaomi, said initializing its production in Indonesia is a proof of the importance of the Indonesian market to Xiaomi.
"We learn huge potentials for growth in Indonesia. It would be an honor for us to take part during the period that would encourage Indonesia in entering new phase in smartphone industry," he said.
Xiaomi initially entered Indonesian smartphone market in 2014 with Redmi 1S model. It consequently launched more advanced models offered in affordable prices to tap fortune the lucrative smartphone market in Indonesia.
To support its booming sales Xiaomi also opened its service center in Indonesia.
The smartphone model designated to be produced in its Indonesian plant is Xiaomi Redmi 4A. The gadget is fitted with Qualcomm Snapdragon 425, 4G dual SIM card and 3120 mAh battery, allowing the device to have longer active time up to seven hours.
The smartphone would be offered at 1,499,000 rupiah ($113) for Indonesian market with sales scheduled to commence by the end of this month.
Ambassador Xie Feng said the initialization of Xiaomi's Indonesian version represents a new stage in China-Indonesia cooperation, namely a transition from traditional trade and project contracting to investment, technological transfer, personnel training and joint production.
"Once again, it proves the commitment of Chinese enterprises to localization and readiness to grow together with the Indonesian society," the ambassador said in his remarks.
He added that Xiaomi has demonstrated a fine example of Chinese manufacturing in the global market. Its smartphone market share currently ranks the fourth in Indonesia.
"It shows that Indonesian customers not only recognize Xiaomi's quality and service as well as Chinese manufacturing but also have high expectation and confidence in our bilateral cooperation," he added.
According to the ambassador, Xiaomi is among the nearly 1,000 Chinese enterprises investing in Indonesia, bringing their capital, technology and advanced managerial expertise, which help boost local revenue and employment and strengthen Indonesia's economic growth.
Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia region, has a growing number of internet users which mostly accessed through smartphones.
According to the results of a 2016 survey, 132.7 million from 256.2 million of population actively accessed the internet in Indonesia. That figure was 51.8 percent higher than in 2014.
Of that internet user figure, 63.1 million ones, or 47.6 percent, used smartphones to access internet.
According to an official data, Indonesia has vibrant smartphone market with annual sales estimated at 35 million ones nationwide.
A jobseeker fills up an application form at a job fair in Wenxian county, Henan province. XU HONGXING / FOR CHINA DAILY
Pressure on China's labor market is showing signs of easing, according to the 2016 Global Skills Index by Hays, a human resources consultant that assesses efficiency of skilled labor markets in 33 countries.
The data suggested that risks of a hard landing of the Chinese economy have abated, thanks to improving exports and steady infrastructure investment that offset downward pressure.
Seven indicators, including labor market participation and wage pressure, make up the ranking. Each indicator receives a score on a scale of 0 to 10. A score closer to 0 means almost no pressure, while a score closer to 10 suggests severe pressure.
China ranks 31st out of 33 countries, suggesting robust labor market performance with an overall score of 4.3, down from 4.7 last year.
"Easing pressures in China are due to slower economic growth, higher labor market participation rates and reducing wage pressure," said Simon Lance, managing director of Hays in China.
The index shows that in China, pressure on labor market mainly comes from "labor market flexibility", which measures the legal and regulatory environment faced by businesses, in which China scored 8.1.
The biggest change from a year ago is the dramatic decline in "overall wage pressure", suggesting that wages are not rising as quickly as rates seen in the past. Labor market participation also fell by 0.9, meaning that labor supply has slightly improved.
"This reflects what we're seeing on the ground, where employers in softening industries such as traditional manufacturing and industrial sectors are facing talent challenges in a climate of tight cost control," said Lance.
In terms of other indicators, the existing education system is very well equipped to meet future talent needs. Labor market participation is fairly flexible and job applicants usually possess the skills employers are looking for.
In industries requiring high-skilled workers, however, there is still talent shortage, particularly in high-tech, industrial, internet, e-commerce and lifestyle services sectors, the study showed.
"Recruitment is driven by the need to increase productivity, with employers focused on boosting and up-skilling their leadership and technical teams to navigate economic conditions," Lance said.
Kevin Eunhyung Lee, executive vice-chairman of CMIG, addresses a meeting of top executives during the 3rd Global Advisory Council in Shanghai in October 2016. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Kevin Lee is assisting boss Dong to realize his dream of making China Minsheng a Fortune 500 group
In May 2014, 59 leading private Chinese companies formed China Minsheng Investment Group or CMIG with 50 billion yuan ($8billion) in registered capital. Today, CMIG boasts assets of 260 billion yuan, up over fivefold from the time of its formation.
Yet CMIG believes there are many more investment peaks to scale before it could feel cotented. Assets are expected to further increase to over 1 trillion yuan in five years.
CMIG's chairman Dong Wenbiao's dream is to see the group among the Global Fortune 500 players in seven to eight years.
Dong's trusted lieutenant, Kevin Eunhyung Lee, CMIG's executive vice-chairman, has taken upon himself the task of accomplishing that goal.
"When you are trying to climb Mount Everest, there are Sherpas who help climbers by carrying their heavy luggage. I consider myself as a corporate Sherpa, offering my assistance to CMIG, helping it to become a leading investment institution of the world."
According to Lee, the current global situation favors CMIG. To illustrate the point, Lee refers to the latest World Economic Forum in Davos, held in January.
Lee attended the WEF many times in the past. But still, the latest edition was a new experience.
"It's the first time that I've seen so many Chinese elements. As a Chinese company, we were approached by many foreign organizations at the meeting."
According to Lee, participants acknowledged the increasing global leadership of Chinese companies. President Xi Jinping in his widely acclaimed keynote speech at Davos said that China aims to promote open and free trade, and warned against protectionism.
CMIG would endeavor to work to realize Xi's vision, Lee said. His career record suggests Lee is experienced enough to drive CMIG in that direction.
In his previous job as the chief global strategy officer at Hana Financial Group, one of South Korea's largest financial institutions, Lee supervised 128 networks in 24 countries.
Dong, one of the most successful bankers in China, had urged Lee repeatedly to be part of the crack CMIG management team. So, Lee left the successful South Korean company to join CMIG when it didn't even have an office.
For, he could not resist the "excitement of being in such a unique company. CMIG has a scattered equity structure with no dominating shareholders, and this cannot be found anywhere else in the world."
Lee believes there are three phases of globalization: globalization, localization, and "glocalization".
CMIG's human resources come from all backgrounds and from all over the world. More than 50 percent of CMIG's employees are foreigners or have overseas work experience. In Lee's words, CMIG is truly a platform for "global citizens".
In April 2016, CMIG International, under Lee's supervision, finalized the largest deal since its parent's formation. The acquisition of Sirius International Insurance Group Ltd for $2.6 billion was a vital step as CMIG aligned itself with China's larger goals as per the Belt and Road Initiative.
That is part of CMIG's core strategy. So, it is leading dozens of Chinese private enterprises into investing billions of dollars in countries like Indonesia and Cambodia, to promote local prosperity. It also actively carries out exchange programs between China and these countries.
Also, CMIG and CMIG International will endeavor to help Sirius to expand into the Asian market and further build up its strength. CMIG has retained every single employee at Sirius. "It's a win-win," said Lee.
"Historically, the Silk Road is a two-way trade route connecting Asia, Africa and Europe," said Lee. "Today, the Belt and Road Initiative is not only about capital investment, but a two-way development channel for countries along the line. That is the real spirit of Silk Road.
"In the future, we will continue to carry out the 'going global' strategy, concentrating on nations alongside the Belt and Road. Meanwhile, we will also actively promote 'bringing in'."
Lee said CMIG is confident in realizing these big goals with its "3+3" strategy involving strategic development through three financial groups and three industrial forays.
The three financial groups are: a global insurance group in Singapore, a financial leasing group in Hong Kong, and an asset management group in London, Beijing and East China. The three industrial forays are: home-based elderly care, new energy sector and standardized housing on an industrial scale.
"We've selected these sectors because they are technology-intensive, in line with the national strategy, and bear huge growth potential. More importantly, they can help enhance the livelihood of ordinary people," said Lee. "After all, people's livelihood (Minsheng) is in our name."
Farmers collect hot peppers for sale from a harvest off more than 49,421 acres in Huangxian county, Henan province, on Nov 17, 2016. LIU XIAOKUN /FOR CHINA DAILY
China will deepen supply-side structural reform in agriculture to develop the sector, according to a recent policy document.
The major problems facing China's agricultural sector are structural ones, mainly on the supply side, according to the document by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.
The document calls for improving the structures of the industry, promoting "green" production, extending the sector's industrial and value chain, boosting innovation, consolidating shared rural development and enhancing rural reforms.
This is the 14th year in a row that the "No 1 central document" has been devoted to agriculture, farmers and rural areas.
The "No 1 central document" is the name traditionally given to the first policy statement released by the central authorities in the year and is seen as an indicator of policy priorities.
When carrying forward supply-side structural reform for the sector, national grain security must be guaranteed, according to the document.
It also said that supply-side structural reform in the agricultural sector would be a long and challenging process, demanding that the relationship between government and market be well handled and in the interests of all stakeholders.
China started structural reforms in its agricultural sector a few years ago. Partly due to structural adjustment, China's grain output dropped slightly in 2016, ending a 12-year rising streak. The yield stood at about 616 million metric tons, down by about 5.2 million tons or 0.8 percent year-on-year.
The gist of supply-side reform in China's agriculture sector is to increase the output of high-quality products based on green and innovative production.
The country will maintain its zero increase in the use of pesticides and fertilizers and vigorously control water usage in the sector.
For better farm produce, a group of innovation centers and alliances will be created, and outstanding research will be enhanced.
The reform also aims to refine the quality supervision and standards system for farm produce, control soil pollution and encourage agricultural businesses to gain international certifications.
China will promote the export of competitive farm produce, cross-border operation of agricultural enterprises and the establishment of global leaders in the sector.
China will encourage migrant workers to return to rural areas and start businesses, while stepping up training for professional farmers, including professional agricultural managers.
Authorities will offer favorable taxation policies for business startups in rural areas, in addition to support with financing, land use and social insurance. Local governments are encouraged to start business parks and incubators for the returnees.
The nation will also encourage college graduates, entrepreneurs and returned students from overseas to start businesses and bring technological and managerial expertise to rural areas.
Institutions of higher learning will open more programs and courses on rural planning and rural house design.
Preparation for seven new free trade zones (FTZs) is moving into the final stages, with the launch date expected within weeks, Security Daily reported on Monday.
The country's third batch of pilot FTZs, which aim to boost inland regions, are likely to be launched as early as the end of the month, Xiao Benhua, professor of Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, told the newspaper.
Chinese authorities approved FTZs in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces, as well as Chongqing municipality, last August following the success of four previous zones.
Designed as a testing platform for economic reforms, an FTZ is able to lower the threshold for businesses to set up new companies, cut restrictions on capital flows, and offer more market access to foreign investment.
"The FTZ boom certainly will encourage a large number of foreign companies to either establish or extend operations in these seven provincial-level regions to benefit from favorable tax policies and simplified goods trade procedures," said Li Gang, chairman of the Sichuan provincial branch of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
About 10,000 companies are expected to register in the Henan FTZ that takes in Zhengzhou, Kaifeng and Luoyang cities, Jiao Jinmiao, head of the provincial Commerce Department, said last month.
He said that preparations were nearly done and the upgraded administrative services hall can start working once the FTZ gets the greenlight.
BEIJING - China will not return to its old path of capital controls or go backwards on its foreign exchange management policies, according to a leading foreign exchange official.
Pan Gongsheng, head of State Administration of Foreign Exchange, was quoted in China Business News on Monday, saying that China's forex management policies will balance efforts between guarding against risks of cross-border capital flows and facilitating trade and investment.
Pan said China would enhance the scrutiny of forex transactions' authenticity and regularity, intensify the crackdown on irregularities, and ensure the healthy development of forex markets.
Warning that there was blindness in outbound investment, Pan said that China would encourage domestic firms, especially those with the right abilities and conditions, to invest overseas in areas such as the Belt and Road Initiative and in international industrial cooperation.
Pan said that the country would continue to open up its financial markets based on "a strategic perspective" so as to balance short-term and long-term benefits.
He also said the country had ample forex reserves, and it was normal for the forex reserve levels to fluctuate in light of complicated economic and financial environments.
China's forex reserves fell to about $2.99 trillion in January, a six-year low but still the world's largest.
As it works to open 85% of complex, items unseen since 1949 to be unveiled
As the Forbidden City opens more of the world-renowned former royal palace to the public, additional treasures will be going on display, according to Shan Jixiang, the museum's director.
Any part of the premises "deemed suitable for opening-up will no longer be forbidden" to the public, Shan said during a lecture on Sunday.
Shan said among the plans are the opening of a new gallery this year to display furniture used by royal families that lived in the palace. The majority of such items have not been publicly shown since 1949.
About 85 percent of the area in the museum, formally known as Palace Museum, will be made accessible to the public by 2025, according to a museum blueprint approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage last year. By the end of 2016, about 76 percent of the space was available.
Shan said the remaining areas will require complex restoration projects and therefore need more time to be completed.
The new gallery will showcase 2,400 sets of furniture made mostly of red sandalwood and rosewood from the museum's collection of 6,000 sets that belonged to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.
The gallery used to be an old warehouse for construction materials.
"Such areas need to be unlocked as exhibition space," Shan said, adding that some 51,000 square meters of space that is currently awaiting renovation will be made available to tourists.
Another exhibition area, scheduled to be opened by the end of the year, will give the world a chance to view foundations of early Ming buildings, based on archaeological discoveries in recent years. The site dates back to the earliest days of the Forbidden City, Shan said.
The former royal complex, spread over 720,000 square meters, functioned as the seat of power in imperial China from 1420 until the end of the monarchy in 1911.
To allow visitors more viewing space, Shan said only relics restorers and security guards will continue to work within the complex's red walls. Around 750 employees, including him, representing roughly half the staff, will move their offices out of the walled areas.
The Forbidden City's image as a museum has grown since new measures were initiated in 2012.
Before that, it was seen as a highbrow academic institution detached from people's daily lives, and a tourist destination where visitors marveled at the architectural grandeur but knew little about the 1.8 million sets of cultural relics housed here. Most of the doors were shut, too.
More recently, the museum has caught the fancy of China's growing online community with its souvenirs and interactive phone apps.
In 2015, people waited overnight in lines to watch the highest profile shows of ancient calligraphy and painting in the museum's history.
In 2016, a documentary released online and on television, titled Masters in the Forbidden City, invoked interest in the museum's relics restorers.
"Only through more interaction and communication could the abundant cultural resources of the Palace Museum be conveyed to the public," said Yan Hongbin, who is in charge of public education at the Forbidden City. "For many people, this museum has become a part of their everyday lives."
On Sunday, Shan delivered the 100th lecture of a popular series the museum has held to broaden its appeal since he took the helm in 2012.
More than 60 scholars have addressed the lectures that have been attended by 10,000 people. For the lecture on Sunday, the original 350 entry tickets were taken within minutes of being released online.
The museum decided to reopen the online booking system and allow 100 more visitors into the auditorium. But they had to stand through the two-hour lecture.
"Such platforms offer us a chance to get together and share our knowledge and interest in history and culture," said Pei Hong, a Beijing resident who frequently attends the lectures.
Forbes China recently unveiled a ranking of the top one hundred female entrepreneurs and businesswomen in China.
Dubbed "China's Top 100 Businesswomen in 2017", the list covering various industries was produced by the Chinese-language edition of Forbes Magazine.
Billionaires, techies and regional chiefs at multinationals are among the 100 nominees.
According to Forbes China, the ranking takes into account the number of employees, revenue, profit, assets, market capitalization and web popularity.
Dong Mingzhu, president of the air conditioner manufacturer Gree Appliances took the crown this year, followed by telecom giant Huawei's chairwoman Sun Yafang.
Lucy Peng, or Peng Lei, chair of Ant Finance, ranked at third, was one of three people to make the list from Alibaba Group and its affiliates.
Here's a list of the top 10 women in China's business world.
10. Zhou Qunfei, chairwoman of Lens Technology
Workers assemble car bodies at a Great Wall Motor plant in Tianjin on Feb 7. Despite a sales dip in January, automakers are optimistic about sales this year. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Dealers are sitting on stock, but carmakers' whole year projections remain optimistic, Li Fusheng reports.
Industry analysts have raised the alarm over Chinese car dealers' inventory levels, which hit a 14-month high in January.
The inventory index stood at 61.5 percent last month, 18.6 percentage points higher than in December, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association.
The monthly index is based on a survey of more than 1,000 authorized stores in China that sell 55 brands of vehicles, both Chinese and imported.
A reasonable inventory level should be no higher 50 percent, according to the association. The index has hovered around the 50 percent mark since the second half of 2016.
Lang Xuehong, the association's deputy secretary-general, said the high January index was the result of December's car purchase rush before the expiration of the 50 percent purchase tax discount, as well as the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, during which people seldom shop for new cars.
Lang's words were echoed by Peter Fleet, Ford Asia Pacific's vice-president of marketing, sales and service.
He said in a news release that Ford and its joint ventures in China sold 88,000 vehicles in January, down 32 percent from the same period last year, because of these two factors.
Ford was not alone. Statistics from the China Passenger Car Association show that 2.07 million passenger cars were sold nationwide in January, a 9.3 percent fall year-on-year and a 23.5 percent slump from December.
Things could get even worse in February, according to the dealers association, with 67.8 percent of respondents in its survey believing market demand will shrink further.
The figure stood at 38.2 percent in January. However, Xiao Zhengsan, secretary-general of the association said that sales performance figures from one or two months are insufficient to predict a whole year's trend.
Carmakers are optimistic about the year as a whole, as shown by their recently unveiled sales targets. FAW-Volkswagen Automobile has set itself the goal of shifting 1.4 million cars, excluding Audi sales, a 6.8 percent increase from its sales of 1.31 million in 2016.
Beijing Hyundai Motor hopes to sell 1.25 million cars in 2017, up 9.6 percent year-on-year, as it plans to launch 10 new models this year.
Dongfeng Honda Automobile, which sold 595,000 cars in 2016, expects to deliver 650,000 vehicles this year, representing 9.12 percent growth.
Chinese brands are even more ambitious. Great Wall Motor set a sales target of 1.25 million cars, up 16.8 percent year-on-year, similar to its growth last year, because of the continuous popularity of SUVs in the Chinese market.
Its Haval H6 SUV made history in December, with 80,495 units sold in the month alone, meaning one was sold every 33 seconds. More than 580,000 H6 vehicles were sold in the year.
Geely expects to sell 1 million cars this year in a 30 percent year-on-year surge, with five models due to hit the market, including three SUVs.
The automaker saw 50 percent year-on-year growth in 2016.
The Zhejiang-based automaker secured a good start to the year, selling more than 100,000 cars in January, soaring 71 percent from the same period last year.
Analysts believe that Chinese automakers' more bullish growth estimates are based on their performance in 2016 as well as the models they have planned for this year.
Chinese carmakers sold a total of 10.5 million passenger cars last year, up 20.5 percent year-on-year, higher than the industry average of 14.9 percent, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Statistics show that Chinese automakers' market share rose to 43.2 percent by the end of 2016, up from 38.4 percent in 2014.
However, there is still a long way to go.
Changan Automobile, Geely and Great Wall made it onto the list of 10 best-sellers in January, but their sales remain much smaller than those of international brands such as Volkswagen and GM.
Attendees view the Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC I-Pace Electric Concept luxury SUV during an event in Los Angeles, California. [Photo provided to China Daily]
As Washington mulls a tax on imports, an auto industry study suggests the policy would deliver the sharpest blow to Tata Motors' Jaguar Land Rover while giving a leg up to Tesla and Ford Motor.
In what it calls a "thought exercise," researcher Baum & Associates LLC estimates most automakers would need to raise vehicle prices by thousands of dollarsmore than $17,000 per vehicle in the case of Jaguar Land Rover, which imports all its vehiclesto recoup higher costs incurred by a proposed border-adjusted tax.
Ford, with significant domestic manufacturing, would need to mull the smallest price hike among major automakers, at about $282 per vehicle, followed by General Motors at $995, according to the report.
The estimates aim to show the relative impact of the tax plan on each automaker, according to Alan Baum, the founder of West Bloomfield, Michigan-based Baum& Associates.
Carmakers are unlikely to raise prices by more than a few thousand dollars per car and would also likely have to foot some of the higher tax burden.
"The plan results in a net cost for automakers," Baum said. "Each company will then make its own decisions on pricing in order to best compete and maximize its profits."
Volvo and VW vehicle prices would have to rise by about $7,600 and $6,800 on average, according to estimates by Baum & Associates, which advises suppliers.
President of the United States Donald Trump is said to be warming to the border-adjusted tax after initially viewing it as too complicated. The proposal to begin levying companies' imports and domestic sales and make exports tax-exempt would completely overhaul the US tax code. General Electric and Boeing are among the US manufacturers that are getting behind the idea, while Toyota Motor and Wal-Mart are among the corporate giants warning it will result in costlier products, ranging from food and clothing to gasoline and auto parts.
The Baum & Associates report accounts for imports of both finished vehicles and parts for domestic cars that are made overseas.
The one automaker that may be able to keep prices steady would be Model S sedan maker Tesla.
The proposed border tax might induce automakers to boost US parts procurementand from existing vehicle assembly plants, according to the report.
Overseas automakers including Fuji Heavy Industries' Subaru, Mitsubishi Motors, Mazda Motor and Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors might also consider expanding their existing US operations or building new capacity.
Pure importers
"Pure importers" such as Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo parent company Geely Automobile Holdings, Mazda and Mitsubishi are most "in the crosshairs" of a border-tax regime due to their total reliance on imports for their sales in the US, the report said.
If the tax is put in place and the companies want to remain competitive, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo "will need to ramp up US parts sourcing and/or build plants here," the report added.
"The border tax approach will otherwise consume all of their profits from selling vehicles here," it continued.
Volvo is already moving in that direction, with plans to assemble S60 sedans at a new factory in South Carolina starting in late 2018.
GM, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, Ford and Tesla each source more than 60 percent of their US vehicle sales domestically, according to the report, with Ford at 82 percent and Tesla exclusively assembling vehicles in California.
Hurting neighbors
If auto sales slow, the tax would create an incentive for automakers to keep US plants running at the expense of those in Canada and Mexico.
That could encourage Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to accelerate the conversion of factories in Michigan to build pickups there instead of Mexico, said Dan Luria, an economist at the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center in Ann Arbor and the lead author of the Baum & Associates report.
Nissan Motor might export more from Mexico to Latin American markets and less to the US, and Volkswagen AG could build another US assembly plant.
Mazda and Mitsubishi, which rely entirely on imports to the US market, may have to quit the US market or pay other manufacturers to assemble their cars, Luria said.
In its current form, the proposed border tax could lead to the production of up to 1 million additional vehicles in the US and 50,000 more jobs at car and part assembly plants, Luria said.
In a separate report released on Wednesday, Colin Langan, an analyst at UBS Securities LLC, said the proposed border tax could raise average prices in the US by about 8 percent, or $2,500 per vehicle.
That's enough to reduce annual sales by about 2 million vehicles, he said. Langan said he expects a draft bill to be released in late February or early March.
He pegged the chances of a border tax being enacted at less than 50 percent.
The tax has a good chance of making its way through the House of Representatives but is "very unlikely" to pass in the Senate, Langan said.
Bloomberg
A P2P lender participates at the Beijing International Finance Expo on Oct 29, 2015. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Credit China FinTech Holdings Ltd is planning more investments as it aggressively expands beyond its original loans and lease-financing businesses into online payments and peer-to-peer lending.
The company, part of a consortium that offered to buy a stake in Ping An Securities Group Holdings Ltd last month, is in talks with "multiple" financial-services companies based in Asia outside China, said its CEO Phang Yew Kiat in Hong Kong on Feb 1. The Hong Kong-based firm is targeting at least one more acquisition by the end of the first quarter, he said.
"In order to support my bigger growth, I need to add new things," Phang said. "What's important is we need to have multiple revenue streams."
The firm's acquisition strategywhich is now focused outside Chinahas been driven by HK$4.3 billion ($554 million) of funds that it raised over the past three years, Phang said.
In January alone, Credit China unveiled a $30 million investment in San Francisco-based blockchain technology firm BitFury Group Ltd and is part of a group that offered HK$664 million for a stake in Ping An Securities.
Since 2013, Credit China's investments have focused on financial technology-related markets such as third-party payments and peer-to-peer lending, a strategy that boosted transactions on its online platforms to 92.6 million last year from 1.8 million in 2014, data provided by the company show.
The acquisitions put Credit China onto the radar of short seller Anonymous Analytics, which expressed doubts over some of the investments in December, as it rated the company a "strong sell".
In a report, Anonymous alleged Credit China had engaged in "a number of questionable" investments, including the purchase of a stake in payment provider Shanghai Jifu, which the short seller said was linked to a "key individual" within Credit China.
Credit China issued a strong denial in response, saying that the report presented "a number of malicious and false allegations, misrepresentations and obvious factual errors" about the company. The claim about Shanghai Jifu was "unsubstantiated," Credit China said, saying that it had access to filings showing that shareholders involved in the transaction were unrelated.
Shares of Credit China in Hong Kong fell 5.3 percent on Dec 13 when Anonymous Analytics released its report, but have since rallied 49 percent. The gain has driven the company's market capitalization to $3 billion.
The firm's investments include third-party payments company UCF Huisheng Investment (HK) Co and a controlling stake in mobile games operator Shenzhen Qiyuan Tianxia Technology Co. Last year, the company made its first majority investment outside China by acquiring a 51 percent stake in Vietnam's Amigo Technologies Joint Stock Co.
Bloomberg
Bill Gates, former chairman of Microsoft Corp [Photo / Agencies]
Billionaire Bill Gates is bringing an unexpected gift to his Chinese fans right before Valentine's Day.
The co-founder and former chairman of Microsoft Corp opened an official account on WeChat, China's most popular social media platform, to share his ideas and favorite books with Chinese users.
In the first post, Gates showcased his linguistic talents in a video clip, saying in Chinese: "Welcome to my personal WeChat blog." He then switched to English, adding "I will share with you the people I meet, the books I'm reading and what I'm learning".
The post had been viewed more than 100,000 times by 3 pm on Monday. It is the latest move by Gates to deepen communications with China, where his charity organization Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been working hard to solve many social problems.
The WeChat account, operated by local firm Boruizhi Consulting (Beijing) Co, said Gates would share content related to global health, new energy and education reform, which are in line with the objectives of the Gates Foundation.
Last year, the foundation set up a drug research center in Beijing by partnering with Tsinghua University. The Global Health Drug Discovery Institute is dedicated to tackling major diseases faced by developing countries.
Gates is not the first foreign tech tycoon to register a Chinese social media account. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, sent his first post on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, in May 2015, during his trip to Beijing.
TAIPEI - Hundreds of Uber drivers joined a motorcade in Taiwan Friday to protest against the authority's decision to slap a suspension ban on their services last week.The motorcade, with cars carrying Uber logos or slogans such as "Legalize Uber," drove around the transportation authority's building. Several protesters also sat in front of the building, holding placards calling for a meeting with the chief transportation official.Uber announced Thursday that it would suspend services in Taiwan starting Feb. 10 following the transportation authority's issuance of 11 fines for Uber, which totaled over 230 million new Taiwan dollars (7.4 million U.S. dollars).Taiwan regards Uber services as illegal as it is not registered as a taxi service, and allegations of tax avoidance. Uber said the allegations were baseless."We're not a taxi company so it's absurd to ask us to register as one. We are a smartphone application that connects people willing to share their ride with people needing one," Uber responded earlier in a statement.The U.S.-based ride-hailing app entered Taiwan in 2013 and, up until the ban, operated in four cities, including Taipei and Kaohsiung. It said it has provided 15 million trips, with more than 1 million people having downloaded the app and 16,000 citizens becoming drivers.Local taxi drivers accuse the firm of illegally operating taxi services, which has affected their income.On Friday, Uber released a farewell letter saying it was unwilling to and hoped it was not forced to, withdraw from Taiwan."The decision has affected more than 1 million people that rely on Uber, but these endless fines make it hard to survive in such an environment," it said.In another statement released Friday, the Uber Taiwan team said they hope to restart conversations with the island's administration to find a way to allow ride-sharing to flourish."We will do everything we can to restart the service," the statement read.
BEIJING - A number of provinces in China have stepped up efforts to prevent H7N9 avian flu following reports of scattered human cases of the virus.
Authorities closed 280 live poultry trading and slaughtering venues in Suining city, southwest China's Sichuan Province, after four human H7N9 cases were reported in the city this year, according to the provincial health authorities.
Commerce officials in Suining have enhanced inspections to crack down on unlicensed poultry businesses.
The central province of Hubei has set up headquarters for the prevention and control of human H7N9 outbreak, according to the provincial Health and Family Planning Commission.
Hubei confirmed 19 human H7N9 cases from Jan.1 to Feb. 9, scattered across several cities. Two patients have been discharged from hospital after recovering. The province has dispatched 16 inspection teams to check on prevention efforts.
In Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, all live poultry markets have been suspended. The province has reported 24 H7N9 cases, including five fatalities, this year.
Eastern China's Zhejiang Province ordered all markets across the province to halt live poultry trading by 6 p.m. Saturday, over bird flu concerns.
Staff with the Zhejiang Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that the province had entered a high season of bird flu outbreak.
In January alone, Zhejiang reported 35 infections of the H7N9 strain of bird flu. Contact with live poultry is the major source of infection, particularly in rural areas.
H7N9 is a bird flu strain first reported to have infected humans in China in March 2013. It is most likely to strike in winter and spring.
Beijing on Saturday reported a human H7N9 case. The patient is a 68-year-old man from Langfang city in neighboring Hebei Province.
Liaoning, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Guangdong and Guizhou provinces have all reported human H7N9 cases this year.
Hundreds of full-scale replicas of Terracotta Army soldiers are displayed at the Cultural Expo Park in Taihu county, Anhui province. [Photo provided to China Daily]
A cultural park in Anhui province that has produced hundreds of full-scale replicas of Terracotta Army soldiers has been accused of infringing the intellectual property rights of the real Terracotta Army, which are owned by Emperor Qingshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi'an, Shaanxi province.
The 5,000-Year Cultural Expo Park in Taihu county of Anhui's Anqing city has made hundreds of replicas of Terracotta Army soldiers and horses that have been open to public viewing since 2011. The replicas are placed in a pit, just like the real Terracotta Army figures at the museum in Shaanxi.
The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of the first emperor of China during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC).
The museum, which owns the intellectual property rights of the Terracotta Army, was quoted in media reports on Thursday as saying that "the cultural park's actions have apparently violated our rights".
Liu Zhihan, an expert from China University of Political Science and Law, said the park's actions could be deemed a violation of the country's anti-unfair competition law, adding that it should compensate the museum for economic losses, according to a report by a Xi'an-based newspaper, Chinese Business View.
However, a source at the cultural park said on Friday that it does not consider the replicas to be an infringement of intellectual property rights and it has no plans to close its replica display.
The park has a different design from the museum. Despite the replicas being made by a Xi'an-based company, the park also has a statue of the Emperor Qinshihuang that is not seen at the museum.
"The statue and replicas illustrate the Emperor directing his army to conquer the six other major states during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC)," said Yin Zhaoping, executive director of the park.
He added that the park is also different from the fake Terracotta Army sculptures that were destroyed by authorities in Xi'an a few weeks ago.
"Those fake ones cheated tourists by claiming they were genuine, but we have no intention of cheating anyone. Everyone knows the real Terracotta Army is in Xi'an," Yin said.
The replicas cover an area of nearly 1,000 square meters, a fraction of the park, which is scheduled to cover about 333 hectares, according to the park's website.
An entrance ticket for the park costs 120 yuan ($17).
The replica site is part of the park's 40-hectare first phase, entitled "A Dream of Thousands of Years".
zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn
BEIJING - China will push for the normalization of initial public offerings (IPOs) and refinancing activities, while considering possible pressure on the market, said Deng Ge, spokesperson for the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
An IPO suspension between July and November 2015 was followed by a period of slower IPO approval. Under the current IPO system, new shares are subject to approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, which controls both the timing and price.
China is working on an IPO approval system based on registration that will allow bourses to take over IPO approval and clear the backlog.
The regulator also said it will limit IPOs by steel and coal companies as the government is seeking to slim down the two bloated sectors.
Money raised through refinancing by listed firms cannot be used to pay back bank loans, the regulator stressed.
It also vowed to continue to crack down on any illegal activities, pledging strong measures against capital tycoons that violate regulations and laws.
Last year, 227 companies went public, raising total funds of 150.4 billion yuan (21.86 billion U.S. dollars).
A trainer encourages his dog to leap through a ring of fire at the People's Liberation Army's dog training center in Beijing. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]
At a base in Beijing, army dogs are being trained to participate in special operations undertaken by the People's Liberation Army. Cui Jia reports.
Allen crept forward in complete silence, his eyes locked on a tent about 50 meters away. As a special member of the People's Liberation Army, his natural talents enabled him to sense the enemy hiding inside the tent, which is something his partner, Yang Yuhai, will never be able to do, no matter how hard he trains.
When Allen had closed in on the tent and was certain the target was inside, he stood up without a sound. That was the signal for Yang, who had stayed behind, to move forward as quickly as possible, so the 26-year-old soldier ran towards Allen and pointed his rifle at the tent.
He shouted and called on the enemy to surrender. Allen then began to bark frenziedly to intimidate the target, who chose to run instead of giving himself up. Clearly, it was not a good move to make in front of an army dog. At Yang's command, Allen attacked the target and dragged him to the ground, his powerful jaws clamped around the man's arm.
That is just one of the daily routine training sessions that Allen and Yang, an army dog trainer, regularly tackle together at China's only base that breeds and trains dogs especially for the PLA. The "enemy" was played by another trainer, who wore protective gear, without which his arm would have been fractured by the powerful jaws of the Belgian Malinois, one of several breeds the PLA uses in its activities.
Founded in 1985, the base in Beijing currently has more than 700 dogs undergoing training. It costs 15,000 yuan a year ($2,181) to train, feed and accomodate each dog.
The PLA has decided that four-legged Special Forces will play a more important role in military operations in the future, so training programs have been adjusted to resemble actual combat situations as much as possible.
"The duties of army dogs in China are shifting from guarding military sites, patrolling borders and search-and-rescue missions to actual combat and counterterrorism," said Zhang Ke, the director of training at the base.
Special soldiers
For most Chinese, the weekend's Lantern Festival signaled the end of this year's Spring Festival and the return to real life and work in the new year. Traditionally, the holiday is celebrated at home with family. Fireworks and the giving of red packets make it the happiest time of year for children. However, modern lifestyles are rewriting how many Chinese celebrate this most important festival.
When army dogs reach the end of their service lives, they are transferred to a special retirement unit at the camp. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]
Although it is common knowledge that the People's Liberation Army's dog base in Beijing provides the nation's troops with the best four-legged soldiers available, it is less well-known that the base also runs a care home for retired army dogs.
Life expectancy for dogs is between 10 and 15 years. Army dogs can join military operations at around 2-years-old, when they have been fully trained, but they are usually retired at age 7 or 8 because their bodies are no longer able to cope with intense missions.
At present, there are about 100 retired dogs at the training base. However, the majority were not retired because of age but as a result of training-related injuries and personality issues, said Luo Bingkun, who oversees the care of the retired dogs.
"Not all dogs are built to be army dogs. Some may be too playful to obey orders. It doesn't matter why they retire - we will take care of them until they die," he said.
Saihu was on the way to becoming a promising army dog when he broke a leg jumping off a bridge during a training exercise in 2015. The leg had to be amputated, and although 3-year-old Belgian Milionis is now accustomed to the quiet life at the care center, he still remembers all the commands and tries to react to them.
"Just like people moving into a retirement home, it takes time for army dogs to adjust to their new lives. You can tell that they are depressed because they don't see their trainer every day and don't get as much exercise as they are used to," Luo said.
The best option is for the dogs to be adopted by their trainers or partners, but sometime personal circumstances mean they don't enjoy happy endings. The PLA is now encouraging members of the public to adopt retired army dogs so they can enjoy the love and care provided by families, he added.
Zhang Ke, the training director at the base, outlined the process: "We conduct careful and detailed evaluations of families that wish to adopt retired army dogs to make sure they can take care of them. The families are also required to report the dog's health condition on a regular basis."
Retired army dogs can make great pets, but the owners need to understand how they have been trained and how to handle them.
"Some of these dogs should not live with small children because they are trained to go after people who are running away, so they may chase and bite the children, who are very likely to run around," said Mary Peng, CEO and founder of the International Center for Veterinary Services in Beijing.
Yang Yuhai, a trainer at the base, has decided to adopt Allen, a 2-year-old Belgian Malinois army dog, when they both retire.
"I don't know where Allen will go and which troop he will serve in five years' time, but I will give him a home when he retires so we can take care of each other once again," the 26-year-old said.
Villagers carry a golden statue of an ancient Chinese general who, like Robin Hood, is celebrated for stealing from the rich to give to the poor, through a muddy field in the village of Juhe in Fujian province, on Wednesday.Photos By Johannes Eisele / AFP
Carrying the golden statue of a revered ancient general, villagers in eastern China dash wildly through waterlogged fields in a mud-spattered celebration of a local rebel adored for stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
Spurred on by the roar of firecrackers and cheers of families crowded on muddy banks, teams of men splash through the quagmire, in a centuries-old ceremony that was part of the lead up to the Lantern Festival on Saturday.
It is a time for colorful ceremonies in the coastal province of Fujian, where the Hakka people have long held on to their folk traditions.
At the center of the celebrations is a solemn-faced gilded effigy of Guan Gong, a Chinese general who lived nearly 2,000 years ago during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) and has been granted godlike status.
But he is not the main focus of the festivities.
For villagers here Guan Gong acts as a stand-in for a local rebel king named Zhang Lian, akin to a Robin Hood figure, who looted riches and helped the poor.
He rose up in 1560 against the corrupt Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), which used its massive army to impose heavy taxes on local peasants.
After two years of fighting, the government crushed the insurrection, leading the hero to flee to Indonesia, where legend has it he eventually became king of the island known today as Sumatra.
Seeking to honor him without upsetting the emperor, Ming Dynasty peasants paid tribute to an image of Guan Gong instead.
Local families pray to the statue, light incense and sacrifice chickens, before carrying it down to the fields.
They then run through the flooded fields to the point of collapse and splash water on the statue and each other in the winter morning chill.
Stomping about in the mud is also thought to "awaken" the farmland for the coming spring and express hopes for a good harvest year.
Hu Sheng, one of the men helping carry the statue, said he traveled to the ceremony every year from the southern city of Shenzhen, where he works.
"Everyone respects Guan Gong. I must come back for this because I hope he will bless me and my family this year, and I want everyone to have a good harvest," he said.
A therapist helps treat Li Xinyuan in Beijing in June, 2014.
Chongqing toddler who was savagely beaten by a girl in an elevator in November 2013 is still on the long road to recovery
A family in Chonqing is still struggling to pick up the pieces, more than three years after a brutal attack that left their 18-month-old son with life-changing injuries.
Li Xinyuan, also known as Yuanyuan, was savagely beaten by a 10-year-old girl in November 2013.
The girl, surnamed Li, snatched Yuanyuan from his grandmother as the older woman exited an elevator carrying a stroller.
Once the elevator doors closed, security footage showed Li repeatedly hitting the child, who was later found lying on the ground outside the building, unconscious and covered in blood.
His skull was fractured, as was his right eye socket, and his injuries were so severe that he had to undergo brain surgery.
The attack left Yuanyuan mentally impaired and unable to walk without a limp.
Now 4-and-a-half years old, he attends kindergarten, with plans to start elementary school next fall.
"We are more careful than before, especially when his grandmother takes him out - we remind her to be more careful," said Li Shuyong, Yuanyuan's father.
"He is recovering well. He can walk, run and jump like the other boys, but his left hand is very weak and cannot grasp. He also walks with a limp and needs a new left shoe almost every week because it becomes worn down."
Like many children his age, Yuanyuan likes to carry his parents' bags to prove he is "a big boy".
But he only ever uses his right hand and is reluctant to even wave hello using his left.
"He is a happy child, but he does not know what happened to him exactly and we are not ready to tell him yet," his father said.
The family avoids speaking about the topic at home - particularly Yuanyuan's mother Zeng Yan, who just wants to put the tragedy behind her.
To make matters worse, the girl who carried out the attack was never formally punished, as she had not yet reached 14 at the time, the age of criminal responsibility in China.
Her parents were ordered to pay 1 million yuan ($145,400) compensation to Yuanyuan's family, while an additional 1 million yuan was raised by netizens to pay for the boy's treatment in Chongqing and Beijing.
The family has already spent about 1 million yuan of that on the boy's treatment and is planning to use the rest of the money for his education and future medical fees.
Yuanyuan's recovery has been "beyond expectations", according to doctors, but his family still worry.
"His future remains unknown. He seems like a normal child, but as parents we have our concerns," said Li, the father, who is unsure whether Yuanyuan will ever be able to enter mainstream education.
Every six months, the boy requires medical checkups in the form of a magnetic resonance imaging scan at hospital and must complete 40 minutes of physical therapy each day after school.
"The MRI scan is painless for him as he is usually given pills and falls asleep, but it is torture for me to accompany him every time. The machine is so noisy, even an adult could not bear it," Li said.
"He is also becoming more reluctant to undergo physical therapy as he gets older - he does not like to wear his leg braces at all."
In China, boys are traditionally seen as the ones to preserve a family's legacy, but Yuanyuan's parents are under no illusions of grandeur when it comes to their son's future.
Instead, their hopes are now pinned on his 7-year-old sister Yaoyao, a model first-grader who already won several awards and attends extra-curricula courses, including starting piano lessons last year.
"We are very strict with Yaoyao, she even said once: 'you only love my brother'," Li, the father said.
"But we have to focus on Yuanyuan."
Smog returns to North China
Xinhua | Updated: 2017-02-13 16:06
BEIJING - Smog will hit parts of northern and central China Tuesday, the Ministry of Environmental Protection warned Monday.
The smog will return to Beijing and Tianjin, as well as Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan provinces, and is expected to last until a cold front comes to the rescue around Thursday, according to the ministry.
However, the ministry said air pollution could return again Saturday, but hopefully disperse again next Tuesday as conditions improve.
Despite government efforts to fight pollution, outbreaks of smog have become increasingly common in northern China in winter where cold weather and the burning of coal combine to exacerbate the situation.
Severe smog triggered red alerts in more than 20 cities at the beginning of the new year, leaving a number of manufacturers to cut production, and heavily polluting vehicles banned from roads.
In environment inspections last year, the ministry said that a total of 720 people were detained and 6,454 held accountable for environment-related offences.
In 2016, the government declined 11 high-pollution and high-energy consuming projects, involving total investment of 97 billion yuan (about 14 billion U.S. dollars).
Partly due to such efforts, Chinese cities reported less PM2.5 pollution in 2016, with the average density of PM2.5 in 338 cities falling by 6 percent.
China is aiming for a 10 percent reduction in air emissions from 2012 levels by 2017 in cities at the prefecture level and above. Meanwhile, the PM 2.5 density in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province should drop 25 percent.
High-end hotels recorded a surge in the sales of their rooms with the approaching of Valentine's Day, but demand for budget hotels has cooled down as young Chinese prefer to spend more.
A staff worker is seen at a love-themed hotel in Taiyuan city, North China's Shanxi province in this file photo. [Photo/VCG]
This year, Chinese people who were born in the 1990s account for nearly half of the total hotel orders for Valentine's Day, showing a rise over a year ago, according to a report by Ctrip.com International Ltd, China's leading online travel agency.
The surge in orders for Valentine's Day hotel rooms was significant in some third- and fourth-tier cities, in addition to hotels rooms in major cities that have been constantly in demand.
Smaller cities such as Wenzhou, Yangzhou and Weihai saw an 80 percent increase in the orders of rooms for the day over last year, the report said.
"Valentine's Day this year falls on a working day. That's why many lovers chose to spend their sweet time in hotels instead of going traveling," said Chen Xiaotian, director of business development of the accommodation business at Ctrip.
He added the room price decrease after the Lantern Festival led to the surge in reservations for Valentine's Day.
In addition, this year's Valentine's Day saw an increase in the number of parents choosing to take their children traveling, as young children are still on their winter vacation.
Warm and coastal cities are popular destinations. Coastal cities such as Sanya and Haikou in Hainan province, in addition to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Kunming and Hangzhou, have welcomed a greater number of tourists.
For outbound tourism, Southeast Asian locations such as Bangkok, Singapore and Phuket were favorite destinations for lovers.
Cheng Yu contributed to this story.
A gang of fake exam takers was arrested recently, accused of illegally taking exams for others in Hengshui, Hebei province, Beijing Evening News reported.
More than 100 people sat for an adult college entrance examination in October in place of actual candidates for the exam, who paid money to hire them, a story in the newspaper said.
The gang's leader, surnamed Cheng, found via the internet exam candidates who wanted to pay someone to take the exam for them.
Fees ranged between 2,000 yuan ($291) to 3,000 yuan.
Each fake exam taker earned 100 yuan ($15) to 500 yuan for taking the exam, the story said.
Impersonators hired to take the exams had to resemble the actual candidates.
The fake exam takers received special training on how to use a fake admission card for the exam, and how to react in case they were found out by test supervisors.
Police in Hengshui said the gang had more than 20 members, including college students who helped find fake exam takers at their schools.
In 2015, cheating on tests was written into China's criminal law.
People who take exams for someone else or help others to do so are punished according to the law.
Contact the writer at: zhangyu1@chinadaily.com.cn
BEIJING - President Xi Jinping on Monday told leading officials to practice strict self-discipline and eliminate special privileges.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, makes a speech during the opening session of a workshop on the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in Beijing on February 13, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]
Xi made the remarks when addressing the opening session of a workshop on the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. The workshop at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee was attended by senior provincial and ministerial officials.The opening session was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang. Other leaders including Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli were also present.Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said implementing the decisions of the plenum would have far-reaching and profound significance for both the Party and socialism with Chinese characteristics.Xi urged leading cadres to "build a fence" against special privileges to prevent themselves and those around them from abusing power.Leading officials should use their power "impartially, cautiously and legally," Xi said in his speech.The CPC Central Committee held the workshop to help senior provincial and ministerial officials understand two documents, one on the norms of political life within the Party in the new era, and a regulation on intra-Party supervision, which were approved by last year's plenum."Leading officials should strengthen their political capability, firm their political ideals, uphold political direction, be steadfast in their stance and strictly observe political rules," Xi said, stressing they should enrich their political experience and match their political capability with the positions they were holding.Xi said upholding the authority of the CPC Central Committee with strict observance of orders and rules was related to the future and fate of the Party and the nation as well as the fundamental interests of all people across the nation.Xi called on all Party members to become more aware of the need to uphold political integrity, keep in mind the bigger picture, follow the CPC as the core of the Chinese leadership, and act consistently with CPC Central Committee policy.Safeguarding the authority of the CPC Central Committee and the centralized and unified leadership chimed with democratic centralism, Xi stressed.The Party sets great store by intra-Party democracy, as all major decisions follow strict processes, and are informed by wide opinions and suggestions, Xi said.Strengthening and regulating political life within the Party requires the correct political direction, and advancing with the times, said Xi, who also stressed principles of political life and its spirit of holding firmly to the truth and rectifying errors.Self-development is the most distinctive characteristic of the Party, and its biggest advantage, because the CPC has no interests of its own except for the interests of the country, the nation and the people, according to Xi.Xi said leading officials, especially those in senior roles, must strengthen their self-discipline, be discreet when being alone and on small matters. They should ensure their words and deeds are in line with the Party constitution, and embody the Party spirit in all that they do.Xi called for thorough study of the two documents adopted at the key CPC session, which were designed to address outstanding contradictions and problems within the Party.While addressing the workshop, Xi stressed that Party organizations at all levels must improve inspections and ensure accountability. He also underscored that high-raking cadres should take the lead in complying with the Party's code of conduct.Li Keqiang called on leading officials to uphold the authority of the CPC Central Committee, improve intra-Party political life and work to build a cleaner political environment.Li said leading cadres must unite closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, boost reform and development, work hard, and greet the 19th National Congress of the CPC with achievements across the board.
Rescuers gather around a crashed bus in Taipei, Taiwan February 13, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
At least 30 people were killed after a tour bus overturned on a highway in Taipei on Monday evening, according to local authorities.
The bus was carrying at least 44 people, including the driver, most of whom were seniors. The others have been admitted to hospital, local police said.
Rescuers remove a body from a crashed bus after an accident on a highway in Taipei, Taiwan February 13, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
There were no tourists from the Chinese mainland or foreign countries on the bus, police added.
While returning from a cherry blossom tour in Taichung City, the bus, suspected of speeding, crashed into the guardrail at about 9:06 p.m. and veered off the highway.
The rescue at the site has ceased.
Changchun's plan to build two internationally integrated ports in its new area will accelerate Northeast China's structural economic upgrade and promote international trade with Eurasia.
As capital of Jilin province, Changchun is a key junction on the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The construction of two ports - an airport and an inland port - will build Changchun into an international logistics hub.
The plan is central to the Changchun government's commitment to establishing its new area and revitalizing Northeast China's old industrial economy.
With a planned area of 499 square kilometers, Changchun New Area will help to accelerate construction related to the Belt and Road Initiative and deepen regional cooperation with neighboring countries, experts said.
Changchun will break with the old model in developing its new area.
The city is taking advantage of its important location - at the center of the new Eurasian Land Bridge - by constructing twin ports to develop a sophisticated transport system that will incorporate air routes, railways and highways.
Such an integrated transport system will improve logistics, in turn leading to the development of the city and its industries, all of which contribute to accelerating overall economic growth. It will help Changchun to integrate with European and Asian markets and reduce logistics costs.
In the near future, Changchun will achieve regional advantages across Europe, Japan, Russia and the Republic of Korea.
An international airport
The new international airport will be based on the redevelopment of the existing Changchun Longjia International Airport and the Changchun Airport Economic Development Zone, according to the plans.
The new area has signed an agreement with Guangdong Longhao Aviation Group to rework and expand Longjia Airport, and to explore an airport cargo clearance system.
The city government is transforming the airport into an integrated transportation hub that can link airlines, intercity railroads, subways and public roads.
It is also looking to expand its air route network, with more connections and 72-hour visa-free transit via Longjia airport.
Meanwhile, other plans in the pipeline include cooperation agreements for customs clearance systems with major domestic customs houses and promotion of cross-border e-commerce trade.
Through opening new passenger and cargo routes that will connect to Russia and northern Europe, Longjia airport will increase its transport capacity and become an airline logistics hub in Northeast Asia.
The airport will be multifunctional, incorporating an e-port center, a cross-border e-commerce center, an international logistics information platform and an express goods customs supervision center.
An international land port
The other key project on the table for Changchun New Area is an international logistics port, or a land port, with connections across Eurasia.
Set to be the largest railway logistics center in Northeast China, it will be an international, comprehensive link for harbors, railways and roads.
Extending out from Changchun, the comprehensive transport corridor of railways and roads will connect to 31 land ports, 10 airports and harbors throughout the world.
The inland harbor, railway and road connections' advantage is expected to attract many cross-border e-commerce businesses and logistics companies to settle down in the new area.
Four railway routes will pass through Changchun.
The main route links Changchun to other big northeastern cities, including Heihe and Harbin in Heilongjiang province, and Shenyang and Dalian in Liaoning province.
This will cross with a line starting in Europe and traveling through Central Asia, Choybalsan in Mongolia, Arshaan in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Baicheng in Jilin province, and Changchun to Rashin port in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The other two lines crossing each other in an 'X', will connect Tongjiang in Heilongjiang with the Tianjin railway line, and Chita in Russia with the Dandong railway in Liaoning.
Located at the center of Changchun New Area, the port will include two rail yards, three specialist centers and six logistics zones.
One of the inland railway ports will accumulate goods from northeastern Asian countries, while the other will be a highway freight hub, serving regional needs.
The three centers comprise an international trade services center providing customs clearance and financial services, a logistics research center focused on building a logistics information system and developing internet of things technologies, and a demonstration center that will exhibit imported goods from northeastern Asian countries.
The six logistics zones will provide various services to specific sectors.
The professional logistics zone will serve the automotive, medical and home appliance industries.
The equipment logistics zones will focus on manufacturing goods, and the e-commerce zones will provide services for cross-border e-commerce businesses and traditional e-commerce platforms.
Investment invitation projects
The Changchun government will release many investment projects during the construction of the two ports, welcoming overseas and domestic companies to invest in Changchun.
The airport intends to gather airline companies' headquarters in the future by building the required offices, commercial buildings, research and development centers, operational and clearance centers and technical service centers.
Public facilities such as hotels, high-end apartments, hospitals and supermarkets are also included in the plans.
In addition, the new area aims to become a manufacturing base for sectors such as aviation equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles.
The government hopes to attract global aviation equipment manufacturers, including those specializing in design and alternation, via new R&D centers to assist in the production of light fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and special-function airplanes.
A drone manufacturing base will cover the functions of producing unmanned aerial vehicles, spare parts and related accessories. Companies focusing on producing drones, software research and aftersales services will be welcomed to the new area.
At the airport, air command centers, office buildings and air traffic control systems will be built. Terminal buildings, freight centers, parking aprons for helicopters and light aircraft are also expected.
In addition, the new area will establish a general aviation school focusing on highly-skilled personnel training.
The area is considering recruiting schools to set up sub-campuses, while an experience center will provide enthusiasts with private training opportunities.
To achieve this, Changchun government intends to set up an aviation development fund to attract capital and investment from financial institutions, investment firms and social capital.
The construction of Changchun New Area and twin logistics ports needs the support of the whole province, Chinese and foreign experts said, adding that the Jilin provincial government should vitalize the province's strength to develop the new area.
Policy support and institutional innovation are important for Changchun to develop its new area and build logistics hubs, they also said.
Zhu Ruolin, a professional assessor of city planning with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, also said the airport is an important contributor to Changchun's economic development, and that the construction process needs support from the provincial government.
According to Zhu, the Jilin provincial government should recognize the power of the airports in leading the regional economy and try to instate preferential policies from the central government.
Wang Yunfang, a professor with the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China, said the construction of inland ports in Changchun New Area would make international trade between Europe and Northeast China more convenient.
Wang suggested Changchun learn from the Shanghai free trade zone's management experience in investment, finance, service and supervision.
He believes that the Changchun inland ports benefit from new opportunities brought by the Belt and Road Initiative, free trade and the country's policies for the revitalization in northeastern areas.
The area aims to take advantage of urbanization, the development of the service economy and high-end industries.
Changchun's new area is also trying to learn from the successful management of logistics centers around the world. One is the Kansas logistics park in the United States. Located in the center of the US, Kansas is a major transport hub for rails and roads.
Cargo and goods from the western harbors of the US are transported to Kansas by railways, and then distributed to various destinations by road.
Memphis, also in the central US, is another example.
After Fedex settled its headquarters in Memphis in the 1970s and launched cargo airlines here, logistics and distribution industries began to accumulate in the city. Many large companies have established their distribution service centers here.
Dubai free trade zones also provide good examples of connecting trade and industries. Wholesale and retail occupies about 30 percent of Dubai's GDP currently, followed by transport, communication and property.
renjie@chinadaily.com.cn
An artistic rendering of the international land port to be set up in Changchun New Area. Provided to China Daily An illustration of the international airport to be set up in Changchun New Area. Provided To China Daily
(China Daily 02/13/2017 page36)
Domestic and foreign experts share their insights on the emerging Changchun New Area.
"The overall plan for Changchun New Area combines the characteristics and advantages of Jilin province, and proposes some new ideas such as being 'innovation driven'. The plan offers a comprehensive analysis of the new area's leading industries.
Through cultivating major industries such as automobile, high-end equipment manufacturing, the photoelectric information and biomedical sectors, the new district can build its value chain, increase its core competitive power in the world, and solve many economic problems.
As an engine that can drive Jilin's economic growth, Changchun New Area should look at the development of the whole province and the Northeast region, to form its leading industries and industrial chain. This can help the new area to realize its objectives such as building innovative economic development demonstration zones."
Li Guanghui, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing
"Changchun New Area's overall plan is of a high standard, professional and comprehensive. It has a distinct inner logic and strong momentum. Innovation is crucial for the new area. The new district's development will depend on innovation in industry, land use, technology and education. Opening-up is another key.
The crucial point of the related Changchun-Jilin-Tumen strategy is developing the Tumen River as a sea gate.
The new area, as an important node on the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, is not only a new area in Changchun, but also a supporting point for the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. It is a pilot zone for carrying out cross-border industrial cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road."
Chen Wenling, chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges
"The model analysis on Changchun New Area's plan shows the area has strong development potential. The location of the city's aviation economic development zone is very good, and that promises a bright future."
Tim Stonor, internationally respected architect and urban planner, managing director of the strategic consulting firm Space Syntax Ltd, quoted by Changchun Daily
"Changchun New Area proposed a plan to develop an ecological city in China's northern, cold regions. The plan, which has great operation possibility, is based on regional characteristics. The plan considered different factors including environment and energy utilization. It aims to lead green development in Changchun New Area and strengthen the area's competitiveness in ecological construction in the world."
Jyri Nieminen, chief sustainability officer at Sweco Finland Ltd, quoted by Changchun Daily
"A smart city connects physical space and virtual space. On the one side, it is the earth - the physical space where we live in; on the other side is cyberspace. The development of cities requires us to connect the globe's cities together through the use of information technology. The infrastructure construction in Changchun New Area pays attention to the development of a smart city. It highlights the building of high-speed information networks and information platforms, which will form a good foundation for building a smart city in the future."
Vicente Guallart, chief architect of Barcelona City Council 2011-15 with the responsibility of developing the strategic vision for the city, and chief scientist of International Smart City Lab, quoted by Changchun Daily
"The industrial system design in Changchun New Area is reasonable and supported by scientific research, especially in planning for the development of clusters such as automobile production, photoelectric information , high-end equipment manufacturing and biological medicines.
In building service industry platforms, Changchun New Area takes Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai's experiences as reference and follows the polices of free trade pilot zones. It is working to establish 81 industrial platforms to support international trade. The move will build a good business environment.
In addition, Changchun New Area is focused on innovation to establish an open, innovative industrial system. Innovation is not limited to new and high-tech industries, but also can benefit the development of traditional industries."
Liu Binglian, assistant to the president of Nankai University, and director of Nankai University's College of Economic and Social Development
"Decades ago, we only believed in the power of reinforced concrete because it improved our living environment and created ideal homes. However, as time goes by, people found that our cities were incompatible with the environment. People started to consider better ways to build our homes during cities' population expansion.
The fundamental infrastructure plan of Changchun New Area learned from Copenhagen's experience in rainfall and flood management. It stresses building green fundamental infrastructure, using natural ways to store and purify rainfall.
The plan consists of environmental objectives in flood prevention and control. The use of digital sensors and internet communication also formed a good base for establishing a smart city. I think it is necessary to set up a rainfall and flood management and control system, and maintain environmental objectives in cities' overall planning."
Stefan Bruckmann, Germany's urban hydrology expert and ecosystem engineer
"There are three key points that Changchun has taken into consideration during the development of its new area.
First, Changchun New Area aims to deepen its economic reforms and opening-up, thus to become an example of internationalization in the Northeast Asia region.
The new area will contribute to driving the economy and modernization of Changchun and Jilin ahead, and continuing to revive Northeast China.
Second, in the practice of economic reform and opening-up, the new area will spare no effort to be innovative and internationalized in order to attract more foreign investment and talents. The new area will also expand its service and financial information industries, as well as being pioneering with its free-trade experiment zone.
Last but not least, according to the plan, the new area will stick to the notion of a green economy. President Xi Jinping has said that the key of city planning is to preserve an area's natural beauty. Therefore, the new area is advised to put its whole attention to protecting the environment. It will strengthen environmental governance and the prevention of air, soil and water pollution together with neighboring counties and districts.
Yao Shimou, an established professor, lecturer and doctoral supervisor in city planning based in Nanjing
(China Daily 02/13/2017 page25)
Chinese comedian Yue Yunpeng (left) and actor Sun Jian (right) join a promotional activity together in Beijing on Sunday, Feb 12, 2017 for an upcoming romantic comedy Revenge for Love. [Photo provided to CRIENGLISH.COM]
Yue Yunpeng, one of China's top comedians, has been talking ahead of the release of his latest movie, due to hit theatres on Valentine's Day on Tuesday.
The romantic comedy Revenge for Love, sees the cross-talk performer playing a male nurse.
Yue spoke about the experience of filming the movie.
"It's my first-ever experience of acting a male lead. My role is designed to tell viewers that sincerity is the power behind success in winning the heart of the woman of your dreams."
The movie, directed by Hong Kong film director Siu Hung Cheung, revolves around the competition for the love of an artist, between a plain looking male nurse and the artist's ex-boyfriend.
A poster for La La Land. [Photo/mtime.com]
This year's British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA), or the UK's equivalent of the Oscars, were unveiled on Sunday night in London.
Mega hit La La Land led the list of nominees with 11 nominations, and it won five awards, including Best Film, Best Actress for Emma Stone and Best Director for Damien Chazelle.
Casey Affleck, brother of Ben Affleck, was named Best Actor for his performance in Manchester by the Sea. American actress Viola Davis went home with the award of Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Fences, while British actor Dev Patel has won the prize of Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in the movie Lion.
Some of Hollywood's biggest names were also in attendance at this year's BAFTA awards, including Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. The British royalty also made an appearance, with Prince William and wife Kate Middleton attending the ceremony.
Related:
Oscar fave La La Land coming to China, with love
Oscars change their tune with 'La La Land,' diverse nominees
Two shots from the 2000 TV series Da Ming Gong Ci, featuring Princess Taiping's first accidental meeting with her future husband Xue Shao on the night of Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty. [Photo/Sina Weibo]
Lantern Festival, which was celebrated on Saturday this year, marked the final day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. It has been an important festival since the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-AD 24).
In ancient China, marriage was often decided by parents or even the government. During some periods, like the Jin Dynasty (265-420), marriage policies went to extremes. Single women had to get married by a certain age. If a female was still single at 17, there would be a forced marriage with local administrators' involvement.
However extreme policies to force people to get married were rare, and young people still had certain freedoms to get married with people they liked, rather than being completely manipulated by their parents or government. Ancient Chinese had milder ways to encourage people to find a spouse, such as fairs and meetings during festivals.
Lantern Festival is one of the festivals that provided ancient Chinese single young men and women a chance to meet and get to know each other. On the night of that day, unmarried men and women would meet at the flower fair and lantern-decorated street.
Romance often happened, although not all of these stories ended happily.
Ouyang Xiu, a famous poet from the Song Dynasty, depicted a woman's longing for the man she met during Lantern Festival in his poem Yuan Xi.
It goes like this: "Last lantern festival, the flowers fair, decorated with lights were daylight bright. We met after dusk when the moon rose behind willow trees. This year the moon and lanterns are still the same, yet you are not here anymore. I am sad, with tears shed on the sleeves of my spring coat."
By Hezi Jiang and Wang Linyan in New York | China Daily | Updated: 2017-02-13 08:30
Tiffany Trump, daughter of the US president, with fashion designer Wang Tao in New York City on Saturday.[Photo/Xinhua]
Tiffany Trump, the youngest daughter of the US president, came out in support of Chinese fashion designer Wang Tao on Saturday.
Along with her mother Marla Maples and boyfriend Ross Mechanic, Trump sat in the front row at the Taoray Wang show for New York Fashion Week.
"She's an amazing designer," Trump said backstage before the show, explaining that she became a fan of Shanghai-based Wang after a show in September.
Last month, she wore a custom-made white, double-breasted Taoray Wang coat to the inauguration of her father Donald Trump as president of the United States.
US President Donald Trump speaks while signing executive orders at the White House in Washington January 24, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
As the first foreign leader to visit Donald Trump when he was US president-elect, and the second to meet him since he entered office, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was no doubt confident his exertions had paid off as intended, at least partially.
Especially given the impressive signs of personal rapport between the two leaders, or as Trump described it their "very, very good chemistry", and the coveted US presidential assurance of "unwavering" commitment to the US-Japan alliance.
Everything would therefore seem to be as good as can be for Abe after his meeting with Trump on Friday and Saturday.
Except for the fact his host highlighted a simultaneous willingness to work with China.
The Abe administration has spared no effort to curry international, most noticeably US, support for its attempt to contain what it portrays as a growing threat from China.
Disappointed that the Barack Obama administration was not willing to wholeheartedly support his standoff with Beijing, the Japanese leader saw brighter prospects ahead with the Trump administration, given its initial tough rhetoric on China.
But if, as suggested, the phone conversation Trump had with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday was intended as a "balancing" move before his meeting with Abe, Trump's subsequent confident assertion that he and Xi "are in the process of getting along very well" will not have been music to Abe's ears.
Yet if he can liberate himself from the narrow-minded zero-sum mindset with regard to Beijing, Abe will be able to appreciate and take advantage of the reality of the US president's observation that good China-US relations "will also be very much of a benefit to Japan".
History has put China, Japan and the United States in an awkward situation where the past often undermines any hard-earned goodwill. But it is worth bearing in mind that the recent history of their trilateral relationship has not been devoid of bright spots. There was even a long period of quite friendly exchanges between Beijing and Tokyo.
The most important lesson that can be learned from this is not only do Beijing and Tokyo not have to stand against each other, but the three can work together.
The US president has made the insightful judgment that China-US conversations will "work out very well for everybodyChina, Japan, the United States, and everybody in the region".
That perception may not be what Abe wants to hear, but it is something that Japan would be wise to lend an ear to.
Photo of forged terracotta warriors' exhibition in Taihu county, East China's Anhui province.[Photo/VCG]
Thousands of forged terracotta warriors were on exhibition in Taihu county, East China's Anhui province, without the consent or authorization of officials overseeing the real ones. Beijing News commented on Saturday:
In a statement, the management of the mausoleum of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, which is the official site of the relics under the trademark Terra Cotta Warriors, denied any connection with the counterfeit statues, which it said constitute a "conspicuous violation" of its rights.
Yet the supervisor of the unauthorized exhibition in Taihu county argued that the forged statues are "exclusive creations", such as a sculpture of Qinshihuang, or the first Qin emperor, waving his hand atop the city wall and as such do not infringe any copyrights.
But such an argument does not hold water. Even with the addition of creative element the statues are unauthorized copies of the originals, and so the Taihu exhibition is displaying counterfeits.
What is even worse, the supervisor went further to "prove his point" saying tourists would be informed that the statues were replicas in a display of "sincerity".
Admitting plagiarism does not make any difference to the fact that fake cultural relics are illegal. Only by gaining the consent of the copyright owners is there a license for a cultural relic to be replicated.
Unfortunately, similar violations of intellectual property rights are not only common, but also often not taken seriously by local governments.
Local authorities should not only fulfill their duty to keep unauthorized copycats at bay, they should also put more effort into nipping such counterfeiting in the bud. In Taihu's case, the grand "cultural park" should not have been approved in the first place if the officials concerned were aware of what was going to be displayed.
A Chinese doctor talks with family members of a young patient as he examines him with a Type-b Ultrasonic Diagnostic Instrument at a hospital in Beijing, China, 11 September 2013. [Photo/IC]
A nurse in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, was given a warning by her employer and fined three months' performance salary as penalty, after she was found playing mahjong in the hospital canteen after work. Beijing News commented on Saturday:
What happened to the mahjong-playing nurse and her supervisors, who also received a penalty, has stirred debate about what recreational activities those holding public positions are allowed to engage in after work. If the nurse was gambling that is illegal, and a punishment is justified. But if she was just having some harmless fun, as some conclude from the hospital's statement, then her punishment was undeserved.
Of course, the truth remains to be seen, but the hospital needs to elaborate on the "very bad" influence the nurse has had on its image, if she was not gambling.
What the nurse has done does not deserve any harsh moral judgment if her playing mahjong was not in the hospital canteen, which was an inappropriate venue even if she was not gambling, and did not affect her work performance.
Proper, targeted supervision of public employees is called for, but interfering with employees' leisure time is not. Boundaries to behavior do have to be drawn, but only to avoid the abuse of public power.
Keeping supervisory power in check not only shows due respect to civil rights, but also adds to the credibility and authority of public power itself. A public notice criticizing three teachers in East China's Fujian province, who were said to have violated regulations by purchasing vegetables from unauthorized street vendors last year, was withdrawn after triggering a public outcry.
Local authorities should draw inspiration from incidents like these instead of repeating past mistakes.
CAI MENG/CHINA DAILY
The tsunami of technological innovation will continue to change profoundly how we live and work, and how our societies operate. In what is now called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technologies that are coming of agesuch as robotics, nanotechnology, virtual reality, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and advanced biologywill converge. And as these technologies continue to be developed and widely adopted, they will bring about radical shifts in all disciplines, industries and economiesin the way that individuals, companies and societies produce, distribute, consume and dispose of goods and services.
These developments have given rise to questions about what role humans will play in a technology-driven world. A 2013 University of Oxford study estimates that close to half of all jobs in the United States could be lost to automation over the next two decades. On the other hand, economists such as Boston University's James Bessen argue that automation often goes hand in hand with the creation of new jobs. So which is itnew jobs or massive structural unemployment?
At this point, we can be certain that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have a disruptive impact on employment, but no one can yet predict the scale of change. History tells us that technological change more often affects the nature of work, rather than the opportunity to participate in work itself.
The First Industrial Revolution moved British manufacturing from people's homes into factories, and marked the beginning of hierarchical organization. This change was often violent, as the famous early 19th century Luddite riots in England demonstrated. To find work, people were forced to move from rural areas to industrial centers, and it was during this period that the first labor movements emerged.
The Second Industrial Revolution ushered in electrification, large-scale production, and new transportation and communication networks, and created new professions such as engineering, banking and teaching. This is when middle classes emerged and began to demand new social policies and an increased role for government.
During the Third Industrial Revolution, modes of production were further automated by electronics and by information and communication technology, with many human jobs moving from manufacturing to services. When automated teller machines were introduced in the 1970s, it was initially assumed they would be a disaster for workers in retail banking. Yet the number of bank branch jobs actually increased over time as costs fell, only that the nature of the job changedit became less transactional and more focused on customer service.
All the industrial revolutions were disruptive by nature, and the fourth will be no different. But if we keep in mind the lessons of history, we can manage the change. First, we need to focus on skills, and not just on the specific jobs that will appear or disappear. If we determine which sets of skills we will need, we can educate and train the human workforce to leverage all of the new opportunities that technology creates.
Second, experience shows us that disadvantaged classes must be protected; workers who are vulnerable to being displaced by technology must have the time and means to adjust. And to ensure the Fourth Industrial Revolution translates into economic growth and bears fruit for all, we must work together to create new regulatory ecosystems. Governments will have a crucial role to play, but businesses and civil society leaders will also need to collaborate with governments to determine the appropriate regulations and standards for new technologies and industries.
I don't assume this will be easy. Politics, not technology, will determine the pace of change, and implementing the necessary reforms will be hard, slow work. It will require a mix of forward-looking policymaking, agile regulatory frameworks and, above all, effective partnerships across organizational and national boundaries. A good model to keep in mind is Denmark's "flexicurity" system, in which a flexible labor market is paired with a strong social safety net that includes training and re-skilling services for all citizens.
Technology may be advancing rapidly, but it will not cause time itself to collapse. The momentousindeed, revolutionarychanges ahead will take place over many decades, not as a big bang. Individuals, companies and societies do have time to adjust; but they cannot afford to delay. Creating a future in which all can benefit must start now.
The author is managing partner and chairman, Global, at A.T. Kearney.
Project Syndicate
A man tries out a VR (virtual reality) device during the ongoing Big Data Expo 2016 in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, May 25, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
In the last 15 years, we have witnessed an explosion in the amount of digital data availablefrom the Internet, social media, scientific equipment, smart phones, surveillance cameras, and many other sourcesand in the computer technologies used to process it. "Big Data", as it is known, will undoubtedly deliver important scientific, technological, and medical advances. But Big Data also poses serious risks if it is misused or abused.
But having more data is no substitute for having high-quality data. For example, a recent article in Nature reports that election pollsters in the United States are struggling to obtain representative samples of the population, because they are legally permitted to call only landline telephones, whereas Americans increasingly rely on cellphones. And while one can find countless political opinions on social media, these aren't reliably representative of voters, either. In fact, a substantial share of tweets and Facebook posts about politics are computer-generated.
A Big Data program that used this search result to evaluate hiring and promotion decisions might penalize black candidates who resembled the pictures in the results for "unprofessional hairstyles," thereby perpetuating traditional social biases. And this isn't just a hypothetical possibility. Last year, a ProPublica investigation of "recidivism risk models" demonstrated that a widely used methodology to determine sentences for convicted criminals systematically overestimates the likelihood that black defendants will commit crimes in the future, and underestimates the risk that white defendants will do so.
Another hazard of Big Data is that it can be gamed. When people know that a data set is being used to make important decisions that will affect them, they have an incentive to tip the scales in their favor. For example, teachers who are judged according to their students' test scores may be more likely to "teach to the test," or even to cheat.
Similarly, college administrators who want to move their institutions up in the US News and World Reports rankings have made unwise decisions, such as investing in extravagant gyms at the expense of academics. Worse, they have made grotesquely unethical decisions, such as the effort by Mount Saint Mary's University to boost its "retention rate" by identifying and expelling weaker students in the first few weeks of school.
A third hazard is privacy violations, because so much of the data now available contains personal information. In recent years, enormous collections of confidential data have been stolen from commercial and government sites; and researchers have shown how people's political opinions or even sexual preferences can be accurately gleaned from seemingly innocuous online postings, such as movie reviewseven when they are published pseudonymously.
Finally, Big Data poses a challenge for accountability. Someone who feels that he or she has been treated unfairly by an algorithm's decision often has no way to appeal it, either because specific results cannot be interpreted, or because the people who have written the algorithm refuse to provide details about how it works. And while governments or corporations might intimidate anyone who objects by describing their algorithms as "mathematical" or "scientific," they, too, are often awed by their creations' behavior. The European Union recently adopted a measure guaranteeing people affected by algorithms a "right to an explanation"; but only time will tell how this will work in practice.
When people who are harmed by Big Data have no avenues for recourse, the results can be toxic and far-reaching, as data scientist Cathy O'Neil demonstrates in her recent book Weapons of Math Destruction.
The good news is that the hazards of Big Data can be largely avoided. But they won't be unless we zealously protect people's privacy, detect and correct unfairness, use algorithmic recommendations prudently, and maintain a rigorous understanding of algorithms' inner workings and the data that informs their decisions.
The author is a professor of computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.
Project Syndicate
A working meeting on the "toilet revolution", which was first advanced by United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund with the aim of improving toilet facilities in developing countries, was held in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province, recently. The meeting focused on promoting the construction of a "third" public toilet.
A "third" public toilet refers to a special toilet that can be used by family members of different genders when they go out. For instance, if a mother takes her son out and the little boy needs to go to the toilet, the mother cannot go into a male public toilet together with him even if the child finds it difficult to go to the toilet independently. In addition, it could also solve the difficulties that disabled persons and the elderly face when they need the help of others to go to the toilet.
Public toilet facilities not only relate to people's quality of life, but are also a significant symbol of the level of society. "Third" public toilets in developed countries accommodate to daily needs especially in scenic spots, transportation junctions and business centers with large flows of people, but there are few such facilities in China.
The China National Tourism Administration recently said all the 5A scenic spots in the country should be equipped "third" public toilets to meet the needs of tourists.
Besides the construction of "third" public toilets, the authorities should improve the management and maintenance of toilets and promote the general awareness of "third" public toilets. These toilets should be used by the targeted groups of people, rather than simply being occupied by others.
The phone talk held by Chinese President Xi Jinpingwith his US counterpart Donald Trump is a good first step in fostering the China-US dialogue and provides a platform for further cooperation, US experts said Friday.
"The phone call was a good first step...for fostering dialogue between Presidents Trump and Xi," Dan Mahaffee, an analyst at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua in an interview.
Trump and Xi held a lengthy and "extremely cordial" phone conversation Thursday night on numerous topics, during which they agreed that the two sides will engage in discussions on various issues of mutual interest.
"The fact that it was cordial, and the discussion' s tenor reflects that both leaders understand that while differences remain, they need to be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy," Mahaffee said.
Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace, told Xinhua that the call "was very important to provide a foundation of stability in the US-China relations as well as a platform for further wide-ranging cooperation and the management of emerging tensions."
The call was the first between the leaders of the top two economies in the world since Trump's inauguration in late January. Before Thursday, Trump had already talked on the phone with about 20 foreign leaders except Xi, fueling concerns that the absence of contact between the two leaders could lead to renewed tensions in the China-US ties.
The Xi-Trump phone conversation was important to break the ice in the China-US ties, Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua in an interview.
"The call helped to open the door on high-level consultation, which is good for both countries," West said.
"It is important that China and the US remain in close contact. They are the two leading nations in the world and it is crucial that there are open communications so there are no misunderstandings or (something) that could spiral out of control," he added.
The experts agreed that Trump's affirmation of the one-China policy, the bedrock of the China-US ties, paved the way for the phone call, which probably came after Trump and advisers concluded that the costs of not doing so could bring greater costs than benefits.
Trump had previously aggravated China by taking a call from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen after winning the US presidency last November and telling the US media in December that the one-China policy was open for negotiation.
"The fact that Trump now embraces the one-China policy will allow the relationship to unfold more naturally," West said, citing that resolving the issue was a prerequisite for addressing every other issue.
If Trump continues to question the one China policy, there would be no basis for President Xi to interact with him, said Paal, a former director of the American Institute in Taiwan.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Xinhua that Trump probably was convinced by his top aides that it was necessary to make the one-China statement "in order to move forward with the US-China relationship in other areas."
"The costs of not adhering to the one China policy were very high," Glaser said, though adding that this should not be seen as Trump making a concession.
Media reports revealed that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said in written answers to questions after his Senate nomination hearing that the US should adhere to the one-China policy.
As China and the US start negotiations to address their frictions and advance cooperation on various issues of mutual interest, there is a broad range of issues that demand early attention, the experts said.
They include the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, US trade deficit with China, mutual investments and boosting American exports, Paal said.
Mahaffee said at the top of the agenda of the China-US talks should be the issues of maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas, cyber security, as well as trade, investment and currency.
"I think there can be discussions aimed at avoiding miscalculation between the nations in the sea, air, space and cyber domains, and I also think that agreements on trade and investment could be reached that would make it easier for companies from either country to invest in the other," he said.
Economic globalization does encounter some challenges, but it is irresponsible to create conflicts by exaggerating those problems, Peoples Daily commented on Wednesday, refuting the malicious voices against the economic globalization by some Western politicians.
The commentary, under the byline of Zhongsheng, came after French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attacked globalization in her presidential election manifesto last weekend.
As candidate of the National Front, Le Pen told supporters in Lyon, the third largest city of France, that globalization was slowly choking communities to death. Globalization, she said, meant "manufacturing by slaves for selling to the unemployed".
She is the latest European politician to preach anti-globalization in mainstream politics of the Western world by making use of public's dissatisfaction with the current situation, the article said.
Such examples over the past year also included the Brexit, 2016 US election, and the presidential campaigns of France and Germany, the paper added.
Sluggish economy, which has resulted in aggravated contradictions between growth and distribution, capital and labor, as well as efficiency and equity, is the root cause of the rising trend of anti-globalization in the Western world, the commentary noted, but it pointed out at the same time that politics is also a reason that cannot be ignored.
Most of the countries in favor of anti-globalization are first of all hindered by economic development and wealth distribution. Thereafter, these economic issues are politicized, ultimately leading to severe social disruption.
Populists are at their weakest in the tedious matter of sound government, said Financial Times column writer Janan Ganesh in his recent article. Such point of view is indeed a timely reminder for the European countries which have lost their direction.
Rome mayor Virginia Raggi is a better example to interpret the difference between catharsis and governance, the paper said, explaining that the performance of the far-right mayor was far worse than her commitments during the election campaign in 2016. Even the waste disposal of the city was in a mess under her governance.
National elections of France, Germany, the Netherlands and many other European countries will fall in the year of 2017, meaning that they will stand at a new crossroad for their countries development.
The paper believed that reform will still be the theme of the campaigns given that development fatigue is still prevalent in the continent. However, these countries should think twice before they make a decision.
Anti-globalization, favored by extreme right-wing politicians, will only cause more problems, as economic globalization is a natural outcome of productivity and technological progress rather than a creation of any individual or country, it pointed out,stressingthat economic globalizations contributions to human progress could not be denied by complaints of some politicians.
The paper suggested that facing with the irresistible trend of economic globalization, the wise choice would be to start from national conditions and follow the tide.
Each party should make efforts to bring benefits of economic globalization to countries and people around the world by integrating itself into the globe and pursuing efficiency and equity, the article concluded.
As its ties with its largest trade partner the United States are becoming increasingly uncertain, the European Union (EU), relying on international trade to keep its economic recovery on track, is looking to China.
The post-Brexit EU is seemingly in a perpetual crisis, and with US President Donald Trump now in the White House, trade protectionism remains a big worry for many. It can safely be concluded that transatlantic trade deals are currently on the rocks.
Last week, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said the bloc is ready to stand with China in the fight against protectionism. "If others around the world want to use trade as a weapon," she said, "I want to use it as a tonic; a vital ingredient for prosperity and progress."
She also commended Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the World Economic Forum, where the Chinese leader stood up for globalization and multilateralism.
After the United States, China is the EU's second-largest trading partner and the EU is China's largest.
Amid sluggishness and gloominess of the global economy, EU-China trade has been rising steadily. According to China's General Administration of Customs, in the year of 2016, bilateral trade reached 3,610 billion RMB (524.9 billion US dollars), a 3-percent increase compared to 2015.
A Center for European Policy Studies study estimates that a bilateral free trade agreement with China could add 83 billion euros (88.3 billion dollars), to the EU's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 and support more than 2.5 million jobs.
Christian Ewert, director general of the Foreign Trade Association, said, "A bilateral investment treaty, which is already being negotiated, will give EU investors legal certainty and much greater access to the lucrative Chinese market and promote increased Chinese investment in Europe."
Realizing an up and running rail link connecting China to European markets by land is already in place, Charles Tannock, a British member of the European Parliament (MEP), said, "This is a modern fast equivalent to the Old Silk Road."
His optimism about future EU-China trade relations is echoed by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who said, "the UK and China are building economies of the future underpinned by the rule of law that enables the business environment. I am committed to intensifying our trade relationship, including more market access for UK service exports and more Chinese investment in the UK."
Plenty of evidence also proves the thriving trade relations between the EU and China.
For example, the first business incubator being built by China in Europe, in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, aims to help companies in both countries to expand in each other's markets.
This is an 'intelligence valley' where hi-tech companies can set up shop, work side-by-side with industry peers and researchers and develop their technology for the European market. Of the 1,600 jobs expected to be created, about 60 percent will go to Belgians and the rest to Chinese,providing a boost to the local economy.
The China-Belgium Technology Center (CBTC) is set to be ready in 2018.
"As the first Chinese technological showcase of its kind in Europe, the CBTC will tighten the bonds between European companies -- particularly in Belgium -- and Chinese companies," said Pascale Delcomminette, CEO of the Walloon Export and Foreign Investment Agency.
EU-China trade figures are, clearly, already impressive. But many, including Malmstroem, believe they could be even higher.
The prospects for the future EU-China relationship are perhaps best summed up by Fraser Cameron, director of the Brussels-based EU-Asia Centre.
"Both the EU and China need to counter growing protectionist trends in the US and the best way to do this would be a speedy completing on the bilateral investment agreement negotiations," said Cameron.
Detective Wenjian Liu's father, mother and widow (holding bouquets, left), New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (center), Police Commissioner William Bratton and Detective Rafael Ramos' relatives visit the site in Brooklyn, New York, where the two officers were ambushed and slain on Dec 20, 2014. Hezi Jiang / China Daily
NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos died in an ambush in 2014. The tragedy of their deaths, though, has led to a move that will help protect other officers from a similar fate.
The city has set aside more than $10 million for bullet-resistant glass and doors on patrol vehicles in its draft $84.7 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
On Jan 31, the NYPD demonstrated the glass and doors that will be installed on more than 3,800 patrol vehicles. The doors will be installed by the end of the year; the windows by the first half of next year, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
"You saw that material, very high-tech material, that absorbs the bullet and literally takes the bullet's trajectory and uses it against it to stop it dead in its tracks," de Blasio said inside an NYPD training classroom.
Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the need to protect officers in vehicles from gunfire was motivated by the 2014 shooting deaths of Liu, 32, and Ramos, 40 - who were ambushed by a gunman as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn - and the killing the following year of Brian Moore, 25, fatally shot in his unmarked squad car by a suspect in Queens.
The deaths of Liu and Ramos just before Christmas in 2014 stunned the city and came at a time of polarization between police and members of African-American communities across the US, with several incidents of black men dying in confrontations with police, including one in New York. Eric Garner died when he was wrestled to the ground on Staten Island.
Liu and Ramos' killer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, claimed on social media that he was targeting police to avenge the deaths of Garner and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in the summer of 2014.
Liu, a native of South China's Guangdong province, came to the United States at age 12 with his parents. He decided to be a police officer after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, and joined the NYPD in 2007.
In June 2015, de Blasio and then-police commissioner William Bratton attended the unveiling ceremony for "Detective Wenjian Liu Way" in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Also in attendance were the officer's parents and widow, Peixia Chen, along with survivors of Detective Ramos and dozens of police officers. Both Liu and Ramos were posthumously promoted to detective.
Their funerals drew more than 20,000 police officers from around the country.
Liu lived in the neighborhood with his wife, Peixia Chen, and also had bought a home nearby for his parents, mother Xiuyan Li and father Weitang Liu.
"Our law enforcement officers sacrifice their lives day in and day out, in serving and protecting this great city. This city is our home," Chen said at the ceremony.
The news about the bullet-resistant glass and doors came on Jan 31 when the mayor and the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) President Patrick Lynch announced a tentative contract agreement covering 23,810 NYPD employees.
"This agreement provides the compensation and benefits the world's finest police department deserves, while outfitting the entire force with body cameras and delivering the transparency and policing reforms at the center of effective and trusted law enforcement," de Blasio said.
As part of the deal, the PBA agreed to drop body camera litigation against the city, and the NYPD can expand the use of body cameras to the entire workforce - a step forward for police accountability and transparency.
All patrol officers will be outfitted with cameras by the end of 2019.
Contact the writer at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com.
Firemen and paramedics are seen outside the Helmut Schmidt airport in Hamburg, Germany February 12, 2017. The airport was closed after unknown substance was found during security check. [Photo/Agencies]
HAMBURG - German authorities said on Sunday the leak of a corrosive substance through the air conditioning system at Hamburg airport was not an attack, adding that police were investigating the incident that forced the brief closure of the facility.
Firefighters and ambulances were rushed to the scene after some 50 people at one terminal complained of eye irritation and breathing difficulties.
"I want to explicitly deny ... that this was a terrorist attack. As far as we know it was at no period considered a terrorist attack," Hamburg fire department spokesman Torsten Wessely told a news conference in the northern city.
"A pepper spray-like canister has been found during our investigative searches which might be the source," he added.
He said the substance was spread through the facility's central air conditioning system.
Lightly dressed passengers were rushed outside the terminal in almost freezing temperatures, leaving their coats and jackets behind in the hurry. They were allowed back in shortly after.
A spokeswoman for the airport said flights had resumed as of 1.45 p.m. (1245 GMT).
According to live flight tracking website flightradar24.com some flights were diverted to other airports after the incident.
A surface-to-surface medium- and long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 is test-fired by DPRK on Jan 12, 2017. [Photo/VCG]
PYONGYANG -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday claimed it successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 and its top leader Kim Jong Un guided the test firing, according to the state news agency KCNA.
The state media called Pukguksong-2 a "Korean style new type strategic weapon," which was developed on the instructions of top leader Kim Jong Un on the basis of the success made in the test-firing of the submarine-launched ballistic missile last August.
Kim received the report on the development of this surface-to-surface ballistic missile, set the date for the test launch and personally guided the preparations on the spot, it said.
The missile test proved the reliability and security of the surface launch system and reconfirmed the guidance and control features of the ballistic missile during its active flight and working feature of the engines and those of separation at the stages, the KCNA said.
The launch also verified the position control and guidance in the middle section and section of re-entry after the separation of the improved missile warhead, which can be tipped with a nuclear warhead, and the feature of evading interception, it added.
National security adviser General Michael Flynn (L) arrives to deliver a statement next to Press Secretary Sean Spicer during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington US, February 1, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]
PALM BEACH, Fla. A top White House aide sidestepped repeated chances Sunday to publicly defend embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn following reports that he engaged in conversations with a Russian diplomat about US sanctions before Trump's inauguration.
The move, or lack thereof, added uncertainty as Trump dealt with DPRK's apparent first missile launch of the year and his presidency. The president was also welcoming the leaders of Israel and Canada this week.
Trump has yet to comment on the allegations against Flynn, and a top aide dispatched to represent the administration on the Sunday news shows skirted questions on the topic, saying it was not his place to weigh in on the "sensitive matter." Pressed repeatedly, top policy adviser Stephen Miller said it wasn't up to him to say whether the president retains confidence in Flynn.
"It's not for me to tell you what's in the president's mind," he said on NBC. "That's a question for the president." A White House official, who was not authorized to be named and requested anonymity, said in a statement Friday the president had full confidence in Flynn. Officials remained mum amid fallout from reports that Flynn addressed US sanctions against Russia in a phone call late last year. The report, which first appeared in The Washington Post, contradicted both Flynn's previous denials, as well as those made by Vice President Mike Pence in a televised interview.
Trump has been discussing the situation with associates, according to a person who spoke with him recently. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who led Trump's transition planning before the election, said Flynn would have to explain his conflicting statements about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to Trump and Pence.
"Gen. Flynn has said up to this point that he had not said anything like that to the Russian ambassador. I think now he's saying that he doesn't remember whether he did or not," Christie said on CNN. "So, that's a conversation he is going to need to have with the president and the vice president to clear that up, so that the White House can make sure that they are completely accurate about what went on."The comments came as the White House continues to weigh its options following a legal blow last week to Trump's immigration order suspending the nation's refugee program and barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.
Since Zondag met Lubach, a Dutch comedy show, made an absurd video saying they want to be put second after President Trump vowed to put "America first," comedians throughout Europe joined to make videos to "compete" for second place.
The Dutch comedians in their video, imitating President Trump's voice and speaking style, present a very simple and clear idea to Trump that they want him to put the Netherlands second.
"We totally understand it's going to be America first, but can we just say, 'The Netherlands second?'" the video asks.
The video elaborated on many reasons why President Donald Trump should chew over the idea. However every point contains a joke pertaining to the new American president.
The video introduces the Netherland as having the best pony park and ponies in the world. It says to President Trump that "you can ride them, you can date them, you can grab them by the pony, it's fantastic," a line mocking Trump's inappropriate words about women caught on the video.
It also says the Netherland has the Afsluitdijk, a major causeway. "It's a great, great wall that we built to protect us from all the water from Mexico", a joke mocking Trump's decision to build a wall along America's Mexican boarder.
The Dutch clip went viral and its Trump-imitating format was adopted by comedy shows of other European counties that also take to the stage to make fun of President Trump. So, many spoof videos appeared overnight in Europe that were addressed to President Trump. Switzerland, Portugal, Lithuania, Denmark and Germany were among the first.
"The videos use rhetoric inspired by the president's speeches and mockingly talk about national pride, praising their country and talking about non-serious matters", BBC comments.
Wang Yongli from the Chinese embassy observes students learning Mandarin at Hautlieu School on Friday. FENG ZHI/CHINA DAILY
Jersey has deepened its links with China, with the British Crown dependency officially launching its first Confucius Classroom, which opened in Hautlieu School last week as the 1,000th such facility worldwide.
Hautlieu's status as a Confucius Classroom was accredited when China's President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the UK in October 2015, during which he and Prince Andrew, The Duke of York, unveiled a plaque.
Speaking at the official launch last week, Wang Yongli, minister counselor for education at the Chinese embassy, said: "I think, in the days ahead, through the close cooperation between Hautlieu and Confucius Institute, all boys and girls in Jersey will have lots of opportunities to explore the extensiveness and profoundness of Chinese language and culture."
Friday's opening ceremony was witnessed by top Jersey officials including Chief Minister Senator Ian Gorst, Minister for External Relations Sir Philip Bailhache, and delegates from Beijing Bayi School, with which Hautlieu has been twinned since 2011.
Bayi School is also President Xi's alma mater, where he spent his elementary and junior high school years.
As part of their annual European tour, more than 150 students and staff from Bayi School have visited Jersey. Hautlieu students are expected to make a reciprocal visit to Beijing in March.
Nick Falle, Hautlieu's head teacher said the relationship between the schools has gone from strength to strength.
"We are delighted to welcome another group of Chinese students to our school," he said. "So many language and cultural opportunities are going to be available to Hautlieu students and to Jersey as a whole."
Confucius status is given to schools that have Chinese-learning firmly embedded in their curriculum and that offer advice to other schools on how to start offering Mandarin.
In recent years, Confucius institutes and classrooms in the UK have enjoyed rapid development. To date, the UK has established 29 Confucius Institutes and 135 Confucius Classrooms, including the one in Jersey, making the UK the European economy with the most such Confucius teaching facilities.
Jersey Education Minister Deputy Rod Bryan said: "Jersey's links with China bring tangible educational benefits for our students and staff.
"I have seen for myself the positive impact on young people of meeting fellow students from a completely different culture. They also reinforce the work our government is doing to build business partnerships that could be of great value to Jersey's economy in future."
Hautlieu students have been learning Mandarin since September 2016 with the help of a Chinese teacher from Beijing.
(Photo : Getty Images) In this aerial view concrete containers that will serve to expand the biogas power facility of the adjacent dairy farm stand under construction on May 19, 2016 in Bandelow, Germany. The farm uses the manure produced daily by its 1,400 dairy cows to produce methane, which powers a generator to produce electricity the farm sells to a local utility, as well as heat for the nearby community.
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China will allocate 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) to build methane projects on rural areas to boost its clean energy use, according to the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).
China plans to build 172 new biogas and 3,150 large-scale methane projects as it aims to increase its methane producing capacity by 4.9 billion cubic meters, based on the plan published by China's top economic planner. This will replace an equivalent of 3.49 billion tons of standard coal and will axe carbon emissions by 17.62 million tons.
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The said project will also benefit over 230 million rural residents, state-backed Xinhua news reported.
The country's rapidly growing economy has witnessed a surge in rural energy consumption and increased livestock breeding and agro-industries production. As a result, these developments create billions of tons of biomass waste that can potentially be used to generate energy.
It is estimated that China produces 1.4 billion tons of rural waste materials every year. This bulk could generate 73.6 billion cubic meters of biogas and replace 87.6 million tons of standard coal.
The Chinese government has earlier said that it plans to recycle an estimated 350 million tons of waste resources such as nonferrous materials, paper, plastic, and steel every year by 2020. It plans to develop a system for renewable resources.
By 2020, China targets to recycle 150 million tons of waste steel, 18 million tons of nonferrous metals, 12 million tons of waste plastic, and at least 50 percent of its waste paper, according to an official guideline issued by the ministries of industry and information technology, commerce, and science and technology.
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Tagswaste resources, renewable resources, china, methane projects, Carbon emissions, China coal use
(Photo : US Navy) The USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) Carrier Strike Group.
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The U.S. Navy plans to sail more of its warships closer to China's militarized man-made islands in the South China Sea in a dramatic and dangerous escalation of its ongoing freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS).
A Navy source said the Trump administration also plans to develop a strategy aimed at preventing more land reclamation by China; ending Chinese militarization and deterring China from using its militarized islands to intimidate and coerce its neighbors.
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Other sources said these new danger close FONOPS still need to get the green light from Washington, but the Navy already has more than enough firepower in the Pacific to defeat any Chinese military response.
The United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) based in Hawaii is in charge of all FONOPS in the South China Sea. It commands the United States Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT) consisting of the United States Third Fleet and United States Seventh Fleet.
USPACFLT currently has three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and their attached carrier strike groups patrolling Asia. The carrier air wings aboard these three carriers have a combined 140 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters, excluding other planes and helicopters.
Navy sources said the carrier strike group of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), which is Carrier Strike Group (CSG) One, will be tasked with carrying-out these more provocative FONOPS.
The Carl Vinson is now headed towards the South China Sea. Escorting her to Asia are the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108). Another guided missile destroyer, the USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112), will later join the three warships.
Sources said Pentagon plans probably involve sailing destroyers of Destroyer Squadron One, which is attached to Carrier Strike Group One, to within 12 nautical miles of China's militarized and man-made islands located in the Spratly Islands (which are claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam), and the Paracel Islands (claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan).
Such a provocative move will be a dangerous new challenge to Chinese territorial claims that were invalidated on July 12, 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The court declared illegal China's claim to own most of the South China Sea based on unlawful "historic rights."
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TagsU.S. Navy, China's militarized man-made islands, South China Sea, Washington, freedom of navigation operations, FONOPS, United States Pacific Command, USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), Permanent Court of Arbitration
(Photo : Getty Images. ) These directives were released as a precautionary measure as China's northern region braces for another bout of heavy smog.
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The Chinese government has given directives to concerned authorities that they must work together to bring down emissions on three major highways connecting to 20 Chinese cities including the country's capital city, Beijing.
These directives were released as a precautionary measure as China's northern region braces for another bout of heavy smog.
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Chinese state media Xinhua reported that the fresh bout of smog is likely to strike the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region by this mid-week, and will spread across other parts of north-eastern and eastern China.
The adverse meteorological conditions in the three highways apparently enable high levels of pollution elements to travel to the northern region of China, the Ministry of Environment said.
The latest directives will also help the Chinese government to meet its ambitious target to bring down the daily concentration of PM2.5 harmful breathable particles to 60 micrograms in Beijing. Last year, the PM2.5 in Beijing was lurking near 73, according to the Ministry of Environment.
Northern China endured one of the worst bouts of smog in December last year when daily lives in almost all the major cities had come to a standstill. Daily flights were severely hit, while schools remained shut down for several days.
Over the last couple of years, the Chinese government has raised the antic in its desperate fight against air pollution. As part of this crusade, the government has announced many new directives like bringing down coal consumption and giving encouragement to the electric vehicle industry.
China's Ministry of Environment said that last year it sent inspectors to more than 1,000 factories to check whether they were compiling with necessary rules designed to bring down harmful emission.
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TagsChina smog, Northern China, air pollution china, smog, china
(Photo : AMTI) Woody Island in the South China Sea showing locations of illegal Chinese air defense weapons, including surface-to-air missiles.
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New satellite images confirm China has emplaced more weapons on 20 of its outposts at the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The islands are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
The photos also reveal China has begun an extensive military build-up on eight of these islands. Three of these larger islands now have protected harbors capable of hosting large numbers of naval ships, said the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington that revealed the photos and a report about the build-up.
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Four other islands have smaller harbors with a fifth harbor under construction at Drummond Island. Five of the islands have helipads, with Duncan Island housing a full helicopter base.
And Woody Island, the largest island in the Paracels, has HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries; an airstrip and hardened hangars for protecting Chinese warplanes.
AMTI was conceived of and designed by CSIS as an interactive, regularly-updated source for information, analysis and policy exchange on maritime security issues in Asia.
It believes the extensive build-up is intended to allow China to consolidate its presence in the disputed islands it illegally occupies, and project its power in the region against mounting challenges from the U.S. Navy.
AMTI also said China is accumulating construction and building materials on islands not yet reinforced, a sure indication that militarizing these islands will take place in the future.
China militarization continues to prove it lied when it promised not to militarize its man-made islands and the islands it seized from other countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
In December 2016, China emplaced weapons on seven of its artificial islands in the Spratlys. China claimed the militarization is necessary for self defense.
Chinese analysts claim the bellicosity of U.S. President Donald Trump is to blame for this latest escalation of tensions in the South China Sea.
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Tagschina, Paracel Islands, South China Sea, military build-up, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Woody island, HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries
(Photo : Getty Images. ) North Korea's state-owned KCNA news agency reported that the missile fired on Sunday was 'Pukguksong-2.'
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China has criticized North Korea's latest missile test but also called for relevant parties to exercise restrain ahead of an urgent United Nations Security Council's (UN) meeting on Monday. Pyongyang's latest missile test was the first this year and also first since U.S. President Donald Trump assumed the office.
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"Every party should exercise restraint and jointly safeguard the regional peace and stability," China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters, adding that Beijing "will take a constructive and responsible part in the relevant discussion."
"The root cause of the (North Korean) nuclear missile issue is its differences with the U.S. and South Korea," Geng said.
Barely hours after North Korea carried out the missile test on Sunday, Japan called on China to exert more pressure on its communist counterpart. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga described the missile test as "an act of provocation" and stated that the test was deliberately timed to coincide with Trump's meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
South Korea and the U.S. also joined in condemning North Korea's latest ballistic missile test. As a retaliatory measure, both countries may now speed-up the impending deployment of the THAAD missile near the North Korean border.
North Korea's state-owned KCNA news agency reported that the missile fired on Sunday was 'Pukguksong-2' and boasted that the test was overseen by its leader Kim Jong Un.
A U.S. official said that the missile traveled nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) before landing in the Sea of Japan, also popularly known as the East Sea.
The urgent UN meeting that has been called by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea may lay the groundwork for imposing additional sanctions on North Korea. The UN imposed a host of economic sanctions last year in response to several tests conducted by the isolated communist country.
According to reports, the Trump administration may increase the heat on China to engage with Pyongyang and convince its communist neighbor to give up on its controversial missile program. Trump has accused China of not doing enough on the North Korea issue.
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TagsNorth Korea, china, North Korea Missile Test, Pyongyang, China and North Korea
(Photo : Getty Images) US aircraft carrier USS George Washington sits at anchor in Busan port on July 11, 2014 in Busan, South Korea.
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China's third aircraft carrier, dubbed the Type 002 vessel, will be equipped with a conventional take-off technology instead of the cutting-edge electromagnetic system.
The planned third aircraft carrier will reportedly adopt at least three conventional steam launch catapults, a source told the South China Morning Post. And this will be the first aircraft carrier to feature such launch system.
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"There are still some technical problems applying nuclear propulsion to the carrier platform, so the Type 002 will still use steam catapults," the insider said, noting that this is still a breakthrough as the other two aircraft carriers, Liaoning and the Type 001A, have ski-jump ramps. The source further noted that it would also even take a couple of years more for the Type 002 to enter service since it usually takes around two to three years to train carrier-based pilots.
China is reportedly planning to produce two Type 002 carriers; the first is slated to be launched in 2021. The carriers has a displacement of 85,000 each, making them the biggest Chinese carriers. Liaoning is only about 55,000 tons, while the Type 001A is 70,000 tons.
Rumors have circulated that the third carrier will come with an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which has a resemblance with the new US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). Instead of the conventional steam piston drive, EMALS uses a linear motor drive to launch an aircraft.
EMALS also allows a more graded acceleration, and this could give less stress on the airframe of the aircraft. Compared with the steam catapult system, EMALS is lighter and cheaper to operate.
(Photo : PLAN) The supply ship Luomahu (left) and the destroyer, CNS Haikou.
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A three-ship squadron of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) left port Feb. 10 for what PLAN described as a series of "confrontation drills" at the militarized Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea.
The Type 052D guided missile destroyer CNS Changsha (173) and the Type 052C guided missile destroyer CNS Haikou (171) left their home port at Sanya on Hainan Island along with the Luomahu (964), a Type 903 replenishment ship, for the joint exercise with the PLAN Naval Air Force and units of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force occupying these islands.
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Both destroyers belong to the South Sea Fleet responsible for the defense of the South China Sea.
PLAN said three helicopters are aboard both destroyers, as are dozens of men from the PLAN Marine Corps. The "confrontation drills" will include joint air defense operations; maritime defense operations; naval escort; anti-terrorism and anti-piracy operations in the South China Sea, the eastern Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific Ocean.
The PLAN Naval Air Force involved in the drills will come from the South Sea Fleet while other warships will come from the East Sea Fleet and the North Sea Fleet.
PLAN said this far-sea training is a routine arrangement in accordance with its annual plan. The drills are in line with international laws and conventions, said Rear Admiral Yu Manjiang, commanding officer of the task force and deputy commander of the South Sea Fleet.
PLAN has deployed four of the five operational Type 052D guided missile destroyers -- its most modern -- to the South Sea Fleet.
Chinese military analysts said the deployment of the Type 052D (NATO code name: Luyang III-class) to the South Sea Fleet indicates the strategic priority of PLAN has shifted to the southern end of the "First Island Chain," which they identified as a "weak spot" the U.S.-Japan military alliance has been "working hard" to exploit.
They also claim the Type 052D destroyers and the older and less capable Type 052C destroyer (of which only six were built) together form a "stepped difference in combat force."
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TagsPeople's Liberation Army Navy, PLAN, confrontation drills, Paracel Islands, spratly islands, South China Sea, CNS Changsha, CNS Haiko, Luomahu, PLAN Naval Air Force
I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
New Owners for Christian Standard Media, Publishers of 'Christian Standard' Magazine and 'The Lookout' Magazine
PARKER, Colo., Feb. 13, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- The Solomon Foundation (TSF), a church extension fund serving the Christian Churches and churches of Christ with headquarters in Parker, Colorado, has acquired Christian Standard Media, according to TSF chief executive officer Doug Crozier. Christian Standard Media consists of The Lookout and Christian Standard magazines.
"Christian Standard and The Lookout, so important to the Christian churches and churches of Christ for 15 decades, are now residing where they belong," Crozier said, "with a ministry also committed to the congregations in this fellowship."
"We're delighted by this opportunity to grow in our service to the churches," said Mark A. Taylor, publisher.
Crozier stressed that the magazines will operate as an independent, nonprofit ministry, Restoration Movement Media, a Colorado nonprofit corporation continuing to serve as many congregations, ministries, and Christian leaders as possible. While the magazines' business will be conducted from the Colorado office, the editorial staff will continue to operate from Cincinnati, Ohio. Taylor is editor of Christian Standard, and Kelly Carr is The Lookout editor.
Christian Standard was founded in 1866 by Isaac Errett whose family owned the magazine, which grew into Standard Publishing. The Lookout began publication in 1894. The Errett heirs sold the business to a Christian businessman in 1955, and it became the cornerstone of a multinational corporation finally known as Standex International.
Christian Standard Media will continue to serve readers through the two print magazines, their three websites christianstandard.com lookoutmag.com , and christianstandardmedia.com , as well Christian Standard's digital editions, available through a widely distributed app for phone or tablet.
The Solomon Foundation is one of the fastest growing church extension funds in America. When you invest with us, you not only get excellent rates but you make an eternal impact by providing funding for expansion and growth of the Independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. For more information, visit thesolomonfoundation.org or call 855.873.5873.
home US Arkansas House panel approves bill that would ban sex-selection abortions
An Arkansas House panel has approved a bill on Thursday which would prohibit doctors from performing abortions if the woman is seeking the procedure solely to avoid having a boy or a girl.
The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee passed House Bill 1434 in a voice vote. The measure, which was introduced by Republican Rep. Charlie Collins, will now move to the full state House for consideration.
Under the legislation, doctors would be required to ask the pregnant women if she knows the sex of the unborn child before performing an abortion. If the woman does, the doctor would have to inform the woman that it is illegal to have an abortion based solely on gender, said Collins, as reported by The State. The unborn child's sex can usually be identified at the mother's 20th-week checkup.
"Today's technology does not allow sex to be determined very early in a pregnancy," Collins remarked. "Viability, abortion timelines, etc. that exist today, and when sex is determinable are such that it would be almost impossible for this to be a massive issue in the United States today," he added.
Doctors who are found to be in violation of the law could face a fine of up to $2,500 and be jailed for up to a year. The physician's medical license could also be suspended or revoked, and he/she would be subject to civil liability, according to The Gurdon Times.
The bill would also require the physician to obtain the woman's medical records related to her pregnancy if she knows the unborn child's gender. Collins said that he included the requirement in the bill because records could be helpful in assessing whether the woman has repeatedly obtained sex-selective abortions.
ACLU Arkansas Executive Director Rita Sklar expressed her opposition to the bill, claiming that it is unconstitutional.
"Any legislation that bans abortion before the point of viability is unconstitutional, plain and simple," she said. "There is very good potential for litigation because of this burden on women obtaining abortions that they want for whatever reason," she continued.
The Arkansas affiliate of Planned Parenthood also raised objections against the bill. Ashley Wright, the spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said that the legislation "would interfere with open, honest communication between doctors and patients."
Arkansas would become the eighth state to ban sex-selective abortions if the bill is signed into law. The seven other states that have similar bans are Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.
home World Australia rejected 80 percent of Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria, charity claims
A charity organization has claimed that the government of Australia has rejected the asylum applications of 80 percent of Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria.
Barnabas Fund, an aid organization that supports persecuted Christians, has said that the federal government has rejected 80 percent of more that 300 refugee applications it had submitted to the office of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.
The organization claimed that the overwhelming majority of visas were granted to Sunni Muslims from UNHCR camps.
"In our experience 80 per cent of our applications for Muslim converts have been rejected," South Asia Facilitator of Barnabas, Jude Simion, told Daily Mail Australia. Simion also noted that Christians tend to avoid UNHCR camps for fear of being persecuted.
Canon Dr. David Claydon, chair of the Barnabas Fund's persecuted minorities advocacy group, said that Dutton has asked Barnabas to bring Christian refugees into Australia. However, as many as 80 percent of the people it proposed as refugees were rejected, he claimed.
"Everyone [rejected] tends to be an apostate [someone who has converted]," said Claydon, noting that all had converted a long time ago.
He added that he never had a problem with those who were born Christians. "It is always the converts," he remarked.
A spokesman for Dutton said that Australia had accepted more than 4,000 refugees from Iraq and Syria for several years in addition to the special intake of 12,000 refugees.
Barnabas Fund Managing Director Colin Johnston said that other minorities in war-torn countries are also in need of help, not just the Christians.
"Over a million Christians have been displaced from Iraq and Syria, for example. There are countless others who desperately need help," he said.
Johnston and Claydon called for an increased and specific allocation for Christians and urged the Australian government to issue more visas for other persecuted minorities.
Barnabas Fund's Operation Safe Haven has rescued over 1,300 Syrian and Iraqi refugees. The group has raised $1.2 million to pay for the travel expenses of 1,048 Christians from the two war-torn countries.
There were about 1.5 million Christians in Iraq in 1990, but there are only 300,000 left in the country today. In Syria, at least half of the 2 million Christians have left since the 2011 civil war, and many of those who remain are internally displaced.
Johnston believes that many displaced Christians would not return to their villages even if the Iraqi forces succeed in liberating the areas controlled by the Islamic State. He said that Christians are afraid of the hostility from their neighbors and of getting caught in the crossfire between more powerful Sunni and Shia militants and military.
home World Church's stance on homosexuality drives gay people to commit suicide, Christian charity claims
A major Christian charity based in London has warned that the teachings of the church regarding homosexuality is causing mental health problems among gays, and it is driving them to commit suicide.
According to a report published by the Oasis Foundation, every Christian denomination in Britain, with the exception of the United Reformed Church, has held positions that are discriminatory against people with same-sex partners.
The charity asserted that the Christian churches must take a "disproportionate share of the blame" for the mental health issues experienced by people who identify as gay, bisexual or lesbian.
"It is no secret that the negative stance taken by the Church, and so many individual local churches, has a hugely distressing impact on large numbers of lesbian, gay and bisexual people and leaves countless numbers of them living lives of forced secrecy and dishonesty," said Oasis Founder Rev. Steve Chalke, as reported by the Telegraph.
"Tragically, it is also common knowledge that the resultant anguish and distress often leads to spiritual, mental and physical harm, and in the worst of cases to people making the desperate decision to take their own life," he continued.
The report noted that homosexual and bisexual people are up to 12 times more likely to suffer mental health problems than heterosexual people. It asserted that the mental health problems were caused by discrimination and a "sense of societal inferiority."
It further noted that churches were one of the biggest sources of direct discrimination against LGBT people and the biggest contributor of negative views about same-sex relationships.
The report pointed out that at least 74 percent of the signatories to the campaign against same-sex marriage were Christians. Additionally, at least 54 percent of the MP's who voted against gay marriage in 2013 identify as Christians.
The study was released in part as a response to the report by the House of Bishops which reiterated the Church of England's opposition to same-sex marriage.
Oasis Foundation recommended that the Church of England should fund a research project on the issue and contribute more money to mental health churches. It also suggested that liberal members of congregations must find effective ways to present their inclusive position to their local communities.
The charity also encouraged liberal churches to sign up to the "Open Church charter" which commits to provide support and sanctuary for LGBT people.
home US Conservative groups create petitions urging Trump to sign religious liberty executive order
Two conservative groups have launched separate petitions to call on President Donald Trump to sign an executive order that would protect religious freedom in the U.S.
A draft copy of an executive order titled "Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom" was leaked to the media earlier this month. The draft indicated that it would provide protections for religious individuals and organizations that uphold traditional beliefs on gender, sexuality and marriage.
Last week, the American Family Association (AFA) and the Family Research Council (FRC) launched separate petitions asking Trump to issue the executive order.
Politico reported earlier this month that Ivanka and her husband played a role in encouraging the president to abandon the executive order. The couple reportedly favored putting out a statement that promises to uphold the 2014 executive order introduced by the Barack Obama administration which protects employees from anti-LGBT discrimination while working for federal contractors.
"He's getting pushback from [his daughter] Ivanka Trump and her husband [Jared Kushner]. They're telling President Trump, 'Don't sign anything like this because it will hurt you,'" said AFA President Tim Wildmon.
The White House has stated that the draft is just one of about 200 executive orders that were contemplated during the transition period and that it was never intended to be signed.
However, FRC President Tony Perkins said that he is confident that the Trump administration would address the issue of religious freedom.
"I feel confident that they have an appreciation of religious freedom, and I'm pretty certain they're going to address it. I'm talking to people in the Trump administration, and I know they understand the importance of this," said Perkins.
Both petitions cited incidents when Christians have been penalized for refusing to provide their products or services due to their religious beliefs.
The AFA petition mentioned the case of Aaron and Melissa Klein, who were ordered to pay the fine of $135,000 because they refused to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding in 2013.
One of the incidents mentioned in the FRC petition was the case of Master Sergeant Phillip Monk, who had to go through a criminal investigation after he disagreed with his commanding officer that a subordinate's expression of opposition to same-sex marriage amounted to discrimination.
The FRC petition has garnered more than 15,000 signatures while the AFA petition has been signed by over 96,438 people. Wildmon said that he will personally deliver the AFA petition to the White House.
home US Illinois pregnancy centers sue governor over law requiring them to promote abortions
Eighteen pregnancy resource centers in Illinois have filed a lawsuit against Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner over a new law that requires doctors and health centers to refer pregnant women for abortions despite their conscience-based objection to the procedure.
Senate Bill 1564, which amended the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, was signed into law by Rauner last August, and it took effect on Jan. 1, 2017. The bill did not receive any Republican votes in the Senate or in the Illinois House.
An injunctive relief was filed by the Thomas More society on behalf of the 18 health centers, citing violations of multiple rights under the Illinois Constitution, Life News reported.
Thomas Olp, Attorney for the Thomas More Society, said that the law required the pro-life centers "to discuss 'benefits' of abortion with their clients and to name abortion providers upon request."
Olp argued that does not have a compelling reason for the requirement as there is readily available information about abortion from public and private sources.
"The new law strikes at the Plaintiffs' faith-based ability to render effective assistance to pregnant women about child bearing and child rearing by requiring them to substitute a secular government-sponsored message totally at odds with their faith position. The government is not permitted constitutionally to do this, in our view," said Olp.
Thomas More Society has also filed action last week on behalf of The Women's Centers of Greater Chicagoland and Hope Life Center in Sterling, Illinois.
Mary Strom, the executive director of The Women's Centers, said that the success of the organization is directly linked to its Catholic identity even though it serves women of all faiths.
Laura Petigoue, who founded the Hope Life Center in Sterling, Illinois with her husband Mark, described the state's adoption of the law as "monstrously prejudicial." Hope Life Executive Director Debbie Case said that the center has suspended all of its medical services because of the new law.
"We're seeking relief from this law so we can get back to doing what we do best, taking care of vulnerable women in our community," said Case.
Some of the pregnancy centers in the lawsuit include Abigail Women's Clinic in Mendota, Family Life Center, Inc. in Effingham, First Step Women's Center in Springfield, Lighthouse Pregnancy Center in Vandalia, Options Now in Godfrey, Southside Pregnancy Center, Inc. in Oak Lawn and the Spoon River Pregnancy Resource Center in Canton.
home World Iraqi Christian militia leader threatens to exterminate Sunnis
A Christian militia leader in Iraq has told Sunni Arab tribes on Monday to vacate the northern Assyrian town of Tel Keppe and threatened to massacre them if they do not leave by the end of the week.
Salman Esso Habba, head of the "Christian Mobilization" militia, which is part of the Shia-dominated Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) paramilitary organization, said he gave Sunni tribes "72 hours" since Monday to leave the region, claiming that the homes in Tel Keppe exclusively belonged to Christians, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reported.
Habba also reportedly stated that Christian's homes and rights could no longer be usurped, which he claimed to have occurred following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that ousted President Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Sabah Al-Mukhtar, head of the UK-based Arab Lawyers Network and a legal expert, described Habba's comments as disgraceful and pointed out that the militia leader has threatened to commit genocide against the Sunnis.
"He is threatening [the Sunni tribes] not because of what they have done, but because of who they are. That is the definition of genocide from a legal perspective," Al-Mukhtar told MEMO.
He warned that the Christians would be the ones who would suffer in the long term if Habba goes ahead with his plan because they are the minority in the area.
Christian communities have already dissociated themselves from armed Christian groups due to concerns that their actions could jeopardize future peaceful coexistence with other religious communities in Iraq.
Patriarch Mar Luis Rafael, head of the Patriarchate of the Chaldean Church, issued a statement last year, saying they have "no near or far relations with the Babylonian Brigades [a Christian militia] or any other armed Christian factions."
International human rights groups have reportedly documented the atrocities committed against Sunni Arabs during the campaign against ISIS.
According to MEMO, the U.N. has confirmed that hundreds of civilians have been abducted by the PMF. In the town of Saqlawiyah in Anbar province, 643 men have disappeared. While their fate is still unknown, it is feared that they have been killed or detained in secret prisons where torture is prevalent.
In October, Amnesty International accused Iraqi Shiite groups of committing "revenge" attacks against Sunni Arab men.
Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that Shiite armed forces linked to the Iraqi government have committed "horrific abuses" against Sunni Arabs since 2006, when former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, took power and reportedly introduced policies that were deemed to be anti-Sunni.
home US Prioritizing religious minority refugees is American tradition, experts say
While many people have raised concerns about President Donald Trump's plan to give preference to Christian refugees who seek to enter the U.S., some religious freedom advocates have said that prioritizing persecuted religious minorities has been the "tradition" of the government in the last century.
In an interview with CBN, Trump said that he sees Christian refugees in Syria as a priority, but critics have voiced their opposition to the president's plans claiming that he intends to give special status to Christians.
On Thursday, an appeals court upheld the suspension on Trump's executive order that bars refugee resettlement for 120 days, but the president said on Friday that the White House is considering to rewrite the order, The Christian Post reported.
Some Christian leaders have warned that the plan to give priority to Christians would exacerbate the problem because it would perpetuate the narrative that the Christian West is at war with Muslims.
However, some religious freedom advocates believe that it would make sense to prioritize persecuted religious minorities, considering that the U.S. Government has declared that the Islamic State has committed genocide against Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq and Syria.
Andrew Walther, the vice president of communications and strategic planning for the Catholic fraternal organization Knights of Columbus, said that religious persecution is one of the factors in establishing refugee status under American law.
He also pointed out that prioritizing Syrian Christians and other religious minorities has been the stated policy of the Obama administration, although it did not materialize for any of the minority groups in the actual numbers admitted to the U.S.
"In previous cases of genocide, the United States government has prioritized religious minorities who were targeted for genocide, who were refugees, who were displaced, who were in need of humanitarian aid, immigration or resettlement assistance," Walther told The Christian Post.
"What we have is an unbroken history of prioritizing people that have been victims of genocide or targeted for genocide. That is a proud tradition for this country," he added.
Walther also noted that after World War I and World War II, the U.S. government gave preference to persecuted minorities, such as Armenians, who experienced genocide from the Ottomans, and Jews, who survived the Holocaust.
Samuel Tadros, a senior fellow from the Washington D.C.-based think tank Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom said that "there's nothing new about the United States taking religion into account when it's clear that refugees are part of persecuted minority groups."
"Tragically, religion is part of the refugee crises we see around the world right now and that certainly includes what's happening in Syria and Iraq," he told nationally syndicated religion columnist Terry Mattingly.
Archbishop Bashar Warda, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Erbil in Iraq, said that he does not think Trump's executive order would make it any harder for the persecuted Christians in Iraq.
He railed against those who were protesting Trump's executive order, saying they were not protesting when tens of thousands of displaced Christians received no financial assistance from the U.S. government or the U.N.
"I do not understand why some Americans are now upset that the many minority communities that faced a horrible genocide will finally get a degree of priority in some manner," Warda told Crux.
home US Virginia Senate approves bill prohibiting punishment of people opposed to gay marriage
The Virginia Senate has passed legislation that would prevent the government from punishing religious organizations and individuals who uphold the traditional view of marriage.
SB 1324, introduced by Sen. Charles W. Carrico Sr., was passed by a narrow vote of 21a19. Carrico said that the bill was necessary to protect religious organizations from being sued or penalized because of their beliefs.
"And not discriminating against them because of that belief, I believe, is important to our Constitution and important to the economy of Virginia," said Carrico, according to Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Last week, the Virginia House of Delegates approved a similar bill, HB 2025, which was introduced by Del. Nick Freitas.
Both legislations came after Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued an executive order in January that prohibits the state from giving contracts to entities that do not have anti-discrimination policies regarding sexual orientation or gender identity.
The executive order was criticized by several conservative lawmakers and advocacy groups such as the Family Foundation of Virginia, which said that the order was nothing more than an "act of blatant religious bigotry."
McAuliffe, who has vetoed 71 bills during his two years as a governor, said that he will veto any legislation that would discriminate against LGBTQ people.
"It's not about doing the most vetoes of any governor in Virginia history," the governor said on Tuesday at a reception hosted by pro-LGBT group Equality Virginia. "We're stopping people from doing things that discriminate against people's basic rights," he added.
Democrats criticized Republicans for approving the bill, saying it would give individuals and organizations the right to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples.
"Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity has absolutely no place in the commonwealth, and I am disappointed that a Republican-majority in the Senate approved SB 1324 today," said Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam.
Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group, decried Carrico's bill and branded it as an "attack on fairness and equality in Virginia" that "is part of an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ bills" across the country.
The Virginia Catholic Conference described SB 1324 and HB 2025 as "top-priority" legislation because it would protect the right of religious organizations to uphold traditional teachings on marriage without being penalized by the government.
One miraculous healing has fuelled a Christian revival in Vietnam, a communist-ruled Southeast Asian country.
It started when a Christian missionary, joined by five local pastors, prayed over a two-year-old girl named Mai, who was born with bent feet and could not even stand, much less walk, according to a Christian Aid Mission (CAM) report.
Doctors in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon in south Vietnam, had given up on the baby, saying the abnormality could not be corrected.
But Mai's parents wouldn't take "no" for an answer. They decided to invite the pastors holding a training session in the hospital to see what they could do with their child.
A day after the pastors prayed over Mai, her parents were stunned when they saw their child stand up and walk about one metre before she was brought back to her bed.
Brimming with hope, the parents asked the pastors to pray for their child again.
The result was quick: Mai was able to walk a few more metres.
Her parents asked the pastors to pray once more for her before they return to their home in Dak Lak province.
"Not long after that, Mai was able to stand, walk and run like a normal child," one of the pastors told CAM. "Hallelujah! This is a great miracle, that God healed a girl with a birth defect in her feet."
The story didn't end there. News about Mai's healing spread, helping spark new church growth in Vietnam.
Moreover, Mai's miraculous healing spurred the wife of a local pastor to share the gospel with hospital patients, noting that patients who respond to the gospel are more open to receiving prayer for healing, CAM reported.
In two days, a local ministry worker who visited patients in four cancer treatment hospitals in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, "saw 50 people receive Christ," CAM's ministry director revealed.
In a previous report, a paralysed Vietnamese woman was also miraculously healed of her ailment after a group of Christian missionaries prayed over her.
The miracle overwhelmed the Buddhist couple, prompting them to give up Buddha and embrace Christ instead. The husband even became a dedicated preacher who, despite being arrested several times for his preaching, was able to effectively spread God's Word to his countrymen, leading to the establishment of 60 new churches in Vietnam.
'A United Kingdom' Star David Oyelowo Talks About His Faith: 'I Pray About Anything I'm Contemplating'
"A United Kingdom" star David Oyelowo is known for being very selective on the roles he chooses to portray, often letting his faith guide him in picking the right movie projects.
"I pray about anything I'm contemplating, and the moral compass my faith gives me tells me what to entertain and what not to entertain," he told the Gospel Herald. "I don't shy away from darkness in my films, because for me, light shines brightest in darkness. But, I won't promote or glamorise darkness in the films I do."
This discernment is shaped by his love for God and fatherhood. Oyelowo said it's important for him to practice what he preaches both as a Christian and as a father.
After taking all these things into account, Oyelowo then lets his artistic side have a voice on the matter. He wants roles that push his boundaries as an actor, and he wants to star in films that would make him proud.
"I'm also always looking for things that challenge me. When I happen upon a character, I don't immediately know how I will play them. To be scared can bring out the best in me. I do try to do films that both entertain and are meaningful, but also films that I would want to see," he said.
In "A United Kingdom," Oyelowo plays a law student named Seretse Khama, who falls in love with a white woman named Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) at a church dance. Despite their love for each other, they would face a lot of challenges in their relationship. Their friends and family don't support their union, and even the British and South African governments have vowed to do everything to tear them apart.
Oyelowo is also known for his roles in "Selma" and "Captive." In "Captive," he played escaped murderer Brian Nichols who helds a woman captive in her own home.
Speaking to Charisma News about his role as Nichols, Oyelowo said he was very careful in the portrayal so as not to make him look "cool." Even though Nichols committed a lot of crimes, there's a huge risk that a gun-toting and troubled criminal might come off as the film's hero.
"We had to work very hard to make sure that Brian Nichols didn't come off as a cool kind of James Bond-like character, because you have all the cinematic touchpoints... that we actually associate with heroes," Oyelowo said. "I'm running around in a suit. I've got two guns. I'm killing people. I had to work very hard to make sure it didn't feel glamorous, make sure it felt cold-hearted."
Christian Man Dies After Being Forced To Spend Night In Cold Pond For Refusing To Deny Christ
A Christian man in India has died after he and his wife were forced to spend the night in a cold pond for refusing to deny Christ.
Bartu Urawn, 50, from Jharkhand state, survived the night, but has now died from illness which came on afterwards.
Other villagers in Kubuaa, Palamu disrtrict were upset that he had his wife had deserted their indigenous faith.
They were made to spend the 17 hours overnight in the pond as punishment with their hands tied, their son Beneswar Urawn told Morning Star News.
After Bartu emerged, he became ill and suffered two bouts of paralysis due to nerve damage.
Beneswar Urawn said: 'All throughout the night, they were in the cold water shivering, and I along with 15-20 villagers were witness to the brutality. The villagers kept asking my father if he is ready to forsake Christ and return to the Sarna fold. He reiterated every time, "I will not deny Christ I will continue to believe till my last breath."'
Sarna means 'Religion of the Holy Woods' and involves animal sacrifice.
Urawn said his father was forced to eat some of the sacrificial meat and drink a fermented substance before his ordeal.
The son was also attacked and his drinking water polluted, it is alleged.
The family converted 10 years ago. The survivors fled to another village 21 miles away after the attack but have now returned to their homes.
Nine other families also converted 10 years ago, but seven families returned to their original faith under pressure from other villagers.
India ranks at number 15 on the Open Doors' 2017 World Watch List of countries where Christians are most persecuted.
Donald Trump Might Not Be The Antichrist But He Is Certainly Anti Christ
A few weeks ago, I was reading a piece on President Trump's inner circle. The story talked about how Trump's son-in-law saved the family fortune by selling their real-estate holdings and investing them all in a single building: 666 Fifth Avenue...and how he then leveraged the profits from 666 Fifth Avenue to buy a new property adjoining the family's $666 million development in New Jersey.
Want to guess how high the new building being built from the profits of 666 Fifth Avenue will be? Yup, 666 feet!
I did my thesis in divinity school on Revelation and apocalyptic literature, so I was intrigued by those numbers and will admit it became a bit of a game to see what else I could find.
My favorite is that 666+666+666+6+6+6 = 2016, the year Donald Trump was elected President! But to be fair, you can make most anything add up to 666 with enough mathematical gymnastics. So I decided to search for others signs of the apocalypse.
As it turns out, a super lunar eclipse, the phenomenon when the "moon turns to blood," is very rare. Only five "blood moons" occurred in the last century and only four during President Trump's lifetime.
Again, want to guess when the first blood moon was? The night Donald Trump was born. And the most recent time the moon turned to blood? The night after the "Values Voter Summit," when Trump articulated his vision for why Christians should follow him.
But the truth is that the imagery in Revelation wasn't intended to turn Christians into an End Times Scooby Gang, looking for clues and cosmic signs to unmask the Devil. Instead, the Biblical apocalyptic authors were delivering a powerful warning to Christians of their time (and to all of us today) of how easy it isespecially in times of fear and uncertaintyfor Christians to put our faith in worldly powers and Strongmen, even when those leaders proclaim a message that is anti-Christ.
The problem with a singular focus on signs of the "End Times" (exegetical accuracy aside) is that doing so blinds us to the daily struggle we are called to as Christians.
No Rapture yet? Good, we don't have to worry which side we're on and can vote for a leader who denies the need for forgiveness, brags about his affairs with other men's wives, and lies about conversations his campaign now admits it had with the Russian dictator who openly meddled in our election. Because four horsemen haven't ridden out of the sky, we can continue to affirm leaders who say torture and killing women and children are necessary to keep us safe and protect American values.
So while I found the blood moon links eerie, and many of the 666 connections intriguing, there was one connection between President Trump and 666 that I found chilling.
666 Fifth Avenue falls almost perfectly in the "middle" of Fifth Avenue from north to south. And candidate Trump's famous proclamation that he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue (where 666 Fifth is) and shoot somebody without losing any voters reflects precisely the environment and cult the Bible warns about.
President Trump didn't shoot anyone...but look at all he has done and said and encouraged others to do in his name. Yet his followersincluding most American evangelicals--did not abandon him. And this is precisely what the Biblical apocalyptic authors warned us to watch for.
The word "antichrist" is never used in Revelation. It comes from John's first letter, when John exhorts Christians to beware of false prophets and test the spirit of new leaders--to watch and listen to see if their spirit is from God or "the spirit of antichrist...which speaks from the view point of the world and is listened to by the world."
So I ask, from which spirit do these words come: "The beauty of me is that I'm very rich...The point is, you can never be too greedy...You know, it really doesn't matter what the media write as long as you've got a young, and beautiful piece of ass."
All the Biblical authors are clear that "the antichrists, the beast, the son of perdition" are most clearly known by their rejection of Christ. Is there a more fundamental rejection of Christ than to say that you alone are not in need of God's forgiveness? Cursing Christ at least acknowledges his significance--but denying the need for grace and forgiveness dismisses the necessity and efficacy of Christ's sacrifice and the foundation of all we believe.
President Trump's view of America is a fearful and dark one, to which he presents a single source of salvation: "I alone can fix it." He has told the Pope that only Trump can protect him. And Trump's only response to Senate Chaplain Barry Black's powerful words at the Prayer Breakfast was to proclaim to all that Rev. Black need not worry about his job because he had found favor with Trumpas if a godly man like Rev. Black needed or prioritized either.
Trump says he's a Christian but never talks about Jesus or what God has done in his life. Listen. When Trump talks about Christianity, it is only in terms of his own greatness and what he will give Christians.
He embodies Christ's warning of those who say, "Lord, Lord did we not do many things of power in your name" but ignore the sole criteria Jesus gives us for how He will judge the world: "feed the hungry, welcome the foreigner, comfort the prisoner."
John tells us that if all else fails, there is one certain way Christians can distinguish between the animating Spirit of truth or the spirit of falsehood that reveals the antichrists: let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God...There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
Watch President Trump's inaugural address...or most any speech he gives. When he says his favorite Bible teaching is "an eye for an eye" or advises his followers, "when people wrong you, go after those people, because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. I always get even," ask yourself: which spirit is reflected?
I do not believe Donald Trump is a supernatural spawn of Satan, ushering in the end of the world. As a total-depravity Calvinist, I know we don't need some supernatural Antichrist for humans to do horrible things or for societies to fall so far that they commit historic sins.
But after Trump's most recent executive order denying safe haven to Christians fleeing ISIS and genocide in Darfur, I feel I must speak the Biblical truth that Trump is anti-Christ.
It's not because he was born the night of a blood moon or has more connections to 666 than he does to Kevin Bacon. It's because his is a spirit of fear and emptiness, that seeks only to fill his bottomless insecurity with worldly affirmations and idols, instead of humbling himself before the only One who can make him whole. And it is that antichristian spirit that is both leading so many Christians astray and gathering such evil human forces around him in his alt-right and Russian enforcers.
I continue to pray for Trump because he is a manlike all of usin need of God's guidance, forgiveness, and mercy. He was legally elected and is my President. But as a Christian, I absolutely reject his spirit. And I find myself in the same positions as the authors I studied in divinity school, pleading with my fellow believers flocking to his banner to remember that the federal government and worldly rulers are not from whence our salvation comes.
Don't pick the wrong side. None of us know what the next four years will bring, but I do not despair because the hope that is in me does not depend on Trump.
Eric Sapp is an American political consultant based in Washington, DC, who also serves as executive director of the non-profit, American Values Network. Find him on Twitter @SappEric.
ISIS 'Hails' Trump's 'Blessed Ban,' Says It Shows They Succeeded In Frightening The 'World's Most Powerful Man'
They hate him but "applaud" him but in a sarcastic manner.
The Islamic State (ISIS) regards U.S. President Donald Trump as one of its mortal enemies and now the terrorist organisation is "hailing" America's new president for his latest action.
According to a New York Times journalist who is now in the still ISIS-occupied Iraqi city of Mosul, ISIS fighters are referring to President Trump's executive order partially freezing immigration as "the Blessed Ban."
The jihadists now say that Trump's move only proves to their supporters that America really does "hate" Islam and that they have succeeded in frightening "the most powerful man in the world," tweeted New York Times terror correspondent Rukmini Callimachi.
"They succeeded in scaring the daylight out of America," she said.
Iraq is one of the seven predominantly Muslim countries considered as "hot spots for terrorism" along with Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemenfrom which refugees and citizens are temporarily barred from entering the U.S.
Terrorism experts said the travel ban will prove to be counterproductive in the end since it will only help ISIS recruit more fighters as it pushes its message that the West is at war with Islam, the Business Insider reported.
"The [ISIS] chatrooms have been abuzz about how this shows that there is a clash of civilizations, that Muslims are not welcome in America, etc.," Mia Bloom, a terrorism expert and professor at Georgia State University, told the news outlet.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, noted that comments posted to pro-ISIS social media accounts also predicted that Trump's executive order would prompt American Muslims to side with the extremists.
"[Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi has the right to come out and inform Trump that banning Muslims from entering America is a 'blessed ban,'" said one posting to a pro-ISIS channel. The commenter compared Trump's order to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Islamic militant leaders at the time referred to as a "blessed invasion" that triggered Western animosity across the Islamic world.
Even Christian leaders in the Middle East are opposing the travel ban despite the fact that Trump has vowed to give U.S. resettlement priority to Christian refugees. The Christian leaders warned that the travel ban could backfire.
"Every reception policy that discriminates (between) the persecuted and suffering on religious grounds ultimately harms the Christians of the East" and would be "a trap for Christians in the Middle East," said Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad.
But Trump insists there is a need for a temporary travel freeze.
"I think our security is at risk today, and it will be at risk until such time we are entitled and get what we are entitled to as citizens of this country," he told the National Sheriffs' Association on Wednesday.
He said judges who are trying to overturn his executive order are simply motivated by politics.
Israel's 'Loaves And Fishes' Church Reopens 20 Months After Attack By Jewish Extremists
The 'loaves and fishes church' in northern Israel, where Christians believe Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the 5,000, has reponed after an arson attack.
Almost two years after the church was targeted by Jewish extremists, the Roman Catholic church opened for a mass on Sunday.
Two rooms of the church complex in Tabgha, Sea of Galilee, were vandalised and heavily damaged by the June 2015 fire.
The renovation work cost around one million dollars with the state of Israel contributing almost $400,000.
Three extremists were indicted and the incident was dubbed a hate crime against Israel's minority community.
Dignatories and donors, including the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, attended the ceremony at one of the most popular pilgrim spots in Israel / Palestine.
'We stand up for religious freedom because, as a people, we know very well what it means to suffer religious persecution. And we stand up for religious freedom because we are a democratic state who believe in the rights for everyone to worship God according to their belief,' Rivlin said.
'The last time I was here, we stood together and looked at the burnt walls and the terrible graffiti. Today, I visit here again, and see the renewal of this historic, special, and holy place. I want to thank all the people who worked hard to restore this place, and to say clearly; that hate cannot win,' the president added.
Jesus Gives Life Back To Woman Who Drowned In Icy River While Escaping Labour Camp In North Korea
She had to make a choice: the devil or the deep blue sea.
Ae-Cha, a Christian woman, had just fled from a labour camp in North Korea with only the swift flowing, icy river separating her life of horrific slavery from the freedom that awaited her at the other side of the river in China.
Ae-Cha could not take it anymore and had to flee the evil regime of Kim Jong-un after seven years of suffering at the labour camp where she, her husband and their daughter were imprisoned because of their faith, according to Open Doors USA.
At the camp, she witnessed her husband tortured to death by prison guards. Her daughter also died from starvation.
Ae-Cha managed to escape from the prison compound, but the river posed a daunting challenge. If only she could survive the crossing, then freedom would be at hand.
She prayed, "After making it this far, Father, I'm certain that you're with me and aiding my escape."
Then mustering all her strength, courage and faith in Jesus, Ae-Cha plunged into the frigid waters.
It took just minutes for the icy river to paralyse her body. She closed her eyes, resigned to die.
But lo and behold! She opened her eyes again to find herself on the banks on the other side of the riveralive! There was no doubt in her mind that Jesus had saved her and carried her safely across the river.
She lifted her hands in praise and gratitude to the One God that made it all possible.
From China, she travelled to South Korea where she now lives in freedom, sharing her dramatic story of courage and faith.
For the past 15 years, North Korea has held to the Number 1 spot on Open Door USA's World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution.
Under the repressive Kim regime, "entire Christian families are imprisoned in hard labor camps, where unknown numbers die each year from torture, beatings, overexertion and starvation," the persecution watchdog states.
According to a recent report from the Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Christians arrested in North Korea are hung on a cross over a fire, and at times crushed under a steamroller.
But despite the extreme dangers and difficulties faced by Christians, Christianity continues to thrive in North Korea. According to Open Doors, there are some 300,000 Christians in a country with a population of 26 million.
Man Steals $7 Billion, Claims Jesus Made Him Do It
Jesus Christ has inspired countless people to do incredibly good things but not this man from Florida.
Using Jesus as his alibi, John Michael Haskew stole $7 million from a bank, NBC Miami reported. After getting caught, Haskew told authorities that he had already made more than 70 illegal transactions worth $7 billion with a bank routing number that wasn't his, claiming that he did it because "Jesus Christ created wealth for everyone."
He pleaded guilty to a single charge: making a false statement to the federal government. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fine. Other charges levelled against him have been dropped, as agreed upon in the plea deal.
Haskew, an unemployed man, reportedly told agents he was "self-taught on the banking industry" and figured out how to make the fraudulent wire transfers through a series of trial and error, according to WFTV.
He began to set up the wire transfers on Dec. 9 and 10 from "a large, nationally renowned financial institution," and was arrested on Dec. 16.
When asked why he committed the crime, Haskew answered that he deserved the money. "[He stated] that Jesus Christ created wealth for everyone," the criminal complaint said. "Using this scheme, Haskew believed that he could obtain the wealth that Jesus Christ created for him and that belonged to him."
This was not the first time a person used the Lord's name in vain in trying to justify a crime.
Just last month in Minnesota, a Grand Rapids resident was charged with repeatedly stabbing and bludgeoning a man to death, claiming that he did it because "Jesus directed him to do it," the Herald Review reported.
Sixth Judicial District Judge David Ackerson ordered a mental health evaluation for the 32-year-old suspect, Benjamin David Lundquist.
Lundquist was charged with intentional second-degree murder in the killing of Joel Dean Gangness, who was found lying in a pool of blood inside his apartment. Gangness was stabbed more than a dozen times aside from other injuries he suffered.
Lundquist allegedly told investigators that he stabbed and bludgeoned the victim because "Jesus directed him to do it," the criminal complaint stated.
He also reportedly told investigators that he suffers from bipolar disorder.
Marco Rubio Attacks Chinese Government For Crackdown On Religious Freedom
Donald Trump's one-time rival for Presidential nominee has used his role on the Senate to speak against China's ongoing persecution of Christians.
The Florida senator highlighted the cases of two detained human rights attorneys, Jiang Tianyong and Tang Jingling.
Jiang's wife last heard from him almost four months ago when he disappeared after visiting another lawyer who had been jailed. He boarded a train home on November 21 but never arrived, according to persecution charity China Aid.
Officials later announced he was being held at a undisclosed location and has not been allowed visits from his lawyer or family since.
Tang was one of dozens arrested in the build up to the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The 1989 protests were marked in June 2014 and Tang was detained beforehand on suspicion 'inciting subversion of state power'. In January 2016, he and two other prisoners of conscience were tried, and Tang was sentenced to five years in prison.
Rubio urged White House officials to take up these and other cases with their Chinese counterparts.
He said: "Inside the grand edifice of the court, we can see stately and ornate furnishings and decorations, and we can see the government employees in dignified attire. But we cannot see the law and we can definitely not see justice."
Miracle In Phoenix: Woman With Irreversible Blindness Regains Sight After Praying At Church
Everything around her became pitch black in November 2015 when she completely lost her vision.
Doctors told 31-year-old Dafne Gutierrez she would never see the light of day again after being diagnosed with benign intracranial hypertension, a condition that causes pressure to mount in the brain, WNCT reported.
But the Arizona mother of four refused to give up hope. She knew that what looks like impossible to man is very much possible to God, if only people would pray with absolute conviction and faith.
After two failed surgeries to correct her vision, Gutierrez turned to God. Although she was not a member of the St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church in Phoenix, Arizona, she asked that she be taken to the church to pray to God to heal her so that at least she could see the faces of her children again.
"For me, I was like, 'please God, let me see those faces again. Let me be their mother again.' Because I feel like [my children] were watching me, taking care of me 24-7," she told the The Maronite Voice.
She learned that the miraculous relics of Saint Charbel would be brought to the church that day in January 2016.
Saint Charbel was one of the saints whose bodies have survived decomposition for decades, even centuries, according to Miracles of the Church. The Lebanese monk died in 1898, drawing attention when extraordinary bright light appeared on his tomb for 45 nights following his interment.
When his body was exhumed 23 years later in 1921, it was miraculously found in perfect condition. Later, pores from his skin exuded a liquid that was found to cure various ailments when applied.
A priest blessed Gutierrez with the holy oil from Saint Charbel as she prayed over the relics.
Right at that moment, she felt a change in her body. She went back to the church the following day to hear Sunday mass and experienced the same feeling.
When she woke up the next day, she felt pain.
"I was just wiping my eyes, and I'm like, 'They burn! They burn!'" she said.
Then, lo and behold! Gutierrez suddenly regained her vision as clear as day.
"This is something we just don't see. A long-standing damaged optic nerve causing blindness does not just all-of-a-sudden look normal in two days with complete restoration of vision," her doctor, Dr. Anne Borik told the Voice.
"After a thorough physical exam, extensive literature search and review of all medical records, we have no medical explanation and therefore believe this to be a miraculous healing through the intercession of Saint Charbel."
Pope Francis Trolled By Fake News Front Page Of Vatican Newspaper
Pope Francis has been trolled by a 'fake news' edition of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, alleging he has replied to his conservative critics.
Vatican police are investigating the mailing of the fake front page to priests, bishops and cardinals, according to Kath.Net.
The front page mock-up contains a fake reply, purportedly by the Pope, to the cardinals who have criticised his exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Conservatives are angry because the document, the result of two synods on the family in Rome, appears to permit a liberalisation of the current ban on communion for Catholics who have remarried after divorce.
The Pope's criticis had requested he reply, 'yes' or 'no' to their questions.
In the fake front page, he replies: 'Yes and no'.
Osservatore editpr Giovanni Maria Vian described the fake front page as 'slander'. However, he told Associated Press: 'We were only sad because the layout wasn't as nice as ours.'
The fake edition also uses medieval Latin instead of the contemporary version of the language used in the Vatican.
It follows the posting of more than 200 posters in Rome attacking the Pope.
The poster carried a photograph of him looking grim as well as the caption: 'Francis, you have placed congregations under commissionerial direction, dismissed priests, decapitated the Immaculate of Malta and the Franciscans, ignored cardinals. Where is your mercy?'
The last sentence is a reference to the Jubilee Year of Mercy which has just ended.
Questions Of Gay Sex And Christian Faith Dominate As CofE Meets For Controversial Synod
The issue of sex and faith will dominate discussions at the Church of England's governing body this week, with bishops facing multiple challenges over their conservative stance on gay marriage.
A public question and answer session to the Church's top leaders on Monday night will be overrun by the issue with points on sexuality taking up more than a third of all questions.
Normally focusing on a variety of topics from finance to outreach, the level of scrutiny on sexuality highlights the extent of controversy within the Church.
A recent bishops' report refused to change teaching that marriage was exclusively between one man and one woman.
It promised 'maximum freedom' for gay couples within current laws and called for 'a fresh tone and culture of welcome and support' for LGBT people.
As many as 26 out of 73 questions to bishops on Monday night will focus on sexuality with campaigners on both the liberal and conservative side asking bishops to clarify their views.
A number of questions focus on the omission of bisexual, transgender and intersex people from the report with Canon Priscilla White asking what work was done to understand the issues facing these groups.
In a written response the Bishop of Norwich said the report was 'was right to avoid treating diverse groups as if they were all one category, even though we recognised that they have interests in common.
'The question does demonstrate that there remain many issues concerning human sexuality that could keep us busy for some time to come.'
Here's my hotel room number for the week of General #Synod. I couldn't possibly comment. pic.twitter.com/wzmDwLrFnA Paul Bayes (@paulbayes) February 12, 2017
The Church's leaders are now facing accusations from colleagues of marginalising gay Christians in their report.
Over the weekend one rebel, Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson, joined 19 retired bishops in signing a letter saying the Church had not listened to gay people and the pain they feel.
'Our perception is that while the pain of LGBT people is spoken about in your report, we do not hear its authentic voice,' the bishops write.
'The result of that focus on the issue of a change in the law is that your call for a change in tone and culture, while absolutely right, does not carry conviction.'
They accuse current leaders of seeing 'their task as managing rather than perhaps enabling or leading the conflicts that are bound to occur'.
The unusual intervention of past leaders on current proceedings was led by former Bishop of Worcester Peter Selby, who went as far as saying the report marked a 'betrayal'.
He said: 'The people who entered those conversations who were gay or lesbian, or had had various difficult experiences in their lives because of their sexuality, they entered those conversations knowing that they would have to reveal themselves in a circumstance in which that might carry a price in terms of their life and their career.'
Shut-Down Indonesian Church Told It Can Reopen - If It Shares Land With A Mosque
A shut-down church in Indonesia has been told that it may reopen if the church agrees to share their land with a mosque.
The Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church was shut down by the mayor of Bogor, West Java nine years ago, due to vocal opposition from local Muslims. Last week the church accepted a compromise offer from the mayor to reopen their old grounds, and have a Muslim mosque share the land, as UCAN reports.
The new mayor, Bima Arya Sugiarto said that if the two religious communities could stand side by side, then there would be no resistance from Muslims.
'We are glad and support the initiative,' Yasmin congregation spokesman Bona Sigalingging said.
The protestant community had their permit for worshipping in their building frozen in February 2008, by Bogor's previous mayor, due to opposition from some Muslims. In 2010 The Indonesian Supreme Court affirmed the group's right to freedom of worship, but the mayor did not reopen the church.
As a protest in 2012 the Yasmin community started holding their services outdoors in front of the presidential palace in Jakarta, where they have since held more than 100 services, as World Watch Monitor reports. In 2014 the new mayor - Sugiarto - was elected, who had made a campaign promise to reopen the church. There are still details to be confirmed about the new arrangement, but the promise has now been fulfilled and the offer accepted.
'We hope the problem for our church and also of other churches with similar problems will end soon,' said local Yasmin pastor Rev Sony Dandel. He encouraged other Indonesian Christians to stand up for their civil freedom.
'The Greatest Genocide In History': One Billion Babies Aborted Worldwide In Past Century
One billion babies silently murdered. The figure is simply mind-boggling no massacre in history could possibly be greater than this.
And yet it happened.
According to a report from The Christian Institute, more than one billion babies have been killed worldwide for the past 95 years or since abortion was first legalised in the former Soviet Union in 1920.
The horrifying number was revealed in a new report titled "The Greatest Genocide in History" by the Global Life Campaign.
The researchers said they gathered data from more than 100 countries where abortion figures are available from 1920 up to 2015.
The deaths represented "the greatest deliberate slaughter of human beings in history, far exceeding all wars," the report's authors underscored.
They further noted that the number is equal to approximately 22 percent of the current population of those countries.
The report estimates that "current worldwide reported abortions are about 12.5 million per year."
An Australian Catholic prelate has likened abortion to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Germany during World War II.
Commenting on the proposed decriminalisation of abortion in Queensland, Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge said that is comparable to Nazi Germany's eugenics programme, according to RT.
"The classic term for it is eugenics," Coleridge told the Courier Mail, referring to his fear that women would terminate foetuses with a disability. "It is the kind of thing that went on in Nazi Germany."
In the United States, the abortion debate heated up on Saturday with anti-abortion protesters demonstrating at various Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide. They called for Congress and President Donald Trump to cut federal funding to the health services provider, which is known as the nation's biggest proponent of abortion, Reuters reported.
Supporters of Planned Parenthood staged counter-demonstrations around the United States, even outnumbering the anti-abortion protesters.
Anti-abortion rallies and marches were held in 45 states, from Washington and Philadelphia to St. Paul, Minnesota, and Orange, California
'Tragedy Of Our Times': UK Government Urged To Protect World's 250,000 Child Soliders
The charity World Vision has urged the UK government to make protection for the world's 250,000 child soldiers a priority.
Yesterday marked Red Hand Day, also known as the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers. According to UN reports, 59 armed groups and armies from at least 14 countries recruit, kill, injure, rape or abduct children, with an estimated 250,000 children currently active in global conflicts.
Positively, the UK Mission to the UN in New York projected that over 115,000 children have been freed from armed groups since 2000.
Erica Hall, Senior Policy Adviser at World Vision UK, praised the UK government's recognition of the problem, but said that more needed to be done.
'Now we want to hear how they will support these efforts with their political weight, funding and military expertise,' she said.
'To demonstrate its commitment we expect the UK Government delegation in Paris later this month to be led by Boris Johnson. We hope for a public announcement outlining the concrete plans they will make to support vulnerable children affected by war, with a focus on preventing the recruitment of child soldiers.
'Without political will and coordination across Whitehall and the various corridors of power across the world, thousands of child soldiers, some as young as seven, will continue to be abused, tortured, raped and die in armed conflicts around the world.'
Star of HBO's Game of Thrones Jerome Flynn recently went to visit World Vision's work in combating child exploitation in Myanmar.
Flynn said: 'This week I've been in Myanmar (with World Vision UK) meeting former child soldiers; boys who have been exploited and forced to kill. But these are just a few of the thousands of children around the world who are pressed into serving in armed groups. It is a heart-breaking tragedy of our times.'
World Vision shared the story of Malaika (name changed), a former child soldier in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Malaika lost her mother while she was young, and at age 7 was kidnapped by Mai-Mai rebels. She was 'married' to a rebel who violated and abused her, making her his slave. Other young men would abuse her too.
'At that time I did not know at all what sex was. I was only a child,' Malaika said. 'It hurts so much and was so humiliating. I tried not to feel anything in order to survive.'
Francis was one of tens of thousands of children in the DRC to be targeted as a child soldier. He was recruited at age 13, and by the time he was 14 he had killed four children and one adult. He was able to escape a few months later.
World Vision supports the protection and rehabilitation of child soldiers and slaves like Francis and Malaika in the DRC, the Central African Republic and Myanmar.
Trump, Brexit And Fascism Leave UK 'Savagely Divided' - Archbishop Of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is urging Christians to put aside divisions over sexuality and 'reimagine Britain' in the face of 'a fascist tradition of politics'.
In a heated first day of the Church of England's biannual parliament general synod on Monday, Justin Welby urged 'restraint' as conservative and liberal members locked horns over gay relationships.
He said the UK's public language was 'savagely divided' and in pointed remarks called on the Church to help Britain overcome populism and fascism after Donald Trump's election as US President and the UK's vote to leave the European Union.
In his presidential address, Welby said: 'There are a thousand ways to explain the Brexit vote, or the election of President Trump, or the strength in the polls in Holland of Geert Willders or in France of Madame Le Pen and many other leaders in a nationalist, populist, or even fascist tradition of politics.'
He added: 'This is a moment to reimagine Britain, a moment of potential opportunity, certainly combined with immensely hard work and heavy lifting.'
The CofE must use its role through thousands of Church schools and parishes across the UK to take the 'extraordinary opportunity to be part of reimagining a new Britain, its practices, values, aspirations and global role'.
He said: 'This could be a time of liberation, of seizing and defining the future, or it could be one in which the present problems seize our national future and define us.'
His address marks the start of the CofE's synod that will see the Church's hierarchy look to appease deep rifts over gay relationships.
Canon Simon Butler, a gay member of synod was sent a text by another member as the meeting began that asked personal question which were 'borderline harassment', he said.
Welby said the abuse was 'inexcusable' and 'a perfect illustration of how not to act'.
The Archbishop sought to diffuse tensions as he urged members to avoid the 'temptation to self-indulgence through simplicity and the open and genuine expression of love in action'.
It comes before the synod will debate a report that refuses to change Church teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman.
The bishops' report promised 'maximum freedom' for gay couples within current laws and called for 'a fresh tone and culture of welcome and support' for LGBT people.
But the lack of change and the tone from the Church leaders sparked outrage from the CofE's liberal wing who have launched a campaign not to 'take note' of the report.
If the report is struck down in the vote, it cannot be raised again until the end of this synodical cycle in 2020.
Hughie's Tavern & Vietnamese Grille has secured a lease in the space previously occupied by Foreign Correspondents restaurant for a second location.
The new venue, Hughie's Heights, will open in 4,742-square-foot space 4721 N. Main St.by the end of the second quarter, according to NewQuest Properties.
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Trademark Property Co. is creating a public gathering space along Morningside as part of the transformation of the Rice Village shopping and dining district.
Known as Morningside Plaza, the space will provide seating and free Wi-Fi in front of D'Amico's Italian Market Cafe, Nao Ramen Houston, and Hopdoddy Burger Bar, which is set to open in March. It's located between Times and University Boulevard.
Dolce Neve, called the best gelato shop in Austin, is getting ready to debut its first store in Houston, targeted for a March opening. But you don't have to wait until then to get a taste of what's to come.
On Sunday, Feb. 19, Dolce Neve will hold a pop-up from 2 to 4 p.m. at Morningstar, 4721 N. Main. It's a pop-up that makes perfect sense: Dolce Neve will be located in the same strip mall as Morningstar.
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This story ran in the Houston Post on Oct. 2, 1991. The words and the headline are reprinted as they appeared then.
For the last month, 33-year-old Mike Templeton of Humble has been kept alive by a portable, battery-powered heart assist pump.
So far he feels fine.
The reason Templeton was the center of attention Tuesday at the Texas Heart Institute is that he is only the second recipient of the portable pump and is the first one who appears to have regained anything close to normal mobility.
The first patient to use the portable heart assist device was 52-year-old Larry Heinsohn of Shreveport, La. Heinsohn was implanted with the device on May 9 and died two weeks later without showing significant improvement.
Templeton is up and walking, a far cry from his condition before he received the pump Sept. 3. Before the pump, Templeton was 40 pounds under his usual weight, had trouble breathing and could barely get out of bed.
"I couldn't breathe, I couldn't work, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even take care of my kids," Templeton said. Now it's different.
"I feel fine," Templeton said as he managed a smile.
The portable battery pack is the main difference between Templeton's situation and that of the others who have used a heart assist pump to help them survive until a donor heart was available for transplant. The battery is held in a shoulder holster.
The left ventricular assist pump is surgically inserted into the patient's abdomen and is attached to the cardiovascular system, leaving the natural heart in place. Previous models of the device required that the patient be connected to the pump's pneumatic power source, an external console on wheels.
The pump itself, called HeartMate and produced by Thermo CardioSystems Inc., has been used in 12 patients who later received heart transplants at Texas Heart Institute. The federal Food and Drug Administration has authorized the institute to install five portable pumps this year. After those tests the device will be tried at other hospitals.
The eventual goal is to develop an implantable, portable heart assist device that patients could wear on a long-term basis.
Estimates are that anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 patients each year could be saved by such a device. "Right now they're dying, except for the ones who get transplants and that's only about 2,000," said Victor Poirier, president of Thermo CardioSystems Inc.
He said the average duration of support with the HeartMate is three months.
"The bridges are getting longer and longer," Poirier said.
Bud Frazier, director of heart institute's transplant program, said Templeton's size, (he once weighed close to 220 pounds) may make it difficult to find him a donor heart. The last patient fitting Templeton's dimensions and blood type had to wait six months for a heart.
Patients using the new portable power pack will still be required to remain in the hospital until they receive a transplant. Eventually the hope is they will be able to return home.
Some of the advantages of the heart assist pump include that its use does not require the removal of the natural heart, no anti-rejection measures are needed and, since the left ventricle performs about 80 percent of the heart's work, an assist pump is sometimes all that is needed.
The Food and Drug Administration has guidelines about which patients can use the pump. Frazier said proper patient selection goes beyond looking at blood pressure and cardiac function.
"Medicine is still an art, a quasi-science. We can use numbers but in the last analysis we rely on judgment," Frazier said. "It's 'This patient is about to die if we don't do something about it right now.' "
UPDATE
Templeton would become the longest surviving recipient of an experimental battery-powered heart assistance pump at the time, a poster child for the technology's promise. But while he felt great physically, it wasn't all smooth sailing.
Under the FDA's requirements for the trial, any patient receiving the HeartMate device had to stay in the hospital until a donor heart could be found, the best possible place should an emergency develop. The requirement wreaked havoc on Templeton's psyche.
"I'm a prisoner," Templeton complained in an April 1992 Chronicle article. "I want out."
In September, Templeton got his wish when the FDA gave approval for patients with the pump to leave the hospital while awaiting a transplant. Elated, he returned home for stints at a time. No suitable heart ever materialized, but Templeton thrived nevertheless.
In January 1993, 505 days after the implantation, Templeton died of a stroke, a national story. Doctors determined the death was not related to the device.
Two years later, nearly 30 after Dr. Michael DeBakey implanted the first left ventricular assist device at Methodist Hospital, the HeartMate became the first such device approved as a bridge to transplant. Templeton was the first patient to show LVADs could work not just as a bridge but for the long haul, known as destination therapy. In 2003, the FDA approved the first LVAD for such long-term therapy.
Today, such use is the norm. The implantation of LVADs as destination therapy now exceeds those as bridge therapy.
- Todd Ackerman
Mark Mulligan/Staff
United Airlines President Scott Kirby discussed the company's support for privatizing the air traffic control system when he was in Houston last week.
"We think we can get a more efficient system but also a system that can make investments for the long term and the future that doesn't get caught up in short-term budget negotiations and sequestration, and really can invest in building the most modern and best air traffic control system as possible."
Houston Chronicle
Amegy Bank has freed up a large portion of space at Five Post Oak Park, a 28-story travertine-clad building owned by Shorenstein Properties at 4400 Post Oak Parkway.
With its lease expiration, the bank is vacating 175,000 square feet, representing about 30 percent of the building. Located in Post Oak Park, the upgraded building is close to the River Oaks neighborhood and the Galleria.
Sometimes, the front row looks can be just as outrageous as the outfits on the runway.
Where else other than New York Fashion Week would we see Paris Hilton in a tiara?
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Houston native Solange is now a Grammy winner.
The younger Knowles sister earned her first Grammy, during the pre-televised segment, for best R&B performance for "Cranes in the Sky." It's from her remarkable 2016 album "A Seat at the Table."
Big sis Beyonce also picked up best music video for "Formation." She's up for nine awards and will perform on the show, starting at 7 p.m. on CBS.
SUPER SHOW: Solange mesmerizes during Super Bowl week
Several other Texans have also already won big.
Houston native Hod David shares best R&B song with longtime collaborator Maxwell for "Lake By the Ocean."
Texas legend and RodeoHouston performer Willie Nelson took best traditional pop vocal album for "Summertime: Willie Nelson sings Gershwin."
Fort Worth native Kirk Franklin picked up best gospel album for "Losing My Religion." Tamela Mann, who is also from Fort Worth, won best gospel performance/song for the Franklin-penned "God Provides."
HOT TICKETS: Luke Bryan, Willie Nelson and Chris Stapleton rule RodeoHouston
Acapella group Pentatonix, who formed in Arlington, nabbed best country duo/group performance for their spin on "Jolene" featuring Dolly Parton.
Early big winners include Adele, who picked up pop vocal album and pop solo performance; and Drake, who has already won best rap song and best rap/sung performance for "Hotline Bling."
The late David Bowie's "Blackstar" earned alternative music album, rock performance, recording package and engineered album, non-classical.
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Winter Ball chair Franelle Rogers decided to err on the side of elegance for the 30th anniversary Diamond Winter Ball benefiting the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation.
While past balls namely, 2015's "A Night on the Nile" and last year's "Age of Aquarius" were over the top, Saturday's Winter Ball at Hilton Americas-Houston felt decidedly more subdued.
Gone were the shirtless men, signature cocktails and acrobatics that had become synonymous with the soiree. Sure, there were some constants: What's a Winter Ball without living tables and a donated Mercedes-Benz convertible or two?
The bejeweled evening no, really, Tenenbaum Jewelers' estate bling was on prominent display inside the makeshift cocktail lounge, and local designer Franco Valobra's custom necklace fetched high bids during the live auction raised a cool, record-breaking $1 million.
Looks like Rogers made the right call.
A Marilyn Monroe impersonator, the night's opening act, set the tone by shimmying up and down the runway to "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Next, more than 50 previous ABC13 Women of Distinction honorees hit the catwalk before emcees Melanie Lawson and Tom Koch introduced the 2017 class: Jo Furr, Dr. Sippi Khurana, Shawntell McWilliams, Cyndy Garza Roberts, Jessica Rossman, Susan Sarofim, Kim Tutcher, Kelli Weinzierl, Vivian Wise and ambassador Judi McGee.
Videos revealing how friends and family surprised each award recipient with the news of their honor streamed overhead, while the 650 attendees schmoozed over dinner. A few honorees, including Wise and Roberts, were ambushed at Tootsies; other unveilings went down at the St. Regis and Hotel Granduca.
Danielle Ellis, crowned a Woman of Distinction in 1997, explained that past honorees suggest new names every year, though the final nominations are decided by secret voters.
The next day, over brunch at Cuchara, Roberts and extended family swiped through iPhone photos from the Winter Ball.
Apparently, a mob of galagoers had moseyed down the hotel's lobby bar where the black-tie set and a KISS cover band merged for an impromptu after-party.
Perhaps the 2017 fete wasn't so tame after all.
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Tara Breckenridge left work at an upscale Houston adult club after her shift as a waitress ended.
A security guard walked Breckenridge to her car, a 1986 red Pontiac Fiero, and she drove off. That was the last time anyone reported seeing her alive.
Breckenridge has been missing since Aug. 4, 1992 - 25 years.
STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE: Security cameras captured images of man the day he vanished
Police found the car about three miles from the club at 1200 block of West Loop North near 12th Street. The vehicle was locked and a can of mace still inside.
A twist came when investigators inspected under the hood. The cars alternator belt was missing.
Police looked into two men as possibly being connected to the disappearance, including an unidentified male admirer who left her $100 tips as well as a love note telling her, "Not to be scared. Do what your heart tells you."
MISSING TODDLER: A babysitter took a child for a day and hasn't been seen for 46 years
Breckenridge, a native of Del Rio, has never been found and the other person police were interested in died in October 2015.
Police have long suspected foul play and that Breckenridge is dead, but haven't gathered enough information to bring charges against anyone or close the case.
>>>Scroll through the gallery to see other missing persons cases from Texas
Fort Bend ISD administrators found themselves in a calendar quandary earlier this fall.
Administrators faced the seemingly impossible task of developing a 2017-18 calender that met everyone's demands: the state-mandated Aug. 28 start date, balanced semesters, finals before winter vacation, a week-long Thanksgiving break and a full two weeks off over the winter holidays.
"We knew we were going to have some challenges this year," Fort Bend ISD Deputy Superintendent Christie Whitbeck said. "There are just a lot constraints that are out of our control."
Fort Bend ISD published a proposed calendar that followed a state law prohibiting districts from starting prior to the fourth Monday in August. It sparked 18,000 responses - most of which weren't positive.
More Information Approved start dates: Clear Creek ISD: Aug. 21 Conroe ISD: Aug. 16 Spring Branch ISD: Aug. 21 Proposed start dates: Friendswood ISD: Will vote Feb. 13 on a proposed Aug. 16 start date. Katy ISD: Will vote Feb. 27 on either an Aug. 14 or Aug. 16 start date Fort Bend ISD: Will vote March 27. on a start date on or after Aug. 21, due to campus construction. Source: Local ISDs School calendars Approved start dates: Clear Creek ISD: Aug. 21 Conroe ISD: Aug. 16 Spring Branch ISD: Aug. 21 Proposed start dates: Friendswood ISD: Will vote Feb. 13 on a proposed Aug. 16 start date. Katy ISD: Will vote Feb. 27 on either an Aug. 14 or Aug. 16 start date Fort Bend ISD: Will vote March 27 on a start date on or after Aug. 21, due to campus construction. Source: Local ISDs See More Collapse
"I'm beyond livid," Fort Bend ISD parent Windy Halvert said.
So, Fort Bend ISD delayed approval of the calendar from January until March, and found a way around the mandatory start date. Other districts, including Katy, Spring Branch, Clear Creek, Spring and Conroe ISDs have found the same loophole: They have all become or plan to become so-called districts of innovation.
The designation, passed in 2015 as part of House Bill 1842, gives qualifying districts - those that have met standards in the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness - similar flexibility already available to open-enrollment charter schools. Innovative districts can exempt themselves from certain laws, including teacher certification requirements, student attendance rules, length of the school day and, possibly most importantly, start dates.
The timing of HB 1842 passing was fortuitous.
The fourth Monday in August this year is the latest since the 2007 law established the mandatory start date. It is six days later than the 2016 start date of Aug. 22.
The district of innovation does not require state approval. Instead, two thirds of the school board members must agree to the local innovation plan, which outlines the exemptions districts will seek and then send notification to the state. The plan is valid for five years.
'Compliance mindset'
As of Sunday, 86 out the 92 Texas districts that have sent plans to the Texas Education Agency included a change to their start date.
Most districts sought more than one exemption. They opted out of teacher certification requirements to allow industry professionals to teach career and technical education courses. They also ditched a state law requiring students to attend 90 percent of classes to get course credit in an effort to protect students vulnerable to dropping out. Spring Branch and Pearland ISDs' local innovation plans exempted the districts from every permitted law.
Yet, half a dozen Texas districts, including Conroe ISD, only opted out of the start date.
The education advocacy group Raise Your Hand Texas, which supported the legislation, said that's OK. The purpose of the law is to get districts thinking about what's best for students, rather than just what they are required to do, said David Anderson, general counsel for Raise Your Hand Texas.
"We really try to emphasize to the districts that this needs to be part of your planning process," Anderson said. "Don't go back to your compliance mindset."
'Local control'
But ditching a late start date isn't what State Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, had in mind when he wrote the amendment that included the designation.
"My intent was to create a mechanism for schools to have more local control and flexibility in creating programs that work best for them," Taylor said via email. "I don't believe simply changing a school start date necessarily fits the definition of 'innovative.'"
The tourism industry, which lobbied heavily to push back the start date that had crept into early August in the 2000s, is inclined to agree.
David Teel, president of the Texas Travel Industry Association, said he wants remove start date from the list of exemptions to protect the economy.
"A day in August is economically more valuable than a day in June," Teel said.
He added, "We don't believe it's innovation."
Spring Branch, Clear Creek and Conroe ISDs have approved calendars that begin prior to Aug. 28.
Friendswood and Katy ISDs have not yet approved calendars, but both are considering options that start before Aug. 28. Both are simultaneously pursuing the innovation designation.
One of the calendar options Katy ISD is considering has a start date of Aug. 14, the earliest of the bunch. Conroe ISD's start date is Aug. 16. Spring Branch and Clear Creek ISDs' is Aug. 21.
'Worth the wait'
The only Houston area district that has gained the designation and did not include start date was Humble ISD. The district instead opted for exemptions in teacher certification requirements, class size and the length of the instructional day.
Fort Bend ISD's local innovation plan is headed for school board approval on March 27. It includes three exemptions, including start date. The district has a calendar with an earlier start date ready for a March vote as well, should the board approve the innovation plan.
"It's probably something that's worth the wait, for us to bring a quality calendar that's more parent- and student-friendly," Whitbeck said.
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A state district judge on Monday denied bail for Chad Holley, the man whose beating by several Houston police officers was captured on videotape in 2010 and who now faces an unrelated charge of capital murder.
State District Judge Hazel Jones noted that Holley, 22, was not complying with the probation restrictions he was under for a separate burglary charge when he was arrested last year for a shooting.
The judge said she would re-consider her order after Holley's case goes before the grand jury.
Holley's attorney, Philip Scardino, argued that Holley was being held on "thin evidence." He said a witness, who has not been publicly named, told police that Holley admitted to fatally shooting a 42-year-old man over a drug debt on Sept. 21.
"They don't have any fingerprints, they don't have any DNA, they don't have any other evidence, they don't have the gun," Scardino said. "They don't have anything to connect Mr. Holley to this crime except the testimony of this one person."
During the brief hearing, prosecutor Cameron Calligan argued only whether Holley should get bail, noting that court records show he was not making his curfew checks for a month last year, a time period that includes the day of the murder.
Calligan said the Harris County District Attorney's Office has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty for capital murder.
In court, Holley's girlfriend testified that he was making his curfew, but there were problems with the ankle monitor and check-in system. She said the couple is indigent and had their electricity turned off several times, which rendered the monitor useless. She also admitted there were nights he did not come home, because they were fighting.
There are several kinds of ankle monitors, including models that detect alcohol consumption and others that are GPS tracking devices. When he was arrested, he was wearing a monitor that kept track of whether he was home during his curfew hours from midnight to 6 a.m. It did not monitor whether he was near the scene of the capital murder, Scardino said.
The lawyer said he had hoped to convince the judge to release Holley without bail, because he is indigent, and keep him under house arrest with a GPS ankle monitor that would alert authorities if he left home.
Holley, who appeared in court in an orange jail uniform, did not testify.
He has remained in the Harris County Jail without bail since being arrested last year.
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A federal judge Monday denied bail for a former deputy at the Harris County Sheriff's Office on charges of producing and possessing child pornography, saying he poses a danger to the community.
The decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy came after graphic testimony indicating that Andrew Sustaita Jr. was producing pornography involving a young child. A federal prosecutor also argued that he had close proximity to weapons and was a threat.
Sustaita will remain in federal custody until his trial, the magistrate judge ruled.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Zack told the judge that Sustaita, a six-year veteran of the sheriff's office who worked on patrol, should be considered a flight risk and a threat to others due to images and videos found on his laptop and external hard drive during a search warrant. She questioned a witness about the cache of legal firearms Sustaita had at his home.
Jeremy Thomas, an investigator and former colleague at the county sheriff's office, testified that the search uncovered 59 images of a young girl unrelated to the defendant, including one that appears to show Sustaita's exposed genitalia - with a known birthmark - in close proximity to the child's face.
Another image showed the child's exposed genitals in proximity to a police memorial bracelet that the defendant was wearing at the time of his arrest, Thomas said.
Sustaita's attorney, Nathan Hennigan, posed a series of questions to Thomas under cross examination highlighting the fact that Sustaita knew about a Homeland Security investigation in late December that led to charges in state court for obscenity and he cooperated with officials at each step. Sustaita was released on $5,000 bond and was staying in Spring with his father, also a Harris County Sheriff's Deputy, at the time the U.S. Marshals arrested him on two child pornography charges.
Hennigan suggested during questioning that it would be expected for a sheriff's deputy and military veteran to have guns in his home, and for the father to have them as well.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists seized 22 pounds of raw animal organs from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Feb. 4.
The illegal meat products included raw chicken, cow meat, brains, hearts, tongues, heads and raw pig.
The items were found in the luggage of a permanent U.S. resident traveling from Vietnam. The traveler, who submitted a negative customs declaration, was referred for a baggage check just before customs agents found the prohibited products, which were destroyed by steam sterilization.
DINING GUIDE: Where to eat at Houston airports
"Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists work diligently to prevent the introduction of diseases into the U.S." Dallas CBP port director Cleatus Hunt Jr. said. "These kinds of meat products are potential carriers for harmful diseases that could result in devastating effects on our agriculture industry."
According to CBP data, agents seize "approximately 4,638 prohibited plant materials and/or animal products on a typical day." Certain items which can carry diseases are not allowed into the U.S. because they pose a risk to travelers.
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.
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OMAHA After briefly repealing its death penalty only to have it reinstated by voters, Nebraska has resumed an effort to acquire drugs needed to carry out executions for the first time in 20 years, just as judges consider whether to increase death row by two men who between them killed eight people.
Nebraska is among the few states where those facing capital punishment have a remarkably good shot at ultimately dying of natural causes. Since 2001, four death row inmates have died of natural causes while awaiting execution, including one who died last year of brain cancer.
Of the 10 people currently on Nebraska's death row, Carey Dean Moore has waited 37 years for his murder convictions in the 1979 shooting deaths of two Omaha cab drivers. He is among at least 24 of the nearly 3,000 death row inmates in the U.S. to have been sentenced in 1980 or earlier.
"It's harder to carry out executions than many state officials like to admit," University of Nebraska-Lincoln law professor Eric Berger said. "The state moved to lethal injection (in 2009) in the hopes of being able to start carrying out executions again, but one thing after another has gotten in the way of the state's being able to do it."
That has included the state's trouble obtaining the drugs it needs for lethal injections, said Berger, who worked with death penalty opponents during the recent ballot campaign that saw Nebraska's death penalty reinstated in November. The state paid more than $54,000 for a hard-to-find lethal injection drug nearly two years ago to a dealer based in India, but never received it because the federal government blocked the shipment over questions of the drug's legality.
And then there are the multiple appeals filed by most death row inmates, Berg said.
"Given that the state hasn't been able to get over those hurdles even once in the last 20 years, it should make us skeptical that it'll be able to do so consistently in the future," Berg said. "The one thing that is certain is that the state's efforts will take a lot of time and consume a lot of taxpayer dollars."
Former Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg, who served as co-chair of the petition drive that led to the reinstatement of the state's death penalty, rejects the argument that enforcing the death penalty is substantially more expensive than life behind bars. Those with life sentences file about as many appeals as those facing death, he said.
He also pointed to recent measures that could ease the way to again carrying out executions. One was a recently-enacted executive measure that would allow the corrections department to execute inmates with a single drug rather than multiple drugs, an action also taken by several other states. Another is a bill being considered by lawmakers that would keep secret the suppliers of the state's lethal injection drugs. Fifteen other states have enacted similar so-called shield laws.
Enacting such a secrecy law will invariably lead to lawsuits and more death row appeals, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that opposes capital punishment and tracks the issue.
"These secrecy provisions increasingly challenge the legitimacy of the death penalty," Dunham said. "People like public policy to be conducted in the open."
Stenberg, now the state treasurer, said he heard the same doubts about the state's ability to carry out executions when he was the state's top prosecutor. When he was first elected in 1990, "the most recent execution at that time had been in 1959 with Charles Starkweather," he recalled.
He went on to oversee three executions during his 12-year tenure. He was able to do so, he said, by asking for an execution date whenever he could.
"It would force the defendants to take the next legal step available, pushing the process along," he said.
Nebraska currently has no executions scheduled, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said.
It remains to be seen whether two men convicted in capital murder cases in Omaha will join Nebraska's death row.
Nikko Jenkins was convicted in 2014 of killing four people in three separate attacks in and around Omaha over the span of 10 days, just weeks after he had been released from prison. Anthony Garcia is a former medical doctor who was convicted in October of the revenge killings of four people, including the 11-year-old son of a faculty member he blamed in part for his firing 15 years ago from an Omaha medical school's pathology residency program.
Three-judge panels have determined that aggravating factors make both men eligible for the death penalty. The judges must now determine whether mitigating factors such as childhood abuse or impaired mental capacity exist that might spare them death and see them sentenced to life in prison. Their sentences are expected later this year.
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine, who prosecuted the Jenkins and Garcia cases, has said he's been frustrated by the inability of the state to carry out an execution since Robert Williams died in the electric chair in 1997. But he believes the death penalty is needed in cases where children, officers or multiple people have been killed.
"I believe the death penalty is certainly merited in these cases," he said.
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1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
BNM anunta concurs pentru postul vacant de expert coordonator (durata determinata) responsabil de control pe teren si din oficiu a sistemelor de plati
Seen through their own eyes, journalists in these times believe they are doing what they have always done, which is to uncover and report the truth.
Seeing themselves through the eyes of their increasingly powerful and influential detractors in the White House, though, they are on edge: They must tread carefully so as not to make a mistake; they must triple, quadruple, quintuple check their facts against the facts; check their conclusions against their opinions; check their opinions at the door; suppress themselves on social media; avoid demonstrations and other public forums; show solidarity with other journalists; be quick to condemn the mistakes or errors of judgment of other journalists; be more intrepid than ever lest they allow this new regime to erode social and political norms; be more careful than ever lest they be exposed and disgraced by a sting operation; concede their professions shortcomings; defend their profession; be certain not to allow their defensiveness and injured pride to interfere with their jobs.
Given this new mental atmosphere, all of the frightened tremors shooting through journalism now are not, to my mind, the result of an authentic fear that Trump will suspend the Constitution, declare martial law and, among other authoritarian acts, repress free speech and abolish the press. The fear of such events is really the displacement of a much deeper anxiety.
Trump has exposed vast numbers of Americans to their most primal fear.
Journalism, at its essence, and at its best, is not merely a profession or a career. Rather, it is the way people who practice it fulfill their destiny in their work. It is a vocation, a calling, every bit as much as being a doctor or a lawyer can be mere careers for some, and callings for others.
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So when Trump calls journalists liars; when he says that he has a running war with the media and that they are among the most dishonest human beings on earth; when he calls one news organization a failing pile of garbage and compares press coverage to something Nazi Germany would have done, and did do; when he claims the media is publishing fake news and, most recently, accuses the media of suppressing reports of terrorist attacks around the worldwhen he spews such insults and accusations at the press, he is not only attacking a pillar of democracy, or undercutting an entire profession, or perhaps placing a bulls-eye on lives and reputations. He is targeting peoples identities. He is imperiling the way they have worked out a manner in which to live.
Trumps greatest strength, if you can call it that, is his ability to make others feel vulnerable. Trump has exposed vast numbers of Americans to their most primal fear. He has reduced people to their social identities, and made them feel that their social identity is becoming a weapon that will be used to undermine their existence. There arent many people who feel protected under his watch.
I dont believe that we are headed for an authoritarian state at this juncture in American history, but the sudden popularity of the term existential threat reflects a new reality: Every day we grow a little closer to one of the conditions of authoritarian rule, which is to reduce life to a struggle.
Every vulnerable social group is now falling victim to this double consciousness, in which peoples familiar, stable conceptions of themselves are now under siege by the way the new social order being implemented by Trump and the Republican leadership perceives them.
The distinctive quality of journalists existential anxiety is that they are undergoing two simultaneous experiences: They are being forced to register their own vulnerability the way they have been used to recording other peoples, while at the same time this sense of their own vulnerability is threatening to interfere with the way they do their jobs.
This is not necessarily an entirely negative situation. Instead of trying to navigate the division between seeing themselves through their own eyes, and seeing themselves through the eyes of their foes, journalists might well draw strength by converting this division into a new one: the distinction between seeing themselves as journalists, and conceiving of themselves as members of the singular, monolithic media.
His visceral grasp of the way the media as a business is harrowing journalism as a vocation is what makes his attacks so chillingly intimate.
Its a distinction that has bedeviled journalists for decades, anyway. Trump is either being irrational or calculating when he, over and over, attacks the medias integrity, but true journalists have long lamented the takeover of their vocation by big media. And in the digital age, the conglomeration of the media is only becoming worse, and more accelerated.
Trumps ugly assaults on the press are having such a surprisingly unnerving effect on journalists because, deep down, for many years now, journalists themselves have felt ill used by the corporatization of journalism. As a business, the media is not dishonest, but it can be dedicated to the bottom line, often at the expense of some of journalisms finest attributesarts criticism, for example; seasoned investigative journalists; patiently done long-form pieces; a high attentiveness to precision of language, etc. Certain media organizations are clearly not failing piles of garbage, but they are faltering, and their apprehension only seems to hasten their decline.
Method acting famously instructs actors to draw from their own experience to imagine what the characters they are trying to inhabit are thinking and feeling. Thin-skinned, starved-for-attention, Twitter-hungry, image-obsessed, financially precarious Trump knows exactly how to draw from his own experience to get inside media headsas a result, he is starting to make the media as paranoid as he is. Trump has seized on certain realities about the media today and twisted and inflated them into insults and attacks. His visceral grasphe is only visceralof the way the media as a business is harrowing journalism as a vocation is what makes his attacks so chillingly intimate for journalists.
Entertaining his followers by humiliating the media is, after all, one way that Trump has fulfilled the fantasy he projected during his campaign of making ordinary Americans rich. He has conferred on his supporters a special empowerment, a quality once exclusively possessed by a certain type of wealthy person, who out of boredom and the malice that thrives in boredom enjoys humiliating people and making them squirm. Could it be that Trump knew very well that Frederick Douglass was long dead, but that he wanted to insult African-Americans in an outrageous way that they, and people who shared their shock and astonishment, were powerless to respond to? Some people might think that he is not smart enough to be so malicious. He is certainly malicious enough. In any case, to make media people squirm before insults that they also cannot respond to with equal force, to inflict humiliation on media people who once seemed to revel in their own exclusive power is for Trumps supporters, as the MasterCard commercials used to say, priceless.
One door closes, another opens. If Trump thinks that by playing both on journalists fears of the medias warping influence on journalism, and on ordinary peoples resentment of the media, he is going to undermine the media, then he has made a bad miscalculation. What he has done is to finally liberate journalism from the medias stranglehold and return it to its rightful place as the friend and ally of the common person. In presenting the media with a big, unique story that is, all at once, profitable, urgent, and serious, he is allowing journalists to be journalists without worrying about all of the concerns harbored by the bean counters. What is meaningful journalism is now profitable, and what is profitable is now meaningful journalism. Hail the new synergy of the Trump era!
Perhaps the answer is simply for members of the press to stop feeling sorry for themselves as media figures and to start rediscovering themselves as journalists drawn to a calling.
The question remains, though, of just what the new meaningful/profitable journalism should be. There is much talk now about how far journalists should go in being straightforward about their opposition to Trump and his regime. Its a conundrum all right. The only justification for making journalism openly committed to a particular position would be the tipping over of a set of circumstances into an all-encompassing and permanent condition that would turn being partisan about a situation into being truthful about a crisis. That tipping point is hard to gauge. If you act prematurely, then you run the risk of discrediting yourself and the profession of journalism. If you wait too long, then you run the risk of losing journalism to a whirlwind altogether.
The bind is something like that old dilemma faced by reporters in the field. If a Buddhist monk sets himself on fire, do you try to put the fire out, or do you stand and furiously write an account of it, or snap a picture of it? The dilemmas are analogous except that, in the case of the age of Trump, the fire has not begun yetor has it?
Perhaps the answer is simply for members of the press, as legitimately hurt as they are, to stop feeling sorry for themselves as media figures and to start rediscovering themselves as journalists drawn to a calling. Then they can stop thinking about how tough it is to be a journalist now and remember how tough it has always been to be a journalistsomething that many of them forgot in the salad days of media prosperity. That is to say, they can defy the new Trumpian atmosphere by refusing to reduce their vocation to a struggle to survive, and by pursuing it as just one more way to be human and humaneinevitable mistakes, errors, and missteps be damned.
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Lee Siegel , a widely published writer on culture and politics, is the author of six books and the recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism.
Facebook called local news the starting place for great journalism last month, in a wide-ranging announcement for the companys new Facebook Journalism Project. That announcement may not have immediately impressed local news outlets: While Facebook expressed an enthusiasm to collaborate with them, it shared no concrete plans.
Now, it appears that those plans include a listening tour. The News on Facebook roadshow debuted last week in Dallas, where the social media company hosted roughly 70 print and broadcast reporters, most of them from Texas media. During its stop, Facebook also co-sponsored digital journalism panels, hosted by two National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) chapters based in Texas. At one NAHJ panel, Facebook offered a mea culpa to the reporters in the room.
We have not been doing a great job at listening to local journalists and local newsrooms, but were recommitted to doing that, Facebook News Partnerships manager Dorrine Mendoza told the audience. Then she corrected herself: I shouldnt say recommitted. I should say committed, if I want to be perfectly honest here.
The News on Facebook roadshow is local journalisms first opportunity to gauge the social media companys new commitment. Thats a challenging task: A Pew survey found that two-thirds of Facebook users get news on the site, and Facebook (along with Google) vacuumed up all the growth in digital advertising in the first half of 2016. Local newsrooms depend on Facebook to boost their audience engagement. They also bring serious value to Facebookto the civic life of its users as well as to the share price of its owners. But many newspapers and TV stations wonder whether that value contributes to their own bottom lines.
I think that we felt neglected by some of the major social media companies, says Hannah Wise, engagement editor at the Dallas Morning News. But we do rely on them to help us reach our audience.
Tim Schmitt, newsroom development project manager at GateHouse Media, agrees. GateHouse publishes nearly 400 newspapers; for some of the smaller ones, Schmitt says, The only medium that seems to get any success for them is Facebook.
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Ultimately, journalists who attended the roadshow told CJR they were heartened by novel examples of audience engagement and Facebooks recent efforts to combat fake news. They were happy to start a relationship with Facebook where none previously existed; many were grateful to make personal connections within the behemothwhich, ironically, might seem faceless on occasion. But they also left the roadshow still unclear about how their day-to-day work affects their News Feed ranking and, ultimately, their ability to connect with their audience.
At the Dallas roadshow, Facebook led presentations on best practices and shared case studies of how local newsrooms have used the platform, then took questions that touched on everything from the News Feed and Instant Articles to subsidiary products including Instagram and Crowdtangle, a social listening tool. The company also provided hands-on help with technical issues, like scheduling Live feeds for video.
Schmitt said he was inspired by a case study of AL.com, which created a closed Facebook group to encourage thoughtful conversation between Trump voters in Alabama and Clinton voters in California. He was also enthusiastic about Crowdtangle; he said the tool will allow him to see what readers and community members are talking about, and help him to spot where breaking news events like fires or crimes are occurring.
However, there was little talk of content monetization. I think, behind the scenes, those are the questions that people are still asking, says Schmitt. Those are the questions that will have to be answered by my bosses and the bosses at Facebook.
And while Crowdtangle may help newsrooms assess engagement with their stories, reporters are still frustrated with the guesswork that seems intrinsic to their use of Facebooka dynamic that Wise likened to an internet black hole. Tim Archuleta, editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, says he wishes Facebook would spend more time helping journalists understand the trends they are seeing about life and media consumption habits in America.
At times, journalists raised specific complaints with Facebook News Partnership representatives that resonated with others in the room. One journalist asked that Instagram allow users to share links, an important way to drive traffic from the platform to local news sites, and many reporters around the room nodded in agreement, says Schmitt.
Other issues left reporters and Facebook at an apparent impasse. Journalists told CJR that theyd welcome more concrete guidance on how their countless decisions play into the News Feed algorithm. Facebook representatives, however, emphasized to CJR the importance of experimentation: Journalists will learn what works for their media outlets when they try something new, assess the effects on readership and engagement, and then tweak accordingly.
I felt bad for the woman who was tasked with talking about News Feed, says Wise, referring to the content stream that a Facebook algorithm curates for users. Because it was very obvious that they did not want to talk about the algorithm.
Questions about news literacy dominated the Q&A time during the digital journalism panel in Dallas. Concerned about the effects of fake news, journalists were keen to see Facebook help its users differentiate between serious news and biased reporting, informed opinion and political propaganda. Facebook allows users to flag stories for several reasons, including Its a fake news story; as part of a new initiative, alleged fake news may then be reviewed by independent fact-checking organizations.
While its easy for users to flag a story, Mendoza told reporters, news organizations wont face repercussion unless Facebook can substantiate many such reports, and a news organization shares such content habitually. Wise says she was reassured by Mendozas statements; one or two Dallas Morning News stories have been flagged by Facebook users, she says.
When one audience member asked what journalists can do to make their stories stand out on Facebook as professionally produced, Mendoza replied, Its not Facebooks job to educate users. Then she switched tacks.
If you wanted to educate your users on literacy, what would that look like? Mendoza asked the room. Maybe your communities dont quite understand the difference between an opinion piece and a news article. Is there a product that we can develop to help you educate your users?
Another audience member touched on a point that Mendoza made during her presentation: Facebooks Trending column sometimes buries the local story that starts a trend. When that happens, Mendoza said, news organizations should alert Facebook. Were hoping there are ways to track when the original story posted and who should be getting credit, she said.
Mendoza told CJR that Facebook has long emphasized rapid product developmentbuild, build, build, ship, ship, ship. In the past, Facebooks engagement with local journalists was limited to meeting with members of station groups or newspaper chains. During the Dallas roadshow, Facebook employees visited newsrooms at the Dallas Morning News, Dallas-Fort Worths NBC 5 and Telemundo 39, and Dallas WFAA. Now Facebook is planning visits to more cities, and will also invite local news organizations to hackathons. A second roadshow stop in Atlanta attracted roughly 100 reporters, according to the company.
During its Dallas visit, Mendoza says, Facebook found that our instincts were correct and we need to do more of these We suspected that we werent available enough, and we got that loud that and clear.
But this, too, is clear: Local journalism need its relationship with Facebook to deepen. And for the conversation to remain meaningful, journalists and Facebook need to tackle those tough topics that have been left mostly untouched: money, transparency, and trust.
Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today
Tamar Wilner is a Dallas-based freelance journalist and researcher who writes about misinformation, fact-checking, science communication, and all things media. She tweets at @tamarwilner.
Lawyers for 19 people killed or injured in a Philadelphia, Pa., building collapse reached a $227 million settlement with several defendants Wednesday during the damages phase of a five-month trial.
Six people were killed and 13 injured when a towering brick wall left unbraced during a demolition project crushed an adjacent Salvation Army store on June 5, 2013. The jury had found the Salvation Army and building owner Richard Basciano, a New York real estate speculator, largely responsible.
We cant always expect government to protect us from ourselves. Safety begins with the business owners, with contractors, with developers, said lawyer Steven Wigrizer, who represented the family of Roseline Conteh, 52, who was killed while shopping on the thrift stores midweek sale day to send clothes back to her native Sierra Leone.
Two unqualified demolition contractors are serving long prison terms for involuntary manslaughter convictions. Basciano was never charged, and his architect, who hired a longtime food truck owner as the lead demolition contractor at a cut-rate price, got immunity for his cooperation. The victims sought damages from all four of them although the jailed contractors are penniless along with the Salvation Army.
Bascianos lawyer, Thomas Sprague, called the collapse a terrible tragedy and said his client was pleased for everyones sake the case has been resolved. Lawyers for Marinakos and the Salvation Army did not immediately return calls for comment.
The victims lawyers called the sum the largest personal injury settlement in state court history. Lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi called it a powerful deterrent to businesses that try to cut corners and put lives at risk. The jury had taken just four hours before finding the defendants liable for damages on Jan. 31.
Since May 10, the Salvation Army received emails warning of a threat to life and limb, and that there could be an uncontrollable collapse. And despite that, they never did anything to protect their employees and customers, said Mongeluzzi, who faulted the charity for keeping the thrift store open. The store was at the edge of the downtown business district.
Some of the survivors were left permanently injured, including one woman who lost both legs.
The 91-year-old Basciano, once dubbed the porn king of Times Square, was hoping to redevelop a block of seedy properties he had held for 20 years. The contractors, promised just $112,000, took the four-story brick building down from the inside leaving the brick walls unsupported instead of taking it down floor by floor. The Salvation Army, meanwhile, had denied them access to their roof for the work.
An arbitrator will determine how much each of the 19 plaintiffs receives in the settlement. The amount to be paid by each defendant will remain confidential. Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately return calls for comment.
A city building inspector who worked in the neighborhood killed himself days after the collapse, although no evidence surfaced of any wrongdoing.
The victims lawyers said the city is safer today because of reforms initiated in the wake of the collapse, including tougher rules for obtaining demolition permits.
The other victims include two young women, both 24, shopping and dropping off clothes, and a store worker who had talked in the morning with one of the now-jailed contractors, Sean Benscop. Benscop was operating machinery at the site despite being on painkillers for an injury that left him with a cast on his hand.
Conteh had been a teacher in Sierra Leone before felling the war-torn country 10 years earlier. She worked two shifts a day as a nursing assistant and became a U.S. citizen, her family said.
Its a typical immigrant story coming to America, you come for a better life and safety. Its just unfortunate that this happened to her, said her son, Aiah Gbessaya, standing at a press conference Wednesday beside two brothers, an aunt and his mothers husband. She was the cornerstone for me. Its very tough.
(This story has been corrected to show the parties settled during the damages phase of the trial, not during deliberations.)
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Goodyear will pay $1.75 million to settle workplace health and safety violations at its Danville, Virginia, tire plant where four workers died on the job over the course of a year, officials announced Friday.
Goodyear, the United Steelworkers and the state Department of Labor and Industry reached a settlement agreement calling for the penalty and laying out a process to fix workplace hazards, the department said in a statement.
Between August 2015 and August 2016, four workers died at the plant near the North Carolina border that manufactures aviation and specialty tires. State inspectors conducted 11 inspections that resulted in more than 100 violations.
Among the workers killed was 53-year-old Charles Greg Cooper, who died of burns and drowning. His body was found in April in a pit of boiling water and oil, 6 feet, 8 inches deep. Investigators found that the floor around the pit was slick with oil, grease and slurry and the opening Cooper fell into had been unguarded for more than five months since a sump pump had been removed.
While nothing will replace our sister and brothers who were fatally injured, the elements of the settlement agreement will greatly improve safety at the Danville plant, Danny Barber, the local union chapter president said in a statement.
Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company will pay $1 million to the state, which will go into the general fund, assistant labor and industry Commissioner William Burge said. The remaining $750,000 can be used to fix hazards found in the inspections and to help meet the requirements of a workplace safety training program.
The departments Occupational Safety and Health program issued the scores of violations in October, and the company contested them, which led to the settlement talks.
Among the more serious violations cited were those in Coopers death, along with instances in which dangerous machinery hadnt been properly guarded.
The department said the lack of proper machine control-devices led to the death of Jeanie Strader, 56. Strader was attempting to straighten part of a machine in August 2015 when the operator turned it on and she became caught.
Six months later, 54-year-old Kevin Waid Edmonds was killed when he became pinned between a wall and a pallet containing rubber.
The fourth fatality occurred on Aug. 12, 2016, and violations in that death were detailed for the first time in Fridays settlement agreement. William Scheier was adjusting a machine that hadnt been properly turned off or shut down when it activated and a part struck him, according to a citation.
With around 2,200 workers, the plant is the largest employer in the city of about 42,000. Its also one of the largest in the whole Southside region which has struggled economically as the textile, tobacco and furniture industries have declined, Danville Mayor John Gilstrap said.
The plant, which marked its 50th anniversary in Danville in the fall, has had a tremendous impact on the entire community, he said.
The Associated Press couldnt immediately reach relatives of the victims for comment.
A judge still must sign off on the settlement agreement. Burge said he expects the court documents to be filed within two weeks.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Dwight Powell lost his Lexus to the massive tornado that injured 33 people and destroyed or seriously damaged 940 properties on a half-mile wide rampage through two miles of east New Orleans.
He had just parked it inside his garage to avoid hail damage when the twister struck. At least his Yukon pickup truck would be OK, he thought: It was in a friends repair shop, 60 miles north.
Then his phone rang.
The man called me this morning and said, `Man, the tornado hit your truck, Powell said Wednesday.
Thats a bad joke to tell a friend who just lost his house, he told him.
But it wasnt. The truck was slammed by another tornado that hit Donaldsonville, one of at least five confirmed twisters tearing up Louisiana on Tuesday as a line of severe weather moved across the Deep South.
Ive got to pick up the pieces and walk in faith. God is going to take care of me, Powell said Wednesday.
Other tornadoes injured nine people in the Baton Rouge area and two north of Lake Pontchartrain, but nobody was killed, authorities said. Parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama also saw severe weather Wednesday, but no injuries.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a news release Wednesday that two people remain hospitalized, and that 78 people spent Tuesday night in a shelter, which remains open.
His statement also said that two-thirds of the 10,400 Entergy customers who lost power have had their electricity restored and the rest may have to wait up to 5 days before getting their lights back on.
He also said that he asked Gov. John Bel Edwards to keep the 150 members of the Louisiana National Guard assigned to New Orleans in town until after Mardi Gras, which wraps up on Feb. 28.
National Weather Service teams fanned out Wednesday in Louisiana and Mississippi, analyzing the destruction. They determined that the twister that struck eastern New Orleans was an EF3 on the enhanced Fujita scale, meaning its winds reached from 136 to 165 mph, capable of causing severe damage.
Tornado damage has a distinctive pattern, meteorologist Christopher Bannan said, unlike damage from a downburst, which radiates outward from a central point, and straight-line wind damage, which all points the same direction.
The state was counting the buildings damaged or destroyed, Mike Steele of the Governors Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said Wednesday.
Powell had just finished restoring his house after buying it as blighted property.
I was about to put my house on the market for sale this Friday. This Thursday, I was going to get homeowners and flood insurance, he said.
He and an employee saw the tornado from the back door, and moved to the front.
All we heard was that train sound, WooWooWoo BOOM! In 15 seconds it was over, he said. The front of the house was intact, but the whole back is gone. The garage is gone. The kitchen gone.
Rocqueisha Williams lives in the same neighborhood and was sitting on her bed when a friend called to warn her to take shelter. She said she didnt see any rain, but then she heard thunder. She grabbed a mattress and looked out her front window as she ran to the bathroom.
The sky was charcoal grey, like the world was just grey. and, running through, a strong bolt of turquoise lightning.
Glass was coming toward me. It sounded like the wind and everything was chasing me, she said. The wind was whistling, tyoo! Tyoo! Glass was breaking out of the window Id just looked out of.
She emerged to find the bed she just left covered by shattered glass.
The Lord was on my side, she said.
Then she ran, shaking, to the nearby school where her eighth grade boys were, because I knew if I was hit, they were also hit, she said.
Eric Williams, 14, and Erin Williams, 13, were fine. Her other children, KeErica Williams, 15, and Evrin Thompson, 11, were at other schools outside the tornados path.
She said pieces of walls and part of a blue door had crashed through her car windows.
Someone elses lingerie is in my front yard, she said.
(Associated Press photographer Max Becherer contributed to this report.)
Federal investigators say an Oklahoma man who fatally shot himself this week after being suspected of killing two people was facing felony charges connected to an insurance scheme.
An FBI affidavit alleges that 55-year-old Timothy Michael Deffner of Norman stole more than $67,300 in payments from an insurance company that were meant to cover a property damage claim on a home owned by his in-laws, the Oklahoman reported. He was facing five felony counts of uttering forged instruments in connection to the case.
A warrant was issued for Deffners arrest on Tuesday, the same day his estranged wife and her attorney were shot. Police believe Deffner repeatedly shot 49-year-old Cayann Deffner and set her house on fire after shooting her divorce attorney, 47-year-old Bryan Young, at his home. Young died at a hospital.
Authorities said Deffner fled but was found hiding in a thicket near his pickup, which was parked off a gravel road in Pottawatomie County. Deffner shot himself while surrounded by officers, Pottawatomie County Undersheriff J.T. Palmer said.
Cayann Deffner won a protective order against her husband in 2015, following three separate domestic disturbance calls that year. The order prohibited him from possessing a firearm. A daughter also won a protection order against him, after she alleged he sent her dozens of threatening text messages.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
When a forest fire threatens your house and you have minutes to run, do you know what you plan to grab besides your family?
The photo albums? Computer hard drive? Tax records? Gun collection? Clean underwear?
The U.S. Forest Service faces a much bigger version of that question, reported the Missoulian. When wildfire starts, does it deploy its army of yellow-shirted initial attack forces, or let trees burn? Does it chase every smoke on the horizon or concentrate on defending homes? And who gets a say in the decision?
Jim Hubbard spent years in the Forest Service pondering those questions. During a visit to Missoula, he said we need to start thinking about some new answers fast.
We have 17 Type I incident commanders (the most experienced, big-fire team leaders), and every year they say Ive never seen that before, Hubbard said during a presentation at the University of Montana. Each one of these guys has 25 years-plus experience. That gets our attention.
Part of those debriefings dwell on how wildfires have changed in longer summers, drier landscapes and beetle-killed tree stands. But they also consider how the Forest Service has (or hasnt) been able to get to its year-round land-management duties while the agencys budget has been drained by firefighting costs. They look at how county commissions have guided home-building in fire-prone areas, and what kinds of support might be available from state or local firefighters. And they wonder what the long-term vision of all this work should look like.
Hubbard spent 11 years as deputy chief of the Forest Service in charge of fire and aviation as well as relations with state and private foresters. He also was Colorados state forester for 20 years.
We havent defined our performance-based outcomes yet, Hubbard told the audience at the annual Mike and Mabelle Hardy Fire Management Lecture. That doesnt mean picking a number of acres cleared of hazardous fuels or logged each year. It does mean setting out bigger goals for what risks are worth taking, whose interests are at stake, and what actions are even possible.
That involves things as basic as having up-to-date maps showing where houses have been built, where old-growth tree stands remain and where forest activities are planned.
We need to know what areas to protect, what places are less important, Hubbard said. If everything is wildland-urban interface, you cant make suppression decisions. You need to hear from the community, the county commissioners, the sheriff. Because we dont want to use unnecessary exposure (of firefighters) that wont get the results were after.
Hubbard authored whats known as the Hubbard Letter in 2012, telling federal fire bosses to launch initial attacks on all public-land fires that summer, including those in designated wilderness
We expect above-normal, significant fire potential for many areas of the country to result in suppression costs that exceed the 10-year average appropriation, Hubbard wrote at the time.
Given the unique circumstances we face in 2012, I expect regional forester approval of any suppression strategy that includes restoration objectives. I acknowledge this is not a desirable approach in the long-run.
And five years later, Hubbard confirmed that final opinion before a ballroom full of firefighters.
Maybe some of that fire needed to run its course, Hubbard said in Missoula. Lets tear up that Hubbard letter.
Retired Montana State Forester Don Artley was one of those in the room with Hubbard. He echoed the need to be clear about what the big-picture goals should be. Part of that means understanding how fragile those goals are.
We are making great plans about how we want the landscape to look, and they can all be for naught once a fire starts, Artley said. If it starts under hot, dry and windy conditions, we cant risk direct action. Other times, it might be best to just monitor the fires progress. And we need more public acceptance of that process. We used to call it `let-burn, and everyone understood that. But the Forest Service was uncomfortable with that wording it thought it meant we werent doing anything. Now they talk about prescribed natural fire, and the public says What are you talking about?
One thing Hubbard was talking about was unplanned wildfire management. That seemingly self-contradictory phrase grows out of the Forest Services falling budgets, where district rangers with land treatment projects in the works calculate the probability that a fire might burn something productively. For example, if a low-intensity wildfire runs through a hillside slated for a hazardous-fuels reduction burn, thats one less project the district has to pay for.
Our scientific ability to predict fire behavior has increased by orders of magnitude every year, said Jeff Jahnke, a retired state forester with experience in Alaska, Colorado and Montana. So the challenge is, can an incident commander plan the best way to suppress a fire and get resource benefits out of it at the same time?
Nobody wants to appear to gamble with public safety, even though Hubbard pointed out every time someone drives a car, they gamble on avoiding wrecks. Allowing more prescribed burns might mean days of smoke in a citys airshed during the spring or fall. But it might also mean fewer months of smoke during the summer if those small burns lessen the risk of bigger wildfires.
If we dont manage unplanned wildfires, we cant get ahead of land treatment, Hubbard said. Youre going to fight fire a little differently in the future. You have to have buy-in.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Page Content
Migration, the Common Agricultural Policy and the investment gap topped the agenda at the plenary session of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) on 8-9 February. The EU's assembly of local and regional politicians also adopted recommendations on the topics transport, energy and environment, alcohol, telecom and EU's fiscal capacity. The CoR members discussed the priorities of Malta's EU Presidency with the Ian Borg, Parliamentary Secretary for EU Funds and they adopted a resolution to mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community.
Reform of the CAP after 2020
The debate took place days after the launch of the European Commission's three-month public consultation, as the first phase of the modernisation and simplification of the Common Agricultural Policy. Commissioner Hogan called on EU regions to contribute to these consultations. During the debate, members of the EUs assembly of local and regional politicians adopted an opinion on support for young European farmers.
Press release: CAP reform: modernise and protect agricultural sector for the next generation of farmers
Investment gap
The EU's economy continues to recover despite increasing uncertainty worldwide. The CoR underlined that cutting red tape, improving local and regional administrative know-how, raising awareness about EU investment tools as well as adapting economic governance should help recover this missing investment of about 15% in Europe's economy. This approach was supported by Vazil Hudak, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), during a debate with CoR members. ( infographic )
Press release: EU cities and regions determined to tackle the investment challenge
Migration and asylum
The European Union's plans to align its rules on asylum and standardise conditions for asylum-seekers are welcome but fail to recognise adequately that migration to Europe is long-term and structural in nature, says the European Committee of the Regions. In separate recommendations agreed on the same day, the CoR welcomed the EU's drive to manage migration through country-specific partnerships with neighbouring states and argued that the EU should work more with regions and cities in these countries.
Press release: Strengthen legal support for migrants, work more with non-EU cities
Development
The European Union should increase its cooperation with local and regional authorities in the developing world if the United Nations is to achieve its goal of making cities more "inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" by 2030, the European Committee of the Regions argues.
Press release: A more urban developing world requires more urban responses
Missing transport links
Local leaders called on EU institutions and national governments to tackle the lack of public and private investment on transport links in border regions, in order to improve living and working conditions for hundreds of thousands of European citizens.
Press release: More investment in missing links can transform border regions in smart growth hubs
How to turn declining ports areas in sustainable urban hubs
With the geographical concentration of operations, small and medium-sized ports are losing some of their business, causing knock-on damage to the towns and cities in which they operate. In its opinion, the CoR set out ideas on how to regenerate port areas, focusing on governance, investment attraction and sustainable urban development.
Local leaders request more support to turn declining ports areas in sustainable urban hubs
60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome
Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaty and in the context of growing disaffection toward the European project, the EU's cities and regions pledged to shoulder their share of responsibility for involving citizens more deeply in shaping a new path for the Union. The CoR will launch an extensive citizens' consultation process on "Reflecting on Europe" throughout the EU. The outcome will feed into the CoR's contribution to the upcoming political discussions on the future of the Union. A delegation of 200 young Europeans played an active part in the debate within the CoR and witnessed an amendment on behalf of Europe's youth get adopted.
Press release: An opportunity to "reflect", listen and forge a new path for Europe
Review of the telecom package
Securing basic access to high-speed broadband must be recognised as a universal service and universal service obligations should get full recognition, especially for areas where the market is failing to deliver services and in areas where public investment is crucial. The opinion suggests earmark funds to develop access networks in rural areas, and calls for 5G networks to be rolled out at the the same time and at the same speed across the EU.
Press release: Review of the telecom package: Universal high-speed connectivity is a key for territorial cohesion in Europe
Effective water management
Climate change can lead to intensive rainfall, floods and the contamination of drinking water. The CoR unanimously adopted an opinion on effective water management that focused on water quality, the shortage of fresh water and flood defences. Local leaders underlined that water management is a capital-intensive policy area in which major investments must be made and called for a European water innovation action agenda.
Press release: Local and regional governments call for a European water innovation action agenda
Environment and climate
LIFE, the European programme dedicated to the environment and climate change, plays an important role in promoting eco-innovation and developing new solutions in environmental protection and climate, the CoR underlined in this opinion. Local and regional authorities reiterated their 2012 call for a substantial increase in the programme's budget and strongly recommended maintaining the sub-programme on climate action beyond 2020.
Press release: Local leaders call for a budget increase of EU's major environment programme LIFE
Alcohol strategy
The European Committee of the Regions has called for the European Union to establish a new alcohol strategy and to improve labelling, increase efforts to protect children, target binge-drinking, and encourage the use of car locks to prevent drink-driving.
Press release: EU needs an alcohol strategy, local and regional leaders say
Climate change adaptation strategy
As cities and regions are on the front line of climate change, members of the CoR are actively engaged in the current revision of the EU's climate-change adaptation strategy. Local leaders are asking for well-functioning multi-level governance, an enabling framework for capacity-building in cities and regions for risk modelling tools, reporting and monitoring methods and to facilitate access to public and private financing supporting climate-adaptation actions.
Press release: Call for greater involvement of cities and regions in EU adaption policy
Fiscal capacity
A fully-fledged Banking Union and a strong fiscal capacity of the Economic and Monetary Union are tools necessary to support investment and safeguard potential growth, productivity and competitiveness in times of economic crisis, European local and regional leaders emphasise. The major concern is the growing economic gap between regions.
Press release: Local and regional leaders support strengthening euro area fiscal capacity
Contact:
PresseCdr@cor.europa.eu
Beaumont girls 2.JPG
Beaumont School in Cleveland Heights will offer, beginning in fall, 2017, an International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. Shown here are Beaumont students, from left, sophomore Meghan Kessinger, of University Heights; sophomore Madeline Ashby, of Shaker Heights; freshman Leilani Zeller, of Mayfield Heights; and sophomore Layah Hodges, of Cleveland.
(Jeff Piorkowski/Special to cleveland.com)
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- After three years of preparation and planning, Beaumont School has been officially authorized as an International Baccalaureate Programme World School, making it the only all-girls school in Greater Cleveland to earn the distinction.
"It's really the gold standard in education around the world," said Anne Jarrad, Beaumont vice president of institutional advancement. "A little less than 1,000 high schools in the U.S. have this distinction. In Cleveland, we're only the second Catholic school (in addition to St. Edward High School) to be an IB school."
Founded in 1968 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, International Baccalaureate offers four educational programs, each designed for a different age group. The programs have been developed to put an emphasis on encouraging students to inquire, research, perform critical analysis and make choices while at the same time making a commitment to better their local community and the world.
"This is a values-based curriculum that has as its center a great difference in how classes are taught and how students learn," said Nick Beyer, Beaumont dean of academics and IB coordinator. "Exams are actually called 'papers,' and (students) are not answering someone else's questions, they're writing their own answers."
Traditional forms of education have been based on memorization and featured the same content for all students.
"It's really been teacher-centered," Beyer said of methods commonly used, noting that what is learned is based on the teacher's dictates and knowledge. "This is more about the student."
IB teaches all students to do critical thinking and to make decisions for themselves. Jarrad noted that students are not swayed to think in any certain political way or commercial way.
The IB learner profile states that students will strive to be inquirers, thinkers, knowledgeable, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, balanced, reflective, and risk takers.
"That's important, that they be risk takers," Jarrad said. "Students are not normally taught to take risks, but that's often how we reach our full potential."
At the 350-student Beaumont School, the IB Diploma Programme will be offered to juniors and seniors who choose to take part. All students, however, will be permitted to take one or more individual IB classes that will be offered beginning in the fall.
The IB Diploma Programme is made up of six subject groups encompassing an international scope.
They include studies in language and literature; language acquisition (languages offered include French, Latin and Spanish); individuals and societies (classes offered here are history and psychology); sciences (biology, design technology and physics); mathematics; and the arts (music and visual arts).
In conjunction with these classes, students in the IB Diploma Programme will be expected to work outside the school, in many cases for non-profit organizations, and complete extended essays of at least 4,000 words in which they state the results of their research, based on critical thought.
The IB Programme is also known for teachers' rigorous assessment of students' work. The criteria for assessment, like the curricula developed, was guided by the IB organization.
"This is also important to the community at large," Jarrad said. "The community benefits through the service element within this program."
In coordinating the program, Beyer said, teachers have traveled the country speaking to those who have been teaching the IB Programme.
"For the past three years, our faculty and administration have worked tirelessly to write course curriculums and have collaborated regularly with each other and educators around the globe," he said.
"This will help our students tremendously when they apply to colleges," Jarrad said, adding that the entire graduating class of 2016 enrolled in colleges or universities and earned $11.8 million in scholarships. "It will even help students who don't take the entire program but have taken IB classes."
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Since it was founded by Joan Rosenthal in 1997, Marigold Catering has become known for their inventive culinary offerings served at events and in venues throughout the city, including Severance Hall, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and the Glidden House. Soon, they'll have a space that's all their own.
The catering company is the newest resident of the Tenk West Bank building in the Flats, 2111 Center. St. Construction is expected to be completed in May.
"For a few years, we've been looking to secure a space," says Rosenthal. "The goal was that we wanted it to be in a cool, up-and-coming area, and this has a real urban chic feel. This opens up a whole new market for us."
Though they'll maintain their original base at 3901 Lakeside Ave., the historic 1879-built Tenk building allows them 10,000-square-feet to host events such as weddings and charity banquets for up to 1,500 people for receptions and 500 for seated dinners. It can be adapted to smaller crowds, and during the week, it will be used for the likes of corporate events and meetings.
The old Tenk Machine & Tool Co., purchased by investor Rafid Fadul in 2014, has become a hub of activity in recent years. Along with being the new facility for Six Shooter Coffee's roasting operations, it now houses a woodworking shop, co-working space and fitness studio, among other businesses.
"From the top down, the Marigold team brings a great energy and professionalism, which is no doubt a driver as to why they are so well-respected," says Fadul. "They have tremendous vision, and we're excited to help them bring that to reality here in the Flats. The West Bank has been slowly rebranding itself over the past few years, and the addition of Marigold to our community is a very welcomed next step."
In another move to boost the local food scene, Fadul is also the force behind Prep Kitchen, the new shared kitchen and incubator in the formerly vacant building at 1305 Washington Ave. in the West Bank of the Flats
"[Fadul] has really putting this heartfelt love into the city of the Cleveland for the restoration of these old buildings," says Rosenthal. "For us, to be able to be a part of that, adds a layer of incredible joy."
Throughout construction, Marigold aims to maintain and enhance its historic features, including its concrete floors and brick details.
"It has a very urban, Cleveland feel," says Rosenthal. "I think it's very representative of our city. We're excited to get more people to this area."
In addition to a main event room, there will be a breakout space that Rosenthal suggests can be used for pre-party cocktail mixers and raffles. They'll also be building out a kitchen at Tenk, so all food will be made in-house.
"We try to stay ahead of the trends; we customize," says Rosenthal. "Even though we do large events, we'll still always consider ourselves a boutique caterer."
Read more: Cool Spaces: Tenk West Building, in the Flats, was a star during the GOP conventions (photos)
CTU protest at Cleveland school board.JPG
Cleveland Teachers Union members and supporters protest delayed negotiations toward a contract extension at a school board meeting last year.
(Patrick O'Donnell/The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland school district and its teachers union have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract - its second attempt to strike a deal that both the school board and teachers will accept in the last five months.
But teachers have not seen the details yet and it is still unclear if the union membership, which was unhappy with the last deal, will back it.
Union and district leaders had reached their first agreement Aug. 30, just days before the union had announced that it would strike. But teachers voted it down, sending the sides back to the table and leaving teachers without a contract when residents voted in November to extend a major school tax.
"It has been months and months of work--often much slower than any of us wanted it to be--but in the end I believe that you will be satisfied with the agreement that we are bringing you," Shari Obrenski, the lead negotiator for the Cleveland Teachers Union told members in an email today.
District CEO Eric Gordon was also hopeful that this new agreement would be accepted.
"We are pleased to return to the Board with a contract that both sides of the bargaining table see as fair," Gordon said. "I know all of us are anxious to move beyond the bargaining table and at last ratify a contract that has, at its heart, what's best for kids and the dedicated educators that serve them."
The last contract expired over the summer and the two sides have been negotiating since late 2015 on a new contract.
The tentative agreement that teachers rejected in the fall would have been a new three-year contract with a two percent raise for this ongoing 2016-17 school year. Raises for the last two years of the deal would have been renegotiated now, after results of the November tax renewal vote were in.
It also would have thrown out most of a "performance" pay plan that the district and union reached in 2013 as part of the Cleveland Plan for Transforming Schools, an improvement plan backed by Gov. John Kasich and the state legislature.
Teachers opposed to that deal complained to the Plain Dealer that the contract:
- Would not have forced the district to add more music, art and gym classes.
- Would not have restricted standardized testing.
- Did not resolve concerns with how teachers are evaluated.
- Did not give adequate raises to teacher aides.
Click here for more on these concerns.
Union President David Quolke said he thinks teachers will be "proud" to ratify the new contract.
"This is a good agreement with a focus on teaching and learning," he said. "Our working conditions are our students learning conditions. Many issues that we could not address in the fall were able to be addressed this time around. This is important to the members of the CTU."
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump waves as he walks on the South Lawn upon arrival at the White House in Washington, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, from a trip to Florida.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta, Associated Press)
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump will not visit Northeast Ohio this week, Ohio members of Congress have been told.
The White House put out an advisory last week last that indicated Trump would visit Vienna, Ohio on Thursday to sign a bill and deliver a speech. The White House has not indicated why the planned visit was scrapped.
The Vindicator of Youngstown had reported Saturday that Trump would visit Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Trumbull County to sign a bill that reversed an Obama Administration "Stream Protection Rule" intended to keep coal mines from dumping waste into streams.
The newspaper - and other media outlets - now report that the 910th Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station attached to the airport said the trip is off.
Trump visited Ohio more than a dozen times during his presidential campaign. The state's voters backed him by a 51.7 percent margin, compared with a 43.6 percent tally for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump's first stop on a December "Thank You tour" to thank his campaign supporters was in Ohio.
Cleveland State
Four people were robbed on Cleveland State's campus in a 12-day span.
(Karen Farkas, cleveland.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four people, including two students, were robbed on the Cleveland State University campus in a 12-day span, school officials said.
The robberies, which officials believe are unrelated, all happened between Jan. 25 and Feb. 5. One arrest was made in the Feb. 5 robbery but no one else has been arrested in connection with the crimes.
Cleveland State President Ronald Berkman said in a Monday email to students, faculty and staff that the school is increasing police patrols around campus in a response to the recent uptick in robberies.
He said campus police Chief Gary Lewis analyzed the patterns and adjusted the shifts officers are working in order to provide extra protection during the times when the robberies have happened.
Cleveland police and RTA police will also offer additional patrols near campus, Berkman's email says.
The school will soon be using a "state-of-the-art" surveillance system called SkyWatch Tower that will help police watch for and deter crimes in campus parking lots. The school got the equipment through a partnership with Ohio Homeland Security and Cleveland police, Berkman's email says.
The first robbery happened about 7:20 p.m. Jan. 24. A student reported he was walking from class to his car in a lot on East 36th Street and Euclid Avenue when a group of four or five men yelled at him, school officials said.
A man pointed a gun at the student and fired one shot. The student dropped a bag containing his wallet, laptop computer and books before he jumped in his car and drove off.
The student was not harmed.
On Feb. 3, another Cleveland State student was walking to his car about 12:20 a.m. on East 21st Street and Carnegie Avenue when a man walked up to him and threatened him with a screwdriver, school officials said.
The robber stole the student's cellphone and wallet, then ran off.
About 10 p.m. Feb. 5, five men approached a 38-year-old man who was walking his 40-year-old girlfriend to her job on Chester Avenue. Neither are affiliated with the school.
The group pistol-whipped the man in the head, knocking him to the ground. The group ordered the couple to empty their pockets and pistol-whipped the man a second time, police said.
One of the robbers pointed a gun at the woman's face and punched her in the head when she tried to knock the gun from his hand. The robbers ran off. The couple was treated at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.
Police later arrested Jonah Shropshire, 19, in connection with the incident. He is charged with aggravated robbery. Investigators are still trying to identify the other robbers.
To comment on this story, please visit cleveland.com's crime and courts comments section.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A man accused of killing a 21-year-old Ohio State University student is expected to be arraigned on multiple felony counts Monday, and the prosecutor could seek the death penalty, reports say.
Brian Lee Golsby, 29, of Grove City, is charged with rape, kidnapping, aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and receiving stolen property, the Lantern reports. If convicted, the charges make Golsby eligible for the death penalty.
Golsby is accused of killing Reagan Tokes of Maumee, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. Tokes' body was found last Thursday at Scioto Grove Metro Park in Grove City, just south of Columbus, according to 10tv.com. She had been shot twice in the head.
Tokes was last seen alive Wednesday night after finishing a work shift at a bar where she worked, the Bodega in Columbus. Police are unsure if she ever made it to her car, 10tv.com reports.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien is looking to have Golsby held in jail without bail. According to 10tv.com, Golsby was released in November 2016 after serving six years in prison in connection with a 2010 rape and robbery.
A vigil was held Sunday night for Tokes, who was planning to graduate in May with a degree in psychology.
"I'm still in shock," Vara Pamidimukkala, a senior at Ohio State, tells the Columbus Dispatch. "She was a nice person and very friendly. She did not deserve this."
Money is being raised for a scholarship in Tokes' memory with a GoFundMe page. It had raised nearly $50,000 as of early Monday morning.
If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
Cleveland police car.png
A man was shot in the chest and killed Monday afternoon in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood, police said.
(File photo)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - A man was shot and killed Monday afternoon in the city's Glenville neighborhood, police said.
The victim, who was in his 20s, was shot in the chest, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said. He was found about 4 p.m. in the driveway of a house on the 10800 block of Olivet Avenue, several blocks north of Superior Avenue.
He was pronounced dead by paramedics on scene, and homicide detectives are at the house investigating, Ciaccia said. Authorities had cleared the scene by 6:15 p.m.
The victim will be publicly identified by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner once his family is notified.
The Monday killing is the 14th homicide in Cleveland in 2017, according to a cleveland.com unofficial tally.
This post will be updated when more information is available.
If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
heroin.JPG
Carolyn Stringer (left), her husband, Richard Stringer and Vickie Stever, all of Vermilion, wanted to make people aware that their picture perfect community is not immune to heroin problems.
(Michael Sangiacomo/The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Half of the Ohio children taken into protective custody in 2015 were removed from their homes because of a parental drug addiction, according to the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.
In more than half those cases, parents were using opioids, such as heroin.
As a result, children are staying in protective custody longer, and their care is costing Ohio counties more money. Protective custody means they have been placed with a relative, in foster care, a group home or some other arrangement.
The Public Children Services Association, which represents county family services agencies across the state, is hoping greater awareness of the problem will bring more state money for protective services. Currently, Ohio ranks last for the state share of funding provided for children's services.
Representatives of the association and the Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services met Monday with editors and reporters from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
Here are nine facts about how opioids are taking their toll.
Number of kids in custody: There are 14,000 Ohio children age 18 and under who are currently in protective custody with a relative, foster family, group home or some other arrangement. About 7,000 were removed because of parental drug problems. In the case of more than 3,900 of those children, the drug being abused was an opioid, such as heroin. The numbers do not include homes where alcohol abuse was the reason for removal of a child.
The length of time: Children's time spent in protective custody is up 19 percent since 2010. That's in part because with opioid addiction, relapse is common. When a relapse occurs, the state has to decide whether to lengthen the custodial stay in hopes of reuniting a child with his or her family or seeking an adoptive family.
The cost of care: As a result of the longer care, counties overall experienced a 17 percent increase in the costs of placing children in foster homes, group homes or residential treatment.
The end result: A couple of Ohio counties reported anecdotally that they experienced more adoptions than reunifications, something that had never happened before, according to Scott Britton, assistant director of the Public Children Services Association
The problem with heroin: It is often hard to find a family member who is not addicted to heroin. Britton said he has heard that opioid addiction is more vile than with other drugs because it has a greater ability to override a parent's instincts to provide basic care to a child.
The money: The state allocation for protective care services to counties has held flat at around $45 million since 2010. While there is other money from other areas that can be using for protective services, the $45 million is the only dedicated funding stream. Many counties, including Cuyahoga and Summit, use specific property taxes to pay for services.
The request for more: Public Children Services Association of Ohio is asking for an additional $30 million. Gov. John Kasich has not shown an inclination to increase that amount, but the association is hoping legislators who have seen the devastation in their home districts may see more funding.
The increase in drug-addicted babies: In 2016, 447 babies born in Cuyahoga County had been exposed to drugs in the womb. That's up from 330 in 2014 and 439 in 2015. More often the drug was marijuana, followed by opioids and then cocaine. But not every hospital tests every baby.
The stress on caseworkers: Statewide, one in four protective services caseworkers left their jobs in 2015-16; 14 percent of resignations did not involve performance concerns and Britton suspects stress may have been the reason in some cases. The association believes the trauma of working with families where opioid addiction exists has been part of the problem, The turnover rate in Cuyahoga County is not as great, said Tamara Chapman-Wagner deputy director of the Division of Children and Family Services because of targeted efforts to retain staff.
SmallBiz-Small Talk-LGBT Inclusivity
FILE - This Thursday, May 12, 2016, file photo, shows signage outside a restroom at 21c Museum Hotel in Durham, N.C. North Carolina is in a legal battle over a state law that requires transgender people to use the public restroom matching the sex on their birth certificate. Some small business owners already working to make their companies more welcoming to LGBT employees say the massacre at a gay dance club in Orlando, Fla., gives them an impetus to make more changes. In this photo, the Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant bathroom sign was designed by artist Peregrine Honig.
(Gerry Broome, Associated Press)
WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump's administration is shifting the federal government's position away from its predecessor on yet another issue - whether public schools must let transgender students use the bathroom and locker room they prefer.
On Friday, the day after conservative Jeff Sessions was sworn in as U.S. Attorney General, the U.S. Justice Department dropped an appeal of a Texas court injunction that blocked transgender students from using facilities that correspond with their gender identity.
The injunction was issued after several states challenged the Obama administration's directive.
Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights group that pursues lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes, condemned Sessions' action, saying he "signaled his intent to undermine the equal dignity of transgender students.
"Transgender students are entitled to the full protection of the United States Constitution and our federal nondiscrimination laws," said a statement from the group's president, Chad Griffin. "It is heartbreaking and wrong that the agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws would instead work to subvert them for political interests."
On Monday, the conservative Family Research Council said the Trump administration was right to "
stop the legal defense of an indefensible edict that violates the rights of parents and the privacy of schoolchildren nationwide."
"While this is a welcome first step, we are hopeful that the Trump administration will formally withdraw the Obama edict so that parents and schools will remain free to protect the privacy and safety of every student," said the statement from Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.
On March 28, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a related case that could resolve nationwide questions over facilities that transgender people can use. In that case, a Virginia school district sought court permission to avoid compliance with the Obama administration's directive.
The state of Ohio has sided with the school district, joining a legal brief that argues the directive would force states to either relinquish control "
over policies designed to protect student privacy and safety or else forfeit their entire share of $55.8 billion in annual federal school funds."
APTOPIX Damage Dam
California Highway Patrol officer Ken Weckman directs traffic as residents evacuate Marysville, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017. Thousands of residents of Marysville and other Northern California communities were told to leave their homes Sunday evening as an emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam could fail at any time.
(Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP)
OROVILLE, Calif. -- At least 188,000 people remain under evacuation orders after Northern California authorities warned an emergency spillway in the country's tallest dam was in danger of failing Sunday and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest.
The evacuation was ordered Sunday afternoon after engineers spotted erosion on the dam's secondary spillway. Hours later, panicked and angry people were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to leave the area.
"The police came and told us to evacuate," said Kaysi Levias who was with her husband, Greg, at a gas station as they attempted to flee.
Officials warned residents that the spillway could fail within an hour.
"I'm just shocked," Greg Levias said. "Pretty mad."
"Not giving us more warning," said Kaysi, finishing his sentence.
"We've never been through this before," said Kaysi Levias. "We have two boys and our dog. All the stuff we could fit in the trunk -- clothes and blankets."
What they couldn't fit they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheat land, Yuba City, Plumas Lake, and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris spoke at a news conference late Sunday and said at least 250 law enforcement officers from throughout the state are in the area or en route to help the people evacuating.
The evacuation order went out around 4 p.m. after engineers spotted a hole that was eroding back toward the top of the spillway.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said. Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees.
Officials say Oroville Lake levels had decreased by Sunday night as they let water flow from its heavily damaged main spillway. Late Sunday, officials noted that water levels had lowered enough that water was no longer spilling over the eroded area.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said engineers with the Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion on the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam was not advancing as fast as they thought.
"Unfortunately they couldn't advise me or tell me specifically how much time that would take so we had to make the very difficult and critical decision to initiate the evacuation of the Orville area and all locations south of that," he said. "We needed to get people moving quickly to save lives if the worst case scenario came into fruition."
Honea said there was a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse. But a state water official said at a news conference that no repair work was done after officials looked at the flow and available resources.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the water is no longer spilling over the top.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall. Officials earlier Sunday stressed the dam itself was structurally sound and said there was no threat to the public.
Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriff's office said.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services asked residents in the valley floor, including Marysville, a city of 12,000 people, to evacuate and take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources said it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway during heavy rain earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.
The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
Michael Flynn
In this Feb. 1, 2017, file photo, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House, in Washington. President Donald Trump has yet to comment on the allegations that Flynn engaged in conversations with a Russian diplomat about U.S. sanctions before Trump's inauguration. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump is "evaluating the situation" regarding his embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn's conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., the White House said Monday, deepening the uncertainty surrounding Flynn's future in the new administration.
Flynn apologized privately for the controversy to Vice President Mike Pence, according to a White House official. Pence, relying on information from Flynn, publicly vouched that the retired Army lieutenant general did not discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia in calls with the Russia late last year. Flynn has since told the White House that sanctions may have come up.
Trump, who comments on a steady stream of issues on his Twitter feed, has been conspicuously silent about the matter since The Washington Post reported last week that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy. A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition.
Earlier Monday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump had "full confidence" in Flynn, though her assertions were not backed up by other senior Trump aides.
Flynn sat in the front row of Trump's news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier Monday. But the president did not receive a question about Flynn's future from a pair of reporters, and he ignored journalists' shouted follow-up inquiries as he left the room.
Trump has told associates he is troubled by the situation, but he has not said whether he plans to ask Flynn to step down, according to a person who spoke with him recently. Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he is viewed skeptically by some in the administration's national security circles, in part because of his ties to Russia.
In 2015, Flynn was paid to attend a gala dinner for Russia Today, a Kremlin-backed television station, and sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the event.
Flynn spoke with the vice president about the matter twice on Friday, according to an administration official. The official said Pence was relying on information from Flynn when he went on television and denied that sanctions were discussed with Kislyak.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said that if Pence were misled, "I can't imagine he would have trust in Gen. Flynn going forward." She said it would also be "troubling" if Pence had been negotiating with a foreign government before taking office.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for Flynn to be fired, saying he "cannot be trusted to put Putin before America."
It's illegal for private citizens to conduct U.S. diplomacy. Flynn's conversations also raise questions about Trump's friendly posture toward Russia after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Moscow hacked Democratic emails during the election.
The controversy surrounding Flynn comes as the young administration grapples with a series of national security challenges, including North Korea's reported ballistic missile launch. The president, who was joined at his Mar-a-Lago estate by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the weekend, voiced solidarity with Japan.
The White House is also dealing with fallout from the rocky rollout of Trump's immigration executive order, which has been blocked by the courts. The order was intended to suspend the nation's refugee program and bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Flynn's contacts with Kislyak coincided with the Obama administration slapping penalties on Russia for election-related hacking. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia hacked Democratic groups to help Trump win the election.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who led Trump's transition planning before the election, said Flynn would have to explain his conflicting statements about his conversations with Kislyak to Trump and Pence.
"Gen. Flynn has said up to this point that he had not said anything like that to the Russian ambassador. I think now he's saying that he doesn't remember whether he did or not," Christie said on CNN. "So, that's a conversation he is going to need to have with the president and the vice president to clear that up, so that the White House can make sure that they are completely accurate about what went on."
Bastiaan Slabbers | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Two weeks ago, Sidd Bikkannavar flew back into the United States after spending a few weeks abroad in South America. An employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Bikkannavar had been on a personal trip, pursuing his hobby of racing solar-powered cars. He had recently joined a Chilean team, and spent the last weeks of January at a race in Patagonia. Bikkannavar is a seasoned international traveller but his return home to the US this time around was anything but routine. Bikkannavar left for South America on January 15th, under the Obama Administration. He flew back from Santiago, Chile to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas on Monday, January 30th, just over a week into the Trump Administration. More from The Verge:
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What 720,000 years of ice can tell us about climate change in the past and the future Bikkannavar says he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol and pressured to give the CBP agents his phone and access PIN. Since the phone was issued by NASA, it may have contained sensitive material that wasn't supposed to be shared. Bikkannavar's phone was returned to him after it was searched by CBP, but he doesn't know exactly what information officials might have taken from the device. The JPL scientist returned to the US four days after the signing of a sweeping and controversial Executive Order on travel into the country. The travel ban caused chaos at airports across the United States, as people with visas and green cards found themselves detained, or facing deportation. Within days of its signing, the travel order was stayed, but not before more than 60,000 visas were revoked, according to the US State Department.
watch now
His ordeal also took place at a time of renewed focus on the question of how much access CBP can have to a traveler's digital information, whether or not they're US citizens: in January, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed complaints against CBP for demanding that Muslim American citizens give up their social media information when they return home from overseas. And there's evidence that that kind of treatment could become commonplace for foreign travelers. In a statement this week, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said that people visiting the United States may be asked to give up passwords to their social media accounts. "We want to get on their social media, with passwords: What do you do, what do you say?" Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee. "If they don't want to cooperate then you don't come in." Seemingly, Bikkannavar's reentry into the country should not have raised any flags. Not only is he a natural-born US citizen, but he's also enrolled in Global Entry a program through CBP that allows individuals who have undergone background checks to have expedited entry into the country. He hasn't visited the countries listed in the immigration ban and he has worked at JPL a major center at a US federal agency for 10 years. There, he works on "wavefront sensing and control," a type of optics technology that will be used on the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. "I don't know what to think about this," Bikkannavar recently told The Verge in a phone call. "...I was caught a little off guard by the whole thing."
watch now
Bikkannavar says he arrived into Houston early Tuesday morning, and was detained by CBP after his passport was scanned. A CBP officer escorted Bikkannavar to a back room, and told him to wait for additional instructions. About five other travelers who had seemingly been affected by the ban were already in the room, asleep on cots that were provided for them. About 40 minutes went by before an officer appeared and called Bikkannavar's name. "He takes me into an interview room and sort of explains that I'm entering the country and they need to search my possessions to make sure I'm not bringing in anything dangerous," he says. The CBP officer started asking questions about where Bikkannavar was coming from, where he lives, and his title at work. It's all information the officer should have had since Bikkannavar is enrolled in Global Entry. "I asked a question, 'Why was I chosen?' And he wouldn't tell me," he says. The officer also presented Bikkannavar with a document titled "Inspection of Electronic Devices" and explained that CBP had authority to search his phone. Bikkannavar did not want to hand over the device, because it was given to him by JPL and is technically NASA property. He even showed the officer the JPL barcode on the back of phone. Nonetheless, CBP asked for the phone and the access PIN. "I was cautiously telling him I wasn't allowed to give it out, because I didn't want to seem like I was not cooperating," says Bikkannavar. "I told him I'm not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it."
watch now
SINGAPORE, 13 February 2017 CNBC, the world's leading business and financial news network, today announced three new additions to its Asia Pacific news team: Sophia Yan joins as Beijing Correspondent, Everett Rosenfeld as Asia Pacific Digital Editor and Lee Yen Nee as Digital Correspondent.
Based in Beijing, Yan will report on the evolving economy of Greater China. Prior to CNBC, she was Asia Business Reporter with CNNMoney in Hong Kong, where she covered major financial and economic news across Asia. Sophia specializes in reporting unique cultural and consumer angles that illustrate the growth of the Chinese economy. She will also examine what the rise of China means for the rest of the world.
Everett Rosenfeld joins CNBC International as the Asia Pacific Digital Editor based at the network's Asia headquarters in Singapore. Everett was formerly a reporter for CNBC in the United States covering international macroeconomics, trade policy, politics and financial technologies.
Lee Yen Nee joins the CNBC digital news team in Singapore. Reporting to Rosenfeld, Yen Nee will be reporting on breaking business news from around the region. Yen Nee joins from Singapore's daily newspaper TODAY, where she was a senior business reporter covering economic, real estate and finance.
John Casey, SVP International News and Programming, said: "We're delighted to be adding Sophia, Everett and Yen Nee to our team. Asia remains a pivotal hub for our global network and these hires will further bolster our award-winning team."
Contact Information:
Mike Cheong
Communications Manager, CNBC Asia Pacific
Mike.Cheong@nbcuni.com
D: +65 6326 1123
M: +65 9852 8630
About CNBC
CNBC is the leading global broadcaster of live business and financial news and information, reporting directly from the major financial markets around the globe with three regional networks including CNBC in Asia, CNBC in EMEA and CNBC in the US. CNBC.com is the preeminent financial news source on the web, featuring an unprecedented amount of video, real-time market analysis, web-exclusive live video and analytical financial tools. The channel is available in 381 million homes worldwide. CNBC is a division of NBCUniversal.
For more information on CNBC, please visit www.cnbc.com
Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to take an aggressive stance against North Korea on the campaign trail, but nearly a month into his presidency, he may cede control of the issue to China .
A man watches the news showing file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un at a railway station in Seoul on February 12, 2017. North Korea fired a ballistic missile on February 12 in an apparent provocation to test the response from new U.S. President Donald Trump, the South Korean defense ministry said.
"After last week's phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, I suspect that his first move will be to talk to China and bring Beijing to apply pressure on North Korea," Alastair Newton, co-founder and director of Alavan Business Advisory, told CNBC on Monday.
Pyongyang claimed it successfully test-fired a medium-to-long-range ballistic missile on Sunday. Called the Pukguksong-2, the weapon was powered by solid fuel and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, according to North Korean state media. In response, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have requested an urgent United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday.
If Trump were to allow Beijing to take the lead on such a delicate matter, as Newton predicted, that would align with the Republican's tonal shift on the world's second-largest economy.
Hostile anti-China sentiments have marked much of Trump's presidencyin a tweet last month, he criticized Beijing for its lack of assistance on reigning in Pyongyang's military technology. But last week featured a cordial phone call with Xi, in which Trump agreed to support the "One China" policy that he previously questioned.
As North Korea's biggest trading partner and main source of aid, China holds influence over the pariah state. But bilateral ties, which date back to the Korean War, have weakened since North Korea began testing nuclear weapons in 2006 and Beijing has since joined the international community in supporting UN sanctions. Still, the West has long urged Xi's administration to rebuke more forcefully.
Trump's initial response to Sunday's missile launch was muted, with the president merely stating his support for Japan, another enemy of North Korea, during a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
At least 188,000 people remain under evacuation orders after Northern California authorities warned an emergency spillway in the country's tallest dam was in danger of failing Sunday and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest.
The evacuation was ordered Sunday afternoon after engineers spotted erosion on the dam's secondary spillway. Hours later, panicked and angry people were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to leave the area.
"The police came and told us to evacuate," said Kaysi Levias who was with her husband, Greg, at a gas station as they attempted to flee.
Officials warned residents that the spillway could fail within an hour.
"I'm just shocked," Greg Levias said. "Pretty mad."
"Not giving us more warning," said Kaysi, finishing his sentence.
"We've never been through this before," said Kaysi Levias. "We have two boys and our dog. All the stuff we could fit in the trunk clothes and blankets."
What they couldn't fit they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheat land, Yuba City, Plumas Lake, and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris spoke at a news conference late Sunday and said at least 250 law enforcement officers from throughout the state are in the area or en route to help the people evacuating.
The evacuation order went out around 4 p.m. after engineers spotted a hole that was eroding back toward the top of the spillway.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said. Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees.
Officials say Oroville Lake levels had decreased by Sunday night as they let water flow from its heavily damaged main spillway. Late Sunday, officials noted that water levels had lowered enough that water was no longer spilling over the eroded area.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said engineers with the Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion on the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam was not advancing as fast as they thought.
"Unfortunately they couldn't advise me or tell me specifically how much time that would take so we had to make the very difficult and critical decision to initiate the evacuation of the Orville area and all locations south of that," he said. "We needed to get people moving quickly to save lives if the worst case scenario came into fruition."
Honea said there was a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse. But a state water official said at a news conference that no repair work was done after officials looked at the flow and available resources.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the water is no longer spilling over the top.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall. Officials earlier Sunday stressed the dam itself was structurally sound and said there was no threat to the public.
Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriff's office said.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services asked residents in the valley floor, including Marysville, a city of 12,000 people, to evacuate and take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources said it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway during heavy rain earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.
The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
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Gene Simmons is the most outrageous member of one of the most outrageous bands of all time: KISS.
There's a lot more to KISS than shock. It's the number-one gold-record-earning group of all time, at 30when you include the four solo albums that band members released on the same day in 1978. Fourteen albums went platinum. This is a band that's known for its hits: "I wanna rock and roll all night, and party every day" seems like it's a phrase as old as rock itself. The band is known just as much for its look. There's the black and white face paint, the pyrotechnics, and a few details that are signature Gene Simmons. There's the blood-spitting, the axe guitar, and of course the tongue so long it's almost a fifth band member. And guess what: They're still touring.
Fortt Knox sat down with Gene Simmons at the Studio Hotel in New York, to talk business and marketing. Simmons is a guy who not only managed to launch an iconic brand in his early 20s, he and co-founder Paul Stanley remade it several times along the way with different band members, different looksand a voracious appetite for merchandising. Simmons also managed to become a brand on his own. He has had more than one turn on reality TV. He was on the "Celebrity Apprentice" with then star (and now president) Donald Trump. Simmons also had had his own show, "Gene Simmons Family Jewels," that featured wife Shannon Tweed, and his kids Nick and Sophie. Here's a sampling of some of the wisdom he shared with Fortt Knox, in typically colorful fashion.
Source: LA Kiss Football; Getty Images
Although the election is over, the problem of fake news isn't. Apple CEO Tim Cook said it's time to do something about it.
"All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news," Cook said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Friday.
"There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic," Cook said.
While most of the discussion around fake news has centered on fabricated stories and headlines that surface on websites and spread like wildfire through Facebook , earlier this month it was Trump's own not-official spokesperson Kellyanne Conway who shared news of a "Bowling Green massacre" that never happened.
More from Recode:
Getting all your news from Facebook is like eating only potato chips, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue says
The White House is trying to figure out its next move on the travel ban suspension
A Magic Leap investor says critics should stop 'gloating' and give augmented reality more time
Conway said the made-up event was orchestrated by two Iraqi refugees, as she attempted to defend Trump's immigration and refugee travel ban on individuals from seven majority-Muslim countries.
Even though Conway's false narrative was quickly debunked on Twitter, a recent poll from Public Policy Polling showed that 23 percent of Americans believed the made-up story enough to think it justified Trump's travel ban. Twenty percent were unsure if the fake news was justification enough for the immigration executive order.
Tim Cook says that the proliferation of fake news is "killing people's minds."
Differentiating between fact-checked news and stories that are written to deceive has proven difficult for online readers.
Remember Pizzagate? It was a completely false story that went viral on Facebook late last year that linked Hillary Clinton to a child sex ring run out of pizzeria in Washington D.C. Another poll by PPP at that time showed nearly half of Trump voters thought Pizzagate was true, or at least could be true.
"We are going through this period of time right here where unfortunately some of the people that are winning are the people that spend their time trying to get the most clicks, not tell the most truth," Cook said in the interview.
Or in the case of Kellyanne Conway, straight-up spouting falsehoods on national news.
Much of the fake news controversy has focused on Facebook, where in recent months fabricated stories have become wildly popular. In January, the social media giant rolled out new filtering tools in Germany for users to flag stories that are potentially fake to be reviewed by fact-checkers.
But Cook called for even wider action. "Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven't figured out what to do," he said. "We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will."
Apple's Eddy Cue, senior vice president of internet software and services, will be joining Recode's Peter Kafka at the Code Media Conference tomorrow, where he'll be asked more about Apple's position on fake news, especially as the company moves to start making its own TV and movies.
By April Glaser, Recode.net.
CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Recode's parent Vox, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.
Arianna Huffington speaks to CNBC Conversation at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The Huffington Post founder discusses the sea change in American politics following the rise of unconventional U.S. President Donald Trump, and how "he has an opportunity to tap into the best Donald Trump there is." She also warns against the dangers of fake news and the phenomenon's power to influence history.
Reflecting on Davos 2017's theme of Responsive and Responsible Leadership, Huffington discusses her view that those in power must move from being passive to active but does acknowledge that the meeting has always "been ahead of its time in identifying trends."
Huffington also speaks about her belief in the importance of wellbeing and its impact on leadership, which underpinned her decision to sell the Huffington Post to AOL roughly a decade ago and instead begin Thrive Global, a business which focuses on health and wellness.
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When President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met at the White House on Monday, the issue of a possible border adjustment tax did not come up, Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau told CNBC.
"What we talked about today is the foundation of a great relationship. We talked about how the two countries work together today and we talked about how we can expand upon that relationship. We didn't go into the details of our respective tax regimes," Morneau said in an interview with "Closing Bell" on Monday.
Republicans are pushing for a border adjustment tax that would tax imports and exempt exports. It is part of the GOP's overall tax reform package.
While it wasn't discussed at the meeting, Morneau said, "Our sense is that a border adjustment tax wouldn't necessarily enhance our trading relationship."
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California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday evening requested federal assistance with the Oroville Dam emergency spillway crisis as mandatory evacuation orders remained in effect for about 188,000 residents downstream from the nation's tallest earthen dam. "I respectfully request that you issue an emergency declaration for direct federal assistance for the counties of Butte, Sutter and Yuba, as a result of the potential failure of the Lake Oroville Dam emergency spillway," Brown said in a letter to President Donald Trump. Added Brown, "As a result of the potential for catastrophic flooding, approximately 188,000 residents from Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties were forced to immediately evacuate their homes for life and safety. Officials are aggressively attempting to lower Lake Oroville's water levels, as another atmospheric river storm system is scheduled to arrive within 48 hours." In asking for assistance, the governor said Oroville Dam emergency is "of such severity and magnitude that continued effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments and supplemental federal assistance is necessary to save lives and to protect property, public health and safety, and to lessen the effects of this serious situation." Also late Monday, workers scrambled to place giant sacks of rocks into portions of the eroded emergency spillway using heavy-lift helicopters. They also planned to use grout in damaged areas of the emergency spillway to prevent further erosion. State and local officials worked into the night Sunday to evacuate thousands of residents downstream from the dam after a hole in an emergency spillway raised fears of flash floods. Oroville Dam California's second-largest dam is located about 70 miles north of Sacramento.
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State officials have denied allegations there was lax safety at the Oroville Dam despite a report of previous warnings about the emergency spillway. The hole found Sunday in the emergency spillway essentially a natural hillside of soil, rock and brush led engineers to shift major water flows away from this unlined channel. The main spillway is damaged from significant concrete erosion but was being utilized to release water from the swollen dam Monday, according to the California Department of Water Resources. There have been concerns about Oroville Dam safety since the erosion of the primary spillway was discovered Tuesday. The crippled primary spillway last week was unable to release a sufficient amount of water to keep up with inflows from the plentiful rains in the surrounding area. State and federal officials failed to heed safety warnings about Oroville more than a decade ago, according to the Mercury News. The report Sunday said three environmental groups warned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about the vulnerability of the hillside emergency spillway. The Oroville Dam was completed in the late 1960s when Ronald Reagan was governor of California. FERC confirmed last week it had several engineers onsite at the Oroville Dam but Monday the agency didn't respond to requests for comment. Earlier Monday, DWR officials denied that the state had ignored earlier concerns about the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway or had been lax in inspections there. "We have a very rigorous schedule of inspections that is determined by state and federal regulators," said DWR spokesman Eric See. "We actually do those inspections annually."
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DWR's acting director Bill Croyle defended the agency's handling of the Oroville situation and the emergency spillway's safety when questioned at Monday's press conference. "I'm not sure anything went wrong," Croyle told reporters. "That system has been monitored. This is the first time it's ever taken water over the system." The emergency spillway at Oroville Dam was activated Saturday for the first time ever in the dam's 48-year history after the dam reached above its capacity following a barrage of rain in the Northern California region.
However, state engineers on Sunday discovered significant erosion had occurred back towards the face of the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam after huge water outflows, meaning the structural integrity of the dam's auxiliary spillway was at risk. That led state and local authorities Sunday to order an immediate evacuation of communities downstream from the dam. "If the emergency spillway were to fail, it would send a 30-foot wall of water downstream, resulting in catastrophic flooding," Brown said in his Monday letter to the president. If there were an uncontrolled discharge of waters from the dam, it would flow downstream to the Feather River and tributaries and flood communities in the eastern Sacramento Valley. On Saturday, Oroville Dam reached its elevation capacity of 901 feet, which automatically triggers the emergency spillway. At noon on Sunday the elevation topped 902 feet and by Monday at 7 p.m. after major outflows from the primary spillway the elevation was down to around 893 feet, according to the DWR data website. Engineers were urgently working to lower the lake level by 50 feet in order to prepare for future inflows of water due to storms and precipitation.
A damaged spillway with eroded hillside is seen in an aerial photo taken over the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California, U.S. February 11, 2017. Source: California Department of Water Resources
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California officials worked frantically into the night Sunday to evacuate thousands of residents downstream from the Oroville Dam after a hole on an emergency spillway raised fears of flash floods. "There was significant concern that it would compromise the integrity of the spillway, resulting in a substantial release of water," Kory Honea, the Butte County Sheriff, told reporters at a press conference Sunday evening. "I couldn't risk the lives of thousands of people so we took this rather significant step." The emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam was activated Saturday for the first time ever in the dam's 48-year history after the swollen dam reached above its capacity following a deluge of rain in the Northern California region. However, state engineers on Sunday discovered significant erosion had occurred back towards the face of the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam after huge water outflows, meaning the structural integrity of the dam's auxiliary spillway was at risk. The emergency spillway is an unlined channel that is essentially a natural hillside with rocks, brush and other debris. Normally the dam would use its primary spillway but that too was found to have significant concrete erosion earlier in the week. "The concern is that erosion at the head of the auxiliary spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville," the California Department of Water Resources said Sunday. "Those potential flows could exceed the capacity of downstream channels."
Evacuations
If there were uncontrolled outflows from the dam it could result in rising waters in the Feather River and tributaries and flood communities in eastern Sacramento Valley. As of 10 p.m. local time on Sunday, Cal Fire said the evacuations due to the flash flood warning were still underway and to an area affecting approximately 35,000 residents from the city of Oroville in Butte County down about 40 miles south to the Sutter County line. Also, parts of Yuba County near the Feather River were under an evacuation order. AP later reported that at least 188,000 people remained under evacuation orders. "Cal Fire is mobilizing engines, crews, helicopters and swift water crews and sending in equipment from other parts of the state to the affected areas as part of a contingency plan," said Cal Fire Capt. Dan Olson, a spokesman for the Oroville incident.
Damaged section of the concrete spillway at the Californias Oroville Dam, as seen on Feb. 9, 2017 Source: California Department of Water Resources
An evacuation center for residents was set up at the fairgrounds in Chico, located about 23 miles northwest of Oroville. State engineers were able to resume significant outflows from the primary concrete spillway on Sunday as a way to ease pressure on the emergency spillway. Also, Sunday evening helicopters were being used to drop bags of rock and boulders into crevices of the emergency spillway erosion to prevent any further erosion. Honea said stabilizing the emergency spillway and reducing pressure on it are measures that will "hopefully prevent it from a complete failure."
More rain forecast
Meantime, more rain is forecast as early as Wednesday from incoming storms. The arriving storm is also expected to be significant and could bring rainfall for several days. The mountains surrounding the Oroville Dam received between 10 and 20 inches of rain from Wednesday to Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
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The North American Free Trade Agreement could use an update, but withdrawing the United States from the 1994 accord could dismantle key supply chains and threaten millions of U.S. jobs, former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills said Monday.
"It would be the gravest mistake you could make, economically, for our nation," Hills, who served as trade representative under President George H. W. Bush, told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."
On Monday, President Donald Trump will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The two will reportedly discuss economic ties, jobs and women in the workforce.
"Canada is our largest export destination, and Mexico is our second largest. And I think the prime minister does not want that to be destroyed," Hills said.
Trump's stated mission for NAFTA is to renegotiate the agreement, and if renegotiation fails, then remove the United States altogether.
But the trade relationship between the United States, Mexico and Canada is highly interdependent, and withdrawing from it could stifle competition and hit nearly 5 million U.S. workers whose jobs rely on NAFTA, Hills said.
"There are a lot of things we could do to make ourselves more competitive, but let's not tear down the structure that has given so much to each of us," Hills contended.
"What [Trump] ought to do is use it as a useful foundation and build upon it with the changes that have occurred in the last 23 years" like the emergence of smartphones, she said.
Hills, who also served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Gerald Ford, argued that disrupting the supply chains that exist across the North American continent will hinder the United States' competitiveness in global trade.
"Our most efficient supply chains are in North America," Hills said. "You ask the state of Washington, 'What do you import?' And they say airplane parts. 'What do you export?' Airplanes."
"If we were to cut off our supply chains for imports, we would be far less competitive in terms of our exports," she said.
Neither Robert Lighthizer, known China hawk and Trump's pick to be his U.S. trade representative, nor Wilbur Ross, the billionaire Trump tapped to be secretary of Commerce, have been confirmed.
If approved, the two are expected to spearhead negotiations for "free and fair" deals with the United States' trading partners.
President Donald Trump may want more drastic trade changes with Mexico than with Canada, but making that happen will complicated, expert Thomas Bollyky told CNBC on Monday.
The three countries' trade deals are tied together in the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has repeatedly slammed.
"It's not clear that you can have the differential treatment that the president is suggesting with the two countries without Congress being heavily involved. And once Congress becomes involved, there are a lot of statutory timelines for negotiation of that agreement. It gets a lot more complicated," the senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations said in an interview with "Closing Bell."
Trump met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House on Monday and afterward touted the trade relationship between the two countries. He also said he thought the U.S. gets a worse deal from Mexico.
"We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We'll be tweaking it. We'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It's a much less severe situation than what's taken place on the southern border," Trump said at a joint White House press conference with Trudeau.
Alan Tonelson, a former research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, believes revamping NAFTA will improve all of North America's manufacturing competitiveness.
"That could be a win, win, win for all three countries," said Tonelson, founder of the economics and policy blog RealityChek.
While the backers of NAFTA promised the deal would greatly improve North American competitiveness, the exact opposite has occurred, he told "Closing Bell."
"Industry after industry in North American manufacturers, whether you're talking about Mexican, Canadian or U.S., have lost global market share," Tonelson argued.
Trump has called for a renegotiation of the 1994 deal, which he says has harmed American workers.
CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
Despite his campaign vows to take a tougher line with North Korea, President Donald Trump's restrained public reaction to Pyongyang's first ballistic missile launch on his watch underscores that he has few good options to curb its missile and nuclear programs.
The responses under consideration which range from additional sanctions to U.S. shows of force to beefed-up missile defense, according to one administration official do not seem to differ significantly so far from the North Korea playbook followed by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.
Even the idea of stepping up pressure on China to rein in a defiant North Korea has been tried to little avail by successive administrations. But Beijing is showing no signs of softening its resistance under a new U.S. president who has bashed them on trade, currency and the contested South China Sea.
More dramatic responses to North Korea's missile tests would be direct military action or negotiations. But neither appears to be on the table the first because it would risk regional war, the latter because it would be seen as rewarding Pyongyang for bad behavior. And neither would offer certain success.
"Trump's options are limited," said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
Trump's initial public comments on Saturday on the test launch of what was believed to be an intermediate-range Musudan-class missile were unexpectedly measured and brief compared to earlier bluster about another U.S. adversary, Iran, since he took office on January 20.
"I just want everybody to understand, and fully know, that the United States of America is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 percent," Trump told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida, speaking in a solemn tone alongside visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The U.S. president did not mention North Korea or signal any retaliatory plans for what was widely seen as an early effort to test the new administration.
By contrast, Trump tweeted "It won't happen!" in January after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the North was close to testing an intercontinental ballistic missile.
White House adviser Stephen Miller insisted on ABC's "This Week" that Trump's one-sentence statement was an "important show of solidarity" with Japan. He told Fox News's "Fox News Sunday" the administration was going to bolster its allies in the region against the "increasing hostility" of North Korea.
While no one can rule out that Trump might still take to Twitter with harsh rhetoric as he often does, some analysts said his relatively subdued initial statement could show that aides have convinced him not to be baited by Pyongyang into issuing threats that would be hard to carry out, especially while his North Korea strategy is still being formulated.
Vowing more assertive approach
Trump's aides have said that they will take a more assertive approach than the Obama policy dubbed "strategic patience," which involved gradually scaling up sanctions and diplomatic pressure and essentially waiting out the North Korean leadership. But the new administration has been vague about how it would do this.
The Trump administration had been expecting a North Korean "provocation" and will consider a full range of options in response, but they would be calibrated to show U.S. resolve while avoiding escalation, the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The stakes would be higher, however, if nuclear-capable North Korea makes good on its threat to test an ICBM of a kind that could someday hit the United States, analysts said.
Trump and his aides are likely to weigh new U.S. sanctions to tighten financial controls, an increase in naval and air assets and joint military exercises in and around the Korean peninsula and accelerated installation of new missile defense systems in South Korea, the official said.
Trump has also made clear that he believes China has not done enough to use its influence to help rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic programs.
The U.S. official told Reuters that Trump would now step up pressure on Beijing, but acknowledged that there were limits to how far China would go, especially in enforcing sanctions, because of its own interests in avoiding destabilization of North Korea.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the new administration might go a step beyond Obama's approach and focus on imposing "secondary sanctions" on firms and entities that help North Korea's weapons programs, many of which are in China.
Also unclear is whether Trump's phone call last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which the U.S. president backed away from his threat to break from America's long-standing "one China" policy, would engender greater cooperation from Beijing on North Korea.
"Beijing has enormous leverage over Pyongyang thanks to being one of its only trading partners and in fact could not survive without Chinese economic assistance," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the conservative Center for the National Interest.
Riki Ellison, who heads the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, an industry group, said Trump should also move quickly to beef up missile defense in both South Korea and Japan for which the Obama administration has already laid much of the groundwork. "He cannot ignore this," he said. "It has to be swift."
North Korea's repeated missile launches prompted Washington and Seoul to agree to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile battery in South Korea later this year, a system strongly opposed by Beijing, which worries that its powerful radar undermines its own security.
There is no shortage of advice being offered to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he prepares to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday at the White House in Washington. Here are five pieces of advice from a variety of pundits, politicians and diplomats:
1. Focus on the jobs. Nine million of them in the United States depend on trade with Canada. That's been one of the key talking points the Trudeau government has been hammering at home and in meetings with Trump's people in the U.S. People like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson already know this, but don't take it for granted that Trump has received the message.
2. Don't preach on values. Trump may offend many Canadians with his much-publicized views towards Muslims, women and Mexicans. Ian Lee, a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa says it would be "childish and juvenile and irresponsible" for anyone to think Trudeau's job is to go to Washington to preach Canadian values to Trump when a renegotiated NAFTA, a possible import tax and Buy America protectionism are on the table.
3. Focus on tone, go easy on the substance, for now. It could take Trump several more months to fill the thousands of top-level government jobs in his new administration, says former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. Derek Burney.
4. Commit more money for the military. Trump has called NATO obsolete and bemoaned the fact that most of its 27 other members Canada included have failed to meet the alliance's spending target of two percent of GDP. Canada spends less than one per cent. Roland Paris, Trudeau's former foreign policy adviser, says it is time to boost defense spending because Trump's rhetoric "poses a signal challenge to all of America's partners."
5. Steer clear of talk of climate change. Trump is no fan of this. He's threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. Canada worked alongside Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, to get the deal done in late 2015. Georganne Burke, an American-born Trump supporter who is a vice-president of a Toronto public relations firm, says Trudeau needs to tone down the rhetoric on climate change because most U.S. conservatives were angered when Obama labelled it the greatest threat to the world.
A U.K. flower delivery start-up has secured a fresh multimillion-pound bunch of investor funding just a day ahead of the industry's all-important Valentines Day frenzy.
Bloom & Wild announced on Monday the successful fundraising of an additional 3.75 million ($4.69 million) led by Burda Principal Investments and MMC to take its total outside funding levels to 6.75 million.
The company, founded in 2013 by a former management consultant Aron Gelbard and a former hedge fund partner Ben Stanway, sought to take the stress out of flower delivery by providing a service that could be easily ordered on a mobile phone and posted through the recipient's letterbox without any damage.
"My business partner and I had both had disappointing experiences sending flowers, and found it especially hard to do so from a mobile phone. When we learned that flowers go through lots of steps in the supply chain and so are often expensive and not very fresh on arrival, we wondered if we could partner with growers and do letterbox deliveries to create a new kind of flower company," Gelbard told CNBC in emailed comments.
The company focused on optimizing website and mobile technology to make the ordering process as simple as possible by minimizing the amount of information that had to be typed by the client order and by limiting the range of bouquets on offer.
Bloom & Wild, which delivers tens of thousands of bouquets a month and has enjoyed a monthly growth rate of 35 percent in recent years, according to the company also developed the boxes to ensure flowers are able to breathe and are not squished during the delivery process.
Gelbard says the company is soon looking forward to providing the same service to French and German customers as it has to the U.K. and Ireland.
"In addition to continuing to invest in technology and floristry to improve the customer experience, we'll also be expanding internationally into France and Germany and developing our corporate gifting business," Gelbard explained when asked how he and the team intended to deploy the new funds.
The company's growth come at a difficult time for the 1 billion florist industry in the U.K. with market researchers IBISWorld estimating growth from 2012 2017 registered a decline of 2.4 percent. Florists have been particularly challenged by increased competition from non-specialty providers such as supermarkets and garages which tend to offer the products at a lower price point.
This week, however, there should be hopefully enough business to go around for all in countries where Valentines' Day is popularly celebrated, with February 14th said to be the third most popular day for the purchasing of flowers all year in the U.S., according to data from the National Retail Federation.
Yet it can also cause some headaches for busy florists, subjected as they are to the ebb and flow of millions of individual relationship dynamics.
"We're had lots of awkward last-minute requests for cancellations - luckily our Customer Delight team are able to be very flexible!" said Gelbard.
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The question of who will be Germany's next Chancellor looks increasingly unlikely with the current incumbent, Angela Merkel seeing her lead in the opinion polls being eroded by socialist leader Martin Schulz.
The outcome of the autumn federal elections is looking increasingly uncertain thanks to a combination of Schulz and the stronger chances of seeing the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD) getting its first parliamentary seats.
"I don't think there would be that much of a difference (between Merkel and Schulz) to be honest in terms of policy," Pepijn Bergsen, analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC on Monday.
However, he added that one still needs to know the program of the socialist leader. "There's been quite a lot of campaign phrases from Mr Schulz but no real policy platform yet."
Schulz has been gathering momentum in opinion polls, with the latest prediction placing him one percentage point below Merkel. An Emnid poll released last Saturday showed 33 percent of votes for Merkel's CDU, followed by 32 percent of the voting intentions to Schulz's SPD and 10 percent for the far-right AfD.
"He doesn't quite fit the model of traditional German politician, he doesn't have a whole long list of titles behind his name, having dropped out of secondary schoolit is something new even though he is still part of the establishment," Bergsen told CNBC about Schulz, who previously served as president of the European Parliament.
Schulz's experience in European Union politics has allowed him not to be associated with the socialist party in Germany and some of its less popular policies, including the support for labor market reforms. Nonetheless, he also lacks experience in German politics at the national level, having moved from being a mayor at a small German town to the
European Parliament.
Schulz, just like Merkel, has to deal with the growing support for the populist AfD.
"Germany seems to be a bit behind to a lot of other European nations in that move towards that populist vote," Bergsen told CNBC while noting that the AfD is almost certain to get into parliament after the election vote.
Such surge for the AfD is set to complicate coalition dynamics.
German voters elected Frank Walter Steinmeier, a former foreign minister, as their next president on Sunday. The role is mostly symbolic, but Steinmeier was supported by the socialist party, which has added pressure on Merkel and her CDU party.
On Saturday, the German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble told the press that Schulz is like the U.S. President Donald Trump, for allowing his supporters to chant "Make Europe great again."
"This is just the first round of attacks from the CDU on what is still quite a new figure in German national politics," Bergsen told CNBC.
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President Donald Trump should not ignore the vast "knowledge base" embedded in the various federal agencies when crafting his foreign policy agenda, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman told CNBC on Monday.
"The capabilities and qualities of the people that I interacted with at the embassy and the highest levels of the U.S. government are as good as any people that I've worked with anywhere in the world," Heyman said on "Squawk Box." That's high praise from a diplomat who served three years in the Obama administration and for 33 years at Goldman Sachs .
Trump has leaned on Goldman alums in key administration posts. Ex-Goldman banker Steven Mnuchin is expected to be confirmed as Treasury secretary Monday evening. Gary Cohn, who left his No. 2 executive spot at Goldman, serves as director of the White House National Economic Council.
Heyman said it appears Trump did not engage in the large part of the infrastructure of the U.S. government before releasing some of his early executive orders. That's been "causing him some difficulties" recently, the former ambassador added.
The president has suffered two defeats in court over his executive order temporarily banning entry into the U.S. by travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries that have raised concerns about being hotbeds for terrorism.
"The president should utilize the knowledge base that we have in the various departments," Heyman said. "This is a resource for the White House to tap into. I think it's a mistake not to tap into that."
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President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda and his focus on curbing immigration have stoked fears that visas widely given to technology workers may be on the chopping block. Since the early 1990s, H-1B visas have helped companies in the U.S. access qualified and typically lower-paid technology workers. The visas require that recipients hold a bachelor's degree and qualify as practitioners of a "specialty occupation" in their field of study.
Currently, around 85,000 visas are granted annually to immigrants by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. After that, the individual holding the visa can apply for a green card, making H-1Bs a common path for immigrants who want to continue to work and settle in the United States. Amid the court battles over Trump's so-called travel ban, worries have grown in India that the visa program could be next in the president's sights. The White House has said it plans to reform the H-1B program, but details about what action it will take are still unclear.
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About 70 percent of the 85,000 H-1B visas granted in 2015 were issued to engineers, designers, coders and others from India, according to Goldman Sachs. That has put the country's tech sector, including IT outsourcing companies like Infosys , Tata Consultancy Services , Wipro and Cognizant under pressure. Wipro and Cognizant were not immediately available for comment; Tata and Infosys declined to comment for this report.
"Immigration restrictions are the main source of India's vulnerability," Sonal Varma, chief India economist at Nomura, wrote to clients. Varma went on to say that the viability of the offshoring model used by Indian software companies could be at risk. Citi agrees. "Immigration reform remains an overhang to watch and likely a key theme for the IT services sector in 2017," Surendra Goyal, Citi's head of India Research, wrote to clients in early January. After India, the highest number of H-1B visas went to China, followed by Mexico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and Japan.
Will Trump call for higher pay?
Trudeau: Millions of jobs depend on the US-Canada relationship 2:52 PM ET Mon, 13 Feb 2017 | 05:03
Now it's Canada's turn.
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met Monday to discuss economic ties between the two nations following months of Trump trash-talking NAFTA, the three-way trade deal governing the two largest markets for U.S. exports.
Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to renegotiate the deal with Canada and Mexico to "get a better deal for our workers."
"And I don't mean just a little bit better, I mean a lot better," Trump told a Pennsylvania rally last summer.
But on Monday, Trudeau faced less of Trump's wrath about "unfair" trade deals than did trade partners China and Mexico, thanks in part to a relatively small U.S. merchandise trade deficit with Canada.
"We will be tweaking it," Trump told a news conference. "It's a much less severe situation than what has taken place on the southern border."
Just after 3 a.m. last Friday morning, Huffington Post contributor and progressive advocate Alex Mohajer set to work on a brief investigative project on Twitter . Pulling together red markercircled articles, graphs, and screenshots from numerous financial websites, he rifled off 16 tweets with prosecutorial zeal and one ambitious goal: to build a compelling case linking Donald Trump to Russia's $11 billion sale of its oil giant, Rosneft.
"It's getting harder to ignore growing evidence that Trump was involved with Russian oil deal," Mohajer wrote after compiling his tweets into a longer Twitter Moments thread. "CONCLUSION? Koch-backed front cos financed climate deniers/alt-right, took control of govt while Trump diverts attn for Exxon, Koch, Rosneft," he wrote. A minute later he offered a hedge: "ALTERNATIVE CONCLUSION: I am batshit crazy and need some sleep! Good night world. I will be curious to see if others are able to confirm."
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Mohajer wasn't wrong to assume that others might try to confirm his tweetstorm. Since the election, he's emerged as one of a number of vigilante investigators dutifully entering evidence into Twitter's court of public opinion in hope of exposing corruption in Trumpland. Now that Trump is exercising his presidential power, the tweetstorms are intensifying and growing ever-more conspiratorial. Unlike their more fantastical Infowars analogs, these vigilante investigators steer clear of explicit allegations, hewing instead to grave insinuations. Their evidence is almost exclusively rooted in already-published reporting; they sift through the tea leaves of unconnected media stories, raising questions yet to be answered by the professionals.
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Call it the Alex Jonesification of the left or the rise of the Blue Detectives the pure id of a strand of conspiratorial thought of the left and the anti-Trump movement. It's intriguing and eyeroll-inspiring all at once, but for the #resistance crowd it's a mooring force. Most of all, it's an effective messaging tactic: It's designed to go viral, to spark outrage and perhaps even action.
If you spend enough time online, you'll see Blue Detectives springing up everywhere. Two weeks ago, Google engineer Yonatan Zunger wrote a post on Medium that went viral. In it, he laid out a succession of "raw news reports" suggesting that the haphazard rollout and enforcement of Trump's refugee ban across the country "was the trial balloon for a coup d'etat against the United States." In the spirit of Silicon Valley A/B testing "it gave them useful information," he argued. But as some, including Slate, have pointed out, Zunger's post sometimes elides fact in favor of intrigue: His suggestion that the Department of Homeland Security could become a force loyal to the President alone, for example, does not acknowledge that DHS Secretary John Kelly was reportedly unaware of the administration's immigration order until just moments before Trump signed it.
On Twitter, especially, the Blue Detectives are increasingly active in theorizing that Trump and his associates are involved in a dizzying multidimensional plot and, crucially, are always 10 steps ahead of the American public. Perhaps the most infamous example comes from technology and business strategist Eric Garland's "game theory" tweetstorm, which suggests a cunning on the part of the Trump administration and Russia to distract, dodge, and outwit the American public while bolstering its coffers and power. That 127-tweet screed plows through the last few decades of US foreign policy, ultimately arriving at a patriotic but empty conclusion devoid of any compelling revelations about Russia.
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This new online conspiracy culture can't be fully divorced from an election affected more than usual by an actual conspiracy. Russian interference in favor of Trump was open, on state media, and covert, through hacking, which has been widely and convincingly documented. Intelligence agencies have also begun to confirm the credibility, CNN and BuzzFeed News reported Friday, of some elements of a dossier assembled by a former top British spy though not the most lurid allegations of Russian blackmail. And the Washington Post recently reported that Trump's national security adviser, Mike Flynn, had made false statements about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
Meanwhile on Twitter, writers with a flair for what could be true and a good sense for their audience have taken those investigations well past the brink of what they know. The most effective of the bunch is Adam Khan, a former marketing consultant and tech guru turned Twitter investigator. Khan, who goes by the handle @Khanoisseur, is an indefatigable presence on Twitter. Each day he monomaniacally strings together observations, charts, and images into detailed tweetstorms that rack up thousands of retweets. None of them make news, but they raise questions and do attract eyeballs.
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The images mostly screenshots from deeply reported coverage of Russia and the Trump organization are frequently annotated with red type, arrows, and lines that encourage the reader to follow Khan's logic. Veterans of forums like Reddit will see aesthetic parallels between Khan's work and some of that site's more conspiratorial r/findbostonbombers-style threads.
It is a digital updating of Glenn Beck's famous blackboard, whose eraser was especially effective on the distinction between correlation and causation. But this is a form of vigilante investigation that's native to the internet; Gawker once described it as "Chart Brut a digital middle-ground between the string-and-thumbtack cork-board flowcharts favored by premium cable obsessives like Rust Cohle and Carrie Mathison and the meaningless tangles of agency responsibilities beloved by security-apparatus bureaucrats."
Khan who wrote an e-book on how to gain followers and influence on Twitter uses the social network because he sees it as a direct line to journalists and big thinkers. He views his job as building flow charts of publicly available information to raise the big questions. "I'm not manufacturing anything new," he told BuzzFeed News. "But I'm taking this piece of reporting from this journalist and showing clearly how it aligns with something else out there. And put together, I think it shows there's a bigger story. If nothing else, I hope my work leads to more people doing their own investigative journalism."
Just after the election, Khan quit his freelance consulting job to pursue the Trump investigations full-time. He has so far raised nearly $14,000 on GoFundMe in support of this effort. If he raises enough money, he may write a book. When he spoke to BuzzFeed News in late January, Khan said he'd been getting DMs from government sources with potential tips among them, one from someone claiming to have a line on Trump's still undisclosed tax returns.
Recently, Khan riled the tech world with a 23-tweet thread musing about possible ties between Russia, Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and some of the startups in which he's invested. "The more I dive into Russian-backed/Kushners' data collection efforts, the more I'm convinced there's a bigger strategy," Khan tweeted with a link to a different thread on the Kushner brothers' investments. "Trump potentially has his own shadow NSA," he further mused. Left unsaid, a crucial caveat: Kushner investments, made via a venture capital company called Thrive, do not appear to give the Kushners operational control of the companies in which they invest. The thread checks all the boxes of the viral anti-Trump conspiracy: It's well-researched, endlessly intriguing, and unsupported by evidence.
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The internet has historically been a near perfect incubator for conspiracy theories. Not long after the attacks of 9/11 average citizens flocked to Blogspot accounts dedicated to vigilante investigations of the events leading up to that day. The same happened after Hurricane Katrina, with blogs launching serious amateur analysis of the collapse of New Orleans' levees. A decade ago, conspiracy-minded bloggers made major contributions to reporting around everything from George W. Bush's National Guard service to intelligence failures in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Once these sorts of efforts were largely confined to obscure message boards, little-known blogs, and occasionally AM talk radio. Their prominent voices tended to be volatile fringe figures who'd rarely appear in public. More recently particularly with the advent of the Trump era they've attained much greater visibility. Today, the work of the Blue Detectives and those on the far right is amplified and extended by same-minded people sharing what they want to believe a byproduct of the social media echo chambers that birthed "fake news." Once peddled by anonymous tinfoil hatwearers, even utterly unfounded conspiratorial musings are now disseminated by tech employees, opinion journalists and even some of the left's well known voices.
Take former United States Labor Secretary Robert Reich a regular on cable news and a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. Two weeks ago, after a planned visit turned riot by Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos, Reich penned a blog post about the event titled "A Yiannopoulos, Bannon, Trump Plot to Control American Universities?"
In their coverage of the riot, far-right outlets including Breitbart News had suggested the Trump administration pull federal funding for the school. Reich's response took a conspiratorial page from the far right, suggesting that "the possibility that Yiannopoulos and Breitbart were in cahoots with the agitators in order to lay the groundwork for a Trump crackdown on universities and their federal funding." While not a tweetstorm, Reich made his case in a familiar bulleted list. "Hmmm. Connect these dots," he wrote before rattling off six semi-related points connecting Yiannopoulos to Breitbart and then the Trump administration. "I don't want to add to the conspiratorial musings of so many about this very conspiratorial administration, but it strikes me there may be something worrying going on here," he concluded.
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The post is a textbook example of a Blue Detective conspiracy musing. It's a bit ridiculous, but not quite out of the realm of possibility. It attempts to use well reported information to "connect the dots" and raise an ultimately unanswerable question. And it ends, like so many Blue Detective theories, with a self-effacing nod to readers: Yes, I know how crazy this sounds.
In person, Reich is more cautious about shifting the political discourse toward conspiracy theories. "That fringe stuff is out there more and more, and that's dangerous," he told BuzzFeed News last week. "If we become a conspiracy society, we all carry around a degree of paranoia and that's not healthy for democracy. And that's why transparency is so critically important we now have a responsibility to call a lie a lie."
This desire for transparency is a key engine of the Blue Detectives. Its emergence is a side-effect of the rise of the Upside Down conservative media, which, along with its "alternative facts," audience, and interpretation of the truth, has created two opposing political realities. "We're way beyond having factual disputes now," Reich said. "What we're faced with are bald-faced lies and it's important to be extremely clear about what's a lie and what's true." With basic facts in dispute, efforts by the anti-Trump #resistance to monopolize truth have manifested in a peculiar role reversal. While the far right is building a media ecosystem that looks and feels a lot like the mainstream, some on the left are beginning to resemble the more conspiratorial fringes of the far-right. The resemblance is most uncanny when the two universes intersect, like this conspiratorial tweet about Infowars, which feels like it could have been written by Alex Jones himself:
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But the emergence of the Blue Detectives is also a pointed critique of the mainstream press. The message: The media isn't doing its job, so we'll do the legwork for them. Near the end of his Medium post, Zunger admitted as much. "Conclusive? No. But it raises some very interesting questions for journalists to investigate." Adam Khan agrees.
"No question there was a huge failing among the media during this last election," Khan said. He argued that the press is in "trance mode" when it comes to Trump and his distractions. "There's so much to be chased down in a Woodward and Bernstein manner and so my job is to ask the questions for others to answer. To ask 'Why? Why isn't anyone else pursuing this angle?'" Khan believes without the right pressure and grassroots investigations from people like him, Trump will only claim more power. "There's a need to apply more pressure to the press," he said. "It's sad, but if that's what it'll take to get the accountability, we'll do it."
In keeping with the tradition of the Blue Detectives, Khan is self-aware and by no means reckless. "You have to be careful because you don't want to get into Alex Jones territory," he joked. "You can't run around yelling and making accusations. It's about recognizing patterns that then require more digging." Khan for his part is constantly thinking about his tone and how frequently he posts in order not to appear like somebody who's taken his conspiracy too far. "How you do it divides you from somebody who's asking the questions our senators and media should've asked and somebody who's a conspiracy theorist."
Members of the Upside Down media are paying attention, too. "It's even happening to people who have reputations in the media for being pretty normal," new right blogger and Twitter personality Mike Cernovich told BuzzFeed News. "I saw this great meme the other day that said if there's ever a terrorist attack in America under Trump the left is going to go full Infowars. And I think that's totally true." For Cernovich, the rise of the left's conspiracy-theory tendencies is an opportunity to appeal to a broader audience.
"Honestly, that's why I've pivoted with my brand and my trolling today compared to a year ago is mild," he said. While Cernovich is still waging a Twitter war against the mainstream media and the left, his admitted softening highlights just how much the roles of the duelling media ecosystems of the far left and far right have reversed.
"They've adopted that fringe-level mentality aggressively," Cernovich said. "People on left are making themselves look ridiculous and so I see it as an opportunity to look reasonable by comparison."
Caroline O'Donovan contributed reporting to this story.
The Steven Mnuchin Treasury Department is starting to take shape.
After Mnuchin is confirmed, which is likely to happen Monday evening, several Wall Street veterans are expected to join the former Goldman Sachs banker and Hollywood producer in senior leadership roles at Treasury.
Senior Goldman Sachs banker Jim Donovan is under strong consideration for deputy Treasury secretary and could serve as Mnuchin's No. 2 if confirmed by the Senate, people familiar with the matter said. Donovan is close to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and served as a major fundraiser and policy advisor for Jeb Bush during the 2016 campaign.
Justin Muzinich, a former Morgan Stanley banker now at Muzinich & Co., is likely to take a senior position, possibly as undersecretary for domestic finance or counselor. The counselor position would not require Senate confirmation. Muzinich was Jeb Bush's top policy advisor in 2016.
Economist David Malpass, a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, is expected to be nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as undersecretary for international affairs.
Representatives for the White House and for Mnuchin failed to return calls for comment. None of the selections are final and Mnuchin or Trump could change their minds before appointments or nominations are made. Donovan, Muzinich and Malpass could also change plans.
But if they go forward, the trio would round out the top level at Treasury, which has been operating for weeks with limited staff led by Adam Szubin, an Obama and George W. Bush administration holdover, as acting secretary.
All three men are well-known both on Wall Street and in Washington. Malpass, who was an economic advisor to Trump during the 2016 campaign, also served as chief economist at Bear Stearns in the years before the bank's collapse.
Donovan joined Goldman in 1993 and covered major clients in both investment banking and investment management. He made partner in 2000 and worked with then co-presidents John Thain and John Thornton on broader strategy for Goldman.
For the last eight years, Donovan has also served as a professor of corporate strategy at the University of Virginia law school. Donovan would be the latest Goldman alum to join a Trump White House team that already includes several former executives of the bank including Mnuchin, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and senior Trump advisors Dina Powell and Stephen Bannon.
The selection of Donovan, Muzinich and Malpass for the high-profile Treasury positions will likely draw fresh grumbling from the left and some on the populist right because of their association with Wall Street. Trump routinely criticized bankers during his populist run to the White House, singling out Goldman for specific criticisms.
But for corporate executives and investors worried about the erratic nature of the Trump White House and the president's inclination toward protectionism and a harsh approach to immigration, all three selections are likely to be viewed with relief.
Both Malpass and Muzinich are well-known and highly respected both on Wall Street and among establishment Republicans in Washington. Donovan, a behind-the-scenes operator who generally avoids the press, is an extraordinarily detail-oriented banker who could prove invaluable to Mnuchin as he assists with the creation of significant new fiscal policy.
The Treasury Department is likely to play a key role as Trump works with Republicans in Congress to develop a corporate and individual tax reform package. Treasury also handles economic sanctions and currency issues and works with other departments on trade initiatives that are central to Trump's presidency.
Mnuchin is viewed as less protectionist than Trump and some other West Wing advisors including Bannon. He and Cohn both come from more internationalist and trade-friendly backgrounds.
The hope among many CEOs and financial industry executives is that they will help steer Trump away from trade wars while helping implement a policy of tax cuts, infrastructure investment and reduced regulations that could boost economic growth and continue a stock market rally that began following Trump's election.
The "Trump rally" picked up some fresh momentum last week after the president pledged "phenomenal" tax reform. But it remains vulnerable to concerns about protectionist trade policy, a harsh approach to immigration and a confrontational foreign policy. The more the administration hews to the Mnuchin-Cohn view of the world, the more likely it is that the Trump rally can find new highs.
Ben White is Politico's chief economic correspondent and a CNBC contributor. He also authors the daily tip sheet Politico Morning Money. Follow him on Twitter @morningmoneyben.
U.S. Constitution Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Defining a 'constitutional crisis'
There are two major papers in the American constitutional law literature on the concept of a "constitutional crisis." The first, from Princeton political scientist Keith Whittington, was written in the wake of the impeachment of President Clinton and the contested 2000 election, both of which provoked fears that the US was either in, or barely avoided, a constitutional crisis. Whittington argued that neither came close to qualifying. "Constitutional crises arise out of the failure, or strong risk of failure, of a constitution to perform its central functions," he wrote. That didn't happen in the impeachment (which unfolded according to the procedures laid out in Articles 1 and 2) or in the 2000 election (in which decisions of executive branch officials in Florida were challenged through normal legal channels and all actors respected the ultimate decision of the US Supreme Court, whether or not they thought it was rightly decided). So what would qualify? Whittington divided constitutional crises into two categories. Operational crises occur "when important political disputes cannot be resolved within the existing constitutional framework." That is, the Constitution itself is failing, and is allowing people engaged in a political conflict to each behave in ways that together can result in calamity. A "crisis of constitutional fidelity," by contrast, occurs when, "important political actors threaten to become no longer willing to abide by existing constitutional arrangements or systematically contradict constitutional proscriptions." That's when what the Constitution prescribes is clear, but one or more politician or branch of government willfully defies it. The secession crisis of 1860 was, Whittington argues, both an operational and a fidelity crisis. It was a fidelity crisis because some political actors namely the seceding Southern states refused to obey the dictates of the Constitution and explicitly rejected its power over them. But it was an operational crisis too, because, "the text of the Constitution was silent on the question of secession, and it provided no clear mechanism for resolving the contested question of whether and how states could secede from the Union." Whittington told me via email that he doesn't think the current standoff between Trump and the judiciary qualifies as either a fidelity or operational crisis. While Trump's comments are, he says, "certainly disquieting," he adds that "disagreements between the executive and the courts are not uncommon, and are sometimes expressed rather strongly." What would change matters is if Trump were to receive an unfavorable ruling from the Supreme Court and ignore it. "If the president were really to contemplate ignoring a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, we'd be in nearly uncharted waters," Whittington adds. He noted that the US has come close to that scenario in the past, but that in just about every case either the president or the Court backed down before an explicit violation occurred. For instance, in 1974 the Supreme Court ruled that Richard Nixon had to hand over the Watergate tapes to the special prosecutor's office, and Nixon briefly considered not complying, as he strongly felt the president should not be subject to judicial proceedings outside of impeachment. But strong pressure from congressional Republicans and the threat that he would be impeached anyway caused him to back down and comply. Balkin agrees that open defiance of clear court dictates could qualify as a crisis. He and UT Austin's Sanford Levinson published the other widely cited article besides Whittington's categorizing and analyzing constitutional crisis. In addition to Whittington's two categories, they add a third: when two or more political actors each strongly believe the other is violating the Constitution or constitutional norms. In fidelity crises, it's clear that only one side is violating the Constitution. In operational crises, it's clear both sides are obeying the Constitution. In type three power struggle crises ("power struggle" is my term, not theirs, but it's clearer than "type three"), each side has a real argument that it's obeying and the other isn't. Balkin and Levinson offer a number of examples of power struggle crises, including the Nullification Crisis (in which South Carolina claimed it had the constitutional right to not enforce a federal tariff, Andrew Jackson claimed it didn't, and each had arguments for why they were right), the conflict between Andrew Johnson and Congress over each one's role in Reconstruction, and the Little Rock Crisis in 1957 between the government of Arkansas and the Eisenhower administration. "We are not having a constitutional crisis, at least not yet," Balkin told me via email, elaborating on a blog post he published on the topic. "Trump has not announced that he is going outside the Constitution, and he has not openly defied a judicial order. If he does either of these things, and he won't back down, then we would be in a constitutional crisis."
Maybe not a crisis, but "hardball"?
No expert I talked to, including Whittington and Balkin, characterized the current situation as a constitutional crisis. "As far as we know, the executive is complying" with court orders, Yale's Heather Gerken says. "That's not a constitutional crisis. That's a constitution working." Luckily, the legal literature has developed other, arguably clearer, categories for talking about heated conflict like this. In 2004, Mark Tushnet, now at Harvard Law, introduced the concept of "constitutional hardball": when political actors are clearly acting within their legal and institutional limits, but are violating past practices or norms in a way that feels unprecedented and provides advantage to their side. For example, he argues that Republican efforts to redistrict congressional seats in Texas and Colorado in 2003, after they had already redistricted for the census, count as constitutional hardball, as does the impeachment effort against Bill Clinton, as does Democrats' obstruction of appellate nominees in the early George W. Bush administration. In none of those cases was anybody acting outside their prerogative per the Constitution. But in every case, they were using those powers in new and tough ways that caught their opponents off guard. "In the current spat, if there is hardball going on, it takes the form of White House people bypassing the established systems for vetting executive orders," Tushnet told me. "Not submitting them to career people in the Office of Legal Counsel, but sending it apparently only to the political, shadow person they sent over there. They can say, 'We did send it to OLC,' but the person who got it is not the kind of person who'd ordinarily be used to vet these issues."
The rule that the president obeys a judicial order in peacetime is ancient, and it is well established to be a good one except if the judiciary goes haywire, which is certainly not the case here. Eric Posner University of Chicago law professor
But he was open to the idea that Trump's rhetoric against the judiciary could count too. "The more or less formal definition of constitutional hardball is that it consists of actions that are inconsistent with settled ways of doing things. In a political context, statements and rhetoric count as actions," he explained. "I want to say I didn't draw that distinction when I initially developed the idea. Now that we've had more examples, rhetoric can count as a form of constitutional hardball."
Constitutional "showdowns" are important, but not crises
The University of Chicago's Eric Posner and Harvard's Adrian Vermeule introduced the parallel concept of "constitutional showdowns," in 2008. The idea is similar to the idea of hardball, but focuses more on the precedents that such conflicts can create. A constitutional showdown, Posner and Vermeule wrote, is a "a disagreement between branches of government over their constitutional powers that ends in the total or partial acquiescence by one branch in the views of the other and that creates a constitutional precedent." They cite, as examples, the conflict between Nixon and the Supreme Court over the Watergate tapes (in which Nixon totally acquiesced and a new precedent was created limiting the president's powers), the conflict between the Court and Harry Truman over seizing a steel mill (Truman backed down, creating another precedent limiting presidential powers), Abraham Lincoln's refusal to obey an order from Chief Justice Roger Taney to release a man arrested by Union troops in 1861 (which created a new precedent enhancing the president's war powers), and Andrew Jackson's refusal to help enforce a Supreme Court ruling in 1832 that Georgia's laws did not apply in Indian territory (which set a precedent, since contradicted by events like the Little Rock Crisis in 1957, of presidents not always acting to enforce federal rulings against state governments). Posner has been clear that he views Trump's attacks on the judiciary as a very serious matter. He used a New York Times op-ed to urge Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch to condemn Trump's behavior (presaging Gorsuch's comments that Trump's rhetoric is "disappointing and disheartening"). But he has also written that the present situation doesn't rise to the level of "constitutional crisis." "If Trump ordered border agents to disregard judicial orders blocking the executive order," that would qualify, he told me in an email. But for now we're in a constitutional showdown of a more ordinary variety. "I think showdowns are unavoidable because constitutional rules do not necessarily keep up with the times (while amendment has proven to be too difficult to revise them in a timely fashion), and government depends on cooperation among different institutions," Posner said. And who is right in each showdown can vary. You can think it was right of Lincoln to claim the power to suspend habeas corpus in wartime, but not for Jackson to decline to use federal force to protect Indian rights (and then to use it to commit ethnic cleansing). "But," he added, "the rule that the president obeys a judicial order in peacetime is ancient, and it is well established to be a good one except if the judiciary goes haywire, which is certainly not the case here." Violating that norm would go further than Nixon, Truman, Lincoln, or even, arguably, Jackson went. And Trump ordering border agents to enforce his executive order when judges are telling them not to would violate that norm.
Suppose we get into a crisis. Could Trump then be stopped?
While no one I talked to declared the situation right now a crisis, many expressed concern that President Trump is all too willing to provoke one. "Remember Trump's statement before the election: 'I'll accept the results, if I win'?" Alice Ristroph, a law professor and political theorist at Seton Hall who has written about constitutional crises, says. "I think this administration will accept and preserve the basic structure of the American constitutional system if that system can be manipulated to give the administration what it wants. If Trump is overruled by the courts, who knows what will happen. Maybe a crisis." So what happens then? A lot depends on how institutional actors respond. Anibal Perez-Linan, a comparative political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies presidential democracies in Latin America, including constitutional crises experienced there, notes, "Many countries modeled their constitutions after the US, but most presidential regimes have experienced much more turbulent histories. The reason for American stability lies in the fact that politicians in both parties historically exercised civility and reached deals to process their disagreements." That norm, of course, would take a major battering if Trump rejected a Court edict. In that case, there would be two broad possibilities. One is that Trump, despite an initial rejection, somehow backs down. For that to happen, someone would have to persuade or force him. It could be his close advisers telling him he's gone too far. It could be his own vice president and Cabinet, who could threaten to remove him by invoking the 25th Amendment. But institutionally, the people who are supposed to keep him in check in a case like that are members of Congress. "The crucial thing for both the Court and the president is how Congress, and particularly the congressional Republicans, position themselves on a potential conflict," Whittington says. "If the Republicans make it clear that they would not support presidential defiance of the Court, it would strengthen the hand of the judiciary. It would seem unlikely that congressional Republicans, or even the president's own Cabinet, would be willing to do lasting damage to the courts over these sorts of normal policy disagreements."
But what if no one stops him?
And what if no one keeps him in check? Then you get the possibility that the Court will be duly chastened, a new precedent will be set where its powers are greatly reduced, and the president emerges more powerful than before. "Purges of supreme courts or constitutional tribunals have been a common affair in Latin America, where many presidents have little tolerance for dissent," Perez-Linan notes. Poland's governing party has recently been cracking down on its Constitutional Tribunal in similar ways, raising serious concerns that the rule of law is eroding and democracy is backsliding.
I don't like what Trump is doing, but I'm willing to present it in a conceptual or constitutional theory framework that is independent of my particular views of this particular president. Mark Tushnet Harvard Law professor
The skies are different shades of red while my space pod narrowly avoids a larger flying vehicle above. A gold monument adorns a large white plaza where thousands of humans are walking around. A welcome message from the United Government of Mars greets me. I've arrived in the City of Wisdom and it's the year 2117, a century on from now, and it was very much like a scene from "Star Wars". The virtual reality (VR) experience comes to an end, but my journey through the Red Planet showed the ambitions of countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and entrepreneurs such as SpaceX founder Elon Musk. The Mars 2117 experience was on display at the World Government Summit in Dubai this weekend and highlighted the government's hopes of space travel.
Visitors try out the Mars 2117 virtual reality experience at the World Government Summit in Dubai on February 2, 2017. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
"The city is roughly the size of Chicago. It has a population of 600,000," Saeed Al Gergawi, manager of the scientific and research committee of the World Government Summit, told CNBC in an interview on Monday. "We came up with that number because it's like someone going to an exotic island, not everyone can go first, then we get advancement of rocket tech, which makes people move there easily, then the advancement of oxygen tech to make it more earth like, which would incentivize people." Travel to Mars has been a hot topic in recent times with Tesla boss Musk outlining plans in September to colonize the Red Planet and send people there within the next decade. The idea is to slowly build up sustainable living conditions to eventually have hundreds of thousands of people on the planet in a self-sustaining community.
The Carajas Open Cast Iron Ore mine is the largest iron mine in the World, estimates say the site can be mined at today's rates for another 400 years. In the Amazonian State of Para in the north of Brazil, it is operated by the State owned Vale mining corporation.
Shares of mining companies rose Monday as China-traded iron ore futures soared.
The SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF (XME) rose nearly 1.5 percent to its highest since 2014 with Cliff Natural Resources leading gainers with a 6.9 percent rise.
Brazil's Bovespa index rose almost 1.3 percent with shares of miner Vale jumping 9.2 percent. U.S.-listed shares rose 8.4 percent.
China reported Friday that iron ore imports jumped 12 percent in January from the same period last year to their second highest level on record, according to Reuters. In an effort to fight smog, China's Ministry of Environment Protection has also proposed cutting domestic steel capacity in half, starting at the end of the year, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.
The move higher in Vale also comes after Reuters reported shareholders at the Brazilian company want CEO Murilo Ferreira to stay at the helm for political reasons. Vale did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Shares of U.S. Steel climbed 5.6 percent.
Shares of Cliff Natural Resources are up 31 percent over the last 30 days and more than 500 percent over the last 12 months.
Cliff Natural Resources shares one-month performance
Models walk the runway during the Cushnie et Ochs show at New York Fashion Week on Feb. 10, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
New York Fashion Week was a more muted affair this season, as heavy snowfalls kept many showgoers at bay, and several major designers moved their presentations to the West Coast. Yet for some who stuck with tradition, the fall collections were a way for the fashion set to express their political views after the election. Statements ranged from reminding attendees that "people are people" and sending messages of female empowerment to calling for a revolution. "This is a moment when the rights I took for granted sadly are being threatened," Michelle Smith said before showing the new collection for her line, Milly. She named the collection "Fractured." "It's important to use our voices now in all sorts of different ways." The shows also marked the third season of "see now, wear now," with designers taking different approaches to the model. Rebecca Minkoff and Tommy Hilfiger used their runways to show their spring lineups, while Kate Spade opted for a hybrid model. The affordable luxury brand showcased its fall styles for press and buyers, and live streamed an edited version of its spring collection to consumers. "You have to do your own thing and you have to do what's right for your customers and the people who you want to work with," Kate Spade's chief creative officer Deborah Lloyd said. See below for more highlights from New York Fashion Week. Christian Siriano
A model walks the runway during the Christian Siriano fashion show at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on Feb. 11, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Christian Siriano, who shot to fame after being crowned a winner on "Project Runway," traveled to Nevada's Valley of Fire State Park for his collection. "I just wanted it to feel like you were taken away," Siriano said ahead of his show, held at Manhattan's iconic Plaza Hotel. "When I was there, I felt like I was in a dream. I felt like I was in a different place, and I really wanted to have everyone feel that today." "Take your 20 minutes to just decompress life and look at beautiful things," he said. Christian Siriano
Models walk the runway during the Christian Siriano fashion show at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on Feb. 11, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Not one to shy away from challenging the status quo, Siriano's runway featured women of different colors and sizes. The designer also paired one of his looks with a shirt that read "People Are People," and closed his show to the '80s Depeche Mode song by that title. Cushnie et Ochs
Models walk the runway during the Cushnie et Ochs show at New York Fashion Week on Feb. 10, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Female design duo Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs created a fall collection that was both powerful and sensual. Dresses and jumpsuits featured the pair's famous cutouts and plunging necklines, and models made their final walk down the runway to the tune of Madame Gandhi's "The Future Is Female." Kate Spade
Kate Spade Chief Creative Officer Deborah Lloyd (C) poses with models wearing the label's Fall 2017 collection at the Russian Tea Room on February 10, 2017, in New York City. Cindy Ord | Getty Images for kate spade
Kate Spade's Deborah Lloyd used the multilevel Russian Tea Room to take visitors on a tour through time and geographies. Showgoers entered the Midtown Manhattan venue on the ground floor, where they were greeted with mimosas and chocolate-covered cherries. After climbing the stairs, they entered into another room featuring the fall collection, inspired by 1920s Paris. After going up another flight, fashionistas were back in Morocco, which served as the base for the design house's spring collection camel-shaped bag included. "It's showcasing both, so we have what's just arriving in stores, but also we have what's to come," Lloyd said. Rebecca Minkoff
Models walk the runway at Rebecca Minkoff's Spring 2017 fashion show at The Grove in Los Angeles on February 4, 2017. Getty Images
Rebecca Minkoff's cult following has come to expect a spectacle from her fashion shows and the designer did not disappoint. Moving Minkoff's outing to Los Angeles for spring, models walked along the famous trolly line at The Grove shopping center. In tandem with the show, Minkoff opened a pop-up shop at the center that will stay open through February. Showgoers also had the chance to attend a yoga class and get manicures. Tommy Hilfiger
Models including Hailey Baldwin (L) and Bella Hadid (2R) at the Tommy Hilfiger Spring 2017 Fashion Show on the boardwalk in Venice Beach, Calif., February 8, 2017. Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images
Tommy Hilfiger joined Minkoff on the West Coast, in his second season of "see now, wear now." The spring collection was inspired by California's laid-back attitude, which was carried through via the Venice Beach venue. The designer once again showed his collection amid a carnival atmosphere, featuring rides and a performance by Fergie. Banana Republic
Olivia Palermo, Banana Republic's global style ambassador, made an appearance at the brand's SoHo store on Feb. 9, 2017 as part of New York Fashion Week. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Like Kate Spade, Banana Republic took a different approach to Fashion Week. Instead of showing a season ahead as it's done in the past, the Gap -owned brand held a series of pop-up events in its New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco stores that encouraged consumers to shop the spring styles currently available. "It's a natural evolution for the brand," the company said in a statement. The New York City event featured a guest appearance from global style ambassador Olivia Palermo, who first teamed up with the brand last season. Next up, Palermo and Banana Republic will design a fall capsule collection together, which they'll show at the next New York Fashion Week in September. Calvin Klein
Models walk the runway at the Calvin Klein show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 10, 2017. Catwalking | Getty Images
Showing its first collection under the creative direction of Dior alumnus Raf Simons, Calvin Klein fused the brand's 1968 American roots with America today. "It's the future, the past, Art Deco, the city, the American West all of these things and none of these things," Simons said in the show's notes. "Not one era, not one thing, not one look. It is the coming together of different characters and different individuals, just like America itself. It is the unique beauty and emotion of America." Jenny Packham
Models walk in the finale at the Jenny Packham show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 12, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Jenny Packham's fall outing featured the sorts of beautiful tulle and silk gowns that have made her designs regulars on the red carpet. (Viola Davis donned one of her dresses for the BAFTA awards the same day as Packham's show.) But in a post-Brexit world, the U.K. designer put more of an edge into her collection, giving a cheeky nod to things stereotypically associated with being British. "It's actually got quite a lot of nice, sort of cliche ideas about Britishness, like tartans and corgis and pearls," Packham said backstage. Thakoon
Models pose at the Thakoon presentation during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9, 2017. Victor Virgile | Gamma-Raph | Getty Images
"Because of the shift in the business model it doesn't make sense for us to just do a typical runway format anymore," Thakoon Panichgul said about his spring outing.
Instead of holding a traditional runway show, Panichgul held an intimate presentation focused on 10 spring looks. The designs were available immediately after, and represent the first of about six deliveries of spring product into the label's stores. Panichgul drew inspiration from the tumultuous nature of spring, starting with the trench coat as his base. "You have thunderstorms, you have a torrential downpour, you have clouds you have bursts of sun, you have blooms," Panichgul said. "For me, I wanted to put that in the context of the Thakoon girl." Erin Fetherston
Models walk the runway during the Erin Fetherston show at New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
California-born designer Erin Fetherston channeled an easy, effortless vibe for fall, inspired by a romantic traveler with a bohemian spirit. "[She] is traveling around the world collecting special items from her adventures and kind of bringing it all together in her personal style, Fetherston said. The lineup featured beautiful prints and velvet, but for Fetherston, there was one standout. "I'm kind of dying for the all-over fringe," she said.
Lacoste
Models walk the runway at the Lacoste show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 11, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
The heroes of aviation and space age pioneers served as the crux for Lacoste's fall collection, held on a set that resembled the red planet. Designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista used the idea of an astronaut's suit as the starting point for his show, its last in New York City for the time being. The French brand will head to Paris next season to celebrate its 85th birthday. Tadashi Shoji
Models walk the runway at the Tadashi Shoji show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Tadashi Shoji's woman effervesced a more sensual energy this season, as she traveled from London and Paris to Berlin and Japan. Shoji called his fall collection a "liberating" moment, showing extravagant coats, "gender-bending stripes," and "sensuous" velvet gowns.
"A dark nightclub can transform the spirit," the designer said in his show notes. Nicole Miller
A model walks the runway at the Nicole Miller show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 10, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
"It's a downtown girl who ends up at the fortune teller and gets her tarot cards read, and it sets the stage for the rest of her day," Nicole Miller said about her fall collection, labeled "Gypsy Grunge." The no-frills set echoed that vibe, with the designer's name scrawled out in black graffiti print. Backstage at Nicole Miller
A model poses backstage before the Nicole Miller show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 10, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
A model finishes getting her hair and makeup done backstage before the Nicole Miller show. The designer described the dark eye shadow as "morning-after makeup." Milly
A model walks the runway at the Milly show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 10, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Michelle Smith's collection took a darker turn for fall, featuring slashed fabrics and exposed skin. Inspired by her feelings after the presidential election, it was a decided turn from Smith's typical bright designs. "Normally I'm [cheery and optimistic], but it's not the way I feel right now," Smith said. Still, the designer wasn't void of optimism, noting the positivity that comes "when you can create something you're proud of even if it's from a fractured place." "It's building back and mending and making yourself strong again," she said. Desigual
Models walk the runway during the Desigual show at New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
The Spanish label drew inspiration from the '60s, '70s and '80s, but interpreted in the 21st century. The collection mixed together different fabrics and embroideries, juxtaposed old against new, and paired casual looks with nightwear. It's "looking at life from a mixture and from diversity," Daniel Perez, brand communications director, said backstage. Nicholas K
A model walks the runway during the Nicholas K show at New York Fashion week on Feb. 9, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Nicholas K's collections always have an air of toughness. But this season's show teetered on the edge of anarchy, as models walked to a live hip-hop soundtrack calling for a revolution. Looks were accessorized with nose rings and an oversize gold hoop earring. Several of the models wore berets reminiscent of those worn by the Black Panthers, a militant group that defended minorities during the civil rights movement. "The '90s was a decade promising communal diversity and unity," the designers said in their show notes, attributing the first step in that change to Nelson Mandela's release from prison. "Recent events seem to unravel this progress, and it's now relevant to revisit the promise of the '90s." Backstage at Nicholas K
A model gets her makeup done backstage before the Nicholas K show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 9, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Hair and makeup before a runway walk at the Nicholas K show. Custo Barcelona
Models walk the runway at the Custo Barcelona show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 12, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Custo Dalmau's fall collection was an "ode to individuality." The Spanish designer's bold creations incorporated metallic fabrics, iridescent lame and plenty of glitter, giving off a futuristic vibe. Son Jung Wan
A model walks the runway during the Son Jung Wan fashion show at New York Fashion Week on Feb. 11, 2017. Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Elections in the Netherlands, France and potentially Greece over the coming months could result in exit talks from the European Union (EU) that would cast further uncertainty on the future of the largest civilization project of the 20th Century. Here are the respective country's prospects of an EU exit:
Nexit
JERRY LAMPEN | AFP | GettyImages
The probability of the Netherlands exiting from the EU in the near term could hinge on the election chances of Geert Wilders, the leader of the euro-sceptic and populist group, Party for Freedom (PVV).
Wilders has vowed to hold an EU referendum should he win the election on March 15 and the latest opinion polls suggest he is in the lead to secure the most votes. However, it appears unlikely he will win enough support to form a majority government and the PVV's radical views seems to have effectively ruled out the party's coalition prospects.
"Only the PVV has taken a clearly pro-Nexit stance," a team of Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note.
"Other (soft) Eurosceptic parties have been more cautious, for instance, suggesting separate votes on aspects of EU participation rather than (a) complete 'in or out'. A poll by TNS Nipo asking the hypothetical Nexit question suggests that it would get a majority only among PVV voters," the report added.
Deutsche Bank's analysts argued that Dutch political history indicated a referendum on such a scale is unlikely and the country's highly complex legal system means it would be remarkably difficult to create a binding vote supported by the electorate.
The German bank's latest research concluded that even if a binding referendum could take place, most people in the Netherlands would not wish to leave the EU bloc.
Frexit
ALAIN JOCARD | AFP | Getty Images
Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration and populist National Front (NF) has promised to renegotiate the terms of France's membership of the EU if elected president in May.
Le Pen's chances of victory in May appear limited as the latest opinion polls suggest she would be defeated in the second and final round of voting by either the former economy minister and independent candidate, Emmanuel Macron or center-right candidate Francois Fillon.
However, the NF leader could yet harbor some hope of securing the French presidency as U.S. President Donald Trump's surprise victory as well as the Brexit vote in the U.K. both defied expectations.
"In many ways, all this is reminiscent of the run-up to Brexit," Jorg Kramer, chief economist at Commerzbank , said in a note.
"At that time the then-British (Prime Minister David) Cameron wanted to negotiate with the other EU members to obtain more leeway for the U.K., and put the result to a referendum. However, Marine Le Pen is likely to achieve even less than Cameron in this respect, and France leaving the EU would have far greater repercussions than Brexit," Kramer added.
Some analysts have given the NF leader up to a one in five chance of becoming President in May though Kramer projected that should Le Pen be able to defy the odds and deliver Frexit, the European Monetary Union would then be "virtually doomed".
Grexit
Mateusz Wlodarczyk | NurPhoto via Getty Images
Here are some of the key stories CNBC is following this hour:
The Pentagon strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile test, reaffirming the United States' "ironclad" commitment to allies like Japan and South Korea. North Korea said it successfully fired the missile on Sunday.
Palestinian group Hamas is naming Yehiya Sinwar as its new leader in the Gaza Strip. Sinwar, a top member of the Islamic militant group's armed wing and one of its most hard line figures, rejects any conciliation with Israel.
A powerful storm packing heavy winds has brought much of Maine to a standstill. The National Weather Service says up to 2 more feet of snow could fall on the region.
Playboy magazine is bringing back nude models in its upcoming issue, one year after banning naked photos in an effort to boost circulation. The change comes four months after Cooper Hefner was named Chief Creative Officer. Cooper, the son of founder Hugh Hefner, was an outspoken critic of the move to ban nude models.
The Senate is poised to confirm President Donald Trump's pick for treasury secretary despite complaints by Democrats that the former banker failed to protect thousands of homeowners from unnecessary foreclosures.
Steven Mnuchin (mih-NOO'-chin) used to head OneWest Bank. He says he worked hard during the financial crisis to assist homeowners with refinancing so that they could remain in their homes.
Republicans say Mnuchin's long tenure in finance is an ample prerequisite for the Treasury job.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts says Mnuchin is a Wall Street insider whose bank was "a foreclosure machine."
The Senate is scheduled to vote on Mnuchin Monday evening. The Senate is also scheduled to vote on the nomination of David Shulkin to head the Department of Veterans Affairs.
These are some of the questions recently put to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis by two Democratic Senators who serve on the Homeland Security Committee. In a letter dated February 9th , Sens. Claire McCaskill and Tom Carper expressed concern that Trump's personal phone which he may use to send tweets, they note, and may be vulnerable to hacking poses a serious national security risk.
Is President Trump still using an insecure smartphone ? If he's been given a secure device for his personal use, is he actually using it? And what security measures are in place to protect his personal phone from intruders?
"Public reports originally indicated that President Trump began using a 'secure, encrypted device approved by the U.S. Secret Service' prior to taking office," the Senators wrote. "Subsequent reports, however, suggest that President Trump may still be using his personal smartphone, an 'old, unsecured Android phone.' While it is important for the President to have the ability to communicate electronically, it is equally important that he does so in a manner that is secure and that ensures the preservation of presidential records."
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Sens. McCaskill and Carper describe these news reports as "troubling," since hackers can target unsecured devices and activate a phone's audio recording, camera, and location tracking. Even when people take precautions to secure their devices, hackers continue to exploit security weaknesses or create new pathways to personal data, the Senators said.
"These vulnerabilities are among the reasons why national security agencies discourage the use of personal devices," the letter reads. "The national security risks of compromising a smartphone used by a senior government official, such as the President of the United States, are considerable."
Sens. McCaskill and Carper asked Secretary Mattis to confirm whether the president has a "secured, encrypted smartphone for his personal use." They also asked to review the Defense Department's written policies for securing President Trump's personal device.
Alongside the security risks, the Senators are also concerned that presidential records including Trump's tweets may not be properly recorded if they are created on his personal device. "The National Archives and Records
Administration considers President Trump's tweets to be records that must be adequately documented, preserved, and maintained for historic purposes, as required by the Presidential Records Act," the letter explains.
One of the questions posed to Secretary Mattis was whether the Defense Department collaborated with the National Archives and Records Administration to ensure that the security measures on Trump's phone don't interfere with the preservation of presidential records.
The Senators asked Secretary Mattis to respond by March 9th.
Last month, McCaskill and Carper wrote a letter to White House Counsel Donald McGahn seeking to find out if Trump's staff complied with federal law regarding the use of private email accounts to conduct official business. They asked that he respond by February 10th. A spokesperson for Sen. McCaskill told BuzzFeed News that they have not received a response.
Expecting a big boost in components from a Trump administration tax cut? Hold your horses.
The average effective tax rate among S&P companies that had posted calendar fourth-quarter results as of Friday was 24.11 percent well below the current corporate rate of 35 percent according to data compiled by The Earnings Scout, a corporate earnings analysis firm.
"The oomph on that may not be as big on the market" as some investors think, said Nick Raich, CEO of The Earnings Scout.
U.S. equities popped to record-high levels after President Donald Trump said last Thursday that his administration will be announcing a "phenomenal" tax plan over the next two or three weeks. "Lowering the overall tax burden on American business is big league ... that's coming along very well," he said at a meeting with airline executives.
Trump has said that he plans to slash corporate taxes from 35 percent to somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. However, none of the S&P's 11 sectors averaged an effective tax rate higher than 31.08 percent the energy sector, which includes many companies that reported losses, actually averaged a tax refund.
When it launched its design-your-own-flavor soda dispensers, Coca-Cola handed over the keys to its customers, letting them add a shot of flavor say raspberry or vanilla or lemon to any drink. In return, the touchscreen machines started sending Coca-Cola some very useful data on what its customers really want.
Now, eight years after introducing the machines, which have made their way into movie theaters and fast food outlets around the country, Coca-Cola is unveiling its first product created using all that data. People have spent years dialling their own flavor combinations into the machine, and the lesson was simple: The people demand Sprite Cherry.
To the casual soda drinker, Sprite Cherry may seem kind of predictable it's not a huge leap from Cherry Coke and even a little disappointing considering the other options people could add to drinks, like strawberry, grape, peach, raspberry, orange, and vanilla. Serious Eats described Sprite Cherry as "kind of meh."
But the people have spoken.
"There's proven data that people actually love it," said Bobby Oliver, director of Sprite & Citrus Brands for Coca-Cola North America. "It's not just a survey where people say yes or no."
Stina tweet
Asked if cherry's victory was a letdown, Oliver said, "We're not disappointed at all." Combining "lemon lime, with a twist of cherry flavor" allows the brand to "stay true to what Sprite is about," he said.
Sprite has been an outlier in a shrinking soda business, with dollar sales up about 3.4% in 2016, according to Coca-Cola, citing Nielsen data. Meanwhile, the company's overall revenues fell by 5% last year.
Introducing new products especially beverages that aren't soda is part of Coca-Cola's strategy, "We brought to market more than 500 new products, nearly 400 of which were tea, juices, coffees, waters or other still beverages," CEO Muhtar Kent said to investors last week.
Sprite Cherry and Sprite Cherry Zero are the first Freestyle products to make it to Coca-Cola's permanent lineup (there are other limited-time products like Sprite Cranberry), and are also the first new Sprite flavor since Sprite Zero was launched more than a decade ago. Coca-Cola announced Sprite Cherry in late 2016. Whether Sprite Cherry fans will find the bottled version as satisfying as the fountain soda remains to be seen.
Tonya Price tweet
U.S. President Donald Trump Mario Tama | Getty Images
"Why can't therapists do something about a psychopath getting his dirty little fingers on the nuclear codes?" a patient asked me. It was a week after the presidential election. There was anguish in my patient's voice. I put on my therapist-wise air and intoned, "I hear how upset you are at what's happening in the country and that people who should know better aren't taking care of you the way they should" She said, "Precisely, I feel so let down." We were back on safe ground. More from Vox:
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It's been three months since that conversation. Donald Trump is now in the White House. And what I haven't told this patient, or any of my patients, is this: The other day I added my name to a petition signed by thousands of mental health professionals calling on Trump to be removed from office due to his apparent mental illness. The author of the petition, a Maryland-based therapist named John Gartner, who specializes in personality disorders and depression, called Trump's disorder "Malignant Narcissism," which has four toxic components: narcissism, paranoia, anti-social personality disorder, and sadism. I'm in unequivocal agreement. My position, along with the others signing onto the petition, is controversial. Since public calls to diagnose Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, the mental health community has stuck to a code: Do not diagnose a person in the public eye, only in a diagnostic setting, no matter how tempting. It's a good rule: Mental illness carries a stigma and it's irresponsible, as well as ethically wrong, to impugn someone's reputation based on an uninformed opinion. I've stood by it. But Trump is different. In just a few weeks in office he has managed to petrify and enrage the world, obsessing over how many people were at his inauguration, hanging onto a ridiculous voter fraud conspiracy theory, repeatedly lying, threatening foreign leaders, signing ill-thought out executive orders, using his POTUS Twitter account to carry out personal vendettas, ordering Navy Seals to carry out a half-baked raid. It seems there is no impulse control or apparent ability to consider feedback from anyone who disagrees with him. This is not normal. It is extremely dangerous.
The mental health community has been grappling with how to respond to Trump for months
The therapist community has been debating what to do about Trump since long before he won the election. During the endless campaign, I read articles by renowned analysts diagnosing Trump stressing with alarm his extreme narcissistic tendencies. I also supported several shrink-created petitions that were circulating to keep Trump from attaining power.
The author of the petition, a Maryland-based therapist named John Gartner, who specializes in personality disorders and depression, called Trump's disorder 'Malignant Narcissism,' which has four toxic components: narcissism, paranoia, anti-social personality disorder, and sadism. I'm in unequivocal agreement.
One petition, an anti-Trump "manifesto" citing his alarming qualities such as his lack of empathy, pathological lying, bullying and impulsiveness that rendered him unfit to hold office attracted more than 3,000 signatures from mental health professionals. This response to Trump was remarkable and unusual. President George W. Bush was reelected while I was in my first semester at Wurzweiler School of Social Work. Therapists are notoriously liberal and for days the somberness on campus felt appropriate to mourning a death. But no one contemplated calling the media and making armchair diagnoses. We were unhappy, not incensed and quaking with apprehension at what the future would bring.
The origins of the Goldwater Rule
In response to the public psychoanalyzing of Trump by prominent mental health professionals, the American Psychiatric Association, the major professional organization of psychiatrists in the US and the largest psychiatric organization in the world, invoked the Goldwater Rule. This rule stipulates that while it is permissible to answer questions from media about psychological symptoms that typically characterize a disorder, it is unethical to tie that disorder to a person they have not personally examined. The rule was instated after a 1964 issue of Fact magazine polled psychiatrists to discern if then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was fit for the highest office in the land. Over 1,000 psychiatrists answered in the negative. One, in fact, called Goldwater "a dangerous lunatic." Goldwater won a libel lawsuit against the magazine. As a member of the National Association of Social Workers, I am required not to divulge details about clients to the media, but there is no statute gagging me from unloading in public on outrageous behavior by famous personalities. Still, therapists of all kinds take our role very seriously.
The debate explodes
The Goldwater Rule has been much debated in Facebook groups I've joined since Trump rose to political prominence. "Therapists Against Trumpism," "Therapists for Social Justice," and "Therapists for Self Care" contain post after post comparing Trump's megalomania to Hitler circa the 1930s, interspersed with tactics for soothing our patients' fears that the end of the world is nigh, and suggestions for calming our own. We all believe that there is, as one poster put it, "responsibility in our licensure." Which means that mouthing off to one another, guarded by privacy settings, about what we see as Trump's mental issues is cathartic. But it's a world apart from calling CNN to emphatically accuse the leader of the free world of suffering from a specific and damning diagnosis. Some of my Facebook colleagues rightly expressed fear that too many people are stigmatized and discriminated against due to mental health issues that don't necessarily mean they will be incompetent at their jobs. Stephanie Saklad, an art therapist, has attended trainings given by someone high up on the food chain in the Social Security office who has schizophrenia and hears multiple voices, yet is an extremely knowledgeable and skilled professional.
Of course, mental health professionals yield no real power. It's up to Congress to impeach a sitting president, and with a Republican majority, movement is unlikely to happen.
This is not surprising. According to 2014 statistics from the National Alliance of Mental Illness, approximately one in five American adults experience some kind of mental illness. When acknowledged and treated, those issues are not in themselves disqualifiers for holding jobs including public office. Another suggestion advocated by some cohorts is not labeling Trump with a specific diagnosis, but rather pointing out symptoms highlighted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, considered the bible for laying out standard criteria for diagnosing psychiatric illnesses. One therapist on my Facebook thread said, "We don't really need a full diagnosis to state our concerns if we deem he is dangerous. Why not do a petition demanding a licensed professional examine him?"
Where the debate needs to go
President Donald Trump and his administration's undermining of facts and truth is "disturbing," Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Monday.
Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Stiglitz addressed a number of topics including U.S. tax policy, globalization and inequality. But in the process of speaking about the new U.S. administration, Stiglitz expressed dismay at what he described as the "undermining of the basis of a common agreement about what is truth."
"You saw in the Trump administration we have alternative facts. It used to be that we could have a discussion and you agree on facts, but you disagree on interpretation," Stiglitz told the audience.
"Now we have an administration that says we have alternative facts. It's going to be very very difficult to reach a consensus on the way forward if you're questioning theory, you're questioning facts."
The term "alternative facts" was coined by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway after press secretary Sean Spicer inaccurately described the inauguration crowd as "the largest ever". President Trump's administration has come under attack for a number of unfounded claims it has made.
"(The) irony is you have the United States which has been viewed as the center of science and you have a president and administration that is questioning science," Stiglitz said.
Stiglitz did no go into detail on what he specifically meant by "questioning science, " but Trump is known to be a climate change skeptic. Last month, he asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take down climate change pages from its website. And in 2012, Trump said on Twitter that climate change was a hoax "created by and for the Chinese".
Another term that was prominent through the U.S. election campaign and into Trump's short time in office is "fake news". Generally, it refers to hoax or fabricated stories, made easier by the fact that publishing online has become easy.
"We are in a very difficult position today," Stiglitz ended by saying, referring to the tough task of separating fact from fiction.
The United Automobile Workers union on Friday said it had been approached by workers at Tesla's Fremont, California, assembly plant, rejecting a charge by the chief executive of the luxury electric car maker that a worker who publicly criticized the company was on the UAW payroll.
The nascent move to organize at Tesla's factory shines an unwelcome spotlight on allegations of long hours, mandatory overtime and preventable injuries at a time when Tesla is accelerating production to meet ambitious targets.
The worker, 43-year-old Jose Moran, said on Friday his goal was to unionize at the factory where he has worked since 2012, often pulling 12-hour days, six days a week.
"A lot of workers believe we have a right for union representation and a right to represent ourselves and our own interest. We don't believe the company is doing that for us," Moran told reporters during a conference call.
Earlier in the day, the UAW said Moran had never been paid by the union.
"We can confirm that Mr. Moran and others at Tesla have approached the UAW and we welcome them with open arms," the union said.
The Fremont factory was once a UAW-represented operation, owned by General Motors , but became non-union when Tesla took over in 2010.
Tesla's chief executive, Elon Musk, told the website Gizmodo on Thursday that Moran was "paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union. He doesn't really work for us, he works for the UAW."
Moran said he had been congratulated by fellow factory workers since publishing a blog earlier this week citing preventable injuries at the plant, mandatory overtime and workers being paid less than the auto industry average.
"A lot of people have been ... shaking my hand, congratulating me. Glad that someone spoke up," said Moran, whose team works on Tesla's Model S sedan.
The attempts to organize comes as Tesla plans to idle the factory for a week this month to prepare for production of the high-volume Model 3 sedan. Tesla already builds Model S sedans and Model X SUVs at the plant.
Musk is pushing to launch Model 3 production by July. He has projected output will reach 500,000 vehicles a year by 2018, roughly five times last year's production.
In a video posted to the "Fair Future at Tesla" Facebook page on Friday, Moran says employees "spend more time at work than at home," and they do not feel they can report health and safety issues. "Tesla workers are fed up," he said.
About 200 Tesla workers are on the Facebook site with "more support every day," Moran told reporters.
A Tesla spokesman did not return a call for comment.
Moran's blog charged that Tesla managers required workers to sign confidentiality agreements agreeing not to speak out about wages or working conditions.
Musk, in comments reported by Gizmodo, said there is sometimes mandatory overtime, but it is tapering off.
He said Tesla's starting wages are higher than UAW starting pay and employees also receive stock grants. Confidentiality agreements are meant to prevent company secrets from leaking, Musk said.
"(There's a) clear lack of confidence in the Security Council," Guterres told delegates at the World Government Summit in Dubai.
Antonio Guterres, the recently appointed secretary-general of the UN, spoke about the growing mistrust between the public and governments, and in the process, said that the Security Council could do better.
The UN Security Council has 15 members including the U.S. and Russia. Given that conflicts in places like Syria have yet to end, the body has come under fire for being ineffective.
There's a "clear lack of confidence" in the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the body tasked with keeping international peace, the head of the global organization admitted on Monday.
He added that there is "no longer a perception that it corresponds to the logic of today's world".
Of the 15 members of the UN Security Council, the U.S., U.K., China, Russia and France are known as permanent members. This gives them the right to veto a proposal. Russia has used this during negotiations about action in Syria. For example, Russia vetoed a proposal in October to stop the bombing of Syrian city Aleppo.
Only weeks into his job, Guterres, who has served as the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees and was originally from Portugal, has pledged to reforms the organization. He admitted rules and regulations often "paralyze" the institution. The secretary-general promised to make the UN "more nimble, more decentralized".
His comments were made amid a broader assessment of the negative impacts that globalization has had.
"Lots of people feel that they were left behind and that the have not taken care of them," Guterres said.
On top of the assessment of his own organization, Guterres drove home the point that without co-operation between countries, there would be no end to conflicts in Syria.
"There is no solution to the Syrian problem without a comprehensive political solution in which all Syrians feel they are properly represented," Guterres said.
A Native American man leads a protest march with veterans and activists outside the Oceti Sakowin camp where "water protectors" continue to demonstrate against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline adjacent to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S., December 5, 2016. Stephen Yang | Reuters
A U.S. District Court judge on Monday denied a request from Native Americans for a restraining order that would have temporarily halted work on the hotly contested Dakota Access Pipeline. The ruling allows Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners to continue drilling in order to complete the final stretch of the pipeline beneath the Missouri River in North Dakota as a legal challenge brought by Native American tribes plays out. It also raises concerns about potential clashes between authorities and protesters still camped out near the Dakota Access work site. The Army Corps of Engineers, which manages federal land in the area, plans to clear the camps next week.
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The Corps in December denied Energy Transfer Partners the easement it needed to complete the final stretch of the $3.8-billion project, but President Donald Trump ordered the Army secretary to move forward the process shortly after he took office. The Corps granted the easement last week and terminated plans to conduct an environmental review to identify alternative routes for the pipeline. Dakota Access pipeline route, source: Energy Transfer Partners "We're disappointed with today's ruling denying a temporary restraining order against the Dakota Access Pipeline, but we are not surprised. We know this fight is far from over," Chase Iron Eyes, lead counsel in the Dakotas for Lakota People's Law Project, said in a statement. "The tribes will continue to pursue legal remedies through the courts, seek an injunction against the pipeline and push for the full Environmental Impact Statement to be completed," he said. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe filed a motion last week seeking the restraining order. The tribe, along with the Standing Rock Sioux, has opposed Energy Transfer Partners' plan to route the pipeline beneath Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River that provides drinking water and is held sacred by the Sioux. Their protest has drawn thousands of people at times to camps on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. Protesters have clashed with local authorities and private security firms. In the motion, the tribe argued that the construction of a pipeline and flow of oil beneath Lake Oahe obstructs the free practice of the tribe's religion, Matt Vogel, a legislative associate for the Cheyenne River Sioux, told reporters on a conference call on Monday.
Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington rejected the request at a hearing on Monday afternoon, Reuters reported.
Protesters face a deadline
The ruling comes ahead of a Feb. 22 deadline, when the Army Corps of Engineers plans to remove structures set up by protesters near land it manages on a floodplain at the mouth of the Cannonball River. The Corps said forecasts for flooding in the coming weeks make it necessary to clear the area to prevent injury or death. Native Americans and their allies have established three new camps south of the Cannonball River in recent days, Iron Eyes told reporters during a conference call on Monday.
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Goldman Sachs reiterated its neutral rating on Verizon Communications because the increasingly competitive wireless landscape will drive its sales and earnings lower in 2017. The telecommunications company announced Sunday it will offer an unlimited data, calls and texting wireless plan for $80 per month starting Monday. "Verizon's move is yet another signal that wireless competition remains tough, and that Verizon is reluctantly adjusting to this more challenging environment," analyst Brett Feldman wrote in a note to clients Monday. "In our view, Verizon's decision to introduce an unlimited data plan indicates that the carrier is reluctantly adjusting to the sustained competitive intensity of the wireless market, which is one of the key factors why we are forecasting modest declines in revenue and EPS this year." "In our view, Verizon's decision to introduce an unlimited data plan indicates that the carrier is reluctantly adjusting to the sustained competitive intensity of the wireless market, which is one of the key factors why we are forecasting modest declines in revenue and EPS this year." Feldman reaffirmed his Verizon price target of $51, representing 4 percent upside from Friday's close. The analyst cited how the company's CFO Matthew Ellis said, "Unlimited is one of the things that some of our competition has at this point in time; that's not something we feel the need to do" as recently as Verizon's earnings call on Jan. 24. Feldman noted Verizon hasn't offered an unlimited data plan to new customers since 2011. "With all national wireless carriers now offering unlimited plans, we continue to believe that they are ultimately fighting a capacity war, with Verizon upping the stakes by including HD video quality as a standard feature," he wrote. "For context, T-Mobile has previously noted that standard definition video uses 1/3rd the capacity of HD video on its network." As a result, Feldman is bullish on spectrum-owning companies such as Dish Network , wireless tower firms such as Crown Castle and metro-fiber company Zayo . He has a buy rating on all three companies. CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.
A pedestrian talks on a mobile device while walking past a Verizon store in San Francisco. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
[This livestream has ended.]
Trade stands front and center as President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meet at the White House on Monday.
The pair held a press conference at 2 p.m., ET, to give more details on the meeting.
Trudeau, a member of Canada's Liberal Party, clashes with Trump on many policy issues, and the Canadian leader made an appeal to refugees last month after Trump signed his divisive executive order restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. Still, Trudeau will have to balance his differences with Trump with a desire to protect the neighbors' economic relationship.
Trudeau tweet: To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada
Trump wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that Trump partly blames for jobs leaving the United States. Trump has focused most of his rhetorical ire on Mexico rather than Canada.
In 2015, Canada was the largest goods-export market for the U.S., according to the U.S. Trade Representative. The U.S. imported more goods from Canada in that year than from every country except China.
Wall Street is looking at European stocks for opportunities again, despite political risk in the euro zone.
"We're making a lot of money in Europe because the headlines are bad but the companies are taking advantage of the situation," said David Marcus, CEO of Evermore Global Advisors, whose Europe-heavy global value fund (EVGBX) climbed nearly 17.7 percent last year.
Investors have been cautious about investing in the continent given the Greek debt crisis that gripped markets in 2015 again and last June's surprise U.K. vote to leave the European Union. The months ahead bring major elections in France and Germany, which some worry could strengthen populist voices and even threaten the breakup of the EU.
But some of the largest investment firms now say it's time to buy Europe, especially since U.S. stocks look expensive at all-time highs and emerging market stocks have already rebounded with a 9 percent jump so far this year.
Last Monday BlackRock began recommending European stocks and downgraded its view on emerging market debt to neutral. A few days later Bank of America Merrill Lynch put out a note saying how European stocks trade at their cheapest in 40 years versus U.S. stocks. The reports follow Goldman Sachs comments earlier in the year to buy European stocks.
The argument is that European companies are increasing earnings against an improving economic backdrop.
The STOXX Europe 600 remains 10 percent below its all-time high hit in spring 2015, despite touching a 52-week high Monday.
NAFTA has also provided the U.S. and Canada access to a larger pool of employees, including Canadians working in the U.S. on NAFTA visas.
Overall, Canada is the third-largest exporter of goods to the United States, but it's America's largest export market. It depends on the U.S. for expensive manufactured items like those in the export chart above, and also for billions in agricultural goods like fresh fruit and vegetables, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
Canadians invested about $261 billion in the United States in 2014 up 11 percent from 2013. Foreign direct investment could suffer if new policies make the border more restrictive. U.S. companies that sell services in Canada could be affected as well, as American companies export far more services than Canadian firms sell in the U.S.
Canada's proximity to the U.S. could help its economy in other ways, if the U.S. enacts other isolationist policies proposed by the Trump administration. Canadian cities are already lining up to be the next destination for tech firms looking to hire international workers who are no longer able to work in the U.S., for example.
Supporting documentation for the Boggs note sketch is part of the complete work of art titled October Rent, all framed within a wooden box.
American artist James Stephen George Boggs, better known as J.S.G. Boggs, worked at the intersection of art, illusion and commerce. He is best known for his hand-drawn exact replicas of paper currency, called Boggs bills, that he would draw and use as part of an exchange. He died in January 2017 in a Florida hotel room.
J.S.G. Boggs, a skilled artist or a counterfeiter, depending on ones point of view, died Jan. 22 at a hotel in Tampa, Fla. He was 62 years old.
As Coin World editor-at-large Steve Roach wrote in a 2016 issue, Working both within and outside of the confines of the law, American artist James Stephen George Boggs better known as J.S.G. Boggs is an enigma.
As an artist, Mr. Boggs used his signature pieces, hand-drawn replicas of current money called Boggs bills, to purchase goods and services from recipients willing to accept the artwork as payment. His work combines visual art and performance art, with his bills and the documentation of the transaction serving as a core element of his artistic practice, Roach wrote.
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While his art endeared him to the numismatic community and the art world, it also drew unfavorable reactions from government agencies. In 1992 the Secret Service and U.S. Attorneys Office stepped in to end Mr. Boggs Project Pittsburgh, where Boggs planned to trade $1 million in his bills in the Pittsburgh area and would ask recipients to pass the bill five times before taking it out of circulation, according to Roach. Government agents raided his home and studio and seized some 1,300 objects as part of the governments legal case against him.
Boggs challenged the confiscation in court, contending that his bills were protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and he challenged the standard used in determining that his bills were counterfeit, Roach wrote, adding, The Appeals Court noted that Boggs does not intend to defraud those who are engaging in a transaction with him using Boggs bills, and saw value in the artists exploration of the value of money and the social and political institutions that underlie a system of exchange.
However, the Appeals Court agreed with a lower courts finding that the Boggs bills were contraband, defined as objects inherently unlawful to possess, and that they were not entitled to First Amendment protections. A footnote in the dissent summarized the issue elegantly: Labeling a counterfeit bill art will not save it from the Secret Services incinerator, but at some point, an artworks loose resemblance to currency will not strip it of First Amendment protection.
In creating his money-based performance art, Mr. Boggs would typically proffer one of his hand-drawn notes in payment at face value for a service or goods, while taking pains to describe the note as a work of art and not legal tender currency. In return, he would ask for any change due him to be paid him in legal tender currency along with a receipt.
He would then sell the paper trail created by the receipt to one of the people who collected his art, which that buyer could use to track down the original hand-drawn bill in an effort to purchase it as well.
His work titled October Rent ($500) from 1991 was complete, featuring a $500 Boggs bill with a portrait of William McKinley, though named Willie on the note, consistent with the artists practice of changing certain details or wording, as reported in a different Coin World article in 2015. Also included is the change a genuine contemporary $50 Federal Reserve note along with the original receipt signed by the landlord, a brass numeral 5 of the type found on an apartment door, the store package for the numeral, a bottle cap, Lipton tea wrapper, real estate business card, and a portion of the October calendar for that year.
The framed work of art was offered by Okemos, Mich., Numismatic Auctions LLC in November 2015.
It sold for $16,100, exceeding the estimate of $7,500 to $15,000.
In his oft-told story that may be apocryphal, Mr. Boggs claimed that his art was born in 1984 when he was doodling on a paper napkin in a diner. The waitress offered to buy the sketch but he instead offered her the note sketch in payment for his 90-cent bill. She agreed.
As he pursued his art form, he encountered legal troubles in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, and while he was charged and tried in the latter two countries, he was acquitted of counterfeiting.
As Wayne Homren wrote in the newsletter E-Sylum upon Mr. Boggs death, He was always a dreamer and an artist to the core. He had his personal demons, and was the very model of the classic tortured artist. I liked to say that he danced in the grey area at the edge of the law, a silver-tongued con man who could talk his way in or out of any situation.
What did Eli Drinkwitz say after Missouri's game vs. Kentucky?
He Has No Evidence, but Trump Aide Stephen Miller Insists 'Busloads' of MA Residents Voted in NH
President Trump and the people closest to him just wont let go of the voter fraud myth.
Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller doubled down Sunday on the Presidents false claim last week that busloads of people crossed from Massachusetts into New Hampshire on Election Day to keep Trump from carrying the Granite State and defeat incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte.
Having worked before on a campaign in New Hampshire, I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone whos worked in New Hampshire politics, Miller asserted on ABCs This Week. Its very real. Its very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence.
Of course, theres no venue to lay out the evidence because there is no evidence. New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who oversees elections in the state, has dismissed claims that there was substantial fraud in New Hampshire voting last year. And shortly after Millers TV appearance on Sunday, Tom Rath, a former state attorney general and prominent Republican, Tweeted that allegations of voter fraud in NH are baseless, without any merit-its shameful to spread these fantasies.
While Trump and his team apparently have bought into the notion that a lie repeated often enough will eventually be accepted as truth, news organizations are continuing to insist that the White House provide facts to back up its voter fraud claims. During Sundays interview, This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos called on Miller three times to provide evidence, each time to no avail.
Meanwhile, Ellen Weintraub, a member and former chair of the Federal Election Commission, has issued a statement demanding that Trump provide evidence to back up his charges on the New Hampshire vote. The scheme the President of the United States alleges would constitute thousands of felony criminal offenses under New Hampshire law she wrote. Allegations of this magnitude cannot be ignored.
After reviewing vote tallies and Election Day reports from the polls, Iowas top elections official has identified just 10 illegal votes out of more than 1.6 million cast in his state.
A record of general election irregularities obtained by the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information request turned up a handful of cases of alleged double votes and votes cast by ineligible felons on Election Day.
The AP said its review showed that most of the instances were mistakes rather than fraud, and may not have been stopped by an identification requirement. They included a non-English speaking citizen who mistakenly voted when he registered and again on Election Day, a felon whose voting rights had been restored in Wisconsin but not Iowa, and a non-citizen who turned herself in after learning later she shouldnt have been eligible to vote.
A top White House adviser Sunday outlined two key principles underlying the administration's approach to H-1B reform. It wants a system requiring employers to first consider U.S. workers for a job before hiring visa-holding workers, and it intends to distribute H-1B visas under a "merit-based" system.
Stephen Miller, senior policy adviser for President Donald Trump, said the administration will seek an immigration program where "American workers are given jobs first."
In a television interview Sunday on Meet the Press, Miller also said that Trump "has made clear" his interest in creating "a merit-based system where individuals coming into the country bring the kinds of benefits economically that will grow our economy and help lift up wages for everybody." (You can find the transcript here).
Miller is no Johnny-come-lately to the H-1B visa issue. Before joining Trump's presidential campaign, Miller worked as a top aide of former Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who was confirmed last week as attorney general.
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Sessions made the impact of the H-1B visa on IT workers a priority issue for the Senate's immigration subcommittee, which he chaired. Sessions read Computerworld's story about the Southern California Edison layoffs into the Congressional Record, and Miller also spoke with affected IT workers at Edison as well as at Disney to gather first-person accounts. Hearings were later held, including one that featured testimony from a displaced Disney IT worker.
As a candidate, Trump produced a detailed H-1B plan in his immigration platform that reflected the ideas voiced in the immigration subcommittee hearings.
A recent White House leak of a draft executive order on the work visa aspects of immigration sketched the White House direction. But Miller, in his comments Sunday, was the first administration official to articulate goals, which are similar to some of the efforts in Congress.
In terms of job preference, Miller said that U.S. citizens and permanent residents "ought to have the ability to make the first application for that job." That is similar to what Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill) are seeking in legislation that "requires companies to post job openings and make good faith efforts to hire qualified American workers before seeking H-1B visas."
Any hiring preference requirement for U.S. workers, however, will likely have its problems.
Foreign workers who want to work permanently in the U.S. must now certify "that there are not sufficient U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available to accept the job opportunity in the area of intended employment and that employment of the foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers," according to U.S. government rules.
But this preference requirement sometimes prompts sponsoring employers to post job ads with very specific requirements that all but assure that the foreign worker is the person who is ultimately hired. Critics have long called these "fake" job ads.
Merit-based H-1B distribution may be include giving preference wages in a visa distribution, as well as giving visa preference to graduates of U.S. universities, and especially to advanced degree holders.
The administration faces challenges in H-1B reform. Any executive order that seeks to change the H-1B system will likely face a court hurdles from industry, which will challenge the administration's ability to change the visa without legislation.
Sidd Bikkannavar understands that his last name may sound foreign, but he is a natural-born U.S. citizen who has been working at NASAs Jet Propulsion Lab for 10 years. He was flagged by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for extra scrutiny when returning to the U.S. from Patagonia where his vacation consisted of racing solar-powered cars.
After his passport was scanned at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Bikkannavar was detained by CBP until he handed over the PIN to his government-issued phone.
At first, the border agent asked him questions that CBP already knew the answers to since Bikkannavar is enrolled in CPBs Global Entry program which gives pre-approved, low-risk travelers expedited entry into the U.S.; before being approved for the program, CBP says all applicants undergo a rigorous background check and in-person interview before enrollment.
Bikkannavar has traveled extensively, but he had not visited any of the countries listed in the immigration ban. Although he asked the CBP official why he was chosen for extra scrutiny, the agent refused to answer his question.
Then the border agent whipped out an Inspection of Electronic Devices paper and wouldnt let him leave without giving CBP his PIN. Bikkannavar told The Verge, I told him Im not really allowed to give the passcode; I have to protect access. But he insisted they had the authority to search it.
With PIN in hand, the CBP agent disappeared with the NASA-issued phone for 30 minutes.
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Bikkannavar told the story in his own words on Facebook:
Sorry for the absence. On my way home to the US last weekend, I was detained by Homeland Security and held with others who were stranded under the Muslim ban. CBP officers seized my phone and wouldnt release me until I gave my access PIN for them to copy the data. I initially refused, since its a JPL-issued phone (Jet Propulsion Lab property) and I must protect access. Just to be clear - Im a US-born citizen and NASA engineer, traveling with a valid US passport. Once they took both my phone and the access PIN, they returned me to the holding area with the cots and other sleeping detainees until they finished copying my data. Im back home, and JPL has been running forensics on the phone to determine what CBP/Homeland Security might have taken, or whether they installed anything on the device. Ive also been working with JPL legal counsel. I removed my Facebook page until I was sure this account wasnt also compromised by the intrusion into my phone and connected apps.
After his phone was returned, Bikkannavar turned it off until he could give it to the JPL IT department. While he didnt say what was on the phone, he did tell The Verge that the cybersecurity team at JPL was not happy about the breach. Since the incident, JPL has given Bikkannavar a new phone with a new number.
Bikkannavar said he doesnt know why he was targeted for the electronic search, telling The Verge, He understands that his name is foreign its roots go back to southern India, but he didnt think it would be a trigger for extra scrutiny. He added, Sometimes I get stopped and searched, but never anything like this. Maybe you could say it was one huge coincidence that this thing happens right at the travel ban.
Yet CBP cannot legally require travelers to unlock their phones or other electronic devices. Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of CAIR Florida, told The Verge, In each incident that Ive seen, the subjects have been shown a Blue Paper that says CBP has legal authority to search phones at the border, which gives them the impression that theyre obligated to unlock the phone, which isnt true. Theyre not obligated to unlock the phone.
Although it is troubling that one government agency would make another hand over the key to unlock secure government information, or that border agents demand for anyone to unlock their devices, there is nothing new about electronic devices being searched at the border without any reasonable suspicion. Back in 2013, the ACLU had already warned that two out of every three Americans had lost Fourth Amendment protections to DHS.
Last week, John Kelly, the head of DHS, said if foreigners want to set foot on U.S. soil, then they need to hand over their social media passwords as part of the vetting process for visa applicants. If they dont want to give us the information, then they dont come.
Welcome to the land of the free.
Hoping to go to Googles annual developer conference this spring?
If you are, mark your calendar for Feb. 22. That's the day when you can first apply for tickets to Google I/O.
Google announced on its events page that the window for submitting ticket applications is between Feb. 22 at 1 p.m. ET and Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. ET.
The conference is being held May 17-19 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif.
This is the second year that the event will be held in Mountain View. Last year, Google broke from the traditional I/O venue the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco and moved the event to the outdoor amphitheatre.
In 2016, the company drew attention to its efforts in artificial intelligence and machine learning, including presentations on its digital assistant device Google Home and Google Assistant, its .
No word yet on what Google I/O will focus on this year.
Steve OConnell is the Conservative spokesman on the London Assembly for crime and policing.
Anyone and everyone who has ever been, or wanted to be, the Mayor of London has proclaimed that the safety and security of Londoners is their number one priority. Equally, all those who have been the Mayor of London including the current Mayor, Sadiq Khan have reaffirmed their commitment to London having around 32,000 police officers.
However, the current Mayor who said keeping families and communities safe was his top priority, and who said he had a strategic target of 32,000 [police] officers has taken the decision to renege on his promises and cut the number of police officers in London.
While its important to be clear that police numbers in London are never static, with officers retiring after years of service, or relocating, alongside new recruits joining City Hall and the Met Police have always maintained the police-wide target of 32,000 police officers.
In order to work towards this target, the Met Police received funding levels that ensured that we were able to have 32,000 police officers on the payroll. Not anymore.
Sadiq Khans first budget as Mayor of London included a cynical reduction of 38 million from police staffing expenditure, buried deep within the Met Polices budget. Thats the exact funding which is required to increase the current number of police officers in London up to 32,000.
Without this funding, it is completely impossible for the Met Police to have 32,000 officers.
Therefore, Sadiq Khans strategic target of 32,000 police officers is entirely meaningless because it simply cannot be achieved. He could just as easily claim he wanted London to have 350,000 police officers, because if there isnt enough funding there is no way the target will be met.
Sadiq Khan has claimed this funding is only being reduced for one year but theres an important caveat. His Deputy Mayor, Sophie Linden, has said the funding being reinstated will be dependent on what level of funding City Hall and the Met Police receives from the Government next year.
Its true that the funding provided by Government for policing London is a hotly contested topic and its also true that on the horizon there is due to be a wholesale rethinking of the way police forces across the UK are funded.
Its also true that previous iterations of such reforms did reduce the funding London received for policing. However, this funding formula was abandoned following consistent and successful lobbying from the former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, former Deputy Mayor Stephen Greenhalgh, and then Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith.
Rather than prepare the grounds to secure Londons much needed policing funding and sensibly approaching the Met Polices budget, Sadiq Khan is rehearsing his political attack lines.
When youre dealing with a budget in the billions, it is fair to suggest that, should he have wanted to, Sadiq Khan could have found the 38 million required to protect police officer numbers. Indeed, this funding could be found by finding five per cent inefficiencies in all non-staff budgets (38.2m).
Sadiq Khan is simply laying the foundations for a future battle with the Government which he knows hell lose. He will then look to blame the Tory Government for cutting policing in the Capital.
Showing his true colours, and exposing his most New Labour traits, Sadiq Khan is preparing to play politics with the safety of Londoners and ultimately blame the Government for his shortcomings and short-sightedness.
Cutting the number of police officers in London is yet another broken promise from Sadiq Khan, and he is fast running out of promises hes made that are left to be broken.
As Sadiq Khan prepares to publish the final draft of his budget, Conservatives on the London Assembly will demand he honours his commitment to fully fund the police and ensure London has the officers it needs.
Theres a fantasy going round on parts of the right that Vladimir Putin is a man more sinned against than sinning that hes just a strong guy, who loves his country and wants to be left alone to get on with life as a champion of Christian values, but keeps being provoked by the wicked old west.
Its an odd line that comes from various places. In the UK, shamefully, we hear it from some parts of the Eurosceptic movement particularly elements of UKIP which have allowed their dislike of Brussels to bring them into an uncomfortable alliance with the Kremlin over Ukraine. Supposedly the only reason Ukrainians decided they didnt want to live under Moscows orders any more was that the EU poke[d] the Russian bear with a stick (to quote Nigel Farage) by not telling them they really ought to continue to do so. Putin was therefore left with no choice but to invade yet another neighbour and seize its territory an unusual route of self-defence which seems to be his only option surprisingly often.
In the US, we hear a similar argument about Russias actions in Syria from a mix of Trump fans and some self-declared opponents of Islamism. Assad, the claim goes, is the only true friend of the West in Syria, and Russias levelling of Aleppo and logistical support for the mass murder carried out by Damascus is just an example of Putins selfless dedication to the fight against Islamist terrorism. Nothing to do with the desperate campaign to maintain a Russian naval base on the Mediterranean, or a wish to supplant the US as the Middle Easts dominant power, or another example of Russias ongoing willingness to defend the continued right of any given tyrant to continue to slaughter his people, of course.
Raise any concern about Russias behaviour in recent years and youll get the same response. The fact its agents murdered a British citizen on British soil, or that militants it supports and supplies blasted a civilian airliner carrying British tourists out of the sky, doesnt dent the willingness of supposed patriots to argue that Putin is simply hard-done-by and the innocent victim of a Western alliance that is trying to refight old battles when it should be embracing Moscow as a natural ally. The litany of examples demonstrating that modern Russia stands opposed to all the values of freedom and democracy that we prize are dismissed as Russophobia, and the idea that we should be somewhat concerned at the unfortunate habit of Putins critics to accidentally ingest poisons, radioactive isotopes and/or bullets is denounced as a smear on a good man.
To those readers who remember the Cold War, these lines will be familiar. Back then, they werent spouted by people wrapping themselves in the flag or identifying as on the right, though. They were the tired old defences deployed by the hard left people like Jeremy Corbyn, who so wanted NATO and the West to be in the wrong that they were willing to twist reality to excuse the evils of Communism. The Kremlins decision to shed that ideology hasnt dulled the apologism, rather it has broadened its appeal to fellow travellers across our political spectrum.
There is an inconvenient fact, however, that even the most ardent Putin fans struggle to explain. If, as is claimed, he is just a muscular leader dreaming of a quiet life within his own borders, ripe to be wooed as an ally and harbouring no malice towards Britain and her allies, why does he prosecute a growing cyber-war against our companies and institutions? Today the head of GCHQs National Cyber Security Centre warns that over the last two years there has been a step change in Russian aggression in cyberspace, with a particular growth in attempts to steal confidential data from the British state. Even if you believe that Ukraines wish for self-government somehow justifies troops and tanks crossing its eastern border, its rather harder to explain what local councils, hospitals and quangos in the UK have done to provoke incursions by Russian hackers.
We must reject fantasies about Putins intensions towards us. At every turn, he has acted against our interests and our values. We may not like the idea of being in conflict cold, lukewarm or whatever temperature you care to call it with him, but conflict does not wait on both sides to agree to participate before it begins. One participant is all that is required. To paraphrase Trotskys line about the dialectic, you may not be interested in Putin, but Putin is interested in you. Boris Johnsons decision to deploy some of the aid budget as a tool to shore up the institutions and defences of our allies in the East is a good start and a welcome shift to using aid explicitly in the national interest, but the Kremlin has a head start and big wallet.
CORNWALL, Ontario While the weather outside was frightful this Sat. Feb. 11, it didnt stop people from coming out to enjoy the Legions ninth annual Valentines Dinner and Dance for Hospice.
Providing a much-needed break from weather conditions, Cornwall Legion President, Linda Fisher says that shes pleased with the turnout. We ordered for 300, said Fisher. Im not sure how many weve sold but I imagine were pretty close.
The event began 13 years ago, and was initially organized in support of the Canadian Cancer Society. I lost my daughter to cancer, and at the time, our President, Ken Heagles son had cancer, said Fisher. In 2008, Heagle suggested that the Legion extend their support to the newly-opened Hospice Cornwall. If it hadnt been for Ken, this event probably wouldnt exist, as it is, said Fisher.
Fisher says that many people attending the event have personal ties to Hospice. I think if you went and asked, fifty percent, if not more would have some kind of connection to Hospice, said Fisher. Hospice wasnt ready when my daughter was sick had it been, thats where she would have gone.
Executive member, Linda Wales says the connections are often visible. When you see new faces, you know that theyre probably coming directly from Hospice, said Wales. Its very rewarding and humbling to be a part of this. Wales notes that with many veterans receiving end of life care at Hospice, the Legions partnership in the event makes sense.
With nearly all the evenings staff working on a volunteer basis, all money raised can go directly towards supporting Hospice Cornwall. Hospice is very serious, said Wales. So you turn it around and try to make something positive of something that isnt going to end really well.
GANANOQUE, Ontario Members of the Ontario Provincial Police are continuing an investigation into a collision on County Road 2.
On the 10th of February 2017 at about 2:10 P.M. officers from the Leeds Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police were called to a collision on County Road 2 in Leeds and the Thousand Islands Township.
A westbound car driven by a 58 year old man from Cornwall and an eastbound pickup truck driven by a 59 year old female from Gananoque collided on County Road 2. The 58 year old man died as a result of his injuries at the scene. His 85 year old Frontenac Islands passenger was transported to hospital in Kingston where he succumbed to his injuries. The 59 female driver of the pick-up truck was also transported to hospital in Kingston with non-life threatening injuries.
County Rd 2, west of Gananoque was closed for investigation between Island View Drive & Willowbank Road.
The O.P.P. is asking that if anyone witnessed this collision to call police at 613-345-1790 or 1-888-310-1122.
The investigation continues.
CORNWALL, Ontario The Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) has issued the final draft of its Peer Accommodation Review (PAR). There have been some significant changes that have been made to the original document published by the board in September.
The original document recommended that 12 schools close by the end of June 2017. Char-Lan D.H.S., Longue Sault P.S., Rothwell-Osnabruck (secondary 7-12), Seaway D.H.S, Wolford P.S., Rideau Centennial E.S., Plantagenet P.S., Pakenham P.S., Oxford-on-Rideau P.S., North Elmsley P.S., Glent Tay P.S. and Benson P.S. were all recommended for closure in the original document.
The final version has considerably altered this list. The new document now recommends that Rothwell-Osnabruck (secondary 7-12), S.J. McLeod, Rideau Centennial E.S., Plantagenet P.S., Prince of Wales P.S., Wolford P.S., Oxford-on-Rideau P.S. and Toniata P.S. & Commonwealth P.S. all close by Sept. 2017.
Furthermore, pending Ministry of Education funding for upgrades and improvements to receiving schools, North Stormont P.S. would close pending an addition to Roxmore P.S. and Maynard P.S. would close pending an upgrade at Wellington.
St. Lawrence Secondary School and CCVS would both close pending funding for the construction of a new grade 7-12 school in Cornwall.
This new report sees 2,358 empty school spaces eliminated, the Board however in the originall draft document the school board stated that it had nearly 10, 000 empty spaces that it needed to fill or eliminate.
Due to a new funding scheme from the Ministry of Education that was instituted in March 2016, school boards no longer receive funding for empty student spaces and cannot get capital funding to build new schools as long as there are empty spaces in old ones.
The process of closing some of these schools will be costly for the UCDSB, ending the high school program at Rothwell-Osnabruck for instance and sending those students to Tagwi S.S. will cost the school board $430, 619 with $160, 000 of that coming from busing costs alone.
Overall, the school board will see a net loss of $62, 641 from this plan as it stands now.
The final draft of the UCDSBs PAR will be presented to the Board of Trustees at a meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 15 where the trustees will vote on whether or not to receive the report. The final vote on the report is March 23.
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Sixteen-month-old James Logan was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance twice last week after suffering seizures. Shigellosis is a bug that has been sweeping Britain. The NHS said Shigellosis is caused by poor hygiene and can be spread through items such as door knobs in schools or workplaces.
James was rushed to the hospital twice. He suffered from diarrhea and sickness on Monday and Tuesday. Charlotte Cullum, 24, James' mother said he was on the floor, face down and making a strange noise. James was shaking all over, from his arms down to his legs.
When his mom picked him up she said he was all floppy. James was out cold for 40 minutes after he arrived at the hospital. Charlotte said the second seizure was awful as James was screaming and having a fit.
According to The Mirror, doctors thought it was a random virus at first. But James suffered another seizure on Wednesday morning and was rushed back to Basildon Hospital in Essex where he was kept under observation for 36 hours. Blood tests showed shigellosis.
James' cousin, Ruby, 17-months-old, was also rushed to the hospital. Ruby caught the bug after she visited James' house early last week. Her parents and grandmother caught the vomiting bug from Ruby.
Parents have been warned to be vigilant about the bug. The infection is more common in young children, but anyone can get infected.
Shigellosis effects are nasty, such as chronic diarrhea, painful stomach cramps, high fever and nausea. The symptoms last for around five to seven days.
Treatment includes taking lots of fluids to prevent dehydration caused by diarrhea. If there is blood in diarrhea, antibiotic medicine is needed. If a child develops Shigellosis call a doctor immediately.
According to The Sun, about 90 people have been reported to have shigellosis in Stoke-on-Trent. People with symptoms are advised to stay at home for 48 hours, and not return to school or work until tested and results show they are free from infection. To stop it from spreading wash hands thoroughly, make sure to disinfect properly after using the toilet.
See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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Judith Anne Tetrealt, 55, resident of Lusby was arrested and charged with child abuse after allegedly poisoning her grandchild with methadone. Tetrealt appeared before a District Court Commissioner and has been held on a no-bond status at the Calvert County Detention Center.
Tetrealt is set to appear before a District Court Judge for a bail hearing. A preliminary court hearing has been set on March 13, 2017 in Prince Frederick District Court.
According to Washington Post, methadone is an opioid medication. The child's grandmother has been charged with Child Abuse, and Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance.
On Friday the Maryland Department of Child Protective Services called the Calvert's County Sherriff's Office and reported the child poisoning incident. The detectives learned that the 1-year-old was rushed to Calvert Memorial Hospital by her mother on Thursday.
According to Southern Maryland News Net, the child had been in the care of his grandmother earlier that week. After the mother picked the child up from her grandmother's house she noticed the child appeared to be lethargic. She immediately rushed the infant to the emergency room.
The medical staff treated the infant with Naloxone, which reverses or blocks the effects of opioid medication. It is used to treat narcotic overdose in an emergency situation.
The child was eventually transferred to Georgetown University Medical Center for further evaluation. The Georgetown medical staff was able to determine that the child was suffering from a methadone overdose.
The medical staff listed the child in critical condition or acute status and was treated extensively. Currently, the infant is being monitored closely for cardiac and respiratory issues that may be caused by the overdose.
The police have not released the name of the grandmother at this time. But according to legal court documents, the following charges were filed against her: Child Abuse 1st Degree, Child Abuse 2nd Degree, Assault 1st Degree, Poison/Attempt to Poison, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, and Neglect of a Minor.
See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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A doctor in a Chinese medical hospital located in the eastern city of Hangzhou accidentally infected five patients with HIV after re-using dirty needles for treatment. The doctor is not under criminal investigation by the local health authorities.
The Independent UK reports about a serious medical incident recorded at the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. A doctor reported violated a medical procedure wherein they were supposed to dispose of syringes after use. This resulted in the AIDS-causing virus to be transferred into five of the hospital's patients. This report initially went viral on the internet but was later censored on social media.
Fears of the possible spread of the virus due to poor medical practice are now becoming a big issue due to the shocking news. The hospital, on the other hand, has been described as one of the best technical capacity hospitals in Zhejiang Province and is located just around 100 miles from Shanghai.
Meanwhile, according to the Tribune, it was a technician who employed a re-used tube in an earlier medical exam for an HIV-positive patient. No clear reports on what the five accidentally inflicted patients were originally being treated for. The hospital's website has been taken down after the incident and no hospital representative was available for comments on the current issue.
Most of the reports in China about the accidental HIV infections have already been deleted and the government statement about the incident is the only China media report available in online circulation. Several comments on social media pertaining to the incident have also been removed.
Continuous news blocks and deletion of comments and forwarding functions regarding the incident has been constantly being disabled by major Chinese news outlets and publishers. Readers are seeing this censorship as a disgusting move and believe that people should be enlightened with the truth.
See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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President Donald Trump's latest Health Secretary is Tom Price. The Republican from Georgia is also an orthopedic surgeon and has been confirmed to oversee the health department with a budget of more than $1 trillion.
Trump's latest Health Secretary, Tom Price is also one of the most popular personalities who opposed to the Obamacare program and was skeptical about the government's move to oblige parents to vaccinate their children, The Independent UK reports. Currently a congressman, he also belongs to the group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The group is widely known for its unorthodox views and described the move to mandate parents to vaccinate their children as a "human experimentation" equivalent.
Selecting Tom Price as Health Secretary was tainted with several controversies. He has been persistent with questions on working for the healthcare legislation while trading in hundreds of thousands of dollars in health company stocks at the same time. News that the Democrats had boycotted the committee vote for his legislation also surfaced.
His current position will authorize allow him to rewrite implementing rules of the 2010 Affordable Care Act or the Obamacare. Republicans in Congress have already pledged to scrap the law entirely and would mostly materialize after Price's moves towards the Obamacare program.
Meanwhile, CNN revealed the possible contributions the new health secretary can contribute to the health sector. The possibility of refunding tax credits to those who buy policies in the individual market is one of the promises that Price commits on his watch.
Reduced assistance to lower-income US citizens is also expected from Price, being an Obamacare critic. Pushing high-risk pools for the sick and cap tax advantages for employer-sponsored health plans are also expected to materialize during his time as Health Secretary.
Tom Price is also expected to require carriers to provide insurance for Americans that already has pre-existing conditions with the condition that they are continuously covered. Those who will not meet such criteria under his Empowering Patients First plan would be charged up to 150% of the standard rate for two years of their health insurances.
See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
Some small Vietnamese flags have been added to the Movistar Yamahas of Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales in MotoGP this season.
The move was announced by Kouichi Tsuji, general manager of Yamaha's Motorsports Division, at the end of a second pre-season promotional tour for the MotoGP stars, to Thailand and Vietnam. Their first PR appearances, prior to the Sepang test, had been to the Indonesia and the Philippines.
"For the riders, this is the first time visiting Vietnam and we are very pleased with the warm welcome that both riders received," Tsuji said. "It is a good message sent by Yamaha Motor Vietnam and the local fans, that they support Yamaha and the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team.
"For this reason we will adopt the flag of Vietnam on the bike this year, with the hope that this activity will further increase the popularity of MotoGP racing in Vietnam.
"We highly value the Asian market and the passion that they have for motorsports and Yamaha. The main goal of this tour was to further build on our relationship, both with the Yamaha dealers and the fans, so we can all look forward to sharing many more great moments during another exciting season of MotoGP."
Yamaha Motor Vietnam showed their support for the #MovistarYamaha #MotoGP Team by adding their national flag to @ValeYellow46's YZR-M1. pic.twitter.com/0H07D4DZAO-- Yamaha MotoGP (@YamahaMotoGP) February 12, 2017
New signing Vinales, fastest at the Sepang test, had made a short stop in Thailand before joining up with Rossi in Vietnam.
"It was incredible how many people attended the event in Bangkok," the Spaniard said. "I keep saying it, but I didn't expect to receive such a warm welcome every time we visit one of the countries during this tour... The people are so friendly and passionate about MotoGP and this gives me extra motivation to do them proud on the track.
"Today I also had a lot of fun in Vietnam, especially when I got to ride the Yamaha Exciter scooter on a short circuit with Valentino. I love to do these kinds of events, playing around on the bike and sharing the experience with the fans.
"I couldn't have asked for a better end to the promotional tour. I will now focus on the test in Australia, because I'm impatient to ride my M1 again."
During the visit to Vietnam, Rossi was surprised with an early birthday cake. The Italian superstar turns 38 on February 16th.
"It was my first time visiting Vietnam and it is a really beautiful place. I haven't had time to see a lot of H Ch? Minh, but during the car trips I always looked out the window: it's amazing how many people are on the move with scooters!" Rossi said.
"I'll gladly go back to Vietnam in the future. I also hope that in the future some Vietnamese riders will be able to become professional riders! Now we leave to go to Australia where we will have three days of important testing. I'll be very happy to be back aboard my M1 again, I can't wait to continue testing."
The Phillip Island test, the second of three pre-season outings, takes place from Wednesday to Friday.
What does Mr. Regling say? That the IMF (and, apparently, the markets) are wrong; that the ESM's long time horizon and Greece's relatively low debt servicing costs mean there is no cause for alarm (Financial Times, subscription required). Referring to the 174bn euros that the ESM and EFSF have already lent to Greece, he says: "We would not have lent this amount if we did not think we would get our money back." Implication: the IMF and the Euro area nations should lend even more.
In November 2016, Klaus Regling, managing director of the European Stability Mechanism, announced that reforms were going so well in Greece that it would be able to return to the private debt markets by 2017 . It's 2017, and neither the markets nor the IMF seem to share the sentiment. Yields on Greek bonds, already high, have increased, and the IMF has concluded the debt is unsustainable . Greece needs an infusion of cash to make a large payment due in July, but the private debt markets aren't willing to oblige.
What is really going on? As is made clear in this recent Financial Times column by Wolfgang Munchau, and this Bloomberg column by Ashoka Mody, no one seriously believes Greece will repay its debt in full--at least, not within the lifetime of anyone alive today. The real dispute is not about sustainability; it is about the timing of debt relief. For the most part, any new money will be recycled back into the pockets of official creditors. But while official actors keep busy shuffling money from one pocket to another, this mountain of debt will continue to darken Greece's economic prospects.
For political actors in some Euro area countries, there is a compelling political case for deferring questions of debt relief. Elections loom (in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and perhaps Greece), and politicians in northern Europe are reluctant to acknowledge the fiscal transfers that have taken place over the past seven years. Greek politicians are likewise unwilling to admit that they have presided over the creation of an ineradicable debt burden that will blight economic prospects for the foreseeable future.
One solution, favored by some northern European politicians, is to boot Greece out of the Euro area, perhaps accompanied by debt relief. Legally, this may be a plausible option. The question is whether there is a politically and legally realistic alternative given the current political reality, in which politicians in northern Europe need to tell voters that every penny lent will be repaid.
One option is to maintain the status quo, perpetuating the illusion that Greece's debt is sustainable. This appears to be the course favored by Mr. Regling. But as we said a few weeks ago in discussing Paul Blustein's Laid Low, that movie never ends well. Rather than perpetuating Greece's mammoth debt overhang, Euro area leaders need to create incentives for private sector lending to Greece. This will require modifications to the current loan arrangements, but these need not reduce the amount of the Greek debt. (To be clear, we think the amount should be reduced; we are simply acknowledging what appears to be the current political reality.) Instead, the modifications must make clear that new private sector loans will be functionally and legally senior to the existing pile of official debt. Two years ago, this would have been a relatively simple task. Perhaps there is still time. In that event, Mr. Regling's alternative facts might become, well, facts.
Start It Off
With the start of the year, some executives look to get a fresh start with a new job. And some companies look to clean house. Either way, it usually makes January one of the busiest months for changes in IT industry executive ranks. And that was certainly the case last month.
Companies like Aruba, Lenovo and Dimension Data said goodbye to some of their top leadership, while others like Microsoft, RSA and Google welcomed new executives to the highest tiers of their organizations.
We could have easily put together a list of more than 30 executives who were in or out in January. But here's what we think were the most important.
Towards the end of 2016, Cylance, a feisty endpoint protection startup out of Irvine, California, published a series of blogs challenging the methods used by two certification labs to conduct endpoint protection tests. Cylance called the tests unethical, and accused the labs of fraud, bias, software piracy, and extortion.
The pay-to-play argument usually comes up shortly after a lab publishes a new testing and certification report. Outside of pay-to-play, the other argument common among endpoint protection testing centers on methodology - it's too static and doesn't actually mirror the real world.
Considering their comments and writing, Cylance feels that testing their products with improper configurations and without recent updates is stacking the deck. But their arguments, right or wrong, beg the question is there any value in endpoint testing, or is it just a marketing tool?
IDC's Robert Westervelt says testing labs provide a valid service, adding that any organizations considering endpoint protection products should use testing data as one of the components in their evaluations.
"With that said, I think the best way to know the true effectiveness of any security solution is to test it out in your environment. Test results are often used by vendors in the sales process and I saw that a lot when I was covering the sales channel," Westervelt said.
"In most of the engagements I've seen, the CISO and other influencers in the buying process are more concerned about whether the product will solve their existing requirements or problems, whether it can be implemented while maintaining compliance, and increasingly, if the endpoint security product can integrate with the existing security investments they have made."
When it comes to conducting endpoint testing, most of the industry including the testing labs themselves tend to follow AMTSO (Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization).
AMTSO has a number of documents related to testing a given protection product, from standard anti-Virus to newer endpoint defenses.
Membership includes all of the major testing labs and anti-Virus vendors, such as McAfee, Symantec, and Kaspersky, as well as second generation vendors Endgame, FireEye, Crowdstrike, and SentinelOne. Cylance joined AMTSO in December of 2016.
Cylance vs. Everyone
On September 13, 2016, Cylance published a blog accusing two testing labs of defrauding and manipulating of the public, because their published test results recorded 100-percent scores. The argument being, there is no such thing as 100-percent in security.
"The defrauding and manipulation of the public with these tests also stems from vendors who pay so that their test results will show 100% efficacy. These reports not only deceive the buyer, but they also set up impossible standards for the entire security industry," the post states.
In December of 2016, Cylance published two additional blog posts, naming the labs they have problems with directly. The December posts discussed tests performed by AV-Comparatives and MRG Effitas, where CylancePROTECT was matched against Symantec, SentinelOne, Sophos, Trend Micro, McAfee, and Microsoft. The test took place between September and October of 2016, and was paid for by Symantec.
"it comes as no surprise that the major benefactor for the report also turned out to be the major beneficiary of its findings," the blog from December 1 states.
The post goes on to suggest legacy vendors like Symantec are allowed the choose the malware they're tested against, and for a fee they can have some editorial rights over the reports before they're released to the public.
Salted Hash reached out to Symantec for comment. In a statement, the company said they participate in both non-commissioned and commissioned tests from a number of labs, not just the two Cylance referenced. At no time did Symantec have any "influence over how any of these tests are conducted or what test samples are used."
"Benchmarking the efficacy of our products against both current digital threats, as well as competing solutions, is a vital and expected part of providing our customers with the highest performing protection possible. Its particularly important for significantly updated releases that are being brought to market," Symantec explained.
"We are pleased with the outcomes of these independent tests, which clearly demonstrate that Symantec Endpoint Protection is an exceptionally powerful option for customers looking to block all types of threats to the endpoint."
Pirated and outdated software
When questioned about the Symantec test, Cylance argued it was flawed from the start, as AV-Comparatives and MRG Effitas were essentially using pirated software. As such, they were not able to access the cloud-based console or enable all the features in CylancePROTECT.
"We have no records or invoices showing that MRG Effitas, AV-Comparatives or any person associated with these companies purchasing CylancePROTECT," said Chad Skipper, VP of industry relations and product testing at Cylance.
Skipper also noted a lack of contact between the labs and the fact their product was tested with a default configuration. According to Skipper, testing in a default state will see most of the features in CylancePROTECT turned off.
There were two additional reports singled out by Cylance, where they took issue with the product versions being tested.
When they were tested against ESET in February of 2016, the labs used CylancePROTECT 1.2.1310.18 - released on October 14, 2015, months before the test started on January 29. Version 1.2.1340 was released on Jan 6, 2016.
The third test, a comparison with Sophos released in June of 2016, used CylancePROTECT 1.2.1370.99 - released on March 16, 2016, but the test didn't start until May 24. Version 1.2.1380 was released April 21, 2016.
Prepaid cards and VPNs
In a joint statement with MRG Effitas, AV-Comparatives said they purchased CylancePROTECT legally from a channel partner (Malware Managed) and the product was updated fully before testing. The statement also says the labs had access to the cloud-based console and used it. Their remarks go on to say all products were tested in a default state.
"Symantec commissioned this MRG Effitas and AV-Comparatives review, which we make very clear in the report. Symantec had no prior access to the samples used, no visibility of our test process, and no results have been falsified or adjusted in any way. In fact, Cylance is now trying to revoke all licenses we bought, and but not refunding the money. They try really hard to prevent that we can buy a license and they hide their product," the statement concluded.
When asked further about the licenses, a spokesperson for AV-Comparatives said Cylance blocked the credit card previously used to purchase a license. But that isn't going to stop the tests, the spokesperson said, because "there are prepaid credit cards, VPN and fake mail addresses, so we keep on testing them."
"Our tests are recognized as one of the most scientific and fair tests among the industries," AV-Comparatives said in a follow-up statement.
"We perform the most sophisticated Real-World Test. We are ISO certified for independent testing, we are EICAR certified, we are working together with the University of Innsbruck, to improve out tests."
Asked for confirmation on revoking licenses, Cylance gave one:
"[AV-Comparatives] used a non-company email address to gain access to our product. They obfuscated their corporate identification in order to acquire our product to test without our permission. Upon investigation and tracking CylancePROTECT clients to [AV-Comparatives] and [MRG Effitas], we revoked the license. Given their unethical testing practices as outlined in a previous email we believe that revoking this license is prudent to ensure our product is being fairly tested. Cylance has nothing to hide, we just want fair testing for every vendor," Skipper said via email.
AV-TEST develops new testing methodologies with Cylance
Last week, before the start of the RSA Conference, Cylance provided Salted Hash with the results of a new comparison test they commissioned from AV-TEST.
The test shared by Cylance is new though, and could shape the way endpoint testing is done in the future. AV-TEST said the new methodology will be introduced as new tests for the advanced anti-Virus solutions, which run twice a year.
The testing methodology was co-created by Cylance over a period of about six months, and consists of four different test cases. It places CylancePROTECT against offerings from Kaspersky, McAfee, Sophos, Symantec, and Trend Micro.
The first test case (the holiday test) will focus on products seven days out of date, with no access to the internet denying them the ability to check cloud-based sources or apply updates. The second test involves executable files (malware) created by AV-TEST to simulate certain types of attack. During the third test, AV-TEST disables URL filtering and determines how well a product can detect drive-by malware and other web-based threats.
Finally, the fourth test looks at false positives. AV-TEST conducted this scenario by downloading 38 common applications and recording any blocks or warning messages.
The test results name Cylance as the clear winner, but while showing results for the others, the test doesn't name them directly. For example, the results of the first test shows Cylance with a score of 97-percent, and second place is displayed as Vendor 1.
On their blog, Cylance stated clearly: "no one pays for a test that shows how poorly their product performs. They only pay for tests that claim that they perform better than their competitors."
Given that, Salted Hash asked additional follow-ups after reading the report.
"I realize we have bashed the pay-to-play model for testing, but our chief criticism is the lack of integrity and transparency into the methodologies, configurations used, lack of access to malware, testing against older versions and the inconsistent configurations set forth for each test," said Cylance's Skipper.
Cylance was primarily targeting the three paid tests from AV-Comparatives and MRG Effitas, Skipper explained, adding that all three have slightly different testing methods.
"Yes, we paid AV-TEST to do testing, but the methodology was structured to be fair to all parties, and furthermore we anonymized the data. The Holiday Test is not necessarily new as VB100 does this same type of testing. In order to truly test 'zero-days' AV-TEST created malware that no one has ever seen which is more fair than picking wild samples that some have already seen and simply turning off URL filtering is a real-world scenario."
The goal, Skipper said was to have different products tested against one another and publishing the results, while keeping level playing field for all "instead of a process where whoever writes the check gets the best results."
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This article was originally published on April 2, 2015.
Ever feel like you are on a treadmill running through peanut butter? Like there is always more to do than you can possibly get done in a day?
If you are a business owner, you probably know this feeling well. Running your own business often means wearing many hats all at the same time and juggling responsibilities that, in a large corporate setting, would be delegated to a dozen department heads.
By necessity of survival, entrepreneurs tend to be masters of productivity.
So we asked them how they do it. For this story, we talked to the six finalists who are in the running to win the title of National Small Business Person of the Year as part of National Small Business Week (NSBW).
For more than 50 years, the U.S. president has declared one week per year NSBW. Throughout the week, Small Business Administration organizes events around the country to honor leading Main Street entrepreneurs. This years NSBW began on Monday and will end Friday.
Related: Nationally Celebrated Small-Business Owners Reveal Their Best Hiring Secrets
For advice on how to uplevel your productivity, have a look at the advice from these nationally recognized entrepreneurs -- in their own words.
1. Carol Craig, founder of Craig Technologies
Headquarters: Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Founded: 1999
Number of employees: 414 total; 398 full-time; 16 part-time
Annual revenues: Approximately $45 to 50 million
I really dont get it all done. The best advice I received was from Dwayne McKay, Provost at Florida Tech, who said Its okay to drop balls As long as they are the ones that bounce. He said this during a discussion about my PhD program and what direction I should take. I dont sleep much because there is always something to be done (although if I had my way, I would sleep 10 hours a day). I often take advantage of the quiet hours late at night or in the early morning to review outgoing proposals, prepare for non-profit meetings, or check in on our budget and current list of bid opportunities. My best productivity tip is to find the time to slow down and plan - and refuse to be reactive because you will always be fighting the nearest alligator unless you get a grasp on what your priorities each day.
2. Michael Miqueli, founder of San Antonio Broker Services
Headquarters: North Bergen, N.J.
Founded: 1996
Number of employees: 71 full time
Annual revenues: $8 million
I have a rule that the desks in our office cannot have drawers. That way whatever work needs to be completed is usually sitting on your desk, which means it cannot be ignored and is usually handled the same day. I try to maximize efficiency by delegating the smaller tasks. In doing so I have found that I empower people because I allow them to not only have input but also make decisions. There are too many moving parts literally in my trucking business to not delegate.
Related: What Inspires Entrepreneurs to Work as Hard as They Do
3. Richard (Rick) Jackson, founder of American Document Services
Headquarters: Las Cruces, N.M.
Founded: 2001
Number of employees: 18 total; 16 full-time, 2 part-time
Annual revenues: More than $1.5 million
Plan for tomorrow, work smart not hard, use the experts within your organization, let the leadership think for themselves and provide clear guidance. Sometimes I wonder if everything is going to get done, then I realize I have the best employees, they work hard and care about customer service as much as I do. I make promises to my customers and they fulfill those promises. I sleep well at night knowing that what we do we do extremely well.
4. Necole Parker, founder of The ELOCEN Group, LLC
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
Founded: 2006
Number of employees: 62 total; 52 full-time, 10 part-time
Annual revenues: $19.4 million
At the end of the day, I develop my task list to determine my next steps, targets, and goals. Early mornings, I spend time reviewing my task lists to get greater clarity and insight, so that I have a clear focus of whats ahead of me for that day. This doesnt mean that obstacles dont arise on any given day that can often change my schedule. But I try to remain on task as much as possible.
Related: 3 Things You Need to Know About National Small Business Week
5. Alan Doan, founder of the Missouri Star Quilt Company
Headquarters: Hamilton, Mo.
Founded: 2008
Number of employees: 180 total; 155 full-time, 25 part-time
Annual revenues: Declined to provide
Always be building the people around you. Empower your employees. For a long time we were building a company full of employees that were just extensions of our own hands. All the ideas and decisions came from the top. When we were able to transition to a company of people who have the ability to succeed and fail on their own, drive value and make decisions, our lives got way better. But in those moments when you are drowning and trying to teach someone to swim so they can save you, you know, those moments where you are working a 20-hour day and training on the side so you can delegate, just do more faster. That's the only solution I've found.
6. Charles Feit, founder of OnForce Solar
Headquarters: Bronx, N.Y.
Founded: 2008
Number of employees: 100 total; 85 full-time, 15 part-time.
Annual revenues: $30 million
My best tip is to keep a strict to do list. My to do list is several pages long and despite my best efforts, it never gets any smaller. Ultimately, this is a good thing. My best productivity tip is to avoid procrastination.
Related: What Keeps Entrepreneurs Grounded, Peaceful and Happy Amid the Chaos
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It recently came to light that Mark Zuckerbergs public image is managed by more than a dozen employees, each tasked with a variety of specific responsibilities ranging from writing posts to deleting spam and troll comments. This also includes a professional photographer who captures Zuckenbergs everyday life scenes like visiting Vatican, hunting in Kenya and, of course, spending time with his baby daughter.
While your business is still a bit smaller than Facebook, your public image as its CEO or founder is still very important. So, how do you carefully craft a presence that looks like an effort of a whole team?
Related: 17 Weird Things You Didn't Know About Mark Zuckerberg
1. Fill out as much information as possible.
If you are representing a company, make sure you fill out as much information as you can about yourself and your business, so people will be interested to find out more. We all get that you are a busy entrepreneur, but we wont enjoy following an account that has an egg for a profile picture on Twitter.
Plus, make sure that all the links are working. I will dare to claim that it is better to not have any links at all, than a broken link that sends to a 404 page.
Details like those are often overlooked, but leave a lasting impression of carelessness.
Even Zuckerberg himself, who clearly doesnt need an introduction, included a detailed overview of his education (down to high school he graduated), jobs and personal information.
2. Spell correctly.
You know what else gives off a sense of carelessness? Or even worse, makes you look like an uneducated person? Its misspellings. It might be a horrible personal prejudice of mine, but I cant take a business seriously, where owner cannot use proper punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
I get that a lot of us use smartphones for communications, and thus, a lot of social updates get posted from mobile phones these days. I also get that the keyboard is extremely small. Or, maybe youre so excited to share your next big idea that you dont even care to proofread it for grammar and logic.
However, this is not an excuse to not double-check what you are sending out into the world. Use something as simple as Microsoft Word spellchecker or download an app for your phone, but, please, do check what gets posted for a whole world to see.
Related: Don't Underestimate How Much Spelling Matters in Business Communications
3. Respond to questions, comments, concerns.
You shouldnt be on social media to bask in all the glory. You should be online further promoting your business. And whats a better way to do it than to respond to questions and concerns?
Besides, if you take just a little bit of time from your busy schedule to truly interact with your followers, your companys image will only improve. Two of my favorite infopreneurs, Mariah Coz and Regina Anaejionu are both champions of this rule this is mainly why they are my favorite. In groups with thousands of followers, they manage to engage in discussions and provide such a valuable feedback for free. Now, this is what I call building a loyal community of raving fans.
An important thing to remember with this one is staying humble. Do not respond to questions like a jerk or a show-off.
Related: Why 2017 Will be the Year of Native Content and Engagement
4. Stay polite and well-mannered.
Unfortunately, not all things are rosy on the Internet. Sometimes, people do get mad and decide to vent off in the comments section. Sometimes, people have nothing better to do with their time than to troll others. So, how are you supposed to handle those?
The first rule you have to remember at all times is that you are representing a company. Resist the urge to respond with what seems like a clever joke or get into arguments. It is your and your companys reputation that will be ruined, not theirs. Simply remove or flag those comments. Move on with your day.
Related: Social-Media Etiquette 101: Stop Sharing So Much and Never Air Your Dirty Laundry
5. Show some behind-the-scenes moments.
What makes it interesting to follow founders and company insiders is an ability to see some behind-the-scenes action. Facebook CEO is a definite gold standard at this. His profile is full of cool insider moments and previews of the next big thing in Facebooks universe.
While you may not have the funds to hire a professional photographer to follow you around, you could snap some selfies or ask employees to take just a few photos of you. Latest social media trends like Stories and live broadcasting enable you as a business owner to pull the curtain on the inner workings of your company in a very cool and social way.
Mark Cuban, for example, went as far as shoot a quick video in a hospital dress after his hip replacement surgery. Clearly, you dont need to go that personal, but do show your fun, personable side with these; it cannot hurt (pun intended).
Related: Being Authentic Is Not About Being a Selfie-Obsessed Monster Who Tweets Every Second of Every Day
6. Post often, but be mindful of the quality of the content.
You might feel like its a great idea to act as a face of the company one day, and then not feel inspired the next day. However, once you decide to represent your company online, and actually start doing it, there is no way out.
Its really a full-time responsibility. So, unless youre committed to posting often and bringing value with your content, do not do it. Again, it just looks careless if you show up online once every three months to share some random article or your companys profits. Youre either all in, or out.
Take it from Gary Vaynerchuk. Its highly likely that no other CEO takes more time and diligence with his posts. Of course, its a team effort at VaynerMedia to post multiple times a day on all the numerous platforms he is active on. While you dont have to post five times a day to stay visible, think of creative ways to extend the shelf life of any given piece of content. Cut videos into smaller snippets, create infographics and quote graphics, or sometimes, simply drop in to share an industry insight or wisdom.
To summarize, if you are thinking about, or already act as a face of your company, make sure you put forward the best representation of it online. Ensure your presence is polished, engaging, and personable. Check your sources, check your spelling, dont get caught up in rants or arguments. Provide immense value to your followers to establish yourself as a thought leader.
There is a great potential to gain customers who are not only interested in sales and discount, but who truly love your story and want to support you in every way they can.
Related:
How to Create a Polished CEO Presence Worthy of Mark Zuckerberg Without Hiring a Staff
6 Tips to Building a Stronger Brand Using New Media
4 Techniques Successful People Use to Make a Positive First Impression
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A Brazilian artist who has made her name by colorizing poignant, well-known photographs is back with a new batch of colorized photos of some of the most famous people in history.
Marina Amaral, 21, is self-taught and has managed to make photo colorization a full-time job. Since this past summer her photos have made the rounds across the internet, with fans praising her for bringing history to life all over again.
A love of history is what drew Amaral in. She chooses photos based on the power of the image and the significance of the event. You can see her continuing work on her website.
BORN AGAIN: Colorized historical photos bring black and white history to life for modern eyes
Now Playing: Trending News Around The Nation Video: Houston Chronicle
"I try to choose only pictures that represent an important historical moment, or that are able to spread a significant message for the viewers," she said.
"When I colorize a picture, I feel like I'm recreating an event that could have happened yesterday. Black and white photos are wonderful and powerful, but in colors it's easier to create this connection on a more intimate and deep level."
This latest batch features a baby-faced Winston Churchill, the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing and influential writer Virginia Woolf.
DAYS PAST: See the last remaining international boundary marker for the Republic of Texas
She sometimes has to ask historians about the color of a specific item of clothing in order to do her work, especially those seen in military photos.
Amaral told Chron.com that she is currently working on a book for release in 2017 but cant offer any further details.
October 5, 2016THE LIVES OF OTHERSEdward Whites The Lives of Others is a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history.Its impossible to know exactly how many people amassed in August Town, Jamaica, on New Years Eve, 1920, to watch Alexander Bedward fly to heaven. Some eyewitnesses claimed thousands: dense clumps of people wading in the shallow waters of the Hope River, crowding the banks or perched in the branches of the surrounding trees. Most of them were unquestioning believers to whom Bedwards words had the weight of Scripture. For thirty years he had built a vast following by healing, rejuvenating, and baptizing in this very stretch of water, helping ordinary people to know Godand themselvesin ways theyd never imagined possible. Now in his seventies, Bedward sat in a wooden throne, dressed in pristine white robes, awaiting the sweet moment of prophetic fulfillment when he, like Elijah before him, would soar into the unknowable beyond. His ascent, he promised his followers, would hasten the Rapture; before the sun had set, he would be gone and they would be free.Some had their doubts. In fact, a great many Jamaicans dismissed him as either a charlatan or one of the islands growing number of feebleminded unfortunates. The idea that Jamaica was suffering an epidemic of insanity had first surfaced in the 1890s, when the Gleaner newspaper ran reports about the vast overcrowding of the islands only asylum: supposed proof that a contagion of madness was spreading out of control, especially among the black population. According to the historian Leonard Smith, in 1863/64 the Jamaican Lunatic Asylum admitted seventy-one black people and two white people; twenty-five years later, the annual white intake had stayed exactly the same, but the number of black patients had increased to 153.As far as the Gleaners excitable journalists were concerned, the principle reason for this trend was the Great Revival, a spirit of evangelical fervor that arrived in Jamaica in the 1860s and permanently transformed its spiritual life. The movement had blown in on the Caribbean Sea earlier in the century from the United States and the British Isles. It was initially welcomed by traditional Christian denominations, but only as long as the black men and women who crammed the churches communed with God in ways familiar to the ministers and missionaries from New (and old) England. When devotion began to adopt practices redolent of West African folk cultures, the sensibilities of respectable Jamaicans were gravely offended. William James Gardner, one of the countrys first great historians, peered inside places of worship across the island and was appalled to discover speaking in tongues, spirit communing, purification rituals, prophesying, dancing, and drumming: wild extravagance and almost blasphemous fanaticism had polluted the Christian faith with foul and repulsive impurities.What was foul and repulsive to Gardner was joyous liberation for many black Jamaicans. Slavery had only been abolished in the 1830s; this outpouring of religiosity was an expression of a new, hard-won, and still incomplete freedom. One of the hundreds of Afro-Jamaican Christian cults that sprang up in the late 1800s was the Jamaica Native Baptist Free Churchled, from 1889, by Alexander Bedward.Little is known about Bedward as a man, but a few things seem certain: he had a rare charisma, an acute sense of theater, a scorching sense of injustice, and unshakable faith in the righteousness of his words and deeds: the underpinnings of both his rise and his fall.Born into an impoverished family of rural laborers in either 1848 or 1850, Bedward spent part of his twenties working on the construction of the Panama Canal, an exhausting and traumatizing experience. Along with hundreds of other laborers from the Caribbean, he worked long, arduous days in immensely hazardous conditions before being boarded up at night like cattle in shoddy, disease-ridden shacks. It was a humiliation that left a permanent mark, as did the realization that while white workers from the U.S. and Europe were paid in gold, their black counterparts were paid in silver for the same work. It was in this swamp of injustice that this previously irreligious young man first heard God talking to himand He spoke in the radical voice of social protest, urging Bedward to return to Jamaica and start a godly revolution.At first, Bedwards ecclesiastical leadership was relatively conventional. He grew a huge following by ministering his flock in the Hope River, performing thousands of baptisms and supposed healings. By 1894, the Native Baptist Free Church was so thriving that it was able to commission a temple on the banks of the river, a confirmation in stone and slate that the Great Revival had produced genuine competition to the traditional centers of community power. Then, in the following year, Bedward delivered what was then the most radical sermon ever preached on Jamaican soil, injecting the tart invective of racial politics into the Baptist message of spiritual rebirth. He denounced the white establishment as the Anti-Christ sent to plague the true people, and spoke of Jamaican society in terms of a white wall and a black wall, two solid, monolithic structures, immovable and irreducible. The Government passes laws which oppress the black people, the Gleaner reported Bedward as saying. They take their money out of their pockets, they rob them of their bread and they do nothing for it. He also warned the white wall to remember the Morant War, an ominous reference to an event in 1865 when the government massacred hundreds of black people who had taken to the streets in protest against poverty and racial discrimination.The rhetoric terrified the minority white population, who fretted that a race war was imminent. From the perspective of many, Bedward was one of a clutch of unhinged black troublemakers who appeared simultaneously, all of them bent on perverting the natural state of white preeminence. In the same year that Bedward assumed leadership of his church, an American-educated preacher named Robert Love arrived in Jamaica with the intention of challenging white authority and radically empowering Afro-Jamaicansnot through the power of religious revelation and the rhetoric of racial division, but by encouraging the education of black girls and launching a voter registration drive. The next year, 1896, Love persuaded two Afro-Jamaican men to take the unprecedented step of standing for election.and, as their teachings became known, were poles apart, but to the white establishment, the distinctions were negligible; they both filled the heads of black people with dangerous ideas of racial equality. Love was vilified by the Honorable John Vassall Calder for guiding black people into arenas of public life in which they lacked the mental capacities to thrive, and for subjecting him, a white man of high birth, to the indignity of having to share power with an Afro-Jamaican. Dr. Love must remember that his ancestors were my ancestors slaves, Calder averred with truly epic obnoxiousness; he could never be my equal. He is aggrieved because my forefathers rescued him from the bonds of thraldom and deprived him the privilege of being King of the Congo, enjoying the epicurean and conjugal orgies and the sacrificial pleasures of his ancestral home in Africa.If that was the kind of response black people could expect for having the temerity to engage in democratic politics, Bedwards talk of racial revolution was bound to kick up a hornets nest. In 1917, the Bedward disciple A. A. Brooks recalled that the feelings of many in high circles were indignantly aroused by Bedwards radical preaching in the 1890s. Undauntedly, the devoted servant of God conducted his work until in Gods own time, they took him. Where they took him was the lunatic asylum, on the grounds that only a fevered mind could have uttered such madness. And there the white wall hoped he would stay until such time as the madness brought on by his religious mania could be flushed out of him. But the iron-fist tactics backfired spectacularly. Within weeks of being sectioned, Bedward was at liberty again, freed by the astute work of a sympathetic white lawyer.Over the next quarter century, Bedward became an antiestablishment hero preaching a message of black power. The crowds at Hope River grew ever larger and more ecstatic; the numbers committed to Bedwards austere regime of fasting and temperance swelled exponentially. As people in search of cures, cleansing, or salvation waded into the water, others on the banks sang a song that has since become a Jamaican folk standard: Dip dem,Bedward, dip dem / Dip dem in the healing stream / Dip dem deep, but not too deep / dip dem fi cure bad feeling. Journalists, government officials, and social reformers inquisitive or prurient enough to attend a service looked on aghast, and in almost universal agreement that this was nothing other than mass lunacy. Explanations were advanced from various branches of Victorian pseudoscience as to the root cause of this medieval insanity, including the size and shape of the worshippers brains. Some suggested there must have been something in the water, and urged chemists to analyze the Hope River to isolate the chemical responsible.And as the number of Bedwardites grew, so the roll call at the asylum got longer and longer. Beyond the adherence to magic and prophecy, the Bedwardites madness seemed all the more chronic because they turned the world on its head. Bedward preached that in the dawning twentieth century, God had bestowed His special purpose upon Jamaica and its black citizens, just as in Biblical times He had favored the Jews of Jerusalem. It was an audacious reimagining of the status quo: the modern world did not belong to the empires and industrialized economies, but to the poor, dispossessed, and despised ex-slaves of a small island in the Caribbean. Bedwards sermons fitted every event of the new centurythe bloody quagmire of European trenches; the sinking of the Titanicinto a scheme in which God was punishing the white Western world for hundreds of years of avarice, corruption, and brutality. When a staircase bought from an old bank building was brought in to replace a damaged one in the Native Baptist Free Church, Bedward refused to allow it: the thing was spiritually polluted by its association with capitalism and imperialism.Bedwardism planted a seed from which a culture of racial consciousness grew, and found its most emphatic form in Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. With Garveys rise to prominence in the 1910s, Bedward became convinced that God had only ever intended for him to be one of a sequence of prophets rather than a messiahAaron to Garveys Moses is how he termed itpaving the way for the younger man to deliver his people into the Promised Land. With old age now upon him, in 1920 Bedward began to tell his followers that he had been called by the Lord to fly up into heaven. To his flock, it was a potent image in keeping with his mantra of black advancement. Mythological tales about men and women blessed with the power of flight had been a staple of West African folklore for centuries; throughout the slave communities of the Americas those stories were transformed into metaphors for freedom from earthly shackles. In modern African American culture, for example, the myth of the flying African has been reprised countless timesthe tale of Igbo Landing; Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon; George Clintons Mothershipalways with the promise of awakening and liberation.On his arrival at the river, he took to his chariota chair balanced in a treeand declared that the ascension would take place at ten oclock that morning. When ten had been and gone, Bedward revised the schedule: three in the afternoon would see Gods will done. The afternoon drifted by; Bedward stayed in his chair. When the hands of the clock swept past ten that evening, Bedward clambered down from his chariot and went home. There was incomprehension among his congregants, but to the authorities he had needled and taunted for so long it was a gilt-edged opportunity to once again brand him a lunatic, and everything that he preached a symptom of his pitiable mind. By July 1921, Bedward was returned to the asylum where he had been sent in 1895. This time there was no agile-witted lawyer to crowbar him out. Instead, Bedward spent the next nine years there, eventually dying in his cell from natural causes.His followers were distraught and confused; as many as six thousand of them, by one estimate, had given up their worldly possessions, certain that his prophecy would come true. Bedward himself claimed that he had never intended his talk of flying to heaven to be taken literally. To this day, there are those who believe that Bedwards reputation has been deliberately trashed by a concatenation of falsehood and lies. When the writer Ian Thomson roamed Jamaica some seventy years after Bedwards death, he tracked down a couple of devout Bedwarditesjust about the only ones still livingtwo elderly ladies propped up in bed in the middle of the day, their bodies tired and unreliable but their minds still clinically sharp. When Thomson asked them about the ignominy of Bedwards demise, they arched a collective eyebrow and dismissed the idea that Bedward was insane as so much white propaganda. Nothing happen like that, one of them said. They jus try to make the Bedward myth more sweeter, nice it up. By they she meant the colonial government whom Bedward had so thoroughly infuriated and embarrassed.Perhaps too much of Bedwards story is tangled in myth for us, at a centurys remove, to isolate the various images of Bedward as madman, savior, demagogue, and dreamer, and decide how much of each existed within the one person. Its worth noting that Robert Love, the inspirational advocate of racial uplift via education and political engagement, always thought Bedward to be nothing more than a skilled showman whom a hysterical establishment had managed to turn into a martyr. But the Bedward who resonates most with the people of 2016, the Bedward who uttered a message of power and defiance in the shadow of oppression and injustice, is being recovered from his cell at the asylum, just as the stigma of insanity is being lifted from all those of his contemporaries who dared to worship according to their own hearts. In August 2015, the Gleaner, the same newspaper that had wrung its hands about the Great Revival and the insanity epidemic and had ridiculed Bedward during his life, printed an article that attempted to resurrect him as a legendary folk hero, one whose black-empowerment, self-sufficiency, unifying and millennial messages had been sullied by decades of establishment propaganda. Alexander Bedwards dreams of flight may never have come true, but he may, at last, achieve deliverance.Edward White is the author of The Tastemaker: Carl van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America. White studied European and American history at Mansfield College, Oxford, and Goldsmiths College, London. Since 2005, he has worked in the British television industry, including two years at the BBC, devising programs in its arts and history departments. He is a contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. He lives in London.
FOX 13
BY BEN WINSLOW
FEBRUARY 5, 2017SALT LAKE CITY A former child bride who brought a criminal prosecution against Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs has asked a judge to give her millions in a civil judgment against him.In court papers obtained by FOX 13, Elissa Walls attorneys ask the judge for at least $5 million with interest in a default judgment against Jeffs and his polygamous church.Plaintiff Elissa Wall is entitled to punitive damages, which should be determined by this Court through an evidentiary hearing. If punitive damages are appropriate, the default judgment should be augmented accordingly, her attorney Alan Mortensen wrote in his motion.Mortensen told FOX 13 on Monday they are seeking a hearing to liquidate Jeffs and the FLDS Churchs assets.It would include going after any properties Warren Jeffs and the FLDS Church may own, regardless of where theyre at, he said.In addition to properties in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., the FLDS Church has a compound in South Dakota and in British Columbia, in Canada. The state of Texas seized the FLDS Churchs Yearning For Zion Ranch following a 2008 raid that resulted in hundreds of children being removed from their homes (and later returned) and criminal convictions of numerous church members, including Jeffs.Wall sued Jeffs, the FLDS Church and its real-estate holdings arm, the United Effort Plan Trust, over her marriage at age 14 to her cousin in a ceremony presided over by Jeffs. She was the star witness in Utahs prosecution against him on a charge of rape as an accomplice (that was later overturned by the Utah Supreme Court).The case languished in the courts for years until she resurrected it in 2014. In court documents, she sought as much as $40 million from Jeffs, the FLDS Church, and the UEP Trust. Wall reached a settlement with the court-controlled UEP Trust last year. It was taken over by the courts in 2005 over accusations that Jeffs and other top FLDS leaders mismanaged it.Jeffs is currently serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for child sex assault related to underage marriages. He has consistently refused to respond to lawsuits filed against him since he was sentenced. In a deposition obtained by FOX 13, Jeffs refused to answer most questions posed by attorneys.
February 2017I dont have a knuckle, says Christian Picciolini showing his fists when asked about his violent past. Indeed, there is one knuckle missing on his right hand.Picciolini joined a neo-Nazi skinhead group when he was 14 years old. At the time, it was rather a gang of fighters than a well-organised and ideologically unified neo-Nazi movement. He soon became one of its key figures forming the character of the group and infecting others with ideas of racism and hatred. Currently, he is travelling around the world and telling people just how wrong he was.The Slovak Spectator (TSS): You joined skinheads after a bald-headed man approached you and told you to stop smoking a joint. Why was it so appealing?Christian Picciolini (CP): He was the first adult in my life who said that if I do something like that it would affect my life in a bad way. My parents would say: dont do that, its stupid and what would other people said if they see you. I didnt care about that. When he told me that if I dont stop that somebody will control my life, I knew I didnt want that.TSS: What about his charisma?CP: I wanted to be like that man. He was strong, smart, powerful and he was everything I was not. He was very influential on me.TSS: Does that mean that you joining the group had something to do with racism and politics?CP: Usually they use softer language when recruiting people. Its like drugs. When you start doing drugs you take just a little bit of an easy drug and then move to stronger and stronger. They know that they can pull more people with a softer message. When they have them they change the message to clear hate.TSS: What tricks did they use?CP: We told them to call media liberal instead of Jewish which makes the language softer. Instead of saying that we have a problem with Mexicans we said that we have an immigration problem and it is affecting the economy. We didnt want to look extreme at first sight.TSS: You used music to lure people. Is it the most effective way?CP: It used to be. Now the internet and fake news are the most influential. Its cheaper, reaches more people and extremists can just leave messages there which people can find. They dont have to find them on their own. Its very dangerous, because there are also a lot of fake news sites and profiles that know where to find vulnerable kids and feed them with this information. Music is less important than it was in the 80s and 90s.TSS: In Slovakia, extremist bands try to get into the mainstream using language which spreads hatred but in legal way. How should society respond to their music and events?CP: People should talk about what they dont think is right even if it is legal. We shouldnt let it hide because it will grow. We shouldnt battle it in a violent way either because of the same reason. We have to educate people about why they shouldnt attend such events and also have a normal conversation with those who already like it. We should show them that we are normal people and they dont have to fear us.TSS: Extremists say that their music is not about hate but about spreading the truth. What is your opinion?CP: I dont agree with this music because I believe its propaganda. They are just smart enough to make it legal.TSS: From the beginning you analysed your group and saw that you were smarter than most of the skinheads around you. How would you describe those people?CP: There are a lot of smart people. What they have in common is issues with identity, belonging and sense of purpose. I felt very noble when I was doing these things. People who are attracted to those ideas have always some sort of grievance and anger. Recruiters know how to focus this anger and say: I know that you are angry and its their fault. Its always about blaming others instead of working on yourself.TSS: Arent extremists just a stupid part of the society which you can do nothing with?CP: They are not stupid. Certainly, there are many uneducated individuals but there are also very smart people. As you can see there are smart people able to get elected to parliament and have bad intentions. Its not about intelligence its about selfishness, power and fear of losing that power.TSS: Why it was so hard for you to leave?CP: Even after I lost the ideology, it was hard to abandon the identity which I created and was important to a lot of people that were my friends. I didnt have anything else. I had to start over again like I was 14 years old.TSS: People who are leaving religious cults have similar problems. Are there any parallels?CP: Yes, its very much like a cult. That is also why I started the Exit programme.TSS: How has your Exit project for people leaving extremists groups been going?CP: Experiences have been very positive. In the US we reached 50 people just in the first year. We also recognised that in countries like Slovakia similar programmes are missing, therefore, we found great partners with whom we could launch Exit Slovensko.TSS: What is the strategy of this programme?CP: We give people a safe place to talk. They can reach us confidentially and if they want to leave we help them. We work with people to build up their self-confidence and provide them with tools such as job training, education, tattoo removal, therapy, and mentorship. We never battle with their ideologies, because we know that pushes them farther away. Instead we listen and they tell us the clues on why they adopted racism. It's usually a crutch to blame other people for their own problems. Once we help people feel more whole, the ideology usually disappears. We partner with many organisations who volunteer their help in making the services happen.TSS: What is your success rate?CP: I dont have official data but I can say that overwhelmingly we have been very successful. We have been able to help everybody who joined the programme and stayed. I dont know about anybody who went through the programme and went back to extremists. We only dont know what happened to those who just stopped communicating with us.TSS: Why did you decide to launch a Slovak version of the project?CP: Exit Slovensko became an idea after the first time I was in Bratislava and Banska Bystrica and people contacted me after my lectures that shared the same story as me. They wanted to help because they knew how important such a programme could be.TSS: You ended with racism because of meeting people from minorities and you lost your hatred because of family and children you loved. Is this the most common reason why people leave such groups?CP: There are different reasons. Some of them, they meet people who they reconciled with. Some people did not want to change but their family contacted us. Others just saw through the lies of extremists or are very tired of the hatred.TSS: Some people say that we should not sit and have a beer with extremists because they may be aggressive individuals who were attacking people on the streets 20 years ago. Why do you promote connection and mutual understanding?CP: Because it can happen again and they will beat people up on the streets. If you dont start to reach people, the problem will start to grow. I treat extremism like polio. If somebody is sick with racism I do intervention and I have that beer with them. But I also know that there a lot of people who could get sick so we do prevention with young people.TSS: We should meet with an aggressive person behind one table?CP: If you sit with a neo-Nazi you will find out that you have a lot of in common, not ideologically but on the human level. If you connect with somebody on the human level its easier to understand each other and maybe convince them that their ideology is not a good one. Isolation makes people more afraid of what they dont understand.TSS: Should this approach also be applied to mass media? Should we invite extremists to our shows? You describe in your book how Oprah Winfrey invited Neo-Nazi skinheads on her show, it did not go well and she was called a monkey.CP: I dont believe in giving them a platform where they can talk about their ideas. It makes them relevant and normal. I believe in free speech but it doesnt mean we have to give them a platform. What you mentioned happened in the very early stages of Oprahs career and I think she wouldnt do that now. Interestingly, she had the same skinheads on her show 20 years later and they had changed. She talked with them about that and they were very ashamed.TSS: How do you perceive the increase of extremism in the western world?CP: I am scared because it represents everything I am against. America was from the beginning built by immigrants. The best import we have ever had is immigrants. It scares me that we are changing our values like democracy and diversity. In Europe it is scary too because we see that history is repeating itself. Countries are isolating themselves and far-right parties are entering parliaments wanting to exclude everybody who they think doesnt belong in their country.TSS: Should Slovak society be scared of unofficial paramilitary groups which train with weapons and describe themselves as patriots?CP: There is a difference between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism means that people are patriotic to their country and all people who live in it. Nationalism tells people that they should isolate themselves from others, close their borders and make their own country. I dont personally know the people you are talking about, but if they want to isolate themselves from the rest of Europe then it is a problem.TSS: Some see these trends as an uprising of white men who has been ignored by authorities. What do you think about that?CP: They fear that they will lose the power. In the past, white men had all the power and now when somebody is slightly threatening this structure of power they say: what about me? White men still control the western world and it is time for people to understand that women are equal and minorities should have the same opportunities and a few people cannot control the lives of many.
February 7, 2017VATICAN CITY (AP) Participants at a Vatican conference on organ trafficking challenged China on Tuesday to allow independent scrutiny to ensure it is no longer using organs from executed prisoners, saying Chinese assurances aren't enough to prove the transplant program has been reformed.Sparks flew in the afternoon session of the meeting as China's former vice health minister, Dr. Huang Jiefu, sought to assure the international medical community that China was "mending its ways" after declaring an end to the prisoner harvesting program in 2015."I am fully aware of the speculation about my participation in the summit," Huang told the conference, citing "continuing concerns about the transplant activities."He provided scant data to rebut critics, however, showing only two slides indicating an increased number of living and deceased donors in recent years and China's recent efforts to crack down on black market transplant activities.Huang first publicly acknowledged the inmate harvesting organ program in 2005 and later said as many as 90 percent of Chinese transplant surgeries using organs from dead people came from executed prisoners. He has spearheaded a reform effort and pledged that China put an end to the program in 2015. But doubts persist that China is meeting its pledge, given its lack of transparency, the severe shortage of organ donors and China's longstanding black-market organ trade.Huang's colleague, Dr. Haibo Wang, stressed the sheer impossibility of trying to fully control China's transplant activity since there are 1 million medical centers and 3 million licensed doctors operating in the country. As a result, China proposed at the Vatican meeting that the World Health Organization form a global task force to help crack down on illicit organ trafficking.Dr. Jacob Lavee, president of Israel's transplant society, insisted in response that WHO be allowed to conduct surprise inspections and interview donor relatives in China."As long as there is no accountability for what took place ... there can be no guarantee for ethical reform," he told the conference in a heated exchange.He was joined by Dr. Gabriel Danilovitch, from the UCLA Medical Center, who challenged the Chinese delegation to declare straight out if prisoner organs were no longer used.Wang countered that he and Huang spent the past 12 years battling critics inside China and out to reform the sector, and said China shouldn't be singled out for spot WHO inspections.The back-and-forth underscored the controversy over China's participation in the conference, after critics sent letter to organizers and Pope Francis warning that Chinese attendance amounted to a Vatican whitewash of its past practices. Organizers, however, stood firm in their invitation and even came to China's defense in trying to prevent TV cameras from covering the Chinese presentation."Are they doing any illegal transplantation of organs in China? We can't say," said Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. "But we want to strengthen the movement for change."The Vatican conference is part of Pope Francis' efforts to crack down on trafficking in humans and organs. China's participation also conveniently corresponded with his efforts to engage Beijing in hopes of improving diplomatic relations. China's foreign ministry, however, played down the diplomatic significance of Huang's presence.It's unclear how effective a WHO organ trafficking task force would be, given that the U.N. agency is completely reliant on countries to provide health information and statistics and rarely collects or independently verifies data provided by governments.China has long been criticized for its lack of transparency in public health. During the global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome more than a decade ago, for example, China initially covered up the epidemic. By the time China began to acknowledge the true scale of the outbreak, SARS had spilled across Asia and to North America.More recently, China has been criticized for not quickly sharing details of its expanding bird flu outbreak. WHO, now run by China's Dr. Margaret Chan, has largely refrained from criticizing the country's efforts and has endorsed its organ transplant reform process.China aside, WHO is typically loath to criticize member countries. During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, for example, it delayed for months declaring the biggest-ever epidemic of the lethal disease to be a global emergency, fearing it would offend the affected countries. It also refrained from publicly slamming Brazil last year when the country initially refused to share virus samples from its Zika outbreak.___AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.
STORY LINK GBP to AUD Exchange Rate Advances as Risk-Sentiment Fades
GBP Sturdy Following Fridays Strong UK Data
Australian Dollar (AUD) Weakened as Japanese Growth Disappoints
GBP/AUD Forecast: Australian Confidence and Employment Reports Ahead
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The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rates losses were minimised on Tuesday afternoon, as markets suddenly took a risk-off turn and sold the Aussie due to an increase in demand for the US Dollar.Perceived hawkishness from Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen left risky currencies like the Aussie weaker on Tuesday afternoon, allowing the weak Pound to claw back some of its losses.[Previously updated 11:00 am]As Chinese consumer prices were found to have accelerated further than forecast in January a resurgence in risk appetite helped to buoy the Australian Dollar on Tuesday.This prompted the GBP AUD exchange rate to slump sharply, especially in the wake of a disappointing UK consumer price index report.[Previously updated 13/02/2017]The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate advanced when markets opened on Monday despite strong domestic factors in Australia, as disappointing Japanese data caused investors to worry about the Asian trade outlook.GBP AUD trended flatly last week, ending the week at 1.6260 just above its opening levels. As a result, the pair fell from its weekly high of 1.6475. GBP AUD began to advance again on Monday.The Pound avoided further losses against the Australian Dollar last week thanks to solid UK data published on Friday.Britains December trade balance improved to -3.30b and private sector data also beat expectations. Manufacturing production rose from 1.7% to 4% year-on-year, well above the projected 1.8%.Meanwhile, industrial production improved from a revised figure of 2.2%, to 4.3%. It was projected to only reach 3.2%.Due to the strength of these figures, some analysts believe Britains Q4 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) result will be even better than expected.Demand for risk-correlated currencies like the Australian Dollar weakened when markets opened this week as traders reacted to news from Mondays Asian session.Japans annualised Q4 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) results came in worse than projected falling from 1.4% to 1% despite being projected to come in at 1.1%. This caused traders to worry about the Australasian trade outlook.As a result, the Australian Dollar was unable to benefit from strong iron ore prices. Despite its recent highs, demand and prices for Australias most lucrative commodity continued to outperform expectations.Last weeks strong demand for the Aussie was due to a hawkish tone from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) but this weeks drop in risk-sentiment saw it fall from its highs.The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate is likely to become a little more data-focused in the coming days.Tuesday will be a key day for data, as Britains January Consumer Price Index (CPI) results will be published. Australian data includes the NABs January business confidence print that will be published during the Asian session.Wednesdays session will follow with Westpacs consumer confidence survey for Australia, as well as UK jobless claims and unemployment figures.Then, later in the week, Australias key employment report will come in which could offset Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) optimism if it disappoints.Also vital to GBP/AUD trade is the possibility that US President Trump may introduce his highly anticipated new tax plans this week. If he does, demand for risky currencies like the Aussie could plunge.
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Thanks to a lamentable combination of blunder, muddle and incompetence, civil servants wasted an average of 87 of your money every second over the last two years a total of 5.5 billion.
New RAF drones crashed during testing, air tickets were bought for deporting failed asylum seekers which then had to be cancelled without refund following legal challenges, and Christmas bonuses to welfare claimants were overpaid to the tune of 626,000. (Why are benefit claimants receiving bonuses at all?)
Botched fighter jet maintenance contracts, IT systems that dont work, X-Ray equipment at Heathrow that was scrapped its a litany of ineptitude.
Thanks to a lamentable combination of blunder and incompetence, civil servants wasted an average of 87 of your money every second over the last two years a total of 5.5 billion
And this doesnt even include the estimated 1.8 billion cost to the NHS of treating foreign patients, or the monstrous 12 billion a year in aid being splashed around the world. Little wonder that foreign aid fraud investigations have increased four-fold in five years.
After a week of intense debate over problems within the NHS, the elderly care crisis and the financial woes of local councils, such arrant waste, skewed priorities and squandering of precious resources are, quite simply, an insult to Britains hard-pressed taxpayers.
Dont they deserve better than this Whitehall farce?
A tainted Speaker
What an embarrassment Commons Speaker John Bercow has become to the Parliament he is supposed to serve.
First he insults the new US President, by unilaterally declaring he shouldnt be allowed to address MPs and peers during his forthcoming state visit.
Now he has been boasting to students about being a Remain supporter, saying EU membership is in Britains interests.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their personal view but overtly taking sides on such a divisive issue shatters the most sacred principle of the Speakers office scrupulous political neutrality.
How can Mr Bercow possibly appear even-handed in future Brexit debates when he has made his views so clear?
Then there are disturbing questions over his friendship with former Home Affairs select committee chairman Keith Vaz, who stepped down after becoming embroiled in a rent boy scandal.
Charities and donors linked to Mr Vaz gave tens of thousands of pounds to fund Mr Bercows last two election campaigns and he is accused of blocking Commons debate into Mr Vazs indiscretions in return. He denies any impropriety of course, but the damage is done.
Through his overweening arrogance and baleful lack of judgment, Mr Bercow has surrendered all authority. He has shown himself unfit for office.
Crushing democracy
Imagine a country that imprisons journalists simply for receiving information, or whistleblowers for revealing injustice and corruption even when its clearly in the public interest.
No, not Zimbabwe or North Korea. That country could soon be Britain if new espionage legislation proposed by the Law Commission ever comes to pass.
It recommends journalists and their sources should face up to 14 years imprisonment if they obtain what the state regards as secret information. They wouldnt even have to publish it.
There would be no public interest defence and the definition of secret documents would be for the courts. So a political journalist who was shown documents relating to the Governments Brexit plans could be jailed.
The free Press has been a cornerstone of democracy for 300 years. Authoritarian measures like this show how dearly the rich and powerful would like to crush it.
The models showing J. Crew's latest collection at New York Fashion Week were all smiles on Sunday - and it's no surprise.
The brand's Fall/Winter 2017 show was shown at New York's Spring Studios by men and women ages nine to 67, including whole families, with a plethora of backgrounds.
Writers, performers, investors and athletes were all among the models showing off the new collection, which has been described by the brand as a return to its roots.
Showing off: Actress Sandra Bernhard (center) poses at the the J.Crew presentation for New York Fashion Week
Across the board: The brand's latest collection was shown on models from ages 9 to 67
A look back: The collection has a focus on 'old school' heritage pieces such as rugby shirts
'We decided to re-imagine some iconic pieces from our heritage. The rugby shirt. The rollneck. The critter pant. The windbreaker. Anything tweed,' explained J.Crew creative director and president Jenna Lyons in a statement.
The clothes in the collection were indeed just as diverse as the models wearing them, with tartan matched with tulle and faux fur over denim.
Though there were a few over-the-top efforts, the new collection is totally street accessible and does seem comfortably familiar to the brand's heritage in preppy-style stripes and layering.
Real looker: Swedish model and body activist Sabina Karlsson was among those showing the new collection
On her way: As was 13-year-old Mathilda Gianopoulos, who is the daughter of actress Molly Ringwald
Mix and match: The casual looks included plenty of denim and untucked shirts
A legend: Sandra Bernhard sported red foundry pants and a men's striped shirt for the show
There were even a few big names among those posing on the platforms Sunday. In a men's striped shirt and red heritage foundry pants was actress Sandra Berndard, while Pretty in Pink star Molly Ringwald's 13-year-old daughter Mathilda Gianopoulos wore a ruffled tartan skirt and cropped army shirt-jacket.
In a tulle polka-dot tie-neck dress over a men's tuxedo shirt was plus-size model and body activist Sabina Karlsson.
Women's designer Somsack Sikhounmuong explained that the aim of the collection was to be 'a combination of old and new schools' meaning both looking back at the old heritage - including 'classic Scottish symbols - as well as pop-out colors and textures.
More to go: The show also included models who were actually writers, investors and athletes
TRACY REESE
Tracy Reese showed her fall 2017 collection in the stunning West Village venue 632 on Hudson this afternoon.
Models were placed in different rooms in the historic home alongside poets Dorothea Lasky, Aja Monet, Leslie Reese and Jenny Zhang, who all read poetry throughout the presentation.
'More than ever, the world we inhabit demands that we, as women be all things: strong yet feminine, nurturing yet stoic, seductive yet demure. This collection is an ode to the strength and beauty of the feminine spirit,' said the designer.
Tracy Reese showed her fall 2017 collection in the stunning West Village venue 632 on Hudson this afternoon
'More than ever, the world we inhabit demands that we, as women be all things: strong yet feminine, nurturing yet stoic, seductive yet demure. This collection is an ode to the strength and beauty of the feminine spirit,' said the designer
Models were placed in different rooms in the historic home alongside poets Dorothea Lasky, Aja Monet, Leslie Reese and Jenny Zhang, who all read poetry throughout the presentation
The multi-dimensional pieces shown will be the perfect addition to the modern woman's wardrobe, and will help them move seamlessly from role to role in their everyday lives.
Some of the stand out looks included silk embellished kimonos layered over sleek tailored trousers, deconstructed denim blazers worn atop sequin striped dresses, and blouson sweaters paired with pleated skirts.
We personally can't wait to get our hands on the furry shoes and over-the-top gold disc earrings next fall.
Some of the stand out looks included silk embellished kimonos layered over sleek tailored trousers
We personally can't wait to get our hands on the furry shoes and over-the-top gold disc earrings next fall
The multi-dimensional pieces shown will be the perfect addition to the modern woman's wardrobe, and will help them move seamlessly from role to role in their everyday lives
PUBLIC SCHOOL
Of course, given the tense times we now live in, it's unsurprising that some designers are keen to make a political statement or two on this season's runway.
On brand wading into political waters is Public School, who sent their models down the catwalk sporting 'Make America New York' hats.
Dao-Yi Chao and Maxwell Osborne came up with the idea, having used Donald Trump's famous campaign slogan and turning it into an anti-Trump message.
The models even walked to a version of Woody Guthrie's song This Land is Your Land.
Other outfits in the collection bore slogans such as 'We need leaders' and even '44 1/2' - a probably hit at Trump over accusations that his presidency is not a legitimate one.
Making things clear: Public School sent their models down the New York Fashion Week wearing 'Make America New York' hats
Nancy Durham, 64, worked as a foreign correspondent in areas such as Kosovo and the Middle East. In 2011, she launched the Farmers range of body care products made from Welsh lavender. She lives on a farm in mid-Wales with her husband, Bill Newton-Smith.
My job as a foreign correspondent saw me flying around the world to conflict zones on assignments, but I always loved to retreat to our Welsh bolthole, a farm 1,100ft high in Maesmynis Valley north of the Brecon Beacons.
In the autumn of 2003, I planted a field of lavender on a rainy windswept hillside.
We used more than 2,000 plants and were the first people to open a lavender farm in Wales.
Nancy Durham, 64, above, launched the Farmers range of body care products made from Welsh lavender. She lives on a farm in mid-Wales with her husband, Bill Newton-Smith
Initially we sold dry bunches, then in 2008, a friend introduced me to her sister, Helen Lowe, who had a business making moisturising creams.
As a foreign correspondent, I had often worked in harsh conditions which made me hyper aware of the need to take care of my skin.
Together, we developed a line of face and body creams. My lightbulb moment came when I was invited to talk to a group of sheep farmers. I was nervous so I brought along my props: jars of body creams we were experimenting with at the time.
It was ladies night and I thought they might like to try them. To my astonishment, so did the men. They plunged their hands into the pots of cream with gusto.
Afterwards they told me about the toll work and weather took on their skin. It was a cold wet January night and as I drove home I thought of the name Farmers Hand Cream.
Helen and I developed a cream that combines lavender, rosemary and peppermint, inspired by the farmers at that talk. To our surprise its become a cult beauty product even Helena Christensen is a fan.
Today we sell in 90 shops around the country, including Ace Hotel in London, and worldwide.
After a life reporting on conflict, its wonderful to have created a brand with calming and healing properties.
welshlavender.com
Samantha Cameron with her sister Emily Sheffield
Muted colours. Rather pedestrian shapes. None of the fantasy or froth that makes fashion sparkle and moves women to raptures of desire.
Sam Cams new Cefinn collection is a workmanlike set of basics aimed as she admitted in an interview yesterday at being something a busy woman can grab out of her wardrobe.
Yet, despite this, the collection has been given enviable support from the fashion worlds creme de la creme in a way most new designers could only dream of.
It was launched with much fanfare in Vogue last month, then appeared on the cover of a glossy magazine yesterday, with a suitably gushing interview. None other than Anna Wintour U.S. Vogue editor and the most influential woman in fashion was consulted on the range.
Why? Most would say its less to do with the clothes and more thanks to Samanthas impressive network of friends in high places and wealthy relatives.
Indeed, Samanthas contacts book bursts with influential industry stalwarts: handbag guru Anya Hindmarch and designer Erdem Moralioglu are close friends, while her sister Emily Sheffield is deputy editor of UK Vogue and reportedly first in line to take the top job when Alexandra Shulman steps down after her 25-year reign this summer.
Indeed, it was through her sister that Samantha, 45, debuted the collection in Vogue across six pages last month something normally unheard of for a new designer.
Handily, in her capacity as Prime Ministers wife, Sam served as ambassador for the British Fashion Council, sat on the front row of every Fashion Week and held a yearly reception at Downing Street for the industry which allowed her to rub shoulders with all its luminaries, who no doubt shes been tapping up for advice.
Everyone from Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet to designers such as Donatella Versace and Victoria Beckham dropped into Downing Street.
It was at these parties that Sam Cam got to know Anna Wintour, whom she revealed yesterday had a preview of the collection: One of the first people I showed the collection to was Anna Wintour, and she gave me great advice, said Sam. She really liked the fact it was about real women.
Handbag guru Anya Hindmarch (left) and designer Erdem Moralioglu (right) are close friends
A red suit from the collection will cost 480, with the wool blazer costing 290 and the tailored trousers priced at 190
Of course, Sams other advantage over similarly new designers is that shes very well-heeled. Funding for the venture comes from the Camerons private coffers which are deep.
Not only does she have savings from her 400,000-a-year creative director post at Smythson, which she held for 14 years before going part-time as a consultant (on a salary of 100,000) in 2010, but theres a stake in the family firm, Normanby Estate Holdings, run by her father, Sir Reginald Sheffield.
Like husband David (whose late father, Ian, had an estimated wealth of 10 million), she has family money. Sir Reginald has a 20 million property empire, while her mother, Lady Annabel Astor, is co-founder and chief executive of the chic furnishings retailer Oka, which made 1.76 million in profits last year.
Money goes not into Cefinn directly but into Samantha Cameron Studio Ltd, a non-trading company based in the North Lincolnshire town of Brigg, down the road from the country estate where she grew up. This leaves the option open to one day expand her fashion assets beyond a single brand.
Samanthas family is steeped in creativity. Her maternal grandmother, Pandora Clifford, was an interior designer and society beauty who featured in Tatler once wearing a pair of curtains that shed ripped down from the dining room and spontaneously fashioned into a lavish party dress.
On the same street as Sams West London studio, just around the corner from Latimer Road Tube, is the headquarters of Cath Kidston, the shabby-chic homewares business. Cath is Sams second cousin.
The Satin Panel Boxy Top (left) costs 110, while the Fine Wool Funnel Neck Sleeveless Dress (right) will set you back 250
And before founding Oka, Lady Astor now married to businessman and hereditary peer William Astor ran a successful jewellery business in Knightsbridge, which was a favourite of Princess Diana.
It was her mother who taught Samantha to sew Shes an amazing seamstress, says Annabel and by the mid-Eighties her daughter was making her own outfits, customising pieces she had picked up at Kensington Market.
She honed her skills in a foundation year at Camberwell College of Arts and studied Fine Art at Bristol Polytechnic, spending an exchange year in East Berlin undoubtedly an inspiration behind her muted, minimalistic designs.
On her return to London, with wonderful serendipidy her mothers social ties (she was a long-time friend and bridge companion of the late designer Oscar de la Renta) helped Samantha get her first job at Smythson.
For all of her connections and money, though, there can be no argument that Samantha has worked hard on her label. Ever since she moved into Downing Street and spent 38,000 overhauling the chintzy decor, shes proved herself willing to roll her sleeves up and muck in.
Mrs Cameron revealed that Cefinn was in fact a long-time in the planning, but she kept it 'a bit undercover' due to her high profile. The Zip Funnel Neck Midi Dress is priced at 290
In 2011, a year after her youngest, Florence, was born, she hired a professional to teach her how to pattern-cut and for the next five years, the dining room at No 11 Downing Street became an impromptu atelier as Samantha spent hours slaving over her sewing machine, sketching designs and running up samples which she corralled female visitors to try on.
Friends say they often admired Sams outfits only for her to cheerfully admit shed designed and made them herself.
Shes been making her own clothes for years, one reveals. Ive seen dresses, trousers, entire suits shes made from scratch. She has a real eye for detail.
Now, shes got the perfect mix of glamour, cash and connections to turn her hobby into something seriously lucrative.
The unusual name, Cefinn, is an anagram of the Camerons childrens names: Elwen, Florence, Ivan, who suffered from cerebral palsy and died in 2009, and Nancy. The C comes from Cameron and the extra n makes the name distinct from Cefin, which is Welsh for Kevin hardly a moniker for high fashion.
The line was originally marketed as Cefin London, but was quietly rebranded towards the end of last year when the initial unveiling attracted derisive remarks online.
The trademark application for Cefinn, filed in October last year, provides yet more clues about what the brand will include. In it, she asks for permission to produce scented candles, sunglasses, mobile phone cases, jewellery, wallets and briefcases as well as clothing ranging from underwear to shoes.
There is a request for retail store services, as well as online sales, indicating her next step may well be to open a shop.
The Sleeveless Structured Tank (left) will cost you 190, while the matching A-line skirt is 170. Meanwhile, the Zip Funnel Neck Shift Dress (right) costs 240
What Id like to do in the future, if the business goes well, is accessories, Samantha said in a recent interview. She isnt keen to design bags, but does want to venture into shoes.
For now, Cefinn is very much a small-scale operation, producing garments by the tens rather than the hundreds, with just five staff: Samantha, a pattern cutter, a machinist, a production manager and an assistant.
Advertisements for new employees were posted online as long ago as June 2015, with one seeking a digital pattern-cutter (salary 34,000) to join a friendly and productive team in Central London.
Fabrics delicate merino wools, fine silks, feathery cottons in bright hues were sourced by Samantha and her assistant from around the world and shipped to Cefinns HQ, where the team got to work cutting, stitching and embroidering.
Samantha is also a meticulous organiser. As husband David once said: Samantha could organise the invasion of Russia.
For now, it seems, a career in fashion and a label thats got everyone talking will do.
She's recently kept a remarkably low profile on social media, last tweeting on 24 January only to tell Suits fans when they can catch the next episode.
But Meghan Markle has finally broken her two-month Instagram silence.
Prince Harry's girlfriend, 35, posted a picture of her feet clad in Charlotte Olympia Kitty flats on Sunday.
Prince Harry's girlfriend, 35, posted a picture of her feet, clad in Charlotte Olympia Kitty flats
With the hashtag #NOBADENERGY printed on the ground, she captioned the photo 'Sending good vibes - always in all ways. #nobadenergy #bethechange.'
The snap quickly wracked up 30,000 likes and hundreds of positive comments from her 1.4million followers.
Earlier this month, friends of Harry and Meghan said the pair are 'taking things to the next level and are practically living together'.
They were spotted hand-in-hand after enjoying a dinner date at Soho House, the private members' club in West London where they met last year.
The 35-year-old actress has reportedly 'virtually moved in' to Prince Harry's cottage in Kensington Palace in recent weeks, according to one friend.
Friends of Prince Harry and his actress girlfriend Meghan Markle have said the pair are 'taking things to the next level and are practically living together'
The couple were this week spotted hand-in-hand after enjoying a dinner date at Soho House, the private members' club in West London where they met last year (pictured)
One friend of Miss Markle reportedly told The Sun that when she is not filming the US legal drama Suits in Toronto, the actress spends her free time with Harry.
The source added: 'They've taken things to the next level. They're practically living together.
'She cooks for him, he pops out to the gym and they're just enjoying hanging out.
'Meg has always enjoyed spending time in London, but she's really putting down roots.'
One of Meghan Markle's closes friends, Canadian actor Patrick J. Adams has given her relationship with Prince Harry the seal of approval.
Earlier this week Adams, who plays Meghan's on-screen fiance Mike Ross, spoke candidly about the royal romance.
Moving in? The royal residence - showing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's apartment in the background and Nottingham Cottage, were Prince Harry resides
According to friends, Miss Markle, 'cooks for [Prince Harry], he pops out to the gym and they're just enjoying hanging out'
When she is not filming the US legal drama Suits in Toronto (pictured), the actress spends her free time with Harry
In a video interview with E! News' Erin Lim the star said he is 'super excited' for Meghan and revealed that if anyone can deal with it, then it's Meghan.
ODDS-ON FOR ENGAGEMENT Prince Harry and Megan Markle are now odds-on at 10-11 with bookmaker Coral to get engaged in 2017 as the firm has seen a flurry of bets on the couple making the announcement this year. The firm is offering 8-1 that the pair tie the knot in 2017 and 10-1 for them to reveal they are expecting a baby at some point this year. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Specials; 10-11 (from 2-1) To get engaged in 2017 2-1 The couple to break up in 2017 8-1 (from 12-1) To get married in 2017 10-1 The couple to announce they are expecting a baby in 2017. Odds correct as of the start of February Advertisement
Speaking in the video about his 'little sister', he said: 'As you can imagine, it is a massive deal, obviously, if you hadn't noticed. I didn't wanna get involved. I just wanted to say: 'I love you, I support you, I hope you're happy'.
'And if she ever needed anybody to talk to in the madness - because it is madness, it's madness what the world puts somebody through when they're going through this process.'
He also said he hopes that all the 'madness' passes at some point and that the lovebirds can 'get down to the business of enjoying each other's company'.
'But I guess being in this situation, it probably goes on forever,' he added.
He also went on to compliment 'the amount that she's accomplished in her life', describing it as 'unbelievable.'
He referenced how much time she has dedicated to humanitarian causes.
He added: 'I know that [Harry] uses his absurd amount of power and sway in this world to do some really, really great things, so I think together, they could accomplish some pretty incredible stuff.'
Patrick, who plays Meghan's on-screen fiance Mike Ross, spoke candidly about the royal romance in a recent interview
According to a friend Miss Markle 'has always enjoyed spending time in London' but she is now 'really putting down roots'
The interview comes after The Suits star took to Reddit on Wednesday night to take part in a Q&A with fans, and while some wanted to know about the show, talk soon turned to the royal romance.
Referring to their steamy kissing scenes, Redditor swaminator201 asked him: 'What's it like making out on-screen with the potentially future princess of England?'
Patrick chose neither to confirm or deny the reference to his co-star being a 'future princess'.
He simply replied: 'The same as it was before she was potentially a future princess of England.'
'Ask me anything' threads on Reddit have to be privately verified by a team of moderators. Patrick also confirmed he would be taking part in a Q&A on Twitter.
Both Prince Harry (pictured here during his official visit to the Caribbean last November) and Miss Markle are dedicated to charitable causes
The couple were this week spotted hand-in-hand enjoying a dinner date at Soho House, the private members' club in West London where they met last year
Patrick and Meghan are thought to be close friends off set, but the actress was reportedly forced to miss his wedding last year for fear of overshadowing the newlyweds as her relationship with Prince Harry continues to make headlines around the world.
A source told US Weekly the co-stars spoke before the wedding and agreed that 'maybe her coming would attract too much (of the wrong kind of attention).'
Meghan spent five days in Delhi in January promoting young women's health and hygiene for the charity World Vision Canada.
She is believed to have attended meetings with various NGOs during the visit, including an audience with Shamina Shafiq, a former member of the National Commission for Women.
The star has previously visited Rwanda as a World Vision Global Ambassador in 2016 and saw firsthand the impact that clean water has on the lives of children and communities in Africa.
Meghan was announced as the global ambassador for World Vision in March last year.
The charity's programme encourages Canadians to join in combating poverty and improving the lives of children and families around the world.
Harry met the actress at a function while he was promoting his Invictus Games in Toronto, where she is based.
And while the pair might have spent the Christmas holidays apart, they recently whisked themselves away for a trip to Tromso, on the Norwegian fjords, where they whale watched and enjoyed romantic lake trips.
Kensington Palace declined to comment.
It as a night full of ups and downs for Married At First Sight Fans, with a new couple formed, a full blown makeover and a not-so-shocking walkout.
Though former model Deb decided to stay and stick it out with her new husband John despite the lengthy list of flaws she found in him, the 53-year-old only lasted one extra night.
As he packed his bags, he told producers 'there's never going to be a romance between me and Deb'.
'The differences between us are too vast - we're just not meant to be.'
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Done: Groom John walked out on his wife Deb after the pair's differences became too much to handle
The father-of-two left a note for his jilted bride, who did not appear too upset by his decision.
'It'll be nice to go home and hopefully find my Polynesian man,' she said.
And while John and Deb's relationship was breaking down, Nick was making moves to repair the damage he did to his at the dinner party.
Packing his bags: The father-of-two said there would 'never' be romance between the two
The search continues: Deb read John's note, before quickly moving on to discuss how it presented another opportunity for her to find the Polynesian man of her dreams
The 29-year-old, who referred to himself as 'naughty Nick', was spotted jewellery shopping for Sharon after his wife was forced to look after him after a few too many drinks at the party.
It was there he made what could have been a slip of the tongue or a romantic admission.
'I seriously do lov... woah,' he said as he stopped himself, flustered.
'Naughty Nick': After drinking too much at the dinner party, Nick set out to find a present for his unimpressed wife
All is forgiven! After a minor slip of the tongue where Nick almost professed his love for wife Sharon, she was delighted to receive her gifts
'I seriously do like Sharon,' he corrected himself, before adding he wanted to 'spoil the s*** out of her'.
The couple appeared to be off to a great start, with Nick producing the sparkly gifts after the pair shared an emotional breakthrough during a bike ride.
It was a far cry from the experience of Sharon's twin, Michelle, who still admitted to feeling awkward with her betrothed.
Awkward: The lack of chemistry between Michelle and Jesse was evident as the pair spent a date at the zoo in relative silence
After she and husband Jesse endured a disaster date at the Zoo, Jesse confessed to developing stronger feelings for Michelle, while she ran to her sister for comfort.
'I'm just fearing he could feel more for me than I do for him,' she said.
After some talking it through, the sisters agreed she shouldn't confront Jesse just yet.
Mixed feelings: The blonde broke down to her twin Sharon, telling her she was concerned her feelings were not as deep as her husband's
Sean and Susan hit their first roadblock, as they made the first steps towards acknowledging location would be a problem for them.
While Sean was unable to leave his rural Queensland property due to family commitments, Susan admitted she was reluctant to leave her life in Perth.
She told her husband she was concerned about the massive change in lifestyle, as she spent 'every second night' with family who lived nearby, whereas Sean's remote location meant he had barely anybody.
Roadblock: Sean and Susan continued in their wedded bliss, but acknowledged the distance between them and their shared reluctance to move could be an issue
'I'm learning more about your lifestyle and how different it is to mine, and I'm not sure I can fit in to that,' she told him.
Nadia and Anthony also hit a rocky patch, with the racing broadcaster telling his new wife she 'needs a bit more direction' as they sat down for joint haircuts.
'We both work in media, and though Nadia doesn't currently work on a full time basis...' he began explaining to the camera, before turning to the flight attendant and part time model.
'You probably should,' he told her, adding: 'You need to have a bit more direction I think'.
Lecture: Anthony took some time alone with Nadia to bluntly tell her she should be working full time, and accused her of lacking direction
When Nadia questioned whether her working habits would be a problem for him he told her it was fine for now, but 'lack of direction could be a problem'.
Soon after, he left her to get her hair done in piece and do some of his own work.
'I think he needs to be a bit more empathetic and compassionate in his approach,' she told the camera as her eyes welled with tears.
Harsh: Her husband's words left the flight attendant and part time model tearing up
The pair later were sent on a 'surrender date', where Nadia was given control of every aspect.
She took the broadcaster to Bikram yoga - something more than a little bit out of his comfort zone.
'I've not been to hell - but that's right next door,' he said of his experience.
Making it up: Later, the pair went on a date and Nadia chose to bring her husband to Bikram yoga
Perhaps wanting to patch things over with his new wife, Anthony had changed his tune by the time the couple faced the camera together.
The 33-year-old said he would do it again if she wanted him to, leaving Nadia with a giant grin on her face.
Also sent on a surrender date was couple Alene and Simon, who earlier in the episode were seen bickering.
Again? Alene was given control over her and husband Simon's surrender date - a concept the 36-year-old was more than familiar with
To Simon's outrage, his wife was given control over the date. Alene read the note slipped under their door by producers and told her beau she would be 'taking charge today'.
'As opposed to which day,' he exclaimed.
'I haven't had a day off yet!'
The 31-year-old decided to use her power to give her husband a makeover, having previously expressed a tinge of disappointment when it came to her physical attraction.
Hitting the shops: The 31-year-old used her power to give Simon a makeover from head to toe
Alene dragged the 36-year-old to the shops, where he was forced into outfits which according to him, left him looking like someone from 'the big smoke'.
After trying on suits, shorts and even boardshorts, Simon finally surrendered and agreed to an outfit.
Afterwards, she surprised him with a trip to the hairdresser, where puppy dog eyes, and continual reminders that the pair were on a surrender date left him powerless to say no to a hair cut.
Pretty please? Alene used her puppy dog eyes and literally begged her new husband to get rid of his curls
Submitting: After much back and forth, Simon eventually relented to the idea of allowing the hairdresser to cut his hair
Who do we have here? When he arrived at dinner, Alene could not believe her eyes with his transformation
Also on a date were newly single Cheryl and Andrew.
After the 38-year-old lost his bride on the night of their wedding, and Cheryl caught her husband texting another contestant, both had seen their marriages break down.
But Cheryl asked relationship expert John Aiken if the pair could possibly be brought together as a match, and the psychologist agreed to set it up.
Date night! Cheryl and Andrew were matched together at the 25-year-old's request, and the pair enjoyed a successful dinner date
The pair comfortably laughed and joked their way through a dinner date, before the firefighter asked Cheryl out on another date.
'I'm a happy man,' he told the camera.
If I had the chance to reenter this experiment with Cheryl, I would do it for sure.'
At age 18, Ann Xiao's life was very different to how it is now.
Having graduated from a school which specialised in business and science, she was one year into her economics degree when she told her parents she needed a year off.
Five years later, the now 23-year-old from Sydney is a successful fashion designer.
She taught herself to sew in secret with the aid of YouTube videos and pulled apart her clothes in order to customise and recreate them.
Savvy: Ms Ann Xiao (pictured) was studying economics at university when she decided to take a year out and pursue her love of fashion - she taught herself to sew in secret
New life: She did this with the aid of YouTube videos and pulled apart her clothes in order to customise and recreate them (Ms Xiao, pictured)
'I had no background in fashion or design but I always loved it and so decided to give it a go,' Ms Xiao told FEMAIL.
She kept her project a secret from her family and friends, building up a portfolio to apply for a fashion course in New South Wales with the aid of YouTube tutorials and op shop clothes.
'It was hard learning from YouTube,' she said.
But the endeavour was ultimately rewarding. At 18, Ms Xiao was accepted into Ultimo TAFE in Sydney - which is widely regarded as one of the best fashion courses in NSW.
Secret: Once she got accepted into Sydney's Ultimo TAFE, Ms Xiao then had to break the news to her parents that she would not be returning to her economics degree (pictured: her designs)
Ms Xiao then had to break the news to her parents that she would not be returning to economics and was instead intending to study fashion:
'They took quite a lot of convincing as so many people they knew thought it was a waste,' she said.
But once she explained to her mother and father what it was she was going to do, and how she had it all planned out, Ms Xiao started at TAFE.
Making waves: Several years later, she is already very successful, presenting at Fashion Weeks in Australia and New Zealand and working as a design assistant (pictured: her designs)
Several years later, the young Australian designer is already making waves in a notoriously difficult industry.
As well as presenting at Dunedin's iD Fashion Week in New Zealand, she has exhibited her university collection, A.N.X, in front of an audience of industry heads and scouts.
She is also currently working as a design assistant at Australian label, The Upside. In between times, she will present at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week later this year.
'My clothes channel a very minimal and unisex aesthetic,' she said.
'They're influenced by streetwear, but I'm also aiming at a conscientious consumer who wants to be aware of where their clothes come from.'
Advice: 'Fashion sounds glamorous, but it's actually a lot of hard work,' Ms Xiao told FEMAIL - she recommends doing an internship and getting hands-on experience (pictured: her designs)
When it comes to advice for other budding young designers, Ms Xiao said it pays to make sure you're passionate:
'Fashion sounds glamorous, but it's actually a lot of hard work,' Ms Xiao told FEMAIL.
'Try an internship or get as much hands-on experience as you can. That way you can see if you're suited.'
You can see Ann Xiao's collection here.
While Married at First Sight groom Simon has always been content with his wife's appearance, Alene has confessed to some roadblocks when it comes to physical attraction.
So when she was given the opportunity to have Simon surrender to her every whim on Monday night, she took the bull by the horns and did something about it.
The couple were instructed to go on a 'surrender date', where Alene took control - much to Simon's bemusement - and her mind immediately turned to a makeover.
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Transformation: Simon underwent a huge makeover on Monday night, which saw his usually casual attire become more groomed, and his curly mop trimmed into a fashionable 'do
She read the note slipped under their door by producers and told her beau she would be 'taking charge today'.
'As opposed to which day,' he exclaimed. 'I haven't had a day off yet!'
What's new? Alene was given control over the couple's date - much to Simon's bemusement - and her mind immediately turned to a makeover
The couple started their date at a department store, where the 31-year-old found a number of outfits for Simon to try on.
The chinos, board shorts and casual suits left the Queensland man feeling like someone 'from the big smoke', but eventually the pair found an outfit they both agreed on.
Afterwards, she took Simon to the hairdresser.
New look: The couple tried on a number of jazzy outfits before settling on one the Queensland man was happy with
From the day they met, Alene has had an issue with her husband's curly locks, telling her bridesmaid at the couple's wedding 'he needs to lose the hair'.
The 36-year-old was initially very reluctant, and suggested a trim instead, but after his wife used her best 'puppy dog eyes', literally begged and reminded him a few times they were on a surrender date, he conceded defeat.
'Alright, stuff it,' he said halfheartedly.
Pretty please? It took puppy dog eyes and literal begging from his bride before Simon relented to losing his curly locks
Regret: The 36-year-old immediately began to worry as his hair disappeared
New man! Simon was virtually unrecognisable as he went to see his wife for the first time with his new look
As his curls hit the floor, the distress on his face was obvious, but the makeover proved to be a success when he unveiled his new look to bride Alene.
Sitting in what appeared to be a private room in a restaurant, the nurse told producers she was 'more nervous to see him' than on her wedding day.
When he entered the room, she squealed and ran to hug him. An ear-to-ear grin swept over her face which did not leave for the rest of the night.
Over the moon: Alene was delighted with the changes, and said her husband had become 'hot'
'I can't express how appreciative I am,' she said, adding her husband had become 'hot'.
Simon also relented and admitted he did not mind his new look.
'It's still a bit out of my comfort zone, but it's a nice change,' he said.
A young woman who developed alopecia has revealed how quitting her stressful job to go travelling made her hair grow back.
Vikki Webb, 25, from Surrey was horrified when she started shedding clumps of her mid-back length brown locks while brushing and washing her hair in November 2013.
After a year of steroid treatment, Vikki quit her job as an assistant reservations manager at a hotel in December 2016, to spend six months travelling around Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, and now her hair has started sprouting back.
'Everyone's messaging me saying unemployment is your key and I agree,' she said. 'I don't know what's going to happen or how long it'll stay, but I'm feeling positive.'
Vikki Webb, 25, from Surrey pictured after her sister Sam shaved her head. Her hair started falling out two years ago but it's started growing back since she quit her job to go travelling
Vikki in Orlando, Florida, in June 2011 before she started losing her hair
In addition to the demands of her job, Vikki was also left feeling stressed by a break in at her family home and four days later her hair started falling out.
After a week of her hair falling into her hands- mainly from the back and sides- she went to see her GP, who put it down to stress. But a month later, the problem continued.
She went back to the GP, who made the same diagnosis, leaving her feeling 'hopeless'.
After weeks of waking up to hair all over her pillow, Vikki asked her now 30-year-old sister Sam Webb, to shave her head bald.
Vikki was alarmed when her hair started falling out in huge clumps in November 2013
Vikki (left) with her sister Jess, travelling around Thailand, in January 2017
'It was devastating, surreal and emotional going bald- especially as a female- but I'd had enough,' Vikki said. 'Seeing it fall out at such an alarming rate was awful, so I just felt relieved when it was all gone.'
Next, Vikki lost all her body hair and eyelashes, which she explained made her feel less feminine.
In May 2014, she was diagnosed with alopecia universalis - the complete loss of hair on the scalp and body - at Croydon University Hospital, south London.
Vikki (second from left) with her sisters Alana, Sam and Jess. At first strangers would stare at her bald head on nights out but now she doesn't let it bother her
Vikki with her boyfriend Liam, in May 2016. She credits him with giving her more confidence and says he's never been fazed by her hair loss
Vikki with her boyfriend Liam, in July 2016 while having steroid treatment to help her hair grown back
Vikki was told there was no cure but that steroids may help her hair grow back.
She said: 'I thought I'd mentally prepared myself for it, as I'd researched online and knew I had alopecia, but as soon as they said it I broke down.
'I didn't know if I'd ever get my hair back.'
Vikki was given steroids for six weeks which helped a tiny proportion of her hair to grow back, but as soon as she finished her course, it fell out again.
Vikki in August 2016. Steroid treatment had some effect but didn't make her hair grow back completely
Vikki, showing hair regrowth, in January 2017. She now has the most hair she's had for three years
December 2013: The back of Vikki's head after her locks first started to fall out
The same thing happened again after a repeat course of steroids in December 2014.
'I was so disappointed,' Vikki said. 'I had to accept there was nothing they could do but monitor my progress.'
Wearing a wig was itchy and uncomfortable, so she decided to embrace her bald head, feeling strengthened by the support of her parents, her sisters - Jess, Alana, 32, and Sam - and boyfriend Liam Francis, 25.
Vikki, who is documenting her progress on Instagram, said: 'I've been with Liam for eight years and he helped me feel more confident, because he was not fazed by it at all.
The 25-year-old occasionally wears a wig but prefers not to as she finds them itchy and uncomfortable
Vicky's hair and eyelashes are now starting to grow back after she quit her day job to go travelling
Vikki (right) with her sister Jess, at a friend's wedding, in June 2012, a year before her hair loss
'Everyone knows me with a bald head now; I don't hide it.
'It does ruin my night when people stare or approach me and ask what's wrong, but I just crack on with it.'
But amazingly, after a six week course of steroids from November to December 2016, Vikki's hair started growing on the sides of her head.
This time it continued to grow even as the medication was out of her system.
Left to right: Vikki with her sisters Jess, Alana and Sam, and friends Hayley and Sarah, after taking part in a charity run, in June 2015, to raise money for Alopecia UK
Vikki with her supportive boyfriend Liam who she has bee with for eight years
Vikki (middle right) with her sisters Jess and Sam, mum Gay, sister Alana and dad Alan, out for dinner, in summer 2015
Then in December she decided she'd pursue her life-long ambition of going travelling, while still young and commitment free.
'I've got fluffy hair at the sides and at the back it's quite thick. I'm so happy I've got my eyelashes back. This is the most hair I've had in three years,' she said.
'The burglary really affected me. I wouldn't go out on my own, I couldn't really sleep; I was a mess.
'But I think quitting my job and being away is the best thing for me. My friends say unemployment has been my cure.'
Brave breast cancer survivors have stormed the runway at New York Fashion Week in a groundbreaking show.
The 16 models all wore lingerie and lounge-wear from AnaOno, which designs specifically for women who have had mastectomies, breast reconstruction or breast surgery following a cancer diagnosis.
Women of all ages took part in the emotional runway show - the youngest of whom was just 18 when she was diagnosed - with many baring the visible after-effects of their battles with the disease.
They strutted the runway in platform boots and lingerie, some proudly whipping off their bras and cover-ups to display breast reconstruction or double mastectomies to cheers from the supportive crowd.
Ericka Hart, who underwent a double mastectomy, was among the models walking the runway for AnaOno in New York yesterday
A collection was modelled entirely by breast cancer survivors for the first time at New York Fashion Week
Cancer survivors modelled lingerie and loungewear at New York Fashion Week for AnaOno, which designs specifically for women who have undergone mastectomies
Ericka Hart, who underwent a double mastectomy in the wake of her own cancer diagnosis, was among the models striding down the runway in AnaOno founder Dana Donofree's line.
Hart, 31, who had breast reconstruction surgery in 2015 following her mastectomy, has previously spoken out about the fact there were virtually no examples of reconstruction scars on black women for her to look at ahead of the procedure.
Following her operation, Hart pledged to pose topless to show other black women going through similar experiences that they were not alone.
Proceeds from the show will go to Cancerland, a not-for-profit foundation founded by Champagne Joy, who joined actress Mira Sorvino on the runway following the close of the show.
All of the profits will benefit breast cancer patients.
The stars of the show were a far cry from the identikit models more often seen striding the catwalks at New York Fashion Week
Model Ericka Hart had reconstructive surgery following a double mastectomy
Actress Mira Sorvino (seen left) walks the runway with AnaOno founder Dana Donofree (right)
All of the women who modelled lingerie and loungewear on the catwalk had battled cancer
A model holds her arms aloft as she reaches the end of the runway at the AnaOno show
Designer Dana Donofree has said she hoped to 'change the conversation' about the crossroads between beauty and identity
Proceeds from the show went to Cancerland, a not for profit foundation benefiting breast cancer patients
Cancerland founder Champagne Joy (left) on the runway with the actress Mira Sorvino (right)
Prince William is to visit Paris for the first time since his mother died in the city when he and the Duchess of Cambridge travel there on an official visit next month.
Their mini-tour, almost 20 years after Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in the French capital, is bound to be an emotional one for the second in line to the throne.
Although his younger brother, Prince Harry, has been to Paris in recent years to attend a rugby match, William, who has always been more reticent to speak about his mother in public, has not been to the city since the accident on August 31 1997.
The couple will spend two days in the city March 17 and 18 - undertaking around eight engagements during their time there.
Prince William and his wife Kate will visit Paris next month, the first time the Duke has officially visited the city since the death of his mother almost 20 years ago
Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 2017, almost 20 years ago
Their full itinerary has yet to be announced but will include a reception for young French leaders from a variety of fields, a formal dinner at the residence of Her Majesty's Ambassador and attendance at the Wales v France Six Nations test at the Stade de France.
In a statement Kensington Palace said: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will undertake an official two-day visit to Paris on 17th and 18th March. Their Royal Highness' visit is at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Full details of the visit will be announced in due course.
All eyes will clearly be on Kate, 35, to fly the flag for British fashion in one of the most stylish cities on the globe.
The timing of the trip is also particularly significant given Britains post-Brexit negotiations with the rest of Europe.
It will be seen by some as part of a charm offensive by the British government, who are keen to use the British Royal Family as part of their soft diplomacy efforts.
It is understood the duke and duchess will be staying with the British ambassador to France, Edward Llewellyn, who took up the position back in November.
Princess Diana captured on CCTV with her boyfriend Dodi at the Ritz Hotel in Paris shortly before her death
He lives in a stunning residence, known as the Hotel de Charost, built in 1722-25, and once lived in by Napoleon Bonapartes sister.
In 1814 it was bought by the Duke of Wellington, then the newly-appointed British ambassador to France.
Back in 1997 Princess Diana was staying in Paris with her then boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, following a summer holiday to the South of France, while her children were with the Queen at Balmoral.
Prince Charles, right, accompanies his sons Prince William, left and Prince Harry after they arrived at Kensington Palace to view some of the flowers and mementos in 1997
The couple had taken up residence in a suite at the Ritz, owned by Dodis father, Mohamed Al Fayed, when they were killed in a car driven by the hotels acting head of security, Henri Paul, who an inquest later found to be drunk and speeding as they entered the Alma Tunnel.
The inquest found he had lost control of the car and crashed into a pillar, killing himself, Diana and Dodi. Only Dodis bodyguard survived.
William, who was just 15 when Princess Diana died, initially refused to speak publicly about his mother's death.
PRINCESS DIANA'S DEATH IN PARIS Diana arrived in Paris on 30 August 1997 with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed after spending nine days together on his father Mohammed Al-Fayed's yacht in Sardinia. They pair dined at the Ritz hotel, owned by Dodi's father, and left after midnight to travel to an apartment in in Rue Arsene Houssaye, just off the Champs Elysees. The Ritz's deputy head of security Henri Paul was tasked with driving a black Mercedes away from the main entrance of the hotel on Place Vendome to fool the waiting papparazzi, while Diana and Dodi exited via the rear entrance on Rue Cambon. Trevor Rees-Jones of the Fayed family's secturity team was driving the couple and took them into the Place de l'Alma underpass. Photographers pursued them into the underpass and Paul, who was under the influence of alcohol and speeding, lost control of the Mercedes 280S while trying to outrun the press pack and careered into a support pillar. Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed were killed instantly, but Diana was still alive and was removed from the wreckage She suffered a cardiac arrest and died in hospital several hours later. An inquest concluded that Diana's death was 'caused, or contributed to, by the speed and manner of the driver of the Mercedes and the speed and manner of the following vehicles'. The Flame of Liberty, a replica of part of the Statue of Liberty, which stands on the Place de lAlma has become an unofficial monument to the Princess, and is still visited by royal fans who lay pictures and flowers beside it. Advertisement
But in recent years he's been more open, especially after becoming the patron of Child Bereavement UK.
'Never being able to say the word "Mummy" again in your life sounds like a small thing,' he revealed.
'However, for many, including me, it's now really just a word hollow and evoking only memories.'
A woman who claims to communicate with the dead through her collection of 700 her antique dolls was branded 'bonkers' by This Morning viewers.
Karina Eames, 38, from Adelaide, appeared via video link on the ITV daytime show, and told presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford that she believes each of her dolls has a 'spirit' attached to it.
The presenters struggled to hide their scepticism during the interview, with Ruth admitting outright that she didn't believe Karina's claims, and viewers watching at home expressed their own disbelief via a flood of flabbergasted tweets.
Karina Eames, 38, explained all about her unusual connection to the dead via her collection of antique dolls
Karina told Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on This Morning that her dolls each have a spirit attached to them which enables her to communicate with the dead
Viewers watching at home were also very sceptical of Karina's bizarre claims
The former kindergarten worker, who has 700 of the dolls, told the pair that she had even heard one of them 'crying' with what she thought was the spirit of a toddler.
As an image of Karina's extensive collection appeared on screen, Eamonn asked his wife if she would spend a night in a room with the dolls.
'Yes I dont believe that things communicate through dolls. So I would just see it as a doll,' Ruth said.
They were joined by the managing editor of Sceptic magazine, Deborah Hyde, who explained Karina was 'experiencing a narrative in relation to the dolls' and said that if she had a collection of teacups it wouldn't be the same.
Karina has 700 dolls in her unique collection, each of which she believes has a spirit attached to them
Eamonn then responded with a cheeky jibe aimed at Karina: 'I had 13 action men when I was a kid and they never got up to anything...'
Viewers were in agreement with the presenters over the dubious claims with one saying: '"I communicate with the dead through my dolls". Bonkers!'
'#ThisMorning As crazy as a box of frogs!!' added another.
'700 dolls this woman needs to get a life,' another viewer suggested.
This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10.30am
She is known for bringing a touch of edge to enviably chic ensembles.
And Queen Letizia of Spain showed off her fashion-forward style once again when she stepped out in a skin-tight leather skirt for an event in Madrid today.
The 44-year-old royal donned the black pencil skirt when she joined husband King Felipe at the closing of the El Valor Economico del Espanol conference at the Telefonica Foundation.
Firm favourite: Queen Letizia wore a leather skirt as she visited a conference in Madrid today
Lady in leather: The royal, 44, was joined by her husband King Felipe, pictured, for the event
Feminine: The mother-of-two softened the black leather skirt with a pussy-bow blouse
Proving leather can still be elegant, the mother-of-two softened the skirt with a graphic black-and-white check-print pussy bow blouse, sheer tights and black patent court shoes.
The stylish royal wore her brunette hair down in a sleek side parting and accessorised the look with a pair of small bejewelled drop earrings.
Her husband King Felipe looked smart in a dark suit, blue shirt and red tie.
The couple have two daughters together, 11-year-old Leonor and nine-year-old Sophia.
It is the second time in less than a week that Letizia has worn leather, having worn her favourite Hugo Boss dress for an engagement in Madrid last Thursday.
Handsome couple: King Felipe with his wife Queen Letizia at the conference in Madrid today
Simple touches: The queen wore her hair in a sleek side parting and opted for drop earrrings
Close: Felipe leaned down to listen to his wife as they made their way through the conference
Duty: The royal couple, pictured, keep a busy schedule packed with official engagements
Letizia wore her beloved 528 lambskin leather number with a fitted blazer as she joined her husband King Felipe VI for a visit to the National Center for Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CNIC) in the Spanish capital.
Set up in 1999, the CNIC, a leading international research centre, is dedicated to understanding cardiovascular health and disease and translating this knowledge into improved patient care.
Last Wednesday, Letizia was was once again immaculately put together when she attended the Expansion newspaper's 30th anniversary at Madrid's Palace Hotel.
Forever leather: Queen Letizia of Spain showed off her style credentials once again as she stepped out in her favourite Hugo Boss dress for an engagement in Madird last Thursday
The 44-year-old royal looked incredible in a simple and sophisticated black dress with pretty lace detailing on the sleeves.
The demure, knee-length skirt boasted a subtle applique pattern and was set off with simple stilettos.
Letizia ensured her hair and make-up took centre stage, sweeping her brunette tresses up into a slick braided updo.
A dominatrix who took part in a BBC documentary about the sex industry was forced to defend her lifestyle after she was blasted by viewers.
Charlotte Rose, from London, spoke out after dozens of outraged viewers took to Facebook to brand her 'disgusting' and call her partner a 'pimp'. Viewers also criticised the BBC for broadcasting what one said was 'an ad for prostitution'.
Miss Rose and her partner Colin Chapman hit back at critics on the social media site before filming an interview together, branding the backlash 'frustrating'.
Proud: Charlotte Rose, left, appeared on BBC3 programme Things Sex Workers are Tired of Hearing to debunk common misconceptions surrounding the industry
Blasted: Miss Rose, who is a mother, faced a backlash from viewers after the six-minute programme was shared on Facebook, with some attacking her and her family personally
In the interview with RT, Mr Chapman criticised those who judged his wife and explained why he supported her decision to be a sex worker.
He said: 'It's frustrating because clearly everyone thinks that someone in the sex industry is incapable of having a normal, loving relationship, which we've very, very much got.'
Miss Rose, an award-winning dominatrix, was one of six sex workers featured in the six-minute long BBC3 feature called Things Sex Workers are Tired of Hearing.
The show saw them answer questions like: 'How much money do you make?' and 'What happened to you to make you choose this?'
Miss Rose, who praised her clients as 'great', said taking part in the show gave her an opportunity to 'debunk' common misconceptions about her job.
The programme sparked widespread debate when it was shared on the BBC3 Facebook page.
Some praised Miss Rose for her candidness and honesty, saying: 'Thank you for being brave and being in the video'.
Criticism: Dozens of viewers slammed the BBC for broadcasting the programme, saying it 'glamourised' the sex industries. Others launched online abuse at Miss Rose and her family
Support: Some defended Miss Rose and praised her decision to take part in the show
However dozens criticised the clip, saying it belittled the suffering of trafficked sex workers.
One disgusted viewer wrote: 'I am unhappy that my licence fee is promoting prostitution and you're advertising this is a potential career choice to teenagers.'
The viewer added: 'A man that pays a woman for sex is also paying for his power over her, thats what the money does.'
After Miss Rose joined the online conversation, some attacked her and her family personally. Miss Rose and Mr Chapman have five children together.
One viewer said: 'Imagine being her child'.
Hitting back: Miss Rose and Mr Chapman both defended themselves on Facebook
United: The couple then explained their point of view in a filmed interview together
Miss Rose and Mr Chapman tried to respond to the questions on Facebook before agreeing to be interviewed on camera.
Miss Rose said: 'I think it was really disgusting that a lot of comments that were made were classifying my partner as a pimp.'
Mr Chapman stepped into explain his own position, saying: 'I am not happy that she is treated the same as a normal person in a normal job.
'The fact that she has no protection in place in her work and I'd like to see more legislation to help sex workers in the industry and also to get rid of the stigma.'
Miss Rose added: 'The comments that have been put on to this work are a perfect example on why we need decriminalisation.'
Tess Holliday is no stranger to shutting down her haters, and this time the size 22 model paired one of her many lingerie selfies with a powerful poem by Maya Angelou.
The 31-year-old took to her Instagram page ahead of the weekend to share a black and white photo of herself, in which she is posed in a bra and lace underwear.
But instead of writing her own message, Tess referenced lines from Angelou's poem 'Still Rise'.
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Tess took to Instagram to share a black and white photo of herself in a bra and lace underwear
Inspiration: The 31-year-old appeared to be sending a message to her haters, as she captioned the post with lines from Maya Angelou's poem 'Still Rise'
Doting mom: Tess spent Saturday afternoon with her two sons, Rylee, 11, and Bowie Juniper (pictured), eight-months, at birthday party at Griffith Park in Los Angeles
'You may shoot me with your words, / You may cut me with your eyes, / You may kill me with your hatefulness, / But still, like air, Ill rise,' she wrote.
'Does my sexiness upset you? / Does it come as a surprise / That I dance like I've got diamonds / At the meeting of my thighs?'
Tess ended the message with using the hashtags '#effyourbeautystandards #mayaangelou'.
In the snapshot, Tess is posed in a bathroom with one hand in her auburn hair while taking a photo of her side profile.
Statement: A few days ago, Tess went topless at Union Station in Toronto, Canada, to promote body diversity
More than 60,000 Instagram users likes the photo, although, like many of the plus-size model's posts, it stirred a debate in the comments section.
While many praised Tess for her beauty and confidence, others lashed out at the mother-of-two, claiming that she shouldn't be considered a role model because she is 'unhealthy'.
Tess spent Saturday afternoon with her two sons, Rylee, 11, and Bowie Juniper, eight-months, at birthday party at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, but just a few days before, she was protesting topless at a train station in Canada to promote body diversity.
Not alone: The size 22 model was joined by a group of plus-size women at the event
Attention: The 31-year-old is pictured posing with another protester at the body positive event
The American body positivity advocate was among a group of women who stripped down to jeans, shoes and bras, and carried placards around Union Station in Toronto.
'Today something amazing happened and I got to share it with these amazing women,' Tess wrote on Instagram.
'Yes for body diversity. Yes to walking through Union Station in just your bra and jeans. Yes to us embracing our bodies at all stages.'
Empowering: The plus-size model, who carried her own sign, said the stunt was an 'amazing' experience
Message: The placards bore 'body-positive' messages urging women to be 'unapologetic' about their looks, to 'break the stigma' and 'fight for body diversity'
The placards bore 'body-positive' messages urging women to be 'unapologetic' about their looks, 'break the stigma' and 'fight for body diversity'.
The stunt was organized by Penningtons, the brand with whom Tess has a clothing line, and the retailer broadcast the protest live on Facebook.
Footage shows the women walking around the station cheering and trying to engage with passengers around the station.
Campaign: The stunt was organized by Penningtons, the brand with which the mother-of-two has a clothing line
Pioneer: The mother-of-two is a prominent voice in the body acceptance movement after she became the first plus-size-20 model to be signed to a big agency
She was inundated with messages of support on social media from people who commended the 'brave' and 'inspiring' protest.
The mother-of-two is a prominent voice in the body acceptance movement after she became the first model of her size to be signed to a big agency.
Tess started the '#effyourbeautystandards' campaign on social media a number of years ago and it is now approaching two million posts.
She gave birth to her second baby, Bowie, her first with her fiance Nick Holliday, in June. Rylee, her son from a previous relationship, celebrated his 11th birthday last month.
She may not be a member of the royal family yet but Meghan Markle showed her potential as a teenager when she was crowned school homecoming queen.
The newly unearthed photos show the Suits actress receiving the honour in a November 1998 ceremony.
Flanked by her Court, the 17-year-old is seen walking a red carpet lined with boys holding swords at the lavish event at the private St Francis High School, in Los Angeles.
Photos have emerged of Meghan Markle as homecoming queen (pictured) at her high school prom when she was age 17 November 1998
She's also seen posing next to her date in her strapless blue prom gown and sparkling tiara in two other snaps from the evening.
Meghan went to the private Catholic girls school Immaculate Heart High in Los Angeles and her school teamed up with boys school St Francis for proms.
In two photos from her year books Meghan is listed as Rachel Markle as the actress was still using her first name at the time (Meghan is her middle name).
In one photo we see a young Meghan walking a red carpet lined with boys holding swords at the lavish event at the private St Francis High School, in Los Angeles
Meghan is also seen at another school prom in April 1999, posing in a white dress with flowers in her hand.
And more never-before-seen photos show the budding young actress performing in several school plays.
The photos show the early promise of Meghan's future who is now a household name thanks to her acting career and royal association.
In the exert from the year book it reveals that Meghan (name spelled incorrectly) was crowned queen by school mate Carla Suarez
The young actress beams as she poses for photos in a blue satin dress and sparkling tiara
Her budding romance with Prince Harry seems to be taking a more serious turn as earlier this month, friends of Harry and Meghan said the pair are 'taking things to the next level and are practically living together'.
The 35-year-old actress has reportedly 'virtually moved in' to Prince Harry's cottage in Kensington Palace in recent weeks, according to one friend.
One friend of Miss Markle reportedly told The Sun that when she is not filming the US legal drama Suits in Toronto, the actress spends her free time with Harry.
More never-before-seen photos show the budding young actress performing in several school plays as part of a drama club
Meghan clearly had a keen interest in an acting career dedicating her extra curricular time to performing
The source added: 'They've taken things to the next level. They're practically living together.
'She cooks for him, he pops out to the gym and they're just enjoying hanging out.
'Meg has always enjoyed spending time in London, but she's really putting down roots.'
Harry met the actress at a function while he was promoting his Invictus Games in Toronto, where she is based.
And while the pair might have spent the Christmas holidays apart, they recently whisked themselves away for a trip to Tromso, on the Norwegian fjords, where they whale watched and enjoyed romantic lake trips.
Samantha Camerons pricey new clothing range only goes up to a size 14 and is made in eastern Europe, it emerged yesterday
Its billed as a luxurious urban uniform for busy women who love fashion.
But Samantha Camerons pricey new clothing range only goes up to a size 14 and is made in eastern Europe, it emerged yesterday.
The line, named Cefinn, includes a T-shirt which costs 110. And although it is designed in London, the clothing is manufactured in Lithuania and Macedonia.
An investigation in August criticised other brands for making their garments in Macedonia, where some workers were allegedly paid as little as 64p an hour and faced grim and sometimes dangerous conditions.
It is not known how much factory workers making Cefinns clothes are paid.
Nicola Round from Labour Behind the Label, a UK-based campaign group, said eastern European workers were often used by Western brands because they were cheap.
Garment workers in Macedonia often work long hours for poverty wages, she added. UK brands have a responsibility to the people who make their clothes, and should ensure they are being paid a decent living wage.
A black T-shirt, described as a satin panel boxy top, is priced at 110 online, while a belted cocoon coat (right) is 390. Pictured, models pose for the exclusive range
A spokesman for Cefinn said its factories complied with all international regulations, adding: Cefinn only works with factories that have been fully audited we have a close relationship with all of the factories that we use and visit them regularly.
But Miss Round said auditing could merely be a tick-box exercise and was generally not effective on its own in delivering real change for workers.
She added: Auditing is just one of a series of approaches needed. We also need to see, for example, companies supporting workers in their rights to join and organise unions.
The 45-year-old wife of former prime minister David Cameron included classic dresses, blouses and pencil skirts in her range, which went on sale yesterday at Selfridges in London and online at Net-a-Porter.
In Macedonia, some workers are allegedly paid as little as 64p an hour and faced grim and sometimes dangerous conditions. It is unknown how much Cefinn factory workers are paid
A black T-shirt, described as a satin panel boxy top, is priced at 110 online, while a belted cocoon coat is 390. But women larger than a size 14 were disappointed to find they could not buy anything. One wrote on Twitter: Love the look of #SamCam #Cefinn fashion on sale ... but why no BIG sizes!
The Cefinn spokesman said the label definitely wanted to offer more sizes in future.
We definitely want to increase our size offer as we grow but as a new brand we need to be confident of our fit before grading or pattern cutting more than 2 sizes away from our size 10 fit pattern, she added.
Mrs Cameron, who is an ambassador for the British Fashion Council, said she was terrified of the public reaction to the range in an interview with the Sunday Times Style Magazine.
But it would appear she has nothing to fear as a number of items are already listed online as out of stock in some sizes.
These include the navy cropped top with a neat pointed collar, sleeves and a sporty zip which is 150 and the navy midi dress with a fluted skirt. Cefinn said sales on day one had been very encouraging.
The fashion ranges name is thought to derive from the first and last letters of Cameron, with the initials of the couples four children in the middle.
'I've never had that tingling-from-head-to-toe, can't-take-my eyes-off-a-man feeling that I've heard friends describe,' says Christine Corbett
Amid the dying embers of her marriage, Christine Corbett had a difficult confession to make to her husband of 21 years. Not only was she not in love with him then, but she had never been in love with him not even in the early days of their relationship.
It was a painful admission, and not just because of the hurt she risked causing him. For Christine, it was particularly poignant because she was admitting to herself that she'd reached middle age without ever having fallen in love.
On Valentine's Day, when the shops are filled with roses, heart-shaped chocolates and cards carrying sentimental expressions of love, it's easy to assume that giving your heart to someone else is a natural part of life.
It might happen when you're a teenager, or perhaps later, in your 20s or 30s but at some point, you'll meet that special person who will dominate your thoughts and make your heart race whenever you think of them.
So spare a thought for the women who have never been in love an affliction thought to affect around one in five females, according to one survey. Women like 48-year-old Christine.
'I've never had that tingling-from-head-to-toe, can't-take-my eyes-off-a-man feeling that I've heard friends describe,' says Christine. 'I can't help but feel envious when I see couples looking at each other in a way that makes it obvious they're in love. I want that, too.'
Even six years and plenty of male attention on from her separation, Christine says she's still never experienced that emotional high of falling head over heels for someone.
Christine, from Glasgow, who works in the film industry, had begun dating her husband when she was just 20. For her, the relationship was nothing more than a fun distraction with a handsome man, especially as she felt he wasn't attentive and caring enough. She certainly wasn't in love.
But when, after 18 months, she accidentally fell pregnant, Christine felt duty-bound to marry her boyfriend and create a stable home for their unborn child.
Then, with the wedding booked and the invitations sent out, Christine miscarried. She really wanted to back out of the wedding, but she didn't want to cancel and let her fiance and everyone else down.
Christine, from Glasgow, who works in the film industry, had begun dating her husband when she was just 20 (pictured on their wedding day)
Mourning the loss of her baby, Christine yearned to have another, and she and her husband went on to have three sons. But with each new arrival and passing year, Christine says she felt increasingly trapped.
'We had this beautiful five-bedroom home with huge bay windows, on the coast,' recalls Christine. 'But I'd wake up most mornings beside my husband with silent tears running down my cheeks.
'I'd go downstairs, make myself a cup of tea and wonder how on earth I'd ended up wedded to a man I didn't love.
'I never felt he cared about me and, although I cared about him enough to ensure he had food to eat and clothes to wear, my feelings never ran deeper than that.'
But back then, Christine felt it was better to endure a loveless marriage than to put their children, who are now aged between 15 and 21, through the misery of having a broken home.
'I'd tell myself: 'I've got my sons, my good health and a close relationship with my mum, and that will have to be enough for me.' '
It took the death of a close friend six years ago to make her re-evaluate her situation. She decided that life was too short to carry on making do and told her husband she wanted a divorce.
She started dating again three years ago, but Cupid still hasn't struck.
Christine felt it was better to endure a loveless marriage than to put their children, who are now aged between 15 and 21, through the misery of having a broken home
Like Christine, Angelique Saint-Martin, who lives in Essex, never dreamed she'd reach middle age without ever having lost her heart to anyone.
Now aged 52, Angelique has dated a number of men one, albeit half-heartedly, for several years but she has yet to experience the butterflies-in-her-stomach euphoria of being with someone she would choose above all others.
'I used to dream of walking down the aisle,' she says. 'I'm a personable and attractive woman who takes good care of myself, so I never doubted that it would happen.
'But I've given up on all that now. Some of my friends and cousins are now married for a second time, and I've sat in churches at so many weddings thinking: 'Why is it never my turn?' I feel like the old maid left on the shelf.'
For Angelique, like so many singletons, the absence of red roses and cards on Valentine's Day comes as a stark and sad reminder that she is no one's sweetheart. However, she acknowledges that having grown up with her single mother her father left when she was six years old she's always been aware that men are not essential to a woman's survival.
Angelique Saint-Martin, who lives in Essex, never dreamed she'd reach middle age without ever having lost her heart to anyone
'I'm a realist, not someone who goes around wearing rose-tinted spectacles, so I was never going to fall in love easily,' says Angelique.
'Men have always been attracted to me, but friends have told me that I'm not flirtatious enough around them.
'But I wouldn't want to give any man the wrong idea if I'm not certain about taking things further. It would seem dishonest.'
Angelique went on dates with a handful of men while in her late teens and 20s, seeing one, whom she met through mutual friends, for several months.
He was a handsome, half-Spanish businessman and, while they enjoyed meals out and trips to the cinema, there was no 'spark' between them.
Throughout most of her 30s, Angelique was committed to her career. Back then, she was working in foreign exchange in the City of London, and she remained resolutely single.
Having 'never had the urge' to become a mum, she felt none of the usual pressures to settle down that many women, with a ticking biological clock, experience.
However, aged 38 and having moved into a corporate sales role, Angelique was asked out by a business contact, a manager in a telecoms firm. He was going through a divorce and had two children, then aged 13 and seven.
'It certainly wasn't love at first sight, but he was a nice man and I hoped that, over time, he might grow on me and become 'the one',' says Angelique.
'But we were still getting to know each other when, very sadly, his ex-wife died from an embolism, meaning he was suddenly solely responsible for their two children.'
While Angelique would have been willing to have his children come to stay with them every other weekend, she was not prepared to be a full-time stepmother.
Angelique went on dates with a handful of men while in her late teens and 20s
As a result, while they continued to see one another sporadically for a further eight years, Angelique says she never fell in love with him and the relationship, such as it was, fizzled out in 2003.
Angelique has been on two separate dates since, but she had no desire to see either man again.
'A lot of men my age look older and just don't appeal to me,' she says. 'I have met nice-looking, older men, who have taken good care of themselves, but they are few and far between and tend to be looking for younger women.
'I don't want a man in his 20s or 30s, either, because we wouldn't have anything in common.
'But I always try to ensure I look as good as I can partly, I suppose, because there's a little bit of me still hoping to meet Mr Right.' Although now largely resigned to never knowing the joys of true love, Angelique is painfully aware of the ways in which she is missing out. Holidays are largely off the agenda, she says, as she'd rather not go than travel alone.
And when her friend, with whom she attends weekly Latin and Tango dance nights, speaks fondly of her husband of 30 years, Angelique can't help but feel envious of their close bond.
Still, she comforts herself with the knowledge that the course of true love doesn't always run smooth.
'Statistically, relationships don't last,' says Angelique. 'One year, I went to four friends' weddings and two of them are now divorced.
'Eventually, the honeymoon period ends, and even those who fall in love fall back out of it.'
YELLOW ROSES, NOT RED? HIS LOVE'S FADING Giving flowers on Valentine's Day could be a minefield as each flower has its meaning though perhaps not the one you intended. Yellow roses signify a lessening of love, pink larkspur means 'fickleness', lavender is associated with distrust and marigolds spell despair or jealousy. The secret language of flowers dates from Victorian times, when men and women would have used it to convey sentiments that they felt too inhibited to express in words. Now, English Heritage wants to revive the tradition for Valentine's Day but warns that you could risk offending your beloved if you send the wrong blooms. While people have always associated red roses with love and romance, a gift of striped carnations could spell heartbreak as it means 'refusal' in the secret code, says English Heritage. Using the language of flowers, a person who really wants to signal love could go for orchids, which mean beauty, white camellias, which represent 'perfect beauty', or pansies, which say 'you occupy my thoughts'. After an argument, the 'reconciliation' message of hazel could be appropriate. Hydrangeas signified 'frigidity', buttercups meant riches and daisies are for innocence. Chrysanthemums mean friendship but a single spider chrysanth says: 'Can we elope now?' Christopher Weddell, senior gardens adviser at English Heritage, said: 'Today, the deeper and more complex language of flowers is all but lost. We want to help keep this tradition alive.' Gardeners will be on hand at five English Heritage gardens today, on Valentine's Day, to help visitors identify romantic blooms. Advertisement
Michelle Lewis, 44, is someone else who is sad to admit that she has no idea how it feels to fall in love even though she was once engaged.
In fact, having come so close in her late 20s to sharing the rest of her life with a man she didn't love has made Michelle, a lettings operations manager from Cardiff, extra cautious about settling for anything less than 'the real thing'.
'When I was 26, I just sort of fell into a relationship with a colleague, because he was a nice man who pursued me and I'd previously dated a couple of men who had been unfaithful,' she says.
'We drifted along for a couple of years and then he proposed. But instead of feeling happy when we got engaged, I remember crying alone in my bedroom.
'I suppose I went along with it because I thought to myself: 'Maybe I'm being stupid waiting for someone who makes my heart race.'
'I'd always wanted to fall in love, get married and have children, so I tried to ignore the fact that the 'love' part just wasn't there.'
Michelle Lewis, 44, is someone else who is sad to admit that she has no idea how it feels to fall in love even though she was once engaged
The engagement limped on for two years, but, lacking as it was in passion both inside and outside the bedroom by mutual agreement they decided to call it off. Michelle was then 30.
During the 14 years since, Michelle's longest relationship has lasted just four months. She liked him, but he wasn't ready for a serious relationship, so they never got to the 'love' stage. There was another man she met online and dated for a month, but he ended up going back to his ex-girlfriend. Others never made it beyond a first date.
So are women like Angelique and Michelle simply too picky?
Michelle admits: 'Friends tell me I'm too fussy, but it's not that I want men to look a certain way or have a particular job it's just that, if there's no chemistry, then it can't work.
'I want to feel excited when I'm going on a date and be sad when I have to leave him. But I've never been with a man who has made me feel that way, and I'm not willing to just say: 'Oh, he'll do.' The man I settle down with needs to be my soulmate.'
She is also facing up to the fact that, at 44, she is unlikely ever to realise her dreams of becoming a mother
While she's waiting for her Mr Right to materialise, Michelle feels like 'the Bridget Jones character' at every social event, with family and friends always asking her if she's met anyone yet.
She is also facing up to the fact that, at 44, she is unlikely ever to realise her dreams of becoming a mother.
Each year, Valentine's Day acts as a poignant reminder that she's still on her own.
'I try not to let it drag me down, as I still believe that there's someone out there for everyone,' she says valiantly.
While Angelique and Michelle are determined to hold on for the real thing, Christine, whose divorce is still to be finalised, is more pragmatic.
'I don't want to settle down again unless I have real chemistry with a man,' she says. 'But, having said that, I don't want a lonely old age so maybe, if I haven't found love by the time I'm 65, I'll make do with companionship.'
Here's hoping Cupid strikes before then.
It is only two small words.
But saying thank you to others could be the key to beating depression.
A new study claims that the most basic act of courtesy can keep the blues at bay as it generates a glow of gratitude for the little things in everyday life.
US researchers quizzed 352 men and women aged between 18 and 58 about their personalities.
Researchers found that depression was more common among people who feared showing others how they truly felt
Questionnaires helped build a profile of each participant, revealing the degree to which they often feel depressive or grateful and also how they deal with stress and other people.
The team discovered that being thankful is linked to cognitive reappraisal - the ability to take a difficult situation and turn it into something more positive.
Meanwhile, depression was more common among those who suffer from ambivalent emotional expression (AEE) the fear of showing others how you truly feel.
The study - by the universities of Houston, Texas and Pennslyvania State plus the Michael E DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Centre - concludes that getting into the habit of saying thank you could prove to be an effective tonic.
Showing gratitude would help people who find it difficult to express their feelings to open up to others and divert them away from dwelling on negative unspoken thoughts.
The paper, in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, states: Interventions utilising this mechanism could be quite simple; perhaps writing a letter that expresses gratitude to another individual, society at large or to a higher power.
Express[ing] gratitude for small acts of kindness could be impactful to their physical and mental health.
Interventions may help to alleviate anxiety symptoms and perhaps foster feelings of closeness and social support for individuals who are high in AEE, as they often feel isolated.
In responding appreciatively and with kindness, gratitude offers the ability to reappraise a situation in a more positive light, which may then be associated with lower depressive symptoms.
Expressing gratitude can help people suffering from depression see a situation in a more positive light
The findings won backing from health psychologist Dr Cynthia McVey, of Glasgow Caledonian University.
She said: Its not just the showing of gratitude that will help people feel good about themselves, it is the reward they receive too.
When you say thank you to someone, they often respond with their own kind words its a two-way positive connection thats made.
Obviously, those who suffer from severe depression will require treatment of sorts.
However, on a basic level, quite often the key to feeling happy and contented lies in the small things in life; its about believing that you are a good and kind person.
So if you dont have the money to donate to charity or the time to volunteer, giving somebody else a smile and a thank you is an easy way to make a small difference to yourself and others every day.
The NHS handed out more than 60 million prescriptions for anti-depressants in 2015 twice as many as a decade earlier with the figure rising by around 7 per cent each year.
It's believed that one in four Britons will suffer a mental health problem this year
People are staying on them longer too with the average treatment now 169 days compared with 112 days in 1995.
Its estimated that a quarter of Britons will experience a mental health problem this year and ministers have pledged 600 million by 2021 to help tackle the mounting numbers.
A recent report found that the thank you note is now dying out with Britons now less likely to send a letter acknowledging Christmas gifts than Australians or Canadians.
Dementia patients are often condemned to poor care for other illnesses, doctors warned last night.
They said the stigma around the condition meant they were given less attention than patients who were similarly ill.
They also said sufferers in their 90s or older were likely to be written off when they could receive treatment.
An estimated 850,000 people in the UK suffer from Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia
Charities said the warnings issued at the Dementias 2017 conference showed the need for fair treatment. People with dementia have a right to equal access to treatment, support and care irrespective of their condition, said Rachel Thompson of Dementia UK.
Dementia affects everyone the person with the condition and their family and friends. It is critical that the correct support and care systems are in place to ensure the well-being of everyone involved.
The conference held last week at the Royal College of GPs in London was told dementia patients and their families were too often sidelined.
Dr Liz Sampson, a palliative care specialist at University College London, told the conference about an 80-year-old woman she saw last Tuesday.
She had a tumour that produced similar symptoms to Alzheimers but was offered much better care than would have been offered to a dementia patient.
What struck me was the cornucopia of services that were available to her and her family, she said.
Elderly patients are often diagnosed with dementia without other options being considered
She was bed-bound, she was doubly incontinent, agitated her presentation was 99 per cent similar to the people that I see with advanced dementia. So we manage to provide care when theres a diagnosis of a brain tumour, yet the prognosis is the same as someone in the advanced stages of dementia.
Jonathan Waite, a consultant in old age psychiatry from Nottingham, said he felt the NHS prioritised the care of younger people. He said: Im really concerned about the ageism inherent in the whole process.
Speaking afterwards, he added: Older people have been contributing to the system their whole lives yet we seem to prioritise resources on the young. He warned that many older people who appeared to have dementia could have a simple short-term condition such as delirium instead.
One NHS consultant said that healthcare prioritizes resources on the young despite older people 'contributing to the system their whole lives'
He said confused patients in their 90s were often diagnosed with dementia without other options being considered properly.
Another doctor, who did not give her name, admitted colleagues tended to make less effort with elderly patients as soon as they realised they had dementia.
Sometimes, even if I think someone who is 95 has Alzheimers disease, I might not diagnose it because I know it will be a negative stigma for the patient, she said.
It wont be in the patients best interests to have the diagnosis because once they have that diagnosis we wont care about their physical health as much. Its a very serious thing because in a hospital a doctor will say: The patient is 94, has dementia OK we dont care as much about his physical health.
Speaking at last weeks conference, Dr Peter Bagshaw, a GP from South Gloucestershire, said: The thought of missing a preventable diagnosis is the thing that keeps me awake at night.
Alzheimers and other forms of dementia affect around 850,000 people in the UK with the figures expected to reach two million by 2051 as the population ages.
A sweetener used in chocolate, cakes and fizzy drinks is the deadliest sugar, scientists warn.
Fructose, commonly used in the food industry, becomes damaging when artificially added to other food and drinks.
It is neutralised when present in fruit and vegetables - but turns rogue when imported into other products.
And experts say this raises the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and stroke in the process.
Unhealthy: The fructose becomes bad for the body when imported into fizzy drinks, cakes and sweets, which are heavily consumed in the UK
Scientists at the University of Barcelona conducted a specialised study on rats using two different types of simple sugar.
They found that those given fructose water put on more weight than those given water infused with glucose - the body's natural blood sugar and preferred energy source.
The results, published in the American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulatory Physiology, noted the former suffered more damaging effects on the metabolism and vascular system, not to mention a fatty liver and greater likelihood of obesity.
They also showed evidence of damaged metabolism and vascular system.
The findings are the latest in a long line of studies to highlight the damaging effects of fizzy drinks, cakes, biscuits and sweets.
Study author Professor Marta Alegret said: 'It is not shocking to discover the effects of fructose are seen in other similar sugars.
Sweet risk: Scientists at the University of Barcelona conducted a specialised study on rats using two different types of simple sugar
WHAT'S THE IDEAL DAILY SUGAR INTAKE? The government recommends that free or added sugars shouldn't make up more than 5 per cent of the energy (calories) you get from food and drink each day. That's a maximum of 30g of added sugar a day for adults, which is roughly seven sugar cubes. Children should have less no more than 19g a day for children aged 4 to 6 years old (5 sugar cubes), and no more than 24g (6 sugar cubes) for children aged 7 to 10 years old. Added sugars are found in foods such as sweets, cakes, biscuits, chocolate, and some fizzy drinks and juice drinks these are the sugary foods we should cut down on. Source: NHS Advertisement
'They show there are factors other than calorie intake, that can be associated with body weight gain.
'Weight gain in the liver seen in rats treated with fructose, not glucose, could affect body weight.'
The news comes shortly after it was revealed that chocolate manufacturers will reduce their products by 20 per cent in line with Government plans to combat child obesity.
Mars, Nestle and Mondelez, which owns Cadbury, are said to be making their products smaller in a bid to stop them from being highlighted in a new report by Public Health England (PHE).
Several companies are reportedly reformulating their high-sugar products with artificial sweeteners to appease the Government, but some chocolate makers are concerned about changing the ingredients due to 'difficulties' that could be encountered.
A mother and her unborn baby were miraculously saved after they both died during labour.
Michelle Santiago, 27, suffered a sudden heart attack from severe pre-eclampsia and died on a waiting room bed in Guararapes Memorial hospital in Recife, north east Brazil, earlier this year.
Surgeons made the split-second decision to perform an emergency Caesarean with a scalpel and without anaesthetic on her lifeless body, right where she lay.
They delivered the baby, but the child had apparently died in the womb at the same time as her mother.
Seconds after 'death': Surgeons made the split-second decision to perform an emergency Caesarean on Michelle Santiago - after she died following a sudden cardiac episode
Nurses battled to revive the new born with oxygen and miraculously, just five minutes later, she was breathing on her own.
Minutes after the drastic surgery, physicians resuscitated the stricken mother using a defibrillator to send electric shocks to her heart, which had stopped beating for ten minutes.
Now, both mother and daughter have made a full recovery.
A week after surviving her 'death-defying' episode, Mrs Santiago wept for joy as she held her healthy baby girl, Maysa, for the first time.
Obstetrician Dr Glaucius Nascimento, who led the emergency life-saving team said: 'This was a remarkable incident. It was as if we were operating in a war situation. We had to think really fast and work with what we had and right where we were.
'Our decisions meant either saving or losing both the mother and the baby.'
He added: 'Everyone was in tears, the moment we heard the baby cry and saw our patient come back to life.'
Mrs Santiago is believed to have suffered an amniotic fluid pulmonary embolism. A condition where fluid from the womb enters the mother's blood stream.
It is a rare and severe complication during pregnancy which occurs only once in every 30,000 births, according to medical records.
Survivor: Baby Maysa also 'died', but was breathing without assistance five minutes after birth
Mrs Santiago was discharged last week after a month spent recovering in hospital.
She said: 'I'd been having a lot of headaches for the past month and the back of my neck was very painful. I decided to go to the hospital because I couldn't take the pain anymore.'
At the maternity unit, she was diagnosed with severe pre-eclampsia (hypertension in pregnancy) and given medication. But this failed to stabilise her blood pressure.
I threw my cell phone on the floor and started cardiac massage immediately. I grabbed a scalpel to do the C-section. We had no time to get the normal electric one. The baby was withdrawn in less than one minute so we could start defibrillating Michelle Dr Glaucius Nascimento, Obstetrician
The married mother-of-two who lives in Recife, said: 'I lay down on the bed, my head was hammering and I was feeling really sick. I suddenly felt like my whole body was on fire and I screamed 'I can't breathe'.
'The last thing I remember before blacking out, was vomiting violently. Everything happened so quickly.'
Dr Nascimento was on his afternoon shift on January 6 when he was notified Mrs Santiago had arrived suffering from headaches, shortness of breath and severe nausea.
She was six days past her delivery date, but had no contractions.
Dr Nascimento said: 'One minute I was preparing to take Michelle into surgery because I had already anticipated her situation could get worse. In the next, a nurse was shouting 'her heart has stopped'.
'I just a few paces away from her bed, I threw my cell phone on the floor and started cardiac massage immediately.'
Going strong: Mrs Santiago with her husband Jose Fernando and their healthy daughter
Around 15 medical staff were on the scene within seconds. Some were involved in trying to revive the mother by opening her airways while others helped Dr Nascimento as he prepared to operate.
The obstetrician said: 'I grabbed a scalpel to do the C-section. We had no time to get the normal electric one. The baby was withdrawn in less than one minute so we could start defibrillating Michelle.'
WHAT IS AMNIOTIC FLUID EMBOLISM? Amniotic fluid embolism is a rare but serious condition that occurs when amniotic fluid the fluid that surrounds a baby in the uterus during pregnancy or fetal material, such as fetal cells, enters the mother's bloodstream. It is most likely to occur during delivery or immediately afterward. The condition is difficult to diagnose. If your doctor suspects you might have amniotic fluid embolism, you'll need immediate treatment to prevent potentially life-threatening complications. Source: Mayo Clinic Advertisement
But Maysa urgently needed oxygen as she appeared dead at birth.
Nurses worked to revive the child and after five intense minutes the infant, who was born weighing a healthy seven and a half pounds, cried and started breathing on her own.
Dr Nascimento, who worked quickly to suture the C-section, said: 'It was a moment of sheer happiness when we all heard the baby cry.'
Only then could doctors begin to save Mrs Santiago's life. She had been dead for ten minutes. Physicians used shock waves to resuscitate and restore a heartbeat.
Vascular surgeon, doctor Fernanda Carvalho said: 'The situation was so urgent, I climbed on top of the bed on my knees and applied cardiac massage to stabilise her heart rate. All I could think of was this mum was not going to leave her baby without us fighting for her to live.'
Mrs Santiago spent a week in intensive care recovering from her operation and from a bout of pneumonia.
Sandra Santiago, Mrs Santiago's mother, was with her daughter when she first came around after the emergency procedure. Sandra said: 'I kept begging Michelle in ICU to live and come back to us.
Grateful: Mrs Santiago has since described her eternal gratitude to the medical staff in Guararapes Memorial hospital
'The first time she opened her eyes, was the greatest moment ever and I couldn't stop crying, as I told her I loved her so much.'
Mrs Santiago held her newborn daughter for the first time, seven days later. The child stayed with her in hospital.
She said: 'When I woke up in ICU I panicked and put my hand on my belly because I thought I'd lost my baby. But my mum said she was well and beautiful and waiting for me in the nursery.
'I am overwhelmed with gratitude for what the medical staff have done for us. They were incredible because they performed a miracle by saving two lives.'
Dr Nascimento, who has been practicing medicine for 16 years, said: 'I've been involved in several high-risk maternity situations but I have never performed a caesarean while the patient was peri-mortem (near to death).
'This incident was worth all my years of sacrifice to become a doctor.'
Medical researchers diagnosed Mrs Santiago's cardiac arrest was caused by a pulmonary embolism due to amniotic fluid entering her blood stream.
Dr Nascimento said: 'We are still studying why this happened but from our initial findings it appears as if the amniotic fluid formed a clot that broke away and reached the lungs. It's a very rare event.'
Doctors added she had suffered no further complications because the incident was handled so quickly it didn't have time to cause neurological damage.
One month after her life-saving surgery, Mrs Santiago, who is taking medication to her control her blood pressure, has returned home to her five-year-old daughter, Melania and husband Jose Fernando, 26.
Jose said: 'I thought I had lost the love of my life and my baby daughter.
'This has been a real shock to us and shown just how easily Michelle could have died in childbirth if she hadn't been in the right place at the right time and with the right medical staff to save her and our daughter.'
It's a world that was considered taboo for a long time.
For many, anything beyond 'vanilla' sex was considered abnormal.
Then came the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy - and our curiosity of Bondage, Discipline/Dominance, Submission/Sadism and Masochism (i.e. BDSM) was sparked.
Generally, BDSM is about dominance and submission. One person plays the 'top' or dominant role, while the other plays the 'bottom' or submissive role.
According to a post-50 Shades survey by Marie Claire, 85 percent of US adults had engaged in at least light-fare play using masks, blindfolds and bondage tools.
While there is plenty of room for sexual experimentation when it comes to BDSM, there are also many physical and mental health benefits - when practiced safely and consensually.
Indeed, Dr Ian Kerner, a psychotherapist and sexuality counselor in New York, told Daily Mail Online that this kind of physical contact in BDSM can stimulate the body in far more ways than 'vanilla' sex.
'BDSM, in the right context, can be arousing and sexual whether you're spanking, using a flogger, or using bondage,' Dr Kerner said.
'It's fun, it's sexy and when you're engaging in BDSM, there are levels that are highly explorative.'
Here, we speak to Dr Kerner, other experts, and round up medical research to explain why kinky sex maybe better for you than you think...
Alternative therapy: The Fifty Shades book and movie franchise made kinky sex less taboo - and according to experts that could be a good thing for our physical and mental health
1. REDUCES STRESS LEVELS
Several studies have found that couples who engage in BDSM activities see a reduction in stress levels.
A 2009 study found that both dominants and submissives consistently had lower levels of cortisol after engaging in bondage compared to before.
Cortisol, often called the 'stress hormone', regulates many changes in the body including blood sugar (glucose) levels, immune responses and inflammation.
A number of health benefits have been found with the risk of lowering stress levels including reducing the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and symptoms of asthma.
Experts suggest there could be two reasons BDSM has this effect.
First, couples may feel a unique confidence in their structured intimacy. Second, many BDSM couples report entering a state of 'mindfulness' during their escapades.
Exploring the second point, scientists at Northern Illinois University indeed found that BDSM participants enter a 'flow state' of mindfulness, similar to the mindset athletes report when they're 'in the zone'.
Getting 'in the zone': Studies have found that couples who engage in BDSM activities see a reduction in stress levels by entering into a focused mindful state that lowers blood pressure=
The researchers recruited seven couples and randomly assigned the pairs a top or bottom role, and then observed them having sex while noting the type of activities and 'flow state.'
The participants involved all reported better moods, showed lower levels of stress, and scored highly on the flow state scale.
Lead author Dr Brad Sagarin wrote: 'The mindful attention that people give to each other in the context of the BDSM scene has applications in other kinds of sexual interactions.
'If people are really focused on each other and the positive experience of their partner, we might see similar kinds of effects.'
Immunity boost: Flogging and spanking increases blood flow to the brain
2. STRENGTHENED IMMUNITY
Flogging and spanking increases blood flow to the brain.
The fresh blood supply saturates the organs and muscles with new oxygen and hormones.
Meanwhile, the used blood is removed along with waste products that cause fatigue and even illness of brain cells.
This is cleansing process is key to strengthen our immune system, keeping our bodies well-prepared to deal with pathogens.
While all kinds of sex boost one's blood flow, experts explain it is not quite like the rush experienced in BDSM.
Dr Sandra LaMorgese, a sex expert in New York, told Medical Daily that physical contact between BDSM couples can promote a sense of well-being.
She said: 'The skin is the largest organ of the body, with millions of receptors right under the surface.
'When someone touches our skin through massaging, playing, hugging, hand-holding, or having physical sex, we begin to experience physiological and physical healing.'
3. INCREASE OF FEEL-GOOD HORMONES
Many couples who practice BDSM can fare better than 'vanilla' couples when it comes to communication.
Experts told Daily Mail Online that this is because they often have to be more thorough in discussions about their sexual desires.
Additionally, having tools such as 'safe words' and making a distinction between 'play' and other typical relationship interactions, are contributing factors.
When you and your partner are experiencing strong communication, the body can release feel-good hormones such as serotonin, making you feel happy and energetic.
Communication: BDSM requires clear-as-water communication between the two parties to ensure they know each others' limits. This connection can release feel-good hormones
Sari Cooper, an AASECT certified sex therapist based in New York, said: 'With people who agree to play with BDSM appropriately and correctly comes tremendous communication skills so that couples can learn what they are and are not comfortable with.
'The caveat to learning about BDSM is that is is not for everyone. It's a type of erotic thrill that works for some people and not for others. But it's important to talk to your partner about the spectrum on which you do or don't want to participate.'
4. BETTER MENTAL HEALTH
While some may think BDSM perverse, studies have found practitioners to have be mentally self-assured, strong and healthy.
Specifically, a 2013 study found BDSM participants to be less neurotic, more extroverted, more open to new experiences, more conscientious, less rejection sensitive, with higher subjective well-being than 'vanilla' couples.
They were also found to be more stubborn, sticking to their own way of doing things over alternatives.
This, researchers suggested, likely stems from their penchant for trying new things, exploring the un-explored, and putting themselves into new experiences.
Open minds: Studies have found BDSM participants to be less neurotic after trying new things, exploring the un-explored, and putting themselves into new experiences
The findings sparked a flurry when they emerged four years ago, given the widely-held view that BDSM is something perverse.
Prior to Fifty Shades, most popular culture portrayals of BDSM showed characters with a history of sexual assault or molestation.
But psychologists and sex therapists say this is not the case.
'Are there people who participate who have been assaulted or traumatized in the past? In the same way there is a group of people who practice a more vanilla style of sexuality who have been sexually traumatized in their past, there are also trauma survivors in the kink community as well,' Cooper said.
'BDSM participation does not directly correlate to a history of abuse.'
Tragic: Six-year-old Eva Marie Harris, from Ohio, died after developing a rare autoimmune complication from the flu
A six-year-old girl has died from the flu - bringing the total number of fatalities to 15 this season.
Millions of children across the US come down with the flu each year, but it rarely results in death.
For Eva Marie Harris, however, it developed into a rare infection that killed her.
Eva, from Rocky River, Ohio, passed away on February 10. What started as one of the most common flu strains developed into a rare autoimmune disease that caused her body to attack the brain.
And although those who develop the disease have a viral or bacterial illness weeks before, doctors say Eva's death was likely preventable.
On February 7, Eva was admitted to Cleveland Clinic Children's with a fever of 105F and a case of the flu - Influenza B, the most common of the flu viruses.
Doctors administered several tests before diagnosing her with a viral infection. But her body's immune response had caused damage to her brain.
Eva had developed a severe form of a neurological disease called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM).
While there are a variety of viruses that can trigger ADEM, the disease does not appear to be caused by any single infectious agent, and Eva's case was extremely rare.
It was not long before she was placed on life support, with a cardiac drip and on a ventilator.
In a statement, the family wrote: 'We are truly humbled by the outpouring of love, prayers and support from the community for our beloved daughter, Eva Harris.
'We are deeply saddened to share that Eva has passed away. As her family, we wish to request privacy as we remember and celebrate her amazing life.'
A YouCaring page had been set up to cover Eva's medical expenses, but the current donors are pledging to bring the family meals and other necessities.
WHAT IS IN THE FLU SHOT? Strains of the flu virus are constantly changing, so a new vaccine is made each year. Scientists make the vaccine before flu season starts by predicting which flu strains are likely to be the most common during the upcoming season. For the 2016-2017 season, flu shots protect against three or four strains of flu virus. Trivalent vaccines protect against two influenza A strains, H1N1 and H3N2, and one influenza B strain. The quadrivalent flu vaccines protect against the same strains as the trivalent vaccine, as well as an extra influenza B virus. The CDC estimates that between 157 million and 168 million doses of injectable flu vaccine will be available. This season will be the first since 2013 that the flu nasal spray is not available due to new data that questioned its efficacy. Advertisement
'ADEM is basically the body attacking itself. You get an infection, it's usually a virus that provokes a response from the body that causes it to attack the brain, Dr Maz Wiznitzer told WKYC.
The pediatric neurologist from University Hospital Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital said that the condition, however, is not contagious.
Most ADEM patients have a viral or bacterial illness two to three weeks before developing ADEM.
'The children present with change in mental status, seizures, fever. They may have a weakness on one side or unsteady when they walk,' said Dr Wiznitzer.
He insists, however, that there is no link between ADEM and the flu vaccine.
He said: 'The present vaccinations that we give do not have an association with ADEM.
'In fact, we know the diseases those vaccines protect you against. Those are the ones that can cause this bad inflammation of the brain, swelling and inflammation of the brain. The vaccine would actually protect you against that.'
In New York City, four pediatric influenza deaths have been reported by the New York State Department - all in January.
None of the ages, or whether or not the children were vaccinated, were disclosed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that it's seen epidemic levels of flu activity late last month.
According to a CDC report last week, there have been 15 flu-related pediatric deaths.
Eva had developed a rare case of ADEM, an autoimmune disease that attacks the brain and the spinal cord. Two days after being admitted to the hospital, she was placed on life support. Her family posted a throwback picture (left) and a more recent picture (right) online in tribute
Particularly New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all reported high levels of flu-like activity.
Dr William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said that although the deaths are tragic, the number of cases is New York is not unusual for flu season.
He said: 'It's clear that the substantial majority of children who die from influenza every year have not been vaccinated.'
Four militants, two army personnel and a civilian were killed in a fierce gunfight in Kashmir during the early hours of Sunday
The battle took place at a hideout shared by the banned LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen in a village in the south of the state following an intelligence tip off.
The encounter killing of the four local militants set off a violent protest by the villagers during which the army opened fire, causing injuries to 15 civilians, one of whom later died.
Four militants, two army personnel and a civilian were killed in a village in south Kashmir
Acting on specific technical and human intelligence about the presence of militants, security forces swooped down on their hideout at Nagbal village - 70km south of Srinagar - and engaged them in an encounter, leading to their killing.
The state police had alerted the security forces about the presence of militants at the house of a tailor at the village in Kulgam district, a hotbed of militancy.
'The security forces have achieved a major success,' director general of police S P Vaid said. 'However, it is unfortunate that two soldiers were martyred and son of the house owner got caught in the crossfire and succumbed to injuries,' he said.
Officials present at the scene said a cordon was thrown around the village by Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police at around 3.30am.
Martyred jawans Lance Naik Raghubeer Singh (L) and Lance Naik Bhandoriya Gopal Singh (R)
The contingent moved in to mount the assault after a team of Rashtriya Rifles - a force carved out of the army for counter-insurgency operations - arrived at around 4am.
An initial search at the residence of the tailor did not yield any result and a fresh search was made. This time the son of the house owner was asked to show them around the places which the security forces may have missed.
The team noticed a false ceiling which, when forced opened, prompted firing by the militants.
In the ensuing encounter, two army personnel - identified as Lance Naik Raghubeer Singh and Lance Naik Bhandoriya Gopal Sinh as well as son of the tailor - were killed.
After a fierce exchange of fire which went on for nearly three hours, four militants identified as Muddasir Ahmed Tantray and Wakeel Ahmed Thokar (LeT) and Farooq Ahmed Bhatt and Mohameed Younis Lone of Hizbul Mujahideen were killed.
Kashmiri protesters throw stones during clashes with Indian police and paramilitary personnel, in Srinagar, on February 10, 2017
While Tantray was an active militant since August 2014, Thokar had joined LeT in September last year.
Lone had been recruited in Hizbul Mujahideen only in January this year, while Bhatt was with the outfit since June 2015.
Officials said three militants, believed to have been injured, ran into the adjacent forests. Dreaded Hizbul militant Altaf Kachroo was suspected to be among them.
A hunt has been launched to apprehend them and four guns were recovered from the scene.
The encounter triggered a law and order situation in the Kulgam area with protesters hurling stones at the army and security forces after the news about the death of four local militants spread.
Army had to open fire at the angry mob in which 15 people were injured.
Meanwhile separatists have called for a complete shutdown on Monday to protest over the death of the civilian.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since they won independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.
Several rebel groups have for decades fought tens of thousands of Indian troops deployed in the region, demanding independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan.
The fighting has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.
Anigbogu Kelly was arrested after he allegedly duped a Delhi man of Rs 5 lakh using a herbal seed business as a front
Nigerian scamsters have changed tactics as they target Indian people online, security experts have warned.
The fraudsters are no longer relying on phishing emails about lotteries and charity as bait, but are duping people on the pretext of partnering with MNCs (multinational companies), investing in herbal seed businesses and channelising foreign funds.
According to security agencies, there is a complete shift in the modus operandi of these Nigerian web gangs.
A senior Delhi Police Crime Branch officer said: 'The scamsters lure gullible targets via social networking sites such as Facebook.
'They then pose as diplomats or MNC executives and entice their targets to invest in a global venture, which actually does not exist.
'Interestingly, all dealings are done at high-secured areas such as airport and five-star hotels to give an impression of being high-flyers and avoid the risk of getting into trouble.'
The latest in the police trap is 34-year-old Anigbogu Kelly from Nigeria who was residing in New Delhi and was arrested after resistance from Patna airport this week.
Kelly was allegedly trying to get away with Rs 5 lakh from Patna resident Ajay Kumar, who had already paid Rs 5 lakh as advance for getting the distributorship of herbal seeds.
According to the police, there are several online gangs running scams to procure seeds with medicinal values that can cure diseases, including cancer.
'There is no fixed narrative. Depending upon the profile of the target, the gang traps them. In the herbal seeds scam, the victim is approached online as a representative of an overseas pharmaceutical firm looking to source herbal seeds from local farmers through an agent. They promise the victim huge returns if they pay the agent upfront for the seeds. Then they disappear with the money,' said Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force's additional superintendent of police Triveni Singh.
Gangs are also cheating people using fake foreign currency, like this batch recently seized
One of the latest victims is Meerut's Varun Thapar, who lost Rs 3 lakh to a Nigerian gang. Thapar went to meet the gang members at a five star hotel in Mumbai and Delhi.
He told Mail Today: 'The gang members contact through their international number or makes a WhatsApp call. The gang sounds so professional that it is difficult to make out that they are fraud.
'I was trapped after getting a friend request from a Manchester-based female executive. I was given seed sample in Mumbai and later duped at a five-star hotel in Delhi. The trap was so perfect that I could not sense any foul play.'
During investigation, it was found that all the numbers used for communication were taken on fake identities.
Police claim the gangs have developed a new trick, where they pose as diplomat or MNC executive and work in nexus with a local youth who helps them with logistics.
In a similar way, one Agra-based doctor ended up losing Rs 50 lakh after falling in trap of another Nigerian gang.
'I was approached by diamond trader from Los Angeles who wanted to invest in India. We were in touch for long, when one day he told me that he was coming with huge foreign currency and was stopped by Customs officer, who was demanding money for his release. Once I paid the initial Rs 1.5 lakh, he started making new excuses and demanded more money,' she said, asking for anonymity.
The victim said each time the gang member would make a new excuse.
'When he realised that he can siphon more money from me, he gave me a bag containing sealed foreign currency. But he cooked up a bizarre story that only after applying a chemical solution, I can use this money. Later, I found that the money was fake,' she said.
According to the police, with this new trend adopted by criminals, more and more educated people are falling victim.
'There has been an increase in such Nigerian frauds, primarily because of people's desire for easy money. It is sad to see educated people falling prey to such fraud. This is despite our awareness campaign about such scams,' Singh said.
He explained that gangs are using virtual number generators through which they can generate any number to their phone so the receiver will have the impression that he is getting a call from foreign country.
The gang prefers to communicate through WhatsApp calls to avoid coming in police net.
'We have received several complaints across India about Nigerian scams and are tracking couple of gangs,' Singh said.
The Delhi High Court said on Monday that it was foxed by the lack of information about missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed's whereabouts even after five months since his disappearance.
Najeeb Ahmed's family now hope that the probe will be handed over to some other agency.
'It is very strange. Five to six months have gone by since he disappeared. Something should have come out, even if something worse has happened, it should have come out by now,' a bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel said.
The Delhi High Court said on Monday that it was foxed by the lack of information about missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed's whereabouts even after five months of his disappearance
Najeeb's family said they want another agency to probe the matter as they had no faith in the Delhi Police as its investigation has hit a dead-end.
They said if the police continues to probe the matter, every month it will come with some new story.
The bench then said every missing person was important and it does not talk highly of any society, if people go missing without any trace.
The bench asked police to carry on its investigation in the manner it wants to, but in accordance with law.
The court's observation came during the hearing of an application by one of the nine students, who are suspects in the case, seeking recall of the high court's December 14 and December 22, 2016 orders.
University students have participated in a campaign to search Najeeb Ahmed since he went missing
The student's lawyer said as per media reports, the high court in its orders had directed a lie-detector test of the nine students and sought a clarification on it.
The bench, thereafter, said it was neither monitoring the probe, nor has it directed that lie-detector test be carried out on anyone and it was the domain of the police to decide the manner in which investigation has to be carried out.
The court told the student's lawyer that if his client does not want to undergo the test, he can refuse to do so. Delhi Police, represented by senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra, told the court they (students) can frustrate our probe, but 'we too are not helpless'.
In a status report filed before the court, the agency said some WhatsApp messages were received by the police and family of Najeeb that he has been seen in Odisha and in Bijwasan area of Southwest Delhi and teams were sent to both places.
The all-important Supreme Court verdict which will decide the future of AIADMK supremo VK Sasikala - locked in a battle for chief ministership with O Pannerselvam - is set to be announced today.
The make-or-mar judgement for Sasikala in the disproportionate assets case is likely to be delivered at 10:30 am, according to the Supreme Court cause-list of cases to be taken up by it today.
The bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy, will pass its order on a batch of appeals, including the one filed by the Karnataka government acquitting the main accused in the case, former Tamil Nadu chief minister the late J Jayalalithaa and three others, including Sasikala.
AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala was elected as a AIADMK Legislative party leader and is set to become Tamil Nadu CM
Since Jayalalithaa is now deceased, the case against her will be abated.
The other accused in the case are Sasikala's relatives V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi. All four had been convicted by the trial court, but acquitted by the Karnataka High Court.
The political future of Sasikala, a long-time friend of Jayalalithaa, will hinge on the Supreme Court judgement.
Sasikala, who was elected AIADMK legislature party leader on February 5th, will be rendered ineligible for contesting an assembly election in the event of conviction - thereby stifling her ambition of becoming the chief minister.
Sasikala gestures to supporters at her party's headquarters after attending the MLAs' meeting in Chennai last week amid power struggle
The information about the likely Supreme Court order came the day attorney general Mukul Rohatgi advised governor C Vidyasagar Rao to hold a special session of the state assembly within a week for a floor test to ascertain who between Sasikala and caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam enjoys majority support of AIADMK MLAs.
In his opinion, sources said, Rohatgi has stated that he (governor) should call a special session within a week's time and have a composite floor test, as was ordered by the Supreme Court in the Jagdambika Pal case.
The attorney general has cited the 1998 Supreme Court judgement in the Jagdambika Pal case in which the apex court had ordered a floor test in the assembly to determine who between the two claimants - Pal and Kalyan Singh - commanded the majority support for chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh.
If the governor, who has kept his cards close to chest since last Thursday, the day Sasikala staked claim to form the government, goes by the AG's advise, the dispute between the rival AIADMK factions would be decided on the floor of the House.
The governor can also swear in Sasikala without the assembly having to go through the rigour of a floor test as she has already been elected the AIADMK legislature party leader.
Caretaker Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam sitting in a meditation in front of late J Jayalalithaa's burial site at the Marina Beach in Chennai on Tuesday, before he announced plans to contend his anticipated successor
Panneerselvam's revolt notwithstanding, she enjoys the support of an overwhelming majority of party MLAs, six of whom have shifted their loyalty to the caretaker chief minister.
Pannerselvam also has the backing of 11 MPs, including two in the Rajya Sabha.
Satish Acharya on... Tamil Nadu's fate
Tamil Nadu has a 234-member assembly and Sasikala looks set for a facile victory during a floor test, but an adverse court verdict can put paid to her chief ministerial ambition.
Sasikala, who had staked claim to form the government on February 9, met over 100 AIADMK MLAs lodged at a resort on Chennai's outskirts for the third time in as many days.
Later, addressing the AIADMK MLAs, Sasikala indicated that she could stay back for the night at the resort when she said she had brought 'a set of dresses and that we could return together tomorrow.'
Repeatedly invoking the legacy of party veterans, late MG Ramachandran and late J Jayalalithaa, she said AIADMK workers would work by their ideals of public service.
Later in the day, Tamil Nadu Government reappointed S Davidson Devasirvatham as the Intelligence chief, more than a year after shunting him out, with the state facing a political stalemate, principal home secretary Apurva Varma said in a release.
A 25-year-old woman who accused Samajwadi Party MLA Arun Verma of allegedly raping her in 2013, has died under mysterious circumstances in her native village in Sultanpur district on Sunday.
According to reports, the victim was found in an unconscious state near a primary school, about 100 metres away from her house in Chorma village, which is about 25 km from the district headquarters.
She was rushed to the district hospital where doctors declared her dead.
Verma (centre) has denied the charges, calling them a conspiracy against him
Verma has denied the charges, calling them a conspiracy against him.
In 2013, she had lodged an FIR with the police alleging that the sitting SP MLA of Jaisinghpur seat of Sultanpur district, Arun Verma, and some of his accomplices kidnapped and raped her.
The matter is to be heard on February 21 in Allahabad High Court. Meanwhile, police said, the injury marks were evident on the victim's neck.
SP MLA has the backing of party leader and CM Akhilesh Yadav
'The body has been sent for a post-mortem and we will give further comments once we receive the report,' a senior police officer said requesting anonymity.
However, locals have some other stories to tell. 'She was married to a youth of a neighbouring village about three years ago and she also has a daughter aged two and a half. But she used to stay with her parents quite often.
'A few days ago, her husband came to take her back but she refused following which a fight took place. After the intervention of their neighbours, things were pacified,' said a neighbour.
It is to be mentioned that the victim used to live with her father, mother and an elder sister. Her father has lodged an FIR against Verma, alleging him of murdering his daughter.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has assured all possible help to the family of the deceased.
'The matter was also probed earlier and nothing was found. However, I am ready for all kind of help and if the family wants the incident to be probed by any agency, I will help.
'Such an incident during the election clearly indicates a conspiracy but we (government) are ready for any kind of probe,' said Akhilesh.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday said incidents of rape and abduction have gone up in Uttar Pradesh and asked whether the chief minister would describe it as his work or misdeeds.
'Akhilesh ji, is this your 'kaam (work) or karname (bad deeds)' which is speaking?' he said.
I have a question regarding inheritance. My grandfather died decades ago in South Africa. My grandmother and then my aunt dealt with and kept all of his effects.
My grandmother is in a home but has dementia and the same aunt has power of attorney. My aunt is the youngest of three children. The oldest is my mother, who is alive.
On a recent trip to South Africa my mother requested that my aunt give me my grandfather's war diaries. She refused.
War diaries: A chronicle of grandfather's march from Northern Africa to a prisoner of war camp in Germany
As far as I know these were not specified in any will. Is she entitled to them because she has power of attorney? Can I make her hand them over because my mother is the oldest and so she should have claim to them? It is worth highlighting they have no monetary value.
My grandfather fought in World War Two. He was captured in Northern Africa at the beginning of the war and was marched to a POW camp in Germany. He spent the war there and was liberated by the Americans.
He was given a diary by a German chaplain and he recorded how far they'd walked and where they stopped along the way to Germany.
They don't contain descriptive narrative just distances, dates and times. But it's an area of great interest to me and I've already managed to find out so much more from the pictures of a few of the pages that I've seen.
Gary Rycroft, partner with Joseph A. Jones & Co Solicitors, replies: If your grandmother inherited your grandfathers estate, she is the current owner of his war diaries.
It is therefore up to your grandmother what happens to them in the future.
Whilst they may have no monetary value, your grandmother could still leave them in a will to a specific person and in that case other members of the family would have to accept the situation.
Alternatively, if your grandmother leaves a will dividing her estate between a number of parties - such as her three children - and does not make specific reference to the war diaries then they would fall into what is known as her "residuary estate".
It would then be up to the executors of her will to decide who should receive the war diaries.
Another complication here is that your grandmother is (thankfully) still alive and your aunt has Power of Attorney over her affairs, and this aspect of the situation will also be explored below.
Gary Rycroft: One solution would be to donate the war diaries to a third party such as a museum and for any interested members of the family to be given a copy
How do executors resolve family disputes over items not identified in a will?
This is a potentially tricky question for the executors to resolve and if there are more than one party who would like the war diaries then they are going to have to make a difficult decision to favour one party over another.
Alternatively, some kind of compromise could be reached whereby one party would be entitled to the original war diaries and another interested party could have a full copy made.
Perhaps the party who receives the original war diaries would be willing to pay for the copy to be made so that they could keep the original.
Another solution would be to donate the war diaries to a third party such as a museum and for any interested members of the family to be given a copy.
If someone disagrees with an executor's decision - say, for instance, your aunt was executor and wanted to keep the diaries, and your mother objected - they can challenge it in the courts.
In this case, the fact that the war diaries have no value means that it is unlikely that any party would be willing to litigate over them going to another member of the family because it would be expensive, certainly running into thousands of pounds.
If the war diaries did have value - and whilst it is assumed that they do not, it may be that there would be a value in them being published or otherwise shared with a wider audience - there would have to be some kind of balancing payment between other members of the family entitled to the estate.
So for instance, if there are three children sharing an estate and it includes a valuable item such as a diamond ring, if the executors passed the ring to one of the children then there would need to be a balancing payment to the other two children with regard to its agreed value.
The fact that your mother is the eldest sibling does not have any relevance. In the UK, there is no "pecking order" with regard to the age of siblings and they are all of equal standing.
How much control do holders of 'power of attorney' have over personal effects?
In the UK, the law is clear that an attorney may not use that position to further their own interests, but rather must act in the "best interests" of the person for whom they act.
"Best interests" is a term which crops up in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 which governs this area of law in England and Wales.
[So whilst having a Power of Attorney for Property and Financial Affairs does give the attorney control over a persons property and financial affairs - including personal effects such as these war diaries - they should not take property which belongs to the person for whom they act and keep it for themselves.]
If the attorney did that then steps could be taken to have them removed and the property returned to the original owner.
Sometimes, attorneys do need to distribute the personal effects of the person whom they act for, such as when they have to sell a house so as to pay for care home fees.
In that situation, in order to act in the "best interests" of the person whom they act for, the attorney should involve members of the family and also take steps to ensure that any items disposed of are not contrary to the persons wishes as written down in their will.
How do you dispute the actions of a 'power of attorney' holder?
In England and Wales, if you are unhappy about the conduct of an attorney, you should make a referral to the Safeguarding Unit at the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG).
There is no cost to the person making the referral and once the referral is made, the OPG will investigate the circumstances of the situation.
If they find that the attorney has acted in a way which is contrary to their duties then they will take steps for Power of Attorney to be removed from that person.
Scientists have for the first time revealed the face of the patron saint of lovers, who paid a heavy price for his defence of romance 1,700 years ago.
Experts in Brazil have revealed what Saint Valentine looked like, using state-of-the-art 3D interactive technology after studying the ancient holy man's skull.
His remains were digitally mapped and his face reconstructed by one of the country's leading computer graphic designers, Cicero Moraes, using 3D interactive technology.
The unveiling is timely, as it comes a day before millions of people across the globe celebrate the modern-day love fest in his name.
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Saint's alive! This is how St Valentine would have looked, according to the scientists
After a lengthy and intricate process, the team was able to produce an image showing what St Valentine looked like
The saint's relic, which is kept in the Basilica of Santa Maria of Cosmedin, in Rome, was photographed by Jose Luis Lira, a researcher and religious writer, and analysed by forensic anthropologist, Dr Marcos Paulo Salles Machado.
He concluded the head 'belonged to a European male aged around 55 years or more'.
Around 250 photos were taken of St Valentine's skull, which is kept in the Basilica of Santa Maria of Cosmedin, in Rome
The saint's remains were digitally mapped and his face reconstructed by one of the country's leading computer graphic designers, Cicero Moraes, using 3D interactive technology
Photographer Jose Luis Lira took 250 images of the skull, from which the researchers were able to build details of the saint's features
Despite limited access to the skull - which is kept in a tiny glass reliquary in the church and coronated with a crown of flowers - the researchers claim to have produced the first authentic likeness of the third century Roman bishop.
The MailOnline has been given exclusive access to the results of the 3D reconstruction, which shows how a series of photographs led to the digital rebuilding of the characteristics of the centuries-old face.
From the anatomical laying of soft tissue and muscle, to pigmentating skin tone and sculpting the features, the final result depicts a white haired, bearded benevolent-looking man.
Using the photographs of St Valentine's skull, the team was able to create a 3D image
The newly-created image was based on 250 photographs of the saint's skull, which is currently kept in Rome
THE PATRON SAINT OF LOVERS: WHO WAS ST VALENTINE? Although St Valentine's life is largely shrouded in mystery, tradition holds that the ancient clergyman, who was killed in 273AD, sacrificed his life for love by defying a ban on marriage imposed by Emperor Claudius II. Historians claim the Roman ruler was determined to build a formidable army to defend his empire. He clamped down on lovers getting hitched, believing that young men, with no wife or dependents, would be more likely to go to war. But the early Christian saint challenged the edict and secretly performed weddings for couples. The risks were great. Valentine lived at a time when Christians were persecuted and marriage ceremonies were still a new ritual. St Valentine's match-making activities, particularly for soldiers, were eventually uncovered and Claudius II imprisoned and tortured him. Legend also has it that while in jail many young people supported him by throwing flowers and passing notes through the prison bars expressing their belief in marriage and love. And apparently shortly before his death, the 'godfather' of love fell head over heels for his jailer's blind daughter, Artemias, who miraculously regained her eyesight. On February 14, the day of his execution, St Valentine sent his sweetheart a goodbye love letter signed 'from your Valentine'. Advertisement
He is dressed in a tunic, the official liturgical robes of a priest of the time. The red represents his martyrdom,
Moraes, who is based in Sinop, west central Brazil, specialises in recreating the lifelike images of saints and has worked on the 3D face reconstruction of over 10 Roman Catholic holy people.
He said: 'This has been an exciting, complicated and rare project to do. It's not often that you get access to a precious and suitably relevant relic like this. We were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.
'We worked on this project for three months and unveiling St Valentine's face now, is a timely reminder of why this dedicated day of affection first started.
'Our work also gives the world a visual reference of who we should be thanking for the celebration,' he added.
Getting access to St Valentine's skull came through an unexpected turn of events for the researchers.
Lira, who is also president of the Brazilian Academy of Hagiology (a study of the saints) has worked with Moraes on the reconstruction of the faces of Mary Magdalene and Saint Pauline of Brazil, among others.
He was in Rome last October on a separate project when he stumbled across the opportunity.
'I was in St. Peter's Square when one of the many sellers there gave me a picture of St Valentine,' recalled Lira, who is normally based in Ceara, north east Brazil.
'I took it as a sign to see if I could get unthinkable, close up access to the skull in the Basilica. The chance to do the facial reconstruction of one of the Roman Catholic church's most important and venerated relics has been a life-long dream,' he said.
Using the piece of skull, scientists were able to build an image of the rest of his head
Experts were able to reconstruct St Valentine's face after mapping his skull using 3D technology
As it happens, dean of the church, Father Mtanious Hadad, was keen to authorise the procedure. In an unprecedented move the church closed its doors to the public and for 40 minutes, Lira had exclusive access but couldn't remove the skull from its resting place.
Photos of the relic, which was found during the excavation of a catacomb in Rome in the early 1800s, show the limited view of the object.
Lira sent 250 snaps to Moraes who whittled them down to 43. The graphic designer used photogrammetry and spatial scaling software to map and build a 3D skull.
The 3D technology laid soft tissue and muscle on St Valentine's face to help build a picture of what he really looked like
Despite limited access to the skull - which is kept in a tiny glass reliquary in the church and coronated with a crown of flowers - the researchers claim to have produced the first authentic likeness of the third century Roman bishop
Machado forensically analysed the 3D virtual head and confirmed the ancestry, sex and age without knowing who it was.
From his observations, he said it was that of a mature man. He analysed aspects such as the projected glabella (the area between the eyebrows and above the nose), the sloping forehead, prominent superciliary arches (eyebrow ridge), blunt orbital ridges (located around the eye sockets), and the massive mastoid process (the temporal bone behind the ear).
Age was determined by dental development.
The team used 3D meshing to sculpt St Valentine's face during the intricate process
However, Machado admitted: 'A complete analysis was difficult because only a small front section of the skull could be captured by photogrammetry. So, we needed to fill in the gaps.'
But given that they were unable to handle the skull, this is the best anyone is likely to do for now said the researchers.
Moraes used another skull chosen for its compatibility, from a 3D digital library, to complete St Valentine's cranium.
Scientists were able to work out minute details to create the final image of the saint's face
By adding hair and a beard to the digitally reconstructed face, scientists were able to give him a more realistic likeness
He then set about digitally adjusting and adding the anatomical details, placing soft tissue, muscle and cartilage using measurements gathered from hundreds of middle-aged men of the same ancestry, to sculpt the face.
He said: 'The video illustrates a process called Retopo which uses 3D mesh sculpting on the base of the face and data processing to build up all the other features.
'St Valentine's final look is based on skeletal, scientific and historical research and draws on years of my experience,' explained Moraes, adding his involvement in the project is ironic.
St Valentine's match-making activities, particularly for soldiers, were eventually uncovered and Claudius II imprisoned and tortured him
The skin and pigmentation were added to give a realistic representation of St Valentine's appearance
Finally, the team adjusted his hair colouring... and gave him some clothes!
Brazil doesn't celebrate Valentine's Day in February. The country's carnival festivities dominate the calendar around this time of year and the equivalent day known as Dia dos Namorados is June 12.
'This year, I'm going to celebrate it with the rest of the world to mark the historic discovery,' said Moraes while acknowledging at least two other ancient holy men are said to lay claim to being St Valentine.
But Moraes dismissed the notion confidently: 'We firmly believe we've uncovered the face of the real patron saint of love and unveiled much of what he looked like when he was alive.'
Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens, a 36-year-old from Illinois, was the first known combat casualty under Trump's presidency
A private memorial has been held for the Navy SEAL who was the first known U.S. military casualty since Donald Trump took office.
He was killed during a raid against al-Qaida in Yemen in January, in which officials reported 'almost everything went wrong'.
Commander Jason Salata, a Navy spokesman, said Friday's services were held in Virginia for Chief Special Warfare Operator William 'Ryan' Owens.
The 36-year-old's unit is based in Virginia Beach. Owens grew up in Peoria, Illinois, and is survived by his wife Karen and their three children.
Salata said Owens will be buried later at Arlington National Cemetery.
Owens was killed late last month in the firefight that left 30 others dead, including an estimated 14 militants, and the eight-year-old daughter of a former al-Quaida leader.
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This was the president's first clandestine strike, and not one that was originally ordered by former President Obama. It involved 'boots on the ground' at an al Qaeda Camp near al Bayda in south central Yemen (pictured)
Since joining the SEALs, Owens had earned two bronze stars, Joint Service Commendation and an Afghanistan Campaign Medal.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a press conference that Owens was deployed twelve times during his military career 'because he loved his country and he believed in the mission.'
President Trump, accompanied by his eldest daughter Ivanka, made an impromptu visit to Dover airbase to greet Owens' casket as it returned to Delaware from Yemen on February 1.
President Trump, accompanied by his eldest daughter Ivanka, made an impromptu visit to Dover airbase to greet Owens' casket as it returned to Delaware from Yemen on February 1
The two mourned the death of the SEAL Team Six member killed in his first military raid as president
Patti Smith, president of Peoria-based Americas Gold Star Families, told ABC News: 'The extended family, all things considered, they're doing well. They're very sad. They all have great stories and great memories of him. He did come back occasionally to visit,' Smith said.
'They want to thank everyone for the outpouring of cards and notes that they have received.'
The NYPD plans to put body cameras on all 23,000 of its patrol officers by 2019, an ambitious effort that would dwarf all others across the country.
But the nation's largest police department is lagging behind other cities, with only limited experience with the cameras and zero currently on the streets.
Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio says his body camera plan, announced during a proposed labor deal last month with the police officer's union, is crucial to restoring trust between officers and the communities they serve, 'creating an atmosphere of transparency and accountability for the good of all'.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio holds a body camera during a 2014 news conference. He says his body camera plan is crucial to restoring trust between officers and the communities they serve
A federal judge ordered the NYPD to try out body cameras as part of a 2013 ruling that found the department was wrongly targeting minorities with its stop and frisk tactic.
The 2014 killing of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, and other deaths at the hands of police around the U.S. led to increased demands that officers be issued wearable cameras to deter misconduct and document shootings and other clashes.
Since then, departments around the country began making progress. Philadelphia and Houston began outfitting a small percentage of officers.
Chicago officials said it would finish its camera deployment of about 7,000 cameras earlier than expected, by the end of this year.
San Francisco's police force, which had no cameras last fall, now has at least 250 in use.
And Baltimore, which erupted in riots following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from a spinal injury suffered in police custody, have about 600 officers with cameras since a May rollout of an $11.6million program.
In New York, the nation's largest police department has only experimented with the cameras on small scale, starting with a 54-camera pilot program that ended last March.
The larger roll-out, part of the federal order, began in earnest at the end of 2014 following the end of court appeals.
New York City police have plans to put body cameras on all 23,000 of their patrol officers by 2019, an ambitious effort that would dwarf all others across the country (file)
The aim is to have 1,000 cameras deployed to 20 precincts around the city this year. About 5,000 cameras would be deployed by 2018.
The department agreed to a five-year $6.4million contract with VIEVUE for 5,000 body cameras and a cloud-based storage system.
The bid from the Seattle-based company came in well under other about 50 other companies jockeying for the bid, including Taser International, which has publicly complained and privately lobbied against its competitor.
Some city council members and pastors, concerned by the chatter, called on the police department to better vet the contract after reports that other departments had problems with the cameras.
New York City's Department of Investigation is looking into the agreement. And late last week, the office of city comptroller Scott Stringer briefly delayed a decision to OK the contract, but signed off on it Thursday.
The police labor deal, if ratified by officers, would clear one major obstacle: The union would drop a lawsuit over the cameras. Still, several officers who spoke to The Associated Press said they have mixed feelings about having their every move recorded.
A federal judge ordered the NYPD to try out body cameras as part of a 2013 ruling that found the department was wrongly targeting minorities with its stop and frisk tactic (file)
Some believe it will vindicate their hard work. Others were offended and think the cameras mean they can't be trusted.
Civil rights advocates have also expressed concerns about how recordings of police interactions with citizens will be used.
Police Commissioner James O'Neill said last week that studies have shown the use of cameras affects the behavior of both police and the communities policed.
'In the long run it's going to have a very positive effect on how we go about our business,' he said.
The department plans to deploy the cameras and use lessons learned on the ground to adjust the program as needed.
Some of the largest challenges are storage and access when are officers allowed to turn the camera on and off, and who gets access to that footage.
New York City police officers are pictured in this February 3 photograph
'There are strong privacy interests to be considered in what is recorded and whether body camera footage is publicly disclosed,' said Lawrence Byrne, the department's deputy commissioner for legal matters.
But the cameras won't solve a police department's problems, they'll only help reveal them, said Frank Merenda, a former NYPD captain who is now an assistant professor of criminal justice at Marist College.
He said there should be as much effort put toward new policing efforts as there is in implementing the cameras to officers across the nation.
A woman charged with murdering her twin sister by purposely driving a car off a 200ft cliff has been released on bail.
Alexandria Duval, 38, was being held on a $3million bail in the death of her sister, Anastasia, before a judge decided Thursday to allow her to post a reduced $2million bond or $200,000 in cash for release which her father paid.
Duval, who has pleaded not guilty in the case, is alleged to have driven her Ford Explorer off a cliff while driving down Maui's Hana Highway in Hawaii with non-identical sister Anastasia on May 29 2016.
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Alexandria Duval (above) made her first appearance in an Albany, New York in November
The 38-year-old fled the island for her native New York when initial charges against her were dropped last summer as investigators couldn't prove she was behind the wheel during the crash.
However the case was reignited by Hawaiian authorities in October and a month later Alexandria was arrested in Albany, New York after a two-week manhunt.
She was taken into custody by police to face a charge of second degree murder and was extradited to Maui on December 16 for a court hearing despite winning an October appeal to delay extradition.
On her prison exit, 2nd Circuit Judge Peter Cahill told the suspect that she cannot leave the island.
He said: 'You may not even go to the airport terminals to pick anybody up. If you have family members coming here, they must make their own arrangements.'
Duval was also ordered to report for supervision as well as random drug and alcohol testing within 24 hours of her release on bail, Maui News reported.
Anastasia (left) and Duval (right) were arguing inside their SUV moments before the crash in Maui, Hawaii, witnesses said
The twins' SUV (pictured after the crash) accelerated and took a sharp left over the cliff, Maui Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Emlyn Higa said after Duval's first arrestok
Attorney Todd Eddins had said his client's father, Dr John Dadow, was to contribute up to $250,000 for the cash bail.
'He has never been contacted by the prosecutors,' Eddins said. 'He is supportive of his daughter here, to the extent he is willing to post $200,000 to $250,000 cash bail.'
Deputy Prosecutor Emlyn Higa had argued that Duval should also be required to post the $2million bail bond.
Higa said Dadow 'doesn't have the same kind of motivation as the bond company to make sure she will be present for trial.'
Alexandria is airlifted to safety after the crash
Alexandria and her sister had only recently moved to Hawaii when on May 29 the two were seen by eyewitnesses arguing in their Ford Explorer while driving down Maui's Hana Highway.
One woman, who had been cleaning a gravesite on the side of the road, said she also saw the passenger pulling the driver's hair in the vehicle while also attempting to get control of the steering wheel.
A grand jury in Maui, Hawaii indicted her on a charge of second-degree murder in October
Soon after the vehicle took a sharp left and crashed into a rock wall before hurtling down 200ft onto a large rock in the ocean.
Alexandria suffered only minor injuries in the crash while her sister Anastasia was pronounced dead on the scene.
Alexandria tried to leave the island at least twice just after the crash and before she was officially charged in June, but missed both flights.
Back in New York she found herself in trouble with the law once again, with police arresting her in August after she almost hit a squad car while driving with a blood alcohol content of .26 per cent.
She pleaded not guilty to driving while intoxicated in September.
The Duval sisters had spent their entire lives together, moving to Palm Beach where they opened a yoga studio in 2008 before closing shop and moving to Utah in 2014.
The two then moved to Hawaii in December of last year. Soon after they arrived the two were both arrested for disorderly conduct on Christmas Eve.
Pennsylvania has made strides at cutting down the supply of prescription opiates through measures like an electronic prescription drug monitoring program and introducing new guidelines for prescribing the drugs.
However, opiate-related overdoses continue to rise, driven by an increase in heroin and synthetic opioid use.
In 2016 in Cumberland County, 66 people died of drug-related overdoses. Nearly 50 of those deaths were attributed to heroin and fentanyl, according to Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall.
By comparison, of the 41 total overdose deaths in 2015, 19 were attributed to heroin, Hall said.
Nearly 200 doses of the overdose-reversing drug were administered by Cumberland Goodwill EMS in 2016 a nearly 60 percent increase from the year prior.
Is there a correlation between limiting the supply of prescription opioids and the rise and lives lost to the use of heroin?
We knew that this was going to be an issue, that we were going to push addicts in a direction that was going to be more deadly, Holy Spirit Medical Group Medical Director Dr. Carrie DeLone said.
DeLone served as Pennsylvanias physician general under Gov. Tom Corbett.
... But, we also know that you have to start somewhere, she said. You have to understand what youre doing. You have to regulate this. It cant just be business as usual.
DeLone said an influx of prescription opioids had become such a problem that it had to be dealt with in an effort to stop the number of people addicted to the drugs from growing.
The initial problem is that we have people who are addicted and now we are not giving them as many pharmaceutical-grade painkillers, so they are moving to heroin, she said.
When prescription opioids like OxyContin began hitting the market more than a decade ago, pharmaceutical companies touted them as being largely non-addictive, DeLone said. In 2006, Purdue Pharmaceutical, the maker of OxyContin, agreed to pay $630 million to settle federal charges that it had misrepresented the safety concerns and risks of the drugs.
A 2012 study found 86 percent of urban heroin users had abused prescription opioids first, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some of those people began with drugs they were prescribed, while others were able to get access to drugs prescribed to someone else.
Cracking down
A similar situation to Pennsylvanias occurred in Kentucky in 2013 when efforts were made to crack down on prescription opioids, according to University of Maryland Professor of Criminology Katie Zafft.
Zafft said that when Kentucky implemented measures to limit prescription opioids there was a spike in use in drugs like Suboxone and heroin.
She said that as the markets for drugs like OxyContin began to dry up, street-level prices went up, and heroin became the cheaper alternative.
Drug addicts are drug addicts but theyre not stupid, Zafft said. Its just plain economics. If youre not ready to grapple with your addictions, youll find it someway.
Zafft said there needs to be a multifaceted approach to dealing with the current opioid problem. This includes cutting down on supply like the prescription drug policies implemented by Pennsylvania and law enforcement efforts, but also treatment solutions that reduce demand for drugs.
She said cutting off supply can work when a drug is just emerging, but the current opioid problem is too far into its cycle for the focus to be on just that side.
Epidemics go in cycles, Zafft said. ... This one is established. Theres established trafficking routes. Theres established addiction. Theres a demand. Theres a good supply. When they become this entrenched in a community, we need a holistic approach to bend that curve down again.
While Zafft said she did not believe current heroin and opioid users were ripe for it, some success has been had using coerced desistance for drug addicts as an alternative to mandated drug treatment.
Coerced desistance generally involves highly frequent in some cases daily or random screenings for substances.
A failed test is promptly met with punishment like a short stay in prison.
Positive results have been found for methamphetamine users in the HOPE Program in Hawaii and drunk drivers in the 24/7 Sobriety program in South Dakota, according to a study conducted by Mark A.R. Kleiman.
It works for a lot of other drug users, but it takes the opiate addict to get into treatment to actually quit, Zafft said. While Im a proponent for coerced abstinence, and I think its great for a lot of people ... for the people who are hooked on opiates, treatment of some kind is super important.
DeLone highlighted the expanded use and access to Naloxone and expanded treatment options through Centers of Excellence as steps the state is taking to help combat the opiate problem.
She said that while the prescription drug policies may contribute to a rise in heroin use, the policies were necessary and should provide long-term gains by helping physicians and other medical professionals identify and prevent people who may become addicts.
Its not always good to be right, she said. Unfortunately, we have seen an increase in heroin overdose deaths since weve instituted some mechanisms to decrease that abuse. That doesnt mean these werent the right decisions.
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Around 20,000 marched through Mexico's capital demanding respect for their country and its migrants in the face of perceived hostility from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Demonstrators carried Mexican flags and dressed in white as a sign of unity. One of the banners read: 'Gracias, Trump, for unifying Mexico!'
The marchers protested Trump's plans for a border wall and increased deportations of migrants.
They also stood against the pressure he is putting on U.S. corporations to provide jobs in the United States, not Mexico.
Paulina Arteaga carried a placard in English proclaiming: 'We love Americans, we hate racism. This is a march for dignity,' she said.
A woman holds up a banner that reads in Spanish: 'Against Trump', during a march demanding respect for Mexico and its migrants in Mexico City on Sunday
Demonstrators participating in the march are seen on Sunday, with many Mexican flags spotted
A woman holds a pinata depicting U.S. President Donald Trump during a march in Mexico City on Sunday calling for respect for Mexico as well as its migrants
Police officers are pictured wearing helmets and standing together on Sunday
Demonstrators hold a banner with an image of the Mexican flag during a Sunday march to protest against Trump's proposed border wall, and to call for unity
Isabel Miranda de Wallas, center, walks and shout slogans during a Sunday march demanding respect for Mexico and its migrants
President Donald Trump is pictured in Washington, D.C. in this Friday photograph
Irene Aguilar, a university professor, said the main message of the marchers was to show the unity of Mexicans in the face of adversity.
The march also featured many signs supporting Mexican migrants living in the United States.
'We want demonstrate to all of those who suffer discrimination in the United States that we are with them,' said Ana Fernanda Islas, a university student.
Demonstrators are seen from above as they gather round the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City
About 20,000 people staged a march through Mexico City demanding respect for their country and its migrants in the face of perceived hostility from the Trump administration
A man wears a button-down shirt as well as a mask depicting U.S. President Donald Trump in this image
Demonstrators hold placards that collectively read 'No wall' during a march to protest against Trump's proposed border wall, and to call for unity
Mexicans have called for unity in facing the challenge posed by Trump's policies.
However, the march featured almost as many banners criticizing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto as the new U.S. leader.
Smaller marches were held in other Mexican cities Sunday.
Demonstrators hold a banner during a march to protest the American president's proposed border wall and to call for unity
A person is pictured on Sunday and carrying a sign that says 'Make America Hate Again'
The cost of repairing a gaping hole in the spillway for the tallest dam in the United States could reach $200million, experts say.
California authorities said they expect it will continue eroding as water washes down the spillway into the Feather River, but the 770-foot Oroville Dam and the public are safe.
Another storm is predicted to hit the area in a few days, which means California's Department of Water Resources will have to continuously monitor inflows into Lake Oroville.
The lake sends water from the Sierra Nevada south to cities and farms.
'In this kind of situation, the next 60 to 90 days will be critical how we route this runoff into the Feather River', said Bill Croyle, acting director of the water department.
State water officials watched nervously on Sunday as thousands of cubic feet of water continued to gush over Lake Orovilles emergency spillway onto a wooden ravine below.
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Water flows over an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam at Lake Oroville in Oroville, California. Water will continue to flow over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for another day or so
An image from video provided by the office of Assemblyman Brian Dahle shows water flowing over the emergency spillway
Water from the Cosumnes and Mokelumne rivers floods a house and barn north of Twin Cities Road east of Interstate 5 on Saturday in Elk Grove, California
Water from the nearby Feather River floods the Marysville Cemetery on Saturday in Marysville, California
A massive hole is causing major erosion around the Oroville Dam in California. The hole formed Tuesday and has continued to grow since then
Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 in Oroville, California
Officials said the critical flood-control structure is at 90 per cent of its capacity. But the dam is still safe and so are Oroville's 16,000 residents
Located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Oroville Lake is one of the largest man-made lakes in California and 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest
There's now a threat that the spillway won't be able to release enough water to keep up with the amount flowing into the lake
This was an unprecedented measure to reduce water volume in California's second-largest reservoir that neared capacity this weekend.
The emergency spillway - an open hillside that drains into the Feather River below - was created to prevent water from topping the wall of the massive earthen dam that holds back Lake Oroville.
It hadn't been used since the Oroville Dam was completed in 1968, raising concerns over how it'll hold up and whether debris will threaten wildlife downstream.
So far, the emergency spillway has performed as designed after water started flowing down the chute Saturday morning.
Officials say that the lake may reach capacity, at which point water will start flowing out of an emergency spillway to the left of the main spillway. If that happens, officials won't be able to control the water flowing out of the lake, which will bring trees and soil down into the river below. Above, water flows out of the main spillway, bringing mud in from the hole
Water flows through break in the wall of the Oroville Dam spillway on Thursday. The torrent chewed up trees and soil alongside the concrete spillway before rejoining the main channel below
After years of drought Northern California has endured several months of exceptionally wet weather. Oroville and other lakes are brimming and have begun releasing water to make room for more runoff
'Its still a dynamic situation and theyre trying to mitigate any threats downstream', Captain Dan Olson with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told the San Francisco Gate.
Earlier this week, chunks of concrete flew off the nearly mile-long spillway, creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole.
Cal Fire teams had laid out floating structures known as booms in the waterways to catch any large debris that could wash down the Feather River and become snagged at the next gated spillway closer to the city of Oroville.
Muddy water rushes down the emergency spillway on Saturday
'There has been minimal to no debris', Olson said.
Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in that is expected to keep growing until it reaches bedrock.
But faced with little choice, the state Department of Water Resources resumed ramping up the outflow from Lake Oroville over the damaged spillway to keep up with all the runoff from torrential rainfall in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
The critical flood-control structure is at 90 per cent of its capacity, officials said.
But the dam is still safe and so are Oroville's 16,000 residents.
A picture released by the California Department of Water Resources shows workers inspecting the hole
'The integrity of the dam is not jeopardized in any way because the problem is with the spillway and not the dam,' said department spokesman Eric See.
Located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Oroville Lake is one of the largest man-made lakes in California and 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest.
Oroville Lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
After years of drought, Northern California has endured several months of exceptionally wet weather.
Oroville and other lakes are brimming and have begun releasing water to make room for more runoff.
The initial damage to the spillway occurred Tuesday, about 3,000 feet downstream from where water enters from the lake.
The water flowing out of the hole quickly turned brown with mud as it consumed trees and soil before rejoining the main channel below in a massive confluence wave that sent up clouds of mist in the tree-lined canyon.
Victoria Police may soon be able to carry out roadside testing for fatigue in addition to random breath and drug testing.
Melbourne sleep researchers could make this a reality as they develop an on-the-spot type of 'smart-glasses' technology where police could soon carry out fatigue tests on a camera-based device, Herald Sun reported.
Around 20 per cent of fatal road accidents involve driver fatigue or 'drowsy driving' according to Victoria's Transport Accident Commission.
An overturned car in Melbourne after crashing: Victoria Police may soon be able to carry out roadside tests for fatigue
The device would be able to measure fatigue levels by tracking eye movements, such as the duration of blinks and how eyes scan the road.
Until now, there was no scientific method to determine whether a driver was too tired to drive.
Victoria Police has been approached to be involved and will watch the research with interest, a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
'Fatigue isnt just falling asleep, it slows reaction time and affects concentration and decision-making skills which is crucial to safe driving.'
Almost 30 per cent of adults drive while drowsy at least monthly, and 20 per cent fall asleep at the wheel, the National Sleep Foundation's annual report shows.
Melbourne sleep researchers could make this a reality as they develop an on-the-spot type of 'smart-glasses' technology
In most Australian states, drivers are advised to take a powernap if they are feeling drowsy.
In NSW there are at least 80 'Driver Reviver' sites where tired motorists can take a break and enjoy complimentary refreshments and snacks.
In Victoria the TAC recommends a 15 minute nap.
TAC's senior manager for road safety Samantha Cockfield told the Herald Sun there are two key groups at risk of drowsiness - shift workers and mothers.
Austin Health Associate Professor Mark Howard, a respiratory and sleep specialist and lead researcher of the roadside testing technology said night-shift workers were more prone to microsleeping and unintentionally crossing lanes.
Fatigue remains one of the three biggest killers on NSW roads and fatigue-related crashes are twice as likely to be fatal due to the subconscious state of the driver.
The technology means police could soon carry out fatigue tests on a camera-based device
This is the shocking moment a Muslim woman and her friends were racially abused at a highway rest stop in New Zealand.
Mehpara Khan, 28, a PR from Auckland, captured this disturbing footage in Huntly on Saturday while she and her friends had stopped for a break.
Video shows the group being racially abused by another woman before she hurls a beer can at them.
A 27-year-old has since been arrested and charged with assault, assault with a weapon and using offensive language.
Ms Khan told the New Zealand Herald that her group were using the restrooms when a woman 'aggressively' walked up to them and began shouting before throwing beer at them.
As the footage starts, that woman can be seen picking one of the cans up off the ground, saying: 'Get in your f***ing car, hurry up. Do you not understand?'
Ms Khan tells the woman she was born in New Zealand and has a right to be in the country, but that only seems to incense her further.
Mehpara Khan, 28, filmed as she and her friends were racially abused at a highway rest stop over the weekend
'F*** off, I don't care if you were born here, you don't have the right to be here,' the woman shouts back.
'I was born here, I own this f***ing place now get the f*** off, you ugly f***ing Muslim b****.'
She can then be seen taking a swing at Ms Khan while she records, and throwing more beers at the group before storming off behind a building.
Ms Khan said she was motivated to film the altercation after also being racially abused in a McDonalds back in 2015.
At the time she did nothing about it, saying she felt 'terrible' afterward, and vowed not to let anyone get away with it again.
Ms Khan took the footage to Huntly Police, who then arrested and charged the 27-year-old. She was due in court on Monday, TVNZ reported.
A woman can be seen calling Ms Khan an 'ugly f***ing Muslim b****' while throwing cans of beer and trying to hit members of the group
The footage was also posted online where it has been viewed more than 90,000 times, leading to an outpouring of support for Ms Khan.
Several rights groups, including the Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand, also condemned the attack after viewing the footage.
Ms Khan added: '[The woman's] act of hate has lead to an outpouring of support on social media and that's way more powerful than the five minutes of hate that she tried to inflict.'
Former head teacher Pepe Hart, 47, won a landmark case after she claimed she was libelled on Facebook by a member of the National Union of Teachers, winning a public apology
A school head who suffered a 'year of hell' after a union activist posted a false smear online has won a 'landmark victory' against such abuse.
Pepe Hart, 47, launched a libel case after a National Union of Teachers member claimed on Facebook that she was banned from working with children.
Mrs Hart's experience is all too typical of the growing problem of professionals across the country being abused on social media. But it is hoped her success in winning a public apology in the first known case of its kind could signal a turning of the tide against such trolling.
The message was posted by NUT member Kate Mimnagh, 27, a teacher formerly employed by the head at The Academy of Trinity in Radstock, Somerset.
Mrs Hart won the public apology last month after taking the dispute to the county court. She said yesterday: 'This problem is widespread I was under pressure to water down education at my school but I refused It is not right that people can suffer abuse online simply for doing their jobs.
'People can say anything they want, with no-one checking whether or not they are right.'
Mrs Hart had been at the school, rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted, for ten years. She was named Teacher of the Year in the 2008 Pride of Britain Awards and won the title Manager of the Year in a contest by recruiter Reed. But in 2015, Miss Mimnagh, a Jeremy Corbyn supporter, was one of a number of NUT activists at the school involved in raising grievances over 'pregnancy and maternity rights, treatment of newly qualified teachers and allegations of bullying and harassment'.
Mrs Hart said she had no idea why the complaints were made and was made aware of them only when she read about them in a local newspaper. She said an online 'witch-hunt' began, in which local people some of them connected with the school posted vicious smears on social media.
On a Facebook page titled 'The downfall of Mrs Hart', someone was feted for being her 'silent assassin'. One post claimed an ex-teacher at the school wanted to 'punch her in the mouth'.
A former teacher at Mrs Hart's Somerset academy posted on Facebook: 'Heard on the grapevine that my old boss Pepe Hart might now be working as a school improvement officer for a different local authority!! The DFE and Ofsted promised me she would never work with children again'
In December that year, Mrs Hart and her two deputies resigned over the online abuse.
Last year, she was made aware that one of the false allegations had been viewed by officials at the local authority. It was a Facebook posting by Miss Mimnagh, which appeared to wrongly suggest Mrs Hart had been banned from working with children. The post read: 'Heard on the grapevine that my old boss Pepe Hart might now be working as a school improvement officer for a different local authority!! The DFE and Ofsted promised me she would never work with children again.'
The post, which was accessible by about 20 Facebook 'friends', invited people to try to find out where she was and added: 'This is a MASSIVE safeguarding issue.' Mrs Hart launched a libel claim with the county court at Bristol District Registry, with the NUT representing Miss Mimnagh.
The case was settled outside of court, with the activist agreeing to withdraw the allegation and 'publicly and unequivocally apologise' for Mrs Hart's 'distress'. Mrs Hart said: 'I felt violated on social media and needed to take a stand. I feel this public apology and significant contribution to court costs agreed by the NUT is a landmark victory for head teachers and others who have been subjected to similar online abuse This case was never about the money. It was about my dignity and proving my innocence.
'All I wanted was a public apology. I have had a year of hell.'
She said some of the false claims resulted in an investigation by the council over safeguarding issues. The authority released a statement saying there were poor safeguarding practices at the school.
Not only were these disgusting and shocking social media posts deeply distressing and damaging to me but they also affected my children
They referred her to the Disclosure and Barring Service, but when she made a formal response it was found there was no case to answer.
Mrs Hart said: 'Not only were these disgusting and shocking social media posts deeply distressing and damaging to me but they also affected my children. I have always had high expectations of teachers That is not bullying; that is doing the job you are paid to do. I am the one that has been bullied out of a job I loved.' The school, was rated 'inadequate' four months after she left and was taken over by a new trust. Local MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: 'I have rarely met anyone as dynamic as Mrs Hart, whose personality drove and electrified the school.'
On behalf of Miss Mimnagh, the NUT's Andy Woolley said: 'Any suggestion of bullying is entirely unrelated to Katie Mimnagh.
'When Katie Mimnagh posted her comment about safeguarding issues five months after Pepe resigned it was on her private Facebook page and seen by a small number of friends, most of whom had been involved in the original grievances.'
A National Association of Head Teachers spokesman said: 'Social media abuse can cause untold damage to schools and those who lead them. Often, the comments are from anonymous sources and people hidden behind keyboards.'
Bath and North East Somerset Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Controversial former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has been invited to speak at Harvard while out on bail awaiting his federal securities fraud trial.
The former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who is also known as the 'Pharma Bro', is expected to talk about investing and health care at an event organized by the Harvard Financial Analysts Club.
The talk on Wednesday is open to the Harvard community only and comes only three weeks after he was blocked from speaking at a University of California, Davis event.
The Financial Analysts Club confirmed Shkreli's appearance in a Facebook event, and over 100 people have said they will attend.
Controversial former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli also known as the 'Pharma Bro' is set to speak at Harvard while out on bail awaiting his federal securities fraud trial
Shkreli took to Facebook to stream a live broadcast of his evening antics on Sunday night after being barred from Twitter following a row with journalist Lauren Duca. He is swilling a beer as he looks into the webcam
During his live stream, he played guitar, sipped a beer and told one fan who called from Tampa, Florida that he had 'f****d more girls in Tampa than you have in the entire world'
Shkreli took to Facebook to broadcast his evening on Sunday night, after being barred from Twitter following a row with journalist Lauren Duca.
During his live stream, he played guitar, sipped a beer and told one fan who called from Tampa, Florida that he had 'f****d more girls in Tampa than you have in the entire world.'
He also pulled out his license to prove his height to one caller, and referred to himself as 'one of the most accomplished people alive.'
A previous appearance at the University of California, Davis where Shkreli was billed to speak was cancelled due to protests last month.
He was due to appear with Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous at an event hosted by the school's College Republican's group.
Their Facebook event said: 'We will not stand for the regressive left perpetuating violence, censoring speech, and spreading hate. Meet us and Milo at 1 P.M. in the quad.'
He was due to appear with Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous at an event hosted by the UC Davis's College Republican's group last month, but he was blocked by protesters
A previous appearance at the University of California Davis where Shkreli was billed to speak was cancelled due to the demonstrators
It was cancelled about 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time as protesters blocked the speakers entryway to the venue.
Shkreli evidently was aware of the Facebook event for his Harvard appearance, and even responded to one user's query of whether the former CEO would play the unreleased Wu Tang Clan album he bought for $2 million.
The user posted: 'Important question: will he play the wu tang album or not.'
Shkreli then responded, saying: 'if you want!'
The former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals is expected to talk about investing and health care at an event organized by the Harvard Financial Analysts Club
He owns the only copy of the legendary hip-hop group's album - and is the only person other than them to have heard the songs off of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
It is entirely his choice what to do with the music, as long as he doesn't release it commercially, which was a condition of purchasing the record that he bought at an online auction hosted by startup Paddle88.
The Harvard Facebook event included a note expressing the hope for a 'respectful' evening.
The Financial Analysts Club confirmed Shkreli's appearance in a Facebook event which over 100 people have said they will attend. The Facebook event included a note expressing the hope for a 'respectful' evening
It said: 'This is not a partisan event. If you disagree with Mr. Shkreli or his policies, we celebrate your right to do so. We only ask that you express your grievances with respect for your fellow peers and through the appropriate channels (e.g. the Q&A).'
Shkreli drew sharp criticism after his company purchased the rights to a drug used by AIDS and cancer patients to fight parasitic infections and raised its price from less than $17 to $750 per pill.
A British tourist has told how she was grabbed from behind and almost raped while out jogging in Barbados only to be met with a complete indifference from the local police.
Helen Najuk, 27, said she had to fight for her life after being dragged to the ground and kicked and beaten by a stranger just yards from the holiday apartment where she was staying with boyfriend David Pownall.
But when the couple went to the local police station to report the assault, desk officers didnt even stand up from their seats to ask the bruised and bloodied businesswoman if she was alright.
Helen Najuk, 27, from Nottingham said she had to fight for her life after being attacked just yards from the holiday apartment where she was staying with boyfriend David Pownall
Yesterday Miss Najuk and Mr Pownall, who run a business together, warned the island was far from the safe paradise it seems in tourist brochures.
Miss Najuk said: The island is not as peaceful as the authorities might have you believe. I suffered an extremely traumatic ordeal but the police couldnt have been less caring.
Businesswoman Miss Najuk, from Nottingham, was out for a morning run in upmarket Holetown when she was beaten by the stranger. As he tried to grab one of her legs, her screams alerted a neighbour
She said she was so exasperated that she left without filing a statement, sending one via email after she flew back to the UK later that day.
She has had no further contact from the Barbadian authorities who are yet to make an arrest. Miss Najuk, from Nottingham, was attacked on a quiet road in upmarket Holetown, as during a jog at 7.30am on January 29.
She said: I fell to the ground and he started repeatedly kicking me as he tried to pin me down.
I had nothing on me of any value and was wearing only running gear, so I believe the motive was sexual.
'Then, as he grabbed one of my legs, my screams eventually alerted a neighbour who ran out and chased the attacker away.
Mr Pownall, 49, said: We feel it is our duty to speak out to try and shame the authorities into action, so that nobody else is attacked like Helen was.
Police drove Miss Najuk around the area looking for the suspect, but there was no sign of him.
Jane Knight, 59, a friend of Mr Pownalls, had a bag containing 3,000 stolen while staying at her long-term holiday let in Mullins Bay, ten minutes from Holetown, last month.
Mrs Knight, who is also from Nottingham, said: Crime definitely seems to be on the increase in Barbados right now.
But when the couple went to the local police station to report the assault, desk officers didnt even stand up from their seats to see if she was alright. Pictured, Miss Najuk with boyfriend Mr Pownall
I spent five hours at the police station but for some reason they were more interested in finding out whether the apartment was north or south facing than taking a description of the bag.
On the edge of the islands famed platinum coast of white powdery sand beaches, Holetown was originally named Jamestown, after its benefactor, King James I.
Miss Najuk (pictured on holiday) said she was so exasperated that she left without filing a statement, sending one via email after she flew back to the UK later that day
A report by Americas Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) last year stated that crime was a major concern in Caribbean islands such as Barbados.
There were 31 murders on the 285,000 population island in 2015 and 300 robberies, compared to 28 and 362 respectively in St Lucia, which has around 100,000 less residents.
The OSAC report stated: The news media in Barbados is reluctant to report criminal incidents against visitors that could have a negative impact on the tourism industry, adding that: Many tourists report being harassed by individuals attempting to sell illegal narcotics.
A spokesman for the Royal Barbados Police Force confirmed no arrests had been made.
He added: We are treating this incident very seriously and we have a good idea who may be responsible.
When we have more information, we will be in touch.
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Tens of thousands took to the streets of Romania today in the biggest protests the country has seen since communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was ousted and executed.
The enormous crowds assembled in outside the parliamentary building in Victory Square in the 13th consecutive day of anti-government demonstrations in Bucharest, the capital.
The demonstrators called for the resignation of the entire cabinet in an escalation of public anger after politicians tried to decriminalise the theft of public funds for sums below 200,000 lei (38,000).
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Tens of thousands have took to the streets of Romania today in the biggest protests the country has seen since communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was ousted and executed
The enormous crowds assembled in outside the parliamentary building in Victory Square in the 13th consecutive day of anti-government demonstrations in Bucharest, the capital
The demonstrators, who formed a giant Romanian flag, called for the resignation of the entire cabinet in an escalation of public anger after politicians tried to decriminalise the theft of public funds for sums below 200,000 lei (38,000)
Standing with pictures of ministers depicted as criminals, the protesters called for the entire government to stand down
'Thieves! Resign!' chanted protesters gathered in front of the seat of government, as they used the lights from their mobile phones to project the blue, yellow and red colours of the Romanian flag
A woman holds a placard reading 'President black plague', one of many anti-government slogans being used by the demonstrators this evening
Demonstrators hold banners depicting the head of the ruling Social Democrat party Liviu Dragnea during the protests
'Thieves! Resign!' chanted protesters gathered in front of the seat of government, as they used the lights from their mobile phones to project the blue, yellow and red colours of the Romanian flag.
Up to 50,000 protesters took part in the Bucharest march, according to Romanian media reports, and some 20,000 more took to the streets in other major cities.
'We want to give the government a red card,' one of the protesters, 33-year-old businessman Adrian Tofan said.
The protests demanding a new government and a new style of governance started last month when the centre-left government passed an emergency ordinance that would have watered down laws that punish official corruption.
Up to 50,000 protesters took part in the Bucharest march (pictured), according to Romanian media reports, and some 20,000 more took to the streets in other major cities
The protests demanding a new government and a new style of governance started last month when the centre-left government passed an emergency ordinance that would have watered down laws that punish official corruption
The demonstrations, the largest since the ousting and summary execution of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, have continued despite the resignation on Thursday of justice minister Florin Iordache
Romania joined the European Union in 2007 and Brussels has long taken Bucharest to task over slow progress dealing with corruption and organised crime
Romanian protesters turn on the lights of their cell-phones while standing under colored papers to create the giant Romanian flag earlier this evening
'I've been coming here to show them they can't just govern the way they like. They can't trick us or buy us off with a few lei,' demonstrator Bogdan Bogatoniu said, referring to the Romanian currency.
'Romanians have woken up, they can't be fooled anymore,' said Bogatoniu, a 33-year old IT expert who came to the square with his wife and 2-month-old son.
The demonstrations, the largest since the ousting and summary execution of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, have continued despite the resignation on Thursday of justice minister Florin Iordache.
'The justice minister's resignation isn't enough after what they tried to do,' said Tofan, the protester.
Romania joined the European Union in 2007 and Brussels has long taken Bucharest to task over slow progress dealing with corruption and organised crime.
Graft watchdog Transparency International ranked Romania below all but three of its fellow EU states in a January report based on public perception of the prevalence of corruption. Worldwide, the country ranked 57th
A child holds the Romanian flag during a demonstration in Bucharest, at which many said they had entirely lost faith in the government since the controversial legislation
Graft watchdog Transparency International ranked Romania below all but three of its fellow EU states in a January report based on public perception of the prevalence of corruption. Worldwide, the country ranked 57th.
It has intensified the fight against corruption in recent years with the creation of a prosecutor attached to the DNA anti-corruption agency, which has become extremely popular following the conviction of several ministers and senior officials.
But many say they have lost faith in the government since the legislation, which was seen a move towards legitimising corruption.
'We want this government to stand down. We don't trust it, they want us to go backwards,' said Bogdan Moldovan, a doctor.
COMMUNIST LEADER WHO LED ROMANIA WITH AN IRON FIST FOR 25 YEARS AND BANNED ABORTION Ceausescu rose to power in the 1960s under the leader of the communist Romanian Workers Party Gheorghiu-Dej and took control of the party after his death in 1965. He was originally seen as a progressive leader who was popular with the West, unafraid to disagree with the powerful Soviet Union despite being a communist country. The leader borrowed $13 billion from western nations to kick-start its economy and throughout the 1980s, he sought to pay the debt back by exporting the country's agricultural and industrial production. This saw the standard of living in the country plummet and citizens fought for survival due to poor rations and regular heating, gas and electricity blackouts. Queues of people desperate for bread lined the streets, while Ceausescu continued to boast on state TV about the high standard of living in his country. His secret police rigidly controlled free speech and the media and did not tolerate dissent or opposition to his rule. And thousands of children starved after he introduced a controversial decree in 1966 banning abortion and offering state benefits to mothers who had more than five children in an attempt to boost the population. He was overthrown in December 1989 when anti-government protesters stormed the cities and the Army deflected to their side. He and his wife were captured and tried for mass murder before being killed by firing squad. Advertisement
The final straw in a country with a long and difficult history of government corruption
WHAT PROMPTED THE PROTESTS?
The government sought to impose a measure by "emergency decree" that would have substantially reduced penalties for some types of corruption by public officials, including the misuse of public office for personal gain. The law seemed lax to protesters, in part because offenses would only be prosecuted if more than about $48,500 in local currency was involved.
The decree was designed to protect officials from mayors in small villages all the way up to senior ministers in the national government from an increasingly aggressive anti-corruption program that has led to numerous prosecutions, including some with prison sentences.
WHAT HAVE THE PROTESTS ACHIEVED?
The unexpected momentum of the civic mobilization forced the government to blink first in the face of growing swarms of protesters. It has abandoned plans to impose the decree on its own authority and sought instead the more conventional route of introducing the plan in Parliament, where it can be amended and debated like other proposed legislation.
It will also be reviewed by the country's Constitutional Court to determine if it is line with Romania's constitution, written and put into place after Ceausescu's fall.
The proposed law has not been abandoned, but it has been at least significantly slowed and may be substantially weakened by opponents. It is too early to say if it will ever be passed by Parliament, signed by the president, and put into effect.
The government sought to impose a measure by "emergency decree" that would have substantially reduced penalties for some types of corruption by public officials, including the misuse of public office for personal gain
WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF THE TYPES OF OFFICIAL CORRUPTION THAT BEDEVIL ROMANIA?
There is the case of the former national railways chief, Mihai Necolaiciuc, who is serving an eight year prison sentence for embezzlement and other crimes worth more than 55 million euros ($58.6 million). He diverted funds and loans for personal use, created phantom companies, and overpaid for services and goods, skimming off public funds. He used some of the public funds for personal items like wetsuits and flowers.
Another case involved the manager of Bucharest Emergency Hospital and the head of the burns treatment unit there. Both were charged with abusing their position when purchasing hospital equipment in 2013. As a result, the equipment cost roughly $1.45 million more than it should have and the burn unit wasn't functioning properly when it was urgently needed after a catastrophic nightclub fire that killed 64 people in 2015.
The proposed new law would not have affected crimes of this magnitude, but it would apply retroactively to people convicted of offenses judged to be below the $48,500 threshold.
WHY IS CORRUPTION SUCH A PROBLEM IN ROMANIA?
The country has recently made big strides in prosecuting some offenders but the deep-rooted problem goes back to the Ceausescu era. The dictator was excessive even by lax Soviet standards in his use of public funds for an opulent personal lifestyle. He and his wife were executed in 1989 after they were accused of putting roughly $470 million in foreign bank accounts while amassing vast luxury properties inside Romania.
An 11-year-old girl has been followed into shopping centre toilets by a man fondling himself, a mother has complained.
The girl had gone to the toilets at Lilydale Village, in outer northeast Melbourne, last week while her single mother was stuck in a queue, Herald Sun reported.
Another woman at the check-out noticed a man had followed the girl with his hands down his pants. When the girl returned she told her mother: 'Mummy, he was watching me in the toilet'.
A mother claims a man followed her 11-year-old daughter to the toilets at Lilydale Village (pictured)
He had watched her with his hands down his pants while she washed her hands, it's claimed
He had followed her and watched her while she washed her hands, the mother said.
The mother informed police, but they reportedly advised her against making a statement as the man could be an intellectually disabled resident at a nearby unit.
A spokesperson from JLL, owners of Lilydale Village, told Herald Sun the company was aware of the incident and had amped up security efforts.
Police have reportedly identified the man and an investigation is ongoing.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Knox Police and JLL for comment.
The Republican Party's official Twitter account commemorated Abraham Lincoln's birthday on Sunday with a fake quote.
'And in the end, its not the years in your life that count. Its the life in your years,' the GOP posted on Twitter with a photo of the Lincoln Memorial.
President Donald Trump posted the same photo and quote on his Instagram page with the caption: 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY Abraham Lincoln!!!'
The Republican Party's official Twitter account commemorated Abraham Lincoln's birthday on Sunday with a fake quote (pictured). 'And in the end, its not the years in your life that count. Its the life in your years,' the GOP posted on Twitter with a photo of the Lincoln Memorial
President Donald Trump posted the same photo and quote on his Instagram page with the caption: 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY Abraham Lincoln!!!'
The quote has been credited to Lincoln for several years, but according to Quote Investigator, the 16th president more than likely didn't say it.
There is 'no substantive evidence that Lincoln used this expression', the site wrote.
The earliest appearance of the quote came in a 1947 advertisement for The Second Forty Years, a book about aging by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D.
According to the site, the quote ran in the Chicago Tribune with a photo of the book and this version of the quote: 'The important thing to you is not how many years in your life, but how much life in your years!'
For several decades the quote was either unattributed or attributed to other public figures.
It wasn't until 2000 that the quote Trump and his party posted was actually attributed to Lincoln, according to Quote Investigator.
HARRISBURG A Gettysburg man broke into the state Capitol and caused at least $10,000 in damage before police arrested him Sunday.
Ryan Stump, 27, gained access to the building through a window on the House side. He then caused damage to the Senate side by discharging a fire extinguisher and destroying three visitor signs, Department of General Services spokesman Troy Thompson said.
Stump was arrested by Pennsylvania Capitol Police after a brief foot chase.
He is charged with felony counts of burglary, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and institutional vandalism. Hes also charged with misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct and a summary count of public drunkenness.
He posted bail and was released on his own recognizance.
Damage is estimated at between $10,000 and $30,000.
The Senate side of the building was closed Monday.
Democrats were told to 'grow up' by one of their own this weekend, as Democratic National Committee chair candidate Raymond Buckley gave a frank assessment of what went wrong in 2016.
Buckley, the chair of New Hampshire's Democratic Party, noted Saturday at the DNC Future Forum in Baltimore, Maryland, that while he's known for being one of the openly gay candidates for chair, he also grew up among the 'lowest of the white working class.'
The candidate suggested that the Democrats' holier-than-Trump approach didn't work, especially in attracting white working-class voters.
'When you are running hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commercials telling the voters that, "Oh, our opponent is offensive," when you are worrying about your damn paycheck, when you are worrying about your job, where you're going to live, whether your kids are ever going to go to school,' Buckley began. '
'They don't give a crap if the president is an insult dog,' he said.
DNC chair hopeful Raymond Buckley told Democrats to 'grow up,' after the party ran a holier-than-Trump campaign in 2016, which didn't resonate with Buckley's white working class voters
Raymond Buckley said that working class white voters didn't care that Donald Trump was an 'insult dog' because they were more worried about their paychecks and kids' education
Buckley said the Democrats 'did not offer a positive message to anyone I ... am related to.'
'We did not offer a message to my neighbors, we did not offer a message to the people in Indiana or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Kentucky,' he added, pointing to the states nominee Hillary Clinton lost throughout the Rust Belt.
What the Democrats did do, Buckley stated, is say 'how offensive.'
'Grow up,' he shouted.
'That is not reality for most of America,' he said.
Buckley is among 10 candidates who are vying to be the next leader of the Democratic Party, which lost the White House and didn't make enough gains to overtake the Republicans in the Senate and the House.
The race will likely come town to the two bold-faced names in the group, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and former Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.
Ellison has the backing of former presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders and other progressives, while Perez has been endorsed by a number of people aligned with former President Barack Obama and the party's last nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Perez got the endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden earlier this month.
But that hasn't kept the other candidates from gaining notoriety.
Beyond Buckley's outburst, Sally Boynton Brown, who's currently the executive director of Idaho's Democratic Party, said she thought part of her job would be to shush up other white people and get them to check their privilege.
She suggested that those volunteering and leading the party needed to have 'training' to have hard conversations about race.
'We have to teach them how to communicate, how to be sensitive and how to shut their mouths if they are white,' she said at a similar panel discussion, which took place late last month in D.C.
Since that forum, the race has grown from seven to 10 candidates.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is also running, along with South Carolina Democratic Party chair Jaime Harrison, media strategist Jehmu Greene, NAACP Veterans Committee Chair Robert Vinson Brannum, Milwaukee-based attorney Peter Peckarsky and Ohio activist Sam Ronan.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democrats' most recent DNC chair, received a lot of criticism for seemingly favoring Clinton over Sanders in last year's Democratic primary.
Clinton went on to lose the White House to now President Donald Trump.
Wasserman Schultz stepped down from her position on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia as part of the fallout from the committee's email hack, which now looks to be at the hands of Russia.
Since then, interim chair Donna Brazile has been in charge of the party.
Democrats will choose their next leader later this month.
A bright 16-year-old boy was stabbed in the heart on his way home from school as other children filmed on their phones.
It is claimed footage of the fatal attack on Irfan Wahid apparently in a trivial spat over a girl was uploaded by the pupils to the messaging app Snapchat.
Police have launched a murder inquiry and last night arrested a 16-year-old in connection with the killing, which took place on a busy high street in Leeds on Friday afternoon.
Irfan Wahid was on his way to meet his brother and was killed only six streets from his home
One school friend of Irfan suggested the stabbing had happened because the year 11 pupil had spoken to a friends crush.
Irfan had just got off the bus on his journey home from Carr Manor Community School when the attack happened, six streets from his home in Harehills, at around 3.40pm.
He had gone to get food with his brother and got into an argument with another teenager whom he is believed to have known before the knife was plunged into his chest.
Four friends carried Irfan away down the street, but he collapsed, bleeding heavily from the deep wound. He was taken to hospital in an ambulance and died shortly afterwards.
A local shopkeeper who saw the aftermath of the stabbing, said: I was in the shop and heard a scream so I looked out and saw a boy who seemed to be bleeding from the abdomen.
Some of his friends were trying to carry him down the street but when they were near the bank he collapsed.
A 16-year-old friend of the victim said: Irfan had been talking to a girl at school and then his mate found out.
Irfan had got off the bus to meet his brother and then got a text to meet his best friend somewhere.
The busy high street in Leeds was flooded with police after the stabbing on Friday afternoon
He met him, they fought and then he was stabbed and killed.
It was his friend who stabbed him. Irfan was basically stabbed for talking to the girl his friend liked its shocking really. The teenager added: I saw that people had filmed the attack but I havent seen any [footage]. My friend said that people had uploaded it to Snapchat, but I havent seen it.
Yesterday Irfans uncle, writing on a Facebook page set up after the boys death, said: No one can understand my pain. That empty space will always be there, we will be waiting for you come back home.
Only memories are left behind. No words can describe how we feel. I love you so much nephew. Each time I close my eyes youre there and every youngster that walks past resembles you.
Tahir Fazil, another uncle, said Irfan was brutally stabbed in the heart.
A local shopkeeper saw Irfan bleeding as his friends desperately tried to carry him to safety
He added: It is not easy for us at this time, its not a nice way to watch a son, brother, friend or nephew go. Family friends and former teachers spoke of a generous and kind pupil, who was said to have a bright future ahead of him.
A close family friend, Mohammed Ilyas, 39, who works for the Home Office, said everyone loved him. He was a funny guy, Mr Ilyas added. Hed always find a minute to talk to you. He was there for everyone.
Jan Spence, former head teacher at Irfans primary school, Hovingham, said: Such a tragic loss so many teachers from Hovingham have been in touch to say they remember Irfan so well and that he was such a wonderful and positive member of our school.
He will be greatly missed but will be remembered for all his achievements and for being such a lovely person.
Shaista Khan added: He was a good lad who had a bright future ahead of him. So sad and heartfelt condolences to the family. Friends and family organised a Dua, or prayer vigil, at the local Bilal Mosque on Saturday with dozens of people attending to pay their respects and lay flowers at the scene.
A friend of Irfan claimed that people had uploaded the video of the attack onto Snapchat
Results of a post-mortem examination conducted on Saturday confirmed that the schoolboy died of a single stab wound to the chest.
Yesterday another boy, aged 16, was arrested on suspicion of the killing and remained in police custody last night.
The day before a 15-year-old boy had been arrested on suspicion of murder, but was released without charge.
Police and family members of Irfan, whose father is a baker, asked witnesses to come forward with any video footage of the attack so it can be used as evidence.
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: Officers were called to Harehills Lane at 3.42pm. The injured male was taken to hospital but died a short time later.
Detectives investigating the murder in Harehills, Leeds, have confirmed the identity of the deceased as 16-year-old Irfan Wahid, following formal identification of the body today.
This tragic incident happened in a busy area at a busy time of day with large numbers of people going about their daily business. It is also possible that people may have recorded footage on their mobile phones and I would again encourage those people to come forward.
An injured threshing shark was discovered at the mouth of the Minnamurra River.
The shark, distinguished by its oversized tail which it uses to stun prey, was swimming unusually close to shore on the New South Wales South Coast.
A bystander caught the shark's thrashing motions on video on Sunday morning, south of Sydney.
An injured threshing shark was discovered at the mouth of the Minnamurra River
Josh Douglas, of the Kiama Downs Surf Life Saving Club, guided the shark to the open sea
The three metre-long shark was bleeding from a wound, apparently sustained in a battle with a larger predator
A bystander caught the shark's thrashing motions on video on Sunday morning
The three metre-long shark was bleeding from a wound, apparently sustained in a battle with a larger predator, the Illawarra Mercury reported.
Josh Douglas, of the Kiama Downs Surf Life Saving Club, guided the shark to the open sea.
'I'd say he'd been bitten and was just cruising with the current and got brought in with the big tides,' Mr Douglas told the Illawarra Mercury.
The shark reportedly died and washed up on a nearby beach later on Sunday.
Thresher sharks can grow upwards to 5.5 metres, and are found in the sea all around Australia, according to the Australian Museum.
The shark, distinguished by its oversized tail which it uses to stun prey, was swimming unusually close to shore
The French bulldog, a breed favoured by celebrities such as the Beckhams and Lady Gaga, is set to overtake the labrador as Britain's most popular dog.
There has been an unprecedented rise in ownership in recent years, with Kennel Club registrations up 47 per cent from 14,607 in 2015, to 21,470 in 2016.
It is thought the bat-eared breed, which first became fashionable in 19th-century Paris, could be top of the rankings by next year, the first time the labrador retriever will have been knocked off the spot for 27 years.
Kennel Club registrations of French bulldogs are up 47 per cent from 14,607 in 2015, to 21,470 in 2016
There were only 650 French bulldogs, pictured, registered with the Kennel Club ten years ago.
However, the club is concerned by the rise because it is being driven by fashion. Secretary Caroline Kisko said the surge in demand 'opens the doors to unscrupulous breeders' who do not care for a dog's health and welfare.
'It is very unwise for anyone to buy one simply because they think it looks cute or is a fashionable choice,' she said.
'Anyone doing so could inadvertently be contributing to an impending welfare crisis.
'The breed is a favourite with celebrities, who often flaunt them on their Instagram and Twitter accounts for people to coo over.
However, the club is concerned by the rise because it is being driven by fashion, opening the door for those who do not care for a dog's health and welfare
'While it's normal to want to show off your dog, when celebrities do it, it usually results in a surge in the popularity of certain breeds, which is not a good thing as it opens the doors to unscrupulous breeders who see it as an opportunity to breed lots of them without due care to health and welfare.'
She added that it was crucial for anyone intent on owning a French Bulldog to go a responsible breeder, such as a Kennel Club assured breeder.
The UK's largest dog welfare organisation is urging people to consider buying other similar breeds that may be better suited to their lifestyle and environment. These include the Miniature Schnauzer, Beagle, Border Terrier and Welsh Terrier.
The Speaker last night denied blocking an attempt to tell Parliament about police investigations into Keith Vaz because he had received thousands from donors linked to the MP.
Records show that 41,000 of the 58,000 raised for John Bercow's last two general election campaigns came from people with connections to Mr Vaz.
Yesterday Mr Bercow insisted he had handled all matters involving Mr Vaz in line with parliamentary rules and strongly refuted any suggestion he had unfairly favoured the Leicester East MP.
Narinder Singh Chadha, the former chairman of Mr Vaz's diabetes charity Silver Star, told The Times he gave 2,501 to Mr Bercow's 2010 election campaign after Mr Vaz asked for the donation.
Other donations to Mr Bercow included 5,000 from the London College of Accountancy, which also gives money to Mr Vaz, and 2,500 from the late Lord Noon, a Labour donor whose Commons memorial tribute was hosted by Mr Vaz.
Mr Bercow received 7,500 from Sun Mark, a food company founded by Mr Vaz's friend Rami Ranger, and 5,000 from Madhu's, a restaurant chain run by Sanjay and Sanjeev Anand, friends of both Mr Vaz and Mr Bercow.
All donations were declared by Mr Bercow and within the rules.
But Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said last night the connections raised questions about Mr Bercow's handling of allegations involving Mr Vaz.
In September 2015, Mr Bridgen wrote to Mr Bercow requesting he contact police to ask about inquiries they were making into Mr Vaz and whether they conflicted with his position at the time as chairman of the home affairs select committee, but he said this was not part of his role.
After Mr Vaz stepped down from the role because of a rent boy scandal, Mr Bridgen tried to raise the matter of a separate police investigation involving the MP in the Commons in October last year as Mr Vaz was standing to join the justice select committee.
Mr Bercow interrupted him and said he should limit his remarks to information in the public domain.
A spokesman for Mr Bercow said last night he had at all times acted 'to uphold the rules and conventions of the House of Commons'.
She added: 'As a matter of parliamentary practice and procedure, a member is not given the floor to speak as a means of making a personal attack on the conduct of another member.
'Mr Bridgen stated at the outset that he would try to limit his remarks to matters in the public domain. The Speaker permitted him to do so on matters of public record and stopped him when he sought to embark on other allegations, and again when he sought to reveal the contents of confidential correspondence with the Speaker.'
On the September 2015 request for Mr Bercow to speak to police, she said: 'A select committee itself has the power to declare no confidence in its chair but the Speaker has precisely none.'
Regarding Mr Chadha's suggestion that Mr Vaz had asked him to donate money to Mr Bercow, she said: 'Whatever contacts eligible donors have with other Members of Parliament are a matter for them.'
Mr Vaz denied he had solicited donations for Mr Bercow and said Mr Chadha had been 'misquoted and misrepresented'. He noted Sun Mark also gave 25,000 to Theresa May's leadership campaign.
He added: 'The British Asian community should not be criticised for making lawful political donations to political parties and individual MPs of their choice.'
Parents are in outcry after a school announced it will let pupils who behave well in class leave ten minutes early.
The Castle View School in Canvey Island, Essex, is believed to be the first in the UK to introduce the policy in an effort to cut down on classroom disruption.
Teachers at the secondary hope the new behavioural technique will encourage students to make the right decisions, every lesson of the day.
But parents raised concern over the nightmare new system, claiming it could cause problems picking up their children.
The school said the policy is designed to show pupils 'instant consequences' for bad behaviour
It is understood the policy will be rolled out when pupils return from half term next Monday.
Good pupils will go home at 2.50pm while others will be made to wait until the bell rings at 3pm for the second dismissal.
In a letter to parents explaining the system, the school said: Our second dismissal system is designed to ensure students have an instant consequence that can be put right at the end of the day and start afresh the next day.
But parent Sandra French, 43, said: They might think its just ten minutes but I struggle to get to the school gates for 3pm as it is.
Im not the only one and its going to mean children are hanging around outside unnecessarily.
I think its great they want to praise good behaviour but I dont really know how much difference this is really going to make.
Julia Thompson, 38, said: Ive got two children at the school. Does this mean Ive got to get there for 2.50pm and then sit around waiting for my other child if theyre not both on their best behaviour? We havent been told much about this so we dont know if the time our kids are leaving could change on a daily or weekly basis.
It sounds like it will be a nightmare knowing what time we need to get there on each day.
Tom Grainger, 34, added: Its got good intentions but I dont think it will really work.
Kids dither around so much at the end of the day that theyll all end up coming out at the same time.
Parents claim the new policy will just cause needless complications on the school run
Those ten minutes will disappear in no time with the amount of disruption caused when kids are getting up and leaving the classroom.
I cant see many of them thinking its a punishment hanging around for a few minutes longer.
The academy trust school, which is rated good by Ofsted, has about 1,100 students aged 11 to 16, who start their day at 8.30am with lessons starting 20 minutes later.
An NUT official said he had not heard of a school doing this before, but that it was not that innovative if it was just another way of giving detentions.
Jerry Glazier, general secretary of the Essex branch of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said Then again, perhaps it is not that innovative if most pupils are leaving at the normal time and the rest are getting detentions.
It is up to schools to determine what rewards or sanctions they want to use to motivate pupils.
Michelle Doyle Wildman, policy and communications director at PTA UK, which represents parents and teacher associations, said: PTA UKs position would be that its really important that parents are fully informed and preferably consulted on any changes to arrangements to the beginning and end of the school day.
The best schools do see parents as key partners and will consider how they approach things from a parent and family perspective.
This is especially relevant to parents juggling work and additional caring responsibilities.
This is the second time the school has made the news for its unique policies on behaviour.
In 2013, teachers banned triangular flapjacks to avoid children being injured after a boy was hit in the face by one in an isolated incident.
A skeletal chicken named 'Scarlett' has been rescued and nursed back to health after animal activists discovered her crammed into a room on a cage-free farm with 35,000 other chickens.
Scarlett caught the attention of activist group Direct Action Everywhere when their investigators searched a 'Certified Humane' farm in California, which provides eggs to U.S. grocery chain Safeway.
Missing most of her feathers and seen cowering under piles of other chickens, the investigators noticed Scarlett was going blind from being pecked in the face repeatedly and trampled on, according to DxE's website.
Scroll down for video
A skeletal chicken named 'Scarlett' has been rescued from a dirty and crowded cage-free farm in California
The sickly bird has been nursed back to health and regained her eyesight and shiny coat of feathers (pictured)
'Scarlett was struggling to survive as the birds climbed over each other in the extreme crowding,' the group said in a release.
DxE's rescue team said they decided to remove Scarlett as soon as they could from the filthy conditions.
'In a daring nighttime rescue, DxE activists scooped Scarlett up from the crush of bodies that covered her and rushed her to receive veterinary care,' the group said.
'They put the health and safety of both humans and animals at risk. We saw horrible animal abuse, the air alone was unbearable,' investigator Paul Picklesimer added.
Missing most of her feathers and seen cowering under piles of other chickens, investigators with activist group Direct Action Everywhere spotted Scarlett at the 'Certified Humane' farm (pictured)
The activists noticed she was going blind from being pecked in the face repeatedly (pictured)
Scarlett was rescued from the crowded farm in the middle of the night and rushed to a veterinarian for treatment (pictured)
Video footage of the farm shows waste and dirt lining the floor, as well as empty feeders and stacks of dead birds in the corner of the room.
'Activists found records at the farm showing that at least 125 birds died in a single day from piling, where the birds are so confined they crowd on top of each other causing birds to not only get trapped but crushed to death as a result,' DxE said.
Scarlett was treated by veterinarians and now lives on a sanctuary, where she has learned to hunt and interact freely with other animals and people.
DxE said more than 35,000 chickens appeared to be stacked inside the room
Records at the farm showed at least 125 birds died in a single day from piling
Video footage of the farm shows waste and dirt lining the floor, as well as empty feeders
She now looks much healthier after gaining weight and her red coat of feathers has completely grown back.
'Now, Scarlett spends most of her time pecking and grazing with her best friend Mary,' activists said.
Safeway has been contacted for comment.
Whitehall blunders have cost taxpayers 5.5billion in two years.
Ministers and officials blew 87 a second on failed projects and compensation payouts. The cash was enough to train 100,000 nurses or 9,000 doctors.
Almost 2million was squandered on deportation flights for failed asylum seekers that had to be cancelled because of a court ruling.
The Ministry of Defence wrote off almost 2billion including 11million on two Army drones that crashed during testing. Stock image of an Army drone
Another 626,000 was wasted when officials double-paid 10 Christmas bonus payments to benefit claimants. The Ministry of Defence wrote off almost 2billion including 11million on two Army drones that crashed during testing.
Health chiefs lost 115million on medicines that were out of date.
The figures, which cover the two years to last March, were calculated from analysis of the accounts of Whitehalls 20 departments. They come at a time when public services are being cut and council taxes hiked to tackle a social care funding crisis.
The Whitehall loss list covers sums of 300,000 or more the threshold that triggers an official explanation of what the cash went on.
The biggest money-waster was the MoD, which also splashed out 22million on a botched deal to repair RAF Typhoon jet engines.
The Department of Health wasted 1.1billion, Work and Pensions just under 1billion and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 601million. These shocking figures underline the importance of making sure that departments spend taxpayers money properly and wisely, said Charlie Elphicke, a Tory member of the House of Commons public accounts committee.
They must remember that this money belongs to hard-working people and it is vital every penny is dealt with carefully.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: The Government are cutting services and programmes that affect people across the country to save money and yet they are wasting taxpayers cash like this.
We have a social care crisis, an NHS on the brink and we cant pay for things like meals on wheels, yet we are chucking cash down the drain like this.
The 1.9million wasted on cancelled flights for failed asylum seekers took place during Theresa Mays last year in charge at the Home Office.
Almost 2million was squandered on deportation flights for failed asylum seekers that had to be cancelled because of a court ruling. Stock image of a deportation flight
Officials booked seats before legal challenges were launched against deportation, meaning the operation had to be abandoned. Taxpayers have now forked out 5.2million on scrapped flights in three years.
X-ray equipment worth almost 1million that was intended to screen passengers for TB at Gatwick and Heathrow was axed after a change in Government policy.
Government documents state that the machines have been declared redundant along with the associated maintenance contracts.
After spending the money, officials decided to screen for diseases such as TB before passengers began their journey to the UK.
Former justice minister Andrew Selous admitted that a 4.8million scheme to build colleges for young offenders was scrapped
Around 2million went up in smoke when the Department for Farming and Rural Affairs scrapped a computer system that was being developed to help process payments under the European Unions Common Agricultural Policy.
The department wanted to make farmers fill in their payment forms online. But it reverted to paper because farmers struggled with poor broadband coverage in rural areas.
Documents seen by the Mail show that a plan to build secure colleges for young offenders was scrapped by the Ministry of Justice after officials had forked out 4.8million.
Former justice minister Andrew Selous admitted that all work on a pilot scheme in Leicestershire with room for 300 children aged from 12 to 17 had been abandoned.
Figures showed that around 4million had been ploughed into design fees and site preparation, and the rest on staff pay, procurement and other costs. An administrative error at the British Library meant the Department for Culture, Media and Sport overpaid 264,115 to authors when their books were loaned. John OConnell of the TaxPayers Alliance said: If we are ever going to balance the books then it is essential that a culture of delivering best value for money exists at all levels of the public sector.
It doesnt matter if that is at the biggest departments in Whitehall or the smallest parish council, those in charge of holding the purse strings need to be acting more responsibly with taxpayers money.
An administrative error at the British Library meant the Department for Culture, Media and Sport overpaid 264,115 to authors when their books were loaned
That means cutting out wasteful spending, clamping down on spurious compensation claims or recovering money that they are owed.
Some of these losses may be unavoidable but for too long we have seen too much taxpayers money frittered away as if it grows on trees.
It is important that Government officials now lead by example by making sure they cut out waste from the system, making government more efficient and delivering value for hard-pressed taxpayers.
A Government spokesman said: During the last financial year this Government has saved the taxpayer 3.3billion by disposing surplus property and reforming the way we work.
And we are on track to deliver our manifesto commitment of 15-20billion savings by the end of the parliament.
Furious commuters have taken to social media to slam taxi drivers who caused traffic chaos on Melbourne's Bolte Bridge on Monday morning.
Hundreds of cabbies blocked four lanes of the busy bridge in a protest against changes to the taxi industry after the introduction of ride-sharing.
Traffic was brought to a standstill just after 8.30am with the protest believed to have lasted around 40 minutes.
People making their way to work on Monday said 'muppet' taxi drivers had done nothing to help their cause.
Furious commuters have taken to social media to slam taxi drivers who caused traffic chaos on Melbourne's Bolte Bridge on Monday morning
Hundreds of cabbies blocked four lanes of the busy bridge in a protest against changes to the taxi industry after the introduction of ride-sharing
Cabbies were protesting against the state government's plan to abolish taxi licences
Angry commuters said 'muppet' taxi drivers did nothing to help their cause
Many social media users suggested the protest would only serve to make Uber more popular
Traffic was brought to a standstill just after 8.30am with the protest believed to have lasted around 40 minutes
'How do the taxi drivers of Melbourne expect to gain public support by blocking Bolte Bridge?' one questioned on Twitter, while another said: Another reason I will always use Uber.
One social media user asked a taxi company: 'Are your drivers aware that the Bolte Bridge action is only hurting their brand further? Why don't they spend their time improving?'
Another commented: 'How not to gain public support for your cause? Block traffic on the way to work!'
Other disapproving comments included 'these cabbies need to pull their heads in and Dear taxi drivers everyone hates you.'
Cabbies say they will not be properly compensated under the deregulation reforms
Taxis crawl across Melbourne's Bolte Bridge, causing peak hour chaos
Cabs were seen moving at a walking pace across the bridge as traffic piled up behind them
'Why don't they spend their time improving,' one asked a Melbourne Taxi company
Hundreds of people took to social media to vent their anger
Other disapproving comments included 'these cabbies need to pull their heads in and Dear taxi drivers everyone hates you'
Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families urged cabbies to cause peak hour disruptions in response to the state government's plans to deregulate the taxi industry.
'Everyone will culminate at parliament after gridlocking the Bolte inbound and outbound for half an hour,' the group wrote on its Facebook page.
'Lets cause some disruption.'
The state government is planning to abolish taxi licences and introduce a single registration for taxis, hire cars and ride-share services like Uber.
It plans to compensate taxi licence holders by paying $100,000 for the first licence and $50,000 for another.
Taxi drivers are seen chatting during the protest which caused peak hour chaos
Police officers talk to a taxi driver. The state government is planning to deregulate the taxi industry
Drivers are seen congregating shortly before the protest
But licence holders say the compensation being offered is unfair and could spell financial ruin, with many paying up to $500,000 per licence.
Taxi driver Tsim Booky, who took part in the protest, told Nine News the reforms are unjust.
'It's like a loss of income. It's just like losing your job. We've actually paid for our jobs and now we're going to lose them,' he said.
'So we'll keep this up until (Minister for Public Transport) Jacinta Allan resigns.'
Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families urged cabbies to cause gridlock on the bridge to protest changes to the taxi industry
Drivers are seen preparing to head for Melbourne's Bolte Bridge - a major route to the airport
The Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families wrote on its Facebook page: 'Lets cause some disruption'
Another angry driver said: 'We are desperate. This is a last measure for us.'
Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families spokeswoman Linda De Melis told ABC Radio they aren't opposing industry changes.
'The government can dismantle the industry if they choose, but we as license holders should not have to pay the price for industry reform,' Ms De Melis said on Monday.
'Currently the government is seizing our licences for zero in return.'
VicRoads urged motorists to allow extra time for travel or consider alternative routes.
Licence holders say the compensation being offered is unfair and could spell financial ruin, with many paying up to $500,000 per licence
VicRoads is urging motorists to allow extra time for travel or consider alternative routes
Surgeons are going days at a time without performing operations because of the winter beds crisis in the NHS.
The Royal College of Surgeons said its members are spending 12-hour shifts unable to do their job as thousands of operations are cancelled.
Cancer patients, previously protected, have now been forced to wait for vital surgery to remove tumours. Patients having more routine surgery, such as hip replacements, are seeing their procedures cancelled up to four times.
The Royal College of Surgeons said its members are spending 12-hour shifts unable to do their job as thousands of operations are cancelled. Stock image
Yesterday Sir Robert Francis, who chaired the inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, in which hundreds of people died of neglect between 2005 and 2009, warned the NHS is in much the same situation as it was then.
Speaking on the BBCs Andrew Marr show, he said: The system is running extremely hot at the moment and its only working at all because of the almost superhuman efforts of the staff of the NHS. And it cant carry on like that indefinitely without something going, or risking going, badly wrong.
His comments followed warnings from the Royal College of Surgeons of England that entire days of operations have been called off this winter.
Vice-president Ian Eardley said: You become a surgeon because you want to operate on people, to help people. You get geared up to go in and operate, and so not to be able to do so is frustrating for the surgeon as well as distressing for the patients.
It is the primary purpose of your job, which you are set up to do and you cant do it. It has happened occasionally before but it is now worse than it has ever been. This is very inefficient and a waste of money for the NHS.
Surgery is usually cancelled due to a lack of beds, as hospitals fail to cope with emergency patients flooding in through A&E. They are unable to free up beds filled by elderly people, who have recovered but cannot be sent home because of social care cuts.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has conceded care in some hospitals is completely unacceptable after almost 83,000 operations were cancelled at the last minute last year.
In December, 315 urgent operations did not go ahead, prompting the claim last month by Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, that cancer surgery is no longer protected by the health service.
Mr Eardley said vital surgery to remove tumours had been abandoned on a daily basis for most of January, on an unprecedented scale.
Comes amid bed crisis in which patients having more routine surgery, such as hip replacements, are seeing their procedures cancelled up to four times
Warning some cancer patients had seen their operation cancelled twice in a row, the consultant urological surgeon added: If a patient has cancer and needs an operation, then that operation gets cancelled, the anxiety and stress that causes them is enormous.
For the vast majority of cancers, a delay of a week or two will not make a big difference. But if they are waiting longer, the tumour does run the risk of progressing.
Surgeons whose procedures are called off between operating theatre hours of 8.30am and 5.30pm are not sent home, but hold clinics, check on post-operative patients and catch up on paperwork.
However their inability to do their job has raised concerns, especially as some hospitals have reached 95 per cent capacity for beds.
Barrister Sir Robert said conditions in the NHS are pretty bad, adding: Weve got a virtual storm of financial pressures, increased demand, difficulties finding staffing, and pressure on the service to continue delivering.
Some of that sounds quite familiar - those were the conditions pertaining at the time of Mid Staffordshire.
The leaders of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, are calling for a review of what can be done to reduce the pressure.
In a letter to a Sunday newspaper, they said surgeons have been left kicking their heels due to operations being postponed.
An NHS England spokesman said: The level of cancellations remains low at just one per cent of the millions of operations performed in the NHS each year.
Over the weekend it emerged just three out of 139 hospital trusts with A&E departments met the national target to see 95 per cent of patients within four hours - in large part due to the lack of hospital beds.
February 10, 2017
CAIRO Brig. Gen. Mohamed Samir, a former spokesman for the Egyptian armed forces, assumed the position of director general at Al-Aseema Television Network Jan. 15, which sparked much controversy in the Egyptian street, raising questions as to the future of Egyptian media. Does this step mean that the executive branch will now have full control of the media?
The TV channels programs and broadcasting were suspended due to the change of management. The channel has yet to reopen with new programs.
Sherry Media Advertising Company issued a statement Jan. 15, saying that it has been officially handed the management of Al-Aseema TV and appointed Samir as its director general. The company stressed that it is keen on providing professional media content, contributing to raising awareness in the community on various issues.
Sherry Media Advertising Company, which was established by businessman Ihab Talaat on Dec. 2, 2016, specializes in advertising.
Talaat is seen as a media expert. He is also accused of trying to monopolize the media in Egypt. Before starting his own company, he sponsored a large number of TV stations and newspapers through Pro-Media Company, including the Tahrir Channel, ONTV, al-Shorouk newspaper and Al-Masriy Al-Youm daily.
Talaat was chosen as the chairman of the board of directors of Hayat Media Services Co. on Feb. 6, which is the exclusive advertising agent for all Hayat TV network channels, Egypts biggest network.
Egyptians opposing the appointment of Samir believe it is a miserable attempt by authorities to nationalize the media, unify its message and block any opposing voices against the government.
Others believe that owning and running media outlets should not be limited to certain parties, whether military men or politicians, and that it is the right of any individual to run media institutions as long as this is done according to professional rules and standards. They argue that Samir left the army and is now an ordinary civilian like any other Egyptian citizen.
On the Facebook page of the spokesman for the armed forces, a statement was posted on Dec. 31, 2016, that said, As part of the military bulletin for promotion and reassignments of armed forces officers, scheduled in the months of January and July of every year, Gen. Sedki Subhi, the general commander of the armed forces and minister of defense, approved the appointment of Chief of Staff Officer Col. Tamer Mohamed Mahmoud al-Rifai as the official spokesman for the armed forces, effective as of Jan. 1, in succession to Brig. Gen. Mohamed Samir, whose services will end on Jan. 1, 2017.
This Facebook post came at the same time as the announcement that Talaat would be managing Al-Aseema channels 1 and 2, after a final agreement with member of parliament Saeid Hasaseen, the owner of both TV channels. The decision was effective on Dec. 28, 2016.
Samir graduated from the Egyptian Military Academy on July 1, 1988, and joined the infantry. He received several military training programs and obtained a bachelor's degree in business from Ain Shams University.
During his tenure as spokesman for the armed forces, Samir built good relations with people in charge of newspapers and media outlets in addition to his close relations with the countrys businessmen.
Journalist Magdi Shanadi, the editor-in-chief of al-Mashhad newspaper, told Al-Monitor, Appointing Samir as head of Al-Aseema TV channel means that the regime is no longer running media outlets through its close circles or affiliated persons, but it has now direct control over them.
Shanadi added, The regime thinks of the media as a dangerous tool and that it is necessary to highlight some issues in the media, while hiding others, without any regard to journalistic and media standards and professionalism. This is no secret to anyone. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had previously expressed his dissatisfaction with the media outlets performance, saying that he would like to have the same media support as Gamal Abdel Nasser."
In his speech during the new Suez Canal inauguration ceremony on Aug. 5, 2014, Sisi said, Gamal Abdel Nasser was lucky as he had the support of the media. The Egyptian media has a great responsibility and has to side with the people.
For his part, Dandarawi al-Hawari, the executive editor of Youm7 newspaper, told Al-Monitor, Samir has left the army of his own free will and retired. Now he is a civilian, enjoying full civil and political rights like any other Egyptian citizen and has the right to assume any civil position.
He said, Businessman Talaat, owner of the TV station, appointed Samir in his position. Talaat is known for his interest and investment in the media and has a long history in the media domain. Therefore, any talk about Samir being appointed by pulling strings by the army is unfounded."
Commenting on whether Samir has adequate experience in running a media outlet, Hawari said, As a military man, Samir did not have any civil expertise. However, he has been dealing with different media outlets and newspapers for 2 years, serving as a spokesman for the armed forces. This allowed him to gain experience in this domain, not to mention that he built good relations with people running newspapers and TV channels.
Huwaida Mustafa, the dean of the Higher International Institute for Media at El Shorouk Academy, told Al-Monitor, The media plays a pivotal and influential role in public opinion. That is why businessmen and institutions are keen on owning shares in media outlets, which is normal and there is nothing wrong in it. However, media institutions have to be clear and open about their political inclinations. This is the case of all media institutions around the world.
Commenting on talks about the states attempt to control the media, Mustafa said, We have tens of TV channels and radio stations affiliated with the state, but they have little influence on the ground. It is only normal for the state to try to relay its messages to the public opinion. This does not mean that Brig. Gen. Samir is a tool in the hands of the state, and there is no proof of this anyway. He is now a civilian and has the right according to the constitution to take up a senior civil position in the state, whether by owning or running media outlets.
CET : ;
A deported Albanian murderer has snuck back into the UK and is running a car wash in Leicester.
Convicted killer Selami Cokaj, 43, was kicked out of Britain in 2009 after officials discovered he had escaped from jail in Albania.
He was convicted of stabbing a man to death in 1994, but escaped just three years into his 20 year sentence and fled to Britain.
But he is now said to be back living with his family in a detached house in Oadby, Leicestershire, and running a local car wash firm.
Convicted murderer Selami Cokaj, an Albanian who escaped from jail in his homeland in 1997, is now back in the UK and running a car wash in Albania
Incredibly, he is living under his real name despite being known to authorities, the Sun reported last night.
It is unclear how Cokaj reportedly managed to slip past border forces, as rules state any foreign nationals who serve more than four years in jail are banned from the UK.
Cokaj was on Interpol's most wanted list when he was discovered living in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in 2006
Cokaj was on Interpol's most wanted list when he was discovered living in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in 2006. He was found running a similar car washing company and making 40,000 a year.
He was arrested twice but was later freed on bail by magistrates.
The killer then lodged a last-minute asylum claim, which strung out the process for three-years. Appeals were heard in the High Court and House of Lords.
In December 2009 he was finally put on a plane at Stanstead Airport and sent back to Albania.
He first arrived in 1997, posing as a refugee from Kosovo, under the alias Valton Gashi.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: 'It's quite extraordinary this man could ever have got back into the UK.
'It shows how weak our border controls are.
'It makes you wonder how many other foreign criminals have sneaked back in.'
A source told the Sun: 'He should have been picked up by Border Force when he entered the country. The fact he wasn't suggests maybe he arrived clandestinely or didn't disclose the conviction.'
Cokaj is listed as owner of this 40,000-a-year car wash in Oadby on Companies House
Cokaj is now said to be back living with his family in a detached house in Oadby, Leicestershire
Speaking in 2009, Pellumb Seferi, the head of Interpol in Tirana said: 'Selami Cokaj is one of the most wanted people in Albania because he committed homicide and armed robbery.'
In January, it was revealed a convicted murderer from the Netherlands had been able to walk through Britain's borders without any checks. Afghan-born Jamshid Piruz, 34, went on to attack two police officers with a claw hammer.
He had previously been sentenced to 12 years in prison for killing his female tenant after watching a Taliban beheading video.
Politicians called for Home Secretary Amber Rudd to introduce a tougher US-style warning system, to flag up any previous convictions when a person tries to enter the country.
It is understood Theresa May's 'deport first, appeal later' system has brought the number down. While 356 foreign criminals won their human rights appeal in 2012/13, the number was down to 11 in 2015.
A Home Office spokesman said: 'This Government puts the safety of our families, communities and country first. That's why we've taken action like introduce 'deport first appeal later' to stop this kind of thing happening'.
A service station on the mid north coast of New South Wales is the latest to fall victim to the heatwave.
The Kempsey establishment put up a sign addressed to its customers after being handed one too many sweaty coins and notes.
The note read: 'We are no longer accepting 'boob, jock or sock' money due to hot and humid weather'.
A service station in Kempsey has taken action against customers who hand over sweaty cash
'Questionable moist notes and coins will also be declined.
'We apologise for any inconvenience. But actually, it's quite gross.'
A Sydneysider posted the note into Facebook group 'Sh** Sydney' and wrote 'Sh** Kempsey' alongside the image.
It prompted a mixture of responses from group members.
One social media user wrote: 'So no problem with money stored between your a**e cheeks then?'
'I can be accused of handing over wet booby money'.
Others agreed with the action while another accused the area of getting 'real f***ing stuck up.'
It's not the first time a business has taken action against customers who hand over sweaty cash.
A cafe in the Western Australian town of Carnarvon put up signs behind its cash registers banning money from 'bras or underpants' after a woman 'pulled out' her bra, reached into it and handed the money to the manager.
A Sydneysider posted the note into Facebook group 'Sh** Sydney' prompting some cheeky responses
Kellyanne Conway is speaking out after Saturday Night Live aired a sketch that some felt portrayed the mother in an unfair manner.
The show came under fire over the weekend for its satirical skewering of Conway in a skit that many some deemed 'sexist.'
In a statement to Good Morning America, Conway brushed aside the backlash, saying: 'I appreciate the "not funny, not fair" outrage from all political and apolitical corners. Things that aren't true don't bother.'
In the skit, the president's counselor is depicted as bunny-boiling film villain Alex Forrest, the character played by Glenn Close in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction who tries to murder her married lover after an affair gone bad.
Michael Douglas played the philandering spouse in the film, while on SNL it was CNN anchor Jake Taper who was targeted by Conway in attempt to get back on the news.
Conway first commented on the sketch Sunday, writing on Twitter: Inquiring minds re: #SNL: @jaketapper & I spoke this morning just before brunch time. No boiling bunnies on the menu.'
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Saturday Night Live aired a pre-recorded sketch on Saturday parodying the 1987 film Fatal Attraction - with Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway (played by Kate McKinnon on the right) attempting to seduce CNN's Jake Tapper (played by Beck Bennett on the left)
Conway first commented on the sketch Sunday, writing on Twitter: Inquiring minds re: #SNL: @jaketapper & I spoke this morning just before brunch time. No boiling bunnies on the menu.'
Conway has been parodied on SNL by Kate McKinnon, while Tapper has been played by Beck Bennett.
In the sketch, Conway tries to seduce Tapper before threatening to kill him a knife.
A horrified Tapper than surrenders to Conways demand that she be permitted on his CNN show, State of the Union.
Conway than stumbles out the window of Tappers high-rise apartment and falls to her death only to pull herself together again.
Im fine, but I do only have three lives left, Conway says in the sketch. See you on the news!
The sketch begins with Bennett's Tapper (left) wrapping up an episode of CNN's State of the Union, the show hosted by the real Tapper (right)
When Bennett's character comes home, he is horrified to discover that Kellyanne Conway (played by McKinnon on the left) has been waiting for him. The real Conway is seen on the right
In the sketch, Conway tries to seduce Tapper before threatening to kill him a knife
A horrified Tapper than surrenders to Conways demand that she be permitted on his CNN show, State of the Union
The portrayal of Conway as femme fatale has riled up feminists who say the sketch was sexist
Olivia Nuzzi, the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, tweeted that the skit 'will be interpreted as unfair and mean to a wife and mother'
'SNL just gave a gift to the White House with this sexist, unfunny Kellyanne Conway skit,' Nuzzi tweeted
Nuzzi predicted that the White House would point to the skit 'to dismiss all criticism of Conway and lying more broadly'
Andrea Mitchell of NBC News agreed that the portrayal of Conway was 'not right'
But critics of Trump say that Conway lacks credibility due to her boss's past behavior with women
Another Twitter user noted that Conway has made controversial statements about women and rape victims in the past
In real life, Tapper and Conway engaged in a lengthy, tense interview on CNN last week over the Trump advisers propensity to make claims that are demonstrably false, like the existence of the fictitious Bowling Green massacre that was supposedly the motivation for Trumps travel ban.
But Saturdays sketch went too far, according to those who have criticized Conway in the past.
Olivia Nuzzi, the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, denounced SNLs skit.
The sketch is a parody of the 1987 psychological thriller Fatal Attraction, which stars Michael Douglas (left) and Glenn Close (right). Close plays a deranged mistress who tries to kill her married lover (Douglas) after he ends their tryst
'Casting Kellyanne Conway (left) as Glenn Close (right) was a miscalculation on SNL's part,' tweeted journalist Olivia Nuzzi
SNL just gave a gift to the White House with this sexist, unfunny Kellyanne Conway skit, Nuzzi tweeted on Saturday.
Prediction: the White House will use that sexist skit to dismiss all criticisms of Conway and lying more broadly, she wrote.
Casting Kellyanne Conway as Glenn Close was a miscalculation on SNL's part. Will be interpreted as unfair and mean to a wife and mother.
Andrea Mitchell of NBC News also thought the skit was not right.
Jonathan Capehart, a critic of Conways at The Washington Post, tweeted: Not sure about that Kellyanne skit.
Other Trump critics, however, say that Conway has long ago forfeited any claim to victimhood given her bosss history with women.
Trump has been accused by at least 10 women of fondling and groping them against their will.
During the campaign, a video surfaced in which Trump is heard saying that he grabs women by their genitalia.
In real life, Tapper and Conway engaged in a lengthy, tense interview on CNN last week over the Trump advisers propensity to make claims that are demonstrably false
I suspect cries of sexism from the blood from her wherever/p***ygrabbing administration will lack a certain cred, commented Charles Pierce, a journalist with Esquire.
Another Twitter user pointed out that Conway once remarked that if women were stronger, there would be no rape.
The comments were reported in Vanity Fair.
Conway appeared to take the episode in stride.
She tweeted on Sunday: Inquiring minds re:SNL: Jake Tapper and I spoke this morning just before brunch time. No boiling bunnies on the menu.
The boiling bunnies reference is a nod to Fatal Attraction, in which Glenn Closes character puts a pet bunny in a boiling pot of water to scare her lover.
Saturday's episode of SNL, which was hosted by Alec Baldwin, generated its highest television ratings in six years, according to Variety.
The show has created major buzz in the Trump era, with Baldwin's impersonation of the president becoming a weekly must-see.
SNL has also won widespread praise for its casting of Melissa McCarthy as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
The Duke of Manchester, 54, has now been hauled back into court, picking up another sentence this time for 30 months for attempted possession of a stolen motor vehicle
Hard to imagine that the reputation of Alexander Montagu, 13th Duke of Manchester, could plunge any lower.
But the 54-year-old Duke thrice married, once deported from Canada and exposed as a bigamist in 2011 is evidently determined to prove otherwise.
Less than three weeks after receiving a five-year prison sentence for attempted burglary in his adopted home city of Las Vegas, the Duke has now been hauled back into court, picking up another sentence this time for 30 months for attempted possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
And I can disclose that the Dukes contempt for the law has seen him flout the conditions of his house-arrest under which he was required to remain at home, wearing an ankle-bracelet, prior to his court appearances with the result that he was behind bars even before the first of the two sentences was passed.
He had been under house arrest but violated his terms, and so they took him into custody, explains Mary Ann Price, the Court Information Officer.
The verdict is welcomed by the second of the Dukes ex-wives, Wendy (nee Buford), an American whom he married in California in 1993.
He had neglected to tell her that he remained married to his first wife, former model Marion Stoner, whom he wed in 1984 in Australia, only for Marion to flee less than three months later after Alexander fired a spear-gun at her.
It looks like he finally got it: hes going to be in prison, Wendy tells me, whose relief comes as no surprise given that after their divorce in 2007, Alexander accused her of being addicted to drugs and cutting the brake cables on his car, prompting the police to investigate.
Tests speedily showed that the drugs accusation was baseless, while the police concluded that, though the brake cables on Alexanders car had indeed been cut, it had been Alexander himself who had severed them.
There is only one small crumb of comfort for the disgraced Duke, who will serve his time in Nevadas High Desert State Prison, Nevada: the latest sentence will run concurrently with the first though that can only be a cause for regret for beleaguered Wendy and Marion.
ITVs Victoria star Jenna Coleman and fledgling thesp Cressida Bonas ran into each other at a pre-Bafta party in London
Old pals act: Harry's girls hug it out
What do these two young women have in common? Aside from both being actresses, they also both have a history with Prince Harry.
ITVs Victoria star Jenna Coleman and fledgling thesp Cressida Bonas ran into each other at a pre-Bafta party in London hosted by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, where Im told the duo were getting on famously.
But it could have been awkward as Jenna, 30, was caught having a very cosy chat with Harry at a polo game not long after he and Cressida split, fuelling rumours of a romance.
Thankfully on Saturday night it was all smiles as Jenna, who looked stylish in a little black dress with a white ruffled top, was pictured with her arm around 27-year-old Cressie.
Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne could soon find himself fighting his own brother for the spotlight.
HarperCollins UK boss Charlie, who once claimed to be the better looking and more talented half, has just landed a plum role of his own.
The 50-year-old is playing the sinister gangster on the cover of a new novel by Kimberly Chambers.
I can only thank Kim from the bottom of my heart for giving me my first foothold onto the world of modelling, albeit as a hardened criminal, says Charlie.
You have to take these opportunities when they come up.
Mrs May should scrap her short skirts, says the worlds oldest working supermodel, Daphne Selfe.
Ditch the short skirts, Theresa!
While Prime Minister Theresa May has garnered much attention for her taste in fashion, from leopard-print heels to 995 brown leather trousers, there is one item that should be scrapped, says the worlds oldest working supermodel, Daphne Selfe.
I do think Theresa has some nice outfits, but I dont think she should wear those short skirts that go above the knee, the Dolce & Gabbana model, 88, tells me at the private view of Strong Women by photographer Alistair Guy at the Grace Belgravia.
Older people should be banned from wearing short skirts.
Only very young women can get away with that, and even then, not all the time. It depends on your figure and your attitude.
Surely someone navigating our way out of the EU has no problem with attitude.
Radio star Alan Jones has revealed the 'amputational pain' he suffered in his right arm after back surgery.
The 2GB broadcaster returned to the airwaves on Monday, in an interview with colleague Ray Hadley, to tell listeners he wanted someone to just 'take my arm off' after being overcome with unbearable pain following the November surgery.
Jones said he had problems with his right arm during the operation and it was 'going everywhere' when he came out of surgery, with doctors first fearing it might have been a stroke before putting it down to nerve problems.
'This became a bit dysfunctional, my right arm, with what I called amputational pain. You felt like saying to someone just take my arm off, I just don't want it there,' Jones said.
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Alan Jones has revealed he suffered 'amputational pain' in his right arm after back surgery
Alan Jones (right) returned to the airwaves on Monday in an interview with Ray Hadley (left)
Jones said he had to undergo another operation three weeks ago - through his neck - to fix the nerve pain.
'The wound pain after neck surgery is unbelievable,' Jones said.
About a week after that operation, 'the arm stuff was just ridiculous', Jones said, and his doctor, Doctor John Sheehy at St Vincent's, called him back and needles were placed in the back of his neck to pinpoint the problem.
But on Friday, Jones was again on the operating table and they found a small piece of bone underneath the scar tissue which was interfering with the nerves.
Jones reported that while he is still in pain, it is decreasing by the day, although he still needs to visit the hospital.
'Everything's going to be fine,' Jones said.
Jones said he expects to be back hosting his own show in three weeks time.
'I don't have a stick, my shoulders are back and here I am back in business.'
Jones said he expects to be back hosting his own show in three weeks time, but added there have been many false starts in recent weeks.
He has been on indefinite leave since November 21. Hadley is filling in his spot in the interim.
'The preening pipsqueak delivered his anti-Brexit message at Reading University on February 3, three days before announcing his ban on Trump'
Egotistical publicity-seeker John Bercow may yet survive a vote of no confidence after unilaterally vetoing the idea of President Trump speaking in the Commons.
This is despite the fact the supposedly impartial Speaker has become embroiled in a fresh row over political bias after it emerged he had told students he voted Remain in the referendum.
The preening pipsqueak delivered his anti-Brexit message at Reading University on February 3, three days before announcing his ban on Trump.
But it is his comments at another student gathering that truly reveals his rank hypocrisy. In January last year, addressing journalism students at the University of Bedfordshire, he was asked how he felt about Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking to MPs and peers in 2015.
Bercow visibly fawned over a president whose government has been accused of the harassment, imprisonment and torture of political activists. I didnt think any great breach of principle had taken place by having a visit from the Chinese premier, he replied. We dont have visits to the British Parliament only from people who share our values and our political system. . .
It is absolutely right and proper that those who have a view about the Chinese human rights record have a chance to express it. There was quite a good argument for saying that if you talk only to and hear only from people with whom you agree, youre reinforcing each other, but youre not really opening the envelope.
What appalling cant.
Former Tory MP John Carlisle says that when going to South Africa to make speeches in the apartheid era, he was attacked for being racist and divisive.
I was often accompanied by one John Bercow, a student at Essex University who enthusiastically shared my opinions and attacked my opponents for trying to silence my speeches, he recalls.
How sad as he now holds high office he should try to deny Parliament the chance to hear opinions from the leader of the free world which conveniently he finds distasteful.
Former Labour Europe Minister Denis MacShane mocked French presidential candidate Francois Fillon for paying 700,000 to his Welsh-born wife and two children for unspecified parliamentary work.
MacShane said: Fillon portrayed himself as Monsieur Irreprochable, Frances Mr Clean, and now he has been infected by the English MPs disease of putting wives, sons and daughters on the parliamentary payroll.
MacShanes just the man to deliver pious homilies. In 2013, he was jailed for six months for making 13,000 of bogus expenses claims. At the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Sweeney said: The dishonesty involved was considerable and was repeated many times over a long period.
Blairite James Purnell (left), now the BBCs Director of Radio and Education, says the Beeb will guide viewers through a forest of fake news. And this from the man who faked himself into a photograph of a hospital opening he had failed to attend when he was Culture Secretary!
Blairite James Purnell, now the BBCs Director of Radio and Education, says the Beeb will guide viewers through a forest of fake news. When there is so much information and misinformation, the BBC can be a trusted guide through that abundance, he declares. And this from the man who faked himself into a photograph of a hospital opening he had failed to attend when he was Culture Secretary!
Quote of the week: Veteran Eurosceptic John Redwood said: Parliament voted 494 to 122 to notify the European Union of our intention to leave. Parliament, after much debate, self-examination and passionate exchange, voted to take back control. The puppet Parliament of recent years, nodding through countless laws from Brussels, decided it must take responsibility again.
At the weekend it emerged that secret focus groups had tested the appeal of Labour rising stars Angela Rayner (left) and Rebecca Long-Bailey (far right), newly promoted to Shadow Business Secretary (right)
At the weekend it emerged that secret focus groups had tested the appeal of Labour rising stars Angela Rayner (near right), the Shadow Education Secretary, and Rebecca Long-Bailey (far right), newly promoted to Shadow Business Secretary.
They already appear to have the backing of Comrade Corbyn, who told the Manchester Evening News they are brilliant. Asked if they could be the leader, he replied: Absolutely. Absolutely.
One senior Labour MP, who backs Rayner, is now worried: Corbyns endorsement has probably just finished off their chances.
An 81-year-old woman was raped by a man who followed her after she got off a bus on a busy high street.
The victim was taken to hospital following the attack, which happened shortly after she had left the number 155 bus in Balham High Road, south London, at 8.30pm on Friday.
A 41-year-old man was arrested in Tooting on Saturday and charged with two counts of rape and one of kidnap or false imprisonment on Sunday, Scotland Yard said.
He will appear at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on Monday.
The victim was taken to hospital following the attack, which happened shortly after she had left the number 155 bus in Balham High Road (shown), south London, at 8.30pm on Friday
Before his arrest, Metropolitan Police appealed for information on the whereabouts of the victim's jacket.
Detective Inspector Melissa Laremore said: 'My team are keen to trace a male witness seen on Rinaldo Road, Balham, on the evening of the incident.
'He was wearing a jacket with a distinctive American flag design on the back.
'I would urge him to come forward and contact police. In addition to this, the victim's distinctive red Marks and Spencer's jacket went missing after the attack.
'My investigators are working to trace it in and around the local area as it is of important evidential value. If you have any knowledge of its whereabouts, please get in touch.'
Leading high street chains have warned the Chancellor that popular pubs and restaurants could disappear as a result of a swingeing rise in business rates.
A group of business leaders have written a letter to Philip Hammond urging him to reconsider the plan that could see some companies hit by a 42 per cent rise in rates.
Bosses at All Bar One, Wagamama, Pizza Express, Greene King, and Slug & Lettuce have asked that the Chancellor to curb the rise in next months budget.
In the letter, they claim that companies in the hospitality sector were not prepared for the significant rises resulting from latest revaluation, The Times reported.
Some of the high streets biggest names have warned the Chancellor that popular pubs and restaurants could disappear as a result of a swingeing rise in business rates.
This will add a further 300million to 500million in additional cost in the hospitality sector.
Margins in our sector are already under intense pressure, due to the cumulative impact of increased wage, training and regulatory costs and there is a very real danger that these increases will result in a freeze in investment and a scaling back of new openings and job creation.
We have already seen evidence of outlets closing as a result of the planned increase. Modern pubs, bars and restaurants are valuable social, economic and community assets they contribute to our thriving tourism sector, high street regeneration and attract and support significant inward investment.
As such, they are well placed to capitalise on the opportunities presented by Brexit, but they will not be able to do so if hampered by unsustainable additional costs.
The new rates, which will come into force from April, will see potential a cost in bills rise 12.5 per cent to 42 per cent.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: The great British pub is a national asset, providing thousands of jobs and boosting the economy by 21 billion a year. The method of valuing pubs was agreed by the five major trade bodies and has not changed.
Following the revaluation, three quarters of properties will see no change or even a fall in their bills, and the small minority of businesses that face an increase will benefit from our 3.6 billion transitional relief scheme.
Last month the Mail revealed how reforms to business rates a type of council tax on firms threatened to devastate Britains High Streets.
Bosses at All Bar One, Wagamama, Pizza Express, Greene King, and Slug & Lettuce have asked that the Chancellor to curb the rise in next months budget, fearing a rise in business rates of 42%
From April onwards, 500,000 shopkeepers, cafe owners, pub landlords and other small business owners will be charged up to ten times more, taking a 600-a-year tax bill up to 3,000 and forcing many to close.
And it has also emerged that guesthouses in popular tourist spots such as East Sussex and Devon also face soaring bills, because of a tax raid on family-run businesses.
Owners say they will have no option but to pass on the cost to guests. Many small hotels, bed and breakfasts and self-catering cottages fear they will have to shut down if holidaying families respond to price rises by going abroad instead.
The rises will be steepest in the South of England, where property values have soared.
Proprietors also claim the way the charges are calculated means the most charming, lovingly refurbished guesthouses will be hit hardest.
The new rates, which will come into force from April, will see potential a cost in bills rise 12.5 per cent to 42 per cent. In the letter, bosses claim that companies in the hospitality sector were not prepared for the significant rises resulting from latest revaluation
For cafes, restaurants and shops, its based on the property size and location, and how much it would fetch if the whole building were let out.
In April, the Government is updating its estimated values for the first time in seven years.
The Department for Communities and Local Government claims no business will pay more than 5 pc extra initially but this does not apply where a propertys value has risen so much that its gone above the threshold for tax breaks.
Currently, firms with a so-called rateable value of less than 6,000 dont have to pay business rates, with discounts on a sliding scale up to 12,000. From April, the threshold rises to 12,000, with discounts on a sliding scale for values up to 15,000.
Jeff Lytle, of Monroe, Washington, intended to text a man named Shayne, who he'd hired to kill his wife Rhoda and four-year-old daughter for their $1.5 million life insurance payout
A murder plot devised by a father was exposed when he accidentally texted his former employer instead of his hitman, court documents suggest.
Jeff Lytle, of Monroe, Washington, reportedly intended to text a man named Shayne.
Prosecutors say he'd hired the man to kill his wife and four-year-old daughter for their $1.5 million life insurance payout.
His wife has been identified on social media as Rhoda Mee Funtanilla Lydle.
Instead, the text message about the sinister plan was sent to his ex-boss, who brought the message to the police, leading to Lytle's arrest on Wednesday.
The text allegedly said: 'Hey Shayne hows it going. You remember you said that you would help me kill my wife. I'm going to take you up on that offer,' KIRO 7 reported.
Lytle, 42, allegedly promised to split the money 50/50 with Shayne, and told the man when his wife usually returns home from work at Wal-Mart , the documents suggest.
He allegedly planned for their deaths to be staged as an accident, or a 'robbery gone wrong'.
Instead, he sent the text message about the sinister plan to his ex-boss, who brought the message to the police, leading to Lytle's arrest on Wednesday
Lytle, 42, reportedly promised to share some of the money with Shayne, and told the man when his wife usually returns home from work
When interviewed by police, Lytle said that his four-year-old daughter might have sent the messages.
He then said that he was only sending them to 'vent', and did not intend to actually go through with the murderous plot.
Lytle has since been booked into Snohomish County jail and is being held under investigation for two counts of criminal solicitation of first-degree murder.
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Officials have been inspecting the nation's tallest dam since first light this morning in a desperate effort to stop a devastating 100-foot tsunami from being unleashed, as 200,000 people remain under evacuation orders across California despite water levels dropping over night.
Concerned authorities warned in the worst case scenario a complete structural breakdown at the emergency spillway of Oroville Dam would unleash a torrent of water that would engulf Oroville within an hour.
The ensuing flood from the 770-foot dam would catastrophically put the city of Oroville and several other low-lying communities along the Feather River under 100ft of water.
The potential disaster is the result of massive spikes in water levels as a result of snow and heavy rain after years of drought, and damage to the primary and emergency spillways at the dam. Officials first noticed a massive hole in the dam's spillway last week.
Donald Trump is yet to comment on the potential disaster.
And amid the frantic evacuations, it emerged overnight federal and state officials and some of California's largest water agencies rejected concerns 12 years ago about the precarious state the dam - which was built between 1962 and 1968.
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Officials say water falling over the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway has stopped as Oroville lake levels dropped low enough
Fight: This long exposure photograph shows the Oroville Dam discharging water at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second over a spillway as an emergency measure
This map shows the potential worst case scenario for what could happen if the waters are not controlled and the flood breaks through the dam. It would take about 12 hours for the water to reach Yuba City more than 40 miles away following the path of the Feather River
Precarious situation: An aerial of the Oroville Dam reveals the dangerous flooding at the spillway that has left the area in imminent danger of a catastrophic flood
A massive hole is causing major erosion around the Oroville Dam in California. The hole formed Tuesday and has continued to grow since then
Lake water flows over the emergency spillway, bottom left, at Lake Oroville for the first time in the nearly 50-year history of the dam on Saturday
THE DOOMSDAY SCENARIO: HOW FAR THE WATER WILL SPREAD IF OROVILLE DAM BREAKS There is no map showing exactly what will happen if the emergency spillway collapses tonight. Officials only have a map showing a failure of the dam. That worst case scenario is useful in that it shows where water goes and how fast it gets there. Water would get to the town of Oroville within an hour. If Oroville Dam were to suffer a massive breach, water would get to the town of Oroville within an hour, according to GIS maps maintained by CalFire. Within two hours, the small town of Briggs would be affected. In three hours, Gridley would be hit. Water would reach Live Oak in five hours.. It would take eight to 12 hours for the water to get to Marysville and Yuba City. If the dam completely failed, flood depths could reach more than 100 feet in Oroville and up to 10 feet in Yuba City. The CalFire maps represent a catastrophic breach and are not necessarily indicative of what could happen tonight. (According to the Sacramento Bee) Advertisement
The dangerous situation sparked the California National Guard to put out a notification to all 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy if needed.
The last time an alert for the entire California National Guard was issued was the 1992 riots.
And early on Monday morning, relieved officials said that water had stopped pouring over the dam's emergency spillway after they essentially rose 50-feet over a few days.
They announced that although not nearly out of the woods, the situation had improved.
However, another storm is predicted to hit the area by Friday, putting more strain on the dam and potentially sparking a catastrophic failure.
On Sunday afternoon, Lake Oroville - one of the state's largest man-made lakes - had water levels so high that an emergency spillway was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years.
The evacuation was ordered Sunday afternoon after engineers spotted a hole on the concrete lip of the secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.
'I'm just shocked,' said Greg Levias, who was evacuating with his wife, Kaysi, two boys and a dog.
What they couldn't fit in their trunk they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
Panicked and angry residents sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the evacuation order was given.
Raj Gill was managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and snacks while waiting for gridlocked traffic to clear.
His boss told him to close the station and flee himself, but he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
THE ANATOMY OF CATASTROPHE: WHAT HAS LED TO THE POTENTIAL DISASTER AT THE OROVILLE DAM One of the key factors in the threat is the rapid rate at which water levels have risen. After years of severe drought in the region, heavy rain and snow have sent levels skyrocketing. It is the first time that Lake Oroville, which lies 65 miles (105km) north of Sacramento, has been faced with such a potentially devastating emergency in the dam's nearly half-century history. The order for nearby residents to flee was issued after water levels climbed in the last week. The rise was compounded by the fact the dam's main spillway, also known as an overflow channel, was found to be damaged. As a result, the dam's emergency spillway was called upon and activated for the first time since it was built in 1968, as flood waters rose ever higher. But shocking, the secondary spillway was also found to be damaged. In a statement posted on social media on Sunday afternoon, Mr Honea ordered residents to evacuate, repeating three times that it was "NOT a drill". The California Department of Water Resources warned that the emergency spillway next to the dam was 'predicted to fail'. Advertisement
The water falling over the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway stopped as the lake level dropped on Sunday
The area under threat: About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville - one of California's largest man-made lakes - had water levels so high that an emergency spillway was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years
This is not a drill: Nearly 200,000 people fled the area after authorities issued an emergency evacuation order
GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN: WHERE THE 200,000 EVACUATED ARE FROM 39,000 from Butte Count 65,000 from Yuba County 76,000 from Yuba City 12,000 from Marysville County Advertisement
'You can't even move,' he said. 'I'm trying to get out of here too. I'm worried about the flooding. I've seen the pictures - that's a lot of water.'
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people were at an evacuation center in Chino, California. The shelter had run out of blankets and cots, and a semi-tractor trailer with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the gridlock of traffic fleeing the potential flooding, said Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch.
A California Highway Patrol spokesman said they would have two planes out Monday to help with traffic control as well as search and rescue.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris said at least 250 law enforcement officers from throughout the state are in the area or on their way to help with the evacuation.
Local Sikh leaders announced early on Monday morning they have thrown open temple doors across the area, and are offering food and shelter to all people who have been forced from their home.
Safe: Evacuees Jason and his wife Elizabeth Bourquin of Live Oak, settle in for the night with their son Dallas, 5, at the Neighborhood Church of Chico in Chico, California
Sikh Temples offering food and shelter ... open to ALL evacuated people #OrovilleDam #OrovilleSpillway ... Please share pic.twitter.com/4O5ZUhl1TH Shivpreet Singh (@shivpreetsingh) February 13, 2017
Comfort: Chris Arden (left) keep evacuee George Moody company in the main sanctuary of the Neighborhood Church of Chico in Chico
Breaking news: Colette Roberts and her daughter Lesilee watch video updating the of the Oroville dam evacuations
Escape: Angie Varrera walks across an empty parking lot after finding the grocery store she stopped at closed due to an evacuation order on Sunday
Checking the surrounding area: A Butte County Sheriff's vehicle patrols a shopping center that had been evacuated
Water from the nearby Feather River floods the Marysville Cemetery on Saturday in Marysville, California
Bill Croyle, acting Director of the California Department of Water Resources, speaks as Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea listens at a news conference about the situation at the Oroville Dam on Sunday
FROM DROUGHT TO DELUGE: THE DRASTIC CHANGES TO LAKE OROVILLE Dramatic pictures taken or Lake Oroville stand in stark contrast to the chaotic scenes witnessed over the weekend. Rather than seeing the rush of water bursting through overflow spillways, boats sat idle as most of the dam's sandy floor could be seen - due to it being just 25 per cent full in May 2015. Houseboats on the lake were forced to moor just meters apart as the aquatic real estate available for them to occupy continued to shrink. During the drought: A section of Lake Oroville is seen nearly dry on August 19, 2014 The impact of the drought was seen in 2014 and 2015, with the dam almost entirely dry during the lengthy spell Photographs taken from atop the rolling water made it almost impossible to see the water below. So much of it was gone, and it was unsure whether it would ever come back. At the time, statewide water restrictions were been ordered for the first time in history to combat the region's devastating drought. In April of 2015, California's Governor Jerry Brown ordered a 25 per cent cutback in water use by cities and towns. Dozens of houseboats had been forced to move closer together at the dam because there was simply not as much space for them to anchor as the drought continued Low water levels are visible in the Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on August 19, 2014 The crackdown came as the state moves toward a fourth summer of drought with no relief in sight. Brown's crackdown came after he asked residents in January 2014 to cut their water consumption by 20 per cent. Unfortunately, on half of all Californians managed to achieve that. But those dry days couldn't be further from the minds of locals now, as fears grow suburbs downstream could be covered in floodwaters if the dam breaks after heavy rainfall and snow in recent months. Advertisement
Late Sunday, officials said the evacuation orders remained in place despite the fact water was no longer spilling over the eroded area.
'There is still a lot of unknowns,' Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference.
'We need to continue to lower the lake levels and we need to give the Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the area.'
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
About 39,000 were from Butte, along with 65,000 from Yuba, 76,000 from Yuba City, and 12,000 from Marysville.
If the dam collapses, water would get into Oroville within an hour. Shortly thereafter, the nearby towns of Briggs, Gridley and Live Oak would be affected. It would take eight to 12 hours for water to reach the cities of Marysville and Yuba City
Experts estimated the dam would be breached at 4.45pm on Sunday, but dropping huge rocks into the 170-foot by 250-foot hole appears to have relieved the problem temporarily.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the lake levels have been lowered.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville.
Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees and flood towns in three counties.
Oroville Lake levels had decreased by Sunday night as they let water flow from its heavily damaged main spillway.
Croyle said the department will continue releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main spillway to try and reduce the dam's level by 50 feet ahead of storms forecast to reach the area Wednesday.
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More than 162,000 residents near Oroville Dam in Northern California evacuated the area on Sunday over fears America's tallest dam will collapse and flood
The Oroville Dam is expected to fail tonight, which could send an 'uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville' to nearby cities
Water from the Oroville Dam main spillway at Lake Oroville continued to flow on Sunday and has eroded the roadway just below the spillway that leads to the spillway boat ramp
The lake level fell below the lip of the dam's main spillway for the first time since Saturday
Releases through the dam's main, heavily damaged spillway increased to 100,000 cubic feet per second from 55,000 cubic feet per second on Sunday to try to drain Lake Oroville before a failure occurs
The auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam was expected to fail by 5:45pm local time on Sunday, which could have sent an 'uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville'. Water continues to gush down the dam's main spillway on Saturday
After years of drought Northern California has endured several months of exceptionally wet weather. Oroville and other lakes are brimming and have begun releasing water to make room for more runoff. An aerial photo released by the California Department of Water Resources shows the damaged spillway with eroded hillside in Oroville on Saturday
Releases through the dam's main, heavily damaged spillway have increased to 100,000 cubic feet per second from 55,000 cubic feet per second on Sunday to try to drain Lake Oroville before a failure occurs
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.
Honea said there was a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse. But Croyle said at that no repair work was done after officials looked at the flow and available resources.
Gov. Jerry Brown late Sunday issued an emergency order to fortify authorities' response to the emergency at the dam and help with evacuations.
Water flows over an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam at Lake Oroville in Oroville, California. Water will continue to flow over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for another day or so
An image from video provided by the office of Assemblyman Brian Dahle shows water flowing over the emergency spillway
Adjutant General David S. Baldwin of the California National Guard said at a news conference late Sunday that eight helicopters will be available Monday to assist with emergency spillway reconstruction.
Officials said the situation seemed less dire overnight but Sacramento television station KCRA reported that helicopters from around the state were sent to drop chest-high bags of rocks to close the hole in the spillway.
The NBC affiliate showed dump trucks dropping off piles of rock, which were then loaded into the bags with backhoes. The operation to close the gap would begin as soon as it was feasible, the station said.
Water from the Cosumnes and Mokelumne rivers floods a house and barn north of Twin Cities Road east of Interstate 5 on Saturday in Elk Grove, California
Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 in Oroville, California
Officials said the critical flood-control structure is at 90 per cent of its capacity. But the dam is still safe and so are Oroville's 16,000 residents
Located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Oroville Lake is one of the largest man-made lakes in California and 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest
There's now a threat that the spillway won't be able to release enough water to keep up with the amount flowing into the lake
Water flows through break in the wall of the Oroville Dam spillway on Thursday. The torrent chewed up trees and soil alongside the concrete spillway before rejoining the main channel below
Robert Xie's long-running murder trial has torn a family in half, as his wife stands by the murderer - leading her parents to turn their backs on her.
His wife Kathy Lee said Xie, 53, was a 'loving and caring family man' and insisted he was innocent after he was sentenced at the NSW Supreme Court on Monday.
In contrast, her parents sobbed after the man who murdered their son, grandchildren and family was finally put behind bars for the rest of his life.
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Robert Xie, 53, is pictured being escorted to a prison van at the NSW Supreme Court on Monday
Xie's wife Kathy Lin continues to support him and believes he is innocent
Grandparents and parents of the victims, Feng Qing Zhu and Yang Fei Lin leave the NSW Supreme Court on Monday after his sentence was handed down
Xie, 53, will die in prison after Justice Elizabeth Fullerton handed him five consecutive life sentences for bludgeoning his relatives with a hammer-like object in the early hours of the morning in July, 2009.
His newsagent brother-in-law Min Lin, 45, wife Lily, 43, the couple's sons Henry, 12, and Terry, 9, and Lily's 39-year-old sister Irene all suffered horrific head injuries when they were attacked in their North Epping home in Sydney.
Ms Lee told reporters Xie was innocent on Monday, after he was put away for life.
'He is a loving and caring family man,' she said outside court.
'He is a good husband.'
Xie is pictured on Monday being led away from the NSW Supreme Court in handcuffs
Feng Qing Zhu appeared emotional and upset when she arrived at court on Monday
Xie was found guilty by a jury last month.
At the time, Mr Lin's parents wept in relief after the guilty verdict was read.
'We are happy,' they told reporters while clutching framed photos of their lost loved ones.
Mr Lin's parents, Yang Fei Lin and Feng Qin Zhu, the grandparents of Henry and Terry, had sat beside prosecutors.
Ms Lee, on the other hand, sat near the dock where Xie sat.
Feng Qing Zhu (right) and Yang Fei Lin (left) have turned against their daughter Ms Lee because she continues to support her murderous husband
Feng Qing Zhu, the grandmother and mother of victims, holds a family portrait as she leaves court on Monday
The grandmother and mother of the victims sobs outside court after her son-in-law was jailed for life
After the guilty verdict was read, Xie protested he was innocent.
'I did not murder the Lin family, I am innocent.'
Speaking exclusively to Daily Telegraph at the time, Ms Lee said the trial had 'destroyed' her family.
'I know who my husband is and I know he had a good relationship with my parents, my brother and my brother's children he loved them so much,' she said.
Her parents have turned against her for supporting Xie, Daily Telegraph reported last month.
Xie's wife Kathy Lin (right), is pictured arriving at court for his sentencing
Xie, 53, is pictured on Monday when he was handed five life sentences
She has visited him in prison almost every week he has been behind bars for the past four-and-a-half-years.
Now, it will be for the rest of their lives after Justice Fullerton sentenced him on Monday.
Justice Fullerton said the 'brutal and calculated, murderous violence is a course of offending that can only be described as heinous in the extreme'.
The court heard he had cut a spare key entrusted to his wife and used it to gain entry to the North Epping home.
He turned off the power box to enter the house by stealth and ensure he had control over his victims, the court heard.
Murdered: Xie's Chinese-born brother-in-law Norman Lin and Lin's wife Lily (both pictured) were killed
The Lin family home in North Epping, Sydney, where the family was murdered in July 2009
Xie murdered his nephews Henry, 12, and Terry, 9, in July 2009. The youngest, Terry, put up a fight
Justice Fullerton accepted the murders of, at least the parents, were 'meticulously' planned and pre-meditated.
Xie had gone from one bedroom to another, first killing the parents, then killing Lilly's sister Irene, and then the children.
Justice Fullerton said the children were most likely conscious when they were murdered -- woken by either Xie's presence in the house, the murder of their parents or their aunt.
The youngest boy, Terry, gave up a fight, the court heard.
The bedrooms were 'awash with shed blood', an 'immediate and graphic indication to police of the severity of the murderous assault from which each had died', Justice Fullerton told the court on Monday.
Justice Elizabeth Fullerton said the 'brutal and calculated, murderous violence is a course of offending that can only be described as heinous in the extreme'
Blood splatter is pictured in the North Epping home in Sydney in July 2009
The bedrooms were 'awash with shed blood', an 'immediate and graphic indication to police of the severity of the murderous assault from which each had died', Justice Fullerton told the court on Monday
A blood smear is pictured on a door knob at the family home in Sydney
A footprint in blood is pictured in the Lin family home in North Epping
The Crown gave evidence Xie had sedated his wife to ensure she did not wake when he snuck out of home. Justice Fullerton said the Crown evidence did not prove this was true beyond reasonable doubt, and said Xie's wife Kathy Lee may have simply not woken up.
The Crown contended Xie was fuelled by resentment and humiliation at his perceived 'inferior' status in the extended family, as well as having a sexual motive which can't be published for legal reasons.
Prosecutor Tanya Smith submitted the only appropriate sentence is five life terms, saying the killings constituted criminality of the highest order.
She said the case involved 'a trusted relative slaying the family ... in the most brutal, callous and calculated fashion'.
Xie was born in China, where he was qualified as an ear, nose and throat specialist. He moved to Australia in 1999 and ran a restaurant in Melbourne, but has not been employed since moving to NSW.
Xie also murdered Lilly's sister, 39-year-old Yun Bin (Irene) Yin
A wedding picture of murdered couple Min Lin and Yun Li (Lilly) Lin
TIMELINE OF THE MURDERS July 17, 2009 - Members of the extended Lin family get together for their regular Friday night dinner at the home of grandparents Yang Fei Lin and Feng Qin Zhu July 18, 2009 - The battered bodies of newsagent Min Lin, 45; his wife Lily Lin, 43; their sons Henry 12, and Terry, nine; and Lily's sister Irene, 39, are found in their North Epping home July 29, 2009 - Min's sister Kathy Lin and her husband Robert Xie make an emotional plea for public help in solving the crimes May 5, 2011 - Robert Xie is charged with the murders December 19, 2012 - Xie committed to stand trial May 9, 2014 - NSW Supreme Court trial starts before Justice Peter Johnson June 10, 2014 - Jury discharged for legal reasons August 5, 2014 - Second trial starts September 23, 2014 - Jury discharged because of ill-health of Justice Johnson February, 2015 - Third trial starts before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton November 12, 2015 - Jury begins deliberations December 1, 2015 - Jury discharged after failing to reach verdict December 11, 2015 - Xie released from prison on bail after spending almost five years behind bars without a conviction June 29, 2016 - Fourth trial starts before Justice Fullerton Dec 23, 2016 - Xie's bail revoked before imminent retirement of the jury Dec 30, 2016 - Jury begins deliberations Jan 12, 2017 - Xie found guilty of murdering five members of the Lin family Feb 13, 2017 - Justice Fullerton imposes five life sentences on Xie Advertisement
The grandmother of the murdered boys and mother of murdered man Min Lin, 45, is pictured at the funeral
An administrator of a private Facebook group was arrested and charged with providing alcohol to at least 150 minors at a Washington house party where they also smoked marijuana on Friday, police say.
Jahmil Watkins posted details of the party in an unincorporated area outside of Stanwood, Washington, on the Facebook page of Elite Projects, self-described as 'the premier socializing network in the Pacific Northwest'.
Elite Projects boasts 33,000 members on its Facebook page.
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Jahmil Watkins (pictured), an administrator of the private Facebook group Elite Projects, was arrested and charged with providing alcohol to at least 150 minors at a house party in an unincorporated area outside of Stanwood, Washington
According to the post, the party was supposed to last 48 hours at a private residence on 10 acres near the 28000 block of 28 Ave NW, in Snohomish County.
Group members were told to bring their own drinks and drugs and that 'cops cant legally come onto the property without a warrant'.
'He posted it and the whole world could see that this party was occurring and kids traveled from out of the region to be there', Lieutenant Keith Rogers with the Snohomish County Sheriffs Office told Q13 News.
'There was alcohol and marijuana being consumed at this party'.
Snohomish County deputies responded to the property and found 150 to 200 minors drinking, several fights and continued reports that one of the partygoers was not breathing inside the residence.
According to the post, people were supposed to bring their own alcohol and drugs to the party
The party was supposed to last 48 hours at this private residence
Several adults attempted to prevent cops from entering the house and were later arrested, Rogers said
'He posted it and the whole world could see that this party was occurring and kids traveled from out of the region to be there', he said.
'There was alcohol and marijuana being consumed at this party'.
'This got out of hand. I believe that the people involved wanted it to get out of hand', Rogers said.
Social media is being blamed for the raucous.
The homeowner where the party took place, who wished to remain anonymous, blamed Facebook for the party getting out of hand.
'You can send one message to multiple people at the same time', he said.
'Everybodys got 300, 400, 500 friends and it goes viral in hours'.
The homeowner where the party took place said he was in the house when police arrived
He said he knew his son had thrown the party, but didn't know teens would be smoking or drinking on his property and that his home address would be shared on social media
Besides Watkins, three other adults and a minor were arrested. In Washington, this charge carries up to $5,000 dollars in fines and up to a year in jail
His son had thrown the party and he was in the house when the incident occurred.
But he said he didn't know teens would be smoking or drinking on his property and that his home address would be shared on social media.
'If they didnt do it here, they would do it somewhere else', he said.
'Theyre going to do it. They are going to do it somewhere.
'I didnt want any part of it, so I just went into my room and shut the door'.
He said he's worried that he could face charges.
Besides Watkins, three other adults and a minor were arrested.
They could be facing charges for providing a location for underage drinking to occur, Rogers said.
In Washington, this charge carries up to $5,000 dollars in fines and up to a year in jail.
Despite rumors on social media, no fatalities were reported, he confirmed.
Australians are fleeing areas where Islamic migrants live in a bid to protect their daughters, a One Nation senator says.
Malcolm Roberts made the claim during a parliamentary debate in Canberra about a plan to refuse or cancel visas for foreigners who commit crimes in Australia or pose a safety threat.
'We the people are seeking to protect our children, our daughters, our property, our liberty,' the Queensland senator told parliament on Monday.
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One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts says Australians are fleeing Muslim areas
The Queensland senator (pictured) said Australians wanted to protect their daughters
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has maintained Islam is an ideology not a religion
'How can we expect people wedded to an ideology masquerading as a religion that specifically precludes assimilation, to assimilate and integrate? We can't.'
Pauline Hanson's One Nation colleague said Australians were now fleeing areas of heavy migrant settlement, especially where Muslims lived.
'Self-segregation has become a reality,' he said, adding immigrants should be chosen from cultural groups that assimilate.
Pauline Hanson (left) and Malcolm Roberts (right) want to curb Muslim migration
Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie says Sharia law supporters should be banned from Australia
Fellow crossbencher senator Jacqui Lambie called for Australia to copy Donald Trump and ban anyone who supports Sharia law from entering Australia.
'Sharia law is an anti-democratic cancer that doesn't belong in a free society,' the Tasmanian told parliament.
'If they support Sharia law and want it in Australia, don't let them in.
'They are obviously supporters of the terrorists, their law and their culture.'
Parliament passed legislation on Monday morning to tighten visa rules for foreigners.
Australian law bans female genital mutilation, which is prevalent in some Muslim nations, but lawmakers are exploring ways of stopping the arranged marriages of underage girls.
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A tiny community in central western NSW was 'completely burned to the ground' by a wild bushfire that swept through the town on Sunday, as firefighters continue to battle blazes across the state.
Uarbry, about 120km west of Dubbo, only has 12 buildings, most of which were destroyed by a blaze the Rural Fire Service has called Sir Ivan.
Distraught residents told ABC News nine of the 12 homes were obliterated. The Uarbry Anglican Church was also pictured a smouldering ruin.
'Uarbry is gone. Completely burned to the ground from reports. Losses of homes, pets and all,' Madeline Best told The Daily Telegraph.
Uarbry, a tiny community in central western NSW was 'completely burned to the ground' by a bushfire on Sunday. Pictured, an Uarbry farmer watches the blaze from a distance
Distraught farmers watched as a ferocious blaze rip through the town of Uarbry on Sunday
The Uarbry Anglican Church (pictured) was completely destroyed by the devastating fire
A family left a sign in front of their Uarbry property to indicate to authorities they have evacuated their home safely
A huge plume of smoke is seen from just outside the tiny town as the fire rages
Uarbry resident Ray Boundy, 63, safely evacuated on Sunday but returned the following day to find his home completely destroyed.
'I can whinge and b**** about it, but it's not going to change a bloody thing,' Mr Boundy told The Age on Monday.
'I just thought, ''I'm alive''. I have got my ute, I've got some clothes and I'm insured, so hope for the best. You have to deal with it and this is how I'm dealing with it.'
A local Rural Fire Service captain who had been out fighting the flames later returned to his Uarbry home to find it burned to the ground.
Another volunteer helping battle a bushfire near Dondingalong, north of Port Macquarie, also lost her property.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the town, which is near Dunedoo, had been 'heavily impacted' by fire.
'I would suggest most buildings in the community of Uarbry are damaged and/or destroyed,' he told reporters on Monday.
Peter Gilmour, who took this photo, wrote: 'In the arvo from the beer garden, bottom pub Coolah
'Uarbry is gone. Completely burned to the ground from reports. Losses of homes, pets and all,' Madeline Best
A man takes a photo of the Sir Ivan Fire from his car. A local Rural Fire Service captain who had been out fighting the flames later returned to his Uarbry home to find it burned to the ground
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the town, which is near Dunedoo, had been 'heavily impacted' by fire
The devastating fire continued to rage well into Sunday night, destroying everything in its path
It could take weeks of 'dangerous work' before firefighters are able to extinguish the 86 blazes burning across the state.
More than 2,000 firefighters have spent the past two days battling dozens of fires in what has been described the worst bushfire conditions on record, but it could take days and even weeks before the remaining blazes are declared safe, Mr Fitzsimmons told 9News.
Although weather conditions cooled off and improved overnight, Commissioner Fitzsimmons said the size and intensity of the two largest blazes - Sir Ivans and another fire just north of Mudgee - will keep hundreds of firefighters busy throughout Monday.
'We still have 86 fires across NSW - 25 of those remain uncontained. The two at Watch and Act alert levels are the fire near Dunedoo and the one out near Mudgee,' Commissioner Fitzsimmons said.
'Give you some perspective, that Dunedoo fire, it has an edge around that fire of about 200km of active fire edge. That's the magnitude of operation we are talking about today and over the coming days.'
A volunteer helping battle a bushfire near Dondingalong, north of Port Macquarie, also lost her property
What is left of an Uarbry property is pictured on Monday morning
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said: 'I would suggest most buildings in the community of Uarbry are damaged and/or destroyed'
The Uarbry Anglican Church is pictured left before it was destroyed on Sunday (right)
It could take weeks before firefighters are able to extinguish 73 blazes - 26 of which are uncontained - burning across New South Wales as of on Monday morning (pictured)
More than 2,000 firefighters have spent the past two days battling dozens of fires across the state in what has been described the worst bushfire conditions on record
Although weather conditions have cooled off and improved overnight, Commissioner Fitzsimmons said the size and intensity of the two largest blazes - Sir Ivans Fire near Dunedoo and a fire just north of Mudgee - will keep firefighters busy
'Clearly, the weather is going to be of some benefit but there is a lot of very dirty, difficult and dangerous work ahead for firefighters before we can come close to getting these fires under control,' he said.
Commissioner Fitzsimmons said assessment teams will work on Monday to evaluate the number of homes, buildings and farms that have been lost.
It has been reported dozens of properties have been destroyed, as well as livestock and agricultural assets.
The Sir Ivans Fire, which also obliterated homes in Cassilis, has destroyed almost 50,000 hectares of land, according to the RFS.
No one has been severely injured.
The NSW Rural Fire Service has warned fire danger is still 'very high' in the North Western and Greater Hunter and a total fire ban has been put in place.
Firefighters battling bushfires in Muogamarra (pictured) to defend hundreds of properties under threat across NSW
'For the rest of the state, we are looking at high to low on Monday. Conditions will certainly ease,' a spokesman said.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Neil Fraser said there's the potential for damaging winds 'but the good news is it should be all easing off by the early hours of Monday'.
Despite fire dangers remaining in place in some areas, Mr Fraser said no part of the state would face severe, extreme or catastrophic conditions.
'The ratings are dropping right away with the cooler air coming across,' Mr Fraser said. 'The only part of the state still in the 30s is the northern inland areas.'
Hundreds of fire crews rush to save properties near Cassilis, Mudgee and Wauchope for much of Sunday
Out-of-control bushfires burned through the night across NSW as firefighters worked desperately to contain the blazes
Fire in Dunedoo left properties under threat, as hundreds of residents were forced to flee from their rural properties
Cassillis resident Stella Cornish, 79, said the fire was the worst she has seen - as she revealed she has lived in the town for most of her life with her husband Doug, 86.
'By god, this morning all hell broke loose. I said to one of the firey guys that we have never seen it this bad,' she told Fairfax Media.
Residents in affected areas were told it was too late to leave as they were urged to seek shelter on Sunday afternoon.
'This is the worst day we've seen in the history of NSW when it comes to fire danger ratings and fire danger conditions,' Commissioner Fitzsimmons said at the time.
The Baptist Church at Aberdare, Cessnock in the Lower Hunter Region of NSW was reportedly destroyed by the fire just five minutes after an evening service finished
Homeowner Warren Jarvis (pictured) spoke of his heartbreak after losing his property and farm animals to the ferocious bushfire in the township of Cassilis in central west NSW
A massive blaze has ripped through the township of Cassilis in the central west of New South Wales on Sunday
More than 2,000 firefighters are battling more than 80 blazes across NSW, including Cassilis and surrounding area
Residents of Uarbry, Turill and Cassilis have been urged to seek shelter with the emergency crew warning it is too late to leave
On Sunday, dozens of properties were threatened near Dunedoo where the blaze stretched over tens of kilometres, Mr Fitzsimmons said, and there may have been one home lost in Boggabri.
'At this stage, we have got some unconfirmed reports of homes being lost, sheds being lost and machinery being lost, and other agricultural assets being lost on some of these fire grounds,' Mr Fitzsimmons said.
'It's extremely volatile, we see increased wind strengths, we see very erratic and dangerous fire behaviour, we see spotting activity going in all sorts of directions.'
One firefighter was taken to hospital with burns and others sustained minor injuries, deputy RFS commissioner Rob Rogers told the ABC on Sunday night. A resident was flown to a Sydney hospital for treatment after suffering serious burns fighting fire at Boggabri, near Narrabri in north western NSW.
The Baptist Church at Aberdare, Cessnock in the Lower Hunter Region of NSW was reportedly destroyed by the fire just five minutes after an evening service finished. No one was reported injured.
Meanwhile, two people have been charged for lighting fires at Mango Creek on central coast and Orange in central west. A third person, a 32-year-old man, was arrested on Sunday afternoon after two fires were deliberately lit at Nabiac on the North Coast. He is being questioned by police.
Firefighters are battling to contain more than 80 blazes across New South Wales, with red indicating catastrophic fire danger
The highest-level catastrophic fire danger was declared across vast areas of the state (pictured) for Sunday after temperatures rocketed to 47C on Saturday
Thick plume of smoke hover above the township of Cassilis in the central west of NSW for much of Sunday
A ferocious fire has ripped through the township of Cassilis and surrounding areas in central west of New South Wales
The Rural Fire Service has warned an incoming southerly wind change will present significant dangers to firefighters
A fire burning in Leadville, near Dubbo, on Saturday afternoon
The Leadville fire is one of at least 53 burning during Saturday, with worse to come on Sunday
The New South Wales Rural Fire Service posted this picture from Wimbledon Road, Georges Plains
Semi Radradra's former partner has told a court the NRL star punched her in the face during an argument, then afterwards confessed to their pastor 'I used my hands on her.'
A tearful Perina Ting told the Parramatta Local Court on Monday Radradra punched her and also pushed her against a wall, knocking her unconscious, in two separate assaults in 2014 and 2015.
She said Radradra punched her at their western Sydney unit in November 2014 after she smashed his phone against the wall during an argument.
'I was shocked,' said Ms Ting, who began seeing Radradra in Fiji in 2012.
Semi Radradra's (pictured) former partner Perina Ting told the Parramatta Local Court on Monday the NRL star punched her in the face during an argument in 2014
Ms Ting (pictured) testified Radradra punched her on the cheek at their Telopea unit in western Sydney after an argument about her mother being unable to visit from Fiji
'I could see the stars.'
She said she locked herself in the toilet, crying, and Radradra rang his pastor and asked him to come over.
When the pastor arrived the rugby league player confessed to the assault, saying in Fijian 'I used my hands on her,' Ms Ting said.
After speaking with the couple the pastor advised, 'this is your family you should love them' and read some bible verse, she told the court.
Ms Ting said Radradra pushed her against a wall at their home in April 2015 after an argument about his sister bullying her on Facebook.
'I didn't know what was happening until I woke up after a couple of minutes then I realised he was standing over me with a cup of water,' she said.
Afterwards Radradra cried and apologised and promised not to do it again, she said.
She said she didn't report the assaults until June 2016 because she was 'in fear.'
She also accused Radradra of failing to pay her $300 a week that he'd agreed to following their separation.
Ms Ting (pictured) said she locked herself in the toilet and heard Radradra call their pastor and ask him to come over
Ms Ting told the court Radradra (pictured) told the pastor in Fijian that: 'I used my hands on her'
Ms Ting paused often and wiped her eyes with a tissue during her evidence, watched on by a silent Radradra.
The Parramatta Eels player has pleaded not guilty to two counts of common assault.
A third allegation that he kicked Ms Ting in the stomach when she was pregnant has been dropped.
Under cross examination by Radradra's barrister Murugan Thangaraj SC Ms Ting admitted to sending the NRL star a series of abusive text messages accusing him of lying and cheating after they split up.
'God is going to pay you for your deeds!! Stop praying about us, just pray for yourself, liar, cheater, womaniser' she texted Radradra in May 2016.
Ms Ting agreed Radradra had never sworn at her or threatened her in his text messages to her, and that he'd sent money to her family in Fiji.
The hearing continues.
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Firefighters in Oklahoma City worked to contain a massive grass fire which saw hundreds of acres burned over the weekend.
Approximately 900 acres burned in the Sunday blaze, according to KOCO.
The Oklahoma City Fire Department said in a news release: 'The fire began near SE. 134th and Midwest Blvd. and spread quickly to the south.
'After jumping a creek in the middle of the mile section, the fire quickly continued south and eventually crossed SE. 149th St.
Scroll down for video
Firefighters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, worked to contain a massive grass fire over the weekend
The Oklahoma City Fire Department said: 'Two mobile homes received partial fire damage, one RV burned, and two outbuildings were lost. There were no reports of injuries to civilians or firefighters'
Approximately 900 acres burned in the Sunday blaze in Oklahoma, it's been reported
The Oklahoma City Fire Department tweeted this photo on Sunday, writing: 'Bambi bucket helping to gain control over this massive grass fire'
'The strong winds continued to drive the fire still further south, bringing it very close to SE. 164th St.
'Numerous homes were in danger along Air Depot Blvd. between SE. 149th and SE. 164th, but firefighters worked quickly to position resources around those homes for protection.'
According to the fire department, 'Crews made a final stand in the area of SE. 164th and Air Depot Blvd.
Flames are pictured burning brightly, with smoke trailing across the road in this shot of the grass fire
A hot spot is pictured in this grab taken from video, with orange flames visible
The fire department also posted this image showing smoke, and tweeted: 'Fire has jumped 149th St. One home may be on fire on Air Depot'
This photo was tweeted by the fire department, which wrote: 'TAC 3: Crews working large grass fire near SE 149th / Air Depot. Nearly 600 acres have burned. No structures!'
'The fire was still trying to cross SE. 164th on the southern boundary of the fire, and it was very close to crossing Air Depot on the Western side of the fire in this area.
'The fire was not able to cross SE. 164th, but it did cross Air Depot Blvd.
'Ultimately, the forward progress of the fire was stopped.'
The Oklahoma City Fire Department said: 'The heavy black smoke on the S.E. corner of the 164th Street fire is a 5th wheel trailer on fire'
This grab is taken from video posted on Twitter and captioned: 'OKCFD brush pumper 2 heading back into the 164th Street fire'
The fire department said that about 200 firefighters from almost 12 fire departments responded.
The Oklahoma City Fire Department said: 'Two mobile homes received partial fire damage, one RV burned, and two outbuildings were lost.
'There were no reports of injuries to civilians or firefighters.'
People who'd been evacuated are now able to go back to their homes.
A helicopter is pictured flying overhead in this grab taken from video, which the fire department said shows a bucket drop on 149th
'They will, however, need to check in through law enforcement who still have the area secured,' the release said.
'Those returning should be prepared to show ID to re-enter the area.'
The Oklahoma City Fire Department warned: 'While the forward progress of the fire was stopped, there is still a great deal of fire within the burned area that firefighters must extinguish.'
It's not known what started the blaze, the fire department said.
Three people, including a former volunteer firefighter and a teenage boy, have faced court charged with deliberately lighting fires in separate incidents during the extreme heatwave conditions in NSW.
Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons has slammed the alleged fire bugs - males aged 13, 32 and 40 - for the 'heinous crimes'.
Police say fires were deliberately lit at Mango Creek on the Central Coast on Sunday, at Orange on Saturday and at Nabiac on the mid north coast on Friday.
Ricky Kenneth Ballard-Lestrange, 32, faced court accused of lighting multiple bushfires in Nabiac on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales while two children waited in the car
Ricky Kenneth Ballard-Lestrange faced court in Taree on Monday charged with two counts of intentionally causing fire and being reckless to its spread in relation to the Nabiac fires.
The 32-year-old is a former Rural Fire Service volunteer and had two children aged under 10 with him at the time he allegedly lit the fires, the Newcastle Herald reports.
Ballard-Lestrange entered a plea of not guilty on Monday and was remanded in custody to reappear in the same Taree court next week.
He was arrested on Sunday afternoon after two fires were deliberately lit at Nabiac and police acted on information from witnesses who said a white van was seen near the fires.
Emergency crews extinguished the fires and no buildings were damaged.
Separately a 13-year-old boy was due to face a children's court on Monday accused of starting a fire in Orange.
Police say a witness told them they saw the teenager, who was with a group of friends, light a grass patch in an industrial area of Orange on Saturday evening.
The 32-year-old is a former Rural Fire Service volunteer and had two children aged under 10 with him at the time he allegedly lit the fires, the Newcastle Herald reports.
Emergency crews extinguished the fires and no buildings were damaged, just vegetation
The group fled, but the boy was later charged at Orange police station with destroying property, setting fire to the property of another and failing to comply with direction of the minister.
The fire was extinguished after it damaged 100 already-wrecked motor vehicles.
A 40-year-old man was arrested on Sunday on the Central Coast after fire crews were called to a blaze in Mango Creek.
The man was charged with setting fire to land during a total fire ban, intentionally causing a fire and being reckless as to its spread.
Wayne Brown lay dying on the floor of his parent's house, bleeding from a single stab wound to his chest.
His stunned family stood nearby watching as medics tried in vain to save his life, but when police asked what had happened, they kept their mouths shut.
In a last-ditch attempt to catch the killer, officers turned to Wayne. 'Who stabbed you?,' they asked. 'My f***ing brother,' he replied, dying moments later.
Wayne Brown, 38 (pictured), was stabbed to death by 33-year-old brother Shane during a heated family argument in June last year
On Monday Shane Brown, 33, admitted attacking his 38-year-old brother during the heat of a family argument in June last year.
Brown said his older brother was abusive towards the family and 'had to be stopped', according to a Victoria Police summary published by The Age.
On the night in question, Wayne was at his parents' house in Cranbourne, Victoria, along with his partner and their daughter, police said.
Wayne, who had a history of family violence, became abusive toward his partner at which point his father stepped in an attempted to stop him.
But the intervention had no effect, and Wayne continued to abuse all members of the family for up to an hour, police said.
Brown said he was in his room when he heard his brother calling the family 'scum', so came out to confront him.
Brown, his father, mother, and Wayne's partner all asked him to leave the house, but he refused. At one point they tried to call police, but he slammed the phone down.
Melbourne Magistrate's Court heard that, as Wayne lay dying, police asked him who the attacker was, and he replied: 'My f***ing brother'
Things reached a head when Wayne's daughter intervened, thinking he had hit her mother.
Wayne then turned his tirade of abuse at her, sending her running to a bedroom while shaking with fear, police said.
It was at that point that Brown grabbed a knife, plunged it into his brother's chest, hurled the weapon into a closet and fled the scene.
He handed himself over to police the following day, saying he regretted stabbing his brother, but adding: 'No one was ever gunna get him out of the house and I just done what I done.'
Brown was initially charged with murder, but agreed to plead guilty after it was replaced with the lesser charge of manslaughter.
A number of family members attended Melbourne Magistrates' Court in order to support him.
The court earlier heard Brown was undergoing withdrawal from cannabis and alcohol and suffering from depression.
A young woman in the gallery appeared distressed and tearful, comforted by loved ones, as Brown was taken back into custody.
Brown yelled out to the gallery 'look after her' as he was removed from the court before shouting out a greeting to his 'old man'.
He has been remanded in custody to appear on Tuesday in the Supreme Court, ahead of his sentencing.
A man living in supportive housing for homeless military veterans was killed by a snowplow on VA property Sunday night.
The victim, 60, was walking through the parking lot of the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts shortly before 6pm.
Snow was falling heavily in the commuter suburb 15 miles northwest of Boston, with the area under a winter storm warning.
A snowplow in the hospital parking lot backed into the man, cops believe, and the plow operator immediately called 911.
Investigators in the parking lot of Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts Sunday night. A snow plow can be seen parked behind the police cordon
Police and fire rescue crews responded and found the man in traumatic arrest.
The VA hospital itself has no emergency room, so ambulances were dispatched to the scene.
The military vet was transported to Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington, a roughly six-mile drive.
Doctors there pronounced him dead.
The Edith Nourse Rogers VA Hospital is shown in this file photo.Investigators believe the victim was a resident of a supportive housing facility for homeless vets on the hospital grounds
Investigators believe the victim was a resident of the Bedford Green supportive housing facility on the grounds of the VA Hospital.
The development houses over 50 military veterans who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness.
Authorities had not identified the victim late Sunday, pending notification of his family.
A teenage girl who committed suicide after being bullied and gang raped by students at her Melbourne school drafted a powerful warning letter to her peers just days before her death.
In the letter, which was published by 9 News with her mother's permission, Cassidy Trevan, 15, said it was her duty to make her schoolmates aware she had been raped and relentlessly bullied.
'My name is Cassidy Trevan, and I was raped,' the letter said.
'If anyone every tries this on you trust me it's worth fighting! Fight! If you don't you'll regret it for the rest of your life like I do. You can do it.
'Be careful. Be warned. Be safe.'
Cassidy Trevan penned a powerful warning letter to her schoolmates before her suicide
Cassidy drafted the letter to warn students what happened to her could happen to them
Cassidy was the target of severe bulling by a group of girls at her high school and raped by two teenage boys after being led to a house in Springvale in February 2014.
The event caused Cassidy to suffer 'nightmares, insomnia, separation anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD and subsequent worsening mental illness,' her mother Linda Trevan told 9 News.
After two years of suffering, Cassidy committed suicide aged 15.
The unfinished letter, which is being published by Daily Mail Australia, also with her mother's permission, was being written with the help of her boyfriend Luke,
It was found on Cassidy's laptop.
'WARNING TO ALL STUDENTS' I was a student at (school name omitted) and I was raped by some of the students who still attend that school. I know this already probably sounds like attention-seeking but it's honestly far from it. I have many reasons for doing this which I'll also explain. My aim is to warn other people (students mostly but also parents) about what happened because I'm worried if they could do it to me they could do it to other kids like me, or at least try to. You actually have the power to stop this from happening. Remember the people who did this to me were school students at (omitted), it's hard to believe, I know. But it's true. I'm not doing this for revenge to those students that raped me, set up the rape, bullied me about the rape, teased me about the rape or anything like that. I'm also not doing this for attention seeking like I mentioned earlier, I want to make that clear. I'm doing this because over 1500 students years 7-12 are currently enrolled at the school and they need to be warned. I feel because of what happened to me, and because the staff at the school did nothing to help me (which I'll talk a bit more about later). It's now my duty to warn you all and to make you aware of what happened. (Not just what you may have heard around school but what actually happened.) But I'm also doing this for myself. I want to finally after 1 and years be left alone. It's surprising just how many students at (omitted) have heard stories of me and weirdly enough still get told stories of me to this day. I still continue to get students I've never met contacting me Facebook calling me a slut. I've moved schools, I've moved house and still I'm being contacted and bullied. I can't stop people from spreading rumours, but at least I could try and spread what really happened seeing as it's still being talked about anyway. But as I said this honestly is more so for students who are unaware of this and are in danger of those students. My name is Cassidy Trevan, and I was raped. If anyone every tries this on you trust me it's worth fighting! Fight! If you don't you'll regret it for the rest of your life like I do. You can do it. Be careful. Be warned. Be safe. - Cassidy Trevan's warning letter to students at her school Advertisement
'I was a student at (school name omitted) and I was raped by some of the students who still attend that school,' the letter said.
'I know this already probably sounds like attention-seeking but it's honestly far from it.
'My aim is to warn other people (students mostly but also parents) about what happened because I'm worried if they could do it to me they could do it to other kids like me, or at least try to.'
Cassidy made it clear she was not writing the letter for attention, but 'because over 1500 students years 7-12 are currently enrolled at the school and they need to be warned'.
'I'm not doing this for revenge to those students that raped me, set up the rape, bullied me about the rape, teased me about the rape or anything like that,' the letter said.
Cassidy also said she finally wanted to be left alone.
Cassidy's mother was last week flooded with support after speaking out about her daughter's suicide.
'I wish she could have seen this beautiful caring supportive side of humanity instead of experiencing all the abuse that was inflicted upon her for no reason other than jealousy,' Ms Trevan posted online.
Linda Trevan opened up on how her teenage daughter Cassidy (pictured together) took her own life after relentless bullying and a horrific gang rape by her tormentors
Ms Trevan wished Cassidy 'could have seen this beautiful caring supportive side of humanity instead of experiencing all the abuse that was inflicted upon her'
Thousands of people around the globe were touched by Cassidy's horrific story, where the group of girls would slap her on the face, leave banana peels at the front door of their family home and regularly abuse her on social media.
The young girl was forced to miss out on her fourth term of Year 7 due to the extent of the bullying.
Cassidy finally returned to school two days a week - where she was met with an apology from the girls, who asked her to be their friend and invited her to a festival.
But instead of going to the festival, the very same girls led her to a nearby house where she was subjected to a horrific gang rape that savaged her innocence.
'They were older boys that Cass didn't know. Two girls who sat and waited. Two boys who shared her and timed each other. One boy stood guarding the front door,' Ms Trevan told 9 News.
'Cass was scared to make a formal statement for fear of retaliation from the gang, and she also was worried reliving it would 'push her over the edge.'
After making a recovery and returning to school, the bullying girls apologised to her and asked to be her friend. They asked her to go to a festival, but instead of taking her there she was led to a house where two older boys raped her, her mother claimed
The event caused Cassidy to suffer 'nightmares, insomnia, separation anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD and subsequent worsening mental illness,' Ms Trevan said. After two years of suffering, Cassidy committed suicide aged 15
Linda Trevan opened up on how her teenage daughter Cassidy (pictured together) took her own life after relentless bullying and a horrific gang rape by her tormentors
In a heartbreaking open post on Facebook, Ms Trevan said she spent the next two years 'desperately doing everything' she could to keep Cassidy alive.
'I had to watch my baby suffer for the next 22 months from these demons,' she wrote online.
'She worried you would find her and get her again, she went through continued bullying from some of you who managed to get to her by phone or social media, via others, even after what you'd done to her.'
The suffering teenager moved schools to escape the bullying, but was subjected to further verbal abuse by the main bully online.
'I had to get an intervention order on the main bully girl when she physically assaulted Cass at the shops, after the rape, and she was even calling my mobile demanding to talk to Cass,' Ms Trevan told 9 News.
Cassidy and her mother met with Detectives from Victoria Police's Sexual Offence and Child Abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) over 20 times during a two-year period.
But because Cassidy never made a formal statement to Dandenong police, afraid of the social repercussions, authorities were never able to lay any charges.
In a heart-wrenching post on Facebook, Ms Trevan detailed the loss of her daughter in a bid to have people take bullying seriously
Tragically, after years of torment, Cassidy committed suicide on December 12, 2015.
A spokesman for the Victorian Department of Education told Daily Mail Australia in a statement that 'the death of any young person is an absolute tragedy and our sympathies are with Cassidy's family'.
'Schools have a range of ways to help students who may be experiencing bullying or mental health issues, including by providing qualified counsellors. School staff work hard to identify and support students who need support and we would encourage any students who need help to talk to staff at their school.'
For confidential support call the Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14.
Anyone across Australia experiencing a personal crisis or thinking about suicide can contact Lifeline.
Regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation their trained volunteers are ready to listen, provide support and referrals.
Bismarck High School received the Missouri Exemplary Professional Learning Community Award in a presentation held during the 2017 Powerful Learning Conference held at the Lake of the Ozarks.
The school was one of only 16 schools honored across the state for their commitment to professional learning and the only high school in the state recognized this year by Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
According to DESE, schools are recognized as Professional Learning Communities Exemplary Schools for promoting cultures focused on collaborative learning while effectively using data to increase student achievement. The Missouri Professional Learning Communities Project began during the 2003-04 school year.
More than 1,400 educators from across the state attended the conference which included 50 breakouts sessions and three nationally known speakers. The awards were presented by Missouri Commissioner of Education Dr. Margie Vandeven presented the awards, saying, Leaders at these schools are committed to creating environments that can ultimately improve achievement for all students.
"It's really a big deal for us," said high school Principal Jason King who accepted the award at the conference. "We've been involved in the program for six years, and in those six years, we've really turned what we do upside down. We're not the same school we were six years ago. We're just so much better as far as being focused on students' success and having teachers collaborating on what's best for kids.
King explained that the award is based on student achievement in math and language arts over a specified period of time, as well as the exemplary implementation of each facet of a Professional Learning Community (PLC).
"That's something that the state puts out as far as the different components that are involved in it," King said. "Teacher collaboration is a big one. So, this is just a really nice thing for our students and our staff. Our kids, our teachers and everybody else that's been involved in our district has worked very hard.
"It's kind of nice because we weren't working to try to win this award. We're working to try to get a better future for our kids and this recognition is just a byproduct of that. It was a really nice ceremony yesterday. Our PLC Leadership Team and myself were able to meet the commissioner of education and we received a nice plaque and banner for our school. It feels good to be the only high school in the state of Missouri to get that award."
As far as previous awards received in recent years by the Bismarck R-5 School District, King said, "We received a Distinction in Performance Award in 2012. That's another one the state of Missouri gives out that's strictly based on academics, attendance, graduation rate and career and college readiness. Our elementary school got this exemplary award last spring and then our high school was able to earn it this spring."
King believes there's a reason why the Bismarck R-5 School District has been honored with the Exemplary Professional Learning Community Award two years in a row.
"We have a culture of continued improvement here at Bismarck and that's what getting involved in the PLC project has done for us," he said. "We realize that we're never really done and so we're continuously working to get better. I think the best is yet to come. Once we go through a cycle of the PLC process, then we start all over and we go back and we strengthen things and we shore things up.
"That's the way it has to be if you're going to do what's best for kids. You won't really ever reach the top of the mountain where you can ever stop. You keep working and you try to continuously improve. That's what we're going to continue working on."
The United States and Japan have demanded UN action after North Korea boasted about the launch of its latest ballistic missile, which is almost impossible for Western satellites to spot before it's fired.
Kim Jong Un's men successfully launched a new type of medium-to long-range ballistic missile on Sunday, the first test of U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to get tough on the isolated regime.
The missile test came as Mr Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Mr Abe condemned the launch as 'absolutely intolerable', and Mr Trump said Washington would stand behind Japan, 'its great ally, 100 per cent'.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday strongly condemned the launch, describing it as a 'further troubling violation' of UN resolutions.
The North's state-run KCNA news agency said leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of the Pukguksong-2, a new type of strategic weapon that can launch faster, is easier to hide from satellites and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
In addition to launching more quickly, the solid fuel engines on the new missile also boost the power and range of ballistic rockets.
Pictured is the test-fire of the new Pukguksong-2 missile, guided by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the spot
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guides the test-fire of Pukguksong-2 on Sunday
'Solid-motor engines mean that the fuel is pre-stored and the missile can be launched quickly. For example, rolled out of a cave, tunnel, or bridge,' said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.
'They are also more difficult to track by satellite because they have fewer support vehicles in their entourage.'
KCNA said the missile was fired at a high angle in consideration of the safety of neighbouring countries.
A South Korean military source said on Sunday the missile reached an altitude of 550 km (340 miles).
It flew about 500 km towards Japan, landing off the east coast of the Korean peninsula.
The missile was propelled by a solid fuel engine and was an upgraded, extended-range version of its submarine-launched ballistic missile that was tested successfully last August, according to KCNA.
South Korea's military said on Monday the missile had been launched using a 'cold-eject' system, whereby it is initially lifted by compressed gas before flying under the power of its rocket, a system used for submarine-launched missiles.
North Korea's pursuit of large solid-fuelled missiles was 'a very concerning development', said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
'This new rocket is the type that we should be much more worried about. Solid fuel rockets can be launched at short notice without much preparation,' he said in an email.
The Pukguksong-2,pictured, is a new type of strategic weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead
The new type of solid fuel rockets can be launched at short notice without much preparation
The new rocket flew about 500 km towards Japan, landing off the east coast of the Korean peninsula
North Korea's pursuit of large solid-fuelled missiles was 'a very concerning development', said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
How does the new missile work? Pukguksong-2 translates as north star or Polaris, the same name as the first U.S. submarine-launched missile. It uses a large solid-fuel engine, which consist of a pre-mixed fuel and oxidizer in solid form which is then ignited. The system is less efficient than the liquid-fuel rockets used in previous generations of North Korean missiles, but it is more simple and less costly. It is also more difficult to engineer and launch successfully, as once the ignition process begins it cannot be altered or turned off, which is why world powers are concerned by North Korea's recent success. Previous generations of liquid-fuel rockets consist of a fuel and oxygen or, other oxidizer, in liquid state. The fuel flow to the engine can be controlled and the amount of thrust produced can be regulated or turned on and off as needed. Advertisement
'Large solid fuel motors are difficult to make work correctly so this is indeed a significant advance by North Korea,' McDowell said.
The test also verified a 'feature of evading interception' and 'the mobility and operation of the new type missile launching truck', KCNA reported.
The North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed pictures of a missile fired from a mobile launch vehicle resembling a tank, with a flame appearing only after it had risen clear of the vehicle.
The United States, Japan and South Korea requested urgent U.N. Security Council consultations on the test, with a meeting taking place on Monday afternoon, an official in the U.S. mission to the United Nations said.
'The DPRK leadership must return to full compliance with its international obligations and to the path of denuclearization,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement.
The UN Security Council will meet behind closed doors later Monday to discuss the missile test, the first carried out by Pyongyang since US President Donald Trump took office.
Guterres appealed 'to the international community to continue to address this situation in a united manner,' in an apparent reference to the United States and China, Pyongyang's ally.
Japan said on Monday further sanctions against Pyongyang could be discussed at the United Nations, and called on China to take a 'constructive' role in responding to the latest launch.
China is North Korea's main ally and trading partner but is irritated by Pyongyang's repeated provocations, although it resists calls from the United States and others that it should be doing more to rein in its neighbour.
'We have asked China via various levels to take constructive actions as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and we will continue to work on it. At the same time, Japan will continue to urge North Korea to exercise self-restraint from provocative actions and comply with U.N. resolutions,' Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Monday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guides the test-fire of Pukguksong-2 on the spo
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un smiles as military staff cheer and congratulate him on the launch
In addition to launching more quickly, solid fuel engines also boost the power and range of ballistic rockets
The benefits of 'cold-launch' missiles Vertical launch missile systems operate in two ways. In the first, known as a 'hot launch', the missile is expelled from its launch cell by igniting its rocket propulsion system immediately. The second, as used by the Pukguksong-2, is a 'cold launch', which are generally used in naval settings. In this type of system, the missile is expelled from its cell by gas produced by a generator. The benefit of this system is it avoids the need for additional systems designed to dispose of the heat and exhaust fumes generated by the missile's launch. It also afford the missile a slightly longer range, as less fuel is used in the initial launch process, as well as quicker launching and reloading times. Disadvantages may include problems with accuracy in strong winds, as the initial gas expulsion phase of the launch may be affected. Advertisement
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Monday said it opposed the launch.
However, Beijing counters that its influence is overstated and suggests that Washington's refusal to talk directly to North Korea is impeding progress toward a solution.
'The root cause of the (North Korean) nuclear missile issue is its differences with the U.S. and South Korea,' Geng told reporters at a regular briefing.
Geng said China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has been 'completely and comprehensively' implementing Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue. He said Beijing 'has been striving for a settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue by proactively engaging in mediation and promoting peace talks.'
Although generally dismissive of sanctions, Beijing has signed on to successive rounds under the U.N. Security Council, and last month banned more items from being exported to North Korea, including plutonium and dual-use technologies that could aid its nuclear program.
Geng urged all sides to refrain from provocative action and said China would continue participating in Security Council discussions in a constructive and responsible way.
North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests, including two last year, although its claims to be able to miniaturise a nuclear weapon to be mounted on a missile have never been verified independently.
Before Sunday, the North's two most recent missile tests had taken place in October. Both were of intermediate-range Musudan missiles and both failed, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.
A U.S. official said at the weekend the Trump administration had been expecting a North Korean 'provocation' soon after taking office.
The latest test came a day after Trump held a summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and also followed Trump's phone call last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump made a statement once the missile launch news made headlines. 'I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 per cent'
How North Korea's missile programme has grown Late 1970s: North Korea starts working on a version of the Soviet Scud-B (range 300 kilometres or 186 miles). Test-fired in 1984 1987-92: Begins developing variant of Scud-C (500 km), Rodong-1 (1,300 km), Taepodong-1 (2,500 km), Musudan-1 (3,000 km) and Taepodong-2 (6,700 km) Aug 1998: Test-fires Taepodong-1 over Japan as part of failed satellite launch Sept 1999: Declares moratorium on long-range missile tests amid improving ties with US July 12, 2000: Fifth round of US-North Korean missile talks ends without agreement after North demands $1 billion a year in return for halting missile exports March 3, 2005: North ends moratorium on long-range missile testing, blames Bush administration's 'hostile' policy July 5, 2006: Test-fires seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 which explodes after 40 seconds The reclusive regime carried out more than 20 missile tests last year, one of which reached Japanese-controlled waters after a launch in August. Pictured is a map of the North Korea missile test July 15, 2006: UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1695, demanding halt to all ballistic missile activity and banning trade in missile-related items with the North Oct 9, 2006: North conducts underground nuclear test, its first Oct 14, 2006: Security Council approves Resolution 1718, demanding a halt to missile and nuclear tests April 5, 2009: North launches long-range rocket which flies over Japan and lands in the Pacific, in what it says is an attempt to put a satellite into orbit. The United States, Japan and South Korea suspect it is a disguised test of a Taepodong-2 April 13, 2009: UN Security Council unanimously condemns launch, agrees to tighten sanctions. North quits nuclear disarmament talks in protest, vows to restart its plutonium programme May 25, 2009: Second underground nuclear test, several times more powerful than the first June 12, 2009: Security Council passes Resolution 1874, imposing tougher sanctions on the North's atomic and ballistic missile programmes Feb 18, 2011: Satellite images show the North has built a launch tower at a complex on the west coast December 31, 2011: Kim Jong-Un declared the North's 'supreme leader' during memorial ceremonies for his late father Kim Jong-Il April 13, 2012: North launches what it has said is a long-range rocket to put a satellite into orbit, but it disintegrates soon after blast-off and falls into the ocean December 12, 2012: A multi-stage rocket successfully places an Earth observational satellite in orbit February 12, 2013: Third underground nuclear test January 6, 2016: Fourth underground nuclear test. North says it was a hydrogen bomb - a claim doubted by most experts February 7, 2016: North says its second successful space rocket launch has placed another Earth observation satellite in orbit March 9, 2016: Leader Kim Jong-Un claims the North has successfully miniaturised a thermo-nuclear warhead April 15, 2016: Failed attempt to test-fire what appears to be a medium-range missile on the birthday of founding leader Kim Il-Sung The UN Security Council will hold an urgent meeting on Monday on North Korea's missile launch, the first test since US President Donald Trump took office (file photo) April 23, 2016: North test fires a submarine-launched ballistic missile July 8, 2016: US and South Korea announce plans to deploy an advanced missile defence system - the US THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) August 3, 2016: North fires a ballistic missile directly into Japanese-controlled waters for the first time August 24, 2016: Successfully test-fires a submarine-launched ballistic missile, in what it says is retaliation for large-scale South Korea-US military exercises. September 5, 2016: Fires three ballistic missiles off its east coast as top world leaders meet at the G20 summit in China September 9, 2016: Fifth nuclear test October 15, 2016: An intermediate-range Musudan missile, theoretically capable of reaching US bases on Guam, is tested but explodes shortly after launch February 3, 2017: US Defense Secretary James Mattis warns of an 'effective and overwhelming' response to any nuclear attack by the North February 7, 2017: US and Japan conduct the first interception of a ballistic missile target using a jointly-built ship-launched missile, that successfully hits its target in space February 12, 2017: North conducts new ballistic missile test. The missile is launched near the western city of Kusong and flies east about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan (East Sea) Advertisement
Abe described the test as 'absolutely intolerable'.
In brief comments standing beside Abe in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said: 'I just want everybody to understand, and fully know, that the United States of America is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 percent.'
The U.S. stance towards North Korea is likely to become tougher than before, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday.
'I believe that the stance of the United States towards North Korea will become much tougher, that is clear,' Abe said on a NHK public broadcasting news programme, after returning from meetings with Trump in the United States.
Trump said the United States remained committed to Japan's security and that it was behind Japan '100 percent' in the aftermath of the missile launch, which occurred as Abe was wrapping up his visit.
Trump and his aides are likely to weigh a series of possible responses, including new U.S. sanctions to tighten financial controls, an increase in naval and air assets in and around the Korean peninsula, and accelerated installation of new missile defence systems in South Korea, the administration official said.
However, the official said that, given that the missile was believed not to have been an ICBM and that Pyongyang had not carried out a new nuclear explosion, any response would seek to avoid ratcheting up tensions.
Kim said in his New Year speech the North was close to test-launching an ICBM and state media have said such a launch could come at any time.
A fully developed ICBM could threaten the continental United States, which is about 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from North Korea.
South Korea's finance ministry said it would act 'swiftly and firmly' if financial markets reacted to the missile launch.
The South Korean won and shares showed little reaction to the test.
Shocking footage has emerged of the moment 400 criminals began violently rioting on the eve of a smoking ban at a maximum security prison.
In the footage, uncovered by 7 News, prisoners can be seen ramming tractors into fences, setting alight control rooms inside the jail and taunting trapped guards.
The 15-hour rampage at the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall in Melbourne's west in June 2015 is widely considered to be one of the country's worst prison riots.
Heavily-armed riot police with bullet-proof vests and shotguns were eventually able to restore control, but the damage bill exceeded $12 million.
Total anarchy: Shocking footage has emerged of the infamous 2015 riot at Melbourne's Metropolitan Remand Centre in Ravenhall
The footage, uncovered by 7 News, shows rioting prisoners kicking down doors, ramming tractors into fences and lighting fires inside the jail
It was confirmed that three prison officers and four prisoners were injured during the riot, with one inmate suffering a broken jaw and two others dog bites.
The destruction from the riot was described to be 'worse than a cyclone,' with repairs estimated to take up to a year to fix.
The footage comes amidst revelations that a $288 million high-security juvenile prison will be built in a bid to fix Victoria's equally embattled and overstretched youth justice sector after a mass breakout and a series of riots.
The destruction from the riot was described to be 'worse than a cyclone'
Heavily-armed riot police with bullet-proof vests and shotguns were eventually able to restore control, but the damage bill exceeded $12 million (prisoners pictured running riot)
The 224-bed centre will be built in Werribee South on government land, with construction to start early next year, Premier Daniel Andrews announced last week.
The new prison will have a six-metre reinforced concrete perimeter wall, a 12-bed mental health unit, and be finished by the end of 2020.
A new medium security mens prison is also being built at Ravenhall - adjacent to the Metropolitan Remand Centre - to accommodate for an additional 1,300 prisoners.
Construction for the Ravenhall prison began in February 2015 and is expected to be completed by late 2017.
Police workers from the Critical Incident Response Team were called to the Melbourne prison
But Wyndham City Council mayor Henry Barlow says residents there will fight the "arbitrary decision" made without consulting the community in Werribee South.
Plans for the new prison, which will hold sentenced and remanded youths, come after two reports found Parkville was unfit for purpose.
Repeated riots in Parkville and Malmsbury, and a mass break-out, have thrown the system into crisis.
After the disturbances in Parkville in November, detainees were moved to the adult, maximum security Barwon Prison sparking a Supreme Court battle over the legality of the move.
A body has been found in the search for an elderly German couple who disappeared in the NT outback near Alice Springs four days ago.
The husband, 76, has been found dead, but the wherebouts of his wife. 73, remain unknown, the NT News reports.
A ground and air search was launched on Sunday after a ranger found a car thought to belong to the man and woman at Trephina Gorge.
A body has been found in the search for an elderly German couple who disappeared in the NT outback near Alice Springs four days ago. Above, a file photo shows Trephina Gorge
The ranger who found the vehicle said it had been in the car park for two days, Territory Duty Superintendent Rob Burgoyne told AAP.
'He followed some tracks to a fence line which had recently been washed away and he believed that there were two persons who had walked from the vehicle,' he said.
The couple had arrived in Australia at the start of the month and hired a car from the Alice Springs airport on February 9.
Sometime in the next day, they drove more than 70km east to Trephina Gorge.
The nature park has been closed as the search for the missing couple resumed on Monday.
The search was suspended until first light and additional resources have now been deployed, including mounted police on horseback.
Authorities are contacting the German consulate to try and find out more about the couple, including any possible medical conditions and to contact their family.
A helicopter was sent to scour the area on Sunday while police, SES personnel and a park ranger searched on foot.
A former U.S. Marine charged in the brutal rape and murder of a Japanese woman has revealed details of the crime in statements newly released by his lawyer.
Kenneth Shinzato, 32, was working as a civilian contractor at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan when he was charged with murder, rape, and illegal disposal of a body in the death of Rina Shimabukuro.
Shimabukuro, 20, went missing on April 28 after going for a walk. Her body was found three weeks later.
Shinzato, also known as Kenneth Franklin Gadson, now reveals that he'd fantasized about suicide and rape for years, in statements transcribed by his lawyer and reported by Stars and Stripes.
Local authorities said Kenneth Shinzato, 32, left, a former Marine, now faces the murder and rape charges in addition to an earlier charge of abandoning the body of Rina Shimabukuro, 20, right
Shinzato claims to have heard voices in his head since he was 8. He accused his foster mother of abuse, which she has denied, and says he fantasized of killing her.
The accused man says he had fantasies of abducting, restraining and raping women 'throughout my high school and adult years.'
Shinzato, who was known as Kenneth Gadson before he took his Japanese wife's last name, allegedly told investigators he drove around looking for a victim
In 2007, he claims he told Marine recruiters that he wanted to join the military primarily because he 'wanted to kill people.'
After joining, he relates various fantasies of killing himself.
'I remember thinking of how I could drown myself if I tired myself enough during the long range swim training,' he said.
'Out on the [shooting] range, I had the urge to go into the bushes and shoot at others and I could get shot.'
He reveals shocking details of the April crime in describing his version of the events.
'When she passed my car and I saw her more clearly, I heard the voice in my head tell me, 'It's her' and that she's the one that will fulfill my fantasy,' he said, speaking of the victim Shimabukuro.
'I wasn't 100 percent sure that she was the right one, but when I looked up, I saw a red, full moon and I just knew that that was a sign.'
Shinzato says he hit the woman over the head with a stick.
Dead: Rina Shimabukuro (pictured), 20, disappeared on the island of Okinawa, Japan, on April 28. Her body was found when Kenneth Shinzato, 32, a civilian worker at Kadena Air Base, gave police a location
Okinawa Prefecture Police investigate the site where the body of missing Rina Shimabukuro was found a day after U.S military base worker Kenneth Shinzato was arrested on May 20
'I intended to hit her with the stick and make her lose consciousness, then put her in the suitcase, take her to a hotel and then rape her,' he said.
The plan, he claims, was to release her alive after committing the vile crime, and didn't fear being caught because of the low reporting rate of sex crimes in Japan.
He says the headlights of an oncoming car forced him to drag her back from the road, accidentally hitting her head. As the woman tried to speak, he chocked her in a panic, he said, and went to fetch the suitcase.
Believing the woman dead, he did not continue the assault, he claims.
Japanese prosecutors charged U.S. military contractor Kenneth Shinzato with the murder and rape of a 20-year-old woman on Okinawa. Pictured: Officials escort Shinzata to the prosecutor's office on May 20
Shinzato took the victim to a wooded location in Onna Village's Afuso district, where he dumped her body.
'When I disposed of her, I thought she may have said something,' the statements said. 'I thought that she may be alive, so I stabbed her with a knife to find out.
He says he stabbed the woman multiple times and she didn't make a sound.
'During the drive home, I was thinking that the effort required to play out my fantasy was more than I expected and the fatigue and stress was not worth it,' Shinzato said in the statements.
'I was expecting the police to come for me in a few days, but since they didn't I stopped worrying about it. I continued with my daily routine and went to work as usual. I didn't really think about the girl.'
Shinzato became a suspect after being spotted on surveillance footage buying salt and sprinkling it on his car, apparently in an attempt to get rid of blood stains, the Times reported.
He said in the statements that he wasn't afraid of being caught even after police began to question him, until the cops found a photo from the dead woman's Facebook page on his phone.
Shinzato eventually led investigator's to the location of the victim's body.
Shinzato is reportedly originally from New York. He joined the U.S. Marines and was deployed to Okinawa, where he met and married a Japanese woman, whose last name he took.
He faces the death penalty if convicted.
Parents at a school in Los Angeles have expressed their outrage after second-graders were given a homework assignment featuring a math problem about slaves.
Pupils at Windsor Hills Elementary School were given the question, which asked how many slaves were needed to pick cotton on a plantation.
One parent, Kelly Gray, said she refused to let her seven-year-old daughter complete the assignment.
The question on the homework assignment asked how many 'slaves' a 'master' needed to pick cotton
Grandmother Karol Gray said she was baffled by the decision to include the math question about slaves. She added that it was inappropriate
'It's definitely disturbing using terms like plantation, master - my daughter doesn't know what these things mean,' she told NBC San Diego.
She added she did not believe it was a racial issue and that she does not blame the teacher because the assignment was given to the whole class.
The child's grandmother, Karol Gray, said she was 'baffled' by the school's decision.
She said: 'Someone could have said, "No! Are we really giving this assignment?"
'I can't imagine a month of any year of any era when this would be appropriate.'
The assignment was given to second graders at Windsor Hills Elementary School, a magnet school renowned for its math and science programs
Another parent, Karla Clark, said: 'This is Black History Month - it's hard enough to know you have ancestors who were slaves, but to hear it's blown up in this type of way is disturbing.'
Officials at Windsor Hills, a magnet school renowned for its math and science programs, said they were looking into the issue.
Ms Gray posted the question on Facebook and said she has received messages from parents at three other schools, claiming their children received the same assignment.
The Los Angeles Unified School District said it takes such matters very seriously and is investigating.
A man who allegedly abducted and raped a Belgian backpacker in South Australia may have attacked other victims, a court has heard.
The 52-year-old allegedly snatched and attacked the 24-year-old woman after responding to an advertisement she had posted online seeking work.
He was arrested at a property in Meningie, east of Adelaide, on Saturday and charged with three counts of rape and one count of unlawful detention.
But prosecutors told the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Monday that the man could have other victims.
A man who allegedly abducted and raped a Belgian backpacker in South Australia may have attacked other victims, a court has heard
'There is a belief that there may be other victims that may come forward,' Brevet Sergeant Natasha Goode said.
'The investigation is alive. Obtaining evidence from the defendant's premises is still ongoing.'
The man wore handcuffs and a blue T-shirt during his court appearance, and did not speak.
The alleged victim, who arrived in Adelaide early in February, was found at a Murray Bridge property on Friday thanks to a tip-off from a member of the public.
During her ordeal, she managed to get a desperate message to her family in Europe as well as a friend in Queensland, and she was reported missing.
She had sent a note pleading for help to her friend with clues to her location.
The movements of a 24-year-old Belgian backpacker who was allegedly kidnapped and raped in South Australia
The woman, who speaks little English, passed it along to the owner of the passionfruit farm in Atherton where she was working.
'It said: 'I don't want to run away because he said he'll shoot me',' Chris Newman told the Adelaide Advertiser.
Mr Newman added that the note gave clues to the backpacker's location - as she revealed she had been taken two hours from Murray Bridge and also described going over two ferries.
The 24-year-old backpacker had left her tourist accommodation in Adelaide's CBD on Thursday morning and boarded a bus to Murray Bridge.
From there it was thought she had been picked up by someone in a red ute, and police feared she had been kidnapped.
The European tourist had managed to contact her only friend in Australia on her laptop after she was allegedly kidnapped by the man who answered her Gumtree ad seeking farm work
She posted an ad on Gumtree (pictured) earlier in the week along with a picture of herself feeding a kangaroo, saying she was looking for a farm or fruit-picking job
Police said she had posted an ad on Gumtree seeking fruit-picking or farm work in Victoria, and her alleged captor had responded.
Neither the alleged victim or the accused man can be named for legal reasons.
Premier Jay Weatherill has said the incident was a matter of grave concern and he hoped it would be investigated swiftly.
'These are awful incidents and we want to eliminate them entirely if we can,' he said on Sunday.
Mr Weatherill also said the government was also concerned that the alleged sex attack could put overseas tourists off from visiting South Australia.
'There's a significant reputational issue here,' he said.
'But people should be rest assured that perpetrators of crime will be detected and they will be held to account.'
The accused will return to court on Friday for a review of suppression orders.
Police asked Adelaide Magistrates Court to suppress visual depictions of the Meningie farmhouse where the victim was allegedly raped in order to safeguard ongoing investigations into the incident, according to the Advertiser.
Police believe CCTV footage could hold the key to solving the savage murder of an aspiring teacher six years ago.
Sam Guidera, 24, was stabbed to death on the streets of Sydenham, south London, on February 12 2011.
Mr Guidera was walking to meet his girlfriend when he was brutally attacked, not far from Penge East station, and died an hour later at hospital.
Detectives believe that this footage could help find those responsible for the murder of student Sam Guidera, 24,
The student, who was reading history and politics at Greenwich University, was found in the road with a stab wound to the heart.
Six years later those responsible for his death are still at large, but Metropolitan Police detectives believe that new footage could lead to a breakthrough in the case.
The grainy clip shows two men running past the scene, shortly after after Mr Guidera was attacked, before returning to the area just 15 minutes later.
The footage was discovered after officers did a full review of all CCTV from the scene.
Detectives had previously said that a mystery telephone number was inputted into Mr Guidera'S phone, moments before he was murdered.
Detective Chief Inspector Chris Jones and his team are working on a theory that his killer or killers may have got his attention on the pretext they wanted to use his phone.
Mr Guidera was attacked while walking to meet his girlfriend in south London on February 12 2011
DCI Jones said: 'This is still very much a live investigation. We hope that this previously unreleased CCTV may lead to the identification of two people that may be able to assist our investigation.
'Or it may be the two people in the CCTV recognize themselves and contact us. I would say to these two people, please do contact us, no matter what information you have, it may be crucial to solving this case.
'It is still hoped that after six years someone with knowledge of what happened to Sam can come forward and help solve the case.
'For the parents of Sam; Sarah and Chris, it is still as raw for them today as the day Sam was killed, and the investigation team will ensure there is no stone unturned in the search for Sam's killer or killers.'
Police urge those seen in the footage to contact detectives immediately as the information they have may be 'crucial' to solving the case
A statement from Mr Guidera's mother Sarah and father Chris, said the family had been living a 'life sentence' ever since his tragic death.
It said: 'So we miss and think of him so much every single day, we cry, we love him so much. Time is not a healer, we will never get back to normal; the people we were before no longer exist.
'So please look at your son, brother, uncle, think how you would miss them and if you know anything come forward; don't let the cowards who took my son's life kill again.'
Boris Johnson wants to use the aid budget to counter the threat from Russia
Boris Johnson is said to be pumping 700million of Britain's aid budget into quelling Vladimir Putin's influence in eastern Europe.
The cash will go on bolstering countries like Ukraine and former Soviet states amid fears that Russia is gaining control.
The new 'Empowerment Fund' will not be used to buy weapons - instead focusing on improving defences against propaganda and cyber warfare.
The move, reported by the Sun, is designed to head off growing criticism of the UK's 12billion-a-year aid budget.
Plans to hand hundreds of millions of pounds to countries such as China and India have caused fury.
Last week it emerged that the British embassy in Beijing is inviting groups to apply for cash from a 1.3billion fund.
One project it suggests for backing is 'improving care in the community for elderly people in China'.
UK diplomats have even held a workshop to encourage applications.
Mr Johnson warned in December about the growing threat from Russia.
'We have the cult of the strong man. We have democracy in retreat,' he said.
'We need to redouble our resolve and defend and preserve the best of the rules-based international order.'
Theresa May and Mr Johnson have been urging new US President Donald Trump to be wary of Mr Putin.
Russia has been increasing spending on its military, and there have been tensions with the West over its intervention in Syria and the annexation of Crimea.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: 'The Empowerment Fund is in the early stages of development.
'Details of the Fund will be announced in Parliament in due course.'
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Hundreds of whales stranded on a New Zealand beach have died as authorities cut holes in their carcasses to prevent them from exploding.
Rescuers managed to rescue up to 400 pilot whales on the South Island beach over the weekend after 600 of them were washed ashore on Thursday night.
But around 300 whales died on the Golden Bay side of Farewell Spit as volunteers worked strenuously to keep the surviving marine mammals alive by cooling them with water.
Authorities have been popping the dead animals 'like balloons' with knives and two metre needles to release internal gases that build up pressure inside their bodies.
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
A woman standing among the bloodied carcasses of whales after they were washed ashore at a New Zealand beach last week
Hundreds of whales stranded on a beach have died as authorities cut holes in their carcasses to prevent them from exploding
Workers in protective clothing have been spending the days cutting up holes in the scores of carcasses after one of New Zealand's largest whale stranding.
The bodies could take up to several months to decompose and turn into skeletons.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) cordoned off the bodies and urged the public to call them if they found whale carcasses that had floated off the beach and washed up on nearby shores.
'The area is currently closed to the public because of the risk from whales exploding,' the conservation department said in a statement.
Up to 600 whales were washed ashore on Thursday night, leaving around 300 dead after they struggled to afloat
Authorities have been using knives and needles to cut holes in their bodies to prevent them from exploding everywhere
DOC director Andrew Lamason described the clean-up as 'macabre'.
Mr Lamason has suggested towing the bodies out to sea to let them decompose but the option could become gaseous and buoyant or end up washing into populated bays.
The DOC said they plan to move the dead whales with a digger further up Farewell Spit to the area of the nature reserve that is not open to the public.
'The whales will be moved off the shore and into the dunes,' the DOC said in a statement.
'It has been decided it is more suitable to take the dead whales out of the area that is open for public walking access.'
The surviving whales were last seen swimming six kilometres offshore on Sunday evening after they were unable to refloat themselves in the high tides.
Authorities have been popping the whales 'like balloons' to release internal gases that build up pressure inside their bodies
The cause of the strandings was not known but experts believe whales that often become beached would send out distressing signals to other members of their pod, who would then get stranded by a receding tide
A pod of about 400 whales became stranded, with a second pod of more than 200 whales stranded on Saturday
Last Thursday a pod of about 400 whales became stranded, with a second pod of more than 200 whales stranded on Saturday.
The cause of the strandings was not known but experts believe whales that often become beached would send out distressing signals to other members of their pod, who would then get stranded by a receding tide.
Beached whales are not uncommon on Golden Bay. Its shallow muddy waters confuse the whale's sonar, leaving it vulnerable to stranding by an ebb tide, according to marine environmental organisation Project Jonah.
Pilot whales are not listed as endangered, but little is known about their population in New Zealand waters.
These are the dramatic before and after photos of a brave young Australian woman whose face was shattered in a horrific hit-and-run in Bali while on holiday last year.
Tori Van de Stadt, 25, and boyfriend Louis Macindoe, 26, were travelling home from dinner on their final night in Canggu when a speeding car hit them from behind.
The Australian couple were flung from their scooter face-first into the dense jungle by the side of the road, both instantly knocked unconscious and heavily bleeding.
In an exclusive interview with ACA, Tori revealed that the next thing she remembered was waking up in a Perth hospital with severe facial and spinal injuries.
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Australian Tori Van de Stadt was critically injured after being involved in a hit-and-run in Bali last year while on the back of a scooter being driven by her boyfriend. She has undergone radical facial reconstruction surgery (after, right), but now faces a long road to recovery
Tori's face was shattered after she was flung off the scooter face-first into a tree (pictured, X-ray of her skull before surgery was performed at Perth hospital)
Tori required two surgeries; one to rebuild her face and another to fuse her damaged spine
'I was pretty out of it,' she said, recalling hearing a doctor tell her about her injuries. 'I don't really remember. I think I just kind of shut it out. I didn't want to deal with it.
'I didn't want to move back to Newcastle, I wanted to run away. I was happy to stay in Perth. I was afraid I'd never go back to normal.'
Tori suffered a lacerated spleen and left kidney, and was in danger of becoming a paraplegic for life due to seriously fractured bones around her spinal cord.
In addition to the internal and spinal injuries, she also had lacerations her bottom jaw and head, along with extensive damage to her eye socket, cheekbone and nose.
She was placed in a medically induced coma for eight days, during which doctors performed a 13-hour surgery on her smashed facial bones and spinal fusion surgery.
Victoria Van de Stadt, 25,(right) and her boyfriend Louis Macindoe, 26, (left) were struck by a car and left for dead in December last year. Louis survived with little more than a deep scar to his forehead
Tori spoke with one of three British men who found her dying on the side of the road. He recalled the terrifyng moment when he believed she had died in his arms
The 'bubbly' Victoria, also known as Tori, had full facial reconstruction at Royal Perth Hospital
Reliving the terrifying incident, Tori spoke for the very first time with one of three British army veterans who helped keep her alive for almost three hours before she was finally taken to a Balinese hospital.
'Tori was lying here really choking. She was gagging, there was blood everywhere. I ad to clear airwaves. I pulled out a load of flesh, teeth and a big clot of blood. She started bleeding better,' her rescuer Paul Rosser said.
'I actually thought I lost you. I was shouting at you: 'Come on girl, you're not going to leve me! Hold in there, don't give up!
'I remember it vividly. And then all of a sudden it was like another sort of life just came to you and you were trying to stand up ... I had to hold you down. you were fighting.'
Tori, who was not covered by travel insurance and was not wearing a helmet during the crash, now faces a long and expensive road to recovery.
It will be another two months before she can eat solid foods, and another year before doctors can perform surgery to fix her teeth and nose.
Long road to recovery: It will be another two months before Tori can eat solid foods, and another year before doctors can perform surgery to fix her teeth and nose
Tori's family now face a massive bill for her medical expenses of more than $100,000
Victoria had a successful 13-hour facial reconstruction surgery at Royal Perth Hospital
Her boyfriend, a snowboarding magazine editor, suffered a fractured eye socket, a deep cut to his head and blood loss.
On Instagram he posted 'the last photo I had on my phone before the incident' along with a heartfelt thank you to those who had offered support as he tried to come to terms with what happened.
'While you might consider yourself to be pretty well versed on two wheels, sometimes your number can just be up,' the 26-year-old wrote.
'I'm completely overwhelmed with happiness knowing how much love and support has come from you all.
'The next little while will be particularly challenging for Tori as she makes her recovery and a gofundme page has been set up to assist her with ongoing medical expenses.'
Tori's family now face a massive bill for her medical expenses of more than $100,000 after she was airlifted from a Balinese hospital to Perth.
A GoFundMe page set up to help shoulder the burden of her expensive recovery which has seen many donations amounting to well over the $60,000 target.
The last photo of Tori taken by Mr Macindoe before the horrific hit-and-run which left them both hospitalised
Ronald Coyne, pictured, was caught on camera taunting rough sleeper Ryan Davies in the early hours of the morning on February 2
Tens of thousands have signed a petition to have a Cambridge student removed from university after he burned a 20 note in front of a homeless man.
Ronald Coyne was caught on camera taunting rough sleeper Ryan Davies in the early hours of the morning on February 2.
Filmed on a phone the smartly dressed laws student can be seen dangling the note in front of homeless Mr Davies and setting it alight after he asked for any spare change.
The shocking footage was shared on Snapchat and since then more than 20,000 people have signed a petition to have him kicked out of the university.
Last week 31-year-old Mr Davies spoke about the moment he was teased by law-student Coyne, who held out the 20 before pulling it back and saying, 'I'll give you some change, I've changed it into fire.'
Mr Davies said: 'There were some people going past and I was asking them for spare change. I'm homeless. I asked one man for spare change. I was polite about it as I always am.
'He says let's see what I've got and pulls out a 20 note and went to pass it to me.
'I couldn't believe my luck. But then he pulled it back and lit it and said 'I'll give you some change, I've changed it into fire.'
He added: 'It was absolutely disgusting. It was horrible. Just plain nasty. I suppose it's better than getting punched and kicked or even spat on because that has happened before.'
The change.org petition quickly gathered momentum after being launched four days ago.
Last week 31-year-old Mr Davies, pictured, spoke about the moment he was teased by law-student Coyne
One person who signed said: 'Utterly disgusting behaviour should be punished. Not only removed from the University, but be made to work voluntarily for 200 hours in a homeless shelter.'
'Horrible young man,' another wrote.
Another person to sign said: 'It brings disrepute to the University and it's a shocking act of cruelty.'
Addressing the university someone said: 'This is a vile individual, he does not deserve an education at the level you offer.
Coyne was the communications officer for The Cambridge University Conservative Association but has since been expelled him from the group
'He deseverves the same distain that he had shown in this disgusting act. Empathy over apathy every time. An example needs to be made that this abhorrent behavior will not be tolerated! Simple.'
Coyne was the communications officer for The Cambridge University Conservative Association but has since been expelled him from the group.
His mother Sandra McLaughlin, 46, said she could not understand her son's behaviour.
The family home of Cambridge student Ronald Coyne, 18, in Livingstone, Scotland
Speaking from their family home in Livingston, West Lothian, she said: 'I don't recognise that behaviour in my son.
'I don't really know why he's done something so thoughtless and cruel.'
She added: 'It's completely out of character. He did two years of volunteering at Stockbridge shelter homeless shop in Edinburgh when he was still at school.
'It's very surprising. We're just a normal family. We're not toffs, he's not a toff.'
Mr Coyne has taken down all of his online profiles but a fake Facebook account has now been set up in his name. He has yet to make any public comment about the incident.
A Cambridge University spokesperson said: 'This incident has been referred to the University's Disciplinary process. We cannot comment further while this process is underway.'
A former Queen of Iran, who was exiled to Europe following a divorce that was prompted after learning she couldn't conceive, was known 'princess with the sad eyes' after becoming a socialite in Europe following the split.
Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari served as queen from 1951 to 1958, before divorcing the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and being exiled.
Following the divorce, Soraya became a focus of the paparazzi, and attended galas and events covered in the beautiful gems given to her by the Shah of Iran during their marriage.
Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari (right) served as the Queen of Iran from 1951 to 1958 while she was married to the Shah of Iran. The couple are pictured above on their wedding day in 1951
Following the divorce, Soraya became a focus of the paparazzi, and attended galas and events covered in the beautiful gems given to her by the Shah of Iran during their marriage
Soraya met Princess Shams, the older sister of the Iranian sovereign, during a stay in London. And believing that 18-year-old Soraya was the perfect wife for her brother, Princess Shams invited her on a trip to Tehran. The couple (pictured above) were engaged days later
While Soraya's life sounds glamorous, a deeper dive into her marriage with the Shah reveals it was fraught with tragedy, illness, and an inability to have children, the new book,Christie's: The Jewellery Archives Revealed by Vincent Meylan, reveals.
Soraya, who was brought up between Europe and the town of Isfahan in Iran, met Princess Shams, the older sister of the Iranian sovereign, during a stay in London.
The princess's brother, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, succeeded Reza Shah on the throne at the beginning of World War II, during a period of political unrest.
His first marriage, to Princess Fawzia of Egypt, ended in divorce. Because he only had one daughter with his first wife, and his younger brother, Ali Reza, was expected to succeed him, the Shah had to remarry to ensure stability of the crown in the country.
Following the wedding, the Shah and Queen lived a fairytale romance - but their idyllic life quickly fell flat when they had trouble conceiving a child
The couple divorced shortly after the Shah's brother died, after realizing it would be years before they could conceive a child, who would be the heir to the throne
The dissolution of the couple's marriage was announced on March 14, 1958, and Soraya stepped down from her position as queen seven years after stepping into her role. She then was exiled to Switzerland
It was then that Princess Shams, believing that 18-year-old Soraya was the perfect wife for her brother, and invited her on a trip to Tehran so the pair could meet.
Two days after arriving in the Iranian couple, Soraya met the Shah during a dinner with the queen mother, Tadj ol-Molouk.
According to CNN, a day after the dinner, Soraya's father told her: 'The Shah liked you very much. Are you ready to marry him?'
And just 24 hours later, the couple were engaged, and Soraya received her first gem from the Shah - a stunning diamond for her ring finger.
Shortly after the engagement, however, Soraya fell ill with typhoid and was bedridden for several weeks.
As legend goes, the Shah brought her a jewel every day during her sickness and placed it on her pillow.
Soraya became known for her large collection of jewels, which she sold off later in life following her divorce
Shortly after the engagement, however, Soraya fell ill with typhoid and was bedridden for several weeks. As legend goes, the Shah brought her a jewel every day during her sickness and placed it on her pillow
The couple finally married on February 12, 1951, and Soraya became the young queen of Iran.
She was so weak, during her wedding, however, that a court doctor told Soraya to wear a woolen vest under her dress until the last possible moment, and to wear wool socks under her dress.
Following the divorce, rhe Shah allowed Soraya (pictured in 1967) to live a comfortable life, traveling between Rome, Munich and Paris
She had to cut 26 feet (eight meters) off the 65-foot (20-meter) train of her 66lb (30kg) Christian Dior wedding dress in order to stand during the ceremony and reception.
Following the wedding, the Shah and Queen lived a fairytale romance - but their idyllic life quickly fell flat when they had trouble conceiving a child.
In October 1954, when she was 22 years old, a doctor told Soraya that it might take years for her to become pregnant, leaving her and the Shah without an heir to the throne.
Two days later, the Shah became angry at his birthday party when he learned that his brother, Ali Reza, next in line for the throne would not be at dinner because he was running late leaving a hunting party near the Caspian Sea.
The following day, the family learned that Prince Ali Reza had died when the plane bringing him back to Tehran crashed.
The Shah soon realized that though Ali Reza had a daughter with a young French woman, who would succeed the crown was unclear.
Due to familial and political pressure over the couple's trouble conceiving, the Shah and Soraya decided it was time to divorce.
Soraya soon became an icon and a socialite known well for her stunning collection of jewels. She's pictured above in 1965
The dissolution of the marriage was announced on March 14, 1958, and Soraya stepped down from her position as queen seven years after stepping into her role. She then was exiled to Switzerland.
The Shah allowed Soraya to live a comfortable life, traveling between Rome, Munich and Paris, where she became an icon and a socialite known well for her stunning collection of jewels.
She made glamorous entrances wearing gems from Cartier, Bulgari and Harry Winston.
In the 1980s, during the Islamic Revolution when Iran reduced her revenue, she sold a number of her jewels, including a Harry Winston diamond necklace.
The necklace sold at an auction at Christie's in Geneva in November 1988.
Soyara died in Paris on October 25, 2001, 21 years after the Shah of Iran. Her
Her brother, Bijan, was the legal inheritor of her estate. But when he died, the entire estate was passed on to the German state.
As for the Shah, an heir didn't turn out to be necessary - his government collapsed during political uprisings in 1978 and 1979 and the Islamic Republic succeeded his regime. The Shah died a year later in July 1980.
Hard-line Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte is planning to slash the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to nine.
Allies of the the controversial president, who has been dubbed 'Duterte Harry' over his vigilante approach to dealing with drug crime, want him to implement the change as well as reintroducing the death penalty.
The policy has received condemnation from the United Nations who have described the plan as 'wrong from every angle'.
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Roderigo Duterte is considering plans to jail children as young as 9 as part of his war on drugs
Since taking power in May, almost 8,000 people have been killed during anti-drug operations
Currently the age of criminal responsibility in the Philippines is 15 but allies of the hard-line president want it restricted. In England and Wales, the age is 10, while in Scotland, it is 8, but a child cannot be prosecuted until they are 12.
Lotta Sylwander, Unicef's representative in the Philippines told the Guardian: 'If they grow up, spending their teenage years in a prison, they most probably will be damaged for life.'
Campaigners fear that if the age of criminal responsibility in the Philippines is reduced and combined with the re-introduction of the death penalty, children as young as nine could face execution, especially if they are involved in the drugs trade.
Sylwander has warned that children are unable to understand the consequences of drug crime at such a young age.
She said: 'It seems he rarely listens to facts, or doesnt find out the facts before he talks.'
Human rights organisations have condemned the heavy-handed police response
She added: ' It seems there is less effort to get the big guys. You shoot the small gangsters or the small drug traders in the slum areas and the poor areas. But there seems to be no real, concerted efforts to get the big drug lords in the country. And there are quite a few.'
Duterte was elected president in May.
Since then his anti-drugs campaign has caused an international outcry, with human rights groups alleging widespread summary executions by police operating with impunity.
More than 7,700 people have died since the firebrand leader took office seven months ago, more than 2,500 in what police say are shootouts with drug suspects.
THE Italian police officer who shot dead Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri will not be decorated for heroism by Germany because his own extreme fascist links along with those of his colleague - have been exposed.
A photo of Luca Scata wearing a Union Jack T-shirt with his right armed raised in the Nazi salute was published in Germany's Bild newspaper on Monday.
'Doubtful heroes' was the headline in Bild which reported that Scata's police partner Christian Movio, 36, also holds extremist views.
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Luca Scata, pictured, who shot dead ISIS Berlin attacker Anis Amri in Milan will not receive a German bravery award after he was photographed giving a Nazi salute
Scata shot dead Anis Amri, pictured, who at the time was the most wanted man in Europe
Scata, 29, became an instant global celebrity when he shot dead ISIS disciple Anis Amri in Milan on December 23, five days after he ploughed a hijacked truck into a Christmas market crowd in the German capital, killing 12 and injuring dozens more.
Tunisian-born bogus refugee Amri fled via the Netherlands, Belgium and France to Italy where he was stopped by the two policemen. He opened fired and wounded Movio before Scata gunned him down.
Bild reported that it has intelligence from two federal ministries in Germany that plans to give the officers the Federal Cross of Merit the highest award for civilian bravery have been shelved after the political leanings of the duo were discovered on their Facebook profiles.
On April 25 last year, the anniversary of the liberation of Italy from fascist dictator and Hitler ally Benito Mussolini, the policeman posted an obituary notice on his site stating: 'Not all have committed treason. Many decided to stay true to the flag and to give their lives for it. I belong to this Italy, to those Italians who have not committed treason and who have not surrendered.'
Luca Scata, pictured, posted on Facebook an obituary notice for dictator Benito Mussolini
Amri killed 12 people after he crashed a hijacked truck into a popular Berlin Christmas market
The posting and others in praise of Italian fascism have since been deleted. According to Bild, Movio was no better and posted racist comments and was once 'delighted' to have received a Coke bottle with 'Adolf' inscribed upon it.
Bild published a photo of the dubious Coke bottle with a picture that Movio posted of Hitler beneath it with the words; 'Thanks Bro!'
Stephan Mayer of the Christian Social Union (CSU) which rules Germany in conjunction with Angelka Merkel's CDU, told the newspaper; 'The Federal Government's decision to give no medals these two police officers is absolutely right because of their apparent neo-fascist attitudes.'
Interior designer Penelope Hulme, 53, was bombarded with over 700 creepy and explicit texts from painter and decorator Ian Stewart, pictured
A businesswoman has told how she feared she would be raped during a stalking campaign by an obsessed admirer who believed he was the mythical Greek hero Odysseus.
Interior designer Penelope Hulme, 53, was bombarded with over 700 creepy and explicit texts from painter and decorator Ian Stewart who used her christian name to proclaim himself as her self-styled 'saviour.'
The infatuated 48-year old who had previously worked for his victim's millionaire ex-husband equated Mrs Hulme to Penelope, the loyal wife of the legendary King of Ithica whose exploits were detailed in the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey by the Greek author Homer.
And although Mrs Hulme was dating another man, Stewart from Sale, Greater Manchester sent her a series of messages over a three year period demanding she leave him so they could start an affair together.
One text read: 'I am you saviour and I can take you to another world. Everything about you is beautiful. I love you.'
Others said: 'I just sent our pics to an American medium. She says something going, you feel disconnected. It's me Odysseus, I will call soon. I am Odysseus.'
Mrs Hulme, who lives in Hale, near Altrincham, Cheshire, urged Stewart to stop contacting her but he persisted with his texts and was reported to the police.
In a statement law graduate Mrs Hulme, a mother of two who specialises in up market interior home design for wealthy clients said: 'I feel this man is a threat and I am worried about what he might do next.
'He seems deranged and delusional and says he wants to take me to another world.
'I feel disgusted, insulted and humiliated by these messages. I feel the messages undermine my wellbeing and my dignity.
'I have gone from being confident to be scared about leaving the house and my work is now also being affected. I cannot concentrate and my imagination runs wild.
WHO IS ODYSSEUS? Odysseus is a mythical Greek hero from the epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey by the author Homer. Penelope, Odysseus's wife, is known for her faithfulness to him in his absence in the stories. She loyally waits for 20 years for him to return. Advertisement
'Dealing with this man is a waste of my time and I am focusing on writing this and not doing my work. I could lose my job. I am very worried that I could be the next rape victim.'
Manchester magistrates court heard Mrs Hulme had known Stewart since 2007 after he did some decorating work for her then husband Martin, 60, who was chairman of a large property development company.
Prosecuting Miss Andrea Griffiths said: 'It was a professional relationship.. She works as an interior designer and work was passed between her and the defendant. But she then divorced her husband and the pair lost contact.
'Later in 2012, the complainant bumped into the defendant in the street and she was in a bad way due to her divorce. He offered to help her fix some issues in her home telling her he didn't want to be paid.
'She re-paid him by referring him to some of her clients and giving him business.
'But from then he started contacting her in quite a strange way. During that time period from 2013 she found him quite difficult and intrusive and she asked him to stop contacting her.
Mrs Hulme, right, who lives in Hale, near Altrincham, urged Stewart, left, to stop contacting her but he persisted with his texts and was reported to the police
'However, he continued to contact her referring to himself as the Greek god, Odysseus who saved and married Penelope. Penelope's partner at the time contacted him and told him not to speak to her again.
'But he then started to contact her again via text message. She felt shocked that he had continued to contact her and blocked him.
'Over the next few days she received messages from another number. The messages were intense and frequent.
'She said she found the messages so sickening that she decided to phone the police.
'She said his contact was unhealthy, unnatural and very much unwanted. There were over 700 messages sent to her phone - none of which she replied to. On the 10th of October last year, the defendant sent a number of messages. Some are sexual and some are religious.
'He talks particularly about being her saviour and taking her to another world.'
At 11.15 that night he sent a message saying: 'I love you and I want to suck your p***y all night.' Another message said: 'You make me horny. Everything about you is beautiful. Don't let that dog f..k you, I will. I love you.'
Miss Girffiths added: 'He also sent a text message of little sense, saying: 'I just sent our pics to an American medium. She says something going, you feel disconnected.
'If you're letting a n***** f*** you I will him. It's me Odysseus, I will call soon. F*** your boyfriend he is a dog. I am Odysseus and I will tell him to f*** off.'
The prosecutor said: 'Stalking can take many forms - in this case the contact is via text messaging. What affect that had on her was to alter her lifestyle.'
Stewart admitted stalking Mrs Hulme between October and November last year under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Defending himself, he said: 'She agreed to meet me for a coffee. I do not know what all that was about.
'I used to work for her and she has gone on like I have stalked her but I was just messaging her.
'I am so in disagreement with what she says, I have never hurt anyone in my life.'
During the hearing a probation officer said: 'He is not very accepting of the offence this has had on the victim. He does not seem to have any understanding of the alarm and distress this has caused the lady.
'They have known one another for a few years and there seems to be an obsession that stopped a few years ago and then started again in October. He was telling me that she started it. He has said that he won't make contact again.'
'He has no relevant previous convictions and is self employed and works as a painter and decorator. He if fit and well and has no history and it's mental health services.'
Stewart was ordered to complete a 12-month community order and fined 300 with further orders to pay a 85 victim surcharge and 150 in costs. He was banned from contacting Mrs Hulme indefinitely under the terms of a restraining order.
A two-month-old baby in China almost had his left thumb amputated after it became trapped in a hair.
A single strand of hair from his mother's head became so tightly intertwined around his digit that it ballooned to more than double its size.
Fortunately, the unsightly entanglement was caught in the nick of time and doctors removed the hair in an operation last Friday without amputation.
Dr Hu pointed this is the situation of the left thumb when the baby was sent in last Friday
The strand of hair is tangled around and embedded into the skin, leaving the finger bleeding
It had wrapped around the child's thumb so much so that it had got lodged under the skin.
This led to extremely rare clinical phenomenon known as 'toe tourniquet syndrome'.
While the injury is uncommon, doctors observe dozens of cases a year and most are resolved without the loss of the appendage.
Most children who suffer from toe tourniquet syndrome are four days to 19 months old and usually present to doctors inconsolably crying and in obvious distress.
The doctor took the hair out under the operating microscope and the infant is recovering
'Toe Tourniquet syndrome' can lead to amputation if the parents fail to notice in time
The reason why such a young age group is at risk is down to the postpartum hair loss which 90 percent of mothers experience.
According to Jiangsu TV, a young mother, Ms Wang, carried her newborn baby to Renci hospital in Xuzhou on February 10.
TOE TOURNIQUET SYNDROME Is a medical condition where a hair or thread becomes tightly tied to a finger, toe or other appendage cutting off circulation and potentially causing amputation.
The problem usually affects young babies when hair ends up in their socks and is most common when mothers are shedding hair post-pregnancy.
Identified with magnification and cut away usually with small scissors, the rare condition is missed by some doctors Advertisement
She told the reporter that the baby had been crying at home for four, five days but did not notice such serious accident.
The mother said: 'Perhaps it happened when i was holding him up close, I didn't notice at all and I was not checking thoroughly.'
The hair is wrapped around the left thumb for few days, stopping circulation and causing swelling around the thumb.
Dr Hu Jun Sheng explained it could lead to tissue death and potential finger amputation if he was sent in just a day later.
'The soft tissue of the thumb is torn, causing slow blood flow to the finger tip,' he added.
The ligature is tightly tied and embedded into the skin.
Dr Hu managed to take out the strand of hair using an operating microscope.
The baby is now in recovery.
Dr Hu also reminded young mothers to keep their hair short or tie up their long hair to avoid such incident happening.
ISIS fanatics have issued 'direct threats' on Spanish tourist hotspots where millions of Britons are expected to visit this year, according to a government report.
The warnings were reportedly found on social media amid fears the terror group is also recruiting translators and foreign jihadists from the country.
Its bid to find Spanish speaking fanatics started last summer, the document claims, adding that extremists were increasingly publishing in the language.
It comes just weeks after police in San Sebastian, in the country's north, arrested a Moroccan boxing coach suspected of recruiting for ISIS.
ISIS fanatics have issued 'direct threats' on Spanish tourist hotspots where millions of Britons are expected to visit this year, according to a government report. Police are pictured patrolling the beach front in Barcelona
The warnings were reportedly found on social media amid fears the terror group is also recruiting translators and foreign jihadists from the country (file picture)
The 'direct threats' to Spain are outlined within an official government report, according to the Express. No specific target has been named.
But it will raise fears among holidaymakers of a repeat of the gun massacre in Tunisia in June 2015 in which ISIS fanatic Seifeddine Rezgui shot 38 people including 30 British tourists in the coastal resort of Port El Kantaoui.
The official document claims 'ISIS has been publishing in Spanish, which means an increase in the risk of its influence on radicals living in our country'.
And it states that last year 'Daesh launched a campaign to hire Spanish translators, which suggests a growing interest in attracting Spanish-speaking foreign fighters.'
In January 2016, ISIS issued a chilling video threat to launch terror attacks in Spain, declaring: 'We will recover our land from the invaders.'
Spain is currently level four on the anti-terror alert the same ranking as the UK.
Around 15 million of the 65 million foreign tourists that flock to Spain every year are British.
A Foreign Office spokesman pointed to its own official travel advice for the country, telling MailOnline this morning: 'Our online travel advice contains thorough information on staying safe abroad, including terrorism threats, and we keep it under constant review.'
It will raise fears among holidaymakers of a repeat of the gun massacre in Tunisia in June 2015 in which ISIS fanatic Seifeddine Rezgui shot 38 people including 30 British tourists in the coastal resort of Port El Kantaoui
Seifeddine Rezgui went on the rampage with a machine gun, killing tourists on their sun loungers
Former Met Police counter terror officer David Videcette, who investigated the 7/7 London bombings, told the Olive Press that an attack on Spain was 'very possible'.
He said some Spanish resorts could be vulnerable to truck attacks like the ones that were carried out in Nice and Berlin.
'They may well be looking to attack specific countries with tourists,
'Its very possible Costa Brava, Costa Del Sol, those sort of places could be on someones target list.'
Official government guidelines for travelling to Spain says there is a 'general threat from terrorism' and that attacks 'could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners'.
Tourists are warned to be 'vigilant' amid warnings a number of Spanish nationals 'successfully travelled to Syria and Iraq.'
Just weeks ago, Spain's interior ministry said police had arrested a Moroccan boxing coach suspected of recruiting for the terror group.
Spain has been spared any incident since March 2004, when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, leaving 191 dead in attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda inspired militants
The arrested man specialised in 'sending foreign fighters to Turkey where they received instructions from Daesh to commit attacks in Europe', the ministry said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
He was detained in San Sebastian in Spain's northern Basque Country, the statement added, without giving the suspect's name or age.
According to the ministry, the suspect had had links with a man previously detained in Morocco and another arrested in France in November, both of whom followed 'concrete and precise instructions from Daesh.'
According to Spanish authorities, 181 alleged jihadists have been detained since 2015, when Spain increased its terror alert to category four on a five-point scale.
The country has been mentioned on extremist websites as a possible attack target for historical reasons, given Muslims ruled in Spain for close to eight centuries until 1492.
But it has been spared any incident since March 2004, when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid, leaving 191 dead in attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda inspired militants.
In November two suspected ISIS terrorists, who authorities say were willing to carry out attacks in Spain, were arrested in Barcelona and Madrid.
The Moroccan pair were 'dangerous' and 'directed and controlled' by the terror group, Spanish Ministry of Interior officials said.
Earlier that month four people suspected of trying to recruit so-called Caliphate Cubs - child soldiers as young as 12 to fight for ISIS - were held in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta.
And in October two Muslim preachers accused of supporting ISIS were held in the Ibizan party resort of San Antonio.
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These stunning 19th century photographs give a glimpse of how Hawaiian natives lived on the islands before they became a US state in 1959.
The 120-year-old images provide a snapshot of life on the tropical islands and include intimate photographs of the native population.
Herbert Smith, a draper from Manchester, who lived in Hawaii in the 1890s took the photographs which have remained in the family.
As well as taking photographs, Smith documented his day-to-day experiences on the islands in a series of letters to his family which also form part of the collection.
He sailed from Liverpool to the nearby island of Honolulu in 1893 and spent a year in Hawaii, birthplace of former US president Barack Obama.
Mr Smith's family has now decided to put the collection, which includes letters documenting his travels, up for auction and it is tipped to sell for 2,500.
In one image you can see surf riders with their boards in Hilo Bay, while another shows an old Hawaiian fisherman with a throw net. Surfing is believed to have been invented in the Polynesian islands in the 18th century.
When journalist Mark Twain visited Hawaii in 1866 he wrote: 'In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing.'
The 62-strong photograph album is being sold on March 1.
Surfing is believed to have been invented in the Polynesian islands in the 18th century. Here two young male surfers are in Hilo Bay which is covered in crashing waves perfect for the sport. The bay is still popular with surfers today
Herbert Smith, a draper from Manchester, who lived in Hawaii in the 1890s took the photographs which have remained in the family - here a young family outside a thatched home on one of the islands. One of the women, holding a large hat is breastfeeding, whilst an older women, possibly the grandmother is sitting
The 120-year-old images provide a snapshot of life on the tropical islands and include breathtaking images of this bay here which is partially surrounded by palm trees and small shipping huts
Four generations of an Hawaiian family gather outside a traditional thatched home on the islands. The photographs featured in the auction lot were taken in 1893
A group of children eating sugar cane which was introduced to the islands in the mid 19th century. The production of sugar cane in plantations became a major part of the Hawaiian economy
A native islander (left) who has been fishing, stands holding his paddle next to his canoe. Right, palm trees next to a property on one of the islands
As well as taking photographs, Smith documented his day-to-day experiences on the islands in a series of letters to his family which also form part of the collection. Here paddle boats arrive at a dock from a steamboat in the background
A plantation worker transports chopped wood across one of the islands (left); a woman wearing a straw hat cuts into a caught turtle (right)
The stunning scenery is on display in many of the photographs with Hawaii famed for its beaches and volcanoes
Hundreds of illegal immigrants across 11 states were arrested last week as part of targeted operations, federal immigration officials revealed on Sunday.
A series of raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers saw around 600 people apprehended.
The agency said the operations were 'routine'.
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A series of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers saw around 600 people apprehended
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday morning to proclaim his commitment to a crackdown on crime.
He tweeted: 'The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!'
Immigration was a key platform of the billionaire's presidential campaign before his election in November 2016.
The president plans to build a wall across the Mexican border to prevent to stop what he calls the 'unprecedented surge' of illegal migrants from Central America.
The raids are the first coordinated efforts by ICE under the Trump administration to arrest targeted undocumented migrants.
Last month the President prioritized the deportation of undocumented males who had been convicted of or 'charged with any criminal offense,' including misdemeanors.
David Marin, head of ICE's removal operations in Los Angeles, told reporters that approximately 160 people had been arrested in the city.
Some 75 percent of them had prior felony convictions, he said, adding that some people had been apprehended solely because they were undocumented.
A woman whose father was arrested by ICE officers early on Friday morning in Los Angeles. Undocumented migrants say they live in fear that the raids will 'tear families apart'
By Friday night, 37 undocumented immigrants had already been expelled to Mexico.
An additional 40 were arrested in New York City, which hosts around 1.15million undocumented immigrants.
A further 200 were arrested across Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin and another 200 across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
It was unclear as to whether the operation was a sign of things to come or if they were conducted as part of other procedures implemented under the Obama administration.
The former president was very active in deporting illegal immigrants and oversaw the deportation of 2.5million people.
And in 2015, ICE notably arrested more than 2,000 people nationwide in one week.
President Donald Trump said the crackdown was 'merely in keeping of my campaign promise'
The agency's spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said: 'The focus of these operations is no different than the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis.'
But the raids have left immigrant communities shaken with many fearing their families will be torn apart.
One 62-year-old Peruvian immigrant said Hispanic immigrants were being targeted.
'Yes, we are afraid. You hear about all of these raids going on. Of course, they are going to stop you if you are Hispanic. You feel like you have a target on your back,' He told the New York Daily News.
'All you can do is pray.'
Cruz, an undocumented deliveryman from Mexico, said he and his wife tell their two teenage children to 'never do anything wrong'.
He added: 'They will look at everyone in our family and that will be it. It's not safe, you have to act perfect.'
Immigration advocates said many immigrants are now afraid to send their children to school and or go to church or work or the hospital as panicked rumors spread as quickly as the truth.
'Every time so much as a white guy with a clipboard is walking around, everyone runs into their apartments and locks the doors,' said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director for Legal Aid Justice Center's immigrant advocacy program in northern Virginia.
But Marin said the operations were planned prior to Trump's swearing-in and were comparable to past actions.
And he rebuffed reports about ICE checkpoints and random sweeps, calling them 'dangerous and irresponsible'.
'Reports like that create panic, and they put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger,' he said.
The raids, which hit residential areas and workplaces, sparked protests last week and provoked the ire of Democratic politicians.
'President Trump's policy change betrays our values,' Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement. 'Tearing families apart isn't what this country stands for.'
A ban on Valentine's Day celebrations has been imposed across Pakistan one day before the holiday, the Islamabad High Court ruled on Monday.
Festivities associated with the romantic holiday have been banned in public places and at an official level.
Electronic and print media have been told to not cover the big day celebrating love or give it promotion.
The Islamabad High Court ruled on Monday to ban Valentine's Day across Pakistan. Pictured above, a Pakistani shopkeeper prepares a gift at a gift shop ahead of Valentine's Day in Peshawar in 2016
The order came during a hearing for a petition arguing that the day is not part of Muslim traditions, according to The Express Tribune.
THe IHC passed on its ruling to the ministry, federal government, Pemra chairman and chief commissioner. They have to submit a response to the order within ten days.
Last year President Mamnoon Hussain urged Pakistanis not to observe Valentine's Day.
At the time, Muslim clerics wanted to ban the holiday, but officials in the capital said they could not do so.
The president criticised the day as a Western import that threatens to undermine the Islamic values of Pakistan.
'Valentine's Day has no connection with our culture and it should be avoided,' Hussain said last year at a ceremony celebrating a nationalist leader.
Local media reported earlier that week that Islamabad would ban celebrations on Valentine's celebrations as an 'insult to Islam', but city officials later said such a rule would be unenforceable.
The northwestern city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, banned Valentine's Day celebrations last year, local media said.
Meanwhile in Indonesia, Muslim school students on Monday staged a protest against Valentine's Day, denouncing what they said was a Western celebration that encourages casual sex.
The order came during a hearing for a petition arguing that the day is not part of Muslim traditions. Pictured above, a Pakistani shopper visits a gift shop in ahead of Valentine's Day Peshawar in 2016
While teenagers in many countries treat the day as an occasion to declare their love for classmates, in the Indonesian city of Surabaya it was a different story as students from one school staged the noisy demonstration.
'Say no to Valentine!' chanted the students, who were aged between 13 and 15 and included many girls wearing headscarves.
It was the latest expression of anger at Valentine's Day in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, where Islamic clerics and some pious Muslims typically use the occasion to target what they see as Western decadence.
'This protest was organised as we have seen on television that Valentine's Day tends to be associated with free sex,' said Pandu Satria, organiser of the demonstration that was attended by scores of students. 'That makes us afraid.'
Ida Indahwati Waliulu, headmaster of the school which is run by an Islamic organisation, added: 'There is a certain pride about this positive action carried out by the students.'
As well as the demonstration, several cities across the country banned people from celebrating the occasion.
In 2015 the country's top Islamic clerical body threatened to issue a fatwa against the sale of condoms following reports they were being sold together with chocolate to mark Valentine's Day.
Despite the objections from some, many Indonesians celebrate the occasion, particularly in major cities where cards and chocolates to mark it are widely available.
The Project's host Waleed Aly has come under fire on social media after suggesting people working in administration are 'bogans'.
His remark comes in response to the latest Gumtree advertisement after a small Perth business was slammed for discriminating against 'bogans [and] rough people'.
'Must have good references. Drug free, also child and pet friendly. No bogans or rough people need apply,' the advertisement read.
On Monday evening, the panel on Channel 10 weighed in on the controversial ad that has since been removed.
'If you're not taking bogans, where are you going to find good admin people?' Aly said, prompting shocked audience to gasp.
Refusing to back down, Aly added: 'Where are they going to get them from?'
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The Project's host Waleed Aly (pictured with Carrie Bickmore) has come under fire on social media after suggesting people who work in administration are 'bogans'
His fellow co-star Carrie Bickmore agreed with his comment, saying 'good point'.
Co-host Peter Helliar jokingly said: 'Maybe don't use the word bogans. You could say people with mullets and Bintang singlets need not apply.
Bickmore questioned whether people would know if they consider themselves a bogan, to which Aly responded: 'I reckon there are people who are proudly bogan.'
Several viewers took to Twitter to slam Aly's comments and defend the admin role.
Emma Kate said: 'Rude, Waleed @theprojecttv. I've two degrees, including one in Latin and Ancient Greek & all I'm looking for is an admin position. #nobogan.'
Several viewers took to Twitter to slam Aly after he suggested admin workers were 'bogans'
Aly and Bickmore were joined on the panel alongside Peter Hilliar (far left) and Gretel Killeen (far right) to weigh in on the controversial Gumtree ad that has since been removed
Bickmore questioned whether people would know if they consider themselves a bogan, to which Aly responded: 'I reckon there are people who are proudly bogan'
Dom posted: 'Ummm did Waleed just say that? I work in admin and I am the antithesis of a Bogan. Get off your high horse.'
Donna Taylor wrote: 'No Waleed. Not cool at all. Not all Admin peeps are Bogans. Many are degree qualified. Can't believe your comment!'
And Joaby Boaby said: 'I never watch your show these days but I've turned in lately... Have just been called a bogan by Waleed.'
However, Ian Graves saw the funny side to Aly's comment when he asked: 'I'm a bogan is that why I can't get work?'
The term bogan is an Australian slang word to describe an uncouth or unsophisticated person regarded as being of low social status.
Several viewers took to Twitter to slam Aly after he suggested admin workers were 'bogans'
David Davis is 'very sorry' if he offended Diane Abbott in a series of text messages branded 'misogynist' and 'sexist' by critics.
A spokesman for the Brexit Secretary said the remarks were 'private' and 'self-evidently jocular'.
Mr Davis was plunged into the damaging sexism row after saying he wouldn't hug the shadow home secretary as 'I am not blind'.
And he went on to joke that had he hugged her, as reported last week, it would make a good Specsavers-style advert.
Mr Davis is said to have made a light-hearted attempt to embrace and kiss Ms Abbott in a Commons bar last week after she voted in favour of triggering Article 50 to leave the EU. Ms Abbott responded by telling him bluntly to 'f*** off!'
Shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti accused Mr Davis of being 'patronising' while senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna branded the episode 'sexist' and 'appalling'.
Brexit Minister David Davis said he wouldn't kiss Diane Abbot because 'I am not blind', in a damaging text message. He joked that he hugged her and would make a good Specsavers ad
Ms Abbott told the Brexit Minister to 'f*** off' in the Commons bar when he tried to embrace her after MPs voted in favour of triggering Article 50
Afterwards, a Tory politician friend texted him: 'Cannot believe you made an attempt to give DA [Diane Abbott] a hug!' Davis replied: 'Didn't, but the myth grows.
I whispered in her ear 'Thanks for your vote' hence the 'F off'. I am not blind.'
Davis' friend responded: 'Ha! Ha! Thank god you aren't blind. Great week for you and Brexit!'
Davis continued: 'Actually it would make a good Optical Express advert... Yes, a reasonable success.'
His last text appears to be a reference not to Optical Express but another opticians, Specsavers, whose TV adverts feature hilarious mix-ups caused by bad eyesight, followed by the slogan: 'Should've gone to Specsavers.'
His line about not being blind seems to be a reference to Miss Abbott's appearance.
The text messages were sent on Friday afternoon, two days after the final Commons vote on Brexit.
A spokesman for Mr Davis said: 'This was a self- evidently jocular and private exchange with a friend.
'The Secretary of State is very sorry for any offence caused to Miss Abbott, someone he has known and respected for many years.'
Shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti (left on ITV today) accused Mr Davis of being 'patronising' while senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna (right on Sky News today) branded the episode 'sexist' and 'appalling'
Baroness Chakrabarti told ITV's Robert Peston: 'David Davis was very silly, he was sexist and he was patronising.'
She compared Ms Abbott's 'dignified' response to Theresa May's tactile first appearance with Donald trump in the White House.
Mr Umunna told Sky's Sophy Ridge: 'I think it's sexist, I think it's misogynistic ... It's appalling.
'This type of behaviour has absolutely no place in the Conservative Party or British politics full stop.
The text messages were sent on Friday afternoon, two days after the final Commons vote on Brexit. Ms Abbott declined to comment
'David Davis, he is a member of the cabinet. This is a member of the cabinet. What does that say about that party to the country, your viewers, if he is coming out with that sort of thing about a very respected long-serving member of the House of Commons?'
Commons leader David Lidington said: 'He is embarrassed by them and he has given an apology. I hope Diane Abbott accepts that apology.
'David appears to accept he has made a misjudgement. We move on.'
Staunchly pro-European Ms Abbott reluctantly backed the Government after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn issued a three-line whip as he battled to stop a revolt by his MPs.
Shadow Home Secretary Ms Abbott had faced furious protests from fellow Labour MPs after dodging a previous key Brexit vote, claiming she was unwell.
She launched her four-letter riposte after hardline Brexiteer Davis made his joking advance in the Commons Strangers Bar, overlooking the River Thames.
Tory MPs say Mr Davis chuckled as he walked away.
An ally of the Cabinet Minister said it had been light-hearted. 'I don't think it's right to say he tried to plant a kiss, and it was perfectly jovial,' the source said.
But Labour MP Jess Phillips who has said Mr Davis appeared to have been 'drunk on Brexit smugness' after the vote called on the Minister to apologise for his actions.
'You'd have hoped this sort of misogynistic, sexist attitude had gone out in the 1950s,' said the Birmingham MP, who did not witness the original encounter.
'After saying it was a myth he tried to kiss her, David Davis has gone on to look an even bigger, more paternalistic, patriarchal sexist. He's made it worse. The Minister should promise he will never behave like that again.'
But a Conservative insider said: 'They sound like light-hearted texts sent in private to a friend. It is ridiculous to suggest they are anything other than innocent banter with not an ounce of malice in them.'
Ms Abbott declined to comment.
A South African woman who was ambushed in her own home was stabbed 21 times before having her eyes gouged out before her naked body was discovered by her son who arrived home from school.
Tanya Wiers, 44, was discovered by her son Rolf lying in her daughter's bedroom after suffering the gruesome attack.
The brutal slaying has been described by police as the worst they have ever witnessed.
Tanya Wiers, right, was found murdered at her home in Polokwane, South Africa by her son. Police arrested 25-year-old Frans Maela, left, in connection with the crime shortly afterwards
The mother-of-three was attacked at her home in Polokwane, about 150 miles north of Pretoria.
Police arrested 25-year-old suspect Frans Maela in connection with the killing.
A family friend told the Bosveld Review said she had gone into the house after Mrs Wiers' husband Rolf Snr said he received a disturbing call from her son who was talking incoherently: 'I went into the house, thinking she might have died from a heart attack. What I saw was like something out of a horror movie. She was lying in her youngest daughters room covered by a duvet beside the bed.
'It was clear that there had been a struggle as the bed was not where it used to be in the room. Tanyas clothing was lying in front of the closet in her and her husbands room. The closet doors were still open and it is evident someone had searched through.'
Mrs Wiers suffered at least 21 stab wounds and had her eyes gouged out during the attack
The attack happened at the family's home on Logan Street on the outskirts of Polokwane
Mrs Wiers was murdered in her daughter's bedroom, left, with her clothes strewn across the entire house during the savage attack which was described by police as 'gruesome'
Edwel Community Policing spokesman Brigadier Motafela Mojapelo said: 'This is the most gruesome thing Ive ever seen. I cant think that there will ever be anything worse. It was evident that the victim put up the fight of her life, there was so much blood and her defensive wounds tell their own horrifying story.'
Maela has been remanded in custody after appearing before Polokwane Magistrates' Court.
Police discovered Mrs Wiers suffered extensive defence wounds to her arms and hands before she succumbed to the attack.
ACLU is set to create a rapid response team to stop illegal immigrants getting deported under the Trump administration.
The not-for-profit American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has seen membership and donations soar since the White House's executive order on migration blocking travel for citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries.
As the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) closes in on migrants, the group is launching a special unit to make sure those facing deportation are given access to counsel immediately.
U.S. President Donald Trump (right) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attend a joint press conference in Palm Beach, Florida
More than 160 foreign nationals were detained in Los Angeles alone last week, according to ABC, but ICE Field Office Director David Marin said they were nothing our of the ordinary.
Despite the Obama administration deporting a record 2.5million people to earn himself the nickname Deporter in Chief among rights activists, the ACLU predict things will only get worse under Trump.
The group's senior attorney Lee Gelernt told ABC News: 'This administration is just getting started and we're anticipating much worse.
'His rhetoric is already scaring a lot of people in immigrant communities.'
Trump's immigration move has been vehemently opposed by some civilians who have staged protests all over the world.
The President meets Japanese and Canadian leaders this week.
Demonstrators march to the Plaza Angel Independencia February 12, 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico
The new team will pair private law firms and local community groups with those individuals facing deportation.
Trump's executive order, which is being fought in the courts, banned nationals from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan from entering the US.
In response to the Republican's election, the ACLU has received almost $80million in donations and membership rates have doubled in that time.
Britain's most hated mother, Karen Matthews, was treated to a slap-up dinner of roast pork and Yorkshire pudding by a group of elderly Christians as she reeled over the new BBC drama about her sickening crimes, MailOnline can reveal.
The mother-of-seven, who faked nine-year-old daughter Shannon's kidnapping, tucked into a 6.50 meal of roast pork and Yorkshire pudding at the popular Toby Carvery to take her mind off the controversial programme.
The 41-year-old, who turned to God during her four years in jail, has dyed her ginger hair black and is using the name 'Kate' while living in an undisclosed location in the south of England while she receives support from a Christian group.
Matthews chatted with three Christian friends in a cafe before they took a bus to the carvery for a meal. There, she queued at the buffet and loaded her plate with roast meat, potatoes and gravy, but drank only sparkling water.
Reviled: Karen Matthews, pictured, the mother of kidnapped girl Shannon, was comforted by her Christian activist friends over a roast dinner as she reeled from the new BBC drama starring Sheridan Smith about daughter Shannon's kidnapping
Turned to God: Mother-of-seven Matthews, 41, poured her heart out for an hour to Christian friends from a local church group in a cafe before reading through newspaper reports about the controversial BBC drama The Moorside, starring BAFTA winner Smith
Justice: Matthews, pictured smoking outside a cafe in southern England, from Dewsbury, West Yorks, queued up at the buffet and loading her plate with roast meat, potatoes and gravy
Sentence: Matthews, pictured, turned to God while serving a four year prison sentence over the 'kidnapping' of her daughter Shannon, who is now 18 and living under a new identity in an undisclosed location
The group then laughed and joked as they hailed a taxi to a terraced house on an estate about a mile-and-a-half away, where Matthews is understood to be staying with her friends.
Matthews, who is apparently teetotal, regularly meets a support group of religious volunteers in a cafe where she receives encouragement and advice, MailOnline has learned.
Last week she was reportedly attacked at a fish and chip shop by someone who recognised her despite her disguise, and threw a plate of mushy peas over her head.
Matthews is said to fear for her life and often covers her face with a scarf when walking in the street. She has reportedly given up drinking and began volunteering in the charity shop after finding it impossible to find a job due to her notoriety.
She has claimed that she is struggling to survive on benefits of just 25 a week, and prays every day in order to find the strength to carry on. Her new name, Kate, is thought to be inspired by one of her Hollywood idols.
Fresh start: Now going by the name 'Kate', she works at a charity shop and meets a support group of religious activists who give her encouragement and advice, MailOnline has learned
Threats: Matthews, above, is said to fear for her life and often covers her face with a scarf when walking in the street. She has become a teetotal and volunteers at the charity shop because she can not get a job, given her notoriety
Living in fear: Following the airing of the BBC drama depicting her crimes, Matthews was reportedly attacked by a member of the public who threw a plate of scalding mushy peas over her head in a fish and chip shop
The renewed interest in the Matthews case was prompted by a BBC drama, The Moorside, featuring Sheridan Smith as family friend Julie Bushby, which has attracted criticism over its treatment of the story.
Since the first episode was broadcast, it emerged that Matthews is alleged to have written explicit letters to admirers for money while serving time in prison and planned to win over a guard to try to become pregnant.
There has also been speculation that at least three other people may have been involved in the crime after Bushby claimed that the Dewsbury mother was 'not intelligent enough' to come up with the plot on her own.
She claimed that her daughter Shannon had been kidnapped in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in February 2008.
Shannon was found, following a police search costing 5million, 24 days later less than a mile from her home in a house belonging to the uncle of Craig Meehan, Matthews' boyfriend. She had been tied up, drugged and hidden in the base of a divan bed.
It is thought that Matthews staged the kidnap in order to claim the 50,000 reward for her return. She was convicted of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice and was sentenced to eight years along with Michael Donovan, Meehan's uncle.
Matthews was released after serving four years at New Hall prison in West Yorkshire and Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire.
BBC drama: The renewed interest in Matthews' case was brought about by controversial BBC drama The Moorside, featuring Sheridan Smith, right, who plays Matthews' friend Julie Bushby, who led the search for missing nine-year-old Shannon, who was found after 24 days
Kidnap plot: The show tells how Matthews, left, claimed her daughter Shannon had been taken in February 2008. The girl was found bound and drugged in the base of a divan bed less than a mile from her home in a house belonging to the uncle of her stepfather Craig Meehan, right
Defence: Matthews continues to protest her innocence, while her daughter Shannon, right, who is now 18, is living under a new identity at an undisclosed location
Jail term: Matthews was convicted of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice. It is believed she staged the abduction to claim the 50,000 for her return. Pictured: Karen Matthews' home in Dewsbery, West Yorkshire, in March 2008
Following the alleged attack in a chip shop, a source said: 'Karen thinks this is just the start and wonders how many more attacks she will suffer.
'She was glad it was just a few peas but next time it could be worse. She was living quite a peaceful life until this programme came along.
'But Karen being Karen, she doesn't think it is anything to do with what she did by kidnapping her daughter.'
The source added: 'She is a long way from Dewsbury and has only been recognised a couple of times in a year.
I cannot go out of the door. I'm frightened out of my life. I'm shaking like a leaf. I'm s*** scared to even get any shopping or anything Karen Matthews
'But now with this new drama on the telly she's petrified. The show is bringing her crimes to the attention of lot more people, who were younger at the time and weren't aware of what she did.'
Matthews continues to protest her innocence, while her daughter, who is now 18, is living under a new identity at an undisclosed location.
According to The Mirror, Matthews has told friends about the constant threats.
She told one: 'I cannot go out of the door. I'm frightened out of my life. I'm shaking like a leaf. I'm s*** scared to even get any shopping or anything.
'I know I can't stop it but why does it have to be dragged up again? Why don't they just leave me alone and let me get on with my life?'
The BBC drama, starring Smith as Julie Bushby, aired on Tuesday. It centred on the hunt for Shannon, who was nine when she disappeared from the Moorside estate.
Reprisals: Fearful Matthews told a friend she believes the chip shop alleged attack is 'just the start' and the convicted kidnapper was frustrated the BBC drama ruined her 'peaceful life'
Controversial: Julie Bushby, left, a former friend of Karen Matthews who coordinated the search when nine-year-old Shannon disappeared. She appeared on This Morning alongside Natalie Murray, 35, another friend of Matthews, who feature in TV drama 'The Moorside'
The BBC1 programme was made by ITV Studios and watched by 7.2million viewers.
Matthews' cousin, Susan Howgate, said that the controversial drama would 'bring everything back' and cause unnecessary pain.
'Family members will get grief like they have done in the past. I've had a lot of trouble, and same with my auntie. People keep saying stuff to her still,' she told ITV's Good Morning Britain.
Her anger was shared by Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine went missing nearly ten years ago. They accused the BBC of 'poor taste' and said it was an 'appalling' and 'insensitive' decision to show it.
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Brandishing a gun, his face contorted with rage, this shocking image of a policeman assassinating the Russian envoy to Turkey has won the prestigious World Press Photo Award.
Judges praised the courage and bravery of Burhan Ozbilici, a photographer for Associated Press, who stood his ground as 22-year-old policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas pumped nine bullets into ambassador Andrei Karlov at the opening of an Ankara exhibition.
The vivid photo was shared around the world, and has been viewed some 18 million times.
Ozbilici's image was part of a series titled 'An Assassination in Turkey' that also won the Spot News - Stories category.
In the winning photo, the Turkish gunman, wearing a suit and tie, stands defiantly, pistol in his right hand pointed at the ground and with his left hand raised, his index finger pointing upward. His mouth is wide open as he shouts angrily. The ambassador's body lies on the floor just behind Altintas.
Brandishing a gun, his face contorted with rage, the shocking image of a Turkish policeman assassinating the Russian envoy to Turkey has won the prestigious World Press Photo Award
Ozbilici's image was part of a series titled 'An Assassination in Turkey' that also won the Spot News - Stories category
The photos were captured in the moments before and after policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas drew a handgun and shot Ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibition in Ankara on December 19
Another image in the series showed the ambassador before the shooting, with Altintas standing behind him
Another image in the series showed the ambassador before the shooting, with Altintas standing behind him.
The judges from the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam acknowledged they had had a tough job to choose the 2017 winner from more than 80,400 images submitted by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries.
Syrian snappers Abd Doumany and Ameer Alhalbi won second prize in the Spot News category for their pictures of children caught up in the bombardments of Aleppo and Douma. It is the second year in the row that Doumany's work has been honoured by the World Press Photo foundation.
Agence France-Presse also scooped three awards. Manila-based photographer Noel Celis took third place in the General News category for his photo of inmates trying to sleep in an over-populated prison in the city.
Speaking about his winning photograph Ozbilici said his professional instincts kicked in despite the shocking scene unfolding in front of him.
Speaking about his winning photograph Ozbilici said his professional instincts kicked in despite the shocking scene unfolding in front of him. People are pictured cowering in the aftermath of the killing
Mevlut Mert Altintas stands over the body of Andrei Karlov (right) the Russian ambassador to Turkey, after shooting him at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey
Valery Melnikov took top spot in the long-term projects category for images of civilians escaping from a fire at a house destroyed by an air attack in Luhanskaya village in Ukraine
Thomson Reuters photographer Jonathan Bachman won the Contemporary Issues - First Prize, Singles award for his image 'Taking A Stand In Baton Rouge'. It shows lone activist Ieshia Evans standing her ground while offering her hands for arrest as she is charged by riot police during a protest against police brutality outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana, USA on July 9. Evans, a 28-year-old Pennsylvania nurse and mother of one, travelled to Baton Rouge to protest against the shooting of Alton Sterling
'It was extremely hot, like I had boiled water on my head, then very cold, very cold. Extremely dangerous,' Ozbilici said in an interview. 'But at the same time I understood that this was big history, it was history, (a) very, very important incident.'
So the veteran AP photographer did what he has learned to do over some 30 years: 'I immediately decided to do my job because I could be wounded, maybe die, but at least I have to represent good journalism,' he said.
The winning image announced Monday was among 80,408 photos submitted to the prestigious competition by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries. The jury awarded prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries.
This image called 'Mediterranean Migration' by photographer Mathieu Willcocks, won third prize in the Spot News, Stories, category of the World Press Photo contest. It shows Libyan fishermen throwing a lifejacket at a rubber boat full of migrants
Mathieu Willcocks also took this image of two men panicking and struggling in the water during their rescue in the Mediterranean
Santi Palacios won second prize in the General News, Singles, category of the World Press Photo contest with this photo of an 11-year-old girl from Nigeria (right) who said her mother died in Libya, crying next to her 10-year-old brother aboard an NGO rescue boat in July. The children had sailed for hours in an overcrowded rubber boat with other refugees during a rescue operation on the Mediterranean Sea, 16 miles north of Sabratha, Libya
A picture called 'Rescued From The Rubble' by photographer Ameer Alhalbi, won second prize in the Spot News, Stories, category of the World Press Photo contest. It shows Syrian civil defence volunteers, known as the White Helmets, rescuing a boy from the rubble following a reported barrel bomb attack on the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood of Aleppo on November 24
Another photo by Ameer Alhalbi shows Syrian men carrying babies as they make their way through the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported air strike on the rebel-held Salihin neighbourhood of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria on September 11
'Burhan's striking image was the result of skill and experience, composure under extreme pressure and the dedication and sense of mission that mark AP journalists worldwide,' said AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee. 'We are enormously proud of his accomplishment.'
Jury chair Stuart Franklin called Ozbilici's image 'an incredibly hard-hitting news photograph' and part of a strong series documenting the assassination.
'I think Burhan was incredibly courageous and had extraordinary composure in being able to sort of calm himself down in the middle of the affray and take the commanding pictures that he took,' Franklin said. 'I think as a spot news story it was terrific.'
Denis Paquin, AP's acting director of photography, said Ozbilici's actions that day were typical of his professionalism.
'Burhan would tell you he was just doing his job. His humble professionalism, combined with incredible courage, enabled him to capture these unforgettable images,' he said.
Pakistani photographer Jamal Taraqai captured this gruesome image of lawyers helping their injured colleagues after a bomb explosion in Quetta, Pakistan, on August 8. Some 70 people were killed when a bomb exploded outside a civil hospital where a crowd of lawyers and journalists had gathered to mourn Bilal Anwar Kasi, a senior lawyer who had been assassinated hours earlier. The image has won the first prize in the 'Spot News - Singles' category
Aftonbladet photographer Magnus Wennman won the People - First Prize, Singles award for this image of five-year-old Maha who fled with her family from the village of Hawija outside Mosul, Iraq. The fear of ISIS and the lack of food forced them to leave their home, her mother says
Among winning nature photos were images depicting humanity's devastating effect on wildlife, including a gruesome photograph by Brent Stirton of a poached rhino with its horn hacked off in Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve, South Africa
US photographer Michael Vince Kim won the People - First Prize, Stories with a series of picture including of two sisters Olga and Adelina Lim Hi
Spanish photographer Francis Perez won the Nature - First Prize, Singles award with this image of a sea turtle entangled in a fishing net swimming off the coast of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, in June. Sea turtles are considered a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature while unattended fishing gear is responsible for many turtle deaths
The eclectic selection of winners highlighted the dominant news topics of the last year including conflict in Syria and Iraq, the migrant crisis, the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Olympic Games in Rio.
Among winning nature photos were images depicting humanity's devastating effect on wildlife, including a gruesome photograph of a poached rhino with its horn hacked off and another showing a turtle swimming while enmeshed in a green fishing net.
Among other winners, Jonathan Bachman of the United States, a photographer for Thomson Reuters, won the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an image of Ieshia Evans being detained in Baton Rouge during a protest on July 9 over the death of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by police. Evans stands bolt upright in a flowing dress as two police officers in heavy body armor and helmets move to take her into custody.
Franklin called Bachman's image 'an unforgettable sort of comment on passive resistance. It's really a lovely photograph. You'll never forget it.'
AP photographer Vadim Ghirda, based in Romania, won second prize in the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an emotionally charged photo of migrants crossing a river as they attempt to reach Macedonia from Greece, while another AP photographer, Felipe Dana, came third in the Spot News - Singles category for his image of an explosion in Mosul, Iraq. And Santi Palacios won second in the General News - Singles category for a photo that ran on the AP wire of two Nigerian children who said their mother died in Libya aboard a rescue boat in the Mediterranean Sea.
A woman is supported by two men while crossing a river as migrants attempt to reach Macedonia on a route that would bypass the border fence. AP photographer Vadim Ghirda of Romania won second prize in the Contemporary Issues - Singles category in the 2017 World Press Photo competition with theemotionally charged photo
A car bomb explodes next to Iraqi special forces armoured vehicles as they advance towards ISIS held territory in Mosul, Iraq. AP photographer, Felipe Dana, came third in the Spot News - Singles category for his image
The New York Times photographer Daniel Berehulak won the General News - First Prize, Stories award for his images of inmates watching drug suspects being processed inside a police station in Manila, Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines began his deadly anti-drug campaign when he took office on June 30 2016
Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders wants to 'de-Islamise' the Netherlands and ban the Quran after comparing the holy book to Mein Kampf.
In a rare television interview, the anti-Islam founder of Holland's Party of Freedom also compared mosques to Nazi temples.
The controversial politician has already proclaimed that Europe is about to enter a 'Patriotic Spring' in which populist parties will triumph in the Netherlands and France following Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as US president.
In the interview in Holland, Wilders repeated remarks he has made frequently in the past, offensive to many, comparing the Quran to Hitler's autobiography 'Mein Kampf'.
Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders wants to 'de-Islamise' the Netherlands and ban the Quran after comparing the holy book to Mein Kampf
A self-avowed admirer of Trump, Wilders said the Netherlands does not need to build a wall to keep out foreigners but should re-establish border controls.
Wilders said on Sunday that promises by other parties not to work with him would be quickly forgotten if, as expected, his far-right party gets more than 30 parliamentary seats in next month's election.
He then traded barbs on Twitter with Prime Minister Mark Rutte about who will work with whom after the March 15 vote.
Freedom leads in most opinion polls, with Rutte's conservative VVD party in second place. But the VVD and other Dutch mainstream parties have said they won't enter into a coalition with Wilders because his platform calls for banning mosques and the Quran as well as leaving the European Union.
In his first major televised interview ahead of the election, Wilders said on Sunday that those promises would be ditched if Freedom gets 30 or more seats in the 150-seat Dutch parliament.
In a rare television interview, the anti-Islam founder of Holland's Party of Freedom also compared mosques to Nazi temples
Alternative coalitions would prove unworkable and shutting him out would lead to a popular 'revolt,' he said.
In response, Rutte tweeted a link to a video clip of himself categorically ruling out cooperation with Wilders.
'Zero percent (chance) Geert, ZERO percent. It. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen', he tweeted on his personal account, the first time it has been used in five years.
The VVD, however, said Rutte's tweet represented both his personal position and the party line.
Wilders, a prolific user of Twitter, quickly shot back: 'It's the voters who are in charge of this country Mark, for a HUNDRED percent. And. Nobody. In. The. Netherlands. Still. Believes. You.'
Pollster Maurice de Hond said on Sunday his weekly poll showed Freedom slipping from 32 to 30 seats, with Rutte's VVD gaining one to 26 seats.
In the past, Wilders has spoken of the need for European nations to 'de-Islamise' to create a 'safer society for ourselves and our children'.
In December, Wilders was convicted of insulting Moroccans and inciting discrimination against them for leading supporters in chanting they wanted 'Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!' of them in the country..
He is appealing the ruling.
A Chinese army veteran who lost touch with his family after being imprisoned in India has finally been reunited with his relatives.
Wang Qi, 77, returned to his homeland on Saturday after more than half a century, flying 3,700 kilometers (2,299 miles) from New Delhi to Beijing.
The man, who hadn't set foot on his homeland for 54 years, broke down in tears as he met his siblings on the Lantern Festival, an occasion for family reunions in China.
For long Wang was known as a 'man with no country' but he returned to China at the weekend for an emotional reunion with his long-lost relatives
He told CGTN News that the reunion - initiated after his story gained intense media coverage - was the 'happiest day' of his life and he couldn't express his excitement over seeing family members, including his tearful 84-year-old brother.
Wang, who has long been known as the 'man with no country', arrived at his hometown of Xi'an, the capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province at around 6pm after a short flight from the Beijing.
His three brothers and two sisters were there to greet him at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport armed with smiles and bouquets of flowers.
Unfortunately Wang, who lives in Madhya Pradesh in India with his Indian wife and children, was unable to make it home before his mother died in 2006.
As Wang, in the coming days, reunites with long-lost relatives, the family will also, in the weeks ahead, have to decide on his future
Since his emotional reunion on Saturday in Xian with his brothers and sister, Wang has been swept up in a whirl of media attention and feted by the government
It was only recently that his dreams of finding his family again were realised, after his story gained global exposure and his visa papers were granted following years of denial.
Wang lost his way in a forest on the China-India border in 1963.
At the time he was serving as a soldier in the Sino-Indian war - a conflict primarily over the disputed Himalayan border.
Although he managed to find a group of Red Cross workers, they turned him over to the Indian authorities and imprisoned for seven years.
Long journey: Wang travelled 3,700 kilometers (2,299 miles) from New Delhi to Beijing in a bid to get home to his long-lost family and friends
Following his stint in jail, Wang was relocated to the remote Indian village of Tirodi in Madhya Pradesh where he ended up marrying and settling down.
While Wang's wife Sushila and daughter Anita did not accompany him on the long journey to China because of health reasons, he was joined by his son Vishnu Wang, his daughter-in-law Neha and grandson.
As Wang, in the coming days, reunites with long-lost relatives, the family will also, in the weeks ahead, have to decide on his future.
The former soldier is thought to be keen 'on spending the last years of his life in China' as one acquaintance said, but his wife remains in India, where his son and daughter and their families reside.
Flashback: Wang lost his way in a forest on the China-India border in 1963 - at the time he was serving as a soldier in the Sino-Indian war (seen above)
Wang Qi (C) arrived at the Xi'an airport to return to his hometown on February 11, 2017
'This is a decision, the family has to sit together and decide, whether my father and us stay or go back, and when we go back,' Vishnu Wang told India Today, speaking at the hotel where the Wang family has been residing since their arrival.
They have been hosted by the local government in the town of Xiangyang, near Xian, which is an hour away from the remote and difficult-to-reach family village of Xuezhai where Wang Qi's brothers live.
Wang is expected to travel to the remote village on Monday and pay respects at the grave of his mother, who passed away seven years ago.
He never had the chance to see her again after being jailed in 1963.
Vishnu spoke of his father's joy at reuniting with his brothers, who last saw him as a young 20-year-old.
'My father met with his family for the first time after 54 years, his older and younger brother, and sister. He couldn't stop crying,' Vishnu said.
Wang is expected to travel to the remote village on Monday and pay respects at the grave of his mother, who passed away seven years ago
Wang with his family in Tirodi, Madhya Pradesh where he has lived since 1969
'We are thankful to both India and China governments for taking the good decision of allowing him to come to China. I'm also so happy, that for the first time he has been able to come here.'
The family's only regret was Wang being unable to see his mother.
'The only thing I'm sad about is he was waiting for so long to see his mother, but its a source of sadness for our family that she was not alive to see this,' Vishnu said.
The family faces a difficult decision in the weeks ahead, as Wang Qi decides whether to return to his family in India, or relocate with his wife, even as his children live in India. Wang is a Chinese citizen, and was issued a passport by China in 2003.
He has been granted a one-year visa by India, relatives said, which would allow him to return to his home in Madhya Pradesh.
China has unusually given his son Vishnu and his family a two year visa that is rarely granted to foreign citizens, underlining the significance Beijing has attached to the case.
The Kremlin has weighed in on the Michael Flynn furore by saying Donald Trump's National Security Adviser did not discuss lifting Russian sanctions in a call with the ambassador.
Flynn allegedly held secretive phone calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump stepped into the Oval Office in which he promised the easing of sanctions imposed by Barack Obama.
If he did, that would put him in breach of the 1799 Logan Act, which bans private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers that are in dispute with the US.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions on Moscow in the phone call as the Kremlin announced Vladimir Putin and Trump could meet before the G20 summit in July.
Michael Flynn (right) allegedly spoke to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak out of turn in December
The two leaders have never met, but both have said they want to try to mend battered US-Russia ties, which fell to their lowest level since the Cold War after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.
The new US administration is under pressure over Russia with Flynn struggling to get past the controversy caused by the call.
When asked about it on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed lifting sanctions on Moscow.
'Obviously every ambassador informs the centre (Moscow) about all the contacts he has so the information gets to us, but we are not willing to comment on internal discussions being held in Washington,' Peskov said.
Asked if there had been talks between any Russian and U.S. representatives on easing sanctions, Peskov said: 'We have already said there have not been any such talks.'
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California who wants Flynn suspended
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi demanded on Friday Donald Trump's national security adviser, Lt Gen Michael Flynn, be suspended and lose his intelligence clearance until an FBI investigation into his actions is concluded.
In a statement, Pelosi demanded that the Lt Gen be suspended and restricted from accessing intelligence until the FBI's investigation into his call is concluded.
'President Trump's kowtowing to Vladimir Putin is endangering our national security and emboldening a dangerous tyrant,' she said. 'What do the Russians have on President Trump that he would flirt with lifting sanctions and weakening NATO?
'The President and his National Security Advisor have given the Russians the impression that whatever they do, they are not to worry, because the Trump White House will not stand against their aggression.
'General Flynn should be suspended and have his intelligence clearance revoked until the facts are known about his secret contacts with the Russians.'
Flynn is alleged to have made the phone call on December 29, the day that Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in response to Russian interference in the presidential election.
The accusations against Flynn emerged in January, and were subsequently denied by Vice President Mike Pence.
'They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,' Pence told CBS News's 'Face the Nation' on January 15.
The claims were addressed again in a Washington Post report on Thursday, in which 'senior US officials' interpreted Flynn's statements to Kisalyak as 'inappropriate and potentially illegal' promises of an easing in sanctions.
Flynn denied the claims twice in an interview on Wednesday, but on Thursday he told the Post through a spokesman 'that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn't be certain that the topic never came up.'
The FBI confirmed on Wednesday that they are currently investigating Flynn.
In her statement, Pelosi also demanded an FBI investigation into the wider 'financial, political and personal ties between President Donald Trump and Russia.'
And she added that 'Congress must also launch an bipartisan, independent, outside commission' into 'Russia's on the election and this Administration.'
She said that Republicans, like Democrats, should be 'alarmed' at the 'mortifying coziness the Trump Administration has shown with Putin.'
Vladimir Putin (pictured) and Donald Trump could meet before the G20 summit in July
On Friday Flynn's top deputy, Robin Townley, was fired from National Security Council after being denied security access by the CIA.
It's unclear why Townley's request for 'Sensitive Compartmented Information' clearance was rejected.
But Flynn and his allies believe it was motivated by Townley's skepticism at the intelligence community's techniques, sources told Politico.
The Logan Act was created as a result of George Logan's unauthorized negotiations with France in 1798, and enacted by President John Adams in 1799.
Those found guilty of breaking it can face imprisonment for up to three years, and be made to pay a fine.
Only one person has ever been indicted for violating the act: Francis Flournoy, a Kentucky farmer who, in 1803, wrote an article suggesting a separate Western nation allied with France. He was never actually prosecuted.
Outspoken senator Pauline Hanson has called for African youths to be deported amid the latest violent rampage at a festival.
Up to 70 Sudanese youths allegedly caused havoc at the Summersault event in Melbourne on Saturday night that left a 16-year-old boy hospitalised.
The group of gang members are accused of attacking revellers, and stealing valuables, including phones, wallets and handbags.
On Monday, the One Nation leader weighed in on the incident, suggesting: 'I've got the best solution to this. Round them up and get them out!'
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Outspoken senator Pauline Hanson (pictured) has called for African youths to be deported in response to the latest violent rampage at a festival
The One Nation leader has weighed in on the incident that left a 16-year-old boy hospitalised
Her controversial views were mostly met with support, with many agreeing with the Queensland politician.
Police confirmed an investigation was underway after a large group of youths stormed the festival during the fireworks display, allegedly terrorising families.
'Six people have reported their mobile phone being stolen and two reports of assault has been made to police,' a police spokeswoman said.
Jack McLaughlin, 16, was reportedly 'jumped on' as his mobile phone was stolen outside Caroline Springs police station, in Melbourne's northwest.
His mother Debbie Tesoriero said her son needed brain scans, after having no recollection of the stampede but was able to go home on Sunday evening.
Footage captured at the event showed a large crowd of people screaming in fear after the youths of African appearance stormed the festival.
Jack McLaughlin, 16, (pictured in hospital) was 'jumped on' as his mobile phone was stolen
NEW DETAIL: Malissa Ancona was taken into custody late Sunday evening on a 20-hour hold for investigation into the death of her husband, Frank Ancona. She is currently being held at the St. Francois County Jail.
ORIGINAL STORY: An autopsy conducted Sunday on the body of Frank Ancona, 51, of Leadwood, revealed he died as result of a gunshot to the head.
Charges pertaining to his death will likely be filed today.
The story of Ancona's death spread around the globe over the weekend, not because of his disappearance or how or where he died, but because he had long claimed involvement in a local chapter of an organization tied to the Ku Klux Klan.
But seemingly any involvement with the KKK had little, if anything, to do with his death. While specifics were being withheld until the filing of formal charges, all indications were the death occurred at Ancona's home in Leadwood which he shared with his wife, Malissa.
Investigators spoke with Malissa Ancona and her son, Frank's stepson, several times over the weekend. Reportedly the stepson, whose name was not released, was picked up on an unrelated warrant and was being held in a local jail.
On Saturday afternoon authorities confirmed that the body of Frank Ancona had been located outside Belgrade near the Big River by a family out for a day of fishing.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said a U.S. Forest Service employee had found Franks car on a forest service road off Route P outside Potosi on Thursday. The worker ran the license plate, but at that point Ancona had not been reported missing so there was no indicator of any issue associated with the car or that the driver wasn't simply out enjoying the mid-winter day outdoors.
Ancona was reported missing Friday after his employer reached out to the Leadwood Police Department with concerns of his whereabouts. The employer reported Ancona had not shown up for work Wednesday or Thursday, which was out of character for him.
A Leadwood officer went to the Ancona address but no one answered the door. The officer contacted Police Chief William Dickey, who then went back to the house to investigate further.
When the chief and officer arrived they found Frank's wife, Malissa, and her son, Frank's stepson, outside the home. They inquired about Frank and were told by Malissa that he got a call from his workplace and needed to drive across the state to deliver a part, which is what he did for a living.
Frank's son, Frank Ancona Jr., told police that other family members had not heard from his dad, which was very much out of character for him.
A call to the employer verified they did not send Frank across the state on a job.
The officers requested to enter the house. At first Malissa denied access, but later consented to allowing them to enter. Once inside, the officers found a safe which had been busted open and any contents removed.
It was also discovered that all of Frank's firearms were missing except the handgun he carried regularly as a holder of a concealed carry permit.
Malissa told the police that Frank told her he was leaving to go out of state on this job and that when he got back he was filing for a divorce. She said he took the firearms with him.
She also said his threat of a divorce was why she had posted a notice on Facebook earlier in the week looking for a roommate. She said with Frank leaving she would need a roommate to share the living expenses.
But other family members living nearby said Frank would never have taken all of his firearms with him.
The Leadwood officers left the home and put a "check the well-being" alert out to area law enforcement agencies.
Shortly after the alert was dispatched, word of the black car being seen outside Potosi the previous day was reported. Officers went to the location and found the car.
Deputies responded on Friday and located the vehicle and secured it, said Jacobsen. We left deputies at the scene and secured it overnight due to the loss of light. On Saturday morning we conducted a search of the area on foot by members of the Potosi Fire Protection District and the sheriffs office. We didnt locate much of anything in the woods, but we did locate evidence of a burn pile near Mr. Anconas vehicle.
Later that day Jacobsen reported they executed two search warrants and arrested a male on an unrelated drug warrant out of Washington County. While they were waiting for the issuance of one of the warrants he was notified that they had received a call from a lady who was taking her family fishing. They had located a body near the bank of the Big River outside Belgrade.
We processed the scene and the body was transported by the Washington County Coroners office for an autopsy to determine a cause of death, said Jacobsen. The body was positively identified as Frank Ancona and his family was notified.
Jacobsen added he sat down with Franks son and his father to make the notification. He said it was very tragic.
The investigation has been handled as a joint effort involving the sheriffs office in Washington County, St. Francois County Sheriffs office, the Leadwood Police Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
On Saturday around 2 p.m. investigators made their way back to the Ancona residence off Mill Street in Leadwood and immediately put up crime scene tape around the house and blocked off the nearby street while awaiting a search warrant.
Shortly after the search warrant came through several officers searched the home.
The Washington County Sheriffs Department obtained a search warrant for a second address, this one in that county, and searched the home and the home owners car.
Then on Sunday morning the autopsy was performed on Frank Ancona's body. It was confirmed the cause of death had been a gunshot to the head.
Investigators spent the day working on reports and continuing the investigation. By late in the day it was indicated murder-related charges could be expected overnight or sometime Monday. The spokesperson stopped short of saying whether charges would be sought on one or more suspects.
This is a developing story and the Daily Journal will continue to follow it and provide updates as new information is learned.
Labour MP Liam Byrne has launched a petition against Donald Trump making a speech in Birmingham
Labour MP Liam Byrne has demanded Theresa May 'spare the Midlands' from Donald Trump after reports his state visit could be moved to Birmingham.
The former minister said he was happy for the US president to visit the city to meet its multicultural communities but not for ticket-only speech to supporters.
Reports over the weekend suggested fears over security and protests could see Mr Trump's state visit, expected this summer, moved outside of London.
A stadium event was held for Indian prime minister Narenda Modi on a visit in November 2015 in a model that could be replicated for Mr Trump.
Mr Bynre told the Birmingham Mail: 'What the Government is trying to do is dump the Trump on us and we don't want him.
'I'm someone who loves America and believes in a strong US - UK relationship.
'But right now, after Brexit, we need to have unity in our communities and I don't believe a visit by President Trump to Birmingham would achieve that.
'If I thought that he would come here and talk about issues over a cup of tea and a curry, I'd be all for it.
'But I don't think that will happen because he's a hugely divisive and controversial figure.'
Mr Byrne's petition, hosted on his own website, has more than 1,100 signatures.
The Prime Ministers spokesman refused to rule out President Trumps state visit being moved to Birmingham.
He said: The invitation was only recently made, it was only recently accepted. Details as to what shape that state visit will take will be discussed in the coming months.
He added: Once weve got a plan, well let you know what the plan is.
The petition, on Mr Byrne's website, has been signed by more than 1,100 people since reports emerged the state visit could be moved to the Midlands
Under the plan, reported by the Daily Telegraph, proceeds from tickets for the rally would go to UK war veterans, according to a plan said to be under discussion by a source close to the new US President.
The Brexit heartland of the Midlands is one contender to host the rock star-style event, while London and Cardiff have also been mentioned as possible locations.
The suggestion comes after House of Commons Speaker John Bercow controversially told MPs that he would not allow Mr Trump to speak in Parliament on the upcoming State visit.
Mr Trump's imposition of a travel ban on seven majority Muslim countries since overturned by a US judge has sparked widespread criticism.
A Downing Street spokesman said: 'A date has not been set and arrangements will be set out in due course.'
Taxi drivers who caused traffic chaos on Monday morning when they blocked Melbourne's Bolte Bridge have vowed to continue to fight for their jobs.
Forming a blockade on Bolte Bridge during the morning commute in protest of Victoria's deregulation of the taxi industry, Melbournians were furious at the significant delays on their way to work.
But taxi protesters have claimed this is only the beginning with the election 18 months away.
Melbourne taxi drivers have vowed to continue to protest against the deregulation of the taxi industry next year
Furious commuters have taken to social media to slam taxi drivers who caused traffic chaos on Melbourne's Bolte Bridge on Monday morning
'This isn't over, they want it to go away but this isn't going to go away, the election is 18 months away,' protester David Singh told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Furious commuters took to social media to slam taxi drivers with hundreds of cabbies blocking four lanes of the busy bridge.
Many social media users were confused how the blockade, causing traffic chaos, was going to improve their public perception.
Commuters and social media users were not impressed with the way taxi drivers were going about their protest
Social media users thought the protest was harming the taxi industry's perception
'Not the smartest ideas by Taxis today to help increase public perception of them,' one social media user wrote.
Traffic was brought to a standstill just after 8.30am with the protest believed to have lasted around 40 minutes.
People making their way to work on Monday said 'muppet' taxi drivers had done nothing to help their cause.
Hundreds of cabbies blocked four lanes of the busy bridge in a protest against changes to the taxi industry after the introduction of ride-sharing
Cabbies were protesting against the state government's plan to abolish taxi licences
Angry commuters said 'muppet' taxi drivers did nothing to help their cause
Many social media users suggested the protest would only serve to make Uber more popular
Traffic was brought to a standstill just after 8.30am with the protest believed to have lasted around 40 minutes
'How do the taxi drivers of Melbourne expect to gain public support by blocking Bolte Bridge?' one questioned on Twitter, while another said: 'Another reason I will always use Uber.'
One social media user asked a taxi company: 'Are your drivers aware that the Bolte Bridge action is only hurting their brand further? Why don't they spend their time improving?'
Another commented: 'How not to gain public support for your cause? Block traffic on the way to work!'
Other disapproving comments included 'these cabbies need to pull their heads in' and 'Dear taxi drivers everyone hates you.'
Cabbies say they will not be properly compensated under the deregulation reforms
Taxis crawl across Melbourne's Bolte Bridge, causing peak hour chaos
Cabs were seen moving at a walking pace across the bridge as traffic piled up behind them
'Why don't they spend their time improving,' one asked a Melbourne Taxi company
Hundreds of people took to social media to vent their anger
Other disapproving comments included 'these cabbies need to pull their heads in' and 'Dear taxi drivers everyone hates you'
Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families urged cabbies to cause peak hour disruptions in response to the state government's plans to deregulate the taxi industry.
'Everyone will culminate at parliament after gridlocking the Bolte inbound and outbound for half an hour,' the group wrote on its Facebook page.
'Lets cause some disruption.'
The state government is planning to abolish taxi licences and introduce a single registration for taxis, hire cars and ride-share services like Uber.
It plans to compensate taxi licence holders by paying $100,000 for the first licence and $50,000 for another.
Taxi drivers are seen chatting during the protest which caused peak hour chaos
Police officers talk to a taxi driver. The state government is planning to deregulate the taxi industry
Drivers are seen congregating shortly before the protest
But licence holders say the compensation being offered is unfair and could spell financial ruin, with many paying up to $500,000 per licence.
Taxi driver Tsim Booky, who took part in the protest, told Nine News the reforms are unjust.
'It's like a loss of income. It's just like losing your job. We've actually paid for our jobs and now we're going to lose them,' he said.
'So we'll keep this up until (Minister for Public Transport) Jacinta Allan resigns.'
Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families urged cabbies to cause gridlock on the bridge to protest changes to the taxi industry
Drivers are seen preparing to head for Melbourne's Bolte Bridge - a major route to the airport
The Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families wrote on its Facebook page: 'Lets cause some disruption'
Another angry driver said: 'We are desperate. This is a last measure for us.'
Victorian Taxi and Hire Car Families spokeswoman Linda De Melis told ABC Radio they aren't opposing industry changes.
'The government can dismantle the industry if they choose, but we as license holders should not have to pay the price for industry reform,' Ms De Melis said on Monday.
'Currently the government is seizing our licences for zero in return.'
VicRoads urged motorists to allow extra time for travel or consider alternative routes.
Licence holders say the compensation being offered is unfair and could spell financial ruin, with many paying up to $500,000 per licence
VicRoads is urging motorists to allow extra time for travel or consider alternative routes
A free runner who killed a pedestrian while speeding in his powerful Mazda has been allowed to complete his engineering degree by a judge before he is sentenced.
Karol Michta, 22, ploughed into Henrik Luszcz, 53, with his Mazda MX5, catapulting him into the air to the height of a double decker bus as he crossed Great West Road in Isleworth in May 2015.
In 2011 Michta and some of his gravity defying friends performed both in and outside the Prime Ministers home to celebrate Parkour being officially recognised as a sport in the UK.
Karol Michta, 22, pictured left, ploughed into Henrik Luszcz, 53, pictured right, with his Mazda MX5
The stunt was organised by charity Somewhereto, which helps young people find space for creative activities.
Michta has five A-levels, and is two years into a mechanical engineering degree at Queen Marys University in east London.
Judge Anthony Morris QC agreed to adjourn sentencing him until June and said: I do not want to impact upon him getting a proper degree and therefore I am prepared to adjourn sentencing in this case until after these examinations.
It seems to me to be the lesser of two evils.
Judge Morris described the university as being completely uncooperative about Michta restarting the current year of his mechanical engineering degree in the autumn after he completes his sentence.
Karol Michta in 2011 aged 17 performing at the Prime Ministers home to celebrate Parkour being officially recognised as a sport in the UK
The stunt was organised by charity Somewhereto, which helps young people find space for creative activities
Now Michta has five A-levels, and is two years into a mechanical engineering degree at Queen Marys University in east London
Michta, pictured here showing off his freerunning skills, admitted causing death by careless driving
Michta was doing 60mph in 40mph zone when he smashed into Mr Luszcz without braking, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Prosecutor Joel Smith said: Mr Luszcz had consumed alcohol and was around twice the legal drive limit and was also talking in his mobile phone.
Having crossed to the central reservation, he was struck by the defendants car and was thrown to the height of a double decker bus according to one witness, and his body was thrown 45m from the point of collision.
Simon Baker, for Michta, said he had been undergoing therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, and is suffering from a real case of survivors guilt.
Michta, from Ealing, admitted causing death by careless driving.
He will be sentenced on a date to be fixed.
A man accused of subjecting an 81-year-old woman to a 96 minute rape ordeal after she got off a bus was remanded in custody today.
Anthony Roberts allegedly abducted the pensioner after she got off a 155 bus on Balham High Road, southwest London, on Friday night.
The 41-year-old from Tooting is charged with two counts of rape and one of kidnap with the intention of committing a sexual offence.
The victim was taken to hospital following the attack, which happened shortly after she had left the number 155 bus in Balham High Road (shown), south London, at 8.30pm on Friday
Roberts allegedly dragged the woman to a secluded area just off the busy main road and raped her twice.
The elderly woman was taken to hospital with injuries following the alleged attack, Wimbledon Magistrates' Court was told.
Prosecutor Robin Simpson said: 'The complainant in these allegations is an 81-year-old lady.
Anthony Roberts appeared in court today after he was accused of abducting the pensioner. Pictured, CCTV from Friday night showing a male witness sought by police
'As she got off at a bus stop she was abducted by the defendant.
'The whole incident lasted 96 minutes.'
As he appeared in the dock dressed in jogging bottoms, Roberts was told to speak up when giving his name and address to the court.
District judge James Henderson told him: 'These offences are so serious they can only be dealt with a crown court'.
Roberts was remanded him in custody ahead of a plea and trial preparation hearing at Kingston Crown Court on 10 March.
Before Roberts' arrest, Metropolitan Police appealed for information on the whereabouts of the victim's jacket, and looked to trace a potential witness.
Anthony Roberts appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court (pictured) charged with two counts of rape and one of kidnap with the intention of committing a sexual offence
Detective Inspector Melissa Laremore said: 'My team are keen to trace a male witness seen on Rinaldo Road, Balham, on the evening of the incident.
'He was wearing a jacket with a distinctive American flag design on the back.
'I would urge him to come forward and contact police. In addition to this, the victim's distinctive red Marks and Spencer's jacket went missing after the attack.
'My investigators are working to trace it in and around the local area as it is of important evidential value. If you have any knowledge of its whereabouts, please get in touch.'
French's far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen has used recent social unrest in Paris as an opportunity to rail against the country's current political leaders.
Rioters across Paris and its suburbs have caused significant damage in several neighborhoods in the weeks following an assault on a black youth worker by allegedly racist officers.
Most recently, swarms of hooded youths used Molotov cocktails and bricks to attack Les Ulis commissariat, south west of the French capital, late Sunday night and early Monday morning.
'All this is the result of complacency in French society, which is the fault of politicians who have governed us for years,' Le Pen said of the rioting on Sunday.
France's conservative presidential candidate, Francois Fillon, also blamed the Socialist government of President Francois Hollande for allowing the violence to break out.
French's far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen blamed the recent social unrest in Paris on the 'politicians who have governed us for years'
France's conservative presidential candidate, Francois Fillon, also blamed the Socialist government of President Francois Hollande for allowing the violence to break out
Benoit Hamon, the Socialist Party's presidential candidate, however, slammed Le Pen's comments, accusing her of trying to incite more violence
Swarms of hooded youths used Molotov cocktails and bricks to attack Les Ulis commissariat (pictured above), south west of the French capital, on Monday
'The government must not let the violence express itself. The first victims are always the residents of the banlieues,' he said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Benoit Hamon, the Socialist Party's presidential candidate, however, slammed Le Pen's comments, accusing her of trying to incite more violence.
He asked that police 'be exemplary whenever they're on duty'.
Meanwhile, Hollande visited Theo, the 22-year-old victim, at the hospital following the alleged assault.
After his visit, president tweeted that the victim had 'reacted with dignity and responsibility', and trusted that justice would be served.
He is understood to have been at his bedside for around half an hour.
Protests and riots have been ongoing in Paris since Theo was injured on February 2 in the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois.
The attack on Les Ulis commissariat, south west of the French capital, which saw cars lit on fire and windows broken, followed a largely peaceful rally on Saturday, where thousands supported the 22-year-old assault victim identified only as Theo.
A number of cars parked near the police station were set alight, and there were also attempts to break into shops and cafes
Photos Sputnik News on Twitter show a lorry torched to the ground and a smashed window on a police vehicle.
Violence at Les Ulis commissariat (pictured above), reportedly occurred late Sunday night going into Monday morning
'There were three separate attacks between 11.30pm on Sunday and 4am on Monday,' said an officer at the scene. 'Tear gas and baton charges by anti-riot officers were used to repel the attacks, as extra police from neighbouring areas arrived to help.'
A number of cars parked near the police station were set alight, and there were also attempts to break into shops and cafes.
Photos Sputnik News on Twitter show a lorry torched to the ground and a smashed window on a police vehicle.
Violence was also reported overnight on Sunday in Argenteuil, another Paris commuter town, and in other parts of the Seine-Saint-Denis department, where there were 11 arrests.
Shocking videos also showed gangs swarming through towns such as Bobigny, where police were attacked and property set on fire.
Several vehicles were torched and bus shelters and shopfronts smashed in Bobigny and neighbouring areas.
The attack came after a peaceful demonstration protesting the alleged rape of a black youth turned violent in another Paris neighborhood, Bobigny, on Saturday, pictured above
Police in riot gear have come under attack from protesters in Bobigny, near Paris, tonight after a peaceful demonstration over the alleged rape of a 22-year-old man earlier this month
Violence and destruction have broken out near the capital all week with police patrols previously attacked earlier in the week
Some of the demonstrators in Bobigny on Saturday carried placards reading 'Police rape' and 'Police kill innocent people'.
Small rallies took place in other French cities, including Rouen in the north, Nantes in the west and Toulouse in the south-west.
The police accused 'several hundred' individuals of various 'acts of violence and damage'.
Around 50 people have been detained since the protests began.
Locals say the incident involving Theo, which happened on February 2, was typical of the way ethnic minorities are treated in the neglected suburbs that surround Paris.
One policeman has been placed under formal investigation for suspected rape and three others for unnecessary violence during Theo's arrest in Aulnay-sous-Bois, another northern suburb.
Among those also attacked on Saturday were journalists working at the scene, including a team from the RTL radio station.
French President Francois Hollande visited the victim, named Theo, in hospital, where he has undergone emergency surgery
The video clip showed him on the ground against a wall surrounded by four men in the suburb of Aulnay-Sous-Bois. But a police source said video shows an officer 'applying a truncheon blow horizontally across the buttocks with a truncheon' and Theo's trousers 'slipped down on their own'
Their broadcast van was set on fire, leaving reporters 'shocked but not hurt otherwise',' said a spokesman for the station.
The police indicted in the Theo case will appear at the Bobigny court on February 20th, and deny all charges.They insist that the baton only ended up in Theo's anus because of an accident after his tracksuit bottoms slipped.
Video of Theo's arrest has been circulated on the internet, and it clearly shows him on the ground being beaten by the four officers.
Yasser Louati, the French human rights and civil liberties activist, said: 'Police brutality is not a random and isolated event.'
He said that riots could spread, and feed the popularity of far-right parties including Marine Le Pen National Front.
Theo's case has revived long-simmering frustrations over policing in immigrant communities, where young men accuse the police of repeatedly targeting them in aggressive stop-and-search operations and using excessive force during arrests.
The police for their part complain of being drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with delinquents and drug dealers operating out of housing estates.
Crowds have also been pictured entering vandalised supermarkets and taking goods, pictured
Officers have been quick to respond to the violence and have been stopping traffic in the area
Officers have responded by firing tear gas at the protesters, pictured
Aulnay-sous-Bois was at the centre of widespread rioting across French estates in 2005, when discrimination and police brutality once more brought thousands out on to the streets.
Some 10,000 cars and 300 buildings were destroyed during three weeks of violence that saw the then Interior Ministre Nicolas Sarkozy declare a State of Emergency.
Meanwhile, Theo is still in hospital where he was operated for severe injuries to the anus and rectal area. He was declared unfit to work for two months.
An internal police investigation found insufficient evidence to support allegations that he was raped and said the injuries were not inflicted intentionally. The criminal probe is, however, ongoing.
Theo has urged people to stay calm while the investigation took place telling residents of Aulnay 'not to go to war'.
Windows have been shattered, pictured, as police continue to stand guard in the area
The Library of Congress was forced to withdraw an official Donald Trump inauguration photo because of a glaring typo.
The poster includes Trump's quote, 'No dream is too big, no challenge is to great. Nothing we want for the future is beyond our reach,' with 'to' mistakenly replacing 'too'.
Twitter users quickly spotted the error over the weekend and the item was removed although an archived version of the listing is accessible through the Internet Archive website.
The Library of Congress poster which was produced including a glaring typo
Trump has previously fallen prey to typographical errors in his tweets
The Library of Congress didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
It's at least the third high-profile spelling error from the government of late.
The Education Department misspelled the name of W.E.B. DuBois on Twitter Sunday and got it wrong again when apologizing for the error.
Trump himself isn't a stranger to a spelling gaffe.
The President pictured while playing golf with Japan's leader Shinzo Abe at the weekend
In December he tweeted: ' China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters -- rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented (sic) act.'
'Unpresidented' quickly became a top trending topic on Twitter in the United States, as users savaged the then-incoming President for the unfortunate misspelling.
'TrumpSpellCheck - Unpresidentedly effective,' tweeted Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Another user wrote: 'Dear world, most Americans really wish we could be unpresidented.'
Even dictionary Merriam-Webster weighed in.
'The #WordOfTheDay is... not "unpresidented". We don't enter that word. That's a new one,' it tweeted.
And last month, he once again took to Twitter to defend his daughter Ivanka, only to tag the wrong person in the message.
John and Olga Moyle were 'hounded to death' during their final years, a court was told
The daughter of a vulnerable elderly couple who were 'hounded to their deaths' by a cold caller who left her parents with 100,000 debt has called it 'the most appallingly traumatic event to happen in our family's history'.
Franny Moyle appeared on This Morning to issue a stark warning to others: 'I hope people will see this as a warning - if you are being cold called, I would say just do not answer the phone.'
A court heard cold caller Barbara Stone targeted John and Olga Moyle on a daily basis - sometimes calling from as early as 7.45am - while the devoted husband attempted to care for his wife, who was dying of cancer.
Stone convinced the pair to place adverts in a lifestyle magazine for the small holiday home they owned in France.
The 62-year-old persuaded 'frail' Mr Moyle to hand over 8,000 a month for almost a year, falsely promising non-existent sponsors would reimburse the money, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
But not a single booking for the property, near Nice, was ever made - and the Moyles were eventually forced to sell the Shropshire home they had lived in for almost 50 years to pay off the massive debts they built up because of the scam.
Franny Moyle appeared on This Morning to issue a stark warning to others: 'I hope people will see this as a warning - if you are being cold called, I would say just do not answer the phone'
Grandmother Mrs Moyle, 84, died just a month after the house was placed on the market in 2011.
And Mr Moyle, who had pleaded with Stone to stop, passed away four years later at the age of 83.
Today, Ms Moyle, an author and television producer, said: 'When my mother and father first started getting calls, they grasped what was going on - they still had a grip on reality'
'She would ring them relentlessly, as early as 7.45 in the morning. Getting out of bed isn't easy when you're old and infirm.
'My father would scramble out of bed to answer it and stop the ringing from disturbing my mother, but she [Stone] would persist.
'She was persuading him it was a good thing to do until he gave in - he was greatly confused. She would tell him she had a better deal but when he began putting up resistance saying he couldn't afford anything, she said "put it on your credit cards".
The couple, pictured on holiday, were contacted on a daily basis, sometimes calling from as early as 7.45am
Ms Moyle was then asked about how she felt about Stone's suspended sentence.
She said: 'We were expecting a custodial sentence. I felt she deserved it.
'It would have acted as a warning for those people who treat this as a game.
'It's not a game - it is the most appallingly traumatic event to happen in our family's history. It was completely unexpected.
Barbara Stone (pictured right) arriving at Nottingham Crown Court, where she pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation
Stone, of Winston, Leicester, admitted two counts of fraud by false representation between January and November 2010, and was given a 22-month suspended jail term.
Judge Stuart Rafferty told her she had 'made people's lives a misery', and 'hounded (the Moyles) to death.'
Mr Moyle was trying to care for his wife when the calls were at their worst
The court heard Stone, who worked for Leicester-based Aspire magazine, first contacted retired teacher Mr Moyle in 2010, offering to advertise stays in the two-bed holiday home he and his wife owned in the south of France, which required around 5,000 a year in upkeep
For the next 10 months, she inundated the couple with calls, pressuring them into taking out more adverts in the publication.
Mrs Moyle, who had also worked as a teacher, was suffering from cancer at the time - and it was claimed Stone's persistent calls throughout the day meant her husband was unable to care for her properly.
Mr Moyle ended up spending all the cash he had taken from an equity release scheme on his home on the worthless adverts, as well as exhausting the couple's life savings and using a credit card.
They lost a total of 74,139, and were also conned out of thousands more by directors of another company, Wyvern Media, which Stone had previously worked for.
Left with nothing and hugely in debt, the pair were forced to sell the village home they had lived in since 1964.
After Mrs Moyle's death, her husband moved into a smaller property in nearby Ludlow, with the financial help of his daughter.
Speaking last week Ms Moyle said: 'The story of what happened to my parents is just astonishing, and seven years on it still keeps me awake at night.
'I completely agree with the judge - they were hounded to death by Stone. My mother was ill - but the last year of her life on this earth was an utter agony.
'Stone would ring every day, putting my father under huge pressure - harassing him, when he should have been looking after his poorly wife.
'Whenever I tried to call I couldn't get through - the line was constantly engaged.'
Barbara Stone convinced the pair to place adverts in a lifestyle magazine for this small holiday home they owned in France
'It is quite clear to me that she targeted my father. She put him under huge duress, managing to secure 8,000 a month in advertising from them as a couple.
'My father didn't realise that amount of money was going out because he wasn't checking his accounts - he wasn't checking his accounts because my mother was dying.
'How she got them so enthralled remains a mystery but she managed to press some button. Perhaps they were of a generation where they were just too polite to say no - I don't know.'
HOW BRUTAL COLD CALL TACTICS WERE EXPOSED BY THE MAIL The unscrupulous fundraising tactics of leading charities were laid bare in a major Daily Mail investigation in 2015, following the death of Royal British Legion volunteer Olive Cooke. Some of the most trusted charitable organisations including the NSPCC, the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Macmillan were caught using shocking boiler room techniques to raise cash. To public outcry, they were found to be making fundraising calls to homes on the Governments no-call list, the Telephone Preference Service. They were also prepared to take money over the phone from people who had told them they had dementia or memory problems provided they could answer a few simple questions. Fundraisers were ordered to be brutal and ferocious when asking for money and were told members of the public have no excuse not to give, even if they are poor or elderly. An undercover Mail reporter spent three weeks carrying out fundraising campaigns on behalf of Britains biggest charities. The investigation revealed that: People with dementia were asked to start direct debits and give bank details by phone
Charities were willing to take money from people who are confused, getting mixed up or have memory problems
Supporters as old as 91 were being repeatedly called and asked to give more money even if they have opted out of calls Advertisement
Their daughter, 52, a writer and TV executive producer who lives in Hackney, London, added: 'When they realised they had lost everything, and the house they lived in all their lives, it was, I suppose, a moment of great trauma.
'My father was a broken man. My mother was ever so brave and she put the house on the market with him But within about a month of it going on the market, in February 2011, my mother died.
'Then he died four years later in the midst of misery, feeling he had brought this disaster on the family. Can you imagine his guilt?
'He cried himself to sleep for the last years of his life. And for what? A quarter page advert? A sales bonus? A pat on the back from a colleague? It's utterly horrendous.'
Ms Moyle, who has three children, said her father wrote to Aspire in June 2010 begging for the calls to stop, and saying he was 'alarmed by the amounts which have been extracted from our account, for advertising with your paper'.
But she added Stone was 'straight back on the phone' - and the harassment continued for another five months.
The scam finally came to an end in November 2010 after Ms Moyle discovered what had been going on with Stone and her parents - and called in the police and Trading Standards.
By then, the Moyles had lost 97,024 thanks to the actions of Stone and Wyvern Media, which saw five senior directors jailed last year for fraudulently mis-selling advertising space to hundreds of victims.
She said: 'When I found out what had been going on I was in shock, horrified. Stone must be without scruple. She has shown absolutely no remorse whatsoever. And I have contacted Aspire - but they just said they would look into it.
'I believe that the relentless, daily telephone calls deprived my parents of normal life at a time when they most needed calm security and peace and quiet.
'I feel equally sure that the realisation that they had lost such a vast sum of money hastened my mother's death.
The Moyles were forced to sell the village home (pictured) in Shropshire that they had lived in since 1964
Speaking before he died in 2015, Mr Moyle said: 'I do get annoyed with myself that I fell for it, but they're just persistent. The whole time I just wanted to get rid of it all because I had so much else on my mind.'
The second fraud count admitted by Stone related to a 14,100 loss experienced by Jutta Patterson, who ran a dog rescue home in Shropshire.
Mrs Patterson was led to believe that a sponsor would fund an advertising campaign in Aspire on behalf of the dog charity and the magazine would publish advertising for a year at a cost of 6,000, neither of which materialised.
Like the Moyles' Mrs Patterson died before she could see Stone in court.
James Delaney from Trading Standards said: 'Stone was heartless. She embarked on a callous cold-calling campaign subjecting people to direct pressure, pressurised sales, and she was relentless in taking money from them fraudulently.
'I hope it sends out a message that we will pursue any company that looks to make illegal gains fraudulently by misleading businesses and consumers. We would tell people to report it if they believe they have been a victim of a scam.
'Stone was callous and manipulative. She relentlessly targeted people who begged her to stop.
'Unfortunately the Moyles are not here today and I'm sure her behaviour had an impact on their final years.'
Stone declined to comment as she left court. Her defence team in court said she was 'stressed at work, eager to please bosses and did not receive any of the money'.
Antony Collins sent letters to Sara Cox, pictured, as well as members of her family and even had a fake BBC pass in his home
A pervert stalked Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox by sending letters to her family and had sick child abuse images on his computer.
Antony Collins sent letters to the star as well as members of her family for a period of 20 days.
He even had a fake BBC pass in his home.
The 49-year-old sent letters to Sarah Cyzer, 42, otherwise known as Sara Cox, which were said to be disturbing.
After Collins was arrested and police searched his home, a forged BBC pass was found inside.
When his computer was seized by police Collins was found to have done a Google search and had accessed the address of the DJs father.
Officers also found the indecent images of children at his home.
Collins sent letters to the former BBC Radio 1 presenters sister, brother and ex-husband, John Carter, but he had not been charged in connection with the letters to her family.
He appeared at Medway Magistrates Court on Saturday after being arrested on Friday for sending the disturbing letters.
Collins sent letter's to the presenter's ex-husband John Carter, left, and her current husband Ben Cyzer, right
Collins, of Chatham, Kent, pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment for sending letters to the mother-of-threes home as well as her current husband, Ben Cyzer at his place of work between January 23 and February 8.
He also admitted two counts of possessing indecent images and two counts of making indecent images.
Magistrates asked for an all-options report to be prepared including sending the case to crown court for sentencing.
Collins was remanded in custody until his next court appearance while a pre-sentence report is carried out by probation officers.
He will next appear at Medway Magistrates Court via video link on February 28.
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A chicken shed which was transformed into a luxury Grand Designs-style home has been deemed a 'planning disaster' after officers failed to notice it ended up being 'significantly' larger the original structure.
Villagers were left furious after the abandoned hen-house was given an ultra-chic makeoever because it was much larger than the original chicken coop.
The 1,800-a-week designer house called the Chickenshed, which boasts spectacular country views over the Wye Valley at Trellech on the Welsh border, has had a string of rave reviews in design magazines.
But locals protested because it was meant to be based on the same structure as the former chicken coop standing for decades in green pasture on the picturesque hillside.
Slide me A luxury Grand Designs-style home (pictured right, after the makeover) which was converted from a chicken shed (pictured left, before) has been deemed a 'planning disaster' after officers failed to notice it was 'significantly' larger
The house, which features glass walls, polished concrete floors and Scandanavian-style wooden cladding was 'longer, wider and higher' than the original and was facing the threat of demolition for breaking planning rules despite being hailed for its design.
But blundering council planning chiefs admitted officers had inspected it during building - but they failed to stop it.
Council chiefs backed down over the demolition threat after it was revealed how planning officers had called at the village site as it was being put up - and even took pictures showing it was larger then the original chicken shed.
Angry villagers were left furious after the abandoned hen-house was given a makeover - because it is now much larger
Locals have protested because it was meant to be based on the same structure as the former chicken coop (pictured)
Trellech community councillor John Gooding said: 'Construction should have been stopped at this early stage but it was allowed it to continue.
'This building has been a planning disaster from start to finish and we think that the planning department accept that.'
Among the reviews were Country Living saying: 'Streamlined style. Polished concrete floors and underfloor heating, brilliant white woodwork and distinctive pea-green beams are offset by charcoal grey and vibrant green upholstery and the new bleached beams.'
Grand Designs magazine said guests can 'cook up a storm in the well-appointed Bulthaup kitchen, or chill out and treat yourself to one of owner Sue's legendary home-cooked suppers.'
The 1,800-a-week designer house called the Chickenshed, with spectacular country views over the Wye Valley at Trellech on the Welsh border, had a string of rave reviews in design magazines (pictured: the modern kitchen/ living room area)
The Chickenshed has become a successful holiday let - and was shortlisted for an architecture gold medal last year
Conde Nast Traveller also wrote: 'An unexpectedly futuristic, Scandi-inspired cabin tucked away in the Welsh countryside. Like a SoHo loft apartment crossed with a Danish ski cabin airlifted into the green, green hills of South Wales*.'
Monmouthshire planning chiefs admitted there was a 'lack of enforcement'which led to it being built outside of the original planning permission for the existing chicken shed.
But it was' longer, wider and higher' than originally planned in the wooden structure of the henhouse.
The Chickenshed has become a successful holiday let for up to eight people in the countryside - and was shortlisted for an architecture gold medal at last year's Eisteddfod.
Architects Hall and Bednarczyk said the 275,000 makeover was sympathetic to its original use as a chicken shed
Owner Sue Peacock, who lives in a nearby farm, was allowed to apply for new planning approval over the blunder.
Council chiefs approved the new application - because their 'only other options being to demolish the building or to do nothing.'
Planning officer Mark Hand said: 'We'll have to take that on the chin, to be blunt.
'Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight we can question the extent to which it was capable of conversion.'
The house, which features glass walls, polished concrete floors and Scandanavian-style wooden cladding was 'longer, wider and higher' than the original and faced threat of demolition for breaking planning rules - despite being hailed for its design
It had been shortlisted for the Gold Medal for Architecture at Wales' biggest arts festival the National Eisteddfod.
Architects Hall and Bednarczyk said the 275,000 makeover was sympathetic to its original use as a chicken shed.
A spokesman for the Chepstow-based architects said: 'The former poultry barn was abandoned for several decades and in a rundown state.
'We demonstrated how its utilitarian agricultural identity could be retained in a convincing and contemporary architectural form.
'The roof and flanking walls employ black corrugated sheeting and timber cladding in a refined and affectionate re-working of typical agricultural materials.
But blundering council planning chiefs admitted officers had inspected it during building - but they failed to stop it
'Polished concrete floors and boarded timber walls provide a sophisticated nod to the building's humble origins.'
Speaking after the building was saved, owner Sue Peacock said: 'This wasn't an easy conversion.
'The final building was slightly larger than the dimensions on the original planning permission
'Fortunately, the planning officers and the planning committee all agreed that the building is beautiful.
'I'm very grateful to them and now keen to get on with developing the holiday letting business.'
Teenage offenders rioted in the yard of the youth detention unit of Victoria's maximum security adult prison on Monday night.
Between 17 and 20 youths started fighting in the yard at Barwon Prison's Grevillea unit, a source told AAP.
There was a disturbance at the prison and when staff went in to intervene the inmates started fighting them, the Herald Sun reports.
The inmates had been riled up by a news report on television on Monday evening, which showed CCTV footage of Metropolitan Remand Centre in Ravenall being destroyed by prisoners in June last year, a source told the newspaper.
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Teenage offenders rioted in the yard of the youth detention unit of Barwon Prison (above, file photo) on Monday night
Teenage offenders began brawling at about 7.45pm, a source told Fairfax Media.
Staff were reportedly been forced to retreat and an emergency response team has been sent in.
The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the incident was resolved peacefully, the herald Sun reports.
The offenders stayed within the perimeter of the unit at all times, a spokesman for the DHHS said.
There were no reports of injuries.
The teenage inmates were riled up by a news report which showed footage of Metropolitan Remand Centre in Ravenall being destroyed by prisoners in June last year
The incident came after dramatic new CCTV footage emerged from inside the Ravenhall prison riot which caused an estimated $12million of damage.
It showed inmates driving a front end loader and trucks through fences and lighting fires during the destructive 2015 riot.
The footage, obtained by Seven News, showed prisoners lighting fires, ramming through fences with vehicles and unscrewing doors to let other prisoners escape during the 15-hour riot.
The riot at the Ravenhall Metropolitan Remand Centre started a day before a prison smoking ban was due to take effect on August 1, 2015.
Bodycam footage shows prison officers being ordered to retreat to the prison gatehouse before prisoners set guard stations on fire and drive vehicles through fences to access secure areas.
A van full of staff is also seen narrowly escaping as inmates chase after it armed with metal poles.
More than 100 inmates were later charged over their involvement in the riot.
UPDATE (3 p.m. Sunday): The autopsy on the body of Frank Ancona revealed he died as result of a gunshot to the head. Charges should be filed as early as Monday morning.
ORIGINAL STORY: Authorities have confirmed that the body of Leadwood resident Frank Ancona, 51, a self-proclaimed former ranking officer in the Ku Klux Klan, was located earlier in the day outside Belgrade near the Big River by a family who were in that area to go fishing.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said on Thursday they learned on Facebook that Frank had gone missing and they later learned that a Federal Forestry Service employee had located Franks vehicle on a forestry service road off of Route P in Potosi.
Deputies responded on Friday and located the vehicle and secured it, said Jacobsen. We left deputies at the scene and secured it overnight due to the loss of light. On Saturday morning we conducted a search of the area by foot by member of the Potosi Fire Protection District and the sheriffs office. We didnt locate much of anything in the woods, but we did locate evidence of a burn pile near Mr. Anconas vehicle.
Jacobsen said they executed two search warrants and arrested a male on an unrelated drug warrant out of Washington County. While they were waiting for the issuance of one of the warrants he was notified by their dispatch center that they received a call from a lady who was taking her family fishing that they had located a body near the bank of the Big River near Belgrade.
We processed the scene and the body was transported by the Washington County Coroners office for an autopsy to determine a cause of death, said Jacobsen. The body was positively identified as Frank Ancona and his family was notified.
Jacobsen stressed the investigation was constantly changing after they located Franks car. Leadwood requested the assistance of St. Francois County Sheriffs Department and Jacobsen requested the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
They responded in assisting us with processing these multiple scenes and vehicles, said Jacobsen. Right now no one has been charged in his death, but that may change tomorrow.
Jacobsen added he sat down with Franks son and his father to make the notification. He said it was very tragic.
Law enforcement was attacked terribly on Facebook and officers were called in on their days off to help, said Jacobsen. At the end of the day the professionalism shined through all the negativity and we were able to bring some closure to the family.
Ancona was reported missing Friday after his place of employment reached out to the Leadwood Police Department with concerns of whereabouts.
THE INVESTIGATION
Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey reported that Ancona was last seen by his wife, Malissa Ancona, Wednesday morning when he was allegedly leaving for work. Then Friday evening it was learned that Ancona's car had been found in a heavily wooded remote area of Washington County in the Mark Twain National Park. A preliminary search of the area did not turn up the missing man, but due to nightfall the scene was secured to be searched more thoroughly on Saturday morning.
Dickey said his officers were told by Malissa that Frank got a call from his workplace and he needed to drive across the state to deliver a part, which is what he does for a living. He had not made contact with any family members which was out of his character. Also his workplace verified they did not send him across state on a job.
Officers had not been able to get ahold of Malissa and when they finally decided they were going to enter the home to see if Frank was in there, she was found in her driveway with her son, Franks stepson. Officers found a safe that looked like somebody had taken a crowbar to it and also beat the side out of the safe.
Dickey reported everything was missing from inside the safe and he didnt believe it was a burglar.. He also questioned Malissa about a Facebook post she wrote looking for a roommate and she said she posted that the day that Frank left.
Malissa stated to officers she made the Facebook post because when Frank told her he was leaving to go out of state on this job he took a bag of clothes with him and said when he got back he was filing for divorce. Dickey reported Malissa told them she figured she would need help to pay the rent, so she put an ad out looking for a roommate.
Dickey also reported all of Franks firearms that were in the home are missing and Malissa told them he took all of them with him. His family, which lives next door, stated he would never have taken all of his firearms with him. Also the gun he usually carries on him on a daily basis was left in the house and Malissa turned it over to the officers.
Investigators resumed their search around the car and processed the car early Saturday morning. At 1 p.m. Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen confirmed they had in fact found the vehicle and they were still seeking the whereabouts of Frank.
At that point they had requested the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol with processing the crime scene and were there at that time. Jacobsen also reported they were working the case in conjunction with the sheriffs office in Washington County, St. Francois County Sheriffs Office, the Leadwood Police Department and the state highway patrol.
Around 2 p.m. investigators had made their way over to the Ancona residence off Mill Street in Leadwood and were standing guard. They eventually strung up crime scene tape around the house and blocked off the street with it while awaiting a search warrant.
Shortly after the search warrant came through and approximately 7 or 8 officers were moving in and around the property - including Leadwood Police and the St. Francois County Sheriffs Department investigators.
The Washington County Sheriffs Department obtained a search warrant for a second residence and searched the home and the home owners car.
An autopsy is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. This is still a developing story and the Daily Journal will bring details as they become available.
Members of a band playing a sold-out concert for children at the Royal Albert Hall are being investigated for their involvement in the decapitation of a goat.
Indian classical music troupe The Blue Lions have opened for Bob Dylan, Anna Phoebe and Basement Jaxx, and have played at festivals across the world.
However footage on the internet showing members associated with the band slaughtering a goat has outraged animal cruelty campaigners.
Footage on the internet showing members associated with the band slaughtering a goat has outraged animal cruelty campaigners
The blindfolded animal is held by one man as another pulls the goat's head with a cloth before it is beheaded as a group chant during the slaughter
Indian classical music troupe The Blue Lions have opened for Bob Dylan, Anna Phoebe and Basement Jaxx, and have played at festivals across the world
In the clips the blindfolded animal is held by one man as another pulls the goat's head with a cloth before it is beheaded as a group of men chant during the slaughter.
The RSPCA confirmed the footage posted on the internet is now being investigated as a case of animal cruelty and the Metropolitan Police have also been informed of the contents of the video.
London-based animal cruelty campaigner Jagdeesh Singh said: 'There is no place for animal sacrifice in Sikh society. It is a replication of Hindu animal sacrifice.
'There is blood worship in the video.
'The Blue Lions group in the UK are involved in this killing and are deriving their justification from this Hinduisation animal sacrifice, which is totally abhorrent to Sikh ideals and culture.'
The RSPCA confirmed the footage posted on the internet is now being investigated as a case of animal cruelty
London-based animal cruelty campaigner Jagdeesh Singh said: 'There is no place for animal sacrifice in Sikh society. It is a replication of Hindu animal sacrifice'
A dancer with the group said the reaction to the video was simply 'a load of hard core vegan Sikhs hyping this up'
The community worker added: 'They have not denied that it is them. They actually brashly say it was them.
'They are a cult-like group that act in an aggressive manner and there is outrage in our community about this action. It totally goes against every principle that the Sikh faith system stands for.
'An active investigation is now underway and the persons present will be investigated.
'Most global religious and political systems consider animal sacrifice wholly abhorrent.
'The gathering of the blood in a bowl and the anointing of their weapons with it is pretty disgusting.'
Bhupinder Singh, a bhangra dancer according to The Blue Lions website, said: 'This is a load of hard core vegan Sikhs hyping this up.
'This ceremony wasn't done by one of the elders and these guys are a bit young and only some of The Blue Lions were there.'
The group can be seen gathering the animal's blood in a bowl as they complete the ritual
A member of the group (not pictured here) said the goat did not suffer and was slaughtered cleanly and compassionately
He added: 'The animal has to be killed with one blow, so it is instant. All they did was hold the goat in case it decided to bolt, they do not kill goats who do not want to take part.
'The goat was nice and calm. There is a whole detail in the ceremony if the goat is jumping around you are not supposed to do it.'
Mr Singh said the incident took place in a farm outhouse in India.
He added: 'The goat did not suffer and was slaughtered cleanly and compassionately. Jhatka is a very humane method of slaughter practiced by Sikhs in India.'
A spokesman for the RSPCA said: 'We are aware of this video and are investigating.'
A spokesman for the Royal Albert Hall said: 'We have spoken to the RSPCA and the police before making an informed decision to go ahead with the event.
'We are completely opposed to animal cruelty, but we do not at present have any grounds to cancel the show.'
Conman Paul Richards was told he made 'Fagin seem angelic' as he was jailed
A serial fraudster who used 27 aliases over a 30 year criminal career was told that he made 'Fagin seem angelic' as he was jailed by a judge.
Paul Richards, 48, became the first person in Britain to be banned from changing his name in 2012 when he was jailed for swindling almost 300,000.
But Derby Crown Court heard how he continued to take out fuel cards under a false name and used them to defraud companies for a further 6,850 after he was released.
The conman used the fraudulently-obtained cards at garages to buy fuel, food and lottery tickets between 2014 and 2016.
Richards admitted three counts of fraud, one of concealing criminal property and four counts of failing to comply with his serious crime prevention order.
He was jailed for three years and two months at Derby Crown Court.
Sentencing Richards, Judge Robert Egbuna compared the defendant to the money-grabbing gang master Fagin from Oliver Twist.
He added: 'Let me make this clear you are a thoroughly dishonest man.
'You make Charles Dickens' Fagin seem angelic.
'Since 1986 you have used 27 different aliases to commit 73 offences of fraud or similar.
'You choose to live your life through dishonest means.
'Some people go out to work but your way of working is to deceive people and take their money to pay for your general living.
'You just seem to think you can do what you want to do.
'Well the buck ends here, things have come full circle.
Richards continued to take out fuel cards under a false name and used them to defraud companies for a further 6,850 (pictured, Richards using the cards at a petrol station)
'You are manipulative, you are dishonest and you are going to pay a heavy price.'
Richards, who appeared by video link from HMP Doncaster, sat wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt for the hearing.
He appeared to make notes in a disinterested manner before putting his pen in his mouth and walking off after he was sentenced.
FAGIN COMPARISON On jailing him for three years, Judge Robert Egbuna compared Paul Richards to Fagin - a character from the Charles Dickens classic, Oliver Twist. A mastermind of deception, Fagin leads a group of young boys who pickpocket the wealthy on the streets of Victorian London. In the novel he is said to have made 'scores' out of his criminal enterprise over a number of years. Advertisement
The court heard Richards' latest frauds involved him applying under false names to get fuel cards which could also be used at garages to buy food, drink and other goods.
Prosecutor Jonathan Straw said: 'The total value of the loss to the Fuelcard Company was 6,850.
'He also admitted to concealing criminal property when 12,000 was found under his bath behind a panel when police went to his home in September late year.'
Digby Johnson, defending, said: 'It is clear that Paul Richards is someone that has done an awful lot of damage for a long period of time.
'He had problems in his childhood which led to him trying to buy friends by having the money to buy things.
'He is someone that is an attention seeker, who gets a sense of self-worth and excitement by appearing before the courts.
'We are dealing with someone who has a complex past.'
The devastated mother of an Italian woman who killed herself after a sex tape was leaked online believes the video was shared as part of a 'premeditated, criminal plan' to humiliate her daughter.
Revenge porn victim Tiziana Cantone, 31, committed suicide in September 2016, a year after videos of her performing sex acts with unidentified men went viral after they were posted online without her permission.
Videos of Cantone, from Naples, Italy, were uploaded to the internet in Spring 2015 after she had sent them to five people on WhatsApp, including her then-boyfriend, Sergio Di Palo.
After the videos were posted online, Cantone was turned into a cruel meme in Italy, where people mocked the phrase she can be heard saying in the clip, 'Are you making a video? Bravo.'
Cantone's mother, Maria Teresa Giglio, believes that the videos were uploaded on purpose.
Maria Teresa Giglio, the devastated mother of Tiziana Cantone, who killed herself after a sex tape was leaked online believes the video was leaked as part of a 'premeditated, criminal plan' to humiliate her daughter
Revenge porn victim Tiziana Cantone, 31, committed suicide in September 2016, a year after videos of her performing sex acts with unidentified men went viral after they were posted online without her permission
'It's as if this was a premeditated, criminal plan. They just wanted to show the face of this poor girl, with the intention of exposing her on the internet,' she told BBC.
She wants to know what role Cantone's boyfriend had in sharing the videos.
'He didn't help me to save her life. But maybe he can help me get to the truth. I'm desperate,' she said.
The woman was recognised on the street by people who watched the video and feel into a depression, forcing her to quit her job and change her name.
After the videos were shared widely, she was subjected to abuse by web users which, along with the pressure of court costs, led her to suicide.
Cantone then returned to her mother's home in the Naples suburb, Mugnano.
She had successfully fought to get explicit images taken down from Facebook, but owed five porn sites 20,000 after they successfully argued the videos showed her consenting to sex.
Cantone said she sent the videos to Antonio and Enrico Iacuzio, Christian Rollo and Antonio Villano and a man who went by the Facebook nickname Luca Luke in private using WhatsApp messenger, according to Leggo.
After the videos were leaked on line, Cantone retreated to to her mother's home in the Naples suburb, Mugnano, where she withdrew from the public
After the videos were posted online, Cantone was turned into a cruel meme in Italy, where people mocked the phrase she can be heard saying in the clip, 'Are you making a video? Bravo'
Di Palo was not mentioned when she brought the case to court.
The magistrate in Italy opened a file for defamation and after her death added another for instigation to commit suicide.
In November 2010, Di Palo was questioned by prosecutors for ten hours.
'My daughter was a good girl but she was also vulnerable,' Cantone's mother told the BBC. 'She lacked a paternal figure, from birth. She never met her father. This affected her entire life.'
Friends said that Cantone was on the brink of suicide for months before her death
But she withdrew after the videos were leaked online, Giglio said.
'Her life was ruined, in front of everyone,' she said. 'People made fun of her, parodies ended up on pornographic websites. She was called shameful names.'
Giglio said she learned her daughter had committed suicide after receiving a phone call from her sister-in-law.
'I almost fainted. They didn't want to let me into this house. I wasn't even able to see her for a last time,' she told BBC. 'The day she died, my life ended.'
Following Cantone's death, Giglio forced herself to watch the videos that were leaked online. Though they can no longer be found on main internet search engines, the videos still exist.
'You can only imagine what it is like. I wanted to see details that would allow me to understand the truth. That was not my Tiziana,' she said, believing that her daughter was under the influence of drugs.
According to close friends and relatives, the 31-year-old was deeply depressed and on the brink of suicide for months prior to her death.
They claim that she could not handle the negative attention from social media.
Friend Teresa Petrosino, who knew Cantone for 15 years, said that Cantone was 'with the wrong people at the wrong time'.
Following Cantone's death, Giglio forced herself to watch the videos that were leaked online. Though they can no longer be found on main internet search engines, the videos still exist.
Giglio said her goal now is to have Italy and the rest of the EU find a faster way to remove private material from the internet. Pictured above, a photo from Cantone's funeral
She said she didn't want people to recognize her, and that she was horrified after the video was leaked.
'She understood at some point that the situation would never be resolved; that a potential husband, her potential children could find those videos; that they would never disappear.'
Giglio told the BBC that she wants Italy and the rest of the EU to find a faster way to remove private material from the internet.
Her goal now is to defend her daughter's name and prevent others from being the victims of similar acts.
'I hope that the name Tiziana Cantone, instead of standing for mockery, becomes a name that could save the lives of other women. I would like this to happen. To save other people,' she said.
So far, no government has taken action to expedite the removal of private information from the internet.
It still remains a mystery as to who posted the video of Cantone online, and no one has been charged.
For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.
A Greek taxi driver has pulled a fast one on the morning shows giving a rude fake name to producers.
A taxi driver involved in Melbourne's Bolte Bridge protest on Monday morning spoke to both Sunrise and Today, on Channel Seven and Nine respectively, and gave a fake name.
The word he gave was Tsim Booky, which sounds like the Greek word for a sex act.
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A Melbourne taxi drivers pulled a fast one over Channel Nine using a fake rude name
Social media users pointing out that this man's name may not be real
The Greek community and social media users picked up on the name as it swirled around the internet.
Many social media users were quick to point out that no one on the Channel Nine staff working on this segment spoke Greek.
One twitter user even said: 'Send it to your Greek mates' clearly enjoying the joke.
Taxi drivers across Melbourne vented their frustration at the state government planning to deregulate the industry by forming a blockade on Bolte Bridge on Monday morning.
Melburnians were not impressed with the disruption on their morning commute to work with many locals taking to social media to vent.
Social media was pointing out that this man may have tricked Channel Nine
The man used the same name on both networks on Monday morning
Petar Petrov has been jailed for 21 years after stabbing his pregnant fiancee, leaving her in a vegetative state
A thug who stabbed his pregnant fiancee in the face leaving her in a vegetative state before slicing his own neck is jailed for 21 years.
Petar Petrov, 31, left his partner with life-threatening injuries after he attacked her at their home, leaving several facial fractures, bruising of the lungs and a stab wound to the face.
The 30-year-old woman, who was eight months pregnant at the time of the attack, has been left in a vegetative state but thankfully her baby was safely delivered four days later.
At the Old Bailey on Friday Petrov was jailed for attempted murder after he previously pleaded guilty in January.
Kerry Keogh found and helped the victim at the scene along with others who performed first aid which were 'crucial' in saving the mum and unborn child's life.
She was given a reward of 500 for her efforts but police say the mum has 'virtually no chance' of making a recovery.
Petrov of Edmonton, north London, has never revealed the motive for the attack.
Following the sentencing, detective inspector Christopher Skelt of Enfield Police Community Safety Unit, said: 'The severity of the sentence handed to Petrov today reflects the seriousness of this offence.
'This has been a truly shocking case.
'It is incomprehensible to think that a father-to-be could carry out such a violent and horrific attack on his partner when she was eight months pregnant with their baby.
'I am very pleased the judge commended the bravery of Mr Kerry Keogh who found and helped the victim at the scene following her ordeal.
'I personally would like to also commend all the members of the public who were first at this distressing scene, and who performed first aid on the injured parties and called the emergency services.
He pleaded guilty for attempted murder at the Old Bailey in January after leaving the woman in a vegetative state
'Their quick actions were crucial in getting the victim the medical attention she needed, saving the mother and unborn child's lives.
'Sadly the mother remains in a persistent vegetative state with virtually no chance of recovery.
'Thankfully her child was born without any physical injuries via caesarean section however; unfortunately, this child is likely to never know his parents.'
Petrov was also given an extended license of five years and issued with a European Protection Order, preventing him for ever entering the country in the EU where the victim lives.
DI Skelt added: 'Enfield Borough Community Safety Unit conducted a thorough investigation that led to Petrov's guilty plea.
'This meant that the members of the public who were witnesses were not required to give evidence foring them to relive the terrible events of that day.
'Petrov has never revealed the motive behind his shocking attack. Cases like this lead me to re-iterate to anyone who is either in or knows a person in a relationship suffering abuse, to report it to police.'
Message: Last year Tony Blair was emotional as he expressed his sorrow to the families of the 179 British Iraq War dead - but bereaved relatives believe there is evidence that the ex-Prime Minister committed 'misfeasance in public office'
Tony Blair could be hauled before the courts over the Iraq War, the Mail can reveal today.
Top barristers working for bereaved relatives of British troops killed in the conflict believe there is evidence that the ex-Prime Minister committed 'misfeasance in public office'.
The legal team has gone through the 2.6million-word, 12-volume Chilcot Report into the controversial conflict with a fine-tooth comb for the past six months.
They now conclude that there is a strong case Mr Blair misled Parliament to justify the disastrous 2003 invasion, which cost the lives of 179 UK servicemen and women.
The families' legal team is seeking to build a civil case against him and other Whitehall officials.
It was funded with the help of generous Daily Mail readers who raised 150,000 in just two weeks in a bid to bring them to justice. More than 5,000 members of the public dipped into their pockets to help the cause.
But barristers have identified an issue of great constitutional importance which must be studied before it is determined whether any court proceedings can begin.
In a bid to give themselves the best possible chance of winning a case, they must assess the implications of a string of significant court judgements in 2016, including the Supreme Courts ruling on Brexit last month.
Special relationship: George W. Bush greets British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2001 - Mr Blair had told him after 9/11: 'Act now, explain later', the Inquiry revealed
In that case, the judges stated Prime Minister Theresa May could not trigger the formal two-year Article 50 process of quitting the European Union without a vote in Parliament.
The developments mean that the Iraq War Families Campaign Group needs to raise an extra 22,000 to add extra expert counsel to the legal team to consider the issues.
The update was set out in a joint letter to supporters from Reg Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Tom Keys was murdered by an Iraqi mob in an ambush weeks after the invasion, and Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew, a major in the Intelligence Corps, was killed in a roadside bomb in 2005.
Damning: Sir John Chilcot slammed the former PM for misrepresenting intelligence, dodgy legal advice, hubris, and failing to protect troops
They said: We are pleased to tell you that our legal team has confirmed that the evidence supports the case that certain state officials may be liable for wrongdoing and, in particular, misfeasance in public office.
However, counsel have identified an issue of great constitutional importance that must be fully and carefully assessed before we can issue any proceedings.
The issue is all the more significant because in 2016 the UK experienced major changes. In the past few months there have been significant court judgements, including the Supreme Courts Article 50 decision, that must inevitably inform our legal teams approach.
All this has to be taken into account and our legal arguments finalised before we can take the next step.
Praising the unwavering support from thousands of people, they added: We need your help in our final push to determine whether legal action can be started against those responsible for sending our loved ones to fight and die in an unjust and unnecessary war.
Matthew Jury, of solicitors McCue & Partners, which is representing the families, said: Having spent the past months analysing the report, we can confirm that the evidence supports the case that certain state officials might have acted unlawfully.
However, the facts have also presented an issue of significant constitutional importance that must be resolved if we are to proceed. Given the significance of this case to the families and the public we are approaching every step with the utmost care.
The families are pursuing a civil case because the International Criminal Court has refused to take action, the UK authorities will not bring a criminal prosecutions, and an attempt by MPs to name -and shame Mr Blair will not result in convictions.
Sir John Chilcots damning 2.6million-word report blasted Mr Blair for rushing into a catastrophic conflict on the back of flawed intelligence and amid questions over its legality, and for failing to plan for the aftermath of the invasion.
But while the families have to rely on public generosity to fund their legal case, if Mr Blair is hauled before the civil courts his legal bills will be paid by the taxpayer.
Despite earning millions of pounds, the former Prime Minister is indemnified for all his court costs, including possible damages, under Cabinet Office rules.
He insists that he acted in good faith based on the intelligence available to him in the run -up to the war. He claimed the Chilcot Report showed there was no secret plan to invade Iraq and Parliament had not been misled.
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At least one person has been killed by a fresh winter storm which dumped a foot of snow across New England and brought 66mph to much of the East Coast on Sunday night.
The 60-year-old veteran died after being run over by a snow plow at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital Boston on Sunday night and another man's body was discovered under a pile of snow in Lynn, Massachusetts, on Monday morning.
The Hispanic man appeared to have been shot or stabbed in the neck but his corpse was only discovered when a resident using a snowblower was out clearing the streets.
High wind and blizzard warnings are in place across much of the north east coast as the storm, known as Winter Storm Orson, intensifies.
An avalanche alert was issued for Mount Washington in New Hampshire where more than 16 inches of snow fell overnight.
High wind warnings are in place until Monday night across most of the region with gusts as strong as 60mph expected.
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More than a foot of snow fell in parts of New England on Sunday night and another 12 inches was forecast in some areas on in the second winter storm to hit the north east coast in a week. Massachusetts (above) woke up to find six inches of fresh snow had fallen
Maine is one of the worst hit states with blizzards expected throughout Monday. Above, a man uses a farm tractor to dig out his driveway in Freeport
At Reagan Airport in Washington DC, winds of up to 66mph were recorded during the night and the roof of an apartment building in the city's south east was blown off by strong gusts.
Miraculously, none of the residents inside the three-floor building were hurt, the city's fire department said.
Maine will be one of the worst hit states, with more than up to 17inches of snow falling overnight and more expected throughout Monday.
Portland Airport was closed and nearly all flights out of Manchester, New Hampshire, were cancelled.
In Bangor, snow came down at a rate of two inches per hour,The Weather Channel warned. Temperatures plummeted to 18F in Caribou, one of the state's most nor'eastern towns as schools and businesses closed across the state.
Twenty inches of snow fell in the town of Harpswell and 15 inches fell in Kennebunk with winds of more than 35mph expected.
In Vermont, 16 inches fell in parts in the biggest winter storm to hit the state in two years. Marlon Verasamy of the National Weather Service said the same conditions have not been seen since February 2, 2015. Gov. Phil Scott declared a 'powder day' for Monday and urged winter enthusiasts in the state to stay another day and enjoy the snow.
State officials in New Hampshire and Maine urged people to stay off the roads to avoid whiteout conditions; a number of crashes were reported from Sunday through early Monday, but there was no word of large pileups or injuries.
'We just want to remind people to be smart and be safe,' New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said, warning residents to watch for children playing in snowbanks who might not be seen by plow truck drivers.
Temperatures plummeted to 18F in parts of Maine and were below freezing in most other parts of New England as well as parts if New York and Pennsylvania on Monday morning
A blizzard warning was issued in Maine where another foot of snow is expected after an overnight dump of up to 17 inches
High wind warnings are in place in Washington DC, Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts where gusts could reach 60mph
A storm map shows Winter Storm Orson intensifying off the coast of New Hampshire and Mane on Monday morning
A National Weather Service Map shows the storm, winter weather and high surf warnings in place across the north east coast
More than 70,000 people were left without power across the East Coast in part thanks to the storm, Washington Top News reported
THE STORM BY STATE MAINE Up to two feet of snow forecast, coastal flood and high wind warnings are in place. MASSACHUSETTS Three inches fell in Boston overnight with higher accumulations in suburban areas. Between three and seven more inches forecast throughout Monday and hundreds of flights canceled. Coastal flood warnings are in place for Cape Cod and Nantucket. NEW HAMPSHIRE Light accumulations of snow expected throughout Monday after dumps of more than a foot across the state. RHODE ISLAND High wind warnings of up to 50mph in place. VERMONT Winter storm warning in place. Up to ten inches of snow fell overnight and another four is forecast in the afternoon. NEW YORK Upstate New York is likely to see more snowfall after an overnight dump of several inches but in the city it will remain mostly dry and windy. NEW JERSEY High wind warning with gusts of up to 60mph is in place across New Jersey with the strongest expected in the morning. The warning is in place until 7pm CONNECTICUT Winter storm warning in Litchfield and high wind warnings in place across several other parts of the state. WASHINGTON DC, MARYLAND, VIRGINIA AND PENNSYLVANIA High wind warnings are in place after some of the strongest gusts in Washington DC overnight. In Baltimore, Maryland, the same warning will remain in place until 6pm. Northern Virginia can expect strong winds until 3pm. Winds of up to 55mph can be expected in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, until 6pm. Advertisement
Lenore Correia, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton, Massachusetts, said, 'It's a big snowstorm, but nothing we haven't seen before, either.'
There was also heavy snow fall in upstate New York and Massachusetts where a blizzard warning is in place in Cape Cod.
In Boston, almost 200 flights scheduled to depart from Logan International Airport had been cancelled by 9am. More than 1,000 had been scrapped across the country.
Three inches of snow fell in Boston overnight with several more forecast for throughout the day. Exact estimates vary but between three and seven inches is expected across the city and its suburbs in the morning.
High wind and coastal flooding warnings are in place in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard with gusts of up to 60mph expected until 7pm on Monday night.
Officials warned that it was 'especially dangerous' for Essex County which takes in Salem, Georgetown and Gloucester.
'These strong winds are capable of downing trees and power lines as well as causing property damage. This is an especially dangerous situation for Essex County due to the weight of snow on trees and power lines.
'When the winds pick up there will likely be numerous power outages,' a National Weather Service warning read.
The storm's reach stretches to the Appalachians where winds of up to 50mph are expected and will even have a ripple effect on parts of Texas and Mexico where rain is forecast.
In Washington DC, tens of thousands of people were without power on Monday morning as the storm took hold.
Dominion Energy recorded more than 2,000 customers in Virginia and Washington DC whose power had been affected alone.
A larger map of the East Coast produced by Washington Top News gave 70,000 as the number of people affected.
It's not known whether all of the outages, a small number of which were in Florida, were caused by the storm. Most of the problem areas were in the warning zone for Winter Storm Orson which comes hot on the heels of Winter Storm Niko.
Niko wreaked havoc along the East Coast last week.
Emergency snow warnings were issued in Boston and Philadelphia and New York City was blanketed in blizzard conditions.
It caused the accidental death of a doorman whose throat was slit by glass he fell on to while shoveling snow in the city.
Thousands of flights were delayed and schools were closed across the city. New York City will not be as badly affected by Orson but Governor Andrew Cuomo is still urging caution after last week's weather.
'As we brace for another round of severe winter weather, I encourage New Yorkers to stay informed and stay safe until the storms pass,' Governor Cuomo said.
'We are continuously monitoring the storm's path and deploying resources as necessary. I urge all residents in affected regions to stay off the roads until the warnings are lifted.'
Up to a foot of snow is scheduled to fall in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York, while only an inch is expected in New York City.
In the Boston suburb of Wakefield, Massachusetts, a resident clears a path outside his home. The city is still largely blanketed from last week's snowfall but is due to receive more on Monday
High wind warnings are in place across Massachusetts alongside warnings for several inches of snow in the morning
Dog walkers made the most of the brief break in snowfall in Boston suburbs before the snowfall picked back up on Monday morning
A snow plow clears the roads in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, where another seven inches is due to fall on Monday
Above, a resident uses a snowblower to clear his driveway in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, where up to six inches fell overnight
In Newburyport, Massachusetts, a fresh dump of snow came overnight with another six inches forecast in the late morning/early afternoon
Snowfall in a back yard in Newburyport, Massachusetts, covered outdoor furniture and blanketed roofs on Monday morning
The snow is due to intensify across Massachusetts (above) on Monday morning but tail off in the afternoon
In Boston, three inches fell overnight and another seven inches were forecast for throughout the day on Monday
Meteorologists in Massachusetts said while the storm was big, it won't bring any conditions the state isn't used to. Above, a taxi drives through Boston early on Monday morning as snow falls
In Washington DC, the roof of a three floor apartment building was blown off by winds which reached 66mph overnight
No one was hurt when the roof came off the building in the middle of the night, the city's fire department said
A tree fell on top of cars outside a home in Billerica, Massachusetts, overnight as winds of up to 60mph pummeled the north east coast
Scaffolding became loose in New York City as strong winds hit in the afternoon. Fire fighters secured the scene and no one was hurt
A woman braces a gust of wind in Manhattan on Monday as strong gusts hit the city in the afternoon. There was a brief snow shower at lunchtime
A terminal at Boston's Logan International Airport was briefly evacuated on Sunday evening due to high levels of carbon monoxide believed to be caused by a snow-melting machine. Massachusetts State Police said Terminal C was 'vented' and returned to normal operations a short time later.
Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said the state Department of Transportation has more than 3,100 pieces of equipment and 700 employees treating and plowing roadways. The governor urged residents to avoid driving and instead use public transportation during the storm.
'We are implementing an 11am delayed start time for all non-emergency state executive branch employees to allow crews additional time to treat and clear roadways for tomorrow's commute as this winter storm continues,' Baker said Sunday night.
The storm reared its head on Sunday in Massachusetts (above) with a heavy snowfall which began in the afternoon
A snowplow works along the edge of a street to clear the road in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday in the first winter storm
A 'long-time employee' has been blamed for the Department of Education's series of embarrassingly blundered tweets about W.E.B. Du Bois on Sunday.
Thousands across social media got out their proverbial red pens and corrected the mistake, which saw the civil rights icon's name spelled incorrectly, with many blaming Betsy Devos, the new education secretary.
To make matters worse, the first attempt at an edit and apology - which came about four hours after the original error was posted, included another mistake.
A Department of Education spokesman said on Sunday afternoon a new review process was being put in place with additional staff to prevent future tweet errors.
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A 'long-time employee' has been blamed for the Department of Education's series of embarrassingly blundered tweets about W.E.B. Du Bois (pictured) on Sunday
The blunder was made as part of the department's move throughout to post links and quotes paying tribute to African-American icons to celebrate Black History Month.
It was W.E.B. Du Bois' turn to be recognized on Sunday, but things did not go according to plan.
'Education must not simply teach work - it must teach life. W.E.B. DeBois,' a tweet read.
It would seem that being the first African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University and being a co-founder of the NAACP in 1909 is not enough to ensure your name it spelled correctly in a tweet in 2017.
The Department of Education was widely mocked for incorrectly spelling W.E.B.Du Bois' name in a tweet celebrating Black History Month
This is the tweet the Department of Education sent on Sunday morning including the embarrassing misspelling
Chelsea Clinton was quick to call out the typo, tweeting: 'Is it funny sad or sad funny that our Dept. of Education misspelled the name of the great W. E. B. Du Bois?'
MSNBC host Chris Hayes joined in, saying: 'We all make mistakes, but c'mon now.'
'Welp, this is a foreshadowing of what #BetsyDeVos is going to usher in @usedgov. FFS! It's #BlackHistoryMonth too!' former Democratic congressional candidate in Wisconsin Khary Penebaker wrote.
Political pundit Keith Olbermann also chimed in, tweeting: 'Thanks, Betsy DeVos. His name is W.E.B. DuBois. And to anticipate your next illiteracy, no, you don't pronounce it "web." #DeptOfUneducation.'
A number of people, including Chelsea Clinton and Keith Olbermann, were quick to blast the Department of Education for the typo
The blunder quickly spread across social media, with others taking the time to poke fun at DeVos' department.
'OMG, it's DuBois. Who is in charge over there?...oh, wait, I get it,' Jennifer Morgan said.
'I see they left Ms. "DuVos" in charge of the @usedgov Twitter feed,' Jason Tocci wrote.
'Pretty perfect for this misspelling to take place right after DeVos took the reins,' Jesse Singal added.
The department eventually corrected the mistake by sending out a new tweet - however in the first message apologizing for the error it made another mistake by giving its 'deepest apologizes for the typo'
The incorrect tweet was published at 8:45am, and it wasn't until 12:14pm the account mentioned the mistake - but even that did not go according to plan.
'Post updated - our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo,' a tweet read, before it sent out the same quote and picture as earlier with the correct spelling.
Minutes later, a correction for the incorrect previous correction was sent, reading: 'Post updated - our deepest apologies for the earlier typo.'
The original blunder has been retweeted more than 1,250 times.
People were quick to link the blunder to Betsy DeVos (pictured) - who was one of Trump's most controversial cabinet picks
DeVos was one of the most controversial picks for Trump's cabinet, with vice-president Mike Pence having to historically vote to break the tie to see her confirmed.
Every single Democrat voted against DeVos getting the gig, as well as two Republicans - Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.
DeVos' critics have accused her of not being a supporter of public schools, with many saying public education will be under threat during her time in charge of the department.
The mistake around William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, who died in 1963, is the second high profile blunder for the Trump team during Black History Month.
Trump himself came under fire on February 1 after he spoke of Frederick Douglass, and appeared to not know the civil rights icon was dead.
'Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,' the president said at the time.
Douglass died in 1895.
A difference over which language to speak at a council meeting has resulted in a violent punch-up.
Shocking footage captured the ruckus after a guest at the Ukrainian meeting insisted on speaking Russian, angering an attending politician.
Boris Lebedtsov, a senior manager at a hotel in the city of Cherkasy, in central Ukraine, had been invited to address the Cherkasy Regional Council.
Boris Lebedtsov, who been invited to speak before the Cherkasy Regional Council, insisted on speaking in Russian, angering Yuri Botnar, a deputy for Svobada (Freedom) Party
Botnar approached the podium with his fists raised and started swinging punches at Lededtsov
But Lebedtsov, the acting director of the local Dnipro Hotel Complex, infuriated politicians when he defiantly persevered in speaking Russian.
Members of the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party demanded that he speak in Ukrainian but Lededtsov insisted that it was a lot easier for him to speak in Russian and carried on.
Yuri Botnar, a deputy for Svobada, then approached the podium with his fists raised and started swinging punches at Lededtsov.
The hotel director stood his ground and fought back as they exchanged furious blows.
Other politicians looked on until the brawlers were separated by security guards.
After the fight, Botnar said that his party would not allow any more speeches to be made to the regional council in Russian.
The punch-up was caught on camera and the footage quickly went viral after it was posted on video-sharing websites.
The hotel director stood his ground and fought back as they exchanged furious blows
Other politicians looked on until the brawlers were separated by security guards
The punch-up was caught on camera and the footage quickly went viral after it was posted on video-sharing websites
After the fight, Botnar said that his party would not allow any more speeches to be made to the regional council in Russian
One viewer commented: 'It is important to suppress laughter while we watch how Ukraine goes down in pieces.'
Another said: 'Wilderness. Soon they will start fighting for a banana.'
Tensions between Ukraine and Russia have been on a knife edge for several years now.
In 2014, Russia made several military incursions into Ukraine after the Euromaidan protests and the fall of Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
First Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, then demonstrations by pro-Russian groups in the Donbass area of Ukraine escalated into an armed conflict.
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A cool reprieve from the raging bushfires across New South Wales is expected to be short-lived, with sizzling temperatures and dangerous fire conditions expected to return - as severe storms lashed parts of Queensland.
About 60 fires were still burning on Monday night, including 19 uncontained blazes, and a Watch and Act alert remained in place for the Sir Ivan fire in central west NSW.
Despite a relief for NSW residents, hot temperatures are set to climb again from Wednesday, with a top of 28C forecast for Sydney before reaching 34C by Saturday.
Western suburbs are expected to endure a three-day heatwave, with temperatures set to soar 38C from Thursday.
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A cool reprieve from the raging bushfires across New South Wales is expected to be short-lived, with sizzling temperatures expected to return later this week (pictured in Coolah in central west)
Residents in Brisbane were treated to a lightning show on Monday night amid severe storms
The fire, east of Dunedoo, has burned through about 50,000 hectares and has an active fire edge of 200km, while the Kains Flat blaze near Mudgee has destroyed 5000ha.
Cooler temperatures on Monday helped crews gain the upper hand but hot temperatures and fire risks are set to return later this week.
'There's a lot of very difficult, dangerous, dirty work that's got to be undertaken over the coming days,' NSW Rural Fire Services commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.
'It will be not just days but it will be weeks before we declare them safe, contained and out.'
Some 30 homes, 67 outbuildings and a church have been destroyed by the devastating bushfires on the weekend.
Warrumbungle Mayor Peter Shinton said he saw flattened homes, downed power poles and electrical wires all 'over the place' as he inspected his shire, which includes Dunedoo and Uarbry, on Monday.
'The roads are closed, these people want to go back, but it's too dangerous out there,' Mr Shinton said.
More than 2500 firefighters fought more than 200 bush and grass fires over the weekend with areas in the central west the worst hit.
Powerlines and large trees were brought down, causing traffic chaos on Brisbane roads
Heavy rain, strong winds and hailstorm are battling southeast of Queensland overnight
Thousands of properties in Ipswich were left without power, causing traffic chaos on Monday
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for some areas in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast
Meanwhile, heavy rain, strong winds and hailstorm hit southeast of Queensland overnight.
More than 20,000 homes across the state have been left without power as damaging winds and heavy rainfall continue to move east.
Residents in Brisbane, Ipswich, Sunshine Coast and Redland Bay were treated to a lightning show.
Powerlines and large trees were brought down near the Cunningham Highway at Swanbank, causing traffic chaos.
The Bureau of Meteorology had earlier issued a severe thunderstorm warning for some areas in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.
However, emergency crews confirmed emergency warnings for southeast Queensland have since been cancelled.
The wild weather comes after Thargomindah residents in South West Queensland endured a heatwave, with temperatures reaching 47.2C on Sunday, making it the hottest February day in Queensland history.
A resident has shared a dramatic video on Facebook of damaging winds rattling Toogoolwah on Monday.
'MY CAR IS SHAKING!!! 130km/h winds !!!! At Toogoolwah,' the caption read.
'Winds were measured using a Kestrel 3000 handheld anemometer in a stationary position after I turned the video off. I turned the video off so I could record the winds.'
Monday
Leadwood Board of Alderpersons
The Leadwood Board of Alderpersons meets for a special session at 1 p.m. in the city hall office in the basement of the Leadwood United Methodist Church at 201 Church St. The meeting is open to the public.
Desloge Board of Aldermen
The Desloge Board of Aldermen meets in regular session at 7 p.m. in city hall, located at 300 N. Lincoln St. The meeting is open to the public.
Bonne Terre Council
The Bonne Terre City Council will meet in regular session at 6 p.m. at city hall located on 118 N. Allen St. The meeting is open to the public.
Tuesday
Leadington Board of Aldermen
The Leadington Board of Aldermen meets in regular session at 6 p.m. tonight in city hall, located at 12 Weir St. The meeting is open to the public.
Park Hills City Council
The Park Hills City Council meets at 6 p.m. for a regular session in the municipal court chambers at city hall, located at 9 Bennett St. The meeting is open to the public.
Wednesday
SFC 911 Board
The St. Francois County 911 Board meets in regular session at 10 a.m. in Desloge City Hall, located at 300 N. Lincoln St. The meeting is open to the public.
Thursday
West County Board of Education
The West County Board of Education meets at 4 p.m. for a regular session in the Board of Education room located at 1124 Main St. in Leadwood. The meeting is open to the public.
North County Board of Education
The North County Board of Education meets in regular session at 6 p.m. in the administration offices located at 300 Berry Rd. The meeting is open to the public.
MAC Trustees
The Mineral Area College Board of Trustees meets in regular session at 2 p.m. in the boardroom on the Park Hills campus. The meeting is open to the public.
Bismarck Board of Education
The Bismarck R-5 Board of Education meets in regular session at 6 p.m. in the elementary school library. The meeting is open to the public.
Orsolya-Anamaria Balogh, 27, pictured, admitted trying to kill her newborn baby by abandoning him in a bin in a hospital toilet cubicle
A mother who admitted trying to kill her newborn baby boy by abandoning him inside a bin in a hospital toilet cubicle has walked free from court today.
Romanian Orsolya-Anamaria Balogh, 27, of no fixed abode, pushed tissues into the mouth of her son after giving birth in the cubicle at Wigan Infirmary shortly after 8.30pm on July 5 last year.
But, after spending the equivalent of a 12-month prison sentence at Styal Prison in Cheshire, she avoided jail at Liverpool Crown Court today after Judge Neil Flewitt QC handed her a 12-month community order.
The judge told the mother had already served a sentence that was 'greater than she would have received' for the offence while in custody.
Balogh had pleaded guilty to attempted infanticide at an earlier hearing on October 16 last year.
The court heard the 'disturbed' mother had attended the Wigan Infirmary at 7.30pm complaining of vomiting symptoms but denied suggestions from staff that she could be pregnant.
She left the hospital at around 10.30pm after spending two hours in the toilet cubicle where she cut the umbilical cord and placed the baby in a black bag inside a bin.
He was discovered in a 'dusky, blue state' by a hospital cleaner shortly afterwards after being deprived of oxygen.
Following the discovery, Balogh was arrested by police but continued to deny that she had given birth.
However, the court heard this claim was debunked after she was examined by a midwife before she a scan confirmed that she had recently delivered a child.
Experts insist that she was suffering a dissociative episode at the time that caused her to go into denial about her pregnancy.
The baby, who was taken into care following the incident, is now 'thriving' and Balogh has been able to undertake two supervised visits with the child.
Balogh, pictured, avoided jail after spending the equivalent of a 12-month jail sentence at Styal Prison in Cheshire while awaiting her court hearing, and was instead given a 12-month community order and a rehabilitation requirement
Liverpool Crown Court, pictured, heard Balogh was 'disturbed' at the time of the incident
The tearful mother, who was dressed in a green coat over a black and white shirt and blue jeans, spoke only to confirm her name and address with the help of an interpreter during the 30-minute hearing.
Steven Swift, defending said: 'The defendant was in a disassociated state at the time of the birth and she has come a long way from the state she found herself in at the time.
'She has fully co-operated with the hospital's mental health staff.'
Judge Flewitt sentenced Balogh to a 12-month community order requiring her to reside at an address in Leeds for three months as well as undergoing a 10-day rehabilitation requirement.
The court also heard the mother, pictured left with a friend and right outside the court, had been allowed two 'supervised visits' with her 'thriving' child
Judge Flewitt, addressing Balogh, said: 'You are a lady of previous good character who has been educated to a relatively high degree.
'There is no doubt that your culpability was significantly reduced but not extinguished as your balance of mind was disturbed by giving birth.
'Furthermore, the harm that you caused in this case was minimal, though the intended harm to kill your child was great.
'In this case, happily your baby survived and is doing well.
'Further to this, I shouldn't wish to take a course of action that will stand in the way or hinder your ability to establish or maintain a relationship with your child.
'If I was to prevent contact in this nature then I would be depriving your son after he started life on such dramatic fashion.
'I am going to impose a community order upon you.
'In this case, anyone may think that you are not being punished for the offence but I would like to make it clear that the time you spent in custody was probably a greater punishment than you would have received for attempted infanticide anyway.'
Hardware giant Bunnings has been slammed online for replicating its iconic advert format for the promotion of its first-ever UK store.
The uniquely Australian-style advertisement interviews 'regular' workers and finishes with the catchy line 'lowest prices are just the beginning'.
But Australians were quick to head to social media to blast Bunnings for the 'off-key' advert, which included unfamiliar English accents and 'just sounded wrong'.
Australians were quick to slam Bunnings for using their iconic Australian format in an advertisement for their first-ever UK store
One viewer described the British replica advert as 'off-key' while another simply said it was 'not good'
'UK Bunnings advert is like listening to someone do a cover of your favourite song but just a little off-key,' wrote one woman.
'If you take all of the sexual content out of the Fifty Shades of Gray (sic) movie, you're left with a Bunnings ad,' added another.
The advert features five Bunnings employees who are given a brief slot to explain a different facet of the business and how it appeals to every day customers.
Despite the classic Australian format remaining largely untouched other than the accents of those appearing in it, viewers were quick to send in their critiques.
'Bunnings has aired its first ads in UK ... and it's not good,' tweeted Sarah.
The Australian and New Zealand harware juggernaut opened in St Albans, an hour north of London, last Thursday.
'Not good': Bunnings received a frosty reception online for its British advertisement
Tough crowd: Viewers were clearly unimpressed with British accents accompanying the classic Australian advert format
President Donald Trump is said to be considering at a staff shake-up less than a month into his fledgling government after the clamorous roll out of his travel ban.
Top advisers could be shoved out the White House's exits by the summer, a source close to Trump told Politico.
Trump's chief of staff, Reince Preibus and his national security advisor, Mike Flynn, who may have prematurely had a discussion with Russia about waiving sanctions, could be among the first casualties of the new administration.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer, also the communications director, could have his role reconfigured, as well, CNN has reported.
President Donald Trump is said to be considering at a staff shake-up less than a month into his fledgling government after the clamorous the roll out of his travel ban. White House spokesman Sean Spicer (left) also the communications director, could have his role reconfigured. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is also under attack
Flynn put himself on the chopping block last week, as he admitted, through a spokesman, that he may have talked about sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in a pre-inauguration call.
Two administration officials told DailyMail.com on Friday that Flynn doesn't recall the topic coming up in a December call, which occurred while Barack Obama was still president, but he couldn't say that with 100 percent accuracy.
That version of events differs from an ironclad denial Vice President Mike Pence delivered to a CBS News interviewer last month, when he said the conversations were 'strictly coincidental' and had nothing to do with Obama's decision to punish Russia for meddling in the November presidential election.
Flynn says he's not going anywhere. A senior administration official told CNN yesterday that he will not resign and doesn't believe that he'll be fired over the incident, which resulted in egg on the face of Pence and Preibus, who had also defended Flynn.
That squares with comments an official made to DailyMail.com in light of the latest allegations. Asked if his role was changing, the source suggested that it wasn't then said, ' Not that Im aware of.'
Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser to Trump, was mum on the matter Sunday as he made the rounds on behalf of the Republican president.
'Its not for me to tell you whats in the presidents mind,' he said on NBC.
Miller directed questions to Trump and contended that he had been sent on the Sunday shows to discuss the president's embattled travel ban, which could be rewritten early this week.
National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, (left) who may have prematurely had a discussion with Russia about waiving sanctions, could be among the first casualties of the new administration
The legal battle surrounding the travel restrictions the president put in place and the courts have since halted has distracted from other priorities of the three-weeks-old administration.
Newsmax executive and Trump friend Chris Ruddy publicly called for Priebus' head over the chaos enveloping the administration on CNN.
He told Politico afterward, 'A number of high-ranking Trump administration officials sent me a text praising my performance.'
'If they don't get someone of a different skill set, they're going to continue having problems,' he said.
Ruddy after that tweeted in favor of keeping Priebus, whom he said he'd talked to since his earlier comments about his plans for the White House.
Priebus came to the Trump administration from the Republican National Committee, where he served three consecutive terms as the organization's executive and helped Trump and a majority of Republican senators get elected.
Spicer led communications at the political arm of the Republican Party, eventually taking on the role of chief strategist, and came to the White House with his former boss.
White House Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller appeared on four of the five Sunday shows to talk about options the White House has to continue to pursue the travel ban - he dodged a question on NBC about Trump's confidence in Flynn
CNN reported last week that the White House press secretary and communications director was looking for someone to take the duties of the latter position off his hands.
He was never supposed to take on both gigs. Trump campaign hand Jason Miller was tapped for communications director and unexpectedly backed out several days later.
Spicer's aggressive demeanor in the press briefings, which the New York Times says earns an average of 4.3 million viewers a day, has been mocked two times running on Saturday Night Live by comedian Melissa McCarthy.
Kellyanne Conway was thought to be in danger, as well, after she was 'counseled' on her advertisement for Trump's daughter's clothing line. But she's now in the running to replace Preibus as chief of staff, Politico says, having demonstrated her loyalty to the boss.
Conway's current title is counselor to the president. She was Trump's third and final campaign manager, overseeing operations in the general election.
The president got rid of two others, Corey Lewandowski, and Paul Manafort, suggesting that he'd be willing to make adjustments at the White House, too, if he thought things weren't going well.
A Florida woman says she was driving home in Boca Raton over the weekend when she saw an SUV slow down and someone pushed an emaciated Dalmatian out of the passenger window onto the roadway.
The scrawny dog tried to chase after the vehicle along Camino Real, but the Good Samaritan, 23-year-old Lisa Marie Gabrielle, pulled over and ran after the terrified dog, which she then took home with her.
On Sunday, Gabrielle took the rescued pooch, a one-year-old male she dubbed Buster, to the Tri-County Animal Rescue to be examined by a veterinarian.
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Skin and bones: This emaciated one-year-old Dalmatian was rescued after being tossed out of an SUV in Boca Raton, Florida, Saturday
Guardian angel: Lisa Gabrielle, 23 (left), saw a motorist push the dog out of the SUV and rushed to save the animal. She brought the pooch into her home and shared her bed with him
Suzi Goldsmith, the group's co-founder and CEO, says the dog is 'pathetically thin and malnourished.'
Goldsmith says the dog didn't have a chip or a tag on his beige collar. She believes Buster has had some training because he knows how to sit.
The incident has been reported to Boca Raton police.
Gabrielle, who works for Broward County Public Schools and has two dogs of her own, a cat and a pet bunny, says seeing Buster get shoved out of the car brought her to tears.
'I really hope that we can find whoever did that is because I am such an animal lover and the fact that I saw a dog have to go through something like that is so heartbreaking,' she told the station WPTV.
On Saturday, Gabrielle shared two photos of the rescued pet on her Facebook page, where Buster appears to be painfully thin, with his ribs, spine and hip bones clearly visible through his skin.
Good boy: Gabrielle said the dog is very gentle and loves to cuddle and get his belly scratched
The pup, dubbed Buster, was taken to the Tri-County Animal Rescue to be examined by a veterinarian
She tells Palm Beach Post the one-year-old pup is extremely gentle and loves to cuddle. When she first brought him over to her house, he rolled over for a belly scratch and tried to befriend her other pets
At the Tri-County Rescue, Buster was offered some dog food but turned it down. Instead Goldsmith fed him several hot dogs.
These dramatic aerial images show how ISIS seems hell bent on destroying the last remaining UNESCO treasures in Palmyra after recapturing the city.
Drone footage captured by Russia's military shows how ancient monuments in the Syrian UNESCO World Heritage Site have been reduced to rubble by the terror group.
The black-and-white video dated February 5 shows part of the Roman amphitheatre collapsed and the tetrapylon, a 16-columned structure that marked one end of the ancient city's colonnade, wiped out.
Dramatic aerial pictures show how ISIS seems hell bent on destroying Palymra's last remaining UNESCO treasures, including the tetrapylon, a 16-columned structure. The site is pictured last year (left) and in drone footage taken just days ago (right)
The black-and-white video (right) dated February 5 shows part of the Roman amphitheatre has been reduced to rubble
'The pictures clearly show that the terrorists blew up the proscenium - the central part of the ancient Roman theatre - and the columns of the tetrapylon,' the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
The new wave of destruction was first announced last month by Syria's antiquities chief, with the UN's cultural agency blasting it as a 'war crime' and 'cultural cleansing'.
ISIS fighters scored a major propaganda coup by recapturing the site from the Syrian government in December, some nine months after they were ousted from the historic site.
Before being forced out of Palmyra in a Russian-backed offensive in March, ISIS razed world-famous temples and tower tombs at the site.
The tetrapylon, built during the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd Century AD, consisted of four sets of four pillars each supporting massive stone cornices.
The new wave of destruction was first announced last month by Syria's antiquities chief, with the UN's cultural agency blasting it as a 'war crime' and 'cultural cleansing'
The Roman amphitheatre dates back to the 1st Century AD and was used by ISIS for public executions during its occupation of the city between May 2015 and March last year
The monument had suffered considerable damage over the centuries and only one of the 16 pillars was still standing in its original Egyptian pink granite.
The rest were cement replicas erected by the antiquities department in 1963.
The Roman amphitheatre dates back to the 1st Century AD and was used by ISIS for public executions during its occupation of the city between May 2015 and March last year.
The loss of Palmyra came as regime forces and their Russian backers were focusing on the fierce fighting for rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which the government finally retook in December.
Russia has been flying a bombing campaign in support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad since September 2015.
A California woman is suing the company that makes Mike and Ike candies, for what she calls a conspiracy to shortchange customers by only filling their boxes half full.
In the lawsuit, the woman says she first noticed the company was half filling their boxes when she bought a $4 box at a movie theater.
She estimates that about 46 percent of the container was empty.
A California woman has filed a new lawsuit against the company that makes Mike and Ike candy. In the lawsuit, she accuses the company of half-filling their movie theater boxes
Had she known that the box was only half full, she says she would never have bought the candy in the first place.
What's more - she believes that this is a conspiracy to shortchange customers.
She says the box was behind a glass case, which stopped her from being able to inspect the box before purchasing it.
After this incident, she says she bought a box of Hot Tamales and a box of Boston Baked Beans.
Hot Tamales are made by the same company and the box was also half full. Boston Baked Beans, which are made by another company, was completely filled.
A spokesman for the Mike and Ike makers Just Born told TMZ, which first reported the lawsuit, that the allegations are 'baseless' and it plans to vigorously defend the case.
President Donald Trump's approval ratings have slumped to new lows, according to a new Gallup poll released on Saturday.
Trump, who entered office with a 45 per cent approval rating - the lowest of any incoming president in US history - now has the support of only 40 per cent of Americans.
Three weeks in, 55 per cent of Americans disapprove of the new president - a 10 per cent jump compared to a Gallup poll published two days after inauguration.
Sliding: Trump's approval ratings have slumped since he won the election
The gulf between the two camps has widened and Trump's approval has slipped 5 points to 40per cent while his disapproval ratings shot up 10 points to 55 per cent, according to Gallup
The Gallup poll is based on interviews with about 1,500 adults and results are averaged out over the course of three days.
The consensus on Trump was split on January 22, with 45 per cent expressing their approval while another 45 per cent shared their disapproval.
But the gulf between the two camps has now widened and Trump's approval has slipped 5 points, while his disapproval ratings shot up 10.
Presidents tend to enjoy a period of high ratings before the disapproval grows.
Trump's approval ratings were historically low straight off the bat, and it remains to be seen whether they will bounce back.
Both Barack Obama and George W. Bush had more than 60 per cent of Americans behind them one month into their first terms, according to Gallup figures.
While a Rasmussen poll reported more flattering figures for Trump, the percentage of those who strongly disapprove of him still outranks those who strongly approve
Other polls, like the one conducted by Rasmussen, reported more flattering figures for Trump.
According to the Rasmussen poll published on February 10, 52 per cent of Americans approved of Trump, compared to 48 per cent who disapprove.
But even the Rasmussen poll charted a significant 7 per cent slip from January 26, when Trump's approval rating clocked in at a 59 per cent high.
And the percentage of those who strongly disapprove of the president is now at 40 per cent, compared to 38per cent of those who strongly approve of him.
The opposition against Trump has been swift and his controversial executive order banning incoming refugees along with non-US citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries launched protests across the country.
A panel of three judges from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against reinstating Trump's ban last week.
Four pedestrians were hurt this morning when a school bus jumped a sidewalk on the Upper East Side in Manhattan.
The adult victims were rushed to a local hospital for treatment, the NYPD told DailyMail.com.
The bus had hit the pedestrians on the sidewalk, some of whom are reportedly DOE Fund workers, before striking a wall.
Four pedestrians were hurt this morning when a school bus jumped a sidewalk on the Upper East Side
The school bus was empty aside from the driver at the time, police say.
No arrests have yet been made but police say investigations are ongoing as to why the driver lost control.
It is not yet clear how fast the bus was going at the time of the collision.
The bus had hit the pedestrians on the sidewalk, some of whom are reportedly DOE Fund workers, before striking a wall
The accident took place at around 8.15am on on Third Avenue and East 85th Street in Manhattan, New York's Upper East Side.
Witnesses at the scene snapped a picture of the yellow school bus which was parked almost entirely on the sidewalk after the incident. Firefighters were also at the scene.
Another school bus accident occurred in Brooklyn on Monday although no one was seriously hurt.
At least eight bodies have been pulled out of the water and four people are reported missing after an overloaded boat capsized.
The incident occurred in southern Pakistan's Larkana district when a small boat crammed with 30 odd passengers and some motorcycles was attempting to moor at a river bank.
However, the basic wooden ferry capsized shortly before it could anchor meaning dozens had to scramble back to shore in choppy waters with some even attempting to swim with their motorbikes.
Crammed: The small wooden boat approaches the shore to anchor
Down: The boat strains under the weight and begins to tip over
Local authorities said last night that 17 people managed to scramble ashore to safety while 10 were rescued by onlookers.
The Pakistan Navy divers from Sukkur had arrived at the site of the incident around midnight but the rescue efforts had to be put off till dawn due to darkness.
Larkana police said 30 people - including women and children - were heading towards the shrine of Pir Muhban Shah in Naushero Feroze district where they were set to celebrate the local festival of Muhbann Pir.
Gone: In a flash the vessel went under the water and its passengers tried to scramble ashore
Rescue: Although many made it safely back to dry land eight are reported dead and four missing
One police officer said: 'Initial information indicates that the boat sank because it was carrying more people than its limit. The boat tilted and the people fell into the water.
'Rescuers pulled out eight bodies and the search operation for missing people is still on.'
Larkanas Deputy Commissioner Kashif Ali Tipu who rushed to the scene after the incident told the media that a man saved by divers had died after being fished from the water and taken to hospital on Friday.
He was identified as Dawood Channa.
Earlier this month, at least three persons had died while over 100 were rescued after a boat on the way to Okara capsized in River Ravi near Nankana Sahib in country's second largest province Punjab.
Colin Leacock (pictured leaving Southwark Crown Court today), 34, is on trial for two counts of rape and two of ABH
A lonely woman was raped, assaulted and kept like an 'unpaid skivvy' after she met a man through Match.com, a court heard.
The 37-year-old woman moved in with Colin Leacock, 34, in 2015 shortly after they met online.
He forced her to perform a sex act on him twice at his London flat, it is alleged.
Leacock also punched her in the face and swung her round by her hair until chunks fell out during a year-long ordeal, the jury was heard.
His domineering sister thought the woman, who suffers from depression and anxiety, 'wasn't good enough' for him and moved in with them early on during the relationship.
Mandy Leacock treated the woman like a slave, ordering her to cook and clean as an 'unpaid skivvy', punishing her by covering her with bleach as she sat in a bath.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police she moved in with Leacock because she 'felt lonely and wanted to be loved again' after a previous abusive relationship.
Prosecuting, David Povall said: 'She was living in a state of fear, oppression, being bullied and controlled.'
Leacock, from Maida Vale, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of two counts of rape and two of assault causing actual bodily harm.
Jurors were told Mandy Leacock was not on trial but had previously pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm, including pulling the woman's hair and using bleach on her.
The court heard the victim overdosed twice in March and April 2015 during the ordeal.
It was after that Mandy forced her to move into her home, where she was regularly assaulted and forced to 'prove' she could cook and clean.
Mandy Leacock (pictured) treated the woman like a slave, ordering her to cook and clean as an 'unpaid skivvy', punishing her by covering her with bleach as she sat in a bath
In a police interview shown to jurors as her evidence, the woman said she suffered repeated abuse at the hands of the siblings over the following months, including having her head smashed against a wall, being hit over the head with a chair, forced to sleep on the floor, and threatened with being thrown from a 10-storey building.
Terrified to resist, she was occasionally made to stand outside on a balcony as punishment, the court heard.
Jurors were also told Mandy Leacock took control of the woman's bank card, buying clothes, a gym membership and a 300 watch.
She told police: 'It was horrible. I felt humiliated all the time, but I didn't cry because I got used to it.'
And she broke down in tears in court as she gave evidence from behind a screen, saying: 'They starved me. I wasn't allowed to eat at all.'
The woman said she was too scared to refuse in case he hit her during the alleged rapes and did not leave for fear of ending up on the streets.
She finally managed to get free when she sought medical help after speaking to someone in a shop.
Leacock, from Maida Vale, denies rape
In distressing exchanges in court, the woman angrily denied suggestions that she was lying about being attacked and raped by Leacock to get back at his sister.
She said: 'No means no - it means rape.'
Prosecutor David Povall said: 'It is the Crown's case that Colin Leacock both assaulted and raped the complainant and that that was at a time when that complainant was living in a household where she was being bullied and assaulted regularly, sometimes by Colin Leacock but mostly by Colin Leacock's sister Mandy.'
Mr Povall told the court how Leacock met the alleged victim in early 2015 while she was living in a hostel.
'She was lonely and she went looking for love, romance, on the internet on Match.com', he said.
'She met Colin Leacock... and matters very quickly developed between them.
'It was clear to her even on those visits that Colin's sister Mandy was quite a powerful personality and didn't approve of the relationship.
'But in the event, having visited twice she came to London and she moved in with Colin Leacock in his flat.
'Things soon started to turn sour, in particular she was unhappy at the extent to which Mandy Leacock interfered and seemed to dominate her brother Colin.'
Leacock, from Maida Vale, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of two counts of rape and two of assault causing actual bodily harm
He added that following the two overdoses Mandy took a 'far closer interest' in the relationship.
'She didn't consider her to be good enough for Colin and she needed to prove that she was capable of cooking and cleaning and doing necessary household work,' Mr Povall said.
'She came to be living in Mandy Leacock's flat where she quickly became an unpaid skivvy, sleeping on the floor, required to clean and after a time soon the victim of repeated assaults.'
The court heard Colin forced the woman to perform a sex act on him at his flat when he had started seeing another woman.
He claims the sex was consensual and denies ever assaulting the alleged victim.
Colin Leacock, of Maida Vale, denies two counts of rape and two counts of assault occasioning ABH.
Mandy Leacock, also Maida Vale, has admitted three counts of ABH.
The trial continues.
Two people have been arrested and charges have been filed in the death of Frank Ancona which occurred last week. The initial search for the missing Leadwood man led several law enforcement agencies on an investigation in two separate counties.
Malissa Ancona, 44, of Leadwood, who was the victim's wife, has been charged with a class A felony of murder in the first degree, felony armed criminal action, a class D felony of tampering with physical evidence and a class D felony of abandonment of a corpse. Both are being held on no bond.
Her son, Paul Jinkerson Jr., 24, of Belgrade, who was the victim's stepson, is charged with a class A felony of murder in the first degree, felony armed criminal action, a class D felony of tampering with physical evidence and a class D felony of abandonment of a corpse.
According to a probable cause statement on Feb. 9 the murder occurred at 1124 Mill St. in Leadwood. Frank Ancona was shot and killed inside a bedroom of the home and then was placed into Jinkersons vehicle. Frank Ancona's body and his car were taken to Washington County and dumped. The car was found in the Mark Twain National Forest on a service road on Feb. 9, but at that time Frank Ancona had not been reported missing. Later when Frank Ancona was reported missing, the forest service worker who had seen the car earlier notified authorities of where the car had been parked and officers went back to where it was still sitting.
Frank Ancona's body was found in the Belgrade area on the banks of the Big River off Route C on Feb. 11, by a family out for a fishing trip.
A search warrant was served at the Ancona home on Feb. 11 which revealed extensive blood evidence in the master bedroom. Malissa Ancona was present at the home prior to and during the service of the search warrant.
An investigator reported that Malissa Ancona admitted to him in a recorded interview that her biological son, Jinkerson Jr., shot and killed Frank Ancona while he was asleep in the bedroom of the home. Malissa Ancona also admitted that she failed to report the crime and additionally attempted to destroy blood evidence and altered the crime scene in an attempt to conceal what had happened. It was reported that she was acting in concert with her son.
Malissa Ancona was taken into custody Saturday for questioning after the search warrant was served to search the home she shared with Frank Ancona. She was later released and picked up a second time late Sunday evening on a 20-hour hold for investigation.
An autopsy conducted Sunday on the body revealed Frank Ancona died as result of a gunshot to the head.
The story of Frank Ancona's death spread around the globe over the weekend, not because of his disappearance or how or where he died, but because he had long claimed involvement in a chapter of an organization tied to the Ku Klux Klan. But any involvement with the KKK had little, if anything, to do with his death.
Frank Ancona was reported missing Friday after his employer reached out to the Leadwood Police Department with concerns of his whereabouts. The employer reported Frank Ancona had not shown up for work Wednesday or Thursday, which was out of character for him.
A Leadwood officer went to the Ancona address but no one answered the door. The officer contacted Police Chief William Dickey, who then went back to the house to investigate further.
When the chief and officer arrived they found Frank's wife, Malissa Ancona, and her son outside the home. They inquired about Frank Ancona and were told by Malissa Ancona that he got a call from his workplace and needed to drive across the state to deliver a part, which is what he did for a living.
Frank's son, Frank Ancona Jr., told police that other family members had not heard from his dad, which was very much out of character for him. A call to the employer verified they did not send Frank across the state on a job.
The officers requested to enter the house. At first Malissa Ancona denied access, but later consented to allowing them to enter. Once inside, the officers found a safe which had been busted open and any contents removed.
It was also discovered that all of the man's firearms were missing except the handgun he carried regularly as a holder of a concealed carry permit.
Malissa Ancona told the police that Frank Ancona told her he was leaving to go out of state on this job and that when he got back he was filing for a divorce. She said he took the firearms with him.
She also said his threat of a divorce was why she had posted a notice on Facebook earlier in the week looking for a roommate. She said with her husband leaving she would need a roommate to share the living expenses.
But other family members living nearby said Frank Ancona would never have taken all of his firearms with him.
The Leadwood officers left the home and put a "check the well-being" alert out to area law enforcement agencies. Shortly after the alert was dispatched, word of the black car being seen outside Potosi the previous day was reported. Officers went to the location and found the car.
Deputies responded on Friday and located the vehicle and secured it, said Jacobsen. We left deputies at the scene and secured it overnight due to the loss of light. On Saturday morning we conducted a search of the area on foot by members of the Potosi Fire Protection District and the sheriffs office. We didnt locate much of anything in the woods, but we did locate evidence of a burn pile near Mr. Anconas vehicle.
Later that day Jacobsen reported they executed two search warrants and arrested a male on an unrelated drug warrant out of Washington County. While they were waiting for the issuance of one of the warrants he was notified that they had received a call from a lady who was taking her family fishing. They had located a body near the bank of the Big River outside Belgrade.
We processed the scene and the body was transported by the Washington County Coroners office for an autopsy to determine a cause of death, said Jacobsen. The body was positively identified as Frank Ancona and his family was notified.
The investigation has been handled as a joint effort involving the sheriffs office in Washington County, St. Francois County Sheriffs office, the Leadwood Police Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
On Saturday around 2 p.m. investigators made their way back to the Ancona residence off Mill Street in Leadwood and immediately put up crime scene tape around the house and blocked off the nearby street while awaiting a search warrant.
Shortly after the search warrant came through several officers searched the home.
The Washington County Sheriffs Department obtained a search warrant for a second address, this one in that county, and searched the home and the homeowners car.
Then on Sunday morning the autopsy was performed and it was confirmed the cause of death had been a gunshot to the head.
St. Francois County Prosecuting Attorney Jerrod Mahurin presented the case to the judge Monday morning and the warrants were signed and served.
A 20-year-old woman was killed and two men were injured following a plane crash in California.
The small plane took off as a instructor-student flight from an aviation school in San Diego yesterday afternoon.
But it crashed around 30 miles away, in rough terrain in the Cleveland National Forest, near Ramona Airport, at around 2.30pm local time.
Two survivors, pictured being helped by firefighters, managed to climb out of the plane's wreckage and call for help. A woman passenger died at the scene
Rescuers found the wreckage about an hour after the alarm was raised and took the two survivors to hospital where they were treated for minor injuries
The two survivors, aged 28 and 25, climbed out of the wreckage and got to higher ground, where they used their cell phones to call for help.
It is not yet known what caused the Cessna 172 aircraft to crash.
CAL Fire spokesman, Isaac Sanchez, confirmed that the woman, a passenger, died at the scene. Her name has not been released pending notification of next of kin.
'The fact that we have two survivors absolutely is fortunate for them but again we are dealing with a fatality and there's going to be a family out there who is grieving this,' Mr Sanchez told NBC7 San Diego.
A witness, who saw the plane go down, called 911 immediately but it took rescuers in a helicopter about an hour to find the wreckage.
The plane, which had taken off from the American Aviation Academy at Gillespie Field, was located in a remote and inaccessible area.
The three people took off from the American Aviation Academy at Gillespie Field in San Diego
The plane was a Cessna 172 aircraft and was being used for a instructor-student flight on Sunday afternoon
The surviving student and instructor were rescued and taken to hospital where they are being treated for minor injuries.
The woman's body has remained at the scene which has been turned over to the San Diego County Sheriff's office.
The Federal Aviation Administration will be investigating the crash, CAL Fire said.
'It's 8:54 and he hasn't tweeted about the Grammys. Is Trump dead?' asked a reporter;
10:53 a.m.
That's the new record President Donald Trump has set for the latest he's stayed off Twitter on a weekday morning since Inauguration Day.
Monday, in fact, marked the first working day of his presidency when he hadn't tweeted by 8:15 a.m.
'Today I will meet with Canadian PM Trudeau and a group of leading business women to discuss women in the workforce,' he wrote, more than two and one-half hours later than Americans have come to expect, sharing an Associated Press article with 24.8 million people.
And just like that, he was off to meet his Canadian counterpart.
Donald Trump was too busy to tweet on Monday morning, preparing to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and hosting phone calls with the leaders of Nigeria and South Africa
Twitter users were shocked to get to mid-morning without 140 characters from the leader of the free world
At last, 10:53 a.m. rolled around and the president dropped an uneventful message into his Twitter timeline
There were no angry 7:00 a.m. responses to the Grammy Awards' Sunday night descent into anti-Trump polemics.
He didn't declare 140 characters of breakfast empathy with Americans who are being evacuated from beneath a failing California dam.
Trump did have a morning schedule that included an intelligence briefing and phone calls with presidents Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
During Monday's long online wait, Twitter was buzzing about what @RealDonaldTrump hadn't done.
Twitter was abuzz Monday morning over what Trump hadn't done
One CNN reporter marveled at how the Oval Office's silence can be as newsworthy as its activity
'It's 8:54 and he hasn't tweeted about the Grammys. Is Trump dead?' asked a reporter with Vice Sports.
MORNING TWEETS Until Monday, Donald Trump's personal Twitter account had gotten an early morning workout every weekday since his January 20 inauguration: TABLE TITLE Jan. 20 7:31 a.m. Jan. 23 6:38 a.m. Jan. 24 6:11 a.m. Jan. 25 7:10 a.m. Jan. 26 6:04 a.m. Jan. 27 8:12 a.m. Jan. 30 7:16 a.m. Jan. 31 6:21 a.m. Feb. 1 7:50 a.m. Feb. 2 6:13 a.m. Feb. 3 6:24 a.m. Feb. 6 7:01 a.m. Feb. 7 7:11 a.m. Feb. 8 7:03 a.m. Feb. 9 6:57 a.m. Feb. 10 8:15 a.m. Feb. 13 10:53 a.m. Advertisement
'Our president is missing!' fretted a correspondent for the Trump-friendly online Right Side Broadcasting Network.
'VERY BAD! Wake up Donald!'
A CNN producer observed that it's '[a]mazing that Trump can now make headlines, drive the news cycle by NOT tweeting for 17-hours.'
Twitter is the president's go-to mode of direct communication with voters as he executes a long-term strategy of going around the traditional media.
But as his smartphone good-mornings become more commonplace, their absence can be felt around kitchen tables, in newsrooms and even on Wall Street trading floors.
'The market is reacting to Trump comments and if he hasnt tweeted by midday, people wonder if he's slept in,' Andy Soper, head of G-10 options trading at Nomura Holdings Inc., told Bloomberg this month.
One benefit to Trump's no-tweeting approach Monday is that his communications staff hasn't had to scramble to keep up with his morning thoughts.
A White House official told DailyMail.com this month that on a typical day 'no one in the [White House] press shop knows what's coming until their Twitter alerts his their phones.'
Maria Lynn Baker, 28, was arrested in Florida over the weekend after allegedly having sex with two underage boys in a public restroom
A homeless woman was arrested in Ocala, Florida, after allegedly having sex with underage boys in a public restroom.
Maria Lynn Baker, 28, shamelessly smiled in her mugshot on Saturday, after she was arrested on two counts of lewd and lascivious battery.
Authorities say Baker had sex with two boys, between the ages of 12 and 14, in the public restroom at a war memorial off Silver Springs Boulevard - and that there's even video evidence of at least one of the encounters.
Police say Baker called them on Friday to report the two boys, because they planned to snitch her out for some unspecified crime.
Officers went to the war memorial and found Baker arguing with another woman.
That woman told police that Baker was having sex with underage boys in the restroom and offered them video showing one of the encounters.
The alleged incident happened at the public restroom at this war memorial off of Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala
Baker declined to speak to the officer about the incident.
Police say that Baker could face more charges if they find additional victims.
Baker is reportedly homeless and has been in and out of prison since 2006.
She was last released in May 2016. Just last month she was spent 15 days in county jail on charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing.
Six Chinese communist officials have been caught snoozing during a conference which was held to motivate civil servants not to be lazy.
As a punishment, footage of them sleeping during the meeting was broadcast during the local evening news.
The disgraced officials have been ordered to make public apologies in front of their co-workers, according to Chinese state media.
Dozing off: One of the officials who has been caught sleeping during an important meeting
Drowsy: These Communist officials were attending a conference on how not to be lazy
The officials were spotted on February 5 during a city-level conference in Xiangyang city, central China's Hubei Province, according to Dragon TV.
The theme of the conference was to encourage the officials not to be lazy workers.
Organised by the Xiangyang city government, the meeting was held with the purpose of fixing five problems found among the local bureaucrats: laziness, mediocrity, procrastination, slowness and restlessness.
However, not long after the meeting started, several attendees were caught on camera catching 40 winks on their seats.
To publicly shame them, the meeting's organiser had the footage of them dozing off broadcast on the Xiangyang News the same evening.
Not a good time: After the meeting started, several attendees were caught catching 40 winks
Caught in action: The local news commented 'their laziness was shocking and unbelievable'
Xiangyang News commented: 'These officials didn't listen to the meeting's messages carefully and didn't find their own shortcomings. They should have dozed off without a worry.
'Their laziness was shocking and unbelievable.'
Their names have not been revealed to the public. However, the local disciplinary committee said they had identified the six officials and would publish them for their behaviour.
Publicly shamed: Footage of them dozing off was broadcast on the local News the same day
Disgraced: The officials were also ordered to write self-criticisms and make public apologies
According to Xinhua New Agency, Xiangyang Disciplinary Committee is set to talk to these officials as well as their bosses.
The officials were also ordered to write self-criticisms and make public apologies in front of their colleagues.
A press conference is due to be held by the Xiangyang Propaganda Bureau to report the updates on the officials to the public.
A banker was killed by a single punch for talking to a group of young women about high heels and baby pictures, a court has heard.
Oliver Dearlove, 30, was' friendly and polite' as he chatted with the women in the street after a night out in Blackheath, south-east London, on August 28 last year, jurors were told.
The casual exchange, lasting no more than 20 seconds, prompted Trevor Timon, 31, to fly into a rage and launch his 'unprovoked and senseless' attack, the court heard.
Mr Dearlove, pictured with girlfriend Claire, died after he was attacked on a night out
Timon, of Plumstead, south-east London, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of murder.
Prosecutor Anthony Orchard QC told jurors: 'The attack upon Oliver Dearlove took place on a warm August bank holiday evening, in the quiet leafy streets of Blackheath.
'He stood on the pavement not far from a nightclub. The attack was unprovoked and senseless. It appears to have been motivated by the defendant's perceived sense of grievance that Oliver Dearlove and two of his male friends were talking to a group of young women, whom Trevor Timon knew.'
The victim lived with his long-term girlfriend in New Eltham and worked in the City as a banker, the court heard.
On Saturday August 27 last year, he was on a night out with friends in Blackheath, ending up at Zerodegrees bar and restaurant until just after midnight.
Timon was in the nearby Morden's nightclub along with the women, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Trevor Timon, 31, pictured, denies murdering former Coutts banker Oliver Dearlove, 30
The women left the club, followed by Timon, just as Mr Dearlove and his friends emerged from Zerodegrees and set off in the same direction, the court heard.
Mr Dearlove had politely asked one of the women if she was hurt after she took off her high heels and began walking slowly along Tranquil Vale.
She laughingly replied: 'You know what, my feet are killing me', jurors were told.
She went on to tell Mr Dearlove that it was her first night out since giving birth, and he commented to his friends: 'She had a baby four weeks ago, doesn't she look well?'
The woman produced pictures and Mr Dearlove was 'very polite' as he complimented her on having a beautiful baby, jurors heard.
Timon, who knew the group of women, allegedly stormed in and demanded to know what they were talking about.
Claire Wheatley, Mr Dearlove's girlfriend, is pictured arriving at the Old Bailey today
He allegedly shouted: 'Who the f*** are you boys?' and told Mr Dearlove: 'If you don't move on, I'll knock you out.'
One of the women stood between them and told Timon to 'just go', jurors heard.
Mr Orchard said: 'The next thing that happened was the defendant hit Oliver Dearlove.
'The punch skimmed her face. She saw Oliver Dearlove fall and as he fell his whole body twisted. She screamed 'He hit him, he hit him'.'
The victim, who was punched in the head and neck, collapsed in the street and was pronounced dead less than 24 hours later.
Asked why he did it, Timon allegedly told one of the women: 'I'm p***** off.'
Mr Orchard said the defendant had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denies murder.
He said the only issue was whether he intended to cause Mr Dearlove 'really serious bodily harm' when he punched him.
Timon made no comment during interviews with police, but claimed in a statement he had punched Mr Dearlove because he thought he was about to be attacked by him and his two pals.
But prosecutor Anthony Orchard QC said Timon has now abandoned that defence.
He added: 'There is no doubt that Trevor Timon caused the death of Oliver Dearlove and that he did so by a deliberate act, by hitting him in the head and neck area with a single punch.
'It is difficult to see how he could have intended to cause anything less than really serious injury when he punched Oliver Dearlove.
'Bear in mind the threats he made, "if you don't move, I'll knock you out", as well as his aggressive demeanour, behaviour and attitude towards Oliver Dearlove and his two friends.'
The trial continues tomorrow.
Sweden has defended having its officials wear head scarves during a trip to Iran following a feminist backlash.
Trade Minister Ann Linde took a business team to Tehran last week and sparked anger from women's rights activists and politicians for wearing the hijab.
But Ms Linde told Swedish media that she was unwilling to break Iranian law - despite Sweden claiming to have the world's first 'feminist government'.
Trade Minister Ann Linde (left) took a business team to Tehran last week and sparked anger from women's rights activists and politicians for wearing the hijab
Sweden's Liberal party chief Jan Bjorklund said Iran oppressed women adding that the move was 'ruinous to what is called a feminist foreign policy'.
Linde later said that the only other option would have been to send an all-male delegation.
However, Ms Linde said she did not intend to wear a veil during an upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, the BBC reports.
In December German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen was widely praised by her choice to not wear a veil during a trip to Saudi Arabia after she said it was her 'right as a woman'.
Von der Leyen followed the example set by US First Lady Michelle Obama, who was condemned in Saudi Arabia when she went bare-headed on a visit with her husband last year.
Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop opted to wear an embroidered head scarf 'out of respect' during a trip to Iran in 2015 (pictured)
But after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop opted to wear an embroidered head scarf 'out of respect' during a similar trip to Iran in 2015, many social media users said she had failed to 'stand up for women'.
Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader said on Saturday the United States and Western powers are regarded with suspicion in the Middle East because of their interference, but that Sweden has a good name among Iranians and is seen as a reputable economic partner.
Iran has had relatively good relations with neutral Sweden which has over the years been often critical of the foreign policy of the United States, the Islamic republic's arch-enemy.
'America and many European powers have played a role in causing traumatic events in Syria and Iraq, and the people of the region are aware of this interference and are rightly sceptical,' state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying at a meeting with visiting Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.
'Due to its long relationship with Iran, Sweden is a country with a good reputation in the eyes of our people, and the optimism of nations towards each other will be fertile ground for developing cooperation,' Khamenei was quoted as saying.
During Lofven's visit, the two countries signed initial accords on cooperation in areas including science and technology, higher education and research, roads, telecommunications, technology, and women and family.
US First Lady Michelle Obama was criticised in Saudi Arabia when she went out bare-headed on a visit with her husband in 2015
Khamenei said many agreements Iran had signed with foreign countries had not been realised, however, and he expressed hope that would not also be the case with Sweden.
'We know you to be a man of action and hope you will act in a way so the accords do not just stay on paper,' Khamenei told the Swedish prime minister.
Lofven said the talks addressed 'economic relations and important regional problems, and we will try to implement the agreements'.
The Swedish prime minister told Swedish journalists the subject of human rights was brought up. Among the issues are the fate of Ahmadreza Djalali, a researcher at Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet who is imprisoned in Iran and at risk of a death sentence, according to Amnesty International.
Lofven, however, gave no details on human rights issues, Swedish news agency TT reported.
Lofven also met President Hassan Rouhani, who praised 'Swedish moderation' in international affairs - especially its support for Iran's negotiations with world powers which led to a 2015 deal to curb Tehran's nuclear programme in exchange for a removal of economic sanctions against the Islamic republic.
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Ivanka Trump made her first appearance at a White House policy session on Monday afternoon as she met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and her father to discuss a new task force to help boost women in business.
The First Daughter listened intently as Trudeau held the floor in the Cabinet Room shortly after being welcomed to Washington, D.C. by the president.
She also gave her own input, enthusiastically contributing to the round table discussion after welcoming Trudeau and entrepreneur women to the White House.
'I'm honored to be here and really looking forward to hearing from each of you who serve as tremendous role models for me and so many other business leaders across both of our countries,' she said, 'and can lend some tremendously valuable perspective as we think about the unique challenges that entrepreneurs, women in the workforce, female small business owners are confronted with each and every day, and as we think how we level the playing field for this generation and for the next.'
President Trump proudly told the room how Ivanka had been 'very involved' in building the newly-announced task force and that he appreciated her help.
She spent the morning getting ready at home with the help of an entourage of stylists before traveling to the White House in a blacked out SUV.
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Ivanka Trump met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and female business leaders on Monday to discuss how to boost women in business
The First Daughter was all ears as she listened to Trudeau and others present at the meeting speak about how best to empower women in the workplace - a cause she is passionate about
President Trump said Ivanka had been 'very involved' in building the task force which was discussed at Monday's meeting (above)
Prime Minister Trudeau held out Ivanka's seat for her as they sat down in the Cabinet Room shortly after midday
Prime Minister Trudeau was given a warm welcome by President Trump, posing inside the Oval Office before their talks got underway
The task force will be known as The United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. White House aides said it was an interest shared by both the Canadian and US administrations.
WHO WAS THERE Elyse Allan, GE Canada Dawn Farrell, TransAlta Linda Hasenfratz, Linamar Monique F. Leroux, Investissement Quebec Tina Lee, T&T Supermarket Inc. Tamara Lundgren, Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. Carol Stephenson, General Motors Company Julie Sweet, Accenture North America Annette Verschuren, NRStor Inc. Advertisement
The cause is close to Ivanka's heart, serving as the inspiration for her first book Women Who Work. It is also a common theme among advertising campaigns for her clothes and accessories lines.
The president said later, at a joint presser that he and Trudeau know that the 'full power of women can be better than anyone else. We know that.'
Ivanka's husband Jared is a senior advisor to her father at the White House. She left the Trump Organization and her own business to move with him to Washington. She's been seen at the White House several times since her father moved in, accompanying his to Dover Air Force Base to receive a fallen solider. Today was the first time she'd been seen in a policy meeting, however.
Eager to look the part, Ivanka enjoyed the help of an entourage to get ready at home before.
The glam squad flocked to her DC home as Jared Kushner set off for an early morning in his role as Senior Adviser to the President.
One associate was frisked with a metal detector before she was allowed to enter.
Jared set off at 7.35am, minutes after the first of Ivanka's stylists arrived. They left shortly before 9am and Ivanka, 35, followed around an hour later.
Ivanka, who is a passionate advocate for women in business, was excited to sit down with the Prime Minister at the start of the meeting
Trudeau was welcomed to Washington DC on Monday morning by the president to discuss a range of topics including the US-Canadian task force for female business leaders
The First Daughter was vocal in the round table discussion and held the Canadian Prime Minister's ear as she gave her thoughts. She sat between him and Dawn Farrell, President and CEO of TransAlta Corporation
President Donald Trump sat opposite the pair among other female business leaders to discuss the special task force
L-R: Prime Minister Trudeau, Ivanka Trump, Dawn Farrell of TransAlta, Monique F. Leroux, Investissement Quebec, Hope Hicks, White House Director of Strategic Communications, Tina Lee, T&T Supermarket Inc. Carol Stephenson of General Motors is next to President Donald Trump and Tamara Lundgren of Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. is on his other side
Ivanka joked with Annette Verschuren, the President of Home Depot in Canada and Asia, who was also invited to the talks
Earlier on Monday morning, President Trump gave a warm welcome to Prime Minister Trudeau who he greeted outside the West Wing before a photo-opp in the Oval Office.
The pair seemed happy to be in one another's company, with Trudeau familiarly planting one arm on President Trump's bicep as they shook hands.
Trudeau has said he expects to 'find a lot of common ground' with the Republican president, despite their disagreements over trade.
The Canadian PM was supportive of Barack Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership and said in November he'd 'miss' his American counterpart.
Trump believes that TPP, which he nixed his first few days in office, and NAFTA have been bad for American workers and is expected to talk about restructuring free trade between the U.S. and its neighbor to the north today.
Ivanka's glam squad was spotted at her home earlier in the day to help her get ready for the meeting. One stylist battled heavy winds as she left with a large suitcase at around 9am
The first stylist arrived at the first daughter's home shortly before 7.30am before her husband Jared had left for work
More assistants arrived after Jared's departure, including one who was frisked with a metal detector before she could make her way inside
Jared Kushner got an early start on Monday morning as he left his DC home for the White House where Trudeau is being hosted
Ivanka eventually left the house at 10.10am, making her way to the White House in a blacked-out SUV
Trudeau on Friday said he intends to 'defend and demonstrate Canadian values' in his meetings at the White House today but 'respectfully and not from an ideological standpoint.'
He has also spoken out against Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations. The ban, which has since been lifted by a federal judge who deemed it 'unconstitutional', prevented citizens from affected countries from entering the US regardless of whether or not they held valid visas or green cards.
Prime Minister Trudeau reacted to it with an emotional plea to Muslim immigrants who he said were always welcome in Canada. The following day, a white gunman killed six people in a terror attack at a Quebec mosque.
This afternoon the PM and the president will deliver a progress report at a joint press conference.
'I'm honored to be here with Prime Minister Trudeau. His father I knew and respected greatly, and he gave me a picture of myself and your father, and what a great picture I will keep that in a very special place, at the Waldorf-Astoria, together,' Trump said, making reference to a famous New York City hotel.
Trudeau's father Pierre was also prime minister.
The prime minister also met with House Speaker Paul Ryan in a busy day of events at the White House
The two leaders gave a joint press conference later on Monday where they told of their plans to maintain relations between the US and Canada
After the discussions, the president and prime minister were seen walking down the West Wing colonnade
More than a dozen teenagers and children were injured when the ride they were on, meant only for adults, collapsed.
The attraction, called Samba, resembles a disk and was spinning at high speed when it snapped off its axis, tipping the people inside onto the ground.
Police are investigating as the riders included children aged between nine and 16 while the ride was meant for people 18 and over.
The attraction resembles a disk and was spinning at high speed when it snapped off its axis, tipping the people inside onto the ground. Pictured: The ride moving normally
The incident happened at a funfair in the city of Ligua, central Chile.
No one was seriously injured, but a girl sprained her knee and a boy suffered a back injury.
The fairground operators have been in business for eight years, during which time there have been no reported accidents.
The park has been temporarily closed as police examine the equipment to see if any safety regulations were broken.
President Donald Trump set aside his differences today with his liberal counterpart to the north, Justin Trudeau, praising the Canadian leader's home country not just a neighbor but and an ally but a 'great friend' as he welcomed the prime minister to the White House, which he called a 'very special place.'
Ideological opposites, the two leaders were cordial as they took questions at a news conference in the White House's East Room.
Trudeau has welcomed refugees to Canada with open arms, but he today refused to weigh in on the American president's travel ban.
'There have been times where we have differed in our approaches, and that's always been done firmly and respectfully,' he said. 'The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves.'
Trump backed off of his carte blanch criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying the U.S. has an 'outstanding' trade partnership with Canada. The portion affecting their two nations he said he wants 'tweaked.'
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President Donald Trump set aside his differences today with his liberal counterpart Justin Trudeau, praising the Canadian leader's home country as not just a neighbor but an 'ally' and a 'great friend' as he welcomed the prime minister to the White House, which he called a 'very special place'
By the end of the visit Trump said he was looking forward to 'working closely' with Trudeau 'to build upon our very historic friendship'
AFTER YOU, MR. PRESIDENT: Trump and Trudeau exit the Oval Office after meeting at the White House
The leaders of the neighboring nations had never met. Trump greeted Trudeau, who has been critical of the American president's travel restrictions on his own soil, with handshake and a pat on the shoulder.
Trudeau gripped Trump's hand and his left shoulder momentarily before they disappeared into the West Wing for a photo op in the Oval Office before a day of talks.
President Trump said later in the day that the Canadian PM gifted him with a photo of himself and Trudeau's father, Pierre, a former prime minister, this morning.
In the Oval, minutes after Trudeau's arrival, Trump barely said a word to him as a hoard of photographer snapped pictures.
A relaxed Trudeau lounged in a chair to Trump's right, while the president looked to his left and tapped his fingers with impatience.
'I think they might want a handshake,' Trump finally, said, reaching over to grab Trudeau's hand before aides kicked out the press.
By the end of the visit, however, Trump said he was looking forward to 'working closely' with Trudeau 'to build upon our very historic friendship.'
GRIP AND GRIN: President Donald Trump greets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outside the West Wing of the White House
The leaders of the neighboring nations have never met, and Trump greeted Trudeau, who has been critical of the American president's travel ban, with handshake
Trump's hosting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today at the White House
Three days ago, Trump rolled out the red carpet for Japan's prime minister, whom he'd hosted in New York on a previous occasion, giving him a hug and a handhold outside the exterior of the White House and an extra long hand shake inside.
The billionaire paid out of pocket for Shinzo Abe and his wife to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate, solidifying their working relationship.
Trudeau received the customary greeting in front of the West Wing entrance and an Oval Office meeting before a business round table.
The Canadian prime minister's relationship with Barack Obama, a fellow liberal who entered the White House with young children, was playfully deemed a bromance.
Trudeau, 45, and Trump, 70, as not nearly as well matched.
Nevertheless, Trump told a reporter today asking about their initial impressions of each other: 'We are going to have a great relationship with Canada, maybe as good or better, hopefully than ever before.
'We have some I think very strong, very tough ideas on the tremendous problem that we have with terrorism.'
Trudeau had said he expects to 'find a lot of common ground' with the Republican president, despite their dissimilarities.
The Canadian PM was supportive of Barack Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership and said in November he'd 'miss' his American counterpart.
Trump believes that TPP, which he nixed his first few days in office, and NAFTA have been bad for American workers. He wants to restructure the free trade between the U.S. and its neighbors.
He said Monday at he and Trudeau's news conference that he's more concerned about changing terms of the agreement as it pertains to Mexico.
'We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We'll be tweaking it,' he said, referring to NAFTA. 'We'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It's a much less severe situation than what's taken place on the southern border.'
He said moments later, 'Our relationship with Canada is outstanding. And we're going to work together to make it even better.'
In the Oval, Trump barely said a word to Trudeau as a hoard of photographer snapped pictures
'I think they might want a handshake,' Trump finally said to his counterpart
Trudeau has said he expects to 'find a lot of common ground' with the Republican president, despite their disagreements over trade and differing political ideologies
Trudeau said that the two countries' government would be sitting down over the coming months and 'talking about how we can continue to create good jobs for our citizens on both sides of the border.
'And during this exercise, we continue to understand that we have to allow this free flow of goods and services and we have to be aware of the integration of our economies which is extremely positive for both our countries.'
Three quarters of Canada's exports go to the United States. U.S. exports to Canada were $337.3 billion in 2015 and imports were $325.4 billion - a trade surplus of $11.9 billion.
The Angus Reid Institute published a poll in advance of Trudeau's U.S. visit showing that forty-four percent of Canadians belief that NAFTA had benefited Canada. A mere 24 percent want their government to take another look at it.
At a general election debate Trump said the 1993 accord that was negotiated by George H.W. Bush and shepherded through Congress by Democrat Bill Clinton is 'the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country.'
The Republican argued that 'NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.'
'President Trump is committed to renegotiating NAFTA,' the White House said in the wake of his TPP cancellation. 'If our partners refuse a renegotiation that gives American workers a fair deal, then the President will give notice of the United States intent to withdraw from NAFTA.'
Trump said recently that he may have his administration rewrite the accord entirely, adding another F to NAFTA for 'fair' trade.
At his news conference Friday Trudeau said he intended to 'defend and demonstrate Canadian values' in his meetings at the White House today but 'respectfully and not from an ideological standpoint.'
Trudeau had previously taken a slap at Trump on Twitter, signaling his belief that the the conservative leader's travel restrictions on terror-prone nations constitutes a Muslim ban.
'To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,' the liberal politician said.
Asked today if he believes that Trump's order has merit on national security grounds, Trudeau said, ' Canada and the United States have been neighbors a long time and Canadians and Americans have stood together, worked together, at home and around the world.
'We've fought and died together in battlefields in World War I and World War II, in Korea, in Afghanistan,' he said. 'But there have been times where we have differed in our approaches, and that's always been done firmly and respectfully.'
The Canadian leader said he doesn't believe his country's citizens would want him to lecture the American president.
'My role, our responsibility, is to continue to govern in such a way that reflects Canadians' approach and be a positive example in the world,' he said.
Though it did not come up in the news conference, the leaders have at least one policy area on which they agree, and that is Trump's reversal of Obama's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. The Obama administration rejected Trans-Canada's proposal, indefinitely suspending construction.
One of his first acts as president, Trump ordered an about-face on the U.S. position - giving a preliminary green a light to the project. To get final approval the Canadian company must agree to certain conditions such as the production of the pipeline elements in the United States.
They just concluded at a business round table with Trump's daughter Ivanka, right, and other women entrepreneurs and executives, including General Motors' Carol Stephenson
A joint statement said they were launching a Canada-United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders
In addition to their press conference, Trudeau and Trump also spoke at a business round table that the president's daughter Ivanka and other women entrepreneurs and executives, including General Motors' Carol Stephenson, also attended.
A joint statement said they were launching a Canada-United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders.
'Both President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau are committed to removing barriers to womens economic participation and supporting women as they advance in the business community,' the statement said.
Trump said at the round table that Ivanka has been 'very involved in this' and he appreciated her contribution.
'I'm honored to be here with Prime Minister Trudeau. His father I knew and respected greatly, and he gave me a picture of myself and your father, and what a great picture I will keep that in a very special place, at the Waldorf Astoria, together,' Trump said, making reference to a famous New York City hotel.
Trudeau's father Pierre was also prime minister.
Charles Vorpagel, 27, is facing multiple drugs and weapons charges after police six firearms, ammo, cocaine, marijuana and other drugs in the residence
The Florida man whose home was the setting of a triple homicide during a Super Bowl party has been arrested after police found he was dealing drugs and had a cache of weapons.
Charles Vorpagel, 27, is facing multiple drugs and weapons charges after police found six firearms, ammo, cocaine, marijuana and other drugs in the residence.
Police were called the Mohawk Street home, in Jupiter, Florida, at 10.30pm last Sunday after neighbors heard gunshots.
They arrived to find the bodies of Kelli J. Doherty, 20, Brandi El-Salhy, 24, and Sean P. Henry, 25, who had been gunned down.
A KEL-TEC PLR-16 semi-automatic pistol and Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, loaded with rubber bullets, were also discovered, resting beside the front door, according to a police affidavit, seen by the Palm Beach Post.
The FBI also found more than three pounds of marijuana, split up in bags to sell, 17 grams of cocaine, almost 1,000 Xanax as well as hash oil and edible narcotics.
An unloaded assault. .25-caliber pistol, .357-caliber pistol and .308-caliber rifle, along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition were also recovered.
Vorpagel told Jupiter Police he dealt illegal drugs and firearms from the home he rented, working with a partner.
He lived at the house alone and explained he had so many drugs because he and his partner had bought an ounce of cocaine and were in the process of splitting it up to sell.
Vorpagel faces three charges; felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.
Police said Brandi El-Salhy (left) and Kelli Doherty (right), were targeted in the attack
Church volunteer Sean P. Henry (above) was identified as one of the three people killed during a late-night shooting rampage in Jupiter, Florida
He has a bond pre-detention hearing on February 17.
The 27-year-old was previously arrested in September 2009 after police found him with a fully loaded semi-automatic handgun concealed in the waistband of his pants.
A former FBI agent said he suspected Vorpagel may have decided to confess because he realized he could be in danger after the triple murders.
Police say they have a person of interest in custody over the killings, but their identity has not been released.
Cops also said the trio were targeted in the shooting, but have not disclosed the motive.
Tisa Oldham, the JupiterFIRST's chief operating officer, told the Palm Beach Post Henry had been a participant in a local church's program since he was a child.
Police on Mohawk Street after the shooting. Upon arrival officers found three bodies
Officers searched overnight for a gunman and urged residents to stay in doors. A person of interest was taken into custody on Monday
Neighbors revealed that Henry (pictured) worked at a church called JupiterFIRST and had recently returned from a mission in Haiti
During his recent trip to Haiti he helped build houses.
Last week, he led the prayer for children during a Sunday service. He worked with the youth group and was one its leader, Oldham said.
Vorpagel's father, Jeffrey Vorpagel, was in court and waved to his son.
Vorpagel's father asked anyone with information to contact the Jupiter police. 'They need to get the info out and help them find the killers,' Jeffrey Vorpagel said.
'He is deeply missed here,' he said. 'He is loved by this congregation. We plan to make ourselves available to his family.'
Jennifer Foster, a 13-year resident of on the street, said he was surprised by what happened.
'It's a middle-class neighborhood, mostly owners, some rentals,' she added.
Brandi El-Salhy, 24, (left) and Kelli J. Doherty, 20, (right) were also shot and killed during the attack in Jupiter, Florida
'Everybody is friendly, kids go trick-or-treating every year. We've had petty crimes here, never anything like this.'
A day after the fatal shootings Jupiter Police evacuated homes along Mohawk Street, where the slaying took place, after finding a suspicious package.
The size of the package or what it may be hasn't been disclosed but the bomb squad were called in.
DEAR ABBY: My boss wants to do a day of community service with the staff to help others and improve relationships in the workplace. I thought it was a great idea; a lot of my co-workers were unsure and wanted more information about what specifically we would do. My boss said she would get more information and send it out to us. However, a few of my co-workers are outright opposed to the idea and think they shouldn't be required to do it.
A year ago when this came up, one of them said they shouldn't have to give up their free time. I think it's wrong to turn down a chance to help others when they are able. What should I do to make sure my boss's intentions are understood while not being off-putting or appearing holier-than-thou? -- BLEEDING HEART
DEAR BLEEDING HEART: The person who should be making her intentions clear is your boss. It should not be your responsibility. Frankly, I can see both sides of this question. Some companies do this not only to "do good," but also to build goodwill in the community and team spirit in the office. Usually, participation is voluntary.
DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been together for two years. He's eight years younger than I am. We have a great relationship except for our worldviews. While I am liberal, he is very racist. When the subject comes up, our conversations can become very heated.
I believe everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, but both of us have a hard time validating our opinions for each other. My boyfriend never directs his racist comments toward anyone in particular, but it's hard for me not to take it that way.
One of my best friends is African-American, and my son is currently dating someone who is biracial. How do we agree to disagree without anyone being upset or hurt in the end? -- OPEN-MINDED IN INDIANAPOLIS
DEAR OPEN-MINDED: After two years of togetherness, your boyfriend knows full well that one of your best friends is African-American and that your son is dating someone who is biracial. You may never be able to broaden his mindset, but the next time he makes a racist remark, if you haven't already, tell him you don't want to hear it because it makes you uncomfortable.
And while you're at it, make sure he understands that if he says anything that could possibly hurt your friend or your son, the romance will be history.
P.S. You must be desperate for companionship to have tolerated this for two years.
DEAR ABBY: A family member likes to use the toilet as a garbage disposal. I've asked her to please dump the food scraps into a trash bag or pour them out in the backyard, but she prefers the "easy flushing." How do I get her to stop the extra wear-and-tear on our toilet? Plumbers are expensive. -- MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN
DEAR MDTD: Yes, plumbers ARE expensive. And there's a reason why we are supposed to use receptacles for what they're intended. If you are responsible for the toilet that's being used as a garbage disposal, make sure the family member knows she will be footing the bill for the plumber. However, if the toilet is her responsibility, this may be a lesson she will need to learn -- over and over -- on her own.
DEAR ABBY: I am a man in my late 20s dating my on-and-off-again boyfriend of five years. I dread the parties and family gatherings he brings me to. I'm polite and good at holding conversations, but generally quiet around his friends and family members I don't know well.
He jokingly puts me down at each event and says things like, "Why do I even bring you?" or, "Thanks for not doing or saying anything" (which isn't true). When I tell him afterward that I find his jibes offensive and suggest maybe he should date someone else who doesn't irritate him at social events, he either plays it off as "joking" or says, "Well, it's true."
Any advice on how to handle this situation? -- QUIET ONE IN PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR QUIET ONE: Humiliating someone isn't funny; it is cruel. If the shoe were on the other foot, I'm sure your boyfriend wouldn't like to be on the receiving end. If you have told him you don't like his jibes and want them stopped and yet he persists, handle it by re-evaluating your relationship and looking for someone who is more sensitive to hang out with. If the ridicule happens often, it may be a clue that you are really not compatible.
DEAR ABBY: I lost my mother a month ago. I just could not accept it because she was always there for me through the good and bad times. I would like to know how long my grieving period will last for me. -- SON MOURNING IN MICHIGAN
DEAR SON MOURNING: Please accept my sympathy for the loss of your mother. To answer your question, there is no set timetable for grief, and there are different stages of it. Right now, your grief is intense because it is fresh. With time, that intensity should fade to a level where it is tolerable. A grief support group could provide you the chance to talk about your feelings. Although you will always miss your mother, the sadness of her loss should not rule your life.
DEAR ABBY: How do you discourage someone's friendliness without being rude?
An elderly man recently moved in with his family in our neighborhood. He roams the neighborhood and approaches anyone he sees to introduce himself and start a conversation. He doesn't seem to have dementia, as he knows where and who he is, but his behavior is a little odd (such as asking for the precise spelling of everyone's first name).
Unfortunately, now that he has met my husband and me, he comes up and knocks on the door to chat -- weekdays, evenings, weekends. The last time I was outside with my three kids, he approached with a stack of photos and proceeded to show me at least 100 prints of a trip he had taken abroad -- 10 years ago.
I feel trapped because I don't want to be mean to an old man, but I dread seeing him stroll down the road. What is the best way to deal with this situation? -- WANTING TO WITHDRAW
DEAR WANTING: The poor man is probably lonely and looking for human contact. Because you are not prepared to engage in his "neighborly" conversations, the next time he strolls by, tell him that you do not have time to chat right now. If he knocks on your door, tell him that you are busy or that you will be leaving shortly. And suggest to him that he may want to find a senior center so that he can make friends with contemporaries and won't feel so isolated.
DEAR ABBY: I would like to see how other wives would handle this. I have a "friend" who constantly calls my husband her "boyfriend." She's married, and I'm sure this irks her spouse too. Every time they come over, she has to give my husband a really big hug (she has a large chest).
I feel what she's doing is inappropriate and want to know what you recommend to put a stop to this. It has reached the point I wish they would quit coming here. My husband and I are both polite people, but I would like for this to cease. -- POLITE PAT IN THE SOUTH
DEAR POLITE PAT: I'm a wife and here's how I'd handle it. I would have your husband tell your friend privately that her effusiveness is embarrassing and to please stop doing it. If he doesn't feel comfortable doing this, talk to the woman yourself and tell her that when she calls your husband her boyfriend, it offends you, and that HER husband should be her boyfriend.
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: 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
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Authorities in California were so sure the Oroville Dam was going to catastrophically collapse that they abandoned their command post on Sunday evening.
At a press conference on Monday, the Acting Chief of the Department of Water Resources Billy Croyle revealed the situation had become so perilous he ordered his staff to flee.
Officials also admitted they are in a race against time to drain up to 50-feet of water from the stricken Oroville Dam before a storm hits on Wednesday.
Almost 200,000 people were frantically ordered on Sunday to evacuate along a 40-mile stretch of the Feather River below the dam after authorities said its emergency spillway could give way.
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Destruction: An aerial photograph shows the damage done to the area surrounding the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam after it nearly collapsed on Sunday
Power: A water utility worker stares at the staggering amount of water being released down the main spillway at the Oroville Dam after its spillway almost collapsed on Sunday - sparking the evacuation of 200,000 people
A gaping 250-foot chasm was expected to collapse and unleash a 30ft 'tsunami' tidal wave that could have killed thousands and left nearby towns under 100ft of flood water.
Tens of thousands of panicked residents took to the freeways, causing total gridlock on the roads and sending anxiety levels soaring as they wondered if the dam would burst while they were sat in their cars.
'Everyone was running around; it was pure chaos,' Oroville resident Maggie Cabral told CNN affiliate KFSN on Sunday.
'All of the streets were immediately packed with cars, people in my neighborhood grabbing what they could and running out the door and leaving. I mean, even here in Chico, there's just traffic everywhere.'
Still pouring: Water continues to run down the main spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday. The water level dropped overnight behind the nation's tallest dam
Inspection: State officials waited for the light of dawn to inspect an erosion scar on the main spillway at northern California's Oroville Dam
Still flowing: As the day began, officials from the California Department of Water Resources prepared to inspect an erosion scar (pictured) on the main spillway at the dam on Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco
On Monday, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the evacuation below the nation's tallest dam will not end right away.
He added that they are working on a plan to allow residents to return home when it's safe - but offered no timetable for when they would be allowed to go home.
He added that so far there have been zero reports of looting in any of the evacuated towns.
Honea also said more than 500 Butte County jail inmates were safely transferred to Alameda County Jail farther south.
And as officials rushed to release water from the dam and fix the spillway, the empty abandoned cities resembled ghost towns after the forced evacuations.
Looming danger: A California Department of Fish and Wildlife employee observes the rushing water as it drains down the spillway at the Oroville Dam after it nearly partially collapsed on Sunday
Pouring: The department said authorities were releasing water to lower the lake's level after weeks of heavy rains in drought-plagued California
Raging: The water level dropped Monday behind the dam, reducing the risk of a catastrophic spillway collapse and easing fears that prompted the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream
Hope: Water officials say storms expected later this week near communities evacuated over the threat of a spillway collapse at the nation's tallest dam will be smaller than last week
Makeshift: Water rushes down a spillway as an emergency measure at the Oroville Dam in Oroville, California
Surgery: A helicopter kicks up dust as it lands at a staging area near the Oroville Dam on Monday where rocks are being readied to be dropped into the 250-foot hole in the spillway
However, while the situation seemed less dire by Monday morning, it is still critical and the evacuees were told they could not return to their homes because the coming storm might still destroy part of the dam.
Meteorologists are predicting the rain to begin on Wednesday night, dumping up to four inches by Thursday morning with more to drain from the mountains during the day.
On Monday, emergency crews prepared loads of rock to be dropped by helicopters to seal the crumbling spillway that threatens to inundate communities along the Feather River in Northern California.
Local crews were seen in dump trucks dropping off piles of rock, which were then loaded into the bags with backhoes. The operation to close the gap would begin as soon as it was feasible, authorities said.
The crisis suddenly and dramatically began on Sunday afternoon when the Department of Water Resource said the spillway next to the dam was 'predicted to fail within the next hour'.
However, it has remained intact.
Complex: Water from the Oroville Dam Auxiliary Spillway at Lake Oroville continues to flow and has eroded the roadway just below the spillway that leads to the boat ramp
Brutal fix: Rock is prepped to be used on the Lake Oroville Dam to plug the hole in the spillway that almost imploded
Effort: Officials said the situation seemed less dire overnight but Sacramento television station KCRA reported that helicopters from around the state were sent to drop chest-high bags of rocks to close the hole in the spillway
Staging area: The water level dropped Monday behind the nation's tallest dam, reducing the risk of a catastrophic spillway collapse and easing fears
Respite: Officials have been inspecting the nation's tallest dam since first night this morning in a desperate effort to stop a devastating 100-foot tsunami from being unleashed. Pictured is the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam on Monday morning after the water level dropped
And residents and local officials have described a panicked and chaotic scene on roads and freeways during the moments after the evacuation order.
Jodye Manley of Olivehurst says she and her husband were having dinner Sunday at her daughter's house in Sacramento when she got word from a city councilman friend that her area would probably be evacuated.
She says the couple got gas and made a mad dash to get their four dogs and three cats. Manley says she and her neighbors were completely panicked and that the scene 'was almost like a movie.'
She says the traffic-filled return to Sacramento was terrifying, with people thinking the spillway would go at any moment.
Chico Councilman Andrew Coolidge says the seven shelters he visited are packed with residents who describe similar terror on jam-packed roads to safety.
Errie: The city of Oroville is empty after an evacuation was ordered for communities downstream from the Lake Oroville Dam
Deserted: Residents and local officials have described a panicked and chaotic scene on roads and freeways during an evacuation over the threat of a spillway collapse at the nation's tallest dam
Waiting: Katherine March, 63, and her daughter Penny Conn, 48, (left) wait in line for a hot meal at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds while Patrick Cumings, (right), holds his daughter, Elizabeth, and he stands with his wife, Elizabeth Cumings at the Red Cross evacuation center in Chico
While most fled, some had no choice but to remain behind.
The chief executive of the Oroville Hospital says it is operating normally but that 100 patients have been moved to the hospital's second floor.
Hospital CEO Robert Wentz says the hospital took the step Monday morning 'out of an abundance of caution.'
The hospital is outside the flood zone below the dam on Oroville Lake and sits on a hill.
Wentz says evacuating acutely ill people is difficult so it is usually better for them to stay where they are.
He says patients will not go back to the hospital's first floor until authorities tell the hospital it is safe to do so.
Overnight, state and local officials said the immediate danger had passed with water no longer flowing over the eroded spillway but they cautioned that the situation remained unpredictable.
'Once you have damage to a structure like that it's catastrophic,' acting Water Resources director Bill Croyle told reporters. But he stressed 'the integrity of the dam is not impacted' by the damaged spillway.
The state Department of Water Resources wants to drain 1.2 million acre feet of water from Lake Oroville at the dam before Wednesday's storm.
They said that the capacity of the reservoir, which is the second largest in California, is about 35 million feet.
Currently, the water level of Lake Oroville is dropping at a rate of roughly three- to four-inches per hour, according to the agency. Which would put it on course to fail to reach its target of 50 feet by Wednesday.
Fight: This long exposure photograph shows the Oroville Dam discharging water at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second over a spillway as an emergency measure
Overflow: Officials said on Sunday night water falling over the Oroville Dam's spillway has stopped as Oroville lake levels dropped low enough
Spillway: A massive hole is causing major erosion around the Oroville Dam in California. The hole formed in the main spillway (pictured) on Tuesday and has continued to grow since then
Precarious situation: An aerial of the Oroville Dam reveals the dangerous flooding at the emergency spillway that has left the area in imminent danger of a catastrophic flood
Aerial: Lake water flows over the emergency spillway, bottom left, at Lake Oroville for the first time in the nearly 50-year history of the dam on Saturday
The department said authorities were releasing water to lower the lake's level after weeks of heavy rains in drought-plagued California.
The water level in Lake Oroville rose significantly in recent weeks after a series of storms that dumped rain and snow across California, particularly in northern parts of the state.
The high water forced the use of the dam's emergency spillway, or overflow, for the first time in the dam's nearly 50-year history on Saturday.
Officials said they feared the damaged spillway would unleash a 30-foot wall of water on Oroville. They said evacuation orders remained in place for some 188,000 people in the area and are still in place.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services urged evacuees to travel east, south or west. 'DO NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE,' the department warned on Twitter.
Evacuation centers were set up at a fairgrounds in Chico, California, about 20 miles northwest of Oroville, but major highways leading south out of the area were jammed as residents fled the flood zone.
Javier Santiago, 42, fled with his wife, two children and several friends to the Oroville Dam Visitors Center in a public park above the dam and the danger zone.
With blankets, pillows and a little food, Santiago said: 'We're going to sleep in the car.'
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This map shows the potential worst case scenario for what could happen if the waters are not controlled and the flood breaks through the dam. It would take about 12 hours for the water to reach Yuba City more than 40 miles away following the path of the Feather River
The water falling over the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway stopped as the lake level dropped on Sunday
THE ANATOMY OF CATASTROPHE: WHAT HAS LED TO THE POTENTIAL DISASTER AT THE OROVILLE DAM One of the key factors in the threat is the rapid rate at which water levels have risen. After years of severe drought in the region, heavy rain and snow have sent levels skyrocketing. It is the first time that Lake Oroville, which lies 65 miles (105km) north of Sacramento, has been faced with such a potentially devastating emergency in the dam's nearly half-century history. The order for nearby residents to flee was issued after water levels climbed in the last week. The rise was compounded by the fact the dam's main spillway, also known as an overflow channel, was found to be damaged. As a result, the dam's emergency spillway was called upon and activated for the first time since it was built in 1968, as flood waters rose ever higher. But shockingly, the secondary spillway was also found to be damaged. In a statement posted on social media on Sunday afternoon, Mr Honea ordered residents to evacuate, repeating three times that it was 'NOT a drill'. The California Department of Water Resources warned that the emergency spillway next to the dam was 'predicted to fail'. Advertisement
With more rain expected Wednesday and Thursday, officials were rushing to try to fix the damage and hoping to reduce the dam's water level by 50 feet ahead of the storms.
The sudden evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belongings into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the evacuation order was given.
Raj Gill, managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and snacks, said his boss told him to close the station and flee himself. But he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
THE DOOMSDAY SCENARIO: HOW FAR THE WATER WILL SPREAD IF OROVILLE DAM BREAKS There is no map showing exactly what will happen if the emergency spillway collapses tonight. Officials only have a map showing a failure of the dam. That worst case scenario is useful in that it shows where water goes and how fast it gets there. Water would get to the town of Oroville within an hour. If Oroville Dam were to suffer a massive breach, water would get to the town of Oroville within an hour, according to GIS maps maintained by CalFire. Within two hours, the small town of Briggs would be affected. In three hours, Gridley would be hit. Water would reach Live Oak in five hours.. It would take eight to 12 hours for the water to get to Marysville and Yuba City. If the dam completely failed, flood depths could reach more than 100 feet in Oroville and up to 10 feet in Yuba City. The CalFire maps represent a catastrophic breach and are not necessarily indicative of what could happen tonight. (According to the Sacramento Bee) Advertisement
'You can't even move,' he said. 'I'm trying to get out of here too. I'm worried about the flooding. I've seen the pictures - that's a lot of water.'
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation center in Chico, California.
The shelter ran out of blankets and cots, and a tractor-trailer with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the gridlock of traffic fleeing the potential flooding Sunday night, Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch said.
A California Highway Patrol spokesman said two planes would fly on Monday to help with traffic control and possible search-and-rescue missions.
At least 250 California law enforcement officers were posted near the dam and along evacuation routes to manage the exodus and ensure evacuated towns don't become targets for looting or other criminal activity.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said a lot was still unknown.
'We need to continue to lower the lake levels, and we need to give the Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the area,' Honea said.
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the lake level has come down.
It comes after it emerged amid the frantic evacuations that federal and state officials and some of California's largest water agencies rejected concerns 12 years ago about the precarious state the dam - which was built between 1962 and 1968.
The dangerous situation sparked the California National Guard to put out a notification to all 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy if needed.
The last time an alert for the entire California National Guard was issued was the 1992 riots.
'I'm just shocked,' said Greg Levias, who was evacuating with his wife, Kaysi, two boys and a dog.
What they couldn't fit in their trunk they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
The area under threat: About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville - one of California's largest man-made lakes - had water levels so high that an emergency spillway was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years
GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN: WHERE THE 200,000 EVACUATED ARE FROM 39,000 from Butte Count 65,000 from Yuba County 76,000 from Yuba City 12,000 from Marysville County Advertisement
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris said at least 250 law enforcement officers from throughout the state are in the area or on their way to help with the evacuation.
Local Sikh leaders announced early on Monday morning they have thrown open temple doors across the area, and are offering food and shelter to all people who have been forced from their home.
Sikh Temples offering food and shelter ... open to ALL evacuated people #OrovilleDam #OrovilleSpillway ... Please share pic.twitter.com/4O5ZUhl1TH Shivpreet Singh (@shivpreetsingh) February 13, 2017
Bumper-to-bumper: If the dam collapses, water would get into Oroville within an hour. Shortly thereafter, the nearby towns of Briggs, Gridley and Live Oak would be affected. It would take eight to 12 hours for water to reach the cities of Marysville and Yuba City
Safe: Evacuees Jason and his wife Elizabeth Bourquin of Live Oak, settle in for the night with their son Dallas, 5, at the Neighborhood Church of Chico in Chico, California
The Oroville Dam wqas expected to fail on Sunday night. It didn't, but if it did it could send an 'uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville' to nearby cities
Comfort: Chris Arden (left) keep evacuee George Moody company in the main sanctuary of the Neighborhood Church of Chico in Chico
Breaking news: Colette Roberts and her daughter Lesilee watch video updating the of the Oroville dam evacuations
Escape: Angie Varrera walks across an empty parking lot (center) after finding the grocery store she stopped at closed due to an evacuation order on Sunday
Checking the surrounding area: A Butte County Sheriff's vehicle patrols a shopping center that had been evacuated
Officials remained on edge late into Sunday night despite the fact water had stopped spilling into the eroded area.
'There is still a lot of unknowns,' Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference.
'We need to continue to lower the lake levels and we need to give the Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the area.'
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
Water from the nearby Feather River floods the Marysville Cemetery on Saturday in Marysville, California
Bill Croyle, acting Director of the California Department of Water Resources, speaks as Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea listens at a news conference about the situation at the Oroville Dam on Sunday
FROM DROUGHT TO DELUGE: THE DRASTIC CHANGES TO LAKE OROVILLE Dramatic pictures taken or Lake Oroville stand in stark contrast to the chaotic scenes witnessed over the weekend. Rather than seeing the rush of water bursting through overflow spillways, boats sat idle as most of the dam's sandy floor could be seen - due to it being just 25 per cent full in May 2015. Houseboats on the lake were forced to moor just meters apart as the aquatic real estate available for them to occupy continued to shrink. During the drought: A section of Lake Oroville is seen nearly dry on August 19, 2014 The impact of the drought was seen in 2014 and 2015, with the dam almost entirely dry during the lengthy spell Photographs taken from atop the rolling water made it almost impossible to see the water below. So much of it was gone, and it was unsure whether it would ever come back. At the time, statewide water restrictions were been ordered for the first time in history to combat the region's devastating drought. In April of 2015, California's Governor Jerry Brown ordered a 25 per cent cutback in water use by cities and towns. Dozens of houseboats had been forced to move closer together at the dam because there was simply not as much space for them to anchor as the drought continued Low water levels are visible in the Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on August 19, 2014 The crackdown came as the state moves toward a fourth summer of drought with no relief in sight. Brown's crackdown came after he asked residents in January 2014 to cut their water consumption by 20 per cent. Unfortunately, on half of all Californians managed to achieve that. But those dry days couldn't be further from the minds of locals now, as fears grow suburbs downstream could be covered in floodwaters if the dam breaks after heavy rainfall and snow in recent months. Advertisement
About 39,000 were from Butte, along with 65,000 from Yuba, 76,000 from Yuba City, and 12,000 from Marysville.
After years of drought Northern California has endured several months of exceptionally wet weather. Oroville and other lakes are brimming and have begun releasing water to make room for more runoff. An aerial photo released by the California Department of Water Resources shows the damaged spillway with eroded hillside in Oroville on Saturday
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.
Adjutant General David S. Baldwin of the California National Guard said at a news conference late on Sunday that eight helicopters will be available Monday to assist with emergency spillway reconstruction.
The auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam was expected to fail by 5:45pm local time on Sunday, which could have sent an 'uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville'. Water continues to gush down the dam's main spillway on Saturday
It was estimated over the weekend that the damage bill has already hit about $200million, but that figure it expected to rise as inspectors find further faults this week, according to USA Today.
Even if the worst case scenario is avoided this week, the impact of the scare could be felt for months.
The dam is one of the key ones for California, and lengthy repairs could impact the state's supply.
'If repairs take longer than just this summer, which seems likely,' Roger Bales, an engineering professor and director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the University of California, Merced, told USA Today, 'the reservoir may need to be operated at a lower capacity until those repairs are done.'
An image from video provided by the office of Assemblyman Brian Dahle shows water flowing over the emergency spillway
Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 in Oroville, California
Officials said the critical flood-control structure is at 90 per cent of its capacity. But the dam is still safe and so are Oroville's 16,000 residents
A teenage girl was killed after she was stabbed in the eye with a broom during a satanic ritual.
The body of Jessica Valeria, 15, was found by police, who said she had several blows to her head and a broomstick spiked into one of her eyeballs.
The incident happened in the city of Torreon, in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila.
Police tape at the scene in the Mexican city of Torreon, Coahuila, where Jessica Valeria was killed after she was stabbed in the eye with a broom
It is believed the victim had been the object of a satanic ritual and police confirmed three people have been arrested on suspicion of her murder.
The teenager was found in the courtyard of a house almost naked following the assault, which is not believed to be sexual.
Officers said: 'From the beginning there was evidence regarding the reason of the death of what appeared to be a Satanic ritual.
'The victim had several strong blows in the face and one of the blows was deadly.'
Two boys and a girl, all minors, have been arrested by police, who say they believe 'more people' were involved.
All three are currently being questioned and their parents have been called in to ascertain if they knew what their children were up to.
This is not the first time a ritual death has been reported, with this being the third case in less than a year in northern Mexico.
The first took place in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua in January 2016, when police arrested three people linked with the death of 24-year-old Edwin Miguel Juarez Palma, who was allegedly forced to participate in an initiation ritual in order to become a vampire.
His body was found inside black bags with several blows to the face, and a wound in the neck, as well as other signs of suffocation.
And a pitbull dog was hanged by a cult in the city of Torreon in September 2016.
Police said investigations are ongoing.
Seven Kenyan medical union leaders have been jailed for contempt of court after they refused to call off a two-month strike by doctors at public hospitals.
More than 20 people are believed to have died as a result of the walk out over pay and conditions.
Judge Hellen Wasilwa said she could not delay further the contempt of court sentence she had suspended earlier on condition the doctors call off their strike.
Judge Hellen Wasilwa, pictured, jailed seven doctors for contempt of court over a two-month-long strike which has severely curtailed services in public hospitals in Kenya
Medics in Kenya are protesting over pay and conditions and are seeking a 180 per cent increase in salary in a country where the average medic earns between $400-$850 per month
Leaders of the medical union were taken to prison after they refused to call of their strike
At least 5,000 doctors are on strike for better pay and to protest over the dilapidated state of Kenya's public healthcare.
Judge Wasilwa said: 'This court declines to review its order sentencing the applicants to one month jail term ... you can now start serving your sentences, those are the orders of the court.'
The Kenyan Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists' Union said it has called off all communications with President Uhuru Kenyatta's government until their officials are released.
Union official Thuranira Kaugiria warned this escalation will lead to further consequences: 'There will be no negotiations as long as the union officials are in jail ... Jailing them is actually stalling the negotiations to end the strike. It is not a solution.'
MPs in Kenya earn in the region of $14,000 per month compared with $400 for medics
Doctors want the government to implement pay rises agreed on in 2013.
That agreement would raise their salaries by 180 per cent.
Currently doctors earn an average basic salary of $400 to $850 per month compared with a Kenyan MP who earns nearly $14,000 a month.
The strike has caused a near-total paralysis in Kenya's public health sector and many people are believed to have died from a lack of emergency services.
Early in December, President Kenyatta said at least 20 people had died as a result of the strike.
Mr Kenyatta has twice asked the doctors to return to work, first appealing to their humanity for the suffering masses and then offering a partial increase of the salary hikes agreed upon in 2013.
The doctors' union rejected both offers and urged the government to pay the full salary increases promised three years ago.
In 2012, Kenya's doctors went on strike to protest over the bad state of public healthcare.
Emergency rooms in some of Kenya's public hospitals frequently do not have gloves or medicine, and power outages sometimes force doctors to use their mobile phones to provide adequate light for a surgical procedure.
Mr Kenyatta has said his government must cut down on a ballooning wage bill which he says is not sustainable.
The judge sent the doctors to prison after they refused to call of their industrial action
The government agreed to increase doctors' pay in 2013 but has failed to supply the funding
Medics have complained about the lack of investment in the Kenyan public hospital system
Respected anti-corruption crusaders have said the problem is not the wage bill but corruption.
Several large-scale corruption scandals exposed recently - including one at the health ministry where government auditors questioned the diversion of $46 million have brought many Kenyans to question the president's commitment to ending corruption.
Leading economist David Ndii argues that Mr Kenyatta's regime is the most corrupt of all of the four presidents Kenya has had.
In an opinion piece in Kenya's largest circulation newspaper, The Nation, in December, Mr Ndii argued the reason the government does not want to increase salaries is because officials want to "create more headroom for looting".
John Githongo, a former Kenyan government adviser who exposed millions of dollars in government corruption in the previous regime, makes similar allegations.
He said: 'This is the most corrupt government we have in history. Here we have entire government projects that are designed from the onset to steal. We no longer have corruption in Kenya, we have theft and plunder.'
Kenya has fallen six places to be ranked 145 out of 167 countries in an index by Transparency International for 2016.
Hundreds of Ford Explorer drivers have complained about a sulfur smell in the vehicle which they believe is exhaust leaking into the car with poisonous carbon monoxide.
Drivers describe the smell as like rotten eggs. They believe that the smell is coming from the exhaust pipe and leaking back into the car through unsealed seams in the rear of the SUV. Drivers say they smell the odor during acceleration, when the air conditioning is on in circulation mode.
Among those complaining about the smell is a California police officer, who nearly died after passing out behind the wheel of his SUV and crashing into a tree.
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Ford Explorer drivers are complaining about a smell that may be exhaust leaking into the car. A California police officer believes the smell was the reason he crashed his car
Brian McDowell was responding to a non-emergency call when he passed out behind the wheel of his car and woke up crashed into a tree.
Video shows McDowell's SUV crossing a median, nearly missing another car coming head on behind crashing into a wooded area on the side of the road.
'I just had that nauseous feeling and just feeling like I had a headache,' he explained to CBS News.
Months after the crash, doctors still don't know what would have caused McDowell to black out behind the wheel, but he thinks it's carbon monoxide from the SUV's exhaust.
Newport Beach Police officer Brian McDowell says he blacked out before the crash that nearly killed him
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation after receiving hundreds of complaints about the smell in the car. Above, video of McDowell's crash
McDowell suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured eye socked and traumatic brain injury in the crash but he's just glad he got out alive.
'I just think, plus or minus one second and I maybe wouldnt be here on this earth for my kids,' he said.
McDowell isn't the only one complaining about the smell in the vehicle.
In July, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into to the car after receiving 154 customer complaints in the past two years.
CBS News recently learned though that the number of complaints has risen to more than 450.
The models that the administration is looking into are the Ford Explorers made from 2011 to 2015.
A teenage trapeze artist lost her grip mid-swing and plunged to the circus floor, missing the trampoline completely.
The girl, known only as Yuliana, was performing in a circus show as part of the Fox troupe in the city of Eldorado, Argentina.
She tried to pull off a manoeuvre on the high trapeze but missed a hand grip and went flying, though the camera did not capture the moment she hits the floor.
The girl, known only as Yuliana, was performing in a circus show as part of the Fox troupe in the city of Eldorado, Argentina
A doctor who was among the spectators attended to the girl while an ambulance arrived. She was taken to the nearest hospital.
Members of the girl's troupe, from Chile, decided to set up camp near the hospital so that they would be able to be near her.
Following the accident, the circus directors decided to suspend other shows, as Yuliana is such a big part of the act.
Jose Luis Rivero, director of the hospital where she is being treated, said the girl had suffered a lesion to her spleen but was in a 'stable' condition.
President Donald Trump is eyeing first lady Melania Trump's office for some staff cuts, as he makes good on a campaign promise to save taxpayers money.
As his wife continues to live in New York City with son Barron, the president is considering reducing the number of jobs in her office, which had grown to 20 employees, reported McClatchy, citing three sources aware of the proposal, but unable to speak about it on the record.
So far, the first lady has only hired two people to be on her staff Chief of Staff Lindsay Reynolds, an alumna of the George W. Bush administration and White House Social Secretary Anna Cristina Niceta Lloyd, an events planner who has worked on the last five inaugurals and for both Democratic and Republican secretaries of state.
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First lady Melania Trump, spotted momentarily on Friday in D.C., may have a slimmed down staff to save taxpayers money - and because she continues to live in New York City
First lady Melania Trump, who resurfaced this weekend during a trip to Mar-a-Lago, has hired just two employees so far, with past first ladies having a staff of around 20
Beyond that, the first lady's East Wing staff generally includes communications aides like a press secretary schedulers, speech writers, policy people and those tasked with answering the influx of correspondence from the American people to the FLOTUS.
'Rickie' Lloyd, named White House Social Secretary last week, is only one of two announced hires for first lady Melania Trump
Additionally, the social secretary has about for people working under her.
And the White House Visitors Office has staff needs too.
While previous first ladies had started getting staff in place before inauguration, the White House didn't announce Reynolds as chief of staff until February 1 and Lloyd as social secretary until February 8.
The first lady alluded to the delay in a statement she made about the selection of Reynolds.
'I am putting together a professional and highly-experienced team which will take time to do properly,' Melania Trump said. 'I am excited to be organizing and bringing together such a dynamic and forward thinking group of individuals who will work together to make our country better for everyone.'
A number of positions could be left open, especially among policy experts, as Melania Trump has yet to speak out on any particular issues.
Sen. Chuck Grassley tweeted yesterday hoping to catch the White House's attention and get tours again on the books
At a speech before her husband's election in suburban Philadelphia she said she would take on cyber bullying, but hasn't broached the topic since.
She hadn't been seen in Washington since inauguration day, though met the president in D.C. before whisking the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, and his wife away to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend.
The East Wing vacancies have left some members of Congress grumbling, as their offices have been unable to schedule constituents White House tours, with the White House Visitors Office still not staffed.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, a prominent Republican, tweeted Sunday, 'Whoever monitors twitter at WH for businessman president Trump "when is WH going to be opened for public tours?" Mrs G wants to know.'
'Mrs G' is likely the Iowa senator's wife.
The Washington Post's Reliable Source wrote that it's typical for the White House Visitors Office to be closed during the transition period, as a new team gets in place.
But three weeks is too long for lawmakers' tastes, as requests have been piling up.
At least two dozen lawmakers signed a letter urging the Trump administration to open the White House back up for tours.
'Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama all appointed a White House Visitors Office Director before being sworn in, and had reopened the White House to the public at this point,' the letter noted.
In her February 1 statement, Reynolds promised to get the White House Visitors Office up and running as soon as possible.
'I am working to ensure that the White House Visitors Office is fully staffed and operational and ready to accept tour requests for the public in the coming weeks after a traditional temporary closure during the transition period,' she pledged two weeks ago.
Reynolds also said the visitors experience will be improved when the doors of the 'People's House' open to the public once again.
'In the meantime, we are using this time to tend to routine maintenance, updates and renovations along the tour route to ensure the guest experience is top notch,' Reynolds said.
Revelation: Pamela Anderson has opened up about why she keeps visiting Julian Assange
Pamela Anderson has opened up about why she keeps visiting julian assange amid rumours the unlikely pair are dating.
The Baywatch actress and model, 49, has met the Wikileaks founder at least six times in the last five months at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Knightsbridge, London.
Assange, 44, is wanted for questioning in Sweden over a rape allegation from 2010 and has avoided extradition to the US by living in the embassy since June 2012.
Speaking on ITV's Loose Women, Anderson called him 'heroic' and 'important'.
She said: 'I'm always doing something, trying to do something every day, befriending people that are important people in the world like Julian Assange'.
'I think he's a very important person and I think that history will look back on him and realise how important he is.'
'I think WikiLeaks is very heroic and very important and it's true news,' she continued.
High praise: Speaking on ITV's Loose Women, Anderson (pictured with Katie Price) called Assange 'heroic' and 'important'
'You know it's hard to find these days so if you want to get something from the horse's mouth then go to WikiLeaks and you can actually just really find out what's going on.
'I think that's important in this political climate.'
Last week Anderson was seen bringing vegan cheeseburgers from the Mildreds chain to Assange, who has been holed up in the embassy for five years.
Anderson was first spotted at Assange's residence in September 2014.
The meeting was set up for Anderson to try to persuade Assange to back her new foundation, which supports women who are victims of sexual abuse.
She was also seen at Assange's residence on January 21, a little over a month from the last time she saw him.
Arriving to see Julian Assange: The 49-year-old Baywatch actress and model is said to be dating the Wikileaks founder while he is stuck inside the embassy in Knightsbridge
Ringing the bell: Anderson was yesterday seen bringing vegan cheeseburgers from the Mildreds chain to Assange, who has been holed up in the embassy for five years
Wikileaks founder: Assange, 44, is wanted for questioning in Sweden over a rape allegation from 2010, and has avoided extradition by living in the embassy since June 2012
Anderson was seen bringing her rumoured beau dinner in December a few weeks before the Christmas holidays.
She walked into the Ecuadorean Embassy with a bag full of Whole Foods groceries. Anderson was seen visiting Assange on December 7 and December 12.
On November 13, Anderson was spotted bringing a tray of goodies into the Embassy as well.
Less than a month before that on October 15, she saw him again. This time, she brought him food from Pret A Manger. For a while, bizarre rumours swirled that Anderson had poisoned Assange.
Though it might seem like the actress and the hacker may not have much in common, they share a mutual appreciation for Russia.
In December, Anderson said she would love to become a Russian citizen.
Anderson is seen visiting Assange at the embassy on January 21 (left) and December 12 (right)
Other recent visits by Anderson to Assange were on December 7 (left) and November 13 (right)
She reportedly said: 'I have a Canadian passport and an American passport. I would gladly have a Russian passport. It would be easier to get here.'
Six times in five months: Anderson brought food from Pret A Manger on October 15
Earlier this month, Assange made a fresh appeal to the UK and Swedish authorities to 'restore' his liberty.
He has been living in self-imposed exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy, believing he will be extradited to the United States for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he leaves.
He is also subject to a European Arrest Warrant over allegations he raped a woman in Sweden which could be enforced as soon as he steps out on to the street.
Assange has been living a cramped room at the diplomatic mission in Knightsbridge since June 19, 2012, after claiming asylum to avoid extradition over the allegations in Sweden.
The taxpayer-funded bill for police posted outside the building around the clock topped 12.5million before it came to an end last year.
Assange has refused to leave, saying he also fears extradition to the US to be quizzed for leaking secret military documents.
Assange denies claims he raped a woman at her home in August 2010 and believes the allegations are politically-motivated after WikiLeaks released covert files on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
A representative for Anderson declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline earlier this month.
Waitrose is to rebrand its 'British' ready meals range after farmers complained it was using New Zealand lamb as an ingredient.
The products, including shepherd's pie, lamb hotpot and liver & bacon ready meals are to be renamed as 'Classic' rather than 'British'.
As an interim measure, the retailer has placed stickers on the packs which state that New Zealand lamb is being used.
Waitrose is to rebrand its 'British' ready meals range (after farmers complained it was using New Zealand lamb as an ingredient
The new packs with the 'Classic' branding could start appearing on shelves as early as next week.
British farmers took to social media last year to complain that Waitrose was misleading shoppers by using New Zealand lamb in 'British' ready meals.
One wrote to store bosses saying her faith in Waitrose had been 'shattered'.
She wrote: 'I have always considered Waitrose to be one of the leading and most ethical supermarkets for many years.'
She referenced a pack of 'British' liver and bacon made with New Zealand lamb saying 'it seems to be a misrepresentation of a product whether by accident or design'.
The farmed added: 'There you see British fancy writing liver and bacon, overlaid with very small comparative lettering 'Made with New Zealand lamb'.'
President of the National Farmers' Union, Meurig Raymond said: 'We made our concerns very clear to Waitrose right from the beginning on this product.
'The inclusion of the word 'British' in the brand name despite the meat being sourced from New Zealand is misleading for shoppers - and it's frustrating for British farmers, especially those who produce lamb Waitrose could have sourced.
'After extensive discussions between the retailer and the NFU, we're now pleased to see some changes made: on pack-stickers to clarify sourcing put in place in the first instance, with the long-term plan of a full rebrand of the 'British' product range to avoid confusion on sourcing.
'During these discussions we urged the retailers to make the most of the high-quality British food products our farmers produce. This, we said, is the best way to celebrate British provenance with their customers. We'll continue to push this message with Waitrose, and others in the supply chain.'
The products, including shepherd's pie, lamb hotpot and liver & bacon (pictured) ready meals are to be renamed as 'Classic' rather than 'British'
It is not the first time that Waitrose has been criticised over the use of New Zealand lamb.
Last April the National Sheep Association accused the company of misleading some shoppers by selling New Zealand lamb under Waitrose's organic 'Duchy' brand name during the winter when organic UK lamb is not available.
Waitrose said: 'We are about to re-launch the range with the branding 'Classic', removing the large 'British' reference from the front of pack. This was only ever supposed to denote the origin of the recipe but we understand why confusion has arisen.'
The firm said it is also exploring ways to use more British lamb in its ready meals.
The row comes as Morrisons was forced to clarify its lamb sourcing policy last week after it launched a promotion of Australian and New Zealand lamb under its Market Deal brand.
NFU livestock board chairman Charles Sercombe claimed the imported products were being placed near British messaging at the point of sale, 'potentially leaving shoppers confused about the origin of the product they are purchasing'.
The supermarket said it would take steps to make sure signs and labels clearly set out the origin of the lamb they sell.
Waitrose said: 'To ensure the provenance of the lamb in the meals is clearer - it has always been on back of pack - we have stickered all packs on the front.
'We are about to re-launch the range with the branding 'Classic', removing the large 'British' reference from the front of pack.
'This was only ever supposed to denote the origin of the recipe but we understand why confusion has arisen.
The new packs with the 'Classic' branding instead of 'British' (pictured) could start appearing on shelves as early as next week
'In addition, we have challenged our supplier to explore the practicalities of using more British lamb in our ready meals.
'At the moment, because of our policy of only buying from our dedicated supply chain and using the whole carcass, we do not have sufficient raw material available to make this change but, nevertheless, we are exploring this option.'
Waitrose said: 'To ensure the provenance of the lamb in the meals is clearer - it has always been on back of pack - we have stickered all packs on the front.
'We are about to re-launch the range with the branding 'Classic', removing the large 'British' reference from the front of pack.
'This was only ever supposed to denote the origin of the recipe but we understand why confusion has arisen.
'In addition, we have challenged our supplier to explore the practicalities of using more British lamb in our ready meals.
'At the moment, because of our policy of only buying from our dedicated supply chain and using the whole carcass, we do not have sufficient raw material available to make this change but, nevertheless, we are exploring this option.'
A 51-year-old electrician from Canada is being tried on child pornography charges stemming from a feminine child sex doll that he had ordered from Japan.
The puzzling case against St John's resident Kenneth Harrisson has been winding its way through the court system since early 2013.
In January of that year, Canada Border Services seized a large rectangular cardboard box at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, which was addressed to Harrison in St John's.
Officials said the bulky package contained a human-like figure that upon closer inspection turned out to be a child sex doll, which is illegal in Canada.
Kenneth Harrisson, a 51-year-old electrician from Canada, is on trial on child pornography charges, four years after he ordered a schoolgirl sex doll from Japan
Harrisson, who had ordered the figure from a company in Japan, was arrested in a sting operation in March 2013 after he accepted the package at his home. He never opened the box, reported CBC.ca.
In March 2014, he pleaded not guilty to charges of possession of child pornography, using the mail system for an indecent purpose and smuggling prohibited goods.
Harrisson has been keeping a low profile over the past four years, but in a brief statement sent last month to CBC, which has been covering the thorny case from the outset, the electrician made an apparent attempt to clear his name.
'I do not condone child abuse in any way, shape or form,' he was reported to have written. 'Any child abuse should be reported immediately to the proper authorities.'
Only a handful of officials have set eyes on the forbidden item inside the cardboard box that has landed Harrisson in trouble with the law.
According to a statement from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary describing the parcel, the box contains 'a prepubescent female doll, made of a foam-like consistently, that stands at 130cm, approximately four-foot-two.'
Witnesses have testified that the doll is dressed in a school uniform and features an opening made to mimic a womans vagina and comes with underwear and lubricant for the apparent purpose of sexual gratification.
Special delivery: Law enforcement officials said this cardboard box, which was delivered to Harrisson's home in 2013, contains 'a prepubescent female doll, made of a foam-like consistently, that stands at 130cm, approximately four-foot-two'
Canadian law defines child pornography, in part, as 'the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years.'
The unusual case has left Canada's psychiatric community divided.
Dr. Peter Collins, a forensic psychiatrist who was recruited to offer expert testimony during the trial, suggested that ordering a sex doll that resembles a child does constitute child pornography.
Collins, who has not examined or diagnosed Kenneth Harrisson, wrote in a letter to RNC that the electrician's decision to procure the doll was likely prompted by his 'erotic attraction to prepubescent children.'
Clinical psychologist Dr. James Cantor disagrees with Collins' assessment, however, and is convinced, based on his research of pedophiles, that Harrisson's apparent interest in child-like sex dolls does not constitute possession of child pornography.
There is no actual person. It is a piece of latex. So, if there is no victim where is there, exactly, a harm being committed? Cantor told the station.
Harrisson's trial, which initially got under way in January 2016, resumes on Tuesday, and three more days are scheduled in March.
If convicted of the charges against him, the 51-year-old could face up to seven years in prison.
Two men were arrested after they rode their couch through a McDonald's drive-thru in Canada while being towed by an ATV.
Miramichi Police in New Brunswick said an officer spotted the men at the fast food restaurant around 3am on Thursday.
The driver of the ATV fled when officers approached them, leaving the two couch potatoes behind. The vehicle was later located and seized, but the driver was not found, CTV reported.
Couch potatoes: Security camera footage shows the two men being towed by an ATV while on a couch moments before arriving at the drive-thru
Late night ride: The coach-riders were seen at 3am on Thursday wearing helmets and appeared to be drunk, police said
The sofa riders were wearing helmets as they rode through the streets and appeared to be drunk, police said.
Cpl Lorri McEachern said it is illegal to tow a couch through a drive-thru and the two men are facing charges that are to be determined.
The driver of the four-wheeler escaped with the couch still attached, across a highway and onto the frozen Miramichi River.
The driver of the ATV fled the scene after cops arrived and left his two friends and the couch behind
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!)
Iraqi warplanes have hit a house where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was holding a meeting with senior commanders, killing at least 13.
Baghdadi's name was not on a list of the dead published by the military following the attack on the western city of Anbar, on Saturday.
At least 64 lower-ranked IS fighters were killed in the same wave of air strikes in western Iraq, the statement added.
The Iraqi air force has killed 13 senior ISIS commanders in a strike on a building where leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured) was thought to be
The military said Baghdadi moved last week in a convoy from Raqqa, in Syria, to the region of al-Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border, to discuss 'the collapse happening in Mosul and to chose a successor for him' with commanders.
He has long been thought to be moving between ISIS territory in northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq to evade capture.
Baghdadi, who is credited with transforming the breakaway al-Qaeda group turning it into the independent ISIS group that is arguably the most powerful and wealthiest jihadist organisation in the world, has been reported wounded several times in the past.
In mid-December, the US put a $25million bounty on Baghdadi's head.
The ISIS leader, whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, made his last known public message in November, when he called on ISIS fighters to defend Mosul, their last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
The military said Baghdadi moved last week in a convoy from Raqqa, in Syria, to the region of Qaim, over the border
THE SHADOWY ISIS LEADER Baghdadi - whose real name is Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim - is thought to have been born in Samarra, north of Baghdad, in 1971. Reports suggest he was a cleric in a mosque in the city around the time of the US-led invasion in 2003. Some believe he was already a militant jihadist during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Others believe he was radicalised during the four years he was held at Camp Bucca, a US facility in southern Iraq where many al-Qaeda commanders were detained. In October 2011, the US officially designated Baghdadi as 'terrorist' and offered a $10million reward for information leading to his capture or death. Under Baghdadi's leadership ISIS thugs have shocked the world with their sadistic and savage murder of thousands of people in the Middle East and Europe. He prefers to shun the spotlight for an aura of mystery that adds to his appeal, in direct contrast to the likes of Osama bin Laden, who regularly appeared in videos sprouting hate messages and was internationally known long before 9/11. In mid-December, the US put a $25million bounty on Baghdadi's head. Advertisement
Last week, Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister said the ISIS supremo had few trusted aides left as so many senior leaders had been killed in coalition air strikes.
He told France24 TV station: 'He's almost alone at the moment. He doesn't have many people to trust. He is in isolation, we're monitoring his movements.
'His communication with other terrorists is very low. In many times, it is almost nonexistent.'
Iraqi forces are nearly four months into a massive operation to retake nearby Mosul, which is the country's second city and where Baghdadi proclaimed a 'caliphate' in 2014.
The jihadist organisation then controlled around a third of Iraq, but federal and allied forces have since retaken around two thirds of that territory and Mosul is the terror group's last major stronghold.
After retaking the eastern side of Mosul last month, Iraqi forces are currently preparing to launch an assault on the part of the city that lies west of the Tigris River.
Commanders expect the battle to be fierce because the narrow streets of the Old City will complicate operations and the western side also harbours some traditional jihadist bastions.
Defence Minister Michael Fallon said on Saturday that he expected to see ISIS expelled from Iraq's major towns by the end of the year.
Mr al-Abadi, Iraq's PM, said last month he expected his forces would need three more months to rid the country of the murderous group.
A 60-nation coalition led by the US has carried out thousands of air strikes in support of the war on ISIS and provided assistance and training to thousands of Iraqi forces.
Britain is a key member of that coalition, together with France, Italy and Australia.
Fallon said the Royal Air Force had struck 300 targets in and around Mosul since the operation to retake the city began on October 17.
The French presidential election is being targeted by fake news attacks from Russia in a bid to get a pro-Moscow winner, the frontrunner's campaign have claimed.
Emmanuel Macron is being undermined by media emanating from Russia, the candidate's party chief Richard Ferrand said.
The comments mark the first direct accusation from a French political party that forces in Russia were trying to influence the outcome of the May election.
Ferrand said Moscow looked more favourably on the policies of far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centre-right candidate Francois Fillon than it did on favourite Macron.
Emmanuel Macron (pictured) is being undermined by media emanating from Russia, the candidate's party chief Richard Ferrand said
He urged the government to take steps to ensure there was no 'foreign meddling' in the election.
Drawing a parallel with the U.S. presidential election - in which U.S. intelligence agencies saw the hand of the Kremlin - he said: 'The Americans saw it, but it came too late.'
Ferrand's comments came against the backdrop of an electoral campaign of smears in which several big names have fallen off the radar.
Amont those was conservative candidate Fillon, who went from frontrunner to also-ran due to a scandal involving his family.
Macron, an independent centrist, surged into the gap to become favourite and win's May second-round against Le Pen, who is anti-EU and supports Russian policy on Ukraine.
A February report by the French language version of online Russian news agency Sputnik quoted the pro-Putin centre-right French legislator Nicolas Dhuicq as saying Macron was a puppet of U.S. political and financial elites and that revelations about his private life would soon be made public.
The report appeared to play a part in Macron being forced on February 7 to kill rumours of an extra-marital gay relationship.
Ferrand told France 2 television that Russia Today and Sputnik, Russian state-controlled media, had spread 'fake news' with the aim of swinging public opinion against Macron. He said Macron was a target due to his pro-Europe policies.
'It is clear that the far-right and the right and their candidates are rather well regarded (in Russia) while we call for a strong Europe, a powerful Europe. It is obvious, objectively, that a certain number of Russian media clearly don't want that,' he said.
The comments from Ferrand (pictured) came against the backdrop of an electoral campaign of smears in which several big names have fallen off the radar.
Fillon, who has seen his lead evaporate amid a 'fake jobs' scandal involving his wife, has spoken positively about improving relations with Russia.
Russian state-funded media deny acting as the propaganda arm of the Kremlin. They say they present an alternative viewpoint that is ignored by the mainstream Western media.
A Sputnik spokesman could not immediately be contacted for comment.
In the report in Sputnik, Dhuicq accused Macron, a former investment banker, of being an agent of 'the big American banking system.'
'Two big media outlets belonging to the Russian state Russia Today and Sputnik spread fake news on a daily basis, and then they are picked up, quoted and influence the democratic (process),' Ferrand said.
Ferrand said Macron's campaign was being hit by 'hundreds if not thousands' of attacks on its networks, databases and sites from locations inside Russia.
'What we want is for authorities at the highest level to take the matter in hand to guarantee that there is no foreign meddling in our democracy,' Ferrand said.
U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin had directed a cyber campaign to help Republican Donald Trump's electoral chances by discrediting Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.
French Defence Minister Jean Yves Le Drian has warned of 'cyber destabilisation' and media reports say defence and security agencies are due to meet soon under President Francois Hollande on the issue. The Elysee has so far not confirmed any such meeting.
Nottinghamshire police officer Ateeq Syed, 39, has been accused of begging a former colleague to have a threesome with her and her husband, demanding he would be 'on top'
A police officer begged a former colleague to have a threesome with her and her husband, demanding he would be 'on top'.
Nottinghamshire PC Ateeq Syed, 39, has been accused of sending an inappropriate Facebook message, asking to sleep with ex-cop Victoria Sutton and her husband.
The father-of-two told Mrs Sutton he had been 'watching all the changes made to that body of yours'.
He is also accused of asking another police officer who was bending down in front of him to perform a sex act 'while she was down there' in front of two crime victims at their home.
Syed faces six complaints of inappropriate sexual behaviour and aggressive comments towards four female colleagues at a hearing at Nottinghamshire Police HQ in Arnold.
Syed denies the six complaints of inappropriate sexual behaviour and aggressive comments towards four female colleagues.
The inquiry heard how Syed sent inappropriate messages to Mrs Sutton, who resigned from the force in June 2014.
He wrote: 'I have been closely watching all the changes made to that body of yours. OMG.
Syed (left) sent the inappropriate Facebook messages to Victoria Sutton, who resigned from the force in 2014. He wrote: 'I have been closely watching all the changes made to that body of yours. OMG'. Mrs Sutton blocked him on the social media site after he made the comments
'You just need a nine-inch c*** and a set of hairy balls to compete with me..
'I am blessed to have known you, but I still believe you could use a few squats to give you curves in all the right places.'
In a second message he wrote: 'I get the feeling you are trying to get me used to being around Dan with his c*** out.
'I'm on top, you in the middle, and Dan can be on the bottom.
'I have no issue smashing your back doors in.
'But get waxed and smell nice. I'm not being funny but at work you smelled rank.'
The comments were said to have left the officer feeling embarrassed and was commented on by several friends and family members.
Mrs Sutton promptly posted: 'Ateeq you absolute weirdo. You are getting blocked soon.' and then blocked him.
PC Hannah Ward was on patrol with Syed when she said he asked her whether she performed certain sexual acts with her husband
The allegations span a period between February 2014 and December 2015, beginning when Syed was appointed beat manager for the force's Beeston Central and Rylands area.
Despite having a meeting with senior officers in November 2015 to discuss his behaviour and put in place an action plan, two further allegations were made against him.
Matthew Green, speaking for the authority, said: 'The six allegations range from sexually inappropriate actions to intimidating behaviour in the workplace.
'These are serious breaches of conduct, so serious as to warrant dismissal.
'There is no reason to doubt the allegations that were made.
'He is not being singled out by a dysfunctional group, as he claims.'
The hearing was told that the first allegation relates to an incident on 24 February 2014.
PC Hannah Ward was on patrol with Syed when she said he asked her whether she performed certain sex acts with her husband.
Giving evidence, she said: 'It was uncomfortable. I screeched his name in discomfort.
'It was quite demeaning in a way. He would continue and continue to ask you..
'There would be different ways of asking the question. At times I would just give in as it was relentless.
'I did not ask Ateeq any questions in relation to his sex life.'
The second incident alleged took place on March 14. Syed and the same colleague were in a patrol car when he apparently turned down a dark lane, switched the lights off, asked her if she was scared and squeezed her knee.
The threesome offer was posted on Facebook on June 30.
Then the fourth allegation, made by third colleague PC Louise Jackson, allegedly occurred on 20 October 2015. The officer claims that while in a patrol car with Syed, he asked her what she wore in bed, and then showed her photographs of him on his phone and asked if he 'did anything for her'.
When the two started discussing waterparks and holidays and the officer showed Syed a photo on her phone, he reportedly zoomed in on her bikini and asked if there were any more.
A third colleague, PC Louise Jackson, claimed Syed asked her what she wore in bed while in a patrol car. He reportedly zoomed in on a picture of her in a bikini and asked if there were more
A fourth colleague alleged that on 30 November 2015, on a visit to a victim's house, she dropped a business card from her stab vest that fell in front of Syed.
When she bent down to pick it up, she claims he made a sexual advance by saying to her: 'while you're down there*'
When one of the victims asked for an incident number and PC Collins reached for her notebook, she dropped a business card from a stab vest that reportedly landed at Syed's feet.
According to the officer, instead of picking up the car, Syed moved to allow her to get it.
While she was bent down in front of him, Syed allegedly said: 'While you're down there' insinuating she should perform a sex act.
Matthew Green, for the authority, said: 'Although the two victims did not report hearing he comment, it does not mean he did not say it.'
The same officer makes a final allegation that, on 1 December, Syed was physically aggressive towards her while they were on shift.
Syed claims he approached her in a calm and professional manner.
Robert Morris, mitigating, said: 'He made a bad taste joke in front of a member of the public, but he was not expecting oral sex.
'In relation to the first allegation he says he does not sound like something he would say.
'PC Syed's comments were horrible to be seen on their own, but they have to be seen in context.'
The hearing's chair, Nick Stanage, said: 'Five out of the six allegations involve sexually inappropriate behaviour.
'We find that, if the charges were to be upheld, it would amount to gross misconduct and give grounds for immediate dismissal.'
PC Syed denies charges of breaching the standards of professional behaviour in respect of sexually inappropriate, degrading and aggressive actions towards female colleagues.
The hearing continues.
A stoned P-plater was caught in dash-cam footage driving at 200km/h moments before he ploughed into another car and left an innocent woman to die.
Kayden James Lawson, 22, drove along a motorway on the NSW Central Coast so fast a truck he sped past shook, according to the truck driver, Daily Telegraph reports.
'F**k me, he made the truck rock when he went past', the truck driver can be heard saying in dash-cam footage tendered at the Gosford District Court.
Kayden James Lawson was sentenced to four years in jail with a non-parole period of two-and-a-half-years
The footage then shows the green Holden Commodore Lawson was driving speed along the breakdown lane. Lawson then crashed into another vehicle and sent the innocent woman's car over a guardrail and 10 metres down an embankment.
'He just killed someone I think,' the truck driver could be heard saying to another truck driver further up the M1 on two-way radio.
The woman, Kristyn Rourke, suffered a permanent brain injury and a fractured neck. Her face was de-gloved, she lost her right ear, and she had a near 'complete traumatic amputation' of her left arm, Daily Telegraph reported.
Kristyn Rourke's car veered off a bridge into a creek after being hit by Lawson's car
Rourke spent six months in hospital following the accident
Ms Rourke's mangled Toyota Hilux is pictured after the accident
Ms Rourke, then a 38-year-old senior property manager, was trapped in the wreckage of her Toyota Hilux for an hour in the November 2014 smash. She spent six months in hospital.
Lawson had tried to flee the scene on a skateboard, and stood about a kilometre up the road with his finger out to hitchhike.
Another motorist chased him, picked him up and did a U-turn to the crash site where others stood around the car to keep him from escaping.
The dash cam footage shows motorists leave their cars to assist and call emergency services.
Judge Mark Buscombe said Lawson 'giggled' when police spoke to him after the crash.
He told them, 'It worked, it got rid of the car'.
Lawson was taken to hospital suffering 'psychosis', the court heard on Friday.
He spent seven months as an involuntary mental health patient following the smash.
Kayden James Lawson, 22, drove along a motorway on the NSW Central Coast so fast a truck he sped past shook
Kristyn Rourke suffered permanent brain injuries as a result of the car accident
Judge Buscombe said Lawson had paranoid delusions.
Medical assessments found he had undiagnosed schizophrenia and was smoking three 'cones', also known as 'bongs', every day in the 12-months leading up to the crash.
Lawson was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday, with a non-parole period of two-and-a-half-years.
He had pleaded guilty to charges including dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm with illicit drugs present in his system, and failing to stop to render assistance.
He will be eligible for parole in August 2019.
He was also disqualified from driving for five years.
A woman held captive in a shipping container for two months after witnessing her boyfriend's murder has made a defiant vow not to let her kidnapper ruin her life.
Kala Brown, 30, was rescued from a green shipping crate on land owned by serial killer Todd Kohlhepp in Woodruff, South Carolina, in November.
She was found chained up after going missing two months earlier with her boyfriend Charles Carver who Kohlhepp murdered in front of her.
In the latest installment of a series of interviews with Dr Phil, Brown vowed not to let Kohlhepp, an amateur real estate agent, ruin her life.
'I would just tell him that no matter what he did to me, he did not break me. He cannot destroy who I am and I won. He tried to crush me but I'm not broken.'
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Kala Brown told Dr Phil how she would not allow Todd Kohlhepp to ruin her life despite keeping her captive in a shipping contained for two months with a chain around her neck
In earlier interviews, Brown told how Kohlhepp, 45, raped her and made her wear a chain around her neck while he kept her in the container with food and water supplies.
She was found when police were searching Kohlhepp's vast land by knocking on the walls of the container and screaming.
Officers discovered Charles's body alongside those of another couple on the property.
Brown, who'd gone to the land with her boyfriend to perform menial work before they were held against their will, said she often thought about how her life would have panned out if Charles had survived.
'I'll recover from this. I'll always miss Charlie.
'I'll always wonder what our life would have been like but as far as what Todd did to me personally, I'm not going to let that man ruin my life,' she said.
Brown, 30, was rescued on November 3 when police searched the real estate agent's land
Officers heard knocking coming from inside this green shipping container which Brown had been chained up in for two months
Kohlhepp confessed to killing Charles and six other people back in November.
He showed authorities where he'd buried Brown's boyfriend on the land and also took them to the shallow graves of young mother Meagan Coxie, 26, and her husband Johnnie, 29.
Kohlhepp, 45, later confessed to killing seven people
Kohlhepp met the pair when she was working in a waffle house. Co-workers said he made her so uncomfortable that she eventually began asking them to serve him so that she didn't have to.
The Coxies disappeared shortly before Christmas 2015.
Kohlhepp also admitted to carrying out four previously unsolved murders when he was arrested in November.
He claimed to have shot dead Brian Lucas, Scott Ponder, Beverly Guy and Chris Sherbert who were gunned down outside Superbike Motorsports on November 3, 2003.
Alongside seven murder charges and two counts of kidnapping, Kohlhepp is facing at least three civil lawsuits filed by his victims' families.
Brown is among them, claiming unspecified damages for her ordeal. She names his mother, Reggie Tague, who defended him last year when the bodies were found, as a co-defendant.
The plaintiffs are squabbling over whether Tague ought to be removed from the suits and if Kohlhepp is entitled to a lawyer paid for by the state.
His criminal case is moving forward and will return to court in March. He is being represented by South Carolina Capital Indigent Defense Shane Goranson.
Brown (left before the kidnapping) was taken with her partner Charles Carver (right)
Meagan and Johnny Coxie were also found in shallow graves on the land in November. They disappeared in December 2015
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Indonesia's upper class and ex-pat community can take part in threesomes with identical twins or receive a 'breast massage' in a seedy massage house - despite the country vowing to stamp out prostitution by 2019.
Under Indonesia's criminal laws people can be jailed for four years for watching online pornography and many of the country's oldest red-light districts have been bulldozed as part of the crackdown on prostitution.
Despite that, secret high-class brothels serving the country's elite and wealthy continue to operate as normal.
Prostitution is still thriving in Indonesia despite a government crackdown and red-light districts being bulldozed
Many venues have reopened in other parts of the city, while the secret brothels serving the country's untouchables carry on
Sex workers have moved to other parts of the city despite the government's crackdown on red light districts
Indonesia has vowed to shutdown all of the country's red-light districts by 2019 in a bid to eradicate prostitution.
Last year one of the country's oldest red-light districts in north Jakarta - known locally as Kalijodo - was demolished in an operation overseen by hundreds of police and troops.
Local governments, which have substantial power, have already closed dozens of red-light districts in recent years.
Indeed, in the Indonesian province of Aceh (that still uses Sharia law) a woman last week was forced to endure 26 agonising lashes as punishment for having sex outside of marriage.
However many venues have simply reopened in different areas, while the secret brothels serving the rich and wealthy carry on as normal.
Most shopping centres have a 'massage house' offering a $40 'cat bath' (being licked from head to toe by a sex worker) or a 'no hands' massage with a sex worker's breasts, followed by intercourse.
And well-connected members of Indonesia's rich upper class known as Taipans and their friends can pay 300-400 for a tryst in the back of a moving 44, news.com.au revealed.
Rich members of society hold three-day sex parties with live music, karaoke and cheap ecstasy on demand, while the middle-classes and western ex-pats can pay 300 to watch lesbian stage shows followed by a threesome, or the Jakarta 'speciality' sex with identical twins.
The country has launched a crackdown on brothels, hoping to eradicate prostitution entirely by 2019
The Muslim-majority city is home to a thriving underworld where money can buy a range of bizarre fantasies
Indonesia Director of the Australia-Indonesia Centre Kevin Evans said one of the reasons for prostitution continuing to thrive was that Indonesians 'value their history as a permissive open society'.
He told news.com.au: 'This move by the politicians in Indonesia to ban prostitution is the result of a creeping moral puritanism in Indonesian politics for the last 25 years.
'I think they are trying to capture what they think is a block of conservative Islamic voters.'
'But I think it's a miscalculation. People in Indonesia value their history as a permissive open society and think their moral choices are a matter for them and the almighty - not for other people to impose their views and certainly not a matter for Government'.
Prostitution is illegal in Indonesia but is still rampant in major cities
One of Indonesia's oldest red-light districts was demolished last year in an operation overseen by hundreds of police and troops
Thousands marched from Milwaukee's predominantly Hispanic south side to the downtown courthouse to protest an immigration crackdown by Sheriff David Clarke.
The demonstrators protested against his plans to deputize local law enforcement officers as federal immigration agents.
Busloads of demonstrators from about a dozen communities around Wisconsin arrived to join local protesters in the mile-long Day Without Latinos march.
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Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke wants to allow local and state officers the authority to arrest and detain undocumented people
Thousands marched from Milwaukee's predominantly Hispanic south side to the downtown courthouse to protest Clarke's plan
Clarke posted a response to the event on his Facebook page last week:
'Please accept my regrets. I will be working with agents from immigration and customs enforcement helping them identify criminal illegal aliens and therefore cannot attend your rally being held for me'.
Parents with children in strollers, young men hoisting Mexican and American flags and older supporters mingled as the crowd, estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 by police, moved through the streets chanting 'Si, podemos!' or 'Yes we can!'
Jose Flores, board president at Voces de le Frontera, one of the groups organizing the march, said he is fearful of the plan by Clarke to enroll his deputies in a federal program that allows them to perform immigration law enforcement functions.
'Many peoples got to be afraid, you know. Like many families in this county, there's a lot of hard workers. They are not criminals. We are not criminals', Flores said.
Busloads of demonstrators from about a dozen communities around Wisconsin arrived to join local protesters in the mile-long Day Without Latinos march
Groups were calling for a strike against Clarke and protesting President Donald Trump's immigration policy
Activists also marched against President Donald Trump's stand on immigration and his executive order that targets just about any immigrant living in the country illegally for deportation.
'There's a lot of hate in the country now with the new president and we march for that too', Flores said.
Organizers invited Latinos and others around the state to close their businesses, take their children out of school and march to stop Clarke from turning deputies into immigration agents.
Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office told Fox 6 that it hasn't sought that authority yet, but has left the door open to doing so.
Milwaukee police officers blocked intersections to allow the massive crowd to move freely to the downtown courthouse.
No arrests were made.
Protesters gathered at the Milwaukee County Courthouse where they attended a rally against Trump's policy on immigration
'This country's greatest strength is its immigrants', said Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele who surveyed the crown from the courthouse terrace.
'It's easy to forget what makes us strong'.
Abele said immigration was not a Republican or a Democratic issue.
'This is an American issue, a citizens' issue', he said.
Abele asked where the City of Milwaukee would be without the German immigrants who came in droves during the 1800s.
Maria Jasso, 31, said she brought her three children, ages 6, 8 and 9, to the march to learn an important lesson about immigration.
'We want the president to not do what he wants to do', Jasso said, speaking about the separation of families when a deportation occurs.
The march comes days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 600 people across at least 11 states in a week
The organizers also included the Coalition for an Inclusive Wisconsin and Muslim community organizations
Clarke wrote in a January 27 post on the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office Facebook page: 'President Trump made it clear with his Executive Order on enforcement of our immigration laws: No more catch and release of criminal illegal aliens. I will assign as many deputies to this initiative as I can. It is a public safety priority'
The organizers also included the Coalition for an Inclusive Wisconsin and Muslim community organizations.
The march comes days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 600 people across at least 11 states in a week, according to The New York Times.
Trump tweeted in response to the raids, saying the targets were 'illegal criminals', including 'gang members' and 'drug dealers'.
But some of those arrested didn't have criminal histories and were discovered to be undocumented during the sweeps.
Clarke's desire to treat local law enforcement as immigration officers in partnership with ICE could result in similar arrests in Milwaukee County.
Trump tweeted in response to the raids, saying the targets were 'illegal criminals', including 'gang members' and 'drug dealers'
The sheriff wrote that he would enroll the county in an ICE program which grants local and state officers the authority to arrest and detain undocumented people as deputized immigration officials.
'President Trump made it clear with his Executive Order on enforcement of our immigration laws', he wrote in a January 27 post on the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.
'No more catch and release of criminal illegal aliens. I will assign as many deputies to this initiative as I can. It is a public safety priority'.
Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic has laughed off advice from independent Senator Nick Xenophon who suggested he could become the Pope.
On Tuesday morning during a quick-fire interview Stefanovic asked Mr Xenephon whether One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson could lead the country.
'Do you think Pauline Hanson could be Prime Minister one day?,' Stefanovic asked.
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Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic (left) has laughed off advice from independent Senator Nick Xenophon (right) who suggested he could become the Pope
It came during an interview where Stefanovic asked Mr Xenephon whether One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson (pictured) could lead the country
'The short answer is no, but you know anything could happen,' Mr Xenophon responded.
'But you know the short answer is no.
'I mean if she's prime minster then I'm going to end up as UN secretary general,' the South Australian Senator added.
'And you could be, I dunno, Pope?.'
'Unlikely,' Stefanovic laughed.
'I mean if she's (Pauline Hanson) prime minster then I'm going to end up as UN secretary general,' Xenophon added. 'And you could be, I dunno, Pope?.'
Earlier on the program the pair were discussing Xenophon's decision to vote against the government's new welfare bill because it's 'fundamentally flawed'.
He also spoke out against the new measures on Monday, telling the Adelaide Advertiser: 'Pitting battling Australians against Australians needing disability support services is dumb policy and even dumber politics.'
Treasurer Scott Morrison on Monday unveiled the bill on welfare changes, linking the savings to spending on disability services, which will rely on the cross bench to get through the Senate.
On Monday Treasurer Scott Morrison unveiled the bill on welfare changes
Senator Xenophon said his team supported the childcare reforms but didn't back the subsequent scrapping of family tax benefit supplements and paid parental leave.
'As a negotiating tactic, this is as subtle as a sledgehammer,' he said in a statement on Tuesday.
Nick Xenephon Team perceives the omnibus bill's link to NDIS funding as 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'.
Lenford Whyte, 38, (pictured) grabbed a samurai sword from his boot and chased Jonathan Coulthurst, 36, around the car park at Hunts Cross Shopping Centre, Liverpool
A man who stabbed a shopper in the chest with a samurai sword after a road rage incident has been jailed for five and a half years.
Lenford Whyte, 38, grabbed the weapon from his boot and chased Jonathan Coulthurst, 36, around the car park at Hunts Cross Shopping Centre, Liverpool
He waved the sword in front of horrified members of the public and inflicted a 10cm wound on his victim on August 22.
Whyte then drove off and dumped the sword near a block of flats.
Judge Jonathan Foster QC told the defendant his behaviour was 'unforgivable' and the assault had a 'considerable' effect on Mr Coulthurst.
Liverpool Crown Court heard words were exchanged between the pair as Whyte's vehicle approached a junction in the retail park behind a car driven by Mr Coulthurst's partner.
Both men stepped out of their vehicles and 'pushing and shoving' took place while Mr Coulthurst's partner looked on with concern for the couple's seven-year-old son who was with them.
CCTV footage then captured Whyte collecting the sword, with a 2ft blade, and running towards Mr Coulthurst.
Judge Foster told Whyte: 'It was clear that you are the aggressor in the conversation and in the altercation, and of course then escalated matters by getting a very intimidating weapon, which you wielded with menacing effect and eventually used it to jab - really stab - the complainant in the chest.'
Charles Lander, prosecuting, said Mr Coulthurst was in 'considerable fear' at the time and was still apprehensive with strangers.
He waved the sword in front of horrified members of the public in the car park (pictured) and inflicted a 10cm wound on his victim on August 22. Whyte then drove off and dumped the sword near a block of flats
The victim, a rigger in the North Sea, was still off work and continued to suffer numerous physical difficulties as well as stress and anxiety.
Paul Wood, defending, said his client, who suffers from a 'recurrent depressive disorder', had been a victim of assault himself in the past. He said Whyte accepted his actions were 'foolish' and he was 'very sorry' for the incident.
The defendant had problems with cannabis use which he needed to address in custody but it was not suggested it was a cause of the offence.
Whyte was sentenced to five and a half years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court (pictured)
Judge Foster told the defendant: 'The way you behaved that day was quite unforgivable.
'Unforgivable in itself but it occurred, of course, in a public place with members of the public present including children.'
Whyte, of Goswell Street, Liverpool, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to wounding, possessing a bladed article and criminal damage.
He was given concurrent sentences of 18 months and six months for the latter two offences.
An Orange County judge has banned Alexa Curtin, daughter of Real Housewife star Lynne, from testifying about any bladder infections, post-traumatic stress or loss of enjoyment of sex in her rape case against a Sheriff's Deputy.
According to legal documents obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, the judge ordered Curtin not to present any evidence relating to these 'injuries' or to seek damages for them.
Specifically, the order states that Curtin cannot testify that she has 'loss interest in sex or suffered post-traumatic stress disorder or that she may require mental health treatment.'
An Orange County judge has banned Alexa Curtin (above), daughter of Real Housewife star Lynne, from testifying about any bladder infections, post-traumatic stress or loss of enjoyment of sex in her rape case against a Sheriff's Deputy
The judged added that the 23-year-old cannot discuss any 'bladder infections' or 'other urological disorders' as part of her testimony.
Last year, Curtin filed a suit claiming that in April 2014, she was raped by an Orange County Sheriff's Deputy at a traffic stop.
Orange County has demanded the case be thrown out, saying the reality star consented to any alleged sexual activity that occurred.
In her original lawsuit, Curtin claimed that she was visiting her then-boyfriend at his home in Dana Point, California, when the two got in an argument and she left to drive home.
As she was driving the Orange County Sheriff's Department arrived and pulled her over. A deputy approached her car and began questioning her.
According to court papers obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, the judge ordered Curtin not to testify about these 'injuries' or to seek damages for them
The order, above, also states that Curtin, 23, cannot discuss any need for mental health treatment as a result of 'the incident'
The lawsuit states: 'The Deputy searched Plaintiff's vehicle. Plaintiff had some of her clothing in her vehicle. While searching the Deputy found some of Plaintiff's underwear and began inappropriately questioning Plaintiff about her underwear, asking if the underwear belonged to her, how many pairs she had, why she needed the underwear, etc.'
The suit says the Deputy then had to leave to tend to 'another more pressing matter', but told Curtin she wasn't free to leave and ordered her to remain in her vehicle.
Twenty minutes later the same deputy returned but in his personal vehicle and out of uniform. He then got into the car and sat in the passenger seat next to Curtin.
The suit states: 'The Deputy began issuing orders to Plaintiff. Based on information and belief the Deputy said, "Since you are still here, I am going to f**k the s**t out of you".
'Based on information and belief, the Deputy stated to Plaintiff, "show me your p***y".'
The suit says Curtin was 'afraid and feared for her own safety, and she complied with all of the Deputy's commands'.
It added: 'Then the Deputy groped Plaintiff's vagina and digitally penetrated her while commenting on her anatomy.'
Curtin was reportedly ordered to then straddle the officer.
She claims she complied because she 'was still in fear for her safety and knew that many in law enforcement carry guns'.
This is the latest in a series of legal troubles for Alexa. Her grandmother, Marilou 88, recently filed an 'elder abuse' restraining order against her. Pictured from left to right Raquel Curtin (Alexa's sister), Marilou Colee, Lynne Curtin and Alexa Curtin
'Plaintiff was violated, traumatized, emotionally drained, in shock, and fearing for her own safety. Specifically, Plaintiff feared that given the Deputy's position, he would find her and harm her again,' the documents state.
Curtin sued both the Sheriff's Deputy and Orange County Sheriff's Department asking for damages for mental anguish, emotional distress and financial losses and is demanding general, special and exemplary damages along with attorney fees.
But Orange County fired back at Curtin's allegations, accusing her of consenting to any alleged acts she claimed took place in her car with an officer.
The county denied all allegations that an officer raped the reality star at a traffic stop, but it also admitted to not having sufficient knowledge or information about the alleged incident.
'Any injury to the plaintiff was due to and caused by the negligence and omissions of plaintiff to care for herself, which carelessness and negligence and omissions were the proximate cause of the damage, if any, to plaintiff,' court papers say.
Orange County points out a specific law, claiming it cannot be responsible for the actions of police officers.
In a separate incident, months after Curtin filed her lawsuit she was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of controlled substance paraphernalia and not evidence of current registration for her vehicle by the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Curtin was pulled over by police last May and was cited and released the same day.
Police records do not state the type of drug that law enforcement officers allegedly found on her.
Curtin has had a number of run-ins with the law in the past, including a domestic violence incident with her boyfriend in 2013 and an arrest for public drinking last year
Curtin's grandmother, Marilou Colee, 88, also recently filed an 'elder abuse' restraining order against the troubled star, claiming that her granddaughter has spiraled out of control and broke into her California home in Mission Viejo.
Alexa Curtin is the daughter of Real Housewife of Orange County star Lynne Curtin and appeared regularly in the Bravo reality series herself alongside big sister Raquel.
Lynne left the show in season five, and soon after departing the series, she filed for divorce from her husband.
In May 2014 Lynne was shocked to discover her daughter did porn under the alias 'Jayden Taylors' to pay for plastic surgery.
'When I found out that Alexa was involved in porn I became physically ill,' the 59-year-old reality star said in the National Enquirer.
The jewelry designer was under the impression her daughter was just modeling lingerie.
Curtin has had a couple of run-ins with the law in the past, one a domestic violence incident with her boyfriend in 2013 and she was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for public drinking last year.
This is the terrifying moment a car is crushed as trees fall around it on a country road.
Filmed in Slovakia, the video is shot by a dashcam, as the car travels down a narrow road, with trees on the left-hand side.
As the car moves along, the trees ahead start to fall down, and the car grinds to a halt.
The driver is making their way down a country road and is forced to slow when they realise the tree is coming down in front of them
The road is blocked off entirely as the tree smashes into the barrier on the mountain road and covers the whole path
The driver begins to reverse the car, as the road ahead is now blocked, but more trees fall down around them.
Screams can be heard from within the car as the tall trees block the whole road as they drop suddenly and dramatically.
Then the trees begin to fall on the roof of the car, and can be seen on the windscreen.
Terrified, the driver begins to reverse, and more and more trees collapse around him as he does
The trees then smash into the car, cracking the windscreen. Passengers can be heard screaming but it is not clear if anyone was injured
A comment uploaded with the video appears to blame 'malignant intelligence beavers' and suggests they had launched an attack on unwary tourists.
It could be that the animals were trying to prepare dams in the nearby area.
It is not clear if anyone in the vehicle was injured.
The video was taken in 2012, but has only surfaced online this week.
It has been viewed more than 670,000 times, and many people have commented, with one suggesting a lumberjack had too much coffee before his shift.
Another wondered if the trees were drunk.
The video was uploaded with the title: 'Massive attack of angry beavers'.
Federal immigration officials are laying out a range of crimes that have been committed by a undocumented immigrants snatched up in immigration raids around the country over the last week.
The raids were part of what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) calls a routine enforcement action but President Trump calls 'doing what I said I would do' by tossing out 'hardened criminals.'
After raids running through the week led to 680 arrests, ICE issued a statement announcing it had 'launched a series of targeted enforcement operations across the country.'
'Of those arrested, approximately 75 percent were criminal aliens,' according to the agency.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly gets up from his seat after attending a joint news conference between President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the East Room of the White House. His agency listed the crimes of the illegal immigrants rounded up last week
This included those 'convicted of crimes including, but not limited to, homicide, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual assault of a minor, lewd and lascivious acts with a child, indecent liberties with a minor, drug trafficking, battery, assault, DUI and weapons charges,' according to the statement.
The release mentioned operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York City, although raids also were observed in Southern California and North Carolina and a total of 11 states.
'These operations targeted public safety threats, such as convicted criminal aliens and gang members, as well as individuals who have violated our nations immigration laws, including those who illegally re-entered the country after being removed and immigration fugitives ordered removed by federal immigration judges,' according to the release.
President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the East Room of the White House
In this Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, foreign nationals are arrested during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens in Los Angeles
In this Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017, file photo, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos is locked in a van that is stopped in the street by protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Phoenix
Marlene Mosqueda, left, who's father, Manuel Mosqueda was arrested by ICE early Friday morning to be deported, is comforted at a news conference by her attorney Karla Navarrette. In one instance, agents showed up at the home of Manuel Mosqueda in the Los Angeles suburbs, looking to arrest an immigrant who wasn't there. In the process, they spoke with Manuel Mosqueda, arrested him and put him on a bus to Mexico although lawyers were able to halt his deportation and bring him back
The release didn't say how the other 25 per cent who weren't violent criminals got arrested.
It wasn't immediately clear whether or not the raids represented any kind of a change in policy. The Obama administration also had a policy of deporting criminal aliens, and President Obama earned the angry sobriquet 'deporter in chief' from immigration advocates for record deportations during his tenure.
Trump came into office vowing a crackdown, and signed an executive order that would expand the definition of criminals who would get prioritized for deportation.
President Trump brought up the raids when asked a question by a Canadian reporter at a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The reporter had asked whether the northern border was secure in light of Canada policy of accepting refugees, which is markedly different than Trump's.
'We're actually taking people that are criminals very, very hardened criminals in some cases, with a tremendous track record of abuse and problems,' the president said, ' 'and we are getting them out.'
'And that's what I said I would do. I'm just doing what I said I would do when we won by a very, very large electoral college vote,' Trump said.
Trump signed an executive order reorder immigration enforcement in a way that would prioritize enforcement against immigrants who had committed 'any' criminal offense.
Other priorities for enforcement include those who 'Have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved; Have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense; Have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency; Have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits; Are subject to a final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; or In the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.'
'They plan to do it,' said Tamar Jacoby of Immigration works. 'The president signed the order. So whether or not everybody on the ground is executing ... Are there some on the ground who know about the new priorities who are in a cowboy mode anyway?' she asked.
In her first public performance since announcing she is pregnant with twins, Beyonce donned a gold sequin gown and headpiece and a gold bikini.
But far from simply making a fashion statement Queen Bey was actually paying homage to an indigenous religious icon, Oshun a Yoruba deity from West Africa for whom twins and motherhood are particularly crucial.
Oshun called Osun in the Yoruba language is the goddess of beauty, prosperity, love, order, fertility and motherhood and is one of the most venerated deities of the religion.
Existing since the beginning of time, she is often seen donning vibrant golden and yellow dresses and ornaments and is often compared to the Virgin Mary of the Christian faith, according to a Harvard divinity professor.
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Paying homage: Beyonce looked to channel Oshun - the Yoruba fertility goddess - during her performance at the Grammy Awards
In the video for Hold Up on her latest album Lemonade, the star wears a yellow dress symbolic of Oshun while destroying buildings and cars with her bat Hot Sauce referencing the goddess's wrathfulness when she isn't shown respect
'In Nigeria, Oshun plays a very important role in the civil society and mythology as she was indirectly responsible for the creation of the Yoruba world,' said Dr Jacob Olupona professor of African Religious Traditions and Chair of the Committee on African studies at the Harvard Divinity School.
'From day one, Oshun not only showed her prominent position but also her strength in terms of her spiritual force.'
The similarities between Oshun and Beyonce aren't hard to miss according to Dr Olupona and are crucial in establishing the importance of local tradition in the world..
'She is speaking to the world, she is speaking to America,' said the Nigerian professor who is a part of the Yoruba people.
'Beyonce is educating the masses on Oshun. She is seeing how indigenous spirituality can be a powerful tool for changing the world.'
The Shrine of Oshun is located in southwestern Nigeria, Osogbo in Osun State, West Africa
Dr Olupona drew many comparisons between Oshun and Beyonce's dress during the performance, her pregnancy announcement photo-shoot and in Lemonade.
While watching her performance, he made note of the musician's elaborate golden chained bikini that she wore with a yellow cape and accessorized with bracelets, necklaces and a golden sun ray crown.
He said: 'Those are Oshun's symbols. The golden and yellow theme. Oshun is the goddess of these pendants and bras.'
'In her home you'll find a lot of these ornaments which we believe she possessed and are hidden in the river.'
And while the professor made a point to recognize the Hindu connections in Beyonce's golden gown, he still acknowledged that they had very close ties to the goddess as well. Dr Olupona noted the star's background dancers were also wearing garbs associated with devotees of Oshun.
Followers of the Afro Cuban Yoruba religion sit under a painting of Oshun and another deity Chango. Oshun's devotees wear white
The star's dancers wore nude and white dresses during the performance
Oshun was respected by her peers for her spiritual energy and power. She often dispelled negative energy
In Yoruba folklore and according to Dr Olupona, during the time of creation, the male deities would not consult Oshun and in retaliation she used her spiritual power to make their changes ineffective making their plans obsolete.
In response, the gods went to the Supreme God Olorun to address their problems, not mentioning that they ignored Oshun. When he heard of their transgression against her, he laughed and told them that they needed her in order to create the universe.
'She is one of those deities that the male deities that were dominant in the traditions respected,' he said.
'They had no choice because she was in a situation to control them.'
As noted when Adele won Album of the Year for 25, Beyonce has reached a pinnacle that not many artist can claim.
In tears, Adele thanked the academy for the award and poignantly talked about reclaiming a bit of herself after having difficulties with motherhood. Then she addressed Beyonce, praising 'Lemonade' as monumental, beautiful and soul-baring.
During her performance, the artist sang her songs Love Drought and Sandcastles
'The reason I felt I had to say something was my album of the year is 'Lemonade,'' Adele said backstage later. 'She is my icon of my whole life.'
'Beyonce has become significantly important not just to the African American community where she came from but the entire society itself, said Dr Olupona.
'She is in a position to send a strong message in both the political and non-political realm for them to hear.'
'There is no better place to make this point than at such ceremonies like the Grammys and one point is motherhood as an important value and an important space in the American society.'
Along with her calls for change, Beyonce was celebrated when she announced she was pregnant with twins on Feb. 1. She would then release a photo-shoot where she posed with daughter Blue Ivy and in water channelling the goddess yet again.
Beyonce performed a daring chair stunt during the show during her Grammy performance
The 35-year-old star was led by her dancers while she performed
Movement of the Yoruba religious migration most prominently occurred due to the Atlantic slave trade. Local religions like the Candomble (Brazil), Santeria (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the Umbanda (Argentina) can all trace their roots to the Yoruba and the religion now has strong bubbles of support all over the world.
Dr Olupano spoke of another tradition of the Yoruba involving the twin deities Ibeji Taiwo and Kehinde. Although Taiwo was born first, Kehinde is actually deemed as the senior of the two, sending the former to check and see if the world was ready for their birth.
According to the professor, who is a 'Kehinde' twin himself, the child sent his sibling out and once they heard them cry would also come out. The Yoruba people used this story to help them determine which twin would be in charge if ever they were born in a position of leadership.
The cult of Oshun strongly values twins, which might further explain why Beyonce was adamant on showing homage to the goddess following the news of her pregnancy.
He said: 'Twins have always been very important in the cult of Oshun because she is the one who gave children to mothers. By that principle she could have given one but she gave two.'
On the track Hold Up of the visual album Lemonade, Beyonce wears a bright yellow flowing dress as she uses her bat 'Hot sauce' to destroy buildings cars and other objects in a seemingly peaceful neighbourhood. Dr Olupona saw this as a clear channeling of the sometimes wrathful deity.
He said: 'What she was doing in typical Oshun mythology is she was trying to destroy what she considered forces of evil.'
The vengeful nature of the goddess is often associated with a malevolent temper matched with a piercing smile, something the theologian noted when Beyonce gives a sinister grin before laughing menacingly.
He tells the story of an altercation between Oshun and the spirit of herbal medicines, Osanyin, to show the comparison.
As Osanyin grinded leaves to create a medicine that would do harm to the goddess's mother clients, Oshun manages to prevent the wrongdoing by distracting the god, according to Dr Olupona.
After she succeeded, Oshun quickly threw the medicine into the garbage. Osanyin, a one legged male deity, came back and saw what she did but by then it was too late.
The goddess let out a laugh and started making fun of Osanyin.
"Oh you think you are smart, I am not going to let you make this medicine," he said.
'That is exactly Oshun in action and that is why she will laugh. But when she is laughing she is laughing at her success story.'
'She is laughing at her ability to destroy evil, to destroy negative energy and values in society.'
Local religions like the Candomble (Brazil), Santeria (Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the Umbanda (Argentina) can all trace their roots to the Yoruba and the religion now has strong bubbles of support all over the world
Oshun is also a river goddess and Beyonce channels that at the beginning of Hold Up
Dr Olupona said: 'What she was doing in typical Oshun mythology is she was trying to destroy what she considered forces of evil'
Beyonce has been vocal in her calls for change and her want to rectify problems in both the US and abroad. And by using the story of Oshun, the professor believes that the star is in the right position to lead the conversation.
Dr Olupona said: 'She is reminding us that there is still much to do in a society like this. She is also interested in the importance of local traditions. How local traditions have become global and we need to pay attention because there is a lot we can gain from these traditions.
'These artist are the best. Most people who saw her at home saw her pregnancy and saw that there was nothing wrong in being a pregnant woman.'
'Everybody is watching Beyonce.'
Beyonce posted about her pregnancy on Instagram on Feb. 1 and became the most liked photo on the social media platform
A Hungarian Jew who survived Auschwitz and the Scottish soldier who helped save her will mark their 71st Valentine's Day together tomorrow.
John Mackay, 96, was in the ranks of a commando team that liberated a number of Jewish prisoners from their Nazi guards in Poland.
The prisoners, who were held in Auschwitz at the time when 'Angel of Death' Josef Mengele was conducting his evil experiments, were being marched to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany to face summary execution in the death throes of the Third Reich.
The couple, pictured aged 20 and 23, in 1944, when they first met after a dance at a village hall
Edith, 92, and John, 96, will celebrate their 71st Valentine's Day tomorrow with a party
Hidden in the mass of prisoners was 20-year-old Hungarian Jew Edith Steiner, alongside her mother the only two members of their family not sent to the gas chambers.
After they were saved Edith known to friends as Eci caught 23-year-old Mr Mackay's eye at a village hall dance to celebrate their liberation.
Mr Mackay, whose own wartime exploits in the London Scottish 1st Battalion included escaping from an Italian POW camp dressed as an enemy soldier, spotted Miss Steiner at the dance but was too shy to approach her.
He sent a friend over to ask if she would dance with him, but Miss Steiner insisted she would only dance with him if he plucked up the courage himself.
He did, and what followed was a whirlwind romance that saw her and her mother whisked back to Mr Mackay's native Scotland.
The couple married on July 17, 1946, and have been 'wholly dedicated' to each other ever since.
John and Eci married in Scotland in July 1946, and owned a hotel in Pitlochry before retiring
With a family of two children, seven grandchildren and five great-grand-children, they worked as hoteliers before retiring to live at a care home in Broughty Ferry, Dundee.
According to the couple's daughter, Sharon Mackay, Edith Steiner and her mother survied six weeks in Auschwitz in June 1944.
Having come from the Szekesfehervar region of Hungary, Eci and her mother were the only members of their family who survived the ghastly selection process at Auschwitz.
While Edith and her mother were set to one side to work - itself usually a slow and lingering death - the other members of the family were sent straight to the gas chamber.
While at Auschwitz, Eci managed to make 'keep sakes' she has kept with her ever since, including a comb and a poem book.
As the war drew to a close, and the Soviets advanced rapidly from the east, the Nazis marched camp inmates towards Germany to help tackle the desperate shortage of workers in factories and mines.
John himself was captured at Tobruk in North Africa in the early part of the war. A soldier with the London Scottish, he escaped an Italian prisoner of war camp with his friend dressed as Italian solidiers.
A year after the war, the couple married and moved to Scotland. They have two children, Sharon and Peter (pictured)
The pair had to keep moving for 18 months however, to avoid wolves and evade capture.
John, originally from Glasgow, was also one of the first soldiers to be recruited by the SAS, said Sharon.
After returning to Scotland Eci and John owned the Atholl Arms Hotel in Pitclochry, before retiring and moving to Dundee.
The devoted couple, now aged 96 and 92, will mark their 71st Valentine's Day tomorrow with a party.
The couple said it is important for couples to be romantic every day, not just on February 14
Their advice to young couples is to be romantic all year round - and not just on February 14.
Pamela Shaw, activity coordinator at Bupa Balcarres Care Home, where the pair now live, said: 'John is a true gentleman.
'He is always checking in to make sure Eci is happy and the pair still refer to each other as "sweetheart" on a daily basis.
'Their devotion to one another is clear to anyone who spends even a short time in their company.
'John came to join us a year after Eci moved in, so it's wonderful that they are both near one another again. Our main aim now is to ensure that they continue to enjoy a happy life together.
'We're having a little party for all our residents this Valentine's Day, so it's lovely to have such a real example of true love with us at the home.'
Louisville, Kentucky, has become the latest American city to have experienced an alarming cluster of heroin overdoses, with 52 drug-related emergency calls coming in during 32 hours last week.
According to Louisville Metro Emergency Services, it was more than double the number of overdose calls that came in during the same time period the previous week.
The agency said the 911 calls started coming in at around midnight on Thursday and continued through 8am on Friday.
Alarming spike: Louisville Metro Emergency Services received 52 calls about heroin overdoses between midnight on Thursday and 8am on Friday, which was more than double the number of overdose calls that came in during the same time period the previous week
Cause of cluster: Officials have attribute the spike in overdoses to the increased availability of drugs and the introduction of the synthetic opioid fentanyl to batches of heroin
Reports of illicit opioid overdoses originated from more than 20 zip codes all across the county, and while none of the overdoses were fatal, one person who had been using heroin was killed in a pickup truck crash, where the driver was also intoxicated, reported the Louisville Courier Journal.
Of the 52 people who overdosed on heroin in Louisville last week, 34 had to be hospitalized and treated with naloxone, which works as a heroin antidote.
According to the report, Metro Emergency Services had 695 overdose cases in January at an average of 22 per day, which was an increase of 33 per cent from the same time last year.
Emergency Services spokesman Mitchell Burmeister attributed the disturbing trend to the increased availability of drugs and the introduction of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl to batches of heroin that were being sold on the street.
Similar overdose clusters were previously reported in Indiana and Ohio, according to a CNN report.
In August 2016, Cincinnati experienced a dramatic spike in overdoses, with 174 reports flooding 911 dispatch centers over a period of six days.
As recently as the beginning of February, 14 people died of opioid overdoses in a single weekend in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
In Southern Indiana, there were at least 90 overdose-related deaths last year, up from 55 in 2015.
Antidote: Of the 52 people who overdosed on heroin in Louisville last week, 34 had to be hospitalized and treated with naloxone
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer addressed the heroin epidemic in his State of the City speech on February 2, announcing that the local police department is hiring 150 additional officers to tackle drug crime.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids are the main driver of drug overdose deaths.
Opioids were involved in 33,091 deaths in 2015, and opioid overdoses have quadrupled since 1999.
In 2015, Kentucky was among five states with the highest rates of death due to drug overdose, with 29.9 per 100,000, following behind West Virginia and New Hampshire, with Ohio and Rhode Island rounding out the top five.
A dozen TSA workers have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling 20 tonnes of cocaine worth $100million into the US from Puerto Rico over 20 years.
The staff worked together at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan to let drug mules through with suitcases full of the drugs, according to the Justice Department.
Prosecutors say they used their badges to scan the suitcases and that baggage handlers were also involved in allowing the horde of drugs into the US.
Twelve employees were indicted in Puerto Rico on February 8, the Justice Department said.
For any given flight, as many as five drug mules were allowed to bring on board two suitcases each carrying between eight and 15 kilograms of the drug.
A dozen staff at San Juan's Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (file image shown above) were arrested for smuggling 20 tonnes of cocaine worth $100million into the US over the past 20 years
Jose Cruz-Lopez, Luis Vazquez-Acevedo, Keila Carrasquillo, Carlos Rafael Adorno-Hiraldo, Antonio Vargas-Saavedra, and Daniel Cruz-Echevarria all worked in the security and baggage check at the airport.
Edwin Francisco Castro, Luis Vazquez-Acevedo and Ferdinand Lopez are accused of orchestrating the scheme with the airport workers and local drug gangs.
Miguel Angel Perez-Rodriguez, who worked for an airport security company, is described as a 'source' of the drug in an indictment.
Baggage handler Javier Ortiz allegedly knew which suitcases were carrying the drug and picked them up and placed them into scanning machines being monitored by other members of the ring to be cleared.
He would then carry them himself to the US-bound flight, making sure to avoid sniffer dogs and other narcotics agents on the way, the Justice Department said in a press release quoting from the indictment.
Prosecutors say the alleged smugglers worked together by allowing suitcases carrying drugs through scanners and marking them as clean before they boarded planes bound for the US. Above, a file image of American TSA employees in Chicago
Tomas Dominguez-Rohena did the same, taking cleared suitcases carrying the drugs to the correct planes. Jose Gabriel Lopez-Mercado acted as a mule, prosecutors said.
They were arrested after a joint investigation by the TSA, DEA, FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), US Marshals and Puerto Rico police.
'These individuals were involved in a conspiracy to traffic massive quantities of illegal narcotics to the continental United States.
'These arrests demonstrate the success of the AirTAT initiative, which has successfully allocated a dedicated group of state and federal law enforcement officers, whose mission is to ensure that our airports are not used in the drug traffickers illicit businesses,' Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez, U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, said.
Posing in country casuals, Luke Knight (pictured) is the last of Stephen Lawrences killers still on the streets of Eltham
Posing in country casuals, he is the last of Stephen Lawrences killers still on the streets of Eltham.
Luke Knight, 40, is unrecognisable from the snarling brute who smirked at claims he was one of the five racists behind the black teenagers death.
Twenty years after the Daily Mail accused the gang of murder, he cuts a pathetic figure strolling just two miles from where Stephen, 18, was fatally stabbed. The A-level student was killed in a savage and unprovoked gang attack as he waited at a bus-stop with a friend in 1993.
Two members of the Eltham gang, Gary Dobson, 41, and David Norris, 40, are serving life for Stephens killing after a forensic breakthrough led to a second murder trial five years ago.
A third, 41-year-old Neil Acourt, is in prison awaiting sentencing for masterminding a 4million cannabis smuggling ring.
His 40-year-old brother Jamie, the fourth man we named, is wanted by police for his links to serious drugs crimes. He is on the run in Spain where detectives believe he is being harboured by Costa del Crime contacts.
That just leaves father of two Knight remaining on the south-east London stomping ground where the murderous gang thought themselves above the law.
After a shambolic police investigation, two prosecutions and an inquest all failed to secure justice for Stephen and his family, the Daily Mail went to the extraordinary lengths of naming all five of the gang beneath the headline MURDERERS.
If we are wrong, let them sue us, we said, throwing down a legal gauntlet to the five men who had all arrogantly refused to answer questions about Stephens murder for fear of incriminating themselves.
In accusing them, this newspaper took a monumental risk but one which ultimately paid off triggering a public inquiry into Stephens death and triggering a change to the centuries-old double jeopardy rule that had prevented cleared suspects being tried for the same murder twice.
It sparked massive internal reform of the Metropolitan Police Service which was, at the time of Stephens killing, condemned as institutionally racist. It also heralded the Race Relations Amendment Act requiring public bodies to stamp out discrimination and to promote equal opportunities.
Twenty years after the Daily Mail accused the gang of murder, Knight (shown left) cuts a pathetic figure strolling just two miles from where Stephen (right) was fatally stabbed
Stephens 64-year-old mother Doreen now Baroness Lawrence said the Mails stand was a proud moment.
A national daily newspaper had the courage to put on its front page what others were too frightened to do, she said.
It did the decent thing. From then on, all of Britain would know who the suspects were. They would not be able to hide.
Two decades on, the Mail still has its eye on these ruthless thugs as it continues to fight for justice for Stephen and his long-suffering parents.
For while Dobson and Norris are locked up in high security prisons, their three brothers in crime are yet to be punished for their part in Stephens murder.
A shameful veil of silence that has obstructed investigations into Stephens murder from the very start still shrouds the truth.
To this day, anyone asking questions on the streets of Eltham where the gangs families still live is met with instant hostility. Knights mother shamelessly told us: Nobody here will talk to you.
Friends and relatives of the five men hide behind closed doors, refusing to speak. Letters and phone messages have gone unanswered. Their glamorous girlfriends and ex-partners continue to keep a low profile.
The Eltham omerta, it seems, is as powerful as ever. Potential witnesses fear they may pay a heavy price if word gets out that they have spoken to the police. The name Stephen Lawrence is met with an uncomfortable and eerie silence in the pubs, such as the Beehive in New Eltham, where the five suspects used to drink.
Scotland Yard is still hoping for a breakthrough that will see the remaining members of the murderous gang finally face justice.
The Daily Mail went to the extraordinary lengths of naming all five of the gang beneath the headline MURDERERS in 1997
But last year when detectives again attempted to crack the case with a mass voluntary DNA screening programme, they managed to obtain samples from less than half of those they approached.
They were hoping to find a match with DNA from an unknown female found on a black leather bag strap collected from the murder scene in 1993 and believed to have been used as part of a home-made weapon. A similar custom-made weapon was found at the home of Norris. The strap was disregarded in the early days of the flawed police investigation after it was incorrectly recorded that it had been discovered 80 yards from where Stephen was attacked.
In fact it was found just five yards away.
To date, officers have spoken to more than 110 people in connection with this particular line of inquiry. Around half have volunteered samples, 46 have declined, 12 failed to respond to police requests and the remainder were eliminated for medical reasons.
Shamefully, the majority of those who declined to offer DNA samples were family, friends and associates of the original five suspects.
MAIL'S COURAGEOUS FRONT PAGE - BY DOREEN LAWRENCE 'When my son Stephen was murdered in April 1993, there were very few people in authority who came to our aid. For many Stephen was just another young black man killed on the streets of London. 'As a result me and my family had to fight for justice, largely on our own. Having suffered a bereavement there was the added injustice of having to expose the police as incompetent and racist. 'It was often a very lonely struggle. However, there were a few key moments which gave me hope for our struggle. In May 1993 Nelson Mandela visited London and met me and my family. His comments about our case that, perhaps in Britain, like in apartheid South Africa, black lives were cheap, made the national news. 'Then exactly 20 years ago the Daily Mail made the brave decision to publish the names and photographs of those suspected (and two of whom were convicted) of murdering my son. It was a proud moment for me: a national daily newspaper had the courage to put on its front page what others were too frightened to do. 'The police knew who Stephens killers were yet they were so slow to investigate. We now know why. But the Daily Mail had no such qualms. It did the decent thing. From then on all of Britain would know who the suspects were. They would not be able to hide. 'That front page made a lasting impression on our struggle for justice. It made everyone in Britain listen to us and support our fight. I will be forever indebted to those that made the difficult decision to put the murderers of my son on the front page of their newspaper.' Advertisement
Lead investigator Chris Le Pere told a press conference that while associates and relatives of key suspects had been approached and asked to provide DNA, there had been, in terms of responses from those individuals, an awful lot of negatives.
He and his team are also continuing to appeal for help in tracing a man caught on CCTV in an off-licence at about 8pm on the night of the murder, 100 yards from where Stephen was attacked.
The man was wearing a green jacket with a distinctive V emblem on the back but despite the clarity of the CCTV images, appeals for information have again fallen on Elthams deaf ears.
Market traders son Luke Knight, who attended Kidbrooke School with fellow suspect Jamie Acourt, continues to depend on this wall of silence among his acquaintances for keeping himself out of prison.
He has never displayed a shred of remorse for Stephens killing but has consistently whined about the impact it has had on his own life.
Ten years ago he even claimed he was suffering psychological problems brought on by threats from anti-racist campaigners and tried, in vain, to persuade Greenwich Council to rehouse him because of intimidation.
Despite his apparent struggle to make ends meet, he has been seen driving around in a 22,000 Nissan Qashqai bought new five years ago shortly before his partners in crime, Dobson and Norris, were jailed. He is currently working as a roofer and casual labourer.
Back in 1993, all five men were prime movers in a notorious gang led by the Acourt brothers who liked to refer to themselves as The Krays and who were already known to the police for their racist tendencies and violent knife crimes.
Their cold-blooded attack on Stephen as he waited for a bus with his friend Duwayne Brooks on April 22, 1993, bore all the hallmarks of the savage racist lynchings once inflicted on blacks living in Americas Deep South.
While Mr Brooks narrowly escaped, Stephen, who hoped to become an architect, suffered two stab wounds to the upper torso that severed major blood vessels. He tried to flee with his friend but collapsed and died in hospital.
Although the names of the five suspects were given to police virtually overnight, the early investigation was hampered by an appalling assumption by some officers that simply because he was black, Stephen was probably involved in a gang of his own and somehow partly to blame for the violent altercation that led to his killing.
All five men were eventually arrested but while both Knight and Neil Acourt were charged with murder, the CPS dropped the prosecution on the grounds that ID evidence from Mr Brooks was unreliable.
Outraged that no action had been taken against their sons killers, Baroness Lawrence and then husband Neville launched a private prosecution in 1994 against Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt.
But the trial, in April 1996, collapsed when the judge ruled that the identification evidence from Mr Brooks was inadmissible.
A year later, at an inquest into Stephens death, the five suspects again refused to answer any questions about how he died, angering coroner Sir Montague Levine who gave a verdict of unlawful killing in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five youths.
In a heart-rending statement she gave at the end of the inquest on February 13, 1997, Stephens mother denounced the British justice system for making a clear statement to the black community that their lives are worth nothing.
The Daily Mail made the decision to publish its historic front page just hours later.
By challenging these five men to sue us if we were wrong, the Mail presented them with an opportunity to speak about what happened that day in a court of a law.
If the men were not are not murderers, they would have been entitled to massive libel damages.
But they kept their vow of silence knowing that if they told the truth about what happened to Stephen they would have incriminated themselves in his murder. Ever since that day two decades ago, the Stephen Lawrence case has been placed firmly at the heart of public consciousness, holding up an uncomfortable mirror to a society which, in the words of Baroness Lawrence, once supported racist murderers against innocent people.
Stephens mother Doreen (pictured) now Baroness Lawrence said the Mails stand was a proud moment
When Sir William Macpherson published his official report into the killing and the subsequent investigation in 1998, he accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism and made far-reaching recommendations aimed at clamping down on discrimination which have created seismic shifts within British society.
Today there are three inquiries into the Lawrence case.
The National Crime Agency is investigating alleged corruption in the original Lawrence murder inquiry.
There is also a probe by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into former Scotland Yard commissioner Lord Stevens amid claims that documents were not passed to Macphersons 1998 inquiry. The peer denies any wrongdoing.
Most significantly of all, Scotland Yard still has a team of detectives working on Operation Fishpool, the investigation into Stephens murder.
Clive Driscoll, the retired Scotland Yard detective chief inspector who led the successful reinvestigation of the Lawrence case, is still hopeful that further murder convictions will be secured. It will happen if witnesses who have been too frightened to speak come forward, he said. If there are further advances in forensic science and if there is a willingness in the CPS and the police to pursue complete justice.
Scotland Yard told the Mail last night: The Met continues to investigate the murder of Stephen Lawrence and is currently focusing on two lines of enquiry; a bag strap recovered from the scene which contains the DNA of an unknown female who police still wish to identify. Also, a male witness seen nearby at the time of the murder, who was wearing a distinctive green jacket with a V emblem on the back.
One thing is for certain, while those involved in the unprovoked murder, men like Knight, still walk free, the fight for justice for Stephen must go on.
Indeed, at a time when the British Press is under fire like never before, that fight serves as a reminder of the power of courageous journalism and the importance of relentless campaigning.
Without them, the monumental police failures which surrounded the murder of Stephen would never have been uncovered. Dobson and Norris would not be in prison serving life sentences.
As for the other three, Knight and Neil and Jamie Acourt who knows what lies around the corner for them while this newspaper and other truth-seekers continue to snap at their heels?
What happened to his four accomplices?
Gary Dobson
GARY DOBSON
It took a change in the law for Gary Dobson, 41, to be convicted of Stephens murder.
The thug had been acquitted of Britains most notorious race killing but the subsequent reform of the double jeopardy law a consequence of the Mails Lawrence campaign meant he could be re-tried after compelling new forensic evidence emerged.
The 2012 convictions boiled down to three things; blood, fibres and hair. These tiny fragments of new evidence emerged in 2007 as scientists conducted a massive cold case review. The successful prosecution of Norris and Dobson for Stephens murder hinged on tiny traces of forensic evidence found by a cold case team.
The most important of their discoveries were 16 fibres linked to the black teenagers clothes and three tiny specks of blood.
In the debris from the original evidence bag holding Dobsons jacket, they found three blood fragments that had less than a one in a billion chance of not being Stephens.
They re-examined clothing taken from Dobson and Norris, starting a process that eventually led to a guilty verdict for both men.
At the Old Bailey in January 2012, Dobson was ordered to serve a minimum of 15 years and two months.
In March 2013, Dobson abandoned his appeal against his conviction and it later emerged he had received 203,309 in legal aid.
The killers family continue to insist he is innocent, despite the holes in his story about what happened on the night of the murder and evidence from a damning police surveillance video shot 20 months after Stephens death. The footage showed Dobson using violent, racist language. He was also seen recalling a time he threatened a black colleague with a knife.
Two years ago it emerged that he had been dumped by the mother of his two sons, who was reported to have left him for a new man. He is currently an inmate at Gartree Prison, a category B jail in Leicestershire.
David Norris
DAVID NORRIS
Gangsters son David Norris, 40, continues to protest his innocence after being jailed for a minimum of 14 years and three months.
Like Dobson, he is in a high security prison HMP Garth near Preston, Lancashire.
After losing a second attempt to challenge his conviction, Norris has asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to investigate his case and refer it to the Court of Appeal for a new hearing. His latest appeal bid is still under review. Norriss lawyers have argued that the police surveillance video, shot 20 months after Stephens murder, did not prove he was involved in the killing and should not have been admitted as evidence at his trial.
In the police surveillance film, he was secretly filmed telling friends he wanted to torture and kill black people. If I was going to kill myself, do you know what Id do, he said, in one appalling clip. Id go and kill every black c***, every Paki, every copper, every mug that I know, Im telling ya.
Id go down Catford and places like that with two sub-machine guns, and Id take one of them, skin the black c*** alive, mate, torture him, set him alight. Id blow their two legs off and say: Go on, you can swim home now.
The father of five received 222,346 in legal aid to defend the murder charge.
Neil Acourt
NEIL ACOURT
The shaven-headed yob, 41, is said to have revelled in his notoriety about the Lawrence case.
But the smirk disappeared from his face when he was detained over drugs charges a year ago.
He is due to be sentenced later this month after admitting being the mastermind behind a 4million cannabis smuggling ring.
Acourt faces up to seven years in prison for running a gang that couriered 200lb loads of the Class B drug between London and Newcastle. Although the smallest of the Lawrence murder gang, Neil Acourt was regarded by murder squad detectives as the leader.
At his family home a few minutes from the crime scene, officers found weapons including a knife, a Gurkha-type dagger and a sword.
In 2001, he was convicted of possessing an offensive weapon, a baton, which he claimed he needed to protect himself.
The next year, he and Norris were each jailed for 18 months for a racist attack on an off-duty black detective.
Jamie Acourt
JAMIE ACOURT
The 40-year-old younger brother of Neil Acourt is believed to have fled to the Costa del Crime after being linked to a major drug smuggling ring.
He is suspected of being a principal member of an organised crime group involved in the large-scale supply of cannabis.
Detectives believe the fugitive is being harboured by a network of contacts at locations along the southern Spanish coast.
The unemployed father of two has previously tried to start a new life in Spain with his partner, but they decided against emigrating at the last minute.
In 2012, the Mail revealed his penchant for designer clothes, his preference for greased back hair and how he rarely drove anything more than a year old.
Although he had no obvious signs of employment, he drove a 25,000 Vauxhall Insignia.
Since the Lawrence case, he has had only one conviction, when he and Norris stole empty soda siphons from a drinks warehouse in 1999. He was allowed to pay his 250 fine at 10 a week after the court heard he was living on disability allowance.
A murdered mother of three might be alive today if police had not ignored her desperate cries for help.
Pregnant Sabeen Thandi, 37, was strangled by her husband after he abducted, raped and threatened to kill her within days of her obtaining a restraining order.
The receptionist lived in fear of Mohammed Badiuzzaman, 38, who forced her into an Islamic marriage and insisted she wear a veil.
But officers missed a series of opportunities to lock up the pathological liar, who had violently abused his two previous partners.
Pregnant Sabeen Thandi, 37, was strangled by her husband after he abducted, raped and threatened to kill her within days of her obtaining a restraining order
Now, an inquiry has castigated the Metropolitan Police for a 'complete systems failure' in protecting Mrs Thandi and her children.
But although nine officers from two forces were investigated for misconduct, not one was punished. Mrs Thandi and her children lived in Tower Hamlets, east London, when she met security guard Badiuzzaman, who forced her into marriage in 2012.
He became increasingly violent, so she obtained a restraining order and evicted him from her house.
But when he heard she had met another man, he flew into a rage, threatening her with a hammer.
He told her if she did not revoke the order she would not see her children again and police would find her body parts in bin bags.
The receptionist lived in fear of Mohammed Badiuzzaman, 38, who forced her into an Islamic marriage and insisted she wear a veil
When the pair arrived at a solicitor's office in Watford, Hertfordshire, staff called local police. Mrs Thandi told them she had been abducted, threatened and raped.
But when the case was handed to Scotland Yard, she retracted her claims. The rape was not recorded as a crime. Information that could have triggered a further inquiry was missed because her name was misspelt.
Two weeks later, in July 2013, police received a silent phone call from one of Mrs Thandi's children. When officers arrived at her home, they found her body hidden under a duvet.
Badiuzzaman was branded 'manipulative, devious and controlling' as a judge jailed him for 17 years for murder in May 2014.
Newham Council uncovered a catalogue of errors, including police failing to react three times when Mrs Thandi told them she was being abused. Retired detective Mark Yexley found officers, NHS workers and education staff failed to 'join the dots'.
He said: 'It is the opinion of the panel that adherence to procedures and communication between agencies, in particular the police, may well have prevented the death.' Three years ago, after a watchdog found 'alarming and unacceptable weaknesses' in how police handle domestic abuse, then home secretary Theresa May said: 'I expect chief constables to respond by changing radically their response to domestic violence.'
Professor Liz Kelly, of London Metropolitan University's child and woman abuse studies unit, said Mrs Thandi's case shows how much more must be done.
She added: 'Yet again we are told the Metropolitan Police has learned lessons These are 'weasel words' Like many before her Sabeen did what police encourage women to do. She reported, repeatedly It is time the broken system of police response to violence against women in London was mended.'
The Met's Commander Stuart Cundy said: 'We accept there are things we could have done better We have taken steps as a direct result of Sabeen's death to ensure victims are better supported at these difficult times.'
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said there was a 'breakdown in processes' and a lack of 'appropriate training'. But commissioner Derrick Campbell insisted 'we will never know if a different police response would have saved Sabeen's life'.
The full report will not be made public due to the 'adverse impact' it would have on her family.
A 17-year-old neo-Nazi who praised the murderer of MP Jo Cox as a 'hero' and made a pipe bomb has walked free from court
A teenage extremist who made a pipe bomb and hid it in a bedroom drawer walked free from court yesterday.
The 17-year-old was a member of a neo-Nazi youth group with abhorrent views and he went online to praise the murderer of MP Jo Cox as a hero.
The bright and articulate college student made a viable Improvised Explosive Device (IED) using fireworks after Googling how to create a pipe bomb.
But police alerted to his alarming Snapchat messages raided his bedroom, which was covered in Nazi memorabilia, and found the bomb, capable of causing serious injury.
Last month at Leeds Crown Court he was found guilty of making the bomb but cleared of preparing a terrorist act.
Yesterday a judge gave the boy a three-year Youth Rehabilitation Order because he had already served the equivalent of a 14-month sentence on remand.
When police were alerted to his alarming Snapchat messages, they raided his bedroom, which was covered in Nazi memorabilia, and found the bomb, capable of causing serious injury
Under the order he is banned from using the internet and from contacting extremist groups.
Mr Justice Goss said he was sentencing him for the device, which was in essence a small firework made with 19 grams of explosive material.
You wrote scripts and created posts expressing support for ethnic cleansing, the judge said.
No direct harm was caused, but my obvious anxiety is that a young man can hold and express such extremist views.
The bright and articulate college student made a viable Improvised Explosive Device (IED) using fireworks after Googling how to create a pipe bomb
The jury was told how the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, dressed like a bank clerk in a business suit, but was far from respectable.
He became involved with National Action, described as a small, secretive Neo-Nazi British youth nationalist organisation.
Yesterday a judge gave the boy a three-year Youth Rehabilitation Order because he had already served the equivalent of a 14-month sentence on remand. Pictured, the teenager's terrifying Snapchat messages
It was said to be a white supremacist group which was anti-Muslim, anti-black, anti-Semitic and anti-gay.
Evidence of his shocking views were revealed on his social media exchanges, the court was told.
One Snapchat image was of a mosque being blown up along with the words: Its time to enact retribution upon the Muslim filth.
Another was a picture of a pipe bomb with an image of the Bradford skyline and the message: Incendiary explosive and home-made black powder. More to come.
The defendant told fellow extremists on one message: I make miniature pipe bombs... just f*** around with them.
Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson said the pipe bomb was more to do with an ideological war he was waging.
On the day last June that Mrs Cox was murdered by Thomas Mair in her West Yorkshire constituency, the teenager posted a picture of the killer on Facebook.
His message read: Tommy Mair is a HERO. Theres one less race traitor in Britain thanks to this man.
Dressed in combat jacket and trousers and steel-capped army boots, he revealed his true colours by making it clear he denied the Holocaust and believed men were superior to women
The court heard he attended a meeting with his mother last July at his college after being found to have put up racist posters on the site.
When police entered his bedroom they found it covered in flags, including the Swastika and the symbol of the Waffen SS. Pictured, one of the boy's Snapchats
Dressed in combat jacket and trousers and steel-capped army boots, he revealed his true colours by making it clear he denied the Holocaust, believed women were inferior to men and should stay at home to raise children and that whites were more important than other races, the court heard.
When police entered his bedroom they found it covered in flags, including the Swastika and the symbol of the Waffen SS.
His laptop screensaver was an image of a Nazi eagle over a Swastika and a German phrase, which translates to One Nation, One Empire, One Leader.
The teenager told police he made the bomb from sparklers and cut off the fuse from a firework.
He said in a statement when interviewed: Ive simply been fooling around with fireworks and showing them off to my peers in my naivety. I have never had the intention to cause any harm to any person.
The defendant said in the witness box that he only posted a picture of the pipe bomb to see if he could get a reaction and then put it back in his drawer. He said he did not plan to attack anybody.
Conflicting messages about the fate of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn criss-crossed cable TV on Monday afternoon from different corners of the West Wing.
Chief White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC that President Donald Trump isn't planning to axe Flynn over accusations that he spoke with Russia's ambassador in December about relaxing U.S. sanctions and then lied to Vice President Mike Pence about it.
'General Flynn does enjoy the full confidence of the president,' Conway said.
Less than an hour later, press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that the president 'is evaluating the situation.'
'He's speaking to Vice President Pence relative to the conversation the Vice President had with Gen. Flynn,' Spicer said, 'and also speaking to various other people about what he considers the single most important subject there is: our national security.'
National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's head may be on the chopping block as the White House now says President Donald Trump is 'evaluating' the crisis involving Flynn's December conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway spoke to MSNBC on Monday, insisting Flynn has Trump's complete confidence only to be submarined later with news that Trump was hedging
Press Secretary Sean Spicer, shown after Monday's joint Trump-Trudeau press conference, issued a terse statement saying Trump was having internal conversations about Flynn's status
Spicer told reporters in his office on Monday evening that Flynn has not offered to quit his position, and called questions about whether Trump would accept his resignation 'hypothetical.'
He said he had spoken directly with Trump about the latest statement's wording, declaring that it reflected the president's 'current thinking.'
'This is what he asked me to communicate to you,' Spicer recounted.
WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT ON GEN. MIKE FLYNN 'The president is evaluating the situation. 'He's speaking to Vice President Pence relative to the conversation the Vice President had with Gen. Flynn and also speaking to various other people about what he considers the single most important subject there is: our national security.' Advertisement
The scandal has gathered steam because of Flynn's assurances to Pence last month that he did not discuss the potential walkback of sanctions when he spoke with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
Pence relayed that rock-solid denial on television on January 15, telling CBS that Flynn's talk with Kislyak was 'strictly coincidental' and had nothing to do with sanctions.
The president's top counter-terror expert now says he can't be sure the Obama-imposed sanctions did not come up in those talks.
Two administration officials told DailyMail.com on Friday that Flynn was still unsure what he told Kislyak. One said he couldn't be '100 percent' certain sanctions were not discussed.
'I think General Flynn's statement speaks for itself,' Conway told Kornacki as he pressed her on the comments that were provided to his network and others.
The president had nothing to say when he was asked about the matter on Friday, and Monday's joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau came and went without a single Flynn-related question.
Trump didn't respond to shouted queries as he left the White House's East Room.
Later in the West Wing, Trump avoided more questions from reporters gathered near Spicer's office, directing questions about the matter to his spokesman.
Spicer took the same line as Conway about his own statement, telling reporters crammed inside his office that it, too, 'speaks for itself.'
He said there's no timeline for a decision on Flynn and one was not expected to come tonight.
Pence told CBS on January 15 that Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak 'did not discuss anything having to do with the United States decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia'
Flynn has backed away from denials that he spoke in December with Kislyak (pictured) about lifting sanctions once Trump became president
Private citizens with no government credentials or diplomatic brief, which Flynn was at the time, are forbidden from establishing their own ties with foreign nations.
The administration has said that it's not out of the norm for someone like Flynn to be talking to representatives of other countries, given his incoming position.
'General Flynn has said he can't recall, and that he had about 30 phone calls with, I guess leaders at the time,' Conway said today on MSNBC. 'And since then, 70 I'm told, with different leaders, and I'll just leave his comments at that.'
Spicer said later in his office that Flynn's talks with foreign nationals both before and after the inauguration are a 'routine, normal and expected part of the job.
If Flynn did talk to Kislyak about sanctions, Spicer suggested that the president may change his opinion on the matter.
Again, thats why hes saying hes evaluating it. I think hes getting input, hes looking at the situation,' the press secretary said.
Flynn's 180-turn on the question of what he discussed with Kislyak left Pence with egg on his face. Conway confirmed on MSNBC that the two men have spoken twice since, once over the phone and once in person.
She said she was present for one of those conversations but declined to characterize it.
'The vice president's reaction, anything that's been made public, you can see for yourself. Other than that, I will not reveal what the vice president thinks or feels about anything,' Conway said.
Flynn is said to have apologized to Pence for embarrassing him.
A senior administration official told CNN on Sunday that Flynn will not resign, and doesn't believe that he'll be fired over the incident.
That squares with comments an official made to DailyMail.com in light of the latest allegations. Asked if his role was changing, the source suggested that it wasn't, then said, 'Not that Im aware of.'
Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser to Trump, was mum on the matter Sunday as he made the rounds on behalf of the Republican president.
'Its not for me to tell you whats in the presidents mind,' he said on NBC.
Miller contended that he had been sent on the Sunday shows to discuss the president's embattled multi-nation travel ban, which could be rewritten this week.
Conway said Monday on MSNBC: 'I think the best evidence you have is what General Flynn has said as recently as Friday. And to look at what General Flynn has been doing with the President of the United States and the vice president since.'
'He's been fully involved in all of these meetings. He spent the whole weekend working down in Florida, obviously, involved with, at the level of the president, meeting with Prime Minister Abe and the wives' meeting,' she said, making reference to Japanese leader Shinzo Abe.
Spicer said Flynn was 'absolutely' carrying out his daily functions and playing an active part in the administrations sessions with foreign leaders Abe.
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Banning women from wearing the burqa will help prevent terror attacks in Australia and increase national security, a Muslim leader has claimed.
Jamal Daoud, a Sunni Muslim and human rights activist, came out in support for a ban on the burqa this week, claiming only an extreme Islamic minority wear the veil.
Mr Daoud told 7News women are not required to wear a burqa or niqab under Islam and there is 'no mentioning of covering the face in any Quranic verses.'
Jamal Daoud (pictured) , a Sunni Muslim leader and human rights activist, came out in support for a ban on the burqa this week
Mr Daoud said a ban on the veils (stock image) will help prevent terror attacks in Australia and increase national security
The political campaigner claimed those who have been charged with terror-related offences almost always have female family members who wear burqa or niqab, and initiating a ban could stop further attacks.
'This will help with security, national security, and preventing terrorist attacks,' he said.
'We support such a move.'
Mr Daoud said he was attacked in a supermarket last year by a person wearing a niqab but police were unable to help because he couldn't provide details on their appearance.
'Police said you can file a statement but because I couldn't identify my attacker they couldn't do anything.'
A ban on the burqa has been called for by several politicians in recent years, with One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson announcing last month she will support the ban if her party wins the Queensland state election.
'You know what I'm going to do, going to investigate?' she said.
'Ban the burqa in government buildings, banks and schools.'
Mr Daoud said women are not required to wear a burqa or niqab under Islam and that it is only an extreme Islamic minority that wear the veil
A ban on the burqa has been called for by several politicians in recent years, with One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson (pictured) announcing last month she will support the ban if her party wins the Queensland state election
Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie proposed a ban on full face coverings last week but the bill will need to win the support of the senate before it is given to the House of Representatives.
'There is a clear national security need to bring in a nationwide ban on all identity concealing garments, unless the wearer has a reasonable and lawful excuse to wear those garments,' she said, according to The Courier Mail.
'And while some small groups of people may make an argument that their right to express their religious feelings or views by wearing identity concealing garments is being limited, the security and the safety of the community must always come first.
'Full face coverings such as helmets, masks, balaclavas and other facial coverings worn in public without good reason, often cause unnecessary fear with the Australian general public.'
Mr Daoud said Muslims are scared to come out in support of a burqa ban if the movement is being headed by right-wing politicians.
If a ban is put into effect in Australia, Mr Daoud said a deradicalisation program must also be introduced to prevent an increase in attacks, like those that have plagued France since its ban was implemented in 2011.
Heather Mack's aunt claims the young woman is 'on drugs and is crazy' after she confessed to killing her mother as revenge in a series of bizarre online videos filmed inside jail.
Videos surfaced on YouTube last week in which the Chicago woman confessed to murdering her mother Sheila von Weise-Mack and stuffing her body in a suitcase in a Bali hotel in 2014.
The 21-year-old, who later retracted the confession and said she was being coerced by her ex-lover and accomplice Tommy Schaefer, claimed she had only found out weeks before the murder that her mother had previously killed her father in a hotel room.
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Heather Mack (left) was filmed confessing to her mother Sheila von Weise-Mack's murder in Bali in 2014 but later retracted the claims saying she was being coerced by her accomplice Tommy Schaefer (right)
Von Wiese-Mack's sister Debbi Curran has since slammed the claims as a 'vicious lie' in an interview with Crime Watch Daily scheduled to air on Tuesday.
'My sister loved her husband Jim and she would never have done anything to hurt him. It's just a vicious, cruel, mean, cold-blooded lie,' Curran said.
'She's really crazy and I don't know if she's on something. It seems like she's able to get whatever she wants in prison, I'm sure she's getting drugs.
'She looked really like she was definitely on something when she was giving this confession.'
Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in Athens, Greece in 2006 at the age of 76 after suffering a blood clot in his lung.
A long-time friend of Mack's mother, Elliot Jacobson, told the program he believes the convicted killer is 'unhinged'.
'I think she's off center She might have done this videotape in order to get back in the spotlight and get some more media attention,' he said.
'You know she's kind of a person who's a student of alternative facts. I think she's just a mistake in nature.'
Debbi Curran, the sister of Sheila von Weise-Mack, has slammed Heather Mack's claims as 'vicious lies' and claims the young woman is on drugs in the Bali prison
Mack was pregnant when she and Schaefer (pictured above in 2015) killed her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, in Bali in 2014. She was allowed to keep Stella with her in prison for two years after giving birth
Shortly after Mack's video confessions appeared online, her lawyers released a statement saying the assertions she made were false and that she had been coerced.
In a series of three videos posted last week, Mack said Schaefer was trying to protect her when he confessed to striking her 62-year-old mother, Sheila von Weise-Mack (pictured)
Mack claimed she was reading words written by her ex-boyfriend and father of her daughter Stella who she gave birth to in the Bali prison.
She said in the footage that Schaefer was trying to protect her when he confessed to striking her 62-year-old mother in the head with a metal fruit bowl.
Mack's statement said the video was uploaded to YouTube by someone who deliberately created an account in her name.
Bali prison warden Tonny Nainggolan said authorities were investigating who recorded and uploaded the videos.
He said neither Mack nor Schaefer had admitted to producing or uploading the videos and blamed each other.
The couple were convicted in April 2015 of premeditated murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death.
Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison while Mack, who gave birth during the trial, received a 10-year prison sentence.
Mack (pictured behind bars in 2015) and her lawyer released a statement on Wednesday and said assertions she made in YouTube videos last week were false and that she had been coerced into making them
Schaefer (left, with Mack) testified at his trial von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter's pregnancy and tried to strangle him. Von Wiese-Mack's body was found stuffed in a suitcase (right)
Mack (pictured in jail in April 2015), who gave birth during the trial, received a 10-year prison sentence
Schaefer testified at his trial von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter's pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to strike her with a metal fruit bowl.
In the videos, Mack said she plotted to kill her mother herself because Schaefer refused to help find someone who would kill her mother for $50,000.
'After that I got this new savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room because she killed my father in a hotel room,' she said.
'We were going to Bali, then I began to plot.'
Prosecutors said the two discussed killing von Weise-Mack in text messages, but in the videos Mack said that she took Schaefer's phone when he was asleep and sent text messages to her own phone.
'Tommy's an innocent man,' Mack said.
She said that he only helped her stuff the body in a suitcase and clean up the murder scene because she threatened to tell police he committed the crime.
Mickey Mouse was acting more like a rat when the Disney character allegedly fleeced a tourist in Times Square.
Lester Mengersen, 52, of Clifton, New Jersey, was working the crowds in Times Square on Friday night while dressed as the Disney character when he managed to get a 21-year-old tourist from Tennessee to cough up $120 for a photo, police say.
But not satisfied with the exorbitant photo fee, Mengersen then swiped the tourist's credit card, the New York Post reported.
Lester Mengersen (not above), who dresses as the Disney character, was charged with petite larceny after allegedly fleecing a tourist of his credit card and $310
When the Mickey fan later noticed his credit card was missing, he checked his bank account and discovered that $310 had been stolen.
Within an hour, police traced the stolen card back to the Disney character. Mengersen has been charged with petite larceny.
Mengersen had apparently switched over to Mickey once Elmo got a bad rap a few years ago.
He toldNewsday four years ago that he changed his costume to the more squeaky clean Mickey Mouse after a number of other characters, including Elmo, were arrested.
Police have had their hands full over the years with children's characters in NYC tourist spots. Another Times Square character is seen roaming the streets for tips
Mengersen's arrest is the latest in a long line of troublemaking children's characters who populate the city's tourist spots.
In February 2016, Brooklyn actor Casey Braxton, 36, filed a $100 million lawsuit against the city after being arrested three times while dressed as different characters, the latest an arrest for aggressive panhandling while dressed as a Star Wars stormtrooper, reported the New York Daily News.
In March of last year, a Times Square Spider-Man allegedly got into a brawl with a couple who refused to tip him. Another Times Square Spider-Man, Junior Bishop, 26, has been arrested at least three times.
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A ancient Chinese festival got high-tech over the weekend, with drones replacing the traditional candle-lit lanterns.
In total, 1,000 unmanned aerial vehicles took off at a square in Guangzhou, southern China, on the Lantern Festival on February 11 to create a glittering night sky, according to Huanqiu.com, an affiliation to People's Daily.
Marking the final day of Chinese New Year celebrations, the performance saw the colourful devices forming various patterns in the sky, such as the map of China and the digits 2017.
Futuristic: Chinese New Year got high-tech over the weekend, with drones replacing the traditional candle-lit lanterns
Video footage of the extravaganza, filmed by CCTV News, shows the drones taking off and slowly changing their flight course to form various shapes and symbols.
The devices change colour to create different patterns and at one point, the sky is ablaze with a mix of multi-coloured balls.
In the process, musicians from the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra provided a rousing soundtrack.
It apparently took engineers months to coordinate the impressive light show and there were numerous test runs before the public performance.
A total of 1,000 unmanned aerial vehicles took off at a square in Guangzhou, southern China, to create a glittering night sky
The colourful devices formed various patterns in the sky, such as the map of China and the digits 2017, during the show
Video footage shows the drones taking off and slowly changing their flight courses to form various shapes and symbols
Millions of citizens celebrated the Chinese Lantern Festival across China on Saturday. The event traditionally ends the country's New Year period and marks the return of spring.
During celebrations, Chinese lanterns are released. Traditionally the floating balloons are made out of paper and silk. They are also coloured red to symbolise luck and happiness.
The lanterns are omnipresent throughout towns and countryside, trotted out at most important occasions: marriages, business openings, and most of all the Lunar New Year, which generally falls in late January or early to mid February.
Traditionally, positive Chinese characters such as 'happiness', 'peace', and 'family' are painted on their sides.
But in recent years their inscriptions have become increasingly political. In Chinese homes across the country, this new year will be ushered in by concepts including 'democracy', 'freedom', 'equality', 'rule of law', and 'patriotism'.
The devices change colour to create different patterns and at one point, the sky is ablaze with a mix of multi-coloured balls
In the process, musicians from the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra provided a rousing soundtrack
In other news: Dozens of citizens celebrated the Chinese Lantern Festival on Saturday across China - above, half-naked men perform firework dragon dance to celebrate the Lantern Festival in the Guangdong Province of China
Chinese lanterns are traditionally made out of paper and silk and coloured red to symbolise luck and happiness - seen above hanging from an archway in the Jiangsu Province of China
Punching the air and battling with large wooden sticks, this great-great grandmother means business.
Zhang Hexian, 94, from Liyang, east Chinas Jiangsu province, is somewhat of a martial arts pro after spending nine decades refining her combat moves.
Footage of her in action, shows her jousting with men more than half her age, using a large stick-like weapon as she goes.
Ready to strike: Zhang Hexian, 94, from Liyang, east Chinas Jiangsu province, is somewhat of a martial arts pro after spending nine decades refining her combat moves
Zhang first started kung fu at the tender age of three under her father's instruction,People's Daily reports.
The youngster would get up at around 3am to pack in maximum practice.
While many people take up less strenuous activities as they enter old age, Zhang refuses to hang up her karate kit.
Indeed, the pensioner likes to maintain a daily routine.
Leading the way: Video footage of her in action shows her battling with men more than half her age, using a large stick-like weapon as she goes
Ka-pow! Zhang, who is a widow, encourages everyone to go out and give kung fu a go
Fighting spirit: While many people take up less strenuous activities as they enter old age, Zhang refuses to hang up her karate kit
Along with brushing up on her own techniques, she also teaches classes.
One photograph shows her instructing a group of younger students.
They obediently mimic her moves as she leads the way with a stern look on her face and fists clenched.
Zhang has said over the years her physical prowess has helped keep bullies in check and keep 'other rascals in their place'.
Give it what you've got: Zhang has said over the years her physical prowess has helped keep bullies in check and keep 'other rascals in their place'
Spreading the word: Zhang, who is a widow, encourages everyone to go out and give kung fu a go
Passing on her knowledge: It appears her passion for martial arts has passed to the next generation and her son, Feng Chuanyin, is also a practitioner
It appears her passion for martial arts has passed to the next generation and her son, Feng Chuanyin, is also a practitioner.
Zhang, who is a widow, encourages everyone to go out and give kung fu a go.
Along with helping her to fight off enemies, she said its also responsible for her strength and good health.
Sprightly: Along with helping her to fight off enemies, she said its also responsible for her strength and good health
Words of encouragement: Zhang was just three when she first started doing martial arts
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If you're not a fan of crowds, then this video is likely to trigger a tinge of panic.
Time lapse footage shows the moment around 700,000 people flooded into a square in Nanjing, the capital of Chinas eastern Jiangsu province, in a bid to see the annual Lantern Festival celebrations.
The sped-up film captures a sea of writhing bodies with not a spot of space in sight.
Crowd control? If you're not a fan of crowds, then this scene is likely to trigger a tinge of panic
Room for one more? Time lapse footage shows the moment almost 700,000 people flooded into a square in Nanjing, the capital of Chinas eastern Jiangsu province, in a bid to see the annual Lantern Festival celebrations
The clip quickly garnered thousands of hits after it was uploaded to Facebook by People's Daily.
One viewer mused: 'Looks really dangerous. I hope they have a lot of security to protect people... Big crowds like this are very dangerous.'
Another commentator said they were actually at the festival and they found it unbearable.
Still images from the jam-packed event show people clustered shoulder to shoulder.
Breathe in! The sped-up film captures a sea of writhing bodies with not a spot of space in sight
One viewer mused: 'Looks really dangerous. I hope they have a lot of security to protect people... Big crowds like this are very dangerous'
It appears that there were military personnel on standby and a number of soldiers can be seen dressed in camouflage gear.
People were gathered in Nanjing city to visit the ancient Confucius Temple, which dates back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25).
The Lantern Festival is held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to mark the first full moon of the lunar new year.
This year, the event fell on Saturday February 11.
Despite the chaos in Nanjing it appears that celebrations ran smoothly.
No incidents were reported as thousands gathered to watch hundreds of Chinese Lanterns light up the night sky.
Colourful characters: People were gathered in Nanjing city to visit the ancient Confucius Temple, which dates back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25)
Cause for celebration: The Lantern Festival is held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to mark the first full moon of the lunar new year
Peaceful parade: Despite the chaos in Nanjing it appears that celebrations ran smoothly
Scientists have genetically engineered mice with higher levels of protein in their brain that does not become addicted to cocaine.
This adds weight to the belief that being a drug addict is in your genes as opposed to just caused by poor judgement.
Scientists believe this breakthrough might help us predict who is vulnerable to drug abuse - and therefore help treat addiction better in the future.
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Scientists at the University of British Columbia genetically engineered a mutant mouse which does not get addicted to cocaine (stock photo)
WHAT DID THEY DO? Dr. Bamji and her team injected cocaine into mice over a number of days. Straight after they injected them, they immediately placed them in a distinctly decorated compartment within their cage, so they would associate the drug with that space. After several days of receiving cocaine in this way, the mice were put in the cage and allowed to move freely between compartments. Normal mice would always gravitate to the cocaine-associated compartment. However, mice with extra cadherin in their brains spent half as much time there - indicating that they hadn't formed strong memories of the drug. Advertisement
'Addiction is more a matter of biology and biochemistry as opposed to someone who is weak-willed and making bad judgements', lead-author Dr Shernaz Bamji told MailOnline.
Scientists at the University of British Columbia in Canada genetically engineered mice with higher levels of a protein called cadherin.
In the brain, cadherin strengthens synapses between neurons - which are the gaps that electrical impulses must traverse in order to bring about action.
Drug addicts generally have lots of mutations of adhesion proteins - such as cadherin- which hold these synapses together.
Shernaz Bamji, a Professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, who wrote the paper, explained that proteins like cadherin regulate learning and levels of addiction.
'Addiction is learning gone haywire and we want to regulate the strength of these synapses in the brain', she told MailOnline.
Her team wanted to manipulate part of the mouse's brain to see if they could somehow extinguish addictive behaviour by altering these adhesion proteins.
The mutant mouse had more cadherin in their brains which blocked their 'drug memory'. Scientists found that extra cadherin prevented a type of neurochemical receptor from working
HOW DOES IT WORK? Cadherin, which is in the brain, strengthens synapses between neurons. These synapses bring about any function controlled by the brain - from breathing to walking to recalling a memory. Learning about the pleasure that comes from stimulating drugs, requires a strengthening of certain synapses. Dr Shernaz Bamji thought that extra cadherin in the reward circuit would make their mice more prone to cocaine addiction. However, it turned out the opposite was true. To find out what was really going on, Dr Bamji and her associates analysed the brain tissue of genetically engineered mice. They found that extra cadherin prevented a type of neurochemical receptor from working. Without that receptor in place, it's difficult for neurons to send and receive signals so the synapses don't strengthen and the memory of taking cocaine does not 'stick'. Advertisement
Dr Bamji thought that extra cadherin in the reward circuit would make their mice more prone to cocaine addiction.
However, it turned out the opposite was true, as shown by their article published in Nature Neuroscience.
To find out what was really going on, Dr Bamji and her associates analysed the brain tissue of mutant mice.
They found that extra cadherin prevented a type of neurochemical receptor from working.
'We put the mice in a cage with three distinct chambers - each one had different patterns on the wall and a different feel on the floor', Dr Bamji told MailOnline.
For four days the team gave the mice injections of cocaine.
'Normal mice gravitate towards the chamber where they received the drug as they keep looking for that high that they associate with that compartment', Dr Bamji said.
'The mice with extra glue in their brains [cadherin] didn't favour that chamber - either they were not interested in that high or they did not remember it', said Dr Bamji.
'When you add cadherin you prevent the removal of normal receptors. It's like a traffic jam', she explained.
'By preventing the synapses from strengthening, we prevented the mutant mice from 'learning' the memory of cocaine, and thus prevented them from becoming addicted', said graduate student Andrea Globa, a co-lead author with former graduate student Fergil Mills.
In the future it might allow scientists to be better at predicting who is more vulnerable to drug abuse - and therefore help people to act on that knowledge.
'Drug addicts want to stop and don't want to be in this position', said Dr Bamji.
'There is no magic pill that can prevent people getting addicted to drugs' she said.
At the moment scientists have not worked out how to increase levels of protein in the brain so as to help people resist addiction.
In most cases, increasing levels of protein in the brain is good because it means we can reward ourselves when we do good things.
'Ideally, we would need to find a molecule that blocks formation of a memory of a drug-induced high, while not interfering with the ability to remember important things', said Dr Bamji.
When you browse online for a new pair of shoes, pick a movie to stream on Netflix or apply for a car loan, an algorithm likely has its word to say on the outcome.
The complex mathematical formulas are playing a growing role in all walks of life: from detecting skin cancers to suggesting new Facebook friends, deciding who gets a job, how police resources are deployed, who gets insurance at what cost, or who is on a 'no fly' list.
Algorithms are being used - experimentally - to write news articles from raw data, while Donald Trump's presidential campaign was helped by behavioral marketers who used an algorithm to locate the highest concentrations of 'persuadable voters.'
The algorithms are taking over: Experts say they are already playing a growing role in all walks of life: from detecting skin cancers to suggesting new Facebook friends, deciding who gets a job, how police resources are deployed, who gets insurance at what cost, or who is on a 'no fly' list.
HOW ALGORITHMS CONTROL YOUR LIFE Algorithms already have a hand in almost every aspect of our lives, including: Deciding who we might know on social media sites Helping pick a movie to watch on Netflix Determining who is on the 'no-fly' list Choosing who gets insurance, and at what cost Choosing which teachers are hired -Public schools in Washington DC in 2010 fired more than 200 teachers -- including several well-respected instructors based on scores in an algorithmic formula Choosing who gets jobs: A man diagnosed with bipolar disorder was rejected for employment at seven major retailers after a third-party 'personality' test deemed him a high risk based on its algorithmic classification Organising police forces: Many jurisdictions are using 'predictive policing' to shift resources to likely 'hot spots' Deciding jail sentences: Some courts rely on computer-ranked formulas to determine jail sentences and parole, which may discriminate against minorities Source: Weapons of Math Destruction Cathy ONeil Advertisement
But while such automated tools can inject a measure of objectivity into erstwhile subjective decisions, fears are rising over the lack of transparency algorithms can entail, with pressure growing to apply standards of ethics or 'accountability.'
Data scientist Cathy O'Neil cautions about 'blindly trusting' formulas to determine a fair outcome.
'Algorithms are not inherently fair, because the person who builds the model defines success,' she said.
O'Neil argues that while some algorithms may be helpful, others can be nefarious and too often amplify prejudice against the disadvantaged, O'Neil argues.
Her findings were echoed in a White House report last year warning that algorithmic systems 'are not infallible -- they rely on the imperfect inputs, logic, probability, and people who design them.'
The report noted that data systems can ideally help weed out human bias but warned against algorithms 'systematically disadvantaging certain groups.'
Zeynep Tufekci, a University of North Carolina professor who studies technology and society, said automated decisions are often based on data collected about people, sometimes without their knowledge.
'These computational systems can infer all sorts of things about you from your digital crumbs,' Tufekci said in a recent TED lecture.
'They can infer your sexual orientation, your personality traits, your political leanings. They have predictive power with high levels of accuracy.'
Such insights may be useful in certain contexts -- such as helping medical professionals diagnose postpartum depression -- but unfair in others, she said.
Part of the problem, she said, stems from asking computers to answer questions that have no single right answer.
'They are subjective, open-ended and value-laden questions, asking who should the company hire, which update from which friend should you be shown, which convict is more likely to reoffend.'
Frank Pasquale, a University of Maryland law professor and author of 'The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information,' shares the same concerns.
He suggests one way to remedy unfair effects may be to enforce existing laws on consumer protection or deceptive practices.
Pasquale points at the European Union's data protection law, set from next year to create a 'right of explanation' when consumers are impacted by an algorithmic decision, as a model that could be expanded.
This would 'either force transparency or it will stop algorithms from being used in certain contexts,' he said.
President Donald Trump's presidential campaign was helped by behavioral marketers who used an algorithm to locate the highest concentrations of 'persuadable voters'
Alethea Lange, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the EU plan 'sounds good' but 'is really burdensome' and risked proving unworkable in practice.
She believes education and discussion may be more important than enforcement in developing fairer algorithms.
Lange said her organization worked with Facebook, for example, to modify a much-criticized formula that allowed advertisers to use 'ethnic affinity' in their targeting.
Others meanwhile caution that algorithms should not be made a scapegoat for societal ills.
'People get angry and they are looking for something to blame,' said Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
'We are concerned about bias, accountability and ethical decisions but those exist whether you are using algorithms or not.'
Algorithms were at the center of the so-called 'Flash Crash' in May 2010, when the US stock market plunged over nine percent in minutes for no discernible reason
In her 2016 book, 'Weapons of Math Destruction,' she cites some troubling examples in the United States:
- Public schools in Washington DC in 2010 fired more than 200 teachers -- including several well-respected instructors -- based on scores in an algorithmic formula which evaluated performance.
- A man diagnosed with bipolar disorder was rejected for employment at seven major retailers after a third-party 'personality' test deemed him a high risk based on its algorithmic classification.
Algorithm, complex mathematical formulas, are playing a growing role in all walks of life: from health, to shopping, and jobs
- Many jurisdictions are using 'predictive policing' to shift resources to likely 'hot spots.' O'Neill says that depending on how data is fed into the system, this could lead to discovery of more minor crimes and a 'feedback loop' which stigmatizes poor communities.
- Some courts rely on computer-ranked formulas to determine jail sentences and parole, which may discriminate against minorities by taking into account 'risk' factors such as their neighborhoods and friend or family links to crime.
olytechnic University Turin, Italy, plans to resume the search later this month
No announcement made, but sources say it did not find hidden rooms
Archaeologists plan to resume the search for lost burial chambers in King Tutankhamun's tomb.
The news follows more than a year of speculation after British Egyptologist, Nicholas Reeves, said he found signs of a hidden doorway in King Tut's tomb.
At the time, he said one of the secret rooms could be the burial place of Queen Nefertiti.
A team now plans to use radar systems to scan the 3,300-year-old tomb, which was first opened in 1923 by British researcher Howard Carter.
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Archaeologists plan to resume the search for lost burial chambers in King Tutankhamun's tomb (pictured). The news follows more than a year of speculation after British Egyptologist, Nicholas Reeves, said he found signs of a hidden doorway in King Tut's tomb
The search will be led by the Polytechnic University Turin, Italy and will be the third team in the past two years researchers have looked for the lost chamber.
'It will be a rigorous scientific work and will last several days, if not weeks,' Franco Porcelli, the project's director and a professor of physics at the department of applied science and technology of the Polytechnic University in Turin, told Seeker.
'Three radar systems will be used and frequencies from 200 Mhz to 2 GHz will be covered.'
Mamdouh Eldamaty, Egypt's former antiquities minister, said there is a '90 per cent' chance the tomb has hidden chambers.
He claims that and finding them would be the 'discovery of the century'.
Some experts believe Tutankhamun's tomb was in fact Nefertiti's, and when the boy king died unexpectedly at a young age, he was rushed into her tomb's outer chamber in Luxor's Valley of Kings
Previously, researchers had said they believe there is a 90 per cent chance King Tutankhamun's tomb contains at least one, if not two, hidden chambers. The announcement followed infrared thermography tests (shown) that revealed one area of the northern wall was a different temperature to others (marked)
GHOST DOORS TO THE CHAMBER After analysing high-resolution scans of the walls of Tutankhamun's grave complex in the Valley of the Kings in 2015, Dr Nicholas Reeves spotted what appeared to be a secret entrance. They feature very straight lines that are 90 degrees to the ground, positioned so as to correspond with other features within the tomb. Dr Nicholas Reeves recently claimed to have found evidence for the bricked up entrances. These include the burial chamber for Queen Nefertiti, who Dr Reeves claims was the boy-kings co-regent and may even have been his mother, and a new hidden storage room, as shown above He uncovered the 'ghosts' of two portals that tomb builders blocked up, one of which is believed to be a storage room. The other, on the north side of Tutankhamun's tomb, contains 'the undisturbed burial of the tomb's original owner - Nefertiti', Dr Reeves argued. These features are difficult to capture with the naked eye, he said. Reeves said the plastered walls could conceal two unexplored doorways, one of which perhaps leads to Nefertiti's tomb. He also argues the design of the tomb suggests it was built for a queen, rather than a king. The dark blue border shows the walls that were scanned. The area alongside the antechamber is believed to be empty, while Area 1 contains metal and organic material, and Area 2 contains just organic material. This organic material could be human remains In particular, he believes these chambers are behind the northerns and western walls of tomb and that one contains the remains of queen Nefertiti, the chief wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten and mother to six of his children, who is Tutankhamun's mother. Advertisement
The researchers plan to carry out the first survey of the tomb by the end of this month.
The search began in 2015 following a claim by Nicholas Reeves, an Egyptologist at the University of Arizona.
Based on Reeves' works, Japanese radar expert Hirokatsu Watanabe said he had evidence of two hidden chambers in the King's tomb.
'There is, in fact, an empty space behind the wall based on radar, which is very accurate, there is no doubt,' he said at the time.
This prompted Egyptian antiquities minister Mamdough al-Damaty to issue a statement claiming he was almost certain there was a chamber behind the walls.
'We said earlier there was a 60 percent chance there is something behind the walls,' he in November.
Crouched by King Tut's stone sarcophagus, National Geographic technicians Eric Berkenpas and Alan Turchik prepare the radar unit to scan the tomb's walls. Experts have disagreed over how the search for the chambers was handled with the former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass claiming the project lacked any real science
'But now after the initial reading of the scans, we are saying now its 90 percent likely there is something behind the walls.'
However, experts raised doubts about the claim after radar images from Watanabe's scans were released.
The National Geographic Society conducted a second series of radar scans in the hope of finding clearer evidence of a tomb.
They scanned the walls in question at five different heights, switching between two radar antennae with frequencies of 400 and 900 megahertz, respectively.
'One was for depth perception, and one was for feature perception,' said Eric Berkenpas, an electrical engineer at National Geographic who was accompanied by Alan Turchik, a mechanical engineer.
But results have come up blank.
Live Science says Egypt's antiquities ministry refused to accept the new results.
'Other types of radar and remote-sensing techniques will be applied in the next stage. Once they are determined, we shall publish the updates,' the ministry told Live Science in a statement.
At a conference discussing the claims last year, archaeologists sitting on each side of the fence clashed over the controversial theory and plans to drill a hole in the wall.
Experts even disagreed about how the search for the chambers was handled with the former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass claiming the project lacked any real science.
The researchers who conducted the radar survey were not allowed to present their research at the conference, according to Live Science.
Two leading experts recently suggested King Tut's tomb may have been built for a woman, based upon the layout of the chamber. The gold death mask (pictured) could also hold clues. The face was originally separate from the headdress and they were welded together, while pharaohs' masks were usually made in one piece
Speaking at the conference, the famed Egyptologist Hawass rejected the theory undiscovered chambers lie behind the tomb.
'In all my career ... I have never come across any discovery in Egypt due to radar scans,' Hawass said.
At the time, he said the technology would be better used to examine existing tombs that are known to contain sealed-off chambers.
British Egyptologist Nicolas Reeves meanwhile defended the theory he put forward last year.
Preliminary results of successive scans suggested the tomb contains two open spaces, with signs of metal and organic matter lying behind its western and northern walls.
'I was looking for the evidence that would tell me that my initial reading was wrong,' he said.
'But I didn't find any evidence to suggest that. I just found more and more indicators that there is something extra going on in Tutankhamun's tomb.'
British Egyptologist, Dr Nicholas Reeves has previously said King Tut's tomb seems too small for a pharaoh and may have been repurposed for when he died suddenly. It lies in the Valley of the Kings (shown on map)
Damati inspected the tomb last September with the theory's proponent, Reeves.
His theory and the attention paid to it came as Egypt struggles to revive its key tourism industry after years of political turmoil.
However, experts disagreed over how the search for the chambers was handled.
'Handling the project wasn't done scientifically at all,' said former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass.
Damati himself said more tests were needed.
Last year, former minister Mamduh Damati (pictured) said the secret chambers probably existed, raising expectations of another historical find. Damati inspected the tomb last September with the theory's proponent, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves
THE BIZARRE BURIAL RITUALS OF KING TUTANKHAMUN Researchers from the American University in Cairo believe the king's appendage was embalmed at a 90-degree angle to make the young pharaoh appear as Osiris, the god of the underworld. The angling of the penis was a feature worn by 'corn-mummies', created in honour of Osiris. The mummy was also covered in black liquid to resemble Osiris' skin. Elsewhere, Tutankhamun's heart was missing when the tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. Religious texts claimed Osiris' heart was similarly removed by his brother Seth.On the outside of the tomb, decorations depicted Tutankhamun as Osiris. Advertisement
'The infrared scan said we need to repeat it because we have something that we cannot be sure what it is exactly,' he said.
Reeves theorised Tutankhamun's tomb was in fact Nefertiti's, and when the boy king died unexpectedly at a young age, he was rushed into her tomb's outer chamber in Luxor's Valley of Kings in southern Egypt.
Hawass suggested the current antiquities minister hire an autonomous committee of experts to handle the investigation.
'We have to stop this media presence, because there is nothing to publish,' he said.
Nefertiti was famed for her beauty as depicted in the famous bust now in Berlin.
She, Tutankhamun and Akhenaten ruled during a turbulent time, and were one of ancient Egypt's most controversial ruling families.
Nefertiti was married to Akhenaten, who tried and failed to force Egypt to convert to monotheism.
DNA evidence has shown that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun's father, but Egyptologists do not agree on who his mother was.
Egyptologists rely on a mix of DNA evidence as well as information documented in ruins and historical calculations to map the pharaohs' family tree.
Most tombs contain more information about the passage to the afterlife rather than solid information about the deceased's biological lineage.
Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anani (centre) said scans of the tomb would continue in line with the group's recommendations, but that no physical exploration would be allowed unless he was '100 per cent sure there is a cavity behind the wall'
For some unfortunate people, even the strongest deodorant isn't enough to mask their body odour.
But help may be at hand, as researchers say that splashing on someone else's sweat could help reduce the smell.
The bizarre technique works by replacing smelly armpit bacteria with less odorous microbes.
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Scientists at the University of California have found that transferring armpit bacteria from a non-smelly relative can help stop stinking armpits (stock photo)
OTHER WAY TO BATTLE BODY ODOUR There are several ways to make your sweat less odourous: - Stop eating food high in fat and oil - Eat more vegetables - Wear good quality clothes - avoid Polyester at all costs - Shave your armpits Advertisement
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego say the technique works best when the sweat is taken from a close relative.
The idea came to Dr Chris Callewaert, lead author of the study, when he met a pair of identical twins.
They were the same in every way except one of them had terrible body odour.
This puzzled the researcher as they had the same hygiene routine and as they were identical, exactly the same genes.
Dr Callewaert suspected that the bacteria under the smelly twin's armpits were responsible for his undesirable scent.
To test his theory, he splashed some of the sweat from the nice-smelling twin onto the armpits of the smellier one.
The nice smelling twin was told not to wash for four days so he had as many bacteria as possible in his armpits.
Meanwhile, the smelly twin scrubbed using antibacterial soap so he had as few bacteria as possible.
To his amazement, when Dr Callewaert splashed the nice-smelling twin's sweat onto to smelly twin, the man's body odour problem rapidly disappeared.
By outnumbering the smelly bacteria, the nicer smelling ones were able to take over.
'The effects have persisted for over a year now,' Dr Callewaert told New Scientist.
'We're very happy with that.'
The experiment was repeated with 17 other pairs of people.
Dr Callewaert and his team are trying to cultivate their own recipe of bacteria which could be transferred to odorous people without them asking their relatives for help (stock image)
WHAT DID THEY DO? The experiment was first carried out on identical twins - one with body odour and the other without. Dr Callewaert told the twin that didn't smell not to wash for four days. He did this to make sure there were as many bacteria as possible in his armpit. The smelly twin used antibacterial soap for four days - so he had as few bacteria as possible. Dr Callewaert collected the nicer-smelling twin's bacteria-covered skin and stuck it under the armpit of the smelly one. The man's odour problem rapidly disappeared. Dr Callewaert and his colleagues did this with 18 pairs and 16 saw improvements within a month. Advertisement
In all cases, one person had a BO problem and the other was a close relative with fresher smelling armpits who was able to donate bacteria.
A 'trained odour panel' of eight people judged the offensiveness of peoples' armpits.
The team is now trying to cultivate its own universal bacteria instead of using the ones in the sweat from relatives.
This means that anyone could use the bacterial brew without having to go through the embarrassment of asking nicer-smelling relatives.
'It's still very experimental, but I'm sure it can work,' said Dr Callewaert, who presented his research at the Karolinska Dermatology Symposium in Stockholm last month.
If you need a quick fix to your malodorous pits, Dr Callewaert said there are various ways you can naturally improve your scent.
He recommended eating less fast food which is typically high in fat and oil. Instead, we should be eating more vegetables.
Shaving your underarms can also help, as can wearing clothes made of good quality fabric - polyester is to be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately, washing clothes regularly won't actually help the problem - it just spreads the bacteria around your washing machine.
A peanut-shaped asteroid larger than the Empire State Building could one day hit Earth, Nasa has warned.
The space rock, known as 2015 BN509, came close to Earth last week when it flew past at 44,000mph (70,500km).
At it closest approach, it came just 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon.
Nasa has labelled the asteroid, which about 200 meters (660ft) wide by 400 meters (1,310ft) long, as 'potentially hazardous'.
An asteroid called 2015 BN509 was caught flying past the Earth on February 6 and Nasa warned the object is 'potentially hazardous' - meaning it might one day crash into our planet
For comparison, the Empire State Building is 381 meters (1,250ft) tall.
The asteroid was caught flying close range by a giant radio telescope called the Arecibo Observatory.
Dr Edgard Rivera-Valentin, a planetary scientist with the Universities Space Research Association who studies data from The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, told the Business Insider: 'The peanut shape comes from the fact that it is a contact binary where the two parts [of asteroids] could not successfully orbit each other and fell back together.
One in six asteroids can be classed as contact binary objects, according to Dr Rivera-Valentin.
Dr Rivera-Valentin recording the activity of asteroids such as 2015 BN509 can tell us more about the likelihood of an object hitting earth.
He said: 'Arecibo goes beyond acting as a fortune teller, we can characterize these objects.
'We can study their size, shape, spin state, composition, and near-surface geology.'
'An asteroid impact, unlike other natural catastrophes, can actually be avoided.
The asteroid was caught flying close range - about 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon - on by a giant radio telescope called The Arecibo Observatory, pictured, in Puerto Rico
Pictured is the orbital diagram of near-Earth asteroid 2015 BN509. The space rock, known as 2015 BN509, came close to Earth last week when it flew past at 44,000mph (70,500km)
'The data from Arecibo can be used by Nasa to inform a planetary defence mission.'
NASA set up a planetary defence department to the tackle threats posed by near-Earth objects (NEOs) last year.
Each year, roughly 1,500 NEOs are identified, and Nasa has already identified more than 90 per cent of NEOs larger than 1 kilometre.
The US space agency has now proposed building an infra-red space telescope called NEOCam to help locate more NEOs.
'The NEOCAM project is working to identify activities that could be done this year that would reduce the technical, schedule, and cost risk of a future mission,' said David Schurr, the deputy director of Nasa's planetary science program.
Nasa has narrowed down its quest to find alien life on the red planet by pin-pointing three potential target sites for its Mars 2020 mission.
The US space agency will send its Mars 2020 rover to one of three drilling sites - each selected for their potential to host extraterrestrial life.
The automated robot rover will scan the surface of the chosen landing site before taking detailed pictures and collecting rocky samples to bring back to Earth.
Nasa has announced the three potential landing sites for their 2020 Mars Rover, pictured, including an ancient lake, a volcano or silica rock deposits
The American space agency picked the three potential drilling sites during a workshop with planetary scientists in California on February 10.
The site with the most votes - the Jezero crater - was once home to an ancient Martian lake.
Scientists hope that the extraterrestrial delta, which has once connected to a river but has now dried up, could host the fossilised remains of microbial life.
Nasa's first choice, the Jezero crater, pictured, was once home to an ancient Martian lake which could host the fossilised remains of microbial life
'You've got a large river bringing water and sediment into a very large lake, comparable to Lake Tahoe,' said Timothy Goudge, a planetary scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, to Nature.
Northeast Syrtis, which received the second highest number of votes, once had hot water running underneath its crust.
The rocky region was discovered to be a volcano when the robotic spacecraft Mars Global Surveyor stumbled across it in 1996.
The American space agency's second potential landing spot, Northeast Syrtis, is the site of a rocky volcano which once had hot water running underneath its crust
The last potential excavation site, Columbia Hills, was previously explored by the Martian rover Spirit, which found silica rocks that could be linked to alien life
The last potential excavation site, Columbia Hills, is the most controversial choice.
Nasa's earlier Martian rover Spirit has previously found silica rocks on the site - which resemble hydrothermal mineral deposits on Earth.
But some scientists doubt whether the Mars 2020 rover will be able to assess whether the silica rocks are truly linked to alien life.
Nasa will make their final decision a year before the mission's launch date in July 2020.
The rover will then spend two years drilling for rock and soil from the chosen landing site.
How humanity will meet its end is a an endless source of fascination in science fiction.
But scientists claim many of the scenarios depicted in films - such as an asteroid strike and killer robots - may not be as far fetched as you might think.
Now, in a new article for Wired, researchers at Cambridge University's Study of Existential Risk (CESR) have come up with a list of 10 threats that may some day trigger an apocalypse.
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Nuclear war, asteroid impact and particle accelerator accidents are all a threat, but artificial intelligence, bio-hacking and food shortages have been flagged as the highest risk to our surival
10 THREATS TO MANKIND 1 - Artificial intelligence 2 - Bio-hacking 3 - Killer robots 4 - Nuclear war 5 - Climate change 6 - Asteroid impact 7 - Loss of reality 8 - Food shortage 9 - Particle accelerator 10 - Tyrannical ruler Advertisement
Artificial Intelligence
Humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment.
Artificial Intelligence, disguised as helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, is gaining a foothold and it could one day spell the end for mankind if allowed to develop without strict controls.
Developments in digital personal assistants like Siri, Google Now and Cortana are just the beginning of the applications
Nick Bostrom, an outside adviser to CESR, predicts that machines will attain 90 per cent of human-level intelligence by 2075, according to Wired.
The threat posed to the human race if they developed beyond our understanding and control has been compared to the development of nuclear weapons.
World-renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking and Space X founder Elon Musk are part of growing number of scientists and technology experts who have voiced their concerns in recent years.
Speaking in 2016, Professor Hawking said: 'I don't think advances in artificial intelligence will necessarily be benign.'
'Once machines reach a critical stage of being able to evolve themselves we cannot predict whether their goals will be the same as ours.'
'Artificial intelligence has the potential to evolve faster than the human race.'
CESR believe that artificial intelligence could create a mulitude of risks that threaten human existence in the near future, as so place it as a very high priority.
Bio-hacking
Superbugs capable of everything from curing diseases to mopping up pollution could one day become reality, through synthetic biology.
Scientists working in the pursuit of new biological technologies alter existing mirco-organisms at the genetic level, in order to try and better understand their function or to produce a desired result.
Their efforts have already seen the creation of an artificial lifeform in the lab, in March 2016.
Experiments with bio-engineering could have unexpected and extremely dangerous results, with a synthetic pandemic one possible outcome. In 1918, the influenza pandemic wiped out up to 50 million people, more than the First World War
BIOHACKING LAWS European nations are generally stricter in their regulation of genetic engineering than the rest of the world. Rules in relation to products for human consumption are extremely rigorous in Europe, particularly when compared to the US. Laws on experiments conducted by amateurs vary from country to country with some states, like Germany, prohibiting them outside of regulated and supervised labs. The UK and US do not currently have laws in place to regulate the use of DIY kits in the home or experiments taking place at community labs. But leading academics and security services like the FBI have warned that the technology could be used to create biological weapons. Advertisement
But experiments with bio-engineering, or bio-hacking as it is sometimes known, could have unexpected and extremely dangerous results and are being been given a very high priority by CESR.
As current experiments work with self-replicating micro-organisms, like viruses, there is a high risk that any such material that escaped the lab could cause a global pandemic.
The zika virus hit headlines in 2016, over fears that an outbreak of the disease could become a pandemic which could affect more than two-and-a-half billion people.
This is another high priority area of exploration for the CESR team.
Killer robots
New technology could lead humans to relinquish control over decisions to use lethal force.
As artificial intelligence advances, the possibility that machines could independently select and fire on targets is fast approaching.
Fully autonomous weapons, also known as 'killer robots,' are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction toward reality.
Fully autonomous weapons, also known as 'killer robots,' are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction toward reality. There are fears that killer robots could one day turn against their creators, although CESR feels that this threat is currently a low priority
COULD A NUCLEAR WAR BREAK OUT? There are now more than 15,000 nuclear weapons on this planet, but to plunge Earth into a devastating nuclear winter, all it would take is the detonation of 100. While the bombs themselves would cause catastrophic damage, the scientists predicted the ensuing nuclear winter would be just as significant. This is because the bombs would spur massive firestorms, emitting smoke, soot, and dust and if dropped over major cities, the effect would be even more dramatic. The bombs would send black carbon pumping into the stratosphere, absorbing sunlight and depleting the ozone layer to allow UV radiation to pour in. Humankind may survive, but the living conditions on Earth would be extreme. Advertisement
Proponents say these killer robots are necessary because modern combat moves so quickly, and because having robots do the fighting would keep soldiers and police officers out of harm's way.
But the threats to humanity could outweigh any military or law enforcement benefits according to critics.
Removing humans from the targeting decision would create a dangerous world, with machines making life-and-death determinations outside of human control.
And there are greater fears that killer robots could one day turn against their creators, although CESR feels that this threat is currently a low priority.
Nuclear war
There are now more than 15,000 nuclear weapons on this planet, but to plunge Earth into a devastating nuclear winter, all it would take is the detonation of 100.
The concept of a nuclear winter was introduced in 1983 by a team of astrophysicists, including Carl Sagan.
While the bombs themselves would cause catastrophic damage, the scientists predicted the ensuing nuclear winter would be just as significant.
This is because the bombs would spur massive firestorms, emitting smoke, soot, and dust and if dropped over major cities, the effect would be even more dramatic.
The detonation of 100 just of the more than 15,000 nuclear weapons on this planet could be enough to plunge Earth into a devastating nuclear winter
The bombs would send black carbon pumping into the stratosphere, absorbing sunlight and depleting the ozone layer to allow UV radiation to pour in.
Humankind may survive, but the living conditions on Earth would be extreme.
On top of coping with the aftermath of the blasts, humans would face global famine as temperatures suddenly drop, crops struggle to grow, and ocean life suffers from excess radiation.
Although the proliferation of nuclear arms is concerning, the CESR rates it as a low to medium risk priority.
Climate change
Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been blamed for upsetting the delicate balance of the atmosphere.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide, released when fossil fuels are burned, as well as other 'greenhouse gases', have risen at an alarming rate, forming a thick blanket around Earth, trapping excess heat and nudging global temperatures upwards.
While warmer weather might be welcome in some places, 'feedback loops' complicate the effects of higher temperatures.
Scientists warn of a tipping point a temperature beyond which the problem of global warming can no longer be dialled back, but the CESR currently rates climate change as a low to medium risk priority
2016 WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR World temperatures hit a record high for the third year in a row in 2016, creeping closer to a ceiling set for global warming. The data, supported by global organisations, was issued two days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who questions whether climate change has a human cause. Average surface temperatures over land and the oceans in 2016 were 0.94C (1.69F) above the 20th-century average of 13.9C (57.0F), according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Advertisement
Increased evaporation will cause denser cloud cover, exacerbating the warming effect because clouds themselves are strong insulators.
Longstanding carbon 'sinks' - rocks and oceans that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere - are predicted to become unstable and release their stores, accelerating the problem still further.
Scientists warn of a tipping point a temperature beyond which the problem can no longer be dialled back.
If we reach this point, a runaway greenhouse effect would cause temperatures to soar to several hundred degrees Celsius, boiling the oceans and making life on Earth impossible.
However the CESR rates climate change as another low to medium risk priority.
Asteroid impact
While the possibility of a catastrophic asteroid slamming into Earth is extremely rare, it may only be a matter of time before this threat becomes a reality.
In January 2017, an asteroid as big as a 10-story building passed by Earth at a distance half that of the Moon.
And experts have previously warned that humans are not prepared for an asteroid impact and, should one head for Earth, there's not much we can do about it.
While the possibility of a catastrophic asteroid slamming into Earth is extremely rare, it may only be a matter of time before this threat becomes a reality
EARTH'S THREE 'CLOSE SHAVES' THIS YEAR January 8th - Asteriod 2017 AG1 flew by Earth at a distance of 126,461 miles (203,520km) January 24th - Asteroid 2017 BX flew by Earth at a distance of 162,252 miles (261,120km) January 30th - Asteroid 2017 BH30 flew by Earth at a distance of 40,563 miles (65,280 km) Advertisement
Asteroids are hunks of rocky space debris, left over from the creation of the planets, which whizz around our solar system, orbiting the sun.
From time to time they cross paths with us and, while impacts on the scale of the infamous 6.2-mile (10km) 'dinosaur-destroyer' are rare, an asteroid a fifth the size could spell disaster for civilisation.
With energy greater than 10 million Hiroshima bombs, the impact shock would flatten everything within a 186-mile (300km) radius.
Dust and debris would cause an 'impact winter' and most living things would perish.
Alternatively, an ocean strike would trigger monumental tsunamis, obliterate entire coastlines and inject seawater into the atmosphere, destroying huge swathes of the ozone layer and exposing survivors to devastating levels of UV radiation
In the 1998 film, Armageddon, humans discover that an asteroid that size of Texas is on course for the Earth. And experts believe that this could one day be the case, if a deflection mission is not sent
One Nasa scientist believes that our best hope is building an interceptor rocket to keep in storage that could be used in deflection missions.
Dr Joseph Nuth, is a researcher at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, and proposed the idea.
Speaking in December 2016, he said: 'The biggest problem, basically, is there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment.'
WHAT IS THE CESR The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) is a joint initiative between a philosopher, a scientist, and a software entrepreneur. It was founded on the conviction that existential risks require more scientific investigation than they currently receive. An existential risk is one that threatens the existence of our entire species. The CSER is a multidisciplinary research centre dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction. Their goal is to use some of Cambridge University's intellectual resources and reputation to help ensure long-term future of the human race. The team are developing a general methodology for the management of extreme risk, as well as strategies to deal with specific potential risks. Advertisement
'They are the extinction-level events, things like dinosaur killers, they're 50 to 60 million years apart, essentially.'
'You could say, of course, we're due, but it's a random course at that point.'
However, the CESR rate this as a low risk priority.
The idea that we are living in some kind of illusory universe - like the one found in the 1999 film the Matrix - has a long history in philosophical and scientific thinking, but whether we will ever be able to determine if this is the case remains a much debated topic
DO WE LIVE IN A SIMULATION? Last summer, when asked at the Code Conference in southern California if the answer to the question of whether we are in a simulated computer game was 'yes', Elon Musk said the answer is 'probably'. Musk believes that computer game technology, particularly virtual reality, is already approaching a point that it is indistinguishable from reality. 'If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable,' he said. 'Even if the speed of those advancements dropped by 1000, 'We are clearly on a trajectory to have games indistinguishable from reality, and there would be billions of there. 'It would seem to follow that the odds that we're in 'base reality' is one in billions', Mr Musk said. Advertisement
Reality is an illusion
Philosophers have long posed thought experiments to examine the nature the interaction between our internal 'self' and external 'reality', questioning how much we can trust the evidence of our senses.
The idea runs that we are living in some kind of illusory universe - whether that be the product of an 'evil demon' as in Descartes, or a complex computer simulation like The Matrix.
While still largely the preserve of science fiction, the idea that the world we experience as 'real' is actually just a simulation is still given serious thought by scientists, philosophers, and even businesses.
Developments in our understanding of quantum mechanics have reinforced this idea, with the boundary between the 'world out there' and our own subjective consciousness becoming blurred.
One report, issued by the Bank of America in September 2016, gave a 20-50 per cent chance that we ourselves are living in some kind of Matrix-like simulation.
Whether we will ever be able to determine if this is the case remains a much debated topic, and as such, it is a low area of interest for the CESR.
Food shortages
Widespread water shortages caused by rising global temperatures could lead to food shortages and mass migration.
Of all the threats posed by a warming climate, shrinking water supplies are the most serious.
It is predicted that by 2025, some 2.8 billion people will live in 'water scarce' areas - a huge rise from the 1.6 billion who do now.
With the world's population set to rise to nine billion by 2050 from 7.3 billion today, food production will need to increase by more than 60 per cent and climate-linked market disruptions could lead to civil unrest. This another high priority area for the CESR
Global food shortages will become three times more likely as a result of climate change, according to one report, and the international community needs to be ready to respond to price shocks to prevent civil unrest.
Rather than being a once-a-century event, severe production shocks, including food shortages, price spikes and market volatility, are likely to occur every 30 years by 2040, said the Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience.
With the world's population set to rise to nine billion by 2050 from 7.3 billion today, food production will need to increase by more than 60 per cent and climate-linked market disruptions could lead to civil unrest, the report said.
This another high priority area for the CESR.
Some scientists are worried that supercollider experiments could accidentally alter the physical laws of the universe, or even destroy it completely. pictured is the Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator II
LARGE HADRON COLLIDER The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the worlds largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the latest addition to CERNs accelerator complex. The LHC consists of a 17- mile ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. Nobody knows what the facility might reveal with its collisions, which are mini-versions of the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago. Advertisement
Particle accelerator
Another improbable possibility raised as a concern to the future existence of the planet is that supercollider experiments could accidentally destroy planet Earth.
While experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, could help to answer questions about how life and the universe started, some worry that they could also bring about its demise.
Some scientists are worried that micro black holes could be created, with vacuums that could suck in any surrounding matter - or even the universe itself - in a process called vacuum decay.
Others, including the Astronomer Royal, have warned that subatomic particles called strangelets could be created accidentally.
Strangelets are a hypothetical form of quark matter that in specific conditions could trigger a chain reaction to convert everything else to strange matter and destroy the planet.
Experts at the CESR rate the risk of this happening as'very low.
Tyrannical ruler
The election of Donald Trump as US president has been met with mixed reactions, but it was enough to prompt staff at CSER to hold a group meeting to discuss whether this constituted an existential threat.
A similar meeting was held after the EU referendum.
Some experts are concerned that individual world leaders could be the catalyst to man-made extinction events - perhaps through nuclear conflict or poor management of the effects of climate change.
The election of Donald Trump as US president was enough to prompt staff at CSER to hold a group meeting to discuss whether this constituted an existential threat
CSER's Julius Weitzdorfer told Wired: 'With Trump, we are moving away from a world in which scientific evidence counts in debates.'
'That impedes our ability to deal with any kind of threats. It makes our governance worse and increases risk.'
'With the Trump situation it's becoming plausible to more and more people that there are other serious risks we need to think about.'
The CESR believes that this is a medium risk area.
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A Chinese drone maker has revealed a giant quadcopter big enough to fit a passenger will be buzzing through the Dubai skyline in July.
Dubbed EHang 184, the drone is described as the world's first 'Autonomous Aerial Vehicle' for transporting people.
The rider punches in a destination on a touch screen in front of the passenger seat, then the drone would fly there automatically.
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EHang is building the world's first 'Autonomous Aerial Vehicle' for transporting people. The head of Dubai's Roads & Transportation Agency announced at the World Government Summit on Monday that the drone would be flying by July
Mattar al-Tayer, the head of Dubai's Roads & Transportation Agency, made the announcement about it flight in Dubai today at the World Government Summit.
'You know how it feels to sit in a Ferrari? This is 10 times better,' George Yan, co-founder of Ehang said in an interview with DailyMail.com last year.
Unveiled at CES in Las Vegas last year, the all-electric vehicle has four arms with a total of eight propellers at the end.
The company says the 184 is autonomous, so all the passenger has to do is enter in their destination in the smartphone app, sit back, and let the drone take over.
Mattar al-Tayer, the head of Dubai's Roads & Transportation Agency, made the announcement about the drone being ready in July at the World Government Summit on Monday.
The drone, which has a half-hour flight time, will be monitored remotely by a control room on the ground.
There's no option to take control of the 184 remotely. The cockpit is empty, apart from a stand to place a smartphone or tablet and a cup holder.
'I think in all of us there is that little kid in all of us that says I want to fly,' said Yan. 'I dont want to get a pilot license after five or 10 hours of flying, I want to do it right away. Were making that dream happen.'
'Everything is calculated in the backend to pick the most optimal route for you, so there is no collision with the other drones flying,' said Yan.
'On the drone itself we have built pretty sophisticated back up services so if another system fails then another will take over.'
In the event of an emergency, passengers can also elect to halt flight and simply hover in the air.
The EHang 184, which was named for one passenger, eight propellers, and four arms. When it's not in use, it can be folded up so that it can be stored away more easily.
EHang said the vehicle is primarily designed for traveling short-to-medium distances around 10 miles and will fly at around 60 miles per hour.
'I think in all of us there is that little kid in all of us that says I want to fly,' said founder George Yan. 'I dont want to get a pilot license after five or 10 hours of flying, I want to do it right away. Were making that dream happen'
EHang claims to be building the world's first 'Autonomous Aerial Vehicle' for transporting people. 'You know how it feels to sit in a Ferrari? This is 10 times better,' said George Yan, co-founder of Ehang in an interview with DailyMail.com
EHang said the vehicle is primarily designed for traveling short-to-medium distances around 10 miles and will fly at 60 miles per hour
It takes off and lands vertically, subsequently eliminating the need for runways.
'Mass-adoption of the 184 has the potential to streamline congested traffic and dramatically reduce the kinds of accidents associated with any human-operated vehicle,' the firm claims.
'It's been a lifetime goal of mine to make flight faster, easier and more convenient than ever. The 184 provides a viable solution to the many challenges the transportation industry faces in a safe and energy efficient way,' said EHang CEO Huazhi Hu.
'I truly believe that EHang will make a global impact across dozens of industries beyond personal travel.
'The 184 is evocative of a future we've always dreamed of and is primed to alter the very fundamentals of the way we get around.'
As well as having to work in the confines of UAV laws, there is also the issue of trust. Would anyone ever trust a drone to fly them to a destination?
'If you roll the timeline back to 100 years you will see that when we went from horse and carriage to vehicles people had the same concerns of whether you could trust it to take you from A to B,' said Yan.
'If you look out the cars out there and unmanned vehicles, you can understand that we can make these technology breakthrough.
You just have to start somewhere.'
THE DRONE TAXI: WHAT FLYING IN THE 184 WIL BE LIKE The fully ready-to-fly 184 is a manned drone capable of automatically carrying a passenger through the air, simply by entering a destination into its accompanying smartphone app. The 184 uses multiple independent flight control systems to automatically navigate passengers from point A to point B. These systems combine real-time data collected from sensors throughout the flight and automatically plot the fastest and safest route to carry passengers to their destinations. The EHang 184 has built in reinforcements for all flight systems, so that in the unlikely event that a component does fail, multiple backups are already in place to seamlessly take over. The fully ready-to-fly 184 is a manned drone capable of automatically carrying a passenger through the air, simply by entering a destination into its accompanying smartphone app The 184 uses multiple independent flight control systems to automatically navigate passengers from point A to point B. EHangs independently developed Fail-Safe System ensures that if any components malfunction, or if theres damage while the AAV is in-flight (i.e. from a bird), the aircraft will immediately begin taking the necessary precautions to ensure safety. The 184s Fail-Safe System automatically evaluates the damage and determines whether the AAV will need to land to ensure its passengers safety. The EHang 184 AAV flight control systems have multiple sets of sensors that provide the drone a constant stream of real-time data. The 184s communication system was also designed with a safety guarantee: every system is encrypted, and each AAV comes with an independent key. In the event of an emergency, passengers can elect to halt flight and simply hover in the air with just one click. 'The fully ready-to-fly 184 is a manned drone capable of automatically carrying a passenger through the air, simply by entering a destination into its accompanying smartphone app,' the firm says Advertisement
EHang will also have a command center that employs people to make sure everything is safe sort of like an air traffic controller at an airport.
The command center will monitor every 184 in the air 24/7 and the company plans integrate with existing air traffic controller operations.
The command center would, for example, make sure that a 184 doesn't take off in extreme weather conditions.
EHang did not respond to a request for comment. In May, authorities in Nevada announced they would partner with EHang to test the 184.
No official launch date has been set, but the company said commercialization will begin in a few months. EHang will first launch in the China and set up a command center there, where it will employ around 300 people, but the US isn't far behind
The EHang 184, was named for one passenger, eight propellers, and four arms. When not in use, it can be folded up (right)
Kylie Minogue's close friend and occasional makeup artist has weighed in on her recent split from aspiring actor Joshua Sasse.
Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia, BAFTA-nominated makeup and hair artist Shane Thomas explained that he and Joshua had crossed paths at the ARIA Awards last November.
Shane, who did Kylie's makeup for the high-profile event, said of Joshua: 'I only met him once and he seemed like a really really lovely guy. You know? But obviously not. Because I'm on her side.'
'I'm on her side': Kylie Minogue's close friend and occasional makeup artist has weighed in on her recent split from aspiring actor Joshua Sasse
'I think anyone that can cheat on such a gorgeous girl like that deserves to be dumped,' he added.
It comes says after the pop princess confirmed the sad news of her split from her much-younger actor beau last Friday.
According to The Sun, Kylie is rumoured to have thrown Joshua out of her home after he grew too close to Spanish actress Marta Milans, 34.
Brief encounter: Shane Thomas (pictured) explained that he and Joshua had crossed paths at the ARIA Awards last November
Team Kylie: Shane, who did Kylie's makeup for the high-profile event said: 'I think anyone that can cheat on such a gorgeous girl like that deserves to be dumped'
Split: According to The Sun , Kylie is rumoured to have thrown Joshua out of her home after he grew too close to Spanish actress Marta Milans, 34
However, the songstress is yet to reveal the reason for the split.
Following the breakup, sources close to Kylie revealed to Daily Mail Australia that their long standing 'suspicions' of the bearded actor, and had reportedly long branded him an 'untrustworthy opportunist.'
During last year's ARIA Awards, Kylie, 48, and Joshua, 29, took the stage to give an empowered speech about marriage equality.
Representing the cause: Meanwhile, Shane Thomas has told Daily Mail Australia of his on efforts in promoting the need for marriage equality Down Under, having agreed to don a campaign T-shirt on the BAFTAs red carpet this month
Suspicious: Following the split, sources close to Kylie revealed to Daily Mail Australia that their long standing 'suspicions' of the bearded actor
Throwing their support behind the cause, the pair told the audience that they refused to get married until marriage equality was adopted in Australia.
Meanwhile, Shane Thomas has told Daily Mail Australia of his on efforts in promoting the need for marriage equality Down Under, having agreed to don a campaign T-shirt on the BAFTAs red carpet this month.
'My partner and I are getting married in London while we're there. Then Australian Marriage Equality said: 'Would you wear a T-shirt on the red carpet?''
Speaking out: During last year's ARIA Awards, Kylie, 48, and Joshua, 29, took the stage to give an empowered speech about marriage equality
'And I was like: 'Absolutely for a good cause that would be fantastic', he explains.
'The BAFTA nomination made us decide that we'd get married in London and because we can and that's why it's really upsetting that not everyone gets a BAFTA nomination and fly to London,' he said.
'Why can't the government sort themselves out and let us get married here?'
Shane was up for a BAFTA for best makeup and hair for his work on the Mel Gibson- directed film Hacksaw Ridge, but lost out to Florence Foster Jenkins' team J. Roy Helland and Daniel Phillips.
Shane has also recently worked on films such as The King's Daughter, The Dressmaker and Unbroken.
They the night away on Saturday at London's exclusive Annabel's as they celebrated the 70th British Academy Film Awards.
And Eddie Redmayne and his wife Hannah made a handsome couple as they stepped out for the main event at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday night.
Hannah looked elegant in a floor-length floral gown as she walked the star-studded red carpet with her husband, who cut a dapper figure in a white tuxedo jacket with black trousers.
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Red carpet: Eddie Redmayne and his wife Hannah attended the 70th British Academy Film Awards at London's Royal Albert Hall on Sunday night
Hannah highlighted her curves in the colourful dress, which featured glittering accents along the torso and waist, while the bottom of her sleeves were sheer.
Her brunette locks were swept to one side in a loose plait, while she let her natural beauty shine through by keeping her makeup minimal.
Holding a black clutch with gold accents, she smiled broadly as she stood beside her husband, who looked every inch the Hollywood star in his ensemble of choice.
Floral delight: Hannah looked sensational in a floor-length floral dress with glittering accents
The look of love: The couple looked at each other adoringly as they posed for snapshots
It's been quite a year for Eddie, who welcomed his first child, daughter Iris Mary, into the world in June.
And his stellar 2016 was capped off when he collected an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in recognition of services to drama.
The Eton-educated star admitted that while being a parent was 'wonderful', he was feeling a little sleep deprived on his big day because of little Iris.
Dapper gent: Screen star Eddie looked dapper in a white tux jacket teamed with black trousers
Plait's the way to do it! Hannah's brown locks were swept to one side in a loose plait
'She does have the habit of knowing when you have a big day, like today', he sighed. 'And she was up until four in the morning, so both my wife and I came today with matchsticks under our eyes. Other than that she is on cracking form.'
Of his latest honour, he said: 'It was absolutely wonderful.
'Also being with such extraordinary people the whole experience is incredibly humbling and also getting to be in Windsor Castle is breathtaking, around Christmas as well with all the decorations.'
Enduring love: Eddie and Hannah have been an item since 2012 after previously being friends during their school days
Proud parents: The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Iris Mary, into the world in June
Star-studded: They were among a sea of famous faces posing on the expansive red carpet
Sign of the times: Eddie stopped to sign autographs for a gathering of excited fans
Pressed on what the Queen had said to him, the Danish Girl star said: 'She was asking me whether I prefer film or theatre, and asked me if I enjoyed it.
'Im very lucky to do something I am passionate about - Im very grateful to do something I love because it is a rare thing.'
Eddie and Hannah have been an item since 2012 after previously being friends during their school days.
Strike a pose: Eddie posed up a storm as he made his way backstage during the show
Jovial: The screen star appeared to be in decidedly jovial spirits on the glamorous night
Winner! He took to the stage to present the leading actress trophy, which went to Emma Stone
Let's celebrate! The screen stars hugged as Eddie handed the La La Land star her trophy
This year's BAFTAs, hosted by Stephen Fry, was broadcast on BBC One and saw Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's flick La La Land win five of its 11 nominations, including one for the leading lady.
Winners are chosen by BAFTA's 6,500 members, except for the EE Rising Star Award, which is voted for by the public.
The nominations list was a triumph for BBC Films, whose projects received 10 nominations overall.
I, Daniel Blake received five nominations, Florence Foster Jenkins received four and Denial received one.
Pals: The couple were joined by Tom Hiddleston as they hung out backstage during the show
Onto the next one: The lovebirds later made their way to Grosvenor House for the after-party
They've faced endless rumours in recent weeks that their relationship is on the rocks.
And it seems Lee Elliott, 35, may already be looking at what other fish are in the sea should he split from Georgia Love, 28.
Woman's Day claims Lee, who fell in love with Georgia on the Bachelorette last year, has reportedly been 'secretly sending flirty texts' to as many as three former girlfriends in recent weeks.
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Trouble? Lee Elliott, the boyfriend of Bachelorette Georgia Love, has reportedly been 'secretly sending flirty texts' to former girlfriends recently following reports the couple have split
Reportedly speaking to a source close to the couple, the magazine claims Lee has been philosophical in messages to his former flames.
'I've done a lot of soul-searching and had plenty of time to think and talk life and love on TV over the past months,' he is alleged to have said in one text.
'I just wondered if you ever thought that perhaps our journey hadn't really yet run its course?'
Real love? The magazine claims Lee, 35, has been messaging up to three former flames as well as liking their photos on Instagram as the couple's relationship goes 'from bad to worse'
A plumber by trade, Lee made a name for himself when he was spectacularly chosen by Georgia ahead of Matthew 'Matty J' Johnson in the Bachelorette finale.
But just months on, a Woman's Day source claims Lee is keen for the couple to make their break-up public and is even using social media to flirt with other women.
'He's texting three that I know of, and liking their Instagram photos,' the source said.
'It seems he's getting itchy feet.'
Party couple: On Sunday, both Georgia (right) and Lee (left) attended the St Kilda Festival in Melbourne with former Australian Idol singer Rob Mills (far left)
'It seems he's getting itchy feet': A source told the magazine Lee is keeping his options open
Black beauty: Despite the rumours Georgia was all smiles as she stunned in a black jumpsuit
Over recent weeks the couple have done their best to dispel the talk and prove that their reality TV love is in fact real.
Daily Mail Australia understands that the couple's management suggested they post more photos to their social media accounts as a sign of unity.
Last week Georgia took to Instagram and shared a photo of herself and Lee cuddling on the couch in matching 'big spoon, little spoon' pyjamas.
Earlier in the week she hit out at rumours of a break up caused by a public spat.
Fake news: Georgia and Lee have hit out at rumours of a break up on multiple occasions in recent weeks
Rumours: The couple continue to do their best to dispel the talk and prove their reality TV love is in fact 'real', speaking out to media and also sharing loved-up photos to social media
Old flames: 'He's texting three that I know of, and liking their Instagram photos,' a source claimed of Lee's recent actions
'We are very much still together and just because we dont post a photo together one day doesnt mean anything,' she told the Daily Telegraph.
'We are both completely normal people and dont live our lives on social media. (Speculation) was ridiculous.'
It came after Woman's Day quoted a source claiming Georgia and Lee had a 'blazing row' at a recent dinner.
Georgia reportedly became so agitated that she apparently stormed off mid-meal.
Denial: 'We are very much still together and just because we dont post a photo together one day doesnt mean anything,' Georgia told the Daily Telegraph last week
Cringeworthy: Last week Georgia shared a photo of herself and Lee cuddling on the couch in matching 'big spoon, little spoon' pyjamas
Adding fuel to rumours their fairy tale romance was in trouble was Lee's decision to delete any mention of his girlfriend from his Instagram bio.
Attempting to put out the flames, Lee explained his decision to OK! Magazine last week and reassured readers the pair were still going strong.
'Georgia's name was indeed on my bio, but although she is a woman I love with all my heart, respect beyond belief and admire to no end, she doesn't define me,' the mechanical plumber said.
Trouble in paradise? It comes after Woman's Day quoted a source revealing Georgia and Lee had a 'blazing row' at a dinner
Now you see it: According to a cached version of Lee's Instagram account found on an Instagram mirror site, Lee's bio used to include Georgia's Instagram handle next to a love-heart
Now you don't! Georgia's name no-longer appears in Lee's Instagram bio
Lee added: 'So it was a mutual decision to just remove it.'
Insisting the move was not an indicator of relationship woes, the hunk said: 'If you listen to anyone who is close to us, they will tell you what is gospel - we can't get enough of each other!'
Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Lee and Georgia for comment.
He's the Gold Logie winner who is newly single in the wake of his marriage split from wife of 21-years, Cassandra Thorburn.
Now there are claims Karl Stefanovic has found love, with the TV host reportedly dating Brisbane-born model and designer, Jasmine Yarbrough.
According to Woman's Day magazine, the pair have been seeing each other since before Christmas, after meeting at a boat party in Sydney in December.
New lady? There are claims Karl Stefanovic has found love with Brisbane-born model and designer Jasmine Yarbrough
New love? Model and shoe designer Jasmine is reportedly 'smitten' with the TV host
And now, the duo are preparing to 'go public' according to one of Karl's friends, who has told the publication: 'Karl and Jasmine don't want to hide because they aren't ashamed of being together'.
The 33-year-old blonde beauty is said to have been invited by the TV star to his brother Peter Stefanovic's April wedding to co-star Sylvia Jeffreys, giving her a chance to meet the family.
It's also alleged Karl may introduce Jasmine to his three children - Jackson, 17, Ava, 11, and River, 10 - when she visits in April, which is also when they will step out together for their first public appearance at the Logie Awards that month.
Happy holidays! It's believed the pair have been seeing each other since before Christmas
Fun on the sea: It's reported the pair met at a boat party in Sydney in December (Karl pictured at a separate boat party with friends in January 2015)
Catch-up: It's understood the 42-year-old visited the LA-based shoe designer (centre) while in the US on his two-month holiday across December and January
'They're hoping that once they declare they're a couple, public interest will die down,' the friend claims.
The designer counts Australian models Ashley Hart and Montana Cox among her friends over in the States.
It's understood the 42-year-old visited the LA-based shoe designer while in the US on his two-month holiday across December and January.
Wedding date: The 33-year-old blonde beauty is said to have been invited by the TV star to his brother Peter Stefanovic's (left) April wedding to co-star Sylvia Jeffreys (right), giving her a chance to meet the family
Logies date? It's understood while Jasmine (left) is in town in April, she and Karl will make their first public appearance together on the Logies red carpet (Pictured with business partner Tamie Ingham, left)
The magazine claims the pair travelled separately to restaurants.
Representatives from the Nine Network declined Daily Mail Australia's request for comment. Jasmine has also been contacted for comment.
While it's claimed the shoe designer is 'smitten' with the TV star who 'texts Jasmine to reassure her of his feelings', Karl may have to have a bit of a makeover to impress her.
Moving on? The Gold Logie winner is newly single in the wake of his marriage split from wife of 21-years, Cassandra Thorburn (right)
In an interview with Pret-a-Reporter, the fashionista noted: 'I love to see men wearing black or navy velvet smoking slippers when they are in a suit. It adds a bit of Euro spunk to their outfit.'
Recently Karl was slammed by his friend, radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands, for sporting Birkenstock sandals.
Speaking on Wednesday morning's KIIS FM show, the shock jock claimed: 'He begs to hang out with me, it's almost embarrassing', before detailing his last text to Karl was a mix of fashion advice and getting back in the sack.
'He was wearing those ugly sandals and getting around town in those Birkenstocks,' Kyle explained to his co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson to give context to his message.
Giving out fashion advice: Kyle told co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson (right) he told Karl to loose the Birkenstock sandals if he wanted to get lucky with a girl
'I wrote: "Yo Bro, you ain't gonna get laid wearing those lesbian chef shoes, lose those asap".
Apparently, the TV host's reply was: 'I'm trying to keep a low profile.'
'He came up with the lamest excuse ever for wearing the ugliest shoes on earth,' Kyle retorted.
Mariah Carey spent Grammy Sunday demonstrating her ability to toss the bowling ball down her very own personal alley at home.
But the five-time Grammy winner - who turns 47 next month - enjoys her sport in a clingy mini-skirt and sky-high silver heels.
The Mariah's World star - who boasts 43.3M followers - did not manage to get a strike in the Twitter video, but she was certainly enthusiastic.
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Elusive chanteuse: Mariah Carey spent Grammy Sunday demonstrating her ability to toss the bowling ball down her very own personal alley at home
After disastrous NYE concert: But the five-time Grammy winner - who turns 47 next month - enjoys her sport in a clingy mini-skirt and sky-high silver heels
Oh well: The Mariah's World star - who boasts 43.3M followers - did not manage to get a strike in the Twitter video, but she was certainly enthusiastic
The I Don't songstress was not pictured with her latest squeeze - back-up dancer-turned-toyboy Bryan Tanaka, 33.
Carey's fraternal twins Moroccan and Monroe, 5, with ex-husband Nick Cannon are 'excited' to meet their future half-brother from his fling with Miss Guam 2014, Brittany Bell.
On Friday, the expecting 29-year-old wrote of her babydaddy: 'I love the both of them beyond words. So many reasons to be joyful!! But last night was one of my favorite. Our little light was showered with love.. and lots of dancing.'
The LEGO Batman Movie actress will next use her five-octave pipes to open for the Lionel Richie: All the Hits Tour beginning March 15 at Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore.
Knocking down pins: The I Don't songstress was not pictured with her latest squeeze - back-up dancer-turned-toyboy Bryan Tanaka, 33
Pictured February 4: Carey's fraternal twins Moroccan and Monroe, 5, with ex-husband Nick Cannon are 'excited' to meet their future half-brother from his fling with Brittany Bell
Her husband is the best friend and business partner of George Clooney.
And now, Cindy Crawford has opened up about the news that George and wife Amal are pregnant with twins.
The 50-year-old supermodel, who has been in Australia for work with watch brand Omega, stated, 'My only advice is enjoy it!'
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Tight lipped: Cindy Crawford was initially tight-lipped about Amal and George Clooney's pregnancy news, before she found out it had been confirmed, reportedly stating, 'I had to keep that in for months!'
The star was initially keeping tight-lipped, until she learned the pregnancy news had actually been confirmed. In an interview with the Today Show, Lisa Wilkinson asked the brunette beauty about the pregnancy, to which she replied: ' I read that[they were expecting] as well, but that's all I can say...'
However, Lisa later revealed that after the cameras stopped rolling, Cindy seemed relieved when she realised the news had officially been confirmed.
'She said 'Oh, so it's actually been confirmed. Thank heavens! I had to keep that in for months'', Lisa claimed.
Power couples: Cindy and husband Rande (far left) were front and centre during Amal and George's lavish wedding celebrations in 2014
In a later interview with Today Extra, Cindy was asked by Sonia Kruger if she had any parenting advice for the pair.
Stunning Cindy replied, 'My mother's best advice to us was don't give advice unless someone asks for it. I would never volunteer advice. If someone asks me I would tell them, but I'm not the person just like,'Oh, here's what you should do''.
Old friends: Cindy and Rande pictured with George in 2011
She then added, 'I guess, my only advice would be enjoy it! Because, as you know, because you have a little one, it goes like that!'
50-year-old Cindy is mum to seventeen-year-old son Presley and fifteen-year-old daughter Kaia, with husband Rande Gerber.
Photobomb! Cindy and Rande frequently spend time with George and Amal, and the couples have neighbouring holiday homes in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Rande is close friends with George, and the pair were seen out for dinner in West Hollywood on Friday seemingly celebrating the actor's baby news, as Cindy continued her work commitments Down Under.
Rande and George are business partners in tequila label Casamigos, which they launched to the public in 2013.
The friends came up with the idea whilst building their side-by-side vacation houses in Cabos San Lucas, Mexico.
Tequila tycoons: George and Rande are not only best friends, but also business partners who launched their tequila label, Casamigos, to the public in 2013
And Rande and Cindy were front and centre during George and Amal's lavish wedding celebrations in Venice in 2014.
When asked about George finally settling down with the Lebanese-born human rights lawyer, Cindy said, 'He has done very well. Amal is amazing.'
He presented the coveted Grammy Awards in LA on Sunday night.
And proud wife Julia Carey showed her support for husband of five years James Corden as they arrived on the red carpet at LA's STAPLES Center.
The TV producer held a clutch bag emblazoned with The Late Late Show presenter's name as they posed for pictures.
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Proud wife: Julia Carey showed her support for husband of five years James Corden as they arrived on the red carpet at the STAPLES Center
Embellished with the letters Corden in diamonte crystals, the pale pink clutch showed her dedication to James.
And she colour coordinated the bag with a sequin-encrusted knee-length dress, making the most of her toned curves.
Accessorising with matching drop earrings and delicate sandals, she posed happily with her husband.
Repping! The TV producer held a clutch bag emblazoned with The Late Late Show presenter's name as they posed for pictures
James continued the colour theme with a salmon coloured blazer, crisp white shirt and bow tie.
Talking about landing his presenting gig to The Sun, he recently said: 'The strange thing about the Grammys is it's not really a traditional hosting gig like the Oscars, Emmys, and Tonys are.
'It's in the Staples Centre, in this big arena, and there are these unbelievable music performances.
Loyal: Embellished with the letters Corden in diamonte crystals, the pale pink clutch showed her dedication to James
'So what's the job of the host, really? It's essentially to usher the evening for the audience at home. If there wasn't an audience at home, this could all very easily happen without a host.
'The truth is I'm only really in the show for something like 18 minutes. The show's three and a half hours long, but when you take out commercials, the music performances, and the actual presenting of the awards, you're only left with like 18 minutes.'
British James and Julia are parents to son Max, 5, and two-year-old daughter Carey.
Matching: James continued the colour theme with a salmon coloured blazer, crisp white shirt and bow tie
Having found fame in the UK after starring in Fat Friends and Gavin and Stacey, James and his family relocated to the States in 2014 after he landed the hosting job on the Late Late Show.
Since taking over from famous front-man Craig Ferguson, the comedian has found huge success and worldwide fame with the role - with the show going on to win an Emmy in 2016.
Talking on ITV's Lorraine last year, James admitted he owes his success all to his wife - who agreed to make the move state-side at a chaotic time.
He said: 'All credit to my wife, who agreed to move when our daughter was five weeks old and our son was three.
All that glitters! She colour coordinated the bag with a sequin-encrusted knee-length dress, making the most of her toned curves
Posing with Don Cheadle: James mingled with the A List talent
Helping hand: James gave sizzling Jennifer Lopez a hand as she dazzled in a plunging purple gown with a thigh-high split
Ouch: He had a hard time performing before kicking out the backing dancers and rapping
'It was a massive undertaking. I work so hard in the week and then at the weekend, you click your fingers and it's like you are in the South Of France.
He then added in his usual witty style: 'Luckily it's our life for the foreseeable future or until I get sacked!'
James took to the stage to host the star-studded bash which saw British belter Adele take home five awards, including Album of the year.
While pop diva Beyonce came away with two awards for Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video for Formation.
All hail the queen! The singer looked pleased as punch by the reaction of the crowd
Touching: Earlier in the night the 28-year-old participated in a tribute to George Michael as she performed 1996 Fast Love
Purple reign: Bruno Mars performed an incredible tribute to Price as he did Let's Go Crazy
Meanwhile, Chance the Rapper made Grammy history as the first unsigned artist to take home two awards.
Although attracting music's biggest stars, nominees Kanye West, Justin Bieber and two-time award winner on the night Drake, all gave the bash a miss.
In a live show as much about spectacle as trophies, Beyonce's appearance on the Grammy stage was the highlight of the ceremony.
Other performers at the three hour show included Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Adele, Demi Lovato, best new artist winner Chance the Rapper, A Tribe Called Quest, Carrie Underwood, Alicia Keys and Sturgill Simpson.
Dynamic duo: Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban performed their new song The Fighter
Star Boy: The Weeknd performed his hit I Feel It Coming
Legends: A Tribe Called Quest were joined by Busta Rhymes and others as they performed a classic, a new track and even made a powerful political statement
Hardwired: Lady Gaga joined Metallica for a performance of Moth Into Flame
Laverne Cox made sure to give a shout out to Gavin Grimm and her 'gender non-binary' friends when on stage at the Grammy Awards on Sunday evening.
But the Orange Is The New Black star forgot what she was asked to do by Grammy producers: give a proper introduction to legendary metal group Metallica.
Though she failed to name the headbanging band, Cox hand no memory loss when it came to naming their guest singer Lady Gaga, who rocked out with the group to Moth Into Flame. Fans of Metallica took to Twitter to slam the TV star.
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Commando: Laverne Cox forgot to name Metallica in their intro at the Grammys on Sunday and she was forced to say sorry
She favors the one on the left: Though she failed to name the headbanging band, Cox hand no memory loss when it came to naming their guest singer Lady Gaga, who rocked out with the group. Fans of Metallica took to Twitter to slam the TV star
Tweeters called the 32-year-old actress 'disrespectful' and 'not professional.' Some took her to task for pushing her agenda.
In her speech she said: 'Ladies and gentleman, all my gender non-binary people watching tonight, eight-time Grammy award winners and six-time Grammy winner, Lady Gaga,' she said. Before that she called on viewers to 'Google Gavin Grimm,' the Virginia transgender student involved in the landmark case deciding which bathrooms trans students will be allowed to use.
It only made it worse that the microphone for the bands lead singer James Hetfield did not work, while Gaga's did, forcing him to share hers.
Another gaffe: It only made it worse that the microphone for the bands lead singer James Hetfield did not work, while Gaga's did, forcing him to share hers
Cox soon after wrote: 'I am so sorry to #Metallica and all their fans. I am told I didnt say their names during the intro. Love you Metallica. You rock.'
Cox wore a very tight dress with jeweled links running the length of both sides.
There wasn't an underwear strap to be seen top or bottom, and the star confirmed that was the case.
'This is all Laverne. This is skin, this is not mesh,' she assured viewers. 'I feel really good. You wanna feel awesome, and I do.'
On display: The 32-year-old flaunted her flawless figure though the Liz Hurley-esque piece, held together with jeweled links running the length of both sides
There was no question who the Alabama native was most excited about seeing, as she gushed at the potential of a Beyonce encounter.
'I was thinking about the very idea of possibly meeting Queen B tonight in my living room and I just started crying uncontrollably,' she gasped. 'For 20 years it's been like Beyonce.'
And her dreams came true when she came face to face with Bey right after the show concluded.
In the lead up to the awards, Laverne got a shout out from model Martina Robledo, who will become the first transgender person to hand out the trophies, a job that to date has been all female.
Excited: There was no question who the Alabama native was most excited about seeing, as she gushed at the potential of a Beyonce encounter
Fan: And her dreams came true when she came face to face with Bey right after the show concluded
Robledo, who is from San Diego, said she was honored to join Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, and other transgender people in the more-inclusive media spotlight. But she expects viewer reaction to her presence will be mixed.
'I know it's going to make some people uncomfortable and make others weep for joy,' she said. 'I'm just going to step out there and strut and make sure I deliver my best, because there's people out there looking up to me.'
That may include transgender boys and girls or other minorities, she said, calling them 'the people I want to speak for ... to let them know that there is a better world out there for us.'
Hand outs: In the lead up to the awards, Laverne got a shout out from model Martina Robledo (L), who will become the first transgender person to hand out the trophies, a job that to date has been all female (pictured with fellow presenters Derek Marrocco and Hollin Haley (right)
It is one of the showbiz calendar's most glamorous parties.
So naturally The Weinstein Company 2017 BAFTA After Party was scattered with talent, as FKA Twigs and Naomi Campbell joined the festivities late having missed Sunday night's ceremony yet headed to the after bash.
The 29-year-old songstress went for a typically kooky look as she rocked a chic nude two-piece, while the veteran supermodel, 46, flashed her lingerie from beneath a racy sheer skirt.
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All the greats! Naturally The Weinstein Company 2017 BAFTA After Party was scattered with talent, as FKA Twigs and Naomi Campbell joined the festivities late having missed Sunday night's ceremony yet headed to the bash
FKA, real name Tahliah Debrett Barnett, looked incredible as she swept into the party hours after the ceremony, which was held at London's Royal Albert Hall.
As ever she opted for a super quirky ensemble, this time in a muted nude number complete with flared trousers and a Bardot style top.
While the ensemble could have been innocuous at first glance, the details on the getup made for an extremely quirky look as there was added ruffles, with an attached pouch at the hip which added volume to her slender figure.
She kept her make-up minimal and in-keeping with her trademark doe-eyed appearance, while her hair was worn in loose lengths falling down her back.
Hello Miss Campbell! The 29-year-old songstress went for a typically kooky look as she rocked a chic nude two-piece, while the veteran supermodel, 46, flashed her lingerie from beneath a racy sheer skirt
All smiles! Naomi and Amy grabbed a moment to pose with Viola Davis, the winner of Best Supporting Actress, and her husband Julius Tennon
FKA was truly rubbing shoulders with the stars as she was joined by veteran supermodel Naomi, who looked typically flawless in a sexy ensemble.
The black knitted dress boasted a poloneck with a sleeveless detail, while the bottom was totally sheer in what formed a racy addition.
She wore sexy boots beneath her sheer skirt, making for a saucy edge yet also with a winter touch - flawlessly rounding out her ensemble.
Dazzling: Viola was riding high on her victory as she posed with her husband at the Ben Sherman sponsored event
The A-list! Amy was undoubtedly enjoying chatting to the prize winner
Hi there! Looking sensational once again was Amy Adams, who dazzled in the green dress she paraded along the red carpet earlier in the evening - with her flawless look rolling into the late stages of the evening (pictured with Stephen Fry and Harvey Weinstein)
She wore her hair in flowing tresses falling from a centre parting, while also opting for a smudged smokey eye to frame her ageless complexion.
While the stunning duo acted as latecomers, the rest of the party was peppered with faces from earlier in the evening, with both losers and victors drowning their sorrows and celebrating respectively.
Looking sensational once again was Amy Adams, who dazzled in the green dress she paraded along the red carpet - with her flawless look rolling into the late stages of the night.
The pillar gown looked phenomenal on the star, whose flame red tresses stood out starkly against her alabaster skin.
Smart! The evening's host, Stephen Fry, looked typically dapper as he celebrated a job well done with his peers, looking suave as he went
He's a winner! Dev Patel walked away with the Best Actor In A Supporting Role gong for his part in Lion, opposite Nicole Kidman
She certainly fitted in with the superstar ethos of the evening as she wore dazzling diamond earrings complete with an emerald at the heart of the jewellery.
The evening's host, Stephen Fry, looked typically dapper as he celebrated a job well done with his peers, looking suave as he went.
Director Harvey was the man of the hour as he posed, looking sharp in a dapper suit as he rallied around various peers and pals.
Naomi and Amy grabbed a moment to pose with Viola Davis, the winner of Best Supporting Actress, and her husband Julius Tennon.
The boys: Casey Affleck posed alongside his Manchester By The Sea co-star Kenneth Lonergan
Pals and co-stars: Dev posed with fellow Lion star Divian Ladwa
Haha! Harvey looked overjoyed to pose alongside Mel Brooks
Sporty: Football ace Robert Pires posed with his wife Jessica Lemarie
Earlier in the evening it was La La Land which swept the board after it was nominated for a maximum of 11 prize before leading the way with five BAFTA wins.
Following her Golden Globe and SAGs wins, Emma Stone took Best Actress at the 70th annual EE British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
The film also took the top prizes of the night including Best Film, Best Director, Original Music and Cinematography.
Early night? Naomi looked picture perfect as she made her way home at the end of the event
Snug: Naomi kept out the cold wearing a fur shrug as she headed out into the courtyard
How does she do it? She showed off her effortless beauty as she headed to a waiting taxi
A team bonding camping trip quickly descended into chaos on The Real Housewives Of Atlanta on Sunday when trash talking and rows erupted in the wilderness.
While Kenya Moore and Marlo Hampton screamed insults at one another across a campfire, Kandi Burruss was forced to deny she was a lesbian during an evening meal.
'I'm very much still married and happy with my man,' Kandi said.
Hot seat: Kandi Burruss was flat-out asked if she was a lesbian during Sunday's episode of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta
'As far as women's situation, if you really want to know, yes I have tried it, yes I have. But believe me, I'm not the only one at this table who has,' Kandi revealed.
Marlo was quick to ask Porsha Williams, who admitted she had questioned Kandi's sexuality, whether she had ever been with a woman.
'That's my own personal business,' Porsha said.
Kandi retorted: 'I have never done anything more than what she has done.'
Endured insults: Kenya Moore was insulted by Marlo Hampton who mocked Kenya for her estranged relationship with her mother
Personal business: Porsha also was asked by Marlo if she had been with women and she declined to answer
'You don't know anything about what I have done,' Porsha replied.
The episode saw the Housewives go on a camping trip at the Historic Banning Mills RV Park in Whitesburg, Georgia.
While Sheree Whitfield and Cynthia Bailey were less than enthusiastic about slumming it, Phaedra Parks was more optimistic about the experience.
Historic park: The ladies headed out to the Historic Banning Mills RV Park in Georgia
Trip organizer: Phaedra Parks organized the camping trip with the ladies
'The campsite is only a stone's throw away from the campus. I think one night out of our comfort zone might just be the prescription the doctor ordered,' she said.
'I've been camping a few times, so I've pitched a couple of tents, but I'd love to see if these girls could pitch a tent that you actually sleep in, not on top of,' Phaedra quipped.
After checking into the RV park, Sheree and Marlo immediately began gossiping about the rest of the group.
Sheree told her friend: 'I don't want to say any names, but some of the girls said one of the other girls dipped in the lady pond.'
Gossip time: Sheree Whitfield gossiped to Marlo about the lesbian rumors floating around
'Kandi? I've heard that about Kandi before,' Marlo nodded.
'This trip is supposed to be about bonding, but we can't go to the next level unless we put it all on the table,' Sheree said.
After taking more than two hours to pitch their tents and set up camp, an explosive row broke out between Marlo and Kenya as the group sat around the campfire.
Camping gear: Cynthia Bailey was stylish while roughing it
Around the campfire: The ladies gathered around a picturesque campfire
Marlo explained that she was offended she had not been invited to Kenya's parties and denied that she had received multiple apologies from her former friend.
'You're so miserable, them earrings are a disaster, your lashes are a damn disaster, you need a dermatologist. You can't keep a broke man,' Marlo screamed.
She then taunted Kenya by bringing up her estranged mother and blaming Kenya for driving her away.
' You want my lifestyle?' Marlo asked Kenya.
Laughed it off: Kenya laughed off insults from Marlo before dishing her own jibes
' I don't want your lifestyle, nobody wants to be a prostitute,' Kenya snapped.
Porsha laughed to the camera: 'I did not need s'mores and hot dogs, I needed some popcorn baby.'
Phaedra added: 'This Kumbaya moment just turned into Kanye West meets Taylor Swift.'
Campfire theater: Porsha joked that she wanted popcorn watching Marlo and Kenya go at it
At breakfast the following morning, the mood was more peaceful and Cynthia opened up to the group about her marriage breakdown.
'I have a little bit of an update on my divorce. It's actually going to wrap up probably pretty soon,' she said.
'I will be single. It's weird because he's opted not to be at the settlement signing. For me, that was going to be my big closure, goodbye moment.'
Divorce update: Cynthia gave her friends an update on her pending divorce
Fighting back tears she added: 'I started crying because this is it.'
When the other Housewives comforted Cynthia and told her she would find a new man, she said: 'I don't think I'm going to get married again.'
After a day full of activities including free-falling and kayaking which saw Sheree freaking out about getting covered in river water the group sat down to dinner.
Group activities: The ladies gathered for a free-falling exercise and kayaking together
Up there: Porsha was scared of heights but did the free-fall challenge anyway
That's gross: Sheree was grossed out by the water in her boat and bailed out early
Kenya and Marlo apologized to one another, but the peaceful atmosphere did not last long as Marlo declared there was 'still fakeness at this table'.
'I've just been hearing things,' she explained. 'I want to know, Kandi are you a lesbian? Someone at this table has been saying she's a lesbian in the closet.'
A confused Kandi told the cameras: 'I am not a lesbian. I truly love my husband and I really, truly love his d***, okay?'
Hearing things: Marlo said she had been hearing things and asked Kandi if she was a lesbian
Strong denial: Kandi strongly denied being a lesbian and said she was happily married
Sheree, who scolded Marlo for bringing the subject up, quickly told the group it was Porsha who had been speculating about Kandi's sexuality.
Porsha awkwardly told the group: 'I don't remember exactly what we were talking about. I'm trying to figure out why I would say she was coming out of the closet.
'What I said in my shady moment was brought to the table just now, but at the same time all y'all talk about each other behind your backs,' Porsha said.
Tables turned: Sheree turned the table on Porsha who started the rumor about Kandi
Shady moment: Porsha claimed she couldn't remember the conversation about Kandi
Loving it: Kenya took great joy out of seeing her nemesis Porsha being grilled
'Yes I said that. She said something to me, I made my little comment, it was what it was,' she admitted.
The Real Housewives Of Atlanta continues next week.
A preview of upcoming action showed former RHOA star Kim Zolciak getting into a heated shouting match with Kenya.
He was dubbed the third wheel in Bachelorette couple Georgia Love and Lee Elliott's relationship after accompanying the duo on a number of dates.
And so it's to be expected that Cameron Cranley would be able to clear up persistent rumours that Georgia and Lee have in fact separated.
However, speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia this week, the hunky reality star confessed that he isn't sure about the status of their romance.
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'When I'm not with them I couldn't tell you': Cameron Cranley has weighed in on rumours that Georgia Love and Lee Elliott's relationship is in trouble
'Based on the time I'm with them, they're a great couple and everything people think they are,' he admitted.
'But when I'm not with them I couldn't tell you, I can't really comment [on whether they have broken up],'
He added: 'But from when I'm with them they're amazing and a really beautiful couple.'
'For me it's literally hanging out with one of my best mates and his girl': The Western Australian fire-fighter also told Daily Mail that he doesn't find it awkward spending time with Georgia after the show
Former flames: It comes after Cameron and Georgia shared a steamy on-screen kiss during The Bachelorette
The Western Australian fire-fighter also told Daily Mail that he doesn't find it awkward spending time with Georgia after the show, despite the pair having shared a steamy on-screen kiss.
'For me it's literally hanging out with one of my best mates and his girl who I happen to know quite well,' he explained.
Meanwhile, rumours have been swirling that Georgia and Lee have called it quits, with Woman's Day reporting that pair had engaged in a 'blazing row' at a Melbourne restaurant before splitting in December.
Three's a crowd? Cameron was dubbed the third wheel in Bachelorette couple Georgia Love and Lee Elliott's relationship after accompanying the duo on a number of dates
Cameron, who is still single following his Bachelorette heartbreak, travelled to Sydney this week to act as the face of Magnum's 2017 Valentines Day campaign, which targets Sydney's romantically unencumbered.
On Tuesday, Cameron will help launch the new limited edition Magnum red velvet flavour by sharing a pop-up couch with fellow singles at the Queen Victoria Building from 12pm.
Singles are invited to join Cameron on the couch to sample the new ice-cream flavour, along with a chance to win double passes to a pop-up restaurant held in Bondi Beach.
New gig: Cameron, who is still single following his Bachelorette heartbreak, travelled to Sydney this week to act as the face of Magnum's 2017 Valentines Day campaign, which targets Sydney's romantically unencumbered
They're known as the confident, funny and bubbly sisters on My Kitchen Rules.
And on the show on Monday, judge Manu Feildel playfully told sisters Kelsey and Amanda to quiet down as they greeted him and Pete Evans at their front door, ahead of hosting them at their instant restaurant.
Their screaming and giggling made the Frenchman cover his ears at one point as he went to greet them, joking to camera: 'Oh my god...They're screaming so hard!'
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'They're screaming so hard!' On MKR on Monday, judge Manu Feildel (L, seen with Pete Evans) playfully told sisters Kelsey and Amanda to quiet down as they greeted him
Kelsey added to camera: 'I think they think we're pretty loud, we're definitely not that loud,' with a laugh.
It came after other contestants on Sunday joked that they needed 'ear plugs' because of how loud the duo were.
During their instant restaurant on Monday, they were left shocked when they scored one of the highest points in the show's history for the instant restaurant round, scoring 95 points.
Bubbly! Kelsey (L) added to camera: 'I think they think we're pretty loud, we're definitely not that loud,' with a laugh
The pair cooked an entree of ricotta and spinach ravioli with saffron burnt butter, and a main of crispy skin snapper with potato mash and lemon and chive sauce.
For dessert the pair - who are both mothers - created a chocolate fondant with berry coulie.
Their instant restaurant was called The Bright Side and was themed similar to a children's party, with lots of bright colours, similar to their bubbly personalities.
'I really want to prove that we can do it and we can win this competition,' Kelsey said at the start of the show, clearly achieving their objective.
Tasty! The pair cooked an entree of ricotta and spinach ravioli with saffron burnt butter
Healthy: They served a main of crispy skin snapper with potato mash and lemon and chive sauce
Pete raved about their entree, saying it was 'perfect,' and said it's why he and Manu Feildel love being judges on the show, because it's humble food done well.
He scored them ten points for their entree, nine for their main and nine for their dessert.
Manu meanwhile scored them ten for their entree, eight for their main - deducting points because it was a little salty - and a dessert an eight, saying the ice cream was a little sweet.
They also scored 41/50 from the other teams, with seafood king Josh being unhappy about the way the fish was cooked.
She's been tipped to play the role of villain on Real Housewives of Sydney.
But it seems her reality TV co-stars aren't the only ones who will have to watch out for Lisa Oldfield.
The 41-year-old businesswoman and wife of One Nation founder David Oldfield took to Instagram on Monday to post a photo of herself brandishing a shotgun - while also issuing a stern warning to potential future lovers of her son Harry.
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What a weapon! Lisa Oldfield has shared this throwback photo to Instagram showing her with a shotgun and warning that she's 'Ready for any #tramps that want to try and #date my Harry'
'Ready for any #tramps that want to try and #date my Harry,' Lisa captioned her latest throwback photo.
The six-year-old is Lisa and David's oldest child, with their younger son Albert born in mid-2012.
Her odd photo came a day after her admission that she's a 'massive fan' of new US President Donald Trump.
Villain: The Real Housewives of Sydney star is a mother of two boys: Harry, six and Bert, four
Talking about the President's controversial immigration ban, Lisa said she thinks it's an area in which Australia could follow suit - if only prime minister Malcolm Turnbull 'had the guts', she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
'I am sure there are people within the country's borders already that are more of a threat but with the terrorist attacks around the world I think he's got reasons to be concerned,' she said.
Married in 2001, Lisa spent a lot of time around her husband as he and controversial politician Pauline Hanson formed the right-wing party.
TV star: The 41-year-old businesswoman and wife of One Nation founder David Oldfield (right) is set to shake things up on the opening season of RHOS
Hot fancy: Her gun photo comes a day after Lisa revealed she is a 'massive fan' of US President Donald Trump
And so it's no wonder the mother-of-two can see the reason Trump appealed to so many Americans.
'[Trump] is fantastic, so many people have been disenfranchised for so long,' she said.
'I think it's very hard for, say, a working class family in Pennsylvania, who can barely cover the mortgage and put food on the table, for people to tell them that they are privileged because they are white.'
However somewhat incredibly, Lisa says she's not a supporter of One Nation which was formed amid Hanson's claims Australia was being 'swamped by Asians'.
One Nation: The mother-of-two married David in 2001 and spent a lot of time around him as he and controversial politician Pauline Hanson formed the right-wing party
While she's vocally backed Trump's policies, it appears that her support also extends into the bedroom.
In an interview with Daily Mail Australia last November prior to the US Election, she joked about spending a night with the now president.
'I might [try something on] but I think he's a man of honour,' Lisa said.
Trying her luck: 'I might [try something on] but I think he's a man of honour,' Lisa said in an interview with Daily Mail Australia about her wish to sleep with the US President
Not giving up: Regretting that she hadn't had the 'the good fortune of meeting him', Lisa did admit she would be 'delighted' to have Trump over for dinner if he ever visits Australia
Regretting that she hadn't had the 'the good fortune of meeting him', she did admit she would be 'delighted' to have Trump over for dinner if he ever visits Australia.
'We'd probably take him for a shoot, we'd bond over a barbeque - he isn't a drinker so we could have a carafe of left wing tears,' she said.
The businesswoman and socialite is set to turn heads as the 'villain' when the first season of Real Housewives of Sydney airs on February 26.
While Hollywood heavyweights attended the Grammys on Sunday night, New York Fashion Week persisted on, with a handful of celebrities choosing to take in haute couture over an award show.
Emily Ratajkowski, 25, Alexa Chung, 33, and Christina Ricci, 37, were included in that divergent group.
Sitting front row at Joseph Altuzarra's fall/winter 2017 runway show, the ladies showed up dressed to impress in contrasting outfits.
Fashionable ladies: Emily Ratajkowski, 25, Alexa Chung, 33, and Christina Ricci, 37, showed up to the Altuzarra Fall/Winter 2017 runway show dressed to impress
Sweet like candy: Emily wore a slim bubblegum pink suit jacket and pants set over a crispy white shirt poking out of her sleeves
Emily wore a slim bubblegum pink suit jacket and pants set over a crispy white shirt poking out of her sleeves.
The model paired the high fashion look with barely-there silver heeled sandals and a snake skin print clutch with a pink flap that matched her vibrant outfit.
She finished off the look with silver dangling circle earrings.
Classy gals: The three beauties sat front row at the haute couture fashion house show
Strike a pose: Rose Leslie joined the ladies as they gave their best to the cameras
Trendy pals: Though their outfits were on opposite ends of the spectrum, the ladies both looked great to Sunday night's runway show
Her brown mane was sleek and shiny, pin-straight and parted down the middle.
The Gone Girl actress's makeup was bright and bronzed despite the freezing NYC temperatures, consisting of a lightly smoked-out eye shadow, cat-eye liner, plenty of bronzer, bold brows and a muted lipstick over her full pout.
To her left was British model and Vogue contributing editor Alexa Chung, wearing a black Altuzarra dress with cherry embellishments splayed across the fabric, a red sequin hem, and a black leather belt that cinched in her tiny waist.
Sweet look: British model and Vogue contributing editor Alexa Chung wore a black Altuzarra dress with cherry embellishments splayed across the fabric
The It's On With Alexa Chung star also donned matching sheer black tights with a cherry pattern.
For footwear, the brunette beauty opted for black pointed-toe pumps.
Her hair was in line with the sweet-looking ensemble, holding a slight wave and falling just to her shoulders as she tucked her bangs behind her ears.
Her gray-blue eyes were enhanced by plenty of black eyeliner, and the rest of her makeup was relatively light and fresh.
Birthday girl! The pint-sized brunette wore a light blue and light purple plaid dress with ultra-long sleeves that fell past her knees
To Chung's left sat Christina Ricci, who celebrated her birthday that same day.
Ricci turned 37 on February 12.
The pint-sized brunette wore a light blue and light purple plaid dress with ultra-long sleeves that fell past her knees.
She wore sheer tights and black plastic booties with the delicate number.
Ricci's makeup was a bit heavy-handed for the super light color of the dress, giving her a severe, yet still modelesque look.
Earth to Em! Emily looked a bit out of it as Alexa caught up with Laura Brown (L)
Taking it in: Emily and Alexa were wowed by Altuzarra's upcoming collection
Insta-worthy? The girls checked out their selfies after snapping cute close-ups together
Katy Perry selected a split-leg jumpsuit for her third and final ensemble during Sunday's Grammy Award festivities.
The 32-year-old pop diva - who relies on stylist Jamie Mizrahi - looked sensational as she sported the plunging number at Universal Music Group's after-party at LA's Ace Hotel.
The 13-time Grammy nominee slipped into the figure-flaunting number as she posed for pictures on the carpet.
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Quick change! Katy Perry selected a split-leg jumpsuit for her third and final ensemble during Sunday's Grammy Award festivities
Showcasing her incredible curves, Katy's red carpet choice highlighted her enviable pins as she sashayed up the carpet with aplomb.
Katy's cleavage enhancing look featured gold button detailing that gave her ensemble a military vibe.
The Rise hitmaker accessorised her look with a gold choker and sprinkling of diamond encrusted statement rings.
Adding length to her petite frame, she slipped on a strappy pointed pump as she made her way to the after-party.
Brass buttons: The 32-year-old pop diva - who relies on stylist Jamie Mizrahi - also sported a gold choker and black heels at Universal Music Group's after-party at LA's Ace Hotel
Stand to attention: Katy's cleavage enhancing look featured gold button detailing that gave her ensemble a military vibe
Golden gal: The Rise hitmaker accessorised her look with a gold choker and sprinkling of diamond encrusted statement rings
Striking: Katy looked sensational in her skintight jumpsuit
During the CBS telecast, the Dark Horse hitmaker debuted her single Chained to the Rhythm with Skip Marley as the US Constitution was projected on the Staples Center.
The Women's March protester made sure to sport a 'persist' armband (in honor of Senator Elizabeth Warren) and a Planned Parenthood pin on her Tom Ford pantsuit.
An eyeful: Katy was sure to showcase her ample assets in the busty one piece
Hvaing fun: Katy was in high spirits inside the venue with her manager Bradford Cobb
All smiles: Katy Perry and music chief Jason Flom were all smiles at the post-Grammy bash
Strike a pose! Katy looked phenomenal as she slipped into the dress for pictures
Two's company: Katy cosied up to Sir Lucian Grainge on the night
Music pals: The Californian singer beamed as she caught up with Australian singer Troye Sivan
Flawless: The blonde beauty showcased her flawless complexion as she left the party
The disco and reggae-tinged track - which dropped Friday - seems to be an homage to Grace Jones' 1985 classic Slave to the Rhythm.
Chained to the Rhythm - written by Katy, Max Martin, and Sia - will appear on her fourth album, the follow-up to the 2013 record Prism.
Perry (born Katheryn Hudson) landed on several worst dressed lists due to her bizarre metallic turtleneck and feathered skirt designed by the Nocturnal Animals director.
Taking the plunge: Katy later attempted to cover up in a baseball cap as she left West Hollywood's Chateau Marmont after the GQ and Chance The Rapper bash
Three is the magic number: The pop princess seemed in high spirits as she left the party
'No hate!' During the CBS telecast, the Dark Horse hitmaker debuted her single Chained to the Rhythm with Skip Marley as the US Constitution was projected on the Staples Center
Fishnet bustier: The disco and reggae-tinged track - which dropped Friday - seems to be an homage to Grace Jones' 1985 classic Slave to the Rhythm
Written by Katy, Max Martin, and Sia: Chained to the Rhythm will appear on her fourth album, the follow-up to the 2013 record Prism
Missing from the Roar belter's side was her British boyfriend Orlando Bloom, with whom she celebrated one year of dating in January.
Also enjoying the Universal bash was Scorpion actress Katharine McPhee showing a lot of leg in a black-slitted maxi-skirt by designer Thai Nguyen.
Other lovely ladies enjoying music's biggest night were Kat Graham, who sizzled in a slinky gold silk dress.
Lip Sync Battle champ: Also enjoying the Universal bash was Scorpion actress Katharine McPhee showing a lot of leg in a black-slitted maxi-skirt by designer Thai Nguyen
Attendees: Other lovely ladies enjoying music's biggest night were Kat Graham in gold
Going for gold: The singer and actress looked incredible in her pin flashing look
A vision: Singer Skylar Grey went braless in a daring white pantsuit, that flaunted her slender frame to perfection
Vibrant: Adding a pop of colour to the carpet, Brooke Hogan sizzled in an aqua coloured floor-length dress, which hugged her hourglass curves
Sky-high: The former reality show star added height to her look in a pair of clear mules
Lace up: Lyndie Greenwood slipped on a sheer lace number that sported frill detail
In the navy: Niall Horan sported a navy blue suit at the star-studded bash
Picture perfect: Niall posed for photos inside the party and stopped for a pic with Greg Marell
Camera ready: Halsey and Sir Lucian Grainge caught up at the music after-party
New look: James Corden looked unrecognisable in a topknot and monochrome ensemble
While singer Skylar Grey went braless in a daring white pantsuit, that flaunted her slender frame to perfection.
Adding a pop of colour to the carpet, Brooke Hogan sizzled in an aqua coloured floor-length dress, which hugged her hourglass curves.
Country crooner Keith Urban partied without his Oscar-winning wife of a decade, Nicole Kidman.
And Love Goes On crooner Aloe Blacc made the party a date night with his Australian rapper wife Maya Jupiter.
Solo mission: Country crooner Keith Urban partied without his Oscar-winning wife of a decade, Nicole Kidman
Sideboob alert! And Love Goes On crooner Aloe Blacc made the party a date night with his Australian rapper wife Maya Jupiter
Party people: Darius McCrary and Desiigner appeared in high spirits at the exclusive party
Snap happy: The pair posed up a storm for the cameras
Beaming: Stephan Moccio, Maty Noyes and Jordan Smith posed together for a snap
Attention: Birdman held Sir Lucian Grainge's attention as he chatted to him
Catching up: Beck and Ashley Newton happily chatted to one another at the party
Dressed to impress: Hannah Kasulka and Chaley Rose dazzled as they posed for snaps
Loving life: Frank Briegmann, Ken Bunt, Sir Lucian Grainge, Lang Lang and Michele Anthony all looked in great spirits as they cosied up together for snaps
Suited and booted: Rory Feek and Jay Frank were all smiles on the night
She was propelled to fame after starring in the Carl's Jr. burger commercial during the 2015 Super Bowl.
And Charlotte McKinney showcased her model figure to perfection as she enjoyed a low-key day out with friends at Soho House in Malibu, California, on Sunday.
Putting on a very cheeky display as she wandered inside, the blonde bombshell, 23, showed off her long legs in a pair of tiny denim cut-off hotpants.
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Leggy lady: Charlotte McKinney showcased her model figure to perfection as she enjoyed a low-key day out with friends at Soho House in Malibu, California, on Sunday
The Baywatch star ensured her peachy posterior was paraded to all to see in her barely-there Daisy Dukes as she joined her pals for a bite to eat.
Keeping the rest of the look casual, Charlotte opted for comfortable white Adidas Stan Smith trainers and a low-cut white vest to show off her buxom figure.
The model kept the Los Angeles winter chill at bay with a tan suede biker jacket and toted her belongings in a small black leather handbag.
Charlotte wore her long blonde locks in lightly tousled waves, and opted for minimal make-up to showcase her naturally striking features.
Peachy posterior: Putting on a very cheeky display as she wandered inside, the blonde bombshell, 23, showed off her long legs in a pair of tiny denim cut-off hotpants
Bum deal: The Baywatch star ensured her peachy posterior was paraded to all to see in her barely-there Daisy Dukes as she joined her gal pals for a bite to eat
The former Instagram star accessorised with dark shades to keep the winter sun off her face and delicate gold hoop earrings.
Charlotte first shot to fame on the photo-sharing site after struggling to bag a modelling contract.
She then captured the attention of millions with her smoking hot Carl Jr. burger commercial during the Super Bowl back in 2015.
During a recent interview with Ocean Drive magazine, the Guess model admitted when she was growing up in Orlando, Florida, she tended to have more male friends.
A bite to eat: Keeping the rest of the look casual, Charlotte opted for comfortable white Adidas Stan Smith trainers and a low-cut white vest to show off her buxom figure
Model behaviour: The model kept the Los Angeles winter chill at bay with a tan suede biker jacket and toted her belongings in a small black leather handbag
'Obviously I got more attention from the male side than from the female side,' she said. 'I didnt have any girlfriends. A lot of my friends were guys, and I was called a slut by a lot of people.
'I was just growing these large breasts at such a young age, not really knowing what to do with them or how to wear them. So it was definitely awkward.'
Charlotte is soon set to appear in Baywatch: The Movie, an adaptation of the iconic NBC series that ran from 1989 to 1991.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson will star as Mitch Buchannon, whom David Hasselhoff played on the small screen.
Parting is such sweet sorrow: Charlotte hugged her friends goodbye as they headed home
They sealed the deal at a secret wedding ceremony at the end of 2016.
And it seems model Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell) and her husband AFL player Lance 'Buddy' Franklin are as loved up as ever.
The 30-year-old took to Instagram to share an intimate pre-Valentines Day photo of himself and his wife snuggled up.
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Ambushed with love! Jesinta Franklin has trapped her husband AFL player Lance 'Buddy' Franklin in a loving embrace and kiss in a pre-Valentine's Day snap
Buddy appears to have taken selfie on their bed but is ambushed with a kiss on the side of his head from 25-year-old Jesinta.
The Sydney Swans star captioned his post: 'My '
He smiles from ear to ear as his statuesque spouse hugs him from behind, showing off her big diamond ring.
Sweet selfie: In the photo Buddy smiles from ear to ear as his statuesque spouse hugs him from behind, showing off her big diamond ring
Wedding bliss: Buddy and Jesinta sealed the deal at a secret wedding ceremony at the end of 2016
Their sweet snap received plenty of likes from his fans and followers.
One enthusiastically wrote in all caps: 'CUTE LOVE U BUDDY (sic)'
Another said: 'So glad you are so happy. Great pic.'
Someone commented: 'N'aww love you guys.'
While another Instagrammer said: 'Love it. Smokin' hot, the pair of you.
Keeping her cool: The former Miss Universe contestant trim physique in an olive green bikini
The couple are believed to have spent the heatwave weekend taking a dip by the sea cooling off.
Jesinta showed off her trim physique in an olive green bikini as she climbed out of the water.
The Myer ambassador captioned her snap 'cooling off.'
She captured the attention of social media at last night's Grammys with her hilarious antics.
However, Rihanna didn't quite hold her composure throughout the night as she appeared to throw shade towards Beyonce as she collected the award for Best Urban Contemporary Album.
The 28-year-old - who was nominated for the same award - set Twitter alight as she talked through the winner's announcement and applied her lipgloss as Queen Bey took to the stage to accept her honour.
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What shade is that? Rihanna didn't quite hold her composure throughout the night as she appeared to throw shade towards Beyonce as she collected the award for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the Grammys
Taking to social media in their droves, users were flabbergasted by her actions.
One wrote: 'Rihanna and that lipgloss; shade b****!'
As another commented: 'Rihanna at beyonce's #GRAMMYs win; "well I'm just gonna retouch my lipgloss"'.
Before one said: 'Kinda of looked like @rihanna was a little bitter while @beyonce won, or did she really need to apply lipgloss at that exact moment??'
Winner, winner: Soon after her performance, Beyonce nabbed the gong for best urban contemporary album
Going wild: Taking to social media in their droves, users were flabbergasted by her actions
However, some fans applauded her actions, posting: 'Rihanna has the best reaction to losing a Grammy to Beyonce.'
While another echoed many's sentiments, as a fan shared: 'Rihanna applying Lipgloss as Beyonce won is the best moment of the night.'
However, it wasn't all animosity between the two, as the Bajan beauty was later seen blowing kisses to the award-winner, proving their bond is strong.
Applaud: However, some fans applauded her actions, posting: ''Rihanna applying Lipgloss as Beyonce won is the best moment of the night'
Lip service: Rihanna appeared to apply her lipgloss as she lost out her award to Beyonce
Having fun: The Bajan talked through the whole announcement with her gal pal
Although Rihanna didn't step foot once onto the stage, she did manage to steal the spotlight at the 59th Annual Grammys from the comfort of her own seat.
Letting her hair down for the evening, she was caught on camera telling her friend that it was 'time for another shot' from her jewel encrusted high flask.
The Work songstress then appeared to have a whale of a time as she gave her bestie Katy Perry a standing ovation for the debut performance of her new single Chained To The Rhythm.
Spotlight: Although Rihanna didn't step foot once onto the stage, she did manage to steal the spotlight at the 59th Annual Grammys from the comfort of her own seat
She's so hip: Letting her hair down for the evening, she was caught on camera telling her friend that it was 'time for another shot' from her jewel encrusted high flask
Loving every moment of the star-studded night she was even spotted Facetiming a pal during a performance and dancing to her heart's content.
Despite having eight nominations, Rihanna came away from the awards empty handed while Adele brought home five honours, including Album Of The Year, and Beyonce won two.
Meanwhile, Chance the Rapper made Grammy history as the first unsigned artist to take home two awards at the show hosted by James Corden.
Loving life: The Higher hitmaker - rocking a David Webb green ring - was even spotted Facetiming a pal during a performance and dancing to her heart's content
Although attracting music's biggest stars, nominees Kanye West, Justin Bieber and two-time award winner on the night Drake, all gave the bash a miss.
In a live show as much about spectacle as trophies, Beyonce's appearance on the Grammy stage was the highlight of the ceremony.
Other performers at the three hour show included Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Adele, Demi Lovato, best new artist winner Chance the Rapper, A Tribe Called Quest, Carrie Underwood, Alicia Keys and Sturgill Simpson.
Ouch: He had a hard time performing before kicking out the backing dancers and rapping
All hail the queen! The singer looked pleased as punch by the reaction of the crowd
Touching: Earlier in the night the 28-year-old participated in a tribute to George Michael as she performed 1996 Fast Love
Hardwired: Lady Gaga joined Metallica for a performance of Moth Into Flame
Purple reign: Bruno Mars performed an incredible tribute to Price as he did Let's Go Crazy
She's one of Australia's most celebrated models.
And Indigenous model Samantha Harris stunned at the launch of Australian jewellers Affinity Diamonds on Monday night.
The 26-year-old model spoke to Daily Mail Australia talked about her own special diamond chosen for her when she was engaged to her now husband Luke Hunt.
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Diamonds are a girls bestfriend: Samantha Harris stunned at the launch of Australian jewellers Affinity Diamonds on Monday night
'Obviously my engagement ring [is] very special. I'm sure it's a special thing for anybody and I got these from affinity diamonds as well, so they are special diamonds,' she said, pointing to her stud earrings.
With Valentine's Day just around the corner Samantha revealed that she and her husband had no plans, but rather a more spontaneous approach.
'I'll do something, I'm not sure [what] but it'll be a spur of the moment thing which I think is more nice,' she said.
Spontaneous: Samantha said she and her husband don't have any Valentine's plans
Like a princess: 'I'll do something I'm not sure [what], but itll be a spur of the moment thing which I think is more nice,' she said
Samantha looked elegant in a head-to-toe black ensemble, with her wrap skirt from Bec and Bridge and her long sleeved blouse from Willow.
The model accessorised her look with vibrant red heels and a personalised black clutch bag.
She kept her make up look understated with a strong, bold brows, subtle smoky eye shadow and a mauve lip.
Aside from working hard for Priceline and preparing for the Melbourne Fashion Week, the statuesque brunette revealed she will be travelling to Brazil for an upcoming catwalk show.
Catwalk: Samantha revealed that she will be travelling to Brazil soon for a catwalk show
In an Instagram snap from the evening, the model shared a selfie of herself being crowned with an 85 carat diamond tiara.
She captioned her post: 'Thank you @affinitydiamonds for making me feel like a princess tonight.'
Fans of the model liked and complimented her post.
One said: 'Girl, you always a princess.'
Another commented: 'So prefect.'
Amber Sherlock gained infamy last month when leaked footage showed her berating a colleague for wearing the same colour dress as her.
But on Monday night, the TV presenter's scowls were replaced by smiles as she attended Affinity Diamonds' Valentine's Day cocktail party in Sydney.
The 41-year-old exuded glamour as she posed for pictures at the event, which saw a number of celebrities join her at Beta Bar.
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Roses are red: Amber Sherlock was all smiles as she attended Affinity Diamonds' Valentine's Day cocktail party in Sydney
With one hand on her hip, Amber smiled broadly as she graced the event in a figure-hugging red dress.
The Channel Nine newsreader added to her look with a pair of gold strappy heels as she opted not to sport any jewelry at the diamond specialists' bash.
The brunette was joined at the party by E! Australia host Ksenija Lukich and her husband Dan Bragg.
Lady in red: The 41-year-old exuded glamour as she posed for pictures at the event, which saw a number of celebrities join her at Beta Bar
Back to black: The brunette was joined at the party by E! Australia host Ksenija Lukich and her husband Dan Bragg
Bling: Ksenija has just been made an ambassador for the jewelers, and she made sure to drape herself in diamonds
Shine bright like a diamond: The 27-year-old was decked out in sparkles as she arrived at the bar in a flowing black dress beside her smartly dressed other half, who wore a classic black suit and white shirt combo
Role models: Two of the party's other guest, models Samantha Harris and Stephanie Joy Field, later joined her for a photo
Ksenija has just been made an ambassador for the jewelers, and she made sure to drape herself in diamonds.
The 27-year-old was decked out in sparkles as she arrived at the bar in a flowing black dress beside her smartly dressed other half, who wore a classic black suit and white shirt combo.
Two of the party's other guest, models Samantha Harris and Stephanie Joy Field, later joined her for a photo.
Follow the leader: Samantha followed Ksenija's lead, sporting a black ensemble
Daring: The 26-year-old wore a sheer top teamed with a black skirt, which showed off her trim pins with a high split
All white: In contrast to her fellow model, Stephanie looked bright and breezy in a white number which offered a hint of cleavage
Baggage: The dark-haired beauty accessorised with a pair of strappy black heels and a petite black handbag
Samantha followed Ksenija's lead, sporting a black ensemble.
The 26-year-old wore a sheer top teamed with a black skirt, which showed off her trim pins with a high split.
In contrast to her fellow model, Stephanie looked bright and breezy in a white number which offered a hint of cleavage.
The dark-haired beauty accessorised with a pair of strappy black heels and a petite black handbag.
Worldly: Former Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris radiated beauty in a frilly pink ensemble.
Assests: The 26-year-old's outfit featured a low-cut neckline, as she put her toned arms and shoulders on show
Poser: The Perth native posed up a storm as she put her enviable figure on show for the cameras
Former Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris radiated beauty in a frilly pink ensemble.
The 26-year-old's outfit featured a low-cut neckline, as she put her toned arms and shoulders on show.
The Perth native posed up a storm as she put her enviable figure on show for the cameras.
Training: Appropriate for the Valentine's Day theme, a number of couples arrived at the event arm-in-arm, including rugby league star Josh Mansour and his wife Daniella
Dream team: The NRL was well represented, with South Sydney Rabbitohs player Jason Clark pictured beside wife Lauren and young son Billie
Appropriate for the Valentine's Day theme, a number of couples arrived at the event arm-in-arm, including rugby league star Josh Mansour and his wife Daniella.
The NRL was well represented, with South Sydney Rabbitohs player Jason Clark pictured beside wife Lauren and young son Billie.
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs star Will Hopoate completed the set, arriving beside wife Jimicina and daughter Alaiah.
She confirmed she was expecting her first child by debuting her bump in an Instagram snap on Thursday.
And Rosie Huntington-Whiteley seemed keen to celebrate the news privately with her fiance Jason Statham on Saturday, as the pair enjoyed a day at Soho House in Malibu.
The model, 29, shielded her blossoming bump with a chic bohemian coat as she headed to the relaxed beach club in California with her man, 49.
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Low key: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was keen to celebrate her pregnancy privately with fiance Jason Statham on Saturday, as the pair enjoyed a day at Soho House in Malibu
Having risen to prominence as a model, the British beauty looked typically stunning in the folk-style coat of plum hue.
The striking jacket was lined with sequinned embroidery on the sleeves and hem, and fell softly across her famously slender figure to shield her growing bump.
Keeping both casual and glamorous, the Plymouth-born beauty paired the garment with skinny jeans and heeled boots as she headed on her relaxing day out.
Effortless: Having risen to prominence as a model, the British beauty looked typically stunning in the folk-style coat of plum hue, paired with jeans and glamorous sunglasses
She left her blonde hair in its loose, everyday state and covered her face with a pair of oversized sunglasses, to tie her look together in an effortlessly stylish fashion.
Rosie was seen heading to her car alongside actor fiance Jason, who matched her comfortable exterior in a classic burgundy shirt and chinos.
The Snatch star made his look more trendy with suede black loafers and shielded his face from the sunshine with a pair of brown sunglasses, as he headed out for an intimate dinner with his long-term partner.
Casually-cool: Rosie was seen heading to her car alongside actor fiance Jason (above), who matched her comfortable exterior in a classic burgundy shirt and chinos
The pair had confirmed their happy news on Thursday evening when she shared a bikini snap, displaying her sizeable baby bump, to her Instagram page.
The image, evidently taken by fiance Jason, featured the beauty kneeling on the sand in an idyllic holiday location, with her hand resting on her back in support.
She gushed excitedly beside the picture: 'Very happy to share that Jason and I are expecting!! Lots of love Rosie x Photo by @jasonstatham'
Congratulations: The pair had confirmed their happy news on Thursday evening, by sharing a bikini snap displaying her sizeable baby bump to her Instagram page
Having been together since 2010, fans were quick to congratulate the long-standing couple as the post was flooded with over 20,000 kind comments - and garnered a whopping 695,000 likes.
The pair have faced swirling pregnancy rumours for months, after the Mad Max star has been regularly pictured covering her stomach while out and about and on her social media pages.
However it is no doubt exciting news for Transformers star Rosie, who has previously discussed her thoughts about starting a family with her 49-year-old actor.
Confirmation: The pair, who have been dating since 2010 (pictured in 2015), have faced pregnancy rumours for months after Rosie stepped out numerous times in baggy clothes
Speaking to The EDIT in 2015, Rosie confessed: 'Having a family is something I think about for sure, and whether I'd live here in America or in England. But it's not always as simple as that.'
Before she added: 'I have no idea what will happen, but it'll be interesting to find out, right? And nothing will be perfect, I'm sure.'
Three years prior to this, Rosie, who's been involved with The Transporter star Statham for about seven years,admitted to Elle UK that when the time came, she would always prioritise motherhood over her modelling career.
'I always see myself working, but definitely being a mum will be a big part of me,' she revealed. 'I think there is naturally a point where you think, "I dont care about myself as number one any more." I want to care about other things.'
She is the Welsh beauty who starred in ITV's The Darling Buds Of May before becoming one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars.
And Catherine Zeta Jones, 47, looked incredible as she attended a photocall in New York for television series Feud, as she heads back to the small screen.
The stunner is set to play the 1950s film star Olivia de Havilland in the hotly anticipated series Feud.
Back to her small screen roots: Catherine Zeta Jones looked incredible in a teal one-shoulder dress as she attended a photocall for new television series Feud in New York on Sunday
She wore a demure teal one-shouldered dress which she paired with diamond drop earrings and black high heeled pumps.
She looked like she was enjoying her return to the spotlight.
Feud will focus on the golden age of Hollywood and the legendary backstage battle between two of the greatest movie stars of all time, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.
Teal-ly pretty: She wore a stunning Grecian-style one-shoulder gown which she teamed with a pair of classic courts
Susan Sarandon will play Joan Crawford while Jessica Lange will appear as her nemesis, Bette Davis.
Crawford and Davis reportedly loathed each other and often shared their mutual contempt with the press. Davis called into question Crawford's reputation with men.
She once quipped: 'She's slept with every male star at MGM, except Lassie.'
The star wears a platinum blonde wig to play Olivia de Havilland in the new TV show Feud
The real Olivia de Havilland, pictured here in 1955, is now aged 100
Catherine will have a recurring role in the series playing movie star Olivia de Havilland is now aged 100.
De Havilland is best known for playing Melanie in Gone With The Wind.
The first season of Feud will focus on the notorious catfights between Crawford and Davis when they were forced to star together in cult classic What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
The series will be produced by Ryan Murphy, the mastermind behind the small screen hits Glee and American Horror Story.
The Mask of Zorro star looked confident and relaxed as she promoted her new role
Former Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris radiated beauty in a frilly pink ensemble as she attended Affinity Diamonds' Valentine's Day cocktail party in Sydney on Monday.
The 26-year-old's outfit featured a low-cut neckline, as she put her toned arms and shoulders on show.
The Perth native posed up a storm as she put her enviable figure on show for the cameras.
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Worldly: Former Miss Universe Australia Renae Ayris radiated beauty in a frilly pink ensemble as she attended Affinity Diamonds' Valentine's Day cocktail party in Sydney on Monday
Assests: The 26-year-old's outfit featured a low-cut neckline, as she put her toned arms and shoulders on show
Poser: The Perth native posed up a storm as she put her enviable figure on show for the cameras
Meanwhile, Amber Sherlock gained infamy last month when leaked footage showed her berating a colleague for wearing the same colour dress as her.
But on Monday night, the TV presenter's scowls were replaced by smiles.
The 41-year-old exuded glamour as she posed for pictures at the event.
Scroll down for video
Roses are red: Amber Sherlock was all smiles
With one hand on her hip, Amber smiled broadly as she graced the event in a figure-hugging red dress.
The Channel Nine newsreader added to her look with a pair of gold strappy heels as she opted not to sport any jewelry at the diamond specialists' bash.
The brunette was joined at the party by E! Australia host Ksenija Lukich and her husband Dan Bragg.
Lady in red: The 41-year-old exuded glamour as she posed for pictures at the event
Back to black: The brunette was joined at the party by E! Australia host Ksenija Lukich and her husband Dan Bragg
Bling: Ksenija has just been made an ambassador for the jewelers, and she made sure to drape herself in diamonds
Shine bright like a diamond: The 27-year-old was decked out in sparkles as she arrived at the bar in a flowing black dress beside her smartly dressed other half, who wore a classic black suit and white shirt combo
Role models: Two of the party's other guest, models Samantha Harris and Stephanie Joy Field, later joined her for a photo
Ksenija has just been made an ambassador for the jewelers, and she made sure to drape herself in diamonds.
The 27-year-old was decked out in sparkles as she arrived at the bar in a flowing black dress beside her smartly dressed other half, who wore a classic black suit and white shirt combo.
Two of the party's other guest, models Samantha Harris and Stephanie Joy Field, later joined her for a photo.
Follow the leader: Samantha followed Ksenija's lead, sporting a black ensemble
Daring: The 26-year-old wore a sheer top teamed with a black skirt, which showed off her trim pins with a high split
All white: In contrast to her fellow model, Stephanie looked bright and breezy in a white number which offered a hint of cleavage
Baggage: The dark-haired beauty accessorised with a pair of strappy black heels and a petite black handbag
Samantha followed Ksenija's lead, sporting a black ensemble.
The 26-year-old wore a sheer top teamed with a black skirt, which showed off her trim pins with a high split.
In contrast to her fellow model, Stephanie looked bright and breezy in a white number which offered a hint of cleavage.
The dark-haired beauty accessorised with a pair of strappy black heels and a petite black handbag.
Training: Appropriate for the Valentine's Day theme, a number of couples arrived at the event arm-in-arm, including rugby league star Josh Mansour and his wife Daniella
Dream team: The NRL was well represented, with South Sydney Rabbitohs player Jason Clark pictured beside wife Lauren and young son Billie
Appropriate for the Valentine's Day theme, a number of couples arrived at the event arm-in-arm, including rugby league star Josh Mansour and his wife Daniella.
The NRL was well represented, with South Sydney Rabbitohs player Jason Clark pictured beside wife Lauren and young son Billie.
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs star Will Hopoate completed the set, arriving beside wife Jimicina and daughter Alaiah.
Bride & Prejudice took a shocking twist on Monday night when Marina's mum objected to her marrying Indian fiance Donny - on account of his skin colour.
Natalia, who was born in the Ukraine, asked her child whether she was willing to 'have kids who aren't white'.
Also concerned about how Marina would be treated by Donny after they tie the knot, due to his Indian heritage, Natalia confronted her daughter about the issue.
Shock: Bride & Prejudice took a shocking twist on Monday night when Marina's (L) mum (R) objected to her marrying Indian fiance Donny - on account of his skin colour
She said: 'Indian men behaviour changes after marriage (and) not for the best. For the worst.
'Just respect. "Because this is my wife," whatever. Taking (their) wife for granted. 'You are my wife now'. No, '(hello) darling'. No kissing. No jewellery. Just, "Bring me this. Bring me that".'
Her mother's comments left Marina facing a decision between breaking up with her partner of two years or cutting contact with Natalia.
Controversial: Natalia, who was born in the Ukraine, asked her child whether she was willing to 'have kids who aren't white'
Choices: Her mother's comments left Marina facing a decision between breaking up with her partner of two years or cutting contact with Natalia
When Donny was informed of the situation, the Adelaide account manager sought to clarify Natalia's position, asking if she had an issue with the colour of his skin.
She replied: 'I had my concerns when you first started dating my daughter. Basically, arranged marriages was my biggest concern.
'My last concern was Indian husbands after marriage, they change their behaviour towards their wives.
'Treating them like servants. Becoming narcissistic. I just thought, what do you think about it?'
Donny responded by bringing up the issue of grandchildren and how Natalia would feel about them having dark skin.
Disbelief: When Donny was informed of the situation, the Adelaide account manager sought to clarify Natalia's position, asking if she had an issue with the colour of his skin
Probing: Donny also brought up the issue of grandchildren and how Natalia would feel about them having dark skin
He said: 'Marina told me about this concern about your grandchildren, that's when I was like, "Whoa really?' That's too much for me.
'And it was at that moment I certainly doubted my relationship with Marina. I don't really want my kids coming into an atmosphere like that. Being concerned or being worried about things.'
Natalia issued a swift and brutal reply: 'Yes, I do worry and I think if it happens it will break our hearts.'
The cameras were then told to stop filming by Natalia, and it's unknown whether she'll attend the wedding if her daughter goes ahead as planned.
Bride & Prejudice returns on Monday on Channel Seven.
It's been on the air for 30 years and now the iconic soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful has arrived down under for the second time in a decade.
Eleven members of the soap touched down Sydney and several were seen filming glamorous scenes on the steps of the Opera House on Monday.
Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, who plays Steffy Forrester, put on a busty display in low-cut, body-hugging couture gown that put her at risk of a wardrobe malfunction.
The drama! It's been on the air for 30 years and now the iconic soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful has arrived down under
Aussie actress Ashleigh Brewer, who plays Ivy Forrester, posed alongside Jacqueline in stunning gowns at the iconic harbour side venue.
While this particular shoot was a 'press conference' scene set on the Opera House steps, dramatic wedding scenes will also be filmed in Sydney's Nothern Beaches.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the cast will shoot at Bennelong Point and Manly's Shelly Beach for nuptials and reception scenes in coming days.
A wedding showdown will take place at Manly Wharf and body doubles will be shown falling into the ocean.
Scott Clifton, who plays Liam Spencer, told the newspaper: 'There is a lot of secrecy but there is going to be a wedding, some drama, conflict and a stunt, too, which is going to be exciting.'
Gorgeous! Ashleigh Brewer, who plays Ivy Forrester, and Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, who plays Steffy Forrester, posed in stunning gowns at the iconic venue on Monday
Glam: Eleven members of the soapie have arrived in Sydney and several seen filming glamorous scenes on the steps of the Opera House
More to come: While these particular scenes were a 'press conference' scene set on the Opera House steps wedding scenes will be filmed in Sydney's Nothern Beaches
Hey fans! The cast hid from the sun under umbrellas while waving to fans
Stay cool! The hot weather meant umbrellas were a must for the cast
An insider spilled to the paper, 'Shelly Beach is quieter than some of the others. We wanted a quiet intimate beach location, so the wedding reception is set over there.'
Local stars such as Ita Buttrose and TV host Amanda Keller are guest starring in the press conference scenes.
'I never thought I'd be an extra on Bold, but it's going to be the top of CV from now on,' Amanda told The Daily Telegraph.
Friendly: A slew of fans were in attendance to see the cast shoot at the Opera house and the cast were very gracious in posing for pictures
Frenzy: The actors posed for selfies galore for the enthusiastic crowd
Nice guy: Scott Clifton grabbed a fan's iPhone to take a selfie with her
Say cheese! Don Diamont and Pierson Fode took time to pose with fans
Totally fangirling: Over 2000 fans will also attend a Q&A session featuring the cast of the soap at Parramatta's Riverside Theatre on Sunday
A slew of fans were in attendance to see the cast shoot at the Opera house and the cast were very gracious in posing for pictures.
Over 2000 fans will also attend a Q&A session featuring the cast of the soap at Parramatta's Riverside Theatre on Sunday.
After leaving Sydney the soap's production will head to Melbourne where local stars such as Masterchef's Matt Preston will land cameos.
Babe town: Jacqueline looked stunning in a pink couture gown
She's back! Aussie actress Ashleigh Brewer now stars on the soap and filmed both scenes in a ball gown and casual clothing
They're back: The series has come to Australia before, having filmed scenes in the country ten years ago
The series has come to Australia before, having filmed scenes in the country ten years ago.
Executive Producer and Head Writer Bradley Bell said 'This will be an epic celebration for our fans around the world.'
He also called it the 'most glamorous location shoot' the show - or any soap, has ever done.
Big deal: Executive Producer and Head Writer Bradley Bell said 'This will be an epic celebration for our fans around the world'
Location location: Head Writer Bradley Bell also called it the 'most glamorous location shoot' the show - or any soap, has ever done
'We are preparing to film the most glamorous location shoot in soap opera history. Collaborating with Qantas, Network Ten and CBS, viewers will witness romance, high style, jaw-dropping twists, harrowing stunts and major cliffhangers,' he said.
Cast members who are in town reportedly include Scott Clifton, Don Diamont, Thorsten Kaye, Katherine Kelly Lang, John McCook, Heather Tom, Rena Sofer, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, Pierson Fode and Ashleigh Brewer.
With Valentines Day looming it was a seductive Louise Thompson who updated her social media accounts with an alluring new snap on Monday afternoon.
Taking to Instagram, the Made in Chelsea star shared a snap of her increasingly toned physique while modelling a lacy white bralette from online brand showpo.
With the deep tan developed during a seemingly never-ending trip to the Maldives and Sri Lanka still evident, Louise looks fresh, vibrant and healthy as she offers the camera a broad smile, a love heart shaped donut clutched in one hand.
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For all the lovers: With Valentines Day looming it was a seductive Louise Thompson who updated her social media accounts with an alluring new snap on Monday afternoon
Captioning the shot, she wrote: 'Donuts + undies ! I love V day. The sweetest bralette @showpo... new intimates for all of the lovers out there.'
This Valentine's Day will no doubt be special for Louise, who will celebrate the special occasion with hunky new boyfriend Ryan Libbey.
Louise previously entertained fans with another rfacy Instagram by slipping into an S&M-style PVC dress.
Body confident: Louise Thompson, 26, has shared her most racy Instagram post to date, slipping into an S&M-style PVC dress
The reality TV star sizzled in the skintight LBD with its raunchy low-cut showcasing her cleavage.
She combined the sexy number with a gold choker and a plunging silver necklace which fell between her breasts.
The petite beauty tied back her brunette tresses and decorated her face with a smokey bronze eyeshadow and bubblegum pink lipstick.
The star wrote beside the image: 'I always wanted to own a pvc lbd'
On Tuesday night Louise and her boyfriend Ryan attended the launch of new student lifestyle brand Monkey vs Owl at Lola Lo's, Derby.
Night out: On Tuesday night Louise attended the launch of new student lifestyle brand Monkey vs Owl at Lola Lo's, Derby
Louise opted for a more reserved look than her latest soical media post, covering her shoulders with a baby blue overcoat and teaming it with a white tee and navy jeans.
She finished her ensemble with a pair of heels and an array of delicate necklaces, while she tied her hair back and allowed two loose tendrils to frame her face.
The pair stayed at The Kedleston Country House and looked to be having a blast as they posed for a relaxed snap.
Stylish: Louise opted for a more reserved look than her latest soical media post, covering her shoulders with a baby blue overcoat and teaming a white tee with navy jeans
Louise and Ryan spent the majority of January on holiday in Sri Lanka, collectively uploading 108 videos/pictures from their trip.
The pair began dating just months after Louise split from her American beau Alik Alfus in May.
Louise admitted she kept her relationship with Ryan a secret for five months to stop people judging her 'for moving on so quickly.'
Speaking in last week's issue of OK! Magazine, the Made In Chelsea star revealed that Ryan joined her in the South of France while filming last summer, but stayed in a separate hotel.
She said: The production team found out I had a secret boyfriend while we were over there and were pretty annoyed at me! But they said theyd forgive me if I got Ryan to join the show.
He confirmed on Saturday that he's the father of Stephanie Davis' son, Caben-Albi.
And whilst Jeremy McConnell is reportedly yet to meet the youngster, he wasted no time heading to Dublin's Hog and Heffers to wet the baby's head.
Within hours of announcing the news, the 26-year-old reality star was seen toasting the news in pictures obtained by Evoke.ie.
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Raise a glass: He confirmed on Saturday that he's the father of Stephanie Davis' son, Caben-Albi. And Jeremy McConnell wasted no time heading to Dublin's Hog and Heffers to celebrate
Nursing a pint, the former Beauty School Cop Outs star was seen laughing and in jovial spirits as he chatted with friends.
Beaming broadly, the Irish model also agreed to snap selfies with fans before embracing his friends.
And it seems things are looking up between warring exes Stephanie and Jeremy since the brunette has finally followed him back on Twitter.
The Irish hunk had recently extended an olive branch to Stephanie via social media, and has finally accepted the offer.
The outing comes after after months of dispute as to whether Jeremy was the father of four-week-old Caben-Albi.
Baby love: Jeremy recently revealed that - despite months of speculation - he is the father of ex-girlfriend Stephanie's four week old daughter Caben Albi
The star - who began dating Stephanie during their stint on Celebrity Big Brother last year - had doubted his paternity which resulted in him taking a DNA test on live television.
Yet over the weekend, Jeremy broke the news that Caben is in fact his son, as he shared a shot of the youngster with his 495,000 Instagram followers.
Captioning the snap, he wrote: Happiest man alive, my new focus.
Showcasing his devotion to the tiny tot, he also wrote on Twitter, 'I'll love this monkey with every bit of me'.
Loving life: Within hours of announcing the news, the 26-year-old reality star was seen toasting the news in pictures obtained by Evoke.ie
Drink up: Nursing a pint, the former Beauty School Cop Outs star was seen laughing and in jovial spirits as he chatted with friends
Chirpy: Beaming broadly, the Irish model also agreed to snap selfies with fans before embracing his friends at the bar
Following the announcement, The Mirror claimed that Jeremy still has not met his son and has not offered to 'in the near future.'
During his bid to find out if he was the father, Jeremy said on This Morning that Stephanie was 'puppeteering the public.'
Jeremy claimed his former flame wanted him to sign an 'unreasonable contract' in order to get the DNA results done - the contents of which cannot be discussed for legal reasons.
He's the daddy: The outing comes after after months of dispute as to whether Jeremy was the father of four-week-old Caben-Albi
Welcome news: The announcement appeared to be a good one for Jeremy as he looked delighted when toasting the baby news on Saturday
Chatting away: Jeremy no doubt had plenty of topics to discuss after learning the news
Two's company: The star - who began dating Stephanie during their stint on CBB last year - had doubted his paternity which resulted in him taking a DNA test on live television
Jeremy said: 'No man in their right mind would sign that. It's disgusting. She's puppeteering the public. I'm sorry, I just can't.'
Following his appearance, Stephanie took to Twitter to share a statement in which she called her ex's display 'humiliating'.
The now-deleted statement claimed: 'Jeremy has caused Stephanie massive amount of stress, pressure and upset throughout her pregnancy, ruining what for most women is one of the most special time of their lives.
'Jeremy has at no point throughout the pregnancy or after the birth been in contact directly with Stephanie. Jeremy was categorically not banned from the birth nor did he ever ask to attend.'
She's preparing to thrill fans with a number of shows in Australia.
And on Friday, iconic American rocker Suzi Quatro was spotted at Perth Airport with her German concert promoter husband, Rainer Haas.
The 66-year-old star - who is known for hits including Stumblin' In - cut a relaxed figure in jeans and a leather jacket.
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Stumblin' In! On Friday, iconic American rocker Suzi Quatro was spotted at Perth Airport with her German concert promoter husband, Rainer Haas
Her long hair was out and over her shoulders and she appeared to be wearing light makeup, including eye liner.
Suzi wore a black T-shirt and a grey scarf on top, tucking in a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses into the neck of her top.
She completed her look with patterned Vans, while her man wore a long sleeve grey top with black shorts.
Ready to go? Her long hair was out and over her shoulders and she appeared to be wearing light makeup, including eye liner
Casual: The 66-year-old star - who is known for hits including Stumblin' In - cut a relaxed figure in jeans and a leather jacket
Legend: Suzi is seen here in 1973 and kick started her career on the popular American show Happy Days
The pair proved they weren't too posh to push when they were seen lugging their bags through the airport, without the help of staff.
Suzi is set to play a show at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday, before heading to Melbourne, before other dates on her tour, including in Queensland.
The former Happy Days star recently spoke to Femail about her life, and said that one of her regrets was that she had an abortion at the tender age of 18.
Doing it for themselves! The pair proved they weren't too posh to push when they were seen lugging their bags through the airport, without the help of staff
Doing her thing: Suzi is set to play a show at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday, before heading to Melbourne, before other dates on her tour, including in Queensland (pictured in July 2011)
'Im a Catholic, so it went against my beliefs, but I wouldnt have led the life I have if Id been a teenage mother,' Suzi said.
The mother of two also revealed her temptation that she wishes she could resist, saying she likes to drink brandy at night.
'A nip of brandy in the middle of the night when I cant sleep. Its not a good habit, but it works.'
Suzi is known for hits including Can the Can and Devil Gate Drive.
'It's not a good habit': The mother of two also revealed her temptation that she wishes she could resist, saying she likes to drink brandy at night
He's the actor who enjoys the sun, sand and surf.
But Hugh Jackman has urged his fans to remain sun-safe after having a another basal cell carcinoma cut from his nose - the sixth skin cancer removed from his face in two years.
'Looks worse with the dressing on than off. I swear!' the Wolverine star reassured fans in a post on Instagram on Monday.
'Thanks to frequent body checks and amazing doctors': Paying tribute to his doctors, the Wolverine star urged fans to be sun-smart
'Another basal cell carcinoma,' he revealed, adding: 'Thanks to frequent body checks and amazing doctors'.
The 48-year-old then reminded everyone to 'wear sunscreen' in a hash-tag to finish his post.
On the same day, Hugh was spotted walking his dogs in New York City, rugged up in layers against the chill.
The actor sported a white beanie and ugg boots with a black puffer jacket over a jumper and sunglasses on his face.
His bandages weren't visible from a distance, suggesting his outing was before the procedure.
Doggy day care: On the same day, Hugh was spotted walking his dogs in New York City, rugged up in layers against the chill
Pre-surgery? His bandages weren't visible from a distance suggesting his outing was before the procedure
Meanwhile, on Sunday the handsome Australian actor fronted up to the cameras for a photo call for his final X-Men movie, Logan.
Again, the star appeared sans bandage, suggesting he had the offending skin cancer removed on Monday itself.
Wearing a grey suit with a navy polo T-Shirt underneath, the hunk smiled at the gathered press with salt and pepper stubble on display.
All smiles: The star appeared sans bandage on Sunday as he promoted his last X-Men film, Logan, suggesting he had the offending skin cancer removed on Monday itself
Debonair: Wearing a grey suit with a navy polo T-Shirt underneath, the hunk smiled at the gathered press with salt and pepper stubble on display
Just earlier this month, Hugh announced he had a fifth skin cancer removed in an Instagram post.
'An example of what happens when you don't wear sunscreen. Basal Cell.
'The mildest form of cancer but serious, nonetheless,' he wrote alongside the photo.
'PLEASE USE SUNSCREEN and get regular check-ups,' he captioned the post.
'An example of what happens when you don't wear sunscreen. Basal Cell': Earlier this month the actor had his fifth skin cancer removed
Last May, he revealed he'd had four skin cancers in 18 months and his doctor had warned him he would likely have more in the future.
Just eight months after his fourth procedure, the medical prediction has proved to be well-founded.
The 47-year-old first revealed he had some cancerous cells removed in November 2013.
The first time was after a makeup artist noticed a little spot of blood on his nose while he was filming X Men: Days of Future Past and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness, 60, also urged him to get it checked out.
Spotted by chance: The actor discovered his first skin cancer after a makeup artist noticed a little spot of blood on his nose while he was filming X Men: Days of Future Past and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness encouraged him to get it checked
Hugh said the second time around he thought he just had a dark freckle but that, too, turned out to be cancerous.
The third cancer was found after he noticed blood on his nose again.
The actor has revealed he gets his skin checked every three months and during an interview to promote the 2014 X-Men movie, he said: 'I'm realistic about the future and it's more than likely that I'll have at least one more but probably many more, which is not uncommon for an Aussie particularly from English stock growing up in Australia where I don't remember ever being told to put sunscreen on.'
He added that he is trying hard to stay positive about his health.
'The beauty of this is it's all preventable': He added that he is trying hard to stay positive about his health
'The beauty of this is it's all preventable. It's just about getting proper check-ups, he said. 'I can be a typical man, I couldn't be bothered, and now I'm not lazy at all.'
Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer, and according to the American Cancer Society, the most common form of cancer in humans.
It's a slow growing cancer and rarely spreads to other parts of the body.
The ACF states that about half of those diagnosed with a basal cell skin cancer will develop a new skin cancer within five years.
It develops on areas of the skin that are exposed to the sun, mainly on the face and neck.
She's known for being fashion forward.
But on Monday, Gigi Hadid decided to slip out of her statement-making pants, exchanging her day outfit for an all-black ensemble with a light gray coat.
The 21-year-old talent left her Manhattan apartment in a striking pair of red pants with mesh insets at the knees, which she teamed with a white coat, but returned to it in a whole new 'fit after attending NYFW events.
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Fashion faux-pas: Gigi Hadid, 21, slipped out of daring red trousers and into a more demure look during her New York Fashion Week outing
The toned-down look consisted of a semi-sheer black t-shirt with a strategically-placed tear near the collar.
The casual top was paired with skintight black skinny jeans, black leather pointed-toe boots, and a light coat tied at the waist.
She carried the same backpack from earlier in the day, a small M2Malletier light grey python skin bag that featured gold hardware and costs just over $3,000.
The pretty blonde model also changed up her hairstyle, pulled up her yellow tresses into a messy high bun.
Her makeup had not moved an inch since she stepped out earlier that day and was still flawless and bright.
Still striking: The toned-down look consisted of a semi-sheer black t-shirt with a strategically-placed tear near the collar
Same accessories: She carried the same backpack from earlier in the day, a small M2Malletier light grey python skin bag that featured gold hardware and costs just over $3,000
Statement pants: On Monday Gigi Hadid was spotted wearing a pair of red trousers that were the centerpiece of her outfit
Earlier in the day, the star sported a well-fitted turtleneck with a dashing white overcoat.
She covered her legs in a pair of red pants with a mid-length rise which she folded into a mid-calf cuff.
The curious pair of trousers featured white mesh panels with zipper over each knee, adding a sporty yet high-fashion edge to the look.
Both the coat and pants looked like they would have fit in perfectly as part of the Tommy x Gigi collaboration for Tommy Hilfiger.
Sporty spice: Gigi's pants were equal parts sporty and haute couture from their daring mesh panel and funky zippers around the knees
Simple accessories: The California born beauty wore a pair of simple dark sunglasses and heeled boots during the outing
The five-foot ten-inch beauty kept things simple on the accessory front, covering her eyes with a pair of big square shades.
She covered her feet in some chic boots with a towering heel as she hit the New York streets to reveal pops of red around the lining of her jacket.
The California born beauty slung a matching white mini backpack over her shoulders before heading off to her next fashionable gig.
Zip it up and start again! Gigi let in a bit of breeze in her sporty red pants
Pop of color: The 21-year-old talent showed off a hint of color from underneath her white coat
The IMG repped talent has been hard at work since the start of New York Fashion Week.
Last week the blonde beauty graced the designer Jeremy Scott's catwalk in two daring ensembles: an eclectic leopard jacket with some spiritually inspired silk pants and a dazzling white suit that looked straight outta Graceland.
Wednesday, the twenty-something starlet presented her second capsule collection with designer Tommy Hilfiger at a star-studded affair held in Venice Beach, California.
Queen of Tommyland! On Wednesday, the IMG repped model presented her second capsule collection with designer Tommy Hilfiger. She also walked for the designer's ready-to-wear collection, which debuted the same day
She recently denied she was in a relationship after being spotted kissing a mystery man at the beach.
And for now Megan Blake Irwin, 22, is happy sharing the love with her fans.
The Australian model wished them a Happy Valentine's Day on Tuesday in an Instagram snap, treating them to a sexy swimsuit snap.
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Happy Valentine's Day Lovers! Megan Blake Irwin wished her fans a Happy Valentine's Day on Tuesday, treating them to a sexy swimsuit snap
The Adelaide-born beauty looked as idyllic as her panoramic beach surrounds, sunning herself in her bikini top and a pair of tiny denim shorts.
Megan tamed her luscious blonde locks in a simple blue cap emblazoned with the letter H.
'H is Happy Valentines Day Lovers,' she wrote in the caption.
More sun! The day before, the 22-year-old was once again snapped soaking up some sun by the water
The day before, Megan was once again snapped soaking up some sun by the water, this time at equally beautiful Sydney Harbour.
Sheltering her glowing face in a wide-brimmed hat, the beauty tilted her head away from camera and closed her eyes, parsing her lips to form a seductive pose.
Her bronzed bust was on display again as the lingerie model exposed her assets in a low-cut pink singlet.
'The sun kissed me & I liked it,' she captioned the image.
Happy Valentine's Day: Despite being snapped kissing a mystery man earlier this month, Megan informed that she is very much single
Despite being snapped kissing a mystery man earlier this month, the international model is set to spend Valentine's Day single.
In an interview with Yahoo7 Be at the David Jones Autumn/Winter Fashion Launch, she confirmed her relationship status.
'Yes I am single,' Megan said.
'I would rather not discuss my personal life too much, but I'm single and very happy,'
Confirmed: In a recent interview at the David Jones Autumn/Winter Fashion Launch, she confirmed her relationship status, saying 'Yes I am single,'
She admitted last year that she 'really regrets' her 34DD boob job.
But Pascal Craymer seemed totally body-confident on Monday night as she arrived at the Square Clothing Fashion Show at the Mayfair Hotel in London.
The former TOWIE star, 29, ensured she was the centre of attention as she flaunted her cleavage in a skintight plunging white dress.
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Turning heads: Pascal Craymer, 29, seemed totally body-confident on Monday night as she arrived at the Square Clothing Fashion Show in London's exclusive Mayfair
Pascal showed off every inch of her toned frame in the figure-flattering dress, which balanced out the risque neckline thanks to the midi length.
Adding height to the proceedings, the reality star injected sparkle with some delicate gold heels.
She kept accessories to a minimum, rocking a pearl 90s-inspired choker and a single gold Cartier bracelet.
Styling her raven tresses in glossy waves, the fitness fanatic framed her dark eyes with a smokey bronze eyeshadow, which she complemented with nude lipstick.
Looking good: The former TOWIE star ensured she was the centre of attention as she flaunted her cleavage in a skintight plunging white dress
Killer footwear: Adding height to the proceedings, the reality star injected sparkle with some delicate gold heels
Chic: She kept accessories to a minimum, rocking a pearl 90s-inspired choker and a single gold Cartier bracelet
Pascal first appeared on ITVBe show TOWIE as the girlfriend of Mario Falcone, as she hooked up with the Lothario fresh from his break-up from Lucy Mecklenburgh.
She recently revealed she used to self-harm as a teenager and battled with her body image - finding it tough going from a gymnast's figure to a normal one.
She told The Sun in October: 'When I was around 16 I used to self-harm with a razor.
Working her angles: Pascal posed confidently at the event
She's got a lot of front! She appeared to go braless in the revealing dress
Double trouble: The reality star was joined by a blonde friend who wore a somewhat cheap looking gold dress
'Ive never told anyone before but I didnt know how to cope with my body changing, and I was bullied because of it.
The reality star also admitted she has been seeing a therapist for the last two years to deal with body dysmorphia and 'hates' her boobs.
'I had them done about five years ago, and now I really regret it.
'I look so out of proportion - I hate it. I went from a 34B to a 34DD.
'If I could go back to totally natural I would, but its not going to be possible.'
Just hanging out: They seemed glad to give their feet a break from the vertiginous heels
Glam: Styling her raven tresses in glossy waves, the fitness fanatic framed her dark eyes with a smokey bronze eyeshadow, which she complemented with nude lipstick
He has been sharing an array of loved-up selfies with his new girlfriend.
But Professor Green sent tongues wagging for a different reason on Monday after uploading what was supposed to be an innocent tracksuit selfie.
The talented Just Be Good To Green rapper, 33, sent fans into a frenzy as they commented on his 'sizeable bulge'.
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Read all about it? Professor Green sent tongues wagging for a different reason on Monday after uploading what was supposed to be an innocent tracksuit selfie
Posing against a white wardrobe, Pro Green showed off his muscular physique in a khaki tracksuit, standing side-on in the mirror.
Referring to his impressively arranged tracksuit bottoms, an excited follower wrote: 'Ohhhhh Millie made a bigggg mistake mate'.
'Bulge', another sweaty-palmed fan wrote, with another adding: 'lol'd at every mention of the bulge... it is impressive though lol xxx'.
'You clearly wanted us to see the bulge... socks?' another eager beaver wrote.
Just be good to Green: The talented rapper, 33, sent fans into a frenzy as they commented on his 'sizeable bulge'
'It's impressive!' an excited follower wrote referring to his impressively arranged tracksuit bottoms
Meanwhile Pro Green has been sharing an array of besotted selfie with new girlfriend Fae Williams after they confirmed their romance at the end of 2016.
Last Sunday the rapper and his flame enjoyed a Sunday roast at the Fat Walrus pub in South East London.
The German Whip rapper and his model girlfriend puckered up for a selfie as they got 2017 off to a united start.
Loved up: Professor Green and Fae Williams looked stronger than ever as they enjoyed a Sunday roast at the Fat Walrus pub in South East London
Family Sundays: The German Whip rapper, 33, and his model girlfriend puckered up for a selfie as they got 2017 off to a united start
Professor Green looked on in mock horror as Faye planted a smacker on his cheek.
'#Happycouple #couplegoals #99%ofcouples #whenitsoverletitgo,' the Read All About It hitmaker captioned the snap.
And another snap showed Fae snuggling up on the sofa with his beloved dogs.
'Loyalty in a picture', he wrote alongside the cosy set-up.
'Loyalty in a picture', he wrote alongside the cosy set-up recently
It was a far more conservative look than the one she had boasted on New Year's Eve, as she had posted a topless snap of herself with just thin black bars protecting her modesty.
Clearly a fan of the image, Professor Green had posted the same shot, which he captioned: '2016, I have one word for you, bye!'
Fae and Pro Green are believed to have started dating in November, which came after released a new track One Eye On The Door which fans believed contained some thinly-veiled jibes at ex-wife Millie Mackintosh.
'Out to the pasty crew!' Fae shared a snap of her new beau on her Instagram
Reports soon followed that he had well and truly moved on from their short-lived union and was allegedly dating model Fae.
According to The Sun, the recently-divorced rapper had been 'practically inseparable' from his rumoured new love and believes their romance is the 'real deal'.
A source told the site: 'She was absolutely smitten and theyve been practically inseparable ever since.'
Chest a glimpse! t was a far more conservative look than the one she had boasted on New Year's Eve, as she had posted a topless snap of herself with just bars protecting her modesty
'Hes even been fobbing his mates off for her and for Pro that means its the real deal.
'Hes been on loads of casual dates with various girls since splitting with Millie but this is serious. Hes really into Fae and doesnt want to mess it up.'
Professor Green split from wife Millie last February after a three-year marriage.
Two's company: Fae and Pro Green are believed to have started dating in November and their romance is said to be 'the real deal'
The rapper contacted Millie through her agent and the pair went public at the Brit Awards in February 2012, with Stephen proposing on holiday in Paris just over a year later.
They tied the knot in a lavish ceremony at Babington House in Somerset in September 2013, before their marriage was dissolved in just 30 seconds with a decree nisi.
In a statement at the time, they said: 'It is a mutual decision, we still care deeply about each other and would like it to be known that it is on amicable terms and we wish each other well.'
Viewers have been hotly speculating over who will replace the much-loved Mary Berry on the new series of The Great British Bake-Off.
And it seems Prue Leith has come up trumps, as she's allegedly tipped to join Paul Hollywood as a judge when the revamped show moves to Channel 4 this year.
Bosses are reportedly hoping fans will warm to the South African restaurateur and cookery writer, 76, thanks to her similarities in age and nature to Mary herself.
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The new Mary berry? Prue Leith is allegedly tipped to join Paul Hollywood as a judge when the revamped show moves to Channel 4 this year
'In cookery circles, she's practically royalty,' a source told The Sun.
The insider claimed Prue was being put forward as a 'like for like' replacement to Mary.
'Both are from similar backgrounds, so hopefully viewers will be accepting and give Prue a chance to win them over.
'Following in Marys footsteps is a big challenge. But the producers are confident that Prue has all the attributes.'
Rumour has it: Bosses are reportedly hoping fans will warm to the restaurateur and cookery writer, 76, thanks to her similarities in age and nature to Mary herself
Cookery legend: 'In cookery circles, she's practically royalty,' a source told The Sun
The likeness between the two has been drawn no doubt as food writer Prue is the same age Mary - now 81 - was when Bake Off debuted in 2010.
MailOnline has contacted a rep for Prue for comment.
A Channel 4 spokesman said: 'We'll be announcing the line up for The Great British Bake Off in due course'.
Leith started out in the cookery world as a caterer in the 60s, before opening her famous Michelin-starred restaurant Leith's in 1969.
In 1975 she founded her own cookery school, Leiths School of Food and Wine, to train professional chefs and amateur cooks.
They go way back: 'Both are from similar backgrounds, so hopefully viewers will be accepting and give Prue a chance to win them over,' the insider said
Cookery queen: Leith started out in the cookery world as a caterer in the 60s, before opening her famous Michelin-starred restaurant Leith's in 1969
Reaching a reported turnover of 15m, Prue sold all but the restaurant in the group in 1993.
Two years later she sold the restaurant, and later that year helped found the Prue Leith College, (later renamed Prue Leith Chef's Academy) in South Africa.
Proving her television experience, she has been a judge on the BBC television programme Great British Menu since it launched in 2006.
Adding to her list of accolades, Prue was awarded an OBE in 1989, and a CBE in 2010.
Michel Roux Jr, 56, a two-star Michelin chef, was previously tipped as a hot favourite to replace Mary after he was spotted arriving at a test shoot in London in January.
Cooking up a feast: Proving her television experience, she has been a judge on the BBC television programme Great British Menu since it launched in 2006 (pictured)
The 56-year-old boasts previous presenting experience on Masterchef and Saturday Kitchen.
He was joined by Irish chef Rachel Allen, a baking whizz, 44, who has hosted the Good Food Channel's Market Kitchen show and a series called Rachel Allen: Bake! for RTE.
Joining them at the secret venue appeared to be potential replacements for baking queen Berry herself, including Frances Atkins - one of only six female Michelin starred chefs in the UK.
Lone wolf: At the moment baker Paul Hollywood is the only judge set to return to the show when it moves to Channel 4
The former gang: While Mel and Sue refused to follow the money over at Channel 4, Paul secured a deal that he said 'doubled his wages'
The head chef at the Yorke Arms in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire - which featured in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's comedy The Trip - she has been working her magic in the kitchen since she was 17 and recently appeared on Great British Menu.
Chef and cookery writer Lady Claire Macdonald was also spotted leaving the venue, a big smile on her face.
It has also been claimed that TV pastry expert Claire Clark could be in the running to replace Mary Berry.
The 51-year-old chef, who previously hosted the Creme De La Creme spin-off show, has been deemed the right kind of 'warm natured' personality to host the show, The Sun reports.
Other contendors: Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson have also been slated to replace Berry
While Mel and Sue refused to follow the money over at Channel 4, Paul secured a deal that he said 'doubled his wages'.
Speculation has been rife as to who will fill the Berry, Giedroyc and Perkins shaped voids when Channel 4 reboots the series.
Names floated around have included the likes of Davina McCall, Richard Ayoade and French & Saunders as potential replacement hosts, while Delia Smith and Nigella Lawson have also been slated to replace Berry.
Channel 4 bought the rights to the Bake Off from the BBC last year with a 75 million three year offer.
Already devastated that Mary Berry, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins decided not to stay with the show following its move to Channel 4, fans are eager to get their Bake Off fix and find out who will be joining Paul Hollywood when he returns to screens in the famous tent.
How Bake Off's 'new Mary Berry' Prue Leith had a secret 13-year affair with the husband of her mothers best friend
By Jane Flanagan in Cape Town
Prue Leith is the living embodiment of a woman who has managed to have it all a successful career, a family and even a new romance, at the age of 76 and always on her own terms.
She credits her 13 year stint as the mistress of a married man for giving her the love and support she needed to build a multi-million pound empire, until she was ready to have her own children, prompting her lover to finally leave his wife.
In her recent autobiography Relish: My Life on a Plate, she revealed details of the scandal that surrounded her first marriage to fellow South African Rayne Kruger, who had been the husband of her mothers closest friend.
Guru: In 1975 she founded her own cookery school, Leiths School of Food and Wine, to train professional chefs and amateur cooks
Describing their relationship as almost incest, the cook disclosed that she was just 12 when she developed a crush on her half uncle, half-godfather and was 21 when they began an illicit love affair, during his marriage to actress Nan Munro.
Prue was 34 by the time she took up with another man, prompting Kruger to finally leave his wife, and the pair married, staying together until Krugers death in 2002. Their son Daniel was an advisor to David Cameron, and adopted daughter Li-Da, originally from Cambodia, is a film maker.
I wasnt unloved and I wasnt alone. I was just grateful that I didnt have to go home and cook dinner every night, because he wasnt there.So I had this in the background secretly, he was wonderful at helping me, but he was invisible. And he went home at night. So I could work every hour that God gave, she told Henley Literary Festival two years ago.
Awarded an OBE in 1989 and a CBE in 2010, Leith denied she would want to be considered to take her friend Mary Berrys role in The Great British Bake Off, and could not understand the anguish surrounding news that the show was moving to Channel 4.
I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about, really. I was more concerned about Brangelina, she told The Telegraph.
After 15 years as a widow, she married for a second time last year, and yet remains firmly alone in her eight-bedroom mansion in the Oxfordshire countryside, leaving her groom designer John Playfair - looking after his own laundry at his own home a mile down the road.
Of her new marriage to Playfair six years her junior she told Radio 4s Womans Hour that living apart from her husband was an ideal arrangement.
He does all his ironing and he cleans his shoes there and he keeps all his gear there. And I tell you what, its the ideal thing, she told Radio 4s Womans Hour.
What you want and what I get is him without his clobber and without the responsibility of looking after his laundry or sewing on his buttons.
Chance the Rapper wins Grammy for Best New Artist
Chance the Rapper has won the Grammy for Best New Artist, validating the rapid rise of the hip-hop star who has released his music only through streaming.
The rapper, who has been open about his Christianity, told the televised gala: "I claim the victory in the name of the Lord."
"I know people think that independence means you do it by yourself, but independence means freedom," Chance said as he pointed to members of his team.
Chance The Rapper receives the award for Best New Artistt from Jennifer Lopez at the 59th Grammys Valerie MACON (AFP)
The 23-year-old rapper from Chicago, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, won in the closely watched Grammy category against a field that included electronica crowd-pleasers The Chainsmokers and experimental hip-hop artist Anderson .Paak.
"Coloring Book," Chance's mixtape released last year, incorporated gospel choir music and lyrically touched on his faith.
Chance the Rapper benefited from a change in Grammy rules this year to consider streaming-only releases. He did not sell "Coloring Book" as a CD or as downloads, saying he considered himself a touring artist.
"Coloring Book" nonetheless entered the top 10 on the US albums chart, the first for a streaming exclusive, as Chance promoted the work through an active social media campaign.
The mixtape featured appearances by top stars including Kanye West, a fellow Chicago rapper who was his early inspiration, and Justin Bieber.
Chance the Rapper has also used his rising platform to be an activist.
He has pleaded for an end to Chicago's gun violence epidemic, waging a campaign similar to an album promotion that was credited with helping make May 23 a day without deadly shootings in the Midwestern metropolis.
Trump's White House: Five takeaways from Sunday
President Donald Trump fired off tweets to settle scores from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, defending his tough stance on illegal immigrants, taunting judges and praising an advisor.
- Tough on the undocumented -
Trump patted himself on the back for a series of raids this week that nabbed hundreds of undocumented migrants, attributing the success to his tough stance toward undocumented immigrants who have had run-ins with the law.
US President Donald Trump walks away from Marine One at the White House as he returns from his weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago MOLLY RILEY (AFP)
"The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!" he tweeted.
- New executive order? -
The White House confirmed Sunday that Trump is weighing a new executive order on immigration, defying federal court rulings that struck down his ban on refugees and other travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Senior advisor Stephen Miller accused the judges of taking for themselves power that belongs "squarely in the hands" of the president.
On Twitter Trump accused the courts of having a "BREAKDOWN" that is allowing people from the targeted countries to rush into the United States.
- Advisor getting his closeup -
The pugnacious and highly combative Miller, 31, made the rounds of the Sunday television talk shows, piquing the media's interest and earning praise from his boss.
"Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!" Trump tweeted.
- Protests in Mexico -
Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested against Trump, hitting back at his anti-Mexican rhetoric and his pledges to make their country pay for his "big, beautiful" border wall.
In what looked set to be Mexico's biggest anti-Trump protest yet, some 20 cities joined the call to march made by a group of dozens of universities, business associations and civic organizations.
There were 20,000 demonstrators in Mexico City, according to local authorities. Marches in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Morelia also drew thousands of people -- though a planned protest in the border city of Tijuana fell flat.
"Mexico must be respected, Mr Trump," said a giant banner carried by protesters in Mexico City, who waved a sea of red, white and green Mexican flags as they marched down the capital's main avenue under the watchful eyes of thousands of police.
- Anti-Trump show at Fashion Week -
Fashion Week's determination to subvert the Trump presidency put "Make America New York" hats on the runway at Public School.
The red hats symbolized the New York identity of uber hip label Public School -- founded by hometown team Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne -- and the values of America's cultural capital, a gateway to immigrants for centuries.
Emblazoned with white letters, the caps were a blatant riff on the "Make America Great Again" hats from the Trump campaign and the slogan that has remained the president's rallying cry in office.
The numbers "44 1/2" were printed on the side, hard not to interpret as another dig at Trump, the 45th president who could be seen as "half" a president after losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
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In powder blue and gray military uniforms, red kerchiefs, and caps emblazoned with crimson stars, young Chinese students in the southwestern province of Guizhou perform kung fu exercises in their courtyard to stave off the winter cold.
Their small school, Yang Dezhi, is situated in the rural hills of Wenshui town and was established more than a hundred years ago during the final years of the Qing dynasty.
But it has undergone a more recent overhaul.
Students attend the flag-raising ceremony at the Yang Dezhi 'Red Army' elementary school in Wenshui, south-west China's Guizhou province
In 2008, it was designated a 'Red Army primary school' - funded by China's 'red nobility' of revolution-era Communist commanders and their families one of many such institutions that have been established across the country.
Such schools are an extreme example of the 'patriotic education' which China's ruling Communist party promotes to boost its legitimacy - but which critics condemn as little more than brainwashing.
In 2008 the elementary school in Wenshui was designated a 'Red Army primary school' - funded by China's 'red nobility' of revolution-era Communist commanders and their families
Such schools are an extreme example of the 'patriotic education' which China's ruling Communist party promotes to boost its legitimacy - but which critics condemn as little more than brainwashing
'The Red Army spirit is a real asset for children. It teaches them to be hardworking and thrifty from a young age,' said school manager Mu Chunyong, who oversees the 136 pupils in first through fourth grades.
Guizhou province is one of China's poorest, but even there, most families are now able to afford relatively comfortable lives, making it important to remind students of the hardships of the past, he said.
'If you don't instill kids these days with a sense of the evolution of history, the kids won't cherish their current living conditions.'
There were more than 200 red army schools as of last year.
Sometimes bearing names of prominent Party elders, they are built in 'old revolutionary areas', once cradles of Communist rebellion but still often among the country's poorest areas.
Like all buildings in China's south, the school has no central heating - instead, children take breaks every hour or so to perform guided exercises in the courtyard to get their blood pumping
A 'red culture' class was added to the curriculum, in which children learn to sing nationalistic songs with military precision, discuss stories about the early days of the Communist Party, and study local Red Army history
Every afternoon, they spend five minutes using their fingertips to massage the area around their eyes to relax before the last round of classes a practice taught in all Chinese schools
In the 1930s, Yang Dezhi sheltered Red Army soldiers during their epic Long March through remote and hazardous terrain as they fled rival Nationalist forces.
The nearest city, Zunyi, was where China's founding father Mao Zedong first consolidated his power over the ruling Communist party.
Yang Dezhi's Red Army school credentials came with increased funding, which it used to increase teacher salaries and buy backpacks, clothing and water mugs for the children, among other things.
A 'red culture' class was added to the curriculum, in which children learn to sing nationalistic songs with military precision, discuss stories about the early days of the Communist Party, and study local Red Army history.
Like all buildings in China's south, the school has no central heating.
Students walk at most half an hour to get to school every day through roads often muddied by the region's fine, persistent rain, stopping at small roadside shops to buy neon-hued, sugary packaged snacks
At lunch, they line up in the canteen to serve themselves one by one from trays of rice and huge silver pots filled with potatoes, beans, and chicken
The children must then sit and eat their meals in silence before returning to afternoon classes
Children gather around a ping pong table in the rain-soaked playground
Instead, children take breaks every hour or so to perform guided exercises in the courtyard to get their blood pumping.
Every afternoon, they spend five minutes using their fingertips to massage the area around their eyes to relax before the last round of classes a practice taught in all Chinese schools.
At lunch, they line up in the canteen to serve themselves one by one from trays of rice and huge silver pots filled with potatoes, beans, and chicken, before eating in silence.
Students walk at most half an hour to get to school every day through roads often muddied by the region's fine, persistent rain, stopping at small roadside shops to buy neon-hued, sugary packaged snacks.
A martial spirit can teach children 'self-reliance, self-confidence, and how to strive for self-improvement,' said Mu.
The male and female pupils wear identical uniforms, which consist of grey button-ups jackets, neckerchiefs and caps
'Red army' schools are an extreme example of the 'patriotic education' which China's ruling Communist party promotes to boost its legitimacy, but which critics condemn as little more than brainwashing Fred DUFOUR (AFP)
Children wear colourful wellies in the wet weather as they stand in the playground for a roll call
Rights group raps Pakistan for 'forced' repatriation of Afghans
Pakistan is conducting the mass repatriation of Afghan refugees through coercion, threats and abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a scathing report Monday, accusing the UN refugee agency of complicity in promoting the exodus.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been forced to return to their homeland, which is racked by conflict, poverty and unemployment, joining more than half a million others uprooted by war inside the country.
The report, entitled "Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity: The Mass Forced Return of Afghan Refugees", called the repatriation the world's largest forced return of refugees.
The UNHCR lists Pakistan as the world's third-largest refugee-hosting nation, with some Afghan refugees sheltering there since the Soviet invasion of 1979 Abdul Majeed GORAYA (AFP/File)
"After decades of hosting Afghan refugees, Pakistan in mid-2016 unleashed the world's largest recent anti-refugee crackdowns to coerce their mass return," said Gerry Simpson, a refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"Because the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) didn't stand up publicly to Pakistan's bullying and abuses, international donors should step in to press the government and UN to protect the remaining Afghan refugees in Pakistan."
The report said a combination of insecure legal status, the threat of deportation during winter and police abuses - including extortion, arbitrary detention and nocturnal raids - had left the Afghan refugees with no choice but to leave Pakistan.
"In July, 11 soldiers and police came to our home at 3am. They entered without asking and threw all our things on the floor. They demanded to see our refugee cards and said they were expired," a 26-year-old Afghan was quoted as saying.
"Then they stole all our money and told us to leave Pakistan," said the man, who returned to Kabul with his wife and two children.
The report was also critical of the UNHCR, saying that by doubling its cash grants to Afghans returning from Pakistan to $400, it was effectively encouraging the exodus.
"The UN refugee agency should end the fiction that the mass forced return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan is, in fact, mass voluntary return," Simpson said.
"If UNHCR feels that giving cash to returning refugees is the best way to help them survive in Afghanistan, it should at the very least make clear it does not consider their return to be voluntary."
- Returning to insecurity -
There was no immediate reaction to the report from the Pakistani government, which has previously cited security concerns and strains on its resources after nearly four decades for the repatriation.
Itt has repeatedly extended deadlines for refugees to leave, most recently until December 2017.
UNHCR rejected the criticism.
"The UN Refugee Agency shares concerns of Human Rights Watch regarding the pressures on Afghans in the late summer which affected the repatriation last year, but does not agree with the conclusions of its new report," the UN body said in a statement.
"The multiple drivers behind this surge... include pressures by authorities amidst broader security operations, changing attitudes among host communities, uncertainty about the renewal of refugee ID cards, economic hardship, stricter border controls disrupting trade and family ties."
Some Afghan refugees have been sheltering in Pakistan since fleeing the Soviet invasion of 1979.
Up to 2.4 million registered and unregistered Afghan refugees were estimated to be in Pakistan last year, though the figures have not been updated since the repatriation began. UNHCR listed it as the world's third-largest refugee-hosting nation.
Conflict-torn Afghanistan is struggling to reabsorb large masses of refugees and failed asylum-seekers being sent back from Pakistan, as well as from Europe and Iran.
The Afghan government, heavily reliant on foreign aid, has promised refugees land and cash grants but is struggling to deliver.
Hammer murder surgeon jailed for life in Australia
A former surgeon who bludgeoned to death five relatives with a "hammer-like object" was jailed for life on Monday for one of Australia's most ferocious killings.
Chinese-born ear, nose and throat specialist Robert Xie repeatedly clubbed two children and three adults around the head and face as they lay sleeping in their home in 2009, hitting one of them 18 times.
The 58-year-old, who emigrated from China 15 years ago, was told he will die in jail for the murders of brother-in-law Norman Lin and his family.
A former surgeon has been given five life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murder of five family members in Sydney SAEED KHAN (AFP/File)
Justice Elizabeth Fullerton told a Sydney court Xie's horrific slaying of the five -- including one as young as nine -- showed "resolve... to persist with the infliction of extreme violence".
It was a "single episode of brutal and calculated murderous violence (and) a course of offending that can only be described as heinous in the extreme," Fullerton said.
"There was a discernable pattern in the shape and contour of many of the blunt force injuries on the heads and faces of the victims."
Prosecutors said Xie, who had a key to the family home, was motivated by bitterness linked to his lowly standing with the family.
Xie and his wife Kathy Lin -- Norman's sister -- alerted the police to the bodies, leading to a huge investigation spanning Australia and China.
He was charged in 2011.
Xie, who was given five life sentences without the possibility of parole, maintains his innocence, and is supported by his wife.
"He is a loving and caring family man," Kathy Lin told reporters outside court.
"He was wrongly charged with a crime he did not commit. He is a scapegoat".
UN chief 'deeply' regrets veto of Palestinian ex-PM as envoy
UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said he "deeply" regretted opposition to former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad as the organisation's peace envoy to Libya, days after Washington vetoed the appointment.
"I deeply regret this opposition and I do not see any reason for it," Guterres said at the annual World Government Summit hosted by Dubai.
Guterres described Fayyad, a former World Bank official with a track record of fighting corruption, as "the right person for the right job at the right moment".
UN chief Antonio Guterres said he "deeply" regretted opposition to former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (seen here) as the organisation's peace envoy to Libya, days after Washington vetoed the appointment ABBAS MOMANI (AFP/File)
"It's a loss for the Libyan peace process and the Libyan people," he said, adding that the United Nations "needs to be able to act with impartiality".
The UN leader on Wednesday had informed the Security Council of his intention to appoint Fayyad as a replacement for German Martin Kobler to conflict-torn Libya.
But US ambassador Nikki Haley vetoed the appointment, saying Washington did not support the message the move would send.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the US veto of Fayyad as counter to the "free gifts constantly given to the Palestinian side".
Israeli media has meanwhile reported that the Jewish state could accept Fayyad's appointment if Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister, were offered the position of UN deputy secretary general.
The head of the United Nations requires the unanimous support of all 15 Security Council members for appointments of special representatives to conflict areas.
Libya has been in turmoil since a 2011 revolution overthrew and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Guterres also addressed the upcoming UN-sponsored peace talks on Syria, scheduled for February 20 in Geneva.
"There is no solution for the Syrian people without a comprehensive solution in which all Syrians feel they are properly represented," he said.
The Geneva talks "are a first step for serious progress in finding a transition that allows for a political solution in which all Syrians feel represented," Guterres added.
Syria's opposition on Sunday announced a 21-member delegation to the new round of peace talks. It includes several representatives of armed rebel groups.
Syrian government officials will also be in attendance.
More than 310,000 Syrians have been killed and some five million driven out of their country since conflict erupted following anti-government protests in March 2011.
Hamas military hardliner elected group's Gaza chief
Hamas elected in secret a hardline member of the Palestinian Islamist movement's armed wing as its new Gaza leader on Monday, indicating a tougher stand against longtime adversary Israel.
Yahya Sinwar was elected to head the Hamas political office in the Gaza Strip, officials from the party said on condition of anonymity.
An influential military figure, Sinwar represents for some the hardest line within the Islamist movement which has fought three wars against Israel since 2008.
Freed Palestinian prisoner Yahya Sinwar (R), a founder of Hamas' military wing, and then Hamas leader Ismail Haniya wave as supporters celebrate the release of prisoners in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2011 Said KHATIB (AFP/File)
He will succeed politician Ismail Haniya and becomes the second most important figure in the party after Khaled Meshaal.
Sinwar was held in Israeli jail for more than 20 years until 2011, when he was released along with more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured five years earlier.
He has since become a senior figure in the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing.
In September 2015, Sinwar's name was added to the US terrorism blacklist alongside two other Qassam members.
Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a political analyst in Gaza, said the appointment showed the military wing was asserting its dominance in Hamas.
Israel's foreign ministry and prime minister's office declined to comment, but the defence ministry body responsible for the Palestinian territories labelled him the head of Hamas's "radical camp".
- Secretive -
A graduate in Arabic, Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp of southern Gaza in 1962 and founded "Majd," one of Hamas's intelligence services.
In 1988, he was arrested by Israel for "terrorist activity" and eventually sentenced to four life sentences.
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, two years after Israel pulled its forces out but Sinwar remained in jail for another four years.
He was released in October 2011 as part of a mammoth deal for Shalit, who was captured in 2006.
Washington accuses Sinwar of pushing for kidnapping more Israeli soldiers as a bargaining chip for Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas currently claims to be holding four Israelis in captivity in Gaza, though Israel says the two soldiers among them were killed in the 2014 war.
After his release from jail, Sinwar initially made a number of public appearances.
Later, however, he disappeared from public view and was presented in Hamas media as the commander of Qassam's elite units.
On Monday, he seemed set to step back into the public sphere at a time when Hamas has been holding elections.
The election process, ongoing for months, is shrouded in mystery and it was unclear how Sinwar was appointed and if and when other appointments will be announced.
There was no reference to his appointment on the Hamas website Monday afternoon.
Haniya is seen by many observers as the most likely successor to Hamas's overall leader Meshaal, who currently lives in exile.
Sinwar, however, could have significant freedom inside Gaza.
- 'Escalation' -
Both Palestinian and Israeli analysts said the appointment could make another conflict between the two sides more likely.
"I think it is an indication that we might see an escalation with the Israeli occupation in the coming stage," said Abu Saada, the Gaza analyst.
"Sinwar is known to not accept any facilitation that eases the tense situation with the occupation," Abu Saada said.
"We might see in the coming stage further provocations against Israel and violent responses against Gaza."
Israel last year appointed hardline rightwinger Avigdor Lieberman as its defence minister.
After his appointment, he warned the next war with Gaza would be the last as "we will completely destroy them".
Kobi Michael, an analyst and former head of the Palestinian desk at Israel's strategic affairs ministry, said the appointment would alarm Israeli politicians.
"He represents the most radical and extreme line of Hamas," he told reporters. "Sinwar believes in armed resistance. He doesn't believe in any sort of cooperation with Israel."
In the 2014 war, 2,251 Palestinians and 74 Israelis died.
Damascus ready for prisoner swap with rebels: state media
Syria's regime is ready to release detainees in exchange for hostages held by rebels, the official SANA news agency reported Monday, ahead of peace talks in the Kazakh capital.
"The government is ready... as part of efforts towards the next meeting in Astana to exchange detainees for men, women and children -- civilians and soldiers -- kidnapped by terrorists," SANA said, referring to the rebels.
Kazakhstan has invited Syrian rebels and government officials to peace talks on Wednesday and Thursday in Astana, after a first round last month organised by regime backers Russia and Iran and rebel ally Turkey.
A fighter from Jaish al-Islam (Islam Army) rebel group stands guard in Bilaliyah, east Damascus, earlier this month AMER ALMOHIBANY (AFP/File)
The Syrian government's position comes after the "success... of the Syrian state in freeing numerous civilians and soldiers kidnapped by terrorist groups", the agency cited an official source as saying.
On Wednesday, the authorities handed over 55 detainees -- who were mostly women and included eight children -- in exchange for the release of 57 civilians including 19 children from the coastal city of Latakia who had been held by the rebels since 2013.
Official media broadcast images of President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma receiving the former hostages.
The announcement of the prisoner swap came after Assad dismissed a report released last week by Amnesty International accusing the Syrian authorities of hanging up to 13,000 people over five years in a government prison.
The Astana talks are to be followed by a new round of UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva on February 20.
Some Uighurs fighting and dying in Syria: exiled leader
An exiled advocate for China's ethnic Uighur minority said Monday that some of the group were fighting and dying in Syria -- including for Islamic State (IS) -- though she claimed they had been duped into doing so.
Rebiya Kadeer, who heads the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said that among the thousands of Uighurs who have fled to Southeast Asia, Turkey and elsewhere in recent years, a small number have ended up in the war-torn Middle Eastern country and have joined militant groups.
"Some Uighurs... died after Russian airplanes bombed them, they were killed in Syria," she said at a press conference during a visit to Japan.
Exiled Uyghur democracy leader Rebiya Kadeer speaks about alleged atrocities by Chinese authorities against ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang, at a press conference in Tokyo on October 19, 2015 Yoshikazu TSUNO (AFP/File)
Russia's militarily backs the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 and has left more than 300,000 people dead. Numerous groups, including IS, are fighting for control of the country.
The mostly Muslim Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language and number some 10 million, are native to the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang bordering Central Asia and have long complained of religious and cultural discrimination.
China has frequently warned that radical forces from outside have inspired terror attacks in Xinjiang as well as in other regions of the country and has launched a harsh crackdown.
It says among Uighurs who have fled are some seeking to train with extremists in Syria to eventually return and fight for independence in Xinjiang.
In 2015, China's security ministry said more than 100 Uighurs that were repatriated by Thailand had been on their way to Turkey, Syria or Iraq "to join jihad".
Once a wealthy and prominent businesswoman, Kadeer, now 70, fell out with the Chinese government and was jailed before her 2005 release into exile in the United States where she serves as president of the WUC.
She said Uighurs who end up in Syria are vulnerable and prone to being "brainwashed" into joining the fighting there, but still denounced them.
"We think they are just like criminal groups in our society," she said.
The WUC describes itself as a "peaceful opposition movement against Chinese occupation of East Turkestan" -- their name for Xinjiang.
It says it promotes "human rights, religious freedom, and democracy" for Uighurs and advocates "peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic means to determine their political future".
But China has blamed the WUC, as well as the shadowy East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), of radicalising Uighurs and fomenting violence and independence.
Overseas experts, however, have expressed scepticism, with some accusing China of exaggerating the Uighur threat to justify a tough security regime in resource-rich Xinjiang.
Human Rights groups argue that harsh police tactics and government campaigns against Muslim religious practices, such as the wearing of veils, have fuelled Uighur violence.
Syrian forces used chemical weapons in final push for Aleppo: HRW
Syrian government forces carried out at least eight chemical attacks during the final weeks of the battle for Aleppo, killing nine people, among them four children, and injuring hundreds more, Human Rights Watch said Monday.
The rights group said it interviewed witnesses, collected photos and reviewed video footage indicating that chlorine bombs were dropped from government helicopters during the offensive from November 17 to December 13.
Around 200 people were injured by the toxic gases used on opposition-controlled areas of the northern city, according to HRW.
A member of the Syrian pro-government forces gestures to tanks as they patrol the northern embattled city of Aleppo on December 14, 2016 George Ourfalian (AFP/File)
One of the deadliest bombings hit the neighborhood of Sakhur on November 20, killing six members of the same family including four children whose lifeless bodies were shown on a video taken by the Shabha press agency.
The report detailed attacks on a playground, clinics, residential streets, and houses that left scores of people struggling to breathe, vomiting and unconscious.
"The chemicals would affect the children most severely... they inhale these smells and they end up suffocating," said a first responder quoted in the report.
The attacks, which may have involved as many as three helicopters operating jointly, took place in areas where government forces were poised to advance, said the rights group.
"The pattern of the chlorine attacks shows that they were coordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements," said Ole Solvang, HRW's deputy emergencies director.
For five of the attacks, HRW reviewed photographs or video footage of remnants of at least seven yellow cylinders that carried warnings that they contained gas.
The actual number of chemical attacks could be higher, said the group, adding that journalists, medical personnel and other credible sources had reported at least 12 attacks in that period.
HRW was able to verify eight attacks involving chlorine bombs.
- No evidence of Russian role -
Syrian forces, backed by Russia, launched an offensive in November to seize east Aleppo, a key battleground in Syria's nearly six-year war, and the regime announced on December 22 that it had taken full control of the city.
The group said there was no evidence that Russia was directly involved in the chemical attacks, although Russian aircraft did play a role in the military offensive against opposition fighters in east Aleppo.
"We don't have any evidence that Russia was directly involved in any of these attacks or that it was aware", said Louis Charbonneau, HRW's UN director.
"What we do know is that Russia is a close military ally of the Syrian government. It is involved on the ground. It was involved in the battle for Aleppo."
"At the very least, they needed to take measures to ensure that these weapons were not being used," Charbonneau told a news conference.
Chlorine use as a weapon is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013 under pressure from Russia.
The use of chlorine bombs as an indiscriminate weapon could amount to war crimes.
Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to impose sanctions on senior leaders in the chain of command, but such a move would likely be vetoed by Russia.
France and Britain are pushing the Security Council to ban the sale of helicopters to Syria and impose the first UN sanctions against Syrian military leaders and entities tied to chemical weapons development.
A joint investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found that several units of the Syrian army had used toxic weapons against three villages in northern Syria in 2014 and 2015.
It was the first time an international probe blamed President Bashar Al-Assad's forces after years of denial from Damascus.
Russia, however, has cast doubt of the panel's findings, saying there were not strong enough to warrant sanctions.
Iraq hits IS commanders, Baghdadi fate unclear: statement
The Iraqi air force has targeted a meeting of commanders from the Islamic State group that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been attending, a statement said on Monday.
It was not clear in the statement sent by the Joint Operations Command coordinating the fight against the jihadists in Iraq whether the world's most wanted terrorist had been hit.
An intelligence cell monitored a convoy that the statement said transported Baghdadi from the area of Raqa, the jihadists' main Syrian stronghold, across the border to the Al-Qaim area in western Iraq.
This July 5, 2014 photo shows an image grab taken from a propaganda video released by al-Furqan Media allegedly showing the leader of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Mosul
The statement said Iraqi air force F-16 jets struck a meeting of top IS commanders on February 11 but provided no additional information on Baghdadi's fate.
"The direct strike on the meeting location led to the death of 13 Daesh (IS) commanders," said the statement, which provided a list of names.
The Iraq-born Baghdadi, who proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria in June 2014, was not one of those names.
The Iraqi military has reported Baghdadi killed or wounded on numerous occasions since it launched a counter-offensive to regain the territory lost to IS almost three years ago.
Iraq's military said dozens of other IS militants were also killed in other strikes in the same area as part of the operation last week.
Baghdadi's health is unknown, but the Pentagon said six weeks ago that he was still alive and leading IS as it tries to defend the remnants of its crumbling "caliphate".
In the statement issued on Monday, the Iraqi military claimed that Baghdadi had come to the border area to discuss with his commanders "the setbacks taking place in Mosul".
Mosul is Iraq's second city and the largest ever held by IS.
After a string of major losses in both Iraq and Syria, the jihadists' two main strongholds of Mosul and Raqa are both under attack from forces backed by a US-led coalition.
Iraqi forces have already retaken the eastern side of Mosul and, nearly four months into a massive offensive to recapture the city, they are now readying for an assault on the west side.
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Trump, Trudeau grapple with differences on refugees, trade
US President Donald Trump and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to paper over differences on the treatment of refugees during a joint public appearance Monday, but appeared to tone down harsh trade rhetoric.
The two leaders avoided directly criticizing each other after a meeting in the White House, but made it clear they did not see eye-to-eye on Trump's efforts to ban refugees and travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations.
Trump defended his controversial immigration decree as "common sense" and demurred when asked if Canada's open door policies posed a threat for the United States.
US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, February 13, 2017 SAUL LOEB (AFP)
"You can never be totally confident," Trump said when asked about America's northern border, before vaunting his Department of Homeland Security's migrant round-ups.
Recent days have seen the arrest of hundreds of undocumented migrants across the United States.
"We're actually taking people that are criminals -- very, very hardened criminals in some cases, with a tremendous track record of abuse and problems, and we are getting them out," Trump said.
Civil rights group say migrants with no criminal record are also being caught in the dragnet.
Trudeau said that "Canada has always understood that keeping Canadians safe is one of the fundamental responsibilities of any government."
"At the same time, we continue to pursue our policies of openness towards refugees without compromising security."
The gulf between the two neighbors was always going to be difficult span: Trump has painted Syrian refugees as terrorists-in-waiting, while Trudeau has traveled to Toronto's Pearson International airport to greet them.
- Trade 'tweak' -
After striking up a much-flaunted "bromance" with president Barack Obama, Canada's youthful liberal leader was in Washington to woo a septuagenarian Republican, with whom he shares little in common.
Trudeau is the third foreign leader received by the Republican mogul since he took office on January 20, following meetings with Britain's Theresa May and Japan's Shinzo Abe.
Trudeau visit got off to an awkward start, when he arrived at the White House early and his limousine was forced to wait on the driveway for around five minutes before Trump came out.
The two men then greeted each other with a handshake and headed into the Oval Office.
While there was little common ground on migration, Trudeau and Trump did appear to narrow the gap on trade.
Trump had vowed to put "America first" and rip up the North America Free Trade Agreement, but significantly toned down that rhetoric after meeting Trudeau.
Trump called for trade to be "reciprocal," but said he wanted to only "tweak" rather than gut the terms of trade.
"America is deeply fortunate to have a neighbor like Canada," Trump said, hailing the opportunity to "build even more bridges" of commerce.
"We understand that both of our countries are stronger when we join forces in matters of international commerce," Trump said.
The economic ties between America and its northern neighbor -- who share the world's longest common border -- run deep.
Three-quarters of Canada's exports go to the US, and Canada is the top destination for exports for many US states.
Trudeau, a fervent supporter of free trade, emphasized the importance of NAFTA and issued a subtle warning about the risks of protectionism for the US states.
"Make no mistake, at the end of the day, Canada and the US will always remain each other's most essential partner," Trudeau said.
"As we know, 35 US states list Canada as their largest export market, and our economies benefit from the over $2 billion in two-way trade that takes place every single day.
"Millions of good, middle class jobs on both sides of the border depend on this crucial partnership."
Trump had not been specific on how he wants NAFTA talks to develop, but has repeatedly trashed the 23-year-old pact, calling it a "catastrophe" for American jobs and threatening to slap tariffs on imports from Mexico.
- Polar opposites -
Trump and Trudeau are a study in contrasts: their path to power, their political stripes, their style -- they could not be more different.
Manhattan property mogul Trump won the White House in a shock November election victory over Hillary Clinton after painting a dark picture of a country in turmoil and vowing to put "America first."
Trudeau, the son of a well-liked prime minister, came to power promising to "provide a positive and good government for Canadians" and enhance the country's image abroad.
Family connections were deployed by both sides on Monday, with Ivanka Trump sitting in on the two leaders' meeting with female business leaders and Trudeau gifting Trump a photo of his father and the now US president together.
DonladTrump and Justin Trudeau are a study in contrasts: their path to power, their political stripes, their style -- they could not be more different SAUL LOEB (AFP)
North American Free Trade Agreement John SAEKI (AFP/File)
Proenza Schouler show celebrates New York and protests
The US womenswear label Proenza Schouler channeled the energy of New York and its recent political protests at its final runway show in the Big Apple on Monday before relocating to Paris.
"For us it was a celebration of everything we love about New York. It was our idea of New York really, the energy," said Lazaro Hernandez, who co-founded the label with fellow Parsons School of Design classmate Jack McCollough.
Much admired by critics and edgy fashionistas, they got a strong send off from the likes of Calvin Klein's new creative director Raf Simons, British model Alexa Chung and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, guests of honor.
The Proenza Schouler show at New York Fashion Week featured asymmetric sleeves, cut-outs and detailing, graffiti prints, latex coverings and tunics, and long belts studded with eyelets Angela Weiss (AFP)
Hernandez said the inspiration for fall/winter 2017 was "the energy that New York has had the last few weeks" and protests that have swept the city in opposition to Republican President Donald Trump.
"It has been really inspiring to us: people getting together and standing up for what they believe in," Hernandez told reporters backstage after the show in a Greenwich Village loft on fashion week's day five.
"It's not a time for being in your bathrobe and slippers at home," he said. "You stand for what you believe in and you say what you believe in and you fight for the things that you want, the things that are right."
The result was a collection that "almost" had "that trash bag kind of feeling -- asymmetry is definitely a thing," McCollough said.
There were column dresses, silver metallic pants, leather jackets, shearling lined coats and flat shoes -- practical attire in some respects going out to protest. Colors were scarlet, hot pink, black and white.
There were asymmetric sleeves, cut-outs and detailing, graffiti prints, latex coverings and tunics, and long belts studded with eyelets: very urban.
Proenza Schouler will next show in Paris following an exodus of other labels that have already abandoned New York this season for the balmier climes of Los Angeles or the greater global exposure of the French capital.
They intend to show earlier each season, in July and January rather than September and February in New York, and are due to launch a fragrance next year in collaboration with L'Oreal Luxe.
But they are not leaving for good. "It's not permanent, we will come back," Hernandez said. "These days nothing is permanent."
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) The Latest on problems with an emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam (all times local):
11:50 p.m.
A California National Guard official says they will provide eight helicopters to assist with emergency spillway reconstruction at the nation's tallest dam located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
California Highway Patrol officer Ken Weckman directs traffic as residents evacuate Marysville, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017. Thousands of residents of Marysville and other Northern California communities were told to leave their homes Sunday evening as an emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam could fail at any time unleashing flood waters from Lake Oroville, according to officials from the California Department of Water Resources. (Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP)
Adjunct General David S. Baldwin said at a news conference late Sunday that the helicopters will also be available for search and rescue Monday near the Oroville Dam.
He added that the California National Guard put out a notification to all 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy if needed.
Baldwin says the last time an alert like Sunday's was issued for the entire California National Guard was the 1992 riots.
Evacuations for at least 188,000 people were ordered after officials warned the emergency spillway was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.
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11:30 p.m.
Gov. Jerry Brown has issued an emergency order to fortify authorities' response to the emergency at a Northern California dam and help with evacuations.
The Oroville Dam, which located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, has erosion on its emergency spillway and evacuation orders were given to 188,000 people south of the dam in case the spillway failed.
Brown said late Sunday the state is directing all necessary personnel and resources to deal with a "complex and rapidly changing" situation.
His office says the Governor's Office of Emergency Services is coordinating with local and federal emergency response officials.
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11:15 p.m.
A Northern California sheriff says evacuation orders affecting 188,000 people will stand until there is more information on the condition of the nation's tallest dam's emergency spillway.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea says there are a lot of unknowns about the situation at the Oroville Dam, which located about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
He spoke at a news conference late Sunday and said a lot of people had to be displaced to ensure public safety and that continues to be his focus.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris says at least 250 law enforcement officers from throughout the state are in the area or en route to help keep things safe for the people who evacuated.
___
11 p.m.
A California water official says no repair work was done Sunday on the eroded emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam.
Lake Oroville is about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest.
Earlier Sunday, authorities mentioned a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said at a news conference late Sunday that no corrective measures were taken after looking at the flow and available resources.
He said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the water is no longer spilling over the top.
He added that the integrity of the dam has not impacted.
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10:30 p.m.
A California water official says 100,000 cubic feet per second continue to flow down the Orville Dam's main spillway.
Department of Water Resources Acting Director Bill Croyle said at a news conference late Sunday that the plan is to continue withdrawing that amount of water for as long as possible.
Croyle says a key goal is to reduce the dam's level ahead of upcoming storms forecast to reach the area Wednesday.
Water levels at Lake Orville rose so high that an emergency spillway was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years. Officials noticed erosion on the emergency spillway on Sunday.
Croyle says officials have been unable to access the erosion scar but will be able to analyze the damage better now that water is below its level.
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10:15 p.m.
Authorities say there is no more water going over the emergency spillway at a Northern California dam.
Officials put out an evacuation order Sunday afternoon saying the spillway at Orville Dam could fail within an hour.
At least 130,000 people in downstream areas have been asked to evacuate.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference late Sunday that the evacuation orders will stand until more information is analyzed.
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8:30 p.m.
Traffic is gridlocked for miles around Lake Oroville as panicked and angry residents try to evacuate over concerns the Northern California dam's emergency spillway could fail.
Kaysi Levias and her husband, Greg, stopped at a gas station as they attempted to flee.
Greg Levias says he's shocked and pretty mad they didn't get more warning.
Officials put out an evacuation order Sunday afternoon telling around 100,000 people the emergency spillway at Orville Dam could fail within an hour.
Raj Gill is managing a Shell station where panicky motorists got gas and snacks while they wait for gridlocked traffic to clear. He says his boss told him to close the station and flee himself, but he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
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8:00 p.m.
At least 130,000 people have been asked to evacuate over concerns California's Oroville Dam's emergency spillway could fail.
Officials say Oroville Lake levels are decreasing as they let water flow from its heavily damage, main spillway but point out water is still spilling over the dam.
California officials say the cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheat land, Yuba City, Plumas Lake, and Olivehurst are all under evacuation orders.
___
6:45 p.m.
Butte County Sheriff Koney Honea says engineers with the California Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion on the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam is not advancing as fast as they thought.
Honea says two inches of water is still coming over the dam, but that is significantly down from earlier flows.
Honea says there is a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse.
He says the evacuation order went out after engineers spotted a hole that was eroding back toward the top of the spillway.
Honea adds authorities wanted to get people moving quickly to save lives in case "the worst-case scenario came into fruition."
California officials say the cities of Gridley, Live Oak, Nicolaus, Yuba City and communities near Feathers River have been added to the evacuation order.
Hundreds of cars in wall-to-wall traffic can be seen on Highway 99 as people stream out of Oroville away from the dam.
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5:45 p.m.
Authorities in Yuba County are asking people living in the valley floor to evacuate.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services says people should take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources says it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.
Department of Water Resources spokesman Kevin Dossey tells the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.
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5:15 p.m.
Officials have ordered residents near the Oroville Dam in Northern California to evacuate the area, saying a "hazardous situation is developing" after an emergency spillway severely eroded.
The Butte County Sheriff's Office says the emergency spillway could fail within an hour unleashing uncontrolled flood waters from Lake Oroville.
The department says people in downstream areas need to leave the area immediately.
It says residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico and that other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the dam on Saturday after for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall.
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12:44 p.m.
Officials say water will continue to flow over an emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for another day or so.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall.
California Department of Water Resources spokesman Eric See said at a Sunday press conference that skies are clear and the overflow is steadily slowing. It's expected to stop by midday Monday.
In addition to the emergency spillway, water also flowed through the main spillway that was significantly damaged from erosion. Officials said they'll assess the damage starting Monday.
See stressed the dam is structurally sound and there was no threat to the public.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes.
Jason Newton, of the Department of Water Resources, takes a picture of water going over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the emergency spillway, at the nation's tallest dam, for the first time Saturday morning after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
This Friday, Feb. 10, 2017 image from video provided by the office of Assemblyman Brian Dahle shows water flowing over an emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam in Oroville, Calif., during a helicopter tour by the Butte County Sheriff's office. About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of Californias largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest. (Josh F.W. Cook/Office of Assemblyman Brian Dahle via AP)
Jason Newton, of the Department of Water Resources, takes a picture of water going over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for the first time Saturday after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
E. Knight uses his smartphone to record muddy water rushing down the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for the first time Saturday after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Muddy water rushes down the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam, Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam for the first time Saturday after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Jason Newton, left, of the Department of Water Resources, takes a picture of water going over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the spillway,at the nation's tallest dam, for the first time Saturday morning after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
A employee of the Department of Water Resources watches as water flows over the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Water started flowing over the spillway, at the nation's tallest dam, for the first time Saturday morning after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
Michael Jackson's daughter takes to Grammys stage
LOS ANGELES (AP) Paris Jackson took to the stage at the Grammys, introducing a performance at Staples Center eight years after attending her father's memorial service at the arena.
The 18-year-old wore flowers in her up do and sported a nose ring at Sunday's show. She introduced The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk in the evening's second performance.
It was another step in the emergence of Michael Jackson's only daughter. She recently made the cover of Rolling Stone and gave an extended interview to the magazine. She's dabbling in modeling and acting, and befitting a child of the King of Pop, Jackson also writes music and sings.
Paris Jackson introduces a performance by The Weeknd and Daft Punk at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)
Jackson was a guest at Clive Davis' pre-Grammy bash in Beverly Hills on Saturday.
In 2009, Jackson was 11 years old and surrounded by her extended family at her father's memorial when she told the crowd, "Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine, and I just want to say I love him so much."
Jackson hustled her way down the red carpet before Sunday night's show, bypassing most media, and wearing a sequined gown with a deep plunging neckline and her hair loose and wavy.
In the Grammy spotlight, Jackson appeared poised and used the moment to call attention to a larger cause.
"We can really use this kind of excitement at a pipeline protest you guys," she told the audience in an apparent reference to the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
Looking out at the audience, she said, "Everyone looks so beautiful, especially Beyonce."
Paris Jackson arrives at the 59th annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Rights group says Pakistan forcing Afghan refugees home
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) In a scathing indictment of Pakistan's treatment of Afghan refugees, a human rights group charged Monday that the country is forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees back to their homeland, which is still beset by war and crushing poverty. It also said that a $400 stipend the United Nations refugee agency gives to refugees who return to Afghanistan is tantamount to a bribe to convince reluctant Afghans to leave Pakistan.
"The exodus amounts to the world's largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times," the Human Rights Watch report says.
Both the U.N. and Pakistan denied the allegations. In an interview, Indrika Ratwatte, Pakistan's country representative for the U.N. refugee agency, said there was police harassment and arrests of Afghan refugees in mid-2016, particularly in the border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but it was ended and refugees who returned, went home voluntarily.
In this Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 photo, an Afghan refugee girl waits with family members for their turn to register as refugees, outside the government registration office, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population and cites security worries and economic woes as reasons for wanting fewer refugees on its soil. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
"There were incidences of pressure and harassment especially in KP but they were addressed," said Ratwatte. "But does it amount to forced return. No. it doesn't."
Still, the report was harsh in its criticism of the U.N. agency for not condemning what it insisted is Pakistan's forced return of the refugees.
Meanwhile, Pakistan cited security concerns for seeking Afghan refugees' return to their homeland, particularly after several brutal attacks by militants in Pakistan's northwest, which the government linked to insurgents hiding out in neighboring Afghanistan. The worst attack was in December 2014 against an army public school in which 150 people were killed, most of them children.
At its peak in the 1980s Pakistan sheltered an estimated 5 million Afghan refugees as Afghan guerrilla fighters battled invading Russian troops aided by the United States and other western countries. Today there are still 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, says Ratwatte, some of them for 37 years. Pakistan currently hosts the world's largest protracted refugee population, he said. There are hundreds of thousands of unregistered Afghan refugees living in the country as well.
Attacking the U.N. refugee agency's $400 stipend to returning refugees, Gerry Simpson, one of the authors of the HRW report told The Associated Press in an email interview: "What is now needed is not more money to incentivize return to harm, but more money to help Pakistan protect Afghan refugees in Pakistan."
Yet last year, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told refugees in Pakistan to come home, promising them shelter and opportunities. About 380,000 registered Afghan refugees returned to their homeland along with an estimated 250,000 unregistered refugees who were living in Pakistan without legal documents, Ratwatte said.
Tens of thousands of returning refugees were settled in a makeshift camp on a barren piece of land in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, which Afghan elders in Pakistan described as desolate and dangerous.
"They want us to come back to the desert?" asked Amanullah Nusrat, principal of a school for Afghan refugee children in Peshawar, not far from the border with Afghanistan. "The Afghan government is asking refugees to come back but how? There is no shelter, no water, no security."
Nusrat's school, Hazrat Maryam School, is a grimy white single story cement building where about 500 Afghan refugee children sit on the floor in crowded classrooms. Before last year's exodus there were 800 students, said Nusrat. The others returned to Afghanistan, pushed out by the Pakistan authorities, he said.
Afghan refugees are hostage to the fluctuating relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan and a sharp deterioration in their relationship last year caused Pakistan to launch a heavy handed push for refugees to return to Afghanistan, said Nusrat sitting in the school's courtyard surrounded by half a dozen tribal elders.
Most of Nusrat's students were from Afghan provinces that border Pakistan. Some students had never seen their homeland, and others had returned with their families only to move back to Pakistan because the security made it impossible to stay, they said.
Zarmina, who gave only one name, is a teacher who is originally from Kabul. She said that despite the Taliban's ouster nearly 15 years ago, it is still dangerous for women, citing a rise in domestic violence in her homeland. She also lamented the increasing presence of the Taliban and the emergence of new militant groups in Afghanistan such as the Islamic State group affiliate, headquartered in eastern Nangarhar province.
"Whenever one group ends fighting, then another group comes up," she said.
Waqar Maroof Khan, the Pakistan government's point man on refugees, said the refugees who returned did so voluntarily. Pakistan has also extended the deadline for refugees to return to Dec. 31, 2017. But Human Rights Watch said it should be extended to the end of 2019.
"We want them to go back in dignity and honor," he said.
Yet Fazle Mulla Tarakai, an Afghan elder originally from Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, said last year Pakistan used loudspeakers on mosques in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to tell refugees to go home and to warn Pakistanis that anyone found helping the refugees would be fined.
"In some areas police entered forcibly and refugees left without anything," said Tarakai.
FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2016 file photo, Afghan refugees living in Pakistan protest against their repatriation, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population and cites security worries and economic woes as reasons for wanting fewer refugees on its soil. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad, File)
In this Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 photo, Amanullah Nusrat, principal of a school for Afghan refugee children talks to The Associated Press, in Peshawar, Pakistan. He said, "The Afghan government is asking refugees to come back but how? There is no shelter, no water, no security." Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
In this Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 photo, Afghan refugee families wait for their turn to be registered, outside the government registration office in Peshawar, Pakistan. Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population and cites security worries and economic woes as reasons for wanting fewer refugees on its soil. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
In this Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 photo, Afghan refugee children study at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population and cites security worries and economic woes as reasons for wanting fewer refugees on its soil. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
In this Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 photo, Afghan refugee children study at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population and cites security worries and economic woes as reasons for wanting fewer refugees on its soil. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
In this Thursday Feb. 9, 2017 photo, teacher Zarmina, who is originally from Kabul, speaks to The Associated Press in Peshawar, Pakistan. She said that despite the Taliban's ouster nearly 15 years ago, it is still dangerous for women, citing a rise in domestic violence in her homeland. Rights group says Pakistan is forcing refugees home to an uncertain future and war, while the U.N. refugee agency is complicit, giving them money to return and adding to the pressure to leave the relative safety of Pakistan. Dismissing the criticism, Pakistan says it still hosts the worlds largest long-term refugee population. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
WASHINGTON (AP) - A House committee has voted to invalidate the District of Columbia's new assisted-suicide law.
Monday's mostly party-line vote by the House Oversight Committee represented an unusual rebuke of the local District government by Congress. Still, the chances that Congress will strike down the law are slim. The resolution would have to pass the House and the Senate and be signed by President Donald Trump by Friday.
Oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, says the law is "fundamentally wrong." Similar to laws in six states, it would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with a doctor's help.
The committee vote sparked protests by advocates for District self-rule. If the resolution doesn't pass, Congress could still seek to block the law by inserting language into a spending bill.
CAIRO (AP) - Lebanon's newly elected president arrived in Egypt on Monday, a day after defending Hezbollah in remarks to a private Egyptian TV station - comments that underlined his unabated support for the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group.
Michel Aoun's last visit to Egypt was as a military officer, 55 years ago. He was elected in October after a 29-month vacuum in the country's top post.
After talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, also a former career military officer, Aoun called upon Egypt to lead an "Arab salvation plan" to combat terrorism in the region.
In this Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, handout photo provided by the Egyptian presidency, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo. Lebanon's newly elected president is visiting Egypt for the first time since his inauguration and a day after defending the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in remarks to a private Egyptian TV station. (Photo courtesy: Egyptian presidency via AP)
Aoun also invited el-Sissi to visit Lebanon and said that Egypt has offered to support the Lebanese army and the country's security forces, without elaborating further.
Lebanon's political factions are deeply divided with some, like Aoun's party and Hezbollah, aligning with Iran, while their opponents side with Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah's militia is a force that rivals Lebanon's army and police. Aoun, whose Christian party is allied with Hezbollah, said earlier that Iran's support for the group "could continue indefinitely."
"As long as the Lebanese army is not strong enough to battle Israel ... we feel the need for its existence," Aoun told the Egyptian TV network CBC on Sunday night. He added that Hezbollah "has a complementary role to the Lebanese army."
His remarks could spark tension with Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional rival. The two countries have been engaged in proxy wars across the region for years.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are at odds over conflicting agendas, including Syria and Yemen. In October, the Saudis halted oil shipments to Cairo, at a time when Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, is in deep economic crisis.
The Saudi move appears to have been in response to Egypt's support of a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria that was fiercely opposed by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia backs Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad. Egypt, fearing the rise of Islamic militants, has pushed for a political solution that might keep Assad in power.
Aoun visited Saudi Arabia last month in an attempt to restore relations, which deteriorated after Riyadh accused Beirut of failing to condemn the 2016 attacks by demonstrators on Saudi missions in Iran after the kingdom's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. In retaliation, Saudi Arabia halted a $3 billion arms deal and banned Saudis and other Gulf nationals from traveling to Lebanon.
After Aoun's visit, the ban on travelers was lifted but the arms deal remains on pause. A senior Lebanese official told The Associated Press at the time that Saudis have conditions to unblock the military aid to Lebanon, suggesting that the arms must not end up in the hands of Hezbollah, which the Saudis view as a terrorist organization.
FILE -- In this Oct. 20, 2016 file photo, Christian leader Michel Aoun speaks to journalists in Beirut, Lebanon. The newly elected Lebanese President Michel Aoun arrived in Egypt for the first time since his inauguration, shortly after defending the militant group Hezbollah's arms role in a Sunday interview with Egyptian TV network CBC. Aoun's visit is the first for the former army commander to Egypt in 55 years. He was elected in October after a 29-month vacuum in the country's top post. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
Lebanese President Michel Aoun, left, leaves after a meeting with Coptic Pope Tawadros II, second right, during his visit at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Lebanese President Michel Aoun, center, arrives to meet with Coptic Pope Tawadros II, center left, during his visit at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - A bus carrying Taiwanese tourists on a trip to view cherry blossoms flipped over on an expressway ramp in Taiwan's capital on Monday, killing 32 people and injuring many others, officials said.
The bus was carrying 44 people when it crashed Monday evening on the No. 5 expressway, the Taipei city fire department said. It said authorities were still trying to determine the cause of the accident.
"It happened on a curve, so the bus flipped and that could be due to excess speed," said Tu Bing-cheng, a Taipei city official. "The whole frame of the bus changed shape, got crushed and left no openings."
Bodies are covered at the scene of a crash where a bus collided with a car on a highway in Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. A tour bus has flipped over on a highway near Taiwan's capital, killing over 30 people and trapping many others, officials said. (AP Photo)
Many passengers were trapped under the crushed bus, and rescue personnel used a crane to pry the vehicle open.
Thirty-two people, all Taiwanese, were confirmed dead and the remaining passengers were sent to hospitals for treatment, Tu said.
The bus belonged to a private company, he said. It was taking tourists back from a trip to see cherry blossoms when it crashed, Taipei city Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-ji said.
A bus accident in Taiwan last July killed 26 tourists from mainland China, raising concern from officials in Beijing about travel safety.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A human rights group is accusing the Syrian government of conducting at least eight chemical attacks using chlorine gas on opposition-controlled residential areas during the final months in the battle for Aleppo.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday that it documented government helicopters carrying out the attacks that killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured around 200 people.
The human rights group says the attacks took place in areas where government forces were planning to advance.
Ole Solvang is the organization's deputy emergencies director. He says: "The pattern of the chlorine attacks shows that they were coordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements."
The Syrian government has previously denied any chemical attacks.
NEW YORK (AP) - Verizon, in a major reversal, has joined other carriers in offering an unlimited data plan.
As recently as January, Verizon's chief financial officer said unlimited plans were "not something we feel the need to do" even though rivals had made inroads against Verizon by offering them. Verizon stopped offering such plans to new customers in 2012 and has been trying to push longtime customers off those old plans through rate hikes.
The arrival of the iPhone and other smartphones made unlimited plans more of a rarity as carriers saw opportunities to make money by charging customers based on how much data they use.
FILE - This Monday, July 25, 2016, file photo shows signage in a Verizon store in North Andover, Mass. Verizon is the latest mobile carrier to bring back unlimited plans, but its version is pricier than offerings from rivals T-Mobile and Sprint. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
But Sprint and T-Mobile recognized in unlimited data an opportunity to snare customers from heavyweights Verizon and AT&T. Because carriers must poach each other's customers to grow, the competition has intensified.
AT&T also started offering unlimited plans after discontinuing them, but they are available only to customers who also subscribe to DirecTV, which AT&T owns. Its prices are similar to Verizon's for a family; Verizon is cheaper for an individual.
Verizon's new unlimited plan replaces several higher-data plans and starts at $80 for one person, not counting fees and taxes. (Existing customers can keep their plans.)
For a family of four, unlimited costs $180 at Verizon. To compare, Sprint just launched a new promotion for new customers that costs $90 a month for four lines, and T-Mobile, which includes taxes and fees in its total price, is $160. AT&T costs $180 for four but also requires a TV subscription.
Verizon is trying to differentiate itself by letting customers watch high-definition video with the unlimited plan, while competitors run streaming video at DVD-level quality.
T-Mobile responded Monday by saying that it would include HD video as well starting on Friday. Before, customers had to pay extra for HD streaming.
T-Mobile also said that, like Verizon, it would offer 10 gigabytes of high-speed data for a mobile hotspot, so that people can connect on laptops or tablets on the go. After that, slower 3G data will be available for a hotspot.
Of course, like all so-called unlimited plans, Verizon's is not really unlimited. If customers use more than 22 gigabytes of data in a month, their speeds may be slowed if the network is busy.
NEW YORK (AP) - Jake Tapper is working on a book that you could call fake news: It's his debut novel.
The CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent has a thriller scheduled to come out in the summer of 2018, Little, Brown and Company told The Associated Press on Monday. The novel is called "The Hellfire Club" and it takes place in a world that well predates the Trump administration - Washington, D.C., in 1954. The story centers on Rep. Charles Marder, a young congressman from New York, and his zoologist wife Margaret.
"Amid the swirl of glamorous and powerful political leaders and deal makers, a mysterious fatal car accident thrusts Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of secret deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history," according to Little, Brown.
FILE - In this June 20, 2016 file photo, CNN news anchor Jake Tapper attends the Museum of the Moving Image's 2016 Industry Tribute in New York. Tapper is writing a debut novel scheduled to come out in the summer of 2018, Little, Brown and Company told The Associated Press on Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Tapper said in a statement that "The Hellfire Club" would feature such historical figures as President Dwight Eisenhower, Sen. Joe McCarthy and then-Vice President Richard Nixon.
"Being able to combine Washington intrigue with this fascinating time period and the larger-than-life characters who come with it - the Kennedys, McCarthy, Nixon, Ike - has been a thrill," he said.
Tapper's previous books include the nonfiction works "The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor" and "Down & Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency." Known for his persistent questioning of Donald Trump and administration officials, he somehow found enough free time to essentially finish the novel and won't need any time off from his regular job. Financial terms for "The Hellfire Club" weren't disclosed. Tapper was represented by Washington attorney Robert Barnett, whose clients include some of the top names in contemporary Washington, from former President Barack Obama to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Frank Ocean has taken shots at producers of the Grammy Awards over their criticism of his performance at the 2013 edition of the show.
Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich tells Rolling Stone's Music Now podcast that Ocean's vision for the performance was "faulty."
Ocean fired back on his personal Tumblr blog that he experienced "technical difficulties" during the song. He went on to say the victory of Taylor Swift's "1989" over Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp A Butterfly" for album of the year last year was "one of the most 'faulty' TV moments" he's seen.
FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2013 file photo, Frank Ocean arrives at the 55th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Ocean slammed a producer of the Grammy awards on his personal blog in response to criticism of his 2013 performance at the awards. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
A spokeswoman for The Recording Academy, which puts on the Grammys, didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Ocean withheld his album, "Blonde," from consideration for this year's Grammys, in protest of the awards' voting system.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - A judge has ordered Brazilian media to remove from their web pages an online story about the phone of the country's first lady being hacked.
Newspapers Folha de S.Paulo and O Globo were forced to remove the online story Monday after the judge granted the request for an injunction filed Friday by Marcela Temer, wife of President Michel Temer.
The story includes some of the phone conversations exposed by the hacking. The first lady says publishing them violates her privacy.
Folha de S.Paulo's legal director Orlando Molina has said he will appeal what he says is an attack to freedom of speech.
President Temer has said the newspapers were not censored.
CARUTHERSVILLE, Mo. (AP) - A southeast Missouri man was charged Monday in a shooting outside a rural Missouri nightclub that left one man dead and six others injured.
Gunfire broke out at 3:50 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of Club Envy in Caruthersville, a small town in the far southeastern corner of Missouri, about 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.
Online court documents show that Travis Ware II was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the shooting. The records say Ware is from Caruthersville but don't indicate whether he has an attorney to speak for him. He's being held without bond.
Authorities believe Ware was acquainted with the victims, but even those who were shot have been reluctant to provide details, said Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
"We're trying to piece everything together but apparently as they were trying to get people out of the club, someone in the parking lot fired a weapon," Parrott said.
Police initially said two people were taken into custody, but Parrott later said that one of the men was arrested for an outstanding criminal warrant unrelated to the shooting.
The club had been rented out for a private party with about 300 guests, Parrott said. Many of the guests were still present when the shooting occurred.
Six men were shot. One died at a hospital in nearby Hayti, Missouri, about seven hours after the shooting. Two people were flown to a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in critical condition. Three others are in stable condition at the Hayti hospital.
Another man suffered cuts and bruises when he either ran through a window or was thrown through it, Parrott said.
Names of the victims have not been released.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on meetings between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's and President Donald Trump. (all times EST):
1:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are stressing their "profound shared economic interests" as they meet for the first time.
President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The neighboring leaders released a statement Monday. They promised to "work tirelessly to provide growth and jobs for both countries."
The statement also noted that "Canada is the most important foreign market for thirty-five U.S. states, and more than $2 billion in two-way trade flows across our shared border every day."
Relations with the U.S. are crucial to Canada. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of U.S. exports go to Canada. There are fears among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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12:35 p.m.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brought a personal gift to President Donald Trump Monday.
Trudeau brought a photo of Trump with Trudeau's father, the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Trump says it is a picture of the two at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.
Trump says he knew Pierre Trudeau and respected him "greatly." He said he would keep the photo in a "very special place."
Trump and Trudeau had their first face-to-face meeting Monday. Trump spoke during a round table discussion on women in the workforce.
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12:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump says he is looking to work with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ease access to capital for female entrepreneurs.
Trump and Trudeau are taking part in a round table discussion about women in the workforce as part of their first official meeting.
Trump says the "system is not working so well for entrepreneurs" - particularly for women.
Trudeau adds that having "women in business is a powerful leverage for success."
Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, attended the meeting and helped recruit participants and set the agenda.
The two countries will announce a joint task force and are expected to discuss issues like childcare and maternity leave.
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11 a.m.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is at the White House to meet with President Donald Trump.
Trump welcomed Trudeau with a handshake Monday, as the leaders met for the first time.
Their schedule includes private talks and a round table conversation about women in the workplace.
Trudeau and Trump have different world views. The liberal Trudeau champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. Trump has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees.
Relations with the U.S. are crucial to Canada. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S. There is a fear among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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9 a.m.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Washington, aiming to build a relationship with President Donald Trump that doesn't threaten trade.
In the first face-to-face meeting with the new U.S. president, Trudeau will talk about free trade at the White House. The two leaders will also participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the workplace.
The prime minister's plane landed at Dulles airport Monday morning after heavy winds forced a change from Andrews Air Force base.
FILE- In this Feb. 1, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka, waves as they walk to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. According to officials, Ivanka Trump, who has been a vocal advocate for policies benefiting working women, was involved in recruiting participants for a round table discussion that will be held Monday, Feb. 13, about women in the workforce. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will participate in the round table. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
CARUTHERSVILLE, Mo. (AP) - The Latest on a nightclub shooting in Missouri (all times local):
5:30 p.m.
A man has been charged with first-degree murder for a shooting outside a rural southeast Missouri nightclub that left one man dead and six others wounded.
Travis Ware II was also charged Monday and armed criminal action following the Sunday morning shooting in the parking lot of Club Envy in Caruthersville.
Online court records say Ware is from Caruthersville but don't indicate whether he has an attorney to speak for him. He's being held without bond.
Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. Clark Parrott says investigators believe Ware was acquainted with the victims. But he says witnesses, including people who were shot, have been reluctant to provide details.
Six people were shot and a seventh was injured when he went through a window. Two of the shooting victims are critically wounded and three are stable.
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1:30 p.m.
Police say one man is in custody in a shooting outside a Missouri nightclub that left one man dead and six others injured.
Authorities haven't released names of the victims in the early Sunday shooting at Club Envy in Caruthersville, 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.
Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol originally said Monday that two people are in custody. He later clarified that one was arrested on an unrelated warrant. Another man is in custody in the shooting and he hasn't been charged.
Parrott says investigators are trying to determine what happened, but that the gunman and victims apparently knew each other.
Six people were shot and a seventh was injured when he went through a window. Two of the shooting victims are critically wounded and three are stable.
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11:30 a.m.
One man is dead and six others are injured after gunfire broke out at a party in a nightclub in far southeastern Missouri.
Authorities haven't released names of the victims in the early Sunday shooting at Club Envy in Caruthersville, 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.
Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol says two people are in custody, but no charges have been filed. He says investigators are still trying to determine what happened, but that the gunman and victims apparently knew each other.
Six people were shot and a seventh man was injured when he went through a window. Two of the shooting victims are critically wounded and three are stable.
The club had been rented out for a private party attended by about 300 people.
MADRID (AP) - Spain's National Court is summoning the former heads of Spain's central bank and the stock market watchdog to be questioned for failing to stop the disastrous flotation of a savings bank that had to be bailed out.
Eight officials, including former Bank of Spain governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez and Julio Seguro, the former president of market regulator CNMV, allegedly failed to stop Bankia's listing in 2011 despite "repeated warnings" the bank was "unviable," according to an investigation led by the court's magistrates.
Created by merging the assets of seven struggling Spanish banks, Bankia offered shares in an initial public offering in July 2011 and initially reported a profit for the year of 309 million euro ($327 million.) Months later, it amended its statements to show a 3 billion euro loss.
The lender was nationalized in 2012 after a rescue that cost Spanish taxpayers around 22 billion euros ($23 billion.)
Former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato stepped down as chairman of Bankia at the time of the IPO. Rato since has been investigated in separate, but related cases of alleged corruption.
Internal central bank reports made clear the savings bank's "severe and growing problems of profitability, liquidity and solvency," a court order issued Monday stated, citing emails that are part of the evidence in the probe.
The Bank of Spain said Monday that three of the officials summoned currently serve in its supervisory departments and would resign Tuesday during a board meeting.
The bank said in a statement that supervisory managing director Mariano Herrera Garcia-Canturri; his deputy, Pedro Comin Rodriguez; and inspections head Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez would quit to keep the court's inquiry from affecting the bank's work.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York lawmakers are gearing up for another clash over state law that treats 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in the justice system.
Senate Democrats on Monday called for the state to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to 18 next year and to avoid "watered-down" compromises from Republicans or Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo that could limit or delay the increase.
"Our children deserve real action on this issue," Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said. "The state government needs to raise the age, but it has to be more than slowly and it has to be more than a way to score political points or headlines."
New York and North Carolina are the only two states that automatically prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in criminal court. Child advocates say imprisoning teenagers alongside adult offenders does not encourage rehabilitation and does not include the parental or community involvement that youth need to avoid future convictions.
Democrats are urging their colleagues to embrace their proposal, which would direct most crimes committed by people 18 and younger to family court beginning January 2018. Cuomo has included "Raise the Age" reform in his $152 billion budget recommendations, but his proposal would stagger age increases slowly until reaching 18 in 2020. The governor's plan would also exclude violent crimes and some traffic and vehicle violations from family court.
Brooklyn Democrat Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, who has carried Raise the Age legislation since 2012, said Cuomo's proposal is an alternative but does not advocate for the state's estimated 28,000 16- and 17-year-old offenders in the most efficient way.
"Delaying a vote and trying to water down this widely supported legislation will simply do harm to our kids, and in fact to me and to us, is cruel and unacceptable," Montgomery said.
Montgomery said she is confident Cuomo will approve their version of the bill if it can pass both Senate and Assembly first.
In previous years, similar legislation has faced opposition from Republicans and district attorneys who say raising the age is unnecessary because the state's criminal justice system has built-in protections for young offenders.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department said Monday that 680 people were arrested in roundups last week targeting immigrants living illegally in the United States. The figure is far below the totals of similar raids conducted under the Obama administration.
The raids have left immigrant communities worried about stepped-up enforcement efforts and the White House taking credit for arrests. But Homeland Security described the roundups as routine.
DHS Secretary John Kelly said Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeted immigrants who are a threat to public safety, including convicted criminals and gang members. He said 75 percent of those arrested were criminals, some of whom had been convicted of homicide and aggravated sexual assault.
ICE officials said 161 people from 13 countries were arrested in the Los Angeles area, all but 10 of whom were convicted criminals. More than 100 people arrested there were from Mexico.
Kelly said arrests were also made by agents working in New York, Atlanta, Chicago and San Antonio.
Details of who was arrested were not made available, but the arrests and rumors about other raids sparked fear and confusion among immigrants.
Immigration advocates and the White House both suggested the arrests were President Donald Trump's first salvo in what he has promised will be a stepped up campaign to find and deport criminal immigrants and others living in the U.S. illegally.
Trump on Monday bragged that his administration was following through on his campaign pledge and targeting "the bad ones."
"I said at the beginning we are going to get the bad ones, the really bad ones, we are going to get them out," Trump said at a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
ICE officials and Kelly, however, have said the arrests were part of routine enforcement efforts. Similar roundups under former President Barack Obama yielded far more arrests. In March 2015, ICE said a five-day enforcement effort ended with more than 2,000 arrests.
During the Obama administration, however, ICE agents generally arrested wanted immigration fugitives and convicted criminals. Last week's arrests included immigrants whose only offense was an immigration violation.
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Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap
BALTIMORE (AP) - A Baltimore man who left his toddler daughter in a hot car on Father's Day two years ago has been sentenced to eight years in prison for her death.
Prosecutors say Wilbert Carter went out drinking with a relative on June 21, 2015, to celebrate Father's Day. When he returned home, he parked his car at a friend's house and forgot about his 2 1/2 year-old daughter Leasia in her car seat.
Carter didn't return to the car until 4 p.m. the next day. Temperatures reached 89 degrees that day.
Wilbert Carter is seen in an undated photo provided by the Baltimore Police Department. Carter, who left his toddler daughter in a hot car on Father's Day two years ago, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for her death. (Baltimore Poloce Department via AP)
Carter was convicted in December of manslaughter, reckless endangerment and confining an unattended child. The Baltimore Sun reports (http://bsun.md/2lHzIBS ) that Carter was sentenced last week.
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This story corrects the headline to say that the man's daughter, not son, died.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration imposed sanctions against Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami on Monday, accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking.
The executive decree, the result of a years-long investigation, is bound to ratchet up tensions between the new Republican administration and the United States' harshest critic in Latin America. El Aissami is the most senior Venezuelan official to ever be targeted by the U.S.
The U.S. Treasury Department also sanctioned Samark Lopez, a wealthy Venezuelan businessman the U.S. described as El Aissami's primary front man laundering proceeds through a network of companies in several nations. As part of the action, 13 companies owned or controlled by Lopez, including five in Florida, will be blocked and both men will be barred from entering the United States. Several real estate holdings in the Miami area tied to Lopez and worth tens of millions of dollars were also blocked.
FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2017 photo, Venezuela's Vice President Tareck El Aissami, right, is saluted by Boilivarian Army officer upon his arrival for a military parade at Fort Tiuna in Caracas, Venezuela. The administration of President Donald Trump is slapping sanctions on El Aissami and accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking. That's according to individuals briefed on the U.S. government's plans who requested anonymity to disclose the move ahead of a formal announcement. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
There was no immediate reaction from the Venezuelan government or El Aissami, who has long denied any criminal ties. Lopez released a statement calling the actions baseless and "politically motivated."
Senior Trump administration officials wouldn't say whether the two men were facing criminal charges.
The sanctions came a week after a bipartisan group of 34 U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to Trump urging him to step up pressure on Venezuela's socialist government by thoroughly investigating El Aissami and immediately sanctioning top officials responsible for corruption and human rights abuses, including ones mentioned in an Associated Press investigation on corruption in food distribution and sales.
In the wake of President Nicolas Maduro's bloody crackdown on anti-government protests in 2014, the U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing the U.S. president to freeze the assets and ban visas for anyone accused of carrying out acts of violence or violating the human rights of those opposing Venezuela's government. But Monday's sanctions were imposed under rules passed during the Clinton administration allowing the U.S. to go after the assets of anyone designated a drug kingpin.
El Aissami, 42, has been the target of U.S. law enforcement investigation for years, stemming from his days as interior minister when dozens of fraudulent Venezuelan passports ended up in the hands of people from the Middle East, including alleged members of Hezbollah.
Venezuela's top convicted drug trafficker, Walid Makled, before being sent back from Colombia in 2011, said he paid bribes through El Aissami's brother to officials so they would turn a blind eye to cocaine shipments that have proliferated from Venezuelan ports and airports during the past two decades of socialist rule.
The action Monday made no mention of any ties to Hezbollah but said El Aissami had worked with drug traffickers in Mexico and Colombia to oversee multiple U.S.-bound cocaine shipments from Venezuela of over 1,000 kilograms.
El Aissami was named vice president last month as Maduro struggles to hold together a loose coalition of civilian leftist and military supporters whose loyalty to the revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez has frayed amid triple-digit inflation and severe food shortages. Recent polls say more than 80 percent of Venezuelans want Maduro gone.
The son of Syrian and Lebanese Druze immigrants, El Aissami is feared by many in the opposition for his association with Venezuela's intelligence services from his long run as interior minister under Chavez. Since El Aissami became vice president, Maduro has handed him control of an "anti-coup commando unit" to go after officials and opponents suspected of treason.
A former Obama administration official said the decision to sanction El Aissami was held up last year, at the insistence of the State Department, for fear it could interfere in a Vatican-backed attempt at dialogue between the government and opposition as well as efforts to win the release of a U.S. citizen, Joshua Holt, jailed for months on what are seen as trumped-up weapons charges.
"This was an overdue step to ratchet up pressure on the Venezuelan regime and signal that top officials will suffer consequences if they continue to engage in massive corruption, abuse human rights and dismantle democracy," said Mark Feierstein, who served as Obama's top national security adviser on Latin America.
The talks between the opposition and Venezuela have since collapsed. The opposition blames Maduro's administration, saying it didn't follow through on a pledge to free dozens of political prisoners or set a date for regional elections after the government suspended a recall referendum against the president in October.
"The sanctions in and of themselves will not bring about a democratic transition," Feierstein said. "That will require the Venezuelan opposition to remobilize its followers and U.S. diplomatic efforts to marshal governments in the region to isolate Maduro."
Tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela have been on the rise for years. The countries haven't exchanged ambassadors since 2010.
But Trump mentioned the country only briefly during the campaign and it wasn't clear if he signed off on the designation. Senior administration officials would only say anyone who had a need or desire to know was consulted.
Amid uncertainty on whether Trump would break from the Obama administration's policy of relative restraint, Maduro had been holding back his normal fiery rhetoric. After blasting Trump as a "bandit" and "mental patient" during the campaign, Maduro has remained quiet since.
"He won't be worse than Obama, that's the only thing I dare to say," Maduro said last month in an appeal to supporters to withhold judgment on Trump.
Maduro made no mention of the U.S. decision at an event Monday night alongside a visiting Chinese delegation.
In the wake of a travel ban against top Venezuelan officials in 2014, Maduro ordered the U.S. to slash staffing at its embassy in Caracas, accusing diplomats of conspiring to overthrow his government.
Lopez, who was known to shuttle between the U.S. and Venezuela on a privately owned Gulfstream 200 jet that was also blocked by Monday's actions, controls a network of companies spanning Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and Panama that did business with the Venezuelan government in the food, logistics and oil industries, the Treasury Department said.
He was also listed as recently as 2012 as a major shareholder in Intercontinental Bank, a U.S. financial institution with a single branch in Miami, although that wasn't among the assets designated by Monday's action. Several of the U.S. companies list as their address a $2.4 million Miami condo in the trendy Brickell neighborhood with three pools and wraparound ocean views.
In his statement, Lopez said he would seek all legal remedies, saying he is not a government official and is being targeted only because of his relationship to El Aissami.
"The listing is unjustified in targeting a legitimate businessman," said the statement on a new English-language website that portrays Lopez as an entrepreneur and philanthropist committed to Venezuela's development.
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Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman reported this story in Bogota, Colombia, and AP writer Josh Lederman reported in Washington.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A faith ministry in Nebraska has started a fundraising campaign to buy out four stores that sell millions of cans of beer each year in a tiny village next to a South Dakota Indian reservation plagued by alcoholism.
The Lakota Hope street ministry in Whiteclay is looking to raise at least $6.3 million to close the stores, which are only about 200 yards from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The officially dry reservation is plagued by high rates of fetal alcohol syndrome and encompasses some of the nation's poorest counties.
Whiteclay only has about a dozen residents, yet the four stores sold 3.5 million cans of beer in 2015. The beer stores have remained opened for decades despite state investigations into alleged liquor law violations, lawsuits and protests that occasionally turned violent.
In this Oct. 21, 2016, photo, a vehicle waits outside the Arrowhead Inn, one of the four beer stores in Whiteclay, Neb. The Lakota Hope faith ministry in Whiteclay has started a fundraising campaign to buy out the four beer stores that sell millions of cans annually in the tiny village next to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Francis Gardler/The Journal-Star via AP)
Ministry founder Bruce BonFleur and his wife have lived in Whiteclay for nearly two decades, feeding people on the streets and launching programs designed to help members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. BonFleur said he has talked with the businesses, and "we believe that the beer store owners are ready to sell out."
The stores have been facing increasing legal and political pressure, and state liquor regulators are meeting next month to discuss the stores' licenses.
Still, some activists have their doubts. Olowan Martinez, an Oglala Lakota activist who has led protests against Whiteclay, said she would be thrilled but shocked if the buyout worked as intended. Martinez said she would support replacing the stores with a roller skating rink, movie theater or a park to help entertain young people.
The idea rang hollow to Frank LaMere, a Native American activist who has fought for 18 years to close the stores. LaMere said the beer store owners shouldn't be rewarded with a payout and wants the state to revoke their liquor licenses.
"Whiteclay sadly continues to be the golden goose to many," LaMere said.
On a recent day in the Whiteclay, some people were passed out on garbage-strewn sidewalks or begging for change. Others loitered on the streets or in abandoned houses littered with dirty blankets and empty beer cans. Some people wandered along the side of the main highway through town, Nebraska Highway 87, which leads into the reservation, past 1970s-era federal housing, decrepit mobile homes and abandoned cars.
Lance Moss, a Whiteclay grocery store owner who does not sell alcohol, said he didn't know if the town would change substantially if the beer stores were sold. Moss said some regular visitors might congregate in Whiteclay and buy beer from bootleggers.
"Obviously, all the beer that's sold in Whiteclay is going to get sold someplace else," he said.
The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission is set to meet March 7 to discuss the stores' liquor licenses amid complaints that the village lacks adequate law enforcement. Last month, the local county board with jurisdiction over Whiteclay recommended that the state renew the licenses, partially amid concerns that closing the stores would lead to an increase of intoxicated drivers in Nebraska.
Representatives of two of the Whiteclay beer stores, Stateline Liquor and Arrowhead Inn, declined to comment because of their pending cases before the liquor commission. Attempts to reach the owners of the Jumping Eagle Inn and D&S Pioneer Service weren't immediately successful.
The ministry's new effort is called "B.O.B.S. Whiteclay P.L.A.N.," short for "Buy out the beer stores" and "Promote the Lakotas as a nation."
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Online: https://whiteclayredo.com/
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Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte
In this Oct. 21, 2016, photo, a customer enters State Line Liquor, one of four beer stores in the town of Whiteclay, Neb. The Lakota Hope faith ministry in Whiteclay has started a fundraising campaign to buy out four beer stores that sell millions of cans annually in the tiny village next to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Francis Gardler/The Journal-Star via AP)
In this Oct. 20, 2016, photo, a highway sign greets motorists heading into the small town of Whiteclay, Neb. The Lakota Hope faith ministry in Whiteclay has started a fundraising campaign to buy out the four beer stores that sell millions of cans annually in the tiny village next to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. (Francis Gardler, Journal Star/The Journal-Star via AP)
Embattled national security adviser Michael Flynns fate as one of President Donald Trumps senior aides is uncertain following reports that he discussed US sanctions with a Russian envoy before Mr Trumps inauguration.
A top White House official sidestepped repeated chances on Sunday to publicly defend him.
The president, who spent the weekend at his private club in Florida, has yet to comment on Mr Flynns status.
Nor has Vice President Mike Pence, who previously denied that Mr Flynn had discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US.
President Donald Trump has yet to comment on Michael Flynn's, centre, status as national security adviser
Mr Pence and Mr Flynn spoke twice on Friday, according to an administration official.
Mr Trump has told associates he is troubled by the situation, but he has not said whether he plans to ask Mr Flynn to step down, according to a person who spoke with him recently.
Mr Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he is viewed sceptically by some in the administrations national security circles, in part because of his ties to Russia.
Stephen Miller, Mr Trumps top policy adviser, skirted the issue on several Sunday news shows, saying it was not his place to weigh in on the sensitive matter or to say whether the president retains confidence in Mr Flynn.
Several other White House officials did not respond on Sunday to questions about whether Mr Trump had confidence in his national security adviser.
Their silence appeared to reflect some uncertainty about the views of the president, who is known to quickly change his mind.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Mr Flynn addressed sanctions against Russia in a call with Mr Kislyak.
The report contradicted repeated denials from Trump officials, including Mr Pence, who vouched for Mr Flynn in a televised interview.
Mr Flynn has since told administration officials that sanctions may have come up in the calls, which coincided with the Obama administration slapping penalties on Russia for election-related hacking.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who led Mr Trumps transition planning before the election, said Mr Flynn would have to explain his conflicting statements about his conversations with Mr Kislyak to Mr Trump and Mr Pence.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to make an official two-day visit to Paris.
William and Kate will travel to the French capital on March 17 and 18.
Kensington Palace said the trip was being made at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Kate and William on a visit to India
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will undertake an official two-day visit to Paris on 17th and 18th March.
pic.twitter.com/QUEdhJA5PY The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) February 13, 2017
The Duke and Duchess will attend a reception for young French leaders, a formal dinner at the residence of Her Majestys Ambassador and also watch the Wales v France 6 Nations test at the Stade de France during their brief stay.
The trip to Paris where Williams mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash comes as the Duke prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of her death in August this year.
He is not expected to visit the scene of the crash in the Pont DAlma tunnel nor commemorate the forthcoming anniversary while in France.
Read further details of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's visit to Paris on our website https://t.co/SpNiA6FzAD The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) February 13, 2017
William and his brother, Prince Harry, went to Paris privately in 2007 to watch the Rugby World Cup, and were pictured partying with England players in the early hours after the teams defeat by South Africa.
The Cambridges holidayed in the French Alps last year with their children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
The official royal visit comes in the month that Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to be able to trigger Article 50, beginning Brexit negotiations.
William and Kates trip will be seen as a bid to build on the UKs bilateral relationship with France.
Growing up in tough conditions can make wild animals live longer, new research suggests.
Scientists found that male banded mongooses that experienced poor conditions in their first year had longer lives, suggesting those born into a challenging environment live slow, die old, while those with an easier first year live fast, die young.
However, there was no difference in the number of offspring they fathered.
Banded mongooses
The males that fathered the most pups were those that grew up when conditions were highly variable. These males also lived long lives, like those born into poor conditions.
Growing up in a poor or unpredictable environment isnt necessarily bad - it can have advantages, said lead author Dr Harry Marshall, of the University of Exeter.
Its not clear why variable early-life conditions were the best for male mongooses in terms of longevity and reproduction. It might be that male mongooses that experience different challenges in their first year are better prepared for those challenges later on.
The researchers used 14 years of data on wild banded mongooses in Uganda.
Poor and variable early life ecological conditions don't have to be bad for you. New in Ecol & Evo https://t.co/aoI17hmxdH @MongooseProject Harry Marshall (@HarryHMarshall) February 13, 2017
Rainfall was used as the measure of conditions, as the researchers found that more rainfall means more invertebrate prey for mongooses to eat. Variable conditions were defined as those with large fluctuations between wet and dry periods.
Early-life conditions appeared to have no impact on the chance that individuals survived their first year. There was also no impact on females longevity or reproductive success.
It is surprising that early-life conditions affected males but not females, Dr Marshall said.
We know that female mongoose survival is more sensitive to ecological conditions later in life, perhaps due to the greater demands pregnancy brings. This may hide any effects of conditions experienced during their first year.
Banded mongooses
Studying these effects helps us understand how animals might be affected by future environmental changes.
Professor Michael Cant, who leads the long-term banded mongoose study, said: In banded mongooses, as in humans, survival and health in later life depends on the conditions experienced during growth and development.
Deciphering why these effects evolved through studies on wild animals has implications for human health.
:: The paper, Lifetime fitness consequences of early-life ecological hardship in a wild mammal population, is published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
Simon Berghan was emboldened by Scotlands reaction to some major challenges in Paris despite being on the losing side in his international debut.
The tighthead prop got his chance in the 59th minute of Scotlands 22-16 RBS 6 Nations defeat by France after replacing Zander Fagerson.
By that stage, Vern Cotter had been forced into a series of unplanned changes with captain Greig Laidlaw and his deputy, John Barclay, both off in the first half. Barclays replacement, John Hardie, lasted less than a minute of the second half and others followed off for treatment.
However, Scotland were level with nine minutes left and it took two penalties for France to overcome a resolute defence. The front-page headline of LEquipe on Monday morning summed up the home sides feelings: Relief.
Two late Camille Lopez penalties seal a hard fought @FFRugby victory - their first in this year's #RBS6Nations!#FRAvSCO pic.twitter.com/2QWEBZsgMS Guinness Six Nations (@SixNationsRugby) February 12, 2017
New Zealand-born Berghan said: We are all pretty gutted with the result. I actually feel the boys dug in at the end and showed we had turned a corner.
Its a disappointing result but I have mixed emotions because I am chuffed to have pulled on the shirt.
I never got the chance last weekend but this week I got the opportunity and, against a team like France, for a tighthead prop to get a debut is as big a challenge as any and I was right up for it.
Also making his first Scotland appearance on foreign soil was Ali Price, the replacement for Laidlaw, who has returned to Gloucester for assessment of his ankle injury.
NEWS | Scotland medical team update following yesterday's Test match against France in the @SixNationsRugby
https://t.co/KRWqi3Ct0M pic.twitter.com/0pUOTaDzoZ Scottish Rugby (@Scotlandteam) February 13, 2017
Berghan said: We were under the pump losing Greig and Barcs early, but I think we have a really good squad.
We can call on anyone to come and play and we will all have confidence in that now. There is talk about the depth in Scottish rugby and I certainly think there has been a corner turned regarding that. I think that showed in the end with that defence.
There was also valuable experience for 22-year-old Jonny Gray, who took on the captaincy for most of the match.
Jonny Gray is tackled in Scotland's defeat to France (Adam Davy/PA)
We have got quite a good leadership in the squad, 26-year-old Berghan said. Guys like Jonny put their hand up all the time in training during the week.
So for them to step into a leadership role is pretty easy. Obviously to do it out in front of a sold-out French crowd, there is a lot of pressure on him, but he handled it really well.
It was a big blow to lose Barcs and Greig, because Greig is brilliant, but I think weve got guys now who can step into the position and take control and I think Jonny proved that as well.
President Donald Trump has praised the outstanding trade relationship between the United States and Canada, saying he would only be tweaking it going forward.
In the US today to strengthen ties with our neighbour & create more jobs in both countries thanks, President Trump for the welcome. pic.twitter.com/X7DX3fsrfN Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 13, 2017
The comments were received positively by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who came to the United States seeking to ensure Canada was not crippled as Mr Trump re-negotiates the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
The neighbouring leaders took up the thorny subjects of trade and immigration at their first face-to-face meeting on Monday.
We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. Well be tweaking it, Mr Trump told reporters of the trade relationship. Well be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. Its a much less severe situation than whats taking place on the southern border.
At a joint news conference after their meetings, the two emphasised their shared goals. Mr Trump pledged to work with Canada in pursuit of our many shared interests. Mr Trudeau spoke of a special bond and the deep abiding respect between the two countries, though he also said that relationships between neighbours are pretty complex.
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
While the two leaders stressed shared interests, their contrasting views were also on display. Responding to questions from reporters, Mr Trump defended his refugee and immigration orders, saying that we cannot let the wrong people in. Mr Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to pursue our policies of openness.
Mr Trudeau later noted that there have been times when the two countries have differed in our approaches. But he said the last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves.
President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office of the White House.
On trade, Mr Trump said he would be tweaking the relationship with Canada, but said its a much less severe situation than whats happening on the southern border. He also noted the outstanding trade relationship with Canada. Those were likely welcome comments for Canadians concerned that they could be hurt as Mr Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mr Trump greeted Mr Trudeau with a firm handshake as he arrived at the White House on a blustery morning. The two posed silently before reporters, until Mr Trump suggested they shake hands for the cameras. Mr Trudeau did bring a personal gift a photo of Mr Trump with Mr Trudeaus father, the late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
Mr Trump said he knew and respected Pierre Trudeau and would keep the photo in a very special place.
At a roundtable discussion with female executives from the United States and Canada, Mr Trump and Mr Trudeau announced a task force focused on women in the workforce. Mr Trump said it was important to ensure the economy is a place where women can work and thrive. Mr Trudeau stressed that women have had to overcome barriers to succeed in business.
Empowering women in business spurs innovation & creates jobs great discussion today with female executives on helping more women advance. pic.twitter.com/dGtmT7MJTb Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 13, 2017
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump, listen during a meeting with women business leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House.
Mr Trumps daughter Ivanka Mr Trump was in attendance at the meeting and helped recruit participants and set the agenda. The high-profile meeting is evidence of her rising policy influence.
A Canadian official said Mr Trudeaus administration had suggested the task force, because the prime minister considers the issue of working women an important part of his agenda and economic growth plan.
Astronomers have discovered 60 new planets orbiting stars near the Earths solar system.
The team of international scientists, which include Dr Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, also found evidence of a further 54 planets bringing the total number of potential new worlds to 114.
A hot super-Earth with a rocky surface located in the fourth nearest star system to the sun was among the extrasolar planets discovered.
A visualisation of red and blue shifts of starlight caused by a planet's gravitational pull. (University of Hertfordshire/PA)
Researchers said the planet named Gliese 411b demonstrates that virtually all the nearest stars to the sun have planets orbiting them and some of these could be like Earth.
The results are based on almost 61,000 individual observations of 1,600 stars taken over a 20-year period by US astronomers using the Keck-I telescope in Hawaii.
The observations were part of the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey, which was started in 1996 by astronomers Steve Vogt and Geoffrey Marcy from the University of California and Paul Butler, from the Carnegie Institute of Science, in Washington.
Gliese 411b, one of the 60 new planets orbiting stars near the Earth's solar system which have been discovered. (University of Hertfordshire/PA)
Dr Tuomi, who was the only European-based researcher working on the project and led analysis of the data, said: It is fascinating to think that when we look at the nearest stars, all of them appear to have planets orbiting them.
This is something astronomers were not convinced about, even as little as five years ago.
These new planets also help us better understand the formation processes of planetary systems and provide interesting targets for future efforts to image the planets directly.
Dr Butler said: This paper and data release is one of my crowning achievements as an astronomer. It represents a good chunk of my lifes work.
The groups paper has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
Advocacy groups and the White House say that people suspected of living in the United States illegally are being rounded up in large numbers as part of stepped-up enforcement under President Donald Trump. Advocates cited what they call heavy-handed raids in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Texas and North Carolina and elsewhere.
Hundreds converge on U.S. Immigrations in NYC to protest ICE raids and Trump's anti-immigration policies. pic.twitter.com/WhSrzqxsf1 Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) February 11, 2017
Yet officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency conducting the raids, say the efforts are business as usual no different than what happened on a regular basis during the Obama years.
So which is it? The truth lies somewhere in between. Here are some of the facts surrounding whats happening with immigration enforcement:
Trump vs Obama
Barack Obama and Donald Trump
As a candidate, Donald Trump vowed to take a hard line on immigration. Five days after taking office, he signed a sweeping executive order that made clear that just about any immigrant living in the country illegally could be a priority for deportation, particularly those with outstanding deportation orders. The presidents order also said enforcement priorities would include convicted criminals, immigrants who had been arrested for any criminal offence, those who committed fraud and anyone who may have committed a crime, including immigration violations.
Under Barack Obama, the government focused on immigrants in the country illegally who posed a threat to national security or public safety and recent border crossers. But despite the narrower focus, more than two million people were deported during Mr Obamas time in office, including a record of more than 409,000 people in 2012. At one point, his critics dubbed him the deporter in chief.
"Does Immigration Enforcement Reduce Crime? Evidence from Secure Communities by Miles and Cox: https://t.co/i5XrfNjEOp pic.twitter.com/PK5PV72QkI Jennifer Doleac (@jenniferdoleac) February 11, 2017
The record was reached with the help of the Secure Communities programme that helped the government identify immigrants in the United States illegally who had been arrested. In the latter half of Mr Obamas tenure the Secure Communities programme fell out of favour with the administration and local jurisdictions, and deportations plummeted to lows matching those during former president George W Bushs term.
Are the latest raids a direct result of Donald Trumps order?
Immigration officials said they were not. But a White House senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, said on Sunday that the arrests were a direct result of Mr Trumps executive order.
Right now, as a result of the presidents order, greatly expanded and more vigorous immigration enforcement activities are taking place, Mr Miller told Fox News. It is true that Operation Cross-Check is something that happens every year. But this year, weve taken new and greater steps to remove criminal aliens from our communities.
.@JoeNBC on Stephen Miller's weekend performance: That was horrendous and an embarrassment https://t.co/rE5Fxo8AF3 Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 13, 2017
David Marin, Immigration and Customs Enforcements field office director for enforcement and removal operations in greater Los Angeles, said the agency carries out these operations two or three times a year in his region. The California operation was in the planning stages before the administration came out with their current executive orders, he said.
But immigrant rights groups say the actions are harsher than in the past.
Advocates began fielding calls on Thursday from immigrants and their lawyers reporting raids at homes and businesses in the greater Los Angeles area. In one instance, agents showed up at the home of a 50-year-old house painter named Manuel Mosqueda in the Los Angeles suburbs, looking to arrest an immigrant who was not there. In the process, they spoke with Mr Mosqueda, arrested him and put him on a bus to Mexico though lawyers were able to halt his deportation and bring him back.
In all, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested about 160 people during a five-day sweep in Southern California aimed at immigrants with criminal histories and deportation orders, including a Salvadoran gang member wanted in his country and a Brazilian drug trafficker. Marin acknowledged that five of those arrested would not have met the Obama administrations enforcement priorities.
The agency called it an enforcement surge that was no different than enforcement actions carried out in the past and said a rash of recent reports about purported ICE checkpoints and random sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible. In a statement, the agency said officers frequently encounter additional suspects who may be in the United States in violation of the federal immigration laws. Those persons will be evaluated on a case by case basis and, when appropriate, arrested by ICE.
The new normal?
Despite the claims that this is business as usual, an indication of the changed tactics came earlier in the week when Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly testified before Congress. He said that immigration agents expressed frustration at not being fully allowed to enforce immigration laws under the Obama administration. He predicted Mr Trumps directives would end that frustration.
I think their morale has suffered because of the job they were hired to do, and then in their sense, theyre kind of hobbled or, you know, hands tied behind their back, that kind of thing, Mr Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee. And now, they feel more positive about things. I bet if you watch the morale issue, youll be surprised going forward.
Acting ICE director Thomas Homan, who was previously in charge of the agencys enforcement and removal operations, earlier this month made a point of noting that his agents would enforce the law.
In at least one case, it seems clear that Mr Trumps order changed someones fate. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, a mother of two in Phoenix, was arrested nearly a decade ago for using a false ID to get a job as a janitor at an amusement park. She pleaded guilty to a felony charge, but the government during the Obama years declined to deport her despite her being in the country illegally and a judges order that she leave. On Wednesday, she showed up at the ICE building in Phoenix for a scheduled check-in with immigration officers and was swiftly deported to Mexico.
China gets an early win off Trump, but many battles remain
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Combining public bluster with behind-the-scenes diplomacy, China wrested a concession from the United States as the two presidents spoke for the first time this week, but Beijing may not be able to derive much comfort from the win on U.S. policy toward Taiwan.
Several areas of disagreement between the superpowers, including currency, trade, the South China Sea and North Korea, were not mentioned in public statements on Thursday's telephone conversation between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. In getting Trump to change course on the "one China" policy, Beijing may have overplayed its hand.
Trump had upset Beijing before he took office by taking a call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, then casting doubt on the "one China" policy, under which Washington acknowledges the Chinese position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it.
Trump changed tack and agreed to honour the "one China" policy during the call, prompting jubilation in China. Beijing had been working on diplomatic ways to engage Trump's team and largely blaming Taiwan for stirring things up.
Laying the foundation for that call had been the low-key engagement of China's former ambassador to Washington and top diplomat, the urbane and fluent English-speaking Yang Jiechi, with Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn.
"China was pragmatic and patient. It made every effort to smooth out the relationship, and it paid off," said Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, who has advised the government on foreign policy.
But China also made very clear Taiwan was not up for negotiation, unleashing state media to threaten war and punishment for U.S. firms if that bottom line was breached.
China has long described self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as its sacred territory, as the most sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations.
Its military had become alarmed after the Trump-Tsai call and was considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence, sources with ties to senior military officers told Reuters in December.
A source familiar with China's thinking on relations with the United States, speaking to Reuters last month, said China had actually not been too bothered with Trump's Taiwan comments before he took office as he was not president then and was only expressing his personal view.
"If he continues with this once he becomes president then there's no saying what we'll do," the source said.
TSAI'S CHILLED HEART
Despite the U.S. concession, military tensions remain.
On Saturday, the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily placed a picture on its front page of Chinese warships about to embark on a new round of drills in the South China Sea, right next to an upbeat commentary about the Xi-Trump call.
The paper's WeChat account took a harsher line, saying that with Trump getting back with the programme on "one China", Taiwan had better watch out.
"The heart of that Madame Tsai on the other side of the Taiwan Strait must at this moment be chilled to the core," it said.
One senior Western diplomat said China had been redoubling its efforts to win over the Vatican, one of a handful of countries to retain official ties with Taiwan.
Taiwan says it hopes for continued U.S. support, and one ruling Democratic Progressive Party official told Reuters that the "one China" policy had not affected previous U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, even as U.S. presidents' commitment to the island have waxed and waned.
Xi has put great personal political capital into seeking a solution over Taiwan, an issue that has festered since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing the civil war to the Communists. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
But in its relations with Washington, the risk for Beijing remains that its diplomatic win over "one China" will be short lived, as Trump will not want to be seen as having caved in.
"What he's shown the Chinese is he's willing to touch the 'third rail' of U.S.-China relations," said Dean Cheng, China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.
"Beijing can't predict what he'll do next - and he's only been in office three weeks. What is he going to do on trade and other economic issues?"
U.S. officials said the affirmation of the "one China" policy was an effort to get the relationship back on track and moving forward.
But Trump's change of tack may be seen by Beijing as a climbdown, said Tom Rafferty, the China Regional Manager for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Samsung chief grilled for 15 hours in South Korea graft probe
By Se Young Lee and Ju-min Park
SEOUL, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was questioned by South Korea's special prosecutor for more than 15 hours as part of an investigation into a graft scandal that threatens to topple President Park Geun-hye.
The 48-year-old executive, the third-generation leader of the country's top conglomerate, made no comment as he was shown on live television leaving the prosecutor's office in southern Seoul in a black car early on Tuesday.
Lee, who has denied allegations of bribery through Samsung Group spokespeople, had arrived at the office on Monday morning.
South Korea's special prosecutor has focused on Samsung Group's relationship with Park, accusing Lee in his capacity as Samsung chief of pledging 43 billion won to a business and organisations backed by Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for support of a 2015 merger of two Samsung companies.
Proving illicit dealings between Park or those linked to her and Samsung Group is critical for the special prosecutor's case that ultimately targets Park, analysts have said.
The prosecution has also identified four other Samsung executives as suspects and have summoned three of them.
Samsung Group President Chang Choon-ki was questioned on Sunday and Samsung Electronics President Park Sang-jin and another executive were quizzed on Monday.
Park, Choi, and Samsung Group have denied bribery accusations.
Park was impeached by parliament in December and South Korea's Constitutional Court will decide whether to uphold that decision. She has been stripped of her powers in the meantime.
Lee arrived at the prosecution office in southern Seoul early on Monday in a black sedan, dressed in a dark blue suit and tie and flanked by Samsung Group officials and his lawyer.
"I will once again tell the truth to the special prosecution," Lee told reporters, while protesters outside the office held up signs calling for his arrest.
EXECUTIVES QUESTIONED
The special prosecution team said investigators were questioning two other Samsung executives as suspects. Both are officers of the Korea Equestrian Federation and have been questioned previously in the case.
One of those two, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd president Park Sang-jin, did not respond to reporters on his arrival at the special prosecution team's office.
Lee Kyu-chul, spokesman for the special prosecution office, told a news briefing the office would decide soon whether to make a second arrest warrant request for the Samsung Group chief. He did not comment on other details, including what Jay Y. Lee said during questioning.
Prosecutors would also consider whether to seek arrest warrants for four other Samsung Group executives identified as suspects, the spokesman added. The prosecutor's office had previously said it would not seek arrests for any Samsung executives other than Lee.
In January, the special prosecutor sought a warrant to arrest Samsung chief Lee after questioning him for more than 22 hours, accusing him of paying bribes to win the state pension fund's support for the controversial merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc.
However, a Seoul court rejected that request.
Chang Choong-ki, deputy head of Samsung Group's corporate strategy office, known informally as its "control tower", was questioned as a suspect on Sunday and returned home hours later.
Shares in Samsung Electronics were down 0.9 percent by 0600 GMT on Monday, compared with a flat wider market.
Poland - Factors to Watch Feb 13
Following are news stories, media reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Monday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 1 hour):
DATA
Poland's statistics office is to release January CPI data, while the central bank will publish its December current account data at 1300 GMT.
LOTOS
Poland's second-biggest oil refiner Lotos is interested in securing a long-term supply deal with Iran once it completes a new coking unit at its Gdansk refinery next year, its chief executive said.
PARTY POLL
Poland's ruling conservative party Law and Justice (PiS) is supported by 40 percent of those who declare their readiness to vote, according to CBOS state-run polling research published late on Friday. The biggest opposition party Civic Platform (PO) enjoys 17 percent support.
ORANGE POLSKA
Poland's biggest telecom Orange Polska will release its fourth-quarter results after the market close. Orange Polska is expected to report a loss 32 percent smaller than the year-earlier quarter.
PGE
Poland's biggest power producer PGE estimates its 2016 net profit at 2.45 billion zlotys ($604.95 million) compared to a 3-billion zlotys loss a year earlier, the company said on Friday.
ASSECO POLAND
Software firm Asseco Poland may pay the same dividends on 2016 results as it paid for 2015, the business daily Parkiet reported over the weekend, citing the firm's main shareholder, Adam Goral.
SMOG
Slovak Republic - Factors To Watch on Feb 13
BRATISLAVA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Slovak financial markets on Monday. ALL TIMES GMT (Slovak Republic: GMT + 1 hour) =========================ECONOMIC DATA======================== Real-time economic data releases.................. Summary of economic data and forecasts......... Recently released economic data................ Previous stories on Slovak data.......... **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/1C/events-overview ============================NEWS================================ RATING: Fitch said on Friday it had affirmed Slovakia's rating at 'A+' with a stable outlook. Story: Related stories: RACISM: Hundreds of people have sent hate mail to a Slovak sportswear company this week after it featured a black body-builder in an advert on its Facebook page, having used the same model twice last year without provoking any such reaction. Story: Related stories: INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT: Slovakia's industrial output rose by 3.0 percent year-on-year in December, below analysts' expectations of a 3.2 percent increase, statistics office data showed on Friday. Story: Related stories: For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX Main currency report TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets News editor of the day: Jan Lopatka on +420 224 190 474 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
PRESS DIGEST - RUSSIA - Feb 13
MOSCOW, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
VEDOMOSTI
www.vedomosti.ru
- Russia's Constitutional Court has recommended that the conviction of Ildar Dadin, a peaceful activist sentenced to 3 years in jail in 2015 under a new law on public meetings, be reviewed. - Russian lawmakers could ban price discounts offered by retailers to try to encourage consumers to buy alcohol. - Russia's opposition Solidarity movement announced that Alexei Navalny would be its only candidate for a presidential election in 2018, despite his receiving a 5-year suspended sentence for embezzlement. Navalny denies wrongdoing.
KOMMERSANT
www.kommersant.ru
- Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets has suggested easing entry and residency rules for HIV-infected foreigners and working out ways to treat them on Russian territory, the daily says. At the moment, such individuals are only allowed to enter the country and reside here if they have close family members who are Russian citizens, the newspaper says.
IZVESTIA
www.izvestia.ru
- The number of marriages officially registered in 2016 fell by 15 percent year-on-year, the daily says, saying the drop was caused by a variety of factors, including a trend to marry later and economic uncertainty.
RBC
www.rbc.ru
- Russia's Centre for Strategic Research, a think-tank close to the government headed by ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin, has criticized the authorities for changing legislation too frequently, making life difficult for both citizens and business people.
MOSKOVSKY KOMSOMOLETS
- Russia has resumed work on a Soviet-era project that was trying to build a tank-mounted laser that could knock out the targeting systems of enemy planes and helicopters, the daily says.
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA
www.ng.ru
- Russia will try to prevent Turkey from destroying Kurdish settlements in Syria, the daily says, commenting on the arrival of four Sukhoi Su-34 fighters at Russia's Syrian air base.
- Russian nationalists have applied to register a new political party called "The new right-wing alternative" and are planning its founding congress.
- Several thousand citizens of St Petersburg turned up on Sunday to join rival protests around the fate of the city's St Isaac's Cathedral. The cathedral is due to be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, the daily reports, a decision that has upset some residents who want it to remain a museum.
ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA
www.rg.ru
Stada to hold takeover talks with rival suitors Cinven and Advent
By Ludwig Burger and Alexander Hubner
FRANKFURT, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Stada has invited rival suitors Cinven Partners and Advent International to the negotiating table, the German generic drugs and consumer care group said on Monday, after months of courtship.
The prospect of a bidding war drove shares in Stada as much as 14 percent higher after the drugmaker initially said it was weighing two takeover approaches, including one from Cinven which valued it at almost 3.5 billion euros ($3.7 billion). It later named Advent as the second prospective bidder.
Seeking investments in stable healthcare businesses, cash-rich buyout firms -- also including Permira and CVC - have been working on offers for months and approached Stada about a deal, people familiar with the situation told Reuters.
Stada's share price, inflated by persistent takeover speculation, and opposition from supervisory board chairman Carl Ferdinand Oetker, part of the German family-owned food group, have previously stood in the way of a deal, these sources added.
Stada said its executive board "started open-minded talks to allow the interested parties to explain their strategic concepts and evaluate further value-enhancing potential with regards to the potential offer price".
Cinven had been preparing a joint bid with Poland's unlisted Polpharma SA to combine the two drugs businesses and cut costs, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The buyout firm decided to go it alone when the venture proved too complicated, the source added.
Polpharma was not immediately available for comment.
While Stada said that Cinven was offering 56 euros per share, it did not disclose the price proposed by Advent.
The private equity groups declined to comment.
Stada shares jumped 13.7 percent to 56.5 euros on Monday, on course to close at a record high.
The approaches vindicate the strategy of activist investor Active Ownership Capital (AOC), which built a stake of about 7 percent in shares and options before May last year when the shares were trading at around 30 euros apiece.
AOC was set up by former investment bankers Florian Schuhbauer and Klaus Roehrig and Stada marked the firm's first major investment.
BREAKING UP THE COMPANY?
Under its former CEO Hartmut Retzlaff, Stada had steered clear of major merger deals when the generic drug industry began consolidating to cut costs, driven by larger players including Teva and Allergan.
Retzlaff stepped down last August after more than two decades at the helm.
A source close to one of the bidders said that supervisory board, which previously opposed a sale, has become more open to considering bids, even though this will likely result in a breakup of Stada.
Founded in 1895 in Dresden as a pharmacists' cooperative, Stada is seeking to expand its non-prescription consumer care business. Its generic drug business is under price pressure as medical insurers in Germany, its largest market, are seeking bulk procurement deals at low prices.
Sources familiar with potential bidders say that a new owner will likely separate the two businesses -- a challenge because Stada is largely managed along regional or country divisions which combine generics and consumer care lines of business.
Jefferies analyst James Vane-Tempest said Cinven's 56 euros amounted to a fair deal, given Stada's high net debt levels, which stood at about 1.2 billion in September, and limited organic growth prospects.
"Although Stada does have a decent branded products business, a strong position in Russia and a pan European distribution platform, in our view it had been a big ask to command a significant premium on the rest of the business, which is the larger segment." ($1 = 0.9389 euros)
OPEC reports big Saudi oil cut, boosting compliance with deal
By Alex Lawler and Reem Shamseddine
LONDON/KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Top OPEC oil producer Saudi Arabia made a large cut in its crude output in January to support prices and lessen a glut, helping boost compliance with the group's supply-reduction deal to a record high of more than 90 percent.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is curbing its output by about 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from Jan. 1, the first cut in eight years. Russia and 10 other non-OPEC producers agreed to cut half as much.
Supply from the 11 OPEC members with production targets under the deal fell to 29.888 million bpd last month, according to figures from secondary sources that OPEC uses to monitor its output. OPEC published the data in its monthly report on Monday.
Oil prices pared an earlier decline after the release of the report, trading above $56 a barrel. OPEC's cut is supporting the market, but expectations that the move will lead to a revival in U.S. shale drilling have limited the rally.
In January, cutbacks by the 11 OPEC members amounted to 93 percent compliance, according to a Reuters calculation based on OPEC's figures. That's higher than the International Energy Agency's estimate of 90 percent, which it called a record.
"The preliminary numbers are showing a very high level of conformity within OPEC," the group's Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo told Reuters in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. "So far, so good."
Saudi Arabia told OPEC that it made an even bigger cut than estimated by the secondary sources, reducing January output by more than 700,000 bpd to 9.748 million bpd - lower than called for under the OPEC deal.
The report said production by all OPEC members, including cut-exempted Nigeria and Libya, fell by 890,000 bpd to 32.14 million bpd.
OPEC gave no compliance figure. Reuters saw an earlier version of the secondary-source figures last week that put compliance at 92 percent.
OPEC MEMBERS SAY OUTPUT HIGHER
While Saudi Arabia told OPEC of a large drop in output, figures provided by other OPEC producers to the group gave a more mixed picture of compliance.
OPEC also raised its forecast of the amount of oil that producers outside the group will pump this year, seeing supply growth of 240,000 bpd, up from 120,000 bpd previously.
Production levels reported by OPEC countries including Algeria, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela to OPEC were higher than estimated by the secondary sources.
Ten of the 11 OPEC countries with supply targets -- all except small producer Gabon with output of around 200,000 bpd -- reported January production to OPEC. Even without Gabon these add up to 30.173 million bpd -- much more than the secondary sources.
OPEC uses two sets of data to monitor output - figures provided by each country and by secondary sources, which include industry media. This is a legacy of old disputes over real production levels.
With demand for OPEC crude in 2017 also expected to average 32.14 million bpd, the report indicates there will be zero average surplus if OPEC keeps output steady. Last month's report pointed to a 985,000-bpd surplus.
Barkindo also told Reuters it was premature to say if the supply cut deal, which lasts for six months, should be extended, and that it would be enough to lower inventories to around the five-year average this year.
South Africa's PPC and Afrisam rekindle cement merger plan
By Tiisetso Motsoeneng and Nqobile Dludla
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 13 (Reuters) - South Africa's PPC Ltd proposed merging with its nearest rival Afrisam Group on Monday, in a renewed attempt to combine the two and an effort to lead consolidation.
PPC, which abandoned talks with Afrisam two years ago, said it had revived discussions about a potential merger, sending its shares to their highest level in nine months.
"We think that consolidation in the industry will start to happen and we've got to make a choice as to whether we want to be the architects and lead that ... or ... let it happen around us and not be sure of the outcome," PPC's chief executive Darryl Castle told Reuters following the announcement.
Afrisam, which is majority owned by the Public Investment Corporation pension fund, first proposed a merger in 2014 when PPC's share price had been under pressure due to infighting between its board and former chief executive.
However, PPC's share price is up by nearly a third so far this year, after suffering a sharp fall in mid-2016 when the company lost its investment grade debt rating and was forced into a deeply discounted rights offer. PPC's shares had lost 44 percent in 2015, and nearly 12.5 percent in 2014.
Shares in PPC, which is valued at about 11 billion rand ($823 million) and did not give details of the proposed merger, were up 2.29 percent at 7.16 rand by 1236 GMT.
"The parties have independently concluded that current market circumstances warrant entering into formal discussions to consider the proposed merger," PPC said in a statement.
The merger would create an entity that is financially stronger and well placed to compete globally, with assets across six African countries.
"In South Africa, PPC is already the dominant player and merging with Afrisam would create an entity with more than 60 percent market share," Afrifocus Securities equity analysts said, adding that the key issue would be obtaining approval from the country's competition commission.
PPC, along with South African construction firms, is struggling to grow revenue and sales, partly due to a slow roll-out of a three-year government infrastructure investment package.
Chinese takeover of Germany's Postbank unlikely - source
HONG KONG/FRANKFURT, Feb 13 (Reuters) - China's Dalian Wanda Group has informally approached Deutsche Bank about buying its Postbank business, but a deal is unlikely to materialise, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The Financial Times reported that Wanda, which is owned by China's richest man Wang Jianlin, has set its sights on investments in European banks, including Postbank, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The source told Reuters that there were no formal talks with Wanda about a Postbank transaction with Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Dalian Wanda Group on Monday said it had not contacted Deutsche Postbank about potential acquisition plans. "Wanda and Deutsche Postbank have not been in touch," it said.
Deutsche Bank, which bought Postbank in several steps from 2008 onwards for 6 billion euros ($6.37 billion), had planned to sell the business to help to shrink its balance sheet.
But the German bank cannot afford to sell it below book value without taking asset writedowns, a factor that has prevented Deutsche Bank from selling it in the past.
Cutting the ice: lawnmowers race on frozen Finnish lake
Feb 13 (Reuters) - Through the half-light of a bitter winter's day into the dead of the Nordic night, lawnmower racers from around Europe battled for 12 hours in a race that tested their endurance of the cold as well as their driving skills on ice.
Held on the frozen Lake Karhijarvi, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of the capital Helsinki, on Saturday, the drivers skidded their noisy ride-on machines around an 850-metre (930-yard) course.
"You have to understand what it is to drive on something that is slippery, you have to understand how snow works, when you drive on the snow how it affects the tyres," race organiser Kari Nikrus said.
"And there (are) different kinds of snow, when it's cold it doesn't stick the same way as when it's warmer, and you just have a gut feeling how ... to drive on it."
Panama seeks $210 mln trade sanctions against Colombia at WTO
By Tom Miles
GENEVA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Panama wants to impose $210 million of annual trade sanctions on Colombia, according to a filing published by the World Trade Organization on Monday, after winning a legal challenge against a so-called "money laundering" tariff.
Panama won a judgment at the WTO last year after complaining about Colombian tariffs on textiles, clothes and shoes. Colombia had imposed the high tariffs because it said the goods were imported at artificially low prices in order to launder money.
Panama's tax transparency has been under global scrutiny because of a huge leak of secretive offshore accounts data from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, whose founders were arrested on charges of money laundering on Saturday.
After Panama won its WTO case against Colombia, a WTO adjudicator gave Colombia until Jan. 22, 2017, to comply with the ruling, and the government in Bogota adopted two decrees on its tariff and customs regime on Nov. 2, 2016.
"In Panama's view, however, these legislative acts, far from bringing the measure into conformity with Colombia's WTO obligations, perpetuate the nullification and impairment of benefits accruing to Panama directly or indirectly under the GATT 1994," Panama said, referring to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, a founding agreement of the WTO.
Panama's request for trade sanctions is likely to face further obstacles from Colombia, which could ask the WTO to verify the steps it has taken to comply with the legal decision and could also argue that the sanctions should be set at a lower level.
IMF-Ukraine negotiations heading in right direction -Lagarde
DUBAI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Negotiations between the International Monetary Fund and Ukraine to allow the release of the next tranche of aid for the country are heading in the right direction, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Monday.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told Reuters on Friday that Kiev expected to reach a deal with the IMF by the end of this month on the latest series of loans under Ukraine's $17.5 billion, four-year bailout.
Lagarde, in an interview with Reuters while visiting Dubai, avoided giving a time frame but said the fact that the bailout had progressed so far was a good sign.
"I am confident that the negotiations are heading in the right direction, that some of the key issues have been resolved," she said.
"There are still a few outstanding matters that need to be ironed out and negotiated between the team and the Ukrainian authorities."
Tour bus crashes in Taiwan, at least 32 dead
TAIPEI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - At least 32 people were killed and more were taken to hospital after a tour bus crashed on a highway in Taiwan on Monday night.
The bus was carrying 45 people and 13 of them were sent to nearby hospitals, according to the local fire department.
Television footage showed pictures of rescue crews trying to raise the overturned bus on the side of the highway with ambulances and fire trucks lined up along the bend of the road.
Many of the injured were older passengers, local television reported. It was unclear what caused the accident.
Tour bus crashes in Taiwan, at least 32 dead
TAIPEI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - At least 32 people were killed when a tour bus crashed on a highway near Taipei on Monday night, with Taiwanese television footage showing the bus careening toward a road barrier at a highway curve before flipping on its side.
Forty-four people were in the bus, not the previously estimated 45, according to the latest figures from the local fire department.
Thirty were pronounced dead at the scene and two died at the hospital, the fire department said, adding that 12 people were still being treated in hospitals around Taipei, the capital.
Many of the injured were elderly, Taipei City Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-ji said on live local TV.
It was unclear what caused the crash. Local television showed a video of the bus shot from behind flipping onto its side and skidding toward the hillside after it hit a road barrier when negotiating a highway interchange curve.
Ambulances and fire trucks were lined up along the bend of the road as rescue workers used a crane to lift the battered bus from its wheels, after all the passengers were pulled from the wreckage.
"Prosecutors need to get on the site," said cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung on live TV.
The crash is the latest accident involving tour buses in Taiwan. Earlier this month, another Taiwanese tour bus carrying Chinese tourists crashed into a bridge in southern Taiwan, injuring some passengers.
It followed a grisly murder-suicide last year in which 24 Chinese tourists were killed after the driver set their moving bus on fire.
Ghana's Cocobod to seek smaller loan for 2017/18 cocoa purchases
ACCRA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Ghana's Cocobod is in talks with international banks for a syndicated loan to cover cocoa purchases in the 2017/18 season, the regulator's new head said on Monday, adding that it would likely seek less than the current season's $1.8 billion.
Tour bus crashes in Taiwan, killing at least 32
TAIPEI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - At least 32 people were killed when a tour bus crashed near Taipei on Monday night, with television footage showing the bus careening toward a road barrier before flipping on its side.
Of 44 people on the bus, 30 were pronounced dead at the scene and two died in hospital, the fire department said, adding that 12 people were still being treated in hospitals around Taipei, the capital.
Many of the passengers were elderly, although the age range was early 20s to late 60s, according to city authorities.
The trip had been arranged by the Tieh Lien Hua Travel Agency, according to Taiwan's tourism bureau.
An official with the agency said the tourists were "likely" all from Taiwan, but that it was still looking at passenger information.
"We are making efforts to help with the emergency response and will fully cooperate," Chou Chi-hung told Reuters by telephone.
It was unclear what caused the crash. Local television showed a video of the bus shot from behind flipping onto its side and skidding toward the hillside after it hit a road barrier when negotiating a highway interchange curve.
Ambulances and fire trucks were lined up along the bend of the road as rescue workers used a crane to lift the battered bus from its wheels, after all the passengers were pulled from the wreckage.
"Prosecutors need to get on the site," said cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung on live TV.
The crash is the latest accident involving tour buses in Taiwan. Earlier this month, another Taiwanese tour bus carrying Chinese tourists crashed into a bridge in southern Taiwan, injuring some passengers.
The Sri LankaThailand Business Council visited Thailand from the 1st 4th of February for B2B meetings and bilateral talks with their Thai counterparts.
The 11-member high-powered business delegation from Sri Lanka met with members of the Federation of Thai Industries and Board of Trade of Thailand to promote investment opportunities and joint ventures in Sri Lanka.
The meetings with the government body associations were followed by a full-day B2B session comprising of over 60 small and medium scale business at the Marriot Marquis Hotel in Bangkok. The B2B was organized with the assistance from the Department of International Trade and Promotion in Thailand (DITP). The Delegates from Sri Lanka were introduced to over 60 business establishments looking to do business with Sri Lanka.
The B2B meetings were hugely successful with members establishing direct contacts and leads for goods and services. Some of the Sri Lankan delegates signed up direct orders immediately with Thai companies.
The Sri Lankan delegation comprised of 11 companies in diversified fields of business. The delegation was led by the President of the business council, Rizan Nazeer of Transtrade International and included Lionel Fernando from Benjarong (Pvt ) Ltd, Asgar A.M. Musajee from M.M. Noorbhoy & Co. , Lalith Kumarage from Alucare (Pvt) Ltd, Rienzi Fernando of Roots Global (Pvt) Ltd Anverali Akbaraly of Raj Sons (Pvt) Ltd, Luxman Peiris of Dibbo Rubber Industries, Aasim Mukthar of Lanka Exhibition and Conference Services, Waruna Peiris of Waruna Printers & Publishers
Kshenuka Senavirathna, the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Thailand also participated at the meetings. During the talks the Sri Lanka delegation extended a warm invitation to their Thai counterparts to visit Sri Lanka and see firsthand the developments taking place.
While car people have the wherewithal to form clubs and hold meets and rallies, the humbler two wheel crowd have lacked such organizational ability. There are several small and scattered groups of motorcycle riders all over, but the Ceylon Scooter Club is perhaps the largest and best organised body of its kind in Sri Lanka right now. About 50 machines and twice that number of people turned up for their annual meeting on Feb. 04, held this time at the Mahaveli Centre, Colombo 07.
It was a colourful event with brightly painted Vespas and Bajajs visible everywhere. Some members came in colourful sarongs while others opted to pay more attention to their machines than dress, with some machines covered with pictures and graffiti. Despite its colonial-sounding name, the CSC was formed just a decade ago by a handful of young enthusiasts. Today it has members all over the country, and members cover the social spectrum from mechanics to businessmen and expatriates.
Its open to classic scooters (loosely defined as older than 1990s registration) and Italian Vespas seem to pre-dominate, though closely followed by Indian machines. Once familiar names such as Douglas and Lambretta have become rare sights. Most of the older machines on show were the seemingly indestructible Vespa 150ccs from the 1960s and 70s. But That durability owes much to the availability of spares. Given that fact, its quite understandable that the owner of Kuruppu Motors, Panchikawatta was invited this time as chief guest.
S. Kuruppuarachchi as well as his son Kushan (a scooter enthusiast who rode a Bajaj Classic for the event) are important to the existence of the countrys small and struggling scooter community. While they are not the only scooter spare parts dealers in Colombo, their knowledge, stock of spares (new parts imported from Italy and India as well as old and junked machines) enthusiasm for scooters and willingness to help are crucial in keeping the dwindling number of classic scooters running.
India too, plays a big part in the classic scooter story. Bajaj went into the scooter business by making Vespas under license, and changed the name to Bajaj (with different styling) when the license expired. LML too, made Vespas in India. The scooter went out of fashion when Bajaj shifted to making motorcycles. But these classic machines are avidly sought by enthusiasts today to be restored, even getting exported to Europe. Similarly, classic scooters have become fashionable in Sri Lanka as well.
Kuruppuarachchi recalled that he owned his first scooter back in 1961, when the parents of many CSC members were still in school. Unlike many car clubs, where organizers tend to be grey-haired, the CSC is run by a young crowd. The launching of an official website was announced, including a knowledge hub where scooter owners have access to technical advise, service manuals and other technical data. The website offers too, a help network of garages and mechanics all over the island in case of breakdowns and emergencies.
Along with spare parts dealers, mechanics are supremely important to scooter riders. Those who know how to diagnose and fix a classic scooter are now a rare breed. The CSC has a network of such mechanics and several were invited to the meeting K. A. Sumanadasa, Asoka Jayasuriya, Joseph, L. R. S. Pieris and L. R. S. Nishantha.
The club expects to hold four annual events such as two-day or three-day scooter tours. After the meetings conclusion at noon, members rode to the Independence Square for a photo shoot. This is evidently an outfit which runs on a mixture of goodwill, enthusiasm and an abiding love for scooters.
Colombo Chief Magistrate Lal Ranasinghe Bandara today allowed the defence counsel to file preliminary objections on March 15 in the case where former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Nissanka Senadhipathi and six others were facing corruption charges filed by the Bribery Commission with regard to Avant Garde Maritime Services Ltd.
The BC said the suspects had committed an offence by permitting the the company to operate a floating armoury causing a Rs.11.4 billion financial loss to the State.
The six suspects are: Sujatha Damayanthi, Palitha Piyasiri Fernando, Karunaratne Bandara Adhikarai, Somathilaka Dissanayake, Jayanath Sirikumara Colambage and Jayantha Perera.
In a preliminary objection, Romesh de Silva PC said the prosecution had violated the law vested in Bribery Act (BA) when charging the suspects.
He said the when the suspects were charged under Section 70 of the Bribery Act, the prosecution should have obtained a mandatory sanction, a written consent, from the BC according to its Section 78 (1).
However, in this case there was no such sanction in court, therefore, the proceedings should not be continued, and the suspects discharged from the inquiry.
Senior State Counsel Janaka Bandara prosecuting said according to the Section 11, No.19 of the 1994 Bribery Act, the Director General of the BC was permitted to file charges in court without certification of the BC because the direction was sufficient compliance.
The Magistrate directed the prosecution to conduct the inquiry in the absence of the second accused Sujatha Damayanthi Jayaratne following the evidence led by the prosecution confirming that the suspect was abroad. (Shehan Chamika Silva)
Video by Courts Prasanna
The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC), which on a regular basis publishes key business publications providing vital business information, analysis on economic trends and statistics and also sector-based reports, has now made them available online for interested parties to obtain those publications.
The periodic, annual and issue-driven publications launched by the CCCs Economic Intelligence Unit and the Business Information Division can be downloaded by visiting https://www.chamber.lk/business-services/business-intelligence.
Currently, the publication portal of www.chamber.lk has several important reports covering sectors such as, apparel, dairy and tea. Visitors also can purchase the Sri Lanka in Brief 2016, via online, which provides vital socio-economic information on the country.
Interested parties can also obtain the CCCs latest publication, Economic Review and Outlook 2017, a new report, which contains information on trends, risks and prospects of both Sri Lankan and the global economy.
Apart from it, the CCC website also offers a vast amount of free and vital content covering a vast array of economic topics for its visitors. Visit www.chamber.lk to find out more.
The Commercial Bank of Ceylon recently interacted with 160 entrepreneurs from the Gampaha and Puttalam districts at a programme held in Wennappuwa as part of the banks on-going initiative to develop entrepreneurship skills within the SMEs in the country.
The resource person for the programme was Chandana Gunawardena, a leading speaker on motivation and business development. The emphasis of the programme was on empowerment of participants in the areas of business development and sustainability.
The programme was attended by the Regional Manager (Colombo North) of Commercial Bank Mrs Dharshanie Perera, officers of the Development Credit Department of the Bank and Branch Managers in the region.
The Commercial Bank has been conducting similar programmes for entrepreneurs in many areas of the country. The bank has to date conducted 59 Entrepreneurship Skill Development and Capacity Building programmes in the Northern, Eastern, North Central, Southern, Uva, Central and Western Provinces. These programmes have benefited more than 5,200 entrepreneurs, the bank said.
In May 2016 the Bank also conducted a special programme in Matara exclusively for women entrepreneurs. It was attended by more than 100 participants.
These programmes are supported by the Banks 15 Agriculture & Micro Finance Units (AMFUs) which play a key role in helping identify specific needs of people who require assistance to develop either their agriculture activities or micro businesses, and are dedicated to promoting agriculture lending and micro finance.
A French couple who had been taken into custody by the Police for allegedly drawing pictures on the railway compartments was produced before the Galle Chief Magistrate on Saturday and was remanded till tomorrow.
The Police told court that the suspects, Gousset Gaeten and Leal De Sousa had caused a damage of Rs.64, 440 to the Railways Department.
The suspects, who entered the Galle Railway Station without permission on Friday evening have allegedly drawn pictures in a passenger compartment, when the Railway Security Service Officers arrested them.
Chief Security Officer of the Galle Railway Station Lesley Ananda in his complaint to the Police had stated that the pictures drawn in indelible paint could not be removed and that the interior of the entire compartment should be repainted. (D.G.Sughapala)
The world saw radical changes at just the beginning of the 21st century compared to what it saw during the whole of the 20th century. Evolving at an unprecedented rate is the global economic landscape and with it the working environment.
With the future proving to be a roller coaster ride, it can be said that a good proportion of companies are failing to see what is coming their way. As experts have pointed out time and again, a company needs resilience and strategic agility to succeed and it will need to keep its eye firmly on the advancing horizon. As they say nobody has a crystal ball.
Keeping an eye on the advancing horizon is Fonterra a business organisation that has realised what brought it to its status today will not necessarily take it to its destination tomorrow. In that context, Fonterra is already building a future-ready organisation by giving due emphasis to its present and potential employees.
Fonterra Brands Lanka Director HR Dinusha Jayamanne recently sat down with Mirror Business for a discussion on the employment outlook for Sri Lanka, where it stands and determination of Fonterra to remain relevant.
Jayamanne leads the execution of Fonterras human resources strategy. Having joined Fonterra in 2012, her experience spans 14 years of overall human resource management, talent and organisational development and process improvement.
At present, she is also an Executive Committee Member of the Association of Human Resource Professionals.
Jayamanne graduated from the Sri Lanka Law College and is a Member of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, with experience working as a junior legal counsel. She holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Western Sydney, Australia. She is a Belbin Accredited Consultant and trained on SHL Talent Measurement Training and Lean Implementation.
What is the global and local scenario with regards to employment? What is the outlook?
When you look at the world today, its a VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world. It is ambiguous. People have to anticipate what the changes are. There are also certain events in the world that are impacting the employment outlook. Also, if you observe what is happening in Sri Lanka, it was predicted the nation would be at 21 million population by 2020, but we achieved it in 2013, so more jobs need to be provided.
The density of people, in the urban areas is increasing; the infrastructural development space is changing. When looking at the workforce in Asia, it is ageing, and Sri Lanka is getting there.
There are lots of implications because we, Asia, are a manufacturing hub. There are lots of environmental implications. Companies need to be more and more careful on sustainability, environment and safety implications and also include into the equation the impacts due to terrorism.
Then there are the generation differences. Generation Y is entering the workforce and there are more millennials coming in. The online presence is getting more pronounced.
All these factors need to be taken into account and companies need to build distinct capabilities. Research shows that todays skills that are relevant will become non-existent by 2020. Therefore, todays stable jobs will soon become unstable. It is not easy to recruit people for certain positions since those jobs will become even harder.
You imply a talent scarcity. What can companies do in this regard?
Given the talent scarcity, there certainly are few things companies can do. The companies have to be able to develop a diverse talent pool by taking into account the rate at which the working environment is changing.
Secondly, with the millennials coming in with the expectation of becoming different, there is a need to redefine the work equation just so they are kept motivated. People now want flexibility.
The third is to get out of this complexity. All talent processes need to be simplified.
And fourthly, they should focus on architecting careers. There is a need to create a simple yet robust career path which are fulfilling for people. Those are essentially four things companies need to do, obviously while keeping to the company strategy.
How is Sri Lanka faring in adhering to the four points you just mentioned?
I think some Sri Lankan companies are being proactive about it. They are exploring and looking at forecasts and trends and also getting peoples insights and creating the agendas accordingly. These are companies that have good corporate governance and are looking to progress. I would say a good majority is faring well in these areas.
Talk to me about how Fonterra manages its human resources?
At Fonterra, we acknowledge that we have to change. For us the why? is what matters the most. The why for us is our purpose, which is to make Sri Lanka a healthier and happier nation. This has two components, one is the healthier part and the other is the happier part.
The healthier would mean how do we provide our people with the right nutrition? How do we grow the dairy category? Currently people only intake one glass of milk a day but the Health Ministry recommends at least two glasses. How do we grow that?
How do we make our people happier? We obviously cant make the entire nation happy, so we are focusing on the dairy community. Through dairy development we plan on achieving this. With dairy being at the core, we feel that there is a big task ahead of us.
We acknowledge and strive to build a future-ready organisation. Together with those macroeconomic changes I mentioned earlier and with the growth strategy of Fonterra, we have planned for a future-ready organisation.
Here we believe the people agenda has to be absolutely aligned with our purpose as well as the organisational strategy. It is not human resources (HR) who drives this, it is merely an enabler. It is the people manager who drives the agenda.
How would you describe Fonterras work environment?
We are a purpose-led, value-driven performance-based organisation. We like to dream big and we also drive our teams to deliver to the fullest potential, ensuring our values are at the core. We are a cooperative owned by farmers, therefore, a humble company. It is different to other MNCs as we report to farmers, including our chairman, who is a farmer. We aim to do whats right, make it happen and challenge boundaries.
On the culture, it is important for Fonterra to focus on the how of doing things. We integrate value into all. If you take the performance management system, we give 50 percent for the what and 50 percent for the how. We look at if they (employees) have lived by the values and with the right approach.
In terms of our recognition programme, we look at the people who live up to those values and we recognize that through a programme called Everyday Heroes.
When looking at our environment, we are an extremely passionate and synergistic team. We work as a family. Its an intimate relationship. You can feel it on the factory floor. We dont only do this for our own people but we also do it for our communities. It is part of one of our values cooperative spirit, where we make a difference in the community we work, live and operate.
What does Fonterra do differently to other entities of your calibre?
I would say the proactive approach in making our people future ready. When we started thinking about this future-ready element of our organisation, we thought of a few key areas. We started with asking ourselves what would be the right structure if we are to achieve that purpose. Usually companies come up with a random structure and we just implement it.
We came up with a scientific approach on what is required and the types of roles necessary. And most importantly very key defined organisational design principles so that any time that you change, you could always revisit these design principles and see if we are on the right path.
Secondly we thought of the type of people we require. We want to achieve a magnanimous purpose, so you need to have distinct capabilities, that are critical and leadership capabilities.
To link to the future, you need the right system, the right processes to enable people to work better and proper governance. At Fonterra, we dont go on the regular measurement system, even for the people indications; we look at the output KPIs.
How about talent management?
This is another area we do differently. We, at Fonterra, believe that everyone has a talent and potential. Usually many companies box people up and depending on that, their career would be limited. At Fonterra, we look at a future potential model. We look at each individual and his or her career aspirations and where they want to go. Therefore, depending on the type of potential they have, we look at the different experience we provide.
When I say experience, we, at Fonterra, believe it is not just through training that we develop our people. We think that 70 percent of the time people learn on the job. Therefore, how do you provide the right experiences for people to stretch themselves? We need to look at the potential.
We have strategic business project teams that are driven by cross functional teams. This allows our employees to have a wide-ranging experience. This created a good think tank that is helping us to take our strategy forward. Its a rich experience that we provide.
It is not just for our own people, but for those who will join Fonterra in the future as well. So for that we are working with some institutions and universities. There are some well-talented people out there who will be the think tank of Sri Lanka. However, sometimes these students are not fully versed on what corporates would require. So, it is important for us and other companies to really help these people to understand the expectation from corporates.
Talk to me more about that, because there is a gap between what is being produced and what the employer wants. What is your experience with that?
First, let me talk about what we do. We have two programmes, the internship programme for undergrads and the management trainee programme.
For people who are in universities, in most instances there are career guidance units that help these students, to groom them, but corporates also need to take responsibility in partnering with them.
A very mature stage would be involving corporates in defining the curricular for students. I dont think Sri Lanka has got there yet.
There have been talks about it.
The Human Capital Summit held last year did explore as to how the private sector can support in this regard. That must happen for our workforce to become future ready.
Getting back to initiatives for students, what is the dialogue like?
We speak about establishing them as a brand. When we get the CVs of individuals who have followed multiple educational programmes, they look great on paper. We are eager to see them in person, but when we talk, sure they have lots of thoughts and ideas inside, but how it is articulated and how they come across are sometimes not what the CV represents.
We encourage them to establish them as a brand. We talk about how they can position themselves, the aspirations needed to build the brand. We tell them to pitch high so that they fall at an accepted level. It is great to see there are good materials in Sri Lanka, not just because of our work, but due to similar work of similar entities as well. We just have to keep at it.
What skills do these graduates lack?
The ability to communicate. I am not talking about the language but the presentation skills, the ability to present one. It is about showing who you are and what you are capable of. It is really about articulation. Its about communicating how you can add value to an organisation. End of the day, its about that.
Fonterra is coming up with new strategies and models. How have you evolved as an employer?
Fonterra has been a successful company throughout and has been growing year-on-year since establishment. Instead of looking at incremental growth and doing things in small steps that is required for the time being, we are now looking at the future. We believe that what got us here will not get us there.
It is important to think of greater things. Keeping these factors in mind and how we can lead in all fronts in the future, that is the difference. We are trying to structure all our programmes based on that anticipated future.
Also we are positioning people programmes in such a way that people would be able to embrace and integrate with the company. Through employment people want to feel happy; they want to engage and want to contribute. We look at an area called organisational health. This is a unique area that has leadership at the core and looks at nine dimensions. Its much broader than engagement and we get people insights.
Fonterra has started to offer flexible working hours. Share as to how that was incorporated into the system, given the costs that follow?
That came through people insights where our team went a step further into data mining. We tested this and we realized that was an option. Nowadays there is nothing called work-life balance. You have one life and you have to figure out how to work around that. If we provide people the flexibility to do that and trust our people to do so in a manner that would not bring about negative implications, then it works. That was the whole basis, trust.
The moment they are given flexibility, there is accountability on their shoulders to deliver. We went to the extent of providing paternity breaks as well.
Companies have to come up with new-age benefits. Requirements change and you must hear people out.
What are the skills the upcoming workforce needs to focus on? Also the field of work?
The skill prioritization is also changing. Needed now more is the ability to be more cognitive. Analytics will be a key skill workplaces will need to have. Furthermore, problem-solving skills will be required more, as a lot of the mundane work will be done for you through technology. It is the managers ability to take all of that and make sense of it and solve the problem for your company. Innovation and creativity across all functions will also be paramount.
What is the message you have for your present and future employees?
It is imperative for individuals to be cognizant of the changes that are happening; else we will unknowingly become redundant. It is important to be aware so you can adapt to the changing environment and be ready for the future.
We are a purpose-led, value-driven performance-based organisation. We like to dream big and we also drive our teams to deliver to the fullest potential, ensuring our values are at the core. We are a cooperative spirit owned by farmers, therefore, a humble company. It is different to other MNCs as we report to farmers, including our chairman, who is a farmer
Twenty-four suspects were further remanded till February 27 by Hambantota Magistrate Manjula Karunaratne over the clash during a protest in Hambantota recently.
One suspect was released with three sureties of Rs. 500, 000 each to attend his sisters wedding.
They were remanded on charges of violating court orders and damaging public property, during a protest in Hambantota. (Sanath Gamage)
From left: Erathna Power Company Director Prabath De Alwis, Zero Plus Director Keiichiro Yatomi and TAD Lanka Investments Director Toshiaki Tanaka
Zero Plus Co. Ltd, a Japanese firm with interests in cosmetic production, mail-order business and fitness, has invested US $ 1 million in a 700 kilowatt (kW) mini hydro project in Erathna, Ratnapura.
The project, which is nearing completion, is due to be commissioned in August 2017. This investment is our foremost penetration into hydropower-related projects. Despite its electricity generation being primarily run by hydropower, Sri Lanka still has vast untapped potential in the capacity of utilising hydro energy due to its abundance of lakes, rivers and streams.
This is the primary reason behind our focus on the island nation. This initial project paves the way for more investments to be channelled towards the development of hydropower, said Zero Plus Co., Ltd Director/CEO Keiichiro Yatomi.
Hydroelectricity is the oldest and historically the principal source of electricity generation in Sri Lanka, holding a share of 48 percent of the total available grid capacity in December 2013 and 58 percent of power generated in 2013. TAD Lanka Investments (TAD), the local facilitator of this project, is reputed for its vanguard capabilities in streamlining and safeguarding all types of foreign investments and investors channelled to Sri Lanka.
Since its inception in May 2016, TAD Lanka has in effect successfully streamlined many significant investments and continues to gain prominence among its burgeoning clientele. TAD Lanka Investments is proud to be part of this vital hydropower project, which is an indispensable requirement due to the power crisis faced by us as Sri Lankans. This investment, which is an introductory venture, opens more avenues for the promotion of sustainable energy projects by a host of other Japanese investors of TAD, commented TAD Lanka Investments Director/CEO Atheeq Ansar.
Sheyantha Abeykoon & Sidath Chandrasena
Digital Commerce Lanka (Pvt) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dialog Axiata PLC and the operator of wOw.lk, Sri Lankas largest ecommerce site recently announced a transition of leadership. As part of the Axiata Groups accelerated leadership development program, the outgoing Chief Executive Officer, Sheyantha Abeykoon will take on a new assignment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as the Chief Financial Officer of Axiata Digital Services Bhd with effect from the 13thof February. Sidath Chandrasena, currently, Senior General Manager in the Digital Services Group of Dialog Axiata will be appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Commerce Lanka (Pvt) Limited with effect from 13thFebruary. Sidath Chandrasena was also the founder CEO of e-channelling the first public listed dot.com company in Sri Lanka.
During the past three years wOw.lk firmly established itself as Sri Lankas premier ecommerce site with approximately 25,000 listed products,recording a 3x topline growth. I am pleased to hand over a company that has both pioneered and set the benchmark in many aspects of ecommerce in this country. I think the team at wOw.lk has proven beyond doubt that ecommerce has immense potential in this country and I am confident that Sidath and the team will take the company to even greater heights.said Sheyantha Abeykoon.
Sidath Chandrasena, in addition to being one of the countrys a pioneer online entrepreneurs has also built Dialogs Digital Advertising business over the past four years with exponential growth With the platform having been set I look forward to working with the young dynamic team to fuel explosive growth and extend the wOw experience to every consumer and buying experience in Sri Lanka said Sidath.
wOw.lk is owned and operated by Digital Commerce Lanka (Pvt) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dialog Axiata PLC. The company is an industry pioneer and the largest ecommerce company catering to domestic consumers across the island. wOw.lk continuously strives to meet the varied needs of the local online shopping community, delivering a superior virtual shopping experience with a variety of affordable products and services.
Former president and Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa left for Singapore a short while ago with a delegation of eight from the Bandaranaike International Airport. (T.K.G.K)
Nestles Maggi Coconut Milk Powder, Nespray Nutri-Up and Nescafe Ice Coffee RTD (Ready-To-Drink) were recognised for their high quality standards at the recent SLSI (Sri Lanka Standards Institution) Certification Awards. The companys Sales Promotions department also received the SLSI Certification for Good Manufacturing Practices for sampling operations, making it the first such operation in Sri Lanka to do so.
SLSI is the National Standards Body in Sri Lanka and a member of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). An SLSI Certification signifies that a product is manufactured in compliance with Sri Lanka Standard Specifications, and canbe purchased with an assurance of quality.
Continuous compliance is assured by regularly monitoring the companys quality assurance system via audits and product testing.
Said Mr. Pradeep Gunawardana, Chairman of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution Nestle Lankas relationship with SLSI goes back to over 30 years. I would like to congratulate the company for working together as a team to successfully take up the challenge of obtaining the SLS Certification. By achieving these Certifications, the company has gained a label of recognition for complying with quality management standards. I am confident that Nestle Lanka will maintain their high levels of standards
Video by Sanath Desmond
The SLS product certification mark is a symbol of quality, with the product being certified by an independent government body.Said Mr. T.G.G. Dharmawardana, Director General of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.The people of Sri Lanka can purchase Nestle Lankas products with more confidence.
Other Nestle products with SLSI Certification are Nestle Cerelacand Nestle Milkmaid.
Nestle employs the strictest quality control measures in its manufacturing process via stringent product hygiene and food safety standards, thorough quality checks at each stage of its manufacturing processes,and comprehensive testing in accordance with local and international food safety laws and standards.
The companys strict quality controls are also extended to its suppliers. Nestle provides support in training their suppliers on quality and food safety, and conducts regular audits and analysis to ensure their quality standards are adhered to.
Said Shivani Hegde, Managing Director for Nestle For over 110 years in Sri Lanka, the Nestle name on a product has been a promise to consumers that it is safe to consume and that it meets high standards of quality. Were extremely pleased that our stringent quality standards have been recognised by the SLSI. As the worlds leading Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company, we look forward to continuing to delight our consumers with tasty and healthy food and beverages of the highest quality.
SLSI certified Maggi Coconut Milk Powder made from quality Sri Lankan coconuts, provides convenience to consumers and an authentic traditional taste preferred by housewives. Maggi Coconut Milk Powder is versatile, making it ideal for any kind of cooking; Nespray Nutri Up, comes with the wholesome goodness of Sri Lankan fresh milk and is enriched with Vitamins A & D. Priced at only Rs. 40/, Nespray Nutri Up offers on the go milk nutrition to school going children; Made from the finest coffee beans and locally procured fresh milk, NescafeIce Coffee offers great taste, simple convenience and the ability to consume on the go, to Sri Lankan youth.
A Pakistani court Monday banned public celebrations of Valentine's Day in the capital Islamabad, the latest attempt by authorities to outlaw a holiday seen by many in the traditional Muslim society as vulgar and Western.
The Islamabad high court issued the order after a petitioner declared love was being used as a cover to spread immorality, nudity and indecency... which is against our rich traditions and values.
The ruling, seen by AFP and greeted with approval by Islamist parties, also called for the electronic and print media to stop promoting Valentine's Day.
Some restaurants in Islamabad continued to send out text messages advertising Valentine's Day promotions even after the ban was announced.
However preparations appeared muted in more conservative areas such as Peshawar, capital of northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, where only a handful of shops were selling Valentine's Day-themed goods.
The annual occasion is increasingly popular among young Pakistanis, many of whom seize the chance to celebrate romance by giving cards, chocolates and gifts to their sweethearts.
But the country remains deeply conservative, and many disapprove of the holiday as an indecent Western import.
Last year, Pakistan president Mamnoon Hussain had urged the nation to refrain from celebrating Valentine's Day, saying it had no place in the Muslim-majority nation. Other officials blasted it as vulgar and indecent. (AFP)
REUTERS: The two founders of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were arrested on Saturday, the attorney generals office said, after both were indicted on charges of money-laundering in a case allegedly tied to a wide-ranging corruption scandal in Brazil.
Firm founders Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca were detained because of the risk they might try to flee the country.
Attorney General Kenia Porcell told reporters on Saturday that the information collected so far allegedly identifies the Panamanian firm as a criminal organisation that is dedicated to hiding assets or money from suspicious origins.
Porcell said the one-year investigation that led to the arrests has been aided by prosecutors in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Switzerland and the United States.
Mossack Fonseca is also at the centre of a separate case known as the Panama Papers, which involved millions of documents stolen from the firm and leaked to the media in April 2016.
The fallout from the leaks provoked a global scandal after numerous documents detailed how the rich and powerful used offshore corporations to hide money and potentially evade taxes.
On Thursday, prosecutors raided Mossack Fonseca offices seeking evidence and the homes of the firms founders were searched on Friday.
Fonseca, a former presidential adviser in Panama, has previously denied that the firm had any connection to Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht, which has admitted to bribing officials in Panama and other countries to obtain government contracts in the region between 2010 and 2014.
This investigation in principle is not related to Odebrecht, but to the Lava Jato case, Porcell said, referring to the probe centred on Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras.
Fonseca has also denied any relationship with the Lava Jato case.
Following the arrests, Mossack Fonsecas defense lawyer Elias Solano called the accusations against the firms founders weak and said he would challenge the evidence presented against his clients.
A source in the prosecutors office told Reuters that an unidentified third lawyer with the firm had also been arrested, while a fourth faces an arrest warrant, but her whereabouts are unknown.
The two additional lawyers were not named by Porcell.
They call it the Upa Sanskruthiya (subculture). We call it ragging.
Following our recent expose titled Ragging continues to torment undergraduates, on the alleged attack of a second year anti-ragging undergraduate at the Peradeniya University, Daily Mirror has received more reports on incidents of ragging this year. The stories shared by parents and students are reflective of a large number of cases of traumatic ragging that go unreported and unaddressed.
Since childhood, our parents and teachers have inculcated in us that respect should be earned and not demanded. However, in our campuses, seniors demand respect and reprimand freshers for not showing it. Freshers are compelled to greet the seniors in the morning. In fact they are interrogated as to how many seniors they greeted during table talks, mostly in the canteen. Freshers are required to come early and stay late so they can participate in the involuntary discussions. They are forced to learn and memorize the university jargon and kavi poems. This is supposed to be part of the university student subculture. However, this is ragging in operation at its mildest form.
Freshers are verbally abused in filth. Their self-esteem is crushed. They are belittled and demeaned. They are humiliated before others. This is undeniably the experience of the majority. also learns that male students are more susceptible to physical ragging while female students are sexually harassed as well. We have also had a gruesome history of suicides triggered by ragging. Yet when ragging is exposed and the relevant student body is questioned, they argue that only a few bad apples resort to ragging and that the reported incident is not even related to ragging. They even go on to say that the victim had concocted the story to sling mud at them.
Student Unions declare that they are against ragging, though this stance is questionable in the light of the reports Daily Mirror has received. Freshers, under the conditions of anonymity fearing repercussions, told us they were ragged wherever the seniors caught them; be it in the toilet or the canteen. One student expressed fear and added that the raggers were criminals and that she had never met people as evil as them. You are harassed for refusing or missing the rag as well. The dress code is very restrictive, inconvenient and unjustifiable. Students said it seemed as if the raggers got a kick out of ragging the freshers. Seniors are able to convincingly win the loyalty of certain freshers who become informants and betray their fellow peers. Freshers are also in a dilemma as refusing the rag leads to being an outcast and they would not be permitted to join clubs and societies subsequently, as seniors would harass them.
Seniors make freshers dependent on them early on by disparaging the lecturers, emphasising the difficulty of assignments and the need for the seniors notes. Freshers are thus compelled to cooperate with seniors. When juniors are overpowered, being submissive may seem the better option as standing against seniors can attract attention in the form of further physical and verbal attacks as we have seen in the Peradeniya University. This is where university authorities, including lecturers, play a pivotal role in encouraging students to stand against ragging and providing moral support, instead of turning a blind eye to its occurrence.
Following are the testimonies of parents who have been driven to desperation as a result of the mental trauma their children have undergone at the hands of the raggers.
Fresher assaulted, and currently under the care of a psychiatrist.
Lionel Wickramasinghe, a lawyer from Gampaha, told of how his son who was ragged and assaulted was now seeking treatment at the Ragama Hospital. Before the inauguration, seniors conducted unofficial meetings in each district. They contacted students over the phone and through social media, said Wickramasinghe. At the meeting in Gampaha which his son attended, he had been severely scolded and had refused to go to university, though he had subsequently agreed to it.
His son was to stay at the hostel of the Ruhuna University. On the first day itself, only a group of ten students were allowed to go to the canteen to get dinner. However the students who were permitted to go, including Wickramasinghes son, were scolded derogatorily. On the other hand, the students who were not allowed to go were rebuked for being flimsy and listening to others orders.
He had been walking alone on an incomplete concrete road between the hostel and the canteen when seniors stopped him, scolded him and asked him to undress, which he had refused to do, he said.
That same day seniors had halted the water connection to the hostel bathrooms. Freshers had been woken up at 1 a.m. and ragged. The staff warden, who was in a room close by had not even come to look into it, he added.
Thereafter, the son visited his parents in Gampaha and returned to the university after a week. On the day he returned, on his way to the canteen, seniors approached him and took him to the seniors hostel. The seniors slapped the fresher on both cheeks, beat him on his back and asked him to undress, to which he refused. He was pulled by the collar. There are nail marks on his neck. The buttons of his shirt have been ripped off. He has been beaten severely, his father said.
Unable to bear the assault, the son fainted and regained consciousness after about fifteen minutes. The seniors scolded him saying he was pretending. He fainted once again and was kicked. Hearing footsteps, they pushed my son out of the dormitory. He had walked out of the university with difficulty, passing a security guard as well. He took a bus home, said the father. Wickramasinghe said his son pleaded with him not to complain to the police, as his peers could be ragged even more as a result of it.
"When its reported, we inform the university and they initiate action. Without someone coming forward we cant punish anyone"
We met the UGC chairman seeking a transfer. When my son was narrating his experience, he fainted due to his traumatic experience. The Vice Chancellor was also contacted. He asked us to come to the university, saying he would take care of it, he said. However, they had not been successful in procuring a transfer.
The boys had been asked to act as if they were in pornography.
The parents of a fresher, a hosteller at the Rajarata Management Faculty, have also been very apprehensive over the frequent complaints of their daughter about ragging. She had on several occasions refused to go back to the university. According to her mother, seniors surround freshers, intimidate them and scold them in obscene language. Freshers have been asked to come to the canteen called hilton at 6 a.m., where they are ragged. Freshers are required to remember the names of all their peers (300 students or more), their parents names and room number. If they didnt know these, they would be scolded and degraded inhumanly, the mother said.
Lectures end by 5 p.m. However, all freshers are required to go to the canteen afterwards. Female freshers are released from the rag just before 8.30, which is the latest time to enter the hostel. Male freshers are allowed to leave before 10.30, so they could enter the hostel.
However, the mother said the seniors came to the boys dormitory at 12 a.m. and ragged them till 3 a.m. They had been asked to act as if they were in blue films (pornographic content). One person had to play music while another pretends to be videoing it, she said. On the day of the inauguration, the parents had been told by members of the student council at a meeting that there was no ragging in the university. However they had learned that this was far from the truth.
Ragging, a subculture; Problem is to draw the line
Professor Mohan De Silva- Chairman of the UGC
Ragging is a non-bailable offense.
Ragging in our language is termed as a subculture by students.
Seniors have not been authorized to hold discussions in the canteen or exert their influence over freshers.
Victims of ragging can complain to the student counsellors, to the University Grants Commission and the police.
Prof. Mohan De Silva, the chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) said that the university had not given any power to the seniors. Student Councils say they teach freshers the good and the bad. But this is not what they do. Universities have not given student unions the power to do whatever they want to in this manner. Ragging in our language is termed as a subculture by students. The problem is to draw the line here, he said.
In the South East university, the police is involved. There have been many complaints. For the first time, students gave complaints in writing. Students have become stronger in reporting, he said, adding that the universities have also become proactive in putting a stop to ragging.
This year, there was an affidavit in the handbook on the registration process which is expected from the mother, father or guardian, that they have understood the consequences of their child getting caught for ragging. The Ragging Act of 1998 is now implemented by the judiciary and ragging is an non-bailable offense, he noted.
"We dont permit students to harass, threaten, abuse or physically attack others. We condemn such actions. We have advised students not to verbally or physically harass freshers, as that is not the way to make people tread the right path"
When asked about transferring students who have been ragged severely and who are unable to return to the university, Prof. De Silva said that it was not possible. Transfers are not possible as students are given a university based on their z-score and whether they have asked for it. There is a complicated equation. It is done through a software and if you change one, the whole thing will change. There are so many cases where students have got ragged and hammered. At the same time, there are people who use ragging to procure a transfer, he said.
Referring to the options available for students to complain, Prof. De Silva said the main problem was that students did not complain. There are student counsellors. Their telephone numbers are given to the students. But students are scared to complain as the environment is such. They can ring the UGC. There is a separate number for this purpose. When its reported, we inform the university and they initiate action. Without someone coming forward we cant punish anyone. This is our problem. But this situation is changing, he said. He added that students could complain to the police as well.
We condemn such actions
Mangala Maddumage- the Acting convener of the ISUF
We dont permit students to harass, threaten, abuse or physically attack others.
As Lahiru Weerasekara, the convener of the Inter-University Students Federation (IUSF) has been remanded for breaching bail conditions, Daily Mirror spoke to Mangala Maddumage, the Acting convener of the ISUF. When we asked him about the discussions by the seniors that took place mainly during the interval but also prior to and after lectures in certain universities, he said it was essential to hold such discussions. When first years come to the university, the seniors go and speak to the students for one hour from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. Problems that arise during their university education are addressed. First years need this help. This is what happens in universities around the country, he said.
"We met the UGC chairman seeking a transfer. When my son was narrating his experience, he fainted due to his traumatic experience. The Vice Chancellor was also contacted He asked us to come to the university, saying he would take care of it"
He added that the talks were not part of the activities of the Students Unions. He said, however, that the student unions were informed beforehand.
He also said there was a programme in place to prevent ragging and that they did not accept ragging. With our involvement, we have been able to reduce ragging to a certain extent, he said.
We dont permit students to harass, threaten, abuse or physically attack others. We condemn such actions. We have advised students not to verbally or physically harass freshers, as that is not the way to make people tread the right path, he said.
There are two factions, those who take part and those who dont take part in social activities in the university. This cannot be denied, he noted. When questioned as to whether people who did not take part were harassed, he replied in the negative, adding that he had in fact helped such students in their academic studies and that they were not penalized in anyway. There might be one or two who concoct stories of being ostracized. But this cannot be considered to be the experience of the majority, he said.
After imposing the bail conditions, the additional magistrate was alleged to have remarked that though the suspects believed ragging to be good, it was prohibited by law and therefore if the suspects wanted to change the law, they would have to go to the parliament to do so.
Peradeniya 2nd year undergrad assaulted
Suspects bailed out and magistrate refuses to accept affidavits.
When the case involving the assault of the second year student, Sasinindu Patabendige came up before the Kandy Additional Magistrate last week, the seven identified suspects were bailed out while the eighth suspect was discharged, as he had not been identified by the victim during the Identification Parade. The victim had been assaulted in the Peradeniya university premises on January 18, for speaking out against the ragging of freshers.
The prosecution wanted the suspects to handover an affidavit stating that they would not interfere with the witnesses or take part in ragging. However, when the affidavit was submitted by the Defense counsel, the additional magistrate did not accept it, saying the oral submission was adequate.
TIMELINE
In 1975, a 22-year-old female student, Rupa Rathnaseeli of the Faculty of Agriculture, became paralyzed as a result of jumping from the second floor of the hostel to escape physical ragging. It was reported that she was about to have a candle inserted into her vagina just before she had jumped out of the hostel. She committed suicide in 2002.
Prasanga Niroshana, a student from Hakmana, died as a result of ragging he underwent at the School of Agriculture, Angunakolapallassa.
In 1997, 21-year-old S. Varapragash, an Engineering student of the University of Peradeniya, died of kidney failure following severe ragging by senior students.
In 2002, Samantha Vithanage, a third year Management student at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura who pioneered an anti-ragging campaign, was killed at a meeting, during a discussion on ragging.
In 2011, a female student attached to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ruhuna, became semi-paralysed in one limb as a result of the ragging she underwent at the faculty canteen.
In 2011, a female student attached to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ruhuna, became semi-paralysed in one limb as a result of the ragging she underwent at the faculty canteen.
In 1997, Kelum Thushara Wijetunge, a first-year student at the Hardy Technical institute in Ampara, died of kidney failure after he was forced to do tough exercises and drink excessive quantities of liquor.
Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayaka today submitted an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to the Mass Media and Parliamentary Reforms Ministry requesting for information on the 26 TV channels currently operating in the country.
He said there was no system to correct or reply an erroneous news item aired over electronic media when these TV channels make insidious, unethical and unlawful attacks on individuals. He handed over the application to Ministry Secretary H.D.S. Malkanthi.
She told the deputy minister that the ministry would supply the information sought within 14 days.
The deputy minister told ministry officials that there are 26 TV channels in operation right now while the licenses of certain TV channels like CSN had been suspended.
The officials told him that there was no system to respond to the electronic media when a person was attacked repeatedly but sufficient safeguards would be incorporated in the new Media Commission Bill to be enacted shortly by the Government. He told the media that he had been proved correct with regard to the Akkaragama episode where he raised his voice against illegal soil mining and even President Maithripala Sirisena had accepted that fact.
I acted on a request by the people in the area to intervene and I revealed that corrupt public officials were conniving with illegal sand miners. That is why they are now keeping mum after asking me to apologize which I refused to do. The SLFP politician who confronted me is also carrying out illegal sand mining with the help of his family members, the deputy minister alleged.
He told reporters that he would expose the illegal and unethical acts of certain TV channels after he obtained the information from the Mass Media and Parliamentary Reforms Ministry and added that a mechanism was necessary to protect people who come forward to protect the rights of the people from being attacked by the media. (Sandun A Jayasekera)
Pix by Damith Wickramasinghe
Minister of Science, Technology and Research Susil Premajayantha in an interview with the Dailymirror said that it would be ill-advised for the government to go for a referendum at this time. He said his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was only for Constitutional Reforms that do not warrant approval of people by referendum. He shared the following:-
QThere were reports about your visit to the USA. It was rumoured that you had been sent as an emissary of President Maithripala Sirisena to engage with President Donald Trump. Could you elaborate the actual position?
That is total misinterpretation. I have been invited by the Senate and Congressional Committee to attend the annual prayer breakfast meeting. Once a year, with the participation of delegations from 160 countries, they have this event for three days. On the final day, the US President, the Vice President and many Senators and Congressmen and Governors attend it. This year, I, along with Minister Duminda Dissanayake and former parliamentarian Rosy Senanayake attended. That was the main event held in Washington. After that I paid a visit to Geneva to sign an agreement with the CERN laboratory. I also attended the Independence Day celebrations at our mission in the USA.
Q During the meeting in the US, did you get any chance to interact with the US officials?
No. The thing is that the US leaders only come for the main event, deliver their speeches and go. For meetings, we should make prior arrangements through our mission. There is a procedure to do it. You have to follow that.
Q Yet, the President had earlier said he would directly engage with US President Trump on the Sri Lankan issue. What is your position?
That is in his capacity as the President. He can write and speak to his counterpart in the USA regarding the resolution primarily moved by the USA and adopted by the UNHRC. That is of course up to the President to do it. The Foreign Affairs Ministry or the Minister for that matter can follow it up.
Q Are you aware of any such plan in the future?
No, I do not know.
Q How do you look at the current political situation?
As for the unity government, we, the SLFPers, joined it after a decision taken by the Central Committee of the party. None of the main parties could form a government. It is the duty of the President to form a government for a limited purpose. The main purpose is to overcome the issue in the UNHRC by showing the collective strength of Parliament. The second objective is to overcome the financial crisis we are facing today, and the third is Constitutional Reforms. Now we have to assess after two years whether we have achieved these objectives or now our next decision would be based on achievements in this regard.
Q With reference to the financial crisis, we read reports that the Central Bank Governor briefed the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management that outlining a bleak picture for the next three years. Could you share your views?
If I do not go deep into the depth of the crisis, basically I can say that our import bill is US $ 20 billion. Our export income and foreign remittances account for US $ 12 billion only. Then, there is a trade deficit of US $ 8 to 9 billion. In addition, we have to repay loans with interests accrued. By the end of 2017, it would amount to another US $ 4 billion. In the actual context, we have a serious deficit of US $ 12 billion in that manner. How are we going to earn this? This is the main issue. Any party that would come to power should work out a solution to it. If you try to address this issue within the box, it will be very difficult. You have to limit imports and increase exports and investments. On the other hand, you have to increase taxes. Then of course, prices will soar. To address this issue, there should be a collective effort. The Finance Minister, alone, cant do it. The UNP, alone, cant do it. They have to discuss it with their coalition partners and take into account our views. For the last budget, we gave them 12 proposals. However, we are not satisfied with the way it was presented. In the 2016 budget, none of the targets was achieved.
Q The government has proposed to privatize in part institutions, including the Hambantota Port and the Mattala Airport. What are your views on that model to get over the crisis?
First, we must ensure that management capabilities are introduced to run them. If you do not have such managerial skills, then you can consider some other alternatives like Public Private Partnership. First of all, have we taken any effort to manage these institutions? We have around 250 public enterprises. Who are the CEOs and Chairmen running them both during the present and the previous governments? Are they competent enough to manage them? You had appointed an ex-planter to SriLankan Airlines. Now, you have appointed an ordinary businessman to run it. To my personal knowledge, we have the management issues in all these institutions. As a result, they incur losses. Privatization is not the option. Before that, you have to take certain actions to manage them properly. If you cant manage an institution like SriLankan Airlines, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation or Ceylon Electricity Board, how can you govern a country? You have to choose the right man for the right job.
Q These institutions were run incurring heavy losses during the previous regime which you represented and held portfolios. Why did you fail then?
Its OK. For instance, if you are given a business that is running at a loss; are you going to close it down? You are given a challenge. What you have to do is to improve the management gradually to reduce the losses. Then you have to convert it into a profitable venture. If you are unable to do it, it shows your inability. Even the PPP model is needed for certain areas.
Q What do you think of its application for restructuring SriLankan Airlines?
First, you have to appoint a capable CEO and a Chairman to run it. You must give them a time-bound target. If you cant deliver, then you can think of taking the next step.
Q With reference to this Constitution making process, there is this allegation that the current stalemate is due to the SLFP not submitting its proposals. What is your response to them?
The SLFP has clearly indicated that if the new Constitution making process leads to a referendum, it is not appropriate at this stage. Before a referendum, you have to settle other issues. You find other social issues-economic crisis, unemployment issues etc. One has to be mindful of what is happening in other countries. We are of the opinion that this is not the ideal time to go for a referendum. At a referendum, people will not confine their decisions solely on constitutional matters. They would vent their anger against the government on other matters. Therefore, we are of the opinion that we should do some amendments to the existing Constitutions without calling for a referendum. Later on, it could be considered.
Q How do you expect the parties like the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to fall in line with your stand?
We fought a war for years. We were suffering from this issue for 65-70 years. You cannot give solutions at once. They are in a hurry. But, we are not. There should be a permanent solution. To do that, you have to convince the people.
Q Do you advocate power devolution?
Yes, up to a certain extent only. You cannot amend the Constitution or replace it with a new one leading to the partition of the country at any stage. You see what is happening in the north. NP Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran goes to the eastern province and canvasses for the amalgamation of the two provinces. There is a Supreme Court ruling here. The Chief Minister is also a retired Supreme Court Judge. First of all, he should read the relevant judgment. You cannot go there and utter certain things.
Q How longer could the government go on like this when the Ministers are taking on each other?
The groups representing the two parties meet at least once a month and discuss the current political situation. But apparently there is no result. So far we havent found any result. In my personal view, if we continue like this and remain silent, it would be the same forever.
Two different parties have got together to form a government. We find policy differences between the two. For example, the SLFPs policy is nationalization of assets. During the last government, we did not privatize. The UNPs policy is different. It is for privatization. Founder of our party S. W.R.D. Bandaranaike started with nationalization.
Q There is talk about the need for a Cabinet reshuffle to correct the situation. How do you see this?
Even in the past, the Prime Ministers and the Presidents took some steps to change the portfolios. This is one alternative that the leaders can arrest the situation.
Q Will it happen?
I have no idea about it.
Q Unity of the SLFP is challenged these days. One section is with the government while the other with the opposition. How do you address it?
There are reasons for it. The SLFP leadership was changed amicably after the Presidential Election. Some allies of the SLFP-led United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) thought they would not get enough opportunities under the new leadership. They were targeting the last general election. After the Presidential Election, there was a gap of seven to eight months for the general election in August, 2015. In the meantime, I was the UPFA Secretary at that time, and Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa the SLFP General Secretary. We did not take any rash decisions. We did not remove anyone. We did not even advise the President to do so. Even they criticized the party, we responded in a mild manner. We did not want to see division. We managed to do it. I, as the UPFA Secretary, managed to get all under the betel leaf for the election. The most difficult task was to accommodate former President Mahinda Rajapaksa into the UPFA nomination list. That was very crucial and critical. As a result, we managed to win 95 seats. The UNP got only 106 seats. Otherwise, the UNP would have got 125 seats.
Q How realistic is it to bring about unity between former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Maithripala Sirisena?
In our countrys political history, you would have seen many occasions where there have been unifications despite differences. That had happened in the greater interests of the country.
Q As per your experience, would the two leaders unite with each other?
It happened just before the last general election. Immediately after the Presidential Election, there was a rift until nominations were signed. But, we managed to get some consensus between the two. As a result, the former President was able to sign the nomination paper. Who was the leader of the UPFA? It is President Sirisena!
Q However, it is widely believed that the Presidents actions in the run up to election ensured the defeat of the UPFA. What is your opinion?
Yes, definitely. If not for the suspension of me and Anura Priyadharshana Yapa at the last moment, the result would have been different. The difference between the UPFA and the UNP was only 11 seats. If we had won three districts - Matale, Kegalle and Gampaha - we could have got seven more seats. Our surveys showed that we could have got more than 104 seats if not for that incident. The UNP would have got 98 seats. That was the past.
Q Would you be working for bringing about unity between the two leaders at the moment?
Not at the moment. If I am asked to do so, I will intervene.
Colombo Additional Magistrate Aruni Attigalle today directed the
Prison Authority to produce suspect Duminda Silva, who is on a death row, in Colombo National Hospital (CNH) to examine his health condition under a special panel of doctors.
The Magistrate issued the directive to the Director of CNH Dr. Anil Jasinghe seeking a comprehensive medical report on the suspect as to confirm suspect's inability of appearing before court due to his illness.
Earlier, Chief JMO Ajith Tennakoon informed Court that the suspect should be examined under the supervision of a panel of medical specialists at the CNH.
The Magistrate had directed the Director of CNH to submit the medical report on February 28.
In a response to a Court order, Prisons Department earlier had filled a medical report on the suspect and informed court the inability of producing him in Court for the ongoing three bribery cases filed over the charges of not declaring his assets and liabilities for three years.
The Bribery Commission had filed three separate cases against Mr. Silva under the Assets and Liabilities Act for not declaring his assets in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
The Bribery Commission had named Parliament Deputy Secretary General P.M. Neil Parakrama and several others as witnesses.
Senior Counsel Anuja Premaratne appeared for the defence.
The Colombo High Court sentenced him to death after being convicted of the murder Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra. (Shehan Chamika Silva)
Sri Lankan security personnel and Buddhist monks clash during a protest in Hambantota on January 7. Sri Lankan nationalists, monks and local residents are protesting the creation of an industrial zone for Chinese investments on the island (AFP Photo)
By Amantha Perera
Thomson Reuters Foundation: Vimalabudhi Thero, head monk at the Beragama village Buddhist temple, is consumed more by worldly concerns than matters of the soul these days.
With news that Chinese investors are eyeing the fertile plains he calls home, villagers worry this could end generations of family farming in their verdant corner of southern Sri Lanka.
My biggest fear is that I will be left with a temple and a bunch of Chinese donating alms to me, the monk said from the veranda of his living quarters, surveying the vast paddy fields stretching before him. His whitewashed temple is now a protest command centre, used by villagers to mobilise against change.
They fear that local farmland will be swallowed by a proposed 15,000-acre investment zone set up by the government to attract Chinese investment. And that fear means Beragama is now in the throes of heated public protests.
Less than half an hours drive from the nations second biggest airport and port, its access to this key infrastructure and stable water supply has made the area a magnet for outside development.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and the Chinese envoy to Sri Lanka Yi Xianliang, announced on January 7 that work would begin to create the zone, which Chinese officials predict could bring as much as Rs.750 billion (US$5 billion)in investment funds to the region. The money, however, does not impress Vimalabudhi Thero.
It is not that we are against investments, we want investments in this region, but we dont want to lose our ancestral lands.
History repeats
Beragama - which lies about 250 km from the capital Colombo - was itself born out of another government development plan, one launched nearly 80 years ago, when people were moved in to settle an area that was little more than jungle.
At the tail end of British rule, the then-government began shifting people into fertile areas to establish agriculture. The settlements attracted even more people after Sri Lankas declaration of independence in 1948, village elders said.
Since then, families have lived and worked productively in the area, growing mostly rice in vast paddies.
These are our ancestral lands, they are fertile. In the dry zone, this land with water supply is vital, that is why these lands have been eyed, said Dushan Pathirana, a third generation resident. We dont want go and live 70 km from here. Our lives are here, we cannot be uprooted like that.
No decisions...yet
Government officials in the district told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that no decision had yet been made on which land might to be acquired or which people moved.
S H Karunarathne, the District Secretary for the local Hambantota region said land mapping was the only work underway. We have been directed to survey the land area, that is it. We have no instructions on acquisitions.
The villagers, however, are not taking any risks and have mobilised to stop the map makers.
The surveyors come without any announcement, like a flying squad - that doubles the fear, Vimalabudhi Thero said.
The monk said he had attended a meeting with the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and had been promised that any villager who lost land would be properly compensated.
According to government officials, new investment is urgently needed to ease the nations debt repayments.
Sri Lankas foreign debt is estimated by its Central Bank to be about US$ 64 billion, with around US$ 8 billion owed to China.
Disquiet at the top
There is also opposition to the project from the countrys own politicians, even those who back foreign investment.
The former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who lost power to incumbent President Maithripala Sirisena in January 2015, led the plan to attract Chinese investment to the region.
This included construction of the new port and airport in Hambantota, which according to the current government is underperforming.
During a meeting on January 10, just three days after the investment zone was announced, Rajapaksa told the Chinese Ambassador that he believes agricultural land should not be handed out on long, 99-year leases.
Rajapaksa told the Chinese diplomat that the government should first use the 4,800 acres available for investment near the port, before looking for land elsewhere.
The disruption caused to the people of the area will be immense if 15,000 acres of land were to be acquired for this purpose. The government should fill the free port with investments first before opening more zones, he said in a statement.
He also revealed in a twitter Q&A that the Chinese themselves are concerned about how the project will be implemented - but did not elaborate further.
Anxious wait
For now, uncertainty reigns. Villagers in Beragama know the investment zone is likely to go ahead but nobody knows just which land will be targeted.
Last week, the only sign of activity was a foundation stone unveiled by the Prime Minister and the Chinese envoy.
Now we wait for the government to tell us what is being taken, said Pathirana, standing in the shadow of the pagoda. When the next step comes they will only take our land over our dead bodies.
The Governments move to impose heavy taxes on soft liquor with a lower alcohol content had increased the consumption of hard liquor among Sri Lankans during the past two years, the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) said today.
PHU General Secretary MP Udaya Gammanpila said it was the normal practice worldwide to impose taxes on hard liquor instead of doing so on soft liquor.
However, we are against the consumption of both categories. If the government is unable to ban alcohol, it should have at least promoted those with a lesser alcohol content. Those who consumed beer in the past are consuming hard liquor today because a person can purchase two 250ml bottles of arrack for the price of a can of beer, he told a news conference.
The MP said 74 million litres of arrack were sold in 2014 and it had increased to 94 million litres in 2016.
This is an increase of 28 per cent. Similarly, one of the leading distilleries had recorded an income of Rs.9.7 million which is an increase of 300 per cent of the companys revenue in 2014, he said.
The MP said the distillery which had recorded an enormous income was promoting the sale of 250 ml bottles of arrack targeting the youth.
He requested President Maithripala Sirisena to increase taxes on hard liquor including arrack and to implement the Mathata Thitha (End to alcohol) programme effectively. (Lahiru Pothmulla)
Sri Lanka should not let it being taken as bait in a larger geopolitical scheming
There was this rather intriguing article in Forbes, which read as:
After claiming South China Sea to be its own sea, telling America to stay off its islands, China is reaching for the Indian Ocean, telling India to stay off its own colony, Sri Lanka.
My first impression was that it was something that had been lifted from a pamphlet of Rudrakumars Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam.
Usually it is those types who strive to pick the most demeaning of words to call us out. But, this time it happened to be not the case. Anyway, sometimes using wrong loaded words in the wrong context is no less stupid than undressing in public to impress bystanders.
India-China competition for power in its extended neighbourhood is as old as the birth of the two new states, India in 1947 and Communist China in 1949.
John Garver, an academic, called it an enduring rivalry rooted in the decades-long, multi-layered and frequently sharp conflict.
It remains so, and will even become acute as two the countries acquire additional power - until one day, if ever, convergence of internal characteristics of two countries will moderate rivalry. Unlike realists (Who think all states are alike except in differential capability) many liberal theorists believe liberal states are less inclined to balance a fellow Liberal State.
That prospect is however a long shot given the contrasting internal systems of two States, though one would say another factor, economic interdependency may have a moderating effect.
Why we hear too much of this India- China competition these days is for two reasons; one is of course the most obvious; as two rising powers accrue incremental power, they expand their influence in their neighbourhoods and beyond.
That has been the case throughout the history of international politics and it will be the same in the future- though mode of the expansion has changed, from gun boats and territorial conquest in the past to something more akin to influence-peddling at present.
The other reason is also important. When a rising power expands its influence, other regional states tend to gang up to balance it.
However, strangely for a great power contender, but not so strangely for India, of which dominant Nehruvian ideology loathes power politics, India has been wary of being part of an external balancing strategy against China. The United States is looking to increase its presence in the region through the Pivot to Asia Pacific and has actively lobbied for an Indian role in it.
However, when Leon Pennetta, former Defence Secretary described India as the Lynchpin of the Pivot, A.K. Antony, Indias Defence Minister under the Manmohan Singh administration reportedly told him that India has no desire to be a part of Americas pivot.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the Pivot as a development fraught with uncertainty.
For the entirety of two terms of the Congress Government, New Delhi did not sign three basic foundation agreements, which had been on the table since 2002, that the US enter into with any prospective defence partner.
Though those were well short of any kind of military alliance and that both India and the US have entered into similar agreements with several dozen countries, India cited its abiding concerns of its strategic autonomy as a reason not to sign the agreements. (For instance, long before India signed a Logistical Sharing agreement with the US last year, Sri Lanka had two both with India and America)
That reluctance and vacillation towards a strategic partnership somewhat declined under the BJP administration of which world view is shaped by Hindutva realism, which may encourage it to exploit systemic opportunities proactively, without being tied to ideological rhetoric of Nehruvianism.
However, even then, India was not a fully convinced supporter, though Mr. Modi told the American Congress, that the two countries had overcome the hesitations of history.
Even recently after a Pentagon spokesman told media that India and America had agreed to conduct joint naval patrols, New Delhi swiftly said, it has no plans to do so.
However, now with Mr. Trump in office, that relationship, like many others is in a flux. With Mr. Trumps America First policy, no State, even Americas major allies in the EU wants to be taken for
a sucker.
Indian hesitations could well grow. In order to entrap India even in the minimalist alignment that had been secured under the Obama administration, a degree of scaremongering would be useful. States tend to shed their ideological and domestic trappings, when their external vulnerability shoots up.
Small states like ours have no power to influence those systemic patterns in the international system, but a smart government should know how to exploit opportunities and avoid dangers. At minimum, we should not let us being taken as bait in a larger geopolitical scheming.
Overly Chinese presence in Sri Lanka would have long term consequences for India. Sri Lanka should try to offset it with enlisting more states, and most importantly India. Why the Chinese economic presence in this country is depicted as a bogeyman in some quarters is mainly due to Indias absence.
There are two obvious factors that contribute to limits of Indian economic presence: A States external behaviour is first and foremost predicated by its relative power.
Indias economy is only a fifth of Chinas USD 10 trillion economy, which should explain the different level of capabilities.
Second is the State power, in this case the Governments ability to extract and utilise national resources to its foreign policy goals.
Indias Government has limited sway over its multinationals, some of which are among the largest investors in the EU, but do very few investments in Indias neighbourhood. That may also explain why South Asia is one of the least economically integrated regions. Whereas Chinas State firms march to the orders of the party State, of which investments betray Beijings long term ambitions.
We have so few real Indian businesses investing in this country whereas the Chinese have pledged some of the most transformative investment projects, two of which obviously are the Colombo Port City and the Hambantota Export Processing Zone.
The sad truth is after over three decades of economic liberalisation, we have not managed to secure a windfall from the world class IT industry, services, or automobile industry that flourish across the Palk Strait.
Why this happened is due to our insulation from global supply chains, which has over the time made us less competitive, while we continue to hallucinate that we have the best doctors, best IT graduates, best that thing and this thing.
We will have to fix that problem and to do that to bring down protectionist barriers and overly paternalistic labour and land laws, which in reality entrench poverty and under achievement.
But as we have seen recently, the Government has very little autonomy from social pressure to implement practical measures, be it signing of ETCA, negotiating of free trade agreements or land acquisition to reach those ends.
The danger of this policy paralysis is not just economic stagnation. If the asymmetry between Indian and Chinese perceived influence and presence in Sri Lanka widens further, at one point, Indians would view this as a zero- sum- game. Then repercussions would not be nice.
We have seen how it unfolded in the 80s. We should not let anything remotely similar to happen.
Follow RangaJayasuriya @RangaJayasuriya on Twitter.
VirtusaPolaris Chiarman/CEO Kris Canekeratne and General Manager Sri Lanka Madu Ratnayake
In the event of the inward-looking Trump administration enacting regulations to restrict foreign IT professionals entering the United States, VirtusaPolaris, a US-based technology company, says more work will move out of the US to countries like India and Sri Lanka.
The demand for technology services in the US cannot be fulfilled by the labour and industry just within the US.
In the event this proposed legislature such as visa regulations was enacted, the work still has to happen and it will result in more work potentially being done outside the shores of the United States, VirtusaPolaris Chairman/CEO Kris Canekeratne told reporters in Colombo.
VirtusaPolaris employs about 18,500 IT professionals worldwide and two thirds of that work in India. As the largest IT sector employer in the country, VirtusaPolaris employs around 3,500 IT professionals in Sri Lanka.However, over 60 percent of the companys business comes from the clients in the US, in the fields of financial services, telecommunication, media, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, etc.
One key election promise of the recently elected US President Donald Trump was to bring back jobs to the US and renegotiate some of the trade pacts the US had entered into, to give the American workers what he calls a fair deal.
Regulations discouraging technology professional entering could come into effect by way of limiting the number of visas issued and slapping higher visa fees.
In such a scenario, the IT industry will have to either pass the costs to the clients or the clients will have to ask the IT companies to find a way not incur such additional costs.
According to Canekeratne, the IT industry is a matured as well as an established industry, which can withstand headwinds as it has proved in the past.
Meanwhile, VirtusaPolaris expects to expand its presence in South Asia, from where the company believes a bulk of its growth would come. Virtusa Corporation acquired the Chennai-based Polaris Consulting in a deal valued at US $ 270 million.
Skill sets of Indian and Lankan IT professionals largely similar
The skill sets and the cost bases of Sri Lankan and Indian information technology (IT) professionals remain largely similar, according to VirtusaPolaris, which has presence in both the countries.
we find that the skill sets are largely similar; the cost bases are largely similar and the level of innovation is largely similar, VirtusaPolaris Chairman and CEO Kris Canekeratne told reporters in Colombo yesterday, elaborating on the companys experience working with the IT professionals in Sri Lanka and India. These comments come at a time when the current government is pursuing an extension to the existing free trade agreement with India, namely the Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), to allow importation of labour for selected industrieswhich includes IT services.
However, the move has been met with massive resistance from the local IT industry professionals.
The government maintains that Sri Lanka requires IT professionals from India with certain skill sets that the country doesnt have at the moment, while the local IT professionals accuse that opening the doors would allow low-skilled IT professionals entering the Lankan IT landscape for lower pay.
From the perspective of scale, the Indian IT industry is a very large industry where India graduates over a million engineering or technology professionals a year, whereas Sri Lanka may graduate around 30,000 a year.
So, its a matter of need. If there is a specific need anywhere in the world that cannot be fulfilled in that location, then you need to look beyond that. For us, however, we have found that we can hire the types of talent that we need both in India and in Sri Lanka, said Canekeratne.
Im not too privy to contractual arrangements or any of the agreements that may or may not get passed. What I can say is that if you cant find the talent you are looking for in a certain location, then you need to be mindful of being able to expand the area that you can bring in the requisite talent. But Im not in a position to tell you whether we need the talent or not, added Canekeratne.
According to VirtusaPolaris General Manager Madu Ratnayake, who handles the Lankan operations of the company, IT is a supply-constrained industry and it would continued to be like that in the future, given the rate of innovation that is taking place.
Hence, Ratnayake believes Sri Lanka needs to produce more engineering and technology graduates.
In the last five years, there has been a steady increase in the graduate output, but we need to get into a much larger initiative to radically increase the number, he said.
Today being Valentines day, you are probably waiting for the card Be my Valentine or an E mail to that effect to reach you today. This is a deeply rooted American tradition, which has caught up with the local teenagers, especially the ones studying in International schools
Love is a favourite theme of many poems and a hackneyed theme of pop songs, both ancient and modern. Modern pop songs sing the praises of carnal love and are not worthy of any serious contemplation. But the older pop songs are certainly meaningful. The British poet, Rupert Brooke, said that when he fell in love, The world in him awoke! When it happens to you, you would feel exactly like that, as it did happen to the writer when he fell in love. That is probably why Elvis Presley sang Because of love, Im a hundred feet tall, I can bounce this world like a little old ball. If it has not happened to you, wait till it happens to you and you would realise how true it is!
Perry Como sang, When you fall in love, the world is a wonderful place. Doris Day sang of a similar idea, Everybody loves a lover, Im a lover, Everybody loves me,Yes they do, and I love everybody, since I fell in love with you! Franky Laine sang, Love is a golden ring on your finger, love isnt just for tonight. That song was probably aimed at all the good-time Charlies! From what the writer has observed, there seem to be plenty of them in Colombo! Jamaican Johnny topped it all singing, Love, love, love in the morning, love, love, love in the evening, love, love, love in the night, always good for your appetite! So the writer advises you to try that cheap and readily available medicine, whenever you have indigestion or lack of appetite!
A humour columnist said, Love is the only game which can be played by two and both can win! If love happens to you, here are some quotations to ponder. These quotations were from a booklet given to me by a goody-goody gentleman in Church. The first three are from anonymous writers;
(1) One of the most amazing gifts in life is to find someone who knows all your flaws, differences and mistakes, yet still loves everything about you.
(2)When you stop trying to find the right man and start becoming the right woman, the right man would find his way to you.
(3)A heart-break can be a blessing from God. Its just His way of letting you realize He saved you from the wrong one.
(4)Happy is the man who finds a true friend and happier is he who finds that true friend is his wife(Frank Schubert)
In everyday parlance, one often hears the statement, Life is not a bed of roses. The writer would like to make his own alterations. Married life is not a bed of roses, for there are thorns underneath. It all depends on the turn you make! Another statement one often hears, in the case of successful marriages, is Marriages are made in Heaven, implying that it is the Almighty who decides your ideal partner, whom you marry.
The Good Book says, Two are better than one; for if one falls, the other would hold. While this refers to Platonic friendship, it applies to marriage as well. Once you get married (to the right partner), you would realise that whatever problems you have, there is someone to fall back and give you moral support and sometimes physical support.
There are other quotations about marriage itself. The one mentioned by the priest, the late Rev.K.J. Mills, at the writers wedding is classic.
1. He said, You would have learnt in Arithmetic that one plus one equals two. But in marriage you would realize that one plus one equals one.
2. The man and wife are partners, like two oars in a boat(Henry Smith).
3. The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.(Robert Dodds)
4. There is no greater risk than matrimony, but there is nothing happier than a happy marriage.(Benjamin Disraeli)
5. A long-lasting marriage is built by two who believe in and live by the solemn promise they made.(Darlene Schacht)
6. The happiness of married life depends upon making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness.(John Seldon)
7. A happy marriage is a union of two good forgivers.(Ruth Bell Graham)
Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa said today his government allowed SAITM to operate a medical faculty based on certain conditions.
He said this in response to a question asked by a journalist outside the Colombo Chief Magistrates Court premises.
Mr. Rajapaksa was present in court when the case against former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Avant Garde Maritime Security Services Chairman Nissanka Senadhipathi was taken up for hearing.
While leaving the court premises, the former president said the government was taking revenge on its political opponents.
This is what is called taking revenge. They can't do anything other than taking revenge using the services of the FCID and the CID, he said.
Governments across the Asia Pacific have been searching for a path forward since President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Australia is leading the effort to salvage the agreement, holding high-level discussions across the course of the past fortnight with Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Among the various proposals to keep the deal afloat was Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls suggestion that the door could be opened to new members that might fill the space left open by Washington. In particular, Turnbull identified China as one possible candidate, telling the media: Certainly there is the potential for China to join the TPP.
The grounds for such optimism appear weak. First, the TPP is now much less attractive to potential new members without access to the US market. More importantly, the agreement contains at least one chapter of new trade and investment rules that Beijing is unlikely to accept: the provisions on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and designated monopolies.
Provisions
Chapter 17 of the TPP sets out a series of obligations on governments and SOEs principally engaged in commercial activities. Article 17.4 requires SOEs to act in accordance with commercial considerations when engaged in transactions unrelated to the provision of public services, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality during such transactions. Articles 17.617.8 prohibit the specific provision of non-commercial assistance (NCA) where it would cause adverse effect or injury to other TPP members. Article 17.10 sets out extensive transparency rules, requiring members to produce a publicly available list of all SOEs and provide information where requested relating to government involvement with SOEs.
China is not going to accept such provisions in a hurry. SOEs are a fundamental pillar of Chinas socialist market economy system. More than 100,000 SOEs are estimated to contribute between 4050 per cent of Chinas non-agricultural GDP, and many of the largest Chinese companies are state owned 76 of the 98 Chinese firms listed in the 2015 Fortune Global 500 are SOEs.
While market-oriented reforms in recent years have seen greater corporatisation of many Chinese SOEs. Beijing continues to afford many of these actors preferential treatment behaviour that would potentially fall foul of the NCA provisions. Moreover, given the scale, complexity and fragmented nature of Chinas state sector, the TPPs transparency requirements may be considered too onerous in the short term. While ongoing reforms have meant many SOEs are increasingly able to disclose the material TPP members could request under Article 17.10, Beijing may be unwilling to expose the wider sector to such obligations just yet.
Temporary exemptions
China might be able to secure temporary exemptions from some provisions, as was achieved by existing TPP members with sizeable SOE sectors such as Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. However Beijing may still be resistant to Chapter 17, as it is believed to be part of a deliberate strategy by the United States to create an international regulatory regime for SOEs specifically targeting Chinas use of such enterprises as tools of industrial policy and economic statecraft.
Previous attempts at regulating SOEs in international trade and investment agreements have lacked precision and coherencee. The Chapter 17 provisions crystallised a growing effort by the US and other OECD countries to correct this by having clear rules ensuring a level playing field between SOEs and private enterprises. This reflects the fact that the TPP was a truly new type of trade agreement pursuing more ambitious objectives than simple tariff and subsidy reductions. Given that Beijing was arguably the main target of these efforts, however, it is unlikely to embrace the provisions.
Accordingly, Australias suggestion to leave the door open to Chinese membership envisages a process that will necessarily involve significant negotiation to reshape the agreement to suit Beijings interests something that is unlikely to be accepted by other TPP signatories. Tokyo has stated clearly that it believes the agreement is meaningless without the United States. Ottawa agrees. Reports also indicate that key members are opposed to any watering down of the deal, making the likelihood of agreement on the removal of any chapters dubious.
US factor
The unfortunate reality is that the TPP will be near impossible to salvage without US participation, and it is simply not in Chinas interest to agree to certain sections of the agreement. Nor is it in Australias interests to spend years renegotiating a trade agreement that will likely need whole chapters overhauled, if not removed entirely.
Canberra should thus turn its attention to more orthodox (if less ambitious) agreements that focus on traditional trade barriers, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership currently being promoted by Beijing. Such agreements are the most likely path forward in the near-term. While the behind-the-border focus of the TPP may be lost for now, there is much to be gained from encouraging Chinese leadership of multilateral negotiations and trade liberalisation. In an emerging world of disarray and an era of declining US leadership, this would be a positive step forward for regional order.
(Victor Ferguson is a tutor and research assistant at the School of Politics and International Relations, The Australian National University)
Those who believe that Donald Trump has had to eat crow in accepting the One China policy of his predecessors may be celebrating a tad too early. Given the limited information we have, and the predictable unpredictability of the new US president, there is need for caution.
Even so, it is a fact, as the White House readout of the Xi-Trump telephone conversation reveals Trump agreed at the request of Xi to honour our one China policy.
Negotiations
There was a context to the view that Trump was indeed ready to make a momentous change in American policy since 1979, which had recognised a single Chinese government in Beijing and ended formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
The first was his unprecedented acceptance of a phone call by Taiwanese president Tsai Ying-wen on December 2. Its significance was that it was the first time that a US President, or President-elect, had spoken to a Taiwanese president since 1979. The second was his insistence in an interview with Fox News the following Sunday that the US did not have to be bound by a 'one China policy.
Those who believe that Donald Trump has had to eat crow in accepting the One China policy of his predecessors may be celebrating a tad too early.
What is important, in the context of his retraction, are the words that followed: unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things. But note, both were when he was President-elect, not President and in his confirmation testimony, the US Secretary of State designate Rex Tillerson had said that he would uphold the One China policy.
As of now people are focused on the bit of coversation that deals with the new administrations reiteration of its support for the One China policy. But the same White House readout of the Trump-Xi conversation goes on to say, representatives of the United States and China will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest.
As of now, we do not know whether China and the US have already begun quiet discussions on matters that Trump has insistently articulated trade, market access and economic policy or negotiations on political matters such as North Korea, Iran or the South China Sea.
Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law has business interests in China and knows the Chinese ambassador in the US, Cui Tiankai.
Moderation
The Trump team may have decided that the US simply lacks the heft to challenge the One China policy and pushing it would be a lose-lose situation. On the other hand by abandoning it in good time, they may be able to make gains in the other areas.
The most obvious is on issues relating to trade and market access which will help him deliver what he promised. Neither this, nor any comprimises in the political agenda will be an easy fight, and the US will require not just negotiating skills, but the temperament to pursue it.
We may now see a similar moderating process at work in Trumps quarrel with Mexico or its florid support for Israel.
Trump has to understand that while making a deal is one thing, putting everything on the block is quite another. There are some issues on which it will be impossible to get a deal such as a wall paid for by Mexicans, an unrestricted settlements policy for the Israelis, or for that matter, an abandonment of a One China policy.
Economy
If Trump can get China to give the US geater market access and open its economy, there could be a shift in the South China Sea situation. As it is, Beijing already controls the key islands in the Spratlys group and it may simply freeze its position there. The US has backed off from the position that it could prevent Chinese access to those islands. So a modus vivendi of sorts could be put in place there.
As it is, through the recent visit of the US Secretary of Defense to Japan and Korea and the Abe visit to Washington, the US has signaled that it will firmly back its allies in the region. Stability in East Asia will be a positive development because any turbulence there could have a negative impact of the world economy which is already tottering in the face of the Chinese slowdown and Europes inability to get its act going.
As for India, with its focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is some worry of a possible deal between the US and Pakistan over Afghanistan. Recent steps by Islamabad, including putting Hafiz Saeed under house arrest could be an indicator of this. This would not necessarily be bad for India.
The big continuing worry for everyone is the US-Iran tension where there seems to be little space for amending the old deal to satisfy the Trump camp.
All this said, lets be clear, what India needs most is a stable global environment where it can focus on economic growth rather than be distracted by regional tensions.
The latest Economic Survey released this month introduces public debate on a radical new idea: the proposal is to roll out Universal Basic Income (UBI) across India - a guaranteed minimum income for all individuals (or, as the Economic Survey concedes in the Indian context, at least 75 per cent of the people).
The survey points out that a basic income scheme would help plug leakages in Indias byzantine welfare system, replacing most targeted schemes with a basic income that would allow citizens avail those goods and services for themselves.
This makes some economic sense. A basic income scheme would be far easier to implement than the targeted welfare system that India currently has. There would be far less bureaucratic cost involved in identifying recipients and monitoring would be much simpler.
It is also less paternalistic, as the survey itself points out, by providing support in the form of cash transfers to respect, not dictate, recipients choices. In addition, it would replace the current focus on households with a more direct focus on individuals.
The survey talks of how this would be particularly useful in empowering women, whose consumer choices are currently dictated by the men of the house.
For all its benefits, however, a basic income scheme would not be Indias best shot at getting rid of poverty. Many economists rightly argue that a poorly calculated basic income might serve as a deterrent to a young Indian labour force. But thats not even the half of it.
In an insightful critique for The Wire last week, two academics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University pointed out that Indias real concern is the worrying trend in its social spending. Indias expenditure on health and education is much lower than some relatively poorer regions of the world, they wrote.
For instance, Sub-Saharan Africa, Nepal and Bhutan are ahead in terms of health and educational allocations. Large countries like Brazil and China fare much better than India.
In 2015-16, India spent a miniscule 0.25 per cent of its GDP on health. That figure improved only marginally to 0.28 per cent in this years Budget. Spending on education, meanwhile, has gone down from 0.49 per cent to 0.47 per cent. The authors conclude: The countries that India is supposed to be emulating by moving towards UBI spend many times more on these basic public provisions.
If India wants a shortcut to its poverty problem, it ought to consider fixing its public services system. (Photo: Reuters)
The fact that Indias public spending on social services has long been inadequate is all the more alarming, considering that it is given little prominence in public or political discourse.
Poverty in India is made worse by the fact that children born into low income households struggle to find access to quality education or healthcare - elements that would allow them develop the skill and ability to find meaningful employment in the market economy.
While some argue that basic income might allow poorer households to afford education and healthcare, this merely pushes off the problem to a private services sector that is often non-existent in the poorest parts of India. Basic income might allow individuals greater latitude as consumers; but it cannot serve as a substitute for public services.
A basic income replacement for Indias current welfare system also has other fallouts. Some welfare schemes are meant to provide specific goods and services, aimed at developing Indias human capital. Food subsidy schemes, for instance, are meant to ensure adequate nutrition for Indian households.
Rural employment schemes were rolled out to provide temporary employment for the poor, while simultaneously creating public assets. Granted, some of these schemes dont always achieve their purpose, and many are plagued by leakages that cost substantial tax money.
But these are often because of flaws in the bureaucratic system, not always because of flaws in the schemes themselves. An inefficient bureaucracy also perpetuates poverty in some regions, because it impedes access to vital public services, including roads, schools, hospitals and electricity - problems that cannot be overcome by a basic income scheme.
That is why several reports over the years have repeatedly pointed out that welfare schemes have typically worked better in places where grassroots governance institutions - panchayats and municipalities - are better equipped, skilled and more efficient in implementation.
If India wants a shortcut to its poverty problem, it ought to consider fixing its public services system. That means increasing expenditure on critical sectors such as education and health, and enacting much-needed bureaucratic reforms to increase the functionality and accountability of local government bodies.
Countries which are currently running basic income schemes in some form (Canada and Finland, for instance) do not typically suffer from these institutional problems. They offer basic income more as a replacement for social security spending, not to supplement or substitute public services.
Tyler Technologies, Inc. provides integrated information management solutions and services for the public sector. The company operates in three segments: Enterprise Software; Appraisal and Tax; and NIC. It offers financial management solutions, including modular fund accounting systems for government agencies or not-for-profit entities; utility billing systems for the billing and collection of metered and non-metered services; products to automate city and county functions, such as municipal courts, parking tickets, equipment and project costing, animal and business licenses, permits and inspections, code enforcement, citizen complaint tracking, ambulance billing, fleet maintenance, and cemetery records management; and student information and transportation solutions for K-12 schools. The company also provides a suite of judicial solutions comprising court case management, court and law enforcement, prosecutor, and supervision systems to handle multi-jurisdictional county or statewide implementations, and single county systems; public safety software solutions; systems and software to automate the appraisal and assessment of real and personal property, as well as tax applications for agencies that bill and collect taxes; planning, regulatory, and maintenance software solutions for public sector agencies; software applications to enhance and automate operations involving records and document management; and data and insights solutions. In addition, it offers software as a service arrangements and electronic document filing solutions for courts and law offices; software and hardware installation, data conversion, training, product modification, and maintenance and support services; and property appraisal outsourcing services for taxing jurisdictions. The company has a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services for cloud hosting services. Tyler Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.
Principal Financial Group, Inc. provides retirement, asset management, and insurance products and services to businesses, individuals, and institutional clients worldwide. The company operates through Retirement and Income Solutions, Principal Global Investors, Principal International, and U.S. Insurance Solutions segments. The Retirement and Income Solutions segment provides a portfolio of asset accumulation products and services for retirement savings and income. It offers products and services for defined contribution plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans, defined benefit pension plans, nonqualified executive benefit plans, employee stock ownership plans, equity compensation, and pension risk transfer services; individual retirement accounts; investment only products; and mutual funds, individual variable annuities, and bank products. The Principal Global Investors segment provides equity, fixed income, real estate, and other alternative investments, as well as asset allocation, stable value management, and other structured investment strategies. The Principal International segment offers pension accumulation products and services, mutual funds, asset management, income annuities, and life insurance accumulation products, as well as voluntary savings plans in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, India, and Southeast Asia. The U.S. Insurance Solutions segment provides specialty benefits, such as group dental and vision insurance, group life insurance, and group and individual disability insurance, as well as administers group dental, disability, and vision benefits; and individual life insurance products comprising universal, variable universal, indexed universal, and term life insurance products in the United States. It also offers insurance solutions for small and medium-sized businesses and their owners, as well as executives. Principal Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1879 and is based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Frankly, it is my sincere opinion, that every people should write its own constitution: moral and competent men may subsequently correct the draft constitution, if asked to do so. The fact, that Russia even dares to suggest draft constitution for Syria, a great nation, far older and with far greater achievements than Russia, demonstrates Russian hubris and profound Russian contempt for sacred and inalienable national sovereignty of Syria, that will inspire hundreds of thousands of Syrian freedom fighters to fight against Russian invaders in Syria.
As for the text of Russian draft, published by mass media, those who wrote it demonstrated profound ignorance of customs and traditions of the Syrian statecraft, and the text itself deserve a healthy laughter from every reasonable man and woman.
For example, Russia reportedly demands that Syria changed its name from Syrian Arab republic to Syrian republic. Yet mighty and glorious Syrian king Antioch Epiphanes made a royal decree ordering that the Syrian people and all neighboring peoples become one people and that everyone of the Syrian people and all neighboring peoples may freely choose where he or she desires to reside. The founder of the modern Egyptian state mighty and glorious general Gamal Abdel Nasser properly and wisely honorably fought that all states of Middle East are established as Arab states in fulfillment of a royal decree of mighty and glorious Syrian king Antioch Epiphanes ordering that the Syrian people and all neighboring peoples become one people and that everyone of the Syrian people and all neighboring peoples may freely choose where he or she desires to reside. The decrees of Syrian and Assyrian kings are unchangeable: therefore Syria will remain Syrian Arab republic, in fulfillment of a royal decree of mighty and glorious Syrian king Antioch Epiphanes ordering that the Syrian people and all neighboring peoples become one people and that everyone of the Syrian people and all neighboring peoples may freely choose where he or she desires to reside, whether Russia likes it or whether Russia dislikes it.
For example, Russia reportedly demands that Syria removes islamic faith and sharia law from its constitution. Yet, islamic faith and sharia law is religion of the great majority of the Syrian people, and aside from assadites who worship assad as a god and instead of God, most Syrians demand that God and their religion, islamic faith and sharia law, are recognized and honored in the Syrian constitution. Therefore, islamic faith will remain state religion in Syria and sharia law will remain main source of legislation in Syria in accordance with the general will of the Syrian people, whether Russia likes it or whether Russia dislikes it.
Those are only two examples of hundreds of significant errors in the Russian draft.
Ecolab Inc. provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Global Industrial, Global Institutional & Specialty, and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences segments. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries. The Global Institutional & Specialty segment provides specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the foodservice, hospitality, lodging, government and education, and retail industries. Its Global Healthcare & Life Sciences segment offers specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the healthcare, personal care, and pharmaceutical industries, such as infection prevention and surgical solutions, and end-to-end cleaning and contamination control solutions under the Ecolab, Microtek, and Anios brand names. The company's Other segment offers pest elimination services to detect, eliminate, and prevent pests, such as rodents and insects in restaurants, food and beverage processors, educational and healthcare facilities, hotels, quick service restaurant and grocery operations, and other institutional and commercial customers. This segment also provides colloidal silica for binding and polishing applications in semiconductor, catalyst, and aerospace component manufacturing, as well as chemical industries; and products and services that manage wash process through custom designed programs, premium products, dispensing equipment, water and energy management, and reduction, as well as real time data management. It sells its products through field sales and corporate account personnel, distributors, and dealers. The company was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Newell Brands Inc. designs, manufactures, sources, and distributes consumer and commercial products worldwide. It operates in five segments: Commercial Solutions, Home Appliances, Home Solutions, Learning and Development, and Outdoor and Recreation. The Commercial Solutions segment provides commercial cleaning and maintenance solutions; closet and garage organization products; hygiene systems and material handling solutions; and home and security, and smoke and carbon monoxide alarms products under the BRK, First Alert, Mapa, Quickie, Rubbermaid, Rubbermaid Commercial Products, and Spontex brands. The Home Appliances segment offers kitchen appliances under the Crock-Pot, Mr. Coffee, Oster, and Sunbeam brands. The Home Solutions segment provides food and home storage; fresh preserving; vacuum sealing; and gourmet cookware, bakeware, cutlery, and home fragrance products under the Ball, Calphalon, Chesapeake Bay Candle, FoodSaver, Rubbermaid, Sistema, WoodWick, and Yankee Candle brands. The Learning and Development segment offers writing instruments, including markers and highlighters, pens, and pencils; art products; activity-based adhesive and cutting products; labeling solutions; and baby gear and infant care products under the Aprica, Baby Jogger, Graco, NUK, Tigex, Dymo, Elmer's, EXPO, Graco, Mr. Sketch, NUK, Paper Mate, Parker, Prismacolor, Sharpie, Waterman, and X-Acto brands. The Outdoor and Recreation segment provides outdoor and outdoor-related products under the Campingaz, Coleman, Contigo, ExOfficio, and Marmot brands. It serves warehouse clubs, department and drug/grocery stores, mass merchants, home centers, office superstores and supply stores, contract stationers, and distributors, e-commerce, sporting goods, specialty, and travel retailers. The company was formerly known as Newell Rubbermaid Inc. and changed its name to Newell Brands Inc. in April 2016. Newell Brands Inc. was founded in 1903 and is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
ONEOK, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in gathering, processing, storage, and transportation of natural gas in the United States. It operates through Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, Natural Gas Liquids, and Natural Gas Pipelines segments. The company owns natural gas gathering pipelines and processing plants in the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain regions. It also gathers, treats, fractionates, and transports natural gas liquids (NGL), as well as stores, markets, and distributes NGL products. The company owns NGL gathering and distribution pipelines in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado; terminal and storage facilities in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois; and NGL distribution and refined petroleum products pipelines in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, as well as owns and operates truck- and rail-loading, and -unloading facilities connected to NGL fractionation, storage, and pipeline assets. In addition, it operates regulated interstate and intrastate natural gas transmission pipelines and natural gas storage facilities. Further, the company owns and operates a parking garage in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma; and leases excess office space. It operates 17,500 miles of natural gas gathering pipelines; 1,500 miles of FERC-regulated interstate natural gas pipelines; 5,100 miles of state-regulated intrastate transmission pipeline; six NGL storage facilities; and eight NGL product terminals. It serves integrated and independent exploration and production companies; NGL and natural gas gathering and processing companies; crude oil and natural gas production companies; propane distributors; municipalities; ethanol producers; and petrochemical, refining, and NGL marketing companies, as well as natural gas distribution and electric generation companies, producers, processors, and marketing companies. The company was founded in 1906 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Aero India 2017 airshow opening today (February 14) at Indian Air Force (IAF) Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru marks the 11th Aero India airshow. Unlike past events dominated by competitors seeking to sell aircraft to India, this time the worlds largest aerospace industries are offering to deliver complete production lines that will roll out todays fighter jets in India to provide the Indian Air Force with hundreds of modern, yet affordable fighter jets. Following the selection, the lucky strategic partner will be responsible for establishing the production line in India, most likely by teaming with a local company. If it will be a private or public sector company, the move has the potential to change Indias aerospace landscape entirely, currently dominated by government-run public sector enterprises (PSU) like HAL and the Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO).
83 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) built by PSU Hindustan Aerospace Ltd. (HAL) on order cannot fulfill the IAF thirst for new fighter jets. Locally developed for more than 20 years and built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), those aircraft are less capable, compared to fighter jets of similar class India could get in the international market. To fill gaps created by MiG-21 and 27 units that are phased out of service, India needs few hundreds of additional jet planes (likely 200 250) to stand up and replenish about 20 squadrons in the coming decade.
Two of the more likely suppliers that have proposed to set up production lines in India are Lockheed Martin and Saab. Lockheed is ready to move here the production of the F-16V, while the Swedish firm will set up a production line of the Gripen E if it wins. Current models of the F-16 and Gripen are performing here at Aero India this week. Both were among the five finalists that competed for the now canceled MMRCA program (won by Rafale). The two companies are expected to establish a production line in India, by teaming with a private industry,
Boeing has already moved to produce the fuselage of the AH-64 attack helicopter in India. In 2015 the IAF ordered 22 such helicopters; the first will be delivered next year. India is expected to order more Apaches in the future. To support new production orders Boeing has teamed with Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) to produce Apache fuselages at their new facility in Hyderabad. The facility will eventually be the sole producer of AH-64 fuselages globally, boosting Indias prospects in the aerospace and defense sector.
To further increase its local operations Boeing has established Boeing Defense India, a local operating unit of its defense operations focused on local services, support, sales and marketing, sourcing, manufacturing, and engineering, allowing Boeing to deepen its relationship with the Indian defense ministry. Local sourcing of aerospace components and subsystems require a significant change in local industrial standards and capabilities, a change that foreign companies like Boeing, Airbus, and IAI are carefully watching and anticipating, as they align to take Indian suppliers into their supply chain.
Organized by the Defence Exhibition Organisation, which falls under the MoDs purview, the Indian Air Force, state-owned Defence Research, and Development Organization, the Department of Space, and the Union Civil Aviation Ministry, the 11th International Aero India will see participation from 750 exhibitors along with delegations from 100 countries. One of the largest exhibits at Aero India is the Russian one. Rostec Corporation, the parent company of state-owned Russian arms supplier Rosoboronexport, showcases here over 300 different military and aviation products; some are in service with the Indian Air Force, others are promoted in various marketing levels. These include combat aircraft, missiles, air defense and radio-electronic combat systems. As many of the familiar weapon systems on display have been validated in the fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine, many of Russian-made weapon systems are regaining momentum and respect.
Although Russian manufacturers have an established record of local manufacturing and assembly of aircraft and other combat systems, new partnerships are being discussed to meet MAKE IN INDIA guidelines. In the framework of MAKE IN INDIA, mounted we have signed an agreement to establish a joint venture for the production of Kamov Ka-226T helicopters in October 2016 at the BRICS summit. Now there is active implementation of this project, Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov said.
As a close ally and development partner in many defense programs, Israel is also a prominent exhibitor at Aero India. Eleven Israeli defense industries and start-up companies are displaying a wide array of advanced technologies in the Israeli national pavilion organized by SIBAT. As the Russian and US systems, Many of Israels weapon systems guided missiles, drones, ISTAR, and self-protection systems, were validated in combat, by Israels Defense Forces as well as military forces of the leading nations including the USA, Germany, France, Italy and the UK. Some of the items to be on display this year include a full-scale mockup or IAIs Heron TP-XP the new, exportable variant of Eitan, Israels Strategic UAV developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). An array of weapon systems displayed by RAFAEL are optimized for Indias future combat aircraft are also on display, as well as an array of avionics and helmet displays from Elbit Systems.
The economic cooperation between India and Israel is strengthening, said SIBAT Director, Brig. Gen. (res) Mishel Ben Baruch, Israel is working to position itself as a leading partner for India in joint defense production, from a long-term vision that in the coming years all Indian defense procurement will be from local Indian companies. The Israeli national pavilion exposes Israeli-Indian cooperation and initiatives to enhance cooperation in the field of cyber security.
As in past years, indigenous programs are making the headlines as the Indian Air Force plans to finally induct the medium all-weather airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft based on a heavily modified Embraer E-145 business jet. The induction of the new airborne sensor will provide the IAF an eye in the sky, able to spot incoming, low flying threats such as cruise missiles and attack aircraft. The first aircraft is expected to be formally inducted into service tomorrow, with a second one in few months. At present, India has three larger and more capable IL-76 based Phalcon airborne warning and control system (AWACS) delivered from Israel. India is planning to order three additional Phalcons.
The new EMB145 based systems are equipped with a dorsal mounted linear antennae with 240-degree coverage. The Phalcons have three radar installed in a static dome that covers 360-degrees over a 400-km range. The AEW&C system will detect, identify and classify threats in the surveillance area and act as a Command and Control Center to support Air Defense operations.
Also, the Indian government has indicated plans to develop a new AWACS platform based on the Airbus A-330 platform. Once these two aircraft are completed, sometime in the next decade, six additional planes could be ordered.
Belden Inc. provides portfolio of signal transmission solutions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates in two segments, Enterprise Solutions and Industrial Solutions. The Enterprise Solutions segment offers copper cable and connectivity solutions, fiber cable and connectivity solutions, interconnect panels, racks and enclosures, and signal extension and matrix switching systems for use in applications, such as local area networks, data centers, access control, 5G, fiber, and home and building automation. It also provides power, cooling, and airflow management products for mission-critical data center operations; and end-to-end copper and fiber network systems. This segment serves commercial real estate, hospitality, healthcare, education, financial, government, and broadband and wireless service providers, as well as end-markets, including sport venues, stadiums, data centers, military installations, and academia. The Industrial Solutions segment offers infrastructure components and on-machine connectivity systems; and industrial Ethernet switches, network management software, routers, firewalls, gateways, input/output (I/O) connectors/systems, industrial Ethernet cables, optical fiber industrial Ethernet cables, Fieldbus cables, IP and networking cables, I/O modules, distribution boxes, and customer specific wiring solutions. This segment provides its products for use in applications comprising network and fieldbus infrastructure; sensor and actuator connectivity; and power, control, and data transmission; and supplies heat-shrinkable tubing and wire management products to protect and organize wire and cable assemblies. It serves distributors, original equipment manufacturers, installers, and end-users. The company was formerly known as Belden CDT Inc. and changed its name to Belden Inc. in May 2007. Belden Inc. was founded in 1902 and is based in St. Louis, Missouri.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump for talks at the White House that should include launching a joint initiative for female entrepreneurs and business leaders.
The two heads of state will hold a number of meetings that include what the Trump administration described as a roundtable on advancement of women business leaders and entrepreneurs.
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The schedule for Trudeau in Washington for just one day includes talks with Paul Ryan the House Speaker and Mitch McConnell the Senator Majority Leader.
Not listed on the agenda released to the public, but likely a topic that will come up during the meetings on Monday are issues related to the economy, particularly trade.
President Trump made it clear to all he wants a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement or to scrap it entirely. NAFTA includes the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Trump said he wants the U.S. to have trade deals that favor the U.S., while Trudeau advocates free trade.
Canada is very dependent on the U.S., which represents 75% of the countrys exports.
Both leaders also hold very different views related to immigration. Trump signed one of his executive orders that suspended the refugee program of the U.S. for a period of 120 days and suspended indefinitely Syrian refugees from entering. That order banned entry of immigrant and non-immigrants for 90 days to those from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.
Trump says it is a necessary move to protect the U.S. national security. The ban was temporarily halted by a federal court last week.
Trudeaus government has offered those who normally would be allowed entry into the U.S. an opportunity to apply for temporary status from Canada in response to Trumps ban.
Just one day after President Trump signed his executive order banning the entry of people from 7 Muslim-majority countries, Trudeau took to Twitter.
The Canadian prime minister said on twitter that all those who are fleeing persecution, war and terror, will be welcomed by Canadians regardless of ones faith. He called diversity Canadas strength.
Trudeau and Trump are likely not to reach any type of agreement when it comes to trade issues on Monday, but will launch the womens initiative and both will have a better understanding of what the other wants relative to both trade and immigration.
Tableau Software, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides business analytics software products. It offers Tableau Desktop, a self-service, powerful analytics product with data; Tableau Server, a business intelligence platform for organizations; Tableau Online, a hosted software-as-a-service version of Tableau Server; Tableau Prep, a data preparation product for combining, shaping, and cleaning data; and Tableau Public, a cloud-based platform for analyzing and sharing public data. In addition, it offers Visual Query Language (VizQL) for databases, which is a computer language for describing pictures of data, including graphs, charts, maps, time series, and tables of visualizations; Live Query Engine that interprets abstract queries generated by VizQL into syntax understandable by database systems; and Hyper, an in-memory data engine technology that helps customers to analyze a range of data sets by evaluating analytical queries directly in the transactional database. Further, the company provides support, maintenance, training, and professional services. It serves organizations in various industries, including business services, energy and telecommunications, financial services, life sciences and healthcare, manufacturing and technology, media and entertainment, public sector, and education, as well as retail, consumer, and distribution industries. The company sells its products directly, as well as through indirect sales channels, such as technology vendors, resellers, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendor, and distributors in the United States, Canada, and internationally. Tableau Software, Inc. was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Xinyuan Real Estate Co., Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, engages in residential real estate development and construction in the People's Republic of China, the United States, and internationally. It develops residential projects, such as multi-layer apartment buildings, sub-high-rise apartment buildings, high-rise apartment buildings; and auxiliary services and amenities, such as retail outlets, leisure and health facilities, kindergartens, and schools, as well as office, mixed-use, and commercial properties. The company also acquires development sites through public auctions of government land and acquisitions of entities. In addition, it provides property management services for its developments and other real estate-related services; landscaping, engineering and management, real estate consulting, leasing management, management consulting, and technical services; operates retail stores; and installs intercom systems. Further, it engages in the purchase, sale, lease, and brokerage of real estate; sale of construction materials; development and sale of robots; operation of internet platform for real estate property financing; and provision of electronic commerce and catering services. Xinyuan Real Estate Co., Ltd. was founded in 1997 and is based in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. provides cybersecurity solutions worldwide. The company offers firewall appliances and software; Panorama, a security management solution for the control of firewall appliances and software deployed on a customer's network, as well as their instances in public or private cloud environments, as a virtual or a physical appliance; and virtual system upgrades, which are available as extensions to the virtual system capacity that ships with physical appliances. It also provides subscription services covering the areas of threat prevention, malware and persistent threat, URL filtering, laptop and mobile device protection, and firewall; and DNS security, Internet of Things security, SaaS security API, and SaaS security inline, as well as threat intelligence, and data loss prevention. In addition, the company offers cloud security, secure access, security operations, and threat intelligence and cyber security consulting; professional services, including architecture design and planning, implementation, configuration, and firewall migration; education services, such as certifications, as well as online and in-classroom training; and support services. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. sells its products and services through its channel partners, as well as directly to medium to large enterprises, service providers, and government entities operating in various industries, including education, energy, financial services, government entities, healthcare, Internet and media, manufacturing, public sector, and telecommunications. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Some people will spend tens of thousands of dollars on a new fishing boat.
Others will pay $30,000 for a high-tech sewing machine, said Daniel Rich, who, with his father and mother, John and Ann Rich, owns Richs Sewing & Vacuum.
While Richs Sew & Vac has expensive models, the shop also sells simple sewing machines that cost about $200.
The business moved into a new storefront at 2306 Heritage Way S.E. in Albany the old Novaks Hungarian Restaurant location near Safeway at the start of the year.
The shop had previously been in the Fred Meyer complex in Albany.
Were enjoying the larger location, and the better parking seems to be attracting more clientele, Rich said.
Having nearly 4,000-square-feet of floor space, almost double that of the old shop, has allowed Richs Sew & Vac to expand the number of machines and the types of models it offers. There now are gift items and cut fabrics for sale, as well.
A new classroom also has about double the space as the previous learning area. This is great because we have large machines, said Deborah Sinnett of Albany, who has taken classes at the business since 2010.
Im here all the time, every class almost, Sinnett added.
Rich said that sewing machines continue to get bigger and bigger with technological advances. Some machines have computer display screens and are Wi-Fi capable, so designs can be beamed from computers or smart phones.
More and more people are willing to spend money to get a better quality machine, Rich said.
And that includes vacuums.
Bag vacuums are making a comeback as they trap dust and dirt better than bagless models, Rich said.
Richs Sew & Vac carries Simplicity and Sebo vacuums. The store offers Baby Lock, Bernina, Pfaff and Elna sewing machines. We can also order any sewing machine known to man, Rich said.
The store also repairs about 400 sewing machines and vacuums each month.
The business, created in Salem in 1973, has also had a shop in Albany for 15 years, since 2002.
Rich said that the Albany store is seeing a lot of growth, due in part to the increasing population of Albany and surrounding communities.
Quilting also is making a comeback, and that has boosted sales.
Richs Sewing & Vacuum is open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, including class schedule, call 541-926-4842 or go to www.richsonline.biz.
LEBANON Teachers and students will get a reprieve from going an extra week of school this June because of bad weather, the Lebanon School Board has decided.
However, board members acknowledged, classified employees will feel the brunt of two days' lost pay.
Lebanon schools closed four days because of snow and ice this winter. The school district's policy is to add up to six days back to the end of the year, stretching the school year further into June.
But board members agreed at their Feb. 9 meeting to consider a proposal to restore two days by adding back two hours to early-release Wednesdays through the remainder of the year and making up a third by extending the school year just one day, to Friday, June 9.
The fourth day would be left without being made up, as the district has enough instructional hours already to cover for it, Superintendent Rob Hess said.
The Lebanon Education Association signed off on the proposal, said President Maureen Twomey, and was even OK with the idea that teachers would have to come back to school two extra days in June Tuesday and Wednesday, June 13 and 14 to fulfill the professional time they'd miss with the loss of early release days.
But board members Richard Borden and Kellie Weber objected, saying they believe teachers already do enough. Borden suggested taking advantage of a one-time waiver offered by the Oregon Department of Education to write off two days lost to bad weather instead of asking the teachers to return so late in the year.
Board Chairman Russ McUne said he didn't like the idea, saying it's unfair to classified employees, who also would have been required to return on those days but would lose the pay if schools were closed. But in the end, he joined the other four board members in voting yes on Borden's proposal.
The vote means students will be in school two extra hours March 8 and 22, April 12 and 26, and May 10 and 24, and will report to class on June 9. Teachers and staff will come back for one professional development day on Monday, June 12.
Association for the Study of African-American Life and History Louisa Branch continues its Peace, Power and Respect seminar series with Steven D. Rosenfield presenting Civil Rights and the Justice System from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at St. James Baptist Church at 17227 James Madison Highway in Palmyra. (540) 223-0106.
Charlottesville Aviation Luncheon Club hosts Al Falcone sharing his experiences as an aerial gunner during World War II in North Africa and Italy during its meeting at noon Wednesday at Blue Ridge Cafe at 8315 Seminole Trail in Ruckersville. (434) 328-2323.
Creciendo Juntos host the panel discussion Building Bridges: Supporting the Psychological and Social Wellbeing of Linguistic, Racial/Ethnic and Religious Minority Youth and Children, moderated by Amanda Kibler, associate professor, Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education at UVa Curry School of Education, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Albemarle County Office Building on Fifth Street Extended. (434) 817-2436.
EWE Fine Fiber Goods holds Farm to Fiber, an opportunity to learn about the sustainable fashion movement, from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at 617 W. Main St., Suite B. (240) 506-0011.
Focus Contemporary Art hosts Susan Jamison presenting Femininity, Nature & Strength from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday at 385 Valley St. in Scottsville. (434) 987-2495.
Highland observes Black History Month with Emmanuel Dabney presenting Trusty Servants: The Life and Work of Enslaved Manservants to the Presidents from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday. 2050 James Monroe Parkway. highland.org. (434) 293-8000.
The Lodge at Old Trail holds the Definitive Downsizing workshop at 2 p.m. Thursday. 330 Claremont Lane in Crozet. Reservations are encouraged. (434) 823-9100.
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities hosts Sarah Milov presenting Growing the Cigarette, a history of tobacco in the 20th century, from noon to 1 p.m. Feb. 21. 145 Ednam Drive. (434) 243-5522.
There is nothing quite like the unnerving silence that fills the cockpit of an aircraft in flight when the engine suddenly fails.
One moment, theres the loud throb of a powerful engine. Then, in an instant, the roar is replaced by the whisper of disturbed air rushing by.
Thats what 1st Lt. Andrew Maples Jr. experienced on June 26, 1944, shortly after leaving Ramitelli Air Field in Italy. The flight plan took him and his P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane over the Adriatic Sea.
Maples had grown up in Orange, and, like many others of his generation, he was fascinated by airplanes. He dreamed of becoming a pilot, but because he was black, the possibility of achieving that goal was extremely remote.
In 1940, the U.S. Census Bureau noted that there were only 124 black pilots in the entire country. Maples was determined to increase that number by at least one.
The gutsy Virginian fulfilled his dream in 1941, when he received his silver pilot wings after graduating from the Civilian Pilot Training Program at Hampton Institute. When the United States entered World War II, he showed his patriotism by joining the Army.
Maples then became a proud member of the famous Tuskegee Airmen when he graduated in January 1943 from the Advanced Flying School at Moton Field near Tuskegee, Alabama.
Because the nations military was segregated at the time, the all-black Tuskegee Airmen formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477 Bombardment Group of the Army Air Force. The 477th never served in combat, but the 332nd certainly did.
Despite encountering blatant racism, the 332nd earned one of the best fighting records of the war. Today, the Tuskegee Airmen are generally regarded as being some of the best pilots of that conflict.
Maples was assigned to the 301st Fighter Squadron. He probably got in plenty of invaluable airtime with his fighter as he and his buddies waited impatiently for the orders that would send them into combat.
That all-important directive came in December 1943. In early January 1944, the young pilots walked up the gangplank of the SS William Few, a Liberty ship that was scrapped in 1969.
When the squadron arrived in Italy in early February, it became part of the 12th Air Force in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. The 301st wasted no time in getting at the enemy, conducting its first combat mission on Feb. 19, 1944.
The squadrons missions consisted of tasks such as harbor protection, convoy and bomber escorts, patrolling, strafing and armed reconnaissance. On Maples fateful day in June, he was leading a group of fighters on a mission to escort bombers to Hungary.
The young flyer from Orange had been in the air only about 15 minutes when the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine of his P-47 shuttered and died. All pilots are taught what to do when this happens, but the fact that Maples was over water sharpened the edges of the situation.
Maples radioed back to base and informed the radio operator of his predicament. He then requested that a fix be taken on his position in order to aid the recovery team.
The airmans plan was to parachute from the aircraft as soon as he had descended to a reasonable altitude. 2nd Lt. Clarence H. Bradford wrote up a military report of what transpired next.
He [Maples] continued to talk and repeating his request that a fix be taken and stated his altitude 5,000 feet, 4,000 feet, 3,500 feet and that he could just make out the shore line and said he was going to jump right away, Bradford wrote.
Those were Maples final words.
Soon afterward, three airplanes were sent out to search for the downed pilot, but nothing was found.
1st Lt. William J. Faulkner Jr. was one of the search pilots. He was a close friend who assumed the difficult task of writing a letter to Maples mother.
Faulkner explained how he and the others had searched the water in a 50-mile radius of the fix location for three hours before lack of fuel forced them to return to base. During the search, they spotted nothing but some fishing boats.
Faulkner told the grieving mother that he continued to have hope that his friend would come walking back into camp. That didnt happen.
A year after Maples disappeared, he was declared dead. He was posthumously promoted to captain, and his name was placed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial in Italy.
Maples name soon will appear on a new historical highway marker to be erected in Orange. The signage will serve as a reminder of a brave man who overcame prejudice and unknowable difficulties to achieve a dream and serve his country.
New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone.
Charlottesville police are looking for a masked man who attempted to rob someone near the University of Virginia.
At about 9 p.m. Sunday, in the 2400 block of Arlington Boulevard, a man wearing dark pants, a black hoodie and a black plastic mask approached a victim from behind, according to a safety alert from UVa. The man demanded the victims wallet and phone, but when the victim could not produce either, the masked man ran away toward the Barracks Road Shopping Center.
LYNCHBURG After issuing a Request for Information last summer, Nelson County-based Central Virginia Electric Cooperative has announced it will work with AcelaNet to provide broadband to rural Virginia over the next five years.
The partnership between CVEC and AcelaNet, a regional internet service provider based in Nelson County that operates as SCS Broadband and CVALink, gives AcelaNet the opportunity to attach fiber-optic cables to CVEC poles for free.
In 2016, pole-attachment fees totaled $1.2 million, or about $20 per pole.
The proposed system should include a combination of fiber-optic cable and wireless technologies to provide internet service to 36,000 CVEC members across 14 counties in the co-ops service area, according to a recent news release. In addition to the requirement that all parts of the service area be reached, AcelaNet must provide a minimum internet speed of 25 megabits per second, the Federal Communications Commission definition for broadband, with no data caps and must finish the project within five years to have pole-attachment fees waived.
Working with CVEC is a natural fit, AcelaNet CEO Lon Whelchel said in the release. AcelaNet is committed to deploy true broadband in the same rural areas served by the cooperative. Using the utility poles as a delivery platform will allow us to achieve our mission along with the help and cooperation of localities and the rural residents.
With broadband projects in several Central Virginia counties, including Albemarle, Buckingham, Louisa and Nelson, AcelaNet has experience serving rural areas.
According to CVEC President and CEO Gary Wood, the co-op decided to take a step toward forming a partnership with a company for broadband expansion in rural Central Virginia because internet access has become a necessity.
Eighty years ago, CVEC members joined together to improve their quality of life and economic opportunity through rural electrification, Wood said in the release. Today, we begin the work of overcoming the digital divide for the very same reasons.
CVEC has 8,900 members in Nelson County who could receive internet access as a result of the partnership, if they do not already have it, said Greg Kelly, the co-ops communications manager. Kelly said some Nelson residents off our system also could get service as a result of the project.
There could be physical, financial, legal and regulatory obstacles, the release said, but CVEC and AcelaNet hope to develop a regional effort engaging the CVEC members and local businesses, as well as assistance at the local, state and federal level, to overcome those hurdles.
CVEC previously told the Nelson County Times a potential obstacle is AcelaNet having to obtain telecommunications easements for properties that have CVEC poles they plan to attach to.
CVEC does not have telecommunications easements for its poles on private property, Kelly previously said. He said a good majority of the co-ops 60,000 poles are on private property.
Additionally, Kelly said some of those 60,000 poles may have to be replaced to allow for proper clearance for vehicles and other things under lines that would hang between newly placed equipment.
Given the plan to tackle the project with both fiber and wireless technology, Kelly was unsure of how many poles would be used by AcelaNet and how many would have to be replaced.
More details on the broadband project will be released as logistics are ironed out, the release said.
Because a definite plan has not yet been determined for exactly where the physical infrastructure, including both a fiber network and wireless technologies, will be placed, Kelly was unsure of how much AcelaNet will benefit financially from the waived pole-attachment fees.
Some CVEC customers might be served immediately using the infrastructure already in place, the release said, but Kelly was unsure exactly how many people that may be.
AcelaNet will manage the enrollment and scheduled deployment and will contact CVEC members and others when service is available, according to the release.
SCIO Krysta Sprague has a stock trailer for her welding students to work on at Scio High School, but right now, the project is almost more trouble than it's worth.
The truck barely fits into the high school's existing welding shop. It's hard to work around and it has to be pulled in and out of the building or else it's in the way of other classes.
But once crews finish work on a new building that expands Scio's shop classrooms, the adjacent woodshop will move there and the wall that separates welding from woodshop will disappear.
Sprague's welding students then will have double the space currently available, and she can hardly wait.
"We have over $80,000 of new equipment just waiting to be used that we didn't have room for," she said.
The new building, which should be ready for students to use in the fall, will add a 60-by-70-foot space to Scio's shop classes and provide a new home for both woodshop and forestry.
That means more room not only for welding but for the small engines class, which currently doubles up with forestry.
The bulk of the project is being paid for through a $383,000 Career Technology Education Revitalization Grant from the Oregon Department of Education. Other grants and donations are supplementing the work, for a total project value of closer to $450,000, said Rex Lowther, who teaches forestry and was part of the team that helped secure the grant.
Scio is an area that offers jobs for skilled workers, Lowther said. Pipefitters and bridge builders are needed. Farmers need mechanics and maintenance crews.
Finding the workers isn't always easy, however, Lowther said. "It's hard to get kids used to working hard. That's the biggest challenge."
Scio is looking for ways to encourage more students to follow career-technical paths and to give them experience with what that will entail.
In addition to increasing available space, the high school just added a third level of welding classes. Students who go all the way through Advanced Welding now can earn three credits from Linn-Benton Community College, Sprague said.
The Scio School District also is one of four mid-valley districts to join the Pipeline project this year, a public-private partnership between businesses, schools and government to introduce more students to the vocational workforce.
Amber Yeager, Scio High's counselor, said she recently toured a manufacturing plant herself and is now much more able to answer student questions about what's available from them in terms of jobs.
Tours are a valuable part of Pipeline, she added. "I think it's really important we take our own teachers there to show them, take our own school board members there to show them."
The high school could organize its own tours, she said, but Pipeline membership means they're already set up and the support for substitutes and bus transportation is already in place.
Some high school students are preparing for college, but not everyone wants to attend a four-year university, Yeager said. Providing access to hands-on trades experience helps students see another possible option for their academic focus.
"When students have goals, they're more likely to do better in school," she said.
On Sunday, local filmmaker Lorenzo Dickerson held a discussion about the history of Albemarle Countys historic African-American schools the subject of his latest documentary film.
Dickerson discussed the history that goes along with the film, Albemarles Black Classrooms, which is set for release later this month at a nearly sold-out screening.
The film includes historical records of school buildings and settings, as well as interviews with experts on the subject of school segregation at that time in Virginia and the Charlottesville area, and alumni of some of the schools.
At Sundays discussion, held at the Ivy Creek Educational Building, members of the public filled the event space as Dickerson shared stills and video clips of his documentary that sheds light on what educational opportunities were like for county students in the past 100 years.
Dickerson who attended Albemarle public schools and is an employee in the divisions Department of Accountability, Research and Technology shared his personal connections to the subject, as well. Several of his grandparents attended African-American schools in the county such as Albemarle Training School and Burley High School.
One point of focus in the film is the presence of Rosenwald Schools, which were built in the early 1900s as then state-of-the art education facilities for black students in rural areas of the South. Dickerson said there were seven Rosenwald Schools in Albemarle, and only some are still standing today.
Dickerson reached out to Justin Sarafin, director of preservation initiatives and engagement with Preservation Virginia, for the documentary, particularly on the subject of Rosenwald Schools. Statewide, Sarafin said, there were more than 360 of these schools built in Virginia, and Preservation Virginia has been working to preserve as many that are left as possible.
Discussion at Sundays event also focused on school integration, which eventually followed Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made school segregation illegal, and the Massive Resistance movement that ensued in Virginia.
Patrice Grimes, an associate professor at the University of Virginias Curry School of Education, also was contacted by Dickerson for her expertise and understanding of education for African-American students in the country prior to Brown v. Board of Education.
Grimes said she thinks its important for everyone in the community to see this film because it tells a unique story of the areas history.
Its not only a film for African-Americans to see, although its very rich in history that people may not know, she said. But I think it really speaks to the complexities that we have today with education, and its some of the reasons why some of the things that exist today do because of discussions and choices that were or werent made at that particular point in time.
In a recent interview, Dickerson said the obstacles he faced in creating the film included the fact that some of the historic schools are no longer standing and trying to track down alumni of the schools.
But one of Dickersons most memorable moments making the documentary was when he was at Burley Middle School then Burley High School and seeing pictures of his grandmother and other family members along the walls honoring the alumni of the once all-African-American school
A lot of my cousins are on that wall, aunts and uncles their pictures are on that wall and I never knew, he said. And while Im filming, I noticed that Ive set the camera down somewhere and Im just taken back with these photos and Im really just looking for my own interest now because its that interesting.
Tickets for the films screening Feb. 25 at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center are nearly sold out.
Dickerson said he didnt expect the tickets to sell this quickly.
So now the question is, do we have enough interest to do a second show, and that may be something we do, he said.
Either way, he said Albemarles Black Classrooms eventually will be available on Amazon, and he hopes to supply a copy of the film to each local public school to show to students.
More information about the documentary can be found at albemarlesblackclassrooms.splashthat.com.
Im excited for everyone to see the film, Dickerson said. I really want to bring awareness to these school buildings and to the people who attended the schools and taught at the schools, so Im really excited for people to really become more aware.
RICHMOND A few generations and culture wars ago, provocateurs speaking out on college campuses were labeled outside agitators. Now they might be called invited guests.
A day after riots erupted at University of California, Berkeley, over a talk planned by an inflammatory Breitbart editor, a bill protecting free speech at public colleges quietly made it through Virginias House of Delegates.
Its just a restatement of the First Amendment, said Del. R. Steven Landes, R-Weyers Cave, who sponsored the legislation with 19 co-patrons.
How can anybody be against free speech and promoting free speech? he said. Especially on campuses.
Its not that straightforward, say others who see the bill as unnecessary, if not problematic, and a reflection of a larger, polarizing debate over academic freedom.
Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, released a survey of bias response teams nationally and on seven Virginia campuses that the group says encourage students to anonymously report on other students or faculty members if they perceive someones speech to be biased.
Theres a moral panic in America that free speech is under assault at universities, but its absolutely not true, said Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of modern media studies at the University of Virginia.
Landess legislation, now in a Senate committee, is a single sentence that belies the complexity around it.
The bill would prohibit public institutions of higher education from abridging the freedom of any individual including enrolled students, faculty and other employees and invited guests to speak on campus, except as otherwise permitted by the First Amendment.
He said he decided the legislation was necessary after finding inconsistencies in policies at Virginia schools.
But he also said schools should not rescind an invitation to a speaker with unpopular opinions because of protests. Thats not promoting free speech, he said.
Virginia Tech was caught in such a controversy last spring. Jason Riley, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, said he had been disinvited from speaking because he is a black conservative, resulting in an apology and a new invitation from the university.
That followed a backlash over an appearance by Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve whose writings on race and intelligence drew protests on campus.
The decision by Berkeley to cancel an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart editor known for his vile insults, drew a threat from President Donald Trump.
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view NO FEDERAL FUNDS? Trump tweeted.
Berkeley blamed the violence on 150 masked agitators who infiltrated student protesters on the campus, which gave rise to the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. The complaint then was that outside agitators were stoking unrest.
Yiannopoulos, whose racist tweets got him banned from Twitter, had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans.
Landes said schools have the discretion to not invite a speaker who might incite violence.
They need to do the legwork beforehand, he said.
The First Amendment allows for such exceptions, he said. But free speech is free speech, and its protected. Any viewpoint should be heard on campus.
Vaidhyanathan has a different perspective.
Universities are not park benches or street corners, he said. They are not places where anything goes.
Universities have long been committed to allowing informed, respectful, dispassionate deliberation, he said. But they are also workplaces with thousands of employees who deserve to work in a respectful environment free from harassment.
He said he can see absurd consequences of the legislation an invited guest, for example, politicking from a faculty office, something thats now prohibited.
Universities have no obligation to sponsor crackpot expressions, he said. We have no obligation to sponsor every poet who wants to issue a verbal haiku and no responsibility to sponsor every or any climate change denier.
Marcus Messner, social media professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, sees the legislation as overregulation.
What happened at Berkeley was an exception, he said. The event was canceled because of security, not because the administration didnt like the speaker.
Anyone who thinks First Amendment rights are being abridged, he said, should come to the Compass in front of VCUs library, where we have a broad variety of free speech on campus every single day.
In this country theres not a European-style regulation of hate speech, he said. In the U.S., that is a nonstarter discussion.
FIRE, however, said it found 232 Bias Response Teams nationally and called them illiberal, and antithetical to a campus open to the free exchange of ideas.
VCU and UVa were among the universities criticized by FIRE, as were Virginia Tech, George Mason, Mary Washington, the University of Richmond and Longwood University, which was singled out for special scrutiny for including the threat of education sanctions in its policy.
The FIRE report is extremely misleading, Longwood spokesman Matthew McWilliams said.
Longwood has a protocol to identify when bias might be a factor in behaviors such as harassment that may violate the law or conduct code, but we do not under any circumstances punish students simply for their beliefs or opinions.
No bias issues have been reported, he said.
Charles Klink, VCUs vice provost for student affairs, said the response team was established in 2015 and has responded to about 10 cases. He declined to give details about the cases.
The team was created to respond in a thoughtful and supportive manner to students impacted by bias-motivated behaviors that cause harm and constitute threat and harassment, he said by email.
But, he said, it also provides a mechanism to assist students in understanding the distinction between protected speech and behavior that harms or speech that constitutes harassment or threat.
RICHMOND Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam on Monday called for decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana in Virginia, saying enforcement is expensive and disproportionately jails African-Americans.
"As a doctor, I like to make the point to people, over 100 of the medicines that we use on a daily basis come from plants," he said in an interview Monday. "So I think we need to be open-minded about using marijuana for medical purposes."
But Northam, a Democrat, is talking about more than just medicine.
Northam wrote a column about various aspects of criminal justice and posted it Monday to his channel on Medium.com, a portal for stories and ideas.
In it, he cited an ACLU study showing African-Americans in 2010 were 2.8 percent more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Virginia, which spends more than $67 million annually on marijuana enforcement. That money could be better spent, he said.
"Where there is evidence-based data that suggests that marijuana is useful, then I think we should be open-minded," he said.
Northam joins a growing list of Virginia politicians interested in the issue. Late last year, Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, questioned whether possession of small amounts of marijuana should remain a crime. Norment in December requested a study of the issue from the Virginia State Crime Commission.
Because of the pending study, legislation from Sen. Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, was put on hold this year. Ebbin has proposed changing punishment for possession of small amounts of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil fine.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia had decriminalized small amounts of marijuana as of November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Last November, voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada backed adult use of recreational marijuana, according to NCSL, bringing to eight the number of states that have done so, along with Washington, D.C.
When asked how often he encountered a patient who used marijuana, Northam said, "often."
Veterans suffering from a brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder and people with multiple sclerosis find it helpful, he said.
Northam was a pediatric neurologist at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, where he lives, until he took leave early this year to run for governor this year. The Norfolk City Council has been active in pushing for decriminalization, Northam noted.
In the coming weeks, at least two people are expected to formally announce their candidacies for the Charlottesville City Council.
As of Monday, Amy Laufer and Heather Danforth Hill have filed initial paperwork to run in the Democratic primary in June. Both women have confirmed they intend to run.
Yes, I will have a press release soon, Laufer, a member of the citys School Board, said Monday. Im doing my homework right now, she said, adding that shes been meeting with constituents and reading studies about a number of issues that the council has been focused on recently.
Over the summer, Laufer supported presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as a 5th District delegate at the Democratic National Convention.
Hill, who is president of the North Downtown Residents Association, said Monday that she plans to formally announce her candidacy next week.
In the last election cycle, Hill worked for Mayor Mike Signers campaign as a field director.
This decision is not one I have taken lightly as I know serving as a member of council is an important and significant endeavor, she said. It has become clear to me, however, that the time to step up is now. This will be our home for decades to come, and I am eager to apply my skills, my energy, my passion and my commitment to our local needs to create an environment where everyone can thrive.
Hill, who returned to live in Charlottesville in 2009, is married and has three children. Prior to filing the initial paperwork to declare her candidacy, Hill stepped down from her seat on the Charlottesville Tomorrow board of directors.
According to a biography that had been on the news nonprofits website, Hill is self-employed, most often engaging in project-based contract work. She has a degree in industrial and systems engineering from Virginia Tech and an MBA from the University of Virginia.
Laufer also is married and has three children. She recently ended a term as chairwoman of the School Board, passing the torch to Juandiego Wade.
She has lived in Charlottesville since 2002 and holds a geology degree from the University of Milwaukee and a masters in secondary science education from Columbia University Teachers College
Two council seats will be up for grabs in the November general election. The seats are currently filled by Bob Fenwick and Kristin Szakos.
Szakos, who is ending her second term on the council, already has said she will not run for re-election.
Last month, Fenwick, who was elected in 2013 after two failed bids as an independent in 2009 and 2011, said he is considering running for re-election but remains undecided. He could not be reached for comment Monday.
The only other person who has announced their candidacy for the City Council has been Stanford Dale Woodson, an information technology manager with the software firm Health Data Services. Dale is a Fluvanna County High School and UVa graduate. Woodson is expected to run as an independent.
Hill will hold a news conference announcing her candidacy Feb. 21.
The last time Sweet Briar College named a new president, the circumstances were somewhat ... unusual.
The womens college in Amherst County had just been through a near-death experience: The board lost faith and tried to close the school; alumnae rose up and went to court. Remarkably, they triumphed. When Phil Stone the retired president of Bridgewater College arrived in July 2015 to take over on an emergency basis, he found he had virtually no employees and no students. The old regime, as a parting shot, had dismissed everyone. Students had long since been told to seek new schools.
Stone spent a frantic summer of 2015 re-hiring staff hed never met and coaxing back students who had already paid deposits elsewhere. Even when Sweet Briar opened on schedule that August, there were still those who wondered if that was just a temporary reprieve from the inevitable.
That was then. This is now. Last week, Sweet Briar named a new president: Meredith Woo, former dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia.
Anyone connected with Sweet Briar knows acutely what almost happened, and what it took to bring the college back from the brink. So this hand-off from one president to another was not exactly routine; it was a celebration.
The alumnae uprising that ousted the old board was historic; other small colleges had simply died quietly.
The old board had been spending down the schools endowment at alarming rates and decided to close the school before the money simply ran out. The fund now stands at a very respectable $70 million, bigger than many small colleges nearby including Mary Baldwin University.
One reason the old board was spending down the endowment was that it wasnt raising enough money. But in the last fiscal year, the school raised $28 million. With such prodigious fund-raising Sweet Briar has also been able to pay down nearly half of the debt it had run up.
When Sweet Briar set about searching for a new president,
Woo stood out for lots of reasons, board Chair Teresa Pike Tomlinson said. But heres perhaps the most impressive thing: When she was dean at UVa, she tripled fund-raising. During a recession.
And for the past two years, Woo has been in London, working on educational programs for a non-profit that, among other things, has encouraged higher education for women in previously closed cultures, such as Bangladesh and Burma.
Foreign students are an important niche for other colleges but one where Sweet Briar simply hadnt been involved. Woo, in her opening remarks, talked about making Sweet Briar a womens college of great consequence, for this nation and beyond. Those last two words arent simply rhetorical.
If Sweet Briar can go from nearly-closed to world-class, that would be quite a saga.
Excerpted from The Roanoke Times.
Aug. 20, 1930 Feb. 8, 2017
Wilma Nadine Anderlik passed away on Wednesday, Feb. 8, while surrounded by her loving family.
Nadine was born on Aug. 20, 1930, in Eminence, Missouri, to Annie and Chester Russell and then moved to Bend at the age of 5. She graduated from Bend High in 1948. She then met and married her late husband, George, in 1952 and they settled in Lebanon where they raised their four children.
For many years Nadine was a stay-at-home mother raising their children, attending many of her kids sporting events and school activities. She later went to work for the Lebanon School District working in the kitchens.
Nadene enjoyed traveling to the Oregon Coast as well as to Clear Lake Resort located within the Cascade Mountains, but most of all she enjoyed being surrounded by her family and friends. She took great pleasure in baking goodies and other meals for people she loved.
Nadine was a person who spent her entire life caring for others and putting their needs above her own. She had a laugh and smile that were contagious, and she continued with this wonderful outlook on life right up until the end. Her family is not sure that they ever heard her complain about anything.
Nadine was a longtime member of the Beta Sigma Phi sorority group to which she belonged to for nearly 49 years. She took great pride in following the groups purpose, which is Life, Learning and Friendship. She thoroughly enjoyed getting together with the members of this group and being involved in their many functions over the years.
Nadine is survived by her two sons, John of Portland and David of Arizona; brother George of Oakridge; grandchildren Justin, Lindsey, Brent, Brian, Amy and Chris; as well as several great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband of 63 years, George; daughters Cheryl and Susan; mother Annie; father Chester; and brothers Bud and Bill.
A viewing will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, with a service at 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, at Huston-Jost Funeral Home in Lebanon. Burial will follow at the Lebanon IOOF Cemetery. A celebration of life will follow the burial at the Lebanon Public Library Community Room.
Open Door Baptist Church in Culpeper hosted a royal ball Friday night for 87 very special guests as part of the worldwide Tim Tebow Foundation Night to Shine prom for people with special needs.
It was marvelous, said Michele Hitt, chairwoman of the local churchs Night to Shine planning committee. We have more than 3,000 pictures.
A corporate sponsor of the red carpet event, in fact, called the Culpeper prom flawless.
Attendees could have their hair and makeup done on site and or their shoes shined. There was dancing, laughing, gift bags, glitter, music and fancy appetizers. The night culminated with the crowning of each honored guest, the women getting tiaras and the men, crowns.
The looks on their faces were priceless, Hitt said.
Mid-prom, professional athlete Tebow sent a video message greeted with enthusiastic applause, she said. Attendees came from Albemarle, Culpeper, Madison, Orange, Stafford and Rappahannock counties for the first Night to Shine prom held in Culpeper.
The event was hosted on Feb. 10 by 375 churches in all 50 states and in 11 countries with more than 75,000 individuals participating as honored guests and another 150,000 as volunteers. Tebow kicked off the 2017 event with a visit to the first prom in Haiti.
I know we get to go to a lot more awesome proms, but I dont want to leave because the people are amazing and I love them with all of my heart and I cant wait to get back here, he said upon departing.
Tebow said Night to Shine was started so that people with special needs could feel important.
To know that they are loved, but more importantly to know that there is a God that loves them, and a God that created them just the way that they are, he said.
Hitt said Open Door Baptist wanted to host a prom out of a heart to serve.
We were like wow, she said of initially learning about the event. And we love Tim Tebow!
Hitt said the Culpeper church hopes to host the event annually.
Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam on Monday called for decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana in Virginia, saying enforcement is expensive and disproportionately jails African-Americans.
As a doctor, I like to make the point to people, over 100 of the medicines that we use on a daily basis come from plants, he said in an interview Monday. So I think we need to be open-minded about using marijuana for medical purposes.
But Northam, a Democrat, is talking about more than just medicine.
Northam wrote a column about various aspects of criminal justice and posted it Monday to his channel on Medium.com, a portal for stories and ideas.
In it, he cited an ACLU study showing African-Americans in 2010 were 2.8 percent more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Virginia, which spends more than $67 million annually on marijuana enforcement. That money could be better spent, he said.
Where there is evidence-based data that suggests that marijuana is useful then I think we should be open-minded, he said.
Northam joins a growing list of Virginia politicians interested in the issue. Late last year, Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, questioned whether possession of small amounts of marijuana should remain a crime. Norment in December requested a study of the issue from the Virginia State Crime Commission.
Because of the pending study, legislation from Sen. Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, was put on hold this year. Ebbin has proposed changing punishment for possession of small amounts of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil fine.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia had decriminalized small amounts of marijuana as of November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Last November, voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada backed adult use of recreational marijuana, according to NCSL, bringing to eight the number of states that have done so, along with Washington, D.C.
When asked how often he encountered a patient who used marijuana, Northam said, often.
Veterans suffering from a brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder and people with multiple sclerosis find it helpful, he said.
Northam was a pediatric neurologist at Childrens Hospital of The Kings Daughters in Norfolk, where he lives, until he took leave early this year to run for governor this year.
The Norfolk City Council has been active in pushing for decriminalization, Northam noted.
A group of area students recently met with some of the states elected representatives in the General Assembly at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond thanks to the Rappahannock Electric Cooperatives Washington Youth Tour Program.
The students learned about state government and spoke with delegates about current issues being debated in the General Assembly, according to REC spokesman Brian Wolfe. The students also visited the executive mansion, toured the State Capitol and attended a House of Delegates session.
The Youth Tour experience teaches students to be aware of important issues and to become active citizens working to make a positive difference in their communities, said Wolfe. Through their participation, students learn they truly have the power to make a difference.
Started in 1958, a rural electric cooperative in Iowa sponsored its first group of 34 students on a week-long study tour of Washington, D.C. Each year, REC sponsors students from throughout its service area to join more than 1,500 students and their chaperones in the nations capital.
The students learn how a congressional office works, including how legislative aides assist congressmen with important issues and how a congressional office stays in touch with constituents in its district, a statement on the REC website reads.
Josh Racer of Rappahannock, Elizabeth Dalton of Clarke County, Holli Foster of Orange County, Drey Carr of Spotsylvania County and Justin Petrie of Frederick were some of the area students who participated this year.
Applications for the 2017 Youth Tour program are being accepted until March 6. The program is for students who are currently high school juniors. Selected students will travel to Washington, D.C. from June 11 to 15. Applicants may drop off applications at any REC office, or fax, email or postmark them by the deadline.
For information visit myrec.coop/youthtour.
Rhonda Simmons can be reached at rsimmons@starexponent.com or 540/825-6397.
Tuesday was the halfway point of the 2017 session, known as crossover. The Republican-led House of Delegates is making good progress on issues that matter most to you. Whether it is the need to strengthen our education system to maintain our global competitiveness or continue to enact conservative reforms that make government smaller and more efficient, our first and foremost responsibility is and always will be to govern.
My bills include:
HB 1596: Prevents state agencies from requiring contractors, or subcontractors who are engaged in business with the state to provide compensation beyond what state or federal law dictates. Government mandated agreements disproportionately burden small businesses with high costs that they arent able to absorb. Thereby unfairly discouraging many qualified small businesses from bidding on projects being paid for with their own tax dollars. HB 1596 has passed the House and been referred to the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology and will be heard next Monday.
HB 1565: This bill authorizes localities to create green development zones that provide certain tax incentives and regulatory flexibility for up to 10 years to a business operating in an energy-efficient building or to a business that creates products used to reduce negative impact on the environment. HB 1565 has passed the House and Senate and is being sent to the governors desk.
HB 1566: This bill establishes a statewide policy for the regulation of professions and occupations specifying criteria for government regulation with the objective of increasing opportunities, promoting competition, encouraging innovation, and protecting consumers. HB 1566 passed the Senate Committee on Rules and has been referred to the Finance Committee.
HB 1597: This bill requires any locality establishing a stormwater management utility to waive partial or full fees for a person whose approved stormwater management plan indicates that the stormwater produced by his property is retained and treated on site. HB 1597 passed the House and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Local Government and will be heard next Tuesday.
Education is the gateway to opportunity. No matter where a student comes from or what his or her background is, a good education can make anything possible. The House has worked hard to scale back SOL tests that sometimes emphasize memorize rote memorization. This year we expanded on this effort by passing legislation that gives a student the appropriate amount of partial credit for a multipart assessment if the entire question isnt answered completely correct.
Virginia is fortunate to have one of the best education systems in the world thanks in large part to our great teachers and local leaders who have made it their lifes work to educate our children. The House of Delegates has sought to provide these educators with the tools, resources, and flexibility they need to provide our children with a world-class education. That includes reducing burdensome licensure and continuing education requirements. As such, the House passed legislation to waive certain licensure requirements for a teacher with an endorsement in career and technical education.
We are also taking action to control college costs. The only make college more affordable is not just with more money, but with specific actions to keep costs down. The House has passed legislation to set standard acceptance of dual enrollment credits taken in high school.
In December of last year, Governor McAuliffe announced his introduced budget. The driving force behind adjustments to the 2016-2018 biennial budget is the over $1 billion shortfall that was announced last fall. Since the Governors presentation, the House Appropriations Committee conducted five public hearings across the state to receive input from our citizens on the priorities they would like to see addressed.
This Thursday, the House voted on our version of the budget. Our budget reflects the tough choices and priority setting necessary to present a balanced budget. We reviewed all discretionary spending and held fast to conservative budgeting while investing in the core functions of government.
State Employees and State Troopers: Our budget invests resources to make a compensation package for state employees and law enforcement a reality. All told, the cost the 3 percent raise for state employees and college faculty, and restoring the 2 percent pay raise for state supported employees was $88.7 million. Funding is also included to provide our Deputy Sheriffs with their compression pay adjustments. Finally, an additional $15 million is included to address the starting salaries and compression of our State Troopers and Capitol Police Officers.
Last year the House re-established the policy of sending back a portion of the Lottery proceeds to our school divisions on a per-pupil basis without a required local match. This year the House budget sends 40 percent, or $218.7 million, in Lottery Profits directly back to our school divisions.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the legislative matters before the General Assembly. Please feel free to share your opinion by contacting my office at (804) 698-1018 or DelMWebert@house.virginia.gov.
The American Red Cross provided assistance in the aftermath of two house fires in Jefferson last week, according to news releases from the non-profit.
Both of the fires took place on Thursday, and the Red Cross provided aid on Saturday.
One of the fires was in the 10000 block of Southview Loop S.E., and the single-family blaze affected two adults and four children.
The Red Cross provided resources to help those affected, such as temporary housing, food, clothing, toiletries and more.
Another fire took place on Thursday in the 400 block of N. Third Street in Jefferson. One person was affected in that incident.
A spokeswoman with the Jefferson Fire District couldnt be reached for comment regarding the fires on Sunday afternoon.
New Delhi: Vishal Sikka, the embattled chief of Infosys, today said he has always shared a "heartfelt, warm relationship" with the company's co-founder N R Narayana Murthy.
The comments come at a time when there has been a lot of buzz around some of the founders flagging concerns about governance lapses at Infosys and issues like hike in Sikka's compensation to USD 11 million and huge severance pay doled out to former executives, Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy.
Asked about his relationship with the founders, Sikka said: "My relationship with the founders? It is wonderful. I meet Mr Murthy quite frequently...I have always had a heartfelt warm relationship with Mr Murthy, probably meet him 4-5-6 times a year."
He added that he, however, hasn't met the other founders off late.
Describing Murthy as an "incredible man", Sikka said the two usually discussed topics like quantum physics and technology whenever they met.
"The other day he was telling me about the Paris Metro and how he worked on the Paris Metro in the 1970s before he started Infosys, and it had this whole ideas about automation and autonomous driving and all," he reminisced.
Sikka, speaking at Kotak's Chasing Growth Conference in Mumbai, said the "drama" going on in the media is very "distracting". "It takes away our attention but underneath that, there is a very strong fabric that this company is based on. And it is a real privilege for me to be its leader," he added.
Sikka is scheduled to meet media representatives this evening along with some of the Board members. Infosys, on its part, has denied any governance lapses and said it has made "full disclosures" on all developments.
Another issue that some of the former senior executives have raised is the huge cash pile of USD 5.25 billion that Infosys has. Asked about his views on the matter, Sikka said his "official" answer is that the Board, from time to time, will consider capital allocation policies and when there is something to report, the company will do so.
"The unofficial answer is, you look at the circumstances over the next 4-5 years, what you need the capital for and then decide. In our case, it is the strategic growth initiatives, capital for building infrastructure and then acquisitions," he said.
Based on how that mix changes over the next 5 years, one takes a decision on how the cash is utilised, he added. "I have a very deep heartfelt relationship with Mr Murthy and I took this job because of that relationship and respect.
He knows, and I would like to assure every single shareholder that corporate governance and values were, are and will be the core foundation of this company. I will not let that standard slip even an iota under my watch," Sikka said.
Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee said: "I would like to thank Mr Murthy for his kind comments. I have the highest regard for him. His inputs are always taken with respect".
Amaravati: Information Technology companies are finally arriving in Andhra Pradesh capital region Amaravati. In the first round, eight companies are going to open shop in Vijayawada on February 16, to provide employment to 500 persons.
Simultaneously, about 15 IT training institutes are also set to open shop here to train engineering students in respective technologies so that they could be absorbed by the IT companies.
While ten training institutes are from Hyderabad, the rest are from Bengaluru.
"This is a big boost for Amaravati. We are creating a total IT ecosystem so that engineering and tech graduates in the region get placements in some of the top IT companies here," AP Non-Resident Telugu Society Chief Executive Officer Ravi Kumar Vemuru told PTI.
In all about 3000 engineering students in the capital region would undergo specialised training before being placed in the IT companies, he said. Accel IT, Horizon IT, AdvanSoft (Chicago), MSR Cosmos, Adept Solutions, Intellisoft and TimesquareIT are set to begin their operations at Autonagar in Vijayawada on February 16.
"Initially, these companies will hire about 500-600 persons before scaling up," Ravi Kumar added. The Medha IT Towers near Vijayawada airport, which remained a non-starter for at least five years now, is also set to spring to life as Spanish IT major Grupo Antolin is about to start its operations.
This company specialises in automotive and interior design software technologies. Another foreign company Neslova Systems and India's HCL are also ready to set shop in Medha IT Towers, providing employment to another 1000 persons.
HCL has also contacted a few local engineering colleges as part of its talent hunt for its BPO.
New Delhi: Months after India and US signed a key logistics pact, Reliance Defence and Engineering today announced an agreement with the American Navy for repair and alteration services for warships of the largest forward- deployed Seventh Fleet operating in the region.
The Seventh Fleet's area of responsibility includes the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean and at any given time there are roughly 50-70 ships and submarines, 140 aircraft and approximately 20,000 sailors under its command.
A statement by the Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) controlled RDEL said it has signed the Master Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA) with US Navy. It added that earlier in January, Reliance Shipyard was qualified by US Navy as an approved contractor to perform complex repair and alteration services for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet vessels operating in the region.
Reliance Shipyard at Pipavav, Gujarat is the first shipyard in India to have received MSRA Certification to undertake servicing and repairing works for the vessels of Seventh Fleet. It is estimated that the potential business for RDEL will be very high.
The fleet has about 100 vessels of different types, including auxiliaries. Currently, the vessels of US Navy's Seventh Fleet visit Singapore or Japan for such works. Reliance Shipyard has been selected after a detailed site survey by US Government representatives in end October 2016, the statement said.
After over a decade of negotiations, India and the US had in August last year signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), a tweaked India-specific version of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), which the US has with several countries with close military-to-military ties.
The pact enables their militaries to use each other's assets and bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, making joint operations more efficient. LEMOA facilitates the provision of logistical support, supplies and services between the US and Indian militaries on a reimbursable basis and provides a framework to govern them.
This may include food, water, billeting, transportation, petroleum, oils, lubricants, clothing, medical services, spare parts and components, repair and maintenance, training and other logistical services.
Mumbai: Stating that there is no issue of any corporate governance issues in Infosys, India's second largest software firm on Monday said that the current difference of opinions between the founders and the management is part of the process of transition from a promoter managed company to a completely professionally managed company.
This is a challenging kind of transition and such challenges would be handled with greater degree of statesmanship. There is no battle as there is no conflict of interest. It is just a convergence of interest. They are important voices and we are sensitive to their voices, said R. Seshasayee, non-executive chairman, Infosys.
He added that the board will continue to engage with its founders and take decisions in the best interest of the organisation. I enjoy a deeply heartfelt relationship with Narayana Murthy. I deeply value his experience and wisdom and even his criticism, said Mr Sikka while addressing the media in Mumbai on Monday.
Refuting reports about appointing a law firm to mediate between founders and the current management, Mr Seshasayee said the law firm was roped into advise the company to frame a policy which will help the company to reach a common ground on values and strategic direction the company should follow.
Reliance Industries invested USD 40 million in its wholly owned energy services unit in Singapore.
New Delhi: Direct investments made overseas by Indian companies declined 57.3 per cent to USD 1.82 billion last month, the Reserve Bank data showed today.
The investments made in January 2016 amounted to USD 4.25 billion.
It also lower from December's USD 2.49 billion. Of the total overseas direct investment of USD 1.82 billion, USD 246.37 million came in the form of equity money; USD 483.78 million through loans.
While the rest of USD 1.09 billion was the guarantee issued by the Indian firms in their foreign units.
Among a few major investors, Bharat Petrosources invested USD 721.42 million in four tranches in joint venture and wholly owned subsidiary in Australia and Singapore.
Intas Pharmaceuticals invested USD 344.35 million in its fully owned unit in the UK, while ONGC Videsh put in a total of USD 52.59 million in four different joint ventures in Myanmar, Russia and Vietnam.
Reliance Industries invested USD 40 million in its wholly owned energy services unit in Singapore.
Bengaluru: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that the rhetoric of protectionism in developed economies and unpredictable global slowdown have not affected India.
What strikes us today is two important factors unpredictable global slowdown and the rhetoric of protectionism in develop-ed economies. But these havent affected India, he said at Make In India-Karnataka meet here.
Not a single sound or even a whisper of protectionism is being heard in India and such talk is there only in the developed economies, he said, adding that this itself is a tribute to the fact that the country is willing to accept investments and tune its policies.
Mr Jaitley said there is tremendous pressure on government policy makers because of peoples' impatience to see India grow at a faster rate and get rid of poverty, among other things.
Organized by the Karnataka government in association with DIPP, government of India and CII, the conference saw participation of more then 5,000 delegates from over 30 countries.
He lauded Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his ministers and civil servants for working with a positive frame of mind for implementation of GST by the middle of this year.
Huma has taken a massive challenge of not only getting under the skin of her character but also closely studying the lady
Mumbai: There is no doubt that Huma Qureshi is a powerhouse performer and for her big Hollywood debut in 'Viceroy's House' the actress has taken a massive challenge of not only getting under the skin of her character but also closely studying the lady in person, Jaya Thadani, who has served as an inspiration for her character in the film.
Before shooting the film, Huma went to meet Jaya in London, who was actually an interpreter during the British rule. Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha had set up their meeting so that both the ladies get enough time to interact with each other and continue to stay in touch.
And its obvious that Huma wanted Jaya to be among the first few people to watch the film before its official release. The actress will soon be organizing a special screening for her in London.
"Huma is soon to make her big Hollywood debut with Viceroy's House and was grateful to everyone who has been part of this journey. Huma met Jaya Thadani in London to learn how she speaks and hear her stories and absorb how she lived her life during that time. After spending a day together, the two grew close. Huma will soon be organizing a screening in London as she is really excited to have Jaya's feedback on her performance and the film."
'Viceroy's House' is an official selection by a great film festival, Berlinale 2017 and will have its worldwide premiere at the festival. Huma will join Gurinder and rest of the cast of the film in Berlin, immediately after wrapping up promotions of her upcoming film 'Jolly LLB 2'.
Taapsee Pannu is rather excited about the release of Runningshaadi.com, which is soon to be renamed. Im very proud of it, she says. Dada (Shoojit Sircar, producer) gave me Pink after seeing what I could do in Runningshaadi.com, I can tell you without hesitation. The girl in Pink was different from who I am. My character in this movie, Nimmi, is closest to the person I am in real life.
How, we ask her. Like Nimmi, Im a Punjabi; a Sardarni, she explains. But Im a little wary of the way Punjabi men and women are portrayed in our films. Theyre always loud, always aggressive, forever singing, dancing and screaming. Yes, all this is a part of the average Punjabis DNA, but all sardars are not boisterous all the time. A Punjabi woman also has a softer, gentler side. Ive shown this in the movie.
Her biggest temptation to do Runningshaadi.com was the opportunity to break away from stereotypes. The Punjabi girl I play is different from what we see. The Bihari guy Amit Sadh plays is not the stereotypical Bihari speaking in a singsong voice. In fact, when Amit was researching for his character, he met a Bihari gentleman who told him, Bihari is not a language; its an attitude. That one statement became the basis of his character.
The actress is all praises for her director, Amit Roy. There were two Amits on the sets, she laughs. Amit Sadh and Amit Roy. We didnt know how to tell them apart. This is Amit Roys debut film, but it doesnt look like a first film. Hes not only directed the film, hes also done the screenplay and cinematography. So young, and so much responsibility.
Taapsee started her career with a light-hearted Chashme Buddoor and shes back to the genre after the dark and grim Pink. In Chashme Buddoor, David sir (David Dhawan) had already edited the film in his mind. He was very clear about what he wanted, she reminisces. But with Amit, there was a lot of give and take. Of course, David sir allowed us to improvise a huge amount. But with his experience, I had to think a million times before making a suggestion. With Amit, it was like having a comrade on sets.
The fact that she played a character close to her heard seems to have worked for Taapsee. I took the liberty of asking for changes in scenes, and kept constantly questioning Amit. He was very flexible. He was worried about my accent, but I got it right. I had such a ball shooting with the two Amits! Wed shoot for 12-13 hours at a stretch, but I never felt the weight of the long hours. Thats the spirit I want to shoot in.
Tapsee is confident of scoring a post-Pink success. Shoojit sir is known to deliver very strong content. So, I knew from the start that whatever we do will be worth the while, she signs off.
'Baahubali: The Conclusion' stars Prabhas and Rana Daggubati in the lead roles.
Mumbai: Baahubali: The Conclusion, has to be the most anticipated sequels in recent memory and for rightful reasons.
Director SS Rajamouli himself had revealed that the sequel would be grander and better than the first part.
There have also been rumours of sensational cameos in the film, with such big names from the Southern fraternity like Suriya and Mohanlal being thrown around.
However, as per latest reports, another big name is being associated with the film.
And its none other than Shah Rukh Khans!
Incidentally, the first teaser of the film was supposed to be attached with SRKs recent superhit, Raees.
Made on an estimated budget of around 200 crore rupees, the film reportedly already made earnings of over 500 crore rupees from satellite and distribution rights itself.
While the first part had a worldwide collection of over a whopping 600 crore rupees, the sequel is expected to shatter all existing records.
And with the biggest name in the country associated with it, Baahubali: The Conclusion could touch unprecedented box-office euphoria.
Starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sathyaraj and Nasser in the lead roles, the film is slated to release on April 28.
Mumbai: Varun Dhawan is quite ahead of his peers in terms of talent, charm and stardom. And his fans await the most feeble of his glimpses and insights into his life with bated breaths. The actor will soon be alongside third time collaborator, Alia Bhatt in Badrinath Ki Dulhania, but has also commenced work on Papa David Dhawans Judwaa 2.
The film has Jacqueline Fernandez and Taapsee Pannu as his female leads. Taapsee herself has a lot on her platter, post the success of Pink. Taapsee has three upcoming releases in Running Shaadi opposite Amit Sadh, The Ghazi Atack alongside Rana Daggubati and the highly anticipated Naam Shabana alongside Manoj Bajpayee, Prithviraj Sukumaran and Akshay Kumar.
Taapsee, who is currently gearing up for the release of Running Shaadi, took to Twitter to speak to her industry friends, urging them to share their anecdotes on personal trysts with eloping.
And Varun being the prompt lad that he is, instantly responded.
"Yes I have thought of running away and getting married but I was young in 12th standard so I wouldn't have been able to run away too far from school, he said, adding, Although we almost helped a friend run away and get married to his then girlfriend. Everything was all set but then our plan was busted as the girls parents found out. But now my friend is married to someone else so I guess it worked out for the best.
Running Shaadi, helmed by Amit Roy, releases on February 17.
Watch the videos here:
Screen grab from one of the videos posted on Twitter.
Mumbai: Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt made their second appearances on Karan Johars popular chat show Koffee with Karan on Sunday to promote their film Badrinath Ki Dulhania after previously appearing with Arjun Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan respectively. And this time, too, their episode was extremely entertaining.
Some of the best moments of the show were when Varun and Alia imitated some of the stars of the film industry successfully and unsuccessfully. We see Varun hilariously failing at mimicking a Hrithik Roshan dialogue and is seen repeatedly trying without success. We see Karan and Alia laughingly mocking him while he feels extremely embarrassed.
Later, an acting challenge, where the actors were supposed to guess the actors on their lists by enacting them, was also extremely funny.
Alia is seen imitating Ranbir by reciting his Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Katrina Kaif by enacting her Sheila Ki Jawaani step while Varun brilliantly mimics Govinda with his dance steps and expressions.
He also excellently imitates Sonam with his Oh My god I love that dress line.
Watch the videos here:
There is no doubt that that the actors would be keen to replicate this amazing chemistry in Badrinath Ki Dulhania.
Mumbai: Touted to be one of Shraddha Kapoors most challenging movies so far, Haseena: The Queen of Mumbai is all set to be released on July 14. The makers feel that timing the movies release with Eid is a good move. Not just that, Haseena will also be shown to the Parkar family, in a special screening.
The Parkar family has already seen a few glimpses of the film, and they are extremely happy with the way the film has shaped up, so far, says a source.
The movie, being directed by Apoorva Lakhia will chronicle underworld don Dawood Ibrahims sister, Haseena Parkars life from the age of 17 to 40.
When contacted, Apoorva confirmed the plan of showcasing the movie to the Parkars. Were releasing the movie in July, because its a good day after Ramadan and Eid. Once the film is ready, we will have a special screening for the cast and crew of the movie, and we will call the Parkar family too.
Los Angeles: In glittery gown, gilded crown and gold choker, a pregnant Beyonce took the Grammy stage Sunday in a lengthy performance of two songs from her critically acclaimed album 'Lemonade.'
She was introduced by her mother and former stylist, Tina Knowles: "Ladies and gentlemen, with my mother's pride, my daughter, Beyonce."
Beyonce sang on top of a long table, even leaning back on a chair while singing 'Love Drought.' She later sang 'Sandcastles' while sitting down, hitting high notes.
She earned a loud applause from the audience at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, including daughter Blue Ivy and husband Jay Z. Earlier, Beyonce won best music video for 'Formation.'
David Bowie, who died last year from cancer, won all four awards he was nominated for. He won three in the pre-telecast, and took home best rock song for 'Blackstar' during the live show.
'Blackstar,' his final album released days after he died, also won best alternative music album, rock performance, and engineered album, non-classical (Bowie is listed as one of the engineers on 'Blackstar.') In the latter category, he beat out Prince, who also died last year.
Adele kicked off the Grammys with a live rendition of her comeback anthem, 'Hello,' which helped her win two early Grammys, and may put her on track to win album, song and record of the year. Other A-list stars like Bruno Mars and Katy Perry will also perform.
Adele's 'Hello' won best pop solo performance and '25' won pop vocal album in the pre-telecast ceremony. In the top three categories, she will go head-to-head with Beyonce.
Chance the Rapper won the first award in the live telecast for best new artist. He also won best rap performance during the pre-show awards.
"Glory be to God. I claimed this victory in the name of the Lord. I want to thank God for my mother and my father who supported me since I was young," Chance the Rapper said onstage.
James Corden, hosting the Grammys for the first time, rapped some of his monologue at the top of the show, namedropping Prince, Rihanna and Drake.
Twenty one pilots won best pop duo/group performance for the hit 'Stressed Out.' They removed their pants when accepting the award in homage to their earlier days when they watched the Grammys at home in their boxers.
In the pre-telecast, Beyonce's younger sister, critical R&B darling Solange, won her first Grammy for best R&B performance (it was her first-ever nomination). Drake, who isn't attending the live show, won best rap song and rap/sung performance for the smash hit, 'Hotline Bling.'
Justin Timberlake's 'Can't Stop the Feeling!' - which is nominated for an Oscar - won best song written for visual media. His No.1 hit is from the 'Trolls' soundtrack. Lady Antebellum's Hillary Scott won two Grammys in the Christian category for the album she recorded with her family. Scott, who has won seven Grammys with Lady A, cried onstage both times when accepting the wins.
"We've been crying since this project started," her father, Lang Scott, said.
Best new artist nominees The Chainsmokers won best dance recording for the pop hit 'Don't Let Me Down,' while album of the year nominee Sturgill Simpson won best country album for 'A Sailor's Guide to Earth.'
The country music rebel thanked his wife, who he said told him to quit his job on the railroad years ago and move to Nashville.
Joey + Rory won best roots gospel album for 'Hymns,' and Rory Feek was emotional onstage as he remembered his wife Joey, who died last year from cancer.
"My wife's dream was to make a hymns album. She didn't have the chance to do it until she'd been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, so she'd sing in hotel rooms while she did chemotherapy and radiation," said Rory, who added that his wife said if they were nominated he had to attend the Grammys. "She got a big smile on her face and she said, 'Remember, if we win, I'll know before you will."
Some actors won Grammys, too: Don Cheadle picked up best compilation soundtrack for visual media for 'Miles Ahead,' where he is credited as a compilation producer, and Carol Burnett won the best spoken word album Grammy.
'The Color Purple' won best musical theater album, giving Jennifer Hudson her second Grammy and earning Tony winner Cynthia Erivo and 'Orange Is the New Black' actress Danielle Brooks their first Grammys.
Beyonce was the overall top nominee with nine. There are few things the pop diva has not conquered, and the Grammy for album of the year is one of them.
For the third time, Beyonce is nominated for the coveted trophy, an award given to few R&B-based performers and only two hip-hop acts in the Grammy's 59-year history.
She was nominated for the top prize in 2010 with 'I Am ... Sasha Fierce' (losing to Taylor Swift) and in 2015 with 'Beyonce' (Beck was the surprise winner). Her 'Lemonade' album is competing Sunday, along with its hit 'Formation' for record and song of the year.
Beyonce has lost record of the year four times, and she's marking her third nomination for song of the year (she won in 2010 with 'Single Ladies').
Beyonce's main competition is Adele, who won album, song and record of the year in 2012 with '21' and 'Rolling In the Deep.' While some critics argued that Beyonce's 'Lemonade' was more artistic and had a stronger impact on culture, Adele's '25' marked her comeback and became a multiplatinum juggernaut, setting a record when it sold over 3 million units in its first week.
Their competition for album of the year aside from Simpson includes Drake's multihit 'Views' and Justin Bieber's redemption album 'Purpose.'
Nominees battling 'Formation' and Hello' for record of the year include Rihanna and Drake's 'Work,' twenty one pilots' 'Stressed Out' and Lukas Graham's '7 Years.'
Song of the year nominees are 'Formation,' 'Hello,' '7 Years,' Mike Posner's 'I Took a Pill in Ibiza' and Bieber's 'Love Yourself,' shared with co-writer Ed Sheeran.
The Chainsmokers, who have dominated the pop charts, will compete with Chance the Rapper, Maren Morris, Anderson .Paak and Kelsea Ballerini for best new artist.
Collaborative performances include Lady Gaga and Metallica, Alicia Keys and Maren Morris, and A Tribe Called Quest and Anderson .Paak. Chance the Rapper will perform with Kirk Franklin, who won two awards, including best gospel album and gospel performance/song for writing 'God Provides' for Tamela Mann.
Tributes for Prince and George Michael will take place, while Demi Lovato, Andra Day and Tori Kelly will honor the Bee Gees and the 40th anniversary of 'Saturday Night Fever.'
Rihanna, Drake and Kanye West are the second-most nominated acts with eight each.
Actor Sai Dharam Tej reveals that his upcoming film, Winner, directed by Gopichand Malineni revolves around horse racing. The film has a horse racing backdrop and both the director and producer took utmost care of me while shooting the racing scenes, shares the actor.
The horse racing scenes were shot in Turkey as the makers found that it was a suitable place for the shoot. I am sharing screen space with Jagapathi Babu garu for the second time and am bonding with him more than Rakul Preet Singh, says the actor. He adds that this film has been a beautiful journey for him. I usually talk very fast, but director Gopichand asked me to slow down a bit and actually got the best output from me for this film, he says.
The actor adds that when the director narrated the subject to him, he was confused as to how they would make the film. But the result has come out very nicely and I am sure the film is going to be the best for me, says Sai Dharam Tej.
Money transfer company WorldRemit analyzed remittances from Filipinos abroad and found those in Germany were the most generous. (Photo: Pixabay)
Manila, Philippines: Filipinos in Germany may be far from home, but their loved ones are near to their hearts on Valentine's Day.
Money transfer company WorldRemit analyzed remittances from Filipinos abroad and found those in Germany were the most generous, sending home on average $32.5 more than usual around Valentine's Day last year.
Following closely were Filipinos in Norway who sent on average $24 more, and in New Zealand, who remitted on average $12.5 more during the week around Valentine's Day, compared to the amount they sent in the previous week.
Comparative government data isn't available. Central bank statistics show Filipinos in the U.S. send the most money home overall, followed by those in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
According to World Bank, migrants' remittances to the Philippines in 2015 reached $28.48 billion, the third highest next to India and China. Millions of Filipinos live and work abroad, sending home money that make up about 10 percent of the Philippines' gross domestic product.
London-based WorldRemit makes its digital money transfer service available to senders in more than 50 countries, but the data released Monday was specific to money sent to the Philippines.
Conversations around sex have largely been a hush-hush affair for ages. People want to talk about it, but none are willing to be open about their sexuality and what goes on between the sheets. Apart from sex life of an individual or a couple, sexual health and hygiene are key aspects of daily life that suffer from lack of information and guidance due to the reluctance to talk about sex.
The situation is worse when it comes to discussing womens sexuality, their desires and sexual satisfaction in a relationship. What women want is a question that has rarely been asked and is never addressed adequately. Globally debated issues like female orgasms are unheard of outside urban spaces, as there is still a lack of awareness regarding important subjects like menstruation.
The dawn of a sexual revolution?
One thing that substantiates the claims of India embracing a sexual revolution is that rising number of women are undergoing series of procedures called designer vaginas. Dr Sejal Desai told the Deccan Chronicle that the term covers vaginal tightening, solving orgasm issues, labiaplasty, clitoral unhooding as well as procedures to remove wrinkles and change the skin tone of the vagina to match that of the body. Women can choose out of these options to have their vagina designed as per their desire.
An obstetrician and gynaecologist since 2001, Dr Sejal Desai, was the first to bring Aesthetic Vaginal Surgery to India after she completed her training in Los Angeles, US in 2012.
Desai says that sexually active women have been visiting her Mumbai clinic for vaginal tightening to tackle issues related to marriage, lack of desire and post delivery intimacy issues. She also mentioned that young women are now bold enough when it comes to dealing with their sex life.
Another change that Desai has witnessed over the years is that women are prioritising their sexual pleasure and this has led to improved communication among couples. She added that young women who visit her are also opening up to their parents about the services they are seeking.
It also came to light that "designer vagina" procedures arent simply associated with visual aspects, but are equally effective when it comes to the functional aspects.
The 'Barbie Doll' look
Labiaplasty involves scraping a part of the labia which are the folds of skin surrounding the vagina. Desai said that the most popular among young women is the Barbie Doll Labiaplasty, where the labia is scraped enough to make the vagina look like that of a newborn.
Sexual satisfaction matters
Apart from the aesthetics, other surgeries include clitoral unhooding, where the tissue covering the clitoris is removed in order to increase sensitivity leading to higher sexual pleasure, along with giving the area a better look and reducing the time taken for climaxing. Fillers for the G-spot are another way of enhancing sexual pleasure through a process called G-spot enhancement.
Women taking the initiative
While many are accompanied by their mother or spouse, in most cases women have been the ones to talk openly and take the initiative when it comes to discussing issues and raising sexual awareness. Those approaching Desai for hymen repair or youth restoration include young women who want to enhance their vagina ahead of their wedding and also married women who want to undergo the surgery for their partner on anniversaries.
Women are also giving gift cards for youth restoration and collagen remodeling to their friends on birthdays and anniversaries. Desai said that she has clients from all age groups across cities. Women from small towns are also contacting her now.
A large number of women from Gujarat are opting for designer vaginas at Dr Sejal Desais clinic and women from other states like Kerala are inquiring about the services she offers. Apart from this NRIs and foreign nationals also visit her clinic in India, as the service is more cost-effective in India as compared to Europe and US.
A different tale
However, a rising number of women visiting Desai from Arab countries paint a different story. As the husbands of these women have more than one wife, vaginal tightening as well as labiaplasty offer these women a chance to stay ahead of other women in their husbands life. Several middle-eastern women have also been opting for botox injections in their vagina.
Winds of change
The fact that couples are taking their sex life more seriously makes it evident that large number of women want the length and width of the vagina changed according to their partners size for maximum pleasure.
Awareness among young women and couples is rising thanks to access to information on the internet. But there still is a lack of awareness among gynaecologists in India, since vaginal aesthetics as a subject hasn't made it to the medical syllabus in our country.
Chennai: Within hours of an AIADMK ex-councillor being murdered in Thiruvannamalai in broad daylight on Sunday, the video of the brutal killing has gone viral with gory images of a left-handed man hacking the victim again and again to make sure he is dead.
The deceased was identified as V Kanakaraj (55), of Karkana street near Arunachaleswar temple in Thiruvannamalai. Police later said that the three men, including Punk Babu, a DMK man, surrendered in connection with the murder. A deal worth over Rs 2 crore between the two had triggered the brutal murder, the police added.
The incident happened in the morning when Kanakaraj, an ex-councillor of the municipality who is also into real estate deals, was returning on a two wheeler with his friend Kannadasan after a game of badminton at a ground in Chengam road, when two men on a bike hit the vehicle on which the victim was pillion riding.
In the impact the two men fell down while the two on the other bike started attacking Kanakaraj with sickles. Another man standing near a parked car, with its bonnet open, joined the attackers. While Kannadasan was chased away, the gang kept on hacking Kanagaraj, who died on the spot, the police said.
Later, Punk Babu and his associates Raja and Saravanan surrendered with the Thiruvannamalai town police station.
Police, after conducting enquires with the suspects, said that Babu had given Rs 2 crore to Kanakaraj to buy a property in Gandhi Nagar. Kanakaraj reportedly failed to get the property registered in Babus name and also did not return the money. This seems to have triggered the murder, the police said. The video of the murder which was posted in Youtube later went on viral WhatsApp groups.
Kota: An 18-year-old Dalit medical aspirant here was raped on the pretext of marriage by a man she befriended on Facebook, police said today.
The victim, in her complaint, said that she came in contact with Krishanveer Singh (25), an engineer in Udaipur, on Facebook and soon he began visiting her in Kota frequently, SHO Vigyannagar police station Jai Prakesh Bainiwal said.
She alleged that the accused promised to marry her but raped her in September last year, once in Kota and twice in Jaipur.
She became pregnant as a result and the accused refused to marry her and was even forcing her to abort the child, the officer said. The accused had eventually stopped replying to the victim's calls.
The student eventually sought help from a local female advocate. She called Singh to Kota yesterday under the guise of agreeing to terminate her pregnancy. A medical examination done yesterday confirmed the pregnancy.
A case was lodged when Singh arrived in Kota yesterday. He has been booked under section 376 of IPC, SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and a section of POCSO Act, as the victim was underage at the time of the incident, Deputy Superintendent of Police Chuna Ram Jat said.
The accused has been detained but has not been arrested as the investigation is underway, the DSP said.
The body of the woman, who was missing since Saturday, was found yesterday near a primary school in Jaisinghpur. (Photo: Representational Image)
Lucknow: A 22-year-old woman, who had accused Samajwadi Party MLA Arun Verma of raping her along with some other youth in 2013, was found murdered near her house in Sultanpur, police said today.
The body of the woman, who was missing since Saturday, was found yesterday near a primary school in Jaisinghpur, they said. An FIR has been registered in this regard, and a case filed against the MLA.
Police said the injury mark around her neck suggested that she was strangled to death. The body has been sent for postmortem to ascertain the cause of death.
The woman had alleged that the local MLA, who is also the SP's Sultanpur candidate for the February 27 polls, and some others had gangraped her in September 2013.
At one stage, the woman had withdrawn her allegation and some local youths were charge sheeted in the police investigation. The trial in the case is still continuing.
Police is probing the matter and going through call records of the woman.
Among the accused, Vishwanath, an engineering graduate and unemployed, is the son of a police sub-inspector working in a city police station. (Representational image)
BENGALURU: The Nelamangala police arrested a gang of seven people, including the son of a police sub-inspector, on charges of allegedly barging into the house of a gram panchayat member and committing dacoity.
Vishwanath, 31, Prasad, 31, Manjesh Chandra, 35, Budesh Gowda, 44, Sureshbabu, 28, Ashwath, 23, and Ramesh, 42, all residents of Nelamangala, are the arrested. Among the accused, Vishwanath, an engineering graduate and unemployed, is the son of a police sub-inspector working in a city police station.
The incident was reported at Honnayyanapalya in Nelamangala on February 1. The arrested broke into the house and threatened the wife of the gram panchayat member at gun point before escaping with gold jewellery, cash and other valuables. The police have recovered property worth Rs 23 lakh, including 750 gm of jewellery.
3 Results of participant s assessment: 14 Certificates of Competence: Type of Assessment Highest Score Lowest Score Average Score Written examination & Assignment Individual Presentation Facilitator s feedback on the training: The TOT version with the 1-day technical training included works extremely well The rate of learning by the participants exceeds all expectations The quality of the individual presentations was very high. Participants followed the SDF training model and used different training techniques during the delivery phase of sessions General comments: The objectives of the training course were both met, and exceeded. We now have 14 new competent trainers in Zimbabwe and looking forward to seeing the results in the near future. Logistics and support: The arrangements, logistics, selection of participants and support by CropLife Zimbabwe were extremely good. I would like to thank CropLife Zimbabwe for a well-organized training course. The correct selection of participants is always vital for a successful TOT training and this was one of the main reasons for the success of the TOT training in Zimbabwe. Group picture: 3
2 Training principles Introduction of IPM Qualities of a good trainer The Pest Management Decision Making Cycle Preparing a training program The route of a pesticide from shop shelf to field The SDF training model Practical sessions where the participants co-present The adult learner Key processing & learning styles Part 3 (2nd day) Individual training lessons prepared by participants Scouting: Why and How? Circle of competence The Pesticide Label Questioning Classification of Pesticides by Hazard Spot check How Pesticides can enter the human body Group dynamics How to protect the human body against contact with pesticides Basics of Communication Buying of Pesticides Training aids Transportation of pesticides Using PowerPoint Storage of pesticides Using the flip-sheet board Preparing for spray 1: Equipment and external factors Verbal & non-verbal presentation skills Training methods and approaches Preparing for spray 2: Measuring & Mixing dry and liquid formulations Working in the field with pesticides Seating patterns After working in the field: Cleaning equipment and person Evaluation and follow-up Empty container management Pesticides from shelf to field Pesticide spills and the Environment Detail of participant s assessment: Written examination Assignment on applying SDF training model in training Individual presentation on a Responsible Use topic 2
1 Training Report: Compiled by Herman Louw for CropLife East & Southern Africa: ZIMBABWE TOT 2012: Training Report Name of course: CropLife Zimbabwe Trainer-of-Trainer Accelerated Version Hosting Institution: CropLife Zimbabwe Location: Harare, Zimbabwe Dates: From 6/2/2012 to 10/2/2012 Venue: Mandel Training Centre Harare List of participants: Name Organization Function Francis Mutetwa Fintrac Field Manager Joseph Edson Shoniwa Fintrac Field Manager Mazvita Sumba-Makumbe ZFC Limited Research & Prod Dev Agronomist Tawanda Gerald Nyamangodo Curechem Overseas Ltd Agro-sales executive Beata Nhunzvi Acol Chemical Technical & Sales Manager Justin Chipomho ZFC Limited Agronomist Judith Banana MAMID Agricultural Extension Specialist Bongayi Gokoma Agricura (Pvt) Ltd Agronomist - Advisory & Training Lawrence Tigere Gono Windmill (Pvt) Ltd R& D Manager Mabongwe Ottilia MAMID Agricultural Extension Specialist Chihumba Robson MAMID Training Specialist Charumbira Caroline Windmill (Pvt) Ltd Crop Chemical Distribution Manager Washington Mutyavaviri Westbay AgroChemicals Sales Agronomist Stanley Paza MAMID Farmer & Extension Trainer Program of the week: Day 1-2 Day 3 Day 4-5 Topics covered: Part 1 (2 days) Training and facilitation skills Trainer-of-Trainers Route of a Pesticide from shop to field (Responsible Use) Written assessment, Assignments & Individual Presentations 1 Part 2 (1st day) Responsible use training: Technical Training
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The others five members of the racket - Manish Gandhi, Dhruv Saxena and Mohit Agrawal from Bhopal, and Mohan Gupta and Sandeep Gupta from Jabalpur - who were produced in the local court on February 10 are in police remand till February 14. (Photo: Representational Image)
Bhopal: Five of the 11 people, arrested in Madhya Pradesh for their alleged involvement in a spying racket run from Pakistan, were on Sunday sent to judicial custody till February 27 by a local court.
Judicial Magistrate Shalu Sirohi sent to jail Trilok Bhadoria, Ritesh Khullar, Jitendra Yadav, Jitendra Singh Thakur and Lashkar Pandit from Gwalior.
They were arrested on February 9 by the Madhya Pradesh ATS and charged with anti-national activities. Earlier, the court had sent them to police remand till February 12.
The prime accused in the case Balram Singh, who hails from Satna, is in police remand till February 14.
The others five members of the racket - Manish Gandhi, Dhruv Saxena and Mohit Agrawal from Bhopal, and Mohan Gupta and Sandeep Gupta from Jabalpur - who were produced in the local court on February 10 are in police remand till February 14.
MP Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested the 11 people on February 9 after the arrest of Satvinder Singh and Dadu along the R S Pura sector on the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir for sharing secret information of strategic establishments to their overseas handlers in November last year.
The 11 accused have been charged for passing on crucial information of vital installations in Madhya Pradesh to their overseas handlers.
The two had reportedly revealed that they were gathering secret information regarding the locations of the Army and other security forces, and sharing the same with Pakistan on a social networking app.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar, had asked him to appear before the apex court in person on Monday. (Photo: File)
New Delhi: Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan did not appear before the Supreme Court on Monday, for a hearing contempt proceedings against him.
Karnan is accused of writing letters in which he cast aspersions on other judges. The apex court granted Karnan three more weeks to appear before it and reply to the show cause notice issued to him last week.
A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said that Justice Karnan, despite being served with the notice in the case, "has not put in an appearance."
"Moreover, no lawyer has been appointed by him to represent him today," the bench, also comprising Justice Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph, said.
"We are not aware of the reasons for his non-appearance. We, therefore, refrain from proceeding with the matter," it said while deferring the matter for hearing after three weeks.
The bench on Monday also took serious note of some lawyers appearing in the matter without being authorised by Justice Karnan and said that they will be proceeded against under the law for interfering with the judicial process.
The seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on February 8 slapped a contempt notice on Karnan for his scurrilous remarks against judges of the Madras high court and the apex court and restrained him from any judicial or administrative work with immediate effect.
This is the first time in the countrys history that seven senior-most Supreme Court judges, convened in open court suo-motu contempt proceedings against a sitting high court judge.
The bench had asked him to appear before the apex court in person on Monday.
In 2016, Justice Karnan, who was posted in Madras high court, was transferred to Calcutta HC after he cast aspersions on many judges and even ordered a CBI probe against Madras HCs Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.
He then stayed his transfer order, forcing the Supreme Court to authorise a freeze on his functions as a judge. Later, he wrote to the Chief Justice of India, acknowledging that he had passed an erroneous order due to his mental frustration resulting in loss of mental balance.
Also, the Madras high court had filed an application in the Supreme Court alleging that Justice Karnan has in his possession 12 files that have to be returned to the court.
In June 2013, Justice Karnan had passed an order that ruled that if a couple of legal age indulged in sexual gratification, it would be considered as a legal marriage and they would be termed as husband and wife. Following an uproar, he passed another order putting a gag on everyone from making adverse comments.
Vamshi had gone to California in 2013 and completed his MS in Silicon Valley University. (Photo: Twitter)
New Delhi: The culprit responsible for the killing of a 26-year-old Indian man in Santa Clara County of California last week has been arrested, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday and assured all assistance to the family of the deceased.
In a series of tweets, the minister said, "I am pained to know about the tragic death of your brother Vamshi Mamidala. My heartfelt condolences to your family.
"I have got report from our Consulate in San Francisco. The report says Vamshi was killed by a drug addict on Friday evening at Milpitas."
"The culprit has been arrested. Our Consulate is in touch with your family. We assure you of all help and assistance."
According to Vamshi's family, the incident happened when Mamidala Vamshi Chander Reddy was returning after completing his part-time shift at a local store in Milpitas.
Vamshi had gone to California in 2013 and completed his MS in Silicon Valley University. While he was looking for a job in the software industry in the US, he recently took up a part-time assignment at a local store.
Chennai: DMK President M Karunanidhi, who has not been politically active over the past two months following illness, would meet people next month, a senior party leader and MLA said today.
"Thalaivar@kalaignar89 is doing good, dont believe d rumours. He is taking rest as per doctors advice,he will meet d ppl nd month of March," DMK MLA J Anbhazhagan said in a social networking site.
The 93-year-old party patriarch was admitted to a private hospital in December for breathing difficulty due to throat and lung infection. Doctors also performed a tracheostomy to help him breathe. He was discharged after week-long treatment, with doctors advising him complete rest.
A photograph of the DMK chief watching television from his bed was released by the hospital to allay rumours about his health condition.
DMK appointed Karunanidhi's son and party Treasurer M K Stalin as its Working President on January 4, at the party's general council meeting where Karunanidhi was not present.
New Delhi: Government on Monday opposed in Supreme Court a petition moved by senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh challenging the Lok Sabha Speakers decision to certify the bill on Aadhaar as a money bill on the ground that it covered all constitutional provisions to bring it under the ambit of money bill.
Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi countered the arguments made by senior advocate P Chidambaram, who appeared for Ramesh, and said the Aadhaar bill was certified as money bill to avoid its scrutiny before the Rajya Sabha which does not have any say on a money bill.
However, the AG said the Speakers decision cannot be challenged in the court and moreover the legislation covered all mandatory requirements under the Constitution to be certified as a money bill as all expenditure on social welfare programmes connected with Aadhaar will be withdrawn from the consolidated fund.
Pressing for the scrutiny of the Speakers decision to certify the Aadhaar Bill as Money Bill, Chidambaram said it is important to see what can be certified as money bill.
A bench, comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice N V Ramana, which heard the matter at some length, was of the view that the issue raised in the petition was serious.
However, it noted in agreement with the submission of AG that the issue involved was pertaining to the withdrawal of money from the consolidated fund.
The bench, asked Chidambaram to look into all objections raised by the AG and posted the matter after four weeks, saying it did not want to quickly take a call on the issue.
The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial & Other Subsidies, Benefits & Services) Bill, 2016 was discussed and passed in the Lok Sabha on March 11 last year. It was then taken up in Rajya Sabha on March 16, where several amendments were made to it. The bill then returned the same evening to Lok Sabha which rejected all amendments proposed by the Upper House and passed it.
On May 10, 2016, the AG had opposed the petition filed by Ramesh saying constitutional provisions barred him from challenging it.
Under the Constitution, it is a settled position that a money bill certified by the Speaker is beyond challenge, the AG had said.
However, Chidambaram had then submitted that when there was a violation of rule of law, locus is not the ground on which the petition can be thrown out.
When the bench had asked if it (treating Aadhaar Bill as Money Bill) is open to judicial review, the AG had said there was no violation of fundamental right of Ramesh and hence the petition filed by him under Article 32 of the Constitution cannot be entertained.
Chidambaram had said Aadhaar Bill cannot be treated as Money Bill, so the petition has been filed under Article 32.
The senior Congress leader had informed the bench that the Bill had its passage in the Lok Sabha through a voice vote but the Rajya Sabha Chairman, before whom the complaint was made, had said he had no power to act on the Bill certified by the Lok Sabha Speaker.
The bench had noted his submission that it was a grave matter and needed proper hearing.
The apex court had on April 25, 2016 sought the assistance of the AG but did not issue notice on the plea of Ramesh.
Lok Sabha had on March 16 passed the Aadhaar bill that aimed at better targeting of subsidies through the Aadhaar unique identity.
The House had adopted the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, by a voice vote after rejecting recommendations for five amendments made by the Rajya Sabha.
Armed with the Speakers decision that it was a money bill, the government had pushed it in Rajya Sabha which cannot amend it but only make recommendations for amendment to LS.
Once Lok Sabha passes a money bill with or without amendments recommended by Rajya Sabha, it is deemed to have been passed by both the Houses.
Showing urgency in getting the law through, the Centre had brought the measure to the Lower House on the same day, within an hour of being returned by Rajya Sabha.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who had moved the bill and piloted it in both the Houses, had also turned down the Oppositions argument that Parliament cannot legislate since the matter is before the Supreme Court.
Ramesh, while proposing amendments in the bill in Rajya Sabha, had expressed anguish that it was brought as a money bill, an act he likened to knocking a nail in the coffin of the Upper House.
Calling the passage of the bill in this manner a very dangerous trend, Ramesh had said the government has tried to bypass Rajya Sabha by doing this.
Insisting that a series of conditions are specified in Article 110 of the Constitution and that the Article used the word only if those conditions are prevalent can a bill be declared a money bill, he had said that the Aadhaar bill, which was passed as a money bill, had ignored five recommendations made by the Rajya Sabha.
It had many other provisions and most constitutional experts have given the view that the Aadhaar bill is not a money bill. While the prerogative of declaring a bill as a money bill or not is that of the Speaker and the Speakers decision is final, the recommendation to the Speaker to consider making it a money bill is that of the government.
It is the government that decides whether it is a money bill or not and the Speaker only certifies it as money bill, Ramesh had said.
Moving amendments in the Upper House during consideration of the bill, the former Union Minister had argued that every individual should have the freedom to opt out of Aadhaar and said the present bill does not give that space.
Stating that he himself does not have an Aadhaar card, Ramesh had said a situation may arise when it may be needed even to book a flight or get a phone number.
He had opposed a provision in the bill terming it as broad and amorphous and could become the ground for misuse of the law as it gives sweeping powers on the grounds of national security.
He had suggested that rather than national security, the terms public emergency or public safety could be used. He had said that an independent member like the CVC should be included in the panel that decides which information regarding a person can be shared.
Ramesh had said any suo motu powers, even to collect information, should not be given to the Aadhaar authority and gave an instance that it could even direct collection of DNA.
He had said there were concerns of privacy and the amendments moved by him were in line with the recommendation of a Commission headed by Justice (retd) A P Shah, which had been set by the Planning Commission to examine the matter.
Pro-BJP organizations in Kerala have sought Home Minister Rajnath Singhs intervention to stop the spate of political killings in the state. (Photo: Representational Image)
Kochi: A 20-year old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker Nirmal was hacked to death late on Sunday night in Mukkattukara of Thrissur district.
The BJP has alleged that Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers are behind murder of Nirmal, and have called for a strike in Thrissur district today, reported ANI.
Kerala has recently seen a spate of political violence. In January, a BJP worker was stabbed to death allegedly by CPI(M) activists at Andaloor in Dharmadam, the constituency of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The attack on Santosh (52) took place when he was alone in his house.
The same day, a country bomb was hurled at the RSS Karyalaya at nearby Thaliparamba. Though none was injured, the window panes of the office were damaged.
Though Santosh was rushed to the hospital, he died on the way, Kannur Superintendent of Police K P Philip said.
BJP observed a hartal in the district, where the 57th state School Arts festival was on. Shops and businesses downed shutters and vehicles went off the roads.
Pro-BJP organizations in Kerala have sought Home Minister Rajnath Singhs intervention to stop the spate of political killings in the state.
Chennai: A day ahead of the Supreme Court verdict in disproportionate assets case, AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala on Monday said that she and her MLAs, staying at a resort at Koovathur, will leave the place happily on Tuesday after the apex court pronounces the judgement.
The Supreme Court will pronounce tomorrow at 10:30 AM the much-awaited judgement in a disproportionate assets case, in which late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and V K Sasikala were accused.
The verdict is being eagerly awaited as Sasikala, who has been elected the leader of AIADMK legislature party, has already made a claim for the post of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.
Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and her relatives V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, were accused of allegedly amassing disproportionate asserts to the tune of Rs 66.65 crore during her first term as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996.
Addressing around 100 MLAs staying at the Golden Bay Resorts, Sasikala said We will leave this place happily tomorrow. MLAs were seen applauding and screaming that she would emerge a winner in the case.
"We have decided to do everything in a peaceful manner because we have to face people for the next four years," Sasikala said.
For the third day in a row, Sasikala held 'key discussions' with party MLAs put up at the resort and will spend the night at the resort.
She had held discussions with her MLAs at the resort on Saturday and Sunday and stressed the need to stay united to form the government.
Remembering late chief minister Jayalalithaa, Sasikala broke down and said AIADMK government would continue to rule Tamil Nadu.
Attacking Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, she said, They (OPS camp) have been threatening woman MLAs of dire consequences if they don't move over to his camp.
Before meeting the MLAs, Sasikala toured the Koovathur village. "I walked into a house and saw a portrait of Amma. It shows how Amma continues to live in the hearts of the people," she said.
On February 5, Sasikala was elected as the party's Legislature Leader, a step towards her elevation as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.
However, two days later, Panneerselvam had revolted against her, alleging that he was forced to step down for her. Support has been swelling for Panneerselvam, with a state minister and six MLAs (one of them is also a Minister) and 11 MPs switching over to his camp.
Chennai: Acting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam will on Monday leave for the state secretariat, to once again assume duties as the CM.
Before leaving for the secretariat, the caretaker CM offered prayers and met supporters at his residence.
Police personnel have been deputed in large numbers outside the secretariat.
Panneerselvam now has 7 out of 134 AIADMK MLAs on his side, in his ongoing power struggle with party general secretary Sasikala Natarajan. 11 MPs have also provided support to OPS.
Meanwhile, DMK working president MK Stalin also arrived at the Tamil Nadu secretariat on Monday.
OPS on Sunday said the 129 MLAs, staying in a private resort near Chennai, should be released and they should meet people in their respective constituencies to get a sense of the public mood.
He said Sasikala should release the legislators from the resort and allow them to meet the people.
Panneerselvam also alleged that by shedding crocodile tears, Sasikala kept the MLAs on her side.
"Let her release them...so that they can go to their respective consitutencies and meet the people and take a good decision," he told reporters in Chennai.
Stressing that the Tamil people were well aware of the current political scenario, he said, "Not only in India, people across the globe are monitoring the situation."
Noting that he was working as per his conscience, Panneerselvam said he did not invite any of his Cabinet colleagues when he had gone to meditate at Amma's (Jayalalithaa) memorial last week after which he said he was forced to quit from the Chief Minister's post.
Asserting that he was always a staunch loyalist of Jayalalithaa, Panneerselvam said, "In the last 20 years not even once has Amma criticised me."
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Sunday said the 129 MLAs, staying in a private resort near Chennai, should be released and they should meet people in their respective constituencies to get a sense of the public mood.
He said the legislators should be released from the resort and allowed to meet the people in their respective constituencies.
Panneerselvam also alleged that by shedding crocodile tears, Sasikala kept the MLAs on her side.
"Let her release them...so that they can go to their respective consitutencies and meet the people and take a good decision," he told reporters in Chennai.
Stressing that the Tamil people were well aware of the current political scenario, he said, "Not only in India, people across the globe are monitoring the situation."
Noting that he was working as per his conscience, Panneerselvam said he did not invite any of his Cabinet colleagues when he had gone to meditate at Amma's (Jayalalithaa) memorial last week after which he said he was forced to quit from the Chief Minister's post.
Asserting that he was always a staunch loyalist of Jayalalithaa, Panneerselvam said, "In the last 20 years not even once has Amma criticised me."
On whether the administration had come to a standstill due to the ongoing crisis, he said it was not true as he has been meeting government officials everyday.
"Every day I am in touch with the officials. Day before yesterday, the Chief Secretary and DGP met me and we discussed several issues. Tomorrow, I'm going to the Secretariat," he said.
He said Deepak and Deepa, the niece of late leader J Jayalalithaa, were the only blood relations of Jayalalithaa.
"When Amma's mortal remains were in the hospital on the night of December 5, she was not allowed to pay her respects even at that time," he alleged.
To a query on the assets of Jayalalithaa, he recalled it was her wish that all her assets go to the party.
On a query as to how confident he was about forming the government, he said, "When the Assembly convenes, I will prove my majority there."
On the press conference addressed by AIADMK chief Sasikala, he asked why she did not meet the press when Jayalalithaa was hospitalised and why was she speaking to reporters now.
Meanwhile, another AIADMK MP extended his support to Panneerselvam, taking the total number of Parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
AIADMK MP R Parthiban representing Theni district called on O Panneerselvam at his residence in Greenways Road, Chennai later this evening and offered his support to him.
Bengaluru: Amidst "delay" in inviting VK Sasikala to take oath as chief minister, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Sunday in Bengaluru that motives cannot be attributed to Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao as he is discharging his duties as Constitutional head of the state in a "non-partisan manner".
The senior BJP leader made the statement when asked about the political uncertainty in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala had earlier written to the Tamil Nadu Governor over the "delay" in inviting her to form the government.
"When you are writing to the Governor, nobody should attribute motives to him. He is behaving in the most non-partisan manner and doing his duty," he said.
There is no vacancy (on the post of Chief Minister) to be filled because there already is a government which is headed by a Chief Minister, he said.
Naidu was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event in Bengaluru.
Naidu said the outcome of the ongoing intra-party turmoil in AIADMK can only be decided by the party and its leaders.
He also sought to clarify that it was not because of BJP that O Panneerselvam had resigned.
"The fact is that Panneerselvam was elected as the Chief Minister during madam's (Jayalalithaa's) period also.
Subsequently, AIADMK leaders themselves have made him the Chief Minister. I am not his advocate to explain on his behalf," he said.
Replying to another query, Naidu said the Governor is studying the situation and is duty-bound to go by the Constitution and provide a stable government to the people of Tamil Nadu.
Naidu also clarified that BJP has no member in the Tamil Nadu assembly and there was no chance for the party to form a government there.
He said BJP does not want to fish in troubled waters of Tamil Nadu politics and dismissed as "unfair criticism" the allegation of interfering.
"We are not preparing any ground. It is their internal matter. Both the AIDMK General Secretary and Chief Minister Panneerselvam are making statements. We don't want to fish into the troubled waters," he said.
Transcription
1 Presented at Short Course on Geothermal Development and Geothermal Wells, organized by UNU-GTP and LaGeo, in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, March 11-17, GEOTHERMAL TRAINING PROGRAMME LaGeo S.A. de C.V. PLANNING LARGE SCALE GEOTHERMAL DRILLING IN KENYA Paul K. Ngugi Geothermal Development Company Limited Nairobi KENYA ABSTRACT Two large scale drilling projects are currently underway in Kenya and one is scheduled to commence soon. The 280 MW Olkaria I & IV entails drilling of 62 wells most of which have already been drilled proving over 360 MW. The 400 MW Menengai Phase I projects aims at 120 steam and re-injection wells, five of which five have been drilled and 800 MW Bogoria Silali phase I in which 200 wells are scheduled to be drilled. Altogether, Kenya seeks to drill about 400 wells by The national least cost power development plan requires that geothermal develop at least 5000 MW additional capacity by INTRODUCTION Kenya is currently undertaking two large scale drilling projects. The 280 MWe Olkaria I & IV that has a drilling scope of 62 wells where five rigs have been used at one point. About 59 wells have been drilled proving steam in excess of 360 MW. The 400 MWe seeks to drilling 120 wells using six rigs, two of which are on the project location, two are to be delivered soon and the balance will be delivered early In addition, the third 800 MWe project is scheduled to commence soon which aims at the drilling of 210 wells using 8 rigs by 2018/ NATIONAL PLANNING Since 1996, Kenya has been undertaking power studies that are frequently updated culminating into a 20 years national least cost power development plan (LCPDP). The current study is an update focusing of the period (Energy Regulatory Commission, 2011). It is in particular aligned to the aspiration of Kenya Vision 2030 which aims to transform the country to middle income by The LCPDP is prepared under the Ministry of Energy, coordinated by the Energy Regulatory Commission with participation by key National agencies including staff from the Ministry of Energy, the national power utility, Kenya Power & Lighting Company Limited, the leading power generator, KenGen, and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. In summary, the studies forecast demand through evaluation of various alternative sources of power, carry out an economic analysis of each alternative by optimization and rank the alternatives based on their expected bulk tariff prices, the cheapest ranking highest. The most economic plan is then developed matching demand to most practically feasible plan to implement giving priority to the cheapest alternative to be implemented 1
2 Ngugi 2 Planning large scale drilling in Kenya first. Table 1 shows demand projection. It is anticipated that the peak demand will grow from the current estimate of 1,200 MW to about 16,905 MW. TABLE 1: Load forecast YEAR LOW SCENARIO REFERENCE SCENARIO HIGH SCENARIO GWh MW Load factor GWh MW Load factor GWh MW Load factor ,296 1, % 7,296 1, % 7,296 1, % ,729 1, % 7,775 1, % 7,943 1, % ,967 1, % 9,084 1, % 9,458 1, % ,335 1, % 10,560 1, % 11,224 1, % ,985 1, % 12,376 2, % 13,396 2, % ,516 2, % 15,155 2, % 16,644 2, % ,298 2, % 17,300 2, % 19,344 3, % ,507 3, % 19,902 3, % 22,650 3, % ,660 3, % 22,685 3, % 26,128 4, % ,014 3, % 25,512 4, % 30,069 4, % ,591 4, % 28,795 4, % 34,537 5, % Figure 1 depicts the current screening curve which is an economic representation of the various alternative power sources available for Kenya. It indicates that geothermal source is the only competitive for load factors exceeding 60% and is therefore best suited for base load power. Table 2 represents the current least cost power development plan that matches power plants to the projected demand taking into consideration probability of the additional new plants to be implemented and retirement of the old ones. It is anticipated that the increased demand will be met by installation of additional capacity from Geothermal sources (5,000 MW), and from various other sources of energy including imports, nuclear, coal and hydro. The studies also put in place plans for evacuating the power to be generated. The resulting document is used for sector coordination by ensuring that all value chain work is synchronous and for prioritization of various alternative projects not only for access to the market but also financing by government and donors is attained. 3. STRATEGIC PLANNING LEVEL Geothermal is the most economic option for Kenya and is therefore the preferred option for development. This has been the case since 1996 when the first least cost power development plan was prepared. Despite this being the case, development in the sector has been very slow. The slow development has been attributed to large upfront capital requirement, high upstream resource risks, limited financing for exploration drilling, long gestation period and lack of drilling equipment in the country. The Government has now prioritized geothermal development and has mandated to accelerate development. To achieve the desired development at an accelerated pace various strategies are being developed and implemented. 3.1 Facilitation of independent power producer (IPP) The Government recognizes that without public and private investor participation, it will be impossible to realize the desired level and pace of development of geothermal in the country. As such there has been strategy change that has led to formation of. s business model deviates from the previous public dominated development of facilitating private sector entry as a way of
3 Planning large scale drilling in Kenya 3 Ngugi mobilizing development capital. s immediate strategy is to avail as much steam and as quickly as possible which will be sold to the IPP (Figure 2). Tremendous expression of interest to construct power plants has made large scale drilling feasible. In addition, ownership of the resource remains with the Government. The importance of these factors is that many different IPPs can tap the same reservoir with good management hence having much parallel development. FIGURE 1: Screening curves
4 Ngugi 4 Planning large scale drilling in Kenya TABLE 2: Least cost expansion plan Year Configuration Capital Type Added Total System Reserve Reserve ending cost capacity capacity peak margin margin 30th June (Mln US$) MW MW MW MW as % of peak ,363 1, % TANA HYRO KIP3 156 MSD 120 1,503 1, % EBURRU Geothermal OLKWH Geothermal SANG 78 HYDRO 21 1,531 1, % AEOLUS WIND TRIUMPH MSD GULF MSD MELEC MSD OLKWH Geothermal WIN1 Ngong , % OLK4 Geothermal LTWP Turkana KGT1 Gas Turbine KGT2 Gas Turbine OLK3 Geothermal OSIWO WIND IMPORT HYDRO OLKWH Geothermal KIND HYDRO OLK1-4&5 Geothermal 140 2,888 2, % OLKI Geothermal X 25 SMHY Hydro GEOT 1022 Geothermal ARM Coal 20 3,168 2, % 3.2 Government funding resource assessment Kenya experimented by granting concession for green field without success. This is primarily due to the fact that cost of resource assessment estimated at about 100 million US$ for Kenya was way beyond what many private entities would raise for a high risk venture. Financial institutions will also not finance this phase of development due to the perceived risks that may jeopardize their investment. On the contrary, the Government has in the same period developed over 380 MWe worth of steam in two fields. The effect of the Government intervention is that the country has been able to attract funding to the tune of 1.3 billion (Ngugi, 2012). The large sum of money has made it possible to undertake the large scale drilling operations with limited financial strain. In addition, over 19 private investors have expressed interest to develop geothermal in various fields in Kenya after has committed to undertake resource assessment. and the Government are amassing funds to open a third field in order to take advantage of the large interest expressed by privates sector. Continued Government financing of resources assessment is therefore imperative. 3.3 Integration of modular generation units for early power generation At Olkaria today, 385 million dollars has been sunk in drilling 59 wells over a period of five years. Unless early power generation is employed, the assets will remain idle for the next two years as the power plants are constructed. Any wise investor in this circumstance would wish to stop further
5 Planning large scale drilling in Kenya 5 Ngugi Surface Exploration Exploration and Appraisal drilling Feasibility Study Production &Development of steam Supply Private Entity Sale of Steam Construction and Operation of Power Plant Investment by Private entity FIGURE 2: business model drilling until the available steam is put to use after commissioning of the plant. However, integration of early power generation using modular units will not only provide power early for the nation but also generate revenue for the project and the assets (wells) will not be idle. The gestation period of the project will be greatly reduced and investor will be more confident with further drilling. 3.4 National human and equipment capacity Kenya has undertaken detailed surface studies on most of its 14 prime prospects and continues to update the studies through infill work. The greater understanding of the fields has empowered Kenya geoscientist and engineers who are driving the geothermal development in terms of making decisions. These national human resource and equipment capacity has been instrumental in undertaking large scale drilling. In addition, the study documents are used by financiers as a basis for evaluating financial proposals for a specific field. Kenya already possesses 5 rigs and is scheduled to acquire 4 more in the next one year. This rig capacity will enhance drilling in opening up green fields as well as increasing the drilling pace for ongoing projects. 4. OPERATIONAL LEVEL 4.1 Project preparation For any of the green fields, the Government through endeavors to finance the field opening activities. These include rights to access project area, the environmental permit to undertake the envisaged development, the construction of the main access road, installation of water reticulation system, and drilling of exploration and appraisal wells. Acquisition of land rights, environmental license and a successful exploration wells are strong framework by which external financing is solicited. At this level of development, Kenya has observed that both financing institutions and IPP are willing to commit financing for further development. It takes about two years to prepare a project to this level of development.
6 Ngugi 6 Planning large scale drilling in Kenya 4.2 External funds mobilization Kenya has found it very useful to prepare a development concept note for each of its projects. The concept note will detail the project objectives and scope, the approach to development, basic roles and responsibility of various major parties anticipated in the project, a project budget, time schedules, proforma income and cash flow statements based on derived or assumed bulk supply tariff and preliminary project appraisal in terms of its break even and pay-back period (Figure 3). This information memorandum helps financial institution field staff most of whom are non-technical to appreciate the project and conduct the initial consideration for financing of the project. Supported by a positive detailed surface study document, an environmental and social license, land rights and a discharging discovery well with sound financial projections, financial institutions will be keen to support projects. FIGURE 3: Cash flow projection 4.3 Procurement of drilling hardware and consumables Kenya procures it drilling equipment, hardware and consumables from overseas mainly China, Japan and United States of America. Procurement lead time at about six months for most goods but casings could take a year. The long procurement lead times pose serious challenges to large scale drilling. For this reasons, Kenya aims at bulk purchases. 4.4 Infrastructure Each drilling rig requires a minimum of 2000 lt. a minute of drilling water. Drilling activities employing three rigs or more on one project site will poses great challenge to adequately provide drilling water. Kenya has several large water bodies within the development areas. Where feasible, these water bodies have come in handy. However, boreholes are also being used to provide water. In order to manage the water situation, large reservoir water tanks (Figure 4) have been built. In addition, use of brine for drilling is becoming a common option to alleviate the need. FIGURE 4: Water reservoir tanks at Menengai
7 Planning large scale drilling in Kenya 7 Ngugi 4.5 Well siting During exploration, appraisal and in the early production phases, the resource is not delineated. At this point of development subsequent wells are sited based on information obtained from the previously drilled wells. It is not uncommon to change new well site at short notice. Rigs require drilling pad that take on average about 2 months to construct. Such short notice of change of location can result in rig idle time waiting on pads, access road and water to be made available. This challenge is aggravated when two or more rigs are on project location. To manage this situation additional resources are necessary to prepare alternative pads in parallel. Multi-well drilling pad coupled with directional drilling is also a strategy being employed to reduce pressure on drilling pad construction and the risk of drilling multiple dry wells. 4.4 Staffing As a result of 5000 MWe development goal, for a 12 rig operation, Kenya will require to develop a 1000 strong technical team ranging from scientists and engineers to drilling crew and field and laboratory technicians, who will be involved in the geothermal resources development. Kenya has had only one rig operation team numbering about 200 people in the resource development. This team has formed the backbone of the geothermal resourced development expansion plan that the Country is undertaking. There is however a capacity gap that requires to be speedily filled. As a policy, critical members of the rig crew are being employed one year ahead of rig delivery. The employment lead time allow the staff to be inducted and trained. Kenya is employing enhanced skills development approaches to meet the skills gap especially on-the-job and group trainings rather than individual training. Kenya has further entered into collaborations with training institutions most importantly the United Nations University Geothermal Training Program in Iceland to facilitate enhanced training. Further, expertise brought into the country to fill in skill gaps enjoins training as a deliverable so as to enhance on-the-job training. 4.5 Coordination Large scale drilling puts great demand to management and carries higher probability of making wrong and expensive decisions. Regular management meetings are held to review plans, stock inventory, well siting, conceptual model update and drilling operations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The author thanks the United Nations University Geothermal Training Program, Management of Geothermal Development Company Limited () for providing the opportunity to write this paper, and the s corporate planning team who critically reviewed the manuscript. REFERENCES Kenyan Ministry of Energy, 2011: Updated least cost power development plan, study period Ministry of Energy, Republic of Kenya, 203 pp. Ngugi P.K., 2012: Financing the Kenya geothermal vision. Proceedings of the Short Course on Geothermal Development and Geothermal Wells, organized by UNU-GTP and LaGeo, Santa Tecla, El Salvador, 11 pp. Website:
A day ahead of Valentines Day on Monday, Teddy bears and other gift items were sold as in the city (Photo: DC)
Chennai: The Hindu Munnani appears to have stoked a controversy in issuing a warning against the observance of Valentines Day on Tuesday. While urging the youth to take an oath to protect our culture, the Hindu Munnani warned that its cadres would apprehend lovers who behaved in an uncivilised manner and hand them over to the police.
Calling for concerted efforts to resist gross westernisation and also initiatives to sustain our culture, Hindu Munnani founder-convenor Ramagopalan said western culture is being imposed on the people under the guise of modernisation.
But this should not be allowed. The youth should take an oath to protect our culture and the Government should prevent cultural degradation, he said. In this regard, he recalled the successful pro-Jallikattu protest which resulted in the upholding of the Tamil culture and age-old tradition of holding bull taming sport.
Contending that everyone had a role in preserving Indian culture, he said the public should prevent any acts of the youngsters who, in the guise of lovers, conducted themselves in an uncivilised manner. The police should remain vigilant and prevent such incidents. If there are any violations, our cadres will apprehend the violators and hand them over to the police, he said.
Things turned violent on the eve of Valentines Day with a group of Hindu Munnani party members torching Valentines Day posters in Coimbatore. About 23 men were detained by the police.
At the Senthil Kumaran Theatre in Ramnagar, the group of men who set on fire a number of Valentines Day posters, raised slogans of Bharat Mata ki Jai and We will protect our culture. They made a bonfire of posters advertising various Valentines Day themed events. We will destroy those who ruin our culture in the name of Valentines Day, they shouted.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will give its verdict on Tuesday on appeals against the Karnataka High Courts verdict acquitting the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister late J. Jayalalithaa, her aide Sasikala, Ilavarasi and V.N. Sudhakaran in the Rs 66 crore disproportionate assets case. A split verdict is most likely, sources said.
The crucial verdict is expected to determine the political fortunes of AIADMK general secretary Sasikala, who has staked claim to be appointed as the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.
A Bench of Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Amitav Roy, who had reserved verdict on June 7, 2016, are giving two separate judgements.
Verdict likely to be split
Now with both the judges giving separate judgments, it is likely that there is a split verdict. In the alternative, both judges may agree on conviction and sentence and give different concurring reasons.
If the apex court affirms the acquittal as ordered by the High Court, then there is no impediment for Sasikala to become the Chief Minister.
The Governor will have no alternative but to invite her to form the government. However, if the outcome ends in conviction, then it will be curtains down for her political career. She will have to go to jail and cannot contest elections for six years in addition to the period of jail term.
Meanwhile, advocate M.S. Sharma moved the apex court for a CBI probe into the alleged delay on the part of the Tamil Nadu governor in not inviting Sasikala to form the government after he had accepted the resignation of O. Panneerselvam as the Chief Minister.
The High Court in May 11, 2015 had set aside a September 27, 2014 judgement of the trial Judge John Michael DCunha in Bengaluru convicting the four accused and awarding them four years imprisonment.
The special public prosecutor B.V. Acharya had argued that Sasikala and two other accused floated benami companies and acquired wealth disproportionate to the known sources of income. He said the loans obtained by the accused in various banks during the check period were treated as income by the trial court and High Court.
MBDA, which has entered the race for supply of very short range air defence systems (VSHORAD), will transfer the technology for manufacture of Mistral missile by Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL), once the ministry of defence takes a decision on this missile.
BENGALURU: MBDA, Europes largest missile and missile systems company, plans to roll out the fifth generation anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) jointly with an Indian partner, under the IDDM or indigenously designed, developed and manufactured scheme, said Loic Piedevache, MBDAs Country Head, India.
ATGM5, as the missile is known, will be displayed at Aero India 2017 along with MBDAs extensive range of weapons for Rafale, as well as for Mirage 2000 and Jaguar upgrade programmes.
Drawing on and further developing technologies that we have been working on for the French Army, this most advanced of ATGM capabilities will meet specific Indian operational requirements. The ATGM5 project represents an important cornerstone of our Indian partnership strategy, Loic Piedevache, told Deccan Chronicle.
In addition, MBDA, which has entered the race for supply of very short range air defence systems (VSHORAD), will transfer the technology for manufacture of Mistral missile by Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL), once the ministry of defence takes a decision on this missile.
Mistral is very easy to use, its fire-and-forget which adds an important advantage when dealing with numerous, simultaneous very short range incoming threats and significantly, there is an important industrial element to the MBDA offer, he added.
He said, We are focusing on two key messages at this very high profile international show how MBDA will be providing the very best weapons to ensure optimum operational capability for the IAFs fleet, and how the Company is advancing its network of industrial partners within the Indian defence industry sector. We are actively enlarging our network of Indian industrial partners, particularly in the private SMEs and MSMEs sectors which are home of some very dynamic companies with the highly advanced technical skills that complex defence projects require. We are already working very closely with HAL on arming the Rudra and Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) with MBDAs Mistral air-to-air missile system. Integration of the ATAM launcher on Rudra has been successfully completed and has now started on the LCH.
Loic Piedevache said, Going beyond MBDA products, the most interesting take-away (from Aero India 2017) for MBDA lies on the industrial partnership front and the next few years look like being very interesting indeed as we continue to grow our network of business partners throughout the continent. The companys strategy for the next five years and beyond is to show its true commitment to working with India to make Make in India a success, he added.
Hyderabad: A joint inspection of three lakes in Tellapur by various departments of the TS government led by HMDA has officially confirmed what was long known: Multi storey buildings and other structures have been built by companies in the full tank level and buffer zones of lakes. Bar and restaurants, apartments and compound walls of big construction companies like Alien Developers have come up on lake land, according to a report submitted to the National Green Tribunal by the HMDA, revenue and panchayat departments.
The NGT had ordered inspection of the three lakes Vanam Cheruvu, Mella Cheruvu and Chelikunta on a petition filed in 2016 by Mr Thakur Rajkumar Singh of the Human Rights and Consumer Protection Cell Trust. HMDA officials inspected the three lakes from January 30 to February 2. Most of these companies had obtained NoCs from the irrigation department and clearances from revenue department and permission from panchayat raj and HMDA.
The inspection report, a copy of which is available with this newspaper, opens the Pandoras box on how no-objection certificates and permissions were given to these structures. HMDA commissioner T. Chiranjeevulu said, We have to look into how the irrigation department issued NoCs to these builders. The joint inspection showed that there are constructions in the lakes and nalas. We are to yet to fix final boundaries of the lakes, which will be done after calling for objections. After the final notification of lake boundaries, we can arrive at a conclusion regarding the encroachments.
The HMDA said in its report, Regarding three lakes of Tellapur the preliminary notification for FTL declaration has not been issued as the revenue department has not done boundary demarcation and the irrigation department is yet to submit FTL certification to the Lake Protection Committee of the HMDA in spite of correspondence.
After much dillydallying, the much sought after alternative road to the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) was unofficially thrown open to the public Monday afternoon.
The alternate road to KIA is finally here! Unofficially thrown open to the public on Monday, a day before Aero India 2017 kicks off, this road will bring relief to harried commuters. Theres a lot lacking the road is in bad condition and citizens trying to catch a flight are likely to avoid it. Experts agree that while it can be spruced up in time, throwing open HAL for shorthaul flights is the more sustainable solution.
After much dillydallying, the much sought after alternative road to the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) was unofficially thrown open to the public Monday afternoon. With the five-day Aero India 2017 taking off on Tuesday, the alternative road that will officially open the same day, could come as a huge relief to commuters on the busy Ballari Road leading to KIA. But the journey from the Begur village to the circle where the traffic from KIA merges with the rest will be muddy, dusty and bumpy until the Public Works Department gives the route its final touches.
Traffic expert, M. N. Sreehari believes the alternative road may divert about 40 per cent of the current traffic on Ballari Road, taking a huge load off it. Air passengers from the Eastern and South Eastern parts of the city will benefit majorly. The alternative road is however, not uniform and will have to be improved for a smooth and accident- free ride to the airport, he observes.
Read | Guest column: Various routes need to be developed to ease traffic on Ballari Road
Could the Navayuga contractor, who executed the elevated road to the airport, object to the alternative road? In his view he may have no reason to unless the alternative road runs parallel to the elevated road.
Additional commissioner of police (traffic), R. Hitendra says the traffic police will be posted along the route to divert and guide the cabs heading to KIA from the alternative road for a few days till they get accustomed to it. Noting that there has been a demand for the alternative road for some time, he says it is bound to ease congestion on the busy KIA road, especially during Aero India 2017.
Mr Naresh Narasimhan, an architect and commuter, hopes the alternative road will in time be improved and made accident -free. But he believes the government needs to focus on using the HAL airport for short haul flights to Mangaluru, Belagavi and Chennai and for intra state air service to take the pressure off the busy Ballari Road despite the opening of an alternative route to the KIA.
The alternatives
The alternative Road to airport set to open on February 14 will run via Hennur, Kannur, Bagalur, Mylasandra, Begur to KIAL.
Other not so popular alternative road to KIAL:
From southern and western part of city: Via Yeshwanthpur, GKVK, Yelahanka , avoiding the bottleneck at Hebbal.
From the south-east and eastern parts of city: Via Thanisandra, Nagawara, Bagalur and SH 104.
From extreme eastern parts of the city: Via K R Puram, Bagalur and SH 104.
From north eastern parts of the city: Via Hoskote road, state highway 35 and via Devanahalli.
Residents who parted with property in no mood to celebrate
While the alternative road to KIAL from Hennur and Thanisandra is likely to prove a huge help to people of East and South East Bengaluru heading for the airport, those living in villages that the road cuts through and the landowners, who have parted with their properties for it, are hardly in a mood to celebrate.
Says 55-year old Narayanappa of Begur village, who had to part with 1.20 acres for the road, "Some two months ago, officials of the Public Works Department began surveying our land and informed us that the government was planning to buy it for the alternative road to the airport. I have been offered Rs 8 lakh for my land when its value could run into crores once the muddy road to the airport becomes a fully developed tarred route to it. The money I have been offered is not big enough to invest in anything.
Another villager, Muniraju of Kannur, who has a poultry farm not far from the Kannur Road, is afraid that the toll- free alternative road could lead to heavier traffic in the area 24x7 and affect the health and growth of his poultry. I may have to invest in sound barriers, he adds worriedly.
While these villagers are dreading the impact of the alternative road on their livelihoods, shopkeepers and tender coconut and sugarcane juice vendors here are looking forward to it boosting their business. Real estate too is expected to boom along the stretch as land on either side of the road could be exploited commercially to cater to the airport passengers.
Chennai: On a day marked by heightened political activity on Monday, caretaker Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam attended office spending the whole day at Secretariat while a determined AIADMK general secretary V . Sasikala who appeared unfazed by the SC verdicts outcome, vowed to win the battle for chief ministership.
Mr Panneerselvam, received a surprise visitor in MLA from South Madurai, SS Sarvanan, who had scaled a wall to escape from the luxury resort where party legislators are being kept.
Hyderabad: Shia United Committee leaders belonging to Akbhari and Usuli schools on Monday decided to request Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to intervene in the issue of setting up a separate Wakf Board for the community.
They said the Wakf Act 1995 mandated the constitution of a Wakf Board for Shias wherever 15 per cent of the total Wakf properties belong to the community. They said their resolution was taken in view of the direction of the Hyderabad High Court to the state government to consider the representation of Anjuman-E-Alavi Shia Imamia Ithna Ashari (Akhbari) for a separate board within six weeks. The committee resolved to carry out their legal fight for a separate board. to protect their properties.
Eighteen months after they were bifurcated, the Wakf Boards of Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh are trying to sort out distribution of funds.
Hyderabad: Eighteen months after they were bifurcated, the Wakf Boards of Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh are trying to sort out distribution of funds. The AP Wakf Board claims that the TS board has to give it Rs 41 crore. The TS government claims that the AP government has to pay the Telangana Minorities Finance Corporation Rs 100 crore.
According to officials of the two Wakf Boards, both the government came to an agreement in the presence of the Centre with regard to division of funds of Wakf institutions and properties. As per the agreement, Wakf institutions located in AP and TS went to the respective boards. The TS government agreed to give Rs 41 crore held in fixed deposits to the AP Wakf Board.
AP Wakf Board chief executive officer Abdul Khadir said that as per the agreement, the TS board had to pay another Rs 23 crore for the land to the south and north of the Haj House at Nampally, as these had been purchased with funds from the Ishaq Mohiuddin Baba Dargah at Visakhapatnam.
He said that during negotiations the AP Board had asked for land, but the TS board had said that it would pay the land cost with interest from the year 2006. He said that the Haj House cost Rs 9.16 crore, of which Rs 3 crore belonged to AP. It was agreed during bifurcation that Rs 3 crore would be paid to the AP Board by the TS Board as and when it relocated its offices, the Urdu Academy and the Haj Committee.
He said that as per the agreement, the TS Board had to pay Rs 4.5 crore as cash on hand as on September 8, 2015, the date on which the board was bifurcated. The CEO said till date they had received only Rs 5.6 crore. Because it had not received the funds, the Wakf Board was unable to shift to AP. TS Wakf Board officials say the AP Wakf Board and AP government have settle the issue of Rs 100 crore belonging to the Minorities Finance Corporation.
Mr Syed Omar Jaleel, secretary of the TS minorities welfare department, It is not a tussle, but it is fact that there are issues which have to be sort out between the states. He said that the AP minorities welfare minister had written to the Telangana state government seeking a meeting to sort out the issues. It would be held soon, he said.
Hyderabad: Chairman of the Telangana state council for higher education (TSCHE) Prof. T. Papi Reddy has given an ultimatum to private degree college managements to either implement government decisions like biometric attendance, aimed at increasing accountability, or not offer courses and admissions in the next academic year.
The government is very firm on recording attendance of staff and students this way it helps colleges in improving the quality of education, Prof Papi Reddy said while speaking at a meeting of the Telangana private degree colleges association here on Monday. He said more colleges than are required have been started in the last decade. This was why filling of seats is becoming a problem. There are more Degree colleges than Junior colleges in the mandal headquarters in some districts, he pointed out.
Prof Reddy called upon college managements to bring up issues concerning them and that authorities would be happy to help out, but the government would not compromise on quality improvement measures. Vice-chancellors of Mahat-ma Gandhi, Palamur, Tel-angana and Telugu universities also gave their views on the subject. G. Ramana Reddy and Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy of the association requested the state council to oversee the degree online admissions process and allot 20 percent seats under management quota.
JNTU raps staff via FB on attendance:
In order to digitalise the attendance system, Jawah-arlal Nehru Technological University here recently implemented the Biometric Attendance System (BAS) for all JNTUH- affiliated college staff and faculty. But, it was noticed through the system server that most of the staff members are not using this system for entry and exit.
The administration has released a notice on the JNTUH Facebook page to make sure that the faculty follows the new system without fail. Registrar N Yadaiah said, As its the beginning of the system, problems are likely. Many staff members are not used to this system and are not recording their attendance. The notice is issued to create more awareness among the existing staff.
Thiruvananthapuram: The state government has approached the Supreme court seeking exemption of five-star hotels, beer & wine parlours and toddy shops from the purview of a recent order banning liquor shops within 500 metres of national and state highways. It further pleaded for exemption of toddy, beer and wine from the definition of liquor.
While the state's move invited criticism from anti-liquor activists, excise minister T. P. Ramakrishnan maintained that the government had only sought some clarifications on the December 15 judgment to shift liquor outlets. In the plea filed at the Supreme Court, the state also sought exemption of liquor outlets of Kerala State Beverages Corporation (Bevco) and Consumerfed on highways within the limits of municipalities and corporations from being shifted. While the Supreme Court had set April 1, 2017, as the deadline for shifting the outlets, the state has sought time till April 2018 citing difficulties in identifying the new spots.
Sources said the state government sought a clarification or modification that the December 15 order does not apply to liquor licences issued to 5-star hotels and beer and wine licences issued to non-five star hotels and restaurants. Denying reports that the state sought exemptions, Mr. Ramakrishnan told reporters in Kozhikode that taking into account various factors, it was impossible to implement the Supreme Court directive to shift liquor shops alongside the highways. The state required more time to effect the order, he said. He said the government was under tremendous pressure as there were protests against the shifting of outlets.
Eight-year-old Nawar Anwar Al-Awlaqi is said to have bled to death over a two-hour period (source).
"The 11-year-old was woken by the commotion outside and went to see what was going on. ... He asked them Who are you? but the [U.S. soldiers] shot him. He was the first killed."
Abdelilah Ahmed al Dahab, describing his son's death
When you murder people in Yemen, you murder Muslims.
Yours truly
Nine young children killed: The full details of botched US raid in Yemen
[...] It was a moonless night and the calm in Yakla was punctured only by the familiar sound of drones buzzing overhead.
In the middle of the night US special forces flew from the aircraft carrier USS Makin Island in Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and landed a few kilometres from the village. ...
The operation began when the soldiers landed next to the graveyard which lies about 2km away from our town, north of Yakla, Sheikh Abdelilah Ahmed al Dahab said. The soldiers then proceeded on foot, flanked by military dogs, in the direction of the village. Villagers say there were about 50 soldiers.
An 11-year-old is the first hit
His son Ahmed was the first casualty. According to al Dahab the 11-year-old was woken by the commotion outside and went to see what was going on. When my son Ahmed saw them, he couldnt tell that they were soldiers because it was dark, he said. He asked them Who are you? but the men shot him. He was the first killed. No one thought that marines would descend on our homes to kill us, kill our children and kill our women. [...]
SEAL Team 6 attacked the home of 65-year-old Abdallah Mabkhout al Ameri, surrounding it and opened fire indiscriminately, Abdelilah al Dahab and other witnesses claimed. When people heard the gunshots and missiles, local men rushed out of their homes to find out what was going on, he said.
Three witnesses said the commandos shot at everyone who left their homes. In these lawless parts of Yemen every home has a Kalashnikov and the residents reached for their guns to defend their homes and their honour, Abdelilah al Dahab said.
The villagers say 38-year-old mother of seven, Fatim Saleh al Ameri was fatally shot by special operators while trying to flee with her two-year-old son Mohammed. We pulled him out from his mothers lap. He was covered in her blood, said 11-year-old Basil Ahmed Abad al Zouba, whose 17-year-old brother was killed. The operation began when the soldiers landed next to the graveyard which lies about 2km away from our town, north of Yakla, Sheikh Abdelilah Ahmed al Dahab said. The soldiers then proceeded on foot, flanked by military dogs, in the direction of the village. Villagers say there were about 50 soldiers.
There's a lot of noise being made about the "anti-terrorist" strike in Yemen ordered by President Trump, and a lot of noise should be made about it.But behind the partisan jabbings is a brutal fact people are being murdered in these "strikes." And another brutal fact both political parties have normalized these ... well, they must be called what they are ... war crimes.From a report on the Trump-ordered raid (do read; it's excellent), I want to tease out just this detail (h/t Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films , via email):This happens under all U.S. presidents who order such actions. More:I don't want to continue this, but there's plenty more at the link Yes, they killed some "terrorists" ... maybe ... including an 80-year-old man, though what "terrorism" means in Yemen is fully in doubt. It's actually a three-way civil war, as the article makes clear, and we may just be doing the Saudi nationalist king's dirty work.As they article makes clear, actions like these are sparking more revenge than thanksgiving. Will those who take that revenge also be called "terrorists"? This is a global game of Hattfields versus McCoys. Were they "terrorists" too? (And which are we, the Hatfields, or the McCoys?)In the last century, the U.S. hung people for commiting them . In this century, what Bush initiated Obama normalized by behavior and legalized made "lawful" by statute. Now Trump and his foreign policy advisors have a free hand to treat anyone in the world any way they want. War crimes are a bipartisan op in this country.And a racist one as well. If the child at the top of this piece were I hate to say it Caucasian, would it have stopped these Democrats (do click; do memorize the list) from putting the CIA in the hands of Mike Pompeo and his known-torturer Deputy Director?When you murder people in Yemen, you murder Muslims. These raids, these murders, are not just on Trump. They're on every Democrat who enabled him. How much of the globalized "war on terror" is just globalized racism? Will it hurt the "Democratic Party brand" to collaborate with it I hope Democrats are prepared with answers to those questions. I'm certain, as Trump takes us down, they will be asked.GP
Labels: collaboration, Democratic Party brand, Gaius Publius, Pompeo, racism, torture, Trump, War on Terror, Yemen
Sources said the doctors went to treat a few MLAs who had complications.
Chennai: Doctors in three ambulances arrived at the Golden Bay Resort on Monday afternoon to apparently conduct a medical check-up on some of the MLAs who have complaints of diabetes and blood pressure.
The ambulances belonging to a private hospital in Chennai made their way into the resorts, only to come back after one hour. Sources said the doctors went to treat a few MLAs who had complications.
The roads to the resort, which were engulfed in darkness for four days, are lit now, following agitation by locals. Electricity board officials admitted to have repaired the damaged lampposts at the locality. An EB official said, Many lamp posts remain broken. We have deployed additional staff on Monday afternoon to complete the works.
Kannamma, a fisherwoman said, The locality resembled a forest, with no street lights. After threatening to demonstrate, the lights are lit now, even though the locality surrounding the resort remains dark.
The fisherman community from many hamlets including Adayalachery, Katankadai, Kadalur, Chinna Kuppam, Periya Kuppam, and Alai Kuppam are worried as they anticipate riots on Tuesday, after the Supreme Court judgement in DA case. We are vulnerable. It is the weak and the poor, who are the sufferers of riots and political clashes, said a resident from Alai Kuppam, quoting the jallikattu violence.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: National Womens Commission member Sushma Sahu on Monday met the girl students at Law Academy Law College and also two other girl students who had faced moral policing at University College. Ms Sahu is on a two-day visit to the state after the state BJP delegation visited her seeking a probe into the growing number of atrocities against women in the state. She also visited BJP minority morcha general secretary Asha Sherins home at Mudavanmughal here in Thiruvananthapuram,
However, Ms. Sahu, who is visiting the state for the second time within a year, was annoyed with the Government alleging that there were protocol violations including not providing security, vehicle despite informing the officials concerned. Asha told Ms Sahu that she was facing problems with her neighbour, Mr. Thampi and his two sons who owe allegiance to CPM and DYFI. Later the NWC member met Asmitha Kabeer and Soorya Gayatri at Thycaud Government Guest House, the two girl students who allegedly were at the receiving end of moral policing.
Around 75 girl students of Law Academy Law College met Ms Sahu and appraised her of the alleged atrocities being meted out by former principal Lakshmi Nair. Ms Sahu informed the students charges would be brought against former principal. Significantly, when Ms. Sahu was talking to the students, Lakshmi Nairs husband Mr. Nair Ajayakrishnan, a director of the college, barged into the classroom and pleaded with the students not to lodge any complaint. A visibly shaken Ms. Sahu asked him to leave the room.
Later, Ms. Sahu told DC that there had been protocol violations by the state government. I hold the rank of additional secretary in the Government of India. Despite informing the chief secretary of my visit, he did not make any arrangements forcing me to fend for myself." Ms. Sahu has given a written complaint to Home secretary Nalini Netto and DGP Loknath Behera against the attitude of City Police Commissioner Sparjan Kumar and Assistant Commissioner K. E. Baiju when she sought the details the case.
Dehradun: Hitting back at AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi for comparing rebel Congress leaders joining BJP with "garbage", Union Minister Rajnath Singh today said Congress was a sinking ship which was being deserted by everyone.
"A Congress leader yesterday said BJP had picked up its garbage. Now that they (rebel leaders) are with us you are comparing them with garbage. You should realise that Congress is a sinking ship which is being deserted by everyone," he said addressing an election meeting in Doiwala area here as the campaigning for the February 15 Uttarakhand Assembly polls came to an end.
On Congress's charge that BJP had engineered defections in the party, Singh said his party was not responsible for the "sorry state" of Congress.
"No one else is to be blamed for what has happened to you (Congress). Your boat had a hole through which water entered into it," he said in reference to as many as 12 Congress MLAs deserting the party and joining BJP recently.
Exhorting people to give BJP a chance to serve them for five years, the Home Minister said the 2014 Lok Sabha polls were a turning point in the country's electoral history as people for the first time gave absolute majority to a non-Congress government at the Centre.
"The result of their verdict is for everyone to see.
India is the fastest growing economy in the world today.
It has been acknowledged by economists all over the world.
"In the last two and a half years of the Modi government, there has not been a single corruption charge against any Central minister. The country's prestige has increased internationally under the strong leadership of Narendra Modi," Singh said.
The senior BJP leader also hailed the government for the PoK surgical strikes carried out last year.
"The surgical strikes gave a message to the whole world that we are a peace loving country with no expansionist ambitions and want friendly relations with our neighbours, but if provoked, we will retaliate. Both sensitivity and courage are needed to run a democracy," he said.
Accusing the Congress governments of doing nothing for the hill state despite being in power for 10 years there, Singh said "people of the state will have to make the lotus bloom if they wanted a clean government capable of bringing about real development."
Earlier, Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti asked people to vote overwhelmingly in favour of BJP saying the Congress-led state government was the main roadblock in the path of its development.
"A BJP government in the state will ensure early completion of the Rs 12,000 crore all-weather chardham roads as well as projects related to Namami Gange," she said.
Chennai: When the past threatens to speak through the present, it needs extra care to decipher its implications.
The ongoing political tussle between the AIADMK general secretary, Ms V.K. Sasikala, recently unanimously elected by her party MLAs as its legislature party leader as well, and the caretaker Chief Minister Mr. O. Pannerselvam, whose loyalty to the former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has by now become a mini-discourse, unfolds a mixed text.
Just rewind to Fort St. George three decades ago: Soon after the AIADMKs founder-leader and former Chief Minister, M G Ramachandran had passed away on December 24, 1987 an interim cabinet headed by the senior-most in the MGR Ministry and then Finance minister, Dr V R Nedunchezhian was ushered in on the same day by then Tamil Nadu governor, Mr. S.L. Khurana. The unfolding high-drama in Chennai for a week now, shares striking similarities and contrasts with those hard-to-gloss-over tumultuous days.
The intra-party power struggle on both occasions predictably followed the demise of two very popular and successful Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu in recent decades, MGR then and now his successor, J Jayalalithaa.
In the post-MGR scenario, as his one-time fund manager and long-time film industry friend and later Minister, RM. Veerappan, had emerged as a power centre, certain decisions by MGR had already catapulted Ms Jayalalithaa on a leadership climb.
While Mr. Veerappan backed MGRs widow, Janaki Ramachandran to lead the party and the government, the split in the AIADMK then quickly surfaced, with the emergence of two distinct factions, centred on Mrs. Janaki and the charismatic Ms. Jayalalithaa.
Interestingly, the party positions in the State Assembly as on January 1, 1988 and now after Ms. Jayalalithaas demise in 2017, are similar at 131 and 134 MLAs respectively. But one key difference was the Congress then had 64 MLAs, while DMKs strength was reduced to just 12 after ten of its MLAs led by Prof K Anbazhagan had been expelled in December 1986, for their burn-a-part-of-constitution stir over the Hindi language row.
The then speaker, popularly known as sky-high P.H. Pandian, who is now in the O. Pannerselvam (OPS) camp, had also declared those ten seats vacant. But now it is a sea change in the oppositions composition, amid DMKs strong showing with 89 MLAs and Congress reduced to one-eighth of its strength to eight MLAs in 2017.
Second, after MGRs death, the then Governor had appointed Dr Nedunchezhiyan as acting Chief Minister, and on his advice appointed an interim council of Ministers with the latter entrusted with the subjects handled by MGR. Significantly, going by the Assembly records, Dr Nedunchezhiyans changed role was till the election of a new leader by the party in majority in the Assembly.
And once Mrs. Janaki Ramachandran was elected as leader of the AIADMK legislature party on January 7, 1988 the Dr Nedunchezhiyan-led interim cabinet resigned on the forenoon that day and Mr. Khurana lost no time in appointing a new Ministry with effect from the same day. It was an 8-member Cabinet headed by Mrs Janaki with Mr Veerappan being the Number 2, and also the leader of the House.
Here, one looming contrast in 2017 speaks out for itself. After Ms Jayalalithaas death was formally announced late evening of December 5, 2016 later that night Mr. O. Pannerselvam, senior-most in her Cabinet and already in-charge of her portfolios since Amma fell ill, was ushered in by the present Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao as the next Chief Minister, while all the previous Cabinet ministers were retained.
Unlike two rival top-level meetings of the AIADMK convened in the post-MGR context when one of which elected Jayalalithaa as the general secretary in 1987, in the present situation, her long-time confidante Ms Sasikala was unanimously chosen as the partys general secretary on December 29, 2016 by the AIADMK general council. And Ms Sasikalas equations with OPS dramatically changed overnight, since her elevation as the leader of the AIADMK legislature party on February 5, 2017, and the open revolt by Mr. Pannerselvam two days later when he said he had to quit his post under duress.
Nonetheless, the automatic transition that was seen in Mrs Janaki Ramachandrans case in January 1988 was not to be seen in February 2017 vis-a-vis Sasikala, amid mounting protests both in social media and by opposition parties to the latter becoming CM.
Now, the scenario looks far from shifting to the Assembly for a floor-test as some more MPs, former MLAs and functionaries gravitate towards Mr. Pannerselvam, while several others in the AIADMK are ostensibly waiting for the Supreme Court verdict in the assets case against Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and few others, expected next week.
However, in 1988, a motion expressing confidence in the Janaki Ramachandran ministry, moved in the House on January 28 by Mr Veerappan then, was carried after unprecedented violence, leading to dissolution of the eighth Assembly and imposition of Presidents rule in Tamil Nadu on January 30, 1988.
Significantly, the then Speaker P. H. Pandian, using the powers under the Anti-Defection law, had first disqualified six senior AIADMK ministers in the outgoing Ministry including Dr Nedunchezhiyan, Panruti S Ramachandran and Su. Thirunavukkarasar, all of whom had backed Ms Jayalalithaa for the partys top post, based on a MLAs petition that they had incurred disqualification on the ground of voluntarily given up their membership of the AIADMK party.
As many as 27 other AIADMK MLAs, identififed with the pro-Jayalaithaa faction, were also subsequently disqualified for being absent in the House when the confidence motion was put to vote that day and thus violating the party whip. When the voting outcome showed ayes 99, noes 8 and neutral- 3, it reflected a vastly truncated House that day after the melee.
The Congress, till then a key ally of the AIADMK, had also backed out with the then party president, Mr Rajiv Gandhi making it clear the previous day that his partys support was only for MGRs undivided legacy. Though the key political players are now different, similar dilemmas could now pan out in the event of a floor test, particularly for MLAs backing Mr. Pannerselvam once the AIADMK legislature party issues a whip.
New Delhi: The central government will not interfere in the political developments in Tamil Nadu as it is an internal matter of the state, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said on Monday.
"This is an internal matter of AIADMK. There is no question of the central government intervening as we have no locus standi," the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
Rijiju said if Tamil Nadu goes into a situation where the intervention is required in terms of constitutional machinery to be maintained, the central government will act only then.
"This is a political matter and in this kind of political situation, the central government cannot intervene," he said.
"It comes under the state affairs. Why should the central government interfere there. There is no reason. The matter is an internal matter between the various groups or the MLAs of the AIADMK," he said.
With no solution in sight for government formation in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK has asserted that a majority of its MLAs are behind General Secretary V K Sasikala.
Party spokesperson Vaigai Chelvan said Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had the support of seven MLAs and cannot, therefore, prove his majority in the Assembly in the event of a floor test.
However, six more AIADMK MPs had joined Panneerselvam yesterday, taking the number of parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
When asked about the Centre's response to the seizure of counterfeit Rs 2,000 notes from the border in the past month, Rijiju said the central government was serious on the issue and would act accordingly.
"If there is any movement of fake currency, then this government is not like the previous government. We will act in a way that its results are shown. We are serious about the issue, and will take such a step to prevent this," he said.
The central security agencies and police reportedly intercepted a few consignments of counterfeit Rs 2,000 notes between December 2016 and January 2017 from areas near Malda in West Bengal.
On February 8, West Bengal Police arrested a youth with 40 fake Rs 2,000 notes from Murshidabad district, which is termed as the biggest such haul from the porous Indo-Bangla border region post demonetisation.
Chennai: "After Thalaivar's (MGR's) death, Amma (Jayalalithaa) told me that she does not want to be in politics. But it was I who encouraged her to continue in politics," AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala said.
"Amma told me after Thalaivar's death that she was with the AIADMK and she does not want politics and positions. But it was I who encouraged and who ensured that she stays in politics," Ms Sasikala said.
She also recalled how late Jayalalithaa was "humiliated" at the Rajaji Hall where the late MG Ramachandran's body was kept for public viewing and was forced to return home without attending his burial on the Marina Beach.
Bengaluru: In an attempt to turn the tables on the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had alleged that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had made payoffs to the Congress top brass, the ruling party in the state has alleged that Union Minister Ananth Kumar and BJP State President B.S. Yeddyurappa have made a confession about giving money to the BJP central leadership and sought a judicial inquiry into the issue.
The private conversation between the two leaders is said to have taken place during the Bharatiya Janata Partys Core Committee meeting in the city on Sunday, while Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda was addressing the meeting.
Releasing the CD, where the conversation is barely audible, Congress spokesperson V.S. Ugrappa said there was a conspiracy to defame the state government by targeting Mr Siddaramaiah over the payoffs. We had said that the previous BJP government in Karnataka had looted over Rs 1 lakh crore through illegal mining and corruption. In the CS, Mr Ananth Kumar advises Mr Yeddyurappa to keep the Rs 1000 crore allegation alive till the elections. They were conspiring to defame Siddaramaiah during the elections. Besides, they confessed that they had given money to the Bharatiya Janata Partys central leadership when in power. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to his fight against corruption, he should moot an inquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court into the issue, Mr Ugrappa said.
When asked if both allegations made by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress on payoffs, should come under the purview of the judicial inquiry, Mr Ugrappa said that there was nothing to prove that money was paid to the Congress high command.
The judicial inquiry should focus on the confession made in the conversation between Yeddyurappa and Ananth Kumar, Mr Ugrappa said.
Whats in this audio CD?
Ananth Kumar: The CMs statement is like saying, they have given, so I have also given.
B.S. Yeddyurappa: He He He
Ananth Kumar: It seems you have given to high command, I have also given, but not Rs 1,000 crore. (Both laugh)
Ananth Kumar: You gave that time, so these people are also giving it seems. (Both laugh)
Ananth Kumar: That means, they have admitted.
BSY: But, will anyone write down the given? (laughs)
Ananth Kumar: (Laughs loudly)
Ananth Kumar: If you throw stone at slush, it will stick. No one will agree that CM has not given Rs 1000 crore. Everyone believes he has given money.
BSY: Let the diary come out
Ananth Kumar: Till election, let him keep giving replies.
BJP: Its fabricated recording
Stung by an alleged CD recording of a conversation between Bharatiya Janata Partys state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa and Union minister Ananth Kumar on payoffs made to the BJP high command, the saffron party has accused the Congress of fabricating the recording.
BSY revelation
Speaking to reporters, BJP spokesperson G. Madhusudhan said Congress leaders are worried after BJPs state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappas revelation about the diary entry made by Congress MLC Govindaraju on payoffs made by Mr Siddaramaiah to the Congress high command.
To divert attention from the issue, they had fabricated a CD in which Ananth Kumar and Yeddyurappa are in conversation and without presenting the full text of the conversation, they had come out with an edited version of the CD, Mr Madhusudhan claimed.
According to the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, in the CD, Mr Kumar is explaining to Mr Yeddyurappa what Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had told him.
The five ministers who addressed a press conference on Monday, had twisted the conversation to make it convenient for them.
It is very clear that the Chief Minister is involved in corrupt practices and many cases are coming out one after the other. To hush up the cases, Congress leaders are doing this, he said.
Chennai: DMK working president M.K. Stalin on Monday did not rule out support to one of the two AIADMK factions when a floor test is ordered by Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao, indicating that his party had not closed the option of supporting the faction led by Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam.
Speaking to reporters after a high level committee meeting of the party, Stalin said his party would take a 'good decision' before the floor test, when he was asked if the DMK would back either of the two factions. Earlier, he said the DMK is the principal opposition in the House and outside, the AIADMK is its political rival. Both the groups led by AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala and Panneerselvam are the DMK's opponents, Stalin declared.
He also declined to answer the allegations of Sasikala saying that he did not want to lower his dignity and waste time to answer her charges. When asked about BJP MP Subramanian Swamy's stand supporting Sasikala, the DMK leader said even people in his own party are not accepting his views.
He also cited the DMK resolution passed in today's meeting and said his party wanted the Governor to take an action without delay to form a stable government in the state according to the rules and traditions of the Constitution.
The MLAs should be allowed to vote freely in the Assembly and whoever had the majority should be allowed to form the government, Stalin said. He said people had been affected severely due to the power struggle between Kuvathur (where MLAs supporting Sasikala are staying and Greenways Road (Panneerselvam's residence). They are indulging in a fight to capture power and plunder the state.
The DMK resolution said people are suspecting if the Governor had been 'trapped' by the tough tactics of the BJP government at the centre and is unable to make alternate arrangements to form a government in the state. The Governor delaying the formation of a stable government is against the norms of democratic values and Constitution, it added.
An unstable situation had been created in the state due to the power struggle in the ruling party, it said and added that there is no Chief Minister or government.. Describing Panneerselvam as a caretaker Chief Minister, the resolution pointed out that the Governor had accepted Panneerselvam's resignation and stated that alternate arrangements would be made.
The government which had been disrupted for the last nine months for various reasons had come to a total standstill, the resolution said and added that the state government had not started discussions to prepare the budget. The DMK said the state is already plunged under mounting debts which had reached Rs 5 lakh crores and would be facing a financial crisis.
New Delhi: With high-octane campaigning for 67 seats in western UPs second phase polling coming to an end on Monday evening, the contest is expected to be mainly between the BSP and the SP-Congress alliance.
In this Muslim and Dalit-dominated region, the going for the BJP could be tough. The party apparently had the best shot in the 73 seats, which went to the polls in the first phase on February 11.
A Modi wave had swept Uttar Pradesh, including its western belt, during the 2014 general elections. But, in absence of a wave, electoral dynamics of caste and communities are expected to play a key role in deciding the fate of the contesting parties.
Muslim votes are expected to play a crucial role, and could be the deciding factor in majority of the constituencies in the second phase.
The BJP, which had earlier declared the SP as its main rival, changed tack to announce the BSP as the main force in Uttar Pradesh. Sources revealed that the BJP also intends to go soft on the BSP.
Reports from the state indicated that BJP chief Amit Shah at his Pilibhit rally on Monday chose not to mention the BSP.
Addressing a rally at Lakhimpur Kheri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi kept his focus on SP leader and state chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. While he flayed Mr Yadav for being blinded by absolute power, he avoided launching a scathing attack on BSP chief Mayawati. His only reference to her was when he questioned Akhilesh Yadavs role in probing corruption charges against the BSP supremo. Trying to woo the minorities, Ms Mayawati while speaking at Saharanpur on Monday warned Muslims that if they voted for the SP-Congress alliance, they would be favouring the BJP in the assembly elections.
At a time when West Asia is fragmented among warring forces and riddled with hypocritical boasts and claims, the magnificent ruins of Egypts Nile valley are a reminder of the cultural synthesis that underlie all great empires. The Ptolemaic temple of Horus, built between 237 BC and 57 BC at Edfu on the rivers west bank, recalled for me P.V. Narasimha Raos boast that India had assimilated all its foreign rulers save the last. Built by ethnic Greek royals in Graeco-Roman style, the monumental Edfu temple honours only Egyptian gods. Politeness possibly prevented Rao from suggesting that the British were obliged to yield to indigenous pressure precisely because unlike the Edfu temples builders they stood aloof from the country. The popular maxim that good government is no substitute for self-government supports the assumption that imperialism is repressive and exploitative. Israel, todays imperial power in West Asia, is rightly castigated for trying to legalise more and more illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which idealists and optimists hope will one day emerge as a sovereign Palestine. Since race is seen as defining the enemy, nobody points out that this might have happened more than 50 years ago if the late King Hussein of Jordan, an Arab like the Palestinians, had not been terrified that a sovereign state under Yasser Arafats Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would threaten the Hashemite kingdom the British had created to reward his alien family for helping them against the Ottomans.
History is trampled in the desert sands. The Palestinians must have laughed last Wednesday when Jordans foreign minister, Ayman al-Safadi, bravely declared, The Palestinian cause is a priority for all Arabs. King Husseins half-English son, King Abdullah II, made similar pious noises. Little point is served by now recalling the summits and secret pacts, conspiracies, lobbying, attempted assassinations, and foreign interventions that preceded the horrible massacre of Black September 1970, when the Royal Jordanian Army attacked the PLO. Estimates of the dead during those 10 days vary from 3,000 to more than 5,000, with Arafat, who escaped murder, claiming that 10,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were butchered. The head of a Pakistani training mission to Jordan, the American-trained Brigadier Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (later President of Pakistan), played a key role in planning the offensive. By then Israel had conquered the West Bank, and Jordan could blame the Jews for Palestines tragedy.
Things are never what they seem in West Asia. Jordans royal family were hereditary Sheriffs of Mecca until another deadly foe, naturally also Arab, King Ibn Saud of what is today Saudi Arabia, drove them out of the Arabian peninsula. Continuing the analogy, the Israelis, with whom Arabs have fought several wars (and lost them all) are their first cousins, fellow-Semites by blood, followers of the book (the Old Testament) by religion, although mainly European culturally. The story goes that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd US President, promised King Ibn Saud to pressure Israel to allow an independent Palestinian homeland but died before the pledge could be redeemed. When state department officials mentioned it to his successor, Harry S. Truman is believed to have retorted he had a hundred thousand rich and influential Jews among his constituents but did not have a hundred thousand Palestinians to whom he was similarly obligated. The Palestinian cause suffered another setback last week when Nikki Haley (born Nimrata Randhawa), Donald Trumps United Nations ambassador, refused to allow UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to appoint the former Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, as UN envoy to Libya. Mr Trumps ethnic Indian ambassador said she did not support the signal this appointment would send within the UN, where Palestine is not a full member. For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, she added. She promised alarmingly that Mr Trumps US will act, not just talk in support of Israel. When he was still only President-elect, Mr Trump telephoned Egypts current President, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi, and told him to withdraw an Egyptian-sponsored UN Security Council resolution against the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Mr Sisi promptly obeyed, much to the delight of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels hardline Prime Minister. Not that the US President flows straight and tranquil like the Nile. In a sharp reversal of comments made only a week ago, he is reported also to have indicated he does not believe the growth of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories is good for peace. Sowing further confusion over his often contradictory pronouncements both during the election campaign and since his inauguration Mr Trump made the remarks to a right-wing Israeli freesheet paper Israel Hayom owned by the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who donated $20 million to Mr Trumps campaign. The paper is regarded as a mouthpiece for Mr Netanyahu, who will soon visit the White House. Mr Trump is also reported as saying he is still thinking seriously about moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, although admitting it may not be easy. Palestinians fiercely oppose the move.
The US is the power behind Israels imperial throne. Barack Obama was one of the few US Presidents since FDR to take a realistic view of the Palestinians. The most supposedly sympathetic Israeli leader, Shimon Peres, denied a separate Palestinian identity altogether and thought Jordan should accommodate the Arabs Israel had displaced. Neither Israelis nor Americans display the tolerance, flexibility or breadth of vision and imagination of the Greeks whose intricate carvings at the Edfu temple speak of a world where race was not synonymous with supremacist posturing and differences did not mean injustice. Todays West Asian players have much to learn from the past that is now preserved only for tourists.
At a ceremony in Amsinene, Chad, earlier this month, at the headquarters of the Chadian Special Anti-Terrorism Group, or SATG, the United States transferred 86 new vehicles to these Chadian Special Forces. U.S. Embassy Charge dAffaires Joyce Namde and Chadian Chief of Defense Lieutenant General Brahim Seid Mahamat conducted the formal vehicle handover ceremony.
The vehicles are intended to provide transportation for two counter-terrorism companies and one logistics company. These trucks will increase the counter-terrorism units ability to patrol Chads borders with Libya and protect against the threat of smuggled weapons and explosives. The logistics company received fuel and water trucks and other transportation vehicles that will improve the SATGs ability to re-supply the counter-terrorism companies.
Ms. Namde noted the strong relationship that the U.S. Special Forces have had with SATG over the past ten years. She recognized Chads strong dedication to the fight against extremists and the bravery and expertise of Chadian troops on the battlefield, and expressed hope that the new vehicles will improve Chads ability to conduct counter-terrorism missions.
The new SATG vehicles are just one example of the strong partnership between the militaries of Chad and the United States. Later this month, Chad will receive its final shipment of Toyota Light Armored Vehicles for Counter Boko Haram Operations, bringing the total to 60. The United States will also provide uniforms and individual food rations to Chads military in advance of the upcoming FLINTLOCK exercise.
FLINTLOCK is an annual regional exercise among African, allied and U.S. counterterrorism forces, and has taken place since 2005.
Flintlock is directed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sponsored by U.S. Africa Command.
Special Operations Command Forward - Northwest Africa conducts the Special Operations Forces exercise.
Occurring in nations across the Sahel region of Africa, the exercise develops capacity and collaboration among African security forces to protect civilian populations. FLINTLOCK participation has included ground and air forces from over 16 countries across a broad spectrum of operations.The United States is proud to work with Chad and its African partners to help those nations protect their peoples from the dangers of violent extremism.
The raid by the Army on a house in the Kulgam area of south Kashmir, in which four militants, a civilian and two jawans were killed on Sunday, shows the security situation in the Valley continues to be fragile. Militants being holed up inside a house is not a surprise. But the worrying part is that the local population came out in protest against the security forces action, and reports from two hospitals suggest a dozen civilians sustained bullet injuries. While more confirmation of these details may be required, this suggests in the first instance that the use of pellet guns may have been discontinued by the security establishment. These had caused injuries to the eyes, and there were also cases of blindness resulting from the action of the security forces against protesting civilian mobs in the Valley late last year following the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani.
In the absence of pellet guns, the renewed use of live ammunition if the hospital records quoted in the media are correct can only be cause for concern. Fortunately, there were no deaths. Else, the situation could have turned explosive. Still, the civilian protests after anti-militant operations is indicative of the public mood against the government, which apparently continues to be hostile. The most proximate cause of this is that there has been no political initiative on the governments part after the months-long Valley-wide protests that erupted in early July after Wani was killed in an encounter during a raid on a house in an orchard in south Kashmir. This part of the Valley appears to be in the grip of militant activity.
Home-grown militants have begun to once again fill the ranks of not only the Hizbul Mujahideen, a local Kashmiri group, but also the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, whose headquarters is near Lahore in Pakistan. According to official estimates disseminated in the media, in recent months about 60 local youth have been drawn to the militant outfits. Such tendencies will be hard to quell in the absence of carefully designed political steps taken by the government. The Mehbooba Mufti government is evidently hamstrung in the absence of an understanding between the PDP and the BJP, the ruling coalition partners in J&K, which seem to be on differing wavelengths. Ms Muftis PDP, which appears to have courted great unpopularity after last years protests, seems to be in the process of trying to recover lost ground within its constituency in Kashmir. The BJP, on the other hand, appears insensitive to local sentiments in the Valley, and instead prefers to appease its constituency in the states Jammu region. The coalition partners need to patch up urgently before concerted political steps can be taken in Kashmir.
The researchers' calculations show that if gravitational waves are found to travel at the speed of light, this would rule out alternative gravity theories, with no dark energy, in support of Einstein's Cosmological Constant.
Astronomers are testing an idea developed by Albert Einstein about a century ago to resolve a longstanding puzzle over what is driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.
Researchers have long sought to determine how the universe's accelerated expansion is being driven. Calculations in a new study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the UK could help to explain whether dark energy - as required by Einstein's theory of general relativity - or a revised theory of gravity are responsible.
Einstein's theory, which describes gravity as distortions of space and time, included a mathematical element known as a Cosmological Constant. Einstein originally introduced it to explain a static universe, but discarded his mathematical factor as a blunder after it was discovered that our universe is expanding.
Research carried out two decades ago, however, showed that this expansion is accelerating, which suggests that Einstein's Constant may still have a part to play in accounting for dark energy. Without dark energy, the acceleration implies a failure of Einstein's theory of gravity across the largest distances in our universe.
Scientists have discovered that the puzzle could be resolved by determining the speed of gravity in the cosmos from a study of gravitational waves - space-time ripples propagating through the universe. The researchers' calculations show that if gravitational waves are found to travel at the speed of light, this would rule out alternative gravity theories, with no dark energy, in support of Einstein's Cosmological Constant.
If however, their speed differs from that of light, then Einstein's theory must be revised. Such an experiment could be carried out by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US, whose twin detectors, 2000 miles apart, directly detected gravitational waves for the first time in 2015.
Experiments at the facilities planned for this year could resolve the question in time for the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Constant.
"Recent direct gravitational wave detection has opened up a new observational window to our Universe. Our results give an impression of how this will guide us in solving one of the most fundamental problems in physics," said Lucas Lombriser, from Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy.
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Scientists in a landing site workshop for NASAs upcoming Mars 2020 mission have recommended three locations on the Red Planet for further evaluation.
The three potential landing sites for NASAs next Mars rover include Northeast Syrtis (a very ancient portion of Mars surface), Jezero crater, (once home to an ancient Martian lake), and Columbia Hills (potentially home to an ancient hot spring, explored by NASAs Spirit rover).
Mars 2020 is targeted for launch in July 2020 aboard an Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The rover will conduct geological assessments of its landing site on Mars, determine the habitability of the environment, search for signs of ancient Martian life, and assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers. It will also prepare a collection of samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will build and manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
inputs from NASA
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ISRO got the go-ahead on Monday for its attempt to launch a record set of 104 satellites on a single rocket on Monday. (Representational image)
Nellore: ISRO got the go-ahead on Monday for its attempt to launch a record set of 104 satellites on a single rocket on Monday. Its mission readiness review committee (MRRC) as well as the launch authorisation board gave the green signal for launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) that will carry the satellites.
The MRRC, led by its chairman K. Narayana and LAB led by Shar director P. Kunhi Krishnan, decided to commence the countdown at 5.28am on Tuesday, and launch the rocket at 9.28am on Wednesday. In its 39th flight, PSLV will launch the 714-kg Cartosat-2 satellite for earth observation and 103 co-passenger satellites, together weighing about 664kg, at lift-off. The satellites will be placed in an orbit 505km above the Earth.
Of the 101 international co-passenger nano-satellites, 96 are from the US, and one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Nethe-rlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. The weight of all the satellites at launch will total 1,378 kg. The PSLV-C37 will also carry two Isro nano satellites INS-1A and INS-1B. These satellites carry a total of four payloads from the Space Applications Centre (SAC) and Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems (LEOS) of ISRO for conducting various experiments.
In a show of moral support, youths and students from different schools and journalist associations took out rallies in Nellore for the success of the launch. The school education department is also conducting elocution and essay competitions on the achievements of ISRO.
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Three methods of research find that the situation in which an online discussion occurs influences whether people will troll more than their personal past of trolling suggests. (Representational image)
Internet trolls, by definition, are disruptive, combative and often unpleasant with their offensive or provocative online posts designed to disturb and upset. The common assumption is that people who troll are different from the rest of us, allowing us to dismiss them and their behavior. But research from Stanford University and Cornell University , published as part of the upcoming 2017 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2017), suggests otherwise. The research offers evidence that, under the right circumstances, anyone can become a troll.
We wanted to understand why trolling is so prevalent today, said Justin Cheng, a computer science researcher at Stanford and lead author of the paper. While the common knowledge is that trolls are particularly sociopathic individuals that occasionally appear in conversations, is it really just these people who are trolling others?
Taking inspiration from social psychology research methods, Cheng investigated whether trolling behavior is an innate characteristic or if situational factors can influence people to act like trolls. Through a combination of experimentation, data analysis and machine learning, the researchers honed in on simple factors that make the average person more likely to troll.
Becoming a troll
Following previous research on antisocial behavior, the researchers decided to focus on how mood and context affect what people write on a discussion forum. They set up a two-part experiment with 667 subjects recruited through a crowdsourcing platform.
In the first part of the experiment, the participants were given a test, which was either very easy or very difficult. After taking the tests, all subjects filled out a questionnaire that evaluated various facets of their mood, including anger, fatigue, depression and tension. As expected, the people who completed the difficult test were in a worse mood than those who had the easy test.
All participants were then instructed to read an article and engage in its comment section. They had to leave at least one comment, but could leave multiple comments and up-votes and down-votes and could reply to other comments. All participants saw the same article on the same platform, created solely for the experiment, but some participants were given a forum with three troll posts at the top of the comment section. Others saw three neutral posts.
Two independent experts evaluated whether the posts left by subjects qualified as trolling, defined generally in this research by a combination of posting guidelines taken from several discussion forums. For example, personal attacks and cursing were indicative of troll posts.
About 35 percent of people who completed the easy test and saw neutral posts then posted troll comments of their own. That percentage jumped to 50 percent if the subject either took the hard test or saw trolling comments. People exposed to both the difficult test and the troll posts trolled approximately 68 percent of the time.
The spread of trolling
To relate these experimental insights to the real world, the researchers also analyzed anonymized data from CNNs comment section from throughout 2012. This data consisted of 1,158,947 users, 200,576 discussions and 26,552,104 posts. This included banned users and posts that were deleted by moderators. In this part of the research, the team defined troll posts as those that were flagged by members of the community for abuse.
It wasnt possible to directly evaluate the mood of the commenters, but the team looked at the time stamp of posts because previous research has shown that time of day and day of week correspond with mood. Incidents of down-votes and flagged posts lined up closely with established patterns of negative mood. Such incidents tend to increase late at night and early in the week, which is also when people are most likely to be in a bad mood.
The researchers investigated the effects of mood further and found that people were more likely to produce a flagged post if they had recently been flagged or if they had taken part in a separate discussion that merely included flagged posts written by others. These findings held true no matter what article was associated with the discussion.
Its a spiral of negativity, explained Jure Leskovec, associate professor of computer science at Stanford and senior author of the study. Just one person waking up cranky can create a spark and, because of discussion context and voting, these sparks can spiral out into cascades of bad behavior. Bad conversations lead to bad conversations. People who get down-voted come back more, comment more and comment even worse.
Predicting bad behavior
As a final step in their research, the team created a machine-learning algorithm tasked with predicting whether the next post an author wrote would be flagged.
The information fed to the algorithm included the time stamp of the authors last post, whether the last post was flagged, whether the previous post in the discussion was flagged, the authors overall history of writing flagged posts and the anonymized user ID of the author.
The findings showed that the flag status of the previous post in the discussion was the strongest predictor of whether the next post would be flagged. Mood-related features, such as timing and previous flagging of the commenter, were far less predictive. The users history and user ID, although somewhat predictive, were still significantly less informative than discussion context. This implies that, while some people may be consistently more prone to trolling, the context in which we post is more likely to lead to trolling.
Troll prevention
Between the real-life, large-scale data analysis, the experiment and the predictive task, the findings were strong and consistent. The researchers suggest that conversation context and mood can lead to trolling. They believe this could inform the creation of better online discussion spaces.
Understanding what actually determines somebody to behave antisocially is essential if we want to improve the quality of online discussions, said Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, assistant professor of information science at Cornell University and co-author of the paper. Insight into the underlying causal mechanisms could inform the design of systems that encourage a more civil online discussion and could help moderators mitigate trolling more effectively.
Interventions to prevent trolling could include discussion forums that recommend a cooling-off period to commenters who have just had a post flagged, systems that automatically alert moderators to a post thats likely to be a troll post or shadow banning, which is the practice of hiding troll posts from non-troll users without notifying the troll.
The researchers believe studies like this are only the beginning of work thats been needed for some time, since the Internet is far from being the worldwide village of cordial debate and discussion people once thought it would become.
At the end of the day, what this research is really suggesting is that its us who are causing these breakdowns in discussion, said Michael Bernstein, assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and co-author of the paper. A lot of news sites have removed their comments systems because they think its counter to actual debate and discussion. Understanding our own best and worst selves here is key to bringing those back.
This work was supported in part by Microsoft, Google, the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Stanford Data Science Initiative, Boeing, Lightspeed, SAP and Volkswagen.
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As part of the IIIT Hyderabad Foundations Avishkar programme, three start-ups from the city were selected for their unique approach towards technology. The start-ups will receive Rs 1 million (US$15,000) as seed funding in exchange for two per cent equity and six months of mentorship from IIIT.
Enhancing the view
DreamVu
DreamVu, a brainchild of Rajat Aggarwal, an MS in computer science, working as a teaching assistant at IIIT Hyderabad and Rohan Bhatial, an IIIT-H student is looking forward to revolutionise the entire viewing experience. Rajat hails from Ludhiana and Rohan is from Jammu, but they came together as a team when they met at IIIT-H. We are working towards making a compact user friendly Virtual Reality (VR) headset. Its a mirror like thing placed in front of a camera, which enables you to capture a 360 degree view. One can live stream the images as well. Our device can also help in security surveillance and virtual telephonic communications, shares Rohan. Elaborating on the project, Rajat says, I had been working on it for around two years as a part of my thesis. The making of DreamVu along with Rohan fell into place slowly, but it is going great. We have patented the product as well. We are looking forward to solve many more challenging research problems as we plan to change the VR landscape. Rohan adds, After we are done with our studies here, we may move out of the city, as I feel there will be much better prospects to take DreamVu to greater heights.
Deep-tech startup: Sunil Kumar Maddikatla, a research scholar at IIIT-H.
Blue Semiconductors
Creating Temperature Sensor Chips
Sunil Kumar Maddikatla, born and brought up in the city and a research scholar at IIIT-H, is the brain behind another winning start-up from the city Blue Semiconductors, which focuses on creating low-cost, low-power compact temperature sensor chips. Describing his initial days, he says, I began as a research scholar in 2015 and through my study, soon realised that IoT (Internet of Things), wearable and biomedical applications are going to be the future of India. I identified that the sensor and the battery play a vital role in the performance of a device. And both these vital parts are temperature sensitive. He adds, Our vision is to build Integrated Chips for electronic devices that consume low area, low power, low cost with highest accuracy. Our initial target market is wearable technology and IoT. Our device helps to keep the temperature in check and also displays the accurate temperature. The device will work in extreme conditions like -550 celsius to 1250 celsius, making it more suitable for the biomedical world. At present, Sunil has applied for patenting the device and is in talks with a few US-based companies.
Diminishing bots: Umesh Thotas start-up provides security frameworks.
Authbase
Making tech secure for developers
Another winner from the city is Authbase, a cyber security start-up by Umesh Thota that provides security frameworks for developers to test their applications. Our product enables monitoring for vulnerabilities in applications on web and mobile and uses machine learning to identify and diminish bots and hacks in real time, explains Umesh. He and his team are a part of T-Hub, where their journey started at the TiE-Mentorship program a few years back. Umesh pitched his cyber security idea and became a part of T-Hub, incubated by NASSCOM. The idea of cyber security hit me when I saw start-ups by my friends facing bug issues in their initial stages. I helped them detect bugs and later too, many other start-ups came to me to do a bug check, he says.
According to Umesh, most start-ups are building their applications in a very vulnerable way. He says, People are very enthusiastic about rolling out their businesses and are not giving proper time and care to build the UI with all security checks in place. Even larger enterprises face similar issues. When asked about his future plans, he shares, Being a second generation entrepreneur, business comes easily to me and Authbase happened to me at the right time. At present, we have two products in place with which we have been giving a demo to our clients in the US.
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Samsung had confirmed to launch an artificial intelligence digital assistant service for its upcoming Galaxy S8. (Representational image)
Samsungs upcoming smartphone Galaxy S8 is confirmed to incorporate a digital voice assistant, known to be called Bixby, however, did any one wonder what it will be made of.
Last year, Samsung announced the acquisition of Viv Labs, a firm run by a co-creator of Apples voice assistant Siri. A month later, the smartphone giant confirmed to launch an artificial intelligence digital assistant service for its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone. Many speculated that the rumoured Samsungs voice assistant Bixby will be based on Viv Labs program, but it will not be.
According to a report by Wall Street Journal, Bixby will be an upgraded version of Samsungs S Voice rather than an artificial intelligence program running on Viv Labs technology.
An earlier report claimed that Bixby is designed to answer voiced question from users and Samsung could include a hardware button dedicated to it.
Moreover, a trademark application filed by Samsung with European Trade Mark and Design Network has reportedly revealed Bixbys logo. In the filing, the logo resembles the alphabet B as well as the numerical 8.
Photo: SamMobile
It will represent smartphones, mobile telephones, portable computers, tablet computers, interactive computers software enabling exchange of information, software for searching and retrieving information across a computer network, software to enable the provision of information via communication networks and so on, the description in the trademark application reads.
The Galaxy S8 is expected to be launched at a separate event in New York on March 29.
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Washington: Claiming that illegal immigration costs the US about USD 100 billion a year, a top White House official on Monday said that the proposed wall along the US-Mexico border will pay for itself "many times over".
The White House statement came amidst news reports that the border wall would cost USD 21 billion.
"It's estimated that illegal immigration costs our country, state, local and federal benefits, about USD 100 billion a year.
"Stopping new illegal immigration, preventing the affects that will have on our schools, on our hospitals, on our welfare system, on our wage earners, will save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. This wall will pay for itself many, many, many times over," the White House Senior Policy Director Stephen Miller told ABC News in an interview.
"It's just astonishing to me that the media is so interested in how much it costs to secure our border and has no interest in the cost of refusing to secure our border," he said responding to a question on news reports that the wall would cost USD 21 billion and that it would be paid for by Mexico.
"There's all kinds of things we can do. I'm not going to make news today by announcing what our strategy is going to be. That's one thing that's different between this president and past Presidents is we don't lay out all of our cards for everybody to see," Miller said.
In a tweet, Trump criticized the news reports about the cost of the wall.
"I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the design or negotiations yet.
"When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Programme, price will come WAY DOWN!" Trump said in a tweet yesterday.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. (Representational image)
Washington: Silicon Valley-based Indian American IT professionals have expressed concerns over new bills on H-1B visa being introduced in the US Congress by the Trump administration, saying it would adversely affect the community.
Over a hundred Indian-American technology professionals gathered in the Silicon Valley recently to express their concerns on the issues and felt the need to create awareness on this issue among lawmakers and policy makers.
"While we support, reforms to curb any abuses, most of the bills are targeted to increase minimum salary and requirements very high that would adversely impact fresh Indian graduates from US universities as well as skilled professionals with fewer years of experience and they not be able to find employers who can be ready to pay the minimum salary as required by the criteria eg one of the bills is suggesting USD 130K per annum," said Khanderao Kand, president of Global Indian Technology Professionals Association (GITPRO).
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year.
Following the meeting, GITPRO recommended to create awareness among policy makers as well as industry leaders, to set salaries appropriate for skills, experience in a given geographical zone according to a market rate.
In a letter to the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rao said that currently, Green Card (permanent resident) applicants from India are unfairly being impacted due to a country-wise quota set for green cards.
"As a result of it, the applicants from India have to wait for more than a decade to their priority date become current compared with a less than one year wait for countries like Pakistan. Their children may lose an opportunity to have residence's status for studying in Universities," he said.
GITPRO has recommended creating awareness to support HR392 bill that has been introduced in the US Congress to abolish unfair country-wise quota.
Noting that currently, dependent spouse of H-1B visas are allowed to work in the US, Rao said a reform or bill has been in discussion to revoke the same.
"As a result, most of these talented professionals who won't be eligible to work in the US if the bill is approved," he said.
As such GITPRO has recommended creating awareness among policy makers as well as industry leaders, to create awareness about the impact of approval of this bill may lead to employees lose their ability to work in the US.
Khandarao said GITPRO would like to raise an issue that children of Overseas Citizens of India who are facing difficulties in education system in India.
Specifically, even though their parents are earning mostly in India and paying taxes to the government of India, the children are subjected to the status and fees same as NRI's earning and staying outside India, he rued.
Trudeau's close cooperation with Trump and the first daughter could ease some worries among Canadians that the U.S. president will enact protectionist measures that could hurt the Canadian economy. (Photo: AP)
Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Donald Trump will participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the work force Monday, an early sign of cooperation as Trudeau seeks to have good relations so Canada is not targeted in trade talks.
In his first face-to-face meeting with the new US president, Trudeau will also meet with Trump to talk about trade and participate in a working lunch.
A White House official and a senior Canadian government official said the two countries plan to launch a new task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The officials agreed to confirm the move only if they were not quoted by name because they were not authorized to make the information public.
Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter who has been an advocate for policies benefiting working women, was involved in recruiting participants and setting the agenda for the roundtable. Female executives from the United States and Canada are expected to participate.
Trudeau's close cooperation with Trump and the first daughter could ease some worries among Canadians that the U.S. president will enact protectionist measures that could hurt the Canadian economy. It could also alleviate some fears that Trump will be as combative with Trudeau as he has been with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.
The Canadian official said Trudeau's administration had suggested the task force, because the prime minister considers the issue of working women an important part of his agenda and economic growth plan.
"It's a smart thing if Canada proposed this," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto. "It takes attention off of NAFTA. And from Trump's point of view, it contributes to softening Trump's image, and he's got a problem with women."
Trudeau, 45, and Trump, 70, are polar opposites. Trudeau is a liberal who champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. He calls himself a feminist and his Cabinet is 50 percent women. Trump has few women in his Cabinet. He has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees.
Trump's order to temporarily halt entry into the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim nations, which is tied up in court, might come up during his bilateral meeting with Trudeau. But Trudeau is expected to focus on common economic interests.
Relations with the U.S. are crucial as more than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of U.S. exports go to Canada. There are fears among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy to Trudeau, said the prime minister needs to build a relationship with Trump to ensure Canada is not.
"The overriding priority will be for Canada to maintain secure and reliable access to the U.S. market and the supply chains that crisscross the border," Paris said.
Trudeau, whose father was the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has been preparing for the Trump meeting for months. He will also meet with legislative leaders on Capitol Hill.
Peruvian authorities believe fugitive former leader Alejandro Toledo, 70, is in San Francisco. (Photo: AP)
Lima: Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has urged US counterpart Donald Trump to consider extraditing fugitive former leader Alejandro Toledo, believed to be in the United States, to face graft charges. The net appeared to be closing on the former Peruvian president as Israel said it would refuse entry to Toledo, who is accused of taking bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Toledo's French-born wife Eliane Karp has Israeli citizenship.
"President Kuczynski has asked Donald Trump to evaluate... with the State Department the idea of sending Toledo back to Peru," where he is wanted on charges of taking $20 million in bribes while in office, state news agency Andina reported on Sunday.
However, the United States said it could not arrest Toledo until it received more information on the case, according to Peruvian officials, who were scrambling to send investigation documents to their US counterparts.
Peruvian authorities believe Toledo, 70, is in San Francisco. He is a visiting professor at nearby Stanford University.
Toledo issued a statement on Twitter late Sunday night, without revealing his whereabouts but denying he was on the run as he had not been facing charges when he left Peru.
"The court in Lima did not request my testimony to help with their investigation. On the contrary, it accused me of crimes that I have not committed and that the court cannot prove," he said.
Toledo has branded the accusations against him as political persecution. But he has struggled to explain the source of the money.
A White House readout of a call between Kuczynski and Trump did not mention Toledo.
Instead, it said the pair discussed the "humanitarian situation" and other concerns in Venezuela, and "the need to promote democratic governance throughout the Western Hemisphere."
The White House hinted at a future meeting between the two leaders.
Israel alerted
Toledo, once hailed as an anti-corruption champion, is accused of taking a huge payoff from Odebrecht in exchange for a massive highway contract connecting Peru and Brazil during his 2001-2006 presidency.
Peruvian police launched a manhunt for him after a judge ordered his arrest Thursday night. There is a $30,000 reward for information leading to his capture.
The Peruvian government has indicated that Toledo might try to flee to Israel.
"We heard from a solid source that he was trying to flee to Israel. So we alerted Israel," Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said on RPP Radio.
But Israel blocked any such effort by Toledo.
"Toledo will be allowed in Israel only when his affairs in Peru are settled," foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a statement.
Peru's authorities have a warrant for Toledo to be detained and held in preventive custody for 18 months pending a full investigation.
He is accused of influence peddling and money laundering.
At the moment, Toledo could leave the United States, since the US has not yet received the documents on which the warrant is based, according to Basombrio.
Israel's foreign ministry later said he was not aboard a flight from San Francisco that landed at the country's main international airport late Sunday.
Washington: US President Donald Trump was expected to unveil new measures on immigration as early as Monday in the name of keeping Americans safe, with a top aide insisting he did not overstep his authority with his controversial travel ban.
With the ban now frozen by a federal appeals court pending further legal review, Trump is considering and pursuing all options, presidential aide Stephen Miller told Fox News Sunday.
The White House could either file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, defend the merits of the order in lower courts or issue a new executive order. The last option was floated by Trump himself on Friday.
We are contemplating new and additional actions to ensure that immigration is not a vehicle for admitting people into our country that are hostile to its nation and its values, Miller said on NBCs Meet the Press.
Theres no such thing as judicial supremacy. What the judges did is take power away that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the United States.
The issue is sure to come up when Trump meets on Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said after the Republican leader issued his ban that Americas northern neighbour welcomes with open arms those fleeing persecution, terror and war.
While the fate of Trumps restrictions on refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries plays out in the courts, a separate executive order prioritising the deportation of undocumented migrants paved the way for the arrest of hundreds of people, many of them Latinos, this past week.
As thousands of Mexicans protested Sunday against Trumps vow to make the country pay for his big, beautiful border wall, the White House confirmed the presidents plans to weigh new action to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants.
As a result of the presidents order, greatly expanded and more vigorous immigration enforcement activities are taking place, Miller said of the deportation decree.
Earlier, Trump tweeted: The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!
Over the past week, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rounded up undocumented individuals living in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities in what it called routine operations.
Robust
But Miller indicated Sunday that the raids were made more robust under Trumps January 25 executive order prioritizing deportation of undocumented individuals convicted of or charged with any criminal offence, including misdemeanours.
It is true that Operation Cross Check is something that happens every year. But this year we have taken new and greater steps to remove criminal aliens from our communities, Miller said.
The large-scale raids began in 2011 under then president Barack Obama.
Many Democrats have called on the government to act in moderation, fearful that people without a criminal record will find themselves swept up.
The case of a mother in Phoenix, Arizona who was expelled to Mexico on Thursday crystallized such worries, even among some Republicans.
There is a lot of worry here in Arizona by those who... are illegally here but they have not committed aggravated felonies, said Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, adding that the only hope for permanent change lies in major Congressional reform.
New actions
Miller insisted in interviews Sunday that the president has the power to keep some people from entering the country.
The order that Trump issued abruptly in late January aimed to halt resettlement of all refugees for 120 days and that of Syrian refugees indefinitely.
It also barred for 90 days the entry of nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
The ban was supposed to be in place while the government comes up with a new system of so-called extreme vetting of people seeking entry visas.
This could include checks on their social media accounts, according to John Kelly, the secretary of homeland security.
But a federal judge in Seattle issued a stay against the order on February 3. A three-judge appeals panel in San Francisco then voted unanimously against reinstating Trumps ban.
The idea of the White House issuing a modified immigration order that would survive scrutiny in the courts does not convince Democrats, who from the outset have charged that Trumps decree is simply anti-Muslim and plays into the hands of extremists.
It will be used as a recruitment (tool) for terrorist organizations. It will put Americans at greater risk traveling abroad, said Democratic Senator Ben Cardin.
Jeff Lytle has been arrested for plotting to kill his wife and four-year-old daughter. (Photo: Facebook)
Monroe, Washington: A Washington man has been arrested for plotting to kill his wife and four-year-old daughter after he accidentally texted his boss asking for help instead of hitman.
According to a report in the Daily Mail, the accused Jeff Lytle of Monroe, Washington, wanted to send the text message to a hitman named Shayne. Instead, he sent it to his boss, who in turn alerted the police and got Jeff arrested.
While the case was under trial, prosecutors argued that Jeff had intended to kill to his family for their USD 1.5 million insurance cover.
In the text message, Jeff wrote, "Hey Shayne hows it going. You remember you said that you would help me kill my wife. I'm going to take you up on that offer."
He had allegedly promised to give half the insurance money to the hitman, the court heard.
Prosecutors also told the court that Jeff wanted his wife and daughter's death to be staged as an accident or a robbery incident. However, his plans went for a toss when he sent the text to the wrong person.
He has been currently detained at the Snohomish County jail.
United Airlines confirmed a pilot on a flight from Austin to San Francisco was removed from a plane on Saturday evening. (Photo: Pixabay)
Houston: A woman pilot was removed from a flight from Austin after she started "ranting" to the passengers about her divorce and then proceeded to complain about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
United Airlines confirmed a pilot on a flight from Austin to San Francisco was removed from a plane on Saturday evening.
United flight 455 was scheduled to depart Austin's Bergstrom airport just after 5 pm. Austin police also confirmed Saturday evening that the pilot was removed from the plane.
In a statement, United Airlines said, "We hold our employees to the highest standards and replaced this pilot with a new one to operate the flight, which we expect will depart shortly. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience".
A passenger on the flight said the pilot, who was not in uniform, "started to rant to the passengers" over the plane's intercom, KXAN reported.
According to the passenger, the pilot "first complained of her divorce, and then proceeded to complain about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton".
According to FlightAware, the plane departed ABIA approximately two hours late.
Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov greets journalists after casting his ballot at a polling station in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. (Photo: AP)
Moscow: Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who strolled to a fresh seven-year term in a Sunday vote, went from personal dentist of the country's eccentric former leader to head of state, before recreating much of his repressive predecessor's personality cult.
Berdymukhamedov took the helm of the Central Asian state over a decade ago after the death of its repressive first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who had styled himself as "father of the Turkmen people."
At the time, hopes bloomed that Berdymukhamedov might open up his isolated, gas-rich ex-Soviet homeland to the wider world.
He moved to strip away some of Niyazov's excesses but did not loosen the authorities' iron grip -- and has since erected a glitzy monument to himself.
Berdymukhamedov, 59, cruised to victory in elections on Sunday against eight token opponents.
Analysts say he could be gearing up to rule for life after a constitutional change last year.
Berdymukhamedov "is the 'decider' for the state of Turkmenistan," US diplomats wrote in a 2009 diplomatic cable that was subsequently leaked.
From teeth to the top
Born on June 29, 1957, the only son in a family of eight children, Berdymukhamedov was a career dentist who treated Niyazov's teeth before being appointed health minister in 1997.
After the strongman -- who had dominated Turkmenistan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 -- died suddenly in 2006, Berdymukhamedov ascended to the throne almost immediately with vital backing from the security services.
Niyazov had made the desert-bound country one of the world's most reclusive nations, building a cult of personality that saw him rename a month after his mother and erect a golden statue of himself that rotated with the sun.
In the early years of his rule Berdymukhamedov took steps to dismantle the omnipresent symbols of the previous leader's rule -- including removing portraits and shifting the statue from the centre of the capital Ashgabat to a suburb.
But very quickly he became yet another authoritarian leader in Central Asia.
There is no free media in Turkmenistan and horse-mad Berdymukhamedov enjoys fawning total coverage in the state press.
His poems are published on the front pages of the newspapers, a choir of thousands performed a song he wrote and even his attempt at DJing at his grandson's party was broadcast on the national news.
A small crack appeared in 2013 when a video surfaced online of the president taking a spectacular fall from his favourite mount during a race, but state media blanked the news.
That was only a minor blip, though, and in 2015 the authorities unveiled a golden statue of Berdymukhamedov atop one of his beloved horses with a dove perched on his hand.
While Niyazov kept his family mostly invisible from the public, Berdymukhamedov's son, Serdar, was elected to parliament in a by-election in November last year.
The strongman also frequently appears in public with his teenage grandson Kerimguly, another keen equestrian.
Gas wealth
Despite claiming after taking power that his guiding principle was "moderation" Berdymukhamedov has splashed his nation's gas wealth on vast pricey showpieces.
He built a golden-domed presidential palace worth a reported $250 million (234 million euros) in Ashgabat, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records for boasting the whitest marble in the world.
Last year the landlocked country opened up a new bird-shaped airport for the capital worth over $2 billion, despite seeing only a trickle of tourists.
But big-spending Turkmenistan has faced pressing challenges due to the plunge in global energy prices over the past few years.
Berdymukhamedov has publicly mused about making the country's 5.2 million citizens pay more for gas, electricity and water supplies that used to be free.
Officially Turkmenistan for the past two decades has described itself as neutral in world affairs but the country has become increasingly dependent on China, which buys over three-quarters of its hydrocarbons.
While turning its attention eastwards it has got in spats with Iran and former master Russia, accusing them of failing to honour gas imports.
But despite the signs of uncertainty that saw the government slash the value of its manat currency by a fifth in 2015, official media never fails to remind citizens they are living in the "era of supreme happiness of the stable state" declared by Berdymukhamedov in 2012.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un "personally guided the preparations" for the test, the KCNA report said, adding it was carried out in a way that took the "security of the neighbouring countries into consideration". (Photo: AFP)
Seoul, South Korea: North Korea on Monday confirmed it had "successfully" tested a ballistic missile, in what was seen as a challenge to new US President Donald Trump.
"A surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2... was successfully test-fired on Sunday," the state-run news agency KCNA said, describing it as a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system".
The missile was launched from Banghyon air base in the western province of North Pyongan, and flew east towards the Sea of Japan (East Sea), South Korea's defence ministry said Sunday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un "personally guided the preparations" for the test, the KCNA report said, adding it was carried out in a way that took the "security of the neighbouring countries into consideration".
Kim "expressed great satisfaction over the possession of another powerful nuclear attack means which adds to the tremendous might of the country", KCNA said.
"Thanks to the development of the new strategic weapon system, our People's Army is capable of performing its strategic duties most accurately and rapidly in any space: under waters or on the land."
Sunday's missile launch was an apparent test of newly elected Trump, who responded to the provocation by pledging "100 percent" support of Washington's key regional ally Japan.
The North Korean missile flew about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before falling into the sea, the South's defence ministry said.
"Today's missile launch... is aimed at drawing global attention to the North by boasting its nuclear and missile capabilities", the ministry said in a statement.
"It is also believed that it was an armed provocation to test the response from the new US administration under President Trump," it added.
It was the first such test since last October.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose country would be in range of a hostile North Korean missile launch, called the test "absolutely intolerable" during an impromptu press conference with Trump in Florida.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology. But six sets of UN sanctions since Pyongyang's first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.
Last year the country conducted two nuclear tests and numerous missile launches in its quest to develop a nuclear weapons system capable of hitting the US mainland.
South Korea's acting president Hwang Gyo-Ahn vowed a "corresponding punishment" in response to the launch, which came on the heels of a visit to Seoul by US Defense Secretary James Mattis this month.
Mattis had warned Pyongyang that any nuclear attack would be met with an "effective and overwhelming" response.
North Korea's launch of what it calls a new ballistic missile is the first test since last August. (Photo: AFP)
Seoul: The UN Security Council is to hold an urgent meeting later on Monday after North Korea announced it had successfully tested a new ballistic missile, a launch seen as a challenge to President Donald Trump.
The North's leader Kim Jong-Un "expressed great satisfaction over the possession of another powerful nuclear attack means, which adds to the tremendous might of the country", state news agency KCNA said.
Permanent Security Council members China and Russia joined a chorus of international criticism of Sunday's launch by the nuclear-armed nation from near the western city of Kusong.
The council will meet around 2200 GMT on Monday following a request by the United States, Japan and South Korea.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from carrying out ballistic missile launches or nuclear weapons tests.
But last year it conducted two nuclear tests and numerous missile launches in its quest to develop a nuclear weapons system capable of hitting the US mainland.
The latest missile -- said by Pyongyang to be able to carry a nuclear warhead -- flew east for about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan (East Sea), South Korea's defence ministry has said.
Footage on the North's state television showed the missile being moved on a newly-developed mobile erector launcher.
It was launched at a near-vertical angle, igniting in mid-air after lift-off and switching direction while in flight.
Photos released by KCNA showed the missile blasting into the sky with a smiling Kim watching from the command centre, and standing on the launch field surrounded by dozens of cheering soldiers and scientists.
It said Kim "personally guided" preparations for Sunday's test of what it described as a surface-to-surface "medium-long range" Pukguksong-2, a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system".
KCNA said the missile was powered by a solid-fuel engine -- which needs a far shorter refuelling time than conventional liquid fuel-powered missiles, according to Yun Duk-Min of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Security in Seoul.
"They leave little warning time and therefore pose a greater threat to opponents," he said, adding that such missiles are harder to detect by satellite before launch.
The North has previously made claims for its weapons capabilities that analysts consider unconvincing. But Seoul's military confirmed the North's claim on the solid-fuel engine.
Pyongyang's latest announcement was the first time a Pukguksong-2 has been mentioned, although last August it test-fired what it said was a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) marked as a Pukguksong-1, a name which translates as "North Star".
Kim said at the time that the missile put the US mainland and the Pacific within striking range.
An official with South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters the Pukguksong-2 appeared to have been fired based on the same "cold launch" technology used in last year's SLBM test.
The method -- in which a missile is initially propelled by compressed gas before its engine ignites mid-air -- is considered safer. It is also easier to hide the launch location.
North Korea claims it has developed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the US mainland but has not tested one as yet.
Armed provocation:
The South has said that Sunday's launch was intended as a test for Trump, who responded by pledging "100 percent" support for Washington's key regional ally Japan.
Trump has pressed China, the north's sole major ally and key trade partner, to play a bigger role in restraining its wayward neighbour.
In Tokyo Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Monday China plays an "extremely important" role and called on Beijing to take "constructive action".
China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it opposes North Korean missile launches that violate UN resolutions.
Russia's foreign ministry called the launch "a demonstration of contempt for UN Security Council resolutions".
But Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said more provocations were likely in response to upcoming US-South Korean military exercises.
The incident came to light after the victims called a kids helpline. (Representational Image)
Townsville: An Australian who was arrested on the charges of raping his stepdaughters for over a decade, has been sent to 11 years in prison.
According to a Daily Mail report, the 43-year-old accused was in a de facto relationship with the victims mother. In fact, the victims addressed him as their dad.
The girls were of the age five and six respectively when the abuse started. The abuse continued until 2015, when both of them turned 15.
The older sibling told the police that her stepfather abused her every night they were alone together.
The prosecutor was also quoted as saying that the accused had told the victim that he loved her and that it would be their little secret.
The accused had also allegedly raped the older girl once when the younger girl was sleeping below in her bunk bed and the mother was in the kitchen.
The incident came to light after the victims called a kids helpline.
The defence, however, argued that the accused had set up a trust fund for the victims and had also fathered two sons with the victims mother, to mitigate the judgement.
The accused was sentenced to eleven years in jail with the court proclaiming him as a serious offender.
Mevlut Mert Altintas shouts after shooting Andrei Karlov, right, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey. (Photo: File/AP)
The Hague: Brandishing a gun, his face contorted with rage, the shocking image of a Turkish policeman assassinating the Russian envoy to Turkey on Monday won the prestigious World Press Photo Award.
Judges praised the courage and bravery of Burhan Ozbilici, a photographer for Associated Press, who stood his ground as 22-year-old policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas pumped nine bullets into Ambassador Andrei Karlov at the opening of an Ankara exhibition.
"From the moment I heard the shots I knew this was a historic moment, very serious," Ozbilici told AFP.
"I knew I had to do my job. As a journalist, I couldn't just run away to save my skin."
The vivid photo was to go viral around the world and has been viewed some 18 million times.
The judges from the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam acknowledged they had had a tough job to choose the 2017 winner from more than 80,400 images submitted by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries.
"It was a very, very difficult decision, but in the end, we felt that the picture of the year was an explosive image that really spoke to the hatred of our times," said jury member Mary Calvert.
Agence France-Presse also scooped three awards. Manila-based photographer Noel Celis took third place in the General News category for his photo of inmates trying to sleep in an over-populated prison in the city.
Syrian snappers Abd Doumany and Ameer Alhalbi won second prize in the Spot News category for their pictures of children caught up in the bombardments of Aleppo and Douma. It is the second year in the row that Doumany's work has been honoured by the World Press Photo foundation.
"It's not easy for these photographers, for these Syrians. It's taking terrible risks. They are young guys telling their stories from hell basically," jury president, British photographer Stuart Franklin, told AFP.
Ozbilici, who covered the failed coup bid in Turkey and has carried out missions in Syria, Libya and Egypt, said he always tried to be ready for difficult tests, "to have the courage to confront a world which has been made rotten by the dishonest and corrupt, in order to try to do some good."
He said he was sorry for the death of the envoy, whom he described as a "natural, kind, sincere man" whose death was a direct consequence of the "Syrian catastrophe."
"This photo marked an important moment in the history of Turkey, especially in relations with Turkey," said Ozbilici, who has worked for AP since 1989.
Jury members agreed his photo captured an important moment in time.
"Right now I see the world marching towards the edge of an abyss," said jury member Joao Silva, referring to Altintas as a man who had "clearly reached a breaking point."
"This image to me talks" of everything that is happening across the world. "It is the face of hatred."
London: Prince William and his wife Kate will visit France on March 17-18, it was announced Monday, a trip that will likely coincide with the start of Britain's Brexit process.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expected to attend a reception for young French leaders, a formal dinner at the British ambassador's residence and the Six Nations rugby match between Wales and France.
Royal visits are often arranged to help support British diplomatic and economic goals.
Announcing the trip, Kensington Palace said it was at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she plans to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty -- the formal procedure for a member state to leave the European Union -- by the end of March at the latest.
Britain voted for Brexit in a June 2016 referendum.
William is leaving his job as an air ambulance pilot this year and he and Kate are taking on more royal duties as his 90-year-old grandmother Queen Elizabeth II begins to slow down her engagements.
William, second in line to the throne after his father Charles, will also be spending more time at his Kensington Palace residence in London along with Kate and their two children.
They have been living mostly on the queen's Sandringham estate in Norfolk in eastern England.
Islamabad: Another Pakistani Senator on Monday said his US visa application was turned down without a valid reason, a day after reports said the Senate Deputy Chairman belonging to the same Islamic party as the legislator, was denied visa to visit New York.
The incident dated back to October, just days ahead of the presidential polls in the US on November 8.
Hafiz Hamdullah said he had to wait in a queue for over four hours inside the US embassy's consular section before being told he could not be granted a visa, The Express Tribune reported.
On Sunday, it was revealed that the Senate Deputy Chairman and secretary general of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri had also been denied a US visa.
Haideri's visa denial led to the cancellation of his visit to New York for a meeting of Inter-Parliamentary Union at the UN on February 13-14. He was to lead a two-member delegation.
"I was not given any reasons. After a four-hour wait, I was simply informed by the visa office that my application could not be entertained," Hamdullah said.
Haideri and Hamdullah belong to the same JUI-F party. The JUI-F, headed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, is a coalition partner of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party.
Fazlur's party is known to be inclined towards Taliban and critical of US policies in the region. This could be a possible reason behind the visa denials to the politicians.
Haideri's case is being linked to the controversial immigration policy of US President Donald Trump. But the case suggests that the policy of strict vetting of visa applicants from religious parties was in place even during the previous Obama administration.
The US embassy did not comment on Hamdullah's case, citing 'privacy laws', according to the report.
And there has been no official reaction so far from Pakistan government or the Foreign Office.
The cases have come to light days after a US court refused to reinstate US President Donald Trump's ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. Those countries, however, did not include Pakistan.
North Korea's launch of what it calls a new ballistic missile is the first test since last August. (Photo: AFP)
Beijing: facing criticism that it is not doing enough to pressure North Korea to drop its nuclear program, said Monday that the root cause of North Korean missile launches is Pyongyang's friction with the United States and South Korea.
North Korea fired a banned ballistic missile on Sunday, its first test since US President Donald Trump took office. The missile, launched as Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Florida, is believed to have flown about 500 kilometers (300 miles) before splashing down in international waters.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China opposed the launch, which violated UN Security Council resolutions that call for an end to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.
China is North Korea's largest source of trade and aid, and Trump has complained that Beijing is not doing enough to pressure Pyongyang. Beijing counters that its influence is overstated and suggests that Washington's refusal to talk directly to North Korea is impeding progress toward a solution.
"The root cause of the (North Korean) nuclear missile issue is its differences with the US and South Korea," Geng told reporters at a regular briefing.
Geng said China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has been "completely and comprehensively" implementing Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue. He said Beijing "has been striving for a settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue by proactively engaging in mediation and promoting peace talks."
Although generally dismissive of sanctions, Beijing has signed on to successive rounds under the UN Security Council, and last month banned more items from being exported to North Korea, including plutonium and dual-use technologies that could aid its nuclear program.
Geng urged all sides to refrain from provocative action and said China would continue participating in Security Council discussions in a constructive and responsible way.
Beijing appears concerned that the US and South Korea will speed up the planned deployment of an advanced missile defense system in South Korea designed to counter a missile attack from the North following the latest launch. Beijing objects to the system because it would possibly be able to observe Chinese military movements.
Shi Yuanhua, a Korean studies professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, said that from Pyongyang's perspective, it was a good time to launch a missile because the new US administration hadn't decided what approach to take with North Korea, and Beijing was at odds with Washington and Seoul over the anti-missile system.
"Whether or not to abandon nuclear weapons concerns North Korea's core national interests and there is no way for China to get it to change its stance with a few words of persuasion, and it can't solve the problem by applying a ban on exports," Shi said.
"The key for solving the problem lies in the hands of the US If the US is willing to sit and talk with North Korea, China will be happy to promote it," he added.
A Communist Party newspaper said in an editorial Monday that the timing of Sunday's launch, a day after the end of China's 15-day Lunar New Year period, suggests Beijing's participation in UN Security Council sanctions is having a "positive effect." Last year, North Korea launched a long-range rocket on the eve of China's most important holiday, in a snub to its chief ally.
Students at the Yang Dezhi 'Red Army' elementary school in Wenshui, in China's Guizhou province. (Photo: AFP)
Zunyi: In powder blue and gray military uniforms, red kerchiefs, and caps emblazoned with crimson stars, young Chinese students in the southwestern province of Guizhou perform kung fu exercises in their courtyard to stave off the winter cold. Their small school, Yang Dezhi, is situated in the rural hills of Wenshui town and was established more than a hundred years ago during the final years of the Qing dynasty.
But it has undergone a more recent overhaul.
In 2008, it was designated a "Red Army primary school" - funded by China's "red nobility" of revolution-era Communist commanders and their families - one of many such institutions that have been established across the country.
Such schools are an extreme example of the "patriotic education" which China's ruling Communist party promotes to boost its legitimacy - but which critics condemn as little more than brainwashing.
"The Red Army spirit is a real asset for children. It teaches them to be hardworking and thrifty from a young age," said school manager Mu Chunyong, who oversees the 136 pupils in first through fourth grades.
Guizhou province is one of China's poorest, but even there, most families are now able to afford relatively comfortable lives, making it important to remind students of the hardships of the past, he said.
"If you don't instill kids these days with a sense of the evolution of history, the kids won't cherish their current living conditions."
There were more than 200 red army schools as of last year.
Sometimes bearing names of prominent Party elders, they are built in "old revolutionary areas", once cradles of Communist rebellion but still often among the country's poorest areas.
In the 1930s, Yang Dezhi sheltered Red Army soldiers during their epic Long March through remote and hazardous terrain as they fled rival Nationalist forces.
The nearest city, Zunyi, was where China's founding father Mao Zedong first consolidated his power over the ruling Communist party.
Yang Dezhi's Red Army school credentials came with increased funding, which it used to increase teacher salaries and buy backpacks, clothing and water mugs for the children, among other things.
A "red culture" class was added to the curriculum, in which children learn to sing nationalistic songs with military precision, discuss stories about the early days of the Communist Party, and study local Red Army history.
Like all buildings in China's south, the school has no central heating. Instead, children take breaks every hour or so to perform guided exercises in the courtyard to get their blood pumping.
Every afternoon, they spend five minutes using their fingertips to massage the area around their eyes to relax before the last round of classes - a practice taught in all Chinese schools.
At lunch, they line up in the canteen to serve themselves one by one from trays of rice and huge silver pots filled with potatoes, beans, and chicken, before eating in silence.
Students walk at most half an hour to get to school every day through roads often muddied by the region's fine, persistent rain, stopping at small roadside shops to buy neon-hued, sugary packaged snacks.
A martial spirit can teach children "self-reliance, self-confidence, and how to strive for self-improvement," said Mu.
The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon. (Photo: AP)
Dhaka: A Malaysian aid ship was heading to a Bangladeshi port Monday bringing relief goods for some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who've fled Myanmar.
Shaheenul Islam, the military's public relations spokesman, said the ship anchored near Sonadia island off the coastal district of Cox's Bazar then had to be sent to Chittagong because the island had no unloading jetty facilities.
"There has been a change after the ship anchored near Cox's Bazar town. Now it is heading back to Chittagong seaport where the port authorities will arrange everything," Islam said. "This is purely an issue of how the goods would be unloaded, no other issues are involved."
"There will be an official handing over ceremony tomorrow morning and then the goods will be sent to Teknaf," he said.
Ali Hossain, chief government administrator in Cox's Bazar, said they had received a list of goods to be unloaded from the ship, but the plan was changed as Malaysian authorities wanted better handling infrastructure.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are camping in Teknaf officially and in unregistered camps.
The ship is carrying around 2,300 tons of food, medicine and other supplies.
Rohingya Muslims have long faced discrimination in majority-Buddhist Myanmar.
More than 300,000 have been living in Bangladesh for decades, while about 66,000 more have crossed the border since October amid renewed persecution and targeted attacks by soldiers and majority Buddhists in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
Hundreds from the Muslim minority are thought to have died and tens of thousands have fled to Bangladesh since the army launched "clearance operations" four months ago. (Photo: File)
Yangon: Myanmar authorities have sentenced a Rohingya man to death for leading raids on police border posts that sparked a deadly military crackdown in the north of Rakhine state, police said on Monday.
Hundreds from the Muslim minority are thought to have died and tens of thousands have fled to Bangladesh since the army launched "clearance operations" four months ago to find the attackers.
Sittwe police chief Yan Naing Lett said the court in the town, the capital of Rakhine, had sentenced the leader of the raid on the Kotankauk border post to death on Friday.
"He was sentenced to death on 10 February at Sittwe court for intentional murder," Yan Naing Lett told AFP, without giving a date for the execution.
"He participated in the attacks and led them, and planned them with others. He is one of 14 attackers who were detained in Sittwe township," the officer said, naming the man as Mamahdnu Aka Aula.
The other 13 people also appeared in court but have yet to be sentenced, he added.
Than Tun, the leader of an aid organisation operating in northern Rakhine, confirmed the sentence, adding, "He is the first one to face such action since the attack."
Myanmar's government said hundreds of Rohingya militants carried out raids on three posts on the Bangladesh border on October 9, killing nine police in a series of coordinated attacks.
The International Crisis Group think-tank has said the attackers were a Saudi-backed group called Harakah al-Yaqin, which it said had spent years recruiting and training fighters in Bangladesh and northern Rakhine.
The sentencing comes days after a blistering report from the UN accused Myanmar's troops and police of carrying out a campaign of rape, torture and mass killings of Rohingya.
Based on interviews with hundreds of escapees in Bangladesh, investigators said the military's "calculated policy of terror" very likely amounted to ethnic cleansing.
Several hundred Rohingya have also been detained, the UN report said, describing how they were stripped, beaten, tortured and deprived of food and water.
Myanmar's government has pledged to investigate the allegations after spending months dismissing similar reports from international media and rights groups as "fake news".
A TV crew was shot dead on Sunday after motorcycle-borne gunmen indiscriminately fired upon a DSNG van of a news channel in Karachi.(Photo: Twitter)
Karachi: A TV crew was shot dead on Sunday after motorcycle-borne gunmen indiscriminately fired upon a DSNG van of a news channel in Pakistans biggest port-city here.
The DSNG van of Samaa channel had gone to the North Nazimabad area of Karachi when it came under attack from gunmen on motorcycles who fired indiscriminately on the van.
Police said that the van was attacked near KDA roundabout and assistant cameraman, Taimur, received a bullet shot to the head.
He was brought to the hospital with a single shot to the head and he expired after a while, additional police surgeon, Rohina Hasan told the media.
A spokesman for the channel said that the van had gone to the area to cover a cracker attack on a police van.
A senior police official, Farooq Malik said that the same suspects appeared to be involved in the attack on the DSNG van who had earlier also carried out attacks on DSNG vans of other channels in the same area.
He said initial investigations indicated that the cracker attack on the police van was a ploy to get the media to the area to cover the incident and then attack them.
A DSNG van of the Samaa channel had also come under attack in September 2015, while another was attacked last year.
In other attacks on television channel crew in Karachi, three gunmen had attacked a Geo TV DSNG, killing a Geo News employee and injuring another in 2015, while in 2014 three employees of the Express News channel were shot dead in an attack claimed by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
Peshawar, Pakistan: In a scathing indictment of Pakistan's treatment of Afghan refugees, a human rights group charged Monday that the country is forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees back to their homeland, which is still beset by war and crushing poverty. It also said that a $400 stipend the United Nations refugee agency gives to refugees who return to Afghanistan is tantamount to a bribe to convince reluctant Afghans to leave Pakistan.
"The exodus amounts to the world's largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times," the Human Rights Watch report says.
Both the U.N. and Pakistan denied the allegations. In an interview, Indrika Ratwatte, Pakistan's country representative for the U.N. refugee agency, said there was police harassment and arrests of Afghan refugees in mid-2016, particularly in the border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but it was ended and refugees who returned, went home voluntarily.
"There were incidences of pressure and harassment especially in KP but they were addressed," said Ratwatte. "But does it amount to forced return. No. it doesn't."
Still, the report was harsh in its criticism of the U.N. agency for not condemning what it insisted is Pakistan's forced return of the refugees.
Meanwhile, Pakistan cited security concerns for seeking Afghan refugees' return to their homeland, particularly after several brutal attacks by militants in Pakistan's northwest, which the government linked to insurgents hiding out in neighboring Afghanistan. The worst attack was in December 2014 against an army public school in which 150 people were killed, most of them children.
At its peak in the 1980s Pakistan sheltered an estimated 5 million Afghan refugees as Afghan guerrilla fighters battled invading Russian troops aided by the United States and other western countries. Today there are still 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, says Ratwatte, some of them for 37 years. Pakistan currently hosts the world's largest protracted refugee population, he said. There are hundreds of thousands of unregistered Afghan refugees living in the country as well.
Attacking the U.N. refugee agency's $400 stipend to returning refugees, Gerry Simpson, one of the authors of the HRW report told The Associated Press in an email interview: "What is now needed is not more money to incentivize return to harm, but more money to help Pakistan protect Afghan refugees in Pakistan."
Yet last year, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told refugees in Pakistan to come home, promising them shelter and opportunities. About 380,000 registered Afghan refugees returned to their homeland along with an estimated 250,000 unregistered refugees who were living in Pakistan without legal documents, Ratwatte said.
Tens of thousands of returning refugees were settled in a makeshift camp on a barren piece of land in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, which Afghan elders in Pakistan described as desolate and dangerous.
"They want us to come back to the desert?" asked Amanullah Nusrat, principal of a school for Afghan refugee children in Peshawar, not far from the border with Afghanistan. "The Afghan government is asking refugees to come back but how? There is no shelter, no water, no security."
Nusrat's school, Hazrat Maryam School, is a grimy white single story cement building where about 500 Afghan refugee children sit on the floor in crowded classrooms. Before last year's exodus there were 800 students, said Nusrat. The others returned to Afghanistan, pushed out by the Pakistan authorities, he said.
Afghan refugees are hostage to the fluctuating relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan and a sharp deterioration in their relationship last year caused Pakistan to launch a heavy handed push for refugees to return to Afghanistan, said Nusrat sitting in the school's courtyard surrounded by half a dozen tribal elders.
Most of Nusrat's students were from Afghan provinces that border Pakistan. Some students had never seen their homeland, and others had returned with their families only to move back to Pakistan because the security made it impossible to stay, they said.
Zarmina, who gave only one name, is a teacher who is originally from Kabul. She said that despite the Taliban's ouster nearly 15 years ago, it is still dangerous for women, citing a rise in domestic violence in her homeland. She also lamented the increasing presence of the Taliban and the emergence of new militant groups in Afghanistan such as the Islamic State group affiliate, headquartered in eastern Nangarhar province.
"Whenever one group ends fighting, then another group comes up," she said.
Waqar Maroof Khan, the Pakistan government's point man on refugees, said the refugees who returned did so voluntarily. Pakistan has also extended the deadline for refugees to return to Dec. 31, 2017. But Human Rights Watch said it should be extended to the end of 2019.
"We want them to go back in dignity and honor," he said.
Yet Fazle Mulla Tarakai, an Afghan elder originally from Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, said last year Pakistan used loudspeakers on mosques in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to tell refugees to go home and to warn Pakistanis that anyone found helping the refugees would be fined.
"In some areas police entered forcibly and refugees left without anything," said Tarakai.
Afghan refugee families wait for their turn to be registered, outside the government registration office in Peshawar, Pakistan. (Photo: AP)
Islamabad: Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees were forced to leave Pakistan last year due to the country's high-handed policies and harassment, a leading rights group said on Monday terming it as the world's largest unlawful forced exodus of refugees in recent times.
In a damning report, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) asked Pakistan government to end police abuse and other measures against refugees.
In the report titled Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity: The Mass Forced Return of Afghan Refugees, the HRW called on the government to avoid recreating conditions in 2017 that coerced the involuntary return of refugees to Afghanistan last year.
The HRW conducted 115 interviews with refugee returnees in Afghanistan and refugees and undocumented Afghans in Pakistan. The findings suggested that Pakistani pressure on Afghan refugees left many of them with no choice but to leave Pakistan last year.
The rights group also holds the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) complicit in the "coerced return" of Afghan refugees, and calls on it to "speak out as necessary and challenge any repeat in 2017 of the appalling and unlawful pressure Pakistan placed on Afghans in 2016, that coerced many to return to danger and destitution in Afghanistan in such massive numbers."
In the second half of the last year, 365,000 of the 1.5 million registered refugees were "pushed out by a toxic combination of deportation threats and police abuses."
About 200,000 of the one million undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan returned to their country over the same period.
According to the report, Pakistan has hosted over a million Afghan refugees for most of the last 40 years.
Pakistani authorities, however, made it clear in public statements that they would like to see similar numbers of refugees return to Afghanistan in 2017, the HRW said.
The statements came at a time the Afghan conflict has killed and wounded more civilians than at any other time since 2009, displaced at least 1.5 million people and left a third of the population destitute, according to the HRW.
There have been no new Afghan refugees registered in Pakistan since 2007 despite lack of meaningful improvement in human rights conditions in Afghanistan.
Additionally, the UNHCR lacks the capacity to register and process the claims of tens of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.
The UNHCR in December 2016 warned that the massive number of returns could "develop into a major humanitarian crisis".
The report surfaced when Pakistan last week extended the stay of Afghan refugees till end of year.
There are about 1.5 million registered and an equal number of unregistered Afghan refugees living in Pakistan since 1980s.
The central drought study team members on Sunday visited drought-hit areas in Chikkamagaluru taluk to assess the damage caused to Rabi crops.
A team led by Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare additional secretary Jalaj Shrivastava visited Yagachi Reservoir to assess water availability. They also visited Kalasapura which is reeling under water crisis and collected information on water shortage, fodder and loss of Rabi crops.
Farmers said officials have been furnishing wrong information to the team. The authorities are releasing one barrel water per week. With meagre water can we sustain our livestock? With the failure of monsoon, we sowed maize. Without rain, the crops have been completely damaged. However, the authorities are not considering maize for compensation for loss of crops, they said.
DC G Satyavathi and ZP CEO Dr R Ragapriya tried to convince the farmers that the team has been given real picture of water crisis.
The team visited fodder bank and Kalasapura and directed animal husbandry department officials to maintain transparency in the distribution of fodder. However, farmers expressed displeasure at the failure of the district administration to purchase quality fodder. Fodder is not being supplied as per the requirment, said the farmers. The team also examined dried arecanut and coconut plantations. After listening to the water crisis woes in Kalasapura, the team left for next village visit.
The team comprised NITI Ayog research officer Anuradha, Central Irrigation Commission superintendent engineer V Mohan Murali, Ministry of Finance director Sachdev.
Everyone speaks about cleanliness but forgets responsibility towards cleanliness. Cleanliness is a basic necessity, if our surroundings are clean, our mind will also be clean, said renowned actor Nana Patekar.
He was speaking after inaugurating the 200th Swacch Mangaluru cleanliness campaign organised by Ramakrishna Mission on Sunday. Patekar inaugurated the programme by filling colours to the wall-graffiti on the compound wall of University College in Hampankatta. He also flagged off and took part in a rally with students.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi started the Swacch Bharat campaign, but people are yet to learn the campaigns significance. It is sad that the prime minister himself had to start a movement to keep the nation clean. Swacch Bharat should not be limited to a programme but be converted into a lifestyle, he said and lauded Ramakrishna Mission for its endeavour.
People are after money but the country can prosper only when we think about our society and the nation. When we go abroad, we follow their rules and appreciate them and their cleanliness. But when we return to India, we forget all those. One must follow the rules in out nation as well, he said.
Ramakrishna Mutt president Swami Jitakamananda inaugurated an autorickshaw stand built opposite University College. Swacch Mangaluru campaign convener Swami Chidambarananda, Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat and MLC Capt Ganesh were present.
Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested against US President Donald Trump, hitting back at his anti-Mexican rhetoric and his pledges to make their country pay for his "big, beautiful" border wall.
"Mexico must be respected, Mr Trump," said a giant banner carried by protesters in Mexico City yesterday, who waved a sea of red, white and green Mexican flags as they marched down the capital's main avenue under the watchful eyes of thousands of police.
Protester Julieta Rosas was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Trump sporting an Adolf Hitler mustache. "We're here to make Trump see and feel that an entire country, united, is rising up against him and his xenophobic, discriminatory and fascist stupidity," said Rosas, a literature student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
In what looked set to be Mexico's biggest anti-Trump protest yet, some 20 cities joined the call to march made by a group of dozens of universities, business associations and civic organisations.
There were 20,000 demonstrators in Mexico City, according to local authorities. Marches in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Morelia also drew thousands of people -- though a planned protest in the border city of Tijuana fell flat. US-Mexican relations have plunged to their lowest point in decades since Trump took office on January 20.
Trump, who launched his presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants "criminals" and "rapists," has infuriated the United States' southern neighbor with his plan to stop illegal migration by building a wall on the border. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a January 31 trip to Washington over Trump's insistence that Mexico pay for the wall.
"This is a time to build bridges, not walls," said 73-year-old protester Jose Antonio Sanchez, who was marching in Mexico City with his nine-year-old granddaughter.American protester Erick Smith, who is married to a Mexican woman, marched with a sign reading "Sorry Mexico."
"I came to say that I'm ashamed of my president," he told AFP. "I don't want this wall." Trump has also wrought havoc on the Mexican economy with his threats to terminate the country's privileged trade relationship with the United States, blaming Mexico for the loss of American jobs.
"Even if Kashmir is resolved how would that end sectarian terrorism, because sectarian terrorism is about killing people who do not have same religious sect as you have. How would resolving Kashmir stop the Taliban, who are aimed at creating their old Islamic order in Afghanistan," former Pakistani ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani told a Washington audience on Friday.
"So sometimes ... making this a hyper nationalistic argument on the side of Pakistan and a very simplistic (one) that we have no choice in Pakistan's approach in America ... We want both sides to actually rethink their positions," he said.
He said this during a discussion on a report, released by nearly a dozen top American thinktanks, that urges the Trump administration for a tougher line against Pakistan, involving both pragmatic engagement and consequences for uncooperative behaviour.
'A New US Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions without Cutting Ties'- co-authored by Lis Curtis of The Heritage Foundation and Haqqani of the Hudson Institute- stops short of recommending declaring Pakistan a 'state sponsor of terrorism'.
Authored by a group of eminent US-based Pakistan experts, it calls for a sharper, clear-eyed US policy approach towards Pakistan. "Pakistan needs to do a little introspection that can we continue this for ever and ever and still have credibility," Haqqani said about Islamabad's continued support to terrorist activities against its neighbours.
During the discussion, Haqqani was joined by Curtis and Christine Fair, a Georgetown University scholar and South Asia expert. Fair, in her intervention, said Pakistan was "obsessed with trying to illegally occupy" other's territory.
The discussion witnessed acrimonious scenes when a group of pro-Pakistani people, including officials from the Pakistan embassy here and journalists, tried to disrupt the event.
One of the individuals was forced to leave the venue, as he repeatedly tried to disrupt the proceedings. While leaving, the individual accused Haqqani of being a "RAW agent."
Earlier during the discussion, a senior official from the Pakistani embassy here said: "Some sweeping assumptions have been made in this report and they result in negative tenor of the recommendations. One is to think or to believe that our security concerns are in some ways a paranoia."
"One fundamental point is that Kashmir remains the flashpoint (between India and Pakistan)," said the official, who till recently was the Deputy Chief of Mission of Pakistan in New Delhi.
"Instead of advising the (Trump) administration to not get involved in Kashmir, it should be the other way round and it is going to be the way forward," the official said. "There is need for skill diplomacy. And skilled diplomacy should include active US engagement in South Asia especially on Kashmir," he said.
At one point, the official said, "As the mike is with me, so do the control." To which Haqqani responded saying, "No you do not. As some people have learned mike can easily be taken away."
The second Pakistani embassy official continued with the same narrative as his colleague. But Haqqani interrupted him and said it was not correct for two officials from the Pakistani embassy speaking and representing their views.
"It's not a debate. It's a working group report." Curtis said Pakistan viewing India as an existential threat no longer merit "some of the evidence that we have" seen.
"There are no army bunkers on the street in Srinagar. Security is being taken care by the Jammu and Kashmir local police. Someone whom I met as a separatist leader 15 years ago is now a minister in the J&K Government. So, I think there is increased participation in the political process," said Curtis, who just returned from a four-day visit to Kashmir.
"From the younger generation, you get a sense of wanting to move on, thinking about jobs and how they can improve their live," Curtis said and told the officials that Pakistan cannot force a third party mediation on Kashmir.
"It does not happen. Pakistan needs to accept that reality. It would be very useful if India and Pakistan get back to the environment that we saw from 2004 to 2007. During that period, infiltration came down, we saw the then President Musharraf making forward looking proposals," Curtis said.
Questioning Pakistan's decades- old Kashmir policy, a former top envoy of the country has said even resolving the issue would unlikely address the challenge of terrorism, sectarian conflict or the Taliban abandoning its goal of establishing an "old Islamic order" in Afghanistan.
The comments come at a time when there has been a lot of buzz around some of the founders flagging concerns about governance lapses at Infosys and issues like hike in Sikka's compensation to USD 11 million and huge severance pay doled out to former executives, Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy.
Asked about his relationship with the founders, Sikka said: "My relationship with the founders? It is wonderful. I meet Mr Murthy quite frequently...I have always had a heartfelt warm relationship with Mr Murthy, probably meet him 4-5-6 times a year."
He added that he, however, hasn't met the other founders off late. Describing Murthy as an "incredible man", Sikka said the two usually discussed topics like quantum physics and technology whenever they met.
"The other day he was telling me about the Paris Metro and how he worked on the Paris Metro in the 1970s before he started Infosys, and it had this whole ideas about automation and autonomous driving and all," he reminisced.
Sikka, speaking at Kotak's Chasing Growth Conference in Mumbai, said the "drama" going on in the media is very "distracting". "It takes away our attention but underneath that, there is a very strong fabric that this company is based on. And it is a real privilege for me to be its leader," he added.
Sikka is scheduled to meet media representatives this evening along with some of the Board members. Infosys, on its part, has denied any governance lapses and said it has made "full disclosures" on all developments.
Another issue that some of the former senior executives have raised is the huge cash pile of USD 5.25 billion that Infosys has. Asked about his views on the matter, Sikka said his "official" answer is that the Board, from time to time, will consider capital allocation policies and when there is something to report, the company will do so.
"The unofficial answer is, you look at the circumstances over the next 4-5 years, what you need the capital for and then decide. In our case, it is the strategic growth initiatives, capital for building infrastructure and then acquisitions," he said.
Based on how that mix changes over the next 5 years, one takes a decision on how the cash is utilised, he added.
"I have a very deep heartfelt relationship with Mr Murthy and I took this job because of that relationship and respect. He knows, and I would like to assure every single shareholder that corporate governance and values were, are and will be the core foundation of this company. I will not let that standard slip even an iota under my watch," Sikka said.
Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee said: "I would like to thank Mr Murthy for his kind comments. I have the highest regard for him. His inputs are always taken with respect".
Vishal Sikka, the embattled chief of Infosys, today said he has always shared a "heartfelt, warm relationship" with the company's co-founder N R Narayana Murthy.
A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said that Justice Karnan, despite being served with the notice in the case, "has not put in appearance." "Moreover, no lawyer has been appointed by him to represent him today," the bench, also comprising Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph, said.
"We are not aware of the reasons for his non-appearance. We, therefore, refrain from proceeding with the matter," it said while deferring the matter for hearing after three weeks.
The apex court had last week turned the alleged contemptuous letters written by Justice Karnan against the Madras HC Chief Justice, which were addressed to the CJI, Prime Minister and others, into contempt proceedings against him.
At today's hearing, the bench also took on record the recent controversial letter written by Justice Karnan to the Registrar General of the Supreme Court on February 10.
Justice Karnan has purportedly said in the letter that he has been victimised for being a 'Dalit' and this matter be referred to Parliament.
The bench today also took serious note of some lawyers appearing in the matter without being authorised by Justice Karnan and said that they will be proceeded against under the law for interfering with the judicial process.
Earlier, the apex court, on February 8, had asked Justice Karnan to appear in person before it and explain as to why contempt proceedings be not initiated against him.
Justice Karnan, in his communication of February 10, had reportedly played the Dalit card and asked the Supreme Court to refer the matter to Parliament, contending that the contempt proceedings were "not sustainable".
"Before obtaining any explanation from me, I wish to state that the Courts have no power to enforce punishment against a sitting judge of the High Court. The said order does not conform to logic, therefore it is not suitable for execution," he has said in response to the order of the bench headed by the CJI.
The apex court had earlier issued him the show cause notice for today and forthwith restrained him from undertaking judicial and administrative work.
"Issue notice to Justice C S Karnan. Returnable on February 13. Shree Justice C S Karnan shall forthwith refrain from handling any judicial or administrative work as may have been assigned to him," the court had said.
Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi had referred to the nature of public communications allegedly undertaken by Justice Karnan and said they are "slanderous" and "disparaging" to the system of administration of justice.
The AG had referred to constitutional provisions and said that the apex court can take judicial note of the matter and is empowered to pass such an order.
Justice Karnan was transferred from the Madras HC to the Calcutta HC for his alleged contemptuous conduct. He had on February 15, 2016 stayed his transfer order after the apex court asked the Chief Justice of Madras High Court not to assign any judicial work to him.
The same day the apex court had suspended Justice Karnan's order and made it clear that all administrative and judicial orders passed by him after the issuance of the proposal of his transfer from the Madras High Court to the Calcutta High Court shall remain stayed till further orders.
However, a week later, the judge had said that he had issued an "erroneous" order due to his "mental frustration resulting in loss of his mental balance".
Controversial Calcutta High Court judge Justice C S Karnan today failed to appear before the Supreme Court in connection with suo motu contempt proceedings initiated against him.
With no solution in sight for government formation in Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK has asserted that a majority of its MLAs are behind General Secretary V K Sasikala and claimed the chances of Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao "inviting" her today were "high."
Party spokesperson Vaigai Chelvan said Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had the support of seven MLAs and cannot therefore prove his majority in the state Assembly in the event of a floor test.
"He says he can prove his majority based on the wrong information given by someone. Majority of the AIADMK MLAs are with Chinnamma (Sasikala) and we are ready to prove our strength (in a floor test)," he told reporters here.
Sasikala was the elected Legislature Party leader of AIADMK and therefore the Governor should invite her to form government, he added. "We expect the chances of his inviting (meeting) her today are high," he said.
To a question on 11 MPs switching over to the camp of Panneerselvam, Vaigai Chelvan expressed confidence that they would return to the Sasikala fold. In growing support for Panneerselvam, six more AIADMK MPs had joined his camp yesterday, taking the number of Parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
Sasikala had yesterday vowed to protect the party nurtured by her long-time friend, late Jayalalithaa, saying "I will give my life for this cause". Addressing the MLAs at the resort near here, which she visited for the second time in two days, Sasikala had said, "You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain it by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government. None can hurt us and there is no need to fear."
She also dismissed allegations that they have been held "hostage" at the resort, saying the MLAs were staying at the resort of their own accord and that they were "free".
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju today said Hindu population was reducing in India as they "never convert people", while minorities are flourishing unlike some other countries, in remarks that can stoke a controversy.
"Hindu population is reducing in India because Hindus never convert people. Minorities in India are flourishing unlike some countries around (sic)," he tweeted.
The Minister of State for Home's comment came after the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee accused the Narendra Modi -led BJP government of trying to convert Arunachal Pradesh into a Hindu state. "Why is Congress making such irresponsible statements? People of Arunachal Pradesh are unitedly living peacefully with each other (sic).
"Congress should not make such provocative statements. India is a secular country. All religious groups enjoy freedom & living peacefully (sic)," he said in a series of tweets, responding to the APCC's charge. Rijiju hails from Arunachal Pradesh and is a practising Buddhist.
Reacting to his statement, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi said he should remember that he is a "minister of India for all Indians not for Hindus only".
"Remember your oath as minister," the Hyderabad MP said. "Wht have the minorities India got to do with minorities of 'other' countries. It is Constitution which guarantees rights (sic)," he tweeted.
According to the 2011 Census, Hindus make up India's 79.80 per cent of population, Muslims 14.23 per cent, Christians 2.30 per cent, Sikhs 1.72 per cent, Buddhists 0.70 per cent and Jains 0.37 per cent.
The country's Hindu population as per the 2001 Census was 80.5 per cent, while that of Muslims was 13.4 per cent, Christians 2.3 per cent, Sikhs 1.9 per cent, Buddhists 0.80 per cent and Jains 0.4 per cent.
The Madras High Court today reserved orders on habeas corpus pleas relating to alleged illegal detention of two MLAs at a resort where legislators supporting AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala are housed. After hearing arguments of Public Prosecutor (PP) Rajarathinam and K Balu, counsel for T Ramachandran, MLA, a division bench of Justice M Jaichandren and Justice T Mathivanan reserved orders on the HCPs seeking to trace and set at liberty Ramachandran and Geetha.
During arguments, the public prosecutor submitted before the court the statements of the two MLAs in their own handwriting, stating that they have not been illegally detained. Balu submitted that the only legal remedy in HCP is that the person, who is illegally detained, has to be ordered to be produced in person before the court and mere statements cannot be taken into account by the court.
Objecting to this, the PP submitted that it was only on the counsel's suggestion the Superintendent of Police at Kancheepuram had set up a team, comprising an ADSP, four inspectors, two SIs and two revenue officials in the rank of Tahsildhars to inspect the resort and record their statements. The PP submitted that statements of not only the two MLAs but also those of another 119 MLAs were also recorded. The team had presented a questionnaire to the MLAs and requested them to fill it on their own.
"We have also those statements but as the HCPs is confined to only these two MLAs, I am submitting their statements. We are ready to submit the other statements, if the court directs," he said. Objecting to the counsel's contention, the PP said the counsel is now raising objections, saying he wants appointment of an amicus curiae or a district judge to personally go and inspect the resort and file a report. The Public Prosecutor wanted to know from whom he has to get instructions on the matter.
The bench said, "The government is there, the government is functioning. Then how can you say from whom you have to get instructions." On February 10, a division bench had sought the state government's response to allegations that AIADMK MLAs were being illegally detained at the resort and 20 of them were on a fast.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi today gave his opinion to the Tamil Nadu Governor that a special Assembly session be convened within a week for a composite floor test to determine who among the two AIADMK leaders - O Panneerselvam and V K Sasikala - enjoys majority.
Sources said that the opinion was sought by Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao from the Attorney General who has cited the 1998 Supreme Court judgement in the Jagdambika Pal case in which the apex court had ordered a floor test in the Assembly to determine who among the two claimants -- Pal and Kalyan Singh -- had majority for chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh.
The opinion, the sources said, has stated that "he (Governor) should call a special session within a week's time and have a composite floor test as was ordered by the Supreme Court in the Jagdambika Pal case".
The opinion on floor test was given as the two claimants are from the same party and they will be pitted against each other to determine who commands majority support in the Assembly, the sources said.
A wary China today firmly opposed comments by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about Diaoyu islands and warned Tokyo to refrain from seeking American support for its illegal territorial claims under the mutual defence treaty.
"China is gravely concerned about and firmly opposed to relevant comments by Japan and the US. Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands are China's inherent territory," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told media briefing here.
China calls the uninhabited Senkaku islands in the East China Sea held by Japan as Diaoyu islands. While the islands and waters, believed to contain rich deposits of oil and minerals are in the administrative control of Japan, China has stepped up naval patrols around it after jostling with Japanese coast guard.
"We are firmly against Japan's attempt to try to gain the US support for its illegal territorial claims in the name of the so-called mutual defense treaty," Geng said.
During the current visit of Abe to Washington, President Trump agreed to further strengthen security ties and confirmed that US forces will continue to be committed to defending the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japanese media said.
Expressing strong reservations over US extending the umbrella of its security treaty with Japan to the disputed islands, Geng said, "no rhetoric or actions, from whomsoever, will change the fact that Diaoyu Dao belongs to China or waver China's resolve and determination to uphold its national sovereignty and territorial integrity."
He said Japan and the US should exercise prudence and stop making wrong remarks so as not to complicate relevant issues or bring negative impact on regional peace and stability.
This is not the first time US is extending such a support. China reacted the same way when US assured such a backing to Japan under previous Barack Obama administration.
At a joint press conference yesterday with Abe, Trump described Japan as being "an important and steadfast ally" and affirmed continued US commitment to defending the Senkakus. "We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control," the US President said.
Abe supplemented Trump's remarks by articulating that they "have confirmed that Article 5 of the Japan-US Security Treaty will be applied to the Senkaku Islands," the Japan News reported.
The confirmation was also stipulated in a joint statement issued after the meeting, which added, "[Both nations] oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japans administration of these islands."
Geng also asserted China's sovereignty over the disputed South China Sea (SCS), saying that its construction of the artificial islands are within its rights.
Delhi High Court today said it was "foxed" by the lack of information about missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed's whereabouts even after five months of his disappearance, as his family sought that the probe be handed over to some other agency.
"It is very strange. Five to six months have gone by since he disappeared.
Something should have come out, even if something worse has happened, it should have come out by now," a bench of justices G S Sistani and Vinod Goel said, adding "that is why, we are foxed".
Najeeb's family said they wanted some other agency to probe the matter as they had no faith in the Delhi Police as its investigation has hit a dead-end. They said if the police continues to probe the matter, every month it will come with some new story.
The bench then said every missing person was important and it does not talk highly of any society, if people go missing without any trace. The bench asked the police to carry on its investigation in the manner it wants to, but in accordance with law.
The court's observation came during the hearing of an application by one of the nine students, who are suspects in the case, seeking recall of the high court's December 14 and December 22, 2016 orders.
The student's lawyer said as per media reports, the high court in its orders had directed a lie-detector test of the nine students and sought a clarification on it.
The bench, thereafter, said it was neither monitoring the probe, nor has it directed that lie-detector test be carried out on anyone and it was the domain of the police to decide the manner in which investigation has to be carried out.
The court told the student's lawyer that if his client does not want to undergo the test, he can refuse to do so. Delhi Police, represented by senior standing counsel Rahul Mehra, told the court "they (students) can frustrate our probe, but we too are not helpless".
In a status report filed before the court, the agency said some whatsapp messages were received by the police and family of Najeeb that he has been seen in Odisha and in Bijwasan area of Southwest Delhi and teams were sent to both places.
While nothing conclusive materialised from Bijwasan, the team sent to Odisha is yet to conclude its probe, Mehra said. 27-year-old Najeeb has been missing since October 15 last year after a scuffle at his JNU hostel allegedly with ABVP activists the previous night. The RSS students' wing has denied any involvement in his disappearance.
After the incident, his mother moved the high court with a habeas corpus plea seeking direction to the authorities to trace and produce her son.
The fate of AIADMK General Secretary Sasikala Natarajan, fighting a bitter power battle with interim Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam after the demise of J Jayalithaa, is likely to be decided tomorrow as the Supreme Court may deliver the much-awaited verdict in the disproportionate assets case involving her as an accused.
A bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy, which said last week that the verdict would be out in few days, is likely to pronounce the judgement at 10.30 AM tomorrow on a batch of appeals, including the one filed by Karnataka government against the High Court verdict acquitting prime accused Jayalalithaa and her close aide and now AIADMK chief Sasikala.
Besides Jayalalithaa, against whom the proceedings would be abated due to her demise on December 5 last year, Sasikala, and the latter's relatives, V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, were also acquitted in the assets case by the Karnataka High Court.
The apex court, on June 7 last year, had reserved its verdict on a batch of appeals filed by Karnataka government and others against the High Court order acquitting then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and others in the assets case after hearing a battery of lawyers from both sides. While Jayalalithaa was represented by senior advocate L Nageswara Rao, now a Supreme Court judge, in the hearing of the appeal, another senior lawyer Shekhar Naphade represented other accused in the case.
The hearing in the high-profile case had concluded during summer vacation last year by the apex court which also heard DMK leader K Anbazhagan and BJP MP Subramanian Swamy against the acquittal of Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and others. Senior advocates Dushayant Dave and Siddharth Luthra and lawyer B V Acharya had appeared for Karnataka government and had dealt with the alleged flaws in the High Court verdict.
Luthra and another senior advocate C A Sundaram had dealt with the firms which had found mention in the trial court records. These were Lex Property Development, Meadow Agro Farms Ltd, Riverway Agro Products Pvt Ltd, Ramraj Agro Mills Ltd, Signora Business Enterprises Pvt Ltd and Indo Doha Chemicals and harmaceuticals Pvt Ltd.
Senior advocates T R Andhyarujina and Vikas Singh had appeared for DMK leader Anbazhagan and sought reversal of the High Court verdict. The apex court, during the hearing, had said that acquiring assets "per se" is not a crime unless the sources are found to be illegal.
The court had outlined the three options available to it and said it may either uphold the High court verdict or reverse it or re-appreciate the entire evidence which may lead to fresh re-trial. It can also remand the matter to the High court for fresh consideration.
Dave, appearing for Karnataka, had said, "The judgement of the High Court reflects violent miscarriage of justice and it is perverse beyond imagination. It is based on mere surmises and conjectures and none of the findings are based on evidence."
The Karnataka government was arguing its appeal in the case as the trial was shifted from Tamil Nadu and a Bangalore court had convicted the accused including Jayalalithaa who later succeeded in her challenge before the High Court there.
On July 27, 2015, the apex court had issued notices on Karnataka government's appeal seeking stay of the high court judgement to Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and her relatives V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, asking them to file their replies within eight weeks.
The Karnataka HC had on May 11, 2015 ruled that AIADMK supremo's conviction by special court suffered from infirmity and was not sustainable in law, clearing decks for her return as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister.
The special court had in 2014 held Jayalalithaa guilty of corruption and sentenced her to four years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 100 crore. Jayalalithaa and three others were accused of allegedly amassing disproportionate asserts to the tune of Rs 66.65 crore during her first term as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996.
The Central Crime Branch (CCB) is yet to trace the source of Rs 4.13-crore unaccounted for cash seized from a vehicle carrying vegetables at Anand Nagar in Kodigehalli, north Bengaluru, on January 31.
Police investigation has found that the money 75% of it in Rs 2,000 notes wrapped in polythene bags was part of a hawala transaction. The money belongs to some jewellers in Thamarassery town in Keralas Kozhikode district, but nobody has come forward to claim it, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) S Ravi told journalists on Monday.
There are around 150 jewellers in Thamarassery. Most of them have relatives in Dubai. The jewellers smuggle large quantities of gold jewellery from Dubai and convert them into gold bars in Kerala. They later sell these gold bars to jewellers in Bengaluru and Mumbai. Payments are made through hawala, Ravi said.
Police had arrested three men Mohammad Afzal, Abdul Nassir and Shamsuddin for possessing the unaccounted money. The men have told police that they were just transporting the money for a commission of Rs 200 per Rs 1 lakh.
Even as BJP president Amit Shah said the trend post the first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh showed that the contest in 73 seats was between his party and the BSP, SP leaders refused to boast to avoid sharp polarisation.
It is a BJP ploy to divide the Muslim votes by sending a message that BSP was doing better than the SP-Congress alliance, argued SP leaders.
An SP leader said it would be wrong to write off the state ruling party just on the basis of the first phase of polling. The BSP had done well in the first phase in the 2012 polls, but it was Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who got a decisive mandate. Of the 73 seats, the BSP and SP had clinched 24 seats each, but the Dalit party stood second in more than two dozen seats, he stated.
With campaigning for the second phase ending on Monday, two days ahead of the next round of polling, SP sources claimed that as the election rolls on and enters Yadav land in the third and fourth phases, the ruling partys prospects would brighten.
The SP, which is contesting the polls in alliance with the Congress, is expected to do well on Mulayams home turf of Etawah-Mainpuri and adjoining 67 districts covered under the third phase.
The SPs lead in the last Assembly polls, which helped it form the government, was due to its performance in 67 seats in western Uttar Pradesh, spread across 11 districts such as Saharanpur, Bijnor, Sambhal, Rampur, Bareilly, Amroha, Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur.
Demonetisation has turned out to be one of the major issues in the Assembly elections in several districts of central Uttar Pradesh, where polling is scheduled for Wednesday.
This part of the state houses a large number of marginal farmers and small-scale local industries.
An interaction with farmers and owners of small industries in this region, including Shahjahanpur, Bareilly, and Lakhimpur-Kheri, gives the impression that besides the caste factor, the note ban issue will also affect voters preference in many of the 67 Assembly seats going to polls in the second phase.
Farmers, especially the marginal farmers, who depend on cash crops like potato for their livelihood, suffered greatly owing to the note ban, Bal Govind, a resident of Khutar town, told DH.
He said many small and marginal farmers left their crops to rot in the fields as the prices crashed post demonetisation.
The cost incurred in harvesting the produce and transporting it to the local market turned out to be more than what it would have fetched the farmers, Govind said.
Satya Prakash Verma, a farmer of Dadraul town, echoed similar sentiments. We were ruined by the note ban, he said.
Demonetisation also impacted the small local industries that depend heavily on cash transactions to pay wages of the labour procured locally. Traders were also adversely hit.
Big industries did not experience the pain... the smaller ones were badly hit, said Rajesh Gupta, a trader in Lakhimpur-Kheri district.
Hindu population is diminishing in India as Hindus never convert people while minorities are flourishing unlike in other countries, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said.
The ministers controversial tweets came in response to accusations by Congress Arunachal unit that the Narendra Modi government is converting it into a Hindu state.
Hindu population is reducing in India because Hindus never convert people. Minorities in India are flourishing unlike some countries around, he said in a tweet, which also had a screen-shot of a report on Congress allegations.
Congress should not make such provocative statements. India is a secular country. All religious groups enjoy freedom & living peacefully...Why is Congress making such irresponsible statements? People of Arunachal Pradesh are living peacefully in unity, said Rijiju, a practising Buddhist who hails from Arunachal Pradesh.
Figures from Census 2011 revealed that Hindus formed the majority of 96.62 crore in a 121 crore population with a growth rate of 16.8%, while Muslims with a population of 17.22 crore grew by 24.6%. Hindus grew by 13.86 crore between 2001 and 2011 while other religions together rose by only 4.20 crore, including Muslims who saw an increase of 3.40 crore with an analysis showing that the decline in growth rate among Muslims is higher than any other religion.
In his reaction, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted, MoS Home should remember he is a Minister of India for all Indians not for Hindus only, Remember your oath as minister. What have the minorities in India got to do with minorities of other countries. It is Constitution which guarantees rights.
Later, Rijiju said Congress has made a very irresponsible statement and he was just clarifying the BJPs position on the allegations.
How can Modiji convert Arunachal Pradesh into a Hindu state? What (kind of) statement is this? he said adding, the remarks made by Congress was very wrong.
He also defended his tweets, saying the minorities feel insecure in neighbouring countries and take refuge in India as it is tolerant.
Desperate BJP trying to garner votes on religious polarisation, says Cong
The BJP is going back to its pet themes of religious polarisation and nationalism after the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Congress said on Monday, reports DHNS from New Delhi.
The Congress saw Prime Minister Narendra Modis thrust on surgical strikes and Union Minister Kiren Rijijus statement on declining Hindu population and attempts to link it to religious conversions as a desperate move to regain lost ground in Uttar Pradesh.
Rijiju tried to trigger a controversy claiming on Twitter that the Hindu population was decreasing in India as they never convert people, while minorities were flourishing unlike in some other countries.
The tweet that he put out was not limited to Arunachal Pradesh, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said here.
Modi, in his election rallies, had hit out at the Congress for questioning the September 29 surgical strikes along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. ...attack Modi as much as you can, but don't ever raise doubts about our military and the soldiers bravery, the prime minister had said in election rallies in Uttarakhand on Sunday.
Congress believes that desperation was evident in the BJP ranks as it was now clear that the voting in the first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections did not happen as they had expected.
Suddenly, one fine day you wake up and shoot from the hip, this is a conduct that is unbecoming of a minister, Tewari said referring to Rijiju's comments.
He said the remarks by Modi as well as Rijiju smacked of desperation and the BJP had realised that they had lost the plot. It has come back to its basic DNA try to garner electoral benefit out of religious polarisation, Tewari said.
Police forces in the country added 10,565 personnel to its work force in 2016 compared to the previous year, but vacancies continued to be on the rise, a latest government report showed.
The vacancies, especially in the constabulary that accounts for 67.16% vacant posts, have left the forces in a situation where there are only 180 personnel for a lakh population, when the standard set by the United Nations is way above at 220 per lakh population.
The Data on Police Organisation released recently showed that there are 5.49 lakh vacancies as on January 1, 2016, in police forces across the country at a time when there were 22.80 lakh sanctioned positions.
There are 17.31 lakh personnel as against 17.21 lakh personnel as on January 2015 and 17.22 lakh on January 2014.
An analysis of yearly reports prepared by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) showed that there was an increase of 7,039 vacancies in 2015 and 2016.
Police personnel complain that they are working without a break for days and it is affecting their social life.
The rare weekly off
A study sponsored by the BPRD itself earlier highlighted the plight of police, which said, 75% of the police personnel claim they rarely manage to get a weekly off while inspectors acknowledge that their subordinates work more than 11 hours a day.
The report showed that Uttar Pradesh continues to have the highest number of vacancies, but has improved its record it has 1,81,958 vacancies as against 1.99 lakh earlier. The situation in Karnataka has worsened as the vacancies have increased from 33,307 in 2015 to 39,276. The state ranks second compared to fourth in 2015.
West Bengal, which had 45,430 vacancies, has managed to bring it down to 33,630, while Bihar also has an impressive record 29,479 vacancies as against 41,696 earlier.
Of the vacancies, the highest is in constabulary 3.68 lakh posts of constables are vacant and it accounts for 67.16% of the total vacancies. Compared to 2015, the number of vacancies among constables have risen by 7,111.
The vacancies in the post of head constables is 1.05 lakh, while there are 26,007 posts vacant in the rank of assistant sub inspector, 37,681 in sub inspector and 6,870 among inspectors.
Amid allegations that several AIADMK MLAs were forced to stay at two resorts, the Tamil Nadu government prosecutor on Monday told the Madras High Court that the legislators had not complained that they were illegally detained.
When two habeas corpus petitions filed by the counsel for two legislators came up for hearing before a Division Bench, comprising Justices M Jayachandren and T Mathivanan, public prosecutor R Rajarathinam submitted that 119 MLAs were staying at two resorts.
They have said they were staying there on their own will, he told the court.
AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala on Sunday said that 129 legislators were housed at the resorts. Her camp says that they support her in her bid for power in Tamil Nadu, against Chief Minister O Panneerselvam.
Rajarathinams submission was based on a report filed by the superintendent of police, Kancheepuram district, and the revenue authorities, who personally visited the resorts. He also submitted the statements of the two MLAs in question before the court in a sealed cover.
If the court passed the orders, we are prepared to submit the statements of all the MLAs, the prosecution said. However, the counsel for one of the MLAs contended that the person concerned should be traced and produced before the court on a habeas corpus plea, and the oral statement should not be accepted.
The prosecution's submission came against the backdrop of two petitions alleging that the AIADMK MLAs were illegally detained and were not even allowed to use their mobile phones.
After recording the submissions from both sides, the court reserved its order.
With no word from Raj Bhavan on her stake to form the government as yet, Sasikala visited the two resorts for the third consecutive day to meet her party MLAs and boost their spirits.
Panneerselvam went to the secretariat in the afternoon and held discussions with officials his first visit there after he resigned and was asked by the governor to continue in office till alternative arrangements were made.
Panneerselvam had quit as the chief minister to make way for Sasikala, but later rebelled against her.
I persuaded Jaya to take charge
AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala on Monday claimed that the late chief minister J Jayalalithaa was not interested in politics after the demise of party founder M G Ramachandran (MGR), DHNS reports from Chennai.
Claiming that it was she who had encouraged Jayalalithaa to take over to continue the work of MGR and build the party, Sasikala said, I supported and stood with her in her tough times.
I was largely involved with Amma in party activities and alliance discussions. I could have asked her for a post whenever I wanted, but I did not do that, she said. Justifying her interest to become the chief minister, Sasikala said, I was not happy with the way Panneerselvam conducted himself in the Assembly.
Stating that he was moving too close with the DMK, Sasikala said, I decided to step in and become the chief minister to ensure the continuance of good governance by Amma.
The human resource development (HRD) ministry is unlikely to introduce a common entrance test (CET) for admissions to all central universities.
It is not practical because different universities offer different kinds of programmes, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar told DH, when asked about the status of the proposal to conduct the CET.
The ministers remarks come four months after he presided over a meeting of Central university vice chancellors at the Banaras Hindu University in Uttar Pradesh, to review the functioning of the institutions.
Nearly 40 Central universities function under the HRD ministry. However, only nine, including those in Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab, admit students through a common entrance test.
The core content of the programmes offered by the Central universities is the same, but their focus is different. For example, the focus of one university offering an economics (honours) programme may be on the mathematics portion, while the other might be on the theoretical aspect. When there is no uniformity in the orientation of the courses conducted by them, it is difficult to admit students through a common entrance test, a ministry official said.
Besides, the Central universities also have varying criteria for admissions. For example, students admitted to MPhil programmes at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) are not required to take another test for admissions to the PhD programme. In contrast, an MPhil student at the Delhi University has to take a separate test for admission to the PhD programme, he added.
The proposal to conduct a common entrance test for all Central universities was under consideration of the HRD ministry for several years.
A committee of Central university vice chancellors, headed by the then vice chancellor of the JNU B B Bhattacharya, had favoured the idea in 2011.
Calcutta High Court judge Justice C S Karnan on Monday failed to appear before the Supreme Court in contempt proceedings initiated against him for making allegations of corruption against sitting and retired judges of the apex court and high courts.
A seven-judge bench presided over by the Chief Justice of India noted Justice Karnans absence and wondered if the court could issue non-bailable warrant against him if he failed to show up again.
As Justice Karnan failed to appear and also did not authorise anyone to represent him in response to the apex courts February 8 notice, the bench said, We will have to wait for his reply first. We have two options, once we have granted him time to show cause, we will give him some more time. Second option is that we will issue a bailable or a non-bailable warrant against him.
The court granted three weeks to Justice Karnan to prepare a reply to the show-cause notice under the Contempt of Courts Act and present his case.
During the hearing, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi cited a letter purportedly written by Justice Karnan to the court registry, making several accusations against the judges on the bench that had issued the contempt notice. Justice Karnan had accused the judges of caste bias and sought the matter to be referred to Parliament.
Brought down dignity
He has brought down the dignity of this court and is acting in a fashion that might shake the public confidence in the system. Let formal charges be framed against him and ask him to respond, Rohatgi said.
The bench, however, said that the stage of framing charges had not been reached and that Justice Karnan has been supplied with all the contentious documents to enable him to respond to the contempt notice in its entirety. The court fixed the matter for hearing on March 10.
In a separate matter, senior advocate K K Venugopal, who represented the Madras High Courts registrar general, complained that Justice Karnan had been writing obnoxious and obscene letters to a sitting judge, accusing him of sexually assaulting a law clerk.
The stage is set for the 11th biennial international aerospace exposition, Aero India 2017, at the Yelahanka Air Force Station here. The five-day show opens on Tuesday.
Over two lakh visitors are expected to descend on the venue, with 549 Indian and global companies vying to clinch deals.
On Monday, the defence ministry, Indian Air Force and the participating firms were busy with last-minute preparations and rehearsals.
Fighter jets and aerobatic teams flew sorties through the day. Most had Tuesdays inaugural in mind, when Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is scheduled to declare the show open.
Indias outlook
Parrikar is expected use the platform to outline Prime Minister Narendra Modis domestic defence production strategy. That plan banks on giving more contracts to local firms, while pushing global defence companies to strike deals with Indian firms.
The thrust, once again, will be on Make in India to upgrade the armed forces through acquisition of more fighter jets, early warning systems, missiles, radars and more. Desperate to replace its ageing fleet of fighter aircraft, India had opted to buy 36 multi-role Rafale jets directly from the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation. But that would only meet a part of IAFs original requirement for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).
The last several Aero India shows had competing aircraft firms, including Lockheed Martin with its F-16s, showcasing their prowess through static and aerial displays.
The trend continues. The proof was in the air on Monday, as the light single-engine multi-role fighter JAS 39 Gripen pierced through the skies above the Yelahanka airbase.
The particular aircraft, manufactured by the Swedish firm Saab, had taken part in the NATO operation Unified Protector in Libya.
The American F-16 Falcon was also up on routine sorties. The aerial manoeuvres of the Sukhoi-30 MKI provided a contrast, making a subtle statement that Indias traditional reliance on Russia is still strong.
Trump factor
The emergence of Donald Trump has introduced a sense of uncertainty into many India-US defence contracts. The Trump administration is likely to review American firm Lockheeds proposed tie-ups, one of which is to build F-16 planes in India.
Activists fighting for the suburban railway system will intensify their agitation in the days to come to protest against the non-allocation of funds for the commuter rail project in the Union Budget 2017-18.
The allocation of Rs 3,174 crore to South Western Railway in the latest budget has not brought cheer to the members of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), Praja Rag and other associations that have come together to fight against the steel flyover.
By signing a memorandum of agreement last month, the Railways made a commitment to develop suburban railway. The allocation for track doubling works doesnt include the long-pending projects like Yeshwantpur-Hosur, CfB coordinator Srinivas Alavilli said.
Alavilli welcomed the allocation of funds for other projects and said that Bengaluru, which contributes in great measure to the development of the country, deserves at least what was promised.
Activists have already started expressing their disappointment on Twitter and Facebook. Sanjeev Dyamannavar of Praja Rag said they will start writing to the MPs representing Bengaluru, seeking funds.
Business aircraft operators addressed their concerns over the Centres Regional Connectivity Scheme to the executive director of Airports Authority of India (AAI) at the BizAV India 2017 conference organised by Business Aviation Operators Association (BAOA), here on Monday.
The scheme, also known as Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) intends to boost air connectivity to underserved or unserved airports in the country and increase accessibility to air travel.
Rohit Kapur, managing director of Arrow Aircraft Sales and Charters said that while the policy was good, the implementation is falling short of expectations. We needed a policy which would allow non-scheduled operators transition seamlessly into scheduled flight operators. But, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has placed several entry barriers.
He pointed out that several single-engine aircraft were serving low-traffic routes in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan but the draft civil aviation requirements formed by DGCA say that only twin-engine aircraft can be used for scheduled flights.
G K Chaukiyal, executive director (Project Monitoring and Quality Assurance) in AAI, said that work on the scheme was in full swing and changes are being made based on concerns of stakeholders. The civil aviation ministry is in discussions over the issues Kapur raised, he said.
He said that in the first leg of the bidding process, 43 proposals were received from 11 bidders, covering 190 UDAN routes. This is expected to operationalise 35 to 40 underserved or unserved airports in the country. Of these routes, 32 are in the western region of the country, 21 in the northern region, 16 in the southern region, 12 in the eastern region and 11 in the northeastern region.
Chaukiyal said that a new category has been added to enable operators of under-20 seater aircraft to get financial support through Viability Gap Funding (VGF).
The members of the association pointed out that the regulatory authority, DGCA, needs to be modernised.
Principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Hebbal, Kumar Thakur, who was accused of sexually harassing a student, has been transferred to Kendriya Vidyalaya in Karwar. The decision in this regard was taken by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan.
Thakur has been transferred while the internal probe by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan is still going on. The probe is likely to be completed this week.
The principal was arrested following a complaint by a 17-year-old girl student that he had made sexually-coloured remarks addressed to her. He was later released on bail. In an official communication by Santosh Kumar Mall, Commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan, a copy of which is with DH, one of the conditions put forth by the Sanghatan to Kumar Thakur was that he will not be allowed to enter the KV Hebbal premises unless he is called there for investigations. Besides, he has been barred from making conversations of any sort (not even telephonic) with the staff, students and parents of KV hebbal.
According to the office of Deputy Commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan, Bengaluru, a committee headed by a female officer (not below the rank of assistant commissioner) is conducting the probe into the sexual harassment complaint by the victim.
Further, the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has issued summons to the Commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan, New Delhi, to appear before the Commission in person on February 17.
By Charles P. Pierce
8 February 2017 WASHINGTON (Esquire) The House of Representatives organized its committees on Tuesday, setting up the ground rules for the real mischief to come. One of these committees is the ironically named House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and it is chaired by one Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas. Congressman Smith is a complete creature of the fossil fuel industry. Smith is one of the more prominent climate denialists in a caucus full of them. In the previous Congress, as chairman of this same committee, Smith got the committee rules changed so that he was allowed to issue subpoenas acting unilaterally. He then went to town. He went after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when it issued a report saying that there had been no alleged hiatus in climate change, burying the scientists behind the report in subpoena. (We will be returning to this topic later in our broadcast.) Not to put too fine a point on it but, as The New Yorker reported last fall, Congressman Smith is completely bananas. [] on Tuesday, chairman Smith organized his committee for the coming session. In his opening statement, it became clear that age doth not wither, nor custom stale, his infinite supply of pure Krazee. In his opening statement, Smith made it clear that NOAA is in his sights again, and that he still believes that scientists are conniving to impoverish Good Old Ordinary Americans with their science-y trickeration. But not ol Lamar Smith. Hes got their number. The committees Tuesday meeting was titled, and I am not kidding about this, Making the EPA Great Again. The Science Advisory Board provides critical feedback to the EPA on its proposals, said Smith in his opening statement, in a way that wouldnt make anyone suspect that hes a little paranoid on the subject. But in recent years, SAB experts have become nothing more than rubberstamps who approve all of the EPAs regulations. The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government. The conflict of interest here is clear. [] So sayeth the man whos taken over six-hundred large in oil and gas money since hes been in Congress. Anyway, Smith hastened to move on to the latest wingnut cause celebre: another attack on NOAA and the science of climate change. An anonymous whistleblower told that noted scientific journal, The Daily Mail, that NOAA fudged that report debunking the notion of a climate change pause that so exercised Smith in the last Congress. (I told you wed get back to this.) All of what Smith called recent news stories flow from this report in the Daily Mail. Ars Technica has a good rundown on the controversy, which seems to consist of little more than nasty office feuds that set Smith off on another anti-science rampage. [more]
By Anna M. Phillips, Matt Hamilton, Paige St. John, and Chris Megerian
12 February 2017 (Los Angeles Times) Residents of Oroville and nearby towns were ordered to immediately evacuate on Sunday afternoon after a hazardous situation developed involving an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam. The National Weather Service said the auxiliary spillway at the Oroville Dam was expected to fail by 5:45 p.m., which could send an uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville. Those in Oroville were asked to flee northward toward Chico. In Yuba County, those in the valley areas were urged to take routes to the east, south, or west. This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Repeat this is not a drill, the National Weather Service said. Authorities urged residents to contact neighbors and family members and reach out to the elderly and assist them in evacuating. The Butte County Sheriffs Department and the state Department of Water Resources said the failure of the auxiliary spillway a 1,700-foot-long hillside route was caused by severe erosion. The evacuations marked a dramatic turn of events at the nations tallest dam. For several days, officials have been trying to figure out how to get water out of Lake Oroville after the main spillway was damaged. The emergency spillway had never been used before and until the last few hours it seemed to be working well. Video from television helicopters showed water flowing into a parking lot next to the dam, with large flows going down both the damaged main spillway and the emergency spillway. [more]
Evacuations ordered below Oroville Dam; failure of emergency spillway expected
OROVILLE, California, 12 February 2017 (Associated Press) Officials have ordered residents near one of the nations biggest dams to evacuate the area, saying a hazardous situation is developing after an emergency spillway severely eroded. The emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam in Northern California could fail within an hour unleashing uncontrolled flood waters from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said on Sunday afternoon. People in downstream areas need to leave the area immediately, the department said. Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriffs office said. Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at dam on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall. Water will continue to flow over an emergency spillway at the nations tallest dam for another day or so, officials said earlier Sunday. Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall. In addition to the emergency spillway, water also flowed through the main spillway that was significantly damaged from erosion. Officials said theyll assess the damage starting Monday. [more]
Officials order evacuation of residents near California dam
OROVILLE, Butte County, 12 February 2017 (San Francisco Chronicle) Butte County residents near Lake Oroville, including the entire town of Oroville and nearby regions, were ordered to evacuate Sunday evening after the emergency spillway next to the reservoirs dam suffered a possible structural failure, officials said. There has been severe erosion of the emergency spillway and a possible structural breach that could send uncontrolled water down the stream, said Chris Orrock, a spokesman with the California Department of Water Resources. Residents downstream from Lake Oroville to the Sutter County line were under mandatory evacuation order. Counties around the reservoir, the second largest in the state, down to Sacramento were warned about the possibility of flooding. Department of Water Resources officials issued a statement just before 4:45 p.m. that the auxiliary spillway at the dam was predicted to fail within the hour. [more]
Evacuation ordered for Oroville as dam spillway expected to fail
The Indian Space Research Organisation has embarked on a historic journey. On 9.28 hours IST, February 15, ISRO will attempt a world record, launching 104 satellites on its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The previous record is held by Russia, which launched 37 satellites. The Indian effort more than doubles on this, something that should put ISRO firmly on the map, in the multi-billion dollar satellite launch vehicle market.
The PSLV has flown 38 times before, but this time is different. On February 15, on its 39th mission (PSLV-37) flies with the Cartosat 2 series satellite, meant specifically to monitor activities of nations that are hostile towards India. While the Cartosat is the main mission here, on board at 103 co-passengers, most of which are satellites for foreign countries.
This makes little sense to us, regular people
PSLV-37 will be launched from the First Launch Pad (FLP) of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota. This is the sixteenth time that the PSLV is flying in its XL configuration, which means it will have strap-on motors attached to it. This increases the PSLVs total payload capacity, allowing it to carry the 104 satellites together. The Cartosat-2D satellite itself weghs 714 kg, while the passengers together make for another 664 kg.
What is Cartosat-2?
The CartoSat-2D will be the first to detach from the PSLV, being the primary satellite of the PSLV-37. As mentioned above, it is the heaviest satellite on board the mission this time. It is also the fifth Earth observation satellite in Indias CartoSat series. The PSLV will inject it into a 505km Sun Synchronous Polar Orbit before the CartoSat is made operational.
Earth observation includes activities like remote sensing. For this, the CartoSat 2D has multispectral and panchromatic image sensors. The data from this satellite will be used for a variety of Land Information Systems, mapping, road network monitoring and more. If this were a phone, you would call this next part, the specs:
Launch Mass:
714 kg
Type of Satellite:
Earth Observation
Manufacturer:
ISRO
Owner:
ISRO
Application:
Earth Observation
Orbit Type:
SSPO
Who are the co-passengers?
According to ISRO, the companions flying on this wild ride with the CartoSat satellite are from countries like Kazakhastan, Israel, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates. 101 in total, these are all nano-satellites, with 96 being from the United States of America. India also has two nano-satellites in the fray and the total weight of the combined payload, including the Cartosat, stands at 1378 kg.
The two ISRO nano-satellites being carried on the PSLV this time, include the INS-1A and INS-1B. These two satellites carry a total of four different payloads from Space Applications Centre (SAC) and Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems (LEOS) of ISRO, for conducting various experiments, says ISRO.
INS stands for ISRO Nano Satellite and is a modular nano-satellite bus system. The satellite will be used to measure the amount of sunlight being bounced off different areas on the surface. This will be done with the help of the Surface Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution. The INS-1A weighs a mere 8.4 kg, with two science payloads on board. The other Indian nano-satellite, the INS-1B is slightly heavier, at 9.7 kg. It carries a remote sensing colour camera and the Earth Exosphere Lyman Alpha Analyser, which is meant for deep space observation for a particular form of excited hydrogen atom.
This is the schedule for separation from the PSLV
The party from the US
As mentioned earlier, the United States is sending 96 satellites. Of these, 88 are the Dove (Flock 3P), which are remote sensing satellites that will be imaging the Earth for various purposes, commercial, environmental and humanitarian. They are built and operated by Planet Inc, a company headquartered in San Francisco. The US also has eight other satellites, known as Lemur, which helps in real-time monitoring of large ships.
Others
ISRO has a neat little table summing up the satellites that are being carried for other countries.
Image and information source: ISRO
Shares in EG Solutions soared on Monday as the back office software company anticipates that revenue for the year will be in line with expectations after the implementation of its strategy to profitably scale the business.
At the beginning of the second half of the year, the company embarked on a strategy to profitably scale the business through a focus on sales, broadening and increasing its distribution channels and efficiency deploying internal resources.
This resulted in strong trading in the six months ended 31 January, as the company generated record revenue for the period of no less than 5.69m, up from 2.5m compared to the previous year, and yielded adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of over 2m, up from 890,000.
Cash at the end of the January was at least 2.4m.
Subsequently, EG Solution expects its results for the full year to be in line with expectations on revenue of no less than 8.19m and an adjusted EBITDA of over 1.2m.
During the year, the company signed several new contracts with firms in the US, Asia and Europe, as well as a new master services agreement with a business process outsourcer, which has already yielded a deployment of licences worth about 762,000 with the UK's largest energy supplier.
Multi-year hosting deals have now provided a record contracted forward revenue order book of 18.5m, up from 16.2m last year.
Non-executive Nigel Payne said: "The second half of the financial year was busy and the board is encouraged by the company's performance. We are delighted with the successful signing of a number of high-profile contracts and our pipeline as we enter the new financial year is strong."
Shares in EG Solutions were up 25.12% to 51.30p at 0819 GMT.
Industrial metals flew higher on Monday with copper a stand-out performer thanks in part to a mine strike in Chile, while crude was under pressure after OPEC updated on its output cut.
At 15:23 GMT, on Comex, gold was down 1.04% to $1223.10 an ounce, while silver fell 0.6% to $17.83 an ounce and copper rose 0.83% to 279.10 cents a pound.
On London Metals Exchange, three-month copper rose 4.6% to $6090 a MT, while zinc rose 3.32% to $2924 a MT, tin added 2.1% to $19,475 a MT and aluminum firmed 1.3% to $1874 a MT.
"Amongst the main drivers has been a surge in the price of copper, pushing above its 2016 highs as a strike at Chile's Escondida mine continued to push up prices," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.
"Copper prices haven't been the only driver, with China iron ore prices also rising sharply, over 10% in the last couple of days to $92.23 from $83.84 on Thursday, to their highest levels since August 2014," added Hewson in a statement.
Meantime, Nymex-traded West Texas Intermediate was down 1.47% to $53.07 a barrel, while Intercontinental Exchange-quoted Brent was down 1.59% to $55.80 a barrel.
The fall in the black-liquid's price came as OPEC encouraged suppliers to meet their production-paring pledges of late 2016 to ease the global glut, even as uncertainty lingers over exactly how much Saudi Arabia has reduced its outflow.
OPEC said it was 92% compliant with its November 2016 promise to lower oil output by 1.2m barrels a day. The group's output fell 890,200 bopd, on the month, to 32.139m in January.
FXTM Research analyst Lukman Otunuga said WTI Crude remained entangled in a fierce tug of war as optimism over OPEC cutting oil production coupled with fears of US shale pumping oil incessantly kept investors on edge.
"While last week's unexpected draw in US gasoline inventories bolstered oil as optimism rose over demand remaining healthy in the worlds largest oil market, fears of US shale impacting the OPEC agreement capped oil prices below $54," Otunuga opined.
"Oil markets may be injected with extreme levels of volatility this quarter if fears resurface over the oversupply in the global markets making a return," he added.
Hewson further added that 90% compliance with the recent output cuts had not been enough to help oil prices higher.
"The fact remains that US inventories surged last week, and that was even before another jump in the US rig count on 10 Feburary to 741, from 729 the previous week."
Finally, among agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-priced corn was flat at 374.50 cents a bushel, while wheat fell 0.45% to 447 cents a bushel.
ICE-priced cocoa shed 1.73% to $1928 a MT, and cotton No.2 rose 0.78% to 77.69 cents a pound. Live cattle rose 0.02% to 113.18 cents a pound.
The head of the International Monetary Fund has expressed concern about upcoming general elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands, and also cast doubt on the future of global trade during a Donald Trump presidency.
Speaking at a conference in Dubai attended by a raft of economic experts and policy makers, Christine Lagarde did not specifically mention which elections were most worrisome, but the rise of the National Front's Marine Le Pen in France has alerted many to her potential victory later this year.
"I am worried, as we all are, about some of these elections," Lagarde told the conference.
The managing director of the IMF also said that Trump's rise to the Oval Office would be beneficial for the country's economy in the short term, but indicated it may e harmful for global trade in the long term.
Trump signed an executive order last week which will lead to the reevaluation of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which were put in place following the 2008 global financial crisis in order to curb the influence of powerful banks.
"When it comes to the financial stability, to the ability to supervise, to the strength of those institutions with due accountability - I think it's critically important for the mission that the IMF has, which is financial stability around the world."
"The more worrying news if you will is that it will have consequences on the rest of the world," she added.
Lagarde was recently found guilty of negligence in a French court relating to her time as the country's finance minister, but avoided a jail sentence after a questionable decision to award businessman Bernard Tapie 400m euros from state accounts.
On a related note, over the weekend voters in Switzerland shot down a corporate tax reform initiative which had been backed by the government and big businesses.
Polls had indicated that voting intentions were nearly split but in the end 59% of Swiss said 'No'.
That led Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank to muse "It does make you wonder how accurate the recent polls are in the French elections which show that Le Pen is between 20% and 30% behind Fillon and Macron in a potential second round run-off (based on the latest OpinionWay poll from 7-9th February)."
North Korea's latest and allegedly successful ballistic missile test has sparked closed consultations at the United Nations' Security Council on Monday afternoon.
The urgent diplomatic talks were called for by US, Japan and South Korea.
This followed North Korea "successfully" launching a ballistic missile test at the weekend. The missile was fired into the sea on Sunday.
It was the first nuclear test it North Korea -- whose surpreme leader is Kim Jong Un -- has carried out since Donald Trump took was sworn in as US President in January.
The UN has handed down various sanctions against the country for its nuclear weapons testing, after having completed five tests so far.
North Korean state news agency KCNA referred to the weapon as a surface-to-surface, medium- to long-range ballistic missile. It used a solid-fuel engine in order to achieve greater range.
It has been roundly criticised for the incident, with the US, Japan and South Korea requesting an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to deal with the issue.
China, considered to be an ally of North Korea, has said that it opposed the carrying out of nuclear missile tests from that country.
Nuclear experts were unconvinced about Pyongyang's claims that it had gained the capability of making a warhead small enough to be put on a missile, but point out that that goal could be reached soon.
South Korea's acting president and prime minister, Hwang Kyo-ahn, was concerned about the continued missile testing.
He said South Korea's government was "doing its best to ensure a corresponding response to punish the North", according to the Yonahp news agency.
OPEC is encouraging suppliers to meet their production paring pledges of late 2016 to ease the global glut, as uncertainty lingers over exactly how much Saudi Arabia has reduced its outflow.
OPEC said it was 92% compliant with its November 2016 promise to lower oil output by 1.2m barrels a day, said Kuwait's Oil Minister, Essam Al-Marzooq, in comments reported by Bloomberg.
The group's output fell 890,200 barrels a day, on the month, to 32.139m in January.
Non-open producers were complying at a lesser rater of more than 50%, the news agency reported.
"At the time when producers signed the deal, the initial commitments were to gradually increase cuts until April and May, so we were expecting to see some producers not fulfilling the 100 percent cuts," Al-Marzooq told reporters in Kuwait City.
"We understand the circumstances, and in February we are talking to non-OPEC producers to raise their cuts according to their commitments."
Late last year, OPEC pledged to reverse its strategy of pumping without limits to defend market share against increased supplies, notably from oil from US shale deposits.
At about 13:47 GMT, West Texas Intermediate crude was down 0.76% to $53.45 a barrel, and Brent was down 0.9% to $56.19 a barrel.
Meantime, Saudi Arabia told OPEC that the kingdom had lowered production by 717,600 barrels a day in January to 9.748m barrels a day.
However, OPEC's data, which was compiled from external sources, suggested Saudi made a smaller 496,000 barrel-a-day cut, although in line with last year's supply pledge.
Iraq, Venezuela and Iran told OPEC they had pumped more than allowed by the accord.
In November last year, OPEC agreed to lower output to 32.5m barrels a day, including roughly 750,000 barrels a day from Indonesia, which had subsequently suspended its cartel membership.
At 0900 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index was up 0.2%, Germanys DAX was 0.5% firmer and Frances CAC 40 was up 0.4%.
Meanwhile, oil prices pushed higher, with West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude down 0.7% to $53.51 a barrel and $56.33 respectively.
David Morrison, senior market strategist at SpreadCo, said: US stock index futures are firmer in early trade with investors seemingly uninterested in booking profits following Fridays sharp rally. European equities are also playing catch-up with Wall Street. All the US majors closed out at fresh record highs last week after President Trump promised some big news on tax within the next few weeks. He also spoke to Chinese premier Xi Jinping and promised to honour the one China policy. This has helped to restore positive sentiment after investors suffered a rocky fortnight thanks to Trumps attempted travel ban and protectionist rhetoric.
But its unlikely that just a promise on tax will be enough to keep equities heading higher. Investors will want to see details to keep momentum going. But before that happens attention will once again turn to the US Federal Reserve and the outlook for monetary policy. Janet Yellen testifies in Washington tomorrow and Wednesday and investors will be listening out for clues over future tightening.
Basic resources racked up healthy gains, with the Stoxx 600 sub-index for the sector up 1.1% as copper prices jumped to a 20-month high on the back of supply concerns after BHP Billiton declared a force majeure due to a strike at its copper mine in Chile.
Stada was the top performer after it said over the weekend that it has received two offers for its acquisition, one of which is from private equity group Cinven Partners LLP.
Royal Bank of Scotland gained ground on reports it was planning to cut more than 800m of annual operating costs by slashing jobs and closing branches.
Heineken was little changed after agreeing to buy beer and soft drinks maker Brasil Kirin Holding from Japans Kirin Holdings for 664m.
Software provider Fidessa advanced after it declared both a final and special dividend, with profits strongly boosted by the weak pound.
Sanofi nudged up as it agreed to sell a portfolio of five drugs in Europe to Ipsen for 83m to help pave the way for a takeover of certain assets from Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim.
Swedish defence company Saab was under the cosh after it reported quarterly operating profit that missed analysts expectations.
London miners paced early gains on Monday as news of a worsening strike at the world's largest copper mine sent futures for the red metal sharply higher.
As of 08:16 GMT FTSE 100 index was higher by 8.21 points at 7,266.96.
Investor sentiment was bolstered by positive news from US president Donald Trump's meeting with Japanese leader Shinzo Abe over the weekend and after he reaffirmed Washington's 'One China' policy in a telephone call with China's leader.
On 11 February, roughly 300 protesters illegally entered the premises of BHP Billiton's Escondida copper mine - the world's largest - in Chile, forcing some contract workers to leave.
Events at Escondida came as exports were halted from the second-largest mine in the world at Grasberg, Indonesia.
Combined, the news sent the Stoxx 600's sub-index of Basic Resource shares higher by 2.43% to 452.18 as March 2017 copper futures on COMEX shot up 1.41% to $2.8070 a pound.
This saw shares in BHP advance 3.61%, alongside gains of 2.32% for Rio Tinto and of 2.9% in Anglo American's stock.
Regarding Trump's stance towards China and Taiwan, investors had been especially worried that America would renege on its long-standing policy commitment of support to Chinese reunification, a lynchpin of its regional security strategy in Asia Pacific.
The new President's reaffirmation of that policy was made via a phone call with China's Xi Jinping, according to the White House.
On a more sombre note, his meeting with Abe came against the backdrop of an unexpected intermediate range ballistic missile test by the regime in Pyongang, North Korea, which served to underline the policy challenges faced by the new US administration.
Investors line-up for special divi at Fidessa
Fidessa declared a final and a special dividend as the financial software group said the increased headwinds in its markets during the second half of the year have already begun to reduce. For the calendar year, the FTSE 250 group generated 331.9m revenue, up 12% on a reported basis, or 3% when the benefit of sterling weakness is excluded, with profit before tax up 25% to 48.8m.
Capita and the Co-operative Bank have resolved their differences over claims that the outsourcing firm withheld payments from the bank due to delays as it helped administer mortgages for Capitas clients.FTSE 100 Capita said on Monday that its Western Mortgage Services business will continue to provide mortgage administration services and process new mortgage applications for the Co-operative Bank, while work on the transforming the IT system will cease.
Passenger transport operator National Express announced on Monday that the transaction with Trenitalia over the c2c rail franchise had completed on 11 February, with the Italian state rail operator assuming all responsibility for the franchises operations immediately. The FTSE 250 firm had initially announced the deal on 11 February, selling the Essex Thameside franchisee for 70m, marking its exit from UK rail operations and Trenitalias British debut. Completion of the acquisition was triggered after the Department for Transport granted final consent to proceed.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,267.42 0.12%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,735.61 0.11%
techMARK (TASX) 3,348.63 0.09%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,553.00p 2.12%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 880.50p 1.67%
Glencore (GLEN) 326.00p 1.64%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,392.00p 1.61%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,386.00p 1.46%
Old Mutual (OML) 213.80p 1.23%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,368.50p 1.18%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 491.60p 0.94%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 231.00p 0.92%
Babcock International Group (BAB) 888.50p 0.85%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 365.10p -0.79%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,147.00p -0.73%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,582.50p -0.53%
Worldpay Group (WPG) 270.60p -0.51%
Diageo (DGE) 2,243.00p -0.51%
Bunzl (BNZL) 2,156.00p -0.51%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 6,990.00p -0.50%
Capita (CPI) 523.50p -0.48%
Experian (EXPN) 1,558.00p -0.45%
Croda International (CRDA) 3,380.00p -0.41%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Evraz (EVR) 256.80p 3.46%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 665.00p 1.99%
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 166.50p 1.52%
Elementis (ELM) 307.60p 1.52%
British Empire Trust (BTEM) 670.00p 1.52%
Investec (INVP) 583.00p 1.48%
Victrex plc (VCT) 1,969.00p 1.44%
Fidessa Group (FDSA) 2,434.00p 1.42%
Aldermore Group (ALD) 231.30p 1.36%
Ashmore Group (ASHM) 354.60p 1.31%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Greene King (GNK) 665.50p -1.63%
Senior (SNR) 191.00p -1.50%
RPC Group (RPC) 910.00p -1.36%
Shawbrook Group (SHAW) 257.00p -1.34%
ZPG Plc (ZPG) 380.20p -1.09%
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Food manufacturing and distribution company Anglo African Agriculture announced on Monday that its wholly-owned spice manufacturing business, Dynamic Intertrade , had been awarded a significant contract to supply a custom blended spice product to a leading South African food manufacturer for the 2017 calendar year.
The London-listed firm said the contract award calls for Dynamic Intertrade to supply up to 300 tonnes of specialty spices throughout the year.
It said the order was subject to supply chain volumes from the purchaser.
This is a tremendous achievement for AAAP and a significant boost for the business as the company moves into the 2017 year, said chairman David Lenigas.
Our outstanding service over the past year to this particular blue chip customer, coupled with excellent quality controls and the fact that AAAPs facilities are FSSC accredited cemented this achievement.
This order now places the company in a good position to exceed last financial years c.1,000 tonnes sold.
Capita and the Co-operative Bank have resolved their differences over claims that the outsourcing firm withheld payments from the bank due to delays as it helped administer mortgages for Capitas clients, saving over 700 jobs.
FTSE 100-listed Capita said on Monday that its Western Mortgage Services business will continue to provide mortgage administration services and process new mortgage applications for the Co-op Bank, while work on the transforming the IT system will cease.
The new contract will run until December 2020 with an option to extend and the resolution between the companies has secured 740 Capita jobs related to the contract in Plymouth, Leek and London.
In November 2016, Capita won a 325m 10-year contract to take over the mortgage staff of Co-op Banks administration firm, Western Mortgage Services, in order to comply with regulations.
Capita previously said that the bank had not paid it for its work, which the Co-op denied and said that Capita had not kept its side of the deal.
Numbers of shoppers popping into UK stores dropped at the steepest rate since the Brexit vote, as retailers online channels were the preferred way of picking up clearance sale bargains.
Footfall in January declined 1.3% in January compared to the same month last year and accelerating from the 0.2% fall in December, according to data collected by the British Retail Consortium and retail research firm Springboard.
The sharpest drop in footfall since June dragged the rate below the three-month average of 0.8%.
Springboard's insights director Diane Wehrle said the drop in footfall across the UK's bricks and mortar destinations "may be a sign of tougher things to come in 2017".
"Not only was it a noticeably larger drop than the -0.2% in December; but it was the steepest decline since June 2016, when footfall was impacted in the preceding weeks and in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum.
The results are consistent with longer term footfall trends, with an underperformance of shopping centres against high streets and retail parks. Of significance is that footfall is correlating closely with retail sales, with all sales results published so far showing a poorer performance in January than in January 2016," she said.
The BRC was slightly heartened that the shop vacancy rate in town centres eased very moderately to 9.4% in January from the 9.5% to stand at its lowest rate since the 8.7% a year ago.
London saw the strongest improvement, with the proportion of empty shops falling from 9.5% to 8.4% over the three months to January.
However, while London boosted the shop vacancy rate, BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson noted that on a regional level the number of empty shops "remains worryingly high and act merely as a blot on landscape of local communities".
She also joined wider calls for an abandoning of the government's proposed business rates hike.
At a time when retail is being re-imagined as customers seek more engaging experiences in our high streets, town centres and retail park and centres, the incentive for retailers to innovate and invest in physical space is being curtailed by the upward only trajectory of business rates. This disincentive needs to be removed and the burden reduced thereby encouraging, rather than deterring, investment to the benefit of those local communities most impacted.
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Palazzo Ducale presents the first great retrospective exhibition of colour photos by the renowned photographer Elliott Erwitt. While black and white photos by the great master have been widely exhibited both abroad and in Italy with much success, his colour production has never been on show in Italy before. As a matter of fact, only recently has Erwitt set off on a journey, which has taken him several months to sieve through his huge archive of colour photos, a technique he had decided to use only for his publishing, institutional, and advertising work. It ranges from political to social topics, from architecture to the movie industry and fashion. They are actually quite different photos, which he looked at again after several decades with a critical and contemporary view.
Top: Elliott Erwitt, Cohiba cigar with smoking fish. Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos Above: Elliott Erwitt, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1968. Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
These pictures help us learn about a parallel and yet equally unique world. The resulting exhibit is quite surprising in its elegant arrangement, use of colour, irony, at times even humorous touch, without mentioning Erwitts versatile approach to photography that has made him so much loved and unique. The exhibition consists of about 135 pictures personally selected by Elliott Erwitt from his two great colour projects, namely, Kolor and The Art of Andre S. Solidor.
Elliott Erwitt, Andre S. Solidor, self-portrait with roach. Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
A multimedia section at the end of the exhibition features two videos about Erwitts long career as a TV author and director, and a video collection of some of his most famous black and white pictures. Elliott Erwitt was born on 1928 in Paris to Russian emigre parents. His formative years were spent in Milan. At the age of 10 his family moved back to Paris only to immigrate to New York a year later, then transferring to Los Angeles in 1941. While attending Hollywood High School he worked in a commercial darkroom processing signed prints for fans of movie stars.
Elliott Erwitt, New York City, New York, USA, 1989. Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
In 1948 Erwitt met Edward Steichen, Robert Capa and Roy Stryker who liked his photographs and took a personal guiding interest becoming significant mentors. The following year he returned to Europe traveling and photographing in Italy and France thus marking the start of his professional career. Drafted in to the US Army in 1951 he continued taking photographs for various publications totally apart from his military duties while stationed in New Jersey, Germany and France. In 1953 freshly decommissioned from military service, Erwitt was invited to join Magnum Photos as a member by its founder Capa. While actively working for magazine, industrial and advertising clients Erwitt devotes all his spare time toward creating books and exhibitions of his work. To date he is the author of nearly 30 photography books.
Elliott Erwitt, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 1957. Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
The Abbey Arts Centre in Ballyshannon is one of four projects in Donegal to share in 450,000 worth of grants from Minister for the Arts Heather Humphreys department.
The Donegal allocations are as follows:
215, 753 approved for Lifford project;
164,785 approved for the Abbey, Ballyshannon;
46,420 approved for An Grianan, Letterkenny;
27,962 for the County Museum.
The Minister will make the announcement as part of the Creative Ireland programme, with funding provided under her Departments Arts and Culture Capital Scheme 2016-2018.
A total of 56 cultural organisations will benefit from this capital investment, including theatres, heritage centres, galleries, archives, integrated arts centres, artist studios and creative and performance spaces.
In Lifford
In Lifford approval of grant funding has been given to LATCH, Lifford, which runs the Old Courthouse project with a grant of 215,753 for a new lift and atrium stairwell.
In Ballyshannon
The Abbey Arts and Cultural Centre has been given 164,785 for a series of works. These include monies to refurbish and upgrade the main theatre, theatres 2 and 3, reception area, the shop and kitchen areas and the green room; upgrade lighting, sound equipment, insulation, provide safe access over the stage and main auditorium, and purchase IT and projection equipment.
In Letterkenny
An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny is getting 46,420 for refurbishment and upgrade facilities to front of house and the auditorium.
And Donegal County Museum in Letterkenny has been awarded 27,962 to develop a multi-functional space, new furnishings and a technology update.
Minister Joe McHugh commented: I wish to pay tribute to all those involved in the arts in Donegal. Over 85% of the funding is being provided to projects outside of Dublin. Putting arts and culture at the centre of rural life is a key element of the recently launched Action Plan for Rural Development.
I would like to commend Minister Humphreys for prioritising investment in our regional arts and cultural facilities, and I look forward to work getting underway on projects in Donegal without delay.
Cllr. Barry O'Neill - Deputy Chairperson of Donegal County Council has also welcomed the countywide funding for the cultural facilities but in particular for his hometown of Ballyshannon with the Abbey Arts Centre being granted 164,000 from Government.
Cllr. O'Neill said: "Its fantastic news for the Abbey Arts Centre, for Ballyshannon but also for South Donegal as the facility was eight years ago designated as the Arts Centre for South Donegal.
I must pay tribute to the Board of Management at the Abbey Arts Centre and its dedicated Manager for their continued commitment to the key arts facility in South Donegal.
Meanwhile, reacting to the Lifford funding Cllr Martin Harley said: This is a massive funding boost to the work of LATCH in Lifford where the Old Courthouse has been turned into one of Donegals Top Visitor Attractions. I am very grateful to Ministers McHugh and Humphreys for this fantastic news.
In Letterkenny Cllr. Jimmy Kavanagh said: As a director of the An Grianan theatre management company, I have been working along with Minister McHugh to impress on Minister Humphreys the importance of this capital funding application to the continued success and future development of the theatre in Letterkenny.
And I am absolutely delighted that the Minister has awarded this grant, that will help to ensure that An Grianan remains to the fore, in the provision and development of arts, drama and music in the county and North West.
Cllr.Kavanagh said the grant to the county museum was very welcome. This is the biggest funding grant in a decade to the arts and proof that this Government is fully committed to supporting history and culture in County Donegal.
Other North West allocations
The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon and The Glens Centre in Manorhamilton also both received funding under the Arts and Culture Scheme 2016-2018. The Dock has been allocated 128,500, while Manorhamilton's The Glens received 50,000.
Cavan Town Hall Theatre and The Hawks Well Theatre in Sligo will receive 750,000 and 550,000 respectively.
A 75-year-old man is facing two counts of murder and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer after the Jackson County Sheriffs Office said he showed up with a firearm at a residence where two females had been killed.
William Hawk, 75, of Fountain, Fla., was shot by a Jackson County deputy early Sunday at the residence on Crystal Lane in the Rocky Creek community.
Hawk was taken to an Alabama hospital for treatment and was booked into the Jackson County Correctional Facility Sunday morning.
According to a statement from the sheriffs office, the office received a 911 call about 8:44 p.m. Saturday from a female who said a subject had a gun at a residence on Crystal Lane and then disconnected.
Deputies responded to the residence and could not locate anyone. Neighbors told deputies that car doors were heard slamming and a vehicle left the residence.
Later a deputy was able to make contact by phone with a male subject with ties to the female at the residence. Based on the conversation, the deputy went back to the residence and found two females inside dead from gunshot wounds.
The scene was secured and investigators were called to respond. The man the deputy had talked to was identified as a suspect and a BOLO (be on the lookout) was sent out for the suspect and his vehicle.
Just prior to 2 a.m. Sunday, an investigator notified deputies that a truck matching the suspects vehicle description was traveling toward the scene.
The truck pulled into the area of the crime scene. The driver told deputies he was who they were looking for and that he had done the shooting.
The suspect was ordered to show his hands and he displayed a firearm. He did not comply with commands to drop the firearm, and a deputy shot him.
The man was taken into custody, and first aid was rendered until emergency medical services arrived.
The names of the two victims are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The deputy has been placed on administrative leave. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the officer-involved shooting.
The sheriffs office is investigating the homicide in conjunction with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Crime Lab, the State Attorneys Office, and the Medical Examiners Office.
Last week was an interesting and predictable week in Alabama politics. Alabama lawmakers gathered in Montgomery for the beginning of the 2017 regular legislative session, but one item would not be on their agenda. The legislatures proceedings to impeach Gov. Robert Bentley that began last spring were suspended at the request of Attorney General Luther Strange.
The scrutiny of Bentley follows allegations of an inappropriate relationship between the governor and a top aide, and the possibility that state resources may have been used to facilitate and hide the relationship. Strange told lawmakers his office was conducting an unspecified investigation of its own, and asked the impeachment committee to stand down temporarily. Its an ordinarily reasonable request.
Then on Wednesday, Alabamas U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions was confirmed as U.S. Attorney General for the Trump administration. Back at home, Bentley, who held the privilege of choosing Sessions successor in the Senate, named Strange to the seat. Soon, Strange was in Washington being sworn in for his new role.
There wasnt a peep about the Bentley investigation.
Late Friday, Bentley appointed longtime Marshall County District Attorney Steve Marshall to fill the remainder of the state attorney general term, which is up for re-election in 2018. We urge AG Marshall to put the Bentley investigation at the top of his to-do list.
We cannot say whether there is any truth to the allegations against Bentley. However, many people have heard audio recordings of Bentley on a phone call making pillow-talk remarks that would be highly inappropriate if made to an employee. The unfolding scandal in Montgomery, coupled with eyebrow-raising stories such as Bentleys wallet having been taken by state helicopter from his home to the beach house on the Alabama coast, suggests that there is more than sufficient reason to investigate the governors office relationships and use of state resources.
With Strange having moved on to greener pastures, Alabama lawmakers should resume impeachment proceedings immediately, and inform Marshall that the AGs office investigation should continue as well.
The people of Alabama deserve the truth.
NEW BROCKTON The Coffee County Commission unanimously approved a motion on Monday to adopt a resolution of support for a proposed statewide gas tax increase to fund resurfacing of rural county roads.
ATRIP-2 would institute a 3 cent per gallon gas tax on the entire state over a 15-year period. A $1.2 billion bond would then be issued to fund the repairing or repaving of roads that do not qualify for federal funding.
The gas tax would be used to pay back the bond over its 15-year lifespan.
Local and federal roads are rated as excellent, good, fair, poor, very poor or failed by the state.
According to Coffee County Engineer Randy Tindell, 81 percent of Coffee Countys local roads are either rated as fair, poor or very poor while only 42 percent of the federal roads are rated as fair, poor or very poor.
The more alarming issue is that 46 percent of Coffee Countys local roads are rated as poor or very poor compared to just three-percent of federal roads. Of 228 total miles, 104 of local roads are either poor or very poor.
Only 3 percent of local roads are rated as excellent in Coffee County, while 18 percent are rated excellent for federal roads.
Federal roads are the only roads that counties or cities can repair or repave with federal funds while local roads must be repaved with local funds or state funds.
The money that would go to Coffee County from the ATRIP-2 project estimated at $12 million would be able to repave the majority of the roads in desperate need of repair in Coffee County.
According to Tindell, this sales tax is estimated to cost $1.50 per month for Alabama motorists.
Coffee County Commissioner Josh Carnley wanted to make sure that Coffee County residents understand that the sales tax would simply go back to repaying the bond issuance if ATRIP-2 is passed.
This is an opportunity for our county as well as the other 66 counties in the state of Alabama to do something about this, Carnley said. It isnt just a Coffee County problem.
The state legislature has to pass it, we cant, and if they kill it then this is over with and we arent talking about anything anymore. As a county, were saying that we support this.
Commissioner Jimmy Jones also pointed to safety issues regarding the bad roads.
I concur with Commissioner Carnley and I think that safety is paramount here, Jones said. We dont want a citizen or family member to get killed on these bad roads in Coffee County.
The Houston County Commission voted 3-1 Monday to support a proposal that would increase the state gas tax by three cents per gallon to fund a bond issue to resurface rural county roads, but few commissioners were optimistic the proposal has the broad political support needed to pass.
The proposal, pushed by the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, has been dubbed ATRIP2 after a recent road resurfacing measure pushed by Gov. Robert Bentley. The measures differ significantly, however.
Bentleys ATRIP leveraged future federal highway revenue to fund bonds for the resurfacing of high-traffic county roads and bridge repair. The ATRIP2 proposal calls for a three-cent increase in the state gas tax to fund a $1.2 billion bond issue for the repair of rural county roads and some city streets. The proposal calls for the tax to end once the bond is repaid.
Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver said he expects the proposal to be tweaked if it gains enough support for a vote in the Legislature.
We are not thinking this exact piece of legislation is what is going to come out. What this vote does is just support ongoing efforts to get something done, Culver said during Mondays Houston County Commission meeting. There is no other legislation out there. We are talking $75 million direct dollars into the five core Wiregrass counties. We know the legislative process is a difficult, at best, situation. We want to let our folks know that something needs to be done, knowing that what passes -- if anything passes -- will probably be different from this.
District 4 Commissioner Brandon Shoupe voted against supporting the resolution, citing lack of support for the proposal in his district as well as what he believes is a failure to solve the long-term problem.
Even if this passed, the roads we would be resurfacing today will need to be resurfaced again, Shoupe said. I dont sense a lot of broad support for this in my district and, frankly, I dont have a lot of faith in the top people in Montgomery.
At some point we are going to have to have a real adult conversation about this, Shoupe said. Providing for the peoples infrastructure is a fundamental operation of government. We have to do a better job of communicating the need.
-----------------------
The commission also took the following action Monday:
Agreed to appoint Ben Irwin to the Southeast Alabama Community Action Partnership Board
Authorized the chairman to execute the 2018-20 ACCA Liability Self-Insurance Fund participation agreement
Approved a request to select a firm to conduct audits of various agencies
Approved a request to rescind and replace an agreement with SpectraCare Health Systems that will allow the agency to renovate an existing property.
Approved a request to move forward with $16,000 of engineering site work for a new communications tower as part of the Sheriffs Office new communications system.
Approved an authorization to increase the County Buildings major repair budget in order to receive reimbursement from the City Clerk and District Attorney for the construction of shelves.
Approved the emergency replacement of an HVAC system at the Department of Human Resources with expenditures to come out of the Capital Replacement Fund. Several HVAC systems have failed recently, causing the Capital Replacement budget to be depleted.
Approved a request from the Sheriffs Office to claim several overtime grant reimbursements for assisting various agencies
Approved a request from Landmark Park for 20 loads of base dirt to assist with a road improvement project
Approved a request from the Town of Kinsey to place rock and assist with dirt work on Ruby Drive
Approved a request to place items on the government auction site govdeals.com. Items include computers, printers, office equipment and office furniture.
For Dr. LaToya Walton-Torrence, history is about people who helped shape the world.
Had it not been for Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive an M.D. degree from an American medical school, and Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, the first African-American woman to earn an M.D. degree, she might not have had the opportunity to obtain her degree.
I think about the challenges that they had and the possibilities that they helped to secure for someone like me to become a physician, she said.
The obstetrician/gynecologist at Ladies First Obstetrics & Gynecology in Dothan is grateful for their accomplishments and is working to pay it forward.
As a physician who grew up in this area, I really care about the community of Dothan, Torrence said. This is home for me, and growing up here and then being able to come back to serve the women of this community, I couldnt have made a better choice.
Torrence was a chemistry major at the University of Alabama when she shadowed an endocrinologist during her freshman year.
She saw a couple of patients who were young and had Graves disease or other issues with their thyroid. It was amazing to her that the thyroid is a tiny organ in the body, but its like a clock it makes you go fast, it makes you go slow and it disrupts your life significantly.
One little thing in the body can go astray and it changes your life, she said. I was hooked after that.
Torrence graduated from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. She completed her residency at the University of Florida in Pensacola at Sacred Heart Hospital, and joined Ladies First in August 2004.
The group office offers a range of womens health care services with three full-time doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses and support staff.
Henrietta Mathis, nurse supervisor, said working with the doctors and others has enhanced her skills. Torrence and the other doctors are like educators and advocates, she said.
We all work together as a team, Mathis said, noting the collaboration in coordinating care for patients has made her better at her job.
Communication is key to taking care of women as they transition through lifes stages, Torrence said.
Whats good about our nursing staff and our nurses here is were able to work very well together, Torrence said. Having other physicians in the group, you are able to collaborate when there are situations that are not completely clear.
The doctors also work with outside specialists to make sure they have the correct treatment plan for the patients.
What Ive noticed when you get in a habit to doing things in a systematic way, its very easy to learn what one physician is going to do, Torrence said. I think its the camaraderie of working well together. Its almost like a learning/training situation for a lot of the nurses.
The crew understands each person has a job, and doing that job makes everything much easier and the flow of experience is better, Torrence said.
Addressing patient concerns and answering questions is part of the job. Torrence lets patients know that each visit is an education process.
I know for first-time moms you are experiencing everything for the first time, so its completely brand new, she said. Sometimes those brand-new things, you dont know if theyre normal or if theyre not.
She makes each visit with obstetrics patients an educational process so patients are learning as they grow in their pregnancy.
After she transitioned from chemistry to medicine, choosing obstetrics and gynecology was an easy choice.
During her time in school her mother and her mothers three sisters asked her for help with their issues and problems.
It was just a natural fit for me, she said. I was able to do womens health and womens issues because I worked on my aunts very early on.
As with the relationship between the X5 and coupe-styled X6, and the medium SUV X3 and X4 ranges, the X2 will differ from its more practical mechanical donor thanks to a lower roofline and tapered glasshouse, though the X2 concept shied away from the fastback styling of the X4 and X6.
Final details for the compact X2 are still to be unveiled, but the production model is set to be based on the same mechanical package as the current X1 SUV.
The German brand has confirmed that a production version of the X2 concept, first shown at the Paris Motor Show in 2016, will be coming to Australian showrooms and will be followed up by the brand's new flagship X7 SUV.
BMW is set to place new bookends within its SUV family over the next few years.
BMW Australia CEO, Marc Werner confirmed the arrival of the X2 at a media event outside of Melbourne last week.
"From a pure numerical product lineup it makes perfect sense to launch an X2 between the X1 and X3, and basically follow the concept of the SAV coupes (Sport Activity Vehicles) such as the X4 and the X6, particularly as the X4 is going from strength to strength here in the market," Mr Werner said.
"Speaking about the success of the X4, I certainly believe the X2 will be another big success for BMW in that segment," he predicted.
At the other end of the scale a new flagship BMW X7, first confirmed for production in 2014, is also bound for Australia before the end of the decade, though Mr Werner admitted he'd much rather have it here sooner.
"Arguably this is something that we probably would have liked to see much earlier, but that's the way it is," Mr Werner told Australian motoring media.
"The car is coming, and that's actually the good news. It's confirmed for Australia, [but] still a couple of years away."
Mr Werner went on to suggest that the X7, which will be positioned above the X5 range, had the potential to become a benchmark in its segment, lining up against high-end SUVs including the Mercedes-Benz GLS and Range Rover ranges.
Exact timing for the two new SUV models won't be revealed until closer to launch, but the production version of the X2 is expected to make its debut toward the end of 2017 and the X7 could appear early next year.
Sources privy to early styling proposals for the new Audi Sport model say it's dominated by a heavily decorated eight corner single frame grille featuring a wider design than that seen on current Audi models, with Audi Sport's traditional high gloss honeycomb grille insert and quattro lettering within the lower part of the grille frame.
The new look grille is bookmarked by distinctive trapezoidal shaped headlamps with Audi's matrix laser technology that is capable of projecting a light beam of up to one million pixels together with an LED function for the day time driving lights and strobe like dynamic blinkers.
Also set to feature is a heavily structured front bumper, which is said to be completed by a prominent splitter element that helps to accentuate the new Audi's width while aiding air flow to the engine bay.
Compared to the existing SQ7 the most performance orientated of Audi's large SUVs - the RS Q8 concept receives a lower and more sloping roofline along with a shallower glasshouse and more heavily angled rear tailgate, all of which helps to provides it with more sporting silhouette than its upright sibling.
It also adopts elements from the original Audi quattro from the 1980s, including prominent shoulders above the large wheel houses and a characteristic C-pillar treatment. The wheels used on the original Q8 concept measure 23-inch in diameter and come shod with generous 305/35 profile tyres a combination that is likely to be upgraded for the RS Q8.
Mercedes-Benz is sending its military grade G-Class out in style with the unveiling of the new four-seat G650 Landaulet the latest in a burgeoning number of high-priced models from the German car maker's revived Maybach sub-brand.
Set to make its public debut at the Geneva motor early next month, the plush new 463kW twin-turbocharged 6.0-ltire V12 powered limousine-cum-off-roader foreshadows the launch of a heavily upgraded version of the 38-year-old G-Class later this year, featuring a semi-convertible roof structure similar in style to that adopted by the Maybach 62 Landaulet launched in 2007.
Based around the long-wheelbase G-Class with the widened body, modified running gear and portal axle chassis already used by the G63 6x6 and more recently introduced G500 4x4, the four-door G650 Landaulet stretches to 5345mm in length, 2110mm in width and a generous 2335mm in height.
The fifth in the current range of Maybach models also rides on a wheelbase of 3428mm or some 258mm longer than the long wheelbase S-Class, which forms the basis of the similarly luxurious Mercedes-Maybach S650.
Entry to the G650 Landaulet's leather-lined cabin is via a running board, which hinges from underneath the doors. Inside, the latest member of the Maybach line-up provides seating for four, with the electronically adjustable individual rear seats borrowed from the S-Class mounted well back to free up legroom.
While the driver and front seat passenger are accommodated under a fixed steel roof, the rear seat passengers can choose to go top down; at the press of a button the fabric rear section retracts back and stows behind the rear seats above the luggage compartment.
In keeping with the limousine roots of the Maybach brand, there's also an electrically operated glass partition separating the front section of the cabin from the rear, which can be changed from transparent to opaque. Additionally, the individual rear seats, borrowed from the S-Class Pullman with inflatable air chambers and hot stone massaging function, can be set to a fully reclined position. There are also retractable tables integrated in the rear middle console, while the an additional cross member, used to hold the glass partition, houses two 10.0-inch monitors as part of a comprehensive infotainment system.
Power for the G650 Landaulet comes from the same twin-turbocharged 6.0-litre V12 petrol engine used by the G65, with 463kW at 5000rpm and vast 1000Nm torque between 2300 and 4300rpm. The heady reserves are sent through a standard seven-speed torque converter equipped automatic gearbox featuring a separate transfer case with low range gearing and a heavy duty four-wheel drive system featuring three separate differential locks, which can be engaged on the move.
No performance claims for the G650 Landaulet have yet been revealed, though the more on-road biased 2505kg G65 dispatches 100km/h from standstill in 5.3sec and boasts an electronically limited top speed of 230km/h.
Reflecting the G-Class' off-road heritage, the G650 Landaulet receives a heavy duty portal axle chassis originally developed for the G63 6x6 and also used by the G500 4x4; the wheels are not mounted at the same height of the axle but rather situated lower owning to the adoption of portal transmission at each end, providing the new Maybach with huge 450mm of ground clearance and allowing the fitment of 22-inch wheels shod with 325/55 profile tyres as standard..
Set to be produced in a limited run of 99 at Magna Steyr's manufacturing facility in Graz, Austria, the G650 Landaulet is described as the most expensive G-Class model yet. Pricing is yet to be announced, though officials say it will top that of the G63 6x6, which was also offered in limited numbers at a starting price of $675,000 back in 2014. Don't hold your breath waiting for it to reach Australian dealers, though, as all of the 99 examples to be produced are planned to be in left-hand drive guise.
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Dutch king Willem-Alexander and queen Maxima attended a German-Dutch exhibition on flood protection technology related to the restoration of the Elbe river, following the massive floods in 2002 and 2013.
The exhibition took place in the Unesco world heritage Kornhaus building on the banks of the Elbe river in Dessau, Germany on 10 February. It was held on occasion of a Dutch trade mission and a four-day visit of the royal couple to Germany.
The participants exchanged views on the development of tools for real time monitoring of water levels, early flood warning systems and flood evacuation information to residents.
The latter is still controversial as its requires authorities to acknowledge that despite all protection measures that have been taken there always remains a flood risk, no matter how small.
Saxony-Anhalt environmental minister Claudia Dalbert favours construction of more retention areas along the Elbe river.
More retention capacity along Elbe river
The royal couple was accompanied by Environmental minister Claudia Dalbert of Saxony-Anhalt and Infrastructure and the Environment minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen of the Netherlands.
Saxony-Anhalt minister Claudia Dalbert reminded the German and Dutch participants of the exhibition of the urgency to develop tools to prevent river floods. Large areas in her state were flooded in 2002 and 2013. The dike breach in 2013 costed her federal state of Saxony-Anhalt 1.7 billion euro she said.
Dalbert praised the new German national flood protection programme that includes some 60 projects in Saxony-Anhalt.
In four years time some 532 million euro will be invested, she continued. This will include many technical measures, but we need to balance these with nature-based measures. By relocating our dikes we intend to increase the retention capacity with 10.000 hectare.
Dutch queen Maxima (second right) and Dutch minister Schultz (second left) are informed on the new flood prevention plans by Saxony-Anhalt.
Sharing experiences
Dutch minister Schultz offered the assistance of Dutch flood experts that have been involved in the Room for the River programme. This programme included some 30 projects along the Rhine river, many of which were based on dike relocation.
We have fifteen years of experience now, she said. and the results are already visible. Our flood plains are not only safer, they even look nicer.
Never 100 percent safe
German and Dutch flood experts concluded that despite all flood prevention measures taken, some residual risk will always remain.
The Dutch firm HKV developed an app that can be used by residents in flood prone areas to predict the potential water levels in case of a flooding.
According to science director Bas Kolen at HKV most flood early warning tools have been developed to be used by professionals at water boards or disaster relief organisations. Our app is specially made for residents. For every postal code in the Netherlands, the app shows the probability of flooding including the depth of the flooding at the given location, he explained.
For the occasion of the exhibition, HKV developed a German version of the app, called Uberschwemm Ich?.
Bas Kolen of HKV explains the Uberschwemm Ich? app to minister Dalbert and the Dutch royal couple.
Linking water levels to flood risks
At the exhibition Bas Kolen held a duo presentation to the Dutch royal couple together with Frank Schreiter, Landesbetriebes fur Hochwasserschutz und Wasserwirtschaft (LHW) of Saxony-Anhalt.
Schreiter showed the national Hochwasser portal that provides real-time water levels at some 1.600 river locations. Last year we also introduced an app for residents to check for the actual water levels, he explained.
Both Kolen and Schreiter said to be interested to explore a possible combination of their apps in order to further increase the flood risk awareness and self-reliance of communities.
Other Dutch exhibitors were:
Antea Group consultancy
Arcadis consultancy
Deltares specialised research institute
EcoLoss tube flood barrier
Hillblock - specially shaped dike stones
Hyflo - self closing flood barrier
I-real - real time data systems
Infram wave overtopping simulation
One Architecture urban flood defence designs and projects
RoyalHaskoningDHV - consultant
Slamdam mobile flood barrier
Steahl Engineering - drainage system protection
Van Heck - emergency pumps
Read also on this website
German and Dutch river flood protection benefits from more mum, less dad,10 February 2017
Dutch King Willem-Alexander launches water control room in Brisbane, Australia, 4 November 2016
Flood & Coast 2016: Dutch and British flood experts seek cooperation on asset resiliency and community involvement, 24 February 2016
More information
HKV
Lelystad, the Netherlands
+31 320 294 242
www.hkv.nl/apps
Rijkswaterstaat/Room for the River programme
Utrecht, the Netherlands
+31 88 797 29 00
www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl/english
Netherlands Water Partnership
The Hague, the Netherlands
+31 70 304 3700
www.nwp.nl
Hochwasserportal
www.hochwasserzentralen.de
Purchasing an established healthcare practice could help secure a medical practitioners financial future. Its not uncommon for business-minded practitioners to look at setting up their own practice once they feel they have secured a firm list of clientele. However, few consider the option of buying into an established practice given the right circumstances, this option can yield the best outcome for the practitioner.
In much the same way that purchasing an established business can help entrepreneurs bypass challenges encountered in the start-up phase, purchasing an established healthcare is advantageous to practitioners. Access to an existing customer-base provides a predictable cash flow from Day One, and everything you need to run the practice will already be in-place including staff who know the business and how to do their job, as well as equipment and premises, which have all been secured for you.
Buying an established practice also eliminates a lot of time and capital that would traditionally be spent on building your business from the ground up and working on an effective business plan, which some practitioners might not want to or cant do. It also eliminates any unforeseen out-of-pocket expenses you might not have calculated for when setting up your own practice.
Below are some tips to keep in mind and consider when looking to purchase an established practice.
Finding the right practice
Its important to make sure you fully understand what kind of practice you are buying into, before making the big purchase. One way to see if a practice is suitable for you is to try working near the area, or even at the same practice if possible, and potentially even have an arrangement in place where you have the option of buying the practice after 12 months.
Have clear intentions before you begin
Make your intentions clear from the start. Its important to have an agreement in place when you join a practice, otherwise you could end up wasting a lot of time going back and forth on costs and transfers. Make sure you have a specific exit strategy in place for the existing owner as well, to avoid any crossovers that can cause problems.
Purchasing cost
Costs for a medical practice vary widely and can change depending on a number of factors. One of those factors is location. Some practitioners may prefer to work in an urban environment, however due to the convenience of the location, the price of a practice might be much higher than one based in the country. Country practices may cost less to purchase, however its important to keep in mind that they may also offer a smaller clientele.
Ongoing staff
Starting out with experienced staff is a bonus when purchasing an established practice. To ensure a smooth transition into the business, you should keep in mind how existing staff are used to working and what systems are in place. You might have to factor in potential costs for training.
Existing equipment
Purchasing an existing practice often means you wont need to worry about buying new equipment. However, you will need to consider if the practice wholly owns the equipment, or if they are paying it off or leasing it. This is another factor you need to consider before making your decision to avoid unnecessary costs.
Use a specialist adviser or lender
Having a specialist adviser or lender can make the buying process much more simplified for you. A specialist adviser will show you the ins and outs of the business, keeping the process simple and right from the start. They will also remind you to do your due diligence, to ensure you know exactly what youre buying, including the liabilities.
Adequate income protection, accident and life insurance is recommended. As a practitioner, you are the business asset, so if you cant work, you have no income. Make sure you take care of your biggest asset!
About the author
Paul Freeman is Head of Practitioner Segment at NAB Health and CEO of Medfin Finance.
Sydney will host Australias first start-up accelerator program focused on developing clean energy technology companies.
Founded by Piers Grove and Nick Lake, EnergyLab is a not-for-profit business incubator that will operate out of the Blackfriars School House, UTS in Chippendale.
It was the recipient of a $120,000 grant from Jobs for NSW, which the state government has tasked with providing $190 million worth of financial support for start-ups and SMEs with a view to generating new jobs. The funding has been used by EnergyLab to cover fit-out and first-year operating costs.
The co-working space at EnergyLab is set to cater for up to 60 clean energy entrepreneurs who will have access to mentoring and networking opportunities, events and professional advice. The accelerators co-founders are seeking to generate 76 direct jobs each year.
This is an exciting step up for the cleantech startup community in Sydney, said EnergyLab Executive Director Piers Grove.
Being able to offer industry specific support in this vibrant community will help position Sydney as a go-to market for innovation and opportunity.
EnergyLab together with Climate-KIC Australia a public-private partnership to transform the way Australia responds to climate change are accepting applications for a 12-month accelerator program to help start-ups working on renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy monitoring and other clean energy innovations.
Four start-ups will be selected to participate in the program, which will provide them with mentoring to transform them into market-ready, investable company. As well as receiving free rent, professional services and mentoring, start-ups will receive at least $50,000 in seed capital.
Climate-KIC Australia CEO Christopher Lee said the EnergyLab accelerator program will cater for the unique needs of clean energy businesses.
[Were] excited to be partnering with EnergyLab to pilot dedicated acceleration for this industry, he said.
We bring European experience to the table but look forward to offering a program thats distinctly Australian and relevant in an Asian context.
The NSW Government is establishing a supersized start-up hub in Sydney to generate new high-growth businesses and jobs, Deputy Premier John Barilaro has announced.
Barilaro, who is also the Minister for Regional NSW, Skills and Small Business also said the Sydney Startup Hub, which will be located near Sydney CBD, would have significant benefits for regional start-ups looking to do business in and around Sydney.
Jobs for NSW, the private sector led board delivering $190 million worth of financial support to start-ups and SMEs on behalf of the NSW Government, is inviting expressions of interest from business incubators, accelerators and organisations wanting to partner in delivering the hub.
Alex McCauley, CEO of StartupAUS the peak body for start-ups nationally welcomed the proposed hub, explaining that it was consistent with a key recommendation in the groups 2016 Crossroads Report for government to work with industry to establish a national network of innovation districts in major cities.
Start-ups are powering jobs growth here and overseas and its great to see the NSW Government getting behind the development of a high-growth tech ecosystem, McCauley said.
Last year the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science released figures showing net job creation comes from early-stage and start-up businesses with young companies creating nearly all of the 1.6 million net new jobs in Australia from 2003 to 2014.
As [Minister] Barilaro identified, a flourishing start-up community is essential for creating the jobs of the future and will ultimately encourage a pipeline for future growth. Start-up hubs can act as a focal point for start-up-related activities and events, address the current fragmentation of offerings, and provide valuable opportunities for collaboration between startups and larger technology companies.
This ambitious new proposal could provide the sort of world-class innovation district Australia needs to put itself on the international innovation map. Its a courageous step in the right direction, and its critical we now work to realise the full potential of the project. StartupAUS is committed to working closely with relevant industry stakeholders to help make this one of the most dynamic and effective innovation precincts in the world.
LAS VEGAS (AP) At Nevadas newest national monument, you can hike through twisted sandstone sculptures, tour outdoor galleries of ancient rock art, explore a historic ghost town and stare down the Devils Throat.
Just dont forget to pack a lunch.
Exploring Gold Butte is a long and bumpy ride, just like the political journey that led to its designation, reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
As you can see, its not a place you visit for two hours, said Gold Butte advocate Kathryn McQuade, one of our guides for a tour of the area on a recent Tuesday. This is a place you come spend all day. You may choose to camp or whatever.
Gold Butte National Monument covers 300,000 acres of remote mountains and desert hemmed in by the Virgin River, Lake Mead National Recreation Area and the Arizona border.
President Barack Obama used his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate the area 100 miles northeast of Las Vegas as a protected national monument on Dec. 28. Before that, Gold Butte was best known outside Nevada as the scene of the 2014 standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and the armed supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy, whose cattle roamed the area without permit or payment for more than 20 years.
Our tour began shortly after sunrise at the Falling Man site, a sprawling sandstone gallery that draws its name from a single, iconic petroglyph of a human figure tumbling through the air.
Over the course of centuries, people carved symbols on the cliffs where they gathered, hunted, camped and prayed. Their etchings depict life as they knew it and the land as they knew it, said Jaina Moan, our other tour guide and executive director of the advocacy group Friends of Gold Butte.
Among the abstract lines and swirls are the unmistakable shapes of desert plants, babies on cradle-boards, human footprints and familiar wildlife, including snakes, tortoises and bighorn sheep.
A federal survey a decade ago counted almost 400 rock art panels and more than 3,500 individual petroglyphs scattered throughout the Gold Butte area, Moan said.
A few hundred feet from the Falling Man, bullet holes pockmark a rock decorated with a single sheep.
A THREAT TO PROTECTION?
At the same time as our tour, Ryan Zinke, Donald Trumps pick for interior secretary, was on Capitol Hill telling a Senate confirmation hearing that he plans to review Obamas controversial new monuments Gold Butte in Nevada and Bears Ears in Utah.
But Zinke pledged to meet with officials in those states before weighing in on whether the Trump administration should try to rescind the designations.
Some legal experts argue that the Antiquities Act is a one-way street, granting the president the authority to declare monuments but not to eliminate them.
Only Congress can change a designation, according to Christy Goldfuss, managing director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Newly sworn-in U.S. Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., is promising to push back against any attempt to overturn Gold Buttes protected status.
Kihuen flew over the monument in a helicopter on Jan. 18 during a tour sponsored by the Nevada Conservation League. The experience left an impression on the congressman, who unseated Rep. Cresent Hardy, a Republican and staunch opponent of the monument designation.
This is one of our national treasures, Kihuen said afterward. I want to be able to take my kids out there someday. I want them to be able to take their kids out there.
Nevada Democrats introduced five separate Gold Butte protection bills that died in Congress before then-U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Dina Titus began pressing Obama to set aside the area.
Top Republicans from the Silver State blasted the executive action, calling it an abuse of power that will unfairly restrict state and private use of public land.
To Moan, though, Gold Butte is just the sort of place envisioned by the Antiquities Act. Literally etched on its walls are the stories of people who moved across the land for thousands of years, she said.
Elsewhere in the monument, researchers have found fossilized animal tracks from the age of the dinosaurs and before.
Its such a treasure of antiquity, Moan said.
And dont let her catch you calling the monument a land grab.
This land was owned by all Americans and managed by the BLM, Moan said. Nothing has changed about that.
LAND OF MANY USES
A few miles east of the turnoff to Falling Man, the rough blacktop of Gold Butte Road gives way to a rugged network of dirt roads extending more than 500 miles.
The pavement ends at Whitney Pocket, a popular spot for campers and ATV riders.
There among the sandstone towers, Moan and McQuade led us to a concrete dam built by President Franklin Roosevelts Civilian Conservation Corps. Narrow stairs lead up the face of the dam and down the other side, though vandals recently pried loose a concrete slab, partially blocking the back passage.
According to McQuade, the Depression-era structure was built to capture water for a nearby horse trough, but the system never worked quite right.
McQuade has lived in Mesquite, just north of Gold Butte on Interstate 15, since 2012. She thinks the new monument could boost tourism in the growing retirement community at Clark Countys northeastern corner.
For the moment, though, Mesquite remains divided over the designation, McQuade said, with vocal minorities on both sides and a larger group in the middle that generally supports the idea so long as the existing roads are kept open and access is preserved for hikers, hunters, horseback riders and ATV owners.
Moan said all those activities are likely to continue under BLM supervision. Recreation is already the main use of the land, and thats not going to change, she said.
The BLM did not respond to a request for information about its plans for the area. So far, there are no signs marking the entrance to the new monument. Moan said even she isnt sure exactly where the boundary is.
GHOSTS OF GOLD BUTTE
Ultimately, Moan doesnt expect any big changes at Gold Butte. Shes counting on the monument designation to come with a larger and steadier flow of funding for increased ranger patrols, additional signs and interpretive material and maybe a restroom or two.
I would also love to see the roads graded, McQuade added. What you dont want is people getting stuck and getting stranded out here.
From Whitney Pocket, a wide but rocky road leads south to the scattered remnants of the Gold Butte town site, about 20 miles away.
The monuments namesake community boomed briefly at the dawn of the 20th century, growing large enough to support a post office and about 2,000 residents in tents, but there was never enough gold in Gold Butte.
All thats left today are some cement foundations, old mining equipment and a pair of headstones belonging to Arthur Coleman and William Garrett, friends and business partners who lingered long after the town died.
One of the graves was dug up sometime in April 2014, right around the time of the Bundy standoff. The exposed remains were collected by the Clark County coroners office and later released to a group of area residents who returned them to the ground during a ceremony last March.
From the Gold Butte ghost town, we backtracked roughly 15 miles to Devils Throat, another geological curiosity in a landscape filled with them.
The aptly named sinkhole formed when the roof of a cavern collapsed, leaving a widening maw in the open desert roughly 100 feet across and 100 feet deep. A low fence surrounds the hole, at least for the moment. Eventually, Devils Throat will swallow that, too.
A FAVORITE PLAYGROUND
Our path narrowed as we angled northwest on Mud Wash Road, which resembles its name, especially after a rainstorm.
A washout canceled our plans to visit Kirks Grotto, a keyhole-shaped slot canyon leading to more petroglyph panels. Instead, our final stop was the red sandstone fairyland known as Little Finland.
It seemed surprisingly crowded for a Tuesday afternoon. On the way there, we had to pull over to let about a dozen all-terrain vehicles pass going the other way. Then we bumped into a group of retirees from Utah walking among the wildly sculpted stones.
One of the hikers was Vicki Evans, a 15-year resident of the St. George area who said she has visited Gold Butte with her husband and their friends at least 30 times.
They come for the solitude. You really rarely see other people except for today, she said.
Evans said she is fine with the monument designation as long as they dont block us from one of our favorite playgrounds.
Fellow hiker Mary Lou Christy lamented the need for greater protections for Gold Butte, but she said shes seen some of the damage firsthand. Its 1 or 2 percent (of the visitors). They just spoil it for the majority, she said.
The retirees retired to their trucks and rumbled back down the road the way they came. Soon we would do the same.
First, though, we sat on sandstone from the time of the dinosaurs and talked about what might happen next as the sinking sun bathed Little Finland in an orange glow.
Moan didnt seem worried by all the anti-monument talk coming out of Washington lately.
I think so many people supported protecting this place. Theyre not going to let it go, she said. I think its here to stay.
Elon Musks hyperloop dream began to take shape in reality last weekend as 27 teams, including six from outside the United States, participated in a competition to create the mass transit vehicle of the future.
The competition in Hawthorne, California, sponsored by SpaceX, which Musk founded, attracted teams made up mostly of students who created pods designed to run on hyperloop transportation systems.
In a hyperloop system, the vehicles, or pods, travel in a vacuum in tubes at speeds close to the speed of sound. To do that, the pods have to be suspended slightly off the ground, typically by riding on a magnetic field.
For its competition, SpaceX built a test chamber that was three-quarters of a mile long and six feet wide. The company capped the speed at which a pod could go at around 50 miles per hour.
In order to get to test its pod in the vacuum chamber, a team had to pass a rigorous 101-point review. Only three teams could do that: Delft University of Technology of The Netherlands; Technical University of Munich, Germany; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kind of a Drag
Operating in a vacuum is important to hyperloop systems because it reduces friction. Hyperloop is all about friction, said Adonios Karpetis, a faculty advisor to the Texas A&M aerospace team, which competed at the event.
You have to minimize the air friction in the tube, he told TechNewsWorld.
By creating a vacuum or near-vacuum in the tube, the drag of the vehicle is nearly eliminated, which allows it to reach tremendous speeds, as high as 700 miles per hour. By contrast, a Boeing 747 has a cruising speed of 570 miles per hour.
Its like operating a ground-based vehicle at an altitude of 100,000 feet where the air is very thin, said Rick Williams, an advisor to Auburn Universitys hyperloop team.
A hyperloop vehicle has an advantage over an aircraft, though.
Once the vehicle reaches its cruising speed, it will coast for a long ways because of the minimal drag, Williams told TechNewsWorld.
From an energy standpoint, its going to be significantly lower, he said.
Defining the Unknown
A team didnt have to use the chamber with the vacuum enabled, though, to learn about improving its pods design.
We could see the different engineering approaches taken by the teams and talk with them about their pods, explained David Goldsmith, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech University, which participated in the competition.
We saw pods that had gone down different developmental paths, and we saw pods that had gone down the same path we had, he told TechNewsWorld. That was invaluable.
The competition also helped the teams define the parameters of their knowledge.
We now know what we dont know, Texas A&Ms Karpetis remarked. We did not know a lot of little things, from electronics, to breaking, to levitation, to batteries.
Journey as Destination
Students also learned the value of dealing with the unexpected.
We learned a lot about being flexible, said Claire Holesovsky, Badgerloop operations director at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
A lot of times, things dont go your way, so you have to have alternative plans and think quickly on the spot, she told TechNewsWorld.
The teams now are looking forward to this summer, when the next round of the competition will be held. Theyll be able to take what they learned in this last round and use it to improve their pods for the next one.
While there are many people who would embrace the idea of a 30-minute hyperloop ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Carlo Ratti, director of the Sensesable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology isnt one of them.
The other week I was in London and I had to go to Paris. I could have traveled from the city center to Heathrow Airport, flown 45 minutes, and then taken another transfer from Charles de Gaulle airport to the city center, he said.
This the kind of experience that hyperloop proposes between San Francisco and Los Angeles, with long transfers to suburban stations and then a short trip in a small, dark tube, Ratti told TechNewsWorld.
Instead, I enjoyed very much spending two hours on the Eurostar. I was online, the comfortable seat became my workplace during the trip, and I could enjoy the gorgeous English and French landscape all around, he explained.
As our trains and tomorrow our self driving cars become an extension to our offices, homes or even bedrooms, shouldnt we focus on making them more comfortable and point-to-point, instead of thinking about such a 20th century idea of fast travel between large hubs? Ratti asked. Then, the journey could really become the destination.
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ELKO Assemblyman John Ellison was hospitalized Sunday after suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Ellisons home is one of many that flooded from the Humboldt River this weekend. He and his wife, Cindy, had generators running to power pumps and heaters in the home. The generators were outside, but the carbon monoxide was able to find its way into the house.
Ellison said he believes the carbon monoxide got in through the open basement door.
Ellisons wife woke him Sunday morning.
I thought I had a migraine, he said Monday morning.
After he passed out his family took him to the hospital, where he stayed from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Sunday, said his daughter Michelle Mosley.
They released him last night, but hes still having trouble breathing, so were watching him, Mosley said.
After Ellison was released, he and his wife stayed in a hotel.
I havent been that sick for a long time, he said.
Power to the southside neighborhood was shut off Saturday because of safety concerns related to the rising water.
Basements of apartment houses in the area and the Assembly of God Church are under about seven feet of water, he said.
Ellison said his home, which is near Southside Elementary, still has about three feet of water in the basement.
My house has never flooded, he said. We just got done doing a total remodel.
Unfortunately Ellison said his house doesnt have flood insurance.
Weve been trying to get it for the last month, he said.
Ellison said he was grateful for all the help he and his family received from friends and neighbors.
Ive never seen a community come together as well as that, he said. God bless Elko, Nevada. I dont think youd have that kind of response anywhere else in the country.
The Trump transition team ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to halve the number of staff allowed to attend an environmental conference in Alaska last week, according to conference organizers.
The Alaska Forum on the Environment traditionally sees heavy participation from the EPA, with 34 agency employees originally committed to attend this years event. While transition spokesperson Doug Ericksen told Alaska Public Media that the restriction was meant to cut travel costs, some of the agency officials originally slated to attend live blocks away from the conference in Anchorage.
https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/829498065698615297
We got a phone call from the local office of EPA, and we were informed that EPA was directed by the White House transition team to minimize their participation in the Alaska Forum on the Environment to the extent possible, Alaska Forum on the Environment Director Kurt Eilo said.
The agencys last-minute change of plans highlighted the concerns of many conference attendees over the future of EPA programs dealing with climate change, tribal issues and other Alaska-specific concerns.
For a deeper dive:
Alaska: Alaska Public Media, AP, Bloomberg, Christian Science Monitor, Alaska Dispatch News
For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
Sidd Bikkannavar, a U.S.-born citizen and scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) when trying to reenter the country from Chile late last month. Bikkannavar was in Patagonia racing solar-powered cars. He was detained by CPB in Houston without explanation and forced to unlock his NASA-issued phone.
https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/830573394437500929
After his passport was scanned, he was taken into a back room where other detained travelers waited on cots. Bikkannavar is a member of Global Entry, a CBP program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the U.S.
Bikkannavar asked Why was I chosen? But, no response was given, The Verge reported.
Bikkannavar was questioned on basic information already provided by his Global Entry membership and then asked to hand over and unlock his work phone. He was reticent to unlock his phone because it was issued by a federal agency and might contain sensitive informationNASA employees are told to protect work data. He tried to politely explain this when the CBP officer handed him an Inspection of Electronic Devices form.
While manual phone searches are legal, travelers are not required to unlock phones. But, travelers who do not unlock phones may be further detained.
In each incident that Ive seen, the subjects have been shown a Blue Paper that says CBP has legal authority to search phones at the border, which gives them the impression that theyre obligated to unlock the phone, which isnt true, said Hassan Shibly, chief executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, according to The Verge.
Bikkannavars form listed detention and seizure among the consequences for not cooperating and he decided to turn over his phone and PIN. The phone was returned in about 30 minutes. He immediately turned his phone off and took it to the cybersecurity team at JPL upon arriving in Los Angeles.
Bikkannavar left for Chile on Jan. 15 prior to the Trump administrations travel ban, which targeted people from seven predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern and African countries, but returned to the U.S. four days after the ban was signed.
The ban is currently on hold after a federal appeals court upheld U.S. District Judge James Robarts ruling against the executive order. Bikkannavar, whose family name has roots in southern India, has been searched before but not to this extent. Maybe you could say it was one huge coincidence that this thing happens right at the travel ban, he told The Verge.
Read Bikkannavars account of the events from one of his friends who shared his tweet:
(UN Photo/Evan Schneider)An aerial view of the Ifo 2 Refugee Camp in Dadaab, Kenya, which is supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the camp on Oct. 29, 2014.
It is not only in the United States where courts have ruled against the State trying to clamp down on the movement of refugees.
A court in Kenya has ruled against the government in the country that is trying to shut down a massive refugee camp that is the size of a mid-sized city.
The Lutheran World Federation has said it is "grateful that basic principles of international humanitarian law were upheld" when the High Court of Kenya ruled against the planned closure of Dadaab, the world's biggest refugee camp.
The court ruling also considers the closing of the Kenyan Department of Refugee Affairs last year unconstitutional.
Refugees, aid workers and rights groups welcomed a Feb. 9 Kenyan court ruling stalling the government's decision to close Dadaab return more than 220,000 people from Somali to their homeland which has faced decades of war.
The LWF which represents 74-million Lutherans worldwide was among 11 non-governmental organizations that last year urged the Kenyan government to reconsider its intention to both close refugee camps in the country and disband its Department for Refugee Affairs.
"Shutting down the refugee camps will mean increased protection risks for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers [the] majority of who are women, children and unaccompanied minors," the 11 NGOs said in a joint statement on May 10, 2016.
They called on Kenya to continue to uphold the protection and rights of refugees, many of who would be prone to human rights violations.
Kenya's Interior Ministry had in a statement on May 6 cited "immense security challenges" and the slow pace of Somali refugee repatriation as factors for the decision that "hosting of refugees has to come to an end."
It said Dadaab and Kakuma camps would be closed "within the shortest time possible."
The Geneva-based LWF has worked in Kenya since 1992, first in Kakuma, and since 2008 in Dadaab working alongside other church-backed aid groups.
It provides primary education, vocational training, early childhood development, and support to people with disabilities and elderly people in the Dadaab refugee camps.
'GOVERNMENT MINISTER ACTED BEYOND POWERS'
Ministers had acted beyond their powers by ordering the closure of the Dadaab complex, Judge John Mativo, ruled, The Guardian reported.
The judge said the government's decision specifically targeted Somali refugees as an act of group persecution, he added, and was illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.
The government of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta not proved Somalia was safe for the refugees to return, Mativo said. A separate government order to shut down its refugee department was also "null and void," said the court.
Warsame Abdihakim Mohamed has lived in Dadaab since fleeing war in 1992 and said he hoped the government would comply with the court ruling.
"This is good news," said the 37-year-old, who has set up one of the largest and most popular restaurants in Dadaab's satellite Hagadera camp. "We hope that eventually, those of us who have invested in the country will be left to stay."
Margaret Akoth, who works for an education NGO in Dadaab, said she hoped the decision would encourage donors to continue supporting humanitarian efforts in the camp.
"Our morale has been low because we have been working with the threat of camp closure over our heads. Now we are a bit reassured," she said.
Human rights groups who have long opposed closing the camp, situated near the Somali border.
Amnesty International's regional director, Muthoni Wanyeki, described the Feb. 9 ruling as an historic day for refugees who were at risk of being subjected to serious rights abuses had they been returned to Somalia.
"This ruling reaffirms Kenya's constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution," Wanyeki said.
Some Kenyan officials have asserted that the al-Shabaab terror group has used the camp as a recruiting ground and as a base for launching attacks inside Kenya, though they have not provided conclusive proof.
Mwenda Njoka, a spokesperson for Kenya's interior ministry, "Our reasons for closing the camp are still valid. The camps are still a haven for terrorists. We intend to appeal the ruling."
ELKO -- Flood data from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates the Humboldt River is running near 8,000 cubic feet per second at Palisade, west of Carlin.
The flood gauge registered nearly 10 feet, which is three feet above flood stage.
Data posted by the National Weather Service indicates the Humboldt River crested at 10.49 feet in Elko on Friday, making it the third worst flooding in recorded history.
The water level was 12.18 feet in March of 1983 and 12.30 feet in February 1962.
The weather service on Monday predicted a very good chance of more major flooding in the region.
Red Cross officials are opening a resource center today in Elko to coordinate aid for flood victims.
The center is at Elko Fire Station 2, 725 Railroad St.
With the potential for Humboldt River flood waters to rise again, city police and fire teams will be contacting residents and businesses door to door in the evacuation areas Monday afternoon to assess immediate needs.
The City of Elko Emergency Operations Center in operation from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be reached at 777-7320.
Sandbags are still available for pick-up in places such as Southside Elementary School, although the school itself was closed Monday by flooding.
U.S. Highway 93 was reopened after being closed since Thursday. State Route 233 remains closed from Interstate 80 to the Utah state line.
Forecasting the water level has been made difficult by problems with data, according to the federal agency.
There is a great deal of uncertainty about river stages and times. A series of flood waves upstream as far as Halleck is making forecasting difficult. More inflow from flooded rivers and stream in Humboldt County is also difficult to estimate since most of the water is flowing between gages or in areas with no gages at all.
The best course of action is to assume major flooding will occur, since it has been occurring upstream at other places, and take action now to protect life and property There is an almost certain chance for moderate flooding, a very good chance for major flooding, and a slight chance of near record flooding.
All of Elko County, the northern half of Eureka and Lander counties, and the eastern two-thirds of Humboldt County are under a flood warning through Tuesday night.
Rivers and streams began rising rapidly last week after warm temperatures, rain and wind melted a heavier than normal snowpack.
The flood caused a dam at Twentythree Mile Reservoir to flood Pilot Valley in northeastern Elko County, and pushed flood water far beyond the banks of the Humboldt River. It also forced the closure of U.S. Highway 93 between Wells and Jackpot, and washed out State Route 233 near Montello.
Flooding over the weekend resulted in the voluntary evacuation of dozens of residents from southside neighborhoods in Elko.
Much of the standing flood water in Elko has been freezing as overnight temperatures dropped into the teens and 20s.
The forecast for Elko calls for highs in the 40s early this week, reaching 50 by Wednesday, followed by another chance of rain on Thursday.
As the Trump administration appears poised to make school choice the centerpiece of its education agenda, Republican-led legislatures in Arkansas, Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, and elsewhere are rolling out charter school and voucher bills in what could be a more receptive environment.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVosnow the nations most visible school choice advocatetakes the helm at a time when Republicans control the governors house or the state legislature in 44 states and have full control of the executive and legislative branches in 25 states.
That GOP dominance of state-level politics could set the stage for a nationwide shift on school choice legislation, even more so than DeVos confirmation, said Kenneth Wong, an education policy and politics professor at Brown University, in Providence, R.I.
When you combine the federal leadership change with the shift in state leadership, we will be seeing a growth and expansion of state involvement in school choice issues, Wong predicted.
DeVos played a significant role in shaping Michigans charter school sector as a longtime philanthropic backer of school choice in the state. During her confirmation hearing, DeVos declared that its time to shift the debate from what the system thinks is best for kids to what moms and dads want, expect, and deserve.
Pushing Legislation
Governors and lawmakers around the country have echoed that statement as they prepare to push legislation in an environment they hope is more receptive to school choice.
When it comes to education, we need to remember that one size doesnt fit all, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said during his State of the State address last month. Parents, not government, are best positioned to make decisions about their childs education.
Republican lawmakers in the Lone Star State have introduced a two-part voucher bill that would allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private schools. It would authorize education savings accountswhich give parents public money to spend on private K-12 school tuition and other education-related expensesand tax breaks for businesses that sponsor private school scholarships. The amount of money available to families would depend on their income. The states budget board has not yet estimated the total cost of the legislation.
The prospects for passage of such bills in Texas and other places arent always dependent on factors tied solely to partisan politics. School choice is an issue in which Republican lawmakers who represent rural, remote areas often break with their party because their constituents options for choosing and reaching other schools is often limited.
During the last legislative session, in 2015, the Texas Senate backed a voucher plan, but it never gained traction in the House, where rural Republicans and Democrats have partnered to block such legislation.
Strength in Numbers?
Kentucky is one of the states where Republicans now have full control.
Choice bills introduced there would approve charter schools in the Bluegrass State, one of seven states that dont currently allow them. Democrats in the state House have stopped such bills in the past, but Republicans there are now almost certain to approve a charter school bill this session, said Josh Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The only hitch could center on the questions of how many charters would be allowed and who would authorize them. Some lawmakers want to open charters across the state, while others have their sights set on the states two largest urban districtsFayette and Jefferson counties, where schools serve students in Lexington and Louisville.
Advocates arent yet convinced that DeVos national platform will pave the way for states to approve plans. Facing opposition from her own party at times, DeVos came up short in her push to legalize school vouchers in her home state of Michigan but still champions their use nationwide.
Presidents and education secretaries long have backed some form of school choice, said Todd Ziebarth, the vice president for state advocacy and support at the Washington-based National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, which is working in Kentucky to secure passage of legislation there.
I dont think her confirmation to this position has a huge impact on our chances of getting a law passed there, Ziebarth said of DeVos.
In states like Nevada, Democratic-led legislatures are seeking to roll back choice bills. The state legislative chambers there flipped to Democratic control in November, setting the stage for a pitched debate over voucher funding.
Last fall, the Nevada supreme court ruled the financing plan for the states ambitious education-savings-account program, which was approved in 2015 by the then-GOP-controlled legislature, unconstitutional, forcing lawmakers to find a new funding approach.
Democrats oppose Republican Gov. Brian Sandovals proposal to spend $60 million over the next two years on the program, arguing that any money set aside for education savings accounts would result in less funding for public schools. Theres certainly higher energy among those who support school choice, said Cunningham of NCSL. A lot of that has to do with whats happening at the federal level.
Maryland Showdown
In Maryland, Democratic lawmakers and teachers unions already are aligning to announce their joint opposition to plans to expand choice.
The states Republican governor, Larry Hogan, is pushing to ease restrictions that inhibit the creation of charter schools in the state and to increase the number of students who attend private schools on vouchers. Hogans charter bill would establish an independent charter-approval board. Right now, only school districts can approve the opening of new charter schools in the state.
Hogan also wants to double the amount of money the state spends on vouchers, increasing the total to $10 million. Maryland State Education Association President Betty Weller denounced what she called the Trump-DeVos-Hogan privatization agenda for schools.
School choice is a state issue and should remain a state issue, said Jonathan Butcher, the education policy director at the Goldwater Institute, a conservative public policy and school voucher advocacy group. "[DeVos] advocacy would be good. I hope that she continues her advocacy while handling all of her responsibilities for public schools.
US beef, pork producers' groups urge FTA with Japan
The US National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) and the National Pork Producers Council (NPCC) have urged the Trump administration to ink a free trade agreement with Japan, saying this would lower tariffs and reduce barriers for their products.
The two groups sent a joint letter to the White House asking the President to "initiate free trade agreement negotiations with nations in the Asia-Pacific region beginning with Japan".
"As you continue to lead America forward, we want to be a resource for your administration for possible strategies in improving existing and future trade agreements for the benefit of our producers", the letter stated.
The letter was issued ahead of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's state visit to the US last weekend.
NCBA President Craig Uden, a cattle rancher from Elwood, Nebraska, said a comprehensive agreement with Japan would result in "one of the greatest trade agreements for the US pork and beef industries and for many other sectors".
For his part, NPPC President John Weber, a pork producer from Dysart, Iowa, said securing strong market access to Japan and other Asian markets "is a priority for the US beef and pork industries".
Japan is the highest-value international market for US beef and pork exports. In fiscal 2016, Japanese consumers purchased $1.4 billion of US beef products and $1.5 billion of US pork products. Demand in the Asian nation for US beef and pork is very strong despite Japanese tariffs and other import measures that limit market access for both products.
Bird flu in Czech Republic biggest single outbreak in 2017 so far
In light of a bird flu outbreak, authorities in the Czech Republic have ordered the culling of up to 20,000 ducks and other poultry at a production site in the south of the country in early February.
The incident is described as the largest single case of bird flu in this year so far. Blatenska Ryba, the site's owner based 100km south of Prague, had culled 6,500 ducks at another location in January. "We have a case, first estimates see some 20,000 (ducks) there," regional director of the State Veterinary Administration (SVS) Frantisek Kouba told Reuters. In addition, the disease is likely to spread further due to the several commercial poultry farms in the region, Kouba added.
As of February 3, one month from the first bird flu case, 37,000 poultry were culled in 20 locations. Two cases were at commercial farms and the rest in small flocks, according to SVS data.
The event adds to mounting incidences of bird flu around Europe and the world including France, Italy, Belgium, China and South Korea. Recently, Hungary's chief veterinarian has ordered all poultry to be kept indoors after 11 counties were hit by bird flu and more than three million birds had to be culled.
- Reuters
Judge James Robart, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State, believes there is no basis for President Trumps executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terrorism-plagued countries.
In court last week, Robart questioned Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett about the administrations decision to confine the moratorium to Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran.
Have there been terrorist attacks in the United States by refugees or other immigrants from the seven countries listed, since 9/11? Bennett said.
Your honor, I dont know the specific details of attacks or planned attacks, Bennett responded. I think I will point out, first of all, that the rationale for the order was not only 9/11, it was to protect the United States from the potential for terrorism. I will also note that the seven countries that are listed in the executive order are the same seven countries that were already subject to other restrictions in obtaining visas that Congress put in place, both by naming countries, Syria and Iraq, and that the prior administration put in place by designating them as places where terrorism is likely to occur, or the specific factors are whether the presence in a particular country increases the likelihood that an alien is a credible threat to U.S. security or an area that is a safe haven for terrorists.
Bennett was obviously improvising a bit at that point and did not have the facts at her fingertips. Robart would have none of that.
Well, let me walk you back, then, Robart said. Youre from the Department of Justice, if I understand correctly?
Yes.
So youre aware of law enforcement. How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?
Your honor, I dont have that information. Im from the civil division, if that helps get me off the hook.
Let me tell you, Robart said. The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, youre here arguing on behalf of someone President Trump that says: We have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and theres no support for that.
In that brief moment, Robart declared there is no support for Trumps decision. And with that, the judge from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State ordered a nationwide actually worldwide halt to enforcement of the presidents executive order.
Now, it turns out Robart might not know as much as he let on. Last summer, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest analyzed public sources of information, seeking to learn more about people convicted of terror-related offenses. The Justice Department provided the subcommittee with a list of 580 people who were convicted not just arrested, but tried and convicted of terror-related offenses between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2014.
The subcommittee investigated further and found that at least 380 of the 580 were foreign-born and that an additional 129 were of unknown origin. Of the 380, there were representatives at least 60 from all of the countries on the Trump executive order list. And with 129 unknowns, there might be more, as well.
In addition, since the Senate list was compiled, there have been others involved in terrorism in the United States from the seven countries. One highly publicized example was the case of Abdul Artan, a Somali refugee who last November wounded 11 people with a machete during an attack on the campus of Ohio State University. In fairness to Judge Robart, Artan was shot and killed by police not arrested so perhaps the judge didnt count him.
In a report Monday, the Associated Press, relying on the research of University of North Carolina professor Charles Kurzman, reported that 23 percent of Muslim Americans involved with extremist plots since Sept. 11 had family backgrounds from the seven countries.
The bottom line is, Robarts confident assertion to Bennett was wrong.
In her exchange with the judge, Bennett tried to argue that the Constitution and the law make clear that the president is the person charged with making national security decisions like those in the Trump executive order.
Your honor, I think the point is that because this is a question of foreign affairs, because this is an area where Congress has delegated authority to the president to make these determinations, its the president that gets to make the determinations, Bennett said. And the court doesnt have authority to look behind those determinations.
Robart strongly disagreed, and stopped the presidents order. After all, he knew best.
Memo to President Trump: You cannot fire federal judges or intimidate them with your tweets. They have lifetime appointments for a reason: so they can resist the pressures of politicians like you, bullies who think bluster and bravado will always get them what they want.
The president has now extended his running war with the news media to the federal judiciary. After District Judge James Robart blocked Trumps temporary travel ban aimed primarily at refugees and Muslims the president assailed him as a so-called judge who had made a ridiculous ruling.
In a later tweet, he continued his assault: Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!
Trump might well be right on the legalities, but no matter how the case eventually turns out, his attack on the judge is one more disturbing sign that this president does not respect the rule of law or the separation of powers.
Heres Charles Fried, solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, who told The New York Times: There are no lines for him. There is no notion of, this is inappropriate, this is indecent, this is un-presidential.
And Bartholomew J. Dalton, president of the American College of Trial Lawyers: It is wrong for the chief executive of the executive branch to demean a member of the judiciary with such language. This undermines judicial independence, which is the backbone of our constitutional democracy.
This is not a minor or momentary incident. For one thing, during the campaign Trump showed his deep-dyed disdain for judges who dare to cross him. Remember: He called Judge Gonzalo Curiel a hater and said Curiels Hispanic heritage biased the judge against him in a civil case.
More seriously, the conflicts with Curiel and Robart could foreshadow many battles ahead. Since Congressional Democrats are largely powerless to stop Trumps appointments and legislative proposals, the courts loom as an increasingly important check and balance against unbridled presidential power.
As Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, put it, this president seems intent on precipitating a constitutional crisis.
The conflict with Robart reinforces another unsettling trend in Trumps approach to the presidency: his determination to define facts in his own way. He told Bill OReilly that implementation of his executive order was very smooth and inconvenienced only 109 people.
But that is flat-out false. His own administration admitted that 60,000 potential travelers were affected, and the chaos and heartbreak he caused were clearly visible to anyone with a TV and a pulse.
The point of Trumps ban, as he put it on Twitter, is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country! But that is NOT what the ban does. There is no evidence none that refugees and immigrants have been a threat to national security. The ban does not keep out terrorists. It keeps out people who have been terrified by turmoil in their home countries.
Ten national security experts from the Obama administration made this point in a legal brief supporting Robarts ruling. One of them, former CIA director Michael V. Hayden told The Washington Post that Trumps order didnt solve a real problem and actually made the overall situation worse.
Here are just a few of the bad people with bad intentions who were blocked by Trumps order and freed by Judge Robarts ruling:
Tarek and Ammar Aziz are brothers from Yemen who joined their father after 15 years of separation. Everything I didnt do for them while I was here, I want to do, said the elder Aziz. I want to give them the things a father should. I want to give them love.
Zahro Warsame told the Post shed borrowed $2,625 to buy tickets for her three daughters, who shed left behind in Ethiopia. Its a miracle, one of the daughters said after getting off the plane, because I never thought Id see my mother again.
Bahati Sudjonga, a 19-year-old Congolese man, grew up in refugee camp in Uganda after his parents were killed during a civil war. His two siblings settled in Boise, Idaho, last September, and when he was reunited with them this week, more than 100 people greeted him at the airport, reported the Wall Street Journal. Mayor Dave Bieter handed him a framed copy of a city council resolution declaring Boise a welcoming city.
Boise understands the spirit of America. The president does not.
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Bill would allow motorists to speed up while passing
BOISE, Idaho (AP) A Twin Falls lawmaker wants to allow motorists to go up to 15 mph above the speed limit when passing another vehicle in certain cases.
Republican Rep. Lance Clow told a House Transportation Committee that his bill deals with a situation that many have experienced: how to safely pass another motorist going a couple of miles below the speed limit. Current law doesnt allow exceeding the speed limit to make a pass.
The Spokesman-Review reports that the House committee agreed unanimously to introduce Clows bill, clearing the way for a full hearing.
House Bill 132 would allow certain vehicles to exceed the speed limit while passing on two-lane roads that have speed limits of 55 mph or greater.
Utah tourism spending up as public lands debate rages
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) A new university report shows tourism spending in Utah hit a record of $8.17 billion in 2015.
Gov. Gary Herbert and tourism leaders are scheduled to discuss the report Monday as the debate over the states role in management of the Utahs iconic public lands rages on.
A lucrative outdoor-gear trade show that brings $45 million in annual spending to Utah is considering moving after two decades in part because of the push by the states political leaders to rescind the new Bears Ears National Monument.
Herbert and others believe the state should oversee management of lands to ensure a mix of uses is allowed, including some development, drilling and mining.
Herbert plans to meet with show organizers this week to tout his efforts to protect the landscape and try to persuade them to stay.
Driver, instructor die in crash at Vegas racetrack
LAS VEGAS (AP) Authorities say two men have died at a racetrack in Las Vegas after a Lamborghini crashed and burst into flames.
Las Vegas police Sgt. Steve Summers says a man was driving with an instructor in the passenger seat at SpeedVegas when the vehicle crashed Sunday.
The car drove off the track and spun into a concrete barrier lined with tires before erupting into flames.
Police say the two men, who have not yet been identified, were killed on impact.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
SpeedVegas CEO Aaron Fessler says the company is cooperating with investigators.
An American demand for repeal of EPA's brand of fake energy efficiency By Conor Coughlin
The EPA owns the ENERGY STAR brand which is mandated for use by government in the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and the European Union, but not in communist China where the bulk of ENERGY STAR's products are produced. EPA claims their 'certified' brand of energy efficiency saves $23 billion annually for partners, yet can't even convince their communist cronies to mandate the use of their cutting-edge products. It's almost like the commies know that EPA's claims are complete bunk! Trillion dollar markets are at stake! Repealing the ENERGY STAR mandate should be the highest priority for every American concerned about widespread government corruption and seeking honest, accountable government. There is no Nation Standard in the US for the measurement and verification of electrical energy-savings in technologies, leaving Americans in dark about what exactly are large multi-national corporations and foreign governments buying from our EPA? If foreign governments are purchasing ENERGY STAR products from EPA, shouldn't American citizens know the terms of those contracts? Don't we own the EPA? Why wouldn't the initial investment costs and rate of return on those multi-billion dollar investments in ENERGY STAR be of interest to citizens in the US and foreign countries? Do foreign citizens get to know what's in those contracts? Our mainstream media Fake News outlets love to talk about the threats posed by Global Warming, but never discuss the failures of Cap & Trade policies and their pathetic carbon trading markets which are in total collapse. Just this week former GOP leaders proposed a carbon tax starting at $40 per ton, despite the fact California's last carbon credit auction with a minimum bid price of $12.73 per ton failed to move even one third of the credits available. Are these so-called conservative leaders really so clueless? ENERGY STAR is arguably the most corrupt scientific research program since the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment conducted on unsuspecting citizens from 1932 to 1972. There was no moral or ethical justification for those sick experiments back then, and the for the greater good of science excuse should not be accepted today. Taxpayers have spent around $100 billion on scientific research and producing technical reports for EPA, yet the vast majority of Americans have no idea that ENERGY STAR brand has become a State-Owned Enterprise like Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae. Just as crooked bankers made bad loans to unqualified buyers base on corrupt political policies, ENERGY STAR will lead us into another bubble from bogus science produced by phony environmentalist. And everyone will act surprised. Media has maintained a decades long news blackout on EPA's ENERGY STAR to suppress public debate on this failed program, and protect the financial interest of the multi-millionaires and billionaire members of the EPA Billionaires Club. A group described in a Senate Report released in 2014, then promptly buried by the mainstream media. Back in 2009, EPA's non-profit partners began claiming that ENERGY STAR certified products produced 25-50% energy-savings over identical products, turning ENERGY STAR into a multi-billion-dollar commodity controlled exclusively by government bureaucrats. Not a single news outlet reported on EPA's claim, including the lawyers, economist and business leaders shilling for leading conservative think tanks and their blog sites. Even more comical, all of the highly-paid lawyers apparently developed amnesia on the subject of 'energy efficiency' when Obama presented his Clean Power Plan, pretending they didn't notice the entire 4th Building concerning 'energy efficiency' had suddenly disappeared. The single largest financial component of a plan crafted on four Building Blocks went missing, and nobody noticed. Really? Silence Is Golden! I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that EPA in a 'No Bid' process, had selected its own ENERGY STAR brand as the sole source for GHG emission reductions. Then just prior to public presentation pulled a Bait and Switch routine, replacing the 4th Block with the Clean Energy Incentive Program a document containing vague references to investments in energy efficiency. Move along, nothing to see here! Clock Boy has more credibility than the non-profit organizations that conducted the so-called scientific research on behalf of EPA's Public/Private Partnerships. The bulk of technical reports produced for government alliances are completely worthless in terms of scientific integrity, having value only to the government-created non-profits and the bus-loads of lawyers defending EPA's phony science. The ENERGY STAR mandate is the single greatest impediment to any true economic recovery for America's business community. Repealing the corrupt ENERGY STAR mandate would lead to the largest economic expansion for America's business community in history, by removing the Pay To Play toll booth financing the political establishment. I'm not just talking about restoring the Small Business set aside programs, but opening up every facet of government contracting to honest competition. This Buy America policy would not only lower cost to taxpayers, but as an added bonus would drive crooked non-profits completely out of the business sector forever. Its time to end the environmental non-profit Gravy Train once and for all. Political affiliation should never be a factor for doing business with our government or society in general. Repealing the ENERGY STAR mandate isn't just some conservative fantasy, it's absolutely essential for providing equal justice under the law for America's business community. We can't compete against China's Green Industry Platform or the UN's Global Social Compliance Program under this corrupt scenario, especially when those business-driven NGO's are receiving billions of US taxpayer dollars from our EPA to ensure their success. Our manufacturers are saddled with EPA's draconian laws designed to deliberately undermine our industrial sector, while university professors are getting rich producing Junk Science for China and UNIDO. None of these foreign competitors would last five minutes in an honest marketplace without the barriers erected by our government to American enterprise, and your elected representatives all know this for a fact. Our electrical grid system is the envy of world, and must be protected from those that would undermine our Republic. We can no longer ignore the threats to this national treasure supplying the life-blood to our industrial and manufacturing sectors. Electricity conforms to Ohms Law, not Rules For Radicals. Its time for us step up and defend our greatest national resource, innovation! If Americans want the Trump Administration to repeal Dodd-Frank, re-establish Glass-Steagall and craft a Uniform Code of Laws that could pass Congressional approval, then we must demand the repeal of the ENERGY STAR mandate. America can no longer live with two sets of law, one for the elites and one for US. This is Conor Coughlins first contribution to Enter Stage Right. 2017 Conor Coughlin Home
Hamas prepares for the next round of war By Yoni Ben Menachem
The semblance of quiet in the Gaza Strip is misleading. Lately the drizzle of rockets launched at Israel by the so-called rebellious organizations has declined, apparently because the Hamas security mechanism has carried out a wave of arrests among the Salafi, jihadist, pro-Islamic State organizations. These arrests were aimed at placating Egypt. They do not, however, reflect Hamas change of intentions toward Israel. In the town of Rafah on February 2, 2017, the Hamas military wing held a large military ceremony in which a monument was unveiled in memory of the Tunisian engineer Muhammad al-Zouari, a drone specialist who worked for Hamas. On top of the monument was a model of an Ababil drone. Hamas claims that Zouari was assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents near his home in Tunisia because he had made a great technological contribution to the anti-Israeli struggle. Hamas credited him with developing unmanned aircraft as well as a small, remotely-controlled submarine. Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas military wing, praised Zouaris work for Hamas and disclosed that he had often visited Gaza. What he said regarding Israel during the ceremony is worthy of note: The Palestinian problem is not merely a geographic problem or an internal political struggle between a people and an occupier; it is instead a problem of the Islamic world and an existential, historical, and cultural struggle. Hamas has never for a moment given up its strategy of destroying Israel. Although the military balance of power is in Israels favor, Hamas is constantly improving its capabilities and building its military preparedness for the next round. It aims to inflict painful strategic blows on Israel in various ways: short- and long-range rocket fire, attack tunnels, booby-trapped drones, naval commando forces infiltrated into Israeli territory, and even cyber warfare and hacking into IDF soldiers computers and telephones. In early February 2017, Hamas media outlets extensively quoted Israeli leaked media reports on the failures of Operation Protective Edge, which are expected to be revealed in the Israeli state comptrollers report. Hamas commentators claimed that these failures reflected the Israeli political echelons helplessness and confusion during Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, and said it was actually Hamas that won the campaign. Hamas psychological warfare is likely to continue after the comptrollers report is published in full. Hamas Has Recovered Militarily Senior Israeli security officials confirmed in late January 2017, that Hamas has fully rehabilitated its military capabilities that were damaged in Operation Protective Edge and has even improved some of them, namely in the areas of rocket and mortar fire and tunnel construction. Currently, Hamas has several thousand rockets aimed at Israel and dozens of attack tunnels. These tunnels are intended to infiltrate its gunmen into the Gaza-belt area for murder and kidnapping attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. The Hamas military wing continues to work round the clock on manufacturing rockets and digging tunnels. This is a race against time. Israel has launched a major project to build a large wall deep in the ground around Gaza. The aim is to counteract the tunnel phenomenon while also developing advanced technological methods for detecting tunnels. The key question is who will deliver the preemptive strike in the next conflict. Will Israel surprise Hamas and destroy the tunnels before it can use them, or will Hamas surprise Israel and succeed to move its fighters through the tunnels into Israeli territory? When Will the Next Military Conflict Occur? A wave of demonstrations swept Gaza on January 9, 2017. Residents were protesting the electricity shortage crisis, and Hamas security forces were forced to fire in the air to block the protestors. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, has not been able to solve the electricity shortage. The residents are suffering through the harsh winter with only three hours of electricity per day. The anger expressed at the Hamas regime certainly could have led it to deflect the blame toward Israel and instigate a military escalation. Hamas would thereby have sought to divert gazes from its responsibility for Gazas dire situation. The crisis was temporarily averted when Turkey intervened and agreed to send fuel to Gaza, with Qatar providing financial aid for purchasing fuel for Gazas power station. This is a time bomb that, if not finally resolved, could reemerge and explode in Israels face as well. The electricity crisis is only one aspect of the fragile situation in Gaza with its explosive potential. The results of a poll published this week in the territories, conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) of Ramallah, reveal that 71 percent of Gazas residents think their economic situation has deteriorated in 2016 compared to 2015, and 55 percent also see a worsening of their security situation. At this moment Hamas has no interest in a military clash with Israel. The movement has indeed rehabilitated the military capabilities targeted in the last war but not the thousands of homes that were destroyed, and the rebuilding continues. Meanwhile, the movements leadership has been opening a new page with Egypt. The aim is to bring about an easing of the blockade on Gaza with a series of measures, particularly the opening of the Rafah crossing and even its conversion into a commercial crossing. In early February 2017, a Hamas security delegation is expected in Egypt to discuss new security understandings with the heads of Egyptian intelligence. The understandings pertain to safeguarding Gazas border with Egypt and to the war against the Islamic State branch in northern Sinai. If the talks succeed, the blockade on the Egyptian side of Gaza will be eased substantially. This is something Hamas wants very much. The pressure by the Gaza residents will then diminish, and Gaza will have a small, regular opening to the Arab world without having to be dependent on Israel or the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, the movements leadership has been busy with internal elections. The first stage ended with the election of a new Hamas leadership to represent the security prisoners in Israel. Internal Political Tensions Emerging
Dr. Mahmoud Al Zahar (center) during the October 2012 Gaza war Beneath the surface, a serious struggle is being waged over Khaled Mashals position as chairman of the Political Bureau. The military wing of Hamas, which is supported by Iran, backs Yahye Sinwar, in effect the commander of the military wing, and Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar against the candidates favored by Qatar and Turkey, Ismail Haniyeh and Mousa Abu Marzouk. Recently the tensions between these two camps grew when the Turkish deputy prime minister condemned the truck terror attack by Fadi al-Kanbar at the Armon Hanatziv promenade in Jerusalem, which killed four IDF soldiers. The military wing was enraged when the Hamas leadership in Qatar remained silent about Turkeys condemnation. This internal tension should not be underestimated. It, too, could lead to a violent eruption between the camps and an escalation against Israel. Meanwhile, there have also been preliminary contacts through mediators, on a prisoner-exchange deal between Israel and Hamas in which Israelis would be returned, and Hamas security prisoners would be released. Specifically, this would involve returning the bodies of the missing IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, along with Avraham Mengistu of Ashkelon and a Bedouin Israeli, Hisham al-Said, who have been held captive in Gaza since 2014 and 2015 respectively. In return for the four, Hamas is demanding the release of thousands of terrorists in a deal that, it claims, must be larger than the Shalit deal of 2011. A military conflict between Hamas and Israel at this time would likely disrupt the talks on a prisoner-exchange deal. With such a deal, Hamas would hope to win glory and sympathy in the Palestinian street. As noted, the quiet on the Gaza border with Israel is temporary and deceptive. Both sides are intensively engaged in drawing lessons from Operation Protective Edge and preparing for the next round of warfare. Military logic calls for a surprise move and a preemptive strike by Israel against Hamas newly built tunnels and rocket stockpiles. For the time being, though, it appears that Israels political echelon wants to continue the status quo. Hamas intentions are very hard to assess. The power struggles within the movement, its relations with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, and the economic situation in Gaza are variable factors that could lead the Hamas leadership to initiate a military move against Israel at any given moment if it serves the leaderships interests. Hamas is now prepared for such a move from a military standpoint. The bottom line is that the Israeli political echelon still has not reached a decision on the future of the Gaza Strip. Does Israel want to oust the Hamas government? Who would rule Gaza in its stead? Does Israel want to reconquer the entire strip and reinstate the military government, or is it seeking a long-term truce that would see the easing of the blockade, the opening of a seaport with Israeli supervision, and the admission of thousands of workers into Israel? So long as there is no Israeli decision on these matters, the status quo will continue, and Israel will react to Hamas moves instead of being the party that initiates moves, with all that this entails from a military standpoint. Yoni Ben Menachem, a veteran Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel Radio and Television, is a senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center. He served as Director General and Chief Editor of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Home
Lamine Diawara, a Senegalese man in his thirties, did not know about the negative effects of female genital mutilation (FGM) until he attended a workshop in Bilbao. Who was I to question a tradition that is passed down from great-great grandmothers to their granddaughters and that I believed was mentioned in the Koran? he asks.
Men who participated in a Bilbao program against FGM. inaki makazaga
Yet three years ago, after attending a presentation by the humanitarian organization Doctors of the World, his eyes were opened. Until that day, I had never heard an African woman talk about this subject and especially not in such a negative way; about the physical and psychological pain that it caused.
During the presentation Diawara argued with the speaker and defended the practice of FGM. However, later that day, he called relatives back in Senegal to discuss the issue.
Until that day, I had never heard an African woman talk about this subject and especially not in such a negative way
Lamine Diawara, musician
I confirmed that it was true: that in the Koran, genital mutilation isnt mentioned at all, that my sisters also suffered all kinds of negative physical consequences and that the root of the practice is mens jealousy.
Now, Diawara is an anti-FGM activist in the Basque Country and he uses his talents in music and theater to spread the message.
Lamine Diallo, from Guinea-Conakry, needed to hear more than one presentation to be convinced. A year ago, the city of Bilbao invited him to a training course on the subject. It was the first that involved African men. Diallo, along with seven others, completed the 15- hour-program over the course of six days.
Lamine Diawara has become an activist against FGM after attending a workshop in Bilbao. I.M.
I couldnt believe it, there is no religious grounds to justify FGM, nor is there any logic in the cultural beliefs, he says.
A few months later, he called a meeting at the Guinean association that he presides over to discuss the subject of FGM and the possibility of holding an information workshop.
Before the course I would never have wanted to marry a woman who wasnt mutilated, and now Im ashamed by those beliefs, he says. Now, Diallo is preparing a second information workshop for April with his association.
The course that Diallo attended is part of Bilbaos Integral FGM Prevention Program, which has trained 63 women and eight men since 2013. After the training, the attendees make a commitment to participate in outreach work, both within their organizations and their own social circles. They are encouraged to become active agents.
This year there will be more courses because of the positive reception and the demand coming in from new groups, says Goizane Mota Gago, who works in Bilbaos immigration program and heads the citys efforts against FGM.
A lot of people think that if your wife isnt mutilated shell be a nymphomaniac because youll never be able to satisfy her sexual appetite
Seydou Togola
The focus on gender and interculturality makes us pioneers. We arent seeking punitive measures, but rather to prevent the practice through training and by reaching out to all the communities that are at risk, she says.
Various international institutions have already expressed an interest in Bilbaos strategy. Among them are the German branch of UN Women International, in order to work with the refugee population, and the Hamburg-based World Future Council.
Thousands at risk
Meanwhile, 223 girls under 15 years of age are still at risk of suffering FGM in Bilbao; the figure jumps to 900 in the Basque Country and 17,000 throughout Spain. More than 200 million women alive today have already been mutilated in the 30 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas that practice the dangerous tradition of removing some or all of womens external genitalia, according to UNICEF.
A lot of people think that if your wife isnt mutilated shell be a nymphomaniac because youll never be able to satisfy her sexual appetite, and that shell cheat on you, says Seydou Togola, who is the president of the Association of Malians in the Basque province of Biscay. He is also one of the eight men trained to be an active agent for FGM prevention. In his case, neither his wife nor his daughter was mutilated, but he said he wasnt previously aware of the gravity of the problem.
Marisa Sanz (r) of the Basque branch of Doctors of the World, and Iratxe Perez, a nurse and anthropologist. I.M
We have to eradicate it, its a form of aggression against women and it harms their health, says Togola, adding that now he understands why other families from Mali avoid bringing their daughters home during vacations. Many are afraid that during the summer their aunts or grandmas will mutilate them to keep traditions alive and to cleanse them.
Doctors of the World has launched an awareness campaign that encourages families who plan to visit their countries of origin to sign a contract with pediatricians, agreeing to bring their daughters in for a medical check-up upon their return to Spain.
The project is called Un viaje con compromiso (or A trip with a commitment) and it helps families use all available means in their countries to prevent more girls from being mutilated, say the organizers.
We dont want any of this to turn into a motive for cultural rejection. We want to focus on gender and respect for cultural diversity, adds Mota Gago, the organizer in Bilbao.
Marisa Sanz, who works for Doctors of the World in the Basque Country and headed the regions first comprehensive study on FGM, notes that nobody wants to make their daughters suffer gratuitously, but they are completely unaware of how far-reaching the consequences are.
English version by Alyssa McMurtry.
The curious case of the landslide underdogs By Daniel M. Ryan
Dangers to representative government. Whenever the republican form of government has not achieved success the difficulty has not been with the system but with its faulty application.
Several dangerous experiments have been proposed, such as the initiative, referendum, recall, and the election of judges. Departures from constitutional principles threaten to impair the efficiency of our representative form of government, and if continued, will ultimately destroy it. It would be easy for me to claim that these words appeared in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, the liberals answer to the Against Trump? issue of National Review. But they didnt: they come from the War Department Training Manual on Citizenship, issued on November 30th, 1928. Its the same Manual that President Roosevelt ordered destroyed, in part because it has some not-so-nice things to say about democracy. A similar sentiment pervades David Frums "How to Build an Autocracy" and Jonathan Rauchs Containing Trump.? Both writers, this being the Current Year, are not as forthright as the author(s) of the Manual. They certainly do not warn us that democracy is A government of the masses.? that results in mobocracy? and whose attitudes toward property is communistic negating property rights.... [and] toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.? and whose results are demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.? Nope: this being the Current Year, they instead claim that President Trump is a danger to democracy and in keeping with a world trend of decline in faith for democracy. Rauch is thorough and careful. He does admit that several presidents - Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Bush Jr., Eisenhower, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan, Obama (several times) - have also stretched the Constitution's limits. But instead of saying that it's a bipartisan problem, he punts off the ball by concluding "Context is everything." In other words, its once again pick-and-choose time. In accordance with this spirit, the Ninth Circuit applied pick-and-choose reasoning when it upheld that injunction against President Trumps travel ban from seven countries that the Obama Administration had designated trouble spots. More than one commentator has recognized that the Ninth Circuit didn't even bother to cite the statute that the Trump Administration cited as its authority for the ban. Overflowing with flowery language about principle, the Circuit handed a win to not only the states of Washington and Minnesota but also Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and other multi-billion companies that are part of what Mr. Rauch calls civil society.? Much like the Chicago Tribune in Col. McCormacks day was part of civil society, as well as part of the free press. In the abstract, one of the great mysteries of 1930s America was the sight of the Democrat Party enjoying not only the Presidency but also landslide majorities in the House and Senate all the while tub-thumping about how they were tribunes of the underdog with an air that suggested they themselves were underdogs too. Landslide-majority underdogs versus the forces of reaction that commanded only small minorities. The situation today isnt the same, but there are some definite similarities. Trump commanded a landslide-level win of counties, in a pattern that starkly shows the divide between Metrosexual America and Rustic America. Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate, though far from landslide level in the latter. More significantly, they have clear dominance at the state level. And yet, they credibly say that theyre the Tribunes of the Underdog. And look at how the progs are reacting to the Trump Administration. Its like the George W. Bush years all over again, a time when progs settled into a habit of saying lots of mean things about George W. Bush and his Cabinet. True to this partisanized age, all of those mean things disappeared down the memory hole when Conservatives started saying mean things about President Obama. After all, Context is Everything.? If you want a continuity-centered perspective that sees how the hostility directed towards President Obama grew out of the earlier hostility towards President Bush, youll have to do some pick-and-choose of your own. Progs On Defense Its been noted by Vox Day for one that the progs, particularly the SJW variant, are all attack and no defence prompting the question, what would they be like if they were paying defence?? Were finding out now. In fact, Mr. Rauch, in his apparent nostalgia for the good old days of the Bush Administration, has been good enough to spell out how: "What happened next, says Jack Goldsmith, a veteran of the Bush Justice Department, was unprecedented pushback from 'giant distributed networks of lawyers, investigators, and auditors, both inside and outside the executive branch.' Goldsmith, now a professor at Harvard Law School, discusses the phenomenon in his 2012 book, Power and Constraint: These forces swarmed the government with hundreds of critical reports and lawsuits that challenged every aspect of the Presidents war powers. They also brought thousands of critical minds to bear on the governments activities, resulting in bestselling books, reports, blog posts, and press tips that shaped the publics view of presidential action and informed congressional responses, lawsuits, and mainstream media reporting. In response, the Supreme Court and Congress weighed in to regulate and constrain Bushs powers, and the result is a detention process that has its controversial aspects but fits comfortably within our constitutional norms. Civil society had a huge and unprecedented impact during the Bush administration,' Goldsmith told me. The networks that constrained Bush are still there, and Trump has put them on red alert. Every single thing he does will be scrutinized with an uncharitable eye,? Goldsmith said. Thats true of most presidents, but its true to an even greater degree with Trump.? So there we have it. Civil society? - meaning lawyers, paid protesters, liberal academics, the MSM: the usual cliques got in the way of the Bush Administration. All of them relied, to put it undiplomatically, on obstruction. Pick-and-choose with the eye of a historian, and you can produce a well-cited paper that shows how Ted Cruz and the other shut-down Pubbies were simply following in the wake of civil society? in the Bush years. True: progs on defense has revealed the usual habit of employing slipshod reasoning when one wants a certain outcome very, very much. (One of the unintentionally humorous parts of the Ninth Circuits conduct was them allowing President Trumps campaign statements into evidence as proof of intent! I wonder what Finley Peter Dunnes Mr. Dooley would make of that.) But theyve revealed a defence-play thats important to keep in mind: plain stubbornness. Thats right: a prog is a stubborn fellow. Look at the now-leaked plans of EPA bureaucrats, amongst other Executive-Branch bureaucrats, to drag their feet as much as possible without getting fired. This stubbornness have even got a cute new name: slow-walking.? Since Context is Everything, they prefer not to be called a mean word like obstructionist.? Not to mention a meaner word that was applied to General MacArthur during the Truman Administration. True: the progs will justify their stubbornness by saying they're defending what they call human rights, which include some (but not all) Constitutional rights. They have a right to do so, of course. Even if an outside observer wonders if its wise for them to go full-blast high-nosed obstructionist as a defence against Trumpian populism. Yep, the Current Year has a side that can be described as unintentionally humorous or something else. While certain parts of the MSM are trying to salvage the fake-news dossier published by Buzzfeed, we see the Mexican government has allocated fifty million bucks to an assistance fund for Mexican illegals facing deportation. And, a group of politically influential Mexicans - yes, Mexicans are bankrolling ad campaigns urging illegal immigrants to fight their deportations in court. And yet were supposed to believe that it was the Kremlin that interfered in the last election, perhaps because that campaign led by that group of top-level Mexicans have not been officially endorsed by the Mexican government. Context is everything, righty-right? Daniel M. Ryan, as Nxtblg, is shepherding the independently-run Open Audi Initiative Prediction Market Shadowing Project. He has stubbornly assumed all the responsibility and blame for the workings and outcome of the project. Home
The past, present, and future of Quebec (Part Seven) By Mark Wegierski
Many of the problems of Canada derive from the fact that the country is, in essence, "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state". The "two nations" are, of course, English-speaking and French-speaking Canada (i.e., Quebec). A great number of problems of the Canadian polity can be traced to this initial dualism. English-speaking Canada traditionally often tried to pretend that Quebec simply did not exist; then it moved, probably too late, into a stance of extreme accommodation; and finally, when English-speaking Canada became generally very ideologically liberal, it moved to oppose Quebec in the name of so-called universal rights, and with a suspicion about Quebec's "illiberalism". In the October 25, 1993 federal election, the Bloc Quebecois, under the leadership of Lucien Bouchard, which was going to take the case for Quebec sovereignty to the Parliament of Canada, won 54 seats. It thus became the Official Opposition in the federal Parliament. The Bloc Quebecois, of course, ran candidates only in Quebec. The Liberal Party won 19 seats in Quebec, almost all of these from largely non-Francophone (non-French-speaking) areas. However, the Liberal Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, was also a Quebecker, though of course despised by the Quebecois nationalists. One former Tory running as an independent (who had been forced to resign from the P.C. party over corruption charges) was also elected. Finally, Progressive Conservative leader Jean Charest won one seat in Quebec, one of only two P.C. seats in the whole Parliament of Canada. In the September 1994, provincial election in Quebec, the main separatist party, the Parti Quebecois, formed the government with a two-thirds majority of seats, although with 44 percent of the popular vote, because of the "first-past-the-post" system of geographic areas called ridings. Again, most of the support for the provincial Liberal Party came from non-French-speaking areas of Quebec. The Parti Quebecois set the stage for the critical referendum on sovereignty, which took place on October 30, 1995. A number of factors have to be considered when discussing the run-up to this referendum. First of all, there is the fact that the famous French-Canadian "revenge of the cradle" has ceased to operate. In traditional Roman Catholic Quebec up to the 1950s, families of fifteen children were not uncommon. Today, Quebec has one of the lowest birth-rates, and highest abortion-rates in Canada, if not the world. Indeed, the situation is so acute that some Quebecois nationalists had dared to hint at instituting pro-natalist policies focussed on "old-stock" Quebecois. The proportion of Quebec's population in Canada is quickly dropping below 25%, and the demographic battle of the Quebecois is clearly being lost, which constitutes a profound psychological blow. There was the article in The Globe and Mail, April 7, 1995, pp. A1 and A8, "Quebec population drop fuels talk of political weight loss: Province may not be able to reverse trend, demographers say". Throughout the run-up to the campaign, the Parti Quebecois was faced with the obvious fact -- which, however, could barely be discussed in public -- that virtually all recent immigrants were going to vote overwhelmingly for Canada. The Parti Quebecois did argue that 200,000-300,000 votes in the 1994 Quebec election might have been cast illegally, and wanted to crack-down on this abuse. A prominent Bloc Quebecois party member and M.P. even dared to suggest that recent immigrants should not be allowed to vote in the referendum. Bouchard, of course, repudiated him right away -- relieving him of his special parliamentary functions. The PQ did, however, modify the procedure of compiling the electoral lists, which, according to the federalists, tended to work somewhat in the separatists' favour. Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau spoke to the Canadian Club in Toronto on November 22, 1994. (See the Toronto Star, November 23, 1994, p. A23, Your national will and ours no longer converge."). It appeared to me at that time as a rather forthright, fairly subtle, and quite sensible statement of a type of nationalism which was certainly far more meaningful than anything to be found in English-speaking Canada in the 1990s. The liberal English Canadian media indulged in such taunts at Quebec as the Macleans cover of a Cree Indian chief, dressed in military-style fatigues, shouting "NO!" English-Canadian liberals anticipated with relish turning the Cree in Quebec's north, and all the other minorities in Quebec, against the Quebecois cause. On September 8, 1995, the referendum question finally came out: "Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign, after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership, within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?" (Toronto Star, September 8, 1995, p. A1 and A28). The agreement of June 12, 1995 had included the Bloc Quebecois, led by Lucien Bouchard; the Parti Quebecois, led by Premier Jacques Parizeau; and a smaller sovereigntist party in the Quebec National Assembly (the Parliament of Quebec is now formally called the Quebec National Assembly), led by the young Mario Dumont. Jean Chretien, for most of the campaign, managed the federalist side abominably. When the federalists led in the early polls, he thought the issue settled, and said little about it. On September 18, 1995, he said he would not accept a "Yes" vote for sovereignty as valid, because he considered the referendum question to be too ambiguous. On October 15, 1995, Lucien Bouchard, who had been recently nominated as the chief representative of the "Yes" side, was considered by many to have made a truly huge "gaffe", when he said that the Quebecois were "one of the white races whose birthrates were very low, and that it would be a good idea if Quebecois women had more children". He was immediately assailed for being both racist and sexist. Interestingly enough, his condemnation by feminists was probably even more vociferous than that by anti-racists. Some typical comments were that he was, "telling women to have babies", and "trying to force women to have children regardless of their own preferences", etc. To be continued. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home
Virginia Baptist leaders busy betraying their base By Michael R. Shannon
When North Korea sentences a juche follower to a reeducation camp at least the ride is free, but when the Baptist General Assembly of Virginia urges members to enter a reeducation camp the charge is $79.00. In the past BGAVs Disaster Response teams performed a valuable service and Christian witness. During my training session we were told BGAV sent mobile kitchens during Baltimores unrest to prepare meals for police and National Guardsmen. Im not sure that will be the emphasis in the future. Judging by the BGAVs latest outreach partner, the next time mobile kitchens head for Charm City it will be to feed the rioters. In March Virginias supposedly conservative, orthodox Baptist leadership is sponsoring the MidAtlantic Regional Justice Conference: Motto Be the Change. Jesus was notorious for demanding his disciples change everything, including names. But I seriously doubt Evangelicals who voted 81 percent for Trump are going to be willing to change allegiance to George Soros on the sayso of the hardleft cadre staffing the conference. Im trying to picture the church ladies who attended my disastertraining enjoying these conference sessions: Gods Word on Immigration Dr. John W. Herbst A Biblical Framework to Approach Immigration Dawnielle Miller Race Coded America: Exploring Ways the Church Can Lead in Decoding a RaceDriven Society Antipas Harris Beyond White Guilt: Strategies for Talking With White Christians About Race Daniel Willson Set the Prisoners Free: Mobilizing the Church to End Mass Incarceration Shawn Casselberry On the plus side, after sitting through those harangues attendees will have enough personal guilt to convert to Catholicism, if they remain Christians at all. If this were a Unitarian or Unite conference it would make perfect sense, but Baptists? The agenda, Biblical beliefs and political orientation of the conference apparatchiks are completely at odds with every Southern Baptist church Ive attended. In many instances what these practitioners believe is heresy in any mainline Baptist church. I have a strong suspicion the one word Dr. Herbst thinks God speaks on immigration is amnesty, particularly since hes a religion professor that evidently doesnt believe the unborn have a Godgiven right to life. Amnesty is also pretty much a sure thing for Miller who writes for G92.org. Slogan: Immigrants Arent Illegals. Harris has a surprise in store for lawandorder conservatives since its his belief theres a strong link between support for capital punishment and lynching. Even being opposed doesnt let white Baptists off the hook for a hanging judge like Harris. He contends, generations of white privilege and black under-privilege have shaped society such that whites are often numb to the reality of their disproportionate privilege to blacks. So take that, white Obama voters. Something tells me Willson isnt really quite ready to go beyond white guilt. His Facebook page reveals an aggressive leftist who despises Trump supporters. He contends, The rise of evangelical support for Donald Trump reveals, quite visiblythe dearth of compassion among American Christians. If Willson ever gets tired of the church, he can always minister to Occupy. Hes described as a Red Letter Christian and red is right. Willson is prochoice, supports homosexual marriage and is active in the antipolice Black Lives Matter movement. Casselberry is another leftist eager to start the ball rolling on afterelection reconciliation. His poem American Delusion says it all: The American dream is an illusion
Land of opportunity?
a Trumped up delusion
A legacy of terror we still refuse to see
Land of the free?
Home of the slave and the lynching tree. Officially sponsoring a conference where devoted, churchgoing Baptists will be dropped into a cauldron of seething leftists is so unbelievable I thought maybe the decision to join this collection of cultural Marxists was the action of a young staffer who didnt know better and had to justify the COEXIST sticker on her car. So I repeatedly called BGAV Exec. Director John Upton to find out if sponsorship was simply a failure to do basic research. Unfortunately Upton has fallen victim to the form of pride that says since Im doing Gods work, there is no need to observe minor social niceties. Upton refused to speak with me and explain BGAV thinking. The official BGAV sponsorship of a divisive, antiAmerican, heresyspouting group of propagandists is an insult to the believing Baptists who fill the pews each Sunday and donate to missions. Believers typically assume denomination leadership reflects the Bible as its written and the wishes of the membership. Thats not always the case. In Virginia its time to stop being as innocent as doves and start being as wise as serpents. A good place to begin would be by withholding personal and their churches financial contributions to the BGAV. Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at mandate.mmpr (at) gmail.com. He is also the author of Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!). Home
The fast food chain Arbys recently began investigating a credit card breach affecting hundreds of its locations across the United States, Krebs on Securitys Brian Krebs reports.
The company told Krebs that it was told in mid-January that malware had been installed on its payment card systems, but that it had been asked by the FBI not to notify customers of the incident.
Arbys is working with third-party security firms including Mandiant to investigate the breach.
All affected locations are corporate-owned, not franchises. Although there are over 1,000 corporate Arbys restaurants, not all of the corporate restaurants were affected, company senior vice president of communications Christopher Fuller told Krebs.
But this is the most important point: that we have fully contained and eradicated the malware that was on our point-of-sale systems, Fuller added.
The first indication of a breach came from a credit union service organization alert stating that a breach at a fast food chain, dating as far back as October 2016, had compromised more than 335,000 credit and debit cards.
Gemalto CTO of data protection Jason Hart told eSecurity Planet by email that the Arbys breach appears to be similar to breaches at Cicis Pizza and at Wendys last year, when attacker got in through a third-party payment processor by tricking an employee into downloading a malicious file.
This type of attack is likely to continue until organizations that accept credit card payments fully deploy end-to-end encryption to protect payment information as soon as it is captured into the system, until the time it reaches the payment gateway, Hart said. Companies and their IT staff must accept the fact that breaches are inevitable, but that does not mean there is nothing they can do its about securing the breach.
When they adopt a data-centric view of threats starting with better identity and access control techniques such as multi-factor authentication and the use of encryption and key management to secure sensitive data, they essentially help reduce the value of the data, making it useless to fraudsters, Hart added.
Richard Henderson, Global Security Strategist at Absolute, noted by email that these types of malware infections can persist inside networks for weeks and months before theyre detected. Companies in similar positions will need to put all hands on deck to ensure all traces of the malware, as well as any vectors of infiltration by the attackers, are fully eradicated, he said.
A complete forensic analysis of their infrastructure is a given to ensure the attackers havent left a backdoor into the infrastructure or theyll end up like Wendys did last year and become reinfected, Henderson added.
Yesterday (12 February) marked the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers also known as Red Hand Day, the day commemorates the fates of child soldiers, children who are forced to serve as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts. The objective of Red Hand Day is to call for action against this practice and support for children who are affected by it. Children have been used repeatedly as soldiers in many recent armed conflicts, such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Cote dIvoire, Myanmar, Philippines, Colombia, and Palestine.
Federica Mogherini, chief of the EU diplomacy and the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, pledged to intensify their efforts to end the recruitment and the use of children in armed conflict. Both leaders commented that on the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers, we jointly celebrate a growing global consensus among UN Member States that they should not recruit or use children in armed forces in conflict and that boys and girls should be protected from all grave violations.
Child soldiers are always the victims: forced to combat, often brutally abused, and not rarely isolated when they finally manage to get back to their communities. I met Colombian boys and girls who have managed to quit the FARCs guerrilla and are now looking at their future with hope, said Federica Mogherini and added that we have the duty to keep supporting them and all the former child soldiers, to give them the chance of a good education and of a place in their societies. At the same time, we will continue to bring forward our engagement in ending the recruitment and use of children by armed forces. Depriving a child of its rights is depriving a society of its future.
Armed groups have historically constituted the majority of child recruiters. Positive work and results with Member States notably through the campaign Children, Not Soldiers are facilitating engagement with non-state actors and as a result, more and more are reaching out to the United Nations to end the recruitment and use and other grave violations against children, stressed Leila Zerrougui. It is estimated that there were about 250,000 child soldiers as of 2009, a third of whom are girls, but it is difficult to estimate a more precise number as most of them are deployed in armed rebel groups. Although more than 115,000 child soldiers were released, for example, in Sudan as a result of advocacy and action plans, rehabilitation for child-soldiers returned to their communities is either inadequate or non-existent.
People in Denmark have a serious problem with skin cancer. On average, one Dane dies every day from the disease. Since exposure to the sun is a major cause of the condition, the Danish Cancer Society and TrygFonden foundation have launched a video campaign asking Spaniards to help protect Danes from burning.
When we see a ray of sunlight we throw caution to the wind and fry under the sun for hours. Teach us to be more like you, says the presenter of the video in heavily accented Spanish.
With a good dose of humor, the video converts a national problem into a matter of international cooperation. Remind us that every minute counts under the Spanish sun, whether that be on the beach, exploring cities or in the markets. Remind us to stay in the shade, to put on a hat and wear sunscreen, says the speaker in the video.
Danes who were out in the sun too long.
The Danes have not only turned to Spain for help with sun safety; videos have also been made for Thailand, Italy, Greece and France, the other top sunshine destinations for Scandinavian tourists.
You guys are already busy with your own problems, but we respectfully beg you for your support, says the presenter, while a group of badly sunburned Danes, red as lobsters and with tan lines of all types, sing in a choir beside him.
Another still shot from the video.
Volunteer and help a Dane. In the name of the Danish People, our most sincere appreciation and see you soon, says the presenter at the end of the video. The video (with English subtitles) can be found on the campaign website, where it is also possible to sign up as a volunteer. If you register you get special thanks and a guide about how to help a Dane under the sun. There is also a link to a more serious campaign in Danish with recommendations about how to prevent skin cancer.
According to the campaign, in Denmark there are 19.2 cases of skin cancer for every 100,000 inhabitants. For the same population in Spain, there are 6.9 cases.
Globally, skin cancer is one of the most frequently detected cancers. While there are different types, melanoma, which only represents 4% of cases, causes 79% of the fatalities, according to Melanoma Spain. Keeping an eye on moles that change in appearance, and on new moles is key to detecting the disease in its earliest stages, says the organization.
English version by Alyssa McMurtry.
The Europe, United States and China have all a great deal of common interest in Africa, which they cherish by building various forms of cooperation on African security issues. Despite growing strategic completion on the continent between the EU and US on the one hand, and China on the other, all three of them still have major economic interests on the continent, and thus they also have a stake at making Africa peaceful and stable to create a fruitful environment for foreign investment. Being the worlds major powers, they also carry international responsibility for security issues in less-developed African countries.
Chinese-American cooperation mostly takes place through multilateral platforms such as the United Nations peacekeeping missions. The most consistent forum for communication between both sides is, however, the US-China consultation on African affairs. As of 2016, the State Department and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs have held seven rounds of such bilateral consultations. In regards to the EU and China, there are almost 70 ongoing dialogues between both powers, mostly devoted to trade-related issues but an increasingly important part of the first pillar (political dialogue) is devoted to EU-China security relations. The security dimension includes also some practical cooperation but since it is a relatively new phenomenon, it will need careful mutual nurturing to survive.
Until 2011, China maintained that much of the mutual dialogue with the US and EU was revolving around understanding each others priorities on the continent as well as their own priorities for their African policies. After the fifth round of the mutual consultations with the US, such wording vanished and it was replaced by the positive comments by the US on the contribution China has made to African development in recent years. Nevertheless, one consistent topic on the agenda has been in-depth exchanges of opinions on the situation in Africa and key regional issues.
Although Washington and Beijing are rather eloquent about Africa, their actions do not necessarily follow from the rhetoric. In reality, the US and China cooperate multilaterally and their efforts focus on peacekeeping missions and conflict resolution. The US remains the largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping, amounting to 28% of the $8.2bn annual budget, while China provides 2,262 peacekeepers, which is almost twice as large as the other Security Council countries contributions combined.
Both the US and China are further cooperating on strengthening the UNs peacekeeping capability. Last September, the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, and his then American counterpart, Barack Obama, agreed that they would increase their robust peacekeeping commitments. Moreover, both sides continue learning from each other on peace operations such as in March 2016 when an eight-member US military observer delegation visited the Chinese peacekeeping infantry battalion in South Sudan.
Also in Brussels, there is acknowledgement of Chinas expanding role in Africa and its importance in international peacekeeping China has indicated its interest in a wider security role on several occasions, such as the 2011 evacuation of Chinese citizens from Libya or chemical disarmament of Syria in 2014. Chinas growing involvement in UN peacekeeping operations a total of 24 operations between 1990 and 2015 including 2,720 Chinese peacekeepers deployed in 9 UN missions which appeals to the EUs emphasis on multilateral engagement, has paved the way for more concrete EU-China cooperation on anti-piracy operations. The main avenue for building the EUs military-to-military cooperation with China, which is a relatively recent phenomenon, has been through anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa and the Western Indian Ocean.
Aside from the navy operations, China has also deployed its army contingents to UN peacekeeping operations in Mali (MUNUSMA) and to South Sudan (UNMISS) in the last couple of years. This development is particularly remarkable in light of Chinas traditional sensitivity towards interference in its own internal affairs and also those of other states and its traditional preference to confine its contributions to non-combat roles. The next decade or two will only reveal if Chinas multilateral engagement serves as a platform for counterbalancing Western influence in Africa and in the UN and to reshape the underlying norms for peacekeeping operations.
Also, the US have both been active in combating piracy in the Horn of Africa and it is precisely the counter-piracy operation that has a great potential for Washingtons future mutual collaboration with China. EU-China security collaboration, especially in the military domain, is still at an early stage and the experience so far indicates a mixed picture for the future intensified relations but also many challenges lying ahead. In any case, the three major powers EU, EU and China have the necessary resources and commitment to work together and eventually build on this experience for more cooperation in the security area in many parts of Africa.
EU-China Relations: New Directions, New Priorities a Discussion Paper edited by Shada Islam Friends of Europe.
(The study can be downloaded here)
As Donald Trump begins his term as President, he can claim victory in more ways than one: Not only was he able to secure the electoral college majority, but Trumpism is already having a significant impact on the stability of democracies an ocean away.
Already emboldened by the Brexit vote in June, the election of an outsider as President of the worlds oldest democracy has given particularly core Europes right-wing populist parties a rather vainglorious halo. These threeFrances Marine LePen, the Netherlands Geert Wilders, and Germanys Frauke Petrystand to create a political environment which could ultimately eclipse the European project. All in 2017, the same year in which the Union plans to celebrate its very founding with the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. The European Union can survive Brexit. FrexitMarine LePens goal in her planned referendum on EU membershipwould be Europes death knell.
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: diplomaticourier.com
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News
DP World Tour announces global 2023 schedule
The DP World Tour today announced its full 12-month schedule for the 2023 season, featuring a minimum of 39 tournaments in 26 countries, once again emphasising its position as golfs global Tour.
Following Januarys US dollar fall, IMM positioning data reveals a continuation in the trend of investors reducing their long USD positions, which have now reached their lowest levels since the US presidential election, reports Danske Bank.
With overly long USD positioning being labeled by many banks as a reason for Januarys dollar decline (the other most attributed reason is the US administrations weaker-dollar rhetoric), and with this no longer being in play, Danske do see some chance for the euro-dollar rate to move a "few figures lower" in the near-term, but are sticking to their long-held view that the pair will rally in the next twelve-months, and that parity will not be reached.
Analysts at the Danish bank say:
"In our view, crowded USD positioning has been one of several reasons why EUR/USD will not reach parity. As USD positioning, according to our statistical threshold, is now no longer stretched, we do think it nonetheless re-opens up for some near-term downside, as relative rates and political uncertainty (both in US and in Europe) could send the cross a few figures lower from the current spot. Longer term, however, we stick to our long-held view that fundamental forces will support and send EUR/USD higher on a 12M horizon."
Differences of Opinion in EUR/USD Exchange Rate Forecasts
Danskes view differs from both Citi Bank and BNP Paribas, who are both forecasting parity in the EUR USD exchange rate by the end of 2017.
The view also differs greatly from that of Citi Bank analyst Brent Donnelly, who said in his latest market commentary this morning that the big dollar trade of 2017 is the ultimate fear-of-missing-out trade of all time and any hedge fund or real money PM worth his salt is going to look really bad if he or she misses it.
Citis Donnelly suggested that fund managers not currently long US dollars or not soon to be long, would face a certain amount of career risk and looking stupid risk.
Monique Morrow, CTO and Evangelist at Cisco.
Monique Morrow is whispering. We are at Arctic 15, a conference for digital entrepreneurs in Helsinki where multiple languages are distilled into one: that of computer programming.
This is where Morrow, Humanized Internet pioneer and the chief technology officer (CTO) of Ciscos New Frontiers Development and Engineering program, chooses to be interviewed as she prepares to leave the company after 12 years.
If you subject people constantly to a crunch situation, theyll burn out
In this spirit of multi-tasking, Morrow has also co-edited The Internet of Women, a book that talks about cultural change and womens contribution to innovation. One of the most important female voices in the digital world, she answers questions from EL PAIS on the role of women in technology, globalization, multi-tasking teams, big data management and stress in the workplace.
Question. You speak in terms of neutrality as opposed to gender equality. Why?
Answer. You have a feminine side just as I have a masculine side. What I am asking for is neutrality. Everyone has all the character traits but in different proportions. The challenge lies in being inclusive. Men, women, people of color or different sexual orientation and Asperger sufferers all need to be included. Theres probably a couple of generations to go before we can achieve this. On the other hand, it occurs to me that were in the 21st century. How come we are still thinking in terms of a few generations? According to estimates, gender equality in workplaces could generate as much as 8 trillion worldwide.
Q. How can the current trend be changed?
A. Well, I dont believe its a question of waiting several generations. You have to make it mandatory within the company. CTOs need to take the initiative and oblige whatever company they are in to adopt an inclusive policy. Its just one element that businesses should adopt as part of a general change of approach. Another is to decide what to reward. We dont reward collaboration, for example, but we do, more than anything else, reward staying late at work. Or being available 24/7 for emergencies, which is something that is becoming increasingly common.
Technology should help tackle the problem of workplace stress. Claudio Alvarez
I believe we should reward a different kind of behavior at work and create a sort of social currency. The nature of this reward can be discussed it could be in the form of an economic bonus or some other perk. The key is to reward the kind of behavior we wish to establish in the company. For example, when someone chooses their holidays, they should be rewarded. When someone fails to answer emails over the weekend, they should be rewarded. In Silicon Valley, the situation has become so desperate that sometimes they try futile strategies such as declaring a day of not reading emails, but it doesnt work.
Q. What you are talking about is getting rid of the crunch a tech term for a period of intense work.
A. Nobody likes crunch time, regardless of whether youre a man or a woman. Were all tired. The crunch has been incorporated into the competitive culture. But you can be competitive and also look after the human being. Sometimes we forget that the people we are working with are human. If you subject people constantly to a crunch situation, forcing them to take on an endless stream of tasks to fill every waking hour, minute and second of their lives, they will burn out. And it will happen very quickly. This is my philosophical side talking technology has two sides. On the one hand it nurtures new skills, but on the other, it takes them away.
Nobody likes working a ton of extra hours, irrespective of whether youre a man or a woman
Getting back to women, were talking about 51% of the planet. But there are still women who are persecuted for trying to get an education for example in Nigeria. In September 2015, the UN approved 17 proposals for sustainable global development. The first was to put an end to poverty. The fifth was to put an end to gender inequality. But theres a huge correlation between the two! For example, when you launch initiatives to encourage women to study technology or science, you realize that youre tackling the problem too late the problem sets in much earlier.
Q. In what way?
A. The gender differences have been drummed into girls since they were tiny. If you have a son, he should be brought up from the beginning to understand that all chores are shared. Someone said to me once, Fatherhood isnt the mothers job. And that also applies to any domestic chore, from cleaning the house to taking out the trash. Theres also the business with toys. Who cares if a boy plays with a doll if he wants to? If you are neutral in the treatment of your children, they will expect to be treated neutrally outside the home. Gender roles are drilled into children by the age of five. A scientist couple who are friends of mine told me that their six-year-old daughter came back from school one and said, Mom, dad, I cant study math because Im not a boy. It happens that early. That child is now an astrophysicist. But she is an astrophysicist because her parents took the time to explain to her that she could be anything she set her mind to.
Q. Recent research found that code written by women for the open-source software community GitHub was more often approved than code written by men, so long as those doing the approving were ignorant of the programmers gender.
Programmer Rachel Nabors made a cartoon illustrating her trouble on Github.
A. I remember the study. It came out in February 2016. I remember thinking when I read it, Well, there you are. There are women who have excellent programming potential, just as there are women who excel at videogames. The problem is that due to cultural pressure, they have to be very determined to do anything with it. At high school, there are already very few girls choosing to be scientists or programmers. And even fewer at university level. Only the most determined see it through. Were not talking about a glass ceiling here, were talking about a glass cliff. Age is another perceived obstacle, particularly when it comes to technology. We convince ourselves that we are too old to be innovative or learn new things. Then theres the case of the people who believe motherhood and a career are incompatible. In the long run, these perceptions mean that a lot of extremely capable people abandon their careers for good.
Q. How can technology help developing countries?
A. I believe we have a lot to learn from countries everywhere and we should take from each something specific to place in a category called inverse innovation. We need to be wary of techno-colonialism. We need to take time to fully understand the opportunities and solutions technology can offer, and then see how these innovations can be applied around the world.
Q. Which specific area of technology do you see as a global game-changer?
A. I believe augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), videogames, design and blockchain [a secure system for financial transactions using encrypted digital currencies such as bitcoin] have the capacity to trigger the potential of various countries economies. We can work out how to apply these technologies to education, health and the design of intelligent cities. Take, for example, the Utopia project for a smart makeover of urban slums. We also have to consider how to introduce the ethical aspect into digital systems.
If companies arent compassionate, they wont survive in the 21st century
Q. In short, technology should help us be more humane.
A. Exactly. The tech world feeds off new perspectives. Artists, people of different races and cultures, older people: they all bring fresh perspectives and help us see things in a different light. We have to nurture multi-tasking teams and have anthropologists, historians, psychologists and philosophers working side by side with programmers and engineers. We need to push companies to adopt a compassionate focus. If they dont, I am certain they will not survive the 21st century.
Q. And how can the new technological paradigms help achieve this?
A. In a variety of ways. At Stanford, they are studying Dark Data, a type of unstructured data that Stanford is structuring using its Deep Dive data management system. Imagine you publish a photo in EL PAIS and a machine starts to ask questions such as what demographic the photo is aimed at, or the editorial motives for putting it on this or that page. If it is applied to a person, it can make inferences about your social status, about the kind of people you mix with and the opinions you hold by referencing your social network sites.
We shouldnt be afraid of the power of technology and see it in terms of Big Brother. It can be used to better understand ourselves and make deductions that will help us improve. Ill give you an example. If you are in a position of power, you tend to choose people who are similar to yourself and who have the same likes and dislikes. Its not something premeditated. Its something you do unconsciously. Thats when you need artificial intelligence because it can make this inference for you and help you reflect on the hidden motives you may have for the decisions you take.
English version by Heather Galloway.
I've been living in RAK for 3 years now, running our office here as well as commuting to our head office in Jebel Ali on average once weekly.
RAK is what you make of it. You can make as much or as little of the social scene as you want, although it is nowhere near the level of Dubai for choices. Lots of tourists and weekend visitors tend to descend on the city.
It takes me around 1h15m from Al Hamra to JAFZA most of the time. No significant traffic on 611 Southbound, but coming back north it can take almost 2 hrs at the wrong time of day due to construction at the Sharjah border around Maliha Road.
Al Hamra to/from Dubai airport is easier than Dubai Marina to Dubai Airport. It takes me no more than 45 minutes without traffic on 311 (just 1h10m from LANDING at Dubai to walking through my front door this past Saturday).
pachito13 said: This employer keeps focusing on my after tax salary. Yes, it would be a slight bump from my after tax salary, however, the employer seems to be the sole benefactor of the income tax free laws. Click to expand...
Yes, some are so fixated with that... You have to remember though that you get no benefits here. I'm not sure what it's like where you live now but you might have some benefits that we don't get here. No unemployment benefit, no free healthcare (employer has to pay for health insurance but they might be stingy and only get the cheapest one possible so if you need healthcare you have to pay for a lot yourself, all dental for example) and no pension. If you lose your job here there is nothing to fall back on. You either look for another job swiftly (not easy) or go back home.You also need to take into consideration the big start up costs here. Deposits left, right and centre and the rent would need to be paid upfront in 1-4 cheques usually. Make sure they pay for your accommodation when you initially arrive, for at least a month. You need that time for the visa process and bank account opening etc.
Hi all, just wandering what is the best value and delivery service to order flowers for tomorrow? Will probably go the 1 dozen roses route
Schools in the UK are being urged to take part in a new language programme aimed at delivering a minimum of 5,000 fluent Mandarin speakers by 2020.The Mandarin Excellence Programme (MEP) is being run by the Department of Education and already 14 schools have signed up for the rigorous programme for pupils from year seven. It is being run in partnership with the delivered by University College Londons UCL IOE Confucius Institute and the British Council at a time when Mandarin is regarded as one of the languages that matters most to the future prosperity of the UK.According to recent research commissioned for the Mandarin Excellence Programme, British parents see Mandarin Chinese as being the most beneficial non-European language for their children to learn.The robust programme includes studying Mandarin for eight hours a week, made up of a combination of teacher taught classroom lessons for a minimum of four hours a week, after school teaching, self-study and intensive language courses in the UK and China.The UCL IOE Confucius Institute, in partnership with the British Council, will be training enough teachers to support the programme and help with teaching practices in school. This will involve teaching British teachers and teachers from China.The aim is to give pupils an immersive experience of China through digital media and visits to China for some groups of students.While uptake of Mandarin in UK schools is growing, Mandarin Chinese GCSEs currently make up around only 1% of overall language GCSEs taken. Last year, just over 3,500 Mandarin Chinese GCSEs were sat in England compared to around 140,000 French GCSEs.Studying Mandarin Chinese is both personally enriching for students and a useful means of boosting future career prospects in our globally competitive economy. We are funding, thousands of students will be on track to a high level of fluency in the language in the coming years, said School Standards Minister Nick Gibb.Mark Herbert, head of schools programmes at the British Council, believes that it will also create career opportunities for the pupils that take part in the programme. Without more people in our workforce who can understand and communicate effectively with one of the worlds biggest economies, theres a real risk that the UK will struggle to remain competitive on the world stage, he said.On top of that, learning Mandarin is a fascinating process that brings with it a valuable understanding of contemporary and historical Chinese culture. Now more than ever, we need more young people leaving school with a good grasp of Mandarin Chinese in order to successfully work abroad or for multinational businesses here in the UK, he added.
Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos, on Sunday reasserted his control over the Spanish protest party with an easy victory in a vote to choose the secretary general. With 89% of the vote, Iglesias comfortably defeated his rival for the post, Juan Moreno Yague, a little-known deputy from Andalusia.
Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias at the party conference. Ballesteros (EFE)
Just as importantly, Iglesias will maintain a 60% hold on the leadership council with 37 representatives of his leftist views now sitting on it. The outcome deals a serious blow to his more moderate deputy Inigo Errejon, who only managed to put 23 of his own people on the council.
The party congress held at Madrids Vistalegre arena this weekend also provided renewed backing for Iglesias views on political, organizational, ethical and gender issues.
We must rule out the winner-loser logic
Podemos official Miguel Urban
What emerges from the vote of 155,275 activists is that Podemos rank-and-file favor an approach to politics that remains faithful to the protest partys origins, back when the Indignados movement was staging street protests to demand change, at the height of Spains economic crisis.
Iglesias more radical views have trumped Errejons call for a change of tack and greater initiative in parliament, where Podemos has been left out of cross-party agreements on issues such as fuel poverty or raising the minimum wage, two topics that the anti-austerity party has championed in the past.
The new Podemos will remain a presidential-style party heavily reliant on its leader. Iglesias retains wide powers such as the ability to organize grassroots consultations without having to get them greenlighted by the leadership council first.
Rajoy wins at PP congress Javier Casqueiro The ruling conservative Popular Party (PP) held its own congress this past weekend, when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy re-emerged as its unquestionable leader. In fact, all relevant PP leaders said that Rajoy, 61, should be the conservative candidate in the next general election as well, whether it be in 2020 or sooner, if the budget is rejected and early elections are called. Rajoys victory was hardly a surprise, given that he was the only candidate in the running. He won with 95% of the votes.
Under Iglesias, Podemos will resume its belligerent opposition to the Great Coalition made up of the ruling Popular Party (PP), the main opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) and the other protest party to emerge from the crisis, Ciudadanos.
While Errejon advocates a more conciliatory tone in order to effect change through legislative action, Iglesias does not want congressional deputies so much as institutional activists.
We must never resemble the old political class, he proclaimed on Sunday, speaking to a crowd of around 8,000. Podemos, he said, must be a party that tells the truth.
But Iglesias faces the challenge of bringing unity back to a party that has been exhausted by months of infighting.
Miguel Urban, a leading party member who represents far-left views, on Sunday attempted to bridge the internal divide with a renewed call for unity.
Unity is not uniformity, it is built through plurality, he said. We must rule out the winner-loser logic.
English version by Susana Urra.
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When Donald Trump pitched his plan in September to extend paid leave to all new mothers, his campaign insisted that the benefit would cover only women.
But after critics called the proposal unconstitutional and said it would encourage employers to discriminate against women, the Trump administration may be considering a change of course.
Aparna Mathur, a resident scholar in economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning research group, said she spoke to a lower-level member of Trumps transition team in December about the presidents idea. Staffers were considering one key revision, she said: turning maternity leave into parental leave, a benefit that fathers, too, could access.
They didnt want to just focus on mothers, she said. They were thinking about making it gender-neutral.
A White House representative would not confirm whether the presidents policy had changed but said it is a top priority of his. The president has expressed a need for a comprehensive maternity plan.
The U.S. does not guarantee paid time off for new parents. During his campaign, Trump proposed offering six weeks of paid leave to biological mothers through the countrys unemployment insurance system, which currently floats cash to workers who are laid off. The proposal received backlash from Republicans and Democrats: Those on the right said the measure would bloat public assistance, creating a larger bill for taxpayers, while those on the left said it discriminated against fathers and adoptive parents.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said the government should find a way to better support families. In 2015, for example, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida became the first GOP presidential contender to release a paid family leave plan, proposing a tax break for companies that cover at least a four-week break for new parents. Democrats, meanwhile, have long fought for a national program, similar to safety nets in European countries.
Mathur, who wrote a 2015 report suggesting that parental leave should be funded through a tax credit, said including fathers in Trumps plan probably wouldnt make it significantly more costly, considering that U.S. men rarely take paternity leave, even when its fully funded through an employer.
Fewer than a third of new dads who work use more than 10 days of leave after the birth of a child, according to Labor Department data. Fewer than 1 in 7, meanwhile, receive pay for those days.
Mathur said it was unclear whether Trump was considering offering the aid to adoptive parents.
The Trump administration, Mathur said, did not want to stray far from the original blueprint. The average weekly benefit, according to a campaign document, would be $300. Trump said he would pay for it by eliminating fraud in the unemployment insurance system. (Economists have said fraud payments constitute a fraction of the overall program.)
Providing the benefit through UI paid for through program savings will not be financially onerous to small businesses when compared with mandating paid leave, the Trump team noted in a report. The Trump plan for paid maternity leave will advance the interests of disadvantaged mothers without raising taxes.
Carrie Lukas, director of policy for the conservative nonprofit Independent Womens Forum, said she heard from a Trump aide a few weeks after the election. They chatted about the maternity leave proposal specifically, the logistics of rolling it out on the state level. Lukas said gender didnt come up in that conversation.
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.
Theyre doing their homework, she said. Theyre trying to talk to people and not just rush out with something.
Hillary Clinton, by comparison, had proposed providing new parents mothers and fathers, biological and adoptive with 12 weeks of parental leave at two-thirds of their wages, funded through a tax increase on the wealthy.
Trump said his plan was influenced by daughter Ivanka Trump, who encouraged her father to become the first Republican presidential nominee to unveil a maternity leave proposal.
In November, Ellen Bravo, executive director of the national advocacy group Family Values at Work, said barring men from a paid leave program would be a blow to gender equality.
This looks like a policy from someone who sees child-rearing as solely the responsibility of women and doesnt understand American families, Bravo said. It assumes only women take care of kids.
In a September interview with Cosmopolitan, Ivanka Trump defended the plans mother-only focus.
This is a giant leap from where we are today, which is sadly, nothing, she said. Theres tremendous benefit here to enabling the mother to recover after childbirth. Its critical for the health of the mother. Its critical for bonding with the child, and that was a top focus of this plan.
In late January, Meghan Mardashti spent hours persuading her father to let her go to Cancun with friends over Spring Break. Finally, after much wrangling, the tickets were booked. The Trinity University sophomore was elated about the independence and freedom she would experience on the trip.
But the next day, President Donald Trump signed an order banning Syrian refugees indefinitely and temporarily preventing other travelers from there and six other predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran, from entering the country.
As a high schooler, Mardashti came to the U.S. from Shiraz, Iran, on an F-1 student visa. Enrolling at Rutgers Preparatory School in New Jersey, she stayed with a host family before her own family, eager to be closer to her and escape harsh economic sanctions, joined her. They settled in Houston, where Mardashti finished her high school career at Memorial High School the same school where earlier in January, racist graffiti was scrawled across campus. Two years ago, she became a permanent resident.
As the travel ban went into effect over the last weekend in January, Mardashti read story after story about travelers being stopped in their tracks. The next Monday, she called her parents. She could hear the strain and worry in their voices. Initially, there were reports that green card holders such as Mardashti were included in the orders enforcement. Her mother told her that close family friends had been detained at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport for 10 hours.
Finally, everyone agreed. The stress and uncertainty just wasnt worth it. She wouldnt go. Tentative plans to make a trip back to Iran over the summer and to invite an aunt in Germany to visit were called into question, too.
My dad was like, This is too risky. You dont understand, Mardashti said.
Last week, a federal appeals court declined to reinstate enforcement of the travel ban. The Trump administration is considering its next step.
The futures of many, including those here on student visas, hang in the balance. After travelers were detained at airports and put back on planes, many colleges and universities cautioned students from the seven countries against international travel, for the time being, because they might be unable to return. While the presidents order remains uncertain, some educators worry about the damage that may have been done already.
I think its going to impact international student enrollment generally, said Alfredo Varela, executive director of the Center for International Programs at St. Marys University. People are going to feel unwelcome.
It is unclear exactly how many San Antonio students are directly or indirectly affected by the travel ban. Varela said two students, one from Iran and one from Iraq, currently study at St. Marys. Representatives for Trinity University, the University of the Incarnate Word, Texas A&M University-San Antonio and Our Lady of the Lake University said they were not aware of any students who were directly affected by the order. The University of Texas at San Antonio declined to release how many of its students were from the seven countries.
Its a much bigger concern at the University of Texas at Austin, where at least 90 students and 20 faculty members have been affected by the order.
One of the students, a 26-year-old Iranian in his third year of UTs petroleum and geosystems engineering doctorate program, has applied for permanent residency in the U.S. because he wants to be able to go home to southern Iran without any trouble.
Now ... even if I get my green card, I may not be able to come back and forth, said the student, who didnt want to be named or photographed for fear of retaliation. He hasnt been able to see his family since coming to the U.S. three years ago and was looking forward to seeing them at his graduation in Austin. With all the uncertainty surrounding the executive order, he worries that they wont be able to come now.
At least we could see our families back here who could come visit us. My friends could come to my graduation or anyone could come, but now, we dont have that, he said.
The doctorate program for petroleum and geosystems engineering has about 200 students, 80 percent of whom are foreign, according to department chairman Jon Olson. Of that number, eight students have been affected by the order: seven Iranians and one Iraqi.
He said it was fortunate that none of the students was traveling when the ban went into place.
I personally think that the strength of our country is being welcoming and diverse and feel that this goes against that principle, Olson said.
At Texas State University, 18 students, two visiting scholars and two faculty members could be affected by the order, according to university officials. Shortly after the order was issued, University President Denise Trauth sent an open letter to faculty, staff and students emphasizing the universitys support for its international students, including those from the affected countries.
Our university is committed to ensuring that our community is diverse and composed of people from many cultures, reflecting both the global environment in which we live and our core values, Trauth said in the email. Now is the time to commit to our long-held beliefs in nondiscrimination and equal opportunity. These are foundational values of not just our university, but of higher education in America.
In San Antonio, Varela of St. Marys reached out to the two affected students there to offer his support. He said international students should exercise caution when traveling and review the guidelines for maintaining their visa status.
Gabriela Sanchez-Soto knows the challenges students face if they want to study here. After graduating from Mexicos El Colegio de San Luis with an international relations degree, Sanchez-Soto came to the U.S. in 2005 to pursue her masters and doctorate at Brown University. She is now an assistant professor of demography at UTSA.
As someone who is not quite excluded from the vitriol, Sanchez-Soto said she worries about the message that the travel restrictions send to international students as a whole. People could be more tentative about applying to programs here, she said.
They dont want to feel attacked. They dont want to be dismissed. They want to feel they have the same rights as other students, Sanchez-Soto said.
Already, international students have to navigate the complications of studying abroad, including securing a visa, a process that can take months and includes an extensive application, background checks, interviews and the disclosure of financial information. For students who cannot afford to pay for their education out of pocket, they may also have to apply for fellowships, sponsorships or scholarships. Once students arrive in the U.S., they must also meet with customs officials.
But having a visa does not guarantee entry. Even after students go through the process, Varela said, St. Marys typically sees one or two students each year who are turned back for various reasons.
There is a lot of checks and balances through the process, and a lot of stress, Varela said. This is certainly going to add another dimension to that.
One of the Iranian engineering students at UT-Austin also pointed out that the process of obtaining a student visa is complex, and he said visas shouldnt be removed just because a new administration is in office.
The new government thinks that they (past administration) have been so easy for issuing visas. It hasnt been like that. Its been very tough, said the 32-year-old student, whos in his last year in the engineering program. The previous government has vetted them, and they have been issued visas to come to this country, so they should accept it.
For researchers and scholars at universities, the stakes are high, too. Researchers often travel internationally to attend conferences, conduct research, participate in scholar exchanges and promote their work. For some, limiting travel would mean sentencing (them) to obscurity, Sanchez-Soto said.
And then theres the issue that the U.S. needs the expanded pool of talent that international students bring, UTs Olson noted. He said they often make the U.S. their new home after they graduate because job opportunities are generally better here.
Most of them stay in the United States when they finish, Olson said. As far as the technical side of the U.S. economy, we depend heavily on these foreign students.
Trinitys Mardashti recalls traveling to the U.S. Embassy in Dubai to apply for her visa when she was 15, standing in the sweltering September heat for hours. Her parents both gave up successful jobs in Iran so she could study in the U.S. and so the family wouldnt have to live under oppressive conditions. The family has since converted to Christianity, but they were once Muslim, like most of those affected by the order.
Although shes a permanent resident, the travel ban made Mardashti feel trapped and unprotected, like she didnt quite belong anymore.
We escaped Iran to come to a free country, and its the same thing here, she said.
lcaruba@express-news.net
A year after Justice Antonin Scalia died at a luxurious hunting ranch south of Marfa, the U.S. Supreme Court remains locked in a 4-4 split between its conservative and liberal blocs, with no clear end in sight.
Scalia, 79, a dependable conservative vote on the court, died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on 30,000-acre the Cibolo Creek Ranch on Feb. 13, 2016. According to his host John Poindexter, Scalia, the longest-serving justice on the court, was engaged and animated at dinner before retiring early to sleep.
After the painful loss of a premature daughter and three miscarriages, Amy Gregorcyk carried guilt for 20 years thinking it might have been her fault.
Gregorcyk, 42, who lives in the Houston area, did not have access to her family medical history because she was adopted and the records were sealed. When she finally got her birth certificate after extensive research, she learned that her losses were due to genetic disorders.
When youre 18, you can vote. When youre 21, you can drink. When youre 16, youre able to drive. I was 42 years old before I got my original birth certificate, she said.
Not being able to get a birth certificate can make it harder for an adoptee to get a passport and to find out about family medical history, including possibly life-threatening genetic disorders, such as Gregorcyk discovered.
State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, is hoping to make access easier with his Senate Bill 329, which has bipartisan support. The bill would provide biological parents who chose adoption a form to fill out that would indicate whether the parent wants to be contacted by the child, either personally or through an intermediary. The parent could chose not to be contacted at all. The form would be attached to the childs birth certificate so that when an adoptee seeks to access his or her birth records as an adult, the form would make the biological parents wishes clear.
Under current Texas law, adult adoptees from closed adoptions can get access to sealed birth certificates if they get a court order, but advocacy groups say thousands of adoptees have difficulty doing that. The order must come from the same court that granted the adoption and the judge can ask the adoptee to appear in person, which could mean traveling long distances if the adopted child moved. And then the judge decides whether the adoptees request meets the standard of good cause to unseal the documents. Good cause is open to interpretation, the bills advocates note, which means adoptees in similar circumstances could be denied in one court but approved in another in the same county.
As a civil right, people should not have to go through any of that, said Patricia Martinez Dorner, an adoptive mother and director of Adoption Counseling & Search, a San Antonio center that provides counseling, search assistance and support for adoptees and families involved. People who are adopted are entitled to get their birth certificate like any other citizen of the state of Texas. We all have the same needs to know our genealogy and our medical history.
Under Creightons bill, a court order would no longer be required to release an adoptees birth certificate.
Connie Gray, president of Texas Adoptee Rights, said there was secrecy and shame that surrounded adoption starting in the 1940s, known as the Baby Scoop Era. After Texas established the Central Record File under the Family Code in 1973, all adoption decrees and records were sealed and access to adoption records to everyone was restricted.
Gray said people now use social media or DNA databases such as ancestry.com to find possible family members or genetic matches.
People are holding signs on Facebook with all their personal information, Gray said. Its not private to do DNA tests and have multiple family members start asking around who in the family may have given up a child back in the day.
Last legislative session, Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, herself an adoptive mother, killed a similar bill, saying it would have ended closed adoptions. She has declined to comment on what she thinks of the new measure until its scheduled for a hearing.
Marci Purcell, vice president of Texas Adoptee Rights, said the new bill would still allow closed adoptions, and that the current law is actually hurting birth parents because they are outed in public ways.
When the states open the records, the adoptee will have a private way to contact the birth parent, Purcell said. Those currently against this bill need to recognize birth parents are routinely being found.
Concerned United Birthparents, a national advocacy organization of birth parents that support restoring access to birth certificates, said that equal access to court files and the wish to search for ones birthparents are separate issues.
An adoptees decision to search is independent of the right to obtain vital statistics and court files that concern himself or herself, the group said in a statement .
Martinez Dorner pointed out that people seeking their original birth certificates do not necessarily go looking for their biological families.
If Creightons bill passes, Texas would be the 21st state to offer adoptees full access to their birth certificates, and according to Gray, it would affect about 628,000 people statewide.
If youre old enough to fight and die for your country, youre old enough to handle a birth certificate, Gray said.
elutz@express-news.net
@elenamejialutz
In the context of exceptional global uncertainty, the Spanish economy remains strong. In a report to be released today, the European Commission forecasts growth slightly above 2% for 2017 and 2018, and while highlighting the countrys surprising expansion, detects signs of a slowdown. But Brussels is less optimistic about Spains ability to meet its deficit-reduction requirements , forecasting a deficit equivalent to 3.5% of GDP for this year, four-tenths of a percentage point above the objective, and two-tenths higher the forecast of three months ago.
EU Commissioner for Economic Affairs Pierre Moscovici with Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos. OLIVIER HOSLET (EFE)
Europe also suspects Spain will rake in less revenue from its latest tax hikes, despite claims from Madrid this will be a record 202.6 billion in 2017. If Brussels is right, this will mean the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will have to impose extra cuts to the tune of 4.3 billion.
The report begins by noting that Spains economic growth has exceeded expectations in recent quarters, but uses the word uncertainty more than 80 times over the course of its 200 pages, usually in the context of Brexit or US President Donald Trump.
The Commission says nothing about the difficulties Rajoy will face in approving his budgets
However, Spain is no longer the biggest risk facing Europe: after a bumpy adjustment following the 2012 rescue, Spains economy is growing above the EU average and creating jobs in the process. That said, the Spanish economy is still being held back by a huge debt and by a fragile fiscal situation that could prompt huge headaches if global risks generate instability and risk premiums start to rise again, the reports authors state.
Brussels applauds Spains economic performance, noting that 2016 saw a third consecutive year of growth, expanding at almost twice the EU average due to more balanced fundamentals, strong domestic demand, and exports that for the first time since the beginning of the recovery made a net contribution to growth. GDP growth will remain strong although it will tend to slow down, and the tail winds provided by lower oil prices, tax cuts, and improved financial conditions thanks to the European Central Bank, have subsided.
The Commission says it expects Spain to continue creating jobs, albeit at a slower rate than up until now, with unemployment falling to 17.7% this year, and down to 16% in 2018, predicting that salary growth and low productivity will put labor costs on a par with the EU average after several years of strong competitiveness.
Of greater concern to Brussels is the difference between the Spanish governments optimistic forecast of its deficit reduction and its own, which is four-tenths of a percentage point lower, at 3.5% of GDP for this year and 2.9% for 2018. The consequences could be important.
If Brussels is right, Spains deficit will be four-tenths of a percentage point above the 3.1% of GDP objective
The 2017 deficit is particularly worrying: if Brussels is right, Spains deficit will be four-tenths of a percentage point above the 3.1% of GDP objective.
When Brussels forecast a deficit equivalent to 3.3% of GDP in January, it warned the government it should be ready to take additional measures if it failed to meet its targets. Those four-tenths of a percentage point would translate into further cuts of 4.3 million achieved through reduced public spending and higher taxes.
Brussels is less optimistic about Spains ongoing GDP growth, and particularly about tax revenue. Despite his electoral promises, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has planned hikes on company tax, alcohol, tobacco and social security contributions. But Brussels believes that Spain will still not collect enough revenue and says that this will have a direct impact on the governments ability to meet its debt reduction commitments, highlighting the potential losses from the cost of the bank bailout and efforts to protect the banking systems assets.
The Commission says nothing about the difficulties Rajoys minority government will face in approving its budgets, but it is worth noting that Spains structural deficit worsened in 2016 and will only improve slightly this year, stabilizing in 2018. To put it simply, Spain will not be able to put its public accounts in order even with 3% growth. Furthermore, the public debt will increase slightly this year and stabilize at around 100% of GDP. External debt, public and private, is very high. If the road ahead really does get rocky and the markets once again cause trouble, Spain could face further problems.
English version by Nick Lyne.
Just like theres two sides to every story, in the case of the San Juan Hill battle during the Spanish-American War, there was a troupe on the other side of that hill that often goes unacknowledged in history books.
When the Rough Riders, a regiment led by Teddy Roosevelt largely credited for the American victory, reached the top of that hill, another group of U.S. Soldiers already had done most of the work: the Buffalo Soldiers, a segregated Army unit made mostly of black soldiers.
This was the story that Luis Padilla, dressed in a 9th infantry Buffalo Soldier period uniform, told a crowd of San Antonians on Sunday afternoon at the Institute of Texan Cultures. And those were the kinds of stories that other volunteers and staff from the Texas Wildlife and Parks Departments Buffalo Soldiers division and the Bexar County Buffalo Soldiers were committed to telling that afternoon the stories least told of these black soldiers in Texas.
While the Army has been desegregated since the 1950s, the valuable role of the Buffalo Soldiers in American wars, from the Indian Wars of the 1860s to the Korean War in the 1950s, is still largely segregated to the outer corners of mainstream history.
Its a lost history. I know when I was in school years ago, I didnt know anything about the Buffalo Soldiers. Only when I was an adult did I began to learn bits and pieces, said Pamela Lindsay, of the Bexar County Buffalo Soldiers. The story needs to be told, and our young and old need to know.
Her organization displayed historical artifacts from that Army unit on the porch of a small building with two rooms modeled after a quartermasters supply room and an officers living quarters. Lindsay dressed as Cathay Williams, a foot soldier who is the only documented African American woman who disguised herself as a man, enlisting herself as Williams Cathay.
She was a real soldier, said Lindsay. She didnt have a horse. Her horse was her feet.
She said there are close to 300 Buffalo Soldiers buried at the San Antonio National Cemetery.
As a woman, especially now, we have to be persistent in who we are with equal rights, Lindsay said. Cathay Williams showed that if she can endure all the things men endured in 1866, from slavery to being a foot soldier in the blazing heat, whats there to stop us?
In West Texas, the Buffalo Soldiers were mostly peace officers, sent to build pathways and devise maps for the unexplored territory. They built forts that would later be occupied by white soldiers.
While there is still speculation about how the soldiers got their name, a predominate theory is that Native American tribes were surprised to be confronted with soldiers that were dark-skinned, not white, and with their heavy fur coats from the winter, when they were first sent likened the soldiers to buffalo. Others also say that Native Americans thought the Buffalo Soldiers fighting spirit was like that of a buffalo, which charges at threats head-on.
Clifton Fifer, an Old West historical storyteller and retired teacher from Kerrville, spent the afternoon showing young children old-fashioned toys and how to play West Texas historical instruments like the washtub bass and the Native American flute.
History has a 360 degree cycle. If you dont learn from your mistakes, well come back to that spoke on the wheel, Fifer said. When you do some harm on this planet, if you dont solve it, it gets bigger and bigger. Its easier to draw on our ancestors and learn whats right and wrong from them.
sfosterfrau@express-news.net
Its not as if women needed to be reminded that society specifically men; more specifically, some men; and most definitely a male-dominated power structure can dismiss them, not value their contributions, fail to give them credit or, worse yet, not include them.
Most women at some time have been told, essentially, to shut up.
Thats what happened in plain view to one of the nations fiercest, intelligent leaders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts. You know, the kind to whom we should listen.
She underwent what so many experience privately, or in smaller groups, when theyre silenced and demeaned. It reverberated everywhere in the simplicity of a hashtag, #ShePersisted.
Warrens attempt to read Coretta Scott Kings 1986 letter about Sen. Jeff Sessions warned he shouldnt be considered for a federal judgeship, citing his record on voter suppression.
Warren didnt get very far before getting rebuked for violating an obscure rule prohibiting senators from impugning one another. Though not so unusual an occurrence, Warren was held to the higher standard.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, once accused of lying by Sen. Ted Cruz that sounds like rebuke said Warren was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
Three male senators later read the letter without incident.
In San Antonio on Friday, two groups of Latinas meeting at Mi Tierra Cafe had similar stories to tell about similar treatment that was at best disrespectful and unprofessional; at worst, sexist, misogynistic and potentially liable.
They described situations in which male peers were listened to by supervisors more than they were. Theyd seen women, no matter higher titles, viewed as subservient and unequal.
One brought up the 2013 case of then-Sen. Leticia Van de Putte when she sought to be heard by colleagues intent on stopping Sen. Wendy Davis filibuster of an abortion bill.
Did the President hear me or did the President hear me and refuse to recognize me? Van de Putte said. At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?
President Donald Trump didnt invent such behavior, though he did a fine job of it in a 2005 Access Hollywood tape. But his campaign and his presidency, his sexist, racist language, have emboldened many.
It also has renewed a womens movement, spurred marches and soon a strike. Women activists of the 60s and 70s have signed up for new tours of duty. Young women, for the first time, are joining them.
What happened to Warren was an extreme example, but it wasn't unusual. It happened when the Vatican investigated U.S. nuns over an alleged doctrinal issue. The clergy mustered a vigor they couldnt for priests whod committed egregious crimes against children.
When women are perceived as such a threat, when the backlash comes from such deep-seeded insecurity, when theyre resented and hated, mobilization happens.
Warriors have advice.
Warren persisted, and thats what all of us have done and need to do, said Ellen Riojas Clark, a UTSA professor emeritus now out of the workplace. But its different for us.
Speaking up comes with risk, she says. A young person has to be very cognizant of how to respond. Be polite, but strong. Have manos de jarro, a phrase that refers to heavy arms at your side that cant be moved.
You wont have the whole world watching as witnesses, she said.
At one point in her career, she sued the UT System, she said. No one talked to me. She fought back by looking at people right in the eye and saying, Good morning, she said. Use body language, come from strength.
Be resilient, she added. Warrens dignity was visual. Her physical being spoke for her, Riojas Clark said.
She points to former Councilwoman Maria Antonietta Berriozabal, whose quiet dignity and strength is unmistakable.
Keep the momentum going, Riojas Clark said. Be change agents. Take it seriously, she says. To have a free society, you have to work to keep a free society.
By the way, Kings letter about Sessions was sent to Sen. Strom Thurmond and his Judiciary Committee but never got into the hearing record. He blamed a clerical error.
King said Sessions used his power as Alabamas attorney general to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.
The irony of Mr. Sessions nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished 20 years ago with clubs and cattle prods.
Senators clearly needed that history lesson.
eayala@express-news.net
Twitter: @ElaineAyala
FFA members across the nation join together this week to focus on transforming purpose to action.
The week-long tradition began in 1947 when the National FFA board of directors designated the week of George Washingtons birthday as National FFA Week in recognition of his legacy as an agriculturist and farmer. The first National FFA Week was celebrated in 1948.
Today, FFA Week always runs Saturday to Saturday and encompasses Feb. 22, Washingtons birthday.
Locally, FFA Week is a time for FFA members, alumni, sponsors and community members to advocate for agricultural education and FFA, and share what FFA is and the impact it has on members.
Chapters plan events throughout the week allowing them to communicate with the school leadership, the student body and the entire community, demonstrating their passion for agriculture.
Some chapters host teacher appreciation breakfasts, others conduct Agriculture Olympics competitions, while others reach out to the community through service projects.
The Farm and Dairy surveyed local FFA programs about their plans for FFA week, see whats going on in your area. Check out our interactive online map to see more.
Crestview FFA, Ohio
Crestview FFA will host its second Meals of Hope packing event during the school day Feb. 24. This is a school wide event that will involve all of the Crestview Middle School student body. The FFA is in the process of fundraising $20,000 in order to pack 80,000 meals to be distributed to area food banks.
Waterford FFA, Ohio
The Waterford FFA Chapter has annually hosted the Waterford FFA Hog Roast since 1983. The event is a community service project in which the program serves a free meal to the Waterford community and supporters. The Hog Roast will be Feb. 22 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and is served in the shop bay of our ag department.
Black River FFA, Ohio
Black River FFA will host a staff appreciation breakfast Feb. 23. They are sponsoring a PreK-5th grade coloring contest and will award a prize per grade and an overall best picture. All week they will have spirit dress up days and they chapter is also sponsoring a FFA Emblem Hunt. Where they give emblems to teachers and they give them out to 40 deserving students (that are not in FFA). Recipients of the emblems receive a free ice cream sundae in the ag room. Additionally, they share interesting ag facts on the announcements in the elementary, middle and high school throughout the week.
Hiland FFA, Ohio
The Hiland FFA Chapter is collecting items for Military Care Packages and they are hosting a community lunch March 9 where they will be collecting such items.
Indian Valley FFA, Ohio
The Indian Valley FFA Chapter is hosting a spirit week to bring awareness to the FFA chapter. During FFA week they will have activities during every lunch period, some examples are fear factor (a drink of mystery foods mixed together) and the milk chugging contest (which students must drink out of a baby bottle). They will also be having themed dress up days.
Fayetteville FFA, Ohio
Fayetteville FFA will have spirit dress up days throughout the week, as well as offer a Staff Appreciation Breakfast Feb. 22.
Laurel FFA, Pennsylvania
The Laurel FFA will be hosting Animal Day Feb. 23. Laurel kindergarten students will have the opportunity to learn about animals such as cows, horses, goats and pigs. Any students in the junior/senior high school has the ability to come visit the animals with other curriculum teachers. Also the Laurel FFA Square Dance Team will be teaching students basic maneuvers. This includes the opportunity to try on the square dance skirts and ties, as well as dance with a partner. Students will have the opportunity to plant their own flower in a cup and take it home with them.
Lorain FFA, Ohio
Lorain County JVS is hosting a canned food drive during student lunch periods
Students will be collecting canned and/or non-perishable food items Feb. 21-24. All items collected will be donated to Well-Help Inc. of Wellington, Ohio.
The chapter is also having a Flannel Shirt and Jeans Day Fundraiser, students will be selling stickers for $1 during their lunch periods. Any JVS staff or student who donates will be allowed to wear their favorite flannel shirt and jeans to school Feb. 24. All money raised will be donated to Rainbow Babies & Children Hospital.
FFA students will also be hosting activities for students to participate in during the week, such as, Ag Trivia, FFA Videos during lunch and corn hole games.
Southeast FFA, Ohio
The Southeast FFA chapter will be hosting a canned food drive Feb. 20-24. All donations will go to local churches.
Norwayne FFA, Ohio
The Norwayne FFA chapter will host a breakfast for all of the farmers in the area Feb. 20. Feb. 21 each class will help to make ice cream that will be sold to the school. All of the money will be donated to the Nationwide Childrens Hospital. The FFA theme for this day will be to wear all of your blue and gold spiritwear. Feb. 23. members are encouraged to wear their favorite tractor t-shirt. They are also hosting a faculty lunch. Feb. 24 high schoolers will dress up like their favorite farm animal and their will be Aglympic Games.
Preble Shawnee FFA, Ohio
Preble Shawnee is hosting a spirit week. Feb. 21 they will host a staff appreciate breakfast and farmer appreciation day, students will wear wear western apparel. Feb. 22 is patriotic day, Feb. 23 college day and Feb. 24 will be official dress or blue/gold day.
United FFA, Ohio
United FFA is hosting a spirit week Feb. 21-24; Tuesday, hat and boots; Wednesday, FFA apparel; Thursday, flannel and camouflage; and Friday, tractors and Carhartt.
Buffalo FFA, West Virginia
Commissioner of Agriculture Kent Leonhardt and Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture Joe Hatton will tour Buffalo High Schools aquaponics lab and greenhouses Feb. 22.
Tens of thousands of Mexicans took to the streets of some 20 cities throughout the country including the capital on Sunday to express their anger at US President Donald Trump and to call on their own president, Enrique Pena Nieto , to show dignity and firmness in confronting what many in the country see as their greatest threat.
More information Mexico responds to Trump
Organized by more than 80 organizations, including the countrys main universities, the marches were also supported by many of Mexicos best-known faces. The only requirement for protesters was that they should not carry banners associated with any political party. The marches were the first major protest in Mexico against Trump and came 92 days and a long list of threats and insults after he won the election.
Marchers demanded respect and dignity from Trump and his government, with an estimated 20,000 people pouring onto the streets of Mexico City, with students from the capitals UNAM state university joining in protest for the first time since 1968, when dozens were killed and injured in demonstrations. Among the intellectuals at the march were Enrique Graue, Enrique Krauze, Hector Aguilar Camin, and Enrique Ochoa, presidents of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has called on Mexicans to show unity
Initially we thought these were just campaign threats, but what Trump is doing since he won the elections is unacceptable. His racist discourse sums up all that pains and offends us, said Maria Elena Morera, the leader of Causa en Comun, one of the organizers of the march. We have recovered from the initial confusion to a moment of unity. We are now mobilized and weve woken up, she added.
The protesters also issued a list of demands they expect President Pena Nieto to meet. They called on him to defend Mexico and Mexicans from the threats of the new Republican administration, as well as to deal with domestic issues such as poverty, inequality, corruption and impunity.
More information Mexico se une para plantar cara a Trump
Many protesters carried placards featuring Trump as Hitler, calling him a threat to humanity.
Public opinion in Mexico has been outraged by Trumps plans to build a wall along the US-Mexican border, as well as his initial success in persuading US companies not to expand their operations in Mexico, which will lead to job losses, while at the same time as threatening to impose high import tariffs on goods made in Mexico by US companies. Ford has already said it will not be building a planned plant in San Luis Potosi.
Trump has also unilaterally imposed renegotiation of the 1994 NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, while there have been calls within the Republican party for a 2% tax on remittances sent home by Mexicans working in the United States to pay for the wall.
This is the first major demonstration against Trump since he won the election
Mexico is also bracing itself for the arrival of hundreds of thousands of its citizens Trump says he will deport because they lack work and residency permits.
Pena Nieto has called on Mexicans to show unity, but seems to have been overtaken by the scale and momentum of the protests.
Left-leaning Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is heading up the polls ahead of next years presidential elections, spoke at a rally in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, lambasting Trump and his immigration policies.
Denisse Sucilla, who joined the march in Mexico City, said: The time has come to united Mexican. Trump has served as an excuse to face our internal problems. We have to face the challenge, but without corruption, without bad government and united.
English version by Nick Lyne.
Understanding the complexities of a global market has become an ever-challenging endeavor, but one four state corn checkoffs have set out to tackle with a three-year competitive study of the top corn exporting countries.
As part of this work, a delegation including representatives from the Illinois Corn Marketing Board, Iowa Corn, the Nebraska Corn Board, Ohio Corn & Wheat traveled to Brazil last month to better understand the country's role in the global agricultural economy.
"During this mission, we had an amazing opportunity to see a good portion of the country, giving us a nice perspective of Brazil's farming capabilities," said Mark Wilson, Illinois Corn Marketing Board Export Committee Chairman. "I felt fortunate and grateful to have learned more about this key competitor."
The mission included visiting Brazilian farms to learn about cropping and production practices; meeting with local transportation officials and touring infrastructure like ports; and learning more about local ethanol production.
"We traveled to a large farm where we learned how Brazilian farmers triple crop in some areas," Wilson said. "Soybeans are planted first, followed by planting of corn and grass. The grass comes up first and gets a good start then the corn takes over. After corn harvest, the grass begins to regrow at which time cattle are turned out for three months and the cycle starts over. Corn production in Brazil has nearly doubled in the past ten years due to this cropping system."
The team visited the Harbor Secretary of the Docks Company of Para state to the north of Belem and toured the new Porto de Vila do Conde which is located on the Amazon River. This port has been strategically located so that Brazil can export to the world. There, the group met with the administrator and the operational supervisor and learned about future infrastructure projects.
"They have several improvements underway they hope to be done with in the next five years," Wilson said. "These include finishing the north south railroad, building a final lock on one the Amazon rivers and building a 25-mile canal to carry barges to the dock. When these projects are completed, government officials estimate it will decrease transportation costs to the port by 30 percent and will allow them to export three times as much product from this port."
In the United States, ethanol plants can produce ethanol all year due to corn's storability. Sugarcane cannot be stored, so Brazilian plants only produce ethanol for the short time around the sugarcane harvest. When the plant is operating, the waste from the ethanol process is called bagasse. The bagasse is burnt at the plant to produce the energy needed to run it. So, when the plant is not producing ethanol, it is selling electricity to the grid.
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Warrenton, VA (20186)
Today
Partly cloudy skies this evening. Increasing clouds with periods of showers late. Low 64F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..
Tonight
Partly cloudy skies this evening. Increasing clouds with periods of showers late. Low 64F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
A man has been arrested for murder after an attack on the outskirts of Buenos Aires early on Saturday that left two teenage girls dead and another two in serious condition. Police detained Luis Esteban Weiman, a 36-year-old security guard, several hours after the assault, in which the four girls were shot from behind and at close range after leaving a nightclub in the Florencio Varela neighborhood of the Argentinean capital.
Murder victims Denise Juarez (17), left, with her friend Sabrina Barrientos (15). Facebook
More information Feminicidio en Argentina: un hombre acribilla por la espalda a dos menores
Weiman is thought to have been the boyfriend of 17-year-old Denise Daiana Juarez, one of the teens shot dead, until three months ago. The girl was killed after being hit by nine bullets while her best friend Sabrina Barrientos died after receiving six bullet wounds.
Two of their friends, both also aged under 18, remain in a serious condition as a result of the brutal attack.
According to a police report on the double murder, Weiman carried a weapon when working. Arresting agents also found 9mm cartridges, the same caliber as those used in the shooting.
We came out and saw the girls spread out on the ground. One of them had a bullet wound in her throat. It was horrible Witness to the attack
Witnesses said the four friends had looked at taking a private car to a distant suburb just minutes before the incident but had decided it was too expensive and had opted to walk to a bus stop.
Moments later we heard a hail of bullets. We came out and saw [the girls] spread out on the ground. One of them was screaming but had a bullet wound in her throat. It was horrible, said one of the employees at the taxi office.
Gender violence continues to be a serious problem in Argentina, where one woman is killed every 30 hours, according to figures from the non-profit organization La Casa del Encuentro.
Argentinas Supreme Court recorded 235 murders of women in 2015 with 18% of victims younger than 20 years of age, while 43% were aged from 21 to 40, and 25% were from aged from 41 to 60. Furthermore, two out of every 10 women murdered in Argentina that year had reported their killer to the police, highlighting the need to protect women trapped in violent relationships.
Over the last two years, womens organizations in Argentina have held huge nationwide marches to protest gender-based violence under the slogan, Ni una menos (Not one less). And in a case that made headlines around the world, womens groups in Argentina called for a one-hour general strike in October 2016 to protest the brutal rape and murder of 16-year-old Lucia Perez.
The teen was reportedly picked up outside her school in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, some 300 kilometers south of the capital of Buenos Aires. She was then drugged, gang raped, and allegedly penetrated with a wooden pole. Her killers then washed her, changed her clothes and took her to a medical center, alleging she had suffered an overdose. She died in hospital.
English version by George Mills.
Fayetteville woman says anti-abortion laws hurt her mom, then herself
Judy Pittard said her and her mother's pregnancy complications that required abortions were made worse by the decisions of "old men in big buildings."
Whether topless is taboo or should be allowed is a debate that continues throughout Latin America. The three Argentinean women expelled last month by some 20 police from a beach in Buenos Aires for sunbathing topless would, in theory, have faced similar treatment from the authorities in most of the Americas. Below is a summary of attitudes in some of the regions countries on attitudes toward public female nudity.
Women taking part in the 'tetazo' topless protest in Buenos Aires on February 7. David Fernandez (EFE)
More information Clandestinidad y multas: la situacion del toples en America Latina
Brazil
In Brazil, a country seemingly obsessed with the cult of the body, topless sunbathing is banned. A law from 1940 describes it as an obscene act and punishes wrongdoers with between three months and a year in prison, along with a fine. Efforts to change the law over recent decades have failed, despite a number of high-profile protests such as one that took place in 2013, after Brazilian actress Cristina Flores was told by police to cover herself up when she posed topless on Rios Ipanema beach.
Tania Bastos, the president of the Commission for the Defense of Women in Rio de Janeiros legislative assembly famously said at the time that there are already nudist beaches.
Officially, going naked is banned in Cuba, but is allowed on many beaches if done discreetly
Colombia
Stripping off in the streets or on the beaches of Colombia can result in a fine of up to $150 on the basis that it is considered exhibitionism. That said, foreign tourists can be seen sunbathing topless on the countrys Caribbean beaches, writes Sally Palomino.
United States
Despite most states permitting topless bathing, local legislation tends to forbid it. According to GoTopless, it is allowed in Montana, Oregon, Colorado, Texas and New York, and banned in Utah, Indiana, Tennessee.
US cities where it is not advised include Ashville, North Carolina, Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colorado, Columbus, Ohio, and Portland, Oregon.
Canada
Topless sunbathing is not described as an indecent act in Canada, and is generally decided on at local level. It is permitted in Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
Mexico
Going naked on the beach is generally tolerated in Mexico and the federal criminal code does not prohibit it. That said, the laws of some regions regard nudism and topless bathing as exhibitionism and a threat to public order. Courts tend to deal with each case on their merits.
Despite most US states permitting topless bathing, local legislation tends to forbid it
The Mexican Nudist Federation (FDN), held its annual festival on February 5 at a beach at Zipolite, in Oaxaca, writes Sonia Corona.
Juan Marcos Castaneda, the FDNs spokesman, says: There is no serious discussion in Mexican society about topless sunbathing.
Peru
Peru has three naturist-nudist associations: in Lima, Arequipa, in the south, and Canete, a province in Lima region. But according to the Arequipa Nudism Association, topless bathing and much less nudism is not permitted on public beaches and those doing say face charges of contravening public morals, writes Jacqueline Fowks.
Playa Bonita, in Lima province, was until December the only nudist beach in the country. But it has since been bought by a property developer and the Lima Naturist Nudist Association prevented from accessing it.
Chile
There is only one nudist beach on Chiles 6,000 kilometers of coastline, and the countrys laws are ambiguous regarding nudism, with the Penal Code outlining fines and prison terms. In practice, the worst that offenders would likely face is a small fine.
Women in Buenos Aires demand the right to topless bathing last week. SILVYNA FRYDLEWSKY
Uruguay
Uruguay allows topless bathing, although its laws are not clear. There are specific regulations that allow nudism in areas of Punta del Este, the countrys main tourist center, approved in 2012 after complaints from residents about nude sunbathing on the Chihuahua beach, 115 kilometers from the capital of Montevideo.
Cuba
Officially, nudism is banned in Cuba, but is allowed on beaches such as Cayo Largo, Cayo Santa Maria, and Cayo Ensenachos if practiced discreetly. Topless sunbathing is widespread and allowed on all beaches.
Argentina
Legislation in Buenos Aires province from 1973 still prohibits acts against morality and the police say this includes topless sunbathing. But following the widely reported case on the Necochea beach, a judge threw out charges against three women and said the law was anti-constitutional.
English version by Nick Lyne.
A former executive of Hungary-based Magyar Telekom settled five-year- old civil allegations that he violated the FCPA.
Tamas Morvai agreed last week to pay the SEC a $60,000 penalty without admitting or denying the charges.
The agency sued Morval and two other former Magyar executives CEO Elek Straub and Andras Balogh in December 2011. All three are Hungarian citizens.
The SEC alleged they violated or aided and abetted violations of the anti-bribery, books and records, and internal controls provisions of the FCPA, knowingly circumvented internal controls and falsified books and records, and made false statements to the companys auditor.
The executives used sham consultancy contracts with entities owned and controlled by a Greek intermediary to pay 4.875 million ($5.2 million) which they knew or should have known would be passed on to Macedonian officials, the SEC alleged.
In late 2011, Magyar Telekom and its majority owner Deutsche Telekom paid the DOJ and SEC $95 million to settle FCPA charges based on similar allegations.
Morval would have faced trial in May. The SEC charges against Straub and Balogh are still pending.
In 2014, the SEC dropped some of the charges against Morval, Straub, and Balogh related to alleged bribes to officials in Montenegro. But the agency continued other allegations that the executives bribed officials in Macedonia.
In 2013, a federal judge in New York City denied a motion by the three defendants to dismiss the SEC complaint. They argued that the U.S. lacked personal jurisdiction over them, that the SECs claims were barred by the the FCPAs five-year statute of limitations, and that the complaint failed to state a cause of action.
Judge Richard Sullivan denied the defendants motion in its entirety and said they must stand trial on the charges.
____
Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Stephanie Davis and Jeremy McConnell have decided to bury the hatchet once and for all following nine months of bad mouthing each other.
Jeremy McConnell and Stephanie Davis
The 26-year-old Irish hunk appeared to confirm he's the father of the brunette beauty's baby - something he'd denied for the majority of her pregnancy - over the weekend on Twitter and it seems their little bundle of joy have brought them closer together as they've both decided to re-follow one another on social media sites.
The 23-year-old actress fell in love with the heavily-inked heartthrob on 'Celebrity Big Brother' last year, but after months of breaking up and making up over allegations he'd cheated on her, they decided to call time on their romance in April.
Although he was adamant he wasn't the father of Stephanie's four-week-old son Caben-Albi until he was born at the beginning of January, Jeremy has admitted he's the "happiest man alive" after discovering the little one biologically belongs to him.
Alongside a photograph of the tiny tot, Jeremy said: "I'll love this monkey with every bit of me... Happiest man alive , my new focus. (sic)"
And the dark-haired model - who currently resides in Dublin, Ireland - is also willing to fly to Liverpool, where Stephanie is based, "every weekend" because he wants to make sure that he has a strong relationship with the little one.
The pair recently locked horns over Jeremy's decision to have a paternity test done live on television last week after Stephanie reportedly demanded he sign an "unreasonable" legal document before she'd have the DNA test done.
Speaking at the time, he said: "It's time to put our differences aside and do the right thing. It's plain and simple.
"This could be dealt with privately from the start but we can't change the past."
And Jeremy has described himself as "the happiest man alive" after discovering he's the biological parent of Stephanie's baby.
Political decision: Regional TV companies are on the verge of closure (video)
The world is moving towards digitization, and meantime Armenian regional TV companies remain out of these developments. This release of Kiraki (Sunday) program is dedicated to the issues of regional TV stations. Starting from October 20, 2016 a number of regional TV companies have been broadcast but almost without audience. In 2010 after relevant changes in the RA law on Television and Radio Broadcasting, at present only one public multiplexer operates in the RA territory. It is Armenias TV and radio broadcasting network, which broadcasts TV companies having digital license, including only one TV channel from each region. Some regional TV stations joined, solving the issue in this way, but some them remain on the verge of closure. According to another change made in 2015, these TV stations still can carry out analogue broadcasting, but there is another problem. Turning on digital regulations on TV sets, the viewers will hardly change the regulations every time in order to watch the programs of the regional analogue stations, in many places it is even technically impossible. So, these stations lose the advertisers and are not able to work anymore. A few months ago regional TV companies sent an open letter to the authorities with the proposal to make changes in the law. Which are the solutions, which are the chances of the regional TV stations and to what extent are they realistic? Armavir ALT and Vanadzor LORI TV companies prepared materials for the program. The program hosted Ashot Melikyan, Chairman of Committee for Protection of Freedom of Speech and Davit Margaryan, Head of the Legal and Licensing Department, National Commission on Television and Radio.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector'. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.#
The guidance, launched close to four years after the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in 2013, offers comprehensive and government-backed recommendations to businesses that address risks they may face in both manufacturing and sourcing materials.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector'. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.#
The guidance provides, for the first time, a common understanding of supply chain due diligence for the garment and footwear supply chains in line with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector'. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.#
It promotes a systematic and integrated approach to managing risk and purchasing, involving on-going, proactive and reactive processes, with a focus on progressive improvement. It recognises both the diversity of the sector as well as the complexity of the challenges that the sector faces.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector'. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.#
The guidance recommends that enterprises take a collaborative and risk-based approach to identify ways to address impacts of its operations and sourcing decisions and monitor progress over time, while encouraging ongoing engagement with business partners in developing economies. It calls on buyers to embed social, human rights and environmental considerations into their purchasing practices, and collaborate with common buyers to avoid supplier audit fatigue, so that companies can direct their resources towards prioritising the prevention of more severe impacts.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector'. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.#
The OECD and emerging economies worked closely with businesses throughout the supply chain, trade unions, non-governmental organisations and other experts to produce the guidance, the Paris based OECD said on its website.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released 'Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector'. This will help companies identify and prevent potential negative impacts related to human rights, labour, the environment and corruption in garment and footwear supply chains worldwide.#
The guidance is a concrete response to the G7 Leaders Declaration adopted in June 2015 in Schloss Elmau, which welcomed international efforts to promulgate industry-wide due diligence standards in the textile and ready-made garment sector. (RKS)
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
In Europe, Ethylene prices moved up in the last week due to strong product demand in the region.
In Europe, Ethylene prices moved up in the last week due to strong product demand in the region. In Europe, average prices advanced...#
In Europe, average prices advanced US$ 40/ton and quoted at US$ 1010/ton in the last week, as compared to previous week, a hike of 4.12 per cent.
In Europe, Ethylene prices moved up in the last week due to strong product demand in the region. In Europe, average prices advanced...#
Meanwhile in US, Ethylene prices remained steady and assessed at 35 cents/pound in the last week compared to previous week due to mute buying sentiments.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk India
We had told you that Aamir Khan's next after 'Thugs Of Hindostan' will be a biopic on Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma. Now, here's some latest update on the same. A Mumbai Mirror report suggests that the film has been titled 'Salute'.
CONFIRMED! Amitabh Bachchan Joins The Cast Of Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt's 'Dragon'
Rakesh Sharma, along with Russian astronauts Yury Malyshev and Gennadi Strekalov went on a mission. For 27 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes, the trio were orbiting out in the space, conducting over 43 experimental sessions. After returning to earth, a question was asked to Sharma by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He was asked, what did India look like from outer space. To this, the astronaut had said," Saare jahan se achcha."
Because of this, earlier speculations were rifle that the biopic has been named 'Saare Jahan Se Achcha'. But now, it has been revealed that it's been titled 'Salute' and will be produced by Sidharth Roy Kapur and Aamir Khan jointly.
A Mumbai Mirror report quoted a source close to the development saying, "Sid had approached Aamir with the script of his last film and this time too he went straight to him. The 2018 film will be made under his newly-launched banner RK Films (Roy Kapur Films). It will be directed by Mahesh Mathai."
It would be quite interesting to watch Aamir play yet another challenging role!
Tiger Shroff Or Varun Dhawan; Who Will Replace Salman Khan In Sher Khan?
Actress Kangana Ranaut, who flagged off the fifth edition of Max Bupa Walk for Health here on Sunday, urged women to take out time from their schedules to walk for better health and fitness.
"It's a myth that staying fit is expensive and complicated. It's actually not. What you just need to do is take out 30 minutes from your daily life and dedicate it to walking," Kangana said in a statement.
"I ensure that my workout involves walking, it enhances one's mental, emotional and physical health. I want to specially tell all women out there that while you juggle different roles, don't neglect your health," added the actress, who is gearing up for the release of her upcoming film 'Rangoon'.
Kangana flagged off the event at the SNDT Women's University at Juhu here amid thousands of spirited Mumbaikars. It was a 5-km walk for adults and 2-km walk for children and senior citizens.
People from all walks of life, including health enthusiasts, Mumbai's famous walking communities like iconic Dabbawalas, Mumbai Moms, Mumbai Instagrammers, Mumbai Photowalk, Streets of Mumbai, joined the initiative
"The initiative mirrors our commitment to shake people from this inertia and encourage them to walk towards a healthier, more successful life, said Ashish Mehrotra, Managing Director and CEO of Max Bupa.
After Mumbai, the walk will be held in Delhi on February 19 and conclude in Bengaluru on February 26.
Credits: IANS
It Is Kinda Sad
Shahrukh tweeted, "It's kinda sad too that My Name Is Khan is still relevant. But thanks Karan (Johar), Ravi, Kajol, SEL Shibani Niranjan Deepa Jimmy and all cast/crew for a special film."
Was It For Donald Trump?
The actor's message, it seems, hints at US President Donald Trump's controversial executive order to temporarily bar entry into the US to refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations. The order suspends for 120 days the entry of all refugees and the issuing of visas for 90 days for citizens from seven countries -- Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran -- until new mechanisms can be put in place to screen them more effectively.
Karan Johar Thanked SRK
Karan, who helmed the film, thanked Shahrukh, who essayed the role of Rizwan Khan in the film."Thank you Rizvan for spreading your love, your message, your innocence... Seven years of My Name Is Khan," Karan tweeted.
Paulo Coehlo Too Praised The Movie
Brazlian author Paulo Coelho, who is popular for his thought provoking literary works, also congratulated Shahrukh. Coehlo on took to Twitter, where he shared a screenshot of one of his previous tweets which mentioned that Shahrukh deserved an Oscar for his work if Hollywood was not manipulated.
He Tweeted...
"'My Name Is Khan' and I am not a terrorist' Congratulations SRK for the seventh anniversary of this wonderful movie!."
It seems even BAFTA cannot sit still when it comes to taking a jive at the state heads. Ken Loach, after winning the BAFTA in the category of Best British Film for the movie I, Daniel Blake, used his acceptance speech to rebuke British Government over unfair treatment of refugees.
The celebrated English director opened up regarding the theme of his movie and the British government's failure to help refugees.
"Thank you to the academy for endorsing the truths of what the film says, which hundreds and thousands of people in this country know, the most vulnerable and poorest are treated by the Government with a callous brutality that is disgraceful," said Laoch.
"A brutality that extends to keeping out refugee children we promised to help and that's a disgrace too," Loach stated further.
On the other hand, Stephen Fry, renowned comedian and host of the 70th BAFTA Awards event also took a severe dig at the US President Donald Trump.
Stephen Fry, while calling up Oscar-winning Hollywood actress Meryl Streep, to the award ceremony, termed her as "one of the greatest actresses of all-time".
Fry then quickly added, "Only a blithering idiot would think otherwise."
Now this was certainly in reference to the President Trump's comment on the actress Meryl Streep when he called her the most "overrated actress" at the 74th Golden Globes Awards held in the last month.
Dulquer Salmaan has a slew of exciting projects in his kitty for the year 2017. The actor's first release of the year, Jomonte Suviseshangal has had a grand run in the theatres, so far.
Now, the actor has joined the sets of his upcoming film Parava, in which he will be seen doing a special appearance. In fact, the actor will be seen in a very different look in this upcoming film, which marks the directorial debut of Soubin Shahir.
One of the selfies featuring the actoron the sets of the movie, has gone viral on Facebook. The actor was spotted with no moustache, but with a thick beard in his latest get-up. Take a look..
Nothing much has been revealed about Dulquer Salmaan's character in this upcoming venture. There are rumours doing the rounds that the actor will be seen in the role of a native of Mattancherry in this film.
Parava features Shane Nigam, Zain Sainuddeen, Arjun Ashokan in important roles. The shoot of the film is currently progressing in Mattancherry.
Earlier, Dulquer Salmaan was also seen doing a cameo in Sunny Wayne starrer Ann Maria Kalippilaanu. He was much praised for the portrayal of his role in the film.
Meanwhile, Dulquer Salmaan's next release will be Amal Neerad's upcoming film titled as CIA (Comrade In America).
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Monday. The yen fell to a 1-week low of 121.17 against the euro, nearly a 2-week low of 142.62 against the pound and a 10-day low of 113.58 against the Swiss franc, from Friday's closing quotes of 119.74, 140.32 and 112.52, respectively. Against the U.S., the Australian and the Canadian dollars, the yen dropped to a 2-week low of 114.17, nearly a 2-month low of 87.49 and nearly a 2-week low of 87.04 from last week's closing quotes of 111.93, 85.56 and 85.15, respectively. The yen edged down to 82.09 against the NZ dollar, from Friday's closing value of 81.30. If the yen extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 124.00 against the euro, 148.00 against the pound, 116.00 against the franc, 119.00 against the greenback, 89.00 against the aussie, 88.00 against the loonie and 84.00 against the kiwi. 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.
SINGAPORE, Feb 13, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - New Silkroutes Group Limited ("NSG" or the "Group"), an investment holding company with core capabilities in energy trading and healthcare management, said today its wholly-owned International Energy Group Pte Ltd ("IEG") has achieved its biggest quarterly revenue and net profit since the oil and gas subsidiary started operations in June 2015.Summary of Results: https://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_NSG_1HFY2017_1.jpgIEG's revenue for its fiscal second quarter ended 31 December 2016 ("2QFY2017") rose to US$123.7 million from US$5.8 million for the same period a year earlier ("2QFY2016") and from US$69.2 million for the three months ended 30 September 2016 ("1QFY2017").Singapore-headquartered IEG, which trades mainly gas oil and fuel oil, managed to engage with more counterparties, boost trading volumes and structure more profitable trades in 2QFY2017. Buyers of its products are from across the world and its counterparties include oil majors and national oil companies.The NSG unit, which intends to own and manage oil storage facilities as part of its longer-term growth strategy, made a net profit of US$665,000 in 2QFY2017. This reversed a loss of US$113,000 in 2QFY2016 and surpassed a profit of US$562,000 in 1QFY2017.For the six months to 31 December 2016 ("1HFY2017"), IEG generated US$192.9 million in revenue and US$1.2 million in net profit, substantially more than its revenue of US$49.6 million and net profit of US$50,000 for the entire financial year ended 30 June 2016 ("FY2016"). For the current financial year ending 30 June 2017 ("FY2017"), IEG had previously said it expects to achieve revenue of more than US$310 million.The last time NSG, previously known as Digiland International Limited, generated annual revenue of more than US$300 million was in FY2004, as a distributor of consumer IT products, a business it is no longer involved in.IEG's performance lifted NSG's revenue for 2QFY2017 to US$123.8 million from US$69.3 million for 1QFY2017 and from US$6.3 million for 2QFY2016. For 1HFY2017, NSG's revenue grew to US$193.1 million from US$9.1 million for the same period a year earlier.As part of efforts to diversify its income stream, NSG said earlier this month it would acquire an 80% stake in CG Capital Markets Holdings LLC, a New York-based broker-dealer and investment bank.In December last year, NSG completed the acquisition of a 51% stake in Singapore-based Healthsciences International Pte Ltd ("HSI"), which has the expertise to operate hospitals and clinics. HSI also runs employee healthcare benefits programmes in Southeast Asia.Turnover and Net Profit for IEG: https://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_NSG_1HFY2017_2.jpgAbout New Silkroutes Group LimitedNew Silkroutes Group (Bloomberg: NSG SP) is a Singapore-incorporated company (established on 25 January 1994) listed on the Mainboard of Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd (SGX). It is evolving into an investment holding company with core competencies in Capabilities Enablement, Capital Allocation, and (Policy) Analysis. The group, through its subsidiaries and associate companies, has exposure to key sector verticals, including Energy/Resources, Healthcare, and Infocomm Technology with a focus on Security & Governance.For enquiries, please contact:New Silkroutes Group LimitedEmail: ipr@newsilkroutes.orgWeR1Consultants Pte Ltd3 Phillip Street, #12-01, Royal Group BuildingSingapore 048693Tel: +65 6737 4844Frankie Ho - frankieho@wer1.netSource: New Silkroutes Group LimitedCopyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
NKR MoD: Baku continues spreading misinformation
Today Azerbaijani agitprop issued another disinformation, according to which the Armenian side attempted a sabotage penetration attempt, and their forces prevented it in time. By the way, in order to make this myth seem more realistic, the magicians of Baku, as usual, decided to show a rather tastelessly and non-professionally staged footage as undeniable evidence (which they do quite often recently), which even in case of careful observation will be difficult to understand for the viewer Of course, as they say tastes differ, but the fact that in addition to all this the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan is finally losing(if of course it hasnt lost it already) the ability to soberly assess the reality, is obvious. And finally, one addition: according to the official statement of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry spread on February 12 that serviceman of the Azerbaijani armed forces, junior sergeant Fuad Farhad oghlu Gafarov was killed during the shooting which occurred during preventing the shelling of frontline positions by the enemy . We leave further conclusions to you. NKR MoD
- Over 40 Companies Across a Dozen Industries Tap Watson Security Technology
- New Innovations Include Watson-Powered Chatbot & Voice-Powered Security Assistant Research Project
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM Security (NYSE:IBM)today announced the availability of Watson for Cyber Security, the industry's first augmented intelligence technology designed to power cognitive security operations centers (SOCs). Over the past year, Watson has been trained on the language of cybersecurity, ingesting over 1 million security documents. Watson can now help security analysts parse thousands of natural language research reports that have never before been accessible to modern security tools.
Photo -http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467268/IBM_Corporation_Cognitive_Security_Operation_Center_Wire_Photo.jpg
According to IBM research, security teams sift through more than 200,000 security events per day on average, leading to over 20,000 hours per year wasted chasing false positives.1 The need to introduce cognitive technologies into security operations centers will be critical to keep up with the anticipated doubling of security incidents over the next five years and increased regulation globally.2
Watson for Cyber Security will be integrated into IBM's new Cognitive SOC platform, bringing together advanced cognitive technologies with security operations and providing the ability to respond to threats across endpoints, networks, users and cloud. The centerpiece of this platform is IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson, the first tool that taps into Watson's corpus of cybersecurity insights. This new app is already being used by Avnet, University of New Brunswick, Sopra Steria and 40 other customers globally to augment security analysts' investigations into security incidents.
IBM has also invested in research to bring cognitive tools into its global X-Force Command Center network, including a Watson-powered chatbot currently being used to interact with IBM Managed Security Services customers. IBM also revealed a new research project, code-named Havyn, pioneering a voice-powered security assistant that leverages Watson conversation technology to respond to verbal commands and natural language from security analysts.
"Today's sophisticated cybersecurity threats attack on multiple fronts to conceal their activities, and our security analysts face the difficult task of pinpointing these attacks amongst a massive sea of security-related data," said Sean Valcamp, Chief Information Security Officer at Avnet. "Watson makes concealment efforts more difficult by quickly analyzing multiple streams of data and comparing them with the latest security attack intelligence to provide a more complete picture of the threat. Watson also generates reports on these threats in a matter of minutes, which greatly speeds the time between detecting a potential event and my security team's ability to respond accordingly."
The IBM Cognitive SOC
As security teams evolve their strategies and tactics to thwart cybercriminals, the introduction of cognitive technologies into today's security operations centers will be critical to keep pace. A recent IBM study found that only 7 percent of security professionals are using cognitive tools today, but that usage is expected to triple over the next 2-3 years.3
The IBM Cognitive SOC platform puts cognitive technologies into security analysts' hands, enhancing their ability to fill gaps in intelligence and act with speed and accuracy. The IBM QRadar Advisor with Watson app brings cognitive capabilities to aid security analysts in their investigations and remediation through IBM's QRadar security intelligence platform. The solution assists in the investigation of potential threats by correlating Watson's natural language processing capabilities across security blogs, websites, research papers along with other sources, with threat intel and security incident data from QRadar, which can shorten cyber security investigations from weeks and days, to minutes.
"The Cognitive SOC is now a reality for clients looking to find an advantage against the growing legions of cybercriminals and next generation threats," said Denis Kennelly, Vice President of Development and Technology, IBM Security. "Our investments in Watson for Cyber Security have given birth to several innovations in just under a year. Combining the unique abilities of man and machine intelligence will be critical to the next stage in the fight against advanced cybercrime."
To extend the ability of the Cognitive SOC to endpoints, IBM Security also is announcing a new endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution called IBM BigFix Detect. The solution helps organizations gain full visibility into the constantly changing endpoint threat landscape while bridging the gap between malicious behavior detection and remediation. BigFix Detect is making EDR accessible and actionable, providing security analysts with the ability to see, understand and act on threats across their endpoints through a single platform, and delivers targeted remediation on impacted endpoints enterprise-wide in minutes.
When paired with the orchestration and automation capabilities of IBM Resilient's Incident Response Platform (IRP), clients can turn cognitive SOC insight into action across enrichment, remediation, and mitigation functions. The IBM Cognitive SOC also brings together other technologies from IBM Security including i2 for cyber threat hunting and IBM X-Force Exchange.
Cognitive Security Services and Innovations
IBM will also help clients design, build and manage cognitive security operations centers globally through IBM Managed Security Services. Over the past five years, IBM has built over 300 security operations centers for clients in dozens of industries, including consumer packaged goods, retail, banking and education. Clients can choose to have IBM build their cognitive SOC on-premise or manage it virtually via the IBM Cloud as part of the IBM X-Force Command Center network.
IBM's global network of X-Force Command Centers are using IBM's cognitive capabilities like QRadar Advisor with Watson to enhance the investigation of security events. Another promising use case is a new research project code-named Havyn, which brings a voice to the cognitive SOC. The goal of Havyn is to create a voice-powered security assistant that can interact with security analysts on topics such as real-time threat updates and information on an organization's security posture.
The Havyn project uses Watson APIs, BlueMix and IBM Cloud to provide real-time response to verbal requests and commands, accessing data from open source security intelligence, including IBM X-Force Exchange, as well as client-specific historic data and their security tools. For example, Havyn can provide security analysts with updates on new threats that have appeared and recommended remediation steps. Havyn is currently being tested by select researchers and analysts within IBM Managed Security Services.
Watson is also currently engaging with clients daily via a new chatbot tool deployed in IBM's X-Force Command Center network, which manages over 1 trillion security events per month. Clients can choose to ask Watson questions via instant messaging about their security posture or network configurations. For example, clients can ask Watson questions about a device or ticket status. The tool is also capable of executing commands from IBM MSS customers, such as reassigning a ticket to a new owner.
For more information on Watson for Cyber Security and the IBM Cognitive SOC, visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/security/cognitive/
Journalists and bloggers can download b-roll and video about Watson for Security and the IBM Cognitive SOC at http://ibm.newsmarket.com/Global/Latest-News/ibm-delivers-watson-for-cyber-security-to-power-cognitive-security-operations-centers/s/27b21670-d4c9-4177-ba8f-d64203678aea?CP=1
About IBM Security
IBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force research, enables organizations to effectively manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research, development and delivery organizations, monitors 35 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries, and holds more than 3,000 security patents. For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/security, follow @IBMSecurity on Twitter or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog.
Required Disclaimer Language:IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM's sole discretion.Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion.
Cassy Lalan
IBM Security Media Relations
319-230-2232
cllalan@us.ibm.com
1 Infographic: Watson for Cyber Security: Shining a light on Unstructured Data
2 IBM 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index analysis
3 IBM Institute of Business Value Study: Cybersecurity in the Cognitive Era
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Forbes Ventures
("Forbes" or the "Company")
Acquisition of Interest in Civilised Investments Limited
Forbes Ventures announces that, in accordance with the Company's investment strategy, it has acquired 4,545 ordinary shares, representing a 0.84% interest, in Civilised Investments Limited ("Civilised") for a consideration of 200,000. The consideration is to be satisfied by the issue of 40,000,000 new ordinary shares in Forbes ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 0.5 pence per share, to Gravity Investments Limited ("Gravity"), the vendor.
Civilised Investments Limited submitted an application for a UK banking licence in June 2016 and will change it's name to Civilised Bank upon authorisation. The 'challenger' bank will have an innovative business model, utilising technology to provide savings to retail customers and enable branchless Local Bankers providing loans, current accounts and other business banking products to under-served UK Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Further information on Civilised Bank is available at the following web address: www.civilisedbank.co.uk.
In addition, Forbes announces that it has issued 6,000,000 Ordinary Shares at a price of 0.5 pence per share as settlement of fees for services rendered to the Company.
Following the above issues of Ordinary Shares and in accordance with the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules, the Company hereby announces that it has 336,585,163 Ordinary Shares in issue, each share carrying the right to one vote, and no Ordinary Shares held in treasury.
As a result of the issue of Ordinary Shares detailed above, Gravity now holds a total of 209,166,166 Ordinary Shares, representing 62.14% of the issued share capital of the Company.
Gravity is considered a Related Party for the purposes of the NEX Exchange Growth Market Rules for Issuers. The Directors of Forbes have determined that the acquisition of the shares in Civilised is being conducted at a valuation which is fair and reasonable as far as the independent shareholders of Forbes are concerned.
The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement.
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Forbes Ventures Peter Moss +44 20 3301 9346 NEX Exchange Corporate Adviser
Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited Guy Miller and Fungai Ndoro +44 20 7469 0930
About the Company
Forbes Ventures is an Investment Company with a focus on consolidating companies in inefficient market sectors, by raising capital, providing strategic support and using technology to improve the resulting company's efficiency and scalability. It is focused on three sectors: Health and Social Care, with a focus on residential and domiciliary care; Leisure and Hospitality which includes resorts through to online travel; and Finance, particularly challenger companies / technologies disrupting the finance sector. Forbes Ventures strategy is to invest, add value and pursue each of its investments up until profitable and then exit through IPO, Private Equity or Trade Sales within a 3 - 5 year horizon.
Dr Matthias Baumann MD will join the Executive Board of biotechnology Company MOLOGEN AG (ISIN DE0006637200, Frankfurt Stock Exchange Prime Standard: MGN) as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) on 1 May 2017. Dr Baumann's areas of responsibility within the Company on taking office will comprise research, preclinical and clinical development, approval and MOLOGEN's clinical strategy. The focus of the Company's development activities is on the TLR9 agonists lefitolimod and EnanDIM as powerful immunotherapeutics in phase III and in preclinical development respectively.
Oliver Krautscheid, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of MOLOGEN AG: "I am delighted that with Dr Baumann joining us, we have won another experienced Executive Board member. Dr Baumann has comprehensive experience in preclinical and clinical drug development, also in the therapeutic areas that are of primary interest to MOLOGEN. He also knows the challenges faced by executive boards of biotechnology companies today. I am confident that he will complement our management team very well and make a considerable contribution to the implementation of our Next Level strategy. My colleagues on the Supervisory Board and I look forward to working with Dr Baumann."
Dr Baumann, future CMO of MOLOGEN AG, emphasized: "The research and development of innovative cancer therapies has always been and remains one of my key interests, both during my time in academic research and in my career to date in the pharmaceutical industry. In my view, MOLOGEN's immunotherapies are among the most exciting and promising approaches in this field. I am looking forward to working with a highly motivated team on achieving the primary goal of preparing lefitolimod for market launch. Due to its mode of action lefitolimod can be developed for a number of different types of cancer as well as other non-oncological indications, which highlights the substantial potential of this molecule."
Dr Baumann has more than 26 years of professional experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector. Until he starts at MOLOGEN, Dr Baumann will continue in his capacity as Chief Medical Officer and member of the Executive Board of NOXXON Pharma AG, a Berlin-based biotech company that focuses on cancer therapies, where he manages the planning and implementation of preclinical and clinical development programs. Previously, Dr Baumann gained experience over many years in clinical research development, including as Head of Product Development and Chief Scientific Officer at FOCUS Clinical Drug Development GmbH. Prior to working for FOCUS, he had various research and development roles at Roche and Boehringer Mannheim as well as in academic research in the fields of oncology and immunology.
MOLOGEN AG
With new and unique technologies and active substances, the biotech company MOLOGEN is one of the pioneers in the field of immunotherapy. Alongside a focus on immuno-oncology, MOLOGEN also develops immunotherapies for the treatment of infectious diseases.
The cancer immunotherapeutic agent lefitolimod (MGN1703) is the company's lead product and best-in-class TLR9 agonist. Treatment with lefitolimod (MGN1703) triggers a broad and strong activation of the immune system. Due to this mode of action, namely to reactivate the monitoring function of the immune system, lefitolimod (MGN1703) can be recognized as an Immune Surveillance Reactivator (ISR). It has the potential to be applied to various indications. ISR lefitolimod (MGN1703) is currently being developed for first-line maintenance treatment of colorectal cancer (pivotal study) and small cell lung cancer (randomized controlled trial). Furthermore, it is also being investigated in an extended phase I study in HIV and a phase I combination study with the checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy). Next to checkpoint inhibitors, lefitolimod is one of the few product candidates that are in a phase III pivotal clinical trial (IMPALA) in the field of immuno-oncology and close to reaching the market.
MOLOGEN's pipeline focus is on new, innovative immunotherapies to treat diseases for which there is a high medical need.
www.mologen.com
Memberships in associations:
Biotechnologieverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (bbb) e.V. BIO Deutschland e.V. DECHEMA Society for chemical technology and biotechnology e.V. | German industrial association of biotechnology (DIB) Association for the Promotion of Science and Humanities in Germany Association of German biotechnology companies (VBU) Association of researching manufacturers of pharmaceuticals e.V. (VFA) Association of the chemical industry e.V. (VCI)
MOLOGEN, dSLIM, EnanDIM and MIDGE are registered trademarks of MOLOGEN AG.
Note about risk for future predictions
Certain information in this report contains forward-looking statements or the corresponding statements with negation or versions deviating from this or comparable terminology. These are described as forward-looking statements. In addition, all of the information given here that refers to planned or future results of business areas, key financial figures, developments of the financial situation or other financial figures or statistical data, is to be understood as such forward-looking statements. The company points out to investors that they should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions about actual future events. The company is not obligated and refuses to accept any liability for the forward-looking statements and has no obligation to update such statements in order to accurately reflect the current situation.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005473/en/
Contacts:
MOLOGEN AG
Claudia Nickolaus
Head of Investor Relations Corporate Communications
Tel: +49 30 84 17 88 38
Fax: +49 30 84 17 88 50
investor@mologen.com
LINKOPING, Sweden, Mar 03, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
International medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra (STO: SECT B) has signed a ten-year contract with Isala Hospital, in the Netherlands. The contract comprises Sectra's IT solution for reviewing diagnostic images. The solution enables physicians at Isala Hospital to access and review medical images from any of its two hospitals, regardless of where current and prior images were taken. The joint solution also enables the two sites to efficiently share resources.
Isala Hospital's two facilities are located in the Dutch cities Zwolle and Meppel, and Sectra's solution will replace the two imaging solutions that are currently used at the two sites. It will handle approximately 400,000 examinations each year.
"With this joint solution from Sectra, information will follow the patient instead of the other way around. Sectra's proven track record of extremely high system availability was another important aspect for us in the choice of vendor and is also key in delivering efficient healthcare," says Roel Venema, member of the board of directors at Isala Hospital.
Sectra Enterprise Image Management
The solution ordered by Isala Hospital is part of Sectra's complete enterprise imaging offering which is modular and supports the most image-intense departments-radiology, pathology, cardiology and orthopaedics. Being built on the same technical platform, customers can easily extend a departmental solution to create a comprehensive VNA and enterprise image management solution without major investments or the replacement of existing components.
Meet Sectra at ECR 2017
Sectra's Enterprise Image Management solution will be showcased at booth #411 at ECR in Vienna, 2-5 March. Read more about Sectra at ECR and book a meeting at www.sectra.com/ecr.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Torbjorn Kronander,
CEO and President Sectra AB,
Phone: 46 (0) 705-23-52-27
Marie Ekstrom Tragardh,
Executive Vice President Sectra AB and President Sectra Imaging IT Solutions,
Phone: 46 (0)708-23-56-10
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com
http://news.cision.com/sectra/r/dutch-multi-site-hospital-invests-in-imaging-it-solution-from-sectra,c2203785
The following files are available for download:
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/13/17 -- Editors Note: There is an image associated with this press release.
Blackline Safety ("Blackline") (TSX VENTURE: BLN) has received intrinsic safety certification for its new G7c wirelessly connected safety device with proprietary technology. This certification offers an industry-first solution for gas detection in municipality, utility, water/waste water, chemical, energy and many other sectors. Employees working in these sectors are required to wear a gas detector as they operate in areas where the risk of exposure to toxic or explosive gases is high. Traditional employee-worn gas detectors were 'disconnected' such that they offered only an audible alarm that the person wearing the device could hear. This often left an employee alone with no way to reach help in a toxic or hazardous gas environment.
"We have all heard of the situation where an individual in a plant or a facility succumbs to either lack of oxygen or the presence of a toxic gas," says Cody Slater, CEO and Chairman of Blackline Safety. "In too many cases, by the time anyone else is aware the worker is in danger, it is too late. With G7c, we can not only alert others instantly when a worker is in trouble but direct the right help to them, potentially saving their life. This is what true connected safety means for the workplace."
G7c is the only portable gas detector available with cellular connectivity, an internal speakerphone and two-way live voice calling. Should an employee call for help using the SOS latch, a fall be detected - or a high gas alert be triggered - the monitoring team will automatically call the employee, increasing situational awareness and the ability to deliver an optimized emergency response to the employee's exact location.
To maximize equipment uptime, G7c incorporates field-replaceable gas sensor cartridges. Businesses no longer need to purchase 'back-up' gas monitors to ensure continuous employee monitoring when gas detectors require servicing. Each cartridge ships pre-calibrated from Blackline's in-house manufacturing center, making cartridge replacement a quick and easy task in the field. Single-gas and quad-gas cartridge options meet diverse customer requirements with a broad choice of gas sensors available today and more to be added in the coming months.
"G7c's unique cartridge-based interface enables customers to select the functionality that meets their requirements while bundling cartridges with their G7c service plan," says Sean Stinson, VP Sales and Product Management. "This approach provides gas detection to customers as a service offering with lifetime replacement of cartridges so they never have to purchase replacement gas sensors again."
Other notable G7c advantages include:
-- Automatic incident detection that include gas alarms (high, low, time weighted average, and short-term exposure limits), falls, man-down (motionless) -- Push-button check-ins to eliminate the need for time-consuming phone or radio check-in calls -- Cloud-hosted monitoring portal with alert management, real-time map, historical view, configuration management, user-access controls and an employee address book -- Automatic, over-the-air configuration changes and firmware updates to ensure each G7c is ready to go -- Real-time compliance dashboard that shows safety managers which devices are compliant, which devices have approaching calibration or bump test due dates and when a device is out of compliance -- Custom floor plans and map overlays that display employee locations in context of their surroundings -- A choice of self-monitoring or use of Blackline's in-house 24/7 live monitoring service -- Geo-referencing of every gas reading to produce heat maps of potential leaks, helping to plan proactive maintenance -- Certified intrinsically safe in North America with a Class I, Division 1, Groups A, B, C and D rating
To learn more about Blackline's employee safety monitoring solutions, visit www.BlacklineSafety.com and follow Blackline on Twitter @blacklinesafety.
About Blackline Safety: Blackline Safety is a global connected safety technology leader. We help businesses respond to emergencies in real-time and manage efficient evacuations, accounting for everyone's safety along the way. With millions invested in technology research and development, Blackline Safety is recognized for quality and innovation. Our strong team of designers and engineers create and manufacture everything in-house - from wearable technology and personal gas detection to cloud-hosted infrastructure and web-based interfaces in Calgary for global industry. With service in over 200 countries, we are the only provider of industrial-grade, turn-key, work-anywhere connected safety monitoring solutions that delivers a seamless solution to meet demanding safety monitoring challenges of organizations throughout the world. Alert. Locate. Respond. For more information, visit www.BlacklineSafety.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.
To view the image associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20170212-image_00001.jpg
Contacts:
Blackline Safety Corp.
Cody Slater
CEO & Chairman
+1-403-451-0327
+1 403 451 9981 (FAX)
cslater@blacklinesafety.com
www.blacklinesafety.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/13/17 -- Cameo Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE: CRU)(OTC PINK: SIDNF) ("Cameo" or the "Company") announces that it has amended the details on is previously announced share consolidation and apologizes for an error in the number of issued and outstanding shares noted on the release disseminated February 10, 2017.
The corrected details are as follows:
Further to the approval received from shareholders of the Company at the AGSM and as described in more detail in the Management Information Circular of the Company dated December 23rd 2016, the Company has authorized a consolidation of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company (the "Common Shares") on the basis of one (1) post-consolidation Common Share for every twenty-five (25) pre-consolidation Common Shares (the "Consolidation"). As a result of the Consolidation, 71,296,334 Common Shares currently issued and outstanding will be reduced to approximately 2,851,853 post-consolidation Common Shares. No fractional shares will be issued in the Consolidation. Each fractional share following the Consolidation that is less than one-half of a share will be cancelled and each fractional share that is at least one-half of a share will be rounded up to the nearest whole share. The exercise or conversion price and the number of shares issuable under any of the Company's outstanding stock options and convertible instruments will be proportionately adjusted upon completion of the Consolidation. A letter of transmittal will be sent to registered shareholders providing instructions to surrender the certificates evidencing their Common Shares for replacement certificates representing the number of post-consolidation Common Shares to which they are entitled as a result of the Consolidation. Until surrendered, each certificate representing Common Shares prior to the Consolidation will be deemed for all purposes to represent the number of Common Shares to which the holder thereof is entitled as a result of the Consolidation. The Consolidation is subject to the approval of the TSXV.
The effective date for the Consolidation and Name change is anticipated to be February 17, 2017. Prior to the effective date, the Company's shares will continue to trade on the TSXV under the current trading symbol and Cussip Number on the anticipated effective date the Company's shares will continue trading on the TSXV under the same trading symbol with a new Cussip number.
The Company will provide further details on confirmation of the effective date.
Akash Patel, President
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Statements in this press release contain forward-looking information. The words "will," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intent," "may," "project," "should," and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are founded on the basis of expectations and assumptions made by Cameo.
Readers are cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of such information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Cameo.
Contacts:
Cameo Resources
Akash Patel
President
akashp006@gmail.com
www.cameoresources.com
OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau landed in Washington on Monday for a White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, scheduled for later in the day. Trudeau has vowed to preserve Canada's close ties with its most important ally, and said he will highlight creating jobs and opportunity for Canadian citizens through the continued close integration on both sides of the border. A task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs is expected to be launched in the presence of Trump's daughter Ivanka. Trudeau is the third leader after British Prime Minister Theresa May and Japanese Prime Minster Shinto Abe to visit Trump after he assumed office less than a month ago. Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto had canceled a scheduled meeting with his American counterpart last month after Trump said that if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the planned border wall, then it would be better to cancel the Nieto's visit. Trudeau, a Liberal leader, is polar opposite to tycoon-turned politician Trump. They are divided on mainly two issues - trade and immigration. Canada is worried over the US president's pledge to renegotiate free trade deal NAFTA. Trudeau is known as an advocate for free trade. US is the main destination of Canada's exports. Trudeau was one of the first world leaders to respond to Trump's immigration ban, by saying Canada welcomes refugees who have been rejected from the US. 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.
IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/13/17 -- The University of California, Irvine, is launching a new, online Master of Science program in Pharmacology (MSP) in the Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine. The MSP program is targeted toward working professionals in the pharmaceutical industry and related fields who are seeking an advanced degree while continuing their full-time jobs. With the overall goal to provide students with advanced scientific knowledge and research skills in the field of pharmacology, the MSP degree program addresses an unmet need in a major health industry.
"The Master of Science in Pharmacology degree fills a void in training Master's level scientists in pharmacology, a discipline that is central to the discovery, development and use of therapeutic drugs," said Dr. Olivier Civelli, Chair and Professor, Department of Pharmacology at UC Irvine. "With a strong outlook for pharmacology-related employment for graduates with advanced degrees, this program prepares students to enhance their career within the pharmaceutical industry, at biotechnology companies, government agencies, research laboratories and academic programs in health sciences."
By providing advanced training in pharmacology, the MSP program will prepare students for positions of leadership and responsibility in academic, industrial and government settings. The two-year course of online study will provide students with the basic understanding of molecular, cellular, organ, and clinical pharmacology. To fulfill the requirements of the program, students will complete 39 units of graduate courses and will write an extensive capstone research paper.
The MSP program will begin Fall 2017, pending WSCUC approval. The deadline to apply for Fall 2017 admission is June 1, 2017. To register for the program, visit here. For further information on the new online Master of Science in Pharmacology degree program, please visit the website or contact Barbara Shainberg at bshainbe@uci.edu or 949-824-3130.
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 28,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. Located in one of the world's safest and most economically vibrant communities, it's Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $4.8 billion annually to the local economy.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Vivian Chan-Slater
714-573-0899 x.235
Email Contact
Regulatory News:
Transgene (Paris:TNG), a company focused on designing and developing viral-based immune-targeted therapies for the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases, today announces that the 1st patient in the ISI-JX trial has been treated at the Leon Berard Cancer Center in Lyon, France. ISI-JX is a Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating the intra-tumoral co-administration of Pexa-Vec in combination with ipilimumab in solid tumors (NCT02977156). This investigator initiated trial promoted by the Leon Berard Cancer Center will enroll patients with metastatic and/or locally advanced solid tumors.
Pexa-Vec is a GM-CSF expressing vaccinia derived oncolytic virus co-developed by Transgene and SillaJen. Ipilimumab is a monoclonal antibody targeted against the immune checkpoint CTLA-4 and is currently approved for the treatment of melanoma (Yervoy, Bristol-Myers Squibb).
The open-label trial that will recruit up to 60 patients in several clinical centers in France. First readouts could be expected towards the end of 2017. The trial will evaluate the safety of the combination and evaluate the first signals for efficacy.
Dr Aurelien Marabelle MD, PhD, from Gustave Roussy, a world expert in immunotherapy clinical research and coordinating investigator of the study commented: "We believe in the synergistic potential of the combination between oncolytic viruses and immune checkpoint-targeted antibodies. Also, we believe that the intra-tumoral co-delivery of these immunotherapies will trigger a better priming of the anti-tumor immune response while avoiding off-target toxicities. We hope this novel "in situ immunization" strategy will overcome the resistance to cancer immunotherapy that we observe in many patients."
The combination of Pexa-Vec and ipilimumab aims at targeting two distinct steps in the immune response against cancer cells and is expected to be significantly more effective than either product alone. Pexa-Vec is an oncolytic virus designed to (i) selectively destroy cancer cells through the direct lysis (breakdown) of cancer cells via viral replication, (ii) reduce the blood supply to tumors through vascular disruption, and (iii) stimulate the body's immune response against cancer cells. Its mechanism of action and its safety profile make it an appropriate candidate for combinations with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) such as ipilimumab, which acts as a brake on the body's immune response to cancer cells thereby potentially improving Pexa-Vec's anti-cancer effects.
Maud Brandely, Chief Medical Officer of Transgene, said: "This trial aims to first demonstrate that the regimen of our oncolytic virus Pexa-Vec plus ipilimumab is well tolerated. We expect that the intra-tumoral administration of ipilimumab will have less systemic toxicity thanks to its local administration. Another objective is to show the antitumor activity of the regimen in patients with advanced solid tumors which have exhausted all standard therapeutic options."
About Transgene
Transgene S.A. (Euronext: TNG), part of Institut Merieux, is a publicly traded French biotechnology company focused on designing and developing targeted immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Transgene's programs utilize viral vector technology with the goal of indirectly or directly killing infected or cancerous cells. The Company's two lead clinical-stage programs are: TG4010, a therapeutic vaccine against non-small cell lung cancer and Pexa-Vec, an oncolytic virus against liver cancer. The Company has several other programs in clinical and preclinical development. Transgene is based in Strasbourg, France, and has additional operations in Lyon, as well as a joint venture in China. Additional information about Transgene is available at www.transgene.fr.
Follow us on Twitter: @TransgeneSA
About Pexa-Vec
Pexa-Vec (JX594/TG6006 pexastimogene devacirepvec) is an oncolytic immunotherapy armed with a GM-CSF gene that promotes an anti-tumor immune response. Pexa-Vec is designed to selectively target and destroy cancer cells through three different mechanisms of action: the lysis (breakdown) of cancer cells through viral replication, the reduction of the blood supply to tumors through vascular disruption, and the stimulation of the body's immune response against cancer cells. The lead indication for Pexa-Vec is hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC, liver cancer); trials in other cancer types are underway or planned.
Transgene has exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Pexa-Vec for the treatment of solid tumors in Europe. Its partner SillaJen, Inc. is focused on developing Pexa-Vec for the north American market and has also granted exclusive development and commercial rights to Pexa-Vec in Hong Kong and The People's Republic of China to Lee's Pharmaceutical.
Disclaimer
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. The occurrence of any of these risks could have a significant negative outcome for the Company's activities, perspectives, financial situation, results, regulatory authorities' agreement with development phases, and development. The Company's ability to commercialize its products depends on but is not limited to the following factors: positive pre-clinical data may not be predictive of human clinical results, the success of clinical studies, the ability to obtain financing and/or partnerships for product manufacturing, development and commercialization, and marketing approval by government regulatory authorities. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties which could cause the Company's actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the Risk Factors ("Facteurs de Risque") section of the Document de Reference, available on the AMF website (http://www.amf-france.org) or on Transgene's website (www.transgene.fr). Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Transgene undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
Yervoy is a registered trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005750/en/
Contacts:
Transgene:
Lucie Larguier, +33 (0)3 88 27 91 04
Director Corporate Communications IR
investorrelations@transgene.fr
or
Media contacts:
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
David Dible Marine Perrier, 44 (0)20 7638 9571
transgene@citigatedr.co.uk
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - February 13, 2017) - Spiro Marin, the team of Spiro Stratigos and Dorothy MacDougald at Zephyr Real Estate, is the 2016 Top Producer for all of Novato, as well as Zephyr's No. 1 Top Producer in Units Sold for the Marin office. This unique team of native Marin locals has roots that span the Golden Gate Bridge and cover Marin and the entire North Bay.
Spiro Marin offers recommendations and suggestions to maximize the selling potential of a property and to achieve the best return on investments. With most clients relying on the internet for home buying, Spiro Marin utilizes the latest marketing and technology to create a valuable real estate experience.
One of many satisfied clients states it best: "We reached out to Spiro to sell our home since he and his team were home grown, highly qualified, experienced and well educated in the local market. Dorothy MacDougald, his associate was wonderful...working as a dedicated team, both were available in every step in the selling process. Dorothy also connected us with another Zephyr agent to assist us in looking for our next home out of the area. We couldn't be happier with the results and have recommended Spiro and Dorothy to our neighbors and friends." Sellers' 2016 Zillow Review
Both members of the team bring substantial talents, skills, cultural understanding and education to provide exceptional service with lasting results. Spiro Marin's philosophy is "Smart, One Time, Done the Right Way." Their lifetime community involvement in Sausalito, San Rafael and Novato continues to strengthen longstanding relationships.
Stratigos is a top-producing broker with more than 20 years of success in the business. Raised in Sausalito, he began investing in his community while pursuing his education in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics. He continues a three-generation family tradition in the industry and has developed long-lasting relationships with his loyal client base and affiliates.
"With 20 years of experience in the industry, optimizing the real estate experience for the client has always been key. Since joining Zephyr Real Estate in 2016, the collaboration has only increased the continuity of our team's dynamic approach. The results have been favorable for Buyers and Sellers in this fast paced market," commented Stratigos. "Introducing Zephyr Real Estate to the Novato community has been an exciting endeavor. We continue to be humbled by Novato's response to our full service approach and community outreach."
MacDougald brings an excellent full-service background with strong skills in the mortgage industry. She has a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Business Administration and is dedicated to her clients ensuring a positive real estate transaction. Her early career began at Nordstrom, a company well known for its commitment to customer service.
"Spiro and Dorothy exemplify integrity, energy, hard work, and creative service in every detail of the real estate transaction," commented Erinn Millar, Sales Manager at Zephyr's Marin office. "Congratulations, Spiro Marin!"
Spiro Marin may be reached at spiromarin@zephyrmarin.com or 415.225.6412.
About Zephyr Real Estate
Founded in 1978, Zephyr Real Estate is San Francisco's largest independent real estate firm with nearly $2.3 billion in gross sales and a current roster of more than 300 full-time agents. Zephyr's highly-visited website has earned two web design awards, including the prestigious Interactive Media Award. Zephyr Real Estate is a member of the international relocation network, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World; the luxury real estate network, Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate; global luxury affiliate, Mayfair International; and local luxury marketing association, the Luxury Marketing Council of San Francisco. Zephyr has six offices in San Francisco, a new office in Greenbrae, and two brokerage affiliates in Sonoma County, all strategically positioned to serve a large customer base throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit www.ZephyrRE.com.
Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/2/10/11G130015/Images/Stratigos-MacDouglad-Zephyr-de7ef7bba5d38649a0d1d58646c90f5f.jpg
Contact:
Melody Foster
Zephyr Real Estate
San Francisco, CA
415.426.3203
Email contact
Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian allied agreement signed
Long discussed and expected alliance in Armenian political field came true. In one of the most luxurious hotels in Yerevan, Double Tree by Hilton, Heritage leader Raffi Hovannisian, Consolidation Party Chairman Vartan Oskanian and former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan today have signed a document on the creation of the alliance. The alliance, which was called Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian, will participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections with a team including representatives from three powers. Peoples Party headed by Tigran Karapetyan is also included in the alliance. Heritage Vice President Armen Martirosyan noted in his speech that they consider it to be necessary to change this sinful system. These powers united for establishing new quality authorities, he said. Briefing followed the signing of the agreement and handshake. Heritage leader Raffi Hovannisian noted, Today is a historic day for Armenia, as a military figure, General, our compatriot, who has contributed much to this state, very experienced diplomat, as well as other organizations and figures decided that Armenia faces such challenges that they should unite. We say yes to Armenias sovereignty and territorial integrity of Artsakh. Raffi Hovannisian wished success to all other alliances and also noted that the authorities live their last days. Chairman of Consolidation Party Vartan Oskanian said, I repeat Raffi Hovannisians words wholly. Much unites Seyran Ohanyan, Raffi Hovannisian, Vartan Oskanian; we have been on the bases of this statehood, each of us has had his contribution to this statehood. Years ago we came to Armenia with great expectations and message to create Armenia we dreamt of, where all Armenians can come and live. Our dream is far from reality. It is one of few opportunities to change the situation in the country. Vartan Oskanian claims that it is proved that the current authorities hinder development of Armenia, It is a historic moment, when we should change the situation in the country. Former Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan says, In essence, April parliamentary elections will be very important elections, when the government will be formed and it is important that everybody take part in it. People, solders, teachers etc. will be on the bases of formation of national guarantees. We stress the importance of increasing security guarantees. I have taken relevant actions for developing Armenian army and making it anthropocentric. And feeling the problems the army faces, today we should back our army. We have experienced figures in our alliance; they have passed that way and have had their contribution. We are coming to work, which will be implemented in the government system. The biggest drawback, barrier between the authorities and the people, will be eliminated. We will pay attention to every citizens dignity. We will create opportunities for our compatriots for working and creating. Peoples Party, Justice Party, Independent Courts NGO and other forces have joined the alliance. Details- later
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/13/17 -- Virginia Hills Oil Corp. ("Virginia Hills" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: VHO) announces that it has received a demand notice and notice of intention to enforce security from its lenders and has agreed to consent to the early enforcement of the lenders' security and the appointment of a receiver over all of the current and future assets, undertakings and properties of Virginia Hills pursuant to section 243(1) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act in order to allow, among other things, the Company's assets to be operated in a safe and responsible manner. The application for the appointment of the receiver is anticipated to be heard on February 13, 2017 at the Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary, Alberta. At such application, Alvarez & Marsal Canada Inc. is expected to be appointed the receiver and manager over the assets, undertakings and property of Virginia Hills.
About Virginia Hills
The Company is a Calgary based oil and gas company with operations in the Red Earth area of Alberta. Virginia Hills' shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "VHO".
Forward-Looking Statement Advisory
Certain information set forth in this press release, including information and statements which may contain words such as "could", "plans", "should", "anticipates", "expects", "believes", "will" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts, contain forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding: the appointment of the receiver over the assets, undertakings and properties of Virginia Hills and the timing thereof. These statements involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on these forward looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur.
Management has included forward-looking information in this press release in order to provide security holders with a more complete perspective on the Company's current status and such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. These forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties including the granting of the lenders' application by the Court of Queen's Bench. Investors are cautioned that such information, although considered reasonable by the Company, may prove to be incorrect.
Virginia Hills' actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits that the Company will derive therefrom.
NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICE 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:
Virginia Hills Oil Corp.
Colin Witwer
President and Chief Executive Officer
Virginia Hills Oil Corp.
Adeline Martin
Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer
(403) 817-2550
RIVIERA BEACH, FL--(Marketwired - February 13, 2017) - South Florida-based RGF Environmental Group, Inc., creator of advanced environmental products providing the world with the safest air, water, and food without the use of chemicals, has announced completion of its RGF Electro Mechanical Museum celebrating technology and innovation. The museum starts with the earliest developments of electrical machines from the 1700s and spans to the most advanced X-ray technologies of the 1900s.
This unique museum contains 642 pieces of rare antiquities by world-renowned inventors such as Thomas Kinraide, Sir William Crookes, George Westinghouse, Benjamin Franklin and Nikola Tesla. The vintage equipment represents precursors to RGF's technology with some of the world's earliest ultraviolet lamps, ion (static electricity) generators and the oldest American-made electrical transformers. They have been featured on the History Channel's "Modern Marvels," Travel Channel's "Mysteries at the Museum," and National Geographic's "American Genius" and many other documentaries around the world.
"The purpose of this museum is to preserve these rare early technologies and inspire future generations of innovators," said Ron Fink, RGF President/CEO. "The historical technology showcased at the museum led to the innovative technology used today at RGF. From the light bulb to the X-ray, invention embodies the American spirit and we are delighted to share these antiquities with residents and visitors of Palm Beach County."
The museum will be unveiled to the public on Thursday, February 23rd at 10:30 a.m. It will be open to school groups and other organizations interested in the history of innovation and technology. Admission to the Museum is complimentary and group visits can be arranged by calling Kelly Kendrick at 561-848-1826. It is located at the RGF headquarters at 1101 W. 13 th Street, Riviera Beach.
RGF Environmental Group manufactures all of its products at its plant in Palm Beach County. The company, a U.S. engineering, design and manufacturing firm, manufactures over 500 environmental products and has over two million systems installed worldwide. The company ships products to as opposed to importing from China.
About RGF
RGF manufactures over 500 environmental products and has a 30-plus year history of providing the world with the safest air, water and food without the use of chemicals. RGF is a research and innovation company that holds numerous patents and patents-pending for wastewater treatment systems, air purifying devices, and food sanitation systems. To meet a growing need for indoor air quality improvement solutions, RGF developed both the patented REME-HALO and BLU QR. RGF's Advanced Oxidation Systems are proven and tested to be extremely effective in destroying mold, odors, bacteria, and viruses. Situated in the heart of the Port of Palm Beach Enterprise Zone, RGF Headquarters spans 7.5 acres, with 100,000 square feet of manufacturing, warehouse, and office facilities. RGF has recently upgraded its facilities, creating an increased vertical approach to manufacturing, allowing the company to provide the highest quality and engineered products on the market.
For more information, visit rgf.com or contact Kelly Kendrick, Director of Marketing, 561-253-7880.
CONTACT:
Elizabeth Kelley Grace
Elizabeth@thebuzzagency.net
561.702.7471
HOPE, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/13/17 -- Western Economic Diversification Canada
A popular fitness centre in Hope, British Columbia will receive a much-needed upgrade with a Government of Canada CIP 150 investment of $100,000.
With this funding, the Fraser Valley Regional District will upgrade the fitness centre by extending the exercise area and improving accessibility to the facility. These improvements will provide members of the community with an improved place to exercise and to engage in other recreational activities.
The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada, made the announcement today.
The Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program is part of Canada 150 Celebrates, the Government of Canada's celebration of our country's 150th anniversary of Confederation. Budget 2016 provided an additional $150 million over two years to Canada's Regional Development Agencies to deliver further community funding across the country, starting in 2016-17, with Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD) being responsible for administering the program in Western Canada.
Through investments in community infrastructure, the Government of Canada will invest in projects that seek to renovate, expand, and improve existing community infrastructure, with a focus on recreational facilities, projects that advance a clean growth economy, and projects with a positive impact on Indigenous communities.
Quotes
"Strong communities are built on modern, reliable infrastructure. This funding is ensuring that residents of Hope will have access to an updated facility that provides recreational and social opportunities, now and into the future."
-- The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Western Economic Diversification Canada
"We are very pleased to have received funding through the CIP 150 program. The contribution of $100,000 will significantly offset costs for the much needed renovation projects at the Recreation Centre."
-- FVRD Director Dennis Adamson, Vice Chair, Recreation, Culture and Airpark Services Commission
Stay Connected
Twitter: @WD_Canada, @canada150th, @MinisterISED, @FVRD1
Hashtags: Canada150
Website: WD Homepage, Canada 150 Homepage, Fraser Valley Regional District
Facebook: @canada150th
Instagram: @canada150
WD Toll-Free Number: 1-888-338-WEST (9378)
TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired): 1-877-303-3388
Additional Links
Government of Canada Announces Support for Community Infrastructure in British Columbia
The 150th Anniversary of Confederation in 2017
Fraser Valley Regional District
IF THERE IS A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN ANY PRINTED VERSION AND THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, THE ELECTRONIC VERSION WILL PREVAIL.
Contacts:
Ben Stanford
Regional Communications Manager
Western Economic Diversification Canada
604-666-7038
ben.stanford@canada.ca
Milly Marshall
Director, Fraser Valley Regional District
Recreation, Culture and Airpark Services
Hope, BC
604-869-2304
mmarshall@fvrd.ca
Technavio market research analysts forecast the global rice bran oil marketto grow at a CAGR of more than 5% during the forecast period, according to their latest report.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005393/en/
Technavio has published a new report on the global rice bran oil market from 2017-2021. (Photo: Business Wire)
The market study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global rice bran oilmarketfor 2017-2021. The report also segments the market based on type into organic rice bran oil and non-organic rice bran oil, of which the non-organic rice bran oil segment accounted for almost 93% of the market share in 2016.
According to Manjunath Reddy, a lead analyst at Technavio for foodresearch, "Rice bran oil is expected to gain popularity among consumers as the oil is recommended by the World Health Organization and American Heart Association, for its balanced fatty acid profile. Thus, the rice bran oil market presents significant potential for overall market growth both in terms of volume and value, as consumers are increasingly looking out for edible oils that are nutritious and have antioxidant content."
Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=56475
Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.
Technavio food and beverage analysts highlight the following three market drivers that are contributing to the growth of the global rice bran oil market:
Health benefits of rice bran oil
High smoke point and balance of fatty acids
Competitive prices and longer shelf life
Health benefits of rice bran oil
There are numerous health benefits associated with rice bran oil. Cholesterol issues are becoming common among consumers, which often increase the risk of heart diseases and stroke. The cholesterol-lowering property of rice oil is becoming popular among consumers as the balance of fatty acids in the oil helps in lowering cholesterol levels.
Rice bran oil is a good source of tocopherols and tocotrienols (vitamin E). These elements are powerful antioxidants and are anti-mutagenic in nature, so it helps to build immunity and reduce the risk of cancer caused by free radicals.
Various cosmeticbrands are using rice bran oil in different products as it improves the overall health of the skin. Rice bran oil is rich in vitamin E and fatty acids, which helps it to penetrate and nourish the skin from within and retain moisture, thus making the skin softer and smoother.
High smoke point and balance of fatty acids
The high smoke point of rice bran oil prevents fatty acid breakdown at high temperatures, and thus it is used for sauteing, pan frying, deep frying, stir-frying, and baking. Also, this oil is one of the most balanced and versatile oils in the market. This is because its fatty acids (saturated fatty acids (SAFA), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)) ratio is nearest to the recommended ratio by WHO and American Heart Association. Thus, it is likely that these features of rice bran oil will increase its popularity during the forecast period.
Competitive prices and longer shelf life
The price of rice bran oil is lower when compared to other premium oils like such as olive oil, making it a better choice for consumers looking for oils with greater nutritional benefits at a moderate price. Therefore, rice bran oil players are positioning it between the expensive olive oil and the conventional oils.
"While buying any cooking product, consumers usually pay attention to the shelf life of the product. Rice bran oil is attracting consumers due to its longer shelf life of 1-2 years as compared to conventional cooking oils such as high oleic sunflower oil which has a shelf life that ranges between 3-6 months," says Manjunath.
Browse Related Reports:
Global Vegetable Oil Market 2016-2020
Global Face Oils Market 2016-2020
Global Virgin Coconut Oil Market 2017-2021
Become a Technavio Insights member and access all three of these reports for a fraction of their original cost. As a Technavio Insights member, you will have immediate access to new reports as they're published in addition to all 6,000+ existing reports covering segments like alcoholic beveragesfood service, and non-alcoholic beverages. This subscription nets you thousands in savings, while staying connected to Technavio's constant transforming research library, helping you make informed business decisions more efficiently.
About Technavio
Technaviois a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.
Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.
If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005393/en/
Contacts:
Technavio Research
Jesse Maida
Media Marketing Executive
US: +1 630 333 9501
UK: +44 208 123 1770
www.technavio.com
CrediFi Corp., a New York City- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based platform for data and analytics for commercial real estate finance, raised in $13m Series B funding.
The round was led by Liberty Interactives Liberty Israel Venture Fund, with participation from 31 Ventures Global Innovation Fund, a CVC fund managed by Global Brain for Mitsui Fudosan, and existing investors Battery Ventures, Carmel Ventures, OurCrowd and Stax. In conjunction with the funding, who led the investment for Liberty Interactives Liberty Israel Venture Fund, will join CrediFis board of directors.
The company, which has raised $23 million to date in 2014, intends to use the funds to accelerate growth, including the expansion of its sales and marketing organization as well as a major upcoming product launch.
Led by CEO Ely Razin, CrediFi provides cloud-based data services that enable visibility into both the opportunities and risks in Commercial Real Estate (CRE) finance markets, from multifamily to offices, and from distribution centers to senior housing.
Leveraging both technology and human expertise, the companys platform collects and analyzes data (including loan origination, portfolio management, and competitive analysis) that educates key decision makers, to make informed decisions. To this end, CrediFi has also developed visualization technologies to map lending and property activity and launched services to provide vital ultimate ownership information.
Current clients include premier asset holders, hedge funds, large scale institutional banks, and others.
CrediFi currently has 75 employees.
FinSMEs
13/02/2017
Frontclear, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based financial markets development company, received USD$30m in funding.
The Dutch bilateral development bank FMO provided the amount.
The company intends to use the funds to begin scaling operations and deliver on projected growth path of its financial guarantee portfolio.
Led by Philip Buyskes, CEO, Frontclear focuses on catalyzing stable and inclusive interbank markets in emerging and developing countries (EMDC). It facilitates access by local financial institutions to interbank markets through providing credit guarantees to cover a transacting institutions counterparty credit risk. This on the condition that local currency assets can be used for collateral management purposes.
The company is funded by European governments and development finance institutions including BMZ, DFID, FSDA, EBRD, Proparco and TCX.
Frontclears Basel III compliant guarantees specifically cover due payment of the Early Termination Amount under ISDA contracts and corresponding claims under GMRA. The guarantees are in turn counter-guaranteed by KfW, an AAA-development financial institution. The guarantees are complemented by a technical assistance programme (FTAP), which supports targeted and planned interventions in bank and system development, reducing the operational and country risks obstructing interbank trading.
FinSMEs
13/02/2017
New Delhi: Amid the ongoing conflict between the board of Infosys and its founders, its CEO Vishal Sikka is scheduled to meet institutional investors at an event in Mumbai on Monday.
Sikka may brief participating fund managers on issues that have prompted some of the company's co-founders, including N R Narayana Murthy, to publicly air their discontent against the board. He will deliver a keynote address at Kotak's Chasing Growth Conference on today in Mumbai at 10 a.m.
Sikka's participation was confirmed by a company spokesperson saying the event was scheduled much before these developments.
Such events usually see investors and industry analysts asking questions about the macro environment, business prospects and challenges, but given the developments seen in the past few days, clarifications relating to the feud between founders and the board are likely to dominate the proceedings on Monday.
Sikka, along with some of the board members, is also scheduled to interact with the media later in the day to clear the air over various issues flagged by the founders.
Last week, Sikka called members of the senior management to assuage concerns and has advised them not to get "distracted" by the ongoing tussle and instead focus on company's business and strategy.
Asked about the founders' expectation from Sikka at the upcoming meeting with fund managers, Infosys former CFO V Balakrishnan told PTI, "I think Sikka should focus on business and performance because that is more important."
"And I think he should, being a board member, also impress upon the Chairman to effectively engage with the founders and address the concerns and solve the issue quickly. Otherwise, this will distract the organisation in a big way," he said.
Murthy, along with other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan, had written to Infosys board asking why Sikka's compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.
Murthy, who has gone public with his views, questioned "paying the former CFO (Rajiv Bansal) a 30-month severance pay".
Infosys, however, has denied any corporate governance lapses, and has emphasised that its board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Mr Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation.
Just as everybody thought the battle between founders and the board of Infosys was going to get ugly, NR Narayana Murthy, who led the charge, has decided to stop the battle saying it is now for the board to take up the issues raised.
Besides Murthy, co-founder and his team of other co-founders -- Nandan Nilekani and Kris Gopalakrishan, who haven't said anything, the dramatis personae in the battle that has been brewing for the last few months are former CFOs TV Mohandas Pai, V Balakrishnan and the present Chairman R Seshasayee.
Ahead of the crucial press conference on Monday, here is who said what on the crisis:
NR Narayana Murthy, co-founder
We won several awards for good governance all over the world. However, since June 1, 2015, we have seen a concerning drop in governance standards at Infosys."
When the former CFO Rajiv Bansal left, should he have got 30 months' severance pay? That is 10 times the norm at Infosys. What is the real reason behind such an extraordinary payment?
What kind of signal does this send to employees? So many employees at senior, middle-level and junior levels at Infosys are unhappy. I have received over 1,800 emails from various employees expressing their unhappiness at this situation. The common question they have all asked me is, if it is fair that they got only 80% of the variable part of compensation while somebody who has left the company is given 100% variable for the next two years after leaving. These are a subset of the governance issues.
According to Murthy, giving 100 percent variable pay to some staff -- severance package of Rs 17.38 crore to former CFO Rajiv Bansal and $868,250 plus reimbursements for insurance coverage over a period of 12 months to general counsel and chief compliance officer David Kennedy while leaving the company and giving only 80 percent for the continuing staff raises doubts whether the company is trying to hide something.
On co-founders: "So many of us ex-Infoscions who have spent decades of our lives building this institution with values and a culture of fairness feel bad.
On CEO Vishal Sikka: The issue is not with Vishal Sikka but with the quality of governance at the board. It has slipped.
On Infy board: Chairman of the nomination and remuneration committee Jeffrey Lehman and board chairman R Seshasayee "must accept their mistakes and show contrition".
Mohandas Pai, former CFO:
On Infy hiring lawyers: Releasing a press release to say Infosys will hire a lawyer to answer founders queries was in extremely bad taste. Why should the board use company money to hire a lawyer to answer the co-founders questions? Why should you do that at all? You cannot misuse company money to answer a shareholders query. The shareholders are not enemies of the company
Corporate money, private usage: Money has been used to fly family in private planes. You cannot do that. You cannot use company resources for personal purposes
On governance issues: Have you ever heard of a CFO having been paid 24-month salary as compensation? In the 2016 annual report, the compensation paid to the former CFO is not mentioned in the corporate governance report. The nomination remuneration committee of the board and the audit committee do not mention about the CFO leaving or his compensation. Why? What was there to hide about it?
On Seshasayee: They must change the chairman and bring a widely respected individual as a chairman
On Sikka: I have nothing against Sikka. I dont want to talk about people but focus on issues of transaction.
On Infosys: I feel very sad that this is a company for which the co-founders sacrificed so much for its betterment and did not use a single paisa for personal purposes. The co-founders are upright people and are concerned about corporate governance. They have to be treated with respect. If the chairman is going to brush their queries away, then he should meet them in public and answer their queries. Infosys had liquid assets, including cash and cash equivalents and investments worth Rs. 35,697 crore (about $5.25 billion) on its books at the end of December 2016. "Capital allocation is very important. Institutional investors should raise those questions. They have a duty... institutional investors should raise questions on governance because it concerns the companys reputation.
V Balakrishnan, former CFO
On Seshasayee: I think the founders had raised certain issues on governance, which had happened in the last two years and I said the right way for the Board...is not to take a confrontation approach. Somebody has to take responsibility for all the lapses. That is why I had suggested chairman stepping down, getting an interim chairman and effectively engaging with founders and come to a conclusion.
On Sikka: These are issues not related to Sikka, but the Board. The founders brought in Sikka, gave him full freedom.
On board: Infosys Board has been a big letdown because there have been corporate governance issues raised by the founders from time to time which they have not taken any effective steps to address. Severance payment was made to an ex-CFO. Initially there was no explanation why this payment was being made. Then vague explanations came. Then they stopped the payment.When such a large payment is made to an ex-employee, naturally the perception is negative. Even today the Board has not addressed it," he said.
On Oppenheimer (Infosys' third largest institutional investor): Oppenheimer has taken a very narrow view. They think it's an issue between Sikka and founders. That is not true. Founders are not questioning the strategy. Oppenheimer should support the founders because it's in their own interest. No company can prosper without good governance.
Kavil Ramachandran, executive director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at Indian School of Business
On co-founders: Founders and those who have been associated at the board level in organisations should discipline themselves to leave without looking back when they have finished their tenure. It is not right for leaders who have laid down offices to talk negatively about their successors who they have chosen to succeed them, that too in public. I don't think they have any moral authority to do so.
On severance payments: These are concerns that have to be taken at the board level. Questioning the boards decision is to assume that the founders or former CEOs have a right to do that. That is what I would term as interference. It is not a good practice.
On Murthy: He has placed much importance on corporate governance, and for him to talk of the board now is just not right
JN Gupta, former executive director of market regulator Sebi
On co-founders: Founders and large majority shareholders have a substantial shareholding in the company and it is a bit difficult to believe they would not be heard at the board level. But they wont be if they do what they are doing as in the case of Infosys trying to remote control the drive. They should take up the directorship of the company and no one neither shareholders or the board for that matter - would have any issues with them as long as what they are proposing is valid.
Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Futurist, Founder & CEO of Greyhound Knowledge Group
On Sikkas salary: In all fairness, there is misreporting about Vishals compensation - per latest SEC filings while $906,923 is base salary, $6,488,727 is based on performance. This is standard industry practice and not out of the ordinary and hence deems no criticism of any sort
On co-founders: Separating ownership from control is one of the long standing battles for founders and the latter raising concerns post stepping down from the helm is both correct and expected
Shriram Subramanian, Founder and MD, InGovern Research Services in an interview with ET
On Board: This is a question of orientation of the founders with the orientation of the professional CEO and board. At one end, the founders, whatever values they had in the past or whatever the company had donein the past, does those values continue to exist or is it a question of only compensation or is it a question of other metric which the company now is saying are in line with other global practices -- be it sovereign package, be it the CEO compensation, be it selecting Punita Kumar Sinha. Definitely Infosys is now acting in a very non-transparent manner. For example, when David Kennedy, the chief counsel was let go over the holiday period in Christmas or towards December 2016, there was no explanation put out by the company. But would it come to a breaking point? Maybe. There is a definite possibility of that happening.
R Seshasayee, Chairman, Infosys in an interview to ET
On co-founders: We don't have an issue with anyone. We are a professional board and we are committed to uphold the highest standards of governance that this company has always been known for. We recognise that there could be different viewpoints when it comes to a business judgment. We are sensitive to these viewpoints from different stakeholders and will always calibrate our actions, taking these into account.
On Pais allegation of no engagement with founders: This is completely untrue. We have been continually engaged with the founders. I and the board members collectively have had several conversations with the founders, over the last one year. We had a meeting between the board members and the promoters as late as January 2017!
Infosyss former CFO T V Mohandas Pai on Sunday exhorted institutional investors to raise questions about the huge cash pile on the companys books and on governance issues, saying investors have an obligation to protect their investment.
Capital allocation is very important. Institutional investors should raise those questions. They have a duty... institutional investors should raise questions on governance because it concerns the companys reputation, Pai said.
Infosys had liquid assets, including cash and cash equivalents and investments worth Rs. 35,697 crore (about $5.25 billion) on its books at the end of December 2016.
He asserted that founders, who hold 13 percent stake in the Bengaluru-based company, had raised these questions like any other investor would.
Pai, along with former colleague V. Balakrishnan, had sought a $1.8 billion buy-back in 2014. Pai explained that shareholders all over the world ask questions about capital allocation when growth slows down for listed companies that have too much cash on the books. Last week, Cognizants board approved a plan to return $3.4 billion to shareholders over the two years through share buy-backs and dividend, following investor activism.
Infosys has recently come under fire from founders like N R Narayana Murthy who have publicly raised concerns on alleged corporate governance lapses at the company.
Interim chair suggested
Balakrishnan on Sunday said an interim chairman should be appointed at the earliest to effectively engage with Infosys co-founders.
I think the founders had raised certain issues on governance, which had happened in the last two years and I said the right way for the Board...is not to take a confrontation approach. Somebody has to take responsibility for all the lapses. That is why I had suggested chairman stepping down, getting an interim chairman and effectively engaging with founders and come to a conclusion, he said.
Sebi keeping watch
Meanwhile, markets regulator Sebi said it was keeping a close watch on all developments with a special focus to ensure that minority investors interests were safeguarded.
Sebi is keeping a close watch on the developments at Infosys and has asked stock exchanges to seek clarifications on various media reports relating to the company, its founders and top management team, a senior official said.
Sebi will also take into account the views of proxy advisory firms and various institutional investors to understand the issue and before making any direct intervention in the matter.
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In an unexpected twist in the ongoing battle at the India's second-largest software outsourcing company Infosys, NR Narayana Murthy, the founding member of the company, has called off the battle with the board, saying R Seshasayee, the chairman, has 'the highest integrity'. Later in an interview to CNBC-TV18, however, Murthy also maintained that he has not withdrawn the corporate governance concerns he has raised.
The rift between founders of the company and its board spilled out in the open on Friday with Murthy questioning executive compensation and corporate governance at India's second biggest software services exporter led by Vishal Sikka. Sikka is the first non-founder CEO of the company.
"I have not withdrawn my concern," said Murthy adding concerns have to be addressed properly by the board.
He also said the board comprises of good intentioned people, but even good people sometimes make mistakes, and this is one such case.
Explaining further, Murthy said good leadership demands listening to all concerned shareholders, and hoped the board would take corrective actions soon and improve corporate governance standards.
Earlier, raising the corporate governance concerns he had clarified that it was not the management that concerns him.
"I think we are quite happy with (CEO) Vishal Sikka. He is doing a good job. However, what concerns some of us particularly the founders, and seniors, former Infoscions is that there have been certain acts of governance that could have been better," Murthy said. This comment meant his governance concerns were more about the board and chairman Seshasayee's actions.
Murthy, along with other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan had written to the Infosys board asking why Sikka's compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.
Sikka was paid Rs 48.7 crore in base salary, bonus and benefits last year as compared to base salary of Rs 4.5 crore for a partial period in 2015.
The co-founders also questioned "paying the former CFO (Rajiv Bansal) a 30-month severance pay which amounted to Rs 23 crore."
Most importantly, Murthy had questioned the chairman and independent director Jeffrey Lehman, and raised concerns over corporate governance.
The comments come just ahead of the Infosys board's press conference today late evening. The board members were expected to clarify on various governance issues raised by the founders.
Since the two-way battle between the promoters on one side and the CEO-board combine began last week, there were speculation that the chairman of board may have to step down in the near term. However, R Seshasayee has clarified that the board has full confidence in my leadership.
In an interview with The Economic Times, Seshasayee said, "The shareholders elected me to the board, and the board sees no reason whatsoever for me to step down."
"Whatever decisions that have been taken are collectively taken by the board. I have been given a job to do and I intend doing it conscientiously," Seshasayee said in an interview to ET.
On being alleged by another founding member T V Mohandas Pai that board didn't engage with the members on some decisions, Seshasayee called the development untrue, and said several conversations were made with the founders over the past one year with the latest being as late as January 2017.
With regards to decision taken over the severence package paid to Rajiv Bansal, Sesshasayee said the board had explained the decision to the founders several times, and in fact, the board has paid just Rs 5.2 crore, while suspending the remaining payments.
However, the board chairman raised concerns that the ongoing battle of words between the promoters and the board could have some impact on the employees morale.
With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: In this age of post truth and perceptions overriding facts most times, Infosys would do well to correct the perception that it is no longer the bellwether of corporate governance in India. The company has always been known to lead the charge against governance malpractices and appeared to favour shareholder interests far more than most of the other prominent India Inc members. So the recent war of words between its promoters and the management is sullying a reputation hard earned, never mind the actual missteps which may have occurred.
Before correcting anomalies in the decisions which are under the microscope, Infosys would do well to assure investors that it has not violated any governance norms. And then also establish a robust and open communication channel with promoters, who collectively hold about 13 percent stake in the company, and appear more miffed with the way their queries were handled than with the issues raised.
In fact, perhaps some of the onus of slipping standards of governance at Infosys should be borne by its most stellar founder - N R Narayana Murthy himself, who has been leading the charge against the company since last week, seeking explanations on CEO salary and the severance pay of an ex-CFO. Murthy had even lashed out at the board led by R Seshasayee over the almost 2000-times salary difference between CEO Vishal Sikka and the entry-level software engineer. Besides, he also questioned the high severance package paid to the ex-CFO Rajiv Bansal.
So when this morning, news started flashing on TV screens about Murthy having retreated the source was an interview he supposedly gave to agencies there seemed to be palpable relief among investors. But within the hour, Murthy was back to his belligerent self, saying his concerns remained and should be addressed properly by the board of directors of Infosys.
As the war of words continues, perhaps it is pertinent to see how Murthy and his co-promoters have also erred in the past on corporate governance. Hetal Dalal, COO of proxy advisory firm Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IiAS) has raised questions in this piece today about the manner in which Murthys reappointment to the board of Infosys was handled in 2013.
The sequence of events and press releases from Infosys seem to suggest that Murthys appointment was shoehorned into the AGMs, with the required paper work conveniently falling in place. She goes on to say that even before this appointment, the decision to let each of the founders have a go at the CEO role was an anti thesis of the meritocracy that Infosys had established as its corporate culture. Then came the co-terminus appointment of Murthys son Rohan, though at a nominal salary, when the avowed policy was not to involve family members of promoters in Infosys. Some other issues Dalal has flagged include continuation of auditors for over 15 years instead of a usual rotation after 10 years.
Even T V Mohandas Pai, a former CFO who was passed over for the CEOs position and is now an investor, blamed founders for failing to groom leaders to succeed them. Of the three reasons Pai cited for the current crisis, one he said was "lack of adequate leadership as many people left because of Murthy's focus on only founders becoming leaders and that was a mistake". Though Pai has been behind the founders seeking answers to compensation questions, he has also additionally been pushing investors to seek a share buyback, saying that Infosys has been sitting on a cash pile. It must be recalled here that Pai had made a similar demand just before CEO Vishal Sikkas arrival in 2014.
J N Gupta of proxy advisory firm SES pointed out that every leaders management style was different and if the promoters were questioning lack of a buyback etc now, perhaps they should have announced one when they were at the helm. He said there were no serious corporate governance issues at Infosys which investors need to worry about at present.
Having said that though, the board of directors of Infosys lead by R Seshasayee an India Inc veteran certainly needs to explain some of its past decisions. Though CEO salary should not be a matter of such concern since it is documented and performance linked, the severance package of the ex-CFO does need some explanation. It should also have found a mention in the last annual report of the company.
As this piece shows, CEO Sikka rightly has bigger worries than skirmishes with the founders on his mind. At an investor conference today, Sikka quoted a research report to say India would be the worst impacted on jobs due to automation.
"Instead of 10 people, what if we have three people to work on it. If we don't have the software, then some others will take the advantage...Having software together with education is something that is critical for our business. This, in essence, is the nature of our journey...If you look at the 3.5 million people in our industry the only thing that I see in the future is automation."
Automation and not founder worries should be engaging the minds of all board members of the IT bellweather Infosys.
At Infosys, culmination of several factors fuelled the heightened difference between the principal promoters and company board in recent times. Founding members such as NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and T V Mohanda Pai had raised objections to some of the board's decision like okaying higher payout to CEO Vishal Sikka for the current year, bumper severance package announced for CFO Rajiv Bansal, besides inducting Punita Sinha as an independent director to the board.
However, the possible root cause of the open displeasure between the promoters and the board could be because of the company's decision to acquire Israel-based software firm Panaya in February 2015.
According to a report in The Economic Times, Infosys board did okay the company's decision to acquire Panaya for $200 million, which raised suspicion of the lack of proper due diligence and governance followed before the acquisition was made.
The report suggests that the ex-chief financial officer Rajiv Bansal was not in favour of the deal and questioned the acquisition price, before he offered to resign from the post.
Bansal was not happy about the acquisition, especially the price," the ET report said quoting a consultant.
Because the ex-CFO raised some uncomfortable questions over the acquisition, Bansal was not included as part the decision-making process.
It is being reported that the Israeli firm was valued six times its revenue, even though the company was on the verge of shutting and had laid of several employees before the execution of the deal.
Hence, it is being suspected that Bansal's high-profile exit and the handsome severance package that followed could be linked to Panay's acquisiton.
Infosys' annual report said that the company has paid Rs 17 crore to CFO Rajiv Bansal post his decision to quit the company in October 2015, but continued to stay in an advisary role to the CEO and board till December. As a result, Infosys said higher non-compete fee formed the part of the higher severance package paid to Bansal.
An investigation was done by law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and consultancy firm KPMG over the circumstances that led to Bansal's departure from Infosys. The investigation also tried to see whether the company tried to cover up the issue by offering higher severance payout to Bansal. However, the investigations found of no wrongdoings.
In fact, Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys and other founding members, were critical of the board's decision to offer higher severance payout to the ex CFO.
Talking to CNCB TV18 today, Murthy said, "I have not withdrawn my concern," adding concerns have to be addressed properly by the board.
New Delhi: Vishal Sikka, the embattled chief of Infosys, today said he has always shared a "heartfelt, warm relationship" with the company's co-founder N R Narayana Murthy.
The comments come at a time when there has been a lot of buzz around some of the founders flagging concerns about governance lapses at Infosys and issues like hike in Sikka's compensation to $11 million and huge severance pay doled out to former executives, Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy.
Asked about his relationship with the founders, Sikka said: "My relationship with the founders? It is wonderful. I meet Mr Murthy quite frequently...I have always had a
heartfelt warm relationship with Mr Murthy, probably meet him 4-5-6 times a year."
He added that he, however, hasn't met the other founders off late.
Describing Murthy as an "incredible man", Sikka said the two usually discussed topics like quantum physics and technology whenever they met.
"The other day he was telling me about the Paris Metro and how he worked on the Paris Metro in the 1970s before he started Infosys, and it had this whole ideas about automation and autonomous driving and all," he reminisced.
Sikka, speaking at Kotak's Chasing Growth Conference in Mumbai, said the "drama" going on in the media is very "distracting".
"It takes away our attention but underneath that, there is a very strong fabric that this company is based on. And it is a real privilege for me to be its leader," he added. Sikka is scheduled to meet media representatives this evening along with some of the Board members.
Infosys, on its part, has denied any governance lapses and said it has made "full disclosures" on all developments. Another issue that some of the former senior executives have raised is the huge cash pile of USD 5.25 billion that Infosys has.
Asked about his views on the matter, Sikka said his "official" answer is that the Board, from time to time, will consider capital allocation policies and when there is
something to report, the company will do so.
"The unofficial answer is, you look at the circumstances over the next 4-5 years, what you need the capital for and then decide. In our case, it is the strategic growth
initiatives, capital for building infrastructure and then acquisitions," he said.
Based on how that mix changes over the next 5 years, one takes a decision on how the cash is utilised, he added.
"I have a very deep heartfelt relationship with Mr Murthy and I took this job because of that relationship and respect. He knows, and I would like to assure every single shareholder that corporate governance and values were, are and will be the core foundation of this company. I will not let that standard
slip even an iota under my watch," Sikka said.
Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee said: "I would like to thank Mr Murthy for his kind comments. I have the highest regard for him. His inputs are always taken with respect".
New Delhi/Bengaluru: Pitted against a clutch of high-profile co-founders, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka today said the "drama" going on in the media is "very distracting", even as the firm's longest serving chairman N R Narayana Murthy insisted concerns over corporate governance be addressed "properly."
Making his first public statement on the row that broke out after co-founders Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Kris Gopalakrishnan wrote to Infosys Board questioning hike in
CEO's compensation and severance pay to quiting executives, Sikka said the company is based on a very strong fabric.
"All this drama that has been going on in the media, it's very distracting. It takes away attention but underneath that there is a very strong fabric that this company is based," he said at an investor conference in Mumbai.
"And it is a real privilege for me to be its leader," he added.
Sikka said he has always shared a "heartfelt, warm relationship" with Murthy.
"My relationship with the founders? It is wonderful. I meet Mr Murthy quite frequently...I have always had a heartfelt warm relationship with Mr Murthy, probably meet him 4-5-6 times a year," he said, but added that he has not met the other founders off late.
Sikka's comments came after a media report said Murthy is calling off his fight with the board as he was confident the IT giant he co-founded will deal with the concerns raised about corporate governance.
But Murthy, who along with other co-founders holds some 13 percent interest in Infosys, said he has not withdrawn his concerns.
"No, I have not withdrawn my concern. They have to be addressed properly by the Board and full transparency should be displayed and people responsible for it should become accountable," he told PTI.
Asked about his view on the integrity of Infosys Board members, Murthy said while all the member are "good intentioned people of high integrity, but even good people
sometimes make mistakes".
"...good leadership demands that they listen to all concerned shareholders, re-evaluate their decisions, and take corrective action. I hope they take corrective action soon and improve governance for a better future for the company," he
added.
The founders have aired concerns about CEO Vishal Sikka's USD 11 million pay and expensive severance packages for former executives Rajiv Bansal (CFO) and David Kennedy (General Counsel)
Describing Murthy as an "incredible man", Sikka said the two usually discussed topics like quantum physics and technology whenever they met.
"The other day he was telling me about the Paris Metro and how he worked on the Paris Metro in the 1970s before he started Infosys, and it had this whole ideas about automation and autonomous driving and all," he reminisced at Kotak's Chasing Growth Conference in Mumbai.
Sikka is scheduled to meet media representatives this evening along with some Board members.
Infosys, on its part, has denied any governance lapses and said it has made "full disclosures" on all developments. Another issue that some of the former senior executives have raised is the company's huge cash pile of USD 5.25 billion.
Asked about his views on the matter, Sikka said his "official" answer is that the Board, from time to time, will consider capital allocation policies and when there is
something to report, the company will do so.
"The unofficial answer is, you look at the circumstances over the next 4-5 years, what you need the capital for and then decide. In our case, it is the strategic growth
initiatives, capital for building infrastructure and then acquisitions," he said.
Based on how that mix changes over the next five years, one would take a decision on how the cash is utilised, he added.
Al Jarreau, the affable jazz singing great who reached new audiences by seamlessly merging styles and through television, died Sunday days after announcing his retirement. He was 76.
The seven-time Grammy winner a rare artist to win in jazz, pop and R&B categories died in a Los Angeles hospital where he had been treated for fatigue, his manager said.
Jarreau, who grew up in Milwaukee, where he heard his parents play music in church, is best known for the singles 'We're in This Love Together' and 'After All.'
Many also heard his voice, even if they did not know it, in the theme to Moonlighting, the hit 1980s television series that brought Bruce Willis to prominence.
Jarreau's other notable appearances included a prominent role on 'We Are the World,' the 1985 song by a mega-cast of music A-listers to raise money for famine-ravaged Ethiopia.
In a tribute, his manager Joe Gordon described Jarreau as the ultimate gentleman who never stopped appreciating his listeners or the myriad people who worked for him directly or indirectly.
His second priority was music but 'his first priority, far ahead of the other, was healing or comforting anyone in need,' Gordon wrote on Jarreau's website.
"Whether it was emotional pain, or physical discomfort, or any other cause of suffering, he needed to put our minds at ease and our hearts at rest. He needed to see a warm, affirming smile where there had not been one before. Song was just his tool for making that happen."
While his cause of death was not revealed, Jarreau announced last week that he was finished with touring due to exhaustion.
Jarreau had suffered health issues in recent years and was hospitalized in 2010 for respiratory problems when touring in France.
He died months after being honored at the White House when then president Barack Obama celebrated International Jazz Day.
Gregory Porter, winning the Grammy on Sunday for Best Jazz Vocal Album, called Jarreau 'one of the greatest jazz voices that ever lived.'
"Jazz is the music of freedom and Al Jarreau epitomized that," he said.
- Soaking up influences as child -
Growing up in Milwaukee, Alwyn Lopez Jarreau sang at church and at school. His mother was a piano teacher who played the organ in the Seventh-Day Adventist church, where his father was a preacher and would sing.
But raised in a city with a large German and Eastern European community, Jarreau recalled that he lived near a tavern that played polka and that the radio would play everything from classical to the blues.
"How lucky we were as musicians to have those influences which were really present in our lives. There were no walls then; there are so many walls today," he told Jazz Times last year.
Jarreau would sing in bars in Milwaukee as a teenager. However, he pursued a career not in music but in counseling, earning a degree at Ripon College in Wisconsin and a master's degree at the University of Iowa.
Banking on his promise as a musician, he headed to the San Francisco area, where he teamed up with acoustic guitarist Julio Martinez.
After several false starts, Jarreau made his big breakthrough in Los Angeles in 1975, when he was invited to perform at the legendary Troubadour club in West Hollywood.
His debut album, We Got By, came in the same year and proved an international hit.
His family requested that mourners make contributions to the Wisconsin Foundation for School Music, which supports young people and recently honored Jarreau with a lifetime achievement award.
Jarreau was married twice and had a son. In a 2012 interview with All About Jazz, Jarreau said he still was in awe that he made music for a living.
"To be given that ability to create something where there was nothing before, empty space, and now there's a song; that's an amazing gift," he said.
"There's nothing more important than that, except maybe creating a life."
After last year's #OscarsSoWhite debate, which underlined the lack of racial diversity in the 2016 Oscar Nominations list, award shows have been consciously trying to diversify the nominee pool. Or so it seems.
The BAFTAs 2017 nominee list, was according to The Hollywood Reporter, 'a race related problem.' A columnist for the website had noted "that's because two top-tier Oscar contenders, who happen to be American-born people of colour, weren't even nominated in categories they might win at the Oscars: Moonlight's Barry Jenkins in the best director race (even though Moonlight was nominated for best film); and, in the best actor race, Fences' Denzel Washington. A six-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner, Washington, it turns out, has never been nominated for a BAFTA."
This made #Baftassowhite trend on twitter; following last year's #OscarsSoWhite trend.
But the BAFTAS award night did do its own bit to remedy the racist tag it had acquired.
Though the script predicted that La La Land would clean up at the awards, it was not the case. Surprise winners included Manchester By The Sea, Amy Adams sci-fi film Arrival and Ken Loach's gritty, angry I, Daniel Blake, which won the outstanding British film award.
The former Skins and Slumdog Millionaire actor Dev Patel won best supporting actor for his portrayal of a young mans search for his real mother in Lion, beating hot favourite Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) and Ryan Gosling for La La Land.
He was visibly moved. "Wow! That just happened," he said, "Words, words, words. I sit at home and watch this with my family; it is such an overwhelming feeling." Patel is the first actor of Indian origin to win a BAFTA for his role.
Viola Davis had been widely tipped to win best supporting actress and she did so for her powerful performance in Fences. She used the press conference after her BAFTA win to caution that this year in which Fences, Hidden Figures and Moonlight have taken a slew of silverware may be an anomaly. "I believe what still is a deficiency is that we have one year a plethora of African American movies and then the next year nothing," she said. Predictions for next years awards have already been mooted, said Davis, 'and very few African American names are in there.' Davis cautioned that prospects for her daughter, Genesis, who is five, might be worse than for her own generation. She said, "She has to understand that shes gotta be the change she wants to be. She cant assume peoples minds have been woken up we see that in the political climate now. We have to be the instrument of change now." Here's her speech:
Congrats @ViolaDavis! The #BestSupportingActress talks about hopes for her daughter and the future during her winner's interview #EEBAFTAs pic.twitter.com/RLOQ2S3YTU EE (@EE) February 12, 2017
While the best supporting actors and actress wins might have been won by people of colour, it looks like there is still time till films like Moonlight and Loving are nominated and win award shows like these. Whether these wins will reflect at the Oscars or not is a long way to go.
The Oscars 2017 will be broadcast on 26 February 2017.
Glamour was shot through with grit at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday.
Frothy musical La La Land took five prizes including best picture, but major awards also went to tough welfare-state drama I, Daniel Blake, fractured-family stories Lion and Manchester by the Sea.
In keeping with an awards season that has coincided with a wrenching change of government in the United States, even La La Lands prizes came with a political tinge.
Accepting the best-actress trophy for playing a barista who dreams of Hollywood stardom, Emma Stone said that this country and the US, and the world seems to be going through a bit of a time.
She said that in a divided world, it was vital to celebrate the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it help people to feel a little less alone.
(Corrects to show bus crash occurred on Monday, not Tuesday)TAIPEI At least 32 people were killed when a tour bus crashed on a highway near Taipei on Monday night, with Taiwanese television footage showing the bus careening toward a road barrier at a highway curve before flipping on its side.Forty-four people were in the bus, not the previously estimated 45, according to the latest figures from the local fire department. Thirty were pronounced dead at the scene and two died at the hospital, the fire department said, adding that 12 people were still being treated in hospitals around Taipei, the capital. Many of the injured were elderly, Taipei City Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-ji said on live local TV.
It was unclear what caused the crash. Local television showed a video of the bus shot from behind flipping onto its side and skidding toward the hillside after it hit a road barrier when negotiating a highway interchange curve.Ambulances and fire trucks were lined up along the bend of the road as rescue workers used a crane to lift the battered bus from its wheels, after all the passengers were pulled from the wreckage.
"Prosecutors need to get on the site," said cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung on live TV. The crash is the latest accident involving tour buses in Taiwan. Earlier this month, another Taiwanese tour bus carrying Chinese tourists crashed into a bridge in southern Taiwan, injuring some passengers.
It followed a grisly murder-suicide last year in which 24 Chinese tourists were killed after the driver set their moving bus on fire. (Reporting by Taipei newsroom; Writing by J.R. Wu; Editing by Larry King)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Serzh Sargsyan sends congratulatory message to Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Serzh Sargsyan sent a congratulatory message to the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier on his election as President of the FRG and expressed confidence that Frank-Walter Steinmeiers impressive political and civil biography and profound experience will serve the best for Germanys further advancement and continuous rise, promoting Germanys greater role at the international arena and prosperity of the friendly people of Germany. The President of Armenia noted with satisfaction that in twenty-five years, which passed since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the RA and FRG, the two countries have registered serious achievements in the political, economic, and humanitarian areas and are mutually ready to deepen them further, which is testified to by the high level political dialogue and the increased dynamics of the reciprocal visits, expansion of the inter-parliamentary and decentralized ties, as well as Germanys steadfast support to Armenia-EU cooperation. Today, Germany is also Armenias leading economic partner and donor, a constant supporter of the large-scale reforms carried out in our country. I attach great importance to the fact that our cooperation is anchored not only in mutual interests but also in the common system of values. It is proved also by the adoption last year in the German Bundestag of the Resolution on the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Personally aware of your professionalism and patriotism, I am confident that during your tenure our bilateral relations will not only preserve the current dynamics but will also give a new impetus for the prosperity of our countries and peoples. I congratulate you once again and wish you new achievements on that high and responsible position, reads the congratulatory message of President Serzh Sargsyan.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said it was "tentatively not convinced" with the grounds taken by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh to challenge Lok Sabha Speaker's decision to certify a bill to amend Aadhaar law as a money bill. As the government asserted that it fulfilled the criteria as the expenditure for the welfare schemes has to be drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India, the apex court said the
issue was "important and serious" and it did not want to take a call on it in haste.
It granted four weeks to Ramesh's counsel and senior advocate P Chidambaram to prepare his case by taking into account all the objections raised by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who also said that the decision of the Speaker cannot be brought under judicial scrutiny.
The remarks "tentatively, we are not convinced and you can convince us" came from a bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice N V Ramana, after the Attorney General countered Chidambaram's submissions by stating that all criteria laid down under the Constitution have been incorporated in the bill to be designated a money bill.
Chidambaram, the former Finance Minister, was trying to convince the bench that the bill was certified as a money bill to avoid its scrutiny before the Rajya Sabha which does not have any say on a money bill. "More and more bills are certified as money bills to bypass the Rajya Sabha," Chidambaram told the bench which asked, "what ex-facie can you show us in it (Aadhaar bill) that does not fall in the criteria for money bill".
However, after Rohatgi said the bill fulfilled all the constitutional requirements including that all the expenditure incurred on subsidies for welfare scheme would be withdrawn from the consolidated fund, the bench told the Congress leader that before this submission by the Attorney General, it was in agreement with the points raised by them.
"We were quite agreeable but now certain points have been raised by the Attorney General," the bench said. Rohatgi submitted that the Speaker of the House was a high constitutional post and decisions are taken with responsibility. However, the bench said, "So be it. But does it mean it cannot be examined. We are also holding constitutional posts. We also pass judgements and the constitution bench overturns
them".
"This is a serious issue. Your (Centre) intention may be good," the bench observed.
Calcutta High Court judge C S Karnan, against whom the Supreme Court had issued a contempt notice for writing letters casting aspersions on several judges, failed to appear in the court.
The Supreme Court deferred the proceedings in the case by three weeks as neither Karnan nor his lawyer appeared before it. Karnan was to appear before a constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Khehar and six other judges directed that Karnan would not discharge any judicial and administrative functions during the pendency of the proceedings.
The Supreme Court took on record letter written by Karnan to Registrar General of apex court in which he alleged victimisation for being a Dalit.
"We are not aware of reasons for his non-appearance. We, therefore, refrain from proceeding with the matter," The Supreme court said.
The Supreme Court had also directed Karnan to hand over all files relating to his judicial and administrative functions to the Registrar General of the High Court.
Besides Khehar, other judges on the bench are Justice Dipak Misra, Justice J Chelameswar, Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Kurian Joseph.
The issuance of contempt notice to Karnan assumes significance as it is for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court that it has invoked powers to initiate contempt proceedings against a sitting judge of a High Court.
Earlier on 8 February, at the outset of the hearing, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that the nature of various communications by Karnan were "very very scandalous" and "embarrassing" and the "time has come for this court to act".
He urged the court to act so that a clear message should go to the citizens that the top court will not hesitate in taking action against its own judge in the High Court.
Urging the court to ask the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court not to assign Karnan any judicial or administrative work, the attorney-general said that he was through his actions "destroying the administration of justice".
The AG said this pointing out that Karnan wrote disparaging letters to the Prime Minister, Law Minister, Supreme Court Registrar about sitting and retired top court and High court judges. In case of some judges, Karnan had even levelled the allegation of corruption and caste discrimination.
Karnan had also stayed the top court collegium's decision transferring him from Madras High Court to Calcutta High Court.
AG said that the top court was empowered under Article 129 of the constitution read with Article 142(2) to punish the High Court judges and the members of the subordinate judiciary.
However, Khehar said that since it was happening for the first time and "We have to be very careful in going about it."
With inputs from agencies.
Editor's note: The following is the full text of the Tufail Ahmed's speech delivered at a counter-radicalisation conference that was held in New Delhi on 16 January:
In the current weather of counter-nationalism sweeping through India's television studios, it's a privilege to share this stage with two military veterans, Lieutenant-General RK Sawhney and Lieutenant-General Syed Ata Hasnain. At think tanks in New Delhi, we rarely meet someone from Bangladesh. So, it is a pleasure to be speaking here with Faiz Sobhan, a well-known counter-extremism expert.
Ideas kill. Ideas have consequences. Most Muslims do not read the Quran with meaning. Let me put it this way: Most Muslims do not offer prayers five times. Most Muslims are peaceful. I am not here to talk about peace. Because, it is not due to peace that you and I are here.
I have a message for the generation of my grandchildren and their children. In your times, Hindus will be forced to leave parts of West Bengal, parts of Kerala, parts of Bihar and parts of Uttar Pradesh much like my Hindu elders were forced to leave Kashmir; much like the Sikh metropolis of Lahore is now Islamic; much like the Hindu city Multan is no longer Hindu; much like the Zoroastrian nation of Iran is no longer Zoroastrian; much like there are no Jews in Saudi Arabia.
In 1901, US president William McKinley was assassinated by a young Hungarian refugee (Leon Czolgosz), who was inspired by a philosophy. Islam is a philosophy of life, a religion, a type of politics, a system of ideas, an ideology, a movement of ideas all combined into one. Islamism is Islam's methodology. Jihadism is the weaponised version of Islamism.
Radicalisation is rooted in ideological-religious teachings: In the case of Muslims, it is rooted in Islam; in the case of Naxalites, it is rooted in communism. In the case of Muslims, Islamic clerics and Urdu editors radicalise youths; in the case of Naxalites, professors such as those from the Jawaharlal Nehru University radicalise youths to a point where they choose to live in jungles and take up weapons.
Radicalisation takes place among Muslims all the time. For example, Vivekananda International Foundation's Navroz Singh has published a good paper on radicalisation in Central Asian states. The thrust of her paper is that radicalisation was dormant in Central Asia during the communist era, became active after the fall of the USSR and is more active with the birth of the Islamic State (IS). Because radicalisation takes place all the time among Muslims, a more relevant phrase is "further radicalisation" it was coined by Sultan Shahin, editor of the reformist website NewAgeIslam.com.
To understand terrorism in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Kashmir, all you need is to study only one subject: Pakistan. Across South Asia, we are noticing two types of radicalisation, a new and small portion of it is self-radicalisation and proactive recruitment by terror groups based abroad; but a large and dangerous portion of radicalisation in South Asia is state-backed, that is, backed by the Pakistani Military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The state-backed radicalisation is rooted in the ISI's Islamist ideology and in Pakistan's identity. Looking into the next few decades, Pakistan-backed radicalisation will not end for many reasons but the key reason why it will not end is the US aid to Pakistani military. It's unfortunate that the US aid is a direct threat to the Pakistani people first, as well as to the happiness of the people of Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh. Unless the US stops aid to Pakistani military, simply forget that jihadism will end. Washington is part of our problem, the cause of our sorrow.
It's not that Americans do not know that the ISI births, trains, shelters and uses jihadi organisations. In Guantanamo Bay, US officials classified the ISI as a terrorist group, as revealed by WikiLeaks, a very authentic source of information. In 1998, US President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles on six compounds used by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan along the Pakistani border, but the important point was that those compounds were built by the ISI. Elsewhere, I have argued that Al Qaeda is a branch of the Pakistani military, though it has expanded further and beyond.
There are two key themes of the current session: Sufi Islam in South Asia and Reformation. My argument is this: All groups and sects of Islam are involved in radicalisation through mosques, madrassas, jalsas (congregations) and Urdu/Islamic newspapers. The fact that the colour and shape of burqa changes does not mean that it is not burqa. Sometimes clothes are not clothes, clothes are ideas, much like humans are ideas, not meat and bones. Since Islam is the youngest of the Middle Eastern religions, I believe that Islamic reformation can happen if Islamic clerics seriously think over it, but that is not happening for now.
In August 1936, in Chakwal in present-day Pakistan, Murid Hussain who had offered bai'yah to the Sufi mystic Khwaja Abdul Aziz Chishti, procured a dagger and killed Hindu doctor Ram Gopal for allegedly naming an animal after the prophet. Murid Hussain belonged to the Sufi school.
In 2015, exactly for the same theological reason, two brothers shot dead a dozen editors and cops at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. They belonged to Al-Qaeda. Exactly for the same reason, last year, a group of Islamic clerics in Bijnor offered a reward of Rs 51 lakh to kill Kamlesh Tiwari, either in jail or outside. In 2011, exactly for the same theological reason, Salman Taseer was killed by a member of the Barelvi group Dawat-e-Islami, which is gaining popularity in Maharashtra.
I stress that all sects of Islam are involved in radicalisation, or in further radicalisation.
For example, Imam Khomeini sent killers for Salman Rushdie exactly for the same reason, though he belonged to the Shia sect. Or, much before jihadism in Kashmir became a force, Shia Kashmiris were the first to take up weapons right during the course of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Tehran, and weapons were also seized from them. In the current phase, Shia radicalism is dormant but radicalisation is underway. For radicalisation to become violent, it must happen in a certain geo-strategic context in which the US aid to Pakistani military assumes murderous consequences.
In 2009, Major Nidal Hasan shot dead 13 colleagues at Fort Hood, but he was not the first self-radicalising soldier to do so. In the British colonial India, Hindu soldier Charan Das was shot dead by Muslim soldier Miyan Mohammad at the Karachi cantonment in 1937. Babu Merajuddin shot dead his Sikh officer Major Hardyal Singh in Lucknow in 1942. After 2001, the US lodged the jihadis in Guantanamo Bay, which is not the first offshore detention centre. During the British rule, jihadis were routinely sent to the Andaman Islands for detention, along with others. The streets of Lahore in the 1920s through 1940s looked similar to the streets of Paris and Berlin today.
During the Khilafat Movement, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Abdul Bari and others issued a fatwa asking Indian Muslims to move to an Islamic state, something Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is doing now. Addressing Indian Muslims in Kolkata on 27 October, 1914, Maulana Azad delivered, let me call it "a bloody speech," radicalising Muslims.
There is no time to go into the details of his speech but I would like to state emphatically that there is absolutely no difference between what Maulana Azad was saying then and what Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi says now. He went on to become India's first education minister, much like an Urdu editor who radicalises Muslims every week through his weekly Nai Duniya was moderating a session here this morning, in the name of moderate Islam.
In recent years, the Pakistani military has co-opted different militant groups, such as Punjabi Taliban chief Asmatullah Muawiya. Some terror attacks by IS are reported in Balochistan but we must keep in mind that it is Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose members were the first to go to Syria to work as part of IS from 2011.
The Afghan Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Jamaatud Dawa continue to work for the ISI. At any point of time, Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) and Jamaat-e-Islami are in a position to take over Pakistan with a slightest hint from ISI. Arif Jamal, the US-based counter-terror expert who could not be here today, said in a recent interview: "JuD was conceived and created as an organisation that can run a modern state. That is why JuD placed equal stress on recruiting its members from all professions and gives training to its members in all fields of statecraft."
In the case of Pakistan, the biggest worry is its educational emergency. For any country to progress, you need a certain size of the population to be educationally qualified with the capability to think straight. While we know that madrassas in Pakistan are a problem, the bigger problem are the government-run schools that teach hate against non-Muslims, Christians, Hindus and others.
By all metrics, Pakistan will not be able to give primary education to all its children before 2050. As per Pakistan Education Emergency Report 2011, at current rate of progress, Punjab will provide education to all its children under 16 years by 2041, Sindh by 2049, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by 2064 and Balochistan by 2100 which means that there is no hope for positive change in Pakistan.
So, is there hope for Islamic reformation in India? Islamic reformation must come from Islamic scholars, which is unlikely. Sufism can help manage radicalism; it cannot counter it. However, we have a historical model. Although India's Hindu right-wing lambasts Lord Macaulay, not without justification, yet it is from him that we must learn and introduce change through school textbooks. Right from grade one through XII, children must be taught physics, mathematics and economics along with a textbook that teaches children the idea of god as believed by atheists, Zoroastrians, Jews, Hindus and others.
And for Islamic reformation to begin, we must look up to non-Islamic subjects. In Afghanistan, reformation begins when you buy a bicycle for your daughter. In India, reformation begins when you allow your daughter to contest panchayat elections. In Pakistan, reformation begins when you permit your daughter to shun burqa. In Bangladesh, reformation begins when you allow your daughter to do wrestling. Democracies must introduce mandatory military service for all, including women above 18 years of age, if we want to counter radicalisation. The issue of reformation must be seen within the broader context of liberty.
In the morning session, General NC Vij (the director of the VIF and former Army chief) said that we need to develop "community-specific options" to counter radicalisation. My point is this: Instead of running a Sufi express train, can we run a Sania Mirza express? Thank you!
The author, a former BBC journalist, is a contributing editor at Firstpost and executive director of the Open Source Institute, New Delhi. He tweets @tufailelif
The politics over the presence of Rohingyas a persecuted Muslim ethnic group from Myanmar in Jammu and Kashmir is heating up, as the National Conference and other regional parties have asked the BJP to oust this ethnic minority from Jammu division.
The BJP MLAs from Jammu division were the first to rake up the issue of Rohingyas and Bangladeshi migrants in the recently held budget session of the J&K assembly. But the state government said that the issue of Rohingyas was a humanitarian one and it was not appropriate for the government to expel them from the state.
On Sunday, the principle opposition party in Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference, lashed out at BJP for hoodwinking public opinion over the issue of Rohingya and Bangladeshis migrants in Jammu, saying instead of acting against the illegal settlers, its leaders were playing to the galleries to hog the headlines.
Who is stopping BJP led NDA at the Centre and PDP-BJP Government in Jammu and Kashmir to tackle Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, National Conference spokesperson, Madan Mantoo asked, adding that his party has many times sought deportation of the illegal settlers as per Foreigners Act from Jammu and Kashmir. It is a deliberate attempt to vitiate the atmosphere in the state.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) recently put hoardings across the city threatening the Rohingya and Bangladeshis migrants to immediately leave the Jammu or face the consequences.
JKNPP chairman, Harshdev Singh, told Firstpost last week that if the state government does not throw them out, we will do that. The hoardings which came up in and around Jammu city, asking Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims to leave the area said, let us all Jammuities unite to save History, Culture and Identity of Dogras.
Rohingyas were first denied citizenship in 1982 by General Ne Wins government in the erstwhile Burma. Since then, this Muslim minority group (in the Buddhist-majority Myanmar) largely lives in the troubled state of Rakhine. In 2012 riots, more than 735,000 Rohingyas were forced to flee from Burma to live in ghettos and refugee camps in neighbouring countries, including India. New Delhi had allowed more than 25,000 Rohingya Muslims to settle in different parts of the country in camps.
Rightwing groups like Shiv Sena too expressed deep concern over the increasing number of population of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis in Jammu, asking them to leave the city. Dimpy Kohli, state president of Shiv Sena, made an appeal to people of Jammu, especially Hindus, to wake up and unite to thrown the migrants out of the Jammu.
The Jammu and Kashmir government recently said that more than 1,200 Rohingya families, comprising of 6,000 people, have been living in different parts of Jammu for the last six years. They are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and also with the Union Home Ministry. But now, they are at the crossroads of a fierce political debate raging in this winter capital, whether they should be allowed, at all, to live in the state.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti recently stated that 5,743 Burmese (Rohingyas) are staying in the state and no instance of radicalisation has been reported among them so far. No Rohingya has been found involved in militancy-related incidents. However, 17 FIRs have been registered against 38 Rohingyas for various offences, Mehbooba, who holds the charge of the Home Department also, had said in a written reply to a question of BJP MLA Sat Sharma in the Legislative Assembly.
Now the opposition parties are bracing up for a showdown with Mehbooba Mufti government over settling Rohingya Muslims in Jammu division. Leading the charge is National Conference which has challenged the government to act against the Rohingya and Bangladeshis from Jammu.
Almost all political groups, expect PDP and BJP, and including Congress, have been demanding the expulsion of both Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. The past few days have also witnessed demonstrations in Jammu over the issue.
Karnataka assembly on Monday passed a bill to facilitate the conduct of "Kambala" a buffalo race in the state's coastal areas, reports The Times of India.
The Karnataka High Court on 30 January had declined to vacate its 18 November interim stay on Kambala till the Supreme Court's verdict on Jallikattu bull-taming sport in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, posting the case's next hearing for 13 February.
The centuries-old buffalo races are held in the wetlands of coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Uduipi, about 400km from Bengaluru, from November-March every year to celebrate a good harvest and as a recreational sport for farmers and rural folk.
Kambala involves a pair of buffaloes tied to the plough and anchored by one person.
They are made to run in parallel muddy tracks in a competition in which the fastest team wins.
Piloting the Bill, Animal Husbandry minister A Manju said Kambala was a traditional folk sport and involved no cruelty to animals and it was a "popular will" that it be allowed.
A committee headed by Law Minister T B Jayachandra had recommended that Kambala, as also bullock cart race, be permitted as no betting or cruelty to animals was involved and it related to agriculture and farmers' beliefs, Manju said.
Animal rights activists on 25 January challenged the amendment Bill to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, passed by the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly on 23 January to nullify the apex court's 7 May, 2014 ban on Jallikattu.
The apex court also banned Kambala in coastal Karnataka along with Jallikattu on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) India, Compassion Unlimited Plus Action and the Animal Welfare Board of India.
Peta also sought a ban on Kambala, as the buffaloes are whipped to race faster in slush paddy fields for their owners to win cash prizes from Rs 10,000 to Rs five lakh.
Demand for reviving Kambala in Karnataka came soon after the Tamil Nadu passed the law replacing the ordinance to bypass the apex court's ban on Jallikattu, held during the Pongal festival in mid-January every year.
Though the state cabinet on 28 January cleared the draft bill to amend the PCA Act for reviving Kambala, by introducing it in the legislature session from 6 February, the Mangaluru-based Kambala Committee sought an ordinance to overcome the high court's interim stay.
The committee filed an interim application in the high court for vacating its stay on resuming Kambala after Tamil Nadu's law to allow Jallikattu.
With inputs from agencies.
Srinagar: The father of a civilian who was killed in Kashmir on Sunday in an encounter that left seven people dead, including two soldiers, has alleged that his son was detained and killed by government forces during the operation.
The 12-hour-long gunfight that began on Saturday midnight after a joint team of local police and Army launched a search operation after receiving intelligence about the presence of militants in the area ended on Sunday morning. The four militants hiding in the house of Abdul Majeed Rishi in Nagbal village in south Kashmirs Kulgam district were killed. But the encounter and its aftermath left more than two dozen people injured and the son of Abdul Majeed Rishi dead.
They (forces) took my two sons away on Saturday midnight and I received the body of one son on Sunday afternoon, Abdul Majeed Rishi said. On Monday, villagers were seen collecting money to rebuild his house which was demolished during the encounter.
The family members have contradicted the police and army version that Ishaaq Ahmad Rishi, 40, the father of a 2-year-old daughter, was killed in crossfire when the forces were carrying out search operation in their house. He (Ishaaq) was killed by the forces because both brothers were in their custody. How come one came back alive and the other was killed? asked Muzamil Rashid, a neighbour.
Earlier Brigadier R Chakravarty, Commander, 1 Sector RR, said that Ishaaq attained martyrdom along with two soldiers when militants fired at the search party approaching the house.
We called on the Auqaf Committee to ask for the hostages to be released through the public address system, but when the terrorists didnt release him we had no other alternative but to the enter the house. Seeing us approaching, Ishaaq came running towards us. However, the militants hiding behind him opened heavy fire. Unfortunately, Ishaaq and our two soldiers were martyred, said Chakarwarty.
The anger over the death of the two civilians has led to fresh clashes between the forces and the protesters throughout south Kashmir, with the National Conference demanding a probe into the deaths.
The foundation for another cycle of unrest is being laid by targeting and killing of innocent youth. The promise of maximum restraint by the Government has proved to be hollow. They have failed miserably in protecting the lives of innocent people, said Dr Bashir Ahmad Veeri, National Conference leader from south Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party tweeted: Deeply grieved and saddened by the loss of precious human lives in the Frisal incident. Govt will look into the matter and will try to find out all the circumstances that led to such damage at the place.
On Monday, Kashmir witnessed a complete shutdown. Deputy inspector general of police, south Kashmir, S P Pani said that the situation across south Kashmir remained under control, but section 144 was imposed in some areas. The shutdown was called by the Hurriyat Conference.
Meanwhile, the Indian army paid tribute to two soldiers Lance Naik Bhandoriya Gopal Singh and Sepoy Raghubeer Singh who were martyred in the encounter.
Pakistan-based counterfeiters have manufactured fake Rs 2,000 notes, which are being pushed by smugglers through the India-Bangladesh border, reports The Indian Express.
The report comes days after the seizures and arrests made by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Border Security Force (BSF).
One man was arrested on 8 February with 40 fake Indian currency notes of the newly introduced Rs 2,000 denomination in Murshidabad district of West Bengal. The counterfeit notes, of face value Rs 80,000, were seized from Azizur Rahman, a resident of Baishnabnagar in Malda district.
"Acting on a tip-off, the Islampur police station personnel carried out a raid and arrested Azizur Rahman from his residence," Murshidabad Police Superintendent Mukesh Kumar said. "Forty counterfeit notes of the newly introduced Rs 2,000 denomination currency notes were seized from him," Kumar added.
According to The Indian Express report, a study by investigators and experts of the seized notes revealed that at least 11 of the 17 security features in the new Rs 2,000 notes had been replicated.
Meanwhile, an RTI query has revealed that the Reserve Bank of India has no confirmed data of the number or value of fake currencies detected since the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
With inputs from agencies.
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AIADMK has the largest number of members in Parliament after the BJP. The Centre needs AIADMK, not just to help it in Parliament but also to get its candidate elected as the next President of India. The AIADMK numbers could become even more important if the Akalis get trounced in Punjab and the BJP doesn't win Uttar Pradesh, bringing down its numbers in the electoral college for the presidential election. The dilemma for the BJP is this: How far can it go to stall Sasikala? And, if it does, what would be the repercussions? Will she become vengeful towards the Centre and join the anti-BJP coalition that could take shape after the elections in Uttar Pradesh? There is no easy answer to any of these questions.
Veteran AIADMK leader PH Pandian created a stir after opposing VK Sasikala's elevation and alleging foul play in late chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death. Pandian went onto say that there was a fight at Poes Garden in which 'Jaya was pushed' after which she collapsed leading to her hospitalisation.
Jaya slogged for a decade and endured crushing misogyny, humiliation and even physical assault to inherit her mentors legacy. And, when she rose to power she did it on her own terms because the AIADMK that she fought for was her own party. In 1989, that brought the DMK back to power, her party won 27 seats while her rivals managed just two before disappearing. Two years later, she became the chief minister, with a landslide victory (partial thanks to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi). In other words, Jayalalithaa wrote her own story, that too following the rules laid out in the books of democracy, and didnt usurp anybody elses. In contrast, the narrative that we see now in Tamil Nadu is one of manipulation. Sasikala neither has Jayas approval nor peoples mandate, still, she wants to be the chief minister. Has she waited and led her party to a victory in an election, there would have been less cynicism and resistance. Probably, people would have even hailed her.
PH Pandian and Manoj Pandian raised some questions on Sasikala, who took charge as AIADMK's general secretary. "This can not be a permanent posting for her in the party as it has to be signed by every member of the party to make her the party's general secretary. So, she cannot sustain the role for a long time," he claimed and added that the current members who have elected Sasikala as the party's general secretary joined the AIADMK after the era of its founder MG Ramachandran, and so they do not know the basic constitution of the party.
There should be a probe into what happened on 22 September: KC Palanisamy, AIADMK | CNN-News18
The petition ' Dissolve Tamil Nadu government and stop Sasikala from becoming Tamil Nadu CM ' has so far garnered 156,410 supporters. Calling the stepping down of O Panneerselvam as a conspiracy, Tamil Asaran PSR has filed the petition via ChangeIndia.org. Earlier, reports said that the petition will be delivered to President Pranab Mukherjee, TN Governor Vidyasagar Rao and the Chief Election Commissioner's office.
Sasikala doesn't have the mandate of the people. She is unqualified to be Tamil Nadu CM. If the party had let O Pannerselvam, it would have been acceptable. Legally, the party has a mandate, but morally they do not. People have a say in who is going to be their chief minister. The moral thing would be to dissolve the assembly and call for fresh election. The mandate given by the people in 2016 was not for the AIADMK. People in Tamil Nadu voted for Jayalalitha.
Sasikala is unqualified to be TN CM, it's time for fresh election: Karti Chidambaram
Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and the other two accused spent 21 days in jail, subsequently coming out on bail. On appeal in the Karnataka High Court, the trial courts verdict was overturned all four were acquitted. The Karnataka government, which took over the role of prosecutor once the case was shifted to Bengaluru, appealed in the apex court. Orders were reserved by Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy in June 2016.
The disproportionate assets case, commonly known as the DA case, is 19 years old. In 1996, the then Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government slapped cases on rival Jayalalithaa and four others, accusing them of holding disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 66 crores. In 2014, a special court trying the case in Bengaluru convicted all four of possessing unexplained wealth and sentenced them to four years of jail time each, along with a Rs 100 crore fine.
"On behalf of AIADMK, we want to say we are united. There are attempts to break up the party, but true followers are those who back the principle of unity. Even after the party split after MGR's death, I stayed with the party and worked for it. It is our responsibility to dispel claims made by Pandian. He had broken away from the party. Even now, he is raising false claims about honourable 'Amma' after her death. He was working against the party's interests. When Amma was given special security in the late 90s, Pandian argued in the SC against this. He is working against the party, sowing the seeds of doubt in the party cadre," it added.
"If people (Pandian) had complaints, they should have raised it internally, not held a press conference. What he is saying isn't the truth. We are rejecting charges made by Pandian. There are leaders who were at the hospital throughout the 75 days," the AIADMK said in a press conference.
'It's very sad day for Tamil Nadu. The people never wanted to it. It's not the person people voted for. Everybody knows that. This should be heard by the people. I do receive a lot of support and suggestion.'
Sasikala is not the person people voted for, says Deepa Jayakumar, niece of Jayalalithaa | CNN-News18
"I won't comment on the judicial process underway, but there is instability in Tamil Nadu. People are in a stage where they don't know what to do. They are being told they need to accept one person as chief minister. This is not right," said Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa Jayakumar.
Can't tell people to accept a person as CM who wasn't elected: Deepa Jayakumar
"I am ready to take back my resignation if the need arises. I was pressured to resign. I am ready to do anything for the good of the party," says former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam.
Brushing aside the charge that he was backed by opposition DMK, former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam said on Wednesday an interim General Secretary cannot dismiss him from party post. He was responding to a charge levelled by Sasikala that Panneerselvam will be removed from the party.
OPS has nothing to lose now, if he stays the course and the Supreme Court ruling goes against Sasikala in the disproportionate assets case, he's on the winning side. But even otherwise, he goes out with all guns blazing as a hero at a time when popular sentiment is against the power centre in Poes Garden.
It's after ages that we saw a happy and smiling O Panneerselvam, despite what would have been a sleepless night. For OPS to be surrounded by media and answering questions on a political uprising is novel. "Everyone reaches a tipping point, this was his. There's no point asking why he did not lash out earlier," says an OPS aide.
Amid political uncertainty in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra governor Vidyasagar Rao, who also holds additional charge for the southern state, continued to stay put in Mumbai on Wednesday with no indication of when he will travel to Chennai. "So far, we have no information on whether the governor has any travel plans for Chennai or Delhi," a Raj Bhavan official told PTI.
O Panneerselvam has said former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death must be probed. This is the one thing that the Sasikala camp never wanted. "We will set up a probe commission", OPS said, hitting Sasikala where it hurts the most.
Questions that are begging to be answered are as follows: How does a wily politician as Jayalalithaa not have a will? How does Sasikala, who never held any political post and remained as Jayalalithaa's caretaker, get up and take over as the chief minister? The current situation in Chennai is like a beehive of political activities.
Some are calling it the Game of Thrones. The drama unfolding in Tamil Nadu's capital city Chennai since Tuesday night reached a fever pitch after the incumbent chief minister O Panneerselvam's made some explosive revelation saying that he was forced to quit as the CM after Jayalalithaa's death.
That question is finally being asked. The chaos after Jayalalithaa's death has certainly had one happy fallout democracy has come back to the streets.
Battle hardened MLAs in the OPS camp are now raising their voices against Sasikala's legitimacy for public office even if she is the AIADMK chief. Who are the people who define a political party? Those battle hardened by even a lone victory in an election or those who own large tracts of real estate, control cable networks and then arm twist both the powerful and the weak because of proximity to Jayalalithaa for many years.
The knives are out. O Panneerselvam's revolt has hardened the resolve of the anti-Sasikala camp enough for them to ask more confidently the most uncomfortable questions about what they call the Mannargudi mafia Sasikala and her "coterie of goons".
Sasikala, obviously won't go down without a fight. BJP and the central government are backseat orchestrators of this drama. Sasikala earlier claimed that her faction of the AIADMK is the real and the genuine one and that they will for sure prove majority in Assembly.
Interim general secretary of AIADMK Sasikala has arrived at the party headquarters in Royapettah to gauge the sense among the MLAs and tell them that she is not going anywhere and she will take this fight to its logical end - a floor test.
According to News18 (who are present outside the AIADMK HQ in Chennai), Sasikala has reached the AIADMK headquarters to meet the MLAs. Analysts see this as a show of strength. According to reports, 130 MLAs out of 135 are present for the legislature party meet which is expected to start soon.
If he is not going to recommend President's Rule, the governor will be forced to invite Sasikala to form the government.
And as of today, there is only one elected leader of the AIADMK legislature party. Its also worth considering what happens if the Supreme Court verdict on the disproportionate assets case isnt delivered next week?
There is a very real possibility that this might badly backfire. In the present situation, Panneerselvam cannot continue even as caretaker chief minister unless the rest of the Cabinet is with him. Consequently, the governor cannot afford to wait for a few days to appoint his successor.
After the dust kicked up be O Panneerselvam's revolt settles, it's worth considering the flip-side of the caretaker chief minister's actions.
Pandian alleged that there was a quarrel at Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden home during which she was "pushed down". It's the most talked about nugget that covers the hour or so before Jayalalithaa was rushed to Apollo Hospital last September. Take this with a pinch of salt though. The alleged story goes that "Jayalalithaa got a whiff of something that was going awfully wrong in New Delhi on a crucial matter. She and Sasikala allegedly had a shouting match after which Sasikala allegedly pushed her down and then asked Jaya's most trusted bodyguard to go home. Jaya reportedly never left for any place without that particular bodyguard who goes by the nickname of Apu. But on that evening, Apu was allegedly asked to disappear from the scene or was led away. So, nobody except Sasikala knew in what state Jayalalithaa was taken to hospital."
In the absence of any information on Jayalaithaa's long illness, many stories have filled the gaps. The one that veteran AIADMK leader and former Assembly speaker PH Pandian raked up in his outburst against Sasikala on 7 February is the one that has the most 'shares' in political circles.
CNN-News18 has reported that there is no provision for a "temporary general secretary" in the AIADMK's constitution, and all elected MLAs need to vote in order to elect a party chief, as demanded by O Panneerselvam.
India Today reports that after chairing a meeting of AIADMK MLAs, VK Sasikala has urged them to stick together and to not be swayed by "traitors", refering to O Panneerselvam's coup.
"If anybody tries to take us for a ride, we will see through it. Why was Panneerselvam quiet for so many days? Why was he collaborating with our enemies? We will not be cowed down by these dirty tricks. Nobody can stop us because Amma's will is with us."
Sasikala hits back at OPS: Says former CM betrayed the trust of Amma and joined hands with DMK
"As the great MGR said, fear is foolishness, you must rise above fear. We will defeat those forces. I swear this in the name of Amma. Long live Amma, Long Live MGR. Amma was my heart and my God. For 33 years, there were many ups and downs. I have faced many betrayals and I have overcome those episodes and I will overcome these as well. There is confusion in the minds of the people, but I will clear everything very soon. Enemies are coming thick and fast. This is the deceitful plan of the DMK. I decided to make OPS the chief minister after Amma passed away. Even though people told me become the chief minister, I refused because I was grieving. OPS has been colluding with the Opposition. But Amma showed us the way. The events of the last few days has forced me to take this step. The steps OPS took in the past few days undermined every party worker and Amma's spirit. This is a deviation from Amma's path and I won't allow it."
"When Amma died, there was confusion about the future of the party. But it's love and culture that sustains us. All this is a deceitful plan from the DMK. It was my decision to make Panneerselvam chief minister though many people asked me to become CM. I told them I wasn't in a mental position to become CM. I was grieving. For 2 months, Panneerselvam has collaborated with opposition. But i forgave him for that. But the events of the last two days have forced me to take this step."
The interim general secretary of AIADMK Sasikala addressed the media and used extremely powerful words and implored MLAs to stay together. Quoting MGR's famous poem, Sasikala alleged that in a time like this when there are devious attempts by DMK and Panneerselvam to break the party. "Fear is foolishness, you must rise above fear."
If President gives them time, plan is also to fly them to Delhi.
A five star hotel, News18 reported. They will be there till Governor comes. Alternately AIADMK has also sought time from President to parade MLAs.
130 AIADMK MLA's who came to party office this morning were ferried away in a bus to an undisclosed location.
But Tuesday night's events have raised legal concerns for the Governor. The outgoing chief minister visited late J Jayalalithaa's memorial and sat for an hour, after which he publicly revolted against AIADMK chief Sasikala. The prospects of Sasikalas immediate swearing-in as chief minister is now the hands of Governor. On Monday, the Governor was in Coimbatore for a function but didn't visit Chennai, and instead flew to Delhi, say sources. Rao reached to Mumbai on Tuesday night. Reports suggest that he was seeking legal advice before administering the oath of office to Sasikala.
While the administration in Chennai awaits the Governor for Sasikala's inaugural ceremony, the state head is attending a convocation ceremony at Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai on Wednesday and hence is unlikely to reach Tamil Nadu by Thursday. Sources add that he is taking legal advice before the appointment of Sasikala as the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
While Tamil Nadu is reeling under immense leadership crisis, Tamil Nadu governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who also serves as Maharashtra governor, is unlikely to visit the state in the next couple of days, claim sources.
All in all, it was a bravura show.
Another thing about him was the cool and self-assured way with which he delivered his words. There was no panic or anxiety in his voice, as he delivered his lines in an even and easy tone.
Panneerselvam, who is self-effacing and a bit withdrawn generally, did not exactly give off an aggressive mien, but he certainly was confident and assertive. His smile had a confident and conspiratorial grease. At any rate, it wasn't innocuous or innocent.
The biggest takeaway from yesterday's 'meditation' and the subsequent sensational presser from Chief Minister Panneerselvam at Jayalalithaa memorial is the remarkable transformation, not just in his approach, but in his whole body language.
That is why, Sir, you are the governor.
What Rao should be doing is sitting in Chennai where there is a crisis and not just mediating a peaceful solution but using the legal precedence to dissolve the crisis and take a decision.
This is a perfect example of the wastage that these grandiose real estate groundskeepers engage in and their total inability to take any sort of executive action without literally being held by the hand.
Take Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao when he ostensibly rushed to Delhi to get a bead on how to resolve the Sasikala issue and then lammed back to Mumbai instead of Chennai. Video footage of the VIP cavalcade taking him to the airport underscored the filthy splendour for these people and yet, while he could attend a wedding in Delhi he still cannot make it to Chennai to clear the mess the state is in politically.
Which is not very often but on those rare occasions where this colonial remnant has a federal duty to perform and is missing it is then worth asking why we need to keep them on the taxpayers dole with incredible perks and privileges.
One of the questions that would baffle most Indians is what exactly is the role of a governor and where are they when needed.
Governor Vidyasagar Rao get on a plane to Chennai, do your job
However, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu earlier said that the Centre or BJP has no role in "internal matters" of crisis-ridden AIADMK and asserted that Governor C Vidyasagar Rao will take a decision in line with the Constitution to resolve the issue. Fissures widened within the ruling AIADMK after caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam yesterday claimed he was forced to resign from the post to pave the way for party General Secretary VK Sasikala's elevation to the post. "I don't want to comment on what is happening internally in AIADMK. And Centre and BJP doesn't have any role in it.
Speaking to TV channels outside the Parliament, Swamy lashed out at the Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao and said that what kind of a Governor leaves the state he is in charge of when it's in such crisis. Slamming the ongoing drama in the state, Swamy also questioned how Panneerselvam could withdraw his resignation as it was unconstitutional. "AIADMK should stop watching cinema. All this happens only in films," Swamy told the India Today reporter.
While Tamil Nadu is reeling under leadership crisis, rumours have been abound about BJP and the central government's involvement, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said that a few members from the party had orchestrated the current crisis.
The interim general secretary of AIADMK VK Sasikala speaks about her position in the party and how Jayalalithaa was in her last few days. Watch this space.
Sasikala told News18 that she felt betrayed by what Panneerselvam did and asserted that the entire drama unfolded because Panneerselvam joined hands with the DMK. She told News18 that she staked claim to form the government in Tamil Nadu and despite telling the Governor more than once about her fears about Panneerselvam, noone paid heed to her.
In a first ever interview to a television channel, Sasikala speaks at length about the treatment given to Jayalalithaa when she was unwell. Sasikala also said that she is willing to stand up to any inquiry for the allegations that she is behind Jayalalithaa's death.
Here are the highlights from Sasikala's interview with News18
Sasikala told News18 that she felt betrayed by what Panneerselvam did and asserted that the entire drama unfolded because Panneerselvam joined hands with the DMK. She told News18 that she staked claim to form the government in Tamil Nadu and despite telling the Governor more than once about her fears about Panneerselvam, noone paid heed to her.
In a first ever interview to a television channel, Sasikala speaks at length about the treatment given to Jayalalithaa when she was unwell. Sasikala also said that she is willing to stand up to any inquiry for the allegations that she is behind Jayalalithaa's death.
Here are the highlights from Sasikala's interview with News18
Sasikala said, "AIADMK cadres came to meet with me at my home in Poes Garden. As the General secretary I told them that I am here and I will take this organisation forward on the vision shown to us by Amma. I told them that we will bring back Amma's government for the welfare of the people after which they left my residence. At the time there was a lot noise outside my residence and I told them that I will take the party forward. They said who is this Pannerselvam. Time will tell."
When asked to comment on Panneerselvam's revolt on Wednesday night, Sasikala said, "I categorically deny that Panneerselvam was forced to reign. We had a pleasant chat when he came to talk to me post his resignation. I don't know who is asking him to say this. Only time will tell."
Sasikala commented on the Tamil Nadu Governor's delay in presiding over her swearing-in ceremony. She said, "I was told the Governor was in Ooty and then he was in Mumbai. There was an acknowledgement but no one could tell why there was a delay in the swearing-in ceremony. I don't think there are political reasons behind the Governor not inviting me. We have sent an letter to Governor via fax. and we have sent a letter again to him to remind about our request. But they just acknowledged. no other reply. We hope that the Governor will save this constitutional process. The majority of the MLA's have chosen me. I am willing to wait patiently."
When asked why Sasikala was blaming the Opposition party- DMK - for the internal problems in her party. She said, "The DMK are our enemy party. You should understand from what MK Stalin said. He said that Panneerselvam should come to power. The whole outlook of DMK was that they were standing behind Panneerselvam. When Amma was the chief minister, you have seen how she behaved in the Assembly. The DMK and AIADMK will continue to be opposite poles when I come to power. What is most important for a political party is what you do for the people. If there is a problem for the people of TN, AIADMK has always worked for the people of TN. Amma has said that she exists for the people. The AIADMK stands at the forefront of saving the people of TN. At the time DMK was in power, they have not bothered to put the people of TN at the forefront. How can we accept DMK which has always acted against the interests of people of TN. Why should there be friendship between DMK and AIADMK?"
When asked Sasikala's take on the comment Panneerselvam made regarding Amma's death, Sasikala said, "I have spent 33 years in this house with Amma. The bodyguard knows how I took care after her. The rumours which are coming out are deliberately planted by someone. As far as I am concerned, the 75 days that Amma was in the hospital, I spent all those days with her and the doctors will testify to how I tool care to her. I live by my conscience and my conscience is clear. Only I know the grief and pain I went through after Amma's death." She broke down in the middle of the sentence as she described the time after Jayalalithaa's death and denied all the rumours surrounding Amma's death. "I feel deeply saddened by the call for an inquiry by Panneerselvam. We don't have any fear. We called doctors from Aiims, London and Singapore."
She also said that she is confident that she will be sworn-in as the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
She was asked to comment on the verdict which is soon going to be out in the DA case. She was also asked whether there was any link between the delay in swearing-in and the verdict of the DA case. She said, "I don't think it is right to comment on an ongoing case."
Sasikala confident that she will be sworn-in as the next TN chief minister
According to office of the Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao, who is also holding additional charge of Tamil Nadu, he would be reaching Chennai on Thursday afternoon.
CNN-News18 has reported that O Panneerselvam has hosted state's chief secretary and the DGP at his residence, in order to prepare for a meeting with Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, said to be later in the afternoon.
Ever since Jayalalithaa's demise on 5 December 2016, her Poes Garden residence has been a bone of contention for those Amma supporters who thought Sasikala and her family forcefully took over the late chief minister's home. Amid the ongoing leadership crisis, reports said that O Panneerselvam has said that the house of Jayalalithaa should be made into a memorial.
Where will O Panneerselvam get his numbers from? Unless more than 10 Sasikala stooges ditch her or OPS has a silent majority that will rise up for him, the math is not adding up yet for the latest rebel from Periyakulam though he remains confident. OPS support remains in single digits on the day the Governor resurfaces in Chennai.
VK Sasikala has safely deposited 130 AIADMK MLAs at a resort 120 km from Chennai, she needs the support of 117 MLAs to prove her majority during a floor test in the Assembly and just counting the white veshtis on board, she has more than enough.
OPS interview with Firstpost: Leader discusses Jayalalithaa's death and her missing will Wednesday was O Panneerselvams day in the sun. The caretaker chief minister of the southern state was flooded with well-wishers and supporters, following his late night announcement of a break with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagams general secretary in-charge, VK Sasikala on Tuesday night. Five MLAs of the ruling party were seen at Panneerselvams residence in Chennai, extending their support. He was careful not to state how many more MLAs were in his favour, but said that many had spoken to him, extending their support. Speaking for the first time on the missing will of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, Panneerselvam stated that he was not aware if a will existed. He also told Firstpost in this exclusive interview that if a will is found, it should be subject to scrutiny by experts before being implemented. Read the full interview here
O Panneerselvam's meeting with the DGP is over. Sources say that Panneerselvam has also written to banks asking them not to allow any transactions without his authorisation as the party Treasurer.
OPS writes to banks asking them not to allow transactions without his authorisation as Party Treasurer
Given the palpable anti-Sasikala sentiment among common folks contrasted starkly by her political clout, these are the ingredients that could make for a popular uprising or general chaos on the streets both in case she becomes the chief minister or if the Supreme Court ruling goes against her.
"Anything can happen and it can happen swiftly, we have to be ready," says a top government source. Wiser after the Jallikattu protests that took them by surprise, senior government officials are getting the furniture in place in case protests break out.
The Tamil Nadu administration is readying for "any eventuality" as the political fight comes to a head today.
Anything can happen today, say govt sources as Tamil Nadu preps for any eventuality
Observers noted that it will be hard to beat OPS if he has the backing of Madhusudhanan. That aside, BJP overseeing the entire drama kind of hints at the fact that OPS could actually come out a winner in this scenario. However, everything is a speculation as of now.
If there is a joint statement by OPS and Madhusudhanan it will be a significant development in the ongoings because Madhusudanan heads the General Council which eventually decides on who the general secretary of the party will be.
Sudden flutter outside O Panneerselvam's residence. According to News18, senior and one of the most crucial leaders of AIADMK Madhusudanan has arrived in Chennai and is currently at the house of O Panneerselvam.
OPS to receive Governor Rao at the airport, Rao will meet MLAs at 5 pm
- Verdict expected "next week", Supreme Court said on 6 February. - Division bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy will pronounce the verdict. - The case against Jayalalithaa and three others - VK Sasikala, J Elavarasi and VN Sudhakaran was filed on 14 June, 1996. - Hearings dragged on till 2014, when the case was transferred from Chennai to Bengaluru. - On 27 September, 2015, a trial court in Karnataka sentenced all 4 accused and bundled them to jail. - In May 2015, the Karnataka High Court acquitted all four and overturned the trial court order. - Karnataka challenged the acquittal in the Supreme Court. - The verdict is pending before the Supreme Court since 7 June, 2016.
Time for a quick rewind to the real decider in the O Panneerselvam versus Sasikala battle - the disproportionate assets case, pending since 1996.
Governor C Vidyasagar Rao is likely to meet Sasikala Natarajan, who claims she has the support of at least 130 MLAs, at 5 pm today in Chennai. All indications are that Rao is likely to advise Sasikala to wait until the Supreme Court decision on the Disproportionate Assets case.
Sensing a fresh wave of support for O Panneerselvam, Sasikalas supporters from Mannargudi have arrived in droves in Chennai.
Addressing the media, OPS said that if Sasikala won this battle using her dirty tricks, it will be a huge blot on democracy.
Buyoed by Madhusudhanan's support, O Panneerselvam addressed the media outside his residence and said that whoever wants to support him is more than welcome. Hours before Sasikala goes to Governor Vidyasagar Rao to stake claim to form the government, two senior and important members of AIADMK have announced their support for OPS.
It is Sasikala who is doing dirty tricks to acquire the chair of CM, if she succeeds it will be a big blot on democracy
When Amma was in hospital, after 24 days Sasikala told me she is fine. that was the first time she spoke to me: OPS
Team OPS has put out contact details of all the MLAs in Sasikala's custody in a bid to up public pressure. Meanwhile, droves of Sasikala supporters are protesting outside Poes Garden. Shouldn't they be outside the OPS address? Wrong number.
"Our Tamil Nadu public will teach Sasikala a lesson she'll never forget", says O Panneerselvam with new-found zing after a senior and crucial AIADMK senior E Madhusudhanan joined him and offered his support.
The relevant players now supporting OPS are SP Shanmuganathan, PH Pandian, Saidai Duraisami, CV Shanmugam and E Madhusudhanan. OPS will meet the Governor at the airport when he arrives in Chennai at 4 pm on Thursday. Local news channels are reporting that OPS is likely to withdraw his resignation which he says he submitted under duress.
Sasikala has not yet sacked this man though.
Did you know? K.P. Munusamy, a Vanniyar leader from Krishnagiri district is the first one from within the AIADMK to challenge Sasikalas rise by hitting out at her family interfering in party affairs.
Who was the first rebel from within AIADMK against Sasikala?
Being caretaker CM has some perks that come in handy during a vertical split in a ruling political party. OPS will get extended time with Governor Vidyasagar Rao. After receiving Rao at the airport at 4 pm, OPS meets him again at Raj Bhavan at 5 pm. Sasikala's meeting is set for later at half past 7 and both without an MLA parade for now.
Panneerselvam claimed that Sasikala is trying to acquire the party as her own asset. Education Minister Ma Foi Pandiyarajan who reached Poes Garden now told media persons that there is no proof for the claims by Panneerselvam against Sasikala. He said that the Panneerselvam is bringing up baseless allegations.
'Panneerselvam has no proof for his claims against Sasikala'
"VK Sasikala bundled 130 AIADMK MLAs into 3 buses, deposited them safely 120 km away from Chennai at a resort in Marakkanam and then took a favorite few to New Delhi; she needs the support of 117 MLAs to prove her majority during a floor test in the Assembly and just counting the white veshtis on board, she has more than enough. Where will O Panneerselvam get these numbers from?"
Sasikala has 130 MLAs captive, how will O Panneerselvam get the numbers?
The news is getting louder that the MLAs holed up in Golden Bay Resorts in Mahabalipuram have neither extra clothes on hand nor are they being allowed to make outgoing calls. This adds credence to Panneerselvam's claim that he will have the numbers, provided he has the time to woo these possible rebels who may have been taken to this coastal resort against their will on buses more than 24 hours ago.
With Governor Vidyasagar Rao saying both Panneerselvam and Sasikala can cart 10 people max with them to their big meeting this evening at Raj Bhavan, thats one more day this week thats ruled out for the Sasikala camp to declare victory.
Other details that have been kept quiet until now - allegations against the Sasikala camp of day to day interference in government affairs are likely to come up.
He will draw attention to how Sasikala has "locked up" her MLAs at a resort and not allowing them to make or receive phone calls and not even venture outside the resort.
He may ask for time, it works better for him if he gets longer to get more campers from the Sasikala side, irrespective of what happens in the DA case verdict.
He may elaborate on exactly how he was pressurised by Sasikala and her coterie to sign his resignation letter. Until now, he has not said anything more than that he was "pressurized" to ostensibly pave the way for OPS to "withdraw" his letter.
Panneerselvam has reached Raj Bhavan. What will OPS tell Tamil Nadu governor? Some highlights are the obvious ones:
Officially, BJP has claimed that it has nothing to do with the ongoings in the AIADMK and has no active role to play in Panneerselvam's revolt. However, sources in BJP told The Indian Express that the BJP wants to ensure the AIADMK stays united and Panneerselvam continues as chief minister.BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao said, "When people without any credibility want to become leader, whats wrong in BJP wanting to be a player in Tamil Nadu? There is political instability (in the state), and its natural that the BJP, as a party, wants to play a role."
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday told several reporters outside Parliament that BJP members were involved in backdoor negotiations in the political crisis unfolding in Tamil Nadu. Swamy lambasted Governor Rao for not being around in such a time and added that he does not support Sasikala as the chief minister. Swamy, however, refrained from commenting whether he backed Panneerselvam as the chief minister.
One of the main people behind Sasikalas push for power and the chief of her camps English soundbites on telly is Thambidurai. He wasnt always ready to play second fiddle. His ambition was to step into Jayalalithaas role. When it became clear that this was not on, he decided to first get rid of Panneerselvam from the hot seat and throw his weight behind Sasikala which is how he derives his clout within this camp.
After the Lok Sabha was adjourned on Thursday, Sasikala loyalist and Lok Sabha's deputy speaker M Thambidurai met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to intervene in the political crisis unfolding in Tamil Nadu.
R K Nagar constituency, which has fallen vacant after Jayalalithaa's death, is the only one thats vacant now and anti-Sasikala sentiment runs very deep here.
Even if Sasikala makes it... If, despite all the challenges in Sasikalas road to becoming the chief minister, she does make it, she will have to win a seat in the State Assembly within six months of being sworn in.
That vote was overwhelmingly for Jayalalithaa the politician and enigma. Whoever in the AIADMK comes to power will have four years to stabilise and plot their next move. Not many in politics get such a parting gift.
Next up is the Sasikala meeting at Raj Bhavan at 7:30pm. The power that both these people are battling for is a gift that's been handed to them by Jayalalithaa before her death a thumping victory in the 2016 state elections even after the epic floods of 2015 and widespread tension over the AIADMK prospects.
"I just met the Governor and told him all that which transpired in the past few days. The good will prevail over evil and I am confident"
Although the BJP is keeping an arm's length on this controversy, fact is that Governor Vidyasagar Rao must be much more in touch with Panneerselvam because of his role as caretaker chief minister and also with the BJP high command Rao is a BJP long timer and the influential RSS voices in the media are all for OPS.
He said nothing more but clearly looked confident and much more relaxed than in the last few days. Smiling and thanking his supporters, OPS has retired to get some rest before what will be a tense few days until the Supreme Court's DA case verdict is out.
"Thanks to all those who have supported me, truth will prevail, have no doubts" said OPS and stopped right there after his meeting with Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao.
Former chief minister O Panneerselvam has told Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao that he gave his resignation under duress, and is willing to take it back.
O Panneerselvam has told Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao that the appointment of VK Sasikala as party general secretary is against its constitution. He also said she must not be allowed to parade MLAs considered loyal to her, and a vote in the state Assembly is the surest way of determining support.
The disproportionate assets case against VK Sasikala and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa will not come up for hearing in the Supreme Court on Friday, and a verdict will only be announced next week.
The timing of Sasikala's meeting with the Governor at 7:30 pm practically rules out any big decision tonight. OPS has apprised the Governor of the manner in which Sasikala has locked up her MLAs in a resort and the Governor is certain to bring it up in the meeting with the self appointed Chinnamma of Tamil Nadu politics.
OPS is winning hands down in all online polls by various newspapers, channels and on social media platforms.
VK Sasikala will mark attendance at Jayalalithaa memorial before heading to Raj Bhavan to place her case before Governor Vidyasagar Rao at 7:30 pm. Symbolic yes, but her rival OPS is the one who has got maximum mileage out of his outburst from the same location, a burial spot still swirling with question marks more than two months after Jayalalithaa's death.
Draped in a green saree, a sartorial choice signature of late Jayalalithaa, Sasikala with her convoy has left from the Poes Garden and is now headed towards Jayalalithaa's memorial on Marina Beach. The visuals, as aired on CNN-News18, were surprisingly reminiscent of the way usually Jayalalithaa used to head out from her residence.
After he revolted against Sasikala, look more closely at how OPS has skewered his opponent. He says he was pressurised and did not elaborate, letting people fill in the gaps with facts and conjecture, grapevine and local legend. Soon enough, voices rose all around. Music director Gangai Amaran and many others have lashed out saying they have been victims of Sasikala's family's crass and scary land grabbing habits. Next, OPS said he'll turn Jayalalithaa's house into a memorial, initiate a probe into Jayalalithaa's death and get to the bottom of any will that Jayalalithaa may have left behind. These go to the heart of the Sasikala camp's fears. Sasikala has kicked out a key bureaucrat who was close to Jayalalithaa and knew almost every detail of Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation. After complete silence for two months, Sasikala got the doctor who treated Jaya in Apollo Hospitals to speak at a press conference. With every action of Sasikala's, she is revealing her worst insecurities. After many years with the reclusive Jayalalithaa, she has certainly imbibed some of the media-unfriendly habits common to Jaya while OPS is looking happier and more assured by the day.
With every action of Sasikala's, she is revealing her worst insecurities
Senior lawyer KTS Tulsi says that on the premise that Sasikala at some future date may be convicted, she cannot be deprived of a chance to prove her majority. "The Governor must finish this matter today. Why does he need to wait and allow a caretaker chief minister so much time to indulge in horse trading?" he told NewsX.
We have word that at least 20 more MLAs from Sasikala's camp want to join OPS but are not being allowed to get out of the resort(s) where they are being held "captive" with hundreds of Sasikala's men guarding the outer reaches of the resort. Even phone calls are reportedly not being allowed and television sets in the rooms have been deactivated. The MLAs who were packed off in three buses have reportedly not taken extra clothes to the resort and are miffed.
The counsel said since the registry is not listing the PIL for hearing before the apex court, he will mention the matter on Friday before Chief Justice JS Khehar for urgent hearing.
Advocate GS Mani, who is representing petitioner Senthil Kumar, said, "They (registry) feel that it (PIL) cannot be listed as an urgent matter as date of swearing-in has not been announced yet. No date has been fixed for hearing." Secretary of NGO Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, said.
The uncertainty over listing of a PIL, seeking to restrain AIADMK leader VK Sasikala from being sworn in as Tamil Nadu chief minister, for hearing before the Supreme Court continued on Thursday with the apex court registry of the view that it need not be listed under the "urgent matter" category.
The governor exercises a constitutional function and one that needs to be exercised quite quickly so as to not leave the state in limbo. Governor Vidyasagar Rao should either accept Tamil Nadu chief minister OPS Panneerselvam's resignation or ask him to carry on in a caretaker capacity till the disproportionate assets verdict involving Sasikala Natarajan is out. The governor can at this point decide if he should call for a fresh election or appoint Sasikala as the next chief minister or if he needs to allow Paneerselvam an opportunity to withdraw his resignation allowing him a chance to prove his majority on the floor of the House.
Many MLAs held "hostage" in Golden Bay Resorts in Mahabalipuram are reportedly on a fast protesting against the way they have been held against their will by Sasikala. OPS and team have put out a complete list of all the AIADMK MLAs at that resort and their mobile phone numbers in the public domain, asking people to call and check what's going on.
AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala met Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday evening and handed him the letters of support given by her party legislators. The governor will now check the authenticity of the letters and take a call.
Now with reports of MLAs in Golden Bay Resorts taken there on Sasikalas instructions and reportedly on fast in protest and wanting to join OPS, the signal to Raj Bhavan is clear. When the Governor consults constitutional experts on Friday, this matter is bound to come up whether this captivity vitiates the procedure for choice of chief minister. Meanwhile, reports just in that at least one MLA has complained to the governor about how Sasikala has forced 130 of them into a resort on the citys outer reaches.
In the present Assembly, AIADMK has 135 seats, DMK 89, Congress 8 and IUML 1. In OPS vs Sasikala, 117 is the number that either needs to get through a floor test. If OPS can get say, 20 AIADMK MLAs to his side, he can ensure that Sasikala does not win if we limit ourselves to how AIADMK MLAs will vote. But what about the 8 Congress MLAs. What if just the right number of them choose to defect?
At the end of round two, caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam seems to have emerged temporarily as the victorious victim, David, after being bullied into resigning from the post by "Goliath" Sasikala in round one.
Whats unfolding on the political stage of Tamil Nadu is this Julius Caesar-style intrigue, also peppered with some David vs Goliath ingredients.
O Panneerselvam has won round two against Sasikala, but game is far from over
Panneerselvam is growing in confidence but he still does not have the 89 MLAs (including his own seat) that he absolutely needs from the 135 AIADMK MLAs in the state Assembly to satisfy the rules of the Anti-Defection Law. Right now, OPS' support is still in the single digits among sitting MLAs.
Sasikala claims she has the support of 130 sitting MLAs. Although at least one MLA has complained that Sasikala has forced her MLAs into buses and locked them away in a resort 120 kilometres from Chennai. It is Sasikala who has claimed she is ready for a floor test. What Panneerselvam has done is also on predictable lines raising question marks over the legitimacy of Sasikalas MLAs signatures, saying he wants to withdraw his resignation and train the spotlight on the crisis in Tamil Nadu and Sasikalas rough and ready methods.
It is no secret that he has invisible political backers outside of Tamil Nadu, who want to see him succeed in this daring mutiny. But while the trickle of party cadre and leaders has begun, the lawmakers are staying put with Sasikala.
Without a doubt, Panneerselvam has taken a huge gamble. And he believes he will win. Even though the numbers are stacked against him, the caretaker chief minister believes the pan-Tamil Nadu version of the Marina uprising for Jallikattu will propel him to the chief minister's chair again. Panneerselvam believes he was pushed against the wall. He is now appealing to the conscience of his AIADMK colleagues to move camp from Chinnamma to OPS Anna.
Here are the options before Panneerselvam, Sasikala and Guv Vidyasagar Rao
An upset Sasikala is apparently in touch with the Congress for support to form the government should any 'emergency' arise. Congress sources said the Sasikala camp was trying to reach the party leadership. The party, an ally of DMK, has eight MLAs. A senior Congress official told The Times of India , "Congress MLAs are keen that the high command takes a popular stand. It should not be a suicidal attempt, akin to 1996."
It was always a number game in Chennai while the ruling AIADMK has 135 MLAs in the 234-member assembly, it lost members to O Panneerselvam's group. While meeting governor C Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday night, Sasikala staked claim to form the government citing the backing of 129 MLAs. But her rivals contested the claim and said it could be around 100 MLAs.
Expect this drama to continue for at least a week, no matter what the Governor decides. Read the full article here
The story goes that Narendra Modi, when he was Gujarat chief minister "warned" Jayalalithaa about Sasikala. Coming back to the present, if Sasikala is convicted in the disproportionate assets case and this happens after she is sworn in, the BJP is unlikely to find a friendly partner in her coterie. The Panneerselvam group is more likely to support the BJP in the Rajya Sabha or at least be trouble free.
AIADMK has 37 MPs in Lok Sabha and 13 in Rajya Sabha, Jayalalithaa was an ally even if she played hardball on the GST Bill. Narendra Modi rarely goes to meet any chief minister but he did make an exception and had lunch with Jayalalithaa at her residence. They spent 30 minutes talking. Did Sasikala figure anywhere at the time? Not at all. "She was in charge of the household staff, as usual," say insiders present at that lunch.
Supreme Court declines urgent hearing on a plea seeking to restrain Sasikala from becoming TN CM till its decision in the DA case.
But political watchers in the south have seen it all before. The origins of such a move lie in the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh when the Congress clique of Nadendla Bhaskar Rao and Governor B Ramlal had brought down the first non-Congress Telugu Desam Party government in the state.
The high-voltage political melodrama being enacted in Tamil Nadu, with a battle of wits between caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam and chief minister-in-waiting VK Sasikala has left heads spinning. The most astounding move though came from Sasikala, who after a meeting with MLAs on 8 February, loaded them all into buses and packed them off to the Golden Bay resort near Kalpakkam, effectively sequestering them so that they would not go over to Panneerselvams camp.
Sasikala takes MLAs to Golden Bay: A primer on 'resort politics' and why southern politicians love it
Tamil Nadu DGP is likely to visit the Golden Bay resort and MLA hostel to check if MLAs are being held hostage.
Whether it's deliberate or not, she's making the same mistake that Jayalalithaa did but with one extra large liability - Sasikala has no electoral mandate and that's clear for all to see, whether she speaks or not to the waiting hacks. Expect OPS to win big on this in the coming week.
Sasikala seems to have picked up some of that hauteur by just watching Jaya for decades. Unlike Panneerselvam whose rebellion and after has been made for multi-platform news consumption, Sasikala has refused to speak to media after her meeting with OPS, not clarified on why her MLAs are locked up in a luxury resort or why she tagged her nephew along to meet the Governor.
When she died, that one interview of hers with Simi Garewal popped up ceaselessly on our social feeds; apart from that there's all here campaign speeches of course. Consistently informing news media about what her government was up to was never on Jaya's radar. There must have been multiple reasons, including the general opinion in her camp that regional language print media was always enough if ever she needed to say something.
Throughout her rule, Jayalalithaa, the reigning queen south of the Narmada, never really warmed up to the news media. Coming from showbiz, she knew enough about cameras and make up and that transformation from ordinariness to glitz is a studied process, a conscious attempt to serve up facts with a dash of pulp.
DGP Rajendran will head to Golden Bay Resort after meeting with the Governor. So what does that mean in terms of clock time? It will take the DGP at least an hour to get there from Raj Bhavan and even if he leaves by 1 pm, he can't report back to the Governor before say 4 pm on the detailing. So, some more time for the OPS camp to regroup and watch the fun.
It's the first thing top government officials asked when news broke about AIADMK MLAs from the Sasikala camp being held captive at Golden Bay resorts on the sea coast. It's no secret that Sasikala is known to have a large chunk of top police official in her grip and that's no longer going to work for her. The one happy fallout of OPS' outburst is that scrutiny will be upped on all sides.
"Do you see cops there?" is both a simple and loaded question.
As hostage MLAs are chased by cops, OPS camp get more time to regroup
As the political crisis in Tamil Nadu entered the fourth day on Friday, new developments kept politicians, cops and lensmen on their toes. Here is what happened since Friday morning:
Sources have told NDTV that caretaker CM O Panneerselvam has asked for five days from Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao when the two met on Thursday in Chennai. Pannerselvam asked for five days to gather support of AIADMK legislators, who, he has alleged, are being held "captive" by the camp led by VK Sasikala, the close companion of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa who now heads the ruling party.
"Many signatures in Sasikala's list are forged... Panneerselvam told the governor that he was forced to resign and that many legislators are being held in captivity in unknown locations," said V Maitreyan, one of the senior AIADMK leaders backing Panneerselvam. He was referring to about 130 legislators who haven't been seen or heard after they were bused by Sasikala on Wednesday to hotels and resorts in and around Chennai to prevent them from being poached by Mr Panneerselvam.
Reports quoted sources as saying that Governor Vidyasagar Rao, who also holds additional charge for Maharashtra, wants the signatures that Sasikala has submitted as proof of support in her party to be authenticated.
"Only O Panneerselvam can save Tamil Nadu and he is the only option to take forward Jayalalithaas legacy. He is honest and everyone should support him. Only Panneerselvam can save the interests of people of Tamil Nadu. Governor is an efficient person, he will take good decision by this evening. God has sent him to save the AIADMK Party," says E Ponnusamy at OPS' residence.
News18 reports: Balu K, Pattali Makkal Katchi, (lawyer who filed a case in High Court claiming that MLAs were detained in the Golden Bay Resorts) said, "Two mobile jammers were installed to prevent MLAs from making calls."
The Times of India reported that the PIL was filed on Monday by Senthil Kumar, a Chennai resident and general secretary of NGO Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, just hours after the apex court indicated it could deliver its judgment on the appeals challenging the acquittal of Jayalalithaa and Sasikala in a 19-year-old disproportionate assets (DA) case.
According to a report in NDTV, the apex court declined to hear a petition asking it to restrain Sasikala from taking office until it rendered its verdict in a separate corruption case against her the petition is scheduled to be heard on 17 February.
The Supreme Court has refused to advance its hearing of a case that could prevent AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala from becoming the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
When will Ajith speak? Thats what locals are waiting for. Jayalalithaa was known to be especially fond of this particular actor, popularly known as Thala Ajith.
Kamal Haasan, Siddhath, Madhavan, Arvind Swamy are active on social, actress Gautami has openly supported not just OPS but shes the first one from the film industry who wrote to Modi and asked for a probe into Jayalalithaa's death. The heat is really on.
Happening now, the A list of actors is throwing its weight behind O Panneerselvam but very, very carefully. Why might that be, apart from the glaring reasons of propriety, big business links etc? Jaasti pesinaa, madakiduvaanga ( If they talk too much, her thugs will get after them), says a die-hard Ajith fan about what fate might befall dissenters, both online and on main street.
Prep for a plus size banana leaf meal version of shmaltzy politics for at least a week now in Tamil Nadu.
Gautami, Kamal Haasan, Ajith and many more: Tamil actors put their weight behind Panneerselvam
"Cannot say how many days I will have to live in this Golden Bay Resorts. I am going to stay here till Governors decision on current political instability in Tamil Nadu," added Jayalingam.
"No MLAs are on hunger strike. Its a rumour. No one is detained here and I am freely coming and going out of the resorts," says Rama Jayalingam, AIADMK MLA from Sasikala camp spoke to CNN-News18 over telephone from Golden Bay Resorts in Tamil Nadu.
No MLA detained, they are all rumours: Sasikala camp MLA from Golden Bay Resorts in Tamil Nadu
The so-called public sentiment against Sasikala, however difficult to prove because she does have her supporters, is primarily because of her unbearable itch to claim a throne that has Jayalalithaa's voters' stamp on it. How about winning the RK Nagar constituency first and then having a go at Fort St George, they say. Do you agree?
These rules will be waived by both camps as per convenience but what endures in public memory of the non millennials at least is that Jayalalithaa openly praised Panneerselvam for never being in a hurry to enjoy the perks of power or politics. "Not like instant Bru coffee," she said at rallies about Panneerselvam.
The most important crossover man for O Panneerselvam right now AIADMK presidium chairman Madhusudhanan is turning the knives into the Sasikala camp. He has just said that Sasikala is not qualified to be the general secretary of AIADMK and has written to the Election Commission that her appointment as interim general secretary is invalid because she was not a member of the AIADMK for five continuous years, which is required as per the party Constitution.
Madhusudhanan was dismissed from his post of AIADMK's Legislative Assembly leader, reports Santosh Mathevan from Chennai. The decision was taken by general secretary of the party VK Sasikala now. Sengottaiyan has been assigned to that post.
PINNED POST: Sasikala fires OPS supporter Madhusudhanan as Presidium Chairman of the party in the assembly
Sasikala supporter MLA CR Saraswathi: OPS showed a letter to press yesterday. In the letter,she said, "I want only the position of caretaker, not party post"
"Panneerselvam has large support base. I have informed the leadership to reconsider their decision. People told to me go to Panneerselvam's house. They said, if you go others will follow. I was strong in my decision. After all I have been working with Panneerselvam for the past 40 years. The leadership releases MLAs they will surely come back to Panneerselvam. For the past few days, I have been receiving countless calls urging me to back my decision. I don't care how many MLAs support OPS and how many support Sasikala. AIADMK will be in the hands of OPS. I got info that they are going to arrest MLAs for weeks which should be stopped. I am free and not under the clutches of anyone. I went to my constitutiency in all these days. We were nurtured by MGR and Jayalalithaa. AIADMK's internal law is that only people should be the given the power rule people.."
MLAs from opposing camps Panneerselvam and Sasikala indulge in open mud-slinging at each other. Supporter of Panneerselvam, MLA Koundanpalayam, "Chief Minister needs to be elected only with people's consent. OPS has never been greedy for power. OPS didn't call me but I came of my own accord. Sasikala should have compromised with OPS. Polical decisions should never be taken without the consent of people."
My mobile was not reachable because they (OPS camp) have distributed my number to hundreds of people and they are threatening us. Why do they want our support by force. There is a threat to my life, Saraswathi alleged.
Panneerselvam, on Thursday told the governor that MLAs were forcefully detained and several of them were fasting to protest against the move. However, today, AIADMK MLA CR Saraswathy came out and told the media that she was keeping away of her own will because she was threatened by the OPS camp.
While OPS camp has been maintaining that Sasikala has been threatening the MLAs and has kept them under duress, some MLAs from the Sasikala camp have come out and refuted those allegations.
Allegations and counter-allegations between the Sasikala and Panneerselvam camps has held the attention of national media, shifting the focus away from an otherwise high-decibel political exercise, the UP assembly elections.
Win or lose, OPS has gained extraordinary following online. The AIADMK's official Twitter handle started in 2014 has about 80,000 follows while the @CMOTamilNadu handle with the OPS display picture, which had 13,000 follows at the start of this week now stands at 50,000. This is not the official handle of the TN chief minister's office, it's managed by a fan and has been updating mostly in Tamil throughout the last week non-stop.
Key OPS aide E Madhusudhanan has moved EC after being sacked as the party's Presidium Chairman and the party's primary membership. He has claimed that the AIADMK has over thousand members, who need to reassert their support for one of the leaders in the wake of the leadership scuffle.
One of the MLAs at Koovathur Golden Bay Resorts Murugumaran has said now that they are staying there at their own interest and no is forcing them. He has also asked the people and the press to not to believe any rumours.
Earlier this week, it was said that Sasikala would swear in as Chief Minister at the Centenary Hall of the university campus.
Police department has suspended the security from Madras University Centenary Hall. Police sources said that they have revoked the security as there was no order issued by the Governor regarding the swearing in ceremony.
To listen to the audio clips, click here , and here
Firstpost spoke to the general public in Chennai to take stock of what they think about the ongoing OPS-Sasikala standoff and here is what they had to say.
Public opinion is heavily in favor of OPS, film stars are speaking out, the common man who voted for Jayalalithaa finds the entire drama bizarre and disappointing. Bureaucrats are not liking the impasse either, files are getting stuck and just not moving forward, putting projects and people in limbo.
Madras High Court Chief Justice SP Kaul meets Governor Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhavan, Sasikala is meeting AIADMK MPs at Poes Garden while the state waits to hear from the Governor on how the OPS versus Sasikala fight is going to find closure.
Who's up to what? Another day of turmoil in tumultuous Tamil Nadu - a roundup
Long time Chennai resident Subbulakshmi says she wishes O Panneerselvam had rebelled against Sasikala earlier. She says the prospect of Sasikala as queen bee is distasteful.
Subbalakshmi, who voterd for Jayalalithaa in 2016, said it's an uneasy feeling for her the way Jayalalithaa was treated in the hospital. "Considering she kicked Sasikala out, I find it hard to digest that Sasikala is taking charge of the party and the government now. There needs to be more transparency in the way things happen. I wish Panneerselvam had come out with the truth earlier. Maybe we could have even saved Jayalalithaa," she said .
Wish OPS had come out with the truth earlier, says Subbalakshmi, who voted for Jayalalithaa in 2016
Panneerselvam also criticised Sasikala and termed the current crisis in the party a revolution. "Our current revolution will make Sasikala vnish," OPS claimed.
"Even if such attempts are made, we will not let that happen," Madhusudhanan added.
E Madhusudhanan slammed Sasikala's family for trying to hijack the party, which he claimed was developed as a huge Banyan tree. He said, "the AIADMK was founded to fight against dynasty politics in state, and now one family was trying to hijack it."
He also sought the governor's intervention to ensure democratically and constitutionally valid government in place through a free fair floor test.
Following his meeting with Governor C Vidyasagar rao, DMK leader MK Stalin has written to the Raj Bhavan urging the governor to prevent horse trading in all its form. "Horse trading in any form has to be prevented and efforts to protect the sanctity of Antidefection law has to b undertaken," Stalin said in his letter.
O Panneerselvam loyalists have been gathering outside O Panneerselvam's house since Saturday morning. Earlier in the morning, several ex-MLAs were seen entering his house. Though ground level workers are allowed inside, media has been banned. The crowd in increasing exponentially.
O Panneerselvam loyalists have been gathering outside his residence since Saturday morning. Earlier in the morning, several ex-MLAs were seen entering his house. Though ground level workers are allowed inside, media has been banned from entering the house. The crowd in increasing exponentially.
Two Members of Parliament from AIADMK have extended support to O Panneerselvam faction of the party. MPs PR Sundaram of Namakkal constituency and Ashok Kumar of Krishnagiri constituency have joined hands with Pannerselvam.
Even though nearly two months had passed since O Panneerselvam took charge as chief minister of Tamil Nadu, the name board outside the Panneerselvam residence still reads him as Minister of Finance, Personnel and Administrative Reforms.
The gates of O Panneerselvam residence are being guarded by two constables.
According to sources, a meeting of Puducherry AIADMK office-bearers was held this morning regarding their views on the politics going on in Tamil Nadu. An announcement is expected shortly.
After much wait, media persons were allowed inside the Panneerselvam residence. The Panneerselvam faction of AIADMK will soon address the media.
O Panneerselvam finally came out to address the media and party workers at his residence. Joining him are Nammakal Sundaram and Krishnagiri Ashok Kumar.
The AIADMK leader called Thambidurai a traitor: "Jaya knew very well about you. You are the traitor."
Sundram criticised Thambidurai. He said, "During Amma's demise we were all watching what happened to Amma. Coming to Amma's funeral in a churidar is one of the worst parts to start with. Instead of mourning the demise of the late chief minister, the gang (Thambidurai and his supporters) was discussing their next plans. Thambidurai was combing hair while Narendra Modi entered."
Thambidurai had earlier dismissed O Panneerselvam's claim that he was forced to resign on 5 February.
Speakign to the media, he said, "Except M Thambidurai everyone will Come. MLAs are going to join us one by one."
Namakkal Sundaram, one of the MPs who extended their support to O Panneerselvam, praised the caretaker chief minister.
'We are all Iyyappa devotees. We have come all the way from there. CBI inquiry needs to be conducted on the demise of the chief minister (Jayalalithaa). Her house should be made a memorial.'
Perhaps what could be seen as a message to O Panneerselvam and his faction, Education Minister Ma Foi K Pandiyarajan of Sasikala faction just now tweeted:
'I came here for extending support to him. Amma is no more. O Pannerselvam is the here for us. My heartfelt congratulations.'
'I had already extended my support. I came here today to strengthen our hold. A criminal case needs to be initiated against all those who forced Panneerselvam (to resign). If Sasikala becomes chief minister, the assembly will not even hold two months,' he said.
Education minister K Pandiarajan confirmed his support to the O Panneerselvam faction in the AIADMK on Saturday. With this Pandiyarajan has become the first minister of the state to join the Panneerselvam faction. Interestingly, Pandiyarajan had also assisted Sasikala when she met Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday.
Manoj Pandian, son of former Speaker PH Pandian who had alleged foul play in J Jayalalithaa's death, arrived at the Panneerselvam residence with his group of supporters.
More than 600 advocates in Chennai who are members of the AIADMK party have also extended support to the O Pannerselvam faction. They had started a signature campaign with Panneerselvam signing the first signature.
After G Ramachandran, secretary of AIADMK's IT wing extended his support to O Panneerselvam faction of the party, now deputy secretary, Prasath too joined the caretaker chief minister's camp on Saturday. Ramachandran was sacked by Sasikala three days ago, as he had reportedly supported Panneerselvam.
A complaint has been filed in Chennai Police Commissioner's office by a voter of Royapuram Legislative Assembly constituency. In his complaint, the voter has mentioned that his constituency MLA and fisheries department minister Jayakumar has gone missing, and requested the police to find him.
"We are going through a high trouble. I have all your support, and so, I'm not going to get afraid of anyone. We will do whatever needed to save the party with its 1.5 crore cadres. I have the responsibility to take care of this," she said.
"We're showing patience in the interest of democracy. But will do what is required after a point. Everyone has a limit to maintain peace," she said. While support for Panneerselvam faction of the party is rising in the state with education minister K Pandiarajan becoming the first minister of state to defect to the Panneerselvam camp, the voices of dissent seems to be rising, thus adding to the problems of Sasikala, who was recently elevated to the position of legislature party head of the AIADMK.
Soon after O Panneerselvam supporters thronged his residence, AIADMK general secretary Sasikala address her supporters at the party office. Sasikala asked cadres to stay strong and stand to save the party and the state.
Peace has a limit, will do whatever required to save party: Sasikala to AIADMK cadres
It may be recalled that the caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam had offered his resignation to Rao on 5 February and the governor accepted it. But barely two days later, Panneerselvam did a complete volte face, leading to the situation in which Tamil Nadu presently finds itself.
Her letter also highlighted the fact that the Constitution, democracy and sovereignty has to be protected.
On Saturday the fifth day of the AIADMK crisis, Sasikala wrote to Governor Vidyasagar Rao requesting that he show consideration for the welfare of Tamil Nadu and take an immediate decision. She also requested that Rao make some time for her to meet with him and her MLAs as soon as possible.
As news of defections most notably that of Tamil Nadu education minister K Pandiarajan begins to trickle in, the pressure appears to be well and truly on the VK Sasikala camp.
After K Pandiarajan joined the O Panneerselvam camp earlier on Saturday, sources revealed that two more ministers from the Sasikala faction are set to join the expelled leader. However, their names are not revealed yet.
VK Sasikala, requesting governor C Vidyasagar Rao to act soon, has also told him that she was entrusted with the responsibility of running the party.
VK Sasikala leaves Poes Garden bound for the Golden Bay Resort. According to The News Minute website, she is expected to meet her MLAs there and bring them along with her to Raj Bhavan where she will meet governor Vidyasagar Rao again.
Sasikala leaves Poes Garden and goes over to the Golden Bay resort, where she will meet all the Tamil Nadu MLAs supporting her.
"We are going through high trouble. I have all your support, and so, I'm not going to get afraid of anyone. We will do whatever needed to save the party with its 1.5 crore cadres. I have the responsibility to take care of this," said VK Sasikala, speaking to party supporters.
Sasikala's fate will hang in the balance for a bit longer, as the verdict in the disproportionate assets case against VK Sasikala and J Jayalalithaa in the Supreme Court will not be announced on Monday. According to CNN-News18, it could even take all week for the apex court to announce its decision.
VK Sasikala has reached the Golden Bay resort, where 27 of her MLAs are said to be lodged. It is believed that she will take back the MLAs to Raj Bhavan, as proof of her support within the party.
AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP V Maitreyan on Saturday urged President Pranab Mukherjee and the central government to take "severe action" against VK Sasikala, for her "threatening" statement against the state governor. "She has threatened the Tamil Nadu governor, a Constitutional authority. We urge the president, the prime minister, the home minister to take severe action against her," Maitreyan, who has joined the Panneerselvam camp, told IANS.
According to the The News Minute website, public anger is turning sharply against AIADMK and its chief, VK Sasikala in Koovathur, the town where the Golden Bay Resort is located. Village residents have complain to Puthiya Thalaimurai that their roads are being blocked, street-lights switched off at night, all to ensure the MLAs can remain sequestered.
Security around the Raj Bhavan in Chennai has been increased with more police personnel being deployed in the area, sources said.
Drama is coming to close soon, our number will be more than 135: Pandiarajan | ANI
Sasikala's meeting with MLAs was to discuss next set of actions: AIADMK
Senior AIADMK leader C Ponnaiyyan extends his support to O Panneerselvam faction. In the meantime, the apex court has said that the verdict for disproportionate assets case would be given only after Monday.
Ponnaiyyan extends his support to O Panneerselvam; verdict for disproportionate assets case would be given after Monday
Following K Pandiarajan, P Benjamin, the minister of rural industries, has also joined ranks with O Panneerselvam's faction. Coming just hours after Pandiarajan's defection, this is expected to be a big boost for the caretaker chief minister.
VK Sasikala has left the Golden Bay resort in Mahaballipuram. She is headed back to Chennai, and it's not known yet what she will do once back in the state capital.
A report in India Today has suggested that VK Sasikala left from the Golden Bay resort on a sour note, and may even withdraw from the chief ministerial race, and might even announce a new name for the post.
Worries are mounting for AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala, as P Benjamin, another influential leader and Minister of Rural Industries, switched over to O Panneerselvam's camp. This came just hours after state education minister Ma Foi Pandiarajan and fisheries minister Jayakumar also left the Sasikala camp. Later in the day, AIADMK MP V Sathyabama also met Paneerselvam and offered her support to the caretaker chief minister.
All MLAs are happy, says Sasikala, denying rifts within her camp
According to CNN-News18, during Sasikala's meeting at Mahabalipuram's Golden Bay Resort, only 44 out of the 130 odd MLAs signed on a blank paper extending support for her claim to be the chief minister.
According to News18, Tamil Nadu C Vidyasagar Rao consulted eminent jurist Soli Sorabjee to end political crisis over next chief minister of the state. However, the governor was asked by other experts to wait till Supreme Courts verdict on disproportionate case.
News18 reports OPS camp MPs Jeyasingh and Senguttuvan as saying, "Panneerselvam is the only person who can follow the footstep of Jayalalithaa. He is the one who raised Jallikattu issue before PM Modi. He is a simple man and can understand peoples problem better than any state leaders. We are with Panneerselvam".
While speaking to CNN News18, Soli Sorabjee said, "The governor can defer the swearing-in ceremony but not for indefinitely. If judgement on DA case doesn't come in next week then he has to act as cabinet advise. I hope SC may deliver the verdict by Wednesday."
Sources told India Today that the impending DA case verdict is the main reason behind Governor Vidyasagar Rao's reluctance in swearing-in VK Sasikala as the next chief minister.
CNN-News18 reports that R Lakshmanan, who has been expelled by VK Sasikala, is all set to join the O Panneerselvam camp.
News18 reports that the AIADMK supremo will soon meet the MLAs who are currently kept in Golden Bay Resort at Mahabalipuram.
AIADMK MLA T Tamilselvan says he has not been forced to stay in resort
With five MPs extending support to O Panneerselvam on Sunday, the total number of Lok Sabha MPs in the OPS camp stands at ten. Already two Rajya Sabha MPs, R Lakshmanan and V Maitreyan support the caretaker chief minister.
Vidyasagar Rao's interpretation of the situation makes everyone suspect the intentions of the Centre. He has made it clear that he would wait for a few days so that a clear picture can emerge. This has no doubt given time to Panneerselvam. With Rao seemingly not inclined to invite Sasikala, the message to her camp followers has gone out loud and clear. Some of the MLAs have woken up and smelt the Chennai filter kaapi. The fact that Saturday has seen two MPs and the Education Minister K Pandiarajan jumping ship, suggests that the strategy is working.
AIADMK supremo VK Sasikala leaves her residence and is on her way to visit MLAs currently staying in Golden Bay Resort in Mahabalipuram.
News18 reports Sasikala as saying, "I have witnessed Jayalalithaa manage far worse challenges to the party. I have been by her side through all that." She also added that she has faith in India's constitution and democracy.
Sasikala dismissed social media rumours that she had ever written a letter to the governor threatening to kill herself if she is not made the chief minister. She called the letter 'fake' and the handiwork of her rivals.
Speaking to News18, Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar dispels rumours of him joining the O Panneerselvam camp, says he is still with Sasikala.
News18 reports that Sasikala supporters have clashed with the media that has gathered outside the Golden Bay Resort at Mahabalipuram.
News18 reports that Rajya Sabha MP V Maitreyan, who was amongst the first to support O Panneerselvam, would meet Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao.
Tamil Nadu BJP on Sunday said Governor Vidyasagar Rao should order a probe into O Panneerselvam's allegation that he was forced to resign even as it questioned the "necessity" of keeping AIADMK MLAs supporting VK Sasikala in "one particular place".
"He (TN Governor) will take a right decision. We are respecting his opinion: Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan to News18.
The Supreme Court verdict could prove to be the game changer and bring an end to this drama, irrespective of what the Governor does or does not do. While Panneerselvam reaches out to the people's court, by releasing the list of phone numbers of all lawmakers and asking people to call up the MLAs to question why are they still with Sasikala, the Supreme Court may just hold the key to Fort St George, where the Tamil Nadu Secretariat is located.
When asked what the next plan of action was, she said, "Be patient and let the events unfold."
Posing with Jayalalithaa's photo, she said, "Havent kept MLAs hostage. We also know what the reality is, what the truth is. You can count the number of MLAs who have come here. Every one of these MLAs are intelligent. MLAs are receiving threats."
Addressing the media after her meeting with AIADMK chief Sasikala, she said that she has the support of the MLAs and they are going to win the fight against Panneerselvam. Refuting allegations of her keeping the MLAs hostage, she said, "My only aim is that AIADMK doesn't drift. All MLAs and leaders of the party are united here. Family members are saying that they are willing to sacrifice for the sake of the party -- the unity of the party. This indicates that AIADMK is a party of the people."
Seeking a united AIADMK, Sasikala said that she has the support of 129 MLAs and that she will fulfill Jayalalithaa's dreams if the party stands by her. She said," I will achieve everything if you all stand firmly behind me, I wont move away, I will be firm as I have been with 'Amma'."
Questioning Sasikala's motives, Panneerselvam said, "I have a question. Yesterday VK Sasikala went to Kuvathur (where MLAs are staying at Golden Bay resort). Why did she go?"
As the seventh day of this joust between Sasikala and Panneerselvam begins, the support for Panneerselvam is growing but Sasikala is not out of the game yet. Not by a long shot. The power struggle in Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK continued with more MPs joining Panneerselvam, even as Sasikala said that legislators with her were being threatened but asserted that those who think she will get scared being a woman were wrong.
As her provisional swearing-in remains stalled for nearly a week now, and her supporters are slowly being poached into the camp of caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam, AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala said it was "very difficult" for a woman to be in politics, which she had seen in the time of Jayalalithaa too, and asserted that the MLAs were with her.
Even if the Sasikala camp moves the High Court pushing for a swearing in, the governor can move the Supreme Court and the timing is such that this won't do the Sasikala camp any good. If the case verdict goes against Sasikala, Governor Rao can always justify the waiting game saying I told you so, and if she goes scot free, he can use the same argument and come away looking good. For Sasikala, from now until the SC verdict, the hours will last forever.
On her part, Sasikala is dealing with the baggage where she has been blamed for everything that went awfully wrong during the Jayalalithaa years while the late chief minister took the credit for all that was good and noble. "Garden" is a slur version of Poes Garden that has always meant Sasikala's involvement. That has stuck and won't go away easy. Tamil Nadu's voter is unable to peer into the four years that lie ahead and see who he might vote for in 2021.
If there's a floor test, the warring factions of AIADMK needs 117 lawmakers to vote for them. If Speaker P Dhanapal, a staunch Jayalalithaa supporter and an old war horse in the party, mobilises the party MLAs and asks them to go with Sasikala, it could be troublesome for Panneerselvam. OPS might be thinking of two possible outcomes in the current scenario. Either the Supreme Court verdict on the DA case goes against Sasikala and puts her behind bars, or Panneerselvam bows out of this race.
The Panneerselvam camp has already bought 4 days time after the Governor returned from Mumbai. Every extra day that it takes for the Supreme Court ruling and / or for the Governor to take a call on next steps is only going to get the Sasikala faction more high-strung and impatient. For the OPS camp, the ongoing tussle is just the beginning of an AIADMK party minus Jayalalithaa which is witnessing a rare and pleasant fallout of the chaos - more party members than ever before in the last two decades can have a go at their own mic drop moment.
Rewind to exactly a week ago to know what a rush Sasikala is in to capture power - she got the entire state machinery to doll up the Madras Universitys grand old auditorium for her swearing-in that wasnt when the Tamil Nadu governor was in Mumbai. Thankfully, the policemen wandering around there aimlessly for days are now where they should be - on the city's main streets, ready to deal with an inevitable burst of public reaction this week, no matter what happens in the SC case.
A conviction means Sasikala cannot contest elections for six years after she comes out of jail. The nervousness is clearly spilling over Sasikala broke down while addressing her AIADMK campers over the weekend and told us about her dream of capturing the Secretariat, conveniently unburdened by detail. Sasikala claims 129 MLAs are still with her she needs the backing of 117 to win a floor test while the OPS team is turning on the heat with a steady if sluggish trickle of crossover MLAs and MPs.
Tension is running in the Sasikala camp, with the Supreme Court ruling expected any day this week in the the corruption case against former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa plus three others VK Sasikala, J Elavarasi and VN Sudhakaran pending since 1996.
B Kumar, S Senthil: These two led 25 lawyers from Tamil Nadu defending Jaya; strengthened the hands of more famous lawyers pushing for bail, played a leading role in the Karnataka High Court acquittal.
Senior Advocate L Nageswara Rao: Appeared for Jayalalithaa as defence counsel in Supreme Court, argued that appeals by DMK and Subramaian Swamy had no locus.
Justices PC Ghose, Amitava Roy: Heard the appeal against the High Court Judgment delivered by Kumaraswamy J, and reserved the verdict June 2016 after 20 days of court arguments.
Justice HL Dattu: Former Chief Justice of India Dattu heard Jayalalithaas petition in the Supreme Court against Karnataka High Courts rejection of her bail plea in the DA case.
Fali S Nariman: After Jayalalithaa was jailed, her team leaned on this eminent jurist to get bail for the AIADMK chief.
Justice CR Kumaraswamy: The judge who acquitted Jayalalithaa of all charges in the Disproportionate Assets case. Was his judgement a tragedy of arithmetic errors as Subramanian Swamy calls it? The last word on that comes up this week.
Justice John Michael DCunha: Special court judge who delivered the September 2014 verdict that sent Tamil Nadu into a tizzy he convicted and jailed the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 for holding disproportionate assets. In November 2016, he was appointed judge of the Karnataka High Court.
As we wait for the Supreme Court verdict, a look back at the A-list of legal minds whose names will remain associated with this corruption case that has its roots in a gaudy million dollar wedding that pockmarked both Tamil Nadu and Jayalalithaas legacy and continues to haunt Sasikala. Everytime Jayalalithaa went in and out of courts for 19 years, these are the folks behind those headlines.
There were rumours that the MLAs were forcefully holed up in the Golden Bay resort in Mahabalipuram. Six Lok Sabha members on Sunday extended support to Panneerselvam, who is locked in a bitter battle with Sasikala, taking the total number in Pannerselvam's camp to 10 and weakening the unified clout the AIADMK enjoyed in the lower house as the third largest group.
Sasikala on Sunday indicated that she had the support of 129 legislators. "You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain you by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government."
Natham R Viswanathan: As a member of Jayalalithaa's 'Aivar Ani' (five-man team), Viswanathan was privy to internal machinations and planning. The former minister will reach out to MLAs in the south.
C Ponnaiyan: The former minister and AIADMK spokesman is the much-needed expert on legal matters. He held the law portfolio for 16 years under the MGR and Jayalalithaa regimes and is well-versed in law
E Madhusudhanan: The former AIADMK presidium chairman was a key player during the formative years of AIADMK. His rich experience will help get MLAs from Chennai constituencies. He stands staunchly against Sasikala as the acting general secretary of the party fired him from the post of presidium chairman.
P H Pandian: The OPS faction hopes to draw on the AIADMK co-founder's experience as an assembly speaker and deputy speaker in the state assembly. He will provide inputs on constitutional matters.
K Pandiarajan: This businessman-turned-politician has been entrusted with the task of roping in high profile MLAs like R Nataraj and AIADMK ally and Nagapattinam MLA Thamimun Ansari.
K P Munusamy: Useful for his sharp and bold attacks on Sasikala's family members, the former minister was taking them on by himself even before Panneerselvam broke away.
V Maitreyan: Among the first to cross over to the Panneerselvam camp, this Rajya Sabha MP has been assigned to meet Governor C Vidyasagar Rao and apprise him. He will coordinate matters with regard to the governor.
As the leadership crisis and power struggle between the two warring factions of AIADMK intensifies, Panneerselvam is determined to prove his majority in the state Assembly to shut down rival Sasikala. But Panneerselvam has a group of loyalists who are making this endeavour possible for the caretaker chief minister:
Panneerselvam's camp: Look at the ministers who are fighting against Sasikala
Meanwhile, reports said that Panneerselvam will be visiting the state secretariat later on Monday. This will be hi first visit to the secretariat since he revolted against Sasikala's move to take charge as the chief minister.
AIADMK Karnataka state secretary V Pugazhendi told India Today that they have the support of 129 MLAs. "If we don't get a call from the governor today, we will march to President," Pugazhendi said.
Reports said that the Supreme Court is likely to hear the case sometime next week. Though Jayalalithaa, who died in December, and Sasikala, her closest confidante, were convicted by a lower court, the Karnataka High Court had acquitted them. The Karnataka government however had challenged the order.
Acting general secretary of AIADMK Sasikala might lead a hunger strike if Governor C Vidyasagar Rao does not call her back with a proposal to form the government. Sasikala staked claim to form the government two days ago, but it appears that Rao is inclined to invite her to form the government only after the Supreme Court gives its verdict in the pending disproportionate assets case.
Reports said that the Supreme Court is likely to hear the case sometime next week. Though Jayalalithaa, who died in December, and Sasikala, her closest confidante, were convicted by a lower court, the Karnataka High Court had acquitted them. The Karnataka government however had challenged the order.
Acting general secretary of AIADMK Sasikala might lead a hunger strike if Governor C Vidyasagar Rao does not call her back with a proposal to form the government. Sasikala staked claim to form the government two days ago, but it appears that Rao is inclined to invite her to form the government only after the Supreme Court gives its verdict in the pending disproportionate assets case.
But does Sasikala even have official locus to boot out party people? Enemy camp says no.
Sasikala formally took over as the general secretary of the AIADMK in the last week of December 2016 and since then has kicked out all those who dissented, starting with OPS.
She has no business getting the States cops to do her bidding but that is what is going on, thats why people fear her, say OPS supporters.
Getting police from Kancheepuram to wear street clothes and guard the Golden Bay Resort on the outer reaches of Chennai where Sasikala wants us to believe her MLAs are "living like a family" is a good indication of where she gets her defiance from.
- Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, Police Commissioner met at secretariat to discuss law and order situation - No visible movement of MPs, MLAs to the Panneerselvam camp since the morning
Tamil Nadu governor should be sacked as he is not felicitating oath taking ceremony. This is clear violation of constitution, says Congress leader Manish Tewari
Addressing reporters at the resort, Sasikala alleged the MLAs have been receiving threats that their children will be abducted, but undeterred, they have chosen to stay there and asked their relatives to take care of them. "It shows their dedication to this movement. I was moved.. they (all the MLAs) are keen that there should not be slightest impediment to AIADMK and the government," she said.
Struggling to keep her flock of MLAs together after desertion by 10 MPs to rival Panneerselvam camp, Sasikala trashed allegation they have been held "hostage" at the resort. Sasikala, who is locked in a fierce battle of attrition with Panneerselvam, said the MLAs were staying at the resort near here of their own accord and that they were "free". Panneerselvam, however, claimed the MLAs were held there against their will and "tortured" and sought their "release".
Panneerselvam definitely has more credibility to run for an administrative post than Sasikala as the former has both experience and clout to be the chief minister of the state. "Whether Sasikala can become the next CM of Tamil Nadu or not revolves largely around the Tamil peoples acceptance of her leadership rather than legal and constitutional considerations."
The ongoing political tussle in Tamil Nadu the fifth most industrialised state of the country has pushed it to the brink of unspeakable instability. An op-ed published in Hindustan Times said that the reason behind this could be the fact that a actual succession policy is missing in the AIADMK. "The Election Commission of India has reportedly highlighted the impropriety in the election of Sasikala, as an interim AIADMK general secretary, because such a position does not exist in the partys organisational structure."
Sources from the Tamil Nadu police department said that none of the MLAs at Golden Bay Resort have told police that they have been held captive. Meanwhile, reports said that Sasikala might leave for the resort to meet the MLAs.
Sasikala, however, alleged that the delay in governor's decision will cleave the AIADMK. It is true that with every passing day Paneerselvam's faction gets a little bigger. After Sunday, he has 11 MPs and seven state lawmakers and has asserted that he will easily win a trust vote "if MLAs are set free and allowed to decide."
Both, Sasikala and Panneerselvam wished Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao for his birthday on Monday morning. Last week, Rao met with the feuding leaders separately who presented their claim to take a trust vote ahead of the other. He reportedly indicated that Sasikala would get first shot. However, five days later, he has yet to reveal his decision. Rao, reportedly, is waiting for the Supreme Court verdict on whether Sasikala is guilty of colluding with Jayalaltihaa to acquire an illicit fortune worth about Rs 60 crores in the 90s.
In a statement which could be perceived as a pro-Panneerselvam remark, Naidu also said, "There is no vacancy (on the post of Chief Minister) to be filled because there already is a government which is headed by a Chief Minister."
Coming to the aide of Governor Rao, BJP leader and Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said, "Motives cannot be attributed to Governor C Vidyasagar Rao as he is discharging his duties as Constitutional head of the state in a non-partisan manner. When you are writing to the governor, nobody should attribute motives to him. He is behaving in the most non-partisan manner and doing his duty."
To understand how much the personality cult dominates the states scheme of things one need to only take a quick glance through Tamil Nadus 2016-17 Budget document, presented by then finance minister, and later caretaker chief minister, Panneerselvam on 21 July. The word 'Amma' (mother) is used six times, the adjective 'Puratchi Thalaivi' is used once and references to chief minister 31 times.
Tamil Nadu politics have always been dominated by personality cults, from the days of MG Ramachandran, through J Jayalalithaa and now to Panneerselvam and Sasikala. Rather than an ideology or an economic agenda, personalities dictated the political regimes and even daily lives of Indias sixth most populous state. The leaders kept their flocks together by rolling out such goodies as refrigerators, gold chains, or TV sets ahead of elections.
No matter whether it is O Panneerselvam or VK Sasikala who ultimately emerges victorious in Tamil Nadu, a huge debt pile, a drought-hit economy and millions of people in the southern state who are so used to enjoying decades of populist policies, await the new incumbent. Winning the chief minister's role, thus, will be only the beginning of a long, tough battle for either OPS or 'Chinnamma'.
The Chennai police have filed a case against VP Kalairajan for allegedly issuing death threats to Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam.
The crowd of supporters outside Poes Garden to meet AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala appears to have thinned on Monday morning. A press meeting is likely to take place shortly, and Sasikala may address media persons.
Party sources say M Thambidurai, Sasikala faction's heavyweight and the deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha, is likely to meet President Pranab Mukherjee in order to stress upon the need to swear Sasikala in.
Ever since, the chief secretary, the DGP and senior bureaucrats of the state have all been putting things in order to deal with any situation that could erupt this week and would want to apprise OPS. Its no secret that Panneerselvam enjoys a cordial relationship with the state bureaucracy another point which the Sasikala camp dislikes.
Technically, OPS is the caretaker chief minister, and the governor has asked him to continue till the stand-off is sorted. He is also in touch with the chief secretary, and optics will certainly help. Remember that chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan is new to the job and has been watching over a remarkably animated few weeks ever since she took over in late December. She was appointed in place of P Rama Mohana Rao following IT raids at his residence soon after Jayalalithaas death.
Delays in such matters can change a person's life. It's not just about Sasikala and the political mess in the state. This also affects real people, those without Twitter handles in places without decent WiFi.
For O Panneerselvam to head to the State Secretariat is tactical and essential. He's going to Fort St. George to flex his muscles, but there's more. In certain cases, especially regarding important projects awaiting signatures or to meet people from faraway areas or on job extensions, it's not easy for bureaucrats to carry on in a prolonged state of uncertainty. So OPS visiting the Secretariat is more than just a top shot for waiting cameras.
Panneerselvam visiting Secretariat is not just for the waiting cameras
But what is the real situation on the ground? Of the 135 AIADMK legislators (plus Jayalalithaa) who were elected in 2016, sources say at least 90-odd are firm Sasikala loyalists, having got their ticket thanks to the woman from Mannargudi. That is why they say, they are staying put in her camp. Anyone underestimating the hold of the Sasikala family over the MLAs, is making a grave mistake. Read the full article here
Team Sasikala pooh-poohs Panneerselvam's day dreaming and refers to the initial 'O' in his name to label him 'Zero' Panneerselvam. The camp takes confidence in the fact that the legislators have not deserted Sasikala, even if it is because their right to freedom allegedly stands seriously curtailed. Panneerselvam has accused Sasikala of setting four 'goondas' after every MLA, using both money and muscle power to retain her flock.
At the end of five days, O Panneerselvam has only seven legislators himself included to show for this rebellion. It is almost as if the caretaker chief minister, is following in the footsteps of the original Chennai Super King MS Dhoni by leaving unfinished business to the last over, which in this case is the Supreme Court verdict in the disproportionate assets case. The Panneerselvam camp believes if Sasikala is run out by the SC, the chief minister can indulge in pinch-hitting to reap a rich harvest of legislators.
Why it is only MPs and not MLAs who are joining Panneerselvam's cause
Tamil Nadu's acting Chief Minister O Panneeerselvam will be attending office on Monday after a week's gap, said officials. On Sunday, he the media that he would be going to the state secretariat on Monday. School Education Minister K Pandiarajan will also be attending office, the officials said. Panneeerselvam did not attend office ever since he revolted against Sasikala on 7 February, alleging that his resignation was a forced one. He resigned on 5 February paving the way for Sasikala to become the Chief Minister.
Vaigaichelvan, spokesperson of the AIADMK, on Monday said, "We are expecting an invitation from the Governor by Monday evening. A trustworthy source from the governor office has ensured this. The BJP and the DMK have been restricting the governor from allowing Sasikala to form the government. We are ready to prove our majority on floor at the State Assembly soon. We will soon come to rule. Sasikala is the authorised general secretary of the party. So, there is nothing to comm
After caretaker chief minister, O Panneerselvam, dramatically rebelled against AIADMK supremo VK Sasikala last Tuesday, alleging that he was coerced into resigning as the chief minister, the AIADMK has fallen into a crisis. The saga has taken an interesting turn, with the party effectively splitting into two factions: one which supports Panneerselvam and the other which has remained loyal to Sasikala.
The battle to occupy the chief minister's position intensified to such an extent that the Sasikala camp MLAs were whisked away to a resort to keep them from possibly being poached by the Panneerselvam camp.
While reports suggest that while only six MLAs and ten MPs are with the former finance minister, many popular actors and celebrities have openly come out in his support. As days are passing by, it is expected that more and more AIADMK legislators and parliamentarians will jump the ship and join Panneerselvam. The fact that he has administrative experience and had held the position of the chief minister twice before goes in favour of Panneerselvam. On the other hand, Sasikala's credibility has been doubtful, with several corruption cases like the disproportionate assets case against her.
Here is a list of top AIADMK leaders who have thrown their weight behind the caretaker chief minister.
1) V Maitreyan
Maitreyan was the first leader to official cross over to the Panneerselvam camp after he met the Jayalalithaa loyalist at his residence on Wednesday. He has also got an audience with Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao.
2) E Madhusudanan
The chairman of the AIADMK presidium, he was the biggest catch for the Panneerselvam camp. It is to be noted that during his press conference where he announced his rebellion, Panneerselvam had mentioned that Jayalalithaa wanted Madhusudanan to succeed her as the general secretary.
3) KP Munusamy
Even before Panneerselvam rebelled against Sasikala, the former minister had opposed the elevation of the former Jayalalithaa aide to the position of the chief minister.
4) PH Pandian
The former speaker he interestingly held the position in 1988 when the Jayalalithaa versus Janaki split took place attacked the Sasikala and her family and cast aspersions on her ability to take over as the chief minister. Pandian also raised suspicion on the circumstances leading to former chief minister Jayalalithaa's death.
5) K Pandiarajan
Pandiarajan's case has been curious. Initially siding with the Sasikala, the education minister made a volte face soon and jumped ship to join the Panneerselvam camp. According to media reports, he would be roping in MLAs like R Nataraj, the former Tamil Nadu top cop and Thamimun Ansari.
6) Natham T Viswanathan
The Times of India says that Viswanathan had been a member of Jayalalithaa's 'Aivar Ani' (five-man team). He is expected to seek support from MLAs from the south of Tamil Nadu.
7) C Ponnaiyan
The former law minister, he is epected to help the Panneerselvam camp with his expertise on law matters.
However, the Sasikala camp claims to enjoy the support of at least 129 MLAs. Top leaders like fisheries minister D Jayakumar, MLA R Balaji, Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal and Lok Sabh Deputy Speaker Thambidurai are firmly in the Sasikala camp.
Until, over 12 MLAs switch sides, Panneerselvam cannot stop Sasikala from being made the chief minister.
Chennai: With no solution in sight for government formation in Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK has asserted that a majority of its MLAs are behind General Secretary VK Sasikala and claimed the chances of Governor C Vidyasagar Rao "inviting" her on Monday were "high."
Party spokesperson Vaigai Chelvan said Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had the support of seven MLAs and cannot therefore prove his majority in the state Assembly in the event of a floor test.
"He says he can prove his majority based on the wrong information given by someone. Majority of the AIADMK MLAs are with Chinnamma (Sasikala) and we are ready to prove our strength (in a floor test)," he told reporters in Chennai.
Sasikala was the elected Legislature Party leader of AIADMK and therefore the Governor should invite her to form government, he added.
"We expect the chances of his inviting (meeting) her today are high," he said.
To a question on 11 MPs switching over to the camp of Panneerselvam, Vaigai Chelvan expressed confidence that they would return to the Sasikala fold.
In growing support for Panneerselvam, six more AIADMK MPs had joined his camp yesterday, taking the number of Parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
Sasikala had yesterday vowed to protect the party nurtured by her long-time friend, late Jayalalithaa, saying "I will give my life for this cause".
Addressing the MLAs at the resort near Chennai, which she visited for the second time in two days, Sasikala had said, "You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain it by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government. None can hurt us and there is no need to fear."
She also dismissed allegations that they have been held "hostage" at the resort, saying the MLAs were staying at the resort of their own accord and that they were "free".
"I stake claim," Sasikala said to the Governor.
It's the kind of thing you'd expect from Jayalalithaa, winner of multiple landslide elections she never lost one after 2011.
"We're losing patience", Sasikala now says in a veiled threat (to who?) since the Governor has hit the pause button on taking a decision.
Getting police from Kancheepuram to wear street clothes and guard the Golden Bay Resort on the outer reaches of Chennai where Sasikala wants us to believe her MLAs are "living like a family" is a good indication of where she gets her defiance from.
She has no business getting the States cops to do her bidding but that is what is going on, thats why people fear her, say OPS supporters.
Sasikala formally took over as the general secretary of the AIADMK in the last week of December 2016 and since then has kicked out all those who dissented, starting with OPS.
But does Sasikala even have official locus to boot out party people? Enemy camp says no.
Dissident AIADMK leader E Madhusudhanan has written to the Election Commission claiming V K Sasikala is not the party General Secretary because she was not elected to the post as per party by-laws.
As per party by-laws, a General Secretary can be elected only by cadres. As per rules, there is no temporary General Secretary post, Madhusudhanan said.
A candidate to the General Secretarys post should also have completed at least five years in the party.
Since Sasikala re-joined the AIADMK only on 31 March, 2012, she does not qualify to become General Secretary. I have requested Election Commission (in the letter) not to accept her appointment, he said.
So then, who are the people who define a party, who are those who can legitimately run it, who are the impostors?
Even if you ignore all the rule books, insurgency in politics too has a loosely constructed playbook, made newly famous globally by Donald Trump.
When he started out, media trashed the idea of Trump as a joke. Then he made it through the Republican Convention. There too, the majority of Republicans hated Trumps guts, many continue to do so. Trump was doubted till the end by his own party, they dumped him and funnelled all their resources into their Senate battles, yet he dug in and won the election. That he is disliked and that he came through several rounds of electoral rites of passage are both true. When millions of women took to the streets against his coronation, he could say "but didn't I just win an election" because he did.
"But this lady has not won even a panchayat election!", is the most common conversation starter in tea stalls around Chennai.
Sasikala is in a hurry to get crowned but in no hurry to contest from RK Nagar, now vacant after Jayas death, and win it. When Sasikala says she will continue Ammas work", its also shorthand for I dont have to do anything new because projects that are already running from the Jaya years are kept humming by the well-oiled Tamil Nadu bureaucracy which has a fair deal of insulation from the ill-effects of short-run politics. This is not the first time we have been between governments, work goes on. Nothing changed when Jayalalithaa was in jail either, things got done, is a sentiment echoed by many senior bureaucrats.
After returning to power in 2001 (Jaya lost the 1996 elections after that infamous wedding of her foster son which led to the DA case now in focus), Jayalalithaa pioneered expenditure reforms in ways no government ever attempted at the Centre or in the States. Many populist projects adopted elsewhere have their origins in Tamil Nadu after initially being dismissed as impractical socialist schemes.
Over the years first learning from MGR and then educating herself and just being in power for so many years, Jayalalithaa polished her knack for taking supremely successful decisions which solved both social problems and locked in gratitude from her voters.
Thats why Sasikala saying shell carry forward Ammas legacy does not impress.
Sasikala is the non-Jayalalithaa.
Mumbai - Terming demonetisation as the "biggest scam of 2016", former Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said the country is likely to grow by 6-6.5 percent in 2016-17, much lower than what have been predicted by the CSO and RBI, due to the impact of note ban.
Notably, the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) has predicted a growth rate of 7.1 per cent and RBI pegs it at 6.9 per cent for financial year 2016-17.
"I am sorry to make the prediction that 2016-17 will end with growth (rate) between 6 and 6.5percent, a good one percent down from the earlier estimate and that means a hit of Rs 1.5 lakh crore on GDP. The GDP this year is Rs 150 lakh crore, so one percent hit is Rs 1.5 lakh crore," Chidambaram said at a function here today.
He is in the city to campaign for the February 21 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls.
Without naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, "So, somebody hit an idea in his head, he decided to go on television and announce demonetisation, and the hit is Rs 1.5 lakh crore (on GDP)."
He said the growth rate in financial year 2017-18 will be same at around 6-6.5 percent.
"2017-18 will not see a growth higher than what we have in 2016-17 as the world economy is not benign anymore and we have a unpredictable man sitting in the White House," the senior Congress leader said, adding that growth would continue to be at the same levels in 2018-19 financial year as well.
Talking about demonetisation, he said sooner than later the government will realise the folly of demonetisation.
"You first demonetise and then say we are remonetising. What is this joke?" Chidambaram said.
He said Rs 15.44 lakh crore worth of currency was cancelled overnight and now the government is printing notes to bring back Rs 15.44 lakh crore of notes.
He termed demonetisation as the "biggest scam of 2016" which the government does not want to acknowledge.
Taking away old notes and printing new notes will not put an end to corruption, or black money or counterfeiting, he said, adding that full remonetisation will go up to June.
After taking away Rs 15.44 lakh crore worth of currency, now the currency in circulation, including in the denominations of 100, 50, 20, 10 and the new 500 and 2,000 is now about Rs 9.5 lakh crore, he said.
But to sustain an economy which is Rs 150 lakh crore, Rs 9.5 lakh crore is not enough and more money needs to be printed, Chidambaram said.
"By March, we should have about Rs 11 lakh crore of currency back in circulation and by June we would have Rs 15.44 lakh crore. This is a classic example of khoda pahad, nikli chuhiya (Much ado about nothing)," he added.
The choice of S Thirunavukkaras ar for Tamil Nadu Congress president in September 2016, just a week before J Jayalalithaa was hospitalised, came after three months of the party remaining headless. His predecessor, EVKS Elangovan, had resigned in the wake of a dismal performance in the 2016 Assembly elections, in which the party had won only eight of the 41 seats it contested.
Thirunavukkaras ar was an interesting choice, by dint of his political history. He, along with VK Sasikalas husband M Natarajan, were instrumental in propping up the Jayalalithaa faction for a victory against MG Ramachandrans wife Janaki, when the party split after MG Ramachandrans death in 1987.
In an almost eerie replay of what happened in 1989, Sasikala, chief minister in waiting of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) loaded over 100 MLAs, who were on her side, into buses and sequestered them at resorts outside Chennai to avoid defections.
Sasikala though, was simply following into Thirunavukkaras ar's footsteps. He had done the same with MLAs who had supported Jayalalithaa; packing them in buses and holing them up in hotels in the city, so that they would not move to Janakis camp.
Thirunavukkaras ar's friendship with Sasikalas husband M Natarajan is well known. At Jayalalithaas funeral, on 6 December, 2016, Thirunavukkaras ar was seen sitting with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Natarajan, even sharing a laugh together.
In a freewheeling interview with Firstpost, Thirunavukkaras ar justifies the sequestering of the MLAs by Sasikala, accuses the BJP of creating confusion in the state and clears the air on whether talks were on with Sasikalas camp for the support of eight Congress MLAs.
Excerpts from the interview:
You met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi. There is talk of Sasikala roping in your party in the case of a floor test. What is your take on the current political scenario?
Ten people from Tamil Nadu Congress went to meet Gandhi in Delhi. Former Congress presidents, the Assembly leader, the AICC presidents. He called us and we met him, and we explained to him the political situation in Tamil Nadu what the other parties are, what are the views of these parties. He gave us a very patient hearing. We did not talk about supporting anyone. Now, the situation is that Congress is the third largest party of Tamil Nadu Assembly, we have only eight MLAs. At present in Tamil Nadu, we have a politically fluid situation, there is a crisis in the government.
Has anyone reached out to you?
O Panneerselvam resigned and Sasikala gave a letter claiming to be sworn in as CM. Now again he has met the governor saying he is going to withdraw his resignation. All these claims matter and are with the governor. So as per the Constitution, he has to take the decision and perform his obligations. As far as Congress is concerned, we don't want to interfere in other party affairs. AIADMK is a separate party, who is going to be general secretary, who they have selected and whether it is right or wrong - they have to decide within themselves.
So no one has reached out to the Congress?
They haven't reached out for any support, so far. We are already in the DMK alliance. DMK is the second largest party in the Assembly. Hypothetically, suppose DMK and Congress cannot form the government, and MK Stalin has extended support to neither. Let the governor call somebody and ask to form the government. If there is a slightest doubt of majority, then you can show them by trial of floor strength. So the floor test can also be done. Lots of rumours (are surfacing) of MLAs being kidnapped and kept in resorts. The truth will be revealed as to whether they were forcibly kept or compelled to stay. Or if their signatures were not compelled and they signed on their own. Or if they are freely sitting in the Assembly.
In case the two camps reach out to you, will the Congress consider it?
We have taken a neutral stand, we will not interfere. I doubt whether BJP government or Centre is interfering in Tamil Nadu politics and the AIADMK party affairs especially. BJP has no base in Tamil Nadu. So, if they want to get something done, that shouldn't be allowed. Keeping in mind the forthcoming Presidential election, Parliament elections, they want to do something in Tamil Nadu. That is our worry... that should not happen. A democratically accepted leader and a democratic election should be accepted in Tamil Nadu. I don't support OPS or Sasikala. We don't bother about it. But the Constitutional obligations must be fulfilled by the governor.
In 1987, a similar situation had happened. The party had split and the pro-Jayalalithaa MLAs were taken to hotels and kept there. Could you recall that moment?
See, throughout the country, starting from Jammu & Kashmir, the same BJP has done it in so many states, in situations to prove their majority. What party hasn't done it? In crises like this, they have consolidated their MLAs and kept them in hotels. In the last 30 years, in various governments, parties and states, it has been done.
Is there something wrong with this culture?
That can easily be proved in the House. Whether they are staying there voluntarily, or forcibly taken against their wishes. When they come to vote to prove the majority, it will be known. Some MLAs supported Jayalalithaa and some Janaki. They were asked to prove majority. They were asked to stay in Bangalore. It is not a new thing in politics. Let them come to the House. There is no guarantee who they will vote for, they might even vote against Sasikala. I don't know what their mentality is there, whether it is forced or not.
Was it forced in 1987?
Nobody can force MLAs. Suppose 33 MLAs are with us, earlier 52 were there 15-16 went to Janaki Ammal's faction. Even if you keep them, they can vote against you... you can't compel them.
What are your thoughts about OPS' rebellion?
He is the acting chief minister and has claimed that he should be allowed... governor is the right person to take a decision. There are legal questions about whether the resignation, once given and accepted by the governor, can be withdrawn. Once he is given the chance, let him prove the majority. The doubt lies here and it has to be tested in the House, so it has to be tested as per the Constitution.
Rahul Gandhi visited Tamil Nadu to see Jayalalithaa twice, once at the hospital and the second time at her funeral. But DMK supremo Karunandhi had been hospitalised around the same time, and he did not visit him. He also sat next to Natarajan at the funeral. Is there a closeness between the Congress and the AIADMK?
No. Don't connect those two things. It is not true that he did not come during Karunanidhi's hospitalisation. And regarding Natarajan, there is no special closeness. It's mutual respect when one leader meets another leader. Nothing was discussed at the funeral.
How has your long-time relationship been with Natrajan? Especially, considering the present scenario.
When Jayalalithaa was there, we were both working together 20 years ago. We drifted apart long ago... he is in his party and I am in my party. We no longer have any personal or political friendship.
The author tweets @divya_krthk
As total shutdown called by tribal bodies in Nagaland continue to affect normal life, chief minister TR Zeliang released an emotional statement aired on the All India Radio on Monday with the aim to clarify his stand on the issue of reservation for women in urban local bodies election. Zeliang once again reiterated his government's obligations to uphold the provision of the Constitution and the reasons that led to its decision to allow reservation for women in the election.
The Nagaland chief minister, whose resignation has emerged as a key demand after his government held the urban local bodies election on 1 February despite opposition from tribal organisations, requested the protesters to call off the strike and allow the return of normal life to the state. He also emphasised on the need for dialogue and that dialogue and not violence should be looked as the way forward to resolve the current crisis in the state.
Here's the full text of his statement:
My dear fellow citizens of Nagaland,
The Government of India has recognised that our expression for self-determination cannot be resolved through military or violent solutions and have embarked on the process for solutions through a democratic process of negotiation, dialogue and settlement.
My government has had a series of discussions with various tribal organisations regarding the obligations of the government to uphold the provisions of the Constitution so long as we are within the Union of India. And holding of elections to the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) with 33 percent reservation of seats for women was one of them. In 2016 alone, the Government had 14 consultative meetings with civil organisations on the issue of elections to the ULBs as amended by the Nagaland Legislative Assembly in 2006. The government also met the recently-formed Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) on 25 January at my office in Kohima and on 30 January at Chumukedima in the presence of the NBCC.
To begin with, I must state at the very outset that the fate and content of Article 371 A was on the verge of being decided by the Supreme Court after the JACWR filed a Special Leave Petition stating that Article 243 T had superseded Article 371 A. And to pre-empt such an eventuality where the Courts verdict might go against the special provisions we enjoy through the provisions of Article 371 A, the Cabinet decided that holding of elections to the ULBs with reservation for women was the best option and decided accordingly.
When tribal organisations suggested on 16 November 2016 at the Consultative meet at the Capital Convention Hall, Kohima, that certain provisions in the Nagaland Municipal Act, 2001, such as tax on land and buildings, removal of the Scheduled Caste etc should be amended, the Government did the needful promptly. Accordingly, as it stands today, the government will not impose any tax on the land, commercial or otherwise, or on buildings in municipal and town areas. Unfortunately, false propaganda had been spread by few individuals saying that once elections to the ULBs are held, the local bodies would start imposing taxes even on domestic animals, vegetables and agricultural produce!
Not wishing to confront with the protesting organisations, my government has given in to their demands, namely, postponement of polls to the ULBs and declaration of those elections held on 1 February as null and void. And since from the very beginning, organisations such as the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) had been asking for time so that they can have dialogues and consultations with various tribal organisations to ensure a well-informed election which will promote development and common good of all the Nagas, it is not fair that organisations and individuals are not allowed to come to the consultative meetings convened by the Government.
I can only appeal to all sections of the society to nurture and preserve the good image of our esteemed tribal organisations. As for the government, it has always been open for dialogue and more consultations. The tribal organisations should come forward for interactions and sharing of views and opinions without any bias or hesitation.
Friends, in this current century, mankind is realising that violence only begets violence and force only begets more force and violence. It is being increasingly recognised that violence is no solution and has no place in determining the future of mankind. In fact, nobody wants to talk or discuss war and all the enormous consequences.
What has happened is a great shock to not only the Nagas but also to people all over the world. We cannot allow such a situation to prevail. It is only leading to chaos. We should resolve the present situation through mature appreciation and dialogue. Let us put our heads together to build the Nagaland of our dreams instead of mindless confrontation and more violence.
Keeping this in mind, I wish to appeal to all agitating groups to rise above the immediate present and consider the future our future and the future of the younger generation. We cannot, we should not, we must not sacrifice the future of the Naga society by confronting each other. After all, the larger benefit for the whole society must be given more importance than the benefit of any individual or a few.
And considering the facts that several thousands of our sons and daughters are scheduled to appear their examinations, I fervently appeal to the agitating groups to lift the bandh, enable the students to appear their crucial examinations and to let the tens of thousands of government employees whose family members rely on their salaries for livelihood attend offices to work and draw their salaries, and at the same time, to allow the business community to carry out their normal trade to sustain themselves.
I also wish to place on record my deepest sorrow at the loss of two precious lives in the unfortunate incidents at Dimapur on 31 January and convey my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members. May the departed souls rest in eternal peace.
Thank you, and God Bless Nagaland
NOTE: The speech was aired on All India Radio on Monday.
A 20-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker in Kerala was reportedly stabbed to death during a festival at Kokkulangara temple near the Thrissur city late Sunday night, reported The Times of India. Another person, Thomas, 29, who is critically injured in the attack, has been hospitalised.
The deceased has been identified as Nirmal who was killed after a tussle during celebrations at a temple, sources told CNN-News18. Police sources told News18 that they suspect personal rivalry behind the act and more can be said only after the investigation.
According to ANI, The BJP state unit has alleged that CPM workers are behind the murder of Nirmal, and have called for a strike in Thrissur district on Monday.
Even though the victim was taken to the hospital by police and neighbours, he had succumbed to injuries by then, The Indian Express was reported as saying.
The murder comes barely a month after another BJP worker was killed in Kerala's Andalur. C Santhosh, 52, was hacked to death allegedly by members of the CPM in January. There has been a surge in the number of violent conflicts between the BJP-RSS and the CPM over the past few months.
WHY DONT YOU READ THESE?
At a time when the BJP is going all guns blazing against black money and corruption, Manipur activist Irom Sharmila alleged on Sunday that the BJP wanted her to contest against Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh and had told her that she would need Rs 36 crore to fight the polls.
Speaking to NDTV, the 44-year-old Sharmila added that if she did not have the funds, the party had promised to have the required amount sanctioned by the Centre.
"Their suggestion was that to fight Ibobi, I will need Rs 36 crore. If I have it (the money), I should produce it. If not, the Centre would sanction it," she told the channel.
However, she declined the offer and chose to fight as an Independent in the Thoubal constituency, which the incumbent chief minister has been winning in the past three Assembly elections.
Nevertheless, the activist-turned-politician's allegation did not go down very well with the BJP, which called the claim an "absolute lie".
Reacting to the claim, BJP national secretary Ram Madhav took to Twitter to hit out at Sharmila.
Absolute lie. Our entire election campaign in MANIPUR doesn't cost that much. She should find respectable ways of fighting elections https://t.co/Yp5q1Vf9Ev Ram Madhav (@rammadhavbjp) February 12, 2017
Meanwhile, the ruling Congress on Wednesday reached the EC to complaint against the BJP.
Congress complains to EC regarding allegations made by Irom Sharmila that she was offered 36 crore to contest election. pic.twitter.com/lzcP9QFIHG ANI (@ANI_news) February 15, 2017
In August 2016, Sharmila broke her 16-year-long hunger strike to have the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (Afspa) that many claim is draconian in nature scrapped in the North East Indian state. She also decided to take a plunge into electoral politics and recently launched her own party, the Peoples' Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA).
Manipur, which is currently facing an economic blockade, goes to the polls in two phases on 4 and 8 March.
Hyderabad: In a significant development, popular Telugu actor and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan said he will not mind having an alliance with the Aam Admi Party (AAP).
Pawan, currently on a visit to the US, said in an interview at Harvard University that like-minded people should come together.
"I don't mind actually," he said when asked if he will have an electoral alliance with the AAP.
"I personally feel, like-minded people should come together," said the actor-politician who plans to contest the 2019 election in Andhra Pradesh.
Pawan floated Jana Sena on the eve of the 2014 elections but campaigned for the BJP-TDP alliance.
He turned against the two parties after the Centre denied special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
He has been targetting the Bharatiya Janata Party for going back on its promise to give special category status and also criticizing the TDP for accepting special package instead of mounting pressure on the Centre for special status.
The younger brother of megastar Chiranjeevi is gearing up for more active role in politics.
He addressed a series of meetings in recent months and flayed the BJP over many issues ranging from beef ban and patriotism to suicide of Dalit research scholar at Hyderabad University and demonetization.
Pawan said in the interview that he supported Narendra Modi in 2014 because he saw him as a leader who could inspire people. He, however, said that he was not happy with the way things have moved.
On demonetisation, he said it was "quite painful" for him to see people suffering.
No matter whether it is O Panneerselvam or VK Sasikala who ultimately emerges victorious in Tamil Nadu, a huge debt pile, a drought-hit economy and millions of people in the southern state who are so used to enjoying decades of populist policies, await the new incumbent. Winning the chief minister's role, thus, will be only the beginning of a long, tough battle for either OPS or 'Chinnamma'.
Tamil Nadu politics have always been dominated by personality cults, from the days of MG Ramachandran, through J Jayalalithaa and now to Panneerselvam and Sasikala. Rather than an ideology or an economic agenda, personalities dictated the political regimes and even daily lives of Indias sixth most populous state. The leaders kept their flocks together by rolling out such goodies as refrigerators, gold chains, or TV sets ahead of elections.
To understand how much the personality cult dominates the states scheme of things one need to only take a quick glance through Tamil Nadus 2016-17 Budget document, presented by then finance minister, and later caretaker chief minister, Panneerselvam on 21 July. The word 'Amma' (mother) is used six times, the adjective 'Puratchi Thalaivi' is used once and references to chief minister 31 times.
It reminds you the verses of old Hindu scriptures that typically begins with a prayer to the cosmic force. Panneerselvam, appears to offer prayers to the AIADMK supreme leader often in the Budget speech, thus making the whole 86-page document a humble submission at the feet of his and his party mens supreme 'mother'. The 'Demigod of the AIADMK' image is something Amma inherited from MGR and is now being sought by her two biggest loyalists.
Panneerselvams 2016-17 Budget document waxes eloquent about Jayalalithaas iconic cult status. Terms like, "unparalleled", "unflinching" "historic", "infinite love" and "affection" are used to describe Jayalalithaa. There is no other Indian state like Tamil Nadu, where political leaders enjoy blind devotion of their followers, mostly from the poorest strata of the society. For the most part of her life, Jayalalithaa carried the stature of a demigod, first as an actress and later as a politician, before whom her supporters where never shy to prostrate. For them she was never human.
Most of the social welfare schemes in the state are named after her Tamil Nadu Village Habitation Improvement (THAI) scheme (Thai in Tamil means mother), 'Amma Unavagam' (subsidised food), 'Amma Kudineer' (drinking water scheme), Amma laptops, 'Amma Baby Care Kit', 'Amma Magapperu Sanjeevi' and 'Amma Arogiya Thittam'. There are a number of such schemes that carry her name. People adore those products/services as mothers blessings, thus melting the thin line between political populism and insane, often blind personality-driven politics. Will OPS or Chinnamma replace these words from now on?
The populist bandwagon
How did Jayalalithaa win the hearts of the poor?
To say the least, she was the 'mother' of all freebie schemes that ensured the support of the middle- and lower-income class in many areas. To be sure, some of these were transformative in nature in the areas of education, housing and aiding small entrepreneurs. Certain examples include the World Bank-aided Pudhu Vaazhvu' Project launched in 2005. Under this scheme, the government claims to have given job-oriented skill training to 3.27 lakh youths. The THAI scheme, so far implemented in 71,126 habitations pertaining to 9,511 village panchayats and the housing scheme under which in the past four years, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board has constructed 10,059 units at a cost of Rs 565.92 crore including 2,293 houses for the low income group.
Amma was also known for her investor-friendly approach, which explains the reason why the state is home to more industries and employment than any other Indian state. Tamil Nadu is also home to a small-sector movement with the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector providing employment to 63.18 lakh persons. No doubt, Jayalalithaa had always been an able administrator. This is evident from the progress made by the state in the areas of poverty eradication, social welfare, investor-friendly measures and overall economic numbers.
Tamil Nadus Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), which fell to 3.4 percent in real terms, during 2012-13, was reversed to 7.3 percent towards 2013-14 higher than the national average growth rate of 4.7 percent in that period. The state recorded a GSDP growth rate of 8.8 percent in 2015-16 as against the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 7.6 percent, based on the 2011-12 constant prices. The gross fixed capital formation, which indicates the investment activity too has improved significantly, touching Rs 34,091 crore in Fiscal Year 2014 compared with Rs 23,054 crore when her predecessor, M Karunanidhi left office in 2010-11.
A Tamil Nadu debt-bomb in the making?
But, in the process of rolling out freebies, she also built a debt bomb for the state. At this point, TNs debt is over Rs 2 lakh crore.
But, according to an IndiaSpend analysis, TNs debt has witnessed a 92 percent increase over five years ending 2015. According to the Reserve Bank data, TN registered the highest gross fiscal deficit among all states in 2015-16 at Rs 31,830 crore. For current fiscal the TN government pegged its fiscal deficit at Rs 40,534 crore or 2.96 of GSDP.
In the past five years when Jayalalithaa was in office, the debt level of Tamil Nadu has risen 105 percent from Rs 1.14 lakh crore to Rs 2.35 lakh crore. This is the sharpest increase in debt levels by a large state. Of all Indian states, only Haryana has beaten Tamil Nadu with a 141 percent rise in public debt. Needless to say most of this debt is the consequence of Jayalalithaas populist bandwagon aiming at the poor of the state. Other large industrial states like Maharashtra and Gujarat have seen their debt level increasing by a relatively better 64.5 percent and 60.3 percent in the same period.
There is no corresponding trend in tax revenue. According the to 2016-17 Tamil Nadu Budget, tax revenue was estimated to increase to Rs 90,691.87 crore in revised budget estimates for 2016-2017 from Rs 86,537.70 crore as per the revised estimates of 2015-2016.
It is not just the debt pile, the new chief minister, also needs to deal with the drought situation that has severely hit the farming population.
For Tamil Nadu, Amma has left behind an era of political populism and a debt-bomb in making. Ammas presence will still be felt in the state's cabinet meetings through her image and the memories of her charismatic leadership. At the end of the power battle, along with her legacy, the task of dealing with this inherited debt-bomb in the making and the pain of a drought-hit state will now go to either her long-term trusted lieutenant Panneerselvam or a friend of three decades Sasikala.
Whoever emerge as Ammas successor will also likely follow her populist policies to keep the flock together.
With inputs from Kishor Kadam
Narendra Modi is a busy man. With Assembly elections being held in five states, the Prime Minister is crisscrossing the Hindi heartland addressing multiple rallies a day. Voters in Uttarakhand will cast their ballots on Wednesday. Before the campaign window comes to a close, Modi addressed the crowd in Haridwar on Friday, went to Pithoragarh on Saturday and visited Shrinagar and Rudrapur on Sunday for two more meetings. In short, four election rallies in the hilly state within three days.
On Monday, the last day of campaigning before the second phase in UP involving 67 Assembly constituencies spread across 11 districts, the Prime Minister flew down to Lakhimpur for another rally. India's largest state will witness seven-phase elections and the Prime Minister is scheduled to address two rallies in each phase, taking his total number of public meetings to 14 in UP alone. These, of course, are in addition to his rallies in Punjab and Goa which went to polls earlier.
During 2015 Bihar elections, BJP pressed Modi into service 30 times. It still lost. This time the overall number might be a little lower but only marginally so.
Interestingly, the lack of a credible, local mass leader was said to be one of the reasons behind BJP's defeat. It suggested that the 'Modi wave' of 2014 was well and truly over. While the Prime Minister retains his personal popularity, it is no longer enough to paper over the absence of strong candidates who could be projected as CM. As democracy seeps down, voters seek more and more local empowerment barring the rare tectonic shift of a wave election. The electorate is also discerning enough to differentiate between Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. Bihar and Delhi debacles also taught the BJP that in such cases, too much of Modi only makes him vulnerable.
In his column for Times of India, R Jagannathan writes: "The easy gains in 2014 (Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and J&K) made the BJP leadership believe that Modis popularity was enough to win most states. In 2014, the Modi wave was still strong and the opposition in disarray. But post-2014, the party hasnt won a single state without projecting a leader (it lost Delhi and Bihar badly, and won Assam handsomely only with a CM candidate) The electorate knows it will get Akhilesh Yadav as chief minister if the SP-Congress coalition wins, but it is not sure what will emerge from the black box if BJP wins."
There is some truth in the analysis. In Punjab, BJP is a minor ally. In Goa, it has dangled the tantalising possibility of Manohar Parrikar deserting his Union cabinet portfolio and returning to the state in absence of another tall leader. In Uttarakhand, it has the momentum but lacks a credible face. In UP, the party's state leaders are simply not up to scratch. The likes of Yogi Adityanath, Uma Bharti, Kalraj Mishra or UP unit chief Keshav Prasad Maurya may wield some influence in pockets but they cannot shoulder the party's prospects alone or appeal to the undecided, floating voters. Party president Amit Shah is also addressing a lot of rallies but he is more of a tactician, a backroom operator rather than a mass leader with grassroots appeal.
This creates a vacuum in BJP's political messaging. In contrast, there is no confusion among voters when it comes to Samajwadi Party or Bahujan Samaj Party. Both outfits have naturally mounted a presidential form of campaign seeking to exploit BJP's vulnerability. An interesting paradox has emerged. While multiple opinion polls have projected BJP as the dominant party in UP, it fades away as Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati come to the fore when it comes to the question of choosing a CM.
BJP knows this. Despite the cosmetic bluster, it is painfully apparent that BJP is caught in a bind when it comes to using its greatest weapon. While taking a lesson from Bihar it has tried to limit Modi's exposure in a complex state of diverse demographic, but it still tends to reflexively fall back on him in a tight contest. BJP's hoardings in UP therefore have Modi as the most prominent face while local leaders lie much reduced in screen size and influence. The depressing reality of Bihar is evident.
To a certain extent it is understandable. Modi is BJP's star campaigner. Still, the over-reliance on his charisma speaks ill of a party which prides on "being different".
A voter in Gangoh, UP, tells Gyan Varma of Livemint: "Even if there is only an empty chair as a representative of (Narendra) Modi, we will vote for that chair. Modi is the most popular leader, people voted for him in 2014 and the support has not vanished. The rise in crime and the inability of police to control it has angered people even more against Akhilesh Yadav."
Attending a rally in Kithaur constituency on the outskirts of Meerut, Jyoti Malhotra of Economic Times finds "several young BJP boys in saffron hats chanting Modi! Modi! even though they know that Rajnath Singh, and not the PM, is expected."
The problem is a structural one.
The margin, scale and significance of 2014 win not only elevated Modi to BJP's stratosphere, it also changed the way the party functions in an irreparable way. It became much more like the Congress which takes a top-down approach to power. BJP still enjoys a greater dissemination of power compared to most parties but the chain of command has become centralised. Modi is now the undisputed star, the first among equals. It still has some strong regional satraps but none can rival the former Gujarat CM in authority and control.
As 2014 showed, this has benefits. A clear chain of command keeps rebellion under check in a party that is large and has a huge national footprint. In the three years that he has been in power in Delhi, Modi has pushed through his inclusive agenda of 'sabka saath, sabka vikaas'. Under him, BJP's focus has shifted from identity politics to 'development'. He has defanged some of the troubling fringe elements and dragged BJP into a more centrist, even leftist space in national politics.
In a country where civil society's influence has often been greater than even the power wielded by the state, Modi has used the clout in his command to hasten a social equality, cutting through caste and community barriers.
But while these have been happening, BJP's internal federal structure has inevitably weakened. The regional satraps like Vasundhara Raje, Shivraj Chauhan or Raman Singh and still powerful but they are largely restricted to their spheres. And no new mass leaders in states where there were none, have come up. Modi's outsized influence means that BJP is caught in a meta problem. The party cannot do without his charisma and influence but in doing so, it is also reducing the chances of another Modi coming up the ranks. This power equation may alter depending on what happens in UP. For that, we need to wait till 11 March.
Lucknow: They were ordinary homemakers till they jumped into the poll fray to carry forward the political legacy of their husbands.
Politicians, who have passed away or those who cannot contest due to other reasons, have been replaced by their better halves, who are vying with each other for a seat in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
In Bhadohi, when former education minister in BSP regime Rakesh Dhar Tripathi could not contest as he is facing a disproportionate assets case, his wife Pramila Dhar Tripathi took the plunge in electoral politics from the seat. She is contesting on a Apna Dal ticket and seeking to enter the portals of the Legislative Assembly counting on the development works done by her husband for the constituency.
Similarly, in Meja seat in Allahabad, Uday Bhan Karwariya, having a number of cases against him, has passed on the baton to his wife Neelam Karwaria. She has been given BJP ticket from the seat and is contesting the polls with full vigour.
The case of BJP women wing state president Swati Singh is no different. She shot into prominence after her husband Daya Shankar Singh, then BJP state vice president, had allegedly made certain derogatory remarks against BSP supremo Mayawati and was later sacked from the party.
Singh brought his wife to the forefront. Swati actively took part in TV debates where she not only defended her husband, but attacked Mayawati and even challenged the BSP chief to cross swords with her. She is contesting from Lucknow's Sarojini Nagar seat and Daya Shankar is managing the campaign from behind the scenes.
Former MLA Dilip Verma had launched his wife Madhuri Verma in politics when he was in jail in Bahraich. She won on a Congress ticket and this time is contesting on a BJP ticket from Nanpara seat (Bahraich).
In Bahraich, Ruaba Sayeed, wife of sitting MLA Waqar Ahmad Shah's is contesting on a SP ticket. Waqar was minister in the Akhilesh government but due to health reasons, his son Yasir Shah, also an MLA, was included in the ministry in his place. This time on Waqar's seat, Ruaba is in the fray.
BJP MP Kaushal Kishore has also managed a ticket for his wife Jai Devi from Malhihabad seat of Lucknow. Similarly, in Bah seat of Agra, Rani Pakshalika Singh is contesting on a BJP ticket in place of her husband Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh, who was minister in the Akhilesh cabinet but opted out of contest this time.
In Ghazipur's Mohmadabad seat, Alka Rai is contesting on a BJP ticket. She is the wife of BJP leader Krishna Nand Rai, who was killed in 2005 allegedly by the Mukhtar Ansari gang. Despite party manifesto and promises, Alka's trump card in elections is the name of her husband, who was considered a political heavy weight of the area.
In Amebdkar Nagar's Tanda seat, Sanju Devi is contesting on a BJP ticket. She is wife of Hindu Yuva Vahini leader Rambabu Gupta, who was killed in 2013 leading to communal clashes in the area. Sanju is seeking votes in the name of her husband and is trying hard to carry forward the political legacy of her husband by representing the seat in the state Assembly.
After RLD state president Munna Singh Chauhan's death, his wife Shobha Singh joined BJP and this time she is contesting from his traditional Bikapur seat on BJP ticket to carry forward his legacy.
In Allahabad West also, a wife is in the fray with her husband's name in the backdrop. Pooja Pal, a sitting BSP MLA is again in the fray as her husband Raju Pal was killed due to political rivalry. Atiq Ahmad's name figured in the case and Pooja during her campaigning recalls her husband's struggle in a bid to strike an emotional chord with voters.
In Etawah, Sarita Bhadauria is in fray on a BJP ticket. She is the wife of late Abhayveer Singh, who had also dabbled in politics.
The BJP has been keeping a close eye on Uttarakhand, especially after the 2012 election, where Congress won by a margin of one seat. This is one of the reasons why the state's political machinery went into a tizzy last year with rebel MLAs from Congress defecting to BJP. The floods of 2012 and 2013 still remain on the state's issue cards.
The flash floods that hit Uttarakhand in 2012 and the massive rescue and rehabilitation work they entailed also brought the then chief minister Vijay Bahuguna's leadership skills into question and he consequently resigned. The state is still recovering from the after-effects of the devastating floods.
As reported earlier, Uttarakhand was demarcated as a separate state in order to address the issues specific and unique to the hill state, one of which was that of environment and development. However, a little over a decade after its formation, many of the residents, especially those in the non-Terai area, complain that their concerns about life and livelihood in the hills have been neglected by the government. For example, there is a sense that there is disproportionate attention on the rescue efforts in favour of the tourists and visitors and not on those who are permanent inhabitants of the area.
According to The Indian Express, "The floods laid bare the risks of unbridled growth and a quake of that magnitude is likely to cause much greater damage today," and the reason this issue remains fresh in the hill state is the palpable indifference in both the Centre and the state to acknowledge the potential environmental concerns that perhaps need to be considered with more seriousness.
Irregular mining has made the hill region more prone to floods, landslides and related natural disasters, causing immense damage to life and property.
Last year, skeletal remains were recovered of the 2013 floods, raking up fresh memories of the savage floods and the BJP said that the government was careless in running it's rescue operation and that they called it off in a hurry. Financial Express reported that BJP state president Ajay Bhatt lashed out at Chief Minister Harish Rawat on the issue last year and claimed that the government has failed to find out about the human remains.
Experts have blamed the frequency of flash floods on the hydroelectric projects in Uttarakhand. The Supreme Court benched all the projects after the flash floods. Various ministries in the government are bickering over the resumption of the stalled dam projects. Ministries of power, environment, forests and climate change seek to resume five hydroelectric projects, but there is severe opposition from environmentalists and activists. Though the state is well on its way to recovery, the severity of the floods was unseen and is likely to register as a pertinent issue in the 2017 polls.
Formed in 2000, Uttarakhand has always been a politically unstable state. The chief minister's office has had eight changes in its occupants all owed to in-fighting and rebellion. Just recently, in 2016, Uttarakhand saw an intense political crisis when Congress MLAs rebelled and joined Bharatiya Jananta Party in a revolt against chief minister Harish Rawat. According to an editorial in The Hindu, "It was created out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000 after a long grass-roots level struggle for statehood to meet the unique administrative needs of the Himalayan region. The States composite character demands genuine, responsive politics to bind the 13 districts into an organic whole. Indeed, party politics, as contrasted with the social coalition that won the statehood, is still a work in progress in crafting the balance and depth to keep the different regions and constituencies on board. Both the BJP and the Congress, during their respective stints in power, have struggled to paper over intra-party rivalries."
The 2016 constitutional crisis in the state was achieved with ease because the Congress won by a whisker in the 2012 election, with just one seat and thus the defection shook the ruling government's stability in the state.
In March last year, 27 BJP MLAs and nine rebel Congress MLAs sought to replace Harish Rawat as chief minister and the rebels included former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, who doesn't have a great rapport with Rawat who played a significant role in removing Bahuguna as chief minister of the state after the 2012 and 2013 flash floods. A three-person team Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, Shyam Jaju and Kailash Vijayvargiya met the governor KK Paul and informed that the Harish Rawat government was in a minority and sought its dismissal.
However, Rawat claimed that he has "full majority" "Those who are saying they have support of 35 MLAs are misrepresenting facts. I am confident that I still have a majority in the Assembly and can prove it on the floor of the House," he said. An intense war of words began between Congress and BJP leaders. Rawat had accused the BJP of spreading lies and trying to take political advantage of an internal rebellion in the Congress party.
"BJP is trying to topple the democratically elected government here as they have been doing it in other states. An all-powerful BJP government at the Centre is clearly misusing its position to murder democracy in Uttarakhand," Rawat had said.
BJP had also released a sting video, showing the chief minister bargaining with rebel party MLAs and offering them money to win over their support during the floor test in the Assembly on 28 March. Rawat had called the video 'fake.'
Later, a day before the Rawat government was supposed to go in for a floor test, President's Rule was imposed. Rawat consequently took up the matter to the courts and the Uttarakhand High Court quashed the President's Rule. Rawat also secured the floor's confidence because the rebel MLA's were not allowed to vote.
The constitutional crisis of 2017 highlighted the neck and neck race between BJP and Congress. Uttarakhand's political arena is one place where Narendra Modi is projecting himself as the poll mascot. Rawat is a veteran politicians and while the victory handed to him through the Supreme Court has given a filip to his political prowess, he is beginning to be seen as increasingly dictatorial. Rawat projects himself as a victim at the hands of a greedy central government "BJP ke saare balwan milkar kamjor mukhyamantri ko chit karna chahte hain (Powerful BJP wants to defeat a weak chief minister)." Rawat's projection as that of a weakling might not help him retain power in the forthcoming election. This might help BJP finally achieve what it set out to get in 2016, and will use everything in its kitty.
BJP's parivartan yatras tend to focus on demonetisation and surgical strikes and is projecting those as Narendra Modi's bold moves and as something previous leaders as having been unable to achieve. BJP has shied away from putting a spin on their failure to topple the Uttarakhand government into something positive. Modi has casually spoken in speeches how the state of Uttarakhand could do better by having a BJP government, making it easier to get help from the Centre.
With the election campaigning in its last phase ahead of the Uttarakhand Assembly election, it seems that a direct face-off between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state Chief Minister Harish Rawat is on the cards. Modi's decision to hold four rallies in different regions across the state only strengthens this theory.
While the BJP is banking on Modi yet again to turn the electoral wind in its favour, Congress is counting on Rawat, who has emerged as a one-man army in the party's quest to come back to power.
Barb-clad poll promises were the highlight of the penultimate day of their respective campaigns. While Modi tried to sway electorates in two political centres of Uttarakhand Srinagar in Garhwal and Pithoragarh in Kumaon Congress were busy trying to appease voters in the foothills and in Haridwar the centre of plain-oriented politics through scion Rahul Gandhis road show.
Modi has tried to draw the battle lines along a development vs corruption debate in his four rallies so far. Targeting Congress on the corruption issue, he asked the people of the state to use this election as an opportunity to go for development of the state, by voting for BJP.
"The time for those who looted the country for 70 years must come to an end. I promise those who looted the country will have to pay back now. I will not rest and won't let the looters rest either," Modi said.
In Pithoragarh, he attacked the Congress, blaming it for turning the "dev-bhoomi" of Uttarakhand into a "loot-bhoomi". He requested the people to vote out the tainted government.
Replying to Modi, at the foothills in Haridwar, Gandhi said, "Modiji has no right to talk about corruption. All same tainted leaders who were earlier with us are now with BJP. We had thrown out trash from Uttarakhand but he lifted it and put it in his party."
Gandhi was pointing to the defectors who had rebelled against the Rawat government during the crisis last year, who had later joined the BJP.
The BJP is facing infighting in many constituencies due to these turncoats and many of them are contesting from constituencies in Haridwar, where Gandhi carried out a 75km road show. Rawat is contesting from two seats, including one from Kichcha in Haridwar.
In his 'vijay sankalp' rally at Rudrapur, Modi blamed Congress for Uttarakhand's poor condition and compared the state with two other states that came into being at the same time Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh saying that the latter two are far ahead in terms of development.
Referring to his demonetisation move, he said that corruption and black money are hand in gloves in the state. He added, "Uttarakhand has attained the age of 16 and the next five years are very important."
Taking pot-shots at Modi, Gandhi asked why the prime minister was unwilling to unearth 94 percent of black money stacked in Swiss Banks, real estate and bullion.
"Un choron ka naam aapne Rajya Sabha aur Lok Sabha mein kyon nahin liya," he said. While Modi has been portraying his demonetisation move as pro-poor, Gandhi has been touting it as a favour to the corporate world:
"The demonetisation decision was aimed at waiving off six lakh crores worth of loans of the corporate world," Gandhi said.
He quipped, "Mitron mera nam Modi hai, mujhe aapki jeb mein paise pasand nahin (Friends, my name is Modi and I don't like you having money in your pockets)."
On Modi's pledge of promoting the state's tourism, herbal wealth and yoga, and the promise to explore more avenues to stop the mass exodus from the villages in the hills, Gandhi said, "Modi promised to provide two crores jobs each year, but could manage a mere one lakh plus."
"Despite all the talks about 'Make in India', most products are still made in china," Gandhi added.
While attacking Rawat for his alleged corruption and negligence, Modi ridiculed his shift from the plains of Haridwar to contest the election from Dharchula in Pithoragarh.
By repeatedly mentioning demonetisation, OROP and the surgical strike, and highlighting basic issues of migration and unemployment in the state, Modi aimed to wash away Rawat's image of a 'vikas purush' in the state which he was credited with for rebuilding Kedarnath after a natural disaster.
Bhopal: Congress on Monday demanded the resignation of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan after the Supreme Court upheld the cancellation of admissions of 634 students in various medical colleges of the state through the 'Vyapam' test.
"The decision has exposed that the corrupt network of mafia, power-brokers and officials of the Medical Education Department and state Professional Examination Board (popularly known as 'Vyapam') was involved in getting these students passed through illegal means. Chouhan should resign immediately," state Congress president Arun Yadav said.
Senior Congress leader Ajay Singh said the apex court's order had substantiated the accusations of a scam. The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Madhya Pradesh High Court's order cancelling the admissions of 634 MBBS students who had got entry into various medical colleges of the state between 2008 and 2012 using "illegal means", Singh said.
"The chief minister should take the moral responsibility for this scam and resign immediately," he demanded. Yadav pointed out that Chouhan himself was holding the Medical Education portfolio when the Vyapam scam was reported. "These students would have become doctors...the apex court has saved the patients from such doctors," he said.
Former controller of Dental and Medical Admission Test (DMAT) Yogesh Uprit had also admitted to corruption in the admission process in his statement before court, Yadav claimed.
In the United States, law enforcement often takes place in a black box, unfamiliar to those of us who are lucky enough to escape scrutiny. The US Customs and Border Protection can pretty much do whatever it wants in the name of national security. There are numerous documented instances of Muslim-Americans being stopped at the border from Canada and detained for hours without any probable cause.
Border agents refused lawyers and continued to detain people after federal courts had ordered their release. But it didn't end there. We saw the next, dangerous iteration of this erosion when the police interacted with black men, and in some cases turned off their body cams to act with impunity and then throw the book at the people.
Lately, were seeing some similar but powerful signalling from the White House. When Donald Trump tweeted against the "so-called judge" who decided against the travel ban, and blamed him for any future terrorist attacks, he undermined the authority of the court. In a similar fashion, every time he vilifies the press, he is implying that the only alternative for unbiased information is the White House. And he feels free to pass executive orders. The disjunction and confusion are approaching a fever pitch while the new order is being established. Right now, there is relatively robust legislative and judicial dissent. Once someone like The US Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is approved, executive actions like the travel ban are much likelier to be approved through official channels.
Now, the new US Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the law and order. A senator, he has come under scrutiny for racist language. He has attempted to block any voting rights legislation designed to protect people who are and have been routinely and violently denied access to the polls. Following his swearing in, the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun deporting mothers who have lived in this country for more than 20 years in the name of preventing "violence".
So, what does resistance look like in the face of all this? People occupy airports. People surround ICE deportation vans. With direct action come a variety of outcomes. Sometimes, it is simply galvanising to see people standing up for themselves despite the violence they face for doing so. There is almost always a clear goal: prevent this truck from reaching the border; stop bulldozers from entering this space.
In the thick of a protest, there is a sense of camaraderie. We realise that a mob can be righteous, that people know how to talk to each other and make decisions. Its extremely cynical to think this isnt possible. In protest, we see glimpses of what the world could look like if people prioritised a collective good, based on mutual aid. People are so ready to put their bodies on the line for one another. We see it at Standing Rock, where people have stood their ground when attacked with pepper spray and water cannons and rubber bullets in the freezing weather. We see it when army veterans pledge to become human shields to protect the people protecting the water.
Politicians and activists with self-serving agendas are quick to enter these spaces and attempt to control the movement of people, but there have been many cases recently where people resisted these attempts. When Muslim-Americans were detained at airports, people went to the airports. When Sioux land was threatened, indigenous people occupied it and refused to leave. There have been sit-ins and boycotts and targeted demonstrations that take the battle to the frontline. No amount of sign holding outside city hall will have the same effect because people have little leverage there.
What some people fail to understand is that any systemic "progress" comes from the grassroots. When politicians attempt to co-opt this agenda for their own political ends, the movement is over before it begins. A protection being codified into law or a ban being deemed unconstitutional or a sympathetic politician being elected is the end of the line. It is a stopgap measure. Liberty requires constant vigilance. People can't afford to sit idle when the law can be manipulated and there's erosion between the courts and enforcement agencies. People are entitled to express their discontent and eventually, a drop becomes a sea, becomes a tide, becomes change. It is kept at bay until the floodgates cannot hold and then the earth is inundated.
Neither the corporations nor the governments' own us. And ultimately, neither have the right nor the compunction to tell us what is moral and good. That we have signed some social contract and are thus beholden to support and defend power once it has been established is ludicrous. It is an idea that our own eyes deceive us.
This is where civil disobedience comes into play. Ultimately, if the law is so malleable and if court decisions are unheeded, and the most marginalised and downtrodden people pay the price, it is our responsibility to defend each other. That is what resistance is.
Beijing: A wary China on Monday firmly opposed comments by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about Diaoyu islands and warned Tokyo to refrain from seeking American support for its illegal territorial claims under the mutual defence treaty.
"China is gravely concerned about and firmly opposed to relevant comments by Japan and the US. Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands are China's inherent territory," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told media briefing in Beijing.
China calls the uninhabited Senkaku islands in the East China Sea held by Japan as Diaoyu islands.
While the islands and waters, believed to contain rich deposits of oil and minerals are in the administrative control of Japan, China has stepped up naval patrols around it after jostling with Japanese coast guard.
"We are firmly against Japan's attempt to try to gain the US support for its illegal territorial claims in the name of the so-called mutual defense treaty," Geng said.
During the current visit of Abe to Washington, President Trump agreed to further strengthen security ties and confirmed that US forces will continue to be committed to defending the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japanese media said.
Expressing strong reservations over US extending the umbrella of its security treaty with Japan to the disputed islands, Geng said, "no rhetoric or actions, from whomsoever will change the fact that Diaoyu Dao belongs to China or waver China's resolve and determination to uphold its national sovereignty and territorial integrity."
He said Japan and the US should exercise prudence and stop making wrong remarks so as not to complicate relevant issues or bring negative impact on regional peace and stability.
This is not the first time US is extending such a support. China reacted the same way when US assured such a backing to Japan under previous Barack Obama administration.
At a joint press conference yesterday with Abe, Trump described Japan as being "an important and steadfast ally" and affirmed continued US commitment to defending the Senkakus.
"We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control," the US President said.
Abe supplemented Trump's remarks by articulating that they "have confirmed that Article 5 of the Japan-US Security Treaty will be applied to the Senkaku Islands," the Japan News reported.
The confirmation was also stipulated in a joint statement issued after the meeting, which added, "[Both nations] oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japans administration of these islands."
Geng also asserted China's sovereignty over the disputed South China Sea (SCS), saying that its construction of the artificial islands are within its rights.
By Angus McDowall
| ALEPPO, Syria
ALEPPO, Syria In the rubble-strewn square outside Aleppo's ancient citadel and under the scorched vaults of its covered souk, workmen are starting to mend the destruction of a war that has shattered the Syrian city's priceless historical heritage. About 20 volunteers sorted through the debris in Khan al-Gumruk, one of the souk's great medieval inns, piling up the stones from a fallen archway that can be used in its restoration. "I'm a son of this district. We're all from Aleppo and our priority is to work here. We've been at it for a month in this area since the fighters left," said Mohannad Hassari, a bearded 25-year-old. About 30 percent of the Old City suffered "catastrophic" damage in the fighting that ended there in December, said Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's director general of antiquities.Speaking to Reuters after his first visit to the city since the rebels were forced to surrender there, he said officials were working on a plan to save what they can.The Aga Khan Development Network's cultural arm, which was behind a multi-million dollar restoration and urban development project around the Citadel and nearby souks a decade ago, said it was also looking at possible rehabilitation of the area. Aleppo is one of the Middle East's great historic centres, its ancient Citadel and medieval mosques and souks among the region's finest buildings and a source of national pride - and tourist revenue - for Syria. Today, the lingering smell of burning is everywhere in its Old City: under collapsed domes, in the soot-blackened souk and in the cracked masonry, broken glass and discarded bullet casings that litter the famous Umayyad Mosque. A street vendor in gaudy folk costume accosted customers with paper cups of cardamom-spiced tea and coffee outside the Citadel. But the area's mood remained sombre compared with its bustling pre-war gaiety.Many of the cafes that lined the area, in old buildings with arched facades, have been wrecked but a group of soldiers sat in one, warming their hands around a stove that billowed black smoke and listening to mournful Arabic music.However, people are returning, some to live where homes are still habitable and others to salvage possessions from their shops. Many more simply want to enjoy places that were too dangerous to visit during the fighting. In the Umayyad Mosque's courtyard a group of teenage boys huddled for a selfie in front of walls so peppered with bullets that it was hard to find a smooth patch of stone larger than the palm of one's hand. The 11th century minaret was destroyed by shelling in 2013.
Under the arches inside the mosque, an old man in a bulky greatcoat, woollen scarf wrapped around his head, stood sobbing in the dark near a shrine, a barricade of oil drums and sandbags still looming behind it. FRONTLINE
When fighting erupted in Aleppo in 2012, a year after the rising against President Bashar al-Assad had begun elsewhere in Syria, rebels took its eastern districts and much of the Old City. Intense clashes in 2012 and 2013 made the souks and the area around the Umayyad Mosque one of the fiercest front lines in Syria, pounded by artillery and air strikes. Under the painted cupola of the Mamlouk throne hall in the Citadel, a heavy machine gun on a stand pointed towards a window and out across a wasteland of smashed buildings. The Citadel, a dramatic fortress on a hill, stands at the centre of Aleppo, overlooking the city. It was held by the government but surrounded by rebel territory. The area to its south and west, near the Umayyad Mosque, is where the Old City suffered most damage.
One stretch of the covered souk is now a dark tunnel, pierced by beams of daylight from roof shafts, its entrance a mass of stones and its shops clogged with rubble and weeds. Oil drums and sandbags, topped by a cushion in traditional fabric, gave fighters a firing position that commanded the souk corridor leading towards the Citadel. "The memory of Aleppo is very symbolic," said Abdulkarim, Syria's antiquities director general. Restoration would meet the requirements of international bodies, he added, and no modern buildings would be put up in the Old City.He said preservation of Syria's heritage should be treated separately from the political issues surrounding the war.RESTORATION
Both sides in the continuing war have accused each other of targeting or damaging historical sites, which range from ancient cities, temples, mosques and castles to the more recent relics of Ottoman rule. "Everybody realises we are working in difficult circumstances," said Ali Esmaiel, head of the Aga Khan Cultural Service in Syria, alluding to the fighting and other obstacles to saving Aleppo's heritage. However, he said the charity was looking at a framework for the rehabilitation of the Old City and conservation of its historic monuments "as conditions and resources allow". The charity worked from 1999 to 2012 on restoring the area around the Citadel, transforming it into a popular haunt for Aleppans and tourists and the site of concerts and other cultural activities. But the fighting caused most to flee and its shops are now closed. At the Bab Antakia souk, Heitham Ghanam, a middle-aged trader in women's fashion accessories, was clearing rubble from his shop with his wife and daughter. "We are waiting for the electricity to come back and for others to open their stores before we do," he said.In Baron's Hotel, where Agatha Christie and T.E. Lawrence stayed, the elegant tiles of the grand lobby, smoking room and bar are hard to see in the unlit interior. The only guests are three families of refugees from eastern Aleppo districts damaged in the fighting, one living in a room once occupied by Iraq's King Faisal. At the top of the sloping causeway leading up to the Citadel's entrance, wide enough for horses to ride abreast, four soldiers scrolled through their phones under posters of Assad.But many residents look forward to a time when the soldiers manning gun positions in the Citadel's museum and stringing laundry between the pillars of its Ayubid Mosque can be replaced by tourists. (Editing by Giles Elgood)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Baghdad: Iraqi forces have thwarted an attempt by around 200 Islamic State fighters to flee their bastion of Tal Afar towards Syria, west of the city of Mosul, a security spokesman said on Monday.
Forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation), a paramilitary organisation dominated by Shiite militia groups, said the Islamic State group used tanks in their bid to break out of Tal Afar.
"The attack by the Daesh (IS) terrorist gangs started at around 7:00 pm (1600 GMT on Sunday), the fighting lasted around six hours," their spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi told AFP.
Hashed forces have been deployed in desert areas west of Mosul since federal forces launched a massive operation to retake the city from the Islamic State on 17 October.
Their main goals are to retake Tal Afar, a Turkmen-majority city which is still held by the Islamic State, and to prevent the jihadists from being able to move men and equipment between Mosul and their strongholds in Syria.
"This was an attempt by Daesh to open a breach, flee to the Syria border and exfiltrate some leaders and fighters," Assadi said.
He said that Hashed forces received support from army aviation helicopters when the Islamic State attacked them. He added that the fighting left around 50 Islamic State members killed and 17 of their vehicles destroyed.
Assadi did not provide a casualty figure for the Hashed al-Shaabi following the attack, which took place around 20 kilometres southwest of Tal Afar.
Islamic State jihadists are confined to a corridor between Tal Afar and Mosul by tens of thousands of forces deployed on several fronts.
After retaking the eastern side of Mosul last month, Iraqi forces are preparing to launch an assault on the west bank of the city.
The early stages of the Mosul offensive saw Islamic State move fighters between Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqa, its other major urban stronghold, but their supply lines have now been cut off.
BAGHDAD The Iraqi airforce carried out a strike on a house where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was thought to be meeting other commanders, the Iraqi military said on Monday, without making clear whether he had been hit.In a statement, it said Iraqi F-16s had targeted the house in western Iraq on Saturday. It published the names of 13 Islamic State commanders it said had been killed in the air strike, but the list did not include Baghdadi.Three other Islamic State positions in western Iraq were targeted in the same wave of air strikes, killing 64 fighters, the statement said. The military said Baghdadi moved last week in a convoy from Raqqa, in Syria, to the region of al-Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border, to discuss with commanders "the collapse happening in Mosul and to chose a successor for him".
Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, has been reported wounded several times in the past. His last known public message goes back to November, when he called on Islamic State fighters to defend Mosul, their last major urban stronghold in Iraq. [nL8N1D401X]
U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have completed the first phase of the campaign to retake Mosul, removing the militants from the eastern side of the city last month.An Iranian-backed Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary force is also battling the Sunni militants west of Mosul, trying to prevent their escape to Syria.
(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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By Fatos Bytyci
| PRISTINA
PRISTINA President Hashim Thaci announced on Monday plans for a Truth Commission to help reconcile Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian majority and Serb minority, as allegations of atrocities committed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war continue to scar relations.Thaci said it pained him that even youngsters born after the war saw their peers across the ethnic divide as "enemies and as a danger". "Kosovo cannot build a good future if it remains a hostage to its past," the president said at a ceremony to unveil plans for the truth and reconciliation commission.An estimated 10,800 Kosovo Albanians and some 2,200 Serbs were either killed or went missing during the 16-month conflict, which saw Serbian forces counter an Albanian insurgency waged by the Kosovo Liberation Army.
An estimated 1 million Albanians were forced from their homes by the Serbian troops before NATO launched air strikes and forced Belgrade to withdraw its forces.World attention has long centred on the mass killings committed by the Serbian forces loyal to Slobodan Milosevic, while there has been less scrutiny of crimes committed by Kosovo's Albanian troops.Thaci, who led the guerilla insurgency against Serbian forces and was prime minister when Kosovo won its independence in 2008, on Monday said it was necessary to determine the facts surrounding the conflict. But he did not detail how the commission would work and who would be involved.
Many Serbs refuse to recognise Pristina as their capital and Belgrade still considers Kosovo part of its territory. Relations came under renewed strain in early January when French police arrested another former Kosovo prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, a rebel commander during the Kosovo war, on a Serbian warrant for war crimes he had allegedly committed.
Normalising relations between Belgrade and Pristina is a key condition for both countries to progress towards European Union membership. Opponents of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia say prosecutors have disproportionately targeted Serbs. A new court at The Hague established under Kosovo's constitution will deal with alleged crimes committed by ethnic Albanians. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Richard Lough)
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By Ju-min Park
| SEOUL
SEOUL North Korea said on Monday it had successfully test-fired a new type of medium- to long-range ballistic missile the previous day, claiming advances in a weapons programme it is pursuing in violation of U.N. resolutions. North Korea fired the missile on a high arc into the sea early on Sunday, the first probe of U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to get tough on an isolated regime that tested nuclear devices and ballistic missiles last year at an unprecedented rate.The North's state-run KCNA news agency said leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of the Pukguksong-2, a new type of strategic weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The United States, Japan and South Korea requested urgent U.N. Security Council consultations on the test, with a meeting expected later on Monday, an official in the U.S. mission to the United Nations said.Japan said further sanctions against North Korea could be discussed at the United Nations, and called on China to take a "constructive" role in responding.China is North Korea's main ally and trading partner but is irritated by its repeated aggressive actions, although it rejects suggestions from the United States and others that it could be doing more to rein in its neighbour."We have asked China via various levels to take constructive actions as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and we will continue to work on it," said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.China said it opposed North Korean missile tests that run contrary to U.N. resolutions."All sides should exercise restraint and jointly maintain regional peace and security," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular briefing, adding that China would participate in talks at the United Nations on the launch with a "responsible and constructive attitude".Russia's foreign ministry expressed concern over the launch, RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying.HIGH ANGLE
North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests, including two last year, although its claims to be able to miniaturise a nuclear weapon to be mounted on a missile have never been verified independently.Leader Kim said in his New Year speech the North was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and state media have said such a launch could come at any time.A fully developed ICBM could threaten the continental United States, which is about 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from North Korea.The KCNA news agency said the missile fired on Sunday was launched at a high angle in consideration of the safety of neighbouring countries. A South Korean military source said on Sunday it reached an altitude of 550 km (340 miles).It flew about 500 km towards Japan, landing off the east coast of the Korean peninsula.The missile was propelled by a solid fuel engine and was an upgraded, extended-range version of its submarine-launched ballistic missile that was tested successfully last August, according to KCNA.The missile's name - Pukguksong-2 - translates as north star or Polaris, the same name of the first U.S. submarine-launched missile.
South Korea's military said the missile had been launched using a "cold-eject" system, whereby it is initially lifted by compressed gas before flying under the power of its rocket, a system used for submarine-launched missiles.North Korea's pursuit of large solid-fuelled missiles was "a very concerning development", said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics."Large solid-fuel motors are difficult to make work correctly so this is indeed a significant advance by North Korea," McDowell said.'INTOLERABLE'
In addition to launching more quickly, solid-fuel engines also boost the power and range of ballistic rockets.
"Solid-motor engines mean that the fuel is pre-stored and the missile can be launched quickly. For example, rolled out of a cave, tunnel, or bridge," said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California."They are also more difficult to track by satellite because they have fewer support vehicles in their entourage."The North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed pictures of a missile fired from a mobile launch vehicle, with a flame appearing only after it had risen clear of the vehicle. Before Sunday, the North's two most recent missile tests were in October. Both were of intermediate-range Musudan missiles and both failed, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.A U.S. official said at the weekend the Trump administration had been expecting a North Korean "provocation" soon after taking office. The latest test came a day after Trump held a summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and also followed a phone call last week between trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.Abe described the test as "absolutely intolerable".In brief comments made while standing beside Abe in Florida, Trump said: "I just want everybody to understand, and fully know, that the United States of America is behind Japan, our great ally, 100 percent."Trump and his aides are likely to weigh a series of responses, including new U.S. sanctions to tighten financial controls, an increase in naval and air assets in and around the Korean peninsula, and accelerated installation of new missile defence systems in South Korea, the administration official said.However, the official said that, given that the missile was believed not to have been an ICBM, and the North had not carried out a new nuclear explosion, any response would seek to avoid increasing tension. (Additional reporting by Tony Munroe and Christine Kim in SEOUL, David Lawder in WASHINGTON, Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Robert Birsel)
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Officials have ordered over 162,000 residents near the Oroville Dam in Northern California to evacuate the area, after an emergency spillway severely eroded, the media reported.
According to the Butte county Sheriff's Office, the main spillway of the dam, the nation's tallest, was damaged in storms this week, NBC News reported.
Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, is one of California's largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest. The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
"A hazardous situation is developing with the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. Operation of the auxiliary spillway has led to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of the structure," the sheriff's office posted on its Facebook page on Sunday night, emphasising that it was not a drill. "Failure of the auxiliary spillway structure will result in an uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville."
"In response to this developing situation, DWR (Department of Water Resources) is increasing water releases to 100,000 cubic feet per second. Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered," the post added.
Thousands of people evacuated below the Oroville Dam, jamming roads, the Los Angeles Times reported. TV news footage showed long delays out of Oroville, with officials urging people to move to higher ground. Gas stations were also packed. Butte county officials said they evacuated jail inmates due to the situation.
After discovering the damage, officials said that they will attempt to plug it using sandbags and rocks. But they stressed the situation remains dangerous. If the dam collapses, water would get into Oroville within an hour. Shortly thereafter, the nearby towns of Briggs, Gridley and Live Oak would be affected. It would take eight to 12 hours for water to reach the cities of Marysville and Yuba city.
Water started flowing over an emergency spillway at the dam, on Lake Oroville, on Saturday after erosion damaged the Northern California dam's main spillway. It was the first time the emergency spillway was used in the reservoir's nearly 50-year history.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in that is expected to keep getting bigger until it reaches bedrock.
State officials also had been attempting to rescue millions of hatchery-raised fish imperiled by muddy water flowing downstream alongside the damaged spillway after sections of its concrete walls collapsed earlier this week
With inputs from agencies.
Islamabad: Pakistan has deported around 6,00,000 Afghan refugees in eight months since July 2016, making it the "world's largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees", New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said in a report.
HRW, in its report, 'Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity: The Mass Forced Return of Afghan Refugees', has said that more than 100 refugees from Afghanistan described how the community was forced to return to their conflict-torn land, Geo News reported on Monday.
In the 76-page report, Afghan refugees have narrated their stories of abuses by Pakistan police, extortion, arbitrary detention and deportation threats that intensified in the second half of last year.
"In other instances, their children were either driven out of educational institutes or authorities shut down schools in refugee camps," it said.
Gerry Simpson, senior researcher at HRW -- the author of the report -- said: "After decades of hosting Afghan refugees, Pakistan in mid-2016 unleashed the world's largest recent anti-refugee crackdowns to coerce their mass return."
Families are being sent back to Afghanistan where the militant insurgency has gained strength, the report said.
In Pakistan, around 1.5 million Afghan refugees are registered and nearly 1 million are undocumented, Geo News said.
In the 1980s when the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan took place, many Aghanis fled from the turmoil and came to Pakistan as refugees.
Post the Tehreek-e-Taliban's Pakistan (TTP) attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014, in which hundreds of students were killed, Pakistan turned its back on the community.
"Officials in Pakistan consider Afghans a security threat. Its 20-point National Action Plan, launched in 2014, calls for a comprehensive policy to deal with the issue of the Afghan refugees," Geo News added.
"UNHCR is operating in a tough political environment and fears angering the Pakistani government," reads the report, "but it's crossed a red line by caving in to Pakistani pressure to incentivise Afghan refugees to leave, making it complicit in Pakistan's unlawful mass forced refugee return."
This month, the Pakistan government extended a deadline for Afghan refugees to leave the country until the end of 2017.
ANKARA An Islamist gunman, who has confessed to the killing of 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year's Day, told a court that he had aimed to kill Christians during his attack, Hurriyet newspaper said on Monday, citing testimony given this weekend. Abdulgadir Masharipov initially planned to attack the area around Taksim Square but switched to the upscale Reina nightclub due to the heightened security measures around the square, Hurriyet said, without saying how it had obtained the document.Reuters was not given access to the confidential document."I did not take part in any acts before the Reina event. I thought of carrying out an act against Christians on their holiday, to take revenge for their killing acts across the world. My goal was to kill Christians," he was quoted as saying."If I had decided to do so, I would have used a gun and killed the people there (Taksim). There was no entrance to Taksim, it was swarming with police. I changed my mind after that," Huuriyet quoted him as saying in the court document.Turkey is a majority Muslim nation. Turks, as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada, were among those killed in the attack. Victims included a Bollywood film producer, a Turkish waiter, a Lebanese fitness trainer and a Jordanian bar owner.Islamic State claimed responsibility the day after the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and launched an incursion into neighbouring Syria in August to drive jihadists and Kurdish militia fighters away from its borders.
Masharipov, an Uzbek, acknowledged his membership of Islamic State and said the jihadist group would develop a presence in predominantly non-Muslim countries if it had the power, Hurriyet said.Masharipov said he and his family had originally planned to travel to Syria from Uzbekistan, but stayed in Turkey because they were unable to do so. He said he had not taken part in any meetings or phone calls with the group while in Turkey.He was caught in a police raid in Istanbul on Jan. 16 and was formally charged with membership of an armed terrorist group, multiple counts of murder, possession of heavy weapons and attempting to overturn the constitutional order, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
In his testimony this weekend, he told officials he would prefer the death penalty as a sentence, and said he did not regret his actions, which he believed were not targeting Turkey, but rather were acts of revenge."It would be better if a death penalty was ruled. I threw the stun grenades after my ammunition had finished, nothing happened. I remained alive, but I had gone to die there," he said, according to Hurriyet.Turkey formally abandoned the death penalty in 2002 as part of its European Union accession talks, and its restoration would probably spell the end of Turkey's talks to join the bloc.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has revived the question of reintroducing the punishment in the wake of a failed July coup, saying he would approve the change if parliament passed it. "Why do they say I work against Turkey or am against Turkey? I don't think I did anything against the Turkish republic, I did not do anything against Turkey. I took revenge," Masharipov was cited as saying."I do not regret what I did. I believe I retaliated." (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Louise Ireland)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Anthony Deutsch
| AMSTERDAM
AMSTERDAM Syrian government forces used chemical weapons in opposition-controlled parts of Aleppo during battles to retake the city late last year, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Monday.The findings add to mounting evidence of the use of banned chemical weapons in the six-year-old Syrian civil war and could strengthen calls by Britain, France and the United States for sanctions against Syrian officials.Government helicopters dropped chlorine bombs "in residential areas in Aleppo on at least eight occasions between November 17 and December 13, 2016," the New York-based group said.The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversees a global treaty banning toxic warfare, had no immediate comment.Syria and its ally Russia, which helped state troops in the Aleppo assault, have repeatedly denied using chemical weapons in the conflict. They blame opposition militants seeking to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Human Rights Watch said its report, which was based on interviews with witnesses, analysis of videos and photos and social media posts, did not find proof of Russian involvement in the chemical attacks, but noted Moscow's key role in helping the government to retake Aleppo."The attacks, some of which included multiple munitions, killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured around 200," it said.Ole Solvang, deputy emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, said in an interview that the way chemical attacks moved in step with the frontline showed they were an integral part of the offensive.
"This is a strong indication that these chlorine attacks were coordinated with the overall military strategy. And it is a strong indication then that senior military officers, the commanders of this military offensive in Aleppo, knew that chlorine was being used," he said.A U.N.-OPCW inquiry assigned to identify organisations and individuals responsible for the chemical attacks concluded last October that Syrian government forces had used chlorine as a chemical weapon at least three times in 2014-15. Islamic State militants, it said, had used sulphur mustard gas in one attack. [L1N1CR23W]The U.N. Security Council extended the mandate of the inquiry, known as the Joint Investigative Mission (JIM), until November this year. It is due to issue its next report by Saturday.
Responding to the JIM's findings, the United States last month blacklisted 18 senior Syrian officials it said were connected to the country's weapons of mass destruction program. [L1N1F20Z7]Reuters reported in January that leading Syrian officials, including President Assad and his brother, had been identified as possible suspects in the chemical attacks [L5N1EF1SM].Chlorine's use as a weapon is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013. If inhaled, chlorine gas turns into hydrochloric acid in the lungs and can kill by burning lungs and drowning victims in the resulting body fluids. (Additional reporting by Marina Depetris; Editing by Ed Osmond)
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By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle
| OSLO
OSLO Shrimp-like creatures living in the deepest parts of the oceans contain high levels of man-made toxins, scientists said on Monday.Tiny crustaceans, such as yellowish Hirondellea gigas living in darkness about 10,000 meters (33,000 ft) down in the Pacific Ocean, are polluted by PCBs, used in electric transformers or paints, and PBDE chemicals used as flame retardants."Pollutants were there in every single sample, regardless of depth, regardless of species," said Alan Jamieson, lead author of a report in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution by a team mainly from the University of Aberdeen.Scientists were most shocked by the high levels of poisons in what had seemed a wilderness, he told Reuters. In one sample, PCB levels were 50 times higher than in crabs in one of China's most polluted rivers.
The high concentrations may be because trash or the remains of contaminated fish sink and build up even on the remotest seabeds, providing food for tiny scavengers.The scientists caught creatures in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific - the deepest point on the seabed, at 11,033 meters down - and the Kermadec Trench off New Zealand.Their lander took samples of the sea floor then released weights and floated back to the surface.
In the 2001 Stockholm Convention, governments agreed to outlaw a "dirty dozen" of man-made persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including PCBs, linked to cancers and damage to reproductive and immune systems in humans and wildlife.In 2009 PBDEs (Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers) were added to the list, which now comprises 26 chemicals. "POPS are found everywhere," said Ana-Maria Witt of the Secretariat of the POPs convention in Geneva.
An international meeting in late April in Geneva on "detoxifying the future" will decide whether to add two new chemicals, used as flame retardants and in plastics, to the list.Many POPs build up in fatty tissues, and some of the highest levels have been found in the Arctic - including in the breast milk of Inuit women - after being swept northwards by winds and ocean currents from industries far to the south. (Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Andrew Roche)
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Dubai: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he was disappointed that the US opposed his appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as UN envoy to mediate in the conflict in Libya.
Fayyad is "the right person for the right job at the right moment", Xinhua news agency quoted Guterres as saying at the fifth World Government Summit. Last Saturday, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley blocked Fayyad's appointment, saying Washington was "disappointed to see a letter indicating the intention to appoint the former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister to lead the UN Mission in Libya".
The US is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council. "For too long the UN has been unfairly biased in favour of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel," Haley said.
Fayyad, 64, was appointed to replace German diplomat Martin Kobler, who has been serving as the UN special envoy to Libya and the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya since November 2015. Guterres said Fayyad was the "right person... recognised everywhere".
"He has the competence. Objecting the envoy is a loss for Libya, the Libyan people," the UN chief said, adding that containing the conflict in Libya is "in everybody's interest."
Guterres, who became UN Secretary General on January 1, arrived here on Monday after visiting Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the first two stops of his Middle East tour, which will also take him to Oman, Qatar and Egypt.
United Nations: The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's missile launch, Pyongyang's first test since US President Donald Trump took office.
The council is expected to hold consultations on Monday after North Korea confirmed it had "successfully" tested a ballistic missile.
"The United States, along with Japan and the Republic of Korea, have requested urgent consultations on the DPRK's launch of a ballistic missile on 12 February," said a US mission spokesman, adding that the meeting would likely take place in the afternoon.
The North Korean missile flew about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before falling into the sea, South Korea's defence ministry said.
The state-run KCNA news agency said "a "surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile" was "successfully test-fired" on Sunday, describing it as a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system."
The launch was seen as a test of the response from Trump, who pledged "100 percent" support to Washington's regional ally Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose country would be in range of a hostile North Korean missile launch, called the test "absolutely intolerable" during an impromptu press conference with Trump in Florida.
The reclusive regime carried out more than 20 missile tests last year, one of which reached Japanese-controlled waters after a launch in August.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile and nuclear technology. The council has imposed six sets of sanctions since Pyongyang's first nuclear test in 2006.
The latest round of sanctions imposed in November includes a cap on Pyongyang's coal exports to China, aimed at depriving the communist state of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Kuala Lumpur: Ahead of Valentine's Day on Tuesday, the National Muslim Youth Association (Pembina) in Malaysia has advised Muslim women against using emoticons in text messages or wearing fragrance.
Pembina's guide published on its official Facebook page on Monday said Muslim women should avoid seven things while dealing with "non-mahram", or men they can marry, even outside the day commemorating love.
Besides avoiding the use of emoticons and wearing "excessive" fragrance, the guide also urged Muslim women to avoid making their voice sound sweet, and to cover up their intimate parts, Malay Mail Online newspaper reported.
The Malaysian Islamist group also warned Muslim women against being alone with non-mahram men, and select the appropriate time to deal with men like daytime and not at night. It also told Muslim women to keep their text messages simple for non-mahram men.
The guide is part of Pembina's annual anti-Valentine's Day campaign, claiming that the celebration threatens the faith of Muslims and leads to illicit sex.
Earlier on Monday, the group released a list of five things Muslim youth can do to reject the day, such as publicly chastising unmarried couples who are dating.
The group also suggested youth to wear Pembina's anti-Valentine's Day T-shirt, put up its posters in public, and urge their friends to join Islamic or beneficial activities on the day.
The Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) has also consistently opposed the celebration of Valentine's Day among Muslims, claiming that it possesses Christian elements.
It looks like Xiaomi may soon start making its own processors. According to a latest report from the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese smartphone maker is planning to move away from Qualcomm processors as its primary chip provider.
With this move, Xiaomi will join other smartphone majors like Apple, Samsung and Huawei who also make their own chips. The report citing sources said, Xiaomi is planning to release its new processor which will is codenamed Pinecone, within a month. Pinecone could be the processor used in the Xiaomi Mi 6, which is expected to be released at some point in March. At present, Xiaomi uses Qualcomms processors for its smartphones and with its own processors it plans to reduce the reliance on Qualcomms chips. The chip from Xiaomi is said to be the product of Beijing Pinecone Electronics, a company tied to Xiaomi that resulted from a $15 million technology buy from Datang subsidiary Leadcore Technology Ltd.
Xiaomis market share took a major nosedive last year in China as Oppo, Vivo and Huawei grabbed the top three spots in the Chinese smartphone market.
Source
A coalition of food and finance institutions say that US$113 billion of currently existing assets will have to meet specific and time-bound targets in areas such as zero... Read More
After a 12-year court battle, former American International Group (NYSE:AIG) CEO Maurice Hank Greenberg will pay $9.9 million to settle with the New York attorney generals office, which accused him of corporate fraud while running the insurer.
During an exclusive interview with the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo, Greenberg weighed in on the settlement. He said he never agreed to fraud and wants an apology from the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
The language in the settlement by the mediator and both sidesthe word fraud is never used and it shouldnt have been. Greenberg said. Yet after the announcement, Schneiderman put out a release and went back and used the word fraud even though he had signed off on the language as he should have.
Greenberg, however, did agree that there were inaccuracies, but pointed out that they had no impact on shareholders equity or earnings per share. Greenberg also mentioned, under the Martin Act in New York, you can be tried for fraud even without the prosecutor having to show intent to deceive.
We were a company in 137 countries, we had thousands and thousands of employeesyes, people make mistakes periodically. Thats not fraud, he said.
Even so, Greenberg was not upset over the financial loss forfeited in the settlement. He was more concerned with the fallout for the company.
Its not the money, he said. Its what they did to the company that Im unhappy about. It was the largest insurance company in history, in 137 countries, employed over 100 thousand people -- many now have lost their jobs, good paying jobs. Is that in our national interest?
He added, I feel good that its over, but thats not vindication, not yet, he said. [The New York Attorney General] owes me an apology.
Greenberg stepped down as the CEO of AIG in 2005. He is currently the Chairman and CEO of private insurer C.V. Starr.
If every cloud has a silver lining, the silver lining for the onerous task of tax-return preparation is the tax refund that often follows it. Once you send your return to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), you're probably itching to get your payment. Here's a look at the 2017 tax refund schedule, and when you can expect your money.
First off, if you're a longtime follower of the IRS and its practices, you probably have a hazy memory of a tax refund schedule that it would publish each year. Well, you might want to sit down, because I have some bad news for you: It has been discontinued. You're not totally out of luck, though. We have enough information with which to make some educated guesses.
Image source: Getty Images.
2017 tax refund schedule -- what you need to know
The IRS wants to get your money to you as quickly as it can. It aims to issue most refunds to taxpayers within 21days -- if you filed your return electronically. It also offers a handy service, aptly called "Where's My Refund?," that can help pinpoint exactly when you can expect to receive your money. (There's also an IRS2Go mobile app.)
If you mailed in your return, your refund will arrive later. How much later? Well, the IRS encourages you to not even look up when to expect it until a month after it receives it.
There are some other factors that can delay your refund, too. For example, if you're claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit, the IRS will not start releasing your refund untilFeb. 15. It cautions that, due to processing issues, you may not receive your funds until about Feb. 27 -- and that's assuming that you filed electronically, you set up direct deposit for your refund, and your return didn't experience any processing delays along the way. This inconvenience is because the IRS is trying to thwart identity theft and fraud that has resulted in billionsof dollars of fraudulently claimed credits.
Your refund can also get delayed if your tax return was incomplete, contained errors, or was suspected of being involved in identity theft or fraud. If there are liens against you, you owe back taxes, or you face refund offsets (perhaps because you owe money for child support, outstanding student loans, or state income taxes), you can also expect delays -- not to mention a reduced or even wiped-out refund.
An estimated 2017 tax refund schedule
Given all of the above, when can you expect your refund? Well, as there is no official schedule any more, various tax enthusiasts online have created their own schedules, based on assumptions and estimates. Below is one of them.
It's slightly conservative, assuming that:
e-filed returns with direct deposit will receive refunds within two weeks
e-filed returns with mailed refunds will receive refunds within three weeks
paper-filed returns with direct deposit will receive refunds within four weeks
paper-filed returns with mailed refunds will receive refunds within five weeks
It's not guaranteed in any way, but it can give you a general idea of when you might start standing by your mailbox, tapping your toe, or when you might start peeking into your bank account. (For a more exact estimate, use the IRS's Where's My Refund tool or its IRS2Go app.)
Date IRS Receives Your Return Refund Date If e-Filed With Direct Deposit Refund Date If e-Filed With Refund Mailed Refund Date If Paper Filed With Direct Deposit Refund Date If Paper Filed With Refund Mailed January 23 February 6 February 13 February 20 February 27 January 30 February 13 February 20 February 27 March 6 February 6 February 20 February 27 March 6 March 13 February 13 February 27 March 6 March 13 March 20 February 20 March 6 March 13 March 20 March 27 February 27 March 13 March 20 March 27 April 3 March 6 March 20 March 27 April 3 April 10 March 13 March 27 April 3 April 10 April 18 March 20 April 3 April 10 April 18 April 24 March 27 April 10 April 18 April 24 May 1 April 3 April 18 April 24 May 1 May 8 April 10 April 24 May 1 May 8 May 15 April 18 May 1 May 8 May 15 May 22
Table by author.
Remember that if you're claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Additional Child Tax Credit, your refund won't be released until February 15, with funds likely not arriving until February 27.
The bottom line is that, for the fasted tax refund, you'll want to e-file your return and use direct deposit for your refund. Making sure your return is complete and error free will also help. Remember that the deadline for filing your tax return this year is April 18.
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The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) reported fourth-quarter 2016 earnings on Feb. 9, and results reflected the company's recent actions to shift its business model toward a lighter manufacturing footprint, as it focuses on portfolio innovation and brand evolution.
The Coca-Cola Company: The raw numbers
Metric Q4 2016 Q4 2015 Year-Over-Year Growth Revenue $9.4 billion $10.0 billion (6%) Net income $547 million $1.24 billion (55.9%) Diluted earnings per share $0.13 $0.28 (54%)
Data source: The Coca-Cola Company.
What happened with Coca-Cola this quarter?
Coca-Cola's 6% revenue decline resulted primarily from the impact of divestitures as the beverage giant continues to refranchise, or sell, its bottling operations to partners. The company is on track to complete the refranchising of all U.S. bottling operations in 2017.
Organic revenue growth, which adjusts for the impact of currency fluctuations, as well as acquisitions, divestitures, and other structural items, grew 6% during the quarter.
Net income and diluted earnings per share were more than halved during the quarter versus the prior year. The culprit can be found in $919 million of costs and intangible asset charges related to the company's refranchising effort, as well as restructuring costs tied to its ongoing productivity program.
Coke's shipped volume improved very slightly during the fourth quarter, by 1%. Unit case volume in developed markets grew in the "low single digits." However, this momentum was offset by weakness in Latin America.
Both the North American and Asia-Pacific segments enjoyed a strong three-month period. In North America, reported revenue and organic revenue both advanced by 8%. Asia-Pacific's reported revenue improved by 8% as well, and its organic top line expanded 7% during the quarter.
Of the remaining business segments, Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) booked a revenue decline of 4%, while registering organic growth of 5%. Similarly, Latin America's reported revenue dropped 4%, against organic revenue improvement of 10%. In the Bottling Investments Group (BIG), revenue decreased markedly by 20% as the result of planned divestitures. Like all other segments, BIG managed positive organic growth, of 3%.
In its earnings press release, the company noted that Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, the replacement for Coca-Cola Zero that was launched in the U.K. last year, experienced double-digit unit case volume growth. The fast pace was assisted by expanded distribution into France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Ireland during the quarter.
Investors are keeping an eye on the progress of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar as it provides a test case for how the company can counter sugar taxes being eyed by national and local governments around the globe. Coca-Cola has pushed "Zero Sugar" in advance of a national tax on sweetened beverages in the U.K., which will possibly be enacted in 2018.Following Zero Sugar's initial strong showing, the company will widen European distribution further in 2017, and also introduce the drink in the South African and Australian markets this year.
The company reaffirmed the transition in leadership, which will take effect on May 1, 2017, when COO James Quincey steps into the role of CEO, and current chief executive Muhtar Kent becomes chairman of Coca-Cola's board of directors.
Image source: The Coca-Cola Company.
What management had to say
As Coca-Cola transforms into a capital-light business with a manufacturing footprint residing mostly in concentrates, the timing of refranchise agreements is making it difficult for the company to provide an absolute timeline for the completion of its business model evolution. Management now expects most of its strategy shift to be completed sometime next year.
In the meantime, shareholders are curious to know if the promised expansion in gross and operating margins, as well as more efficient cash flow, are still expected to materialize. In a financial modeling call the company hosted with analysts on Feb. 9after its regularly scheduled earnings call, Vice President Tim Leveridge reiterated management's expectations on both fronts. Below are two relevant excerpts from Leveridge's comments, along with a larger point on the sweeping changes:
Looking forward
Coca-Cola issued 2017 guidance alongside its earnings release that anticipates further planned revenue compression as the company continues to divest its bottling investments. Projected organic revenue growth will be offset by an impact of 18%-19% from the effect of divestitures, as well as a 1%-2% headwind from currency effects.
When a planned $2.0 billion share repurchase is factored in, management expects total diluted earnings per share in 2017 to decrease by 1%-4% against the total of $1.91 earned in 2016. Despite the weaker projected earnings, Coke is making a vigorous argument to investors that such short-term effects will be worth the long-term outcome of a nimbler, more profitable beverage brand powerhouse.
10 stocks we like better than Coca-ColaWhen 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.*
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In this clip from Industry Focus: Energy, Motley Fool energy analysts Sean O'Reilly and Taylor Muckerman discuss the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21stCentury's global status report for renewable energy in 2015.
Listen in to find out just how massively China is invested in renewable energy generation over the next five years, why biomass energy use is growing so quickly, which countries around the world are invested the most heavily in green power, why oil giant Saudi Arabia is planning to pour tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy by 2023, and more.
A full transcript follows the video.
10 stocks we like better than HSBC HoldingsWhen 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 HSBC Holdings 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 February 6, 2017
This podcast was recorded on Feb. 2, 2017.
Sean O'Reilly: I wanted to quickly go down a list. This is enormous. There's a group called the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century. They, every year, put out a report on the global status report of renewable energy. You can go to ren21.net and check it out. They do this every June, so we have last June's report, and it mostly covers 2015. But anecdotally, this sort of thing doesn't get changed a lot. This thing is pages and pages long! All right, let's do a quiz. Where do you think --
Taylor Muckerman: Oh, I have the list right in front of me.
O'Reilly: Oh, you do?
Muckerman: Yeah. I can't cheat on air.
O'Reilly: Shut your computer!
Muckerman: I've seen it; it's too late.
O'Reilly: All right, fine.
Muckerman: We can quiz our listeners. Give them five seconds to guess.
O'Reilly: All right, our listeners can check this out. Google "2016 report."
Muckerman: Sorry. I ruined it. You sent it to me.
O'Reilly: I'm not going to forget this. No, I did. What stuck out to you there? You have China beating us for investment in renewable fuels --
Muckerman: And total capacity or generation as of the end of 2015 for all renewable power. That's only set to accelerate, I think, you're looking at China expected to, according to Reuters, plow $361 billion into renewable-energy power generation by 2020 -- $361 billion. That will create 13 million jobs, they estimate. And that's just over a five-year period, from 2016 to 2020.
O'Reilly: The per-capita numbers were hilarious to me. Investment in renewable power and fuel per unit of GDP, No. 1 was Mauritania, then Honduras, Uruguay, Morocco, and Jamaica. Renewable power capacity per capita, No. 1 is of course Denmark, Germany, Sweden. But, dollar for dollar, it's pretty much us, China, Germany, a little Japan and the U.K. in there.
Muckerman: Yeah, Japan is No. 3 in terms of investment in 2015. Then the U.K., and then India.
O'Reilly: Which is not surprising, because they had the nuclear problem, they have no natural resources, they don't have oil, so it's like, what are we going to do here?
Muckerman: Makes total sense, and they're surrounded by ocean.
O'Reilly: A little tricky there. I was surprised by how big biomass energy is. Is that the landfills, and it has methane burning it --
Muckerman: Yeah, the waste, heat, things like that.
O'Reilly: I was surprised by how big that was.
Muckerman: Yeah, not too shabby. A decent amount. If you think about how much we actually do waste, it's smart to use it.
O'Reilly: Yeah. It's physics. This is just energy; it's like wind. These things happen.
Muckerman: Energy can never be created or destroyed.
O'Reilly: Oh, man. That's very Zen of you.
Muckerman: Isn't that something that they say in physics?
O'Reilly: Yeah. All right, let's dive in here to a few unique interesting situations. Saudi Arabia. They obviously have a ton of sunlight, but...
Muckerman: What are they well known for, besides sunlight?
O'Reilly: Oh, I don't know, maybe they're known for going out into the desert and sticking a straw in the sand and getting oil.
Muckerman: And they are expected to dump between $30 [billion] and $50 billion into major renewable energy by 2023. So not nearly on the same level as China, but still.
O'Reilly: Well, what was the Saudi Aramco, the oil company that might be IPO'ing in a year or two, they're talking about dabbling in it a little bit, I saw this morning.
Muckerman: Maybe $5 billion in renewable-energy deals, yeah. They've asked HSBC, [ JPMorgan Chase], and Credit Suisseto go out there and try to find some companies that they might be able to buy with $5 billion of cash lying around.
O'Reilly: What do you think Saudi Arabia is thinking? I see a couple possibilities, or maybe it's all of them. Is this, we need to shift away from oil because someday we're not going to be able to use it?
Muckerman: Yeah, I think the last couple years was a gut check for them, because oil provides a pretty decent amount of subsidies for the social programs they have. So they've been losing out on a lot of that revenue. So they're trying to at least internally reduce their demand on oil.
O'Reilly: So they can sell more oil?
Muckerman: Yeah, I think that probably has something to do with it. Also, they powered their country with oil.
O'Reilly: I was about to say, they are one of the few countries that burns oil for their electricity grid.
Muckerman: Yeah. So if they can make electricity cheaper, then why not? They're looking to grow up to about 30% of their power from low-carbon sources by 2030. Right now, they have about 10 gigawatts of power from wind, solar, and nuclear.
O'Reilly: Sweet. I have to think they're trying to play catch-up with the UAE [United Arab Emirates], too. They've been doing a lot with solar.
Muckerman: I mean, they're right there -- it's the desert; they have plenty of sun right along the equator.
O'Reilly: Yeah, exactly. What else stuck out to you as you looked around the globe? As I mentioned, I'm optimistic about Africa because installing the transmission lines for traditional centralized power like we have, like a natural gas-burning power plant or something, it's a little bit of a hassle.
Muckerman: Well, if you think about it in terms of what they have done with telephones, for example. They've pretty much skipped land lines and went right to cellphones. So if you think about it, it's a similar situation. You have a cellphone tower rather than telephone lines crisscrossing the country. You can liken a cellphone tower to a solar grid, because they can be placed sporadically around the country and distributed in the regions where they're needed. So I think that's probably what's going to happen. It's just going to skip traditional power generation and go straight to renewable, more regional distribution, as needed.
O'Reilly: It almost seems like renewables are the best thing that ever happened for developing nations. I mean, that's pretty darn useful.
Muckerman: Now that it's cost-effective, yeah. Beforehand, they were just kind of waiting on it. Companies want to invest. Foreign direct investment is a big thing in this world. I don't know if it's going to be African companies that are building these solar and wind and hydroelectric power plants, but somebody is going to do it because there's money to be made.
Sean O'Reilly has no position in any stocks mentioned. Taylor Muckerman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
On Sunday a top Trump adviser doubled down on claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election, saying the White House has provided enormous evidence to substantiate the assertion.
"The White House has provided enormous evidence with respect to voter fraud, with respect to people being registered in more than one state, dead people voting, noncitizens being registered to vote, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said on ABCs This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Miller is referring to voters who are registered in more than one state.
About three million people are registered in more than one state. But get this Neil, its no crime to be registered in more than one state vote, but it is a crime if you actually try to vote in two states and every year thousands of people do, Kobach said during an interview on the FOX Business Networks Cavuto: Coast-to-Coast.
Kobach said the rise in the participation rate of non-citizen voters could directly affect the results of an election.
If you are looking at the problem of non-citizens voting, we have a lot of evidence there too, he said. In Kansas because we are litigating over our proof of citizenship requirement, we have an expert who has analyzed our voter rolls and thinks as many as eighteen thousand non-citizens could be on the rolls and many of them voting.
The Kansas Secretary of State thinks more than one million votes were fraudulent this past election cycle, and that could have affected the final popular vote count between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
We cant know, but its certainly possible, Kobach told host Neil Cavuto.
When asked if the election results would have changed with Trump winning the popular vote, Kobach said, Not in Kansas, but if you take some of the really big states like California, Texas, some of the states that have a large alien population you could have more than a million votes that were not legitimate.
President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States will be "tweaking" its trade relationship with Canada, stopping short of calling for a major realignment in a development likely to please visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trump has pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement linking the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada to make the terms more favorable to Americans.
At a joint news conference with Trudeau after White House talks, Trump said his biggest concern with NAFTA is the U.S. trade relationship with Mexico, which he has frequently accused of stealing American jobs.
"We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We'll be tweaking it," Trump said.
"It's a much less severe situation than what's taking place on the southern border. On the southern border, for many, many years the transaction was not fair to the United States," he said.
Trudeau carefully steered around questions about the Canadian trade relationship with the United States in what was his first meeting with the new president. He said he expected each country to always remain each other's most essential partner.
"There have been times where we have differed in our approaches and that's always been done firmly and respectfully. The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves," Trudeau said.
Trump's vow to renegotiate NAFTA has unnerved Canadian officials, even though he has singled out Mexico in his criticism of the free trade deal. Canada sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States.
Canadians have become more supportive of NAFTA since Trump's election victory on Nov. 8, a poll from the Angus Reid Institute showed on Monday. Forty-four percent of the 1,508 surveyed said NAFTA had benefited Canada, up from 25 percent from a poll last June.
Trudeau, when asked about Canadian firms' concerns about possible changes to NAFTA, said: "It is a real concern for many Canadians because we know our economy is very dependent on our relationship with the United States.
"Goods and services do cross the border each day...we have to allow this free flow of goods and services and we have to be aware of the integration of our economies."
Trudeau had a strong rapport with former Democratic President Barack Obama, prompting pundits to describe their relationship as a "bromance."
Soon after Trump put a hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily banned travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries in an executive order on Jan. 27, citing the need to head off attacks by Islamist militants, the Canadian prime minister took to Twitter to say refugees were welcome in Canada.
'POLICY OF LAYING LOW'
Still, analysts said Trudeau has strong incentives to build a relationship with Trump given rising anti-trade sentiment.
"You don't have to be a genius to see there are some stark differences between them," said Duke University professor Stephen Kelly, former U.S. deputy chief of mission to Ottawa.
"But is this the time to be poking people in the eye? I would say it is not. ... In some ways the president is a guy for whom personal relationships may be even more important."
Canadian pollster Nik Nanos said Trudeau, who remains popular at home more than a year after winning a surprise Liberal majority government, faces the same pressure all Canadian leaders do when they engage with U.S. presidents: keep the economic ties tight but do not appear too chummy or subordinate.
Nanos expects that Trudeau, if asked, will speak about how Canada is welcoming refugees or seeking to expand free trade, without saying anything critical about Trump's point of view, conscious that the president has not hesitated to take an aggressive tone with other world leaders.
"This meeting is more about avoiding pitfalls than trying to engage on some of the big issues," Nanos said. "It's definitely the policy of laying low."
(By Andrea Hopkins; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)
Two men were killed in a fiery car crash at a Las Vegas racetrack on Sunday.
Las Vegas Metropolitan police Sgt. Steve Summers said the driver of a Lamborghini and an instructor of SpeedVegas were killed after the driver lost control and crashed into a wall. The car burst into flames.
The two men were not immediately identified.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Occupational Safety and Health administration were called in to investigate the accident. The paper reported the deadly crash is being investigate as an industrial accident.
@SPEEDVEGAS everybody okay? Looks like some one wrecked pretty hard . pic.twitter.com/HY5jWR0qsS DronExposed (@Dron_Exposed) February 12, 2017
SpeedVegas CEO and co-founder Aaron Fessler confirmed the deaths and said in a statement that the racetrack was cooperating with authorities.
We are devastated by this tragic event and extend our heartfelt sympathy to the families and to our SpeedVegas team members who have lost a beloved colleague, Fessler said.
SpeedVegas offers participants to drive its dream cars on its own Las Vegas track. Participants can drive a Ferrari, three types of Lamborghinis, a Mercedes and more.
Participants must wear helmets as they drive round 1 1/2 mile racetrack. The track boasts sweeping and banked turns and a straightaway.
Click for more from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
For her first official red carpet appearance since 2011, The Duchess of Cambridge made sure to have all eyes on her.
Kate Middleton, along with husband Prince William, attended the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) on Sunday evening at Londons Royal Albert Hall to honor the top current stars in film.
The 35-year-old mother of Prince George, age 3, and Princess Charlotte, age 1, skipped wearing a more conservative royal ensemble and instead, opted for skin-baring couture.
KATE MIDDLETON AND PRINCE WILLIAM: 'WE DO FACE WORRIES'
Vanity Fair reported Middleton wore a black, off-the-shoulder, floor-length Alexander McQueen gown adorned with small white flowers, which was paired with an updo and giant bejeweled chandelier earrings.
The choice of designer isnt totally surprising for Middleton, as shes consistently supported both emerging British designers and established labels alike in her time as a public figure and has proven to be a fan of the house of McQueen especially, wrote Refinery29.
KATE MIDDLETON VISITS THE 'DOWNTON ABBEY' SET
Middleton was in attendance to support her 34-year-old spouse, who has served as BAFTA president since 2010 and presented the BAFTA Fellowship at the ceremony, known as the Academys lifetime achievement award.
Ryan Gosling was noticeably missing from Sunday night's 2017 British Academy of Film and Television Awards.
The star of "La La Land, which one five awards, was on the list of expected attendees but had to unexpectedly return home to Los Angeles due to a "family matter."
When his "La La Land" co-star Emma Stone showed up sans Gosling, a BAFTA rep told media, "Ryan had a family matter to attend to, he is sorry not to be here this evening" adding, "He send his appreciation and thanks for everything."
The frothy musical took five prizes including best picture, but major awards also went to tough welfare-state drama "I, Daniel Blake" and fractured-family stories "Lion" and "Manchester by the Sea."
Gosling and actress Eva Mendes have two daughters.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
We are not fans of Katy Perry's Grammys look. The top part of her dress came too low on her hips and the skirt reminded us of ostrich feathers.
Writers block is no fun for any author.
But one writer has such a severe mental blockage that he's decided to step down from his job after three decades in the business.
For 30 years, Donald Lau has been the Chief Fortune Writer at Wonton Foods, a manufacturer that touts itself to be one of the world's largest producers of fortune cookies.
But now,Lau is leaving his position following a long bout of writers block.
SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT FORTUNE COOKIES
"I used to write 100 a year, but I've only written two or three a month over the past year," Lau recently explained to Time.
Lau has been with the New York City-based company-- which operates out of Brooklyn and Queens boroughs, since the 1980s but a new push to produce inspiring sayings that promote wellness and serenity has Lau coming up blank.
Instead, James Wong, a nephew of the companys founder, will now handle the writing position. Hes already being trained by Lau.
Fortune cookie writing has been taken seriously at the company for years. According to Time, Wonton Foods has experimented with fortune-writing contests and theyve even feautred some fortunes from online submissions.
FOR THE LATEST FOOD FEATURES FOLLOW FOX LIFESTYLE ON FACEBOOK
The company also keeps track of diner reactions to the pint-sized printed messages.
"When they eat their fortune cookie, I want the customers to open the fortune, read it, maybe laugh, and leave the restaurant happy so that they come back again next week, Lau said.
But Lau wont be leaving the Chinese food business altogether. He will still serve as Wonton Foods Chief Financial Officer.
According to Good Food, 4.5 million cookies are produced by Wonton Foods each day.
According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), plastic surgeons performed a total of almost 2 million surgical procedures in 2015, up 7 percent from the year before.
And the plastic surgery craze shows no sign of slowing down: The number of cosmetic procedures women undergo has increased by over 500 percent since 1997, when the ASAPS began tracking this data. But with the boom in people going under the knife, are there any that plastic surgeons would actually recommend against? Fox News talked to three plastic surgeons to get their opinions on the types of surgeries theyd advise patients to pass on.
1. Injections of silicone oil
Despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration approves these injections for old acne scars, Dr. Manish Shah a board-certified, Denver-based plastic surgeon noted that most plastic surgeons do not recommend this procedure. Thats because, if the injection gets inflected or inflamed, it can cause a lot of complications. And unlike a solid implant, it cant be removed easily, Shah told Fox News.
2. Neck lifts that remove glands below the jawline
Shah also told Fox News that when men and women have face and neck lifts, two glands often stand out on the jawline. Often, patients may want these glands removed, but doing so can be dangerous, and potentially cause permanent dry mouth or bleeding that could compromise a patients breathing at night, Shah said.
3. Ribrosections
Removing a rib to get a tiny waistline is not something most plastic surgeons would recommend, Shah said. He added the surgerys risks include puncturing a lung, or damaging the kidneys and other organs.
4. Large buccal fat excisions
Dr. Jason Moche, director of the Division of Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery and an assistant professor of otolaryngology at Columbia University, noted that he and many other plastic surgeons are not big fans of removing the fat pads from a patients cheeks. They may look good initially, but ultimately patients look overly sculpted and skeletal as some of the volume depletes as they get older, Moche told Fox News.
5. Threadlifting
In this procedure, surgeons insert thread beneath the skin that they use to tighten and pull on the face. However, Moche said, this type of facelift can cause irregular bunching of the skin, dimpling or rippling. Worse, the threads can be hard to remove if patients want them taken out later.
6. Any non-FDA-approved surgery
Dr. Kevin H. Small, director of plastic surgery at NY Bariatric Group, told Fox News that he would especially recommend against any procedure that involved unregulated, unsafe procedures, such as ones not regulated by the FDA. These could include free silicone injections or unsafe implants hes even heard of patients who (outside of a reputable plastic surgeons office) have had cement injected into their buttocks.
Louisville experienced a severe spike in overdose calls last week with authorities responding to 52 calls in a 32-hour period. The citys Metro Emergency Services said the calls began around midnight Thursday and continued through 8 a.m. Friday, with one fatality in a moving car. The calls came from more than 20 ZIP codes across the county, The Courier-Journal.
When we say overdoses, we usually mean heroin, but that included alcohol, prescription medications, etcetera, Mitchelle Burmeister, spokesman for Metro Emergency Services, told The Courier-Journal.
Burmeister said 34 of the 52 patients were transported to a hospital, and blamed the high number of overdoses already reported in 2017 on the increasing amount of drugs that are readily available. According to the report there were 695 cases through the month of January, an increase of 33 percent from last year.
What generally is going on when you see this is someone has introduced a batch of fentanyl in the illicit drug supply that hasnt been cut sufficiently, Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, told The Courier-Journal. Im afraid its a reality were going to see repeated far too often.
Emergency workers have been warned about potential exposure to harmful chemicals such as fentanyl during overdose calls, and law enforcement officials are working with the health department and local hospitals to identify possible patterns, The Courier-Journal reported.
IRVINE, Calif. Joe Kiani likes to point out that the most worn spot on most medical monitoring devices is the mute button.
Hes out to change that and, he hopes, to stop the epidemic of preventable hospital death that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.
Its not a glamorous cause. And Kiani is not a household name. But he is a multimillionaire with a proven track record of using engineering smarts to fix dogged problems; he made his fortune improving the humble pulse oximeter, which measures oxygen saturation in the blood. Now, hes pushing a nerdy, but elegant, idea for saving lives: prodding manufacturers of medical devices and electronic records to open their platforms so all the systems can talk to each other.
His tech fix if widely implemented could bring order to the cacophony of beeps, buzzes, and blaring alarms that can so overwhelm nurses and doctors that they push mute and miss true emergencies. It could make it easier for staff to monitor patients with complex needs. And it could flag, in advance, potentially fatal errors like incorrect dosing and drug allergies.
Manufacturers, naturally, arent so eager to share their computer code. But Kiani is not one to give up.
He stages a glitzy patient safety summit each year, attracting big-name speakers like Bill Clinton and Joe Biden to pound home the need for hospitals to stop killing their patients. If President Clinton or Vice President Biden says it, it has far more weight, Kiani said. When I say it, its like a flea screaming.
Read more: Raising an alarm, doctors fight to yank hospital ICUs into the modern era
In the past five years, Kiani has encouraged some would say browbeat and publicly shamed 70 companies to sign a pledge to open their platforms. The group includes some of the biggest medical device manufacturers who also happen to be some of his most bitter corporate rivals.
Its really surreal when I look at where we are, Kiani said. People who were our mortal enemies like Medtronic and Philips are now joining us.
Of course, making a pledge is one thing. Carrying it out is another. While smaller companies have been eager to open up their data, many heavyweights are moving slowly. Some cite concerns about patient privacy; others are working on big integrated systems to sell to hospitals and arent interested in cooperating with competitors. Makers of electronic health records have been especially reluctant.
Yet outside experts such as Dr. Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins University, a world leader in patient safety, see glimmers of hope.
Pronovost once thought it would take federal regulation to force companies to make their devices talk to one another, which he calls a crucial safety feature, akin to making sure a pilot can can check on the planes landing gear from the cockpit. Hes heartened by Kianis progress.
When Joe first stood up and said hed make data open, he was the lone wolf in the industry, Pronovost said. Most of the others put their heads down and stayed silent. Hes been a visionary.
Zoll, which manufactures defibrillators and data systems in ambulances, was one of the first to open its data. Patient information captured in Zoll-equipped ambulances can now flow directly into the patients electronic health record, for review by hospital staff.
As a next step, CEO Rick Packer is pressing the health records companies to send data to his ambulance devices, so paramedics have crucial background on the patients theyre transporting.
I use the data pledge as a moral high ground in negotiations, Packer told a panel at Kianis patient safety summit last year. Eventually itll come around and well get what we need.
A science geek hits it rich
Kiani runs his own medical device company, Masimo, from a building so airy and modern it stood in for Stark Enterprises in the first Iron Man movie.
With a volleyball court in the lobby and hemp milk and artisanal chocolate served in the employee cafeteria, the building pulses with California startup vibe.
Kiani, 51, a father of three with slightly silvering hair and a penchant for wearing dark tailored suits with no tie, lives in nearby Laguna Beach. But his life wasnt always so easy.
When Kiani arrived in the US from his native Iran at the age of 9, he spoke three words of English. His family settled in tiny Albertville, Ala., because his father, a technician, had a friend there. (Many who admire Kiani note hes the kind of successful immigrant who might be barred from the US under President Donald Trumps temporary immigration ban.)
Kiani raced through high school, finishing at 15, and planned to become a doctor. But chemistry at San Diego State University foiled him. Instead, he turned to engineering.
Its probably better he didnt become a doctor, mused Dr. Steven Barker, a professor emeritus of anesthesiology and aeronautical engineer at the University of Arizona who now works as chief science officer for Masimo. He wouldnt have saved nearly as many lives.
Soon after graduating, Kiani got a chance to work on pulse oximeters. The geek in him was captivated. I couldnt believe you could shine light in your finger and measure oxygen in your blood, he said. I just loved the idea.
But devices being used in the mid-1980s were terrible. Just about any patient movement caused the devices to sound a false alarm that oxygen levels were low. Patients would then be blasted with too much oxygen, which often led to blindness in premature babies.
Read more: Hospitals struggle to address terrifying and long-lasting ICU delirium
Drawing on what hed learned from fields like submarine warfare and satellite communication, Kiani and colleagues came up with adaptive algorithms that helped the oximeters ignore signals that made no physiological sense. That cut down on false alarms and improved reliability. In 1989, Kiani and engineer Mohamed Diab launched Masimo. It began, as so many of Californias great companies have, in a garage.
The next decade was tumultuous. Bigger companies were trying to steal his ideas. Kiani couldnt seem to get hospitals to look at his device. At times, his sales reps were even physically escorted off hospital grounds.
It was so frustrating. I cant even tell you, he said.
Kiani had stumbled into the scandalous world of hospital GPOs, or group purchasing organizations. His pulse oximeter was being locked out by larger competitors who paid hefty fees to hospital purchasing agents in order to land exclusive sales contracts.
Kiani was initially afraid to get involved, not wanting his young company to be blackballed. It wasnt in my personal interest to try to change this industry, he said. But he did speak out, in a series of high-profile articles and in testimony before the Senate in 2002.
Read more: Medicare patient deaths shortly after leaving the ER raise questions about rural hospitals
He really helped open up the market for smaller companies that had better, disruptive technologies, said Ronald Newbower, an MIT-trained physicist whos spent decades using technology to improve patient safety at Massachusetts General Hospital.
As hospital purchasing rules began to change, Kianis company began selling huge numbers of pulse oximeters. It is now one of the top sellers in a market estimated at $1.5 billion globally.
The company is moving into other areas, including brain monitoring. Kiani is extremely proud of Masimos technology and the sleek, iPhone-like devices hes been creating of late. But the company took dings and received an FDA warning letter in 2014 for not adequately responding to complaints about some of its devices. Kiani said the company has since overhauled that process.
Masimo went public in 2007, and Kiani, still at the helm, is rich beyond his dreams. (Masimos board balked at his lucrative contract a few years ago and renegotiated, but he still takes in more than $5 million a year.)
His life story, said retired California Senator Barbara Boxer, a close friend, reads like a fairy tale.
But his business success wasnt enough. The fight to open up hospital purchasing practices had stirred an activist bent in Kiani. He soon found his target.
Turning patient safety into a glitzy cause
After years of working in the medical field, Kiani knew the grim statistics: Some 100,000 patients in the US die each year of medical errors, according to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report. Some researchers, using newer screening tools, think the number could be four times higher. Others say its lower.
But everyone agrees these deaths can and should be prevented.
When Kiani began to put faces to the statistics, he was shaken.
One of those faces belonged to 11-year-old Leah Coufal, who died in December of 2002 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Shed had routine surgery to correct a mild chest deformity and apparently received a massive dose of fentanyl to control pain enough to stop her breathing.
Her mother, Lenore Alexander, couldnt talk about Leahs death for a decade. When she started speaking out, Kiani listened. He was shocked to realize his own daughter who is fine now had surgery in the same hospital, with the same surgeon, in the same week as Leah.
That could have been me, Kiani told the people gathered at his first patient summit in 2013. It could have been you.
He was also shocked to find Leah had not been monitored after surgery, not even with a simple pulse oximeter. Another name Kiani couldnt keep out of his mind at the time was Rory Staunton, a 12-year old from New York who scraped his arm in gym class, then died from a sepsis infection that simple screening tools could have detected.
Read more: How one hospital is beating sepsis and saving lives
He wondered: Why are people going into hospitals and not coming out? said Frederic J. Harris, an electrical engineering professor at San Diego State University who taught Kiani and remains close to him.
Kiani decided to tackle such senseless deaths through engineering.
God bless him. Hes working on this and hes got people all over the place working on it, said Alexander, Leahs mom, who has spent years pressing to get patients monitored after surgery. I believe hes a really good man. Hes not doing this for his own pocket.
Critics, however, look askance at the high glitz content of Kianis annual summits, run through his Patient Safety Movement Foundation.
Held at beachside hotels, with splashy staging and tickets priced at $500 to $1,000 apiece, the summits rely heavily on political star power. (This year, for instance, the foundation is dangling a private fishing trip with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter as a prize; health care institutions can enter to win by committing to specific steps to reduce patient deaths.)
Some critics also raise questions about the money Kiani has handed out to politicians. His foundation, which is funded by Masimo and other corporations, paid $315,000 to Clinton for a 2014 speech (though the former president has waived his fee for the past three years, Kiani said). Another of Masimos foundations has contributed $2.5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Thats a lot of money. You wonder if its a way to legally channel money to a candidate, said Beth Waldron, a patient safety advocate and consultant in Chapel Hill, N.C. She once hoped to work with Kiani on her key issue death from venous thromboembolism, or blood clots but grew concerned after looking at how the foundation operates.
Ive seen very little substantive action coming from this particular patient safety organization, said Waldron. She notes that plenty of other groups also work on patient safety and, in her view, get more done. I dont see the results to justify the costs, she said.
Kiani said he resents any implication that hes trying to buy access to promote his company or alter tax policies that affect his industry.
And many in the field, even competitors, say Kianis work is making a difference, by turning a spotlight on the uncomfortable topic of patient death and also by reshaping market forces.
The pledge for open data does make an impact. Customers are starting to demand it, said Stefan Drager, the CEO of Germanys Drager, a medical technology manufacturer which signed up early on. He predicts more and more companies will jump in: They have to, he said. It would look awkward if they refused.
Medtronic, a medical device giant, has started to embrace open platforms, including in some of its insulin pumps and glucose monitors. Another powerhouse, Philips, has been working to develop industry-wide standards so devices can talk to each other.
Electronic medical records makers also need to come aboard, noted Johns Hopkinss Pronovost, or they risk becoming dumb data entry and billing systems without access to the streams of data coming in from monitors and devices or the powerful analytic tools used to make sense of it all.
Ed Cantwell, who runs the nonprofit Center for Medical Interoperability, said its a national embarrassment that companies have been allowed to own patient data instead of sharing it.
Hes working to create the architecture that hospitals could use to network their tens of thousands of devices into what he calls a truly neutral, two-way plug and play system. Once those standards are in place, he said, Im going to call vendors on their data pledges very publicly.
That cant come too soon for Kiani. Hes already revved up about what it could all mean: Once more devices are linked and data is flowing, he said, computers should be able to predict in advance which patients are headed for trouble and alert clinicians. All thats needed, he said, are a few good algorithms.
Its easy for a computer to do, Kiani said. Itll be phenomenal.
DETROIT When Ria Noriegas cousin Manuel died of a heroin overdose six years ago, his obituary mentioned his quick wit and his model-car collection. But it made no mention of the overdose that killed him.
We never really talked about it, Noriega said, standing near the banks of the Detroit River at a rally against heroin earlier this month, where about 30 people were gathered on a chilly afternoon.
It was kind of a Mexican pride thing, I guess. I mean, people already dont want us here, so being a drug addict kind of makes it worse.
Theres a new honesty these days about drug abuse. In obituaries, media interviews, and letters to lawmakers, families that have lost loved ones to overdoses are naming the drugs that killed them.
As more and more people emerge from the shadows to put a face on the nations opioid epidemic, however, faces of color are notably absent.
In part that reflects the makeup of the epidemic itself: While deaths among white Americans have soared, those among blacks and Latinos have stayed relatively steady.
Read more: 52 weeks, 52 faces: Obituaries narrate lives lost to the opioid epidemic
But interviews here and around the country by STAT found that the invisibility of blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans in the opioid crisis also reflects a cultural divide that comes both from outside and within minority communities.
Nationally, deaths from opioids primarily fentanyl, prescription painkillers, and heroin continue to climb. From 8,400 opioid overdose deaths in 2000, the fatalities now surpass 33,000. White Americans made up 82 percent of those deaths in 2014; blacks and Latinos comprised just 8 and 7 percent respectively.
But those thousands of deaths are rarely publicly discussed.
The stigma of addiction is one factor. Contending with shame and the real or imagined judgement of others is hard for any family. Addiction also brings with it the baggage of long association with criminality, unemployment, and violence characteristics that have been stereotypically attributed to blacks, Latinos, and immigrants.
Im a black person, said Dr. Helena Hansen, a New York University psychiatrist and anthropologist who researches addiction and race. And if I were to die of an opioid overdose, my mother would not say anything about my overdose death, because she is working against stereotypes of black women as addicts and sex workers.
As Mexicans, we get called enough names, Noriega said. And then to be called a junkie, too? No. Wed just rather take care of our own and keep it quiet.
Instead, said Devin Reaves, a social worker and drug counselor in Philadelphia, there are code words. So [the obituary] might say, Johnny died suddenly in his sleep. But if Johnny is 25 and not 70, and he didnt have a heart condition, he probably overdosed. And nobody knows he died of an overdose until we see it on Facebook.
Read more: Inside a DEA drug lab, a race to identify dangerous new opioids
Thats if there is an obituary at all, said Albert Gilbert, an addiction counselor in Detroit.
[Black families] dont have funerals for those people, he said. We cremate those people. Youre kicked out of the family for that behavior, and the family is often glad when [the addict dies] and its finally over.
Hansen, who works at a public hospital, sees this often.
Sometimes I have to go and identify the body of a client who has overdosed, she said, because theyre estranged or have lost touch with their families.
A similar silence often surrounds overdose deaths among immigrant families. Iman Numan, an Iraqi-American who owns a funeral home in the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, lost her 26-year-old nephew Peter Alraihani to heroin in 2014.
Recalling his years-long struggle with addiction, she said, there was always a question in his eyes, and it was there when he died.
His obituary didnt mention his drug use, nor have his immediate family spoken publicly about it.
Since then Numan, who is also a social worker, has started a support group at her church for families struggling with addiction.
We first had a good turnout, she said. Some people would just come and sit and listen and never talk about their own families. And then they would stop coming. For most of the families we know, there is still some denial and closed-mindedness, still some shame.
But she admits her own family members have wrestled with similar feelings. We left Iraq for a better life. We are very loyal to this land and we feel very bad when our children fail in this society that has welcomed us.
Hansen sees the racial stigma on drug use as a vestige of the war on drugs that began in the 1970s. As heroin (and later, crack cocaine) ravaged black and Latino communities, policies designed to fight the epidemic were largely punitive, with many addicts getting jail time rather than treatment.
Now, she says, with more white deaths, that approach to addiction has gotten more scrutiny. When the victims are coming from white, suburban and rural areas where people are better organized and feel that they deserve better, we no longer blame addicted people because its no longer politically supportable, she said. Instead, were taking a harm reduction approach and expanding access to naloxone kits. And we have Good Samaritan laws to maximize the reporting of overdoses and save lives. Its the image of the epidemic that drives policies.
Numan pointed out those policies as reason for families like hers to acknowledge addiction in their community.
They have all these ways of getting help, and we dont know about them because we dont want to accept that our kids are using, she said. But we need to come up with a way to voice this or more of them are going to overdose.
Noriega agrees. A recovering addict herself, she said that being open and honest is more helpful than secrecy.
Im done being quiet about it, she said before heading off to join the march. That doesnt keep anybody sober and it damn sure doesnt keep anybody alive.
President Trump's shocking victory in November and the tumultuous beginning of his presidency have shattered many assumptions about American politics.
For many liberals and progressives, the weeks since Donald Trumps inauguration have been filled with soul-searching and even confusion about their place in American politics.
Trumps flurry of executive orders, coming in quick succession on matters ranging from federal employment and immigration to reorganizing the National Security Council, have driven deep division within the Democratic party. The reaction to Trumps action have pitted pragmatic, center-left politicians against protesting activists forming The Resistance.
Many Democratic disagreements with Trumps executive orders are valid and there is a clear opportunity for opposition to Trump on the basis of their faults and flaws.
However, if Democrats want to win back power they cannot do so by moving further left, resisting Trump at every move, and taking to the streets.
Put simply, the Democratic Party is on life support and there is a quiet, but ruthless, war being fought over its future.
While the Democratic Party is driven left by anti-Trump activists, protestors, and Senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, America itself remains a fundamentally center-right nation.
A fundamental belief in national sovereignty and individual responsibility, married to cautious skepticism of government and deeply held moral convictions, continues to govern how most Americans think about politics.
Trump's ascendance is rooted in Americas preference for center-right policy. As the Democratic Party shifted ever leftwards under Obama, it suffered net losses of 11 Senate seats, 62 House seats, and 10 governorships since 2010, as well as nearly 1000 state legislative seats.
The groups driving the Democratic Party to the left believe their only path to victory is mobilization. These forces are pushing the party away from the American public, which fundamentally is center-right, and channeling the concerns and priorities of the core Democratic coastal base. Indeed, fully one third of sitting Democratic congressional leaders hail from New York, California, and Massachusetts.
Recent public polling clearly confirms that Democratic dogmas and liberal litmus tests are far to the left of the national electorate, which remains center-right on issues ranging from immigration to tax policy to abortion.
A January 2017 Politico-Harvard Poll found that 57% of the general public believes that unauthorized immigrants currently in the United States are a serious problem, echoing a key Trump concern.
Further, 50% of Americans support banning future immigration from regions with active terrorist groups, as Trump has attempted to do with his recent controversial executive order.
The Politico-Harvard poll also found that when it comes to tax policy, 63% of Americans believe that lowering corporate taxes would be effective at bringing jobs and business back to the United States. Fully 53% believe that proposed Republican cuts on federal income taxes, which Democrats have pledged to resist, will benefit them personally.
A January 2017 Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll clearly shows the unambiguous center-right cultural and moral character of the electorate. Fully 74% of Americansincluding 77% of womensupport limiting abortion to at least the first trimester. 59% of the American public, including 59% of women, believe abortion is morally wrong. Yet Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards was a featured speaker at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Abortion also represents a key policy area where liberal efforts to organize mass protests like the numerous womens marches on January 21st may actually do more to divide women and drive voters to the Republican Party, rather than unite people around any particular cause.
Looking forward, Republicans are poised to leverage the Democrats failure to perceive the political character of the nation, and make considerable gains in the 2018 midterm elections.
In fact, of the 33 senate seats up for election in 2018, Democrats must defend 23 seats, whereas Republicans only need to defend 8 seats.
The remaining two Senators up for re-election are Independents Bernie Sanders and Angus King, who caucus with the Democratic Party.
Democratic incumbents in states that Trump won in 2016, like Senators Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Jon Tester of Montana, are at the highest risks of losing their seats.
Despite what the Democratic base wants, if these Trump-state Democrats fail to find opportunities to cooperate with Trump, or at least position themselves as centrists congruent with their constituents beliefs, they will lose to a more canny Republican candidate in the general election and increase the likelihood that Trump gains a filibuster-proof Senate.
While the Democratic Party's progressive and moderate wings clash with one another over their partys future, Republicans are dismantling the blue wall and solidifying Americas status as a center-right nation.
Actually, we got less
Thats how Tom Secor, a small businessman from Ohio, responded when the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee insisted he got more health insurance options under ObamaCare at a hearing last week.
We had one carrier that was willing to offer insurance, thats what our insurance agent told us, he explained. Fewer and fewer small businesses, especially those with fewer than 50 employees, offer health insurance as an employee benefit. This is not because they do not want to, or cannot find an insurance carrier in their market; it is because they simply cannot afford to offer a plan.
As Chairman of the Small Business Committee, I have heard from countless Americans like Tom over the last seven years who either own or work for an American small businesses.
They were promised ObamaCare would make it easier for them to access quality, affordable health insurance. In reality, it has made it more difficult.
The previous administration promised them that premiums would decrease by $2,500 per year. Instead, average premiums in job-based coverage have increased by $3,775.
President Obama famously promised: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Nothing could be further from the truth.
ObamaCare or the Unaffordable Care Act as it should have been titled has been an unmitigated disaster for our nations 28 million small businesses.
Most Americans get their health insurance through their employer. Half the private sector workforce goes to work every day at a small business. Thats why small businesses, and the people who depend upon them, have an enormous stake in the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare. With our Committees hearing last week, I wanted to assure them that they will no longer be an afterthought in health care policy.
In 2016, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, or NFIB, published a survey which found that the cost of health insurance continues as the number one problem small businesses face.
NFIB members arent the only ones concerned. In late 2015, the National Small Business Association, or NSBA, released a survey that found that while the majority of employers think offering health insurance is very important to recruiting and retaining good employees, just 41 % of firms with fewer than five employees offered health benefits, down from 46 % in 2014. Overall, the NSBA survey found that 65 % of small firms reported offering health insurance in 2015, down from 70 % in 2014.
Surveys like these track with what we have been hearing from our constituents back home in our districts and in our hearing room.
Most employers want to do right by their employees, and try to provide health insurance for them, not just as a recruitment and retention tool, but also out of a sense of duty to people who are like family to them.
Over the years, Small Business Committee witnesses have made the case for repeal and replacement using their own experiences far better than any politician could. Thats why we have compiled their stories on our Committees website.
Its no coincidence that our hearing came days before one of the most compassionate and dedicated medical professionals I know, Dr. Tom Price, was confirmed as our new Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Secretary Price understands as well as anyone how bad a deal ObamaCare has been for Americas small businesses. Our Committee looks forward to working with him as we move forward with repeal and replacement. Anyone who has a friend, family member or constituent who works for a small business should be ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
Last year, House Republicans put forward a series of solutions-oriented policy plans including "A Better Way to Fix Health Care" and "A Better Way to Grow our Economy." Unlike the authors of ObamaCare , we will be precise, methodical and think before we act on health care legislation.
Our small businesses deserve no less.
Democratic lawmakers pressed Sunday for an investigation of President Trump's embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn following reports that Flynn engaged in conversations with a Russian diplomat about U.S. sanctions weeks before Trump's inauguration.
"We need to get to the bottom of this," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."
Meanwhile, top White House adviser Stephen Miller sidestepped repeated chances to publicly defend Flynn, saying it wasn't up to him to say whether Trump still has confidence in Flynn.
"It's not for me to tell you what's in the president's mind," Miller told NBC's "Meet the Press." "That's a question for the president."
The Washington Post reported this week that Flynn discussed sanctions levied against Moscow by former President Barack Obama in a series of phone calls with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak in late December. The Obama administration imposed the sanctions in retaliation for Russian meddling in last year's presidential election campaign.
The Post report contradicted denials previously made by Flynn, as well as by Vice President Mike Pence in a televised interview. A White House official told Fox News Friday that while Flynn did not recall discussing the sanctions with Kislyak, he could not be 100 percent certain that the topic had not come up.
"I think what General Flynn did with the Vice President, misleading him or giving him wrong information, thats not the type of person you want to have around you giving you advice," Cardin told Fox. "So I think he very much questioned his credibility."
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., told CNN's "State of the Union" that Flynn was either "lying about discussing it or he forgot ... You dont want a guy in either of those scenarios to be in that position."
Trump has yet to publicly comment on the allegations, though the White House said in an anonymous statement Friday the president had full confidence in Flynn.
However, a person who spoke with the president recently told the Associated Press that Trump has been discussing the situation with associates. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
New Jersey's Gov. Chris Christie, who led Trump's transition planning before the election, said Flynn would have to explain his conflicting statements about the conversations.
"Gen. Flynn has said up to this point that he had not said anything like that to the Russian ambassador. I think now he's saying that he doesn't remember whether he did or not," Christie said on CNN. "So, that's a conversation he is going to need to have with the president and the vice president to clear that up, so that the White House can make sure that they are completely accurate about what went on."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Trump inner circle is becoming less like The Apprentice and more like Survivor.
National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn may or may not survive scrutiny regarding his ties to Russia. White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway is building out her staff, reportedly with an eye toward greater influence even as she has been reprimanded for promoting Ivanka Trump products. Press Secretary Sean Spicer is the subject of a viral parody that apparently has his boss fuming, and outside personnel are interviewing for unspecified jobs in his communications department.
But does the daily drama constitute just the right level of chaos for a president who thrives in these environments and famously encourages competition among his deputies?
The president is extremely focused on his biggest job that he has, thats keeping our country safe; hes doing everything he can to ensure thats the No. 1 priority, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Americas Newsroom. I know hes reviewing [the Flynn] situation, and certainly well leave that to him to make any announcement, if there is any.
LIBERTARIANS SPLIT WITH TRUMP OVER POLICING TACTICS
Trumps successful presidential campaign underwent plenty of turmoil, as the candidate cycled through three different campaign managers. The go-with-your-gut approach also routinely got the team in trouble, with sanctioned and unsanctioned surrogates often going off-script during television interviews.
Still, Trump weathered all those storms to win on election night. And he's charging ahead with his agenda as president -- on immigration, security and trade -- despite the drama around him.
TOP TRUMP ADVISER SAYS WHITE HOUSE HAS 'ENORMOUS EVIDENCE' OF VOTER FRAUD
The fire may be hottest right now under Flynn, whos under attack from Republicans and Democrats alike for his pre-inauguration conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn had initially denied that his December phone call with Kislyak had included talk about upcoming Obama administration sanctions on Russia, and Vice President Mike Pence, reportedly assured of this by Flynn himself, told CBS' Face The Nation last month that the chats timing was strictly coincidental.
But The Washington Post reported that Flynn and Kislyak indeed discussed sanctions in a series of phone calls, leading Flynn to walk back his denial and say he could not be 100 percent certain the topic had not come up, a White House official told Fox News on Friday. Trump was pondering Flynns fate this weekend while at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, The Washington Post reported though Trump may hold off on issuing a you're fired to one of his most ardent supporters during the presidential campaign, worried Flynns departure could be seen as a sign of weakness.
In a sign of Flynns uncertain position, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller declined to defend Flynn during his circuit on the Sunday political talk shows.
Its not for me to tell you whats in the presidents mind, Miller told NBC's Meet The Press. Trump later tweeted his approval of Millers performance.
Flynn has since apologized to Pence and Pence has accepted his apology, a senior West Wing source told Fox News. And when asked if Flynn could soon be ousted, the source said those rumors were nothing more than "palace intrigue" and "all squawk."
Obviously, they were not happy, but he is not gonna be gone by the end of the week," the source said.
Flynn did attend the joint press conference Monday afternoon with Trump and visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, though Trump did not answer shouted questions on Flynns status. Spicer later told reporters that Trump was "evaluating the situation" and was speaking to Pence and others about the matter.
NEW EXECUTIVE ORDER ON IMMIGRATION AN 'OPTION,' ADVISER SAYS
Flynn is not alone. Conway and Spicer also have come off some of their worst weeks since joining the Trump campaign.
Conway on Thursday was accused of violating ethics rules during an interview on Fox & Friends. Discussing Nordstroms decision to drop Ivanka Trumps fashion line, the Trump loyalist and former campaign manager put in a plug for the first daughter: Im going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.
Later, at the White House press briefing, Spicer said Conway had been counseled, a word that reportedly drew a rebuke from Trump even as congressional lawmakers seek a review.
Then there's the "Saturday Night Live" factor.
The show is no stranger to political parody, but has been relentless in going after Trump officials -- and seen as getting under the president's skin. A week after CNN said the network passed on having Conway on its shows due to alleged credibility issues, SNL portrayed Conway as a crazed stalker trying to seduce CNN host Jake Tapper into putting her back on air.
The sketch comedy show also has gone after Spicer, with the Navy Reserve commander being portrayed by a water-gun spraying, press-heckling, leaf-blower wielding Melissa McCarthy. Spicer seemed to take the skit in stride, telling Extra that McCarthy needed to slow down on the gum chewing. But Politico reported that Trump was no fan, particularly upset that Spicer was being portrayed by a woman.
A former spokesperson for Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Spicer is currently handling both the press secretary and communications director gigs after Jason Miller bowed out of the communications director job during the transition. But now several prospects for communications positions -- among them Spicer's press secretary role -- are rumored to have been looked at, including former Great America PAC spokesman Carl Higbie. The retired Navy SEAL shot down those rumors in a tweet, denying hed had any formal interviews.
Priebus also found himself grappling with the rumor mill over the weekend. Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a friend of Trump who spoke with the president on Friday, bashed Priebus in interviews with CNN and The Washington Post on Sunday. However, Ruddy quickly walked back some of his critique, noting that Priebus had recently informed him of some impressive new White House plans. He also tweeted that Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and influential adviser, thought Priebus was doing an amazing job.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and John Roberts contributed to this report.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahls request to have desertion and misbehavior charges against him dismissed are understandable, says a military lawyer, but unlikely to succeed.
On Monday, before a military judge at Fort Bragg, lawyers for Bergdahl -- who walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and is accused of endangering the lives of soldiers who searched for him pushed for the charges to be dismissed because of statements Donald Trump made during his presidential campaign condemning Bergdahl and saying he should be severely punished.
They argue that because of now-President Trumps prior comments, their client cannot get a fair trial.
The judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, didn't immediately rule on the defense request, but called the footage of Trump condemning Bergdahl "disturbing material." A written decision was expected later.
The defense counsel validly could make that argument about Trump tainting the possibility of due process, military law expert Greg Rinckey told Fox News. But I believe a judge wont find [Trumps actions] are unlawful command influence. If Trump makes comments now, it clearly would be.
Unlawful command influence refers to a commander saying or doing something that would taint as guilty a military defendant who is facing an accusation.
If a commander strips rank before a court martial, or restricts a soldier from the barracks, or has everyone give him the silent treatment, thats unlawful command influence, Rinckey said.
Bergdahl is scheduled for trial in April and could face a life sentence if convicted of misbehavior before the enemy.
Defense attorneys argue that Trump violated Bergdahls due process rights by repeatedly calling him a traitor and making other harsh statements about the soldier. The defense motion, filed shortly after Trump was sworn in as president, cites more than 40 instances of Trumps criticism at public appearances and media interviews through August 2016.
Defense attorneys argue that potential jurors may feel obligated to agree with their new leader and would have a hard time ignoring the criticism.
Prosecutors contend that any reasonable observer would understand that Trumps comments amounted to campaign rhetoric and should not be taken literally.
They argue that Trumps use of the term traitor was not meant in the legal sense, but in a conversational way.
Bergdahl, who is from Idaho, has said he walked off his post to cause alarm and draw attention to what he saw as problems with his unit.
The Armys investigating officer has testified that Bergdahl did not mean to desert and did not intend to join the Taliban. The officer said that to have Bergdahl serve time in prison would be inappropriate, according to the New York Times.
Rinckey said that while the judge is not likely to dismiss the charges, Bergdahls contention that a jury cannot avoid knowing about and being influenced by Trumps condemnation may result in some time perhaps days, or a month, for instance deducted off his sentence if he is convicted.
Another expert, Eric Carpenter, a former Army lawyer who teaches law at Florida International University, said to the Associated Press, however, that potential military jurors could be influenced by Trump's comments even if he made them before becoming president.
"The prosecution is in a tough spot. These statements are really indefensible, and they have the job of defending them," he said. "No one in the administration has disavowed those comments, so the comments still have life."
The sergeant was held captive by the Taliban and its allies for five years. The Obama administrations decision in May 2014 to exchange Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners prompted some Republicans to accuse Obama of jeopardizing the nations safety.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley has worked diligently to help President Trump, a fellow Republican, assemble a hand-picked Cabinet -- but the Iowa senator is making clear he wont be a pushover for the White House.
ANSWER MY LETTER, Grassley demanded Sunday of the White House, regarding requests to declassify a secret refugee deal between the Australian government and former President Barack Obama.
The demand was among seven tweets Grassley fired off this weekend, several directed at "Whoever monitors Twitter at the WH."
The 83-year-old Grassley is among Capitol Hills most prolific tweeters. But the content and tone of this weekends spree stood out, considering Grassley shepherded Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions through his panel's hearing on the way to Sessions being confirmed last week as U.S. attorney general.
His committee soon will begin hearings on what is widely considered Trumps most important pick -- Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court.
We have a president that is messaging on Twitter and communicating that way, Grassley said matter-of-factly Monday on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." Seems to me, its legitimate for me to do it. Twitter is a way of getting people thinking about things.
On Sunday, Grassley sent the White House tweets on a range of issues -- from plans to protect whistle-blowers to when the presidents home and office will be reopened for public tours -- in addition to his call for more transparency.
Whoever monitors Twitter at WH for President Trump read my previous 2tweets and hv this businessman understand TRANSPARENCY=ACCOUNTABILITY, Grassley wrote in one of the tweets.
A top Grassley concern is a deal Obama reportedly cut with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull just days before Trumps November election victory to bring roughly 1,200 refugees to the United States from offshore Australia detention centers.
The deal was purportedly a contentious topic when Trump and Turnbull spoke by phone earlier this month.
Grassley has always sort of struck me as more independent-minded Republican, Tony Reiss, a GOP operative in South Dakota, said Monday.
Elections do have consequences, and the president should be able to fill his Cabinet and the courts as he sees fit. But classification shouldn't be used to cover up blunders, on either side of the aisle. Under normal operating procedures, the default should be openness and transparency.
The White House has riled the country's civil libertarian wing after President Trump enthusiastically voiced support for a controversial law enforcement tool that allows an individuals property or assets to be seized without a guilty verdict.
The president weighed in on what's known as "civil asset forfeiture" during an Oval Office meeting last week with sheriffs. The president, who ran on a law-and-order message, said he shared their desire to strengthen the practice and even said he would destroy the career of a Texas politician trying to end it.
The comments revived tensions with libertarians who have been fighting the practice under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Already piqued by the selection of former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a vocal supporter of asset forfeiture, to lead the Justice Department, the Libertarian Party itself condemned the comments.
It was really disappointing to hear those words. He campaigned on the idea of helping people who are on the low end of the economic spectrum and this [law] disproportionately affects minorities and those who do not have the means to hire an attorney, Libertarian National Committee Chair Nicholas Sarwark told Fox News.
Sarwark called the practice "immoral," adding that it is simply government theft of individual property that flips the nations legal system on its head.
While laws differ across the country, most states allow law enforcement to seize an individuals assets or property on the suspicion they have been involved in criminal activity. Even if a person is found to be not guilty, some jurisdictions allow the government to keep their property.
Sheriff John Aubrey of Louisville, Ky., said he was heartened by his meeting with Trump because he, unlike the last administration, will give them a "fair hearing" on asset forfeiture.
He also believes there is a misconception that police just take property but stressed that they cannot do so before getting a court order.
Trump signaled he would fight reform efforts in Congress, saying politicians could get beat up really badly by the voters if they pursue laws to limit police authority.
The comments could signal an abrupt halt to efforts to curb the practice under the Obama administration, which also had faced heavy criticism from civil libertarians and criminal justice reform advocates.
Brittany Hunter of the free-market Foundation for Economic Education wrote that the presidents egregious comments effectively destroy any hope that his administration will be better on this issue than President Obama. In fact, the situation may very well become worse.
According to the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm, the Department of Justices Assets Forfeiture Fund generated $93.7 million in revenue in 1986. By 2014, the annual figure had reached $4.5 billion -- a 4,667 percent increase. The practice surged for years under the Obama administration.
While critics believe the policy creates a profit incentive for law enforcement, police organizations say it is an important tool and charges of abuse have been blown out of proportion.
There are those who see an incident of one and want to apply the rule of many, but we have found the annual number of incidents [of abuse] is miniscule, Jonathan Thompson of the National Sheriffs Association told Fox News.
Thompson said the issue was addressed in a conversation with Sessions, who views it as a priority, and he believes the Trump administration will be more supportive than the Obama administration in lifting the burden on local law enforcement.
He added that law enforcement are not opposed to reforms and that he plans to keep his focus on increasing independent judicial review and transparency.
Candidates running on the Libertarian ticket in the midterm elections are likely to make Trumps record on criminal justice reform and the Sessions selection an issue, in a bid to peel off voters from across the political spectrum.
Our candidates will make [asset forfeiture] an issue for Republicans and Democrats on the state and federal level in 2018. We will make them answer to voters on these issues, Sarwark warned.
Many of the states key to Trumps victory have passed reforms.
Last year, Ohio passed a law that prohibits taking assets valued at less than $15,000 without a criminal conviction. Other states also passed differing degrees of reform, including New Hampshire, Florida, Montana, Nebraska, Minnesota, Maryland and New Mexico.
Largely an uncontroversial issue for decades, the governments war on drugs in the 1980s led to its rapid expansion, but media coverage of abuses has led to a public blowback.
A 2015 report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), found that of those Philadelphia residents who had their assets taken, nearly one-third were never convicted of a crime and that almost 60 percent of cash seizures were for amounts less than $250.
Civil asset forfeiture reform is an area where you cannot ignore the public demand, said Kanya Bennett, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.
The media are finally coming out of denial.
This is Donald J. Trump, and he aint going to change.
All the talk about how he would change his style once he got to the White House (which Trump himself encouraged now and then) was misguided.
His bombastic, combative and sometimes frenetic approach to life is what got him elected, so of course hes going to stick with it. And when aides tell him he needs to change, hell obviously think that he heard that advice throughout the campaign he was expected to lose.
Now its true that actually becoming president is the ultimate reality check. And thats true for any new White House occupant. Harry Truman famously said of Dwight Eisenhower, Hell sit here, and hell say, Do this! Do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ikeit wont be a bit like the Army.
And that was inevitable for a real estate mogul who ran his company with an iron hand. A president has to deal with all these checks and balancesCongress, the courts, the opposition party, the media and special interests, as well as other world leaders. And things move far more slowly than in the corporate world.
But anyone who thought Trump would adopt a measured, stately approach doesnt understand the man. To be sure, hell have to adapt to the unique challenges of the presidency. But his bam-bam-bam approach, including the tweeting at all hours, revs up his supporters. And his detractors arent likely to warm to him even if he starts reading boring speeches.
The Washington Post makes it official:
Despite all predictions including his own that the country would see a new, more presidential Trump once he took office, the commander in chief has barely changed from the impulsive candidate who blew up every political norm that stood between him and the White House.
He is still tweeting at odd hours, calling people names, promoting his familys business interests, bragging about crowd sizes, complaining about media coverage and lashing out at anyone who challenges him, including members of his own party and a federal judge. His White House seems just as chaotic, tumultuous and discordant as his campaign was.
Says Politico: Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that hes growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of running the massive federal bureaucracy.
In interviews, nearly two dozen people whove spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as hes faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks.
But wouldnt any new president face an attitude adjustment when confronting the magnitude of domestic and world problems? Every new president makes mistakesyou could look it upand tries to grapple with only a fraction of his team in place.
What if what the Post calls his tumultuous style works for Trump? Obviously there have been a number of unforced errors, including the rushed travel ban, and policy zig-zags. But Trumps voters didnt elect him to preside over a tidy organizational chart. They want results, and unlike the process-obsessed press, they dont particularly care how he gets there.
In what could be his first official trip abroad since becoming secretary of state, the State Department announced on Wednesday that Rex Tillerson will travel to Mexico sometime in the next few weeks.
What would normally be a fairly routine visit for the United States top diplomat looks to be anything but as the trip comes at a time of newly strained relations between Washington and one of its closest allies. President Trumps executive order on immigration and the border wall and his fiery rhetoric on issues ranging from border security to free trade have caused major blowback south of the border and iced over the once warm diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Experts contend that Tillerson the former CEO of oil giant ExxonMobil has a difficult task ahead of him as he will have to espouse the Trump administrations policies while also attempting to assuage the concerns of a wary Mexican government.
It is clear that there is a need for significant behind-the-scenes work to put the U.S.-Mexico relationship back on solid footing, Jason Marczak, the director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, told Fox News. Its going to be a tough balancing act that Tillerson will have to walk with Mexico.
The State Department has neither released information about when Tillerson's trip will take place nor what will be discussed when he arrives in Mexico, but it is likely to continue the talks that the secretary of state held with Mexicos Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
In a statement, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that Tillersons conversation with his Mexican counterpart was constructive and that the discussion focused on issues including law enforcement, migration and security.
Mexico and the United States have numerous things to discuss, from the high profile and tweeted issues of NAFTA, immigration, and security to a whole host of less known but vitally important challenges, Shannon ONeil, a senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an email to Fox News. Like the Secretary of States before him, he is going to begin these conversations for a Trump administration.
One of the big topics of conversation that Tillerson is expected to address during his trip south is the border wall and Trumps assertion that Mexico will pay for it.
Since his time on the campaign trail, Trump has continually promised that Mexico will put up the funds to construct the wall. And Mexican lawmakers from President Enrique Pena Nieto on down have continually ridiculed the idea.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has said that while the administration hasn't yet determined just how to make Mexico pay for the wall, theyre reviewing a "buffet of options" that could include a tax on goods coming across the border, import and export taxes even a tax on drug cartels or fines to people who come to the U.S. illegally.
Trumps executive order on immigration and the wall irked Pena Nieto so much that he scrapped a planned Jan. 31 trip to Washington. A phone conversation between the two world leaders late last month was meant to patch up the touchy relations, but media reports from a leaked transcript of the call show Trump threatening to send U.S. troops to stop the "bad hombres down there" and humiliating Pena Nieto.
There is going to be a lot of relationship fixing with Mexico, Marczak said. The historical legacy on the Mexican side is one of mistrust and skepticism of the U.S. and its a real possibility that Mexico could fall back into that mindset.
Another issue that has put Trump at odds with Mexico and is likely to be a major talking point on Tillersons trip is the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Trump has been adamant that the U.S. is getting a raw deal out of NAFTA and wants to re-negotiate the landmark pact with Mexico and Canada that has been in place since 1994.
Mexico says it will negotiate changes, but won't accept import quotas or new tariff barriers. The country also reopened a 90-day consultation period with private business groups about possible changes and the countrys economy department said the consultations will be held simultaneously with similar talks in the U.S.
The rhetoric around NAFTA has not been good, but it does need to be modernized, Marczak said.
Tillersons visit will not just consist of playing diplomatic peacemaker, but could also focus on areas of mutual interest between the U.S. and Mexico namely when it comes to combatting drug cartels and migration from Central America.
Tillerson needs to go in there and ask how the U.S. can help the state and federal police combat the drug trade, Nelson Balido, the CEO of the Border Commerce and Security Council, told Fox News. He also needs to ask Mexico how the U.S. can help Mexico secure its own southern border.
Mexicos ongoing war with the countrys drug cartels has been a major issue for the country ever since former President Felipe Calderon went on the offensive against the cartels in 2006. Pena Nieto promised to reduce violence in the country and clamp down on cartel leaders. He has fulfilled that vow in part especially with the capture and extradition of Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman but violent crime is still endemic in parts of the country and many smaller drug trafficking organizations have arisen since the demise of the major cartels.
We need to help them stop the drugs from entering the U.S., but we also need to clamp down on weapons going southbound, Balido said. Im a big supporter of the Second Amendment, but most of the weapons that end up in the hands of the cartels come from the U.S.
Whatever is on the agenda when Tillerson travels to Mexico, it is clear that he will have a full docket and that the trip will be a major test for the new secretary of state.
What Tillerson will be like as a diplomat, right now nobody knows. The jury is still out, Marczak said.
Beachgoers in New Zealand have been warned to steer clear of exploding whales after the mass stranding that left hundreds of whale carcasses rotting on a beach in the countrys South Island.
Reuters reports that authorities are cutting holes in 300 decomposing pilot whale carcasses, popping the dead animals like balloons to prevent them from exploding on the remote beach on South Islands Golden Bay. New Zealands Department of Conservation cordoned off the carcasses and issued a statement warning of the risk posed by exploding whales, according to Reuters.
RACE TO SAVE WHALES AFTER 400 STRANDED, 275 DIE ON NEW ZEALAND BEACH
Popular Science explains that, as bodies decompose and bacteria break down flesh, they release gases. However, whales thick skin and blubber can make it difficult for the gases to diffuse-- so puncturing the side of their bodies can prevent explosion by letting the gases out slowly.
Volunteers frantic efforts to refloat the pilot whales and the grisly scenes unfolding on Golden Bay have garnered global media attention over the last few days.
THOUSANDS OF BEES FOUND WASHED UP ON FLORIDA BEACH SPARK CONCERNS
More than 400 pilot whales swam aground and became stranded on Golden Bays Farewell Spit Thursday, sparking a massive rescue operation. Just two days later a second pod of more than 200 whales became stranded, Reuters reports.
A total of around 400 whales were saved by rescuers, according to Reuters.
STRANGE ORANGE ALLIGATOR TURNS HEADS IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Dr Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist at the University of Auckland told the BBC that the shallow waters around Farewell Spit may have caused the whales to beach. The combination of water that becomes gradually shallower and soft sand may have confused the echo-location that whales use to navigate, she said.
Pilot whales are the second largest species in the dolphin family, after killer whales.
More than 300,000 years ago, a massive chunk of rock broke off from Australia's continental shelf, triggering the largest undersea landslide ever known, per Science Alert.
But scientists only know this thanks to a chance discovery. Researchers were mapping the Queensland Trough, a basin next to the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's eastern coast, when they noticed eight "hills" hundreds of feet tall more than half a mile below the surface.
After that discovery, they realized that a portion of Australia's continental shelf about 20 miles away "looks like a massive bite has been taken out of [it]," study author Robin Beaman tells Australia's ABC.
He put two and two together and concluded the "knolls were the remains of a very large undersea landslide, per the BBC. Because coral fossils from the knolls date back 300,000 years, researchers believe the knolls broke off from the section of shelf known as the Gloria Knolls Slide at least 300,000 years ago in what Beaman dubs a "catastrophic collapse." Researchers say the landslide would have produced 7.7 cubic miles of debris. To put that in perspective, almost everyone on Earth could fit into one cubic mile. The force likely caused a tsunami up to 90 feet high, but the nearby Great Barrier Reef would've acted "like a giant porous breakwater," Beaman says. Since researchers found "a lot more marine life there than we ever anticipated," Beaman notes the site will serve as a great place for further research, including on cold water corals. (Discover Australia's "Drowned Apostles.")
This article originally appeared on Newser: First Came a 'Catastrophic Collapse,' Then a Tsunami
NASA has selected three potential landing sites for the upcoming Mars 2020 rover: an ancient lake, a past volcanic hotbed and an early hot-spring site.
Scientists chose the final three candidates at a workshop Feb. 8-10 in Monrovia, California, from eight sites chosen in 2015 (out of a pool of around 30, NASA officials said in a statement ).
NASA began its final design and construction phase for Mars 2020 in July of 2016. The rover is intended to hunt for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet after touching down in February 2021, exploring for at least two years, mission team members have said. [NASA's Mars Rover 2020 Mission in Pictures]
The Jezero crater stood out as a forerunner site in 2015, and is among the three remaining potential sites. It's an ancient lakebed where microbial life could have developed, NASA officials said in the statement. The river-delta structure suggests that water filled and drained from the crater at least twice, and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified minerals that have been chemically altered by water.
Starting in 2004, the Mars exploration rover Spirit explored Gusev crater, which stretches larger than the state of Connecticut. Spirit discovered evidence of past mineral hot springs at one particular location, according to the statement. That spot, Columbia Hills, is the only place where Spirit found signs of water in the enormous crater, and it is another of NASA's top picks for Mars 2020. (Later data analysis suggested Gusev may have hosted a shallow lake.)
An ancient volcano warmed Northeast Syrtis, and this heat could have led to hot springs and melting ice, making a welcome haven for past microbial life. The edge of the Syrtis Major volcanos is Mars 2020's third potential site. The spot exposes 4-billion-year-old bedrock, as well as many minerals altered by encounters with water during Mars' early history.
To choose from among the three top sites, which all have evidence of liquid water in their history, scientists will determine where the rover could land and travel safely. They will also look at which location has a variety of rocks and soils to analyze, the best conditions to have supported past life, and rock types that would retain evidence of past life, among other considerations .
The final determination should come after a fourth workshop, likely in 2018, researchers said at the 2015 meeting or perhaps at a fifth, in 2019, if necessary. The craft itself should launch in July 2020 on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Original article on Space.com.
The nearby alien planet Proxima b is not a great candidate to host life as we know it, a new study suggests.
Immensely powerful flares from Proxima b's parent star likely stripped some of life's key building blocks from the Earth-size alien world's atmosphere long ago, according to the study, which investigated the life-hosting potential of planets circling the small, dim stars known as red dwarfs.
Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way, making up about 75 percent of the galaxy's 1 trillion or so stellar inhabitants. Whereas red dwarfs are substantially cooler than sun-like stars, they tend to be more active, blasting out potent "superflares" more frequently, especially when red dwarfs are young. [Proxima b: Closest Earth-Like Planet Discovery in Pictures]
The new study took such characteristics into account, developing a new model of red dwarf "habitable zones" the range of distances from a star at which liquid water should be stable on a world's surface that considers more than just a parent star's heat.
"By the classical definition, the habitable zone around red dwarfs must be 10 to 20 times closer in than Earth is to the sun," study lead author Vladimir Airapetian, a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement . "Now we know these red dwarf stars generate a lot of X-ray and extreme ultraviolet emissions at the habitable zones of exoplanets through frequent flares and stellar storms."
This is bad news from a habitability perspective. The team's modeling results suggest that such radiation can strip the electrons off molecules in orbiting planets' atmospheres. These electrons escape into space easily, and they drag the newly created, positively charged ions with them as they go.
Light elements, such as hydrogen, are lost fairly easily via this process. And superflare radiation can kick the "atmospheric erosion" up a notch, driving off oxygen and nitrogen key building blocks of life as well, the new study found.
"Considering oxygen escape alone, the model estimates a young red dwarf could render a close-in exoplanet uninhabitable within a few tens [of millions] to a hundred million years," NASA officials wrote in the same statement. "The loss of both atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen would reduce and eliminate the planets water supply before life would have a chance to develop."
The team's work suggests that this fate has likely befallen the recently discovered Proxima b, which orbits within the "traditional" habitable zone of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. (This star is the sun's nearest neighbor, lying just 4.22 light-years from Earth.)
"We have pessimistic results for planets around young red dwarfs in this study, but we also have a better understanding of which stars have good prospects for habitability," Airapetian said. "As we learn more about what we need from a host star, it seems more and more that our sun is just one of those perfect parent stars to have supported life on Earth."
The new study was published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Originally published on Space.com .
Researchers will continue their search for secret chambers in King Tutankhamun's tomb this year, harnessing sophisticated radar technology to find out if another burial is hidden at the famous site.
Experts from the Polytechnic University of Turin will use radar to investigate the Egyptian tomb and its surrounding area, Seeker reports.
Franco Porcelli, the projects director and a professor of physics at the Polytechnic University of Turin, told Seeker that the research could take weeks. Three radar systems will be used and frequencies from 200 Mhz to 2GHz will be covered, he said.
STUDY CONFIRMS KING TUT'S DAGGER WAS MADE WITH IRON FROM A METEORITE
The research is part of a broader study to perform geophysical mapping of the Valley of the Kings, where the tomb is located. In addition to ground-penetrating radar, the Polytechnic University of Turin team will harness electric resistance and magnetic induction data to scan depths of up to 32 feet.
The possibility that King Tuts tomb contains hidden chambers has been a contentious topic for archaeologists in recent years.
In 2015 British archaeologist Nicholas Reeves put forward the theory that Tutankhamuns tomb contains two hidden doorways. The ghosts of the hitherto unrecognized doorways could lead to an unexplored western storage chamber and Queen Nefertitis final resting place behind the chambers northern wall, he said.
KING TUTS TOMB MAY CONTAIN TWO HIDDEN CHAMBERS, EXPERTS SAY
Scans conducted in 2015 suggested the tomb contains two open spaces, although a radar scan organized by National Geographic last year failed to replicate the results.
Some archaeologists also believe the mummy of Nefertiti, fabled for her beauty, has already been found in a different tomb.
Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass has rejected the theory that undiscovered chambers lie behind the tomb and likely contain the tomb of Queen Nefertiti. Speaking at a conference last year Hawass also questioned the effectiveness of radar scanning. "In all my career ... I have never come across any discovery in Egypt due to radar scans," he said, suggesting the technology would be better used to examine existing tombs that are known to contain sealed-off chambers.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS CLASH IN EGYPT OVER KING TUT TOMB THEORY
Porcelli told Seeker that the latest probe will reveal whether secret chambers are present in King Tuts tomb. This will be the final investigation," he said. "We will provide an answer which is 99 percent definitive."
The Polytechnic University of Turin team plans to conduct the first preliminary survey of the tomb by the end of February.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
It's five o'clock somewhere, as the saying goes, and nowhere is that more true than when you're at sea in international waters.
A great cocktail hour is one of the pleasures of being on vacation, and nothing says it's time to relax like being treated to a complimentary glass of bubbly-- or two.
While most cruise lines host a sail away party with a glass of sparkling wine, if you really want a cocktail hour that delivers, you have to know which deck to hit. Here are a few cruise lines that have truly special cocktail hours at sea, where you can unwind in an intimate setting, chat with new friends, and sometimes even meet the captain.
1. Regent Seven Seas Cruises
This all-inclusive luxury line also offers something pretty unique: a social hour called the Block Party, where passengers come out into the hallways with an empty wine glass and servers fill them with Champagne as the ships captain, general manager, and cruise director walk down the halls for a meet and greet. Its a fun way to break the ice and sets the tone for an intimate sailing. And if you want something more private, you can always arrange your own cocktail hour any time of day all alcoholic drinks are complimentary, all the time.
2. Seabourn Cruise Line
This lines three all-suite ships host a lavish Caviar Sail Away party, where you'll nosh on caviar canapes and complimentary Champagne to kick off your cruise. Throughout the cruise, they serve small bites and drinks by the pool and Club Terrace lounge during the day, as well as canapes at cocktail hour at The Club, home to live music and a small casino. In good weather, you can look forward to a Caviar in the Surf party, which takes place once per cruise in the Caribbean. While you relax in the water, servers wade around to you with Champagne and caviar, while on shore, there are drinks, music, and a barbecue waiting.
3. Silversea Cruises
With luxe touches like butlers in every suite and free-flowing alcohol, this intimate line has not one, but two can't-miss cocktail hours: a welcome cocktail hour on the second night of the cruise and the farewell cocktail hour on the last. Both are hosted by the captain and usually take place in the theater, where you'll be able to take advantage of the complimentary drinks (including 50 wines and Champagnes) as you nosh on canapes of smoked salmon and caviar and listen to live music. You'll raise a glass as the captain gives a toast, and then mingle with the senior staff. Or, you can plan the most intimate of cocktail hours one hosted by you. If youre in a Royal, Grand, or Owners Suite, the lines white-gloved butlers will organize an in-suite cocktail party at your command.
4. Holland America Line
Happy hour is a little extra happy on this cruise line, where, no matter your loyalty point status, you can head to bars and lounges, including the Crows Nest Lounge and Ocean Bar, from 4 to 5 pm. Order any full-price drink on the menu and your second drink is only $2 and we mean any drink, even that $104 glass of Louis XIII Cognac. Most of the drinks aren't that expensive of course, but this deal is pretty unheard of for a major cruise line. And, if you want to order a third drink during happy hour, you'll pay full price again (but if you hurry, you'll get the fourth for $2 ... and probably a case of double vision).
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5. Crystal Cruises
The piano bars Crystal Cove and Avenue Saloon are the place to be on Crystal ships every night before dinner, where a selection of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres are served while a live jazz band fills the lounges with music.
6. Celebrity Cruises
This mainstream cruise lines most loyal cruisers are rewarded with perks, and if you are Elite or Elite Plus status (you need to earn 300-749 club points to reach this level), youll be invited to an exclusive Captains Club Coffee Break, as well as a cocktail hour in the panoramic Sky Observation Lounge, where you can mingle with other Elite guests before dinner.
7. Lindblad Expeditions
Known for its adventure-filled itineraries in remote locales such as the Galapagos and Alaska, this line of small expedition ships gives you the chance to learn from onboard scientists, experts, and even photographers from National Geographic during its cocktail hour. At the end of each day, passengers and naturalists gather in the lounge to discuss the day's activities and snack on pre-dinner hors d'oeuvres in a well-beloved tradition called the Recap.
Over the weekend, it got a little bit prcier to visit the happiest place(s) on Earth.
Starting Sunday, Disney announced a new pricing structure as several of its U.S. theme parks.
California
In California, the best time to visit California Adventure of Disneyland is during Value Days, or low season periods, where admission to either park will now cost $97-- an increase of $2. The park also features Regular days ($110) and Peak days ($124), both of which are increasing by $5.
Last year was the first time Disney implemented the tiered pricing structure in an attempt to lessen the crowds on high-volume days.
But even Disney pass holders can expect to pay more. The Southern California Select ($339) and Southern California ($469) passes, which both have black out dates, are increasing by $10 for 2017. The Deluxe pass ($619), which features a smaller quantity of black-out dates is increasing by $20.
Parking is also increasing, jumping to $20 from $18.
According to the Orange County Register, both Disneyland and Disneys California Adventure had record-breaking attendance in 2015, but those numbers slipped by five percent last year.
Florida
In Florida, Disney also introduced the three-tier pricing system last year, and prices at most parks will increase, too. Value days jump from $97 to $99, while Regular days ($107) and Peak days ($119) are both increasing by $5. Admission to the Magic Kingdom costs a little more than it does at sister parks. At the Magic Kingdom, prices are increasing for Value and Regular days but will remain the same ($124) for Peak days.
Annual passes for the Florida parks will also increase, jumping $10 to $559 for Gold passes (with blackout dates) and $30 to $679 for Platinum passes (with no blackout dates.)
There's also a new rule for 2017: All tickets will have expiration dates, so visitors should pay attention if they plan to purchase tickets online well in advance of travel. Preferred parking in Florida, also a new option for guests last year, will increase to $40, up from $35.
According to a tweet from @Epcotears, the Magic Kingdom had its first price increase in 1972, when admission rose to $3.75 (from $3.50) for adults.
On this #Disney in 1972 the #MagicKingdom has its first price increase. General admission for adults is now $3.75 from $3.50 #WDW pic.twitter.com/Swql1O5E5E The Epcotears (@TheEpcotEars) February 1, 2017
Back then, Disney was famous for its E ticket rides, where guests had to hand over paper coupons at varying levels to ride the attractions. Coupon books needed to be purchased, at various pricing levels, in order to enjoy most of the rides.
The head of Lithuania official state tourism office has resigned after it was discovered she was promoting the country with photos that weren't really of the Baltic state at all, but rather featured Finland and Slovakia.
Lithuania, a former Soviet Bloc nation, borders Poland, Latvia and Belarus.
According to the BBC, Jurgita Kazlauskiene was forced to resign from the position Friday after the tourism department admitted that some of the images shared on social media were actually of two other counties.
SLOVENIA GETS A TOURISM BOOST THANKS TO MELANIA TRUMP
I have decided to step down as the head of the state tourism department, Kazlauskiene told reporters after the posting faux pas came to light. According to The Daily Courier, Kazlauskiene was forced out last week amid blistering criticism from local media.
The former tourism chief said she was resigning so people who work here dont become objects of ongoing attacks.
Despite getting called out on the photo error, the tourism department and local media agencies initially fought back by arguing that the photos were adequate enough to communicate emotion.
That defense led to many jokes shared throughout the country--even the countrys Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis weighed in
Skvernelis shared a photo of the EU Commissions Berlaymont building in Brussels.
From tomorrow, we start working in the new government building in Karoliniskes, he wrote. Karoliniskes is a suburb in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius.
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Lithuania first started the Real is Beautiful campaign (which cost about $149,000) last fall in an effort to attract more tourists to its beaches and forests.
The Real is the Beautiful Facebook page allegedly incorporated photos from websites like Flickr and Shutterstock.
Skvernelis said that there would be an internal investigation into the fraudulent incident.
Aviation is a serious business, but one airline is proving itself to be a pretty playful carrier.
Not for the first time, Royal Jordanian Airlines has taken a brazen swipe at President Donald Trump with a new airfare promotion.
The airline, from the Muslim-majority kingdom of Jordan, made headlines during the presidential election in November with a social media post that poked fun at the then-candidates proposed ban on Muslim people from entering the United States.
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"Just in case he wins," the airlines November promotion read, "Travel to the U.S. while youre still allowed to!"
The tongue-in-cheek post quickly went viral.
Now, Royal Jordanian is back with another dig Trump, this time concerning the presidents executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Following another legal blow to the immigration order, the airline posted a new airfare promotion on Twitter that read, "Fly to the U.S. with RJ now that youre allowed to." The post lists reduced prices on fares to several U.S. cities.
The post also featured an image of the word "ban" that was edited to read "bon voyage!"
Royal Jordanian flies passengers from Jordan to New York City, Chicago and Detroit-- and it is not one of the seven countries from which Trump is attempting to prohibit immigration.
Trumps executive order slapped a blanket ban on nationals from Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan for 90 days and also suspended Americas refugee program, citing terrorism concerns.
The decree sparked chaos at airports across the U.S., as travelers were detained and pulled off flights and airlines had to overhaul rosters to take affected staff off U.S. routes.
A U.S. district judge issued a temporary order halting the ban after two states, Washington and Minnesota, sued. Justice Department lawyers appealed to the 9th Circuit, arguing the president had the constitutional power to restrict entry to the U.S.
Last week, the court denied the Trump administrations appeal.
Although the travel ban has been stayed for now, travel trend trackers have warned its negative impact on Americas travel industry has already begun to be felt.
NORDSTROM DROPS IVANKA TRUMP CLOTHING LINE, ACCESSORIES
Business travel and searches for travel to America are both down, according to new data from trends company Forward Keys.
The data shows international trends in bookings to the U.S. are down 6.5 percent compared with the equivalent period the year before, excluding China and Hong Kong. Travel specifically from Middle Eastern countries is down 37.5 percent.
Another company, Hopper, found flight search demand from international origins to the U.S. had dropped 17 percent overall since Trumps inauguration and the issuing of the travel ban, compared to the final weeks of Barack Obamas presidency.
This story originally appeared on News.com.au.
Officials in northern California ordered residents near the Oroville Dam to evacuate the area Sunday after an emergency spillway severely eroded.
The California Department of Water Resources said at around 4:40 p.m. local time that the emergency spillway could fail within an hour, unleashing uncontrolled flood waters from Lake Oroville.
People in downstream areas need to leave the area immediately, the department said.
Officials earlier Sunday stressed the dam was structurally sound and said there was no threat to the public.
Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriff's office said.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services asked residents in the valley floor, including Marysville, a city of 12,000 people, to evacuate and take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources said it was releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.
Department of Water Resources spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the dam on Saturday after heavy rainfall damaged the main spillway.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest. The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At least 188,000 people will have to stay away from their homes as crews work to calm the potential flood danger around a dam's troubled emergency spillway in northern California Monday, emergency officials said.
RIGHT NOW: Road below top of emergency spillway washed away. Main spillway discharging to the right. #OrovilleDam pic.twitter.com/dChnHSGJvV KenWayne (@KenWayneKTVU) February 13, 2017
The evacuations were announced suddenly after engineers discovered a hole that was eroding near the top of the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dams emergency spillway Sunday, sparking fears it could fail. The Oroville Dam, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, is the tallest in the country.
22 TRAIN CARS PLUNGE INTO RIVER IN CALIFORNIA DERAILMENT
Officials confirmed water levels at Lake Oroville -- one of the state's largest man-made lakes -- were falling Monday. Still, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the situation wasn't safe enough for people to return home, and officials were working on a plan to get people back in an orderly manner. Emergency officials were also eyeing a storm predicted to hit the area Wednesday or Thursday.
The sheriff said the spillway may indeed need repairs before evacuations are lifted, but he gave no timetable. He said earlier that helicopters could plug the hole by dropping rocks into the crevasse.
SEARCHERS COMB GULF WATERS AFTER PLANE CARRYING 3 VANISHES
Flows into the lake were just under 45,000 cubic feet per second Monday, California Department of Water Resources officials said. Outflows remained high at nearly 100,000 cubic feet per second.
The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheatland, Yuba City, Plumas Lake and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders. Emergency officials stressed that the dam was structurally sound, Fox 2 reported.
The entire California National Guard was on alert to help in case of flooding, according to a Pentagon spokesman. Some 23,000 members of the Guard were prepared to respond should the dam break, Capt. Jeff Davis said.
Hundreds of cars carrying panicked and angry people were sitting in gridlocked traffic Sunday.
"The police came and told us to evacuate," said Kaysi Levias, who was with her husband, Greg, at a gas station as they attempted to get out.
Officials warned residents at the time that the spillway could fail within an hour.
"I'm just shocked," Greg Levias said. "Pretty mad."
"Not giving us more warning," said Kaysi, finishing his sentence.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.
Click for more from Fox 2.
Fox News' Mike Arroyo, Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn's fate as one of President Donald Trump's senior aides is uncertain following reports that he discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian envoy before Trump's inauguration.
A top White House official sidestepped repeated chances Sunday to publicly defend him. The president, who spent the weekend at his private club in Florida, has yet to comment on Flynn's status. Nor has Vice President Mike Pence, who previously denied that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he is viewed skeptically by some in the administration.
All but one of about 50 undocumented Mexican migrants at a meeting Saturday indicated they would rather risk detention and long court battles in the U.S. than return to Mexico voluntarily.
The majority of migrants at the meeting in Phoenix, which included Mexican officials, signaled in a show of hands that they were ready to fight deportation in U.S. courts.
Even if that means detention for weeks? asked former foreign minister Jorge Castaneda.
Even if it takes months, shouted one woman. Even if it takes years, another yelled. We are here to fight.
Mr. Castaneda and others want Mexicos government to endorse a tough and perhaps risky strategy to battle an expected increase in deportations of their undocumented compatriots in the U.S. by underwriting the migrants legal struggle in the U.S. court system. By overwhelming already heavily burdened immigration courts, Mr. Castaneda hopes the legal system would break down, bringing deportations to a halt.
Mexicos government hasnt endorsed the strategy, but President Enrique Pena Nieto recently budgeted about $50 million to the countrys 50 consulates to help pay the costs of defending migrants who are in the U.S. illegally and facing deportation.
Some are worried that President Donald Trump has decided to expand the type of undocumented migrants who are at risk of being deported, from the violent or dangerous people that the Obama administration targeted to migrants who have had minor brushes with law enforcement.
Mr. Trump on Sunday called it a crackdown on illegal criminals, adding in an early morning tweet that Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!
The Phoenix meeting took place two days after the deportation of a Guadalupe Garcia, a 36-year-old Mexican who lived in the U.S. for 22 years and has two U.S.-born children. Ms. Garcias removal stoked panic and protests in immigrant communities.
Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
Speed cameras became a cash cow for the small village of New Miami, Ohio.
The town, with a population of about 2,200, collected over $3 million in revenue from heavy-footed motorists after it installed stand-alone speed cameras along one of its major throughways, US 127. The speed cameras in New Miami, which is less than one square mile, automatically fined motorists $95 if they drove faster than 50 miles per hour.
It proved to be a lucrative venture for the village just 35 miles north of Cincinnati. Flush with cash, it raised its annual budget from roughly $1.5 million to $2.5 million in 2013.
But now, the Village of New Miami must pay back every cent of the $3 million it collected from the speed cameras, which were ruled unconstitutional in 2014 when drivers filed a class-action lawsuit against the village.
An Ohio judge ruled in favor of drivers, who claimed they were unfairly ticketed.
Any collection or retention of the monies collected under the ordinance was wrongful, Butler County Ohio Judge Michael Oster wrote in his decision last week.
The village reportedly cited almost 45,000 people and collected $1.8 million during the 15 months the cameras were tracking drivers. The village paid another $1.2 million to Optotraffic, the company that ran the speed camera program.
Were gratified and were getting closer to being able to show the drivers that were going to be able to put some money back into their pockets, Mike Allen, attorney for the plaintiffs in the class-action suit told, Fox News. Any municipality that enacts speed camera legislation can expect their budgets to swell.
The village has reportedly spent over $100,000 in taxpayer dollars on lawyer fees defending itself in the case. A lawyer for New Miami told Fox News that it planned to appeal the decision.
We could see the direction that this was going and were disappointed in the outcome, James Englert, the villages outside counsel, told Fox News. We think the village has it right.
Josh Engel, who is also representing the drivers, told Fox News that despite Englert and the villages efforts to appeal, he is confident the decision will be upheld.
Judge Oster upheld a basic constitutional principal that municipalities have to provide due process to people, and if they dont do that, they have to refund the money, Engel told Fox News. The village has spent a huge amount of public money trying to defend this statute and at some point, someone in the community has to say, we need to stop spending money on lawyers and just own up to our responsibilities.
The judge asked the attorneys representing the motorists to provide the court with a spreadsheet detailing how much their clients had to pay in tickets.
On March 3rd, Allen and Engel will ask the judge to order the immediate return of the money to the wrongfully ticketed drivers.
This is a big victory, Allen told Fox News, on the way.
The Latest on a nightclub shooting in Missouri (all times local):
1:30 p.m.
Police say one man is in custody in a shooting outside a Missouri nightclub that left one man dead and six others injured.
Authorities haven't released names of the victims in the early Sunday shooting at Club Envy in Caruthersville, 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.
Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol originally said Monday that two people are in custody. He later clarified that one was arrested on an unrelated warrant. Another man is in custody in the shooting and he hasn't been charged.
Parrott says investigators are trying to determine what happened, but that the gunman and victims apparently knew each other.
Six people were shot and a seventh was injured when he went through a window. Two of the shooting victims are critically wounded and three are stable.
___
11:30 a.m.
One man is dead and six others are injured after gunfire broke out at a party in a nightclub in far southeastern Missouri.
Authorities haven't released names of the victims in the early Sunday shooting at Club Envy in Caruthersville, 90 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.
Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol says two people are in custody, but no charges have been filed. He says investigators are still trying to determine what happened, but that the gunman and victims apparently knew each other.
Six people were shot and a seventh man was injured when he went through a window. Two of the shooting victims are critically wounded and three are stable.
The club had been rented out for a private party attended by about 300 people.
The NAACP wants an expedited investigation by Nashville's district attorney general and possibly federal agencies after police shot an African-American man they say was armed while fleeing after running a stop sign.
At Monday's news conference, NAACP Nashville branch President Ludye Wallace also called for immediate action from city officials on plans to equip police with body cameras.
Standing behind Wallace, tearful, irate family members of Jocques Scott Clemmons questioned police actions and claims.
Clemmons, 31, was shot in the back and died at the hospital Friday.
Nashville police say Clemmons was carrying a loaded pistol and had charged at Officer Josh Lippert, who is white. Lippert ran after and caught up with Clemmons, resulting in a physical confrontation.
Police say Clemmons refused orders to drop the gun.
Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Monday there has not been a rise yet in the number of deportations of Mexicans from the United States under President Donald Trump, but that consulates were receiving more worried phone calls.
Videgaray said in a television interview that the number of deported Mexicans was following the same trends as last year, and was even slightly lower.
DEPORTED WOMAN BACK IN MEXICO COMPLAINS: I FELT LIKE 'CHAPO' GUZMAN
He said Mexican consulates in the United States have received at least three times as many daily phone calls from worried citizens there as before news of possible ramped-up deportations under Trump.
"It's grown exponentially," said Videgaray, adding that people were calling with questions, complaints and worries about the process rather than because of the number of raids.
TRUMP AIDES MEETING WITH MEXICAN FOREIGN, ECONOMY MINISTERS NEXT WEEK
Last week, U.S. federal immigration agents arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants in at least four states, in what officials called routine enforcement action.
Videgaray added that in some U.S. states over the past three or four days, there had been signs of changes in some procedures relating to the treatment of undocumented migrants, and that in California, there had been more visible operations against migrants.
The state parole board has denied early release for prison tailor Joyce Mitchell, who helped two killers escape from a maximum-security facility in northern New York in 2015.
Mitchell had a parole hearing last week at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County. In a decision released Monday, the board said Mitchell's release would be "incompatible with the welfare of society."
The 52-year-old Mitchell was sentenced to 2-1/3 to 7 years in prison for helping murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escape in June 2015 from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora (dan-uh-MAWR'-uh), near the Canadian border. She supervised them in the prison's tailor shop.
Matt was killed three weeks later by searchers in woods west of the prison. Sweat was shot and captured two days later near the border.
Embattled Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli is becoming quite the jet-setter despite his pending federal court case on charges of securities fraud.
A Brooklyn federal judge on Thursday approved the 33-year-olds request to travel outside the area again this time to Cambridge, Mass. after he submitted a letter asking to be allowed to go to Harvard University for a speaking engagement.
NOT FEELING THE LOVE: PAKISTAN'S CAPITAL SAYS 'NO' TO VALENTINE'S DAY
The disgraced former pharmaceutical exec and hedge-fund manager is out on $5 million bail and must receive the courts permission to travel outside the New York City metro area. He is accused of conducting an $11 million Ponzi scheme.
Shkreli, 33, also has been labeled the Most Hated Man in America for jacking up the price of a potentially life-saving drug by nearly 5,000 percent.
Last month, Shkreli traveled to the University of California, Davis, to speak at an event hosted by the schools student Republican club, although the engagement was canceled after protesters barricaded the venues entrance.
Shkreli was allowed to travel to DC a few days later to attend President Trumps inauguration.
He will head to Harvard on Feb. 15 and return Feb. 16, he told the court.
Click for more from The New York Post.
Police in an Atlanta suburb are seeking a man they say engaged in a sex act with a dog while working as a landscaper.
Gwinnett County police Cpl. Deon Washington said in a news release they're looking for 61-year-old Cruz Barreralugo. He faces charges of bestiality and cruelty to children.
A Lawrenceville man called police Saturday to report that he was playing in his yard with his nephew when they saw Barreralugo participating in "a lewd sexual act" with their dog. The man said Barreralugo stopped and fled when he realized he'd been seen.
Police reviewed surveillance video they say captured the incident.
Barreralugo had worked on the man's lawn every two weeks for nearly a year. Police said it wasn't immediately known whether something like this had happened before.
A Florida teacher was shocked to find a 5-year-old boy chewing on a used condom on the playground on Wednesday, police said.
Fort Pierce police officers were called to St. Lucie Elementary school at around 3:45 p.m. after the school reported a suspicious incident, TC Palm reported.
Police said kindergarten students were playing outside when a teacher noticed the boy chewing on the condom. The condom was immediately removed from the boys mouth and the boys mother was notified, police said. The boy was taken to the hospital as a precaution.
Its pretty clear that someone was likely having sex there or near there, or (its) a possible prostitution issue, police spokesman Ed Cunningham said.
Police said they were increasing patrols at the elementary school after the incident. School security this wasnt the first time similar objects were found on the playground.
Click for more from TC Palm.
Prosecutors in Puerto Rico have smashed a ring of current and former U.S. Transportation Security Administration workers that allegedly smuggled 20 tons of cocaine worth as much as $100 million into the U.S. over more than a decade.
A dozen members of the alleged ring, including TSA workers and airport employees, were indicted Feb. 8 in the District of Puerto Rico on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez announced. Authorities said the federal employees used their positions as TSA baggage screeners to wave massive amounts of coke through security.
FIREFIGHTER CHARGED WITH SELLING COCAINE WHILE ON DUTY
The charges point to an insider threat, a congressional source told Fox News, saying the suspects could have smuggled explosives instead of drugs.
These individuals were involved in a conspiracy to traffic massive quantities of illegal narcotics to the continental United States, Rodriguez-Velez said.
These individuals were involved in a conspiracy to traffic massive quantities of illegal narcotics to the continental United States. U.S. Attorney for Puerto Rico Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez
HUGE HAUL OF COCAINE WASHES UP ON ENGLISH BEACH
Beginning in 1998, some three years before the formation of the TSA, the suspects allegedly smuggled suitcases containing up to 15 kilograms of cocaine through the TSA security system at the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, prosecutors said. As many as five mules, or human smugglers, were used on each flight, with each checking in up to two suitcases, according to authorities.
During the 18-year conspiracy, the suspects sent 20 tons of cocaine into the U.S., according to prosecutors.
The development comes on the back of a House Homeland Security report last week that found gross irregularities in employee screening at major airports.
After nearly two years of oversight efforts, the Subcommittee found that a majority of airports do not have full employee screening at secure access points, the report stated. These airports are unable to demonstrate the security effectiveness of their existing employee screening efforts, which consist largely of randomized screening by TSA officers or airport law enforcement personnel.
The defendants include six current and former TSA employees at the airport: Jose Cruz-Lopez, Luis Vazquez-Acevedo, Keila Carrasquillo, Carlos Rafael Adorno-Hiraldo, Antonio Vargas-Saavedra and Daniel Cruz-Echevarria. All were security and baggage screeners for checked and carry-on luggage that was to be placed on outbound flights.
The suspects allegedly worked with co-defendants including Edwin Francisco Castro, Luis Vazquez-Acevedo and Ferdinand Lopez, who were described as facilitators between the drug trafficking organizations and the TSA employees. Defendant Miguel Angel Perez-Rodriguez, who worked for the airport security company, was identified as the cocaine supplier.
The ring also included a baggage handler with Airport Aviation Services, Javier Ortiz, who allegedly picked up the cocaine-packed suitcases at the airline check-in counter and put them into the X-Ray machines monitored by the TSA suspects, who cleared them. After the suitcases had been cleared, Ortiz allegedly took them to their designated flights, making sure no police or K-9 units intervened.
Ortiz also paid the TSA employees for their roles, prosecutors said. They did not say how much.
Other suspects included an alleged mule and another person who prosecutors said helped load luggage onto planes.
This investigation was initiated by TSA as part of its efforts to address employee misconduct and specific insider threat vulnerabilities. TSA has zero tolerance for employees engaged in criminal activity to facilitate contraband smuggling, said Jose Baquero, federal security director for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The suspects face 10 years to life in prison if convicted.
Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
Authorities in Alaska were searching for six people and a crab boat Sunday that disappeared in the Bering Sea.
The Alaska Dispatch News reported that The Destination, a 95-foot crabbing vessel, was on its way from Dutch Harbor to St. Paul Island when its emergency beacon was activated early Saturday morning, according to Michael Barcott, an acting spokesperson for the ships ownership group.
Rescuers found the emergency beacon, a life ring, buoys and tarps in a small oil sheen off the coast of St. George Island. However, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Lauren Steenson told the Dispatch News that no other debris has been found since.
Officials have not identified the missing men.
Dylan Hatfield, a fisherman who had been working out of Dutch Harbor, told the newspaper his brother was onboard the boat when it vanished. He didnt identify who his brother is or the other men on the ship.
Hatfield did tell the paper that the six crew members had a wealth of experience and some of them had been crabbing on the Bering Sea for nearly 30 years. He said they didnt take unnecessary risks.
"Everybody I've talked to, nobody can believe of all the boats that this one went down," Hatfield said.
The search is expected to continue Monday.
Click for more from the Alaska Dispatch News.
A registered sex offender suspected in the slaying and alleged rape of an Ohio State University student is being held without bond.
A court granted that request from prosecutors Monday in the potential death penalty case against 29-year-old Brian Golsby, of Columbus. He is charged with aggravated murder, rape and other counts.
WIFE, STEPSON CHARGED WITH MURDERING MISSOURI KKK LEADER
A message seeking comment was left for the public defender representing him.
Twenty-one-year-old Reagan Tokes was reported missing after leaving her job at a restaurant Wednesday night. Her nude body was found Thursday outside a Grove City park.
Police say they arrested Golsby after matching him to DNA evidence from Tokes' car. Golsby was previously imprisoned in an attempted rape and aggravated robbery and was released from prison in November.
United Airlines is investigating an incident that resulted in removing a pilot from a San Francisco-bound flight before it left Austin, Texas.
An airline spokesman confirmed that the pilot wasnt in uniform when boarding the plane on Friday.
The spokesman added that another pilot was brought in. The flight was delayed for nearly two hours.
The United Airlines spokesman also confirmed the pilot was the woman shown in videos posted on social media talking to passengers over the intercom. Some people tweeted they were passengers on the flight and that the woman seemed unstable, talking about a divorce, the election and other issues.
The company plans to discuss the incident with the pilot.
No other details about the incident have been released.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A woman charged in a cliff crash that killed her twin is out of jail on a $200,000 cash bail.
Alexandria Duval, 38, was being held on a $3 million bail in the death of her sister, Anastasia, before a judge decided Thursday to allow her to post a reduced $2 million bond or $200,000 in cash for release, Maui News reported.
Duval has pleaded not guilty in the case.
She needs the court's permission to leave Maui while out on bail.
"You may not even go to the airport terminals to pick anybody up," 2nd Circuit Judge Peter Cahill had told Duval. "If you have family members coming here, they must make their own arrangements."
Duval was also ordered to report for supervision as well as random drug and alcohol testing within 24 hours of her release on bail.
Attorney Todd Eddins had said his client's father, Dr. John Dadow, was willing to contribute up to $250,000 for the cash bail.
"He has never been contacted by the prosecutors," Eddins said. "He is supportive of his daughter here, to the extent he is willing to post $200,000 to $250,000 cash bail."
Deputy Prosecutor Emlyn Higa had argued that Duval should also be required to post the $2 million bail bond.
Higa said Dadow "doesn't have the same kind of motivation as the bond company to make sure she will be present for trial."
Witnesses say they saw fighting inside a vehicle in May before it went over a cliff.
Police say the vehicle fell 200 feet, and Anastasia died at the scene.
About 20,000 people took part in a march in Mexico City on Sunday demanding respect for their country and its migrants in the face of perceived hostility from President Donald Trumps administration.
Many of the marchers were dressed in white as a sign of unity. One of the banners read: Gracias, Trump, for unifying Mexico!
The marchers protested Trump's plans for a border wall and increased deportations of migrants. Trump has also pressured U.S. corporations to provide jobs in the United States, not Mexico.
The Los Angeles Times reported that one sign read: Trump, pay for your own wall!
Maria Garcia, a former Chicago resident, carried a papier-mache effigy of Trump and told the LA Times that the march wasnt about Americans it was about Trump.
The United States and Mexico are natural friends and allies, but Trump is destroying this, Garcia said. She later burned the Trump effigy.
Paulina Ortega carried a placard in English proclaiming: "We love Americans, we hate racism."
"This is a march for dignity," she said.
The march also featured many signs supporting Mexican migrants living in the United States.
"We want demonstrate to all of those who suffer discrimination in the United States that we are with them," said Ana Fernanda Islas, a university student.
According to the Los Angeles Times, while much of the protest was direct against Trump and his administration, many others participated in chants against Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto
Smaller marches were held in other Mexican cities Sunday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At least 13 people were killed and 58 others wounded Monday after a large bomb exploded at a protest rally in eastern Pakistan, an attack for which a Taliban faction claimed responsibility.
BRITISH WOMAN FIGHTING ISIS SAYS SHE COULD HELP 'FINISH' THE TERRORISTS
The bombing in Lahore unfolded less than a year after an Easter 2016 attack targeting Christians there killed as many as 70 people.
Six police officers, including a former provincial counterterrorism chief, were among those killed Monday, police said. Investigators initially said the attacker was on a motorcycle, but provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah later said that closed-circuit footage revealed the bomber was on foot.
ISIS FIGHTER BECOMES FIRST STRIPPED OF AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP
"We just couldn't understand what happened," Tufail Nabi told local Geo News TV. "It was as if some big building collapsed," he said as he limped away.
A Taliban splinter group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed the attack in a text message, saying it was revenge for Pakistani military operations against Islamic militants in tribal regions along the Afghan border.
Pharmacists and drug manufacturers organized the protest, Reuters reported, citing local media. They were calling out new amendments to a law governing drug sales.
The pharmacists reportedly were holding a sit-in at the time.
Live TV broadcast a loud bang and showed smoke billowing up as people ran away, some of them carrying the wounded. Cars near the blast site caught fire as thick smoke filled the air.
Two senior police officers, including a former provincial counterterrorism chief, were among those killed, Abbas added.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is one of several splinter groups from the Pakistani Taliban, which has carried out scores of attacks against security forces and religious minorities. In recent years, Pakistan has had launched several offensives against the Taliban and other Islamic militant groups in the tribal regions.
Washington condemned the Lahore attack and extended condolences to the victims and their families. "We stand with the people of Pakistan in their fight against terrorists and remain committed to the security of the South Asia region," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, a roadside bomb killed two members of a bomb disposal squad on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta, said police officer Abdur Razzaq Cheema. Another eight people were wounded in the explosion, he said. A Taliban-linked group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said it planted that bomb.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Chinese Communist Party newspaper pressed world powers, including the U.S., to address the root cause of North Koreas nuclear development, saying it was futile for Washington and others to continue to crack down on its nuclear development while ignoring Pyongyangs concerns.
NORTH KOREA'S MISSILE DESIGNED TO BE LAUNCHED FROM SUBMARINE, OFFICIALS SAY
The Global Times said in an editorial Monday the Pyongyang is upset and angry because the military threat it faces looks very real and it is enduring harsh sanctions. The paper added that by asking Beijing to pressure North Korea, world powers were not addressing the real issue at hand.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile Sunday in what would be its first such test of the year and an implicit challenge to President Donald Trumps new administration.
ABE SAYS HE SOUGHT COMMON GOALS, NOT DIFFERENCES WITH TRUMP
A spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command said in an emailed statement to Fox News that "U.S. Strategic Command systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean missile launch.
The missile splashed down into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to the U.S. Strategic Command. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the missile did not hit Japanese territorial seas.
The U.S., Japan and South Korea requested an urged meeting of the U.N. Security Council in response to Pyongyangs missile launch. A spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Sunday night that the meeting is expected to take place Monday.
The U.S. and Japan condemned the missile launch, calling it absolutely intolerable.
Trump assured Japan that the U.S. stands behind the country completely.
The United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent, Trump said during the conference at Trumps south Florida estate.
Japan President Shinzo Abe read a brief statement in which he called on North Korea to fully comply with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions. He said Trump has assured him of U.S. support and that Trump's presence showed the president's determination and commitment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A bell ringer had to be lowered from a dizzying 100 feet after injuring himself in the bell tower at Worcester Cathedral in the U.K. on Saturday night.
WOMAN KILLED AFTER TREE UPROOTED BY HER HOMEMADE ZIP LINE FALLS ON HER
Stunned worshippers watched on as Ian Bowman, 51, was rescued by firefighters and a specialist rope unit.
The bell ringer was rushed to a hospital after a rope used to clang the huge bells caught around his foot, yanking him helplessly into the air.
A CUT ABOVE? BARBER STYLES HAIR WITH A BLOWTORCH
Bowman is a member of a touring group of bell ringers from Widecombe, Devon.
He suffered a head wound and fractured bone in his back during the incident, and blood could be seen pouring from the deep cut in his head when he was rescued by emergency workers.
Emergency services gently lowered him to the cathedral floor, and he was carried out past pews full of gaping worshippers to a waiting ambulance, before being taken to Worcestershire Royal Hospital.
Describing the horrific ordeal, Bowman, who is still able to walk despite his injuries, said: We were raising the tenor bell, which takes two people, and the rope caught my heel.
It pulled me up in the air and I came crashing down on the floor with a big bang.
The fire brigade came and took me down they were amazing and the paramedics and hospital staff were excellent.
Speaking on his injury, the 51-year-old said: Its pretty painful but its just one of those things.
It was just an accident these things do happen sometimes in life.
There were 20 of us there ringing. The rope went round my ankle and it took me from standing to upside down in seconds.
It just flicked me upside down thats what did the damage.
Click for more from The Sun.
Cyprus' president has rebuffed claims by breakaway Turkish Cypriots that new legislation making the annual commemoration of a 1950 vote in support of union with Greece compulsory in Greek Cypriot schools threatens to derail peace talks.
President Nicos Anastasiades said Monday the legislation "about a mere reference to a historical fact" in no way reflects a change in Greek Cypriot policy to reunify the ethnically split island as a federation.
The commemoration would involve taking a few minutes of the school day to note the event and elaborate on its significance.
Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci repeated Monday the legislation could hurt peace talks.
Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup aimed at union with Greece.
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Hungary's populist prime minister on Friday lashed out against billionaire financier George Soros, claiming he and groups backed by him want to secretly influence the country's politics.
In his annual state of the nation speech, Viktor Orban said groups partly funded by Soros, who was born in Hungary, needed to be made transparent and identifiable.
"Large-bodied predators are swimming here in the waters. This is the trans-border empire of George Soros, with tons of money and international heavy artillery," said Orban, who received a Soros-funded scholarship as Hungary was transitioning from communism to democracy in the late 1980s.
"It is causing trouble ... that they are trying secretly and with foreign money to influence Hungarian politics," Orban said.
He did not cite evidence backing his claims, and did not identify the groups he mentioned. Government officials had earlier taken aim at corruption watchdog Transparency International and rights groups like the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.
In 2014, Orban ordered a crackdown on civic groups supported in part by Norway, but extensive investigations and audits did not uncover any financial irregularities of note.
In an email to The Associated Press, a Soros representative said they were "proud to support Hungarians who insist on having a voice in their democracy."
"The Open Society Foundations for over 30 years have supported civil society groups in Hungary who are addressing profound problems in education, health care, media freedom and corruption," said Laura Silber, the organization's chief communications officer. "Any attacks on this work and those groups are solely an attempt to deflect attention from government inability to address these issues."
Orban also claimed that Soros' organizations were still working on bringing hundreds of thousands of migrants into Europe, contrary to the wishes of Hungarians and their government.
Orban has been outspoken about his strong opposition to taking in refugees and migrants, and in 2015 ordered fences built on Hungary's southern borders with Serbia and Croatia to stop the migrant flow.
On Friday, he reiterated a government plan to keep migrants in border camps built from shipping containers while their asylum applications are being processed.
The proposal drew strong criticism from local and international rights groups, which said it was clearly against EU law and the United Nations Refugee Convention.
Amnesty International said the plan was "yet another disturbing move in a pattern of demonizing" refugees.
"Rounding up all men, women and children seeking asylum and detaining them months on end in container camps is a new low in Hungary's race to the bottom on asylum seekers and refugees," said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's deputy director for Europe.
Orban also painted a bleak picture of Western Europe, saying its "future is casting a long and dark shadow on its present."
He joked that Hungary was ready to take in Western Europeans, whom he said are suffering from globalization's effects.
"Naturally, we will take in the real refugees," Orban said to laughter and loud applause. "The panicked German, Dutch, French and Italian politicians and journalists, Christians forced to leave their countries who want to find here the Europe they lost at home."
Orban, who returned to power in 2010, will seek another four-year term in April 2018.
Iran's official IRNA news agency is reporting that a 62-year-old man has been sentenced to a 10-year prison term on espionage charges.
The Monday report quotes Hassan Heidari, a judiciary official in the northeastern city of Mashhad, as saying the accused person was arrested five months ago. The report does not identify the man.
The verdict comes after intelligence officials investigated the man for months, the report said.
According to IRNA, the man was recruited by a foreign intelligence service on the pretext of a Hajj visa, a reference to Iran's regional rival, Saudi Arabia.
IRNA said the accused person has faced a charge of espionage in another country, too. It did not elaborate.
Iran occasionally announces the arrest of spies without further reports on their fates.
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The Latest on North Korea's missile launch (all times local):
2 p.m.
A Chinese Communist Party newspaper says it is futile for Washington to continue cracking down on North Korea's nuclear development while ignoring its concerns.
North Korea launched its latest ballistic missile Sunday.
The Global Times said in an editorial Monday that Pyongyang is upset and angry because "the military threat it faces looks very real" and it is enduring harsh sanctions.
It says that Washington and others are not addressing "the root cause" by asking Beijing to pressure Pyongyang.
The paper says the timing of Sunday's launch, a day after the end of China's 15-day Lunar New Year period, suggests Beijing's participation in U.N. Security Council sanctions is having a "positive effect." Last year, North Korea launched a long-range rocket on the eve of China's most important holiday.
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11 a.m.
The United States, Japan and South Korea have requested an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council on North Korea's latest ballistic missile launch.
A spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Sunday night that the meeting is expected to take place Monday. The spokesman spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The North Korean missile is thought to have flown about 500 kilometers (310 miles) before going down in international waters.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe learned about the launch while in Florida together. Abe called the move "absolutely intolerable," while Trump said his administration "stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent."
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9:20 p.m.
Italy says North Korea's "repeated missile tests" threaten peace and that the country must stop challenging the international community.
In a statement Sunday, the Italian foreign ministry expressed "great concern" about the news that the North had launched a ballistic missile. It said the repeated tests, combined with North Korea's development of a nuclear arsenal, "constitute a threat to peace and to international security."
Italy said North Korea "must abandon the development" of such an arsenal and "interrupt its path of challenging the international community and of self-isolation."
North Korea appeared to fire a missile early Sunday in its first such test of the year. It conducted two nuclear tests and a slew of rocket launches last year.
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7:10 p.m.
In the wake of North Korea's latest missile launch, a top Russian foreign affairs figure says other countries must step up their work to try to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, was quoted as saying Sunday by the Interfax news agency that North Korea's behavior "is a definite challenge to all of us" and "a reminder that we should not relax and should understand that the situation of the peninsula is quite unstable and may turn into a hot conflict."
He added, "In connection with this, we need to work intensively on the Korean dossier and not slow down the pace for all of us."
Slutsky was quoted as saying he believed U.S.-Russia cooperation on the matter was possible "however utopian that may appear now."
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1:50 p.m.
The U.S. Strategic Command says it detected and tracked what it assessed was a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile test-fired by North Korea.
It says it did not pose a threat to North America.
The command said the launch occurred near the northwestern city of Kusong.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year's address that his country was ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile, which could threaten the U.S. mainland.
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1 p.m.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is condemning North Korea's latest missile launch as "absolutely intolerable" and President Donald Trump is assuring Japan that the U.S. stands behind it "100 percent."
Abe and Trump appeared together for a statement Saturday night following reports that North Korea fired a ballistic missile in what would be its first such test of the year.
In a ballroom at Trump's south Florida estate, Abe read a brief statement in which he called on the North to comply fully with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions. He said Trump has assured him of U.S. support and that Trump's presence showed the president's determination and commitment.
Trump followed Abe with even fewer words, saying in part: "I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent."
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12:30 p.m.
South Korea's presidential Blue House says the presidential security director Kim Kwan Jin has spoken with President Donald Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn over the phone following North Korea's missile test launch.
According to the statement, the two officials strongly condemned the launch and agreed that the countries will explore every possible way to suppress North Korean provocations.
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11:30 a.m.
South Korea says North Korea's missile test-launch, along with Kim Jong Un's threat to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile in his New Year's address, shows the "irrational nature" of a government that "fanatically" obsesses with developing nuclear ballistic missiles.
South's Foreign Ministry issued the statement in response to what it said was the North's first ballistic missile launch this year. It strongly condemned the launch as a "blatant and obvious" violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and a "serious threat" to international security.
The ministry says that the South will continue to work with allies including the United States, Japan and the European Union to ensure a thorough implementation of sanctions against the North and make the country realize that it will "never be able to survive" without discarding all of its nuclear and missile programs.
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10:45 a.m.
South Korea's Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn says his country will respond to punish rival North Korea for Sunday's missile launch.
According to Yonhap news agency, Hwang says South Korea in tandem with the international community "is doing its best to ensure a corresponding response to punish the North" for its missile launch.
South's military has confirmed that the missile launched Sunday flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) into the sea. Yonhap reported that while determinations are still being made, it was not believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
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10 a.m.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has told reporters the missile test-fired by North Korea did not hit Japanese territorial seas.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency says that the Japanese government confirmed that the missile fell in seas between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff says South Korean and U.S. military officials are analyzing further details from the launch early Sunday.
In response to the launch, South Korea held a National Security Council meeting at the presidential Blue House, which was chaired by Kim Kwan Jin, the presidential national security director.
The ballistic missile that North Korea claimed it successfully test-fired over the weekend "probably" traveled farther than any other missile of its type launched by the rogue nation, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters on Monday.
The launch represented a clear grave threat to our national security, Capt. Jeff Davis said.
The missile traveled roughly 300 miles into the Sea of Japan but did not enter Japanese waters. It was launched on a high trajectory traveling for 14 minutes before splashing down, one U.S. official told Fox News.
CHINESE PAPER CALLS ON USA, WORLD POWERS TO HELP KEEP NORTH KOREA UNDER CONTROL
The KN-11-mod 2 missile was launched from land in the northwest region of the communist regime Saturday evening. North Korea's 33-year-old dictator, Kim Jong Un, was present at the test site, according to officials.
The KN-11 also was tested successfully back in August, officials said. It had a range of 1,600 miles and used solid fuel, enabling the missile to be moved around easier and requiring less maintenance than liquid fuel. It also was originally designed to be launched from a submarine.
ABE SAYS HE SOUGHT COMMON GOALS, NOT DIFFERENCES WITH TRUMP
The KN-11 has a shorter range than the BM-25 Musudan which was tested in June. The Musudan has a range of up to 2,500 miles. Can you imagine if that test hadnt been successful and the missile had hit Japan? one former senior U.S. official said.
In the past few weeks, the U.S. Navy has positioned two warships with anti-ballistic missile capability in the Sea of Japan, part of a heightened presence, as one official called it. The Pentagon is not said to be overly worried about this latest launch, but is concerned about an intercontinental ballistic missile that could one day reach the U.S.
The North Korean missile test this weekend coincided with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit with President Trump.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made his first overseas visit to South Korea and Japan earlier this month.
North Korea conducted 24 missile tests and two nuclear tests last year.
Given the current circumstances, relevant parties should not engage in mutually provocative moves which could heighten regional tensions. All parties need to exercise restraint in a joint effort to maintain regional peace and stability, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang responded.
Fox News' Rich Edson contributed to this report.
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A Pakistani judge has banned Valentine's Day celebrations in the country's capital, saying they are against Islamic teachings.
Court official Niaz Saleh says the judge ruled Monday on a petition seeking to ban public celebrations in Islamabad. He says the order has been sent to Pakistan's media regulator to ensure a blackout on any Valentine's Day promotions in print or electronic media. A spokesman for the regulator could not immediately be reached for comment.
Islamist and right-wing parties in Pakistan view Valentine's Day as vulgar Western import.
Former Italian Premier Matteo Renzi has urged his Democratic Party to quit its internal squabbling and focus instead on defeating populists during what he dubbed the era of "Trumpism" and protectionism.
Renzi cited U.S. President Donald Trump while making a pitch to other top Democratic figures Monday for a united front with an eye on national elections that might come as soon as the spring.
Renzi resigned as Italy prime minister after losing a Dec. 4 referendum on key reforms of his government. He remains the Democrats' leader
Renzi said the party, now the biggest in Parliament, should concentrate on countering "Trumpism," or "at least Grillo-ism" on the rise in Italy. He was referring to comic Beppe Grillo, whose anti-euro, populist 5-Star Movement aims to govern Italy.
A former Portuguese interior minister and other senior government officials are standing trial in a major case centered on residence permits granted to investors from outside the European Union.
The officials are charged with corruption, influence-peddling and misconduct in public office in the trial which began Monday and is expected to last several months.
Among the 21 accused are former interior minister Miguel Macedo, the former head of the Borders and Immigration Service, and a former senior official at the Justice Ministry. Three businessmen from China and one from Angola are also charged.
A police investigation in 2014 called Operation Labyrinth found evidence of an alleged web of interests operating under official cover, including in the granting of so-called golden visas to non-EU investors. The officials subsequently resigned.
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Reverberations from President Donald Trump's travel ban and other stances are threatening to undermine future U.S.-Iraqi security cooperation, rattling a key alliance that over the past two years has slowly beaten back the Islamic State group.
Iraq's prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has sought to contain any backlash from public anger sparked by Trump's executive order banning Iraqis from traveling to the U.S. Also breeding resentment and suspicion are Trump's repeated statements that the Americans should have taken Iraq's oil and his hard line against Iran, a close ally of al-Abadi's government.
Al-Abadi and Trump spoke Thursday night for the first time since Trump's inauguration. The U.S. leader, who has pledged a stronger fight against IS militants, promised increased help for Iraq against terrorism, and al-Abadi asked him to remove Iraq from the travel ban, according to an Iraqi official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the telephone call.
Iraqi anger at Washington comes at a crucial juncture in a long and often contentious relationship. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are about to launch an assault aimed at retaking the western half of Mosul that is still under Islamic State control. If Mosul is completely secured, it largely would break the extremist group's "caliphate" in the country.
However, Iraqi and U.S. officials have said maintaining security in a post-IS Iraq will be just as difficult preventing a resurgence of the militants and containing political divisions among Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Both countries have talked of keeping some U.S. troops long term to back Iraq's security forces in that task, a recognition that complete American withdrawal at the end of 2011 was a mistake.
Now the Iraqi leader is coming under pressure. Lawmakers are demanding he reduce cooperation with Washington in the future, limit or prevent American troops from staying in the country after the defeat of IS, and reciprocate for any travel ban on Iraqis. Members of powerful Shiite militias have outright warned of retaliation against Americans if the U.S. carries out any military action against Iran, their patron.
"Trump embarrassed al-Abadi," said Saad al-Mutalabi, a lawmaker and long-time ally of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, one of al-Abadi's most powerful political opponents.
"There will be a general consensus that Americans should not stay in Iraq after Mosul, after the statements and the executive order from Trump," he said. "We believed that we had a strategic agreement with the U.S."
"We are fighting ISIS on behalf of the entire world," he added, using an alternative acronym for IS. "This has been a severe, severe disappointment among all Iraqis."
Publicly, al-Abadi has maintained measured tones. While he called Trump's ban an "insult," he refused to enact a reciprocity measure despite a strong call from Parliament to do so.
The U.S. government has been reaching out regularly to al-Abadi's government to try to prevent the situation from escalating, sending the message that the U.S. is well aware of the potential consequences if Iraqis turn against it, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Thursday's call was seen as a positive step toward defusing some of the tension, with Trump telling al-Abadi he would see what he could do to lessen the impact on Iraqis who shouldn't be kept out of the U.S., the official said. Since Trump announced the order, many in the U.S. government have been encouraging the White House to remove Iraq from the list. Although there has been no indication that Trump plans to delist Iraq entirely, he could take steps to exempt more Iraqis from the ban.
Within Iraq's military, some are galled at being grouped in with terrorists by the travel ban when they have been engaged in slow, grueling combat against IS for more than two years.
Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led air power and American special forces have pushed IS out of cities in western Anbar province, along the Euphrates and up the Tigris river valley to Mosul in the north. Since October, they have taken back the eastern half of Iraq's second-largest city.
Iraqi special forces Sgt. Maj. Hussein al-Kabii, stationed in Mosul, called Trump's statement about taking Iraq's oil and his travel ban "just unbelievable."
"I have fought Daesh in Anbar, Fallujah, Salahuddin and now I'm currently fighting them in Mosul," he said using the Arabic acronym for IS. "We have given a lot of blood fighting Daesh."
Lukman Faily, the former Iraqi ambassador to the United States, said the ban still sways Iraqi perceptions of the U.S. despite being temporarily blocked by a U.S. federal court ruling.
"Iraqis will not want to have long-term security cooperation with the United States if the United States views them as terrorists," he said.
Iraq's Kurds, who have autonomous rule in the north, have been more enthusiastic about Trump despite the flap over his statements about Iraq's oil, some of which they control. That is in part rooted in the distrust of Iraq's Arab majority by many Kurds. Some Kurds welcome Trump's more unbridled tough talk against Islamic militancy, which many see as an Arab phenomenon, and believe it will bring Trump closer into alliance with them. Some have said they understand why the U.S. would bar Iraqis' entry though they argue an exception should be made for Kurds.
Some in Baghdad and the Iraqi military would likely welcome stepped-up U.S. military help. But Trump's early moves frustrate an already rocky relationship with Washington.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, the American troop presence grew as high as 168,000. The war that ensued killed nearly 4,500 American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Many among the Iraqi public, as well as the military and political class acknowledged the need for even welcomed U.S. forces and political support. But that has been mixed with anger over abuses and civilian casualties caused by U.S. troops, as well as frustration that U.S. policy missteps following the 2003 invasion, including disbanding the Iraq army after Saddam's fall, helped foster the insurgency, eventually leading to the creation of al-Qaida in Iraq and later the Islamic State group.
The fight for Mosul has brought Iraq and the U.S. closer. There are now some 6,000 U.S. forces inside Iraq, U.S. troops have moved closer to frontline fighting and American special forces have conducted greater numbers of raids into IS-held territory aimed at taking out key leaders.
But Iraqi politics is still dominated by powerful Shiite blocs with close ties to Iran. Throughout his time in office, al-Abadi has struggled to balance his reliance on the two rivals, the United States and Iran.
A smaller U.S. presence in Iraq post-IS would likely usher in a larger role for armed groups with close ties to Iran, a scenario similar to what happened in the days following Mosul's fall in 2014. After IS overran nearly a third of the country in a matter of days, Iran swiftly came to Iraq's aid with fighters and weapons, while the U.S. waited for weeks to begin a campaign of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
The spokesman of one Shiite militia, Kataib Hezbollah, warned that his fighters were ready to target U.S. interests if the Trump administration goes too far against Iran.
"If the U.S. takes military action against Iran, we will return the favor," Jaafar al-Husseini said. "We have all the details of (U.S. troop) movements. They are right under our eyes.
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Associated Press writer Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.
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The United Nations secretary-general said Monday he "deeply regrets" the United States' decision to block a former Palestinian prime minister from leading the world body's political mission in Libya.
Antonio Guterres said Salam Fayyad was "the right person for the right job at the right moment," stressing that the Palestinian politician "has a competence that nobody denies and Libya requires."
"I think it is a loss for the Libyan peace process and the Libyan people I'm not able to appoint him," Guterres said.
Libya has been gripped by war and unrest since its 2011 uprising and the killing of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
"Libya has been a factor of contamination to the peace and stability in a wide area ... and to bring an end to the conflict in Libya is in everybody's interest," Guterres added.
The U.S. blocked Fayyad's appointment on Friday, saying it was acting to support its ally Israel.
The U.N. chief declined to directly criticize the U.S. or President Donald Trump in his remarks at the annual World Government Summit in Dubai. But Guterres said he did "not see any valid reason" for the U.S. action.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq wouldn't say whether the Trump administration initially gave a green light and then changed its mind on Fayyad's appointment.
Haq told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York that the U.N. consults "broadly" on appointments.
Guterres' decision to put forward Fayyad's name for the Libya job "was based on the information and the understandings he had at the time," Haq said. "We believed we had the understandings, but we did not."
Wine & Design Paints Way To Southern California
Award-Winning Paint & Sip Franchise Celebrates First Los Angeles Location with Week of Fun
February 13, 2017 // Franchising.com // Burbank, C.A. Wine & Design, the leading paint and sip franchise that provides chic, upbeat spaces for memories and masterpieces, announces the grand opening of its newest location in Burbank, the first of its kind in the Los Angeles area. To celebrate the opening, Wine & Design is inviting the community to five days of festivities starting Wednesday, February 15 to Sunday, February 19 packed with themed parties, discounted classes, giveaways and other special offers.
After being a full-time administrative assistant for a mental health private practice for over 25 years, Lisa Flette is excited to launch her first Wine & Design location in Burbank. Lisa, who has always had a passion for the arts, is turning her hobby into a career, utilizing her artistic talent to offer a variety of classes for all ages. She plans to spread Wine & Designs concept to the west coast, fitting the concept into Burbanks close knit, eclectic community.
Wine & Design is such a welcoming brand, so Im excited to be a part of the team and share the concept with my hometown, said Lisa, studio owner. Burbanks quaint vibe couples perfectly with Wine & Designs artsy concept and I look forward to creating this studio as an openhearted community space for years to come.
With more than 70 locations across the country, Wine & Design is committed to providing memorable and lasting experiences. Believing that chic, sophisticated experiences shouldnt always come at a high price, Wine & Design is affordable without sacrificing what makes it special.
Expanding our footprint into Southern California is a big milestone for our brand and we couldnt be more thrilled to have Lisa lead this expansion, said Harriet Mills, CEO and Founder of Wine & Design. We know she will leave a long-lasting impression on the Burbank community and her studio will be a great representation of Wine & Design.
Wine & Designs Burbank studio is located at 3208 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505. For more information or to reserve a space for the upcoming grand opening celebration, please call (818) 861-7046, email magnoliapark.ca@wineanddesign.com or visit www.wineanddesign.com/burbank.
The full schedule of the five-day grand opening celebration is as follows:
Date: Wednesday, February 15th Grand Opening Celebration + Nude Paint Night
Time: 5:30 p.m. ribbon cutting, 7:00 p.m. 9:00 p.m. class.
Details: Ribbon cutting with complimentary wine and hors doeuvres. Live nude model painting class for $35 after ribbon cutting.
*First 20 guests receive free gift bags with a free class certificate
Date: Thursday, February 16th Work Hard, Play Hard
Time: 7:00 p.m. 9:00 p.m.
Details: First 10 people free with code 69WNDFEB16. $20 class and each participant will receive $50 off a future team building event. Complimentary appetizers and drinks.
Date: Friday, February 17th BYOF (Bring Your Best Friend) Party
Time: 7:00 p.m. 9:00 p.m.
Details: BOGO Classes. Bring your best friend for a night of fun!
Date: Saturday, February 18th Date Night Couple Painting
Time: 7:00 p.m. 9:00 p.m.
Details: $35 BOGO class. Paint with your significant other or partner in crime for a coupled painting!
Date: Sunday, February 19th Mimosas & Sangria Soiree
Time: 1:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m.
Details: $20 class with one glass of complimentary wine.
*First 10 people free with code 69WNDFEB19.
About Wine & Design
Wine & Design provides memories and a masterpiece in just two hours. Painting sessions are led by a local artist who provides step-by-step instructions to first-time painters, aspiring artists, or self-proclaimed pros that result in an individualized work of art. Wine & Design accepts general reservations for nightly painting classes, and we offer programs through our five lines of business: Private Parties offer a creative twist for showers, birthday parties and reunions, just to name a few; Art Buzz Kids programs include childrens classes, summer camps and Parent and Me programs; Design On Wheels brings the painting party to your home, office or event venue; Team Building packages merge art, teamwork and fun for your business or organization; and Paint it Forward programs are available each month with a portion of the proceeds going to a local charity. For more information on our programs, or to schedule an event or class, please visit www.wineanddesign.com. Wine & Design is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. and has 70 studios nationwide.
Media Contacts:
Christina Erwin
cerwin@konnectagency.com
Kayla Hockman
khockman@konnectagency.com
SOURCE Wine & Design
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The two men accused of killing 26-year-old Stafford resident Jorge Leonardo Melo last month had planned in advance to rob Melo of drugs and money, court records state.
Juan Pablo Rubio, 21, and Ronald Antonio SilvestreTorres, 23, are both charged with first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Melo was shot and killed Jan. 22 outside a home on Madison Court in North Stafford.
According to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Stafford Circuit Court, Detective Barry Surles wrote that a witness told police that he accompanied Melo to Madison Court that evening to sell illegal drugs.
Prior to reaching the planned location for the sale, Melo used the witness cellphone to confirm the location. The witness said he overheard the conversation but didnt understand it because everyone was speaking in Spanish.
Surles wrote that the witness said both suspects were armed with handguns when they arrived and tried to rob Melo. During that exchange, Melo was shot two times and later died.
Melos associate provided police a phone number associated with one of the suspects and said Melo told him he had previously arranged to meet up with the suspects days before the slaying.
On Feb. 2, Surles wrote, another witness provided the names of the suspects and details about the planned robbery. That witness claimed that on Jan. 22, he met Rubio and SilvestreTorres at 136 Barrett Heights Road, where Torres was staying.
The suspects were planning a robbery, Surles wrote, and asked the second witness if he would participate in it. That witness stayed at Barrett Heights Road while Rubio and SilvestreTorres left on foot, Surles wrote.
A short time later, the witness said he heard two gunshots. He then saw Rubio and SilvestreTorres run back to the Barrett Heights Road residence, place two handguns in a large bucket and cover the bucket with the jackets they wearing. They then told the witness to leave the property, according to the affidavit.
Detectives learned that Rubio lived at 241 Whitsons Run in Stafford and were able to fully identify both suspects from phone records and from information received from other law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Bureau of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement.
Court records state that SilvestreTorres was born in El Salvador and at one point went by a different name, but the records do not state if either suspect is in the country illegally.
CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart came to this town to defend its statue of Robert E. Lee in a downtown park, only to be swarmed by dozens of protesters who shouted him down everywhere he went.
It was the harshest reception yet for the provocative chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, campaigning for governor as Virginia's Donald Trump, with a hard-line stance against illegal immigration and blistering criticism of his opponents.
A divided Charlottesville City Council's vote this week to remove the statue of the Confederate general gave Stewart a new opportunity to rile up his base. On social media, he urged people to defend Virginia heritage and likened those who wanted the statue gone to tyrants and Nazis.
But when he tried to take his message out into the real world on Saturday morning, protesters shouting "White supremacy has got to go!" drowned out his interviews and conversations.
Stewart took it in stride, frequently grinning and trying to chat up his detractors. In an interview, Stewart welcomed the protests and the attention it would bring him, believing it would help his campaign narrative of a conservative standing up to an intolerant left and "political correctness."
"I am calling them out for who they are," Stewart said. "It's really a symptom of the problem of the left and their unwillingness to listen to alternative points of view."
He recorded a Facebook Live video with Thaddeus Alexander, an African American veteran who became an online conservative star after his Facebook video railing against liberal protesters went viral.
Their latest video ran a little more than 2 minutes and racked up more than 9,000 views by 1 p.m.
"They have no respect for our heritage," Stewart said in the video over shouts. "They have no respect not only to Robert E. Lee, a great American, but they have no respect for Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington or any of the other great American and Virginia heroes."
The demonstrators continued to follow Stewart, hoisting signs saying "Ban Bigots" and "No tolerance for white supremacy" over his head and yelling at him to go back to Prince William.
"Do you need to be escorted to your car?" asked Toby Gray, a 51-year-old man wearing a camouflage jacket and holding a giant American flag sign, as Stewart walked down the stairs out of the park.
"I think I do," Stewart responded, crossing the street to a parking lot.
Protesters didn't follow, shouting "Whose town? Our town!"
The protesters outnumbered a group of supporters of the statue, some of whom carried Confederate flags. The statue supporters - who were angered by the wave of protests against President Donald Trump nationwide - said the whole exchange left them feeling warmer to Stewart.
"I wasn't sure about voting for Corey Stewart before, but I'd be very honored to vote for him after today," said Isaac Stewart, a 20-year-old Charlottesville resident who filmed the rally for a local blog.
He backed Trump for president but said he was uneasy about the prospect of having a mirror image in the governor's mansion.
"I'd like to see something a little more tempered, a little more mild. Certainly the way Stewart dealt with these people, I think he was an absolute angel," Smith said.
---
Fellow Republican candidate Ed Gillespie, a political strategist who Stewart derides as 'Establishment Ed,' said in a statement he doesn't support moving statues, but such decisions are local issues. Gillespie is leading the Republican field in polling and campaign cash for the November election.
Republican distillery owner Denver Riggleman, who like Stewart is running a populist campaign, also denounced the statue move and recommended using money for demolition to add a statue of a prominent African American instead.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello, who represented Charlottesville in Congress from 2009 to 2011, supports the statue's removal as part of creating a "more inclusive" environment. Lt. Gov Ralph Northam, who is also running for governor, has said local communities should make decisions about Confederate symbols, and said Charlottesville is a model for creating a "welcoming community."
As Stewart hopped into his Toyota Tundra to go to his next rally in Winchester, he flashed a handful of supporters who escorted him to the park lot a thumbs up.
"This was fun."
IN MORE GRIM news about the dangers of modern living, a new report shows hundreds of children are squirting themselves in the eyes with the small, the brightly colored liquid detergent pods that make washing clothes and dishes so much more fun and convenient.
While many of us sometimes feel like washing our eyeballs after watching cable news shows, for tots this is accidental and quite painful.
Eye injuries from the detergent pods sent 480 kids to the emergency room in 2015, up from 12 emergency room visits for kids in 2012, according to a study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association Ophthalmology.
The role of laundry detergent pods in eye injuries among preschool-aged children is growing, Dr. R. Sterling Haring, a physician at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and lead author, wrote in the study that gives us one more thing to worry about.
In addition to squirting themselves in the eyes, kids have been eating the packets since they hit store shelves in 2012.
According to an April 2016 story on Today.com, researchers in a separate study found a 20 percent increase in kids putting brightly colored laundry and dish-washing packets in their mouths and requiring medical treatment.
How do we address the problem?
Lets give it a shot in another of my highly informative Q&A pieces in which I make up both the question and the answer, just like a presidential press conference.
Hi. I am a non-attorney spokesperson for the detergent industry, the good folks who help you remove the disgusting filth and grime from your boxer shorts and grandmas good china. What could we do to keep children from playing with and/or eating our pod products?
Stop making them so irresistibly squishy and delicious looking.
But we as an industry adopted voluntary standards back in 2105, adding an agent to the outer film that tastes bad, making containers harder to open and adding more warning labels. Ninety-nine percent of the products shipped to stores by the end of 2016 conformed to these standards. Isnt that enough?
Stop making them irresistibly squishy and delicious-looking.
Hi, Im a parent who enjoys the convenience and the irresistible squishiness of candy-colored liquid detergent pods. I usually store them on a low shelf beside the Oreos so I can quickly load the dishwasher, then grab a snack as a reward for completing this task. I warned my son Justin that the pods were not candy, and he nodded in agreement just before sticking a fork into the electrical outlet. Have I taken adequate precautions to protect my child?
No, you have not. The pods, like any household cleaning product, need to be secured in a place not accessible to Justin or any other child. In fact, parents of young children should consider not using the liquid pods at all.
Consumer Reports in 2015 made this same recommendation.
Given the continued danger, we have made the decision to not include pods on our list of recommended laundry detergents, the magazine wrote in a July 16, 2015, article on its website. And we strongly urge households where children younger than 6 are ever present to skip them altogether
Also, keep Justin away from forks.
So, what youre saying is, both industry and parents could do more to protect children from being harmed by playing with or ingesting liquid detergent pods, that children could positively benefit from a collaborative effort of companies being good corporate citizens and individuals taking responsibility for their actions to create a safer environment? Is that what you are saying with your crazy talk?
Yes, it is.
And letting Justin run around the house with a fork is a bad idea?
Now were getting somewhere.
Scott Hollifield is editor/general manager of The McDowell News in Marion, N.C. Email him at rhollifield@mcdowellnews.com.
Americans must fight to maintain democracy
A friend commented that he voted for Donald Trump to stop the spread of socialism in the United States. I understand those concerns, but not at the cost of losing our democracy.
Current events remind me of political coups, fascism and dictatorships. This is a time for all Americansregardless of who you voted forto keep America a democracy and make sure that our representatives and president follow the Constitution and the laws of the land.
I loved being a mom of a young child. Somehow, in my own youth, I had missed out on Winnie the Pooh. My favorite line of his was, Think, think, think. Any American who sees actions in our government that concern them needs to speak out and let their representatives know of their concerns.
This is not about being a Republican or being a Democrat. Surely, none one of us want World War III, or a decimation of our earth, or a government that discriminates based on religion, or to lose our democracy.
We have a man in the office of president who has not demonstrated that he can listen to people who know the law of the land. Nor does he want anyone to correct him.
This type of behavior, as in pre-war Germany, is dangerous for all of us, and we need to support those who support the president when he has the interests of all Americans at heart, and who speak up when he doesnt.
Julie Kay
Fredericksburg
At Sundays workshop, Fred Hutchs Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem described how he and other researchers are using Browns case as a starting point to find a less harsh and more broadly applicable cure. He and Dr. Keith Jerome co-direct defeatHIV, a Hutch-based HIV cure research group that focuses on cell and gene therapy. Their goal is to genetically engineer resistance in an HIV-infected persons own blood stem cells rather than, as in Browns case, using immune cells from a matched donor with the rare HIV-resistant mutation. The group also is working on using the immune system to eradicate or at least control HIV, just as immunotherapies are beginning to revolutionize cancer treatment.
DefeatHIV is one of six public-private research groups nationwide funded by the National Institutes of Health to research potential HIV cures.
I really want to thank Timothy, Kiem said Sunday. He really inspired and launched cure research.
'You give me hope'
When antiretroviral therapy was first introduced in 1996, hopes were high that, taken long enough, the drugs would not just suppress but cure HIV. These hopes were dashed when researchers found that the virus integrates itself into some of the longest-lived cells in the body, forming reservoirs of latent infection that roar back if medication is stopped.
But according to studies presented Sunday by Dr. Merlin Robb of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, early treatment with combination antiretroviral therapy is at least a step toward curing HIV. Starting treatment very early after infection can reduce the size of the reservoir in the first place and prevent further damage to the immune system, making any cure developed down the road more likely to be effective, Robb said.
Other topics of discussion at the workshop included how and whether antiretroviral treatment can be safely halted under carefully monitored conditions to test if a cure approach is working (do not try this at home) and whether enough females, from mice to humans, are being enrolled in clinical trials to understand how cure approaches may work differently in different genders (no).
The workshop also focused on the how as well as the what and why of cure research. Laurie Sylla, a member of the defeatHIV community advisory board, which co-sponsored Sundays workshop, talked about how trust and transparency are key to HIV cure or any clinical trials.
Trial participants want to know what are the risks we know about, and what are the risks we may not know? Sylla said. And they want to know if theres a safety plan. Whats going to happen to me if I participate in this? How quickly are we going to be able to identify that Im having a bad reaction? And how quickly are you going to do something for me if that happens?
Pat Migliore, another defeatHIV community advisory board member who has been living with HIV since 1984, recounted a list of fears involved in HIV cure: that long-time survivors like her will be left behind. That postmenopausal women will be left behind. That people of color will be left behind.
Until theres a cure for everybody in this world, theres a cure for nobody, she said.
As to whether there will be a cure in her lifetime, Migliore, 60, confessed to skepticism.
But, she added, What gives me hope is seeing all of you. And Timothy, you give me hope.
A role model, again
For all of the setbacks he has suffered and the disabilities he continues to confront, Brown, an early gay activist who once modeled himself after Boy George, retains his dry sense of humor and wicked sense of fun. He finds purpose as the only member of a singular club and cheerfully embraces his role as symbol of hope.
And on Sunday, he stepped forward to be a role model once again. The only person in the world who has been cured of HIV revealed for the first time publicly that, several years ago, he started taking PrEP for pre-exposure prophylaxis a daily pill that lowers the risk of acquiring HIV. Although Browns immune system is now HIV-resistant, he could become reinfected should he be exposed to a less-prevalent strain of HIV that uses a different kind of receptor to enter cells.
Brown recognizes how devastating it would be to people who take hope in his cure for him to have HIV again. And if the most famous HIV-free person in the world can be an example to others at risk of contracting HIV to use PrEP, then Brown is up for the task.
As Moses Nsubuga, an HIV activist and musician from Uganda in town for the workshop and CROI, sang a Ugandan birthday song and everyone else gamely joined the chorus, Brown basked in the appreciation and declared he could handle blowing out the 10 candles.
Its OK, he said, before taking a big breath. It has worked out.
Join the conversation about an HIV cure on our Facebook page. Learn more about HIV/AIDS research at Fred Hutch.
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Story Highlights 45% of Americans support, 42% oppose Palestinian statehood
Americans still largely sympathize with Israelis in regional dispute
Netanyahu continues to be viewed more favorably than unfavorably
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As President Donald Trump talks about reaching a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is "good for all sides," a new Gallup poll finds the American public closely split over one of the Palestinians' longtime demands -- Palestinian statehood. Currently, 45% of Americans support establishing an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip while 42% oppose it. This follows years of significantly more Americans supporting than opposing Palestinian statehood.
Americans' support for an independent Palestinian state is essentially unchanged from last year, but the percentage opposed is up five percentage points to 42% -- the highest level seen in Gallup's trend. However, on a proportional basis, the latest results are similar to 2015, when 42% favored a Palestinian state and 38% were opposed. The main difference is that fewer Americans today (13%) than in 2015 (20%) have no opinion.
As has long been the case, Democrats and Republicans have sharply differing views on establishing a Palestinian state. Currently, 61% of Democrats, 50% of independents and 25% of Republicans are in favor.
From a long-term perspective, Democrats' and independents' views have been fairly steady, while Republicans' support has varied. Still, Republicans have been consistently less supportive than Democrats, except in 2003, coinciding with an effort by then-President George W. Bush to broker a peace deal that involved Palestinian statehood.
The latest results are from Gallup's annual World Affairs poll, conducted Feb. 1-5. The same poll included an update of Gallup's long-standing measure of Americans' "sympathies" in the Middle East conflict.
In response to the Gallup trend question, 62% of Americans say they sympathize more with the Israelis and 19% with the Palestinians, similar to the past several years. Another 19% express no preference, including 5% who say they sympathize with both equally, 6% who sympathize with neither and 8% who have no opinion.
More members of all three party groups sympathize with Israel than with the Palestinians, but this ranges from 82% of Republicans to 57% of independents and 47% of Democrats. By contrast, 6% of Republicans, 23% of independents and 29% of Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians.
Israeli Leader Maintains Favorable U.S. Image
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose support for Middle East peace would be critical to achieving it, is viewed more favorably than unfavorably by Americans, 49% vs. 30%. However, both of those ratings are at high points, reflecting increased political polarization of his image.
Republicans' views of Netanyahu have grown more positive in recent years, while Democrats' views have become more negative. And Netanyahu's appearance before the U.S. Congress in March 2015 to warn U.S. leaders about the dangers of the impending U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement was a watershed, causing Republicans to view him more favorably and Democrats less favorably. Since then, Republicans have warmed to him even more, while Democrats' views have only partially tempered.
Currently, 32% of Democrats view Netanyahu favorably and 41% unfavorably. That compares with 31% favorably and 31% unfavorably in February 2015, before Netanyahu's speech to Congress. Meanwhile, Republicans' views of Netanyahu are more positive today: 73% favorable and 11% unfavorable, versus 60% favorable and 18% unfavorable in February 2015.
Bottom Line
Americans continue to sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are now split over the merits of an independent Palestinian state. But much of this is driven by Republicans, who show extraordinarily high support for Israel and -- in contrast to Democrats -- lean against Palestinian statehood.
As a candidate, Trump said he wanted to be the president who succeeds in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he may start laying the groundwork this week when he meets with Netanyahu at the White House. Trump's recent caution about Israeli settlement expansion suggests he wants to keep the two-state solution viable. However, in addition to the challenge he will face in bridging the Israeli-Palestinian divide, Trump may face resistance from rank-and-file Republicans. On the other hand, Republicans may take Trump's lead and once again support statehood, just as they did when Bush advocated it in 2003.
Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Story Highlights 62% of Americans say Trump keeps his promises; 42% believe he is honest
Trump rated better now than before the election on five qualities
Republicans much more positive than Democrats
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Majorities of Americans believe President Donald Trump keeps his promises, is a strong and decisive leader, and can bring about changes the country needs. Trump scores worse on other characteristics and qualities: Less than half of Americans perceive him as honest and trustworthy, able to manage the government effectively, inspiring confidence and caring about the needs of people like themselves.
Trump Qualities and Characteristics Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please say whether you think each applies or doesn't apply to Donald Trump. Applies Doesn't apply % % Keeps his promises 62 36 Is a strong and decisive leader 59 40 Can bring about the changes this country needs 53 46 Cares about the needs of people like you 46 54 Inspires confidence 44 55 Can manage the government effectively 44 55 Is honest and trustworthy 42 57 Gallup, Feb. 1-5, 2017
These results are based on Gallup interviewing conducted Feb. 1-5, updating Americans' views of Trump on seven presidential qualities and characteristics, including five that Gallup assessed during the presidential campaign.
The characteristics that Americans are most likely to say apply to Trump clearly reflect the key message of his inaugural address and his actions since taking office over three weeks ago. He made a large number of promises during his presidential campaign, and Americans give him the most credit for following through on those promises. His series of executive orders and Cabinet appointments show a president who is decisive and trying to bring about change, also qualities that a majority of Americans (59% and 53%, respectively) say apply to him.
Americans are, however, less positive about his honesty -- echoing views that plagued both him and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during last year's campaign -- and majorities are not convinced that he is able to manage the government effectively, that he inspires confidence or cares about the needs of "people like you."
Notably, Trump's job approval rating was 42% at the time of the Feb. 1-5 poll, meaning the credit the public gives Trump for possessing several of these qualities doesn't necessarily translate into broad approval of the way he is performing his job as president.
Gallup has measured these qualities and characteristics for previous presidents but has typically done this further into their presidencies, making comparisons at this point difficult.
There are, however, five parallel measures from early February 2001 for George W. Bush, the last Republican president before Trump. Bush fared better than Trump on four of the five -- not surprising, given that Bush's job approval and favorable ratings were higher than Trump's in the initial weeks of the two men's presidencies. The exception is "strong and decisive leader," a relative Trump strength, which about as many Americans say applies to Trump now as said applied to Bush then.
Republicans, Democrats See a Different Trump
Large majorities of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say all seven characteristics apply to Trump, ranging from 94% who say he is a strong and decisive leader, to 81% who say he inspires confidence and is honest and trustworthy. Democrats and Democratic leaners are much less positive in general, but, on a relative basis, are most likely to say that Trump keeps his promises -- 36% say this applies. Also, 29% of Democrats believe Trump is a strong and decisive leader, and 20% say he can bring about the changes the country needs. Thirteen percent or less say the other four characteristics apply to Trump.
In this same poll, 4% of Democrats and leaners say they approve of the overall job Trump is doing, underscoring the finding that some Democrats see Trump as strong on certain dimensions even while disapproving of his performance overall.
The two partisan groups show a slightly smaller gap in terms of believing that Trump keeps his promises, while the biggest gap is in terms of caring about the needs of "people like you." Still, these are relative differences; the general pattern is one of significantly different partisan views on all of the measures.
Republicans have become more positive about Trump generally since the election, and one would expect that they would also become more positive about him on these specific qualities -- as they have. Gallup measured Trump on five of these characteristics before the election, and Republicans are more likely to say each of these applies to Trump now than they were five months ago. Democrats' pre-election ratings have generally stayed the same or edged slightly lower since he became president.
Trump Qualities and Characteristics: Trends % Applies to Donald Trump 2016 Sep 14-18 2017 Feb 1-5 Change % % pct. pts. Is a strong and decisive leader All Americans 57 59 +2 Republicans/Leaners 87 94 +7 Democrats/Leaners 29 29 0 Can bring about the changes this country needs All Americans 40 53 +13 Republicans/Leaners 75 93 +18 Democrats/Leaners 9 20 +11 Cares about the needs of people like you All Americans 37 46 +9 Republicans/Leaners 71 89 +18 Democrats/Leaners 8 9 +1 Can manage the government effectively All Americans 41 44 +3 Republicans/Leaners 74 86 +12 Democrats/Leaners 11 8 -3 Is honest and trustworthy All Americans 33 42 +9 Republicans/Leaners 64 81 +17 Democrats/Leaners 7 9 +2 Gallup
The exception to this trend is the measure of Trump's perceived ability to bring about needed change. The percentage of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who say Trump can bring about change has increased from 9% to 20% since September; for Republicans and leaners, the increase is 18 percentage points (from 75% to 93%). While on an absolute basis these Democratic views are still low, the 11-point jump is the only statistically significant increase for Democrats out of the five qualities with trends.
Bottom Line
Trump begins his presidency with a majority of the public believing that he keeps his promises, is a strong leader and can bring about needed changes. These traits fit well with his steady stream of sometimes controversial executive orders that have reflected what he said he would do during his campaign, continuing to exemplify a "bull in the china shop" style and persona.
At the same time, Americans' acknowledgment of Trump's dynamic leadership style and keeping his promises has not translated into the same level of overall approval of his performance as president, either because of these style considerations or because Americans disagree with the substance of his policy decisions. Overall, it appears that one of Trump's most significant challenges will be to convince Americans that his hard-charging leadership style is ultimately going to be good for them and for the country.
These data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Craig Chait managed to beat out one of the greatest poker players, Phil Hellmuth, at this years LA Poker Classic $1100 2-7 event.
The reward was a cool $9,720 with Hellmuth taking home $9,000 himself.
Hellmuth tweeted following his ouster:
Finished second place. Love No-Limit 2-7 tourneys! Looking forward to WSOP No-Limit 2-7 tourneys.
For Chait, it is his second Remington Trophy in so many days and he moves into the top spot of the Player of the Year standings.
He has now won just over $400,000 in lifetime live tournaments.
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
Poker player was arrested after woman he is accused of grooming to become a prostitute called 911
Woman said her pimp regularly threatened her and demanded she make a certain amount of money per day
Poker players girlfriend entered shock guilty plea opening day of trial
A poker player accused of sex trafficking is due to face trial while his girlfriend and co-defendant has plead guilty to similar charges.
Thomas Szczerba is alleged to have met a female in 2015 while visiting Houston and began grooming her to come to St. Louis by way of Wisconsin and Chicago and work as a prostitute. In July 2015, the victim called 911. Szczerba and his girlfriend, 30-year-old Keisha Edward, were arrested that same day.
The victim claimed during the frantic 911 call that her pimp had been following her and that his gold Mercedes was now circling the block.
Edwards plead guilty Wednesday to two prostitution-related charges and admitted using social media and websites to advertise a woman for sex. Five other charges were dropped. The plea was entered into just as the opening statements in the trial were set to begin. Edwards is facing up to five years in prison. The dropped charges would have resulted in up to fifteen years behind bars.
Szczerba, who traveled the US playing in various poker tournaments, is facing seven prostitution charges including sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion.
Prosecutors claim that Szczerba restricted the womans food intake and threatened her regularly. She was also required to make a certain amount each day. Szczerba is also said to have provided the woman with a cellphone that he erased each day to purge any evidence of the sex trafficking.
Szczerba is going ahead with the trial but Gambling911.com will continue to monitor this story for any further developments.
- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com
Readers, we need your help to prove a merry Christmas for victims of domestic violence.
Election of the new president : Drag queen emerges as star of the show
Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel begrut die Drag Queen Olivia Jones in Berlin im Plenarsaal des Reichstagsgebaudes. Foto: Rainer Jensen
Berlin The great and the good of German political and community life turned up on Sunday at the parliament in Berlin for the serious business of electing the country's new president.
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But it was drag queen Olivia Jones who emerged as the star of the otherwise grey proceedings, as delegates convened to vote on who should assume the largely ceremonial post.
The 48-year-old Jones is one of the 1,260 member Federal Convention, comprising lawmakers and leading community figures, which elects the new president.
With an enormous orange wig and a bright blue dress, Jones (aka Hamburg-born Oliver Knoebel) towered over theother members of the Federal Convention. Describing herself as a "statement on all things diverse," Jones said in the parliament: "I am the splash of colour here."
After chatting with Merkel, she found herself a popular figure for selfies and photos from those gathered to elect the new president. Jones, who is over two metres tall, said in one interview ahead of the vote that she could imagine being president herself. "The office would suit me wonderfully," Jones told the daily Saarbruecken Zeitung. "It would not be boring with me."
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.
Nokia 6 vs Redmi Note 4, Lenovo K6 Power, Moto M and Honor 6X Features oi -Harish Kumar Nokia 6 gives a tough challenge to other phones.
At the time when Nokia's Android smartphones are highly anticipated, HMD Global released the Nokia 6 smartphone as a Chinese affair. The smartphone went on sale twice during which its stocks were empty instantly.
Later this month, at the MWC 2017 in Barcelona, the Nokia branded smartphones will be launched. Along with those phones, we can also expect the global variant of the Nokia 6 to be announced.
Upcoming Nokia Android phones Expecting to Launch in 2017
The Nokia 6 carries a competitive mid-range price tag and features attractive specifications, making it one of the most sought after smartphones in the Chinese market. It has gone to the extent of giving a tough competition to the existing Chinese smartphones from Xiaomi, Lenovo, etc.
Today, we have come up with a few popular Chinese smartphones that might be facing a tough challenge from the best-selling Nokia 6. Take a look.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 Buy At Price of Rs 12,999
Complete Specs of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
Key Specs
5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD 2.5D curved glass display
2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm processor with Adreno 506 GPU
2GB / 3GB RAM with 32GB storage (eMMC 5.0)
4GB RAM with 64GB storage (eMMC 5.0)
expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD
MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
Hybrid Dual SIM (micro + nano/microSD)
13MP rear camera with PDAF
5MP front-facing camera
4G VoLTE
4000mAh (minimum) / 4100mAh (typical) battery Read More.. Lenovo K6 power Buy At Price of Rs 9,999
Complete Specs of Lenovo K6 Power
Key Specs
5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD IPS display
Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, 4-bit processor with Adreno 505 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB storage
expandable memory with microSD
Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)
Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano/microSD)
13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF, Sony IMX258 sensor
8MP front-facing camera with Sony IMX219 sensor
Fingerprint sensor
4G VoLTE
4000mAh built-in battery Read More.. ZTE Blade A2 Plus Buy At Price of Rs 11,999
Complete Specs of ZTE Blade A2 Plus
Key Specs
5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD 2.5d curved glass display
1.5 GHz Octa-Core MediaTek MT6750T 64-bit processor with Mali T860 GPU
4GB RAM
32GB internal memory
expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD
Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano / microSD)
13MP rear camera with dual-tone LED Flash
8MP front-facing camera with LED flash
Fingerprint sensor
4G VoLTE
5000mAh battery with fast charging Read More.. Vivo V5 Buy At Price of Rs 16,999
Complete Specs of Vivo V5
Key Specs 5.5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass protection
Octa-Core MediaTek MT6750, processor with Mali T860 GPU
4GB RAM
32GB internal memory
expandable memory up to 128GB
Hybrid Dual SIM (micro + nano/microSD)
Funtouch OS 2.6 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF
20MP front-facing camera with Moonlight Flash
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3000mAh battery Read More.. Honor 6X Buy At Price of Rs 12,999
Complete Specs of Honor 6X
Key Specs 5.5-inch (1080 x 1920 pixels) Full HD 2.5D curved glass IPS display
Octa-core Kirin 655 ( 4 x 2.1GHz + 4 x 1.7GHz) 16nm processor with Mali T830-MP2
3GB / 4GB LPDDR3 RAM with 32GB (eMMC 5.1) storage
4GB RAM with 64GB (eMMC 5.1) storage
expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD
Hybrid Dual SIM (nano+ nano/microSD)
Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with EMUI 4.1
12MP rear camera with LED Flash
8MP front-facing camera
Fingerprint sensor
4G VoLTE
3340mAh (typical) / 3270mAh (minium) battery with support for fast charging Read More.. Motorola Moto M Buy At Price of Rs 15,999
Complete Specs of Moto M
Key Specs
5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD Super AMOLED display
2.2 GHz Octa-core MediaTek Helio P15 processor with Mali T860MP2 GPU
3GBRAM/32GB internal memory
4GB RAM/64GB internal memory
expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD
Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)
Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano/microSD)
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Nokia P1 design to be premium
The concept video of the Nokia P1 showed the premium design of the flagship. We say premium as it featured a metal frame along with great looks. The design includes a home button at the front embedded with a fingerprint sensor. It is alleged that the Nokia P1 might be launched in Rose Gold, Black, and Silver color options.
Nokia P1 specifications seem to be high-end
Based on the existing rumors, the Nokia P1 is tipped to bestow a 5.3-inch display with FHD 1080p or QHD 1440p resolution. The screen is claimed to be protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on top. Under its hood, this smartphone is likely to employ the latest Snapdragon 835 processor teamed up with 6GB RAM and 128GB/256GB internal storage capacities.
Nokia P1 to be a pro in imaging
The Nokia P1 is expected to handle imaging like a pro with a 22.3MP Carl Zeiss camera at its rear. The device is claimed to be IP57 certified for water and dust resistance. Also, the entire package should be fueled by a 3500mAh battery to make it last longer.
Other features are also included
Besides this, the Nokia P1 seemed to flaunt a Carl Zeiss lens at the rear along with the Nokia logo positioned vertically. There seems to be a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom.
Nokia P1's pricing is also out!
As mentioned above, the Nokia P1 is believed to arrive in two different storage capacities - 128GB and 256GB. These variants of P1 are said to be priced at $800 (approx. Rs. 54,500) and $950 (approx. Rs. 64,500).We can expect the Nokia P1 to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2017 at an event slated to happen on February 26.
Apple stikes a $4.3 billion OLED display deal with Samsung News oi -Samden Sherpa iPhone 8 is expected to generate sales as high as 70 million units overall.
Apple has just struck a new deal with Samsung Display which is a subsidiary of Samsung. As per the deal, Samsung Display will be supplying an additional 60 million units of OLED displays, worth of 5 trillion won (US$4.3 billion), for the next-generation iPhone.
However, this is not the first time that the two companies have struck a deal. Last year, Samsung Display had made a deal with Apple to supply 100 million OLED display panels for the upcoming iPhone 8.
Upcoming Apple iPhone to feature a complete redesign with OLED display, wireless charging, and more
Besides, on speculating why Apple has added extra 60 million flexible OLED screens to the contract, it's because the OLED iPhone 8 is expected to generate sales as high as 70 million units overall. Moreover, the combined 160 million units of OLED panels are expected to make up almost 80 percent of the entire sales for Apple this year.
Interestingly, as Samsung and Apple, the leading smartphone makers will be adopting OLED for their flagship models in 2017, other smartphone brands might face supply shortage problems. Notably, Samsung Display owns 95 percent of the mobile OLED market.
Source
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Official: Apple to manufacture iPhones in Bengaluru, Karnataka News oi -Prajith Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in Namma Bengaluru.
Its official now! Apple will start manufacturing iPhones in India as early as April or June this year. Priyank Kharge, IT minister of Karnataka, India, took it Twitter to share the news. His tweet exactly read Apple Inc.s proposal to commence initial manufacturing operations in the state.
Apple's intentions to make iPhones in Bengaluru will foster cutting-edge technology ecosystem & supply chain development in the state. Priyank Kharge (@PriyankKharge) February 2, 2017
Kharge had also tweeted that Apples intentions to make iPhones in Bengaluru will foster cutting-edge technology ecosystem & supply chain development in the state, confirming that he was referring to iPhone in his earlier tweet.
IMP Apple news. Karnataka Govt's first official statement on Apple plans to manufacture in India. Will assemble iPhones @asymco pic.twitter.com/zbpAiSmZuh Chandra R. Srikanth (@chandrarsrikant) February 2, 2017
Also Read: Why Apple wants to manufacture iPhones in India
This news comes exactly a week after Apples talks with the Indian government to allow the company to manufacture the iPhones locally and provide certain incentives in the form of tax exemption and the like.
Also Read: Apple reportedly picks Wistron to manufacture its iPhones in India
The Cupertino-based tech giant was seeking the Indian governments permission for a while now to setup its own brick and mortar stores in the country. But, the Indian government never gave in to Apples demands earlier. Clearly, that seems to have changed now.
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Sonys patented contact lens technology is straight out of a sci-fi movie News oi -Rohit Sonys latest patent describes a contact lens that users can control by deliberate blinks to record video on request
Sony wants to take camera technology to next level with its latest patent. The Japanese multinational has been awarded a new patent that describes a contact lens able to record videos with user's deliberate eye blinks. The patented contact lens has smart sensors embedded in it that can differentiate between an involuntary blink and a deliberate blink.
While this is not the first time we have come across such contact lens patents, Sony tries to differ from the previous Google and Samsung patents that aims at measuring glucose levels or incorporate augmented reality concepts respectively.
As per TNI, seven Japanese inventors have worked together to design the contact lenses that in addition to a camera, also includes wireless processing unit and a storage unit. This allows Sony's blink powered contact lens offer the ability for later viewing of images and videos.
SEE ALSO: How to make Google Chrome load pages more faster
The patented contact lenses will also contain tiny piezoelectric sensors that can measure changes in pressure, temperature, acceleration and force. The lenses will draw power from simple process of electromagnetic induction.
As noted, Sony is known for its optics and the patented contact lenses might also offer camera features such as aperture control, autofocus, and image stabilization.
While this really sounds futuristic, at the same time we believe that Sony's contact lenses can cause a breach of an individual's privacy. The person would never know that someone with such sophisticated tech can record his/her activities with just a blink of an eye. This might raise privacy concerns when the technology will go mainstream in the coming years; something similar happened with Google Glasses.
Besides Sony, Google is reportedly developing a new smart contact lens that will measure a wearer's glucose levels by testing their tears. In a patent application, Google showed off potential designs for how it could package a smart contact lens. The lens would be able to gauge a wearer's glucose levels by just analyzing tears.
Image source: TNI
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Overall, dont let the bhoot mislead you, nothing bhootiya about this story. Had the makers tried to push the envelope, the idea could have been outstanding for a bhootiya comedy.
Security Council strongly condemns continued fighting in South Sudan
11 February 2017 The Security Council has strongly condemned continued fighting across South Sudan, particularly incidents in the country's Equatoria and Upper Nile regions, and called on all parties to cease hostilities immediately.
In a Press Statement issued overnight, the Council also condemned "in the strongest terms" all attacks directed against civilians and expressed serious concern, once again, about reports of killing of civilians, sexual and gender-based violence, destruction of homes, ethnic violence, and looting of livestock and property.
The Council urged the Transitional Government of National Unity to take measures to ensure that those responsible for the attacks are held accountable, and expressed deep alarm that more than 84,000 individuals have fled South Sudan since the beginning of January and that many continue to be displaced internally.
The Council stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict, and in this regard, welcomed the continued and collective commitment in the search for lasting peace, security and stability expressed by the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the UN during the joint consultative meeting on South Sudan that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on January 29, 2017.
The Council expressed deep concern that the Transitional Government of National Unity is hindering the ability of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to carry out its mandate to protect civilians and create conditions conducive to delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The Council reminded the transitional government of its commitment in the September 4, 2016, Joint Communique to permit freedom of movement of UNMISS.
The Council reiterated that targeting civilians may constitute war crimes and those involved could be subject to sanctions under resolution 2206 (2015).
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DR Congo: UN mission strongly condemns persistent violence in Kasai Provinces
11 February 2017 The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today expressed its concern about the persistent conflict in the Kasai provinces where violent atrocities are being committed by the Kamuina Nsapu militia.
The militia is recruiting and using child soldiers while targeting symbols and institutions of State authority, according to a news release issued by the UN Stabilisation Mission in the African country (MONUSCO), which also cited the disproportionate use of force by Government security forces known as FARDC in their response to the situation.
Particularly, since 9 February 2017, there have been ongoing clashes between Kamuina Nsapu militia and Congolese security forces within the area of Tshimbulu (160 Kilometers South East of Kananga) with unconfirmed reports of 30 to 50 deaths resulting from these clashes.
The news release stated that the Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of MONUSCO, Maman S. Sidikou, strongly condemned the actions of the militia, and expressed his concern about repeated reports of the disproportionate use of force by the FARDC.
Mr. Sidikou expressed regret about the deaths and injuries suffered in these clashes and called upon the Congolese security forces to act in line with acceptable standards of national and international laws in their response to the situation. He offered the Mission's support to a credible investigation of this regrettable situation.
MONUSCO has deployed one of its mobile monitoring response team in the area covering Tshikapa, Dibaya, Bunkode, Tshimbulu and Luiza to possibly prevent, investigate and document human rights violations in line with its mandate.
MONUSCO redeployed most of its resources to the country's east in 2014. Given the improved security situation at the time, there was also a drastic reduction of military and civilian personnel affecting the Mission's presence in Kananga in central Kasai. However, since December 2016, MONOSCO has deployed a military company of soldiers in Kananga with the task of protecting the Mission's personnel and assets as well as protecting civilians.
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Somalia Says It Will Resume Printing Currency Soon
By Harun Maruf February 11, 2017
Somalia intends to resume printing banknotes this year for the first time since the government collapsed in 1991.
The governor of Somalia's central bank, Bashir Issa Ali, told VOA in an exclusive interview Saturday that all technical preparations are complete, and his government is confident it can assemble a financial aid package within three months to fund the printing program. Further work would take another four months.
Asked if Somalia will print and distribute banknotes during 2017, Ali answered: "Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely!" He pledged the new currency would include "good, reliable security features."
Pre-1991 banknotes have disappeared from Somali markets, replaced by either Western currencies, including dollars, or privately printed notes, most of which are worthless fakes.
Financial reforms to take hold soon
Ali said international institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the U.S. Treasury, have been helping Somalia reform its financial sector and train central bank staff.
"We have prepared all the issues and all the basic groundwork, and put in place the technical requirements," he told VOA.
Outgoing Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met a key demand of the international community last year by signing into law parliament-approved legislation to outlaw money laundering and "financial terrorism."
The Somali government needs $60 million to be able to begin printing banknotes. Ali said he expects to obtain pledges for that sum at an international donors' conference for Somalia in London in May.
"We expect the international community to assist us with that issue," the bank governor said.
Private banks, 'mobile money'
Hardship and the scarcity of trustworthy currency has created opportunities for some innovative strategies in the private sector, Ali said, and Somalia has made some progress in establishing private banks and mobile money systems.
Many transactions in Somalia now take place using "electronic mobile money," Ali added.
Somali shillings account for a small portion of the payments system, he said.
"Most of it is done through dollars and electronic money, which is a great thing for ... saving costs and effort and very convenient, also."
Remittance companies that relay payments from Somalis working abroad operate in many parts of the country, Ali noted, but a large part of the nation does not have access to electronic funds or dollars, so there is an urgent need for a reliable national currency.
Once Somalia-printed banknotes begin to circulate, the central bank governor said, his staff will be able to regulate and control operations by private banks and remittance services.
The bank now has trained staff members to work on the financial and exchange systems, and training efforts are continuing. On February 12, he said, "more than 10 staffers are departing for training about counterfeiting and financial controls. They include staff from the bank, police and the national security agency."
Monetary policy comes next
Since Somalia does not yet have its own currency, it also lacks a monetary policy, Ali said, but once the banknotes begin circulating, he looks forward to "the beginning of a new era" in the East African nation.
"Monetary policy always must come together in close collaboration with the fiscal policy of the government taxation and revenue, the public budget and these kind of things," Ali told VOA. "We don't apply any monetary policy at the moment."
Economists have recently predicted a slowdown for Somalia's domestic economy, which largely relies on livestock exports. Ali said a "very disastrous" drought has killed thousands of farm animals.
"When you don't have enough crops, it will contribute to food shortages," he said. "When you have drought problems, you will not be able to export livestock.
"That will affect our foreign market and our exports," he added, so Somalia's foreign-exchange earnings will decline.
"When you get less foreign exchange, you will not be able to import what is required," the bank governor said, "and when you import less, there will be less tax revenue for the government."
In the short term, the peaceful election of a new Somali president appears to have helped the nation's economy. The Somali shilling rose in value compared with the U.S. dollar over a two-day period; $1 brought 22,000 shillings before the election in Mogadishu, and by Saturday it was trading at 16,000 shillings.
"It's a matter of expectations. There is a new government, new environment and new atmosphere," Ali said, and that will have an effect on people's opinions about security, the economy and the stability of the government.
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Counter-ISIL Strikes Continue in Syria, Iraq
From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release
SOUTHWEST ASIA, Feb. 12, 2017 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.
Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.
Strikes in Syria
Attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 14 strikes in 19 engagements in Syria:
-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed nine oil tanker trucks and an oil wellhead.
-- Near Al Bab, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed a heavy machine gun.
-- Near Ar Raqqah seven strikes destroyed two oil stills, two tunnels, a tunnel system, an anti-air artillery system, an ISIL-held building and a bridge.
-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, four strikes destroyed eight oil tanker trucks, an oil wellhead and an oil still.
Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter, rotary and remotely piloted aircraft, as well as artillery, conducted six strikes consisting of 28 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:
-- Near Irbil, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit; destroyed an ISIL-held building and a weapons cache.
-- Near Mosul, five strikes engaged two ISIL tactical units; destroyed 13 watercraft, three mortar systems, two front-end loaders, two supply caches, two ISIL-held buildings, two pieces of engineering equipment, and a tank, damaged three supply routes, and suppressed two mortar teams.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
Part of Operation Inherent Resolve
The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider international community. The destruction of targets in Syria and Iraq further limits ISIL's ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.
Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Iraq include the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Coalition nations that have conducted strikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
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10th CAB helicopters ready to "fly to glory" in Europe
By 1st Lt. Mark Schneider, 16th Sustainment Brigade Public Affairs February 12, 2017
BREMERHAVEN, Germany -- The Surface Deployment and Distribution Command received and staged the first set of the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade's Chinook, Black Hawk, and Apache helicopters on Feb. 11, here.
Over the next two weeks, the SDDC and the 16th Sustainment Brigade will facilitate the reception, staging, onward movement, and integration of 10th CAB at seaports in three countries across Europe.
"Twenty years ago, there was constant military activity at the ports with 300,000 U.S. Soldiers in Europe," said Johan Benner, a marine cargo specialist for the 838th Transportation Battalion, Surface Deployment and Distribution Command. "Although there are now 30,000 U.S. Soldiers in Europe, with the addition of regionally allocated forces coming into the area from the continental United States, I've seen the flow of military equipment at ports building back up."
With the arrival of 10th CAB just weeks after the arrival of the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, the ability to receive and move armored and aviation brigades swiftly through Europe's interior lines of communication is critical for speed of assembly and the massing of forces.
The logistical processes of advancing brigades though the deployment pipeline is continuously refined by the 21st Theater Sustainment Command to verify capacities at nodes of transportation and to maintain flexibility.
"Our task is to provide movement control support, transportation expertise, and reporting for 10th CAB," said Capt. Jacy Schmidt, commander, 635th Transportation Detachment, a native of Manhattan, KS. "We are also evaluating the capacities of the seaports for future operations."
After touching down at the ports, 10th CAB Soldiers will begin generating combat power by assembling their helicopters and moving to four different countries. Over the next nine months, 10th CAB will conduct medical transport, exercise support, and aviation operations during major multinational training exercises in Europe focusing on interoperability with allies and partners.
"This is an exciting and unique opportunity to train with our allies and operate out of numerous NATO countries. I think it'll be a great chance to flex our capabilities, assure our allies of our presence, and grow as a joint force," said 1st Lt. Amber Ingwell, aviation officer, 2nd Assault Helicopter Battalion, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, a native of Tomah, WI. "We have all worked tirelessly to train for this deployment, and we are eager to prove our capabilities."
---
Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued U.S. commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America's dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine.
Since April 2014, U.S. Army Europe has led land forces efforts on behalf of the U.S. military, by conducting continuous, enhanced multinational training and security cooperation activities with allies and partners in eastern Europe.
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US airstrikes have killed 22 civilians in Afghanistan's Helmand: Official
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:21PM
Nearly two dozen civilians were killed in recent airstrikes by US forces in Afghanistan's Helmand province, an Afghan official says.
Jabar Qahraman, Afghanistan's presidential envoy for security in Helmand, said on Sunday that the airstrikes were carried out against Taliban militants in Sangin district of Helmand during the late hours of February 9.
The official confirmed that the 22 victims included 13 people from one family and nine from another. Qahraman, however, accused Taliban of using civilians as human shields in the region.
"We are saddened to hear the news of civilians being killed," Qahraman said, adding, "When the Taliban use civilians as their shield against security forces, such incidents occur."
Kareem Atal, the head of the provincial council in Helmand, said a man, two women and two children who were injured in the strikes had been brought to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah for treatment.
Hameed Gul, a local, told media that he lost nine members of his family, including his mother and sister, in the deadly strikes. "It's all lie that they were attacking the Taliban."
US Navy Captain Bill Salvin, a military spokesman, said the US forces were investigating reports of civilian casualties in the district. "We are working diligently to determine whether civilians were killed or injured as a result of US airstrikes" carried out to support Afghan forces in and around Sangin, the US spokesman said in a written statement.
The investigation is "continuing and has not reached any conclusions," Salvin said.
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Afghan Forces Launch Major Anti-IS Offensive
By Ayaz Gul February 12, 2017
Afghan troops, backed by American air support, Sunday launched a major offensive against Islamic State, or IS, bases in the eastern Nangarhar province.
A regional military spokesman, Shirin Aqa, told reporters in the provincial capital of Jalalabad that security forces have been tasked to clear Kot and Haska districts of IS militants before extending the action to other districts. Afghans refer to IS by its Arabic acronym of Daesh.
He said that both military and police forces have been involved in the counter-IS operation and they will be provided with air support by US forces if needed. The army spokesman explained that the offensive will continue until the threat is eliminated in the area.
"We can confirm that the United States is providing combat enabling support, to include air support, to our Afghan partners," said U.S. military spokesman Brigadier General Charles Cleveland in a written statement sent to VOA.
IS affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province or ISK-P, has been trying to establish a foothold in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2015.
But U.S. counterterrorism airstrikes and repeated ground offensives by Afghan forces have prevented the loyalists of the terrorist group from extending their extremist activities beyond a few districts of Nangarhar.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told a congressional hearing in Washington this past Thursday that the Afghan government along with U.S. counterterrorism forces have achieved significant successes against IS in within the last year.
The general said that initially the group was active in 11 districts in Nangahar but it has now been confined to a only few districts.
"We have reduced their fighters by half, their territory by two-thirds, we have killed their leader, in fact their top 12 leaders and continue to disrupt their operations," said Nicholson.
IS militants have also come under attack from the rival Taliban insurgency in parts of the country.
The eastern Afghan province borders Pakistan and General Nicholson says that fighters from the anti-state Pakistani Taliban as well as outlawed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan mostly fill IS ranks in Afghanistan.
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UN: Recent US Airstrikes Could Have Killed Afghan Civilians
By Ayaz Gul February 12, 2017
The United Nations said Sunday that last week's U.S. airstrikes in southern Afghanistan could have killed at least 18 civilians.
The strikes targeted insurgent positions on Thursday and Friday in Sangin, an embattled district in the province of Helmand, according to a statement by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA.
"UNAMA's initial enquiries suggest that the airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children," it said and noted the U.S. military has initiated an investigation into the incident.
On Friday, a U.S. military spokesman confirmed the U.S. carried out air raids against Taliban positions in the area, and it was looking into allegations of civilian casualties in the strikes.
"We are aware of the allegations of civilian casualties, and take every allegation very seriously," a statement quoted the spokesman as saying.
Helmand governor and military commanders have denied allegations of civilian casualties in Sangin, insisting the airstrikes targeted insurgent positions and killed nearly 60 Taliban fighters.
The Islamist insurgency launched a major offensive against Sangin two weeks ago and captured areas in and around the district center.
Afghan security forces, backed by U.S. air support, have since been trying to evict the insurgents and both sides have suffered heavy casualties.
Helmand, the country's largest province and poppy-growing region, is mostly controlled by the Taliban. The Afghan government fully controls only its capital city of Lashkar Gah and few district centers.
On Saturday, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed car just outside a bank in they city, killing at least seven people and wounding 20 others, including women and children.
The attack was aimed at Afghan security forces and several soldiers were among the dead. UNAMA has expressed its grave concern at the escalation of violence in Helmand.
"The people of Helmand have suffered greatly due to the armed conflict in Afghanistan, with 891 civilians killed or injured during 2016. This figure was the highest in the country in 2016 outside of Kabul," said the mission's statement.
It reiterated the need for all parties to the conflict to strictly adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law to take all feasible measures to protect civilians from harm.
UNAMA documented a record more than 11,400 civilian casualties in Afghanistan last year, including nearly 3,500 deaths. The figures showed a three percent rise in overall casualties compared to the year before while child casualties rose by 24 percent
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Girls' School Enrollment Rises in Afghan Province Despite Challenges
By Noor Zahid February 12, 2017
Afghan provincial officials reported a rise in girls' enrollment rates across eastern Nangarhar Province, despite constant attacks and threats by Islamic State and other militant groups in the area.
"Of the 14,000 graduates last year, we had 3,000 girls. This year, 4,000 girls graduated out of the total 18,000 graduates," said Mohammad Asif, a spokesperson for the department of education in Nangarhar.
Asif added that girls constituted 45 percent of the 820,000 total students in the province.
Girls are traditionally deprived of education in Afghanistan's remote areas and were not allowed to go to school when the Taliban was in power.
Decades-long conflict in the country has had negative effects on education, but there has been improvement in the last 15 years, with millions of students including girls, returning to school.
Urban and rural disparities
Analysts say more girls are attending school in urban areas than it is in rural parts of the province.
"The number has risen in urban centers but girls in several remote districts are still unable to attend school," said Malalai Shinwari, an advisor to President Ashraf Ghani and a civil society activist.
Girls in many rural and remote regions are faced with multiple societal and security challenges, including lack of infrastructure for schools in certain areas.
"There are no schools for girls in many areas in Nangarhar," Shinwari said. "In some areas girls are only able to attend home-based schools, which receive little support from the government."
"In many areas girls do not go to school because there is no school nearby," Haroon Rashid Sherzad, a civil society activist from Nangarhar and former deputy minister of narcotics, told VOA. "Huge distances to the nearest schools discourage parents from sending their daughters to school."
Increasing security threats have also kept girls out of schools in many areas where educational institutions have been a soft target of terrorist groups.
IS militants, who are active in several districts of Nangarhar, have shuttered classrooms, particularly for girls, in areas under their control.
"The situation in remote areas is worrisome. Militants' presence is a serious challenge to girls' education," Sherzad said.
Another issue is the lack of female teachers, as many parents hesitate to send their daughters to school with male teachers.
"The lack of qualified female teachers is a major obstacle to the girls' education in many districts as the socio-cultural pressure that girls be taught by female teachers limits girls' access to education," said Shinwari, who hails from Nangarhar's Achin district where IS has established a strong footprint for the past two years.
"The government should generate enough female teachers in rural and remote areas," the presidential advisor added, suggesting that the government should hire women teachers from nearby areas and arrange for their daily commute to schools. "Parents and local elders too should speak up for their girls' educational rights," she said.
The ratio of female teachers is still low in certain areas of the country. According to Nangarhar provincial government estimates, of the 15,500 teachers in the province, only 1,400 are women.
Education authorities say they are in the process of hiring new women teachers for remote districts in the province.
VOA's Zabihullah Ghazi contributed to this report from Nangarhar.
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Al-Shabab Attacks Military Camps in Somalia, at Least 2 Dead
By Harun Maruf February 12, 2017
Al-Shabab militants overran two small military camps outside Mogadishu in a dawn attack early Sunday morning, residents and military sources say.
Residents in Tihsile and Warmahan villages, 45 kilometers and 60 kilometers west of Mogadishu respectively said the militants attacked government troops in two camps in simultaneous attacks.
Military sources estimated that about 40-50 government soldiers were stationed in each of the two camps.
At least two soldiers were killed in Tihsile, while casualties from Warmahan are not yet known.
A reinforcement convoy sent from Ballidogle military base was hit by a roadside explosion near the town of Wanlaweyn, 90 kilometers west of Mogadishu, military sources tell VOA Somali.
The deputy commander of the 6th Division and a second military officer were among four killed in the roadside explosion, military sources have confirmed. Eight other soldiers were wounded in the explosion.
The explosion on the convoy occurred just before sunrise as the troops headed towards Tihsile and Warmahan to reinforce government troops under attack.
Residents in the villages believe most of the government soldiers in the two camps escaped unharmed. The militants have now reportedly withdrawn from the villages.
The al-Shabab militant group claimed its militias seized ammunitions and two military vehicles.
Meanwhile, late Saturday two government soldiers were killed near the town of El-Wak in Gedo region after al-Shabab attacked a government checkpoint. A third wounded soldier was reportedly captured by the militants.
These are the first deadly al-Shabab attacks on government soldiers since the election of new President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo in Somalia Wednesday.
Government soldiers were among those who hugely welcomed the election of Farmajo in anticipation that they will be paid their salaries. When Farmajo was prime minister in 2010-2011, the soldiers were paid on time and given rations.
Al-Shabab's leadership has not yet commented on the election of the new president. Junior al-Shabab preachers, however, have spoken at mosques in Jilib and Saakow towns telling the congregations the election of Farmajo does not change their view of the Somali government.
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Somaliland Approves Naval, Air Base Deal with UAE
By Abdulaziz Osman February 12, 2017
The parliament of the break-away republic of Somaliland has overwhelming approved a deal to allow the United Arab Emirates to establish an air and naval base in the port town of Berbera.
Somaliland President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo presented the motion on Sunday to a joint session by both houses of the parliament, saying "it will attract investments, and it will not bring any harm to Somaliland or the region."
A number of lawmakers angrily opposed the motion and shouted against the president before they were removed form parliament. The motion then passed with the support of 144 out of 151 lawmakers.
If signed, the deal gives the UAE a strong military foothold in the Horn of Africa.
The UAE had already secured a military base in the port of Assab in Eritrea. Observers say UAE plans to have a long-term military bases to monitor naval traffics in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.
Somaliland's Aviation Minister Farhan Adan Haybe said the deal is valid for 25 years, and after it expires the Somaliland government will "own the military base and all the investments made by UAE."
"The base is on a lease, it can't be used any other nation except the UAE and can't be sub-leased," the minister said.
In return the UAE has agreed to implement in Somaliland various development projects, including modernizing highways.
The deal follows a $442-million agreement with a Dubai-based Company (DP World) to upgrade the port of Berbera. The deal signed in September will transform Berbera port into a major Red Sea shipping stop.
The UAE government is among various countries assisting Somalia's regional administrations in their fight against al-Shabab militants.
Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, but no country has so far recognized its independence bid.
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Turkmenistan - Politics
Turkmenistan has never held free and fair elections since becoming an independent state following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkmenistan is an authoritarian state that was long dominated by its first president, Saparmyrat Niyazov, who died in late 2006. Niyazov faced no significant domestic oppositionn, nor does his successor Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who was "elected" in 2007. Reporters Without Borders ranked the Muslim-majority country of 5.5 million people 176 out of 178 countries in its 2010 press freedom index. The law characterizes any opposition to the government as treason. Those convicted of treason face life imprisonment and are ineligible for amnesty or reduction of sentence. In the past the government arrested and filed charges against those expressing critical or differing views on economic or criminal charges instead of charging its critics with treason.
Turkmenistan is often described as opaque, with a government with an inscrutable decisionmaking process. While still very insular, with few external points of reference, it is not opaque. The system has rules, although this fact is not readily apparent to those with only a passing knowledge of the Turkmen. Understanding these rules, however, makes it easier to comprehend what is going on.
The Turkmen elite is weak, has limited resources, and lacks charismatic figures. Top officials in Turkmenistan suffer from the fly-by-night syndrome more than their counterparts in any other post-Soviet republic. In Turkmenbashi's government a minister occupied his post no more than half a year on average, after which he was ousted, sent to prison, or fled abroad. It is enough to recall that parliament speakers were changed four times from the early 2001 to November 2002. None of the claimants to power have great resources, especially as regards social support. The Turkmen political class rested on multiple family and regional interrelations, but after Boris Shikhmuradov, Khadaiberdy Orazov, Nurmukhammed Khanamov, and other "nomenclature oppositionists" were removed from power, their relatives were ousted from top echelons of government and big business.
While perhaps not rational or logical to many outsiders, the system has its own rules, which it follows, religiously. Rather than opaque, it is better to describe Turkmenistan as translucent, like a bathroom window. You can tell if the light is on or not. You know if someone is inside. You can tell when the shadows move. With time, given the light and shadow, you can deduce what is going on. Yet, there is just enough hidden to serve its purpose.
Following the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan declared its independence on October 27, 1991. Saparmurat Niyazov became the first president of the new republic and remained the supreme decision-maker. Neither independent political activity nor opposition candidates are allowed in Turkmenistan. The Democratic Party of Turkmenistan (DPT) was the only legal political party. Political gatherings are illegal unless government sanctioned, and the citizens of Turkmenistan do not have the means to change their government democratically. Members of the former Communist Party of Turkmenistan continued to fill the majority of government and civic leadership posts, and much of the ideologically justified Soviet-era political structure remained intact.
Western and Russian criticism generally has revealed misunderstandings and stereotypes of the political and social dynamics of the region that dilute the authority of such evaluations. Beneath the surface of the presidential image, political life in Turkmenistan is influenced by a combination of regional, professional, and tribal factors. Regional ties appear to be the strongest of these factors; they are evident in the opposing power bases of Ashgabat, center of the government, and Mary, which is the center of a mafia organization that controls the narcotics market and illegal trade in a number of commodities. Although both areas are settled primarily by Turkmen of the Teke tribe, factions in Ashgabat still express resentment and distrust of those in Mary for failing to aid the fortress of Gokdepe against the 1881 assault that led to Russian control of the Turkmen khanates.
Political behavior also is shaped by the technocratic elites, who were trained in Moscow and who can rely on support from most of the educated professionals in Ashgabat and other urban areas. Most of the elites within the national government originate from and are supported by the intelligentsia, which also is the source of the few opposition groups in the republic.
Tribal and other kinship ties rooted in genealogies play a much smaller role than presumed by analysts who view Turkmen society as "tribal" and therefore not at a sophisticated political level. Nonetheless, clan ties often are reflected in patterns of appointments and networks of power. Regional and clan ties have been identified as the bases for political infighting in the republic. For example, in the early 1990s power bases pitted the Mary district chieftain Gurban Orazov against the Ashgabat millionaire and minister of agriculture Payzgeldi Meredov, and the Teke clan's hold on power through Niyazov conflicted with the Yomud clan's hold on the oil and gas industry through minister Nazar Soyunov. In July 1994, Niyazov removed both Meredov and Soyunov from office on the basis of evidence that the two ministers had misappropriated funds obtained from the sale of state-owned resources. To correct such problems, a Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations was formed to handle exports and imports, and a Control and Revision Commission was established to review contracts with foreign firms.
While the constitution provides for freedom of the press, there is virtually no freedom of the press or of association. The government has full control of all media and restricts foreign publications. International satellite TV is available.
The population is 89% Sunni Muslim. The constitution provides for freedom of religion and does not establish a state religion; however, in practice, the Government continues to monitor all forms of religious expression. Amendments to the law on religious organizations adopted in March 2004 reduced membership requirements from 500 to five. All groups must register in order to gain legal status with the Government. The Government limits the activities of unregistered religious congregations by prohibiting them from gathering publicly, proselytizing, and disseminating religious materials.
A Soviet-style command economy greatly limits equality of opportunity. Industry and services are almost entirely provided by government or government-owned entities, while agriculture is dominated by a state order system. Women face particularly strong discrimination in all social aspects, and their freedom is restricted due to traditional social-religious norms. All citizens are required to carry internal passports, noting place of residence, and movement into and out of the country, as well as within its borders, is difficult.
Corruption continues to be pervasive. Power is concentrated in the president; the judiciary is wholly subservient to the regime, with all judges appointed for 5-year terms by the president without legislative review. The president routinely dismisses cabinet members and other government officials on charges of corruption and they are subsequently tried in secret trials and frequently imprisoned or sentenced to internal exile. These dismissals, however, are often politically motivated and have little impact on the culture of corruption.
The government did not permit opposition movements outside the country, including the National Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan, the Republican Party of Turkmenistan, and the Fatherland (Watan) Party, to operate within the country. Members of the exiled Turkmen opposition, including former Foreign Minister Boris Shikhmuradov, met in Vienna in 2002 and announced the formation of the Turkmen Democratic Opposition. They accused the Turkmen leadership of gross violation of human rights.
On November 25, 2002, an armed attack against President Niyazov's motorcade was made and the Government of Turkmenistan moved quickly against perceived sources of opposition. There were widespread reports of human rights abuses committed by officials investigating the attack, including torture and punishment of families of the accused. The Government of Turkmenistan denied the charges, but refused to allow independent observers at trials, to accept a mandatory OSCE fact-finding mission, or to permit ICRC access to prisons. It also instituted new measures to stifle dissent and limit contact with the outside world.
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Principality of Lichtenstein
Lichtenstein is a small country in Europe, situated on the foothills of the Alps in the Rhine valley. Its immediate neighbors are Switzerland (common border of 41.2 km) with whom Lichtenstein is narrowly linked economically and politically and Austria (common border of 36.7 km). Liechtenstein is a principality, not a duchy. With a population of 34,761 (July 2009 est.), Liechtenstein is the smallest German-speaking country in the world.
Lichtensteins constitution from 1921 designates Lichtenstein as a hereditary monarchy based on democratic and parliamentary fundaments. The present Duke is Hans Adam II, reigning from 1989. The Lichtensteins had lived primarily in Moravia (the Czech Republic) and in Vienna Austria, which they left ahead of the Nazis in 1938, when the duchy became their permanent home.
Liechtenstein abolished its military in 1868 and stayed neutral in the First and Second World Wars. While Liechtenstein has no military forces, it is interested in European security policy and is an active member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Liechtenstein pursues an independent and active foreign policy. The country maintains close bilateral relations with many States and engages in multilateral cooperation at the regional and global levels, especially through its membership in international organizations.
The main responsibilities of Liechtenstein foreign policy are the defense of the independence and security of the country and the conduct of its relations under international law. The focus is on the cultivation of bilateral relations with other States and multilateral cooperation in international organizations. The guideposts of international cooperation are the representation of the countrys own interests, the protection of Liechtenstein citizens, and solidarity with the international community. Liechtenstein is therefore particularly engaged in human rights policy, the progressive development of international law, development cooperation, international humanitarian assistance including disaster assistance and assistance, and specific areas of international environmental policy.
The GDP in market values is (2005) 80800 per resident which is among the highest in the world. The GDP is generated by industry and product manufacturing (39%), services, (25%), financial services (29%) and agriculture (7%). Overall, Lichtensteins economy employs total of 30,170 persons, of which 20,035 are foreigners who came to work in Lichtenstein, principally from Austria and Switzerland. Lichtensteins economy is export oriented for the European economic area (44%), Switzerland (12%), USA / Canada (18%) Asia (24%), and others (2%).
Lichtensteins foreign trade balance is strongly active. The often mentioned banking represents more than a quarter of its GDP and consists of banking houses, employing more than 1700 employees. The banks manage clients assets exceeding 155 billion Euros. Further, there are 163 investment companies with assets of approx. 21 billion Swiss Francs and 31 insurance companies.
The history of Liechtenstein as the Principality of Liechtenstein began in 1719, when Emperor Charles VI unified the Lordship of Schellenberg and the County of Vaduz and elevated them to an Imperial Principality by the name of Liechtenstein. In 1806, Liechtenstein became a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and obtained sovereignty, which it has maintained until today. In 2006, Liechtenstein celebrated 200 Years of Sovereignty of the Principality of Liechtenstein. The history of the House of Liechtenstein extends far back into the Middle Ages. The Family of Liechtenstein is one of the oldest Austrian noble families. In 1136, Hugo of Liechtenstein was the first bearer of the name to be mentioned in documents.
The country has a strong financial sector and has been identified as a tax haven. It is a member of the European Free Trade Agreement. Liechtenstein is not part of the European Union and has shown no interest in joining.
According to the Constitution, the Principality of Liechtenstein is a constitutional, hereditary monarchy on a democratic and parliamentary basis with power shared between the Reigning Prince (hereafter the Prince) and the people. The Prince is the Head of State and is vested with extensive powers. The Prince has the authority to appoint and dismiss the Government, dissolve the parliament, appoint judges, and sanction all laws and acts adopted by referenda.
Voters enjoy broad democratic rights and can launch popular initiatives and initiate referenda to amend laws and the Constitution. They can also submit a motion of no confidence in the Prince, to abolish the monarchy, to convene the parliament, and to elect judges in cases of disagreement between the parliament and the Prince. Executive powers are vested in the government, a collegial body consisting of a head of government and four ministers. The members of the government are appointed by the Prince on the proposal of the parliament and with its concurrence.
Legislative powers are exercised by the parliament (Landtag) elected by popular vote for a four year term. The parliament is elected under a proportional representation system from 2 multi-mandate constituencies; 15 members are elected from the Upper Country (Oberland) and 10 from the Lower Country (Unterland). The current distribution of seats per constituency was introduced in 1988 and sought to protect the interests of the smaller Lower Country by assigning it more seats than it qualified for based on its population.
The parliament has 25 seats and its members serve on a part-time basis. In the last several decades, the political landscape has been dominated by two parties, the PCP and the PU, usually ruling in a coalition. Since 1930 there have been only few instances in which one party obtained an absolute majority. The FL and Independents appeared on the political scene in 1985 and 2013, respectively.
Following the 2013 elections, 10 seats in the parliament were held by the Progressive Citizens Party (PCP), 8 by the Patriotic Union (PU), 4 by the Independents (DU) and 3 by the Free List (FL). Women held only six seats in the outgoing parliament.
In the country of fewer than 38,000 inhabitants, ballots are open for only 90 minutes on Sunday. However, most people vote by mail. On 5 February 2017, voters elected 25 members of parliament for a 4-year term. The parliament is elected under a proportional representation system from two multi-mandate constituencies. The law assigns more seats to one of the constituencies than it qualifies for in proportion to the number of voters there, which potentially affects the equality of the vote. Seats are allocated to contestants that obtain at least eight per cent of valid votes countrywide, which is one of the highest thresholds in the OSCE region.
For decades, the Progressive Citizens' Party (FBP) and the Patriotic Union (VU) have formed governments in the wealthy principality, which is wedged between Austria and Switzerland. The election of Liechtenstein's 25 MPs on was also expected to decide on the political fate of Prime Minister Adrian Hasler, the FBP leader. According to the results, he might have to cede the post to his current deputy, Thomas Zwiefelhofer of the VU.
The conservative party of Liechtenstein's Premier Adrian Hasler may have come out on top in the European microstate's parliamentary vote on Sunday, but exit polls showed it suffered a blow to its mandate. Hasler's Progressive Citizens' Party (FBP) received 35.2 percent of the vote, losing nearly five percentage points. The party now had nine seats in the 25-member legislature, down from 10 seats. Support for FBP's conservative coalition partner, the Patriotic Union (VU) rose slightly to 33.7 percent, granting it an unchanged eight seats in parliament.
The Liechtenstein royal family continued to wield ultimate authority. The regent, Prince Alois, has the power to suspend parliament and dismiss the government, and he can veto bills. The royal family's political power is backed by financial muscle. They own the LGT, the world's largest family-held private bank, which manages assets totalling 143bn Swiss francs ($144bn).
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White House: All Options Considered to Blunt Ruling Thwarting Immigrant Travel Ban
By Ken Bredemeier February 12, 2017
A key aide to U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday the White House is considering "all of our options" in an effort to blunt a court ruling freezing Trump's order to ban travel from seven majority-Muslim countries and block refugees from entering the United States.
Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said the three-week-old Trump administration is "pursuing every single possible action to keep our country safe from terrorism." Trump's 31-year-old aide told NBC's Meet the Press that he believes the president has the right to decide who can enter the U.S. and that officials chose the seven countries "based upon the threat they assess today and in the future."
Miller said the Trump administration recognizes the equality of the three branches of the U.S. government the White House, the court system and Congress. But Miller said there is "no such thing as judicial supremacy."
"A district judge in Seattle cannot make immigration law for the United States," Miller said, referring to the decision that blocked Trump's travel ban, which subsequently was upheld last week by a three-judge appellate panel. Miller, who played a key role in drafting the ban, said he does not believe the judge can give foreign nationals immigration rights or keep Trump from stopping refugees from entering the United States.
"No foreign national ... has a constitutional right to enter our country," Miller said.
Trump, as he headed Friday to Florida for a weekend visit at his oceanfront Mar-a-Lago retreat with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said he is considering a "brand new order" on immigration after the appellate court unanimously ruled against him. He told reporters that a new executive order could be issued as soon as Monday or Tuesday.
Trump said such a move might be faster than defending his blocked executive order in a further court appeal. "We need speed for reasons of security," he said, although White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said an appeal of the appellate was still under consideration.
The president said in Twitter comments over the weekend that since the initial court ruling against him February 3,72 percent of the refugees admitted into U.S. are from the seven countries where he imposed the travel ban, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Sudan, Libya and Yemen.
"Our legal system is broken! SO DANGEROUS!" he said.
Trump, who frequently watches his aides on television news shows to see how well they handle reporters' questions, said after Miller spoke, "Congratulations Stephen Miller on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!"
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Taiwan denounces North Korea missile test, monitors Chinese navy
ROC Central News Agency
2017/02/12 17:58:59
Taipei, Feb. 12 (CNA) Taiwan on Sunday denounced North Korea's missile test and said it was closely monitoring the movements of the Chinese navy in the South China Sea and West Pacific.
Presidential Office Spokesman Alex Huang expressed the government's strong disapproval of North Korea's ballistic missile launch into the Sea of Japan early on Sunday, noting that Taiwan's defense and national security authorities are "watching closely" military responses in the region.
"Any act aimed at intimidating and threatening and any behavior that undermines regional stability should be severely denounced," Huang said.
In response to a Chinese military media report that a fleet of naval ships departed Sanya, Hainan Island, two days ago on a training mission, Huang said defense and security officials are "closely monitoring" the situation and all necessary deployments and countermeasures have been taken.
The Chinese navy exercise is taking place one month after the Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, passed through the Taiwan Strait at 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 12, when President Tsai Ing-wen () was on a visit to Central America.
That was seen by many as saber-rattling by the Chinese side as relations between Taiwan and China have deteriorated since Tsai of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party took power last May.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army newspaper said the latest South Sea Fleet mission, including two missile frigates and a supply ship, will tour the South China Sea, East Indian Ocean and West Pacific on a training mission that will involve air force and garrison troops as well as part of China's East Sea and North Sea fleets.
Huang assured the public that Taiwan's national defense and national security authorities are on top of the situation and ready for all eventualities.
"Our defense readiness underpins national security, so the public should rest assured," he added.
(By Lu Hsin-hui and S.C. Chang)
Enditem/AW/
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DPRK fires ballistic missile into eastern waters
People's Daily Online
(Xinhua) 09:28, February 12, 2017
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired what is believed to be a ballistic missile into its eastern waters early Sunday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
The presumed intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile was launched at around 7:55 a.m. local time (2255 GMT Saturday) near Banghyeon in the DPRK's northwestern North Pyongan province.
The projectile is estimated to have traveled about 500 km, according to the JCS. It landed in waters off the DPRK's east coast, according to local media reports.
Pyongyang test-fired Musudan missiles near the same place, where an airfield is located, in October last year.
It was the DPRK's first test-launch of a ballistic missile in 2017 and also the first since U.S. President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.
South Korea's military said Pyongyang's launch of ballistic missile was a provocative act in violation of UN Security Council's resolutions, which ban the DPRK from testing any ballistic missile technology.
The launch, the military believed, was aimed at drawing attention by showing off its nuclear and missile capability and was also part of armed protest against the Trump administration's hard-line stance toward the DPRK.
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North Korea fires ballistic missile: South Korea
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:0AM
North Korea has reportedly fired a ballistic missile, triggering a sharp reaction from South Korea, which detected and reported the launch.
The ballistic missile, which appeared to have been of the Rodong medium-range class, was launched by North Korea on Sunday and reached an altitude of about 550 kilometers, said a South Korean military source.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile had been fired from around Banghyon, in North Pyongan Province, which is where South Korean officials have said the North test-launched its powerful mid-range Musudan missile on October 15 and 20 last year.
The latest missile flew about 500 kilometers and is believed to have fallen into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the missile did not hit Japanese territorial waters.
South Korea's Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has threatened to punish North Korea over the move.
According to the South Korean Foreign Ministry, Seoul would make new efforts with its allies, including the US and Japan, to toughen sanctions against the North and make the country realize that it will "never be able to survive" without discarding all of its nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea faced global condemnations and international sanctions following two nuclear tests and a slew of rocket launches last year.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un announced in a 2017 New Year address to the country that the North Korean military was almost ready to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Pyongyang says it is developing its missile and nuclear programs as deterrence against the United States. It says it will not abandon the programs unless the US ends hostilities toward the country.
The US and South Korea recently agreed to deploy an advanced US missile system on Korean territory in response to perceived threats from the North.
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Trump tells Abe US '100% behind Japan' after N Korea missile test
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:6AM
President Donald Trump has reassured Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the United States is "100 percent" behind Japan following reports of North Korea conducting a fresh missile launch.
"The United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent," Trump said in brief remarks during a joint press conference with Abe in Florida late on Saturday.
The Japanese leader denounced the new launch as "intolerable."
"North Korea's most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable. North Korea must fully comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions," Abe said through a translator.
The remarks came a day after the two leaders held a joint press conference at the White House before heading to Trump's private mansion in Palm Beach for the weekend.
US Strategic Command systems tracked a test launch over North Korea and into the Sea of Japan, and determined it was a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
The missile test is the first conducted by North Korea since Trump took office on January 20.
An official with the South Korean Ministry of Defense also confirmed the test to CNN and said it was a ballistic missile.
The test of an intercontinental-range system would be especially provocative because the White House views it as an attempt by the North to develop the capability to strike the United States.
Trump has pledged to get tough on North Korea that tested several nuclear devices and ballistic missiles last year.
"Our assessment is that it is part of a show of force in response to the new US administration's hardline position against the North," the office of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, according to Reuters.
A White House spokesman said Trump was briefed on the new launch. However, the US president declined to comment when asked by reporters about the missile test as he posed for pictures with the Japanese leader ahead of a dinner in Florida.
Trump told Abe on Friday that defending against Pyongyang's "nuclear and missile threat" was a "very, very high priority."
Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, spoke to his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan Jin after the latest launch. They both condemned the test and agreed "to seek all possible options" to deter North Korea.
The US maintains 47,000 military service members in Japan, mostly on the southern island of Okinawa.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump frequently criticized Washington's commitment to its defense agreement with Japan.
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South Korea, U.S. Say North Fires Ballistic Missile Into Sea Of Japan
RFE/RL February 12, 2017
U.S. and South Korean military officials say North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile early on February 12, with the United States, Seoul and Japan saying they are weighing all options to punish the rogue nation.
"The flight distance was about 500 kilometers, and South Korea and the United States are conducting a close-up analysis on additional information," South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said after the launch.
U.S. officials confirmed they had tracked the missile and said it likely was a medium- or intermediate-range missile but not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). They said it did not pose a threat to the United States.
The report came as U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were meeting in Florida.
In unscheduled brief comments, Trump said he stood with Japan "100 percent," while Abe said the launch was "absolutely unacceptable."
A U.S. official earlier in the evening said the Trump administration had expected a "provocation" from the North and that it would consider the "full range" of options, including financial sanctions and increased naval assets in the region.
South Korean Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said his country will respond to punish the North for the missile launch, condemning it as a "blatant and obvious" violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a "serious threat" to international security.
Japan said it will press the Security Council for a "serious response" to the launch.
"North Korea's launch was in breach of current UN Security Council resolutions," Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said. "We are working to secure a firm response to these actions by the UN Security Council."
France also condemned the missile launch by North Korea saying it was in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
"France reaffirms its solidarity with its partners in the Asia-Pacific whose security is threatened by the North Korean nuclear and ballistic program," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It was the first such launch since Trump took office and could be seen as a direct challenge to the new administration.
Trump had said during a press conference on February 10 with Abe that the two countries will work together to defend against "the North Korean missile and nuclear threat, both of which I consider a very, very high priority."
The South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that "our assessment is that it is part of a show of force in response to the new U.S. administration's hardline position against the North."
Tensions have risen on the Korean Peninsula since Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, last month said the country was close to test-launching an ICBM.
That comment brought a vow of an "overwhelming" response from the United States by Defense Secretary James Mattis during his visit to South Korea this month.
A South Korea Defense Ministry official said the missile was fired from the Banghyon airbase in the western province of North Pyongan and flew toward the Sea of Japan.
The Yonhap news agency said the South Korean military suspected the North might have been testing an intermediate-range Musudan missile.
The North last year twice tested Musudan missiles from the air base.
Retired U.S. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling told CNN that the test was a step toward an ICBM.
"That's the goal of the North Korean politicians," he said.
"This intermediate ballistic missile is certainly dangerous," he said. "It has a greater range than some of the Musudan missiles that they have been testing prior to that. And it's not only a concern for the United States to hit the mainland, but it also has concerns for all of our Asia partners."
With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and TASS
Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/north-korea-ballistic -missile-test-us-military/28304638.html
Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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US to Adhere to Deterrence Strategy Toward North Korea Trump's Adviser
Sputnik News
20:03 12.02.2017
US President Donald Trump's adviser Stephen Miller stated that Washington will reinforce and strengthen alliances in the Pacific region in order to deter and prevent hostility from the North Korean regime.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The United States will build its strategy concerning North Korea based on the principles of deterrence, US President Donald Trump's adviser Stephen Miller said on Sunday.
"We will reinforce and strengthen our vital alliances in the Pacific region as part of our strategy to deter and prevent the increasing hostility that we've seen in recent years from the North Korean regime," Miller said in an interview with the Fox News channel.
Earlier in the day, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from the country's North Pyongan province. The missile plunged into the Sea of Japan after flying some 310 miles. Japan said that the missile fell outside of the country's exclusive economic zone and did not inflict any damages.
Following the launch, South Korea and Japan held emergency meetings of the countries' National Security Councils and both called the launch a provocative action threatening international security. Other countries, as well as the United States and the European Union, have condemned the launch.
Sputnik
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South Korea, Japan Consider Latest Missile Launch by North Provocation
Sputnik News
19:25 12.02.2017
Reaction of different countries on the latest North Korea's missile launch in the direction of the Sea of Japan.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) North Korea launched a missile in the direction of the Sea of Japan early on Sunday, which led to protests from the country's closest neighbors, Japan and South Korea, both stating that Pyongyang's actions were in breach of the UN Security Council resolutions.
The South Korean government is working on appropriate response actions, while the country's military experts allow for a possibility of the launch having been a test of Washington's reaction under the new administration.
NO DAMAGE INFLICTED
The missile was launched at 07:55 local time (11:25 GMT) on Sunday from a military airbase in North Korea's North Pyongan Province. According to the South Korean military, the missile flew about 311 miles and fell into the Sea of Japan. Tokyo said that the missile landed outside of Japan's exclusive economic zone, 22 miles east of the North Korean western shore, and did not inflict any damages.
The experts are trying to establish whether Pyongyang launched a mobile intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile or a single stage mobile liquid propellant medium-range Nodong.
Japanese government expressed protest against the missile launch, stressing the unacceptability of the repeated provocations on part of North Korea.
Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said that Tokyo was collecting the information and closely following the development of the situation. An extraordinary session of Japan's National Security Council was convened after the launch.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said that the missile launch was a violation of the resolution of UN Security Council and the Japanese authorities were working to ensure that the United Nations sends a powerful message to the North.
REACTION TEST
The South Korean military experts allow for the possibility that North Korea launched a missile to test the reaction of the United States under the administration of President Donald Trump.
Seoul said it was working on the appropriate response to Pyongyang's provocations.
"Our government, in tandem with the international community, is doing its best to ensure a corresponding response to punish the North," Korean acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.
WASHINGTON CONSIDERING OPTIONS
The US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) said that "the launch of a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile occurred near the northwestern city of Kusong."
According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the missile did not pose a threat to North America.
The US government said that Washington would weigh its options, including sanctions and expanding US military capabilities in the region. The representative of the government added that Washington would act firmly but avoid the escalation of the situation in the region.
According to the White House, the president was briefed and the United States would continue to monitor the situation.
"I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, one hundred percent," Trump said in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach in Florida, during a joint briefing with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The United States also pledged to pressure China into swaying North Korea, as it had the biggest influence on Pyongyang in the region.
NORTH KOREA SHOULD COMPLY WITH UNSC RESOLUTION
Konstantin Kosachev, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Federation Council, said that North Korea had to comply with the resolution of the UN Security Council, which stipulates that Pyongyang should not carry out any new missile launches or nuclear tests.
"The position of Russia coincides with the position of the other members of UN Security Council," Kosachev said.
The Russian lawmaker added that there were no grounds for adjusting this point of view.
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N Korea's Missile Test 'Provokes New Spiral of Tensions Near Russian Borders'
Sputnik News
15:12 12.02.2017(updated 16:30 12.02.2017)
The recent ballistic missile test conducted by Pyongyang could require new international consultations, including in the UN Security Council (UNSC), the chairman of the Russian lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, told Sputnik on Sunday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from the country's North Pyongan province, which plunged into the Sea of Japan after flying some 310 miles.
"I do not rule out that the recent events in North Korea will require new consultations of the international community, first of all within the framework of the UNSC," Slutsky said.
He added North Korea challenged the international community by conducing the missile launch as such actions violate UNSC decisions.
"The launch of the ballistic missile by North Korea is of course a challenge. Such actions contradict the UNSC decisions, particularly, the recent resolution adopted in November, and of course worsen the situation in the region. Pyongyang's unpredictable actions provoke a new spiral of tensions near the Russian borders," the official said, adding Moscow was concerned about the situation.
Expansion of Sanctions Unlikely to Force North Korea to Make Concessions
"We should understand that further toughening of sanctions or unilateral extension of anti missile measures will barely result in solution of the problem and force concessions from the North Korean leadership," Slutsky told Sputnik.
He added that Russia opposed the self-proclaimed North Korea's nuclear status.
"At the same time our leadership has always held the view that the only way to solve the nuclear problem as well as other problems of the Korean Peninsula is continuation of political and diplomatic efforts in order to return North Korea to the six-party talks," the Russian lawmaker said.
Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic programs has been the issues of major concern for the international community. In order to make North Korea refrain from nuclear weapons and ballistic launches the UNSC has adopted a number of resolutions condemning Pyongyang and imposing sanctions on it.
Yet another attempt to force Pyongyang to abandon its efforts are the six-party talks on turning the peninsula into a nuclear-free zone launched in 2003 with participation of North Korea, South Korea, Russia, the United States, China and Japan. Pyongyang's partners have been trying to return North Korea at the negotiating table since it's withdrawal from the talks in 2009.
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South Korean Military Says Pyongyang Likely Tested Musudan Missile, Not Rodong
Sputnik News
14:38 12.02.2017
North Korea is likely to have launched an intermediate-range Musudan missile during the Sunday missile test, and not the Rodong medium-range missile as it was previously assessed, South Korean military said.
TOKYO (Sputnik) On Sunday morning, a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea's airbase in the North Pyongan province. It traveled around 300 miles before plunging into the Sea of Japan.
"The missile appears to be a modified intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile possibly equipped with a solid fuel engine, not a medium-range Rodong missile," Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.
Musudan is a ballistic missile designed to travel up to 4,000 kilometers (about 2,500 miles), while Rodong missile is capable of covering up to 1,000 kilometers (over 600 miles).
North Korea has conducted a number of missile launches in the past months, including its biggest nuclear test last September, prompting condemnation from neighbors and the international community.
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US, Japanese Leaders Deliver Joint Statement After North Korean Missile Launch
Sputnik News
06:42 12.02.2017(updated 06:58 12.02.2017)
Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe have delivered an unscheduled joint brief statement.
US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have delivered an unscheduled joint brief statement after North Korean missile launch.
The Prime Minister of Japan has called DPRK's ballistic missile launch "absolutely intolerable". He also said that he had agreed with Trump to enforce US-Japanese alliance.
"North Korea's most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable," Abe announced during his visit to Florida. "North Korea must fully comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions."
"President Trump and I myself completely share the view that we are going to promote further collaboration between the two nations, and also we are going to further reinforce our alliance," Abe added.
Donald Trump has said that the United States "stands behind" Japan "one hundred percent".
"I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, one hundred percent," Trump said in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach in Florida.
A missile was reportedly launched earlier from an airbase in the western province of North Pyongan and travelled around 300 miles before plunging into the Sea of Japan outside of the Japanese exclusive economic zone.
Japan's National Security Council met earlier in the day to discuss the launch.
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North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile
Sputnik News
02:39 12.02.2017(updated 07:17 12.02.2017)
North Korea has fired a ballistic missile, the Yonhap News Agency reports, citing South Korean military sources.
The missile was fired in the direction of the Sea of Japan at around 7:55 am February 12, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was fired from Banghyeon in North Pyongan Province; the flight path has not yet been determined.
The Pentagon has confirmed that it detected the launch.
"The flight distance was about 500 kilometers, and South Korea and the United States are conducting a close-up analysis on additional information," South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
South Korea's military was working on confirming whether the missile was the intermediate-range Musudan, which the country last tested late last year. The Musudan missile's range is estimated at about 3,000 kilometers. Based on the missile's launch site, North Korea experts speculate that it is the Musudan and not a longer-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
The test had been expected for some time, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un reportedly having announced a test in his New Year's Eve address to the nation. It was also suggested that the country might test an ICBM this month to mark former leader Kim Jong-il's birthday, or that it would test a medium-range weapon.
It is unknown what type of missile was fired.
US President Donald Trump has taken a belligerent stance on North Korea. In response to reports that the country was in the final stages of developing a missile that could reach the US at the turn of the year, he tweeted, "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!" This is the first missile test conducted during his administration.
The UN, via Security Council resolutions, has banned North Korea from carrying out ballistic missile launches. In November, with crucial support from China, the UN imposed new sanctions on the country over its many missile launches in 2016. The council resolved to hit North Korea's biggest export, coal, cutting it by about 60%. China would cut its coal imports from the country by about $700 million, it was reported at the time.
Last month, the US provided $1 million in flood relief to the rogue nuclear state after flooding and typhoon damage was thought to have killed hundreds and left thousands homeless. It was the first such aid to have been provided in five years.
North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests since 2006. The country claims to be capable of conducting a nuclear strike on the US.
Just last week, US military authorities expressed concern that the country could not handle an escalation of tensions with North Korea without withdrawing from some of its other global commitments.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is currently in the US, meeting with Trump.
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Abe: North Korea Medium-Range Missile Launch 'Absolutely Intolerable'
By Lou Lorscheider February 12, 2017
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says North Korea's firing of an unidentified ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan is "absolutely intolerable."
Abe spoke late Saturday alongside U.S. President Donald Trump at a called news conference in Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida where Abe has been visiting with Trump.
"North Korea must fully comply with the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions," the Japanese leader said. "During the summit meeting that I had with President Trump, he assured me that the United States will always [be with] Japan 100 percent, and to demonstrate his determination as well as commitment, he is here with me at his joint press conference."
Trump said at the news conference, "I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent." The North Korean test is widely interpreted as a challenge to the Trump administration.
North Korea fired the missile into the Sea of Japan early Sunday in Asia.
The U.S. Defense Department said late Saturday, "The launch of a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile occurred near the northwestern city of Kusong," noting it was tracked into the Sea of Japan and "never posed a threat to North America."
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the launch, calling it a further violation by Pyongyang of multiple UN Security Council Resolution.
Pyongyang issued no statement about the launch, but experts said the rocket was most likely a model capable of reaching targets in Japan, but not the U.S.
North Korea detonated two unauthorized nuclear test explosions last year and launched nearly two dozen rockets in continuing efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and missile programs. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared in a speech on New Year's Day that his country has "reached the final stage" in its program to build ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile), but Western experts have been skeptical about his forecast.
At the time, Trump answered Kim's ICBM boast with one of his trademark curt Twitter messages: "It won't happen!"
Harry Kazianis, the director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest in Washington said North Korea wanted to provoke Trump with Sunday's missile launch, but did not want to risk an ICBM test that might fail.
"I think the North Koreans would be a little bit afraid that if [an ICBM] test failed that would obviously not make them look very good," he said.
Harry Kazianis, the director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest in Washington said North Korea wanted to provoke Trump with Sunday's missile launch, but did not want to risk an ICBM test that might fail.
"I think the North Koreans would be a little bit afraid that if [an ICBM] test failed that would obviously not make them look very good," he said.
Trump briefed, monitoring situation
When he welcomed Abe to Washington Friday, Trump emphasized that the United States is committed to the security of its key Asian ally.
"We will work together to promote our shared interests," the president said at the White House, including "defending against the North Korean missile and nuclear threat."
During the 2016 presidential election Trump raised concerns about U.S. military spending overseas, but since taking office, President Trump and his Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis have emphasized America's commitment to support its allies in Asia against the growing North Korean nuclear threat. Mattis' first trip abroad was to Asia.
The United States has repeatedly vowed it will never accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed nation.
Same launch site used 4 months ago
South Korean military officials said the missile was launched at 7:55 a.m. local time (2255 Saturday UTC) from a military site at Banghyeon -- the same place where the North test-launched powerful Musudan rockets twice during October. Such missiles are estimated to have an effective range of about 3,000 kilometers.
Officials said the rocket crossed the Korean Peninsula from the launch site in western North Korea and headed east over the Sea of Japan, after a flight path of about 500 kilometers.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga denounced the North Korean missile launch as an "as act of provocation to Japan and the region" and noted that it was purposely timed to disrupt Prime Minster Abe's summit with Trump.
South Korea convened a national security meeting Sunday in response to the missile launch. South Korea's Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said Seoul will work with the international community "to punish the North (for its missile launch)."
"North Korea's repeated provocations show the Kim Jong Un regime's nature of irrationality, maniacally obsessed in its nuclear and missile development," the South's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
North Korea-watchers reported late in January that the North Korean military had loaded missiles aboard two mobile launchers, a sign that test-firings could be imminent. They noted at the time, however, that the missiles appeared to be no more than 15 meters long, which would tend to rule out the possibility that a long-range weapon was involved.
Analysts are divided over how close Pyongyang is to realizing its full military ambitions, especially since it has never successfully test-fired an ICBM. However, most experts agree that the North has made considerable progress since Kim took over absolute power in the country following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011.
Talks broke down in 2009
For more than a decade, Washington and a vast majority of world governments have demanded that North Korea denuclearize the Korean peninsula. However, Western leaders have yet to devise a plan that would either compel the North to cooperate or create incentives for it to do so.
China-sponsored talks between Pyongyang and a six-nation panel have been stalled since 2009, when the communist North pulled out of the negotiations. The North had carried out its first underground nuclear test explosion three years before the talks broke down.
Washington has since said the six-party talks could not resume until Kim's regime in Pyongyang would recommit itself to halting all nuclear tests and scrapping its nuclear development program. That policy was agreed to during the administration of former President Barack Obama, and President Trump's government has reaffirmed it.
Pyongyang has so far rejected Western overtures and continues to resist world leaders' attempts to bring it into compliance with a string of United Nations resolutions.
VOA's Brian Padden in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
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North Korea Declares Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile Test Successful
Sputnik News
01:03 13.02.2017(updated 01:35 13.02.2017)
North Korea has declared its ballistic missile test successful, media reported.
North Korea has declared its Sunday's nuclear-capable ballistic missile test successful, South Korean Yonhap news agency reported.
In a statement carried by North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang claimed its Pukguksong-2 strategic missile system had been successfully test-fired, according to reports.
The surface-to-surface missile used solid propellants and a new type of an engine, the agency said. The North's leader Kim Jong-un reportedly attended the launch.
The missile also proved to be capable of engaging evasive manoeuvres, the agency added.
The missile was reportedly launched earlier from an airbase in the western province of North Pyongan and travelled around several hundreds of miles before plunging into the Sea of Japan outside of the Japanese exclusive economic zone.
The launch of ballistic missile led to protests from the country's closest neighbours, Japan and South Korea, both stating that Pyongyang's actions were in breach of the UN Security Council resolutions.
DPRK has conducted a number of missile launches in the past months, including its biggest nuclear test last September, prompting condemnation from international community.
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Frank-Walter Steinmeier Elected President of Germany
Sputnik News
16:32 12.02.2017(updated 17:53 12.02.2017)
Former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected the country's president on Sunday.
BERLIN (Sputnik) Steinmeier, nominated by the ruling coalition, was supported by 931 members of the country's Federal Convention, which is a special body comprising 630 members of the Bundestag and of the same number of representatives of Germany's states, while Christoph Butterwegge from the Alternative for Germany's (AfD) party, who finished second, gathered the support of just 128 voters.
The fact that the Federal Convention is formed by the country's lawmakers and representatives of regional parliaments gives a chance to predict the results of the vote before the event takes place. Ahead of the Sunday vote, Steinmeier was expected to win the presidency, as his Social Democratic Party (SPD) had support of 384 delegates in the Federal Convention and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU), which were also members of the ruling coalition, had been represented by 539 people.
Steinmeier stood down last month to seek presidency after 77-year-old Gauck said last June he would not run for the second term, citing old age. His term expires on March 17.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier was born on January 5, 1956 in Detmold city in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In 1974, he graduated from a gymnasium and was called up for a military service in Bundeswehr.
In 1975, Steinmeier became a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).
In 1982, he graduated from the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, where he studied law and political science.
In 1983-1986, Steinmeier was a law intern in Frankfurt am Main and in Giessen, and in 1986 he defended his doctoral dissertation.
In 1986-1991, Steinmeier was a scientific assistant at the Public Law and Political Science Faculty in the University of Justus Liebig.
In 1991, Steinmeier worked as a legal counsel for communication law and media policy in the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony.
Steinmeier served as a chief of staff of then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony Gerhard Schroeder from 1993 to 1994.
In 1994-1996, Steinmeier headed the Lower Saxony's State Chancellery's inter-agency and planning department.
In 1996-1998, he served as a state secretary of the head of Lower Saxony's State Chancellery.
Following Schroeder's appointment as Germany's chancellor in 1998, Steinmeier served from November 1998 to July 1999 as a state secretary of the Federal Government and was responsible for coordination of activities of the country's intelligence services. From July 1999 to November 2005 he was a chief of staff of the Federal Chancellery.
In 2005, Steinmeier took office of Germany's Foreign Minister and became a vice-chancellor in November 2007.
In September 2008, Steinmeier was nominated as candidate from the SDP to serve as the country's chancellor.
At the parliamentary elections in September 2008 the SDP received 23 percent of votes, and Steinmeier became a leader of the SDP in Bundestag.
Following the parliamentary elections in September 2013, the SDP created a coalition with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union.
In December 2013, Steinmeier became Germany's foreign minister for the second time.
On November 16, 2016, Steinmeier was officially nominated as the coalition candidate for the post of Germany's president.
Steinmeier is married and has one daughter. His spouse is an administrative law judge Elke Budenbender.
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Daesh terrorists burn to death 15 Iraqi civilians in Kirkuk
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:31PM
Members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group have reportedly burned to death more than a dozen young Kurdish women in Iraq's northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk as the militants continue to perpetrate various crimes against humanity in areas under their control.
A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network that Daesh extremists rounded up 15 people, among them children, on a road linking al-Riyadh district, situated 55 kilometers southwest of Kirkuk, to the mountainous Hamrin region in the neighboring Salahuddin Province.
The source added that the Takfiris slapped charges of "attempts to cross to the land of infidels" against the victims, submerged them in crude oil and then set them alight while hundreds of people were watching. Nobody could do anything to save them.
Daesh then threatened citizens in the area that they would be burned to death similarly if they try to escape.
The ill-fated civilians were reportedly members of three families from al-Shajarah village in al-Abbasi area of Hawijah district, located 48 kilometers west of Kirkuk.
7 Iraqis wounded as Daesh pounds residential area in Anbar
Meanwhile, seven civilians, including women and children, sustained injuries when Daesh terrorists fired a salvo of Katyusha rockets at the residential al-Haqlaniyah area of Haditha region, situated about 240 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad, in the troubled western province of Anbar.
Daesh bomb expert mysteriously killed in Mosul
Additionally, a Daesh expert in making crude chlorine bombs was mysteriously killed near his residence in the al-Islah al-Zeraei neighborhood of western Mosul.
The terror network was unmoved by the news of the death of the self-proclaimed engineer, identified by the nom de guerre Abu Yaha al-Iraqi, suggesting that its members may have murdered the 44-year-old man.
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Deadly Baghdad clashes rattle Iraqi leaders
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 8:45AM
Iraqi leaders are on a damage control mode a day after clashes between followers of a cleric and police in Baghdad left at least four people dead.
Influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on his followers to withdraw from a central square in Baghdad where they had gathered to demand political reforms.
"If any of my followers resorts to violence and does not withdraw or engages in an act of sabotage to put security in Baghdad or Iraq in jeopardy, I disavow it," he wrote on his twitter account.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, meanwhile, called for an investigation into allegations by pro-Sadr sources that eight demonstrators had been killed in the clashes and more than 300 others injured.
The clashes began after thousands gathered in the central Tahrir Square to demand an overhaul of a commission that supervises elections ahead of a provincial poll due in September.
Police tried to disperse them as they attempted to cross the bridge that links the square and the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings, embassies and international organizations.
Several Katyusha rockets then hit the Green Zone on Saturday evening, but there were no casualties, a military spokesman said.
Sadr issued a statement saying the demonstration was peaceful and accused the police of using excessive force. He said his supporters wanted to get near the Green Zone to make their voices heard, and had no intention of storming it again.
An interior ministry statement said guns and knives were found on some protesters. Baghdad Governor Ali al-Tamimi said four protesters were killed in the mayhem.
"The demonstrators tried to cross Jumhuriya Bridge, the security forces fired tear gas to stop them but they insisted," a senior police official said.
Iraqi news website Alghad Press reported on Sunday that two of the fatalities and 70 of those injured were members of the security forces.
As protesters approached Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone, however, police fired teargas to disperse them.
Some among the crowd, meanwhile, tried to break through a security cordon guarding the main road to Green Zone.
Sadr's movement had earlier asserted that it had nothing to do with acts of violence and destruction during the rally.
Saraya al-Salam (the Peace Brigades), a militia group formed by the cleric, released a statement, condemning the attacks and saying it roundly spurned such acts of violence.
Some, it added, were staging such acts to sow sedition among the Iraqi people and lay obstacles in the way of reforms and eradication of corruption.
Government under pressure
The escalation by Sadr followers comes at the wrong time for Abadi who wants to keep the focus on dislodging Daesh terrorists from the northern city of Mosul.
On Saturday, the al-Sumariah television said the Takfiri terror group had burned 15 civilians, including a number of children, alive in the northwestern province of Kirkuk.
The group meted the punishment out to the victims for their alleged attempt at leaving the areas under the rule of "the Caliphate" to the neighboring Kirkuk Province.
The country has been leading an incisive push to vanquish the terrorists, who have been plighting it since 2014. The operations have confined the outfit to a handful of areas.
Also, a security source said a roadside bomb explosion in Diyala Province, which neighbors Salahuddin, had killed five members of the popular forces battling the terrorists, and injured two others.
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Daesh Leader Baghdadi Injured in Airstrike in Iraq
Sputnik News
20:16 12.02.2017
Leader of the Daesh terrorist organization Abu Bakr Baghdadi was possibly injured during an airstrike carried out by the Iraqi Air Force in the city of Qaim on February 9, according to Iraqi media.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Leader of the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh) terrorist organization Abu Bakr Baghdadi was injured in an airstrike in western Iraq, local media reported on Sunday, citing sources in security agencies.
Baghdadi was possibly injured during an airstrike carried out by the Iraqi Air Force in the city of Qaim on February 9, the Alhurra channel reported citing intelligence department of the country's interior ministry.
According to the media, Baghdadi sustained heavy injuries and was sent to Syria, while several other terrorists were eliminated.
Reports of Baghdadi being injured or killed appeared several times over the past months, but none of them have been confirmed.
Sputnik
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Japanese Government Protests North Korea's Ballistic Missile Launch
Sputnik News
04:27 12.02.2017(updated 04:36 12.02.2017)
The Japanese government has lodged a protest with North Korea over its newest missile launch, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Sunday.
TOKYO (Sputnik) An unidentified ballistic missile blasted off earlier in the day from the North's Banghyon air base in the the western province of North Pyongan and flew toward Japan.
The Japanese government official has confirmed the launch, according to the national Kyodo news agency, but said the projectile had fallen into the sea outside Japan's exclusive economic zone and had not caused any damage.
Japanese defense chief Tomomi Inada said Japan's Defense Ministry is monitoring the situation after the launch and is collecting information on it.
"The ministry is collecting and analyzing information, we are closely monitoring the situation," Defense Minister Inada said as quoted by the Kyodo news agency.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which was the first to report the missile test citing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the projectile had flown slightly over 300 miles before plunging into the water.
"The military is determining if the missile is a modified Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile or the shorter range Rodong missile," a military source told the outlet.
North Korea has conducted a number of missile launches in the past months as well as its firth and biggest nuclear test last September, prompting condemnation from neighbors and the United Nations.
Sputnik
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S. Korea denounces DPRK's test-launch of ballistic missile
People's Daily Online
(Xinhua) 10:11, February 12, 2017
South Korea denounced the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s test-launch of a ballistic missile on Sunday, the first since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last month.
Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement that the launch was a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the international community.
The statement said repeated DPRK provocations are a direct challenge to the international society's concerted will reflected in the Resolution 2321, unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council.
Pyongyang fired off what is presumed to an intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile, called Hwaseong-10 in the DPRK, from its northwestern North Pyongan province earlier in the day.
It flew about 500 km and landed in waters off the DPRK's east coast. Musudan can put the entire Japan and the U.S. military base in Guam in its target range as it is known to have a range of 3,000-4,000 km.
Sunday's launch was the first in 2017 and also the first since Trump was sworn in as the U.S. president on Jan. 20. Seoul's military said it was part of armed protest against the new U.S. administration's hard-line stance toward the DPRK.
Concerns had persisted about the DPRK's possible test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the near future as the moves of two DPRK mobile launchers carrying ICBMs were reportedly detected by South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities.
The Musudan test-launch may be important to the advancement in the DPRK's ICBM technology as the propellant of its three-stage ICBM is believed to be composed of four Musudan missile engines.
The DPRK has never successfully tested its ICBM. Under the UN resolution, Pyongyang is banned from testing any ballistic missile technology.
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South Korea Working on Appropriate Response to North's Missile Test
Sputnik News
06:38 12.02.2017
South Korea is working together with other countries to determine what punitive actions will be an appropriate response to Pyongyang's new missile launch, the Korean acting president said Sunday.
TOKYO (Sputnik) "Our government, in tandem with the international community, is doing its best to ensure a corresponding response to punish the North," Hwang Kyo-ahn said, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.
A ballistic missile was launched early Sunday from an airbase in the North Pyongan province. It travelled around 300 miles before plunging into the Sea of Japan. Its type is still to be established.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Japanese and US experts were working to determine whether the missile was an intermediate-range Musudan or a mid-range Rodong.
They said it did not seem to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), according to the agency.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga did not exclude that US President Donald Trump could discuss the missile launch with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. They are scheduled to have a working dinner later today.
The Korean military suggested that North Korea planned the missile launch, the first since Trump took office last month, as a show of power directed at the new US administration.
Sputnik
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UK to continue Saudi arms sales despite funeral bombing in Yemen
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:12PM
A new report reveals that British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had urged the UK government to continue arms sales to Saudi Arabia even after Riyadh bombed a funeral in Yemen last October that killed over 140 people and sparked global condemnation.
In a letter dated one month after the Saudi bombing, Johnson pressed Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox to continue sending weapons to Saudi Arabia, according to The Guardian newspaper.
"I am aware you have deferred a decision on four export license applications to supply the Royal Saudi Air Force with equipment which could be used in the conflict in Yemen," Johnson wrote.
"The issue is extremely finely balanced, but I judge at present the Saudis appear committed both to improving processes and to taking action to address failures/individual incidents," the foreign secretary wrote.
Fox delayed signing off on further weapons exports to the Saudi air force following the strike but agreed to continue arming Riyadh in the light of Johnson's assessment.
In his reply letter to Johnson dated November 17, Fox warned that the situation in Yemen remained risky.
"I agree that this is an extremely complex situation and that the issue of clear risk is extremely finely balanced. In the light of your assessment and [redacted] recent advice I accept that we should continue, for the present, to assess export licenses for Saudi Arabia on a case-by-case basis," Fox wrote.
"In doing so I want to be very clear with you about the risks inherent in making this decision, not just because of the grave situation in Yemen," he added.
Tom Brake, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, blasted the UK government for approving more arms sales to Riyadh.
"Saudi Arabia's vicious campaign in Yemen has cost thousands of lives and left a country in ruins, and this Tory government are complicit in that tragedy."
The Saudi airstrike on October 8 on the funeral in the Yemeni capital Sana'a was among the bloodiest incidents in a conflict that has cost the lives of over 11,000 Yemenis.
Saudi Arabia launched a war against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to bring back the former government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
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Syria opposition forms new delegation, scraps Saudi-backed groups
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:32PM
Syria's armed opposition groups have announced their new delegation for an upcoming round of peace talks brokered by the United Nations and set to be held in the Swiss city of Geneva, scrapping Saudi-backed terrorist groups.
The so-called High Negotiations Committee (HNC), a coalition of foreign-backed Syrian opposition groups, made the announcement in a statement on Sunday, saying that the final composition of the delegation included 10 representatives of militant groups and 11 opposition politicians, mostly affiliated with the armed groups within the coalition.
The Saudi-backed Ahrar al-Sham militant group and Jaysh al-Islam do not have any representatives in the delegation, which could be perceived as a sign that the armed opposition groups are trying to distance themselves from Riyadh's warmongering policies in Syria.
The statement, which was issued amid a conference held by the umbrella HNC group in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, further said that the delegation would be headed by Nasr al-Hariri, a senior member of the so-called National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, in the fresh round of the peace negotiations, scheduled to be held on February 20.
Mohamed Sabra was also selected as the chief negotiator of the delegation. He replaced Mohamad Alloush, a member of the Saudi-backed Jaysh al-Islam terrorist group. Alloush served as the chief negotiator for the so-called opposition groups during three previous rounds of peace talks in Geneva, the last of which was held on April 13-27 last year and ended with no result.
The Geneva talks were originally planned to take place on February 8, but UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he had rescheduled them to take further advantage of the fruits of Astana discussions.
On January 23-24, Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, hosted talks on Syria organized by Iran, Russia and Turkey, with the presence of representatives of the Syrian government and opposition groups.
At the end of the talks, Tehran, Moscow and Ankara agreed on the establishment of a trilateral mechanism to support a ceasefire in Damascus. The trio stressed that there was no military solution to the Syria conflict and it can be only resolved through a political process based on a full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
For nearly six years, Syria has been fighting foreign-sponsored militancy. De Mistura estimated in August last year that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then. The UN stopped its official casualty count in the war-torn country, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
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Hezbollah, Iran support Syria ceasefire as agreed in Astana: Nasrallah
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:13PM
Secretary general of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement says the movement and Iran support Syria ceasefire as agreed through negotiations in Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana, slamming some media reports to the contrary.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks from the southern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Sunday afternoon while addressing a ceremony held to commemorate late senior member of Hezbollah Central Council, Sheikh Hussein Obeid.
Some Arab media outlets have been falsely accusing Hezbollah of rejecting Syria ceasefire concluded in Astana talks, he said, adding, "Hezbollah and Iran support the ceasefire, the reconciliation, and the political settlement in Syria, while some Arab states are still backing the military option."
Hezbollah leader noted that the movement is working with the Syrian government to find a way to put an end to the humanitarian crisis in Foua and Kefraya and other Syrian towns.
Nasrallah rejected reports about the movement's plan to bring about demographic changes in Syria, saying, "We categorically deny the accusations raised by those who claim that Hezbollah and the Syrian government seek demographic change across the Syrian cities."
Elsewhere in his remarks, Nasrallah stated that recent military gains by Syrian forces, especially in Aleppo, have contributed to restoring security to most cities across the country.
Nasrallah said the liberation of Aleppo changed the course of developments inside Syria and paved the ground for dialogue between authorities in Damascus and representatives of armed groups, instead of "hotel opposition" figures.
Reflecting on the situation of Syrian refugees, the Hezbollah chief noted, that the Syrian refugees must be reassured in order to return to their country.
He added that all the Lebanese parties must deal with the Syrian refugees, who have taken refuge in their country over the past six years, in a humanitarian way and help them to return to their cities in their home country.
Nasrallah stated that Lebanese authorities must establish contacts with their Syrian counterparts in order to put an end to the crisis of Syrian refugees.
During the past six years that the foreign-backed crisis has been raging on in Syria, Hezbollah and the Lebanese military have been defending the country, especially along its northeastern frontier, against spillover of foreign-backed terrorist groups from neighboring Syria.
Hezbollah fighters have fended off several Daesh attacks inside Lebanon as well. They have also been providing assistance to Syrian army forces to counter the ongoing foreign-sponsored militancy.
The movement accuses Israel of supporting Takfiri terrorists operating in the Middle East.
Israel, which continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms and Syria's Golan Heights, is widely reported to be offering medical help to Takfiri terrorists injured in Syria. In December 2015, British newspaper the Daily Mail said Israel had saved the lives of more than 2,000 Takfiri militants since 2013.
In his Sunday speech, Nasrallah also hailed the efforts exerted by the Lebanese army and the security forces to protect the country against any threat, calling on the political parties to contribute to the country's peace.
He also dismissed threats posed by the new President of the United States Donald Trump, saying that Hezbollah was not worried about the advent of a "foolish" president in the White House and considered it as good news for oppressed people across the world.
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Syria Opposition Delegation Head Says Not Received Invite to New Round Yet
Sputnik News
15:55 12.02.2017(updated 16:14 12.02.2017)
Mohammed Alloush, the head of armed Syrian opposition at the Astana settlement talks, stated that his group had not yet received an invitation to participate in the new Syria settlement meeting in the Kazakh capital.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Mohammed Alloush, the head of armed Syrian opposition at the Astana settlement talks, told Sputnik on Sunday that he had not yet received an invitation to participate in the new Syria settlement meeting in the Kazakh capital.
On Saturday, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the delegations of Damascus, Syrian armed opposition, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura and representatives of Jordan and the United States were invited to the next meeting on Syrian settlement to be held in Astana on February 15-16.
"We have only heard a statement, but we have not received any invitations," Alloush representing the Jaysh al-Islam group said.
The peace talks between the Syrian government and armed opposition groups were held in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana on January 23-24. The Astana meeting was brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey.
Sputnik
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Mohammed Sabra to Be Syrian Opposition Delegation's Chief Negotiator in Geneva
Sputnik News
15:28 12.02.2017
Syrian lawyer Mohammed Sabra was named as the chief negotiator of the Syrian opposition delegation for the forthcoming Syrian peace talks in Geneva, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) said in a statement obtained by Sputnik on Sunday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) On Sunday, the HNC announced the final composition of the delegation to take part in the UN-backed negotiations in Geneva on February 20, which included representatives of both moderate and armed opposition groups.
In the list of delegation members, Sabra, who chairs the Syrian Republican Party that was established in Turkey's Istanbul in 2014, was mentioned as an independent candidate.
As the delegation's chief negotiator, Sabra will replace Mohammed Alloush from the Jaysh al-Islam group, who announced the decision to leave his post in May 2016 citing the failure of the previous round of Geneva talks.
According to the statement, Naser Hariri, a representative of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces would head the delegation.
The international community, including the United Nations, has repeatedly made attempts to settle the Syrian civil war by diplomatic means. Within the framework of these efforts several rounds of talks in Geneva took place, with the most recent one on April 13-27, 2016.
Sputnik
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Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham Militants to Skip Geneva Talks on Syria
Sputnik News
11:33 12.02.2017(updated 11:42 12.02.2017)
The Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) on Sunday announced the final composition of the delegation to go to the February 20 settlement talks in Geneva.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The list of delegation members, published by the HNC's press service on social media, does not include representatives of Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham groups. The list comprises 21 names, including 11 opposition politicians and 10 representatives of armed groups.
The press service added that the list was final, however it did not rule out possibility that could be altered.
There is still no information, who will be the head of the delegation, however Naser Hariri, a representative of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, told Sputnik on Saturday that he was appointed to head the delegation to the talks.
The previous round of intra-Syrian talks under the auspices of the United Nations was held in Geneva on April 13-27, 2016. The next session of the UN-mediated talks is scheduled for February 20.
At the recent Syrian settlement meeting held in the capital of Kazakhstan on January 23-24, Jaysh al-Islam was represented by Mohammed Alloush, however there were no Ahrar al-Sham's representatives at the Astana meeting.
Since 2011, Syria has been engulfed in a civil war, with government forces fighting against numerous opposition and terrorist groups, including al-Nusra Front and Daesh, banned in a range of countries, including Russia.
Sputnik
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Han Kuang exercises to exclude live-fire drill this year
ROC Central News Agency
2017/02/12 18:43:59
Taipei, Feb. 12 (CNA) The Han Kuang () military exercise this year will be conducted through computer-simulated war games without live-fire drills, according to the Ministry of National Defense (MND) on Sunday.
The change was made in response to President Tsai Ing-wen's () request in August last year that Taiwan come up with a "new military strategy, aimed at charting a new direction and changing the culture of Taiwan's armed forces."
In response, the MND said this year's exercises will only include computer-simulated war games, while a live-fire drill is to be pushed back to 2018.
The new military strategy was drafted in January, the defense ministry said, adding that it expects the change to be officially announced in March as part of its quadrennial defense review, or QDR.
According to the National Defense Act, the ministry is required to publish a defense review once every four years detailing the status of the military and national security in Taiwan. The last QDR was published in 2013.
The annual Han Kuang exercises are usually divided into two phases, first a command post exercise with computer-simulated war games, followed by live-fire drills.
The exercises are Taiwan's most important annual war games involving all three branches of the military -- Army, Navy and Air Force -- and are conducted to test their joint response to simulated threats from China.
The 33rd Han Kuang exercises featuring computer-simulated war games are expected to be held later in May, the MND said.
(By Lu Hsin-huei and Ko Lin)
Enditem/ AW/
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Raqqah final goal of Turkey's incursion into Syria: Erdogan
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:5PM
Turkey's president has claimed that the ultimate goal of the country's incursion into Syria is to "cleanse" a border region, including the cities of al-Bab and Raqqah, of the Daesh Takfiri terrorists.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference in the city of Istanbul on Sunday that the "ultimate goal is to cleanse a 5,000-square-km area."
Erdogan said the capture of al-Bab by Turkish troops and their allied anti-Damascus militants was now a "matter of time," adding, "Al-Bab is now besieged from all fronts... Our forces entered the center."
In late August 2016, the Turkish military began a campaign inside Syria, claiming to clear its border of Daesh and stop the advance of Kurdish fighters. Ankara is already under fire for supporting militants operating against the Syrian government.
Elsewhere in his remarks, President Erdogan said Turkish forces had no intention of staying in Syria.
The Turkish president promised that the forces would leave Syria once the region had been cleared of both Daesh terrorists and fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), whom Ankara sees as a hostile force.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Turkish troops and the allied militants entered the western flank of al-Bab on Saturday, taking control of several suburbs after heavy clashes with terrorists.
One Turkish soldier was killed and another injured during the push to enter the city.
The city, located in Syria's northern province of Aleppo, has been under siege by Turkish fighters from the west, east and north and Syrian government forces from the south.
According to the report by the SOHR, Turkish forces have advanced into the city from the west in recent days, and now control around 10 percent of the city and all of its western suburbs.
The advance on al-Bab risks putting Turkish troops in direct conflict with Syrian government forces, who are closing in on the city from the south.
The government in Ankara argues that recent terrorist attacks in Turkey, including a New Year's Day shooting in an Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people, had been masterminded in the Daesh-held cities of al-Bab and Raqqah.
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Turkish forces, allied militants enter Syria's northern city of al-Bab
Iran Press TV
Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:44AM
Turkish forces along with allied militants have entered the Daesh-held Syrian city of al-Bab, says a UK-based monitoring group.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Turkish troops entered the northern city's western flank on Saturday where they took control of several suburbs after heavy clashes with the terrorists.
The monitoring group said the clashes coincided with "Turkish shelling and intensive airstrikes" which killed at least six civilians.
Turkey's Anadolu news agency reported that one Turkish troop was killed and another injured during the push to enter the city.
The city is Daesh's last remaining bastion in Syrian's northern Aleppo province and has been under siege by Turkish forces from the west, east and north and government troops from the south.
In August last year, the Turkish air force and special ground forces launched Operation Euphrates Shield inside Syria in a declared bid to aid the so-called Free Syrian Army militants against Daesh terrorists without the permission of the government in Damascus.
Over the past almost six years, Syria has been fighting foreign-sponsored militancy. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated in August last year that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the Syria crisis until then. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in the war-torn country, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
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Erdogan Says Turkish Forces Advanced Into Center of Syrian Town of al-Bab
Sputnik News
14:38 12.02.2017(updated 16:03 12.02.2017)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Turkish forces together with Free Syrian Army entered the center of the northern Syrian town of al-Bab.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Turkish forces have entered the center of the northern Syrian town of al-Bab and the Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh, banned in Russia) jihadists started to flee the town.
"Our forces together with Free Syrian Army have entered al-Bab Now Daesh militants are leaving al-Bab," Erdogan told reporters as quoted by the Haberturk newspaper.
Erdogan also stated that the ultimate goal of the Turkish military operation in northern Syria is to free the region, including Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Daesh, from terrorists.
"After al-Bab we will not stop. Al Bab was not our final goal. Our ultimate goal is to clear this region from Daesh. The main stronghold of Daesh is Raqqa. After clearing Raqqa, the region will be genuinely cleared from terrorists," Erdogan was quoted as saying by Turkish Haberturk newspaper.
On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying that the Syrian army supported by Russian aviation have destroyed a Daesh stronghold near the city of al-Bab in the Aleppo province.
The Syrian army killed over 650 terrorists and terrorists' hardware in their operation to free the town of Tadif near al-Bab.
Currently, the Syrian army is approaching al-Bab controlled by Daesh from the west and south, while the Turkish-led forces are attempting to advance into and liberate the town from the north and the east.
On Friday, a military source told Sputnik that the Syrian government forces cut off the retreat path for Daesh from al-Bab.
The Turkish military operation in Syria's al-Bab has entered the final stage. Turkey's units entered central al-Bab, the operation is being conducted in coordination with Russia to prevent clashes with Syrian government forces.
Al-Bab is one of Daesh's last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. Capturing the city is of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds taking it and unifying their own territories.
Sputnik
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Russian Military Inspectors to Assess Designated Area in Turkey
Sputnik News
00:16 13.02.2017(updated 00:29 13.02.2017)
Chief of Directorate of Treaty Monitoring of the Russian Defense Ministry Sergey Ryzhkov said that a group of Russian inspectors would visit a designated location in Turkey under the Vienna Document to verify the information on the military activity in the area.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) A group of Russian inspectors will visit a designated location in Turkey under the Vienna Document to verify the information on the military activity in the area, Chief of Directorate of Treaty Monitoring of the Russian Defense Ministry Sergey Ryzhkov said.
"Within the framework of Vienna Document 2011 on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures, a Russian group of inspectors will assess a designated area in Turkey on February 13-16," Ryzhkov said.
According to Ryzhkov, the inspection's goal is to confirm whether any military activity is being carried out in the area or not, and to establish its scale.
Ryzhkov said that the designated area's size is approximately 4.4 acres.
The official explained that Russian inspectors would visit training facilities and weapons ranges, as well as attend briefings of commanders of the military bases of the Turkish Armed Forces.
The Vienna Document aims to reinforce security measures in Europe and envisages the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) member states providing each other with information on their armed forces, defense planning and military budget details, as well as exchanging military observers and carrying out inspections.
Sputnik
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Lugansk Republic Accuses Kiev of Shelling Its Territory 11 Times
Sputnik News
10:18 12.02.2017(updated 10:32 12.02.2017)
The Lugansk People's Republic has accused Kiev troops of shelling its territory 11 times in the last 24 hours.
LUGANSK (Sputnik) The Ukrainian Armed Forces have shelled the territory of the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) 11 times during the last 24 hours, a spokesperson of the LPR's People's Militia told Sputnik on Sunday.
"In 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have violated the ceasefire 11 times," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that such settlements as Slovianoserbsk, Kalynivka, Sanzharovka, Kalynove and Logvinovo had been shelled by Kiev's troops.
The Donbass conflict erupted in April 2014 as a local counter-reaction to the US and EU-sponsored Maidan coup in Kiev that toppled the country's democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions held independence referendums and proclaimed the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Kiev has since been conducting a military operation, encountering stiff local resistance.
In February 2015, Kiev forces and Donbass independence supporters signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, a withdrawal of weapons from an established line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Despite the agreement, the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.
Sputnik
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Latvian English
Riga, 2017-02-13 15:02 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AS HansaMatrix (ticker: HMX1R) (The Company) is hosting its first Capital Markets Day Event on Wednesday, March 1st, 2017. This is a way for existing as well as potential shareholders to become more familiar with the operations of the Company at Ogre plant location.
The programme will include the following components:
General presentation on the Company (also available via market announcement);
Presentation on high technology start-ups in Latvia by Mr. Andris Berzins, council member of AS HansaMatrix, co-founder of Riga TechHub (organizes TechChill - the leading start-up conference in the Baltic states) and board member in Latvian Start-up Association;
Production facility tour of the Ogre plant.
Webinar (live) streamed from the Companys premises on 4th Quarter and 12 months 2016 results hosted by the Chairman of the Management Board Mr. Ilmars Osmanis.
The entire programme will take place at the Companys purpose-built manufacturing plant in Ogre on the outskirts of Riga, Latvia. The starting time is 10:00 (EET) and it is envisaged that the agenda will be completed by 13:00.
This event is open to both existing shareholders and potential investors. Please note that prior registration for the Capital Markets Day Event is required (closing date Friday, February 24th). To register, please use the email or phone contact details provided below. Registered participants will be provided with more detailed information about the event, its full agenda and organized transport from Riga to Ogre and back.
The main language used for the event will be English. Personal identification will be required on the day.
Those investors who are unable to participate in the Companys Capital Market Day Event in person, are welcome to join Companys webinar which will take place on March 1, 2017 at 12:00.
To join the webinar you need to register in advance via http://ej.uz/HMX_webinar_Q42016. After successfull registration you will receive the webinar link and instructions how to join the webinar. You will need a computer with an internet connection and headphones. Youre welcome to send your questions addressed to AS HansaMatrix Chairman of the Management Board Mr. Ilmars Osmanis in advance to email: eva.dzerve@nasdaq.com
Investor and media contact:
Ms. Zanda Lapane
Assistant to the CEO
Phone: (+371) 6780 0002
e-mail: invest@hansamatrix.com
http://www.hansamatrix.com
About AS HansaMatrix
HansaMatrix is a fast-growing, high-technology company offering product design, industrialization and complete manufacturing services in data networking, Internet of Things, industrial segments and other services to high added value business segments. In addition to complete manufacturing services of OEM products, the company offers an ODM business model to both start-up and established companies that seek product development partnerships
To the editor:
When I read the letters to the editor in the Feb. 2 issue of the Register & Bee, I saw a letter entitled Democrats fighting for our ideals.
As I read this letter, I thought that this writer could just replace the word Republican with Democrat, and the letter would have been written anytime during the last eight years. As for the 100 protesters or rioters referred to on Jan. 20, she failed to mention that just about every day President Trump has been in office, there has been some kind of protest or riot. Did she not hear about the protest and riot at the University of California, Berkley where a conservative was invited to speak and was not allowed to because of the riots and potential of people getting hurt?
I will admit that Republicans and conservatives did make several comments about former President Barack Obama. We were accused of making these comments because that president was black, but none of the comments from conservatives mentioned his skin color, only the comments from Democrats rebutting us. We were commenting on his policies and the damage that was being done to our nation and his disregard of our Constitution.
As for the lies the writer states coming from this administration, I guess she forgot about You can keep your doctor, you can keep your insurance plan and your premiums will go down $2,500 dollars on average per family. She might want to talk to the people in Arizona who have seen their premiums increase this year by 116 percent.
I will also agree that the Democratic Party of 2017 is far different than the party of JFK. John Kennedy would not be accepted into todays Democratic Party.
Todays Democrats seem to have no love or even like for the United States of America. I say this because they have no problem with letting people from all over the world just walk into our nation without vetting them, they dont have a problem with even inviting people from areas of the world where terrorist are trained, and encouraged to come over here and kill us. I guess Democrats think these terrorist will only kill Republicans, conservatives and Christians.
If this writer will look at an electoral map of just who voted in the November election, she will see that some 85 percent of the country voted for Donald Trump. The other 15 percent voted for Hillary or the other candidates. And dont come back and tell me that Clinton won the popular vote. Take out California and New York, Trump had some 4 million more votes than Clinton. Also, the Founding Fathers wisely set up the Electoral College so that large population areas could not control the government.
As to Democratic ideals, I see nothing so great about killing babies in the womb, keeping people on welfare so they are dependent and vote for Democrats (that just moves the plantation to the inner cities) and providing stuff for illegals that enter our country. Democrats also want to keep us as a nation divided so that we are always fighting amongst ourselves. I could go on, but I would hope readers can see my point.
WILLIAM F. HENDERSON
Danville
WEST KELOWNA, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Feb 13, 2017) - Colorado Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:CXO) ("Colorado" or the "Company") announces further to its news release of January 20, 2017 it has received the approvals from the Ely Ranger District of the United States Forest Service for the updated drill permits for the Green Springs Property and drilling has now commenced.
Colorado has contracted HD Drilling LLC out of Winnemucca for the RC drilling for the initial 4,000 ft phase which will consist of approximately 10 holes. The drill program has two principle goals:
To test the nature of gold mineralization at the lower Chainmen Shale - Joana Limestone contact south of the historic mine workings and along the trend of a north-south striking structural corridor. This productive contact was exploited at the Green Spring mine where 1.1 million tons of rock averaged 2.1 g/t Au1; and
To test the nature of gold mineralization associated with the lower Pilot Shale - Guilmette Limestone contact. This contact is well exposed to the north and to the east of the mine workings and is associated with jasperoidal bodies which both historic1 RC boreholes and surface rock samples had demonstrated to be significantly gold mineralized. The Colorado RC program is designed to test both of these permissive stratigraphic and structural contacts over a combined strike length of approximately 3.0 km.
About Green Springs
The Green Springs Property is currently under option with Ely Gold & Minerals Inc. ("ELY") to acquire a 100% interest in 193 unpatented claims (1,416.2 hectares) held or under option by ELY and is located in the eastern Great Basin approximately 50 miles south of Kinross 's Bald Mountain/Alligator Ridge Mine2 and 35 miles west of Ely Nevada. It is a classic Carlin-style gold system that represents part of a growing number of Carlin-type systems and new discoveries located outside the main Carlin and Cortez camps in largely underexplored parts of Nevada.
Qualified Person
Dr. Jim Oliver, Ph.D, P. Geo., the Company's Chief Geoscientist, is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 who reviewed the preparation of the technical data in this news release.
About Colorado
Colorado Resources Ltd. is currently engaged in the business of mineral exploration for the purpose of acquiring and advancing mineral properties located in British Columbia and Nevada.
Colorado's main BC exploration projects include the KSP property currently under option with Seabridge Gold Inc., the 100% owned Kingpin property and the 100% owned North ROK property. Additionally Colorado holds an option on the Green Springs Property (Nevada) from Ely Gold & Minerals Inc.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF COLORADO RESOURCES LTD.
Adam Travis, President and Chief Executive Officer
Cautionary Notes 1 - 2
1 Historical information contained in this release cannot be relied upon as the Company's QP, as defined under NI-43-101 has not prepared nor verified the historical information and are treated as historical exploration information
2 This news release contains information about adjacent properties on which Colorado has no right to explore or mine. Readers are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on the Company's properties.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this news release, constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is based on plans, expectations and estimates of management at the date the information is provided and is subject to certain factors and assumptions, including: that the Company's financial condition and development plans do not change as a result of unforeseen events, that the Company obtains required regulatory approvals, that the Company continues to maintain a good relationship with the local project communities. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause the forward-looking information in this news release to change or to be inaccurate include, but are not limited to, the risk that any of the assumptions referred to prove not to be valid or reliable, which could result in delays, or cessation in planned work, that the Company's financial condition and development plans change, delays in regulatory approval, risks associated with the interpretation of data, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits, the possibility that results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, as well as the other risks and uncertainties applicable to mineral exploration and development activities and to the Company as set forth in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis reports filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader should not place any undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information or statements, other than as required by applicable law.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb. 13, 2017) -
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Melior Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MLR) ("Melior" or the "Company") announced that, subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, Rishi Tibriwal has been appointed to the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board") as an independent director effective immediately. Mr. Tibriwal has also been named Chairman of the Corporation's Audit Committee as well as a member of the Corporation's Nomination and Compensation Committee.
Based in Toronto, Mr. Tibriwal brings more than 20 years of accounting and finance experience as well as broad experience in the resources sector. Mr. Tibriwal is a chartered accountant and earned an MBA in Finance from Newport University. Mr. Tibriwal is also a graduate from Mumbai University and spent 10 years at Ernst & Young, with the last four years as a partner before setting up his own financial consulting services group. Mr. Tibriwal was also formerly the chief financial officer of Carpathian Gold Inc. and Gravitas Financial Inc.
"I am delighted that Rishi has accepted our offer to join the Board and have no doubt his specific capability and thinking will enhance the Board's operation," said Charles Entrekin, Melior's Chairman.
In addition, after having been suspended for over 12 months, Melior announced that the remuneration of its non-executive directors will recommence. Mr. Tibriwal's remuneration package includes a director's fee of CDN$22.5k per annum (including committee fees), along with the allocation of 1.25 million options. Martyn Buttenshaw's remuneration will be the same as that described above for Mr. Tibriwal, adjusted for committee fees, and Charles Entrekin, as Chairman of the Board, will receive CDN$25k per annum and will be allocated 2 million options on the same terms and conditions.
Melior also announced the issue of options to employees under the currently approved Employee Stock Option Plan. Melior's CEO, Mr. Mark McCauley, has been issued 5 million options and Melior's CFO, Jonathon Mattiske, has been issued 2 million options.
All options described in this announcement will be issued under Melior's existing Employee Stock Option Plan and have a strike price of CDN$0.06/share and a term of 3 years. One third of the options can be exercised after 6 months of issuance, one third after 18 months of issuance, and one third after 30 months of issuance. These packages are intended to remain fixed for a period of three years, unless the Board deems there to be a sufficient change in scope of the role to warrant an adjustment. These packages have been structured to closely align the CEO and the CFO with the Board and with shareholders, and provides a material upside to the executives in the event of a successful share price appreciation.
About Melior
Melior is the owner and operator of the Goondicum mine, a past-producing ilmenite and apatite mine strategically located in Queensland Australia. Further details on Melior and the Goondicum mine can be found at www.meliorresources.com and regulatory filings are available on SEDAR.
Melior is incorporated under the provisions of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) and has a registered office in Toronto, Ontario. Melior is classified as a Tier 1 Mining Issuer under the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange.
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.
Forward Looking Statements Disclaimer
Certain information contained in this news release constitutes forward looking information under the provisions of Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "projects", "potential", "believes" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "should", "might" or "will" be taken, "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotation. Information provided in this document is necessarily summarized and may not contain all available material information. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and Melior assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, unless otherwise required by law.
HENDERSON, NV--(Marketwired - February 13, 2017) - Firma Holdings Corp. (OTC PINK: FRMA), through its subsidiary Gracepoint Mining Corp, is pleased to announce, regarding its Durango Smelter Project, which is joint ventured with MX Gold Corp. (TSX VENTURE: MXL) (FRANKFURT: ODV) (OTCQX: MXLGF), the company has now completed the purchase of a 100% interest in INVERSIONES DURANGO SAN LUIS, S.A. C.V., which is located in Durango, Durango, Mexico.
The acquisition includes a fully permitted smelter that was completed in 2014 for a throughput capacity of 50 tonnes per day (TPD). The smelter was built to receive and process high-grade direct ship ores and concentrates from small-scale miners across the state of Durango and beyond. The concept was birthed by the vision of Rosa Isela De La Rocha, a state Senator for Durango. Using a central location to safely and more efficiently process daily production, the community of local miners could enhance economics and quality of life. By eliminating the need for each miner to process, or otherwise dispose of, their individual ore production, the miners are able to spend more time producing and also receive a higher return from their production.
Mrs. Rosa Isela De La Rocha, Durango State Senator, stated; "It is my passion and my continued desire to complete the work I began in 2010, that was designed to help the mining community of Durango. I am very pleased to have found a community friendly company that understands my vision and is willing to help bring this project to a completion."
Mr. Francis Biscan Jr., President of Firma Holdings Corp., stated, "We are very fortunate to have secured a project that can provide a significant source of near term revenue for our company and simultaneously help the small scale mining community of Durango."
During Gracepoint's pre-purchase due diligence time, it has been confirmed that sufficient high-grade ore supply could be secured in adequate quantities to meet and substantially exceed the current throughput capacity of the smelter.
Furthermore, a project plan has been developed and work has begun on several fronts: contact has been made with several mining groups to evaluate the supply potential from each group, including estimated average grades of what they have been producing, and purchase parameters; an analysis of the permitted flow sheet by a reputable metallurgist that has significant experience with smelter recoveries, will be commissioned to confirm the previous expectations or recommend any modifications to enhance economics.
Additionally, at the plant site, various efforts have been initiated, including; recalibrating the truck scale, rebuilding the metallurgical lab; setting up the crushing circuit; overall cleanup of the site; and the hiring of critical personnel. Gracepoint believes the mining sector is looking for low cost production over exploration alone. As with Magistral, the ability for a project to be in production within a relatively short time frame due to an existing permit is paramount to the projects merits. Cash flow will enable us to non-dilutively advance our other significant, undeveloped projects, such as our 7,000-hectare Picacho project, and/or re-commission the existing floatation plant at our 10,000-hectare Don Roman project.
About Firma Holdings Corp. (http://www.FirmaHoldings.com)
Firma currently holds active subsidiaries in mining and technology.
GRACEPOINT MINING CORP: Firma Holdings currently owns four mining projects that encompass over 48,000 acres in Mexico. The owned Don Roman district has 70+ distinct structures identified within 8 km diameter of a 100% owned centralized processing mill. The 100% owned Picacho group has 9 gold-bearing veins over 4 mineralized target areas with an aggregate vein strike length of over 10.8 km. The Durango Smelter Project. The Magistral project includes the exclusive rights to process approximately 1.2 million tonnes of mineralized mill tailings, grading an average of 2.06 gold per tonne (79,000 ounces of gold), and is in close proximity to the 100% owned 500 TPD Dynamic Cyanide counter current system plant.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Feb 13, 2017) - Aurcana Corp. (TSX VENTURE:AUN) ("Aurcana" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it will undertake a non-brokered private placement of up to 10,000,000 units (each, a "Unit") at a price of $0.30CDN per Unit, for gross proceeds of up to $3,000,000CDN (the "Offering"). Each Unit will consist of one common share in the capital of the Company (each a "Share") and one transferable common share purchase warrant (each a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one additional Share at an exercise price of $0.45CDN per Share for a term of three years from the closing date of the Offering. A finder's fee or commission may be paid on part of the Offering.
The net proceeds from the Offering will be used by Aurcana for the exploration and development of the Shafter Silver Project in Texas and for general working capital purposes.
All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a hold period expiring four months and one day following the closing of the Offering.
This proposed Offering is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.
ABOUT AURCANA CORPORATION
Aurcana Corp. owns the Shafter Silver Project in Texas, U.S.A. The Shafter Silver Project was put on care and maintenance in December of 2014, in part due to depressed silver prices.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF AURCANA CORPORTION
Kevin Drover, President & CEO
For further information, visit the website at www.aurcana.com.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statement Cautions:
This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, relating to, among other things, the Company's plan to undertake the Offering and the proposed use of proceeds. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include, the risk that the Company will not be able to secure sufficient subscriptions from investors to complete the proposed Offering, possible, accidents and other risks associated with mineral exploration operations, the risk that the Company will encounter unanticipated geological factors, the possibility that the Company may not be able to secure permitting and other governmental clearances necessary to carry out the Company's exploration plans, the risk that the Company will not be able to raise sufficient funds to carry out its business plans, and the risk of political uncertainties and regulatory or legal changes that might interfere with the Company's business and prospects. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects.
Toronto, Ontario (FSCwire) - Stans Energy Corp. (TSX-V: HRE, OTC: HREEF), ("Stans" or the "Company") announces amended closing terms to its previously announced non-brokered private placement financing (See Press Release dated January 10, 2017).
The Proposed Offering of Common Shares
The private placement of $300,000 (the Offering Amount) consisting of up to 6,000,000 units at a price of $0.05 per Unit. Each Unit will consist of one common share in the capital of the Company and one share purchase warrant (each whole warrant a Warrant). Each Warrant will be exercisable to acquire one additional common share of the Company for a period of 60 months at a price of $0.06 per common share.
Stans intends to use the gross proceeds from the Offering to complete the funding of the Companys due diligence on the Pervomayskiy Lithium Mineralization Stockpile and Zaibaikalsky Mill. Proceeds will not be used to pay management fees, nor is it proposed to make payments to any related parties.
The Offering is open to all accredited investors and financial institutions, subject to certain limitations. Any existing shareholder interested in participating in the Offering should contact the Company in accordance with the contact information set forth below. The Company may pay registrants a cash commission of 5% of the gross proceeds of this Offering in respect of investors solicited or introduced by such registrants. Registrants will also be entitled to receive warrants to purchase that number of common shares of the Company as equals 5% of the total offering subscribed by investors solicited or introduced by such registrants, at an exercise price of $0.06 per share, for a term of 60 months.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Closing of the Offering will be subject to certain closing conditions, including the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.
About Stans Energy
Stans Energy Corp. is a resource development company focused on advancing rare and specialty metals properties and processing technologies Stans is now transitioning into a supplier of materials and technologies that will assist in satisfying the future energy supply, storage and transmission needs of the world. Previously, the Company acquired, among other things, the right to mine the past producing rare earth mine, Kutessay II, in the Kyrgyz Republic Due to the expropriation actions taken by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Company is undertaking international arbitration litigation to protect the Companys rights and recover damages estimated at over US$210,000,000, caused by the Republic.
We seek safe harbour.
Contact Details
Rodney Irwin David Vinokurov Stans Energy Corp. Stan Energy Corp Interim President & CEO VP Corporate Development rodney@stansenergy.com david@stansenergy.com 647-426-1865 647-426-1865
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This document includes forward-looking statements as well as historical information. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, use of proceeds from the Offering, the completion of the Offering, the continued advancement of the company's general business development, research development and the company's development of mineral exploration projects. When used in this press release, the words will, shall, "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "intent", "may", "project", "plan", "should" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements. Although Stans Energy Corp. believes that their expectations reflected in these forward looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties and no assurance can be given that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statement. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements include the potential that fluctuations in the marketplace for the sale of minerals, the inability to implement corporate strategies, the ability to obtain financing and other risks disclosed in our filings made with Canadian Securities Regulators.
To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/Stans02132017.pdfSource: Stans Energy Corp. (TSX Venture:HRE, OTCQB:HREEF)
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Copyright 2017 Filing Services Canada Inc.
VAL-D'OR, QC, Feb. 13, 2017 /CNW/ - Orbit Garant Drilling Inc. (TSX: OGD) ("Orbit Garant" or the "Company") today announced its financial results for the three and six-month periods ended December 31, 2016. All dollar amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. Percentage calculations are based on numbers in the financial statements and may not correspond to rounded figures presented in this news release.
Summary
($ amounts in millions,
except per share amounts) Three months
ended
Dec. 31, 2016 Three months
ended
Dec. 31, 2015 Six months
ended
Dec. 31, 2016 Six months
ended
Dec. 31, 2015 Revenue $27.4 $21.7 $57.9 $46.0 Gross Profit (loss) $1.5 $1.3 $4.4 $4.6 Gross Margin (%) 5.5 5.7 7.6 10.0 Adjusted Gross Margin (%) 13.6 15.5 15.8 19.0 EBITDA2 $0.0 $0.3 $2.4 $2.9 Net earnings (loss) $(1.9) $(1.8) $(2.1) $(2.0) Net earnings (loss) per share - Basic and diluted $(0.05) $(0.05) $(0.06) $(0.06) Total metres drilled 285,583 244,664 603,965 504,126
In accordance with IFRS, reported gross profit and margin include certain depreciation expenses. For comparative purposes, adjusted gross margin is also shown excluding these depreciation expenses.
2 EBITDA is defined as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
"Our continued growth in revenue and metres drilled reflects the growing demand we are experiencing for our drilling services both in Canada and internationally, particularly in Chile. Our margins and profitability continue to reflect lower pricing on existing contracts in Canada and higher mobilization and start-up costs as we ramp up our operations to meet increased demand. With drill utilization rates now improving, we expect to see a positive impact from pricing improvements on newer contracts in the second half of fiscal 2017," said Eric Alexandre, President and CEO of Orbit Garant.
"We are encouraged by the recent positive signs in the mining industry. Gold and base metals prices are up from a year ago and a greater number of mining companies, including junior exploration and intermediate companies, were able to raise capital in 2016, positioning them to increase their exploration and development programs in 2017," continued Mr. Alexandre. "Looking ahead, we believe that these developments could continue to have a positive impact on our operations in Canada and abroad. With our sound balance sheet, expanded international market presence, our focus on technological innovation and a comprehensive service offering, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on industry growth opportunities."
Second Quarter Results
For the three months ended December 31, 2016 ("Q2 FY2017") revenue totaled $27.4 million, an increase of 26.3% from the three-month period ended December 31, 2015 ("Q2 FY2016"). Drilling Canada revenue was $20.0 million, down slightly from $20.2 million in Q2 FY2016, as the increase in metres drilled in the quarter was offset by lower pricing on existing contracts in Canada. International revenue was $7.4 million, up from $1.5 million in Q2 FY2016, resulting from continued revenue growth in Chile due to the Company's acquisition of Chile-based Captagua Ingenieria S.A. ("OG Chile") late in the second quarter last year, and to a lesser extent, new project revenues in Ghana and Kazakhstan.
Orbit Garant's fleet drilled a total of 285,583 metres in Q2 FY2017, a 16.7% increase from Q2 FY2016. Consolidated average revenue per metre drilled was $95.81, up from $84.70 in Q2 FY2016. The increase in consolidated average revenue per metre drilled is attributable to an increase in international drilling activity, including a high proportion of higher margin specialized drilling activity in Chile.
Gross profit for Q2 FY2017 increased to $1.5 million, from $1.3 million in Q2 FY2016. Adjusted gross margin, excluding depreciation expenses of $2.2 million, was 13.6% in Q2 FY2017, compared to 15.5% in Q2 FY2016. The decrease in adjusted gross margin was primarily attributable to lower pricing on existing contracts in Canada, and higher project mobilization and start-up costs.
General and administrative (G&A) expenses were $4.0 million (14.5% of revenue) in Q2 FY2017, compared to $3.5 million (16.2% of revenue) in Q2 FY2016. Increased G&A expenses are primarily attributable to the expansion of Chilean operations and other international operations. Decreased G&A expenses as a percentage of revenue reflect the Company's financial discipline in growing its business.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA")1 was nominal in Q2 FY2017, compared to $0.3 million in Q2 FY2016.
The Company's net loss for Q2 FY2017 was $1.9 million, or $0.05 per share, compared to a net loss of $1.8 million, or $0.05 per share, in Q2 FY2016.
During Q2 FY2017, the Company generated $2.9 million from financing activities, compared to $2.0 million in Q2 FY2016. The Company repaid a net amount of $0.4 million on its secured, three-year revolving credit facility (the "Credit Facility") with National Bank of Canada Inc. (the "Lender") as at December 31, 2016, compared to a draw of $2.0 million in Q2 FY2016. As at December 31, 2016, the Company had $8.7 million drawn under the Credit Facility, compared to $7.4 million as at June 30, 2016, with the full amount re-classified from long-term debt to current debt, as the Credit Facility matures on December 19, 2017. Accordingly, working capital declined to $36.4 million from $42.9 million as at June 30, 2016. The Company is currently in discussions with the Lender to renew and extend the Credit Facility, at which point the debt would again be classified as long-term. In December 2016, the Company entered into a credit facility with Export Development Canada in the amount of $2.5 million. The purpose of the loan was to assist in financing capital expenditure requirements for the Company's international operations. As at December 31, 2016, there were 35,101,419 common shares of Orbit Garant issued and outstanding.
Orbit Garant's unaudited consolidated financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for the three and six-month periods ended December 31, 2016 are available via the Company's website at www.orbitgarant.com or SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
Conference call
Eric Alexandre, President and CEO, and Alain Laplante, Vice President and CFO, will host a conference call for analysts and investors on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. (ET). The dial-in numbers for the conference call are 647-427-7450 or 1-888-231-8191. A live webcast of the call will be available on Orbit Garant's website at: http://www.orbitgarant.com/en/sites/fog/investors.aspx. The webcast will be archived following conclusion of the call.
To access a replay of the conference call dial 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056, passcode: 62198808. The replay will be available until February 21, 2017.
About Orbit Garant
Headquartered in Val-d'Or, Quebec, Orbit Garant is one of the largest Canadian-based mineral drilling companies, providing both underground and surface drilling services in Canada and internationally through its 221 drill rigs and more than 900 employees. Orbit Garant provides services to major, intermediate and junior mining companies, through each stage of mining exploration, development and production. The Company also provides geotechnical drilling services to mining or mineral exploration companies, engineering and environmental consultant firms, and government agencies. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.orbitgarant.com.
(1) Management believes that EBITDA is a useful supplemental measure of operating performance before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. However, EBITDA is not a recognized earnings measure under IFRS and does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Investors are cautioned that EBITDA should not be construed as an alternative to net income or loss (which is determined in accordance with IFRS) as an indicator of the performance of the Company or as a measure of liquidity and cash flows. The Company's method of calculating EBITDA may differ materially from the methods used by other public companies and, accordingly, may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other public companies.
Forward-looking information
This news release may contain forward-looking statements (within the meaning of applicable securities laws) relating to business of Orbit Garant Drilling Inc. (the "Company") and the environment in which it operates. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "plan", "will", "may" and other similar expressions. These statements are based on the Company's expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. They are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the Company's regulatory filings available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Readers, therefore, should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Further, a forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any such statement or to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances.
SOURCE Orbit Garant Drilling Inc.
Health Insurance Markets Are Local
Consolidation Kills Competition
More Sick People Signed Up Than Expected
Some Consumers May Be Gaming The System
Narrow Networks Appear To Be The New Normal
The Sky May Be Falling, But Many Carriers Are Nevertheless Doing Well
Medicaid Managed Care Plans Come Out Winners
California Leads The Pack
Ask anyone about their health care and you are likely to hear about ailments, doctors, maybe costs and insurance hassles. Most people dont go straight from my health to a political debate, and yet that is what our country has been embroiled in for almost a decade.A study out Thursday tries to set aside the politics to examine how the insurance markets function and what makes or breaks them in five specific states.Researchers from The Brookings Institution were exploring a basic idea: If the goal is to replace or repair the Affordable Care Act, then it would be good to know what worked and what failed.The political process at the moment is not generating a conversation about how do we create a better replacement for the Affordable Care Act, said Alice Rivlin, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, who spearheaded the project. Its a really hard problem and people with different points of view about it have got to sit down together and say, How do we make it work?'The researchers focused on California, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas, interviewing state regulators, health providers, insurers, consumer organizations, brokers and others to understand why insurance companies chose to enter or leave markets, how state regulations affected decision making and how insurers built provider networks.Both parties miss what makes insurance exchanges successful, said Micah Weinberg, president of Bay Area Council Economic Institute who led the California research team. And it doesnt have anything to do with red and blue states and it doesnt have anything to do with total government control or free markets.Despite the political diversity of the five states, some common lessons emerged. Among them:Insurer competition varied widely within states, with the most dramatic differences between urban and rural areas. The more populated regions tended to have more insurance competition and better-priced plans than rural areas.Fewer people live in rural areas, which means there are fewer hospitals, doctors and other health professionals. As a result, insurance companies that do business in those regions have less power to negotiate prices with local providers, who are more likely to be the only game in town.Insurance companies dont make money [in many rural areas] because they cant cut a deal with the providers that will be attractive to the customers, Rivlin said. And there just arent very many customers, so its not obvious what to do about that.Republicans, including the Trump administration, have suggested the sale of insurance policies across state lines as one way to boost competition.But that may be easier said than done, Rivlin said.The insurance companies would still have to have local providers, she said. So a company in New York cant easily sell in Wyoming unless it has providers lined up in Wyoming.Consolidation includes hospitals buying physician practices and large medical centers buying up smaller hospitals. California offers a prime example of this phenomenon. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where consolidation has reduced competition among hospitals and physician groups, consumers have fewer choices and higher premiums than those in Los Angeles, where consolidation hasnt yet gobbled up so many providers.Insurance companies did not have any idea who would buy policies through the exchanges in the early years. And as it turned out, a lot of those previously-uninsured sick people more than insurers and policymakers had expected raced to get coverage.As a result, researchers found, many plans incurred losses, with some companies reporting claims that were 50 to 100 percent greater than the premiums they collected. Making matters worse, a mechanism in the health law to reimburse companies for such losses in the early years proved inadequate. That caused a lot of them leave the marketplaces.Under Obamacare, insurance companies could no longer deny coverage or charge higher rates to those with preexisting medical conditions. And during the first two years of the exchanges, insurers simply didnt know how to price their policies because theyd rarely dealt with people who hadnt been insured before, the researchers found.In Michigan, six of 16 insurers withdrew. And in regions of Texas and North Carolina, which had between five and nine insurers, only three remained.Three of the states Florida, North Carolina and Texas reported that generous special enrollment rules allowed many consumers to delay enrollment into a plan until they needed health care. And in Michigan and North Carolina, researchers found that some people signed up for a policy, used it, then dumped it when they had received the care they needed. That ends up leaving insurers stuck with more of the tab than theyd anticipated.The challenge is some of the rules that were set up around the ACA made it easy to game the system, frankly, said Lanhee Chen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, who was not involved in the study.Along with tightening the rules around special enrollment periods, Chen said hed like to see a return to high-risk pools for the sickest Americans. The idea being that removing the most costly consumers from the general risk pool will allow carriers to lower premiums for everyone else. But high-risk pools, which a majority of states operated before the ACA, are hugely expensive and dont always work as intended, Rivlin said.The states have had quite a lot of experience with high-risk pools and it has not been encouraging, she said.A more workable solution, she said, might be found by making sure a strong reinsurance mechanism provides payments to insurers that take on more costly customers.By the third year of the exchanges, insurers in all five states have opted to offer more narrow networks on the exchange than the plans that give access to more doctors and hospitals. These smaller networks of providers allow insurers to give more patients to participating providers in exchange for lower prices. Its a trend that started before the Affordable Care Act became law and one that appears to be taking hold in nearly every market as insurers search for ways to keep premiums down.Indeed, one lesser-known chapter in the Obamacare story involves those carriers that are making enough of a profit to reduce 2017 premiums.About half the insurers are making a ton of money on [the exchanges] and thats how markets work, Weinberg said. The idea that there should be winners and losers in a particular marketplace is something that Republicans should certainly feel comfortable with.Researchers found that regional insurers that originally went into business to care for those with Medicaid the health insurance for the poor and disabled are filling gaps after insurers fled in many markets. Molina Health in California, WellCare in Florida, Community Health Choice in Texas, appear to have thrived in the ACA marketplace environment, the study said.Rivlin said the success of these plans is likely due to their experience caring for a low-income, often very sick population. They already had well-established networks of local providers that allow them to provide care at a lower cost. As 2017 premiums skyrocketed, consumers became more willing to enroll in these more affordable, lesser-known plans.In the Golden State, which fully embraced all things Affordable Care Act, competition remained stable with 11 insurers offering coverage and only one UnitedHealth dropped out completely. And 2017s average premium increases, while about 13 percent, were about half of the national average.Part of Californias success, Weinberg said, is due to its hands-on approach in deciding which insurers may join the market. And it got involved in negotiating the price of plans, which helped keep a lid on premiums, compared to other states.
This week, New Hampshire could become the first state in the Northeast to pass a right-to-work law. But even its supporters aren't betting that it will happen."If we're successful, it will be with a handful of votes," said Dave Juvet, senior vice president of the Business & Industry Association of New Hampshire, which supports the legislation. "There's significant opposition from Democrats in the House but also a significant number of Republicans I would characterize as pro-labor or pro-union."The state Senate narrowly passed a right-to-work bill last month, but the state House Labor Committee voted to reject it last week. Nevertheless, a vote of the full House is scheduled for Thursday. Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican elected in November, supports the legislation.In right-to-work states, employees don't have to pay union dues, even if their workplace is represented by unions. There are now 28 states with right-to-work laws on the books, the most recent being enacted in Missouri last week and Kentucky last month.If right-to-work fails in New Hampshire, it will be a rare setback. The issue was essentially moribund for half a century, but six states have passed right-to-work laws over the past five years."Twenty-five years ago, right-to-work was not a marquee issue, but support has been steadily growing," said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee. "The battle over public-sector unionization in Wisconsin helped set the table for this."In 2011, Gov. Scott Walker and other Wisconsin Republicans pushed through a law that stripped collective bargaining rights from most government workers. Union membership in the state, which represented 14 percent of workers in 2011, had plummetted to 8 percent in 2015.Right-to-work has become almost a foregone conclusion when the GOP takes full control over the political branches of a state government. A national bill has been introduced in Congress, where Republicans hold the majorities, but Democrats would be certain to filibuster if it reaches the Senate floor."Republicans know it's in their interest to weaken the biggest institution that supports Democrats," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the pro-union Economic Policy Institute.Right-to-work laws hurt unions by creating a "free rider" problem. Workers can reap the rewards of unionization, including wages and benefits set by collective bargaining agreements, without having to pay dues.Where right-to-work laws exist, union membership is generally lower . In Michigan, for example, 14.4 percent of the workforce belongs to a union -- down from about 20 percent at the start of the decade. The state passed a right-to-work law in 2013.Of course, union membership had already been in decline, partially due to globalization moving many union jobs overseas. In 1960, close to 50 percent of Michigan's workforce belonged to a union.But, said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University, "right-to-work laws result in a further loss of members, and because union dues are the primary source of union revenue, the decline continues and unions cannot afford to organize new members."Union membership isn't dropping in every right-to-work state, though. Mix, the National Right to Work Committee president, pointed out that it increased last year in five right-to-work states.Right-to-work supporters also argue that this approach aids the economy. Juvet said that many companies won't locate in a state that doesn't have a right-to-work law. But, in fact, economic growth in states without right-to-work laws often outpaces growth in states that have them."They made people believe that all of these jobs were going to rush into West Virginia when it passed," said state Rep. Mike Caputo, a longtime union organizer. "That certainly hasn't happened."Maybe one reason it hasn't happened is that the law there has yet to take effect. The law has been blocked since its passage last year, due to a pending court challenge.Unions are also hoping to block the right-to-work in Missouri. They have begun collecting signatures for a veto referendum that would be put before voters next year. If they can gather roughly 140,000 signatures by the end of August, the law would be put on hold until voters have their say.But unions everywhere know they're fighting an uphill battle.Last week, an attorney in California filed a lawsuit against the SEIU on behalf of government workers who don't want to pay dues that go toward political activities. This signals that union foes will continue pressing their case in court.The issue has already reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which deadlocked , 4-4, in a case last year that would have stripped public employee unions of their ability to demand fees from nonunion members. But the result could be different in a similar case before a full, conservative-leaning court.
Gov. Chris Christie signed into law on Friday a measure that for the first time establishes statewide regulations for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft.The law sets standards for insurance coverage, permitting and criminal background checks for the companies and their drivers. It is the result of months of sometimes strained negotiations between lawmakers and lobbyists.This legislation makes it easier for this innovative business model to conduct business in our state, creating earning opportunities for our residents and providing transportation services that are already in high demand, Christie said in a signing statement.Ride-hailing companies have been operating in New Jersey for years Uber said it has logged millions of rides and signed up more than 13,000 drivers since launching in the state in 2013 but until now, state regulations have lagged. A spokesman for Uber said New Jersey is the 36th state to enact a statewide ride-sharing law.
Description
GIS 13 February 2017: The Princess Camilla of Bourbon Charitable Foundation which will offer its support to any charitable, technical or educational cause, with a focus on the protection of the environment and promoting scientific development, has been set up in Ebene. The Princess Camilla of Bourbon Charitable Foundation which will offer its support to any charitable, technical or educational cause, with a focus on the protection of the environment and promoting scientific development, has been set up in Ebene.
The announcement was made by Princess Camilla of Bourbon Two Sicilies, and the Minister of Social Security and Reform Institutions and Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr Etienne Sinatambou at a joint press conference on 10 February 2017 in Port Louis.
According to Princess Camilla, Mauritius has been chosen due to its strategic location which provides access to the African, Middle East, South Asian and East Asian regions and this will allow the Foundation to extend its outreach and achieve the highest impact in the accomplishment of its purpose.
The intent is to create an immediate and incisive impact, she stated, adding that the seriousness of the intent is clearly demonstrated by the strong State support which was requested and which has been received to facilitate the ongoing activities of the Foundation.
In addition to the several environmental and sustainable development projects, the Foundation is already working on with the collaboration of the Government, Princess Camilla underlined that as the sitting President of Les Amis du Centre Scienfique de Monaco, she wishes to promote another area, that is the culture of science and technical know-how amongst the new generation.
In this context, the Foundation will work closely with the Office of the President of the Republic to promote and sustain the Coalition for African Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship initiative, she added.
For his part, Minister Sinatambou underscored that it is very rare to get a foundation to assist a country with technical expertise as well as financially. He thanked Princess Camilla for having chosen Mauritius as the island will also serve as a platform to help other African countries.
Aquaculture, beach erosion and renewable energy are some pressing key challenges to which the Foundation could provide assistance, he stated.
Trust now outnumbers distrust for public clouds by more than 2-to-1.
49 percent of professionals slowed cloud adoption due to a lack of cybersecurity skills.
65 percent think shadow IT is interfering with keeping the cloud safe and secure.
52 percent indicate a malware infection can be tracked to a cloud application.
62 percent store sensitive customer information in the public cloud.
Attackers will look for the easiest targets, regardless of whether they are public, private or hybrid. Integrated or unified security solutions that provide visibility across all of the organizations services could be the best defense.
User credentials, especially for administrators, will be the most likely form of attack. Organizations need to ensure they are using authentication best practices, such as distinct passwords, multi-factor authentication and even biometrics where available.
Organizations need to evolve toward a risk management and mitigation approach to information security. They should consider adopting a cloud-first strategy to encourage adoption of cloud services to reduce costs and increase flexibility, and put security operations in a proactive position instead of a reactive one.
Cloud computing is the new normal for all of us. "Shared services" is here to stay. Learn more by reading and learning about what your federal, state and local counterparts are doing now.
Develop a cloud computing strategy for your government with meaningful deliverables and milestones. Figure out what can go into a "public cloud" and what needs to remain in your government's "private cloud." Or, more likely, will you implement a hybrid cloud? Federal Computer Week suggests that agencies should start with cloud-based email.
Build partnerships. We need help from the private sector companies, other governments and associations like NASCIO to help.
As the 2017 RSA Security Conference kicks off in San Francisco, Intel Security released the results of its second annual survey on cloud security practices. The report outlines the current state of cloud adoption, the primary concerns with private and public cloud services, security implications, and the evolving impact of shadow IT of the more than 2,000 IT professionals surveyed.The full report titledis available for download here . Here are some of the highlights:To discuss the report and the importance of current cloud computing trends, I spoke with Eric Trexler, who is the National Security and Civilian Programs director at Intel Security. Eric leads all non-DoD security program activities at Intel Security, and I found his passionate comments about the survey results to be both helpful and insightful about federal government.Here are a few of the top quotes from Eric during our 30-minute phone discussion:Cloud-first is catching on! Cloud adoption is accelerating rapidly! We are seeing both business areas and IT shops putting more and more data in the cloud.Boundaries are blurring between private, public and hybrid clouds. This means the same tools sets are being used to access data, encrypt data and manage data across diverse platforms and cloud infrastructures.Shadow IT is growing, and business professionals are not as aware as IT professionals of the risks that they are introducing into the enterprise by moving their data into the cloud.Ninety-three percent of organizations use cloud services in some form.I think security technologies such as data loss prevention, encryption and cloud access security brokers (CASBs) remain underutilized. Integrating these tools with an existing security system increases visibility, enables discovery of shadow services, and provides options for automatic protection of sensitive data at rest and in motion throughout any type of environment.The shortage is security staff is driving more cloud adoption. More and more gaps is cybersecurity disciplines means that the cloud will be a helpful solution in the long run. However, in the short term, this rapid move to the cloud is causing a greater need for security staff and security architectures as infrastructure usage evolves. This is making the immediate staffing shortage an even larger issue.It is significant that over 2,000 global IT professionals participated in these survey results. Research participants were senior technical decision-makers from small, medium and large organizations located all over the world. FedRAMP is helpful, but not enough. The rigor involved is helping improve the security capabilities of many government cloud offerings, but public and private sector teams still need to ensure that the right level of security is applied to different data sets after FedRAMP certification. The work does not end there. Security processes must be integrated in persistent ways. IT shops understand this, but many government business areas do not. We need to mandate the path to the cloud through the IT shops.Beyond Eric Trexlers comments, some other Intel Security report recommendations include:In 2010, when I was the Michigan chief technology officer (CTO), I asked the question: Cloud First Policy What Does It Really Mean? Here were three points for state and local government to consider at the time:Weve come a long way in almost seven years, and yet many cloud security challenges remain. I found this new Intel Security report to offer a very good status on the global state of cloud security in 2017.We reached a tipping point long ago on data moving to the cloud, with 93 percent of organizations using some type of cloud services.But now we are reaching new milestones with more sensitive data being moved into the cloud in the public and private sectors. Use this report to help build your cloud strategy for 2017-2020. The report data and recommendations will certainly help.
(TNS) - Fearing that the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam was on the verge of failure Sunday afternoon, authorities ordered the evacuation of more than 160,000 Northern California residents, sending panicked drivers streaming out of Oroville, Marysville and other communities as flood-control experts scrambled to prevent a catastrophe.State water officials ramped up water releases through the dams damaged main spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second from 55,000 cfs earlier Sunday, easing pressure on the emergency spillway and lending hope that the situation was not immediately as dire as feared.The erosion has slowed, and I think were going to be OK, state Department of Water Resources spokesman Chris Orrock said at 9 p.m.Six helicopters were dispatched to begin dumping containers of boulders on the area of erosion adjacent to the emergency spillway, and state emergency officials were huddling through the night to respond to the crisis.Just before 10 p.m., officials confirmed that the lake level had dropped low enough to stop water from flowing over the lip of the emergency spillway at 8:45 p.m.The flowing has stopped, Water Resources spokesman Doug Carlson said.Water had topped the emergency spillway for the first time in the dams 48-year history on Saturday, after dam operators cut back flows on the damaged main spillway. With massive storms over the Sierra and heavy snowpack, they were unable to release enough water through the main spillway to keep the reservoir from overtopping the untested emergency system.On Sunday, just over 24 hours after water started flowing over the emergency spillway, state officials warned the structure was at risk of failure.As residents fled along Highway 99 and streamed into gas stations and school parking lots to evacuate their families and pets, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said shortly after 6 p.m. that the situation appeared to be improving and that the erosion that caused all this concern was not advancing as rapidly as state water officials had feared.The hillside adjacent to the emergency spillway had eroded to within several feet of the huge concrete structure, said Kevin Dossey, a state Department of Water Resources engineer and spokesman, but officials hoped the fact that the water flow was stopped late Sunday would allow greater inspection and work to shore up the eroded area.Area law enforcement and emergency officials rushed to help, with 67 Sacramento sheriffs deputies dispatched to the Oroville area, a helicopter from Sacramento Metro Fire and CHP helicopters.Sundays evacuations came after several days of state officials saying the dam itself was not in danger and that there was no serious threat to nearby communities.Authorities continued to maintain Sunday night that the dam itself was safe. But their assessment of danger to downstream communities from the spillways damage changed dramatically Sunday at 4:42 p.m., when DWR issued this tweet: EMERGENCY EVACUATION: Auxiliary spillway at Oroville Dam predicted to fail within the next hour. Oroville residents evacuate northward.Its uncontrolled, its uncontrolled, DWR spokesman Orrock said when asked how much water could be released if the spillway failed.Within hours, the evacuation area expanded through Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties, including the communities of Hallwood, Marysville, Olivehurst/Linda, Plumas Lake, Gridley, Live Oak and Yuba City. Law enforcement officials directed residents to leave, and automated emergency calls notified some that they needed to get out, as did Facebook and other social media posts.They were just going down the street telling everybody to leave, said Kenny Thomas, a 43-year-old Gridley resident. They were running up and down the streets.This (is) NOT A Drill. This (is) NOT A Drill. This (is) NOT A Drill, Butte County sheriffs officials warned in a Facebook post.They have what they expect to be an imminent failure of the auxiliary spillway, said Mike Smith, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. What theyre expecting is as much as 30 vertical feet of the top of the spillway could fail and could fail within one to two hours. We dont know how much water that means, but we do know thats potentially 30 feet of depth of Lake Oroville.Residents some panicked and others who said they were nonchalant about the risk of flooding in an area that has seen serious flood damage in past years streamed out onto Highway 99 and into gas stations and motels along the roadway near Sacramento International Airport.The Homewood Suites by Hilton started getting calls around 6 p.m., said front desk agent Gao Hang. Twenty reservations were made within the hour in back-to-back phone calls.They didnt care about the price at all because they just need a place to go, she said. Its not just us.Two neighboring hotels were filling up as well, she said.Evacuation centers were set up at areas throughout the region, including at Sutter Union High School in Sutter, where hundreds of people gathered in the parking lot waiting for a center to open where as many as 8,000 people were expected.This is the highest public ground in Sutter County, so we called in staff, said Superintendent and Principal Ryan Robison. Were talking to people, keeping them calm.Patrick Dustin, a 35-year-old Live Oak resident, got to the school with his family around 5 p.m., with a camper they already had packed with oatmeal, cookies, rice and beans and other essentials.Dustin said that when he heard the evacuation alert for other communities, he knew it was time to move out.When they said Gridley, that means us, too, he said. Weve been preparing the last couple days.Authorities emphasized there was no immediate threat to the Sacramento region, where high water along the American River has closed area parks and lured thousands of sightseers out onto levees to gape at huge waves of water.Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Sunday night that there is no imminent threat to the city if the Oroville Dam emergency spillway fails.Steinberg said that he and City Manager Howard Chan had spoken to state Department of Water Resources officials about the situation and will meet Monday with them for an update.The mayor said the city has emergency plans for flooding that could be initiated if the threat escalates, but he didnt currently see a need to deploy those measures.Steinberg spokeswoman Kelly Rivas said the citys Office of Emergency Services expected that any water released in a spillway failure could be diverted from the city via the Sacramento Weir and the Fremont Weir in the Yolo Bypass.The flood system as a whole is capable of absorbing that level of water, Rivas said.Chan said the earliest that Oroville flood waters would reach the Sacramento area would be 12 hours after a spillway failure.Yolo County officials echoed the notion that its communities were safe from flooding.There remains no imminent threat to our city from the Oroville Dam situation, and we are not contemplating any evacuation order, West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said. The expanse between us and the dam is broad and flat, enough to dissipate floodwaters in nearly all failure scenarios.Dale Kasler: 916-321-1066, @dakasler2017 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)Visit The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) at www.sacbee.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS) - Two mass murders in Florida in less than a years time.And there was at least one common element involving the men who are said to have pulled the triggers: the shooter at the Orlando nightclub Pulse last spring and the alleged shooter at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Jan. 7 were employed as security guards.Incredulous for some, given that armed security guards are usually subject to state licensing, drug testing, and even psychological testing. But while security companies defend their screening processes as stringent, they also complain they cant access enough background information from federal authorities. Some are implementing more frequent background checks and increasing their monitoring of security guards on the job.Weve heard from clients that we want to avoid similar incidents, said John Friedlander, senior director with Krolls Security Risk Management in North America, which consults for security companies and lends training support. As a result, some companies are conducting more frequent criminal background checks, which are usually undertaken before a candidate individual is hired, and beefing up the monitoring of security officers.We often encourage greater field supervision, Friedlander said.But most industry leaders point toward the FBI, saying federal law enforcement and security agencies should share more criminal background and watch-list information with private security employers. The FBI didnt respond to a request for comment.Friedlander said the demand for more routine criminal background checks, perhaps annually or semi-annually, is limited to large, prominent customers such as religious institutions or schools. Thats because additional background checks add to the cost of hiring security.For the most part, screening including criminal background checks and drug panels, are only done before a candidate is hired, Friedlander said.Floridas Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs said the screening process for a G license for an armed security guard has not been changed since the Florida shootings.But the department is moving forward with new oversights, including fingerprint retention, a measure passed by the state Legislature in the last session, said Jennifer Meale, spokeswoman for the department. She said the department is working toward new legislation that would allow access to the Mental Competency Database for class G licenses for armed security guards and K licenses for instructors. The database identifies persons who are prohibited from purchasing a firearm based on court records that show mental defects or commitments to mental institutions.Steve Amitay, executive director and general counsel for the National Association of Security Companies in Washington, said his association has been pushing for more watch-list information from federal authorities to be shared with companies. He said some companies are stepping up internal monitoring.I think one of the major changes since Orlando are security companies really trying to better engage their supervisors and managers out in the field to be on the lookout for personality changes and odd behavior, Amitay said. Theyre providing training to the managers, recognizing indicators of destructive terrorist activity.But if security companies are taking such actions, theyre doing so quietly.G4S, a worldwide security company that employs 42,655 security guards including about 5,300 in Florida and 2,600 in South Florida, employed Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub. The company said it has not changed any of its own hiring or screening processes for security guards since the mass killing.We have strong controls and processes in place. G4Ss background investigations processes comply with federal, state and local law. In the United States, our background investigations meet or exceed the requirements of U.S. state agencies, said G4S spokeswoman Monica Lewman-Garcia. In Mateens case, his background investigations were clean and all processes and procedures were followed in accordance with policy.Mateen may have been licensed, but G4S was fined $151,400 by the state after the Pulse nightclub shooting because the killers license carried the wrong name of the psychologist. G4S called it an administrative error.In the more recent case of Esteban Santiago, the Iraq veteran who is charged with killing five people and wounding six others at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport, was employed by an Anchorage, Alaska, franchise that is part of Omaha-based Signal 88.An office assistant who answered a phone of company co-founder and CEO Reed Nyffelered in Omaha said the company isnt commenting on the tragedy. The Anchorage franchises co-owners Zachary Alsterberg and William Serra were out of the country, said manager Travis Steward. When asked about the franchises practices in screening and monitoring security guards, Steward said the company had no comment at this time.It is unclear whether Santiago was licensed by Alaska. The states Department of Public Safety earlier this month denied the Sun Sentinels public information request as Santiago is the subject of an FBI investigation and an active prosecution by the U.S. Attorney in South Florida. Santiago has entered not guilty pleas to 22 federal criminal counts in an indictment.In both cases of Mateen and Santiago, the FBI had either investigated or been aware of possible mental health issues.Mateen was investigated by the FBI twice, from May 2013 to March 2014, according to a report last year by the Orlando Sentinel. Then the agent and his supervisor concluded that Mateen was not a threat and closed the case.Santiago, 26, voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital for treatment in November after he went to the FBI office in Anchorage, and asked for help. At the time, he told agents that his mind was being controlled by the U.S. government, that he was experiencing terroristic thoughts and was being urged to watch terrorist propaganda online.Security company association head Amitay said he asked FBI director James Comey, who was a speaker at the associations annual conference last September in Orlando, why the agency didnt inform employer G4S that Mateen was on a terrorist watch list. G4S had employed Mateen as an armed security guard at the Indian River County courthouse until 2013, and later at a residential community in the Port St. Lucie area.Amitay said Comey cited privacy concerns.I dont think theres a clean answer, Comey said, according to an article in the Orlando Sentinel. He said the agency wouldnt want to damage an innocent persons livelihood, and would also not want to alert someone who is a bad guy.We have a legal obligation to protect personal information about people were investigating, the FBI director said.The Orlando meeting exposed the lack of communications between the FBI with private employers, Amitay said.Only the states have access to FBI checks; a private company does not, Amitay said. We want permission to say, Id like to know not only does my guy have a criminal record but is he on a terror watch list. You would think it would be more accessible but its not.If a company is hiring a security officer who is going to work in an armed position, it should know if hes on a terrorist watch-list or prohibited from owning a firearm.G4S said last year it initiated substantive discussions with federal law enforcement and was working with the national association on the issue.We support, at a minimum, a clearing house or intermediary approach to cooperating with law enforcement when current or potential employees are on a government watch list or under active investigation for potential terrorist activity, Lewman-Garcia said.Besides the FBI investigations, another tip-off to Mateens state of mind could have been his reports of alleged workplace harassment to his supervisor in late 2013. G4S said its legal and compliance department investigated the allegations.The investigation did not reveal any conduct by Mateen that disqualified him from continued employment, so we transferred him to another site, said Lewman-Garcia.She said G4S supervisors regularly interact with employees in the work environment to ensure that they are performing responsibly and acting appropriately and it encourages employees to report any concerns to the confidential Employee Concerns Hotline, which was in place when Mateen worked for the company. She said the company also receives also encourages and receives feedback from customers.Patricia Schmitt, president of the Florida Association of Security Companies, said while the Orlando shooting was tragic, she thinks G4S got a bad rap.I think (the attention) was unfair from what I know of their hiring practices. They would have never put anybody knowingly in harms way, she said. The fact that the shooter in Orlando was a security guard had nothing to do with G4S.It could have been any company, she said.The division of licensing does a really good job of screening people, Schmitt said. Unarmed security officers in Florida have to go through a 40-hour course and a criminal background check. To be an armed security guard, an individual needs 28 additional hours of training, part of which is on range to become proficient in handling a firearm.But Schmitt supports the state adding a fingerprint card system so that if a candidate has been arrested, it is brought to the attention of state licensing.Then they decide if theyre going to suspend your license based on the outcome of your case, she said. Florida Association of Security Companies 100 percent supports that.(This report was supplemented with previous Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel staff reports.)2017 Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Ukraine, Moldova to create joint commission to analyze ecological risks of HPPs on Dniester River
Ukraine and Moldova will create a joint commission to analyze ecological risks of building hydroelectric power plants on the Dniester River, Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip said at a briefing on Monday in Kyiv with Ukrainian PM Volodymyr Groysman.
"We agreed to great a joint commission, which will conduct an exhaustive study. We will also ask our partners in the European Union to help predict the effects and their impact on the ecosystem," Filip said.
The Moldovan PM said the Dniester is the source of drinking water for Chisinau, as well as for a number of Ukrainian cities, including Odesa.
Groysman, in turn, said the project could only be launched after the analysis.
"Of course, there must be a serious ecological study. Only after this can plans for construction be drawn up," Groysman said.
As earlier reported, Moldova has expressed concerns about building hydroelectric power plants on Dniester River.
The Public Joint-Stock Company Ukrhydroenergo in December 2016 announced a tender for preparations to draft the technical-economic basis for the construction of six hydroelectric power plants.
Ford has had a big impact on automobiles in the 20th century. And from its recent actions, it seems the automaker doesn't want to play a downgraded role in the 21st. On Feb. 10, Ford announced that it will invest $1 billion over the next five years into Argo AI, an artificial intelligence startup, to help structure its autonomous vehicle program, making the arms race to build and deploy autonomous vehicles even more interesting.The Argo AI team is headed by Brian Salesky who used to serve as program manager for Googles self-driving cars unit, and Peter Rander, previously an engineer for Uber. The team will combine with Fords current unit focusing on the companys virtual driver system, which as described in the press release as the machine learning software that acts as the brain of autonomous vehicles.The partnership is essentially Ford acknowledging that it has the resources and know-how to build vehicles at scale, but needs some assistance in the robotics. Ford has announced that they are looking to launch a level 4 autonomous vehicle for commercial markets by 2021 As Ford expands to be an auto and a mobility company, we believe that investing in Argo AI will create significant value for our shareholders by strengthening Fords leadership in bringing self-driving vehicles to market in the near term and by creating technology that could be licensed to others in the future, said Ford president and CEO Mark Fields in the release.The Argo AI team will rapidly expand its employee base, recruiting 200 team members to fill positions in Pittsburgh, Silicon Valley and Southeast Michigan. The team will operate with substantial independence and its employees will retain significant equity participation in the company: Ford will become the majority stakeholder.
(TNS) -- North Carolinas first wind farm has begun spinning, its developer said last week, despite recent efforts by legislative leaders to kill it.The Amazon Wind Farm U.S. East sprawls across 22,000 acres of farmland in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. Its 104 turbines are expected to generate enough energy to power 61,000 homes a year. The farm began delivering power in December but reached full operation this month, developer Avangrid Renewables said.Days before the start of operations, Republican legislative leaders appealed to the incoming Trump administration to block the farm, claiming turbines nearly 500 feet tall would interfere with military radar in Virginia. Ten legislators, including Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, signed the letter to President-elect Donald Trumps transition team, the Associated Press reportedThe lawmakers letter said the Pentagon signed off on the project because of a political correctness focus by President Obamas administration and its promotion of unscientific and nonsensical All of the Above energy sources (and renewable energy in particular) at essentially any cost.The Pentagon later said it disagreed that the wind farm poses a threat to national security, the Associated Press said. There has been no publicly known response from the Trump administration.It wasnt the first attack by conservative lawmakers on North Carolina wind energy.State Republican legislators have said they will continue to fight for a measure that failed in 2016 but would ban wind farms that might interfere with military airspace , which covers large swaths of the state.Avangrid touts the economic impact of the project: more than 500 workers employed at the peak of construction, $18 million spent locally and landowner rents and taxes worth $1.1. million a year. A permanent crew of 17 will operate the farm.Almost everyone in the community knows someone who worked on the wind farm, sold or rented something that helped build the wind farm, or owns land where the project was built, Cecil Perry, chairman of the Pasquotank County commissioners, said in a statement. These jobs, and this nearly $400 million investment in a rural part of North Carolina, are welcome everyone in the county will benefit from the long-term property tax payments.Energy from the farm will be delivered to an electrical grid that supplies data centers for Amazon Web Services, which aims to eventually get all its power from renewable energy.Apex Clean Energy plans a second farm in the same region but officials in Perquimans County denied a permit , saying the planned 599-foot-tall turbines which would be the nations tallest didnt fit the heavily timbered region and could hurt property values. Residents have complained that the structures will make noise, produce headache-inducing shadows and kill birds.Apex has appealed the decision but said it will go ahead with building 48 turbines in neighboring Chowan County, which has approved the project.
(TNS) -- NETTLETON, MIss. A new initiative in the Nettleton School District will use money saved through the use of energy-efficient equipment to meet the districts infrastructure needs.The initiative is part of a public-private partnership between Nettleton Schools and Schneider Electric, a global company specializing in energy management and automation.With the help of Schneider Electric, the district plans to upgrade its facilities with energy-efficient utilities, lighting and other improvements.Michael Cates, superintendent of Nettleton Schools, said savings from the project will help the district pay for the much-needed facility upgrades without increasing taxes.The district expects to recover $1.9 million in energy savings throughout the life of the project. The districts energy consumption will be reduced by 25 percent.According to Cates, outdated infrastructure, including HVAC equipment, interior and exterior lighting and the inability to centrally control systems, has presented challenges and safety concerns for district staff and students.Working with Schneider Electric will allow us to quickly make progress on some of our most pressing capital improvement needs at no cost to tax payers, Cates said. We are thrilled to kick off this project to improve energy efficiency across the district and create a safer, more comfortable learning environ-ment.Low-flow water fixtures will be installed throughout the district along with a smart irrigation system, which will improve water efficiency.Energy-efficient LED lighting will be installed to replace aging exterior and interior lighting, and IT power management software will also be installed district-wide.Several new HVAC units will be installed at the junior high and high school campuses. The district will also add a building automation system to centralize control and improve efficiency of the districts equipment.According to Schneider Electric, the project will have environmental impacts as well, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 249 tons, of the equivalent of removing 54 cars from the road.Cates said this project has been in the works for about two years. The process involved getting the green light from the Mississippi Development Authority and working with the agency to have all projects approved.We are very happy with what we got, Cates said.Preliminary work will begin mid-February, Cates said, with construction slated to begin around March 1.Schneider Electric and school district officials celebrated the projects official kick off at the districts central office on Feb. 2.
(TNS) -- The N.C. Technology Associations 2017 State of Technology report ranks North Carolina first in the United States for Information Technology employment growth and the percentage of women in the sectors workforce.The report compares tech job trends across the United States between 2010 and 2015, ranking North Carolina in the top-tier of key metrics like IT occupations, infrastructure and educational opportunities.Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on Information Technology, released a statement:North Carolina ranking No. 1 for IT employment growth is no fluke we are attracting innovators and technology companies thanks to corporate and personal income tax relief, as well as regulatory reforms that make our state more competitive under conservative leadership in the General Assembly.In such an exciting time for North Carolinas economy, state lawmakers must continue to find ways to create opportunities for long-term growth in the critical sector of technology jobs. Im proud our state is emerging as a leader in IT opportunities and offers our growing population quality employment in this key industry.I look forward to finding ways to maintain North Carolinas top-tier tech ranking through streamlined tax and regulatory reforms that get government out of the way so our businesses can continue to thrive.
(TNS) -- DES MOINES Lawmakers are taking a 30,000-foot look at unmanned aircraft systems, commonly known as drones.A growing number of businesses and government agencies have received Federal Aviation Administration approval to fly their drones in Iowa, prompting lawmakers to consider state standards in tandem with existing federal regulations to balance legitimate uses with privacy concerns associated with a rapidly evolving technology and hobby.House Study Bill 88 sets parameters for the use of unmanned aircraft systems employed by farmers, engineers, surveyors, utilities railroads, photographers, hobbyists, law enforcement and other government agencies and sets penalties for the misuse of aerial vehicles in photographing or gathering data on private property without permission.Federal rules already put limits on speeds, altitudes and distances from airports that pilots can fly their drones.Rep. Jarad Klein, a Keota Republican who uses a drone on his farming operation to scout crop development, monitoring flooding or conduct other management functions, said the Legislature is considering how best to balance privacy concerns with personal freedoms without stifling business enterprises and commercial applications.The Legislatures initial foray into regulating unmanned aerial vehicles came in 2014 when lawmakers approved and Gov. Terry Branstad signed a bill to prohibit state or local law enforcement authorities from using drone surveillance for traffic enforcement. The law also states that evidence obtained by law enforcement using an unmanned drone is not admissible in a criminal or civil trial unless it was obtained legally pursuant to a search warrant or in a manner consistent with state and federal law.The proposed changes being contemplated this session deal with the use of drones by governmental agencies for research or for gathering and archiving data related to the search for a criminal suspect, providing support to another tactical operation, conducting crowd monitoring or in cases where there is a reasonable belief that an emergency exists that threatens lives or safety.Other parts of the bill deal with nuisances such as drones emitting peculiar sounds or excessive noise, spraying a gas or liquid or dropping an object, as well as specifying criminal penalties for using drones to stalk a victim, commit a terrorist act or to improperly control or enter an animal facility or crop operation property.The bill also bars drones from being equipped with a dangerous weapon with exemptions for the military or Iowa National Guard.The bills initial subcommittee debut last week drew concerns from businesses like Terraplane that worried parts of the measure could hinder businesses doing video tracking of power line rights of way or aerial surveying that would move along public and private property. Such uses could involve spillover imagery where it would be impractical to get permission from every private property owner.Its about intent, Klein said. What it really boils down to is if youve got permission, youre good to go.If you dont have permission and youre over private property, thats when it starts to raise concerns.Representatives of county attorneys and civil libertarians also sparred over the admissibility in a criminal proceeding of evidence obtained through general crowd monitoring without a warrant and whether such activity potentially could chill free speech. A lobbyist for the motion picture association and broadcast news companies also wondered how the bills provisions would be applied to breaking news, car chases or other newsgathering functions.We have a lot of great people around the state and theyre the ones that I dont want to get into their way, but the ones are out there to cause harm, we need to have some of these tools in place, Klein said. Will it stop them, not necessarily but what It will do is it will be a deterrent.
(TNS) -- Coming off the most eventful year in its history, Intel suggested Thursday, Feb. 9 that its transformation is ongoing and long-term.With the PC market facing prolonged decline, executives at Intel's annual investor day said the company is depending on explosive growth in new markets or in established industries where it currently has a modest foothold.The company envisions a future enabling self-driving cars, virtual reality and superfast 5G wireless networks. In pursuit of that goal, Intel pledged to invest billions of dollars in data centers, artificial intelligence and computer networking."We're in a unique position in time where computing, memory and the requirements for large amounts of data are all converging," Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich said.He was back at corporate headquarters in California for Thursday's meeting, a day after making a surprise visit to the White House to announce a $7 billion investment to open an idle factory in Arizona If Intel carries off its overhaul, the chipmaker will have remade its business on the fly and profited from the kind of technological change that has rendered other established companies obsolete."When I look at Intel three years, five years out from now, I do believe the complexion of the company and where they generate their revenue is going to change significantly," said Angelo Zino, equity analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.Challenges abound, however, as Intel seeks to reposition itself in markets that haven't yet emerged with technologies it has yet to invent. Intel warned Thursday of slow growth and modestly lower profits over the next few years, weighed down by the struggling PC market.Already, the transition has been painful: Intel eliminated 15,000 jobs in 2016 as it recalibrated in anticipation of the PC market's slide. It moved jobs and spending to new sectors.And Intel warned Thursday that it will be some time before the fruits of its efforts become apparent. The company said it expects sales growth in the low single-digit percentages in each of the next three years, weighed down by continued declines in the PC market. Intel also said operating profits will be modestly lower.Investors weren't pleased: Intel shares slid 2.5 percent Thursday to close at $35.46.Intel's current business consists primarily of two segments: PCs, which supply most of its revenue, and data centers, which deliver half of Intel's operating profits. Intel dominates both markets thanks to its industry leading microprocessors, with succeeding generations of technology crafted by its researchers in Hillsboro.The PC market has been in decline for years, undermined by new mobile devices and the absence of compelling features to prompt consumers and businesses to upgrade their desktops and laptops.And though Intel's data center business grew 8 percent last year, the company had been targeting annual growth of 15 percent. Intel said Thursday its long-term forecast is now a little north of 10 percent.To compensate for those disappointments, Intel said Thursday it expects a huge boost in other markets: wireless technologies, computer memory and the emerging class of connected appliances and equipment called the Internet of Things.Those businesses represented less than 5 percent of Intel's revenues last year. By 2021, though, the company envisions their share of its potential market doubling, tripling or quadrupling.It may be unrealistic to expect those new segments to make up that large a share of Intel's business, Zino said."Even if you see that double-digit growth pace, it's probably not going to be big enough given the sheer size of Intel that it's going to move the needle," he said.However, Zino said that even with the more modest growth and profit forecasts Intel issued Thursday, the company's data center business is robust and has huge growth potential and by itself could fill the void created by the fading PC market.Indeed, Intel said Thursday that it will start putting the first chips from each new generation of processor technology in data center products. Historically, PCs had been first to get Intel's new chips."This is a company that is going to be heavily driven and dominated by the data center business," Zino said.At Thursday's meeting, investment analysts pressed Intel on its spending plans and declining profit margins. Krzanich, the CEO, said investors should cheer the company's investments.Intel spends $10 billion or more each year to upgrade factories in Oregon and elsewhere that give the company its lead in computer chip technology. With the PC market ebbing, Krzanich said Intel needs to find new areas where it can capitalize on its enormous investments."The minute you stop growing," Krzanich said, "you're basically saying over time the likelihood you'll run out of the ability to afford those factories and then that leadership will slowly diminish."
Researchers at Safetica USA, a company that specializes in data loss prevention, recently released rankings of health-care data breaches in North America. Results found California at the top of the worst-hit states.The company gathered information from a database maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which records major data breaches by health care-related organizations since 2009. According to, key findings from Safetica are divided into two state-by-state lists, including number of health-care breaches and number of health-care records compromised in 2016.In the number of health-care breaches in 2016, California took the No. 1 spot with 39, followed by Florida with 28. As for number of records compromised, California ranked No. 4 with 1,436,701, behind Florida, New York and Arizona, which took the No. 1 spot with more than 4 million.Heres a glance at Safeticas report from
Home Motorcycles & Bikes Top 10 Best Motorcycle GPS Trackers Of 2022 Reviews & Buying Guide Motorcycles & Bikes Top 10 Best Motorcycle GPS Trackers Of 2022 Reviews & Buying Guide
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Motorcycles are excellent vehicles for travel and adventure both on and off-road. It is an investment you need to keep safe from those who would love to take that treasure off your hands. Wheel-locking systems may not be enough for those with enough mechanical ability to hot-wire it, and in some cases, one or two people could simply load it onto a truck without unlocking anything.
You dont want to wait months for the police to try to get it back. You want to know where it is right now.
A GPS tracking system is the perfect security investment for your motorcycle, and we have reviews of the best motorcycle GPS trackers here for you.
Top 10 Best Motorcycle GPS Trackers You Should Buy Of 2022 Reviews
1 AMERICALOC GL300W Mini Portable Real-Time GPS Tracker. XW Series
Leta start with this Americaloc mini portable GPS tracker. This is a mid-range GPS tracker both regarding cost and ability. It comes in about the size of a heavy keychain, so if you are looking for something tiny, this is not it. It is detectable by someone who knew what they were looking for but depending on where you attached it to your motorcycle, it may take them a bit of time to identify it.
There are diverse opinions in the reviews about its battery life. It appears that it will last at least 3-4 days, but there are sometimes problems when recharging it. Make sure to follow the instruction guide that comes with this tracker.
You also need to recognize that this service is run by a tech that is not as widespread as most cellphone GPS trackers. While is advertises real-time the reality is that it updates once per minute, thirty, or ten seconds depending on your setting. This setting will affect battery life, and depending on where it is, the updates may not be entirely accurate. It is not a bad tracker, but you need to have realistic expectations for it.
Pros GPS Tracker for vehicles, people, assets
GPS Tracker for vehicles, people, assets This GPS tracker has the longest battery life version with extended multicarrier coverage. Battery life is measured in weeks.
This GPS tracker has the longest battery life version with extended multicarrier coverage. Battery life is measured in weeks. Alerts: movement, parked, speeding, device on/off, low battery, entering or leaving zones
Alerts: movement, parked, speeding, device on/off, low battery, entering or leaving zones Real-Time Tracking and 1 year of tracking history. Track from any computer, tablet or phone or just download our Android and iPhone APP.
Real-Time Tracking and 1 year of tracking history. Track from any computer, tablet or phone or just download our Android and iPhone APP. Works in the US, Canada, Europe and in almost every country in the world
Works in the US, Canada, Europe and in almost every country in the world 1-minute location updates while moving. Can be configured for location updates every 60, 30 or 10 seconds with no additional cost. Cons Slightly bigger than something described as mini.
Slightly bigger than something described as mini. Sometimes faces battery charging issues
Sometimes faces battery charging issues Behind cellphone GPS technology and occasionally is off a block or so in tracking
Behind cellphone GPS technology and occasionally is off a block or so in tracking No mobile app and website can be buggy
2 Spy Tec STI GL300 Mini Portable Real-Time Personal and Vehicle GPS Tracker
Spy Tecs GL300 GPS is about the same size as the Americaloc, but about half the price. As with most GPS devices, there is a monthly subscription fee that can quickly add up over time. In practice, this GPS seems to function a little more smoothly than others, with many short-term satisfied customers.
For this GPS to work well for you, you need three things. First, you need to be using it in an area covered by T-mobile, or else you may have accuracy problems. Second, you need to be able to recharge it every few days. Finally, this is a short-term solution. The charging cable seems to break down over months, not years, and the customer and tech service can be a pain to deal with. If you are looking for a long-term GPS, you may want to take a pass on Spy Tec.
Pros Perfect for tracking vehicles, people, or assets
Perfect for tracking vehicles, people, or assets Compact size can go anywhere
Compact size can go anywhere Tracks with Google Maps in real-time over the Internet
Tracks with Google Maps in real-time over the Internet Get text or email when a person leaves an area (geo-fencing) Cons Inconsistent customer service
Inconsistent customer service Works primarily in T-mobile coverage areas
Works primarily in T-mobile coverage areas Problems with charging cable
Problems with charging cable Short life span
3 Amcrest AM-GL300 V3 Portable Mini Real-Time GPS Tracker for Vehicles
Here is another low-end GPS tracker for your motorcycle. What makes this one of the best motorcycle GPS trackers is that it works with mobile apps from Google and Apple, so you can track your motorcycle from your phone and not just your computer or a webpage.
It comes with lots of tracking options as well. You can create zones and be alerted if your motorcycle moves outside of it. You can set speed alerts or other proximity alerts, which will be pushed to your phone via text and email. The Amcrest is a solid package for taking care of your needs, and there is no contract required to use it.
How you use it will determine the battery strength, and, like other devices in this low-cost range, the batteries are a weak point, particularly if not re-charged correctly. Also, it relies on 2G coverage and does not connect with all carriers. To get your moneys worth out of this motorcycle GPS tracker, make sure to inquire about coverage in your area and this tracker, and be sure to read the instructions about recharging your GPS.
Pros Works with apps from Google and Apple store
Works with apps from Google and Apple store This GPS device allows you to create zones that you specifically want to monitor, such as your home to you know when your loved one leaves or returns. Set maximum speed alerts and proximity alerts for your vehicles to suit your needs.
This GPS device allows you to create zones that you specifically want to monitor, such as your home to you know when your loved one leaves or returns. Set maximum speed alerts and proximity alerts for your vehicles to suit your needs. Receive text, push and email notifications straight to your personal device.
Receive text, push and email notifications straight to your personal device. Long-lasting Stay connected with a longer battery life of 10-14 days on a full charge.
Long-lasting Stay connected with a longer battery life of 10-14 days on a full charge. Access the reports from your GPS device from your PC, Mac or smartphone.
Access the reports from your GPS device from your PC, Mac or smartphone. No contract required Cons GPS Tracker is limited to 2G and will only work in areas where there is 2G coverage.
GPS Tracker is limited to 2G and will only work in areas where there is 2G coverage. Batteries can be faulty leading to short lifespan of the device
4 GPS Tracker Optimus 2.0
This low-end tracker has a better performance record than some of the others, making it one of the best motorcycle GPS trackers on the market. This GPS has a monthly subscription fee but no contract required and it comes with apps you can use to track your motorcycle from your phone. There is no limit to how much data you can save on the secure databases, and so will update you every 30 seconds while your motorcycle is moving, or you can upgrade it to update you every 10 seconds.
Fortunately, there are only two reported issues from the reviews of this GPS tracker. It is slightly larger than some of the other models, making it a bit more challenging to hide securely. It also sends out false reports occasionally if the cell service is interrupted.
Pros No Contract
No Contract Adjustable position report frequency from 30 Seconds while moving.
Adjustable position report frequency from 30 Seconds while moving. iPhone and Android App
iPhone and Android App Email and Text Message notifications for Movement, Speeding, Leaving or Entering Areas, etc.
Email and Text Message notifications for Movement, Speeding, Leaving or Entering Areas, etc. Unlimited Tracking Data Saved During Service
Unlimited Tracking Data Saved During Service SIM Card and Data Plan all Included
SIM Card and Data Plan all Included Easy to install and use Cons Will occasionally send out false reports if it loses cell service
Will occasionally send out false reports if it loses cell service Slightly larger than other models
Which of the best motorcycle GPS trackers have the best batteries?
5 Trackmate Mini 3G H GPS Tracker for Vehicles
Unlike the previous models of the best motorcycle GPS trackers, the Trackmate does not rely on a rechargeable lithium battery. Instead, it is hardwired directly into the motorcycle battery itself. This has the benefit of preventing the GPS from turning off when the battery dies at inopportune times.
The downside of this setup is that installation is more difficult, and while the device is easily concealable, it also has wires running between it and the battery. This connection can cause your motorcycle battery to run down if you do not monitor it closely, causing both the device and motorcycle to fail to operate.
This is a 3G tracker and has better accuracy than the previous 2G GPS trackers, making this one of the best motorcycle GPS trackers on the market.
Pros On/Off Detection, Speed Indicator, and Live Map Tracking.
On/Off Detection, Speed Indicator, and Live Map Tracking. Numerous alerts such as low-battery, tampering and towing. Historical location reports available.
Numerous alerts such as low-battery, tampering and towing. Historical location reports available. All-Weather Resistant and Waterproof.
All-Weather Resistant and Waterproof. STAY IN TUNE: Unique system Tracks via AT&T and T-Mobile networks, simultaneously.
STAY IN TUNE: Unique system Tracks via AT&T and T-Mobile networks, simultaneously. EASILY CONCEALABLE: 3.4 X 1.75 X 0.50 , 2oz. No visible external light. Cons Can drain the motorcycle battery
Can drain the motorcycle battery Challenging to install since it is hardwired to the motorcycle battery
6 MotoSafety Mwaas1P1 Wired 3G GPS Car Tracker
The MotoSafety Mwaas1P1 is another hardwired GPS tracker that you can use on your motorcycle. It also uses 3G service and, as long as you are in the United States, typically does an excellent job of tracking through mobile apps. It sends detailed reports, particularly useful for tracking teen drivers, such as speeding, hard braking, and curfew notices. You must subscribe to a monthly fee, but there are no contracts.
Overall, this is one of the best motorcycle GPS trackers. There are about 10% of customers though who encounter significant issues trying to get this GPS to function properly. Many of these are being used in cars, rather than motorcycles. However, since this GPS is hardwired into the vehicle system, the fault seems to be a compatibility issue, between the GPS and the vehicle. There are no reports of which vehicles are incompatible or why.
You take a small risk with this GPS that it may not be compatible with your motorcycle. Otherwise, this is one of the best motorcycle GPS trackers.
Pros Monitor driving activity using Google Maps.
Monitor driving activity using Google Maps. Use GPS to review driving routes, set geofences around key locations and know when the vehicle is in use after curfew.
Use GPS to review driving routes, set geofences around key locations and know when the vehicle is in use after curfew. No contracts or cancellation fees.
No contracts or cancellation fees. Track anywhere with free GPS tracking mobile apps with real-time email & text message alerts. Cons Has some issues updating consistently
Has some issues updating consistently Only works in the United States
7 ATian Vehicle Car personal GPS/GSM/GPRS/SMS Tracker
The ATian GPS Tracker is one of the less expensive of the best motorcycle GPS trackers available. It comes with both a Lithium-ion battery and power supply to be installed to the motorcycle battery. Be warned though, that it will drain both rather quickly if you use it continuously. The lithium-ion battery, for example, is only rated up to 29 hours of continuous use, meaning you have to recharge it daily.
This GPS is not waterproof so some kind of external cover may be necessary to keep it working correctly. It comes with a remote control though, to turn it on and off without getting on the motorcycle yourself.
The biggest challenge with this GPS is that they do not provide a SIM card in it. Being foreign made, they have adapted to the global cellular service challenge by forcing you to get your own SIM card for it. This means that, although there is only a minimal service fee for using this GPS, you have to pay a cell service company to use it. With the frequent false alerts reported in the reviews on this GPS, that cell service bill can cost you a pretty penny.
Pros Single Locating
Single Locating Auto track continuously
Auto track continuously Track with limited times upon time interval, Smart track upon time and distance interval
Track with limited times upon time interval, Smart track upon time and distance interval The tracker will update the positions automatically to web server once the vehicle changing driving direction over preset angle value to form a smooth trajectory consistent with the actual road, this function works only in GPRS /GSM mode Cons Drains motorcycle battery
Drains motorcycle battery May often send false alerts
May often send false alerts Requires a SIM card and the additional cost of that cellular service.
Looking for a higher end GPS for your motorcycle?
8 AES RGT90 GPS Tracker
The difference (besides the price) between the AES RGT90 and some of the other best motorcycle GPS trackers that operate with a lithium-ion battery, is that the folks over at AES implemented a sleep mode into their device. That saves you hours and hours of battery use wasted when your motorcycle is simply sitting in your garage. That is how they are able to get 90 days worth of use out of their battery.
The other reason that this GPS tracker costs so much is that it has the broadest range of the best motorcycle GPS trackers extending all through North America and over 100 other countries as well. By comparison, most other trackers have difficulty even covering the USA alone.
Pros Works Anywhere in the USA, Canada, and Mexico, plus over 100 other countries
Works Anywhere in the USA, Canada, and Mexico, plus over 100 other countries Internal battery Operates GPS tracker up to 90 days on a single charge. Recharges by Micro USB for better convenience. Charge using any USB Charger.
Internal battery Operates GPS tracker up to 90 days on a single charge. Recharges by Micro USB for better convenience. Charge using any USB Charger. Covert, Discrete, Waterproof Magnetic Case
Covert, Discrete, Waterproof Magnetic Case Goes to sleep when the vehicle is parked for 5 minutes or more. Displays the last location before going into Sleep Mode. Access anytime via text.
Goes to sleep when the vehicle is parked for 5 minutes or more. Displays the last location before going into Sleep Mode. Access anytime via text. Track on your phone or on the website. You can also receive GPS coordinates via SMS Text. Cons Phone app is not the easiest to use
Phone app is not the easiest to use Relies on magnetic attachment
What is the best reviewed of the best motorcycle GPS trackers?
9 Goome 3G/WCDMA/GSM/GPS GM36W
The Goome has the least amount of negative reviews of the best motorcycle GPS trackers on the market. It also has the fewest reviews in total, so take that with a grain of salt. Many of the reviews commented that they got more value than they expected from this GPS. It is easy to install and very accurate, and the company offers global service.
The only problem the reviews have reported is that the app associated with this tracker is in Chinese and can be difficult to navigate. Even so, most customers were able to use this GPS quite well directly through SMS communication between their phones and devices.
Pros Support 3G/WCDMA/GSM/ Network
Support 3G/WCDMA/GSM/ Network Waterproof features, level IP67 will prevent water damage the inter electric components.
Waterproof features, level IP67 will prevent water damage the inter electric components. Geo-fencing, playback history tracks, speeding alarm, low power &battery alerts, etc.
Geo-fencing, playback history tracks, speeding alarm, low power &battery alerts, etc. OTA Upgrade Program, Anti-theft
OTA Upgrade Program, Anti-theft One year free trial for North America customers Cons App is Chinese and hard to navigate
App is Chinese and hard to navigate Can be difficult to find to purchase
What is the least expensive best motorcycle GPS tracker on the market?
10 MOTOsafety OBD GPS Tracker Device
Here is the least expensive of the best motorcycle GPS trackers you can find. This GPS, like several of the others reviewed, was made with teen drivers in mind. It gives comprehensive reports on driving stats, but it is not meant to be long-lasting.
If you are looking for a short-term GPS tracker, and you are living in the US, this is an inexpensive option for you. If you are looking for a GPS for security reasons, you may want to see another option.
Pros Monitor driving activity using Google Maps.
Monitor driving activity using Google Maps. Get a complete driving report cards that score safe driving habits such as speeding, harsh braking, and rapid acceleration to improve driving habits.
Get a complete driving report cards that score safe driving habits such as speeding, harsh braking, and rapid acceleration to improve driving habits. 3G vehicle tracking coverage that updates every minute in the US, Canada, and Mexico
3G vehicle tracking coverage that updates every minute in the US, Canada, and Mexico Track anywhere with the free GPS tracking mobile apps and real-time email & text message alerts.
Track anywhere with the free GPS tracking mobile apps and real-time email & text message alerts. Use the GPS tracking to review reports such as driving routes, set geofences around key locations (school, home, or friends house) and know when the vehicle is in use after curfew. Cons Inconsistent updating
Inconsistent updating Only works in the US
So, how do these reviews line up?
Best Motorcycle GPS Trackers Buying Guide
Best Value
The MOTOSafety OBD GPS Tracker is the least expensive option if you are looking for a short-term tracker for your motorcycle. It is made for tracking the driving habits of teenage drivers.
The Trackmate is a more expensive device, but it has a lower monthly subscription cost and is hardwired into your motorcycle, so you dont have to worry about recharging the battery.
The ATian GPS tracker is inexpensive as well, but you may end up paying more for your SIM card (not included) usage.
Accuracy
The AES is the most expensive of the best motorcycle GPS trackers but can provide you with some of the best accuracy across the greatest number of countries. The ATian is one of the least expensive devices but can offer service in any country you can get a SIM card to use in it. The Goome GPS also provides excellent service if you can navigate the Chinese app or use SMS to connect to the device.
Durability
How long do the best motorcycle GPS trackers last?
The most durable of these trackers are the ones that are hardwired into your motorcycle battery. The lithium-ion battery is one of the earliest failing points on these devices, and if it doesnt have one, it lasts that much longer. You also want one that is waterproof, to prevent moisture from damaging the electronics.
The Trackmate is a great hardwired GPS that is recommended for motorcycles and is waterproof. It is one of the more durable of the best motorcycle GPS trackers.
There is one exception to the battery rule, and that is the AES RGT90 GPS tracker. This tracker, because of its sleep mode, causes less wear on the battery and ends up lasting much longer than any other GPS with a lithium-ion battery.
Conclusion You can get inexpensive GPS trackers if you are only interested in short-term use. If you want something to last longer, you need to spend a little more money. You also need to be able to install it to your motorcycle battery. It is also important to watch for the subscription costs. The device may be inexpensive, but most subscriptions are around $20 each month. Some may require cell phone contracts (although most do not). Also, the more expensive GPS trackers have better service (3G instead of 2G) and a much wider area of coverage. If youre looking for the best motorcycle GPS trackers, the reviews suggest checking out the AES RGT90 and the Trackmate Mini 3G H GPS Tracker.
Coal stocks in the warehouses of thermal power plants (TPP) of Ukraine in January 2017 decreased by 5.5% and as of February 1, 2017 stood at 1.948 million tonnes, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry has told Interfax-Ukraine.
In particular, gas coal and long-flame coal stocks amounted to 905,900 tonnes, while anthracite coal stocks amounted to 1.042 million tonnes.
Fuel oil stocks at TPPs in January fell by 23.5%, to 87,100 tonnes. Largest stocks are at warehouses of Kyiv's combined heat and power plant five and combined heat and power plant six (21,700 tonnes and 10,200 tonnes), while 40,500 tonnes are at the rest of TPPs.
Coal stocks at TPPs as of February 1, 2017 were 26.5% lower than on February 1, 2016, fuel oil stocks were 33.3% less.
Natural gas consumption by power plants in January 2017 amounted to 646.4 million cubic meters against 771.1 million cubic meters in January 2016 and 718.1 million cubic meters in December 2016.
In January 2017 TPPs and combined heat and power plants were supplied with 199,900 tonnes of imported coal, in particular Russia delivered 93,500 tonnes, South Africa 59,100 tonnes of coal, and Poland 47,400 tonnes.
F1 car designer Gian Paolo Dallara has hit at out the sport's 2017 rules revolution.
The 80-year-old, whose company is involved in collaboration with the Ferrari-linked American team Haas, doubts the much faster cars this year will actually make the F1 'show' better.
"As an engineer I do not know why they decided to focus on higher downforce," Dallara told the well-known Italian blogger Leo Turrini.
"Technically it will make it almost impossible to overtake, because no one will be able to follow the one in front of him. We complain about the lack of 'show' in F1 and then go in the opposite direction," he added.
Like many, Dallara suggests the 'Americanisation' of formula one in the new Liberty Media era could change the sport.
"As you know, we (Dallara) are very present in America, where there is an obsession to level the competition in every way.
"But F1 follows a different philosophy -- they even invented the virtual safety car to maintain the gaps between the cars. It's almost a cultural clash," Dallara said.
"Do not ask me what is better, I would be partisan," he added.
Turrini also asked Dallara about Ferrari's chances for 2017, but he answered: "You know much more than me and I know that you are extraordinarily cautious.
"Let's say it like this: when you start playing with a pack of completely new cars, who was losing has a better chance," he said.
(GMM)
Antonio Giovinazzi has refused to dismiss speculation he might be in line for some Friday practice outings this season.
The Italian, who was the runner-up in GP2 last year, has been signed to be Ferrari's official reserve driver in 2017.
And if Ferrari and Fiat president Sergio Marchionne's plans to bring Alfa Romeo into F1 come to fruition, 23-year-old Giovinazzi would be the obvious choice to drive.
"But first the brand (Alfa Romeo) has to make money with the Giulia and Stelvio" road cars, Marchionne said recently.
Now, Alfa Romeo has launched the Stelvio, and Giovinazzi was there for the presentation.
"Alfa is a myth, a great Italian brand, and it excites me a lot to be here," he said.
"For now I'm building up my experience in the simulator," he added, referring to the preparations for his Ferrari reserve and testing role this year.
Asked if that role might mean a few Friday practice outings for the Ferrari customer Sauber, La Gazzetta dello Sport quoted Giovinazzi as answering: "We'll see.
"For now I just want to enjoy this beautiful moment."
Corriere della Sera, another Italian newspaper, reports that the 2017 Ferrari F1 car was fired up for the first time last Friday.
(GMM)
Ukrainian PM thankful to Moldova for not restricting exports from Ukraine in 2017
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has thanked Moldova for refusal to impose restrictions on exports from Ukraine in 2017.
"I want to thank you, Prime Minister, for making the decision after our appeal to lift trade restrictions," Groysman said at a meeting with Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip in Kyiv on Monday.
Groysman called on Moldova to consider Ukraine as a trade partner. He said that Ukraine is ready to expand mutually beneficial economic cooperation with Moldova.
As reported, on May 13, 2016 the decision of the government of Moldova dated May 6, 2016 imposing measures to protect the domestic market took effect. Until the end of 2016 low quotas for exports of Ukrainian goods and customs duties of 20-20% were introduced.
Some 15 out of 35 largest banks in Ukraine left to finish additional capitalization program as of early Feb - NBU
Nine banks out of 35 largest Ukrainian banks have finished the additional capitalization programs and restructuring plans after stress tests conducted earlier as of February 1, 2017 and 11 initially did not require additional capitalization, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) reported on Monday.
The NBU said that 15 more banks continue implementing the additional capitalization programs, and four banks were removed from the market Fidobank, Khreschatyk, Platinum and Fortuna banks.
The central bank said that 12 out of 18 largest banks in the country as of early February 2017 met capital requirements, and eight out of next 17 banks.
Stress tests of the first top twenty banks were conducted as of April 1, 2015, while stress tests for the next banks were conducted as of January 1, 2016.
The central bank said that after stress tests conducted as of April 1, 2016 for the third group consisting of 21 banks ten banks did not require additional capitalization and 11 other banks presented their plans, but they have not completed them.
"Out of 60 top banks where stress tests were conducted 21 banks did not require additional capitalization, nine banks as of early February 2017 implemented the NBU-approved capitalization programs in full, four banks were declared insolvent and 26 banks are implementing their liabilities in line with the schedule," the regulator said.
SAE International is engaged with the Idaho National Lab and US Department of Energy (DOE) in bench-testing of WPT 3 (11 kW) levels in 2017, said Jesse Schneider, chair of the SAE J2954 task force, in his presentation at the SAE 2017 Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technologies Symposium last week in San Diego. In addition, eight OEMs have light-duty vehicle testing planned to begin in third quarter for WPT 1-3 which is scheduled to be completed in 2018.
SAE International is working to ensure that electric vehicle wireless power transfer systems from diverse manufacturers will interoperate seamlessly with each other to prepare for commercialization in 2020. The SAE TIR (Technical Information Report) J2954 provides guidance to ensure performance and safety of Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) Systems provided from one vendor as well as interoperability when parts of the system are provided from different vendors.
In December 2016, interoperability between the so-called Double D (DD) and Circular Topologies was demonstrated between 3.7 to 7.7 kW (WPT 1 and WPT 2 power levels) with efficiencies exceeding 85-90% under aligned conditions. (Earlier post.)
The SAE J2954 task force is using 802.11n currently, which is similar to DSRC (IEEE 802.11p) (earlier post). The use of this communications methodology, which is used in vehicle-to-infrastructure communications (in this case vehicle wireless charging assembly), is basically interconnecting wireless charging with the new connected vehicles environment. For example, your nav system can lead you to a wireless charging point, J2954 would position your car, and payment would be automatic. Click to enlarge.
The Recommended Practice SAE J2954 will also contain guidance for vehicle alignment methods and determine a common location for the wireless charging ground assembly. Currently, magnetic field alignment through triangulation using the existing coils and alignment using an auxiliary antenna are being evaluated for this decision.
The goal is to provide one methodology to align in order to be able to charge with high efficiency all SAE J2954 stations. This is for both manual (self-parking) and autonomous (automated) alignment possibilities. It is important to know that the only way to charge an autonomous vehicle automatically is to use wireless charging and SAE J2954 Recommended Practice will standardize this. Jesse Schneider
Further, SAE International has made a proposal to Electrify America to start a build-out of multiple hundreds of Light Duty Wireless Chargers starting in 2019 in public locations in California and ZEV states in three stages. The first stage, for light duty vehicles, creates an infrastructure based on J2954 (for example in malls, large workplaces, condominium complexes, etc). SAE also proposes 100 Heavy Duty Chargers in 2020 based on SAE J2954/2 (for example public transit agency, truck stops for anti-idling, etc.) in 2021 to create a wireless charging infrastructure with alignment communications for autonomous vehicles (for example, taxi fleets).
This will also help independent organizations or government organizations to quantify how much wireless charging may increase the eVMT (electric Vehicle Miles Traveled) for wireless charging (inductive charging) vs. plug-in (conductive charging) electric vehicles. This could also be quantified in the form of a CO 2 reduction potential by implementing wireless charging both in the home and in public locations.
In addition, this could also provide some data to help to understand the potential of wireless charging to reduce the pulse in criteria pollutants emitted with the engine cold start of a range extender engine. (The last, noted Ryan Hart from the California Air Resources Board (ARB) in his talk at the SAE symposium, is not a negligible problem.)
With a coordinated preliminary rollout of this technology, statistical information to gauge customer acceptance of both this new charging methodology as well as increased acceptance of the electric vehicle (for instance with convenience less or no range anxiety using wireless charging) can be gauged.
Additionally, the heavy-duty wireless charging standardization initiative SAE J2954/2 is kicking off on 10 February in San Diego following the SAE symposium to standardize wireless power transfer at 50 kW-250 kW. This is to address opportunity charging at bus stops (similar to the Scania testing in Sweden, (earlier post).
Pictures courtesy of Condutix Wampfler, Scania, and WAVE technologies. Click to enlarge.
In addition, the meeting will launch an investigation of the optimized wireless charging power level to offset idling for HD trucks at truckstops (and address the anti-idling laws).
Ukraine gas stocks down to 9 bcm in four month of heating season
Gas stocks in Ukraine's underground storage facilities declined by 38.6% to 9.044 billion cubic meters (bcm) since October 13, when the current heating season began, through February 11.
Ukraine withdrew 87.94 million cubic meters (mcm) from underground storage on February 11 and a total of 840.54 mcm on February 1 through February 11 (74,41 mcm/day on average), Ukrtransgaz, which operates the country's pipelines and storage facilities, said in a statement.
Withdrawals amounted to 2.102 bcm in January (67.8 mcm/day on average), 1.569 bcm in December (50.6 mcm/day) and 909.42 mcm in November (30.31 mcm/day).
Last year, Ukraine withdrew 46.27 mcm of gas from underground storage on February 11, when stocks amounted to 10.613 bcm. It withdrew 61.53 mcm on February 11, 2015, when stocks totaled 8.725 bcm.
As of February 11, 2017, daily imports of gas were 48.406 mcm, of which 41.312 mcm from Slovakia, 3.136 mcm from Hungary and 3.958 mcm from Poland. Ukraine has not imported gas from Russia since November 26, 2015.
Gas production in Ukraine on February 11 was 56.889 mcm, of which Ukrgazvydobuvannia produced - 40.991 mcm, Ukrnafta - 3.356 mcm and other companies - 12.542 mcm. Overall production in the first 11 days of February was 623.6 mcm.
Transit via Ukraine's gas transport system was 3.201 bcm in the period February 1-11, corresponding to a monthly rate of about 8.1 bcm.
Updated at 9:24 a.m. on Feb. 14
When we compile a list of local Grammy Award nominees and winners, we typically overlook one by accident.
Such is the case with Victoria Livengood of Thomasville.
The mezzo-soprano was part of the cast in the Los Angeles Opera's recording of John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles," which received the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording on Sunday.
She was the featured headliner of Greensboro Operas "Go to the Movies" Gala in 2014.
Thanks to David Holley, artistic director of Greensboro Opera, for drawing our attention to her award.
North Carolinas musical talent was well-represented among the 59th annual Grammy Award nominees.
But only a few won an award during the Premiere Ceremony that aired live online Sunday before the CBS broadcast.
Fiddler/violinist Mark OConnor of Charlotte and his familys OConnor Band took home the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album for Coming Home.
And longtime Asheville resident and kid-hop artist Secret Agent 23 Skidoo won for Best Childrens Album, Infinity Plus One.
Grammys eluded several other North Carolina artists, including Greensboro native Rhiannon Giddens, High Point native Fantasia Barrino and Concord band The Avett Brothers.
Giddens was nominated for Best American Roots Performance for Factory Girl, the title track of her extended play album of the same name. The album also was nominated for Best Folk Album.
Sarah Jarosz took home the awards in both categories.
Congratulations to Sarah Jarosz, Giddens said via email. Both fields were super strong; I was super honored to be included with my EP.
Giddens is in Nashville, Tenn., where she is filming the television musical drama, Nashville. She plays a social worker with quite a voice in the show, which airs Thursdays on the CMT network.
She opted not to attend the Grammy ceremony because of her obligations to Nashville and most importantly because I have my two children with me, and Im touring a lot this year, Giddens said.
She will release a new album, Freedom Highway, on Feb. 24.
Giddens has won a Grammy before.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops, her band with Justin Robinson and Dom Flemons that carries on the tradition of the African American string band, won in 2011 for best traditional folk album with Genuine Negro Jig.
Fantasia Barrino, the 2004 winner of televisions American Idol competition who uses her first name professionally, was nominated for Best Traditional R&B Performance for Sleeping With the One I Love, a track from her album, The Definition Of ...
The award in that category went to Lalah Hathaway.
Barrino won a 2011 Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
The Avett Brothers, a folk rock/bluegrass/Americana band, was nominated for Aint No Man in the category of Best American Roots Performance.
Aint No Man is a track from their album True Sadness, which was nominated for Best Americana Album. William Bell won in the album category.
Two others with Greensboro ties performed on recordings nominated for Best Musical Theater Album. That Grammy went to The Color Purple.
Drew Gehling, who grew up in Greensboro, sang on several tracks on the original Broadway cast recording of Waitress.
Bennett Sullivan, a 2007 graduate of Greensboros Weaver Academy, played banjo in the musical Bright Star.
Other areas of the state also were represented among Grammy nominees.
Asheville native Chris Bullock plays in the 25-member band Snarky Puppy, which won Best Contemporary Instrumental for Culcha Vulcha. Bullock is a saxophonist, flutist and clarinetist who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Other nominees with North Carolina ties include saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who lives in Durham. He was nominated for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Upward Spiral, a recording with the Branford Marsalis Quartet and special guest Kurt Elling.
Durham native Shirley Caesar was nominated for Best Gospel Performance/Song for Its Alright, Its OK, featuring Charlotte native Anthony Hamilton. Caesar also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Gospel Album for Fill This House.
HIGH POINT A majority of North Carolinians are not giving public education high marks but favor spending more to fund a construction backlog and boost teacher pay.
According to a 2017 High Point University Education Poll, 55 percent of respondents said public education in the state is headed in the wrong direction. Thirty-one percent felt it is going in the right direction.
More than 7 in 10 favored a state bond referendum to fund an estimated $8 billion to $10 billion backlog in construction and renovation. Seventy-seven percent said they would be willing to pay more in taxes to raise teachers' pay to the national average within five years. Eighty-four percent believe North Carolina teachers are paid too little.
It's encouraging that North Carolina residents view education as a human enterprise, Barbara Mallory, associate professor of HPUs Ed.D. Program in Educational Leadership, said in a news release. They support more training for teachers, leaders, increase in teacher pay and high-quality pre-school. They indicate a willingness to invest in the people teachers, students and school leaders who make education happen in North Carolina.
We also see convergence with public and educator views on some issues that impact education, such as a willingness to support universal pre-school and a statewide bond referendum for school construction.
The poll results also indicate that 72 percent of residents support additional state funding going to schools with students identified as English Language Learners, 87 percent for exceptional childrendefined as those with different education needs because of physical, mental or social disabilities, and 85 percent for low-income students. ELL students are classified as those coming from non-English-speaking homes and backgrounds.
Eight-five percent also want more funding to support university-based leadership training and development of teacher leaders.
Four out of five respondents indicated they would be willing to vote for a law that would spend government money to establish federal and state programs that make high-quality pre-schools available to every child in America who qualifies for the federally assisted meal program, the release said.
Poll results indicate that residents believe school districts, not legislators, should have authority to set the academic-year starting dates. Fifty-nine percent said that districts should be allowed flexibility to start the school year at the same time as community colleges and universities, compared to 37 percent who said that state law should determine the start date for all state public schools.
Respondents also said they believe that ratings that report quality of schools should emphasize overall improvement scores of students more than their proficiency scores. Two-thirds said that they favored grading schools with more emphasis on overall improvement. Twenty-two percent said there should be more emphasis on how many students attain a proficiency standard .
Residents also believe that, in general, most people have respect for principals, teachers and superintendents. More than three out of five said most people have respect for the following:
School principals, 69 percent.
Public school teachers, 68 percent.
School superintendents, 62 percent.
These ratings were comparable to businesses or private companies (66 percent) North Carolinas governor (65) and faith-based organizations (63), all of whom majorities of North Carolinians have said received respect from most people.
The 2017 HPU Education Poll is a joint venture between selected faculty in the Department of Leadership Studies in the School of Education and HPU's Survey Research Center.
A workshop on falling will be offered from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, at the Ragsdale Family YMCA, 900 Bonner Drive in Jamestown.
Participants will practice ground-falling techniques in a safe, padded environment. The exercises will help participants learn how to fall in the event of an accident.
The cost is $25 for YMCA members and $30 for non-members.
Registration is required and is due by Wednesday.
To register, call (336) 882-9622.
***
Hospice of Randolph County will offer GriefShare at 6 p.m. on Mondays beginning Feb. 20 at St. Johns Lutheran Church, 505 S. Park St. in Asheboro.
The 13-week seminar features practical suggestions and reassurance through video interviews with counselors, grief experts and other people who have experienced loss and the grief that is associated with it.
Sessions include a workbook (minimal cost of $15), video presentation and a time for individual sharing and reflection. Insights and suggestions will be offered to help those who are struggling with a personal loss.
To register, call (336) 672-9300 or email Tim Pheagin at Tim.Pheagin@hospiceofrandolph.org.
***
The High Point Public Library will host free health screenings from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Morgan Community Room on the first floor, 901 N. Main St.
Health professionals from High Point Regional Health System and UNC Health Care will provide blood pressure, weight and BMI screenings. The screenings will be performed on a first-come, first-served basis. No advance registration is required.
This event continues the High Point Public Librarys focus on health along with the Go Red for Women national campaign for heart disease awareness during the month of February.
For information, contact Maxine Days at (336) 883-3671 or maxine.days@highpointnc.gov.
***
Dr. Steven Chapman, of the UNC Regional Physician Cardiothoracic Surgery, will present The Hearts Have It: Advances in Cardiac Surgery at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 23 at Millis Regional Health Education Center, 600 N. Elm St. in High Point.
Chapman will share information about new heart surgeries being offered at High Point Regional.
To reserve a seat, call (336) 878-6888.
***
Nominations for the 2017 N.C. Doctor of the Year Award, part of the N.C. Doctors Day celebration to honor what physicians do for patients every day, will be accepted through March 1.
Now in its third year, this online contest calls on patients, colleagues, family and friends to nominate a physician they think exemplifies the best qualities of the profession.
The 10 finalists will be announced March 20 and online voting will begin. On Doctors Day, March 30, the N.C. Doctor of the Year winner will be announced. The winner will receive $5,000 to put toward a professional or community project meaningful to them.
To nominate someone, visit http://ncdoctorsday.org/.
National Doctors Day dates back to 1933 and was officially established by Congress in 1990.
In 2015, the North Carolina Medical Society revived observance of this day with the N.C. Doctor of the Year Award.
***
The Adventures of Parenting: Pregnancy, Parenthood and Poop will be at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 21 at the Millis Regional Health Education Center, 600 N. Elm St. in High Point.
The workshop will offer information to help transition from pregnancy to parenthood.
To register, call (336) 878-6888.
***
Free cervical-cancer screenings for women ages 21 and older who are sexually active or have been sexually active and have not had a Pap test within the last three years will be offered at the following dates and times:
6-7:30 p.m. today,
Feb. 13,
Cone Health Cancer Center at Wesley Long Hospital, 501 N. Elam Ave. in Greensboro
6:15-7:45 p.m. Feb. 27, Cone Health Cancer Center at Annie Penn Hospital, 618 S. Main St. in Reidsville
5:30-7 p.m. March 6, Cone Health Center for Womens Healthcare at Stoney Creek, 945 Golf House Road West in Whitsett
6-7:30 p.m. March 20, LeBauer Primary Care at MedCenter High Point, 2630 Willard Dairy Road, Suite 200 in High Point
6-7:30 p.m. April 3, Cone Health Cancer Center at Alamance Regional Medical Center, 1236 Huffman Mill Road in Burlington
The free screenings are for women who do not have insurance or cannot afford to visit their regular physicians.
Registration is required; call (336) 832-8000.
GREENSBORO The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation expects to wrap up interviews this week in a fatal shooting involving a Greensboro officer, officials said today.
Carlos Keith Blackman, 25, died last Friday at Moses Cone Hospital after being shot multiple times the same day in an incident involving Greensboro Officer J.R. LaBarre, said SBI Special Agent in Charge Scott Williams.
LaBarre, 37, was shot once near the right shoulder during the exchange, according to the SBI. He was treated at Moses Cone Hospital for his injury and released Saturday morning.
LaBarre and Officer L.S. Garrison, 36, are officers with the Police Neighborhood Resource Center. They were attempting to stop a red Chevy Impala about 4 p.m. near the Hickory Trails neighborhood after receiving a Crime Stoppers tip about drug activity in the area, police said.
Its unclear if any drugs were recovered. Susan Danielsen, police spokeswoman, said she couldnt comment, citing the investigation.
The male driver of the vehicle initially refused to stop. He eventually pulled over in the 4200 block of Romaine Street about 4:30 p.m., according to police. The passenger of the vehicle, later identified as Blackman, fled with LaBarre following.
Garrison detained the driver of the vehicle, who was never charged, Williams said. He was put in the patrol car.
LaBarre caught Blackman and tried to put him in handcuffs, during which a violent struggle ensued, according to a media release from Greensboro police. LaBarres bodyworn camera became dislodged during the struggle, and Blackman broke free and continued to run.
Williams said there was initial contact between the pair, but could not confirm if LaBarre was assaulted during the exchange.
I havent interviewed the officer yet, Williams said.
He said the SBI is arranging a time with LaBarres legal counsel, which will also be determined by when the officer is feeling better. Williams said it is not uncommon for law enforcement to have an attorney in officer-involved shootings.
Garrison is a member of the Greensboro Police Officers Association but LaBarre is not, Danielsen said. The organization is providing counsel for Garrison but LaBarre is retaining his own attorney.
The pursuit of Blackman by LaBarre continued for about 100 yards, Williams said, from one house through the backyard of a second house. LaBarre was found shot by his partner in an overgrown area. Blackman was found at a relatives house on Alma Street with several gunshot wounds.
Blackman was taken to Moses Cone Hospital where he died. Williams was uncertain whether Blackman was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Williams said the SBI has determined the number of shots fired but is not releasing that information.
Greensboro police said LaBarres weapon and at least one other were used in the incident. Garrison did not fire her service weapon, Williams said.
The SBI will likely conclude its interviews in the investigation this week, Williams said, but will still wait on the autopsy and toxicology results in the case before turning over its investigation to the Guilford County District Attorneys Office.
Blackmans autopsy was initially scheduled for Monday. However, the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had several other autopsies scheduled, Williams said. The autopsy is now scheduled for today.
Garrison and LaBarre joined the Greensboro Police Department in 2002, the agency said. Both are currently not working, Danielsen said.
When they are physically and emotionally ready, they will come back to work, she said.
When the pair returns, they will be on administrative duty during the SBI and Greensboro Police Departments Professional Standards Division investigations, Danielsen said.
North Carolina has represented an interesting paradox during the life of the federal health insurance exchange, according to a national study released last week.
The state had the fourth highest enrollment rate for 2017 at 549,158, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Those totals, however, did not lead to increased competition.
Instead, North Carolina is the largest state to have just one exchange insurer with Blue Cross Blue Shield of N.C., according to the Brookings Institution and the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
The state had the nations highest premium average, with Blue Cross raising its monthly premium by 24 percent for 2017.
However, N.C. exchange participants also are among the biggest beneficiaries of federal subsidies. About 82 percent of 2017 participants were estimated to pay less than $75 a month, and at least 90 percent were expected to qualify for a subsidy.
The N.C. element of a five-state study was researched by Mark Hall, a law professor at Wake Forest University who is a national expert on health care. The other states were California, Florida, Michigan and Texas.
Hall interviewed 27 officials connected to hospitals, insurers, exchange navigators and brokers, regulators, physicians and policy analysts.
Hall previously issued a report in which he determined it made sense economically for North Carolina to expand its Medicaid program to more than 500,000 residents.
Although North Carolina currently has one of the least competitive exchange marketplaces (after losing Aetna and UnitedHealthcare for 2017), it is not obvious that most consumers are suffering as a result, Hall said.
Adverse selection
Hall said a primary factor in the high premium average and lack of insurer competition is North Carolina having one of the nations highest levels of sicker-than-average enrollees in the marketplace, identified by the term adverse selection.
For example, North Carolina ranks in the bottom 25 percent for adults whose health is listed as fair to poor at 19.2 percent, or nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians.
A 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released in September found 30.1 percent of N.C. adults, or 2.36 million, are considered obese a level that has remained unchanged the past seven years.
North Carolina has an unusually high number of people who sign up for insurance in order to receive expensive treatment, and then drop coverage once treatment is no longer needed, Hall said.
That has been a particular concern of hospitals and physicians since the ACA requires hospitals to regard patients as having coverage for up to three months after the patient stops paying premiums.
The hospital learns only retroactively that the insurer will not pay for the treatment, Hall said.
As a result, Hall found some N.C. hospitals are not eager to receive patients with ACA coverage.
They feel that these patients are likely to incur higher costs and be less stable in their source of insurance.
Researchers determined that Florida and Texas also were subject to adverse selection.
That misjudgment and uncertainty ultimately caused some plans to incur losses and then withdraw from those marketplaces, according to the overall study, though California and Michigan retained a reasonable number of insurers through 2017.
A worse risk pool
There had been projections of more than 600,000 N.C. enrollees for 2017 before the November presidential election.
However, the presidential victory of Donald Trump and his support of Republican congressional efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act likely led to fewer sign-ups than expected in January. The Trump administration significantly reduced marketing for the exchanges in the final 11 days for enrollment.
Hall also cited as playing a major contributing role the unwillingness of the Republican-controlled General Assembly to expand Medicaid. Republican legislative leaders have cited concerns about the dependability of the federal government to pay up to 95 percent of the administrative costs associated with expansion.
Those factors have resulted in a worse risk pool for the exchange market ... which also might be due to enrollment efforts that target people with the greatest health-care needs, Hall said.
Some sources pointed to research indicating that states that did not expand Medicaid have experience worse risk pools in their individual markets, because people near poverty have more unmet medical needs than average.
Blue Cross losses
Before the exchange was established in 2013, Blue Cross held an 86 percent market share in the N.C. individual market.
However, with Aetna and UnitedHealthcare providing exchange plans through 2016, they had combined to chip away at Blue Cross dominance. In early 2016, Blue Cross was at 65 percent, followed by Aetna at 19 percent and UnitedHealthcare at 16 percent.
Blue Cross said it lost $600 million on ACA-related patient care during 2015 when not including federal reimbursements, and $282 million when including them. By comparison, for 2014 the insurer lost $452 million when not including federal reimbursements and $123 million when including them.
Brian Tajlili, director of actuarial and pricing services for Blue Cross, said in October that the insurer continues to struggle to attract healthy individuals in their 20s, who are pivotal to offset the expenses of those ages 55 and older.
Many (new enrollees) are likely to incur significant medical expenses (in 2017), Tajlili said.
This is the primary reason we revised our rate filing (after the Aetna and UnitedHealthcare exits) before deciding to participate in the ACA for 2017 in all 100 counties.
Blue Cross said the expenses for those exchange participants ages 55 and older tend to be 3.5 to 4 times higher than those in their 20s.
The four main reasons are higher emergency department use, more orthopedic surgeries (such as hip and knee replacement), more cardiology and cancer services, and more expensive prescription drugs, whether brand name or generic.
Could Aetna return?
Hall said his survey gave him confidence that Blue Cross would not remain the only statewide exchange insurer if the exchange were kept in place.
He said Aetna expressed a willingness to return if profitability is restored in the non-group market.
Hall cautioned that many officials said Blue Cross dominance is serving as a deterrent to competition.
OPEC has raised its oil production forecast for the U.S. in 2017 by 180,000 barrels per day due to higher crude prices, the cartel said in its Monthly Oil Market Report for February.
One month before, OPEC forecast that U.S. production would average 13.7 million bpd in 2017 compared with 13.63 million bpd in 2016. The new forecast calls for U.S. production to rise to 13.88 million bpd from 13.65 million bpd.
In all OPEC expects production in non-OPEC countries to rise by 240,000 bpd this year, twice the increase it forecast last month "due mainly to higher expectations for the U.S. on the increase in prices," it said.
The previous report said overall non-OPEC production would rise from 57.14 million bpd to 57.26 million bpd. The corresponding figures in the latest report are 57.2 million bpd and 57.44 million bpd.
OPEC forecast a slightly bigger decline in Russian production in 2017, from 11.09 million bpd to 11.03 million bpd compared with the previous month's forecast decline from 11.08 million bpd to 11.05 million bpd.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip have discussed the issue of resuming electricity supplies from Ukraine to Moldova.
"We also discussed the issue of resumption of stable electricity supplies from Ukraine to Moldova. Cooperation in the energy sector remains an important factor in the integration of our countries into the European energy space and in strengthening the energy security of Ukraine and Moldova," Poroshenko told reporters after talks with Filip in Kyiv.
The prime minister of Moldova said that both countries are interested in the development of cooperation in the energy sector. According to him, the sides discussed "the creation of necessary conditions for the operation of Dnistrovsky hydraulic complex."
Earlier, on February 13 Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman at a joint press conference with the prime minister of Moldova said the anti-crisis energy headquarters at a meeting on Monday would consider the possibility of rolling blackouts of electricity due to lower coal stocks in the warehouses of Ukrainian power plants.
He said after the meeting the Cabinet of Ministers could be recommended to adopt a decree on the introduction of temporary emergency measures in the electricity market due to a lack of coal in storage and the schedule of rolling blackouts.
Rodriguezs new dishes debut this week. Photo: M. Cooper
How do we make this feel like your grandma made it, but present it in a way that makes it feel like your grandmother was a queen? Thats the challenge facing new executive chef Melissa Rodriguez as she takes control of the kitchen at Del Posto, the twelve-year-old, much-lauded luxury Italian restaurant owned by Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and his mother, Lidia. As of this week, Rodriguez officially takes over for her former boss, Mark Ladner, who ran the kitchen for the entirety of the restaurants existence. In stepping into the role, Rodriguez becomes the first female chef at a restaurant that holds four stars from the New York Times (among its many other accolades). Rodriguez is aware of the pressure, so shes making moves to help the restaurants food become more refined and ambitious than ever before.
Rodriguez first became interested in cooking as a kid growing up in northern New Jersey; she didnt like her mothers food, so she made her own. What her family did instill was respect for the act of dining itself: They were very strict about table manners, Rodriguez explains. My mom was my Girl Scout troop leader, and when I was in the second grade, she took my troop to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America] to have lunch, because she thought that we would learn better table manners. I remember feeling really intimidated by the size and stature of everything there. That was my first introduction to a formal meal.
Mackerel in Carpione with golden Osetra caviar. Photo: M. Cooper
Rodriguez went on to attend the CIA right out of high school, and landed her first job in a New York kitchen at the Cub Room when she was just 18. After a few years during which she says she was too intimidated to do anything in fine dining she started working at the original Oceana under chef Cornelius Gallagher. He was super, super intense in the way that you walked into work every day and you swore you were going to get fired, she says. Things happened that no longer happen in kitchens anymore.
Gender discrimination still persists in professional kitchens today, but it was glaring back then: I remember one day I was working the fish roast with two other women and the chef walked in and he was like, Youve got to be fucking kidding me. All these women? This is not my kitchen. Rodriguez realizes that she thrived because she responded to his aggression by keeping her head down and moving faster. As for her female peers: All of them were really good, but none of them got very far, to be honest. I know that sounds awful. Most of them made it to hot apps, and thats where they threw in the towel.
Veal Braciole with plum mostarda and foie gras. Photo: M. Cooper
She moved up the ranks by joining the team at Daniel as a line cook, and proved her worth by working the meat-roast station the hardest station in the city, she says. After earning the sous-chef title there, she left to open her own restaurant in Jersey City, where she currently lives. But it fell through at the 11th hour, owing to a contractual dispute with her partner an experience she describes as devastating, like losing a friend.
It was during this time that Rodriguez began working at Del Posto, which was only supposed to be a temporary gig. The old chef de cuisine is a very good, old friend of mine, she says. He called me and was like, Im totally in the shit for sous-chefs. Can you come one or two days a week? I said, I dont know anything about Italian food. I dont know anything about your kitchen. Its a huge restaurant. Are you crazy? And he just said, Youre fine. Youll be fine.
In 2011, she joined Ladners Del Posto team full time a decision she credits to one of the funnier things thats ever happened to me in my life. Ladner called her in to talk about expectations, since she had never before worked in an Italian restaurant, and Daniel Bouluds style is more regimented. He goes, So, youre one of those women who has hair thats kind of wavy and kind of straight. And I imagine that when you go and get your hair cut and it gets blow out, youre happy, because its all nice. I want you to pretend that youre walking out the hair salon, your hair is all flowing, and then I want you to mess it up. While this couldve easily been interpreted as a male chefs obtuse attempt to relate to a woman, Rodriguez found it charming. I was like, I can do this. I can figure this out. And I became less focused on making things perfect.
Torta di Ricotta e Limone with pear and sheeps-milk-ricotta gelato. Photo: M. Cooper
She thrived, eventually becoming Ladners chef de cuisine, and before he officially announced his departure (to launch Pasta Flyer, a fast-casual chain), he told Rodriguez that he wanted her to think about moving into his role. She didnt hesitate. Within six years, she went from having never cooked Italian food to helming the kitchen at one of Manhattans most high-profile and most expensive Italian restaurants.
She feels confident overseeing a staff of 50 in a 10,000-square-foot kitchen; the challenge is making the food her own at such an established restaurant. After working under high-profile chefs for decades, whats her personal cooking style? Starting with a clean slate didnt feel right, so Rodriguez plans to slowly implement changes to the $150 and $180 tasting menus (lunch costs $50 one of fine dinings better deals). I still feel like Im always trying to make Del Posto my own, because its always not going to be all my own, because it is the restaurant that it is, she says.
Girello Genovese. Photo: M. Cooper
Even still, changes have arrived on the menu, starting with an update on the restaurants most famous dish, Ladners famed 100-layer lasagna: Her Girello Genovese is pasta thats filled and rolled with porcini, pesto, roast pork, and Pecorino Toscano, sliced into a disk, and pan-roasted with more Pecorino. Rodriguez is also modernizing by bringing in new purveyors The Brooklyn Bread Labs Adam Leonti now makes Del Postos classic bagatini with whole-wheat flour. I want presentation to be a little tighter, flavor profiles to be a little tighter, ingredient-sourcing to be a little tighter, she says. I keep saying tighter!
That doesnt mean shes planning on doing anything crazy or molecular, only that shes embracing food thats unabashedly luscious. Obviously, I really enjoy doing fine dining, she says. Everyone is stepping a little bit away from it, but I feel like we should embrace it. Why wouldnt we? We have this as our stage.
Romance! Photo: Monty Brinton/NBC via Getty Images
Whether you remembered or not, Valentines Day is tomorrow. Maybe youve been busy designing the perfect bouquet, hand-selecting chocolates from your better halfs favorite shop, or maybe you just forgot. But if youre here, it means you dont know what youre doing for dinner. Dont bug out: Grub has assembled a list of great restaurants from around the city, all of which still have reservations left for tomorrow night.
Otway
Availability: There are still tables early in the night, until 6:30 p.m., and late, if thats your style.
Been looking for the perfect place to take your offal-obsessed significant other? Go to this Clinton Hill restaurant for the veal-heart skewers, stay for the pot-au-feu and roasted pears with brioche.
Romans
Availability: There are a few tables available at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., as well as bar seating at 7, 8, and 9 p.m.
The Fort Greene trattorias four-course prix fixe ($75) includes dishes like fondue, spaghetti with pink shrimp and fava beans, roasted quail with blood oranges, and chocolate semolina cake with pistachio ice cream.
Chaiwali
Availability: There are seats available at the bar all night long.
Looking for a casual meal uptown or dont mind posting up at the bar? Head to Harlems creative Indian restaurant, located in a handsomely decorated townhouse, for Vindaloo lamb chops, masala fish and okra fries, and plenty of flatbread.
Harts
Availability: 5:30, 6, 9:30 and 10 p.m.
The snug restaurants close quarters and dim lighting make for easy romance. Normally closed on Tuesdays, theyre serving a tongue-in-cheek menu built around the theme of things you wouldnt normally eat on your first date: mussels escabeche, chicken fra diavolo, fried smelt with aioli, and more.
Italienne
Availability: The a la carte tavernas all booked, but there are still a lot of tables left early in the night as well as later on.
The special prix fixe ($125) features starters including scallop crudo with citrus, pastas like tortelonni with hazelnut and cardoon honey, entrees including loud de mer and lobster or beef tenderloin with foie gras, and mascarpone semifreddo and a croissant with gianduja for dessert.
Sunday in Brooklyn
Availability: There are lots of tables available, provided you want to go early or dont mind dropping by at 8:45 p.m. or after.
At the Williamsburg restaurant, there will be a four-course ($75) prix fixe with dishes including grilled oysters with lardo, bone marrow with caramelized sunchokes, minute steak with charred onions, and their satisfyingly rich, warm devils food cake with peanut ice cream.
Fung Tu
Availability: There are still some tables from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and, if youd like to go later, around 10 p.m.
Jonathan Wus American-Chinese restaurant will serve a special prix fixe with six courses, including lobster and foie gras pot stickers and hazelnut-chocolate praline steamed buns. But you can also stick to the regular menu, and eat signatures like the kohlrabi noodle salad, china-quiles, and General Tsos lobster.
Metrograph
Availability: There are a decent number of tables from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Where better to have dinner and a movie then a movie theaters restaurant? The four course prix fixe features tuna tartare with caviar, chicken consomme with egg noodles, duck confit, and bananas foster.
Txikito
Availability: There are still tables around 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
If youre in the mood for Basque-style tapas, head to Chelsea. Along with the regular menu, there are specials like sweet roasted red pepper with queso de habra, seared duck breast with choricero-chocolate sauce, a surf and turf of rabbit loin and Dublin Bay prawns, and more.
Fancy Nancy
Availability: There are a couple tables available at 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., but there also bar seats available by special request.
Here you can use your romantic night out to do a little good: The Brooklyn restaurant will donate all proceeds from its four-course dinner ($50) think smoked duck breast, seared mackerel, vanilla ice cream with spicy honeycomb to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
Cannibal Liquor House
Availability: There are still tables early in the night until 7 p.m., and then one at 10:15 p.m. if youve got plans and want a late-night meal.
Head to the boozier sister restaurant of midtown meatery the Cannibal for fluffy and fat onion rings, spicy chicken wings, and Reuben egg rolls with IPA mustard.
Cafe Americano
Availability: You wont have trouble finding a table at the right time for you, there are still plenty.
If youre on the Upper East Side and want to keep it classic, youll like this menu with its double cheeseburger with shallot and onion jam, spiced Greek yogurt dip, seared tuna nicoise, and an adult sundae.
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The Nokia 150 - which was unveiled by HMD back in December last year, and arrived in the Netherlands last week - has hit the market in the UK as well. It's currently a Carphone Warehouse-exclusive in the country, and is being sold for 35 SIM-free.
Commenting on the launch, Carphone Warehouse MD Jeremy Fennell said, "The much loved Nokia brand has always been a part of our unbeatable handset range and were looking forward to working with Nokia to reignite the brand."
"The arrival of the Nokia 150 marks the beginning of an exciting new partnership, one that will see even more Nokia handsets made available to our customers," he added. "Were also hearing theyve got some exciting new announcements to make out at MWC later this month."
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Ukraine on February 9 filed a requirement to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to set up an expert group within the framework of the case on numerous transit restrictions from the territory of Ukraine through Russian territory to third countries - Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (DS512 Russia - measures for transit traffic), the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine has reported.
"We are deeply convinced that Russia's trading aggression, including wrongful actions on transit limitation (and de facto almost a complete ban) from Ukraine to third countries must obtain an objective assessment of WTO experts and, of course, should be abolished. We believe in the validity of our position, we will make every effort to prove it," Deputy Economic Minister, Trade Representative of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska said.
She noted that since the use of restrictive measures that will be contested exports of goods from Ukraine to Central/East Asian countries in 2016 decreased by 38.3% compared to 2015. In general, the ministry estimates the loss of exports to Kazakhstan (restrictions are applied from the beginning of 2016) and Kyrgyzstan over the past year (restrictions have been applied since the second half of 2016) at more than $400 million.
"According to the experts, about 79% of exports from Ukraine to Kazakhstan and 95% to Kyrgyzstan suffered from restrictions and a partial ban on the part of the Russian Federation," a press release reads.
If you're in Canada and have wanted to purchase a Google Pixel but were not satisfied with the available color options up until this point, then you'll be happy about Rogers' latest announcement. The carrier has revealed, via its YouTube channel, that the Really Blue color version for the Google Pixel is headed to its stores soon.
What's more, the Really Blue Pixel will be exclusive to Rogers in Canada, so if you dig the blue hue you'll have to make do with a Share Everything plan on this carrier. So far, the Really Blue Google Pixel has been sold only in the US, and only with 32GB of storage. Rogers hasn't said anything about how much storage its model will have, so we assume the situation has remained unchanged from the US on that front and you'll have to pick 32GB if you need the blue color.
Expect pricing for the Really Blue Pixel to be identical to the amounts you now need to pay for the Very Silver and Quite Black iterations of the phone. Unfortunately, Rogers hasn't shared a release date for the blue Pixel, simply noting that it should help brighten up your winter blues. Since winter will officially end in a few weeks, we assume that the blue Pixel will be in Rogers stores before that.
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The countdown timer is running down to Samsung's next flagship pair and we are now a little over a month away from the official March 29 unveiling of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. Notice the "+" sign on the bigger model.
Earlier today, reputable leakster Evan Blass mostly confirmed the naming convention and now a new support page on Samsung's Singapore site reaffirms @evleaks' earlier model number claims as well.
The 6.2-inch Galaxy S8+ will indeed bear the SM-G955 model number. To be exact, the page lists SM-G955FD, which is indicative of Samsung's intention to release a Dual-SIM version in the country. This new development also gives us pretty good reason to trust Evan Blass on the SM-N950 model number for the alleged Samsung Galaxy Note8, currently known as project "Baikal".
Samsung Galaxy S8 renders
Source | Via (in Romanian)
Welcome to the first edition proper of our Sunday Q&A. After introducing the feature last week it's now time to serve you the first dose of answers.
Anonymous: In the Huawei Mate 9 review you didn't mention anything about the temperature of kirin 960. In your Xioami Mi 5s Plus review you really were satisfied with SD821 and Xiaomi for keeping the temperature down - how would you compare these two?
And also on charging, is Huaweis SuperCharge more like Dash charge where the phone won't heat up or more like Quick Charge?
The Huawei Mate 9 does a tremendous job of keeping cool even when exposed to prolonged stress. We rarely felt the Kirin 960 get warm even when running benchmarks that metal body probably also helps dissipate heat.
As for charging the SuperCharge is basically a rebranded VOOC or Dash, so once again no issues with heat it uses high current at low voltage and the phone doesnt heat up at all.
Katherine: Which has a better camera- Lenovo P2 or Xiaomi Redmi Note 4?
Since everyone has their own opinion on what exactly makes a camera good wed like to just point you towards our photo quality comparison tool, where you can do all the pixel peeping you want and draw your own conclusions. We have a similar tool for video dont forget to check that one as well.
Tomas: I just wondered if, when testing Galaxy S7 edge battery life on Android 7.0, you used a brand new phone as the per the original review?
Or was it on a phone that had been used over the past year or so? If it was done on a phone that has had a lot of charge cycles it could explain the measured lower battery life.
Its a valid concern Tom we did indeed use the same phone that we used for the original review. However, the phone has only been powered on for a few weeks since then just used for a few VS articles and shootouts and hasnt served as anyones daily driver. Thats why its battery capacity hasnt been affected in any significant way and the measured differences have more to do with the way new OS handles the tasks included.
Ernesto Burke: I am only able to see new and blog with a month period now rather than able to see all your old posts. I drag down but cannot see post like maybe December. Can you fix that or tell me how I can see older posts? Thank you!
By expanding the sandwich menu in the upper left corner of our site (on the left of our logo), you can access our news and blog sections where you can browse all our articles since the site came into existence.
Pedram: I wanted to know if there is a way to have a list of all phones with one common feature? For example I want to see a list of all available phones with AMOLED display. Is there any way to have such a list?
By using our Phone Finder you can filter our extensive database by a number of criteria, including things like display type. Unfortunately list length is limited to 70 so for a feature as common as an OLED screen you can only see the top 70 by your selected criteria Popularity, Price, Weight, Camera resolution or Battery capacity.
Mir: Is switching from Samsung Galaxy S7 to Samsung Galaxy A7(2017), a wise decision?
If you really need a large screen, you might like the Galaxy A7 (2017)s much roomier 5.7 screen. It should also have the upper hand in terms of battery life although we are yet to review it and confirm for sure. Finally theres the selfie camera, which on paper is the best of any Samsung smartphone.
Yet the Galaxy S7 has the upper hand in some arguably more important aspects - primary camera, chipset performance and screen resolution. It also already got its Nougat update, whereas the A7 (2017) will have to wait a while longer. So at the end of the day its all down to your priorities, and of course the pricing of the two handsets in your market.
Sami: Are you going to release a GSM Arena app for Android in the future?
While many popular websites chose to create mobile apps, we feel that a mobile version, which supports all popular platforms is a better way to go about things. That way it is easier for us to implement new features and there arent arguments over who got what version first. The fact that the mobile version is already more popular than our desktop site suggests that its going down well with you guys, too.
That said we arent saying never. If we figure out a way to make a mobile app so it delivers more value to our readers well of course release one. At this point though it would just be a repackaged mobile version and we really dont see any point in wasting resources for that.
Ashok: What is the battery life of the Xiaomi Mi 5 for a moderate to heavy user (checking emails and YouTube for 2.5 hrs, watching a movie daily, calling about 1 hour)?
Weve got a neat battery life table over here, which contains the results of all the phones weve ever tested. The sliders on top let you customize your usage pattern so all the numbers are more relevant to you. So inputting the numbers you gave us, you could expect to go about 54h between charges on the Mi 5. That is of course if the phone is seeing no usage outside of those 2h for video, 2.5h for browsing and 1h of calls. Keep in mind that display brightness and how often you wake up your display to check the time or other minor tasks are also important, but once youve set your usage pattern you can at least get an idea how long different phones will last compared to one another.
Ray: Going through the GSMArena articles on new and upcoming smartphones, I feel that smartphone companies do not want consumers to continue using the same device for many years. For example, earlier models of smartphones used to have batteries that were replaceable but it is not so in many popular brands now.
Another example would be that of smartphone companies offering updated software on recent smartphone portfolio, motivating customers to switch to new phones if they want to use the newer version of mobile OS. Is it true that smartphone companies are moving in this strategy driven direction?
Naturally smartphone makers would love to see users change their smartphones as frequent as possible. After all selling more phones is what generates the revenues and profits and if everyone uses their phone for half a decade the market in general will shrink and all participants will suffer. Less sales mean less money for R&D, which in turn brings fewer exciting technologies and that leads to even fewer reasons to upgrade.
That said, the two examples youve given have more to do with market trends than some manufacturer conspiracy that aims to make everyone give up the phones prematurely. A replaceable battery simply requires more space and with everyone looking to make their smartphones as slim and compact as possible its no longer seen as a reasonable trade-off. First you need removable elements be it a panel on the back or the whole back and second you need to use Li-Ion batteries as Li-Po ones cant be freely disconnected and reconnected. However, Li-Ion power cells arent as flexible when it comes to shape so its much harder to make use of all available space to maximize battery capacity.
As for software upgrades there are several parts to the story. The first is that newer platform releases simply run better on newer hardware so its easier for manufacturers to optimize them and release updates for more recent devices than for older ones. Theres also the fact that as a phone ages there are fewer and fewer people using it and it makes less sense for manufacturers to keep updating it, instead choosing to relocate their resources completely at some point.
Of course the whole thing is much more complicated than that and well probably be coming back to it repeatedly with this Q&A, but we hope this is enough as a start of the debate.
If you have any questions for us - you can send them by using the form over here.
The Shenzhen-based company Vernee announced at CES last month it will launch a phone with latest Mediatek SoC Helio X30 in late February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company teased an outline of a phone back in January, but thanks to the twitter leakster Roland Quandt, we have more info about the device.
The phone will be called Apollo 2 and is dubbed Worlds First Helio X30 Smartphone. For now we know there will be two versions with different internal storage and RAM - one with 6GB + 64 GB and another with 8GB + 128GB. The other info about the device is that it will sport a QHD display.
The chipset itself is deca-core built on 10nm manufacturing process with IMG 7XTP-Mt4 GPU, clocked at 820 MHz.
Mediatek is trying its best to catch up to the pace of competitors. Earlier it announced the Helio P25 - an affordable CPU for dual-camera smartphones at a reasonable price.
Thanks to our tipster Tasneog.
.@verneeglobal says Vernee Apollo 2 will be the first @MediaTek Helio X30 phone - with up to EIGHT GB RAM. pic.twitter.com/ddBjCwG6qK Roland Quandt (@rquandt) 13 February 2017
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Ukroboronprom passes 2,139 units of new and modernized weapons to soldiers in 2016
The plants of Ukroboronprom state concern have 100% fulfilled the state defense order in 2016 and military men were handed over 2,139 units of new and modernized weapons and equipment.
Among them are 109 units of armored vehicles, 36 units of air force and air defense equipment, 766 of rocket and artillery units, 712 of rockets and ammunition, 516 units of special equipment, communications means, electronic warfare and navigation, the press service of Ukroboronprom said.
Ukroboronprom is now analyzing the use of Ukrainian weapons and equipment in the battles near Avdiyivka to improve its performance.
The state concern said BTR-4 armored vehicles after actual fighting got over 900 changes and improvements based on the wishes of military men. Ukroboronprom uses this experience for other equipment.
Published on 2017/02/12 | Source
The government hopes to tackle the oversupply of rice by reducing farm land dedicated to the staple crop by 8.7 percent in the coming years and sending more overseas in the form of aid.
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The measures were announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Thursday.
Farm land dedicated to rice production will fall from 35,000 hectares to 33,000 hectares next year. Government officials hope that this would cut oversupply from 300,000 tons last year to 100,000 to 200,000 tons this year and to less than 50,000 tons in 2018. Instead rice farmers will be encouraged to switch to other crops.
The government also aims to join the Food Assistance Convention this year and boost rice aid to countries in need. Separately, the government will send 1,000 tons of rice to Burma and Cambodia through an emergency stockpile created by ASEAN, Korea, China and Japan.
A ministry official said, "We aim to achieve a balance in rice production and consumption by 2019".
Published on 2017/02/12 | Source
Korea's cigarette exports hit a record last year, with a large proportion going to the smoking-friendly Middle East.
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Last year's cigarette exports amounted to US$1.01 billion, up 11 percent on-year, according to the Korea Customs Service on Wednesday.
The UAE topped the list of importers at 36.9 percent because it redistributes Korean cigarettes across the region. "Middle Easterners particularly like Korean-made slim cigarettes", a Finance Ministry official said.
KT&G exported 48.7 billion cigarettes last year, 27 billion of them super-slim Esse brand. The UAE was followed by Japan (14.1 percent), the U.S. (10.3 percent), Vietnam (8.8 percent), and Australia (5.1 percent).
Read this article in Korean
Published on 2017/02/12 | Source
A total of 217 million people went to the movies last year, a slight decline from the previous year even though new releases mushroomed.
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Some 1,500 movies were released last year, a full 300 more than the previous year, but audiences seemed untempted and real blockbusters were few and far between.
Just one film, the zombie spectacular "Train to Busan", drew over 10 million viewers last year, suggesting that the domestic market has reached its limits.
The decline seems to be mainly among moviegoers in their 30s, according to analysis by theater chain CGV.
"A growing number of young people don't have the time and money for leisure as they are being affected by a tough job market, with many of them even giving up dating and marriage", said Lee Seung-won, a staffer at CGV.
Instead, the proportion of moviegoers over 45 or more is increasing steadily. In 2007, they accounted for a little over five percent of audiences, but now they make up over 20 percent. And they go to the movies more often than other age groups. Lee said middle-aged and older people are now "the core demographic" of Korean moviegoers.
Older people tend to rely more on TV to find out what movies are playing, while younger people rely on the internet.
Seo Jung, the CEO of the theater chain, said, "The Korean movie market is saturated, so now is the time to tap into foreign markets to grow. We're considering forays into Russia and India".
Published on 2017/02/12 | Source
Actor Park Bo-gum met 4,000 of his Thai fans.
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He had his "2016 - 2017 Asian Tour" in Thailand and he said, "Although I arrived in Thailand very late, I was surprised to see so many fans waiting for me. I am grateful for you waiting for me, but you shouldn't stay out so late. I still feel your love for me".
He then revealed pictures of the various places he visited in Thailand and said, "The way Thai people smile really touched me".
Song Joong-ki appeared as a special guest at the fan meeting.
They said they would like to be in the same drama or movie at one point in the future and Park Bo-gum said he would like to try something like "A Wolf Boy".
He said, "The way Song Joong-ki delivered his feelings without words was really impressive". Song Joong-ki also said, "Lee Yeong from "Moonlight Drawn by Clouds" was great".
Park Bo-gum expressed his gratitude to Song Joong-ki for making his time out there and their bromance stood out.
After the fan meeting, Park Bo-gum said, "I am happy to have been in Thailand and I am sure to be someone who can be with my fans for a long time".
Park Bo-gum's fan meeting started in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last year and there's one in Singapore on the 18th of February and Seoul on the 11th of March.
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.
03:14, 6 NOV 2022
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has completed the first part of an investigation into the 'gas case' against MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko, Director of the Bureau of Artem Sytnyk.
"The investigation into the first part of this case, concerning the persons involved, which are under arrest or under other preventive measures, is scheduled to be completed on Monday... and they [the suspects] will be presented the materials," he said at a briefing in Kyiv.
Onyshchenko is suspected of organizing a criminal scheme to embezzle funds for the extraction and sale of natural gas involving activities of PJSC Ukrgazvydobuvannia, resulting in the loss of UAH 3 billion. He is suspected of committing crimes pursuant to Part 1 of Article 255, Part 4 of Article 28, Part 5 of Article 191, Part 4 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 205, Part 4 of Article 278, Part 3 of Article 209, Part 4 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 264-1 and Part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Ukraine's parliament voted to bring Onyschenko to justice, as well as to detain and arrest him. However, on the eve of the vote, Onyschenko fled Ukraine. He was put in the wanted list on August 8.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has met with Slovenian President Borut Pahor, who came to Ukraine as part of his international tour after visiting Berlin and Moscow, the Ukrainian government's press service reported on Sunday.
"Thank you for a strong and reliable position in support for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine, for your firm position in ensuring the European unity [in this matter], including sanctions, as well as for a clear stance on the illegal annexation of Crimea," the press service quoted Poroshenko as saying.
The Ukrainian president briefed his Slovenian counterpart about the latest escalation of violence in Donbas, when Avdiyivka was continuously shelled by militants.
"They said the progress in the talks on a political settlement requires the implementation of priority issues of the security elements of the Minsk agreements, first of all, the full and definitive ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons," the government's press service said.
Poroshenko stressed the importance of maintaining a consistent EU policy of sanctions against Russia until the full restoration of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine in the internationally recognized borders, including Crimea.
They also discussed the European integration of Ukraine and the introduction of visa-free regime by the EU.
KRP states in a press release that the suspected ringleader is a former managing director of a Russian state-owned property management company based in Finland.
The National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) has revealed that several people are suspected of turning a massive profit from fraudulent real estate dealings in Greater Helsinki at the expense of the Russian Federation.
The ex-managing director is believed to have pocketed roughly 2.5 million of the 4.5 million euros generated by the criminal activities with the help of a real estate firm, a lawyer and property appraiser operating in the capital region.
The Russian Federation divested 58 centrally-located properties in Greater Helsinki in October, 2012, in order to acquire an office building in Lauttasaari, Helsinki. The properties were handed over to the Espoo-based real estate firm, which purchased and transferred the office building to control of the property management company.
The real estate company immediately offloaded the 58 properties to a number of companies specialising in real estate.
KRP believes the properties' appraised value of was considerably lower than their market value, allowing the Espoo-based company to record a profit of 4.5 million euros. One day after the transaction, the profits were transferred to the bank account of a consultancy firm operating in Switzerland.
The criminal profits were then distributed among the conspirators, with the Espoo-based real estate firm receiving 1.5 million, the Swiss consultant roughly 200,000 and the lawyer roughly 400,000 euros.
KRP believes the main conspirators were planning on using the same strategy also in other countries.
The former managing director has confessed to being involved in the fraud and has been sentenced to a prison term of four years by a Russian court for perpetrating an aggravated fraud against the Russian Federation. The other suspects have contrastively denied all criminal accusations, according to KRP.
KRP co-operated with authorities in both Russia and Switzerland during the course of the pre-trial investigation. It is set to present the case to a prosecutor for consideration of charges in the near future.
Aleksi Teivainen HT
Photo: Jussi Nukari Lehtikuva
The arrangement will enable the long-troubled nickel and zinc miner to continue ramping up its operations in Sotkamo, North Ostrobothnia.
Trafigura, a multinational commodity trading company based in Geneva, Switzerland, has acquired a 15.5 per cent stake in Terrafame, a Finnish state-owned mining company, as part of a 250 million euro funding arrangement.
Matti Hietanen, the chief executive at Terrafame, believes the financing package proves that the mining company has all the prerequisites to continue its operations in a financially sound and environmentally sustainable manner.
After a thorough global financing round we have now reached an arrangement with Trafigura and [its investment arm] Galena, who will bring additional industry-related commercial and technical expertise to Terrafame, he says in a press release.
The Finnish Government has injected almost 500 million euros in Terrafame since establishing the special-purpose company to take over the mining operations after the bankruptcy of Talvivaara in mid-2015, reminds Kauppalehti.
Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) underlines that the funding arrangement is also in the best interests of the Government, not least due to importance of the mining operations for the economy and employment situation in Kainuu.
A decision to shut down the mine would have depleted state coffers by 300400 million euros in addition to the earlier investments. The [pre-transaction] valuation of the mining company is shows that the state funds invested in Terrafame have not been wasted, he writes in his blog.
We made the decision and it was the right one, he adds.
The pre-transaction valuation of Terrafame was roughly 380 million euros.
Trafigura is responsible for what has been described as one of the worst environmental disasters of the 21st century, reminds Kauppalehti. A cargo ship leased by the commodity trader dumped tonnes of toxic waste in Abidjani, Ivory Coast, in 2006, allegedly causing as many as 100,000 people to seek medical attention and 17 to lose their lives.
The cargo ship was supposed to unload the waste earlier in Amsterdam, but local port authorities noticed a foul smell emanating from the cargo and, after conducting further analyses, concluded that disposing of the waste would have required a more thorough and expensive disposal process.
The cargo was consequently transported to Ivory Coast, where a local company offered to dispose of the waste at a lower cost.
Trafigura settled a class-action lawsuit brought against it in Ivory Coast reportedly for 30 million pounds.
Mika Lintila (Centre), the Minister of Economic Affairs, stated in a press conference on Friday that the past transgressions of the Trafigura are deplorable, but reminded that the commodity trader will not be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the mine.
Terrafame will remain responsible for the mining operations, he said according to Helsingin Sanomat.
Aleksi Teivainen HT
Photo: Kimmo Rauatmaa Lehtikuva
Source: Uusi Suomi
THREE of the worlds finest folk musicians will be taking to the stage at Nettlebed Village Club on Monday night (February 13).
Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle will be familiar to fans of the BBCs acclaimed Transatlantic Sessions, six series of which have been recorded to date.
A master of flutes, whistles and Uillean pipes, Michael McGoldrick is a founding member of Flook and Lunasa and is a current member of Capercaillie.
Regarded as one of the greatest flute players of all time, he has toured with Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler, as well as with The Afro Celts, the RTE Orchestra and Kate Rusby. He has collaborated with the likes of Jim Kerr, Youssou NDour, John Cale and Zakir Hussian and was named the BBC Radio 2 folk musican of the year in 2006.
John McCuskers unique fiddle playing has earned him a worldwide reputation as one of the most gifted and versatile musicians of any genre.
McCusker was also part of the legendary band that toured with both Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler.
Joining the Battlefield Band aged 17, he spent 11 years touring the world with the now legendary folk outfit.
Renowned for his skill at transcending musical boundaries, he has worked with artists ranging from Paulo Nutini and Jools Holland to Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash and has recorded with Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene.
John Doyles gifts as guitarist, songwriter and vocalist have played an essential role in the ongoing renaissance of Irish traditional music.
Now living in the US, he was the recent musical director for Joan Baez and toured with her for two years.
One half of the stellar duo Liz Carroll and John Doyle, he is also a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Irish group Solas.
Mondays show starts at 8pm. Tickets are 17.50 in advance and can be booked by calling 01628 636620 or via www.nettlebedfolkclub.co.uk
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry will conduct over 100 exercises this year, to practice coherence among antiaircraft missile units, in particular, a live fire exercise with Buk-M1 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems will take place in Kherson region, ministry spokesman Dmytro Hutsuliak said.
"To ensure coherence among our anti-aircraft missile units, we are planning to conduct around 50 tactical exercises with command staffs of brigades, regiments and core units, almost 25 tactical exercises with Buk-M1 surface-to-air missile batteries and around 35 tactical-specific exercises with logistic units," Hutsuliak said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.
During the Saber Guardian 2017 multinational exercise at Shabla training range in Bulgaria, Ukrainian S-300 SAM units will take part in a live fire drill, the spokesman said.
"Units armed with Buk-M1s will conduct a live fire drill at the Yahorlik training range in Kherson region," he said.
Certain radar troops and crews operating radio-electronic equipment of the Ukrainian Air Forces will be practicing monthly maneuvers that will involve deployments to new position areas.
Also, a number of tactical-specific exercises will be held with practice launches of spy drones.
"Classes with teachers and cadets at Ukrainian Armed Forces training institutions will be held with the active involvement of foreign instructors from the NATO member states," Hutsuliak said.
Healthy eating duo Stephen and David Flynn have sold more than 100,000 copies of their bestselling cookbook, The Happy Pear, generating turnover of around 2m through the bookshop tills.
The Wicklow entrepreneurs are also set to expand their healthy eating empire of shops and cafes, after they landed 1.5m in investment funding last month.
Two new Happy Pear outlets are planned for the Dublin area in 2017.
Expectations
The twin brothers published The Happy Pear in October 2014, following it with a second cookbook, The World of the Happy Pear, in June 2016.
It was named Cookbook of the Year at the Irish Book Awards last November.
The Flynns are now working on a third cookbook in the series, which will be launched in spring 2018, according to their publishers, Penguin Ireland.
"Our lovely little yellow book has far exceeded our expectations and helped us to share our dream of making it easier for people to be healthier and happier," said David Flynn.
"We're amazed by the messages and letters we receive from people, telling us about its positive impact on them and their families," he added.
Stephen Flynn said the third book would feature practical lifestyle tips and recipes that will help people make positive changes to their lives.
Penguin Ireland attributed the international appeal of the Happy Pear brand to the brother's social media and online reach.
"That people have taken the twins and their message - 'eat more veg' - to their hearts is a testament to David and Stephen's incredible hard work, accessibility and joie de vivre, and to the deliciousness of their food," said Penguin Ireland's editorial director Patricia Deevy.
A man found dead from a gunshot wound is suspected of involvement in the fatal shootings of innocent Martin O'Rourke and Trevor O'Neill - and may have been caught on CCTV at the scene of one killing.
Gardai are understood to be investigating whether talented boxer Glen Clarke is the hooded man seen running from the scene after the murder of Mr O'Neill in Spain.
The innocent Dublin dad was murdered during a botched assassination attempt on Jonathan Hutch, a nephew of crime boss Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch.
His murder has been linked to the Kinahan cartel, who are in a long-running feud with members of the Hutch family.
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Dublin City Council employee Mr O'Neill (40), from Drimnagh, had no involvement in crime and had been on holiday with his partner and their three young children at the time of his death on August 17, 2016.
Investigators have also linked Clarke with the murder of homeless man Mr O'Rourke. Clarke's DNA was reportedly found on a gun discarded near the scene of Mr O'Rourke's murder.
Unconscious
Father-of-two Clarke was found unconscious with gunshot injuries in a stolen car in Leixlip, Co Kildare, in December.
He died the following day in hospital, with the initial investigation into his death focused on it being an accident or suicide. Gardai are still continuing their investigation.
It has been reported that, in the last two weeks, gardai have established that Clarke was in Majorca at the time of Mr O'Neill's murder.
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CCTV footage captured around the time of his death shows a heavily disguised gunman approaching the Dubliner, before murdering him in front of his family in the resort of Costa de la Calma.
Less than 30 seconds later, the hitman is caught on the same CCTV camera fleeing the scene.
The images, aired on RTE's Prime Time, show the gangland hitman running past a nearby store as locals shop inside, oblivious to the execution that had taken place metres away.
It is believed Clarke flew to Palma and stayed in a hotel in the area - and it is understood he was targeting Jonathan Hutch.
However, he shot innocent Mr O'Neill instead. Jonathan Hutch later told Spanish police he believed he was the intended target of the attack.
His mother, Carol D'Arcy, has previously said her son did not work for the Kinahans.
"He didn't shoot himself. I believe my son was murdered," she claimed.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, says the nation's problematic healthcare system is "one of the darkest shadows" hanging over the country.
Speaking at a conference to mark World Day Of The Sick, he said people were constantly hearing about a health system that was not responding to the needs of the population.
He referred to the failures of a two-tier system, the negative effects of which disproportionately affect the poor, the isolated and the elderly.
Tribute
In a reference to the bureaucratic failures of the HSE, he said the system seemed to be "trapped within tentacles of its own making".
Addressing the conference in Dublin, he said attempts to remove one problem revealed another, and rendered a definitive solution ever more distant.
Dr Martin paid tribute to the "highly professional" and "extraordinarily dedicated" doctors, nurses and carers, as well as those providing palliative care.
He said they were "most acutely aware of the failings and inadequacies, and false spending of systems".
He said Irish society needed to ensure that these healthcare professionals did not lose motivation or leave Ireland.
"We have a responsibility to ensure that these people are not led to lose motivation - or indeed to leave Ireland - through sheer frustration or our lack of interest or recognition."
Referring to the Church's changed and changing role in healthcare, he said it was not "abandoning the sphere" but focusing on the ways in which individual Christians, communities and institutions can seek out the most vulnerable.
At a Mass for the anointing of the sick in St Gabriel's Parish Church in Dollymount, Dr Martin appealed to people to help change the way society cares for the sick.
He also called on them to create a culture of respect for life and to defend the integrity and dignity of every person.
In Sligo Cathedral, Bishop Kevin Doran said most people believed the problem with the HSE was the difficulty gaining access to it, not the service itself.
President Higgins arrives in the city of Bogota in Columbia at the start of his official visit to the country
President Michael D Higgins has become the first Head of State to visit a fully demobilised zone in Colombia.
He was accompanied by two members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) for the trip into the jungle.
It comes two months after Colombia's biggest and richest guerilla group Farc and the Colombian government reached an agreement on a peace process.
It is hoped the deal will bring to an end a conflict which has lasted more than five decades and cost 250,000 lives.
Disarming
As part of the Colombian Peace Agreement, some 7,000 Farc members are undergoing a demobilisation phase, set up in 26 rural assembly zones across the country.
The disarming phase is due to begin in the coming weeks, while the removal of landmines around Farc areas is ongoing.
A large presence of Colombian special forces was organised for the safety of President Higgins' visit, while two members of the ERU flew over from Dublin in recent days.
President Higgins visited the zone in Anori with Minister Leo Vardakar. The area has 128 ex-combatants but dense fog delayed the trip for several hours after his Black Hawk helicopter was grounded - leaving them both waiting in Medellin.
Contacts have been made between Ireland and the Colombian Government in recent years to exchange expertise based on the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Colombia's High Commissioner for Peace, Sergio Jaramillo met with President Higgins on Sunday.
Mr Jaramillo said he had been in contact with Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness on a number of occasions, meeting him three years ago in Bogota for a "practical and sensible" discussion on the peace process in the North.
One of the most important aspects of the agreement is justice for the victims on issues such as war crimes and most forms of serious human rights violations.
Prison
A Special Peace Tribunal will be in place to deal with such issues - with those who have committed crimes given the opportunity to give the full truth of their crimes to avoid regular prison and instead be sentenced with serious restrictions.
The tribunal process is expected to be a long and expensive one, with Ireland committing 3m over the next five years in support, as part of the EU Trust Fund.
Further funding to the UN will also be provided by the Irish Government.
President Higgins is due to give a keynote address on the peace agreement at the National University of Colombia later this afternoon.
Maureen O'Sullivan TD takes part with anti poverty activists in the Stop Poverty Call to Action event at the Human rights and Poverty Stone on Custom House Quay
The leader of an EU team that targets poverty has said Ireland "has a long way to go" in helping children.
Professor Hugh Frazer (67), from Rathmines, says more than a third of Irish children are in poverty or threatened by it.
Yesterday, a large group braved the biting cold and rain to attend the annual launch of the Stop Poverty Call to Action at the Human Rights and Poverty Stone on Dublin's Custom House Quay. The campaign's aim is to draw awareness to poverty internationally.
Deprivation
Prof Frazer has long been involved in social affairs and specialises in issues relating to child poverty.
"Historically, Ireland has always had a high level of child poverty and social exclusion, and for a developed European country we still have high figures. It's about one in three children who are at risk of poverty," he said
"So that means children are living with families with low incomes or experiencing a lot of material deprivation, that lack of basic necessities."
Prof Frazer is the coordinator of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion, which aims to highlight poverty and social exclusion in more than 30 European countries.
Figures recently released showed some 2,505 children were homeless in Ireland last Christmas, which Prof Frazer said was "one of the most worrying parts of the homelessness crisis".
"It's how it has expanded from the more traditional group of people to a large number of families, and there undoubtedly has been an increase in the number of families affected by homelessness," he said.
TD Maureen O'Sullivan attended the event and said: "Every year, on October 17, which is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, I come here.
"I'm meeting people who are homeless and, even though there has been some movement, there is still a long way to go."
Ireland is lagging behind the rest of Europe in its medical provision for patients with brain and neurological injuries, a leading doctor claims.
Dr Jacinta McElligott of the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) says Irish patients are "under-served" due to a lack of beds and specialist staff.
The NRH in Dun Laoghaire is the only hospital with a dedicated rehabilitation team looking after neurological injuries.
Patients include those who have survived devastating car crashes, drowning, sporting and work accidents and those with serious neuro conditions caused by illness.
"We have a very skilled staff but we don't have enough with 56 beds [for brain injuries] only," Dr McElligott said.
Distress
"So for many patients with complex needs, we don't have the capacity and staff to provide the services they need.
"If a patient is left a year waiting, it's not okay, but at the end of the day we have 56 beds and need 280.
"If there's an investment from government, could this situation be improved? Yes.
"We've all been struck by the distress around the waiting lists and trolley times and what's needed is beyond my area," she added.
"I want to reassure people that on the ground clinicians and hospital staff are working with the HSE to try to build up the infrastructure to catch up and meet demands across the country.
"But across the board, Ireland is under-served compared to other European countries regarding consultants per capita and with the capacity of medical teams in programmes and at the NRH. We have the lowest number of rehabilitation consultants per capita in the EU and this is the tip of the iceberg.
"The number of teams with expertise to support complex services is limited, as is the number of occupational or physical therapists."
Currently there are 110 beds at the hospital, including the 56 for brain injury patients and the rest are for spinal injuries, eight beds for paediatric patients and the rest for prosthetic injuries.
Struggling
The 56 beds are devoted to brain injury patients but that does not cover multiple sclerosis or other neurological conditions in the programme.
"We need regional and community teams," said Dr McElligott.
"People may have to wait an extended period and in the meantime they're receiving services that may not be complex specialist rehabilitation.
"They may not have a team round them and we may not be able to bring them into the NRH as we hope to but we try to reach out and manage the situation as best we can."
The Neurological Alliance of Ireland is currently campaigning for more services to be rolled out to assist the 25,000 patients struggling each year to access rehabilitation.
However, specialists continue having to manage vast waiting lists and trying to ensure rehabilitation is available in communities that are often under-resourced and short of medical staff.
The NRH is set for a redevelopment to be completed by late 2019 but this still this does not answer the lack of community services.
The hospital expansion is being funded in partnership with the HSE and the NRH Foundation.
The Internal Affairs Ministry of Ukraine has said Ukrainian citizens who were detained in Russia in the case on international drug syndicate are victims of human traffickers.
We are talking about Ukrainians, who went to work to Russia and were recruited for these criminal activities, the press service of the Interior Ministry told Interfax-Ukraine on Saturday.
"The National Police and the Interior Ministry are constantly fighting against the organized groups of traffickers. There are hundreds of our citizens in the territory of the Russian Federation, who at various times were victims of human traffickers... They are represented in the Russian Federation not as victims of trafficking, but as members of an organized criminal group," the Interior Ministry's press service said on Saturday.
However, in such cases it is very difficult to prove that we are dealing with human trafficking, and it is difficult to return people to their homeland, even to serve prison sentences, the press service said.
Therefore, the Interior Ministry of Ukraine called on Ukrainians not to seek easy money abroad.
On Friday, February 10, Russian media reported with reference to the Russian Interior Ministry that they uncovered an international drug cartel KhimProm, one of the centers of which was located in Kyiv. A total of 67 people were arrested in this case in Russia, including 47 Ukrainian citizens. The Russian Interior Ministry claimed that there were special recruiting points in Kyiv and advertisements with offer of high-paid couriers jobs in Russia were placed in Ukrainian newspapers.
On Saturday, February 11, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said it expects the Russian Federation to confirm the information about the detention of 47 Ukrainians in the framework of the international drug syndicate case.
Kyiv sent queries to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Investigative Department of the Russian Interior Ministry asking for the information about Ukrainian citizens among the detainees, the charges against them, the place of their confinement and the availability of a lawyer," the Consular Service Department of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Rheinhard Schaler pictured helping his his son Padraig (26), who suffers from a brain injury and is on a waiting list for Rehab, to his wheelchair at their Glasnevin Home yesterday
Rheinhard Schaler pictured with his son Padraig (26) who suffers from a brain injury and is on a waiting list for Rehab
The father of a young man who suffered a catastrophic brain injury in a car crash has blasted the "disgraceful" Irish healthcare system after he chose to go to Germany rather than wait for treatment here.
Reinhard Schaler, from Drumcondra, Dublin, took the drastic decision to relocate after being told in 2013 that his son, Padraig (26), faced a 12-month wait to receive care at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.
Padraig's life changed forever in June 2013, when he was involved in a collision with a van in Cape Cod, during a J1 visit to the US.
Rather than wait a full year for treatment, Reinhard instead uprooted his son to Germany. Padraig qualified as a German citizen under his father's birthright and was entitled to universal healthcare - and his father swears his condition improved dramatically.
Waiting
"It's disgraceful we had to get on a plane to go back to my home in Germany to get Padraig the care he needed, when he needed it, to stop him being stuck on a waiting list," Reinhard said.
"Anyone who is from another European country will do that, jump on a plane if they are sick, if their family is sick, because of the lack of rehabilitation in Ireland."
The only way Padraig, who has been rendered locked in his own body, can now communicate with Reinhard (58), his mother Pat and sisters Laura and Maria is via a specialised computer tablet.
"But he's still the same young man. Warm, intelligent, with a dry wit - he's just not able to walk, talk or move," Reinhard said.
Ukrainian authorities would have to make efforts to establish relations with the new U.S. administration and U.S. President Donald Trump, experts have said.
"Ukrainian authorities did not have plan B in the case if Trump is elected U.S. president. No Poroshenko and Foreign Ministry are convulsively trying to bridge the gap and show that Ukraine has something the United States and Trump could be interested in. From the point of view of tactics, Ukrainian authorities should shape these practical and pragmatic things that would be interesting for Trump and his team, the United States in general, and secondly they should bring them earlier than Russian will do," Director of the Dialogue Institute of Social and Political Design, political analyst Andriy Myseliuk said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
Chairman of the Ukrainian Politics Institute, political analyst Kost Bondarenko said that the Ukraine's issue has not been discussed in the U.S. Department of State. He said that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should form his team now. He would have an assistant who will be engaged in European countries, including Eastern Europe. This assistant should have a special advisor for Ukrainian issues.
The political analyst said that at present there are several candidates and depending on the decision that will be made the U.S. policy towards Ukraine could vary.
Bondarenko said that former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Paula Jon Dobriansky of Ukrainian origin and famous Russian dissident Dimitri Simes are named as candidates to this post.
The expert said that Trump would never be pro-Russian president. He will be pro-American president and he will protect the interests of the Untied States, but if they coincide with the interests of Russia or some trade-offs on the international arena would play in favor of the United States, Trump would approve these trade-offs.
"I am afraid that one of these trade-offs could be Ukraine, which the United States does not understand now," Bondarenko said.
One Ukrainian soldier was wounded in action near the town of Avdiyivka in Donbas on Sunday, February 12, and there were no killed in action in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone, Ukrainian defense ministry speaker for ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzianyk said in an update for the past 24 hours.
"There were no killed in action in the past day as a result of shelling, but one soldier was wounded near Avdiyivka," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
According to him, Ukraine was attacked 67 times in the ATO zone on Sunday.
Only four of the attacks were in the Luhansk sector, namely it was Popasniansky district. One barrage occurred in the morning, others were in the evening, between 21:00 and 23:00 local time. Machine guns and grenade launchers were used to attack Ukrainian positions. There was no fighting along the front section between the Russian border and the town of Zolote yesterday," he said.
The Donetsk sector saw 21 attacks on Ukrainian positions. Among them there were six mortar barrages. "As was the case before, enemy activity focuses on Avdiyivka. Yesterday fighting there lasted for about eight hours with breaks. The adversaries used mortars," Motuzianyk said.
To the north, the area near the villages of Verkhniotoretske and Novoselivka came under mortar fire four times. Small arms were also used. Also, illegal armed groups violated the ceasefire along the Svitlodarska bulge outside the occupied town of Horlivka and near the ruined Donetsk airport. "In particular, the villages of Troyitske and Kamianka came under sniper fire, while Butivka coal mine was attacked by an enemy infantry fighting vehicle," he said.
Most of the attacks were recorded in the Mariupol sector, and five out of 42 there were mortar shelling.
"The enemy continued firing on Ukrainian position almost along the entire front line, occasionally using heavy weapons. At least 27 mines were lobbied on our positions yesterday. The largest number of armed incidents occurred in the town of Krasnohorivka, the villages of Novotroyitske, Hnutove, and Vodiane. Militants start shooting before dawn and their activity increases significantly in the evening," he said.
Ukraine will be actively involved in the 5+2 negotiating format to restore Moldova's territorial integrity, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said.
"Only decisive joint actions can help restore the territorial integrity of Moldova, and I would like to firmly note the position of Ukraine, which supports the position of doing everything for the territorial integrity, independence and state sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova to be indestructible. Ukraine will work actively and decisively, including in the 5+2 format," the president told journalists after talks with Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip in Kyiv on Monday.
The 5+2 format involves Moldova and Transdniestria as the negotiating parties; Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as mediators; and the U.S. and European Union as observers.
Despite Moldova having clearly declared its neutrality in its laws, Russian troops never left its territory, Poroshenko said.
"Today we agreed with Mr. Filip that only the return of Ukraine and Moldova into the European house can be a guarantee of peace, security and prosperity in our states," he said.
For his part, the Moldovan premier said the 5+2 format was discussed at the talks.
"We reaffirmed out position, that this conflict must be settled strictly in accordance with the principles of preserving the territorial integrity and independence of the Republic of Moldova. And in this context, I would like to express my gratitude to Ukraine for the support it gives Moldova in this process," he said.
Release of hostages to be key subject for discussion in humanitarian subgroup on Donbas
The humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) in Minsk will consider the issues of release of hostages and access of representatives of humanitarian missions to the Donbas territory uncontrolled by Ukraine on February 15, Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada first deputy speaker and Kyiv's representative in the humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko said.
"The key subject is, certainly, release of hostages and access of international humanitarian missions," Gerashchenko told reporters in Kyiv on Monday.
"'A total of 109 Ukrainian citizens, who are on the lists of the Ukrainian Security Service, are civilians and servicemen and are considered hostages in the territory of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions," she said, recalling that the self-proclaimed Donbas republics have so far confirmed just over 40 people from this list.
At that, Gerashchenko said that the Ukrainian side is aware of the location of 15 people from this list. "We are always talking about that and it's very important to record that these people exist," she said.
As reported, the next meeting of the TCG on the settlement of the situation in eastern Ukraine will take place on February 15.
The UN Security Council will hold open debates on the protection of critical infrastructures chaired by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin in New York (U.S.) on February 13.
"On February 13, open debates of the UN Security Council, chaired by Klimkin, regarding critical infrastructure protection against terrorist threats, will take place," the Foreign Ministry said on Twitter, released on Monday afternoon.
The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine said that the debates will take place at 17:00, Kyiv time.
As reported earlier, Klimkin said he expects to meet with the U.S. President Donald Trump's administration in February.
Next month [in February] I will be there since we are chairing the [UN] Security Council and we'll have two important ministerial meetings on infrastructure threats and conflicts in the European space. I will be meeting there with representatives of the American administration," Klimkin told reporters.
On February 9, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said that he will visit the U.S. the near future, and Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will hold talks on the preparation of this visit in Washington.
"We have agreed [in a telephone conversation with President of the U.S. Donald Trump], that my visit will take place to the U.S. in the near future. We have also agreed that Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin will visit Washington and conduct the necessary negotiations about it for the technical preparation of this visit," Poroshenko said during a joint briefing with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Kyiv on Thursday.
Ukraine has started to chair the Security Council of the United Nations since February 1. It is planned that the protection of critical infrastructure issue will be considered under the presidency of Ukraine on February 13. The settlement of conflicts in Europe will be considered on February 21.
HICKORY The goal of any school is to teach students the skills theyll need to be successful in life.
Starting in the 2014-15 school year, North Carolina went a step further and began preparing students to save lives.
The state made the successful completion of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instruction a requirement for high school graduation with House Bill 837.
On Thursday, middle and high schools in all three school systems in Catawba County got some help in teaching this skill to their students after the American Heart Association teamed up with Catawba Countys Life is Why sponsor, the Lackey Family, to present CPR kits to the districts.
Twenty-one CPR in Schools kits were distributed to 11 middle and high schools spread out among Catawba County, Hickory Public and Newton-Conover City School systems during a presentation at Arndt Middle.
Robert Lackey shared his story of using CPR for an hour to keep his wife alive after she collapsed when she was 62. He learned the technique when he was in high school and never used it until that moment.
Our family knows first-hand the importance of being prepared in an emergency and the difference CPR can make, Lackey said. This is why we wanted to ensure that our local school systems had the equipment they needed to teach all of you this life-saving skill.
Almost 90 percent of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests die, according to an American Heart Association statement (cpr.heart.org). CPR, especially if performed in the first few minutes of cardiac arrest, can increase the chance of survival. Unfortunately, only about 46 percent of people who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest get the immediate help that they need before professional help arrives.
The CPR kits donated to the school systems in Catawba County include 10 Mini Anne Plus inflatable manikins, DVDs to provide additional training for the students, and training manuals for the teachers. Each school will receive up to two kits based on their needs.
Teaching CPR has become part of the middle school curriculum as well and Arndt Middle eighth grade health teacher Leigh Sigmon was happy to have the additional training manikins for her students.
We were giving 10 manikins when the curriculum changed, but theyre the kind you just breathe into, Sigmon said. Its more for resuscitation and not hands only, so weve just been using those.
While the old units did the job, she likes the additional details of the new sets.
Its got a click (sound) to them, and because the kids are scared theyre going to hurt something when they demonstrate to me, they dont want to push too firmly, Sigmon said. With these new manikins, they let them know with a click when theyre pressing firmly enough.
Certified CPR instructor and American Heart Association volunteer William Fulton was on hand to give a demonstration of the new kits with help from students.
CPR is an important skill to know because it can sometimes double or even triple the survival rate of someone in an emergency, Fulton said.
You could save your friend, your teacher, your mom, dad, sister, brother grandmother or even a stranger.
Arndt Middle Principal Lee Miller said the donation of the kits was invaluable for his school and there are examples throughout the community of how important a skill like this is for everyone.
We had a student several years ago whose life was saved by his mother doing CPR for forty-five minutes, Miller said.
To learn more or to get involved with the American Heart Association, call 1-800-AHA-USA1 or visit heart.org.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that Ukraine and Moldova are facing similar challenges, and they will be necessarily restored in their internationally recognized borders in the future.
"Unfortunately, our common region has become the arena of clash of two ideological concepts. The first of them is democratic values, human rights and move to the future. The second one is totalitarianism, dictatorship and return to the past," the president said in the press statement following the negotiations with Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip.
According to him, it is hard to imagine what this fire would reach if it wasnt for the fortitude and heroism of the Ukrainian warriors."
"A quarter of century ago Moldova faced similar challenges having lost part of its sovereign territory. Now we see persistent attempts to impose such formats of reintegration to Moldova and Ukraine that will allow making decisions fateful for the fate of our nations from outside," the president said.
Poroshenko said that these attempts are doomed to failure.
"Ukraine and Moldova must and will be restored within their sovereign and internationally recognized borders," the president said.
NEWTON Newton residents in search of down-home southern cooking no longer have to look far Fat Bax Cafe is officially open for business.
Owned by husband and wife Brad and Rebecca Scott, the restaurant opened its doors last week offering guests a variety of homemade meals.
Fat Bax offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, and opens at 5 a.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday, and Rebecca Scott describes it as a southern mom and pops style restaurant.
The Scotts are no strangers to the restaurant industry, the couple previously owned and operated Smokey Ds in Claremont, Rebecca Scott said.
While the restaurants served similar style foods, the Scotts purchased Smokey Ds from a previous owner and the new restaurant offered more opportunity.
We just outgrew it, and we were looking for a bigger and better opportunity This one is actually our baby, what we started on our own.
Brad Scott built the bar in the restaurant by hand, and the decor was something the couple was able to design on their own, Rebecca Scott said.
The bar is not the only handmade item in the cafe; the food is homemade from scratch on a daily basis.
Most of the recipes are mine or his grandparents, Rebecca Scott said.
Two mason jar chandeliers also have share a common history with Brad Scotts grandparents. The jars came from one of his grandmothers, and they decided to use them for the lighting, Rebecca Scott said.
So far, business has been steady, with a few bumps in the road during opening week. On the second day of opening, two of the three deep fryers broke and orders took longer than usual, she said.
When you very first open a restaurant it is chaos anyways trial and error is what we call it, Rebecca Scott said.
The fryers have since been repaired and the business is running more smoothly, Rebecca Scott said.
The Scotts began looking for a new building to start their restaurant in June 2016, Rebecca Scott said, and settled on the location in Newton in October. Since then, the Scotts have worked every day on opening the location.
Fat Bax will offer deliveries to local businesses in the Newton area, provided customers place the order ahead of time, Rebecca Scott said.
Fat Bax Cafe is located at 415 West A Street in Newton.
School public relations professionals across North Carolina were recently honored for the products of their craft during the North Carolina School Public Relations Associations (NCSPRA) annual Blue Ribbon Awards for Effective Communications celebration at the O. Henry Hotel in Greensboro.
Hickory Public Schools received a total of seven awards for effective communications including two Gold Awards for Electronic Media/Digital Excellence. The first Gold Award was presented in recognition of the districts marketing video, Together, we can make a difference. HPS Director of Communications Beverly Snowden created the video concept/script and she recorded the narration/voiceover. The video was shot and edited by Nathan Phelps of Warcell Productions.
Video celebrity appearances included HPS Superintendent Robbie Adell and special guests Drew Daniels, Melissa Oates, Charlotte Williams, Ittiely Carson, Sally Wohlbruck, Austin Johnson, Mike Johnson, Ryan Hill, Rick Barnes, Santiago Vasquez-Loredo, Thinh Truong, Allen Mitchell, Jr., Arnita Dula, Trevone McGlone, Will Johnson, Vidal Sipe, Mollie Monroe, Marley Correll, Molly Bass and numerous students and staff from Hickory Public Schools.
The second Gold Award recognized the HPS Education Foundation video. This marketing tool was created and written by Snowden. The footage was shot and edited by Phelps. Nyla Moore, Jasiah Rutherford, and Lillian Stafford, all elementary students from the Longview Elementary School News Network, anchored the video. The students also provided voiceover for the video footage.
The Longview television studio is led by Caroline Brown, Longviews media coordinator. Two officers from the HPS Education Foundation Board of Directors, Guy Guarino and Mark Huckabee, were included in the video. The studio equipment was funded through a grant submitted by Brown to the HPS Education Foundation.
Additional NCSPRA Blue Ribbon Awards presented to Hickory Public Schools include two awards for Excellence in Writing, representing feature stories written by Snowden; and two awards for photography with photos captured by Snowden.
The Hickory Public Schools family celebrates the accomplishments of Beverly Snowden, our director of communications, Adell said. She won the seven state awards for her outstanding work in our school district. For me, as superintendent, astronaut Chris Hadfield best expressed my feelings by saying, Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. Its about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others success, and then standing back and letting them shine. We at Hickory Public Schools are grateful for the contributions of Beverly and we are truly blessed to have her on our team.
Adell joined Snowden for the awards celebration as well as Caroline Brown, Judy Jolly, principal at Longview Elementary, and Sandi Fotheringham, executive director of the HPS Education Foundation.
The awards ceremony marks the sixth consecutive year for the HPS Communications Department to be recognized by the North Carolina School Public Relations Association (NCSPRA). During this time, the districts communications office has earned more than 40 state awards for effective communications, in addition to a national award for excellence in writing from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA).
To view the districts marketing video, Together, we can make a difference and the HPS Education Foundation video, visit the HPS website: www.hickoryschools.net.
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) A North Carolina Highway Patrolman shot a 31-year-old man to death Sunday during an "armed confrontation" when he fled following a traffic stop, authorities said.
The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting, which happened at around 1 a.m. Sunday in Durham County.
Trooper Jerimy Mathis tried to stop a driver for a lane violation and erratic driving. At first, Willard Eugene Scott Jr. refused to stop, then ultimately got out of his vehicle and fled on foot, according to the Highway Patrol.
Mathis and Scott got into an altercation and Mathis fired his gun, striking Scott, who later died of his injuries at a hospital, the patrol said.
Authorities haven't said explicitly that Scott was armed, but the Public Safety Department said in a news release that a handgun found at the scene did not belong to the Highway Patrol.
Mathis is a 20-year veteran of the patrol. He is on leave while state authorities investigate, which is standard practice.
The unambitious and low-key budget is emblematic of the Narendra Modi governments approach of trusting in only small, cautious, steps. So nobody expected that the defence allocations would be used to reorient an Indian military thats been long in the rut. This would have been a disruptive thing to do to shake up the armed services which, owing to weak political direction and oversight have compelled governments to rubber-stamp whatever they decide is in the national interest.
Predictably, defence allocations of Rs 2.74 trillion falling to 1.63% of GDP has sparked concern, while ignoring the fact that an enlarged budget would have led to the squandering of the taxpayers money anyway. The problem at heart is this: The Indian military weighs its self-worth purely in terms of in-date weapons. Absent contrary political instructions as corrective, the preoccupation is with importing hardware, whether or not this is cost-effective, or even appropriate. The result is a mangled decision matrix in which instead of threats and grand strategy defining strategy, force structure, and weapons requirements, in that order, the existing force composition dictates the threat and the choice of armaments and strategy. Whence, the armys money-guzzling three strike corps, that are way in excess of need, have monopolised the armys modernisation and maintenance budgets, even though this capability is usable only in the desert and the plains, justified only by the Pakistan threat, and driven by a largely unimplementable Cold Start strategy.
Read | Budget 2017: BJP chief Amit Shah praises measures, says PM Modi kept promise to clean up political funding
The Modi government has talked smart, not acted smart. It has failed to channel efforts and resources to secure military capabilities principally to deter China, which would, naturally, also take care of any contingency involving Pakistan, and fetch a larger strategic and international political dividend besides. Indeed, the raising of the only mountain strike corps (17 Corps) is languishing for want of funds. A desperately needed reorientation of the armed services will have to be rammed down resisting throats. Left to itself, the Indian military, which seems incapable of transformative change, will stick to its outdated outlook, operational bearing and plans.
The Modi regime can use the fact of scarce financial resources as lever to change the military mindset as is routinely done in the more mature democracies. Selective approval of expenditure schemes can re-shape and redirect the armed services. A start along these lines can, perhaps, be made to prepare for next years budget. The defence capital (or procurement) budget the nub of the issue is, in any case, declining. It was Rs 945.88 billion in 2015-16, decreased by 8.7% to Rs 863.4 billion last year, plateauing at Rs 864.88 billion in this fiscal, except only two-thirds of this sum will be actually available for purchases. It is a trend thats likely to continue.
Considering that in excess of Rs. 3.71 lakh crore (or, roughly $55 billion) are already committed to purchasing weapons systems from abroad, and 10% as first payments in hard currency amounting to some $5 billion on the numerous contracts already made, the only option is to shrink the numbers of units contracted for, and to adjust the payments already made against the reduced outgo.
Photos | All guns blazing: Youngest arm of Indian Army celebrates 24th Raising Day
If the idea is to channel monies to realise more rational forces and capabilities, the signal has to be sent to the armed services that the government will not tolerate business-as-usual. Certain programmes are ripe for down-scaling and would set a precedent. Thus, the Field Artillery Rationalization Plan estimated to cost $12 billion can be shaved to $4 billion by reducing the demand for 1,580 towed 155mm/52mm caliber howitzers, 100 tracked self-propelled (SP) guns, 180 wheeled SP artillery, and 814 mounted gun systems by two-thirds, leaving enough hardware to meet the requirements of a single, compact, consolidated, corps-strength mobile warfare capability on the western border.
The deal for 464 Russian T-90MS tanks costing $4.3 million each in a contract worth nearly $10 billion, requires termination, not least because it is a buy at the expense of the indigenous Arjun Main Battle Tank that comprehensively out-performed the T-90 in test trials in all aspects in all terrains but was rejected as over-weight. This is an outrage requiring speedy rethink, if defence minister Manohar Parrikar is serious about not cutting the indigenous out of the governments Make in India policy. The plan for new generation infantry combat vehicle numbers too will require pruning to around 730 units costing Rs 52.5 billion, instead of 2,200 new ICVs for Rs 157.5 billion.
Read | Manohar Parrikars remarks on Indias nuclear doctrine were avoidable
A similarly ruthless attitude should lead to the nixing of the 36 Rafale aircraft deal for $12 billion engagement of Modis ego to this transaction notwithstanding, especially as the air force sees it as a means of pushing the government into buying 90 more of this supposedly medium multi-role fighter a category of aircraft known to no other major air force. It will save India the down payment of Rs 97 billion. The navy, likewise, should be strongly dissuaded from accepting the American EMALS (electro-magnetic aircraft launch system) costing $533 million each for the second and third Kochi-built aircraft carriers.
Savings from such hard-headed procurement decisions will make available funds for appropriate capabilities, and indigenous design and technology projects, such as the Tejas 1A and Mk-II, and the navalised LCA, ordered to proceed on the concurrency principle of induction along with capability refinement, senior air force and navy brass made accountable for their success a procedure followed by all major militaries.
As this can happen within the time-frames for induction of imported aircraft, imports are pre-empted. The freed-up funds should also be invested in designing, developing, and producing a small 25 ton tank with an engine optimised for high-altitude operations to equip three mountain strike corps.
Bharat Karnad is professor at the Centre for Policy Research, and author of Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)
The views expressed are personal
If last summers civilian uprising doesnt tell you what is happening in Kashmir, then nothing else will help. This goes for the government in Jammu and Kashmir and also at the Centre. Last year, for months Kashmir saw a series of protests that were dotted with around 100 civilian killings and thousands brutally injured but the state government still continues with its rhetoric that only acts as amplifier to the problems.
The fresh civilian killings took place in South Kashmirs Kulgam district part of the militancy-active belt, where two locals were caught in a crossfire near the site of a gunfight between the security forces and militants. There was an encounter between militants and the troops, in which four militants and two troopers were killed but the locals protesting in the area were also showered with tear-gas shells, pellets and bullets. The nearest district hospital in Anantnag was filled with injured civilians almost two dozen.
Read: Kashmirs bloody Sunday: 8 die as protests and encounter disrupt peace in Kulgam
So where does the problem actually lie? When the government felt everything is back to normal people are feeling relieved that finally the shutdown calendars are over, there is almost repeat of what we saw in last July. Everything branches out of the four simple words solve the Kashmir issue. Until and unless it is not realised that protests in Kashmir are genuinely based on aspirations, it is foolish to expect certainty of peace. When the civilian killings itself dont stop then you are playing with fire.
The most surprising statement of the day came from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, which tweeted from the official party handle: Deeply grieved and saddened by the loss of precious human lives in the Frisal incident. Govt will look into the matter and will try to find out all the circumstances that led to such a damage at the place.
For Kashmiris, the phrases like will look into the matter, has ordered a probe, is deeply grieved, and many such are synonyms to mental torture, intense anger and insult. It is only because no one ever looked into matter or probed or was actually grieved at the loss. These had been standard statements only the speakers change after each election. The constant abuse of justice for Kashmiris is the root cause of why we are living in this age of fury. It didnt happen in one day but it has been a patterned policy of governments over the years.
Such patterns need to end beyond a point if anyone wants to change Kashmir and South Asia. With each civilian killing in Kashmir, the entire family and neighbourhood are affected. Even though development is part of any growing society, but the mistake of using that as an antidote to political aspirations will turn out to be dangerous. It has been seen on ground in 2008, 2010 and 2016 and it is likely to be seen again.
Read: Kulgam clashes go live on Facebook in volatile Kashmir Valley
The call for shutdowns also doesnt help to solve anything, as should be understood by now. It has only played a role of a buffer for authorities to impose curfews, change the ground dynamics of any uprising or even use it as a dartboard. In 2016, redundant protest calendars became a habit and exhausted people, so no one even noticed when they turned irrelevant. Such kind of politics has also maintained a status quo over Kashmir issue and it is only young militants and protestors who have brought Kashmir back to forefront.
Everywhere in world, the youth dont prefer a status quo. Such politics in Kashmir will only make issues linger and cause more bloodshed. It is time to look at this conflict through a twentieth-century prism and find a solution based on peoples aspirations. No dialogue is fruitful that doesnt aim to find a solution to the Kashmir issue, having the peoples political sentiments as the bedrock of the dialogue process.
Fahad Shah is an independent journalist and founder-editor of The Kashmir Walla magazine, @pzfahad
The views expressed are personal
While there has been a rapid growth in the sheer number of literary festivals around the country, most of them tend to focus on English literature. International authors are often the star attractions at these events and there is often little or almost no spotlight for regional authors, who are left confined to school textbooks. But two homegrown festivals in the city are slowly working their way towards shifting focus to regional literature. Lit O Fest and Gateway LitFest, both in their third year, have a burgeoning line-up of authors who will engage in talks, panel discussions and book launches.
A dance performance during the opening ceremony of Lit O Fest 2016. (HT Photo)
The Multicultural aspect
Lit O Fest is a not just a literature festival, its a multi-cultural event that will be held over two days. The usual panel discussions will be interspersed with dance and music performances. It is a showcase of Indian culture focusing on arts, music and dance. This year, the festival has adopted a village in Maharashtra called Dahigaon and started a school in it as well. We plan to adopt other villages as well and make them self-sufficient. So its not just literature, its also literacy in rural India, says festival director Smita Parikh.
Popular authors such as Anand Neelakantan, Shashi Tharoor, William Dalrymple, Ashwin Sanghi and Shatrujeet Nath will be in attendance. Renowned Hindi authors Kedarnath Singh and Uday Prakash will be felicitated this year at the festival. Our focus is mostly on Hindi and Urdu writing. The idea is to give a wider platform to Hindi literature and provide it the international status that it deserves. We intend to take this festival abroad. In fact, Dr Mahesh Sharma, union tourism and culture minister, will be part of the event, and we intend to approach him. The idea is to show other countries what we have, says Parikh.
The festival, which started with the aim to provide budding authors with a platform, now facilitates publishing contracts as well. When we started the festival, I knew a couple of budding authors who were unable to be part of any literary events. Publishers refused to highlight them until they were really well known. So, we decided that we needed to create a platform where such authors can get noticed, says Parikh.
Talking about the selection process, the festival director shares, Once our jury selects the authors, we share their manuscript with the publishers, who later publish the work. This year, our jury consists of author Kiran Manral, actor Tannishtha Chatterjee, author Anjali Kriplani and publisher Akash Shah. In fact, there have been eight publishing contracts in 2015, and 20 manuscripts were identified for publishing in 2016.
Highlights Lit O Fest will be held on February 23 and February 24, at Grant Medical College Gymkhana, Marine Drive, from 10am to 10pm. Gateway LitFest will be held on February 25 and February 26, at Experimental Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point, from 11am to 8pm.
Language no bar
Broadening the spectrum, Gateway LitFest focuses on a large number of regional languages. While last year, the focus was on Indian languages that face extinction, this year, it aims to explore script-free languages in India. We have a session on spoken languages that do not have any script such as Kosli, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Ahirani, Khasi, and Santali. A prominent writer in the Kosli language, Haldhar Nag, a winner of the Padma Shri in 2016, will be felicitated at the event, says festival director Mohan Kakkanadan.
The theme for this years edition is contemporary face of Indian literature, and it focuses on five Indian languages Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Punjabi and Malayalam. The attendance roster includes acclaimed personalities such as Jnanpith laureates Kedarnath Singh and Reghuveer Chaudhari, film-maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, poet and DMK leader Kanimozhi, and Bengali writer Subodh Sarkar, along with a long list of celebrated literary figures.
Talking about expanding the festival, Kakkanadan says, We want to expand beyond Mumbai in the coming years. We plan to hold this festival in other cities and then come to Mumbai as a culmination of the smaller chapters we organise. What we have in mind is something on the lines of a travelling festival. However, there are financial constraints because of which we havent been able to do it yet.
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The formidable lathi forced into submission many a wife-beater, drunkard husband and errant public servant since a young wife started an aggressive movement for womens emancipation in Uttar Pradeshs backward Bundelkhand in the 1990s.
It was an anticlimax that the bamboo stick ubiquitous with the Gulabi Gang was nowhere to be seen near 51-year-old Sampat Pal, the groups founder, or with the comrades milling around her in bright pink saris last week.
Pal explained, Lathi se har samasya ka samadhan nahin hota. Baat karke samjhane se rasta nikalta hain (A stick cant solve all problems. One has to talk and counsel to find a way).
That sounded more politician than a hard-line feminist, coming from a woman who is a household name in the region for wielding a lathi to combat atrocities against women, or to fight for social justice and rights in a male-centric society.
Sampat Pal, the founder of Gulabi Gang and a Congress candidate, campaigns for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in Manikpur. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)
Pal has morphed from being the leader of a band of all-women gulabi or pink fighters -- some call them vigilante others see them as a social movement -- to a politician.
She is contesting the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections as a Congress candidate for the Manikpur constituency in Chitrakoot district, which votes on February 23. She contested in 2012 too, but lost.
But this time she has a good chance. And the party has realised that. Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav will campaign for her on February 19, said Ajay Singh, her campaign manager.
Pal may have retired her trusted companion, the lathi. But that has not stopped her from taking up womens issues. Banning alcohol, bolstering womens safety and fighting corruption are her main poll planks.
I will bring a law to ban alcohol if I am elected, she said. I think entering politics is a way forward. If I win I can help empower more women by giving them jobs and help them fight for their rights.
Pal appears to have mellowed down. Or maybe, electoral compulsions have forced her to be more pragmatic.
We dont believe in taking law in our hands. Initially we used lathis but but not anymore You cant force a person to give up alcohol by beating him with a lathi, she tried to reason.
The group, with some 400,000 members, was the inspiration for a 2014 Bollywood movie, titled Gulab Gang, starring Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla.
Pal is not happy with the silver screen rendition of her work. She accuses the moviemakers of sullying her groups image.
Unhone galat dikhaya hamare bare mein ki ham danda se har chiz ka haal nikalte hain (Their portrayal that we use the lathi to solve all problems was wrong), she said.
Pals brand of activism is giving a stiff fight to her opponents -- BJPs RK Patel and BSPs Chandrabhan Patel, who won the seat in 2012.
People relate to her they have seen her fight for womens rights. Its not only women, even men will vote for her. Because of her partys alliance with SP, she is likely to get the votes of Muslims, backwards castes and Brahmins as well, said Sanju Devi, a former village headwoman of Manikpurs Giduraha.
Few would forget how Pal and her band tied up a police officer and thrashed him for not registering an FIR against a man who had beaten his wife mercilessly. Or, how blows from sticks forced a voyeur to apologise publicly for misbehaving with a woman.
The lathi is not altogether cast away. A few women accompanying Pal still carried one; concealed. Just in case
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A bold, handwritten banner in Virayanpur village reads: chunav bahishkarpul nahi to vote nahi (poll boycott no bridge, no vote). The village is part of the mango belt in Malihabad assembly constituency in Lucknow.
The bridge on the Behta river is a long-standing demand, going back to the British era. If it is built, it will cut the distance to the nearest town by 16 kilometres.
In 2012, Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Indal Kumar promised to meet the demand. He won the election, polling 62,782 votes but the bridge was not constructed even after his victory.
Indal sahib won but construction of the bridge is yet to start. It was a rude shock for the people here who are feeling no less than cheated. He didnt even turn up once to take stock of our condition that is worsening by the day. We have decided not to vote this time, says Vimal Kumar, head of Virayanpur village.
A small bridge is needed to connect the village. We have been demanding it for ages but there is no one to hear our grievances, Muneshwar Prasad, 75, a villager, says
Watch what locals have to say here-
The locals have pooled in money to construct a temporary wooden bridge for small vehicles but it is washed away every monsoon.
The alternative route to the town is 20km long. The bridge will reduce the distance to four kilometres. People have to travel a long distance in emergencies. We wont vote until our demands are met, says Malkhe Kumar, another senior citizen in the village.
Political Equations
Know your candidates
Virayanpurs is not an isolated case of neglect. People here say the situation is the same in the entire constituency which has three lakh voters.
Political experts say the fight is between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) this time.
The SP has denied the ticket to its sitting MLA Indal Kumar and fielded Rajbala who owns movable and immovable assets worth Rs 3.41 crore.
The BSP has fielded Satya Kumar who has assets worth Rs 42 lakh and the BJP has put up Jai Devi Kaushal whose assets are worth Rs 4.59 crore.
The constituency is known as an SP stronghold as the party won the seat in 2007 and 2012.
In 2012, the SPs Indal Kumar polled 62,782 votes. Kaushal Kishore, who was fielded by the RCP, finished second with 60,567 votes. He is the Mohanlalganj MP at present. The BSPs Sidharth Shankar and the Congresss Jagdish Chandra were third and fourth, polling 53,550 and 5,427 votes respectively.
In 2007, Gauri Shankar of the SP won the seat polling 44,481 votes. The BSPs Mewa Lal, who was second, polled 42,252 votes.
King of fruits but cold-shouldered
People said the SP government failed to bring development to the constituency where 23,589 hectares of land is used for mango farming.
Governments will come and go but issues here will remain the same. We dont have any expectations from political parties. The SP government didnt bring any change to the mango belt, said Mohammed Miyan, a mango grower and head of Mujasa village in Maliahabad. The mango belt has no transportation facility, no dedicated mandi (market), no girls school and no cold storage.
No train halt
The lack of proper transportation is the mango growers main concern.
The issue is not mango crop. By Gods grace, our land has much potential for that. But the issue is how to transport the crop, says Khaleel Ahmed, owner of mango orchards in Malihabad.
Ahmed says there is no train halt in Malihabad and having one here will be a big help in transporting mangoes. Around three years ago, two trains used to halt here but the stoppage was withdrawn by the railways.
The farmers have to hire private vehicles to ferry mangoes to markets across the country, increasing the cost and affecting the quality of fruits and the price, he adds.
Mango growers association members said they had approached the railways several times and asked for halts in Malihabad. But the railways didnt pay heed to the plea. With no train stoppages, farmers are facing a tough time in transporting their produce, says Dr Asmat Malihabadi, convener of the Mango Growers Association.
Malihabadi says the mango belt needs a dedicated market place, facilities for traders and availability of pesticides.
Though political parties are sparing no effort to woo mango growers ahead of the polling day on February 19, people here say development will be the main voting criteria this time.
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Manipurs Mandate 2017 is expected to be a tough contest between the ruling Congress and challenger Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The election is also likely to be a test for iconic rights activist Irom Sharmilas acceptance as a politician.
Soon after ending her 15-year fast on August 9 last year, Sharmila said she would take the electoral plunge for attaining the power needed to scrap Afspa. Later, she co-founded Peoples Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) party.
Sharmila, 44, is the marquee candidate among five newbies PRJA has fielded. She is contesting the Thoubal seat against Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh and BJPs L Bashanta Singh.
Ibobi Singh won the last two elections from Thoubal, his home turf, with record margins.
The Congress does not see Sharmilas PRJA as much of a challenge. But all the best to her, said Pradesh Congress chief TN Haokip.
The BJP too does not spare much though. Our democracy creates space for everyone, and more players the merrier, said Nongthombam Biren, one of the BJPs key candidates who switched over from the Congress last year.
The PRJA is not unrealistic. We are actually preparing for the 2022 assembly polls, so this election is like testing the waters, the partys convenor Erendro Leichombam told HT.
Erendro, 33, is PRJAs candidate for the Thangmeiband seat. His main rivals are sitting MLA Khumukcham Joykisan Singh and BJPs W Jyotin Singh.
Sharmila was widely respected as an activist, but people here generally have a poor opinion about politics and politicians because of their repeated failure in addressing various issues. People dont really think her joining politics can make any difference, said Yumnam Rupachandra, editor-in-chief of the local Impact TV, explaining why Sharmilas popularity might not translate into votes.
People do come to hear her during campaigning, but elections in Manipur continue to be influenced by muscle and money power. Besides, the my-candidate-versus-your-candidate attitude comes into play because of the closeness of the society, Rupachandra said.
PRJA leader James Mayengbam, steering Sharmilas campaign in Thoubal, said she is being driven by idealism envisaging a corruption-free Manipur not divided on ethnic lines.
She understands the people, used to her as a silent anti-Afspa activist, will take time to accept her as an interactive politician. But there is no lack of support for her wherever she goes, he said.
Sharmila, perhaps, knew switching from an activist to a politician will not be easy. I will go my own way if the people do not support me, she said some time ago.
The other PRJA candidates are Najima Phundreimayum contesting the Wabgai seat against incumbent MLA Md Fajur Rahim of Congress and U Deben Singh of BJP, Md Illyas Khan for the Lilong seat against sitting MLA Md Abdul Nasir of Congress and Md Anwar Hussain of BJP, and Bowang Kho for the Karong seat against Congress DD Thaisii and BJPs R Yuh Jonathan Tao.
Elections to the 60-member Manipur assembly are scheduled on March 4 and March 8. The last dates of filing nominations for the two phases are February 14 and 16. EOM
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A majority of Sikhs in Palia town of Lakhimpur Kheri district close their business establishments in the evening and head toward Gurudawara Singh Sabha on Station Road to join prayers.
At other times, this place of worship is suffused with calmness as priests recite verses from the Guru Granth Sahib.
But this is the poll season. And the gurudwara has become a hive of activity as the leaders of political parties vie with one another to greet the visitors.
The Sikh vote is crucial for victory in this election, says Suraj Singh, who runs a general store on Station Road. The leaders and candidates of the SP, BJP, BSP and Congress are busy canvassing in the Sikh dominated localities and villages. The Sikhs hold the key to victory, he says.
The political parties are out to woo the Sikh voters not only in Palia but in all the assembly constituencies in the Terai region of west UP.
Initially, the parties focused on Muslims, dalits, backward and upper caste voters. But as the polling date approaches, they have realised that the Sikh voters can turn the tide in their favour in several constituencies.
Senior leaders have been tasked with holding meetings in Sikh dominated areas. They are highlighting the projects and schemes launched by their respective governments for the welfare of Sikhs.
Union minister Maneka Gandhi, the BJP MP from Pilibhit, has addressed meetings in Sikh-dominated villages in Puranpur. The SP has deployed prison minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia to win the support of the community. Ramoowalia has addressed over two dozen meetings in various constituencies. The BSPs Sikh committee led by Indrapal Singh is busy campaigning in the Terai region, urging the community to vote on elephant (BSP symbol) on February 15 when the region goes to polls.
The Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Party (RKMP) led by veteran farmer leader VM Singh has added spice to the fight for the Sikh vote.
Singh told HT, Rather than caste and religion, I am appealing to the voters to exercise their franchise on agricultural issues. The RKMP candidates are organising regular meetings in Sikh majority villages in Pilibhit.
Realising the importance of the Sikh vote, BSP chief Mayawati made it clear at a public meeting in Shahjahanpur that her government will not acquire the land of Sikh farmers for distribution among landless dalits.
Rivals are spreading rumours to create confusion among the Sikh voters, she said.
For his part, Ramoowalia says, I am highlighting the development projects and welfare schemes launched by the Akhilesh Yadav government in Sikh-dominated Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri and Shahjahanpur districts. It is the first time that a Sikh leader has been inducted into the ministry (in UP). The SP government released funds for Punjabi Academy, sent pilgrims to Patna Saheb by a special train and ordered for release of Waryam Singh (70), who was serving life term in jail.
Uday Vir Singh, a political observer, says, The Sikh vote is decisive in over a dozen assembly constituencies in the Terai region. The political parties know that if they win the support of the Sikhs, they will also get the backing of the other farming communities.
Baljit Singh Khera, an office bearer of the gurudwara committee at Puranpur in Pilibhit, says, The Sikhs will vote on the development issue. The political parties that will set up a network of roads, ensure regular power supply, distribution of seeds and fertiliser during the sowing season will get the support of the Sikh community.
Read more| UP polls: In Bijnors Kanshi Ram colony, votes split between Akhilesh, Mayawati
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Ukraine and Moldova should complete the demarcation of the border as quickly as possible, including the Transdniester area, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said.
"Special attention was paid to the development of border transportation infrastructure, completion of the demarcation of the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, including the Transdniester area," Poroshenko said at a joint briefing with Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip in Kyiv on Monday.
In 2009, as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, I initiated this process. And we underline the need for completing this process as soon as possible," Poroshenko said at the joint press conference with Prime Minister of Moldova Pavel Filip.
He said he agreed on the steps that will ensure joint control on the Ukraine-Moldova border-crossing points aimed "to simplify the procedure of crossing the border for Ukrainian and Moldovan citizens."
This concerns Palanca-Mayaky-Udobne border crossing point and the introduction of a "revolutionary joint control" in Kuchurhan, Poroshenko said.
Poroshenko said that the Ecology Ministers of both countries asked the European Commission to ensure the transparency of the process and provide financial assistance.
Rajvanshi Sahgal usually has no time to talk to anyone during peak hours, but she has a lot to say on the subject of Uttar Pradeshs seven-phase elections.
As someone whose job is to understand the needs of women, Sahgal, owner of Sunflower beauty parlour in Rae Barelis main market, feels the government doesnt quite get it. Akhilesh [Yadav] government launched schemes for women, but did he follow up on them? He released funds for kanya dhan, but did he check if it reached the right people or not?
She has just finished a bridal glow facial and moved on to guiding her six young assistants on procedures such as waxing, threading and party make-up.
Read | UP elections: Gulabi Gang founder fights for womens rights minus the lathi
Outside, around the clock tower in the middle of the market, hundreds of female students from government colleges are taking the pledge to vote freely and fairly. Its a routine before every election.
Akhileshs performance is good but the question of womens safety remains.
The irony of the sentiment is not lost on the women present in the beauty parlour this evening. After all, Rae Bareli has been the electoral turf of some of the most powerful women in Indian politics, from Indira Gandhi to current Congress chief Sonia.
In 2012, Reena Rathore, one of Sahgals assistants, voted for the first time, but she doesnt think it changed anything for her. Akhileshs performance is good but the question of womens safety remains.
In 2015, UP recorded the most number of crimes against women across India. Over recent years, the state has witnessed some of the most brazen incidents of crime against women, such as the rape of two teenage Dalit girls in Badayun in April 2014.
Women feel unsafe, whether its at their workplace, home or anywhere else, says Archana Pandey, a municipal employee and a regular at Sahgals parlour.
Safety is their main demand from every political party contesting this election. Education and employment follow close behind. Self-dependency for girls; they should be taught technical and commercial skills along with standard education, says Rathore. Along with the parlour job, she is also preparing for the state services exam.
Read more | 1090 helpline: When stalkers call women in UP, its the cops who call them back
Laptops, smart phones, free education these are good schemes. But along with education, a girl needs viable skills training. When she leaves class 12, she shouldnt wander around looking for a job, says Sahgal.
A client who has come for a quick eyebrow tweak wants the state to improve government schools. They continue to be known for shoddy education. Anyone who can afford private school fees will not send their children to government schools.
The women feel they would be better off with a female leader at the top, but they are not sure Mayawati is the answer. No comments, they say in comic succession when asked why.
Some of them may invest their hope in Narendra Modi. He speaks to the public in a free manner. Because of radio, because of Twitter, the ordinary citizen feels they can get their voice across to the prime minister, says Archana Pandey. The building of toilets was a thoughtful move. Same goes for notebandi.
Even Sahgal, who suffered a two-week slump in the middle of a wedding season because of the note ban, believes in Modis vision. There were problems initially, but things have turned around.
They also have hope in a Samajwadi government free of the crime and corruption baggage of the Mulayam Singh era.Akhilesh is better.Without a question. 100 percent.
None of them will reveal their plan for voting day, though. We will wait for everyones manifesto and vote for whoever has the best deal for us, says Sahgal. It doesnt matter which party is in power, says Archana Pandey, but they should be willing to listen to us.
Read more | Number of women voters in Ghaziabad up from 2012
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One morning in Kanshi Ram Colony on the Bijnor bypass, Jitender Kumar weighed the significance of his seven-year-old apartment against the bright green electric rickshaw that arrived last month.
We have five votes in our family, he said, So three go to Behenji who gave us a home, and two to Akhilesh who gave us employment with this rickshaw.
The 140 million registered voters in Uttar Pradesh are likely confronting similar dilemmas as the seven-phase polling gets underway. In 2007, Mayawatis BSP won on an agenda of stability and social emancipation; 2012 brought the SPs Akhilesh Yadav and his promise of development. In 2014s general election, the BJPs Hindutva and employment platform struck a chord, making the 2017 election impossible to call.
Over the last fortnight, Hindustan Times reporters fanned out across the state to gauge UPs current preoccupations and understand why people vote the way they do.
In Kanshi Ram colony in Bijnor city, a constituency that is 40% Muslim, and 20% Dalit, both Mayawati and Akhilesh have offered their own brand of development houses in 2007, and rickshaws, laptops and cash transfers in 2012.
So what must a party do to convince the voters it deserves a second chance?
The Kanshi Ram colony is a fascinating social experiment where UPs rigid lines of caste and religion have been replaced by a fuzzy awakening of class. Its good that poor people like us have been given homes, said Anita Sharma, a peon in a school. But now we have to live next to all kinds of people.
The city has two such settlements, each with about 650 homes divided into 3 storey blocks with four flats on each floor. Inside, the homes are cramped but functional two small rooms, a kitchen, a toilet, and a bathroom, often shared by large families of up to six members. Here youll find a Brahmin and a Dalit living side by side, a Muslim and a Jat sharing the same terrace, said Rajbala, who works as a maid .
No government has done what Mayawati did, by giving poor people irrespective of caste or religion a home.
Many said at least one family member would vote for Mayawati, as pay back for the home, but the rest would consider other options. My mother will always vote for Mayawati because she gave us a house, said Nilesh Kumar Singh, 21. But I think I will vote for the BJP.
Singh admitted that both he and his sister had received free laptops from Akhilesh Yadavs government, but said a BJP government in the state might work better with the Centre to bring jobs to Bijnor. Ive done a BSc, but Im giving home tuitions for a living. Maybe Modi will bring jobs to Uttar Pradesh.
Up a flight of stairs from Singh, Mansoor Ahmed said Mayawati had given them a house, but he had joined the SP as a ward worker because he felt they were best placed to keep the BJP out of power.
The SP, he said, had given schemes like unemployment allowance for graduates and a pension for senior citizens.
Yet each scheme, Ahmed worried, also carried its flaw.
In 2007, Mayawati did what no other government had ever done, he said, but could she give everyone a house? No. Similarly, Akhilesh had given rickshaws to some.
We Indians are disloyal, Ahmed concluded, For every scheme beneficiary, there will be 10 others who will hate the government because they didnt benefit. Maybe it is best to do nothing.
Read| Full coverage of UP elections
Samajwadi Party president, Akhilesh Yadav has emerged out of his father, Mulayam Singhs shadow and fought many satraps within to take control of the party run by his family since 1992.
Ahead of the elections, the Uttar Pradesh chief ministers campaign talks of economic and societal development. SPs website highlights industrial development, womens upliftment, and educational and infrastructural initiatives undertaken since he assumed office on March 12, 2012quite different from the caste, communal and feudal politics that UP is fond of.
That might not be a true picture of UP, Indias most populous state, which houses more people than Pakistan, worlds sixth largest country by population.
For a state of its size, UPs gross domestic product, the best economic indicator, is $150 billion (Rs 9,76,000 crore)tad lesser than the GDP of Qatar, ranked 55 in the world.
UP continues to be in the BIMARU category (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh), known as sick states while others such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have come out of it. Even poorer neighbours such as Bihar, under chief minister Nitish Kumar, grew at 11% year-on-year.
Experts blame it on political will, which is missing in the state. From Mandal (Commission protests) to Babri (Masjid demolition), to the criminalisation of politics, everything happened in UP. The politics of the state has stunted its growth, says Sudha Pai, professor at centre of political studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
UPs economic status has only fallen since Indias independenceits per capita income, which was 97% of the national average has slipped to 40.5% in 2014-15. The states economy grew at 6.56% annually, lower than the national average of 7.52%.
In its carving out lay UPs governance challenges. Of the four regionsWestern, Central, Bundelkhand and Easternthe first and the last together hold 77% of the population. The dry and arid Bundelkhand and the rain-fed Eastern part cannot be governed by uniform policies. And because of this, it will take a lot more than just political will to fix the state.
Rajiv Kumar, economist and director, Pahle India Foundation, says, The length, breadth and the heterogeneity of the state means each region will need a unique focus for the state to develop.
He argues that social transition must precede economic development. For example, in Tamil Nadu, Periyars social and cultural movement ensured that the social pyramid was inverted and economic progress followed. But in UP, even sporadic efforts made by Kanshi Ram (Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawatis mentor) and the Yadav clan, were aborted.
Western UP was part of the Green Revolution, but it still lags in agriculture, despite having a long stretch of the Indo-Gangetic plain. It reflects the failure of planning It is only in the 1980s that UP saw a healthy growth as the state shifted its focus from agriculture to industry, Pai said.
What followed were a series of unstable and short governments, which ensured that UP got caught in a debt trap. Experts say that UP was always neglectedfirst during the colonial rule of the British, and later by the Congress, which was re-elected repeatedly.
Governments that came to power failed to generate jobs. According to an EPW report, only 10.79% UP workers get regular wages. The national number is almost double at 18.45%indicating a large agrarian economy in UP.
In 201112, UP had 43.6% cultivating households and 11.7% farm labour households, according to EPW, but its agricultural growth peaked between the 1970s and 1980s, and has since decelerated.
That, too, was mismanaged. It is because of the political system, says Alka Parikh, who holds a doctorate in agriculture and allied economics (Cornell University), and is a faculty of DAIICT.
Parikh notes that UP still follows the feudal relationship between landowners and tillers. The exploited remain exploited, as the feudal system is very strong It needs a helping hand to take it out of this mess, Parikh said.
Akhilesh made some efforts to revive UP. A drop in the ocean was the 302-km long Expressway, but for years, the political system had eaten up the core of the economic development like termites.
Traditional businesses, such as silk weaving and glass manufacturing have been faltering. Only 31% of small and medium businesses in the state have a rating of above average creditworthiness or better, compared to the nationwide average of 60%. Nearly a quarter of all SMEs in the state are rated as having below-average creditworthiness or worse, according to Crisil. Add to that the weak political will. To gain out of casteism, its political leaders ensured that UP never lost its sick status.
The difference in approach is visible in how two Delhi-bordering townshipsNoida (in UP) and Gurgaon (in Haryana)expanded. UP has not attracted so many companies. The environment that Haryana gave in Gurgaon, UP couldnt, said Parikh.
Akhilesh, however, thinks otherwisethat education and technology can rid the state of its problems. He distributed 1.5 million laptops among students, and has announced smartphones if he comes to power.
On the Centres part, economists say there has been no bias.
A look at the central allocation shows no bias against Uttar Pradesh. So it is not a matter of resources, but a question about intent towards good governance, says Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India.
Despite its huge political clout, UP has not managed any milestones when it comes to development or growth, he says.
Akhilesh might be moving in the right directionby offering farmers free water supply, coming up with direct benefit transfer scheme for seed subsidy, and loan waivers. But if he wins, it is a long journey ahead before UP becomes Indias face.
Two undertrial prisoners lodged in the district jail in Madhya Pradeshs Morena escaped from the facility in the early hours of Monday, an official said.
Omprakash Jat (36), who is awaiting trial in a murder case, and Anil Rathore (26), an accused in a rape case, dug a hole into a closed cemented entry leading to a staircase to slip out.
Alarmingly, the jail authorities came to know about the incident only after a relative of Rathore came to meet him in the morning hours.
We came to know about the jailbreak when a relative of Rathore came to meet him in the morning. We searched for the prisoner inside but couldnt find him, jailor BS Mourya said, adding that they found Rathore and Jat missing after taking a head count.
He said that in the head count taken on Sunday evening, the duo was found to be present, which meant they escaped apparently in the early hours of Monday.
Citing circumstantial evidence, Mourya said Jat and Rathore broke their way through the closed cemented entry to reach the staircase which opens into a small terrace located near the boundary wall of the jail and jumped out.
A complaint has been lodged with Kotwali police, following which a search is on to trace the duo.
We are in the process of initiating action against chief warder Dattaram and three warders Ramavtar, Brijendra Singh and Phool Singh on duty during the jailbreak, he added.
Incidentally, eight SIMI men awaiting trial had escaped from highly-fortified Bhopal Central Jail on Diwali night last year after killing a warder. They were subsequently killed in an alleged exchange of fire by police on the same day.
The prison authorities in the state have been claiming they have ramped up security since the Bhopal jailbreak.
Over 1.9 lakh people have volunteered for Madhya Pradesh governments novel project Mile Banche Madhya Pradesh (Let Us Read Together), on participatory learning to be held in the state on February 18.
As Sunday was the last day for online registration as volunteers, chief ministers office (CMO) tweeted With the registration of 1,93,004 volunteers covering 100% schools (1,12,073) of the state, #MilBaanchenMP has become a mass movement.
AK Parikh, deputy director Rajya Shikshya Kendra told HT that Mile Banche Madhya Pradesh is the first of its kind initiative in the state, in which volunteers will teach a chapter or a part of it to the school children and hold interactive discussions with them. He said Shivraj Singh Chouhan had got himself registered online for the programme for a school in Bhopal where he will hold discussion with the students regarding book reading. Chouhan will teach at Sanjay Gandhi School in Bhopal ,while minister of state for education Deepak Joshi will teach at a school in Dewas, he said. Parikh said the programme is being organised with an aim to develop interest in children towards reading and understanding literature containing knowledge.
Earlier Mile Banche Madhya Pradesh was scheduled to be held in all primary schools on January 28. However owing to good response of the people to be volunteers, it was decided to postpone it and hold it on a bigger scale. It will be now held on February 18. The chief minister wanted that a volunteer should teach in each one of the 1.12 lakh schools in the state on the scheduled day, including the schools run for tribal children, said officials.
The online registration had started on January 18 on the website www.schoolchalehum.mp.gov.in. Sunday (February 12)was the last for people to register as volunteers.
Under this programme, public representatives, government employees, motivator of school chale hum campaign, eminent persons, private doctors, engineers, lawyers and ex-students will read a chapter or part of the chapter from the course book or from any book available in the library before the school children and then hold discussions with the children.
Ram Kapoor and Gautami Kapoor
One of the most successful couples of Indian television, Ram and Gautami met on the sets of television show Ghar Ek Mandir. Ram proposed Gautami for marriage at a party and she instantly said yes. They got married on Valentine s Day of 2003.They have a son Aks, seven, and daughter Sia, ten. Gautami says coming from the same industry helped them understand each other. Had I not been an actor, I would have never understood Rams schedule and had he not been an actor, it would have been difficult for him to understand what I was doing, she says.
Arshad Warsi and Maria Goretti
Actor Arshad Warsi and wife Maria Goretti. (Yogen Shah)
Arshad Warsi and Maria Goretti got hitched on this day in 1999.They fell in love when Maria joined Arsads dance group after graduation. She became my lead dancer and started assisting me. At some point, she fell for me. My friends made me aware that she had fallen for me, but Maria would never accept it.
So once, when we had gone for a play to Dubai, I could feel her attraction towards me through the journey and was feeling bugged, as she was not accepting it. So, I gave her half a glass of beer and she blurted out that she loved me, says Arshad.
Mandira Bedi and Raj Kaushal
Mandira Bedi and producer Raj Kaushal tied the knot in 1999 on this day of love. The couple met at the film producer Nitin Manmohans office where Mandira had come to give an audition in 1996. They welcomed their first child in 2011 and named him Vir.
Emraan Hashmi and Parveen Shahani
Actor Emraan Hashmi with his son Ayaan Hashmi and wife, Parveen Shahani. (Pramod Thakur)
Emraan Hashmi proposed girlfriend Parveen on February 14, 2006 and they married on December 14, the same year. Parveen, who is a teacher, dated Emraan for almost four years before marrying him. As for Emraans serial kisser image in Bollywood, his wife is never worried about it.
My wife never gets insecure. After 30 films, every film has something or the other. She has her head over her shoulders, otherwise she would have left me a long time ago. She has a very mature way of looking at things, he says. They have a seven-year-old son Ayaan.
Ruslaan Mumtaz and Nirali Mehta
Actor Ruslaan Mumtaz with wife Nirali Mehta.
Actor Ruslaan Mumtaz, who entered Bollywood with Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar, met wife Nirali Mehta in choreographer Shiamak Davars dance class and it was love at first sight for both of them. The couple got married on February 14, 2014.
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Taapsee Pannu, who will soon start work on her next film opposite Varun Dhawan in Judwaa 2, is currently on a promotional overdrive for her upcoming film, RunningShaadi.com. And she found a new and cute way to do that: She asked Varun Dhawan to reveal if he ever wanted to elope with someone and get married.
Never the one to let go of a chance, Varun responded in the wittiest manner. Though he didnt reveal any names, Varun quipped, As for Running Shaadi, I might take you up for that offer, soon.
Taapsee and her RunningShaadi.com co-star Amit Sadh have been asking actors on Twitter to share their anecdotes of eloping and getting married or helping someone to the same.
Varun tweeted a video to Taapsee making rather interesting revelations. In the video he said, Yes I have thought of running away and getting married but I was young in 12th standard so I wouldnt have been able to run away too far from school.
While he could not run away himself, he confesses to have helped a friend, Although we almost helped a friend run away and get married to his then girlfriend. Everything was all set but then our plan was busted as the girls parents found out. But now my friend is married to someone else so I guess it worked out for the best. But as for Running Shaadi, I might take you up for that offer, soon.
Varun Dhawan is gearing up for his next release, Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya, while Taapsee will soon see her RunningShaadi.com hitting theatres.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
Amid the ongoing conflict between Infosys board and its founders, CEO Vishal Sikka is scheduled to meet institutional investors tomorrow at an event in Mumbai.
The event may see Sikka briefing participating fund managers on issues that have prompted some of Infosys co-founders, including N R Narayana Murthy, to publicly air their discontent against the Board.
Sikka will deliver a keynote address at Kotaks Chasing Growth Conference on February 13 in Mumbai at 10 am.
Sikkas participation was confirmed by a company spokesperson saying the event was scheduled much before these developments.
Such events usually see investors and industry analysts asking questions about the macro environment, business prospects and challenges, but given the developments seen in the past few days, clarifications relating to the feud between founders and the Board is likely to dominate the proceedings.
This comes at a time when former Infosys CFO, T V Mohandas Pai has exhorted institutional investors to raise questions about the huge cash pile on the companys books and governance issues, as investors have an obligation to protect their investment.
Capital allocation is very important. Institutional investors should raise those questions. They have a duty...institutional investors should raise questions on governance because it concerns the companys reputation, Pai told PTI in an interview.
Another former CFO V Balakrishnan said an interim chairman should be appointed at the earliest to effectively engage with its co-founders.
Demanding that Chairman Ramaswami Seshasayee steps down, Balakrishnan said the Chairman should take responsibility for the lapses in corporate governance at the Bengaluru-based company.
Sikka, along with some of the Board members, is also scheduled to interact with the media later in the day to clear the air over various issues flagged by the founders.
Last week, Sikka called members of the senior management to assuage concerns and has advised them not to get distracted by the ongoing tussle and instead focus on companys business and strategy.
Murthy, along with other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan, had written to Infosys board asking why Sikkas compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.
Murthy, who has gone public with his views, questioned paying the former CFO (Rajiv Bansal) a 30-month severance pay.
Infosys, however, has denied any corporate governance lapses, and has emphasised that its Board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation.
Read more: Infosys: A Tata-Mistry in making, but Vishal Sikka is no Cyrus Mistry
Infosys Ltd appears to be headed for an all-out war between two warring factions, one jointly led by CEO Vishal Sikka and chairman R Seshasayee, and the other led by founder NR Narayana Murthy as the board holds a press conference in Mumbai on Monday.
Sikka and Seshasayee, along with board members, will hold a press conference, in a show of strength, after Murthy publicly expressed his displeasure with some of the decisions taken by Seshasayee. The two are also expected to show letters of support from large investors having confidence in the current management and board, after Murthy questioned some of the decisions taken by the board in the last 10 months, terming them corporate governance lapses.
Infosys has hired JP Morgan to garner support from companys large institutional investors in favour of the current management and board, according to an executive familiar with the development.
Emails sent to Infosys and JP Morgan seeking comment went unanswered.
I dont know if this is the best decision by them (Sikka and Seshasayee) to address issues in this way (in a press conference) because you dont want these things to be done in public, said an executive, on the condition of anonymity. But I would believe they have been advised to do this after the founder of the company decided to go public.
Seshasayee is backed by most members of the board, although he does not have unanimous support from all the eight independent directors as a few directors see merit in the suggestions made by Murthy, according to two people familiar with the development. Infosys has eight independent directors. Sikka and chief operating officer UB Pravin Rao are the two executive members of the board.
On Friday,Mint reported that Infosys founders had expressed their displeasure with Seshasayee over some of the boards decisions and asked him to consider stepping down.
The developments at Infosys will decide the future of Indias second-largest software company, which employs close to 200,000, and the shareholders.
Only five of the seven original co-founders, Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, SD Shibulal, Kris Gopalakrishnan and K Dinesh are categorised as promoters, who together hold 12.75%stake in the company. Foreign institutional investors hold 39.02% stake, insurance companies have 11.26% and mutual funds hold 7.42%. Foreign non-institutions hold another 16.78% stake, others have 2.87%, and retail investors or public have 9.9% interest.
We are an independent board. How can we agree to these demands of removal of chairman and someone else from the board because all these are collective decisions,said an Infosys board member, on the condition of anonymity.
For this reason, the founders need to seek majority support on the board or get approval from shareholders in an annual general meeting or extraordinary general meeting if they want their demands accepted. It is a hypothetical question for now, said the head of a large domestic institutional investor in Infosys, on the condition of anonymity, when asked if investors will side with the founders or the management team, if a resolution is sought before shareholders. We still believe that this situation wont arise and a solution will be found. We are still reading the developments, and will hear out all sides before deciding what to do next.
There are three big challenges ahead of Sikka and Seshasayee for now. Firstly, to make sure the issue raised by Murthy does not flare up and an amicable resolution can be reached. Secondly, Sikka and Seshsayee need to muster enough support from large institutional investors for they will need the backing of these large shareholders, in case some of the founders or a large shareholder decides to bring in a resolution demanding the removal of Seshasayee at an annual general meeting or extraordinary general meeting.
Finally, Sikka will have his task cut out in managing his staff and clients, some of whom may fret over the ensuing drama.
Amid a growing conflict between the Infosys board and founders, CEO Vishal Sikka on Monday met institutional investors at an event in Mumbai. Describing his relationship with NR Narayana Murthy as warm, Sikka said he has a wonderful equation with the founders.
When asked about the reported divide between the Board and the founders, he said that drama going on in the media is distracting.
All this drama that has been going on in the media, its very distracting - it takes away attention - but underneath that there is a very strong fabric that this company is based on and it is a real privilege for me to be its leader, Sikka said.
This comes at a time when former Infosys CFO TV Mohandas Pai has exhorted institutional investors to raise questions about the huge cash pile on the companys books and governance issues, as investors have an obligation to protect their investment.
Capital allocation is very important. Institutional investors should raise those questions. They have a duty...institutional investors should raise questions on governance because it concerns the companys reputation, Pai told PTI in an interview.
Another former CFO, V Balakrishnan, said an interim chairman should be appointed at the earliest to effectively engage with its co-founders.
Demanding that chairman Ramaswami Seshasayee step down, Balakrishnan said he should take responsibility for the lapses in corporate governance at the Bengaluru-based company.
Sikka, along with some of the Board members, is also scheduled to interact with the media later in the day to clear the air over various issues flagged by the founders.
Last week, Sikka called members of the senior management to assuage concerns and has advised them not to get distracted by the ongoing tussle and instead focus on companys business and strategy.
Murthy, along with other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan, had written to the Infosys board asking why Sikkas compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.
Murthy, who has gone public with his views, questioned paying the former CFO (Rajiv Bansal) a 30-month severance pay.
Infosys, however, has denied any corporate governance lapses, and has emphasised that its Board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation.
On Monday, February 13, at 11.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference "Anti Asset-Grabbing: Socio-Legal Mechanism." The facts of illegal takeover of private property and cultural heritage of Odesa historical monuments, with the participation of "black notaries" and people posing as patrons, will be made public. The participants will include chairman of the public movement "For the whole Odesa" Andriy Sydorenko; an activist of the public movement "For the whole Odesa" Neonila Tkachenko; a victim of an illegal takeover of property Olesia Buchbinder; an activist of the public movement "For the whole Odesa", delegated by the inhabitants of the Rusova quarter, Maria Shkvaruk (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation. Details by phone: (095) 589 8734.
Infosys chairman R Seshasayee said on Monday there is no battle between the board members and promoters of the I-T company.
I dont think there is any battle. There is no conflict of interest, there is only convergence of interest, he said at a press meet in Mumbai.
Seshasayee also defended CEO Vishal Sikkas pay package and said the compensation was related to a high level of target achievements.
Seshasayee also said it is the job of the companys board to listen to everyone.
Read | Why Vishal Sikka has everyones support at Infosys
The press meet comes in the wake of Infosys founders, including NR Narayana Murthy, questioning the boards willingness to be flexible with Sikkas $11 million compensation.
Murthy and other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan, had reportedly written to the Infosys board asking why Sikkas compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.
Infosys, however, has denied any corporate governance lapses, and has emphasised that its board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation.
(With inputs from agencies)
Read | Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka says ongoing drama in the media is distracting
NR Narayana Murthy was on the top of his game for the larger part of his career. He steered Infosys, the software services company he founded in 1981, with six others, to make it the poster boy of the Indian information technology (IT) industry.
For over three decades Infosys was under Murthys shadow, from 1993-2002 (since it got listed) as its CEO, later as its chairman, until stepped down from the board in 2014, once Vishal Sikka joined the company.
Between 1993 and 2002, Infosys revenue grew at a compound annual growth of 78%, from Rs 14.33 crore to Rs 2,604 crore. Its profits grew faster, at 83%, from Rs 3.51 crore to Rs 807.96.
For years, Murthy was the man to look up to, every time Infosys needed a father-figure. In 2013, he returned to the company as the chairman to fix things. In 2011, after SD Shibulal, one of the founders, became the CEO of the company, its margins and revenues suffered.
When Murthy was the CEO, some of old Infosys employees, remember, no one would dare to talk about reducing margins to please a client or get a contract. For the longest time, Infosys operating margins were over 30%. Under Shibulal, it was down to about 25%.
In 2013, he returned to fix the company, and return it back to its glory days. Murthy also got his son, Rohan, to become his executive assistant. However, in the weeks that followed, Rohans role was more than just assisting his father he measured the individual productivity of employees, automated software development, put in programme junior employees and mentor them, retrain people, among others.
On June 14, 2014, as the annual general meeting, he said that his speech will be long as it was his last one as the chairman.
Murthy left, he was just a shareholder in Infosys, but a powerful one. Sikka ran the company, in less than two years, he came back this time, not as the chairman, but as the founder, who cares for Infosys like his own child.
He raised concerns over Rs 17-crore severance package paid to Rajiv Bansal, Sikkas salary compensation, and fall of corporate governance of the company.
To give it to Murthy, he still has some clout with the founding team most of them backed him. A former Infosys employee who runs her own consulting firm, said, It is not the same company as it was.
A financial daily reported than the concern of corporate governance may lead to Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to investigate into the matter. No one raised questions, when Murthy had got his son into Infosys.
That is perhaps because Murthy is the most respectable entrepreneur of India, and his Infosys was best known for corporate governance under his reign. However, the Indian IT industry is also changing.
Murthy perhaps knows his limits. Recently, he told in an interview with Bloomberg, Let me stop. I have made a point, paying such large sums of money is confusing. Now they have to sort it out.
He wants to put an end to this battle between Infosys founders and its new management, but not before making his point.
For full coverage of the Infosys boardroom battle, click http://read.ht/BSlM
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It was almost three years back that a 46-year old Vishal Sikka moved into the Infosys corner office that was once occupied by NR Narayana Murthy, and became the first non-founder CEO of Infosys.
Sikka joined Infosys after a 12-year stint in SAP and is credited with developing the analytics software, HANA, which reads, searches, analyses and gives distills information from realms of data, online and offline.
In the world of technology, thats cutting edge and innovative. No wonder, he got the top role at Indian ITs poster boy firm.
In his 32-month stint Sikka has changed many things in Infosys: he overhauled the organisational structure, increased the thrust on artificial intelligence and based on this laid down vision 2020.
The goal for 2020 is to achieve $20 billion ($8.7 billion currently) in revenue at 30 per cent net margin (23 per cent) and revenue per employee of $80,000 ($49,000).
All business decisions since June 2014, have been keeping this target in mind; the four acquisitions have also been executed to plug the gaps that were between the 2020 goal and Infosys.
The results were for all to see, within two years of Sikka taking over Infosys share price jumped 54% after some turbulence following worries of global protectionism and the recent controversy between its Board and founders, the IT companys shares are still at a 22% spike over June 2014.
Sikkas leadership has always been appreciated by Infosys investors.
Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund, which holds a 2.13 per cent stake in the company and has been a long-term investor said: We have been enormously pleased to see the stabilising hands of Vishal Sikka, who has improved underlying operating performance and begun to articulate a coherent strategy to a firm beset by a host of structural challenges to the ageing offshore IT service industry.
The support from investors should come as a boost for Sikka, who has been caught between the Board and Infosys founders led by NR Narayana Murthy.
The Board has also stood by Sikka.
The Board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Dr. Vishal Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation, said R. Seshasayee, chairman of the Board in a statement.
The founders have remained consistent in their view that they do not have any issues with the performance of the CEO, but the 40-50% increase in his compensation has become a sore point.
Murthy, along with other co-founders Nandan Nilekani and S Gopalakrishnan, had written to the Infosys board asking why Sikkas compensation was raised and hefty severance packages offered to two top-level executives who quit the company.
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Two years after the Aam Adami Party government came to power, its promise of Jahan Jhuggi, Wahan Makaan has failed to gain momentum.
What has kept the slum dwellers away from their dream home is bureaucratic hurdles. Approved by the Delhi cabinet in July 2016, the rehabilitation policy was sent back by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal early this month with some observations.
The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) has now responded to L-Gs comment and as the files run to and fro a final notification of the policy is yet to come.
Despite delay in the rehabilitation policy, the government has opened over 10,000 toilets in slums. The DUSIB has constructed 5,000 toilet seats so far and government wants to add 10,000 more seats before March.
Apart from constructing new toilets, we have focused on repair and upgradation of existing ones. We have installed taps in 80% of the toilets and regular cleaning is done, said a DUSIB official.
DUSIB has plans to construct 2 lakh public toilets across Delhi of which 1.5 lakh will be in slum clusters.
Meanwhile, with January 1, 2015 as the cut-off date for the policy, the clusters that came up after this date face threat of demolition.
(Ravi Choudhary/HT Photo)
Some experts also feel that slum rehabilitation requires a multi-dimensional approach that includes providing proper care. Relocation of can be a dangerous policy. They lose everything. The best way to deal with this is to leave the slum as it is and provide the basic facilities to them, said Dunu Roy, director, Hazards Centre.
A Delhi government spokesperson, however, said the policy takes care to rehabilitate slum dwellers close to their homes. The thrust of the policy is in-situ rehabilitation, using land as a resource and resorting to relocation
only as an exception. Attempt will be made to rehabilitate the eligible Jhuggi Jhopri dwellers at the same location or a within a radius of 5 km, the spokesperson said.
It was decided that DUSIB will rehabilitate the eligible JJ dwellers before removal of jhuggies as per this policy. The DUSIB had identified four slum clusters where a pilot project was to be started but this, too, got stuck in bureaucracy.
About 2,000 families living in north Delhis Sangam Park were to be the first to be rehabilitated under Delhi governments slum-free plan.
The DUSIB has submitted the plan to the municipal corporation for the approval but is yet to receive a response.
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A number of office-goers had to resort to alternative ways to reach their workplace on Monday morning in view of a strike by drivers of app-based cab services. However, there were still some who were stumped by the lack of Ola and Uber vehicles.
Those who arrived at the Delhi airport or railway station in the morning were the worst hit with return of surge pricing. In most cases, auto rickshaw drivers were reportedly fleecing commuters and refused to go by the metre.
I paid Rs 270 for an auto ride from New Delhi railway station to CR Park. The usual rate is Rs 120 by metre and Rs 150 otherwise. When I tried bargaining, they sarcastically asked me to book an Ola instead, said Junhai Jaiswal, who arrived in the capital early on Monday.
A number of office-goers used the Metro services or arranged for private cabs along with their colleagues.
The strike by drivers of the two mobile-based cab aggregators entered its fourth day on Monday with no sign of a let up. Around 1.5 lakh such cabs ply in Delhi-NCR on a daily basis. The situation could have been worse but, the kaali-peeli taxi and a section of auto-rickshaw unions pulled out of the strike on Sunday after a meeting with transport minister Satyendra Jain.
Nevertheless, auto drivers claim their demand has seen a spike after a long time. Ola and Uber had grabbed a major chunk of their business specially after the companies introduced the share or pool service. Since morning I have made at least six trips to and from Pragati Maidan metro station. It feels like the good old days are back, Rajneesh Tiwari, an auto driver said. Delhi has over 85,000 auto-rickshaws.
There were several daily cab users who blamed these companies for not resolving the issues sooner. Why should we suffer? Just because they are private companies does not mean they cant be held accountable. Whatever issue there is, they must sort it out, said Rahul Shrivastav.
Another daily user, Tamanna Angral, said she felt cheated by these companies. I bought an Ola Share pass which will expire on Tuesday. I still have at least four rides left, but cant avail as there are just no cabs available. This is cheating, she said.
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Incidents of roofs cave-ins are not rare in Delhi. Every other week, a building collapse is reported from unauthorised colonies that house one-third of Delhis residents. But it shocked many people, when two roofs gave in at Connaught Place, Delhis toniest commercial address, this month.
Unlike the illegal buildings in unauthorised colonies that are built in a hurry and in violation of all construction norms, CP is one the best pieces of architecture Delhi owns. Built by the British as the imperial capitals high street in early 1930s, it fell into disrepair in the 1990s. But the Rs 670-crore restoration project, the only large-scale urban renewal initiative undertaken in Delhi, was meant to have fixed the commercial district.
It turns out that it didnt.
The expensive project that continued for five long years since 2009 was only about facade restoration. Pillars and windows were repaired and refurbished but the New Delhi Municipal Council left the roofs to be fixed by the building owners.
On February 2, a portion of C Block, the first building restored by the civic agency to serve as the prototype for the reconstruction project, came crumbling down. Ten days later on a busy Saturday night, the open-air rooftop wing of a restaurant collapsed. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in the two cases.
Like all government agencies caught on the back foot once a shocking oversight comes to light, the NDMC is in reactive mode, shutting down rooftops of all restaurants for good measure. It has also ordered a structural safety survey of CP after the damage was done.
Delhis traditional markets have undergone a massive transformation in the last decade. Once a laid back shopping arcade, CP is now full of restaurants and pubs operating from what were once warehouses and office spaces. The first-floor residential flats of Khan Market now house Delhis most happening eateries.
But high-decibel establishments with their excessive paraphernalia, such as giant water tanks and generator sets, are overloading the aged structures. Many vacant properties have decayed with neglect and have been under the authoritys radar. Even the next-door neighbours have not bothered about their fragile state as they went about modifying their own buildings.
Anticipating the challenges of the changing times is not our forte. If it were not for a petition in the National Green Tribunal, the civic violations by a number of restaurants in Hauz Khas Village would have never been established. In 2013, as many as three dozen restaurants were found illegally extracting groundwater for commercial use and throwing oil and kitchen waste directly into the drains of Hauz Khas, one of Delhis most gentrified urban villages.
Exempt from municipal bylaws, the maze of narrow alleys framed by poorly-provisioned multi-storey constructions here still remains a civic threat. Last August, firefighters had to dash on foot to reach a house on fire, carrying the bulky water hoses attached to extra pipes because their truck could not enter the narrow alleys of the village.
The responsibility of meeting safety standards remains with property owners. But the authorities have to ensure that the undertakings provided for obtaining business licenses are actually carried out. Describing Khan Market restaurants as a disaster waiting to happen, the Delhi high court in October last year blamed the public-private partnership of municipal and police authorities, flat and restaurant owners for the mess.
The world over, adaptive reuse of space repurposing old buildings for purposes other than which it was built or designed for is a preferred strategy for urban renewal. Taking cue from New Yorks SoHo, many American cities have transformed their abandoned factory and warehouse neighbourhoods into retail spaces such as galleries, restaurants and bookstores. But all these were allowed only after adequate retrofitting.
Delhi must also follow a right mix of regulation and redevelopment of our urban spaces. In heritage properties such as Connaught Place and Khan Market, focus should shift from facade beautification to ensuring structural safety. And if Delhi truly values its living history, it must bring Hauz Khas and other urban villages on the civic map.
Chic does not have to be unsafe to be edgy.
shivani.singh@hindustantimes.com
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The anti-corruption helpline of Delhi Police received over 1.12 lakh calls, text and WhatsApp messages, alleging corruption, inaction in complaints and rude behaviour against police personnel in 2016, states the annual report of Delhi Police released on Monday.
Of the total calls and messages, the department investigated only 307 complaint calls and messages. It means inquiry was initiated in only 0.27% complaints and calls received on the vigilance helpline.
Police received over 1,12,144 calls and messages on the anti-graft helpline. While 93,350 complaints were received through WhatsApp on vigilance helpline number 9910641064, 13,765 came through calls. A total of 5,029 complaints against police personnel were sent as text messages.
The Whatsapp helpline 9910641064 launched in 2014 was started by the vigilance department to take complaints of police personnel in corruption and wrong doing. Police receive video and audio files, complaints and information on this helpline.
Out of 307 complaints taken up for inquiry, 150 were related to corruption, 55 were about inaction and 102 about interference in land and property matters and high-handed behaviour.
Senior police officers, however, claimed that complaints of corruption, extortion, connivance with criminals and unlawful activities and misbehaviour decreased in 2016 when compared with 2015.
In 2015, a total of 2,335 such complaints were made against police personnel. However, in 2016, the number dipped to 1,178. A total of 528 complaints were about corruption and extortion against police personnel. Similarly, 433 complaints were regarding misbehaviour by police and 109 complaints were related to non-registration of cases. Thirty-one people complained about faulty investigation into cases.
Data shows that 616 officials were suspended for various allegations, while departmental inquiry was initiated against 696 police staff, out of which 863 were found guilty since in certain complaints several officials were named. During the year, 437 police personnel were punished, out of which 109 were dismissed. Of the 437 punished personnel, seven were inspectors, 73 sub-inspectors, 19 assistant sub-inspectors, 65 head constables and 271 were constables.
The sharp decline in complaints received against police personnel is a result of the sustained emphasis laid by us and prompt inquiry into complaints followed by swift punitive action on substantiated allegations. The force has adopted a zero-tolerance policy against corruption, inaction and misbehaviour by police personnel. The perception created among staff that if found guilty, they will not be spared has helped us contain corruption in the department, said Dependra Pathak, Delhi Police spokesperson.
Besides the calls and messages received on 9910641064, the other vigilance helpline numbers 1064 and 1800111064 were also put to effective use. On these helplines, 247 calls were received in 2016, out of which 79 were of inaction, 147 regarding corruption and 21 related to miscellaneous issues.
Delhi Polices annual crime statistics show that with registration of 2,09,519 cases in 2016, 575 crimes were reported every day in the city. The year saw an increase of 18,142 cases over 2015 when the city had witnessed 1,91,377 crimes. The number increased even though heinous crimes such as dacoity, murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping for ransom and rioting saw a significant decrease as compared to crimes reported in 2015.
Of the total 2,09,519 cases, only 55,957 cases were solved by the police. It means that almost 74% crimes remained unsolved, which is around 2% higher from 2015 when percentage of the unsolved cases was a little over 72%.
Data shows that one woman is raped in Delhi every four hours. Every 9 minutes a woman makes a distress call to the police helpline. One vehicle is stolen every 12 minutes in Delhi while every 6 min, one person becomes victim of theft and every two hours, one person is robbed. One person becomes victim of snatching every 30 minutes.
The Delhi high court on Monday restrained two taxi drivers unions from interfering with the running of app-based cabs of Uber, whose services had been disrupted due the recent strike by drivers.
Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, in an interim order, granted the relief to Uber which moved the court on Monday against two taxi drivers unions, Sarvodaya Driver Association of Delhi (SDAD) and Rajdhani Tourist Drivers Union, accusing them of blocking cabs of drivers, who had not joined the strike.
The court also restrained the striking drivers unions from staging a dharna near Ubers office and listed the matter for further hearing on February 17.
It also issued notice to the two unions and sought their replies on Ubers plea by the next date.
Uber, represented by senior advocate Dayan Krishnan and advocate Rajshekhar Rao, argued before Justice Endlaw that not only its business, but public safety, especially of women, was being affected by its drivers being blocked by the members of the striking unions.
Uber had claimed that not only were its vehicles being blocked, but the mobile devices installed therein were also being removed by the striking drivers.
Hundreds of drivers have been on an indefinite strike since February 10 in Delhi-NCR region to protest against the low fares and lack of basic amenities of app-based taxi aggregators like Uber and Ola.
After the roof of two buildings collapsed in Delhis Connaught Place this month, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has started a survey of buildings in the central shopping hub to identify potentially dangerous buildings and prevent any more such incidents.
According to a senior engineering department official of the NDMC, the survey, which started on Monday, will cover all 13 blocks of Connaught Place and inspect buildings, especially rooftops.
The two-day survey by our officials has started. We will make sure that all 13 blocks are inspected to identify dangerous buildings, the official told HT. The roof of Unplugged Courtyard, a restaurant in L-Block, caved in on February 10 a few days after NDMC had banned dining on the terrace in Connaught Place due to safety concerns. On February 2, a part of the roof C block near the popular Jain Book Depot had collapsed.
The NDMC had shut down the rooftop sections of 21 open-air restaurants after the incident at C Block. Unplugged Courtyard was on that list too, along with My Bar Headquarters, Warehouse Cafe in D-block, The Vault Cafe in F-block, Kinbuck-2 and Kitchen Bar in C-block, Lord of the Drinks, Open House Cafe, Jungle Jamboree, Boombox Cafe, Farzi Cafe, House of Commons, Hotel Palace Heights, Office Canteen Bar, Luggage Room, Cafe OMG, Barbeque Nation, TC Bar & Restaurant, Teddy Boy Restaurant and The Niche Restaurant and Cafe Public Connection.
According to officials, the open-air restaurants have been running for years without permission. The chief architects office sent show cause notices to these outlets for misuse of premises under sections 250 and 252 of the NDMC Act, 1994 and their rooftop sections were sealed a day after the C Block incident, the official said.
The civic agency has also formed a six member panel, comprising structural safety experts from IIT Delhi, to find out the reason behind crumbling buildings.
A policy is also being formulated to regulate structures like water tanks, mobile towers and generator sets, among others, installed on rooftops in this commercial centre, the official said.
Constructed in 1933, Connaught Place was named after Duke of Connaught (Arthur, son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert) to honour him on his visit to Delhi. In 2007, the CP redevelopment was kicked off as a pilot project with the facade restoration of C Block. It was scheduled for completion ahead of the Commonwealth Games in October, 2010. However, it could be finished only in 2013, after missing a series of deadlines and escalation of cost from Rs 76 crore to Rs 671 crore.
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Come Valentines Day and the Damdami Mai Pooja (Virgin Tree worship) at Hindu College, Delhi University (DU) will have a poster of Disha Patani put up. The tree that has been a symbol of virginity for years, will be a spot that spreads safe sex awareness too.
Every year on V-Day, some DU students shortlist a hot Bollywood female actor, and worship her as the Damdami Mai. For worship, the tree is decorated with balloons, strings and condoms, to seek blessings of the love deity. Why is it important for students? Its believed that if you are part of the tradition of Virgin Tree Worship, you increase your chances of scoring a date and finding a partner of your dreams (and losing your virginity in the process).
This year the shortlisted goddess is Disha Patani. The choice, however, wasnt easy for students. Sultan Miftahul Haque, Hindu Colleges hostel president says, We selected Disha Patani this year because she is beautiful, sexy and has been very successful in the past year. We always zero down a personality who has been the talk of that year and Disha seemed like an obvious choice.
A shot from previous years Damdami Mai pooja (HT Photo)
Sex awareness is the need of the hour and we want to promote safe sex among all the people present at the pooja. We use condoms as decorations, but it is not for fun. Its a way of showing the masses that condoms are not a taboo and are a necessary tool for safe sex. We hope our message reaches everyone.
The place that celebrates virginity will not only be about worshipping a Bollywood celeb. This year the pooja will also focus on safe sex awareness and the hostellers want to make it clear that the condom decorations are not a sign of vulgarity. Sex awareness is the need of the hour and we want to promote safe sex among all the people present at the pooja. We use condoms as decorations, but it is not for fun. Its a way of showing the masses that condoms are not a taboo and are a necessary tool for safe sex. We hope our message reaches everyone, adds Sultan.
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KYIV. Feb 13 (Interfax-Ukraine) Ukrainian authorities would have to make efforts to establish relations with the new U.S. administration and U.S. President Donald Trump, experts have said.
"Ukrainian authorities did not have plan B in the case if Trump is elected U.S. president. No Poroshenko and Foreign Ministry are convulsively trying to bridge the gap and show that Ukraine has something the United States and Trump could be interested in. From the point of view of tactics, Ukrainian authorities should shape these practical and pragmatic things that would be interesting for Trump and his team, the United States in general, and secondly they should bring them earlier than Russian will do," Director of the Dialogue Institute of Social and Political Design, political analyst Andriy Myseliuk said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
Chairman of the Ukrainian Politics Institute, political analyst Kost Bondarenko said that the Ukraine's issue has not been discussed in the U.S. Department of State. He said that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should form his team now. He would have an assistant who will be engaged in European countries, including Eastern Europe. This assistant should have a special advisor for Ukrainian issues.
The political analyst said that at present there are several candidates and depending on the decision that will be made the U.S. policy towards Ukraine could vary.
Bondarenko said that former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Paula Jon Dobriansky of Ukrainian origin and famous Russian dissident Dimitri Simes are named as candidates to this post.
The expert said that Trump would never be pro-Russian president. He will be pro-American president and he will protect the interests of the Untied States, but if they coincide with the interests of Russia or some trade-offs on the international arena would play in favor of the United States, Trump would approve these trade-offs.
"I am afraid that one of these trade-offs could be Ukraine, which the United States does not understand now," Bondarenko said.
Its eye on the coming municipal elections, the BJP-ruled South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) on Monday announced freebies for residents in its last budget ahead of the polls scheduled in April.
It has decided to distribute 3,000 LED bulbs to poor families in each ward, install CCTV cameras for the safety of women and children at 104 sensitive points, establish 25 new parking sites at crowded places, open four special diabetic centres and construct 32 green pyres in the existing crematoriums.
We have allocated Rs 4 crore for 3.5 lakh LED bulbs in 104 wards. These will be distributed to poor families living in dwellings measuring 12 square yards to 100 square yards, said Leader of house Subhash Arya.
For the convenience of registered vendors, the SDMC plans one night bazaar in every zone. The agency will make arrangements of lights, parking and sanitation in these bazaars.
The South Corporation is doing well in all areas and we want the benefits to reach the common man. Thats why we have decided to take back all proposed hikes in property tax rates and suggestions to decrease concessions and rebates suggested by SDMC commissioner in fiscal budget 2017-18, said Arya.
To simplify property tax submission, the SDMC will launch a mobile-based application by the end of this financial year. The SDMC has also simplified the process of issuing councillors funds.
I have divided the funds into various heads and defined the maximum amount that can be withdrawn. It will reduce confusion and disparity in allocation of funds to the councillors, said Arya.
For example, a maximum of R 5 lakh can be withdrawn for repair and maintenance of parks and tube wells. R 10 lakh can be withdrawn for sanitation services, R 50 lakh for dense carpeting of roads and R 50 lakh for councillors local area development fund etc.
Laddoos for students
When they assemble for Independence Day celebrations this year, students of South Delhi Municipal Corporation schools will get four laddoos as a treat.
The initiative of leader of house Subhash Arya is aimed at making school kids remember the day as a sweet memory. The south corporation allocated R 1 crore to buy laddoos on all national festivals.
To ensure maximum students attend schools every day, the SDMC plans to serve sumptuous food once a week, including sweet kheer and puri. On rest of the days, meals will include sabzi and dal as well.
Besides, the corporation is working to enhance the quality of education and establish smart classes in 581 schools with the help of NGOs. We want our kids to learn all modern tools, said Arya.
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In street number 4 of East Azad Nagar, January was the month for hectic wedding preparations. The neighbourhood was transformed with festive music, lights and flavours. Nothing, however, could fix the perennial waterlogging in the lane.
My daughters wedding was an occasion to celebrate but the water-logging caused us so much embarrassment. We stayed inside most of the time. It is what we do the rest of the year too as the lane is always water-logged, said 65-year-old Asha (name changed), who lives here.
The 3-feet wide lane is home to a row of multiple-storey houses built on 25-yard plots. Four years back, East Azad Nagar earned the legal tag as its layout plan was approved by the municipal corporation. However, that changed nothing on ground for the residents.
Regularisation of unauthorised colonies one of the biggest political issues in the Capital stems from the failure of successive governments to provide planned housing. Official estimates peg the number of unauthorised colonies in the city at 1,650, with about 50 lakh residents. East Azad Nagar was one of the 895 colonies which were regularised by then Sheila Dikshit government in 2012.
Read: AAP govt pushes civic works in Delhi slums as policy remains stuck in red tape
Ahead of the 2015 assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party also promised to provide registration rights with regard to property and sale deeds in resettlement colonies.
We will provide water, sewer lines, electricity, schools and hospitals in a systematic and phased manner. Multi-pronged approach is the only way to empower unauthorised colonies, and has never been attempted by the BJP or the Congress. Within one year, these unauthorised colonies will be regularised and residents will be given ownership rights, the AAP manifesto promised.
Soon after coming to power, the AAP government announced the decision to open registry of property in unauthorised colonies bypassing the process to be completed by the municipal corporations. The government said in 2015 that soon after it sends the boundary details to corporations, it will also allow registry of property.
However, the process is now stuck as the Union urban development ministry has asked the Delhi government to submit details of plot size and population in these colonies.
We have received a letter from UD ministry with a list of queries. They want to know the population of every colony, size of plots, vacant plots, details of land owning agency and cost of regularisation, said an official in the Delhi urban development department of Delhi government. Officials say it will take time to prepare the report even as lakhs of people continue to battle with the living conditions on a daily basis.
Government should acknowledge that these colonies have come up because of the failure of those in power. The onus is on the government as they were supposed to build these houses. The government should simply try to make the living condition better in these colonies, said Dunu Roy, director, Hazards Centre.
However, regularisation and approval of layout hasnt meant better amenities for these colonies. East Azad Nagar, for example, has the tiniest of roads, no parking infrastructure, open overflowing drains and dangling power wires. Moreover, the structural safety of buildings in these colonies is a major cause of concern.
Regularised or not, our problems are the same. The main road has been carpeted several times because of which the level of our lane has become lower, hence the water-logging, said Rakesh, a resident of East Azad Nagars street number four.
Subhash Chandra Kohli, president of East Azad Nagar RWA, agrees that nothing has changed on ground. Delhi government is still to include the colony in the official map of authorised Delhi colonies, he says.
Senior officials who worked on approval of the layout plan of East Azad Nagar in 2013 say several rules, as per the Master Plan, were bypassed in the process. The law mandates a clearly defined minimum width of streets and bylanes, space for public utilities and emergency measures. On paper, most of these were done with riders. For example, the width of the streets has been increased by marking them with dotted lines. A rider has been inserted in the statute that whenever the property owner applies for reconstruction of house, the building plan will be passed taking into account the marked line on the map, an official said.
Officials admit that the only possible benefits of regularisation will be ownership of property and making the area eligible for basic government services. Vijay Kumar, a resident of street number 19, A-block, East Azad Nagar concurs, The only way it helps us is that we can now sell and purchase property legally.
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Metros and buses are likely to run choked on Monday with Uber and Ola cabs pledging to remain off the roads in the fourth day of their strike that has seen nearly most of the 1.5 lakh taxis on the two platforms being unavailable.
The day could have been worse if auto and taxi unions joined the protest as was feared last week.
Uber and Ola which offer cab rides to people at rates much lower than non-app-based taxis shot to popularity in the last couple of years with thousands signing up to use and offer services on the platform. But drivers are now protesting slashed incentives, increased commission rates, declining number of rides, long working hours and decreased earnings.
Last week, representatives of a drivers union Sarvodaya Driver Association Delhi (Uber and Ola) said autos and taxis would also participate in their agitation.
But auto and taxi drivers, whose business was eaten into by Ola and Ubers services, decided on Sunday to not be a part of the strike.
Uber and Ola had helped snatch away our livelihoods; why would we strike in solidarity with them? Taxi stands and auto stands especially outside railway stations, metro stations, etc, will be available for the people, said Rajendra Soni, the general secretary of Delhi Pradesh Taxi Union and the Delhi Auto rickshaw Sangh.
But with at least a lakh of the cabs off the road, Metro trains and buses are likely to run choked and autos may be hard to find especially during rush hour traffic.
The Delhi Metro said it will keep a close watch on the ridership and frequency of trains will be adequate to meet any increase in demand. The network caters to approximately 30 lakh people daily on average. Monday is likely to see that number rise.
Services from radio-taxi operators such as Mega and Meru, and the traditional kaali-peeli (black and yellow) will be unaffected.
Some drivers for Ola and Uber have defied the strike, but are often intercepted by groups affiliated to the unions who force them off the roads. Waiting times on the two platforms averaged around 15-20 minutes on Sunday, with surge pricing at times doubling the rates.
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Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav has challenged the Arvind Kejriwal government to win at least 50% of the municipal seats in the upcoming municipal corporation polls in the Capital, or resign and make way for fresh elections.
Addressing the Hisab Do Jawab Do --- first rally of Swaraj India, political front launched by the ousted AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan--at Ramila Maidan on Sunday, Yadav said the AAP government has failed to deliver on the promises and its time it should walk the talk on the electoral reforms suggested by it such as right to recall.
Read: With broom, AAP now eyes clean sweep at Delhis municipal corporation polls
I challenge the AAP government. You won 250 wards (lead during the 2015 assembly elections) out of 272. Even if you win 136 of them in upcoming municipal elections, we will withdraw our demand of recall (of the AAP government). But if you fail to win, then quit the Delhi government and allow people to elect a new government. I am demanding the same what you (AAP leadership) used to demand during Ramlila Maidan movement, Yadav said while addressing the gathering.
Yadav also announced the decision of the outfit to contest all 272 seats in the upcoming municipal elections.
Launching its election campaign, the party leaders accused the Centre, Delhi government and the MCDs of having failed in the governance of the national capital. The party pointed out the failures of the three layers of governance in Delhi.
The party also adopted a no confidence resolution against the Centre, the state government and the MCDs, seeking accountability. However, the AAP government remained at the Centre of the attack, with a list of failures of the state government listed at the event.
Read: Many senior councillors lose seats post delimitation of wards
The AAP did not fulfil the promises it made to the people of Delhi. Be it the promise of a corruption-free government, ending the VIP culture, bringing in a strong Lokpal, full statehood to Delhi or be it making Delhi safe for women or proving permanent job for teachers, the Delhi government has failed on fronts, party leader Prashant Bhushan said.
Rebel AAP MLA Pankaj Pushkar also addressed the rally saying that the upcoming MCD elections wont be of politicians or parties, but it will be of people, of their issues and of their Swaraj.
Pushkar has been raising his voice against the AAP leadership and the government ever since Yadav and Bhushan were booted out of the party. The AAP leadership has, however, desisted from showing doors to the Model Town legislator arguing that he could leave the party on his own if he wishes to. Expulsion of Pushkar by the party will prevent his disqualification from Delhi assembly, while his resignation will lead to him losing his membership.
By December 2017 almost all neighbourhoods in Delhi will get water connections and clean and cheap potable water, water minister Kapil Mishra said on Monday.
He said though 309 unauthorised colonies got new connections with revenue generated from out-of-the-box schemes, he was aware that many areas still did not have access to water.
At present, around 83% of households in Delhi had access to piped water supply. Many still run after tankers for water... Almost all of these colonies will have water by December 2017, he said.
The AAP government on Tuesday released a report on the DJBs achievements. Mishra said consumers had benefitted from various schemes, water supply had been increased and the network reinforced.
The report said the government was working on ways to ensure residents get quality potable water that they can drink straight of the tap without additional filtering.
Water contamination is a problem in Delhi. Recently residents of Swasthya Vihar had staged a protest against the yellow, cloudy and smelly water that reached their water tanks.
Mishra spoke how the government had fulfilled many of their election promises, including the one to provide 20,000 litres of water free of cost every month.
Other achievements highlighted included the opening of water treatment plants in Dwarka and Bawana, the plan to rejuvenate the Yamuna riverfront, and setting up of a low cost sewage treatment plant.
Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who released the report, said the government had saved the people of Delhi from the tanker mafia by ensuring easy access to clean and cheap water.
Politically affluent people were running a tanker mafia. It was a deliberate attempt to deny people water... In our two years, we helped Delhi out of that ditch..., said Sisodia.
Read: Two years of AAP govt
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When Mandoli Jail in east Delhi was ready for operation in October 2016, its dull yellow walls presented an empty canvas for prisoners being transferred to this new jail, to showcase their art.
Two months down the line, the prisoners and jail authorities have made the most of the opportunity. From murals and graffiti to theme-based jails, they are going all out to experiment with the prisons looks.
The jail authorities are in talks with Delhi Universitys College of Art for covering the outside walls of the prison with graffiti. Unlike the inner walls of the prison complex that will be painted by inmates, for security reasons the art on the outer side of the periphery walls will be assigned to college students, if the talks go through.
The prison walls present a hopeless picture for the inmates. But we believe the art on walls will bring positivity in their lives and hope for an improved life after they leave prison, said Sudhir Yadav, director general (Delhi prisons).
The first art form to adorn the walls of the jail are Madhubani paintings. Prisoners, guided by experts from outside the jail, have already done Madhubani paintings in and outside one of the two sub-jails which have become operational.
There are a total of six sub-jails in Mandoli Jail, one of them reserved for women inmates. The other inhabited sub-jail is set to have its walls covered with paintings on the concept of tribal art. We are selecting about two dozen inmates from each sub-jail for this task, said Shailendra Parihar, who has been made the DIG in-charge of the jail.
Over the months, the inmates of each of the six sub-jails will paint their walls based on separate themes. The womens jail will sport paintings on the concept of women empowerment, said Yadav.
Other ideas for art based on themes are to have paintings that will imbibe the culture of nationalism and patriotism in the inmates.
The jail administration also plans to have large murals on the four towers located at the corners of each sub-jail. Mahatma Gandhi, APJ Abdul Kalam and Bhagat Singh are some of the greats whose murals are set to adorn the tower tops.
Apart from going artistic, the jail is strengthening its security arrangements using advanced technology. Among the measures adopted are laser fencing for periphery walls to keep banned objects from being thrown inside, prisoner tracking system to keep a check on the movement of every inmate and use of advanced cameras to keep an eye on activities in most parts of the prison complex.
The jail, mandated to accommodate 3,776 prisoners, turned functional only last October with the relocation of 50 inmates from the overcrowded Tihar to the new jail. So far, about 1,500 prisoners have already been moved to the new prison complex located in East Delhis Mandoli.
The Delhi Police statistics show 94.26%, of those arrested for incidents of snatching in 2016, were time offenders and 53.97% were either illiterate or school dropouts.
A total of 9,571 cases of snatching were reported in 2016.
According to the police, a high percentage of first timers are involved in snatching because they are the ones looking for quick gains. These people, usually youngsters, are looking for quick money and an easy escape. They feel that by snatching a purse or a gold chain, they will not attract much attention from the police. Once these youngsters gain courage, they graduate to bigger crimes such as robberies. Most criminals first start with committing petty thefts and snatching, joint commissioner of police, Dependra Pathak, said.
All juveniles that we apprehend for cases of thefts and snatching are school dropouts. Our study has revealed that education plays a major role in curbing crime. If these juveniles are in schools, studying, then it will automatically help reduce crimes. We have started a programme called Jan Sampark for the purpose. Under the plan, we have involved principals of government schools to ensure that no one drops out of school, Pathak said.
Poor success rate
Snatching is also one crime that goes undetected and unsolved. In 2016, 9,571 cases of snatching were reported out of which only 3,364 were solved and 6,207 remain unsolved. The problem with solving such cases is that it is difficult to catch first timers. Since they are not a part of any gang and have no past criminal record, they are anonymous. Till we have solid clues to identify them, it becomes very difficult to trace them, Pathak said.
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Crime in Delhi increased for the third straight year and three out of every four cases registered in 2016 went unsolved, official data released on Monday showed.
The numbers, released by Delhi Police as part of an annual disclosure, cement the national capitals reputation of being a dangerous city particularly for women who made a distress-call to helplines every 9 minutes on an average.
Of the 2,09,519 cases reported last year, 1,53,562 cases or 73.29% of them could not be cracked. In 2015, the proportion of cases that were unsolved was 72.78%.
Allegations of crimes against women a molestation complaint every two hours, a rape case every four hours remained staggeringly high. But rape cases were fewer in 2016 compared to the year before when 2,199 cases were registered. Last year, 2,155 rape cases were filed.
In the last three-four years, the proactive action by the police has led to a positive demonstration effect. Each complaint given by a woman is being immediately registered and seriously investigated. This is the reason why the numbers appear constant, joint commissioner of police, Dependra Pathak said.
Most of the cases that remained unsolved were street crimes robberies, snatching, pick-pocketing and similar thefts. These incidents are more widespread, affecting most citizens.
Every six minutes, someone becomes a victim of theft. There was a case of snatching reported every 30 minutes on an average.
It is very important for the police to instil faith in people by working hard to solve such cases. More than solving of these cases, it is important how police develops relationship with the person who has lodged the case. How they behave with the complainant make a lot of difference, criminal psychologist Rajat Mitra said.
Former Delhi police commissioner Ajai Raj Sharma explained that less heinous crimes are often neglected by police teams. Firstly, there are no eyewitnesses in such cases and hence the investigation is very time consuming. The only way to solve them is to study the crime scene in detail and gather clues.
Police, Sharma added, gave precedence to law and order duties over solving street crime cases. There is already shortage of staff and investigators, on top of that police personnel are engaged in security and law and order duties. If an investigator is deployed for a VIP movement, when will he investigate the case? Law and order should be separate from the police unit investigating cases, Sharma said.
Manipurs Loktak lake, the largest freshwater lake in the northeast, has become home to a first of its kind floating elementary school.
The school was inaugurated earlier this month at Langolsabi Leikai of Champu Khangpok village, about 50km from Imphal. It was opened under an initiative undertaken by All Loktak Lake Fishermans Union with the support of an NGO - People Resources Development Association (PRDA).
It aims to provide education to dropouts, who were rendered homeless due to the recent evacuation of phumdis or floating biomass of vegetation, soil, and organic matter at various stages of decomposition.
As most of us are uneducated and mostly depend upon on fishing as a meagre source of income, we are unable to send our children to school to another place, Oinam Rajen Singh, a local, said.
Once the programme is successful and provides quality education to students, we will expand our project and increase the classes as well. Based on India government drive on free education to all, we will increase the classes up to 8th standard so that opportunities are also given to the drop-out students, he added.
It will not only cater to the needs of the children but illiterate adults will also be taught. It will accommodate around 25 students and two teachers from the community.
The honorarium of the volunteers will be sanctioned by the PRDA, under the project Empowering vulnerable local communities for sustainable development, which is funded by Action Aid India.
The Loktak Development Authority had removed more than 700 floating huts as part of clearing the lake after the introduction of Loktak Lake (Protection) Act 2006, about five years go, displacing the fishing community.
The lake is referred as the lifeline of Manipur as it is highly productive and is a source of livelihood for the rural fishermen, who live in the surrounding areas and on phumdis also known as phumshongs. It is also an Important Bird Area as it is a potential breeding site for waterfowl and a staging site for migratory birds.
It serves as a source of water for hydropower generation, irrigation and drinking water supply.
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is expected to release the notification for the civil services preliminary examination 2017 on February 22 on its official website.
According to the UPSCs annual calendar for examinations, the date of notification for the civil services preliminary exam and the Indian Forest Service (preliminary) examination 2017 is February 22, while the last date for receipt of application is March 17.
The calendar that was released on January 5 said the prelim exams will be conducted on June 18.
The CSE exam is conducted annually by the UPSC in three stages - preliminary, main and interview - to select officers for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.
A candidate must have a degree of graduation in any stream from any university recognised by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to be eligible to apply for the exam.
Candidates who have appeared in the qualifying exam and are awaiting results are also eligible to apply, provided they submit the certificate of qualification along with the mark sheet to the UPSC before the main exam.
A candidate applying for IFS exam must possess a bachelors degree in one of the following: animal husbandry and veterinary science, botany, chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics, statistics and zoology, or a bachelors degree in agriculture, forestry or engineering from a recognised university.
Thousands of candidates take the test every year at various centres across the country.
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Publisher and director of KM Books Publishing Group Yaroslav Marynovych informed about this on his page on Facebook.We set a goal to publish a lot of non-fiction and business books this year. In general Publishing House plans to publish two more Tramps books with real stories and wise advice on how to reach success and to take an honorable place in a cohort of successful people: Think like a Billionaire and How to get rich. Yaroslav Marynovych noted. As it known, the book The art of the deal gained a huge success soon after its release. For the first 48 weeks of its implementation it was included into the list of 1 bestselling books according to The New York Times. Trumps book firmly kept on the front page of mentioned media for the first 13 weeks after its release. Furthermore, The art of the deal brought the author huge fees and made him World business icon. In this edition Donald Tramp detail tells about the management, career, finances, and discloses personal secrets of doing business. However, he doesnt hesitate to mention mistakes. To get to know the new US President better and to understand his actions it is necessary to read this book. Here are three Trumps striking quotes: I like thinking big. To me its very simple: if youre going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big. I play it very loose. I don't carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. . . . I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops. I always go into a deal anticipating the worst. If you plan for the worst if you can live with the worst the good will always take care of itself. Today Donald Trump's book The art of the deal is sold in all bookstores of Ukraine including a national net of bookstores "Bukva". Tags: KM Books Publishing Group, Yaroslav Marynovych, national net of bookstores "Bukva".
On working days, Sudhir Kohli of Sector 30, takes an autorickshaw from his residence to Huda City Centre Metro station and pays Rs 50 as one-way fare. On Monday, he had to shell out 120 for the same trip.
Gurgaon being a city that does not have adequate last-mile connectivity options and with the Delhi Metro service limited to only five station, residents are struggling to cope with the ongoing strike by cab employed by app-based cab drivers. With no option left, they are forced to depend on autorickshaws that do not ply by meter.
Maximising the opportunity, many auto drivers boosted their daily earnings on Monday as commuters were forced to spend more than double the prescribed fare.
My residence is three kilometres from the Iffco Chowk Metro station and usually the autorickshaw fare is Rs 60. I wanted to visit my aunt in Saket, Delhi. I tried to hire an autorickshaw from the Galleria autorickshaw stand, but none of the drivers were willing to take me to the metro station for less than Rs 100. After unsuccessful negotiations and wasting 15 minutes, I gave up and reached the metro station after shelling out an exorbitant amount, Anaita Kaul of Hamilton Court said.
The protesting union of cab drivers, Sarvodaya Driver Association, had claimed on Sunday that autorickshaw unions have given assurances they too will join the strike. However, there were no reports of disruption of autorickshaw services in Gurgaon. Instead, many continued to gain from the cabbies strike.
My daily collection is usually around Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 on the weekends because of a drop in passenger numbers. Since Friday, my collection has been exceeding Rs 3,000. Today (Monday) morning, many passengers took long-distance trips and I have earned over Rs 1,500, Shyam Kumar, an auto driver, said.
Manish Rai, an autorickshaw driver who usually operates on the Udyog Vihar-Moulsari Avenue-CyberHub metro station-Ambience Mall route said he has stopped the share option for commuters after the cab strike started as he was getting a higher return on a single trip.
I usually ferry five customers in a single trip and collect Rs 10 to Rs 20 from each. Instead, I am now ferrying individual passengers to interior parts of the city such as Civil Lines and Sohna Road that do not have the metro service. The strike has given me an opportunity to maximise my daily earnings, Jha said.
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A 15-year-old student of a leading Delhi school was shocked when her friends informed her about getting invites from a Snapchat account in her name with obscene pictures and vulgar messages.
The friends sent her screenshots of the account since she could not access the account on her own due to privacy policies of Snapchat, an image messaging and multimedia mobile application. A resident of Gurgaon, the girl approached her parents and informed them about the incident.
The girls father, a corporate honcho, approached Sandeep Khirwar, Gurgaon commissioner of police, and lodged a formal complaint on January 17. The matter was referred to the Cyber Crime Cell of the police who probed the matter and, on finding it true, forwarded it for filing of an FIR.
An FIR under relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act was filed at the DLF Phase-2 police station on Sunday. The Cyber Crime Cell has sought details of the IP address from which the fake account was created or operated.
The said messages made a reference to people known to her and, hence, seemed genuine, which encouraged people to view the same. The messages had sexually explicit content in words and photos, mentioned the complaint submitted to the police by the father.
She requested the account handler to stop but more messages followed. She then requested her friends to block the fake account.
It is our suspicion that it may be a known person and since we are working parents, the child is often alone at home and she travels to her school in Delhi. It is not possible for us to follow her everywhere. Hence, we are extremely fearful for her safety, the father in his complaint said.
It is good that she reported the matter to us instead of feeling ashamed. It is a tender age and such incidents have deep impact on kids. We suspect some children from her school is behind the act, the father told HT.
He said he was not sure whether the account was blocked as it was not possible to view it without getting invited.
Inspector Sudeep Kumar, SHO DLF Phase-2 police station, said the FIR was filed after receiving a report from the cyber crime cell. He said action will be taken against the culprit as soon as the cell is able to track him/her.
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Industrialists who received notice from the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) asking them to avail of a 25% one time rebate by clearing their property tax dues by February 28 have refused to comply with the civic bodys instruction.
The Chamber of Industry, Udyog Vihar, has written to the principal secretary industry (PSI), Haryana government, Devender Singh, seeking his intervention in the matter.
Industrialists said their plots must not be charged on commercial rates.
In its letter to the PSI, the industry said not a single plot in Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon, was being used for commercial gains and the MCG was wrongly interpreting the plots use.
IT offices are being run in many plots where the actual owners have rented out their plots, and as per the central and state government notifications, these are permissible in industrial areas. IT industry is not a commercial unit, Raj Singla, president, Chamber of Industry, Udyog Vihar, said.
There is no provision for charging rented property in industrial areas at commercial rates, SK Gupta, another industrialist, said.
Industry owners said they had a meeting with the former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda in February 2013.
Udyog Vihar has not been declared as commercial. In Gurgaon, only Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) at Sector 14 has been declared for commercial use only, Ashok Kohli, vice-president, Udyog Vihar Industry, said.
The MCG has offered a rebate of 25% on payment of pending property tax in order to motivate people to avail of the benefit, which is effective till February 28.
The MCGs property tax target for 2016-17 is Rs 200 crore and in the last 11 months, it has received only Rs 100 crore. The MCG will initiate action against defaulters in March, an official said.
V Umashankar, MCG commissioner, said, Renting out property in lieu of commercial gain is obvious enough and MCG records have details of all such properties in Udyog Vihar. Commercial tax notice has been issued on the basis of commercial use only.
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Metro trains were packed on Monday as office-goers, students and other commuters tried to occupy every inch of Gurgaons only reliable public transport option with app-based cabs staying off roads for the fourth consecutive day. Commuters may not have any respite on Tuesday as striking
cabbies cited no changes in scenario.
The drivers union said protests will continue till their demands are met and turn extreme if the same are not met within five to six days.
Our demands have fallen on deaf ears and since there has been no assurances from the state governments (Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh Government) or Uber officials, the indefinite strike will continue on Tuesday. If there is no solution this week, then we will resort to blocking all vehicles, Kamaljeet Singh, leader of the Sarvodaya Driver Association, said.
He said they were engaged in negotiations with Ola officials too but have not reached a mutual consent.
The footfall at MG Road and Huda City Centre stations of the Delhi Metro and CyberHub station of the Rapid Metro was higher than usual throughout the day.
In the morning, such was the rush at CyberHub station which has several corporate offices in the vicinity, that long queues were formed at the exit gates.
From Huda City Centre and MG Road metro stations that record a heavy volume of commuters daily, there were reports that entry gates were partially closed for a few minutes around 8.30 am as the platforms could not accommodate the inflow of passengers.
Officials of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and Rapid Metro confirmed that the rush at metro stations in Gurgaon was higher than usual. However, a DMRC official said there were no instances of stations being partially closed for crowd management.
Despite Uber and Ola having a stock of own taxis, commuters could either not trace cabs on the apps or the wait time was as long as 45 minutes.
I received emails from Ola on Sunday evening offering discounts. I anticipated that the strike was over and used the app. However, initially, there were no cabs available. Later, there was a cab available that would reach my pick-up point in nearly 50 minutes. I called the driver who refused to take me to New Delhi fearing that his vehicle would be stopped by protestors, Anurag Mukherjee of DLF Phase I said.
Many residents carpooled to reach their destinations.
My neighbour uses the metro and I avail of a cab service to reach our respective offices located at Barakhamba road and Jhandewalan in Delhi. Anticipating heavy rush at the metro stations and the absence of cab services, we carpooled to reach our destinations, Hitesh Shah of Heritage City said.
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Haryana chief secretary DS Dhesi will head the committee on Kherki Daula Toll, which will have members from town and country planning (TCP) department, Haryana state industrial and infrastructure development corporation (Hsiidc), urban local bodies, industries and the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda). The committee will submit its report to Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar by the end of March.
Devender Singh, principal secretary industry (PSI), Haryana government, said that after its board meeting on January 26, the Hsiidc appealed to the chief minister to form a committee to work out a formula for sharing the financial burden by stakeholders after the proposed buyout of the Kherki Daula Toll from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The chief minister has consented to the formation of the committee to be headed by the chief secretary himself. The chief secretary will take a call on the number of members to be drafted from the various departments, Singh said, adding that the removal of Kherki Daula Toll is the need of the hour as it would lead to better traffic movement and property appreciation along the NH 8 in Gurgaon.
Read I Gurgaon: Congress leader assaults Kherki Daula toll staff, booked
Earlier, Singh had appealed to all the stakeholders to brace for the challenge saying this was the last chance to do away with the toll.
The stakeholders who are to share the liabilities are industries, builders and the (Hsiidc), Singh said, adding that Rs 600 crores have to be contributed by the stakeholders who stand to benefit from the removal of the toll point.
The two industrial associations of Manesar Manesar Industry Welfare Association (MIWA) and IMT Manesar Industrial Welfare Association (IMT-IWA) have already agreed to contribute Rs 200 cr.
Manoj Tyagi, general secretary, IMT Manesar Industrial Association, said, We have no idea about the exact state of affairs since the (Hsiidc) board meeting. We were informed prior to the meeting that a committee will be formed which will submit its report on how liabilities are to be shared. We are waiting for further communication from the Hsiidc and continue to suffer as a result of massive chaos at the Kherki Daula Toll daily.
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The Gurgaon police arrested four more persons accused of the Manappuram daylight heist from Kanpur on Monday. In a daring robbery, armed men had looted 33 kg gold worth Rs 10 crore from Manappuram Finance Ltd. on the busy New Railway road on Thursday.
The four men were identified as Arshad alias Baby Khan, Danish son of Rahim, Vasik Ahmed son of Iqbal Hussain and Mohammad Sahi alias Sonu -- all from Kanpur. Police said 2.5kg gold was recovered from the four men.
On Saturday, police had arrested three accused from the city and one from Ahmedabad, and recovered 30kg gold and some of the cash looted from the branch of the financer. Also, two pistols, four rounds of ammunition, two motorcycles, and a car were recovered from them.
While all accused arrested from Gurgaon were graduates, their accomplices from Kanpur were not well-educated. All four were planning to escape from Kanpur as they had got hints of the arrests in Gurgaon but before they could make a move, they were arrested by the Gurgaon police team.
The four accused have been brought from Kanpur today and they will be questioned in detail about the entire sequence of events. The role of each person in the heist will be ascertained, Sanjeev Balhara, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said.
All accused were brought to Gurgaon on Monday and have been taken on three-day police remand. All four men were known to another accused Vikas Gupta, who was arrested from Gurgaon earlier. Gupta is also from Kanpur.
On Saturday, police had brought Devender alias Deva from Ahmedabad. He is allegedly the kingpin of the gang. He is also being questioned about his role in the heist, police said.
According to police, the accused were in the process of splitting the booty and selling their share. The gold was recovered in 829 sealed packets, so it will be easy to identify the owners, police said.
Police cracked the case within 48 hours after getting leads from CCTV camera footage and accounts of onlookers. What helped police was that Deva of Jind had given his original Aadhaar card to the guard for entering details. The police questioned his cousin and obtained crucial details from him..
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The race for a nursery seat in 1,700 private schools ends on Tuesday but parents are worried as the process has run into litigation like in the past years.
The admissions reached the Delhi High Court this year after the government introduced a new set of guidelines for 298 schools built on DDA land.
The government had said these schools will only admit students on the basis of the distance criteria and abolished management quota. The remaining 1,400 schools were allowed to follow their own criteria, including distance, sibling, alumni among others.
Read: Nursery admissions: Manish Sisodia orders action against over 50 pvt schools
The private schools moved court against the rule. Now, the parents are wondering which admission criteria the schools will follow.
This nursery admission is already a cause of stress for parents. With this uncertainty over the admission every year, the entire process is becoming very traumatic, said Devendra Singh, a parent, who lives in Sainik Farms.
Singh applied in 20 schools for his second son. He recalled how in 2015 also, when he was applying for his daughter, the process got delayed.
The Delhi High Court is likely to pronounce its judgement on the case on Tuesday.
Read: Delhi nursery admission: Upper age limit info on govt website confuses parents
First the process started with confusion, as there were different schedules for a few schools, different for those built on government land. Now we dont what again will be thrown on us, said Samyak Jain, a resident of Mayur Vihar . He is applying the first time for his three-year-old daughter.
The first admission list will be released March 7.
Parents in the Economically Weaker Section/Disadvantaged (EWS/DG) category are also facing problems. Though they have managed with online applications, some are struggling with documents.
The centralised online application process for the EWS/DG category started in 2015. 25% of the seats are reserved for students in this category in every private school.
We have been living in Delhi for the last 20 years but struggling to get residential proof. My landowner is not willing to give me anything in written, said Shyamlal Sinha, a resident of Sangam Vihar.
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If you dont get enough sleep, you might just start forgetting things. Sleep deprivation can interfere with the process that helps reinforce our memories, a new study has found.
After studying mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the US have fortified evidence that a key purpose of sleep is to recalibrate the brain cells responsible for learning and memory so the animals can solidify lessons learned and use them when they awaken.
The researchers also report they have discovered several important molecules that govern the recalibration process, as well as evidence that sleep deprivation, sleep disorders and sleeping pills can interfere with the process.
Researchers found evidence that sleep deprivation, sleep disorders and sleeping pills can interfere with the process of forming memories. (Shutterstock)
Our findings solidly advance the idea that the mouse and presumably the human brain can only store so much information before it needs to recalibrate, said Graham Diering from Johns Hopkins University.
Without sleep and the recalibration that goes on during sleep, memories are in danger of being lost, said Diering.
Diering said that current scientific understanding of learning suggests that information is contained in synapses, the connections among neurons through which they communicate.
On the sending side of a synapse, signalling molecules called neurotransmitters are released by a brain cell as it fires; on the receiving side, those molecules are captured by receptor proteins, which pass the message along.
If a cell receives enough input through its synapses, it fires off its own neurotransmitters.
More specifically, experiments in animals have shown that the synapses on the receiving neuron can be toggled by adding or removing receptor proteins, thereby strengthening or weakening them and allowing the receiving neuron to receive more or less input from nearby signalling neurons.
When neurons are maxed out and constantly firing, they lose their capacity to convey information, stymying learning and memory. One possible reason that neurons do not usually max out is a process that has been well-studied in lab-grown neurons but not in living animals, asleep or awake.
Known as homeostatic scaling down, it is a process that uniformly weakens synapses in a neural network by a small percentage, leaving their relative strengths intact and allowing learning and memory formation to continue.
To find out if the process does occur in sleeping mammals, Diering focused on the areas of the mouse brain responsible for learning and memory: the hippocampus and the cortex.
He purified proteins from receiving synapses in sleeping and awake mice, looking for the same changes seen in lab-grown cells during scaling down.
Results showed a 20% drop in receptor protein levels in sleeping mice, indicating an overall weakening of their synapses, compared to mice that were awake.
The study appears in the journal Science.
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Glamour was shot through with grit at the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday.
Frothy musical La La Land took five prizes including best picture, but major awards also went to tough welfare-state drama I, Daniel Blake and fractured-family stories Lion and Manchester by the Sea.
In keeping with an awards season that has coincided with a wrenching change of government in the United States, even La La Lands prizes came with a political tinge.
Accepting the best-actress trophy for playing a barista who dreams of Hollywood stardom, Emma Stone said that this country and the US, and the world seems to be going through a bit of a time.
She said that in a divided world, it was vital to celebrate the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it help people to feel a little less alone.
The UK awards, known as BAFTAs, are often seen as an indicator of who will win at Hollywoods Academy Awards, held two weeks later. La La Land already is a dominant force at the Oscars, with 14 nominations. It also has won seven Golden Globes.
La La Land had 11 nominations for the British awards and won prizes for Stone, director Damien Chazelle, music and cinematography as well as best picture.
But while the luscious musical was an academy favourite, voters also rewarded less escapist fare.
Stones co-star, Ryan Gosling, lost out on the best-actor prize to Casey Affleck, who played a grieving handyman in Manchester by the Sea.
Affleck, who is also Oscar-nominated for the role, thanked writer-director Kenneth Lonergan for creating a film that dignifies everyday lives and their struggles with great compassion.
Casey Affleck poses for photographers upon arrival at the BAFTA Film Awards, in London. (Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
The wintry New England drama also won Lonergan the prize for best original screenplay.
British actor Dev Patel pulled off an upset, beating favorite Mahershala Ali, from Moonlight, to the best supporting actor trophy for Lion, about a young man who goes searching for the Indian family from which he was separated as a child.
The London-born Patel expressed shock at being a winner at a ceremony he used to watch on TV with his family.
He said Lion, which co-stars Nicole Kidman is a film, about family, about a love that transcends borders, race, colour, anything.
Dev Patel holds the award for best Supporting Actor, 'Lion' at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Britain. (REUTERS)
The Slumdog Millionaire star thanked his amazing team, who had the insane task of trying to get this Indian dude, this noodle with wonky teeth and a lazy eye and floppy hair, work in this industry.
Lion also took the BAFTA for best adapted screenplay.
Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake was named best British film. The 80-year-old director used his acceptance speech to lambast the countrys Conservative government.
Loach said his docudrama about a carpenter trying to get welfare after a heart attack shows that the most vulnerable and the poorest people are treated by this government with a callous brutality that is disgraceful.
Loach apologized for making a political speech, but told reporters backstage that you cant do a film like this and then talk showbiz.
Loach was cheered by an audience at Londons Royal Albert Hall that included Prince William, his wife, Kate, and nominees including Meryl Streep, Affleck, Stone and Kidman.
Both William and Kate wore black and white - he a tuxedo, she an off-the-shoulder Alexander McQueen gown and glittering chandelier earrings.
Viola Davis won the supporting actress BAFTA for Fences, Denzel Washingtons adaptation of August Wilsons stage drama about an African-American family.
Viola Davis holds the award for best supporting actress for Fences at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) at the Royal Albert Hall in London. (REUTERS)
A visibly moved Davis praised Wilsons play for showing that our lives mattered as African Americans.
The horse groomer, the sanitation worker, the people who grew up under the heavy boot of Jim Crow, she said. The people who did not make it into history books, but they have a story - and those stories deserve to be told.
Ava DuVernays film about mass incarceration in America, The 13th, was named best documentary, and Laszlo Nemes unbearably powerful Holocaust drama Son of Saul took the trophy for best foreign-language film.
The stars brought a dose of glamour to gray, wintry London, as hundreds of fans lined the red carpet outside the domed concert hall beside Londons Hyde Park.
Many said they were unsurprised politics made a guest appearance at the ceremony, as it has so often this awards season. Streep is among the stars who have used the awards stage to criticize President Donald Trump.
Master of ceremonies Stephen Fry joked about Trumps dismissal of Streep as overrated, declaring from the stage: I look down on row after row of the most overrated people on the planet.
Prince William, who serves as president of Britains film academy, presented the academys lifetime-achievement honor to veteran comedian Mel Brooks at the end of Sundays ceremony.
Britain's Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge arrive for the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) at the Royal Albert Hall in London. (REUTERS)
The 90-year-old entertainer said he would treasure the trophy.
This is one of the awards you will not see on eBay, he said.
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Indian-origin British actor Dev Patel on Sunday took home a BAFTA Award for the Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Lion -- a film about an Indian boy -- which also got the Best Adapted Screenplay honour.
The winners for the 70th British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards were announced at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Dev, known for Slumdog Millionaire, was nominated for the award with Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals), Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water), Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins) and Mahershala Ali (Moonlight).
He had lost the Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role award to Aaron Taylor-Johnson at the 74th Golden Globes recently, but after getting a BAFTA Award, chances are high he may bag an Oscar too.
British actor Dev Patel (L) poses with the award for a Supporting Actor for his work on the film 'Lion' with presenter British actress Felicity Jones (R). (AFP)
Patel, who was suited and booted with a bow-tie in place for the ceremony here, had told IANS earlier: I would be lying if I say that awards are not amazing. Awards can really change someones career. You get recognition.
You might get scripts that you didnt get earlier. But I never took up a project thinking about a golden statue.
Directed by Garth Davis, Lion is based on Saroo Brierleys best-selling autobiography A Long Way Home.
Dev Patel stars as Saroo Brierly in Lion.
Its a true story about an Indian boy who falls asleep on a train only to wake up and realise he is miles away from home in a strange land where he does not speak the language. He experiences many challenges before getting adopted by a couple in Australia. Years later, he sets out to find his lost family.
In the Best Adapted Screenplay category, Lion was contending with films Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hidden Figures and Nocturnal Animals.
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Six more persons were arrested on Sunday, taking the number of arrests so far to 24, in the alleged question leak of the intermediate-level clerical grade examination, conducted at the Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC).
The Bihar government has since cancelled the examination.
Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj, heading the special investigation team (SIT) constituted to probe the alleged leak, claimed to have secured some vital leads in the case.
The police have also decided to send a written questionnaire to BSSC chairman and senior IAS officer Sudhir Kumar.
Though he was quizzed on Friday, two days after BSSC secretary Parmeshwar Ram was arrested, sources said his replies were not clear to establish the sequence of events to connect the chain.
We decided to send him a specific written questionnaire and seek his written reply, as it is important to know where the questions were printed, before we can track the trail. There is a possibility of questions having been leaked from the source point. Besides, we have to record his statement, said a police officer.
Sources said the questionnaire would have reached Kumar earlier had he not proceeded on leave.
The confidential section is under the chairman and we expect to know from him where the questions were printed. The confidentiality factor no more exists once the questions are leaked and he has to clear the mist, said a source.
Senior advocate Vinod Kanth said under normal circumstances, upholding secrecy of examination was paramount. But in this case, when the examination is under cloud, maintaining transparency is equally important. The state, public as well as investigating authorities must know what is required to be known, he added.
The BSSC chairman, on the other hand, said he was out of station and would be back by 5pm on Monday. I have replied to whatever the police wanted to know, said Kumar, adding he did not have much to say on the queries.
Chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said, There will be no interference whatsoever in police investigation.
The BSSC was conducting exam for over 17,000 posts of panchayat secretary, revenue worker and clerks, applications for which had been invited in 2014.
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The whos who of the global aerospace industry will congregate in Bengaluru from February 14-18 to take part in Asias largest airshow Aero India-2017. Over 550 defence and aerospace firms, including 279 foreign companies, will take part in the 11th edition of the biennial event being held at the Yelahanka air force base.
Hindustan Times gives you a low-down on what to expect during the airshow.
Chasing business opportunities
As fighter planes, transport aircraft and a variety of helicopters tango around in the skies, business honchos and government leaders will explore the possibility of forging new alliances to pursue lucrative contracts.
Deals may not necessarily be hammered out at the venue, but the airshow will allow participating countries about 30 have confirmed their attendance and firms to lay the groundwork for future partnerships.
India is pursuing a string of programmes to scale up its military capabilities that have aroused the interest of international military contractors. These include plans to induct new warplanes, next-generation submarines, warships, helicopters, missiles, howitzers, air defence systems, assault weapons and night-vision gear.
Not cheap
Taking part in the airshow is an expensive affair, with foreign companies needing to shell out anything between Rs 42,000 and Rs 54,000 per square metre of space. Indian firms are offered a discount with the charges ranging from Rs 32,603 to Rs 41,918 for the same space.
The biggies also invest in setting up swanky chalets, with private terraces offering the best views of the runway and the aerial demonstrations. Tailored to the needs of the companies, the chalets have dedicated space for business meetings, mounting exhibits and entertaining corporate guests.
For foreign companies, the charge for a single-storey chalet works out to approximately Rs 30 lakh while a double-storey one costs about Rs 61 lakh. Indian firms have to fork out Rs 23.76 lakh and Rs 47.52 lakh for chalets in those configurations. The total area of the show has grown from 24,403 square metre to 27,678 square metre this year, the defence ministry said.
Key highlights
Fighter planes always hog the limelight at airshows. The foreign jets taking part in the show this year are the French-built Rafale, Swedish Gripen and the American F-16 fighters. The home-made light combat aircraft will also take part.
The Americans and the Swedes are eyeing an Indian programme to set up an assembly line for building single-engine fighters in the country in collaboration with a foreign vendor.
State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited said the HTT-40 basic trainer aircraft, the first indigenously upgraded Hawk Mk132 plane and the light combat helicopter will also fly at the airshow. A total of 72 aircraft are taking part in the show.
Thrilling aerobatic displays will be put up by the Indian Air Forces Surya Kiran and Sarang units as well as by teams from Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Line up of events
A global conference of CEOs on aerospace and defence manufacturing opportunities in Andhra Pradesh will be one of the highlights on the opening day of airshow. Several Indian states are wooing foreign vendors to set up manufacturing facilities under the Make in India initiative.
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala are also setting up exclusive special economic zones pavilions for attracting investments.
Top CEOs will take part in the conclave where a battery of top officials will speak, including defence minister Manohar Parrikar, civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy and IAF chief air chief marshal, BS Dhanoa.
Other events include an investors meet and conferences on opportunities and challenges in defence manufacturing in India and how prepared micro and medium enterprises are to reap the benefits of the Make in India initiative. The defence ministry expects more than two lakh business visitors to attend the show.
A 20-year-old BJP worker was hacked to death in north Keralas Thrissur on Sunday night by a group of alleged CPI(M) workers, the latest in a spate of recent political killings in the state.
The BJP has called a day-long bandh in the district on Monday to protest against the latest killing.
Police say BJP worker Nirmal was stabbed during a temple festival on the outskirts of the city. He was rushed to the hospital but succumbed to his injuries. Another worker was also injured in the attack.
The BJP alleged the attackers were members of the ruling CPI(M) but the left party disowned the killing, saying a personal issue resulted in the clash.
The latest murder surfaced barely a month after the killing of three BJP workers, one in trouble-torn Kannur and two in Palakkad. C Sathosh (52) was killed in chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans constituency in January.
Last week, a BJP team from the state had visited Union home minister Rajnath Singh complaining that the state police force was ineffective and the CPI(M) was indulging in state-sponsored violence.
This came after the Kannur district -- notorious for red-saffron clashes -- witnessed eight political murders in the last eight months, four in chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans constituency of Dharmadam.
Read | 4 BJP men held for shaving off CPM mans moustache for losing bet over Kerala polls
Read | RSS leader seriously injured in attack by CPI(M) workers in Keralas Kannur
The strategic port of Chabahar in Iran which is being developed to build a transport-and-trade corridor through Afghanistan giving India an access to global markets is expected to be opened in a months time, said Afghanistan Consul General Mohammad Aman Amin.
The port is likely to open in a months time and it will provide impetus to the trade between India and Afghanistan, said Amin on Monday.
Read: Why the Chabahar Port agreement kills two birds with one stone
The construction of this port assumes significance as it will allow bypassing the route through Pakistan for accessing markets in Europe and Central Asia and also save on time and cost of doing business. India in May, 2016 signed the historic deal with Iran and Afghanistan.
Amin spoke to media on the sidelines of the inaugural ceremony of 10-day training programme for the officers of the Afghanistan Revenue Department (ARD) at National Academy of Direct Taxes (NADT) in Nagpur.
The programme is an innovative endeavour between NADT and the Embassy of India, Kabul as a goodwill gesture and is being organised for the first time.
Read: How the strategic Chabahar port may bolster India-Iran ties
Amin also hoped that a Mumbai-Kabul flight services will be started very soon on the lines of Delhi-Afghanistan route.
He said, India and Afghanistan share a historical relationship and India has always helped Afghanistan in its times of trouble. The relations between the two countries have improved in the last two years.
Amid the ongoing political battle between O Panneerselvam and VK Sasikala, Tamil Nadu police on Monday night arrested a man for entering the house of DMK patriarch Karunanidhi and threatening his wife with a toy gun.
Police arrested the man, who has since been indentified as Prasad, after he entered the CIT colony residence of the DMK leader and threatened his wife Rajanithi, demanding jewels and money.
The attempted robbery came to light after Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, who was attending Mondays high level committee party meeting at the DMK HQ on Anna Salai, received a phone call from home and rushed back to the Alwarpet residence.
Police say that Prasad, in a desperate attempt to get money, had wandered into the house without knowing who the owner was.
Officials said it was a case of attempted robbery.
The 93-year-old veteran leader, who has not been seen in public since his return from hospital in December, is said to be recovering, according to MLA J Anbazhagan. The MLA tweeted that Kalaignar (artist), as Karunanidhi is respectfully known as, is recovering and that he will be able to meet the public in March.
Bankura police are trying to verify if a Bhopal resident, who has confessed to killing his live-in partner as well as his parents over the last seven years, also intended to target two other women he had affairs with.
Sources said Udayan Das planned to make a woman named Pooja who he lured with the promise of a job in the United States his next victim. At present, police are arranging to send DNA samples for forensic tests to confirm that Das last victim, whose remains were extracted from a marble structure erected at his Saketnagar residence, was Bankura resident Akanksha Sharma.
During an interrogation session on Sunday, Das told police he had forged documents that purportedly depicted Pooja as a qualified candidate for a US-based job with the United Nations. The 32-year-old also hinted at a relationship with Jayashree, another woman he has known since childhood.
Incidentally, police are yet to identify Das motive for killing Sharma with whom he was in a live-in relationship. Though Das has claimed that he killed the woman over suspicions of infidelity, it is yet to be confirmed.
Akankshas brother told police that the remains recovered definitely belonged to her. He based his opinion on a chain found on the corpses neck. But we decided to go for DNA tests to confirm it, said Bankura superintendent of police Sukhendu Hira.
Meanwhile, skeletons continue to tumble out of Das closet of horrors with disturbing frequency.
Police recovered the remains of a human body purportedly that of Sharma from the Saketnagar house on February 2. Das confessed that he strangled her before placing the body in a wooden box and building a cement platform over it. Later, he confessed to killing both his parents at Raipur in Chhattisgarh because they were forcing him to study mathematics.
Das has been remanded in police custody for eight days. He will be produced before a Bankura court on Wednesday.
Sources said police also found photographs of a woman while searching Das Bhopal house. Though the accused identified her as Jayashree, the daughter of his mothers colleague, he refused to divulge any further information on her.
Police said Das forged several documents to withdraw his mothers pension. The accused was constantly in need of money to fund his extravagant lifestyle.
The Bhopal resident used to lure women by faking Facebook profiles that portrayed him as a successful US-based businessman.
A drug addict was arrested on Monday for allegedly killing a 27-year-old techie from Telangana in California last week, tweeted foreign minister Sushma Swaraj.
Vamsi Chander Reddy Mamidala from Warangal district was found dead with bullet injuries near the garage of his apartment at Milpitas in Santa Clara county.
Swaraj, who assured all assistance to Vamsis family, sent out a series of tweets.
I am pained to know about the tragic death of your brother Vamshi Mamidala. My heartfelt condolences to your family.
I have got report from our Consulate in San Francisco. The report says Vamshi was killed by a drug addict on Friday evening at Milpitas.
The culprit has been arrested. Our Consulate is in touch with your family. We assure you of all help and assistance.
According to Vamsis family, the incident happened when he was returning home after completing his part-time shift at a local store in Milpitas.
His father Mohan Reddy Mamidala, a farmer from Vangapahad, told media that he had received a call from the US police on Sunday morning stating that his son was shot dead from a close range by an unknown miscreant.
Vamsi had completed his B Tech from Vathsalya Institute of Science and Technology at Bhongir in Yadadri district of the state in 2014 and left for the US to pursue his MS. After completing his MS degree recently, Vamsi started doing a part-time job at a departmental store in the US and had been looking for a permanent employment.
He was in regular touch with us. He called me on Friday and was worried about the dwindling job opportunities in the US following the restrictions imposed by the new government. I told him to come back to India, if he did not get any job there. But he has now gone forever, a wailing Reddy said.
People who have encroached on land belonging to the poor will be hung upside down if the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh, BJP president Amit Shah has said.
The Samajwadi Party government is a party of goons who have encroached on land of poor people. We will put an end to this if elected to power. Criminal cases will be registered against the land mafia and the guilty will be hung upside down, Shah said addressing a political rally at Faridpur in Bareilly on Monday.
This was Shahs first rally in the district. He addressed a similar rally in Pilibhit on Saturday.
The SP is controlled by a family, which has destroyed the state and now they have joined hands with another family, which destroyed the country, said Shah, in a veiled dig at the Congress.
In his 40-minute speech, Shah targeted the SP-Congress alliance but remained quiet on the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
BJP MP Yogi Adityanath also held a rally in Bareillys city area.
The Samajwadis talk of vikas (development), but people of only a certain section of the society have progressed during their regime. The BJP is the only party that talks about every community in the society sabka saath, sabka vikas, said Yogi.
Both leaders also tried to woo farmers, and mentioned pro-farmer schemes of the BJP government at the Centre.
In 2012, the BJP won three of the nine assembly seats in the district. The party won both the Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and is looking to improve its record in the upcoming elections.
Bareilly is one of the most important districts in the second phase of the seven-phase assembly election. Polling is scheduled to take place on February 15.
Calcutta high court judge justice CS Karnan on Monday failed to appear before the Supreme Court in a contempt case.
The top court was forced to defer proceedings in the case, the first of its kind, by three weeks as neither Karnan nor his lawyer appeared before the court.
We are not aware of reasons for his non-appearance. We, therefore, refrain from proceeding with the matter, the court said.
AG Mukul Rohatgi had asked the court to frame charges against Just Karnan, but the court declined @htTweets bhadra sinha (@BhadraSinha) February 13, 2017
A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar had on February 8 issued a contempt notice against justice Karnan for alleged judicial indiscipline. Justice Karnan was also relieved of his duties.
A letter by the judge to the Prime Minister, law minister and the CJI accusing several sitting and retired judges of corruption prompted the SC action.
In response to the notice, justice Karnan two days later wrote to the top courts registrar general that he was being singled out by upper caste judges as he was a Dalit.
He also said the courts had no power to enforce punishment against a sitting judge of the high court, adding the matter should be referred to Parliament.
The Supreme Court took on record this letter on Monday even as it turned down attorney general Mukul Rohatgis request to frame charges against justice Karnan.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Junior minister for home affairs Kirren Rijiju has done it again and will get away with it, again. The noise he raised through a tweet about depleting Hindu population is a subject close to the heart of the RSS, the ruling BJPs ideological mentor and umbrella organisation of Hindu outfits in India.
Rijiju comes from Arunachal Pradesh and the RSS concern has been about the growing influence of Christian missionaries in the northeast, whom it accuses of converting the tribal population to Christianity. A majority of RSS pracharaks are today deployed in the northeastern region, which shares boundaries with China besides Nepal and Bhutan.
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Hindu population is reducing in India because Hindus never convert people. Minorities in India are flourishing unlike some countries around. pic.twitter.com/W4rZnk1saM Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) February 13, 2017
Rijiju is making noises that the RSS and many in the BJP want to. As a junior minister, he gives a cushion to his seniors to maintain an arms length from any serious controversy that his comments could trigger. The 45-year-old flamboyant minister and controversies go hand in hand.
The clean-shaven and glasses-wearing politician was in news recently for an alleged role in what is being claimed to be a Rs 450 crore scam in a hydropower project in his Arunchal Pradesh.
That did not come as surprise to many leaders in the BJP, who have seen him entering Parliament first in 2004 (then just 33), walk out of the party after losing the 2009 election, make a homecoming in 2012 and eventually getting a ministerial position after winning the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
He was full of energy, always wanting to indulge in politics of patronage to build a constituency for himself beyond the limits of his Lok Sabha boundaries.
He walked out in 2009 after realising that the BJP lacked organisation muscle in Arunchal to fulfill his chief ministerial ambition. He could not survive in the Congress either.
At the peak of negotiation with the BJP leadership in 2011, he had told the party to wake up to the reality of northeast politics and tune its strategy accordingly. The response from the BJP leadership was not encouraging, but Rijiju, then an advisor to chief minister Dorjee Khandu, was with few choices. He returned to the BJP.
Between 2004 and 2009 -- his first stint as Lok Sabha MP -- Rijiju caught eyeballs in the BJP and the RSS with his nationalist stand in the northeast. He was born in a village that came under Chinese occupation in the 1962 war.
The BJP had won both the Lok Sabha constituencies in Arunachal Pradesh in 2004, but Rijiju was far more flamboyant and extrovert than the other MP, Tapir Gao, to embrace Delhi. As an alumnus of Hansraj College in Delhi, he knew how to survive in the national capital.
Gao would often remain in the backdrop when Rijiju would address media on issues related to the northeast. Gao was more committed to party and the ideology. But Rijiju was a smart politician, a BJP leader said.
He was a favourite of LK Advani, then leader of opposition, and Sushma Swaraj, but was never affiliated to any camp in the BJP. This helped him in 2014, too, when Modi decided to chose new faces to man ministries after a landslide victory.
Lady luck smiled on Rijiju as Gao lost the election. It would have been a difficult choice to choose between them for a ministerial job if both had won.
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(Xinhua) 08:21, February 13, 2017
News program about test-fire of a ballistic missile of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is seen on TV at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 12, 2017. The DPRK fired what is believed to be a ballistic missile into its eastern waters early Sunday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday claimed it successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface medium- and long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 and its top leader Kim Jong Un guided the test firing, according to the state news agency KCNA.
The state media called Pukguksong-2 a "Korean style new type strategic weapon," which was developed on the instructions of top leader Kim Jong Un on the basis of the success made in the test-firing of the submarine-launched ballistic missile last August.
Kim received the report on the development of this surface-to-surface ballistic missile, set the date for the test launch and personally guided the preparations on the spot, it said.
The missile test proved the reliability and security of the surface launch system and starting feature of the high thrust solid fuel-power engine and reconfirmed the guidance and control features of the ballistic missile during its active flight and working feature of the engines and those of separation at the stages, the KCNA said.
The launch also verified the position control and guidance in the middle section and section of re-entry after the separation of the improved missile warhead, which can be tipped with a nuclear warhead, and the feature of evading interception, it added.
The state-run media noted that the test firing was conducted at a high angle considering security of the neighboring countries.
Kim was satisfied with the test launch, saying that the new type ballistic missile system "provides convenience in operation and ensuring speed in striking."
He said Pukguksong-2 ballistic missile is a "Juche weapon in name and reality" because both the launching truck and the missile were designed and produced on indigenous efforts and technology.
South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff said that the DPRK fired a ballistic missile which flew about 500 km into its eastern waters early Sunday.
The presumed intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile was launched at around 7:55 a.m. local time (2255 GMT Saturday) near Banghyeon in the DPRK's northwestern North Pyongan province.
Pyongyang test-fired Musudan missiles near the same place, where an airfield is located, in October last year.
It was the DPRK's first test-launch of a ballistic missile in 2017 and also the first since U.S. President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.
South Korea's military said Pyongyang's launch of ballistic missile was a provocative act in violation of UN Security Council's resolutions, which ban the DPRK from testing any ballistic missile technology.
The launch, the South Korean military believed, was aimed at drawing attention by showing off its nuclear and missile capability and was also part of armed protest against the Trump administration's hard-line stance toward the DPRK.
Pakistani troops violated ceasefire, firing from small arms and shelling mortar bombs on forward posts along the LoC in Rajouri district on Monday.
The firing was on after Indian troops retaliated to the ceasefire violation.
There was ceasefire violation by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control (LoC) in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district, said defence spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Manish Mehta.
Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate firing of small arms, automatics and mortars at 6pm on Indian Army posts along LoC in Sunderbani sector. The army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively. The firing is presently on, he added.
A day after talks between Jat leaders and the government panel failed to break the ice, a massive turnout of protesters was witnessed at Jat dharna site in Jassia village of Rohtak district. For the first time, national highway-71 A (Rohtak-Panipat road) remained jammed for several hours owing to the mad rush of protesters and their vehicles.
The commuters had to face harrowing times as many of them were stuck in the jam while others had to take long alternative routes after the police diverted traffic. The panic due to traffic disruptions, similar to the previous round of Jat stir, was visible, as people witnessed Jat youths dancing on rooftops of Roadways buses and jeeps playing loud music.
Youths brandishing a gun at Jassia in Rohtak district on Sunday. (Manoj Dhaka/HT photo)
All lndia Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) chief Yashpal Malik, too, came to address the gathering, wherein he spoke about their talks with the government panel on Saturday. Malik said they had raised all seven demands of the Jat community and the ball was now in the governments court. He said they had agreed to more rounds of talks, but may change their decision if the government failed to give any positive response.
The Jat leader said the upcoming event of the community on February 19, Balidan Diwas, to honour those killed during last years stir will be observed in 175 districts across India and not just Haryana. If our demands are not met even by then (February 19) ...to na rail bandh karenge...na traffic rokenge..par bhookamp zaroor aayega (...we will neither disrupt rail nor road, but something earthshaking will happen), he said, adding that he will disclose the future strategy at the right time.
In a worry for the government, troublemakers have started taking over the protests. Youths brandishing guns and sharp agricultural equipment took out rallies standing on rooftops, even when a large number of state police and paramilitary forces are deployed along the dharna venue.
The administration has invoked Section 144 of the CrPC, it has hardly been implemented. Rohtak SP Pankaj Nain remained unavailable for comment.
The Jat agitation for a quota in government jobs and education in Haryana could take an ugly turn again, with gun-toting youth blocking roads and the protest leader warning of an earthquake.
The stir left 30 people dead a year ago as violence swept the state, with protesters targeting properties owned by non-Jats and disrupting rail and road traffic.
Like the last time, the epicentre of the protest is the Rohtak district of the state.
On Sunday, a large number of people gathered at the dharna site in Rohtaks Jassia village, a day after another round of talks with the government failed.
The protesters poured on to the national highway-71 A, which connects Rohtak to Panipat district, blocking vehicles for several hours the first traffic disruption during this round of the stir.
Commuters faced a harrowing time as many were stuck in the jam for hours while others were forced to take a detour after police diverted traffic.
But, the worrying part were the young men flaunting guns, bringing back memories of lawlessness that prevailed for days in these parts of the state.
Holding guns and sharp farm equipment in their hands, the youngster danced on top of government and private vehicles as music blared from speakers mounted on tractors and cars. (Manoj Dhaka/HT Photo)
If our demands are not met even by then (Feb 19)to na rail band karengena traffic rokengepar bhookamp zaroor aaega (we will neither disrupt rail nor road, but something earthshaking will happen), All lndia Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti chief Yashpal Malik said in his address to the protesters.
Troublemakers, said sources, were taking over the protest. Though police and paramilitary forces were present in a large number at the protest site, it did little to deter the weapon-wielding men. Though section 144 of the CrPC, which prohibits assembly of more than four people, is clamped along the national highway, protesters held a huge demonstration in the presence of police.
As per reports, they are pellet guns. We are taking legal action, Rohtak superintendent of police Pankaj Nain said.
Police came in for severe criticism the last time for failing to contain the situation and act against protesters.
Malik said they agreed for another round of talks but may change decision if the government failed to respond positively.
The Balidan Divas (martyrdom day) planned on February 19 to honour those killed during last years quota stir would be observed in 175 districts across India, and not just Haryana, he said.
The land-holding community has a significant presence in western Uttar Pradesh and in parts of Rajasthan as well.
A traditionally dominant community that accounts for a quarter of the Haryanas population, the Jats say they have been overlooked by successive governments.
Along with reservation, they are demanding scrapping of cases registered last year and release of protesters arrested on charges of rioting and arson.
An AIADMK legislator made a dramatic appearance at the residence of acting chief minister O Panneerselvam on Monday, claiming to have scaled a wall to escape from a luxury resort where party legislators are allegedly held captive by party chief VK Sasikala.
The MLA from South Madurai, SS Sarvanan, said all MLAs were ready to join Panneerselvam, who has challenged Sasikalas claim to Tamil Nadus top post even after putting in his papers to facilitate her elevation.
I disguised myself, changed my get-up, scaled the wall, jumped and escaped, Sarvanan told journalists amid loud cheers from Panneerselvams supporters.
AIADMK has however denied of any MLA escaping from the resort.
Sarvanans claim was in contrast to Sasikalas assertion that all the MLAs now there are 118 at the Golden Bay Resort were there on their own. The MLAs were taken to the resort on Wednesday, a day after Panneerselvam revolted against her.
Read | Twist in AIADMK power tussle? SC verdict on corruption case against Sasikala tomorrow
Earlier during the day, police too told the Madras high court that the MLAs were in the resort on their own free will.
Sasikalas supporters have barred the entry of journalists to the resort and were said to have confiscated mobile phones of the MLAs.
It is not just me, all the MLAs will come here only, said Sarvanan, struggling to be heard over the deafening noise of OPS supporters welcoming him.
(Follow live updates here)
He told mediapersons that he feared that if he did not escape now, I will be caged forever under Sasikala.
Sasikala visited the resort on Monday, her third visit in as many days as she sought to keep her flock intact a day ahead of a crucial Supreme Court verdict in a corruption case in which she is an accused along with former chief minister J Jayalalithaa and two others.
Conviction in the case will scuttle Sasikalas chances of becoming the chief minister.
With the joining of Sarvanan, Panneerselvams camp now has eight MLAs and 12 MPs.
Sasikala had earlier claimed the support of 134 legislators but is now left with 125.
A day after four militants were killed in Kashmir, Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday said despite the Narendra Modi governments claims, note ban has failed to check flow of terrorists and fake currency from Pakistan.
In a statement issued here, Amarinder said Sundays encounter in Kashmir and reports of Pakistan pushing fake Rs 2,000 currency into India via Bangladesh were proof that the ill-conceived note ban decision was not helping curb terror as claimed by Modi. Stronger and sterner measures were needed to ensure foolproof border security if the nation and its people were to be guarded against frequent external assaults, he said.
Apart from continuing incursions from across the border, there was sufficient ground to believe that black money remained a serious concern despite a 86% old currency getting frozen overnight following the demonetisation, said Amarinder, citing reports of frequent seizures of large sums of unaccounted for, new currency.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan held a high-level meeting with state BJP leaders on Monday in Thiruvananthapuram amid a spate of political killings in north Keralas Kannur to explore ways to bring peace in the trouble-torn district.
The CM was forced to intervene after the district-level peace meetings failed to yield any result and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made it a national issue. Taking the peace initiative further, an all-party meeting will be held in Kannur on Tuesday.
BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan and CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan were among the prominent leaders who attended the meeting.
Notorious for clashes between the red and the saffron camps, eight workers belonging to both the camps have been killed in Kannur since the LDF government came to power in May last year.
Last week, a BJP delegation from the state met Union home minister Rajnath Singh complaining that the police force was ineffective and CPI(M) cadres were indulging in state-sponsored violence to hurt the party in the state.
Leaders of both parties later said they would do everything possible to end violence and disown workers who often indulge in retaliatory attacks. The government assured that police will be given a free hand to tackle violence.
The CM was in Delhi last month and forced to cut short his visit after RSS-BJP workers threatened to lay a siege to the Kerala House in Jantar Mantar where he was staying.
Among the eight political murders in the last eight months, four took place in CMs own constituency Dharmadam. C Santhosh, a 52-year-old BJP worker, was the last to get killed in the three-decade-long bloody saga that has claimed more than 300 lives in the district.
In the politically volatile district, only a spark is enough to trigger violence and often a missing flag or some comments against the party is enough to lead to a full-fledged bout.
A drive through the hinterland of Kannur, famous for ancient martial art form Kalaripayattu, one can see people with various levels of injuries - a man with a missing palm, a youth with a severed leg and another with deep gashes all over his body.
Some of them are victims of politics intolerance and others self-inflicted to guard their territories ferociously. Maimed and crippled survivors call the dead lucky here.
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Two teenagers injured in Kashmir were hit by pellets fired by security forces, officials said on Monday, as the controversial weapon was thrust into the spotlight again after fresh violence rocked the militancy-hit valley.
Two civilians, two soldiers and four militants were killed in south Kashmirs Kulgam on Sunday in the biggest encounter in the valley in several months, triggering massive protests by villagers against the killing of the civilians.
One of the two killed was hit in crossfire between security forces and militants. The other suffered injuries when security forces fired on protesters and died in a hospital.
A doctor at the SMHS hospital in Srinagar said one of the injured, Samir (18), has pellet injuries in one of his eyes while the other, Aqib (16), also suffered minor injuries in the eyes.
Pellet guns, a so-called non-lethal weapon used by security forces in Kashmir, had become a weapon of revulsion after hundreds of people, most of them children, were injured during a month-long uprising in the valley after militant commander Burhan Wani was shot dead by police in July.
Despite widespread criticism, the Central and state governments defended the weapon which shoots tiny lead pellets as crucial to the fight against militants and refused to stop its use.
In a recent response to an RTI application, the CRPF refused to divulge details on the use of pellet guns in controlling mobs during the summer unrest, fanning public anger.
Read | Kashmirs disturbing new reality
A shutdown called by separatist groups in protest against the killings hit life across the valley with markets in Srinagar remaining closed and private vehicles staying off the roads.
The valleys joint separatist leadership -- Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik has also called for a march to Kulgam on Wednesday against the killings.
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Agitated locals along with members of a Hindu outfit on Monday protested and blocked the Mohan Nagar-Wazirabad road after a cow carcass was found in a village here.
City superintendent of police Salman Taj Patil said some villagers informed the head of a local Hindu outfit Bhupendra Tomar about the incident at Sikanderpur village in Sahibabad who along with his followers reached the spot and started protesting.
The infuriated mob disrupted traffic movement for at least two hours, he said.
Read: The holy cows of Uttar Pradesh
They were demanding the arrest of the slaughterers and establishment of a police post on Sikanderpur road where bovine carcasses have been found a number of times in the past, Patil said.
Additional police force was deployed to control the situation. Traffic movement was restored after the police assured the protestors of action against the guilty, he added.
A case has been registered against unknown persons under the Cow Slaughter Act 1955. One more FIR has been lodged against the protestors, who kept the highway blocked, under section 7 of the criminal law amendment act and for violation of section 144 of CrPC and Model Code of Conduct imposed due to the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Patil said.
The SP said a PCR van will be stationed permanently at Sikanderpur road until the establishment of a new police post.
The four militants killed in a gunfight with security forces on Kulgam in south Kashmir on Sunday were locals, police said.
While two belonged to Kashmiri separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen, the others were associated with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, they said.
Eight people, including two civilians and an equal number of soldiers, were killed in the gun battle and protests that followed. One of the civilians was a protester while the other was caught in the crossfire.
Kashmiri separatists have called a strike on Monday to protest crackdown by the security forces while the opposition National Conference has demanded a probe into the firing.
Security forces had cordoned off a house in Kulgams Frisal village on Saturday night after they were informed of militants presence. The gunfight started after militants opened fire early on Sunday, police said, adding three of them managed to escape.
The two slain soldiers Raghubeer Singh of Uttarakhand and Bhandoriya Gopal Singh of Gujarat belonged to 1st Rashtriya Rifles.
Locals said thousands of people, chanting pro-freedom slogans, participated in the funeral of the militants and the two civilians. Militants in Redwani Qaimoh even offered gun salute to the four associates, local news portals quoted eyewitnesses as saying.
At least 21 protesters were injured when police used bullets, pellets and tear gas shells to disperse demonstrators.
The protester killed in the firing was identified as 24-year-old Mushtaq Ibrahim from Sirgufwara. He probably died of bullet wounds, said deputy inspector general of south Kashmir SP Pani, adding the other injured protesters were stable.
We have referred at least 21 wounded youth to district hospital Anantnag, said chief medical officer of Kulgam, Dr Shafi. Most of them have been operated and are out of danger.
Shafi said the number of injured couldnt be ascertained as many had not provided their details and left for their homes fearing police action.
Many of the injured sent to Anantnag were hit by bullets and pellets. Those who suffered injuries to their vital organs were referred to medical institutions in Srinagar.
The Araria district administration has ordered a probe into alleged irregularities in the distribution of relief assistance money to flood victims in the district.
The probe team, which scrutinised disbursements of 72 crore among 1.2 lakh flood-hit families, claimed to have uncovered 300 fake entries, including minor beneficiaries, in a single panchayat.
Flood-hit households were to receive 6,000 each to cover damages due to floods last August, officials said.
Araria district magistrate Himanshu Sharma confirmed the findings and said irregularities were detected in disbursal of funds in Kakan panchayat under Jokihat police station of the district. He said orders had been passed to recover the money.
Sharma said stern action would be taken against the flood damage survey team, which vetted the beneficiary list. He also said that disbursements in other panchayats would also be scrutinised, following detection of 30 fake cases in another panchayat.
Officer-in-charge for disaster management, Shambhu Kumar, who conducted the probe, said, Such irregularities could not have taken place without connivance of mukhiyas.
He told HT that the probe team had stumbled upon hundreds of minors who were registered as beneficiaries.
Sources said mukhiya of Kakan panchayat, Wafa Hasan alias Pyaru, manipulated the list of beneficiaries and swindled relief money.
Md Shakib, a close relative of Hasan, runs a SBI customer service point (CSP) at Piti-Dumaria. He is accused of having opened bank accounts in the name of minors and credited beneficiary money in them.
However, Bibi Rahmati and Md Sayeed, residents in Kakan, complained that Hasan had collected Aadhaar cards of their children, besides others, assuring them that they would get relief doles. However, the money was not credited in their accounts.
Araria, some 300 kms north-east of Patna, along the Bihar-Nepal border, is in the Kosi river basin and among 19 flood prone districts of Bihar.
It was among the worst-hit of seven districts in August 2009, when the Kosi protective embankment was washed away in which over 350 persons were killed. The floods had displaced over 20 lakh people and brought down three lakh dwellings, besides killing over 1.50 lakh cattleheads.
Trade with China has been singled out as one of the main factors contributing to Germany's highest trade surplus since World War II last year, coming in at US$270.58 billion according to newly-released statistics.
German government figures show Germany's total exports rose 1.2 percent last year, while imports increased by just 0.6 percent.
Germany's exports to non-EU countries decreased by 0.2 percent in 2016, with Germany's standing as Europe's largest exporter being bolstered by trade outside the European Union, in particular with China.
Figures show exports to China last year almost doubled that of South Korea, Japan and India put together.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Sun Jiwen said the strategic partnership between China and Germany has deepened in recent years.
"The political mutual trust is increasing, and the two countries have established intergovernmental consultation mechanisms between the prime ministers of both sides. As the important cornerstone of the bilateral relationship, trade and economic cooperation has been growing in a multi-level and wide-ranging way."
Both the German and Chinese governments have agreed to align their respective growth strategies to help complement each other.
This move is promoting a surge of German interest in China in areas such as intelligent manufacturing, the digital economy and regional development.
German firms also contracted almost 9,000 investment projects in China last year, worth US$28.18 billion.
Non-financial investment worth US$8.83 billion flowed into Germany last year from Chinese companies, mostly in the form of mergers and acquisitions.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Saturday announced that a university would be set up in the northern part of the state and named after Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh master.
Paying rich tributes to Guru Gobind Singh to mark his 350th birth anniversary celebrations, Khattar also announced to open three new passport offices at Karnal, Faridabad and Hisar, taking the total number of such offices in Haryana to five.
Addressing a state-level function Chardi Kalan on the occasion of 350th Prakash Utsav here, the chief minister said he had requested minister for external affairs Sushma Swaraj that three new passport offices should be opened in the state as people have to travel to Chandigarh and Gurgaon to get their passports.
He also announced that the government college in Assandh would be named after Baba Fateh Singh, the younger son of Guru Gobind Singh and said that 397 vacant posts of PGT Punjabi and 392 posts of TGT Punjabi in the government schools in the state would soon be filled up.
Khattar announced that a college, to be set up at Lakhnaur Sahib, would be named after Mata Gujri, the tenth Gurus mother. Apart from this, the road from Manav Chowk in Ambala upto Lakhnaur Sahib via Barala would be named after Mata Gujri.
Khattar said that after the Bhangani war in 1688, Guru Gobind Singh had stayed at Nada Sahib in Panchkula while he was on his way to Anandpur Sahib from Kapal Mochan. Therefore, in his memory, the road from Nada Sahib to Poanta Sahib, barring the stretch on the national highway, would be named after Guru Gobind Singh, he said.
Khattar said since 1966 when Haryana was carved out as a separate state, none of the previous state governments had celebrated a Sikh utsav in such a befitting manner as was being celebrated by the present state government.
Tamil Nadu faces an unprecedented political uncertainty as a bitter tussle between AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala and acting chief minister O Panneerselvam is getting murkier every day. Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao shows no hurry to allow Sasikala, who has support of a majority of MLAs, to form the government.
Heres what three experts are saying to some of the pertinent questions about the current crisis in Tamil Nadu.
1. Can one person hold a state government to ransom like VK Sasikala is doing in Tamil Nadu?
Afzal Amanullah (former parliamentary affairs secretary): The point is, nothing prevents her from doing it. Floor test is the only way to decide who will be the CM and the ball is entirely in the governors court. He should act fast.
Sudha Pai (professor, Jawahar Nehru University): This is very unfair. The Constitution doesnt give any such power to any person.
PDT Achary (ex-secretary general, Lok Sabha and constitution expert): She cant. But if you see in a larger context, this is a new experiment in Indian democracy. Here, two leaders have emerged in a party and both are trying to take the control.
2. How can one person hijack a government and not be held to account? How does Sasikala get to take away all the MLAs?
Amanullah: MLAs are not children. And interestingly, none of them have complained of being taken as virtual prisoners. If the MLAs are willingly led by Sasikala and her followers, what can be done?
Pai: I would not call this a peculiar incident. For the past many years, this confinement of MLAs before trust vote has happened in many other states. This is nothing but the decline of parliamentary democracy.
Achary: This is certainly wrong. Such things have happened before. And in the whole exercise, only the luxury bus owners and the resort companies benefit.
3. Most members of the council of ministers are staying in the lodge. Who is looking after their departments? Arent ministers neglecting their duties?
Amanullah: Not necessarily. Ministers, even in normal circumstances go on tour. To say that there is negligence, we need to see how many files are pending.
Pai: Obviously they are neglecting their duties. They are accountable to people but they are not performing.
Achary: They should be certainly sitting in their offices and doing their work. A state cant be run only by bureaucrats. Policy decisions, their implementation get hampered.
4.What does the Constitution/Supreme Court say on it?
Amanullah: The Constitution has left it to the governor to decide who should be given the chance to become the CM. He must act quickly.
Pai: SC doesnt come into the picture now. Article 164 says governor should appoint the CM. We are not following conventions.
Achary: (Distinguished advocate) Soli Sorabjee said the governor should leave it to the house. But the governor cant ask the MLAs to go straight to the house and pick their CM. The governor can call MLAs to Raj Bhavan, take a secret ballot to decide who they prefer as CM.
5. Saiskala is free to visit the MLAs but not the people who elected them. How and why? Where is Sasikala getting these powers from?
Amanullah: Panneerselvam is still the CM. If he has the entire administration and police force in command, why cant he go and rescue the MLAs. May be, he is not sure if the MLAs are with him.
Pai: You cant blame Sasikala. She is the elected general secretary of the party. The MLAs have sided with her.
Achary: This is a tragedy and a blatant use of power.
6. In this age and time, can we afford to have days of no government?
Amanullah: Tamil Nadu is in a state of paralysis. The bureaucracy is looking at the two power centres. This situation of uncertainty and paralysis is not good for the state.
Pai: The governor has not shown himself in good light. He should immediately end this crisis.
Achary: We cant. Its a large state and such uncertainly cant be allowed. Ultimately, the governor must take a call.
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An ongoing investigation into the recently busted Chinese SIM box-enabled international call racket, which was allegedly aiding espionage by Pakistan handlers in India, has thrown up a shocker.
It has been found that over 60 parallel phone exchanges, similar to the 36-odd operations that have been busted by the Madhya Pradesh police anti-terrorism squad (ATS) in four towns of the state, could be functional in other parts of the country. A similar racket was busted by the Uttar Pradesh ATS last month.
Sources privy to the investigation told HT that most of these 60-plus exchanges are being run in Hyderabad, Odisha, Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Data pertaining to these illegal operations has been shared with central intelligence agencies by the MP police.
Each illegal exchange of the kind fetches a monthly income of Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 for those operating them from undisclosed locations in the country. Investigators have identified at least five Dubai and China-based web platforms, including Dinstar, which help these illegal operators route international calls via VoIP gateways. They are then converted into local cellphone calls through Chinese SIM boxes fitted with hundreds of GSM SIM cards procured with the help of fake ID proofs.
Three dozen exchanges were busted by the MP ATS across Bhopal, Jabalpur, Satna and Gwalior, and 11 men arrested in this connection.
An interrogation of the arrested men has revealed that the Chinese equipment, including the SIM box, was sourced from a man residing at a state capital in the vicinity of New Delhi. People who operate these illegal exchanges making the cellular service industry bleed in the process have been using five web platforms for their operations.
Police said each of these web platforms first gave unique IDs and passwords to the operators. Subsequently, these men would receive international calls from specified VoIP gateways on a round-the-clock basis masking the callers identity before converting the call through the hundreds of GSM SIM cards obtained with fake IDs. The SIM box acted as a terminal to convert VoIP calls into local calls using the GSM gateways of SIM cards without disclosing the identity of the callers most of whom are based in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Middle East, said an inside source.
Detailed records of the daily income generated by these exchange operators were also stored in unique accounts with the five web platforms. Subsequently, payments were made to them through money-laundering rackets operated by Pakistani handlers. If these men faced any issue with regard to payment, the matter would be easily resolved via Skype.
Balram, a resident of Satna, was found to be funding espionage operations by Satwindar and Dadu two ISI operatives arrested in RS Pura area in November last year. He was among the 11 men arrested by the state ATS on Thursday.
Of the arrested men, five suspects hailing from Gwalior were produced before a special court in Bhopal on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody. One of them was identified as Jitendra, a close relative of a BJP councillor in Gwalior.
The state ATS is also probing the possibility of 30 phone exchanges, which have been in operation for the last three years, being used by Pakistani handlers to plan the Uri and Pathankot terror attacks.
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A PILwas filed on Monday in the Delhi High Court to restrain candidates of all political parties who have been defeated in Lok Sabha election from contesting in polls for Rajya Sabha and from being nominated to the Upper House for five years.
The public interest litigation (PIL) came up for hearing before a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, which posted it for hearing on February 20 before another court as the petitioner-in-person was arguing the matter in Hindi.
Petitioner, Satya Narayan Prasad, who claims himself to be a social activist, has moved the court saying that India being a democratic country and the people being supreme in electing its leaders, it is misfortune that politicians who are defeated in the general elections are nominated to the Upper House.
Seeking a direction to the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Election Commission of India (ECI), the petitioner said, Any candidate who contested Lok Sabha election and has been defeated, he be declared disqualified for being a Member of Parliament (MP).
Such candidates cannot be nominated or allowed to contest in Rajya Sabha election, the plea said, adding that this is against the fundamental principle of democracy, wherein mandate/votes on Indian citizen is supreme.
In his plea, Prasad has said that those leaders who lost in general elections are not legally entitled to contest for the Upper House and they should be banned from contesting in such polls.
Pleading for special rules and provisions to ban such leaders, who have lost in Lok Sabha polls, from contesting in Rajya Sabha election, the 51-year-old petitioner said that action be taken against the authorities concerned who have wrongly nominated such disqualified candidates for membership in Parliament.
It said that the Constitution of India also does not allow disqualified and defeated people to be nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha.
He said that no reply has been given by the ministry and the poll panel even after repeated attempts were made by him as to why an ordinance be not passed to prevent such candidates from being nominated to the Upper House.
While candidates are elected to Lok Sabha directly by the people, members of Rajya Sabha are elected by the elected members of state Assemblies in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote.
Former dacoit Seema Parihar, the symbol of terror in the once-notorious Chambal region, has a new role to pay: urging people to vote in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Parihar, who is now a social worker, is the star attraction of The Ballot, a movie produced by the Etawah district administration to promote voting.
In movie, I play a dabangg (influential) former village head who is frustrated with politicians vanishing act after the polls, says Parihar.
So, I ask villagers to boycott voting. But the district administration and Etawah residents inspire villagers to call off the boycott. I, too, decide to use the power of my vote, says Parihar, whose character in the film bears her real life name.
Parihar, 41, did not charge any fee for The Ballot, titled Mat in Hindi, which has a cast of amateur actors. The 18.30-minute movie relies on street plays, folk song, dance, and the local dialect to convey its pro-vote message to people from all walks of life.
The district administration and co-producer Sant Vivekanand School have made 800 CDs of the film and distributed them to each village and some organisations.
READ: Guns to Roses: Bandit queen Seema Parihar turns environmentalist
Four to five screenings of the film have been held in all the villages in Etawah district, which has 705 villages under 471 village panchayats. Now, with the polling day--February 19--nearing, the villagers are being shown the movie every day.
Seema Parihar (in orange saree) with the cast of the Ballot, a movie encouraging people to vote. (HT Photo)
Etawah has three assembly constituencies: Jaswant Nagar, Etawah and Bhartana. The ruling Samajwadi Party won all the three seats in 2012. The district recorded 60.16% voter turnout in the 2012 assembly election and 58.11% in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll.
The 73 western UP constituencies in 15 districts registered a voter turnout of 64.22% in the first phase of polls on Saturday, surpassing the regions previous best turnout of 59.60%.
We want to surpass ourselves and them, says Prabhat Misra, who directed the movie and works with assistant Etawah National Savings.
The Ballot is not Parihars first foray into films. She portrayed her life story in the Bollywood movie Wounded The Bandit Queen, which was shot in the Chambal ravines. The film won the critics award at the Leicester Expo Bollywood film festival in Britain in 2005.
Parihar now refers to the world of dacoits as doosri duniya and says she has left it far behind.
Parihars tryst with the outlaws began after she was kidnapped from Auraiyya district at the age of 13 by dacoits Lala Ram and Kusuma Nain. She was later married to Nirbhay Gujjar, another notorious dacoit.
Parihar allegedly abducted nearly 200 people during her days in the badlands which ended in 2000 after she surrendered to the Uttar Pradesh police. She was in prison for a few years after being charged with eight counts of murder and half-a-dozen incidents of kidnapping.
While still in jail, Parihar began getting offers from political parties. Inspired by the life of the late bandit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi, she supported the Shiv Sena in the 2002 assembly elections in the state.
In 2006, she joined Udit Rajs then Indian Justice Party (IJP) and contested the Lok Sabha by-poll from Mirzapur-Bhadohi a year later. I lost that election by a mere 824 votes, she recalls.
Parihar moved on to the Lok Janshakti Party and then the Samajwadi Party. She earlier campaigned for Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Manoj Tiwari, Udit Raj and Harsh Vardhan.
But I am not with any party anymore, nor am I supporting any party or candidate, she says.
Parihar attained celebrity status after she participated in the popular television reality show Bigg Boss 4 in 2010. She was in jail at the time and could join the show only after getting the permission from the Allahabad high court.
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Its now official. The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to declare Rohith Vemula, the research scholar of University of Hyderabad whose suicide in January 2016 triggered a nationwide uproar, as belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and that he was not a Dalit.
The government has also decided to cancel the Scheduled Caste certificate fraudulently obtained by Rohith and his mother Radhika Vemula.
Before doing so, the government on Monday served a show cause notice on Radhika as to why she cannot be declared as belonging to the Vaddera community, which falls under the OBC category.
If she still claims she is a Dalit, she should prove her claim with valid documents to that effect within two weeks.
Rohith Vemula's mother Radhika during a protest march at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in March 2016. (Arun Sharma/HT File)
Guntur district collector Kantilal Dande told HT that the District-Level Scrutiny Committee (DLSC), which had gone into a review petition challenging the Dalit status of Rohith Vemula, made a detailed inquiry at the field level and submitted a report stating that neither he nor his mother were Dalits and that they had obtained the SC certificate by fraudulent means.
Based on the DLSC report, we have decided to cancel the Dalit certificate fraudulently obtained by Rohith and his mother and declare them as belonging to OBC community. As part of the procedure, we have served a notice on Radhika to prove her claim of Dalit within 15 days. Otherwise, she and Rohith would be declared as OBCs, Dande said.
Apparently, the notice was served on Radhika in an apparent move to avoid any possible legal hassles in future.
Radhikas other son, Raja Vemula, confirmed that she had received the notice from the Guntur administration.
They gave her two weeks time to prove that she indeed belonged to SC community and not an OBC. We are consulting our lawyers to study the notice and give a proper reply, Raja told HT.
In fact, the Andhra Pradesh government was planning to send the report to the Centre declaring Rohith Vemula as an OBC before his first death anniversary on January 17 this year, but it did not do so since it involved some legal problems.
Revenue officials in Guntur districts Gurajala village to which Rohith belonged, did a field study and sent a report to the collector indicating that he was a Vaddera and not a Dalit as claimed by his mother and university students.
On the first death anniversary of Rohith at University of Hyderabad, where hundreds of students staged a protest rally seeking justice to his family, Radhika threatened that she would move the Supreme Court if the government declared that she and her sons were not Dalits.
A one-man judicial committee headed by former Allahabad high court judge Justice AK Roopanwal last August also declared Rohith as an OBC. The committee felt thatRohiths mother might have got the SC certificate to claim the benefits of reservation.
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A controversy erupted on Monday over the the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) sponsoring air tickets of four Indian authors to attend the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) amidst frosty Indo-Pak ties. The cultural body, however, maintained that it did so at the recommendation of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.
We only bought air tickets for four Indian authors and we did so at the recommendation of our High Commission in Islamabad.
We have not sponsored the KLF. We have a very limited role, ICCR director general Amarendra Khatua said.
Four Indian authors, including well-known writer Urvashi Butalia, attended the KLF which was held between February 10 and 12 in Pakistan.
Interestingly, ICCRs sponsorship of the authors comes weeks after Pakistan declined an invitation to attend the South Asian Speakers Summit, which is being hosted by India on February 18-19 in Indore. The summit is being organised by Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
Downplaying the ICCR action, officials in New Delhi referred to external affairs minister Sushma Swarajs remarks in Parliament last week that India wishes to have good neighbourly relations with Pakistan.
The governments of India and Pakistan remained in touch through bilateral diplomatic channels, including for addressing all urgent humanitarian and other matters concerning people-to-people ties, Swaraj had said in the Lok Sabha.
She had also noted that the talks envisaged between Indo-Pak foreign secretaries to decide the modalities of the Composite Bilateral Dialogue, agreed during her visit to Islamabad in December 2015, could not take place due to the terrorist attack on Pathankot airbase in January 2016 and other attacks last year emanating from Pakistan.
AIADMK general secretary Sasikala broke down once again during her meeting with the AIADMK MLAs at the Golden Bay Resort on Monday, a day before Supreme Court will decide on her disproportionate assets case.
The judgement scheduled for Tuesday 10.30am will not only decide the fate of Sasikala, but also AIADMK and Tamil Nadu, the state which has not seen stability in leadership since former chief minister J Jayalalithaa was hospitalised in September.
Acting chief minister O Panneerselvam on Tuesday got another shot in the arm with more lawmakers joining his side, although Sasikalas camp expressed positivity too.
Here are the highlights from Tamil Nadu on Feb 13:
10.20pm: Actor and choreographer Raghava Lawrence extends support to O Panneerselvam.
8.58pm:
Madurai MLA Saravanan says he escaped Golden Bay resort before #Sasikala arrived today #OPSvsSasikala @htTweets Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) February 13, 2017
8.50pm: On the Supreme Court verdict in DA case, Sasikala says, Everything will be good for me.
8.45pm: AIADMKs south Madurai MLA SS Saravanan and Lok Sabha MP from Madurai R Gopalakrishnan extend support to O Panneerselvam.
AIADMK's South Madurai MLA Saravanan and MP from Madurai R Gopalakrishnan extend support to #Paneerselvam pic.twitter.com/31c6AG3dxA ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
7.52pm: I have brought my clothes with me (to the resort). I am staying with the MLAs, Sasikala says at the Golden Bay resort.
Talking about the opposition party, Sasikala says, DMK is an expert in calculating things. When MGR passed away they did the same thing.
7.40pm: After meeting party MLAs at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur, VK Sasikala breaks down while addressing the party MLAs. Sasikala says, Amma still alive in our hearts. Since Ive always been with her, people asked me to take care of them like Amma did.
When I was coming here (to the resort), people called me to a hut. When I went there, I saw Ammas photo there.Thats where she lives, in their hearts, Sasikala tells party workers.
6.45pm:
Justice PC Ghose and AK Roy to assemble tomorrow at 10:30 to deliver the verdict in the case involving Sasikala @htTweets bhadra sinha (@BhadraSinha) February 13, 2017
6.35pm: "The governor should not waste any more time. Whoever has the majority in the house must form a government, says MK Stalin.
Is the governor listening to the BJP and delaying procedure? MK Stalin asks.
6.25pm: We will only comment on the disproportionate assets case once the Supreme Court verdict is out; cant comment right now, says MK Stalin.
The SC is expected to pronounce its verdict in the disproportionate assets case against VK Sasikala this week.
There were reports of the DMK leader earlier extending support to O Panneerselvam externally, but later denied any such move.
We are not supporting any faction, AIADMK is our opponent and we oppose them as a whole, clarifies Stalin.
MK Stalin addressing the media on Monday. (ANI on Twitter)
6.20pm: MK Stalin, leader of the opposition and DMK working president, says Many development works in the state have been stagnated due to the ongoing power struggle, most important issues are of drinking water, farmer suicides and drought situation.
The caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam has not bothered about any of the issues, only focused on keeping his seat, he adds.
"The two sides must prove that they have a majority in a floor tests" says DMK working president MK Stalin #OPSvsSasikala @htTweets Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) February 13, 2017
The governor should immediately take steps to establish a stable government in the state, adds Stalin.
6.05pm: Sasikala visits Golden Bay Resorts in Kuvathur to meet the MLAs camping at the resort, her third visit in three days.
5:42pm:
DA case verdict likely to be delivered tomorrow by the Supreme Court #OPSvsSasikala @htTweets Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) February 13, 2017
5:21pm:
AG Mukul Rohatgi gives opinion to TN governor. Asks him to hold the floor test within a week, citing SC judgement @htTweets bhadra sinha (@BhadraSinha) February 13, 2017
5:14pm: Sasikala says she doesnt think that the delay in her swearing-in is because of the pending DA case verdict.
5.07pm: DMK starts its strategy meeting under the leadership of party working president MK Stalin at DMK headquarters
4.20pm: Former state Congress chief EVKS Elangovan tells media Sasikala is a female gangster, people hate her.
4.17pm: Sasikala leaves her Poes Garden residence to visit Golden Bay resort where MLAs loyal to her are staying for the third straight day.
3.45pm
Media personnel ask police why they were not acting against private persons near the resort and preventing jurnos frm standing on public rd K V Lakshmana (@kvlakshman) February 13, 2017
3:42pm: Media once again protests as journalists are stopped from entering Golden Bay resort. Police have no answers when asked why permission was needed.
3:37pm: An ambulance and two vehicles rush to Kuvathur Golden Bay, where AIADMK MLAs have been camping, resort around 2 am. No details available on whether someone has been hospitalised.
2:59pm: FIR filed against ex-AIADMK MLA Kalairajan for allegedly threatening to chop off O Panneerselvams hands.
2:27pm:
"However many men come from the Oppn, I'll be the woman to face them. As long as cadre is there, no one can harm me," Sasikala @htTweets Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) February 13, 2017
2:23pm: Im ready to give my life for this government... Were not afraid of anything, says Sasikala.
2:21pm:
"I used to read letters sent by cadres & told Amma of people's issues. I never thought of becoming CM when Amma died," Sasikala @htTweets Aditya Iyer (@Theadityaiyer) February 13, 2017
2:18pm: When MGR died, she (Jayalalithaa) said she didnt want to join politics. I told her should for MGR. I grew her interest in politics, says Sasikala.
2:15pm: I was by Ammas side for 33 years. Theres no part of Tamil Nadu she didnt go. She made sure we now have 1.5 crore cadres, says Sasikala.
2:10pm:
#Panneerselvam asked me to take charge then, but I said I can't at this juncture. So #Panneerselvam was given responsibility: #VKSasikala pic.twitter.com/acfiksoaxJ ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
2:08pm: OPS has shown he was never loyal to the party. While I was taking care of Ammas final rites, many were scheming, says AIADMKs Sasikala amid a bitter turf war in the party.
2:05pm: When Amma passed away, I came to know about conspiracy being hatched to divide the party, says Sasikala.
2:04pm: People are trying to divide the organisation, I wont let this happen, says Sasikala.
1:55pm: Tamil Nadu CM Panneerselvam holds discussions with chief secretary, home secretary and top officials at the state secretariat.
1:50pm: Madras HC observes if MLAs are there of their free will, the court cannot do anything about it. Case adjourned.
1:45pm: Kancheepuram police submit report to the Madras high court, says 119 AIADMK MLAs at Golden Bay resort of their free will.
1:28pm: AIADMK spokesperson CR Saraswathi says delay in governor inviting Sasikala to form government may lead to horse trading. She hopes the governor will settle the matter soon.
1:19pm:
PIL filed in Supreme Court asking the Tamil Nadu Governor to invite VK Sasikala to form the government within 24 hours; AIADMK ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
1:10pm: Chief minister O Panneerselvam reaches the state secretariat.
12:45pm:
Former AIADMK MLA Kalairajan threatens to cut off hands of chief minister O Panneerselvam. But he later withdrew the remarks K V Lakshmana (@kvlakshman) February 13, 2017
12:39pm:Police tell Madras high court that MLAs loyal to Sasikala are not being kept against their will inside a seaside resort near Mahabalipuram, submit statements of two MLAs
12:29pm: AIADMK spokesperson Vadiyaselvan tells media that Sasikala was hoping for a call from governor today.
12:19pm: DMK working president MK Stalin arrives at the secretariat along with Duraimurugan.
12:15pm: I am not scared of anyone, I will succeed: AIADMK general secretary Sasikala amid turf war with Panneerselvam.
No one can create any hurdles.Iam not scared of anyone.I will succeed.#Chinnamma4CM AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) February 13, 2017
12 noon: A puja is taking place at Panneerselvams residence. There are reports that some women councillors have extended support to him. Sas
11:00am: Panneerselvam to go to the state secretariat for the first time since he resigned. Reports say large number of people gathering outside his house.
10:11am: AIADMK official handle says Sasikala gets a warm welcome at Kuvathoor, where the Golden Bay resort is. MLAs loyal to Sasikala are holed up there.
Respected Chinnamma given a warm welcome on her arrival at Kuvathoor. #Chinnamma4CM pic.twitter.com/RDZdJQgI6t AIADMK (@AIADMKOfficial) February 13, 2017
And heres what happened over the weekend.
Panneerselvam speaks
A group of 120-plus AIAMDK legislators held in a private resort near Chennai should be released to go to their constituencies and sense the public mood, acting CM O Panneerselvam has said.
His comments on Sunday came ahead of his first scheduled visit to the state secretariat since the state was plunged in a political crisis that has pit Panneerselvam against party general secretary VK Sasikala with the CMs chair at stake.
Panneerselvam also alleged that by shedding crocodile tears, Sasikala kept the MLAs on her side.
Let her release them...so that they can go to their respective constituencies and meet the people and take a good decision, he told reporters in Chennai.
Stressing that the Tamil people were well aware of the current political scenario, he said, Not only in India, people across the globe are monitoring the situation.
Asserting that he was always a staunch loyalist of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, Panneerselvam said, In the last 20 years not even once has Amma criticised me.
He said Deepak and Deepa, the niece of late leader J Jayalalithaa, were the only blood relations of Jayalalithaa.
When Ammas mortal remains were in the hospital on the night of December 5, she was not allowed to pay her respects even at that time, he alleged.
War of attrition
Panneerselvams camp has gradually gathered momentum with five more party parliamentarians joining the acting chief ministers faction on Sunday.
He has said he has the support of more than 30 MLAs a claim disputed by Sasikala, who paraded her MLAs before the media for the first time since the lawmakers were taken to a resort last Wednesday.
He has also been boosted by governor Vidyasagar Rao indicating that he would wait for a Supreme Court verdict in a corruption case in which Sasikala is among the accused -- that is expected this week.
Sasikala has alleged that the delay of more than a week since she staked claim to form the government is aimed to break the AIADMK. Almost every day of that week has seen one or more party leader jump ship and support Panneerselvam.
Administrative problem?
On whether the administration had come to a standstill due to the ongoing crisis, Panneerselvam has said he has been meeting government officials every day.
Every day I am in touch with the officials. Day before yesterday, the chief secretary and DGP met me and we discussed several issues. Tomorrow, Im going to the secretariat, he said.
But many say in a state with no elected mayors, village heads and chief minister and local body polls in limbo. Across the state, city corporations, municipal areas, and panchayats are being administered by special officers because local body elections have not yet been held.
Municipal elections were cancelled last October after the poll notification faced several legal challenges.
Road ahead
Panneerselvam has repeatedly said he would prove his majority on the floor of the assembly.
But the governor indicating he would wait for the top courts judgment, Sasikala has also warned that her faction would resort to new modes of protest if there was any more delay.
On Sundays press conference addressed by AIADMK chief Sasikala, he asked why she did not meet the press when Jayalalithaa was hospitalised and why she was speaking to reporters now.
(With agency inputs)
Normal life was affected in Kashmir on Monday due to a shutdown called by the valleys separatist leadership to protest the killing of two civilians in an encounter on Sunday in south Kulgam district.
Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik had called for a complete shutdown on Monday and a Kulgam Chalo march on Wednesday against the killings.
The killing of the two civilians one caught in the crossfire during the encounter and the other when forces fired to quell protests in the area has raised apprehensions of deterioration of the ground situation in Kashmir.
Two soldiers and four militants were also killed in the encounter.
Major markets in Srinagar remained closed and streets were deserted. Reports said that restrictions were imposed in some parts of south Kashmir on Monday morning. However, curfew has not been enforced by the administration in any part.
Mousam theek hua nahi ki halaat kharab ho gaye (The weather has just begun to improve and the situation is already bad), said a businessman from Srinagar as he looked at the closed shop shutters on the main road.
Read | Militants in Kashmirs Kulgam encounter identified as Hizbul and LeT operatives
Kashmir has just limped back to normalcy after months of shutdown and curfew last year over the death of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani and the financial loss to various sectors of the economy have been estimated at hundreds of crores.
Major markets remained shut and streets wore a deserted look on Feb 13, 2017. (Waseem Andrabi / HT Photo )
There were strong rumours on WhatsApp groups about internet services being snapped in the valley in view of the law and order situation. However, authorities soon clarified that no such steps have been taken.
The Hurriyat statement had said that it was use of brute force against civilians in Frisal Kulgam and termed it as worst kind of state terrorism.
The opposition National Conference (NC) demanded an impartial and time-bound probe into the killing while the High Court Bar Association has also condemned the brutal act of firing on the unarmed civilians and supported the strike call by separatists.
Police, in a press statement, that investigation has been started in the case of the civilian killed during the protest.
Government spokesperson and education minister Naeem Akhtar regretted the loss of lives.
We will look into the matter and will try to find out all the circumstances that led to such a damage at the place, he told a local news agency.
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In a vitriolic attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his jibe at Manmohan Singh, bickering ally Shiv Sena on Monday asked him to stop peeping in others bathrooms, maintain the dignity of his office and concentrate on governance instead of threatening opposition parties by flagging their horoscopes.
Modi, while campaigning in UP, threatened that he has the horoscope of opposition parties while chief minister Akhilesh Yadav retorted by saying horoscopes of all are freely available on internet. This is an example of how low the level of campaign has plummeted, the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana.
At least the PM and the CM should not be a part of such mud-slinging. The chair has immense integrity and the person occupying it should make sure its dignity is upheld, it said.
What has to happen in UP polls will happen. But the PM should concentrate on Delhi and the CMs on their states. One should not peep into others bathrooms. This should be avoided, it said, alluding to Modis raincoat remark targeting former PM Manmohan Singh and the subsequent retort to it by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.
The Sena said the use of government machinery by those holding constitutional posts to threaten opposition parties amounts to political corruption.
But all these are taking place openly. The PM and the CM, while campaigning, threaten, challenge, make announcements and promises. Under which rule of law could they do this, it questioned.
You have the Oppositions horoscopes because you are in power. By removing their kundalis (horoscopes), you are in a way abusing your power. You are not elected to power to do this. Your horoscope too will be available to your successors once you step down from power, the editorial said.
On Modis jibe at Akhilesh Yadav, the Sena said if law and order problems persist in UP and women are unsafe, what are the BJP MPs elected from the state doing about the issue.
(Xinhua) 13:27, February 13, 2017
International Pizza franchise, Domino's, has come under heavy criticism on Monday after evidence of unethical behavior regarding Visa fraud.
A phone call captured by an undercover Chinese student working for the Australian media outlet Fairfax, records a Domino's franchisee in North Queensland say in Mandarin "I will say straight that we want to sell this sponsorship, but you need to pay some money."
"We might need you pay $100,000 plus ... $100-$150,000."
The accusation comes at a time when the franchise is also being investigated by Australia's Fair Work Ombudsman after a six month investigation conducted by Fairfax, alleged the company has also systematically underpaid its workers at a number of stores across the country.
The media outlet claimed a number of foreign workers from China and India were offered sponsorship in return for cheap labor.
"I know of one person who is sponsored and work 60 hours a week and gets paid for 40 hours," former Domino's store manager Azrael Yin, told Fairfax.
"Franchisees know if they ask the manager being sponsored to edit people's time worked to save on wages, they will feel obligated to do it for fear of losing their sponsorship."
"One of the workers went back to China after the rip-off."
Despite the business selling over one million pizzas per week in Australia and the company's incredible success on the Australian Securities Exchange which saw its share price rise from 2.20 Australian dollars (1.76 dollars U.S.) in 2005 when the stock was first listed, to over 60 Australian dollars (46 dollars U.S) per share today, it appears the individual stores are struggling to make profits.
"If this week [there were] bad sales, labour blows out to 33 per cent of sales, so I receive a call to make it 27 per cent. Then I deduct my own time as well as the other workers," Yin said.
"I remember I had to use my wife to do deliveries with my two kids in the back of the car, "I thought I would stay in the system long enough to recoup my costs first, but the longer I stayed in the system the worse it got."
One Franchise owner blames the issue on the slashing of pizza prices.
As food costs, labour, rent and other expenses have continued to rise, the price of pizza has actually declined to levels that parody the 1990's.
"At the same time, Domino's profit is doubling. Hence, we have clients winning by purchasing cheap food, Domino's profit skyrocketing. So, nobody is left to pay for this but the franchisees," Kamran Talebi said.
In reaction to the claims made against them, domino's said in a statement, "there is no reason, no excuse, and no tolerance for any Domino's franchise that chooses not to pay its employees correctly or fails to meet expectations around ethics and governance."
"Domino's has found no evidence of a link between franchisee profitability and breaches of employment obligations in this time."
But one worker told Fairfax "I have on a regular basis if not every single day have been asked to work for at least 1 - 2 hours without pay...I have not been paid my double pay as per union agreements and legislation. Also, sometimes my clock-in hours have changed without my knowledge. I have been very depressed and for the last 2 months and have been admitted to St Vincent Hospital."
Three women died and 20 people were injured when a slab connecting two tenements collapsed at Surat, Gujarat, in the early hours of Monday.
The deceased have been identified as Rizwanabanu Saiyed, Jamilabi and Samima Sheikh. The injured some of them children were rushed to a government hospital for treatment.
According to fire brigade officials, the incident occurred at Umarwada Colony past midnight. Around 30 people, who had gathered there to mark a religious event, were having dinner under a slab connecting two tenements when it came crashing down.
The Umarwada Colony has been identified for redevelopment by the Surat Municipal Corporation.
Nagapattinam MLA M Thamimum Ansari has sought a referendum asking people to tell him which of the two AIADMK factions should receive his support.
The MLA is the general secretary of the Manithaneya Jananayaka Katchi, which contested in alliance with the AIADMK on that partys two leaves symbol in the May 2016 assembly polls and won.
MJK party sources said the MLA held discussions with party office bearers on Sunday on the matter and later announced that he would conduct a referendum to ascertain the peoples views.
Accordingly, boxes were placed in the MLAs office premises at Nagapattinam on Monday, seeking the publics views.
Thamimun Ansari said the MJKs administrative committee would scrutinise the views expressed by the people and announce a decision soon.
After shutting down government offices for a week, traditional tribal organisations in Nagaland began their total shutdown across the state on Monday seeking chief minister TR Zeliangs resignation.
Tribal bodies under the banners of the Nagaland Tribes Action Committee (NTAC) and the Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) are holding Zeliang responsible for the recent violence that saw deaths and destruction of government property.
Our indefinite bandh will continue from dawn to dusk between 6am and 6pm daily till Zeliang submits his resignation, NTAC convenor KT Vilie told Hindustan Times.
Tribal bodies are opposed to holding election to urban local bodies (ULBs) with 33% reservation for women. They blame Zeliang for trying to hold the polls and also the violence that resulted due to opposition to it.
Some services like hospitals, water supply and electricity department have been exempted from the purview of the strike. We have also asked our people to enforce the bandh peacefully, he added.
Police stations have also been exempted from the strike, but restrictions have been imposed on movement of police personnel and their vehicles.
We prioritised areas where there could be some trouble and deployed forces. Policemen were asked to exercise restraint. Nothing untoward happened on Monday, Nagalands director general of police (DGP) LL Doungel said.
Normal life in Nagalands commercial hub Dimapur was affected since Monday morning due to the strike. There were no vehicles on the streets and business establishments were shut.
The streets are deserted. People are not even venturing out on cycles fearing there could be violence, said Dipu K Sangma, a Dimapur resident.
On January 31, two youths were killed and several others injured in police firing in Dimapur when mobs opposed to the ULB polls tried to enter the private residence of the chief minister.
Two days later, protesters burned down nearly two dozen government buildings including the municipal office in state capital Kohima. The events forced the government to declare the ULB polls null and void.
Despite growing clamour for his ouster, Zeliang, who enjoys the support of nearly all MLAs in the 60-member assembly, has refused to step down.
The state government has been asking NTAC and other tribal bodies to sit for talks to end the crisis, but the latter have refused to attend the meetings till Zeliang leaves his chair.
In an address to residents of Nagaland on Monday via radio, the CM appealed to the tribal bodies to lift the bandh to allow students to appear for their exams, government offices to function and commercial establishments to conduct business.
We should resolve the present situation through mature appreciation and dialogue. Let us put our heads together to build the Nagaland of our dreams, he said, even as he remained silent on the subject of his resignation.
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Its a leisurely Sunday afternoon in Khushiyari village, around 12 kilometers from the district headquarters in Varanasi. A group of men is busy gambling under the shade of a tree besides the community hall.
Suddenly, there is panic in the group as the men start disbursing, hiding the cards in their lungis. Within minutes, they are either home or have found a place to squat near roadside eateries.
Before a stranger in the village, like the HT team, realised what prompted the gamblers to flee, a group of around 25 women in dark green sarees crosses the area, shouting anti-hooch and anti-gambling slogans.
They are all local women, mostly housewives. But they are a class apart from other women in the area. They did not go to school but are literate. They are skilled in martial arts and are enrolled as Police Mitr (friends of police).
Meet the members of Varanasis Green Group, whose interventions in containing evils such as alcohol abuse and gambling is transcending the borders of their village and fast spreading to adjoining villages and towns.
Impressed by them, the Varanasi administration has engaged the group in generating awareness in areas that witnessed low voter turnout in the last polls.
Amid the cacophony of political campaigns by various parties, the group members are regularly seen in Varanasi, enticing people through folk songs to vote . Suna ho bhaiya, Suna ho behna, maan le tu hamaar kehna; voting ke din ghar mat rahna varna paanch saal padega sehna. Suna ho bhaiya, suna ho behna, sabke vote deveke kehna; Agar koee roke toke , 100 number par call karna, sing the women as they urge people to exercise franchise.
Says Asha Devi, a Green Group member, Barely two years ago, we were like ordinary rural women whose lives were confined to the kitchen and suffering the atrocities of alcoholic husbands. Then Hope Welfare Trust (HWT) members transformed our lives.
Formed and run by a few ex-students of Banaras Hindu University and JNU, HWT began its intervention in Khusiyari village in 2015 by educating children and women who dropped out of school. We learnt that alcohol abuse and gambling was ruining families. Besides making women literate, we groomed them to take on the social malady like Bundelkhands Gulabi gang, said HWT president Ravi Mishra.
More than 300 students who entered medical colleges in Madhya Pradesh after clearing scam-tainted entrance tests cannot practise anymore after the Supreme Court cancelled their admissions on Monday in connection with the multi-crore Vyapam scandal.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar said the case presented before it by the students warranted no interference into an earlier order by the top court under Article 142. The earlier two-judge bench had split on the future of the students with one judge recommending leniency.
But on Monday, the SC declined to show any sympathy and let the students take up medical profession despite holding their admissions illegal. The students had urged the court that they had studied hard for five years and cleared all the internal college exams.
The benchs order came on a reference made to it by a two-judge bench, which in May 2016 struck down the admissions.
The verdict had come after revelations that the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), better known by its Hindi acronym Vyapam, let candidates morph photographs and send impersonators to write tests.
Considered one of Indias biggest corruption scandals, the Vyapam scam shot to nationwide notoriety in 2015 after a string of mysterious deaths of witnesses and suspects. Top state BJP leaders and ministers are accused in the multi-crore scam being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In the May 2016 decision, justice J Chelameswar held it would not be prudent to let the students waste the knowledge they had acquired so far. Saying the students were not criminals as they were juveniles when the incident happened, he asked them to serve with the army or in rural areas for five years without getting paid.
Justice AM Sapre, the other judge, disagreed. He ordered they should be completely barred.
Due to this split decision,the matter was referred to a three-judge bench that has now supported justice Sapres view.
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Following a complaint lodged by a Congress MLA of molestation inside the state assembly during the ruckus on February 8, opposition parties protested and walked out on Monday.
On February 8, pandemonium broke out when The West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill 2017 was tabled. Marshals tried to remove the leader of the opposition Abdul Mannan, who allegedly was roughed up. During the commotion a female Congress MLA complained of molestation.
Another Left Front MLA was also allegedly molested during the scuffle.
According to the complaint (a copy of which is with HT) lodged with Hare street police station on February 9, the victim alleged ..I being a female SC member of the House was attacked in an unprecedented manner by the police force and a section of the staff. My modesty and chastity was outraged in full public view..
She further alleged that marshal Debabrata Mukhopadhyay touched me inappropriately and physically violated by sanctity by punching me and pushing me away the complaint read.
Congress MLA lodged a police complaint a day after the incident with Hare street police station, Kolkata. (HT Photo)
She further complained that the marshal abused her as Chup Kor Choto jaath Kothakar (shut up low cast), which is a direct insult to me being a member of scheduled caste community.
On the other hand after the incident accused marshal claimed to the media that a section of MLAS manhandled him while he was trying to remove Mannan after the Speaker suspended him.
On Monday, Congress MLAs tried to raise the issue at the assembly but was turned down by the Speaker. Thereafter, Congress and Left MLAs started to protest inside the assembly. They ultimately walked out the House and protested outside.
This is unprecedented. The leader of the opposition was assaulted by the marshal and the staff. He is now admitted in hospital. A female MLA had her modesty outraged, But the government is not even ready to listen. There is jungle raaj going on in the state, said Manoj Chakraborty, Congress MLA from Berhampore.
Along with the Left we will continue our protest inside and outside the assembly against Trinamool Congress government, said Chakraborty.
We will have to protest. There is an attempt to bruch up what happened on February 8. We have not been allowed to speak inside the house, said Sujan Chakraborty, CPI(M) MLA.
Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool Congress MLA and state education minister said, This is unparliamentary behaviour on the part of the opposition party.
Meanwhile, Mannan who, after the incident, is admitted at Apollo Gleneagles hospitals, Kolkata and had a pacemaker implanted. After chief minister Mamata Banerjee met him on Saturday, Kolkata police offered body guards and police protection. Mannan however refused.
Abdul Mannan has refused police protection offered to him. He is stable and recovering well, said Amitava Chakraborty, senior state Congress leader.
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When Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurates the new Kalimpong district at mela ground of Kalimpong town on Valentines Day, she may actually stoke the original love of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha -- that for their much cherished state of Gorkhaland.
Though the chief minister has been able to cut to size Bimal Gurung and his outfit Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) and quell the Gorkhaland movement, the new district may give rise to new complications. Gurung has also threatened to launch a new stir when the new district comes up.
Read: Gurung warns of violent stir after Oct 20
At the heart of the matter is a dispute over holding rural polls in the district that may stoke agitations afresh.
If Kalimpong people demand three-tier panchayat polls, and want to stay out of GTA, the state government might look into their demand. Its heading for a complete mess, Rajen Mukhia, president Darjeeling district hills Trinamool Congress.
We always supported a separate district of Kalimong. But the state government should have consulted all the stake holders including GTA, but it has not done so. Now things are heading towards a complete mess, said Amar Singh Rai, GJM MLA from Darjeeling.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made it a point to continuously highlight how much she personally cared for the hills and that she wont allow the residents to feel deprived in her development agenda. (HT Photo)
Kalimpong that is now a sub division is remotely located and it needed upgrade to a district for solving day-to-day administrative problems that residents faced. Less than two years ago Mamata Banerjee promised to turn Kalimpong into a district to alleviate their problems.
Political leaders point out that one of the questions that will emerge, is whether the new district will remain under the jurisdiction of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), an autonomous development body formed in 2012 after second round of Gorkhaland movement in three hill sub divisions of Darjeeling district.
Read: Gorkhaland demand, ethnic politics still key cards in Darjeeling
A section of the people in Kalimpong including Harka Bhadur Chettri, the former leader of GJM who is now the president of Jana Andolan Party (JAP) that is close to the chief minister think that there should be a three-tier panchayat system in the new district. In the rest of the hill areas in Darjeeling district Kurseong and Darjeeling sub divisions- the one-tier panchayat system should prevail. Incidentally, elections were held in these panchayat areas in 2004.
Many feel in case the state decides to hold three-tier panchayat election in Kalimpong district, which is still under the jurisdiction of GTA, it should also do the same in remaining two hill sub divisions of Darjeeling district. But, the existence of Mahakuma Parishad in Siliguri sub division of Darjeeling district and the existence of GTA in Darjeeling hills make things complicated.
The Constitution was amended to make room for the Mahakuma Parishad (top most tier of panchayat system for only Siliguri sub division of Darjeeling district) when the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) was formed for remaining three hill subdivisions in 1988 after violent Gorkhaland movement. Subsequently, DGHC was dissolved and replaced by the GTA.
The formation of Kalimpong district is also set to challenge the might of Bimal Gurung. Recently, the GJM students association lost the student council election to JAP in Kalimpong College.
Over the past few years, the Mamata Banerjee government formed 15 development boards for different Gorkha communities much against the will of GJM. Most of these boards are headquartered in Kalimpong where JAP has aggressively campaigned to highlight how GTA has deprived Kalimpong sub division.
The state government has already allotted almost Rs 300 crore to the development boards. Bimal Gurung, the GTA chief executive, has claimed the amount is more than that given to the GTA by the state government.
Though Gurung has also welcomed the decision to form a separate Kalimpong district, he has questioned the motive of the chief minister and has threatened to intensify the Gorkhaland stir. He has called upon hill people to understand the ulterior motive of the state government to divide the hill communities through development boards and prepare for Gorkhaland stir.
Kalimpong, once under the Bhtanese to the east of Teesta River was ceded to the British East India Company through the Treaty of Sinchula in 1865 after Anglo-Bhutan War in 1864. Kalimpong was added to Darjeeling district in 1866.
Due to its proximity to the Nathu La and Jelep La, Kalimpong became an important trading outpost in the trade between India and Tibet. Kalimpong used to be an Indo-Tibet gateway before Chinas annexation of Tibet and the Sino-Indian War.
Kalimpong was also at the centre stage of the violent movement for separate Gorkhaland state in the 1980s, and from 2008 to 2011. The police firing on July 27 1986 in Kalimpong on the supporters of Gorkhaland killed several and moved the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland to a higher gear.
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Education minister Partha Chatterjee announced in the Assembly on Wednesday that the department has started the process of recruiting 72,000 teachers, only to be followed by threats by prominent lawyers belonging to opposition parties to stall the governments plan.
While speaking to the media at the Assembly, Chatterjee expressed the fear of litigations. We have started the process of recruiting 72,000 teachers. As many as 42,400 appointment letters are ready. Recruitments will start by March 15, provided people do not drag the matter to the court again, Chatterjee said and indicated at two prominent lawyers belonging to opposition parties, without naming them.
Chatterjee added that 1.23 lakh candidates qualified for the 2015 Teachers Eligibility Test, of which 72,000 are being recruited. According to him, several candidates who passed the test were disqualified during verification of information provided by them.
Verification was the most important parameter. Claims of all examinees were verified under strict parametres, the minister said.
We are assuring all applicants that the process will be conducted with utmost transparency. If you see some problems, lets talk. Lets solve the issues amicably. But do not stall the entire process of recruitment dragging it into the court, he added.
Those who have been selected have started getting SMSs from the state government informing them about the selection. Of the 72,000 posts, nearly 42,000 will be primary school teachers.
The education minister is apprehensive of fresh lawsuits because he knows the process is full of malpractices. There are two particular reasons why government is scared of court cases the process is non-transparent and reservation policies have not been followed, said Sujan Chakraborty, leader of the CPI(M) parliamentary party in the Assembly.
Elaborating on their allegation of non-transparency, Chakraborty said, The government has not published the list of successful candidates despite our repeated demands. Only individual candidates can check on website whether they succeeded or not. This has been done on purpose to ensure that unqualified candidates do not get to identify people who scored poorer in exams but managed to bag a job.
Talking to HT minutes after Chatterjees announcement, advocate-cum-CPI(M) leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said, Of course we will take the legal way and stall their corrupted process of recruitment. The entire process has been manipulated by bribery.
Bhattacharya earlier appeared at court for several petitioners who alleged malpractices in the exam and recruitment process.
Hearings in the existing lawsuits have not taken place recently and it is that delay that possibly encouraged the government to move ahead with their agenda, Bhattacharya added.
Chatterjee must have the knowledge of malpractices and this makes him plead in advance against lawsuits, remarked Arunabha Ghosh, another prominent lawyer and Congress leader.
The teacher recruitment process in the Trinamool Congress regime has been marred with controversies since the beginning of the Mamata Banerjee regime.
The primary Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) exam for recruitment of primary teachers in state-run schools, conducted in 2012 and taken by 17,51,051 candidates for about 35,000 posts, got embroiled in controversy in November 2013 when results showed only 18,793 candidates (1.07%) qualified, leaving about 16,000 seats vacant.
The government later allowed the unsuccessful TET candidates can reappear in another test but several candidates had moved court.
The TET exam in August 2015 had to be rescheduled after a bag of question papers were mysteriously missing. Controversy marred the rescheduled examination as well, held across the state in October 2015 - in which nearly 23 lakh aspirants appeared - over allegations of some questions being in circulation on social media even before the exams started. The education board, however, refused the reschedule the exam.
In 2016, a Calcutta High Court bench had vacated its stay order on recruitment on the basis of the 2015 test, following which the results were published in September.
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Fearing that their relationship will not receive parental approval, a teenage girl and her lover committed suicide at Bagundi village in Murshidabad barely a day before Valentines Day.
The bodies were found hanging from a tree in the locality on Monday morning.
Sources said the 16-year-old children both students of Benipur High School were in love, and wanted to be wedded. However, the two believed their parents will not allow them to take such a step until they were of marriageable age.
Everyone in our class was aware of their relationship. They initially planned to tie the knot on Valentines Day, keeping their relatives in the dark. However, they later understood that marrying at that age wouldnt be possible without their parents consent. So they decided to end their lives, said a common friend.
An uncle of the boy said he was last seen in his room around 8:30 pm on Sunday. While heading out, he said he was going to play carrom with some friends. He did not return home that night, and the following morning, we found both of them hanging from the tree, he added.
The girls relatives claimed she left the house while they were busy with a family function. The main entrance was open till late in the night. She talked with her relatives for some time, and then she went to her bedroom. We didnt even realise when she left the house. It was only in the morning that some villagers informed me about the suicide, said an uncle.
Both the families denied having any knowledge about the relationship. They were in their teens. It must have been an impulsive decision, the girls uncle claimed.
Rabi Malakar, officer-in-charge of Ranitala police station, said the bodies have been sent for an autopsy to confirm the cause of death.
Also read | Suicide pact? Couple, 14-year-old daughter found dead at home in outer Delhi
Samajwadi Party MLA Arun Kumar Verma has been booked for murdering a 22-year-old woman who charged him with gang rape in 2013.
The womans body was found near her house in Sultanpur on Sunday morning.
Sultanpur superintendent of police Pawan Kumar confirmed to HT over the phone that the womans father has accused Verma the sitting Samajwadi Party MLA and candidate from Sultanpur Sadar constituency of allegedly murdering his daughter with the help of his aides. The complainant lodged the FIR under IPC section 302 for murder at the Jaisinghpur police station, he added.
Verma defended himself and said: Dragging of my name again in the case despite the fact that I was absolved of the charges against me is a political conspiracy against me. I am winning the seat again but the rivals are trying to sabotage it.
Kumar said the woman had accused the MLA and his aides of gang rape in September 2013. The woman later withdrew the charges lodged against him, and some local youths were chargesheeted in the police investigation that followed. The case is still under trial.
Kumar said the victim went missing after she left her house at Jaisinghpur around 7.30 pm on Saturday, telling her parents that she would return in a few minutes. The womans family approached the police late that night, when she did not return.
The womans body was later found near the boundary wall of the Jaisinghpur primary school. While the injury marks around her neck suggested that she was strangled, findings of a post-mortem report suggested death by hanging.
The doctors have also raised suspicions of poisoning, and preserved her viscera for further tests. We are sure there was foul play. We are consulting forensic experts in this regard, Kumar said, adding that an investigation was underway.
Verma, the youngest MLA ever elected in India, emerged victorious from Sultanpur Sadar at the age of 25 in 2012. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had launched the partys poll campaign in the constituency by addressing a public meeting with him.
Cargo ship with 23 Chinese sailors on board detained in India for over a month
The "Union Demeter" detained at India's Haldia port [Photo: Jiangsu News Radio]
A cargo ship from Jiangsu province with 23 Chinese crew members on board has been detained at India's Haldia port for more than a month.
The ship set off from Nantong, east China in July last year, unloaded at Haldia port in December, and has been detained since then.
The freighter "Union Demeter" is owned by Nanjing Tranvast Holdings Limited and all crew members are from Nanjing Yuanteng shipping company.
Captain Dai Xiaosong contacted Jiangsu News Radio and asked for help.
Sailors are holding banners reading "We need help," and "We want to go home." [Photo: Jiangsu News Radio]
Dai said other boats owned by Tranvast didn't pay refuelling expenses, thus the "Union Demeter" was detained by order of a court in Bombay. In the same month when "Union Demeter" unloaded, the ship owner declared bankruptcy.
Sailors said they haven't been paid for five months and the total unpaid wages reached 1.5 million yuan, or 218,000 US dollars.
If there is no other company to take over the cargo ship, the Indian government will not release the crew, said captain Dai.
The stored food, drinking water and fuel on board are nearly used up, said the sailors, and the area they are trapped in has a high risk for dengue fever.
Sailors are having dinner on board. Their food supply is nearly used up. [Photo: Jiangsu News Radio]
Manager Han Lei from the Yuanteng shipping company said they have asked agencies in India to supply necessities to the crew. He said the best solution is that the ship owner pays for the release of the crew and the berth, and then sells the ship to solve their financial problem.
But the ship owner refused to contact the employer of the crew to talk about the issue, said Han, and the cost of berthing the ship at the port has been in the tens of thousands of dollars daily.
If the ship owner still refuses to solve the problem, added Han, each sailor has an insurance based on Maritime Labour Convention, and the insurance company will pay the sailors and take over the ship. But such a process will take a long time.
An Egyptian woman, who weighs around 500kg, reached Mumbai for a weight-reducing bariatric surgery in a specially arranged chartered flight on Saturday.
The 36-year-old Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty stepped out of her house for the first time in 25 years to come to Mumbai. She has been suffering from multiple medical conditions and her treatment will be a long process which is expected to stretch over a couple of years.
Here are 10 things about the resident of the port city of Alexandria:
1) Abd El Aty weighed about 5kg when she was born and started to put on weight by the age of 11.
2) She had to discontinue schooling after Class 5 due to lethargy caused by thyroid problems.
3) The continuous weight gain restricted her lower extremities and she started to crawl instead of walking.
4) In 2014, when she weighed 300kg, Ahmed had high cholesterol level and a sudden stroke left her paralysed, impacted her speech and left her completely bedridden.
5) By 2016, Abd El Aty weighed about 500kg and was diagnosed with severe lymphedema and water retention, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and hypothyroidism. She has severe obstructive and restrictive lung disease, gout and is at a very high risk of pulmonary embolism.
6) After repeated attempts to avail medical aid from doctors in Egypt and Greece, Abd El Atys sister Shaimaa started an online campaign which caught the attention of noted laparoscopy surgeon, Dr Muffazal Lakdawala.
7) External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, during her stay at AIIMS Delhi, communicated with officials at the Indian embassy in Egypt who had rejected Abd El Atys visa application to come to India for treatment.
8) Abd El Aty, who lay in a specially created bed by Egyptian artisans, traveled in Egyptair freighter aircraft Airbus 300-600 to Mumbai and was brought to Saifee Hospital in an open to sky truck, covered by all sides for security purposes.
9) She is currently at a specially created 1,000 sqft first-floor facility, which used to be the accounts office previously. A ground floor structure, created by Saifee for Ahmed was demolished by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) due to lack of permission.
10) Abd El Aty is currently under observation. Before any surgical intervention, she will need a series of medical tests including routine body check-up and a complete body profile test. Doctors will also do a special gene study for the 91 different types of biomarkers isolated with obesity related syndrome.
Will NCP support BJP govt in Maharashtra if Shiv Sena quits?
With Shiv Sena threatening to pull out from the Maharashtra government, question doing rounds in the political circles is: will Sharad Pawars Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to save the government? Read
In Mumbai: 100 women block tracks to protest sealing of 99 illegal buildings in Digha
Around 100 women from Kalwa and Vitawa blocked tracks for 15 minutes to protest the sealing of 99 illegal building on the MIDC land at Digha, which falls under the jurisdiction of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC). Read
Maha govt framing new policy for safety of kids in creches, daycares
The policy states that private-run creches and daycares must register themselves with the local government agencies; a move that will help keep tab on the hitherto unregulated sector. Read
In Mumbai: 22 godowns gutted in major fire at Mumbra
Six water tankers and two fire engines were rushed to the spot after the fire brigade received information about the mishap. Officials said they are yet to asses the amount of property destroyed in the fire and will file a case after thorough investigation. Read
Call details leak: Women paid to spy on their husbands; spies turn double agents, extortionists
Officers investigating the Call Data Record (CDR) leak case have found that 70% clients were women seeking details of their would be husbands and those suspecting their husbands of having affairs. These women paid hefty sums to secure the CDRs. Read
Rallies, competitions and extra marks schools are using all these and more to get students to urge their parents to vote in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections.
On Monday, students of Anjuman-I-Islam group of institutions held rallies and performed street plays in south Mumbai. Students of Bycullas Saif Tyabji Girls School, Saboo Siddik Engineering College and Akbar Peerbhoy College, Grant Road spread the word with placards and banners that read: Mumbaikar vote kar (Mumbai citizens, go vote).
In 2012, the voter turnout was as low as 40%, which is sad, said Zahir Kazi, president of the Anjuman institutions in Maharashtra. We need to remind people not to treat poll day as a holiday.
Suburban schools belonging to the group will hold similar activities on Tuesday. Each child will write a letter to their parent on why they should vote, and students will be rewarded if both their parents vote. This is not about not promoting any candidate or party. We just want to increase the citys voting percentage, said Kazi.
City schools have been spurred into action by AGNI (Association for Good Governance in India), a non-government organization (NGO) working for good governance. They have roped in schools such as Avabai Petit, Bandra, Jamnabai Narsee School, Juhu and the 150-schools run by the Archdiocesan Board of Education (ABE).
The NGO has trained teachers in cultivating political awareness among students. Our students have pledged to convince parents to cast their vote, said Anna Correa, principal, Stanislaus School, Bandra. On Friday, teachers will send notes to parents to commit to voting. Extra marks will be given to students doing art and craft projects on this topic.
While taking up awareness activities, schools need to exercise caution, said clinical psychologist Seema Hingorrany. There is a danger of creating a bias in students minds, which can lead to conflicts and reflect in their personality, she said.
In 2014, the Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights had written to the state election commission asking political parties not to involve children in campaigns, as they do not have the maturity to understand the consequences.
Read: BMC Polls: Maharashtra government declares holiday on February 21
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Officers investigating the Call Data Record (CDR) leak case have found that 70% clients were women seeking details of their would be husbands and those suspecting their husbands of having affairs. These women paid hefty sums to secure the CDRs.
After the police busted the racket last week, they suspected it to be a case of large-scale corporate espionage. Out of the 200 CRD cases, 130 involved women seeking information about their husbands and spouse-to-be.
What surprised the cops was that the detectives cheated their clients by doctoring CDRs and even blackmailed women by threatening to spill the beans in front of the person on whom they were hired to spy on.
So far, three people have been arrested, while the fourth accused, said to be the mastermind of the scam, is on the run. Those arrested include an owner of detective agencies.
The scam was busted after the crime branch received a tip-off that Laxman Thakur and Kirtesh Kavi were selling CDRs illegally. Police team laid a trap and arrested Thakur, who then revealed Kavis involvement during investigation. Cops searched Kavis office and recovered more than 100 CDRs. The third person arrested was identified as Shailesh Manjrekar. The scams mastermind, Delhi resident Saurabh Sahu, is on the run.
Also read: Mumbai man dupes TV producer, govt officials by promising Mhada flats, held
Claiming that the 2017 Mumbai civic poll results will be surprising, Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam on Monday said that the fight was between his party and Shiv Sena while the Bharatiya Janata Party will be pushed to third position. Nirupam said the hardcore Sena votes are not enough for the party to win and the BJP will not get the support of the Marathi and the non-Marathi voters.
During a candid interaction with Hindustan Times journalists at the newspapers office, Nirupam said the Congress will not allow the two ruling parties to team up to power after elections and they will have to sit in opposition. He also claimed that no party will be able to cross the mark of 80 seats in the 227-seat civic body going to election on February 21.
BJP assumes to be largest party in the state, but its my strong belief and not prediction, that it will be thrown to the number three position. Shiv Sena and BJPs long standing drama of fighting ahead of the election and joining hands after the polls will no longer be accepted by the voters. Now, the fight for the top position is between us and the Sena, he said.
Nirupam said that barring one or two seats each in areas such as Bhandup, Mulund, Kandivali, Jogeshwari and Kandivali , the Sena is not in the position to win without having support of other communities. He said that Senas fate in its bastion of Mahim and Dadar depends on the performance of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
Also read: Congress Gurudas Kamat, Sanjay Nirupam meet to settle dispute on seats
They say the earth belongs to all and all belong to the earth, but did this hold true for three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose body washed ashore a Turkish beach in 2015?
A panel discussion on migration held as part of the HDFC Home Loans literature section of the HT Kala Ghoda Arts Festival sought to explore this question. The panel featured filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee, visual artist Sharmishta Ray and development studies professor Ashwini Kumar.
It was moderated by Bina Sarkar Ellias, director and founder of International Gallerie Magazine.
When you are forced to migrate, you are stripped of things familiar to you - your home, your family and belongings, said Ray, as she narrated her story of forced migration from Kuwait to Kolkata. You lose the idea of possession or what it means. It becomes immaterial because nothing is yours.
Kumar discussed how being able to move from one place to another is a human right.
All migrants seek is hospitality and that often ends up attracting hostility, Kumar added.
Speaking about his move from Delhi to Mumbai, Banerjee said that we often forget that moving cities is also a migration of sorts.
Why do I not feel like a migrant then? he asked. Because I moved from an educated, English speaking, so-called elite class of one city to a similar one in another city. I may have changed cities but not domains, he said, answering his own question.
Its all about acceptance, said 43-year-old James Gomes, a professor from Andheri who attended the session. Forget borders, lets be humans first.
Read
HT Kala Ghoda Arts Festival: Between the Bombay that was and the Mumbai that is
HT Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai: Experts ask if a city can be planned
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Around 100 women from Kalwa and Vitawa blocked tracks for 15 minutes to protest the sealing of 99 illegal building on the MIDC land at Digha, which falls under the jurisdiction of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC).
Samadhan Pawar, deputy commissioner of police (GRP), said, After receiving information that 100 women had blocked railway tracks, we rushed to the spot and removed the protesters immediately. No arrests have been made so far.
The women were protesting was against the court order directing the NMMC officials to seal the illegal building.
Arvind More, railway activist from Kalwa, said, Earlier, the women had planned to protest at the collectors office but changed their plan at the last minute. They will now head to the collectors office.
Being non-peak hours, only a handful of Kalyan-bound services were delayed by 10 minutes. Services resumed normalcy soon after the protesters were cleared off the tracks.
Recently, slum dwellers from Diva had blocked tracks to protest gainst demolition of illegal structures by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation.
Also read: Fire, falling metal sheet disrupt CR services twice in a day
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A fire that broke out inside a plastic godown at Achar Gali in Mumbra at 2 am on Monday spread to the neighbouring structures, reducing 22 godowns to ashes.
Santosh Kadam, regional disaster management officer, said, Fortunately, no loss of life or casualty was reported in the mishap. Though the fire was brought under control by 8 am, we are still using water tankers as plastic takes time to burn out and reignites if not extinguished properly.
He added that six water tankers and two fire engines were rushed to the spot after they received information about the mishap. We are still trying to ascertain the reason behind this mishap, Kadam said.
Also, the fire brigade officials are yet to asses the amount of property destroyed in the fire and will file a case after thorough investigation.
Also read: Six children injured as fire near Masjid station chars huts
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htmedia@hindustantimes.com
Residents of several areas, including in south Mumbai and the western suburbs, may have to deal with sleeplessness thanks to some noisy construction of the new Metro lines at night.
In an attempt to speed up construction work of the Metro corridors in the city, the MMRDA has written to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) seeking exemption from the rule that restricts construction at night.
Currently, the noise standards, as laid down under the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, does not permit noise levels to go beyond 55dB and 50dB during the day and 45dB and 40dB during the night, respectively, in residential and silence zones.
According to MMRDA officials, they intend to carry out construction of the Metro corridor round the clock to achieve its deadline of 2019. We have written to the CPCB to allow Metro construction at night time. The part of construction that creates the most amount of noise is piling, and we plan to finish that work by December 2017, said Pravin Darade, additional metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA.
Meanwhile, average noise levels from construction are twice the permissible limits in Mumbai. According to a noise monitoring survey carried out across Mumbai periodically from 2011 to 2015 by non-profit Awaaz Foundation, construction activities, which included noise from stone-crushing machines, power generators, use of hammers and drilling equipment, were listed as one of the top sources of noise in the city.
According to the survey, the average decibel (dB) level during construction activities was found to be 107dB, as against the safety limit of 55dB during the day and 45dB at night for residential zones, and 50dB during the day and 40dB at night for silence zones.
Currently, the construction of Dahisar-DN Nagar Metro 2A, Dahisar east-Andheri east Metro 7 and Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro-3 is underway in the city. While work on two more Metro corridors DN Nagar-Mankhurd Metro-2B and Wadala-Kasarvadavali Metro-4 is expected to commence by October.
Last month, residents of Marol had filed a complaint with metropolitan magistrate court of Andheri against Mumbai Metro Rail Coporations officials for violating the rule by carrying out Metro-3 construction during the night.
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As the campaign for the Mumbai civic polls gained momentum over the past few days, the ruling allies-turned-foes the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena have been targeting each other. Their two top leaders chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray are criticising each other so bitterly, that even the Opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are surprised. The BJP called Thackeray a boss of mafias while the Sena accused the BJP of admitting goons into its fold. Fadnavis went on to call the Sena a party of extortionists, while Thackeray described the former as a half-baked idiot. On Monday, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya announced the names of seven companies and asked Sena leaders to come clean on their connections to these companies.
The campaign for the civic polls ends on February 19 and we dont know how low this bitter tussle will go as the two parties keep trying to put each other down.
This is not the first time that the parties in the ruling alliance are targeting each other in the local polls. During their 15-year-long rule, the Congress and the NCP were often at loggerheads, with leaders from both sides vowing to teach the other side a lesson. However, the ongoing fight between the allies-cum-rivals establishes new example of this friendly fight.
Even if this tussle is getting more and more bitter, there wont be an issue if one of the two parties wins the majority on its own and gets to rule the Mumbai civic body. That will also settle the dispute over who the big brother in Mumbai is. But, what if neither of the two parties goes beyond 80-90 seats and falls short of 30-40 to win power in the BMC?
Considering the current political circumstances and ground realities, the two saffron partners would have no option but to come togethersomething similar to what happened in the Kalyan civic body. And in such a case, how would they justify their reunion after a bitter divorce followed by the ugly skirmishes?
The way the two parties are going after each other means that either both are confident of winning the BMC on their own or that they are taking the people for granted. They dont think people will see anything wrong or inappropriate in them coming together after the polls.
Lets keep the Mumbai civic body issue aside.
The Shiv Sena is still a partner in the BJP-led governments at the Centre as well as in the state. What if it decides to continue to be a part of these governments after the current polls are over? Will Fadnavis still go ahead with the probe into the multi-crore scams in the BMC? Will Thackeray suddenly start praising the Modi government to justify continuing at the Centre? Will Saamana editorials stop taking potshots at the Prime Minister?
Often, politicians love to believe that public memory is short. This also gives them the confidence to stoop low while criticising rivals, and later come up with reasons to justify joining forces with the same people. Will we see the same again? Unless of course, politics in Maharashtra is reaching another turning point.
Read: Note ban barbs Shiv Senas tactic to take focus off scams in Mumbai civic body: Maha CM
Fight is between us and Sena, BJP will be pushed to third place: Mumbai Congress chief
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A fire-jumping activity was held in the village of Songdong in Putian, Fujian province on Feb. 12, the 15th day of lunar January, China News reported. During the activity, villagers jumped over a fire to pray for a better new year. The event, held once a year to celebrate the Lantern Festival, continues until the fire burns out.
Corruption cases pending against them, sitting corporators are getting their husbands, wives and sons to fight for seats in the upcoming polls to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election.
Data obtained by Right to Information activist Jeetendra Ghadge shows eight sitting corporators have cases pending against them inquiry is pending in four cases, two are pending trial and two investigations are yet to be initiated.
Family members will contest in a bid to retain power along with corruption cases, reservation of wards after delimitation has changed the dynamics.
BJP sitting corporator Gyanmurti Sharmas wife Sangeeta is contesting from ward 44 (New Collectors MHB Colony ward). Gyanmurti, an advocate, was booked in a case by the Anti-Corruption Bureau after his driver was arrested accepting bribe. He is not contesting this year but his wife, an HSC pass, will. Sitting Congress corporator Mohsin Haiders wife Meher is contesting from ward 66 in Andheri. Haider has a case pending against him since 2012. Similarly, sitting corporator Lalitha Annamalai has a case pending against her. Her husband Dr S Annamalai is contesting from ward 164 on a Sena ticket. Ex-corporator Alijan Shaikhs son is contesting from ward 101. Alijan is also allegedly involved in a corruption case.
Some former corporators who are contesting also have cases against. These include Ajit Raorane, a former NCP corporator contesting from ward 43, Mohan Lokegaonkar, former Sena corporator now contesting independently. Apart from a corruption case, Lokegaonkar has faces a case of attempted murder dating back to 2010 and an assault case registered against him last year. A senior ACB official confirmed the cases against the corporators.
Politicals parties need to understand giving tickets to tainted candidates affects the credibility of the entire party on a local and national level. Instead of giving importance to the winning prospects of one candidate, the party should think about losing the faith of citizens at large, Ghadge said.
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Shiv Sena leaders involved with shell firms, says BJP MP Kirit Somaiya
Ratcheting up his attack against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the high-stake civic polls, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has called the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government the worst ever regime to govern the country.
The Modi government is the worst we have ever seen. Here the soldiers undertook the surgical strikes while the BJP is taking undue credit for it. Will the Centre also take responsibility for substandard meals given to them? They have to fight the enemy on an empty stomach, said Uddhav on Sunday.
He taunted the BJP saying that some people feel the country came into existence only in 2014.
Uddhav was irked by chief minister Devendra Fadnaviss taunt on why Uddhav was affected by demonetisation which was an attempt to flush out black money.
Yes. I am definitely affected by the demonetisation because I am not callous like you (Fadnavis). More than 200 people have died owing to the decision. One of them was also a soldier who committed suicide due to the note ban. Now, the time has come to flush out the BJP, he added.
Throughout the day, Uddhav and Fadnavis traded barbs on each other in their public meetings.
Uddhav has put the onus of transperancy in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on the state government.
If you want accountability then you should question the BMC commissioner appointed by your government. The BMC was ranked first for transparency in a report prepared by the central government while the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, of which Fadnavis was the mayor, does not feature anywhere, he added.
He said he still stands by his statement praising the Congress for undertaking developmental works such as Metro.
In a Saamana editorial, the Sena had criticised Modis raincoat jibe at former PM Manmohan Singh, and openly praised the Congress for the countrys development.
When the Congress undertake projects, you accuse them of corruption. Later, you come to power and take credit for these projects, said Uddhav Thackeray.
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Mumbai civic polls: Shiv Sena says BJP out to break Mumbai, praises Congress PMs for Indias growth
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The government railway police (GRP) have started collecting DNA samples from unidentified bodies found on railway premises so that their identities are not lost in case a relative or friend comes looking for them some day. Until this year, the practice was to retain the persons clothes and photograph the body before conducting the last rites in seven or eight days.
About 3,208 people died on railway premises in 2016, of which the GRP managed to identify and return the bodies of 2,177 to their families. Despite this, 1,031 or 32% of bodies remained unidentified. This number was 1,017 in 2015 and 1,091 in 2014. There are 88 identified bodies already this year.
Now with the possibility of DNA testing, more missing-person cases could be solved, meaning fewer families would have to suffer the agony of never knowing what happened to their loved ones.
In case a relative comes forward, the GRP will check its records of photos, descriptions and clothes of the deceased. If none prove helpful a DNA analysis will conducted at the Forensic Science Laboratory, Kalina.
The railway police already have the SHODH portal [http://%28www.shodh.gov.in/](www.shodh.gov.in), which has details of all unidentified bodies found on railway premises in the past five to six years. It enables people to search for their missing relatives or friends online, without having to visit police stations, hospitals and mortuaries.
Mumbai GRP commissioner Niket Kaushik confirmed that his team has started retaining DNA samples from unidentified bodies since the start of the year.
A Mumbai police officer, who did not wished to be named, said, If the government allows us access to the Aadhar card database then we can use it to find the identity of the deceased through the persons fingerprints. It is learnt that the GRP is also is exploring the possibility of using Aadhar card details to identify dead bodies.
Also read: Locate toilets, ticket counters at Mumbai railway stations using app
Slow learners will be allowed to use a writer only if they have a doctors recommendation in the upcoming Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams. This has upset child development specialists and parents, who had demanded extension of this facility to all slow learners.
A slow learner is below the average intelligence quotient and whose thinking skills have developed significantly slower than others of his/her age.
A government resolution issued last January revising the concessions offered to students with special needs, states that writers are allowed for Matimanda or mentally-challenged children with an IQ below 70 and those with learning disabilities (LD). But slow learners do not fall in any of the categories as they have an IQ between 70 and 90 and so, they are not given writers.
After education experts intervened in the matter, the board this year decided to form a panel to approve writers for slow learners on a case-by-case basis. Our rules do not permit writers for slow learners so we have asked divisional boards to form a panel, which will decide whether a writer should be assigned to a particular student or not, said Gangadhar Mhamane, chairperson of the Maharashtra State Board Of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.
The Mumbai divisional board, which includes Thane, Palghar and Raigad, has started granting approvals to those with doctors recommendation. We have given slow learners permission only if their doctor has recommended it, said Siddheshwar Chandekar, divisional secretary of the board.
But unlike LD students, who are certified by government approved hospitals in the city, there is no such official certification centre for slow learners. In absence of certification, we do not know how to ascertain whether a candidate is genuine and incapable of writing on his own, said Chandekar.
Medical experts plan to take up the issue with education minister Vinod Tawde asking him to support slow learners. We are in talks with the education officials and hope to get a favourable response within the next few days, said Dr Harish Shetty, senior psychiatrist, Dr LH Hiranandani Foundation Hospital, Powai.
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Maharashtra state board to introduce OMR sheets in SSC/HSC exams
Maharashtra to form a writers pool for disabled students
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With Shiv Sena threatening to pull out from the Maharashtra government, question doing rounds in the political circles is: will Sharad Pawars Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to save the government?
In the run up to the BMC polls, BJP and Sena are leaving no stone unturned to portray the other in bad light . Going a step ahead, Sena leaders have now hinted at quitting the state government, sparking speculations that the party may withdraw support to the BJP-led state government after the civic elections.
The events have also brought the NCP in focus, as the party had given unconditional support to the Fadnavis government in 2014 after the assembly elections. Sources said the NCP leadership is in no hurry and will wait and see the outcome of local polls in Maharashtra and assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh to see which way the wind blows.
A section in the NCP believes that the party may support the BJP government, but this time it will have conditions. Sources said this will give the party an opportunity to bail out its leaders facing inquiries for alleged scams. However, they are not sure if chief minister Fadnavis will agree to their demands.
While another section in the party said they are ready to face mid-term elections. The party is in the position to go for mid-term assembly elections. NCP would like to take Congress along to kick out BJP government from the state, said a senior party functionary.
The BJP and the Sena have 121 and 63 MLAs, respectively, and their alliance enjoys a comfortable majority in the 288-member assembly. However, if Sena quits, the Fadnavis government will then fall short of 24 seats as it need 145 seats to prove majority.
Commenting on the issue, NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said they will neither support BJP nor Shiv Sena. NCP is ready to go for mid-term polls if Sena pulls out from the state government, he said. But added that Sena will not dare to take such a drastic step. The party has no guts to pull out from the government, Malik said.
Also read: Sena not quitting Maharashtra govt as it enjoys warmth of power: Sharad Pawar
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Indian tabla player Sandeep Das was part of Yo-Yo Mas Silk Road Ensemble Sing Me Home that won the Grammy in the World Music category that also included sitarist Anoushka Shankars Land of Gold.
It was sixth time unlucky for Shankar as she is yet to register a win despite multiple nominations in the category over the years.
Yo-Yo Mas Sing Me Home features tunes composed or arranged by different global artists as it examines the ever-changing idea of home.
The album was released to accompany a documentary on Mas project entitled The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble.
Members of the Silk Road Ensemble arrive at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S. , February 12, 2017. (REUTERS)
Apart from Ma and Das, musicians on the album include the New York-based Syrian clarinet player Kinan Azmeh, who was recently stranded overseas when US President Donald Trump imposed a ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Azmeh could return to country after a court rejected Trumps travel ban order.
Das, who was dressed in red kurta, said the ensemble sent a powerful message of unity and respect for each others cultures.
Sandeep Das @santript gets a Grammy for Best World Music Album. Yayyyyyy ! pic.twitter.com/XHK3lABGIW Shubha Mudgal (@smudgal) February 13, 2017
When things like this happen, it impacts us directly because a lot of us come from a lot of those countries, Das told reporters after accepting the award.
In the current situation, I think well keep playing more music and sharing more love.
Sing Me Home won in a category that included Shankars Land of Gold, which is about the global refugee crisis.
The 35-year-old Indian musician was accompanied by her husband, British director Joe Wright at the music ceremony.
Very excited that this man is my date to the #grammys today! Its the first time hes been free to join me. #husband #JoeWright #love, she had tweeted ahead of the ceremony.
For the event, the musician chose a red, high-slit velvet Sabyasachi Mukherjee gown.
Anoushka Shankar arrives for the 59th Grammy Awards pre-telecast on February 12, 2017. (AFP)
Shankar, the daughter of famous sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, received her first ever Grammy nomination at the age of 20 but she is yet to bag an award despite multiple nominations.
However, her late father won two individual Grammys as well as two in collaborations.
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Paris Jackson has returned to Staples Center for the Grammys eight years after attending her fathers memorial service at the Los Angeles arena.
In 2009, Jackson was 11 years old and surrounded by her extended family when she told the crowd, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine, and I just want to say I love him so much.
Now 18, the only daughter of the late Michael Jackson introduced a performance by The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk.
She wore flowers in her blond hair and sported a nose ring.
Paris Jackson introduces a performance by The Weeknd and Daft Punk at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. (AP)
We can really use this kind of excitement at a pipeline protest you guys, she told the audience. Everyone looks so beautiful, especially Beyonce.
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Forty-year-old Mohammed Irfan from Muzaffarnagar has been calling up his ally Raja, a resident of Vijay Nagar in Ghaziabad quite often since December to find out if the job situation has improved in Noida. Irfan is a carpenter, while Raja is a painter working in the unorganised sector.
Until the first week of November last year, both of them would often meet at the Labour Chowk in Sector 58 and help each other find work.
With every passing week, the frequency of calls from Irfan has increased. After leaving Noida in November-end, he would call up once a fortnight till mid-January. Then he started calling once a week. Now, he calls twice a week to find out if there is any work for him. He has not been getting any work in Muzaffarnagar. He has a family of six to feed, Raja said.
Till November-end, Irfan lived in Khoda. I was left with no choice but to return home. My monthly room rent was 2,000, besides the electricity and water charges. I found it impossible to live in Noida without any work for three weeks and went home. I am making ends meet by dipping into my savings and taking loans from friends and relatives, Irfan said over the phone.
Irfan and Raja are among nearly 1,000 such masons, carpenters, painters, loading labourers, helpers, plumbers and electricians who would gather at the Labour Chowk. The unorganised workforce is yet to recover from the effects of demonetisation.
According to the workers at the Labour Chowk, a large number of people went home and most of them are yet to return to Noida. You could see over 1,000 skilled and unskilled workers gather here every day, 8am onwards. Now, you will find hardly 300 come here throughout the day. The last time I got wages was four days ago, for unloading work for two hours, Satbeer, a beldar, who came from Aligarh about a year ago to Noida, said.
They came from various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
A carpenter earns 750 a day, mason, 550 a day, painter, 500 a day, plumber, 500 per day, electrician, 400 a day and a beldar, 300-350 a day for loading and unloading material.
Plumbers and electricians have still been able to find work. Even if we are not engaged for the whole day, we do get a job for a few hours to fix leaking taps or choked water pipes. I have been earning 200 to 300 a day thrice a week. The same is the case with electricians, Niraj Pradhan, a plumber, said.
Deputy labour commissioner of Gautam Budh Nagar, BK Rai, said that the labour department has not done a survey of the number of workers who are yet to return since the note ban. The last meeting in this regard was held by the district magistrate on January 4. The opening of bank accounts of labourers and other workers was discussed. However, the model code of conduct for the assembly elections was announced and we were busy with the elections till Saturday, he said.
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As the police are yet to make a breakthrough in the Audi car crash case, in which four persons were killed on the intervening night of January 27 and 28 in Ghaziabad, the senior superintendent of police (SSP) handed over the case to the crime branch.
The incident involves an Audi Q7 owned by Dr Manish Rawat who told the police that he was present in the car during the accident but claimed that his driver Ishaq Ahmad was driving the car. Ishaq Ahmad later turned to a different man, Syed Imtiyaz Qadri, who got bail on January 31. However, he fled his Peerwada residence in Bareilly when it was revealed that he is an impostor.
Since the man is yet to be nabbed, there is no further headway (in the case). I have handed over the case and it will now be investigated by the crime branch officials, Deepak Kumar, Ghaziabad SSP, said.
The families of the accident victims also alleged that the police investigation was biased and the police were lax in their investigation, as they are yet to find out the person who was driving the Audi on the night of the accident.
On January 31, Qadri allegedly surrendered before a Ghaziabad court and claimed to be Ishaq Ahmad, of Labhera village in Bareilly. During a visit by HT team, Ishaq Ahmad turned out to be a different man, a truck driver. Ishaq denied ever knowing the doctor or that he was based in Ghaziabad. He said that Qadri, his co-tenant, misused his driving licence to get bail.
Since the issue came to light, Qadri fled his residence along with his wife and two minor children. Ishaq, who claims he was in Ahmedabad on January 27 and was driving a truck, said that Qadri was paid 8,000 to appear before the court and surrender as the driver of the Audi Q7.
Following Qadris initial surrender and subsequent bail, Dr Rawat also appeared before the police and said that he was present in the Audi but was not driving the car which led to the death of four persons on the Hindon canal road.
So far, the police from Indirapuram police station have failed to track Qadri or get in touch with his case pursuer, Raj Kumar, of Bareilly, and two persons who had furnished sureties for his bail Bareilly resident Suraj Tiwari and Brajesh Singh, of Olive County highrise in Ghaziabad.
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Sahibabad residents and members of Hindu Raksha Dal staged a protest and blocked the Delhi-Wazirabad Road for nearly half hour on Monday after they allegedly found remains of a slaughtered cow in Sikandarpur in Sahibabad. The protesters demanded strict action against the culprits.
Animal slaughters have been regularly reported from Sikandarpur since 2015, which has a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims. Since the discovery of the remains on Monday morning, members of Hindu Raksha Dal alleged that cow slaughter goes unchecked in the area.
Such incidents of cow slaughter are common here. Such incidents have taken place and time and again over the last few years. The police assured us that the culprits will be caught and punished. In a protest against the incident, we blocked the road and also raised slogans against officials, Pinki Chaudhary of Hindu Raksha Dal said.
Incidents of animal slaughter evoke communal tension, especially in western UP. Gauging the sensitivity of the issue, the police pacified the protesters and seized the animal remains. The road was also cleared off.
The animal was a calf and we are trying to trace the culprits. I have ordered an FIR against the unidentified persons, Salmantaj Patil, superintendent of police (SP-city), said.
In an incident in January 2016, cattle remains were found in the area and the incident had evoked protests. Then, the police had set up a temporary picket to maintain round-the-clock vigil.
The picket set up earlier was a temporary one. This time, we have demanded a permanent picket. Such incidents have become common here and hurt the feelings of a particular community, said Kallu Dagar, a protester.
An incident of animal slaughter was reported from Sikandarpur in December 2015 as well. Following protests, three PCR van staff and the sub-inspector, in charge of Tulsi Niketan police post, were suspended.
We will try to set up a permanent picket here. The police presence remained thin as the majority of personnel were busy with the election process, the SP said.
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Both the average price and sales volume of roses in China have increased substantially with the approach of Valentine's Day.
The sales volume of roses in Chengdu, Sichuan province rose by 20 percent year on year, and the total sales volume is estimated to be around 1,320,000, according to a department of the Sichuan Association of Flowers.
Chinese consumers have shown a preference for flowers of high quality, which has driven up demand for imported roses, said a florist with four to five years of experience in the industry. Imported roses, especially those from Ecuador, have thicker stems, fewer thorns, bigger and more attractive petals, and longer life spans than local varieties. They are the most in-demand option for both retailers and customers, though their prices are considerably higher than those of locally-cultivated roses.
Just before Valentines Day, imported roses can sell for 20 RMB each, 15 RMB more than local roses. Imported roses in China come mainly from Ecuador, South Africa, Kenya, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Owing to their packaging and other factors, imported roses can last up to 40 days.
Anubhav Mittal, who is accused of swindling 3,700 crore from over 7 lakh people in one of the biggest internet scams in recent times, was planning to shut down the business of likes and start legitimate e-commerce websites.
He had also floated around 30 bogus agencies and companies to divert the money, the special investigation team (SIT) revealed on Monday.
SIT also seized 5.5 crore an e-wallet payment gateway used by Ablaze Info Solution Private Limited. During investigation we came to know that Mittals company used MobiKwik e-wallet to get money from investors. We have seized the money, Ram Verma, inspector general (IG) of UP STF, who is camping in Greater Noida for the probe, said.
Officials also seized passport of Mittals aides Shridhar and Mahesh, from their Noida and Faridabad residences, respectively. The police is likely to seek an extension of the remand of three accused. The five-day remand of the trio will end on Tuesday at 10am. We will seek more time for questioning on Tuesday. We have been questioning them and taking the three of them to their offices, properties in Noida and Ghaziabad in connection with the probe. Taking them to offices and properties is time-consuming, the IG said.
They knew clearly that cheating people in the name of like a page and get paid business will not survive for long. Therefore, they had planned to shut this investment business and start legitimate businesses. They had planned to show a heavy loss from the Ablaze Info solutions Private Limited accounts to escape the wrath of investors, an official probing the case said.
The three accused were held by a UP Polices Special Task Force (STF) after complaints were registered at Noidas Surajpur and Phase-3 police stations by two people on allegations that the company was not paying them for their investments. The first complaint was filed on January 31 the second one on February 1.
The income tax office, enforcement directorate and other central agencies are also probing the matter. Investors from Nigeria, Kenya and Muscat have also lodged complaints against Mittal.
Mittal had also done transactions with diamond and gold dealers, SIT officials said. We are investigating Mittals idea of diverting funds through gold and diamond dealers, the IG said.
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Cash supply through ATMs is yet to be normalised even three months after the demonetisation of 500, 1,000 notes was announced. Residents said they are frustrated as they have to wait in long queues that continue to persist outside some banks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the demonetisation move on November 8. The Union government had announced that the move was to fight corruption and retrieve the black money. Following the move, banks and ATMs ran out of cash across the country with long queues of people waiting to withdraw their money.
In Noida, several ATMs ran dry after November 8 and long queues were formed, from early morning, outside the ones where cash was available. Modi, in a public rally, had promised that the woes of people across the nation will end after 50 days.
But even three months after the demonetisation, there seems to be no relief as several ATMs continue to remain non-functional. I live in Sector 27 and hardly one out of 15 ATMs in the vicinity has cash. There are no working ATMs in Jaipuria Mall, Ganga shopping complex, Sector 27, Brahmaputra complex, Nithari, Sector 26 and Sector 37 markets. I had to go to the Sector 18 market to withdraw cash, Monika Gupta of Sector 27 said.
Barring a few ATMs in the Sector 18 market and a few in Sector 12, ATMs continue to remain out of cash, even in the industrial areas in sectors 62, 63 and 60.
I found one ATM in Sector 58 market that was working but there was a long queue. I visited the ATM after two hours only to find that it had run out of cash, Rishabh Srivastava, a Delhi resident who works in Sector 58, said.
AK Singh, the lead bank manager of Gautam Budh Nagar, said that the situation of banks in the district has not improved much. He said that an improvement can be expected once there is more clarity on cash withdrawals and deposits.
There are a few banks such as Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank and Syndicate Bank that have been worst hit. The main reason is that there is only one source of cash supply, which is RBI Kanpur. I think the situation will improve once the RBI and government get clear on the rules, Singh said.
District Magistrate NP Singh took cognizance of the situation and said that the district administration will do its best to improve cash supply in ATMs and banks.
I will call a meeting of regional bank managers of banks and instruct them to do the needful, in the interests of the public. I will also prepare a list of banks that have been facing acute cash crisis, Singh said.
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A day after polls were held in Gautam Budh Nagar, the Jewar and Dadri based candidates were occupied in assessing the ground report of elections and chalking out future strategies.
The district witnessed polls on Saturday, in which 7,45,017 of the total 12,86,431 registered voters, in the three constituencies, exercised their franchise.
Candidates chose not to indulge in any premature celebrations as many believe that it is going to be a close contest in both Jewar and Dadri constituencies.
Bahujan Samaj Partys (BSP) Jewar candidate Ved Ram Bhati had an eventful day. For us, the fight is not over and we have a long road ahead. I started my day with my family and then I got busy with the party cadres. They updated me with the information regarding polling in each of the 201 booths of Jewar. We wanted to ensure that the polls were held in free and fair manner, Bhati said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, Dhirendra Singh, said he spent the day with his family and interacted with villagers. Though he was not available on the phone, his party volunteers said that Singh was seen surveying villages in his constituency.
He left to visit villages of Jewar in the morning after meeting his family. Thakur sahab has been working for the people of Jewar for the last thirty years and he made sure that they dont feel that their candidate has deserted them a day after polling. He has been interacting with people all day to get a ground report on the polling day, a party volunteer said.
Singh had also posted a message on Facebook to all his brothers who were angry with him and said that he respects them a lot. For whatever reasons, if any of the brothers have been unhappy with me during the election campaigning, I wish to tell them that I have a lot of respect for them and I pray for their progress (sic), posted Singh.
In Dadri, candidates were occupied in their party offices all day with volunteers to chalk out strategies.
Since my office is in my house, you can say that I was home all day long. But in reality, I only spent few hours with my family in the morning, during breakfast. Today is an important day for us as we have to assess the ground report from the polling booths and analyse our future prospects. I was busy with party cadres and phone calls. It was like any other regular day, Satveer Singh of Bahujan Samaj Party said.
For the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Tejpal Singh Gujjar, Sunday seemed to be a hectic day as he was busy meeting party leaders and attending functions. I spent the entire morning with my family. After that, I had to meet certain party leaders to congratulate them for their efforts. I also went to my people in the constituency and found that I am winning by a thumping majority. Then I attended a few social events, Gujjar said.
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Immigration, or restriction of the same, is the policy front that may come to define the Donald Trump administration. No US president, Republican or Democrat, has so strongly opposed migration in the postwar era. There may be more to this than just prejudice. Trumps presidency reflects what is becoming a major realignment of the US political system.
Consider what the Republican ideology has traditionally stood for: Free trade, mass migration and reduced welfare spending. Then look at the candidate the party faithful chose. Trump opposes trade, wants to build walls against migrants, has promised to not reform Social Security and universalise healthcare.
Some argue Trump is not a real Republican. It may be that he reflects the future of the party. As Jeremy Binckes of salon.com wrote, The next generation of Republicans are going to be Donald Trump Republicans. More interestingly is the likelihood that much of this free market thinking, minus the welfare cuts, may be the platform of a future Democratic Party coalition.
Read: Trump hasnt signed any executive order on H1-B visas, India will react if he does: Govt
Why is this happening? An elected party represents a coalition of social groups. The big switcheroo taking place is the migration of the white working class vote to the Republicans. A pillar of Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal coalition, the 1970s recession drove them into the arms of Ronald Reagan. They went back and forth after that, for example voting for Bill Clinton but rejecting John Kerry. But their Republican links kept getting weaker, especially as the culture wars over gay rights and abortion slowly wound down and only economic and identity issues were left behind. And on these issues these workers were at odds with the corporate Republicans who dictated the partys legislative agenda.
During last years presidential campaign this gap became so large that Trump slipped through. A Pew Research Centre poll showed that among Trump supporters 66% saw immigration as a very big problem, on par with terrorism. Only 17% of Hillary Clinton voters thought the same. Trump was the only one who defied free market orthodoxy to turn against it and against trade, welfare cuts and fiscal prudence.
Read: H1-B visa concerns: IT stocks tumble by 9%; TCS, Wipro, Infosys take a hit
Who will be the US supporters of immigration and, its sister concern, trade in the future? The polling evidence seems to be clear. The younger an American, the more educated, the more metropolitan and the more likely he or she to support open borders.
The backbone of present Democratic support big city, college-educated whites and minorities are exactly these groups. The withering-away of industrial unions, thanks to automation as well as offshoring, will liberate the Democrats to embrace free trade along with mass immigration, argues Michael Lind of the New America Foundation. A Democrat today is two times more likely as a Republican to believe immigrants are positive. The Democrats of 2030 may be more pro-market than the Republicans, says Lind.
But for now, the US will lose the political consensus regarding immigration that it has enjoyed since at least the 1960s. There is some nuance here, however. Polls show Asian and European immigrants receive positive views from all Americans, receiving one-fourth the negative views of Latinos and West Asians.
These sort of divisions exist within the Trump administration. Stephen Bannon, the closest things to a white nativist in the White House, in an interview of Trump complained that so many Silicon Valley chief executives were South Asian. The president-to-be disagreed saying, I still want people to come in. But I want them go through a process.
The leaked White House memoranda indicate the likely trajectory of US immigration policy: a barred door for the poor and uneducated, a welcome mat for PhDs and B Techs.
Read: H1-B visa: Silicon Valley frets as team Trump pushes for curbs
However, the slow turn taking place with US immigration policy, combined with the incoherence of the Trump administration, will most likely mean difficulties for immigrants of all varieties for some years to come.
During this time, the real loss for the US could be the loss of immigrant entrepreneurs, the secret sauce of places like Silicon Valley, North Carolinas Research Triangle and the New Jersey pharma hub. About a third of US hi-tech startups are started by immigrants, thanks to the countrys ability to attract the worlds best brains.
The most telling example of how eager such talent is to stay in the US has been the 1.5 million tech workers, largely Indian and Chinese, who came over on H-1B visas and now queue to convert them into green cards. The wait has slowly increased to several years. Trumps plans would possibly make the present legal limbo into a permanent purgatory.
Read: H-1B visa bill tabled: Its difficult to replace Americans with Indian I-T workers
Unsurprisingly, many of this exceptionally well-educated pool of migrants are beginning to look home, especially the Chinese and Indians. Even before Trumps election this was beginning to show up in the numbers. Vivek Wadhwa, a US-based tech commentator, argues this is why the proportion of immigrant-founded startups in Silicon Valley fell from 52% in 2005 to 44% in 2012 and is probably even lower now. In the coming four years it may become a flood. At least until the ongoing political realignment of America throws up a Democratic government which advocates the policies Republicans once held as their own.
Candidates taking the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) preliminary test (PT) created uproarious scenes before the start of the examination in Patna over delay in distribution of question papers.
Police said six persons had been detained for allegedly creating ruckus at DBRK Jalan High School, Hajiganj in Chowk police station area of Patna City.
The examination was conducted by the BPSC to appoint 642 government officers in Bihar.
The trouble started as the question papers were distributed to the examinees at 12.25 pm, 25 minutes after the scheduled time, a police officer said.
The students protested the delay and alleged that the papers were not distributed on time due to rumours of question leak.
Finding the situation going out of control, a police team, along with executive magistrate, detained six examinees.
Chowk police station SHO AK Pandey said, Police will lodge a case after interrogating them. The situation was brought under control after the police assured examinees that they would be allowed to extra time write papers.
The Bihar State Health Services Association (BSHSA) will strike work across the state on February 14 to protest the alleged manhandling of Dr Arvind Kumar.
Dr Kumar, posted at the Hajipur sadar hospital, was allegedly manhandled by deputy superintendent of police (DSP) headquarters of Vaishali last Friday.
The decision to strike work was taken at an emergency meeting of the BSHSA on Sunday. The association, however, decided to spare emergency medical services, including plying of ambulances from the ambit of the statewide strike.
We have demanded immediate action against the DSP, or else we will intensify our agitation, said general secretary of BSHSA Dr Ranjit Kumar.
He said barring emergency services, functioning of all government hospitals in the state would be paralysed on Tuesday.
Joining the issue, state unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) also issued a call to boycott work. The IMA told its members to skip work in out patient departments (OPDs) in private and government health facilities.
The IMA is against strike but the governments nonchalant attitude in ignoring such episodes has literally forced us to resort to strike, said senior vice-president of the association Dr Ajay Kumar.
The Hajipur incident was not an isolated instance, he said adding over a dozen such cases have been reported in the past in which doctors were assaulted by administrative officials without any reason.
The IMA functionary claimed that despite protests lodged by the victim doctors, the state administration had not taken any action against the guilty officials. He demanded action against them under the provisions of the Bihar Medical Service Institution and Person Protection Act, 2011 (amended in 2014).
Citing an example of such an incident, BSHSA general secretary Dr Ranjit Kumar said during the recent Prakash Parv, one Dr Mahesh was manhandled by a police inspector at Patna City, but no action was initiated against the officer.
Medicare has been paralysed in Vaishali district since Saturday following the incident.
The BSHA meeting was presided over by Dr Bhimsaria. Others who participated in the meeting included Dr Ram Rekha, Dr Sunil Kumar, Dr Rajesh Kumar and Dr Ravishankar Ratnakar.
Earlier, government doctors of Kosi division consisting of three districts Supaul, Madhepura and Saharsa - had struck work for at least 72 hours last month following a brutal attack on Dr Sachidanand Rai by attendants of a patient, who died at the Supaul sadar hospital.
To spare emergency medical services, including plying of ambulances, from the ambit of statewide strike
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Three days after the murder of Akansh Sen, Himachal chief minister Virbhadra Singhs wifes nephew, main accused Balraj Singh Randhawas family has claimed that an accident has been give political colour. Balraj (31) is still absconding. Questions are being raised on the alleged soft-pedalling by the UT Police with no arrests so far. Accusing the police of harassment, Ajmer Singh, 95, the grandfather of the accused, told HT, My grandson is innocent. It was an accident that has been converted into murder, as the victim is related to family that is into politics.
Ajmer, who was all alone in his house in Sector-77, near the accuseds house, is a retired police officer from Punjab. He was attached with the security of former Punjab chief minister Partap Singh Kairon.
Also read | BMW hit-and-run case: Chandigarh cops visited spot an hour before crime
We are not aware of the whereabouts of Balraj and Harmehtab Singh (the second accused in the case), but the police are harassing us for no reason. Even his mother Ramanjit Kaur, who is a cancer patient, and his sister, who had come from Canada to meet her, do not know where is he, Ajmer said, adding that it was foolish on the part of his grandson to run away from the law.
I do not know if my grandson was a friend of Harmehtab Singh Farid, but I know their family, he further said.
Neighbours claim that Randhawa was well-behaved. We cannot believe that he could have done this. We are shocked at the news, is the common refrain.
Balrajs grandfather Ajmer Singh (95). (Ravi Kumar/HT Photo)
BALRAJ RANDHAWAS HOUSE LOCKED
Randhawas house in Sector 77 was found to be locked. The Hindustan Times team observed policemen in civvies outside, waiting in an unmarked car.
The farmhouse of co-accused Harmehtab Singh Farid at Landran. (Ravi Kumar/HT Photo)
SAW FARID ON THE EVENING OF ACCIDENT
If the police had acted swiftly, they might have been able to nab co-accused Harmehtab Singh Farid on Thursday evening, the day of the incident itself at his farmhouse in Landran in SAS Nagar district.
I saw Harmehtab Singh Farid on the evening of the incident and after that we do not know, where he is, says Jasbir Singh, a servant of Farid. He said that none of the servants have seen him since and most of them have left work.
The Chandigarh police have deputed two police personnel outside his five-acre Rarewala Farmhouse in Landran, it has been learnt.
He was not on good terms with his mother, who lives in Rahera village near Khanna in Ludhiana district and hardly visited the farmhouse, Jasbir furthersaid.
Another servant Darbara Singh said, My duty is at the main gate. These days, with police from Punjab and Chandigarh raiding the place, we do not even lock the property.
Neighbours claim that in spite of being neighbours for several decades, they had not visited the farmhouse as the family remained reserved.
Late-night parties were common in the farmhouse, said a neighbour on the condition of anonymity.
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Even as the accused in the murder case of Himachal chief minister Virbhadra Singhs relative Akansh Sen, 28, continue to evade the police for the third day after committing the crime, it has now emerged that nearly an hour before the incident, a police control room (PCR) team had visited the spot.
However, the cops returned after they were told everything was fine and the issue had been resolved.
This has raised questions over whether the PCR team came back prematurely.
Sources say that Deep Sidhu, a national shooter who resides in house number 165 in Sector 9, had reported a quarrel outside my house to the police control room about 4.30am, an hour before the crime.
Also read | Chandigarh: Constitute SIT for proper probe in BMW hit-and-run case, says Virbhadra
A senior police officer told Hindustan Times that its true that the PCR gypsy went to the spot but what exactly transpired isnt known. All I can say is that the complainants sought no action and our team came back, the officer added. Three days after the incident, blood stains are still visible at the spot in the posh sector where the alleged murder took place.
FROM HARD-DISC SNAG TO ACCIDENTAL SWITCH-OFF
There are CCTV cameras all around, but curiously, none of the cameras could capture the incident. Even the neighbours did not hear any noise as the group of youngsters indulged in quarrel before Sen was run over by the BMW. Our hard disc developed a snag, says advocate Lalit Suri, who lives a few yards from the crime scene. Unfortunately, the hard disc malfunctioned. All our CCTV cameras are on the same hard discs.
The area where the incident happened is among the most affluent parts of the city. The altercation began outside Sidhus house as per the FIR.
The house, like other houses in the area, is spread over 2,000 square yards (four kanals) and is opposite Carmel Convent School.
Sen was murdered in front of house number 164 that is owned by Dr BS Jogi, former V-C of Himachal Pradesh University. CCTV cameras are installed in this house as well.
Jogi is 96 and says that its just a coincidence that he turned off his CCTV cameras by mistake that night. I wanted to switch off the heater but by mistake ended up turning-off the CCTV cameras as well, he told HT. Jogi, who was also agriculture director with Himachal Pradesh government, says he turned the cameras on the next morning.
Both Jogi and Suri say they did not hear any noise. They also did not notice any activity that night, even as, by all accounts, a brawl did take place and a PCR van was called. The police had approached the two neighbours.
MISHANDLING OF HIGH-PROFILE CASES : UT COPS FLOUNDER AGAIN
With UT police failing to make any arrests in the case, it is not for the first time that the cops have faced flak for their incompetence in handling high-profile cases. The list of such cases runs long.
PREVIOUS CASES Sippy Sidhu murder (Sept 2015): A lawyer and a national-level shooter, Sippy Sidhu was shot dead in a Sector 27 park in September 2015. After the police failed to make any headway, especially after a judges daughter being named as accused, the victims family lashed out at the police. The case is now with the CBI. Neha Ahlawat Case (July 2010) : The young MBA student was found murdered in Sector 38 in July 2010. With the police making no breakthrough six-and-a-half years later, even the family sees no hope. Sham Mall owner murder (May 2009): Amarjit Singh Khurana was gunned down in Sec 35 in May 2009. First, the UT police and then CBI probed the case. Unable to trace the culprits, CBI filed a closure report, but blamed the UT police for lapses. Dimpy murder (July 2006): One of the tricitys most sensational cases took place in July 2006. Prabhjinder Singh Dimpy, a gangster facing charges of contract killing and abduction, was gunned down by two motorcycle-borne assailants near the Lake Club. The police arrested gangster-turned-politician Jaswinder Singh, alias Rocky, but the court acquitted him hitting out at the police for shoddy investigation. Snehalaya Case (February this Year): The cops booked city mayor Asha Jaswal for trespass into the childrens home last week. BJP is slamming the police for haste in registering an FIR, the Opposition is hitting out at cops for inaction.
We have given up on the police now, says Neha Alhawats dejected father Rajbir singh Ahlawat.
Neha was found murdered in Sector 38 in July 2010.The cops did not have the intent to crack the case.
Its surprising the UT police are not able to solve these cases. Officers are largely on deputation and shouldnt be easy to influence, says advocate DS Saroya, who, as a PCS officer, had held key positions in UT and Punjab.
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Panic gripped Alamgir village after police recovered 26 live shells, rockets and four hand grenades from a vacant plot near Delta City Colony on Ludhiana-Malerkotla road on Monday afternoon.
Senior police officials were also spotted in the area after the incident. The armys bomb disposal squad also reached the spot which was cordoned off by police. Curious onlookers from surrounding villages thronged the area to catch a glimpse of the ammunition.
Police suspect that the ammunition came in containers with scrap from bay countries, imported by local furnace and factory owners who in turn threw the explosives in the vacant plot to avoid attracting attention.
Dehlon station house officer Dalbir Singh said a passerby saw the shells inside a pit and informed the police control room.
We found 26 live shells, rockets and four hand grenades in a rusted condition. Taking precautions, we cordoned off the area and covered the shells with sand bags, he said.
Gill assistant commissioner of police Gurjit Singh said police waited for the army to reach and unexploded shells and other ammunition will be escorted to a safe place for disposal.
Such ammunition has been recovered from iron scrap even in the past. The army disposed them of in bulk near Matterwara in Ludhiana around six years ago. The armys bomb disposal squad arrived seven hours after the sighting because police and district administration delayed sending the written permit.
Police guard the area near Alamgir village on Monday. (Jagtinder Singh Grewal / HT Photo)
FORMALITIES DELAY BOMB SQUAD ARRIVAL
According to protocol, police sends a written request to the deputy commissioner (DC) who further sends it to the army complex at Dholewal in Ludhiana. There is a lot of paperwork and formalities involved. Sources said, police sent a letter to the deputy commissioner Ravi Bhagat after 5.30 in the evening. The DC forwarded it to the army by which time it was already 6.30pm when the formalities were fulfilled.
Earlier in the day, DCP (investigation) Bhupinder Singh said all formalities were completed and the bomb disposal squad was expected any time now.
EXPLOSIVE SCRAP, COMMON PROBLEM IN INDUSTRIAL CITY
Ludhiana: Being an industrial city, the chances of the influx of live ammunition along with scrap are high in Ludhiana. The city frequently imports scrap from bay countries. In the past, live shells have been recovered from canals, sewerage and vacant plots. Besides, the city was an epicentre of terrorist activity during the militancy years which has also led to recovery of weapons here.
Two brothers, aged 14 and 12, were critically injured in a blast after a live shell exploded in a plot in Giaspura area on June 21, 2016. They were beating the shell with a hammer to extract copper and other metals from it.
A senior police officer, on the condition of anonymity, said when terrorism was at its peak in Punjab, bet areas around Ludhiana were the prominent centres of terrorist activity.
They dumped explosives and weapons near canals and Sutlej river, he added.
The Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) has postponed its matriculation and intermediate exams by two days due to the upcoming Global Investors Summit (GIS).
The exams were scheduled to begin on February 16, but the dates clashed with the states flagship event Momentum Jharkhand.
JAC officials said the exams scheduled on February 16-17 would now be conducted on March 2-3, respectively.
Class 10 students were to take their music exam on February 16 and Hindi on February 17. Class 12 students had their geology paper on February 16 and vocational papers the next day. The remaining schedule for the exam will remain unchanged, officials said.
JAC chairperson Arvind Singh said the decision was taken to avoid any inconvenience to the students.
Students could have faced problems in reaching their centres due to changed traffic rules. We thought, it was better to change the dates, he added.
The JAC exams, which will see participation of more than 8 lakh students this year and will conclude on March 7.
The city has been decked up for the GIS on February 16 and 17. The event will see participation of over 3000 delegates from across the world and more than 11 union ministers. Prime minister Narendra Modi too will address the summit through video conferencing.
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Chinese author Liu Zhenyun was awarded Morocco's highest cultural honor by the country's Ministry of Culture on Feb. 11, according to Changjiang Literature and Arts Press, China News reported. It was an unprecedented win among Chinese authors.
The award commends foreign-language authors whose works have greatly influenced the literature of Morocco and the larger Arab world. Liu expressed his gratitude to translators after receiving the honor, noting that it is thanks to their hard work that his writing has been able to spread as far as it has.
"I feel at home wherever I find my works. The way of living and the attitude towards life in the Arab world touches me deeply, and I am inspired by Arab literary works. The more I get to know different cultures, the more I know there is much room for me to improve. I'll start all over again for my next literary work," said Liu.
This isn't the first time Liu has been honored in the Arab world, as he was given a similar award by Egypt in 2016. Liu's works have been published not only in Morocco, but also in Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Iraq, Tunisia and other countries in the region, where the author has earned a number of loyal fans.
Next time, says the actor guiding the narrative as the ad draws to a close, wake up before the alarm goes off. This thought, in a nutshell, sums up Jaago Re Version 2.0, the new Tata Tea campaign that aims to instigate social change through cause-related marketing. It follows in the footsteps of Jaago Re, a hugely successful campaign launched in 2008 that tackled several social issues including womens empowerment, voting, and corruption and encouraged the citizens of the country to participate in active change.
A preview screening of the powerful television commercial (TVC) propelling the new concept was held at The St. Regis Hotel in Lower Parel, Mumbai, on 13 February, where Sushant Dash, Regional President India, Tata Global Beverages, explained the vision behind the movement. The accompanying tagline, Alarm bajne se pehle jaago re, asks viewers to take preemptive action before any unfortunate incident occurs, by which time its often too late. Thus, it promotes an idea of preactivism instead of reactivism.
Sushant Dash, Regional President- India, Tata Global Beverages at the TVC launch in Mumbai. (Tata Tea)
From a culture of apathy, we have moved to activism, said Dash, speaking at the unveiling. Today, the youth participates. Theres anger; people take up issues. Its a positive sign. But that activism often happens after an event is over. For us, its important that we change this reactivism to what we call preactivism. Jaago Re Version 2.0 is about a new paradigm, a new language. It is about getting the youth and the consumers to do things before an event actually occurs.
We live in an age where heightened awareness leads to discussions and outrage in society and, according to Dash, anticipating and preventing these incidents is a natural progression from there. What we want is a behavioural and cultural change, in terms of timely activism. The alarm is a representation of that untoward event. The call-to-action is about conversations, about people understanding this concept.
This movement will be implemented in three phases. First up is the TVC, which addresses current issues such as farmer suicides, rape, and civic disasters in its content. The advertisement will be accompanied by large-scale digital augmentation driven through social media over the next 8-10 weeks, as a way to establish the overarching concept of preactivism.
Theres anger; people take up issues. Its a positive sign. But that activism often happens after an event is over. For us, its important that we change this reactivism to what we call preactivism, said Sushant Dash, Regional President India, Tata Global Beverages.
Following that, Tata Tea will act as a facilitator, ensuring the participation of the youth in the causes it tackles. And finally, Dash explained, the brand will walk the talk, acting on its own to initiate meaningful change, over the next 12-18 months.
This approach mirrors the previous campaign as well, which established the idea of Tata Tea being synonymous with not just waking up but awakening. For instance, the brand worked closely with the NGO Janaagraha to enable the youth to get registered for voting, during an earlier campaign.
The new campaign picks up from where the last one left off. Instead of focusing on individual subjects or issues, Tata Tea understands that greater awareness can be created through cause-related marketing. Thus, they have decided to broaden the scope by creating a novel, all-encompassing approach to activism. Amer Jaleel, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Mullen Lintas, spoke at the event as well. Discussing the strategy and planning of the campaign, he said: We looked for so many subjects. While looking for them, we found that any new subject we had, either wed done it in the past, or somebody else is doing it now. Through that journey, we realised that a brand that sparked off social brand-related activism needs to elevate itself and go beyond just the subjects. The snoring, in the ad, is a metaphor for how were snoring through these times when we should we waking up just before.
Anthem of Apathy, the latest campaign from Jaago Re Version 2.0 by TATA Tea sees an exclusive international release tomorrow, February 14, 2017.
Vivek Dahiya and Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya, who got married last July, are looking forward to celebrating Valentines Day in the most romantic way they can. The couple, who returned from their European honeymoon last month, have now taken off to Goa to ring in the big day. Vivek has apparently planned two full days of surprises for Divyanka.
Without going into detail, Vivek says, Last year on Valentines, we were in Sri Lanka and had an amazing time. This time, I needed to up my game. We were just engaged last year, but now that were married, I wanted to make it more special. There is no better place than Goa for a two-day getaway. Im looking forward to spending some quality time with Divyanka, as our schedules in Mumbai do not give us that luxury.
Thanks for this award to #YehHaiMohabbatein #ZeeRishteyAwards. It was a great surprise for us. #RishtonKiParakh Award A photo posted by Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya (@divyankatripathidahiya) on Feb 5, 2017 at 1:02pm PST
Ask Divyanka about the trip, and she says she is clueless about the surprises in store. The actor gushes, He has a way of giving these surprises. I dont know whats in store, but Im absolutely looking forward to it.
Even a day is enough to live your life to your fullest! #BhopaliLove #Throwback A photo posted by Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya (@divyankatripathidahiya) on Jan 31, 2017 at 1:50am PST
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A bus carrying Taiwanese tourists on a trip to view cherry blossoms flipped over on an expressway ramp in Taiwans capital on Monday, killing 32 people and injuring many others, officials said.
The bus was carrying 44 people when it crashed Monday evening on the No. 5 expressway, the Taipei city fire department said. It said authorities were still trying to determine the cause of the accident.
It happened on a curve, so the bus flipped and that could be due to excess speed, said Tu Bing-cheng, a Taipei city official. The whole frame of the bus changed shape, got crushed and left no openings.
Many passengers were trapped under the crushed bus, and rescue personnel used a crane to pry the vehicle open.
Thirty-two people, all Taiwanese, were confirmed dead and the remaining passengers were sent to hospitals for treatment, Tu said.
The bus belonged to a private company, he said. It was taking tourists back from a trip to see cherry blossoms when it crashed, Taipei city Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-ji said.
A bus accident in Taiwan last July killed 26 tourists from mainland China, raising concern from officials in Beijing about travel safety.
The first face to face meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Trump could be the most important meeting for Canada in decades between leaders of the two neighbours.
Trudeau will be at the White House on Monday at a time many Canadians fear Trump will enact protectionist measures that could hurt their economy and worry the new president could be as combative as he was with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.
Trudeau, 45, and Trump, 70, have vastly different outlooks on the world. Trudeau is a liberal who champions global trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. Trump is a protectionist and his moves to restrict entry of refugees and immigrants are expected to come up Monday. But Trudeau is expected to emphasise common economic interests.
Were going to talk about all sorts of things we align on, like jobs and economic growth, opportunities for the middle class - the fact that millions of good jobs on both sides of our border depend on the smooth flow of goods and services across that border, Trudeau said.
But Trudeau also said they are going to talk about things that Im sure we disagree on and well do it in a respectful way. Canada will always stay true to the values that have made us this extraordinary country, a place of openness.
After Trump signed the executive order pausing entries to the US from seven Muslim-majority nations, Trudeau tweeted that Canada welcomed people fleeing persecution, terrorism and war. Trudeau said diversity is our strength. His spokeswoman said Trudeau was looking forward discussing Canadas immigration and refugee policy with Trump.
But Trudeau isnt expected to poke the new president like his headstrong father, late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, did to previous presidents during the almost 16 years he was in office.
Tall and trim, Justin Trudeau channels the star power of his storied father but is less confrontational.
American relations are crucial for Canada as more than 75% of the countrys exports and 98% of its oil exports go to the US. About 18% of US exports go to Canada. There are fears Canada could be sideswiped if Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade agreement.
But Wall Street tycoon and Trump adviser Stephen Schwarzman has said things should go well for Canada if the president reopens NAFTA because the northern neighbour has a balanced trade relationship with the United States. Schwarzman, who leads Trumps economic advisory group, said other countries have large trade unbalances and markets that arent as open to American trade as Canadas.
Theres no indication Trump views Canada as a problem or an economic adversary but Trump is unpredictable, said Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy to Trudeau. Paris called it a very important moment in US-Canada relations and said hes cautiously optimistic the two will can have a constructive relationship focused on increasing economic ties.
Canadians expect their prime minister to do two things: uphold Canadian values and to have an effective constructive relationship with the president of the United States. Thats a balancing act and its not necessarily going to be easy, Paris said.
Canada has not been the subject of a Trump tweet but fears remain about Trumps impulsiveness.
Were dealing with someone who has abused the Mexican president and the Australian prime minister, said Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto.
Bothwell said Trudeau should avoid confrontation considering the stakes and how delicate the situation is.
Most American presidents have been pretty level headed. You have to go back to the monarchs of the Middle Ages or Roman Emperors. How does Nero feel today? Is his stomach acting up? What does the emperor decree? Bothwell said. Were back in the Roman empire. We havent had anything like this.
Pakistanis will neither be able to celebrate Valentines Day on Tuesday nor participate in Basant festivities over the weekend as both these events have been banned across the country.
On Monday, the Islamabad high court prohibited Valentines Day celebrations after hearing a petition which argued the event was not part of Muslim traditions.
According to the order issued by Justice Shaukat Aziz, Valentines Day festivities were banned in public spaces and at an official level. The court also directed the print and electronic media not to cover any promotion of the day celebrating love.
The judge also directed the information ministry and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority to submit replies regarding the immediate execution of the courts order.
Pakistani men protest against Valentine's Day celebrations in Karachi on February 12, 2017. The western tradition of Valentine's Day is reviled in parts of Pakistan's conservative Islamic society. (AFP)
Last week, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif tweeted there would be a complete ban on Basant, the kite flying festival that marks the advent of spring.
Complete BAN on Basant.. No one can b allowed to play with the lives of ppl.. concerned DPO will b responsible for any violation of ban -ss Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) February 7, 2017
The ban was first imposed more than a decade ago, largely because of accidents involving the glass-coated string used to fly kites, but many religious groups have contended Basant is an un-Islamic festival.
Observers said it was not clear whether an order issued by the Islamabad high court could be enforced across the country. They also questioned how practical it would be to implement the ban on Valentines Day.
Last year, President Mamnoon Hussain had asked the people not to celebrate Valentines Day, saying it has no connection with our culture and it should be avoided.
However, most Pakistanis are not listening. Online food portal SWOT reported record bookings for lunches and dinners in most major cities on Tuesday. The prices of flowers have increased manifold in anticipation of higher sales on Tuesday.
The ban on the traditional Basant festival too has irked many. Basant will not be observed in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, or in other parts of the province, according to a statement issued by chief minister Sharif.
Sharif said a committee was formed to look for plausible solutions for a safe Basant but as in previous years, the government failed to find a workable solution and ended up continuing the ban. In his tweet, Sharif warned police to enforce the ban or face the music.
In 2005, the Supreme Court banned the festival after several deaths caused by glass-coated strings. The ban impacted many people who made their living by making kites and associated paraphernalia.
The Express Tribune newspaper said in an editorial it is widely believed Basant was banned because of pressure from extremist religious groups opposed to what they see as an un-Islamic event.
Taking away Basant from Lahore is to take away a treasured part of a centuries-old culture. It is most unfortunate how successfully successive governments have snatched away these festivities and reduced the much-awaited Basant to archival photos and accounts of the past, the editorial said.
As an off-duty policeman who had just assassinated Russias ambassador to Turkey stood in front of Burhan Ozbilici waving a gun, the veteran Associated Press photographer summoned the composure to stand his ground and keep taking pictures.
I immediately decided to do my job because I could be wounded, maybe die, but at least I have to represent good journalism, Ozbilici said Monday as his image of gunman Mevlut Mert Altintas looming over the body of Ambassador Andrei Karlov was named World Press Photo of the Year.
Ozbilicis image of a political murders immediate aftermath was part of a series titled An Assassination in Turkey that also won the Spot News - Stories category in the prestigious awards. The photos were captured in the moments before and after Altintas drew a handgun and shot Karlov at an Ankara gallery on Dec. 19.
Burhans striking image was the result of skill and experience, composure under extreme pressure and the dedication and sense of mission that mark AP journalists worldwide, AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said. We are enormously proud of his accomplishment.
In the winning photo, the assassin, wearing a suit and tie, stands defiantly, pistol in his right hand pointed at the ground and with his left hand raised, his index finger pointing upward. His mouth is wide open as he shouts angrily. The ambassadors body lies on the floor just behind Altintas.
Pacing near the body of his victim, the gunman appeared to condemn Russias military role in Syria, shouting: Dont forget Aleppo! Dont forget Syria! Altintas, who was a policeman, was later killed in a shootout with Turkish police.
Ozbilici said his professional instincts kicked in despite the shocking scene unfolding in front of him.
Explaining how he remained collected enough to keep taking pictures, he said: I understood that this was big history, it was history, (a) very, very important incident.
The winning image announced Monday was among 80,408 photos submitted to the prestigious competition by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries. The World Press jury awarded prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries.
Jury chairman Stuart Franklin called Ozbilicis image an incredibly hard-hitting news photograph and part of a strong series documenting the assassination.
I think Burhan was incredibly courageous and had extraordinary composure in being able to sort of calm himself down in the middle of the fray and take the commanding pictures that he took, Franklin said. I think as a spot news story it was terrific.
Denis Paquin, APs acting director of photography, said Ozbilicis actions that day were typical of his professionalism.
Burhan would tell you he was just doing his job. His humble professionalism, combined with incredible courage, enabled him to capture these unforgettable images, Paquin said.
Ozbilici said that while he kept his camera trained on the gunman, he felt as if journalists around the world were saying, Hey man, you are representing all of us. Dont go away! Stand! We are supporting you, we are praying for you.
The eclectic selection of winners in the photo competitions eight categories highlighted the dominant news topics of the last year including conflict in Syria and Iraq, Europes migrant crisis, the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Olympic Games in Rio.
Winning nature photos included images depicting humanitys devastating effect on wildlife, such as a gruesome photograph of a poached rhino with its horn hacked off and another showing a turtle swimming while enmeshed in a green fishing net.
At least 16 people were killed and 53 more injured when a suspected suicide bomber set off his explosives during a protest outside the Punjab Assembly on the main thoroughfare of the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday evening.
The blast occurred as a large number of chemists and pharmaceutical manufacturers were staging a demonstration against a new drug control act on the Mall Road, where several key government buildings are located. It was not clear if the protest was the target of the blast.
The media reported that the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Lahores traffic police chief Ahmad Mobin and two other senior police officials were among the dead, authorities said.
Drone camera footage aired on Samaa TV channel showed a powerful blast shortly after a man approached a group of protesters on the Mall Road. Apparently it was a suicide blast, but police are still investigating to know the exact nature of the blast, Punjab police spokesperson Nayab Haider told local media.
The blast shattered windows of nearby buildings and some cars caught fire. Ambulances and fire tenders rushed to the scene as contingents of soldiers and paramilitary Pakistan Rangers were deployed. The injured were taken to Mayo Hospital and Ganga Ram Hospital.
An Easter Day bombing in Lahore last year killed more than 70 people in a public park. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar had also claimed responsibility for that attack.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, a roadside bomb killed two members of bomb disposal squad on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta, said police officer Abdur Razzaq Cheema. Another eight people were wounded, he said. A Taliban-linked group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said it planted the bomb.
(With AP input)
Brexit the acronym for Britain leaving the European Union is being blamed for economic and other problems, but plastic surgeons on Monday attributed a major drop in people going under the knife for aesthetic reasons to last years referendum vote.
From breast augmentation to liposuction to face and neck lifts to rhinoplasty all cosmetic surgeries showed a drop during 2016, attributed to what the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAPS) described as a climate of global unrest and bad news overload.
The association cited recent research to explain that the Brexit vote had led people to engage less in activities that require trust or certainty, affecting life changes, housing decisions, investment and consumption.
Consultant plastic surgeon and former BAAPS president Rajiv Grover, who compiles the audit on an annual basis, said: In a climate of global fragility, the public are less likely to spend on significant alterations and become more fiscally conservative, by and large opting for less costly non-surgical procedures such as chemical peels and microdermabrasion, rather than committing to more permanent changes.
The background of negative news and economic uncertainty seems to have re-invigorated the famous British stiff upper lip achieved, however, through dermal fillers and wrinkle-relaxing injections, rather than surgery.
BAPS said the number of cosmetic operations last year dropped 40% after reaching record-breaking heights in 2015. For the first time in almost a decade of relatively consistent growth, cosmetic surgical procedure totals for women and men combined dipped below 31,000.
Nearly 50% fewer men underwent surgery in 2016 compared to 2015, while women's cosmetic surgery dropped 39%.
Breast augmentation remained the most popular procedure for women, with 7,732 undergoing surgery, but overall numbers sagged by 20%. Abdominoplasty surgery remained popular for both genders.
BAPS, based at the Royal College of Surgeons, is a not-for-profit organisation that was established for the advancement of education and practice of aesthetic plastic surgery for public benefit.
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The worst may be over on Monday for the nearly 200,000 residents ordered to be evacuated from a California region threatened by an inundated lake held up by a dam with a damaged emergency spillway meant to ease the pressure.
Water levels in Lake Oroville dipped overnight, stopping the flow of excess water into the damaged spillway, that were in danger of crumbling, flooding downstream areas. The dam itself, the tallest in the US, was never in danger.
Lake Oroville is one of Californias largest man-made lakes, and the dam is 335-metres tall. Water levels surged Saturday night to such an extent that the spillways were deployed for the first time in the 50 years since it was built.
Sunday afternoon, engineers spotted a hole in the spillway, which authorities feared could widen, sending a 30-foot wall of water into downstream communities.
The lake, which also serves as a reservoir, had swelled in recent weeks as California, which had suffered record droughts for years, has been hit by a series of storms that have dumped rain and snow across the state, particularly in northern parts where the lake lies about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Associated Press reported on Monday that the threat appeared to have eased somewhat citing officials saying water flows into the lake stood at about 45,000 cubic feet per second with outflows at 100,000 cubic feet per second.
But the evacuation order remained in force, leaving relieved residents now dreading possibly the drive home through the bumper-to-bumper snarls they had negotiated on their way out.
Raj Gill, who manages a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and snacks, was widely cited in news reports for keeping the facility open to help residents despite being told by his boss to leave. But he was worried too. You cant even move, he told AP. Im trying to get out of here too. Im worried about the flooding. Ive seen the pictures thats a lot of water.
Villagers of Shuiquan in the countryside of Beijing celebrated a special bird festival on Feb. 12, the 16th day of the Chinese New Year. According to legend, there were once no grain seeds in ancient times. Therefore, the goddess Queen Mother of the West secretly sent seeds to the mortal world, even though her actions violated the laws of the gods in heaven. She was later turned into a bird as a form of punishment, and always chirped at the arrival of spring to remind people of the sowing season. In modern times, villagers dine together on the 16th day of the Lunar New Year in order to give thanks for the bringing of seeds to the earthly world.
Thousands of Nepalese citizens planning to gift a red rose to their beloved on Valentines Day will have a reason to thank India 100,000 roses have been imported from the neighbouring country as local production could not keep pace with requirements.
Out of the total demand of 200,000 sticks of rose in Nepal for this particular day, we have already imported half of that number from India, said Kumar Kasaju Shrestha, chairman of Floriculture Association Nepal.
The association has estimated roses worth Nepalese Rs 20 million will be sold on Valentines Day. Shrestha put the value of roses imported from India at Nepalese Rs 5 million.
With increased access to social media and the internet, Nepals younger generation is tilting towards Western culture, including events such as Valentines Day, and the demand for red roses has increased over the years.
The trend of importing roses or other floriculture-related items from India too has increased by 12% to 25% annually, industry observers said.
According to data from the Floriculture Association Nepal, around 7,000 roses are sold on most days. But when it comes to Valentines Day, vendors sell around 200,000 roses in a single day.
Last year, according to the association, the domestic market accounted for 180,000 roses on the occasion of Valentine's Day. People in Kathmandu bought 95% of the total.
Despite a rise in prices of flowers brought in from India, they are still cheaper than imports from the Netherlands, Italy or the US.
According to Shrestha, one Indian rose costs a minimum of Nepalese Rs 16. Last year, vendors sold each rose for Nepalese Rs 40.
Nepal has just seven floriculture firms that produce roses but their total production capacity is 100,000 roses a year. The rest of the sticks have to be imported from India, he said.
Though there is a good demand for flowers in Nepal, production has not kept pace for several reasons. Nepal now imports more than 70% of its requirement of various flowers and related items from India. Traders said 90% of the total requirements are fulfilled by suppliers based in Kolkata, Pune and Bangalore.
The Iraqi airforce carried out a strike on a house where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was thought to be meeting other commanders, the Iraqi military said on Monday, without making clear whether he had been hit.
In a statement, it said Iraqi F-16s had targeted the house in western Iraq on Saturday. It published the names of 13 Islamic State commanders it said had been killed in the air strike, but the list did not include Baghdadi.
Three other Islamic State positions in western Iraq were targeted in the same wave of air strikes, killing 64 fighters, the statement said.
The military said Baghdadi moved last week in a convoy from Raqqa, in Syria, to the region of al-Qaim, on the Iraqi side of the border, to discuss with commanders the collapse happening in Mosul and to chose a successor for him.
Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, has been reported wounded several times in the past. His last known public message goes back to November, when he called on Islamic State fighters to defend Mosul, their last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
US-backed Iraqi forces have completed the first phase of the campaign to retake Mosul, removing the militants from the eastern side of the city last month.
An Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite paramilitary force is also battling the Sunni militants west of Mosul, trying to prevent their escape to Syria.
A poster of President Donald Trump that included a misspelling in a quote has been removed from the online store of the Library of Congress.
The poster includes Trumps quote, No dream is too big, no challenge is to great. Nothing we want for the future is beyond our reach. The phrase should be too great.
Twitter users quickly spotted the error over the weekend and the item was removed. An archived version of the listing is accessible through the Internet Archive website.
The Library of Congress didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.
Its at least the third high-profile spelling error from the government of late. The Education Department misspelled the name of W.E.B. DuBois on Twitter Sunday and mistyped again when apologizing for the error.
The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Koreas latest missile test, which Pyongyang claimed was a success.
The United States, along with Japan and the Republic of Korea, have requested urgent consultations on the DPRKs launch of a ballistic missile on February 12, said a US mission spokesperson. The test was seen as a challenge to Donald Trumps young presidency.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile early on Sunday in its first such test of the year. State media said leader Kim Jong Un was at the site to observe the launch and expressed pleasure at the Norths expansion of its strategic strike capabilities.
A report on the launch carried early Monday by the Norths Korean Central News Agency said Kim watched from an observation post and gave the order to fire the Pukguksong-2, which it said was a Korean style new type strategic weapon system.
It is believed to have flown about 500 kilometers before splashing down into the ocean in international waters.
The report said the test proved the reliability and security of a new mobile launching system, the solid fuel that was used and the guidance and control features of the ballistic missile. Solid fuel can give missiles longer range and make detecting them before launch more difficult because they can be readied faster than liquid fuel missiles.
The report also said the test verified control and guidance capabilities and said the missile can be tipped with a nuclear warhead.
It suggested the launch conducted in a lofted style, which puts the missile into a high trajectory rather than a lower one that gives it more range, in order take the security of the neighbouring countries into consideration.
It added Kim expressed great satisfaction over the possession of another powerful nuclear attack means.
Now our rocket industry has radically turned into high thrust solid fuel-powered engine from liquid fuel rocket engine and rapidly developed into a development- and creation-oriented industry, not just copying samples, he said. Thanks to the development of the new strategic weapon system, our Peoples Army is capable of performing its strategic duties most accurately and rapidly in any space: under waters or on the land.
North Korea had warned it was ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile. The US Strategic Command, however, said it detected and tracked what it assessed to be a medium- or intermediate-range missile. The reports of the launch came as Trump was hosting Abe and just days before the North is to mark the birthday of leader Kim Jong Uns late father, Kim Jong Il.
After receiving word of the launch, Trump stood at his south Florida estate with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who called the move intolerable.
Appearing with Trump at a news conference at Trumps estate, Abe condemned the missile launch as absolutely intolerable. He read a brief statement calling on the North to comply fully with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions. He said Trump had assured him of U.S. support and that Trumps presence showed the presidents determination and commitment.
Trump followed Abe with even fewer words, saying in part: I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent.
The North conducted two nuclear tests and a slew of rocket launches last year in continued efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Kim Jong Un said in his New Years address that the country had reached the final stages of readiness to test an ICBM, which would be a major step forward in its efforts to build a credible nuclear threat to the United States.
Just days ago, it also reaffirmed its plan to conduct more space launches, which it staunchly defends but which have been criticized because they involve dual-use technology that can be transferred to improve missiles.
Our country has clearly expressed its standpoint, that we will continue to build up our capacity for self-defense, with nuclear forces and a pre-emptive strike capability as the main points, as long as our enemies continue sanctions to suppress us, Pyongyang student Kim Guk Bom said Sunday. We will defend the peace and security of our country at any cost, with our own effort, and we will contribute to global peace and stability.
South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is also the acting president, said his country would punish North Korea for the missile launch. The Foreign Ministry said South Korea would continue to work with allies, including the United States, Japan and the European Union, to ensure a thorough implementation of sanctions against the North and make the country realize that it will never be able to survive without discarding all of its nuclear and missile programs.
Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had some unusual advice when top officers gathered for his first speech last year read an American academics book on how India has succeeded in keeping the military out of politics.
The army has no business trying to run the government, Bajwa told the gathering of army officers of Rawalpindi Garrison at the General Headquarters auditorium in the last week of December, according to The Nation newspaper.
Bajwas first speech as army chief, described by the daily as an articulation of his vision, was delivered in a poised manner and his views were communicated to his officers in unequivocal terms.
The general urged the officers to read Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy since Independence, written by Steven I Wilkinson, the Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies at Yale University.
The 2015 book, which was well reviewed in India and the West, draws on comprehensive data to explore how and why India has succeeded in keeping its military out of politics when other countries have failed. It looks at political and foreign policies and strategic decisions that have made the army safe for Indian democracy.
The book also details why Indias democratic process has been a success.
It has been widely reported that Bajwa reads a lot about India, including reports in the media and books about the country. His colleagues have said his interest in India dates back to his days as a young major serving on the Line of Control in 1992.
Brig (retired) Feroz Hassan Khan, who was Bajwas commanding officer on the LoC, told the Hindustan Times that the man in what is usually seen as the most powerful position in Pakistan also does not have a visceral hatred of India.
Some have credited Bajwa for a reduction in tensions along the LoC and international border in Jammu and Kashmir though attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups have continued unabated.
Bajwa told the officers that the Pakistan Army must remain within its constitutionally defined role and alluded that an impression of a competition between the civilians and the military is counter-productive for the country, The Nation reported.
The report added that three months after becoming army chief, it could be discerned that while Gen Bajwa believes in civilian supremacy, he will also not do anything that upends that existing structures and dynamics. When a controversy recently erupted about land allocated to his predecessor, Raheel Sharif, a sharp, almost edgy, rebuttal came from the military.
It also said the comparison between the personal styles of Sharif and Bajwa cannot be starker. While Sharif basked and glowed under the glare of television and press cameras, Bajwa likes to go about his job without pomp and show.
His trips to the frontlines or speeches to troops have lacked the breathless coverage that was the defining factor of Sharifs tenure and there has been no attempt to portray Bajwa as a parallel, competing powerhouse, with strong political undertones.
In his public remarks, Bajwa has said the army will support and assist the civilian government in the national interest. Officials were quoted as saying that United we rise was the theme adopted by the military and its media arm under Bajwas leadership.
Bajwa took over from Gen Raheel Sharif, who had an uneasy relationship with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The civil-military equation has always been a tricky issue for Pakistan, which has been ruled by the army for almost half its history. The army exercises an outsize influence on the countrys foreign and security policies.
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The failure of Pakistans Senate deputy chairman, a prominent Islamist politician, to get a US visa on time for a trip to the United States prompted Pakistan to boycott a UN-sponsored meeting on Monday, a parliamentary official said.
It was not clear whether the failure of Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri to get a visa on time for his trip was related to US President Donald Trumps call for extreme vetting of applicants amid a push to suspend visas from seven other countries.
Haideri, a leader of the Islamist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) party, had been scheduled to lead a delegation to a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union on Monday and Tuesday at UN headquarters in New York.
Read | US President Trump being urged to get tough with Pakistan
However, when he did not get a US visa on time to travel by the weekend, he cancelled his trip and the rest of delegation decided to boycott, Chaudhry Arshad, a director at the office of the Senate chairman, told Reuters.
Unless the US provides an explanation for this delay, no Senate delegation will visit the US and no member of Congress or US diplomat will be welcomed in the Senate, Arshad said, referring to Pakistans upper house of parliament.
Haideri could not be reached for comment but an official at his partys office said it was awaiting an explanation from US authorities. He declined to be identified.
A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Islamabad declined to comment, citing privacy rules.
Read | Donald Trumps immigration ban excludes Muslim countries where he does business
Pakistans Express Tribune newspaper reported on Sunday that Haideri had applied for the visa two weeks before his planned trip. It can take weeks for Pakistanis to get a US visa under normal circumstances.
Haideri is known for his opposition to the US war on terror, launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
His party is in a coalition government with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs ruling party.
Drawing much of its support from Pakistans network of religious schools, called madrassas, the JUI-F is one of Pakistans largest Islamist parties dedicated to imposing Islamic law in Pakistan through elections.
The JUI-F openly supports jihad in Indias part of the disputed Kashmir region and a Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Last month, in response to a question about the visa policy toward Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Trump told ABC News:
Were going to have extreme vetting in all cases. And I mean extreme. And were not letting people in if we think theres even a little chance of some problem.
Trump is considering issuing a new executive order on visas after an appeals court upheld a court ruling last week that temporarily suspended his January 27 executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries.
Pakistan was not on the January 27 list.
Pakistan is conducting the mass repatriation of Afghan refugees through coercion, threats and abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a scathing report Monday, accusing the UN refugee agency of complicity in promoting the exodus.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been forced to return to their homeland, which is racked by conflict, poverty and unemployment, joining more than half a million others uprooted by war inside the country.
The report, entitled Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity: The Mass Forced Return of Afghan Refugees, called the repatriation the worlds largest forced return of refugees.
After decades of hosting Afghan refugees, Pakistan in mid-2016 unleashed the worlds largest recent anti-refugee crackdowns to coerce their mass return, said Gerry Simpson, a refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Because the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) didnt stand up publicly to Pakistans bullying and abuses, international donors should step in to press the government and UN to protect the remaining Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
The report said a combination of insecure legal status, the threat of deportation during winter and police abuses including extortion, arbitrary detention and nocturnal raids had left the Afghan refugees with no choice but to leave Pakistan.
In July, 11 soldiers and police came to our home at 3am. They entered without asking and threw all our things on the floor. They demanded to see our refugee cards and said they were expired, a 26-year-old Afghan was quoted as saying.
Then they stole all our money and told us to leave Pakistan, said the man, who returned to Kabul with his wife and two children.
The report was also critical of the UNHCR, saying that by doubling its cash grants to Afghans returning from Pakistan to $400, it was effectively encouraging the exodus.
Afghan refugee families wait for their turn to be registered, outside the government registration office in Peshawar, Pakistan. (AP)
The UN refugee agency should end the fiction that the mass forced return of Afghan refugees from Pakistan is, in fact, mass voluntary return, Simpson said.
If UNHCR feels that giving cash to returning refugees is the best way to help them survive in Afghanistan, it should at the very least make clear it does not consider their return to be voluntary.
Returning to insecurity
There was no immediate reaction to the report from the Pakistani government, which has previously cited security concerns and strains on its resources after nearly four decades for the repatriation.
Itt has repeatedly extended deadlines for refugees to leave, most recently until December 2017.
UNHCR rejected the criticism.
The UN Refugee Agency shares concerns of Human Rights Watch regarding the pressures on Afghans in the late summer which affected the repatriation last year, but does not agree with the conclusions of its new report, the UN body said in a statement.
The multiple drivers behind this surge... include pressures by authorities amidst broader security operations, changing attitudes among host communities, uncertainty about the renewal of refugee ID cards, economic hardship, stricter border controls disrupting trade and family ties.
Some Afghan refugees have been sheltering in Pakistan since fleeing the Soviet invasion of 1979.
Up to 2.4 million registered and unregistered Afghan refugees were estimated to be in Pakistan last year, though the figures have not been updated since the repatriation began. UNHCR listed it as the worlds third-largest refugee-hosting nation.
Conflict-torn Afghanistan is struggling to reabsorb large masses of refugees and failed asylum-seekers being sent back from Pakistan, as well as from Europe and Iran.
The Afghan government, heavily reliant on foreign aid, has promised refugees land and cash grants but is struggling to deliver.
The growing influx has sent living costs soaring and daily wages falling in many areas. Safe areas are in any case decreasing as the government steadily loses territory to insurgents.
Sri Lanka arrested nearly 550 soldiers in a single day as it reins in the mass desertion thats plagued the armed forces since the end of the civil war, an official said Monday.
The military has been pursuing nearly 43,000 deserters who refused to voluntarily turn themselves in under a government amnesty designed to clean up the ranks.
Arrests have begun in earnest since the grace period expired in December, ending any hope soldiers had of avoiding a court martial.
The mass apprehension of 546 soldiers during a sweep on Thursday was the largest ever, brigadier Roshan Seneviratne told AFP.
Those who surrendered during the one-month amnesty period could either rejoin the service or be legally discharged, he added.
More than 9,000 officers and soldiers took advantage of the amnesty, turning themselves in to avoid punishment.
Sri Lankas army, navy and airforce have a combined strength of just over 275,000 personnel, but desertion has been a serious problem throughout its history.
Soldiers routinely walked off the job during the 37-year war against Tamil separatists which ended in May 2009, but desertion remained an issue even after combat had ceased.
Officials say peace time desertions were due in part to a reduction in risk-related allowances paid to soldiers, and the growth of better paying jobs in the private sector.
Many have found work in construction and transport, while police have reported the involvement of deserters in gun-related crimes.
More than 25,000 security personnel were among at least 100,000 people killed during Sri Lankas civil war.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived at the White House Monday for what could be difficult trade and immigration talks with his political opposite, President Donald Trump.
After striking up a much-flaunted bromance with president Barack Obama, the youthful liberal leader is in Washington to woo a septuagenarian Republican, with whom he shares little in common.
The focus of discussions will be Trumps determination to put America first and rip up the North America Free Trade Agreement, as well as differences over immigration.
Trump has followed the dictum that good fences make good neighbors -- vowing to increase tariffs on imports and build a wall on the Mexican border and trying to ban migrants from several Muslim-majority nations.
The US-Canadian border remains open, but Trumps travel ban has called into question the pre-clearance system allowing Canadians to clear US Customs and immigration checks at their point of departure.
Read | A liberal vs protectionist: US Prez Trump to meet Canadian PM Trudeau on Monday
Trudeau visit got off to an awkward start, when he arrived at the White House early and his limousine was forced to wait on the driveway for around five minutes before Trump came out.
The two men then greeted each other with a handshake and headed into the Oval Office.
Ivanka Trump looks toward Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (L) during US President Donald Trump's roundtable discussion on the advancement of women entrepreneurs and business leaders at the White House in Washington on February 13. (Reuters Photo)
Trudeau is the third foreign leader received by the Republican billionaire since he took office on January 20, following meetings with Britains Theresa May and Japans Shinzo Abe.
The US and Canadian leaders will have lunch and hold a roundtable with businesswomen to discuss women in the workforce. A joint press conference set for 2:00 pm (1900 GMT).
The 45-year-old Canadian prime minister has pledged to speak frankly and respectfully with the new occupant of the White House.
Canada will always stay true to the values that have made us this extraordinary country, a place of openness, Trudeau said Friday in Yellowknife, the capital of the countrys Northwest Territories.
The economic ties between America and its northern neighbor, who share the worlds longest common border, run deep: three-quarters of Canadas exports go to the US, and Canada is the top destination for exports from about 30 US states.
US President Donald Trump (L) greets Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau upon arrival outside of the West Wing of the White House on February 13 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo)
Renegotiating NAFTA will not be simple and Trudeau, a fervent supporter of free trade, has emphasized the importance of the tripartite pact for his countrys economy and warned against protectionism.
On Friday, he recalled the fact that millions of good jobs on both sides of our border depend on the smooth flow of goods and services across the border.
Trump has not been specific on how he wants the talks to develop, but has repeatedly trashed the 23-year-old pact, calling it a catastrophe for American jobs and threatening to slap tariffs on imports from Mexico.
Trump and Trudeau are a study in contrasts: their path to power, their political stripes, their style -- they could not be more different.
Trudeau, the son of a well-liked prime minister, came to power promising to provide a positive and good government for Canadians and enhance the countrys image abroad.
Manhattan property mogul Trump won the White House in a shock November election victory over Hillary Clinton after painting a dark picture of a country in turmoil and vowing to put America first.
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau host a meeting with women business leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday. (AP Photo)
Welcomed with great fanfare to Washington nearly a year ago by Obama, Trudeau hailed the Democratic presidents leadership on climate change.
But its clear he will find a quite different take on the issue from Trump, who counts several climate skeptics in his inner circle and seems determined to undo large parts of his predecessors legacy.
So far, Trudeau has not commented directly on Trumps controversial immigration order -- which temporarily bans all refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.
But he made his stance clear in a tweet posted the day after Trump signed his decree late last month.
To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada, Trudeau wrote.
The pair do agree on the massive Keystone XL pipeline project, which would link Canadas oil sands with US Gulf Coast refineries. The project had been blocked by Obama, but has been given the green light by Trump.
Just three weeks in office, the Trump administration is said to be reviewing whether or not to continue with national security adviser Michael Flynn, one of the presidents closest advisers, after he was found to have misled senior officials about his phone calls to the Russian ambassador to the US.
His position has seemed even more tenuous as neither President Donald Trump, who is quick to defend embattled aides, and aggressively so, nor senior officials speaking for the White House in recent media interviews and interactions have defended him. Trump has only said so far he would look into it.
Flynn spoke multiple times with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak on phone on December 29, the day then President Barack Obama announced a slew of sanctions against Russia for its alleged meddling in the US presidential elections, by hacking computer systems of the Democratic party.
During the calls, contrary to Flynns earlier assertion that there was only one when they were several, they had discussed the sanctions, which went beyond a routine call. And if he promised lifting the sanctions once Trump was in office, he could have breached an obscure and little-used 1799 US law that prohibits private citizens from engaging in foreign policy.
On Flynns earlier stance, senior White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence had vigorously defended him in multiple media interactions and interviews, repeating his claims that he had only spoken once and that sanctions did not come up in that call. He has since apologised.
New Delhi would be watching these developments closely as Flynn and the Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval had an exceedingly good first meeting in December, according to Indian officials, which lasted much longer than scheduled.
Flynn may still continue as talk about his impending ouster may turn out to be just that. There is speculation about other staff changes some are calling it a shakeup about chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer.
Flynns situation appeared direr than most because he has been a controversial figure known for pursuing an extremely hard position against Muslims he has likened Islam to cancer and has been an avid consumer of conspiracy theories.
His son, Michael Flynn Junior, who was expected to be his fathers chief of staff as NSA, was removed from the Trump transition team following outrage over an attempt to push unfounded allegations against Hillary Clinton.
Now the senior Flynn finds himself in the crosshairs. The Washington Post cited a White House official saying knives were out for Flynn. And The Wall Street Journal said some White House officials would like to see him go himself.
Trumps powerful chief strategist in the White House, Steve Bannon, is reported to have said that though Flynn should continue, the administration must be ready to let him go, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.9
By Leman Zeynalova Trend:
Bulgaria supports entering of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR its oil products market.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Trend, Bulgarias newly-appointed Energy Minister Nikolay Pavlov recalled that a few years ago, SOCAR examined and discussed with the Bulgarian party the opportunities to enter the market of petroleum products in the country.
"We support the entry of new players in the petroleum product market, because this will increase competition and will have a beneficial impact on fuel prices and services provided," he said.
The minister pointed out that Bulgaria greatly values the partnership with Azerbaijan in the area of energy.
"A concrete expression of this partnership is the contract between Bulgargaz and SOCAR for the supply of 1 billion cubic meters natural gas per year as of 2020 from Shah Deniz 2. For us, this supply is of priority importance, since it will cover around one quarter of Bulgarian gas consumption to 2020," said Pavlov.
The minister expressed confidence that national gas companies on both sides will also work to carry out joint gas supplies to potential users in other countries of the Southeast European region through the Bulgarian gas transmission network and the currently built interconnectors.
"Another area of our energy cooperation could be SOCAR to enter in the gas distribution in the country and in the market for petroleum products too," said Pavlov.
Bulgaria is one of the buyers of Azerbaijani gas. The country will receive gas from Azerbaijan from 2020. Bulgarian government plans to buy 1 billion cubic meters of gas per year with the possibility of increasing the volume in the future.
Currently, the talks on delivering Azerbaijani gas via the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) continue. IGB is expected to be connected to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor.
Bulgarian government presented a package of projects to Azerbaijan in 2015 for energy cooperation. Azerbaijani side was proposed to take part in the construction of a gas station, to invest in construction of oil and gas storages and refineries.
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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
The United Nations security council is to hold an urgent meeting later on Monday after North Korea announced it had successfully tested a new ballistic missile, a launch seen as a challenge to President Donald Trump.
The Norths leader Kim Jong-Un expressed great satisfaction over the possession of another powerful nuclear attack means which adds to the tremendous might of the country, state news agency KCNA said.
Permanent security council members China and Russia joined a chorus of international criticism of Sundays launch by the nuclear-armed nation from near the western city of Kusong.
Read: North Korea fires ballistic missile, apparently challenging Donald Trump
The council will meet around 2200 GMT on Monday following a request by the United States, Japan and South Korea.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from carrying out ballistic missile launches or nuclear weapons tests.
But last year it conducted two nuclear tests and numerous missile launches in its quest to develop a nuclear weapons system capable of hitting the US mainland.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) surrounded by soldiers of the Korean People's Army as he inspects the test-launch of a surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2. (AFP Photo)
The latest missile -- said by Pyongyang to be able to carry a nuclear warhead -- flew east for about 500km before falling into the Sea of Japan (East Sea), South Koreas defence ministry has said.
Footage on the Norths state television showed the missile being moved on a newly-developed mobile erector launcher.
It was launched at a near-vertical angle, igniting in mid-air after lift-off and switching direction while in flight.
Photos released by KCNA showed the missile blasting into the sky with a smiling Kim watching from the command centre, and standing on the launch field surrounded by dozens of cheering soldiers and scientists.
It said Kim personally guided preparations for Sundays test of what it described as a surface-to-surface medium long range Pukguksong-2, a Korean-style new type strategic weapon system.
Read: N Korea says nuke missile test a success; US, Japan, S Korea call urgent UN meet
KCNA said the missile was powered by a solid-fuel engine -- which needs a far shorter refuelling time than conventional liquid fuel-powered missiles, according to Yun Duk-Min of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Security in Seoul.
They leave little warning time and therefore pose a greater threat to opponents, he said, adding that such missiles are harder to detect by satellite before launch.
The North has previously made claims for its weapons capabilities that analysts consider unconvincing. But Seouls military confirmed the Norths claim on the solid-fuel engine.
Pyongyangs latest announcement was the first time a Pukguksong-2 has been mentioned, although last August it test-fired what it said was a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) marked as a Pukguksong-1, a name which translates as North Star.
Kim said at the time that the missile put the US mainland and the Pacific within striking range.
An official with South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters the Pukguksong-2 appeared to have been fired based on the same cold launch technology used in last years SLBM test.
Map for the latest North Korean missile launch. (AFP Photo)
The method -- in which a missile is initially propelled by compressed gas before its engine ignites mid-air -- is considered safer. It is also easier to hide the launch location.
North Korea claims it has developed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the US mainland but has not tested one as yet.
Armed provocation
The South said Sundays launch was intended as a test for Trump, who responded by pledging 100 percent support for Washingtons key regional ally Japan.
Trump has pressed China, the norths sole major ally and key trade partner, to play a bigger role in restraining its wayward neighbour.
In Tokyo Japans top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Monday China plays an extremely important role and called on Beijing to take constructive action.
Chinas foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it opposes North Korean missile launches that violate UN resolutions.
Russias foreign ministry called the launch a demonstration of contempt for UN Security Council resolutions.
But Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said more provocations were likely in response to upcoming US-South Korean military exercises.
US President Donald Trump was expected to unveil new measures on immigration as early as Monday in the name of keeping Americans safe, with a top aide insisting he did not overstep his authority with his controversial travel ban.
With the ban now frozen by a federal appeals court pending further legal review, Trump is considering and pursuing all options, presidential aide Stephen Miller told Fox News Sunday.
The White House could either file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, defend the merits of the order in lower courts or issue a new executive order. The last option was floated by Trump himself on Friday.
We are contemplating new and additional actions to ensure that immigration is not a vehicle for admitting people into our country that are hostile to its nation and its values, Miller said on NBCs Meet the Press.
Theres no such thing as judicial supremacy. What the judges did is take power away that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the United States.
The issue is sure to come up when Trump meets on Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said after the Republican leader issued his ban that Americas northern neighbour welcomes with open arms those fleeing persecution, terror and war.
While the fate of Trumps restrictions on refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries plays out in the courts, a separate executive order prioritising the deportation of undocumented migrants paved the way for the arrest of hundreds of people, many of them Latinos, this past week.
As thousands of Mexicans protested Sunday against Trumps vow to make the country pay for his big, beautiful border wall, the White House confirmed the presidents plans to weigh new action to speed up deportations of illegal immigrants.
As a result of the presidents order, greatly expanded and more vigorous immigration enforcement activities are taking place, Miller said of the deportation decree.
Earlier, Trump tweeted: The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!
Over the past week, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rounded up undocumented individuals living in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities in what it called routine operations.
Robust
But Miller indicated Sunday that the raids were made more robust under Trumps January 25 executive order prioritizing deportation of undocumented individuals convicted of or charged with any criminal offence, including misdemeanours.
It is true that Operation Cross Check is something that happens every year. But this year we have taken new and greater steps to remove criminal aliens from our communities, Miller said.
The large-scale raids began in 2011 under then president Barack Obama.
Many Democrats have called on the government to act in moderation, fearful that people without a criminal record will find themselves swept up.
The case of a mother in Phoenix, Arizona who was expelled to Mexico on Thursday crystallized such worries, even among some Republicans.
There is a lot of worry here in Arizona by those who... are illegally here but they have not committed aggravated felonies, said Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, adding that the only hope for permanent change lies in major Congressional reform.
New actions
Miller insisted in interviews Sunday that the president has the power to keep some people from entering the country.
The order that Trump issued abruptly in late January aimed to halt resettlement of all refugees for 120 days and that of Syrian refugees indefinitely.
It also barred for 90 days the entry of nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
The ban was supposed to be in place while the government comes up with a new system of so-called extreme vetting of people seeking entry visas.
This could include checks on their social media accounts, according to John Kelly, the secretary of homeland security.
But a federal judge in Seattle issued a stay against the order on February 3. A three-judge appeals panel in San Francisco then voted unanimously against reinstating Trumps ban.
The idea of the White House issuing a modified immigration order that would survive scrutiny in the courts does not convince Democrats, who from the outset have charged that Trumps decree is simply anti-Muslim and plays into the hands of extremists.
It will be used as a recruitment (tool) for terrorist organizations. It will put Americans at greater risk traveling abroad, said Democratic Senator Ben Cardin.
A White House official on Sunday attacked a US court ruling that blocked President Donald Trumps executive order on immigration as a judicial usurpation of power and said the administration was considering a range of options, including a new order.
Sustained criticism of the judiciary from the White House comes amid concern among Democrats and legal scholars over Trumps view of the constitutional principle of judicial independence as the administration seeks to overcome legal setbacks to its travel ban issued on January 27.
It has also become the backdrop against which US senators consider Trumps Supreme Court nominee, judge Neil Gorsuch, for a lifetime appointment to the nations highest court.
The Republican president said on Friday that he may issue a new executive order rather than go through lengthy court challenges to the original one, which temporarily barred entry to the United States of people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
We have multiple options and we are considering all of them, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said on ABCs This Week.
Miller sharply criticized the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Thursday that upheld a Seattle federal judges suspension of Trumps executive order. He accused the San Francisco-based court of having a history of overreaching and of being overturned.
This is a judicial usurpation of power, he said on Fox News Sunday. The presidents powers here are beyond question.
The Trump administration has defended the travel ban on grounds it will prevent potential terrorists from entering the country, although no acts of terrorism have been perpetrated on US soil by citizens of the targeted countries.
The bans announcement, late on a Friday, sparked a weekend of confusion at airports around the globe and within the federal agencies charged with enforcing it. It also triggered widespread protests and legal challenges.
Aware that a new executive order would allow critics to declare victory against the travel ban, the White House has deflected blame and intensified its criticism of the judiciary.
I think its been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many cases a supreme branch of government, Miller said on CBS Face the Nation.
One unelected judge in Seattle cannot make laws for the entire country. I mean this is just crazy, he said.
Millers performance on several Sunday news shows won a plaudit on Twitter from Trump, who has himself attacked individual judges and called the courts so political.
Great job! Trump tweeted.
Attacks condemned
Gorsuch condemned the attacks on the judiciary as disheartening in private meetings last week with a number of US senators, who pressed the judge to go public. Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, confirmed the conversations.
Legal experts said the Trump administration statements could undermine respect for the constitutional division of powers.
Cornell University law professor Jens David Ohlin said that accusing the judiciary of usurping the presidents powers demonstrated an absurd lack of appreciation for the separation of powers.
Miller is coming dangerously close to reviving a discredited and dangerous theory that each branch of government, including the president, has independent authority to decide what the law and Constitution mean, Ohlin said in an interview on Sunday.
In our system of government, the commander in chief executes the laws, but it is the judiciary which interprets both the laws and statutes passed by Congress and the Constitution. Thats their solemn duty, he added.
Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Trumps remarks could diminish popular respect for institutions of law and order by making Americans think the governments a joke, that you dont have to follow what judges say.
Immigration laws give the US president broad powers to restrict who enters the country on national security grounds.
But the same laws forbid discrimination based on race, sex, nationality or place of birth or residence. The case also could involve First Amendment protections involving religion.
Trumps executive order banned entry into the United States to refugees and citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except refugees from Syria, who were banned indefinitely.
Options for the administration include formulating a new executive action, appealing the 9th Circuit panels decision to the full appeals court and appealing the emergency stay to the US Supreme Court, Miller said.
AS A LANGUAGE SPECIALIST IN U.S. Army intelligence, I was a natural, quips 96-year-old Max Horlick. His Russian-Jewish parents raised him in New Jersey among immigrants speaking German, Italian, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian; he practiced French with Cyd Charisses future mother-in law and studied languages at Rutgers and Columbia. Before the Battle of the Bulge, Horlicks Mobile Field Interrogation UnitMFIU #1, stationed on the Meuse Riverwas among American army intelligence units alerting Allied leaders to growing German threats. Horlick resents analyses that blame the Bulge on intelligence failures. Citing books and documentaries using recently declassified files, Horlick bristles. We sent a stream of reports, he says. They were ignored.
How did you get into intelligence?
I was drafted in late 1942, right after I got married. For months, they kept moving me around. My wife, who, with her parents, was a German refugee, managed to come with mequite a feat. I kept taking tests, and scored so high guys called me The Brain. Finally, they sent me to Haverford College to study Italian as part of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP); we spoke Italian 24/7 because we were going to be in Italys military government. One day my wife and I came back from a New Jersey visit. At the railroad station the first sergeant said, Horlick, what the hell are you doing here? The entire ASTP was cancelled; everybodys gone.
Did your wife go with you to your next post?
Yes; we wended our way to Blue Ridge Summit in Maryland, and I reported for duty. Fort Ritchie was a top-secret intelligence camp; everybody was there because of languages. My wife was classed as an enemy alien but I got top-secret clearance. Go figure. We memorized the order of battle of all the armies: Russian, British, German, Italian, and French. We studied photo interpretation, interrogation of prisoners, and so on. We solved field problems, like sitting in the woods for nine days under simulated battle conditions. Or being driven into the mountains and dropped off with an unmarked map, with three hours to locate ourselves and get five miles to our trucks. If we missed the spot, we had to walk 20 miles back to camp. We were tested on every weapon there was. Soon everybody shipped out except me.
What happened?
I had to wait for a second round of training called French MIIeverything wed learned and then some, all in French. We had specialized training in counter intelligence. One class taught us how to work secretly among a civilian population. During one session, three men rushed in, grabbed the instructor, and dragged him out. We were appalled. Then we were asked, How many men seized your squad leader? Believe it or not, we couldnt agree. That taught us about the differing testimony of eyewitnesses and not to accept statements as fact.
In late fall 1944 you landed at Normandy.
I was a tech sergeantfive stripes. I was in France briefly, and then was sent to Belgium. How I got there was quite a story. At Fort Ritchie, 95 percent of the people involved in my work were foreign-born and highly intelligent. But as usual in the army, there was a glitch: these people werent fluent enough in English to write reports. The army was desperate to find some American-born Ritchie person. One day I was called behind a mysterious door; two American majors talked to me in German for half an hour. Next morning, I was put into an open truck and sent to Jambes, in central Belgium, where there was an immense enclosure with German prisoners. We were to interrogate them, and also monitor their conversations. This was utterly top secret; no one ever acknowledged it.
What was a typical day like?
One of us would get into a specially out fitted truck with a German, and talk with him casually and elicit information. We interrogated them about fuel depots, rail roads and transportation, and the location of individual units. The information was put on an immense situation map in our office showing the locations, astonishingly, of all the German units facing the Americans and British.
What were key factors in your prisoner interrogations?
Order of battle was very important. German uniforms, like American ones, had shoulder patches. A tank divisions shoulder patch would say panzer. So immediately we knew quite a bit about this tanker, because we had memorized the makeup of a panzer division. So wed start talking about their battalion, and theyd be astonished we knew so much. Then wed sneak in their COs name, and eventually their location. Also, they had books in their pockets with the history of where theyd been trained and stationed. So we didnt have to start from scratch. We just had to know how to approach the information right in front of us, and try to use it to extract more. We never touched the prisoners during interrogations. Asking questions was the best way to find out things, if you knew how to do it.
In late 1944, intelligence units like yours picked up activity that foreshadowed the Battle of the Bulge.
We knew that 5th Panzer Army HQ had moved from deep in Germany to Koblenz on the Rhine, and that Fifteenth Army HQ had moved to Konigshofen. We had reports that troops were streaming from east Germany to the Belgian borderthat major German divisions, including the SS Wiking and Grossdeutschland Panzer divisions, were moving into the Eifel Mountains. We knew Poles and Russians were being placed in German infantry units. We knew that what became 6th Panzer Army, the attacks spearhead, was forming around Thuringen. Large numbers of SS troops were reported in west central Germany in fall 1944. Contrary to general belief, we knew that large synthetic fuel plants, refineries, and dumps in Germany had either not been bombed or had been repaired. Reports on German railroads emphasized that although the system was under a strain, it was operating efficiently.
What do you say when people blame the Bulge on intelligence failure?
I tell them the army intelligence sources agreed something was up. We passed our reports up the chain of command. It seems like Omar Bradley and others thought the information was inconclusive. Certainly Ike did nothing.
What do you think happened?
I really dont know. Common wisdom at the time was that the Germans were collapsing. I wonder: Policy makers in generaldo they listen to basic intelligence? Or have they made up their minds in advance?
What happened in Jambes?
Our unit was not under any local commander. As the enemy advanced, we finally got orders to leave. The floor of our cottage was covered with top-secret documents, interrogation reports. When the Germans attacked and the front collapsed, we were told, Just get outta there! We were ordered to burn the documents, but paper doesnt burn when its that densely packed. Finally we gave up and buried it all. The Belgian farmers were upset; we were ruining their orchards! That night, the Germans bombed the Meuse bridges; we sought refuge in tunnels in a nearby mountain topped by an ancient fort, Citadelle de Namur. Over our heads flew V1 rockets, which sounded like defective motorcycles. The mountain had a lot of iron in it, which threw the V1s off target. We got so used to hearing them we paid no attentionexcept when the motor stopped. Then you hit the ground and waited for the explosion.
After a couple of horrible weeks, the tide turned.
As the Bulge collapsed, there were more and more prisoners; finally there were 40,000 at Jambes. The bridge across the Meuse had been bombed, but there was a weir crossing it, so one day we returned and discovered Jambes was now a bombed-out hellhole. Knowing what we did, we realized how lucky wed been. I cant describe the feeling of relief when the battle ended.
Originally published in the December 2014 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
World War II made giant reputationsfrom Winston Churchills to Dwight D. Eisenhowers, from Joseph Stalins to Charles de Gaulles. Tempered in the furnace of battle, these men, and many others, emerged as titans not merely famous today, but sure to be known to millions for years to come. But are those reputations justified?
Do the familiar faces of the Second World War deserve the accolades awarded them? After all, many leaders shamelessly manipulated the media to help gain and maintain their celebrity. As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill admitted, History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
So to what extent has history treated these revered figures too generously? To answer to that question I asked 16 distinguished historians of World War II to nominate the conflicts most overrated leader. I had expected that nationalist pride might influence selectionthat a British historian wouldnt name a fellow Briton; that a Russian would avoid embarrassing a countryman, and so on. I couldnt have been more wrong. Nor were commonly revered figures sacrosanct. Indeed, no one seemed off limits.
Max Hastings found the question difficultnot because the celebrated British historian couldnt think of a leader who did not deserve his reputation, but because he sees too many candidates to choose from. A basic fact about leaders in Western democracies is that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill constantly found themselves imprisoned by propaganda, Hastings explained. When you appointed a general or an air marshal or an admiral, the newspapers and the radio for months thereafter built him up into a great popular hero. Once hed been built into a great popular hero he became fantastically difficult to sack.
There is an almost endless roll call of inadequate commanders allowed to become so famous that they couldnt be fired, Hastings said. Theres no doubt, for example, that Charles Portal, chief of the British Air Staff, would have loved to sack RAF Bomber Command head Arthur Bomber Harris in the winter of 19441945, but couldnt because propaganda had told everybody this was Bomber Harris, the master of Britains bomber offensivea great popular figure.
Hastings is surely right to name Bomber Harris. As the historian himself demonstrates in his brilliant Bomber Command (1979), Harris became almost obsessed with pursuing the destruction of German cities, when a more strategic approach to target selection might well have more greatly benefitted the Allied cause.
Geoffrey Wawro, director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas, chose one of the conflicts most famous AmericansGeneral George S. Patton. Because there have been so many books about him, and because of the movie starring George C. Scott, Patton has become an iconic figure very much attached to everything Americans think about the Second World War, Wawro said. But there was a dark side to Patton: He was pitiless about American casualties. After the liberation of Paris, when they were moving on Germany, he attacked Metz in a frontal assault against German troops and tanks entrenched behind a river barrier, and took awful casualties. This was something Patton was willing to do in order to keep the momentum moving forward, but also to assure his own fame. He was energetic, aggressivea great American hero. He didnt lack bravery and wasnt trying to pass the burden to his troops. But there was something about Pattons generalship that was a little bit crude for the 20th century.
Conrad Crane, chief of Historical Services for the Army Heritage and Educational Center, named American icon Omar Bradley, the hugely popular GIs General. Explains Crane: Bradley did a lot of great things. But his image as the soldiers general was a creation of war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Bradley was too cautious at very critical times in 1944, and I dont think he reacted well at the Battle of the Bulge. He was a good general, a very good manager, and a good man to command the massive formation that he did, but a lot of his key decisions were less than they could have been.
David Cesarani, a British historian and author of five books on the war, nominates Britains most famous military commander: Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, who led a variety of Commonwealth troops in the Eighth Army and later the 21st Army Group. Lets remember, Montgomery was running coalition warfare, said Cesarani. He was first of all running an Imperial Army in North Africa with lots of allies, not all of whom he got on very well with: New Zealanders, Australianshe was constantly having arguments with them, treating them rather badly. And there was his inability to hold together the coalition forces in Normandy. I think Montgomery is grossly overrated as a military leader and his political ineptitude is absolutely breathtaking. How he ever became the chief of the Imperial General Staff after the Second World War beggars the imagination.
Patton, Bradley, and Montgomery were, of course, instrumental in winning the war, so their ranking as overrated by distinguished countrymen is surprising. What about the losing Italian or German commandersor even defeated Axis leaders like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini? But I realized that in my original query I had emphasized inflated reputation, not who, in absolute terms, was the worst leader.
That distinction may explain the choice of British historian Andrew Roberts. He nominated the American general who commanded the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy: Mark W. Clark. I dont see why Americans are very fond of Mark Clark, Roberts said. Yes, he captured Rome, but so ham-fistedly that he allowed yet another German army to escape. Clark should have been able to catch three German armies in Italy, but each of them managed to extricate themselves. Clark is, partly just through absurd Anglophobia, a useless commander to have on your team. He is vainglorious, boastful, and pushy and aggressive, as were great commanders like Patton, Montgomery, and others. But Clark doesnt seem to have any personal redeeming features, as those other commanders have.
Renowned British military historian Antony Beevor named the great hero of the Pacific War, General Douglas MacArthur. Recognizing MacArthur as a brilliant propagandist and self-publicist, Beevor maintained that MacArthurs attempts to influence strategy in the Pacific were probably totally wrong. Beevor criticized MacArthurs island hopping strategy of progressing systematically from island to island, and argued that the strategy the U.S. Navy chose of bypassing some islands and moving forward only toward those that could be used as forward air bases for the bombing of Japan was much more sensible. MacArthurs plan, Beevor said, would simply have ground down the American forces.
Another influential British historian, Richard Overya professor at the University of Exeter and author of many books on the warnominated the highest-ranking American in Europethe Supreme Commander himself, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Now, hes somebody who has had, on the whole, a pretty good press, said Overy, because people like him as he doesnt do anything particularly horrid. The problem with Eisenhower is that his skills are managerial and diplomatic. He plays almost no part really in constructing, organizing, and carrying through the operations. Yet Eisenhower is the name that always comes up: Eisenhower does this, Eisenhower orders that, Eisenhower conquers France, and so on. I have no particular beef against Eisenhower, its just I think that his reputation has been greatly inflated. He is a very effective manager, but in the end the manager works only because he has all these sub-managers who are able to do the things that are needed to be able to defeat the Germans.
I suppose Professor Overys view is understandable: Eisenhower was very much a management figure. But my own experience with big international corporations leads me to believe that the ability to meld disparate groups and nationalities to further a common aim is a rare skill. Its hard to imagine another World War II general who could have achieved as much as Eisenhower did. Had Patton or MacArthur or Clark run the Allied operation, for instance, their monstrous egos would most likely have caused a total breakdown in the British-American relationship.
On the other hand, it is easy to understand Polish historian Anita Pra because the man she named was instrumental in giving away the entire eastern half of her country to Stalin at the Tehran Conference in 1943. zmowskas pick. Thats I think it was Roosevelt, she said. Roosevelt is playing an American game, so its very heavy on propaganda, but if were talking about a gap between pronouncements and delivery I think that maybe this is the biggest one.
Prazmowska might as well have chosen Churchill: He, too, connived with FDR to pacify Stalin by arranging one of the greatest demographic changes in European historyall behind the Poles backs. But only one of my survey subjects ranked Churchill as most overrated leaderBritish social historian Juliet Gardiner. And her view of the wartime Prime Minister is complicated: Churchill was both the best leader and the most overrated, she said. I think he was a fantastic shortterm crisis/wartime leader. Churchill was always fantastic in a crisis; on a single issuebrilliant. But he made a lot of very stupid military decisions, or tried to make them, to interfere though youve got to read the diaries of Lord Alanbrooke, chief of the British Imperial General Staff, to see that. By 1942, 1943, Churchill was not a good wartime leader.
The third of the Big Three Allied leadersJoseph Stalinreceived a vote, from Soviet expert Robert Service. Stalin was a divided personality, he was an exceptional politician, and he was a dominant leader, Service, a professor at University of Oxford, said. He brought the political and the military sides of the war together, but he fought a disastrous war in other respects. He produced the worst farming system the world has ever known: Soviet collective agriculture. He made it possible that many Soviet people in the unoccupied areas might starve to death. He deported peoples who were not collectively responsible for collaborating with the Germans. It was said that if there hadnt been so many Ukrainians he would have deported all of them as well. He purged so many Red Army officers who had done no wrong. A lot of the damage done to the Soviet war effort was done before 1941 by Stalin, and a lot of the triumph of the Soviet war effort has to do with some of the slackening of this brutality between 1941 and 1945.
Restricting his consideration to his countrymen, Russian historian Kirill Anderson named Stalins most famous military commander. On the Soviet side, I think the most overrated individual was Marshal Georgi Zhukov, he said. The best military leader is not the one that wins most of the battles, but the one that saves most of his soldiers. And for Zhukov, the number of losses among his soldiers wasnt very important.
Andersons arguments against Zhukov did not convince me. I remember, years ago, talking to Soviet soldiers who felt that Zhukovs inspiring leadership kept Moscow from falling to the Germans in late autumn 1941. Yes, Zhukov was ruthless, but after a hard-fought victory, its difficult to criticize a general for ruthlessness when that very ruthlessness may have been the factor that won the battle.
Similarly, Im not sure I agree with William Hitchcock. Hitchcock, professor of history at the University of Virginia, nominated the leader of the Free French, General Charles de Gaulle. I am among other things a French historian, so it pains me to have to name Charles de Gaulle, he said. Thats not to say that hes unimportant or insignificant, but de Gaulle, like so many Second World War figures, would rest on his laurels and build up a reputation about himself after the war that had much to do with his alleged achievements during the war. Hes an extraordinary figure and a fascinating man who had a lot of courage and a lot of guts, but he overrated himself and his contribution to winning the Second World War and to leading France in its time of needsometimes at the expense of the local Resistance inside France itself. Much of de Gaulles political appeal from 1945 on in France had to do with him as being the man of June 18, 1940, who saved France in its hour of need: off he went to London, rallied France behind him, stood steadfast, created space for France at the table of the great powers, and so on. Much of this is myth.
Roosevelt, of course, famously loathed de Gaulle. But, as Hitchcock says, de Gaulle made it so easy for anyone to loathe him. He was so difficult, so obstreperous, so unwilling to be flexible, so unwilling to take a second-tier position, when he was lucky even to be in the room and be taken seriously by Churchill, who went out of his way for the first couple of years of the war to try to bring de Gaulle into the tent. Churchill made a great crack about how the heaviest cross he had to bear during the war was the cross of Lorrainethe symbol of the Free Frenchand you could see why: It was very, very difficult to have to deal with a man of such ego, such national pride, and yet so little real meaningful power.
Theres a great deal of truth in what Hitchcock says. In many ways de Gaulle was impossible and thought ridiculously highly of himself. But to me that was de Gaulles greatest strength. The only weapons he had at his disposal in the dark days after the French capitulation were his own dignity and self-respect. Through sheer force of personality, he managed to transfer those characteristics onto a people whose wartime conduct had left them much to be ashamed of.
Distinguished Japanese-born Harvard historian Akira Iriye looked to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for a culprit. One of the most overrated leaders of World War II would have to be the Japanese emperor, he told me. Iriye believes that Hirohito was overrated by his own people, who died and lived in the belief that the nation of which he was the 124th god in an unbroken line of succession could not possibly lose the war, but also overrated by postwar apologists as a man of peace. If he had been, he would not have agreed to all the disastrous decisions made in his name during 19311941, and during the war he would have taken every opportunity to bring the aggressive war to its speedy conclusion.
There can be little dispute about the leader that British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore nominated: the wars greatest tyrant. Hitlers hugely overrated, said Sebag Montefiore. He got incredibly lucky [at the start of the war]. Poland was a tiny country that depended on cavalry. He also got incredibly lucky with France. And after that he thought he was absolutely unbeatable, which was a disastrous mistake. He made more and more mistakes and became less and less educable. Stalin, on the other hand, became more and more educable as the war went onwhich is unexpected from the man of steelbut by the end, after 19421943, he actually became quite a competent commander in chief.
Adam Tooze, a professor at Yale and a German expert, nominates one of the Fuhrers intimates: architect Albert Speer, the Reichs Minister of Armaments and War Production. His contribution to the war effort has been grossly exaggerated, said Tooze. That Speer could become everybodys favorite Nazi by the early 1970s I think is both inexplicable and quite distasteful. He had full knowledge of the Holocaust and the extraordinary violence being dealt out to slave laborers, and deserved capital punishment at Nuremberg along with the other major war criminals. Whats remarkable is that he managed, by virtue of the exaggeration of his war record, to present himself as a more civilized person. So two legends, as it were, feed each other.
The final nomination comes from Robert M. Citino, visiting professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Citino, a specialist on German military history, names one of the Nazi regimes most talented commanders: General Heinz Guderianone of the fathers of what came to be known as blitzkrieg or armored warfare, and a man with a wonderful operational career in the early battlesFrance in 1940 and the first campaigning season in the Soviet Union, Citino said. Hitler sacked him in December of 1941, so he wasnt around for Stalingrad. He was brought back in 1943 as Inspector General of Armored Troops and helped put the German war effortat least in terms of armored forces in the Eastback on a more sensible footing.
But after the war Guderian wrote a book called Panzer Leader in which he blamed the defeat on Hitler and said that if the officer corps advice had been followed things would have gone differently. He posed as an enemy of Hitlers and as someone who opposed Hitlers worst excesses in terms of racial war and internal suppression of dissent. But we now know that Guderian was as loyal to Hitler as they come. He participated in the so-called peoples courts or courts of honor against German officers who had taken part in the resistance. He handed out death sentences to men with whom he had fought side by side. As a field commander, if I were asked to take Objective City B, I might still call Heinz Guderian, wherever he is in the hereafter, and see if we could work out some terms. But as an arbiter of what is right and wrong, and the notion that there still can be morality even in wartime, hed be the last person Id call.
So there we have it. Sixteen world-class historians named 16 different people as the wars most overrated leader: Guderian, Speer, Hitler, Hirohito, de Gaulle, Zhukov, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Clark, Montgomery, Bradley, Patton, and Bomber Harriseach received one vote.
Given that spread, Im casting the deciding vote. And I, without hesitation, agree with Simon Sebag Montefiore that Adolf Hitler was World War IIs most overrated leader. Hitler, of course, has a terrible reputation todayrightly reviled as one of the most loathsome individuals ever to walk the planetbut there are still those who, even as they condemn his crimes, emit an almost sneaking admiration for his military genius. They are mistaken. Recent historical work on Hitlermuch of it pioneered by Professor Toozeillustrates a Nazi war effort doomed from the start. Its impossible to see how Hitler could ever have achieved his ludicrously ambitious military goals. So he was not only the worst war criminal in history, but militarily idiotic as well. If that doesnt make him the conflicts most overrated leader I dont know what else could.
Still, thats only my view. Who gets your vote?
Originally published in the December 2014 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Seba Aghayeva Trend:
There is a high-level political dialogue between Georgia and Azerbaijan, Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze told a briefing after the talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov.
Azerbaijan and Georgia support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of each other, Janelidze said Feb. 13.
He also noted that the two countries intend to develop economic cooperation in bilateral format as well as at the regional level.
Energy cooperation is one of the main components of our economic cooperation, the Georgian FM said, adding the two countries also plan to strengthen the cooperation in mutual investment and transportation.
Dr. Lynn Wooten of the University of Michigans Ross School of Business will present Legacies of Excellence on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 4 p.m. at Hope College in the Maas Center auditorium in conjunction with national Black History Month.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The presentation will seek to inspire students to higher levels of leadership and excellence by examining the positive impact that African American people and communities have had in the United States and the world in all areas, including education, business, medicine and politics.
Wooten is associate dean of undergraduate programs and a clinical associate professor of strategy and management and organizations at the University of Michigans Ross School of Business. In her role as associate dean, she is responsible for developing and implementing transformational educational experiences for Ross undergraduate students inside and outside of the classroom through curricular initiatives, academic advising, student life activities and leadership development. She was previously the co-director of the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the Ross School of Business.
Her current research bridges theory and practice and focuses on positive organizing routines, diversity management practices and crisis leadership, and her research has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, American Behavioral Scientist, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, Human Resource Management and Organizational Dynamics. She has also written a book on crisis leadership, Leading Under Pressure: From Surviving to Thriving Before, During, and After a Crisis.
Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Society of Human Resource Management and Ford Foundation. Through her applied research projects, she has worked with many organizations including Whirlpool, Google, General Motors, Michigan Nonprofit Association, Executive Leadership Institute, Trinity Health, Michigan Department of State and General Dynamics. She is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the Council of Michigan Foundations.
Wooten received her undergraduate degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, her Master of Business Administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and her doctorate from the University of Michigan. She is an active member in a number of national volunteer leadership organizations, including Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Jack and Jill of America, Ann Arbor Junior League and The Links Inc.
The events sponsors include the colleges Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Black Student Union and campus-wide GROW (Growing Relationships through diverse Opportunities to strengthen involvement in an ever-changing World) initiative.
The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets.
Whether you love Valentines Day or loathe it, you will be moved by the kindness of some kids and one hardworking Mini Horse in Texas who are helping spread some much-needed Valentines Day cheer.
Miracle Weaver Ministry is a volunteer-run group located in Northeast Texas. Kathleen Adams and her Mini Horse, Michael, regularly visit nursing homes in the area to bring some cheer to the residents. This month, in celebration of Valentines Day, theyve traveled to different retirement homes delivering hundreds of Valentines, made by members of area youth groups.
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Some of the people that we took Valentines to yesterday, they said, We are so happy that somebody cared enough to bring a Valentine card, Adams told the Longview News-Journal.
The diminutive palomino, now 21 years old, brings a bit of joy to the senior citizens he visits. Many of these Texans grew up around farms and horses, so his presence brings a happy reminder of the past.
Michael will have some help with his important work soon. According to Miracle Weavers Facebook page, an up-and-coming pinto Mini Horse named Lola is in training to take trips to visit seniors in the area, who undoubtedly will be pleased to meet her.
Leslie Potter is a writer and photographer based in Lexington, Kentucky. www.lesliepotterphoto.com
This March 2830, HFTP is producing its newest endeavor, HITEC Amsterdam, a smaller, boutique version of the ongoing, popular 45-year event. Helping to guide the educational component is long-time HFTP member, Carson Booth, vice president of global technology for Marriott International (Starwood). Using his expertise in the European, and international, hotel market, Booth leads a council of advisors to make the program uniquely European, with global appeal.
What were some technology challenges that you faced early in your career? What are some of the top challenges you are facing today in the workplace? And how are you resolving them?
I started my career in the late-'80s at the beginning of the technology revolution and have since witnessed the complete immersion of technology in most essential and non-essential activities. The evolution of usage went from users who were non-technical who then became tech-savvy, but still functioned well without the support of technology. Then as personal technology became universal, the tech-savvy user became tech-dependent. Extending further, we are now in the app era where users self-support personal experiences and expect accelerated technology release cycles with new functionality always seeking something "more."
This ultimately results in the BYOD/BYOT blurring of business and personal use. Tech-dependence and devices in every pocket create very disruptive challenges to organizations trying to control the need for standard processes and data security against app-proliferation. Neither the food and beverage director, nor their niece, should be allowed to download an inventory management app. Or even more concerning, develop one themselves.
In addition to the BYOT concerns of today, technology sophistication, especially technology security, has far exceeded most skills and capabilities of today's property-based IT manager. This creates gaps in security and service levels. Fortunately, above-property solutions with professionalized service level agreements (SLA) and security management are now maturing and the whole industry will continue to benefit.
What technology developments interest you most and why?
Augmented Intelligence The intersection of technology advancements in mobile and cloud computing delivers untethered, real-time information, communication and enhanced decision-making capabilities. The hospitality industry has a significant opportunity to profit from these advancements by recognizing that our guests are empowered by this intersection. Companies should redefine Data as an organizational strategic asset and build customer intelligence programs to leverage this data to ultimately provide a highly personalized experience for the guest.
Micro-services Architecture Technology sophistication for an individual hotel has surpassed its ability to manage and secure it. This sophistication tipping point, along with industry advancements in cloud services, is driving technology above property and locking hoteliers into recurring services models where product suites can stagnate. Developers and suppliers that adopt a flexible, micro-services architecture will create a significant share shift by enabling a more flexible, open and modular approach to applications which suit an operation's needs and provides best product choice.
What are some consumer-driven technology practices that have driven technology applications in the hotel?
Portable personal content is driving two distinct changes in hotel technology. First, hotel internet service bandwidth continues to be a significant detractor to the customer experience. Customers compare the internet access speed/cost ratio against their home/consumer experience and place a very vocal, highly-weighted critique against operators delivering sub-par experiences. On-street mobile technology continues to improve in speed and data caps, and is also driving increased expectations for hotel internet access performance. I look forward to the day where this expectation peaks and the on-street and in-room connection experience is ubiquitous and indistinguishable, delivering an experience on-par with in-home Wi-Fi.
Second, viewership and purchase of hotel-supplied content continues to decline due to increasing customer expectations and desire for bespoke content and lineups. These expectations are supported by capacity increases of portable media devices and cloud services like Netflix, Amazon and iTunes. These services are driving the guest's desire to display their personalized content using the in-room television and media players.
What are some best practices you have for running an IT department in a field that is always changing?
The constant evolution of technology is unsustainable for the average individual hotel with limited resources. Hotels need to carefully prioritize their investment decisions and consider the following best practices:
Remain agile in product choice and contracting terms. The balance of right fit and terms needs to be weighed against medium- and long-term technology trends in the industry. Lengthy contract terms will hinder an organization's ability to pivot when necessary.
Keep it simple. If it feels complicated and is not well-understood, then it should be reconsidered and questioned more.
Spend constrained training funds on life-long learning skills and not on IT training. The technology of the day is transitory and so are the training investments in certifications for IT staff. It is more critical and will provide greater lasting value for IT teams to learn life-long skills like public speaking and financial management for non-finance people. The technical training can be on-the-job or self-study.
Become more agile and responsive to your business partners. Do this by adopting a DevOps approach which emphasizes collaboration and communication between involved parties to break down the silos of the legacy plan-build-run organizational structures. Your business teams will thank you.
Celebrate success. Digital/mobile teams receive more praise than IT due to the front-end nature of their solutions; however, do not forget their stuff is a pretty front-end for complex back-end systems and interfaces. So be sure to celebrate success across the entire technology spectrum.
Having worked in hotels across the globe, in what aspect do you see regional differences?
There are definite technology expectation and capability differences by region driven in large part by legislation, affordability and other market considerations. For example, in the U.S., convenience outweighs privacy. Therefore services like automated credit card settlement (chip/signature vs. more secure chip/pin) and keyless check-ins (registration-free) are examples of trading additional information or accepting greater data risk for quicker service.
Global and regional operators are constantly tasked with managing legislation and requirement variances across political-economic unions, like the EU and member-states. For example, the registration card remains paper-based across some EU countries, but not all. Variations in VAT and other fiscal requirements for receipts and financial processing need to be accommodated for; as well as, differences in data nationalization efforts for countries like Russia versus the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
In Asia, several differences are noticeable from highly-connected and automated Japan with pervasive 4G, cube and robot-staffed hotels, to solution inward-looking China which challenge global operators in their quest for operational, guest-service and data consistency.
There are broader inconsistencies in language requirements and staff capabilities, costs for internet services, currency exchange and average rates which impact solution affordability, as well as definite gaps in true global cloud service offerings and service-provider. Its complex and requires local knowledge with global coordination for the larger brands to efficiently deliver consistent technology solutions to enhance the customer experience.
Describe a professional experience that has stuck with you. What did you learn from this experience?
Many years ago, U.S. legislation drove the need for greater accountability in financial reporting for U.S.-owned assets held around the world. In Europe, we embarked on consolidating and raising above-property the hotel-based financial reporting systems for 68 hotels in 10 countries to a self-hosted private cloud service. We built and deployed a self-managed data center, created appropriate policies and processes, and brought the solution up technically. By today's capabilities, this seems an easy and natural solution, but at the time, it was new for our users and IT staff. This took an equally-significant effort to win their hearts and minds and to prove the solution provided the needed security and service levels.
This program has had three lasting effects. The first being, the program's IT processes and security program laid the foundation for Starwood's Global Information Security Policies and started the Information Risk Management program which is still deemed best in industry today. The second was the clear establishment of an above-property technology strategy for Starwood.
The third lasting effect, which is personal in nature, came with the realization that one success doesn't necessarily translate into a pattern. Fond memories remain of the spectacular failure of the immediate subsequent project to implement a hosted, enterprise project management solution for all departments. Learning how to develop and present a business case, bring others along and identify when to press ahead versus when to walk-away, is one of the most important lessons of my career.
Leadership and teamwork are always important. Describe an experience when you led and worked with a team to resolve an issue.
The decentralized property technology that remained local created an impediment to our company's strategy. Our team was tasked with identifying multiple paths to advance property technology agility, security and standardization across the globe. We brought together a small, but very capable team, to seek solutions internally and externally with major tier-1 technology partners.
Enterprise class solutions were preferred, but came with a significant cost premium which we knew the board would struggle to approve. Nine months of effort around design, scalability, iterative pricing negotiations and navigating the inherent sacred cows on both sides of the table, led to a tired and very frustrated internal team with significant personal/ownership stakes.
Finally, we had a proposal that we could present and defend to our senior leadership team, but we knew its price tag was a long shot and would come down to a few minutes pitch followed by a yes, revise or in this case, a no. Several weeks prior to this decision, it was important to start a coping process to help the team transition away from their personal ownership stakes and realize in any sizable business no one person can make all the decisions. Most importantly, this included helping them recognize that as a team the journey was a success regardless of the outcome.
HFTP's inaugural HITEC Amsterdam is the first of three HITEC events planned for 2017, and will take place 2830 March at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The pre-conference events will take place on 28 March, followed by the full HITEC Amsterdam event featuring two full days of education, an expo and networking party. HITEC Amsterdam registration is now available on the HITEC Amsterdam website. Co-located with HITEC Amsterdam are two additional events brought by HFTP industry allies. The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Region Europe will locate its Revenue Optimization Conference (ROC) with HITEC Amsterdam. Also co-locating is the Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) Insight Summit Europe.
Social Media's Impact on the Hospitality Industry
In recent years we have been noticing the rise of social media channels as a way for businesses to communicate and engage with their customers. According to Statista, social media is predicted to reach around a third of earth's entire population.
Regarding hospitality, social media has become a powerful source of information. Travelers rely on different social media channels to support their decisions and share their experiences, making it definitely one of the most important marketing platforms. The most important transformation that this new wave brought to the marketing worlds is the fact that brands are no longer in control. Brands are on social media with or without the brand contribution.
The most efficient hotel managers distinguish themselves by their capacity to quickly react to market changes and adapt to these changes. They need indicators and adequate measures to evaluate performance in social media.
First Things First: Hoteliers Should Start by Defining Goals and the Right Metrics
The first step for any successful social media strategy is to define goals that establish outcomes and measures. You must be sure that the chosen metrics are reliable, precise and easily obtained. Goals? Brand Awareness? Leads? Engagement? Depending on each objective, you'll need to keep an eye on different indicators and metrics.
After the definition of goals and the right metrics, hoteliers should be able to analyze social media performance and make decisions based on the results. However, there are also some new engagement indicators based on sentiment analysis that can help you to understand your fans reactions on social media channels:
1. Guest Feelings and Emotions on Facebook: Get Relevant Online Consumer Behavior Insights Through New Emoji's
If you invest in unique and relevant content, engagement is the right metric. On Facebook, Likes, Interactions, Shares & Comments are the metrics used to monitor engagement but there is a new feature that can be used as a sentiment analysis to evaluate engagement: dynamic emojis reactions. These new reactions emotions can bring relevant data to be analyzed as they represent users emotions when viewing a Facebook post. Moreover, for the very first time, you can now analyze and evaluate negative feelings. For hotels, it is a great way of measuring your guest's satisfaction.
Reach & Engagement Metrics to be Considered When Measuring Emoji's - Facebook users can now choose six distinct emotive reactions: "Like", "Love", "Laugh", "Wow", "Sad", and "Angry". Measuring one by one these innovative emoji's, hoteliers will now be able to refine their messaging in order to get better reactions. Facebook delivers a new analytics page where page managers are able to aggregate these reactions together: emoji's reactions can now be monitored in Facebook insights page:
Three Powerful Social Media Indicators That are Overlooked | By Pedro Colaco Photo by GuestCentric Systems
Total Number of Reactions - will help you to understand the engagement in the Facebook post.
Positive Reactions - Positive emoji's can help to obtain a better view when guests are expressing agreement, surprise or supporting towards what they really love.
Negative Reactions - Before these new emoji's, the only way to express disagreement was to write a negative comment. Statistically it is more probable that more users pick a negative emoji now than type a negative comment. Basically, being able to isolate those users who select the "angry" or "sad" reaction, and pair them to a comment that they also post, will certainly be of significance to community/page managers.
Sentiment - Percentage of all mentions that are positive, neutral and negative in sentiment.
2. Analyzing #Hashtags Will Empower You to Define New Keywords, Improve SEO and Monitor Your Online Reputation
Today, hashtags are everywhere. A good hashtag can capture the imagination of the online public and help increase social media presence. Hashtags can be also used to understand which keywords are more relevant to identify an idea. That is why it is important to know exactly the words that your guests are using to hashtag your property in their posts, as well as its frequency. Moreover, knowing which keywords are being used as hashtags is also important for organic search results (the listings that appear on a search engine results page) and for writing unique content.
Investing in hashtags on social media channels like Instagram and Twitter, can really boost impressions, make your content more searchable and encourage guests to talk about your hotel experiences and get their feedback. Therefore, hashtags can be used to track conversations for hoteliers' content management and to build a keyword planner strategy. Furthermore, a good hashtag can redefine your online hotel identity, provide you with new ways to engage with your guests and help you to improve customer satisfaction.
Reach and Engagement Metrics to be Considered When Analyzing Hashtags:
Hashtags can be measured on conversations and engagement generated in social media. Measurement can be based on conversations, the experience that guests had in your hotel and all the content generated by hashtags. In order to measure reach (brand awareness) and acquisition metrics (building a relationship), hoteliers must take advantage of the following metrics:
Number and Type of Hashtags Per Post - Understand which type of keywords are used per post.
Keyword Frequency - The number of times that a particular keyword or phrase is found within a brand's social graph. It will help you to define the most used keywords and to understand which is your hotel perception of your guests. Moreover, you can also compare these keywords used in hashtags to understand the traffic driven into your website with the following metrics:
Traffic - Number of visits and visitors' social media drives to your website per period.
Search Visitors - Those who visit your site based on a search query.
Rank Per Keyword - Average position your content earns in a search engine for a specific keyword. You can explore here some of the most successful hashtags reputation management tools here.
3. Uncover Content Meanings and Get More Relevant Data From Guest Reviews Using Content and Sentiment Analysis
We all know how competitive the hotel industry is today. That is why guest experience and satisfaction should always be one of the most important goals for hoteliers: one simple poor review can damage a hotel's ranking. Good reviews mean more visibility and exposure to business, as well as better reputation that increases bookings and revenues. By analyzing bad reviews, hoteliers can improve their performance and customer satisfaction.
However, hoteliers could explore more online reviews and customer feedback by analyzing feedback content and what some keywords really mean. Feedback and online reviews can provide more added value than just star ratings and satisfaction scores. Guests don't rate their experience just with stars, they also express their opinions and expectations and expect you to listen.
By using text analytics and sentiment analysis, hoteliers can make the most out of guests' sentiment and feedback and obtain relevant insights that can make a difference. Moreover, you will be able to create a brand that resonates more with your audience, useful in driving engagement levels, making guests feel connected with you.
In order to improve your customer service or policies based on a negative review, you can act by simply sharing their reviews with the hotel's staff.
Metrics to be Considered When Measuring Comments Reviews
When analyzing guest feedback, it is important to filter through comments and reviews. Not all comments from guests will translate into actions hoteliers need to take. Although it might be a difficult task, hoteliers should analyze the metrics that can bring an added value and have an impact on their business.
That is why, when looking at reviews and comments, hoteliers must identify the key trends in customers comments to determine focus of concern. Implementing these initiatives will then ensure that there is a link with customer demands.
There are four essential emotional analysis factors when scanning comments in reviews. Besides the percentage of positive and negative reviews, hoteliers could also monitor the following metrics:
Sentiment:- Percentage of all mentions that are positive, neutral and/or negative in sentiment.
Analyze Customer Emotions by Keywords - You can perform an analysis of keywords (sentiment) for your hotel.
Customer Emphasis - Perceive how their thoughts and opinions were exposed.
Customer Key Issues - Analyze if there is any repetitive subject that guests are always mentioning.
Currently there are some tools like theenginuity or Sodash that can help you to monitor and measure sentiment of your audience, social activity and impact of comments and reviews.
Social media's influence on the traveler's journey has been growing in a very exciting way in the past few years. That's exactly why hoteliers must have at their disposal reliable and timely metrics. They need proper data to monitor their business and make quick decisions whenever they are needed.
Among several metrics that hoteliers track to monitor brand awareness, leads, or conversions, there are some new engagement metrics that should be also included in a social media analysis performance: sentiment analysis indicators. These indicators will enable hoteliers to better monitor their social media performance and get more relevant insights. Better yet, they will help you to fine tune your relationship with your customers in a more meaningful way.
Total Number of Reactions - will help you to understand the engagement in the Facebook post.
Positive Reactions - Positive emoji's can help to obtain a better view when guests are expressing agreement, surprise or supporting towards what they really love.
Negative Reactions - Before these new emoji's, the only way to express disagreement was to write a negative comment. Statistically it is more probable that more users pick a negative emoji now than type a negative comment. Basically, being able to isolate those users who select the "angry" or "sad" reaction, and pair them to a comment that they also post, will certainly be of significance to community/page managers.
Sentiment - Percentage of all mentions that are positive, neutral and negative in sentiment.
2. Analyzing #Hashtags Will Empower You to Define New Keywords, Improve SEO and Monitor Your Online Reputation
Today, hashtags are everywhere. A good hashtag can capture the imagination of the online public and help increase social media presence. Hashtags can be also used to understand which keywords are more relevant to identify an idea. That is why it is important to know exactly the words that your guests are using to hashtag your property in their posts, as well as its frequency. Moreover, knowing which keywords are being used as hashtags is also important for organic search results (the listings that appear on a search engine results page) and for writing unique content.
Investing in hashtags on social media channels like Instagram and Twitter, can really boost impressions, make your content more searchable and encourage guests to talk about your hotel experiences and get their feedback. Therefore, hashtags can be used to track conversations for hoteliers' content management and to build a keyword planner strategy. Furthermore, a good hashtag can redefine your online hotel identity, provide you with new ways to engage with your guests and help you to improve customer satisfaction.
Reach and Engagement Metrics to be Considered When Analyzing Hashtags:
Hashtags can be measured on conversations and engagement generated in social media. Measurement can be based on conversations, the experience that guests had in your hotel and all the content generated by hashtags. In order to measure reach (brand awareness) and acquisition metrics (building a relationship), hoteliers must take advantage of the following metrics:
Number and Type of Hashtags Per Post - Understand which type of keywords are used per post.
Keyword Frequency - The number of times that a particular keyword or phrase is found within a brand's social graph. It will help you to define the most used keywords and to understand which is your hotel perception of your guests. Moreover, you can also compare these keywords used in hashtags to understand the traffic driven into your website with the following metrics:
Traffic - Number of visits and visitors' social media drives to your website per period.
Search Visitors - Those who visit your site based on a search query.
Rank Per Keyword - Average position your content earns in a search engine for a specific keyword. You can explore here some of the most successful hashtags reputation management tools here.
3. Uncover Content Meanings and Get More Relevant Data From Guest Reviews Using Content and Sentiment Analysis
We all know how competitive the hotel industry is today. That is why guest experience and satisfaction should always be one of the most important goals for hoteliers: one simple poor review can damage a hotel's ranking. Good reviews mean more visibility and exposure to business, as well as better reputation that increases bookings and revenues. By analyzing bad reviews, hoteliers can improve their performance and customer satisfaction.
However, hoteliers could explore more online reviews and customer feedback by analyzing feedback content and what some keywords really mean. Feedback and online reviews can provide more added value than just star ratings and satisfaction scores. Guests don't rate their experience just with stars, they also express their opinions and expectations and expect you to listen.
By using text analytics and sentiment analysis, hoteliers can make the most out of guests' sentiment and feedback and obtain relevant insights that can make a difference. Moreover, you will be able to create a brand that resonates more with your audience, useful in driving engagement levels, making guests feel connected with you.
In order to improve your customer service or policies based on a negative review, you can act by simply sharing their reviews with the hotel's staff.
Metrics to be Considered When Measuring Comments Reviews
When analyzing guest feedback, it is important to filter through comments and reviews. Not all comments from guests will translate into actions hoteliers need to take. Although it might be a difficult task, hoteliers should analyze the metrics that can bring an added value and have an impact on their business.
That is why, when looking at reviews and comments, hoteliers must identify the key trends in customers comments to determine focus of concern. Implementing these initiatives will then ensure that there is a link with customer demands.
There are four essential emotional analysis factors when scanning comments in reviews. Besides the percentage of positive and negative reviews, hoteliers could also monitor the following metrics:
Sentiment:- Percentage of all mentions that are positive, neutral and/or negative in sentiment.
Analyze Customer Emotions by Keywords - You can perform an analysis of keywords (sentiment) for your hotel.
Customer Emphasis - Perceive how their thoughts and opinions were exposed.
Customer Key Issues - Analyze if there is any repetitive subject that guests are always mentioning.
Currently there are some tools like theenginuity or Sodash that can help you to monitor and measure sentiment of your audience, social activity and impact of comments and reviews.
Social media's influence on the traveler's journey has been growing in a very exciting way in the past few years. That's exactly why hoteliers must have at their disposal reliable and timely metrics. They need proper data to monitor their business and make quick decisions whenever they are needed.
Among several metrics that hoteliers track to monitor brand awareness, leads, or conversions, there are some new engagement metrics that should be also included in a social media analysis performance: sentiment analysis indicators. These indicators will enable hoteliers to better monitor their social media performance and get more relevant insights. Better yet, they will help you to fine tune your relationship with your customers in a more meaningful way.
About GuestCentric
GuestCentric is a leading provider of cloud-based digital marketing software and services that help extraordinary hoteliers promote their brand, drive direct bookings and connect with customers on all digital platforms. GuestCentric's all-in-one platform provides hotels with the only unified solution for managing their guests' online journey: award-winning, high impact websites; an integrated, easy-to-use booking engine; social media marketing and publishing tools; a GDS chain code and a channel manager to offer rooms on Amadeus, Booking.com, Expedia, Galileo, Google, Sabre, TripAdvisor and hundreds of other channels. GuestCentric is a proud provider of solutions that maximize direct bookings to hotel groups and independent hotels from collections such as Design Hotels, Great Hotels of the World, Leading Hotels of the World, Relais & Chateaux, Small Luxury Hotels and Small Danish Hotels. GuestCentric is featured on Skift Travel Tech 250, a list of the top 250 travel tech companies shaping the modern-day travel experience.
Pedro Colaco
President and CEO GUESTCENTRIC
GuestCentric Systems
Ketchikan, AK -- My Place Hotels of America is thrilled to announce My Place Hotel-Ketchikan, AK officially opened its doors on February 9, 2017! The new hotel is the brand's 29th location to open nationally, and the second to open in the state of Alaska! Located at 3612 North Tongass Avenue, the 3-story, extended stay hotel offers 64 guest rooms with waterfront views of the Tongass Narrows. Conveniently located between the KTN Airport ferry terminal to the north and the AMHS ferry terminal to the south, My Place guests will enjoy easy access to the airport, and a plethora of local restaurants and shops. The community of Ketchikan is invited to join the area's first My Place Hotel in celebrating its Grand Opening on Thursday, March 9th, from 3:00 to 7:00 PM.
Responsible for the brand's territorial development in Alaska, Oregon and Washington is Joe Dinger, VP of Development at Pacific Northwest My Place Hotels, LLC. (PAC NW). Dinger said Ketchikan already has a few great lodging options to host visitors throughout the year, but there's nothing else quite like My Placea new, affordable hotel which not only appeals to the nightly traveler, but those who will be in the area for weeks or months at a time.
"We are excited and humbled to be welcomed to the community of Ketchikan, Alaska! Our mission is to provide an affordable, high-quality lodging option for the local residents, the people of neighboring islands, and those visiting this wonderful city from afar through the year," Dinger said. "We welcome you to join us. Our team's promise is to ensure My Place Hotel-Ketchikan, AK is your Southeast Alaskan home away from home!"
Ketchikan's newest hotel now serves area travelers as the only newly built extended stay hotel. At the helm of operations is Ketchikan's own Carol Domme, the property's general manager. While the journey to opening day has been rigorous, it's also extremely rewarding, Domme said.
"It's very exciting to be on the cutting edge of something new, and I feel so honored to be part of everything," Domme said. "My Place has provided us with all the support and training we need to make this a tremendous success, and Ketchikan has made us feel so welcome in the community! We have a dynamic staff in place, ready to provide exceptional guest service for our new guests and our old friends alike!"
My Place Hotel-Ketchikan, AK is independently owned by PAC NW, and operated by Legacy Management, LLC. Having recently joined Legacy Management and completed the My Place Managers' training in the latter half of 2016, Regional Manager Ken Jenks is also inspired by the process of opening the state's second My Place Hotel in Ketchikan.
About My Place Hotels
All My Place Hotels locations offer modern amenities at an affordable price including nightly, weekly and monthly rate options. Each guest room features a My Kitchen, complete with a cooktop, a microwave and a full refrigerator. My Place Hotels offer pet friendly accommodations, include on-site laundry facilities, complimentary high-speed internet service and a 24-hour My Store, located in the hotel lobby and stocked with an array of supplies for the guests' convenience.
My Place Hotels of America is a franchise company that focuses on providing a clean and comfortable facility, with modern amenities, and great customer service, all at an affordable price. The company is based out of Aberdeen, S.D., and offers franchisees a new construction brand, designed to ensure quality, consistency and the highest of standards for delivering marketplace value. The brand currently has 47 hotels open across 21 states with over 120 hotels in the pipeline. For more information on franchising with My Place Hotels, please visit myplacehotels.com/franchising or contact Terry Kline at (605) 725-5685.
To book your stay at My Place, please call the toll-free reservation line at: (855) 200-5685, or visit myplacehotels.com. In celebration of our partnership with the American Hotel and Lodging Association, we invite you to Stay Rewarded. Earn 1,000 points by enrolling using this link by Independence Day:
myplacestayrewarded.com/SignUpKiosk?kioskcode=AHLA
Please click here to get up to date with the latest news from My Place Hotels!
Ngoc Thach
Director of Public Relations - My Place Hotels of America
+1 605 725 5993
My Place Hotels of America
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
Trend:
Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 37 times violated the ceasefire in various directions along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend Feb. 13.
The Armenian army was using 60, 82 and 120-millimeter mortars, large-caliber machine guns, grenade launchers.
The Azerbaijani army positions located in Qaymaqli, Farakhli, Gizilhajili villages of Azerbaijans Gazakh district underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located in Barekamavan, Shavarshavan villages of Noyemberyan district, Berkaber village of the Ijevan district of Armenia.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani army positions located on the nameless heights of Azerbaijans Gadabay district were shelled from the Armenian army positions located on nameless heights of the Krasnoselsk district of Armenia.
Moreover, the Azerbaijani army positions were shelled from the Armenian army positions located near the Armenian-occupied Chilaburt village of Tartar district, Nemirli, Qaraqashli, Marzili villages of the Aghdam district, Horadiz, Ashagi Seyidahmadli villages of the Fuzuli district, as well as from the positions located on nameless heights of the Goranboy, Khojavand, Fuzuli and Jabrayil districts of Azerbaijan.
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.
Whoever said nice guys finish last obviously never met John Boyne. He is one of Irelands most successful ever writers, having sold an astonishing seven million copies of his widely loved novel, The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas. The book, written for younger readers, went to No.1 on the New York Times bestsellers list and was turned into a Hollywood movie. Yet there was no ego about the man: not when I first met him back in 2009; and not when we spoke again for this interview.
The Houston Fire Department and Harris County emergency management officials are investigating the origins of a strange smell they believe is emitting from LyondellBasell's Channelview plant in east Harris County.
HFD spokesman Ruy Lozano on Monday said the sulfur-based smell Houston residents are reporting is from a possible chemical release. At the moment officials do not believe the chemical is dangerous, he said.
A motorist tried to evade Houston Police Department officers at about midnight Monday, after the officers attempted to pull him over for a traffic violation on Buffalo Speedway at Southwest Freeway.
According to police, the male driver refused to stop and sped southbound.
Under the pink Capitol dome with hundreds of eyes upon him, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an ultimatum to lawmakers mulling over how much to invest in the next two years on high-quality early education.
"Do it right," he implored, raising his voice as lawmakers sat silent, "or don't do it at all."
Those words rang out in his State of the State speech last month, accenting criticism of the state's legislative branch whose budget gurus minimized funding for one of his most prized priorities to increase quality learning inside pre-kindergarten classrooms across Texas.
If budgets are a reflection of lawmakers' priorities, both the House and Senate put pre-K on the proverbial back burner in their preliminary spending proposals this session. Both offer around half of the funding needed to make Abbott's ongoing dream of a robust pre-K program a yearly reality. Key figures in neither chamber are talking yet about adding more.
In a legislative session where money is tight and the state's top leaders already are butting heads, appearing to give lawmakers an option to pass on expanding a controversial early education program inherently offered an out.
'Absolutely perplexed'
People working behind the scenes to ensure the state's grant program that has paid for training and in some cases, full-day programs, for pre-kindergarten say they are confident, however, that lawmakers will pony up money to keep Abbott's early education priority well-funded, even if some politics need to be played first.
"This is the session of Republican-on-Republican warfare and chamber-on-chamber warfare," said Jason Sabo, a long-time social issue lobbyist who represents Children at Risk, a non-profit advocacy group. Add in the governor's office and "of course they're going to game one another for advantage on X, Y and Z," he said.
In 2015, Abbott convinced lawmakers to spend $118 million on high quality pre-K grants that school districts could apply for. Although initial proposals pitched larger spending plans, the governor's high-quality pre-K program handed out grants to 573 school districts serving nearly 190,000 pre-K students this school year. The one-time grants doled out $734 per child, which districts report they largely spent on professional development, curriculum, instructional materials, technology and parent engagement, according to Texans Care for Children, a non-profit policy organization that surveyed districts last fall. Some school systems said they used the money to expand to full-day classes.
Texas has a history of low scores for its pre-K program, meeting two of 10 quality standards recommended by the National Institute for Early Education Research for the last four years, losing points for lacking limits on class sizes and staff-child ratios, among other measures.
Advocates saw the initial grants allowing pre-K programs to use the money as a "down payment" to improve quality after years of pressure by children's groups and a growing array of chambers of commerce, individual businesses and law enforcement calling for an investment in early education, Sabo said.
Instead of doubling the funding to $236 million for the new biennium, the Senate's first draft of the budget released this session offered $75 million per year. The House of Representatives said it would give $117 million the first year and nothing the next.
Abbott admonished the chambers in his speech, saying he was "absolutely perplexed" by the House and Senate budgets that "nod in the direction of pre-K, but they really turn a blind eye to the goal of achieving high-quality pre-K."
'Bucket of priorities'
The Legislature is poised to tackle several weighty and expensive issues this year pertaining to children's well-being. Lawmakers have agreed to focus on reforms to the state's overwhelmed Child Protective Services department, its foster care program which is under fire in the courts, and an antiquated education funding formula that has left Houston Independent School District poised to give up millions of dollars to other school districts. These changes, and other demands for state funding, come as Texas needs to trim back its budget amid lower-than-expected tax revenues due in part to the state's weakened oil industry.
Sitting on a long wooden bench in the marbled hallway of the state Capitol, Stephanie Rubin, CEO of Texans Care for Children, said she was confident both chambers ultimately will fund the pre-K program to the tune of $236 million.
"Given the focus this session on kids and the success and well-being of kids, high-quality pre-K should and, we expect, will be included in that bucket of priorities," she said, adding the cuts both chambers have proposed give citizens and the governor an opportunity to get fired up about the program.
Both chambers contend their early drafts of the budget are starting points in a months-long negotiation over how the state should prioritize more than $100 billion in general revenue funds to be spent over the next two years. State officials and advocates say most of the talk about the early education budget is happening behind the scenes and lawmakers are reticent to make waves.
Senate Education Chairman Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, declined to comment for this story and newly appointed House Public Education Chairman Dan Huberty, R-Houston, was not available for comment.
'Getting personal'
Abbott spokesman John Wittman said the governor wants to see funding for his high-quality pre-K plan increased to $236 million, not sidelined.
"Gov. Abbott was clear that when it comes to early education, Texas children must have the tools they need to succeed and that begins with optional, high-quality pre-K, which he expects the legislature to fully fund this session," Wittman said.
Sabo, a longtime political observer, said he found it telling that Abbott stressed pre-K in his state address.
"This is getting personal, this is his thing," Sabo said.
Jim Sterling had listened to and read about the many scholarships being offered in Liberty, but something was missing. It struck a nerve for the real estate agent and, as he has for many other projects, he couldn't stop until he rectified what he saw as a deficiency.
"We have scholarships for kids who want to study engineering, math, science, academics or sports, but nothing for kids who want to study drama, art, music, or dance," he said.
A little irritated, and he himself a musician who enjoys all the fine arts, Sterling picked up his phone and began calling music acquaintances and friends of the arts.
His mission wasn't complete until he welcomed his assembled group at their first meeting some three years ago and birthed FASOLT, or the Fine Arts Society of Liberty, Texas, a moniker after the giant in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, or in English, 'The Ring of the Nibelung.'
He recruited his sometimes gig partner, trumpet player and attorney Richard Brady, to help him organize the group.
"I helped incorporate the group and secured the 501(c)3 charity status for us," Brady said. By Oct. 17, 2014, FASOLT was incorporated in the state of Texas and set to change the status quo in the community.
Brady drafted the mission for the group that was later adopted and remains today the focus of their energy.
"Our mission is to support and promote the Fine Arts by providing opportunities for all community members to experience music, theatre, and visual arts through education and participation that nurtures growth, creativity, and the appreciation of all forms of art," the document reads.
Sterling says their focus is not on scholarships alone.
"It's not just for students," he said. "Providing scholarships is only one of our many interests."
Brady said fundraising efforts are used to help finance events from which local students and the community at large will benefit.
Last year was one of the most productive for the emerging organization.
"We were able to give out two $500 scholarships and one $250 scholarship to Liberty High School graduates to study Fine Arts, specifically in vocal performance, art and film studies," Sterling said.
One of those scholarships offered by the society was given to Liberty High School graduate and art major Noah Holden. Holden said he couldn't have fulfilled his dream to attend college without the scholarship. He spends his summers making extra cash using his art skills to paint the Liberty Bell Project bells throughout the community. He relishes the legacy he's leaving with the bells.
"When I'm gone from here completely, it will be nice to know that I've left my mark on my hometown," he said.
The society also sponsored performances of Houston Grand Opera's 'Opera To Go' at the Liberty School auditorium for several hundred students from Liberty, Hardin and Hull-Daisetta high schools. Another highlight included the Vocal Concert by international opera star Sonja Bruzauskas and Dr. Tali Morgulis.
"Next year we want to give more scholarships, sponsor fine arts events, and buy tickets for students who may not be able to afford to go to arts events," Sterling said.
To that end, they have already organized a few outings for students at Rice University that will include a trip to Birraporetti's restaurant.
"This is for kids who have never made it past McDonald's or made a trip to town all dressed up," Sterling said. The events would be of no cost to the students and completely sponsored by FASOLT.
Sterling also said they now have a member working on securing more grants for the organization.
"Last year we were fortunate to receive a $5,000 grant from the Humphreys Foundation," he said. Sterling hopes to increase that number this year with more targeted efforts.
On tap for this year's calendar includes a return of Opera To Go, a visit to the re-enactment of the Battle of San Jacinto in April, local performances of music, dance and drama students.
The group has already upped the ante and has pledged four $500 scholarships in 2017 for anyone who will major in a Fine Arts degree.
Sterling said meetings are open to the public and there are no membership dues to join the group.
For more information on meetings, contact Jim Sterling at 936-336-3716 or email: jim@jimsterlingrealty.com.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Anakhanum Hidayatova Trend:
The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can not be resolved without the active involvement of the authoritative international organizations in the conflict settlement process, Edgars Rinkevics, Latvian foreign minister, who is on a visit to Azerbaijan, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
"Latvia confirms its permanent position, namely, the countrys territorial integrity is the number one principle, Rinkevics added. We will always support the territorial integrity of all countries of the Eastern Partnership. We think that the peaceful negotiations are the only way to resolve the conflict."
He said that Latvia is constantly discussing the issue with Baku and Yerevan.
"The principles, worked out by the OSCE Minsk Group, must be observed, Rinkevics said. We are concerned about the violation of the ceasefire regime on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops. The work must be intensified in this direction through diplomatic channels."
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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Q: After knee-replacement surgery, my doctor told me to take three or four ibuprofen tablets every four hours for pain.
It did not help the pain much, but I developed severe ringing in my ears. After a few years with no ibuprofen, the ringing has almost stopped.
A: NSAID pain relievers such as diclofenac (Voltaren), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, etc.), meloxicam (Mobic) and naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn) all can affect hearing or trigger tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
The Nurses' Health Study queried nearly 56,000 women about their use of pain relievers over two decades (American Journal of Epidemiology, Jan. 1, 2017).
Those who took acetaminophen or an NSAID at least twice a week for more than a year were about 10 percent more likely to have hearing loss.
Q: You have written that some people stop a migraine by eating Chinese hot-and-sour soup. You implied that the benefit might be from capsaicin, the compound that gives hot peppers their kick.
While hot-and-sour soup does a great job at clearing the head and sinuses, it does not normally contain chili peppers. The "hot" in this soup comes from rice vinegar and white pepper.
Some American-style Chinese restaurants may use dried chilies or black pepper, but the standard is white pepper.
Chilies and white and black pepper come from different species.
It may not matter so long as it works, but we should know the difference in the peppers.
A: You are right: Chili peppers, white pepper and black pepper are different, but they all stimulate the same TRP (transient receptor potential) channels.
This might explain why both hot-and-sour soup and hot gumbo with chili peppers work to control migraines (Journal of Headache and Pain online, Aug. 13, 2013).
AUSTIN - After being blocked by moderate Republicans two years ago, controversial legislation that would prohibit voluntary payroll deductions of union dues from state employee paychecks is up again Monday for a new hearing.
This time, passage of the measure has been tagged as a priority by Gov. Greg Abbott and figures in a broader push by conservative Republicans intent on pushing ahead their agenda that include school choice and pension reform.
On Monday, the Senate State Affairs Committee will hold a public hearing on Senate Bill 13 - authored by the panel's chair, Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston - with passage expected to allow full debate soon by the full Senate.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who lists passage of the measure as one of his top priorities, said the long-standing practice should stop.
"While we are cleaning up government, we should end the practice of government deducting union dues from the paychecks of employees," Abbott said in his State of the State speech to the Legislature last month, echoing Patrick's view.
Texas is a "right-to-work" state, meaning that employees cannot be required to be part of a union or other association as condition of employment, and their payment of dues or other association fees is voluntary. The law also prohibits the use of union dues collected by the state for political campaigning.
Huffman's bill, along with the identical House Bill 510, would apply to most public employees, such as teachers and corrections officers, though police officers, firefighters and emergency medical services personnel have been exempted. That has led to charges of unfairness over the creation of two separate classes of public employees, while raising concern among excluded employees that they could be targeted by future amendments.
Two years ago, when the measure was first proposed, some law enforcement and firefighter groups turned out in force to oppose the bill and its chances appeared doomed until they were exempted.
No costs to taxpayers
Supporters of the proposed changes say the government has no role in helping labor unions, and cite the apparent conflict of interest presented by the state's aid to organizations that may be opposed to the government when they negotiate on behalf of employees.
In a statement, Huffman said that other states have moved to end automatic deductions of labor union dues from state employee paychecks. "Texas is now only one of a handful of states that still collects union dues from the paychecks of its public employees," she said.
Opponents portray the issue as one of state employees' freedom of speech and association, noting that the state also allows them to choose to have automatic payroll deductions for charitable contributions. They also emphasize that state law requires unions to bear the costs of administering payroll deductions and that there are no real costs to taxpayers associated with the practice.
In the fiscal year 2016, the state comptroller's office collected $6 million in dues from roughly 45,500 state employees on behalf of six organizations. That figure does not include dues collected by municipalities, school districts and other government entities.
Conservative support
The legislation is part of a years-long campaign by conservative groups including Empower Texans and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who supported the failed effort in 2015. Last year, both groups backed a Republican primary ballot proposition that called for Texas to "prohibit governmental entities from collecting dues for labor unions through deductions from public employee paychecks."
The proposition passed by nearly 83 percent.
Strong opposition
Empower Texans and board members of the Texas Public Policy Foundation were also major donors to the campaigns of Republican challengers to moderate house incumbents such as House Speaker Joe Straus and other legislative leaders who they have criticized, state records show.
"They are very interested in changing the House leadership and this is part of the vehicle," says Richard Levy, secretary-treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO, the state federation of labor unions, and an opponent of the legislation.
And while strong opposition again faces the bill, supporters are predicting it will pass the Senate despite lingering questions about its possible fate in the House. That's where opponents say they intend to focus much of their lobbying to defeat the measure.
Ruth Courtney, 83, daughter of Andy and Kate (Fox) Walling, was born July 4, 1933,
in Eunice, Mo. She went to be with the Lord on Feb. 9, 2017, in Licking, Mo.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband of 57 years, Max Courtney; one son, Terry; and 10 siblings.
She is survived by one daughter, Phyllis Hadley and husband, Greg; one grandson, CW Hadley and wife, Jessica; three great-grandchildren, Kate, Sean and Brucie; one twin sister, Rose Wallace; and numerous other family members.
On Dec. 31, 1953, Ruth married her long-time friend and love of her life, Maxwell Courtney at Glad Tidings Church in Eunice, Mo.
During Maxs time in the military their first child,, Terry Wayne Courtney, was born on April 12, 1955. Ruth and Max lost their first child shortly after birth, but Ruth gave birth to a daughter, Phyllis Jean Courtney, on Nov. 27, 1956, in Houston, Mo.
Ruth served alongside Max in the ministry. It wasnt just his ministry, it was theirs. They served the Lord faithfully in 11 congregations over 60 years. During that time, she truly loved ministering to children and her greatest joy was to teach childrens church. She touched many childrens lives and helped point them to the loving Savior Jesus Christ.
In 1993, Max and Ruth retired to Licking, Mo., after pastoring in Springfield, Mo., for seven years. While retired, they ran a discount store together, Courtneys Bargain Outlet. Their retirement was short-lived as they were called to pastor at the New Life Free Will Baptist Church in Licking, Mo., for a second time. They pastored there from 1997 to 2007.
In 2007, they founded a small mission church, Hilltop Free Will Baptist Church, in Houston, Mo., with a group of believers whom they loved dearly.
Ruth and Max were the best of friends and did everything together. Besides their ministry, they loved bluegrass music. She didnt play an instrument, but she thoroughly enjoyed listening to musicians play and sing, often humming and tapping her toes.
Ruth enjoyed crocheting, quilting and sewing, spending many hours creating gifts for friends and family.
She also loved to can, although she did not have a green thumb and depended on others to supply her with vegetables and fruits to be canned and used year round.
After Max passed away, Ruth went to live at the senior housing in Licking. While there, she made a wonderful friend, Marjorie Gann. They spent many hours together, laughing, telling stories, doing projects, watching Wheel of Fortune and playing games. Usually if you saw one of them, you saw the other.
Ruth was a special lady, a true helpmate to her husband, walking alongside him while ministering to the needs of the people in their congregations. She was a wonderful mother, grandmother and sister and will be missed by all those who knew her and loved her.
Services are 10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, at Evans Funeral Home with Bro. Darius Wentz and CW Hadley officiating. Burial will be in Licking City Cemetery under the direction of Evans Funeral Home. Pallbearers were Ronald Wallace, David Barker, Clay Wallace, Donnie Ingram, Jason Ingram and Chris Ramsey.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Anakhanum Hidayatova Trend:
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, who is on a visit in Azerbaijan, said in an exclusive interview with Trend that the main purpose of his visit to the country is the desire to continue a fruitful political and economic dialogue with it.
To some extent, this is a preparation for the visit of the Latvian president, who will arrive in Azerbaijan for the Baku International Humanitarian Forum next month, the minister said. We have already discussed the issues of bilateral relations of our countries with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
It was noted that Azerbaijan and Latvia have great political ties, he said.
We are also looking forward to Azerbaijani presidents official visit to Latvia, he added. This visit is aimed to outline a program of further cooperation.
The Latvian minister also said that the sides intend to strengthen cultural and educational ties.
In addition, the Latvian minister noted that he and Azerbaijani president touched upon the issues of cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.
We fully support the new agreement on strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and the EU, Rinkevics said.
He added that the sides discussed a draft agreement with the EU, which was handed over by Azerbaijan two years ago during the Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga.
This document will serve not only to strengthening political cooperation between Azerbaijan and Latvia, but also give impetus to the intensification of economic relations, particularly regarding energy cooperation, he said. The future agreement will contribute to the improvement of trade between Azerbaijan and the EU, particularly with Latvia.
At the same time, a decline of economic relations is observed between Azerbaijan and Latvia for objective reasons, the minister said.
We need to intensify the work in this direction within the intergovernmental commission and business community, said Rinkevics.
The Latvian minister went on to add that a lot of Azerbaijani products dont reach the EU market because of tariffs, duties and quotas.
Latvia could work more with Azerbaijan on joint economic projects, if not for local taxation, he said. If there had been an agreement which at least partially solved these problems, it would have contributed to the development of trade between our countries. Latvia may offer its services in the wood industry, agriculture. We can offer our milk products, and in turn, Latvia is interested in Azerbaijani wines, pomegranate juice, vegetables and fruits.
Regarding cooperation in the energy sector, the minister noted that Latvia is interested in Azerbaijani energy projects.
We are interested in the diversification of oil and gas supplies, he said. We are currently working on the liberalization of the gas market. This is an opportunity to develop relations with both Azerbaijan and the Central Asian countries, as well as Norway, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.
Rinkevics added that Latvia will be working on the possibility of initiating direct flights from Baku to Riga, and this will contribute to the development of tourism between Azerbaijan and Latvia.
He welcomed the introduction of the ASAN Visa system, which makes it possible for foreigners and stateless persons to get an e-visa to Azerbaijan through a single online portal within three days without applying to state organizations.
The EU also tries to simplify the visa system for citizens of Azerbaijan, and there is already a more flexible regime of visa issuance, Rinkevics added.
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Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
Trend:
Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev congratulated President-elect of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Feb. 13.
I wholeheartedly congratulate you on the occasion of your election as President of the Federal Republic of Germany, said President Aliyev in his letter.
We attach great importance to the relationship between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Federal Republic of Germany. It is with great pleasure that I emphasize dynamic development of the relations between our countries in bilateral and multilateral formats, noted the Azerbaijani president.
I am hopeful that we will further make joint efforts to strengthen our friendly ties and successfully continue mutually beneficial cooperation in all the areas, said President Aliyev.
I wish you robust health, happiness, and success in your state activity for the development of the friendly people of Germany, added the president.
The controversial death of Singapore Airlines flight attendant Vanessa Yeap has sparked widespread complaints from employees across Singapore about unfair medical leave systems.
Port operators PSA Singapore employees have claimed that they get demerit points when they rack up eight MCs from private doctors, resulting in lower incentive payouts.
Most of us just accept it. We are afraid we will be 'marked' and don't know who to go to for help, said one employee to The Straits Times.
A PSA spokesperson countered the claim and said that the company has measures in place to prevent the abuse of the medical leave system and added that they are slowly phasing out doling disciplinary action from poor attendance and choosing instead to encourage a healthy lifestyle.
Rather than penalising their employees, some employers have offered incentives for employees who dont take their medical leave. One restaurant offers a $500 dining voucher as a reward while the Royal Plaza on Scotts give a $500 bonus for a perfect attendance.
However, Desmond Choo, director of the youth development unit at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) said that while it may stem from good intentions, offering incentives could lead to workers coming in sick.
Singaporean workers are by and large hardworking, with a deep and strong sense of duty. Many choose to work without medical leave, even if no disincentives are in place, he said.
"Some employers use the cost savings to reward the employees, and there are those who use points during appraisals as incentives. The key is that the employers must be clear to position any health- related reward scheme as an incentive, and never as a penalty," advised Linda Teo, country manager of ManpowerGroup Singapore.
Teo further added that the weightage on medical leave record during performance appraisals usually constitutes a very small percentage and that a good performance appraisal should consider the employees work performance, contributions and attitudes more.
In such scenarios, employees mistreated at work display negative emotional reactions and behaviours toward members of their household In such scenarios, employees mistreated at work display negative emotional reactions and behaviours toward members of their household, they added.
The report, which was joint study between the University of Central Florida and University of Wisconsin-Madison, described a phenomenon of displaced aggression whereby employees who are mistreated at work feel unable to respond in the office and therefore vent their frustrations toward less powerful individuals such as members of their household.
Sleep was identified as a critical factor in impairing self-regulation. The researchers told Science Daily that there is a strong link between tiredness and the ability of a person to regular their behaviour.
Guided by research that suggests poor sleep quality may facilitate self-regulatory impairment and physical exercise might mitigate it, we expect these physiological factors may help explain the spread of undermining behaviour across domains, the researchers explained.
After tracking the sleep patterns and daytime physical activity of more than 100 MBA students with fulltime jobs, the researchers found that employees who took more than 10,000 steps a day and burned an extra 587 calories were less likely to perpetuate abuse at home. This is equivalent to an hour of swimming or a brisk 90-minute walk, they said.
The answer could be as simple as encouraging employees to exercise. The authors of the report suggested that HR departments promote programs that encourage physical activity, such as treadmill desks, fitness trackers and wellness programs.
Ok Ken (and David). As much as I hate to make you guys famous or even respond to you directly. We all die one day and youre old so fuck it. Yea yea my 2013 performance at the Grammys was absolute shit. Technical difficulties, blah blah. Thanks for the reminder. Very much appreciated. Fuck that performance though.
You think thats why I kept my work out of the Grammy process this year? Dont you think I wouldve wanted to play the show to redeem myself if I felt that way?
In reality, I actually wanted to participate in honoring Prince on the show but then I figured my best tribute to that mans legacy would be to continue to be myself out here and to be successful. Winning a TV award doesnt christen me successful. It took me some time to learn that. I bought all my masters back last year in the prime of my career, thats successful. Blonde sold a million plus without a label, thats successful.
I am young, black, gifted and independent.. thats my tribute. Ive actually been tuning into CBS around this time of year for a while to see who gets the top honor and you know whats really not 'great TV guys? 1989 getting album of the year over To Pimp A Butterfly. Hands down one of the most 'faulty TV moments Ive seen.
Believe the people. Believe the ones whod rather watch select performances from your program on YouTube the day after because your show puts them to sleep. Use the old gramophone to actually listen bro, Im one of the best alive. And if youre up for a discussion about the cultural bias and general nerve damage the show you produce suffers from then Im all for it. Have a good night.
Music's big night means some major outfits, people.
The 2017 Grammys rolled out the red carpet in Los Angeles on Sunday for the music industry's brightest stars, and you know the fashion was on point.
From Adele to Beyonce, Katy Perry to Lady Gaga, the 59th edition of the annual awards show has music's best decked out in the most glamourous haute-couture gowns, show-stopping ensembles and dapper tuxes.
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Check out all the looks from the 2017 Grammy Awards below!
Paris Jackson used her stage time at Sunday's Grammy Awards to bring attention to the anti-pipeline protests in Standing Rock.
"We could use this kind of excitement at a pipeline protest guys. #NoDAPL," she told the enthusiastic crowd, before announcing a performance by Daft Punk and The Weeknd at the beginning of the show.
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The King of Pop's daughter has been a big supporter of those standing against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
first cop to actually say yes to a photo with me #thepeopleunited#willneverbedividedpic.twitter.com/DrQcXFcspp Paris-Michael K. J. (@ParisJackson) February 5, 2017
In December, Jackson got a tattoo to show her solidarity with anti-pipeline activists, Refinery29 reported. The tattoo was designed by Stephanie Big Eagle, a descendant of the Oceti Sakowin nation.
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Activists are asking tattoo artists to ink the design for a donation of $20 or $30 to the movement's GoFundMe.
Construction on the final section of the pipeline began this week. Protesters, many of whom had been camped out in North Dakota for months, were served a federal eviction notice for Feb. 22, according to The Washington Post.
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A Tribe Called Quest kicked down a literal wall in a powerful anti-Trump protest at the 59th Grammy Awards.
Legendary hip-hop performers Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White took the stage along with rappers Busta Rhymes, Consequence and Anderson .Paak, to perform their protest anthem "We The People" off last year's album "We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service," as well as portions of "Award Tour," "Movin' Backwards" and "Can I Kick It?"
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The song's lyrics go, "All you black folks, you must go/All you Mexicans, you must go/And all you poor folks, you must go/Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways.
The group's performance directly hit out at U.S. President Donald Trump.
"I want to thank President Agent Orange for perpetuating all of that evil that you've been perpetuating throughout the United States. I want to thank President Agent Orange for your unsuccessful attempt at the Muslim ban. When we come together, we the people... we the people... we the people ..." Busta Rhymes shouted, referencing Trump's ban on immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries.
The group then busted through a stone wall, before welcoming a diverse group including women in hijabs on to the stage.
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Hip-hop legends A Tribe Called Quest bring the and get political at the #GRAMMYspic.twitter.com/fFEfJSnFYT Mashable (@mashable) February 13, 2017
It was a powerful political statement from a group that has only played a handful of shows after they split nearly 20 years ago, before regrouping for their new album last year.
Tribe has a long history of political action, beginning with their roots as part of the Afrocentric hip-hop collective Native Tongues.
The group dedicated their performance to the late Phife Dawg, one of the original members of Tribe. He passed away in March 2016. A lone mic stand was illuminated by a spotlight on the stage as they performed.
Q-Tip ended the performance by shouting, "Resist. Resist. Resist."
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Ah, love. It makes us do the craziest things. And while it can fill us with complete happiness, it can also take us on a rollercoaster of emotions and leave us with a few regrets.
But whether or not you wish you could go back in time and change something, these regrets and experiences shape who you are today.
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When we feel regret, when we feel guilty and embarrassed by what we've done, we are motivated to undo the wrongful things we did and make better, more careful decisions in the future, Dr. Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor at Virginias George Mason University, explains in Psychology Today.
We all learn and grow from our regrets, he continues. Without regret, you are done evolving, and you will be ineffective coping with an uncertain, unpredictable world where mistakes are inevitable.
So this Valentines Day, Huffington Post Canada spoke to 17 men about their biggest love regrets. We can all learn and relate to these stories.
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1. I wish I had dated more when I was a teenager; looking back, I feel like I could have been less shy and more confident and proactive with romances. There are also a couple of former girlfriends that I would have broken up with sooner if I could go back in time. I think everything's eventual though, and I'm so happy that all my experiences led me to find the perfect woman who I'm lucky enough to share my life with now. - Curtis Runstedler, Durham, U.K.
2. My biggest love regret would be not being able to face the truth and ending a relationship sooner. In a previous relationship, I saw the signs of it degrading, but always kept an optimistic attitude, thinking things would change over time. There comes a point where you need to realize things won't get better, or are not worth trying for, and you need to step away from that relationship. - Shawn Sayavong, Vaughan, Ont.
3. In high school I was really close with a friend of mine. We used to hang out all the time and when we weren't together, we were messaging each other or we were playing video games together. I felt a strong connection with this person, but we had some argument and eventually grew apart. I regret not being more forgiving and forward with how I felt and sometimes I just miss the friendship. It's bittersweet to think about even though this was years and years ago. - Brandon Vidito, Oshawa, Ont.
4. Friends with benefits never works. Eventually someone starts developing feelings for the other, and it only ends with an ultimatum between dating or ruining the friendship you had beforehand. And I have tried both options. I regret both and not cutting off friends with benefits when I noticed romantic feelings developing. - Calin Mindrut, Mississauga, Ont.
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5. When I think of love I regret not having the courage to tell him how I feel. I regret that it took me so long to put myself back together and figure out that he was someone good for me, that I wanted more between us. Because of love and regret I've spent more than a few sleepless nights wondering, What if?'" - Brett Thornton, Oshawa, Ont.
6. My biggest regrets are paying too much attention to the opinions of others instead of prioritizing the person I was with. - Will D'Souza, Ajax, Ont.
7. My biggest regret has to be with my first love. We were on and off for so long, it was toxic. Instead of just calling it quits earlier, we just battled it out. You're in so deep you cant imagine ever leaving. You think you will never find anyone again because your confidence is shattered from all the negativity that's happening every time you're with her. You turn into someone you're not or someone you never thought you would become. - Amin Shafiee, Toronto, Ont.
8. One regret would be losing myself while trying to hold on to someone who didnt care about losing me. Another regret is not trusting my gut. If you feel like something's wrong or off, chances are it is. Lastly, I would say I regret not being more confident in myself and not taking more chances. - Mike Robinson, Whitby, Ont.
9. I told a girl I loved her and she broke up with me right there on the spot. My guard has been high since then. Went on a rollercoaster ride of emotions and relationships. And now, here I am getting married this year to the true love of my life. My regret in all this is being naive and keeping my wall down; it wasn't even built up. I hate the pain, anxiety, anguish that I felt for the months, and even years, after that, but I wouldn't give it up because I am where I am today thanks to the issues in the past. - Gerry B., Whitby, Ont.
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10. One of my biggest love regrets was a relationship I had after my second serious one. I started to see a girl and we got along great. The romance felt like something out of Gossip Girl. We were basically Chuck and Blair. We'd fight about stupid things, fall apart, but the lust to be together was always there. The whole thing fell apart after I wasn't ready to give her the full commitment she wanted. Thinking back on it maybe if I had committed more we would have had it all and gotten past our other issues. - Chris Kmieciak, Whitby, Ont.
11. What I've learned from my relationships is that trust is the number one component. Once someone has been dishonest or unfaithful, the relationship slowly withers away. Personally, I've stayed in relationships knowing the other person was constantly lying, but I loved them so much I put up with the compulsive lies and cheating. Once you break the key to unlock their trust, you won't find another key easily. - Evin Balkissoon, Toronto, Ont.
12. I think the hardest part is walking away after giving so much time. Ive been in a toxic relationship where I've wanted to stay for the sake of not being a quitter, the sake of making it work. Leaving a toxic situation is different than quitting. - J. Brown, Toronto, Ont.
13. We were only a couple of months into our relationship when my former girlfriend first introduced me to her male best friend. Soon, her friend started spending more and more time with her, and she spent less and less time with me. She eventually confessed she cheated on me with him and I ended things with her as I believed I deserved something better than betrayal. I regret dating someone who eventually developed feelings for someone else while in a relationship. - Nizar Mawani, Whitby, Ont.
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14. The only real regret I have is not walking away when I knew things were past the point of no return. Relationships are generally unhealthy when one person starts feeling disconnected, and if both people can't catch that early then it becomes harder and harder to get back to that spot. Eventually you get to a point where you're just holding on to memories. Sometimes it's better to walk away, or at the very least, just create some breathing room to think. That's a hard lesson to learn at any age. - Matthew Roberts, Toronto, Ont.
15. I regret focusing on my own needs at times when I should have considered her feelings. - Tristan Bennett, Jacksonville, U.S.
16. I regret not being more aggressive or putting myself out there more. I've run into some really great girls that when I look back, I realize they were interested but I was far too shy to acknowledge it at the time. Sometimes I guess you just have to lay all your cards on the table and take a hard chance, or else you'll just be stuck thinking what could've been. - Dusan Micic, Oshawa, Ont.
17. Regrets? No I dont have any. Having feelings of regret, especially now, would dishonour and taint my memories, my moments and my feelings for all the women with whom I shared a loving relationship with as I grew up. That is all critical; those moments haunted me, changed me, shaped me and matured me into the man I am today and I wouldnt trade them for anything. Youre asking if I had to it all over again? Right or wrong, devastating or not, and even if it hurts? Absolutely I would, because that is how I knew it was real. - Martin Encarnacion, Toronto, Ont.
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Designer Christian Siriano has done it again.
No stranger to inclusivity, the 31-year-old women's wear guru has shown the fashion world there are doesn't have to be any challenges when it comes to casting a fully diverse runway show.
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During the preimere of Siriano's fall 2017 collection over the weekend, models on the catwalk ranged from sizes two to 16, and each represented different body figures, hair types, skin tones and ethnicities.
And, as expected, the pieces from his latest line were absolutely stunning.
No one does diversity like Christian Siriano. Such a stunning show filled with lots of glitz and glam. #NYFWpic.twitter.com/qrzX7oAAhz M. (@meenavoguee) February 11, 2017
One stand out moment from the night was when model Jasmine Poulton rocked a black T-shirt that read "People Are People," which was designed by Siriano's husband Brad Walsh.
The musician later tweeted out that 100 per cent of the proceeds from the shirt will go directly to the American Civil Liberties Union.
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I designed this "People Are People" tee seen on @CSiriano's runway. 100% of proceeds go to ACLU. Available now at https://t.co/3NZ4AE3JOapic.twitter.com/Zc8x9RNZmz Brad Walsh (@BradWalsh) February 12, 2017
"People are people, we should all be celebrated in our own way," Siriano told The Hollywood Reporter backstage. "It's very simple. Its not that hard to do and I think that that's what it was about."
"[The shirt] is about human rights. It's not about politics, it's about supporting everyone," he later added. "Thats what I thought was important."
And for other designers who may be wondering how the Siriano does it year after year, he gave the inside scoop to USA Today.
"I just book girls that are fabulous," he said.
Simple as that.
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Details added (first version posted on 11:50)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
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President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received the delegation led by foreign minister of Georgia Mikheil Janelidze Feb. 13.
President Aliyev said Azerbaijan-Georgia relations were developing very successfully and dynamically.
The president noted the importance of expanding cooperation between the two countries in all areas, including political, economic, transportation, energy and humanitarian ones.
The president pointed out a broad and comprehensive agenda of issues.
Saying the bilateral cooperation already yields good results, President Aliyev emphasized the significance of increasing efforts to strengthen these results, bring the two countries closer to each other and ensure their development.
The president expressed his confidence that the visit of Janelidze would create good opportunities for discussing the agenda of the bilateral ties and determining priority areas of future collaboration.
Janelidze said he was pleased to visit Azerbaijan, saying friendly Georgia was happy with rapid development of Baku.
He said that apart from being neighbors, Georgian and Azerbaijani nations set an example of friendship.
Saying that this year will mark the 25th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Georgia, Janelidze underlined the importance of the accomplishments made over these years.
He said there was a good foundation for the development of the bilateral ties.
Janelidze said there were no unresolved issues between Azerbaijan and Georgia. He highlighted the importance of joint projects aimed at ensuring further development of the two countries.
The sides discussed the expansion of Azerbaijan-Georgia trade, tourism and culture relations, implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor project, the strengthening of the activity of the inter-governmental commission, and a number of other issues.
A universal basic income will become necessary because of all the jobs that will be lost to automation in the coming years, says the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors.
There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk told a crowd on Monday at the World Government Summit in Dubai. These are not things I wish will happen; these are things I think probably will happen.
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The man behind the Tesla electric car, the SpaceX private space flight program and solar power company SolarCity then brought up the question of what to do about a future with fewer jobs.
I think some kind of universal basic income is going to be necessary, he said, as quoted at Fast Company.
Musk addressed one major objection to a basic income: That it could prove unaffordable for governments. He argued that increased productivity from automation would make economies wealthy enough to handle it.
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The output of goods and services will be extremely high. With automation there will come abundance. Almost everything will get very cheap. I think we'll end up doing universal basic income, he said.
Musk is part of a growing group of entrepreneurs and financiers who are coming around to the idea. Among them are famed money manager Bill Gross and Timotheus Hottges, CEO of German IT giant Deutsche Telekom.
"If there's no need for your labour, what's your meaning? That's a much harder problem to deal with." Elon Musk
Musk says that, rather than money, the real challenge of a basic income will be how shifting peoples ideas of how to give meaning to their lives.
A lot of people derive their meaning from their employment. So if there's no need for your labor, what's your meaning? Do you feel useless? That's a much harder problem to deal with."
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Human brain meets machine?
But Musk didnt stop there: He looked further into the future, and suggested that, eventually, humans will have to merge with artificial intelligence (AI).
Musk said if humans want to avoid being made irrelevant, they will need technologies to merge with AI in a way that allows them to communicate at the speed of machines.
"Some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem," Musk said at the conference, as quoted at CNBC.
This is not the first time Musk has suggested either idea. He has reportedly been working on a neural lace meant to act as an interface between artificial intelligence technology and the human brain.
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The snowstorm that's currently pounding Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada is ferocious, and drawing comparisons to previous crippling storms most notably 2004's "White Juan."
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Ack. My flight home from Toronto tonight has already already been cancelled. Is this really going to be White Juan 2? Lola Augustine Brown (@lolaaugustine) February 12, 2017
White Juan, for those who don't remember, dropped 88.5 centimetres of snow on Halifax on Feb. 19, 2004, nearly doubling its previous record for a single day. Halifax became the biggest city in the world at the time to receive so much snow in one day.
People spent days digging out from the storm and fierce winds gusting up to 124 kilometres per hour knocked out power to much of Halifax. There was so much snow that the city implemented a 10 p.m. curfew to allow for snow removal. It also sought permission from the federal government to dump to snow into the Halifax Harbour.
While today's blizzard isn't supposed to see quite so much snow Environment Canada is forecasting the western part of the province will be hit hardest with 30-60 centimetres the storm has prompted school and office closures, as well as a shut down of transit, ferries and other municipal and provincial services.
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Halifax Weather, a local weather service, says there are some similarities between the 2004 storm and what's happening in Halifax today.
"The wind, and 'slowness' (duration) of this storm will be similar to White Juan... as well as the central pressure of the rapidly intensifying Nor'easter," the service posted to Facebook Sunday afternoon.
Here are some pictures comparing the havoc that White Juan wreaked in Halifax 13 years ago versus the storm slamming the city today:
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Peninsula Halifax: Even the snow plows cannot get through. Snow day until Wednesday, I'd wager? #STORMCHIPS#NSStormpic.twitter.com/qceZpCrtuV J. Lawrence (@NationOfJason) February 13, 2017
Environment Canada meteorologist Tracey Talbot said winds were gusting to 110 kilometres per hour in Osborne Head, just outside of Halifax, and up to 20 centimetres of snow had already fallen in Halifax by mid-morning Monday.
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"With the reduced visibilities and the heavy snow and the strong winds, it's a pretty intense storm," she said. "This is definitely a very intense storm for this winter and even for last winter."
Martimers flocked to social media to share their photos and videos of the snow.
Storm surges along the Halifax Waterfront pic.twitter.com/FFhSTqThtp Lee Bent (@DartmouthBent) February 13, 2017
@hxrvce here in Halifax, I had to shovel twice just to not be trapped pic.twitter.com/VDurP4UZxt Uncle Fester (@TheExtremities) February 13, 2017
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Just a casual day in Halifax! pic.twitter.com/m2O5EmbwHH eliza (@elizaapratter) February 13, 2017
RT @perkshalifax: Storm surge on the Waterfront this morning. Thanks to Rhynos Landscaping for sharing #nsstormpic.twitter.com/jWiPn2GywS Halifax News & Info (@haligonia) February 13, 2017
With files from The Canadian Press
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U.S. President Donald Trump settled into a White House meeting on Monday by looking across a large mahogany table to Justin Trudeau to say nice things about the prime ministers father.
The remarks were prompted by a gift Trudeau gave the president that morning: a black and white photo of Trump delivering a speech in honour of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1981.
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It was presented in a silver frame adorned with maple leaves.
The president was touched by the gift. Trump opened a roundtable meeting on women in the workforce by saying how honoured he was to be with Trudeau, "whose father I knew and respected greatly."
The photo, taken at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, shows Trump speaking at podium during a dinner honouring Trudeau Sr. with the Family of Man Gold Medallion award.
At the time, Trump served as chairman of the awards dinner hosted by the international interfaith organization.
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He gave me a picture of myself and your father, Trump said, referring to Trudeau. And what a great picture. I will keep that in a respectful place.
Heres the original photo:
The gift signals a sentimental strategy by the prime ministers office in forging a relationship with the new Trump administration.
Trudeau was guest of honour at a White House state dinner last year hosted by Barack Obama last year. He sealed his bromance with the former president when he gave Obama a signed copy of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens script.
The prime minister has been facing increasing pressure at home to stand up to Trump in light of the U.S. leaders previous comments about women and recent backlash over his controversial travel ban targeting those from seven Muslim-majority countries.
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Last week, in lead-up to his Washington trip, Trudeau stressed the commonalities the two leaders share with regards to job creation and security for the middle class. In areas of policy where they disagree, the prime minister said he would be respectful of Trump by treading those areas carefully.
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Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will, when complete, triple the amount of oil that moves through Alberta's Jasper National Park.
Attendees to the project's open house in Jasper on Jan. 26 were told by a Trans Mountain employee that no pipeline leaks or spills had ever happened in the park, the Jasper Fitzhugh reported.
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Later, Kinder Morgan Canada's vice president of operations confirmed to the paper that there have actually been six spills in the park since 1954. He explained the employee had made an error.
However, the history of spills on the pipeline is much larger.
Since 1961, the company has reported 82 spills or leaks to the federal government along the Trans Mountain pipeline route. While contaminated water or condensate made up a few of those spills, the majority were crude oil. One in three spills occurred along the length of the pipeline, while the others happened at pump stations and terminals.
The company's second largest spill happened just outside the national park in 1966, when 6,981 barrels of crude (1.1 million litres) leaked.
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In 1973, 786 barrels (125,000 litres) of crude oil spilled into the park for over 12 hours until the leak was spotted by a Canadian National Railway employee, according to a report on the history of the pipeline commissioned by the City of Vancouver.
Out of the 11,000 sq.-km. of wilderness that makes up Jasper National Park, 97 per cent is protected. The park is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is also home to four National Historic Sites, and dozens of at-risk species.
The Trans Mountain employee's claim isn't the first time supporters of the pipeline have tried to downplay its history of spills.
In May of last year, Calgary professor Duane Bratt wrote an opinion piece for CBC News, in which he claimed there had never been a spill or leak along the pipeline's route. The media corporation later issued a correction.
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B.C. non-profit Conversations for Responsible Economic Development (CRED) assessed the risks of the pipeline's expansion in 2016. It noted that "some spillage is inevitable" with pipelines, but that Kinder Morgan has accrued a "significant number of spills, largely the result of human error." The group questioned whether the benefits of the pipeline offset the risks.
The pipeline's expansion is projected to cost $6.8 billion, and the company says it will create 37,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Kinder Morgan will begin construction on the pipeline in September.
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Tom Cruises mother, Mary Lee South, has died. People magazine confirms the 80-year-old, who suffered health problems in recent years, died peacefully in her sleep last week.
Cruise and his three sisters Lee Ann DeVette, Cass Mapother, and Marian Henry all attended the memorial service at Souths local Church of Scientology.
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Tom Cruise and mother Mary Lee South attend the 47th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 20, 1990 at Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)>
South was a special-education teacher and was the reason Cruise got into acting, as she always had an interest in it herself.
I was always interested in theatre, but I never did anything with it, she told Rolling Stone in 1986. When I was growing up, if you went to Hollywood, that was really risque.
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Thanks to Souths encouragement and support from her and her second husband, Cruise decided to pursue acting and went on to become one of Hollywoods biggest celebrities.
Tom Cruise and mother Mary Lee South attend the Eighth Annual American Cinema Awards on January 12, 1991 at Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)
We both wholeheartedly agreed [to let him act], because we both felt it was a God-given talent, and he should explore it because he was so enthused about it, she told the magazine. So to make a long story short, we gave him our blessing and the rest is history.
Cruise has previously called his mother his hero and the two were reportedly very close.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
Trend:
Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on the occasion of his re-election as president of Turkmenistan.
I extend my most sincere congratulations and best wishes to you as you were re-elected as President of Turkmenistan, said President Aliyev in his congratulatory letter.
Your victory in the election is a clear manifestation of your peoples tremendous trust and confidence in you and their real support for your policy, the Azerbaijani president said.
I believe that we will continue our joint efforts to strengthen and develop traditionally friendly and fraternal relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, said President Aliyev. I wish you robust health, happiness, and success in your state activity for prosperity of the friendly people of Turkmenistan.
Shutterstock background made of us cents
February 12th marks National Lost Penny Day in the US, a strange thing to celebrate - but hey, no one's getting the day off, so no big deal. Canadians would miss out if it was a holiday, though.
Why? Because Canada did away with pennies back in 2013 - interestingly, barely a week before National Lost Penny Day! Although it seemed odd to many Canadians at the time, it was a decision borne of common sense. Here's why!
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More Trouble Than They're Worth -- Literally
At the time they were phased out, pennies cost the Canadian Mint 1.6 cents to produce. Doesn't make much cents, does it? Getting rid of them ended up saving taxpayers up to $11 million a year, which is advantageous.
But even though the US has considered following suit (along with a dozen countries which phased out their one-unit currencies ages ago), they have a problem. The US penny costs 2.4 cents to produce, which isn't great - but the nickel costs 11.2 cents per coin, so it would be even worse with the penny gone and more nickels floating around!
People Are Hoarders
The penny is notoriously bad for recirculation. Most people don't bother carrying them if they don't have to, and so they wind up languishing under beds or car seats, at the bottom of cupholders, and other less savoury locations. Hoarding tendencies make it seem stupid to throw out anything that is perceived as valuable - and so they were being stockpiled and never used! The Canadian Mint produced more to make up for the lost coins, continuing the cycle until they melted down the remaining pennies in their possession in 2013.
Most Transactions Don't Require Them
Besides those of us who get an endorphin rush from the occasions where we lay down the perfect coinage to pay for something, exact change in Canada is now a matter for electronic transactions only. Now, cash transactions always round up or down to the nearest 5 cents. Meaning that customers will take a loss if they wind up paying $3.00 for something which cost $2.98, but receive a benefit if they pay for a $3.02 purchase with just $3.00! The now-departed rush of to-the-penny payment can now be replaced by gaming the system to save by paying via credit, debit, or cash, depending on the price - thank goodness.
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Wishing Wells Aren't Picky
Finally, although science has yet to prove any correlation between tossing coins into bodies of water and increased luck (or proof of luck as a natural phenomenon at all), the placebo effect can be achieved just as easily by tossing nickels, dimes, or quarters. Come to think of it, wouldn't a nickel bring five times as much good fortune as a penny anyway?
What do you think? Do you miss the little coppers? Glad they've gone the way of the $2 bill and the English half-penny? Wish that the States would follow suit and drop the penny and nickel? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Bloomberg via Getty Images AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 14: A syringe and vials of penicillin used in the treatment of syphilis are displayed in a lab at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre in Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday, August 14, 2007. Syphilis cases are rising among gay and bisexual men as new drugs reduce the threat of AIDS, and doctors warn the outbreak may spread to the wider community. (Photo by Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
As Valentine's Day approaches, most Canadians turn their thoughts to love and all that comes with it. However, for public health officials, this year is particularly worrisome in the love department. It's all due to the rather unwelcome realization sexually transmitted diseases are continuing to rise in this country and are showing no signs of slowing.
According to statistics from the Public Health Agency of Canada, the rate of these infections has been increasing since the beginning of the millennium. Worse, there appears to be no signs of slowing. Of the most notable agents, the most shocking re-emergence happens to be in the form of an old villain once thought to be controlled in this country. It's Treponema pallidum, or as we know it better, syphilis.
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Before the year 2000, this bacterium was rarely seen in Canada with only a handful of cases per year. But over the next ten years, the rate increased almost five-fold. While this was concerning, public health officials didn't consider this to be a crisis.
Then last year, the perspective changed dramatically. The number of cases soared making headlines in every corner of the country. Making the situation even more troublesome was the combination of inappropriate antibiotic treatment as well as the development of resistance. Although this wasn't officially seen as a watershed moment, the early warning signal most definitely was sounded.
For years, public health officials have been calling for the development of a vaccine against this bacterium. In response, researchers have been attempting to figure out how to train the immune system to recognize and attack this microbial enemy. However, the challenge has been daunting and many attempts have failed. The lack of proper biological information has been a significant hurdle as has the issue of long lasting protection. Even if a vaccine is provided to an animal, it may not be able to fend off a real attack later on.
Although the situation may appear to be hopeless, a recent study from a group of researchers from the University of Victoria has given us reason to believe the tide may be changing. As they show in a publication released last week, there is a new vaccine candidate against this disease. Based on the results of trials in rabbits, we may be able once again to march forward.
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The team focused on a particular protein found on the surface of the T. pallidum bacterium known only as Tp0751. It was discovered by a member of the team back in 2003, and held great potential for a vaccine as it led to an immune response in rabbits. If there was any chance a vaccine would work, this was the candidate to assess.
The first experiment was relatively straightforward. The team put Tp0751 into a vaccine formulation and then gave it to rabbits. After three weeks, the animals were tested for the development of antibodies against the protein. As expected, the immune system had reacted to the vaccine and had developed a response.
Next came the real test for the candidate. The rabbits first were either vaccinated with Tp0751 or given a control. Then, after three weeks, the skin was inoculated with an extremely high dose of the syphilis bacteria. Over the next two weeks, the animals were observed for any signs of infection on the skin. With any luck, the vaccinated animals would be able to stop the bacteria before they could do significant harm.
The results were promising. There were fewer lesions on the skin in the vaccinated animals and within those wounds, there were significantly fewer bacteria. This suggested at first glance the vaccine was working.
But this result alone didn't mean Tp0751 was going to be a successful candidate. It had to prove it could stop one of the hallmarks of syphilis infection: migration throughout the body. Thankfully, when Tp0751-vaccinated animals were examined, the bacteria for the most part did not leave the zone of infection. This meant the invaders were being kept from spreading outside of the original area of invasion.
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The last test was designed to find out whether the immune system was the reason for the reduced burden of disease. Biopsies were taken from the animals and examined for the presence of the body's defensive troops, immunological cells. As the previous two results implied, the team found higher numbers of these soldiers in the lesions. This meant the vaccine had indeed prepared them for battle and they were going strong to control the area and protect the rest of the body.
Despite the good news of this work, the authors state the results of this study are preliminary. Yet there is renewed hope for the development of a vaccine against syphilis. The information gained will be used to conduct even more animal trials and eventually clinical work in humans.
In the meantime, those wishing to celebrate Valentine's Day in a certain special way should be aware of the risks. Unless you happen to know your partner is uninfected, be sure to keep yourself safe. While there may be several means to prevent pregnancy, when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases, the most effective means is barrier protection.
I am one of many doctors raising the alarm on Ontario's health-care crisis. And I'm worried that nobody's listening.
What's worse, Bob Rae, an infamous NDP/Liberal political leader, tweeted dismissively about the crisis. It's shocking that he took something as complex as a broken health-care system and twisted it into a story complete with a bad guy and a motive in less than 140 characters.
That, right there, is some skilled politicking.
On @metromorning doctor kept saying "we're fighting for better health care" - OMA is a union fighting for higher incomes for docs. Period. Bob Rae (@BobRae48) February 7, 2017
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And while I may not be anywhere near as slick as him, I can at least recognize it for what it is: dangerous.
Flippant statements about something as serious as a health-care system in crisis are dangerous. It lets people -- important people like those in government -- ignore the danger. And then, they don't have to fix it.
This week, the Liberal government announced new investments in health care. Naively, I became excited. Until I heard about the new Malignant Hematology program at Sunnybrook to expand treatment for blood cancers like leukemia.
They shipped patients across the border to get treatment that should have been available here.
Do you remember Laura Hillier? I do. She was a Burlington teenager who died because the waitlist for stem cell transplants was too long. The waitlist was so long that the Liberal government spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars outsourcing care to the U.S. last year. Seriously. They shipped patients across the border to get treatment that should have been available here.
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Doctors saw it coming. They raised the alarm in 2008. Cancer Care Ontario agreed. And the Liberal government listened -- after Laura Hillier died. As the clock ticked, others died: mothers, fathers, children -- all died from a treatable cancer.
Think about it: Ontario's health-care system can no longer even cover life-saving treatment for everyone. The government stopped funding enough doctors, nurses and hospital beds back in 2008. And it's not funding enough now. Ontario's health-care system is crumbling because the building blocks of patient care -- doctors, nurses, hospitals beds, home care -- are all missing. And patients see it.
This brings me back to Bob Rae. As a lifelong politician, Bob Rae need never worry about waitlists. Should he or his family need health care that they have to wait for, our tax dollars give him the means to pay for treatment elsewhere. No waiting for Bob Rae.
It was not that long ago that Bob said, "I am Super Elite."
His recent tweet makes me wonder if he still feels the same way.
In the meantime, doctors like me have to look our patients in the eye every time the health-care system fails them. And we do our best to cobble together a plan to get by. But I'm sad to say, that it is happening more and more often now.
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So doctors are raising the alarm. But this time, I'm asking for your help. Help me make this government listen.
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In the first month of the Trump presidency, Washington insiders started circulating Stephen Bannon's reading list for anyone who might want to understand the apocalyptic lens through which the president's key adviser appears to see the world. This year's shortlist of Lionel Gelber prize books is a better view of the world as it actually is, in all its messiness and potential.
The five finalists in this year's contest for the world's best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs also happen to focus on two themes that preoccupy the White House: Islamism as a disruptive political force and the coexistence of an authoritarian Russia with an increasingly militarized U.S. government. But this work is deeply researched by journalists, scholars and in, one case, a journalist-scholar. They've sweated the details and embedded them in one compelling story after another, earning the power to change the way we think about the global dynamics Donald Trump aims to reshape.
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Lionel Gelber would have been proud of this year's final five. He was one of Canada's leading Cold War diplomats, a friend of British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and -- as a top authority on Anglo-American relations -- was briefly a special adviser to Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Lionel Gelber wrote eight books himself. He loathed "judgments out of context."
The Lionel Gelber Prize is awarded jointly by the Lionel Gelber Foundation, Foreign Policy magazine, and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Recent winners include The New York Times' Scott Shane, for Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone (2016); Hon. Chrystia Freeland, now Canada's foreign minister for Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else (2013); and Harvard Professor Ezra F. Vogel, one of the world's leading authorities on Chinese politics, for Deng Xiaoping and The Transformation of China (2012). Every year, we interview shortlisted authors for a podcast you can find here, with support from Focus Asset Management.
Three of this year's books dive deeply into Islamism -- the political movement (not Islam, the religion.)
It is impossible to paint Arab political movements with a single brush.
Robert Worth'sA Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS takes readers deep inside the Arab Spring and moves beyond those events to a perspective that's only becoming possible now. In Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle over Islam is Reshaping the World, Shadi Hamid explores the same events as a boots-on-the-ground scholar, integrating the messiness of North African street protests with the modern political theories that define democracy.
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Both books underscore a key point: It is impossible to paint Arab political movements with a single brush. Even the single term "Arab Spring" is misleading. Each country that experienced uprisings against long-standing dictators did so in different ways and, notes Worth, broke apart in different ways as well. Those vastly different fault lines -- which simultaneously yielded a fragile democracy in Tunisia, a civil war next door in Libya, and a new military strongman one border over in Egypt -- are the basis for politics in the Middle East today.
Likewise, there is no single Islamist movement. The biggest and most deeply rooted Islamist groups - "mainstream Islamists" as Hamid calls them -- don't reject democracy at all. Instead, they're trying to reconcile the modern state with Islam. Hamid's exploration of that project yields constant surprises. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, he notes, was and remains deeply divided over whether it should ever have sought political power at all; the effort resulted in a brief government followed by a massacre in which at least 800 members died in Cairo's Rabaa Square.
Tunisia's Ennahda, a mainstream Islamist party, avoided that debacle by helping a secular government to take power; a secret process that Worth reports in powerful detail and that Hamid analyzes in the context of modern political philosophy. Some of the most poignant stories come in Worth's accounts of Yemen -- a country some say has more guns than people, and whose civil wars have become a bloodbath, but whose "Arab Spring" began with an almost Gandhian commitment to nonviolence.
Laura Secor takes up the story in the one Muslim power that, because it is neither Arab nor Sunni, stands outside Worth and Hamid's exploration: Iran. Her book, Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, is a remarkable visit deep inside the world of Iranian reformers and politics hidden from our normal view. Most of us see Iran through its foreign policy. But Iran's fights with other countries, Secor writes, misses "the soul of the matter."
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The "soul of the matter," which Secor describes through the intimate lives of dozens of intellectuals and activists, is the rupture embedded in Iran's own name. As an "Islamic Republic," the Iranian state is built to serve "Islam," as defined by the will of its highest religious leaders. But it's also built to be a "republic" led by popular will and with surprisingly deep roots in Western political theory. Secor introduces us to a succession of Iranian politicians who invoke Western political thinkers like Karl Popper and Martin Heidegger the way American politicians invoke "the Founding Fathers."
The caricature of Iran as a monolithic terrorist machine dissolves in Secor's gutsy and unusual reporting.
Iran is forged in that fight between Islamists and reformers. Islamists inevitably seem to win; they have torture, massive prison complexes, and political corruption on their side. But somehow Iran's reformers remain a force. The caricature of Iran as a monolithic terrorist machine dissolves in Secor's gutsy and unusual reporting.
The Russia that Arkady Ostrovsky describes in The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War is also a country of ideas -- and his book tells the story of how Russia changed the way it thinks about itself in the past 30 years. The line from Gorbachev to Putin, it turns out, runs right alongside the revolution in Russian media -- from Soviet censorship, through the opening of media during Glasnost, into the eruption of warring media empires under Yeltsin and the eventual coagulation of Russian media into a single set of voices around Putin, though not quite under his direct control.
Ostrovsky describes a decade of serious liberal thinking as Soviet identity morphed into Russian identity during the fall of Communism. But most Russians became cynical about individual rights as they felt control of the state slipping into the hands of criminal gangs, and as the war against Chechnya seemed to spiral out of control. Russian media both followed the shift and accelerated it.
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Now Russia's post-communist idea of itself as a liberal, entrepreneurial country has dissolved largely into nationalism fed by a nationalist media that remains firmly based in TV. That shift has even changed the nature of war, Ostrovsky explains. Russia won Crimea with nary a shot, because Russian TV had spread blood libels about Ukrainian nationalists that drove Crimean Russians into the arms of Russian soldiers.
Indeed, the United States has also seen an unprecedented intersection between the military and everything else -- a huge change that Rosa Brooks profiles in her book How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything. If you wandered down Main Street USA in 1945, you might come across a dozen men and women in uniform over the course of a few blocks. Today, you'd struggle to meet a few who even know someone serving the military. But the U.S. military is, in fact, a larger part of American government than ever -- and that mission creep is bringing the Pentagon into everything from agricultural policy in Africa to health care in Colorado.
The stakes are high, too. "If we can't figure out whether or not there is a war, we have no way of deciding whether, where or to whom the law of war applies," she writes, "And that means we can no longer decide who lives and who dies."
The winner of the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize will be announced on February 28.
Brooks has had a powerful window on the growing military influence over American foreign policy. She helped run policy in the Pentagon during the Obama administration and had served in the State department during the Clinton Administration. She's also a law professor, a journalist and the wife of a former U.S. army special forces officer.
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In her telling, the military's expansion seems not to be a bad thing in and of itself. The U.S. armed forces are filled with professionals who take rule of law, economic development and democratic reform very seriously. But America places itself at risk by walking through these changes blindly. Brooks urges an open and blunt discussion about how to align the expansion of America's military with the principles of American law.
The winner of the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize will be announced on February 28 at the Gelber Prize website.
The winner will receive the award and give a lecture at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto, Canada on March 29, 2017.
Robert Steiner is Director of the Fellowship in Global Journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs in the University of Toronto. He hosts the Lionel Gelber Prize podcasts.
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Recently, the entire executive of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) resigned. I was not going to write about it. My personal feeling was that internal OMA issues should stay internal. The public doesn't care who the executive of the OMA is. The public wants a health-care system that will be there for them when they need it, and doctors who will advocate for patient care needs.
However, there has been such a litany of half-truths, innuendo, uninformed speculation and outright lies published by the news media about this, that it really is time to correct some of the nonsense. Toronto Star columnists, in particular, have been almost virulent in promoting the notion that these resignations will somehow lead to a two-tier, private pay health-care system that will destroy the very fabric of Canadian society.
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For the record, I seconded the motion of non-confidence in the executive of the OMA at the Special Council Meeting (SCM). I had a (small) hand in writing the not only the motion, but the "grievance" document that supported the motion. I was also one of the two keynote speakers in favour of the motion (OMA rules allowed for two speakers for, and two against). I think it's safe to say that I know the facts as to how this came about.
This blog is my personal statement only, and not meant to represent the views of any other organization or people. I will also not be talking about any other details of the meeting, other than to refute the erroneous media statements.
Firstly, the Star columnist who wrote the piece is clearly under the impression that this endeavour was carried out by what they view as two breakaway groups, the Coalition of Ontario Doctors (COOD) and Concerned Ontario Doctors (COD). They've long lambasted these groups for solely representing the views of high-billing specialists. The fact that the bulk of COD is made up of family physicians (the lowest-paid specialty) doesn't seem to change their narrative.
This was not due to a small radical group of the dissidents.
In fact, those two groups were not involved in organizing the petition. The Star columnist seemed to use as their source Dean Richard Reznick's blog on the issue, but didn't bother to notice that Reznick himself later admitted he was wrong after he published the blog, and corrected his statement.
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Then Martin Regg Cohn made the incredulous assumption that Patrick Brown's Conservatives were behind this. Must be because the Liberals, whom the Star supported in 2014, are in a complete tailspin. Perhaps this is an attack on the perceived front runner for the next election, by linking him to two-tier medicine. Problem is, it's a completely false assumption. There were NO Conservative operatives involved. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
As it turns out, 19 of the 25 physicians who signed the request for the SCM were family physicians. When you consider the motion of non-confidence passed by 55 per cent of delegates at the SCM, along with polls that suggested up to 73 per cent of the membership wanted a change in leadership, you are talking about a majority of physicians who wanted change. This was not due to a small radical group of the dissidents. More than likely, your own doctor supported this change.
Then there are the repeated references in the media to this being a coup or a hostile takeover of some sort. Even the word "insurgency" has been used. Let's be clear about this: every functioning corporation has, as part of its bylaws, the ability to express concern about its leadership in one way or another. Without getting into the minutiae, let me state categorically that the bylaws were followed to the letter. If they weren't, do you really believe the OMA lawyers would have allowed it? This was a democratic vote that followed due process.
Probably the most ridiculous opinion shared in the Star compares the group wanting change at the OMA to TeaParty-style Republicans, or even styling themselves after Trump supporters. Let's get serious here. Are they really comparing a brown female immigrant physician (Nadia Alam) to a Trump supporter? Or a Muslim like myself?
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If you want Trump-style politics, read Dr. Berger's venomous screed against Dr. Alam that the Star published two days later. There is no data presented, just a bilious, ad hominem attack against someone he disagrees with, along with gobs of righteous indignation. Saving a premature baby's life is "not special"? I challenge Dr. Berger to tell that to the parents of the baby. Now THAT was a Trump-style attack.
If they unite under a new executive, you will see much more advocacy for health care than ever before.
Let's be clear: the Star's columnists have a right to their editorial opinion. They can advocate for whatever cause they choose, and for whatever style of health care, physician payment scheme or whatever they want. Doesn't matter if physicians agree with them or not.
But what they can't do is use erroneous information and factually incorrect opinions to promote their views. Unlike the United States, where alternative facts are all the rage, in Canada, the truth matters. Shame on the Star for not checking the facts before publishing views that are clearly designed to frighten the public into voting for Premier Kathleen Wynne in the next election.
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In short, it means that physicians are now far more activist and will take a much more strident tone advocating for health care than ever before. At the risk of sounding somewhat less than humble, Premier Wynne -- don't say you weren't warned.
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The five things you need to know on Monday, February 13
Today's Waugh Zone is written by Owen Bennett
1) BER-GO
Pressure on John Bercow is increasing after a video emerged of him admitting that not only did he back Remain in the EU referendum, he also believed immigration was a good thing and Labour had not done enough to defeat Brexit.
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Coming less than a week after he infuriated many MPs for banning US President Donald Trump from speaking in Westminster Hall, former Cabinet Minister John Whittingdale yesterday said the scoresheet is mounting up against Bercow.
Last night Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke told BBC Radio 4s The Westminster Hour that Bercow should resign as "the Speaker can no longer be deemed to be independent of the political debate, and therefore his position as Speaker of the House of Commons is untenable."
He added: The very fact that he makes political comment on eventsthat are still exceptionally live, just adds to the picture that he is not somebody who we can regard as unbiasedThe MPs in the House of Commons should not know how the speaker voted.
Of course, the argument that Bercow is not neutral when it comes to Brexit debates would carry more weight if someone had complained about his behaviour before the video emerged. Indeed, Whittingdale said he believed Bercow had actually voted Leave until he saw the footage suggesting the Speaker had done a good job in hiding his true allegiance.
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The question now is how much support there is for actually trying to oust Bercow. Tory MP James Duddridge, who tabled an Early Day Motion saying the Commons has no confidence in the Speaker, told Radio 4s Today programme this morning he had the support of people of all political parties, and minsters
However, as of this morning, his EDM has precisely one signatory: James Duddridge.
Shelbrooke confirmed he would add his name today, but that still leaves the Bercow bashers a long way to go before they get a critical mass of names. One Tory MP, who is not a fan of Bercow, told me this morning that the fact he is going anyway makes him more secure than would otherwise be. The MP added: I also suspect that he won't be able to stop himself from gobbing off.
Leader of the Commons David Lidington said yesterday the Government wouldnt stand in the way of any moves to oust Bercow, but with the Speaker being popular with many backbenchers even the latest revelations are unlikely to see him dragged from the chair.
2) JAILHOUSE STOP
All Ministers are keen to stamp their own authority and ideas on a department, but the civil servants at the Ministry of Justice have had to deal with more changes than most in recent years.
Michael Gove began tearing up the work of his predecessor Chris Grayling as soon as he donned the tights and gown in 2014, and now Goves successor Liz Truss is doing the same to him.
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In a speech today, Truss will move away from the Cameron-Gove soft, liberal vision of justice to a much more hardline position. According to the Telegraph, the former Environment Secretary will argue that cutting prison numbers just for the sake of doing so is a dangerous attempt at a quick fix.
This would be reckless and endanger the public. And it would restrict the freedom of the independent judiciary to choose the most appropriate sentence for each offender, she will say.
Truss will also take a dig at Labours Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti, who called for a reduction in prison number as she does not believe the sum of human wickedness has doubled in her lifetime.
Truss will say: "Its not that the sum of human wickedness has doubled its that we have driven that wickedness out from the shadows and put it where it belongs, behind bars.
While these words will no doubt go down an absolute storm with the Tory right (and many socially conservative Labour supporters), it does not address the fact that prison officer numbers have gone down by 14.5% since 2013. Indeed, the Howard League for Penal Reform warned last year that even with a recruitment drive for officers, the numbers were still far to low for a prison population in excess of 85,000.
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3) LAST ORDERS
Philip Hammonds first Budget as Chancellor is less than a month away March 8, to be precise but the signs of the battles to come are starting to emerge. The front page of The Times runs a story that some of Britains top pub and restaurant chains are urging the Treasury to slash business rates which are set to rise by 42% in some cases from April.
Pub and restaurant chains directly employing more than a million people have signed a letter to the chancellor, warning that the rises some are facing will damage their ability to help to make a success of Brexit, writes the Times.
City AM carries a similar warning from West End theatres, and calculates the venues will have to stump up 31million in property taxes over the next five years.
One way to find some extra money for the Treasury coffers would be to scrap the triple-lock on pensions. Speaking on the Today programme, former Tory minister David Willetts said pensioners themselves are worried about their kids and grandchildren and youngsters are being left behind. Scrapping a policy which benefits many of the Tories core voters would certainly fit into the courageous category of praise handed out by Sir Humphrey in Yes, Minister.
BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR
Proving that even the best sometimes make mistakes, Adele last night stopped her own rendition of the George Michael tune Fastlove at the Grammys - as she was out of tune. "I need to start again, I f***ed it up" she said. Her admission made the audience love her even more.
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4) PRAGMATISM, ACTUALLY
He is for many, including former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the last champions of liberalism. Today, Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet with Donald Trump in Washington. The pair may be polar opposites politically, but do have some similarities both are children of extremely successful fathers, both were elected on promises of helping the middle classes. But that is pretty much where the similarities end.
Trudeau has avoided criticising Trump in public over his refugee ban, but engaged in some epic sub-tweeting after it was announced: To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith.
Anyone hoping for a Love, Actually moment from Trudeau today in which he stands up to a bully of US President may be left disappointed. As popular as it would make him with the Twitterati, the Canadian PM will no doubt be aware that with 400,000 crossing the border between his country and the US everyday and two-thirds of Canadas trade conducted with its southern neighbour he has to avoid upsetting the volatile Trump. As the Donald showed in his bad-tempered phone call with the Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull last week, the President is capable of either hand-holding or head-bumping with foreign leaders.
5) EVERYBODY NEEDS GOOD NEIGHBOURS
With Parliament in recess, many Labour MPs are being shipped off to Stoke and Copeland this week to campaign in the by-elections. Yesterday, the partys new election coordinator Ian Lavery described the potential loss of two rock-solid Labour seats as a hiccup which does make you wonder what full-blown throwing-up would look like.
The battle for Stoke Central has taken much of the media attention, mainly because Ukip has targeted the seat and its easier for London journalists to get to than Copeland.
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Ukip leader Paul Nuttall has been forced to move from his house in the city the house which he hadnt actually stayed in before claiming it was his place of residence. Ukip claim people had tried to break into the property, and hate mail had come through the letterbox.
I wonder if any of the hate mail was as strong as a cartoon retweeted by Ukips Immigration Spokesman and Treasurer John Bickley last night. If you want a jihadi for a neighbour, vote Labour was the images caption harking back to the Far Right phrase used in the 1960s in support of a Tory candidate in Smethwick in the West Midlands. Bickley has since deleted his retweet.
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Last week, I along with thousands more, marched across Edinburgh to protest against President Trump's ban of all Syrian refugees and all visitors, green card holders and asylum seekers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. At the time, a small part of my mind nagged at me: what was the point of signs declaring 'Not my President', when of course, he is not our President. However, I was reassured by the fact that people all over the western world were protesting against Trump's purposefully offensive and security wise, practically useless, executive orders. Yet practically, we in the UK could do little to change the American President's decision.
Yesterday, Theresa May decided to halt the Government's pledge to take in child refugees from Europe. Amber Rudd's quiet announcement of this reversal in policy must not go unheard.
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We must ask ourselves why now, Prime Minister May, our Prime Minister, has decided that Britain cannot take in children who are in need of desperate help. Is this the political realisation of what holding Trump's hand looks like? Or is this the (as we are constantly told) daughter of a vicar's final rebellion against the Christian values she laughably claims to hold.
Over the summer I spent some time working with refugees in northern Greece. Most of my hours in the camp were spent listening to people, whether about their story of crossed continents, the loved ones they were trying find or simply the daily problems they faced. In this one fairly small camp hundreds of people were existing, tented in a small space without adequate sanitation or shelter, deprived of their dignity and agency (to say the least). I have been told by volunteers in northern France that the situation is just as bad if not worse than I experienced.
Theresa May's unnecessary and inexplicable decision, if it is not stopped, will undoubtedly lead to the death and the trafficking of hundreds more alone and vulnerable children. To deny this is to simply not see reality as it is. For those who have lived or worked with refugees, and for all those who have heard the horrific stories from Calais, this decision represents an act of pure cruelty.
If British people feel angry about Trump they should channel it to a cause in which they can truly make a difference. This is such a cause. If people feel angry at the erosion of British values, or feel guilty when they contrast our response to the refugee crisis today to that of the British people in the 1930s who took in 10,000 Jewish children, then here lies a truly worthwhile cause to fight for. Sign this Citizens UK petition, start organising and volunteering. Write letters to your local councillors and MPs.
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This is not the time to ignore May's appeasement to Trump and abandonment of the last signs of human empathy. We must do all we can to stop the dismissal of the dubs amendment.
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Half a century ago Parliament passed the Race Relations Act, making it illegal to refuse housing to any person on racial grounds. Our new report shows that the Government's right to rent scheme, which requires private landlords to act as border guards, has turned back the clock over 50 years, by incentivising racial discrimination in the English housing market.
This policy came into being as part of a host of measures designed to create a 'hostile environment' for 'illegal' migrants, by denying them access to services such as healthcare, banking and driving licenses. We have argued, alongside other organisations, that these measures would create a hostile environment for anyone who looked or sounded foreign, or who could not produce the right paperwork on request. You cannot tell whether someone is an irregular migrant just by looking at them, but the 'hostile environment' is predicated on landlords, doctors, nurses, banks, and others all carrying out assessments of immigration status.
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Under such a system, which requires countless checks to be carried out every day by untrained and unpaid immigration enforcement draftees, ethnic minorities, those with foreign accents, and the millions of British citizens who do not own passports are all at risk. Landlords faced with a fine of up 3,000 or even a prison sentence of up to five years do not want to take any risks. Understandably, when faced with a choice of tenants they will pick those who seem like a safer bet. In response to our surveys, 51% of landlords said they would be less likely to consider letting to people from outside Europe as a result of the scheme. When asked to consider the consequences of the new criminal penalties, 48% said they would be less likely to rent to anyone without a British passport.
In the past the Government has dismissed evidence of the consequences of the scheme. Even where their own evaluation found real evidence of discrimination occurring under the scheme it was brushed away as not amounting to 'hard' evidence. It seemed the 'soft' evidence of discrimination the Home Office found was not worth following up or exploring further and so the scheme was rolled out across England in February 2016. In this new report we have uncovered the hard evidence of discrimination which the Government has refused to look for. We conducted a set of mystery shopping exercises by responding to online ads for properties with a set of different tenant scenarios and what we found was shocking.
Where the 'white British' and black minority ethnic (BME) mystery shoppers did not have British passports, but could show their right to rent with other legitimate documents, they were at a disadvantage. The BME tenant was 26% more likely to be ignored or receive a negative response than a BME tenant with a passport and the white tenant was also at a disadvantage, but to a lesser extent. This means that all British citizens are at a disadvantage if they don't have a passport, 17% of the UK population. Interestingly, there was no evidence of discrimination where both the white and BME mystery shoppers had British passports.
This suggests that when the scheme places landlords in a situation where they have to assess risks, and a clear document is not available, they are relying on assumptions about who seems 'more British'. The right to rent scheme encourages racist outcomes.
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Furthermore, we found that foreign nationals with indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and a full right to rent, are being discriminated against. The mystery shopper in this position was 20% more likely to receive a negative or no response to enquiries about properties than a British citizen. Meanwhile, the most vulnerable individuals like asylum seekers and victims of modern day slavery who require landlords to do an online check with the Home Office face huge obstacles under the scheme. Out of a 150 emails from a mystery shopper requesting that landlords conduct an online check, 85% received no response at all. Only three responses indicated a willingness to go through the online checking process.
We have to ask ourselves whether encouraging racial discrimination, which includes discrimination on both grounds of nationality and ethnicity, is worth it. We are forced to ask ourselves rather than asking the Government, because it has no idea at all. The scheme was supposed to target irregular migrants and rogue landlords, but most irregular migrants don't rent private property and rogue landlords are only too happy to have their victims denied access to the legitimate and safe parts of the property market. Astonishingly, there is no adequate monitoring in place to see if the scheme is encouraging irregular migrants to leave the UK, or whether it is simply driving them into the hands of the rogue landlords it was supposed to target. Since the scheme began, the Government can identify just 31 individuals who have left as a result. Nor is there a system to measure the impacts on homelessness, on immigration enforcement generally, or on the costs that are being imposed on landlords and on local authorities who may have to deal with the consequences of families and children being unable to rent privately.
In a chaotic world of dividing political views and rising inequality, it comes as no surprise that the term universal basic income has been thrown around incessantly in an attempt to see it as the missing 'cure' to the mess in some of the world's leading economies.
The concept of an unconditional cash payment given to all citizens seems strangely bizarre. After all, why do rich people need this 'unconditional cash payment' if they already have millions sitting in the bank? However, this peculiar idea has received support from people at varying degrees on the ideological spectrum from Andy Stern, an American labour leader, to Charles Murray, an American libertarian political scientist, at the American Enterprise Institute.
Ultimately, the concept of a universal basic income (UBI) is to eliminate poverty traps and redistribute income in society by replacing means-tested welfare payments with an unconditional sum of money given to everyone in society, regardless of any income earned elsewhere. It is a rather dated concept, with Thomas Paine (one of the Founding Fathers of the United States) stating in his pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, that governments should pay 15 annually to everyone (the equivalent to 1,200 in today's money). Instead of this, welfare states were constructed using redistributionist taxation in a bid to reduce income inequality. So, what's the problem with these welfare states? Increased fascination with the notion of a universal basic income is widespread due to attention being directed towards the fact that low growth in wages is simply not enough to keep up with the need for increased living standards.
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This concept of a guaranteed basic income was originally popular in the 1960s and has resurfaced amongst the resurgence of populism. Indubitably, setting up a 'basic income' would be a difficult task. It would require a country to increase the amount of GDP raised through taxes by a staggering amount of at least ten percentage points to provide each person with a basic income of $10,000 in order to have this re-distributed to those on the lower point of the income scale. Furthermore, the provision of universal income would lead to significant amounts of money being taken out of healthcare and education sectors. Not to mention the disincentives for people to continue working hard. If people received $10,000 as state aid each year, you may have people working less hours and working less hard because they already have a significant amount of money back in the bank. With Trump's intense racist comments causing social tensions across the United States, the UBI would exacerbate these tensions due to the provision of essentially 'free money' for immigrants. Thus, a country with fleeting public finances and unmotivated couch potatoes would incontestably be a failure.
So, if there is a plethora of disadvantages, what's the point? It seems that the money may incentivise a substantial number of people. Those who are unable to work, such as stay at home mothers or adults taking care of their ill parents, will find that this income will be able to cover living costs and various essentials. On the creative side, countries with low innovation rates will see a rise in entrepreneurship as the extra money can be set aside for people to invest in their own businesses. Various people could use the money for education to build up their skills, boosting overall productivity levels.
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The concept of basic income has been explored further and tested in Finland by a centre-right government led by a former businessman and millionaire where, since January, a group of unemployed Finns between 25 and 58 have received 560 (477) per month. This stipend is not means-tested and is paid to the recipient, irrespective of whether the recipient finds a job or returns to school. Despite the fundamental flaws presented with the experiment from its relatively small sample size of 2000 randomly selected jobless people to the fact that all participants were jobless, we have a while until we hear the results of this experiment.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Seba Aghayeva Trend:
Energy and transportation are the main areas of the Azerbaijan-Latvia economic cooperation and the two countries intend to develop and deepen relations in these areas, said Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov Feb. 13.
He was addressing a briefing after the talks with his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkevics who is on a visit to Baku.
Baku and Riga are interested in expanding economic ties and also plan to hold a business forum, said the Azerbaijani FM.
Unfortunately, the level of mutual trade now does not meet our expectations. We agreed to try to hold consultations immediately after the [upcoming] arrival of the president of Latvia in Baku. At first, the consultations will take place at the level of foreign ministries, primarily to assess the contractual legal framework, Mammadyarov said.
Baku and Riga are discussing projects in energy and transportation, according to him.
Agriculture is a very interesting topic. Latvia is well enough developed in this sphere. Azerbaijan invests heavily in the agricultural sector and there are topics that can be quite interesting, Mammadyarov added.
JULIAN MASON/Flickr
There was a point when I turned to the Rt Hon John Bercow MP, during a public discussion event at the University of Reading, and asked him if he felt he had been at the centre of history as MPs debated the bill to trigger Brexit.
His answer was clear, candid and probably more revealing than I had expected. It was the mark of an evening where the Speaker of the House of Commons opened-up more than any previous 'political voice' I had interviewed or listened to over the previous two years of this occasional programme. However open they were, I did not expect his comments to be the cause of a media furore over this past weekend.
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Mr Bercow's comments to students, staff and the local community were picked up, more than a week after the event in which he made them, by the Sunday Telegraph, which splashed his remarks all over its front page. The story built momentum through Sunday as politicians, broadcasters and other media jumped on it. The pro-Brexit Tory right lambasted the Speaker, while others, including from opposition parties, rallied to his defence.
The Speaker came to Reading on Friday 3 February, a year after a group of University of Reading Politics and International Relations students met him at Speaker's House on the Parliamentary Estate. Mr Bercow is my constituency MP (for Buckingham) and was making good his promise of a return visit to cap off our first year of teaching Parliamentary Studies at Reading in conjunction with Parliament.
The visit had been planned for several months. As well as a seminar with the Parliamentary Studies students, we had agreed that the Speaker would take part in a public question-and-answer session co-hosted by myself and the President of the Reading University Students Union, Ben Cooper.
Mr Bercow had agreed to us both filming the event and streaming it live on the internet via Facebook. In the event, almost 3,000 people watched a lively 90-minute session, punctuated by probing questions from members of the 200-strong audience, and detailed and heartfelt answers from our guest.
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Anyone watching would have left the room (or switched off their computer or phone) knowing the speaker's views on Brexit, on Trump, on the media and many aspects of Parliament. He was in excellent form and did not shy away from any questions. After the Speaker headed back for London I was reflecting on what an enlightening evening it had been - and already thinking about who we could invite as our next 'political voice'.
Media attention
The first inkling I got that the Speaker's visit could have a greater impact than anticipated came the following Monday, when he made his remarks in Parliament on plans for a state visit to the UK by President Trump.
In discussions with colleagues and students, I noted that he had pretty much rehearsed these sentiments with us the previous Friday. I suggested to my students that they look again at the video recording on Facebook to see if these had carried over into his public utterances at the Parliamentary debate.
The following day, I was interviewed on this by our local radio station, BBC Radio Berkshire, and the local press also picked up on the Speaker's remarks at Reading. And then it all went quiet for a few days.
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On Thursday 9 February, we posted the full high-quality version of Mr Bercow's public Q&A from Reading on the university's YouTube channel. We highlighted the video through Twitter, Facebook and our departmental web pages, as we would with any other video of a high-profile event at the University. A full day and a half later, viewing figures had snuck past 100.
While the Speaker's comments were in the public domain, they were not gaining any great public or media attention. By Saturday night, that all changed as the Telegraph's story was picked up and discussed by the BBC and Sky News, and then on Sunday morning as it became one of the stories of the political news cycle.
The attention on Mr Bercow is based on a one-minute clip of a 90-minute Q&A, which was streamed live on Facebook and published openly on YouTube - rather more mundane than the language used in some stories, which variously described the footage as having 'emerged', or been 'seen' or 'obtained' by the Telegraph. The event was public, the Speaker was aware it was being filmed, and video had been publicly available on Facebook for more than a week (and on YouTube for three days) before the story broke.
Mr Bercow was gracious, open and honest throughout the almost five hours he spent with students and others here at Reading. He did much to break down the barriers that exist between those of us who study politics and those that practise it. Reading politics students are now getting a lesson in what political opponents can do when a University guest becomes a political target.
Displacement and suffering have shaped the human landscape of the Korean peninsula. Annexed in 1910 and occupied until 1945 by the Empire of Japan, between four and six million Koreans were forced into slavery as labourers and up to 200,000 Korean women served as sexual slaves. Come 1945, twenty percent of the Korean population had been displaced and nearly half a million had been killed.
This legacy of loss and dislocation continued throughout the Korean War and forced hundreds of thousands of Koreans to migrate between the newly formed North and South Koreas. For the people of South Korea, memories of these times are still raw. The ongoing struggles over Japanese apologies, compensation, and how to deal with North Korea all point to wounds that have yet to heal.
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But for North Koreans, memories of displacement and brutalisation cannot be confined to the historical record for they are also the reality of life today. A 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry established that extermination; enslavement; torture; rape; forced abortions; sexual violence; and persecution on political, religious, racial, and gender grounds are all prevalent in North Korea.
That such abuses continue is surely one of the greatest failures of the modern era's collective response to atrocities.
One consequence of this failure has been the creation of a North Korean refugee crisis. Since the late 1990s, when significant numbers of North Koreans began to flee their homeland following severe famine, it is estimated that over 200,000 have fled to China. In that time, just 30,000 North Koreans have successfully reached the safety of South Korea, while around 2000 have settled in North America and Europe, including close to 1000 in the United Kingdom.
In theory, the Government of China should accept North Koreans as asylum seekers and extend the many protections granted by the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. It should allow the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to screen, determine the status, and protect those in need. And it should not practice refoulement -- the forcible return of North Koreans to a country where they risk persecution.
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Despite this, plus many other international obligations (namely the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women), China deports up to 6000 North Koreans every year. Upon their repatriation, North Koreans, of which around seventy percent are women and girls, face torture, sexual violence, imprisonment, and even execution.
What can the world do to end this illegal situation? The international community have long called upon the Government of China to put a stop to the arrest and deportation of North Koreans, while numerous United Nations speeches and resolutions have called upon the Government of North Korea to respect fundamental human rights. The final report of the former United Nations General Secretary, Ban Ki-moon, noted, "the Secretary-General remains concerned that women who seek to leave or have left [North Korea] are subject to trafficking and sexual abuse...serious human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment".
That our words and concerns have failed to protect North Korean escapees is clear. Sitting thousands of miles from North East Asia, and facing the might of the Government of China, it would be easy to see desperate and fleeing North Koreans as a responsibility for someone else. But the issue of North Korean refugees is, ethically and legally, a global responsibility. Where vulnerable escapees face journeys that risk imprisonment or death, we are compelled to provide our support.
The Government of North Korea is the cause of the refugee crisis and should be our long-term target, but engaging the Government of China may provide a more feasible short-term solution. Clearly, Beijing does not want North Korean refugees on its territory, so conscientious states should begin to quietly offer an alternative to China: namely, that their embassies and consulates would, without publicity or fanfare, take custody of captured North Koreans from Chinese authorities and aid their travels to safe havens such as South Korea or Europe. In return, China would gain further leverage over North Korea, end years of negative publicity, and put a foot on the right side of history.
This recommendation may appear improbable or unrealistic. But as Nelson Mandela frequently told us, the most arduous challenges seem impossible until they are conquered. That China would welcome a solution to an internal refugee crisis should not surprise us. Instead, it should encourage us to formulate new solutions. A day will come when all North Koreans are free. Until that day, we must do what we can to help refugees that fall within our grasp.
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Lord Alton of Liverpool is Co-Chair of the United Kingdom's All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea and a crossbench member of the House of Lords.
James Burt is Special Adviser to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea and Director of Research at the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea.
Just as I return from visiting garment factories in Myanmar, a stream of press attention focuses on challenges facing this area. Although there are challenges, my trip has only made me believe in the unique opportunity this country represents to change the future of how our clothing is made. Amidst the media headlines there lies potential for real solutions on the ground that can work alongside these challenges and retailers.
On 25th January I landed in Yangon, capital of Myanmar. I'd spend the next week visiting 6 garment factories surrounding the area employing a total of 2,000+ workers.
Each of the factories were different in their own way, varying in their size and owners. Despite their differences, the factories share an important context, which makes up the story behind the 'Made in Myanmar' label. I wanted to find out what this story meant for myself.
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Photo credit: Author's own.
Before heading out, I read Impactt Limited's report on Myanmar's garment industry recently commissioned by the C&A Foundation, which you can also read for yourself here.
It's important to understand the current phase this country is in, it's citizens are emerging from decades of military rule and more than a quarter of people currently live in poverty.
This context is mentioned in the SOMO research report which was released on 5th February and sparked controversial headlines such as 'High street clothes made by children in Myanmar for 13p an hour' (The Guardian). But what does 'made by children' really mean in Myanmar, a Buddhist country where the minimum legal working age has recently increased to 14.
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I mention Buddhism because 90% of people in the country are Buddhist. The most inspirational person I met during my visit was a female Burmese and Buddhist owner of a factory employing 200 workers. It's rare to meet a female owner of a garment factory anywhere in the world, never mind in a country where foreign investment means locally owned factories are quickly losing business. This lady described how she knew each of her workers and could tell if they were unhappy, since they all lived together in recently renovated housing on the site of the factory.
Before the minimum wage law came in, this lady had knowingly taken in a child worker to her factory. Many people in the country still believe that working in a factory is better for children than no work, which is an attitude often linked back to Buddhism. When the child labour regulation came in, pushed mostly by needing to meet the standards of international fashion brands, she understood she needed to stop employing the child. Though these attitudes will take time and understanding to change at scale. Workers between 14 and 16 are defined as 'child workers' in Myanmar and are prevented from carrying out any hazardous work or working more than a few hours a day. Though these laws may not meet all international expectations and it is still hard to verify age.
The purpose of our visits to these factories was to complete follow up studies with factories who had been a part of the BIF programme. The programme was set up to improve productivity and worker welfare, and is co-ordinated by BIF, Impactt Limited and Rajesh Bheda Consulting. As a result many of the factories had realised the links between worker welfare and productivity in innovative ways, giving some optimism to how change could happen in the industry.
Photo credit: Author's own.
We also visited foreign owned factories. Chinese, Korean and Japanese factory owners have invested in the region, often bringing their buyers and high street names we recognise with them. I spoke to a General Manager, who told me about how the minimum wage had impacted his work. Engaging factory managers is of vital importance to the debate on worker standards, so that in the long term we can sustain these standards by aligning them with business efficiency and quality. Before the minimum wage, the factory paid their workers on piece rate and bonuses. With a set minimum wage, the factory lost a mechanism to motivate workers towards better quality. He kindly opened his current situation to me and we sat down for a couple hours looking through spreadsheets on his profits and loss over the past 24 months. The data showed how some workers had earned more before the minimum wage compared to after, given to the fact they were previously motivated towards bonuses. The loss in quality as a result meant the factory manager had excess stock which was worthless taking up valuable space in his factory, which could also lead to a waste of material.
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Of course I agree the introduction of a minimum wage is vital and necessary, the reason I paint an alternative picture is because I believe the industry is ultimately looking for more than a minimum standard. Many workers in Myanmar still say the minimum wage is not enough to live on. We should be looking to pay workers worldwide in a way which means quality of life and work. We often see low wage worker salaries compared to Western CEO's salaries, who are being paid or motivated by a bonus in a way we can relate to.
At this moment in time, Myanmar sits at a turning point in it's history. From 2011 to 2015, export value of their garment industry grew from 583 million USD to 1,460 million USD, while the number of jobs and factories more than doubled (MGMA). Until 2020 the industry is set to grow even further, and is a key area for growth identified by the government. There is a sense of what the country can learn from neighbours such as Bangladesh when they faced a similar path, in order to develop in a more sustainable and ethical way.
I'm grateful that I've been able to understand the challenges and opportunities better by speaking with those on the ground who have kindly given me their time to talk.
Though the reason I had the depth of conversations I did, is I think because I was there to listen and learn how to create a solution.
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jacoblund via Getty Images
Thanks to medical and scientific advances, people are living longer, healthier lives and are enjoying better sex in later life as a result. However, while attitudes towards sexuality and gender are arguably more easily expressed and accepting in this day and age, younger people still have somewhat of a squeamish reaction to the idea of older people maintaining a satisfying sex life.
From first hand experience working for an online sex toy retailer, I know that older people are being proactive in looking for ways to maintain their sexual health and pleasure. Some middle-aged customers feel embarrassed to be exploring new ways of expressing their sexuality, and so are surprised to learn that some of our oldest customers are octogenarians and over.
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The sex lives of older people is often sensationalised in the media, almost demonising older women for having a happy and fulfilling sex life. There is a derogatory suggestion that, "You're past it, love. It's time for the youngsters to have their fun."
However, sex amongst younger people is steadily on the decline, with 44% of teenage girls and 47% of teenage boys having had sex, compared to 58% and 69% of teenage girls and boys respectively 25 years ago (2013).
Dr Jean Twenge from San Diego State University, author of Generation Me, suggests that younger people work longer hours, often live with their parents for longer or are in a shared housing environment, and are therefore self conscious of being overheard having sex (2014).
The dismissive thought concerning older people continuing to have sex in later life, then, seems contradictory: people are having sex at a later age, but still think that older people shouldn't be having sex.
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With older people enjoying better quality lives during their retirement years, it seems quite unfair that they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy a good sex life because younger people think it's wrong. There's only so much Sudoku a person can do to while away the afternoon.
This negativity towards older people maintaining a sex life often translates into the medical world too, with doctors overlooking patient's symptoms because there is an assumption that the older person is no longer sexually active. However, in 2010 it was found that the lowest rates of condom use is found among people over the age of 45, who, due to a lack of sex education, believed that they did not need to use contraception as they weren't likely to fall pregnant.
In 2016, however, it was reported that STI diagnoses in people aged 50-70 had risen by over a third in the last decade. Arguably this was down to baby boomers repartnering, or as suggested by Dr David Lee, that these older people have carried forward the more liberal attitudes to sexuality from the 60s.
What fascinates me, though, is if younger people are enjoying good sex lives, do they feel that they will have to stop as soon as they're deemed too old?
Sex can actually get better as you age, as you have a better understanding of your own body and a greater sexual knowledge gained from experience. In British sex education, there is a distinct lack in promoting sexual pleasure along with the biological aspects of sex, which perhaps is a cause of this generalisation that older people stop having as soon as their body clock winds down.
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According to a recent survey of 1,325 school ICT leaders by the National Education Research Panel (NERP), UK pupils at both primary and secondary school levels now spend more than 50% of their time engaging with ICT in the classroom. I'm surely not alone in finding that statistic staggering - certainly when I was at primary school back in the 1980s the only engagement I had was an hour a week playing "Maths Swim" on a Commodore PET.
Now, however, the average primary school pupil spends 54% of their time engaging with ICT in the classroom, rising to 56% at secondary school. Increasingly ICT, or EdTech, permeates every aspect of a school in the UK - assuming that sufficient levels of broadband exist - from the school's management information system to digital seating plans and parental engagement. Schools are increasingly using virtual reality in the classroom and even holograms, as we saw with Microsoft's HoloLens that was showcased at last month's Bett Show, the world's largest EdTech exhibition, in London.
But these massive levels of engagement with digital devices are bringing with them new challenges and concerns. Indeed the same research found that 51% of primary school teachers and 49% of secondary school teachers are seen to require training in e-Safety issues.
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These concerns are present in a recent report from the Children's Commissioner, Growing up Digital, which advises that children are not currently being "equipped with adequate skills to negotiate their lives online". The report recommends that children must be taught "from an early age to engage safely and resiliently with the Internet".
E-Safety is a very broad topic that spans all Key Stages and issues ranging from data security and online reputation management, to addressing concerns about online grooming and cyber-bullying. It's a constantly changing field, with new jargon emerging all the time as this list by Impero, a leading provider of Internet safety technology in the UK, makes clear. It's extraordinarily hard to keep abreast of the ever-changing online lexicon of terms used by teenagers such as Hduw2bb (Hello do you want to be buddies?) and Gokid (Got observers, keep it decent).
It is fundamentally important, however, that anxieties around online safety don't leave classrooms digital-free zones, with the transformative benefits of education technology left unrealised due to concerns around a lack of training. There are many powerful guides available to help give teachers the support they need, such as the Rising Stars Switched on Online Safetyresource designed to help all schools to implement an effective, whole-school online safety policy, published in association with Havering Education Services.
As Penny Patterson, Senior Inspector Quality Assurance, Havering Education Services, puts it: "It is really important that children have high quality learning opportunities: considering how to keep themselves safe online, understanding what the risks are, whilst also strengthening their own resilience to manage an ever-changing online environment."
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This perspective is echoed by Rising Stars who say that, "Rather than preventing children from using technology because it is deemed unsafe, it is far better to teach children to manage these risks safely". They liken it to children around a swimming pool, "it is far better to teach children to swim so they are safe around water, rather than cordon off the swimming pool".
Building independence is absolutely key - after all pupils will be engaging in the online world in their careers and personal lives without a safety net once they leave school. And it would be a tragedy if pupils were unable to take advantage of the online world and the insights they can gain from it if an over-protective attitude was adopted. This would be a sure-fire recipe for "cotton-wool kids".
Besty "Amway" DeVos clearly demonstrated at her confirmation hearings that she is unqualified to be Education Secretary. While her approval by Republicans in the United States Senate is a national embarrassment and an insult to public school families, the bigger issue is the Republican/Trump plan to privatize public education in the United States through outsourcing, vouchers, and tax credits and to eliminate opposition and make private schools the profitable by breaking teacher unions. While all public schools do not functional well, problems are rooted in poverty and discrimination in American society, not schools and teachers. Privatization is a threat to a fundamental American institution that promotes democracy and citizenship while contributing to social mobility.
In response to Trump, Betsy, and the Republican Party's push to privatize public education, students, teachers, parents, and community members across New York State will march on Saturday March 4 for education justice. Multiple marches are being organized by the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE).
AQE charges Donald Trump and DeVos with threatening to take billions of education from New York communities. They are also concerned because "Governor Cuomo has a history of woefully inadequate education investments" and they believe "his current proposal is his worst ever and would take cuts to the next level."
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The People's March for Education Justice program includes:
Full & Fair funding for all Public Schools from Pre-K - College
End the School to Prison Pipeline: Solutions, not Suspensions
Increase Access to Early Care and Learning Opportunities for Babies & Toddlers
End the state's over-reliance on high-stakes testing
Protect Public Education: End of School Privatization
Implement Culturally Responsive Curriculum
Increase Supports for Students in Poverty
Increase Supports for Immigrant Students & English Language Learners
Protect the Educational Rights of Students with Disabilities
Full & Fair funding for all Public Schools from Pre-K- College
According to the March call "The system of driving school funding based on zip codes and home values, perpetuates systemic racism through dramatic inequalities in educational opportunity. The racial inequality in school funding is exacerbated by the fact that New York State has the most segregated schools in the country. For over a decade we have yet to see a political will of urgency from New York State's elected leaders to reverse the racial and economic inequality for our children."
The issues are especially sharp in New York State where Governor Andrew Cuomo has essentially endorsed the Trump/DeVos educational agenda. According to the Network for Public Education, Cuomo branded public schools a "monopoly that he wants to "break" and introduced a bill to provide backdoor school vouchers in the form of tax credits. An analysis of Cuomo's proposed state budget shows plans "to expand charters in NYC" by eliminating the current cap, give more taxpayer dollars to charter schools for rent, and force New York City schools to give more space in their own school buildings to charter schools."
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Huffington blogger Arthur Camins offers a thoughtful discussion of political strategy for education activists in his latest post.
Many people still don't understand that Trump can be a world class narcissist & still not qualify for a mental disorder.
My last blog explained why he is bad, not mad -- crazy only like a fox. And that lumping him with the mentally ill is an insult to them, not him.
The urge among amateur diagnosticians to mislabel Trump as mentally ill is perfectly understandable. They are terrified (as am I) by his dictatorial and impulsive behavior and feel compelled to resort to psychiatric name calling as a way of delegitimizing him.
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But this is inaccurate, unnecessary, unfair to the mentally ill, ineffective, and badly off target.
We must challenge Trump on his outrageous behaviors and constant lies, not on his mental status. Speculations on Trump's psychological motivations, or whether he believes his own lies, are both distracting and irrelevant.
At this crucial moment, with our fragile democracy at serious risk, I really couldn't care less why Trump does what he does. It is his dangerous actions that count, not the psychological reasons he does them.
Within a week of taking office, Trump declared war on our Constitution and also on the courts charged with defending it. He claimed that, based on his evaluation of risks to national security, he could arbitrarily exclude travelers from selected Muslim countries, without any judicial review of the legality of his executive order.
His claim is unprecedented and has been twice rejected by the court: "There is no precedent to support this unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our democracy".
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Trump ridiculed the four judges who ruled against him and claimed that they were acting politically- despite the fact that two had been appointed by Republican presidents and two by Democratic presidents. No president in our long history has ever shown such disrespect for the judiciary or willingness to defy the necessary checks and balances restraining presidential power.
Impending court decisions in this case may constitute a key turning point in United States history. Should the judges accept Trump's 'national security' excuse for unconstitutional acts, it will embolden him to push for a much greater power grab. He can create a de facto dictatorship, eroding our precious civil rights, based only on his arbitrary interpretation of 'national security'.
The courts must establish that Trump's 'national security' excuse is not a blank check, allowing for serial violations of the Constitution. Court decisions have always been heavily influenced by politics. The question now is whether judges will have the courage to support our Constitution in the face of Trump's determined bullying.
Trump is also setting up a straw man- he tweets that should a terrorist act ever occur, we should "blame them", not hold him responsible. He is preemptively abdicating responsibility for protecting the United States as best he can, but to do this in a manner consistent with upholding the Constitution and respecting our laws. Trump wants to establish the dangerous dichotomy that we either grant him dictatorial power or not hold him accountable for protecting national security.
All previous presidents understood that they were responsible for national security. None, not even George Bush, ever presumed that this gave them the right to rule autocratically and above the law.
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Trump can be contained only by the checks and balances that have always safeguarded our democracy. His persistent power grabs must be opposed by Congress, the courts, the media, and the public.
So far Congress has proven useless, the courts are still to be tested, the public is mostly passive. The free media are the last and likely the best protector of democracy - which is why Trump persists in the bold lie that it is dishonest and that he is truthful.
Opposition to Trump's power grab must be based on politics, not psychology. Everything possible must be done now to strengthen the backbone of the current very flawed Congress and to elect a wiser and more courageous one in 2018.
And vigorous efforts must begin immediately to end the Trumpian dark age in 2020. If he gets a second term, Trump could go far in destroying the precious, but fragile, democratic institutions that have governed us for almost two and one half centuries.
It is no accident that Orwell's '1984' shot to the top of Amazon's best seller list immediately after Trump's election. Another book people should also read is Sinclair Lewis' 'It Can Happen Here.'
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The evening before the National Cancer Prevention Day Workshop is Less Cancer board member Donna Eacho, Less Cancer Founder Bill Couzens, Ambassador Bill Eacho, U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan and Less Cancer Chairman Tom Sherman, M.D.
February 4th marked the 2017 resolution for National Cancer Prevention Day. Activities around "National Cancer Prevention Day" included the United States Congressional Cancer Prevention Caucus. This years caucus met on February 1st. Caucus chair speakers included Representatives Debbie Dingell and Barbara Comstock. The following day, February 2nd was the National Cancer Prevention Day Workshop.
U.S. Representatives Barbara Comstock (VA-10) and Debbie Dingell (MI-12), co-chairs of the bipartisan Congressional Cancer Prevention Caucus with Less Cancer board member Larry Fisher
Photo by Vincent Ricardel
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Less Cancer raised the bar on programming for the 2017 workshop providing evidenced based continuing education credits for both professionals and students in medicine, nursing, and public health. Collaborations with both the University of Virginia and American University helped to facilitate credits.
Legislators speaking at the National Cancer Prevention Day Workshop included Debbie Dingell, Charlie Dent, and Don Beyer.
U.S. Representative Don Beyer Photo by Vincent Ricardel
U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell
Photo by Vincent Ricardel
U.S. Representative Charlie Dent Photo by Vincent Ricardel
Returning speakers included John Groopman, Ph.D. from the Bloomberg School of Health at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Groopman was the 2016 Recipient of Less Cancer's Ronald B. Herberman Speakers Award. Also returning was Janie Heath, the Dean and Warwick Professor of Nursing from the University of Kentucky.
John D. Groopman, Ph.D.
Photo by Vincent Ricardel
Janie Heath, PhD, APRN-BC, FAAN Photo by Vincent Ricardel
Joining us by SKPE this year, was the Ronald B Herberman Speaker Awardee, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha a pediatrician and public health advocate who brought attention for the Flint Water Crisis; a tragedy that exposed children to dangerous levels of lead in Flint, Michigan. Dr. Hanna-Attisha was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people.
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Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha Ronald B Herberman Speaker Awardee
Photo by Vincent Ricardel
New speakers included Jann Balmer Ph.D., RN, FACEHP, Chair, Tobacco Free Alliance of Virginia.
Jann Balmer Ph.D., RN, FACEHP Photo by Vincent Ricardel
Less Cancer Leadership Awards went to Katie Horvath, JD, Manager of Cowell Family Cancer Center, Traverse City Michigan and Mindi Messmer, State Representative from New Hampshire.
Less Cancer Chairman Tom Sherman, M.D. presented on the Seacoast Cancer Cluster in his home state of New Hampshire.
Less Cancer Chairman Tom Sherman, M.D. Photo by Vincent Ricardel
Emmy Award Winning Journalist Miles O'Brien moderated the panel on drinking water. Panelists included Mae Wu from the Nation Resource Defense Council and John Scully, Ph.D. Interim Department Chair, Charles Henderson, who is the Chaired Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Co-Director of Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering from the University of Virginia and Jesse Meiller, PhD, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Environmental Science, American University. Rob Bilott, Less Cancer board member also on the panel, gained fame for his work in PFOAS Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8, a synthetic perfluorinated carboxylic acid, and fluorosurfactant. PFOA persists indefinitely in the environment. It is a toxicant and carcinogen.
Miles O'Brien (far right) and panelists (from left) Mae Wu, Rob Bilott, Jesse Meiller, PhD and John Scully, Ph.D., Photo by Vincent Ricardel
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Here is this 2017 take away.
As founder of Less Cancer, it has become increasingly and exceedingly clear that the focus for Cancer Prevention must call immediate attention, an urgent 911, to our polluted and sometimes cancer-causing drinking water.
We as citizens need all resources shifted to this purpose--- to guarantee that (at the very least) our drinking water is safe. Having safe, clean water speaks to the most basic of human needs. It's a no-brainer. And yet, this isn't fully understood or appreciated in its urgency.
It is precisely such concerns that called and continue to call on our work at Less Cancer.
The Less Cancer work started when it was founded in 2004 under the name of Next Generation Choices Foundation. At the time the idea of cancer prevention was thought to be more of a crap shoot than the evidenced based science that more mainstream audiences now understand. Leading experts globally agree that over 50% of all cancers are preventable. Today we know that the evidenced based science indicates the best way to end cancer is to prevent it. Our goal with Less Cancer is to reduce all incidences of cancer--- particularly regarding populations with increasing rates of cancer.
Current leadership suggests that any protections that would come with the legislation may soon be an effort of the past and that non- government organizations must work harder and smarter to garner support for work that assures safe drinking water for all.
While individuals can help protect themselves with water testing and filters, organizations must fight for the policy and legislation that will help protect all Americans from cancers related to drinking water. This is a priority on which we all must be steadfastly focused.
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Remember when you didn't think twice about using a drinking fountain?
If we are to prioritize preventing any cancers, we must at the very least address the carcinogens in drinking water. This also requires we remain stealthily focused. It involves information, details, and action.
While policy, legislation or regulation may not be a solution for every problem ---for the case of safe drinking water, it is the pressing priority.
Personal action is not enough. Leadership from a government, non-government organizations and private entities must do all they can to provide creative solutions for ensuring that there will be safe drinking water for all.
For agenda of there National Cancer Prevention Day Workshop, bios, speaker disclosures, instructions on claiming CE credit, and additional resources, please visit link.
For the live stream please see click on link
Dumping coal slurry into rivers. Deregulating Wall Street. Dangerous cabinet picks. New tension with our allies in Australia and Mexico and NATO. Turning a blind eye to Russian aggression in Ukraine and interference with our election. Trump's schoolyard antics of taunting Iran, China, North Korea in hopes of starting a fight. The dismantling of the EPA. Millions of Americans losing health insurance. Public education threatened. Supreme Court nominees, the Muslim ban, the white supremacist, war monger Stephen Bannon who has the President's ear and is now on the Security Council.
Yes, it's overwhelming and it's meant to overwhelm. Every day new developments are thrown at us to disorient, divide and confuse us. Shock and awe on a psychological level. Most of us are stressed, outraged, fearful as these events unfold. That is a normal and healthy reaction. If you aren't feeling these symptoms, then you aren't really paying attention.
It's no wonder that Orwell's 1984 is a best seller again. Remember its motto? Slavery is freedom; ignorance is strength; war is peace. In this world of paradox, what is true is what is opposite to what is said. Trump's bullying, his slash and burn and take no prisoners is supposed to make us safe. Do you feel safer in a chaotic America?
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On Groundhog Day I was envious of the groundhog because it could go back in its hole for six weeks.
How do we stay grounded when our world has been turned upside down?
Trust yourself and the reality you know and see.
First, you are not paranoid for not trusting this administration. We need a new lens for decoding their message. What is said is the opposite of what is real. We have a mentally unstable president who blatantly lies to us, along with his spokespeople Conway and Spicer and Hannity. The propaganda machine was in full swing during the election and its still here now. Trump repeatedly says, "believe me," which means don't believe him. They can call the lies alternative facts but they are still fabricated stories.
Trump supporters thought Obama was weak and that Trump is strong, but it's actually the opposite. It takes a lot more strength to collaborate than it does to bully. Trump's biggest limitation is that he has no capacity, no skills for tolerating vulnerability in himself. He cannot admit to making a mistake or to being wrong; therefore he cannot learn. Because it is so threatening to his identity, he compensates, digs in deeper, lies more, and then accuses others of what he himself cannot face about himself. He mocks a "so called judge" because he doesn't want to admit he is a "so called president." Everything around him is "a disaster," when in fact he is the disaster. He shames others because he cannot feel shame. He humiliates others in order to not be humiliated. The best defense is a good offense.
So if you feel confused about what is being said and what is true, this is his goal. When he deregulates the financial industry that brought the economy to its knees in 2008, and says this will help economic growth and job creation, don't believe it. Job creation and economic growth is the generic blanket that justifies everything he is trying to dismantle. He inherits a 4 percent unemployment rate; that's not exactly a job crisis. Let's see what he does to that.
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What you can do:
Trust your instincts.
Paul Ryan initially said that Trump was unfit and that the Muslim ban was illegal. Now he has rationalized, white washed what he knew was true. I wonder how much damage Trump has to inflict on the country before the Republicans will find a backbone to stand up to him. Don't fall for that trap where they deny what they said or did. Trust your own eyes and ears. All that is happening is not normal.
Seek common ground with Trump supporters.
Obviously, not all Trump supporters are fascists, supremacists, racists, misogynists, a fringe that have found themselves with mainstream power. What we have in common is that the majority of the country wanted change, from Bernie supporters to Trump. We wanted a government that was working for the people, not only big business. We wanted to see the economic gap between rich and poor narrow. We just had different ideas about how to get there. But I don't think that even Trump supporters were counting on Trump setting up a government for and by oil companies. Oil companies' influence until now has been covert; now it's overt.
Trump supporters say they are happy with Trump's actions because he is doing what he said he would do in his campaign. But this chaos he is creating by breaking traditions, rules, and American values, is actually a symptom of a deeper change he is trying to create and one he never stated in his campaign.
He never said that he was going to dismantle democracy and set up an authoritarian regime which he would head. Is Putin his role model? Now if we asked our Trump supporter friends if they voted for democracy to be dismantled, do you think they would have signed on?
In order to achieve this new political order Trump has to throw out checks and balances, and he does this by discrediting our institutions daily. Judges carry no weight with him when they disagree with him; he knows more than the military; he doesn't need briefings. By discrediting our institutions, he creates confusion, a vacuum that he is most happy to fill with his own ideas that tend toward totalitarianism.
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Be critical thinkers
Trump's favorite daily rant is to discredit the media who more enabled than disabled his rise to the top. By planting seeds of doubt as to what people can believe, he tries to control the narrative. There is a lot of fake news, but lets call it what it is, propaganda. However, there are many credible media outlets with quality investigative reporting. Forbes has provided a credible list.
They are not always perfect but they don't out and out lie or twist the truth to be something else.
All of us need to become better at critical thinking.
Now is the time to use your voice.
Trump has created chaos but herein lies an opportunity. Out of chaos a new order can emerge that represents the people, not Bannon's ideas, if we stay engaged, diligent, resistant and keep an eye on that light of hope. We are called to use our creativity. It's an opportunity to see that we are more alike than different. It's an opportunity for our shared humanity to shine. What crosses partisan lines is that we love America and we love democracy. We can be outraged but it is persistence that will make the difference, like water wears away rock. Trump rode a wave of anger into the White House. A wave of anger or violence isn't going to flush him out. That feeds into his script. Truth and courage to stand for what is right and not back down is how we will prevail.
It has been heartening to see people's activism, realizing that we cannot take our freedoms for granted. This process can make clearer our vision as Americans.
Looking beyond academia to consider broader social impact, indicators of unequal participation are worrisome. As women enter the workforce, we see even more differentiation by field, with women comprising 34% of environmental engineers but only 8% of mechanical engineers. Gender imbalances in the technology industry and financial sector are widely recognized. Three recent studies illuminate attitudes and practices limiting women's advancement in science and technology.
Consider women's underrepresentation in patenting, an indicator of participation in tech commercialization. Although the situation is somewhat murky, since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) collects no demographic information, a report released in November by the Institute for Women's Policy Research shows that patents with at least one woman inventor reached only 18.8% in 2010. This marks an increase over the rate in 1977, when 3.4% of patents listed at least one woman inventor; but at current rates, it will be 2092 before women reach parity (i.e., half of all patents will have at least one female inventor).
Women also face challenges in raising external equity for their startup companies. Women-owned businesses receive limited funding from venture capital investments--in 2016, 17% of total Series A rounds nationwide were for companies led by women. In the competitive Bay Area, women-led companies raised just 10% of Series A rounds, an uptick of two percentage points over the previous year. In a recent study on term-sheet negotiations, the authors considered factors influencing the amount of external funding raised, the percentage of overall goal this represented, and the amount of equity companies gave up. Two factors positively influenced raising at least 90% of capital sought: using the internet to research the negotiation process...and having a man serve as lead negotiator.
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Perhaps most poignant among recent studies is one published in Science last week, showing that shortfalls in girls' self-image regarding their intellectual aptitude begins as early as 6 years old. At age 5, children don't differentiate by gender who they predict will be "really, really smart," but by age 6 a significant difference emerges among both boy and girl respondents, with both attributing the characteristic of "being smart" to boys/men more than girls/women. These aren't endogenous developments, of course, but rather are shaped by cultural attitudes from caregivers, family, and the media. A New York Times article by the study's authors adds an illuminating example: in 2014, Google searches for "is my son a genius" outnumbered searches for "is my daughter a genius" by two to one.
What can be done to advance participation of women and girls in science? Organizations must improve data collection on gender diversity and publicize results, not just in patenting but in academic achievement and employment in STEM fields. Technology companies, consulting firms, and social science researchers have begun the work but more is needed, for we can't fix what we don't know. Highlighting accomplished women leaders in science and technology, as we have at CITRIS with the Athena Awards, will provide role models and help inspire the next generation: examples include director of the National Science Foundation France Cordova, former White House Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, director of USPTO Michelle K. Lee, as well as leaders in elected office and the private sector. Grassroots advocacy efforts to improve gender diversity include the new international organization 500 Women Scientists. Parents, teachers and friends have opportunities to encourage girls' curiosity; tools include a spate of recent children's literature as well as toys designed to spark girls' exploration of engineering concepts and the natural world.
Headline changed, details added (first version posted on 18:48)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Seba Aghayeva Trend:
Latvia supports the preparation and signing of the new strategic partnership agreement by Azerbaijan and the EU, said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics in a briefing after negotiations with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov in Baku Feb. 13.
He noted that the political dialogue between Latvia and Azerbaijan is very intensive.
Rinkevics said an exchange of high-level visits is planned for 2017, adding this is a good momentum for the development of relations.
He expressed hope that the new strategic partnership agreement will be signed until the next EU summit.
Speaking about the economic cooperation, the Latvian foreign minister noted the importance of considering the issue of customs duties and taxes.
Now it's getting interesting.
A new court filing made on behalf of dozens of people claiming Monsanto Co.'s Roundup herbicide gave them cancer includes information about alleged efforts within the Environmental Protection Agency to protect Monsanto's interests and unfairly aid the agrichemical industry.
The filing, made late Friday by plaintiff's attorneys, includes what the attorneys represent to be correspondence from a 30-year career EPA scientist accusing top-ranking EPA official Jess Rowland of playing "your political conniving games with the science" to favor pesticide manufacturers such as Monsanto. Rowland oversaw the EPA's cancer assessment for glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's weed-killing products, and was a key author of a report finding glyphosate was not likely to be carcinogenic. But in the correspondence, longtime EPA toxicologist Marion Copley cites evidence from animal studies and writes: "It is essentially certain that glyphosate causes cancer."
Attorneys for the plaintiffs declined to say how they obtained the correspondence, which is dated March 4, 2013. The date of the letter comes after Copley left the EPA in 2012 and shortly before she died from breast cancer at the age of 66 in January 2014. She accuses Rowland of having "intimidated staff" to change reports to favor industry, and writes that research on glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, shows the pesticide should be categorized as a "probable human carcinogen." The International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, declared as much - that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen - in March 2015 after reviewing multiple scientific studies. Monsanto has rejected that classification and has mounted a campaign to discredit IARC scientists.
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The communication, if authentic, could be an explosive development in the snowballing multi-district litigation that now comprises more than 60 plaintiffs from around the United States accusing Monsanto of covering up evidence that Roundup herbicide could cause cancer. The plaintiffs, all of whom are suffering from non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) or lost a loved one to NHL, have asserted in recent court filings that Monsanto wielded significant influence within the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), and had close ties specifically to Rowland, who until last year was deputy division director within the health effects division of the OPP. Rowland managed the work of scientists who assessed human health effects of exposures to pesticides like glyphosate and he chaired the EPA's Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC) that determined glyphosate was "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans." Rowland left the EPA in 2016 shortly after a copy of the CARC report was leaked and cited by Monsanto as evidence that the IARC classification was flawed.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs want the federal judge in the case to lift a seal on documents that detail Monsanto's interactions with Rowland regarding the EPA's safety assessment of glyphosate. Monsanto turned the documents over in discovery but marked them "confidential," a designation plaintiffs' attorneys say is improper. They also want to depose Rowland. But Monsanto and the EPA object to the requests, court documents show. Rowland could not be reached for comment.
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"The Plaintiffs have a pressing need for Mr. Rowland's testimony to confirm his relationship with Monsanto and EPA's substantial role in protecting the Defendant's business..." plaintiff's attorneys wrote in the Feb. 10 filing in the multi-district litigation, which has been consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. "Mr. Rowland operated under Monsanto's influence to cause EPA's position and publications to support Monsanto's business."
The EPA has spent the last few years assessing the health and environmental safety profile of glyphosate as global controversy over the chemical has mounted. The agency had planned to finish its risk assessment on glyphosate in 2015; then said it would be completed in 2016; then said it would be finished by the first quarter of 2017. Now the agency says it hopes to have it completed by the end of the third quarter of 2017.
MONSANTO WANTS DOCUMENTS KEPT SECRET
In a bid to stop the release of further damning documents, attorneys for Monsanto on Monday asked the federal judge in the Roundup litigation to block plaintiffs' attorneys from including copies of documents they've obtained through discovery as exhibits in the court filings so members of the public and the media cannot see them. They argued that plaintiffs' attorneys were unfairly attempting to "try this case in the court of public opinion."
Monsanto specifically complained that the organization I work for, U.S. Right to Know, was monitoring the court docket looking for confidential materials to report to the public. The company said reporting on "cherry-picked documents" could be "potentially prejudicial" to its business and to the fairness of the litigation, potentially tainting a jury pool. "Litigation in the press is not in the public interest," Monsanto's filing states.
The company asked Judge Vince Chhabria to order that discovery materials not be filed as exhibits or other types of filings that could be visible to the public.
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Monsanto also made a new filing in the litigation on Friday, laying out its assertion that there is no evidence Roundup and glyphosate products are "defective or unreasonably dangerous" and said the products complied with "all applicable government safety standards." There is no evidence of carcinogenicity in glyphosate or Roundup, Monsanto said in its filing.
In a separate filing made on Feb. 8, Monsanto submitted a court brief arguing that the IARC classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen is not relevant to the question of whether or not Roundup caused the plaintiffs' cancers. IARC's approach is "less rigorous" than EPA's in evaluating scientific evidence, and IARC's conclusions are "scientifically unreliable," according to the brief. Monsanto told the court that neither the views of IARC or EPA are necessarily relevant to the general causation issue of the litigation because plaintiffs will need to present admissible expert testimony showing the company's products in fact caused their cancers.
As the litigation drags on, legislation that could potentially benefit Monsanto and numerous other companies facing consumer class action lawsuits was proposed on Feb. 9. The "Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017" (H.R. 985) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA.) Business interests backing the law say it would reduce frivolous suits and ensure that plaintiffs receive the bulk of any damage awards rather than enriching the attorneys who bring such lawsuits. But opponents say it would make it nearly impossible for individuals with limited financial resources to challenge powerful corporations in court. The bill would apply both to pending and future class action and multi-district litigation.
Photo courtesy of Tyson Amir
Bay Area musician and activist Tyson Amir has distilled a powerful essay's worth of ideas on race and culture into a four-minute spoken word poem that brings to mind the angry power of Beat Generation poet Alan Ginsberg and contemporary musician Saul Williams. Like many artists with activists souls, dating at least back to Paul Robeson, Amir believes in art as a tool for social change. Taken from his book, "Black Boy Poems," which was released on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Party, "Between Huey and Malcolm" charts a history of repression and struggle that's long from won. Ignited by a quote from Black Panthers founder Huey Newton, "I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images." Amir mentions Michael Vick and George Zimmerman among others to contrast how the definition of justice isn't colorblind. His visceral imagery and gathering rhythm feel like the banging of the drums of war. A deep unease and unsettlement takes the place of a cathartic moment.
"Dig Your Own Grave" is the persistently catchy single from alt-rock Philly band, Spin. The video features a young blonde woman traipsing around Venice beach, both seizing the moment and looking for trouble. It's a familiar image, but like well-worn tropes, it still retains a certain effect. Distorted and driven by a driving central riff that stakes ground between playful and furious, the song is undeniably a throwback to a time when straight-ahead rock reigned. The other two original songs on the EP "Meant to Rise" pulse with a similar energy that draws the listener in with nostalgia. A brooding reimagining of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" feels like a jarring departure. A rap interlude in the middle further amplifies its odd-man-out feeling. That being said, as bizarre as it is, it makes for an intriguing listen.
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Openly gay pop star Jordan Alexander sets the tone for her album "The Lonely Hearts Club" with the opening track "Take Me Out Tonight." The melody is filled with lift and hope but there's also a longing that drives its dance beat. The video, directed by her mentor Jarvis Church (Nelly Furtato), puts a new spin on the title as Alexander and her friends take her wheelchair-bound grandmother for a night out on the town in a red Cadillac convertible. Shot on the streets of Toronto, it pops with a distinction the Canadian musician needs to develop a unique voice. She sings with a pleasingly airy lilt, but there's a paint-by-numbers feel to sentiments throughout the album like "I don't ever really want to be without you" but it's also refreshing to hear a line like "something tells me to stay away from pretty girls with pretty hearts" sung by a woman.
A lot of Marty McKay's upcoming album, "New York City Dreams" trades depth for a slick musical veneer. Lyrics like "my soul is a ticking time bomb" on the song "Escape" lack subtlety. As a New Yorker, there isn't much of the city evoked here, and it's perhaps in generalities that the album drowns. The Zurich-born McKay began his career as a hip-hop turntablist, so the moody rock maximalist tone here is a stark departure. "Into the Fire" is the most fully-realized track with a powerful 80s-style melodic hook, but it's the final track "Until the Pain is Gone" that glimpses at a greater artistic potential. Regret and the painful desire to rewrite the past looms large throughout the track and then a prescient voice takes over. It's British philosopher Alan Watts: "The course of time is really very much like the course of a ship in the ocean...it leaves behind it a wake just the same way that the past and our memory of the past tells us what we have done." The past determines our future as little as the ship's wake determines its continued path. It's our folly to live under the illusion that fate is anything more than a human construct.
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COULD YOU ADD A PHOTO OF COMEDIAN STEPHEN COLBERT?
President Donald J. Trump announced Monday that comedian Stephen Colbert will run the administration's newly created Department of Irony.
Trump praised Colbert's qualifications by tweeting: "Stephen is an ironic guy. Very ironic. I should know. Nobody knows more about irony than I do."
During the presidential campaign, Trump frequently promised supporters he would make the country "ironic again."
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"We're going to be so ironic, you're going to get sick and tired of irony," he often told cheering crowds.
Trump said last week that he asked Congress to approve the Department of Irony as a cabinet-level department to direct and oversee all irony in the administration.
Colbert, a comedian and a writer, has hosted The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS since September 8, 2015. Before that, he hosted The Colbert Report on the Comedy Channel, a news-parody program in which he played a caricature of a conservative political pundit.
Colbert became famous for inventing, among other words, "truthiness," which he defined as "believing something that feels true, even if isn't supported by fact."
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This, Colbert said, is different from what he called "Trumpiness" because "truthiness"
has to feel true, but Trumpiness doesn't have to do that," he said.
"Truthiness" comes from gut. But "Trumpiness," Colbert added, "comes from further down the gastrointestinal tract."
Mordant Sardonic, professor of Ironic Studies at North South Dakota State University, called Colbert "an inspired choice."
Sardonic wrote that Trump has satisfied his campaign pledge because so many of his appointees appeared to be either indifferent or hostile to the department they were selected to run.
This, Sardonic said, included Jeff Sessions as attorney general; Betsy DeVos, as secretary of Education; Tom Price, Health and Human Services; Andrew Puzder, Labor; Steven Mnuchin, Treasury; Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development; Rick Perry, Energy, and "just about everyone else in the cabinet," he added.
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Sardonic said Trump's commitment to irony was also evident in other appointments such as anti-environmentalist Scott Pruitt to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Sardonic said he learned that Trump is expected to pick Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Guzman, who is currently in prison in the United States, would be different from other Trump appointees, Sardonic said.
The recent appointment of Betsy DeVos has proved one thing - conservatives are far more concerned about politics than they are about educating children. A sampling of their self-serving arrogance can be seen in the numerous Fox News opinion articles from the likes of Bobby Jindal, Ralph Reed, Liz Peek, and the entire New York Post Editorial Board.
The New York Post believes "The War on Betsy DeVos Is All About the Teachers' Unions". Conservatives have long believed that unions are bad for the country, but the data doesn't support that assertion when it comes to teachers. If these conservatives were being honest they would acknowledge that multiple studies show teachers' unions have a positive impact on educational outcomes, while another study showed that in areas where union membership was greater, children in low income families were more likely to achieve higher incomes.
Beyond that, if unions were the biggest obstacle to improving education, then why do so many countries that outperform the U.S. have higher rates of unionization among their teachers?
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Of course the idea that unions need public schools to maintain their power ignores the fact that 12% of charter school teachers are represented by unions.
Ralph Reed feels that the opposition to Betsy DeVos is due to the "liberal war on religion" despite the fact that her faith and religiosity were not a reason given by any of the fifty Senators that voted against her appointment. Having said that, there are clearly concerns that DeVos, who was quoted as saying she wanted to confront the education culture "in ways that will continue to advance God's kingdom" while her husband - Dick DeVos - stated it is "certainly our hope that more and more churches will get more and more active and engaged in education".
Given the multiple cases that have helped define the separation of church and state within public schools, it would seem there is little DeVos can do to push her faith as the Secretary of Education; however, she wouldn't be the first conservative to advocate for getting public funding to flow to private religious schools. If following the constitution constitutes a war on religion, conservatives should get ready for a battle.
Like many others, Liz Peek pretends our schools system is broken and that the ideas DeVos supports are the answer. Unfortunately for DeVos supporters like Peek, they are woefully uninformed on the problems of education. Data show that we have a
not an education problem. In fact, when adjusted for poverty, the U.S. test scores rank number one in the world.
The reality is that, if conservatives spent as much money and effort on ending poverty as they do trying to end public education, the system we have in place would already be producing the best results in the world.
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Unlike the others that were mainly interested in presenting biased information to make liberals look bad, Bobby Jindal presented biased information to pat himself on the back in addition to making liberals look bad. In Jindal's mind, DeVos will save education because she agrees with the policies he has followed as the Governor of Louisiana. Jindal goes on to talk up the value of charter schools while ignoring the most recent data that show there is virtually no difference between the performance of charter schools and public schools. Making matters worse is the fact that the data used to show this doesn't include some of the best performing public schools in the country. This means charter school are only as good as the public schools people have deemed failing. That is faint praise to only be as good as the bad public schools.
Of course Jindal also fails to mention a number of other issues with charter schools that should trouble most people that claim to care about children, like the fact that charter schools spend less on teachers yet don't save tax payers any money. Charter schools are less transparent, give parents less control over the direction of their child's education, and take money out of local communities. Despite costs tax payers as much as their local public school, Charter schools serve fewer special needs and English learner students which tend to cost more to educate. Charters weed out students with lower test scores and expel more students, yet still don't outperform their local public school.
Beyond this, as Fox News contributor Todd Starnes noted, over the last eight years, where charter schools have increased by 47 % under President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, U.S. test scores have gone down. Odd that this free market competition has led to a general decline in outcomes given the rhetoric from conservatives.
When you analyze the data you see that charter schools aren't the panacea of education reform but just another type of school plagued by the problem of poverty.
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Jindal also believes that Betsy DeVos has proven she is dedicated to improving the education system because she has "spent millions of dollars of her own money" on education reform. Well Governor, if spending her own money shows the level of commitment DeVos has to our children then it should be mentioned that teachers across the U.S. spend $3.5 billion of their own money to buy supplies for their classroom and for students who can't afford the necessities. In fact, some of the lowest paid teachers spend the largest percentage of their own money. How is it DeVos's spending shows her dedication, yet opposing her view of reform while spending a greater percentage of your income directly on students suggests you want kids to fail?
The concerns that most Senators - including two Republicans - had with DeVos was the fact that she had never been part of the public education system as a student, parent, or staff and that she couldn't answer some simple policy questions that are quintessential to the job.
The question these opinion writers should really be asking themselves is not does DeVos support charters, the reduction of unions, and the transfer of public funds to private institutions, since every person Donald Trump would nominate for this position would have backed these ideas; but rather, is Betsy DeVos the best candidate for this position. It seems ideologically inconsistent to suggest that DeVos's lack of experience is an asset while also arguing that teachers should be assessed, reviewed, and rated to determine if they are "highly qualified" for their job.
This weekend's mandatory evacuation order for residents downstream from California's Oroville Dam is a reminder of what a perilous state so much of America's infrastructure is in. In 2005, three environmental groups filed a motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to require that the dam's emergency spillway be filled with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside, noting that the dam did not meet modern safety standards in the event of extreme rain and flooding. At the time, California's Department of Water Resources refused to allocate funds to fix the problem, FERC rejected the request. Today it is a much more serious issue, and emblematic of America's infrastructure crisis.
Overseas visitors arriving for the first time to many of the nation's airports must wonder if there has been some mistake, for appearances would indicate that they have instead just arrived in a developing country. From arrival gates built for mid-20th century aircraft to over-crowded concourses to leaking ceilings, America has ignored the need for 21st century caliber airports for too many decades. The most recent wholly new major airport to open in the U.S. was Denver International Airport -- in 1995 -- which opened 16 months behind schedule and more than $2 billion over budget. Given how much lead time is required to design, finance, construct and open a new airport, we are many decades away from getting ahead of this.
America's infrastructure crisis extends well beyond airports, of course. Many of our roads are in miserable shape, our bridges are crumbling, and our national railroad system might as well have been built in the 1800s (and some of it was). Unfortunately, failing to allocate the necessary funds to maintain, upgrade and replace infrastructure is nothing new in the U.S. - the result of a combination of a failure to take the problem seriously, political infighting, passing the buck, and a political culture more focused on short-termism and election cycles than fiscal prudence and reality checks.
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According to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report for 2013, the U.S. ranked 25th in the world in terms of overall infrastructure, behind such nations has Barbados and Oman, and only one spot ahead of Qatar. The quality of America's air transport infrastructure is ranked 30th in the world, while quality of the electricity supply ranked 33rd. That same year, the American Society of Engineers gave the U.S. a "D+" for the state of its infrastructure, and estimated at the time that it will cost $3.6 trillion to bring America's public infrastructure to an acceptable level by 2020. That figure now exceeds $4 trillion.
Chronic underinvestment in the nation's essential infrastructure will ultimately require a national investment plan unseen since Europe's post-war reconstruction. Previous administrations have acknowledged the problem and some attempted to allocate resource to address it. For example, the Obama administration proposed a six-year, $478 billion plan called the Grow America Act that would have paid for infrastructure by imposing a 14% tax on foreign earnings being held overseas by U.S. companies. At the time, Republicans were also prepared to use repatriation as a revenue source, but their proposals called for a much lower tax rate, and there was broad skepticism about whether the approach would generate sustainable funds to meaningfully address the issue. Predictably, it died in Congress.
It took New York law makers until La Guardia Airport was literally falling apart before they allocated $5 billion to finally build a new airport terminal and related facilities. After witnessing collapsed bridges, multiple train derailments, and now the Oroville Dam, most state and federal law makers now appreciate the gravity of the situation. The question is whether they will set political expediency and short-termism aside to allocate funds -- this year -- so that 10 or 20 years from now, we are talking about what we need to do to stay ahead of the situation, rather than how to get ahead of it.
The Trump administration now has a real opportunity to turn the tide - particularly given the Republican majority in Congress. I only wish Obama had done this when the Democrats were in the majority 8 years ago. Identifying viable, long-term financial solutions is the real challenge. If Trump will apply his considerable financial acumen to the problem, make a national infrastructure program a centerpiece of his administration, convene a national panel of business and government leaders, and provide them with a mandate and the tools they need, America may finally be able to say that its infrastructure crisis is getting the attention it requires. This crisis took many decades to develop, and it will take many decades of concerted effort to resolve it. My hope is that one of the Trump administration's historical legacies will be that it tackled America's infrastructure crisis head on.
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Many observers--including such disparate voices as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Noam Chomsky, Hillary Clinton, Thomas Friedman, and Pope Francis--have alluded to the North Indian province of Kashmir (and the surrounding area) as "the most dangerous place on earth."
As extravagant and melodramatic as that statement may seem, the case can be made for it. I once lived in Punjab, India, and traveled to parts of Kashmir. Even then, relations between India and Pakistan were unbelievably poisonous. Indeed, that entire northwest region is still so dangerously unstable, it's a miracle nothing catastrophic has happened.
Here are some key factors to consider.
* Ever since India (which is predominately Hindu) and Pakistan (which is overwhelmingly Muslim) became independent countries--via Partition, in 1947--they have been avowed enemies. That's 70 years of simmering acrimony.
* Directly bordering each other--just as the U.S. borders Canada and Mexico--India and Pakistan have already fought four "official" wars and engaged in numerous military skirmishes.
* With more than 1,340,000 troops, India's army is now the third largest in the world, bigger than North Korea's or Russia's, and right behind China and the U.S.
* Pakistan's army is barely half the size of India's.
* Both countries have nuclear weapons.
* India, with a population of 1.3 billion, is the world's largest democracy.
* Pakistan, with a population of 202 million, is part quasi-military dictatorship, part theocracy.
* Both countries believe in an Afterlife.
* Pakistan, understandably, has always seemed slightly paranoid and frazzled.
* India is buoyantly self-confident and ready to assert itself.
* Pakistan fears that the U.S. will install a pro-West, pro-Indian government in Afghanistan, resulting in Pakistan being squeezed between two enemy states.
* India has a sizeable arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons.
* Pakistan has a modest supply of strategic warheads, but a large supply of tactical nuclear weapons.
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And therein lies the rub: Tactical nuclear weapons. Pakistan's access to tactical nukes is what makes everyone so nervous.
Whereas strategic nuclear weapons are the ones we've all learned to fear--the ones that would have been part of the worldwide, "duck and cover" thermonuclear war between the U.S. and USSR--tactical nukes are weapons designed specifically to be used on the field of the battle. They're nuclear, but they're limited.
Why has Pakistan put so much effort into amassing an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons? Answer: They see tactical nukes as the only viable deterrent to India invading and overrunning them in a conventional war. The Indian army is simply too big and well-equipped. It would be a rout.
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This is the dreaded scenario: Fed up with Pakistan's persistent meddling and incursions into Kashmir, and ignoring the pleas of the U.S. and the rest of the world, India unleashes its long awaited invasion. The mighty Indian army crosses the border in Punjab and proceeds to wipe the floor with outmanned and outgunned Pakistani soldiers.
To the horror of everyone, we find out that those rumors were true, that Pakistani field officers with the rank of full colonel or general have been given the authority to use tactical nukes at their own discretion--to use them in the face of "overwhelming and superior forces." And use them they do.
Of course, once India realizes it's under attack from nuclear weapons, they respond in kind. They instantly retaliate with nukes of their own, but instead of the "benign" battlefield variety, they bring out the big boys. They launch a full-scale strategic nuclear attack against Pakistan's major cities and military installations.
Left with no choice, Pakistan strikes India with every nuclear warhead in its arsenal, convinced that, win, lose or draw, once the smoke clears, multitudes of faithful Muslims will be reunited with Allah. That's the omega scenario, the blueprint for the end of the world. Very scary.
As a consequence of this conflagration (a cumulative blast one million times more powerful than that of Hiroshima), the atmosphere becomes toxic, the earth experiences Nuclear Winter, and life as we know it perishes.
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Fake news cemented its position as king as Donald Trump took his oath of office on January 20, 2017 as the 45th President of the United States. From August to November 2016, fake news stories earned more shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook than real news stories. To be clear, fake news is a bipartisan issue, but the president hasn't been shy about perpetuating the fake news trope itself. The propagation of falsehoods and misinformation extends to science. Through his spokespeople, advisors, and even his Twitter handle, President Trump and his team have continued to disseminate "alternative facts," the contents of which are jarring, and somehow, still shocking. As an associate professor of natural and applied sciences, I have seen how this plays out in both the press and in people's beliefs of science and the environment. Whether it's business or public policy, science doesn't tell us what to do, but it can ground those decisions with data. That's why, more than ever, it's vital that we teach students how to be critical in their analysis of facts. The "other side" of science isn't a point-of-view: it's just non-science.
One of the fundamental lessons I teach my students in Science in Environmental Policy is about the importance of evidence-based policy making. As future business leaders, it's imperative that they are science literate and understand how to vet proposals with data and evidence- a lesson which has become even more important following this election. Public policy is made by balancing all kinds of competing interests, from economics to moral principles. But good policy can't be done by ignoring -- or worse, misrepresenting or lying about science. For example, my students work with real data sets, collected by climate scientists, to examine first-hand the relationship between carbon dioxide and global temperatures. It's a simple exercise, steeped in data, that demonstrates complex interactions between humans and our environment. It informs us and arms our analysis with the best information possible.
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But science isn't an opinion or a moral judgment. Science can't objectively tell us what to do. None of this is to say that scientists are infallible, that the data are always clear, or that our conclusions are unquestionable. In fact, those are all true - and they actually guide the scientific method. The method exposes our mistakes and demands repeated confirmation. That's the strength of science: it's not two-sided. While we interpret many things, from the ramifications of an economic policy to the impact of sanctions on Iran, policy decisions should not be made by obfuscating or denying facts. Sometimes, facts can speak for themselves. And here are (just some of) the facts:
President Trump, who has expressed skepticism about the established science of human-caused climate change, removed almost all mentions of climate change from the White House website.
The Trump administration is mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public.
For more than 1,100 miles, the border between Mexico and Texas is the Rio Grande River. Building a wall that somehow navigates the river and the border would be incredibly difficult and would have massive environmental implications, including impacting animals' migratory patterns and leading to a surge in greenhouse gas emissions from the concrete needed to build the wall.
Scientific data, unfortunately, often get lost in the shuffle or are portrayed as another "special interest," particularly when the media has rushed to ensure that every debate is two-sided. But an emphasis on portraying every issue as a debate is dangerous, and has made the media complicit in the reality of today, where the average person can't tell fact from fiction. Or science from non-science.
President Trump's "shock and awe" strategy in the form of multiple executive orders on immigration and refugees creates three major risks: first, that many of the most damaging provisions will evade scrutiny in the glare of more high profile issues like building an unnecessary and unsustainable 2,000 mile border wall; second, that the cynical rationale for the orders (security and safety) will actually stick, if repeated enough times, and; third, that some portion of this agenda may actually be implemented at permanent cost to our nation's well-being, core values and identity.
The Threat of Mass Deportation
The executive order, titled "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," sets enforcement priorities that are so broad as to be virtually meaningless. The order prioritizes the removal of serious criminals and national security risks, but also a large percentage of the 11 million US undocumented immigrants. As a result, it effectively sets no priorities and, thus, raises the specter of a mass deportation program. The raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent days likewise fail to reflect principled enforcement priorities. Despite its billing, if implemented the order will undermine public safety and devastate US families, communities and the economy.
Earlier this month, the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) released a report that described the impact of a mass deportation policy on the nation's three million "mixed-status" households, i.e., those with a US-born child and an undocumented person, most often the child's parent. Living in these households are 6.6 million US citizens by birth, 5.7 million of them children. Removing the undocumented residents would cut the median income of these households nearly in half -- from $41,300 to $22,000--and, thus, would relegate millions of US families to lives of poverty. To assess the cost of raising the US-citizen children left behind, CMS assumed that only one-third of these children would remain in the United States following the deportation of a parent and that the undocumented parents contribute 50 percent of the financial support for the children. By these conservative estimates, the cost of raising these children would total $118 billion.
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Mass deportation would be disastrous for other reasons as well. A high percentage of the 2.4 million mortgages held by households with undocumented immigrants, for example, would be at risk of default. To put this figure in context, at the peak of the housing crisis in 2009 a record 2.8 million properties received mortgage foreclosure notices. Moreover, an industry and state-level analysis of the impact of mass deportation by economists Ryan Edwards and Francesc Ortega concluded that US gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year; cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years; the federal debt would increase by $982 billion over 10 years; and the agricultural, construction, leisure and hospitality industries would experience workforce reductions of 10 to 18 percent. Another study found that it would cost $400 to $600 billion in immigration enforcement spending over a 20-year period to deport the undocumented and prevent further illegal entries. The obvious solution would be to keep mixed-status families intact and essential workers in place, preferably through a legalization program, but the executive orders fail to acknowledge that need.
Refugees and National Security
It is difficult to imagine how the greatest crisis in refugee protection since World War II - a crisis that cries out for broad responsibility-sharing by states - can be successfully resolved without the United States playing at least a supportive, if not a leadership role. Yet, the executive orders work to diminish US commitments to refugees, asylum-seekers, and the relevant international institutions that provide life-saving support to them.
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The mistitled order, "Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals," grossly exaggerates the security threat to the United States from refugees. Yes, it is conceivable that a terrorist could successfully impersonate a refugee and commit an attack on US soil. There have also been occasional breaches of this program, including by two insurgents who fought US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, entered the United States as refugees in 2009, and were subsequently arrested in a sting operation in Bowling Green, Ohio.
That said, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack by a refugee are extraordinarily low. A Cato Institute study by Alex Nowrasteh found that between 1975 and 2015 - a period in which 3.25 million refugees were resettled in the United States - there were three terrorist attacks by refugees, killing three people. The risk of dying in a terrorist attack by a refugee during this 41-year period was one in 3.64 billion. All three attacks were committed by Cuban nationals in the 1970s. Since then, particularly since 9/11, extraordinary efforts have been made to strengthen US intelligence, establish the identity of all non-citizens seeking admission, and screen would-be immigrants and refugees against multiple databases and through in-person interviews. At present, refugees undergo the most rigorous and exhaustive vetting of any candidates for admission. This is particularly true for Syrian refugees who are overwhelmingly women and children with no other viable options and who the order indefinitely bars.
More importantly, the order obscures the fact that the failure to anticipate and to respond in a coordinated, pro-active way to refugee situations can undermine security and, conversely, that timely, effectively-managed interventions invariably contribute to security. This may be most obvious in the case of the prevention and mitigation of refugee-producing conditions. However, support for the communities in developing states that host 86 percent of the world's refugees also manifestly promotes security, as does the safe and voluntary repatriation of refugees and the resettlement of well-vetted refugees in third countries. By contrast, as the European experience illustrates, shortfalls in essential aid to refugees, lack of education and work opportunities, and the inability of refugees to migrate through normal channels or to secure legal status in host communities can lead to large-scale, unregulated migration. Ultimately, it is the failure of states to address refugee crises that undermines security, not refugee protection. The executive order gets the analysis exactly backwards.
The world is not facing a refugee crisis, but a crisis in refugee protection, which the executive orders will exacerbate. The "security" ramifications of suspension of the refugee program, as well as the (judicially stayed) bar on admission of legal immigrants from seven "terror prone" states - which, as widely reported, do not include states whose nationals have committed terrorist acts in the United States in recent decades -- are all negative. The orders will return refugees to situations of great insecurity. They also present a potent recruiting tool for ISIL and other terrorist groups and make it far less likely that allied states, foreign intelligence sources, and targeted immigrant communities will cooperate with US counter-terror initiatives. As former CIA director Michael Hayden put it, the refugee order has already "inarguably has made us less safe. "
The refugee order also raises concerns related to the United States' adherence to the values which it presumably seeks to secure. While the order would drastically cut refugee admissions, it prioritizes the religious persecution claims of minority populations. Certainly, the United States should admit far more persecuted religious minorities from the Middle-East and elsewhere. Yet, this proposal comes on the heels of Trump's campaign pledge to ban Muslim immigration and as part of a package that seeks to suspend immigration from Muslim-majority nations, that were selected without any apparent input from US intelligence agencies. In combination, these measures seem to represent a retreat from the nation's historic commitment to religious liberty and pluralism, and constitute a self-inflicted wound in the global battle for hearts and minds, which may not matter to their authors, but should matter to those who care about US standing and security.
Deportation and Due Process
The executive order on "Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements" would extend the expedited removal process -- which now applies to persons within 100 miles of a land or sea border, who appear to have arrived within 14 days -- to persons who cannot produce sufficient immigration documents and cannot "affirmatively" show that they have lived in the United States for more than two years. Expedited removal is a process in which immigration enforcement officials act as police, prosecutors and judges, all rolled into one. As a result, it not infrequently leads to the deportation of lawful permanent residents (LPRs) and US citizens.
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In theory, however, this process at least allows those fleeing for their lives to have their asylum claims heard. The statute provides that immigration officers "shall refer" persons who request asylum or express a fear of persecution to a "credible fear" interview by an asylum officer. Those found to have a credible fear can then seek asylum before an Immigration Judge in removal proceedings, which is a very daunting process, but an important safety valve nonetheless.
Yet, immigration officials consistently refuse to refer qualified persons to credible fear interviews. Instead, they resort to all manner of deception and falsehoods.They tell desperate asylum-seekers that people with legal status in Mexico cannot apply for asylum in the United States.They say the country is full. They tell them that the United States does not accept asylum claims from countries that are not at war, like violence-plagued Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala. They say there is no more room in the United States. They tell families that, if they admit them, they will have to detain and separate them. They violate the law even in front of delegations, like the International Commission on Religious Freedom, that have come to monitor their compliance with the law. The expedited removal process should long ago have been reformed and, at the very least, limited in scope. The scofflaw behavior of federal officials, who are sworn to uphold the law, makes its expansion particularly problematic. If the United States enforces its immigration laws, which it should do and which it does very aggressively, then it also needs to honor due process and its legal commitments to refugees and asylum-seekers.
Final Thoughts
In June 2002, the George W. Bush administration announced the creation of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). The program screened persons arriving at ports-of-entry (POEs), both those from designated nations and individuals thought to present a heightened security risk. Federal officials fingerprinted, photographed, and extensively interviewed targeted immigrants on their background and on the purpose and details of their visits. It also required them to report at 30 days and annually thereafter, to exit at designated POEs, and to submit to pre-departure interviews.
NSEERS also included a "special" or "call-in" registration program that applied to males age 16 and over, from 25 nations, who had already entered the United States, typically on non-immigrant (temporary) visas. All but one of the designated nations (North Korea) had Muslim majorities. Between November 2002 and December 2003, 83,519 persons came forward to register and 2,870 of them, including LPRs, were arrested and detained. Removal proceedings were initiated against nearly 14,000, mostly for overstaying visas.
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The "call in" groups were summoned by nationality in four stages. As their interview deadlines neared, hundreds of families - in buses, cars and caravans of taxis packed with their belongings - fled to the US northern border to seek refugee status in Canada. They stayed in shelters and hotels, waiting to cross for their scheduled refugee interviews. Others were detained. Many were terrified by the prospect of deportation. Some believed that they would be persecuted and tortured if forced to return home. Others never learned of the registration requirements, which were announced in the Federal Register, and have since faced negative immigration and criminal consequences as a result.
At the time, the author was researching a report on the US-Canada border for a committee of the American Bar Association. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, refugees and asylum-seekers often speak openly and candidly to attorneys, researchers and visiting delegations. But in the shelters along the US northern border, the migrants would not respond to the most basic of questions: they were palpably fearful, distrusting, and simply wanted to leave the country.
Today, asylum-seekers have begun to brave sub-freezing temperatures to cross the US-Canada border without authorization in order to seek asylum in Canada. They do not believe they can obtain a fair hearing in the United States. The executive orders are far broader in scope and less excusable than NSEERs, which came into being at a time when the nation feared additional, 9/11-like terrorist attacks and did not enjoy the benefit of the strengthened intelligence, information sharing and screening systems that have been built since 9/11.
President Donald Trump derides CNN as fake news. Does that mean "The History of Comedy," an eight-part documentary series premiering on the network Thurs. Feb. 9, is fake jokes? No, this is the real deal; a deep dive into a century of one-liners, pratfalls, and social commentary; of vaudeville, burlesque and nightclubs, of stand-up, satire and silliness.
As the title of the first episode, "F***ing Funny," indicates, don't expect the decorum of Ken Burns' "The Civil War," or a strict chronology for that matter. Of the first three episodes viewed, each is more about context, how we got from Lenny Bruce to Louis C.K., from Jean Carroll (forgotten today but an acknowledged inspiration to Lily Tomlin) to Sarah Silverman, and from how comedians take their life into their own hands every time they go on stage, as Larry David observes in episode three, to what Maria Bamford celebrates as "the triumph of a good joke."
"It's about how comedians work, the process, and who broke barriers," said Kliph Nesteroff. "A chronological history would not have been the best way (to tell the story) because not everybody would be interested in each episode; they would only be interested in the comedy of their favorite era. It also leaves the door open for a second season."
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Nesteroff, one of the consulting producers on the series, literally wrote the book about "The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy." His website, Classic Television Showbiz is an essential archive of his exhaustive encyclopedic interviews primarily with indelible 20th century nightclub entertainers. Think the Voices of the Shoah project, but instead of Holocaust survivors, you get Willie Tyler and Lester, Shecky Greene and Woody Woodbury.
And even he proclaims to be impressed with the archival footage "The History of Comedy" has unearthed. "Herzog & Company (the production company that is also responsible for CNN's signature series of documentaries spanning the decades) really did a good job of digging deep. They didn't just hit the same clips that have been seen a million times. They've come up with footage I knew existed but had not seen before; like a clip from 'The David Frost Show' featuring a panel of black comedians that includes Moms Mabley and an obscure comedian named Irwin C. Watson. The found stuff you can't even find on the Internet, which is a tall task these days. Those kinds of things, for a nerd like me, are really impressive."
Also impressive are the historians and performers who along with Nesteroff lend commentary and context to the prodigious clips, including Mike Sacks, author of "Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today's Top Comedy Writers," Judd Apatow, Samantha Bee, Carol Burnett, Larry David, Kathy Griffin, Keegan-Michael Key, George Lopez, Marc Maron, Conan O'Brien, Patton Oswalt, Jeff Ross, Sarah Silverman, and Gilbert Gottfried, whose "Amazing Colossal Podcast" is not to be missed by anyone in thrall to this business we call show (Nesteroff was a recent guest).
"The participation of these giant stars lends enormous credibility to the series," Nesteroff said. "I know there is going to be criticism. It's inevitable; how come so-and-so isn't in there? I guarantee you that the answer is because they said no. Luckily for us, most of the big stars said yes."
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"F***ing Funny" works gloriously blue and is brimming with, as George Carlin once ominously intoned, "bad words'; lots of 'em, most of them bleeped, which is ironic for an episode driven by espousers of the church of pushing boundaries and going too far. "Not letting an artist use the word 'f***," observes Craig Ferguson early on, "is like not allowing a guitar player to use the chord E. It's possible to play the instrument, but why...would you bother?"
Carlin's signature "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" is recalled. Only one of them--"tits"--is unbleeped; so we have made some progress since 1972, when Carlin first performed the routine and was charged with obscenity. Lenny Bruce, also featured in this episode, paid a higher price.
The episode finds the through line from Red Foxx and Richard Pryor to Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay and Anthony Jeselnik. "Off limits is not a permanent address, it's a marker," notes Patton Oswalt, who reminds us that network standards at one time would not allow Ricky and Lucy to say she was pregnant.
Future episodes will dwell on female comedians, the mindset of the stand-up, and parody and satire. There will also be an episode that explores political humor. Which begs the question: Is Donald Trump going to herald a boon for comedians?
Nesteroff isn't so sure. "That's like asking if the vice squad was good for Lenny Bruce," he reflected. "Comedy got kind of lazy under George W. Bush. All 'The Late Show with David Letterman' had to do to get a big laugh was show a clip of Bush making a malapropism. They can do that with Donald Trump; just show a clip of him saying something ridiculous and then cut to someone mugging to the camera. I don't think Trump is good for comedy. The only thing that is good is that he appears to feel threatened by it."
Yours Unfaithfully
Mint Theatre, Theatre Row
410 West 42nd Street, NYC
Through February 18 +
"Sometimes it seems drama is such a passing business. A performance is given, a picture screened then probably forgotten. Only occasionally do you hear that something is remembered, and then you feel you may have added a little to the knowledge about the stuff of life."
How prescient for British playwright Miles Malleson to have penned this thought decades ago and for the Mint's artistic director Jonathan Bank to prove him true.
More than 80 years after Malleson wrote "Yours Unfaithfully," it finally enjoyed its world premiere at the Mint Theatre in New York last Thursday night. This compelling, finely-tuned drama, beautifully acted, begs the question: why did it take so long to see the light of stage?
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After attending performances of short pieces of Malleson's in London, Mr. Bank, whose agenda over the past 20 years has been to discover lost plays, started sifting through other works of the playwright. He stumbled across this unknown gem about the timeless question of how to keep a marriage vital.
"When you strike a match on a box, which begins the flame?" asks Anne (the classically beautiful Elizabeth Gray) to her husband Stephen (Max von Essen), who's in a funk.
Far from suggesting either being part of this combustible equation, Anne plainly tells Stephen to do whatever it takes to rekindle his spirit. And from there on, the horse is out of the barn.
While all on stage agree (our couple included) that their's is among the healthiest marriages around, what puzzles initially is why one would believe extracurricular activity would help rekindle a spark without great risk.
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Getting the playwright thinking along such lines likely came from his first marriage to a creative, powerhouse of a woman who was as beautiful as he was homely. (Think Alfred Hitchcock.) An open marriage was settled on, and by the end of his days, Malleson was on his third wife.
Don't mistake this for a whimsical thesis to drive a drama or to pay the bills (it certainly didn't do that). Malleson was regarded as "a playwright of provocative wit, searching insight, and a sense of ethical passion," by the Manchester Guardian. The play takes on the challenging task of exploring how much give a marriage bond must have to be sustainable?
We're provided various thoughts on the matter, from Stephen's reverend father (John Hutton) who offers the puritanical take to Dr. Kirby (psychiatrist, Todd Ceveris) who quips, "what we think we feel... that's as near as most of us get."
While everyone in the audience will have their own thoughts about what's going on, the play explores undeniable truths: life is made more difficult the more you try to get out of it; how partners' emotions can often be out of sync; there can be no true love without sacrifice; and there is pain in knowing too much.
This last point is the dramatic crescendo of the evening, several wordless minutes of an anxious, jealous spouse restlessly waiting the return of the other with background lights and noises of a London night filing a dark void.
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The directness in which Malleson attacks his subject reminds how, just two generations earlier, Thomas Hardy approached the subject of marriage in his extraordinary, "Jude the Obscure." Hardy was burned in effigy for speaking so plainly, which "cured" the author of further novel writing. And perhaps for similar Victorian reason, Malleson never saw his play performed.
For a work that speaks to "men and women of full age, which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity; to tell, without a mincing of words of a deadly war waged between the flesh and spirit; and to point the tragedy of unfulfilled aims, I am not aware that there is anything in the handling to which exception can be taken."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
Trend:
Rector of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) Elmar Gasimov met with Cultural and Educational Affairs Officer of the USA Embassy in Azerbaijan Amy Petersen. Having welcomed the quest, the rector provided information about BHOS development, main activities, and attainments achieved by the Higher School students and academic teaching staff, and spoke about the Higher School close cooperation with Heriot-Watt University (Great Britain).
Gasimov also informed about a visit of a delegation of the University of Houston (UH) from the USA led by the Chancellor and President of the UH system Renu Khator to Azerbaijan in January 2015. Speaking about meetings with the UH delegation conducted at SOCAR and BHOS, the rector said that during the visit, two higher educational institutions signed a Protocol on Cooperation on joint Master course. He expressed his interest to further enhancing cooperation with the University of Houston in implementing Master degree program.
Having thanked for the reception, the Cultural and Educational Affairs Officer of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan Amy Petersen dwelled on relations between two countries in the field of education. Petersen highly praised the success achieved by BHOS and expressed her satisfaction with the Higher School cooperation the University of Houston.
Issues related to further development of relations between BHOS and UH including student and teachers exchange programs and arrangement of summer schools at two higher educational institutions were also discussed at the meeting.
The mooted GOP tax plan has drawn some positive attention from trade reformers because it's the first tax plan in decades to make serious moves designed to reduce America's trade deficit.
Unfortunately, unless I'm totally missing something, it's also a seriously crazy document.
So crazy, in fact, that despite not being an ultra-partisan fanatic, I am forced to the conclusion that either the GOP leadership is even stupider than ordinary political cynicism would assume, or the plan is simply not meant in earnest. (Is it a trap for Trump, to discredit him if he's foolish enough to buy into it? Dunno. A trap for the idea of tax-based trade reform? Ditto. But either of these hypotheses would make more sense than the idea that they actually mean it.)
Now it has many aspects, most of which I won't go into because its trade aspects alone are sufficient to rule it out as serious policy.
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Here's why:
The GOP blueprint is basically a so-called "border adjustable cash flow tax," a/k/a a "territorial cash flow tax," a/k/a "destination based cash flow tax" (Twitter hashtag #DBCFT). Export sales are excluded from income, and imported products, services, and labor are not deductible.
The problem is that this results in a comically extreme disparity between the treatment of imported, domestic, and exported goods. Some examples:
1. Domestic goods: ACME, Inc. sells $100K domestically, with $80K costs procured domestically - result is $20K taxable income. Results same as now.
2. Imported goods: ACME sells $100K domestically, with $80K costs all imported - result is $100K taxable income because the imported inputs are not deductible.
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3. Exported goods: ACME sells $100K to foreign buyers, with $80K costs all domestic - result is $80K tax loss.
So it's a hyper-aggressive subsidy for exports. Boeing can sell a $100 million airplane to Air France, make $20 million in profit, and yet book it as an $80 million tax loss. It's the biggest corporate giveaway I've ever heard of.
This is so aggressive it will prompt corporations to do transactions that make no sense, simply to capture the tax loss. Profitable companies will buy up any exporting company, just to harvest their tax losses.
It's actually not so bad on the import side. Basically, it would force companies to pay their effective corporate tax rate on the value of imported goods. The average corporate tax rate is about 13%, so this would imply approximately a tariff of that amount. (To be fair, the average tax rate on importers is considerably higher, because importing doesn't offer as many loopholes as, say, running a hedge fund, so the de facto tariff would be more.)
Fundamentally, if you want to do something about the trade balance, it's problematic to focus on profits, rather than imports and exports themselves.
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For example, what happens when Delta buys the plane Air France just bought in the example above? Because Air France is making the profit on the sale of the plane, and outside U.S. jurisdiction, there's nothing to discourage this. So Boeing will "launder" all its sales this way. And why shouldn't Delta just buy from Airbus, which is similarly outside U.S. jurisdiction? This tax only has leverage against imports done by American middlemen with profits to grab.
So what would happen? Here's a real-life case that occurred to me the other day:
1. If I buy a pair of Chinese-made sunglasses from a stand on the Santa Monica Promenade, the landed cost of the glasses is not deductible to the guy who sells them to me, so he pays a very stiff tax for doing so.
2. If I buy the same pair over EBay from a guy in Hong Kong, there's no U.S. middleman to take a tax hit, so there's no disincentive to buy imported glasses.
Implication: a mad rush by consumers and businesses to establish "direct import" relationships with foreign suppliers. But this a) evades the tax and spoils the incentive, and b) has no rational economic purpose, so it undermines economic efficiency.
So put me on record this thing is probably too crazy to be real. It's quite likely House Speaker Paul Ryan is just using the public's current attention to the trade deficit as an excuse to get this plan in circulation with the real intention of dialing it back to something less kooky but still lavishly rewarding to his corporate sponsors.
If the United States valued education as much as military activities, children in elementary schools would have 45% more spent on their education than is provided now. High schools would see their budgets go up by 71%.
American schools currently are not the best in the world. The U.S. Armed Forces, by contrast, are the finest on the globe. A fundamental reason for this difference is the level of funding.
The U.S. Armed Forces spend 37% of the money available to the armed forces of the world's nations. In other words, more than a third of all military spending on the globe supports the American military.
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That generous funding enables the U.S Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps to be selective in choosing personnel, to provide high-quality training, and to use the latest technology. Our military can be the best in the world because they have the financial means to do so.
American elementary and secondary education receives funding that is, at most, about 23% of total spending in the world. This estimate is almost certainly too high because data on education spending is available from fewer countries--115, than is data on military funding--137 countries. A larger pool of nations would reduce the percentage spent for education by the U.S.
Matthew Frizzell, an education researcher, did the analysis which reached these conclusions. That research was undertaken for this article.
What if the United States were to adopt the same approach for education as it does for the military? What if education was supported at the same financial level as our military?
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President Trump proposes the opposite. He says that schools are "flush with cash," and that the military must receive increased funding. He would thereby further increase the disparity in spending. The country would place even greater value on the military and lesser value on education.
If children's learning were to receive "the military solution," namely funding equal to more than a third of what the world's nations spend on education, American schools could improve enough to be among the world's best institutions. Even with that big increase in the U.S., however, several other nations would still spend more on students than we would; but what a difference those extra funds could make in our country.
Educators would have the means to be very selective about who becomes a teacher, about how they are trained, and about keeping them in the classroom with decent pay and good working conditions. It would also provide funding for extra services for students who are not prepared for school or who come to school after speaking another language at home during their earliest years.
Critics say that money has not solved the problems of American education. They point out that the U.S. is already among the highest spenders on education among all nations. They also show that American student test scores are generally in the middle or in the top third but not at the very highest levels among the world's nations.
The assertion about greater funding being ineffective is not accurate as explained in this comprehensive study showing how extra dollars led to increased student performance. But, it is true that our test scores are not the highest among nations, due to the current absence of sufficient funding to provide a quality education for all students.
By comparison, let's look at the record of the U.S. Armed Forces. The military, with much greater funding than that available to education, has performed well, but has not always succeeded. It too has a mixed record.
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World War II stands out as the greatest success, and since then our military prowess has often deterred other nations from being aggressive. But, in reviewing the wars and battles we waged, the truth is that we did not win every one.
The Korean War was at best a draw. The Vietnam War was a loss. The rescue attempt of embassy employees in Iran was a failure. The Iraqi and Afghanistan wars cannot be called victories. The Gulf War for Kuwait was a short-term victory until Iraq was invaded. The tragedy of 9-11 is a stain on our defense and intelligence agencies.
The point is that despite high funding making them the best, the U.S. Armed Forces have not been uniformly successful. Neither have the schools with much smaller budgets.
When the military faces problems, such as fighting terrorism, Congress gives them more money for the job. When the schools do not show high student test scores, they are lectured on doing better with what they have.
It is obvious that we care more about the military than we do about our youths' education. In government, budgets show the real priorities. Our priority is far and away the military. Despite all the political rhetoric, education is a middling concern of our country.
This should not be an issue of either funding the military or funding education. Since the great majority of personnel in the armed services are educated in public schools, the better educated they become, the stronger the military will be.
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So, let's even the playing field and give the schools the military solution. Let's bring this home to the politicians and encourage a shift of thinking on the part of state and national elected officials. At the beginning of meetings between educators and politicians, including testimony to state legislatures and the Congress, this should be the opening statement.
You can find more satirical news stories like this on The Political Garbage Chute every day.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Within hours of being confirmed, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, with Sub-President Donald J. Trump by her side, announced a new educational reform program called "Every Child Left Behind."
"It's a new day in America," DeVos said as she took to the podium, "and it's a new era in American education. We're going to privatize every last drop of it that we can get away with. And as such, the reality that American parents will have to grapple with is that there just won't be enough money to keep both corporate profits up and to educate their children so fully."
Every Child Left Behind is designed to, in DeVos' words, "truly level the playing field." It will "ensure that every child is treated the same" and will "have the same exact dearth of opportunities as their friends and neighbors."
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"By completely decimating the public education system," DeVos said, "we can then rebuild it. Or rather, not rebuild it. We'll just put something corporately-backed and controlled in its place. Then, we'll have the best, most competitive educational market ever. But you can rest easy knowing every single child in this country will have to pony up the dough to get a good education. We will not be picking winners and losers."
Secretary DeVos explained that in her and Sub-President Trump's view, "kids have gotten far too used to getting stuff for free." She said that "no one is entitled to someone else's labor" and that it's time to "stop stealing from teachers." Though, she did say that there would be "far, far fewer teachers" once their unions were made illegal.
"We'll have about 300 kids per teacher," DeVos said, "because the working class education doesn't need to be all that great, right? We just need the plebs to make the widgets. Not to ask questions. Making sure they get the bare minimum attention from an instructor is really key to keeping kids as minimally educated as possible."
DeVos did say that one group of children would be exempt from most of the changes.
"No, not special needs kids," DeVos said, when asked "those kids won't even be going to regular schools anymore. We'll just chuck them into those big, roll-off dumpsters you see at construction sites everyday. We'll tell them they're going on an adventure in a big, scary, metal cave that smells like hot garbage. Win-win, really."
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With Sub-President Trump beaming beside her, DeVos told the reporters which group of kids will not be subject to the reforms.
"Oh, none of this applies to rich kids," DeVos said, "Their parents of course have enough money to take care of any and every problem they face."
President Donald Trump tweeted "It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country." But is that really the case? To determine this, I compare votes opposing cabinet nominees to what President Obama and other recent chief executives faced, as well as how long it took each president to get their cabinet in place.
When I was a college student, I got a chance to attend a lecture by, and later meet, Judge Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's nominee for the Supreme Court who was defeated for confirmation in the late 1980s. It got me thinking about presidents and whether their nominees are confirmed by the Senate.
Anthony Zurcher with the BBC looks at just this issue. First, on the subject of "no" votes, Obama's cabinet nominees faced more than 400 "No" votes. By comparison Trump has faced only about 100 "No" votes for his nominees. He's still got some more cabinet officers to go before the Senate, but his most controversial ones (Sessions and DeVos) have already had their votes. Others have sailed through. Unless there is a major set of scandals, he is unlikely to break Obama's record for historic cabinet opposition.
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For the record, George W. Bush had more than 150 votes against his nominees, followed by Reagan (about 125) and Nixon (about 110).
Bush, who also lost the popular vote en route to the presidency and faced a 50-50 Senate, had his cabinet picked within weeks. Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush had their cabinet read by mid-March, but Barack Obama didn't have his cabinet fully confirmed until the end of April, according to that BBC report. As of the writing of this column, it is mid-February, so Trump has a long way to go to catch up with obstruction to Obama's Cabinet.
And that doesn't even count the cabinet replacements, who had to wait months during the Obama Administration for a vote. And for obstruction, ask Judge Merrick Garland what it's like to wait a year, and not even get a hearing, much less a vote. I bet that doesn't happen to Neil Gorsuch.
The Wall Street Journal also generally agrees with the BBC report, finding that Trump's cabinet picks are on pace with Reagan's and Clinton's waiting period.
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I'm sure you are thinking this is nothing like the good old days of the Founding Fathers, when cabinet nominations just sailed through Congress. Think again. Writing in the Harvard Law Review, Henry Paul Monaghan describes how President George Washington's second Chief Justice nominee was not only a member of the original Constitution Convention, but an Associate Supreme Court Justice and acting Chief Justice, seeking a full-time appointment. But he was defeated because he didn't like the Jay Treaty.
"Indeed, in the first 105 years of American constitutional history, almost one-fourth of the nominees (20 out of 81) failed to win confirmation; others were confirmed only after intense controversy," Monaghan wrote. We tend to forget that this was the era of Burr-Hamilton duels, the bitter 1800 election, and the Jefferson-Adams silent treatment days.
As conservative Washington Times columnist Bruce Fein, a Reaganite, wrote "Alexander Hamilton described the Senate confirmation power as 'an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President' and explained that it would deter 'the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity." That seems to be the route that the Senate is going, whether led by Republicans or Democrats.
We live in times of turmoil and instability. All corners of the world are affected. Located far north, with a population of 5 million people, Norway is contributing along many lines of efforts to foster security and stability in our region, but also in other corners of the world. At the core of this engagement lies decades of strong transatlantic relations.
This week, Norway's Minister of Defense Sreide will meet with her counterparts, including newly appointed US Secretary of Defense Mattis, at the NATO Defense Ministers' meeting in Brussels to discuss today's security challenges and the way forward. At the same time, G20 Foreign Ministers will be meeting in Hamburg, where Foreign Minister Brende will represent Norway. Then, hundreds of decision-makers from heads of states, including Prime Minister Solberg, foreign and defense ministers, academics and experts will convene at the Munich Security Conference to debate critical security challenges, including the rise of illiberalism globally.
Strong transatlantic relations and global peace and security are top priorities for Norway. Because of this, Norway will be represented in full force at the aforementioned conferences.
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Promoting stability requires a broad set of measures, including targeting economic and social development, providing assistance to forge good governance and facilitating political dialog. And in some cases, it may also require military contributions.
Some military contingents are deployed as part of our strong commitment to NATO and the transatlantic relationship, a cornerstone for Norway's security. Others operate within the framework of the United Nations or in cooperation with the European Union. Norway has stood alongside the US and NATO in numerous international operations. We have contributed to operations in Lebanon, in the Balkans, in Mali, in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, to mention a few. Since the Second World War, more than 100,000 Norwegian soldiers have participated in more than 100 international operations all over the world.
Norway is still actively contributing to support the Afghan government's efforts to stabilize the country and to counter terrorism by providing Special Forces to Kabul with a focus on capacity building. Since 2007, Norway has established, advised and supported a national Afghan Counter-Terrorism Police Unit. Every day they target terrorist networks, prevent attacks and respond to attacks against civilian and government targets. During my tenure as ambassador to Afghanistan, I witnessed firsthand the success of this cooperation. I visited several bases and spoke with the soldiers about their experiences. I also met with the "Afghan Crisis Response Unit" that, for the first time ever, included Afghan women training and participating within the Special Forces. This was a groundbreaking development, very important with regard to the future success of the country.
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We also take part in US-led counter -ISIL coalition operations in Iraq and Syria. The coalition campaigns against ISIL are yielding considerable results. ISIL and its so-called Caliphate are rapidly losing territory.
As part of this campaign, Norway deployed a contingent of Special Forces to Jordan, in order to train, advise and assist local Syrian Sunni Arab forces to regain territory currently occupied by ISIL in southeastern Syria. Norway has also provided a military contingent operating out of Erbil (Iraq), training Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
The Norwegian government is considering future contributions to ongoing operations, as well as assisting NATO's mission in Iraq. As new challenges appear, we stand ready to join our NATO allies in sharing the burden and participating in joint efforts.
The offensive operations against the strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa are challenging and will take time, but we will succeed. To ensure lasting stability in Iraq and Syria, inclusive political processes are necessary.
Unfortunately, failed states and poorly governed areas along NATO's southern flank remain a major security challenge both to Europe and to the US. As a contribution to address these challenges, Norway provided a tactical airlift detachment to the UN Operation in Mali (MINUSMA) throughout 2016. Moreover, Norway also provides personnel to MINUSMA and UN's first modern Intelligence Unit. The establishment of this unit has been a significant success.
As a member of NATO, Norway takes its commitment to its allies seriously. We also take our commitment to security and defense seriously. As part of the Alliance's enhanced Forward Presence, Norway will, in May, deploy a mechanized company to Lithuania, as part of the German-led allied battalion. Norway is also providing a small force contribution to NATO's British-led Very High Readiness Task Force for 2017. We currently also sustain a limited participation in several other operations, including the UN Mission in South-Sudan, NATO's operation in Kosovo and the NATO HQ in Sarajevo.
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Throughout Europe, Norway assists to ensure day-to-day situational awareness and to rescue operations. We contribute on a regular basis to NATO's Standing Maritime Forces (SNMG and SNMCMG) by providing the command ship and the commander to SNMG that consists of frigates and destroyers. Every six months we join NATO's Mine Counter Measures Group to conduct minesweeping and clearance in Northern European waters. Moreover, in response to the increasingly challenging influx of migrants from the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia, we are participating in the EU-led maritime operation in the Mediterranean, which patrols the southern perimeter of the EU's border.
Our Armed Forces maintain a high, but often overlooked level of peacetime activity at home that, in its own way, is an important contribution to transatlantic security. 24/7/365 the Norwegian Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force patrol vast Arctic Ocean areas over which we have jurisdiction. In total, these maritime areas are equivalent in size to 90% of the Mediterranean. Norwegian fighter jets are on 15 minutes Quick Reaction Alert on behalf of NATO. Our military border guard patrols and monitors the border with Russia. We maintain a robust posture in our neighborhood, which is important for stability in this area. We are NATO in the north.
In our digitalized world, identity theft is not only becoming more and more popular, it's also ringing in a whole new era of a different kind of war - one that is fought from behind computer screens, but not any less grimly.
No matter how hard enterprises are trying to protect themselves as well as their user data, security breaches are happening more and more often, causing the companies not only losses in the financial area, but a major damage in image and consumer trust.
Here are the top 10 major identity theft cases of last year that tufitech took a look at:
10. Snapchat
Date: March 3, 2016
Compromised records: ca. 700
Snapchat employees fell prey to a fairly easy and old-fashioned identity theft concept in March last year: a phishing scam. Following a hack of emails, over 700 employees had their personal information stolen.
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Allegedly, the hackers posted as Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, capturing sensitive information such as payroll data, social security numbers and various other private data. No arrests have been made so far.
9. Verizon Enterprise Solutions
Date: March 25, 2016
Compromised records: ca. 1.5 million
In a firstly completely undetected breach, over 1.5 million user accounts were compromised in the Verizon daughter branch. Here, we are talking about accounts that belong to global businesses and government agencies - their info was being sold in a Darknet forum.
8. LinkedIn
Date: May 17, 2016
Compromised records: ca. 117 million
LinkedIn does not seem to have much luck in protecting their user data, which is bad news for a business social network. It appears that following a 2012 breach with 117 million accounts stolen, LinkedIn only just now acknowledged this and taking measures - in 2016.
It is unclear if the stolen information has been used, sold or altered in the meantime.
7. Oracle
Date: August 12, 2016
Compromised records: unknown
Oracle is one of the biggest point-of-sale systems worldwide, mostly used in cash registers. Oracle still is unsure if the breach affected all of the globally existing 300,000 accounts.
Russian hackers identified themselves as the culprit behind this theft, using malware to gain access to the accounts.
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6. Dropbox
Date: September 2, 2016
Compromised records: ca. 68 million
A major blow to the image for Dropbox: it was discovered last year that over 68 million users data was stolen - in 2012. It appears that those accounts were prone to enemy access for all those years.
5. AdultFriendFinder
Date: November 13, 2016
Compromised records: ca. 412 million users
In one of the biggest security breaches last year, Adult Friend Finder had over 412 million accounts compromised.
Adult Friend Finder has to this date not confirmed the attack, although very sensitive information such as credit card info, membership data and email details were captured and offered for sale on the internet by the hackers.
4. Department of Homeland Security, FBI
Date: February 2016
Compromised records: ca. 29,000
Even the FBI can get hacked! A single hacker was able to steal over 29,000 accounts and after posted on Motherboard that he had access to over 200GB of sensitive data.
3. Tumblr
Date: unknown
Compromised records: ca. 65 million
Tumblr suffered from an identity theft attack that compromised over 65 million accounts, it is unknown yet what the hacker intended to do, or in fact did, with the looted information.
There might have been a security leak connection, as Tumblr is owned by Yahoo, who have been experiencing problems on that front for years now.
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2. Weebly
Date: February 2016
Compromised records: ca. 43 million
The breach was only discovered after 8 months - passwords, account data, IP information and even addresses were captured by the hackers.
1. Yahoo
When: December and September 2016
Compromised records: 1 billion
In this period of political upheaval when comity and compromise are endangered species and many of our most sacrosanct traditions are routinely disregarded, I find myself dwelling in earlier times when there were giants in the earth who evoked the better angels of our nature and led us to greatness.
I chanced upon a Norman Rockwell portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower that appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post back in October 1952 a few weeks before his first election to the Presidency. A note from his granddaughter is appended saying Rockwell was having trouble getting the great man to smile. Finally he showed Ike some pictures of his grandchildren, and that evoked the smile that brightens up the portrait.
Some would point out that Ike, like the current occupant of the White House, had no previous political experience, but that would be wrong. As Supreme Allied Commander in the European Theater in World War II, Ike had the most political of jobs - keeping all those disparate political and military leaders from different countries on the same page - as survival of the free world hung in the balance. By D-Day he was living on five packs of cigarettes a day, but kept his composure and got the job done.
The night before our troops went ashore in Normandy, Ike wrote out a press release to be issued if the great assault failed. In it he said all of the military people had done everything possible to achieve victory, and that responsibility for the failure was his and his alone. He was a leader for the ages.
As President, Ike had a vision of what this country could become. As a young officer, he had taken a military brigade across the country and appreciated how inefficient our mishmash of highways was. He was not the first to envision a nationwide system of broad highways, but he was the driving force that made it happen - launching the Interstate Highway System.
For eight years, Ike passed up one opportunity after another to lead our country into another war. He had seen enough of war. And he recognized the perils of the military-industrial complex and sought to keep it under restraint. He knew what those numbers in the annual military budget really meant, and chopped out the nonsense.
Like most of his generation, Ike was a reluctant convert to racial progress, but when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional, and the racist firebrands fought back, Ike sent in the troops. That was only one chapter of a centuries-long quest for racial justice, but it was a critical one. Ike could make it stick because he had enormous stature. It was a time when the American people were first coming to terms with our role as a great superpower, and taking note of our own shortcomings. We were wrestling with dynamic forces that challenged our traditional attitudes under the cloud of nuclear annihilation, but we got through it because of inspired leadership. Looking back today, I realized how blessed we really were.
Lt. Gen. Clarence E. "Mac" McKnight, Jr., (USA-Ret) is the author of "From Pigeons to Tweets: A General Who Led Dramatic Change in Military Communications," published by The History Publishing Company.
The stained glass windows of the Ebenezer Baptist Church are reflected in a portrait of Coretta Scott King during a memorial service for her in Atlanta, February 5, 2006. Scott King, 78, who surged to the front of the fight for racial equality in America after her husband Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, died January 30 and her funeral will be held February 7. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Mitch McConnell made his mark on Black History Month early, by figuratively slapping Senator Elizabeth Warren down on the Senate floor -- as she tried to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King opposing Attorney General Jeff Sessions back when he was under consideration for a federal judgeship in 1986.
As important as the letter is to the dialogue over racism then and now, it was only a tiny part of the leadership and legacy of Coretta Scott King herself. She was a peace activist, advocate for children, and champion of the poor long before her marriage to Martin Luther King Jr., and long after his tragic assassination in 1968.
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Beginning in 1975, Coretta spent hours telling her life story to Dr. Barbara Reynolds, the journalist who first interviewed her for the Chicago Tribune. Over the years she told her life story to Reynolds in anticipation of a memoir. Though she spoke about publication of the memoir in some of the interviews, Reynolds was never sure King really wanted it published while she was alive (she died in 2006).
Woven into a fascinating narrative by Reynolds, My Life, My Love, My Legacy, by Coretta Scott King as told to Barbara Reynolds is just out (Holt, January) Chosen as a book-of-the week by the New York Times, it is written in the first person, using Coretta King's words as recorded by Reynolds. Its 356 pages contain not only the public trials, tribulations, and victories of the writer, but also the doubts and agonies that inevitably come with being a front-line warrior for justice constantly in the public eye.
I interviewed Reynolds for the radio in 2012 as she was crafting the book. A short excerpt:
MB: You write that Coretta King was a full equal, and not merely the "woman behind the man."
BR: She wanted people to know that she was a co-partner in one of the greatest liberation struggles of our age. She wanted people to know that she had visions, she had dreams. She was actually in the movement before she married Martin -- she was a peace activist. That is what led him eventually to come out against the Vietnam war.
MB: Did she feel others treated her as his equal during his lifetime?
BR: You're talking about the 1960s. At that time men in the civil rights movement -- and men everywhere -- had a view that women should be at home. Even at the march on Washington when President Kennedy invited the leaders to the White House, the women were not invited. They were told to go back to their hotels. After the assassination she told me that many of the men told her she should step aside, and let them run things [in building the King Center].
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MB: Do you think Coretta Scott King's legacy will grow?
BR: It has to, because of her willingness to transcend racism and to reach out and speak for people for all causes. Her legacy has to go on, because so many people need to know what a true servant is. The threats on her life continued until the time she died. It was not a peaceful life, but it was a brave life.
Donald Trump signs orders to green-light the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Source: Donald Trump's Twitter Account
US Jewry stands out more than any Jewish community in history. They will determine if this works for them or against them.
For several months now, I have been writing about the exposure of the totalitarian nature of today's liberalism, the manipulation of public opinion through the media, and the necessity of American society to embrace all views, not only all colors and ethnicities. During those months, the divide between Democrats and Republicans has only deepened. If we could still hope that the demeaning attitudes toward the other side, the personal offenses, and the delegitimization campaigns would abate after the election, now that hope is gone. The entire left-hand column of The New York Times home page has become a section titled, "The 45th President," and is dedicated entirely to bashing Donald Trump and the Republican Party. CNN has also created a section high on its homepage called "The Trump Presidency," which dedicates the majority of its items to the same purpose as the section in the Times.
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The biased reporting, organized protests, such as over the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the violence and tirades against conservative speakers do not hint at any easing of the battle of the media and financial elite against the new administration. Sooner or later, the tension will snap and the outcome could be devastating. From violent civil riots to a full-blown civil war, anything is possible right now.
And in the midst of all this balagan (mayhem)--the Jews. Jews are already top players on both sides of the conflict. If it turns violent, the Jews could be the first to take the heat.
Screen capture from "Crossing the Line 2 - The New Face of Anti-Semitism."
Entrenched Anti-Semitism
The liberal press often argues that electing Donald Trump has released anti-Semitic elements from the far right, which has kept relatively quiet until now. Perhaps this is true, but implying that this is the reason for the rise in anti-Semitism in the US is complete nonsense. Anti-Semitism has been rising in the US and all over the world for years now, particularly in liberal hubs, such as US universities and colleges. In February 2015, the most notable expert on anti-Semitism in the US, Prof. Charles Asher Small, spoke about "institutional anti-Semitism" in the US, inferring that the government itself, which at the time was the Obama Administration, is anti-Semitic.
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In addition to all of the above, the leading role that some Jews--such as George Soros--play in flaming the toxic firestorm spreading through the US puts the Jews in a precarious position. As has always happened throughout history, if things go awry in the US, the Jews will be blamed for it, and they will incur the punishment.
Connection Is the Secret
Jews are not like other people, and they are not treated as such. Even when people intend to compliment the Jews, they often make it even more conspicuous that Jews are different. Just recently, during his Holocaust Memorial Day speech, Antonio Guterres, the new UN Secretary General, noted the vital role that Jews played in the history of his own country, Portugal. Lamenting the deportation of Portuguese Jewry in the 16 century, Guterres said about King Manuel's decision to expel them: "This was a hideous crime and an act of enormous stupidity. It caused tremendous suffering to the Jewish community - and deprived Portugal of much of the country's dynamism. Before long, the country entered a prolonged cycle of impoverishment." Subsequently, Guterres describes what the Lisbon Jews did to the Netherlands, where they resettled. "Lisbon's loss was Amsterdam's gain," Guterres said, "as the Portuguese Jewish community played a key role in transforming the Netherlands into the global economic powerhouse of the 17th century."
Just over a century earlier, Spain made the same mistake--expelling its Jews and ending centuries of prosperity for Spain. But the Jews who fled from Spain were not left homeless. Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer and Steve Miller wrote in The Cross in the Shadow of the Crescent: An Informed Response to Islam's War with Christianity, that the Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid II, was so delighted at the Jews' expulsion from Spain and arrival in Turkey that he "sarcastically thanked Ferdinand for sending him some of his best subjects, thus impoverishing his own lands while enriching his."
The Jews did not take wealth with them when they fled from Spain or when they were deported from Portugal. They did not steal anything from these countries, but their departure denied these countries a trait that is more vital than any precious metal--the ability to make connections. The Jewish secret to wealth and power is the ability to make connections and utilize them for their needs.
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Yet, it is precisely this trait that causes us to be so hated. We are using our unique ability for self-centered purposes, and this is something that the world cannot forgive.
The Ingathering of the Pariahs
Most nations are forged over generations of geographical proximity or biological affinity. Not so are the Jews. Our nation is the creation of an idea, a modus operandi that no other nation in the history of humanity has implemented. Like Abraham himself, the ancient Hebrews were outcasts. They fled from their tribes and joined Abraham when he told them about his ideology--that diversity of views and characters is welcome, as long as it is used for the common good. Our ancestors were individualists; they could not put aside their views and be run-of-the-mill folks. In Abraham's tent, they found a way to be themselves and at the same time belong.
Maimonides wrote in Mishneh Torah (Chapter 1) that Abraham was expelled from Babylon when he argued with Nimrod, king of Babylon, over whether or not there are multiple forces governing the world or only one force. Abraham won the debate but lost his home. As he wandered toward Canaan, he and Sarah would speak to anyone who wished to listen. They welcomed everyone, all the loners, pariahs, rejected and dejected who could not express themselves in their own communities. In Abraham's tent, they learned that all things are manifestations of a single force, and so they all belong to it, yet are its unique representation. Here they legitimized being who they were, yet became part of a greater whole--the family of humanity.
Abraham's disciples and descendants developed their father's teachings and continued to absorb anyone who subscribed to their notion that everyone is different, yet belongs to the same greater whole. Because we are different, we do not like each other. But because we all are parts of a greater whole, we unite nonetheless. The ideology was simple: "Hate stirs strife, and love covers all crimes" (Prov 10:12).
By the time the Jews came out of Egypt, they numbered some three million people. And yet, the same rule applied--connection above hatred. The result of their efforts to unite above differences was the revelation of a law that enabled them to unite at the highest level--loving their friends as themselves. The reason why they received this law--which we call Torah--specifically at the foot of Mt. Sinai is that the word "Sinai" comes from the Hebrew word sinaah (hatred), and Moses' trek up Mt. Sinai symbolizes the commitment of the people to rise above their mutual hatred and unite.
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For centuries after the reception of the Torah, the Jews kept polishing their techniques for achieving unity. When they succeeded, they prospered; when they failed, they suffered. But after each failure, they always rose and united above their hatred. Gradually, the Jews became the masters of connection.
Mark Twain once wondered why the Jews have survived as a distinct nation since antiquity. In his essay, "Concerning the Jews," Twain wrote, "The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" The secret is the ability to connect above all differences.
The book, Likutey Etzot (Assorted Counsels), writes, "The essence of peace is to connect two opposites. Hence, do not be alarmed if you see a person whose view is the complete opposite of yours and you think that you will never be able to make peace with him. Also, when you see two people who are completely opposite to each other, do not say that it is impossible to make peace between them. On the contrary, the essence of peace is to try to make peace between two opposites," by uniting above them.
Similarly, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, reviver of the Hebrew language, wrote in The Complete Writings of Eliezer Ben Yehuda (Vol. 1): "We have yet to open our eyes and see that only unity can save us. Only if we all unite ... to work in favor of the entire nation, our labor will not be in vain." Likewise, A.D. Gordon, the chief ideologist of Zionism, asserted in Light of Life on the Day of Smallness: "'All of Israel are responsible for one another' ... Only where people are responsible for one another there is Israel. Moreover, all the people are responsible for one another, and only where people are responsible for one another there are people (and there is a nation, a humane nation). If there are none who are responsible for one another, what is there? We, who are coming to build [the State of Israel], will certainly not build on the basis of relations of the generation of separation [generation of Babylon, when people were separated]."
And finally, the great British statesman Winston Churchill was quoted in Churchill and the Jews: "The Jews were a lucky community because they had that corporate spirit, the spirit of their race and faith. ...That special power which they possessed would enable them to bring vitality into their institutions, which nothing else would ever give."
Why the Nations Blame Us
Approximately two millennia ago, we lost our ability to connect above our differences. We fell into baseless hatred and thereby lost our ability to be "a light unto nations," the messengers of connection above differences. Because of it, we lost our land and mingled with the nations.
Yet, instead of using our ability to connect in order to solidify society, we started using it for self-benefit. Our ability to connect made us more perceptive, agile, yet sociable than any other nation. Is it any wonder then that we are always at the center of events? We connect to people and help people connect to one another. But unlike our forefathers, we do this only if there is something in this for us. Naturally, people fear us, admire us, want to be near us, and detest us all at the same time. And when things go awry because people cannot get along--which is the only reason why anything ever goes awry--they blame the Jews for it. We, the Jews, who were supposed to be the masters of connection, have failed them so they expel us or kill us.
Living in Historic Times
Today's US Jewry is more emboldened and more vociferous than any Jewish community in history. Jews are dominant figures on Wall Street, in the film and TV industries, Internet and social media, and certainly in politics. If American society falls apart and chaos ensues, the Jews will take the blame. The only way they can avoid a tragedy of epic proportions is by reaching out to their brethren on the other side of the political map and saying, "Yes we disagree, and yes we hate each other's guts; now, let's connect above all this."
Jews must take the lead because they are still the masters of connection. Now they only have to force themselves to use it for the benefit of society rather than their own. By doing so, they will become "a light unto nations," showing a shredded nation how to transcend all disputes and find a new power in connection--just like our ancestors.
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Global poverty has been on the run over the past two decades and a half, declining from 36 percent of world's population in 1990 to below 10% today. Hard to believe, right? In the era of social media, pessimism creeps into our daily lives through Facebook feed and Twitter updates, which makes it seem like things are only getting worse and the world is falling apart, perhaps irredeemably. Positive trends go unnoticed altogether. Bad news get amplified. The result is that our general perception of the state of the world is sometimes far off from reality.
But data in recent decades tells a rather positive story: human welfare has remarkably been improving. Poverty levels have fallen faster than previously thought. According to recent World Bank projections, for the first time in human history, the number of people living in extreme poverty around the world, defined as those subsisting on $1.90 a day or below, was "likely to fall to under 10% of global population".
To be sure, there are stark differences in performance across countries and regions. For instance, about 43% of Africa's population still lives in poverty, way above the global average. And more worryingly, in absolute terms, the number of people living in poverty in Africa actually rose from 280 million people in 1990 to 330 million in 2012. In India, an estimated 29.5% of the population, or 363 million people, still live below the poverty line.
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So how can the remaining poor escape the indignities of extreme poverty? Looking at the lesson of recent progress is a good starting point. Of about a billion people who left the ranks of the extremely poor since 1990, three-quarters were Chinese. The reason was because China's economy grew at unprecedented rates, averaging 10.88% a year from 1989 to 2010, and enabling hundreds of millions of rural poor to move into urban centers to work in industrial factories.
With the majority of the rest of the world's poor concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, continued higher growth rates in these two regions, especially in labor-intensive sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture, is crucial in further reducing global poverty. Rapid and sustained growth rates usually lead to better development indicators. Parents with income are able to provide enough nutrient foods for their families and send their children to school. The World Bank reckons that in "all regions of the world, rapid growth has been systematically associated with sharp declines in absolute poverty". Economic growth has been the most powerful means in reducing poverty levels to historical lows.
But that progress is now in peril as economies slow down. Global commodity price slump and economic slowdown in China has hit African economies hard, especially those that rely on exports of commodities such as Nigeria, South Africa and Angola. Nigeria, Africa's largest economy and most populous country, contracted by an estimated 1.7% in 2016 as oil prices hit record lows and energy shortages continued to plague economic activity. Nigeria enjoyed economic growth above 6% as recently as 2014. This was the first recession in Nigeria since the early 1990s.
Angola's economy, once Africa's fastest growing, is beset by a financial crisis and last year asked the International Monetary Fund for a bailout or, to put it nicely, economic assistance. The reason for this crisis is the same in Angola as is in Nigeria: lower crude oil prices. Angola's economy plummeted from 22.6% in 2007 to a projected 0.4% in 2016. Even while it was still growing fast, Angola's economy wasn't inclusive and so it left many Angolans behind.
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Ghana, long viewed as an economic success story and a model in political stability, is beset by a similar economic crisis fueled by over-reliance on exporting gold, oil and cocoa. When prices of these commodities were high, Ghana's economy boomed, expanding as high as 14% in 2011. When global commodity prices came crashing down, government revenue dwindled and paying bills became impossible, prompting officials to seek a 1 billion dollars in bailout from the IMF.
These three are some of Africa's largest economies and their impact on overall Africa's growth is significant. One thing they have in common: their economies rely heavily on commodity exports. The IMF projects that the combined growth of Sub-Saharan Africa in 2016 would be the lowest it has ever been in 20 years (1.4%).
The impact of the fall of commodity prices on African economies illustrate their fragility, and that of the ubiquitous and premature "Africa Rising" narrative, which doesn't distinguish between Mauritius and Congo. Africa's growth in recent years was to a significant extent due to export of commodities and other raw materials, and major economies like Nigeria and South Africa were most exposed to these structural weaknesses.
The trouble with commodity-driven growth is that it's at the mercy of external forces and shocks. So when global markets sneeze, Africa's major economies seem to catch Malaria. Some are calling this "Africa Reeling", the very same people who coined and cheered for the "Africa Rising" narrative.
Real economic development springs from adding value to resources, not merely exporting them crude. Economic growth alone doesn't reduce poverty levels until its benefits are spread among the larger population. People don't eat GDP growth, after all. This is why Angola's economy grew at 11.1 percent for the decade of 2001-2010, the fastest on earth, much of it from oil exports, while more than half of Angolans live under extreme poverty. In fact, almost of all of Angola's exports (97%) are from crude oil and about 95% of all government revenue comes from oil.
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But all is not bleak. Countries that do not rely on commodity exports for revenue, such as Rwanda, Ivory Coast and Ethiopia, are showing strong resilience to external shocks and continue to thrive. The IMF projected non-resource intensive countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to grow 5.6% in 2016, an impressive growth rate, while resource-rich countries were expected to grow a mere 0.3%.
PASHA Insurance company is ready to serve its customers in new location.
PASHA Insurance announces that they have moved their head office to a new location Sahil Plaza which is in 61, avenue M. Useynov, in front of Dalga Plaza. All of the departments and/or divisions (such as, board of directors, customer services, claims and legal services department) are located in head office.
Starting from 6th of February, the company is ready to serve its customers in new location.
Contact information including phone number and fax also has been changed:
Phone number: (+99412) 5051222,
Fax: (+99412) 5051221.
PASHA Insurance has been operating in the insurance market since 2006. As a member of PASHA Holding group of companies, PASHA Insurance offers 36 types of compulsory and voluntary insurance services for both individual and corporate customers. During 10 years of its activity the insurance company has indemnified its customers insurance claims, total amount of compensation coming out to 115 890 100 AZN. PASHA Insurance is the leader and the biggest insurer of the Azerbaijani insurance market for the amount of share capital (50 million AZN), volume of insurance premiums and compensated insurance claims and other financial and non-financial indicators.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a church service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 30 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
On Dec. 14, 2012, a mentally unstable young man shot and killed 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. One of those kids, the youngest, was Noah Pozner. As a parent myself, I cannot come close to even fathoming the pain and suffering his senseless slaughter caused his parents. What could be worse than having your child murdered? Little else. And yet, the pain of the Pozners did not end there. In the aftermath of the massacre, a handful of lunatics began falsely claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting never happened -- that it was all made up. And Noah's father became the target of these cruel individuals; he has been taunted and tormented by their ongoing attempt to frame the murder of his son as a hoax. Leading this immoral, sadistic campaign is a heartless man named Alex Jones, who uses his media might to perpetually lie about Sandy Hook, claiming that the shooting was fake, and blatantly taunting the parents of the children who were murdered there.
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And Alex Jones is supported and encouraged by our current president. In fact, just days after losing the popular vote by nearly three million votes and yet winning the electoral college ponzi scheme, Donald Trump personally called Alex Jones to thank him for all that he does.
Such moral depravity is emblematic of Donald Trump. This billionaire blow-hard, this "pussy-grabbing" misogynist, is awash in immoral relations and immoral actions. He defends and respects Vladimir Putin, a despot who has personally ordered the assassination of men, women, and children. He appoints the most racist Senator in the United States -- a man who spent his life fighting against civil rights and then lied about it only weeks ago in preparation for his confirmation hearings -- as the nation's Attorney General. His closest advisor, who is now virtually running the country, is a thrice-divorced, alimony-evading shill of white nationalists. His leading spokesperson daily peddles "alternative facts" -- or what normal human beings refer to as bald-faced lies.
From his mocking of the disabled to his claim that an Indiana-born judge can't be partial because of his Mexican heritage, from the federal lawsuit filed against him for explicitly discriminating against African Americans to his monstrous tax evading, from lying about the size of the crowd at his inauguration to his lies about millions of people voting illegally, from his tweeting like a teenager about everything except the recent murder of six Muslims praying in a mosque in Quebec by a white Christian, from his bragging about sexual assault to his attempts to shut the doors of America to human beings fleeing violence, Donald Trump has proven himself -- by the hour -- as a cold, heartless lover of lies and hater of humanity.
And 81% of white Evangelicals voted for him.
That's right: those Americans among us who claim to love Jesus the most, who attend church the most, and read the Bible the most, and pray the most, and claim to be the most loving of God, are largely responsible for making this pock of a man the leader of our country, who is already causing -- and will continue to cause -- an inordinate amount of flagrant deception, pain, misery, violence, and immorality in our nation and the world.
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And to top it all off, these Evangelical Christians have the perpetual gall to take the moral high-ground. They claim that they vote their values. They claim that secular people are immoral. The sanctimony reeks almost as bad as the hypocrisy.
***
Morality is a very simple thing: it is about alleviating the pain or suffering of sentient beings, helping when one can, not harming others, and treating people the way you yourself would want to be treated. End of story. Given this very simple and obvious explication of morality, we can clearly see Evangelical Christianity for what it really is, at least in its North American, early 21st century incarnation: immoral, uncaring, and blatantly harmful. Let's consider some obvious examples:
Banning Refugees. There are human beings fleeing violence, in need of a safe haven. The moral thing to do it to allow a fair amount of these men and women in to the United States, as is this nation's ability and heritage. Donald Trump issues a ban on allowing such refugees in, despite the fact that not a single terrorist attack has ever been committed by anyone from those banned countries. Additionally, there are individuals from these Muslim majority nations who are working on scientific advancements, individuals who hold green cards and have lived and worked and contributed to Americans society for decades, individuals who pose no threat whatsoever. Yet Trump bans them. And the Evangelicals sing Hallelujah!
Healthcare. In the United States, health is directly determined by wealth. The more money you have, the better medical treatment you receive. The less money you have, the worse. And in some cases, none at all. Millions of Americans lack health insurance. This is immoral. Obamacare -- despite its shortcomings -- has alleviated the suffering of millions of Americans. Trump intends to dismantle Obamacare. And the Evangelicals say Praise the Lord!
Global warming. The factual evidence is clear and abundant: we are destroying the planet. Because of our greed and consumption and fossil fuels and fracking, we are heating up planet Earth. The results will be catastrophic: prolonged pain and suffering for all. Trump claims that climate change is a lie invented by the Chinese. And the Evangelicals shout Amen!
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We can also talk about racial injustice, gender inequality, the prison industrial complex, death with dignity, the brutal oppression of Palestinians -- and on and on. So many moral issues, and on every single one, the Trump Evangelicals take the side of the oppressor, the side of the powerful, the side of the wealthy, the side of the corrupt, the side of the sinister.
Oh, well, they do care about fetuses. That's true. They care about them so much, that everything else -- from global warming to a lying, incompetent twitter president, from racism to gun violence, from Native American rights to corporate cronyism -- don't matter at all.
***
I realize that this blog will not change a single mind. There is not a single Evangelical Trump supporter out there who will read this and think, "Hey, he's got a point." If anything, the opposite will occur: my anger will generate defensiveness. More anger. I will be dismissed as a secular elitist. A politically correct professor. A whiny Jew.
When I was thinking of becoming a pastor, I read about a man acknowledge as one the greatest preachers of the 20th century -- Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick became widely known in the 1920's after preaching a sermon against fundamentalism. That sermon, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?", was circulated widely, was celebrated in some quarters and condemned in others. The pastor of a Presbyterian church, Fosdick was ordered to appear before the general assembly of the church so his theology could be examined. He was defended by a young man named John Foster Dulles, whose father was a Presbyterian pastor. Dulles would later serve as the Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, and have an airport named in his honor. All that came later. Meanwhile, the fundamentalists held sway within the Presbyterian church, so in order to avoid censure, Fosdick resigned his position as pastor.
One of his admirers was John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a Baptist, who asked Fosdick if he would be interested in pastoring the church he attended, the Park Avenue Baptist Church in New York City. Fosdick declined, saying he did not ''want to be known as the pastor of the richest man in the country."
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To which Rockefeller replied, ''Do you think that more people will criticize you on account of my wealth than will criticize me on account of your theology?'' Fosdick relented, agreeing to become the pastor on the condition the church become nondenominational, and so Riverside Church was born.
Fosdick inspired many people, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who often cited Fosdick in his own writings and sermons. In one sermon, Fosdick said the Christian church should "be a fountainhead of a better social order'' and that ''any church that pretends to care for the souls of people but is not interested in the slums that damn them, the government that corrupts them, and the economic order that cripples them is a dry, passive do-nothing religion in need of new blood.'' Fosdick had a habit of putting the hay down where the goats could get it.
I once pastored a dry, passive do-nothing Quaker meeting. When I was hired, they said I could preach about anything I wanted, so long as I never upset anyone, never said anything others might disagree with, and kept my opinions to myself. Because I was young and desperate for the $50 per week that the position paid, I did my best to honor their wishes, making sure never to upset anyone, say anything others might disagree with, and to keep my opinions to myself. Then one Sunday I spoke about the cold fundamentalism squeezing the life out of that meeting, and was fired. It was a passive do-nothing church, and several years later closed its doors. It was there I learned that speaking up had a cost, but so did silence.
Every Christian I know who takes their faith seriously has lived in that same tension. Whether to speak up and care, at the risk of upsetting people, or stay silent and be dry, passive do-nothings.
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Should you decide to care and speak up, you will have to decide how best to care, how best to speak. And sometimes you will get it wrong. Your passions will occasionally override your judgement. And that's okay, as long as it's an anomaly and not a habit. The other evening at Ministry and Counsel, Chase said the two truths Quakers must balance are speaking truth to power, while seeing what love can do. Speaking truth to power, while never forgetting the primacy of love. That's hard to do. Especially in this age of social media when each of us have our very own printing press and the freedom to say whatever we wish. We are now our own censors, and some of us do that better than others.
But long before Facebook was invented, we Quakers had our own version of social media, meeting for worship, which from its start insisted pastors and priests were not the only ones with the right and responsibility to speak. The floor would be open to all. But our speech, our worship, was always intended to arise from the deep places of the Holy Within. Meeting for worship was never intended to serve as a letter to the editor, or an op-ed page, or a rehash of the daily news. It was to be Spirit-led, an insight rooted in our intimacy with God. I was speaking with a friend recently, a Quaker from North Carolina, and she said, "Have you ever noticed how often today when Quakers speak out of the silence, they preface their remarks by saying, 'I heard on NPR this week...' Now I listen to NPR. I love NPR, from Click and Clack, to Prairie Home Companion, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, and Morning Edition. But our worship and our words must originate from a deeper source. We have a responsibility to drill for deeper water.
Many of us are concerned about the social and political climate in our nation; I am one of them. And I intend to resist it with all the spiritual and intellectual vigor I can muster. Not because a Republican holds office, but because our nation is in the grip of great fear and intolerance. But as a Christian, as a Quaker, my resistance must be rooted in that Light and Life Within, what the Quaker Thomas Kelly called "the inner sanctuary of the soul." For when our speech is rooted there, when our actions spring from there, they will not only be true, they will be tempered and fortified by the heat of love.
The interesting thing about Fosdick is that his message never changed. When he became the pastor of the wealthiest man in America, he didn't stop challenging the economic system that made a minority wealthy and a majority poor. His message never changed. His devotion to justice never wavered. But whenever he spoke, those who heard him not only felt challenged and convicted, they also felt loved. So challenge and convict, but also love.
When you stand in meeting for worship to speak, challenge, but also
love.
Remember we are at all different places and are sincerely trying our
best.
When you post on Facebook, challenge, but also love.
When you visit with your neighbor, challenge, but also love.
When you phone or write your senator or representative, challenge, but love.
When you talk with your family, challenge, but also love.
You cannot make decisions about the future, without an understanding of the past. Our country is now stuck in the present moment, with no understanding of the past and no vision for the future.
So began the first powerful lecture that Life in the Boomer Lane attended, yesterday, at One Day University in Washington, DC. One Day U is the brainchild of Steven Schragis, who invites the most popular university professors around the country to give lectures covering a wide variety of topics. It's perfect: fascinating classes, minus homework and exams. Since 2006, One Day U has gone from one location to 55. Hundreds of professors across the country take part.
LBL just heard about One Day U a couple of years ago, and this was her 4th One Day U. Each one has been an intellectual awakening. Yesterdays line up was:
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Five Turning Points that Changed American History, Jerimi Suri, University of Texas at Austin
Suri is mesmerizing. He covered 1. the presidency of George Washington, 2. the Civil War, 3. American Progressive reforms of domestic and foreign policy the early 20th century, 4.the Great Depression/ WW II/ the early Cold War, and 5. 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror. All were powerful turning points in American history.
For Suri, no events occur in a vacuum. A knowledge of history is essential, not only to understand the present, but to form a vision of the future. As he took us through the five turning points, it was clear how each of these set the stage for what was to follow.
For example, the Civil War wasn't about slavery. It was, instead, a war over three economic systems that were not able to function together. The South: labor-surplice economy, in which people were the currency. The North: an industrializing economy, in which money was the currency. The West:a natural resources economy, in which land was the currency. And the victory of North over South (i.e. the victory of industrialization over labor-surplice) put in motion all of the events that occurred for decades after.
We are now in a reactive, fear-driven time in our history. Suri was asked what will have to take place, in order to change the fear-driven course we are on now. The answer was 1. the millennials-a new generation, with a new perspective 2. creative leaders 3. getting money out of politics.
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The very best instructors are those who make things make sense. They also ignite our own thought processes, in addition to conveying the information that they have. Suri did exactly that.
Five Musical Masterworks that Changed America, Anna Celenza, Professor of Music and Head of the Music Department at Georgetown University.
Music does not simply reflect culture. It changes it. The five musical masterpieces that Celenza analyzed had a profound impact on our country. And the history of each of these pieces was fascinating.
Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, not as a national anthem, but in homage to the defense of Ft McHenry in the War of 1812.. The song was a "parody," meaning it used the tune of another song and superimposed new lyrics. Parodies were very popular at the time. In this case, Kay used the tune of an old drinking song, from a men's club in London. It wasn't until 1931 that the song became the official national anthem of the US.
Other songs were instrumental in fueling the need for nature conservation, as well as the civil rights movement. Paul Simon, in his 1986 album Graceland, broke the barrier for African music and had a real impact on American foreign policy.
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The presentation was accompanied by videos or soundtracks of the songs being performed. Not only did the music come alive, it came alive in a new and powerful way when accompanied by the back story and the subsequent influence it would have on the country.
Eight Books that Changed America, Joseph Luzzi, Literature and Italian Professor at Bard College
Luzzi is a true Renaissance man. In addition to teaching Italian and Literature, he is also a prolific writer and has an amazing grasp of history, culture, and politics. The breadth of his knowledge is mind-boggling. Added to that is his sense of humor. Luzzi is the eldest child of a working class immigrant Italian family, who placed little value on reading ("Get your nose outta dat book! You'll ruin your eyes! Whatsa matter wit dih TV? We paid good money for it!")
Luzzi reviewed eight books that had a profound impact on US culture: the Bible, Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, and Joseph Heller's Catch 22.
It doesn't take much to get LBL's attention, when books are being discussed. Luzzi took LBL's interest to a new level.
LBL once again strongly encourages you to sign up for a One Day U near you. Just visit One Day U for schedules of all 55 cities. LBL promises you a fascinating, enlightening, and fun day. And for those of you in the DC area, as well as other areas around the country, One Day U will be holding a special one day event, "Rethinking America," that proves to be fascinating.
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- Donald Trump, July 2016
Ever since the election, I have been concerned about and warning others of the possibility of Donald Trump using a terrorist attack in the United States the way Adolf Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag (parliament) building in Berlin in 1933 as a pretext to seize authoritarian power and destroy our Constitutional system. When I wrote a piece about this possibility a few weeks ago, it was rejected by leading newspapers, apparently because the editors thought it too farfetched. Now the idea is beginning to be discussed in some public circles.
It is time to stop whistling past what could become the graveyard of the American Republic. The United States is facing its most dire crisis since the Civil War, and the general public--pointedly including those who voted for Trump--and political leaders--especially Republican patriots--need to recognize the danger before it is too late.
On Sunday, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller made an argument for unchecked presidential authority, proclaiming: "The president's powers here are beyond question." Trump was delighted, tweeting: "Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!"
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Amidst the talk about the chaos of the opening weeks of the Trump Administration, there is a possibility even more disturbing than incompetent people being in charge of the Executive Branch: there may be an underlying objective that ties together many of the Administration's disparate, sometimes seemingly senseless, actions. There are several signs that the President, chief strategist Stephen Bannon, and Miller want to gain the sort of autocratic power that Vladimir Putin holds in Russia. Trump portrayed himself in such terms in his speech accepting the Republican nomination last July. Standing in front of a screen showing a giant image of his face, he didn't promise what Mussolini did, to make the trains run on time, but something much grander: "I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored." "I alone can fix it," he proclaimed. "I am your voice."
Trump's admiration for the authoritarian leader of Russia appears to be without limits. Refusing in a pre-Super Bowl interview to criticize Putin's murders of journalists and political opponents, the American President dismissed such crimes by Russia's ruler by equating them with what Americans do. "There's a lot of killers," Trump said to Bill O'Reilly. "We've got a lot of killers. Boy, you think our country's so innocent? You think our country's so innocent?" The statement was so astonishing that retired Army General and former Assistant Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Barry McCaffrey said it may be "the most anti-American statement ever made by the President of the United States." And Trump has not only repeatedly praised Putin, but has also expressed at least partial admiration for such other authoritarian rulers as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi --and even Kim Jong-un.
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Trump and his aides have, moreover, already attacked both the independent judiciary and the free press in terms rarely if ever before heard in public from a President, even Richard Nixon. Bannon has labelled the media the "opposition party," which he said should "keep its mouth shut." For her part, presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway has called for the firing of journalists who "talk smack" about Trump and called lies told by Press Secretary Sean Spicer "alternative facts." The President himself said (in a lie-laced speech at the CIA the day after his inauguration) that the media are "among the most dishonest human beings on Earth." He has taken up the practice of classifying accurate media reports as "fake news" while spewing voluminous totally fake news himself.
If gaining unfettered control in the United States is the objective of Trump, Bannon, Miller and company, the easiest route to achieving it lies in creating a crisis, domestic or international (or both), that would raise Americans' fear to a level at which the people would accept an interruption of First Amendment freedoms, the muzzling of an independent press, the curtailment of Constitutional checks and balances, and severe restrictions on political opponents of the President.
A roadmap to such authoritarian power was drawn in Germany in early 1933, and there are indications that the Trump Administration may be following that map in early 2017.
Less than a month after Adolf Hitler had formed a minority government in Germany in January 1933, a fire destroyed portions of the Reichstag building. The Nazis blamed the conflagration on a Communist conspiracy and stoked a sense of great danger that they could utilize to solidify their control. A day after the event, the German president issued, at Hitler's urging, a "Decree for the Protection of People and the Reich." It suspended due process of law and the same freedoms that are guaranteed to Americans in the First Amendment and gave the executive the power to "restore law and order." The decree also gave the Nazis the power to arrest political opponents without charging them, dissolve opposition parties, and overrule state and local governments. It essentially established a police state.
Scarcely three weeks later, Hitler's government pushed the "Enabling Act" through the Reichstag, stripping the legislative body of its law-making power and establishing the Nazi dictatorship.
Most Americans are likely to respond to this parallel with words along the lines of the title of Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel: It Can't Happen Here. But Lewis's work was intended to show that "it"--a dictator taking power--could happen in the United States. It is, of course, true that Germany in the 1930s had no tradition of democracy such as the United States does. We have far more safeguards than Germany did eight decades ago, but it is perilous to assume that something similar cannot happen here.
If we are to preserve our liberties, all Americans must be prepared in advance for the possibility of a Trump version of the Reichstag Fire.
The President has already laid the foundation for blaming the courts and the Constitution if an event like the Reichstag Fire--a terrorist attack inside the United States--occurs. He tweeted:
"Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!"
The Muslim ban that President Trump decreed plays into the hands of jihadists. Observers have been calling the policy "short-sighted" and saying "the Trump administration risks an inadvertent collaboration with Islamist extremists." But what if the policy is instead a piece of a long-sighted strategy that is entirely advertent?
We must consider the possibility that the objective of the ban is the precipitation of a crisis that would allow the Administration to consolidate great power. In that case, the overreach of Executive Order 13769 would be a no-lose proposition for the Administration. It has already immeasurably assisted Islamic extremists in recruiting supporters and willing terrorists by fitting directly into their narrative that the United States is antithetical to all Muslims and that there is a war of civilizations between the Christian West and Islam. That is also the conviction of some of the top people in the Trump White House, who are only too happy to promote that storyline.
If the ban stayed in effect, it would greatly escalate tensions between the United States and the Islamic World and significantly increase the likelihood of a major terrorist attack within this country.
But if the ban is definitively struck down by the courts, it could even better serve the possible objective of creating a pretext for the Executive Branch to seize much greater power. The order already having done its damage in undermining the standing around the world of the United States as a beacon of freedom, tolerance and humanity--and in advancing the cause of jihadists--its overturning would provide the Trump Administration with a perfect scapegoat for a terrorist attack that might actually have been precipitated by the order itself. The argument would be--as Trump's tweet on blaming the court system telegraphed--that the courts and the Constitution prevented the President from doing what is necessary to protect us.
The Administration has already contended that the President has the power to do anything when national security is at stake. "Judicial second-guessing of the President's determination," the Justice Department's brief defending the Executive Order said, "... at this time to protect national security would constitute an impermissible intrusion on the political branches' plenary constitutional authority." "Plenary" not being a word in common usage, it should be noted that it means "absolute," "unlimited," "unconditional."
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A future domestic terrorist attack could readily be cited as proof that the nation needs more executive power, a reduction in civil liberties, a curbing of the powers of the courts and perhaps Congress--in short, a "Decree for the Protection of People and the Republic" that would, for practical purposes, end the Republic.
We saw after the attacks of September 11, 2001 how willing most Americans are when they are terrified to give up their freedoms for the promise of security.
All Americans must be constantly vigilant, make themselves aware that the actions taken by the Trump Administration have made attacks more likely, and be fully ready to resist any attempt that might follow a new attack to curtail our liberty and the American constitutional system.
Michelle Robey, 55, probably had no idea that the corner here in my neighborhood, where she was shot dead Friday night was once the home of a 200 acre movie studio where L. Frank Baum personally helped make the very first version of The Wizard of Oz.
Today the intersection in the North Center neighborhood of Chicago hosts a CVS, two gas stations and a bus stop.
But back in 1896, former magician William Selig, newly arrived from the east coast where there had been some legal trouble with Thomas Edison concerning ownership of the newly emerging movie making machines, began building his studio.
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Chicago being a place where lots of people go when things weren't working out somewhere else. Like, for example, Ms. Robey.
When Ms Robey brought out the knife in our local CVS and started shouting Friday night, she had $5.00 in her pocket. About $11.00 in her checking account and was living on social security. She'd filed for bankruptcy. She was disabled. Unemployed. And God only knows what kind of voices she was hearing in her head as she ran out of the CVS and across the busy intersection to the bus stop.
Chicago Police were called. Ms. Robey, according to witnesses, lunged at one officer with the knife. The officers tried the Tasers first, but they didn't work.
That happens sometimes, as I understand it, when a person is heavily dressed.
But she wouldn't stop. Wouldn't put down the knife. Wouldn't stop lunging. So the officers brought out their guns and fired. She was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
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And you'd think that would be the end of the story. Till you hear that she had a 15 year old son. A boy whose Mom is now gone. A boy who won't be caring about the movie history at that corner because that's where his Mom was shot and killed.
So I guess you could make all the political arguments you want. Recognize that by the time we need to turn to the cops to clean up what all of us couldn't help, by the time that happens, then the battle for taking care of each other, especially the most vulnerable, has been lost.
Or you can decide that the "other guy" is not your problem. Or maybe blame the "other" for the whole sorry mess. Toss out a simplistic answer like "build a wall!" Or a patronizing speech about "helping people."
I know the answer is not to split the difference between "left" and "right" and call it a day. Other than that? I have no clue as to how we as in the greater human family can look out for that 15-year-old kid. Or how we'll all be hurting if we do not look out for him.
But I imagine he'll never be real impressed with the Wizard of Oz.
After seeing their parents need Long Term Care, Richard and Barbara Adams searched for answers.
It was the fall of 2008 when Richard and Barbara Adams, recent retirees from the Buffalo School District and a former sales executive at a local newspaper, were on a two-week vacation in the Smoky Mountains when they got the call that Richard's mom had suffered a fall and was being rushed to the hospital. While in the hospital, she suffered a series of complications, and ultimately left the hospital bound for a nursing home near their home town. It was at this moment that the cost of Long Term Care became real for Richard and Barbara; the cost of care in eastern Virginia was nearly $7,500 a month, and Richard's mom only had enough cash to last about four months.
To further complicate things, it turned out that the elder Mrs. Adams was diagnosed with dementia while in rehab. The prospect of selling the family home was front in center for Richard, so he knew he needed a plan for himself and Barbara so they didn't burden their two adult children. Richard set out to find a plan for his mom.
The solution to paying for Long Term Care that kept turning up was long-term care insurance (LTCI). Long-term care insurance unfortunately would not work for Richard's mom as one must have good health in order to qualify, and experts generally recommend buying between age 45 and 65. In the case of Richard and Barbara, they both had good health so they would have a good shot at getting approved for a policy so they could protect their retirement.
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What is Long Term Care Insurance?
Long Term Care Insurance is a financial planning tool used to protect a person's assets from the high cost of receiving care at home, in an assisted living, adult day care or in a nursing home. This type of care can exceed $90,000 per year in some states so insuring against your risk might make sense for some people.
There are about ten Long Term Care Insurance companies to consider, so using a tool like LTCtree.com will allow you to compare competitive quotes from multiple companies quickly and easily. You won't pay more in premiums by using such a service, the premiums are regulated by the states and don't change from agent to agent or site to site.
Tax Benefits
Premiums for Long Term Care insurance average about $1,800 a year per person but can run as much as $3,000 per person, per year for a married couple, so finding tax advantages is always welcome. There are three major ways a typical consumer can benefit from owning a long-term care insurance policy:
HSA - Health Savings Accounts. Each year the IRS sets limits for how much premium can be paid via a health savings accounts, in 2017 up to $3,900 per person aged 61 and above can be paid, according to Publication 502 for the 2016 filing year. Even younger policyholders aged 51-60 can deduct up to $1,460 which is what a typical policy will cost.
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Small Business Deduction. In some cases, if you file a Schedule C on your tax return, you can count the cost of a qualified LTC policy as a business expense much like other health insurance, but this may not apply to all filers, so be sure to consult a CPA if you take this route.
Qualified Medical Expenses. When your medical expenses exceed 10% of your AGI, you can include LTC premiums paid as part of that basket, but this is rare for healthy taxpayers as the 10% level can be prohibitively hard to reach, thankfully.
Combining LTCI with Life Insurance
So called "Hybrid" Long Term Care Insurance plans have been growing in popularity the past five years or so. The idea is to combine a life insurance policy (which pays a death benefit when you die) with accelerated benefits if you need long term care before death. These plans provide a premium guarantee where the insurance company can never come back and ask for a rate increase down the road unlike with traditional LTCI policies. Some hybrid long-term care policies even provide more Long Term Care than death benefit. An example policy with a $100,000 in a single premium payment (pay it once and you're done) would yield up to $1M in payments for Long Term Care services by age 80 for a healthy 45-year old.
Hybrid policies may be attractive, but there are dramatic differences in how these products are structured. Some hybrid LTCI products give the consumer a bigger death benefit, others give more long -term care benefits and while others will give an increasing cash value.
Jesus Blasco De Avellaneda/Reuters
Walls have a strong political connotation in post-war Europe. The most tragically famous was the Berlin wall built in 1961 to prevent citizens of the DDR (otherwise known as East Germany) from seeking refuge in the West.
The fall of that wall in 1989 signalled the reunification not only of Germany but of the entire European continent, and the end of the Cold War. It also marked a European commitment to providing asylum to people fleeing from persecution.
Unfortunately, history often repeats itself and citizens forget. Thus, walls and fences have been proliferating in Europe over the past 12 years as a response to migration flows.
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Fortress Europe
It was as early as 1995 when the first project for building fences around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast started. It was completed in 2000, three-quarters funded by the European Union for a total cost of 48 million.
However, the continuing attempts by desperate migrants from West Africa to storm the two fences in 2005 led to the construction of a third fence around Melilla for an additional cost of 33 million. The fence around Ceuta was further fortified, rising from three to six metres high.
These fences were not conceived of as being properly European as they were built around extra-European territories on the African continent. Europe in the meantime, continued its path towards closer integration, including the full implementation of the Schengen agreement and its abolishing of border provisions.
The next barbed wire fence, not quite a wall, was erected by Greece in 2012 in an effort to seal its land border with Turkey. This was a relatively unsophisticated fence that ran through the land strip of the Greek northeastern border with Turkey for 12.5km. It was originally budgeted at 5.5 million but eventually cost 3.16 million. The fence was fully financed by Greece, as the European Commission refused to contribute.
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The fencing that has shocked Europe the most was built by the Hungarian authorities in 2015 to seal their 175km border with Serbia and with Croatia (another 350km long).
This caused despair among asylum seekers travelling through the "Balkan route" to northern Europe, and diverting flows through Croatia and Slovenia. Fencing the Hungarian-Serbian land border cost 106 million.
Donald's big, beautiful wall
And now Donald Trump has ordered the extension of the wall that divides the US from Mexico from its current 1,000km length to cover the full extent of the 3,200km border.
Trump has said his wall will be "impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful", and will run for about 1,600km while natural obstacles and the existing barrier will cover the rest.
The barrier that already exists for a good part of the Mexico-US border includes different structures of relatively short walls and sections where the wall is "virtual", implemented by radars, drones and other high-tech surveillance equipment as well as border-guard patrols.
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This physical barrier runs through both urban terrain and desert crossings across California, Texas and Arizona, encompassing those areas where the highest number of illegal crossings were registered in the past.
Does border control pay?
In the face of all this wall-building, the question arises: do walls work? Do they stop population flow, and at what human, material and political cost?
While arguments proliferate both against and in favour of such radical enforcement measures, little is said about their costs - both direct and indirect - and about their effectiveness in curbing migration or asylum-seeking flows.
In a recent study, Douglas Massey, Jorge Durand and Karen Pren demonstrate that despite a 20-fold increase in nominal funding for border control in the period between 1986 and 2008, the undocumented migrant population in the US has grown from an estimated three to 12 million people.
They also found that the border patrol budget leapt from approximately US$300 million per year in the mid-1980s to just under US$4 billion in 2010. The money has been spent on personnel and the high-tech enforcers of walls such as drones, sensors, helicopters, planes and satellites.
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OpenStreetMap
A similar study on the costs of migration control in Greece has shown that during the period 2010-2012, Greece multiplied its border personnel, increased technical capacity and implemented a blanket detention policy for all undocumented arrivals, including those who applied for asylum. This cost 67 million without effectively curbing irregular migration.
From 2007-2012, Italy spent 1.7 billion on external border control as well as technology systems to improve surveillance, repatriation programmes, centres hosting undocumented migrants, and developing cooperation with third countries to combat illegal immigration. But the number of undocumented migrants residing in the country did not significantly decrease.
In both Greece and Italy, as well as in the US, it was regularisation programmes that effectively curbed irregular migration rather than walls and the machinery of enforcement.
These programmes, otherwise known as amnesties, give undocumented aliens a chance to legalise their residence status under certain conditions: usually a clean penal record, having been in the country for a number of years, having a job and showing signs of integration in their local area, such as renting a flat or sending their children to school.
Such programmes usually come once a country admits that irregular migrant workers provide a much-needed labour force and to expel them would be both inhumane and counterproductive for the host society's interests. Regularisation programmes in Europe and North America have varied in size from a few hundred cases (for example, ad hoc programmes in the UK or the Netherlands for rejected asylum seekers) to hundreds of thousands (in the US in the 1980s and in southern Europe through the 1990s and early 2000s).
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An inhuman cost
On the other hand, studies have consistently found that the results of enforcement have been mediocre and often carry unintended consequences: most commonly, routes are shifted to remote areas with particularly difficult environmental conditions. The use of migrant smugglers becomes the norm and their fees increase.
In the US, tight border controls have led the undocumented migrant population to settle north of the border, instead of keeping families back home and moving between the two countries.
In other words, walls and heavy militarisation do not lead to an overall decrease in irregular migration. And their environmental costs are significant, while the human costs of separating families are truly non-quantifiable.
While countries need to keep their borders secure, there is no escaping the fact that irregular migration is a complex phenomenon. Regularisation programmes and the provision of legal migration channels are much more effective - in material, human and moral costs - than any border fence can be.
Anna Triandafyllidou, Professor, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute
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Until the last decade, the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War II barely registered in America's collective memory of that war.
The "tan soldiers," as the black press affectionately called them, were also for the most part left out of the triumphant narrative of America's "Greatest Generation." In order to tell their story of helping defeat Nazi Germany in my 2010 book, "Breath of Freedom," I had to conduct research in more than 40 different archives in the U.S. and Germany.
When a German TV production company, together with Smithsonian TV, turned that book into a documentary, the filmmakers searched U.S. media and military archives for two years for footage of black GIs in the final push into Germany and during the occupation of post-war Germany.
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They watched hundreds of hours of film and discovered less than 10 minutes of footage. This despite the fact that among the 16 million U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II, there were about one million African-American soldiers.
They fought in the Pacific, and they were part of the victorious army that liberated Europe from Nazi rule. Black soldiers were also part of the U.S. Army of occupation in Germany after the war. Still serving in strictly segregated units, they were sent to democratize the Germans and expunge all forms of racism.
NARA
It was that experience that convinced many of these veterans to continue their struggle for equality when they returned home to the U.S. They were to become the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement - a movement that changed the face of our nation and inspired millions of repressed people across the globe.
As a scholar of German history and of the more than 70-year U.S. military presence in Germany, I have marveled at the men and women of that generation. They were willing to fight for democracy abroad, while being denied democratic rights at home in the U.S. Because of their belief in America's "democratic promise" and their sacrifices on behalf of those ideals, I was born into a free and democratic West Germany, just 10 years after that horrific war.
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Fighting racism at home and abroad
By deploying troops abroad as warriors for and emissaries of American democracy, the military literally exported the African-American freedom struggle.
Beginning in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, African-American activists and the black press used white America's condemnation of Nazi racism to expose and indict the abuses of Jim Crow at home. America's entry into the war and the struggle against Nazi Germany allowed civil rights activists to significantly step up their rhetoric.
Langston Hughes' 1943 poem, "From Beaumont to Detroit," addressed to America, eloquently expressed that sentiment:
"You jim crowed me / Before hitler rose to power- / And you are still jim crowing me- / Right now this very hour."
Believing that fighting for American democracy abroad would finally grant African-Americans full citizenship at home, civil rights activists put pressure on the U.S. government to allow African-American soldiers to "fight like men," side by side with white troops.
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The military brass, disproportionately dominated by white Southern officers, refused. They argued that such a step would undermine military efficiency and negatively impact the morale of white soldiers. In an integrated military, black officers or NCOs might also end up commanding white troops. Such a challenge to the Jim Crow racial order based on white supremacy was seen as unacceptable.
The manpower of black soldiers was needed in order to win the war, but the military brass got its way; America's Jim Crow order was to be upheld. African-Americans were allowed to train as pilots in the segregated Tuskeegee Airmen. The 92nd Buffalo Soldiers and 93rd Blue Helmets all-black divisions were activated and sent abroad under the command of white officers.
Despite these concessions, 90 percent of black troops were forced to serve in labor and supply units, rather than the more prestigious combat units. Except for a few short weeks during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 when commanders were desperate for manpower, all U.S. soldiers served in strictly segregated units. Even the blood banks were segregated.
'A Breath of Freedom'
After the defeat of the Nazi regime, an Army manual instructed U.S. occupation soldiers that America was the "living denial of Hitler's absurd theories of a superior race," and that it was up to them to teach the Germans "that the whole concept of superiority and intolerance of others is evil." There was an obvious, deep gulf between this soaring rhetoric of democracy and racial harmony, and the stark reality of the Jim Crow army of occupation. It was also not lost on the black soldiers.
Library of Congress
Post-Nazi Germany was hardly a country free of racism. But for the black soldiers, it was their first experience of a society without a formal Jim Crow color line. Their uniform identified them as victorious warriors and as Americans, rather than "Negroes."
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Serving in labor and supply units, they had access to all the goods and provisions starving Germans living in the ruins of their country yearned for. African-American cultural expressions such as jazz, defamed and banned by the Nazis, were another reason so many Germans were drawn to their black liberators. White America was stunned to see how much black GIs enjoyed their time abroad, and how much they dreaded their return home to the U.S.
By 1947, when the Cold War was heating up, the reality of the segregated Jim Crow Army in Germany was becoming a major embarrassment for the U.S. government. The Soviet Union and East German communist propaganda relentlessly attacked the U.S. and challenged its claim to be the leader of the "free world." Again and again, they would point to the segregated military in West Germany, and to Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. to make their case.
Coming 'home'
Newly returned veterans, civil rights advocates and the black press took advantage of that Cold War constellation. They evoked America's mission of democracy in Germany to push for change at home. Responding to that pressure, the first institution of the U.S. to integrate was the U.S. military, made possible by Truman's 1948 Executive Order 9981. That monumental step, in turn, paved the way for the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
AP Photo
The veterans who had been abroad electrified and energized the larger struggle to make America live up to its promise of democracy and justice. They joined the NAACP in record numbers and founded new chapters of that organization in the South, despite a wave of violence against returning veterans. The veterans of World War II and the Korean War became the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, Hosea Williams and Aaron Henry are some of the better-known names, but countless others helped advance the struggle.
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About one-third of the leaders in the civil rights movement were veterans of World War II.
They fought for a better America in the streets of the South, at their workplaces in the North, as leaders in the NAACP, as plaintiffs before the Supreme Court and also within the U.S. military to make it a more inclusive institution. They were also the men of the hour at the 1963 March on Washington, when their military training and expertise was crucial to ensure that the day would not be marred by agitators opposed to civil rights.
"We structured the March on Washington like an army formation," recalled veteran Joe Hairston.
For these veterans, the 2009 and 2013 inaugurations of President Barack Obama were triumphant moments in their long struggle for a better America and a more just world. Many never thought they would live to see the day that an African-American would lead their country.
To learn more about the contributions of African-American GIs, visit "The Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GIs, and Germany" digital archive.
Maria Hohn, Professor and Chair of History, Vassar College
Consider it an irony or simply a reality of our moment, but these days Donald ("America First") Trump is looking ever less like an old-fashioned, pre-World War II isolationist. In a mere three-plus weeks in office, he's managed to mix it up royally with much of the rest of the planet. He threatened to send American troops into Mexico (hey, it was a joke, just lighthearted banter!); he insulted the Prime Minister of Australia by shouting at and hanging up on him ("fatigue was setting in" and anyway maybe he thought it was Austria!); he threatened Iran with everything but the kitchen sink (which he evidently couldn't find in the new, under-inhabited White House); he insulted Iraq by banning its citizens from visiting the land that had invaded and occupied them and essentially dynamited their country; he insulted German Prime Minister Angela Merkel for her handling of the refugee crisis and may still be playing with the idea of appointing an ambassador to the European Union who would like to see it go the way of the old Soviet Union. He put in place the Muslim ban that wasn't a ban on immigrants and visitors from seven largely Muslim lands -- before an obviously Islam-loving so-called judge in San Francisco (natch!) temporarily banned it. After being played like a fiddle by military officials who told him that President Obama would never have had the guts to order such a raid -- great presidential button-pushing, guys! -- he green-lighted a disastrous Special Operations mission in Yemen in which the raiders didn't get their guy (but did get a long available terror video), while one American and up to 30 civilians, including children, died. (The Yemeni government, possibly also angered by being put on Trump's list of banned countries, has now banned such raids in its country, or not.) And to give Trump total credit, he staunchly defended the honor of the American people, as he had always promised he would. When Bill O'Reilly, in a pre-Super Bowl interview, called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "killer" without offering a single kind, offsetting word of praise for the United States, the president promptly insisted that the Russians had no monopoly on killers in high places, not on an America First planet. He shot back: "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Exactly, Donald. We kill with the best of them!
Delegation of the University of Leicester of Great Britain visited UNEC.
President of the University of Leicester Paul Boyle, Director on Strategic Cooperation Michael Green and Baku Regional Managers got acquainted with the innovations applied at UNEC and reviewed the Financial and Innovative Banking laboratories. The information about the performances of the International School of Economics and UNEC Business School were provided. At the same time, presentation on the Electronic University Model was demonstrated. Information about the operation of the Differential Salary System applied to assess UNEC teachers scientific and pedagogical activities was delivered. It was said that the system similar model of which is applied in most Western Universities is yielding results in their performances increasing business competitiveness among the employees of the university. The overseas guests became familiar with the centralized testing exam system.
Meeting with UNEC Rector, Professor Adalat Muradov delegation highly evaluated the novelties applied at the university. UNECs position in international rankings and the fact of being the biggest economy- oriented higher education institution of the region were said to play a significant role in cooperation between the both universities. It was noted that the targets and potentials of both higher educational institutions overlap. President Boyle expressed their interest in building deep and long- term strategic partnership with UNEC performing on the basis of innovative ideas.
The dual diploma programs, student and teacher exchange and other cooperation opportunities between UNEC and the University of Leicester were discussed within the meeting.
Afterwards, President of the University of Leicester Paul Boyle shared his impressions about the university on the Radio UNEC.
Note that, currently 3 UNEC students are studying at the University of Leicester within the framework of the Erasmus+ Program.
UNEC is the brand of Azerbaijan State University of Economics. The brand of UNEC has been registered and patented by the State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patent on January 21 2016.
A week ago, I saw a play, and I'm still thinking about it. This hasn't happened in a long time. The play was Terror by best-selling author and lawyer, Ferdinand von Schirach. I'm not the only person this play has struck a chord with - fifty-nine theatres programed the show during the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, from Berlin to Tokyo to Miami (where I saw it at Miami New Drama, and where it will play until February 19th).
The premise is as follows: A military pilot has shot down a hijacked airliner carrying one hundred and sixty-four passengers. She's done this to prevent the plane from hitting a stadium of 50,000 people, who have no idea the plane is headed straight for them. In shooting down the plane, and killing the hijacker along with the innocents on board, however, our pilot, now on trial, disobeyed superior orders not to shoot.
So now the question is: Is she guilty or not guilty?
The show plays out as a courtroom drama. Each audience member receives a set of cards with their program (one reads "guilty," the other, "not guilty"), and with these, each audience member exercises their "vote."
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It's this, I believe, the fact that the show's outcome is in your hands as an audience member, that has been sending ripples around the world. It's important to note that this is not a gimmick, it's, instead, a seed that goes back to the core of art, theatre, and democracy - a democracy that's currently being put to the test in the United States and around the world, which is what makes the play important. Current.
During the first act, we the audience (we, the jury) listen to opening statements by both prosecutor and defense attorney. We listen to testimony, and we hear from the pilot herself. We listen to the judge, who reminds us that "law and personal morality must be kept separate." We listen to questions about the value of human life - whether one life weighs more than any other. Philosophies mount and angles spin, helping to mold your stance, guiding each person to their place on the spectrum: Is our pilot a criminal or a hero?
For me, it was very clear that she was guilty. She asserted her own individuality or ego above a line of command that perhaps had more information at hand that she did, placing herself above the greater good. For me, as I watched, I couldn't help but think of president Trump, signing one executive order after another, ignoring due process, and creating what Boston College history professor, Heather Richardson, signaled to in a viral Facebook post as a "shock event." As I experienced the play, I thought about how extreme individualism holds the potential, in other words,to kill democracy.
I, however, was not in the majority. My audience in Miami Beach voted not-guilty, as did, per the play's website, the majority of audiences across world. Out of 968 performed trials, 91.6% churned out a verdict of not guilty. This seems to show a leaning toward placing personal morality and personal codes above the law. Something which, paradoxically, points to the fragility of democracy itself. Or, perhaps, even more to the point, to the complexity of individualism within the American system.
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Because, perhaps, in fact, I'm wrong -- and here's where things start to spin again. Perhaps the only way to fight the tyranny of ego and/or individualism is to assert more democracy, more power to the people, more individuality. It's complicated, you see. It goes in circles. And the action and/or drama happens in your mind. Your brain is the scene of the battle. Eventually, this thought process is meant to lead to some kind of action, but not without a lot of simmering first.
The power here lies not in the plot-driven drama of the late 20th century, or the American realist stage, but in choice. In audience interaction. This is an idea that is both ancient and totally contemporary. The idea that theatre can rewire you brain and, therefore, the world, and that it needs you, the audience, to be active in order to create change. Gone are the days of passive viewing. This revision of Catharsis is a 21st century idea that will play out in multiple ways as theatre takes on virtual reality, extends further into the realm of site specific work, and pushes audiences further into new arenas, both real and imaginary.
While the use of the F-word in books, movies and other media is now as common as oxygen, I recently read that it is now making its way more than ever into the actual titles of books, and is becoming a prominent feature in their cover designs, certainly destined for even greater proliferation. To those of us who grew up unaccustomed to that infamous word as a descriptive expletive, it does come with a wink and a gulp.
When I was growing up during the depression in Brooklyn, the verbal or written use of the F-word was practically non-existent. Of course it was out there, but I rarely heard it spoken even where boys of that time congregated in the schoolyard, the playing field, and the traditional indoor and outdoor hangouts. I can't speak for women, but I would bet the barn that the F-word and all it stood for was locked in a vault of deep mental suppression.
There were so called "cusswords" bandied about but they rarely attained the singularly black reputation of the F-word. That word was the big No-No of my childhood and adolescence. The pervasive threat in my domestic household was that my mother would "wash out my mouth with soap" if I uttered words that barely approached the level of condemnation that the F-word connoted.
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To give some idea of the restrictive language in the public sphere, when in 1939, Clark Gable uttered that famous line that ended the movie Gone with the Wind, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn," it was considered a public language breakthrough so shockingly offensive that the then censoring organization, The Catholic Legion of Decency, threatened their usual boycott. Their influence gave rise to the famous "Banned in Boston" slogan, which, believe it or not, set the tone and the measure of what passed for decent language in books and other media in those bygone days.
Indeed, in those days before World War II, which still lives remarkably accurate in my memory bank, language with blatantly sexual connotations was an underground phenomenon. While the F-word, which was allegedly "invented" as both a description of sexual intercourse and a dark and angry descriptive curse dates back to somewhere south of the sixteenth-century, it had an underground print heyday in Victorian times and was a useful tool to stoke the fires of sexuality.
The dam of the F-word prohibition seemed to have been broken during World War II when it became commonplace for the F-word to be used descriptively in every possible variation. Words and phrases were uttered with the F-word to describe every person or object on earth. It was as if nothing could be described at all with out the use of the F-word. Cities with dual names like San "effing" Francisco, Los "effing" Angeles, and New "effing" York will give you some idea.
It was in common use in every possible variation as in the following: "pass the effing butter," "where is the effing wrench," "where is the effing toilet," "its effing raining," "wipe that effing grin off your face," "off to get my effing pipes cleaned"--and on and on. When the boys came home they did not vacuum their language, although it was still considered a no-no in all forms of popular media.
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I vividly remember somewhat of a breakthrough when The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer was published with copious amounts of the euphemism "fugging," which was used throughout the novel that dealt with World War II events.
In some of my earlier novels when the word was still in negative territory I used every creative skill I knew to come up with substitutes for the word and for the act that it described. As an aside, I am sure there are people still alive who remember the phrase "everything but" and the creativity required to achieve a satisfactory outcome. Looking back, some of the words I came up with to describe the act of copulation are objects of amusement and ridicule--especially by my own children.
Fast forward to modern times where the use of the word is as common as the definite article. It has crept into every facet of our lives, particularly the movies we watch, which when enumerated, often uses the word hundreds of times in a single feature.
For someone like myself who grew up in a language restricted environment, I cannot quite shake the sense that still resides in my psyche and I often wonder if such propriety was more reflective of civilized conduct than the laissez-faire world in which we now reside.
What are your thoughts?
Donald Trump is the political reincarnation of Tina Turner; like her, he doesn't do anything nice and easy. Also, they're both Type A personalities who expend a lot of energy but hardly move at all. And famous for high-maintenance hair.
Since his January coronation, the New-York-City-real-estate-developer-turned-Leader-of-the-Free-World has partied like it's 1939, issuing polarizing edict after polarizing edict. The surprising thing is Fox News hasn't started to refer to him as Chancellor Trump. Or Gropenfuhrer. Yet.
Traditionally, a newly elected, first-time president hits the ground running with hand outstretched in a gesture of sociability, solidarity and camaraderie. Not Donny John. He hit the ground whining, with a fistful of disdain for everyone he slapped upside the head: Democrats, Republicans, the media, Iran, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain, the media, his own Cabinet appointments, refugees, the media, the NSC, TSA, and National Park Service. And don't forget the media.
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Experts theorized the weight of the White House would settle him down but alas, no such luck. He's still up till all hours tweeting out a barrage of alternative facts, choosy truths, questionable veracities and marginal actualities that reflect a reality only he can see. As fluid and murky as the Potomac River.
What little presidential honeymoon he enjoyed ended long before the cake was cut. The groom ditched the bride and boogied across the floor alone performing a solo victory dance in front of a mirror. As graceful as an angry anvil.
You could describe his movements since as jerky, spasmodic and frenzied, like when he obsessed over the election being stolen. Ignoring the fact that he won. Even 45's own staff is having problems negotiating his tricky hairpins turns. Not only does the emperor have no clothes, his skin is really thin and kind of blotchy.
According to the most aerodynamically coiffed president in history, 3 to 5 million undocumented aliens illegally cast ballots for Hillary Clinton causing him to lose the popular vote. It's the only possible answer. Because how could Donald Trump not be associated with whatever was most popular? It's unthinkable and "unpresidented."
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President Trump loves his invisible people. And there's tons of them. The invisible people who cast fraudulent ballots -- totally different than the invisible people who came to Washington to be part of the largest crowd ever to witness an Inauguration, but conveniently vanished when aerial photographs were taken. Maybe they're shy.
And neither of those two groups of invisible people should be confused with the thousands of invisible people who celebrated in New Jersey after the World Trade Center came down. Which only he saw. Maybe it's a Sixth Sense sort of thing; "I see non-existent people." No wonder Bruce Willis supported him.
During the rest of his first term, we can expect an expansion of Trump's hallucination theme. Much time will be spent discussing ghosts and leprechauns and sprites and phantoms and pixies and the vast legions of his invisible enemies.
Turns out Donald Trump doesn't just have a vision for this country, he has an X-ray vision for this country. He's like Clark Kent only less buff and way blonder. It was bound to happen: America finally has its first super hero President. Erratic-Man.
Copyright 2017, Will Durst. Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former bus boy at Dante's Sea Catch on Pier 39 in San Francisco, California. For a calendar of personal appearances, please visit willdurst.com.
When I heard the news on late Tuesday night, I did not know who to pity more than the other. I knew a few of the victims, but the first one I thought was a soft-spoken, elderly gentleman; Prof Ibrahim Kaboglu, from Marmara University, a top Turkish expert on constitution and law.
His civil courage has remained a contrast with his mild manners: he is one of the flag bearers of those who against all odds defend the value of the rule of law. Tuesday night, this senior scholar from Istanbul was 'awarded' by being fired, in a most arbitrary way.
With every new decree, tragedy of the dissident elite of Turkey widens, deepens, as it also exposes the underlying intention of those hold power: to maximize efforts for a 'negative selection' - as it happened once upon a time in Germany.
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Decree after decree, what we observe is the victory of intolerant mediocrity over hard-earned merit, and civil courage.
'Now we can say that the academia in Turkey is done for' tweeted Kerem Altparmak, an academic with Ankara University - who as a law expert pursues a fierce battle on injustices at the European Court of Human Rights - on Tuesday night. 'This applies to us who - for now - are allowed to stay.'
The new decree by the AKP government is by far the most 'revealing' of the Great Purge that has taken place. It declared that 330 academicians from 23 universities were sacked from their jobs from the public sector with immediate effect.
The reports were quick to underline that 115 of them were those who had signed a petition early last year, titled 'We shall not be a party of a crime', protesting against the atrocities in the mainly Kurdish provinces of Turkey. Simply called 'Academicians For Peace', they were then immediately subjected to a severe demonization campaign in pro-government media. They were encouraged by President Erdogan who had condemned them by a loud statement.
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'You, the so-called intellectuals!' he had roared then. 'You are the very darkness yourselves, not intellectuals. You are so dark and ignorant to a degree that you have no idea of the address of those areas!'
Some of the petitioners were already 'cleansed' from universities and with this decree, more fear and resentment has spread to all others who feel it will be their turn next. That is the message Altparmak had, by saying 'we who stay for now.'
The decree targets the backbone of some of the best established universities in the country. One of them is the Faculty of Political Sciences (SBF) that is part of Ankara University - a school compared to France's Sciences Po or ENS - where top diplomats and intellectuals graduate from. Here is the verdict of Altparmak about his school, hit like an earthquake by the decree: 'SBF is the very foundation of our republic. With the purge, it was finished off. Condolences!'
On Friday, a large group of academicians - those fired and in duty, or others who have been retired - attempted, together with students, to enter the School of Political Sciences (SBF) in Ankara, but they met a huge police force. In the scuffles, as the police attacked the crowd of protesters, many were injured, manhandled, swept through the ground, their robes were trapped upon.
The decree, in practice, emptied the entire departments of journalism in Ankara University and the University of Marmara in Istanbul. One of the purged, Prof Yuksel Taskn, who 'was' a teacher, and apparently a loved one by his students, tweeted, in bitterness:
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'This is a pure political 'cleansing'. But my conscience is clear. Let my students know that I shall never, ever bow down!'
Emre Tansu Keten, from the same school, wrote: 'I am simply proud to be in the same list along with my senior colleagues who are thrown out because of the opinion they expressed.'
Another blow was delivered to the Department of Theater in the Faculty of Language, History and Geography of Ankara University/DTCF), where five professors were 'cleansed'.
One the teachers, Prof Sureyya Karacabey, said that there were only four low degree teachers were left.
'There were six of who signed the peace petition' he continued:
'Five of us had remained and now we are sacked. This means that the department is dysfunctional; education has been stopped. Four remaining colleagues will not be able to run the operation. There is more to come, I am afraid. It is horrible when one waits for one's turn to be fired.'
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Ercan Sen, a teacher from the school, tweeted:
'I was sacked just because I had said that I opposed war in this country, that I desired peace. Let it be! I still want peace...'
The decree itself is self-explanatory about the intention to slaughter not only the diversity of opinion, but also striking in its breadth of liquidation.
One of the victims, a senior academician, is a legend in her field. Prof Oget Oktem Tanor, the first neuro-psychologist in Turkey. She is also known as the founder of the first laboratory in neuro-psychology. This elderly lady was the wife of late Prof Bulent Tanor, another legendary figure in constitutional law, who as part of the liberal-left in Turkey had devoted his entire life for replacing Turkey's military-dictated constitution with a democratic one - to no avail.
Prof Kaboglu, who I first thought of, belongs to the same school of thought and rank. He engaged selflessly for years for a democratic order. A decade ago he was asked by the then-Prime Minister Erdogan to prepare a detailed report on minority rights and how to proceed with reconciliation over the past atrocities of the state, and ways of devolution of power. He worked intensely with another senior scholar, Prof Baskn Oran and issued the report. Only to find out months after that both of them would be charged by the prosecutors on 'insulting Turkishness'.
Charges were dropped later, but so was the valuable report, buried to oblivion.
This is the traditional way of a state, now seized by a primitively power-hungry, and equally mediocre political stable, to show gratitude to its independent intellectuals: alienation, harassment and punishment.
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Widening more by each and every decree, this is now a country resembling Germany of 1930, which ended up chasing out its elite beyond its borders. What I know for certain, that there will no longer be any possibilities for our academicians 'cleansed' to find work and, live in decency and honor.
This bitter fact legitimizes a repeat of history: making an exodus inevitable.
'Between 2006 and 2016, in average 6.640 Turkish citizens left Turkey to seek asylum. It went up to 9.600 in the first ten months of 2016. The flight was tripled or quadrupled since the coup attempt' said Prof Ibrahim Sirkeci, a top expert on on 'insecurity and human mobility' as well as 'culture of migration', Director of Centre for Transnational Studies at Regent's University London.
'It will accelerate' he continued, in an interview for Turkish news site, Duvar:
'Considerable part of those who are unable to leave Turkey because of the Emergency Rule will escape as soon as travel restrictions are eased or lifted. They will escape even if the gates are kept closed.
'I have been working as an academician in the UK, and (I notice) that the number of e-mails since July (coup attempt) last year by Turkish academicians who seek positions even without salaries, or references are more than the total of those in the past 18 years! Some of those are sacked; but an equal number are those who continue with their jobs but find the work climate insufferable. July 15 is a rupture point.'
'Worth noting also that in such a country marred by polarization that penetrated all layers of life, it is not only academicians who flee. This category should be called 'intellectual workforce', because academicians and engineers are joined by artists and musicians. And others who don't fall into this category of 'intellectual workers': we know that Turkish officers in NATO sought asylum.'
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'This coup attempt and the wave of arrests and purges in its follow-up throws Turkey back at least 20-30 years. As it is being said often these days, academia in Turkey has become 'desertified'. The exodus of qualified people brings economic, cultural and social progress to a standstill: you don't invest your money, you stop publishing books and, if you are under oppression, you can't teach; if you can't criticize there won't be any innovation, no exchange of ideas. The efforts to widen self-censorship and endless praising of a single leader under every condition and about every issue doesn't help produce science, art or technology. If Turkey has not been granted a radical change towards democratization, it will turn even more conservative, more consumerist. This is the sad part.'
By Dan Golden
SEO and user experience has converged. In 2017, a good user experience makes the best SEO strategy. This change does more than force creative and SEO analyst departments to actually meet and work together. This shift requires a whole new way of thinking about SEO. It also makes many of the "traditional" SEO techniques outdated. Here's why:
Algorithm updates in Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird and now RankBrain reward content that gets clicks and engages users. While Google webmaster guidelines have always urged brands to create good content for humans, the newest updates "recognize" user intent. They look at user signals like time on site, click-through rates and bounce rates.
They also recognize unnatural content. We've seen the following five strategies that worked in the past now hurt SEO results in this new era of search. If your site uses any of these, it's time to ditch them to protect your SEO efforts.
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Content Written for Search Engines
In the beginning, online content fell into two silos: content for humans, and content for the bots or "spiders" that crawled the web and determined page ranking. These silos often created clunky, even awkward, keyword-heavy content.
Today, keywords remain important, but keyword saturation won't convince RankBrain of a site's relevance. User response and a page with a user-friendly design will do much better.
Excessive, Irrelevant Anchor Text
Relevant anchor text or highlighted hyperlink text that links to a target page plays an important role in building a great UX. But this strategy can be overdone.
For example, a link on the word "Google" that takes you to "www.google.com" or Google's Wikipedia page would be useless. This goes for just about every word or general topic link: Only highlight text that provides immediate relevance and usefulness to users, such as to research or supporting documentation.
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Individual Web Pages for Every Keyword
Search engines may once have responded well to the strategy of having a separate web page for every variation of keyword. The redundancy -- and in many cases useless -- "filler" information that resulted only brought confusion to the user experience. For the best results today, consolidate pages instead by topic or category. For example, instead of having "men's jeans" and "women's jeans," have a category for men and one for women, with jeans as a subcategory. This approach simplifies the site for user interaction.
Current sites with multiple pages for keywords have options. You can always repurpose content in the form of blogs or articles.
Unnecessary Link Building
In 2017, relevance rules. This goes for links too. As with anchor text, outbound links that don't enhance the user experience don't add value. Links to generic information -- or trying to capitalize on Wikipedia's high ranking -- would likely be viewed as unnecessary.
How do you identify a good link? Here's a good rule of thumb: if it feels like a shortcut to grab SEO value, don't do it. If you're building links for Google, Bing or any other search engine, ditch it.
Ditch Multiple Websites
In the past, multiple websites offered ways to build links, increase presence and control an area of keywords on the web. Now, this strategy spreads clicks among sites and drops ranking for all of them. It's better to consolidate content and products into a single, flowing user-friendly site.
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SEO in 2017 and Beyond
Is SEO dead? Hardly. All of the data we have seen has shown that organic search is just as important as ever. What's dead are the old school tactics used to manipulate the search engines. SEO engagements can no longer happen in a vacuum outside of typical marketing channels.
Going forward, great marketing makes great SEO. While this might seem to place a lot of emphasis on creative for the production of high-quality content, attention-grabbing ads and headlines and awesome graphics, SEO consultants will be more valuable than ever. Technical analysis of top keywords and user search trends will inform creative's efforts, measure performance and provide roadmaps and guidance to drive SEO success.
The SEO/UX convergence will simplify SEO strategy in terms of assets and management. Start by putting your user at the heart of your SEO strategy. If you've employed any of the five strategies outlined above, stop using them. Review your site and update pages or repurpose content with UX in mind. When you put users first in 2017, you will have a winning SEO strategy.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Azad Hasanli Trend:
The Moodys Investors Service international ratings agency has confirmed Azerbaijans long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings at Ba1.
Azerbaijans rating was last changed in February 2016.
The Ba1 rating is supported by a number of credit strengths, including sizeable hydrocarbon reserves, which provide substantial revenue to the government; low (though rising) government debt and low interest payments; and large foreign reserves, held in a sovereign wealth fund, which cushion against internal and external shocks, according to the Moodys December 2016 report.
Although Azerbaijans public finances are highly sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices, manageable levels of government debt, sizable reserve buffers and high debt affordability provide ample fiscal space, said the report.
Moodys forecasts growth of 1.1 percent in 2017 and 1.9 percent in 2018, as hydrocarbon prices increase, credit growth resumes, and increased gas production from the second stage of the Shah Deniz gas field comes on stream, the report said.
Here are 5 takeaways from Kansas' 37-16 win against Oklahoma State
The Jayhawks are bowl eligible for the first time since 2008. Kansas just topped Oklahoma State for that pivotal sixth win.
How The Music Industry Can Change (For The Better)
2016 was a big year for the music industry, both in terms of lawsuits and lobbying, although whether these were to the industry's benefit is debatable. Here we look at major issues with the music business in desperate need of resolution in the coming year.
_____________________________
Guest post by Atty. Erin M. Jacobson on Forbes
2016 saw a lot of lawsuits and lobbying in regards to changes in the music industry. Here are a few major issues that need to be resolved in 2017 and beyond to help sustain the music business.
Higher rates for streaming and YouTube views
The rates creators and rights owners earn from streaming and views are currently fractions of pennies. A songwriter or rights owner needs to see millions of streams/views to make any substantial income from this revenue stream. Streaming services and YouTube are the biggest platforms for consumers to listen to music, but those that make music are not able to make a sustainable living solely off income from those sources. The rates need to be higher so that those who create music for a living are actually able to earn a living.
Music publishers need to be paid more
In a similar vein, music publishers earn less than record labels from YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming and digital services. There is no music and no recordings to be made of music without the creation of a musical composition first. When music publishers are paid less than record labels, not only are music publishers earning less, but the songwriters signed to those companies are earning less. If songwriters cannot make a living writing songs, then songwriting will become a hobby instead of a career.
Even though labels are making more than music publishers, the amount that the artists make is still substantially small due to the contractual terms with the labels. Again, the artists bringing songs to life are not making sufficient money based on their performances and interpretations of songs, and they will not be able to sustain a career that is financially inadequate. Creators need to be properly compensated and this should be recognized by anyone who values music in their life.
Support for fractional licensing within the music industry
The music industry has always operated on a fractional licensing basis where each writer or that writers representative controls the respective shares of the songs that writer has written. This model was threatened in 2016 by the Department of Justice that mandated performance rights organizations ASCAP and BMI move to a 100% licensing model, thereby potentially making millions of songs unlicenseable. BMI sued the DOJ and won, but the DOJ has appealed the decision and the outcome is pending. An upheaval of the fractional licensing model would wreak havoc on the music industry and cause creators and creators representatives, both within the US and abroad, to be compensated even less than they are now, or make their works unlicensable. This is an unacceptable solution and would be a massive blow to not only creators, but to the music business as a whole.
Cooperation between the law and the internet
When the copyright law was last written in 1976, the internet was not used by the public let alone as a way to consume music. Therefore all user-generated content websites, including YouTube, etc. are operating in a way not contemplated by the law when it was first written. The law needs to be updated to address how works can be licensed in a way that cooperates with the digital world while fairly compensating those who create the works being used. There also needs to be a better way to deal with online infringements. Most online infringements are dealt with via DMCA (another area of law needing reform) takedown notices, although YouTube is now allowing content owners to share in revenue from infringing videos through their content management system. Again, the amount of money shared in this scenarios is so small that it is not a sustainable model and goes back to the need for increased rates.
Consumers need to learn to value music
On a daily basis I am confronted with people who want to use music but don't want to pay for it. They argue that they should be able to use the music for free because the writer or artist will make money on the backend from sales or promotion. However, that backend money is usually never earned as promised and results in the artist or writer allowing the use of his/her music for free. Companies want to pay less and keep the lion's share of income for themselves, which again creates a problem for creators trying to live off making music.
Internet companies and radio make millions and sometimes billions of dollars per year, and they continue to lobby to be able to use music freely or at least pay less for it, as well as to loosen copyright laws. Many of these platforms have built their business on using music as their main commodity; yet they don't want to pay for the music that is the central product of their business model. All of the performance rights organizations (most recently GMR) have been fighting with radio and other services to command higher rates for their members and affiliates, but they consistently get pushback from licensees that don't want to pay. This problem doesnt stop at the digital realm, as film and television companies also regularly try to offer low fees to use music in their productions.
When one thinks back on their life, usually there are certain songs that evoke certain memories, that were important at a specific life event, or that got one through a hard time. Couples usually designate at least one song as their song. Certain scenes in films and television shows would not come to life without the use of a particular song being used in that scene. Certain artists and albums serve as the soundtracks of peoples lives. Imagine if all of those memories were taken away because artists and songwriters could no longer have careers making music because they were not paid enough to make a living. Most people wouldnt go into a store a take a piece of clothing or a table without paying for it, yet those same people think it is okay to take music for free. Most people would not think to ask if they could pay their doctor fractions of his fee because they can, yet people keep offering lower payments for using music. Music has value. Those that use or consume music need to recognize that value, or watch the quality and prevalence of music disappear from their lives.
*This article does not constitute legal advice.
Erin M. Jacobson is a music attorney whose clients include Grammy and Emmy Award winners, legacy clients and catalogues, songwriters, music publishers, record labels, and independent artists and companies. She is based in Los Angeles where she handles a wide variety of music agreements and negotiations, in addition to owning and overseeing all operations for Indie Artist Resource, the independent musicians resource for legal and business protection.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
Trend:
The International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) announced new appointments.
Shola Akbarova appointed director of human resources department. She graduated law faculty at Baku State University and faculty of state and municipal management at the Academy of Public Administration under the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Akbarova held various positions in civil service. She was awarded the Medal For Distinction in Civil Service. Before her appointment to the IBA, Akbarova served as the director of the HR department at Modern Group Holding. She also participated in the range of international trainings. The goal of the IBA is to up the efficiency of teamwork and personal growth, employee motivation via attracting professional in the HR field.
Murad Gurbanov was appointed deputy director of security department information security officer of the bank. He earned Master Degree at the Eindhoven University of Technology and held different positions at the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies.
Before his appointment to the IBA he held the position of IT department director at Rabitabank. Gurbanov is specialist in the field of information technologies and will work on strengthening information security at the IBA.
The new management team, headed by Khalid Ahadov, is aimed at achieving successful recovery of the IBA in short terms and other goals set by the decree signed by the president of Azerbaijan on July 15.
The apps will provide information on consumer affairs; crime prevention; information service; government-supported events; and include listings of the government directory. These will be officially launched on February 15.
The Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis, in the Caribbeans will roll out five mobile apps as part of its e-government thrust.
The Consumer Affairs app will provide information on where to get the best food prices. You go on that app and you can find every bit of information you want in terms of prices and so on. So before you leave home you could determine Im going there or here because I get the best price here on this particular item, Ambassador Sydney Osborne Chairman of the Organising Committee for the Governments second anniversary celebrations told Working For You, a weekly government radio talk show.
The Crime Prevention app allows residents to report potential and criminal activities, and get crime prevention tips, while the Information Service app will publish all the information you want in terms of government publications, he said.
Saint Kitts and Nevis ranked 94th place in the 2016 United Nations e-government survey.
Other Caribbean nations are also building mobile apps as a key part of their digital strategy. Last year, the Jamaica Constabulary Force rolled out Stay Alert, an app for users to send alerts to the police during emergencies, and receive tips and news updates from the task force.
Further afield, the Bandung city government in Indonesia has set a similar approach mandating 300 apps to be built each year. Officials believe that this is the more effective way to reach out to its citizens as a majority of them use smartphones.
But the UK has banned the creation of mobile apps because they are very expensive to produce, and theyre very very expensive to maintain you have to keep updating them when there are software changes, Ben Terrett former head of design at the UK Government Digital Service told GovInsider.
The UK was ranked in first place in the 2016 UN e-government rankings.
Source: https://govinsider.asia/digital-gov/caribbean-governments-build-apps-for-e-government/
Focus on Turkey
The significant position of Turkey was underlined in early 2017 by the diplomatic visits of President Trumps Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, and British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Turkey implemented a state of emergency for two years following the failed coup in July 2016. Authorities swiftly arrested 2,800 rebel soldiers and detained a similar number of judges and prosecutors with alleged links to the Gulenist movement the government blames for masterminding the coup.
The crackdown persists as President Erdogan seeks to strengthen executive power, but there are significant concerns over the rule of law, judicial independence and human rights protections.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
Trend:
Sabah groups held the presentation of their Career Academy in the Azerbaijani Ministry of Education. Firudin Gurbanov, deputy minister of education, employees of Sabah groups and the management of the official partner of the Academy - Azer Turk Bank attended the event.
The academy covers 4 directions: professional career, postgraduate education, entrepreneurship and scientific research. The purpose of the project is to instill skills necessary for successful career start to the last year students of Sabah groups. It was mentioned that last year about 600 Sabah students of 44 specializations had experience in 38 public and private institutions.
According to the agreement between the Ministry of Education and Azer Turk Bank, one group of Sabah students majoring in finance, will get the opportunity of internship in the banks various structures and learn the intricacies of banking.
Azer Turk Bank is one of the institutions, which constantly contributes to the development of younger generations.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.13
By Leman Zeynalova Trend:
The ministerial meeting of the High-level Monitoring Committee on Vienna oil deals will be held March 22-23 in Kuwait, said Russias Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
The meeting of the technical council at the level of experts is expected to take place in Vienna Feb.21-22, RIA Novosti quoted Novak as saying.
During a meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 30, 2016, OPEC members decided to implement a new production target of 32.5 million barrels per day. Later, non-OPEC countries agreed to cut the output by 558,000 barrels per day during the meeting held Dec. 10, 2016.
Eleven non-OPEC countries Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the oil output.
OPEC and non-OPEC countries pledged to start implementing the deal from Jan. 1, 2017 for six months, extendable for another six months.
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.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Dr Khasha Ghaffarzadeh
The transparent conductive film (TCF) industry has witnessed upheaval in recent years. On the one hand, multiple technologies have been developed as alternatives to the incumbent solution, whilst the incumbent suppliers slashed their prices to protect their share in sluggish markets 1. Our report Transparent Conductive Films (TCF) 2017-2027: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies provides a detailed assessment of the technology, market and business landscape developments of the TCF industry. We have been closely engaged with the industry over many years, witnessing first-hand the rise and fall of technologies and companies, and correctly predicting the consolidation period of the past few years.
Traditional limitations of printing TCFs
Metal mesh has emerged as a leading commercial alternative to the incumbent. It offers a higher level of performance, particularly for large-area applications, whilst also shortening the value chain. There are however numerous methods that can be employed to manufacture metal mesh TCFs, and not all are equal. In the early days, printing was hot because it promised rapid additive production using inexpensive printing machines. The development however soon hit a technology limitation in that it could not easily narrow the linewidth of the metal mesh to below 15-20um, meaning that the mesh would remain visible to the naked eye despite high measured transparency levels. This challenges put printing on the back foot, whilst allowing other metal mesh processes such as those based on photo-patterning to gain traction. This may however be about to change as printing, in various ways, direct or hybrid, is making a comeback into the TCF industry. Here, we outline some of the latest progress that we have recently witnessed first-hand around the globe. For more detail please refer to our report Transparent Conductive Films (TCF) 2017-2027: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies
Progress on the use of printing in TCF production
The first commercial use of printing was as a hybrid process by the likes of Shenzhen O-Film. In this hybrid approach, a UV resin is first patterned using imprinting, the trenches are then filled using a printing process such as dispensing, and the excess ink is then cleared off. This creates embedded topographically-smooth metal mesh solutions with sub-5um linewidths. This approach was commercialized although we understood that O-Film had some customer issues in 2015. This approach continues to be developed by O-Film and others. An example demonstrating the process is shown below. (Left): An example of the hybrid process for manufacturing metal mesh. Source: Fujikura Kasei. (Right) examples of O-Film metal mesh TCFs. I took these photos at Mobile World Congress 2014.
Direct sheet-to-sheet screen printing was also developed as a means of making metal mesh. This approach was limited by the traditional shortcomings: here the linewidths were around 24um. This approach is however now being applied to large-area touch tables and touch surfaces for use in, for example, outdoor areas where line visibility is not a concern. The picture below shows an example from Gunze. This product is currently in use in Japan in, for example, gaming panels installed in Akihabara, Tokyo. Large-area touch tables with screen printed metal mesh with 24um linewidths. Source: Gunze. I took this picture at C-Touch Taiwan 2016
Others are developing gravure offset techniques for printing ultrafine metal mesh structures using silver nanoparticles. One example has been demonstrated by Komura-Tech which has achieved 5um linewidths. This result, shown below, is still in the prototyping stage and the web sizes are limited. As before, the challenge will be in scaling up the process without comprising yield or resolution. Others such as a major Korean companies had developed similar technology as early as 2012, but gave up because they judged that the cost benefit was not sufficient to dethrone ITO films. This is however a promising step in the right direction. Note that flexographic printing with larger web sizes is also possible. This technique achieves 10um for the best case, but commercial printing is generally limited to 20um. The printed lines are also thin. Gravure offset printed fine line metal mesh TCF. (left) microscope image of 5um line metal mesh. (right) plastic surfaces covered with printed Ag metal mesh with 5um linewidth. Source: Komura-Tech. I took the photos at the IDTechEx Show! USA 2016
Gravure offset fine line metal mesh demonstrated by Ishihara Chemical (materials supplier). I tool these photos at Nepcon Japan 2017.
Other novel processes are also being developed to bring printing into the metal mesh TCF business. For example, Toray is now targeting its photo-patterned screen-printable conductive paste at the TCF industry. This ink was initially introduced as a touch screen edge electrode material, enabling the industry to overcome the limitations of standard PTFs (pastes) to reach L/S of 20/20 or lower. This was a success achieving sales on the scale of several (e.g., 2) tonnes per month. Now Toray had demonstrated 3.5um metal mesh patterns using this technology as shown below. This technology is still in the prototyping phase and the cost is still high (we estimate around $40/sqm, far higher than competitors). (Right) fine linewidth flexible metal mesh made using Toray's photo-patternable Ag conductive paste. (Left) image of medium-sized TCF where I could detect no visible lines. Source: Toray. I took these photos at Nepcon Japan 2017.
Tanaka Metal (recently acquired Metalor) has also developed a novel ink-based metal mesh TCF technology. The substrate is coated with a layer of amorphous fluoropolymer. This is then later patterned using UV irradiation. An image of an activated surface pattern that absorbs silver nanoparticles in then formed. The entire surface is then coated with silver nanoparticle using blade coating. The nanoparticles selectively chemisorb onto the patterned areas, giving rise to the metal mesh structure with ultra-fine linewidths. The Tanaka-estimated price is 200 yen per sqm (approx. $20/sqm). This is still an early stage development and the production process is currently sheet-to-sheet on a 500mm by 500mm substrate. Tanaka Metal and AIST's silver nanoparticle ink-based approach to metal mesh TCFs. Source: Tanaka Metal. I took this photo based on brochures given to us by the developers.
The use of printing is also being developed to either laydown a catalyst which can then be later thickened using plating, or to deposit photoresists thus effectively replacing photolithography. The latter process is being developed by the likes of Screen Holding or LCY, whereas the former is by the likes of ITRI in Taiwan. The latter process is often envisioned as a stepping-stone towards full direct printing of the metal mesh lines. Printing is used to deposit photoresist or to lay down plating catalysts. Source: (left) Screen Holdings and (right) ITRI/Kuraki. I took these photos at FineTech Japan 2016.
Yet others, such as Asahi Kasei , are developing printing technologies that can directly roll-to-roll deposit lines as narrow 100nm. This technology is currently under development and the prototyping drums have a 100mm diameter and 50mm width. This technology however may be overshooting the requirements of the TCFs, and might be better suited to other applications. Ultra-fine roll-to-roll imprinting. Source: Asahi Kasei
Of course this has not been all progress on ink-based TCFs. There are many firms that have come with a bang and gone with an eerie silence. For example, ClearJet developed a novel approach to overlapping inkjet-printed conductive rings, and Cima Nanotech developed self-assembled Ag nanoparticles which created a random metal mesh structure. But for each one that leaves the scene another one appears to take its place. For example, we recently learned that XTPL , an early stage polish firm, has developed a printing technology for ultra-fine metal mesh printing. This is a fast evolving space to watch. To learn more please refer to our report Transparent Conductive Films (TCF) 2017-2027: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies. This report outlines the latest on all technology options for TCFs, developed detailed application- and technology-segmented ten-year market forecasts, and provides interview-based company profiles. Please do not hesitate to contact me on khasha@ IDTechEx .com should you have any questions.
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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.13
By Leman Zeynalova Trend:
Producer countries have historical responsibility to protect the oil market stability, said Venezuelas Oil Minister Nelson Martinez.
Martinez made the remarks during the meeting with his Omani counterpart Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhy, said the message posted on the website of Venezuelan Ministry of the People's Power of Petroleum and Mining.
Venezuelas Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, who also visited Oman, noted that during the meeting with Omani oil minister, they stressed the progress in the implementation of the OPEC oil output deal reached in Vienna.
The countrys oil minister, foreign minister led by President Nicolas Maduro have toured OPEC countries such as Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Algeria, and non-OPEC such as Russia and Oman to discuss the general situation on the oil market and the process of implementation of the OPEC deal.
During a meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 30, 2016, OPEC members decided to implement a new production target of 32.5 million barrels per day. Later, non-OPEC countries agreed to cut the output by 558,000 barrels per day during the meeting held Dec. 10, 2016.
Eleven non-OPEC countries Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the oil output.
OPEC and non-OPEC countries pledged to start implementing the deal from Jan. 1, 2017 for six months, extendable for another six months.
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.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
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This is a hugely ambitious show with loans obtained from Russia that you will never have seen and many that you will not see again. Planned to coincide with the centenary of the Russian Revolution it covers a period in Russian history where for a brief moment everything seemed possible and continues through the suppression of the avant-garde.
The galleries are arranged thematically, starting with the rise of Lenin followed closely by the advent of Stalin. Along the way we encounter hard physical labour, peasants working the land, the rise of the Russian avant-garde and finally the new Russia. Is it coherent and digestible? No. But it is fascinating.
The curators have chosen to make the installation layered, which is a polite way of saying they have chosen to include everything. With ceramics, photos, posters, advertisements and documents, paintings and films often mounted high above everything. With everyone earnestly listening to headsets to try and decode the difficult history, it is also difficult to physically negotiate.
Kazmir Malevich, Peasants, c.1930 (State Russian Museum, St Petersburg) (copyright 2016, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg)
Setting the scene are several portraits of Lenin. One by Gorgy Rublev, Portrait of Josef Stalin (c.1930) with its bristly moustache and peaked eyes reading a newspaper, seems strangely cartoonish, the large thone-like chair enveloping the leader, making him seem improbably small and powerless. We move immediately into hard labour with a large painting by Ekaterina Zernova, Tomato Paste Factory, looking particularly harsh yet more familiar as a Russian propagandist image.
In a section labelled a Brave New World, a room of Malevich reductive paintings as always impresses. It is amazing how saying so little can impart so much information. A recreation of an apartment interior by El Lissitzky nods to the brief flourishing of design, while whirling nearby is a recent recreation of Tatlins Letatlin, with strange flying machines twizzles endlessly around.
There is a room of the work of the unknown Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. No one outside of Russia has heard of him although there have been attempts before to raise his profile. A poetic vision of a peasants simple dinner of potatoes, bread and herring, Still Life with a Herring (1918), painted on oil cloth, shimmers, but it is Midday Summer (1917), a painting of the artists fathers funeral, that transfixes me. Framed by improbably large apples the perspective is scientifically wrong, but the aura of serenity shines through as the simple cortege moves through the strange landscape. It is as if his father is looking down and is part of this moment. It mirrors the nearby joyous The Promenade by Marc Chagall, in which the young artist proudly whirls his new bride aloft his head like an improbable flag.
Isaak Brodsky, VI Lenin and Manifestation, 1919 (copyright provided with assistance from the State Museum and Exhibition Center Rosizo) (copyright Provided with assistance from the State Museum and Exhibition Center Rosizo)
We are plunged immediately back into the a transformed Stalinist Russia with paintings of honed athlethic bodies and finally deposited through a strange tunnel to be faced by Arkady Shaikhets film of physical training. The film is mesmerising, especially in the light of current revelations about doping in Soviet athletics. At a small cinema nearby one can watch the harrowing work of art critic Nikolai Punin. Portraits from his personal investigation file as a prisoner in 1949 is testimony to the punishment of the artist under a punishing regime.
Leaving an exhibition on the downward swoop of a metaphorical rollercoaster ride, this is the type of ambitious exhibition that pleads for people to become Royal Academy members so that they may come freely again and again. Would it be worth a return visit? Yes especially at this moment of time if, like me, you are considering the potential effect of the Trump-Putin alliance seriously.
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Over the weekend, numerous celebrities shared a clip showing Australian comedian Jim Jefferies lashing out at broadcaster Piers Morgan for refusing to call President Donald Trump's travel ruling a Muslim ban.
Author JK Rowling was one of those people, writing on social media alongside a clip of the incident: Yes, watching Piers Morgan being told to f**k off on live TV is *exactly* as satisfying as I'd always imagined.
Morgan, of course, was not best pleased by Rowlings message, deciding to explain how hes never read a word of her globally-successful book series, Harry Potter.
JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches Show all 7 1 /7 JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches Harry and the Dursleys, by J.K. Rowling JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches Quidditch, by JK Rowling JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches Peeves, by JK Rowling JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches Snape, by JK Rowling JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches Outside Privet Drive, by J.K. Rowling JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches MIrror of Erised, by J.K. Rowling JK Rowling's hidden Harry Potter sketches The Weasleys, by J.K. Rowling
A battle of Tweets ensued, Rowling ending affairs with a brutal take-down of the Daily Mail columnist. However, the Internet has not forgotten the feud, one bookshop deciding its about time Morgan read the Harry Potter series.
North Londons Big Green Bookshop has started Tweeting Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone word-by-word at Pierse Morgan. As of writing, they are currently 208 Tweets out of 32,567 down.
Meanwhile, Rowling spent the evening at the BAFTAs, enjoying the company of Fantastic Beasts actor Eddie Redmayne and La La Lands Emma Stone. Fantastic Beasts managed to beat Doctor Strange, Nocturnal Animals and others to take home the award for Production Design. Read the full list of winners here.
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The BAFTAs is famed for being devoid of controversy and this year was no different. One would have been forgiven for thinking Donald Trump was not President and Brexit was not on our doorstep.
Apart from Stephen Frys restrained jibe at Mr Trumps decision to label Meryl Streep an overrated actress, Mr Trump was notably absent from the room and all were on their best behaviour. To put it simply, there was certainly no equivalent of Frys bag lady moment at the 70th awards.
Nevertheless, Ken Loach did use his acceptance speech to rebuke the callous brutality of the governments benefits system and its disgraceful treatment of refugees. Winning the BAFTA for Best British Film for I, Daniel Blake, he spoke out about both the benefits systems - which forms the basis for his film - and the Government's failure to welcome refugee children fleeing the atrocities of Syria and other conflicts.
"Thank you to the academy for endorsing the truths of what the film says, which hundreds and thousands of people in this country know, the most vulnerable and poorest are treated by the Government with a callous brutality that is disgraceful, a brutality that extends to keeping out refugee children we promised to help and that's a disgrace too, Loach said.
The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Show all 10 1 /10 The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Leonardo DiCaprio On climate change: 'Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.' Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Chrissy Teigen 'I will never stop talking about how horrible Donald Trump is. Even after he loses, I will set an alert to my phone to remind me to not stop. Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Nicki Minaj On the war on drugs and US prison system: What it has become is not a war on drugs. It has become slavery. Or something crazier. When I see how many people are in jail, I feel like, Wait a minute. Our government is aware of these statistics and thinks its OK The sentences are inhumane. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for A+E Networks The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Emily Ratajkowski 'I am not shamed or apologetic of what my body might represent to you. Its the body I was given. I'm no less worthy of making political points about feminism or fighting for the reclaiming of female sexuality because of it.' Andrew Toth/Getty Images The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Jesse Williams On racial equality: Now what we've been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what's going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours. Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Zendaya On claiming a magazine photoshopped her: Had a new shoot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated. These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have. Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Jennifer Lawrence Im over trying to find the "adorable" way to state my opinion and still be likable! F**k that. I don't think I've ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It's just heard.' AFP/Getty Images The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind John Legend On Black Lives Matter: 'We should not have to jump through hoops to prove black people shouldnt be shot by police during routine traffic stops. So many people work so hard to find a reason why executing a human being during a traffic stop is ok. ITS NOT OK.' Getty The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Amandla Stenberg On cultural appropriation: 'What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we loved black culture?' Getty Images The famous men and women who arent afraid to speak their mind Maisie Williams On feminism: I [also] feel like we should stop calling feminists feminists and just start calling people who arent feminist sexist and then everyone else is just human. You are either a normal person or a sexist. People get a label because theyre bad.' Chris Jackson/Getty Images
"Films can do many things, they can entertain, terrify, they can make us laugh and tell us something about the real world we live in - sorry it's early for a political speech - and in that real world it's getting darker and in the struggle that is coming between rich and poor and the wealthy and the privileged and the big corporations and politicians who speak for them."
"The rest of us on the other side - filmmakers know which side they are on and despite the glitz and glamour of occasions like this, we are with the people."
When it came to the winners and losers, there were also no massive surprises. While it was a good night for feel-good musical La La Land, it did not break the Bafta record set by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which won nine prizes in the 1970s, as some had predicted. Instead it walked away with just five awards.
In the end, the prizes were shared pretty widely, with more than 15 winners including Fences, Manchester By the Sea, Lion, Hacksaw Ridge, Jackie, and Florence Foster Jenkins. Some were unhappy Moonlight went home empty-handed.
Viola Davis won best-supporting actress for her role in Fences as had been widely tipped. She used her acceptance speech to pay tribute to her late father, a horse trainer who died of cancer at MacDonalds where he worked as a janitor.
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One of the most devastating things that went through my mind when he took his last breath was: did his life matter? she told the audience.
He said that our lives matter as African-Americans, she also said of her father, garnering a heavy round of applause. The horse groomer, the sanitation worker, the people who grew up under the heavy brute of Jim Crow, the people who did not make it into history books but they have a story and those stories deserve to be told because they lived.
Emma Stone won best actress for La La Land, using her speech to launch into a veiled critique of the ramifications of a Trump presidency. "The US and the world seems to being going through a bit of a time that is divisive and I'm so glad we can get together in the film industry to... celebrate the positive, she told the audience.
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Viola Davis has voiced her scepticism about the success of the Oscars So White backlash at this years BAFTAs.
The actor, who won a BAFTA for best-supporting actress for her role in Fences, said while this had been a strong year for African-American actors it could easily be an anomaly. Fences, Hidden Figures and Moonlight have all done well out of awards season.
I believe what still is a deficiency is that we have one year a plethora of African American movies and then the next year nothing, the 51-year-old said at a press conference after her BAFTA win.
Davis said forecasts for next years award season had already been floated and there was a dearth of African-American names in the mix.
She used the address to warn that the future of her six-year-old daughter Genesis might be more difficult than her own.
She has to understand that shes got be the change she wants to be, Davis told reporters. She cant assume peoples minds have been woken up we see that in the political climate now. We have to be the instrument of change now.
Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Show all 15 1 /15 Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Who are famous people voting for in the US election? George Clooney HILLARY CLINTON Getty Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Leonardo DiCaprio HILLARY CLINTON Getty Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Mike Tyson DONALD TRUMP Getty Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Beyonce HILLARY CLINTON Rex Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Chloe Grace Moretz HILLARY CLINTON Vivien Killilea/Getty Images Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Sarah Jessica Parker HILLARY CLINTON Getty Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Jon Voight DONALD TRUMP Getty Images Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Katy Perry HILLARY CLINTON Getty Images Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Jennifer Lopez HILLARY CLINTON Angela Weiss/Getty Images Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Denis Rodman DONALD TRUMP TIMOTHY CLARY/AFP/Getty Images Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Salma Hayek HILLARY CLINTON Getty Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Le Bron James HILLARY CLINTON Justin Carissimo Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Hulk Hogan DONALD TRUMP Reuters Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Kid Rock DONALD TRUMP Theo Wargo/Getty Images Who are famous people voting for in the US election? Stacey Dash DONALD TRUMP Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Davis used her speech to pay tribute to her late father, a horse trainer who died of cancer at MacDonalds where he worked as a janitor.
One of the most devastating things that went through my mind when he took his last breath was: did his life matter?
She also spoke of her father in her acceptance speech, garnering a massive applause. He said that our lives matter as African-Americans. The horse groomer, the sanitation worker, the people who grew up under the heavy brute of Jim Crow, the people who did not make it into history books but they have a story and those stories deserve to be told because they lived.
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This is by no means the first time Davis has spoken out about the lack of diversity in the film industry. After winning the Screen Actors Guild Award for supporting actress in January she was probed about whether she thought the increase in black acting Oscar nominees this year was a direct response to last years #OscarSoWhite movement.
Theres a lot of typecasting - age, sex, color, dark-skinned, light-skinned, said Davis. Response to OscarSoWhite? No. I think that every nominee from Naomie Harris to Octavia Spencer to Hidden Figures to Fences to Moonlight to Mahershala Ali are up there because they deserve to be there. Theyre not there because of the colour of their skin. They put in the work. So the answer to that is no.
Davis also discussed the lack of opportunities for people of colour in leading roles, saying: I saw an absence of women who look like me on TV eight years ago. And to tell you the truth, were still sort of absent in leading roles, especially if youre darker than a paper bag.
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Apart from Ken Loach's impassioned attack on the UK government for its "disgraceful" treatment of refugees, this year's BAFTAs were surprisingly light on political statements.
Host Stephen Fry littered the occasional topical Trump/Brexit joke throughout the proceedings, but the emphasis seemed to be aimed squarely at the uplifting power of art itself, marking a time for creators to earnestly thank those around them - either as fellow co-creators, or as the artists that inspired them in their own work.
Emma Stone certainly echoed these sentiments in her own acceptance speech for Best Actress, winning for her performance as an actress struggling to pave her way in La La Land, itself an ode to the importance of dreamers in times of strife and uncertainty.
"One of the greatest parts about tonight is sitting with all of these incredible people that made this film. We became such a family," she reflected. "[Ryan Gosling] elevates everything he touches."
Never calling on Donald Trump by name, Stone still referenced how his presidency had affected those in the US, as well as how Brexit had similarly affected the UK, and how art still had the power to overcome this strife in its eternal message of unity and empathy.
Ken Loach rages against 'disgraceful' Government in acceptance speech at BAFTAs
"I don't know if you realise this but right now this country, the United States and the world is going through a bit of a time," she added. "In a time that's so divisive, I think it's really special that we were all able to come together tonight, thanks to BAFTA, to celebrate the positive gift of creativity, and how it can transcend borders and how it can help people to feel a little less alone."
You can read the full list of winners here.
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The second trailer for the cinematic adaptation of the Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell offers us a far better look at the upcoming sci-fi flick.
Scarlett Johansson takes on the role of Major, a special-ops, one-of-a-kind human-cyber hybrid, who leads the elite task force Section 9 devoted to stopping the most dangerous criminals and extremists; with this trailer pushing a better focus on the Major's attempts to understand her hidden past, and the life she left behind.
Though the trailer promises some stunning, futuristic visuals; what's been shown so far does little to quieten the whitewashing controversy surrounding this film, showing a distinctly Japanese setting but with the focus being largely placed on Johansson, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, and Danish actor Pilou Asbk.
Fans had already expressed their dismay at the news Johansson would be cast in the lead role of (the clearly Japanese) Motoko Kusanagi, and the first image of the actor in the role seemed only to solidify the dissonance of her casting.
A defining voice in the backlash was Ming Na-Wen, the voice of Disney's Mulan and current star of Marvel television series Agents of Shield; with comic writer Jon Tsuei explaining Ghost in the Shell actually ties into something deeply rooted within Japanese identity and to whitewash its story is to strip it of its weight, power, and relevance.
Hollywood whitewashing controversies Show all 11 1 /11 Hollywood whitewashing controversies Hollywood whitewashing controversies Scarlett Johansson cast as Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell Blonde, white US actress Scarlett Johansson was announced to be playing the clearly Japanese character Motoko Kusanagi in Hollywood's Ghost in the Shell remake, much to the dismay of Asian film fans Hollywood whitewashing controversies Tilda Swinton cast as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange Marvel sparked outrage when Anglo-Scottish actress Tilda Swinton was cast as Tibetan mystic The Ancient One alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange Hollywood whitewashing controversies Zoe Saldana was criticised for 'blacking up' to play the considerably darker-skinned soul singer Nina Simone in Nina AP Hollywood whitewashing controversies Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Prince of Persia The half Jewish, quarter Swedish actor was cast to play a Middle Eastern Prince in Disney's 2010 film Hollywood whitewashing controversies Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in forthcoming film Pan Mara was been cast in the role of American Indian Tiger Lily, sparking an online protest from angry film fans Warner Bros Hollywood whitewashing controversies Christian Bale plays Moses in Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings Ridley Scott claimed he would never cast 'Mohammed so-and-so from such-and-such a country' in a lead role in his Biblical epic, and went on to cast an entirely white cast instead Hollywood whitewashing controversies Jim Caveziel plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ Catholic star Mel Gibson chose to cast a Caucasian American actor in the role of Jesus for his controversial film AP Hollywood whitewashing controversies Micky Rooney plays a Japanese neighbour in Breakfast at Tiffany's Who better to play Holly Golightly's Japanese neighbour IY Yunoishi than American actor Mick Rooney. At least Hollywood has come some way since 1961 YouTube Hollywood whitewashing controversies Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in Argo Ben Affleck became the subject of a few editorials in Latin American newspapers for casting himself (an American with English, Irish, Scottish and Swiss ancestry) as a Mexican CIA operative Hollywood whitewashing controversies Jennifer Connelly plays Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Larde was a naturalised US citizen from El Salvador, but was played by an actress of Jewish, Irish and Norwegian descent YouTube Hollywood whitewashing controversies Chinese actresses cast in Memoirs of a Geisha What better way to alienate Japanese cinemagoers than to cast three Chinese actresses in the lead roles in a film about Japanese culture REUTERS
Producer Steven Paul has defended the decision by stating that fans are "going to end up being really happy with it" and that the film isn't distinctly Japanese, but takes place in "an international world"; though Kaori Momoi has revealed she'll be - confusingly - playing Johansson's mother in the film, leaving the film in a particularly perilous position when it comes to navigating the cultural issues brought up by this approach to adaptation.
Johansson herself finally addressed the controversy, as well; stating, "I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive."
Ghost In The Shell - Big Game TV Spot - Trailer
Ghost in the Shell hits UK cinemas 31 March.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.13
By Leman Zeynalova Trend:
The forecast for non-OPEC supply growth was revised up by 120,000 barrels per day to average 57.44 million barrels per day, representing growth of 0.24 million barrels per day, OPEC said in its February Oil Market Report.
The upward adjustments are due to increased drilling activity and investment in the US, leading to higher onshore crude oil and NGLs (natural gas liquids) production, said the report.
This is while, the non-OPEC oil supply estimation for 2016 was revised up by 50,000 barrels per day to average 57.20 million barrels per day, representing a contraction of 0.66 million barrels per day, said the cartel.
The revision was mainly driven by higher-than-expected growth in 4Q16 in the US, Canada, Norway, Russia and China, which was partially offset by downward revisions in Kazakhstan, Australia and Malaysia, according to the report.
During a meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Nov. 30, 2016, OPEC members decided to implement a new production target of 32.5 million barrels per day. Later, non-OPEC countries agreed to cut the output by 558,000 barrels per day during the meeting held Dec. 10, 2016.
Eleven non-OPEC countries Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the oil output.
OPEC and non-OPEC countries pledged to start implementing the deal from Jan. 1, 2017 for six months, extendable for another six months.
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.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
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A terrifying photograph taken moments after the assassination of Russias ambassador to Turkey has been named Photo of the Year in the 2017 World Press Photo contest.
An Associated Press photographer took the photo featuring Andrey Karlov on the floor after being shot by 22-year-old Mevlut Mert Altintas. The gunman went on to shout "Don't forget Aleppo. Don't forget Syria!" and was killed during the ensuing 15-minute shootout with police.
Speaking to The New York Times, photographer Burhan Ozbilici revealed he was only in attendance because the conference was on the way home.
Ozbilici's award winning photograph (AP/Burhan Ozbilici)
Ozbilici said of the moment: I was afraid, but I did not panic. Im a journalist and I had to stand and do my job even if I got hit or killed. At that moment I tried to represent not just A.P. but all good independent journalists.
The photograph has caused some controversy among photojournalists: while the contests managing director said the image was visually strong and a testament to a brave photographer, jury chairman Stuart Franklin was worried the win may be amplifying a terrorist message in some way.
I had a moral concern, Franklin told the aforementioned publication. I dont think we can forget that this was a premeditated, staged murder at a press conference. It seemed to me to reaffirm the compact between martyrdom and publicity.
Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara Show all 13 1 /13 Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The unnamed gunman gestures after shooting the Russian Ambassador to Turkey AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman opened fire at a photo gallery in Ankara, Turkey AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was delivering a speech when the gunman opened fire AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman addressed the room after shooting the Russian Ambassador AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman spoke in Arabic after opening fire on the Russian ambassador to Turkey AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman stands over the body of Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, at a photo gallery in Ankara, Turkey AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara People in the art gallery react moments after the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was shot dead AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara Turkish police secure the area near the art gallery where Andrei Karlov was shot REUTERS Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman reportedly shouted "Aleppo" and "revenge" after shooting Mr Karlov dead AFP/Getty Images Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman stands over the body of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara The gunman, a Turkish policeman, can be seen standing behind the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, before he opened fire AP Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara An ambulance leaves the area near the art gallery where the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was shot dead REUTERS Russian ambassador to Turkey shot dead in Ankara Guests leave as the gunman holds his weapon behind them AFP/Getty
Over 5,000 photographers submitted 80,408 photos to be considered for the top honour, with Franklin looking at every single one. The chairman, however, did not vote for the winning image.
Other publications with winning photographs included Getty Images, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
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The danger of producing 24: Legacy, the 10th series of the highly successful real-time thriller, but the first not to feature Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), the Counter Terrorism Unit officer who saved the world from bad guys on a daily basis, is that there is a gaping hole at its centre. It could be like Hamlet without The Prince.
Howard Gordon, 24s executive producer on the show since the first season in 2001, was very much cognisant of the danger of contradicting the old showbiz adage: never go back.
Fox's 24: Legacy covers the real-time tribulations of a new character, Eric Carter (played by Corey Hawkins from Straight Outta Compton), a US army sergeant who specialises in black ops.
He is part of a mission to kill terrorist leader Bin Khalid. But when a gang back in the US try to assassinate Carter and his wife, he realises they are in deadly danger and turns to the CTU for help. And guess what? He has just 24 hours to thwart a terrorist outrage.
Howard Gordon, executive producer on the show since the first season in 2001, thinks audiences will be seduced by the new character, Eric Carter (Fox)
Seated on a plush sofa in an upscale central London hotel, Gordon is a charismatic and cogent advocate for his beloved show. When we made 24: Legacy, we were fully aware that we were tempting fate. We even said to ourselves, Are we kidding? Are we crazy?
"I do think there will be fans who say, Im not going to watch 24 without Jack and people who will watch it warily. But I think that when they see this new character, theyll be seduced by him because hes wonderfully compelling.
At the same time, Gordon was fully aware that Jack could not be expected to rescue the world from bad hombres for the 10th time. Its like an old rock band. At some point you have to say to them, Put the guitars down. We knew Jack had run his course as the centre of an ongoing enterprise. Every story has an end, and I was quite happy with the ending of season nine.
By then, Jack had lost so much. A character has to have emotional stakes for us to feel he has something to lose, and context as a husband, father or son. Only when Jack had cleared from our minds were we able to have the freedom to think about another idea and reanimate the real-time franchise with a new character.
That said, the executive producer is astute enough to acknowledge the immense pressure that stems from being the keeper of the 24 flame. Does this feel like a big responsibility? Absolutely! When I think about it, I get nervous. Theres so much at stake, but then I think about my love for this franchise and I realise this is not a callow exercise in brand management. It cant be cynical.
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Once youre cynical, youre like that rock band just playing your old hits, soullessly and on autopilot. The challenge for us, continues to be: is there a reason to tell the story? And I think there very much is.
The cast of 24: Legacy have a tough act to follow since Keifer Sutherlands departure from the show (Fox)
Gordon, 55, who has also produced Homeland and The X-Files, continues: I know there is a potential downside to this. Look, inevitably, there will be people who will take pot shots at it. You will never please everybody. Does that worry me? At this point, no. One of the advantages of being older, is that you grow a thicker skin.
Ive been called a lot of things over the years, and while nobody wants to be called names, at the same time if you accept praise blindly, then you have to accept criticism blindly, too. So now I listen to my own counsel and a close coterie of people whose opinions I trust and who arent afraid to tell me, This is terrible or This is quite good.
And you know what? 24: Legacy is really quite good. As someone who has not missed an episode of 24 in the past 16 years I know, I must get a life soon I freely confess that I approached the new series with a fair degree of apprehension.
But within seconds of hearing the familiar opening sting with the trademark ticking clock leitmotif and hearing Hawkins say, The following events take place between..., I was a goner. I remembered just why Sutherland once described 24 as like a soap opera on crack.
Eric Carter is obviously not Jack Bauer who could be? but Hawkins has enough magnetism to pull in viewers and help us forget that we are now dwelling in a Jack-free universe. (Although Sutherland has remained as an executive producer on 24: Legacy).
There are also sufficient shady secondary characters such as the former CTU director Rebecca Ingram (Miranda Otto from Homeland), and her ambitious presidential-candidate husband John Donovan (Jimmy Smits from NYPD Blue) to keep us hooked over the full, absurdly nail-biting 24 hours.
Super fans are also already delighting in the promised return of one of their favourite characters, the ambiguous former CTU agent Tony Almeida (played with riveting inscrutability by Carlos Bernard).
And I dont think I am totally blinded by my long-term love of all things 24, as other critics have weighed in with praise for the new season.
So why does Gordon think this show remains so ludicrously addictive? People have mistakenly characterised 24 as an action show, but thats only one small ingredient of it, he says. Really, its a character show. We create characters in relationships that are hopefully real and gripping. We then put them in extraordinary circumstances and test their limits. Their relationships are inevitably tested by the circumstances of this particularly exigent day.
In these troubled times, viewers are also drawn to the idea of a hero who can solve seemingly intractable problems. People love Jack, Gordon says. He came out at a time when we were so traumatised by what had just happened. 9/11 was the lens through which the show was first viewed.
Jack was also classically drawn hero. He was trying to keep his family together and to save the rest of us, not just from the bad guys, but also from nitwit bureaucrats. They were either corrupt or incompetent. Jack simply cut to the chase and got things done. He broke rules when he had to, but we grew to love Jack because he wasnt afraid to do things that maybe we wished had been done on our behalf in real life.
Then, like any other TV character, we got attached to Jack. It became an emotional relationship and one that you become nostalgic for when its gone. I still miss Jack and Kiefer still misses Jack. Ill always love him and Kiefer will always love him. Jack is as real to me as many people I really know. But in Hollywood, perhaps thats not saying a lot!
Thats not to gloss over the controversy that 24 has aroused over the years, particularly in its depiction of torture. For example, in 2006, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, from the US Military Academy at West Point, met the producers to articulate his fear that 24 was in some way legitimising the use of torture. Finnegan said: Id like them to stop. They should do a show where torture backfires. The kids see it and say, If torture is wrong, what about 24?
Sutherland played Jack Bauer for the first nine series of 24
Gordon adds: In the way that audiences initially viewed Jack through the prism of 9/11, suddenly they started to view Jack through the prism of Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo Bay and the fledgling war in Afghanistan. We started asking ourselves darker-hued questions, and Jack became a lightning rod for those questions. He became a whipping boy. So in series seven we opened with Jack appearing in front of a congressional hearing on human rights because the show was very much on trial.
But what is interesting is getting to ask those questions. At least lets acknowledge that these are complicated questions and that there isnt a right answer or a wrong answer. There are just bad answers, and which is the least bad answer? Thats where the show lives, in making the better of two bad choices.
As the producer of a highly popular show, Gordon fully accepts the need to be responsible in his portrayal of thorny moral issues. On the one hand, we dont want to be held hostage by political correctness. But on the other hand, we have to recognise that we have a tremendous platform, and if people cant distinguish the show from reality, we have to be mindful of that.
We are putting out images that will make people feel and think in a certain way. You cant over-police yourself, but at the same time, it is wise to take some of that on board.
24 has always been notable for its prescience. The first series, which was written before 9/11, featured a terrorist attack using a hijacked plane. Also, one of the main characters was a black US president.
Gordon says it would be perverse to avoid a topical reflection of what is happening in the US right now. We cant ignore the place extreme measures is always had our show. Its in the vernacular of 24. It has darker hues. The price we pay for that as individuals and as society is definitely a theme that comes up.
You have to look at the headlines pretty squarely. We write it differently now, and people will watch it differently because were living in a different time. You have to reflect that, otherwise youre being disingenuous.
Jimmy Smits plays a shady presidential candidate in '24: Legacy' (Fox)
The show will clearly not shy away from some of the themes that President Trump highlighted on the campaign trail. Themes like race play into this story, says Gordon. Also, patriots on the frontline are asking themselves what it means to be an American, to exercise great power and to have to deal with potentially terrible impotence. What are the limits of power and what is the price of exercising it?
We cannot part without posing a vital question: Could Jack ever return to 24? Its been discussed, Gordon admits with a wry grin. It wont be this season, but it would be wonderful if somewhere down the road Jacks story intersected with this one. Id love it if somewhere down the line that could happen. He wouldnt be the only one who was delighted!
Finally, what does Gordon hope that viewers will take away from 24: Legacy? Ive been reading William L Shirers The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Id recommend it. Its saying how fragile the structures and sinews and tendons of society are. When those things are challenged, we are all susceptible to reductive, fear-based behaviour.
If 24 says anything, its that we should be as vigilant about that as we can and stop history from repeating itself.
And call Jack Bauer or Eric Carter to sort things out.
'24: Legacy' begins on Fox at 9pm on Wednesday 15 February
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The Walking Dead season 7 has returned from its midseason break with an extra-long episode that felt like three rolled into one (read our review here).
Its opening scene was the most intriguing, however. it focused on Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) as he stood night watch over Alexandria - the place we last saw him in the midseason finale's post-credits scene as a mysterious hooded figure spied on him with binoculars.
The moment sees the priest looking anguished as he raids the group's pantry, steals their weapons and tanks the car up with petrol before driving away into the night.
What could he be up to? If this seemed like uncharacteristic behaviour from him, there's probably a reason. In fact, the scene offers one minor clue - being missed by many - which may tie into the episode's climactic events.
As Gabriel drives off and the show's theme music can be heard playing, the shape of a person can be seen sitting up in the passenger's seat alongside him.
It seems that something has occurred in between the post-credits scene of episode eight and the opening scene of episode nine - something that has convinced or even forced Gabriel to abscond Alexandria - and it most likely has something to do with the group surrounding Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the gang at the end of the episode.
Why? Well, the only thing Gabriel leaves behind is his bible having written the word 'BOAT' inside - alluding to the vessel Rick and Aaron (Ross Marquand) used at the lake in the midseason finale; the same lake where they were spied on by the very person who spied on Gabriel - the figure who is most likely in the passenger seat.
It'd be cool to think this is all some kind of ploy by Gabriel to convince this unknown group that the Saviours are their common enemy - something already on Rick's mind judging by his smile - but it seems we'll have to wait until episode ten, 'New Best Friends,' to officially find out.
The Walking Dead airs tonight on FOX at 9pm
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Say it with chocolate, urged a Cadburys advertising campaign a few years ago. The advertisements suggested that a commercially manufactured bar of chocolate was a particularly suitable way of conveying heartfelt sentiments of love and intimacy. We apparently take such advice to heart. As Valentines Day approaches, lovers up and down the country are perusing the confectionery aisles, looking for a box of chocolates that conveys sincerity and devotion at the desired price point. The holiday sees a huge spike in chocolate sales, most of which take place on Valentines Day itself. When it comes to courtship were apparently not very good at planning ahead.
The Victorians knew all about chocolates potential as a tool of seduction. Young men, observed one nineteenth-century commentator, seem to know by instinct that the surest weapon in a suitors arsenal was a box of chocolates. Etiquette books and chocolate advertisers alike encouraged the view that an exchange of chocolates between a man and a woman was tantamount to a declaration of love. Giving a young woman a box of chocolates was a way for a man to demonstrate his affection, while at the same time displaying his good taste and discernment in selecting a particularly suitable box. Advertisers worked hard to convince consumers that there was a direct relationship between the amount of money spent and the intensity of emotions. Refined women insist on Schraffts chocolate bon bons, stated one early twentieth-century advertisement.
Manufacturers produced a plethora of packaged chocolates, from modest individual bonbons to costly assemblages swathed in multiple layers of wrapping and ribbons that mimicked the clothing worn by Victorian ladies. Historians have noted the intriguing similarity between the elaborately enrobed boxes of candy and the layers of lace, crinoline, and silk that concealed the wooers presumed prize.
Because chocolates were so closely associated with courtship, and sex, Victorian etiquette books warned that single ladies should never accept chocolates from gentlemen to whom they are neither related nor engaged. It was equally taboo for women to play the lead by giving men chocolates. Only the most daring would do this. The lucky recipient of a box of chocolates could however play Eve, tempting the giver with the suggestive offer of a taste.
Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Show all 8 1 /8 Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Burberry Romance Leather Charm 95 selfridges.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Desmond & Dempsey Le Jardin Print Long Pyjama Set 130 desmondanddempsey.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream 70 net-a-porter.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Bella Freud Mini Candles 75 net-a-porter.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Fujifilm Instax Mini 90 Camera 119.95 johnlewis.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Tom Ford Velvet Orchid Lumiere 56 harrods.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Grained Shoulder Bag 79 cosstores.com Valentine's Gift Ideas for Her Honeycomb Pendant 495 astleyclarke.com
And if you have any doubt about the potential connotations of buying chocolate to eat yourself, watch any advert for a Flake bar.
Is chocolate an aphrodisiac? The scientific jury is still out, but generations of Europeans certainly hoped it was. Give an old woman some chocolate, affirmed a bawdy seventeenth-century song, and it will make her long for you know what. Chocolate, stated a medical treatise, renders people lusty, and prompts em to Venery. Other writers suggested it might help offset the impotence caused by too much coffee. From this to a Valentines day selection tray is but a short hop and a jump.
Except that the lusty chocolate these writers celebrated wasnt a bonbon or a truffle or even a Flake bar. It was a mug of hot chocolate. The cocoa that today conjures up images of elderly couples in slippers, or perhaps little children in pajamas, was once redolent of sexuality. Men were particularly fearful that women might use their occult powers to bewitch them with a cup of magic chocolate. The archives of the Spanish Inquisition are full of denunciations of women said to have tied some hapless man with a cup of hot chocolate, so that he couldnt have sex with anyone else. Francisco de las Casas for instance complained that ever since hed drunk chocolate with Michaela de Orbea hed been impotent with other women. He was certain it was the result of some magic charm shed concealed in the drink.
So if youre offered a cup of cocoa this Valentines Day, think carefully before imbibing. If the gift is a box of chocolates, Victorian advice manuals would suggest you can start shopping for wedding rings. Mind you, statistics for alcohol sales on 14 February suggest that when it comes to wooing, many of us are relying Dorothy Parkers insight that candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
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A US man faces decades behind bars after being arrested for allegedly distributing over a million spam emails.
36-year-old Michael Persaud from Scottsdale, Arizona, has been indicted on federal fraud charges for using a technique known as snowshoe spamming to send out the messages to people in the US and abroad.
The indictment charges Persaud with 10 counts of wire fraud, each of which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty
Persaud stands accused of using multiple IP addresses and domains to transmit the emails over at least nine networks between 2012 and 2015.
Recommended This is what happens when you actually respond to spam emails
According to the indictment, Persaud gained access to the networks by falsely promising to comply with their anti-spamming policies, before using fake names, such as Michael Prescott, Michael Pearson and Jeff Martinez, to contract with other networks whenever he was caught.
He allegedly used a California company called Impact Media LLC to send spam on behalf of sellers of various goods and services, earning a commission for each sale his emails generated.
Persaud, who is recognised as the eighth worst spammer in the world by spam-tracking organisation Spamhaus, pleaded not guilty and will be back in court on 21 February.
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A 20-year-old woman was rushed to hospital and almost died after using the wrong type of tampon.
Katie Knight, from Inverness, Scotland, spend 48 hours being sick and spent four days in intensive care where she was said to be just hours from death.
After using a super-absorbent tampon, Katie was suffering from Toxic Shock Syndrome a potentially fatal bacterial infection commonly linked to the sanitary product.
I genuinely thought I was going to die, she told the Metro.
On the fourth day of her period, the young woman put in a tampon that was an unsuitable level of absorbency as she was revising for an assignment and planning a full day of work.
She explained, I was in the library trying to finish an assignment so I was pretty stressed when I started feeling unwell.
I went down to the cafe to get a coffee and a piece of cake because thought it might be to do with my period, even though it was the fourth day.
I then splashed my face with water as my essay was due the following day and I really needed to get it done. I ended up having to ring a taxi to take me home because I couldnt walk.
For the next 24 hours, Katie started being violently sick and passing out every 25 minutes.
When I was being sick, the last thing I was thinking about was my period and because I had no idea I had TSS, I left my tampon in, she added.
But the next day, things got even worse.
Period euphemisms around the World Show all 8 1 /8 Period euphemisms around the World Period euphemisms around the World Germany 'Erdbeerwoche': translates as 'strawberry week' iStock Period euphemisms around the World France 'Les Anglais out debarque' or 'The English have arrived' referring to past wars with England and possibly the British army's red coats Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World Brazil 'Eustou Com Chico' or "I'm with Chico' in reference to socialist Chico Mendes and possibly his gruesome assassination in the late 80's Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World Finland The Finnish affectionately refer to periods and pms as 'Hullum Lechman Tauti' or 'mad cow disease' Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World The United States Though there are many varied terms, a popular americans commonly refer to periods as 'Aunt Flo' iStock Period euphemisms around the World China In China you may hear 'its little sister to come in' iStock Period euphemisms around the World Denmark 'Der Er Kommunister i Lysthuset' or 'There are communists in the funhouse' Getty Images Period euphemisms around the World South Africa A famed colloquialism for a period in South Africa is 'Grannys stuck in traffic' iStock
Katies flatmate became increasingly concerned, particularly when she started talking gibberish.
She said, My flatmate, whos thankfully training to be a doctor, came into my room because she hadnt seen me for two days.
Apparently I was just talking gibberish and making no sense whatsoever. She asked me what was wrong and I said my activities were sore.
She took my temperature and rang the NHS who told me to go to A&E straight away.
By this point, Katie couldnt walk or talk and was rushed into intensive care.
The tampon had been left in for 48 hours; something which Katie believes amplified the problem.
It just got so out of hand and my period was the last thing on my mind.
After spending a week in hospital, four days of which were in intensive care, Katie was told that she might not make it through.
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Doctors explained that they had found a tampon in her system, which lead them to the Toxic Shock Syndrome diagnosis.
While super absorbency tampons like that which Katie was wearing are commonly associated with TSS, all types can potentially cause the infection.
As a result, Katie insists that she now prefers to use sanitary towels.
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Amazon on Friday disclosed Iranian business ties that may have violated US sanctions, warning that it may be penalised after a regulatory review of the activities.
The company said in a regulatory filing that from 2012 to 2016 it processed and delivered orders of consumer products for certain individuals and entities located outside Iran covered by the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (ITRA).
Amazon said it reported the transactions to the US Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Department of Commerces Bureau of Industry and Security. The worlds biggest e-commerce retailer said it will cooperate with a review by the agencies, and added that this could result in penalties, according to the filing.
In 2012, President Barack Obama signed the ITRA to strengthen trade restrictions on Iran and try to persuade the country to stop its nuclear activities.
This law imposes civil penalties and takes other action against foreign subsidiaries of US companies engaging in transactions with Iran. In January 2016, the US lifted some of the economic sanctions tied to the nuclear program.
Amazon said Friday it sold a variety of consumer products to individuals and unspecified groups controlled or owned by the Iranian government.
The goods ranged from apparel to software to pet products and cost $50 to about $2,400, according to the filing. Amazon said it doesnt plan to sell to these accounts in the future.
Our review is ongoing and we are enhancing our processes designed to identify transactions associated with individuals and entities covered by the ITRA, Amazon said.
Bloomberg
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The European Union must ensure Britain is made worse-off when it leaves the trading bloc and any other result would be a capitulation, the Austrian Chancellor said in a press conference on Monday.
A member of a club must have better conditions than somebody who isnt a member of this club our British friends must be aware that nothing else can come out of these negotiations, Christian Kern said. Everything else would be a capitulation by Europe.
Prime Minister Theresa May is preparing to trigger Article 50 by the end of March to start the two-year negotiations over the terms of a Brexit deal, and as the date moves nearer, prominent EU figures have begun to make their positions on the talks known.
Also in Mondays press conference, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned against the UK trying to promise special treatment for certain industries such as telecommunications, chemicals and steel, Bloomberg reported. Such pledges could undermine EU unity during Brexit negotiations, Mr Juncker said, adding: Its in our common interest that there are no special arrangements.
Speaking to Germanys Deutschlandfunk radio on Sunday, the European Commission President urged Europe to present a united front in negotiations with the UK. The other EU 27 don't know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this, he said.
They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the endgame is that there is no united European front.
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
He added: Do the Hungarians and the Poles want exactly the same thing as the Germans and the French? I have serious doubts.
The UK could be closer than ever to a hard Brexit deal as MPs last week gave their overwhelming backing to Ms May to start withdrawal talks on her terms by 494 votes to 122 on the final Commons reading of the landmark legislation. The Commons rejected no fewer than nine amendments including one to guarantee the future rights of EU nationals.
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Sectors of the UK economy which are heavily reliant on EU nationals are starting to experience skills and labour shortages, with research suggesting that the squeeze could be down to fewer EU workers seeking jobs in Britain in the wake of last years Brexit vote.
Despite a record number of national job vacancies - about 748,000 according to ONS data - UK bosses are finding it difficult to hire the right candidates due to a shortage of available workers, according to a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the Adecco Group. The survey shows that almost half of all the vacancies are in the retail and wholesale, manufacturing, health and accommodation and food services industries.
The report, which was based on data from over 1,000 employers, also shows that more than a quarter of employers also believe that the EU nationals they employ are considering leaving their jobs and possibly the country in 2017.
This is creating significant recruitment challenges in sectors that have historically relied on non-UK labour to fill roles, Gerwyn Davies, labour market adviser for the CIPD, said. He said that people who fill those role tend to be particularly vulnerable to the prospect of future changes to EU immigration policy.
He said that with skills and labour shortages set to continue, theres a risk that many positions will be left unfilled which in turn could act as a brake on output growth in the UK in the years ahead.
The growth in the number of non-UK nationals from the EU working in the UK almost halved from an average of more than 60,000 per quarter in the nine months leading up to the June referendum to just 30,000 in the three months to September 2016, said CIPD, citing ONS data.
John Marshall, chief executive at The Adecco Group for the UK and Ireland, said the big decision that Britain took last year is beginning to show in the UK labour market.
Whilst the outcome of Brexit negotiations is still uncertain, employers access to EU migrant workers is likely to change. Investing in young people is a solid long-term strategy, but employers also need to face the facts and prepare for a situation where they might lose access to significant numbers of skilled EU workers in the near future, Mr Marshall said.
Last month, campaigners have urged Prime Minister Theresa May to end the uncertainty affecting millions of EU citizens living in the UK by guaranteeing their right to remain in the country after Brexit.
Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty
A joint statement issued by the 3 million campaigners whose aim it is to to preserve the rights of British citizens in Europe and Europeans in the UK after Brexit and several migrant rights groups, called for a guarantee to be made before Article 50 is triggered.
Ms May has set a deadline of the end of March to begin renegotiating Britains position in Europe.
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Europes largest management consultancy has warned against investing in Britain.
In an interview with The Times, Charles-Edouard Bouee, the chief executive of Roland Berger, which is Europes largest management consultancy and competes with the likes of McKinsey and Bain & Co, said that businesses are still underestimating the complexity of Brexit negotiations.
Were advising our clients to try to adjust and to be flexible. Uncertain and complex as it is, the best thing is to be agile, he told the paper.
Were seeing a lot of uncertainty ahead of us and asking clients to be looking at their business model for opportunities to be flexible, which by the way is a global trend, not only for Brexit.
Mr Bouee in the interview encouraged companies across the continent to, for example, use partner companies in the UK to carry out work.
Mr Bouee added: If things go wrong you may not want to carry on. If you dont own an asset you can let it go. If youre completely integrated it is difficult to let it go.
He also said that election of Donald Trump to US President had diverted attention from the potential consequences of Brexit.
People are comparing it with a divorce. Its not a divorce. There are rules in a divorce, theres a background, lawyers, there are things that have taken place before, he told The Times. In this case I dont think we have seen such a disentanglement in the last 50 years anywhere in the world.
Mr Bouees comments follow a slew of warnings from top officials around the possible fallout of Brexit.
Mark Carney issues warning over first 'lost economic decade' for 150 years
Last week, one of Germanys top banking regulators warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc.
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
Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the Bundesbank Germanys central bank told 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.
Earlier in the week, the European Parliaments lead Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, said that the EU needs to reform or it risks disappearing completely.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Elena Kosolapova Trend:
OPEC expects world oil demand to increase by 1.19 million barrels per day to average 95.81 million barrels per day in 2017, the cartel said in its monthly oil market report published Feb. 13.
In its previous monthly report published in January, OPEC forecast global oil demand to grow by 1.16 million barrels per day and reach 95.60 million barrels per day in 2017.
For 2017, global oil demand growth was revised higher by around 35,000 barrels per day, the report said, adding this was a result of colder weather conditions and healthy vehicle sales in OECD Europe, in addition to improved assumptions for petrochemical feedstock requirements in OECD Asia Pacific.
OPEC noted that several assumptions have been considered in 2017 projections. Firstly, global economic activities are anticipated to rise by around 3.2 percent with economic development in the OECD region rising solidly above 2016 levels.
Secondly, road transportation is anticipated to continue to be the driving factor for oil demand growth in 2017, primarily as a result of anticipated high vehicle sales in the US, Europe, China and India.
Thirdly, the expanding petrochemical sectors in the US and China are projected to lend support to petrochemical feedstock.
On the other hand, efficiencies, supported by technological advancements, are forecast to partly hinder increases in transportation sector fuel requirements and to a lesser extent in the residential sector. Potential reductions in subsidies are expected to have a negative impact on oil consumption.
Additionally, substitution by other fuels is also accounted for in the 2017 oil demand projections.
OECD oil demand is anticipated to increase by around 0.2 million barrels per day, with OECD Americas and Europe being firmly in the positive, while Asia Pacific is expected to continue to decline. The non-OECD growth is expected to be around 1 million barrels per day.
In 2016 global oil demand hit 94.62 million barrels per day, according to OPEC. The upward revision for 2016 was primarily a reflection of better-than-expected data from OECD Europe and Asia Pacific with support coming from the petrochemical sector and colder-than-anticipated weather.
Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
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Waitrose has rebranded its lamb ready meals after coming under fire from both customers and the farming sector for using misleading labels.
Farmers voiced their anger last year after it was discovered that the supermarkets lamb ready meals which are branded Waitrose British are in fact made with lamb from New Zealand.
On Monday, the retailer announced all the British lamb meals will be rebranded as Classic. But shoppers still shared their anger on social media over the issue.
Recommended Whitbread added pork to beef lasagne before updating all menus
Dairy farmer Robert Martin said in a Tweet: @waitrose why are you using New Zealand lamb in your British lamb dishes? Shame on you for not supporting British suppliers.
Dairy farmer Miranda Bowen said: @waitrose British menu? Made with New Zealand lamb. This is very misleading! Why not use #Britishlamb? #Supportlocal
A spokesperson for Waitrose on Monday said the new packaging is being printed as we speak.
Waitrose said: To ensure the provenance of the lamb in the meals is clearer (it has always been on back of pack) we have stickered all packs on the front. We are about to re-launch the range with the branding Classic, removing the large British reference from the front of pack.
This was only ever supposed to denote the origin of the recipe but we understand why confusion has arisen.
In a statement, National Farmers' Union President Meurig Raymond said the farming sector welcomes the changes.
We made our concerns very clear to Waitrose right from the beginning on this product. The inclusion of the word British in the brand name despite the meat being sourced from New Zealand is misleading for shoppers - and its frustrating for British farmers, especially those who produce lamb Waitrose could have sourced, he said.
Food and drink news Show all 35 1 /35 Food and drink news Food and drink news Healthy living makes us more inclined to binge, research suggests Gluten-free breads, dairy-free milks and other plant-based products have been some of the most favoured foods in British supermarkets this year. However, while were busy filling our shopping trolleys with gluten-free goodness, were also jamming it with junk food and alcohol, new research suggests Getty/iStock Food and drink news Growing list of Vegan celebs Making the switch to veganism is a major lifestyle choice, one that many claim can improve energy levels, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and clear up any skin issues. Beyonce, Natalie Portman and Jessica Chastain are among the growing list of Hollywood stars who have eschewed animal products from their diets in recent years. Theres also been an increasing number of professional athletes who have gone vegan, such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and David Haye, thus debunking the myth that following a plant-based diet will leave you feeling weak and malnourished. AFP/Getty/NARAS/iHeartMedia Food and drink news McDonald's has announced the launch of a new vegan burger on its menu in Germany This will mark the first time the German franchise of the fast food chain has offered a vegan burger to its customers. The Big Vegan TS burger consists of a patty made from soy and wheat. It is served in a classic sesame seed bun, and contains salad, tomato, pickles and red onion. McDonald's Germany Food and drink news Drinking too many protein shakes could lead to an increased risk of obesity and a reduced lifespan, a new study has claimed Researchers from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre carried out an investigation to determine the impact excessive consumption of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) has on the body. BCAA supplements are often consumed in the form of powder, which is then added to water to make a shake. Published in journal Nature Metabolism, the study found that while BCAAs help to build muscle, they can also negatively impact an individual's temperament, cause weight gain and lead to a shortened lifespan Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Britain consumes more chocolate than any other country Most people love chocolate but it turns out no one does more than the Brits with the average Brit found to have consumed 8.4 kg of chocolate in 2017, according to new data. Chocolate consumption around the world is on the rise, according to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD), which found that in the past year alone, Easter chocolate production has risen by 23 per cent Food and drink news 'Easter eggs should be banned for children under four' Dr Becky Spelman, chief psychologist at Harley Streets Private Therapy Clinic, is calling for Easter eggs to be banned for consumption for children under the age of four, claiming that giving them the opportunity to binge on chocolate so young will give them an unhealthy relationship with food later on. "This is a nightmare situation for parents of this generation as they have no idea how to teach their children to delay their response to cravings, she said, explaining that too many young kids binge on these chocolates because their parents dont know how to stop them. "Once a child starts overeating behaviour at a young age its very hard to turn things around for them in terms of food and their eating habits moving forward, leading to obesity from at very young age," she added PA Food and drink news Pineapple overtakes avocado as the UK's fastest-selling fruit According to Tesco, pineapple has overtaken avocado as the UKs fastest-selling fruit, with sales increasing by 15 per cent in 2017. In comparison, avocado sales rose by just under 10 per cent last year. The popular supermarket says the surge in popularity comes as shoppers buying the versatile fruit are beginning to use it as a main ingredient in everything from curries and barbecues, to juices and cocktails Getty Food and drink news Marks & Spencers launches stoneless avocados Rather than the result of genetic modification, the avocados are formed by an unpollinated avocado blossom. The fruit develops without a seed which in turns stops the growth, creating a small, seedless fruit. Whats more, the skin is actually edible, unlike a regular avocado. The flesh is much like that of a normal avocado - smooth and creamy, pale in colour and rich in flavour M&S Food and drink news Office teabags contain 17 times more germs than a toilet seat, reveals study The average bacterial reading of an office teabag was 3,785, in comparison to only 220 for a toilet seat. Other pieces of kitchen equipment also stacked up highly in their findings, with the bacterial readings averaging at 2,483 on kettle handles, 1,746 on the rim of a used mug and 1,592 on a fridge door handle Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New study shows drinking more coffee leads to a longer life There is good news and a final hope for coffee addicts and lovers. You will now be able to drink coffee for longer as new study shows its can lead to a prolonged life. Scientists showed that those who drank between two and four cups of coffee a day had 18% lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers. PA Food and drink news Coke Zero is replaced with Coke Zero Sugar Coca-Cola is pulling the plug on its Coke Zero. The much loved drink will be replaced with a new improved taste. The move, backed with a 10 million campaign, is said to come from Coca-Cola supporting people to reduce their sugar intake. Coca-Cola want people make this move while not sacrificing sugary taste of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Food and drink news Starbucks introduce new avocado spread The avocado craze has grown from hipster brunch restaurants to Starbucks. Starbucks have introduced their new avocado spread earlier this year and it has the internet in debate. Some argue that it not a spread but guacamole while others question if there is any avocado in there at all. When buying the new spread you can also buy an optional toasted bagel. It is a must try for all avocado connoisseurs. Starbucks Food and drink news New Mars chocolate bar The iconic British chocolate bar is about to get its partner in crime. The new bar, named Goodness Knows, will replace the gooey caramel goodness of the mars bar with oats. It is said to be more like a Florentine biscuit with a thin dark chocolate bottom. While being moderately healthy Mars says that is has good intentions. One pack has 154 calories and will sell for about 90p. Mars Food and drink news Wine prices could increase because of Brexit Wine lovers across the UK might soon have to shell out close to a quarter more for their favourite tipple after Brexit, as a weaker pound and sluggish economy takes its toll, a new study shows Rex Food and drink news Chocolate may be good for the heart A new study, published in the British Medical Journal: Heart, found that moderate chocolate intake can be positively associated with lessening the risk of the heart arrhythmia condition Atrial Fibrillation Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Brits throw away 1.4 million bananas each year British families are throwing away 1.4 million bananas that are perfectly good to eat every day at cost of 80m a year, new figures have shown PA/Armin Weigel Food and drink news Rosemary sales spike over exam time There has been a surge a surge in sales of the herb rosemary after a recent study found it helps improve memory. According to high street health food chain Holland & Barrett, sales of the herb have increased by 187 per cent compared to the same time last year Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Gluten-free diets 'not recommended' for people without coeliac disease Avoiding wheat, barley and rye in the belief that a gluten-free diet brings health benefits may do more harm than good, according to a team of US nutrition and medicine experts Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Starbucks launches two new coffee-based drinks Starbucks is launching two new coffee-based drinks in the UK, as it strives to tap into consumers growing appetite for healthy beverages. The Cold Brew Vanilla sweet cream and the Cappuccino Freddo, will both be available in stores throughout the UK from the start of May Twitter/@SbuxCountyHall Food and drink news Cadburys Dairy Milk Tiffin is making a permanent comeback after 80 years The Cadbury Dairy Milk Tiffin, first produced in 1937, is making a permanent comeback to the UK. The raisin and biscuit-filled chocolate bar is being launched after a successful trial last summer saw 3 million chocolate treats at the cost of 1.49 for each 95g bar- purchased by nostalgic customers Cadburys Food and drink news Pizza restaurant makes worlds cheesiest 'Scottie's Pizza Parlor' in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Facebook/Scottie's Pizza Parlor Food and drink news A pizza joint in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Why not eating before a workout could be better for your health A study published in the American Journal of Physiology by researchers at the University of Bath found you might be likely to burn more fat if you have not eaten first Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New York restaurant named best in the world A New York restaurant where an average meal for two will cost $700 has been named the best in the world. Eleven Madison Park won the accolade for the first time after debuting on the list at number 50 in 2010. The restaurant was praised for a fun sense of fine-dining, blurring the line between the kitchen and the dining room Getty Images Food and drink news Why you crave bad food when youre tired Researchers at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago recently presented their results of a study looking into the effects of sleep deprivation upon high-calorific food consumption. Researchers found that those who were sleep-deprived had specifically enhanced brain activity to the food smells compared to when they had a good nights sleep Shutterstock Food and drink news Drinking wine engages more of your brain than solving maths problems Drinking wine is the ideal workout for your brain, engaging more parts of our grey matter than any other human behaviour, according to a leading neuroscientist. Dr Gordon Shepherd, from the Yale School of Medicine, said sniffing and analysing a wine before drinking it requires exquisite control of one of the biggest muscles in the body Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news British dessert eating surges after people ditch healthy eating in February : In heartening news for anyone feeling guilty about quitting their New Year diet, it seems lots of us have given in to our sweet tooths once again. New data from nationwide food-delivery service Deliveroo reveals there was a surge in Brits ordering desserts in February compared to the first month of 2017 Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news US congress debates definition of milk alternatives A new bill has been created that seeks to ban dairy alternatives from using the term milk. Titled the DAIRY PRIDE Act, the name is a tenuous acronym for defending against imitations and replacements of yogurt, milk, and cheese to promote regular intake of dairy every day. It argues that the dairy industry is struggling as a result of all the dairy-free alternatives on the market and the public are being duped too Getty Images Food and drink news Cadburys launches two new chocolate bars UK confectionary giant Cadbury has launched two new chocolate bars, hoping to lure those with a sweet tooth and perhaps help combat some of the challenges it faces from rising commodity prices and a post-Brexit slump in the value of the pound.The companys new products will be peanut butter and mint flavoured. They will be available in most major super markets as 120g bars, priced at 1.49, according to the company Cadburys Food and drink news You can now get a job as a professional chocolate eater The company responsible for some of your favourite chocolate brands think Cadbury, Milks, Prince and Oreo have officially announced an opening to join their team as a professional chocolate taster. The successful candidate will help them to test, perfect and launch new products all over the world. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news MSG additive used in Chinese food is actually good for you, scientist claims For years, weve been told MSG (the sodium salt of glutamic acid) - often associated with cheap Chinese takeaways - is awful for our health and to be avoided at all costs. But one scientist argues it should be used as a supersalt and encourages adding it to food. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Lettuce prices are rising Not only are lettuces becoming an increasingly rare commodity in supermarkets, but prices for the leafy vegetables seem to be rising too. According to the weekly report from the Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a pair of Little Gem lettuces had an average market price of 0.86 in the week that ended on Friday, up from an average of 0.56 in the previous week thats an almost 54 per cent increase. Getty Images Food and drink news Do-It-Yourself restaurant To encourage more people to cook and eat together, IKEA has launched The Dining Club in Shoreditch a fully immersive Do-It-Yourself restaurant . Members of the public can book to host a brunch, lunch or dinner party for up to 20 friends and family. Supported by their very own sous chef and maitre de, the host and their guests will orchestrate an intimate dining experience where cooking together is celebrated and eating together is inspirational Mikael Buck / IKEA Food and drink news Ping Pong menu with a twist Gatwick Airport has teamed up with London dim sum restaurant Ping Pong to create a limited edition menu with a distinctly British twist; including a Full English Bao and Beef Wellington Puff, to celebrate the launch of the airports new route to Hong Kong Food and drink news Zizzi unveil the Maamgharita Unique pizza art has been created by Zizzi in celebration of the Queens 90th birthday. The pizza features the queen in an iconic pose illustrated with fresh and tasty Italian ingredients on a backdrop of the Union Jack Food and drink news Blue potatoes make a comeback Blue potatoes, once a staple part of British potato crops, are back on the menu thanks to a Cambridge scientist turned-organic farmer and Farmdrop, an online marketplace that lets people buy direct from local farms. Cambridge PhD graduate-turned farmer, Adrian Izzard has used traditional growing techniques at Wild Country Organics to produce the colourful spuds, packed with healthy cell-protecting anthocyanin, which had previously disappeared from UK plates when post-war farmers were pushed towards higher-yielding varieties
It is not the first time that Waitrose has been criticised over the use of its New Zealand lamb.
In April last year, sheep farmers voiced their anger after the retailer marketed New Zealand lamb under its Duchy brand licensed for sole use by Waitrose and set up by Prince Charles to promote the best of British produce.
The retailer on Monday said it had challenged suppliers to explore the practicalities of using more British lamb in ready meals available at their stores.
At the moment, because of our policy of only buying from our dedicated supply chain and using the whole carcass, we do not have sufficient raw material available to make this change but, nevertheless, we are exploring this option, a spokesperson for Waitrose said.
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Nasa might soon launch our best ever chance of meeting aliens.
The space agency is putting together plans to send a lander to Europa, one of Jupiters moons and perhaps the most likely place to harbour extraterrestrial life anywhere near us. But first it will have to work out how it can actually land on a surface about which it knows next to nothing.
The agency started seriously exploring the possibility by commissioning a report on the value of sending a lander onto the icy surface of the moon. That report has now arrived and Nasa is looking to explore its findings with the scientific community.
Watch Nasa's "Longest Hail Mary Pass Ever"
The missions work will be divided up into three goals. The first and most important will be the search for life, but the other two are to look at how habitable Europa might be, and to explore the possibility of future robotic exploration of the moon and its oceans.
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Scientists expect that Europa has a large saltwater ocean underneath the icy crust that we can see. That has twice as much water as the oceans on Earth do, scientists expect. Those circumstances and others have led scientists to conclude that Europe is probably one of the most likely places to find present-day life outside of Earth, and it is relatively close by.
As such, scientists hope that the plan to send a life-detecting robot to the planet the first time that has happened at Nasa since the Viking mission more than 40 years ago. But they also have to cope with the fact that the icy surface of the moon is almost entirely unknown, and that it has no atmosphere and so cant make use of things like a heat shield or parachutes.
Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region
The lander is being prepared ready for after Nasas solar-powered flyby of Europa is expected to launch in the early 2020s. That will be able to take a variety of high-definition images of the ocean and the icy shell that surrounds it, helping us learn more about the surface before sending a lander onto the planet.
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Best-selling author Juno Dawson has claimed a school cancelled her event because she is transgender.
Dawson, a teen novelist who is best known for This book is gay and Mind your head, was due to talk about her new book Margo & Me at Brownedge St Marys Catholic High School in Preston on Wednesday.
But the author claimed she was informed with just 48 hours notice that the event had been cancelled. She said a member of school staff told a representative of the company organising the talk that it had been considered inappropriate and the subject matter meant they didnt think it was suitable.
The school, which has been applauded for its work on LGBT rights, denied the visit had been cancelled, instead insisting it had simply been postponed. However, the novelist has insisted no one has been in touch with her to reschedule and attempts to arrange something were rejected.
Dawson, who came out as transgender in 2015, argued there was nothing inappropriate about the book for an audience of school pupils. The novel is written for people in their early teens and explores a grandmother and granddaughter in South Wales during World War II.
Its a perfectly appropriate book for that audience, Dawson told BuzzFeed News. All week Ive been speaking to year sevens and eights with no problems in a mixture of grammar schools, private schools, faith schools, all sorts of different schools.
Transgender in Pakistan Show all 16 1 /16 Transgender in Pakistan Transgender in Pakistan Dancing at Shakeela's party, an event to celebrate a transgender life in middle-age Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Venue staff members watch people dance at Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Security searches guests as people arrive at Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Members of the transgender community dance at Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Shakeela, a member of the transgender community, works in the kitchen at home in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan 'It's the first time a transgender party has been held openly,' says activist Farzana Jan Transgender in Pakistan Farzana Jan, a member of the transgender community, poses for a photographer ahead of Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Guests at Shakeela's party Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Money thrown by the guests is used by people to help them start a new business or project Transgender in Pakistan Rani smiles from behind her make-up as she prepares for the party Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Shakeela resting at her home in Peshawar Reuters Transgender in Pakistan A photo hangs on the wall in the home of members of the transgender community in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Make up lies on the floor as members of the transgender community prepare for Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters Transgender in Pakistan A guest counts money she plans to throw at Shakeela's party Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Bubbly helps Shakeela with her dress as members of her own family watch on Reuters Transgender in Pakistan Chahat, a member of the transgender community, prepares for Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan Reuters
She said she was shocked her visit had been cancelled, saying: I went through stages the first was I felt personally attacked and quite mortified. But then I became angry as I very quickly realised that you cant do that you cant discriminate against people on the basis of their gender.
There will be young people at Brownedge who will be LGBT. Those kids knew I was coming and now Im not. It beggars belief. One does wonder what kind of support those kids are getting.
She tweeted: Im so cross. The LGBTA students @BrownedgeStMary knew I was coming and now that Im not. What message does that send them? Fuming.
The talk had been widely promoted, with posters in the library and notes to parents. We cant wait to welcome you to our school and hear about your new book, #MargotandMe, the school said in what appears to be a since-deleted tweet.
The head-teacher of the school told the publication the event had not been cancelled and outrightly denied the allegation of discrimination.
I asked for the visit to be postponed to a later date not cancelled, he said in a statement. The postponement of Junos visit was not due to the fact that Juno Dawson is transgender We would never discriminate against any individual on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity as we teach our children that each individual person is precious and unique.
A representative said she felt the subject matter meant that a visit was inappropriate at this time because we wanted a proper context for it so that our younger students could get more value out of it , he added. We wanted more time to do this theme justice for our younger students.
Dawson, who grew up in West Yorkshire, is the multi-award-winning author of six novels for young adults. In 2015, she announced she was planning to undergo gender transition and live as a woman.
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The Cold War may be over, but cyber war between Russia and the West is hotting up, according to the Governments new cyber-security chief.
Britain is increasingly being targeted by Russian state-sponsored cyber attacks, including attempts to steal top-secret national security details and to intervene in the democratic process, claims Ciaran Martin, who heads up GCHQs new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
Mr Martin made his comments in an interview with The Sunday Times, warning that Britain is being hit by 60 significant cyber-attacks each month, some of which attempt to undermine the democratic process as well as national security.
Concern has been growing about the amount of so-called fake news coming from Russian media outlets which is seen as being a concerted disinformation campaign by the Kremlin to disrupt world politics, including in the UK.
An attempt to disrupt the 2015 general election was thwarted by GCHQ in a cyber attack the security service said was the first of its kind.
US intelligence services have accused the Russian state of intervening in the Presidential election after Russian-sponsored hackers are believed to have targeted the Democrat headquarters and accessed thousands of emails.
Weve got some very capable adversaries, but weve done a good job in detecting and managing those sorts of attacks, Mr Martin said.
However, the level of sophistication is such that we keep very vigilant and I expect that there will be a category 1 incident at some point in the future.
And he claimed that as well as trying to uncover sensitive Government information, Russian and Chinese-sponsored hackers were going for soft targets including charities and local councils for personal data and universities for potentially lucrative research.
Mr Martin revealed that over the past three months, there have been 188 category 2 and 3 cyber-attacks made against the UK Government in the last three months, many of which he said threatened national security.
He said these attacks generally involved hundreds of thousands of smaller attacks, such as phishing emails to Government departments and businesses.
In the case of Government departments, [it is] getting into the system to extract information on UK Government policy on anything from energy to diplomacy to information on a particular sector.
With companies, it could be to steal intellectual property and sometimes you would get states in that business, he said.
But he said he remains optimistic that despite a step change in the activities of hackers, the war against cyber crime can eventually be won.
We cant eliminate the threat, but defeatism drives me mad.
We shouldnt be defeatist about this theres plenty we can do to strengthen defences at all levels.
I want them to see the UK as the hardest target (and they do) . . . and I want anyone who is hacking the UK to see us as the hardest target.
His comments come in the same week as it was announced British schoolchildren are to be offered modules in cyber security as part of the war against hacking.
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Labour in now the third most popular party among working-class voters, a new poll has revealed, suggesting it could lose upcoming by-elections in Stoke and Cumbria.
Research undertaken by YouGov found that blue collar voters are now less likely to vote Labour than they are for the Tories or Ukip for the first time in the partys history.
The survey's findings are likely to add to calls for leader Jeremy Corbyn to stand down as some MPs and activists fear the party could be wiped out in areas traditionally seen as its heartlands in the north and midlands.
The poll, carried out for The Times, puts the Tories on 40 per cent,16 points ahead of Labour on 24 per cent, with Ukip closing the gap to just 10 points behind Labour on 14 per cent.
But perhaps the most worrying figure for Labour is the working-class approval rate, with Ukip now on 23 per cent compared to Labour on 20 per cent and the Conservatives surging ahead among lower income voters to 39 per cent.
Voters in the Labour-held seat of Stoke Central go to the polls on 23 February in what promises to be a tight race for its candidate Gareth Snell against Ukip leader Paul Nuttall.
After he took over leadership of the party from Nigel Farage, Mr Nuttall said his aim was to "replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.
Labour MPs have found themselves in a difficult position since the EU referendum, where two thirds of Labour-held constituencies voted to leave, placing many of the party's traditional voters at odds with their MPs who overwhelmingly backed remain.
Stoke was branded Brexit country after the referendum revealed the Potteries city had the highest percentage of leave voters in the country at 70 per cent.
Labour faces another difficult challenge from the Tories in Copeland, Cumbria, a constituency which also voted to leave.
Since the Brexit vote, the majority of Labour MPs have appeared anxious to stress they will not obstruct the will of the people and voted with the Government to trigger Article 50 although more than 50 of its MPs rebelled against a three-line whip.
Labour replaced campaign manager Jon Trickett with Ian Lavery this week amid rising panic the party could lose in Stoke.
Mr Corbyn is planning to visit Stoke this weekend, but is understood to have no plans to campaign in Copeland, with some party insiders claiming he has been asked to stay away as he does not go down well on the doorstep.
Ukip activist John Bickley was forced to apologise yesterday after tweeting a cartoon with the slogan: If you want a jihadi for a neighbour, vote Labour.
The slogan echoes a famously racist campaign slogan from the 1964 by-election in Smethwick when the Tories published a poster with the slogan: If you want a n***er for a neighbour, vote Labour.
Mr Bickley said in a statement: Yesterday I retweeted a cartoon about the potential consequences of Labours support for uncontrolled immigration without realising it relied on a rhyme that had been used in an election in 1964 in racially abusive context.
I have since deleted the retweet and apologise for any offence caused.
But things have not gone entirely smoothly for Labours candidate either, with Mr Snell forced to apologise after a series of his old tweets revealed he had used insulting language towards various women.
Mr Snell ranted about a stupid woman, a speccy blond girl and squabbling sour faced ladies appearing on TV during various political debates.
Mr Snell said: "I shoudnt have tweeted those comments and I apologise for any offence caused.
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Labour MPs have branded David Davis disgusting and a misogynist over remarks he made about Diane Abbott implying she wasnt attractive enough to kiss.
Brexit Secretary Mr Davis sent what he believed was a private text saying, I am not blind, referring to claims he tried to embrace Shadow Home Secretary Ms Abbott after she reluctantly voted with the Government to pass the Brexit Bill.
Dawn Butler, Labour MP for Brent Central, expressed her feelings on Twitter, saying: Everything about this upsets me. Being a black woman in spotlight is (very) hard. Feminists speak up. David Davis is a disgusting man.
Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakramabi accused Mr Davis of being patronising while senior Labour MP Chukku Umunna said the remarks were sexist and appalling.
Mr Daviss texts, sent to an unnamed friend said to be a Tory politician, were leaked to the Mail on Sunday.
Ms Abbott, who became the UKs first black female MP in the 1980s, told Mr Davis to fuck off following the Commons vote last week after he was reported to have made a light-hearted attempt to embrace her.
In the text exchange, his friend said: Cannot believe you made an attempt to give DA a hug! accompanied by a frowning face emoji.
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Mr Davis replies: Didnt, but the myth grows. I whispered in her ear, Thanks for your vote, hence the F off. I am not blind.
His friends replied: Ha! Ha! Thanks God you arent blind. Great week for you and Brexit! accompanied by a kiss emoji.
Mr Davis replied: Actually it would make a good Optical Express advert Yes, a reasonable success.
Mr Davis appears to have confused an advertising campaign in his last text, meaning to have referred to Specsavers the opticians whose adverts about mistaken identity carry the slogan Should have gone to Specsavers.
A spokesman for Mr Davis said: This was a self- evidently jocular and private exchange with a friend.
The Secretary of State is very sorry for any offence caused to Miss Abbott, someone he has known and respected for many years.
But his apology was not enough to prevent Labour MPs from lining up to condemn his remarks today.
Appearing on ITVs Preston on Sunday, Yvette Cooper said: I am sick of the vile, sexist and racist things we've seen thrown at Diane.
David Davis and others need to have a bit of responsibility."
Mr Umunna told Skys Sophy Ridge: I think it's sexist, I think it's misogynistic ... It's appalling.
David Davis, he is a member of the Cabinet. What does that say about that party to the country, your viewers, if he is coming out with that sort of thing about a very respected long-serving member of the House of Commons?
Sharon Hodgson, Labour MP for Sunderland West, called his comments a total and utter disgrace while West Ham MP Lyn Brown branded him a thoroughly unpleasant man.
Jess Phillips, a Labour MP known for her forthright way with words, said on Twitter: Intimation is that if he found her attractive he would have tried to kiss her, so thats OK then, Vile sexist man.
And she added: Love the excuses of male banter, might wanna get new mates who dont screenshot your texts and send them to the paper.
Referring to the pivotal role Mr Davis will play in the forthcoming negotiations as the UK exits the EU, Ms Phillips said: Im sure we all feel really sure that David Davis will be thinking about womens rights in negotiations.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry joined in the Twitter condemnation, comparing his behaviour to that of President Donald Trump, who said he wouldnt have assaulted some of the women who made allegations against him because they werent attractive enough.
Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, branded the tweets sexual harassment on Twitter.
Conservative MPs have so far remained tight-lipped on the matter, with none breaking ranks to condemn Mr Davis publicly.
Appearing on Preston on Sunday, Commons Leader David Liddington said: He is embarrassed by (the remarks) and has given an apology. I hope Dianne Abbott accepts that apology.
David appears to accept he has made a misjudgement. We move on.
A local Conservative official was suspended from his party last week after retweeting an image that depicted Ms Abbott as an ape wearing lipstick who should be in a zoo.
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 Hackney MP is no stranger to controversy, and was accused of racism in 2012 when she said on Twitter: White people love playing divide and rule. We should not play their game #tactics of colonialism.
Ms Abbott, who received criticism when she failed to vote following the second reading of the bill to trigger Article 50, has so far declined to comment on Mr Davis texts.
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Former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan has warned that the Conservatives risk being seen as a mean-hearted party following reports that it cancelled a scheme to help lone child refugees.
In words reminiscent of Theresa Mays famous speech warning how people believed the Tories were the nasty party, Ms Morgan said the Conservatives approach to child refugees goes to the heart of the kind of party we want to be.
The article from the ex-education secretary comes amid outrage at the Governments decision to limit to 350 the number of unaccompanied refugee children to be welcomed to the UK under a scheme that had meant to help 3,000.
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It will also further strain tensions between Ms Morgan and Ms May following clashes over Brexit, school places for immigrant children and even the Prime Ministers leather trousers.
In her ConservativeHome piece published on Monday, Ms Morgan highlighted an email she received from one constituent who said the Tories seemed hell-benton closing our doors to migrants in desperate need of our humanity.
MPs had believed they were rescuing some 3,000 children when they passed the Dubs Amendment to the Immigration Act in 2016, but a low-key ministerial statement last week revealed the initiative would be limited at 350.
Ms Morgan wrote: Across the UK, there are 217 upper-tier and unitary local authorities with responsibility for childrens services, meaning that the 400 Dubs children dont even equate to two unaccompanied children per local authority.
While the issues of immigration, integration, how we treat those seeking refuge and, in particular, how we look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children matter as policy questions in their own right, our approach to them also goes to the heart of the kind of party we want to be. And the kind of country we want to lead and to live in.
She added: As a party known for strong economic management, the Conservatives must work doubly hard to avoid appearing to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Yvette Cooper calls backtrack on Dubs amendment 'shameful'
Ms Morgan said the decision to limit the Dubs scheme and other government policies would lead to a cumulative impact on the future decisions of voters on whether to back the Conservatives.
She wrote: Britain has always been a global, outward-facing country as well as being compassionate to those who need our help most. The Conservative Party now needs to demonstrate that combination in our approach to issues such as the Dubs children.
The Labour Peer behind the child refugee scheme, Alf Dubs, has delivered a petition with 50,000 names to Downing Street calling for it to be extended. He branded the Governments limit to the initiative a very shabby cop-out.
Before she became Prime Minister in 2002, Ms May made a controversial speech warning that the partys reputation was in tatters.
Ms May said at the time: Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us the nasty party.
I know thats unfair. You know thats unfair, but its the people out there we need to convince and we can only do that by avoiding behaviour and attitudes that play into the hands of our opponents.
She added: We need to reach out to all areas of our society.
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The Government will for the first time enshrine into law an explicit duty for the Justice Secretary to ensure that prisons are places of rehabilitation rather than just punishment.
In a speech on Monday Liz Truss, the incumbent Justice Secretary, will say she wants the ballooning prison population to go down but for the right reasons.
In the address at the Centre for Social Justice think-tank, she will also accuse Labour of being reckless and is expected to take care to distance herself from the opposition on details, despite the speech suggesting a new consensus between the main parties that the prison population should come down.
The Secretary of State will admit that sometimes interventions against problems ranging from drug addiction to mental health issues dont work as well as they should and that the prison service must get better at rehabilitating offenders.
Early intervention is not a nice to have added extra to the justice system, it is vital if we are ever to break the cycle of crime, punishment and more crime, she will say.
Ms Truss is expected to tell her audience that the coming Prisons and Courts Bill, due to be published this month, will for the first time enshrine in law that reforming offenders is a key purpose of prison and that the Secretary of State has a responsibility for delivering it.
This will usher in the biggest reform of our prisons in a generation, she will say. It will transform our prisons from offender warehouses to disciplined and purposeful centres of reform.
From places of violence and despair to places of self-improvement and hope where all prisoners are given the chance to lead a better life.
Ms Trusss intervention, however, comes just months after the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) watchdog warned that previous plans for better rehabilitation were far from complete and there remain serious risks to achieving the performance levels expected.
Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the committee that produced the report, said at the time there was a real danger the MoJ had bitten off more than it can chew.
In her speech tomorrow, Ms Truss will continue: We all agree it is desirable to have a lower prison population but it has to be for the right reasons.
Liz Truss will admit that sometimes interventions against problems dont work as well as they should (PA)
Public protection is paramount, which means managing the prison population in a safe and sustainable way.
So over time the prison population will go down if Her Majestys Prison and Probation Service has got better at reforming offenders. It will go down if we have got better at intervening earlier. And it will go down if we have got better at managing the population inside. And I am committed to delivering this.
Reductions by cap or quota, or by sweeping sentencing cuts are not a magic bullet, they are a dangerous attempt at a quick fix.
Labours shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti has previously warned of an authoritarian arms race in prison sentencing. The prison population in England and Wales nearly doubled between June 1993 and June 2012 by 41,800 prisoners to more than 86,000.
UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images 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
Baroness Chakrabarti said at the end of last year that she did not believe the sum of human wickedness has doubled in my adult lifetime.
Labours shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgeon said: It's about time Justice Secretary Truss stopped mud-slinging and took responsibility. Liz Truss knows full well it is not and never has been Labours policy to halve the prison population. Labours policy is to properly fund and run our prison and probation service, make the safety of prison staff a top priority and make society safer by jailing those who are a threat to public safety. Labour will make rehabilitation work.
Conservatives in power have made a mess of our prison and probation service and have created the current prisons crisis. This is dangerous for staff, dangerous for inmates and dangerous for the public. We await with interest the Prisons and Courts Bill which will hopefully have some of the detail Liz Truss's White Paper failed to provide."
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Theresa Mays plans for new grammar schools have been an unnecessary distraction from the need to equip young people to meet the demands of the workplace, according to the chair of parliaments Education Committee, Neil Carmichael MP.
Mr Carmichaels committee has just published a report on the case for new grammar schools, a policy that was rushed out by Theresa Mays government in her first days in an official was photographed carrying plans for them out of Number 10 Downing Street.
Mr Carmichael said: The Government has yet to prove the case for opening a new wave of grammar schools. The Prime Minister rightly talks of making Britain a great meritocracy. If the Government wants to push ahead with new grammar schools it must demonstrate how this aids social mobility and improves educational outcomes for all, most especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
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The focus on opening new grammar schools is, in my view, an unnecessary distraction from the need to ensure all our young people are equipped with the skills to compete in the modern workplace. A broadly skilled workforce is crucial to the future success of the UK economy. If the Government is committed to increased specialisation in our education system then they should spell out how this meets the aims of the Industrial Strategy and the goal of an economy that works for all.
The report commends certain aspects of the policy, including the evidence given by Schools Minister Justine Greening, who said it absolutely will be a condition of approval of any new grammar schools that they will have to demonstrate how they are going to help other schools in the area.
But it said it is clear that for such an idea to be implemented in reality, a thorough assessment of the impact of introducing new grammar schools on the wider school system will be needed, that includes the potential consequences for school funding, the supply of teachers, and the overall health of schools in England from expanding selective education.
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A Canada court case is soon to establish whether a child sex doll constitutes child pornography.
The case was brought in Newfoundland after resident Kenneth Harrison ordered a doll from Japan, which was intercepted at the airport. The box was labelled "Foam Rubber dummy for massage purposes."
Harrisons order was delivered by police four years ago and he was arrested after receiving the unassembled item.
He never opened it, according to CBC, but was charged with possessing child pornography.
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The case began last January and resumes 14 February.
Harrison, a 51-year-old electrician who does not have a criminal record, faces four charges including using the mail to deliver something obscene.
He has pled not guilty.
Experts have disagreed whether the item, shipped in a cardboard box from abroad, constitutes pornography.
Dr James Cantor, a clinical psychologist, told CBC that child pornography is evidence itself of a crime being committed, which is not the case with a doll.
"There is no actual person. It is a piece of latex. So, if there is no victim where is there, exactly, a harm being committed?"
But Dr Peter Collins, an associate professor at the University of Toronto and a forensic psychiatrist who has been sent photos of the doll to make his determination and present it at court, said the doll would meet the criteria of child pornography.
Harrison said in a statement to CBC: "I do not condone child abuse in any way, shape or form. Any child abuse should be reported immediately to the proper authorities."
His order was intercepted by police after it was flagged by the Canada Border Services Agency in the International Mail Processing Centre in Toronto in January 2013.
The name of the manufacturer, Harumi Designs Division of SIMA International Inc - was on a CBSA watch list.
According to a statement from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, the box contained "a prepubescent female doll, made of a foam-like consistency, that stands at 130 cm, approximately four-foot-two. It comes with clothes and other optional accessories. Some of those accessories could be and can be used for sexual gratification purposes."
The doll was not shown in the court room; it had been re-sealed with tape.
It has not yet been decided whether the doll will be displayed to the public.
Harrisons defence lawyer Bob Buckingham filed an application to have judge Mark Pike recuse himself from the case after he issued a search warrant prior to the defendants arrest. Mr Pike disagreed with the claim that he could not rule impartially.
Harrison is not in custody and the trial begins on Wednesday.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Elena Kosolapova Trend:
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev congratulated Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on his election as Turkmenistans president and invited him to visit Kazakhstan in the near future, the Kazakh presidents press service said Feb. 13.
Nazarbayev said the strategic partnership between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan has become more dynamic year by year since establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Kazakhstan praises your contribution to the strengthening of Turkmen peoples unity, political and economic development of the country, added Nazarbayev in his letter.
A presidential election was held on Feb. 12 in Turkmenistan.
Berdimuhamedov was re-elected for a third term with 97.69 percent of votes, according to the Central Election Commission (CEC).
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
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It sounds like something straight out of a dystopian sci-fi flick, but like many peculiarities emerging with the Trump administration, its not; people across America are building doomsday bunkers in hoards.
It is not a new business by any stretch, but demand for underground bunkers is at an all-time high according to Clyde Scott, owner of Rising Bunkers, based in Texas.
He said be believed the growth in business was politically driven.
The overwhelming majority of customers are in the (Rising Bunkers ) (Rising Bunker)
The current administration is a no back down administration.then you have hotheads like Kim Jong Un and Putin, Mr Scott told The Independent.
Sales are up 400 per cent for Rising Bunkers in the past two months, said Mr Scott, who noted his bunker business- apparently the largest in the world - is already a $10m-a-year business.
While Rising Bunkers is an international operation, 99 per cent of demand comes from the US, said Mr Scott.
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Mike Peters of Ultimate Bunker, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, said he has been seeing a rise in demand over the past three years, which he also attributed to the election and the political climate.
The men said the largest demand for bunkers came specifically from conservative-leaning individuals, in wealthy areas, who fear a nuclear holocaust is imminent, though Mr Scott said some liberals are also trickling into the underground scene.
The New Yorker recently reported that a number of wealthy people from Silicon Valley were investing in boltholes for themselves and their families - fearing the potential for imminent societal collapse.
The crowd has evolved though, said Mr Peters.
When people thought Hillary was going to be elected, I was getting calls for gun vaults because everyone was afraid of losing their guns, he said.
Now that Hillary is out of the picture, the gun people have settled down, said Mr Peters. Now were getting calls primarily because of nuclear talk and tensions with Russia.
The demand is not specific to Mr Trumps actions per se, he emphasised. People have just come to the point where they understand that this is going to happen.
Its not only the threat of nuclear warfare, however, that has the fearful scrambling to erect these underground homes, it is also the threat of civil unrest, according to Mr Peters. People are worried about their own neighbours, he said.
Mr Peters bunkers run an average of $200,000 and up, and he said his company builds approximately a dozen a year.
While so-called doomsday bunkers are clearly a booming business, customers are intent on keeping mum about their underground fortresses.
There is a shame associated with it for sure, thats the reason people are so secretive, he said. People dont want to be made fun of or stereotyped, they dont want to be labeled.
Mr Scott was doubtful any of his customers would be willing to speak to the press, even under the condition of anonymity.
According to him, If youre going to buy something to hide underground, why would you let anyone know?
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Donald Trump has promised to make the US a better working environment for women entrepreneurs, arguing that women play a "tremendous role" in the US.
Speaking at a roundtable of women executives, organised by his daughter Ivanka Trump, and sitting opposite Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mr Trump praised the "phenomenal" role that women executives played in his business.
"Women, as you know, and I can say that from my past life, I had so many women executives, they were phenomenal, phenomenal, and really helped me, and it was really fantastic," Mr Trump said.
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"They play a tremendously important role, women in our economy."
"We must ensure our economy is a place where women can work and thrive and I think thats a place where that is happening much more so. In Europe and Canada its happening big league," he added.
Mr Trudeau said the group needed to think about how to create more "paths to success" for women.
"Whenever I sit down with a woman executive, I know that she has had to overcome significant barriers that exist, and therefore is likely to have greater insight into helping up others, but also the formidable contributor to the success of the business and her economy," he continued.
"So, I think for me, it's not just about doing the right thing, it's about understanding that women in leadership positions is a very powerful leverage for success for business, for communities and for our entire economy."
While Mr Trudeau created a gender-balanced cabinet in 2015 and has often declared himself a feminist, Mr Trump has not been so warmly regarded by proponents of gender equality.
Alongside multiple accusations of sexual assault, which Mr Trump has strongly denied, Mr Trump also admitted that he regretted hiring his first wife, Ivana Trump, and claiming that he had never changed a diaper.
One of his first acts as President was to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which bans US aid for any foreign organisation that even talks about abortion. He is pro-life and critics fear he will roll back women's reproductive rights, preventing them from being able to contribute fully to the workforce if they cannot make decisions about their own bodes.
He has not expressed support for a gender-balanced cabinet and has never said he believes in gender equality.
"We need to make it easier for women to manage the demands of having a job and a family," he told the roundtable.
His daughter, Ivanka, is a mother of three children and she also runs her own business, as well as serving as an executive of the Trump Organisation. She stepped back from running her jewelry and fashion line while her father is President.
The White House gathering was expected to discuss maternity leave. Under a proposal crafted by his daughter, Mr Trump promised to provide six weeks of paid maternity leave if a womans company did not offer any form of cover, and the government would pay for the multi-billion dollar bill by targeting workplace insurance fraud.
"We need to think about how we level the playing field for this generation and the next," said Ivanka Trump at the meeting.
Mr Trudeau helps Ivanka Trump with her chair (Getty)
Mr Trumps and Mr Trudeaus announcement to launch the council for women entrepreneurship was just one pit stop for the day, which included photo opportunities, meetings and a lunch at the White House.
The two leaders met with a smile and a handshake on Monday morning, and posed for a photo in the Oval Office in reported near silence as the cameras clicked.
"I think they want a handshake," Mr Trump said. The reporters were then ushered out.
The Canadian leaders one day visit to Washington, including meeting House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, is viewed as critical for strengthening relations after an arguably frosty start.
Canadians were caught up in the confusion surrounding Mr Trumps travel ban, signed 27 January, which barred nearly all travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and did not clarify agreements around dual citizens, green card and visa holders.
Mr Trudeau posted a photo on the day of the ban of him kneeling beside a child refugee, with the caption Welcome to Canada.
Mr Trudeau has been pushed to speak against the travel ban, which has been temporarily halted by a federal court judge eight days after it was signed.
He also promised his citizens he would stand up for his beliefs when meeting Mr Trump.
Mr Trudeau has had his fair share of controversy in recent months. He was still reeling from several scandals, including elbowing a lawmaker in parliament and using a billionaires helicopter to jet his family to the Bahamas, when a young student burst into a mosque in Quebec, killing six.
Mr Trump was widely criticised for not making a public statement about the shooting, which was carried out against Muslims by a white man, but he did call Mr Trudeau on 30 January to talk about the incident.
In Washington on Monday, Mr Trudeau was accompanied by several key Canadian ministers, but not his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. Around 6pm, he was scheduled to fly back to Ottawa.
Mr Trump has also recently met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who he referred to as "Prime Minister Shinzo" on twitter.
He also met UK Prime Minister Theresa May, and was pictured to grab her hand as they headed along a White House corridor together.
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They may be neighbours but the political chasm that now separates the United States and Canada was plain to see during a press conference held by Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau at the White House on Monday evening.
From refugees to womens rights, 45-year-old Mr Trudeau and 70-year-old Mr Trump are often diametrically opposed.
But the Canadian PM did his utmost not to ruffle any feathers as Mr Trump repeated his mantra of Mexican wall building and the perceived dangers of immigration.
Justin Trudeau Show all 8 1 /8 Justin Trudeau Justin Trudeau Day out The family get in the boat with climate change AP Justin Trudeau Keeping fit Jogging over the Alexandria bridge with the Mexican president AP Justin Trudeau Family comes first Sophie inspires me every day to be better. I wouldnt be here tonight if it werent for her leadership and her example." AP Justin Trudeau Three-way handshake Trudeau has vowed to strengthen international relations. Twitter Justin Trudeau Bromance Friendship with the White House The White House Justin Trudeau Pandas Just because. Twitter Justin Trudeau Yoga The plank became an internet sensation Twitter Justin Trudeau Making history Trudeau's gender-balanced cabinet was the first of its kind AP
Mr Trudeau is a liberal who champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. He calls himself a feminist and half of his Cabinet are women.
Whereas Mr Trump has few women in his Cabinet, he has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees.
Their differences were encapsulated in a photo released after the Oval Office meeting, when the US President appeared to invite a high five with an extended hand.
The two leaders have very different views on immigration (Getty)
But for a split-second, Mr Trudeau stared blankly at the outstretched palm, his expression summing up how many Canadians feel about the newly installed leader of the free world.
Earlier, as the world watched on, cameras caught an equally uncomfortable greeting between the two leaders as Mr Trudeau arrived at the White House.
Mr Trump could be seen extending his right arm for a handshake while grabbing the Canadian PM on the shoulder.
Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau embrace as the Canadian PM arrives at the White House (EPA)
Mr Trudeau responded with a strong grip on the presidents upper arm.
The apparently awkward first meeting in Washington was followed by a press conference when Mr Trudeau attempted to mend relations by emphasising the "deep abiding respect" between the two countries.
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When The Donald banned refugees from entering the US, the Canadian premier responded with a tweet declaring that those fleeing persecution, terror and war would be welcomed to his country.
But both men stuck to the script and highlighted their shared goals and a commitment to working together after their first face-to-face meeting.
Justin Trudeau vows to defend women and stick up to Trump
Observers on Twitter were quick to dissect the meeting, with many Canadians voicing their pride in having Mr Trudeau as PM.
One wrote: Canada is proud today more than yesterday. Trudeau is just a brilliant leader.
Another commented: Trudeau resisting Trump's weird handshake is the biggest display of dominance in the history of Canada.
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Donald Trumps senior policy adviser Stephen Miller appeared on four major US news shows in the space of a few hours to confirm the President will continue to fight the courts over his controversial travel ban.
We are considering and pursuing all options, said Mr Miller, who played a key role in the initial drafting of the ban.
Speaking to Fox News he said those options include seeking an emergency stay at the Supreme Court to suspend the block on the ban, continuing the appeal with the panel, having an emergency hearing or going to the trial court at district level as well as drafting a fresh order.
The ban caused chaos and howls of protest when Mr Trump signed his executive order temporarily barring access to the US from citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, but has been halted by the courts following several legal challenges.
One possibility the Court of Appeal suggested is that the order be redrafted so that it does not risk violating the US constitution, which forbids discrimination on the grounds of religion.
Mr Miller, who previously worked for Tea Party founder Michele Bachman and then for Mr Trumps new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, said the President is not willing to bow down to the courts over his "extreme vetting" policy.
The point I want to make to your listeners is that we have equal branches of Government in his country,' Mr Miller told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
The judiciary is not supreme.
A district judge in Seattle cannot force the president of the United States to change their laws and our Constitution because of their own personal views, he said in a reference to Judge James Robart, who suspended the ban after it was challenged in the state of Washington.
Mr Trump appealed this ruling, but the San Francisco based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals did not block Mr Robarts ruling and the ban remains on hold.
The President called this a political decision and told judges he would see (them) in court, suggesting he was prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court although it is thought likely by legal experts that he would lose.
What the judges did both at the 9th and district level was to take power for themselves that belonged squarely in the hands of the President of the United States, Mr Miller told Chuck Todd on NBC News.
He later told Face the Nation on CBS: Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.
Fox News host Chris Wallace told Mr Miller that Mr Robart is now receiving death threats because of his intervention, and suggested Mr Trump might bear some responsibility because of his strongly-worded criticism of the judge.
Mr Miller replied: This is one of the most ludicrous things that the media does, where when any crazy person in the country issues a death threat, that they can blame a politician or a public official.
Of course one branch of government can criticise another.
Mr Trump has hinted there will be a fresh order drafted, telling a press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister: We are going to do whatevers necessary to keep our country safe.
We had a decision which we think well be very successful with. It shouldnt have taken this much time.so well be doing something very rapidly having to do with additional security for our country. Youll be seeing that sometime next week.
The President was apparently pleased with his aide for representing him across the networks, tweeting out: Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!
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Justin Trudeau said the US and Canada would continue to be good neighbours but would "not agree on everything", referring to Donald Trumps executive order to ban people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Although Mr Trudeau did not directly criticise the President for the Muslim ban, he made it clear that Canada would continue to welcome refugees without compromising national security.
He said that although the US and Canada had "fought and died together" and shared a long history, "there have been times where we have differed in our approaches and that's always been done firmly and respectfully."
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"The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves," he continued.
"My role and responsibility is to continue to govern in such a way that reflects Canadians' approach and be a positive example in the world."
He added that Canada had welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees last year. The US took in 12,500.
Mr Trump responded that he wanted to keep "the very bad ones out" in the name of national security.
He insisted, however, that the relationship between the two countries was "outstanding" and that the talks with Mr Trudeau would be "very, very productive".
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Frank Ancona, the so-called Imperial Wizard of a Missouri faction of the Ku Klux Klan has been was found shot dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. His wife and stepson have been charged with murder.
Mr Ancona, 51, was reported missing on Friday, at which point a Federal Forest Service employee located his vehicle, but his body was not found until the following day, according to the Park Hills Daily Journal.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said officials first learned of Mr Anconas disappearance from a Facebook post, which prompted authorities to launch a search. A family on a fishing outing ultimately discovered Mr Anconas body on a riverbank in Belgrade, Missouri.
His group's stated mission was to 'preserve our White culture and heritage' (YouTube)
A pile of ashes was also found near Mr Anconas vehicle, the sheriff said.
Mr Ancona was a major figure in the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan group, one of many to use the KKK moniker. According to the groups official website, its mission is to preserve our white culture and heritage but also be relevant to the happenings going on in our republic today. The title Imperial Wizard is given to a national leader within the group.
Donald-Trump-KKK
The site also features a photo of Mr Ancona in full KKK apparel in front of a burning cross.
The time has come to awaken from our hypnotic sleep before we and our children wake up to a hell we can never escape from, reads an excerpt from a statement by Mr Ancona on the website.
As yet, no one has been charged in the death, Mr Jacobsen said in a statement. Mr Anconas wife, Malissa Ancona, was taken into custody on Sunday night and police said she was a "person of interest".
On Monday, it was reported that Ms Ancona, 44, and Mr Aconoa's stepson, Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr, 24, had been charged with murder.
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The leader of Lebanons Hezbollah, a militant Shiite group the US has designated a foreign terrorist organization, publicly expressed his optimism over having an idiot in the White House.
"We are very optimistic that when an idiot settles in the White House and boasts about his idiocy, this is the beginning of relief for the oppressed around the world, Hezbollahs Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech, referencing President Trump.
Nasrallah added Trump has revealed the true face of the US administration, which he calls ugly, unjust, criminal, and racist.
Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban Show all 20 1 /20 Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-1 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-2 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-3 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-4 SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JANUARY 28: Demonstrators hold signs during a rally against a ban on Muslim immigration at San Francisco International Airport on January 28, 2017 in San Francisco, California. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that suspends entry of all refugees for 120 days, indefinitely suspends the entries of all Syrian refugees, as well as barring entries from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering for 90 days. Stephen Lam/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-5 A crowd of protesters gathers outside of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse as a judge hears a challenge against President Donald Trump's executive ban on immigration from several Muslim countries, on January 28, 2017 in Brooklyn. The judge issued an emergency stay on part of Trump's executive order, ruling that sending refugees stopped at U.S. airports back to their countries would be harmful. Yana Paskova/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-6 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-7 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-8 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the new immigration ban issued by President Donald Trump at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-9 Getty Images Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-10 Getty Images Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-11 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-12 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-13 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-14 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-15 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-16 Protestors rally during a demonstration against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-17 NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 28: Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-18 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-19 Protestors rally during a protest against the Muslim immigration ban at John F. Kennedy International Airport on January 28, 2017 in New York City. President Trump singed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Stephanie Keith/Getty Protestors rally at JFK Airport against Muslim immigration ban jfk-protest-muslim-ban-20 Passengers wait in line to check in at the American Airlines terminal at JFK International Airport August 10, 2006 in the Queens borough of New York City. British authorities arrested 21 people and halted a anallegedly terrorist plot to use liquid explosives concealed in carry-on luggage to blow up airliners traveling between Britain and the U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said that the plot appeared to be directed at U.S. carriers flying out of Heathrow. such as United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines. Stephen Chernin/Getty
Hezbollah is a political faction with an armed wing backed by Iran. Trumps national security advisor, Michael Flynn, said in a recent White House press briefing, that the administration is putting Iran on notice following the countrys test of a ballistic missile.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely capitalize on President Trumps ire toward Iran to pursue sanctions against Tehran and put pressure on Hezbollah, in a planned meeting between the two leaders next week, analysts have noted.
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A US-born NASA scientist said he was detained by customs officials and not permitted to enter the country unless he unlocked his PIN-protected work phone.
Sidd Bikkannavar, who works in NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) on January 30, upon returning to the United States from Santiago, Chile.
Mr Bikkannavar is a natural-born US citizen enrolled in CBP's Global Entry programme, which allows participants who have undergone a background check to speed up their entry into the US. He had not visited any of the countries mentioned in Donald Trumps Muslim travel ban, but Mr Bikkannavar told The Verge that agents may be become suspicious about his family name, which is southern Indian.
Sorry for my absence. On my way back home to the US last weekend, I was detained by Homeland Security and held with others who were stranded under the Muslim ban, he wrote on Facebook.
CBP officers seized my phone and wouldnt release me until I gave them my access PIN for them to copy the data. I initially refused since its a JPL-issued phone and I must protect access.
Andrew Sullivan: Journalists need to question Trump's mental health
He added: Just to be clear - Im a US-born citizen and NASA engineer, traveliing with a valid US-visa.
Mr Bikkannavar said he was eventually released. His employers gave him a new phone.
Yet he told The Verge, he had yet to receive an explanation for why he was stopped at Houstons George Bush Intercontinental Airport. He had travelled to South America for personal reasons, pursuing his hobby of racing solar-powered cars. He had recently joined a Chilean team.
It was not that they were concerned with me bringing something dangerous in, because they didnt even touch the bags, he said.
They had no way of knowing I could have had something in there. You can say, Okay well maybe its about making sure Im not a dangerous person, but they have all the information to verify that.
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A website that until very recently was published by Donald Trump's son-in-law has claimed that US spies are withholding their most sensitive intelligence from the White House.
For the past three weeks, according to a former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst and counter-intelligence officer, some the America's spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office amid fears "the Kremlin has ears inside" the White House situation room.
The claims follow reports that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn discussed lifting sanctions against Moscow with a Russian diplomat before Mr Trump took office.
Recommended Trump aide repeats unfounded claim about millions of fraudulent voters
An NSA official told the New York Observer it was holding back some of the "good stuff" from the White House, while one Pentagon worker said: "There's not much the Russians don't know at this point. Since January 20, weve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the [situation room]."
The FBI is still investigating Gen Flynn's conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Nine sources told the Washington Post the pair had discussed sanctions imposed on Russia by outgoing President Barack Obama, despite Gen Flynn twice saying "no" in response to interview questions when asked if the sanctions, over Russias interference in the US election, were brought up.
In the past Mr Trump has been criticised for a perceived lack of respect for the intelligence community, while as President-elect he called the storm over Russian hacking of the election a "political witch-hunt".
The New York Observer's website is an amalgamation of several media brands bought by Mr Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Mr Kushner was the owner of the news website until last month when he was named a senior White House adviser.
He is married to Mr Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka.
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The landscape has the permanent look of winter. Leafless trees jag skywards while a shimmering white dust covers the ground. The streets are deserted; the only sound is the breeze. Welcome to Epecuen, Argentinas ghost town, with a population of just one.
Located 340 miles south-west of Buenos Aires, Epecuen was once a booming tourist destination on the shores of a salt lake famed for its healing properties.
Then one day disaster struck. On 10 November 1985, after a period of heavy rain, the banks of the lake burst. The town, stretching back for more than 100 blocks, was submerged in water 10 metres deep.
Over the past few years the waters have receded and the town has re-emerged. Left behind is a crystalline residue that from a distance looks like snow, as well as hundreds of dead trees and a derelict resort.
When the flood hit, residents were forced to pack their bags and leave. No one dared to return, except for 83-year-old Pablo Novak, who now has the dubious title of being contemporary Epecuens only resident. Today hes out for a jaunt on his rusting bicycle with his two dogs in tow.
I got used to life on my own, he says. I decided to stay because I spent my youth here, I went to school here and also started a family here. So it seemed quite normal.
The flood reduced Epecuen to rubble. No house was left untouched. Facades have disintegrated; walls have crumbled; pavements have sunk. Wooden staircases are exposed in one spot are the rusting remains of a 1930s Chevrolet that an owner failed to salvage.
The salt has preserved tiny details, freezing the resort in time and allowing a voyeuristic glimpse into the past. Near the main street are the remains of a pizzeria. The sculptures that the owner bought to decorate his business are still intact, including a stone crescent moon sitting outside as though it were still 1985. In the rubble a wood-fired pizza oven is clearly visible.
Walking among the crystalline ruins, the tracks left by a tractor that tried to salvage valuables from the long-gone Santa Teresista Church are still there. Dotted around the site, too, are green wine bottles half buried in the sand. Further away from the main drag is what used to function as the municipal camping area. The eerie site has an abandoned playground: the frame of a set of swings still stands, as does a rusting seesaw, every inch reminiscent of Chernobyl.
Javier Andres, head of tourism for the normally sleepy agricultural region of Adolfo Alsina, has been swamped with interest in the last few weeks due to a concerted effort to promote the ruins. Epecuen has been compared to Pompeii, he says, but there is one major difference.
We dont think theres anywhere in the world quite like it, he explains. Although its been called the Argentinian Pompeii, there youre not able to walk around with a former resident explaining everything to you. Here you can do that.
The waters began their retreat in 2009 but the tourist board delayed launching a campaign until now, respectful of the reactions the floods continue to provoke among the hundreds who lost their livelihoods.
When you visit Epecuen, the sensation is hard to explain, Mr Andres says. Theres a sense of wonder at this place that is completely in ruins, an apocalyptic vision. But then you cant help thinking about the people that lost everything here, years of effort and hard work that disappeared overnight. So theres a lot of sadness at the same time.
The devastated landscape has attracted the attention of several movie crews and Roland Joffes Spanish Civil War drama, There Be Dragons, was partly filmed here. Yet the demise of Epecuen remains painful for former residents. The health resort was one of the most frequented in Argentina, growing in popularity from the 1920s and attracting European as well as local tourists at a time before the wide availability of alternative treatments.
The water 10 times saltier than the sea drew many of Buenos Airess Jewish community, nostalgic for the Dead Sea. The towns population of just over 1,000 would swell fivefold during the high season.
There are some things you can repair, such as the economic damage, says Carlos Ruben Besagonill, 49, who used to run a hotel in Epecuen. But you cant replace the experiences, the affection, the moments you passed there.
Mr Besagonill says that its taken him more than 20 years to re-establish the business he had in Epecuen in nearby Carhue, now the regions main tourist town. He was forced to leave behind everything in 1985, recently married and with a one-year-old daughter in his arms. I used to dream every night that Epecuen reappeared, he says. Id dream that I told my family: Look we can go back and paint the hotel, because I really thought it was possible.
Mr Besagonill is pleased that the ruins may soon be a major tourist attraction once more. For him, it should serve as a warning about what not to do with nature. He says that the province may be to blame for poor water management, but that the town should never have been built so close to the shores of a lake that was liable to overflow.
Back on the main street, the ghosts of Epecuen continue to swirl around the crumbling concrete as Mr Novak recalls the ice-cream parlour he used to pass, the bar hed visit for a beer and the clubs where hed dance until the early hours.
Mr Novak says that his children dont like coming back unlike his 21 grandchildren who love hearing his yarns and devour his photos of the old days and every year they try to convince him to move away. But while he remains independent, he argues, hes going nowhere.
Although Mr Andres rejects the idea that somebody may be prepared to stump up the six-figure sum needed to rebuild Epecuen, Mr Novak remains dogged in his hope that the town will one day recapture its glorious past. I always thought it would revive, thats the thing I find most difficult, he says wistfully. I keep on hoping it will happen. But sadly no one seems to want to do anything.
Click here to read: 'The 'real life Atlantis': Eerie photographs capture Villa Epceun - the Argentinian town that spent 25 years underwater'
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Feb. 13
By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:
A meeting of the Task Force on Regional Energy Cooperation (RECA) on Regulation of investments in the energy sector as part of the "One belt one way" initiative, will be held in Hong Kong February 23-25, 2017, the Turkmen government said.
The event will be held as part of the presidency of Turkmenistan in the Energy Charter in 2017.
The 28th session of the Energy Charter Conference to be held in Ashgabat on November 28-29, 2017 is among the key events of this year.
Among the directions of the concept are energy efficiency, introduction of innovative technologies, the environmental aspect and the use of renewable sources of energy, principles of economic and commercial viability of investments in the energy sector, their protection and efficiency.
Turkmenistan is one of the rich countries for its natural gas resources. According to BP, the countrys recoverable reserves are estimated at 17.5 trillion cubic meters of gas or 9 percent of total global reserves, which puts Turkmenistan on the fourth position in this field after Iran, Russia and Qatar. The country has an opportunity to export its gas to China and Iran.
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Residents below the tallest dam in the United States, near Oroville in Northern California, were urgently ordered to evacuate on Sunday after a spillway appeared for a time to be in danger of imminent collapse.
The abrupt evacuation orders came as authorities said that an auxiliary spillway on the Lake Oroville Dam could give way at any time, unleashing floodwaters onto rural communities along the Feather River. Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered, the Butte County sheriff said in a statement posted on social media. This is NOT A Drill.
The California Department of Water Resources said on Twitter at about 4:30pm PST that the spillway next to the dam was predicted to fail within the next hour.
Several hours later the situation appeared less dire as the spillway remained standing and the Water Resources department said crews using helicopters would drop rocks to fill a gouge in the spillway. Authorities were also releasing water to lower the lake's level after weeks of heavy rains in the drought-plagued state.
Butte County Sheriff Korey Honea said at an evening press conference that he was told by experts earlier on Sunday that the hole that was being created in the spillway could compromise the structure. Rather than risk thousands of lives, the sheriff said, a decision was made to order the evacuations.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. 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Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. 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But he said he was told later that the erosion was not progressing as rapidly as earlier feared and that the amount of water flowing over the spillway had dropped quickly.
Still, evacuation orders remained in place. The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services urged evacuees to travel only to the east, south or west. DO NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE, the department said on Twitter.
Evacuation centres were set up at a fairgrounds in Chico, California, about 20 miles northwest of Oroville, but roads leading out of the area were jammed as residents sought to drive out of the flood zone.
It is not clear how many people were affected by the evacuation order. More than 160,000 people live in the evacuation area comprising three counties, according to U.S. Census data.
The Oroville dam is nearly full after a wave of winter storms brought relief to the state after some four years of devastating drought. Water levels were less than 7 feet (2 meters) from the top of the dam on Friday.
State authorities and engineers on Thursday began carefully releasing water from the Lake Oroville Dam some 65 miles (105 km) north of Sacramento after noticing that large chunks of concrete were missing from a spillway.
California Governor Jerry Brown asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday to declare a major disaster due to flooding and mudslides brought on by the storms.
The earthfill dam is just upstream and east of Oroville, a city of more than 16,000 people.
At 770 feet (230 meters) high, the structure, built between 1962 and 1968, is the tallest dam in the United States, besting the famed Hoover Dam by more than 40 feet (12 meters).
Reuters
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A television journalist whose girlfriend was shot dead on air, is making a run for political office - with greater gun control to be a major part of his campaign.
Chris Hurst quit WDBJ last week, with a plan to run for the Virginia state parliament.
Mr Hurst was dating Alison Parker when she was shot and killed while carrying out an interview with a member of the public in August 2015. Cameraman Adam Ward was also killed, while the gunman, Vester Lee Flanagan, a former employee of the station, shot himself after a police chase.
Mr Hurst said he planed to run for the so-called House of Delegates against incumbent Joseph Yost, a Republican.
Mr Hurst told the Roanoke Times he had moved from Roanoke to Blacksburg, where he will file paperwork to seek the Democratic nomination in the 12th House District. He also said that he was leaving Roanoke because he needs a change of scenery, after the shooting, which stunned the community.
Reporter Alison Parker interviewing Vicki Gardner moments before the attack
Ill be able to develop some different routines that [are] not a constant reminder of some of the emotional pain that I have been having to face, he said.
Mr Hurst said that while reducing gun violence will be a prominent part of his campaign, anybody who sees me as a single-issue candidate because my girlfriend was killed with a gun needs to look at my body of work over the past seven years here and see how many different topics Ive covered and have been curious and interested in.
Mr Yost, a three-term Republican, welcomed Mr Hurst to the race.
This will certainly be one of the biggest House races this year, and maybe even bigger than the governors race, he said.
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A United Airlines pilot was removed from a plane just before a flight after she complained about Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton and her divorce over the intercom.
The flight was scheduled to go from Austin to San Francisco and was delayed by than two hours after the woman, who has not been identified, apologised to passengers for being late because she was going through a divorce.
She had to be escorted off the flight, and video footage reportedly shows the pilot, who was in civilian clothes, telling passengers she will stop so her co-pillot can fly the plane.
At one point she apparently said: Dont worry. Im going to let my co-pilot fly it. Hes a man, according to Buzzfeed News.
The pilot also made reference to the recent US Presidential election.
I dont care if you voted for Trump or Clinton, theyre both a*******.
Passengers reportedly tried to get off the plane as the pilot was speaking.
People started to get pretty uncomfortable and several of us leave and she tells us we can leave if we want, but the flight needs to go, Hayes Davis, a passenger, said.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
A spokesperson for United Airlines said: We hold our employees to the highest standards and have replaced this pilot with a new one to operate the flight, which has since departed Austin. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.
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Donald Trumps national security adviser has been reported to the National Security Agency over claims he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Mike Flynn has been accused by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump (DCAT) of carrying out political activities seeking to influence the White House on behalf of Turkey and its president, Recep Erdogan, while failing to register as an agent with the Department of Justice.
The news comes as the White House refused to defend Mr Flynn over his alleged discussion of sanctions with Russian officials before Mr Trump took office.
Last September Mr Flynn and his company The Flynn Intel Group, which provides intelligence services for businesses and government, signed a contract with Dutch company Inovo BV, which had contracts with the Turkish government, to keep the company informed about the transition between Barack Obama and Mr Trump in the White House.
The companys founder, Kamil Ekim Alptekin, is known for having a close relationship with President Erdogan, the Democratic Coalition said.
But neither Mr Flynn nor his company are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires every agent to register with the Department of Justice within 10 days of agreeing to take the post.
This is part of efforts to ensure that the US Government and the people of the United States are informed of the source of information (propaganda) and the identity of the person attempting to influence US public opinion, policy and laws, the Department of Justice says on its website.
Failure to comply to the law under the act can result in a five-year prison sentence and up to $10,000 fine.
On the day of the election, Mr Flynn also wrote an op-ed on US political website The Hill, advocating for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish exile blamed by the Erdogan administration for inciting the military coup last summer. The Democratic Coalition said Mr Flynn's arguments were in line with the goals of President Erdogans government.
After Julys aborted coup, Mr Gulen fled Turkey for Pennsylvania and strongly denied charges he orchestrated or was even involved in it.
Michael Flynn: We're officially putting Iran on notice
Titled Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support, Mr Flynn wrote: Gulen portrays himself as a moderate, but he is in fact a radical Islamist. He has publicly boasted about his 'soldiers' waiting for his orders to do whatever he directs them to do.
"If he were in reality a moderate, he would not be in exile, nor would he excite the animus of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.
We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognise Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkeys perspective.
The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gulen, who is running a scam. We should not provide him safe haven. In this crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real friends are.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
The Democratic Coalition said: By publicly advocating for policies on behalf of President Erdogan and the Turkish Government while working for Kamil Ekim Alptekin and Inovo BV, especially by penning the op-ed in The Hill and failing to register with the Department of Justice as foreign agent, Flynn may have violated FARA."
Neither Mr Trump nor his aides have publicly said that Mr Flynn has the Presidents confidence after it was alleged he discussed Russian sanctions with officials before Mr Trump took office. The controversy has left him in a weakened position and under growing political pressure, the Washington Post reports.
Nine former or serving intelligence officials told the Washington Post last week that Mr Flynn had conveyed to the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, that the relationship between the US and Russia would change after Mr Trump took office.
Mr Trumps senior team and Mr Flynn initially denied the claims. Mr Flynn later said he had "no recollection of discussing sanctions and he couldn't be certain the topic never came up".
Senior Advisor to the Democratic Coalition, Scott Dworkin, said: Lieutenant General Flynn, who now holds the top national security position in the White house, has years of questionable relationships working with foreign government. If we cant trust him to be transparent by filling out a simple form how can we trust him to secure our country at the highest level.
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Donald Trump's trip to the UK will be delayed to avoid embarrassing him, according to reports.
The visit will be postponed until sometime between late August and the end of September, according to a report from The Guardian. That will mean that it can be held while Parliament is in recess and MPs are not around to embarrass the President by objecting to him.
Mr Trump will head to the UK on a short visit between a Sunday and a Thursday, according to the report. It's unlikely that he'll spend much time in London because of the huge protests that are expected to greet him.
London protests against US President Donald Trump's travel ban
Westminster has already been filled with numerous protests against Mr Trump's Muslim ban as well as his Presidency in general.
The change was announced soon after House of Commons speaker John Bercow said that he would veto any attempt to have Mr Trump address Parliament. That has led to controversy across Westminster, and he is now facing a motion of no confidence from MPs.
The trip had initially been scheduled to happen around June, according to a comment from the London police chief last week.
It has also been suggested that the Government might look to move the visit away from London, as a way of avoiding any protests. But politicians and activists have warned the President that he won't be able to escape the "biggest protest in British history", no matter where the trip gets moved to.
Theresa May was the first European leader to meet Mr Trump in the White House, heading there just days after he was elected.
The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
It was during that event that Ms May passed on the now controversial invitation from the Queen.
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Republican senators are concerned President Donald Trump is mentally ill, Democratic Senator Al Franken has claimed.
The Minnesota senator told CNN's State of the Union the worries of "a few" Republicans comes from "the way that we all have this suspicion" that Mr Trump "lies a lot."
He added: "He says things that aren't true. That's the same as lying, I guess."
Mr Franken cited Mr Trump's evidence-free claim he would have won the popular vote in the presidential race if not for three to five million immigrants in the country illegally voting for his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump is also said to have told some senators in a private meeting at the White House that he and former Republican senator Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire if it had not been for voters bussed in from other states.
Trump considers "brand new" travel ban
Mr Franken said: "You know, that is not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a human being."
Last week, Mr Franken first aired concerns in the Senate in an interview with Bill Maher: "Some will say that he is not right mentally. And then some are harsher."
He added: Thats not fair. That was cheap. There are some who I guess dont talk to me. I havent heard a lot of good things, and Ive heard great concern about the presidents temperament.
Mr Franken also took issue with Mr Trump reportedly telling a group of Democratic senators: "Pocahontas is now the face of your party."
The president's comments are a dig at senator Elizabeth Warren, who claimed Native American heritage.
The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
He said he would have spoken up if present, saying: Mr. President, with all due respect, thats racist. Please stop doing that. Im on [the] Indian Affairs [Committee].
"This is completely unacceptable. You really should stop doing this. It doesnt serve anybody.
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US tourism is suffering in the wake of Donald Trumps election, according to a new study, but there is one notable exception.
Travellers from at least 94 countries are reconsidering visiting the "land of the free" after Mr Trumps Inauguration, found digital travel agency Hopper.
The report showed a 17 per cent decline in people's interest to fly to the US in a period spanning the three weeks before the Inauguration to two weeks afterwards, based on weekly averages of billions of global flight searches.
One country that did not conform to the general trend was Russia, Hopper found.
Flight searches from Russia to the US increased 88 per cent over the stated period.
Mr Trump has come under fire for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "great leader" and his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, reportedly discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador before they were implemented, despite insisting previously that he had not.
"A lot of this stems from the fact that there just seems to be charge and accusation after charge and accusation that somehow President Trump and Vladimir Putin are BFFs. That is not true," Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President, told CNN at the weekend.
Despite support from Russia, the US could still be in for a travel shock.
In 2016 during the same period, global flight searches to the US fell just 1.8 per cent, suggesting a bigger deterrent for most other countries than the usuals seasonal downturn.
One likely theory is the Presidents executive order to temporarily bar nearly all travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries in the name of fighting terrorism, despite no American having been killed in an attack on US soil since 2001 by anyone from those seven nations.
Russian company minting coins bearing Donald Trump's face
The falling number of flight searches could spell bad news for the likes of museums, hotels and restaurants, as the number of people searching and booking flights is one of the first indicators of a healthy tourist industry.
Hopper found that San Francisco is bound to miss out most. Its airport saw a decline in international interest of just under a third - 33 per cent - this year. A total of eight major airports saw a downturn of a fifth or more. Other cities to be hit hard were Baltimore (23 per cent), Las Vegas (23 per cent), Los Angeles (22 per cent) and Dallas (21 per cent).
The moment C-SPAN's online feed was interrupted by Russia Today
New Yorks JFK Airport, a very common flight path from London and other major travelling hubs, saw a decline of 12 per cent.
Hopper said it had little data for Somalia, Syria and Libya, and no data for Yemen - four countries affected by the travel ban - but for the other three, Iraq, Iran and Sudan, travel searches were down 33 per cent. The travel ban was halted temporarily by a federal court judge in Washington, eight days after the executive order was signed. Mr Trump warned the case could end up in the Supreme Court.
On Mr Trumps campaign website, it said his vision was to "negotiate fair trade deals that create American jobs, increase American wages, and reduce America's trade deficit".
But the USs trade deficit of $502 billion could also be hurt by the visitor decline, as tourism is calculated as an export.
The trade deficit is determined by calculating the difference between a nations imports and exports.
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A Chinese man is finally due to go home after becoming trapped in India for more than 50 years.
Wang Qi, a Chinese army surveyor, said he had accidentally crossed over the border in India in 1963 and was unable to leave because he had not been given the correct exit visa.
Mr Wang, who is now in his eighties, had joined the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in 1960 and was tasked with building roads for the army when he was captured after straying erroneously over the border in January 1963.
The incursion came just weeks after the end of the Sino-Indian War of 1962 a month long conflict over the disputed border between the two countries and India granting the Dalai Lama asylum in 1959 following the Tibetan uprising.
Mr Wang told the BBC: I had gone out of my camp for a stroll but lost my way. I was tired and hungry. I saw a Red Cross vehicle and asked them to help me. They handed me over to the Indian army.
But Indian officials said he had intruded into India and given false background and the circumstances about his whereabouts to authorities.
He spent the next seven years in prison before a court ordered his release in 1969 and took his to Tirodi in the central state of Madhya Pradesh but did not allow him to leave the country.
In 1975 Mr Wang, who also goes by his Hindi name of Raj Bahadur, married a local girl named Sushila under pressure from friends and went onto to have three children but always wanted to go home to see the family he left behind.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
Due to uncertainty about his legal status, it is unclear whether he is a prisoner of war. He has never been given Indian citizenship, the family often lived in poverty and his attempts to start a business were unsuccessful as he claimed he would be beaten for not giving bribes to police to stay quiet about his lack of rights.
He began to write letters home to his family but only received a reply in the 1980s. He managed to speak to his mother for the first time in 2002 by phone after nearly 40 years. She died in 2006.
The Chinese embassy was able to secure a passport for him in 2013 but his family say he was still unable to leave the country without an Indian exit visa.
A senior local official Bharat Yadav said there had been deficiencies and a lack of interest in the case.
Recommended Chinese man stuck in India speaks to brother after 50 years
But the wait is finally over. Following the publicity surrounding his case generated by the BBC article the Indian Foreign Ministry has given Mr Wang a document allowing him to leave.
His family were also given passports allowing them to accompany him if they wished.
He flew from Delhi to Beijing on Friday evening with his children his wife was too ill join him where his elder brother Wang Zhiyuan greeted him for the first time in 50 years.
When Mr Wang made the journey to his hometown of Xianjing, 1864 miles from Tirodi, where he was greeted like a hero by crowds with banners saying Welcome home, soldier, its been a rough journey.
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Police in Pakistan say a suicide attacker has detonated a large bomb at a protest rally in the city of Lahore, killing at least 11 people and injuring 60.
The blast struck outside the Punjab Assembly, with police officers and journalists covering the march among the casualties.
The attacker, a member of a group allied to the Pakistani Taliban, drove a motorbike into crowds before detonating an explosive device.
Vehicles on Lahores Mall Road, a major thoroughfare that passers through the centre of the city, were also destroyed in the bombing.
Recommended Taliban bomb kills 70 and injures 340 at park in Pakistan
Rescuers were at the scene and the area has been cordoned off.
The protest was organised by pharmacists in Punjab unhappy about new drug rules enforced by the regional government.
Police said two senior members of Lahore's security force were among the dead.
A group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed the attack in a text message, saying it was revenge for Pakistani military operations against Islamic militants in tribal regions along the Afghan border.
"We just couldn't understand what happened," Tufail Nabi told Geo News TV.
"It was as if some big building collapsed.
Lahore is the capital of Punjab province and was targeted on Easter Sunday last year in an attack that claimed the lives of 75 people.
People cry during the funeral of their loved ones a day after a suicide bomb attack at a park, in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2016 (EPA)
That suicide bombing targeted Christians although the majority of the dead were Muslim.
A group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Thousands of suspected terrorists were arrested as part of Pakistan's paramilitary crackdown on Islamist militants in the wake of the attack.
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The University of Sydney has defended a new scholarship that favours men as consistent with diversity.
The universitys new $27,000 vet science scholarship, which was announced last week, has come under fire after students condemned it as sexist.
A summary of the scholarship says preference will be given to applicants who are from rural or regional areas; male; interested in large animal practice; intend to work in rural veterinary science and are Australian citizens.
The postgraduate scholarship was set-up in the name of Professor Marsh Edwards AO Scholarship, who himself received a scholarship to complete his veterinary degree.
But the womens officer on the Students Representative Council at the university, Imogen Grant, has said students are horrified at the announcement of the scholarship.
In the past 20 years, veterinary reverted from being a male to a female-dominated profession but students have said this did not justify the criteria for the scholarship.
In a statement, the university said 90 per cent of this years intake for the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine course were expected to be female.
One student told the Sydney Morning Herald she first thought the scholarship advertisement was a mistake.
"Female graduates of vet school are still paid less, from day one. Professor Edwards was a lovely man who did a lot of fabulous work. This is not about hurting his reputation.
The barriers that prevent men from entering vet science are not the same barriers that prevent women from entering every single other academic area. To have male-only scholarships is to continue male privilege within society," she said.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
But a spokeswoman from the university said the scholarship complied with discrimination laws and that women were still eligible to apply and academic excellence would be prioritised.
"The inclusion of males as one of a number of preferences by the donor is to address the current under-representation of males in the student cohort.
"As such, it is consistent with the university's support of actions to address diversity and the under-representation of males or females in certain disciplines or professions, she said.
The scholarship is being set-up by Professor Marsh Edwards wife in memory of her late husband and his contribution to vet science.
Marsh was a hard working country vet in Western Australia who travelled extensively working as a large-animal vet helping farmers keep their stock healthy and productive. As food security becomes a bigger priority around the world, the family would like to see this gift help students who might also want to do this vital, specialist work," it says.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 12
By Fatih Karimov Trend:
Iran exported another powdered milk cargo, worth $320,000 to Russia though Astara border checkpoint, Bahram Pourzarb, head of Astara Veterinary Bureau, said, IRNA news agency reported Feb. 12.
The cargo was 100 tons, Pourzarb said, adding that a 24-ton powdered milk cargo, worth $66,000 tons also exported to Georgia via Astara.
Iran has exported 400 tons of powdered milk to Russia during the current fiscal year (started March 20, 2016) through Astara border checkpoint.
The first cargo worth $34,000 was exported in June, 2016.
Iran has exported 424,000 tons of powdered milk, worth $408,000 to abroad through the Astara border checkpoint in the current fiscal year.
Astara is situated in Irans border with Azerbaijan and is the countrys door to Central Asia and the Caucasus.
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The French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has been the victim of thousands of cyber attacks by Russia, his party has claimed.
A top aide for the election frontrunner and rival to Marine Le Pen says Mr Macron has been the target of false reports spread by state-controlled media, including Russia Today and Sputnik.
Richard Ferrand, the campaign manager for Mr Macron's En March party, also claimed the party had been hit by hundreds, if not thousands, of attacks on their computer system.
Mr Macron is a staunch pro-European and it is widely thought he is likely to have been targeted because he wants a strong Europe that could stand up to Moscow,.
It comes after French intelligence warned of growing concerns about the risk of a Russian cyber attack in support of far-right candidate Le Pen.
French intelligence agencies believe Russia could use "social media thanks to automated robots that would generate thousands of positive messages or by collecting emails and confidential information from its adversaries".
Mr Macron wants a strong Europe, one that weighs in the face of Russia, where others are more friendly with the Russian regime, General Secretary of En March Richard Ferrand told France 2.
It is clear that on that the far-right and the rights candidates are well seen. Whereas we promote a powerful Europe and apparently one that a large number of Russian media do not want, he said.
Today, we have to look at the facts: two major media platforms Russia Today and Sputnik, that belong to the Russian state, broadcast false news daily. Then these news are recuperated and quoted and come and weight on our democratic life."
Nato has previously accused the Russian news agency Sputnik of of being part of a Kremlin propaganda machine distributing biased articles and misinformation to influence political opinion around the world.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
The state-owned news website and the Russian embassy in London have both denied the allegations.
Asked whether he believed Russia was working to fail the candidate expected to win Frances election this year, Mr Ferrand said: I am not saying that. Im saying that there is that [fake news] on one side and hundreds if not thousands of attacks on our digital system, on our data and websites. And as if by chance, this comes from the Russian borders.
What we are asking for is that the highest authorities of the state seize their phenomenon to guarantee that there will not be interference from a foreign power in our democratic life. The Americans have realised that too late, he said.
Although Marine Le Pen is still leading in the polls to win the first round of the election, Mr Macron is expected to win the majority in the second round.
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A man has found 11,000 worth of cocaine inside a tub of Nesquik he bought in a supermarket.
The customer opened the lid expecting to just see milkshake powder but hidden amongst it was a 250g packet of the class A drug.
The man, who has not been named, is from Zaragoza in north-east Spain and reported the incident to the authorities, who confirmed the substance was cocaine.
He has threatened to sue the supermarket, which has not been named, after claims that national media mocked him, El Mundo reported.
CCTV has been analysed but nothing has been found, although investigators are sure the dealer inserted the cocaine while inside the supermarket.
The customer said the lid of the tub had been tampered with and police are now waiting on the results of fingerprints found on the packet.
World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty
The shoppers lawyer has claimed his client is scared that he may be targeted by drug traffickers.
He has also suggested the customer has suffered "moral damage" because of the event.
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Pope Francis has become a target of a fake news page, amid rising tensions with conservative Catholics.
The liberal pontiff was the feature of a mock up version of the Vaticans official newspaper, LOsservatore Romano.
The headline read: He answered!
In the story it accompanies, the Pope answers requests for requests for clarification on a series of issues by saying both yes and no.
Pope Francis defends right of Burma's Rohingya Muslims to 'live their faith'
The spoof story is believed be a reference to the Popes lack of reply to four cardinals who asked him to further explain his position on inviting divorced and remarried Catholics to communion, an issue which has been particularly contentious.
The move was without precedence in the Church and caused considerable controversy.
Unlike the fake news which came to prominence during the US election - which deliberately poses as real and is spread as far and wide as possible via the internet - the news page is more easily recognisable as a spoof and is written in a humorous style.
It has also reportedly been circulating through emails and Whatsapp, and is thought to have initially been sent to a few cardinals..
It is suspected to have been made up by conservative opponents to the Pope, whose liberal declarations, such speaking sympathetically on LGBT rights and abortion, have caused some unease in the Catholic Church.
The editor-in-chief of the real L'Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, thanked whoever was responsible for the free publicity.
"We were only sad because the layout wasn't as nice as ours," Mr Vian told The Associated Press. He added that it clearly wasn't a professional job because the Latin wasnt correct.
The page emerged soon after anonymous posters criticising the Pope were billed around Rome. Unlike the mock news page, they struck a more serious tone: They asked Francis "Where is your mercy?" and referred to some stances he's taken against conservatives or traditional Catholics.
Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Live and let live.' GETTY IMAGES Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Proceed calmly" in life' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Be giving of yourself to others' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Even though many parents work long hours, they must set aside time to play with their children' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Sunday is for family' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Respect and take care of nature' OSSERVATORE ROMANO/AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Stop being negative' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: Respect others' beliefs' AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness Pope Francis: 'Peace sometimes gives the impression of being quiet, but it is never quiet, peace is always proactive' FP/Getty Images Pope Francis gives life advice: in pictures Pope Francis' guide to happiness AFP/Getty Images
The posters featuring a sour-faced pope cited Francis' recent "decapitation" of the Knights of Malta religious order, as well as the cardinals he had "ignored" in refusing to clarify the divorce-remarriage question.
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Finlands government plans to block foreigners from buying houses near military sites amid claims that Russians were acquiring land to accommodate troops in the event of a potential invasion.
The Finnish Ministry of Defence said some property transactions by non-residents would be cancelled on the grounds of national security.
The move follows reports in Finland late last year that foreigners, namely Russians, were buying up property in politically-sensitive areas in case they were needed in a future crisis situation.
A report by intelligence agency Supo warned of the risk of a foreign state using purchased land to cut transport links or house soldiers in Finland.
MP Suna Kymalaisen, who revealed that some property transactions would be cancelled, said sales of land close to the border between Finland and Russia and summer cottages near airports would be probed by the MoD.
The Government plans to launch a formal investigation in March. The Ministry of Justice will then prepare legislation aimed at blocking foreigners from buying land in strategically important locations.
"It may be necessary to block some real estate transactions entered into by foreigners if the purchased property is located near strategic facilities, Ms Kymalaisen told Finnish broadcaster Yle.
She said MPs may also extend the definition of strategic facilities in order to prevent further purchases of land near military installations.
It follows a report commissioned by the Finnish government that revealed intelligence agency Supo had concerns about property owned by foreigners.
It said it was investigating measures which may be linked to preparations for gaining influence in a crisis situation.
This could be the case with land transactions which do not appear to be business-related or in line with the logical value of real estate, the report said.
A landowner could build real estate constructions that a foreign state could take advantage of in a crisis situation - using them to close transport routes and accommodate troops unchecked, for example.
In October, government ministers in Finland said they were becoming increasingly concerned about propaganda attacks from Russia aimed at destabilising the country.
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A royal next-in-line to Saudi Arabias throne has been given a top honour by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for his contributions to fighting terrorism.
Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef was presented with the George Tenet medal by CIA director Mike Pompeo during the new chief's first overseas visit to Turkey over the weekend, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
The medal was awarded in recognition of Prince bin Nayefs excellent intelligence performance, in the domain of counter-terrorism and his unbound contribution to realise world security and peace.
Boris Johnson charms Gulf leaders after Saudi Arabia 'proxy wars' comment
The prince, 57, has served as interior minister since 2012 and has worked to crack down on al-Qaedas operations in Saudi Arabia for many years. In 2009, he survived an assassination attempt by the group.
As well as bestowing the honour, Prince bin Nayef and Mr Pompeo discussed security with Turkish officials in what has been widely seen as a reaffirmation of ties between Riyadh and Washington DC since US President Donald Trump took office last month.
The prince told SPA that no attempt will succeed in driving a wedge between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US.
Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel Show all 4 1 /4 Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20597.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20596.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20598.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images Saudi Arabia opens its first women-only hotel 20601.bin HASSAN AMMAR/AFP/Getty Images
While relations between the kingdom and Barack Obamas White House frayed during his tenure over the US attitude towards the civil war in Syria and striking a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabian foe Iran, the two countries have maintained ties over oil and counter-terrorism strategies for decades.
Mr Pompeo is an outspoken critic of the 2015 international nuclear deal with lifted crippling sanctions on Iran in exchange for agreed curbs on the countrys nuclear programme. He also sees Iran as a major source of many Middle Eastern conflicts since Tehrans 1979 Islamic Revolution - a view shared by Saudi Arabia.
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Pakistan has become the latest country to ban Valentine's Day.
It has prohibited all public celebrations and any media coverage because the celebration is not part of Muslim traditions.
The ruling was handed down by the Islamabad High Court, following an unsuccessful attempt to ban the festival last year.
President Mamnoon Hussain urged Pakistanis not to observe Valentines Day, which he criticised as a Western import that threatened to undermine Islamic values.
Valentines Day has no connection with our culture and it should be avoided, he said at a ceremony last year.
The court passed its ruling to the ministry, federal government, chairman and chief commissioner, who are obliged to submit a response to the order within ten days.
The festival has seen its popularity increase in many cities in Pakistan in recent years, but religious groups have denounced it.
The order was in response to a private petition which argued the festival promotes immorality, nudity and indecency under the guise of celebrating love.
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There have been localised bans of the festival by councils in previous years, although these are said to have been largely ignored.
Whether or not the national ban is implemented will depend largely on how the police, guided by the Government, decide to enforce it in particular, whether they target shops selling Valentines cards and gifts.
Valentines Day evolved from a traditional Christian feast day and first became associated with romantic love during the 14th century, when the idea of courtly love flourished.
The first known romantic reference to the feast of St Valentines Day was made by Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer in his poem Perlement of Foules, or the Parliament of Birds.
In 2015, Pakistan's top Islamic clerical body threatened to issue a fatwa against the sale of condoms following reports they were being sold together with chocolate to mark Valentine's Day.
Despite the objections from more pious Muslims, many Indonesians do celebrate the occasion, particularly in major cities where cards and chocolates to mark it are widely available.
The Pakistani ruling follows a protest against Valentines Day by students in Indonesia who believe the celebration encourages casual sex.
Teenagers in the Indonesian city of Surabaya chanted Say no to sex in the latest expression of anger towards the celebration in the worlds largest Muslim-majority country.
Religious police in Saudi Arabia banned the sale of all Valentines Day goods in 2008, telling shops to remove all red items - a move which is said to have led to a black market in roses, wrapping paper and red goods.
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The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has announced that Abuja airport will close between 7 March and 19 April 2017.
During the closure, airlines have been invited to land and take off at Kaduna airport, 100 miles north of the capital. But the latest travel advice from the Foreign Office shows that this airport is deep inside "no-go" territory. The FCO warns of the risk of significant attacks in Kaduna state, with the city itself particularly at risk.
The aviation minister, Senator Hadi Sirika, has inaugurated a security sub-committee aimed at keeping passengers safe in transit between Kaduna and Abuja.
But British Airways has announced that it will cancel all its flights to Abuja during the closure.
The airline said: We have been informed that the runway at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja will be closed for extensive repairs.
Unfortunately this means that we have to cancel all flights to/from the airport for that period of time."
BA currently has a daily flight to and from Heathrow. The airline is offering passengers a full refund, the chance to alter the flight date, or to fly instead to Lagos or Accra.
It said: We hope that we can restart our normal flight schedules from Heathrow to Abuja on the evening of 19 April and from Abuja to Heathrow the following morning on 20 April 2017.
The US State Department says that American officials in Nigeria are allowed to travel to Kaduna only if they ask permission in advance: US officials and their families must receive advance clearance by the US Mission for any travel to or from Kaduna, Kano, and Port Harcourt, including overland transit to airports outside Abuja.
Besides British Airways, six other international airlines currently fly to Abuja: Air France, Egyptair, Ethiopian Airlines, Lufthansa, South African Airways and Turkish Airlines.
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The World Health Organisation declared that the Zika epidemic was an international emergency in February 2016. But, while the WHO lifted the declaration nine months later, the crisis is far from over.
In addition to causing death and suffering, Zika, which has been linked to various neurological and developmental conditions such as microcephaly and Guillan-Barre, is an example of how epidemics may lead to enormous economic and social upheaval, and that public health crises often expose longstanding human rights crises, too. Today it has morphed into a long-term disease that the world must continue to manage.
We know that Zika is transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the same mosquitoes that transmit yellow fever, dengue and chikungunya. They breed where poor people lack adequate sanitation systems, for instance in much of Latin America. Hence, the speed with which the Zika virus spread from its outbreak in Brazil on to over 70 countries has been alarming. In Brazil, more than 1.5 million people have been affected in the epidemic, mostly in the north east of the country. Since the outbreak, the country has logged more than 2,000 confirmed cases of microcephaly, compared to 147 cases in 2014.
We also know that not all adults are exposed in the same way but that pregnant mother-to-child transmission poses high risks to the infant, including that of microcephaly. Economically disadvantaged segments of the population are at higher risk of exposure to Zika, of being infected, and of their children being born with microcephaly or other genetic conditions that require special care in the long term.
A three-month-old with microcephaly in Recife, Brazil. (Getty) (Getty Images)
A large proportion of single parent families have been affected, the majority of which are headed by women. These households are more likely to experience perpetual cycles of poverty as a result of the economic shock of disease, and, where children are born with potential disabilities they are often further isolated by limited support or social protection. In this context, Zika has also reinforced expectations that it will be women who will be responsible for raising and caring for children affected by disabilities linked to the disease, and limits even further the opportunities they have to attend education programmes or look for formal employment.
Rules of conception
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, and the WHO, reinforced the importance of womens human rights in national responses to the Zika outbreak. Nevertheless, Zika gave way to a roll out of official declarations from ministries of health across Latin America telling women not to get pregnant. These echoed narrowly conceived and often ineffective public health campaigns of an earlier era in relation to HIV/AIDS and abstinence in Africa.
Meanwhile, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention advised pregnant women to refrain from travelling to countries affected by the Zika virus. Most dramatically, health officials in El Salvador urged women not to get pregnant until 2018, while Colombia called on women to delay pregnancy for six to eight months.
But shifting responsibility for the disease to womens behaviour isolates the disease from other socio-economic factors that influence its transmission, such as sanitation or environmental issues. It means responses have tended to focus on the immediate healthcare problem, while the gender inequality that underpins the prevailing unhealthy conditions is considered beyond the capacity of public health interventions.
In Zika-affected countries, there are also high prevailing rates of sexual violence, elusive contraception, teen pregnancies and lack of sexual education. According to a study published by the Guttmacher Institute in 2014, 56 per cent of pregnancies in Latin American and the Caribbean are unintended, either because of lack of access to contraceptives or because of gender violence.
Reproductive rights
In a region where birth control is limited and sexual violence is widespread, the debate on legalising abortion has also gained prominence during the Zika outbreak. Clandestine abortions are an unfortunate reality across most countries in Latin America, where abortion is illegal or can only take place in exceptional situations.For women who cannot afford a proper medical procedure, this generally means unsafe abortions are a leading cause of maternal mortality.
Pope Francis hinted at softening the rigid stance of the Catholic Church on contraception because of the threat posed by the Zika virus. In El Salvador, for instance, where more than 7,000 cases of Zika were reported between December 2015 and January 2016, abortions and miscarriages can lead to homicide convictions if proven to be self-induced.
The debate to legalise abortion in Brazil has gained prominence since the outbreak of the virus (AP)
Citing principles set out in Brazils constitution, advocacy groups there have filed a legal petition to the Supreme Court calling for the protection of sexual and reproductive health rights and social protection for women and families affected by Zika. The petition is yet to be heard, but if successful, should lead to a review of current restrictive abortion laws, legalising abortion in cases where the fetus develops without a major part of its brain and skull.
Yet, this case faces opposition by the conservative and influential bullets, beef and bible caucus, composed of evangelical Christians, the farm lobby and lawmakers, who support a right-wing social agenda, including tougher abortion restrictions.
In February 2016, the Obama administration asked Congress to sanction $1.8bn (1.4bn) in emergency funding to help prepare for and respond to the threat posed by the Zika virus. But abortion politics sterilised these discussions as Republican lawmakers leading a congressional hearing on the Zika outbreak made funding conditional on anti-abortion policies in recipient countries. Eventually a $1.1bn (880,000) aid package was agreed in late September, however, Zika programmes supporting abortions have now been put in financial jeopardy following the Trump administrations order to rule out funding for birth control programmes.
The delivery of health care programmes in Latin America should be anchored in an understanding of the inequalities, discrimination and power relations that prevent many people from accessing them. Governments should remember that they have legal and ethical obligations under international law to ensure the best possible provision of services for all.
This article was originally published on The Conversation (www.conversation.com) Pia Riggirozzi is an Associate Professor in Global Politics at the University of Southampton
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said it is important to consider the implications of Brexit
The implications of Brexit on human rights provisions in the Good Friday Agreement will be examined in a civic dialogue event organised by the Irish government.
Foreign Affairs minister Charlie Flanagan, who is convening the "all-island dialogue" at Maynooth University on Monday, said it would be an "extremely valuable" exercise.
Issues such as the peace accord's commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights will be assessed, as will the potential impact on human rights commissions on both sides of the border.
"As a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, the Government takes with the utmost seriousness our duty to ensure that all provisions of the Agreement are upheld and secured throughout the process of the UK's exit from the European Union," said Mr Flanagan.
"Today's sectoral dialogue is an extremely valuable opportunity to hear directly from experts and practitioners on how the human rights provisions in the Good Friday Agreement should best be protected and upheld throughout the Brexit process.
"The Good Friday Agreement is a shared framework to uphold and to utilise as we work together to manage the implications of Brexit."
The event is one of 14 ministerial-led events on different issues related to Brexit.
"The detailed work of government departments and agencies has been greatly enriched by a series of all-island sectoral civic dialogues," said Mr Flanagan.
The event comes ahead of the second plenary sitting of the Irish government's main Brexit forum on Friday.
"The UK's decision to leave the European Union raises significant and complex issues for the island of Ireland," said Mr Flanagan.
"It is essential that the Government hears from all parts of society on how to manage Brexit collectively on an all-island basis."
Whistleblower Maurice McCabe has accused Garda chief Noirin O'Sullivan of privately discrediting him while publicly declaring her support over his horrific ordeal.
The sergeant targeted in a smear campaign threatening to topple the government has also demanded Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and other ministers reveal if they were ever briefed on false sex abuse claims peddled against him.
In a rare statement from Mr McCabe and his wife Lorraine, they also rejected the need for the imminent "secret" commission of inquiry into the "sustained campaign to destroy our charac ters".
Instead, the couple called for politicians and police to tell the truth immediately about who knew of the false allegations being spread about Mr McCabe as he tried to expose wrongdoing within the force.
"We have endured eight years of great suffering, private nightmare, public defamation and state vilification, arising solely from the determination of Maurice to ensure that the Garda Siochana adheres to decent and appropriate standards of policing in its dealings with the Irish people," they said.
The McCabes said their personal lives and family life - including the lives of their five children - have been "systematically attacked" in a number of ways by State agencies.
"We have also been the subject of a long and sustained campaign to destroy our characters in the eyes of the public and public representatives and in the eyes of the media," the couple said.
On the imminent inquiry, to be headed by Judge Peter Charleton, the McCabes said they are "definitely not agreeable" to their entitlement to the truth being postponed by a "secret investigation behind closed doors" which could take one-and-a-half years.
"We are entitled to the truth today - justice can follow in its wake," they said.
"Now that the truth has emerged of the false and shocking campaign to vilify us and discredit us, there is no reason to give any secret or private inquiry..."
The couple have demanded the Taoiseach, Justice Minister and Children's Minister and other members of government disclose if they were ever "briefed formally or informally" about the false allegations against Mr McCabe.
"These are all matters which can be answered without any public inquiry under statute," they said.
The McCabes said the Garda Commissioner "has claimed in public to be supportive of us while seeking in private to discredit Maurice McCabe before the O'Higgins Commission".
"We have witnessed with growing disbelief her denials of involvement in discrediting Maurice," they said.
"If the foregoing questions are answered truthfully and in public now, the public will be in a position to know who to believe."
The remarkable four-page statement was issued through Mr McCabe's solicitor during another day of rapid-fire developments in an escalating crisis of confidence in policing and politicians.
Fianna Fail has warned the government is facing collapse over the affair.
The Fine Gael-led minority administration is propped up by Fianna Fail as part of a three-year confidence and supply agreement.
But as the fall-out deepens, Fianna Fail's justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan suggested the scandal could spark a snap election.
"If we don't get this sorted out, the government could collapse," he said.
Among the latest twists in the furore are:
:: a hard-hitting statement from Garda chief Noirin O'Sullivan, insisting she will not step aside and declaring: "I am innocent."
:: a Director of Public Prosecution ruling that former head of the Garda press office Superintendent Dave Taylor should not be prosecuted over the alleged leaking of information to journalists.
:: a call by Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin for the Garda Commissioner to "assess where she stands".
:: Children's Minister Katherine Zappone's announcement of an independent statutory investigation into how Tusla, the child and family agency, manages allegations of child abuse.
Mr Taylor was the source of claims, in a protected disclosure, that senior gardai targeted Mr McCabe in a widespread character assassination by passing on false and damaging allegations.
It is reported he alleges Ms O'Sullivan was briefed about the smear campaign.
Mr Taylor has been suspended from the force for the past 21 months over the alleged leaking of the names of Roma children who were taken into social care in 2013.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has recommended no prosecution be brought against him.
In a statement, Ms O'Sullivan again insisted she played no role in the peddling of false rumours of child sex abuse against Mr McCabe in order to blacken his name for exposing wrongdoing in the force.
"A campaign of false accusations, repeated and multiplied, do not make me guilty of anything," she said.
Ms O'Sullivan said she had "made it clear that I was not part of any campaign to spread rumours about Sergeant McCabe and didn't know it was happening at the time it was happening".
"I have repeatedly refuted that claim and do so again," she said.
"The easiest option for me would be to step aside until the Commission (of Investigation) finishes its work.
"I'm not taking that option because I am innocent and because An Garda Siochana, under my leadership, has been making significant progress, with the help of our people, the Government, the Policing Authority and Garda Inspectorate, in becoming a beacon of 21st century policing."
Ms O'Sullivan's defence of her position came shortly after Fianna Fail leader Mr Martin said "the commissioner herself should assess where she stands".
Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein have backed Mr McCabe's calls for a full public inquiry.
Baku, Azerbaijan Feb. 13
By Khalid Kazimov Trend:
Judiciary spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, has denied reports on plans to execute Iranian businessman billionaire Babak Zanjani over the coming five weeks.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has said that Zanjani will not be executed over the current Iranian calendar year (ending March 21), Fars news agency reported.
He further added that the countrys intelligence ministry is still probing into the issue. Babak Zanjani was arrested in December 2013 after accusations that he withheld billions of oil revenues, channeled through his companies. Zanjani at the time denied the accusations.
Iranian judiciary has previously announced that the 42 year-old businessman was sentenced to death, pronouncing him guilty of fraud and economic crimes.
During the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads term, Zanjani reportedly played a key role in helping the country to bypass Western-imposed sanctions against Iran restricting the countrys oil exports.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has criticized the death penalty saying the execution of the billionaire will mask the identity of senior officials who supported him.
Europe's lead negotiator on Brexit is "working closely" with Taoiseach Enda Kenny to find solutions to the problems posed by the British exit from the EU and is "aware of Irish concerns".
Michel Barnier said he has met with Irish MEPs "several times" to discuss the issue.
"I am working seriously with the Irish Government, with the Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and I have met several times with the Irish MEPs.
"I am working seriously to find concrete solutions," said Mr Barnier.
It comes as Mr Kenny has again ruled out the idea of a minister with specific responsibility for Brexit.
Read more: Irish ambassador to UK: Fully controlling movement of people and goods between north and south not 'remotely possible'
Speaking on RTE Radio One yesterday he said: "There is no other Minister for Brexit around Europe except in Britain".
"So you appoint your spokesman on Brexit and who does he - or she - talk to in Spain or Lithuania or Italy or Latvia?
"As far as I'm concerned the decisions here are made by the European Council, and every Minister of State is a Brexit minister in their area of responsibility," he said.
"They report to me, who chairs the Brexit committee, who works very closely with Minister (Charles) Flanagan and his department obviously, with the Minister for Jobs and Enterprise, the Minister for Agriculture, so important in terms of trading with Britain, the Minister for Education.
"Every single department... has its defined responsibilities, and they attend and meet their council counterparts and their colleagues all over Europe. When you go and talk to the Europeans, the one thing they do know and understand is the Irish peace process, the Irish Border, and how Ireland will be impacted on no more than Northern Ireland if Brexit were to go down."
Manfred Weber, the chair of the European People's Party (EPP), also said he is fully aware of Ireland's "unique concerns and priorities".
Meanwhile, the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) has said it is particularly vulnerable to the UK tourist market.
Visitors from the UK account for 60pc of all overseas holiday-makers to the border counties, which makes them "particularly vulnerable" to Brexit, Joe Dolan, the president of the IHF pointed out.
"To the UK visitor we are now 15pc more expensive than this time last year," he said.
With the sterling weakening, Mr Dolan said there was already research suggesting that travellers from Ireland's most important destinations were more likely to chose Britain over Ireland for a holiday in 2017.
"Many businesses are already feeling the pain of a significantly weaker sterling," he said.
The United Kingdom could be in breach of its international obligations under the Good Friday Agreement if it presses ahead with plans to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights, it has been warned.
Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said there is a clear obligation on both the British and Irish governments, under the 1998 peace deal, to incorporate the Convention on Human Rights into law in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.
This obligation is unaffected by Brexit, he said.
The Conservative government under David Cameron proposed scrapping the Human Rights Act, the legislation which incorporates the convention into British domestic law, and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights.
Theresa May is reportedly set to make plans to pull out of the European Court of Human Rights a central aspect of her 2020 election campaign, according to British media reports.
Im very concerned at the proposed withdrawal by the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights. This could certainly place the United Kingdom in breach of its international obligations under the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Flanagan said.
Mr Flanagan said he has flagged this issue with senior British politicians, including Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, who will be in Dublin this week.
In his first visit here last year after taking office, Mr Brokenshire sought to play down fears that British plans to scrap the Human Rights Act would have repercussions for the peace process.
He said the proposed new British Bill of Rights would be consistent with the commitments set out in the Good Friday Agreement.
The European Convention on Human Rights, drafted under a British Conservative politician lawyer, David Maxwell-Fyfe, after World War Two in response to Nazism and Stalinism and ratified by Britain in 1951,was incorporated into British domestic law by the Human Rights Act of 1998.
Mr Flanagan was speaking at the Governments latest Brexit sectoral dialogue today, this time focusing on human rights and the Good Friday Agreement.
Les Allamby, chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, said the lack of a BIll of Rights for Northern Ireland was a missing piece in the jigsaw of the implementation of the [Good Friday] agreement.
He also said that retaining the common travel area will not address a number of economic and social cross border rights, including childcare arrangements, healthcare issues and social security coordination.
None of those are automatically resolved by the common travel area and those issues need to be looked at very carefully, he said.
Deirdre Duffy, deputy director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, signalled the potential loss of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in the UK post Brexit could also mean the loss of certain procedural rights that accompanied it.
Not only does the arrest warrant allow for cooperation in law enforcement, it also has a parallel pillar of rights associated with it, she said.
Because of those principles within EU law, we also have procedural rights such as access to a lawyer, right to legal aid, that have been developed in order to allow EU member states be able to operate the EAW system effectively. Its a niche area where theres going to be a lot of untangling that needs to be done.
The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) will hold a hearing in Washington this week to discuss applying a tariff as high as 100pc on a host EU products, including Irish beef.
It comes as newly-elected US President Donald Trump's highly protectionist agenda looks to have already called time on a host of high-profile trade deals including TTIP.
One news outlet in the US has said the tariff could be as high as 100pc.
Documents seen by FarmIreland.ie ahead of the hearing on Wednesday, which will look at the possibility of imposing a tariff on certain imported products, including beef, called for submissions on the situation and received over 11,500 responses prior to the deadline.
Significant efforts have been made by successive Irish Governments to export Irish beef into the US and in 2015 Irish beef was back on the menu in the US, with the first shipments arriving 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.
Now, the US says it is taking this action against what it calls the European Unions unfair trade practices, which it says discriminate against the US beef industry.
It says the EUs ban on hormone-treated US beef is not based on sound science and discriminates against American beef farmers, ranchers, and producers. The US National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the US Meat Export Federation wrote to the Office of the US Trade Representative before Christmas calling for and end to tariff concessions on EU exports and said that the US domestic beef industry would benefit from such a move.
The ban has been in place for around 20 years, and led the US to sue the EU at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The EU bans the import of beef and beef products produced from animals to which any of six hormones have been administered for growth-promotion purposes in the US.
That case resulted in a 2009 deal with the EU agreeing to a hormone-free beef quota of 62,660t in carcass weight equivalent. But the US says that agreement is not working as it should.
Other EU products under consideration for the imposition of increased duties include Roquefort cheese, hair clippers and Vespa scooters.
The European Commission had argued that this issue should be resolved through TTIP.
However, given that European officials decided after their trade minister's meeting in September not to complete TTIP this year, the US has decided that now is the time to take action.
The US beef industry exports an average $6 billion per year. These exports produce an estimated $7.6 billion in economic activity and support 50,000 jobs in the US.
The US cattle herd has been in a rebuilding phase in recent years growing by a staggering 6 million head since 2014.
A recent analysis by the AHDB, shows that as of 1 January 2017, stood at 93.6m head, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
It is up two per cent, or 1.7m head, on the same time last year.
The AHDB analysis highlights however that the size of the herd in 2014 had marked the seventh straight year of contraction.
As the extreme drought took hold across the southern Great Plains at the beginning of this decade, cattle numbers fell to their lowest level since the early 1950s.
The data shows an increase in numbers across most cattle categories compared to the previous year.
The beef cow herd was reported to stand at 31.2m head, up three per cent year on year.
However, the AHDB says it does appear that the impetus for herd rebuilding could be slowing down.
While heifers destined to enter the beef cow herd did increase, and are at their highest level since 1995, growth was only measured at one per cent. Year-on-year growth in January 2016 in this segment of the herd was a more significant three per cent.
Nevertheless, it says the fact that more beef heifers have again been retained for breeding purposes suggests that the USDA is still expecting the beef cow herd to undergo some expansion over this year.
In addition, the AHDB analysis says a larger proportion of these retained heifers are expected to calf this spring, however, the year-on-year increase is also more muted than it was in January 2016.
Despite this, it will still provide a boost to the forthcoming calf crop which will result in an increase in supplies of cattle for finishing over the medium term.
The 2016 calf crop in the US was estimated at 35.1m head, up three per cent from that in 2015. Given the growth in cattle numbers over recent years there is an inevitable bullish outlook for production levels.
The US is the largest beef producer in the world, the largest importer and also a significant exporter.
Developments in the United States inevitably have implications for the global market, given its dominant position.
The latest USDA beef and veal forecasts indicate a rise of three per cent in production this year, which follows an estimated six per cent uplift last year.
It is worth noting that if this production increase is realised this year, volumes would still be similar to that at the beginning of the current decade.
LIC Ireland has confirmed that its Irish customers will not be required to sign a new contract in 2017.
It has announced that it will be extending its timeline in requesting Irish farmers to sign a new agreement with the company.
It says the decision has been made in the wake of what is described as confusion within the market around the implications its proposed new arrangements with customers.
LIC Ireland said it is working hard to ensure that there is a better understanding amongst their customers.
It says in an effort to find a solution that will support Irish farmers, the Irish dairy industry and protect the investment that LIC have made it endeavours to collaborate with its partners over the next six months to reach an agreement that satisfies all parties.
LIC Ireland said the company is under greater pressure to protect its intellectual property.
This it said is due to the significant investment in herd improvement and genetics made by LIC in New Zealand, and the newly introduced EU regulations recently reviewed meaning that In-Quarantine regulations have gone from 104 days previously, down to just 30 days for LICs European Bull Stud, this has enabled LIC to process more of their elite genetics earlier than ever before, offering Irish customers a wider range of choice.
It says these quarantine changes have meant that elite high-demand sires are available for use in Ireland before they can even be used in New Zealand in some cases, meaning LIC must protect its IP.
Due to the requirement for IP protection, LIC says there will be a delay in getting some bulls into Ireland during this time, as these bulls are only permitted in markets where IP protection is already in place.
Commenting on the move, Mark Ryder, LICs European General Manager, LIC has a proud 20-year history in Ireland, and we want to continue to improve the prosperity, productivity and efficiency of our Irish farmers.
We have decided to put a stay on the requirement for farmers to agree to the new contracts for the remainder of 2017, while we devote the next six months to reaching an agreement with the ICBF.
We are disappointed to find ourselves in a position where we have to restrict access to some of our elite bulls which pose the greatest IP risk, but after five important years working to review these EU regulations in New Zealand so we could provide Irish farmers with the best product available, we firmly believe in our future here, and we want to find the best solution that services Irish farmers, while providing our shareholders with the IP protection they need.
LIC has said that although the large majority of its Irish customers have signalled their willingness to agree to the new terms and conditions, there has been initial resistance from some industry stakeholders, whose relationship LIC values, however the company is committed to finding a solution and will work tirelessly with Irish farmers during this period to ensure that happens.
Therefore, it says as a goodwill gesture for Irish farmers, LIC will still allow some of their Premier Sire bulls to be sold into Ireland, as they demonstrate their commitment to creating great cows for farmers here.
Dublin has been preparing its response to Brexit with the construction of new offices such as the Exchange
Office space is in such demand in Dublin that tenants are committing to lease contracts before a building has even been constructed.
A new report from auctioneers Savills shows there was a huge surge in pre-letting in the final quarter of last year.
Pre-lets accounted for 44pc of all Dublin office spaced leased, according to the company. Dublin 2 and Dublin 4 were the in demand areas in the capital, with a 61pc rate of pre lets.
Although enough Grade A space is available to accommodate around 2,200 office workers, occupiers with large space requirements or very specific locational preferences are facing an increasingly limited choice of buildings, said Savills chairman Roland O Connell.
Pre-letting opens up a wider set of possibilities for tenants and some are willing to forego immediate occupancy in return for buildings that tick the right boxes in terms of location, fit and finish, Mr O Connell added.
A former Dell worker that left his corporate finance job to set up an online dry cleaning service is planning to expand his business in Europe.
Dubliner Evan Gray set up his Hailo-style app Laundrie in October 2015 after experiencing first-hand how inconvenient it was to get his suits professionally laundered.
Despite enjoying his "chaotic and thrilling" role at the computer company, Gray's entrepreneurial spirit won out so he took the plunge and pumped his time, energy and money into the new start-up.
"I started developing Laundrie about six months before I left Dell, looking at how I wanted the app to work, how customers could get the most out of the service," he told independent.ie.
"Working outside of an office or own my own wasn't an issue after my experience with Dell but some of my original ideas had to be tweaked significantly. Since the app launched, the customer side of things hasn't changed much but the back end technical things has gone through huge changes."
Gray reveals that concepts he thought "were probably wrong and ended up being wrong" took a bit of tinkering with to reach the standard the app is at today.
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The finished product is definitely doing something right - with over 5,000 (one-time and returning) customers and growing in less than 18 months in business.
Laundrie was launched at a time when "on-demand" app like the taxi service Hailo were become really popular, particularly among time-poor professionals. Repeatedly frustrated at the office-like opening hours his local dry cleaners adhered to, Gray realised he could apply the Hailo model to his own enterprise.
"I was in my late 20s and I had just moved back home. I had some savings and I thought 'it's now or never'," he said.
The online laundry service has already proved successful in other markets abroad and London-based ZipJet became a direct competitor when it launched in Dublin. But Gray believes that Laundrie - which covers all of Dublin county - has the upper hand.
"I think we have a head start on our competitors, we've been around that bit longer and we target a different demographic. Some of these apps target college students but Laundrie focuses on young families and professionals with disposable income and no time to spare."
Gray's business model involves partnering with "tried and tested" quality laundry professionals, employing eight drivers that work until 10pm every night, and having an operations technical and a developer for the system itself.
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"The app is like a baby, you have to constantly keep investing in it and keep it upgraded," he said.
"If we have a better tech piece, then it's better for the customers."
At the moment. Laundrie prides itself on the convenience of a business that allows the user to book at driver from their address at a specific time - and have their professionally dry cleaned garments delivered right back to any address of their choosing within 48 hours.
With prices relatively similar to traditional laundry prices, the popularity of the app is growing across Dublin city and the surrounding suburbs.
But Evan is looking to scale-up to grow the business as much as possible - and European destinations are where his ambitions are set.
"I don't have any office overheads as I spend so much time at meetings with suppliers and partners and making sure the operations are running,that there's no real need for one," said Gray.
"But because we don't have an office front, the cost of marketing outdoors, on radio, through PR and Digital is almost as expensive. We're growing on average 20pc on a monthly basis but we need to scale up significantly to turn a substantial profit."
Laundrie's initial investment came from Gray himself but he has looked to external investment to expand.
"Dublin is slightly ahead of the curve on digital basis in comparison to other cities and we've been raising funds from private investors who appreciate our business model over the last number of months," he said.
"With these funds, we're planning to launch Laundrie in Amsterdam and Brussels in the next few months."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 13
By Fatih Karimov Trend:
A passenger plane of Turkeys Pegasus Airlines made an emergency landing in Iran's central city of Esfahan on Feb. 13.
The airplane heading to Bahrain changed the destination due to health condition of a passenger on board, the press office of Esfahan airport said in a message, IRNA news agency reported.
The plane left the airport to Bahrain after the passenger received medical treatment.
LawOnline is also marketing the tool to smaller solicitors firms as a time-saving device for constructing legal documents such as wills, separation agreements and recovery claims. Stock Image
Artificial intelligence technology aimed at giving consumers a cheaper option when it comes to drawing up legal documents has been developed by an Irish company.
LawOnline is also marketing the tool to smaller solicitors' firms as a time-saving device for constructing legal documents such as wills, separation agreements and recovery claims.
A number of charities have also begun using the service, allowing people to gift a donation in their will via links on their websites.
Oxfam, NCBI, Unicef Ireland, the Irish Red Cross, the LauraLynn Foundation and Barnardos are among those using the service.
The company is the brainchild of former Abbey National chief financial officer Oliver O'Shea, with completed legal documents being reviewed by Dublin law firm William J Brennan and Co Solicitors.
The service is similar to Rocket Lawyer, the Google-funded legal documents website in operation in the US and UK, although Mr O'Shea argues LawOnline provides a better user experience.
According to Mr O'Shea, the service helps cut the cost of legal documents.
A comprehensive will can be bought for 75, or 135 if reviewed by a solicitor.
This compares with costs typically ranging between 200 and 500 if a will is drawn up in a solicitor's office.
Employment agreements cost 70, or 125 with a solicitor's review, compared to around 400 if drafted in a solicitor's office.
Firms with between one and three solicitors can use the service for 49 a month.
"It will allow them to extend the range of services they offer as a result," Mr O'Shea, of LawOnline, said.
Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung, arrives to be questioned as a suspect in a corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye, at the office of the independent counsel in Seoul on February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Jung Yeon-Je/Pool
Samsung leader Jay Y. Lee appeared at the South Korean special prosecutor's office for questioning on Monday as part of a wider investigation into an influence-peddling scandal that could topple President Park Geun-hye.
The special prosecutor has focused on South Korea's biggest conglomerate, accusing Lee in his capacity as Samsung chief of pledging 43 billion won ($37.31 million) to a business and organizations backed by Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for support for a 2015 merger of two Samsung companies.
The funding included sponsorship for the equestrian career of Choi's daughter, who is under arrest in Denmark after being sought by South Korean authorities.
Park, Lee, Choi, and Samsung have all denied bribery accusations.
Proving illicit dealings between Park or her confidantes and Samsung Group is critical for the special prosecutor's case that ultimately targets Park, analysts have said.
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Park was impeached by parliament in December and South Korea's Constitutional Court will decide whether to uphold that decision. She has been stripped of her powers in the meantime.
Lee arrived at the prosecution office in southern Seoul early on Monday in a black sedan, dressed in a dark blue suit and tie and flanked by Samsung Group officials and his lawyer.
"I will once again tell the truth to the special prosecution," Samsung Group's third-generation leader told reporters before entering an elevator. He gave no details.
Outside the prosecutor's office, protesters held up signs calling for his arrest.
EXECUTIVES QUESTIONED
The special prosecution team said investigators were questioning two other Samsung executives as suspects. Both are officers of the Korea Equestrian Federation and have been questioned previously in the case.
One of those two, Samsung president Park Sang-jin, did not respond to reporters on his arrival at the special prosecution team's office.
Lee Kyu-chul, spokesman for the special prosecution office, told a news briefing the office would decide soon whether to make a second arrest warrant request for the Samsung Group chief. He did not comment on other details, including what Jay Y. Lee, 48, during Monday's questioning.
Spokesman Lee said prosecutors would also consider whether to seek arrest warrants for four other Samsung Group executives identified as suspects. The prosecutor's office had previously said it would not seek arrests for any Samsung executives other than Jay Y. Lee.
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In January, the special prosecution sought a warrant to arrest Samsung chief Lee after questioning him for more than 22 hours, accusing him of paying bribes to win the state pension fund's support for the controversial merger of Samsung and CheilIndustries.
However, a Seoul court rejected that request.
Chang Choong-ki, deputy head of Samsung Group's corporate strategy office, known informally as its "control tower", was also questioned as a suspect on Sunday and returned home hours later.
Shares in Samsung Electronics were down 0.9pc by on Monday, compared with a flat wider market.
"The issue will have limited impact on share prices, except if the worst-case scenario happens, since political issues previously did not have a big influence on share prices or earnings," said Bae Sung-young, a stock analyst at Hyundai Securities.
Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey in 50 Shades of Grey film
The Dublin Fire Brigade has issued a timely warning to fans of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Following the release of Fifty Shades Darker in cinemas at the weekend, as well as the approach of Valentine's Day on Tuesday, the Dublin Fire Brigade has issued a warning to couples ahead of the most romantic day of the year.
Taking to Twitter, the official Dublin Fire Brigade account warned lovebirds to avoid leaving themselves in any awkward situations that may result in the fire brigade coming to their home.
"It's Valentine's and Fifty Shades is in the cinema," begins the message.
"Have a romantic, fun and safe weekend, you don't want us calling with our 'big key.'"
The post was shared alongside an image of pink, fluffy handcuffs about to be cut in half.
Don't say they didn't warn you...
Emily Witt's book 'Future Sex' is a thoughtful and deeply personal exploration of the possibilities of free love in the 21st century. Photo: Noah Kalina
Around five years ago, a married friend, who lives in a hipster enclave in the United States, told me about her neighbours, married a decade, who were swingers.
This was proof positive to a commitment-phobe like myself that long-term relationships are bound to become sexually boring. Neither of us thought swinging sounded appealing - rather it was a seedy throwback to the 'car keys on the coffee table' 1970s.
Reading Future Sex it turns out that my friend and I, and not the swingers, are the ones that are hopelessly out of date.
When it comes to love, sex and relationships, even the most cynical amongst us believe, to a greater or lesser extent, in 'happily ever after'.
We are brought up in the binary system - where eventually two people - gay or straight - settle down with each other. Or just settle.
The adult world is designed to accommodate couples. (Just ask anyone who has ever had to pay a 'single subsidy').
In her opening chapters Emily Witt acknowledges that she too was certain that this was her fate, but finding herself single in her early 30s she began to question both her own future and that of female sexuality.
"For now I was a person in the world, a person who had sexual relationships that I could not describe in language and that failed my moral ideals. Apprehensiveness set in: that this was my future."
Witt's initial investigations take her from New York where she and most of the adults she knows enjoy 'non-relationships' - ones where people sleep with each other but are not officially a couple, to San Francisco, which has in the past 50 years been associated with ideals of 'free love' and being 'out there'.
Witt is white, went to Brown University followed by Columbia School of Journalism and Cambridge and, although she doesn't really mention it she doesn't appear hard up for cash.
So yes, her "problems" could be easily dismissed as privilege but the themes she explores in this book will resonate to a greater or lesser extent with most Western women.
"I had never sought too much choice for myself, and when I found myself with total sexual freedom, I was unhappy."
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Of course the paradox is that women never truly have "total sexual freedom" as we are still judged by the standards of the patriarchy. For example, Witt reveals that she had the notion that the more sex she had the less likely she was going to find love. This idea is deeply embedded in Western culture but Witt reveals just how ludicrous it is.
"The arbitrary nature of these correlations had not occurred to me."
Ideas that are so deeply held for so long are not always easy to abandon and Witt admits: "I still half-expected that destiny would meet me halfway, that in the middle of all the uncertainty I would come across an exit ramp that would lead me back to all the comfortable expectations."
Yet she throws herself into the 'Brave New World' of sex and sexuality - sometimes with abandon, (Burning Man) and sometimes not.
There is more to Future Sex than one woman's journey - Witt is first and foremost a journalist and she takes time to research the background to the various subjects she encounters and manages to relate it back to the reader without obtruding in her own story.
I was fascinated to discover that the first internet dating sites were designed specifically to appeal to women because "recruiting men had never been a problem".
She charts visits to a porn shoot, a video sex chat site Chaturbate (to paraphrase Larry Gogan, the clue is in the name) and documents the polyamorous relationship of Elizabeth, Wes and Chris.
Polyamory is a fairly recent term which used to be called 'open relationships'. Wes, Chris and Elizabeth sometimes worked 60-70 hours a week and, apart from their triangle, had other regular lovers and one-night stands.
To be honest, I was exhausted just reading about it. Besides, for all the sex, there seemed to be a lot of talking involved and not much fun.
Witt writes in that very American formal journalistic way which can be hard going for those used to a more casual style.
However, I'd urge readers to hang in there as she has many valid points and some wonderful insights.
The chapter on 'Birth Control and Reproduction' was, for me, the most interesting. For example, while there have been "breakthroughs in everything from theoretical physics to decoding the human genome" during the past 40 years, there has been no significant change in contraception.
This sad fact, (current contraceptive choices are far from perfect), says far more about women in the present, let alone in the future. Well worth a read.
Cast member Jamie Dornan poses at the premiere of the film "Fifty Shades Darker" in Los Angeles, California, February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok
Jamie Dornan, left, and Dakota Johnson arrive at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Fifty Shades Darker' at The Theatre at Ace Hotel. Photo: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Maybe there is method in the madness of Fifty Shades Darker.
As we giggle at the idiotic lines and clunky reactions of the dull on-screen couple, you wonder if this 'mummy porn with a side of comedy' is a ploy by zillionaire author and co-producer EL James and scriptwriter husband Niall Leonard.
You can only hope. At the preview screening for this second spankfest, there were wild hoots of laughter in junctures where no laughter was invited. The same was reported of the $570m-grossing first instalment of the franchise.
No one seemed to mind that time and it is unlikely anyone will with this follow-up that sees Sam Taylor-Johnson replaced by James Foley, a director who in 1992 gave the world the magnificent David Mamet adaptation, Glengarry Glen Ross.
How things can change. And yet, in other ways, how they stay the same.
As Christian Grey, the saga's dark lord of slap-and-tickle, Jamie Dornan is still ill at ease with a role that demands he wear a predatory frown and little else. Still mumbling and moping away alongside her vampiric beau in penthouse opulence is Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson). He swoops back into her life promising it'll all be different this time.
She sets out her conditions whilst rummaging through the walk-in closet he has bought her, before being buckled into some manner of medieval shackle. Sexier auditing reports exist.
We can discuss the soapy narrative, stiff dialogue, absent chemistry, absurd plot devices and vulgar wealth-porn all we like; the fact is you either already plan on seeing this or you don't.
Hilary A White
The Lego Batman Movie
Cert: G; Now showing
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The Lego Movie was one of the funniest films of 2014 - but this is not so much a sequel as a spin off, centering on one of the side stars of the movie Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Will Arnett once again voices the fantastically self-involved, in denial, emotionally-stunted superhero in a frenetically-paced, super clever, funny and slightly drawn- out animated juggernaut.
The film opens to Batman/Bruce Wayne facing complaints from the Joker (Zack Galifianakis) for not hating him enough, the villain vowing to do something to finally engage his nemesis's emotions.
The new police chief of Gotham, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) is keen to end Batman's lone wolf vigilante days and encourages him to work with her. But Batman is unconvinced and returns home to reheat his lobster thermidor alone.
In a bid to bury further into denial he heads out as Bruce Wayne, socialite and eligible bachelor and accidentally adopts an orphan called Dick (Michael Cera). Bruce/Batman regrets the adoption but isn't allowed to back out by his faithful butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes). Then a whole load of baddies get busted out of jail and everyone gets busy.
As a frenetic piece of fun it works well. Chris McKay directs the work of five men who worked hard to out funny each other. The relentless one liners and references will sail over most kids' heads but they will still enjoy it.
It's a little too long, there is only so much Batman deconstruction anyone can take, but it's star-studded, smart and funny.
Aine O'Connor
Prevenge
Cert: 16: Selected cinemas Now showing
Ben Wheatley's 2012 comedy Sightseers corralled together a naff Middle-Englander sensibility with bludgeoning violence. That a similar comedy tone is mined in this blood-stained jewel of a debut is unsurprising given that writer-director-star Alice Lowe was a driving force of Wheatley's film both sides of the lense too.
Here, she plays pregnant Ruth, whose foetus is ordering her to go on a killing spree to avenge its father's death. His rope, you see, had to be cut during a rock-climbing accident in order to save the other participants. One-by-one, Ruth slashes her way through them in macabre style.
Lowe portrays a character based on Tina in Sightseers (frumpy, awkward, a bit rubbish). Unlike Tina, she elicits not only horror, but also pity and compassion as well.
As a director, she shows much flair and cunning. Prevenge throbs off the screen thanks to her talent for mischief and bemusement. She herds around a fine comedic cast and maintains vigour between scenes with Toydrum's pummelling soundtrack. A real find.
Hilary A White
Meetings With Ivor
Cert: 12A; Now showing
In under 90 minutes Alan Gilsenan's documentary covers a lot of ground about one of the most prominent and occasionally controversial figures in Irish mental health.
It outlines Prof Ivor Browne's basic biography, his childhood in Sandymount, his marriage and children and relationship with June Levine but also gives good insight into his beliefs, on both mental health and life in general, and gives a great sense of the man himself.
The meetings - conversations between Ivor Browne and various well known Irish faces, including Mary Coughlan, Sebastian Barry and Tommy Tiernan - are interspersed with vignettes from Browne's daily life, reveal glimpses of his methods, results and fanbase. It's a great insight into a fascinating man.
Aine O'Connor
Bust developer Sean Dunne has failed to secure permission from the High Court to allow his lawyers cross examine his bankruptcy trustee.
The request was rejected by Ms Justice Caroline Costello, who found Mr Dunne had failed to demonstrate any conflicting information existed in affidavits filed by official assignee Christopher Lehane.
Mr Dunne had been seeking to have Mr Lehane quizzed after the bankruptcy official made a series of allegations against the one time Baron of Ballsbridge, who went bankrupt in 2013 with debts of close to 700m.
Mr Lehane is seeking to extend Mr Dunnes period of bankruptcy while he investigates his belief the developer and his wife benefited to the tune of 12m from the recent sale to a Dermot Desmond-linked trust of Walford, a property on Dublins Shrewsbury Road.
The official assignee has also alleged Mr Dunne failed to cooperate in the realisation of assets for creditors and had hidden or failed to disclose income and assets.
In a written submission to the court, Mr Dunne said Mr Lehane had obtained a freezing order against the Lagoon Beach Hotel in South Africa and had issued proceedings against his wife, Gayle Killilea, and his son, John Dunne, seeking to void bona fide transfers to me.
Mr Dunne argued that as those proceedings were not concluded, Mr Lehane could not in fact state that he had failed to disclose income or assets.
He claimed it was equitable and just that his lawyers be allowed cross examine Mr Lehane given the gravity of his application to extend the bankruptcy period.
But in a ruling today, Ms Justice Costello said cross examination of Mr Lehane was not necessary for any issue which needed to be determined by the court.
In this application it is the bankrupts conduct which is under scrutiny, not that of the official assignee, she said.
She said Mr Dunne had not demonstrated the probable presence of conflict in affidavits filed by Mr Lehane.
The judge also said the court should be sparing in its exercise of powers to allow bankruptcy officials be cross examined.
Mr Lehane is himself seeking permission from the court to cross examine Mr Dunne about the sale of Walford last December.
Mr Dunne has always denied having a beneficial interest in the property, which he said was bought by his wife after he gifted her 58m for the purchase in 2005.
The property was sold to Cypriot-registered company, Yesreb Holdings, in 2013, which in turn sold it on to Mr Desmonds Merdon Trust last December.
However, in an affidavit lodged with the High Court, Mr Lehane alleged Mr Dunne was the beneficial owner all along, up until the sale to Mr Desmonds trust, and that the property should have been part of the bankruptcy estate.
It references an email from a Dublin accountant acting on behalf of Yesreb to a solicitor who has acted for Mr Dunne in the past.
This email stated that 12m was to be deposited with Zurich law firm Lenz & Staehlin. It also referenced a number of smaller payments which were to be made to companies linked to Yesreb.
It is my view that it is reasonable to infer that the Dunnes or their offshore companies are in receipt of 12m, the affidavit said.
13 Feb 2017; Parents of late Lorcan O'Reilly; father Paddy Rooney and mother Jenny O'Reilly hold photos of their son outside the CCJ. Parkgate Street, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn
THE heartbroken mother of stabbing victim Lorcan OReilly (21) has said he was a happy healthy young man and knowing she will never see him again will be very hard.
Jenny OReilly broke down in tears as she spoke after the sentencing of a teenager who was given four and a half years detention for her sons manslaughter.
The accused (16) was handed down a six-year sentence, with 18 months suspended, for fatally stabbing Mr OReilly in the heart at a Halloween bonfire after telling him: You dont know who my dad is.
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy told the Central Criminal Court today at least one member of the accuseds immediate family was associated with criminal activity and a report stated that the youth was lacking a moral compass.
The court heard the accused was of extremely low intelligence and had mild intellectual disability but nevertheless had high social standing and notoriety among his peers due to the element of criminality in his background.
The judge said the offence was rendered far more serious when one brings a deadly weapon into the equation.
He said Mr OReillys family had been deeply affected by his death.
The teenager, who cannot be named because of his age showed no emotion as the sentence was given at todays hearing, which was closed off to members of the public except close relatives of the accused and deceased.
His sentence will begin at Oberstown detention centre in north county Dublin and the final 18 months will be suspended for two years, under conditions.
The defendants mother burst into tears and walked forward to hug him at the end of the proceedings.
Afterwards, Jenny OReilly, the deceaseds mother, gave a brief statement on the steps of the Criminal Courts of Justice.
As everyone who knows us knows how extremely hard this is for all involved we would just like to say how missed our son Lorcan will be, she said. Lorcan was a healthy, happy young man and knowing we will never see him again is very hard.
With the help of our family, friends and community we will try to be strong. We are moving forward for the sake of our children, Ms OReilly added.
The accused pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr OReilly at Oliver Bond flats in Dublins south inner city the early hours of November 1, 2015.
He had denied an original charge of murder but his plea to the lesser count was accepted by the prosecution.
The court heard the accused was 14 years of age at the time killing.
During the sentencing hearing today, Judge McCarthy said any manslaughter was rendered far more serious when one brings a deadly weapon, which is what the knife was, into the equation, and that is what the accused did.
Mr OReilly had been a member of a very close knit family and I think its fair to say the parents and a number of other members of the family will have great difficulty getting over his death, Judge McCarthy said.
Referring to a victim impact statement given by the victims father, Paddy Rooney, the judge quoted: When he was stabbed in the heart that night, it was all of our hearts that were broken.
One cannot doubt the loss which has occurred, Judge McCarthy said. The deceaseds family has suffered grievously.
Reading from a probation report, the judge noted that the accused had had a very unsettled childhood in terms of moving from place to place and had lived in three other countries. His education was interrupted and extremely limited and in the household in which he lived members were in fear of third parties.
There had been frequent visits by the gardai and her mother had stated she left his father three years ago because of her fathers activities and to exclude what she thought was his bad influence on her son.
It seemed clear that at least one member of his immediate family was associated with criminal activity, the judge said. In terms of the accuseds personality, Judge McCarthy said he was a person who, because of his background, lacks a moral compass.
The accused appeared to accept he had a tendency to bottle things up and then explode.
He had an extremely low IQ score and a mental age lower than his physical age.
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Notwithstanding any limitations of his personality, he appears to have had high social standing and notoriety among his peers due to the element of criminality in his background, Judge McCarthy said.
There was a significant predisposition factor in his wrongdoing.
Earlier, the court heard Mr OReilly and the defendant had both attended an organised Halloween bonfire next to the flats on the evening of October 31, 2015.
A large crowd of youths later congregated inside an open area of the flats during the early hours of November 1 as the Halloween party continued.
The accused and deceased had been involved in a slagging match at around 2.40 am and that at 2.42am the accused was caught on CCTV in possession of a hurley.
One unnamed witness told gardai that there was a lot of slagging off going on. He (the accused) was saying who he was and who his dad was.
Another witness, who was also not identified in court, told investigating officers that Mr OReilly had been trying to stop a fight between the accused and another boy but the accused wanted the fight to go on.
The accused had been swinging the hurley towards the deceased while shouting: You dont who my dad isYou dont know who I am.
Taking the hurley from the boy, Mr OReilly was heard saying: I dont care. Im not letting a 14-year-old talk to me like that.
At that point, the accused left the scene but returned minutes later and struck Mr OReilly in the chest with a knife.
He then ran off but Mr OReilly chased after him and the pair clashed again, with Mr OReilly receiving a second stab wound to below his right eye.
Moments after the second altercation, Mr OReilly approached a friend and said: "Im after being stabbed
He was then taken by car to the accident and emergency department of the nearby St Jamess Hospital where he later went into a cardiac arrest.
Despite the efforts of the hospital medical staff, which included a cardiac massage, Mr OReilly never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 4.05am.
A post-mortem later revealed the fatal blow had been a knife wound to Mr OReillys chest that had punctured his heart.
In a victim impact statement, the victims father Paddy Rooney said his wife and children were robbed that night of a happy, kind and thoughtful son and brother.
Mr Rooney said Mr OReillys mother and brothers and sisters were still struggling to come to terms with the death and that he personally was finding it unbelievably difficult to relive the events of the that awful night.
Nothing has been the same since. Time is not a healer, he said. All of our hearts are broken.
A Dublin engineer was arrested for ranting in Japanese at a garda investigating a late night street row - despite the fact that the officer was a Chinese national.
Raymond Roche (27) was interfering in a disturbance that had nothing to do with him when he launched his tirade at the garda, a court heard.
After his arrest, he went on to insist speaking in Japanese to the local inspector who tried to give him the benefit of a caution that would have left him without charges.
Dublin District Court was told Roche had too much to drink while he was out celebrating getting a job abroad, where he was going to join his wife.
He spoke the language after a stint working in Japan.
Judge Michael Walsh told Roche his behaviour had been appalling, but said he would leave him without a criminal record if made a 500 donation to charity before he leaves the country.
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Roche, with an address at Lombard Street East, Dublin 2 pleaded guilty to threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour and failing to obey garda directions on January 21 last.
Sgt Gail Smith told the court Garda Tao Yu was dealing with another man in relation to a public order incident at Townsend Street, Dublin 2 at around 3.30am.
Roche had nothing to do with this initial incident.
A number of people had stopped to have a look and gardai told them to stand back while they dealt with it.
Roche decided to try to interfere with this investigation and was told to stand back. He then began speaking to Gda Yu in Japanese.
Gda Yu ignored the accused, who continued to speak in Japanese and refused to stand back. When told again to leave he became aggressive and started shouting something in Japanese to Garda Yu, questioning why he had to leave the area in a quite argumentative way.
He was with a woman at the time and said they werent going anywhere.
Roche was arrested and brought to a garda station, where he continued to speak Japanese. Garda Yu told him it was insulting for him to be spoken to in that language.
Is that because the Japanese invaded your country, like 100 years ago? Roche had replied.
Roche, who had no previous convictions, was suitable for an adult caution to be given.
However, when the local garda inspector began to administer it, Roche spoke to him in Japanese.
Judge Walsh said Roches behaviour had been quite appalling.
Roche was an engineer involved in supply chain management, his solicitor John ODoherty said. He grew up in Dublin, got a degree from DIT and worked in Japan for a number of years.
On the night, he was out celebrating with friends after getting news that he was to get work abroad and would be able to join his wife, who lived out of the country.
He had a lot to drink and apologised to the garda for his behaviour.
Judge Walsh adjourned the case for a week and said he would strike the charges out if Roche paid 500 to charity.
By Reza Yeganehshakib for Trend
President Trumps statements about deregulating energy production in the US, as well as recent developments in US LNG capabilities (such as Cheniere Terminals first export last spring and the growth of Sabine Pas Terminal), could transform the US from a net LNG importer into a net exporter. This may be a factor in the US acquiring an unprecedented controlling power in the LNG market, enabling it to influence prices.
According to some analyses, LNG will become one of the worlds most used energy by 2035. Besides the market-influencing power that a rise in US LNG exporting will create, it will increase US geopolitical supremacy over its LNG consumers. This may create a new arena of competition between the US and the other world gas giants such as Russia and Iran. The latter countries are pursuing ambitious plans for their LNG sector, especially since they have the worlds top two proven natural gas reserves. However, Russia and Iran do not have an amicable relationship with the US, compared to other active and potential LNG producers such as Qatar and Australia. Even if the new US Administration develops a closer relationship with Russia and Iran, it would probably not eliminate competition in the energy-exporting arena.
Although LNG could be the cause of a new rivalry between the US, Iran and Russia, it could also create a new spirit of cooperation among them. Consider that there is already an organization like OPEC among the gas exporting countries, called the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). Closer cooperation between these countries could significantly reduce security costs and arms competition, especially between Russia and the US. Because of the good relationship that Trump and his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have with Vladimir Putin, the world may witness an era of more constructive cooperation between these traditional rivals. This may significantly impact the lucrative business of the giant weapons manufacturing corporations and security contractors, especially those who have already made massive amounts of money by selling the idea of a Russian and Iranian threat to governments from Europe to the Persian Gulf.
Besides the security contracting and arms sales business, the growing cyber security industry may also be hurt by an amicable US-Russia or US-Iran relationship. The media controversy about Russian cyber attacks during the US election, inflamed by some US officials and the cyber security lobby, showed how paranoia about Russia is stoked in the US political environment by partisan interests.
Nevertheless, a sudden jump in LNG exporting could adversely impact its global price. By massively reducing the volume of natural gas and increasing the portable storage capacity, LNG has enabled exporters to reach out to more remote markets, something unprecedented and commercially impossible under the traditional pipeline systems. As much as these developments in natural gas exporting technology appear to be positive, in an oversupplied market like the current one, it could be a disaster, pushing the spot prices even lower. Studies show that there is no near term future growth potential in areas such as China, India, and South East Asia. The reality is that the LNG industry requires substantial capital investment, and its distribution and delivery are especially costly endeavors. The new US administration should realize that any spike in export amounts may cause irreversible damage to the investments in this industry, similar to what happened to the crude oil market in recent years. Other non-conventional and costly segments, like shale gas (and oil) are no exception.
The administrations political and commercial decisions could also affect investments in the US LNG industry. The US administrations recent statements have raised some serious concerns about a trade conflict with China. This may not involve any military action, of course. But since the US is Chinas largest trade partner, any non-military trade confrontation with the country, since it is a significant oil and gas consumer, could affect US investments in the LNG sector.
If Trump imposes a higher tariff on Chinese goods coming into the US, it could cause China to switch to other energy suppliers such as Australia, Russia, and Iran. Some, like Australia and Iran, may not be capable of large scale exporting right now but due to their investments in LNG industries, they could become some of the worlds major exporters in a few years. Moreover, a tariff increase on Chinese imports may reduce other US potential LNG clients confidence by disturbing the pre-existing trade balance and convince them to switch to other suppliers.
On the other hand, China relies very much on its revenue from exports to the US. Hence, it may not initially react to threatened US tariff increases, so as not to hurt Chinese imports to the US. But if a situation occurs where the tariffs undermine Chinas long-term policy of keeping the Yuan value low to ensure export competitiveness, they may lose effectiveness. After all, no one wants to export if there is no opportunity for a profit over and above manufacturing and distribution costs. If China feels that the US market is still a lucrative place for its goods, it has a motive to import LNG from the US; otherwise, it is best to get supplies from suppliers in Asia or Oceania.
How long will it take for the global LNG market to see the consequences of Trumps energy policies? Tim Daiss, an energy and geopolitics expert, believes that it takes at least a decade to see the results of such decisions. He has cited the US Energy Information Administration report of January 2017, which claimed that by reaching 64.7 mtpa in 2020, the US would become the worlds third major LNG exporter after Australia (85 mtpa) and Qatar (77 mtpa). He argues that since Americas five major LNG projects already have long-term offtake supply contracts for the largest part of their volumes, the first stage of transformation in the US LNG industry will not be affected by Trumps decisions. Daiss believes that the second stage will occur in a decade, and at that time the market will see the real consequences of Trumps decisions.
Regardless of the time frame, energy regulations in general and LNG policies in particular are delicate decisions that the new US administration should look at pragmatically, along with a set of balanced commercial and political decisions that wont jeopardize US relations with its trade partners.
Reza Yeganehshakib, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Fullerton College and a geopolitical and energy analyst for Corr Analytics, a New York-based political risk consultancy.
The jury in a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial has been discharged after a juror fell asleep 15 minutes into the trial opening.
Garrett Baker BL, prosecuting, was giving his opening address in the trial of Dean Joyce on Monday when it was perceived that one of the male jurors was in fact asleep.
Mr Baker was about 15 minutes into his address and was explaining the concept of beyond reasonable doubt when the sleeping juror was discovered. The opening address came to a halt as a jury minder approached the juror and woke him up.
After a short adjournment, defence barrister Pieter Le Vert BL told Judge Elma Sheahan that another male juror had also appeared to be on the verge of nodding off during the opening address.
It would seem two jurors were struggling, Mr Le Vert said.
Mr Baker joked that it was a new low for opening addresses.
The court heard it may not be legally possible to replace the two jurors, as the trial had already opened. As a result, Judge Sheahan ruled that she should discharge the entire jury.
In a most unusual turn of events, I'm going to thank you for your service and discharge you, she told them.
Mr Joyce (24) with an address in Rowlagh Park, Clondalkin, Dublin has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges, including endangering gardai by driving his car into a garda van, four counts of dangerous driving and possession of stolen property in Ballyfermot and Clondalkin on March 3, 2015.
He also pleaded not guilty to driving without a licence, driving without insurance, possession of a boxcutter that was used in a burglary, criminal damage of a garda van and failing to stop for gardai on the same date.
A new jury will be sworn in on Tuesday.
A MAN who had boiling water thrown over him as he watched TV in a Dublin city hostel has lost his High Court action for damages.
Ms Justice Bronagh O Hanlon said The Salvation Army did not fail in its duty of care to Mark Inglis.
Mr Inglis sued after he was attacked in a Salvation Army hostel in Longford Street in 2010.
Ms Justice O'Hanlon said what happened was not a common occurrence and it had shocked the hostel staff.
The court heard Mr Inglis suffered burns to his face, chest, abdomen and legs and spent more than two weeks in the St James Hospital burns unit after the incident.
He told the court he had been living at the hostel for about nine months because he was desperate and had nowhere to go.
He said on the night of August 21, 2010 the lights went out in the TV room and a kettle of boiling water was thrown at him by another resident.
The kettle ended up upside down on his lap.
Mr Inglis, originally from Aldershot, England had claimed there was an alleged failure to take any or any reasonable care to ensure he would be safe in using the premises and that he was allegedly allowed to be in fear of his safety.
The Salvation Army denied all the claims. It also contended Mr Inglis's claim of having made prior complaints to staff of threats of violence from the other resident were untrue.
Ms Justice O'Hanlon said the system in place at the hostel was in line with their own procedures and the court considered the assault was certainly not forseeable.
Neither did the court accept Mr Inglis had made complaints of having being threatened by the other resident prior to the incident.
A son of billionaire businessman Jim Mansfield has been sent forward for trial accused of unlawful possession of more than 1,200 rounds of ammunition.
Patrick James (PJ) Mansfield (38) is accused of having 1,257 rounds of Walther ammunition without a firearms licence at his former home at Coldwinters Lake in Saggart. He had pleaded not guilty at Dublin District Court which refused jurisdiction to hear the case.
He appeared again at the same court on Monday when he was served with a book of evidence by Det Garda Ian Pemberton of the organised crime unit.
Judge Bryan Smyth told Mr Mansfield that if he intended to use an alibi in his defence he must notify the prosecution within 14 days. The accused spoke briefly saying yes when asked if he understood.
Judge Smyth said he was sending Mr Mansfield forward for trial at the present term of the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court where his next hearing is scheduled to take place on March 3.
The state noted from defence counsel Aisling Kelly that Mr Mansfield that would not be able to attend court on the next date as he will be out of the jurisdiction.
The district court has heard that he was licensed to have 300 bullets for a legally owned Walther .22 pistol which he kept in a picture frame hanging over his bed.
However it has been alleged he had 1557 rounds of ammunition for the gun at his home, on January 29, 2015. It has been held that his case is too serious to be dealt with at district court level.
Meanwhile his brother, Jim Mansfield Jnr (48) who is accused of having 180 rounds of .22 Walther ammunition without a firearms licence at his home at Tassaggart House in Saggart on Jan. 29, 2015, will go on trial at the district court in June. He has also pleaded not guilty
In an outline of the evidence given earlier, the district court heard gardai searched Jim Mansfield Jnr's home under warrant and located a legally-held Walther pistol as well as 480 rounds of ammunition, which was 180 rounds of ammunition in excess of the licence.
They are sons of businessman Jim Mansfield Snr who died in 2014. The businessman was behind the Citywest hotel and Weston Airport and several other companies but his ventures were badly hit by the recession.
Garda Sgt Maurice McCabe and his wife Lorraine photographed at their home on the Cavan/Meath border. Photo: Barry Cronin
Could happen, I suppose. You're copying and pasting material within a child abuse file - we're not sure why that was happening, but let's see where this goes.
You're copying and pasting material within a child abuse file and you copy a couple of sentences. They are serious, distasteful words, about an adult digitally penetrating a young girl, vaginally and anally.
And what happens? Maybe your finger slips on the mouse as you move the cursor across the screen and whoops, the couple of sentences get away from you.
And you don't notice it happening.
It's probably happened to everyone who works with word processors.
But in this instance the sentences don't land on some inappropriate space in the file you've been working on, where they stand out as an error. Instead, they somehow land in a completely different file.
And there, they don't just land on some random spot, they land somewhere that - by sheer chance - appears to blend them into the narrative already recorded in this new file. The words aren't an obvious and inappropriate interloper - they somehow fit in.
The file goes to Tusla, the child protection agency. And the words that landed by chance in an unintended file fit in there so well that 16 months later someone from Tusla reads this file and contacts the person named within to inform them that they're under investigation for one of the most serious crimes in the book.
Possible, I suppose.
If true, we'll presumably have to reconsider a lot of child abuse cases - just to be sure that no other case involves a damning line or paragraph accidentally migrating from one file to another.
But that's not the end of it.
Of all the files in all the world, the stray words dropped into a file labelled Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
Previously, the McCabe file was deemed to involve an innocent man. It concerned a decade-old matter about which no action was considered appropriate. Now, however, the runaway words from the other file upgraded the McCabe file to one of child rape.
That's some series of mishaps.
And this Maurice McCabe, as it happens, is the guy who's become a pain in the neck for the Garda hierarchy. Such a pain that the then Garda Commissioner publicly described him as "disgusting". The stuff McCabe's been reporting involves the wrongful handling of everything from the Pulse system and penalty points to serious assaults and murder.
Word goes out.
The Garda whistleblower known throughout the country, says the whisper, turns out to be in the files of Tusla. And word spreads from cop to hack to politician and beyond. The air is full of whispers - we're not saying the force is perfect but, come on, have you heard about this guy McCabe? Tusla's had to open files on his kids, for God's sake.
And the explanation is ready: Look, some young guards messed up a bit on some serious cases, but that's been looked after - no need for anyone to make a fuss about any of it. Meanwhile, I'd be careful of yer man McCabe, if I was you. You're best not listening to anything he has to say.
We do not know if all of this calumny was verbal, or if the Tusla file was quietly shown to selected people. Certainly, its narrative was so convincing that it fooled a childcare professional - it would have been very handy for blackening McCabe's name.
But, let us for the moment accept the coincidences involved in accidentally upgrading a Tusla file. Because this is where things take an even stranger turn. This is where it goes from eyebrow-raising to pure WTF.
There now exists a file accusing Maurice McCabe of child rape. The man is a danger to children. He's also a Garda sergeant. He holds a position that gives him responsibility for and access to children in the rural town where he's stationed.
What happens?
Nothing.
It's eight months before word of this development is sent to the Superintendent of the area where McCabe is stationed.
McCabe is not informed that he's now categorised as a serious child abuser, so serious that files have been opened on his children.
He's not questioned.
He's not relieved of his position of responsibility until such time as the authorities are satisfied he isn't a threat to children.
It appears that a Tusla notation of a child rape allegation has no effect on one's career, even if one is a Garda sergeant.
One other odd thing.
When the word spread about McCabe, blackening his name, it had to have reached the highest circles of the force (leaving aside the allegation that the word came down from senior circles).
Now, imagine you're a senior Garda. This McCabe guy has been a real problem - to your eyes he's been disloyal, portraying the force as dysfunctional. If only we had something on him, something that would close him down while we get on with the job.
They now had something on him, albeit a false accusation of child rape. All that had to happen was that the normal investigatory procedure be followed, with McCabe arrested and questioned. A whisper to an obliging reporter would ensure McCabe would be publicly neutered.
Instead, they apparently turned the other cheek.
It's almost as though someone knew that Sergeant McCabe's name had been wrongfully blackened.
*******
By now, the politicians were involved. And, for decades politicians have found involvement with complaints against the Garda force to be toxic. They prefer to keep such matters at a distance.
And the culture of 'blue glue', inculcated in training, where gardai stick together regardless of right or wrong, renders the innocent civilian helpless.
In the old days there was much talk of heavy gangs and beatings. Since these accusations usually came from Provos and the like, anyone raising questions about such matters was deemed a fellow traveller. Politicians kept their eyes averted, accepting that the bruises came from suspects falling down steps.
An exception was Conor Cruise O'Brien, a minister in the 1970s. Twenty years later he wrote of how a garda told him, when he was in office, about how he "beat the shit" out of a suspect. "It didn't worry me," O'Brien admitted.
Though the paramilitary aspect receded eventually, the incidences of garda misbehaviour continued - as did the reluctance of politicians to do anything about them.
Up in Donegal, the police tried to frame Frank McBrearty for a murder that never happened. They framed Frank Shortt for allegedly allowing drugs to be sold in his nightclub. Shortt went to jail for three years and his health was shattered. He refused early release, as it would require him to admit to something he hadn't done. He and his lawyers eventually proved his innocence. He got almost two million in compensation and launched an appeal - the appeal court doubled the award.
The litany of dodgy major cases has been mirrored in a stream of lesser cases, where the State usually pays off the claimant.
Frank Shortt's treatment was described by a judge as "a shocking abuse of power on the part of two Garda officers, namely a Superintendent and a Detective Garda. They both engaged in a conspiracy to concoct false evidence against the plaintiff which, in turn, resulted in perjured Garda evidence being given at his trial".
Despite his experiences, Shortt refused to regard all gardai as being as dishonourable as those who wrecked his life. He treated gardai as he found them - decent or flawed, according to the evidence; which would be a good starting point for the rest of us, particularly the politicians.
The failure of the political establishment to acknowledge that gardai are human and require effective oversight means that overwhelming evidence is required before the average politician will get off the fence. And whenever anyone dares speak or write critically about the police they are answered with references to those gardai who were murdered or gravely injured in the line of duty.
It's as though, even after they've given their all, gardai who sacrificed their lives could once more be pressed into service to excuse the inexcusable.
If those who question garda behaviour are regarded as malcontents, true revulsion is reserved for the garda who puts truth before loyalty. So it was with Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Garda John Wilson, publicly denounced by their Commissioner.
When McCabe first complained of an abuse of penalty points, he was banned from using the Pulse system, which effectively stopped him functioning as a garda. As ever, the official response was not "Is this true, and if so, what should follow?" The 'blue glue' culture demanded outright suppression of dissent.
McCabe didn't back down. He pursued the path of duty, even though the obstacles piled up.
The difference with this case and all that went before was twofold: One, McCabe was simply hard to stop. He kept at it, regardless of the obstacles.
Two, the election in 2011 of a number of left-wing TDs. Clare Daly and Mick Wallace were among those who dealt with such issues as they might deal with any complaint - without prejudice.
The persistence of Daly and Wallace and others kept the McCabe and Wilson case in the public eye - it became impossible to kill it by ignoring it.
Complaints against gardai should, of course, be dealt with simply. Follow the evidence as far as it stands up. If the evidence doesn't exist or isn't convincing, reject the allegations.
Instead, politicians have traditionally automatically deemed complaints to be ill-founded.
Even as the whistleblower case was being pursued through the Dail, the underground campaign to blacken McCabe continued. This time, the fact that the case was fought in the Oireachtas, before an Oireachtas committee and in the media, meant it was judged on its merits.
Eventually, Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan resigned.
That was in May 2014.
Which brings us back to that copy-and-paste error.
In that same period in which the McCabe affair concluded in public, with two high-profile resignations, the accusation of child rape was withdrawn.
It was a mistake, Tusla was told. There was a copy-and-paste error. There was never any evidence of digital penetration, vaginally and anally. That was from another case, and it was an accident that it got into the file of Maurice McCabe, a wholly innocent man.
*******
Had the file been scrapped, we'd have heard nothing of the child rape allegation. But the file remained in Tusla and in December 2015 a social worker - who seems to have been ignorant of the fact that the rape accusation had been withdrawn - wrote to McCabe, informing him he was the subject of an investigation.
McCabe was shocked. His lawyer responded, McCabe and his wife followed up and a few weeks ago Children and Youth Affairs Minister Katherine Zappone met the McCabes.
Last week, one staggering revelation followed another, via the work of journalists Katie Hannon and Mick Clifford, and once again we were being taken aback by things that we were never meant to see.
Even accepting that Brendan Howlin's motives were sound, his handling of the matter was clumsy - a journalist handling things so badly would be in trouble. His actions spilled the sex abuse charge into the public eye.
Even now, the politicians seem to be dancing around the facts.
Zappone told the "relevant ministers" about unfolding events. And, no, she wouldn't say who she'd told.
Then it turned out she hadn't told anyone, even when the Cabinet was discussing the matter. It would have been inappropriate, she said, "to brief the Cabinet on confidential, highly sensitive and personal information".
Except, the fact that Maurice McCabe had been entered in official documents as a child rapist was not 'personal' information. It was untrue; it was a false blackening of his name, therefore a matter of public importance, and the Cabinet should have been informed.
The media asked: "What did Zappone know and when did she know it?" And something similar was demanded about the Taoiseach - valid questions, but beside the point.
Yes, the political handing of this has been inept - no one wants to touch these things, no politician ever has. Much better to stare into the far distance and hope they go away - look what happened to Alan Shatter.
Some of us could think of reasons why Shatter should have resigned, but none of them have anything to do with the way in which he was forced out. As for the resignation of the Garda Commissioner and the extraordinary behaviour of Taoiseach Enda Kenny - politicians want to forget such matters.
All of these political manoeuvres are beside the point - they're all to do with politicians covering their backsides.
The point is who was involved in the attempt to destroy Maurice McCabe's reputation, and thereby eliminate a troublesome garda who took his duties seriously?
That is the important point because we need a police force that is amenable to the democratic structures. A police force that rejects oversight, that rejects the efforts of sincere officers to expose failings in the force becomes a danger to us all.
Some have asked themselves in the past week: if this could be done to an experienced Garda sergeant with a proven record of public service, what might be done to any citizen by gardai knowing they have nothing to fear from within the force?
What might be done to the teenager stopped on a dark street, to the citizen unhappy with the response to a request, to anyone with a justified complaint about garda behaviour?
In 2014, the Government had an opportunity to bring in an outsider who could deal fairly and fearlessly with the force. Instead, it chose as the new Commissioner the officer who sat beside Martin Callinan as he denounced McCabe and Wilson as "disgusting".
Perhaps the Government feared revolt within the ranks if one of their own wasn't given the job - in which case it was even more important not to give in to the dangerous loyalty-before-truth brigade.
A police force demands great effort from its members - not least an understanding that with the powers necessary to police a society comes the responsibility to be answerable to that society.
Some of the players in the controversy include, from left, Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan, her predecessor Martin Callinan, Superintendent David Taylor, Sergeant Maurice McCabe, Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, former justice minister Alan Shatter, Children and Youth Affairs Minister Katherine Zappone
As the garda whistleblower controversy continues to dominate the headlines this week, here are the eight latest details you need to know about the crisis:
1. The McCabes issue a statement rejecting Commission of Inquiry
In a statement this evening, the couple say they and their five children have been systematically attacked in a number of ways by State agencies and people working for the State.
Significantly, the family say any future inquiry into the alleged smear campaign by garda management should be held in public.
Expand Close Whistleblower: Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe. Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook
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The statement quotes Health Minister Simon Harris as today saying the family are entitled to truth and justice.
We wish to make it clear that we are definitely not agreeable to that entitlement being wholly postponed so that another Commission of Inquiry can conduct a secret investigation behind closed doors and make a report, into which we have no input as of right, in nine or 18 months time.
We are entitled to the truth - justice can follow in its wake, the statement says.
Fianna Fail have now said they back the family's call for a pubic inquiry.
The Taoiseach is due to meet the Fianna Fail leader on Tuesday morning to discuss the planned Commission of Inquiry.
2. Children's Minister Katherine Zappone breaks silence
Children's Minister Katherine has said she told Taoiseach Enda Kenny about a Tusla link to Garda Whistleblower Maurice McCabe.
She said the McCabe family told her of extraordinary and vile allegations and she felt the need to keep them private in order to protect the McCabes.
However, she revealed that she told Taoiseach Enda Kenny that there was a Tusla link to the scandal prior to the Cabinet agreeing the terms of reference for the Commission of Investigation.
Mr Kenny has since responded and said through a spokeperson that the Minister took the correct course of action.
She also announced a HIQA investigation into Tusla operations.
3. Garda whistleblower David Taylor has been cleared of leaking information and has broken two years of silence
Garda whistleblower David Taylor has been cleared of leaking information after an investigation that has lasted over 18 months.
In a statement to Independent.ie, Supt Taylor said he feels "vindicated".
"After almost two years under formal Garda investigation, I have been informed today that a decision has been made not to prosecute me. I awaiting a copy of the Director of Public Prosecution's letter," Supt Taylor said.
"I have waited a long time for this decision to be made. It has been an incredibly stressful and difficult time for my family and friends. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues who supported me through this time."
4. Garda Commissioner releases statement
Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan said she will not be stepping down while an investigation into the whistleblower controversy takes place.
In a statement released this afternoon, Ms O'Sullivan wrote: "My position remains unchanged. Nothing has emerged in the last three weeks which in any way changes that situation."
The Garda Commissioner said the "campaign of false accusations, repeated and multiplied" do not make her "guilty of anything".
She continued; "I have made it clear that I was not part of any campaign to spread rumours about Sergeant McCabe and didn't know it was happening at the time it was happening.
"I have repeatedly refuted that claim and do so again."
She wrote; "The easiest option for me would be to step aside until the Commission finishes its work.
"I'm not taking that option because I am innocent and because An Garda Siochana, under my leadership, has been making significant progress, with the help of our people, the Government, the Policing Authority and Garda Inspectorate, in becoming a beacon of twenty first century policing."
5. Varadkar's message
Varadkar has urged party colleagues "not to panic" after it was revealed that TDs are "freaking out" at the Taoiseach and Tanaiste's handling of the Garda whistleblower crisis.
6. Crisis in Government
A motion of no confidence in the Government will be held in the Dail on Thursday. The motion was called for by Sinn Fein as many TDs criticise the Taoiseach and Tanaiste's handling of the garda whistleblower crisis.
The sense of crisis has been heightened by an opinion poll which puts Fine Gael on just 21pc, compared with Fianna Fail's 32pc.
Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell said Sinn Fein's opportunistic move at calling the vote of no confidence is "politically irresponsible".
"Any political opportunism designed to bolster polling numbers should be treated with complete disdain by the Irish people as it will only serve to delay this crucial process," he said in a statement this morning.
7.FF Public Expenditure spokesperson Calleary has '100pc confidence' in Justice Minister
Fianna Fail spokesperson on Public Expenditure Dara Calleary said he has "100pc confidence" that Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is telling the truth. However, he did note there are "serious mis-communication issues" at the heart of the Government.
He said he cannot understand how the minister failed to follow up with Minister Zappone when she was aware she had met with Sergeant McCabe.
8. FF Justice spokesperson Jim O'Callaghan speaks out
Fianna Fails justice spokesman Jim OCallaghan told Newstalk's Breakfast that is '100pc certain' that he mentioned the Tusla file on garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe to the Minister for Justice on Wednesday, one day before the Prime Time programme.
Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald said the first she heard of the details when she watched the RTE programme.
Later, the chairman of Fine Gael suggested Mr OCallaghan is lying about his Dail bar conversation with Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald.
On his local radio station Kildare FM, Mr Heydon said: I believe the Tanaiste and I spoke directly to her last night on the phone. In all of my dealings with Frances Fitzgerald I have found her to be a woman of the upmost integrity.
Asked repeatedly by presenter Shane Beatty whether that meant Mr OCallaghan was lying, the TD replied: If both sides cant be reconciled thats what were looking at, yes.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny pictured shaking hands with Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe on a traffic island in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, where Sgt McCabe was directing traffic
The family of Garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe have hit out at the HSE for releasing a statement of apology over the weekend, which they say contained false information.
It has also emerged the HSE left a voicemail for Sgt McCabe yesterday, in which he was told officials wanted to contact him in order to discuss the statement issued on Saturday.
The brave whistleblower's wife, Lorraine McCabe, said the original statement was "more annoyance" and accused the HSE of being unprofessional and failing to contact the family ahead of its publication.
In the Saturday release, the HSE said that once an "error" was discovered, in which Sgt McCabe was wrongly accused of sexual assault, the "correct procedure" was followed.
"An immediate internal review of guidelines, practices and protocols was undertaken within the National Counselling Service to ensure that such an error would not reoccur," the statement said.
However, after learning the details of the apology, the McCabes contacted officials from Health Minister Simon Harris's department saying they rejected both the statement and the apology.
Expand Close Simon Harris says Sgt McCabe deserves truth and justice. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins / Facebook
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Whatsapp Simon Harris says Sgt McCabe deserves truth and justice. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins
"The HSE statement is wrong and it is not good enough," they told the official.
The family said it was in possession of a file that contradicted the statement and that it was "shocking" they again had to listen to "false information".
In response to this, the HSE released a new statement yesterday in which it said the original release tried to bring "clarity" around "certain aspects" of the McCabe story.
Read more: HSE apologises 'unreservedly' to Maurice McCabe over false sex abuse allegations made against him
It said the story had been "covered extensively in the media" following an RTE programme which revealed an alleged "administrative error" at the child and family agency Tusla led to the false accusation against Sgt McCabe.
"Within this statement was an apology from the HSE for an administrative error that led to considerable distress to Sgt McCabe and his family.
"The HSE is in the process of preparing a more formal apology to Sgt McCabe and his family," it said.
The executive then went into detail about its attempts to contact Sgt McCabe over the weekend.
"At 11am today (Sunday) the HSE became aware of a text that was sent by Sgt McCabe outlining issues that he had with the HSE's statement.
"The HSE immediately convened a meeting in order to discuss his concerns and to put in place a process for contacting Sgt McCabe," it said.
"Telephone contact was made between 11am and 1pm and a voicemail left for Sgt McCabe.
"The HSE wishes to talk to Sgt McCabe in order to discuss the statement that we issued and any issues that he may have in relation to the information contained therein."
It also said the HSE based its statement on the best available information it had and pointed out it did not have access to the Tusla file, referred to by Sgt McCabe.
A statement from Mr Harris's department said he believed Sgt McCabe has done the State some service and "deserves truth and justice".
"(The minister) understands that the HSE is endeavouring to make contact with Sergeant McCabe to meet with him," it added.
On December 29, 2015, Sgt McCabe first learned of the accusations against him, when a social worker in child protection wrote to him, saying he was being investigated for sexual abuse.
On June 20 last year, the same worker wrote to him to say that a mistake had been made and there was no allegation against him.
The mistake was the result of "an administrative error" in which a counsellor copied and pasted a line containing the false allegation into the whistleblower's file erroneously.
The file was sent to gardai in 2013 and he was not informed that it contained the allegation.
Opposition parties, including Fianna Fail have backed a call from Garda Whistleblower for a public inquiry into an alleged smear campaign, casting further doubt on the future of the inquiry.
In a statement on Monday Maurice McCabe and his wife Lorraine said they have been systematically attacked.
We wish to make it clear that we are definitely not agreeable to that entitlement being wholly postponed so that another Commission of Inquiry can conduct a secret investigation behind closed doors and make a report, into which we have no input as of right, in nine or 18 months time.
Independent.ie understands that the idea of a public inquiry will get a fair hearing at what is set to be a tense Cabinet meeting today.
Earlier on Monday , Fianna Fail justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan said his party backs Mr McCabe's call for a public inquiry.
He said: I have studied the statement issued on behalf of Maurice McCabe this afternoon seeking a public inquiry into the alleged smear campaign conducted against him.
Fianna Fail has long maintained that the response to this issue must have the full support of the McCabe family. Accordingly we fully support their call for a public inquiry to be conducted into this matter. We also believe a public inquiry will benefit An Garda Siochana and the general public, Mr O'Callaghan added.
Labour leader Brendan Howlin has also said that he understands the call from Mr McCabe for a public inquiry, and backed the family.
"I am very loathe to say we need to have a public inquiry again... but I have never in my political life seen a more compelling reason to have one than we need one now," he said, speaking on the Six One.
"Unfortunately I do think we need to have all of this evidence taken public so that the public will see each of the issues being tested in a public forum."
He also said there is scope for GSOC to carry out an investigation that "would get to the bottom of all of these matters".
The politician also said that both Minister Zappone and the Taoiseach contradicted each other about who knew what about the scandal.
Mr Howlin also called again on Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan to stand aside until matters had been resolved.
Earlier on Monday the commissioner repeated again that she refuted all allegations against her that she was aware of an alleged smear campaign against Garda McCab
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Enda Kenny declined to answer questions about the McCabe family's demands for the proposed inquiry to be a public rather than private investigation.
Mr Kenny confirmed he will speak with Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin tomorrow about details of the commission of inquiry into the false allegations levelled against Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
Both the Fine Gael and Fianna Fail leaders will attempt to reach agreement about the probe to be headed by Judge Charlton.
"I will speak to Micheal Martin in the morning," Mr Kenny said.
"We want to find the best way of finding out the truth."
The Taoiseach was speaking as he attended a Cork conference about the implications for Ireland of Brexit.
The Taoiseach also declined to comment on the statement by Children's Minister Katherine Zappone and her reasons for not disclosing the full Tusla file details to him before last Thursday's RTE Prime Time programme.
The Iraqi Armed Forces said Monday in a statement, obtained by Sputnik, that their airstrike killed 77 Daesh militants, including 13 commanders, in the west of Iraq, Sputnik reported.
"A reconnaissance patrol conducted a successful operation against the Daesh command in the al-Qaim region. Thirteen commanders were killed, as well as 64 militants," the statement read.
The airstrike was carried out on Saturday.
On Sunday, Arab-language media reported that Abu Bakr Baghdadi, leader of the Daesh terrorist organization, banned in Russia and many other countries, was allegedly heavily injured in an airstrike in western Iraq and sent to Syria for treatment.
Garda whistleblower David Taylor has been cleared of leaking information after an investigation that has lasted over 18 months and has been reinstated to the garda force, Independent.ie can reveal.
Mr Taylor, who is the former head of the Garda Press Office, was arrested in May 2015 in connection with the alleged leaking of material relating to a case involving two Roma children and their feared abduction.
He has been on suspension from the force with a severely reduced salary but has now been reinstated to the garda force.
Mr Taylor was closely aligned to Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivans predecessor Martin Callinan prior to his controversial retirement.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) today informed the Superintendent that he is no longer under investigation in a move that is likely to heap pressure on Ms OSullivan.
In a statement to Independent.ie, Supt Taylor said he feels "vindicated".
"After almost two years under formal Garda investigation, I have been informed today that a decision has been made not to prosecute me. I awaiting a copy of the Director of Public Prosecution's letter," Supt Taylor said.
"I have waited a long time for this decision to be made. It has been an incredibly stressful and difficult time for my family and friends. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues who supported me through this time."
Mr Taylor is one of the two whistleblowers at the centre of the current crisis engulfing An Garda Siochana and the Government. The second in Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
It is understood that Mr Taylor has alleged that Ms OSullivan knew about a smear campaign against Mr McCabe.
The Commissioner has consistently denied this charge, including today when she issued a statement saying: I have made it clear that I was not part of any campaign to spread rumours about Sergeant McCabe and didn't know it was happening at the time it was happening.
I have repeatedly refuted that claim and do so again.
As head of the Garda Press Office, Mr Taylor was authorised to speak to the media.
During his arrest, he was questioned for 20 hours straight and held in a cell in Balbriggan Garda Station.
The manner behind Mr Taylor's suspension and the fact that it has lasted for so long has caused serious disquiet within garda and political circles.
The special unit tasked with investigating the alleged leaking of material to the media is headed up by Ms O'Sullivan's husband, Chief Superintendent Jim McGowan.
She has seen a lot in her career as an A&E nurse, but nothing could prepare Berna Breen for the constant parade of casualties suffering from gunshot and stab wounds when she worked for a week in one of the most violent places on Earth.
The mother-of-one from Co Wexford took temporary leave from her job as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner at the emergency department at University Hospital Waterford to work at the A&E in the Escuela Hospital in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Ms Breen (50) went from treating sprains or breaks to treating young men sliced with machetes or shot during the ongoing feuds between rival drug gangs.
Tegucigalpa is now considered the most dangerous capital city in the world, with frequent murders that are no longer reported in the media. And the casualties from the ensuing turf wars between the cocaine drug lords come streaming through the A&E every few minutes.
"I saw maybe one gunshot (victim) or stabbing in six months when at St James's or Connolly Hospital," she said. "But I'd never seen one every few minutes before. The worst were the machete attacks."
The hospital, which was jammed with patients and visitors lying on mattresses, in many ways resembled a prison, with soldiers patrolling the corridors, armed with machine guns.
"There were massive queues of people lining up to get into the hospital who had to be searched (for weapons)," she said. "There were gates at the front, gates at the A&E and gates into the wards."
Ms Breen said the hospital was woefully stocked with supplies such as antibiotics and painkillers. Her story will air tonight in the documentary 'Toughest Place To Be... An A&E Nurse' on RTE One at 9.35pm.
Valsalgel, which is not classified as a pharmaceutical product, is made by the non-profit Parsemus Foundation in Berkeley, California. Stock image
A "reversible vasectomy" form of male contraception has been successfully tested in monkeys, bringing it a step closer to human patients.
Valsalgel is injected into the vas deferens - the tube that carries sperm out of the testicles - where it forms an impenetrable gel barrier.
A study in rabbits last year showed that it had the potential to provide a reversible alternative to vasectomy, which involves cutting and sealing off the vas deferens.
The research showed that the gel could be removed by flushing the duct with baking soda solution.
In the new trial, Valsalgel prevented any conceptions occurring in a test group of 16 rhesus monkeys.
"Our research shows that Valsalgel placement into the vas deferens produces reliable contraception in mature male rhesus monkeys as shown by the lack of pregnancies in reproductively viable females with which the males were housed," lead scientist Dr Catherine VandeVoort, from California National Primate Research Centre, said.
"Importantly, we show that the method of Valsalgel placement is safe and produced fewer complications than usually occur with a vasectomy.
"Valsalgel shows real promise as an alternative to vasectomy because research in rabbits has previously shown the product to be reversible. Although it is possible to reverse a vasectomy, it is a technically challenging procedure and patients often have very low rates of fertility following reversal."
One of the treated monkeys showed signs of sperm granuloma, a hard build-up of sperm in the vas deferens.
The same non-serious complication affected around 60pc of men undergoing a vasectomy, said the researchers.
The findings, reported in the journal 'Basic and Clinical Andrology', pave the way for clinical trials expected to begin next year.
Valsalgel, which is not classified as a pharmaceutical product, is made by the non-profit Parsemus Foundation in Berkeley, California.
"If free of side-effects then this novel approach has the potential for great promise as a male contraceptive," Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said.
Amanda Coughlan and her son TJ (12), holding his dog Cookie, at their home in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Photo: James Flynn/APX
A mother whose son was on a waiting list to see a surgeon for a year and nine months has spoken of her devastation on being told his painful spinal condition is now inoperable.
Amanda Coughlan, from Tullamore, said accessing proper care for 12-year-old TJ, who is in a wheelchair and has scoliosis - a twisting of the spine - is a constant battle.
"We were referred to an orthopaedic clinic in Our Lady's Hospital, Crumlin in early 2015, but did not see a surgeon until October 2016," she said. "Why was my son not seen for so long?"
TJ is among hundreds of children who have scoliosis which causes pain and, if left uncorrected, affects internal organs, including the lungs.
Amanda said she is left agonising over whether the delay led to TJ's surgery becoming inoperable and, after more pressure, has eventually secured a second opinion at Temple Street Hospital.
Read more: Operation would fix me so why can't it be done? asks Megan (13)
TJ was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus - excess fluid in the brain. He has just one functioning kidney and he has also developed osteoporosis.
"TJ was born with scoliosis," Amanda said. "Why was he not monitored before he became inoperable? Why wasn't he on a watch list? We are in this limbo because hospitals are not being resourced properly."
TJ was taken to hospital on 41 occasions in 2015 and had been admitted five times - but no alert was raised about his deteriorating spine.
Amanda said: "My son deserves the best care, but I have to fight tooth and nail for everything for him.
"TJ has two curvatures on his spine. The higher curve is very slight and does not meet the criteria for an operation. But the bottom curve is unfortunately fused, and that is the reason we were told surgery is no longer an option.
"We spend our lives missing parties and other celebrations because we live on a waiting list.
"And when the call comes, we have to jump, because if we sit, the condition will deteriorate."
The devoted mother said she would like to tell Health Minister Simon Harris that the health system is "failing my child on your watch".
"Pay our nurses, because they earn every penny, entice our world class and highly sought-after medical staff home," she said. "Give our surgeons the time, tools and staff they need to safeguard the future of this country - our children."
She added: "Don't isolate parents and carers like me, because we are some of the most resilient and hardworking people you will ever meet. We are the ones you want on your side, because where our children are concerned, we will never be silent."
Almost 25pc of all calls received by Irish fire brigade services are false alarms.
The revelation came as it emerged that, on average, a hoax call is now being received by fire brigades on an almost daily basis.
Emergency services warned that the cost of responding to hoax calls is placing an inordinate strain on scarce resources.
Each full deployment is estimated to cost around 1,000.
That cost can spiral further if other emergency services are deployed in support.
Dublin now estimates that a malicious or hoax alert is received every 33 hours.
The number of fake calls fielded by Dublin Fire Brigade has risen in every one of the past three years.
This is despite warnings over the cost involved and the impact on manpower resources.
In 2015, a total of 242 hoax calls was received.
Figures for last year are not yet available but are understood to represent yet another increase in malicious calls.
Since 2011, more than 1,500 hoax calls have been received by Dublin Fire Brigade.
Dublin City Council data indicated that the worst period for hoax calls is around Halloween.
However, fire brigades nationwide are also forced to deal with a significant number of false alarms and hoax calls.
False alarms differ from hoax calls in that they are logged as genuine but incorrect alerts from members of the public or fire alarm systems.
The latest figures from Cork City Council revealed that of the 2,783 incidents responded to by Cork Fire Brigade in 2016, 692 were found to be false alarms.
This equates to roughly one in four of all calls.
Cork brigade officials stressed that this figure includes both hoax calls and mistaken alerts whereby members of the public ring the emergency services in good faith without there actually being a fire or crisis.
A significant number of calls are now generated by sophisticated fire alarm systems.
On occasions, these can be overly-sensitive and trigger alerts for a number of different reasons even though there is no actual fire.
"From our point of view, the reality is that once an alarm is triggered and a fire alert is issued, we have to respond," a spokesperson said.
In Dublin, Tallaght annually deals with the highest single number of hoax fire alerts.
Gardai warned that making such malicious calls is a serious offence.
Figures were released that showed 2,505 children were homeless last Christmas in Ireland. (Stock photo)
The leader of an EU initiative targeting social issues has said Ireland "has a long way to go" in helping poverty-stricken children.
Prof Hugh Frazer said there needed to be a focus on improving public services, as more than a third of Irish children were in poverty or threatened by it.
The professor is the Coordinator of the EU Network of Experts on Social Inclusion. The aim of the group is to highlight poverty and social exclusion in more than 30 countries in Europe.
He has long been involved in social affairs, and was formerly part of the Government-run Combat Poverty Agency, which became the Social Inclusion Division in July 2009. He specialises in issues relating to child poverty.
"Historically, Ireland has always had a high level of child poverty and social exclusion, and for a developed European country, we still have high figures," Prof Frazer told the Irish Independent.
"It's about one in three children who is at risk of poverty," he said. "So that means children are living with families with low incomes or experiencing a lot of material deprivation, or lack basic necessities."
Recently, figures were released that showed 2,505 children were homeless last Christmas in Ireland, which Prof Frazer said was "one of the most worrying parts of the homelessness crisis".
"It's how it has expanded from the more traditional group of people to a large number of families, and there undoubtedly has been an increase in the number of families of children affected by homelessness."
Read more: Children feel isolated and just cry down the phone Childline boss
However, Prof Frazer praised Children's Minister Katherine Zappone on her Affordable Childcare Bill, which allows parents with lower incomes to avail of subsidised childcare.
"She's absolutely right to be addressing these issues. The cost of the economic crisis in Europe generally, but also in Ireland, was borne unduly by children. Any effort to address that balance is absolutely welcome," he said.
The EU Network of Experts on Social Inclusion will be conducting a report later this year which will monitor what has been done to implement its recommendation on investing in children, which all the EU member states accepted in 2013.
Yesterday, a small group of people, including the professor, braved the biting cold and rain to attend the annual launch of the Stop Poverty Call to Action in Dublin.
The aim of the initiative is to draw awareness to poverty internationally.
Trade Union Mandate has sought to call off a proposed strike at nine Tesco stores around the country. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire
Trade Union Mandate has sought to call off a proposed strike at nine Tesco stores around the country tomorrow.
John Douglas, Mandate's general secretary, claimed the union wrote to the management of Tesco Ireland last Friday seeking a resolution.
The letter said if Tesco Ireland committed to not making changes without approval then the impending strike would be called off by the union.
Mr Douglas said it was yet to receive any response to the letter from the retail giant.
He said some workers could see "reduced incomes of up to 20pc" if changes to the contracts for approximately 250 workers employed before 1996 were imposed.
A spokesperson for Tesco Ireland said there "has been continuous discussions with Mandate since January 2016 on proposed changes to the pre-1996 contract including spending 150 hours in the Workplace Relation Commission and the Labour Court".
Aftermath of fire that claimed the lives of couple Joe and Anne Whelan and Joes brother Jim
A kind-hearted Irish couple who died in a London fire alongside a sick relative they were caring for will be flown home for burial.
Final arrangements are now being made to repatriate the remains of Joe (74) and Anne (68) Whelan to Cobh, Co Cork from London.
Both died in an accidental house fire at the Hornchurch property outside Romford, Essex of Joes older brother, Jim (76) on February 6.
Jim Whelan, who had been in poor health over recent months, also died in the tragedy.
Mrs Whelan was pronounced dead at the scene in the early hours of last Monday.
Her husband lost his battle for life in a London hospital the following day.
Jim Whelan died from the effects of smoke inhalation a few hours later.
The bodies of the retired couple will now be flown back to Cork Airport once all London coroner requirements are completed in Romford, Essex.
It is hoped that their Requiem Mass will be staged in Cobhs St Colmans Cathedral later this week.
London police confirmed the fire is being treated as a tragic accident.
Following an investigation by the police and London Fire Brigade, no evidence of a suspicious (cause for) the fire was uncovered, a spokesperson said.
The Whelan family has thanked the public for their overwhelming sympathy and support.
Joe and Anne's son, Hugh, who immediately flew to London on hearing of the tragedy, thanked Irish and UK people for their incredible support.
Thank you one and all for your kind words and support. I will, in time, thank everyone individually, he posted on social media.
Thank you for the kind words - they have been, and are, a great source of comfort to us, he added.
The two brothers were originally from Dublin.
Jim Whelan had spent his entire adult life in the UK.
Joe Whelan had served for a time with the Naval Service in the 1950s before setting up home in Cobh.
His wife, Anne, nee Gannon, is from Cobh.
The couple lived on the Tay Road outside the Cork harbour town and were described by neighbours as totally devoted to each other.
Joe and Anne Whelan had flown to London to look after Jim Whelan for a few days at his home.
Mr Whelan had a number of health issues including a bad back.
The fire erupted in the early hours of last Monday morning at the mid-terraced property.
A total of four fire brigade units attended the scene from Hornchurch, Dagenham and Romford with 22 officers battling the blaze.
London City Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton described it as a terrible tragedy.
My thoughts and those of everyone at the brigade are with the friends and family of the three people who died following the tragic fire in Hornchurch, he said.
Fire fighters worked extremely hard and did all they could in the circumstances.
Gardai are not treating as suspicious the discovery of a man's body in the River Liffey this morning.
Officers from Store Street station were called to scene near Tara Street after the remains were spotted by a member of the public at approximately 10.15am.
Dublin Fire Brigade Water Unit recovered the body which was then handed over to gardai for a full forensic examination.
The cause of death has not yet been identified and attempts are underway to identify the deceased person.
If you have been affected by the issues raised in this article please contact the Samaritans on 116123 for support or visit the website on www.samaritans.org.
Israel said on Sunday it would not allow in former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, who is wanted in connection with a corruption probe, before his affairs were settled in Peru, Reuters reported.
Peru had been informed by U.S. authorities on Saturday that they were not planning to keep Toledo from boarding a flight to Israel from California that was scheduled to land in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
"Former Peru President Toledo will be allowed into Israel only when his matters are settled in Peru," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, without elaborating.
It was unclear whether Toledo had boarded the flight to Israel, which does not have an extradition treaty with Peru.
A judge in Peru issued an international arrest warrant for Toledo on Thursday, and the government offered a 100,000 soles ($30,000) reward for any information leading to his capture after he failed to turn himself in to authorities.
Peru has said Interpol issued a red alert to 190 member countries to help find him, but Toledo does not appear on its list of wanted persons. Interpol has not responded to requests for comment on Toledo.
Prosecutors in Peru allege Toledo took $20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht [ODBES.UL] and a judge ruled that he must be jailed for up to 18 months while charges against him are prepared.
Toledo, who has an economics degrees from Stanford University, has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged or convicted of any crimes.
Toledo's lawyer said he did not know Toledo's whereabouts and declined further comment.
Toledo's wife has Israeli citizenship and Toledo has a long friendship with Israeli businessman Yosef Maiman, who prosecutors accuse of acting as a middleman for at least $10 million in alleged bribes.
A former Odebrecht executive has said he personally negotiated the bribes with Toledo in Rio de Janeiro in 2004, prosecutors say.
Maiman has not responded to requests for comment.
In 2013, Israel arranged for the extradition of Dan Cohen, a former judge and director at IEC, from Peru, and arrested him on suspicion of receiving millions of dollars in bribes.
Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe, who is to get a full apology over an untrue report that he allegedly raped a girl. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire
The chaotic handling of the Garda whistleblower scandal is threatening political stability as Fianna Fail claims it warned the Tanaiste of a Tusla link last Wednesday.
As the crisis deepened further yesterday, Frances Fitzgerald vehemently denied that Fianna Fail's justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan told her she needed to talk to the Children's Minister before details of a bogus Tusla file became public knowledge.
The Irish Independent has learned the disputed meeting was informal and actually took place in the Dail bar at 5.30pm on Wednesday after Mr O'Callaghan contacted the Justice Minister by phone.
Ms Fitzgerald said yesterday the first she knew about the Tusla file, which wrongly alleged Sergeant Maurice McCabe had molested a child, was when it was reported in the media on Thursday night.
"Deputy O'Callaghan said to me that 'Prime Time' would have a programme the following evening related the establishment of the Commission [into the alleged smear campaign against Sgt McCabe].
"At no point did he mention Tusla or any of the details that emerged in the programme," Ms Fitzgerald said.
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However, Fianna Fail was adamant he did mention Tusla and suggested that Children's Minister Katherine Zappone might have further information.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said Mr O'Callaghan spoke with Ms Fitzgerald on Wednesday "specifically to broaden the terms of reference of the Charleton Inquiry to take on board the Tusla file because we had been alerted to it and I had spoken to Maurice McCabe on the Wednesday".
Ms Zappone is due to arrive home from the United States today amid much speculation about her position at Cabinet.
A number of Fine Gael ministers told the Irish Independent last night that they remain furious with Ms Zappone for "creating this storm".
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The Independent Alliance is to demand that she provide a detailed report at tomorrow's Cabinet meeting on the sequences of events that have led to the current controversy.
Minister John Halligan said he and his colleagues will meet after Cabinet to decide if Ms Zappone's explanation is adequate.
"We're being reasonable in this. We're going to see what happens at Cabinet and look for a report from Minister Zappone, the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste," he said.
Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan's position is also expected to come back under the spotlight in the coming days.
Read more: Fianna Fail claim they alerted Frances Fitzgerald to Tusla involvement in Maurice McCabe case before Prime Time show
Despite the ongoing row, Fianna Fail plans to abstain on a motion of no confidence in the Government on Thursday because it sees it as a "political stunt" by Sinn Fein.
However, it is understood its confidence in Ms O'Sullivan is weakening and while it will not seek her resignation, it may yet call for her to consider her position. To date, the party has steadfastly insisted that she should not be asked to step aside while the Commission of Investigation takes place.
Meanwhile, on RTE's 'This Week' programme, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he would be open to the idea of a criminal investigation into the smear campaign.
"In order to have a criminal investigation, you have to evidence of criminality," said Mr Kenny.
"As the Charleton Inquiry gets under way, who knows what may arise here.
"So, I don't rule that out."
Leo Varadkar has urged party colleagues "not to panic" as he flies home from Colombia to help the Government survive the no-confidence motion.
The Social Protection Minister had to ask permission from President Michael D Higgins to cut short his participation in the historic visit.
It comes as Fine Gael sources told the Irish Independent TDs are "freaking out" at the Taoiseach and Tanaiste's handling of the Garda whistleblower crisis.
Most felt their criticisms were too harsh to air publicly at this time, but there is a growing consensus within the party that Mr Kenny's days as leader have been cut short by the debacle.
"If he doesn't make an announcement soon it will be made for him," one TD, who would be seen as loyal to the Taoiseach, said.
The sense of crisis has been heightened by an opinion poll which puts Fine Gael on just 21pc, compared with Fianna Fail's 32pc.
Officially, Mr Varadkar's decision to return home three days ahead of schedule is due to the need for every Government TD to be present for Sinn Fein's vote of no confidence next Thursday.
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However, sources believe it is also a sign of just how precarious the entire situation has become for Mr Kenny's Government.
The Irish Independent has learned that in a message to party colleagues yesterday, Mr Varadkar said: "Worrying poll and trend. Important not to panic or be seen to panic. Everyone needs to stick together this week."
Fine Gael TDs suggested that Children's Minister Katherine Zappone and Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan may have to resign over the controversy if they are to stop Fianna Fail from collapsing the Government.
"We're very damaged by this. It's a big, huge rotten mess and the truth is nobody knows how to solve it," one TD said.
Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton told RTE's Sean O'Rourke show that the Government is "nervous".
"There will always be this chase of who said what and who knew when and where. The core issue is that the Government handles this. We sought to ensure this by setting up an inquiry we did not cast aspersions on anyone until the evidence is sifted.
"People are calm, but if there is a fury in the papers people will get nervous but I think the job of the Taoiseach and the Cabinet is to demonstrate what we are doing is in the public interest."
Dublin North West TD Noel Rock, who was one of the party's breakthrough candidates in last year's election, said: "Opinion polls ask if there was an election tomorrow, who would you vote for? This is obviously a problem for Fine Gael, as the Taoiseach has been adamant that he's not leading Fine Gael into the next election.
"So, when people are polled they have no idea who they're being asked to vote for as Taoiseach.
"It's understandable that our poll rating will be depressed in those circumstances and it will probably remain that way until we are able to show who will be leading Fine Gael into the next election."
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail spokesperson on Public Expenditure Dara Calleary did note there are "serious mis-communication issues" at the heart of the Government.
He said he cannot understand how the minister failed to follow up with Minister Zappone when she was aware she had met with Sergeant McCabe.
Furthermore, Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs Jim Daly said he thinks the terms of reference of the Charleton Inquiry should be expanded to include the information in relation to Tusla.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin also spoke out this morning and said an election now will delay the investigation and any possible consequences.
He told Cork's 96fm Opinion Line he finds it "hard to believe" it was a copy and past error on the Tusla report and said there appears to be "unrelenting" attacks on Sgt McCabe for years.
"The Commissioner herself should assess where she stands," he said.
'Politically irresponsible'
Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell said Sinn Fein's opportunistic move at calling a vote of no confidence is "politically irresponsible".
He also said answers must be provided to Sergeant McCabe "as a matter of urgency".
The information which has come to light over the past few days is deeply concerning and I believe the Commission of Inquiry into this must start urgently," he said this morning.
"The level of ineptitude which is suggested by reports regarding the actions of TUSLA and An Garda Siochana is deeply troubling.
"Any political opportunism designed to bolster polling numbers should be treated with complete disdain by the Irish people as it will only serve to delay this crucial process."
Fianna Fail is to put pressure on the Government Chief Whip Regina Doherty with a Dail motion calling for a review of the North-South Interconnector (NSIC) project.
The party wants a new expert analysis of the plan to erect 300 pylons across three counties, including the Meath constituency of Ms Doherty.
After the massive project was approved by An Bord Pleanala in December, the Fine Gael TD said her opposition to the overground electricity interconnector was more important to her than her position around the Cabinet table.
Fianna Fail is now calling on the Government to examine the technical feasibility and cost of undergrounding the project, taking into account the developments in technology since it was originally proposed.
It also wants a fresh study on "the potential impacts of both undergrounding and over grounding the NSIC on surrounding areas, considering such aspects as its impact on local tourism, health, landscape, agriculture and heritage".
The party's environment spokesman, Timmy Dooley, told the Irish Independent it supports the need for the project, but wants to be sure that the right approach is taken.
"We are committed to effective large infrastructure projects like this but there is a need to have input in the planning and development from communities," he said.
He described the pylon plan as "one of the biggest and most contentious" to be undertaken in recent years.
"We see issues around roads in parts of the country being resolved and this can be too. We are seeking an incremental solution by getting international industry experts involved," he said.
Mr Dooley said Fianna Fail expected wide support in the Dail for the motion but had not yet discussed it with Fine Gael.
Ms Doherty was not available for comment yesterday but has previously said she has no intention of "embarrassing" her Cabinet colleagues over the issue.
Housing and Urban Renewal Minister Damien English and Mental Health and Older People Minister Helen McEntee are both from Meath constituencies that would be affected by the project.
If acted upon, the Fianna Fail motion would delay the project by at least several months.
President Michael D Higgins is presented with a scarf from the Anori municipality as Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar looks on. Photo: Maxwells
President Michael D Higgins visited a jungle camp of the notorious Colombian Farc rebel group in the municipality of Anori.
There was a couple of false starts as Mr Higgins was left waiting at a military base outside the city of Medellin due to heavy fog while the Colombian air force made attempts to transport him to the demobilised camp.
Just over two months ago, Colombia's largest rebel army and the Colombian government reached an agreement on a peace process for a conflict that has lasted more than five decades and claimed close to 250,000 lives.
When Mr Higgins eventually reached his destination, he shook hands and spoke with senior Farc commander Pastor Alape.
Pastor Alape is understood to have been a key member of the Farc negotiation team during meetings with the Colombian government in Havana, Cuba.
He has been a member of the Farc since the 1980s and is believed to have had a senior role in the trafficking of cocaine in north central Colombia.
Read more: 'We are so delighted to have the President of Ireland here' - Michael D Higgins' travelled by Blackhawk to FARC rebel army in Colombia jungle
Pastor Alape said the Farc drew inspiration from the Peace Process in Northern Ireland when going to the negotiation table.
"Their process has given us a lot of strength and perhaps it is a model for the giving up of arms. We've had a lot of exchanges of ideas and exchanges of experience and the Irish model has been very important for us in this process," he said.
"This is why we are so delighted to have the president of Ireland here," he said.
As part of the Colombian Peace Agreement, the 7,000 Farc members are undergoing a demobilisation phase and are being set up in 26 different rural assembly zones across the country - though they are currently still armed.
The disarming phase is due to begin in the coming weeks, while the removal of landmines around Farc areas is also ongoing.
In a rousing speech, Mr Higgins said the agreement made is just the beginning in Colombia and the whole of Ireland would support them all the way.
"Why I said it is a privilege to be here is to be witnessing these very necessary steps on a journey towards not just peace but all the benefits that lie beyond peace," Mr Higgins said.
"Ireland is proud to have played its own small part in relation to the peace process, but it is a participation that we intend to continue.
"It is always a proud ceremonial moment, but it is really only the beginning," he said.
Mr Higgins is due to give a keynote address on the Peace Agreement at the National University of Colombia later today.
Howth Coast Guards are warning the public about the dangers of piers during stormy weather Photo: Howth Coast Guard
Howth Coast Guards are warning the public about the dangers of piers during stormy weather Photo: Howth Coast Guard
The Irish Coast Guard are warning people to stay away from piers as bitter and strong winds hit Ireland.
People are being urged to "stay back, high and dry" as piers can be very dangerous during stormy conditions.
"Waves are crashing over piers and it can be very dangerous. Stay back from piers and alert the Coast Guards if you see anyone in difficulty."
In particular Howth Coast Guards received a number of calls from people in danger of getting washed off the East Pier.
"Between 10am and 4pm today we are advising the public not to walk the pier, outside these times during the current conditions they should exercise caution and use common sense, if you see the spray of the waves reaching on the pier dont walk it.
"Waves can be unpredictable, a lull of 10 minutes can be followed by intense waves powerful enough to knock you over and cause injury or wash you off the pier wall.
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"Remember if you see someone who may get in trouble on the Beach, Cliff or Water call the COAST GUARD on 112/ 999, don't delay or expect someone else to make the call," they said.
Today's temperatures are expected to reach between 7C to 10C, and showers will mostly be reserved for Munster.
A Met Eireann spokesperson said rainfall will ease over the next few days. However, there may be more showers to come next weekend, and outbreaks of rain on Wednesday.
"This is a reverse of what normally happens, normally the wind blows in the other direction, coming in from the Atlantic. It dumps the rain on Connaught and Donegal and parts of Munster," he said. "Very often it's dry on the east coast during the winter, it was visible in Dublin but we're not talking buckets."
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The treacherous winter roads can be a real hazard for many motorists, and for one Lisburn driver that was certainly the case.
Footage has just emerged of a car spinning out of control on the Barnfield Road near Lisburn, Co Antrim crashing into a ditch and then, incredibly continuing on.
Such was the extent of the crash, the Renault car was left badly damaged.
Cars heading on the other direction were forced to hot the brakes - and were lucky not to have been caught up in it.
The footage was filmed by a MAC Autoparts van.
"Very lucky," the firm said in a Facebook post.
The incident happened at the beginning of January and since it was posted online by Mac Autoparts, it has been viewed over 100,000 times.
Police said the driver of the car was unharmed, despite the significant damage, and was not facing charges.
A spokesman said: "At approximately 4pm on Monday January 9, police received the report of a car crashing into a ditch on the Barnfield Road in the Lisburn area.
"The driver of the vehicle was unharmed, however significant damaged was caused to the vehicle."
South Korea is mulling staging own ballistic missile test after the North's recent launch, a military source told a local news agency, Sputnik reported.
South Korea is mulling staging own ballistic missile test after the North has recently fired what it said was a nuclear-capable missile, a military source told the local news agency Yonhap.
"In response to North Korea's missile launch Sunday, we are reviewing measures to discard security concerns and show our determination to retaliate against any aggression by the North," a defense ministry official said.
The South Korean Defense Ministry official told the agency they were considering live-firing a Hyunmoo-2A missile with a range of 186 miles or a Hyunmoo-2B missile, which can travel for more than 300 miles, and publish photos or videos of the test.
"There is also an opinion in the military that it will be more effective to unveil the test-firing scene of a new 800 km ballistic missile which is in the final stage of development," the source added.
North Korea said earlier in the day the Sunday launch of its Pukguksong-2 missile was a success. It was fired from an airbase in the western province of North Pyongan and travelled around 300 miles before plunging into the Sea of Japan.
A Carlow teenager battling a rare form of cancer has pleaded with the government to cover the costs of life-saving treatment in the US and said her life is being "put on a number".
Shauntelle Tynan (18), was diagnosed with multi-system Langherans cell histiocytosis in May 2015 and has been funding her specialist treatment in Texas Childrens Hospital with money raised by her community. The teenagers care in Houston is not supported by the government as she does not qualify for the HSEs Treatment Abroad Scheme, having sought treatment outside of Europe.
In an emotional video posted this weekend, Shauntelle pleaded with the public to help her raise 350k to fund a year of specialist treatment in Texas and said she is not ready to die.
"The only worldwide specialist is in Texas. Of course travelling to Texas comes with a huge price. It always has. We always seem to get there as we have amazing support.
"Weve been emailing my government to get them to help us with costs but if you fly outside of Europe, they dont help with medical costs. Its ridiculous, 350k doesnt mean anything to our government and this is my life. Im an Irish citizen and I just wish theyd help. Its so sad that my life is being put on a number and how much money we need to make, she said.
The teenager said her chances of survival dwindle if she does not raise the vital funds for treatment and said she fears telling her younger siblings that she will not be around to see them grow up without it.
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I have a six-year-old sister and a ten-year-old brother. We dont want to tell them I wont make it if I dont go to Texas, we just want to tell them Im going to get there. Its hard to know if I really will. It seems impossible to raise the money, but we really need to raise it.
Since her diagnosis in 2015, Shauntelles cancer has spread to the gastrointestinal system, colon and skin and the teen will travel to Texas on March 29 on her own to undergo treatment.
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"Recently we have learned that were going to have to move to Texas for at least a year, thats me on my own, thats not my family, thats me.
"Thats because the cancer has just gotten so out of control. When it started off I had cancer in my ears, my skin and my pituitary in my brain. Now its all throughout my gastrointestinal area. Its in my colon, its in my skin its in my stomach. Its given me really bad side effects. The doctors in Texas have told me if I dont come for at least 12 months then they dont have a great chance of helping me survive."
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Shauntelles mum Leona has written several letters to the Minister for Health, pleading for government assistance with the massive costs of the treatment.
"We have done everything in our power to get her life back and pleaded with the Minister for Health for support but because Shauntelle requires care outside of the criteria for the treatment abroad scheme as her treatment is not within Europe. We have been swamped with acts and legislation all coming down to a big no.
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"We now need to raise over 500k to get Shauntelle to Texas for a minimum of twelve months from March 29. We have managed to raise over 160k through Go Fund Me but need to raise another 350k. We cant do this alone, our community has already funded five trips to Texas.
The mum has given up her job to be Shauntelles full-time carer and said she is desperate to see her teenager return to full health and to live a happy life, cancer-free.
This is my daughters life to which she now has little quality of and I am a desperate mother trying everything possible to get my beautiful and inspirational daughter back to living the life she deserves before it is too late.
To help with Shauntelle's treatment costs visit www.gofundme.com
Healthy eating duo Stephen and David Flynn have sold more than 100,000 copies of their bestselling cookbook, 'The Happy Pear', generating turnover of around 2m through the bookshop tills.
The Wicklow entrepreneurs are also set to expand their healthy eating empire of shops and cafes, after they landed 1.5m in investment funding last month. Two new Happy Pear outlets are planned for the Dublin area this year.
The twins published 'The Happy Pear' in October 2014, following it up with a second cookbook, 'The World of the Happy Pear', in June 2016.
It was named Cookbook of the Year at the Irish Book Awards last November.
The Flynns are working on a third cookbook, which will be launched in spring 2018, according to their publishers, Penguin Ireland.
"Our lovely little yellow book has far exceeded our expectations and helped us to share our dream of making it easier for people to be healthier and happier," said David.
"We're amazed by the messages and letters we receive from people, telling us about its positive impact on them and their families."
Stephen said the third book would feature practical lifestyle tips and recipes that will help people make positive changes to their lives. Publishers Penguin Ireland attributed the international appeal of the brothers' brand to their social media and online reach.
"That people have taken the twins and their message - 'Eat more veg' - to their hearts is a testament to David and Stephen's incredible hard work, accessibility and joie de vivre, and to the deliciousness of their food," said Patricia Deevy, editorial director of Penguin Ireland.
I have more weather- related healthcare today, with a look at how best we might behave on ice. The car lobby shouts loud at councils to grit roads, bridges and motorways at the first sign of snow or ice.
Alas, pedestrians don't have an industry to do their lobbying for them. I would contend that they are the sector at greatest risk of serious injury whenever Ireland submits to a cold spell. In mainland Europe, it is increasingly common for councils to grit popular walking areas during icy spells. Casualty officers in our hospitals get to treat broken hips on the hour during snowfalls. The patients are invariably of vintage age, and the clue to their mishap is an externally rotated foot pointing sideways. It has been a very cold winter this year in mainland Europe, and the German Society of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery has been busy extolling the virtues of walking like penguins on icy surfaces. The key is to make sure your torso leans forward and your centre of gravity lies directly over your leading leg. Other good penguin habits are short steps, arms extended, flat feet (no high heels) and a slight bend at the knees. And they keep mobile phones well hidden in the front pouch.
To be fair to the HSE, it has been doing its bit to keep the population 'winter ready', as they put it. During a recent overnight frost, the Transport Minister issued a press release advising passengers to consult the winterready.ie website. So I did, and it confused me. It told me to get my vision checked, wear non-slip soles and to visit a doctor for a check-up, even after the most minor of falls. It even suggested that I might need my medicine dosage changed. It advised that I eat regular hot meals and drink plenty of fluids to give me energy to keep active, only then to suggest that I limit my walking in cold weather. Not a word about penguins or gritting of pavements. It made me think. There is a world of a difference between advice that is good and advice that is cheap.
* I have been having an interesting reaction to my recent piece on the best and worst health ministers of all time. Mary Harney's name has cropped up quite often in the best category, with the Fair Deal nursing-home scheme and the reorganisation of cancer services being among the achievements cited. I would have given Michael Noonan credit for many of the improvements in cancer services, but all the good he did was, perhaps, undone by the clumsy handling of the hepatitis C brief. Surprisingly, Leo Varadkar received a worst nomination for his introduction of premium loading for new members of private health-insurance schemes. Most health ministers of the last 25 years have now been nominated as the worst, with the exception of Brendan Howlin and young Simon Harris. Noel Browne and Mary Harney seem to be head-and-shoulders above the rest as best minister, although it has been suggested that this category deserves a more apt title - the 'least worst' health minister.
* Thomas brightened things up here by bringing some medical jokes to my attention that I had never heard before. That's a real rarity. He tells me of a girl from the hospital's X-ray department who married the consultant radiologist in the unit. Her friends were all wondering what she saw in him. And he tells me that one nurse of his acquaintance was nicknamed 'Appendix' because so many doctors wanted to take her out.
* There was a very sad case reported from the Dublin Coroner's Court recently of a young patient who died from complications of a trichobezoar. Bezoar is a Persian word that surgeons have long applied to an undigested lump which can block the intestines. A trichobezoar is one that is made of human hair. A hairball is probably the best lay description of what it is. The human gut can't digest hair and if a habit develops of continually eating it, it coalesces in the stomach and duodenum and can hinder food passage. The condition has also been given the fairytale title of Rapunzel Syndrome, hinting, I suppose, that the usual patient is female and has long hair. But patients don't tend to use their locks as stepladders. Hair eating is by no means widespread, but it can develop in anxious children and teenagers. Cases are slightly more common if there is a learning disability, too. It can take many years before a hairball comes to the attention of doctors. Many of the larger ones can be felt by palpating the abdomen, and most will also show up on X-rays or CT scans. Many medical museums around the world display trichobezoars, usually taken from patients that survive them. They are those rare peculiarities that doctors rarely forget and patients never get to hear about.
* First we had the apothecary's shop. Then it became a medical hall. Chemist was the trendy title when I was growing up, and this was replaced by pharmacy in more recent years. Now they are the all-singing and all-dancing 'your care plus total local-health, neighbourhood all-drugs lifestyle-haven express late-night 365 drugstores'. I don't care much for these new-fangled titles. Nor, I suspect, do patients. I'm not really interested in how many focus groups they have been tested on or how much has been spent on branding. Give me the name of a good man or good lady over the door any day, and perhaps the year the business was established. Coupled with good advice, a bit of continuity guarantees reputations in my book.
Dr Maurice Gueret is editor of the 'Irish Medical Directory'
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For more and more of us, the answer to the old question: So,where did you guys meet? is going to be online or through a dating agency.
For a million reasons, we no longer meet our significant others through the usual routes; instead, we do it via some kind of professional third party. And yes, the horror stories are legion. But not always.
In a spirit of enduring romance, we decided to track one couple, who are open about looking for love, through their first blind date. What did they hope for? What did they expect? More importantly, what did they find?
Fergal DArcy is a Today FM broadcaster and DJ. Rachel Wallace is a model, formerly Miss Cavan and Miss South Dublin. Clearly, neither of them is lacking in the qualities that attract attention so what has brought them to Intro, a dating agency? And what happens when they get there?
Separately, the two have made their way to Intro. They have temporarily suspended control over their dating destinies and put the search for romantic success (complete with the inevitable vulnerability that brings) into someone elses hands. Set up by Rena Maycock and Feargal Harrington, who met on their very own blind date, the idea at Intro is good old-fashioned matchmaking. Privacy and security are big deals, but so too is the old-school idea of meeting people, talking to them in depth, thinking about them and what they want, and then, finally, setting up a suitable date.
Its a low-yield way of doing things it has taken several months for Rachel and Fergal to get this far but in this era of swipe left, swipe right, that suddenly seems like it might be a good thing.
And now, the moment has arrived. The date is set dinner and, thanks to a kind of news blackout, neither of them knows a thing about the other, except a name. So no online sleuthing, and no preconceptions; back to basics, essentially. We find out what happened next.
She said
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I went in and the first thing he said was, Well, this isnt awkward, and that broke the ice a bit, thank goodness. I found doing the pictures really awkward, even though Im a model, but he seemed full of confidence, which helped me. Then we had dinner, and that was lovely. Conversation flowed really easily. I was so pleasantly surprised! After dinner, we even went to the bar next door, for one more drink.
What did they talk about?
We talked about why we tried this; how excited we were. We both said we were pleasantly surprised by each other. We talked about his job, my job, and we touched on exes. Nothing deep and meaningful, all
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light-hearted.
What was the best bit?
I knew he didnt know anything about me, because you dont get any information about each other beforehand, except a name. So I felt there was no pressure I didnt go in thinking, He knows Im a model; hell have preconceptions about me. It was like going in fresh. And we were both in an equally vulnerable position on a traditional date, the one who does the asking feels most self-conscious.
The pressure is on them. This way, its equal.
What did she like about Fergal?
He was so funny. That was one of the first things I said in my Intro interview that I want to meet somebody funny. And he was. He was confident, and so open to the idea of what he was doing. I liked that. His attitude was great.
He was very honest about why he was there and what he was hoping for. Hes just a really nice person. We were laughing away, talking, and it felt totally normal, like I had known him ages. We like the same music, we go to the same places on holiday, and Id say my friends would love him. I dont see how anybody couldnt he was just so lovely.
And so, the million-dollar question, will she see him again?
Yes, definitely! We said last night that wed like to hang out because we got along so well. At worst, this could be a new friend . . . And at best? I would like to find somebody, but Im in no rush to do it, she says.
I told myself I wouldnt dive into the first one. If it does turn out to be something more, Id be delighted, but Im not going to build it up too much in my head. I want to be casual about it. I dont want to put too much pressure on it. I want it to be easy and breezy, like it was last night, because thats what made it so much fun.
But yes, I think there is the possibility of more. Hes a lovely guy, really good-looking; the two of us got along, so I dont see why not.
He said
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Post-date, Fergals surprise is almost palpable. It was totally not what I expected, he says. Honest to God, I
never thought Id say this but holy shit, did they get this right! The shock and surprise I have at this moment in time are total.
OK, back-track a bit. First impressions? As soon as Rachel walked in, I thought, Im batting way out of my league here. Shes stunning, absolutely stunning. And an absolutely lovely person. One hundred per cent. She is the whole package a beautiful person, a wonderful person to be around, a very kind person, very good-natured.
You know by her that shes so down-to-earth, so real. We dont know where things are going to go, but I know this even if something doesnt come out of this for us, the guy who gets her will be the luckiest guy in the world.
Best thing about the date? The ability to be honest with each other from the start. Once we got to know each other a bit, we both opened up. Rachel is very upfront and honest, and I think thats the kind of person anyone wants to meet, and end up with a person you know you can trust; a mature person who can be honest.
Working in radio, working in media, working as a model, those are tough jobs; it can be difficult to meet people when youre in the public eye. You can meet strange people. We had so many similar experiences like that and that can frighten you off. But when you meet someone who has been through the same things, you know that person isnt going to mess you about.
And plenty to talk about? Loads. We had an awful lot in common. I have a Walt Disney tattoo on my arm: All your dreams come true when you have the courage to pursue them. I love Disney films. We were chatting about them and I showed the tattoo to her. She liked it straightaway; she got it. Its those little things. I think the two of us just got each other. It doesnt happen that often, that you get that chemistry. Its rare. Its too early to talk about romance, but I get a vibe from her.
I said I like to know people before I get involved with them, and she was exactly the same. We didnt just go on a date, we hung out afterwards and had a drink. And were going on date number two! We
ended up chatting about ballet I said, Do you want to go?, and she said Yes, so thats it!
And the million-dollar question? Its very rare to meet someone as lovely as Rachel. We really hit it off. It could go anywhere . . . well find out. But I know for a fact, if nothing comes of this, well be very good friends. But, as someone said, I didnt come this far to come this far. Im definitely going to keep motoring on.
Before the date
She said
Rachel Wallace
27, nurse-manager and model
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Im so nervous I could actually die, says Rachel, disarmingly. The 27-year-old is a nurse-manager at a nursing home, and also a model.
Whats making her so nervous?
Ive never been on a blind date. This is the first time ever. Im confident enough that it wont be awkward, because I can chat away fine. I think its more that Id be upset if he didnt like me. Its a fear of rejection or something.
Surely as a model, shes used to going to castings, where you either get chosen, or you dont?
Yes, but thats just a job. If they dont pick you, its because youre not the right height or whatever. But here, if he doesnt like me, its me he doesnt like. Its so much more personal. I havent even been thinking about whether Ill like him, because Ive been so nervous about whether hell like me.
Presumably a girl like Rachel has no trouble getting dates so what brought her to an agency?
I seem to attract the wrong guys, she admits. I dont know if its the way I look, or if its the people Im giving the opportunity to talk to me, but I seem to attract the wrong ones. Some of the guys I meet, I feel theyre just after one thing, and thats not what I want. They want a one-night stand, I want a boyfriend. But you cant say that if you say youre looking for something serious, they scatter. They run a mile. You have to pretend that youre not serious; that you dont care. All these stupid games.
So how does she think joining a dating agency might help?
Well, first, it costs money, so it would be a very expensive one-night stand! Its not just a way to meet people for a casual hook-up. Its more serious. And its private, and safe. There are so many horror
stories about internet dates gone wrong.
It can be dangerous, especially for girls. At Intro, you have to verify who you are, they check you out properly, and then they match you with someone they really think you will get on with. They take so long and there are so many stages you have to go through to get to this point. They wouldnt put us together if they werent sure wed get along.
Does the fact that she models bring certain unhelpful preconceptions with it? It must do, she laughs, because I get told all the time, Youre so lovely, we thought you were going to be a big snob. People have this idea of what Im going to be like, and then they tell me, I cant believe how nice you are, I thought you were going to be a bitch. Im not on the cover of Vogue; Ive done a few photo shoots in Ireland. If I did have a big head, people should definitely be concerned!
Recently single after a series of long relationships the last one was three years; before that was four years; before that was six years Rachel says she doesnt need a boyfriend to be happy. Im totally content on my own, but I feel Im at the age where everybodys getting engaged, married, pregnant, and it does make you think.
Rachel joined Intro after a chance meeting with Rena Maycock, one of the agency founders. She told me all about it, and the next week, I went in. This is the first date the agency has set up for Rachel, and it has taken three months, which means there is plenty riding on it.
What is she hoping for?
I dont have huge expectations. A nice, flowing conversation and a nice guy is all I can ask for. Its my first time, and Im so nervous, so that would be fine. If it turns into something, or if it doesnt, as long as it goes smoothly, Ill be happy. A pleasant evening and decent conversation.
He said
Fergal Darcy
34, Today FM broadcaster and DJ
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When you join something like this, its for a variety of reasons, says Fergal. Im a busy person; I tend to work long hours and weekends. So as far as going out
and meeting people goes, if they arent already in my social circle, it can be
hard. I think thats the mature way to look at it. Im 34, and for a long time Ive been dating around; I feel Im done with that. Im done with this Lets go out and hopefully meet someone. I dont really have time for that.
And, as he points out, its not just a question of meeting people, its meeting the right person, at the right time.
If I had a euro for every time Ive been on a night out and Ive met someone who I really hit it off with, and Ive said, I really enjoyed this evening, Id like to bring you out on a date sometime, and that person has said, Im actually seeing someone, or else
Im just out of something and Im not ready . . .
So Fergal has decided to move beyond the throw of the dice, to something more weighted.
Something like this just makes it a hell of a lot easier, because a lot of the work has been done for you. You know these people have joined for a reason; they actually want to meet someone.
This isnt his first run at internet dating, Ive tried other online dating sites, he says, and it hasnt really worked out for me. Yes, it can be good for the ego youll get the matches, the compliments but if you ever meet up with them, its very much meet, great, go again . . . Its very juvenile. Its superficial, based on how someone looks. And even that, he points out, can be dubious. People who take
a good picture can look different in real life.
However, there is still, he believes, plenty of stigma attached to internet dating in Ireland. We have a huge fear of it in Ireland. Ive done radio shows talking about online dating, and you hear all the horror stories, but there are good stories too. We live our whole lives on social media why not give this a chance? If you were sick, youd go to the doctor. If youre finding it hard in the dating world to find someone you relate to, someone you might form a relationship with, you should go to someone to get that fixed. Its the logical evolution of dating.
Back to him, and his hopes and fears. I wouldnt say Im a good-looking chap, he says modestly. I would say Im a guy who has a bit of personality, and Id like to think of myself as a nice person. But when you put yourself out there, it can be very hard to meet good people.
Is he a romantic?
I am a bit of a hopeless romantic, he admits. Before this, I was involved in a lot of long-term relationships, and Im still friends with many of my exes. They just werent the right person for me, and I wasnt right for them. But yes, I am a romantic.
And so, how does he feel about tonight? I feel a bit nervous, he confesses. I am a people person, I like meeting people, so I wouldnt normally be phased by that, but you do get a bit edgy.
What is he hoping for?
Im thinking shes going to be a female version of me? Someone quirky, happy, happy-go-lucky, full of fun and mischief. Im looking to go out, have fun, have a good night, make a friend, and see where it goes from there. And then he adds: For the first time in a long time, Ive got butterflies in my stomach.
* In my role as Cupids go-between, its pretty clear to me that both Rachel and Fergal are now treading on eggshells. Which is just what we all do when Big Things are at stake. Knowing this made me all the more careful not to influence the outcome I was truly terrified I might: what if I let slip something that changed the way either of them felt about the person they were going to meet; the evening they were going to have?
It felt like a Back To The Future moment, in which I, potentially, had the power to change the destiny of two people. And so I stayed carefully bland and neutral.
But actually, I think I may have overstated my influence on any of this. Because when I catch up with Rachel and Fergal again after a few weeks, its pretty clear that Something Is Happening.
Things are going great, says Rachel. We have been talking loads and he actually met me with his friend on Saturday. I was at my friends 30th and they joined the group! We had so much fun and are planning to go for dinner this week.
And Fergal? We may have met for a drink the weekend just past, and I may be taking her for dinner this week, but Im a gentleman, and a gentleman doesnt tell. . . .
You know what?
Im not sure I could have stopped this if Id tried.
See intro.ie
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Photography by Kip Carroll
A sliver of light comes through the wooden blinds, and I can tell if it's 8am or 10am. I'll turn on Sky News, which has the time in the corner. I look at it and think, 'I've got another hour-and-a-half to go', or maybe not. Then I wolf down some toast with tea. I live on my own in Milltown with a flat-screen TV, which is a great companion.
I have a wonderful three-mile walk into work every day. It clears the head. It takes 45 minutes. During that time, I make five phone calls, usually to family and friends. I do this because the minute I turn the key in the door of the Troc, there is a bombardment of emails, voice messages and people asking questions. And you're on. It's almost like being on stage with the actors.
Since last year, I decided to leave home a little earlier. Now, I stop for coffee and read the Kindle for 15 minutes. If you do something new all the time, it stretches your day. Also, I'm surrounded by a lot of people in work, be it staff or customers, so I quite like having a little bit of space to myself.
The Trocadero opened in 1956, but we postponed celebrating 60 years in business until this year. We thought it might get lost in all of the 1916-2016 events. I'm different things to different people, but my official title is co-owner of the Trocadero. I started as a chef in the kitchen. When I arrived in here in 1985, I was intrigued by the place. It was small and dark, and it had just been taken over by Rhona Teehan, who was well known for running Suesey Street nightclub on Leeson Street.
To drive up business, the manager, Dymphna Healy, brought in this collection of creative people - writers and songwriters. They seemed much more appealing to me than the kitchen. I started working on my nights off as a waiter. Soon, I was working seven nights a week. We'd tumble out of here at 3am, and end up in Suesey Street until 6am. The following day, we'd do it all again. I was working, but it was a night out.
The social life was fantastic. I started going to the theatre a lot, and I got to know a lot of actors. I've grown with them over the years and they have become firm friends. Years ago, there were about 10 photos of actors on the walls, and now it's something like 300. They only went on the wall if the people came in here. I often think that if I ever stopped working here, I might take up acting - just bit parts. Actors come here a lot. We are still open after the curtain comes down. It's probably the latest place in Dublin open at that hour. Years ago, we would have been open even later, but things changed. There have been recessions, but you just ride the storm. You've no choice. You just move on and get older.
We used to have a piano in here. I remember one night, we had playwrights Brian Friel and Tom Murphy and the actress Catherine Byrne. Brian was playing the piano, the cigar hanging out of his mouth, the ash about to drop somewhere. They were drinking red wine and having a great night. Somebody suggested getting a taxi, but when we phoned for one, we were told that we'd have to wait an hour-and-a-half. That was the way it was back then. The answer to that was to have another two bottles of wine. When the taxi arrived, they sent him away. They weren't ready to go home.
A couple of years ago, Sean FitzPatrick, the former Anglo-Irish banker, was in here having an early evening dinner. They were seated at the first table, beside reception. At the time, we had an ice-village display in the window. There was an old lady outside with a woolly hat and an umbrella. She was smiling sweetly at the window display until she spotted Sean. Then she lifted her umbrella and started banging the window with it. Other customers realised what was going on and said, 'Ask him to leave'. But he was a customer, just like everyone else. It wasn't my place to ask him to leave. They took the law into their own hands. One woman phoned a newspaper and there was a photographer here in no time.
I always greet customers with a smile. Everyone is the same, famous or otherwise. I try to be kind and to show a bit of empathy to people who aren't in a good space. It's very important to smile. If customers smile, we all smile and we have a nice day. It's very simple. I enjoy people and I have a natural curiosity about them. I love my job.
We have generations of regular customers coming in. Sometimes they like to share about how their granny is, and who is sick in the family. It's hugely important to them. To some people, the Trocadero is like a community centre. Discretion is a huge part of what I do. You develop trust with people over the years and they will tell you stuff. I've heard stuff that I shouldn't even know about people, but it'll never pass my lips to anyone else. I even have best friends who say, 'You never told me . . .' But it was nobody's business
Remembering names and faces is important. Years ago, I used to learn actors' names, as I'd keep the theatre programmes under the counter, but now I just whip out my phone and google them. The food is really good here, but it's just one part of it. It has a romantic atmosphere with all the red velvet and the soft music. It's very relaxing.
I'm single and that's fine. In a way, it's kind of nice to go home and pull the door behind you. Sometimes I think it might be rather nice to have somebody in my life, but then I look at some older couples who come in here. They sit and don't have anything to say to each other.
I get a taxi home. I watch TV before I got to bed. You've got to wind down. Sometimes I don't sleep well. Recently, I was awake worrying about seating arrangements for Christmas Eve of 2017. Then I remembered someone's advice - don't sweat the small stuff.
Trocadero, 4 St Andrew's St, D2, tel: (01) 677-5545, or see trocadero.ie
In 1982, New Musical Express's resident guru Paul Morley wrote of Simple Minds as "post-ABBA". Rather than taking it as a damning criticism, Simple Minds's resident guru Jim Kerr, years later, saw that comment as part of the mythology around the music of the band and the British music press in particular who fed that mythology.
"The music papers could articulate a feeling in the air. John Peel could play your records, which was great, but then the papers put a context around it. Also, the Morleys of the world helped create this narrative around it."
Whatever about post-ABBA, in 2016 Simple Minds went post-electric. Their direction took a camp-fire turn with the album Acoustic. With Mojo magazine dubbing it a tad melodramatically their "best album in 30 years", Acoustic featured a tambourine-heavy re-working of Promised You A Miracle, a mandolin mash-up of New Gold Dream plus a folked-up Don't You (Forget About Me).
Simple Minds are now bringing that stripped-back performance to the Olympia Theatre in Dublin for two shows (and the Waterfront in Belfast) in a few months. It will be a sort of homecoming for Jim, who lived in Dublin with his then wife Patsy Kensit from 1992 to 1995.
"I have known Ireland," he told me. "We came as kids to Bray in the 1960s for four years on the trot. And Killiney didn't feel a million miles from Scotland.
"Bono found us a house up in Killiney," Jim continued, not adding that Daniel Lanois once said about the making of 1984 U2 album The Unforgettable Fire: "U2 wanted to do something different. They had been listening to New Gold Dream by Simple Minds as a point of reference, a record they liked."
Lanois, who co-produced The Unforgettable Fire with Brian Eno, said in reference to Simple Minds's iconic fifth album released in late 1982. "The panorama of the ambience appealed to them. I think that Bono wanted to get to a place that was wider than stripped-down rock 'n' roll, so we allowed ourselves the flexibility to embrace the colours that Eno and I had been developing."
Kerr said that one of his all-time favourite lines was from Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo: ''Only dreamers can move mountains." Kerr added that dreamers have got a bad reputation, because people say dreamers never do anything.
"You need courage to dream," declared Kerr, who was born on July 9, 1959, in Glasgow's Toryglen Estate, to Jimmy (a brickie's labourer) and Irene (a machinist in a factory making army clothes).
Jim recalled how his friend Barney listened to Kraftwerk and learned Russian "to be different". One day Barney's dad came into the bedroom while the two teens were listening to some "Baader Meinhof punk bands" and while Barney was pointedly talking Russian...
"I know what you two are!" he roared. "You are spies!" the exasperated dad told young Jim and Barney.
As for Jim and Charlie - Charlie Burchill, the guitarist in Simple Minds - they met when Jim was eight. Charlie's mother knew Jim's mother; Charlie's family were from the south side of Glasgow; The Kerr family had moved there from the Gorbals to these high-rise concrete flats where Charlie and Jim met and formed a bond that would last all their lives. "Charlie and I wanted to be Kafka! We wanted to be Baudelaire! But we were housing-estate kids. But we didn't know that we had a limiting working-class thing. It was before drugs hit Glasgow."
It was before Simple Minds hit the world. Don't you forget about them.
Simple Minds play the Olympia in Dublin on June 7 and 8
Do they not have calendars at Today FM? With two months still to go, Monday's Last Word was already debating that old chestnut: should pubs be allowed to open on Good Friday?
Freelance radio producer Aingeala Flannery said the alcohol ban was a "religious hangover" (no pun intended); journalist Hugh Linehan agreed, arguing that preventing people from having a drink just because that happened to be the day on which Jesus was meant to have died was "rooted in a fundamentalist Catholicism that has no place in this country".
They were both right, of course, though isn't a debate meant to have two sides? The counter argument was left to a listener, who texted in that "it's a Catholic country, abide by the laws and have respect". It wasn't a particularly compelling case for the defence, but at least he had a go. Behind it all was the more intriguing issue of the death of the Irish pub. Even journalists have abandoned the bars, as Matt Cooper pointed out, to what some might consider the detriment of the press. The Good Friday fatwa against booze remains one of those perennial subjects which can be relied upon on to fill dead airtime. Anguish over the number of hospital patients languishing either on trolleys or on waiting lists is another one which rarely goes away for long; once again it was dominating the news agenda.
Little was added to the sum of knowledge; political solutions are as remote as ever, and we'll be back here debating it again for years to come; but the human stories are heartbreaking. Liveline came into its own, as it tends to do at such times.
The disparaging remarks about the Irish language by Northern Ireland's former First Minister Arlene Foster also reignited a familiar debate on The Pat Kenny Show.
The Newstalk host was a sparky devil's advocate against offering services in a second language to people who are all fluent in English anyway ("isn't that an incredible waste of money?"); Julian de Spainn of Conradh na Gaeilge put up a thorough and good humoured defence, even if he did share the common fault of minority language advocates of overstating how much other people share their passion.
There may be practical difficulties in implementing a wide-ranging Irish Language Act in the North, where even fewer speak it, but they're hardly new.
Making Of A Gaeltacht, the latest in the winter series of documentaries on Newstalk, explored the resettlement of hundreds of Irish speakers from an economically struggling Connemara to Co Meath in the 1930s, when it proved "rather difficult" to find Irish-speaking local officials who could advise and help the newcomers in their "homespun tweeds".
Producer Judy-Meg Ni Chinneide's retelling of this surprisingly little known story was an engrossing piece of radio that entwined history, personal memory, and the not dissimilar factional politics of the time.
Acceptance on the scheme was much more likely if you were a supporter of Fianna Fail, let's put it that way. It's not only debates on radio that never change.
Should we, the people of the Republic of Ireland, begin to discuss the unthinkable, ie, the disbandment of An Garda Siochana?
Is 95 years not too long for a police force to exist with minimal reform? Some people naively thought that the uncovering by the Morris Tribunal of hideous and deep-rooted Garda corruption in Donegal would bring about change. How foolish can you be?
The RIC and the RUC were disbanded and life improved somewhat for the populations whom they allegedly served.
The fundamental problem is that successive governments in this State have been afraid to risk a head-on collision with gardai. Remember the Blue Flu?
I grew up in a household where respect for gardai was part of life. What a shame it would be if my parents were alive to witness the scandalous scale to which Garda corruption has been allowed to develop.
No doubt, there are thousands of decent gardai who must be appalled at what is happening. Surely it is time for them to make their feelings known?
Sgt Maurice McCabe and a few others have dared to challenge the corruption. In my book, those people and their families are heroes and deserve the gratitude and support of us all.
Brian Mac a'Bhaird
Carraig Mhachaire Rois
Co Mhuineachain
A turkey for a president?
I am a dual American/Irish citizen living in Ireland who has been closely following the political landscape in my native country following the election.
In the late 18th century, America's Founding Fathers established the principles and values that would form the basis for a just and ethical society, and the laws that would ensure freedom and equality for its citizens. Their goal was, among other things, to make America great.
They also adopted important symbols for the new republic. The first was a flag, created by Betsy Ross, with 13 white stars against a blue background to denote the original 13 colonies, and horizontal red and white stripes. The white stripes represented purity and the red stripes valour.
They selected the bald eagle as the national bird because of its majesty and strength, although Benjamin Franklin had proposed the turkey.
Since the inauguration in January of its 45th president, Donald Trump, the US has already undergone some profound changes in the new president's effort to "make America great again".
Some of the original principles and values have been replaced by greed and anger. Laws are being threatened by self-serving ideas of what is ethical and just.
Perhaps, then, the leadership in Washington should rethink America's symbols to more accurately portray the reality of their new president.
A new flag could be a solid black rectangle with the word 'SAD!' embroidered "bigly" in the centre. This would reflect the dark and pathetic state that the new president seems to believe America is in.
The selection of a new national bird offers a host of opportunities. An obvious choice would be the canary since it spends both day and night going tweet, tweet, tweet. The parrot might also be appropriate, as that bird learns a few words, has no idea what they mean, but repeats them as soundbites over and over. On the other hand, maybe Benjamin Franklin was right after all!
Steven Rosalie
Quin, Co Clare
Not-so-friendly EU partners
So Poland said no to any special arrangements and concessions to help us through the economic damage and the crisis Brexit will cause us (Irish Independent, February 10).
Other member states will follow that lead; what price now our view that we are all partners in the EU?
William Shortland
Blessington, Co Wicklow
Trapped in a nightmare Ireland
Modern Ireland has become a nightmare from which I'm still trying to wake up.
Our health system is broken and daily inflicting misery on thousands of patients. We are given incorrect statistics to disguise the fact. Children with serious illnesses are left to suffer until their condition is deemed critical enough to merit emergency surgery.
Criminals with multiple convictions receive bail or light sentences with alarming regularity. White-collar crime sentencing is rarely more than a slap on the wrist.
Our police force effectively threatened mutiny unless its pay demands were met - to which our Government surrendered. Now gardai are mired in a vile corruption scandal.
Our politicians kick many of these issues into touch by launching toothless inquiries with indefinite timescales. Re-election remains their primary objective along with insulating their generous pension entitlements. Welcome to Gubu - where everyone is responsible but no one is accountable.
Where unsackable bureaucrats carry their convictions in their wallets, not their hearts. Where manipulated statistics masquerade as truth and compassion is an alien concept. Where good governance is an illusion to keep the tax-paying masses pacified.
The Romans had a phrase "corruptio optimi pessima" - the corruption of the best is the worst. So it has proved for many of the best-paid and brightest minds of this country. It is time we all woke up from this nightmare!
Name and address with editor
Dev's 'neutrality gone mad'
The point is not as Tom Cooper suggests that there is any argument over whether Eamon de Valera was a supporter of Nazism or of Hitler (Irish Independent, February 10). The evidence shows he definitely was not.
Rather, the real argument is whether Dev was morally correct in visiting the German representative here and offering on behalf of a neutral country and the Irish people condolences and expressions of grief for the death of Hitler, given that by then the horrific discoveries had been made by Allied troops of the extermination camps.
I believe even Dev himself later regretted he had offered those condolences.
However, I find it amazing there still are some to this day who continue to defend the position that a robotic-like protocol should always be observed.
I and many others find this stance morally repugnant. It was "neutrality gone mad" as the 'Herald Tribune' described it.
Ivor Shorts
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16
I met with Caroline Camuzat to find out the science behind one of the beauty industrys biggest brands.
I am introduced to Caroline and I first notice her unmistakeable Parisian style and demeanour. She is warm and chatty and speaks with a strong French accent but is incredibly easy to understand.
Caroline is the Scientific Communication Manager for Clarins: she translates the highly scientific processes behind each product so that their customers understand the benefit of using Clarins without being confused by complicated jargon.
Between scientists, we speak a different language. The truth is, the way the product is created is very scientific, and not understandable to the consumer. So we have to translate it so that it is easier to understand, and true.
Another aspect of her role is to work with the scientist who created the new products and the marketing team to ensure a clear message is communicated to customers. Today, Caroline is launching the Hydra-Essentiel range.
My favourite thing about this range is the bio inspiration. Its quite difficult to develop something new in the hydration market. Everyone has done it. It is a unique need. Most of the competition has created products that have a hydroscopic molecules, hyaluronic acid, that help the skin maintain water.
The Hydra-Essentiel range is totally new in the market. Thanks to this bio inspiration approach, we studied the fact that the succulent plants in Madagascar can maintain water. So we decided to help the skin maintain water by itself.
Caroline further explained in detail the science behind the range. We both comment on how complex the development of skincare products can become. Caroline has the important job to ensure the science, the research and the benefits behind each product are understood by the thousands of women using Clarins products every day.
Bio inspiration meets traditional medicine
But just how do Clarins find the innovative ingredients that go into their products like the Hydra-Essentiel range?
There are two specific approaches to select a plant at Clarins. You have the bio inspiration, meaning you are looking for plants that are able to grow in specific environment, with dry weather conditions, sunny conditions. This is the case with the Leaf of Life in Madagascar during the dry season we saw the plumpy leaves even after that.
The second method is traditional medicine, Jean Pierre Nicola, he is in charge studying the different pharmacopeia, in Madagascar, in China, and there are the different traditional medicines, based on plants.
I press Caroline again by asking how they get these plants from the wilds of Madagascar into the pots that we have on our dresser at home.
At the beginning of the project, we received the dry leaves, we collect the leaves in the lab. She added: You still have all the biological molecules in the dried leaves.
Mystified by all the science magic, I decided to give the range a go for myself. I am often running in and out of meetings, from air conditioned offices to the blustery outdoors and I live by the sea as well, so my skin certainly experiences many thermal shocks and I have been looking for something to suit my skin.
I started using the range and within just one day my skin stopped feeling tight, that Leaf of Life biomolecule working its magic.
Given Caroline studied industrial biology, I am curious why she isnt attracted to working in the lab with her colleagues.
I love biology, but working in a lab is just not for me. I am not a lab person. During all of my studies, I was thinking wow, I am completely not ready for the lab. The atmosphere, the communication. So that is what is interesting in this job, you can collect the scientific data, you can still play with the scientific data you like. You just have to make it not boring.
Indeed, the very existence of a role such as those highlights Clarins ongoing dedication to creating skin care ranges that are steeped in science, yet born out of real skincare needs.
Find out more about the Hydra-Essentiel Range here.
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At least 32 people died and 16 were injured as a result of a tour bus flipping over in the Nangang District of Taipei in Taiwan on Monday, Sputnik reported.
The bus was carrying 45 people on board, including a driver and a guide, when it turned over on a ramp, Taiwans Central News Agency reported, citing rescuers. Among the victims, 30 people died at the scene while two died in the hospital.
About 200 rescuers and firefighters continue working at the scene, pulling people out from the wreckage. Several ambulances stay at the scene.
There were reportedly only local tourists with no foreign nationals who were coming from Taichung.
According to preliminary data, the driver might have lost control of the bus, the police said. However, the exact reason is not known yet. The highway where the accident took place is partially closed.
In July 2016, another bus crash accident happened outside Taipei killing 25 tourists, including Chinese citizens.
Chilly temperatures did not stop the stars turning out in summery flesh-baring gowns at the Baftas.
Fashionistas shivered their way up the red carpet at the Royal Albert Hall in a host of show-stopping dresses - with the Duchess of Cambridge perhaps attracting the most attention in her off-the-shoulder Alexander McQueen gown.
The sun has not always shone on the Baftas and bad weather has forced the stars to squelch and shiver their way up a soggy red carpet in the past.
But while Sunday evening saw the mercury drop to just a few degrees Celsius, there was no need for raincoats or wellies.
The Met Office forecast a cold, cloudy and windy evening for London and South East England, with a patchy frost expected and a minimum temperature of 2C.
Despite the chill in the air, a McQueen-clad Kate chose to walk the red carpet without a shawl or wrap to keep her shoulders and arms warm.
A few years ago a drenched Jennifer Lawrence struggled through the wind and rain.
She was forced to borrow a jacket to keep off the chill as she posed for pictures in weather far removed from what she is used to in Hollywood.
Things got so bad that some of the stars resorted to using disposable hand warmers to keep a bit of feeling in their fingers as they signed autographs.
Things reached a real low in 2002 when torrential rain soaked through the red carpet and turned it into foam.
Diana, Princess of Wales, inside a lift at the Ritz hotel in Paris, shortly before she died
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, Kensington, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday February 12, 2017. See PA story SHOWBIZ Baftas. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive for the annual evening reception for members of the Diplomatic Corps at Buckingham Palace, London.
The Princess of Wales with her sons William and Harry on the chair lift during a skiing holiday in Lech, Austria, April 1991. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
The Princess of Wales takes her sons William and Harry out on the boat 'Maid of the Mist' at Niagara Falls, October 1991. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
Diana, Princess of Wales with her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, at the piano in Kensington Palace
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge attend Guild of Health Writers Conference with Heads Together at Chandos House on February 6, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Eddie Mulholland-WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge attends the Place2Be Big Assembly With Heads Together for Children's Mental Health Week at Mitchell Brook Primary School on February 6, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive at the Mitchell Brook Primary School, north London, as they attend the Place2Be Big Assembly with Heads Together for Children's Mental Health Week.
The Duchess of Cambridge take part in a relay race at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, as she joined runners taking part in the London Marathon for the mental health campaign Heads Together.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet with BAFTA representatives as they arrive to attend the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, Kensington, London. Photo: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire
The Duchess of Cambridge attending the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
Britain's Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge arrives for the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Britain, February 12, 2017. REUTERS/Daniel Leal-Olivas/Pool
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, Kensington, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday February 12, 2017. See PA story SHOWBIZ Baftas. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire
Britain's Prince William (L), Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge arrive to attend a big Assembly at a primary school in London to mark Children's Mental Health Week
Prince William and Kate Middleton are set for a historic visit to Paris nearly 20 years after his mother tragically died there.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit the City of Light on an official royal tour from March 17 to 18 and the trip is particularly poignant for the royal as it takes place five months before the 20-year anniversary of his mother's death.
It is the first time he's visited the city since Diana died there on August 31, 1997.
During their two-day stay, the couple will attend eight engagements as they begin to take a more hands-on role within their royal duties.
Expand Close The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, Kensington, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday February 12, 2017. See PA story SHOWBIZ Baftas. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire / Facebook
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Whatsapp The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attending the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, Kensington, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday February 12, 2017. See PA story SHOWBIZ Baftas. Photo credit should read: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire
"Their Royal Highness' visit is at the request of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office," a statement issued by Kensington Palace confirmed.
"Full details of the visit will be announced in due course, but the itinerary will include a reception for young French leaders from a variety of fields, a formal dinner at the residence of Her Majesty's Ambassador and attendance at the Wales v France Six Nations test at the Stade de France."
Their trip to France comes weeks after Kate made her first solo trip to the Netherlands in October and is believed to be part of Britain's post-Brexit charm offensive.
They are believed to be staying at the new British ambassador to France Edward Llewellyn's home.
Expand Close Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (R), and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge arrive to attend a Guild of Health Writers conference in London on February 7, 2017, this year focusing on mental health, and supported by the Heads Together campaign. / Facebook
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Whatsapp Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (R), and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge arrive to attend a Guild of Health Writers conference in London on February 7, 2017, this year focusing on mental health, and supported by the Heads Together campaign.
It's believed the royal couple, who dazzled as they made their debut at Sunday night's BAFTAs, will not bring their children Prince George (three) and Princess Charlotte (one).
The Duchess of Cambridge attending the EE British Academy Film Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
Upbeat musical 'La La Land' has triumphed over gritty dramas at the 70th British Academy Film Awards.
The film picked up five of the 11 prizes for which it was nominated - including best film, top director for Damien Chazelle and leading actress for Emma Stone - at the annual ceremony hosted for the 12th year in a row by Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Among the Irish contingent who turned out for the Baftas were TV presenter Laura Whitmore and Caitriona Balfe. Northern Irish actor Jamie Dornan also attended.
But Oscar hopeful Ruth Negga was nowhere to be seen as Hollywood glamour descended on the Royal Albert Hall. The Limerick actress was nominated in the Rising Star category, but she was pipped to the award by Tom Holland.
The 'Captain America: Civil War' star admitted, though, that if it had been up to him, he would have given the prize to former 'Love/Hate' star Negga.
"This is crazy and amazing. I did vote once, but not for myself. I voted for Ruth," he said.
Expand Close Laura Whitmore pictured on the red carpet. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire / Facebook
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Whatsapp Laura Whitmore pictured on the red carpet. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also attended the awards. Kate wowed in an off-the-shoulder Alexander McQueen gown, with her hair swept up.
The royal couple were met by loud cheers at the Royal Albert Hall, a short drive away from their Kensington Palace home.
William was there to present the fellowship award to comedian Mel Brooks at the glittering ceremony.
Ken Loach's gritty drama 'I, Daniel Blake' was named best UK picture and the veteran director injected a strong dose of politics into the glitzy event. Loach (80), pictured left, used his acceptance speech to lambast the UK's Conservative government.
Expand Close Jamie Dornan and his wife Amelia Warner were at the awards. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire / Facebook
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Whatsapp Jamie Dornan and his wife Amelia Warner were at the awards. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
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He said his docudrama about a carpenter trying to get welfare after a heart attack shows that "the most vulnerable and the poorest people are treated by this government with a callous brutality that is disgraceful."
Meanwhile, master of ceremonies Fry made a cheeky jibe at Donald Trump's reaction to Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech, declaring from the stage: "I look down on row after row of the most overrated people on the planet."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie with Mr Trump and first lady Melania Trump as they met at the presidents resort in Florida. Photo: AP
Donald Trump faced his first major foreign policy challenge as president yesterday, after the surprise launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea - tested to coincide with the visit of Japan's prime minister to the US.
Mr Trump and Shinzo Abe, his Japanese counterpart, hastily convened a press conference late to condemn the test.
Expand Close A woman walks past a TV screen at a railway station in Seoul showing footage of North Koreas missile launch. Photo: Getty Images / Facebook
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Whatsapp A woman walks past a TV screen at a railway station in Seoul showing footage of North Koreas missile launch. Photo: Getty Images
Mr Abe called the launch "absolutely intolerable" and said North Korea must comply with UN Security Council resolutions.
Mr Trump added: "I just want everybody to understand, and fully know, that the United States of America is behind Japan, our great ally, 100pc." He declined to make any further comment.
The test was likely to have been of an intermediate-range Musudan-class missile that landed in the Sea of Japan, according to South Korea's military - not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the North has said it could test at any time.
Mr Trump has vowed to take a tougher line than Barack Obama on North Korea, criticising his predecessor for being weak.
He pledged a more assertive approach to the rogue nation, but has given no clear sign of how his policy would differ.
In January, after Kim Jong-un said the North was close to testing an ICBM, Mr Trump tweeted "It won't happen!"
Stephen Miller, senior adviser to Mr Trump, refused yesterday to say whether the missile launch crossed a "red line" for the president.
But he said the US was determined to support its allies and maintain a robust military. "We are going to reinforce and strengthen our vital alliances in the Pacific region as part of our strategy to deter and prevent the increasing hostility that we've seen in recent years from the North Korean regime," he said.
The missile was launched from an area called Panghyon in North Korea's western region just before 11pm GMT on Saturday, and flew about 500km, South Korea's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
"Our assessment is that it is part of a show of force in response to the new US administration's hardline position against the North," the South Korean military said.
China, which Mr Trump has accused of neglecting to rein in North Korea, is yet to respond.
Meanwhile, Mr Miller claimed the court ruling against Mr Trump's travel ban was nothing less than "a judicial usurpation of power".
"Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned," said Mr Miller.
The 31-year-old, who began his rapid rise to power with attacks on multiculturalism, criticism of women's protests against pay inequality, and urging against political correctness, was dispatched yesterday to hammer home the president's point of view on television chat shows.
On ABC News, he argued that James Robart, the Washington state judge who blocked the travel ban on February 3, had made his ruling for political reasons.
"A district judge in Seattle cannot force the president of the United States to change our laws and our constitution because of their own personal views," he said.
"The reality is that this is not a disagreement about the law and the constitution. This is an ideological disagreement between those who believe we should have borders and should have controls and those who believe there should be no borders and no controls. That's the essence of this debate.
"And the bottom line is the president's powers, in this area, represent the apex of executive authority."
On NBC News, he continued to vigorously assert his boss's point of view, arguing: "We've heard a lot of talk about how all the branches of government are equal. That's the point. They are equal. There's no such thing as judicial supremacy. What the judges did was to take power for themselves that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the United States."
The president has promised to fight on, with the next steps possibly announced as early as today.
He has four options, including returning to the lower courts; asking the appeals court that upheld the block on the ban to reconsider; taking it the matter to the Supreme Court; or writing a new executive order.
Bob Ferguson, the attorney general for Washington state who brought about Judge Robart's halting of the ban, also vowed to fight on, saying yesterday he will call on White House officials to reveal "what truly motivated" President Trump's executive order on immigration if the case he brought against it goes to trial. (Daily Telegraph, London)
Ray Roberts on board a Spitfire at the launch of celebrations the mark the centenary of Biggin Hill Airport
A 100-year-old former RAF pilot has taken to the skies in a Spitfire to mark the centenary year celebrations of an airport that played a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain.
Ray Roberts, from Margate, Kent, used a walking aid on the runway to take his place in the twin-seat aircraft, while fellow centenarians Lily Osborne and Trudy Baxter flew in a Learjet 75.
The trio were VIPs at Biggin Hill Airport in Kent which arranged the flights to herald a year of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the ex-RAF base.
Mr Roberts, who was flown by Captain Peter Kynsey, joined the RAF in 1940 and trained as a pilot before being injured that year when his parachute failed to fully open after he bailed out of a Spitfire.
He became a proud member of the Caterpillar Club, a group of people who had bailed out of a stricken aircraft and survived to tell the tale. His injuries forced him to quit as a fighter pilot.
And in 1941 he joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and spent the rest of the Second World War delivering aircraft to service units direct from the factory.
As the Spitfire roared in the skies above Kent and London, Mr Roberts' daughter, Lyndi Roberts, said: "He is just amazed to be given the opportunity. He has been going through his old logbooks.
"Since he found out he was going to be flown in a Spitfire, he kept saying he cannot wait to get up and see the Earth, looking down. He said it takes him back."
Best known for its role in the Battle of Britain, Biggin Hill served as one of the vital command bases for the Hurricanes and Spitfires of RAF Fighter Command protecting the South East.
It latterly accepted civil flights alongside its role as a rapid reaction station. And when RAF operations ended there, Biggin Hill gradually grew as an international gateway airport for business, corporate and general aviation.
Biggin Hill managing director Will Curtis told guests that the Second World War was won in part at the airport.
"We are aware that Biggin Hill sat at the very tipping point of the Second World War," he said.
"I am naturally proud of that legacy and we will do our very best to ensure that it is properly preserved for future generations. I am also acutely aware that today Biggin Hill plays an important part in London's future."
With other airports, including Gatwick and Heathrow, becoming increasingly congested, Mr Curtis predicted a larger share of the business aviation market using Biggin Hill.
US President Donald Trump welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington (Andrew Harnik/AP)
President Donald Trump reaches to shakes hands with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office of the White House (AP)
President Donald Trump has praised the "outstanding" trade relationship between the United States and Canada, saying he would only be "tweaking" it going forward.
The comments were received positively by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who came to the United States seeking to ensure Canada was not crippled as Mr Trump re-negotiates the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
The neighbouring leaders took up the thorny subjects of trade and immigration at their first face-to-face meeting on Monday.
"We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We'll be tweaking it," Mr Trump told reporters of the trade relationship. "We'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It's a much less severe situation than what's taking place on the southern border."
At a joint news conference after their meetings, the two emphasised their shared goals. Mr Trump pledged to work with Canada "in pursuit of our many shared interests". Mr Trudeau spoke of a special bond and the "deep abiding respect" between the two countries, though he also said that "relationships between neighbours are pretty complex".
While the two leaders stressed shared interests, their contrasting views were also on display. Responding to questions from reporters, Mr Trump defended his refugee and immigration orders, saying that "we cannot let the wrong people in". Mr Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to "pursue our policies of openness".
Mr Trudeau later noted that there have been times when the two countries "have differed in our approaches". But he said "the last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves".
On trade, Mr Trump said he would be "tweaking" the relationship with Canada, but said "it's a much less severe situation than what's happening on the southern border". He also noted the "outstanding trade relationship with Canada". Those were likely welcome comments for Canadians concerned that they could be hurt as Mr Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mr Trump greeted Mr Trudeau with a firm handshake as he arrived at the White House on a blustery morning. The two posed silently before reporters, until Mr Trump suggested they shake hands for the cameras. Mr Trudeau did bring a personal gift - a photo of Mr Trump with Mr Trudeau's father, the late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
Mr Trump said he knew and respected Pierre Trudeau and would keep the photo in a "very special place".
At a roundtable discussion with female executives from the United States and Canada, Mr Trump and Mr Trudeau announced a task force focused on women in the workforce. Mr Trump said it was important to ensure the economy is a place where "women can work and thrive". Mr Trudeau stressed that women have had to overcome barriers to succeed in business.
Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka Mr Trump was in attendance at the meeting and helped recruit participants and set the agenda. The high-profile meeting is evidence of her rising policy influence.
A Canadian official said Mr Trudeau 's administration had suggested the task force, because the prime minister considers the issue of working women an important part of his agenda and economic growth plan.
"It's a smart thing if Canada proposed this," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto. "It takes attention off of Nafta. And from Mr Trump's point of view, it contributes to softening Mr Trump's image, and he's got a problem with women."
Relations with the US are crucial as more than 75% of Canada's exports go to the US, while 18% of US exports go to Canada.
Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy to Mr Trudeau, said the prime minister needs to build a relationship with Mr Trump to ensure Canada is not shut out economically.
"The overriding priority will be for Canada to maintain secure and reliable access to the US market and the supply chains that criss-cross the border," Mr Paris said.
Mr Trudeau has been preparing for the Mr Trump meeting for months. He will also meet with legislative leaders on Capitol Hill.
AP
One Turkish soldier has been killed and four others were injured in clashes during the ongoing Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria's al-Bab, Dailysabah reported.
The injured soldiers were immediately taken to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, the statement added.
43 Daesh terrorists were killed by Turkish shelling and airstrikes in northern Syria with 245 identified Daesh targets hit the same day, a military statement said early Monday.
The Turkish army is supporting FSA fighters in liberating al-Bab, a strategic city for Daesh, from the terrorist group. Monday marks the 174th day since the city was surrounded in the liberation efforts.
Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield on Aug. 24, 2016, declaring that it was exercising its rights to self-defense codified under the U.N. Charter Article 51. Monday marked the 174th day of the operation.
A National Security Council press release, dated Nov. 30, 2016, stated that the operation's objectives were to maintain border security and confront Daesh terrorism within the framework of the U.N. Charter.
It also emphasized on not allowing the PKK terrorist organization along with its affiliates, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and People's Protection Units (YPG), to establish a corridor of terror at Turkey's doorsteps.
A federal judge has cleared the way for a US government lawsuit seeking 100 million dollars (80 million) in damages from disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.
The decision by US District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington sets the near seven-year-old case on course for a jury trial.
The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by Armstrong's former US Postal Service team-mate Floyd Landis, who could collect up to 25%.
The government joined the case in 2013 after Armstrong publicly admitted using performance-enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France seven times. He was stripped of those titles and banned from competition.
Armstrong tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, arguing the team sponsorship was worth far more to the Postal Service than the 32 million dollars it paid from 2000 to 2004.
Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes after water began gushing down the overflow channel of the US's tallest dam's in Oroville, California, causing extensive damage
The damaged spillway with eroded hillside in Oroville, California. (William Croyle/California Department of Water Resources/AP)
The water level has dropped behind the US's tallest dam, reducing the risk of a catastrophic spillway collapse, but nearly 200,000 people ordered to leave their homes may have to stay away until a damaged barrier is repaired.
The California Department of Water Resources is considering using helicopters to drop loads of rock on the eroded spillway at Lake Oroville, about 150 miles north east of San Francisco, but police could give no timetable for the work.
With more rainstorms expected later in the week, time is running short to fix the damage.
Authorities ordered mass evacuations on Sunday for everyone living below the lake out of concern that the spillway could fail and send a 30ft wall of water downstream.
The acting head of California's water agency said he is "not sure anything went wrong" on the damaged spillway.
Bill Croyle's comments came after officials had assured residents for days that the damage was nothing to be concerned about - then ordered everyone to get out in an hour.
The water level in the lake had risen significantly in recent weeks after storms dumped rain and snow across California, particularly in northern parts of the state.
The high water forced the use of the dam's emergency overflow for the first time in the dam's near 50-year history on Saturday.
The threat appeared to ease on Monday as the water level fell. Officials said water was flowing out of the lake at nearly twice the rate as water flowing into it.
Sunday afternoon's evacuation order came after engineers spotted a hole in the earthen secondary spillway for the 770ft tall Oroville Dam and told authorities it could fail within the hour.
With more rain expected on Wednesday and Thursday, officials are rushing to try to fix the damage and hoping to reduce the dam's water level by 50ft ahead of the storms.
The sudden evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belongings into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the order was given.
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation centre in Chico, California.
The shelter ran out of blankets and bed, and a lorry with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the traffic fleeing the potential flooding on Sunday night, Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch said.
A California Highway Patrol spokesman said two planes would fly to help with traffic control and possible search-and-rescue missions.
At least 250 California police officers were posted near the dam and along evacuation routes to manage the exodus and ensure evacuated towns do not become targets for looting or other criminal activity.
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville.
Those flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways and levees and flood towns in the three counties.
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness on Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.
The California National Guard notified all its 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy, the first time an alert for the entire state National Guard had been issued since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.
The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying the state's Central Valley agricultural heartland and homes and businesses in southern California.
AP
A transit centre for South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, near the border with South Sudan (Stephen Wandera/AP)
More than 1.5 million South Sudanese have become refugees and their humanitarian needs are overwhelming aid efforts during the country's civil war, according to the United Nations.
South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 and roughly 3.6 million people have fled their homes or become refugees, according to the UN.
The country is Africa's largest refugee crisis and the third largest in the world, after Syria and Afghanistan.
The humanitarian situation in South Sudan has "deteriorated dramatically", said Eugene Owusu, the UN aid chief in South Sudan, who described the country as troubled by the threat of famine and widespread sexual violence.
"We are facing unprecedented needs, in an unprecedented number of locations," Mr Owusu said, adding that 1.6 billion dollars (1.28 billion) is needed to respond to the crisis.
Roughly 7.5 million people are in need of assistance and protection, a majority of the country's estimated 12 million population, according to the UN.
Around 4.6 million people are expected to receive food assistance in the first part of 2017, according to the World Food Programme.
South Sudan's government, and to a lesser extent rebel forces, have blocked UN peacekeepers and humanitarian assistance in parts of the country, despite repeatedly promising unfettered access, according to aid organisations.
Recent fighting between government and rebel forces in the Wau Shilluk area of the Upper Nile region have caused humanitarian organisations to temporarily suspend their operations there.
A December letter from South Sudan's National Security Service ordered aid organisations to "immediately pull out", without giving a reason, from Panyijar in the Unity region, where thousands of displaced civilians were receiving assistance.
Some aid organisations say they have since been allowed back in the area.
South Sudan's government spends roughly half of its national budget on defence spending.
Since 2005, the US has sent roughly 11 billion dollars (8.8 billion) in aid to South Sudan.
South Sudan's civil war has killed tens of thousands of people and a peace deal signed in August 2015 has failed to stop fighting.
AP
White House national security adviser Michael Flynn has apologised to vice president Mike Pence for the controversy surrounding his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the US, an administration official said.
Mr Pence said in televised interviews that Mr Flynn had not discussed sanctions during his pre-inauguration talks with Russian envoy Sergey Kislyak.
Mr Flynn has since told the White House that sanctions might have come up. Administration officials said Mr Pence had been relying on information from Mr Flynn.
His fate as one of President Donald Trump's senior aides appeared uncertain after senior White House officials sidestepped repeated chances to publicly defend him.
The president, who spent the weekend at his private club in Florida, has yet to comment on Mr Flynn's status.
He has told associates he is troubled by the situation, but he has not said whether he plans to ask Mr Flynn to step down, according to a source.
However, Kellyanne Conway has spoken out and said Mr Flynn enjoys the "full confidence" of President Donald Trump.
"Gen. Flynn has the full confidence of the president," the White House counselor told reporters.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
Peru's former president Alejandro Toledo is believed to be in San Francisco (AP)
Peru has asked US president Donald Trump to deport a former leader suspected of taking bribes in a regional corruption scandal.
President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's office said the request was made to Mr Trump during a phone conversation between the two.
The White House confirmed the talk, but did not mention Peru's deportation request, saying they discussed the need for a strong economic group as well as the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Venezuela.
Last week a Peruvian court ordered the arrest and detention of ex-president Alejandro Toledo as prosecutors investigate whether he took 20 million dollars (16m) in payments from the giant Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
Peruvian officials have said they believe Mr Toledo is in San Francisco, where he has been researching a book as a visiting scholar at nearby Stanford University.
News reports said he had intended to fly over the weekend to Israel, where his wife has citizenship, until prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said he would be denied entry.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said Mr Toledo was not on a flight from San Francisco that landed on Sunday night.
Authorities across Latin America have been moving fast to charge officials accused of taking some 800 million dollars (640m) in bribes from Odebrecht.
The company acknowledged the bribes when it signed a plea agreement in December with the US Justice Department.
Used to win business in 12 countries, the bribes include 29 million dollars (23m) paid in Peru for projects built during the administrations of Mr Toledo, from 2001-2006, and two of his successors.
So far, three officials have been arrested.
Mr Toledo, a former pro-democracy activist who led street protests that brought down former strongman Alberto Fujimori in 2000, is accused of receiving the 20 million dollars from Odebrecht in exchange for favouring the company in a contract to build a major highway from Brazil to Peru's Pacific coast.
In a nationally-televised address on Sunday night, Mr Kuczysnki called on Mr Toledo to return immediately to Peru to clarify his legal situation.
Earlier, Mr Kuczynski thanked Israel's government for its support in a letter to Mr Netanyahu.
The White House said Mr Trump expressed concerns about developments in Venezuela.
Mr Kuczysnki, a 78-year-old former Wall Street banker, has spearheaded calls among Latin American leaders to punish Venezuela's socialist government for allegedly breaking with the nation's democratic order.
He has seen his approval ratings fall as a result of a number of ethical slips by members of his cabinet, though none of those cases are tied to Odebrecht.
In his address, he announced executive measures meant to strengthen Peru's fight against corruption, including a bigger budget for prosecutors as well as rewards and protections for whistleblowers and a ban for life on contracting with the state for companies that engage in corruption.
"We have to act relentlessly and immediately to stop the rot of corruption in Peru," the president said.
Mr Kuczynski's calls for zero tolerance for corruption comes as prosecutors in the Odebrecht case want to speak to the president himself.
As Mr Toledo's prime minister in 2006, Mr Kuczynski signed a law passed by congress allowing Odebrecht to participate in an auction to build two highways despite a ban on it bidding for government contracts at the time because it was facing legal action for irregularities in another project.
Odebrecht was eventually awarded the roads contract.
Mr Kuczynski has denied any wrongdoing.
AP
In a posting on his Twitter account later, Mr Toledo denied that he was a fugitive, saying: "I have never run away."
But he did not say where he was, nor if he would return to Peru.
AP
South Korean prosecutors have again summoned Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong for questioning over bribery claims, less than a month after a Seoul court rejected their request for his arrest.
Technology giant Samsung is suspected of providing tens of millions of dollars in money and favours to President Park Geun-hye and her jailed friend Choi Soon-sil in exchange for government support of a merger deal between two Samsung affiliates in 2015.
The merger helped Mr Lee, the billionaire vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, promote a father-to-son transfer of leadership and wealth at the group.
The bribery allegation surfaced as authorities expanded investigations into a political scandal that led to Ms Park's parliamentary impeachment.
Prosecutors accuse her of letting Ms Choi pull government strings from the shadows and extort money from Samsung and other big companies.
Prosecutors planned to question Mr Lee over new findings they made in the past few weeks and may consider requesting an arrest warrant for him again, according to prosecution spokesman Lee Kyu-chul.
While entering a prosecution office, Lee Jae-yong said he would faithfully undergo questioning.
Prosecutors sought to arrest Mr Lee when they summoned him last month, but Seoul Central District Court ruled there was not enough evidence to justify his arrest at that point.
Moon Hyung-pyo, the country's former health minister, has been indicted on charges that he pressured the National Pension Service to support the Samsung merger even though the fund's stake in one of the companies lost an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in value.
Ms Park's lawyers scrapped plans to let authorities question her in person last week to protest at media leaks about the timing and location of her interview.
The moves comes as the country's Constitutional Court deliberates on whether to formally end her rule and trigger an early election to choose her successor.
AP
A human rights group has accused the Syrian government of conducting at least eight chemical attacks using chlorine gas on opposition-controlled residential areas during the final months in the battle for Aleppo.
Human Rights Watch said in a report that it used witness interviews and video footage to document government helicopters carrying out the attacks in rebel-held eastern Aleppo that killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured around 200 people.
The attacks took place in areas where government forces were planning to advance, following the front lines as they moved from east to west, the rights group said.
Ole Solvang, the organisation's deputy emergencies director, said: "The pattern of the chlorine attacks shows that they were co-ordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements."
The Syrian government has previously denied any chemical attacks.
Human Rights Watch said the attacks were carried out between November 17 and December 13 - two days before President Bashar Assad's forces took control of eastern Aleppo in a humiliating defeat for opposition fighters trying to oust the Syrian leader.
In five of the alleged chemical attacks, the rights group said it reviewed photographs or video footage of remnants of chemical-filled improvised munitions posted online or shared with Human Rights Watch.
In all five, it said, the footage showed the same type of yellow gas cylinder and on one remnant a label was still visible with a warning that the cylinder contained gas.
Human Rights Watch said opposition-affiliated groups, first responders, activists and journalists reported that government forces also carried out chemical attacks in other locations in Syria during the same period.
While chlorine has many civilian uses, the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria joined in October 2013 bans the use of the toxic properties of any chemical as a weapon.
Inspectors charged with determining who is responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria have determined that the Syrian government was behind at least three attacks involving chlorine gas in 2014 and 2015 and Islamic State was responsible for at least one involving mustard gas in 2015.
The United States, Britain and France have been pressing the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on the Syrian government for using chemical weapons.
But Russia, Syria's closest ally, has repeatedly questioned investigators' conclusions linking chemical weapons use to the Assad regime.
Britain and France have drafted a Security Council resolution that would impose sanctions on 11 Syrians and 10 Syrian organisations and companies allegedly involved in chemical weapons attacks in the war-ravaged country.
But the resolution faces strong opposition from Russia.
Human Rights Watch called on the Syrian government to immediately stop using chemical weapons and urged the Security Council to impose sanctions on senior leaders in Syria's chain of command.
It also urged the 192 parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention to address Syria's alleged violations of the treaty.
AP
The UN Security Council has strongly condemned North Korea's ballistic missile launches and warned of "further significant measures" if Pyongyang does not stop nuclear testing.
A council statement late on Monday followed a strong condemnation by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of the latest launch and a pledge by President Donald Trump to deal with North Korea "very strongly".
The Security Council condemned the Saturday launch and a previous launch on October 19, saying North Korea's activities to develop its nuclear weapons delivery systems violate UN sanctions resolutions and increase tensions.
It called on all UN members to implement the six sanctions resolutions adopted by the council since 2006.
Anas Modamani (Photo : CNNMoney/Youtube)
Syrian refugee Anas Modamani has filed a lawsuit against Facebook in Germany after a selfie he snapped with Chancellor Angela Merkel spread on social media and flagged as fake news. He claimed that stories on the social website are connecting him to terrorism.
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Modami is requesting the social media giant to prevent the photo from being shared and reposted. He also added that he wants Facebook to delete all fake news on the website.
According to The New York Times, a court in Wurzburg heard opening remarks in the case, and the trial highlighted few basic legal questions, such as who is responsible for the content linking him to terrorism. The German Justice Minister Heiko Maas is looking at the details and connecting scenarios like who is in charge of defamation. Modamani claimed that he wants his life back and he screamed that Facebook's online reporting system did not handle the problem.
Maas also suggested that the government should take actions to fake news, which is currently growing and directly flagged as "hateful" and racism. The government-initiated task forces are still looking for ways to stop spreading the fake news on the social media sites, such as Fakebook, Google, and Twitter. The German panels are expected to report their findings in the coming months.
Authorities in Germany requested to remove hate speech on Facebook within 24 hours, as The Verge reported. The social giant agreed and took the move by launching a filtering system in both France and Germany, however, the German lawmakers are trying to seek proposal if Facebook would be fined for every false story the social media fails to remove.
In 2015, there are over 1.1 million refugees photos used in random posting after the Dec. 19 terror attack in Berlin which killed 12 and 50 were injured. The selfie was seen over 200,000 times before Facebook removed it.
Pop Quiz: What does this graph above show?
A) The growth in debt of the State of North Carolina
B) The average temperature for Charlotte 1960 - 2016
Answer: This is a graph of the average annual temperature for Charlotte, North Carolina since 1960. It shows that the average annual temperature has risen almost 3 Degrees.
Worldwide, Heat records where shattered in 2014, only be topped in 2015, and then to be topped again in 2016. 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001. If this trend is not stopped, you (and your kids) food supply and health will be at serious risk.
In recent years, scientists discovered that leaking natural gas from well fields and pipelines around the United States is a significant contributor to temperature rise.
In January of 2015, President Obama put in place regulations to require the oil and gas companies to stop these natural gas leaks.
In January 2017, Congress voted to eliminate those regulations and allow the leaking to continue. The bill awaits President Trumps signature.
Not everyone is unhappy that North Carolina is getting warmer in the winter - but the larger point that such changes are occurring all over the earth. Rising temperatures are causing the largest iceberg in history to break off of Antarctica - the coldest region on earth. The part that will be dumped into the ocean is the size of the State of Delaware.
The bigger problem is that the part that is breaking off acts like a shower curtain in reverse for the rest of Antarctica - once this piece is gone, warmer rising ocean waters will now be free to attack the rest of Antarctica.
You can reduce natural gas leakage by wrapping your gas water heater with an insulation kit available at home improvement stores. Lowering the amount of natural gas that goes through the pipes to your home will lower the amount that leaks. A real win-win - you save money, and slow down climate change.
Here are sources for this article and for more information:
State Climate Office of North Carolina, CRONOS Database, Data retrieval from KCLT for 1960 -2016
Francis P. Koster, Ed.D. is Americas optimistic futurist who lives in Kannapolis. He is the author of several books and many articles on education, the environment and healthcare.
Its been a long roadand at times a bumpy onebut Barber-Scotia College has marked a milestone.
And a big one at that.
The institution celebrates 150 years this year, planning an event each month all the way up to the anniversary of its charter in November.
The people of Barber-Scotia, I think, are very resilient, very determined, President Dr. David Olah said. They dont really believe too much in defeat. Yeah, were kind of down right now, but were not done. Well make it back. I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of the overall program that the school has maintained through the years and its emphasis on the faith element. It was founded in faith. We say in the beginning, faith.
Barber-Scotia College began as Scotia Seminary, founded by the Rev. Luke Dorland of the Presbyterian Church to educate daughters of newly freed slaves. The curriculum included elementary, secondary and normaltraining to be a teacherschoolwork.
Basically reading, writing, arithmetic and domestic skills, Olah said. Most of those students had the desire to be successful in society so they could fit it in, but they also had a desire to continue their education further. But the institution wasnt there.
Three years later, on Nov. 22, 1870, the school officially received its charter. Back in those days, the entire institution was just one humble building along Corban Avenue, or what was then Depot Street.
We started out as a little shack, a little one-room building, and we were founded by the church, Olah said. Actually, the church right on the corner, basically the pastor of that church for the first four years was also the president of the college. [Leland] Cozart came as the first educator to actually lead the institution other than a pastor.
In 1916, Scotia Seminary became Scotia Womans College. The institution then merged with mens college Barber memorial College from Alabama in 1930, and the current name was adopted in 1932.
That same year, Cozart became the fifthand the first African-Americanpresident of the college. He served there until 1964, seeing the institution through several changes.
Just after Cozart came on board, Barber-Scotia became a two-year Class A junior college through the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The Board of National Missions helped take the institution to the next step in 1942, providing funding to support a four-year college program.
The first class to graduate with bachelors degrees walked in 1945. In 1946, the N.C. Board of Education granted the school its four-year rating, allowing education graduates to receive an A certificate and teach in the states public schools.
In 1954, Barber-Scotia officially opened its doors to all students, amending the charter to allow those of any race or gender. Not long after, the college gained full membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
A major road bump came in 2004 when the institution lost accreditation after issuing certificates to residents who hadnt actually sat for classes. No accreditation meant no federal funding or student loans, so admissions dropped and the school fell into debt. A core of dedicated educators and alumni, however, worked to keep the doors open.
I think the events of the early 2000s as we stumbled and fell tremendously in 2004, lost our accreditation, relocated all of our students, took on a heavy debt, many people said youre finished; you wont make it, Olah said. So to be out here and say we made it this far, and were going to keep going. I think weve had enough challenges over the last 15 years that the average institution would never have fought through.
So the college has decided to celebrate. Barber-Scotia kicked off the anniversary with homecoming the first weekend in February and a legacy brick program, selling engraved bricks to the first 100 buyers. The bricks will then go to a project on campus such as a courtyard with fountain and benches.
Between now and founders day in November, the institution has one event planned a monthfrom a Gospel Explosion to a luxury car giveaway to a Women in Engineering and Energy program.
But even while marking the past, Olah said the college is still looking to the future.
One of the things we struggle with and still struggle with is trying to resolve our old debt that was created during that collapse, he said. And then try to catch up with our deferred maintenance. Ive really been honored and privileged to be the president. Although the time might not be the time of glory, its certainly a time of discovery.
MONDAY, FEB. 13
GriefShare recovery seminar and support group meets at Central Baptist Church Kannapolis each Monday from 6-8 p.m. Feb. 6th through May 1st. The church is located at 1810 Moose Road, Kannapolis. For more information, call Julia Pope at 704-467-2795.
TUESDAY, FEB. 14
The Compassionate Friends of Stanly County is a support group for parents/families who have lost children of any age, due to any cause at any time in their lives. The group offers support from other parents who are working through their loss. They meet at 7 p.m. at Locust City Hall. Visit their Facebook Page The Compassionate Friends of Stanly County or email jamisgifts@gmail.com for more information.
MONDAY, FEB. 20
GriefShare recovery seminar and support group meets at Central Baptist Church Kannapolis each Monday from 6-8 p.m. Feb. 6th through May 1st. The church is located at 1810 Moose Road, Kannapolis. For more information, call Julia Pope at 704-467-2795.
THURSDAY, FEB. 23
Lake Norman Regional Medical Center is hosting a Go Red for Women luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1p.m.. The program will be held in the hospitals community rooms. Daniel Koehler, D.O., Cardiologist will be the featured speaker for the event. Go Red for Women is an organization created by the American Heart Association which strives to make women more aware of their heart health and take better actions towards staying healthy. Lunch is complimentary, but space is limited, so please call 888-99-LNRMC (56762), to reserve your seat.
MONDAY, FEB. 27
GriefShare recovery seminar and support group meets at Central Baptist Church Kannapolis each Monday from 6-8 p.m. Feb. 6th through May 1st. The church is located at 1810 Moose Road, Kannapolis. For more information, call Julia Pope at 704-467-2795.
TUESDAY, MARCH 7
The Center for Surgical Weight Loss at Lake Norman offers free Diabetes Education Classes. The four-week series of classes are offered the first four Tuesdays of each month, noon to 2 p.m., in The Center for Surgical Weight Loss Conference Room, 131 Medical Park Road, in Mooresville. Diabetes Education Classes are offered for those diagnosed with Pre-Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes and Gestational Diabetes. Call 888-99LNRMC(56762) to register, or visit www.lnrmc.com and click Events.
TUESDAY, MARCH 14
The Compassionate Friends of Stanly County is a support group for parents/families who have lost children of any age, due to any cause at any time in their lives. The group offers support from other parents who are working through their loss. They meet at 7 p.m. at Locust City Hall. Visit their Facebook Page The Compassionate Friends of Stanly County or email jamisgifts@gmail.com for more information.
Cabarrus Health Alliance Classes and Education
Grocery Store Tours Cooking Matters: Join us for a free, guided grocery store tour teaching skills for buying healthy foods on a budget. Contact Meghan Charpentier at Meghan.Charpentier@CabarrusHealth.org or call 704-920-1324 to sign up.
Walmart Supercenter, 150 Concord Commons Pl SW, Concord:Feb. 16, 9-10:30 a.m.; March 16, 6-7:30 p.m.; April 6, 10-11 am.; April 27, 6-7 p.m.
Food Lion, 860 Union St. S, Concord: March 21, 6-7:30 p.m.; April 4, 6-7:30 p.m.
Food Lion, 358 Oak Ave. Mall, Kannapolis: Feb. 10, 10-11:30 a.m.; march 14, 10-11:30 a.m.
Diabetes Self-Management Class Living Healthy with Diabetes is a workshop that will help you take control of your diabetes rather than letting it control you. Through this six-week class, you will learn how to manage the disease, communicate effectively, eat healthier, keep your blood sugar in check and much more. Classes will be held at the Cabarrus Health Alliance, 300 Mooresville Road, Kannapolis. We will meet on Tuesdays, began Jan. 17 and ends on Feb. 21. Class will be from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Materials are included in this free class. Contact Meghan Charpentier at Meghan.Charpentier@CabarrusHealth.org or 704-920-1324 to sign up as spaces are limited.
Cooking Classes Cabarrus Health Alliance culinary nutrition staff offer monthly cooking classes in our state of the art Wellness Kitchen for just $10 per class. For more information, go to www.CabarrusHealth.org/CookingClasses. You will find a list of upcoming classes and link to register. There are recipes and cooking demonstration videos to help you get started preparing quick, delicious meals from the comfort of your own home. For more information, contact Meghan Charpentier at Meghan.Charpentier@CabarrusHealth.orgor 704-920-1324.
March Class: Beyond the Comfort Zone Ever look at foods at the grocery store and wonder what it is for or what to do with? March is National Nutrition Month and we are exploring uncommon, yet extremely nutritious foods that are worth adding to your meals. Tues., March 7from11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; Thurs., March 9from 6-7:30 p.m.; Sat., March 11from 10-11:30 a.m.
Meal Planning & Recipe Demonstration for Diabetics This free class will discuss meal planning, reading labels, and preparation of foods for those who have pre-diabetes or diabetes. All are welcome to join this class as it will show how to incorporate healthier habits into daily lifestyles. Thursday, Feb. 9 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Concord Public Library
Free Community Yoga This is a perfect class for people at all levels of fitness. Students will learn the fundamentals of proper alignment as well as how to breathe fully. Use of props will be encouraged to support the body and make the poses comfortable. Bring your own mat if you have one. All classes are held at Cabarrus Health Alliance, 300 Mooresville Road, Kannapolis, every Friday from 6-7 p.m.
Sisters in Partnership Helen Garcia-Leak, Outreach Coordinator for the Breast Center at Carolinas Healthcare, will provide information on 3D Mammography. Breast cancer survivors are invited to attend this information session and bring a friend. Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 12:30 p.m. at Cabarrus Health Alliance, 300 Mooresville Road, Kannapolis.
Grief recovery support group
Most of us know what it means to lose someone close. For some people, the grieving process can be more overwhelming than others. Central Baptist Church of Kannapolis takes a look at a program hoping o help people in the community cope with the loss of a loved one.
Central Baptist Church offers a thirteen-week GriefShare program to the community. GriefShare is a seminar complied by professionals in the field of grief to assist people trying to cope with the loss o a loved one.
Those who join the group receive a workbook. The workbook coincides with a DVD series that helps guide people through the healing process. Following the DVD, the group discusses about what the video reviewed and their concerns.
This cycle starts every Monday now through May 1. You are welcome to begin attending our GriefShare Group at any point. Each session is self contained, so you do not have to attend in sequence. For additional questions or if you would like to register, call Julia Pope at 704-467-2795 or Central Baptist Church at 704-933-8006.
Russia and India are becoming closer partners both politically and in trade. India is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and will become a full member of the Shanghai Co-Operation Organization (SCO).
The SCO provides a uniquely eastern and central Asian political and development platform for India. Founding members China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan will be joined by India, Iran, and Pakistan. Observer states include Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia, while dialogue partners Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey also participate. As can be seen, many of these states are within Indias sphere of interest.
The EAEU, meanwhile, is a free trade area that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. While that may seem a little esoteric when it comes to Indian trade interests, it should be noted that Vietnam already has an FTA with the EAEU, while other states such a Moldova and Uzbekistan are currently negotiating to join via their existing memberships in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). China, Egypt, Iran, Singapore, South Korea, and Turkey have all commenced some level of negotiation to join, and if ratified, these agreements will make the EAEU a powerful trade body.
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The question is what Indian businesses can expect from a closer trade relationship with Russia? To date, bilateral trade has focused on defense, with Russia giving India technologies and equipment that not many other countries will consider. The nuclear-powered attack submarine Chakra is an example; the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile another. Although military sales are primarily a government to government affair, the arms trade deals can be expected to filter down to a wider base of Indian businesses, particularly given the greater regional access permitted through the auspices of the SCO.
Trade and investment
Bilateral trade will benefit from the introduction of new mechanisms to promote private investments and businesses, in addition to the existing ones. Trade between Russia and India already benefits from several mechanisms that promote private investment. The two governments should also seek to encourage cooperation between entrepreneurs and medium-sized businesses. The Indian government already has a number of initiatives designed to support startups and SMEs, which the government could tailor further to complement bilateral agreements such as the Russia-India Innovation and Modernization Fund.
Energy
Both Russian and Indian companies have well proven engineering expertise, and a shared interest in energy. In the past, investments in joint nuclear power projects were discussed, but Indian and Russian officials have recently begun discussing collaboration in the oil sector, with energy security taking center stage. India heavily invested in Russian energy interests, but the two countries are now focusing on crude oil deals, while officials have also discussed an ambitious Russia to India pipeline.
Science and technology
The two governments could create a set of initiatives and a preferential environment for the exchange of practices, which will drive collaboration between mid-sized businesses in target sectors like information technology, pharmaceutical research, and nano and bio-technology. Indias Ministry of Science and Technology can also devise more robust forms of scientific cooperation with Russia, setting-up hubs for joint research and technology development.
RELATED: Indias 2017 Budget: Sober Initiative after Heady 2016
Culture and education
The Indian government has expressed interest in opening higher education to foreign educational institutions. As the government explores these opportunities, it should consider the possibility of Russian higher-learning institutions in India. A first step could include identifying sponsors for Russian-language courses within Indian educational establishments, much like China does with its Confucius Institutes, which are often located within the campuses of universities around the world.
Russia looking to Asia
With Russia looking East to cement trade deals and supplies, this greater concentration of Russian minds on what India can provide is a call that can be taken up by Indian entrepreneurs.
Chris Devonshire-Ellis is the Founding Partner of Dezan Shira & Associates 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 emerging Asia. Since its establishment in 1992, the firm has grown into one of Asias most versatile full-service consultancies with operational offices across India, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam, in addition to alliances in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia and Thailand, and liaison offices in Italy, Germany, and the United States. For assistance with corporate establishment and administration services in India, please email india@dezshira.com. For information about and assistance in Russia, visit www.russia-briefing.com, email russia@dezshira.com, or visit www.dezshira.com.
Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.
An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017
An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 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.
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.
'One Piece' is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. (Photo : YouTube/Pirate John)
In the upcoming chapter of "One Piece," as Sanji and Luffy reunites, Bobbin finally reveals his loyalty to the Germa 66 kingdom and its plan to assassinate Big Mom during Sanji and Pudding's wedding day. The revelation came as a surprise to Sanji since he did not know that Bobbin was working for his father.
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During the last chapter, Sanji attacked Bobbin while the former was on his way to the place he and Luffy agreed on meeting. In the Mirror World, Nami, Chopper, Pedro, Carrot and Jinbei was able to locate Brook who has been held captive by Big Mom.
The group was able to withdraw their comrade from the sleeping Sweet Commander by switching a corpse in his place. Brook then revealed that he was able to retrieve and preserve the Road Poneglyph by storing them in his skull.
Sanji successfully locates Luffy whom he found sleeping at the base of the defeated King Baum. Ending "One Piece" Chapter 855 with this situation, fans at Oro Jackson are now speculating there would be a second round encounter with Bobbin.
While the two Straw Hat pirates are busy rekindling their relationship with each other, Bobbin arrives and reveals he has been a loyal man to Sanji's father. Sanji was surprised with Bobbin's claim, with the latter continuing to reveal that the Germa Kingdom is planning to assassinate Big Mom during the wedding day.
Sanji was in disbelief at first, but Bobbin explains that his father, Judge, will not let an alliance with Big Mom just share their kingdom's technology. His father only agreed to arrange a wedding in order to easily infiltrate the Whole Cake Island as the territory is normally difficult to enter.
Meanwhile, fans over Manga Smart thought of a different situation. Luffy and Sanji would not entirely meet since the Straw Hat Captain is in deep slumber when Sanji arrives. Sanji will leave the bento box for Luffy to eat but will be interfered by Bobbin who casts a sleep magic.
For a complete review about "One Piece" Chapter 855, check out the video below.
Alibaba's Anti-Piracy Fight Is Challenged as It Finds Fake Complaints on Intellectual Property Protection Platform
Once upon a time, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma dreamed of a China with better healthcare facilities, cheaper medicine, and a generally healthy populace. (Photo : Getty Images)
Alibaba finds that companies are making false complaints about "fake products" on its online platforms, and it is making its anti-piracy fight a bit trickier.
The Chinese e-commerce giant says that 20 percent of the total complaints that is processed by its Intellectual Property Platform in 2016 were found malicious. They are either using forged documents or they are just false allegations.
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A tactic that is used by Chinese companies is trademark squatting. This involves the registration of trademark of companies in other countries in order for them to gain benefits from the trademark owner brand status.
An intellectual property rights agency in Shenzhen used faked documents that include the registration of the trademark of Weixin (which refers to the Chinese name for Tencent's WeChat app).
They presented a fake authorization letter complete with the signature of Tencent chief Pony Ma to file the complaint.
They asked for the removal of all the listings that offers products or services around Weixin. This will lead to the removal of hundreds of products listings from different merchants
Alibaba then detected the false complaint and Tencent reported the case to police afterward.
The Intellectual Property Protection Platform of Alibaba detected around 5,862 accounts that were involved in malicious complaints in 2016. Approximately 1.03 million merchants and over 6 million products were victims of schemes that resulted in a total loss of 107 million yuan.
Alibaba has boycotted Hangzhou Wangwei Technology Ltd., a company that was found to abuse the counterfeit notice and takedown system. According to them, 60 percent of the complaints that they were receiving on the platform were voluntarily withdrawn after counter-appeals from merchants since 2015.
Alibaba later then found itself on the 2016 Notorious Markets List that is put up by the United States Trade Representative, wherein its Taobao platform was accused of having an unacceptable number of counterfeit and pirated products.
As part of its anti-privacy program, Alibaba removed more than 380 million product listings in the 12 months ending in Aug. 2016. It also has helped detect and close around 675 counterfeit operations.
A man walks out of a shop displaying a bitcoin sign during the opening ceremony of the first bitcoin retail shop in Hong Kong. (Photo : Getty Images)
In a further step to tighten regulation over the digital currency, China's central bank has warned the country's Bitcoin exchanges against money laundering and margin trading.
According to a statement from the People's Bank of China, it's inspection team met and gave verbal warnings to company officials of nine Beijing-based Bitcoin trading platforms.
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The PBOC ordered to not engage in money laundering, margin trading, or any practices that count on violating the laws on advertising, taxation and foreign exchange.
The statement also indicated that trading platforms will be closed if the companies seriously violate the regulations.
The company officials were also reminded of the technology risks of Bitcoin trading, as Bitcoin doesn't have any ties to the bank or government.
Bitcoin is underpinned by blockchain technology, a digital ledger system that uses cryptography. Bitcoin allows users to transfer and spend money anonymously, which makes it a handy tool for money laundering and capital flight.
Bitcoin enabled investors to buy Chinese yuan and sell for U.S. dollars, which effectively bypasses the annual forex purchase quota of $50,000.
Amid capital outflow concerns over the yuan weakening against the U.S. dollar, China has strengthened scrutiny over illegal foreign exchange purchases.
Many exchanges also offer margin trading that enables investors to trade Bitcoin using borrowed funds and capitalize on its price fluctuations.
This involves a huge risk, though. The value of Bitcoin surged in the second half of 2015, but plummeted after surpassing 8,000 yuan per unit early in January this year.
The PBOC conducted on-site checks to BTC China last month, which is the country's biggest Bitcoin trading platform. They also conducted on-site checks to Huobi and Okcoin, two other major Bitcoin exchanges.
A total of nine exchanges were warned, including CHBTC, Btc Trade and HaoBTC.
In an efforts in developing a government-backed sovereign digital currency in response to the Internet currency Bitcoin, the PBOC released its own digital currency last month.
Shah Rukh Khan, whose movie 'My Name Is Khan' on Sunday clocked seven years since its release, feels sad that the film's plot about the plight of Muslims in the US after 9/11 is still relevant in present times.
The 2010 drama film, which also featured actress Kajol, told the story about Rizvan Khan, who embarks on a journey to meet the US President after his son's killing and attempts to change people's perception about religion.
Shah Rukh tweeted: "It's kinda sad too that 'My Name Is Khan' is still relevant. But thanks Karan (Johar), Ravi, Kajol, SEL Shibani Niranjan Deepa Jimmy and all cast/crew for a special film."
The actor's message, it seems, hints at US President Donald Trump's controversial executive order to temporarily bar entry into the US to refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations.
The order suspends for 120 days the entry of all refugees and the issuing of visas for 90 days for citizens from seven countries - Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran - until new mechanisms can be put in place to screen them more effectively.
Karan, who helmed the film, thanked Shah Rukh, who essayed the role of Rizwan Khan in the film. "Thank you Rizvan for spreading your love, your message, your innocence... Seven years of 'My Name Is Khan'," Karan tweeted.
Brazlian author Paulo Coelho, who is popular for his thought provoking literary works, also congratulated Shah Rukh.
Coehlo on Saturday night took to Twitter, where he shared a screenshot of one of his previous tweets which mentioned that Shah Rukh deserved an Oscar for his work if Hollywood was not manipulated.
In a fresh tweet along with the screenshot, Coelho wrote: "'My Name Is Khan' and I am not a terrorist' Congratulations SRK for the seventh anniversary of this wonderful movie!."
The message in the screenshot read: "His first and (only movie) I watched (this year, even it was released in 2008) was 'My Name Is Khan'. And not only the movie was excellent, but SRK deserved an Oscar if Hollywood was not manipulated. He kindly offered to send the other titles - As you probably guess, it is not easy to find them in Switzerland."
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Fishermen carrying freshly caught seafood. (Photo : Getty Images)
The use of trophic cascades has allowed China to sustain its large seafood catches for the past 20 years despite intense fishing and minimal management measures, according to a study researchers at UC Santa Barbara's Sustainable Fisheries Group (SFG).
China boosted the number of fish in the lower level of the food chain by eliminating the predatory fish at the top levels, as each trophic level in the food chain has approximately 10 times more biomass as its lower level.
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Cody Szuwalski, lead author and a fisheries scientist at SFG, explained that by getting rid of the big fish that are consuming the smaller ones, there will be more medium and small fishes that are available for human consumption.
On top of reducing the number of larger species, China's fishing practices have caused fishes to be much smaller than before such as the large hairtail found in the East China Sea, which is now reduced in size from 6 feet to around 2 feet.
According to Szuwalski, they now hardly see large predatory species in the East China Sea, significantly altering the structure of the ecosystem.
However, Szuwalski warned that there is no certainty on how the species would be managed in the marine systems under their compressed food chain--such as dealing with diseases, changes in environmental pressures, or presence of invasive species--due to lack of experience doing it.
He added that the fisheries management system used for the West Coast and in Alaska may not work as one might expect if applied to the East China Sea.
There are also differences in fishing practices between the United States, which utilizes a single-species paradigm, to Eastern Asian countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Thailand, were indiscriminate trawl fisheries are common.
The Eastern Asian countries often utilize everything they catch while those from the Western hemisphere selectively take only about 30 percent of their catch.
Szulwalski proposes several directions to boost food security like utilizing aquaculture and improving the management of big multi-species fisheries.
A can of Tsingtao beer is displayed by a clerk at a food market. (Photo : Getty Images)
Danish beer maker Carlsberg A/S is eyeing a 20 percent stake, worth about $1.2 billion, in China's Tsingtao Brewery Co. being sold by Asahi Group Holdings Ltd.
The Copenhagen-based company is working with an adviser on a potential bid but no final decision has been made.
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The price is based on the current stock value in Hong Kong.
Carlsberg A/S may be trying to negotiate better terms from Asahi such as seeking a board seat in Tsingtao or specific distribution targets, according to Hong Kong-based Jeremy Yeo, an analyst at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd.
Akiyoshi Koji, president of Asahi, the largest Japanese brewer, said last month that it will decide this year on options for its minority stake in Tsingtao holding. He felt that it doesn't make sense to own the shares without control of it.
The potential tie-up with Carlsberg could help Tsingtao Brewery Co., based in a port city in eastern China's Shandong province, in its competition with Snow lager and Anheuser-Busch InBev NV's Budweiser label being sold by China Resources Beer Holdings Co.
Yeo said that Tsingtao had to face competition on multiple fronts and getting overwhelmed. He noted that the Carlsberg tie up is the best chance that the beer manufacturer has had in ten years.
Cristobal Garcia, a managing director at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in Hong Kong, said that since Carlsberg has no strategy for penetrating eastern China and is the only company that would consider a non-control stake, it is the "natural buyer."
Brewers are trying to capture China's higher-spending drinkers interested in premium labels as the country's consumption of the beverage has declined amid a slowing economy. The Chinese beer market has shrunk 6.2 percent from 2013 to 2015, according to Euromonitor International data.
Interestingly, Carlsberg also owns around 60 percent of Chinese brewer Chongqing Brewery Co., a rival of Tsingtao Brewery Co. It is also selling its own brands such as Carlsberg Beer, Tuborg, Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc in China.
Carlsberg A/S has also been pursuing a stake in Vietnam's Hanoi Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp. to boost its presence in emerging markets.
Lately, you must have seen the #suicideawareness campaign trending on social media.
I've seen a whole lot of "please re-share" messages on Facebook and other platforms with the hashtag. This campaign has many young people participating and spreading awareness of suicide and depression.
unsplash.com
What is it?
As per WHO report, 1 out of every 6000 women and 1 out of evert 4000 men, can be thinking about suicide. Thus, the need for suicide awareness in India has reached an alarming point.
It is high time to light up the importance of mental health, the social media campaign has found takers across the globe.
In an interview with Deccan Chronicle, 24-year-old Supriya Narain a corporate employee from Bangalore told Social media is one of the biggest influencers today and taking a stand for issues such as suicide awareness is very important.
I know people who have had suicidal thoughts due to certain pressures they faced at some point. It needs to be reiterated that there is help available from not only their friends but strangers on the Internet. And that's what I want to help accomplish through this campaign to let people know they can approach me and I will lend an ear and try and get them whatever help I can offer.
When and how the suicide awareness campaign started?
2011 was the year when the statistics came out that almost one million people per year die by suicide; i.e. one death every 40 seconds or about 3,000 every day. According to WHO, there are twenty people who have a failed suicide attempts for every one that is successful; at a rate approximately one every three seconds.
It was also the most common cause of death for people aged 15; we think it still might me
So many people die from suicide than from murder and war; it is the 13th leading cause of death worldwide. According to WHO, suicide accounts for nearly half of all violent deaths in the world. The UN noted that suicide bombers' deaths are seen as secondary to their goal of killing other people or specific targets and the bombers are not otherwise typical of people committing suicide.
So many youngsters like her from other metropolitan cities think that social media is a powerful platform to draw attention to the most neglected area which is Mental Health.
Also, the problem doesnt get solved just by reposting an emotional message; one actually needs to act on it. So if you know somebody that you honestly suspect might be at risk, then send them a text, make a phone call, go around to their house, meet up for a coffee and dont budge even if they ask you to f.k off!
The historical surrender of 93,000 Pakistan soldiers in 1971 Bangladesh war is perhaps the brightest feather in the glittering cap of the mighty Indian Army.
And Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora was the man of the moment when Pakistani Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi signed historical accord of unconditional surrender of 93,000 plus Pakistan army in Bangladeshs capital Dhaka on 16 December, 1971.
British newspaper The Guardian had described that picture as "the glum Pakistani officer bowed over his signature. The turbaned figure beside him, showing not a scrap of elation".
Today is the birthday of Lt Gen Aurora who became flagbearer of Indias historic victory over Pakistan. There is hardly any Indian (and Pakistanis as well) who havent seen that picture which marked the dawn of freedom for crores of Bangladeshis who suffered unparalleled humiliation at the hands of Pakistan army.
Lets know more about Lt Gen Aurora:
Birth and early life
Lt Gen Aurora was born on 13 Februrary, 1916 in a Sikh family in Kala Gujran, Jhelum district of United Punjab. His father was an engineer.
Career in British Indian Army
Lt Gen Aurora graduated from Indian Military Academy in 1939 and was commissioned into the 1st Battlaion, 2nd Punjab Regiment. He straightaway saw action just after two-three years of commission on Burma during Japanese campaign in WW-II.
After Independence
Lt Gen Aurora was a commissioned officer and saw action in 1947 war against Pakistan in Kashmir. He also witnessed the action in 1962 Sino-Indian war as well as 1965 war against Pakistan.
Lt Gen Aurora became GOC, Eastern Command
Since Lt Gen Aurora was destined to be part of a historical moment which would immortalise him in the annals of wars, he became Commander In Chief, Eastern Command just two years before the war of 1971.
Then came 1971
With Pakistan launching Operation Searchlight to curb Bengali nationalist movement in then East Pakistan, Pak army unleashed a fury of unfathomable atrocities on poor Bangladeshis. Lakhs of women were raped whereas the men were killed. The Bengalis started fleeing into India and Calcutta because the centre of refugees storming in from East Pakistan.
Chapati Mystery
India had no option, but to intervene. Therefore on 3 December India opened the Eastern Front and challenged Pakistanis. But before that as a commander in chief of Eastern Command, Lt Gen Aurora had ensured the logistical preparations of the Indian Army on the Eastern front, including the improvement of roads, communications and bridges, as well as the movement of 30,000 tons of supplies close to the border with East Pakistan.
Total War: Alternate Reality Wiki-wikipedia
When India launched an offensive, Lt Gen Aurora meticulously planned operation. He broke forces into small combat teams and launched a four-front attack with the strategy of confronting and defeating the Pakistani forces on selected fronts while bypassing Pakistani forces on others. In under two weeks, his forces advanced from the Indian border to capture Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan.
Then came 16 December 1971
Indian armys repeated attacks forced Pakistan forces to surrender and Pakistan General, Lt Gen Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi who was earlier bragging about "killing all Indians present in East Pakistan" was forced to sign an unconditional Instrument of Surrender.
www.thedailystar.ne
The photograph of Niazi and Aurora at the signing of the Instruments of Surrender became an iconic image of the war. The 90,000 Pakistani troops under Niazi's command surrendered to Gen Aurora as prisoners of war.
Retirement and death
Lt Gen Aurora retired from the Indian Army in 1973. Aurora was honoured with the Param Vishisht Seva Medal and the Padma Bhushan for his role in the war.
Aurora died on 3 May 2005, at age 89, in New Delhi. After his death, Bangladesh offered its gratitude for the favour Lt Gen Aurora did to Bangladesh while serving his country. The Morshed Khan, the then Bangladeshi Foreign Minister, stated in honour of Lt Gen Aurora Aurora will be remembered in the history of Bangladesh for his contribution during our war of liberation in 1971, when he led the allied forces.
India plans to go to Venus for the first time and revisit the red planet, Mars, very soon.
ISRO
A formal acknowledgement of these two bold inter-planetary sojourns by the government is in the electronic budget documents.
The news comes ahead of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) attempting its mega launch this week when it will place 104 satellites in space in a single launch by its workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). No other country has ever tried to hit a century in a single mission.
Russia holds the current record of 37 satellites. The mission, set for February 15, has another significance.
It will bring arch-rivals Israel and the Arab world together in single launch for the first time. An ISRO official told TOI on Tuesday that the 104 satellites include one from Israel and another from Dubai.
ALSO READ: Here's Everything You Need To Know About ISRO's World Record Setting Launch Of 104 Satellites In One Go Using PSLV-C37
AFP
"The last satellite included was from a private firm in Dubai and is a nano-satellite. It is significant that we have brought together Israel and the Arab world,'' he said.
In the 2017 budget, funds for the department of space have been increased by 23%. Under the space sciences section, the Budget mentions provisions "for Mars Orbiter Mission II and mission to Venus".
The mission to Mars is tentatively slated for 2021-22 and as per existing plans it may well involve putting a robot on the Martian surface.
AFP
While India's first Mars mission in 2013 was purely indigenous, the French space agency wants to collaborate in making the Mars rover.
India's maiden mission to Venus is in all probability going to be a modest orbiter mission. Of the 104 satellites to be launched by ISRO on Wednesday, the largest chunk of 88 is from the US. The satellites are from a single American organisation, Planet, located in California.
The other foreign satellites are from Kazakhstan, the Netherlands and Switzerland. There are only three Indian satellites Cartosat 2 and two Indian nano satellites. A majority of the satellites are for earth imaging.
ALSO READ: ISRO Will Beat Its Own Record By Launching 103 Satellites In One Shot!
Former Indian Batsman Virender Sehwag on Sunday confronted a Kashmiri youth on Twitter after he disrespected the two soldiers martyred in an encounter with terrorists in Valleys Kulham area on Sunday.
AFP
Sehwag paid tributes to two army man who laid their lives for the country. The former opener had paid rich tributes to army men - Bhandoriya Gopal Singh and Raghuveer Singh - who were killed in an overnight gun battle in South Kashmirs Kulgam district on Sunday.
"Naman to army jawans Bhandoriya Gopal Singh & Raghuveer Singh who attained martyrdom today in Kulgam. Om Shanti," Sehwag tweeted.
Naman to army jawans Bhandoriya Gopal Singh & Raghuveer Singh who attained martyrdom today in Kulgam. Om Shanti . pic.twitter.com/CCRCEt5lON Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) February 12, 2017
However, soon a Kashmiri youth, Muhammad Umair (whose Twitter biography reads - I am a #KASHMIRI and will say it loud and proud.... #BreakTheLoC) tagged Sehwag in a post which read, "@adgpi @virendersehwag Two dogs in hell...Loving that..."
@adgpi @virendersehwag Two dogs in hell...Loving that...
MUHAMMAD UMAIR (@MUKashmiri) February 12, 2017
The youth later removed the tweet, but one tweet is still on his Twitter handle where he talks about soldier's death in Kulgam.
Kashmiries will fight till death. Your so called heroes will die too. #Kulgam #KulgamKillings #2bastardsinHell MUHAMMAD UMAIR (@MUKashmiri) February 13, 2017
Sehwag didnt hold back this time and gave a befitting reply to the youth.
In order to be diplomatically neutral, India will roll out the red carpet for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads for Israel.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to travel to Israel in middle of this year and it will first visit by any Indian PM to Tel Aviv since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations in 1992.
PTI
Furthering strategic ties with West Asia has been a priority for the BJP-led NDA government. It has walked the extra mile to engage the Arab countries as well as Iran, even as it has consolidated relations with Israel, with an aim to create an antiterror narrative and secure its energy and human resources in the region.
While Abbas has visited India in the past this will be his maiden trip to India since the Modi government assumed office in May 2014.
During the tenure of this government, President Pranab Mukherjee visited Palestine along with Israel in 2015 in keeping with Indias longstanding principle of a two-state solution to end the protracted crisis in the region.
AFP
Abbas will be making a standalone trip to India, without including Pakistan, which he visited separately recently.
Strategic affairs analysts said that most leaders from West Asia, Gulf and Egypt are increasingly undertaking standalone trips to India.
The de-hyphenation comes in the backdrop of Indias growing economic profile and rising threats from terror groups that also have a presence in the Af-Pak region.
The visit will be held in the backdrop of the first Indo-Palestinian Joint Commission meeting last year and Indias participation in a conference on Israel and Palestine organised by France in Paris.
India is expected to extend further assistance to Palestinian capacity-building during Abbas visit besides exploring business ties, people familiar with the developments said.
AFP
No country is big or small and every country is a sovereign entity. This has been the motto of PM Modi as his government has embarked on a mission mode to engage with all nation states, said an official, who did not wish to be identified. Abbas is not the only West Asian leader, though, that India will be hosting ahead of Modis Israel trip on the occasion of 25 years of creation of diplomatic ties.
Jordanian royal court chief Fayez Tarawneh, who is number two in hierarchy in his country, is expected to undertake a trip in March to prepare for the Kings visit to India later this year.
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.
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iOS 10.2 beta version with new emojis running on a iPhone. (Photo : YouTube/EverythingApplePro)
Luca Todesco's Yalu iOS 10.2 JB tool remains in beta build, which explains its buggy state, and is yet to support the iPhone 7 series, leading many jailbreak fans to hope that a version of the same solution will soon be provided by the Chinese hacking group Team Pangu. But is the group even planning an iOS jailbreak, to begin with?
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That appears to be the case back in July 2016 when Cydia was demonstrated running on the then unreleased iOS 10. The same presentation by Team Pangu generated speculations that a jailbreak solution was in the works was likely to release the tool soon after Apple's launch. But it did not happen and nothing was seen or heard from the Chinese hackers since then.
So why the eerie silence by the group until now? In the absence of any explanation from Pangu, jailbreak fans can only rely on rumors on why it appears that the group made an exit without leaving word. One theory making the rounds is that the China-based hackers were frustrated by the new security feature deployed by Apple with the iOS 10 release.
By default, iOS 10 came out with its kernel unencrypted that initially was thought to be an advantage for the likes of TaiG, Pangu and other jailbreak creators, MobiPicker reported. And why not as the open kernel will allow iOS security researchers to easily look deep inside of the software for possible exploits, from which they can develop a jailbreak solution.
Indeed, there were holes that were identified and attempts were made to jailbreak iOS 10 based on those vulnerabilities. But the soonest the exploits were detected, Apple reacted with lightning speed and patched the loopholes. Recall that since iOS 10 debuted, updates were rolled out in breakneck pace - nearly every week - that hackers could hardly catch up.
In other words, Apple laid out a deliberate plan to outrace the jailbreak makers and the tech giant is winning so far. On that, it seems next to impossible that Team Pangu will still release its take on an iOS 10 jailbreak despite the swirling rumors that the group is working silently and will pick up from what Todesco has started.
The only sign that Pangu could still contribute to the jailbreak cause was the recent tease from Cydia creator Saurik - that he is working with a group of developers to resolve the 7-day certification issue of the Yalu102 JB tool shared to public by Todesco.
But to be clear, Saurik or Jay Freeman has refused to reveal the identity of his jailbreak collaborators. Instead the dev just issued an assurance that in matter of days the iOS 10.2 jailbreak could be finalized, a fix on the certification problem will be provided and support for devices will be expanded. The latter will likely mean that the Yalu JB tool will soon run on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
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U.S. Special Forces Deployed To 70% Of The World In 2016 By Niall McCarthy February 12, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Statista " - U.S. Special Operations Command launched a raid in Yemen's Baida Province on Jan 29, targeting Qassim al-Rimi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The first high-profile special forces operation of Trump's presidency, the raid resulted in the deaths of at least 14 Al Qaeda fighters, 20 civilians and Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens. Three other Americans were reportedly wounded and an Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft was destroyed by U.S. forces after it was heavily damaged in a forced landing. Over the past few days, it has emerged that al-Rimi survived the raid and he has subsequently released an audio message taunting President Trump.
Special forces operations like the one in Yemen are nothing new. America's elite troops have found themselves on the frontlines constantly since 9/11, conducting operations everywhere from the dusty back alleys of North Africa to the snow-capped mountains of Afghanistan. Even though they have made headlines for high-profile operations like the prison break near Hawija in Iraq or the raid on Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in Afghanistan, the vast majority of special forces missions across the world involve training friendly soldiers to fight, mainly so Americans don't have to. No Advertising - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter American special operations troops deployed to 138 nations last year or 70 percent of the world's countries according to official Special Operations Command data published by TomDispatch. 55.29 percent of deployments were in the Middle East, a 35 percent decease since 2006. In Africa, deployments of elite U.S. forces skyrocketed 1,600 percent during the same timeframe. This chart shows countries where U.S. special operations forces conducted operations in 2016.
You will find more statistics at Statista The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. U.S. Army to spend $300 million on bonuses and ads to get 6,000 more recruits : The Armys new goal for the fiscal year is 68,500, up from 62,500 recruits. The addition of 6,000 recruits to the goal makes it the largest in-year increase in the history of the all-volunteer force that dates to 1973.
Israel's Settlement Law: Consolidating Apartheid
Israel's obstinacy is leaving Palestinians with one option: Equal citizenship in one state or a horrific apartheid.
By Ramzy Baroud
February 12, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Al Jazeera " - "Israel has just opened the 'floodgates', and crossed a 'very, very thick red line'." These were the words of Nickolay Mladenov, United Nations' Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, in response to the passing of a bill at the Israeli Knesset on February 7 that retroactively legalises thousands of illegal settler homes, built on stolen Palestinian land.
Mladenov's job title has grown so irrelevant in recent years that it merely delineates a reference to a bygone era: a "peace process" that has ensured the further destruction of whatever remained of the Palestinian homeland.
Israeli politicians' approval of the bill is indeed an end of an era.
We have reached the point where we can openly declare that the so-called peace process was an illusion from the start, for Israel had no intentions of ever conceding the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
In response to the passing of the bill, many news reports alluded to the fact that the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, riding a wave of right-wing populism, was the inspiration needed by equally right-wing Israeli politicians to cross that "very, very thick red line".
There is truth to that, of course. But it is hardly the whole story.
The political map of the world is vastly changing.
Just weeks before Trump made his way to the Oval Office, the international community strongly condemned Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.
It is important, though, that we realise that Israel's latest push to legalise illegal outposts and annex large swaths of the West Bank is the norm, not the exception.
UN Security Council Resolution 2334 stated that these settlements have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of international law. Fourteen UNSC members voted in approval, while the US abstained, a revolutionary act by the US' brazenly pro-Israel standards.
The US, when still in the final days of the Barack Obama administration, followed that act by even more stunning language, as Secretary of State John Kerry described the Israeli government as the "most right-wing in history".
A chasm immediately emerged.
Capitalising on the US-Israel rift, Trump railed against Obama and Kerry for treating pompous Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with "total disdain and disrespect". Trump asked Israel to "stay strong", for January 20 was not too far away.
That date, Trump's inauguration was the holy grail for Israel's right-wing politicians, who mobilised immediately after Trump's rise to power. Israel's intentions received additional impetus from Britain's Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May. Despite her government vote to condemn Israeli settlements at the UN, she too ranted against the US for its censure of Israel.
Kerry's attack on a "democratically elected Israeli government" was not appropriate, May charged. "We do not believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case, the construction of settlements," she added.
Not only did May's words define the very hypocrisy of the British government (which committed the original sin 100 years ago of handing historic Palestine to Zionist groups), but it was all that Israel needed to push forward with the new bill.
It is quite telling that the vote on the bill took place while Netanyahu was on an official visit to the UK. In a country greatly influenced by 'Friends of Israel' cliques in both dominant parties, he was among friends.
With the UK duly pacified, and the US in full support of Israel, moving forward with annexing Palestinian land became an obvious choice for Israeli politicians. Bezalel Smotrich, a Knesset member of the extremist Jewish Home party, put it best. "We thank the American people for voting Trump into office, which was what gave us the opportunity for the bill to pass," he said shortly after the vote.
The so-called "Regulation Bill" will retroactively validate 4,000 illegal structures built on private Palestinian land. In the occupied Palestinian territories, all Jewish settlements are considered illegal under international law, as further indicated in UNSC Resolution 2334.
There are also 97 illegal Jewish settlement outposts - a modest estimation - that are now set to be legalised and, naturally, expanded at the expense of Palestine. The price of these settlements has been paid mostly by US taxpayers' money, but also the blood and tears of Palestinians, generation after generation.
It is important, though, that we realise that Israel's latest push to legalise illegal outposts and annex large swaths of the West Bank is the norm, not the exception.
Indeed, the entire Zionist vision for Israel was achieved based on the illegal appropriation of Palestinian land. Wasn't so-called "Israel proper" - as in land obtained by force from 1948 to 1967 - originally Palestinian land?
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Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in 1967, it moved quickly to fortify its military occupation by unleashing settlement construction throughout the occupied territories.
The early settlements had a strategic military purpose, for the intent was to create enough facts on the ground that would alter the nature of any future peace settlement; thus, the Allon Plan. It was named after Yigal Allon, a former general and minister in the Israeli government who took on the task of drawing an Israeli vision for the newly conquered Palestinian territories.
The plan sought to annex more than 30 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza for security purposes. It stipulated the establishment of a "security corridor" along the Jordan River, as well as outside the "Green Line", a one-sided Israeli demarcation of its borders with the West Bank.
While the religious component of the Israeli colonisation scheme currently defines the entire undertaking, it was not always this way. The Allon Plan was the brainchild of Israel's Labor government, as the Israeli Right then was a negligible political force.
To capitalise on the government's alluring settlement policies in the West Bank, a group of religious Jews rented a hotel in the Palestinian town of Al-Khalil (Hebron) to spend Passover at the Cave of the Patriarchs, and simply refused to leave.
Their action sparked biblical passion of religious orthodox Israelis across the country, who referred to the West Bank by its supposed biblical name, Judea and Samaria. In 1970, to "diffuse" the situation, the Israeli government constructed the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the Arab city, which invited more orthodox Jews to join the growing movement.
Over the years, the strategic settlement growth was complemented by the religiously motivated expansion, championed by a vibrant movement, epitomised in the finding of Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) in 1974. The movement was on a mission to settle the West Bank with legions of fundamentalists.
Presently, by incorporating the illegal outposts (the work of religious zealots) into the strategically located, government-sanctioned larger illegal settlement blocs, Israeli politics and religion converged like never before.
And between the unfortunate past and the troubling present, Palestinians continue to be driven out of their ancestral land and homes.
But what is the Palestinian leadership doing about it? "I can't deny that the (bill) helps us to better explain our position. We couldn't have asked for anything more," a Palestinian Authority official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, as quoted by Shlomi Elder.
Elder writes: "The bill, whether it goes through or is blocked by the Supreme Court, already proves that Israel is not interested in a diplomatic resolution of the conflict."
Be as it may, this is hardly enough. It is absurd to argue that it was Palestinians' purported inability to articulate their position that emboldened Israel to this extent. It is rather the international community's failure to translate its laws into action that bolstered Israel's militancy.
The greatest mistake that the Palestinian leadership has committed (aside from its disgraceful disunity) was entrusting the US, Israel's main enabler, with managing a "peace process" that has allowed Israel time and resources to finish its colonial projects, while devastating Palestinian rights and political aspirations.
Returning to the same old channels, using the same language, seeking salvation at the altar of the same old "two-state solution" will achieve nothing, but to waste further time and energy. It is Israel's obstinacy that is now leaving Palestinians (and Israelis) with one option, and only one option: equal citizenship in one single state or a horrific apartheid. No other "solution" suffices.
In fact, the Regulation Bill is further proof that the Israeli government has already made its decision: consolidating apartheid in Palestine. If Trump and May find the logic of Netanyahu's apartheid acceptable, the rest of the world shouldn't.
In the words of former President Jimmy Carter , "Israel will never find peace until it ... permit(s) the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights." That Israeli "permission" is yet to arrive, leaving the international community with the moral responsibility to exact it.
Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for more than 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include Searching Jenin and The Second Palestinian Intifada, and his latest, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net .
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
UN chief regrets US veto of Palestinian as Libya envoy : Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, vetoed the appointment, saying Washington did not support the message the move would send.
Israel endorses bill to mute mosques: Justice Ministry : Israeli ministers Sunday endorsed a contentious draft bill, which Muslims say is meant to silence the traditional call to prayer, information released by the Justice Ministry showed.
These 14 things below are some of womens biggest worries and questions about their bodies.
1. Peeing frequently
Many women worry urinating frequently is a sign of diabetes (because it can be), but if there are no other symptoms to go along with it, youre probably fine. If you drink a lot of water, youre probably going to pee a lot.
2. Facial hair
Do you secretly wax or shave your lady stache? Youre not alone. Its currently a social taboo to admit that many women have facial hair, but dont think youre alone in dealing with it.
3. Toe hair
Yeah, youre definitely not the only one with this.
4. Discharge
Discharge from your vagina is healthy and normal, according to WebMD. It helps prevent infection down there. The color, consistency and smell can vary depending where youre at in your menstrual cycle.
5. Earwax
Heres the thing everybody has it. Most people dont need to clean it out because your body naturally takes care of it, but most people want to clean it out anyways. Doctors recommend you never clean them out on your own, but if you must, gently clean them out with a Q-tip (no pushing!) and only right after you shower.
6. Acne as an adult
People talk about acne like its a teenager ailment, but its just not. Acne often gets worse as your body matures. If youre confused why your face still seems to think youre 13, at least get some comfort in knowing the rest of us are all wondering the same thing.
7. Bumps down there
There are several explanations for bumps you might find on your vulva. Most of them are NOT contagious, NOT life threatening, and NOT STDs, wrote Dr. Charlotte Grayson, an internist and Health Central writer. Many of these are cysts, which come from a blocked skin gland.
8. Asymmetrical body parts
Are your breasts different sizes and even possibly different shapes? Dont let that worry you. Just like the sides of your face arent symmetrical, neither are your breasts. Its completely normal.
9. Lumps in your breast
Speaking of breasts, you dont have to panic every time you feel a lump in your breasts. While you should definitely be taking precautions for breast cancer by getting mammograms and monthly self exams, most women get lumps that are not cancerous. Only a doctor can tell you for sure, but if youre regularly getting a mammogram, a lump will be spotted long before you can even feel it.
10. Tiny bumps on your arms or legs
Some people call it chicken skin, but its real name is keratosis pilaris. Many people have it. Its caused by your follicles getting clogged and wont naturally exfoliate. Although you cant completely get rid of it, gentle exfoliation can help. (It was once believed a hard exfoliation was better, but this only agitates the skin.)
11. Back pain when youre on your period (or just because)
Unfortunately, this is just part of the womanhood terrain. Contractions in your uterus cause back pain, which is why you often feel that lower ache when youre on your period or ovulating.
12. Extra nipples
This isnt super common, but it is possible and you shouldnt freak out if you have it. According to the BBC, both men and women can develop extra nipples along any area in the mammary line, which stretches from the armpits to the chest and down towards the stomach to the upper thighs and groin.
13. Cellulite
Dont let anyone fool you cellulite is the norm, not the exception. About 90 percent of women have some level of cellulite even those who are very thin.
I even treat Victorias Secret models, Shira Ein-Dor, owner of the American Cellulite Reduction Center told Health.com. Theyre very lean, they work out and eat well, they do everything right but they still have cellulite.
14. Hip dip
Its become a trend in the past few years to try to get rid of the hip dip, that slight inward curve on the upper thighs.
familyshare.com
Twenty persons were feared killed in a fresh clash between Oku Iboku community in Itu Local Government Council Area of Akwa Ibom State and Ikot Offiong in Odukpani Local Government Council of Cross River State.
The Guardian learnt that the clash started on Friday night with both sides using sophisticated weapons, responsible for the high number of casualties.
When the two communities clashed in December 2016, the member representing Itu Constituency, Idongesit Ituen told the House of Assembly that four persons lost their lives.
The lawmaker, who said the attack, came unexpected, lamented that in 2005 the squabble was settled amicably and peace agreement signed.
Ituen maintained that the recent attack should be termed criminal because it occurred when the people of Oku Iboku and adjoining villages were harvesting their crops.
According to him, after chasing away the people away, they stole outboard engines anchored at the riverside and their farm produce.
The Akwa Ibom Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Cordelia Nwawe confirmed the incident but was not ready to confirm the casualty figure.
The PPRO of Cross River State, Irene Ugbo said: Yes we are aware, but there is no casualty. Our men are there. They have been there since this morning (yesterday). The area is now calm.
In Edo State, four persons have been killed in cult-related incidents at the weekend.
A retired staff member of an oil company was trailed by gunmen on Wire Road to Siluko, Benin City and shot in the presence of his family. His son was hit in the process.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Moses Nkombe, confirmed the incident but dismissed speculations that the killing was cult-related. He maintained that it could be an assassination.
He said that the son of the deceased, who was hit, was responding to treatment while the wife was unhurt.
The police have also confirmed the death of three persons, killed in two separate incidents.
In first incident, stray bullet killed a woman when suspected cultists attacked a police station at Ibillo, in Akoko-Edo Local Government Council.
They were said to have successfully freed two of their colleagues who were detained over alleged rape.
The attackers were said to have gained access to the police station by posing as relatives of the arrested suspects and then started shooting sporadically.
Commissioner of Police, Haliru Gwandu confirmed the incident, adding that some suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident.
He also disclosed that more men have been deployed to the affected police station to ensure such incident does not occur again.
Source: Guardian
The Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima has accused his predecessor, Ali Modu Sheriff of causing the widespread of the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast with his inaction during his time as the governor of the state.
Shettima who made this allegation in response to Sheriffs political statement that Boko Haram had no territory under siege during his tenure, stated this while delivering a paper titled Managing the Boko Haram crisis in Borno state, experiences and lessons for a multi-party, multi ethnic and multi religious Nigeria, at the annual lecture in honour of the late Head of State, Murtala Mohammed, in Abuja on Monday.
According to the governor, the late Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf, was a constant critic of the Sheriffs administration took advantage of his failure to provide leadership to declare a jihad that later spread through the North East region.
Shettima while recalling the incident that happened in July 2009, where some armed security agencies clashed with members of the sect over the use of helmets and shot 17 of them said, the fact is that Sheriff allowed his ego to overcome his action and failed to settle the differences between armed forces and members of Yusuffiya movement at the time.
A governor should have at least visited victims of the shooting to lay foundation for peace and he should have set up a commission of inquiry just like what Governor El Rufai did in Kaduna recently.
He chose to mismanage the incident. He did not send anyone or settle the medical bill of anyone and he played into their hands. That gave Yusuf an opening to declare jihad, he alleged.
Lawmakers Hold News Conference On Comprehensive Addiction And Recovery Act (Photo : Getty Images)
More than a year since the Gloucester Police Department introduced its ANGEL program to combat drug addiction in northern Massachusetts, the program has shown huge potential in reducing the cost of drug addiction dependence and decreasing crime.
And the irony of it all, the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the Gloucester Police in the program, was funded by drug money. Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello said the ANGEL program is using money seized from drug arrests to finance the initiative.
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Campanello was surprised with the national attention his program has generated, "We certainly didn't expect the attention that it's gotten. We wanted to create something that would be a safe haven for the city of Gloucester, but we feel very responsible for where it's gone and how it's grown.
Since its launch, over a thousand drug dependents have benefitted from the program by reporting to the Gloucester police. Indeed, in the first four months since the programs launch in February 2015, an estimated 260 drug addicts have benefited from it. More than 100 police departments across the country have begun similar programs.
The police chief added, "We had to stop trying to arrest our way out of this problem. We're an entity that right, wrong or indifferent has a very loud voice in this right now and that people seem to be paying attention. Our job is to lend that voice to people who are suffering from this disease and their support groups."
ANGEL Program
The ANGEL Program was the brainchild of Campanello. It is focused on allowing drug addicts to turn themselves into the Gloucester police station and seek assistance from their drug addiction. With no questions asked, an officer will pair a drug addict with an angel and escort him or her to a hospital nearby. The angel will guide the drug addict through the process of rehabilitation.
The program is more cost effective for the police, Campanello said. The government spends at least $220 per day to take a low-level drug offender to court, but it only cost $55 to get a drug addict into treatment.
Crime Rate Fell as Drug Dependency Declines
One of the immediate effects of the ANGEL program in the community is the marked decline in drug-related crimes in the community. According to Campanello, drug-related crimes dropped 27 percent in Gloucester since the program.
He boasted, "It appears that crimes that are ancillary to the disease of addiction -- the crimes of desperation: shoplifting, larceny, smash, and grabs have declined since the beginning of the program.
Campanello expressed satisfaction that the program has allowed drug addicts to get their lives back. He considers the reduction in crime rate and savings on drug rehabilitation as a great bonus.
How Other States Are Adopting the Massachusetts Model
The success of the Massachusetts drug rehabilitation model has gained the attention of at least nine states across the United States, with 40 police departments having adopted the program, while another 90 have conveyed their plan to initiate a similar program.
One city in Southern California, in particular, plans to take a similar program to another level. The city of Anaheim, California started their Drug Free Anaheim Program in 2016, but recently announced an expansion to that program. During his State of the City address on Feb. 7, 2017 Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait announced that they are collaborating with a new business in Anaheim, BioCorRx (OTC PINK: BICX), to help with their initiative.
BioCorRx will offer its BioCorRx Recovery Program to residents of Anaheim suffering from alcohol and opioid addiction as part of the expansion of the Drug Free Anaheim Program. Under the program, those suffering from addiction are offered the opportunity, through local police stations in Anaheim, Orange County's most populous city, to request help in exchange for free treatment.
Brady Granier, president, CEO and director of BioCorRx stated, "We are very honored to join the Drug Free Anaheim Program to help solve the very important drug and alcohol addiction problem afflicting not just the city of Anaheim, but municipalities across the country. We are confident in the success of our medication-assisted treatment program, which combines peer support and counseling modules with the naltrexone implant. The effectiveness of our program has been demonstrated time and again over the last several years, with better compliance than traditional alternatives and unprecedented results."
Tom Tait, Mayor of Anaheim, commented in his state of the city address, "One of the great, new businesses in Anaheim, BioCorRx Inc., will assist us by enrolling several residents addicted to alcohol or opioids into their amazing new drug treatment program. The program uses an implant that can block cravings and prevent relapse, coupled with counseling and peer support for a year." He further stated, "We're making progress with these cutting-edge programs and partnerships."
First Responder Drug Naloxone Price on the Rise
The roll out of the ANGEL program offers new opportunity in the fight against drug addiction particularly with the sharp rise in price for a first responder drug for opioid overdose.
In 2016, lawmakers criticized drug maker Kaleo Pharmaceuticals for raising the price of overdose-reversing drug, Naloxone, from $690 to $4,500. Kaleo manufactures naloxone under the brand name Evzio.
With the drug addiction treatment market estimated at $35 billion annually, several companies are joining the race to offer naloxone. Recently, Walgreens (WBA) said it would soon sell the drug. Also providing naloxone is Adapt Pharma Ltd. with its NARCAN nasal spray formulation that is based on the opioid antagonist drug offered by Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OPNT). Others involved in the sale and manufacture of naloxone are Hospira (a subsidiary of Pfizer [PFE]) and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (AMPH), the pioneers in injectable naloxone and are believed to be the primary influence for the sudden price hikes.
A man has escaped been stabbed to death by a Nigerian police officer during an altercation at a bank in Ogun State.
Oladunjoye Olusola Mathew after he was allegedly stabbed by a police officer
It was serious drama at a First City Monument Bank, ATC point in Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta, Ogun State as an overzealous police officer allegedly stabbed a man with a knife.
The man who was stabbed identified as Oladunjoye Olusola Mathew had gone to the bank to withdraw money before the ugly incident.
According the Twitter user, Sulaiman Fasasi who narrated the story, Mathew was at the bank to collect money through ATM and had to jump over an Okada to find his way as the whole walkway was blocked with Okadas.
It was after jumping an Okada that the police officer attacked to FCMB pursued him and brought out a knife he used in stabbing the man leading to a serious commotion.
The Islamic Movement of Nigeria has claimed that its detained leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El-ZakZaky is going blind. The group said the doctor attending to him has passed the message to the authorities, warning that he could go blind if not given the proper medical attention he deserves without further delay.
The way and manner in which the federal government has been handling the health of the fatally injured Sheikh Zakzaky for the past 13 months leaves much to be desired, the IMN said today.
According to IMN, ZakZaky has been denied access to his own doctor alleging that with the way government has treated him, government wants him to die.
Thus far, the government has decided to play deaf, dumb and blind, as if all is well.
IMN appealed to Nigerians to join them in mounting pressure on government to release him, in compliance with court order and to enable him attend to his health.
IMN also called on Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo to obey Court order and free Sheikh Zakzaky.
The Shiite leader and his wife were arrested in Kaduna in December 2015, in the wake of the clash between his followers and the Nigerian military.
The military authorities claimed the Shiite followers wanted to assassinate chief of army staff, General Tukur Buratai, which prompted soldiers to open fire on them. No fewer than 200 Shiite members were killed.
The clash had been a subject of at least two probe panels, the Human Rights Commission and the Kaduna State Government.
There are reports that American celebrities, Mayweather Jnr and Curtis Jackson popularly known as 50Cent would be visiting Lagos for the grand opening of Innocent 2Face Idibias nightclub in Victoria Island.
Following the soft opening of Rumours Club in Victoria Island recently, the management of the club has moved to ensure an overwhelming grand opening slated to hold sometime in March, 2017.
The Chief executive director of Tettrazzini Group and Zzini, Prince Donatus Okonkwo whose brand is a partner to the elite Club has completed deal to have American superstars duo of 50cent and Floyd Mayweather hosted in Nigeria during the full operational club service opening co-owned by Nigerian music legend 2Face Idibia.
Though, the billionaire businessman and possible Anambra gubernatorial aspirant, Chief Okonkwo has a long standing relationship with the US stars as pictured few months ago with Nollywood actor Jim Iyke at 50cent mansion.
It would be recalled that the club had some big Nigerian stars at the soft opening last week with the likes of 2face, Wizkid, Tekno, Timaya, Joel and others at the celebration night.
Ahead of the closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) said it has commenced the upgrading of the navigational aids at the Kaduna airport which will be used as an alternative.
Disclosing this at a news conference in Lagos on Sunday, the NAMA General Manager, Safety Management Systems/Quality Assurance, Mr Mathew Pwajok, said the schedule for the closure of Abuja Airport is six weeks starting from March 8.
According to him, the upgrade was to absorb the increased volume of traffic to be diverted from Abuja to Kaduna airport.
Toward this end, Pwajok added, we are deploying both equipment and personnel to strategic areas of need to ensure seamless flow of traffic at the airport during the six-week period.
The NAMA general manager said the agency had commenced the installation of a digital Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the Kaduna airport.
This facility would undergo flight calibration along with Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Radio Range (VOR) already installed to ensure accuracy.
NAMA is also currently conducting safety assessment of the entire Kaduna airport to ensure that it conforms to international safety standards, just as new equipment are being procured for the control tower under construction.
A mobile control tower will also be deployed to the airport to support the old control tower already in use.
Pwajok added that while the Abuja radar would be used to provide surveillance of traffic moving in and out of Kaduna and also provide safety and efficiency of flight operations, new generating sets would be installed.
The facilities will provide secondary power supply to the navigational aids, as cooling systems will also be installed soon.
Other facilities already deployed at the station include a low level wind shear alerting system and other cooling systems.
The Performance Based Navigation (PBN) procedures for satellite-based navigation capability have been published for aircraft that are equipped to use for approach and landing, rather than ground aids.
In the area of personnel, he said various categories of personnel would be deployed to the airport to complement available manpower in Kaduna throughout the duration of the Abuja airport closure.
According to him, they include Aeronautical Information Services (AIS), Communications, Air Traffic Control and Engineering officers.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, who recently inspected the facility upgrade at the airport, expressed satisfaction with the level of work.
He said the sophisticated nature of facilities being installed meant that Kaduna would be an excellent alternative to Abuja airport.
Nigerian newspaper headlines February 12, 2017.
Punch
A coalition of pro-Buhari organisations under the aegis of Citizens Support for Good Governance in Nigeria is mobilising to hold rallies tagged, I Support President Buhari across four Nigerian cities this week.
Guardian
Host Communities of Nigeria Oil and Gas Producing areas (HOSTCOM) have demanded 50 per cent of oil blocs awarded in the Niger Delta region.
Vanguard
Ijaw mothers, led by Niger Delta campaigner, Ann-Kio Briggs and a coalition of Ijaw activists across the Niger Delta region, weekend, told Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State, that despite the threats and intimidation, they were going ahead with their decision to protest the allocation of 1,200 hectares of land by his government to Fulani herdsmen, tomorrow, in Yenagoa, the state capital.
The Nation
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission( EFCC) is hunting for another former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation( NNPC) in connection with the ongoing probe of a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.
Thisday
The Association of Concerned Aviation Professionals (ACAP) has expressed alarm at the brazen take over of Arik Air by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on behalf of the federal government, describing the foremost local carrier as a private concern, which accounts for over 60 per cent of domestic passenger traffic in the country.
The Sun
Leadership of the Independent Democrats Party (IDP) has declared its readiness to challenge the incumbent Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano in the forthcoming governorship election in the state and possibly take over the Awka Government House.
Leadership
The General Officer Commanding (GOC), 82 Division Nigerian Army, Enugu, Maj Gen Adamu Buba Abubakar weekend insisted that the recent Python Dance and Crocodile Smile operations carried out in the South East and South south by the army has led to a reduction of militancy especially pipeline vandalism, as well as taming of kidnappers and other criminals.
Former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori, who was released from jail in England last December after serving term for money laundering has said that he was wrongly accused and convicted for an offence he didnt do.
He made the statement on Sunday during a thanksgiving service in his honour at his home town in Oghara, Delta state, saying, I am not a thief; I cannot be a thief.
Ibori who according to reports, was convicted of credit card fraud in the U.K in his younger days, before returning to Nigeria to take part in politics, said the biggest pain he felt over his travails was the suffering his people went through because of his absence but expressed happiness that he came back alive to his people.
The ex-governor, who hailed the crowd of politicians, clergy, traditional rulers and other enthusiasts, said he was aware those behind his travails wanted to separate him from his people.
He said: They want me to go to the corner where I wont be seen.
The former governor said he was sure he would return home because he put his affairs in Gods hands.
Today, I have decided to speak for myself. I am not a thief; I cannot be a thief. Today is the day they say I should give testimony to God. For those who know me, you know that my life is a testimony itself. I have said it over and again that my life is fashioned by God, directed by God, sealed, acknowledged and blessed by God. I believe that since the day I was born.
Like the Archbishop said, when this whole commotion started, what was most painful to me was the pain and suffering that my people were going through.
It has nothing to do with me as a person because, for some reasons, like I said to you, I drew my strength from God. So, somehow, I knew that God would stand by me. I knew that one day, this day would come. I am indeed very pleased that I can now stand before you and look at your faces, the faces that I have missed, and those of you who have indeed suffered the pains of my absence. It has nothing to do with me.
So, when I reflect, it gives me joy that all your prayers, God has answered them, with your support and solidarity with me all through this period. It is indeed not what I can begin to say.
Like what our former Chief of Staff, Francis , said it is ungbikuable. If I am to give testimony of my journey, you will not leave here. The only testimony that I have is the fact that I am back and alive in your midst. And again, I say that I never had any doubt in my mind that I would get back home.
When I looked at how things were going, I discovered that they wanted to separate me from you, my people. They wanted me to go to the corner where I wouldnt be seen. Thats how I see it. At a point, I called my older brother (former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan): How to get home is what I am about to do now. It was a pragmatic decision.
I am happy to be home with my people. There is nobody who can battle with the Lord. An Urhobo adage says there is time for everything (okiemute). A day will come when I will tell my story and everyone of you will hear me. Today is to thank God.
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has been honoured by the Christian Association of Nigeria with the title of Apostle of Peace.
The Christian Association of Nigeria has honoured Govenor Nyesom Wike with the Apostle of Peace title for his commitment to peace and actions that have made Rivers State one of the most peaceful states in the country.
According to Politicngr, Wike promised CAN that the State Government will establish Ecclesiastical Courts to handle Christian matters across the state.
He said it while addressing Christians at the Civic Centre, Port Harcourt on Saturday after his investiture as the Apostle of Peace during the Rivers State Peace Campaign organised by the Christian Association of Nigeria, Governor Wike informed that the State Government has already submitted the bill for the creation of the Ecclesiastical Courts to the Rivers State House of Assembly.
He noted that Ecclesiastical Courts will work alongside the Customary Courts to tackle issues directly affecting Christians in their daily lives.
The governor said: Other states have courts that handle their different religious issues. I want to reiterate that Rivers State is purely a Christian State. Therefore, issues that affect Christians must be tackled in legal ways that promote peace.
Wike revealed that the Rivers State House of Assembly has amended the relevant law that permits the State Government to give grants to churches to improve the facilities in their schools.
Rivers State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Most Rev Isaac Anyanasikike said that the State Peace Campaign is aimed at consolidating the gains of peace in the state.
He lauded Governor Wike for building peace across the state through his successful implementation of the State Amnesty Programme and his support for the security agencies.
A 2016 Batch B Stream 1 female National Youth Service Corps member has been attacked by unidentified hoodlums in the early hours of Saturday as they gave her a life-threatening injury.
Some unidentified hoodlums in the early hours of Saturday attacked a corps member, Miss Gbenimachor Chinezendu-Ezinne, in her residence at Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River.
Chinezendu-Ezinne, a 2016 Batch B `Stream 1 corps member, is currently doing her primary assignment at the General Hospital in Obubra.
The hoodlums attacked her in her residence and gave her a cut in her right thumb.
Reacting to her attack, the state Coordinator of NYSC, Mrs Ambekemo Eniola, told the News Agency Nigeria (NAN) in a phone interview that Chinezendu-Ezinne had reported the matter to the NYSC authority.
We are aware of the matter. The corps member reported to us that she was attacked in her residence in Obubra.
We saw the injury on her hand; we thank God that it was not too serious. We have given her a permit to go and visit her parent and get some relief.
We call on all communities in the state to always stand with the corps members and protect them against any form of attack.
I condemn which ever group of persons that carried out this attack on our corps member.
Cross River is a peaceful state; we have enjoyed a warm relationship with residents of the state and government over the years.
I wonder why some people will go headlong to attack a corps member that came from a far distance to render service to the people, she said.
She advised corps members serving in the state to be cautious and vigilant and to report all suspicious movements around them to the police or any security agencies closer to them.
Source: NAN
President Donald Trump now recognizes the One China policy. (Photo : Getty Images)
U.S. President Donald Trump finally acknowledges the One China policy and mends the broken relationship between America and China.
The rift between the two countries started when Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen conversed over the phone, with the former saying he was reconsidering his country's position on the policy.
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However, President Trump then called Chinese Ambassador Yang Jiechi and said that he will honor the One China policy. Trump's diplomatic team has been working on smoothing relations with China and blaming Taiwan for initiating confusion.
Experts have different opinions on the matter but generally welcomed the good news.
Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, and an adviser to Beijing on foreign relations, said, "China was pragmatic and patient. It made every effort to smooth out the relationship, and it paid off."
Editors of Bloomberg said that the development is good news, but there is still a lot to be done. The editorial also said that Trump "handed Xi a diplomatic victory."
They also added, "There is a lot the U.S. can and should do to improve the terms of its economic relations with China and strengthen the global economy in the bargain."
Other observers said that Trump's concession to China came after state media published pictures of warships preparing for a round of military exercises in the South China Sea. This was taken as a statement that China was sending a message to the U.S. that the country will be going to war.
The state-run media predicted that Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen must be in shock with the development.
"The heart of that Madame Tsai on the other side of the Taiwan Strait must at this moment be chilled to the core," they wrote.
However, there is still much to be anticipated from President Donald Trump.
According to Dean Cheng, a China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, "What he's shown the Chinese are he's willing to touch the 'third rail' of U.S.-China relations."
"Beijing can't predict what he'll do next--and he's only been in office three weeks. What is he going to do on trade and other economic issues?" he asked.
An Islamic scholar, Malam Abdullahi Abubakar, has cautioned the Boko Haram terrorist group against slaughtering people and raping women, stressing that such acts were anti-Islam.
Speaking in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital on Sunday, Abubakar advised the terrorist group to stop the killings of innocent people and destruction of properties if they truly believe in Islam.
Abubakar, who is a lecturer at Bayero University Kano, BUK, condemned Boko Harams ideology of trying to establish a wholly Islamic State.
He said, The Boko Haram group should re-consider its thought and revisit its methodology by following the right teachings of Islam.
Islam is based on four foundamentals; they are justice, mercy, wellbeing and wisdom and anything contrary to these is against Islamic Shariah.
Boko Haram members claim that Muslims who do not join their group are non Muslims, which is contrary to the concept of justice in Islam because in Islam, there is no compulsion to any religion.
The cleric appealed to people considering joining the group to have a rethink, stressing that Boko Haram was evil.
They slaughter people and rape women all in the name of religion, this is certainly not part of Islam.
Muslims must seek knowledge to be able to perform the religion in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Prophet, Abubakar added.
Source: Dailypost
The much awaited telephone conversation between President Muhammadu Buhari and U.S President Donald Trump has taken place, with Buhari now in London, congratulating Trump on his ascendancy as the President of the United States.
Trump in return invited Buhari to visit him in Washington at his earliest convenience.
It was the first time that the two leaders would discuss and the telephone conversation was at Trumps request, according to presidential adviser, Femi Adesina.
The discussion took place Monday afternoon.
The conversation was cordial and President Buhari congratulated Trump on his election as President of the United States, and the constitution of his cabinet.
The two leaders discussed ways to improve cooperation in the fight against terrorism through provision of necessary equipment.
President Trump encouraged President Buhari to keep up the good work he is doing, and also commended him for the efforts made in rescuing 24 of the Chibok Girls and the strides being taken by the Nigerian military.
United States President assured the Nigerian President of the United States readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism.
Nigeria has been fighting since 2009 against an insurgency by Boko Haram militants trying to set up an Islamic state in the remote northeast. The unrest has killed thousands and displaced more than two million people.
Abuja has been trying to persuade the U.S. to sell its military aircraft, a request being reviewed by Congress.
President Trump assured the Nigerian president of U.S. readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism, the presidency said in a statement.
It gave no other details of the call, their first since Trumps inauguration.
President Trump invited President Buhari to Washington at a mutually convenient date.
According to Voice of America, President trump also spoke with South African leader, Jacob Zuma.
A dramatic incident has happened at a Zimbabwean church as a woman has offered her daughter to her church as tithe.
A Harare woman shocked everyone by giving her second child to the church as thanksgiving offering after finally bearing children after four miscarriages that almost destroyed her marriage.
According to SundayMail Zimbabwe, the woman identified as Convictions Mapfumo from Sally Mugabe Heights gave her child, who is now in Grade Three, to Holy Baptist Apostolic Church founder Bishop Susan Ziki Dube, who has assumed the role of the mother while the daughter assists in the church.
It is a repetition of the Biblical account ofHannah and her son Samuel. Explaining her decision, the woman said after going through the painful experience of miscarrying four pregnancies, the leader of Holy Baptist Apostolic Church prayed for her, and she has now conceived three girls born in 2005, 2009 and 2011.
She said it was a way of showing her gratitude. Bishop Ziki Dube is well-known in the area as offering powerful prayers for people with varying needs and ailments.
After my struggle to conceive, I decided to give this child to God as a tithe to thank Him for answering my prayers. I was prayed for by the leader of the church. I have also given myself to working in this church because there is nothing more I can give to God for what He has done for me.
I was prompted to give this child because even in conceiving I did not know I was pregnant. In addition during the period of the pregnancy people would come to Mrs Ziki and give her preparation for the child. By the time the child was born she had more than she needed in terms of preparatory items. So I felt convicted in my heart to give her away to the work of God, said Mapfumo, who is the secretary at the church.
The child has now assumed Bishop Ziki Dubes surname and addresses her as mother, while Mapfumo has assumed the role of aunt.
She no longer calls me mother, but auntie. The church leader, who also happens to be my niece, is now her mother. This was agreed upon with the consent of my husband.
All the responsibilities that concern her have been assumed by Bishop Ziki Dube. Even when she gets married, Bishop Ziki Dube is entitled to get part of the lobola entitled for the mother of the child, and I have no problems with it, Mapfumo said.
Mapfumo said she registered her church leader as the mother of the child on the birth certificate.
We did not encounter problems and my husband had also waited to be guarantor so that the process would go on well. And it did. So she is now the legal mother, said Mapfumo.
I have given myself to the church. Even when the child used to call me mother I would not answer until the point where she is now used (to calling someone also mother). I see it as a tithe when I count the children I have miscarried and those I now have; hence its a befitting gift to God, she said, adding that she desires to have a son.
I have been prayed for and I am now pregnant. I have been asking God for a baby boy and I believe I will have him, she said.
Mapfumo follows the example of the Biblical Hannah who gave up her son, Samuel, to the care of High Priest Eli in the Tabernacle.
In 1 Samuel 1, Hannah promised to give her child to the work of God if God fulfilled her desire to conceive. She later conceived more children.
A woman accused of witchcraft has been cordoned by wicked community elders in Akwa Ibom State, as they tied her hands and legs, then tortured her with sticks and machetes, to a state of coma.
A 44-year-old woman, Mercy Ekwere from Edo Esit Eket in Akwa-Ibom state, escaped death on Monday, February 6th, after police dispersed witch-hunters who cordoned her, tied her hands and legs, then tortured her with sticks and machetes to a state of coma.
Her ordeal began after her 12-year-old niece was dragged to the town hall and underwent questioning and torture over allegations of witchcraft as a result of the death of a 5-year old child.
After a lengthy torture, the girl was forced to tell the witch-hunters that her aunt, took the deceased child to the coven and strangled her to death.
Ekwere who is married to a man in a small community in the main Eket town, Akwa Ibom was lured by two emissaries who visited her in the early morning of Monday to inform her that the village head was looking for her with matters related to family disputes.
Narrating the incident, Ekwere said that as she arrived the scene, she was hurled with insults and abuses by a mammoth crowd and was not given a chance to say anything, only for a mob to descend on her mercilessly with any available weapon in their hands.
I was shocked to see a big crowd who started calling me uncanny names, spat and threw stones at me. They did not allow me to say anything. A group of young men with sticks and rod gathered around me and began to hit me I begged them to stop but my plea fell on deaf ears, Ms Ekere narrated.
Theyre asking me different questions. Why did you kill that small child? Whore your colleagues in the coven? How many people have you tied in the witch coven? They brought the corpse of a little child and place on my body and asked me to resurrect her. They put the dead child in a small open container, bathed and gave me the water to drink. Meaning that, if I was responsible for the childs death, I would also die soon.
In spite of that, they continued to beat me. A man came with a big stick and hit my head, the whole place became dark and I fainted. Policemen, invited by my brother Emmanuel Ekwere, to rescue his child who was making the false confession came and woke me up. I did not see those who were beating me again. I got a bike and returned to my husband, but he told me to leave his house as he has no room for witches she added.
When she returned to her husband, she was not allowed entrance to the house. Her son from her late ex-husband was also asked to join her. But the man kept the eleven-month-old child which is the only child that they both have together.
Ms. Ekwere said since she did not have a place to sleep, she went and slept in a small local market with open shades. To her chagrin, three men who were among those who wanted to kill her came there on a motorbike with matches and sticks.
On spotting them, she ran into a bush with her son and made her way to the CRARN Children Centre in Ikot Afaha, Eket, where she has been given a temporary refuge as theres no sanctuary in Nigeria for such older people stigmatized as witches or brutalized and rendered homeless in the name of witchcraft.
Want Google TensorFlows deep learning chocolate in your Spark peanut butter? Good news: Yahoo has unveiled TensorFlowOnSpark to satisfy that craving.
Last year Yahoo combined two stars of big data and machine learning, integrating the in-memory data processing framework Spark with the deep learning framework Caffe. Applications written in Spark would have Caffes training functionality built into them or use trained models to make predictions that weren't possible with Sparks native machine learning.
[ Find out which machine learning and deep learning frameworks are for you with InfoWorld Test Center's comparison of TensorFlow, Spark MLlib, Scikit-learn, MXNet, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, and Caffe. | Get a digest of the day's top tech stories in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ]
The latest Yahoo project, TensorFlowOnSpark (TFoS), does exactly what it says: It adds support for the TensorFlow deep learning library into Spark.
In a blog post, Yahoos Big ML engineering team described how this mingling of deep minds and big data arose from the need to make TensorFlow easier to deploy on existing clusters, like those running Spark. Several projects already aimed to do that: Databricks TensorFrames, which uses GPU acceleration, and the SparkNet project, created at the same Berkeley lab that gave rise to Spark.
TFoS was created partly in response to perceived inadequacies in those projects. While these approaches are a step in the right direction, wrote Yahoo, after examining their code, we learned we would be unable to get the TensorFlow processes to communicate with each other directly, we would not be able to implement asynchronous distributed learning, and we would have to expend significant effort to migrate existing TensorFlow programs.
TFoS was designed to run on existing Spark and Hadoop clusters, and use existing Spark libraries like SparkSQL or Sparks MLlib machine learning libraries. Yahoo claims existing TensorFlow programs do not need to be heavily modified to work with TFoS. Typically, changing fewer than 10 lines of Python code are needed, it said. Parallel instances of TensorFlow can communicate directly with each other without having to go through Spark itself. Data can be ingested from TensorFlows native facilities for reading from HDFS or through Spark.
Clustered machine learning frameworks run faster when they can use remote direct memory access (RDMA). The original TensorFlow project doesn't support RDMA as a core feature, but its in the works. Rather than wait, Yahoo elected to create its own RDMA support and add it to TensorFlows C++ layer; the company is sharing its implementation as alpha-quality code.
Even without Yahoos contributions, TensorFlow has been progressing by leaps and bounds. The first full 1.0 version of the framework introduced optimizations that make it possible to deploy it on smartphone-grade hardware, and IBM chose TensorFlow as the deep learning system for its custom machine learning hardware.
When it comes to running at scale, TensorFlows most direct competition is MXNet, the deep learning system that Amazon has thrown its weight behind. Amazon claims MXNet scales better than the competition across multiple nodes, so it's faster to train models if you have the hardware to devote to the problem. Itll be worth seeing how TensorFlowOnSpark comparesboth in running on big clusters and in convenience to work with.
UK Flaunts More of its Military Power; Sends Destroyer to Black Sea to Warn Putin against Ukraine Invasion
HMS Diamond. (Photo : Royal Navy)
The United Kingdom is sending a Royal Navy air defense destroyer, the HMS Daring, to the Black Sea with the two-fold purpose of warning Russia not to invade Ukraine, and to provide cover for "secret exercises" in Ukraine by troops from the British Army and British Special Forces.
Sources in the British Ministry of Defense were quoted by British media as saying the Type 45 or Daring-class destroyer that joined the Royal Navy in 2011 will transport 60 men of the Special Boat Service and Royal Marine Commandos to an unspecified location in Ukraine.
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These elite units will help protect 650 soldiers of the British Army currently taking part in secret exercises somewhere in the Ukraine. HMS Diamond will lead a NATO naval task force that will form part of this training exercise.
UK Secretary of State for Defense Sir Michael Fallon said that with the deployment, "the UK is sending a clear message that we are committed to defending democracy across the world and support Ukraine's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity."
The deployment of HMS Diamond must also be seen in context of the UK's broader aim to defend Ukraine against Russia. British troops are currently training Ukrainian soldiers while over a thousand British Army troops will be deployed this summer to Estonia and Poland.
Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters of the Royal Air Force are headed to Romania in the coming months to bolster that country's air defenses against Russia.
Granting a lone Royal Navy warship no matter how well armed won't leave Vladimir Putin and his generals shaking in their boots, the deployment of this one warship is being seen in the British press as another symbol of the United Kingdom's renewed will to become more assertive and more militarily muscular on the world stage.
Its special friendship with the United States, which is the linchpin of NATO's resistance to Putin's ill-fated imperialism and Xi Jinping's grandiose dream of a new Chinese empire in Asia, will allow the UK to project power well beyond its limited means.
While quantitatively challenged, the British Armed Forces are feared for the high quality of its fighting men and equipment that will survive the modern battlefield.
This muscle flexing by the British Armed Forces is the latest in a growing series apparently aimed at reinvigorating a fighting force wracked by lack of funding and equipment.
By Kristin Cooke
Is your self-storage business reaching its true potential? Online marketing has changed the way successful companies build their reputation, attract new customers, make sales and keep customers loyal.
To find out what storage companies need to do to get ahead online, I recently interviewed Scott Jensen, vice president of digital and meta at Salt Lake City-based marketing and technology incubator Partner Fusion. As a former senior director of marketing for Extra Space Storage Inc. (2007 to 2014), Jensen has extensive experience in online marketing for storage businesses. He offered up these eight essential tips. If youre not following them, youre letting cash slip through your fingers.
Tip 1: Claim Your Business Listings
If your business listings arent claimed on search engines like Google, Bing and online Yellow Pages, youre missing out on a lot of customers, says Jensen. You can claim these listings for free by learning a bit and doing it yourself, or you can pay a company to do it for you. Listings go in and out all the time, so if youre doing this yourself, you need to stay on top of it and check all listings regularly. The more closely listings all correspondwith the same business hours, phone number and other infothe better for your company. Itll help you rank higher. Google doesnt trust single sources.
Jensen says that on average, if you have 10 properties, one out of 10 business listings are showing inaccuracies. If you dont correct these, youll look less credible and rank lower in search engine results.
Tip 2: Track Your Results
Google Analytics is a free tool, but a lot of people dont realize this, Jensen says. A lot of companies that outsource their website will also outsource the analytics. Thats fine, as long as you have your own login and youre checking it regularly. To make sure no one is scamming you, youve got to own your results.
Tip 3: Use SEO and SEM
According to Jensen, search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are still the backbone of online marketing. Theyre usually outsourced or assigned to someone at your company who specializes in these tasks. Theyre going to help your potential customers find you online. Without them, youll only have drive-by customers, and in a competitive market, thats like trying to run a business on the scraps.
Tip 4: Go Mobile
Most self-storage companies havent thought about the big shift in desktop to mobile use, and that gives you a big advantage if youre paying attention. Make sure your website is designed for mobile first. The majority of customers are now finding you through mobile. They may still prefer to call you and talk to you in person, but theyre finding your company on their cell phone, Jensen says.
Tip 5: Track Mobile Conversions and Phone Calls
Jensen says there are a ton of different systems for tracking these things. You want to know where your customers are coming from. You can use a piece of java script to track calls on a phone number you put on your website, and you can use the same number and track it different ways. Thirty to 40 percent of customers are still using phone numbers to reserve storage units they find online, so I really discourage companies from hiding the phone number on the website or not using it much. The phone will continue to play a critical role in conversion and acquisition in the next five years, he adds.
Tip 6: Create Great Content
Content is going to help with SEO and will assist your customers in deciding your company answers their storage problem. This means keeping up with search engines and your customers need.
Two years ago, we were still seeing keyword stuffing, says Jensen, but thats no longer helpful. The two most important things today are that your content speaks to your customers and that its localized. For example, in a hot climate like Arizona, RV-storage customers want to know how to protect their vehicle from extreme heat and what products they can use to keep the dashboard from cracking. A customer in a cold climate needs different local information. Jensen says a good piece of content can keep pulling in customers for years to come.
Tip 7: Follow Up
One thing that irks Jensen is when self-storage companies complain about not filling their units when they arent following up on peoples calls and messages. Remember that people arent shopping for a storage company the same way as they are shopping for a new pair of shoes that they may not really need. Often a major life event has happened and they suddenly need someplace to store their belongingstheyve had a move, a divorce, the death of a family member, or theyre going off to college. That means theyre shopping for a storage unit with a problem mentality. Once you can convince them youll solve their problem, theyre sold and theyll move in. Follow up on those contact us forms; and the quicker you follow up, the more likely youll be to get their business.
Tip 8: Get on Social Media
Right now, social media isnt where customers will be finding you, but its where theyll connect and stay loyal, Jensen says. And keeping current customers is much cheaper than getting new ones. Your customers are on social media, and if youre not there, youre missing out on building trust and keeping customers loyal. Customers might not remember how to contact you, but if theyre connected to you on Facebook, they can easily find you.
Keep things up-to-date, and keep your customers informed, Jensen says. Checking you out on social media is how your customers can see that their stuff is safe. If theyre living out of state and they hear theres a fire in your city, theyll check your social media to see if everythings secure.
If tackling all these strategies seems arduous, take it one step at a time. Start with claiming your business listings and move down the list from there. Make it a goal to implement one new strategy per month. In eight months, youll be on top of things and miles ahead of your competition.
Kristin Cooke is a regular blogging contributor for Value Store It, a Miami, Fla.-based self-stoage operator with facilities in Connecticut, Florida and New York. For more information, visit www.valuestoreit.com.
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Inflation remains the primary concern for the worlds central banks, which have engaged in the broadest and fastest tightening regime in history, according to Alejandra Grindal, chief economist at Ned Davis Research.
"I was a bit surprised by that," says expert
The increasingly competitive construction insurance market will see similar challenges over the course of 2017, an expert has said.
Last year, like many insurance sectors, construction saw an over-supply of capital putting downward pressure on premium rates and new market entrants seeking to make their debut by offering broader policy wordings.
While opportunities in the market existed for smaller, specialised firms, Shane Sheppard, head of construction at ATC Insurance Solutions, said that he believes 2017 will be more of the same in the construction market.
As reinsurance rates decrease and fewer catastrophe claims roll in, insurers and underwriters will look to other means to grow their market share.
Insurers will also be looking to improve their technology to further streamline the issuing of their products, sometimes with less human underwriter oversight, Sheppard told Insurance Business.
Disciplined underwriting is paramount.
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Some in the industry are already seeing green shoots as markets begin to harden after one of the toughest troughs in recent memory.
In construction, as Queensland and Western Australia slowdown in both the construction and mining sectors, the market could remain a challenge.
Sheppard believes that there are still opportunities for growth in the construction market, particularly for smaller firms with sound knowledge and underwriting capabilities.
Specialised firms will look to place both standard and hard-to-place risks and may branch into other complementary areas of insurance such as plant and machinery.
With the sector facing both challenges and opportunities over the coming year, Sheppard stressed that some things will never change.
Long term sustainability and profitability must be at the forefront of insurers minds.
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The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and its members are monitoring the impact of the bushfires that continue to burn across New South Wales.
By Monday morning, the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) downgraded five emergency warnings to watch and act status after a day of extreme heat and more than 100 fires around the state, but warns that the danger is far from over, ABC reported.
With over 80 blazes across the state yet to be contained, the blazes rated watch and act were the ones at Kains Flat; Leadville, near Dunedoo; Beachwood, 50km west of Port Macquarie; Boggabri; and Dondingalong, the report said.
ICA said it is too early to determine the extent of insured losses caused by the bushfires. Early reports indicated, however, that the bushfires caused stock and other agricultural losses, as well as destroyed or damaged homes.
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One town heavily impacted by the bushfires was Uarbry, east of Dunedoo. The bushfire on Sunday had all but wiped out the town, with nine of its 12 homes confirmed to be destroyed and its surrounding farmlands extensively damaged, The Guardian reported.
An ICA representative went to the state's Central West to lend assistance to policyholders, and liaise with emergency services and local and state government agencies.
Insurers are standing by to handle inquiries and claims. Policyholders are urged to contact their insurer or insurance broker if they intend to lodge a claim, said ICA CEO Rob Whelan.
Primary producers who need to euthanise injured livestock can do so, but they should first advise their insurer and make sure they keep records for the purposes of making a claim.
Property owners and residents were also urged by ICA to stay safe and return to their properties only when emergency services advise them it is safe to do so.
Affected residents can contact ICA through its disaster hotline 1800 734 621 for their claims issues and inquiries.
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A Brisbane-based insurance giant is looking to reduce its exposure to the troubled life insurance market as it announced a review of strategic alternatives for its life insurance arm.
Suncorp, Australias second largest general insurer by market share, has announced that it is considering the sale of its $1.5 billion life insurance unit as it reported a 5% increase in half-yearly net profits, below market expectations of about 8% growth, Reuters reported.
The life insurance industry has suffered from increased customer claims and policy cancellations since the media exposed the use of discredited methods to reject legitimate claims for insurance payouts in March last year.
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This prompted the National Australia Bank to sell the majority of its operations to Japans Nippon Life for $2.4 billion; the Macquarie Group to offload its life business to Zurich; and ANZ to consider selling its $4.5 billion life insurance and wealth division.
AMP, meanwhile, is looking to secure a second reinsurance deal to cover its life insurance book, the report said.
Aside from the sale of all or part of the life insurance unit, which has an embedded value of $2 billion, other options for the business included reinsurance deals and partnership arrangements.
Suncorp chief executive Michael Cameron said: It is too early to give detailed guidance on what might be the benefits of the alternatives.
He said that under any scenario, Suncorp would continue to distribute life products as part of its strategy of being a one-stop financial shop for customers, Reuters reported.
The review is a good thing and it is timely, CLSA analyst Jan van der Schalk told Reuters. Over time why wouldnt (Suncorp) be looking to be merely the owner of that platform and outsourcing the manufacturing to someone else?
Suncorp reported a $584 million cash profit for the six months ending December 31, up from the previous years $556 million, after insurance premium growth of 4.3%, Reuters said. Its life insurance division, meanwhile, posted a 52% drop in profits to $11 million in the first half.
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Suncorp announce executive departure
It's critical to help clients make the most of the plans they have
At least 130,000 people were asked to evacuate in Northern California after authorities warned an emergency spillway in the country's tallest dam was in danger of failing Sunday and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.About 240km northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nation's tallest.The evacuation was ordered Sunday afternoon over concerns the dam's emergency spillway could fail. Over five hours later, hundreds of cars carrying panicked and angry people were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic."The police came and told us to evacuate," said Kaysi Levias who was with her husband, Greg, at a gas station as they attempted to flee.Officials warned residents that the spillway could fail within an hour."I'm just shocked," Greg Levias said. "Pretty mad.""Not giving us more warning," said Kaysi, finishing his sentence."We've never been through this before," said Kaysi Levias. "We have two boys and our dog. All the stuff we could fit in the trunk clothes and blankets."What they couldn't fit they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheat land, Yuba City, Plumas Lake, and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders.The evacuation order went out around 4 p.m. after engineers spotted a hole that was eroding back toward the top of the spillway.The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said. Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees.Officials say Oroville Lake levels had decreased by Sunday night as they let water flow from its heavily damaged main spillway but noted that water was still spilling over the dam.Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said engineers with the Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion on the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam was not advancing as fast as they thought."Unfortunately they couldn't advise me or tell me specifically how much time that would take so we had to make the very difficult and critical decision to initiate the evacuation of the Oroville area and all locations south of that," he said. "We needed to get people moving quickly to save lives if the worst-case scenario came into fruition."Honea said there is a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse.Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall. Officials earlier Sunday stressed the dam itself was structurally sound and said there was no threat to the public.Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriff's office said.The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services asked residents in the valley floor, including Marysville, a city of 12,000 people, to evacuate and take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.The California Department of Water Resources said it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway during heavy rain earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 60-metre-long, 9-metre-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.The Associated Press
Chinas Third Aircraft Carrier will be First to use Steam Catapults to Launch Aircraft
Liaoning launches a J-15. (Photo : US Navy)
It's official: China's third aircraft carrier won't be equipped with the troublesome electromagnetic aircraft launch system and will use the conventional steam powered system instead.
Over the past two years, speculation has remained rife the third carrier of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will come with an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) somewhat similar to the one aboard the new U.s. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) due to launch this year.
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EMALS is being developed by U.S. defense contractor General Atomics for the Gerald R. Ford-class of aircraft carriers, which will consist of three ships. EMALS launches aircraft from an aircraft catapult using a linear motor drive instead of the conventional steam piston drive.
Its main advantage is it allows for a more graded acceleration, inducing less stress on the aircraft's airframe. It's also lighter than a steam catapult system and cheaper to operate. In addition, EMALS can launch aircraft that are heavier or lighter than those handled by steam catapults.
PLAN's third carrier, tentatively identified as the Type 002, will be equipped with at least three conventional steam launch catapults, said sources in the navy. It will be the first of China's three carriers to use this launch system in service with the U.S. Navy for decades.
PLAN's two other carriers, the CNS Liaoning (CV-16) and the CNS Shandong (CV-17) use a "ski jump" located at their bows to launch their complement of Shenyang J-15 multirole fighters. All three carriers are powered by steam turbines. An aircraft carrier must be nuclear powered to deploy EMALS.
Sources in PLAN admit there are some technical problems applying nuclear propulsion to the Type 002, which will therefore have to use steam catapults.
The Type 002 is expected to be launched in 2021. Commissioning the ship might be a problem because China has been unable to manufacture enough J-15 fighters to arm all three carriers. PLAN only operates some 20 J-15s, and most of these are with the Liaoning.
The plot was clean: Kill his wife, take the insurance money and run.But this Washington man foiled his murder plan by sending a text containing details of the plan to his former boss by mistake.Monroe resident Jeff Lytle was supposed to send the text messages to a certain Shayne detailing a $1 million insurance payout if he could make the incident seem like a robbery gone awry, according to a Fox News report.But Lytle was arrested by Snowhomish County police after he allegedly sent a message with details of the planned killing of his wife to his ex-boss.Want the latest insurance industry news first? Sign up for our completely free newsletter service now.Lytle was said to have offered the hit man 50% of the insurance takings, and a bonus if he included his four-year-old daughter in the killings, who also has a life insurance policy.The suspects bail was set at $1 million after authorities found probable cause on two counts of criminal solicitation for first degree murder and domestic violence.Quoting local media, Fox News reported that Lytle claimed Shayne was a fictitious person and that the text messages were only written to vent.
A Sydney-based company is the first private health fund in Australia to make a stand against climate change as it plans to pull $20 million out of fossil fuel companies.
HCF has decided to sell all its shares from fossil fuel-related companies in Australia and overseas by the end of March, for the reason that the industry harms the health and wellbeing of its members.
Based on HCFs latest annual report, which stated that it had $2 billion invested in a diversified portfolio, and information from a company spokesperson that about 1% of its investments were in fossil fuels, Guardian Australia reported that it appears the company will be pulling out $20 million from the industry.
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HCF did not announce the decision to the public, but said it would consider making an announcement after it completed the divestment process, the report said.
Fiona Stanley, public health researcher and 2003 Australian of the Year, told Guardian Australia: Human health and financing fossils fuels are fundamentally incompatible.
Fossil fuels are a major contributor to air pollution, which is now close to tobacco as a leading cause of death globally. Moreover, the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels will put peoples health at risk for generations as climate change impacts take effect.
Market Forces and health professionals welcomed HCFs move.
The health consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly apparent in many countries including Australia, Kingsley Faulkner, national chair of Doctors for the Environment Australia told Guardian Australia.
The predicted health impacts of failing to [take action] are huge. History will be harsh on those who fail the moral and political challenge to act without further delay. As with tobacco control, Australia could again become a leader rather than a reluctant follower.
According to the World Health Organisation, climate change is expected to cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 as it increases the rates of malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress.
Related stories:
Actuaries highlight climate change risks in report
Climate change driving more risks than ever before
Its now legal for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft to operate in New Jersey.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie on Friday signed off on a measure approved by lawmakers in December to regulate the services and make them legal.
The measure allows the state attorney general to decide whether the criminal background checks used by the companies now are sufficient or whether a different kind of check is needed.
The law also includes requirements for insurance.
Christie says the legislation makes it easier for the innovative business model to operate in the state.
More than 30 states now have laws allowing for the ride-hailing companies.
Christie also approved eliminating the seven percent sales tax paid by limousine owners.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics New Jersey
Goodyear will pay $1.75 million to settle workplace health and safety violations at its Danville, Va., tire plant where four workers died on the job over the course of a year, officials announced Friday.
Goodyear, the United Steelworkers and the state Department of Labor and Industry reached a settlement agreement calling for the penalty and laying out a process to fix workplace hazards, the department said in a statement.
Between August 2015 and August 2016, four workers died at the plant near the North Carolina border that manufactures aviation and specialty tires. State inspectors conducted 11 inspections that resulted in more than 100 violations.
Among the workers killed was 53-year-old Charles Greg Cooper, who died of burns and drowning. His body was found in April in a pit of boiling water and oil, 6 feet, 8 inches deep. Investigators found that the floor around the pit was slick with oil, grease and slurry and the opening Cooper fell into had been unguarded for more than five months since a sump pump had been removed.
While nothing will replace our sister and brothers who were fatally injured, the elements of the settlement agreementwill greatly improve safety at the Danville plant, Danny Barber, the local union chapter president said in a statement.
Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company will pay $1 million to the state, which will go into the general fund, assistant labor and industry Commissioner William Burge said. The remaining $750,000 can be used to fix hazards found in the inspections and to help meet the requirements of a workplace safety training program.
The departments Occupational Safety and Health program issued the scores of violations in October, and the company contested them, which led to the settlement talks.
Among the more serious violations cited were those in Coopers death, along with instances in which dangerous machinery hadnt been properly guarded.
The department said the lack of proper machine control-devices led to the death of Jeanie Strader, 56. Strader was attempting to straighten part of a machine in August 2015 when the operator turned it on and she became caught.
Six months later, 54-year-old Kevin Waid Edmonds was killed when he became pinned between a wall and a pallet containing rubber.
The fourth fatality occurred on Aug. 12, 2016, and violations in that death were detailed for the first time in Fridays settlement agreement. William Scheier was adjusting a machine that hadnt been properly turned off or shut down when it activated and a part struck him, according to a citation.
With around 2,200 workers, the plant is the largest employer in the city of about 42,000. Its also one of the largest in the whole Southside region which has struggled economically as the textile, tobacco and furniture industries have declined, Danville Mayor John Gilstrap said.
The plant, which marked its 50th anniversary in Danville in the fall, has had a tremendous impact on the entire community, he said.
The Associated Press couldnt immediately reach relatives of the victims for comment.
A judge still must sign off on the settlement agreement. Burge said he expects the court documents to be filed within two weeks.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Virginia Manufacturing
Sompo Canopius Re announced the appointment of Christopher Gray as head of P&I reinsurance, effective immediately. Gray, who joins from Swiss Re, reports to Andy Gladwin, global head of marine treaty.
Sompo Canopius Re already plays a leading role in the worldwide marine and specialty treaty market, writing through London, Singapore and Zurich, said the company in a statement. It noted that Gray will be developing a portfolio that adds diversification and also complements the account already written.
Gray is a qualified lawyer and spent the early part of his career as a solicitor specializing in marine insurance in Germany. He subsequently became an underwriter for Zeller and Associates GmbH in Hamburg before joining Munich Re as a marine underwriter focused on P&I in Munich. Since 2011 he headed Swiss Res marine treaty team in London.
Chris is a respected leader in the marine P&I market with a fantastic track record and many solid relationships that he has built over time, commented Gladwin.
Source: Sompo Canopius Re
Topics Reinsurance Swiss Re
South Dakota lawmakers have rejected a bill that was meant to increase transparency in the states school choice scholarship program.
The bill, voted down 9-6 in the House Education Committee, would have required insurance companies to disclose how much money they donate to the private-school scholarship fund in exchange for tax credits. It also would have required the group in charge of the program to show how much goes to each private school. The scholarship program was created last year and can accept up to $2 million annually.
Bill supporters say taxpayers should know how much money is being diverted from the states general fund for private use.
Opponents say its still a fledgling program and argued that the bill could intimidate companies and families and discourage their participation.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Carriers Legislation
Firefighting costs hit $1.5 million in the county hardest hit by a massive wildfire along the Kansas-Oklahoma border last year.
Jerry McNamar, emergency management director for Kansas Barber County, said hes optimistic that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay 75 percent of those fire suppression costs, The Hutchinson News reports.
About $400,000 was spent on four National Guard helicopters that dropped water on the fire over two days. McNamar said money also was spent for fuel, repairs, food and water. Little went toward wages because the countys volunteer firefighters earn just $15 a run.
The blaze started last March near the Anderson Creek in Woods County, Oklahoma, before moving into Kansas.
McNamar said the countys economic losses include the 750 to 800 cattle that died in the county, along with at least 2,700 miles of fence worth $27 million that was destroyed.
It will take a long time to recover the economic losses, McNamar said, but the community is resilient.
According to the Kansas Forest Service, the Anderson Creek Fire was the largest wildfire in the states history. And across Kansas, there was an outpouring from residents who wanted to lend southern Kansas ranchers a hand.
More than 184 organizations volunteered during the fire, including fire departments, said Ross Hauck, fire management coordinator with the Kansas Forest Service.
At one time, more than 954 people were on the scene from five states. Some helped fight the fire, while others brought supplies and raised cash to help ranchers. Loads of hay were taken to ranches to help supplemental feed after the fire. Kansas residents also donated barbed wire, fence posts and cattle minerals. Cattle were sold at progressive auctions, with the funds going to the wildfire efforts.
In all, residents donated more than $528,359 to the Kansas Livestock Foundation for wildfire relief, said Todd Domer, with the Kansas Livestock Association.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Wildfire Agribusiness Kansas
It takes a lot of capital for an insurance agency to grow, acquire, merge or partner with another agency, and increasingly, private equity firms are stepping up to the plate to supply that funding.
Although the number of reported mergers and acquisitions in the insurance distribution system in the U.S. and Canada fell slightly last year from 456 in 2015 to 449 in 2016 both years represent an increase from 2014 when 359 agency/brokerage M&As were reported, according to Chicago-based Optis Partners, which specializes in investment banking and financial services.
A report issued in January by Optis Partners, its December 2016 Agent/Broker Merger & Acquisition Update, shows that more than half of the transactions in both 2015 and 2016 involved private equity investment. The report covers only agent/broker M&As that were publicly reported and recognizes that not all such transactions are reported.
This widespread investment activity by PE firms has driven up both demand for agency acquisitions and the amount being paid for them. Experts differ on whether thats a good thing.
Recently private equity firms have driven the demand in the marketplace, which has had a positive effect on the multiples in the industry. Their involvement has contributed to the increase in the average multiple paid on deals over the last five years, said Phil Trem, senior vice president at the Ohio-based consulting firm, MarshBerry.
However, the higher multiples, which may run as high as three times revenue, can make it tough for agencies to compete if they are looking to expand through acquisitions and dont opt for the private equity route, said Chris Burand, principal at Burand & Associates in Pueblo, Colo., and a faculty member of the Academy of Insurance, an Insurance Journal affiliate.
The amount that private equity is paying is so much higher than what a regular agency can cash flow if they were to buy an agency that its created a very disparate marketplace. And thats really an issue in the industry on many levels, Burand said.
Lets say the agency down the street wants to do a merger with a friendly competitor. They cannot cash flow three times, so a dilemma is created there. Does somebody sell to private equity for three times or do they keep things friendly and local, and take care of all their employees and clients, but for a much, much lower price tag?
MarshBerrys Trem also acknowledged the competitive stress that PE investment has placed on independent agencies.
Agencies are in a very tough spot right now. They cannot compete on price in the M&A environment and they are in the midst of a softening property and casualty rate environment, he said.
Still, private equity firms bring a lot to the table.
Some of the equity players really do invest quality money in agencies that they buy in the sense that they invest in IT and they invest in high quality people and they invest in higher quality of services to the clients, Burand said.
The model works especially well for agencies seeking to expand through acquisitions or consolidation.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Acrisure is one such company that has benefited from PE-backed funding. Genstar Capital acquired the firm in 2013 and worked with Acrisures management to expand the agencys geographic footprint, along with its product and service offerings. Announcing a management-led buyout of the company from Genstar last year, Acrisure reported that under Genstars ownership, it acquired more than 138 retail insurance brokerages and generated industry-leading organic growth.
Confie Seguros, a large, national personal lines and commercial insurance broker based in Huntington Beach, Calif., has worked with two private equity partners since its inception in 2008 and has completed more than 120 acquisitions so far. Co-Founder and Chairman Mordy Rothberg said Confie currently is partnering with Abry Partners in Boston, and has set the goal of completing 35 more acquisitions in 2017.
When a company is looking to raise capital there are various different forms of capital and the reason why we prefer private equity over going public, as an example, is that when you partner with private equity, instead of managing the business quarter to quarter they have a longer term approach to the business, Rothberg said.
Typically, private equity investors are not interested in operationally managing the business. Instead they partner with the agencys senior management to add value, he said. With the right partner, the private equity model works really well.
Ryan Clark, president and managing director of the private equity firm, San Francisco-based Genstar Capital, said the insurance distribution sector is attractive to private equity investors for a couple of reasons.
Insurance agencies and brokerages are fundamentally good businesses. By that, I mean they have high levels of recurring revenue. They have strong profitability and good cash flow characteristics. The credit markets like insurance brokerages as well, so there is ample debt available for growth.
Another thing that makes the market attractive is that its so fragmented.
Private equity firms seek out fragmented markets where there are consolidators, he said. With our capital and with a strong management team we can act as one of the consolidators or aggregators in the marketplace to build a market-leading business.
Private equity builds the financial relationships and capital structures that allow the firms in which they invest to make acquisitions they might not otherwise do if the money were to come out of the owners pockets, Clark said.
Not for Everybody
While PE investment in insurance distribution channels can result in a great outcome for many agency owners who want to grow their firm quickly or just cash out, its not appropriate in all cases, some say.
Private equity has its place but its certainly not for everybody, said David Macknin, president and CEO of the Chicago-based brokerage Alper Services.
It makes sense in a lot of situations those being if the agency principals are looking to generate the highest return on the investment they made in the business regardless if theyre a founder or a PE buyer whos now a seller, or a consolidator whos now a seller. If the motivation is maximizing return for whomever, the PE play makes perfect sense, Macknin said.
It works well for agencies like Confie Seguros that want to grow through consolidation, Rothberg said. But an agency thats doing two to three million dollars of EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization), that might not be somebody that wants to start a private equity backed company, he added.
Macknin said there are agency operators, and he counts Alper Services management as one of them, that have no interest in having outside money impact how we conduct our business.
He said an agency that seeks to grow without using private equity dollars should look at the medium and long term, not just at the short and medium term. One needs to have a focused strategy for your growth, and then explain it and live it.
A profitable agency would presumably have retained earnings that could be clearly deployed and reinvested into the agency and the existing personnel, and to bring in new people, he said.
When it comes to mergers and acquisitions between agencies, Macknin stresses one driver above all others. I would say you absolutely need to have a strategic plan as to what youre trying to do, who youre trying to bring in. The characteristic that I believe should drive it is culture. Culture, culture, culture. It cannot be overstated. Its got to be something you live. Your culture should be defining you, how you carry yourself as an individual as part of a firm, Macknin said.
For Burand, its not clear that private equity is the solution for achieving organic growth.
In the majority of cases that Ive seen I dont think private equity achieves organic growth, he said. If an agency wants to achieve organic growth it has to invest in a growth strategy. Theres a number of those out there. But they involve hiring quality people that can make sales and making those people accountable for that. Thats the real key. Youve got to invest in people that can actually get out there and make sales. And hold them accountable for doing so.
Both Macknin and Burand advocate internal perpetuation plans for agencies that want to grow organically.
If they plan it out, if they use foresight, the owners can still make a lot of money upon retirement. And they can do so with the knowledge that their people and their clients and their legacy will live on, Burand said.
However, it takes a considerable amount of planning operationally and strategically to make it happen. What I see occur way to often is that planning doesnt happen until its way too late, Burand said.
Likewise, MarshBerrys Trem said agencies should relentlessly focus on predictable, profitable, organic growth. That strategy will not only enhance the firms valuation, it will position them to have a choice for their long-term perpetuation.
Related:
Topics Agencies Human Resources
An FBI affidavit filed says an Oklahoma man, who authorities say fatally shot himself after being suspected of killing two people, faced five felony counts of uttering forged instruments in connection with an insurance scheme.
The affidavit says 55-year-old Timothy Michael Deffner, of Norman, allegedly stole more than $67,300 in payments from an insurance company meant to cover a property damage claim on a home his in-laws owned.
The Oklahoman reports Deffner apparently shot and killed himself after being surrounded by police and ordered to surrender on the morning of Feb. 8.
Police say Deffner was wanted in the shooting deaths the previous night of his estranged wife, 49-year-old Cayann Deffner, and her attorney, 47-year-old Bryan Young.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Fraud Oklahoma
Authorities have identified the three workers who died in an explosion at the Packaging Corporation of America plant in DeRidder, La.
The Beauregard Daily news reports that the Beauregard Parish Sheriffs Office identified those killed as 33-year-old William Rolls, Jr.; 42-year-old Sedrick Stallworth; and 41-year-old Jody Gooch.
Seven others were hurt in the Feb. 8 explosion. Authorities described six injuries as minor and one as moderate.
Louisiana State Police Sgt. James Anderson said welding had been going on near a tank that exploded.
The Lake Forest, Illinois-based PCA has not logged any violations at the Louisiana plant since acquiring it in 2013.
PCA has received repeated fines in recent years at other U.S. facilities, including a Wisconsin facility where two workers were killed in 2012 and three others died in a 2008 explosion.
Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Louisiana
Samsung Galaxy S7 edge smartphone is on display at the Samsung booth during CES 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 5, 2017 (Photo : Getty Images/Alex Wong )
Samsung will be releasing the Galaxy S8 later than usual due to additional safety checks. However, a new report claims that the South Korean tech giant will actually launch it earlier than expected.
The new Samsung Galaxy S8 was expected to launch in May after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco scared the public. Now, Samsung will be launching the new flagship smartphone with an April 21 release date, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Since Samsung will not be unveiling the smartphone at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2017 event in Barcelona, the South Korean tech giant will be holding a separate conference for their product. The Galaxy S8 now reportedly has a reveal date of March 29 and a tentative place in New York City.
LG will reportedly take advantage of launching their G6 flagship smartphone early. Many buyers would most likely choose the G6 because it will already be available at the time.
Samsung's Galaxy S8 would still have the advantage in terms of specs as it will reportedly have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 which is faster and more efficient than the LG G6's 821 chipset. All models of the S8 will also have a curved edge screen which means that there will be no more separate Edge variant.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 will still be teased after the company's presentation at the MWC 2017, Forbes reported. Details of the teaser were not disclosed but it may include more official photos and videos of the upcoming flagship smartphone.
Besides the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, the S8 also wins with the rumored 6GB RAM. Samsung may also include their own virtual assistant powered by Viv. It will reportedly take on Siri, Alexa and the Google Assistant.
Samsung Galaxy S8 specs and prices are expected to be unveiled in March. Teasers will be shown at Samsung's MWC 2017 appearance.
Learn if the iPhone 8 can take the new flagship from Samsung:
The R Street Institute applauded the introduction today of S.B. 10, legislation to rein in the growth in Texas hail-related litigation.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, would provide revisions to Texas law, preserving the right to sue while removing incentives for attorney led abuse of the legal process, according to R Street Southwest Region Director Josiah Neeley.
Trial attorneys are exploiting provisions in the law to run up large fee awards, Neeley said in a statement. Insurance companies often dont even know there is an issue until a lawsuit is filed. Cases that should be resolved without litigation end up in a long and costly legal process.
According to R Street, old provisions in state law that meant to ensure the prompt payment of claims are now having the opposite effect.
Companion legislation has been introduced in the Texas House of Representatives: H.B. 1774, sponsored by state Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Galveston.
Topics Texas Claims
Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler issued fines in January totaling $15,000 against insurance companies, agents and brokers for violating state insurance regulations.
Following are the entities, the fines and Kreidlers reasoning for issuing those fines:
State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., Bloomington, Ill.; fined $10,000
State Farm failed to notify 151 farm-ranch homeowner policyholders that flood damage was not covered by their policies. The company also failed to notify 141,001 people who purchased homeowner, renter, condominium unit or manufactured home policies, but later provided notification when the policies renewed.
Health Alliance Northwest Health Plan, Wenatchee; fined $5,000
Washington law requires health carriers to indemnify certain healthcare services with an insurance policy, bond, securities or cash deposit. The company allowed the surety bond it was using to meet this requirement to lapse and did not replace it with another form of indemnity until the insurance commissioner contacted the company. It ultimately corrected the problem by depositing funds in a special trust account that met the indemnity requirement.
Walmart Stores Inc., Bentonville, Ark.; ordered to cease and desist
Walmart sold tire warranties to consumers without being a registered service contract provider. It sold 112,561 warranties worth $1.1 million to Washington consumers from June 2014 through July 2016. As of the date of this order, the company has not yet registered as a service contract provider in Washington and has stopped selling the warranty to Washington consumers.
Thomas C. Johnson, Tacoma; issued probationary license
Johnson applied for a Washington insurance producers license in October 2016 to sell life insurance. He disclosed two military offenses in 2005 on his application. The probationary license means he must be accompanied by another licensed insurance agent or broker anytime he meets with a client; he must submit a list of clients he met with quarterly to the insurance commissioner; and his license will be revoked if he violates any insurance or state laws other than minor traffic violations.
Since 2001, Kreidlers office has reportedly assessed $21.9 million in fines, which are deposited in the states general fund to pay for other state services.
Topics Washington
Ford Motor Co. signage is displayed during a Ford Media Night event ahead of the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in Beijing, China, on Saturday, April 23, 2016. The exhibition opens on April 25. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. is investing $1 billion in a months-old startup founded by two pioneers in the nascent autonomous vehicle sector.
The Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company Argo AI will develop the brains -- specifically, a virtual driver system -- for the fully autonomous vehicles Ford has promised to bring to market in 2021. Founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander are former leaders of the self-driving car teams at Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Google.
This is a unique partnership, Mark Fields, Fords chief executive officer, said in an interview. A lot of tech companies are looking for customers and a lot of OEMs are looking for technology partners. We are getting expertise, and Argo AI is getting a customer in Ford.
The investment planned for over the next five years reflects how hot the race for autonomous vehicles is getting within an industry facing other seismic shifts including electrification and ride-sharing. Self-driving vehicle startups are emerging at a frenetic pace after General Motors Co. and Uber acquired upstarts -- each with just a few dozen employees -- for hundreds of millions of dollars apiece in separate acquisitions last year.
Fords plans closely mirror Toyota Motor Corp.s $1 billion investment over five years toward creating its own robotics and artificial intelligence research division. Toyota Research Institute was established more than a year ago and is being led by Gill Pratt, the former top robotics engineer for a U.S. military agency.
Unheard Of
I never heard of Argo AI until 10 minutes ago, Eric Paul Dennis, a transportation analyst for the Center for Automotive Research, said by phone shortly after Fords announcement. The way theyve structured it -- with the startup maintaining independence -- sounds reasonable.
Salesky led hardware development on the self-driving car project at Google. He and Rander, a former Uber engineer, have no other backers.
Argo AI will function as a subsidiary of Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford for accounting purposes. The company will largely operate and hire independently and offer equity to engineers, said Raj Nair, Fords executive vice president of global product development and its chief technical officer.
Salesky will manage the Argo AI team. Hell report to a five-member board of directors -- two from Ford, two from Argo AI and one independent director. Ford will have an unspecified majority stake in the company.
Expansion Plans
Argo AI expects to have roughly 200 employees by the end of this year between its headquarters in Pittsburgh and offices in Southeast Michigan and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Fords crosstown rival GM in March of last year announced plans to buy Cruise Automation and later disclosed paying about $581 million at closing. The total cost of the deal would be more over time, Detroit-based GM said in July. The following month, Uber acquired Otto, a self-driving truck startup that had been founded seven months earlier, in a deal worth as much as $680 million.
The initial focus for Argo AI will be to support Fords autonomous vehicle development and production. The company could license its technology to other companies and sectors looking for autonomous capability in the future.
When Pete and I decided to found the company, there were a lot of ways to try to fund it, Salesky said in an interview. We are excited about the long-term commitment of Ford and the straight timeline to market. We want to make 2021 a reality.
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Dividend Stocks: An Overview
Dividend stocks are stocks of companies that pay out a portion of their earnings to a class of shareholders on a regular basis. Usually, these companies are well established, with stable earnings, and a long track record of distributing some of those earnings back to shareholders.
The distributions are known as dividends and may be paid out in the form of cash or as additional stock. Most dividends are paid out on a quarterly basis, but some are paid out monthly, annually, or even once in the form of a special dividend.
While dividend stocks are known for the regularity of their dividend payments, in difficult economic times those dividends may be cut to preserve cash.
One useful measure for investors to gauge the sustainability of a company's dividend payments is the dividend payout ratio (DPR). The ratio is a measure of total dividends divided by net income. It tells investors how much of the company's net income is being paid to shareholders in the form of dividends versus how much the company is retaining to invest in further growth.
If the ratio exceeds 100% or is negative (meaning net income is negative), the company may be borrowing to pay dividends. In these two cases, the dividends are at a relatively greater risk of being cut.
Dividend stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, have outperformed the broader equity market. The index has provided a total return of -5.1% over the past year, above the Russell 1000's total return of -15.2%.
Below, we look at the top five dividend stocks in the Russell 1000 by forward dividend yield, excluding companies with payout ratios that are either negative or in excess of 100%. Only one stock belowenergy company Devon Energy Corp. (DVN)outperformed the broader market during this time.
These market performance numbers and all statistics below are as of Sept. 22, 2022.
Key Takeaways Dividend stocks are stocks of companies that pay shareholders a percentage of earnings regularly.
Dividends are usually paid quarterly but can be paid semi-annually or annually.
Dividend yield is the ratio, expressed as a percentage, that compares the annual dividend amount to the stock price.
Dividend yield changes as a stock price rises and falls.
While dividend yield is valuable to know, it's important to research additional information about a company before investing in it.
Forward Dividend Yield: 14.99%
Payout Ratio: 36.27%
Price: $5.87
Market Cap: $10.1 billion
1-Year Total Return: -25.3%
Annaly Capital Management is a diversified capital management company that operates as a real estate investment trust (REIT). It has investments across the mortgage finance industry. Its investment portfolio includes agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS), residential real estate, and mortgage servicing rights. On Sept. 8, the company said its board of directors approved a 1-for-4 reverse stock split. The company also announced a Q3 common stock dividend of $0.88, maintaining the $0.22 per share dividend before its reverse stock split. The dividend is payable Oct. 31 to shareholders as of Sept. 30, 2022.
Forward Dividend Yield: 12.18%
Payout Ratio: 84.07%
Price: $31.19
Market Cap: $3.9 billion
1-Year Total Return: -39.5%
OneMain Holdings Inc. is a consumer finance company that provides origination, underwriting, and servicing of personal loans, primarily to non-prime customers. It operates through the following segments: Consumer & Insurance and Other segments.
Forward Dividend Yield: 12.02%
Payout Ratio: 52.33%
Price: $8.32
Market Cap: $8.6 billion
1-Year Total Return: -27.8%
Lumen Technologies is a technology and communications company that provides services to consumers and businesses worldwide. It provides an integrated platform that brings together network assets, cloud connectivity, security solutions, and voice and collaboration tools to help businesses use their data and adopt new technologies. On Sept. 13, the company announced that Kate Johnson had been appointed president and chief executive officer (CEO), effective Nov. 7. Johnson most recently led Microsoft U.S. She succeeds Jeff Storey, who will remain with the company through Dec. 31, 2022, to assist the transition.
Forward Dividend Yield: 11.89%
Payout Ratio: 49.83%
Price: $8.41
Market Cap: $3.9 billion
1-Year Total Return: -16.9%
Rithm Capital, formerly known as New Residential Investment Corp., is a public real estate investment trust (REIT) investing in the residential housing sector. The company's portfolio includes mortgage-servicing-related assets, residential loans, non-agency securities, and similar investments. The company announced the change in its name and stock ticker in June 2022. On Sept. 22, Rithm declared a common stock dividend of $0.25 per share for Q3 2022. The dividend is payable on Oct. 28 to shareholders as of Oct. 4, 2022. Rithm also announced dividends for its Series A, Series B, Series C and Series D cumulative redeemable preferred shares, all of which are payable on Nov. 15 to preferred shareholders as of Oct. 17, 2022.
Forward Dividend Yield: 9.82%
Payout Ratio: 45.20%
Price: $63.12
Market Cap: $41.3 billion
1-Year Total Return: 123.7%
Devon Energy is an oil and gas exploration, development, and production company. The company also transports oil, gas, and related products and processes natural gas.
The markets often see higher than average dividend yielding stocks as riskier than high dividend growth stocks. Such yields can even imply weak growth prospects. Be sure to look at the financial health and growth potential of companies in addition to dividend yield before investing.
3 Ratios Used to Analyze Dividend Stocks
Dividend Yield: This ratio measures the annual value of dividends received relative to a security's per share market value. Investors calculate the dividend yield by dividing the annual dividend per share by the current stock price.
For example, if company XZY issues a dividend of $10 annually with a current share price of $100, it has a dividend yield of 10% ($10 / $100 = 10%). Those seeking high-yielding stocks can start their search by screening for issues with a divided yield above a certain percentage. Bear in mind that there are many other factors besides dividend yield that investors should consider before investing in a stock.
Dividend Payout Ratio: The DPR measures how much of a company's earnings are paid out to shareholders. Investors calculate the ratio by dividing total dividends by net income.
For instance, if company XZY reported a net income of $50,000 and paid $15,000 in annual dividends, it would have a DRP of 30% ($15,000 / $50,000 = 30%). This means the company pays out 30% of its earnings to shareholders. Generally, a company that pays out less than 50% of its net earnings in dividends is considered stable and has the potential for sustainable long-term earnings growth.
Dividend Coverage Ratio: This ratio measures the number of times a company can pay dividends to its shareholders. Investors calculate the dividend coverage ratio by dividing a company's annual earnings per share (EPS) by its annual dividend per share.
For example, if company XZY reported $10 million in net income with an annual dividend of $2 million to shareholders, it has a dividend coverage ratio of 5 times. ($10 million / $2 million). Typically, investors view a higher dividend coverage ratio as more favorable.
Advantages of Dividend Stocks
Two key advantages of investing in dividend stocks include generating a passive income and dividend reinvestment.
Passive Income: Companies that pay dividends typically issue them quarterly, creating a reliable stream of passive income that investors can spend how they please. Dividends also have the added advantage of offsetting share price depreciation.
Dividend Reinvestment: Investors can reinvest dividends they receive back into the company to acquire more shares. This is called a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP). Participating in a DRIP allows the investor to take advantage of compounding returnsa proven strategy to build long-term wealth.
Do Your Dividend Stock Research
A high yield is great but it's just one of several aspects to consider when investing in dividend stocks. A higher than average yield can signal trouble if a struggling company is paying large dividend amounts in an effort to attract investors.
In addition to dividend yield, be sure to take a good look at the following data as well.
Payout ratio: As mentioned previously, this is the percentage of earnings that a company pays to its shareholders. A payout ratio of 35% to 55% is considered healthy because a company that distributes up to half of its earnings as dividends is likely to be a good performer and an industry leader. Importantly, it's reinvesting a good share of its earnings back into itself for growth.
Dividend increases: A solid history of increasing dividends is welcome news because it indicates that a company has had the financial wherewithal and desire through good economic times and bad to keep paying its shareholders, and to raise the amount it pays.
Dependable revenue and earnings growth: Over time, the more stable, the better. An occasional erratic result might not raise eyebrows but anything else may signal a company in trouble.
Solid market share and competitive advantages: These can help companies maintain their ability to be excellent performers. Such advantages might be intellectual property, advanced technology, high barriers to entry, and a highly recognizable and respected brand name.
What Is the Dividend Yield? Its a percentage that represents the income (via dividends) that a company pays stock investors compared to the price of the stock. Dividend yield is just one metric that may help investors to decide whether or not a company's stock can make a good addition to their portfolios.
How Does the Payout Ratio Relate to Dividend Yield? While dividend yield compares dividend income to stock price, the payout ratio compares dividend income to company earnings. In other words, it shows investors how much a company pays them versus how much it keeps for itself. It can provide an idea of the income investors may expect to receive in the future. A payout ratio that is too highwhere the company pays investors much more than it reinvests in itselfcan mean there's not much room for dividend growth. It may signal a company in trouble.
What Companies Have Paid Dividends the Longest? Famously, the following companies are among those that have paid shareholders dividends for over 100 years: Coca-Cola, General Mills, Chubb, Colgate-Palmolive, Proctor & Gamble, Consolidated Edison, Eli Lilly, and Exxon Mobile.
The Bottom Line
Dividend yield compares the income a company pays shareholders to the price of that stock. Its calculated by dividing the annual dividend amount (the amount of income paid throughout a year) by the stocks price. While a high dividend yield may be appealing, it doesn't necessarily mean a stock is a smart investment.
Dividend yield is one tool to use to screen for dividend stocks that are potentially worth owning. Overly high dividend yields may indicate that a company is struggling. Likewise, companies with extremely high payout ratios can also signal danger to investors.
Before investing your money, invest some time in looking for companies that are financially healthy enough to sustain and potentially grow their dividends, and continue to offer an attractive dividend yield.
The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed herein are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or to adopt any investment strategy. While we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described in our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy.
The fate of the merger between T-Mobile US, Inc. (TMUS) and Sprint Corporation (S) will soon be in the hands of Senior United States District Judge Victor Marrero, who presided over a December trial brought by 14 state attorneys general seeking to block the well-publicized hook-up. Opinions of Wall Street analysts are evenly divided on the court's decision, which may come later this month. U.S. government agencies have already stated they won't block the merger, so a "thumbs-up" here could finally end the legal battle.
T-Mobile US CEO John Legere triggered a stock decline in November when media outlets reported that he was seeking the CEO job at WeWork, the troubled start-up. That didn't happen, but the executive announced his resignation just one week later, effective when his contract expires on April 30. Unfortunately for shareholders, the drama unfolded right in the middle of the merger approval process, triggering an unneeded distraction while raising legitimate questions about his fiduciary obligations.
Even so, T-Mobile US stock is holding support at the 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) in the $70s ahead of the court decision and could gain ground regardless of the final outcome. Sprint's share price performance has deteriorated since the start of merger discussions, and many investors will be happy if the deal fails and T-Mobile gets a golden opportunity to walk away. However, volatility is likely to spike higher in the short term regardless of the outcome.
TMUS Long-Term Chart (2007 2020)
TradingView.com
The 13-year price history combines a number of mergers and acquisitions, as well as accounting changes by parent Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGY). T-Mobile US stock charged higher after opening in the mid-$20s on the first day of trading in April 2007, entering a modest uptrend that topped out just above $40 in July. The subsequent downtrend hit new lows in September, signaling the next phase of a bearish period that finally ended at an all-time low in the single digits in February 2010.
A bounce into 2011 failed in the upper teens, giving way to renewed selling pressure, followed by a successful retest of the prior low in the second quarter of 2012. That price action completed a large-scale double bottom reversal, setting the stage for a new uptrend that stalled within five points of the 2007 high in 2014. The stock ground sideways around that level into the second quarter of 2015 and broke out, but upside momentum failed to develop until the first quarter of 2016.
That rally impulse posted impressive gains into 2017, stalling in the upper $80s, ahead of a broad and volatile trading range that persisted into a February 2019 breakout. The rally posted an all-time high at $85.22 on July 26, giving way to choppy sideways action between that resistance level and range support in the mid-$70s. The holding pattern remains in force this January, while market players patiently await the finalization of the merger process.
The monthly stochastics oscillator reached the overbought level in September 2019 and crossed into a long-term sell cycle in November, predicting at least six to nine months of relative weakness. The indicator is now accelerating through the panel's midpoint, suggesting that market players believe that the merger will get blocked. Even so, underlying accumulation remains exceptionally strong, and bears should stay on the sidelines as long as price continues to hold above 2017 breakout support in the upper $60s.
The Bottom Line
T-Mobile and Sprint shareholders are awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit brought by 14 state attorneys general, which is seeking to block their well-publicized merger.
Disclosure: The author held no positions in the aforementioned securities or their derivatives at the time of publication.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Tencent plans to provide parents with a platform where they could monitor their childrens activity when using its apps. (Photo : Twitter)
Tencent Holdings reported that a 13-year-old girl may have faked her age when she registered on Quanmin Karaoke, a live-broadcast app the company owns. The controversy arose when the girl issued debit payments for gifts to a performer using her mother's smartphone.
China Daily reported that Tencent's public relations department disclosed that the girl remitted debit payments of over 250,000 yuan to a performer named Yang Guang, with daily payments ranging between 1,900 yuan to 9,500 yuan daily.
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As is customary with users of live-broadcast apps in China, users have the option to issue virtual gifts that are convertible to cash, making it a popular choice for performers nowadays. Other performers can also ask for money directly via private message.
In the current case, chat records show that Yang has asked the girl to send money on two occasions--one for 5,000 yuan and another for 20,000 yuan. The girl's mother received no text messages from the bank concerning the debit transactions, which she suspects were deleted by her daughter.
Now, Tencent is considering the possibility on whether the girl registered using a fake age, as Quanmin Karaoke's data shoes that her account is registered as 28 years old instead of her real age so that she can send virtual gifts. The data also shows that she registered her surname as "Han," not "Su," her real one.
Tencent vows to negotiate a refund once everything has been cleared, but for now the company is calling for the mother to come forward and verify whether the payments were made with her consent, considering that she left her smartphone to her daughter for leisure purposes.
Currently, Tencent does not require user to register their real names in any of its apps, but the issue hopes to encourage the company to push further with its plan to provide parents with a platform where they could monitor their children's activity when using its apps.
Farmers are concerned that vital efforts to keep their poultry safe from bird flu may also ruin their business.
The EU allows a 12-week period for products to continue to be marketed as "free range" while kept indoors - but the bird-flu risk has not eased and our 12-week period comes to an end on March 17.
Several units of the Cork County Fire Service attended a major blaze at an old mill in the early hours of the morning.
The fire broke out at the premises at Ballinacurra, near Midleton.
Nick Viall attends the Pitchfork after-party at Virgin Hotels Chicago with a performance by Vic Mensa at The Virgin Hotel on July 17, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo : Jeff Schear/Getty Images)
"The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017) episode 7 will see Nick Viall drop a bombshell on the remaining contestants. The upcoming episode picks up from where it left off and will see the bachelor at his low point during the journey. Here are a few spoilers for the next chapter of the series. Read on to find out what happens next.
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[Spoiler alert! This article contains spoilers for "The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017) episode 7. Do not read further if you don't wish to know more about it.]
"The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017) episode 6 ended with a major cliffhanger. Nick Viall made a shocking confession about how he feels about the process. The leading man's emotional outburst leaves the remaining women confused and wondering.
Moving on to "The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017) episode 7. The network has released a press release for the upcoming segment on its official website teasing some shocking moments. According to the website, Nick Viall is devastated after the last week's intense group date and a two-on-one date. He reportedly decides to walk out of the show and his chance to find true love.
The drama unfolds when Nick Viall drops another bombshell on the ladies. They are left wondering about the future of the show. It is said that all of Nick Viall's relationships are questioned. According to TV Guide, Nick Viall approaches "The Bachelor" host Chris Harrison for advice on how to deal with his situation.
In addition, the blogger Reality Steve has reported what happens in Week 7 of "The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017). According to his episode-by-episode spoilers, Nick Viall and the remaining women head to the Bahamas wherein he invites three girls for one-on-one date. He asks Vanessa Grimaldi, Danielle Maltby and Rachel Lindsay on the one-on-one date. Unfortunately, he eliminates Danielle Maltby during the date.
As for the group date, he goes swimming with sharks with Raven Gates, Kristina Schulman and Corinne Olympios. Raven Gates wins the group date rose. In Week 7, no official rose ceremony is conducted. Nick Viall decides to pay a visit to the girl's room when he sends Kristina home.
This means Vanessa Grimaldi, Raven Gates, Corinne Olympios and Rachel Lindsay are "The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017) final four contestants. Next week, Nick Viall will be visiting these ladies hometown for hometown date next week.
"The Bachelor" Season 21 (2017) episode 7 airs Feb. 13 at 8:00 pm on ABC. Stay tuned for more spoilers and updates.
Water levels have dropped at California's Lake Oroville, stopping water from spilling over a massive dam's potentially hazardous emergency spillway after authorities ordered the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people from towns lying below the lake.
California department of water resources officials are waiting for the light of dawn to inspect an erosion scar on the spillway at the Oroville Dam, the US's largest.
The evacuations for people living below the lake were ordered on Sunday after authorities warned that failure of the emergency spillway could send a 30ft wall of water into the communities.
The lake that also serves as a reservoir has swelled significantly in recent weeks because California has been hit by a series of storms that have dumped rain and snow across the state, particularly in northern California, where the lake lies about 150 miles north east of San Francisco.
The threat appeared to ease somewhat on Monday, with officials saying water flows into the lake stood at about 45,000 cubic feet per second with outflows at 100,000 cubic feet per second.
Lake Oroville is one of California's largest man-made lakes and had water levels so high on Saturday that its emergency spillway was used for the first time since it was built nearly 50 years ago.
Sunday afternoon's evacuation order came after engineers spotted a hole on the concrete lip of the secondary spillway for the 770ft-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.
The sudden evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belongings into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the evacuation order was given.
Kaysi and Greg Levias packed everything they could into their car from their Yuba City apartment and piled everything they were leaving behind as high as possible before leaving the city they moved to just three weeks ago.
"We've never been through this before," said Kaysi Levias. "We have two boys and our dog. All the stuff we could fit in the trunk - clothes and blankets."
Raj Gill, managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got fuel and snacks, said his boss told him to close the station and flee himself.
But he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
"You can't even move," he said.
"I'm trying to get out of here too. I'm worried about the flooding. I've seen the pictures - that's a lot of water."
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation centre in Chico, California.
The shelter had run out of blankets and cots, and a tractor trailer with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the gridlock of traffic fleeing the potential flooding, said Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch.
A California highway patrol spokesman said two planes would fly on Monday to help with traffic control and possible search and rescue missions.
At least 250 California law enforcement officers were posted near the dam and along evacuation routes to manage the exodus of residents and ensure evacuated towns do not face looting or other criminal activity.
"There is still a lot of unknowns," Butte County sheriff Kory Honea said.
"We need to continue to lower the lake levels and we need to give the department of water resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the area."
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
Bill Croyle, acting director of the department of water resources, said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the lake levels have come down.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville.
Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees and flood towns in three counties.
Oroville Lake levels had decreased by Sunday night as they let water flow from its heavily damaged main spillway.
Mr Croyle said the department will continue releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main spillway to try to reduce the dam's level by 50ft ahead of storms forecast to reach the area on Wednesday.
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness on Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.
The California national guard put out a notification to all of its 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy.
It marked the first time an alert for the entire California national guard had been issued since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers over the beating of Rodney King.
Earlier on Sunday, officials had stressed the Oroville Dam itself was structurally sound.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway during heavy rain earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200ft-long, 30ft-deep hole that continues growing.
Engineers do not know what caused the cave-in.
Chris Orrock, a department of water resources spokesman, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it is being used for water releases.
The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in southern California.
Republican colleagues of Donald Trump have expressed concern about his mental health, a Democratic senator claimed.
Minnesota senator Al Franken said the concern of "a few" Republicans arises "in the way that we all have this suspicion" that "he lies a lot".
He added: "He says things that aren't true. That's the same as lying, I guess."
Mr Franken cited Mr Trump's groundless claim that he would have won the popular vote in the presidential race if not for 3 million to 5 million immigrants in the country illegally voting for his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump is also said to have told some senators in a private meeting at the White House that he and former Republican senator Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire if it had not been for voters bussed in from out of state.
Mr Franken said: "You know, that is not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a human being."
It is one of the great paradoxes.
Irish urban housing lists are greater than ever, rents and purchase prices soar beyond the reach of all but the financially fortunate. Yet across towns and cities, large numbers of residential and commercial properties lie vacant.
Recent data estimates 230,000 empty homes in Ireland, many in areas of economic decline, or where tax drive development resulted in huge oversupply.
But in Dublin, where housing demand is buoyant, and over 130,000 are on housing waiting lists, at least 20,000 homes are said to lie empty. These unused assets help drag down the appearance of neighbourhoods, exposing residents to unnecessary risk while devaluing nearby properties.
Green Party councillor, Ciaran Cuffe, a former housing minister, is calling for appropriate measures aimed at tackling the problem. He suggests many empty properties are in the hands of investors holding on to them in the hope of eventually making some not so quick bucks. He has proposed the adoption of a carrot and stick approach by the authorities.
On one hand, development contribution levies could be lowered. On the other, a levy on the market value of the vacant properties or sites, would be introduced and enforced.
The levy would rise on an annual basis depending on the length of time the property is left empty to a maximum of 6%. Using such an approach, the owner would be left with no option but either develop, or sell the property on.
The authorities have in fact been taking measures to tackle the problem. But how effective will they turn out to be?
In July 2015, the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act was passed. Its intended purpose was to spur developers and landowners through penalties and incentives to develop land zoned for residential use. The act proposed the introduction of a 3% levy payable from 2019.
Tom OByrne, of solicitors OFlynn Exhams, has warned problems could arise when it comes to determining a site market value. The act provides for an estimate of open market value based on an unencumbered freehold title. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the law knows there are problems with the title to many properties.
He points out no allowance is made in the legislation for the financial position of the landowner or developer, or for possible planning difficulties. A decision with regard to market value can be appealed to the Valuation Tribunal, or to the High Court on a point of law.
Large numbers of properties are mortgaged to the hilt and one suspects many vacant properties are owned by individuals, or controlling shareholders in companies, up to their neck in debt.
Much of that debt was run up during the boom and became unmanageable following the crash. The 2015 act provides for a reduction in the proposed levy to zero where the value of the mortgage, or other charge on the property exceeds the market value of the property and for proportionate reductions where outstanding borrowings are estimated at less than full market value.
Where levies are left unpaid, they become a charge on the property in question, payable whenever it is put up for sale. It seems the levy haul could be a lot less than hoped for unless that piece of legislation is redrawn.
Even locating the owners of such properties can prove an uphill struggle, particularly for local bodies which may be struggling with manpower shortages.
Progress of sorts has taken place since the start of 2017, as local authorities have been required to keep a register of vacant properties. In some cases, properties have yet to be placed on the local register.
Weve been here before. In 1990, the Derelict Sites Act was passed. It aimed at cracking down on those who left properties decline into a ruinous state. There is little evidence of active enforcement of the act.
The 2015 act applies to properties that are not derelict, but have been left unoccupied for lengthy periods. So a wider net is cast by the 2015 act, but will inertia on the part of officialdom once again be the order of the day?
We are constantly being told we are in the middle of a housing emergency, with thousands of children in short-term accommodation. Shortages of suitable accommodation act to scythe down living standards, boost inflation, discourage investment and spark a flight of skilled labour. They store up longer term social costs.
Yet supply is held back at a time of great demand by virtue of so many properties being left empty. In many cases, owners may be elderly, no longer in charge of their affairs or over-borrowed. Some are in the hands of financial institutions and vulture funds.
The Green Party has just introduced legislation proposing a levy of up to 6%. Ciaran Cuffe believes that compulsory purchase orders could be used more frequently in such situations.
The 2015 act contains three weaknesses first, it applies only to individual properties of over 500 square metres, the equivalent of at least two large adjoining houses with gardens. Second, loans can be deducted why should they be? In Cuffes view, over-borrowed owners should be encouraged to sell.
A third problem is the current 3% levy, even when eventually applied, is too low in an environment where land values are rising by double digits amounts at present.
In Germany, regional governments actually people to move in, as guardians, to empty properties.
Our constitution guarantees the citizen the right to own private property, and rights as owners, but these rights are not absolute. Those who allow property to lie idle trample not merely on the common good, but on the rights of affected neighbours. An empty house soon becomes a damaged house, and problems quickly spread.
This social sore has been allowed to fester for far too long and needs tackling. Failure to do so amounts to condoning waste at a time of real shortage.
But be in no doubt. Tracking down such owners and facing them down in the courts will be another challenge.
As ever, well-meant laws run the risk of falling down due to ineffectual enforcement. One wonders whether hard-stretched local governments are up to it. But is surely time they got to grips with an issue which will simply not go away.
However, they said Mr Justice Peter Charletons commission of investigation should get under way first and only if evidence of criminal behaviour emerges either during or at the conclusion of those proceedings should the question of a parallel or follow-on investigation be decided.
Sgt Maurice McCabe has said his preference would be for an external criminal probe and he is backed in that call by Labour leader Brendan Howlin who urged a fresh approach rather than another commission the third one to probe the whistleblower affair.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny said he would not rule some form of criminal investigation but said that Judge Charleton was ready to go and should be allowed get his probe under way.
In order to have a criminal investigation you have to have evidence of criminality and that may well happen, he said. As is the case in any commission of investigation, when its completed or during the course of its work under way, there may be High Court injunctions or there may well be criminal investigations to follow that so I wouldnt rule it out and the terms of reference actually allow for that.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald also left the way open for a police investigation although she too said she wants to see what the Charleton Commission threw up first.
READ MORE: Michael Clifford: Cock-up or conspiracy, its time to come clean about Maurice McCabe claims
Commissions can not gather evidence for use in criminal investigations so if the behind-closed-doors proceedings hear that laws were broken, any subsequent Garda probe would have to begin a fresh trawl of information.
The use of external police to probe the gardai would be a dramatic step requiring legislation. The FBI was called in here in 2000 to examine Garda actions during the Abbeylara siege which ended with the shooting dead of John Carthy but that investigation was headed by a senior Garda officer and the visiting officers were here to assist rather than lead the inquiry.
Gsoc, the Garda Ombudsman, has full powers to investigate suspected criminal behaviour by members of the force and prepare files for the DPP with recommendations on charges but it is already investigating two issues relating to the whistleblower affair and its resources are under strain.
READ MORE: Second apology to Maurice McCabe bungled by HSE
READ MORE: No-confidence motion adds to whistleblower woes
READ MORE: Taoiseach Enda Kenny refuses to clear up whistleblower questions
READ MORE: Minister knew for 6 months about second gardas Tusla concerns
READ MORE: Maurice McCabe meeting deepens crisis
READ MORE: Gerard Howlin: Election wont help resolve dirty war in An Garda Siochana
READ MORE: The escalating Maurice McCabe scandal: Enda Kennys ship is heading for the rocks
READ MORE: Questions keep coming as the Maurice McCabe plot thickens
The partys finance spokesperson, Michael McGrath, ramped up the pressure on the stalled project as the first anniversary of the sod turning passed without a brick being laid.
More than two years after 20m in public funding was sanctioned, and a year after the sod turning, building work has yet to start on the 6,000-seat venue, earmarked for the former Beamish and Crawford site on South Main St.
Cast and crew of AMC's 'The Walking Dead' attend Comic-Con International 2016 at San Diego Convention Center on July 22, 2016 in San Diego, California. (Photo : Getty Images/ Jesse Grant)
"The Walking Dead" Season 7 aired its midseason finale on Sunday night and left fans with more questions than answers.
Following the episode, showrunner Scott Gimple spoke with TV Line to answer some of the biggest questions from the installment. For instance, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) endured Gregory's (Xander Berkeley) attitude so it was a bit confusing for fans to know that Maggie did not even consider staging a coup against Gregory.
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Gimple explained that Maggie did not do so because she feels that she is not meant to do such a job. Since Maggie is being given tons of new responsibilities, she is left with no other choice but to be careful with her deeds. She is not interested in staging a coup because she is positive Gregory would eventually come around.
Even though Gregory has not really been good to Maggie, she is a positive and hopeful person who does not want anything bad to happen to her peers. "And in this world, if you are alive, there is still hope for you. Once you are a walker, not so much," he said.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel (Travis Love) continued to check up with Carol (Melissa McBride) in the episode, and there are speculations that he could be interested in her romantically. Gimple explained that the two will not necessarily be linked to each other romantically. Instead, they have so much respect for each other.
In other news, "The Walking Dead" is expected to return with a few more episodes in Season 7. Talking about the fate of the show, Gimple said that there will continue to be a war against everybody vs. the Saviors. "I would not say one way or the other, but we will definitely see aspects of some stories from the all-out war story. The finale is just a huge swath of tones and worlds and characters and moments," he said.
"The Walking Dead" Season 7 airs Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on AMC.
As tensions rose inside Government, the Tanaiste faced mounting disbelief yesterday over how ministers handled false sex abuse allegations against whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
Several opposition TDs questioned the veracity of Ms Fitzgeralds answers after weekend claims she had misled the Dail last week over her knowledge about the Tusla false sex abuse allegations.
The latest political crisis surrounding whistleblowers has rocked the minority coalition, just as it moves to agree terms for a full inquiry into an alleged campaign to undermine those gardai.
Ms Fitzgerald, despite being the minister overseeing the setting-up of the new inquiry, claimed she had been unaware of the Tusla file until learning of it through the media last Thursday.
The Fine Gael minister told RTE how Minister for Children Katherine Zappone rang her on January 25 to say she was meeting Sgt McCabe. Sgt McCabe has been central to several inquiries and scandals, some of which resulted in the resignation of a former justice minister and Garda commissioner.
But the justice minister simply said on the phone to her Cabinet colleague: I said thanks for calling me Katherine and that was it. The justice minister said that was the only conversation the two had about the McCabe meeting, despite the fact it centred on the Tusla false abuse claim and a formal apology to the garda.
This was also ahead of the Cabinet last week assessing the terms for the new Charleton inquiry.
Ms Fitzgerald added: Cabinet ministers talk all the time in relation to information or meetings they are having and what happens is, if something is relevant, the person comes back to you.
READ MORE: Michael Clifford: Cock-up or conspiracy, its time to come clean about Maurice McCabe claims
The Tanaiste also insisted that by not asking Ms Zappone about the McCabe meeting, she was respecting the integrity of her meeting with him.
Theres no conspiracy theory here of me taking certain actions in order to avoid certain things, said Ms Fitzgerald. But Independent4Changes Clare Daly said the answers were not credible, as did Labours Alan Kelly.
The latter said this was particularly so as the justice minister had previously been made aware of another Garda whistle-blowers concerns, and problems with Tusla, from 13 letters that were sent to her.
Mr Kelly also suggested Ms Fitzgerald had thrown the minister for children, under a bus and Cabinet had broken down.
Minister Fitzgerald knew in October from a second whistleblower that he had concerns regarding how his family were treated by Tusla so when Minister Zappone told her she was meeting the McCabes regarding his concerns, why didnt she connect the two? he asked.
Sinn Fein also claimed Ms Fitzgerald misled the Dail last week on the matter, an allegation strenuously denied by the minister.
READ MORE: Criminal investigation into whistleblower smear campaign a possibility
READ MORE: Second apology to Maurice McCabe bungled by HSE
READ MORE: No-confidence motion adds to whistleblower woes
READ MORE: Taoiseach Enda Kenny refuses to clear up whistleblower questions
READ MORE: Minister knew for 6 months about second gardas Tusla concerns
READ MORE: Maurice McCabe meeting deepens crisis
READ MORE: Gerard Howlin: Election wont help resolve dirty war in An Garda Siochana
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READ MORE: Questions keep coming as the Maurice McCabe plot thickens
NGINX, a San Francisco-headquartered company, plans to create the jobs over the next three years through an IDA Ireland-supported expansion its Irish operations in Cork City.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny will announce the jobs at a press conference in the Opera House around lunchtime.
NGINX is a web and application server company which provides a range of services for some of the worlds most popular and busiest websites, including Netflix, Instagram, Airbnb, and Pinterest.
It emerged as an open source project in 2002, but it has raised tens of millions of dollars in venture capital since 2011, and is today, one of the worlds fastest growing companies of its kind.
It also provides big data solutions and cloud hosting infrastructure services to hundreds of millions of websites around the world.
The jobs boost comes a day after hopes faded of a major jobs boost at Eli Lillys Cork campus. It was reported yesterday that the planned 200m expansion of its Kinsale facility has been put on hold over fears about US President Donald Trumps plans for reform of the pharmaceutical sector.
A decision on whether to proceed with the expansion has been postponed pending clarification on the impact of Mr Trumps policies on the industry.
Meanwhile, Mr Kenny will address a major public meeting on Brexit in Cork this evening.
It is the latest in a series of such public meetings which are being organised by the Fine Gael Brexit Response Group, which was established last autumn.
He will be joined by senior Oireachtas members, including Minister for Housing, Simon Coveney, Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, Minister of State for European Affairs, Dara Murphy, Minister of State for Equality, Immigration and Integration, David Stanton, and Seanad leader, Senator Jerry Buttimer.
Other speakers at the event include Alasdair McDonnell, SDLP MP for Belfast South, and Dr Mary Murphy of UCC.
Mr Kenny said it is one of a series of public meetings taking place around the country in order to listen to the views of local communities.
Our key priorities are clear and involve focusing on the economy and trade; the border and common travel area; Northern Ireland and the Peace Process; as well as the future of the European Union and Irelands place in it, he said.
We will continue to adapt our policies to address new circumstances as they arise and this is your opportunity to have an input at a local level.
Tonights meeting at Clayton Hotel Silver Springs starts at 7pm and is open to the public.
Mr Kenny is also due to visit St Angelas College, St Patricks Hill, today to view the architecturally stunning school refurbishment.
It seems that, by the time you read this column, Ill be in the Ethiopian highlands or lowlands, maybe in the Rift Valley. I have no special plans or itinerary. Ive never been in Ethiopia before.
Its very high above sea-level and I hope my ears dont keep popping all the time. They have a tendency to do, even in La Gomera, where the highest point is only 1,4870m.
Anyway, I will be toting along a balloon system which is supposed to un-pop them, should the problem occur. It seems you stick a balloon into your nostril and, keeping your mouth and the other nostril closed, blow it full of air.
I hope it works. I hope I wont have to do it in public. Ive no doubt Ill be intrigued by how the Ethiopians look, but the sight of an Irishman with an inflated balloon sticking out of one nostril will, no doubt, be intriguing for them.
Meanwhile, it is a pity to leave Ireland with the spring easing itself in. Bluebells are popping up in little green spikes out of the leaf-plastered woodland floor, with pale, spear-shaped ramson leaves around them.
Take one of these leaves and crush it between finger and thumb and the smell of garlic will be so pungent that youll stand back from your hand. The scent when theyre young is strong enough to scare away a coven of vampires.
They also make good pesto, crushed along with pine nuts and olive oil in a mortar and pestle. My knowledge of pesto is entirely confined to enjoying it as a garnish for pasta. But it certainly makes a cheap and simple dressing, adding lively zest to the spaghetti, macaroni, or whatever.
Birds are pairing up; taispe is in the air. The crows have all built, or are building. The 2,000 rooks that fly back and forth over our local woods every evening at dusk are especially raucous.
Magpies have their domed nests up, grey crows have secured their solitary, untidy bundles, often quite low in a tree, the ravens on the cliffs had laid the first sticks by February 6, and the herons already have their big rafts of twigs perched atop the tallest trees and so well built that they survived the gales of the weekend before last when, in our yard, everything, including bins, buckets, and heavy flower pots, were sent scattering.
The leaves of wild triquetrous garlic grows like a slightly broader silage grass under the beeches across our stream; heliotrope, blooming and otherwise, is rampant. The earliest celandine has flowered.
What I found most joyous this February was a pond at a friends garden so dense with frog spawn soup that one could see more spawn than water. This pond is twice the size of a double bed, so there were many, many embryonic froglets in their bubbles just waiting to be hatched.
He has these froglet legions hopping about the adjacent lawn every year, and cannot cut the grass until late June for fear of mincing them.
He is an ecological person, this man, Anthony Creswell, who owns and runs Ummera Smoked Products in Timoleague, Co Cork, producing high-grade, organic salmon and other delicacies, and when he says organic, I believe him.
He has created a wetland between his home and the River Argideen. Here, rushes, marsh marigolds and frogs thrive. It is wonderful that frogs have a safe haven. Those of us over 40 will remember that one almost always encountered a frog or two when crossing a rain- or dew-wet field, or drove the roads on a rainy night. No more.
I havent seen a frog for years and I regularly pass through grassy fields, largely improved, of course, and cut for silage. Not a frog, and certainly not a newt!
The last newts I saw were in England, the last frogs in La Gomera in the Canary Islands. Anyway, Anthony is giving these useful amphibians space and conditions in which they can thrive. If all those bubbles become froglets, there will certainly be no midges at Ummera!
My reason for visiting Anthony was to collect a bucket-full of very lively, shiny earthworms farmed to turn his salmon waste to compost to spread over our garden and transform mulch, spread earlier, into fine soil, albeit the clay layer remains beneath.
But, Anthony tells me, the worms will penetrate that too. They always head for the earths centre. Its not per ardua, ad astra (through adversity to the stars) with worms, but the opposite. And, apparently, if you are lost, find a worm and let it crawl away. Supposedly, worms always crawl northward, he says. Can this be true?
Nokia is teaming with American telecommunications company Sprint to demonstrate its new 4.9G technology at this years Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, as revealed in a press release from Nokia.
The 4.9G technology will be demonstrated using 3D Beamforming software, and is capable of delivering gains of up to eight times the normal uplink throughput and five times the normal downlink throughput.
Burma Minister Urges Cooperation at 70th Mon National Day Celebration
Ethnic Mon people celebrate the 70th Mon National Day in Kyaikmayaw town, Feb. 12, 2017. / Lawi Weng / The Irrawaddy
KYAIKMAYAW, Mon State At a celebration of the 70th Mon National Day on Sunday in Kyaikmayaw town, the Mon State chief minister called upon the ethnic Mon people to work cooperatively with the government to strengthen the Union and to improve Burmas democracy.
Although Burma has enacted major political reforms in recent years, Mon State Chief Minister Min Min Oo said the government still faces many challenges.
I am glad to see us working together with the ethnic people today, said the chief minister. This will help us to build a strong Union. We have many challenges, but these challenges will help us to create more opportunities. I believe that our ethnic people will have courage and will move forward by working with the Union to strengthen our democracy and human rights.
Thousands of ethnic Mon celebrated their 70th annual national day on Sunday, both in Mon State and across Burma. The main celebration took place in Mon States Kyaikmayaw town, where residents from several townships gathered. The event showcased Mon culture, literature, and dancing.
Our system of democracy respects the rights and dignity of the people, added Minister Min Min Oo. If the system did not do this, then it wouldnt be real democracy.
This year, the Mon State government donated 10.5 million kyats (US$7,600) to fund the working committee that planned the Mon National Day celebration. Normally, community leaders do not receive money from the regional government, and local leaders must draw from their own budgets to fund the celebration.
High tensions were felt prior to the celebration as the Burma Army had ordered the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA) not to perform a military parade. On Sunday, the Burma Army drove several trucks to Three Pagodas Pass and threatened to attack the MNLA for refusing the Burma Armys order.
The MNLA paraded anyway, and no clashes broke out.
Large celebrations for Mon National Day are traditionally held in several locations around Mon State. There was also a celebration in Mahachai, outside of Bangkok in Thailand.
In Mahachai on Sunday, Nai Hong Sarthe United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) vice chairmandelivered a speech where he urged the ethnic Mon people to fight for their freedom.
There are other ethnic armed groups who will fight for equal rights with us. We will work together with them, he said.
Nai Hong Sar told the people not to enjoy living in Thailand, where he said that Mon people often serve as cheap laborers.
You could go to work in Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand to be a laborer, he said. But we still dont have our own freedom. We still must take orders from others. So we need to give our blood and fight for our own freedom.
Burma General Aung San Statue Unveiled in Kachin State Amid Controversy
A statue of Gen Aung San Statue is unveiled in Myitkyina on Monday. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy
MYITKYINA Amid opposition from both ethnic Kachin political parties and locals, a statue of Gen Aung San statue was unveiled in Kachin State capital of Myitkyina on Monday, which would have been the 102nd birthday of the late general.
The statue, on a 15-foot-high plinth, sits in the town center, and its compound covers an area of 300 sq. feet. It was built by a committee formed specifically to construct Gen Aung San statues, with the support of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD).
U Myat Kyaw Thu, chairman of the committee, said in his address that the statue aimed to inspire adults and students to follow in the footsteps of Gen Aung San and become upright, diligent, altruistic, and open-minded persons. In the speech, Aung San was also remembered as the architect of Burmas independence.
Hkahku La, an ethnic Kachin man who serves as one of the patrons of the committee, told The Irrawaddy that he supported the construction of the Gen Aung San statue because the late general had spoken of the shared prosperity of all of Burmas ethnicities together, rather than about the advancement of one ethnic group in particular.
He said that the idea of having a statue was not a new one, and had been suggested some two years ago by groups that staged demonstrations against the China-backed Myitsone dam project in Kachin State.
The Kachin Political Cooperation Committee (KPCC)a four-member committee of Kachin political parties comprising the Kachin Democratic Party, the Kachin State Democracy Party, the Lhaovo National Unity and Development Party, and the Kachin National Congressfiled a complaint with the Kachin State chief minister on Feb. 6 regarding the statue.
KPCC spokesperson Jaw Naw Seng said that erecting the statue was unacceptable to Kachin people as long as Gen Aung Sans pledge in the 1947 Panglong Agreementof transforming Burma into a country exemplifying federalism and equalityremains unfulfilled.
Jaw Naw Seng also spoke against the Ba La Min Htin Bridge, which crosses the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State, and which is named after an ethnic Bamar warrior. He said the bridge should be designated a different name, more closely related to Kachin heritage. Such is the case for the statue of the late general, he said, calling it a disregard for the feelings of the Kachin people.
Daw Ja Sai, a Myitkyina resident, said: We are much in trouble amid clashes. I think these problems need to be solved first. Putting the statue downtown wont solve our problems. On the contrary, it will result in unnecessary problems.
One of the patrons of the committee, monk Sayadaw Ashin Pinnavamsa, said the statue has no relation to politics, and was solely constructed to commemorate the centennial birthday of the late general.
The committee said the statue compound is owned by the state government. The statue has cost an estimated 15 million kyats (US$11,000), contributed by donors and committee members.
The opening ceremony was attended by NLD officials, students and community elders. A similar statue to the one in Myitkyina was also unveiled in Kachin States Bhamo on Monday.
The NLD has formed committees to construct General Aung San statues in each division and state, according to party sources.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
Burma State-Run Media Misleads the Public About War, Says KIO
Gen Gun Maw, KIO vice chairman, speaks to The Irrawaddy in January 2017. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy
LAIZA, Kachin State Government and Tatmadaw-controlled media organizations have misinformed the public about the Burma Armys military offensives, alleged Gen Gun Maw, vice chairman of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).
Gen Gun Maw said that state-run media have falsely persuaded the public that Burma Army attacks against ethnic armed groups are related to those groups not signing the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA).
[The Burma Army] says some groups need to sign [the NCA], and some dont need to, he said. But at the same time, they say the reason they are fighting with some groups is because those groups havent signed. Actually, all media owned by the government and the Tatmadaw are telling the public that they are in a war against us because we wont sign the NCA. This is a false narrative; it is the wrong path.
The Tatmadaws offensives against the KIA have been continuous almost every day. They are making total war, using all of their manpower and technology except for navy forces, Gen Gun Maw said during an interview in late January.
On Monday, Kachin Independence Army (KIA) sources reported that the Burma Army was deploying additional soldiers to Hpakant and Putao townships in northern Kachin State. The Burma Army was also blocking roads in Waingmaw Township, preventing food supplies from reaching camps of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and causing food shortages.
The KIA lost four strategic military outposts in Waingmaw Township in December and January, during heavy fighting with the Burma Army.
Continued offensives by the Burma Army will lead to a loss of trust and detract from peace negotiations, Gen Gun Maw said.
The KIO vice chairman expressed frustration that some groups were invited to engage in political dialogue with the government, but others were not.
Gen Gun Maw reiterated that the KIO and Union government must be able to discuss how to build the Union together. He pushed for the 1947 Panglong promises to be discussed at the Union Peace Conference. Otherwise, he said, the term Panglong should be deleted from the conferences title.
At the 70th Union Day celebration on Sunday, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi urged the remaining NCA non-signatories to sign the agreement and join the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference.
But some of the ethnic armed groups have said they will only join the peace conference when they are treated as equals. Gen Gun Maw said the KIO requested genuine and equal political dialogue when the NCA was being drafted in 2013-15.
We requested, if we signed the NCA, that we would be included in a joint leadership committee. But our request was not allowed. We requested for all groups to be allowed to sign the NCA, and that was not allowed either, said Gen Gun Maw.
He said the Tatmadaw was reluctant to allow the actively fighting ethnic armed groups to be included in the peace process.
The Burma Army created different categories for ethnic groups, and it allowed some of the smaller groupssuch as the Lahu Democratic Union, the Wa National Organization, and the Arakan National Council, which has no armed forcesto take part in the political dialogue without having signed the NCA.
After 17 years of ceasefire, war resumed in June 2011 between the KIA and the Tatmadaw, and more than 100,000 local civilians have been displaced by the renewed conflict. These IDPs are in need of food and shelter, particularly during this season of cold weather. Nearly half of the IDPs live in KIA-controlled territory and face regular threats to their lives as they come under intentional or unintentional attacks from the Burma Army.
Gen Gun Maw urged his people to understand and to bear the situation while the KIO works to solve the conflict through political effort.
Burma Team to Probe Police Abuse in Arakan State
Police on operations in Maungdaw Township, northern Arakan State / Moe Myint / The Irrawaddy
RANGOON A team of five high-ranking police officials will investigate allegations of widespread human rights abuses committed by security operations in Arakan States Maungdaw Township, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The move came after a United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report alleged widespread arbitrary detention, gang rape, arson, and extrajudicial killings of Muslim Rohingyaa group labeled as Bengali by the governmentby Burmese security forces.
Police Adjutant-General Chairman Brig-Gen Win Tun will head the enquiry, joined by Brig-Gen Nay Win, Col Nay Tun, Lt-Col Maung Maung Lwin as well as Col Khin Maung Aye who is Deputy Commander of the Criminal Investigation Department Secretary, read a statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs released Sunday.
The ministry has instructed the police force to follow international standards and to complete its mission in accordance with the Criminal Codes and police manual, according to the statement.
The statement said that that if the departmental enquiry found that members of the police force had violated human rights then they would be charged under Police Disciplinary Law and that action is already being taken against those who failed to follow the instructions/provisions, without elaborating on specific cases.
In late December, selfie-style footage of police kicking and beating Rohingya in Koe Tan Kauk village of Rathedaung Township in early November led to authorities detaining four police involved.
Today, Reuters reported that five policemen have been sentenced to two months detention and three senior officers had been demoted over the incident.
The Irrawaddy contacted Presidents Office spokesperson U Zaw Htay for confirmation, but he was unavailable for comment.
Lt-Col. Tin Win of the Burmese police force in Naypyidaw said that the investigation is ongoing and his department had not received any official report from the relevant department about legal punishment.
Last week, also in response to the OHCHR report, the Burma Army formed its own investigation team tasked to whether check soldiers operated within the framework of law and to ensure that security forces stay away from using excessive force and committing human rights violations.
In a statement it reaffirmed that legal action will be taken against anyone who breaks any of the directives.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said that the Burmese government was deeply concerned about the OHCHRs findings and considers the allegations contained in the report [to be] very serious in nature.
Nearly 70,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled security operations in northern Arakan State to Bangladesh, according to UN estimates. Last week, Reuters reported that two UN officials believed that more than 1,000 Rohingya may have been killed in the crackdown.
Burma Ukraine Wants Closer Military Ties with Burma, Expert Says
President U Htin Kyaw receives Mr. Pavlo Klimkin, the foreign affairs minister of Ukraine, in Naypyidaw on Jan. 12, 2017. / Presidents Office
CHIANG MAI, Thailand Ukraine will export new armored vehicles to the Burma Army, and the Eastern European nation is enthusiastic about boosting its military cooperation with Burma, according to a prominent Ukrainian military expert.
The Ukraine and Burma indeed have intensified their military cooperation recently, said Sergiy Zgurets, who is the director of the Center for Army Conversion and Disarmament Studies based in Kiev.
Ukraine fulfilled the obligations of their previous military contract, which was signed in 2013, he said. Now the countries have a second contract.
Zgurets stated that Ukraine will deliver new armored vehicles to the Burma Army, but he would not name the exact model of the vehicles or their number.
Its a sensitive issue because Ukraines army also needs these armored vehicles, but the state-owned arms company, Ukroboronprom, is selling them to Burma to earn money, Zgurets told The Irrawaddy.
In May 2016, the Ukrainian blog site Military Navigator reported that the Burma Army was interested in buying more BTR-3U armored personnel carriers. The BTR-3U is a modern 8-wheeled vehicle armed with a 30 millimeter canon and capable of carrying anti-tank missiles.
According to Military Navigator, the Burma Army already operates about 50 BTR-3 vehicles and has plans to acquire more. The website posted photos of Burma Army soldiers conducting training exercises alongside the BTR-3 armored vehicles.
On Jan. 12, Burma President U Htin Kyaw said that his government would promote a stronger bilateral relationship with Ukraine after meeting with Mr. Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraines foreign affairs minister, at the presidential palace in Naypyidaw.
Mr. Klimkin also met with Burmas military chief, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, during his visit to Naypyidaw.
The Presidents Office website announced on Jan. 13 that Burmese and Ukrainian officials discussed matters related to bilateral relations and cooperation, promotion of people-to-people relations, the tourism sector and investment opportunities in Myanmar [Burma].
In a sign of the two nations growing relationship, Ukraine also opened its first consulate in Rangoon on Jan. 11, a day before the Ukrainian foreign minister paid his visit to Naypyidaw.
Although Burma and Ukraine established diplomatic relations in 1999, until recently Ukraine conducted most of its Burma-related affairs through the Ukrainian embassy in Thailand.
Oksana Grytsenko, a Ukrainian journalist at Kyiv Post reported from Kiev, capital of Ukraine.
News Mon State Bridge Renamed After Controversy
Construction of the bridge on the Salween River between Chaungzon and Moulmein
NAYPYIDAW The Mon State Government will rename a new bridge across the Salween River in Mon State Yamanya Bridge amid strong opposition from locals over the governments decision to name it after Burmas independence hero Bogyoke Aung San, according to the ethnic affairs minister Nai Thet Lwin.
As locals disagree, the name of the bridge was changed to Yamanya by the Mon State government, Union minister for ethnic affairs Nai Thet Lwin told The Irrawaddy.
He said that locals would accept the new name of the bridge linking Moulmein and Chaungzon townships as Yamanya, which means Mon State in Mon language.
Construction of the two-lane, 5,200-foot structure will be completed in March, and has cost an estimated 60 billion kyats (US$44 million).
Though the opening ceremony of the bridge was slated to be held on Monday, it was cancelled because of locals opposition regarding the name change.
The bridges proposed name came to light last week when the Ministry of Construction sent a letter to Aung Naing Oo, deputy speaker of the Mon State parliament, announcing a celebratory opening ceremony for it on Feb. 13.
Locals were outraged by the decision, preferring a name celebrating ethnic Mon heritage.
The main disagreement from our ethnic people was, that Gen Aung San has no relation to this bridge, and not even any relation to this area, deputy speaker of the Mon State parliament Aung Naing Oo told The Irrawaddy last week.
He accused the countrys ruling partythe National League for Democracyof trying to take political advantage by invoking Aung Sans name, without considering the views of ethnic minorities.
The Mon National Party also issued a statement last week requesting that the state government designate a name that does not harm ethnic unity, peace and stability in the region, and could contribute to national reconciliation in the country.
The Philippines' Department of Tourism plans to promote the country to China to entice more tourists. (Photo : Getty Images)
The move for visa-on-arrival for Chinese nationals was announced by the secretary of the Department of Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Teo. She also said that the department is willing to implement further promotion to encourage more tourists from China.
The department aims to reach 1 million tourists from China this year. During the Lunar New Year, about 60,000 tourists arrived from China.
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The number of arrivals increased by 50 percent compared to the previous year. There was a total of 675,700 Chinese tourists who visited the Philippines last year.
There will also be an increase of flights from China in an attempt to add travelers to famous tourist destinations like Boracay.
China is now the third largest country which sends the most number of travelers to the Philippines. It has replaced Japan which used to be third in number to South Korea and the United States.
President Rodrigo Duterte confronted Chinese ambassador Zhao Jianhua about concerns that Chinese businessmen are investing in the Philippines' drug cartel.
President Duterte said, "I asked the ambassador himself, 'Are you trying to destabilize my country with these drugs?' He assured me they in China too have serious problems with drugs and are doing the same campaign to stamp them out."
From Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang responded on behalf of the Chinese government.
He said, "We stand ready to have anti-drug cooperation with the Philippines and formulate a common action plan for it."
He added, "The Chinese government is resolute in cracking down on drug crimes. With clearly defined policies and notable achievements, China is a staunch force in the international endeavor against drug crimes."
The Philippine president reported that China intends to assist in the construction of more rehabilitation centers in the country.
Duterte said that there is still the problem of 300,000 illegal Filipino workers in China that needs to be addressed but not to the point of interfering with China's laws.
Monday, February 13th, 2017 (11:53 am) - Score 574
Business ISP Onecom has launched a new Lighting Up Coventry campaign for businesses in the West Midlands city, which offers installation worth 2,000 at no charge to any business that takes their ultra-fast (up to 1Gbps) Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) broadband.
The new offer, which can be used with a range of the ISPs 500Mbps to 1000Mbps products (MetroGIG 500, MetroGIG 1000, Metrozone 500 or Metrozone 1000), is available until 31st March 2017 and will not be applicable to contracts entered into after this time. Onecom will cover up to 2,000 of such Installation Charges.
We note that Openreach (BT) does have a tiny amount of FTTP coverage in Coventry, although so far as we can tell Onecoms promotion only makes use of Cityfibres existing fibre optic network in the city (Onecom also works with Cityfibre in several other UK cities too).
Darren Ridge, CEO of Onecom, said: Coventry is one of just a few cities to benefit first from the roll-out of this new technology, and we are pleased to be launching Onecoms provision of this service in the city with the offer of free installation. Fibre to the Premises technology is capable of incredible speeds yet it costs less than comparable leased line and Ethernet services. It is the ideal solution for small and medium sized businesses. Using CityFibres ultra-fast networks puts us in the enviable position of being able to deliver all business communications needs over a network that offers ultra-low latency, high speed and reliability. This works perfectly in tandem with Onecoms market-leading cloud, mobile, systems and professional IT services and allows freedom for businesses to use data-heavy applications such as video conferencing and remote backup at lightning speeds and at lower cost than equivalent services. We are delighted to extend our growing partnership with CityFibre and look forward to transforming the way Coventry companies can work online.
Onecom, which claims to be the UKs leading independent business-to-business communications provider and manages more than 335,000 connections, has naturally setup a special website to help promote the offer (here).
Many are fooled by fraudulent P2P Ponzi schemes in China because of the promise of big incomes. (Photo : Getty Images)
Another peer-to-peer manager has disappeared and funds are now inaccessible to investors.
The manager, Fang Fan, disappeared in January and eight peer-to-peer sites have announced that the manager is nowhere to be found. At least 1 billion yuan was believed to be stolen.
The sites, cmtouzi.com, naipinglicai.com, zaodianlicai.com, wanerjialicai.com, qianguan360.com, lexinglicai.com, xjinfu.com, huoniu360.com have simultaneously announced that investors will no longer have access to the funds.
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The controller of the investment is Beijing Qiyuan Fortune Network Technology Co. One site, cmtouzi.com, invested 170 million yuan on the P2P network.
The site, zaodianlicai.com, invested 350 million yuan while naipinglicai.com invested 170 yuan.
Cmtouzi.com is still operating and assured clients that they can still get their investment back through a financing scheme. They denied that there was mismanagement and their funds are still intact.
China's online P2P platforms have been controversial. In 2016, there are 1,300 platforms which faced issues of scamming and disappearing funds.
A report was released by finance.ifeng.com indicating that there are over 478,000 investors who suffered because of P2P lending fraud.
The increase in fraud led to the 9.55 percent decrease in transactions last month.
Last year, Yang Weiguo, chairman of peer-to-peer online lending platform Wangzhou Fortune, told his staff that he is going to the Gobi Desert to "meditate." He was missing a few days after.
Yang took 1 billion yuan from the 2.2 billion in collections. He was immediately found that arrested by Shanghai police.
He said that he did not steal the investor's money. He wrote a letter that stated, "I decided to clear my mind by traveling for 10 days, cutting all telecommunications contact and being undisturbed . . . to think over strategies and rebuild confidence."
However, the P2P company was suffering from cash flow problems the week before.
Another P2P network that was shut down was the Zhongjin Capital Management, which planned to steal 30 million yuan in investors' money.
The police arrested 20 people involved with Zhongjin.
Major: Communication
Hometown: Brazil, IN
Student Media Involvement: Syc Creations
Favorite Food: Burgers with everything but mustard
Fun Fact: He really loves superhero movies, and wants to make his own someday
After the "Immigration Ban" was authenticated by President Trump last January 27, 2017 which aims to place a limit to the entry of foreign travelers from distinctively seven Muslim countries, the Federal Court scheduled a hearing to review the Executive Order's terms.
Federal Court In San Francisco Scheduled A Hearing To Clarify The Terms Of The "Immigration Ban"
Last Tuesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled a three-judge hearing which aims to raise a petition in the implementation of the Trump administration's "Travel Ban."
According to reports, the Executive Order may just be used to hide the administration's will to discriminate Muslims.
Federal Judges Declined To Reinstitute Trump's Travel Ban
Yesterday, February 9, 2017, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco announced a hearing via telephone with a three-judge panel. After the hearing, a statement was released pertaining to the suspension of the travel ban. According to the statement, the committee gave a concordant decision to decline the reinstitution of the said Executive Order.
The three judges wrote their decision stating that the Government has not shown any probability of success on the worthiness of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure of the Executive Order's reinstitution would cause any damage to the state as well as its citizens. Hence, the appeal to reinstate the Travel Ban has been denied.
According to some reports, the law also failed to clarify if it the travel ban would include U.S. permanent residents or green card holders. Although the Trump administration clearly stated that green card holders aren't included in the ban, experts and critics did not believe it for 100 green-card holders were placed in detention one day after the law was implemented and many more after that.
The decision also included the momentary suspension of the debarring of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days. After the ruling, President Trump replied via his Twitter Timeline. "See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake!"
The Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone series will come in two sizes, both having an infinity screen and a relocated home button. According to the Wall Street Journal, two Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphones will finally be unveiled at a special event in New York next month. The upcoming handset is said to be the key to repair the damage done by the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which led to a recall after a battery issue.
Samsung Galaxy S8 Set For March Launching
"One of the people familiar with the matter said the new phone is set to be unveiled at an event in New York late next month," claimed by the WSJ. Samsung will finally reveal its make or break Galaxy S8 smartphone devices at a special event in New York next month. A report previously wrote that the two Galaxy S8 would launch at Samsungs next Unpacked event that will be on March 29, while the other end said that it would initially go on sale on or around April 21.
One thing for sure is that Samsung will not unveil the phone at the 2017 Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, according to Business Insider. MWC events have been traditionally used by Samsung to showcase the latest smartphones, especially in its Galaxy S line. When asked, Samsung declined to comment why they chose to separate the launch of the upcoming Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus.
Features To Expect On The New Samsung Galaxy
The two smartphones are given the codenames Dream and Dream 2, representing the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus respectively. Both versions will have unique screens since it can curve down both at the left and the right sides of the device just like to the Galaxy S7 Edge. The two smartphones will have screens with an approximate size of 5 in and 6 in.
According to The Guardian, the new feature called as the "infinity display will cover the majority of the front part of the device, with just a little body on the top and bottom of the screen that is not for the display. Two other reports also said there wasnt even room to put the Samsung logo or its brand name on the front of the device. Aside from that, another new unique feature is that the fingerprint scanner has been moved to the back of the device. The Samsung Galaxy S8 will have a traditional 3.5mm headphone jack.
Lena Dunham's HBO comedy, "Girls," is on its final season. After almost five years, Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver, Alex Karpovsky, and Andrew Rannells are finally saying goodbye, and according to reports, the final episodes are still going to be very relatable.
'Girls' Is Hard To Watch Because It Is Painfully Accurate
A lot of women can relate to Hannah, Marnie, Shoshana, Elijah, Ray, and probably even a little bit with Jessa. Glamour said that the characters act on their own impulses while inviting you to laugh and at the same time, admit that you have imagined doing the same things that they have done. The series is hard to watch for the simple fact that what the girls do are achingly true.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the first three episodes of the "Girls" final season will show Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner working without a trace of complacency, as well as with creative boundaries they obviously want to push. Reports say that the final season will show the girls finally growing up.
The First Three Episodes Of Season 6 Will Have Different Tones
The first episode of "Girls" Season 6 will pick up after Hannah's successful New York Times column about Jessa. But then, Hannah will find herself to be an in-demand writer, and lands an unexpected gig going to Montauk. She would have to write about the fad of wealthy women appropriating surfing culture.
The second episode will have more genre play, and viewers will be seeing the toxic and disintegrated Desi/Marnie marriage to a logical extreme as a horror movie. Meanwhile, the third episode will feature guest star Matthew Rhys, whose return will call to mind Patrick Wilson's season-two episode "One Man's Trash." The first three Season 6 episodes have different settings and with different tones.
Tim Cook, who is an industrial engineer and developer and Apple's seventh and current Chief Executive Officer, has expressed his side as to his desires and endeavor plans for an Augmented Reality, which he wanted to share with the people around the globe. The CEO is pushing the idea of Augment Reality (AR) in the future in every way where he sees a possibility that the technology would be more than just a feature but a "core technology".
Brilliant Idea On The Making
According to Fox Business, Cook has been traveling long flights to Europe in publicizing the AR, referring it as a similar idea and will have a major impact of a smartphone. Cook also made a recognition that AR can well blend with the human environment. Cook is a believer that Augmented Reality has an advanced ability than the Virtual Reality (VR), as it does not block-out other people.
Based on the reports, the technology company has been running a series of AR research with Cook's personal contribution while creating a heat against VR. There is a possibility that the company may have a new product development on the line or the CEO is just expanding his perspective in providing their iPhone with a new platform with AR, which is much more different from the usual, as per Mashable.
Augmented Reality Concept
There are several reports that the Apple Company may also highlight AR on its in-demand iPhone's camera in the future. In addition, it is said that the company is in the process of developing a glass product that can be worn that also includes the Augmented Reality concept, which they may also apply to their on and off car project. Meanwhile, Apple has made some new investments in technology and has added the firm that does development on Augmented Reality software, Metaio.
Thousands of teenagers in the U.K. will be given lesson in cyber security. The government is hoping that with this new "cyber curriculum," it will boost the country's defense against hackers and terrorists in the future to come.
A New Curriculum To Protect Britain From Cyber Attacks And Terrorists
According to reports, the Cyber School Programme aims to train around 5,700 teenagers aged between 14 and 18 years old over the next five years. This is to ensure that the students will develop some of the key skills that are needed to work in cyber security. The cyber curriculum will be drawn up to mix classroom and online teaching in real-world challenges and hands-on work experience as well.
The government is really concerned over the damage hackers and terrorists could inflict on the economy and infrastructure that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has provided this new curriculum around 20m for extracurricular lesson that the participants are expected to commit for four hours a week.
Matt Hancock, the Minister of State for Digital and Culture, believes that this forward-thinking program will see thousands of the best and brightest young mind given the opportunity to learn cutting-edge cyber security skills alongside their secondary school studies. Not only that, with this program it will not only prepare Britain for the challenges it faces now and in the future, but will also help identify and inspire future talent as well.
Seeking For More Providers To Deliver The Program
Currently, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is seeking more providers to deliver the program. The bidding will be closed next month, and the pilot scheme is reportedly set to be launched later in September this year.
In regards to older teenagers who are interested in the cyber school program, they will be able to join at any point as well. But that is if they meet the right criteria for the program, which is currently being opened up for private bids.
Weighing over 500 kg, Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty has been documented to be the "world's heaviest" woman today, and she has just been cargoed via a special Egypt Air Airbus 300-600 cargo airplane to India where she is scheduled to undergo weight loss surgery.
Thirty-six-year-old Eman Ahmed is from Egypt, and her arrival in India over the weekend for bariatric surgery marked the first time in 25 years she would leave her bed back home in Cairo. She was reported to have weighed 5 kg at birth and later diagnosed with elephantiasis, which must have been responsible for her extreme obesity.
A team of medical specialists which comprised of a consultant bariatric surgeon, a cardiologist, an endocrinologist, and a cardiac surgeon among other were hand-picked to work on Eman. Meanwhile, her doctor Muffazal Lakdawala who will lead the bariatric surgery team was on hand to receive her at the airport together with a number of people, the Hindu reported.
Special arrangements made for transporting the patient
To facilitate moving her from the airport to Saifee hospital near Charni Road where the weight loss surgery will be conducted, special arrangements were made to ensure that Eman was comfortable all through the journey and that traffic routes did not pose a problem in any way.
To this end, a modified freight truck which carried her, and a police jeep, an ambulance and the vehicle of the Consul General of Egypt were all on hand to accompany Eman on the 110-minute journey from the airport to the hospital. Eman's sister, Shaima, traveled with her for the medical operation and the convoy took the easiest routes to get to the hospital. People who are morbidly obese are prone to various illnesses.
Doctors reported Eman was full of smiles as she cleared arrival procedures at the airport and the open truck that was to ferry her to the hospital waited briefly for reporters to take a few photographs before the journey began in earnest. In fact, the truck maintained a safe 40 kmph since it was fairly early in the morning on Saturday and traffic was light.
It could be up to one month before the surgery is conducted
On getting to the hospital, a crane was deployed to lift Eman's bed from the truck and place her on the parapet of a storied building from where she was pushed into a private ward already prepared for her. Fresh flowers had been placed to decorate the ward courtesy of the hospital's management and it was evident Eman appreciated all the gestures extended to her.
The whole surgery procedure is planned to be filmed and video recording equipment is already being assembled. Her surgery is not starting anytime soon. It could be nearly a month from now. The reason for this is because Eman's medical history is not available to the doctors and she needs to be examined anew with series of tests run on her before a date could be given for her surgery. Doctors also said she must lose some pounds before she is prepped for surgery to increase chances of success.
As reported earlier this month, Tesla has officially expanded towards the Middle East particularly in the United Arab Emirates, and it will be coinciding with Company CEO Elon Musk attending the World Government Summit in Dubai. Further reports have also learned the exact location of Tesla's first store in UAE and that the company is already starting to deploy charging infrastructure, both Superchargers and Destination chargers in the said region.
Tesla In The Middle East
According to Electrek, the company's first ever store in UAE is located on Shiekh Zayed Road, which is one of the busiest roads in Dubai and is currently near the Burj Khalifa metro station. The launch event for tomorrow will be held at the Armani hotel in the Burj Khalifa tower.
A Porsche dealership was also previously located in the same building. Soon-to-be local Tesla owner @belquhood on Twitter sent and shared a few pictures of the new location where Tesla has already installed a banner announcing the store opening for Summer 2017.
Tesla Already Starting Business
Since Tesla is holding a launch event tomorrow in Dubai while the store not opening for another few months, expectations are high that Tesla will start taking official orders for the Model S and X which will be delivered later this year.
The local owners who made the effort of importing Tesla vehicles themselves will not have to wait any longer for Tesla's launch to already be profitable for them since Tesla is already installing chargers within the region. @belquhood told ArabianBusiness that Tesla has already installed a Supercharger station at a popular truck stop between Abu Dhabi and Dubai called "Last Exit."
The First Tesla Supercharger In The Middle East
The said location is not yet listed in Tesla's Supercharger network, but as of the moment, it is apparently already undergoing tests and should eventually become the first ever official Tesla Supercharger in the Middle East. Additionally, Tesla has also started deploying Destination Chargers all around Dubai.
Way back in November, there were leaked documents showing that NASA had cracked the once impossible warp drive mystery and were working on an engine that could drastically reduce the time that it takes to travel through space. Consequently, this has once been regarded as something that's impossible due to the fact that it violate Newton's third law, which states that for every action, there is an equal reaction. The said news has then sent shockwaves around the scientific community who were impressed with NASA's feat, until China has recently claimed that it already has the technology in operation.
China's Warp-Drive Technology
China has once again been put to spotlight after the country has claimed that it has surpassed NASA in building an 'impossible' warp drive engine that will allegedly help get humans to Mars in just a matter of weeks. According to reports revealed by Express, the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) has revealed that it has long been funding research into the project since 2010, and they considered NASA's news as just an affirmation of what they already knew. Additionally, experts said that they have been testing the device aboard the Tiangong-2, which happens to be China's low-orbit manned satellite.
Meanwhile, in one of his statements reported by Komando, head of the communication satellite division at CAST, Dr. Chen Yue, has revealed that in recent years, the country's National research institutions have carried out a series of long-term, repeated tests on the EmDrive. Apparently, it was found that the warp drive that NASA has currently been working on was also an EmDrive which is an engine that has the ability to outperform any booster that is currently available and has no exhaust.
Has China Overshadowed NASA?
Furthermore, Chinese authorities from the said project have claimed that NASA's published test results can be said to re-confirm the technology. Experts also said that they have even successfully developed several specifications of multiple prototype principles. Ultimately, Dr. Yue has revealed that the establishment of an experimental verification platform to complete the milli-level micro thrust measurement test, as well as in several years of repeated experiments and investigations into corresponding interference factors, is in fact, a confirmation that in this type of thruster, thrust does exist.
As the world celebrates Valentine's Day, health experts have recently expressed their growing concern in terms of the rise in teen STD rates in South Carolina. Data released by the authorities from South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy showed the state's teen birth rate fell from 13th in the nation in 2014 to 16th in 2015. At the same time, it was found that rates of STDs and HIV/AIDS remained high.
The Rise In Teen STD Cases
According to reports revealed by Go Upstate, South Carolina has allegedly ranked in the top 10 nationally for chlamydia, gonorrhea and diagnosed rates of HIV/AIDS, the data showed. Health officials have also highly emphasized that they are basically concerned with the jump in the rate of HIV/AIDS among teenagers. From 2014 to 2015, the data has revealed that the rate has increased by 10.9 percent in 15- to 19-year-olds, for every 100,000 residents.
Furthermore, as per AIDS Vu, in 2013, there were already 323 individuals who lost their lives due to these diseases and experts have also revealed that it may still go up. It was found that 71 percent of people living with diagnosed HIV in 2013 were black, 4 percent were Hispanic/Latino, and the other 23 percent said to be white. Meanwhile, in 2014, the number of diagnosed patients of having HIV has also risen to 841.
Why Are Health Experts Alarmed?
In one of his statements, executive director of Piedmont Care, Tracey Jackson, has explained that in the first place, anytime they see an uptick in HIV infections or STD infections, they should be alarmed regardless of the figure it's showing. Additionally, the other thing is, for young people, they've grown up in a culture knowing what HIV and AIDS is. So, Jackson and campaign officials are working with groups to get parents more involved. Ultimately, Jackson said that teens listen to their parents, even if parents don't think they do.
The central governments commitment to freedom of information only applies to the realm of voluntarily disclosed information. (Photo : Getty Images)
A local government official in the southern Chinese province of Hainan has received disciplinary action for his failure to update the Danzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce with public reports on the accomplishments of the bureau's heads and civil servants.
In keeping with the central government's primacy for information transparency, the bureau's director Dong Haifeng was punished with an administrative sanction and a warning on his failure to have his bureau's website updated, the Global Times reported.
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The sanction came after the website failed the evaluation of the State Council, which conducts checks on all government websites across China. Sixth Tone reported that the bureau failed to submit its public reports, which are supposedly required for uploading on a bi-weekly basis.
Apart from the punishment given to Dong, a temporary employee directly tasked for the updates has been laid off. The bureau's website has since been closed following the State Council's "disqualified" rating, with all its contents transferred to the Hainan provincial government website.
The importance of updating government websites is indicative of the central government's mission to enable the public to engage in government affairs. However, a key hindrance to that goal, the first initiatives of which date back to 2008, has been the excess of badly-maintained government websites.
While the reprimanding of the Hainan Province official certainly represents progress on the part of the central government's commitment to freedom of information, it only applies to the realm of voluntarily disclosed information. Citizens virtually have no rights to request for disclosure of certain information.
Nonetheless, with several other government websites that failed the State Council's evaluation whose heads have yet to be punished, several users, specifically within Shanxi and Yunnan Provinces, would have to keep their frustrations a little bit longer until proper action is taken.
With 83 percent in a 2013 survey of 3,000 people saying that officials who fail to update government websites must be held accountable, alongside 74 percent who say that the government's efforts to freedom of information are problematic, government units are certainly compelled to take action.
Aspirin is previously known as a painkiller, however, a new study suggests that it could also be a potential element that could help prevent cancer. Earlier studies say that aspirin could prevent cancer, but are clueless on how it works. The new study explains that pain-relief medication interaction with platelets. The blood cells that create clots to stop wound from continuous bleeding, could prevent tumors from growing.
It is normal that platelets can help form new blood vessels when a clot forms over a wound. However, the same system may help prevent the development of any kind of tumors. In a research published February, found that the aspirin distorts the normal clotting process of shutting down a key enzyme called COX-1. This results to preventing an interaction between platelets and cancer cells and suppressing the development of tumors.
According to the Xinhua, other researchers used regular aspirins from local drug stores. The new study used a special mix of aspirin and phosphatidylcholine. This is a type of lipid or fat molecule found in soy lecithin. It is also developed to prevent gastrointestinal risk linked with regular aspirins. The study has provided the effectiveness and much efficiency of the enhanced aspirin complex, called Aspirin-PC/PL2200. It is composed of the same or higher, chances of effectiveness than regular aspirins. The study suggests that the Aspirin-PC/PL2200 as an effective and safer complete agent for colorectal cancer.
According to Naples Daily, researchers may have found a way to repel pancreatic cancer. A new research shows that a low-dose aspirin may reduce the risk of cancer by nearly 50 per cent. The researchers are very optimistic about the positive results of the clinical tests. The development of cancer cures and cancer preventing drugs would increase the chances of survival of the human race. With aspirin there could be hope in decreasing the number of cancer diagnosis.
While it used to be that individuals would have to purchase a unit from every tech segment in existence in order to experience the complete experience, this is no longer the case. More and more, members of the public have begun to embrace 2-in-1 technology, the most popular of which is a hybrid between a tablet and a laptop. And while Microsoft has arguably ruled this market with its Surface Pro and Surface Book devices, there are some very notable alternatives such as the HP EliteBook x360, the Toshiba Portege X20W and the Dell Latitude 7285.
As CIO has reported, HP took the best of its technology from the familiar and widely popular EliteBook and added the hinge of its Spectre x260, which make up the HP Elite x360. It was this partnership that allowed the device to rest against the back of the keyboard. The company has also confirmed that the unit will have an optional 4K UHD display and that it will be the thinnest and most secure hybrid in the market.
The EliteBook x360 has a 13.3-inch multi-touch display and an interesting security feature. It has the HP Sure View mode, which tints the screen to anyone around the user, much like a privacy screen only it is built directly into the screen. It will also have two USB 3.0 ports, a microSD port, and HDMI port and a USB Type-C port.
Meanwhile, the Toshiba Portege X20W was designed specifically for work around an office. Like the EliteBook x360, it features a 360-degree rotatable display that can rest directly against each other as opposed to a detachable keyboard. It is powered by a seventh generation Intel Core processor, as well as Windows 10 Pro.
The Toshiba Portege X20W has a smaller 12.5-inch multi-touch display with a Full HD touch-screen display. The only obvious drawback is that users will need an adapter in order to charge and connect to an external display at the same time, as there is only one USB 3.0 port and a USB Type C port that can support Thunderbolt 3 connections as well. The company is scheduled to release the Toshiba WiGig Dock and the Tunderbolt 3 Dock later this quarter to solve this problem.
Then there is the Dell Latitude 7285, which the publication reported that resembles the Microsoft Surface Book line. The keyboard does not magnetically connect, but instead, docks into a solid keyboard base, which arguably provides owners a more authentic notebook feel. But it does offer one thing that the Surface Book has thus far not featured - wireless charging.
The Latitude 7285 features the latest Kaby Lake processor chips and has a 3K display resolution. The company will also offer a variety of different keyboards to match the wants and needs of its consumer base. The item is scheduled to start shipment within May or June.
Laptop Mag has reported that tablet sales have dropped as much as 30 percent since it peaked in popularity back in 2013. From 2015 to 2016 alone, the market suffered a 15 percent decline in sales. As such, purchasing a more versatile 2-in-1 device like the ones described above would be a smart investment to make at this point.
Imagine going on a cruise on board a ship that has no captains to steer it. This will soon become reality with the help of Rolls-Royce.
The engineering company behind some of the most iconic cars ever is set to take over the seas and oceans with a fleet of crewless ships. According to reports, the first of the company's autonomous ships will set sail in 2020.
The existence of autonomous ships is expected to deter shipment costs by as much as 20 percent. That is one reason why a number of companies and bodies are extending their hands to help Rolls-Royce. The Norwegian Forum for Autonomous Ships, for one, was created by the Maritime Administration of Norway to look into the possibility of having unmanned ships in the waters. Finland has also expressed their willingness to help the engineering giant through DIMECC, described as a "breakthrough-oriented co-creation ecosystem".
Rolls-Royce and the different groups and bodies that it has partnered with are not only focused on the technological side of this endeavor. Daily Mail reported that the involved parties are also developing regulations that would prove important once the crewless ships are ready to hit the waters. According to Rolls-Royce VP of innovation, Oskar Levander, they are currently working on regulations for commercial ships such as ferries and tugboats. Regulations for self-driving cargo ships that travel through international waters will be dealt with afterward. Levander also stressed that the development will focus first on selected countries. These nations will supposedly allow the crewless vessels to operate within their jurisdictions until a time when international regulations are in place.
Autonomous vehicles have hogged the headlines recently with a number of companies dipping their fingers into the industry. Tesla has been one of the industry leaders with its semi-autonomous cars. Car manufacturers such as Subaru, Hyundai, Ford and others are in the process of developing their own self-driving vehicles. Even Apple, Uber and Blackberry have invited themselves to the party.
Tiffany Trump wears Taoray Wang at the New York Fashion Week. (Photo : Twitter)
The fashion world went abuzz when U.S. President Trumps youngest daughter, Tiffany, became the guest of honor at the show of Chinese fashion designer Taoray Wang during the recent New York Fashion Week.
The American presidential daughter, Tiffany Trump, was the guest of honor and wore an elegant pink coat and white dress. She also wore one of Wang's designs during the inauguration of her father.
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Wang opened her line to Tiffany Trump as well as her store in New York amid the call for a boycott by many designers in the U.S.
The boycott was called to protest the policies of the current administration on immigration and foreign policy.
The show featured various styles of jackets and military-style coats. Her style came with platform boots, coats with silk lining and lace negligees.
The designer's philosophy revolved around the principle of women empowerment and are catered to fit women who are leaders in government, business, and law. She wants to make powerful women still look sexy.
Her recent collection was also inspired by the Qing Dynasty.
Wang said, "I would rather focus on personal qualities and characters, rather than labeling them."
She said that she is very open-minded and that the boycott does not affect her.
"I didn't think about that because I'm very open minded. I cooperate with international celebrities and all these leaders," she said.
The designer is also known for being diverse. She wants to bridge different cultures in her work.
"I believe there is a lot of bridges between different cultures," she said.
Tiffany Trump said that she and Wang discussed the style that she wanted to wear during the inauguration.
"We talked a lot and I think now she really knows my style, so we work closely together," she said.
The presidential daughter also said that Wang's "aesthetic is unparalleled."
Valerie Steele, Director of the museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology, said that she has been a long-time admirer of Wang and calls her collection "dandified elegance."
Hong Kong Handover 1997 (Photo : shadowshk/YouTube)
In less than five months, Hong Kong will mark 20 years the territory has been returned to Chinas control. To mark the occasion, director Ann Hui made the film Our Time Will Come.
The movie combines a war epic and art-house drama genres to tell the story of Fang Gu, a legendary heroine who served as one of the important figures when Japan occupied Hong Kong from 1941 through 1945, China.org reported. It stars Zhou Xun, Guo Tao, Wallace Huo, Ray Lui, Paw Hee-ching, Chun Xia, Sam Lee, Deanie Ip, Tony Leung, Jiang Wenli and Eddie Peng.
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School Teacher-Turned-Freedom Fighter
Zhou Xun plays the role of Fang Gu, a school teacher who eventually becomes a guerilla fights to defend from Japanese occupation Hong Kong, according to CFENSI. Playing the role off Liu Jinjin, a master of disguise and legendary gunman, is Eddie Pen who is also a well-educated young man skilled in debating with scholars.
The female lead, Wallace Huo, plays Li Jinrong, a romantic idealist whose dream is to enjoy a peaceful future with Fang Gu, her lover. But she would soon realize naivety has no place when your country is torn by war, prompting Li Jinrong to join fighters protecting their homeland.
A Different Ann Hui
Our Time Will Come depicts how the youth of Hong Kong fought, rescued and struggled as part of resistance groups during World War II. The film would present a brave, bloody and aggressive Ann Hui, Polybona Films President Yu Dong said.
The movie is scheduled for release on July 1, 2017, exactly two decades since the return of Hong Kong to China as an autonomous special administrative region. Ann Huis last movie, The Golden Era, won the Best Film and Best Director awards at the recent Hong Kong Film Festival.
For the next film festival, Our Time Will Come is expected to likewise be nominated in various categories.
A GATHERING will be held at Frank James Memorial Hospital to show solidarity with those marching against health cuts in London.
The East Cowes event will be held on Saturday, March 4 the same day Islanders The East Cowes event will be held on Saturday, March 4 the same day Islanders travel with the Isle of Wight branch of Unison to the #ourNHS protest in the capital.
Under a banner of 'no cuts, no closures, no privatisation,' it has been organised in protest to NHS and social care cuts.
Anyone unable to attend the national demonstration is welcome to join the East Cowes gathering.
The Frank James event will also celebrate five years of hard work by the volunteers who tend to the grounds.
Steve Goodman, a member of the Friends of Frank James, said: "Frank James was built to house people and did so for ten years before becoming a much loved local hospital for a century, during which it was supported by the local people it was gifted to.
"After becoming an important part of our health and care service, it was lost to locals when closed by NHS managers and sold to developers, then allowed to decay for the next decade, adding to our shameful and stupid record of avoidable waste, degeneration, and increased expense."
More information about the national protest and how to get there More information about the national protest and how to get there can be found here.
What does tomorrow bring? Tune in to find out...
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (often abbreviated to OMD) is a synthpop group whose founding members are originally from the Wirral, United Kingdom."If You Leave" is a 1986 song by the British synthpop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). It was recorded for the soundtrack to the film Pretty in Pink (1986), in which it is played prominently during the final scene. Along with 1980's "Enola Gay", the track has been described as the band's signature song."If You Leave" is the group's highest-charting single in the United States, where it reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May 1986. The song was also a Top 5 entry in Canada and New Zealand, and charted at number 15 in Australia. A distinguishing track of the 1980s, it has had an enduring presence on radio.The band wrote "If You Leave" after John Hughes decided to change the ending to Pretty in Pink after poor test audience reactions. Hughes had asked the band for a song for the new ending two days before they were due to begin a tour, and "If You Leave" was written and recorded in under 24 hours as a result. The song was deliberately written at a tempo of 120 BPM, to match the speed of "Don't You (Forget About Me)", which the dancers in the scene had initially danced to. Despite this songwriter Andy McClusky later noted that an editing error meant that the dancing appears out of sync regardless. The original ending featured another OMD song, "Goddess of Love", which was released on The Pacific Age later in 1986.OMD disbanded in 1996, but reformed in 2006. After collapsing at a show in Toronto due to heart failure, Malcolm Holmes retired from OMD in 2014, and is now making music on his own. Following shows as a trio at the Museum of Liverpool, OMD is touring with former drummer Stuart Kershaw. As of October 2016, OMD was working on an as-yet untitled 13th studio album. It is expected in 2017.Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark "If You Leave"
If youre looking for a job and its your first time to join the workforce, youre in luckover 50 companies in the U.S. are hiring workers in February. The good news is that you dont have to have any work experience to get hired, as these companies have open positions for entry-level workers.
Monster compiled a list of all the companies hiring entry-level workers this month, and if youre looking to work in retail, healthcare, and other industries, then you may just get hired before the month is over. Here are some of the companies hiring entry-level workers in February.
AT&T
The company who revolutionized the telecommunications industry currently has hundreds of open positions, and they are looking for retail sales consultants and call center representatives, among others.
Experis
Experis ManpowerGroup, a leader in innovative workforce solutions, has 14 available jobs and is looking for entry-level workers for the following positions: technical writer, Unix developer, recruiter, CAD designer, and accountant.
Xerox
The billion-dollar global corporation is looking for a sales executives, a staff auditor, workforce management adherence clerk, software engineer, insurance associate with accounting experience, and a territory partner manager.
Geico
The Maryland-based auto insurance company is looking for entry-level inside sales personnel, call center representative, and auto damage adjusters. For the latter position, the company is offering $49,500 to start.
Kindred Healthcare
The company is looking for registered nurses and certified nursing assistants. Kindred Healthcare accepts new graduates for certain positions.
The Hertz Corporation
The company, which is a subsidiary of Hertz Global Holdings Inc., is looking for car detailers/drivers, service representatives, and management trainees, among others.
CyberCoders
The company has 47 entry-level jobs, and they are currently looking for software engineers, developer, a marketing manager, an Android engineer, associate recruiter, JavaScript programmer, and more.
For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on the companies that employees truly love working for.
Matt Lucas, Peter Capaldi, Jo Whiley, Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin attend the Doctor Who 2016 Christmas special screening at BFI Southbank on December 14, 2016 in London, England. (Photo : Getty Images/Stuart C. Wilson / Stringer)
Peter Capaldi has confirmed that he will be retiring from BBC's "Doctor Who" at the end of this year.
Capaldi has been portraying the Doctor for three years and will end his tenure this December. In an interview with BBC Radio (via The New York Times) he felt that time has come to "to move on to different challenges."
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"I feel sad, I love 'Doctor Who,' it is a fantastic program to work on," Capaldi said on the show. "But I don't know how long I can give it my best, and if I'm not giving it my best, I don't want to do it."
The search is now on for the next actor who will take on the coveted role and play the 13th Doctor on the hit BBC show. Here are some of the strong contenders and talked-about fan favorites to become Capaldi's successor.
Ben Whishaw
Before Capaldi took over the Doctor mantle, Ben Whishaw was one of the actors mentioned as a candidate for the role of 12th Doctor. However, he ruled himself out of the competition because he was busy filming the "James Bond" movies at the time.
"It's not going to be me. But I don't mind - I don't think you can be Q and Doctor Who. It would be a bit wrong," Whishaw said, as quoted by Vulture. There currently is no development in the "James Bond" franchise, and with Daniel Craig rumored to exit the role. It's possible that Whishaw's schedule may open up ample time for him to film "Doctor Who."
Richard Ayoade
Richard is one of the strong contenders for the role. He caught everyone's attention when he played the quirky leading man in "IT Crowd."
Aidan Turner
At one point, Turner was also highly favored to be the next Doctor. However, he previously revealed that he has no interest in the part mostly because he believes that his former "Being Human" co-star Russell Tovey is better suited for the job.
Olivia Colman
Traditionally, the role of the Doctor has always been portrayed by men. Some fans believe that it's time to change things up and give the role to a woman. Colman is one of the favorites for the role, as well "Agent Carter" alum Hayley Atwell.
Before the start of the Trump administration, shoppers used to think that a pair of shoes is just that and their choices only reflect their personal tastes. Now, shopping has become a political act as some people would gladly spend money on a retailer which has spoken out against the president, while others would buy any product by or endorsed by the Trump family.
Last week, it was reported that Nordstrom dropped first daughter Ivanka Trumps line due to the brands poor performance. However, some of Trumps supporters took this move as an attack on the current administration, with thousands of people lashing out at the retailer online, according to the New York Times.
The president also took to Twitter to say that his daughter has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom.
She is a great personalways pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! he continued.
As a response, those who are strongly opposed to President Trump have taken to social media as well to openly declare their support for Nordstrom. Celebrities such as Chelsea Handler, Rosie ODonnell, RuPaul, Kristin Davis, Joely Fisher, and Mia Farrow, as well as directors Michael Moore and Judd Apatow, among others, have taken to the Internet to support the retailer and other companies who have spoken out against the administrations recent actions.
Handler took to Instagram to post a photo of herself and two friends holding Nordstrom bags while standing outside the White House gates. The comedienne wrote, A Jew and a Gay went to pick a Muslim up from the airport, headed straight to Nordstrom, and then headed over to @whitehouse to give our thanks!
Meanwhile, CNN political commentator Ana Navarro took to Twitter and wrote, Keeping track of what to support or boycott. Supporting @AnheuserBusch, @Nordstrom, @Starbucksoh, & hoarding b/c of Mexico thing.
Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser, recently made headlines for debuting an epic immigrant story during the 51st Super Bowl, with many interpreting the ad as a protest against Trumps executive order on immigration. Starbucks has also made a stand on the order as it vowed to hire more immigrants over the next five years.
According to NY Times, the reaction after Nordstroms decision has made companies think twice about their every move in todays highly-charged political environment. Calls or emails were reportedly sent to a half dozen of the countrys largest department stores about how they are handling Ivanka Trumps products, which resulted in either no comment or neutral statements.
It is unclear whether other companies will be speaking out against the new administration as President Trump and his cabinets actions grow from day to day. But for now, it is clear that apart from the growing divide in the country, politically aware consumers will now be thinking twice on where they shop over the next four years.
For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on Starbucks latest and most timely perk for its employees.
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan biomedical research named the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub is living up to its mission to help cure, prevent or manage all disease in our childrens lifetime and also to invent the future of life science research. With that goal, they gladly announced that they have awarded $50 million grant to 47 researchers for their riskiest ideas.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub is an investigator program that will support scientists, technologists, and engineers in order to create treatment or cure for all kinds of diseases. This will be achieved through inventing new tools and techniques to improve scientific discoveries.
According to Nature, the CZ Biohub already awarded its first grant to those scientists for their study in different topics such as genomics of obscure microbes and also the memory-retrieval device. Reportedly, 47 researchers will be able to receive about $1.5 million in the next five years. That will give a total of $50 million.
The CZ Biohub is in partnership with three top universities namely, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and the University of California at San Francisco. Biohub's co-leader, Stephen Quake said that they told the researchers to give their riskiest ideas.
There were more than 750 researchers from the three universities that submitted their proposals about fundamental biological processes and lead to disease-related technologies. Quake revealed that he and other grant reviewers checked the researchers track records. They are also in much favor for those researchers who have bold ideas with lack of preliminary evidence.
Fortune shared that the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub aims to focus on the Infectious Disease Initiative that aims to find treatment for pandemics such as Zika and Ebola. Aside from that it also focuses on the Cell Atlas. This is done wherein scientists will map every cell in the human body in order for them to have a better understanding of every disease.
Meanwhile, Jobs & Hire shared that if you wish to work and be part of Zuckerbergs Facebook family you have to nail all their job interviews.
Watch the video below:
Brexit may cost London its title of "Gateway to Europe" for banks, says German bank regulator.
In a news article published by the Independent, it was written that Andreas Dombret, one of the executive board members of the German central bank, the Bundesbank, stated that the use of London as a gateway to Europe might no longer be applicable after Brexit. He also said that Britain would still not have access to the single market even if banking rules were to be equivalent between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Dombret also stated that Brexit's movement towards renationalization has a negative effect on everyone's wellbeing. Brexit negotiations are still uncertain at present but Prime Minister Theresa May has made it clear that it will be a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom as reported by Jobs & Hire.
In other news, Bertie Ahern, the former Taoiseach or Irish prime minister accused May of changing her language concerning the physical Irish border, reported BBC. May has previously said that she wants a frictionless border but according to Ahern, she is now saying that the border "won't be as difficult as to create problems."
He cites that that is worrying because it will take away the effects of having an open border such as its calming effects. He added that putting down border posts would be difficult to maintain and could cause negative feelings.
The BBC also wrote that current Taoiseach told May of the negative results that would occur should a hard border be created. He said May understands the possible consequences of such an act.
May herself has said that the ability of the people to freely move across the border is vital in the lives of commuters. Read the full article on the issue here.
To share with friends and brethren The Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (the Everlasting Gospel), and to prepare a people to stand when He returns to redeem His remnant. Also, to share relevant information of current events, and to show how they relate to prophecy; By means of articles, editorials, opinions, scripture readings, and poetry.
Disclaimer
Endrtimes does not necessarily endorse or agree with every opinion expressed in every article/video posted on this site. The information provided here is done so for personal edification; It's up to the reader to separate truth from error, and to examine everything (like the Bereans) from a Biblical perspective. Let the Holy Scriptures be you guide! - - - FAIR USE NOTICE: These pages/videos may contain copyrighted () material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, economic, DEMOCRACY, scientific, MORAL, ETHICAL, and SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.
Q: My mother is 75 and in reasonably good health. For some reason, she often brings up her death. She likes to tell the family who will get what, where she wants to be buried, or just references that one day she will die. It usually makes us pretty uncomfortable. Is there something I can use to guide this conversation?
VG
Answer: Our societys gut reaction to mortality is to fight death. For many, it can be hard to accept the inevitable. If we are not in the mindset of preparing for death, as most of us are not, discussing the details of our passing feels at least uncomfortable, if not outright morbid. It may be worth considering that our instinct to avoid death at all costs does not make it easier for anyone to die well. By this approach, it seems impossible to live or die peacefully, without worries about what and who we are leaving behind.
Although it may feel uncomfortable for you, it may be practical to openly talk through the specifics of when to withhold further treatment, whether to donate organs, whether to be buried or cremated, and what kind of service she wants to have. These rational conversations are common, and may be your mothers way of putting her mind at ease. Contact the Hospice & Palliative CareCenter about its Got Plans? workshop, which helps families obtain information about living wills and advance directives that document a persons wishes concerning medical treatments at the end of life.
While it may be a little uncomfortable for you, listening and respecting your mothers wishes will allow her to live fully while she is still in good health.
Helping caregivers
If you are caring for someone living with dementia, consider learning more about this important resource for respite and support. Project C.A.R.E. (Caregiver Alternatives to Running on Empty) is the only state-funded, dementia-specific support for families who take care of individuals with Alzheimers disease or related dementias.
Senior Services is cosponsoring an event with The Duke Family Support Program on Feb. 20 to distribute respite vouchers to families caring for individuals with dementia. Project C.A.R.E respite vouchers are for family caregivers caring for individuals with Alzheimers disease or related dementias in their home, who are not paid for their caregiving and who are age 18 or older. Priority is given to assist unpaid caregivers of individuals with the greatest social and economic needs, to caregivers who do not receive a respite break from any other funding source, as well as to those who have no regular source of funding for in-home assistance.
Janeli Smith and Bobbi Matchar from the Duke Family Support Program will meet with caregivers of loved ones with dementia and offer counseling, education and/or respite vouchers during their visit. Respite vouchers are issued in amounts up to $500 per voucher. Caregivers receive a reimbursement for respite services upon receipt of completed signed record of respite (time sheets). Respite services may include in-home care, adult day care, group respite, institutional care, companion care or other emergency respite.
If youd like to meet with these representatives please contact Jessalyn Bridges, Family Caregiver Specialist, at (336) 721-6953 to make an appointment. Appointments are limited.
In 1993, the Supreme Court granted constitutional protections to an Afro-Cuban religious group that sacrifices animals, such goats, chickens, ducks and turtles, as a form of ritual.
More than two decades later, specifically Thursday, three federal appeals court judges relied partly on that ruling when they declined to reinstate President Donald Trump's controversial entry ban on refugees and citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
The states of Washington and Minnesota, which sued to block Trump's executive order, cited the president's fiery rhetoric and a previous statement about a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the country to prove that his directive was meant to discriminate against one religion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed, citing the 23-year-old Supreme Court ruling on animal sacrifices as precedent.
In the 1993 case, the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye Inc., a Florida nonprofit group, sued the city of Hialeah, Florida, in federal court, saying its ordinances prohibiting animal sacrifices violate the First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise of religion. The group practices Santeria, which has been described as a "fusion" between elements of Roman Catholicism and the religion of Western Africa's Yoruba people, who were brought as slaves to Cuba.
The city won. A federal district judge ruled that the ordinances are meant to protect public health and welfare and the laws' effects on religious practice are merely incidental. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling. The Supreme Court reversed it in June 1993.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who's still on the bench, wrote that the city's laws were unconstitutional because they targeted the Santeria religion and its practices, but not other similar activities that harm animals, like slaughtering them for food.
"The principle that government may not enact laws that suppress religious belief or practice is so well understood that few violations are recorded in our opinions," Kennedy wrote. "Our review confirms that the laws in question were enacted by officials who did not understand, failed to perceive, or chose to ignore the fact that their official actions violated the Nation's essential commitment to religious freedom."
Governmental interests of protecting public health and preventing animal cruelty can be addressed in other less restrictive ways, such as regulations on how to dispose of organic garbage, how to care for animals, or how to slaughter them, Kennedy wrote.
Believers of Santeria worship the spirits called orishas, and they mainly show their devotion through animal sacrifices performed at birth, marriage and death rites. Their rituals are also done to cure the sick and during the initiation of new members and priests. The sacrificed animals are cooked and eaten at ceremonies, except after healing and death rituals.
The idea of animal sacrifices alarmed residents of Hialeah, so much so that the City Council called an emergency public session and enacted several resolutions and ordinances banning religious sacrifices. The laws were passed in 1987, after the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye Inc. leased a piece of property in the city and announced plans to build a complex that would include a house of worship, a school, a cultural center and a museum.
To make the case that the laws unconstitutionally targeted a religious group, the justices cited one of the resolutions enacted by city leaders. It stated: "This community will not tolerate religious practices which are abhorrent to its citizens."
The justices also listed public statements that city leaders made about Santeria.
One council member said during a public meeting that believers "are in violation of everything this country stands for." The president of the City Council also asked during a meeting, "What can we do to prevent the church from opening?"
Similarly, in the case of Trump's travel ban, the appeals court relied on the president's previous statements about Muslims.
"In Hialeah in the 1990s, it was Santeria. With Trump, it's Muslims," University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock, an expert of religious liberties who argued the Hialeah case, told the Miami Herald.
Shortly after the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled against the administration, Trump announced that he is considering rewriting his executive order. The president told reporters on Air Force One that he would probably wait until Monday or Tuesday to take any action. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus also said that several options - including taking the case to the Supreme Court - were still on the table.
Officials tell WRAL-TV that officers responded to a nightclub called Rumba at around 2 a.m. Saturday.
Authorities say two people had been shot in the club's parking lot. One man was taken to the hospital, where he later died of gunshot wounds. Another man was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
WASHINGTON Stupid but legal. Such is the Trump administrations travel ban for people from seven Muslim countries. Of course, as with almost everything in American life, what should be a policy or even a moral issue becomes a legal one. The judicial challenge should have been given short shrift, since the presidential grant of authority to exclude the entry of aliens is extremely wide and statutorily clear. The judge who issued the temporary restraining order never even made a case for its illegality.
The Ninth Circuit has indeed ruled against the immigration ban, but even if the ban is ultimately vindicated in the courts (as is likely), that doesnt change the fact that it makes for lousy policy. It began life as a barstool eruption after the San Bernardino massacre when Donald Trump proposed a total ban on Muslims entering the country until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
Rudy Giuliani says he was tasked with cleaning up this idea. Hence the executive order suspending entry of citizens from the seven countries while the vetting process is reviewed and tightened.
The core idea makes sense. These are failed, essentially ungovernable states (except for Iran) where reliable data is hard to find. But the moratorium was unnecessary and damaging. Its only purpose was to fulfill an ill-considered campaign promise.
It caused enormous disruption without making us any safer. What was the emergency that compelled us to turn away people already in the air with already approved visas for entry to the U.S.?
President Trump said he didnt want to give any warning. Otherwise, he tweeted, the bad would rush into our country. ... A lot of bad dudes out there!
Rush? Not a single American has ever been killed in a terror attack in this country by a citizen from the notorious seven. The killers have come from precisely those countries not listed Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Lebanon, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan (the Tsarnaev brothers). The notion that we had to act immediately because hordes of jihadists in these seven countries were about to board airplanes to blow up Americans is absurd.
Vetting standards could easily have been revised and tightened without the moratorium and its attendant disruptions, stupidities, random cruelties and well-deserved bad press.
The moratorium turned into a distillation of the worst aspects of our current airport-security system, which everyone knows to be 95 percent pantomime. The pat-down of the 80-year-old grandmother does nothing to make us safer. Its purpose is to give the illusion of doing something. Similarly, during the brief Trump moratorium, a cavalcade of innocent and indeed sympathetic characters graduate students, separated family members, returning doctors and scientists were denied entry. You saw this and said to yourself: We are protecting ourselves from these?
If anything, the spectacle served to undermine Trumps case for extreme vigilance and wariness of foreigners entering the United States. There is already empirical evidence. A Nov. 23 Quinnipiac poll found a 6-point majority in favor of suspending immigration from terror prone regions; a Feb. 7 poll found a 6-point majority against. The same poll found a whopping 44-point majority opposed to suspending all immigration of Syrian refugees to the U.S. indefinitely.
Then there is the opportunity cost of the whole debacle. It risks alienating the leaders of even nonaffected Muslim countries the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation expressed grave concern- which may deter us from taking far more real and effective anti-terror measures. The administration was intent on declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, a concrete measure that would hamper the operations of a global Islamist force. In the current atmosphere, however, that declaration is reportedly being delayed and rethought.
Add to that the costs of the ill-prepared, unvetted, sloppy rollout. Consider the discordant, hostile message sent to loyal law-abiding Muslim-Americans by the initial denial of entry to green card holders. And the ripple effect of the initial denial of entry to those Iraqis who risked everything to help us in our war effort. In future conflicts, this will inevitably weigh upon local Muslims deciding whether to join and help our side. Actions have consequences.
In the end, what was meant to be a piece of promise-keeping, tough-on-terror symbolism has become an oxygen-consuming distraction. This is a young administration with a transformative agenda to enact. At a time when it should be pushing and promoting deregulation, tax reform and health care transformation, it has steered itself into a pointless cul-de-sac where even winning is losing.
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By Rajan Menon | ( Tomdispatch.com) |
Forget those bad hombres down there in Mexico that U.S. troops might take out. Ignore the way National Security Adviser Michael Flynn put Iran on notice and the new president insisted, that, when it comes to that country, nothing is off the table. Instead, focus for a moment on something truly scary: the possibility that Donald Trumps Washington might slide into an actual war with the planets rising superpower, China. No kidding. It could really happen.
Lets start with silver-maned, stately Rex Tillerson, Donald Trumps pick for secretary of state. Who could deny that the former ExxonMobil CEO has a foreign ministers bearing? Trump reportedly chose him over neocon firebrand John Bolton partly for that reason. (Among other things, Bolton was mustachioed, something the new president apparently doesnt care for.) But an august persona can only do so much; it cant offset a lack of professional diplomatic experience.
That became all-too-apparent during Tillersons January 11th confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was asked for his view on the military infrastructure China has been creating on various islands in the South China Sea, the ownership of which other Asian countries, including Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei claim as well. Chinas actions, he replied, were extremely worrisome, likening them to Russias annexation of Ukraines Crimean peninsula, an infraction for which Russia was slapped with economic sanctions.
The then-secretary-of-state-designate hes since been confirmed, despite many negative votes didnt, however, stop there. Evidently, he wanted to communicate to the Chinese leadership in Beijing that the new administration was already irked beyond measure with them. So he added, Were going to have to send Chinas leaders a clear signal: that, first, the island building stops and, second, your access to those islands is not going to be allowed. Functionally, that fell little short of being an announcement of a future act of war, since not allowing access to those islands would clearly involve military moves. In what amounted to a theres-a-new-sheriff-in-town warning, he then doubled down yet again, insisting, slightly incoherently (in the tradition of his new boss) that the failure of a response has allowed them to just keep pushing the envelope on this.
All right, so maybe a novice had a bad day. Maybe the secretary-of-state-to-be simply ad-libbed and misspoke whatever. If so, you might have expected a later clarification from him or from someone on the Trump national security team anyway.
That didnt happen; instead, that team stuck to its guns. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer made no effort to add nuance to, let alone walk back, Tillersons remarks. During his first official press briefing on January 23rd, Spicer declared that the United States is going to make sure we defend our interests there in the South China Sea, that is and that if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yes, we are going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country.
And what of Trumps own views on the island controversy? Never one to pass up an opportunity for hyperbole, during the presidential campaign he swore that, on those tiny islands, China was building a military fortress the likes of which the world has not seen. As it happened, he wasnt speaking about, say, the forces that Hitler massed for the ill-fated Operation Barbarossa, launched in June 1941 with the aim of crushing the Red Army and the Soviet Union, or those deployed for the June 1944 Normandy landing, which sealed Nazi Germanys fate. When applied to what China has been up to in the South China Sea, his statement fell instantly into the not-yet-named category of alternative facts.
Candidate Trump also let it be known that he wouldnt allow Beijing to get away with such cheekiness on his watch. Why had the Chinese engaged in military construction on the islands? Trump had a simple answer (as he invariably does): China has no respect for our president and no respect for our country. The implication was evident. Things would be different once he settled into the White House and made America great again. Then it was easy enough to conclude China had better watch out.
Standard campaign bombast? Well, Trump hasnt changed his tune a bit since being elected. On December 4th, using (of course!) his Twitter account, he blasted Beijing for having built a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea. And its safe to assume that he signed off on Spicers combative comments as well.
In short, his administration has already drawn a red line but in the way a petulant child might with a crayon. During and after the campaign he made much of his determination to regain the respect he claims the U.S. has lost in the world, notably from adversaries like China. The danger here is that, in dealing with that country, Trump could, as is typical, make it all about himself, all about winning, one of his most beloved words, and disaster might follow.
Whose Islands?
A military clash between Trump-led America and a China led by President Xi Jinping? Understanding how it might happen requires a brief detour to the place where its most likely to occur: the South China Sea. Our first task: to understand Chinas position on that body of water and the islands it contains, as well as the nature of Beijings military projects there. So brace yourself for some necessary detail.
As Marina Tsirbas, a former diplomat now at the Australian National Universitys National Security College, explains, Beijings written and verbal statements on the South China Sea lend themselves to two different interpretations. The Chinese governments position boils down to something like this: We own everything the waters, islands and reefs, marine resources, and energy and mineral deposits within the Nine-Dash Line. That demarcation line, which incidentally has had ten dashes, and sometimes eleven, originally appeared in 1947 maps of the Republic of China, the Nationalist government that would soon flee to the island of Taiwan leaving the Chinese Communists in charge of the mainland. When Mao Ze Dong and his associates established the Peoples Republic, they retained that Nationalist map and the demarcation line that went with it, which just happened to enclose virtually all of the South China Sea, claiming sovereign rights.
This stance think of it as Beijings hard line on the subject raises instant questions about other countries navigation and overflight rights through that much-used region. In essence, do they have any and, if so, will Beijing alone be the one to define what those are? And will those definitions start to change as China becomes ever more powerful? These are hardly trivial concerns, given that about $5 trillion worth of goods pass through the South China Sea annually.
Then theres what might be called Beijings softer line, based on rights accorded by the legal concepts of the territorial sea and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which took effect in 1994 and has been signed by 167 states (including China but not the United States), a country has sovereign control within 12 nautical miles of its coast as well as of land formations in that perimeter visible at high tide. But other countries have the right of innocent passage. The EEZ goes further. It provides a rightful claimant control over access to fishing, as well as seabed and subsoil natural resources, within an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea extending 200 nautical miles, while ensuring other states freedom of passage by air and sea. UNCLOS also gives a state with an EEZ control over the establishment and use of artificial islands, installations, and structures within that zone an important provision at our present moment.
What makes all of this so much more complicated is that many of the islands and reefs in the South China Sea that provide the basis for defining Chinas EEZ are also claimed by other countries under the terms of UNCLOS. That, of course, immediately raises questions about the legality of Beijings military construction projects in that watery expanse on islands, atolls, and strips of land its dredging into existence, as well as its claims to seabed energy resources, fishing rights, and land reclamation rights there to say nothing about its willingness to seize some of them by force, rival claims be damned.
Moreover, figuring out which of these two positions hard or soft China embraces at any moment is tricky indeed. Beijing, for instance, insists that it upholds freedom of navigation and overflight rights in the Sea, but it has also said that these rights dont apply to warships and military aircraft. In recent years its warplanes have intercepted, and at close quarters, American military aircraft flying outside Chinese territorial waters in the same region. Similarly, in 2015, Chinese aircraft and ships followed and issued warnings to an American warship off Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands, which both China and Vietnam claim in their entirety. This past December, its Navy seized, but later returned, an underwater drone the American naval ship Bowditch had been operating near the coast of the Philippines.
There were similar incidents in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2013, and 2014. In the second of these episodes, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane, which had a crew of 24 on board, less than 70 miles off Hainan island, forcing it to make an emergency landing in China and creating a tense standoff between Beijing and Washington. The Chinese detained the crew for 11 days. They disassembled the EP-3, returning it three months later in pieces.
Such muscle flexing in the South China Sea isnt new. China has long been tough on its weaker neighbors in those waters. Back in 1974, for instance, its forces ejected South Vietnamese troops from parts of the Paracel/Xisha islands that Beijing claimed but did not yet control. China has also backed up its claim to the Spratly/Nansha islands (which Taiwan, Vietnam, and other regional countries reject) with air and naval patrols, tough talk, and more. In 1988, it forcibly occupied the Vietnamese-controlled Johnson Reef, securing control over the first of what would eventually become seven possessions in the Spratlys.
Vietnam has not been the only Southeast Asian country to receive such rough treatment. China and the Philippines both claim ownership of Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal/Huangyang Island, located 124 nautical miles off Luzon Island in the Philippines. In 2012, Beijing simply seized it, having already ejected Manila from Panganiban Reef (aka Mischief Reef), about 129 nautical miles from the Philippines Palawan Island, in 1995. In 2016, when an international arbitration tribunal upheld Manilas position on Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal, the Chinese Foreign Ministry sniffed that the decision is invalid and has no binding force. Chinese president Xi Jinping added for good measure that Chinas claims to the South China Sea stretched back to ancient times.
Then theres Chinas military construction work in the area, which includes the building of full-scale artificial islands, as well as harbors, military airfields, storage facilities, and hangars reinforced to protect military aircraft. In addition, the Chinese have installed radar systems, anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-missile defense systems on some of these islands.
These, then, are the projects that the Trump administration says it will stop. But Chinas conduct in the South China Sea leaves little doubt about its determination to hold onto what it has and continue its activities. The Chinese leadership has made this clear since Donald Trumps election, and the state-run press has struck a similarly defiant note, drawing crude red lines of its own. For example, the Global Times, a nationalist newspaper, mocked Trumps pretensions and issued a doomsday warning: The U.S. has no absolute power to dominate the South China Sea. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories.
Were the administration to follow its threatening talk with military action, the Global Times added ominously, The two sides had better prepare for a military clash. Although the Chinese leadership hasnt been anywhere near as bombastic, top officials have made it clear that they wont yield an inch on the South China Sea, that disputes over territories are matters for China and its neighbors to settle, and that Washington had best butt out.
True, as the acolytes of a unipolar world remind us, Chinas military spending amounts to barely more than a quarter of Washingtons and U.S. naval and air forces are far more advanced and lethal than their Chinese equivalents. However, although there certainly is a debate about the legal validity and historical accuracy of Chinas territorial claims, given the increasingly acrimonious relationship between Washington and Beijing the more strategically salient point may be that these territories, thousands of miles from the U.S. mainland, mean so much more to China than they do to the United States. By now, they are inextricably bound up with its national identity and pride, and with powerful historical and nationalistic memories with, that is, a sense that, after nearly two centuries of humiliation at the hands of the West, China is now a rising global power that can no longer be pushed around.
Behind such sentiments lies steel. By buying some $30 billion in advanced Russian armaments since the early 1990s and developing the capacity to build advanced weaponry of its own, China has methodically acquired the military means, and devised a strategy, to inflict serious losses on the American navy in any clash in the South China Sea, where geography serves as its ally. Beijing may, in the end, lose a showdown there, but rest assured that it would exact a heavy price before that. What sort of victory would that be?
If the fighting starts, it will be tough for the presidents of either country to back down. Xi Jinping, like Trump, presents himself as a tough guy, sure to trounce his enemies at home and abroad. Retaining that image requires that he not bend when it comes to defending Chinas land and honor. He faces another problem as well. Nationalism long ago sidelined Maoism in his country. As a result, were he and his colleagues to appear pusillanimous in the face of a Trumpian challenge, they would risk losing their legitimacy and potentially bringing their people onto the streets (something that can happen quickly in the age of social media). Thats a particularly forbidding thought in what is arguably the most rebellious land in the historical record. In such circumstances, the leaderships abiding conviction that it can calibrate the publics nationalism to serve the Communist Partys purposes without letting it get out of hand may prove delusional.
Certainly, the Party understands the danger that runaway nationalism could pose to its authority. Its paper, the Peoples Daily, condemned the irrational patriotism that manifested itself in social media forums and street protests after the recent international tribunals verdict favoring the Philippines. And thats hardly the first time a foreign policy fracas has excited public passions. Think, for example, of the anti-Japanese demonstrations that swept the country in 2005, provoked by Japanese school textbooks that sanitized that countrys World War II-era atrocities in China. Those protests spread to many cities, and the numbers were sizeable with more than 10,000 angry demonstrators on the streets of Shanghai alone. At first, the leadership encouraged the rallies, but it got nervous as things started to spin out of control.
Were Going to War in the South China Sea
Facing off against China, President Trump could find himself in a similar predicament, having so emphasized his toughness, his determination to regain Americas lost respect and make the country great again. The bigger problem, however, will undoubtedly be his own narcissism and his obsession with winning, not to mention his inability to resist sending incendiary messages via Twitter. Just try to imagine for a moment how a president who blows his stack during a getting-to-know-you phone call with the prime minister of Australia, a close ally, is likely to conduct himself in a confrontation with a country hes labeled a prime adversary.
In the event of a military crisis between China and the United States, neither side may want an escalation, to say nothing of a nuclear war. Yet Trumps threats to impose 45% tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. and his repeated condemnation of China as a currency manipulator and stealer of American jobs have already produced a poisonous atmosphere between the worlds two most powerful countries. And it was made worse by his December phone conversation with Taiwans president, Tsai Ing-wen, which created doubts about his commitment to the One China policy the United States has adhered to since 1972. The Chinese authorities apparently made it clear to the White House that there couldnt even be a first-time phone call to Xi unless the new president agreed to stick with that policy. During a conversation with the Chinese president on February 9th, Trump reportedly provided that essential assurance. Given the new American presidents volatility, however, Beijing will be playing close attention to his words and actions, even his symbolic ones, related to Taiwan.
Sooner or later, if Trump doesnt also dial down the rest of his rhetoric on China, its leaders will surely ratchet up theirs, thereby aggravating the situation further. So far, theyve restrained themselves in order to figure Trump out not an easy task even for Americans and in hopes that his present way of dealing with the world might be replaced with something more conventional and recognizable. Hope, as they say, springs eternal, but as of now, in repeatedly insisting that China must do as he says, Trump and his surrogates have inserted themselves and the country into a complicated territorial dispute far from Americas shores. The hubris of Washington acting as the keeper of world order, but regularly breaking the rules as it wishes, whether by invading Iraq in 2003 or making open use of torture and a global network of secret prisons, is an aspect of American behavior long obvious to foreign powers. It looks to be the essence of Trumpism, too, even if its roots are old indeed.
Dont dismiss the importance of heated exchanges between Washington and Beijing in the wake of Trumps election. The political atmosphere between rival powers, especially those with massive arsenals, can matter a great deal when they face off in a crisis. Pernicious stereotypes and mutual mistrust only increase the odds that crucial information will be misinterpreted in the heat of the moment because of entrenched beliefs that are immune to contrary evidence, misperceptions, worst-case calculations, and up-the-ante reactions. In academic jargon, these constitute the ingredients for a classic conflict spiral. In such a situation, events take control of leaders, producing outcomes that none of them sought. Not for nothing during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 did President John Kennedy look to Barbara Tuchmans book, Guns of August a gripping account of how Europe slipped and slid into a disastrous world war in 1914.
There has been lots of anxiety about the malign effects that Donald Trumps temperament and beliefs could have domestically, and for good reason. But in domestic politics, institutions and laws, civic organizations, the press, and public protests can serve, however imperfectly, as countervailing forces. In international politics, crises can erupt suddenly and unfold rapidly and the checks on rash behavior by American presidents are much weaker. They have considerable leeway to use military force (having repeatedly circumvented the War Powers Act). They can manipulate public opinion from the Bully Pulpit and shape the flow of information. (Think back to the Iraq war.) Congress typically rallies reflexively around the flag during international crises. In such moments, citizens criticism or mass protest invites charges of disloyalty.
This is why the brewing conflict in the South China Sea and rising animosities on both sides could produce something resembling a Cuban-Missile-Crisis-style situation with the United States lacking the geographical advantage this time around. If you think that a war between China and the United States couldnt possibly happen, you might have a point in ordinary times, which these distinctly arent.
Take the latest news on Stephen Bannon, formerly the executive chairman of the alt-right publication Breitbart News and now President Trumps chief political strategist. He has even been granted the right to sit in on every meeting of the National Security Council and its Principals Committee, the highest inter-agency forum for day-to-day national security deliberations. He will be privy to meetings that, according to a directive signed by Trump, even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence may not join unless issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise will be discussed. Calling this a break with past practice would be an understatement of the first order.
So Bannons views, once of interest only to a fringe group of Americans, now matter greatly. Heres what he said last March about China in a radio interview: Were going to war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years, arent we? Theres no doubt about that. Theyre taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face and you understand how important face is and say its an ancient territorial sea.
Think of this as Bannons version of apocalyptic prophecy. Then consider the volatility of the new president he advises. Then focus on the larger message: these are not ordinary times. Most Americans probably dont even know that there is a South China Sea. Count on one thing, though: they will soon.
Rajan Menon, a TomDispatch regular, is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia Universitys Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. He is the author, most recently, of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, John Feffers dystopian novel Splinterlands, as well as Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardts latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2017 Rajan Menon
Via Tomdispatch.com
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Human Rights Watch |
(Washington, DC) A US government designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering, would threaten the rights to association of Muslim groups in the United States. Such a designation would also undermine the ability of the Muslim Brotherhoods members and supporters to participate in democratic politics abroad.
Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization would wrongly equate it with violent extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and make their otherwise lawful activities illegal, said Laura Pitter, senior US national security counsel at Human Rights Watch. The designation would also unfairly taint anyone alleged to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and undermine the exercise of its political rights abroad.
A federal statute grants the secretary of state broad authority to designate any foreign entity a foreign terrorist organization once the State Department determines that it engages in terrorist activity, has the capacity and intent to do so, and that such actions threaten US nationals or US national security. A related executive order permits the government to label individuals or groups that assist or are associated with terrorist organizations as specially designated global terrorists and to block their assets. The law provides few legal protections to those designated.
The Muslim Brotherhood is an international Islamic social and political movement with numerous independent political parties, charities, and offices in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere. In several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Jordan and Tunisia, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties are recognized by law and hold seats in parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood maintains offices in Qatar, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and other countries, but has no official presence in the US.
Risks to US Groups, Individuals
If the US government designates the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist group, then not only its members, but anyone either in the United States or abroad suspected of providing support or resources to the group would be at risk of removal from the US if they are non-citizens and having their assets frozen. They would also risk unfairly being targeted for prosecution under various laws, including those banning material support for terrorism. These consequences could apply to charities, civil rights groups, or individual members of such groups suspected of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Muslim-affiliated groups that promote civic values and protect civil rights are crucial to US democracy. Laura Pitter senior US national security counsel
Under US law, the offense of material support for terrorism can include providing money, training, transportation, or expert advice or assistance, among other services. If the designation is made, those deemed to have supported the Muslim Brotherhoods political parties or helped coordinate its advocacy strategies in foreign countries where it remains legal would risk US prosecution. In the past, the United States has used these charges in an overbroad manner, punishing behavior that did not demonstrate an intent to support terrorism. Such prosecutions violate individuals rights to free expression and association, among others.
Several bills have been introduced in Congress over the years urging the State Department to make the designation based on unfounded arguments that the Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to infiltrate US political institutions and casting several important American Muslim organizations as being affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Muslim-affiliated groups that promote civic values and protect civil rights are crucial to US democracy, Pitter said. Threatening their rights threatens the rights of all Americans.
Effects of the designations are immediate. Groups and individuals can petition to be removed from the list of designated groups and challenge agency decisions in federal appeals courts, but they face many evidentiary and procedural challenges in doing so. For example, evidence submitted by the government in support of the designations can include hearsay, uncorroborated statements, and secret evidence to which the person or entity challenging the designation cannot have access. The government can also block assets during an investigation into whether a specially designated global terrorist label is appropriate but before the designation has actually been made.
International Implications
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 and has since evolved into an international movement whose branches effectively operate independently of one another. The main branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt officially renounced violence in the 1970s and sought to promote its ideas through social and political activities.
Following the Egyptian uprising of 2011, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood formed a political party and won a plurality of seats in parliament. Mohamed Morsy, a Muslim Brotherhood member, became Egypts first freely elected president in 2012. In July 2013, following mass protests against Morsy, the military forcibly removed him. An interim, military-backed government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group on December 25, 2013, attributing to it a bombing the day before that killed 16 people and wounded at least 130 at a police station in the Nile Delta. The government did not furnish evidence implicating the Brotherhood, which condemned the attack.
Human Rights Watch criticized Egypts 2013 designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group as politically driven and aimed at expanding a crackdown on the Brotherhoods peaceful activities. The Egyptian government has since arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of people, and carried out widespread torture and enforced disappearances of Muslim Brotherhood members and alleged supporters. An extensive government review of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United Kingdom in 2015 found that it has not been linked to terrorist-related activity in and against the UK.
If the United States designates the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, US allies that have not reached a similar conclusion would probably feel pressure to change their stances, and governments already hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood would have an excuse for politically motivated repression.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a large and complex political organization operating in many countries, Pitter said. By calling for the entire group to be designated as a terrorist organization, the Trump administration is making an extraordinarily broad policy determination that will harm the participation of Muslim groups in democratic processes.
Via Human Rights Watch
Related video added by Juan Cole:
Middle East Monitor: Egyptian media: Anti-Trump protesters mostly Muslim Brotherhood members
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |
Stephen Miller, a snot-nosed kid with a bad attitude, advertised as White House senior policy adviser, delivered himself of some stern jeremiads on Sunday on Meet the Press, along with many Big Lies of which Josef Goebbels would be jealous.
It is dreary to see a Republican White House once again fall into the clutches of grandiose fantasists and drooling conspiracy theorists. We saw this with Karl Rove and Irv Scooter Libby in the Bush years. The arrogance, the big globe-straddling ambitions, the spit in the face of average people, and above all the Big Lie. What is it about todays Republican Party that drives it into the arms of high-end hucksters and confidence men? Maybe its the cognitive dissonance of being a servant to the .01% but pretending to want to help average folks.
After denouncing the third branch of government, given powers of legislative review by the Constitution, Miller said:
our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.
We have seen these unimaginative scenarios so many times. The media as the enemy (you cant outdo tricky Dick Nixon on that one). The whole world having to be impressed. Have you *met* any French people? Believe me, Stephen, they arent impressed. They cant get past those ears, and wonder what happened to your hair. And we havent even gotten to your boss. And, then, sigh, the unquestioned power of the president. Whats the matter, unitary executive too hard for you to say?
Then there were Millers Giga-lies about undocumented people voting in the millions. Or maybe they are tera-lies. A lot of bytes go into a lie that huuuje.
But it is banal and ennui-inducing by now. Weve been there, done that. We had to form a whole new internet group the last time, the Reality-Based Community. I guess it is time to dust back off that blogger.com comment section from 2004.
The key quote that kicked off the Community appeared in an article by Ron Suskind on October 17, 2004 in the New York Times entitled, Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush. It is said that the Bush administration official who delivered himself of this famous quote was stragegist Karl Rove, who connived at a Permanent Republican Majority and urged a war on Iraq as a way to make sure George W. Bush got to be a two-term president (the longer in office, the more money to be made). So this is what is attributed to him:
Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while youre studying that reality judiciously, as you will well act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and thats how things will sort out. Were historys actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Rove did not mean to admit that he is detached from reality, any more than Kellyanne Conway intended to admit that she maintains a whole warehouse of alternative facts. Rove meant to say that George W. Bush had a big ol reality-creation machine on the back of his flatbed truck, and when you ran it, why it tinkered with dimensional space and made things turn out right for rich old cranky white men.
As for being an empire, no. The days of empire are over with. The natives or wily oriental gentleman as the Victorians called them all seem to have C4 plastic explosives now, if not, as with Pakistan and India and China, hundreds of nuclear warheads. Sticky wicket, old man, wot? Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf in Iraq, an elderly Iranian gentleman, pushed you and George around like the paper tigers you were, and he even did it nonviolently. Other impudent imperial subjects regularly blew up the poor 18-year-olds you sent over there to do God knows what. Since you were so big on turning Iraq into a shining beacon on the hill, I hear they need a good electoral consultant in Falluja these days, and maybe youd be so kind as to volunteer?
In other words, that reality creation machine on Ws flatbed truck was on the blink. So it got Rove and Bush into an Iraq War that is still going on and will cost us $6 trillion and which even other Republicans wont stand behind. It deregulated the hell out of Wall Street and so sent the big investment banks right to Gehenna, along with millions of mortgages, leaving average people so impoverished that a lot of them are still drinking themselves to death or hanging themselves in the closet over it. And then your attempt to punish Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame for questioning your phony cover story of Iraqi nuclear weapons (WMD) got your aide Scooter Libby in big doodoo. Very judicious doodoo. And your climate denialism will drown your great grandchildren, or give them heat stroke. See if you can please re-set that particular reality you created with 5-6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year from our one country.
So yes, Karl, I get to study what you wrought to the universe, and the resets and the twists and turns. I even wrote a whole book, Engaging the Muslim World, about what you got wrong in one part of the globe. There are lots of such books to be written. We writers will write them for a long time. But alas reality is a harsh mistress and doesnt like to be fucked with. Guess what happens to people who try to create an alternate reality?
I dont even understand the ambition. Reality is all we have to hold on to. We shouldnt want to mess with it. But it is just as well, since even empires cant. Especially when the whole idea of empire is past its expiration date and smells like a pile of two-week-old corpses.
And I see your whippersnapper of a protege, Mr. Miller, out before the cameras just like you were 13 years ago, strutting like a meerkat that caught a cobra by the tail, and lying his bony ass off. Brings a tear to my eye. Not nostalgia. Its just, I know how this movie ends.
Related video:
ABC: Stephen Miller on Immigration Order Next Steps: All Options Are on The Table'
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TeleSur |
Maria Svart of DSA speaks to teleSUR about how her organization is using Sanders vision to fight Trump and neoliberalism within the Democratic party.
While the U.S. has lost its chance at having arguably its first ever progressive president, Bernie Sanders, one group wants to capitalize on his political revolution and even nourish and support more people like him to infiltrate the Democratic party and fix the Democratic party.
Democratic Socialists of America has seen its membership double over the past few months in part because of Sanders reintroduction of socialism into the public eye but also as a reaction to the far-right takeover of the White House with the victory of Donald Trump.
Maria Svart, the national director of DSA, speaks to teleSUR about how her organization is using Sanders vision to fight Trump and neoliberalism within the Democratic party while aligning with other social and grassroots movements such as the Black Lives Matter, Womens March and the Native American water protectors in order to ultimately achieve a social democratic United States.
1. Since the election, DSAs membership has more than doubled, growing from 7,500-16,000 members. How do you explain this spike?
For one thing, Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary exposed millions of Americans to democratic socialist ideas and values. He brought these ideas back into the mainstream of political debate. Then, in the general election, we watched the Democratic Party leadership ignore the lessons from the primary, which demonstrated that people are not just open to but actually hungry for, left populist ideas. Finally, when Trump won the electoral college vote, many people realized that he would move quickly to double down on the voter disenfranchisement and suppression of dissent that the GOP was already known for. Essentially, people realized that we need a fighting Left lifting up visionary ideas and challenging the billionaire class, one willing to do the deep organizing at the local level to build long term independent political power.
2. Many point out that the Democratic Party has abandoned its working class roots for decades and has steadily moved to the right, becoming, fundamentally, a neoliberal party, which critics suggest was one of the main reasons behind the Trump victory and Republican control of Washington. Some on the left argue that a new political party should lead the political revolution Bernie Sanders called for. Is that DSAs vision for change, or do you support radicalizing the Democratic Party from within?
Given the immense structural barriers to forming a viable national third party, yet the equally immense influence that Wall Street has on the leadership of the Democratic Party, DSA has a strategic approach. We are building an independent, organized base that can work with progressive elected Democrats, but can also hold neoliberal Democrats accountable by threatening them with independent political power. We are agnostic on the question of whether working within or outside the party is inherently better, and instead we look at the specific context and work to elect open democratic socialists to local office. Frankly, what may matter most is that we believe in working between elections to engage the most marginalized in organizing campaigns around issues that resonate and for victories which will help people realize their own collective power. Thats the only way to build the large, organized base capable of either moving the Democratic Party to the left or founding a successful third party in the long term.
3. What actions have your organization taken so far to counter the Trump administrations anti-worker, anti-immigrant, anti-environment blitzkrieg? How are you coordinating and working with other anti-trump groups?
Within days of the election, we had our local chapters set up rapid response infrastructure to mobilize DSA members quickly when needed, reach out to leaders in the most marginalized communities, especially mosques and immigrant organizations, to offer support against vigilante violence, and organize bystander intervention trainings. We also knew that Trump would use divide and conquer but eventually attack all of us, so our next step was to have chapters reach out to a broader range of groups who would be targeted LGBTQ groups, civil rights and anti-police brutality groups, womens groups, synagogues, disability rights groups, anti-poverty groups, unions, etc. We are also coordinating nationally with groups like the Peoples Summit Network, Our Revolution, the #ResistTrumpTuesdays of the Working Families Party, and others.
4. How can grassroots movements such as Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock water protectors, along with swelling numbers of politically active women and students, help lead the fight against Trump, transform the Democratic Party, and help build a unified, national political project over the next four years?
The only way we can win is by standing together, rather than allowing Trump to pick us off or buy us off one by one. The historic Womens Marches showed millions of people were unhappy with the Trump agenda. Then a week later, the spontaneous airport protests over the Muslim ban showed our potential for solidarity, and the rowdy in-district town halls and protests outside even Democratic politicians offices showed that were not counting on politicians to save us. But it will take work to sustain, and grow, this swelling civic engagement. Capitalism pulls us apart and makes us compete, so we instead need to create new spaces for community and collaboration. We must welcome new people into the movement and in fact we need to deliberately reach out, through door to door canvassing and talking to our non-political friends, co-workers and neighbors. We need to organize the approximately 45% of voters who didnt bother to vote in the presidential election and move them into action now, well before the next election. As democratic socialists, we see our role as three-fold: 1) defensive fights to protect the most vulnerable, 2) proactive fights to organize the disenchanted, like Medicare for All, not just protecting the Affordable Care Act, and 3) ideological fights, to lift up an alternative vision and blame the billionaire class instead of scapegoats. And we see the best place to do that as part of the broader progressive resistance to Trump, particularly bringing together the Sanders primary supporters and groups rooted in working class communities of color.
5. Can the United States have a democratic socialist future? If so, what does that future look like?
The U.S. can have a democratic socialist future but only if we build a movement to challenge both capitalism and racism. Trump invokes a mythical America with his right-wing populism that depends on expelling or subjugating non-whites to provide for "true" Americans. Until our people learn through solidarity that we can only win together, we will be divided and defeated, and that means both protecting each other, and pushing for universal solutions, not half measures that leave us vulnerable to division again. Thus we need a democratic movement of the majority capable of demanding, and winning, major reforms like healthcare, housing, and education for all, clean air and water, childcare and elder care, full employment or a universal basic income, mental and reproductive healthcare, and the list could go on. That movement must make extending democracy not just into the economic sphere, but also the social and cultural spheres, a priority, which means challenging sexism, racism and other "isms" as distinct though intertwined with capitalism. Until and unless the most marginalized are free women of color, particularly LGBTQ or undocumented women of color none of us will be truly free. But when we can say "we the people" and truly mean all the people, then we will be powerful enough to democratize the finance industry, make public investment decisions for the good of the planet and people, and promote worker self-ownership instead of profit driven exploitative workplaces. This is the future we want.
Via TeleSur
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Cuneyt Ozdemir | (Duke University Middle East Studies Center |
Cuneyt Ozdemir is a columnist and investigative journalist with 28 years experience reporting from Turkey and the Middle East. An icon of Turkish media, he is host of the weekly current events program 5N1K, the author of thirteen books on politics and popular culture and is currently preparing to release a documentary on the coup attempt of July 2016 entitled Defiance: The Night of the Failed Coup.
I have been practicing journalism actively for 28 years in Turkey. During that period Ive covered almost all of the major events in the region, not only Turkish politics or popular culture, but also international conflicts and wars in the Middle East. Over the last decade Ive witnessed the ruling AKP marginalize fact-based media so that today 85% of the mainstream media in Turkey answers directly to the party in power. For the past 10 months, I have been working from New York, although I still travel to Istanbul quite frequently.
The dire situation of the media has only gotten worse since the failed coup of July 15, 2016, which has proven to be a transformative night in Turkish history. That night, a group of Turkish soldiers attempted a putsch or coup. They failed. For many Turks as well as international audiences this came as great surprise. How could Turkey, a member of NATO and the G20, an EU candidate country and a society that aspires to the values of the modern world, still be the fertile ground for a military coup? Some said it was fake. It was real, and by all accounts, well planned. A decision to initiate the coup four hours earlier than planned due to an intelligence leak may have led to its failure.
That night, subsequent to President Erdogans call to action through FaceTime, millions poured into the streets. It was astonishing. Theres still a shroud of mystery around what happened in the military chain of command over 12 fateful hours when 241 died and 2,194 were wounded. Ive recently finished a forthcoming documentary called Defi- ance about this night. Its comprised of cell phone and social media images as well as interviews with the people who fought against the troops on the streets, in the barracks, and in police stations. It also includes interviews with peo- ple who lost their relatives, friends and spouses. In my opin- ion, the coup plotters, who were likely a loose alliance of anti-AKP secularists and Gulenists in the army, overlooked a few key points about Turkey and the region:
JURIST Guest Columnist Karla McKanders of the University of Tennessee College of Law Immigration Clinic discusses the immigration and constitutional questions surrounding Executive Order 13769
Since Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13769, titled Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States, on January 27, 2017, approximately 60 lawsuits have been filed challenging the order (several of which have been dismissed or rendered moot). One of the primary challenges to the order is that it unlawfully discriminates against foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries. The order is being viewed by some as the presidents veiled attempt to test for future implementation of a ban on immigration by Muslims into the United States. The executive order raises issues relating to balancing the presidents broad authority over immigration, known as the plenary powers doctrine, and his ability to take actions in the name of national security with overarching fundamental concepts of non-discrimination and equality enshrined within the Constitution and 8 U.S.C. 1152(a)(1)(A) Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that provide a check on unrestrained discriminatory execution actions.
The lawsuits allege, in part, violations of non-discrimination provision of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1152(a)(1)(A). This provision provides:
no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the persons race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.
This provision does not protect individuals applying for temporary, non-immigrant, visas.
The lawsuits challenge the parts of the executive order that halt the processing immigrant and non-immigrant visas from specific countries and the refugee resettlement program. Specifically, section 3(c) of the executive order places a 90-day ban on the immigrant and non-immigrant entry of aliens from 212(f) designated countries (INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), which include Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. In addition, the executive order suspends the refugee resettlement program for all countries for 120 days (section 5(a)), and indefinitely for Syria (section 5(c)).
The executive order raises issues regarding what constitutes discrimination under the INA where agents of immigration system inherently engage in many forms of discrimination in determining numerical limits for immigrants coming to the US. The significance of the non-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act in relation to the executive order must be considered in the historical context in which the provision was passed along with the context in which the President is attempting to invoke his authority over immigration and national security.
In enacting the INA of 1965, Congress eliminated the quota system based on national origin. It was Congress intent to equalize immigration opportunities for groups previously subjected to discriminatory immigration laws and practices. In signing the Act, President Lyndon Johnson stated:
This system [referring to the quota system in place] violates the basic principle of American democracy the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country.
Given the historical context in which the act was passed, it appears clear that Congress and the president intended to extend civil rights protections beyond the borders of the US. Immigration scholars have posited that the INA was passed with a racial egalitarian motivation.
The non-discrimination provision of the INA has rarely been invoked in lawsuits. However, in Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers v. Department of State , Vietnamese asylum seekers cited the INA in challenging the State Departments refusal to process visas of detained Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong. The plaintiffs alleged this refusal violated the INAs non-discrimination provision because it discriminated based on their nationality. The court found that the non-discrimination provision within the INA explicitly prohibited discrimination based on national origin. The court also noted that in the context of this case, it need not decide whether the State Department could ever justify an exception under this provision, such a justification, if possible at all, must be most compellingperhaps a national emergency.
Some scholars have read the non-discrimination provision of the INA in conjunction with the presidents authority under 1182(f), as allowing the exclusion individuals when it is in the national security interest of the country. Similarly, they read provision 1152(a)(2) which states that [n]othing in this paragraph shall be construed to limit the authority of the Secretary of State to determine the procedures for the processing of immigrant visa applications or the locations where such applications will be processed, as granting the president authority to halt the processing of immigrant visas in the national security interest of the US. Contrastingly, in an amicus brief [PDF] filed in the Washington v. Trump case, several law professors argue that 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), which authorizes the president to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate cannot be read to negate the nondiscrimination requirement in 8 U.S.C. 1152(a)(1)(A), which was passed before section 1182(f).
In determining whether President Trumps executive order violates the INA, it has been asserted that the presidents actions cannot be considered in a vacuum. In the Washington v. Trump complaint, plaintiffs cite statements President Trump made prior to his election as evidence of his discriminatory intent to ban nationals from Muslim majority countries. Specifically, examples cited in the complaint include the following:
On December 7, 2015, candidate Trump issued a press release calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. Candidate Trump compared the Muslim ban to former President Franklin Roosevelts decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II, and stated, This is a president highly respected by all, [Roosevelt] did the same thing. August 15, 2016, candidate Trump noted that the United States could not adequate[ly] screen[] immigrants because it admits about 100,000 permanent immigrants from the Middle East every year. Trump proposed creating an ideological screening test for immigration applicants, which would screen out any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law. During the speech, he referred to his proposal as extreme, extreme vetting.
During oral argument before the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the district courts issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order, the panel of judges pressed the governments counsel to substantiate whether there exists a national security interest that warrants the presidents halt and ban within his Executive Order. Today, the Ninth Circuit issued an order [PDF] upholding the district courts temporary restraining order on the enforcement of the Presidents Order. The court specifically stated, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and explicitly rejected the notion that the political branches have unreviewable authority over immigration or are not subject to the Constitution when policymaking in that context (citing Zadvydas v. Davis , that the power of the political branches over immigration is subject to important constitutional limitations, also Chadha , rejecting the argument that Congress has unreviewable authority over the regulation of aliens, and affirming that courts can review whether Congress has chosen a constitutionally). Citing the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Reno , the Court stated noted that executive decisions related to matters of national security are subject to review when constitutional rights are at stake.
The presidents executive order appears to be an unprecedented departure from the ideals of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which was enacted in part to ensure nondiscrimination. The numerous lawsuits challenging the executive order reaffirm our system of checks and balances. These lawsuits will determine the limits of presidential plenary powers over immigration and national security while considering the principles of non-discrimination enshrined in the Immigration and Nationality Act and the US Constitution.
Karla McKanders is an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law, where she directs UTs Immigration Clinic and teaches refugee law. She is currently a Visiting Professor and supervising attorney in the Civil Rights Clinic at Howard University School of Law. Her work has taken her around the US and internationally researching the efficacy of legal institutions charged with processing migrants and refugees. In 2011, McKanders received a Fulbright Scholarship to lecture in Morocco at the University of Mohammad V. In addition, her scholarship focuses on immigration federalism and has examined the constitutionality of state and local laws targeting immigrants. Visit her website.
Suggested citation: Karla McKanders, Executive Actions Cannot Supplant the Constitution, Mr. President, JURIST Academic Commentary, February 10, 2017, http://jurist.org/forum/2017/02/karla-mckanders-executive-actions-cannot-supplant-the-constitution.php.
JURIST Guest Kubra Berberoglu, Oxford Human Rights Law Reporter (OxHRLR), discusses how, in the case of B.L. v. Australia , the HRC has made either a careless or a disappointing start in clarifying how it employs the internal relocation alternative and how this might negatively affect refugee protection under the ICCPR. A longer version of this post is available @cgpl
In 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) made its internal relocation alternative debut in B.L. v. Australia. Internal relocation alternative (also known as internal flight alternative), concerns weighing the possibility of relocation for an asylum seeker in her/his country of origin as a ground for refusing refugee status.
In this post I argue that in the case of B.L. v. Australia the HRC has made either a careless or a disappointing start in clarifying how it employs the internal relocation alternative and this might negatively affect refugee protection under ICCPR.
What Does International Law Say About Internal Relocation Alternative?
Under current international law, internal relocation alternative is not a pre-requisite per se to apply for asylum. The doctrine is not regulated under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) or its Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. The OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, on the other hand, explicitly rejects the internal flight alternative doctrine.
Despite the absence of a legal prerequisite to exhaust all other options available in the country of origin, internal relocation alternative has been used widely by states in refugee status determination (A study on practices of different states can be found here and here [PDF]). It has also been recognized as a factor in refugee status determinations by human rights courts and quasi judicial bodies (For EU and ECHR Law see here [PDF]; for CAT Committees jurisprudence see here at page 8 and for CEDAW Committees jurisprudence see here).
The Human Rights Committee and B.L. v. Australia
Although the internal relocation alternative has been mentioned in some individual opinions of the HRC members (see e.g. Individual Opinion of Mr. Yuji Iwasawa in Pillai et al. v. Canada), the majority has not relied on the doctrine when reaching a conclusion in HRC views. That is, of course, until the case that is the subject of this post: B.L. v Australia. Before examining where the HRC stood in B.L. v. Australia, lets have a quick look at the facts of the case and the decision of the Committee.
BL was born into a Muslim family in Touba, Senegal. When BL converted to Christianity in 1994, he had been attacked both by his family and the Mourides Brothers, a large Sufi order which is politically and culturally very effective in Senegal. Although BL left his hometown, the brotherhood found him again. When BL reported to the police that his life was threatened, he was told him that there was nothing they could do. Feeling unsafe, BL went forth and back between Senegal and South Africa and finally in 2008 he left Senegal for Australia. BL application for a protection visa before Australian authorities was rejected. After exhausting available remedies in Australia, BL filed a complaint before the Human Rights Committee.
When deciding whether deportation to Senegal would violate BL;s right to life, prohibition of torture and right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the Committee reasoned that:
the author has not put forward any other reason why he could not relocate within Senegal and it would not be unreasonable to expect him to settle in a location, especially one more distant from Touba, where such protection would be available to him.
Consequently, the Committee concluded that although BL disagreed with the Australian authorities on their factual findings, he failed to show why they were manifestly unreasonable. The HRC did not find any violation of BLs rights provided that he would be returned to a place where adequate and effective protection is available.
Although the Committee did not refer to the internal relocation alternative per se as the core doctrinal basis of its decision, it appears that it grounded its decision on the said doctrine. Or did it?
The ambiguous status of internal allocation alternative in B.L. v. Australia
When we look at the individual opinions of the Committee members we see that the members themselves were of different opinions on the meaning of the Committees words. Mr. Gerald L. Neuman and Mr Yuji Iwasawa said that the decision reflected the well-established principle of internal flight alternative. It is interesting to note that Mr. Gerald L. Neuman and Mr Yuji Iwasa referred to the internal flight alternative as a basic rule of international refugee law. This is in clear contradiction with the UNHCR Position Paper [PDF], which states that the internal relocation alternative does not amount to a principle of refugee law, but rather merely a factor in determination of refugee status. Mr Dheerujlall Seetulsingh endorsed Neuman and Iwasa opinions and further argued that the burden was not upon Australia to prove that B.L. would be returned to a place in Senegal where he could avail himself of State protection, but rather it was upon B.L. to prove why he could not be relocated in another place in Senegal.
Mr Fabian Omar Salvioli, had a completely different opinion. He pointed out that the Committee had never based its decisions on the internal relocation alternative doctrine and, according to him, this case should be no exception either. He argued that the Committee should not have said that B.L. failed to prove why he should not be relocated in Senegal or that it was not unreasonable for him to resettle in a location away from Touba. The HRCs reasoning, Salvioli argued, should have been that B.L. failed to prove that his claims were beyond reasonable doubt. If there were a genuine risk, regardless of the fact that there were safer locations in the country, there would have been violations of Article 6 or Article 7 of the ICCPR.
In my opinion, these contradictory opinions of the Committee members show that this case was not an official endorsement of the internal relocation alternative doctrine by the Committee, but rather show how difficult it can be to reach a common decision in certain cases.
What does this imply for refugee protection under ICCPR?
The internal relocation alternative is not a simple doctrine that can be applied with one mere sentence on the failure of the author to submit reasons as to why he could not relocate in another part in his home country. The UNHCR provides substantive and procedural safeguards when applying internal relocation alternative. These safeguards, however, were neither applied nor discussed in B.L. v. Australia. As pointed out by UNHCR here, such improper applications of internal relocation alternative has the potential to threaten the right to seek asylum as well as prohibition of refoulement.
First, if we accept that the Committee applied the internal relocation alternative in B.L. v. Australia, it has to be identified as one criterion among others. The Committee, instead, merely pointed out that B.L. failed to provide reasons why he could not relocate in another part in Senegal. The internal relocation alternative, however, should have been applied as a part of a holistic assessment of refugee status.
According to the UNHCR guidelines, relevance and reasonableness analyses are to be carried out in the context of a full assessment of refugee status. The relevance test focuses on whether the area of relocation is practically, safely and legally accessible; whether the agent of persecution is a state agent or a non-state agent, and; whether there would be risk of persecution upon relocation. The reasonableness test, for its part, looks at whether the person concerned would be able to have a normal life in the place of relocation.
In B.L. v. Australia, however, the Committee did not focus on any of these questions. Taking into account the Committees practice of deference to domestic authorities (see e.g. Tarlue v Canada, P.K. v Canada and Z. v Australia ), the fact that Australian authorities omitted to address any of the question set out in the relevance and reasonable analyses, could indeed have lead the Committee to consider that the national courts decision was arbitrary or amounted to a miscarriage of justice and thus enabled the Committee to evaluate the facts and evidence.
There are also procedural issues that the Committee should have considered. The first such issue is the country of origin information. According to UNHCR guidelines in cases where internal relocation alternative is relied upon, a particular area must be identified, rather than an unspecified description of another region of the origin country. In the present case, however, the majority opinion of the Committee failed to concede that the facts before it did not indicate that Australia identified a particular area where Mr. B.L. could avail from state protection.
Another issue here is burden of proof. UNHCRs guidelines provide that the party claiming internal relocation alternative is applicable should establish that there is a specific safe location where effective and adequate protection is available. Then, the person in question needs to prove why the relocation place is not relevant or reasonable. In the present case, however, the Committees position on burden of proof was somehow self-contradictory. Although there was nothing in the facts to suggest that Australia established a specific safe location during the course of refugee status determination, the Committee noted that Mr. B.L. failed to show why he could not relocate within Senegal. While it appears that the Committee placed the burden of proof upon B.L., it later set forth that B.L.s removal would not violate ICCPR provided that Australia determined a specific safe location.
Given that the definition of a refugee and the scope of non refoulement is limited under the Refugee Convention, generally applicable international human rights norms, including ICCPR, provide protection for those not covered by the Refugee Convention. Accepting that HRC endorsed the internal relocation alternative without any of the established safeguards means narrowing the scope of non refoulement to a dangerous level and compromises one of the few protection mechanisms available to millions of people who do not qualify as refugees under the Refugee Convention.
Conclusion: Did the HRC Accept the Internal Relocation Alternative?
Returning to our main question of whether or not the Committee accepted the internal relocation alternative, I am still hold the opinion that it did not, at least not yet. Although I concede that the Committees choice of words is ambiguous, such ambiguity probably serves the purpose of reconciling the contrasting opinions of different Committee members. Whatever the reason behind this wording might be, it seems we still need more, and better reasoned, decisions to determine the position of the HRC on this issue. If the Committee adopts more views in line with internal relocation alternative doctrine, it is necessary that the concept is not used in a way that impedes right to seek asylum and prohibition of refoulement.
Kubra Berberoglu has graduated from Koc University Law School in June 2016. She is currently completing her double major with International Relations. She has been working as an Oxford Human Rights Law Reporter since February 2015 and preparing headnotes analyzing the case law of the United Nations human rights treaty bodies. Her interests include international law, human rights, immigration and refugee law.
Suggested citation: Kubra Berberoglu, Internal Relocation Alternative: Where Does Human Rights Committee Stand?, JURIST Hotline, Feb. 06, 2017, http://jurist.org/hotline/2017/02/Kubra-Berberoglu-Internal-Relocation-Alternative.php
This article was prepared for publication by Yuxin Jiang, a Senior Editor for JURIST Commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org
[JURIST] The US Department of Justice [official website] on Friday withdrew its appeal of an injunction [opinion, PDF] preventing the Obama administrations guidance that schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom of their choosing. The guidance [official press release] stated that transgender students were protected under Title IX. A hearing was set for next Tuesday [CNN report] in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] to appeal the injunction granted in favor of Texas and 11 other states. On Friday, both parties filed a joint notice saying that the hearing was canceled.
Discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has been controversial in the US. In January President Donald Trump vowed [JURIST report] to continue LGBTQ rights protections for federal workers. North Carolina has faced national focus for its bathroom bill [JURIST report] that requires individuals to use the public bathroom associated with the sex listed on their birth certificate. In November a judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled [JURIST report] that Title VIIs protection from employment discrimination based on sex extends to sexual orientation. In June two gay men filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging a Tennessee law that protects counselors who refuse to provide services to individuals based on their religious beliefs.
[JURIST] Pakistani authorities have driven nearly 600,000 Afghan refugees back into Afghanistan since July 2016, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said in a report [text] Monday. HRW claims that among those being forced out of the country are 365,000 lawfully registered refugees. HRW also alleges that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) [official website] is complicit in what it calls the worlds largest unlawful mass forced return of refugees in recent times. HRW argues that Pakistani police have been using extortion techniques to force Afghan refugees out of the limited jobs available to them while Pakistani landlords have dramatically increased the cost of rent for Afghan refugees and Pakistani officials pressed UNHCR to increase its cash grant to returnees from US $200 to US $400 per person to coerce the refugees to return home. The report states:
Under its mandate, UNHCR may facilitate voluntary refugee repatriation, even where UNHCR does not consider that it is safe for most refugees to return or that their return amounts to a durable solution. UNHCR may only promote large-scale refugee repatriation when, among other things, UNHCR has formally concluded there is an overall general improvement in the refugees country of origin so that they can return in safety and dignity and rebuild their lives there in a durable manner. Absent reintegration into the local community, voluntary repatriation is not a durable solution. In both casesfacilitation or promotionUNHCR must be convinced that refugees are in fact returning voluntarily before it supports their repatriation.
HRW states that conditions in Afghanistan have not improved to the standard necessary for the UNHCR to facilitate the repatriation of Afghan refugees.
The rights of refugee and migrant populations has emerged as one of the most significant humanitarian issues around the world. Last month the Slovenian parliament passed amendments to the Aliens Act [JURIST report] to enact emergency measures to deny refugees entry into the country and to expel those whom did not have their asylum claims properly assessed. Also last month US President Donald Trump issued [JURIST report] an executive order restricting access to the US for refugees and visa holders from seven countries. The order also indefinitely suspends the entry into the US of Syrian refugees. The order further suspended admission of refugees from any country for 120 days while the administration is reviewing the visa program and limited the number of possible refugees for 2017 to 50,000. In November experts questioned humanitarian conditions at Grecian migrant camps when a 66-year-old woman and six-year-old boy died [JURIST report] in a camp fire. In April several aid organizations urged [JURIST report] EU leaders to stop deportations of migrants from Greece to Turkey and to stop detaining asylum seekers. Also in April Human Rights Watch reported [JURIST report] that the first deportation of 66 people from the Greek island of Chios to Turkey was riddled with an array of irregularities. In April former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged [JURIST report] world leaders to accept more refugees and to combat the growing international anti-refugee sentiments. That same month, an independent UN human rights expert encouraged EU leaders to remain steadfast [JURIST report] in their obligations to handle the recent influx of migrants to the EU.
[JURIST] Australias offshore detention of asylum seekers constitutes a human rights violation, according to a petition [text, PDF] filed Monday in the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] by a coalition of legal experts. The 108-page document, submitted to the ICC by the Global Legal Action Network (Glan) and the Stanford International Human Rights Clinic [advocacy websites], urges the ICC prosecutor to open an investigation into the possible crimes against humanity committed by individuals and corporate actors on asylum seekers in the Australian detention facilities. Glan released a statement [press release] calling attention to the inhumane conditions preventing asylum seekers arriving by boat from reaching the mainland. Glan continued that
As recent leaks reveal, these privatised facilities entail long-term detention in inhumane conditions, often including physical and sexual abuse of adults and children. The conditions and resulting hopelessness have caused what experts describe as epidemic levels of self-harm among those held on these islands. Based on original research, the communication is the most comprehensive submission on crimes against humanity perpetrated outside of the context of war.
For the ICC prosecutor to bring charges against an Australian government head or state official, the prosecutor would need to be convinced that Australias crimes violated the Rome Statute [text, PDF] by constituting a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.
Australia has particularly been under fire for its treatment of refugees. Amnesty International (AI) has accused Australia of using the island of Nauru as an open-air prison [JURIST report] to prevent immigration of asylum seekers. In August Australia announced [JURIST report] that Australia and Papua New Guinea intend on closing the controversial Manus Island detention center. That same month AI and Human Rights Watch issued reports [JURIST report] stating that Australia is ignoring inhumane treatment of detainees in Nauru. Papua New Guinea officials claimed in May that refugees are not being detained [JURIST report] on Manus Island, as they are given access to mainland Australia. The statement by officials followed a ruling by the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court that the Australian off-shore detention facility was illegal, in direct opposition to a ruling [JURIST report] by the Australian Supreme Court earlier this year that the off-shore detention was legal.
Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump, appearing in a joint press conference in Palm Beach, Florida, strongly condemned [text] a North Korea ballistic missile test. North Korea tested a ballistic missile on Sunday which flew East for about 300 miles until it landed in the Sea of Japan [BBC report]. UN resolutions bar North Korea from carrying out ballistic missile tests. Despite numerous UN sanctions, North Korea tested over 20 missiles [NPR report] last year, but Sundays missile test is the first conducted since Trump took office in January. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg [official profile] condemned North Koreas tests, and urged [press release] North Korea to refrain from further provocations, halt all launches using ballistic missile technology and abandon once and for all its ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. South Koreas Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] also condemned the tests, stating [press release] that North Koreas actions pose a direct challenge to the united resolve of the international community.
Kim Jong-un, leader of North Korea, announced [JURIST report] in his New Years address that the country is in the final stage of preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic rocket. At the start of 2016, the US Congress approved additional sanctions [JURIST report] including the seizure of assets and limitation of commerce in response to reports that North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb [NYT report]. In April of 2016, the UN strongly condemn[ed] [press release] North Koreas testing of missiles and that February, UN Secretary General described North Koreas missile launching as deplorable [JURIST report]. Before leaving office, former US President Barack Obamas administration expanded sanctions [JURIST report] against North Korea for alleged human rights violations, adding to the list of North Korean officials on the Specially Designated Nationals List.
Six journalists were arrested in Ivory Coast [government website, in French] on Sunday and charged with spreading false information, according to media outlets [Abidjan report, in French] and public prosecutors. The journalists, including three media owners, allegedly published stories designed to incite further mutiny by security forces in the country who are protesting over compensation. The alleged false news appeared in Le Temps, Notre Voie and LInter and SoirInfo [websites]. Multiple publishing groups in the country have condemned the arrests and called for the journalists, who are currently being held in the capital city Abidjan, to be released. Among those demanding their release is Patrice Yao, president of the Groupement des Editeurs de Presse de Cote dIvoire, who said in a statement, The professional organizations strongly condemn the arbitrary and unlawful detention of their colleagues and demand their unconditional release.
The Ivory Coast has faced turmoil since 2010 when former president Laurent Gbagbo [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] lost his second presidential race to former prime minister Alassane Ouattara [BBC profile]. In January, UN Independent Expert Mohammed Ayat described [JURIST report] some of the challenges that Ivory Coast must face as the UN Operation in Cote dIvoire (UNOCI) withdraws from the country.The EU recognized that Ouattara defeated Gbagbo, but Gbagbo refused to concede victory [JURIST report]. Gbagbo has been accused [JURIST report] of starting a civil war after losing the presidency, which resulted in 3,000 deaths and the displacement of one million people. Voters in the Ivory Coast successfully approved [JURIST report] a new constitution last year. In November, Oattara signed [JURIST report] the constitution into law. Amid political tensions, the Ivory Coast continues to host human rights violations. In July, the UN released a report [JURIST report] claiming that the Ivory Coast needed to make greater efforts to prevent and punish rape. In May, the Human Rights Watch called [JURIST report] for the trial of the former Ivory Coast first lady to be credible, fair, and followed by the trials of other high-level rights abusers.
[JURIST] The Islamabad High Court [official website] ruled [Dawn report] Monday that all public celebrations of Valentines day are prohibited with immediate effect. The prohibition will affect government offices, private businesses and media sources. Print and electronic media have been ordered to cease all Valentines Day promotions immediately lest they are reported to the police by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority [official website]. The High Court ruling came about as a result of a petition by Abdul Waheed who argued that Valentines Day promotions on mainstream and social media are against Islamic teachings and should be banned immediately. Implementation of the Valentines day ban will depend on its interpretation by police. So far, no retailers have seen any police enforcement.
This is nott the first time that Valentines Day has come under fire in the Islamic Republic. Last year President Mamnoon Hussain [BBC profile] urged Pakistanis to forego Valentines Day celebrations stating that they were not a part of Muslim tradition but adopted from the West. The president went on to say that the downsides of western culture have already adversely affected one of our neighbouring countries. Also last year, vigilantes gathered to burn [BBC report] Valentines Day cards, which they saw as a symbol of assimilation of Western ideas into Pakistani society. Many religious groups, like the Islamic political party Jamaat-e-Islami [party website], argue that Valentines Day is not a romantic holiday but a sexual one with obscene undertones.
[JURIST] Fifty-nine percent of Swiss voters opposed a proposal on Sunday that would prevent tax increases for corporations. Switzerland gives foreign firms lower taxes [Reuters report] than domestic firms, which was criticized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [official website]. In response, the Swiss government planned to change the special status of foreign multinational corporations but offer tax breaks to all corporations to avoid a rise in taxes for foreign businesses. The proposal was rejected by Social Democrats and others, who feared that the lower taxes on businesses would cause less funding to go towards public services. Finance Minister Ueli Maurer [official profile] said that the government will need to devise a new plan, but he is worried that companies might withdraw from Switzerland in the meantime.
The past year, Switzerland has voted on several issues that have drawn interest in the international community. In June Swiss voters rejected [JURIST report] a plan to provide all citizens with guaranteed basic income. Swiss voters approved [JURIST] a new surveillance law in September. In November voters rejected [JURIST] a plan to phase out the countrys nuclear power program.
The US rejected the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to lead the UN Mission in Libya [official website], despite official reports that all other 14 members of the UN Security Council [official website] approved the appointment. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, expressed disappointment [Al Jazeera report] on Friday over the the plan to appoint Fayyad, saying that the US stands firmly behind Israel and does not like the message this appointment would send. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said [statement] this choice was solely based on Mr. Fayyads recognized personal qualities and his competence for that position. United Nations staff serve strictly in their personal capacity. They do not represent any government or country. The appointment would require a unanimous vote of all 15 members of the Council, but it is not yet clear whether Haleys objections ended Fayyads candidacy.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been at the forefront of recent international news and reports. Earlier this month, a UN rights expert recommended [JURIST report] that the UN Security Council and the General Assembly act to ensure Israel complies with Security Council resolution 2234, which confirms that Israeli settlements in already occupied Palestinian territory violate international law. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a recent letter, warned [JURIST report] US President Trump, shortly before he took office, against moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. That same month, Human Rights Watch claimed [JURIST report] 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
Continuing just-autos series of interviews with tier one component manufacturers, we spoke to executives from Adient, the worlds largest global automotive seating supplier. In this interview, they explained their Vision Seat, Chrysler Portal concept, AI17 seats for autonomous driving, customisation options and advances in lightweighting. By using a wide range of technologies, the supplier has reduced the overall weight of its seats by 20-30 percent over the past decade.
Could you tell us about some of the technologies that Adient highlighted this year at the most recent North American International Auto Show and your main messages?
Marking the two-month anniversary of Adient just prior to NAIAS, it was the perfect timing for our debut on this international stage. During the trade show, Adient was showcasing several future seating system concepts for the next generation mobility.
For example: How do you create an automotive seat that keeps passengers comfortable, regardless of their size and seating position? That was the challenge Adient set out to solve with its Vision Seat concept, which debuted at 2017 NAIAS. Our Vision Seat design team worked without any of the assumptions brought to traditional seat construction. Their starting point was the human side of design studying and reacting to how peoples bodies move when they are sitting in a vehicle. The result is a unique concept in the construction of interdependent sub-components that cannot be broken apart. Benefits of the new seat include a high quality, thinner and lighter seat profile, which improves vehicle interior space, better occupant kinematics for greater comfort, and easier seat adjustment that improves overall seating satisfaction.
During the 2017 NAIAS trade show, customers were also able to consider meticulously crafted, production-ready seats made with a variety of materials, technology and design solutions. Our Adient Luxury by Design seat helps automakers discover the intersection of luxury and affordability, while allowing them to create distinct interiors that align to specific vehicle brands. As an example, Luxury by Design shows a drivers seat trimmed in full-grain leather and a passengers seat trimmed in synthetic leather so customers can compare and contrast the materials qualities, craftsmanship and durability, as it relates to luxury and brand. Other features show hard versus soft back panels, allow comparisons of foam and present 3D CNC sewing as a means to create a handcrafted surface appearance in endless styles.
Another current example of Adients vision of the future seating becomes visible in the Chrysler Portal concept vehicle, which was unveiled by FCA US at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Designed with supplier partners, the Chrysler Portal is a forward-thinking interpretation of the fifth generation of family transportation targeted at the millennial generation. The seat concept is a thin seat that folds flat, folds up and slides fore and aft on a track system for ultimate flexibility. The seats mount to tracks embedded in the floor, enabling them to move the full length of the vehicle and, if needed, to be removed easily from the rear of the vehicle. The seat sits on tracks on a narrow pedestal design that has multiple embedded functions. For example, the pedestal includes a release handle for easy adjustment when the seat is in a flip-up position. The Chrysler Portal vehicle seat also offers a new approach to reclining, which includes a propriety relationship to cushion adjustment.
There is a lot of talk these days about the autonomous car and the future of driving. How will that impact the drivers seat and rest of the cars seats?
The interior of automated driving vehicles will play an important role as drivers and passengers spend more time on non-driving activities. Once vehicles have the capability to be computer-driven, passengers will demand far more flexibility from a vehicles seating and interior space than ever before. At NAIAS, we unveiled the Adient AI17 Automated Driving Seating Demonstrator, which converts the impact of trends ranging from automated driving and electrification to the Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence into real product innovations for customers and their consumers.
With solutions for level-3 and level-4 autonomous vehicles, the concept features innovations that increase interior flexibility, while also providing passengers with higher levels of safety, comfort and convenience. Among the 15-plus innovative concepts are greeting and conversation modes. In greeting mode, front seat passengers can activate integrated controls to rotate their seats up to 70 degrees outward so they can easily get in and out of the vehicle. In conversation mode, the front seats rotate 15 degrees inward to create an intimate setting for conversing. In addition, the Demonstrator applies the zero-gravity concept to reclining, which ensures perfect balance at the hip for maximum comfort. Related components head restraint, dual-sided armrests, leg rests are synchronised to move with the body. To further support autonomous driving, the Demonstrator features thin, lightweight seating innovations to increase interior flexibility and provide more usable interior space while also providing occupants with higher levels of safety, comfort and convenience.
Last year we learned about Johnson Controls Automotive Lifestyles baseline car seat research. In what ways have the findings from this research helped Adient?
The study of Automotive Lifestyles is concerned with the question what consumers really look for when choosing their new car, taking into account their life history, previous experiences, current family situation, working and cultural environment, economic situation and personal requirements.
The results have contributed to Adients innovation process and helped us greatly to better understand the individual consumers needs and requirements, explaining buyer behaviour in a more detailed way and therefore to offer the right products and services for an OEMs individual target group.
We understand that for car manufacturers as well as their suppliers, individualisation is a growth market that offers great potential for differentiation. How is Adient responding to that?
As customisation options continue to grow, the desire of many new car buyers for design alternatives is becoming increasingly important. The megatrend toward vehicle customisation can therefore clearly be seen as a growing market, offering automakers huge potential for differentiation in the future. As global leader in automotive seating, we are offering customers not only a range of different materials but also a choice of extraordinary surface structures, personalised printing or embroidered elements for customising passenger vehicle seats.
One key technology in terms of customisation offered by Adient is the inkjet printing process for trim covers. The production process is similar to that of a paper printer. Each version of the seat surface is a single file, printed one after the other. This digital inkjet printing allows inkjet printing process for trim covers. The production process is similar to that of a paper printer. Each version of the seat surface is a single file, printed one after the other. This digital inkjet printing allows automakers to test various designs and colours in small runs and limited editions without having to do additional material validation. It is also an important answer in terms of individualisation for mass production.
Besides the inkjet process, our removable, zip-out, zip-in seat covers make it easy for vehicle owners to change the look of their interior. For carmakers, the inkjet process, our removable, zip-out, zip-in seat covers make it easy for vehicle owners to change the look of their interior. For carmakers, the Adient developed in-house printing capabilities allow testing various designs and colours in small runs and limited editions. Digital printing allows exact placement of design onto seat patterns, with specific designs tailored to segment needs and market updates. The removable covers are washable with 30 degrees C water, the foam is protected by a technical cover beneath the seeable and removable surface, eliminating the need for further validation after changing the surface material.
Another option for individualisation is to offer customers a high-class complete seat as a significant upgrade compared to the standard equipment. At NAIAS, our premium brand Recaro Automotive Seating showcased a range of solutions for all kinds of performance cars from SUV to luxury models. Based on these Recaro seats, we can offer our customers tailor-made solutions that fit perfectly into the relevant car segment and the individual interior design of the respective OEM brand.
What are other megatrends in the automotive seating industry and how could they shape the look and feel of tomorrows car seats?
The road toward more lightweight and sustainable solutions for vehicles will continue to drive interior innovation. Therefore, helping automakers to meet the upcoming environmental and fuel economy requirements is a key driver of our interior products and processes. By using a wide range of technologies, we have been able to reduce the overall weight of our seats by a total of 20-30 percent over the past 10 years. As recently as 2010, a front seat structure weighed 14 kilograms; in 2015, we were able to reduce it to around 10 kilograms. Our express goal is to reduce the weight to well under 10 kilograms by 2020, while simultaneously making the automotive seat more and more like a multifunctional element with diverse electronic adjustment options and technical features. Our designers are faced with the challenge of combining this with the need for a reduction in weight. And, of course, with ensuring that these seats also meet the highest safety and quality standards.
The designing of seats with a very low weight has always been characteristic to the brand DNA of our product group Recaro Automotive Seating with its strong roots in motorsports. In this context, another advantage of many Recaro performance seats lies in the very low hip-point. This feature makes perfect sense not only in a race car, but also in an electric powered vehicle. If you have a car with huge battery packs in the floor, the hip-point of the seats become a crucial factor when the best possible packaging is desired. The Recaro Sport Seat Platform that gained great interest at NAIAS is probably the seat structure with the lowest h-point in the market.
Can we expect to see more fibre-reinforced composite seat back frames that provide a low mass design and improved packaging efficiency?
In order to reduce the weight of the cars seating systems, the focus of the multi-material approach is on increasing the amount of lightweight materials, such as fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP), carbon, aluminium or magnesium, in the finished seats. One example: Made from glass-fibre reinforced thermoplastics, our new front seat backrest is significantly lighter than other versions that use traditional materials like steel, aluminium or magnesium. And with a slim, fully modular design, it can be installed on any seating platform and saves space for consumers. Though it has a multi-material structure, this product can be manufactured in one simple step enabling cost-effective, high-volume production.
Within the portfolio of Recaro Automotive Seating, we offer several options with lightweight components based on fibre-reinforced technology, e.g. the Recaro backrests that are part of the Recaro Composite Seat concept. They not only score in terms of weight and packaging, but can also be individualised with several options of surface refinement such as high level paint finishing or special trim options on the rear side of the backrest.
Although weight reduction is crucial if the auto industry is to meet the CAFE standards, is there a negative perception of thin seats amongst consumers?
Our Slim-Seat Demonstrator integrates several innovative technologies to show how weight can be reduced, and packaging increased in a stylish, safe and of course comfortable seat. The multi-material seat structure for mass production starts with a one-shot, injection-molded composite structure with a Class-A quality finish on the backrest, followed by thin and cutting foam layers for comfort and durability. Finally, the seat is designed and trimmed with our fabrics for a trend-setting contemporary look and feel.
Consumers look for comfort and safety in a seat. Seats should guide them, protect them, and fit to their shape and size. In general, the perception of comfort is not only based on the thickness of a seat. Adient always strives to make safe and comfortable seats with proven quality. As such, we have made improvements in technology and materials to save weight and create more legroom space, but at the same time improve comfort and safety, e.g. seat foam thickness has been reduced without compromising on comfort. The thickness of a seat is selected carefully, based on comfort studies. Therefore, comfort and seat thinness are not a paradox at Adient.
In terms of the seat structure, to what extent is there a greater use of aluminium (or steel and aluminium combined) in manufacturing either the front or rear seats?
We have shown several Aluminium hybrid concepts. However, considering the relatively low advantages versus the significantly higher costs compared to ultra-high-strength steel, we are currently not pursuing this approach any further. Magnesium might be an interesting alternative as it offers significant weight reduction potential.
I guess the use of alternative and advanced materials in seats helps reduce weight. Could you talk us through a recent seating innovation that has resulted in a significant reduction in weight?
One key material to keep the weight reduction process ongoing is magnesium. It is the lightest of all structural materials to help improve fuel economy while maintaining structural integrity [magnesium is 75 percent lighter than steel and 33 percent lighter than aluminium]. Our new lightweight cast magnesium seat structures offer a very good strength-to-weight ratio, design flexibility and excellent dimensional stability along with high dent and impact resistance. Modular designs with products such as our height adjuster series HA3000, Track 3000 asymmetric tracks and the 3000 series recliners make these world class structures adaptable to virtually any platform or body type.
See also Global light vehicle seating market forecasts to 2031
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Beppe Grillos party seems to be falling under its own weapons.
The Five Star Movement, Movimento 5 Stelle or M5S, is arguably Italys most vocal anti-establishment party, pursuing the dream of the absolute popular sovereignty. An energetic and very successful project, over the last year it has suffered a number of setbacks, and its collapse might be near.
M5S was founded in 2009 by Beppe Grillo, an Italian comedian, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, an Italian entrepreneur with strong expertise in institutional communication. Casaleggio is responsible for what became the M5S motto: There is not a right-wing or left-wing idea. There are good and bad ideas. It is precisely the traditional partisan distinctions that M5S seeks to overcome.
According to M5S , true democracy can only be reached by replacing the traditional representative system with full popular sovereignty. Such direct democracy would take decisions on all matters.
In this process, the Net is fundamental, namely the allegedly well-informed citizens grouped under the massively popular Beppe Grillos Blog it is the most visited blog in Italy and among the 10 most visited in the world and other internet media affiliated with M5S, such as TzeTze , La Cosa , il Blog delle Stelle . These sites are owned, in fact, by Casaleggio Associati , the IT communication enterprise of M5S co-founder Gianroberto Casaleggio. He was the mind behind the M5S blog system, as well as its direct-democracy and non-partisan ideology.
It is one thing to use irrationality methodically, and another to use irrationality irrationally.
Such a design is morally appreciable, but in practice it proves to be problematic, rather ineffectual, and clearly flirts with irrationality. On the other hand, the technical build-up of M5S shows that its architects have well understood the suggestive, falsely syllogistic, dynamics that does govern todays political communications.Irrationality is not always a morally despicable way of propaganda, but it has a major drawback: it ends up suffering from overconfidence. It is one thing to use irrationality methodically, and another to use irrationality irrationally (forgive the pun). The Five-Star Movement is showing signs of suffering from the latter.
Recent events are not helpful towards the Movement. Firstly, note the recent fuss about M5Ss switch from the Euroskeptic EFDD group in the European Parliament to the pro-Europe, liberal ALDE. Considering MS5s philosophy, the proposal for this switch and the online voting (78% voted in favour of ALDE) are quite odd. It was not a good idea: ALDE rejected M5Ss self-candidacy to join its lines, while Farages EFDD imposed strict diktats on the Movements policies as a precondition for accepting it back into the Euroskeptic group.
Besides, Grillo is not new to this sort of oddities. In 2009, after having repeatedly presented candidate mayors in several Italian communes and vowed his opposition to the centre-leftist Democratic Party / Partito Democratico (PD), he presented his intention to subscribe to the same party and stand for its secretariat.
Secondly, the situation in Italy is similarly critical. Several politicians, including several parliamentarians and mayors across Italy, have been forced to quit because of online accusations and initiated judicial investigations against them. Mayor Virginia Raggi of Rome, a M5S member, has been experiencing a hard time over allegations of corruption in her administration, especially since last December, when her right-hand manager Raffaele Marra was arrested for illicit real-estate activities. Meanwhile, she nominated Renato Marra (Raffaeles brother) to Romes Department of Tourism, a nomination she later withdrew.
Raggi is currently under investigation and has been called to interrogation. Of course one can say that Rome is a special case. The eternal city seems to be pathologically affected by corruption and inefficiency: just before Raggi, in the umpteenth series of scandals, the former mayor Ignazio Marino was forced to resign by his own administration, crushed by the judicial investigation named Mafia Capitale, which revealed a Mafia-like system of corruption in the capitols public tenders.
With a past of this sort, Rome has all it takes to be M5Ss fortress, and, at the same time, to be a cause for its ruin. Grillo knows it: Raggis administration triumphs, M5S stays in the race. If the opposite happens, M5S risks being identified itself as one more of those corrupted parties. Which is why the Movement is using its best efforts to protect the Roman mayor.
By now everyone in Italy knows that when a M5S politician is suspected of illicit behaviour, a vote is immediately organised on the Net for his/her expulsion. The M5S charter provides for the absolute and unconditional spotlessness of its politicians. Not surprisingly, the online polls have always been supportive of expulsion measures. Rather than the triumph of democracy, this smacks of witch-hunt. A strong political antagonist can easily exploit it: it will suffice to initiate a formal investigation against, say, a MS5 mayor, to start a process that will most likely lead to the mayors resignation from office. Plus, in Italy, public prosecutors can investigate anyone without needing to answer for that just because it is an investigation, not an accusation.
But maybe, finally, Raggis misadventures have made Grillo realise the shortcomings of this approach and led him to propose a new charter on its politicians involvement in judicial matters, that for the moment is not official because of quorum issues. The charter provides for the expulsion of M5S politicians that are found guilty of an illicit behaviour being simply under investigation would not anymore constitute a reason to vote for an expulsion.
Internal strife, however, goes further. The Movements charter is being filed against by a group of M5S activists mostly expelled politicians who claim that the expulsions method in itself is illegal. If this wins, the M5S directorate wont have the power to expel its members of parliament, or mayors or any of its associates elected to public office. What is more, the legitimacy of M5S itself is being questioned in a trial promoted by lawyer Venerando Monello a PD member that seeks to prove an illegal conduct of Casaleggio Associati as private company controlling de facto M5S and, thus, a public-interest body.
Thirdly, there has been a good number of reports that do not contribute to the image of the Five Star Movement either. Among them, a factual, widely echoed report of BuzzFeed pointed out in compelling terms why M5S is dangerous for Europe. While a wiser choice would have been a competent reply to such accusations, M5S in a short note only vaguely referred to the spreading of false news.
This situation may well be the result of two dynamics: the Net, and the recklessness of Grillos proposals. The Net, on its side, cannot be judged much of a culprit, because it undogmatically follows the use that Grillo and the M5S directorate make of it. The Blog, capable of orienting and informing M5S supporters, is mostly self-referential: it doesnt seek to obtain the approval of its audience, and it doesnt need to because its findings cannot even be questioned by its public. A profile that matches allegations by ex-M5S deputies describing Casaleggios shadow over the movement as controlling everything.
The overall picture is rather critical. The Five Star Movement has a praiseworthy moral ground, and certainly remarkable merits. Among them, the revival of peoples involvement in public life, which is awfully low in most developed countries. But the online means used by M5S also have drawbacks: dangers lie in the internets capacity to manipulate public opinion, especially when handled by an IT communication enterprise like Casaleggio Associati. It becomes easy to attract the public by verging on populistic clamour and instinctive judgement. The web as such may be part of the problem, being associated with computers and other non-human objective elements. In fact, it still benefits of an aura of unquestionability among basic users that can lead one to believe any self-referential news spread online.
M5Ss tools have an enormous potential that can be either constructive or destructive, and needs, therefore, conscientious handling: it can lead the citizenry to sounder, rational thinking, or to new persecutions, summary judgements and, finally, conflict.
OMAHA -- The attorney for a Creighton University student accused of slashing a womans neck over the weekend said the man acted erratically because he was forced to take hallucinogenic drugs as part of a fraternity hazing.
Christopher Wheeler, 19, has been charged with second-degree assault and use of a weapon to commit a felony. Judge Sheryl Lohaus set bail at $100,000.
His parents, Susie and Sean Wheeler of Kansas City, Kan., said they plan to post 10 percent of the bail to get him released from jail. Christopher Wheeler will live with his parents in Kansas City, an agreement OK'd by prosecutors.
Creighton officials said at a Monday afternoon press conference that Christopher Wheeler no longer is enrolled and is banned from campus.
A prosecutor said in court Monday that Christopher Wheeler entered a room in Gallagher Hall on Creightons campus early Saturday.
He asked for Dana, the prosecutor said, but the woman, 18-year-old Teresa Spagna, said he had the wrong room.
Wheeler sat down on the bed and told Spagna, Sorry for bothering you, the prosecutor said.
As Wheeler went toward the door to leave, the prosecutor said, he swung around and cut Spagna in the neck with a pocket knife.
Spagna was treated at Creighton University Medical Center. She was released Saturday.
After Monday's hearing, Susie Wheeler said her son called her from jail about 4:45 a.m. Saturday.
She said her son had no recollection of the slashing.
I was completely taken off guard, Susie Wheeler said. He was absolutely horrified that he harmed another student and wants to apologize to her.
She said that her son was a pledge for the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and had done poorly on an exam given to fraternity members. She said he then was forced to take drugs or unknowingly took them.
Wheeler's attorney, Matthew Burns, said Wheeler was not tested for drugs when he was booked into jail, but Burns plans to have his client tested as soon as he is released.
Its unclear what drug Wheeler may have ingested, but Burns thinks it was a hallucinogen possibly LSD or marijuana laced with PCP.
Creighton officials said Monday that they were suspending the fraternity. Members no longer will be able to wear their fraternity letters on campus, officials said.
OMAHA -- When the doctor told Christina Tina Moore she was pregnant with quadruplets in 2008, one of her first thoughts was of her faith. She was confident that she and her husband, Aaron, would be ready for four babies God wouldnt give them more than they could handle.
Its a sentiment she repeated several times as The World-Herald followed the first five years of raising the quad squad.
Now its Aaron whos clinging to those words of faith after Tina died unexpectedly Tuesday. She was 36. The family is waiting on autopsy results for the cause of death.
It was a shock, Aaron said by phone from his Omaha home on Saturday, the sounds of 8-year-olds Jack, Joseph, Noah and Grace in the background.
Aaron said he feels lucky to have spent 14 years married to his best friend. I miss her so much, but I have to keep coming back to the time we had together. Im grateful to have had her to teach me what it means to be an incredible parent. She was an amazing mom.
Aarons father, Rich Moore, said the calls, visits, gifts and prayers from friends, family and community members in recent days is reminiscent of the wave of support the couple received when they became new parents of four.
There are so many people that have reached out asking how they can help, Rich said. People were touched by her and the family. Its going to be very tough for Aaron and the kiddos, but they are surrounded by love.
In preparing the eulogy for Tinas funeral this coming Tuesday, Aaron went back through World-Herald articles documenting so many of the firsts the first birthday party, the first road trip, the first day of kindergarten. Hes glad he can hold on to those memories and photos, those many quotes from Tina about the blessings of motherhood.
Theres one in particular he cant get out of his head. As she celebrated the babies first birthday party, she turned to a reporter and gave some parenting advice:
Cherish every moment you have with them. Hold them. If theres a choice between doing a chore or holding a baby, then hold the baby.
In 2009, she wrote to The World-Herald in her own words on Mothers Day, a holiday she spent years dreaming about being able to celebrate. She writes of passing the maternity section at Target when she was struggling to get pregnant, falling onto her mothers shoulder and sobbing, knowing that her purpose on Earth was to be a mom. (Its) the greatest gift in the world, she wrote.
Aaron will make sure her kids remember that, he said.
I want them to remember an amazingly strong person who lived with faith, he said. I want them to know that the best day in her life was the day they were born and that her proudest role was to be their mother.
Christina is also survived by her parents, Gary and Janice Schrage of Sloan, Iowa; brothers Michael Schrage of Omaha and Scott Schrage of Lincoln; and mother-in-law, Mimi Moore of Sloan.
Visitation for Moore will be at 5 p.m. Monday at Wildewood Christian Church in Papillion, with a prayer service at 6:30 p.m. A funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, also at Wildewood.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a media availability as he visits Iqaluit, Nunavut on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The Conservative party is offering support to Trudeau as he prepares to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
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In 1949, my maternal grandparents left everything and everyone they knew a happy family, a comfortable home, a thriving medical practice to travel further across the Earth than any of their family ever had before, to come through Ellis Island, and to trek to the Mayo Clinic so my grandfather could become a pioneering anesthesiologist.
Twenty-one of my aunts, uncles, and cousins have since followed in their footsteps and practice today as doctors in the United States. My sister and I, too, became physicians.
In 1960, my father flew to New York with $20 in his pocket and a burning desire to pursue the American Dream. He learned English, studied biochemistry at Ohio State University and nuclear physics at Washington University, and then went on to become one of the first venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, funding transformational technology and health care companies and creating thousands of jobs in the United States over a 40-year career.
All these people came from Iran.
Or more accurately, they were magnetically drawn to America as a paragon of scientific, technological, and medical excellence. They were inspired by American global and moral leadership. They viewed this nation as a force for good and wanted to contribute.
Just as America inspired my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins to pursue great dreams at great cost, their example has inspired me to contribute to the great American experiment, too. I became a doctor, and now the co-founder and CEO of a health care technology company focused on solving the doctor and nurse shortage crisis in the United States.
But thanks to the Trump administrations tragically misguided executive order banning immigration from Iran and six other Middle Eastern nations, my familys multi-generational story of immigrant doctors and entrepreneurs is no longer possible.
My family of Iranian immigrants have all adopted their new American home with vigor and pride and have directly and positively impacted the lives of thousands of patients and employees all Americans. But despite their sincere pride and their years of important contributions, the presidents new policy threatens many of them and the people who depend on them. I am legitimately worried that some of my family who are here (legally!) on visas may be deported back to Iran in the coming months.
As an intensely proud American-born citizen myself, it pains me to think that our nation is turning its back on the very people who made, and continue to make, America great. Let us hope that Mr. Trump realizes that if he actually wants to make America great, he should rescind his ill-advised order and in fact do everything in his power to promote responsible immigration policy and welcome to this nation those brilliant and determined souls who wish to risk everything for a chance to be Americans.
Alexi Gharib Nazem is co-founder and CEO, Nomad Health.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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I burned out, big and bad. I can see that now. My practice environment had become gradually untenable and every attempt I made to change it was blocked. My call schedule was inflexible and a lot more frequent than when I started my job. The hospitalists and ED kept sending me cases I didnt feel qualified to manage, but as it was usually the middle of the night and I was the general surgeon on call, I had no choice.
In the morning, when I asked again if we could find another way to manage these patients, I was told to suck it up, and usually something about bootstraps. I was also trying to handle this without appearing stressed so referring providers would keep sending me patients. Despite this, my projected salary for the next year was significantly lower, with the same frequency and intensity of call. I approached the administration about cutting back on call, going part time, or finding some other way to decrease my workload. They said no. I broke.
It had been creeping for some time. When I was a resident, I only drank when I could, which almost never. Then I got my first real doctor job, I could and did drink much more frequently. I started leaning on alcohol to cut my stress, to switch off my job when I was home. I self-medicated, became comfortably numb. It was never at work and never on call, but nevertheless, my husband started to get concerned about my drinking. He started leaning on me to quit.
Thats when it got really ugly. The idea of quitting drinking at that time made me very angry. Trying to stop me from doing something makes it the only thing I want to do. I realize now that the idea of taking away my coping mechanism without altering what I was coping with was terrifying. After a particularly bad night, I called a partner to cover for me the next day, and I was placed on leave.
During my treatment, I came to understand I was trapped in my life. A lot of the focus during rehab was on spirituality, self-analysis, and admitting powerlessness. This never resonated with me. I realized my main issue was that I was powerless and I hated it. I couldnt control my call schedule; I couldnt control the cases I was required to accept; I couldnt even control my sleep. What was really toxic, however, was that my lack of power didnt just affect me, it affected my patients who trusted me. Each time I tolerated something I knew could be better, I betrayed that trust, and it ate at me. I couldnt live with it, I couldnt escape it (anymore), I couldnt fix it, and I couldnt leave. Or so I thought.
Once I started to get my feet under me, I began talking to HR at the health care organization (HCO) I worked for. It was immediately obvious that they knew little about what I actually did and were not going to be helpful. I outlined the essential functions of a general surgeon and explained that I needed a break from some of them. They said theyd consider it.
A few months later, my psychiatrist cleared me to return to work if I was assured uninterrupted sleep and a relatively predictable schedule for two months, as a trial. Translation: No call and no inpatient work for two months to ease me back in and see how it went. The HCO said no, they couldnt accommodate that, period. I asked if theyd spoken to my partners and was told that this was what the leadership had decided and what my partners thought was irrelevant.
And that was it. We spoke a few more times as I tried to come up with options to allow me to keep some part of my job. Breast surgery only, surgical support for the primary care doctors doing dermatology, part-time, you name it, I proposed it. Nope. We cant just create a job for you, was the response. The finale was an implied resignation in a letter from HR thanking me for my service. That was not a good day.
Its been almost two years since that letter arrived. Over that time, I have contacted every practice in the city, contemplated and rejected uprooting my family, and applied for every non-clinical job that sounded remotely interesting. I have also remained sober, re-bonded with my children, repaired my marriage, started a small business and taken care of myself. I am at peace with the nothing choice I made in the all-or-nothing scenario I was presented with. I am, however, still in disbelief at how quickly and completely I was discarded. My partners and everyone from the HCO ran from the mess of my life and never looked back, not once, not anyone.
No one seems to want to talk about doctors who have already burned out. We want to understand how and why burnout happens; we are working hard to prevent it, but the conversation stops when the fire goes out. Its like we disappear.
There is no widely accepted mechanism for physician re-entry, just a few spotty programs that only accept physicians who left medicine in good standing; which most burned out doctors did not. Shadowing another physician to rebuild skills requires their commitment and their time, something most doctors are hesitant to give as it ultimately costs them money. Transitioning to non-clinical careers is also challenging because a burned-out doc starts with no referrals, lots of recently burned bridges, and little to no self-confidence with which to sell themselves. Its a long slow, lonely climb.
As a physician shortage looms, wed be wise to start creating a way back for burned out physicians. Doctors will likely have to be their own advocates here. HCOs dont care who fills a job, as long as its filled. American medicine treats crispy doctors as damaged goods and simply moves on to the next young, in debt, hungry-to-prove-themselves, I-can-handle-it physician in line. Risk management shudders at burned-out doctors and strongly recommends avoidance. But were still here, were still trained physicians, and wed like to get back on our feet.
Its taken me a long time to get to a point where I can share this. Its not pretty, its not pleasant, but it is happening more and more. Those of us who make it through burnout would like a way to rebuild.
We need to start talking about what comes after physician burnout. Please.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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I want to get out of the corporate rat race and follow my passion! But how do I pay for this?
Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I have heard this, Id be a wealthy man.
Recently, I was talking with Mathew, a friend of a client. Mathew is a senior executive in large national company and is looking for a change of scene. A change so he can pursue what hes really good at and loves to do, but doesnt have the opportunity to do in the company where he is now.
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Hes been pretty successful but is frustrated with the corporate bureaucracy that gets in the way of his good ideas. So, hes looking at creating his own enterprise but has some critical questions.
Ever heard this before? We certainly have.
It seems to be happening all the time and not just among younger entrepreneurs. The fastest-growing area in business start-ups is coming from the 50- and 60-year-old segment of the population. They are taking the risks not necessarily out of need, but because they are seeing opportunities.
These entrepreneurs have been and interesting group for financial advisers to work with, according to Greg Bresiger in an article he wrote for Financial Advisor magazine. (opens in new tab)
Bresiger gave some good examples of questions to ask: Whats the real goal? Are you ready to compete with the 28-year-old who is eager to work 80 hours a week? Are you tapping your experience base or going into something completely new? What if it fails?
So, having considered all of this, youve done your homework and youre ready to start the new enterprise. Where will the money come from? Family? Friends? A small-business loan? A home equity loan? What about your 401(k) plan assets?
What!!? My 401(k)? Are you nuts?
Youre willing to sacrifice your retirement dollars and start a business on your own. What have you been smoking? After all, small businesses fail at a very high rate, with over 1 out of 3 going under in the first two years and half failing within five years.
In addition, how do you get at the 401(k) dollars without paying income tax on the money as it comes out, and even a penalty if youre younger than 59?
Ever heard of a rollover-as-business-startup transaction? Lets just call it ROBS for short.
I hadnt heard of it either until a few months ago.
So, how exactly does this work, and how does the IRS feel about it?
Lets start with the IRS. They looked into this in 2010 and their Employee Plans Compliance Unit concluded this was not abusive in avoiding taxes, but certainly only would benefit one person the 401(k) owner.
Im going to say it now, and Ill repeat this at the end, you need to make sure youre working with a professional who really understands how this all works. If your CPA is helping you with this, you need to know that this person is well versed in the ROBS process and feels like it makes sense for you.
CPAs are, by nature, pretty conservative, so be sure yours is willing to be a little outside the box on this idea, and truly understands the process.
Lets now look at how this all comes together.
Both tax law and ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Securities Act of 1974) law have some exemptions designed to allow investments in small business, sort of like what an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) does.
You start by setting up the company as a C-type corporation that has a 401(k) plan of its own. The owner transfers funds from the previous employers 401(k) plan into the new 401(k) plan, and that plan buys shares in the new company, thereby becoming a shareholder of the new company.
So right here there are going to be some costs associated with starting a corporation and creating a 401(k) plan, so dont be surprised.
Here are a couple of key points:
The funds rolled over from your previous retirement plan are not taxed, so there are no income taxes to pay nor any potential early withdrawal penalties if you are under age 59 .
Also, you need to understand that you, as an owner, are a different entity from the 401(k), which is also an owner. Even though it was your retirement money in the first place, you need to operate as if the 401(k) owner is a really picky partner, and make sure you follow the 401(k) rules to the letter.
If there are other employees of the company, they must be offered the chance to buy stock also, otherwise the IRS would not be satisfied the company plan meets the necessary requirements.
Other IRS issues revolve around the filing of various tax forms, most often the 5500 form, which, in the case of ROBS, needs to be filed annually.
And you should expect the IRS to pay extra attention to you, making sure you do everything by the book.
Do you see the need for working with someone familiar with all of these requirements? You better!
And you still have a live, working 401(k) plan that comes with the costs of administration and the requirements of making sure any current or future employees understand the workings of the plan. And the plan trustee, you the business owner, is a fiduciary of the plan, and as such, needs to always act in the best interest of the plan, not just themselves.
And here is the time to make sure that the new business owner understands the complexities of a 401(k) plan and should know enough to hire a professional plan administrator to make sure all of the details of the plan are taken care of.
If all of this seems like a lot of extra stuff to deal with, it is, but the overall benefits might just outweigh the hoops that need to be jumped through.
For example, theres no need to take out a loan, have the debt to pay back, and you get to forgo the delight of dealing with a lending institution a bank usually which comes with all of the documentation and lending underwriting and all of the other requirements that banks demand.
Remember, banks like to lend to people who dont really need to borrow the money in the first place. Its not likely that its the person wanting to start their own business. At least not without a huge commitment to collateralizing the loan from the start.
But the upside is that you, the owner, are in control, at least from a financial point of view, without the bank as your unwanted partner.
And dont forget another key issue the new business owner doesnt have to stop saving for retirement.
They have set up the 401(k) plan in the first place, and as an employee, they will have the ability to make contributions to the plan from their income, therefore continuing to grow their retirement assets.
As I said before, and it requires repeating, you need to make sure youre working with a professional who really understands how this will all work.
I cant caution you enough about this idea. You are taking a huge risk with your retirement money. You truly need to know if you can afford to mess up your retirement to follow your dream. Remember the failure rate of small businesses mentioned earlier.
And its very prudent to have some other substantial funds set aside just in case this doesnt work out.
Dont put all of your retirement eggs into this one basket.
Is this something thats right for everyone? Of course not, but it just might be the right fit for that great idea youve been hatching for a long time, just wondering how the heck you were going to come up with the funds to make it happen.
ROBS (rollover-as-business-startup) could be the solution.
And for heavens sake do your homework first.
Here are some additional resources if you want to find out more about the ROBS process.
From the Small Business Administration: https://www.sba.gov/blogs/can-your-retirement-plan-own-your-business (opens in new tab)
From the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/employee-plans-compliance-unit-epcu-completed-projects-project-with-summary-reports-rollovers-as-business-start-ups-robs (opens in new tab)
More from the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/robs_guidelines.pdf (opens in new tab)
Charles C. Scott, Accredited Investment Fiduciary, has more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. "Our mission is to help our clients discover, design and live the life that they want to live by matching their finances with their visions, values and goals."
Arrival of one of the two gas engines at the GEL test laboratory of KIT. (Photo: S. Gottisheim/KIT)
Gas-fired power plants are climate-friendly and capable of providing base-load power. They can be used to compensate fluctuations of renewable energy production. As they produce both power and heat and can be run with regenerative fuels, they have major economic and ecological advantages. At their joint Gas Engine Test Laboratory (GEL), KIT and Caterpillar plan to further enhance these advantages. For this, they invested EUR 11.8 million.
With its GEL project, KIT establishes itself as a center of research and a company well-equipped for the future, Dr. Ulrich Breuer, KIT Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs, says. We can now further develop a technology that is of high importance to the energy transition and, at the same time, make our own infrastructure environmentally compatible and economically efficient.
For Germany as a location of industry, it is important that companies and research cooperate closely, adds Heinrich Baas, Head of Engineering, Caterpillar Energy Solutions. Together, we can develop innovations that will help solve global challenges, such as cli mate change, and be successful in global competition. Caterpillar Energy Solutions and KIT both have longstanding experience in the energy sector. Moreover, the MWM Company that has been part of Caterpillar since 2011 was established by automotive pioneer Carl Benz, graduate of the Polytechnical School, a precursory institute of KIT.
Gemeinsam konnen wir Innovationen entwickeln, die zur Losung globaler Herausforderungen wie dem Klimawandel beitragen und die im globalen Wettbewerb bestehen. Mit der Kooperation von Caterpillar Energy Solutions und KIT verknupfen sich zwei traditionsreiche Akteure: Der Grunder des Unternehmens MWM, das seit 2011 Teil von Caterpillar ist, war der Autopionier Carl Benz, Absolvent des Polytechnikums Karlsruhe, einem der Vorlauferinstitute des KIT.
The Gas Engine Test Laboratory (GEL) accommodates two large-scale gas engines of 4.5 megawatts electric power each. The engines are 9.3 m long, 2.75 m wide, 3.45 m high, and have a weight of 52 tons. Being a cogeneration power plant, GEL supplies KITs Campus North with power and heat. Thanks to the efficient technology, KIT saves operation costs in the amount EUR 600,000 every year. Primary energy consumption is reduced by about 12% and 10,000 t less carbon dioxide are emitted annually. KITs investment in the amount of EUR 4.5 million will be recovered after eight years. KIT, one of the biggest research universities in Europe with more than 9000 employees and about 25,000 students operates laboratories and facilities at several locations. At Campus North the KIT and further institutions annually consume about 120 gigawatt-hours of electric and 80 gigawatt-hours of thermal energy. Within the framework of KITs Zukunftscampus (Sustainable Campus) project, sustainability of the campuses is being enhanced by e.g. establishing a solar power storage park, energy-related refurbishment of buildings, or purchase of green electricity and district heating.
Panorama photo of the Gas Engine Test Laboratory. (Photo: M. Kohouk/KIT)
The GEL as a research facility represents one of the biggest engine test beds in Germany. Instead of studying the behavior of a single cylinder on the laboratory scale, GEL allows for investigating complete engines. Long-term research collaboration between KIT and Caterpillar Energy Solutions will profit from GELs integration into operation of a big research center. In the first phase, long-term tests will focus on exhaust gas cleaning, efficiency, engine components, and control technology. Later on, other research projects on alternative fuels, combustion methods, materials, and engine systems may be agreed upon. If necessary, two smaller gas engines of up to 1000 kilowatt power may be connected to the existing infrastructure. Investment costs of both partners of GEL total about EUR 11.8 million.
Gas-fired power plants are considered an important element of the energy transition. Contrary to coal-fired power plants, they can be controlled flexibly and they are capable of providing base-load power contrary to the wind and sun. In the short term, gas-fired power plants can close the gap between supply and demand of electricity until large-scale, sustainable, and economically efficient battery storage systems will have been developed. Gas engines can be run not only with conventional natural gas, but also with biogas from renewable sources and with regenerative methane. This will ensure wide acceptance of gas-fired power plants within a climate-neutral energy supply system in the long term.
More information on the Zukunftscampus Staff Unit of KIT:
http://www.zukunftscampus.kit.edu/354.php
(in German only)
About Caterpillar Energy Solutions
Its brands MWM and Cat make Caterpillar Energy Solutions stand for highly efficient and environmentally compatible solutions for decentralized energy production. The product portfolio covers gas engines, power plants, and cogeneration plants. At the location of the company office in Mannheim, automotive pioneer Carl Benz established the Mechanische Werkstatten Mannheim (MWM, Mannheim Mechanical Workshops) in 1871. Find more information at www.caterpillar-energy-solutions.de
More about the KIT Energy Center: http://www.energy.kit.edu
Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
Optimism Returns: Hurts Gold But Helps Silver
(Kitco News) - Gold has a slightly weaker bias, as equity markets continue to rally, as rhetoric on tariffs and currency manipulation has softened. Trumps meeting with Abe from Japan appeared cordial and no aggressive comments were released on the possible currency manipulation by Japan, weakening its currency to stimulate exports. Trump meets with Trudeau today to discuss policy, as the market awaits any news on the future of Americas position with Canada, its largest trading partner. The industrial metals have gained further momentum, as the expected U.S. reflation trade should bolster demand. Traders are expecting silver to test the 65:1 ratio, at a minimum, which at current gold prices, suggests that silver is at least $1 below fair value. Gold support remains at the $1,220 level. Should silver break above the $18.25 level, it suggests a $19 print may be the near term target. By Peter Hug, Kitco Metals Global Trading Director; phug@kitco.com
Follow @KitcoNewsNOW
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
kitco news
HANOI, Feb 13 (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 0415 GMT.
Feb 13 Feb 10 USD/VND mid-point 22,234 22,224 USD/VND interbank 22,655/22,665 22,620/22,700 USD/VND unofficial 22,770/22,800 22,810/22,830 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.67/36.99 36.70/37.02
Interbank offered rates Overnight 2.0-3.0 1.5-2.3
1 week 2.4-3.0 1.6-2.5
1 month 3.2-3.8 3.0-3.8
3 months 3.9-4.6 3.8-4.6
NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.
One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.
For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .
For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
* Arabtec tanks by daily limit on massive Q4 net loss
* Gulf Navigation drops despite stronger net profit
* Abu Dhabi's Eshraq Properties slumps after swinging to net loss
* Saudi's Alhokair up on appointment of new chief executive
* Egypt's Juhayna, Domty up on news of new local sugar facility
By Celine Aswad
DUBAI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - A slump in shares of Dubai's Arabtec dragged Dubai's stock market lower on Monday after the builder reported a larger fourth-quarter net loss, while other markets were mixed.
Dubai's index dropped 1.8 percent, its largest single-day decline since October 2015, after Arabtec plummeted by its 10 percent daily limit having reported a net loss of 2.95 billion dirhams ($803 million) in the three months to Dec. 31.
The loss was far larger than the loss of 272.8 million dirhams forecast by EFG Hermes and the loss 403.74 million a year earlier.
Arabtec also said its board approved a proposed capital restructuring and a 1.5 billion dirhams rights issue, pending investor consent at the next general shareholders' meeting.
Mohammed Ali Yasin, managing director of brokerage at NBAD Securities, told Reuters he believed the loss reflected measures taken across government-related entities.
"This deceleration is the result of the due diligence between IPIC and Mubadala. They looked at the Abbar subsidiaries, which Arabtec is a part of, and they forced them to take the true provisions and impairments to start on a clean slate," said Yasin.
In January Abu Dhabi's government merged two of its top investment funds Mubadala Development Co and International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) to create Mubadala Investment Co, to strengthen their financial clout in an era of low oil prices. Elsewhere commodities shipper Gulf Navigation fell 3.6 percent despite reporting a 20 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit, according to Reuters calculations. Full-year net income came in at 136.6 million dirhams, almost six times the figure for 2015.
In neighbouring Abu Dhabi the stock index edged down 0.1 percent, with Eshraq Properties dropping by its 10 percent daily limit after it swung to a full-year net loss of 575 million dirhams in 2016, versus a net profit of 1.61 million in 2015.
The mid-sized developer said it had booked an impairment of 593 million dirhams on land values in 2016.
Dana Gas , which reported a drop in earnings last week, fell 7.8 percent.
SAUDI, EGYPT
Saudi Arabia's index added 0.5 percent in thin trade with advancing shares outnumbering decliners 95 to 52.
Most mid-sized petrochemical producers were bid up, as Brent futures traded around $56.50 a barrel. Saudi Industrial Investment Group climbed 2.9 percent.
Apparel retailer and mall operator Fawaz Alhokair added 4.1 percent on announcing the appointment of a new chief executive, Atul Singh, effective April 1.
Shares in Saudi Airlines Catering rose 2.3 percent after it signed a 44 million riyals ($11.7 million) contract with Saudi Airlines to construct and manage the first-class lounge at Cairo International Airport. The contract is for five years and the positive impact of the deal will be reflected in the second quarter of 2017.
Egypt's main index fell 1.4 percent with 80 percent of the most-traded shares retreating. Investment bank EFG Hermes fell 2.6 percent.
Shares of food producers outperformed on news that they will benefit from sourcing sugar locally. Egypt's Al Nouran sugar production facility is due to start operations in May. The facility will be the largest beet sugar production line in Egypt at 14,000 tonnes a day capacity. Arabian Food Industries (Domty), maker of sweet drinks, surged 8.5 percent and Juhayna Food Industries , maker of yoghurts, rose 2.7 percent.
Sugar had become scarce in Egypt in recent months and the government took control of stocks to counter what it said was an epidemic of hoarding by merchants reacting to rising prices amid a shortage of foreign currency.
MONDAY'S HIGHLIGHTS
SAUDI ARABIA
* The index rose 0.5 percent to 7,060 points.
DUBAI
* The index dropped 1.8 percent to 3,638 points.
ABU DHABI
* The index edged down 0.1 percent to 4,564 points.
QATAR
* The index gained 0.1 percent to 10,671 points.
EGYPT
* The index lost 1.4 percent to 12,740 points.
KUWAIT
* The index added 0.3 percent to 6,657 points.
OMAN
* The index edged down 0.06 percent to 5,815 points.
BAHRAIN
* The index inched down 0.1 percent to 1,308 points.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OPEC in first joint oil cut with Russia since 2001, Saudis take "big hit" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Editing by Andrew Torchia and David Holmes)
PRAGUE, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Slovakia sold 300 million euros ($319.08 million) worth of treasury bills due in November 2017 at an auction on Monday, the Finance Ministry's Debt and Liquidity Management Agency said.
Total demand for the bills, maturing on Nov. 27, reached 800 million euros compared with 950 million euros seen at a previous sale of the paper on Jan. 9. The accepted yield was -0.2500 percent, versus -0.2400 percent in the last auction.
The bills are being sold from a 1.5 billion euro stock of the paper the finance ministry bought into its own portfolio last November. The ministry sold 400 million euros worth to investors in December and 500 million euros worth in January.
Following Monday's sale, it will hold 300 million euros. ($1 = 0.9402 euros)
(Reporting by Mirka Krufova; Editing by Jason Hovet)
(Adds quotes, background)
BERLIN, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank never tries to manipulate the euro exchange rate for trade or competitive policy reasons, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said in an interview published on Monday, echoing other politicians rejection of U.S. claims.
U.S. President Donald Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, this month said Germany was exploiting the exchange rate for trade purposes. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those who said the comments were off the mark. "These attacks clearly make no sense for a number of reasons," Sapin told the Handelsblatt newspaper. He said the euro moved freely and the ECB made its monetary policy decisions independent of member countries.
"The ECB never tries to manipulate the exchange rate of the euro to achieve trade or competitive policy goals," he said.
"The euro is the currency of the entire euro zone. On the international level what counts is the surplus of the entire eurozone, not that of Germany."
Sapin said he hoped that Trump would understand quickly how advantageous and important ties with the European Union were for the well-being of the United States.
He said EU officials were still trying to lift growth in the bloc and push for structural reforms in some states, but it also important for countries like Germany to increase investments.
"Germany could be more ambitious in this area," Sapin told the newspaper. Europe still needed to restore investments to levels seen before the global financial crisis, he said.
"If we all only pull in one direction, namely reducing budget deficits, the adjustments (in Europe) will be even harder," he said.
Sapin repeated his view that investors would lose money if they bet on far-right leader Marine Le Pen winning this year's French election, and said of her party: "The National Front is not a populist party, but a party outside the democratic consensus, outside the values that France defends."
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Carrel and Louise Ireland)
(Adds details)
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 13 (Reuters) - South Africa's biggest cement maker PPC Ltd is in merger talks with its nearest rival Afrisam Group, it said on Monday, seeking to overcome valuation squabbles that sunk previous tie-up efforts.
Majority owned by pension fund, the Public Investment Corporation, Afrisam first proposed merger in 2014, swooping in at a time when PPC's share price had been under pressure due to infighting between its board and former chief executive.
Shares in PPC are however up nearly a third so far this year, recovering from a hammering suffered in the middle of 2016 after a loss of investment grade status forced it to a deeply discounted rights offer. PPC shares lost 44 percent in 2015, and nearly 12.5 percent in 2014.
The cement maker, which is valued at about 11 billion rand ($823 million), did not give details on the value of the proposed merger.
"The parties have independently concluded that current market circumstances warrant entering into formal discussions to consider the proposed merger," PPC said in a statement.
The company, along with South African builders, is struggling to grow revenue and sales, partly due to a slow roll-out of the government's infrastructure investment package over the next three years.
In response, PPC has borrowed heavily to build factories in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo to boost sales overseas. ($1 = 13.3681 rand)
(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)
Editor's Note:This feature is available daily on Money Morning
Asian and European stock markets were mostly higher Monday. U.S. stock indexes are also pointed toward higher openings when the New York day session begins.
Gold prices are weaker on a corrective and profit-taking pullback after last week hitting a three-month high. Gold prices are still in a two-month-old uptrend.
In overnight news, the European Union Commission released its economic growth forecasts that put EU gross domestic product growth at up 1.8% for 2017, and the same growth rate for 2018. The Commission also warned that Brexit, Chinese debt concerns and the Trump Administration pose risks to EU economic growth.
The marketplace did breathe a sigh of relief as the weekend meeting between President Trump and Japan Prime Minister Abe did not produce any negative rhetoric coming from Trump.
The U.S. dollar index is trading slightly lower this morning. The greenback bulls have some upside momentum as prices have been trending higher for almost two weeks.
The other key "outside market" on Monday sees Nymex crude oil prices trading weaker. Oil prices are back in a sideways trading range that has bound the market for weeks.
There is no major U.S. economic data due out Monday. However, the data pace picks up rapidly Tuesday, including Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaking on monetary policy before the U.S. Senate.
By Jim Wyckoff, contributing to Kitco News; jwyckoff@kitco.com
Follow @KitcoNewsNOW
Liam Hehir writes:
There are all sorts of reasons why it is a bad idea to justify or encourage violence against those who hold repugnant views. Here are a few of them. The first problem is one of definition. The word fascism has been robbed of all meaning through years of overuse. In fact, as long ago as 1946, no less than George Orwell wrote that, the word fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable'. To listen to the activists of the Left and Right, both John Key and Barack Obama were fascists. No doubt Bill English will get the same treatment. When the man who attacked John Banks with animal excrement was convicted for assault, he responded by throwing more excrement at the judge, saying she was a fascist judge. When everybody calls everybody else a fascist at the drop of a hat and violence against fascists is justified, how are you not inviting violence by all against all?
Ive been called a fascist. Almost everyone on the right of politics has been. And Ive had many threats of violence over the years, including death threats,
Secondly, the history of actual fascism shows that it thrives when fists start flying. The Nazis rose to power in an environment where physical brawling was part of the culture. When it comes to fighting in the street, ideologies committed to thuggery and passionate intolerance tend to have the advantage over the gentler forces of moderation and liberalism. So if you are really concerned that fascism may rise again, it doesnt make a lot of sense to applaud behaviour that recreates the conditions that enabled it to grab power in the first place. Dont throw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.
Yep.
Then theres the simple fact that its immoral to physically assault people on the basis of their political views however gross they happen to be. In the aftermath of the Spencer attack, it was truly weird to see outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post and Vox Media wrestle with this notion like it was a serious ethical question. Even popular comedy site Cracked weighed in, asking, So are we allowed to just punch Nazis now? Their answer? Its complicated. It really isnt. The whole point of liberal democracy is that political questions are resolved through votes and laws and not mobs and violence. People have the right to be grievously wrong and, as long as they do not call for the illegal overthrow of the state, to voice their wayward views. We really have no choice but to trust the public and our governing institutions. Because if you think its OK to punch someone in the head because you think theyre a fascist, then you might be one yourself.
Well theyre not fascists but theyre certainly not liberals.
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The Herald reports:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up a 24-hour task force to oversee the transition of US President Donald Trump and feed back information in real time on policies that could affect New Zealanders.
It comes after ministry boss Brook Barrington was hauled into a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully to answer questions on why it took days to confirm New Zealand dual citizens would not be barred from entering the US as part of Trumps immigration policy changes.
Barrington says he was unhappy he hadnt provided enough resources.
I made it clear to the minister that I think we fell behind the curve on that, he said after facing the ministrys annual review by the Foreign Affairs and Trade select committee.
I didnt set up the structures early enough to ensure that we were able to provide the government with exactly that 24/7 real time advice.
Half a dozen staff from MFATs Americas division in Wellington will work with staff in Washington on the task force, which will likely be in operation for several months.
This is not (business as usual) at the moment and I think we need to be running this as a 24/7 operation which means being able to give the government advice in real time, Barrington said.
By Park Hyong-ki
The South Korean government reassured the foreign business community that its economic fundamentals and security remain intact in a bid to ease concerns over North Korea's provocative missile test.
In a meeting with foreign business chambers and executives in Seoul, Monday, Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn condemned the North's medium long-range ballistic missile test, calling it a violation of the UN Security Council resolutions.
While he said that Seoul will continue a hard-line stance against Pyongyang to maintain peace in the region, the acting president asked for investment in technology and science amid low growth.
"We will make efforts to improve the environment for foreign businesses to operate here," he said in the meeting. He added that the government would look into expanding tax benefits for foreign-invested companies that seek to invest in developing technology.
This comes as Korea is trying to overcome low growth by promoting start-ups, and science and technology.
The government will also seek to revive the economy by accelerating bilateral free trade deals with countries such as Israel and Ecuador, and expand trade relations with China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
"Our economic team will monitor the financial market and manage risks to stabilize the economy, while trying to make a breakthrough with science and technology, and regulatory reform," he said.
Korea saw its biggest foreign investment worth over $20 billion in each of the last two years. In 2016, the amount stood at $21.3 billion, slightly up from $20.9 billion in 2015.
In 2015, turnovers of foreign-invested companies accounted for 13 percent of the total, while their exports accounted for 18 percent and employment 6 percent, according to the finance ministry.
Standard Chartered Bank Korea CEO Park Jong-bok, left, reads a script for an audiobook in front of visually challenged judges during the bank's talent donation event held at its headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul, Sunday. Courtesy of Standard Chartered Bank Korea
By Nam Hyun-woo
Standard Chartered (SC) Bank Korea CEO Park Jong-bok auditioned for an audiobook recording as part of the bank's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
The bank held a three-day talent donation event for the visually challenged at its headquarters in Seoul, beginning this past Friday. During the event, it held auditions for recording the audiobook series "Dream Encyclopedia," looking to cast 120 volunteers who will record for the series.
Dream Encyclopedia will include information about more than 100 jobs as well as an introduction to university courses to help visually challenged people better develop their careers. The audio content will be donated to schools and institutions for the blind across the country. Also, the content will be released via a mobile application.
According to the bank, about 13,000 citizens and SC Bank employees, including Park, participated in the goodwill event.
"It was so much more difficult than it looks," said Park, who read a script in front of a panel of judges who are visually challenged. "Pronunciation and breathing were more challenging than I thought. I was again impressed by the passion of the participants who came for the audition on the weekend despite the cold weather. So I tried to pay extra attention to the event to help it end successfully."
Standard Chartered PLC Chairman Jose Vinals, who visited Korea on Feb. 9, also donated his voice, recording a section that introduces the occupation of "special education teacher."
Unfortunately for Park, he did not get a chance to donate his voice as the judges did not select him. The final 120 volunteers who passed the audition will be announced on Feb. 20.
Park Seok-joon, a 29-year-old who took part in the event, said: "I joined the event to help visually challenged young people dream of their future careers free from prejudice."
Since 2011, SC Bank has held an audiobook-recording event every year. So far, citizens and SC Bank employees have recorded 1,700 audiobooks on travel, movies, art, economics and cultural assets in Seoul. According to the bank, the number of accumulated participants for the yearly event stood at around 270,000.
"The project basks in huge popularity as it provides people with chances to make donations that will not burden them financially but the results will enrich the lives of the visually challenged," CEO Park said. "The bank will continue holding this event so it can contribute to society and spread the culture of sharing."
Pyongyang's maneuver has limited direct impact on financial markets
By Yoon Ja-young
North Korea's missile launch Sunday will have a limited impact on Seoul's financial market, but it will likely further weigh on the economy regarding its conflict with China over a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, according to analysts Monday.
"Previous provocations by North Korea had a temporary and limited impact on our financial market. However, for the short term, volatility may increase in both the financial market and the real economy," Strategy and Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said at a meeting with ministry staff.
Due to past experience, investors seemed to remain calm despite North Korea's provocations.
Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test Oct. 9, 2006, which pulled down the main index KOSPI by 2.41 percent. The regime's second, third and fourth nuclear tests, however, pulled down the index by only between 0.2 and 0.26 percent. On Jan. 6 last year, the KOSPI fell a mere 0.26 percent despite North Korea's announcement that it succeeded in a hydrogen bomb test.
Its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9 last year did affect stocks and the foreign exchange rate, with the KOSPI falling 1.25 percent, but both stocks and foreign exchange rates recovered to previous levels in a few days.
KB Financial Group Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo, right, shakes hands with Lao President Bounnhang Vorachith during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Vientiane, Laos, Tuesday. Courtesy of KB Financial Group
Profitability, distinction still questioned
By Nam Hyun-woo
Domestic financial firms are gearing up to make inroads into Southeast Asia, in recognition that the region must be part of their globalization strategies.
However, a satisfactory outcome still remains to be seen, as their strategies are similar while they do not notably outpace competitors in terms of profitability and distinctiveness in services.
According to KB Financial Group, Tuesday, Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo had a meeting with Lao President Bounnhang Vorachith early this week to discuss cooperation for KB's advance into the Laotian financial sector.
The Lao government previously requested not only KB but also other Korean firms' investment and participation in its five-year National-Socio Economic Development plan.
Along with KOLAO Group Chairman Oh Sei-young, acting Lao Prime Minister Somdy Douangdy and other ranking officials, Yoon also took part in the opening ceremony of KB KOLAO Leasing, a KB affiliate specializing in auto financing.
A KB official said: "The launch marks the start of the group's entrance into the Lao financial market."
This was the latest outcome of his one-week trip to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. In Vietnam, Sunday, Yoon had a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and requested the local government's cooperation over the transition of the office of KB Kookmin Bank Hanoi into a branch.
Woori Bank is also pitching the region as its overseas base. Following its acquisition of Wealth Development Bank in the Philippines in October last year, it recently teamed up with Hanwha Life Insurance to launch fintech and bancassurance businesses in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Domestic investment banks (IBs) are also looking for more business opportunities in the region. Shinhan Investment Corp. last year opened Shinhan Investment Corp. Indonesia, a year after it launched a corporate body in Vietnam.
Mirae Asset has already opened Mirae Asset Securities Indonesia in 2015 and five other Korean brokerages have made inroads into Southeast Asian countries so far.
However, questions remain over their profitability and strategic distinction from local peers.
Banks here say their competitive edge is fintech, mobile platform, car leases and loans for those with medium-level credit scores. However, those strategies are already overlapping among domestic rivals seeking Southeast Asian presence.
"Banks here have been ending up releasing similar strategies," a bank industry official said, asking not to be named. "Sometimes it seems that they are just copying each other."
"Another problem is their fintech approach in the region. Though the region has sound IT infrastructure, their retail banking environment is far different from that of Korea, with the number of bank accounts per person still remaining low. It seems questionable whether Korean banks' approaches with fintech or complex mobile platforms can outperform local players that already know what is attractive to clients there," he said.
IBs are already suffering from a saturated market. According to the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the number of securities companies in Vietnam decreased from 105 to 81 in 2016 and the local government wants to reduce the number further to heighten operational quality, financial capability, corporate governance and risk management.
In Indonesia, the number of securities firms reportedly stands at 120 and 30 of them have 99 percent of the market share.
Five Korean firms have networks in Vietnam and four have them in Indonesia. Of them, Shinhan Investment Corp. suffered 1.1 billion won and 500 million won net losses in Vietnam and Indonesia respectively as of the third quarter last year. NH Securities' Vietnam body, Woori CBV, also suffered losses in the first three quarters of last year.
By Yun Suh-young
Korea is a country that obsessively celebrates Valentine's Day, but ironically consumes very low amounts of chocolate per person annually.
According to data released by the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) Monday, Koreans annually consume 607g of chocolate per person which works out to 8.7 chocolate bars weighing 70g each. This is a slight increase from 7.9 bars in 2011, yet far below the top consumer Switzerland with 9kg per person annually. The top 10 chocolate consumers are Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, England, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, the U.S. and France, according to Euromonitor's 2015 statistics.
The fact that Europeans are the highest consumers of chocolate is an interesting fact to take note of, considering chocolate's long history dating back to ancient Maya.
History of chocolate
Chocolate's main ingredient cacao is known to have been first cultivated in the Mesoamerican region, notably in Mexico and the rest of Central and South America. The domestication of cacao trees is recorded to date back 3,000 years. The origin of cacao in the form of food dates back 1,500 years to ancient Mexico where the Olmecs began drinking cacao in the form of a watery beverage by grinding the cacao fruit into powder and adding water to it. They called this "xocolatl" or "cacahuatl" meaning cacao with water.
The Mayans and the Aztecs were known to have been particularly fond of "cacahuatl" due to its effectiveness as an energy booster. The drink was treated preciously as a "gift of God" and consumed only by the ruling classes. They savored the drink with added chili pepper, cornmeal, vanilla and honey. Aztec's king Montezuma is said to have believed that the drink acted as a sexual stimulant and drank 50 glasses a day to boost stamina.
Other than its nutritious function, cacao beans were also used as currency to pay for tax or "tributes" in areas ruled by the Aztecs.
The Europeans' first encounter with chocolate was when Christopher Columbus brought the cacao to Spain while traveling to the Americas for his fourth time during the late 15th century. He brought the cacao beans from Yucatan of Maya into Europe but wasn't greeted with enthusiasm at the time.
It wasn't until Hernan Cortes of Spain who conquered the Aztec Empire and brought the cacao beans again to Europe in 1520 that chocolate gained popularity. After Cortes' introduction of the beans to the Spanish court and its drinking methods, the beverage quickly became a court favorite. The fervor quickly spread across Europe in countries such as France, Italy, Portugal and Britain and within a century, chocolate established its foothold in the region.
The new craze for chocolate among the ruling classes in Europe subsequently created a thriving slave market. During the 17th to 19th centuries, the English, Dutch, and French colonized and spread cacao plantations in Mesoamerica and brought them to Europe. Due to Mesoamerican workers dying from disease, the jobs were mostly done by African slaves.
Nowadays, most of the cacao production is done in West Africa as the African slaves brought the cacao beans to their country upon their return. Currently, roughly two-thirds of the entire world's cacao is produced in this region, 43 percent sourced from Ivory Coast.
Modern-day chocolate
The bar chocolates that we now consume are the creations from the Industrial Revolution. The production of chocolates heightened during the period due to new technologies and methods invented by the Europeans.
In 1828, Dutch chemist Coenraad van Houten created a press to remove about half the natural fat (cacao butter) from chocolate liquor, which made it cheaper to produce and more consistent in quality. This machine-pressed chocolate became instrumental in the transformation of chocolate to its solid form.
In 1875, Daniel Peter invented milk chocolate by mixing powdered milk developed by Henri Nestle. In 1879, the texture and taste of chocolate was further improved when Rodolphe Lindt invented the conching machine.
By 1868, Cadbury was manufacturing boxed chocolates in England and in1893, Milton Hershey soon began the career of Hershey's chocolates with chocolate-coated caramels.
Chocolate in Korea
Chocolates were first introduced in Korea during the late Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) under its final ruler, King Gojong. The Russian ambassador's wife is said to have sent a gift to Empress Myeongseong which was the first introduction of chocolates to Korea.
By 1968, Korean companies such as Dongyang and Haitai started producing chocolates. In 1975, Lotte Confectionary produced Korea's first chocolate bar.
Nutrition
Chocolates are known to be abundantly nutritious as its main ingredient cacao consists of elements such as polypenol, theobromine, and calcium.
Polyphenol improves blood circulation to the brain and boosts the brain function, helping prevent dementia. Cacao has twice the amount of polyphenol than red wine. It helps reduce blood pressure and prevents cardiovascular diseases.
Theobromine softens the cerebral cortex and muscles and relaxes the body. It helps improve concentration and thinking skills.
Calcium strengthens the bones and caffeine stimulates brain activity and increases concentration. It also stimulates a diuretic effect and helps excretion of bodily waste.
Phenethylamine in cacao helps the nerves calm and has anti-depressive effects which is why eating chocolates makes people feel better when they're feeling gloomy.
Chocolate and Valentine's Day
Since when did chocolate become associated with Valentine's Day?
The connection of chocolates to Valentine's Day was born out of purely commercial bonanza.
During the 19th century, various confectionaries were eager to sell more chocolates.
Richard Cadbury, founder of the chocolate company Cadbury's, invented "eating chocolates," a deviation from the drinking chocolates, and packaged them in lovely boxes shaped like hearts in 1861. The boxes were saved by consumers to be used to send love letters.
In the U.S., Milton Hershey began covering his caramels with sweet chocolate in 1894. In 1907, Hershey produced tear-dropped shaped "Kisses," the name coming from the smooching noise during production.
South Korea's finance minister said Monday that he will take appropriate action if North Korea's latest missile provocation sparks a widening of volatility in the local financial market.
"In the short term, (the missile launch) will likely stir up volatility in the financial market and the real economy," Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said in a staff meeting in Sejong. "The government will actively deal with uncertainties and if necessary, we will take market-stabilizing action in a timely manner."
On Sunday, North Korea fired a modified Musudan type intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) into the East Sea, drawing immediate criticism throughout the world.
This marked the first missile test by the North since U.S. President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.
The finance minister said the impact of the missile firing on the financial market will be limited or short-lived, given North Korea's past provocations like nuclear tests.
By Yi Whan-woo
South Korea, the United States and Japan have jointly asked the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) to convene an emergency session in response to North Korea's testing of a ballistic missile, Sunday, according to U.N. sources, Monday.
The UNSC is expected to hold a closed-door meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York at 7 a.m. (KST), Tuesday, to discuss possible measures to be taken against Pyongyang for launching the Pukguksong-2 intermediate-range ballistic missile.
The UNSC may issue a statement in condemnation of Kim Jong-un's ballistic missile program, which the organization has banned, they said.
"UNSC measures can vary from imposing sanctions to issuing a statement under its presidency's name, although it usually announces a press statement when North Korea launches missiles other than intercontinental ballistic missiles," a source said.
Speaking before the members of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, Monday, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said Pyongyang's latest test shows its commitment to conduct additional provocations when necessary.
"This is a new level of provocation which South Korea, the U.S., Japan, the UNSC, and other members of the international community will take seriously," Yun said, pointing out that it was Pyongyang's first ballistic missile test since October.
NK claims solid fuel-powered missile capable of carrying nuclear warhead
By Jun Ji-hye
North Korea's latest launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) propelled by a solid-fuel engine is raising concern over the ability of the United States or South Korea to intercept these weapons.
A solid-fueled missile poses a greater threat, compared to a liquid-fueled one, as it requires less time to prepare for a launch, making it harder to detect in advance. This could render efforts to detect, trace and intercept the missiles useless, according to experts.
The North's state media reported Monday that "a surface-to-surface medium long-range Pukguksong-2 ballistic missile" was successfully test-fired Sunday, saying it used a high thrust solid fuel-powered engine. This is the first time that the North has tested a solid-fueled, surface-to-surface missile that has more than a medium range.
Calling it the "North Korean style new type strategic weapon system," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed that Pyongyang developed the missile with extended firing range on the basis of successes made in a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) underwater test-firing last August, during which it used a solid-fuel engine.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was quoted as saying, "Now our rocket industry has radically turned into high thrust solid-fuel powered engines from liquid-fueled rocket engines and rapidly developed into a development and creation oriented industry, not just copying samples."
By Yi Whan-woo
Korean activists have erected girl statues symbolizing victims of Japan's wartime sex slavery near Japanese missions here, but Japan claims they are not located appropriately.
Tokyo has asked the Korean government to make efforts to move the sculptures to different locations, but there is a general consensus in Korea that Japan should apologize to the victims first "in a sincere manner."
In a sense, the sculptures have become the pride of the nation in Korea, but Japan has been increasing its protests against them, making it more difficult for the two governments to find a solution.
Although there are other statues of a girl across Korea, the one in Busan has emerged as a new bone of contention because it was set up after the two neighbor reached an agreement in December 2015 over Korean sex slaves during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule.
Some government officials, experts and civic activists believe the Korean government should remove this statue set up by advocates for the former sex slaves.
The officials claim the December 2015 agreement should be respected although they acknowledged it was against public sentiment in Korea.
An activist wipes dust off the statue of a girl symbolzing former Korean sex slaves during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule outside the Japanese consulate in Busan on Feb. 4. / Yonhap
Speaking before the National Assembly on Jan. 13, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said "The international community generally views it as not appropriate to place a facility or a sculpture outside diplomatic missions of a certain country."
He was responding to a question related to Japan's recall of Ambassador to Korea Yasumasa Nagamine, Jan. 9, in retaliation for the installment of the statue in Busan.
Japan claims the statue violates the "final and irrevocable" agreement, under which the neighbors agreed to refrain from blaming each other over Tokyo's wartime sex crimes.
Japan has also argued that Korea should remove the "girl statues" outside all of its diplomatic missions, including its embassy in Seoul, in return for its offer of 10 billion yen ($8.7 million) to help surviving victims.
"As a Korean, I fully understand the negative feeling we have about the agreement, but the deal has been made and it should be carried out," said Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University.
He agrees with Tokyo's argument that the statue in Busan breaches the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Article 22 states that a host country should protect the premises of diplomatic missions "against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity."
"Humiliation and insult may be an effective way to raise awareness toward wrongdoings committed by a country, but they also lead to a war if we look at the past," Park said.
"There are many other places where we can erect the statues and continue our campaign against Japan's wartime sex crimes."
He suggested scrapping the December 2015 agreement by returning the 10 billion yen if Korea and Japan continue to narrow their difference over the dispute on the statues.
Lee Myeon-woo, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, echoed a similar view.
"I am aware of the criticism toward Japan's unrepentant view over its wartime sex crimes," he said "But at least superficially, it has made reconciliatory steps by offering 10 billion yen.
"Our government should make similar efforts by consulting civic activists who set up the statue in front of the Japanese embassy and consulate. It appears the Seoul government is falling short of making such efforts."
Frederick Carriere, a senior fellow at the Korean Peninsula Affairs Center of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, suggested "the two parties to the conflict should meet in a confidential setting where they can try to get at the deep roots of the conflict and mutually explore a possible solution."
"Some might say this is what was done last year, and the problem is that it didn't work since the agreement reached has not survived the politics of the bilateral relationship," Carriere wrote in an e-mail.
"My view is that an agreement should initially be worked out between the aggrieved parties and then later endorsed and implemented by the governments. It seems to me that agreement reached last year took the reverse approach and this is a major reason it has not survived politically."
Carriere proposed broadening the search for a solution beyond relations during the colonial period before 1945.
"Instead of the two principal parties pointing a finger of blame at each other, what is needed is a mutual commitment by all the parties to undertake in good faith the most comprehensive, and most sincere, search for the truth that it is humanly possible,"he wrote.
"Further, I think the initial leadership in the process needs to be exercised by private citizens and not the governments."
Some civic activists posted notices near the statue in Busan in what are seen as gestures against its installment.
One notice reads, "The Republic of Korea should forgive Japan." Another reads, "Until when do we have to hate Japan? Let us forgive and reconcile with them first."
By Kim Bo-eun
The Migrant Youth Foundation is running 23 "Rainbow Schools" across the nation, aimed at helping migrant young people adjust to life here.
The spring semester at the centers started Monday. They assist the adolescents so that they can attend schools here by offering elementary courses in Korean language and counseling. The centers also provide programs to help develop their talent and a guide to career paths.
The centers aid North Korean defectors, migrant teens from other countries and multiracial adolescents.
Migrant youngsters aged between nine and 24, who do not attend school here, can receive help at these institutions.
The schools offer 19 weeks of courses for each of the two semesters.
Students can join the courses at any time during the semesters.
Centers are in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Chungcheong, Gyeongsang, Jeolla, Gangwon Provinces as well as Incheon, Gwangju, Busan, Daegu, Ulsan and Daejeon.
Five of the centers offer five-hour courses daily, and the rest provide full-day courses.
For more information, call 02 722-2585 or 070-7826-1536
The center in Seoul, marked its 10th anniversary last year, and centers nationwide have aided some 35,000 adolescents so far.
Around 80 percent of the students at the centers are from China, while the remaining 20 percent are mainly from Vietnam, Uzbekistan and the Philippines.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, center, arrives at the independent counsel team's office in southern Seoul in Monday morning. / Korea Times photos by Choi Won-suk
Special prosecution considers seeking arrest warrant again
By Lee Kyung-min
The independent counsel team summoned Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong again, Monday, for questioning about bribery allegations in connection with the corruption scandal involving President Park Geun-hye.
The second summons of Lee followed a three-week in-depth investigation after its arrest warrant request was denied by a district court, Jan.19.
Lee appeared at the team's office in Daechi-dong, southern Seoul at 9:30 a.m.
"Today I will also tell the truth sincerely to the team," he told reporters before entering the office. He refused to make any more comments.
The team's questioning this time is expected to focus on allegations that Cheong Wa Dae, through the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), granted the group business favors in exchange for financial support for Choi's daughter, Chung yoo-ra, a dressage competitor.
The independent counsel team said it has yet to consider whether to ask for a warrant to arrest the Samsung heir.
"We are considering filing for an arrest warrant," said Lee Kyu-chul, the team's spokesman, during a press briefing.
Prosecution officials said they may file for a warrant as early as Wednesday.
The summons came hours after a local media outlet reported a story about the team securing what it believes is conclusive evidence that could prove bribery allegations involving Lee, President Park and her confidant Choi Soon-sil.
According to the report, the team secured text messages between Lee and group executive Park Sang-jin over specifics about purchasing a 3 billion-won ($2.6 million) dressage horse for Chung last October.
Park Sang-jin was questioned alongside Hwang Sung-soo, another Samsung executive, 30 minutes after Lee was summoned.
By Choi Ha-young
Choung Byoung-gug
All Bareun Party lawmakers have agreed to give up their National Assembly seats if the Constitutional Court nullifies impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, party Chairman Rep. Choung Byoung-gug said Monday.
"We've decided to take full responsibility if the impeachment is nullified," Choung said. "The agreement was reached unanimously among the party's 32 lawmakers."
He also proposed that the leaders of the country's five political parties make a roadmap in preparation for a post-impeachment situation. Choung added that the new conservative party will not cooperate with the Liberty Korea Party (LKP), the new name for the Saenuri Party.
The Constitutional Court is likely to make its ruling in early March before its acting President Lee Jung-mi retires on March 13. The country must elect a new leader within 60 days after the ruling.
The Bareun Party pressed the LKP to take responsibility as well. "If the Constitutional Court upholds impeachment, the LKP lawmakers should resign," party spokesman Rep. Oh Shin-hwan told reporters Sunday.
After the anti-Park conservative lawmakers broke away from the then-Saenuri Party in late December, it outpaced the ruling party in popularity polls. However, it has been stagnant recently standing at 5.6 percent on Monday, which is lower than the six-seat Justice Party at 6.8 percent.
"Considering the political situation, we know it's difficult to raise the poll numbers as conservatives. We will focus on finding a reformist agenda to differentiate ourselves from the LKP," a three-term lawmaker in the Bareun Party told The Korea Times.
In response, the LKP claimed the Bareun Party is pressuring the Constitutional Court to back the impeachment.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) plans to concentrate on weekly candlelit rallies this month, instead of making pledges to resign. "We are not discussing resignation which may cause a stir," DPK spokesman Rep. Koh Yong-jin said.
Presidential hopefuls differ over how to handle Pyongyang
By Kim Rahn
All presidential contenders from both the conservative and liberal blocs criticized North Korea's ballistic missile launch, Sunday.
But they expressed different opinions about how to handle the North Korean provocation.
Moon Jae-in, the leading presidential hopeful from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), called the missile launch a "reckless and foolish act."
On his Facebook page, Sunday, Moon criticized North Korea for carrying out the tests despite multiple warnings from the international community.
"I question the North's ulterior motive of the missile launch in this time of South Korea's confused political situation (following President Park Geun-hye's impeachment)," he said. "If North Korea continues this kind of provocation, it should bear in mind that the Kim Jong-un regime's future will become unpredictable."
By Kim Hyo-jin
Liberal party presidential hopefuls have not yet gained overwhelming support from voters in the Jeolla region, the traditional home for liberals, polls show.
Winning over voters there has been especially critical for liberal contenders. Support in the region signifies the legitimacy of a candidate for the liberal bloc, and can also have a ripple effect in the presidential race, pundits say.
Former President Roh Moo-hyun won the 2002 presidential election after gaining a boost from a victory in the region during his party's primary. In opinion polls conducted before the primary in March 2002, Roh's approval hovered around two to three percent.
While presidential contenders are striving to woo Jeolla voters, their sentiment still remains adrift, latest opinion polls show.
In a Realmeter poll conducted between Feb. 6 and 10, their support was divided three ways to former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Moon Jae-in (37 percent), ex-leader of the minor opposition People's Party Ahn Cheol-soo (18.4 percent), and South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung of the DPK (16.4 percent).
Though Moon secured the top place, it is hard to say he is holding a stable lead in the Jeolla region, the pollster showed. Moon's support rate has not moved for the past three weeks while An's has skyrocketed by over 10 percentage points. Ahn's support has also lingered around 20 percent during the same period.
"Moon's support is less than 50 percent, meaning that they have no confidence yet if Moon is the one who can realize the regional interest even if he succeeds in changing the government," Hwang Tae-soon, a political analyst, said.
"The conditions of their support are simple: One, if a contender has the potential to win the election, ending the conservative government. Two, if he or she will appreciate their backing even after securing the power."
Their antipathy to Moon is still prevalent in the region. They believe Moon, who served as presidential chief of staff under the Roh government, played a critical role in excluding figures from the Jeolla provinces from securing key government posts. The postings were directly interpreted as whether the government took regional interests into account.
The Jeolla voters have disdained at Moon for some time, which led them overwhelmingly to support the People's Party, the DPK's splinter group of anti-Moon politicians, in last year's general election.
"Many people here viewed Moon who is leading the nationwide polls, as an inevitable choice for the aim of changing the government. But now, I can feel that attention is being paid to An, an emerging DPK contender," said a 65-year-old Gwangju citizen surnamed Yang.
"It is not only due to his growing potential to win the election, but also due to his trustworthy and sincere image."
Governor An, a former Roh aide, has been catapulted to second place in opinion polls since the withdrawal of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from the race in early February.
His popularity is growing with support from voters from a wider political spectrum. An earlier vowed to conduct cooperative governance with conservative parties if elected as president.
"Earlier, many thought of supporting Moon as there was no other option. But the situation is different with multiple liberal contenders," said a 52-year-old citizen surnamed Kim.
Kim said he supports Ahn for his image of being honest. It is contrary to Moon's image, he noted. "Having said that, many are still on the fence," he added.
"If a powerful contender emerges from the conservative bloc, there is a 99 percent possibility that Jeolla voters will join hands in backing Moon. They are divided as it is not the case now," Analyst Hwang said.
By Kim Se-jeong
Kori Nuclear Power Plants in Gijang, Busan Recent findings make many worry about safety of nuclear power plants in the country. / Yonhap
Korea's aging nuclear power plants are causing many safety concerns. Now, Koreans have more reasons to worry.
Last Thursday, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said it fined Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), the operator of 23 nuclear reactors around the nation, 740 million won ($642,534) for performing incorrect in-service inspections. According to the government monitoring body of nuclear power facilities, the mishandled inspections on control rod actuator housing welding were carried out at 16 reactors for more than 30 years. The commission said the errors were possible because the inspection manual was drafted incorrectly in 1982 by a builder and inspectors relied on the manual without crosschecking.
Additionally, the commission found last week that the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), based in Daejeon, disposed of nuclear waste from in its labs on its property, which is illegal. Nuclear waste disposal is strictly regulated, with even low-level waste such as gloves and clothes being required to be isolated from other waste.
According to the commission, KAERI buried radioactive concrete waste and dirt on its property in Gongneung-dong in Daejeon some was even transported and buried in Geumsan, South Chungcheon Province, 28 kilometers south of Daejeon. Almost 2.8 million people live within 30 kilometers of the Daejeon institute.
It also dumped gloves and vinyl in trash bins as regular waste some of which was incinerated and released wastewater into the city's sewage system.
The team of investigators retrieved the concrete waste from Geumsan in January which is currently stored on KAERI property. According to the commission, the amount of concrete is estimated at 2.15 tons. For other items, no accurate estimate was available.
The monitoring body said the investigation began last November triggered by a whistleblower's complaint and the illegal practice dates back to 2011.
Radioactive nuclear waste poses a hazard to health and the environment. A court in Busan ruled in 2014 that the Kori Nuclear Power Plant was responsible for thyroid cancer commonly found in a group of people living near the plant.
Green Party Korea issued a statement criticizing KAERI's actions.
"This is an action jeopardizing the health and safety of people who live nearby," the party said in a press release. The anti-nuclear energy party that runs a committee dedicated to opposing nuclear power also urged prosecutors to look into the issue. "Fining isn't enough," it said.
The party also criticized the monitoring body for failing to prevent the misconduct. "Some in the commission are former employees of KAERI. It's hard to expect them to police KAERI properly. They need to invite local residents to participate in monitoring."
Korea has the highest nuclear power plant density in the world, and last week's revelations seemed to prove public concerns are legitimate.
One common worry is prolonged operation of the plants beyond their designed lifespan. Earlier last week, the Seoul Administrative Court ordered a halt in operations of the Wolseong-1 reactor in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, which was supposed to be shut down in 2012 but was restarted after a certified operations extension in 2015.
By Lee Sang-ou
Last month, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced its New Year plan. Based on its mission statement, The Revival of the Shipping Business, the ministry announced a well-organized and progressive plan. The policies include the founding of the Korea Shipping Cooperation and pioneering shipping routes to establish a foothold for the shipping business. However, the "Charm Plan" made for seafarers, failed to address important points. The Charm Plan looks "charming" just like its name; but from the perspective of the current seafarer, it is too academic.
The introduction of a pension.
In order to satisfy sufficient conditions for a pension, a person must serve as a captain on a merchant vessel for at least 35 years. But serving as a captain for 35 years is tough. Normally it takes 10 to 13 years to become a captain because it requires a lot of experience. Now, let us do some math. Korea Maritime University (KMU) graduates start their first career as a third officer when they turn 25; so they will become a captain in their late 30s. This means they need to work until their 70s just to qualify for a single term of the pension program. Plus, more than 70% of seafarers are not working as permanent workers. How can employees work that long if a workplace is not even secure?
2. Expansion of the maritime telemedicine program
What can you do if you get acute appendicitis on a distant ocean? Well, the best thing you can do is pray. Or maybe let the 3rd officer, the "health manager" on the ship, conduct surgery. Both ways seem pretty abject. That's why we need a maritime telemedicine program so badly. But I cast doubt about the effectiveness of the current program. The current telemedicine system is just getting counseling from a doctor. This means that we can't cope with an urgent situation like acute appendicitis. The ministry must present a better plan such as rebuilding the whole system. For example, if we install at least a mandatory video telephone, doctors can supervise surgery directly.
Increasing the number of students in maritime universities
When I heard this, I cannot repress my astonishment because this plan totally goes against the current market conditions. As we know, Hanjin, the biggest shipping line in Korea, has gone into liquidation. This now means that there are not enough ships to serve on. For example, the employee rate for KMU was nearly 95%. But this year, after Hanjin went down, rate for graduates is under 55%. Also, we have the dislocated workers from Hanjin. The number of unemployed seafarers has achieved new heights. Plus, the ministry has already increased the number of students three years in a row. The increase in students is more than 250 just at KMU. The ministry argues that the number of seafarers is undersupplied and when the Korea Shipping Cooperation starts a business, this situation will be intensified. This is not true. Just check the employee rate of KMU. Also, the Korea Shipping Cooperation is not a shipping company as it sounds. It is a finance company. I can't understand how a financial company will deal with the undersupply problem for seafarers.
I hope the ministry will they finally establish some concrete plans for seafarers. But sadly, most of the current plans are in an ivory tower. I hope that the ministry will face up to reality and come up with a better plan.
The writer is studying maritime science in KMU, and serving in a vessel as apprentice officer. Write to sangou2marine@gmail.com.
Support for South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung is rising steeply ahead of the presidential election.
A Gallup Korea poll published Friday showed An, an emerging contender from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), closing the gap with fellow DPK hopeful Moon Jae-in, who leads 29 percent to 19 percent. A week earlier, Moon led 32 percent to 10 percent.
In another poll conducted by Realmeter last week, An ranked second with a support rating of 16.7 percent, up 3.7 percentage points from a week earlier. Moon, the former DPK leader and front-runner, remained in the lead with 32.9 percent, up 1.7 percentage points. What's notable is that in the southwestern Jeolla provinces, the DPK's traditional home turf, support for An has been rising fast over the last three weeks while that for Moon has been declining or stalling.
The reasons why An, a former student activist, has been surging in presidential polls is diverse. He has set himself apart from other liberal candidates by staying true to his principles rather than flattering the public despite the massive candlelit protests that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.
He has positioned himself as a centrist, trying to embrace conservative values especially since former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon withdrew from the presidential race. Unlike other opposition candidates, An stressed the need to respect an agreement between Seoul and Washington to deploy an American missile defense system in Korea.
It still appears difficult for him to beat Moon in a primary race, considering the Moon faction's party hegemony. Nonetheless, An's rise is welcomed in light of the need for the DPK to break up with the era of strife and move toward reconciliation and the future. More importantly, his appeal to center-right constituents will help heal the looming regional, generational and ideological chasm after the election.
Trump likely to react in kind to provocations
If North Korea test-fired a mid-range missile Sunday to test the mettle of new U.S. President Donald Trump, it failed. Trump reacted as expected from his docile predecessor Barack Obama with a bit more of an impulse, as he called in visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to jointly rebuke Pyongyang.
Although the North named it "mid- to long-range" missile, it was likely the North's Musudan flew about 100 km more than the previous attempts but still splashed into the East Sea.
However, if it was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as the North's leader Kim Jong-un had threatened to fire and Trump has vowed not to let happen, the aftermath could have been quite different. The young dictator has every reason to fear the worst.
There are two reasons to expect Trump to mount forceful steps, pre-emptive action included.
The first is Trump's huge ego that is associated with his temperament to ignore whatever others say and execute what he believes is right. Less than two months into his presidency, Trump has created havoc banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S., ordering the erection of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and telling the world to "buy American and hire Americans," among others.
These were some of Trump's outrageous campaign pledges.
Regarding the North, this "me-first" mentality would likely drive Trump into doing what he had promised to do: prevent missile launches from taking place, although he didn't reveal how.
The second is the Trump administration has a will and the wherewithal to back up his pledge.
The U.S. has reportedly offered to station its latest stealth-guided missile destroyer, the Zumwalt, here, and is sending a battle group led by aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson toward the Korean Peninsula. Despite having a displacement of 15,000 tons, Zumalt is virtually invisible and inaudible with a radar cross section comparable to that of a fishing boat and the acoustic signature of a quiet nuclear attack submarine. The Carl Vinson would join the USS George Washington, based in Yokosuka, Japan. A total of 19 aircraft carriers are in service globally with the U.S. accounting for 10; and China and Russia one each.
With enough firepower, the U.S. has shown signs it is ready to stop the North's development of missiles that are getting sophisticated and powerful enough to threaten U.S. territories. The evolving U.S. plan that captures the greatest consensus was authored by William Perry, secretary of defense under Democratic President Bill Clinton, who first promoted the bombing of the North's nuclear facility in Yongbyon, moved to taking out of the North's ICBMs sitting on launch pads; although the current administration has now settled for midair interception of the missiles in their initial stages of flight.
How would the North react, if a missile was destroyed on the launch pad or intercepted shortly after liftoff? Could it retaliate with more launches or attacks on third countries, knowing that it would be overwhelmed by the concentration of firepower by forces from the U.S., Japan and Korea?
Kim Jong-un should be better off putting his plans for long-range missiles or nuclear bombs on ice for a while and think of his survival strategy against the U.S. now ruled by a leader more unpredictable than him.
By Kang Seung-woo
The internet of things (IoT) is emerging as the IT industry's "next big thing" but the connected-device technology is riddled with security vulnerabilities that expose people's devices to cyber-attacks, according to a state-backed agency, Monday.
To make matters worse, there seems to be little sense of urgency to contain the potential risks.
According to the Center for Software Security and Assurance (CSSA), cyber-attacks exploiting flaws in IoT devices have been on the rise in Korea. The CSSA is an affiliated organization of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.
The IoT refers to a network of physical objects, including vehicles, buildings and electronic devices connected to the internet to exchange data. It allows such objects to be monitored and controlled remotely.
Recently, a number of cases were reported of internet-connected printers spontaneously printing out pages saying hackers have accessed and commandeered the printers remotely because of the devices' connection to open and unsecured networks.
"With more IoT devices showing up, we see growing security threats regarding the technology," CSSA director Lee Hee-jo said at an IoT-related conference in Seoul last week.
"Compared with personal computers, IoT devices are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Worse, beefing up their security is typically put on the back burner, so they have fallen victim to hackers amid the IoT's growing presence."
According to a report earlier this month by Gartner, a U.S. technology researcher, 8.4 billion connected "things" will be in use worldwide this year, up 31 percent from 2016, and the total number is forecast to reach 20.4 billion by 2020.
Security challenges for IoT devices are also increasing because hackers can easily access network information and install malware in vulnerable devices.
Shodan is a search engine that allows users to examine all internet-connected devices; IT security industry officials suspect the recent printer hackings were conducted by hackers who exploited data from the search engine.
In addition, the IT security industry also blames the public release last year of the source code for Mirai, a malware program, for a series of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks recently. Mirai enables attackers to hijack poorly secured IoT devices and direct them to submit data requests to a target system, overwhelming its resources and disabling it. Users may not even notice that their devices are linked together with other compromised systems and devices in networks, called botnets, to carry out such DDoS attacks.
Last October in the United States, Mirai was exploited in a massive attack on a server provider and many popular websites including Twitter, Netflix and Amazon went down.
Amid growing cyber-attacks on IoT devices, the government remains on high alert against possible attacks on key government agencies and social infrastructure-related facilities _ particularly ahead of the presidential election this year.
"There is the possibility that huge denial-of-service attacks could occur by using IoT devices from home and abroad," said Jeon Kil-soo, an official of the state-run Korea Internet and Security Agency, warning that the country may be exposed to more malicious software as hackers increasingly breach internet-enabled devices.
By Kang Seung-woo
Google is facing an anti-competitive investigation into whether it obstructed Samsung Electronics' development of its own operating system (OS) to replace the U.S. tech giant's Android OS, according to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), Monday.
"We are currently checking if Google thwarted competition in the OS market," an FTC official said.
The FTC has also submitted relevant documents to Rep. Jeon Hae-cheol of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).
The market share for Android in Korea's mobile market accounts for more than 80 percent as of the end of January.
In 2011, the California-based firm and Samsung struck the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA) that required Android handsets to preset Google as a default search engine and preinstall its applications and services such as YouTube and Gmail on their home screens.
In addition, they also reached the anti-fragmentation agreement (AFA) stipulating that Samsung was not allowed to develop a new OS using Google's algorithms.
At the time, the nation's top two search engines Naver and Daum complained about MADA and the FTC investigated Google Korea to see if the preloading requirements violated the Antitrust Law. In 2013, Google was cleared after the antitrust body found the two Korean firms' market shares were not affected.
However, the FTC launched its probe into the AFA last May and found suspicious circumstances hinting at Google's obstruction of Samsung's OS development.
The FTC also said it is reviewing the need to reinvestigate the 2013 case, citing the changing situation in the market.
"As lawmakers have demanded a reinvestigation of the case, the FTC is checking whether it is possible to do so," the FTC official said.
A Google Korea spokesman said, "Android is an open source platform. Our partner agreements are entirely voluntary anyone can use Android without Google.
"The Android OS can be downloaded for free. It can be modified and used to build a phone. Many companies have used Android's source code as the starting point for their own operating systems."
Google is not a stranger to being accused of antitrust practices.
In August 2016, the Russian government fined Google $6.75 million for competition violations, while the EU reached its preliminary view last April year that the company has, in breach of EU antitrust rules, abused its dominant position by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators.
"The FTC needs to carry out an across-the-board investigation into any anti-competitive acts Google may have done to rival companies and take necessary measures," the MPK lawmaker said.
By Jhoo Dong-chan
Audi Volkswagen Korea chief Marcus Hellmann
Audi Volkswagen Korea has appointed Marcus Hellmann as a co-managing director in its business operation in Korea, effective Feb. 1, the German carmaker's affiliate here said Monday.
Having overseen legal affairs of Volkswagen Group's international units in Germany, Hellmann has played an important role with his legal expertise in the company's recent emissions-cheating scandal.
This appointment is believed to be Audi Volkswagen's preparatory measure to reapply for sales certification of its scandal-mired models. Last July, the Ministry of Environment banned sales of 80 models of Audi and Volkswagen vehicles after its recall proposals were rejected three times by the ministry.
"The appointment of Hellmann, who has overseen legal affairs for all international Audi Volkswagen Group affiliates, implies the Korean market is crucial for the German carmaker," an Audi Volkswagen Korea official said.
"Under Hellman's leadership, Audi Volkswagen Korea plans to strengthen its legal and regulatory affairs in Korea."
She added that the existing Managing Director Johannes Thammer will focus on normalizing management of the company's sales, marketing and developing strategies while Hellmann is expected to take charge of legal affairs with the government.
Hellmann is known to have vast experience in M&As and investments. He also participated in the launch of Audi Volkswagen Korea in 2004.
Three weeks before Hellmann's appointment, the government approved Volkswagen Korea's proposal to recall two Tiguan SUV models. Out of some 27,000 Tiguan SUVs subject to the measure, the ministry asked Volkswagen Korea to meet an 85 percent recall rate, the same criteria of the U.S.
Shortly after getting a nod for the recall plan, Audi Volkswagen Korea introduced the Audi A7 55 TDI Quattro Premium sedan here, the first model to be sold in Korea after the emissions scandal erupted.
Audi Volkswagen Korea is also discussing its plan with the government to recall 15,000 CC sedans.
China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is a refurbished Soviet design.
The PLA will use conventional steam catapults to launch aircraft on its second domestically made flat-top, military specialists say
By Minnie Chan
China will not adopt highly advanced electromagnetic take-off technology on its second domestically built aircraft carrier but instead rely on a conventional system, naval experts say.
TheType 002 vessel the country's third aircraft carrier after the Liaoning and the Type 001A carrier under construction in Dalian would be equipped with at least three conventional steam launch catapults, a source close to the navy told the South China Morning Post.
But it would be the first Chinese aircraft carrier to use this type of launch system.
"There are still some technical problems applying nuclear propulsion to the carrier platform, so the Type 002 will still use steam catapults," the source said.
"But this is still a breakthrough compared with Liaoning and the Type 001A carrier, both of which are equipped with ski-jump ramps.
"It will [also] take a couple of years for the newest carrier to enter full service after its launch, as it takes two or three years to train carrier-based pilots."
Professor Jin Yinan, a former director of the strategic research institute at the People's Liberation Army National Defence University, said in December that construction of the Type 002 started at the Jiangnan Changxingdao shipyard in Shanghai in March 2015.
Hong Kong-based military expert Liang Guoliang said China planned to produce two Type 002 carriers, each with a displacement of 85,000 tonnes, which would make them the biggest Chinese carriers. The Liaoning is about 55,000 tonnes while the Type 001A will be 70,000 tonnes.
The first Type 002 carrier was expected to be launched in about 2021, Liang added.
There had been speculation that the Type 002 could be a nuclear-powered vessel with an electromagnetic take-off system.
But Li Jie, a Beijing-based military expert, said it would be impossible to develop a completely new generation carrier in just a few years.
"Different systems need different technology, technicians and pilots," Li said.
"For example, the Type 001A is scheduled to be launched later this year, but it will take several more years to develop as part of a real battle group before entering full service in the navy."
The current understanding of how China's second aircraft carrier will look.
Meanwhile, Andrei Chang, founder of military magazine Kanwa Asian Defence, said the Type 001A was "purely a copycat" of the Varyag, which was laid down as a Kuznetsov-class carrier for the Soviet navy in the 1970s, before it was sold to China and refurbished as the Liaoning.
Li said that while the appearance of the Type 001A may be similar to the Liaoning, its layout, interior equipment and overall operational concept would be more advanced than the Liaoning.
Li said one difference was the Type 001's take-off ramp slope of 12 degrees, compared with 14 degrees for the Liaoning.
The 12-degree ramp would help fighters shorten their take-off distance, save fuel and increase their weapons payload while strengthening the ship's structure,Li said.
"There are different operational concepts between the Liaoning and Type 001A," he said.
"Based on the Varyag design, the Liaoning was designedwith both weapons systems and aircraft in an equally important layout, but the Type 001A has learned from US carriers to focus on how to make aircraft on board more functional."
According to Li, certain weapons were excluded from the Type 001A platform to allow more carrier-based J-15 parking. The hanger was also being expanded to allow the new carrier to carry between six and eight more J-15 fighter jets than the Liaoning.
"The control tower island on the deck was shrunk 10 per cent, which allow the deck to dock more helicopters and fixed-wing early-warning aircraft," he said, adding that four weapons sponsons, or projections, on the aft deck had been dismantled.
S-band radars with four large antennae would be installed on the top of control tower, he said.
The system is China's most advanced and is capable of covering a 360-degree search field to scout dozens of targets in the air and at sea.
Four HQ-10 short-range air defence missiles systems with 24 tubes would also deployed on the new ship, Li said.
This weapons system is also mounted on the navy's most advanced Type 052D destroyers and Type 056 frigates.
However, Macau-based military observerAntony Wong Dong said the country's limited production capacity for carrier-based J-15s might hinder the 001A entering full service on schedule.
"The Liaoning was designed to carry up to one aviation regiment, or 24 carrier-based fighters.
"But the vessel so far has got only about 20 carrier-based J-15 because the [state-owned] Aeroengine Corporation has not yet developed a reliable replacement for the Russian-produced AL-31 models.
"It's likely that the Type 001A will face the same problems as the Liaoning."
Only a day after water began spilling out of Lake Oroville down a never-used emergency spillway, officials ordered residents to leave areas downstream from Oroville Dam "immediately." A hole was spotted in the auxiliary spillway, raising fears that it could collapse and send a wall of water down the Feather River. Officials said Oroville Dam itself is not at risk, but then they said that about the emergency spillway too when it began to see its first water on Saturday.
On Sunday at 4:42 p.m., the state Department of Water Resource tweeted:
EMERGENCY EVACUATION: Auxiliary spillway at Oroville Dam predicted to fail within the next hour. Oroville residents evacuate northward. CA - DWR (@CA_DWR) February 13, 2017
An estimated 188,000 residents began to evacuate in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties late. By Sunday night, officials said the lake level had fallen below the lip and water had stopped flowing over the emergency spillway. The evacuation order remained in effect, probably overnight.
Efforts Sunday night to manage the damage included the use of helicopters to drop boulders onto the damaged spillway and the hillside below the lip.
"Ive been in close contact with emergency personnel managing the situation in Oroville throughout the weekend, and its clear the circumstances are complex and rapidly changing, Gov. Brown said Sunday night. I want to thank local and state law enforcement for leading evacuation efforts and doing their part to keep residents safe. The state is directing all necessary personnel and resources to deal with this very serious situation.
The state Department of Water Resources has for days been releasing a high flow of water down the regular, damaged spillway of Oroville Dam trying to lower the level of the lake. They upped the flow today to 100,000 cubic feet per second, which is dumping a lot of water. They would like to lower the lake enough to handle the expected new inflow from weather later this week.
The dramatic photos and news video of whitewater raging below the dam are of the controlled discharge down to the main concrete spillway. The area of concern is the auxiliary spillway (below) down a raw hillside on the face of the earthen dam.
California Department of Water Resources
The evacuated areas include the cities of Oroville, Marysville, Gridley, Biggs, Yuba City and other towns along the rivers. An actual dam break up there would be disastrous along the Feather River and south into Sacramento. The Los Angeles Fire Department and other agencies are sending swift-water rescue teams to Butte County in case they are needed. The California National Guard has also been placed on alert status, per Twitter.
What does official urgency look like on Twitter?
ALERT!!!! Evacuation ordered for all Yuba County on the valley floor. Travel safely. https://t.co/BrRpXUJiX5 Yuba County (@YubaCounty) February 13, 2017
.@ButteSheriff issued an Immediate Evacuation Order at 4:20 pm due to the #spillway incident for the area shown on the map. @CA_DWR pic.twitter.com/b7lX9FHkJd Butte County, CA (@CountyofButte) February 13, 2017
EMERGENCY ALERT #OROVILLESPILLWAY at #OROVILLEDAM, Imminent danger of collapse / Evacuations in three counties https://t.co/gtuGDuEiQ4 CAL FIRE NEWS (@CalFireNews) February 13, 2017
Sacramento Bee stories:
Threat of spillway failure at Oroville Dam prompts evacuation of 188,000 across Northern California
No word when evacuation order for 188,000 will be lifted as Oroville threat remains
PRESS RELEASE
Illinois Senate Gets Resolution on American Recovery
Feb. 11, 2017 (EIRNS)A resolution for an "American recovery program" has been introduced into the Illinois State Senate, calling for Federal action for reinstating the 1933 Glass-Steagall banking separation law, and three more measures, along the outline of Lyndon LaRouches 2014 "Four Laws." Filed in late January, S.R. 0055 is identical in wording to a resolution already passed in June, 2016, in the Illinois Housethe other chamber of the state General Assembly. The new S.R. 0055 urges "the United States Congress to immediately adopt the American Recovery Program," which it then spells out, ending with instructions, to provide the resolution to President Trump, the leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives, and to the Illinois Congressional delegation.
PRESS RELEASE
Lavrov: Situation in Syria Favorable for Start of a Practical Settlement
Feb. 11, 2017 (EIRNS)Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview yesterday that the current situation is Syria is favorable for the beginning of "practical settlement of the crisis." "We are in a situation which Id rather refrain from anticipating a breakthrough, but the current situation is much more favorable for starting practical steps to settle the crisis," he said.
"We came close to the beginning of such work in last September. But the Americans failed to implement the agreement that had been agreed with us. It was yet another proof of the Obama administrations intransigence on many issues,"
Lavrov noted, adding that after the breakdown of agreements on Syria with the U.S. side Russia opted for closer cooperation on that matter with Turkey.
At least one member of the political opposition, Louay Hussein, leader of the Building the Syrian State (BSS) party and described by Reuters as a longtime pillar of Syrias internal Damascus-based opposition, appears to agree. "The armed conflict for the state is over," Hussein said in Beirut, yesterday, where he was to participate in the formation of a bloc of secular-oriented opposition parties.
"There are no longer foreign states saying they support certain groups to topple the regime by force. We are going back towards a political struggle,"
he said.
The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee announced today, following a meeting in Riyadh, that it will be sending a 20-person delegation to Geneva. HNC spokesman Salim al-Muslit told Arabic news channel Arabiya al-Hadath, reports Reuters, that the opposition delegation would bring together various groups, which, as well as the HNC would include armed opposition groups that took part in the Astana negotiations in January. It will also include Kurdish, Turkmen and Christian representatives, he said, but did not elaborate. "It is a military political delegation and it represents everyone," Muslit said. "Each component will nominate the person it finds suitable." Nasr al-Hariri, of the Syrian National Coalition, will lead the delegation. It is not clear, however, whether Louay Husseins bloc will be represented or not.
PRESS RELEASE
Nazi Regime in Kiev Attempting To Silence Vitrenko with Fake Evidence; Appeal Made to the EU
Feb. 11, 2017 (EIRNS)Dr. Natalia Vitrenko, Ukrainian economist, former Member of the Ukraine Parliament, and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU) issued a video yesterday, presenting the latest evidence that the Ukraine Security Service (SBU) is attempting to silence her through a politically motivated frame-up on criminal charges of separatism, as well as the details of attempts to frame her up on false charges going back to 2014. The law under which shes being targeted, "infringement of the territorial integrity of Ukraine," was instituted after the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew Ukraines elected President Victor Yanukovych, the third anniversary of which comes in less than two weeks.
Dr. Vitrenko yesterday issued an appeal for intervention, to the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, entitled "Help Stop the Defamation of a Ukrainian Opposition Party and its Leader Natalia Vitrenko!"
For more background information, click here.
PRESS RELEASE
Official Chinese Government Coverage: The International Schiller Institute Holds Seminar on One Belt, One Road
The following article dated Feb. 8, 2017 was posted on the official website of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, which we provide in rough translation.
Feb. 12, 2017 (EIRNS)The International Schiller Institute held a seminar on OBOR [One Belt, One Road] a few days ago in New York, featuring founder and chairwoman of the international Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and the Chairman and Secretary General of the China Energy Fund Committee, comrade Dr. Patrick Ho. About 50 scholars from Russia, U.S.A., China, plus media and business circles attended the seminar.
Through live video broadcast Helga LaRouche went through Xi Jinping's OBOR proposal, that it is on a mutually beneficial basis, offered to every country as a financial and economic platform. Europe and each and every country's government with wisdom believe that the goal of this proposal is China's help to revive the world's economy, a great economic plan to immediately triple investment. To miss this economic fast train is absolutely not wise.
Over 100 countries have already responded positively to the OBOR proposal. More than 40 countries and international organizations already participate in China's initial (signing) agreement. The Chairwoman put forward that collaboration is a win, and that the idea of mutual development has for a long time been proposed by the SI as the basis for peace and dialogue. The SI concept (and that of OBOR) of mutual development happen to hold the same views.
Helga pointed out that President Trump is in the process of honoring his election promises; that he has declared he wants the U.S. to be placed in an honorable first position, and to introduce trade protection. But the world's economy is weak, every nation must make a great mutual effort to develop the economy and to seek to strive for change of power.
In the backdrop of globalization, it is in every country's interest to be closely linked, and it is very important that all nations work in concert and seek to explore ways for mutual development. Helga expressed that at present the U.S. should comply with the developing tide of history and accede to OBOR, and collaborate with Asia's initiative. In the American government carrying out a positive infrastructure construction, China can participate in collaborating in this development to mutual benefit. Besides, the U.S. government appears to be improving relations with Russia, which will be beneficial for world peace and stabilization. If the U.S., Russia and India can develop a full collaboration, it will have a huge impact on the world economy, safeguarding and stabilizing the world, and promoting the establishment of a new, peaceful international economic order.
Helga appealed to the participants to make a great effort to promote the U.S. government to adopt positive measures to insure that the U.S. implement a mutual beneficial foreign policy.
Dr. Patrick Ho proceeded to give a speech from the standpoint of the tradition of Chinese culture, relating to the Chinese adherence to the idea: do not unto others, as you would not have them do unto you (ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren), passed on as related to Zhang Qian (2nd Century B.C.), a diplomat to the western regions (in Han, west of Dunhuang), the story of Zheng He (leader of Ming naval expedition) who developed foreign trade, and elaborated in China's proposal for peaceful dialogue, win-win collaboration, joint business sponsorship in the spirit of the Silk Road propagating the Chinese people's love of the idea of peace.
His speech very deeply fascinated the participants of the seminar, who paid close attention, and it caused an extremely sympathetic response. According to China Economic Daily reporter's understanding, the SI was founded in May 1984, and has multi-national branches in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, Australia, Thailand, India and Japan, each organized with their own national characteristics. The Institute's name, Schiller, is commemorating the 18th-Century German poet and writer, Schiller. SI devotes itself to seek to uphold the essence of human beings, and to advance the improvement of human rights.
The article is accompanied by two pictures. One has a shot of the room, with a big screen with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and Patrick Ho at the podium. The caption reads:
The road for human society. From the scene of OBOR seminar (picture by CED reporter Zhu Jing).
The second, displaying a picture of Patrick Ho, with the caption:
China Energy Fund Committee Chair and Secretary General, comrade Dr. Patrick Ho, at seminar giving a speech. (picture by CED reporter Zhu Jing).
PRESS RELEASE
Trump Launches War on Drugs,
But Must Target Drug Banks
Feb. 12, 2017 (EIRNS)The following press release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee.
President Donald Trump has launched a deadly serious War on Drugs. On Feb. 8, in a speech before the Major Cities Chiefs Association in Washington, Trump said that the drug scourge is destroying the potential of America's youth and America's future, and must be crushed, naming the newly installed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Gen. John Kelly (ret.), as the man to lead the effort. The following day, Trump issued an Executive Order naming the newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to be the head of a new Task Force "to focus on destroying transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels," with a 120-day mandate to report on "transnational criminal organizations and subsidiary organizations, including the extent of penetration of such organizations into the United States."
This is the first serious call for combatting the drug scourge, now devastating every community and millions of families in the United States, since Lyndon LaRouche first coined the term "War on Drugs" in 1980, when the LaRouche organization formed the "National Anti-Drug Coallition" and launched the publication of the magazine War on Drugs.
The one problem with the Trump War on Drugsand a potential Achilles' heel if not correctedis the failure to identify and target the actual core of the international drug cartelthe banks which facilitate this business. The publication by EIR in 1978 of the first edition of Dope, Inc., and the half-dozen subsequent editions of that blockbuster expose, documented in great detail how the illicit drug businessthe biggest business in the worldis controlled entirely by the British and Wall Street banks, since the time of the British Opium Wars against China, and continuing through to today.
The identification of the "too-big-to-fail" banks in London and New York as the headquarters of Dope, Inc., will also provide yet another motivation for the immediate restoration of Glass-Steagall, to stop the criminal money laundering and speculation which has brought the trans-Atlantic financial system to ruin.
Trump is fully aware that the drug issue is central to the future of the nation, which was clear in a speech he presented to the Major Cities Chiefs Association Winter Conference in Washington on Feb. 8. He emphasized that "every child in America should be able to play outside without fear, walk home without danger, and attend a school without being worried about drugs or gangs or violence.... So many lives and so many people have been cut short. Their potential, their life has been cut short. So much potential has been sidelined. And so many dreams have been shattered and broken, totally broken.
"It's time to stop the drugs from pouring into our country," Trump continued. "And, by the way, we will do that. And I will say this: Generalnow SecretaryKelly will be the man to do it."
He continued: "It's time to dismantle the gangs terrorizing our citizens, and its time to ensure that every young American can be raised in an environment of decency, dignity, love and support. You have asked for the resources, tools and support you need to get the job done. We will do whatever we can to help you meet those demands."
Trump noted that he had brought a number of law enforcement officials to the White House, and asked them "what impact do drugs have in terms of a percentage on crime? They said, 75% to 80%. That's pretty sad. We're going to stop the drugs from pouring in. We're going to stop those drugs from poisoning our youth, from poisoning our people. We're going to be ruthless in that fight. We have no choice.... And we're going to take that fight to the drug cartels and work to liberate our communities from their terrible grip of violence."
Dope Inc.: Run by the British Banks
President Trump's War on Drugs is to be highly commended, and supported in full by all those citizens of the world who treasure the human mind and human spirit, but it will fail if it does not go after the heart of the beastthe British banks, headed by HSBC, and their Wall Street subsidiaries. Under its earlier namethe Hongkong and Shanghai BankHSBC ran the opium trade in Asia during the Opium Wars in the 19th century, and more recently ran the money laundering for the Mexican drug cartels into the United States. When it was caught in this crime, the Obama Administration, while busy promoting drug use and the legalization of drugs across the U.S., ruled that no bankers should be criminally prosecuted for drug money laundering, just as none were to be prosecuted for the massive crimes in their derivative scams leading to the 2007-08 near collapse of the Western banking system. Obama's ties to George Soros, the notorious funder and promoter of virtually every international effort to legalize drugs, are well documented.
Trump is now positioned to correct this crime. He has promised during his campaign to implement Glass-Steagallthe Franklin Roosevelt law which separated commercial banks from investment banks, offering government support only to the former which were forbidden to participate in speculative activities. President Trump must be held to account for that promise. If Glass-Steagall is implemented, the drug money operations of the "too-big-to-fail" banks will be dried up virtually overnight, and the drug cartels can be mopped up relatively easily.
It is not only Lyndon LaRouche who has identified the role of the banks in the global drug trade. In 2009, after the 2008 near-collapse of the Western banking system, Antonio Maria Costa, then the head of the UN office on drugs and crime, identified the fact that the international banks had become "drug dependent." He said: "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor. Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities.... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."
Viktor Ivanov, the Director of the Russian Federal Narcotics Service from 2008 until 2016, speaking in Washington in 2011, said:
"Drug money and global drug trafficking are actually not just valuable elements of, but as donors of scarce liquidity, a vital and indispensable segment of the whole monetary system."
In order to shut this down, he said, Russia and the United States must work in tandem to effect a
"drastic transformation of the international financial system.... To a certain extent, we are observing a revival of the logic of the Glass-Steagall Act, adopted in the U.S. in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, which separated the deposit and investment functions of banks."
However, he continued,
"restrictions to prevent the attraction of criminal money are required even more. In other words, liquidation of the financial bubble alone will not be enough.... The key way to liquidate global drug trafficking is to reformat the existing economy and shift to an economy that excludes criminal money"
and provides reproduction of net
"liquid assets, i.e., to an economy of development, in which decisions are based on development projects and long-term targetted credits."
Trump's Executive Order vs. Dope, Inc.
Trump's executive order of Feb. 9 is powerful and clear:
"Transnational criminal organizations and subsidiary organizations, including transnational drug cartels, have spread throughout the nation, threatening the safety of the United States and its citizens.... These groups are drivers of crime, corruption, violence, and misery.... In particular, the trafficking by cartels of controlled substances has triggered a resurgence in deadly drug abuse and a corresponding rise in violent crime related to drugs.... A comprehensive and decisive approach is required to dismantle these organized crime syndicates and restore safety for the American people."
This executive order came at the same time as the confirmation in the U.S. Senate of Jeff Sessions to be Trump's Attorney General. Sessions has been one of the fiercest opponents of the drug leagalization policy implemented under Barack Obama.
In this regard, it is of note that Gen. John Kelly (ret.), the former head of Southern Command for the U.S. Armed Forces, who is now Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security, emphasized the importance of a
"layered approach that extends far beyond our shores, throughout the hemisphere, in partnership with our neighbors to the South and North. He said that "if the drugs are in the Untied States, we've lost."
He estimated that 99% of the heroin that enters the United States is produced in Mexico; poppies used to manufacture heroin are grown in Mexico and Guatemala, and then the drug is shipped to the United States. He emphasized the importance of a partnership with Mexico, saying the United States would like
"to help them get after the poppy production ... after the production labs ... after the heroin, methamphetamine ... before it gets to the border."
It must be added that the destruction of the Mexican economy since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into force in 1994, leaving the many of the youth with no where to go but the drug trade, the New Silk Road process from China, and also from the U.S., must be rapidly implemented.
On the U.S. side of the border, Kelly said the demand for drugs must be drastically reduced. "You're never going to get to zero," he said, "but we know how to do this. We've done it before with other drugs and other things that were bad for our society." As to the Bush and Obama years, Kelly added: We're not even trying."
Join the Fight
Trump's War on Drugs provides yet another stark reason for the hysterical campaign by London's Dope, Inc. to bring Trump down. The color revolutions run by drug-pusher George Soros against nations across Europe, Africa, the Mideast and South America, is now being waged against the government of these United States, led by the City of London, its Wall Street subsidiary, and the whorish press.
The necessary means to defeat this evil is to mobilize the American people, and people around the world, to induce President Trump to carry out his pledge to enact Glass-Steagall, and restore the "American System" of Hamiltonian banking, capable of directing credit into national infrastructure, industrial and agricultural growth, and restoring the nation's dedication to advancing the frontiers of scientific knowledge, through fusion power development and space explorationLaRouche's Four Laws.
Trump has now demonstrated that he is willing to work with the great nations of the worldRussia, China, Japan, and a restored Europe and Americato create an era of "Peace Through Development," as with Xi Jinping's "win-win" policy of the New Silk Road. By restoring America's role as a nation builder, and protecting the future of our children as productive and creative human beings, America can and must, once again, stand as a Temple of Hope and a Beacon of Liberty for the entire world.
Movies from Paramount Pictures and Amazon Studios are among the 22 feature film projects that have qualified for $100 million in state-funded incentives that will shoot primarily in California.
The unnamed Paramount project is expected to receive $22.4 million in tax credits, the largest award to date under a program that was expanded in 2015, according to the California Film Commission.
The commission described the film as a major feature whose budget exceeds $75 million and would employ a cast and crew of 300 individuals.
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Under the program, production companies can receive a 20% to 25% credit to offset certain expenses, such as crew member salaries. Companies can then apply those credits to reduce any general tax liabilities they have with the state. (In some cases, the credits can be sold to third parties.)
Paramount declined to comment.
The untitled feature is only the second large-budget studio movie to receive tax credits from California under the states expanded incentive program, which previously excluded movies whose budgets exceeded $75 million. The first was Disneys A Wrinkle in Time, which is in production and was approved for a credit estimated at $18 million.
The expanded program was intended in part to draw big Hollywood films that have largely fled California for other states and countries with their own incentives.
Two Amazon movies have qualified for the latest round of credits Beautiful Boy, about a father dealing with his sons meth addiction and set to star Steve Carell; and a project with the title Callahan. They are receiving estimated credits of $4 million and $1.1 million, respectively. Streaming companies were ineligible for incentives under the old incentive program.
Among the rounds biggest credit winners are two Warner Bros. movies: a feature about Jessica Buchanan, the American aid worker rescued by a Navy SEAL team in Somalia in 2012, which will receive an estimated $6.2 million; and the latest version of A Star is Born, directed by Bradley Cooper and set to star Lady Gaga, earmarked for $7.1 million.
An untitled Universal feature is set to receive $11.6 million in credits.
Other qualifying projects include Universals Marwencol, based on the 2010 documentary about a man who builds a model World War II-era town in his backyard; and New Lines comedy Tag.
The commission said the 22 productions were chosen from an applicant pool of 93 projects. It said the chosen productions are on-track to spend $800 million in-state and employ more than 4,000 cast and crew members.
david.ng@latimes.com
@DavidNgLAT
An hour after Donald Trump took the oath of office last month, his administration caught the attention of the real estate industry when it abruptly suspended a planned cut in Federal Housing Administration mortgage-insurance premiums.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development cited the need for further analysis to protect taxpayers in halting the policy that would have saved FHA-borrowers as much as $1,000 or more a year.
But the move by the FHAs parent agency, which overturned a decision the Obama administration had made on its way out the door, could signal something else: a new conservative bent to the nations housing policy.
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Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, which tracks the residential mortgage market, noted that past administrations have tweaked the premium rate as they sought to either bring more people into the program or drive them away.
Over the years probably half the changes in the program have been political, he said.
And there could be more ahead. Trumps nominee for HUD secretary, Ben Carson, during his confirmation hearing a week before the inauguration, signaled in an exchange with a Republican senator that he might be open to some housing policy changes.
Taxpayers are on the hook for $1.2 trillion worth of mortgages, said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), referring to the total volume of FHA-backed home loans. All the while there is a private industry in the business of insuring mortgages.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is sworn in on Capitol Hill last month. (Zach Gibson / Associated Press)
Carson, in response, said it didnt matter what particular entity provides insurance, but there has to be some sort of backstop.
The FHA, created during the Great Depression when home building had almost ground to a halt, is such a backstop.
To encourage more lending, the agency provides insurance to approved private lenders in the case of default. Its insurance cap is now $636,150 in high-cost areas such as Los Angeles and Orange counties.
In general, borrowers who are able to make a down payment amounting to 20% of a home loan dont need mortgage insurance, and for those who cant pony up that amount of cash but have good credit, cheaper insurance from private companies is often available.
But the FHA, with its mission to boost homeownership, is often a preferred option for cash-poor, first-time home buyers and those with spotty credit or a combination of both. Down payments can be as little as 3.5% of the purchase price and the program is open to borrowers with credit scores as low as 500, which could signal a past bankruptcy or debts sent to collection.
Despite the generous underwriting standards, the mortgage insurance premiums covered defaults and fully funded the FHA for decades until it received its first taxpayer bailout in 2013 because of fallout from the housing bust. Since then, the agencys finances have improved significantly, though that hasnt assuaged concerns of some Republicans.
Shortly after the election, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pointed to a bill his committee passed in 2013 as the right vehicle for reform of the nations housing finance system.
That bill, known as the Path Act, would have raised the minimum down payment for FHA mortgages to 5% for borrowers who are not first-time home buyers.
Beyond that category, it would have limited program access to low- to moderate-income Americans and applications within a disaster area or during a counter-cyclical market, as defined by the government. The bill also would have tightened requirements on borrowers who had previous foreclosures.
The Path Act shifts risk away from the taxpayers and into the private sector by reducing FHAs footprint and making sure the agency is complementing the private sector, not competing with it, Hensarling said shortly after the bill passed the House Financial Services Committee in 2013.
The bill didnt move forward during the 2013-14 congressional session a time when Republicans controlled only the House but could have a brighter future today.
Given that Republicans [now] control both the House and Senate, not to mention the White House, I dont think it is a stretch to say there is a fairly decent chance that something like the Path Bill becomes law, Cecala said in an email.
Currently, most borrowers getting an FHA-backed loan pay a one-time, upfront premium of 1.75% of their loan, plus an annual premium (paid monthly) that is 0.85% of the original loan. The fees can add up.
For a borrower putting 3.5% down on a $200,000 loan, that amounts to an upfront costs of $3,500 and $142 in monthly premiums. That totals about $17,000 in mortgage insurance premiums after just 10 years..
The Obama rate reductions would have lowered the annual premium rate for most borrowers to 0.60% and saved $500 a year for borrowers who put down less than 5% on a $200,000, 30-year mortgage. For a $600,000 loan in higher costs markets such as Los Angeles, savings would be $1,500 annually.
But despite the costs, the FHA even without the Obama rate cut tends to be cheaper than private mortgage insurance for borrowers with poor to fair credit who cant make down payments of even 5%, said Richard T. Cirelli, a Laguna Beach mortgage broker.
Whats more, some repeat and wealthier buyers with credit problems have a hard time qualifying for non-FHA loans, said Jeff Lazerson, another Orange County mortgage broker.
If the Path Act became law, he said, It would knock out a lot of people period.
But any significant change that would make FHA-backed mortgages less attractive or available would probably cause blowback from the real estate industry, including the 1.2-million member National Assn. of Realtors.
The group strongly opposed the Path Act in 2013, saying the proposed changes to FHA, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which support the conforming loan market, would jeopardize the ability of American families to purchase a home, as well as the future of the housing industry itself.
The Realtors also called on the Trump administration to reverse its decision on the recent rate cut.
Stuart Gabriel, director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA, said he expects the administration will have a conservative tilt in housing policy, but he noted that its uncertain how the debate over housing policy will play out.
Ben Carson is a complete unknown in the housing world, he said.
In addition to any political calculations, there is actuarial math that has to be considered as well.
Premiums are set by FHA so it can cover lender losses if borrowers default. By law, the agency is required to have a capital reserve ratio in its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund of 2% of all outstanding loans.
During the height of last decades housing boom, borrowers shunned the FHA despite an annual premium of 0.50% and instead took out easy-to-get, risky subprime loans doled out with little underwriting. In most cases, Cecala said, not even private mortgage insurance was required.
As a result, by 2005, FHA loans for home purchases and refinances had trickled to 3.1% of the total mortgage market, down from 11.7% in 2000.
But when the subprime bubble popped, the FHA became a lender of last resort and Congress expanded the program in 2008 to shore up the national housing market, doubling the price of a home that could be purchased with an FHA loan.
The economy, however, continued to crater.
By 2009, FHA loans totaled 21.1% of the mortgage market, and accounted for 32.6% of purchases.
Annual premium increases were put into place to cover defaults, with rates rising to 1.35% of the loan. Most new borrowers were also required to pay that rate for the life of the loan, rather than a minimum of five years.
It wasnt enough. In September 2013, the FHA tapped the U.S. Treasury for $1.7 billion because of losses from loans it insured from 2007 to 2009.
Since then, higher annual premiums have helped the insurance fund exceed its 2% minimum reserve ratio requirement for two successive years, even as the Obama administration cut rates for most borrowers from 1.35% to its current 0.85% rate in 2015.
The ratio hit 2.3% at the time of the Obama administrations planned final rate cut to 0.60%, which had been set to take effect Jan. 27.
One consumer group would have liked to see even further cuts, saying that delinquencies and defaults are the result of loose underwriting standards and the health of the economy, not premium rates.
Lending is safer than its ever been, said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
But conservatives are resisting calls for further cuts, including from American Enterprise Institute fellow Edward J. Pinto, a former Fannie Mae chief credit officer.
He said that premium cuts during a hot housing market just juice demand and send prices higher, which can undercut affordability and put the market on an unsustainable trajectory.
In particular, Pinto expressed concern over the large share of home loans in the boom-and-bust state of California.
In December, 20% of all homes in California were purchased using an FHA-backed home loan, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic. Thats down from a high of nearly 39% in 2010, but up sharply from less than 1% for all of 2005 and 2006.
California is the most volatile home prices state in the country, said Pinto, who was a member of Trumps transition team. At some point there will be a correction.
Pinto argues that local governments should do more to increase home building to expand supply.
You cant fix housing affordability with more leverage in a sellers market, he said. We did that in the 90s-and-aughts market and we almost cratered the worlds economy.
andrew.khouri@latimes.com
Follow me @khouriandrew on Twitter
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent Labor secretary nominee Andy Puzder a lengthy list of questions as top Senate Democrats trained their fire on the fast-food executive ahead of his confirmation hearing this week in hopes of knocking off the last of their top targets among President Trumps Cabinet choices.
Puzder, the chief executive of Carpinteria-based CKE Restaurants Inc., the parent company of the Carls Jr. and Hardees chains, is scheduled to face tough queries at a Senate hearing Thursday.
Warren gave him a preview Monday in a 28-page letter.
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My staffs review of your 16-year tenure as CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc.reveals that youve made your fortune by squeezing the very workers youd be charged with protecting as Labor Secretary out of wages and benefits, Warren wrote.
Your companys record of prolific labor law abuses and discrimination suits the most of any major burger chain gives me great pause given that as Labor Secretary youd be charged with enforcing these very laws, she said.
Warren cited a January report by Capital & Main, a California news website, co-published with Newsweek that found that since Puzder became chief executive in 2000, CKE had faced more federal employment discrimination lawsuits per billion dollars of sales than any other U.S. hamburger chain.
Puzder is the last of the eight nominees targeted by Senate Democratic leaders to have a hearing after scheduled sessions were delayed four times as the committee awaited his ethics and financial disclosure paperwork.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee received Puzders paperwork last week. In it, he promised to divest his multimillion-dollar stake in CKE Restaurants and sell a wide array of other investments.
Puzder also promised not to participate in any matters as Labor secretary involving CKE Restaurants unless he received a waiver or authorization in conjunction with federal law.
The other seven nominees targeted by Senate Democratic leaders have either been confirmed or are on track for confirmation this week. One of them, Treasury secretary pick Steve Mnuchin, was confirmed by the Senate on Monday night.
Senate Democratic leaders are now focusing on Puzder, believing his nomination is vulnerable because of his long tenure heading a fast-food chain and his admission last week that he had employed a housekeeper for years who was in the U.S. illegally.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for Puzder to withdraw, calling him probably the most anti-worker choice ever for the Cabinet position.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate committee, said Puzder was uniquely unqualified for the job.
At least three Republicans on the committee have yet to commit to voting for Puzder. If they decide to oppose him, and if all Democrats vote against him, that would be enough to derail his nomination.
Warren tried to keep up the pressure with her Monday letter. She told Puzder his record of public comments over the years reveals a sneering contempt for the workers in your stores and a vehement opposition to the laws you will be charged with enforcing.
She fired off questions about his potential conflicts of interest, labor law violations at his companys restaurants and his position on various Labor Department rules and investigations. She asked for answers no later than Feb. 21.
Democrats have been critical of labor law violations at CKE Restaurants, and fast-food workers have staged protests against Puzders nomination in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Workers in the Fight for $15 movement rallied against Puzder Monday at CKEs Anaheim offices and in several other cities.
Democrats and worker rights advocates also have criticized Puzder for his opposition to increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and expanded eligibility for overtime.
An analysis by Bloomberg BNA found that about 60% of Labor Department investigations of Carls Jr. and Hardees restaurants since 2009 turned up at least one violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which covers minimum wage, overtime and other regulations.
But Puzders backers have noted that was one of the best performances by leading fast-food outlets.
Business groups have been trying to rally support for Puzder.
On Monday, more than 100 trade associations sent a letter to senators urging them to confirm Puzder.
Mr. Puzder has seen, firsthand, the impact of burdensome regulations promulgated by the previous administration, and he has seen both the negative impacts and unintended consequences they can have on employers and employees alike, the groups wrote.
Being a respected, proven leader in an industry that represents approximately 10% of the workforce gives him a unique set of qualifications to serve in this position, they said.
In addition, supporters are focusing on Republicans who have yet to commit to voting for Puzder.
On Friday, for example, the Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Assn. wrote to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), saying they were proud to have one of our most esteemed industry leaders be nominated for such a critical role in the new administration.
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jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com
Follow @JimPuzzanghera on Twitter
UPDATES:
2:45 p.m.: This article was updated with details about Sen. Elizabeth Warrens charge about CKE discrimination lawsuits and confirming that protests against Puzder took place in Anaheim and other cities.
This article was originally published at 6:45 a.m.
Kneehigh, the seriously playful British theater company that turned the classic film Brief Encounter into a charmingly inventive multimedia stage play, is back at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts with 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, a sprightly adaptation of the childrens novel by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo.
Centered on a bratty 12-year-old named Lily (Katy Owen), 946 spins a yarn about a sleepy rural English town adjusting to new realities during World War II. Lilys father has left to fight the Germans, rationing is in place and the town is full of evacuees, including Barry (Adam Sopp), whose father was killed at Dunkirk, and Madame Bounine (Emma Darlow), the new teacher who fled France after the Nazis invaded.
Despite all the tumult, Lilys daily routine in her Devon village remains pretty much intact. When shes not on the farm looking for her beloved cat, Tips, shes causing trouble at school.
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Dramatic changes occur, however, after Allied servicemen arrive to conduct secret military exercises nearby in preparation of the D-day invasion. This rehearsal doesnt go according to plan, and for Lily, who has enlisted two African American GIs, Adi (Ncuti Gatwa) and Harry (Nandi Bhebhe), to search for her cat, the experience is life-altering.
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Unlike the Tony-winning play War Horse, 946 doesnt dwell on the horrors of war. Instead of horses bloodied by barbed wire and shrapnel, theres a sweetly aloof feline (played by a plush toy puppet) who pretty much knows how to take care of herself.
In true Kneehigh fashion, the show aims to delight with frolicsome theatricality. Director Emma Rice, whose long creative history with Kneehigh helped propel the company to international renown before she decamped to lead Shakespeares Globe, works her signature rough magic with the troupe.
The production, presented in association with Birmingham Repertory Theatre in England and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, mixes marionette puppetry and British pantomime with an acting style that turns the characters into flesh-and-blood cartoons. The performers gambol, don wigs, affect funny accents, dance like kooks and fall down with slapstick abandon on Lez Brotherstons colorful, shape-shifting set.
All is relentlessly bouncy on this theatrical home front. A versatile jazz band, fronted by a character named Blues Man (Akpore Uzoh), sets the action aloft with swing by composer Stu Barker (whose music has long been a main ingredient of Kneehighs secret sauce). Daydreams and nightmares spring to life. Hitler and Churchill face off in a rope-skipping contest.
The nonstop cuteness, put at the service of a story thats streaked with sentimentality, may strike sterner sensibilities as grating. The desire to please leads to an overindulgence of horseplay. The storytelling is so lackadaisical it loafs. The problem isnt the length of the script (co-written by Morpurgo and Rice), but the goofy space filler that unduly stretches the narrative.
After a music-enlivened prelude, the story starts off in the present with a death. Newly widowed Grandma (Mike Shepherd, Kneehighs artistic director rocking granny drag) bestows on her grandson, Boowie (Sopp, not alone doing double duty), the diary of her girlhood years during World War II. She wants to impress on him that life, a rollicking adventure if you treat it as such, is a supreme gift.
The play travels back to the war years when Grandma, known now simply as Lily, is busy stirring up trouble like an English Pippi Longstocking. Owen doesnt soften Lilys obnoxious qualities. The girls age and wartime stress, which she cordons off in a corner of her young mind, excuse her behavior. The production, however, would deepen our investment in Lilys story if her tomfoolery left a little more room for the momentous turns in the plot.
Nothing is more momentous than the true (and for too long secret) history of that catastrophic D-day rehearsal known as Operation Tiger. This tragedy is delicately woven into 946, the title of which comes from the number of servicemen who lost their lives on that April day in 1944.
The break from the relentless fizziness may seem incongruous, but the war is never really out of mind. (Im not sure if theres an age group that 946 is ideally targeting, but a bright 10-year-old I met during the intermission told me he was enjoying the experience, so Im going to assume 10 and up.)
Kneehigh may not have all that much faith in the attention spans of theatergoers, young and old alike, but the show imparts lessons on tolerance, grapples with questions of mortality and morality, and salutes those with the courage to meet the formidable challenges of their era. Adventure, fun and all that makes life ticketyboo, as one song phrases it, are also celebrated.
In the dark times, will there be singing? The question, borrowed from Bertolt Brecht at the top of the show and answered resoundingly in the affirmative, seemed to make the opening-night audience at the Wallis collectively quiver. 946 may go a little heavy on the sugar accompanying the timely message, but the companys frisky heart is in the right place.
946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
Where: Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills
When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays (check for exceptions); ends March 5
Tickets: $39-$129 (subject to change)
Information: (310) 746-4000, www.thewallis.org
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
charles.mcnulty@latimes.com
Follow me @charlesmcnulty
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Thomas Ades was a dazzling composer in his 20s (and even earlier). By his 30s, he had become one of Britains most important musicians. At age 45 and with such recent works as his opera The Exterminating Angel (which premiered last summer at the Salzburg Festival), Ades has become an essential composer.
Now a part-time Angeleno and an L.A. composer in as much as he does the bulk of his writing in the Hollywood Hills, Ades is also a force on the local music scene and part of the Los Angeles Philharmonics extended family.
Despite all that, there were seeming reasons to resist Ades program with the L.A. Phil at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night. He conducted the U.S. premiere of a gorgeous new work for cello and orchestra commissioned by the orchestra as well as the West Coast premiere of his big, startling orchestral work Totentanz.
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First of all, rain inevitably worsened Friday rush-hour freeways. And who needs the grim news offered by a Totentanz (dance of death) that the Grim Reaper is an equal opportunity choreographer, with something for us all.
But these were not compelling reasons for staying away. The L.A. Phil accommodated latecomers with brief remarks about the program from KUSCs Brian Lauritzen, and Ades opened with not one but two curtain-raisers before Lieux Retrouves, which featured cellist Steven Isserlis. Dancing Death had to cool his heels until after intermission.
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Totentanz is based on a 15th-century frieze in Lubeck, Germany, that was destroyed during World War II. It illustrated with text Death moving down the social scale as he danced with pope, emperor, cardinal, king, monk, knight, mayor, doctor, usurer, merchant, clerk, hand worker, peasant, maiden and child. Scored for baritone and mezzo-soprano and a very large orchestra with a prodigious percussion section dominated by a gigantic taiko drum and a dungeons worth of percussive S&M equipment (whips, canes and the like), Totentanz was written in memory of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski and given its premiere at the Proms in London four years ago with soloists Simon Keenlyside and Christianne Stotijn, who also appeared at Disney.
Ades sets his music to the original German text, which is full of subversion. Death cuts the pope down to size (his hat is much too high for his new home), as he does the others. For the high and mighty, the dance is torture. The pitiful cardinal in his clothes of burgundy bemoans that he will soon be worth less than a filthy stinking dog.
Down the line, the less fortunate are better prepared, more connected to nature and more attuned to the notion that death is what makes life meaningful. The peasant feels relief. The maiden will dance as she can, because thats what maidens do. There is whimsical wisdom, I think, in a babe in arms who must dance before being able to walk. Ades has said that is us all.
What dances these are! The orchestra rushes in with a whoop. Throughout, Ades marvelously distorts the Dies Irae motif that has been used throughout the history of Western music as deaths awful sound. Death and his victims alike are masters of tricky rhythms, the dance of death requiring not so much fleet of foot as fleet of spirit.
Ades takes more time fancifully tormenting the high and mighty than he does the lower orders. When he reaches the merchant, he has the orchestra go crazy, making a place now for fanciful pathos at the end, which is sublimely Schubertean for maiden and, especially, child.
With a slightly awkward manner on the podium while basking in his near decadent orchestral voluptuousness for which there is no contemporary equal, Ades has begun to show increasing command as a conductor as well as interpretive flare. Keenlyside and Stotijn cut a thick, sardonic rug he demanding, she imaginatively acquiescing.
On the surface, Lieux Retrouves (Recovered Places) is another side of Ades. Originally written eight years ago for cello and piano, it is in four descriptive but sonata-like movements (the rippling of water, a mountain climb to plant a flag, a field at night, a sexy cancan). The lyricism here really is Schubertean. But when its strange, it is as strange as Ligeti. The naughtiness, however, is all Ades. The high-flying cello writing is fiendish. The quiet sections test your hearing.
The orchestration adds ravishing colors but blessedly changes little. Perhaps if the cello and piano score werent so difficult, these lieux would already have found their place in the repertory. The orchestration, with its glittery delicacy, makes nothing easier, but it does make the music all the more irresistible. And, yes, this is the same mischievous Ades. That last movement is titled Cancan Macabre, paving the way for Totentanz.
The oddball opening made sense in retrospect. Sibelius most miniature (at six minutes) tone poem, The Bard, conjures up the mysterious Finnish forest, its harp opening setting the scene for the harp-heavy (elegantly played by Lou Anne Neill) first measures of Lieux Retrouves. Saint-Saens Danse Macabre is a merry dance of death with solo violin doing the frolicsome honor of rattling bones. In this context of dancing death, Ades and concertmaster Martin Chalifour offered a hoary bonbon the gift of new life.
Follow The Times arts team @culturemonster.
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Adele had to stop and restart her George Michael tribute at the Grammy Awards.
Adele appeared flushed but resplendent in green backstage at the Grammys after becoming the first artist to sweep album, record and song of the year twice.
As with her final acceptance speech, the singer, who won five Grammys on Sunday night, gushed over the importance of Beyonces Lemonade, saying that she had spoken to her childhood idol both before and after the show.
She also said that her mistake during her George Michael tribute, which caused her to drop multiple f-bombs and ask for the song to be started over, left her feeling devastated.
My earliest memory of me being a fan was Fastlove, she recalled. When the video came out, I was blown away by how hot he was. I was young, I was about 10 and I heard the vulnerability in that song.
After Michael died, Adele told her partner Simon Konecki that she had to be the one to perform his Grammy tribute. At first his family didnt want a tribute, she said, but they later came back to the Grammys specifying that they would allow a tribute only if Adele performed it.
I found him to be one of the truest icons, because famous people often create this massive bravado to protect themselves, but for him it wasnt based on a look or an assumption, she said. And he was very British. The British press really gave him a hard time, but he still stayed loyal to the very end.
Writing 25 was a difficult experience for Adele, who felt in many ways as if she had disappeared after having her son.
I felt the pressure writing 25, and in the process I couldnt find my voice. Im still not sure I did, she confessed. I was gone for so long. I had my baby and raised him through the toddler years, and then slowly edged my way back into work, but I thought that nobody would care.
The Grammy means a lot to me, and Im very humbled by that accomplishment but like I said in my speech my album of the year was Lemonade, so a part of me died inside, she said, adding that the prize was largely for her son, who knows, Im a powerful force, he feels it at home and when he goes to work with me.
She said that she wrote a lot less of 25 than she did of 21 because, I had a bad drinking problem with 21, so I couldnt really find the inspiration this time around.
She wrapped up her time with the press by circling back to Beyonce, who she said became her idol when she was 11. She was practicing a song for an assembly and she suggested to her friends that they do a Spice Girls song, but then her friends played a track by Destinys Child.
I remember how I felt when I heard it, and I fell in love immediately with her and that was when I was 11, and Im 28 now, and how I felt when I heard No, No, No was exactly how I felt when I heard Lemonade last year, she said. For her to be making such relevant music for that long of a period I felt like it was her time to win what does she have to do to win album of the year?
The Grammys are very traditional, but I thought this year would be the year that they would go with the tide. Im very grateful to have won it, but I felt the need [to do what she did during her acceptance speech] because I love her and I felt she is more worthy.
As in almost every show in this volatile awards season, political protest was all over the Grammys this year. From subtle and poised to outraged and esoteric, resistance came from artists of all genres and will likely be a major part of what this contentious Grammy ceremony will be remembered for.
Far from avoiding the obvious tension in American political life, Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich encouraged artists before the show to say as much about it as they could during their sets.
If you have record labels and such to thank, please thank them later backstage with the press and say something important, he said. Were expecting it.
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Many accepted his invitation. In an awards season marked by political activism at the Golden Globes, Meryl Streep lectured President Trump on civility, Screen Actors Guild Awards winners denounced Trumps travel ban no doubt more than a few viewers tuned in to see what the music community, long outspoken on leftist causes, would have to say.
Jennifer Lopez, Paris Jackson and others took the opportunity to get political at the Grammys.
FULL COVERAGE: Grammys 2017
When it came to speeches, the artists at the prime-time Grammy telecast were relatively subdued. They seemed to heed the words of Recording Academy board member John Poppo, who in the early afternoon at a preshow said, People can have ideologies that are so different that theyre willing to wage war over them, and yet very often theyre singing the same songs on both sides of the battlefield.
So they let the music do the talking.
At night, there was A Tribe Called Quests absolute demolition derby of a live performance. Joined by Busta Rhymes and Anderson .Paak, they coined a new, instantly trending epithet for Donald Trump (President Agent Orange). And that was maybe the softest blow the combo struck.
I just want to thank President Agent Orange for perpetuating all of the evil you been perpetuating throughout the United States, Rhymes snarled.
The centerpiece of the acts set was the comeback single We the People, which hit with a whole new fury in the wake of current events: All the black folks, you must go/ All the Mexicans, you must go/ All the poor folks, you must go/ Muslims and gays, we hate your ways.
Tribe founder Q-Tip put it even more succinctly: Resist! Resist!
1 / 53 Rihanna arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 53 Lady Gaga arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 3 / 53 Adele arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 53 Jennifer Lopez arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 53 Chrissy Teigen and John Legend arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 53 Katy Perry arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 53 CeeLo Green alter ego Gnarly Davidsonn arrive at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 53 Host James Corden and Julia Carey arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 53 Chance the Rapper arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 53 Celine Dion arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 53 From left, Jack Lawless, JinJoo Lee, Joe Jonas and Cole Whittle of DNCE arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 53 Carrie Underwood arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 53 Solange Knowles arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 53 Demi Lovato arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 53 Laverne Cox arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 53 Lea Michele arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 53 Kool and The Gang arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 53 From left, Jimi Westbrook, Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman and Philip Sweet of Little Big Town arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) 19 / 53 Jason Derulo arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Joe Scarnici / Getty Images for FIJI Water) 20 / 53 Leon Bridges, left, and Brittni Jessie arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Jordan Strauss / Invision/AP) 21 / 53 Lars Ulrich of Metallica, at right, and Jessica Miller arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) 22 / 53 Charli XCX arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Christopher Polk / Getty Images for NARAS) 23 / 53 Cassadee Pope and Chris Young arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 53 Rappers Rick Ross and Lil Yachty arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Christopher Polk / Getty Images for NARAS) 25 / 53 Nick Jonas arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 53 Singer-songwriter Tinashe arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) 27 / 53 Heidi Klum arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) 28 / 53 Rapper Desiigner arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 29 / 53 Ryan Seacrest arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) 30 / 53 Girl Crush wears a dress of colorful balls during the arrivals at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 53 TV personality Giuliana Rancic arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 53 Halsey arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 53 Weezer arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 53 Tori Kelly arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) 35 / 53 Rapper 2 Chainz arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 36 / 53 Elle King and Dierks Bentley arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 37 / 53 Camila Cabello arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 53 LOS ANGELES, CA - February 12, 2017 Paris Jackson during the arrivals at the 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, CA. Sunday, February 12, 2017. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 53 Kelsea Ballerini arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 40 / 53 The band Cage the Elephant arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images) 41 / 53 Musician Skrillex arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 42 / 53 The band Korn arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 53 DJ Steve Aoki arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for NARAS) 44 / 53 Megadeth arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 53 From left, Tim Nordwind, Damian Kulash, Dan Konopka, and Andy Ross of OK Go arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Jordan Strauss / Invision/AP) 46 / 53 Gaby Moreno arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 53 Electronic/dance nominees Riton and Kah-Lo arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 53 Raging Fyah arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 53 Blink-182 arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 53 Patton Oswalt arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 53 New Age nominees White Sun (Adam Berry, Gurujaas and Hari Jiwan Singh Khalsa) arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 53 Mela Dailey, Carr Hornbuckle and Rikk Gabrillo arrive at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 53 Ted Nash Big Band arrives at the 59th Grammy Awards. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Katy Perry didnt come with quite the same rage, but the longtime Hillary Clinton supporter did perform with a stiffer political spine than fans have ever seen from her. Dressed in a Persist armband and a Clinton-inspired white pantsuit, she played Chained to the Rhythm, her most overtly topical single to date: So comfortable, were living in a bubble/ So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble.
In front of a Constitution graphic with collaborator Skip Marley, it wasnt subtle, but it was a new kind of Katy Perry.
And of course, there was Beyonce.
Her performance of Love Drought and Sandcastles was immediately, universally lauded for its psychedelic religious imagery. But the act of performing on the Grammy stage while reveling in her pregnant form was itself a work of performance-art resistance.
Her follow-up speech didnt mention the specifics of our political climate, but it didnt need to: My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history, she said. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.
She added, I feel its vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes.
Many Beyonce fans will feel that not awarding her album of the year is another example of the Grammys repeating past mistakes. But as is usually the case, Beyonce had even bigger things on her mind that night.
august.brown@latimes.com
John Oliver is back with a few lessons for President Trump.
After a three-month hiatus that felt even longer, HBOs Last Week Tonight returned Sunday with its first episode since Donald Trumps inauguration, and host Oliver had a big lesson for the already embattled president.
The main story of the night focused on Trumps preference for alternative facts on issues including crime rates, unemployment and voter fraud. As Oliver noted, Trump is known to be an avid consumer of cable news (and often appears to tweet about things he just watched on TV) and frighteningly unreliable outlets such as Breitbart and Infowars.
This leads to a worrying cycle, Oliver argued: Trump sees something that jibes with his worldview, doesnt check it, half-remembers it, and then passes it on, at which point it takes on a life of its own and appears to validate itself.
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At the same time, Oliver said, the president is worryingly short when it comes to knowledge about the kind of boring but vital subjects that cable news tends to ignore like, for instance, the nuclear triad.
Oliver decided to produce ads inspired by the low-budget medical device commercials often seen on cable news networks, and run them in the Washington, D.C. area during Fox & Friends, Morning Joe and New Day in hopes the president might learn a thing or two.
Until were shut down, were prepared to educate Donald Trump, one by one, on topics were pretty sure he doesnt know about.
Oliver is known for going the extra step with his comedy (and HBOs money), and has even run commercials before: In 2015, he bought air time on Trinidadian television in order to taunt a FIFA official.
A representative for HBO confirmed that the ads appeared Monday morning on FOX (at 8:48 a.m. EST), MNSBC (8:29 a.m.) and CNN (8:50 a.m.). If you happened to miss them, you can watch here, but be warned some (censored) naughty language is involved.
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See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour
meredith.blake@latimes.com
Follow me @MeredithBlake
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When it comes to politics, the Grammys let the music do the talking
One of the biggest throughlines at New York Fashion Week so far has nothing to do with on-trend colors, silhouettes or fabrics and everything to do with using the runway as a kind of instant messaging system for political and social causes.
Theres a long history of this, of course; one need look no further than Dame Vivienne Westwood, whose catwalk collections over the years have helped raise awareness about global warming, Greenpeace and Leonard Peltier, among other subjects.
But four full days into the run of shows here, there have been so many messages on the runway that the political parade could just as easily be mistaken for a fashion-forward protest march as it could a presentation of fall/winter 17 collections.
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The tone of several Fashion Week shows was set before the first models hit the catwalk because of the Council of Fashion Designers of Americas decision to publicly voice its support for Planned Parenthood by creating large pink buttons roughly the size of a drink coaster with messaging that read, Fashion stands with Planned Parenthood. The buttons were packaged with a primer on the organization and hints on how to support it (via raising awareness and making donations). The pins, which first made their appearance on the front-row seats at Thursdays shows, could soon be seen on some of the fashion flocks most luxe lapels.
Designer Jonathan Simkhai takes a bow at the end of his fall/winter 2017 runway show, left, and a fashion week attendee wearing a Fashion Stands with Planned Parenthood button. (Brian Ach / Getty Images, left, Angela Weiss / AFP Photo, right)
That same day, U.K.-based online fashion publication Business of Fashion used the Tommy Hilfiger show in Los Angeles as the launch pad for its #TiedTogether initiative designed to establish the white bandanna as a sign to the world that you believe in the common bonds of humankind regardless of race, sexuality, gender or religion.
Here on the East Coast, invitees to Friday mornings Calvin Klein show received crisply folded white cotton bandannas printed with a black quilt-like design and accompanied by a note that read, Unity, inclusion hope and acceptance: Join us at Calvin Klein wearing the white bandan[n]a #TiedTogether.
That show, which marked Belgian designer Raf Simons debut collection for the iconic American brand, was itself a meditation on the state of the United States, opening and closing to the strains of David Bowies 1985 song, This Is Not America, and including a model wrapped in an American flag.
The message of inclusiveness and acceptance was in evidence well beyond the bandannas, too, most memorably at Christian Sirianos Saturday afternoon show at the Plaza Hotel, where a model drew cheers of approval when she hit the runway in a pink silk, floor-length skirt and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the message, People are people. The last few seasons have seen Siriano fill his runway with models of all shapes, sizes and ages. The finale walk to Depeche Modes 1984 electro-pop tune People Are People earned Siriano a standing ovation.
Among the labels using the fall/winter 2017 runway collections as a political platform were Public School, from left, Calvin Klein and Christina Siriano. (Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images left and right and Fernanda Calfat / Getty Images center)
Less than an hour later, Jonathan Simkhai presented a collection that keyed into feminine strength by combining elements of romantic corsetry and traditional matador uniforms.
With women across the globe asserting their right to equality, read the show notes, Simkhai felt the need to create a look that would mirror the fortitude of their voices. In case the sentiment was lost on anyone, the designer took his runway bow wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan, Feminist AF.
On Sunday morning, it was Public Schools Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne who had the fashion megaphone of the moment, sprinkling their military- and utilitarian-flavored mens and womens collection liberally with political messages including red New Era caps embroidered with the slogan, Make America New York, an obvious riff on President Trumps red Make America Great Again caps (even if the sentiment behind the tweaked slogan wasnt quite so obvious) and hooded sweatshirts bearing Michael Jordans image on the front and the slogan We need leaders on the back.
A few hours later, at the J. Crew presentation, we spotted a guest wearing one of the fresh-off-the-runway hats and a hand-scrawled sign pinned to the back of his hooded windbreaker that read, Son of immigrants.
New York-based Huffington Post contributor and digital branding strategist Michael Tommasiello told us a friend at Public School had handed him the hat after the show. I know people like to take pictures and I have a lot of social media followers, he said, explaining the sign on his back. So I thought Id take the opportunity to put something positive out there into the world. (For the record, people were snapping photos of Tommasiello at a pretty fierce clip.)
But the runway presentation that sent the strongest message and struck the most poignant chord to date was Prabal Gurungs. The show notes explained that the collection inspiration began with the question, What does it mean to say a woman should dress like a woman?
His collection paid homage to women of America and Nepal of the 1940s, the women who maintained grace under pressure and held a quiet power, a secret weapon during war, by using blurred camouflage prints and strategic ruching of fabric to highlight feminine curves.
Michael Tommasiello makes a statement at the J. Crew presentation, left; the final message T-shirt in a torrent of feminist-themed tees at Prabal Gurungs show, right. (Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times, left, Neilson Barnard / Getty Images, right)
Gurungs love letter to the women who inspire him concluded with a tear-jerker of a runway finale walk that saw models hit the runway to the strains of John Lennons Imagine, each model wearing a piece from the collection paired with a T-shirt of a varied social message, many accessorized with the white bandanna of unity. (Watch our on-the-scene video of the finale here.)
The future is female, read the first one; 3 million, read the second. They were followed by messages Femininity with a bite, Yes, we should all be feminists (Thank you, Chimamanda and Maria), My boyfriend is a feminist, My girlfriend is a feminist and Revolution has no borders.
On they came, shirt after shirt, message after message, simple and straightforward. The trickle of slogan tees seemed to become a river, the river a torrent of wisdom, advice, support and calls to action. Stay woke, Break down walls, Love is the resistance, Nevertheless, she persisted, I am a Gloria, I am a Malala and I am a Michelle.
The last model hit Gurungs runway wearing a black skirt with hand-embroidered silk fringe, a white bandanna knotted around her left wrist. Her white T-shirt bore five words in simple, black lettering, We will not be silenced.
adam.tschorn@latimes.com
For more musings on all things fashion and style, follow me at @ARTschorn.
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Alali George-Williams, director of creative operations of digital at Victorias Secret, oversees the tactical execution of the operating milestones for the retailers digital store. Alalis responsibilities include coordinating in-season asset optimization and out-season planning across the Victorias Secret digital platform, as well as managing photo shoot preparation and sample management.
Alali is a LIM College class of 1996 graduate who launched her career via an internship at Macys Herald Square. Alali also worked in product development for the retailer, and later for a vendor that licensed products under the Calvin Klein Home brand. She joined Victorias Secret in 1999 working in the companys catalog business as well as in roles involving apparel merchandising before transitioning into digital merchandising. Alali then took over the lingerie portion of the business when Victorias Secret introduced apparel categories in early 2000.
Her next career step was beauty merchandising for the retailer where Alali was responsible for building over 50 new third-party brand relationships as Victorias Secret developed a strategy to build market share within that sector. Here, Alali shares her insights about her education and work.
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WWD: How did your coursework and your experience at LIM help inform your career decisions?
Alali George-Williams: The internship program at LIM was invaluable in being able to immediately get exposure to careers in the fashion industry. From my very first internship at Macys Herald Square in the lingerie department, to my senior co-op internship experience at Macys working in product development for mens wear, I was able to gain firsthand knowledge of what it would take to be successful in this industry.
The added benefit of an LIM education was having instructors who were experts in their field and could share firsthand knowledge and real-world experience on a daily basis. The curriculum was well-rounded, with courses focused on what was happening in the industry as well as field trips that allowed for exploration of many different aspects of the industry that I never even knew existed.
WWD: If you could go back in time and give career advice to your younger self, what would you say?
A. G-S.: I would tell myself to continue to follow your gut instinct and dont be afraid to take a risk on the unknown. Throughout my career Ive been presented with opportunities that were not directly in line with what I originally imagined my path would be. My plan was to start my career in apparel product development working for a major retail brand. However, along the way I was presented with opportunities that took me into the home fashions arena, lingerie merchandising, beauty and cosmetics and digital merchandising.
WWD: How would you describe your career path? What were some of the challenges you faced?
A. G-S.: My career path has been very diverse. I began in sales and marketing for a tabletop design company that held the license for Calvin Klein Home. From there I moved into the catalog and direct retail business with Victorias Secret, which afforded me so many opportunities to learn about different aspects of retail merchandising in lingerie, apparel and beauty, as well as digital merchandising.
I believe that my background in all of those areas laid the foundation for the operations role I hold today. Ive been lucky in that most of the challenges I faced had to do with building speed and agility within the ever-changing aspects of the industry. Learning to manage change within process and among people has been my biggest career challenge, while also being the most valuable skill Ive developed to be successful in any role.
WWD: Have you had mentors, and how have they helped you?
A. G-S.: I have had the great privilege and benefit of having mentors throughout my career. Most have been women who also had a wide range of experiences within the industry. They helped me navigate and gain perspective on how to approach challenges. My mentors have also been incredible role models in terms of how they approached shaping their own careers.
WWD: What advice would you give someone considering a career in the retail and fashion apparel market?
A. G-S.: A career in fashion is rarely a straight line. It is dynamic and ever-changing. Take the path less traveled, because you never know where it might lead. Opportunity is always around the corner, so dont be afraid to grab it. There is something to learn from every experience. Each skill you acquire will eventually be useful in some way. Above all else, have passion for what you do. This will fuel you to always want to do your best.
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USC names retired aerospace executive Wanda Austin as acting president, announces Nikias departure By Harriet Ryan USC appointed a retired aerospace executive as interim president and laid out a detailed plan for selecting a permanent leader Tuesday, ending speculation about whether outgoing President C.L. Max Nikias might remain in the post. Nikias, embattled over his administrations handling of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing patients, relinquished his duties after a meeting of USCs board. The trustees tapped one of their own, Wanda Austin, an alumna and former president of the Aerospace Corp., to temporarily run the university. The trustees also approved the formation of a search committee and the hiring of firm Isaacson, Miller to coordinate the selection of a successor. A second search company, Heidrick & Struggles, will also advise trustees. Read More Facebook
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Ex-student sues elite Brentwood School after teacher is charged with sexually abusing him By Richard Winton A former student sued the elite Brentwood School on Monday in the wake of a female teacher being charged with repeatedly having sex with the minor, alleging that other faculty members encouraged the unlawful behavior and failed to report it to authorities. The lawsuit accuses the private school, whose students include the children of many of Hollywoods elite and L.A.s powerful, of acting negligently and allowing Aimee Palmitessa to abuse and batter the teenager sexually. The suit alleges that the student was abused in summer 2017 after one of the schools counselors offered words of encouragement to the then-17-year-old, identified in the suit as only John Doe, to engage in an illegal relationship with the teacher. Read More Facebook
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Civil jury vindicates fired Montebello school executives in whistleblower case By Howard Blume The Montebello school district is in dire straits at risk of insolvency and under apparent criminal investigation. An outside audit in July found some teachers earning more than $200,000 a year, as well as improper raises, excess paid vacation time and inappropriate overtime, sick leave and car allowances. Fixing the district and pinpointing blame could take time. Read More Facebook
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L.A. schools fall short on safety measures, new report warns By Howard Blume After the mass shooting at Floridas Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, Los Angeles school officials reassured parents that much had been done to keep local schools safe. California had tougher gun laws, after all, and the school district paid close attention to students mental health. But a new report issued Monday by a panel convened to take a close look offers some cause for concern, flagging inconsistent campus safety measures, thinly spread mental health staff and inadequate coordination between the school district and other public agencies. With the stakes this high, we must strive to do better, said L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer, who assembled the panel. Read More Facebook
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L.A. school district says more are graduating, but rate may not show it By Howard Blume The L.A. Unified School District has hopes of continuing its winning streak this year with another record graduation rate, but the official numbers may not show it. A senior district administrator warned the board Tuesday that graduation rates were likely to decline 2% to 3% across the state, even though L.A. Unified is likely doing better than ever in producing graduates, he said. The issue is that the state will now count high school students who transfer to adult school as dropouts, said Oscar Lafarga, who heads the districts office of data and accountability. Previously, schools treated these students as though they had simply enrolled in another high school, he said. Read More Facebook
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Betsy DeVos to California: Not so fast on that federal education plan By Joy Resmovits In April, Californias top education officials breathed a sigh of relief. After months of debate and back-and-forth with Betsy DeVos staff, they had finalized a plan to satisfy a major education law that aims to make sure all students get a decent education. The state focused on aligning its plan to fulfill the requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act with Californias Local Control Funding Formula, which gives extra money to districts to help students who come from low-income families, are in the foster system or are English learners. But this week, DeVos team said not so fast. Jason Botel, the U.S. Department of Educations principal deputy assistant secretary, sent California education officials a letter asking for more information in such areas as measuring student progress, graduation rates and English learners. In an unsigned statement, the California Department of Education declared itself surprised and disappointed because officials thought after a meeting with federal officials in Washington that they were on the right track to get approval. Now the Every Student Succeeds Act plan will be up for discussion once again at the July meeting of the State Board of Education. The U.S. Department of Education has already approved most state plans. Every Student Succeeds is the Obama administrations 2015 replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act. Facebook
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L.A. school board sets a new goal: prepare every grad to be eligible to apply for Cal State or UC By Sonali Kohli Last month, Los Angeles school board president proposed a spate of highly ambitious mandates aimed at ensuring that every district graduate be eligible to apply to one of the states public four-year universities by 2023. By the time the L.A. Unified school board unanimously approved the resolution Tuesday, the original language had been watered down. The goal is no longer that in five years 100% of students meet the long list of benchmarks, which include not just college eligibility for graduates but first-grade reading proficiency and English fluency by sixth grade for all students who enter the district in kindergarten or first grade speaking another language. The original college-readiness goal, for example, called for 100% of all high school students to be eligible to apply to one of the states four-year universities. Now the goal seems to offer more wiggle room: Prepare all high school graduates to be eligible to apply to a California four-year university. Read More Facebook
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We have been hurt. More women say they were mistreated by USC gynecologist By Richard Winton USC student Anika Narayanan says she vividly recalls her first appointment with Dr. George Tyndall at the campus health center, alleging that he made several explicit comments during an examination she felt was inappropriate and invasive. When she came back for a second visit in 2016 after a nonconsensual sexual encounter, he allegedly chastised her, she said in a civil lawsuit and at a press conference Tuesday. He asked me if I had forgotten to use a condom again, said Narayanan, 21. At one point, she said, Tyndall asked if I did a lot of doggy style, she said. Read More Facebook
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L.A. Unified gives inspector general brief contract extension By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school board on Tuesday extended the contract of Ken Bramlett, its inspector general, by three months, though his job is far from secure and questions remain about the future direction of his watchdog office. Board members also unanimously promoted Vivian Ekchian, who had been the runner-up for the superintendents job, to deputy superintendent the districts No. 2 position. Both moves had elements of peacemaking between different factions on the board. Read More Facebook
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USCs handling of complaints about campus gynecologist is being investigated by federal government By Harriet Ryan The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into how the University of Southern California handled misconduct complaints against a campus gynecologist, the latest fallout in a scandal that has prompted the resignation of USCs president, two law enforcement investigations and dozens of lawsuits. In revealing the inquiry by the departments Office of Civil Rights, officials rebuked USC for what they alleged was improper withholding of information about Dr. George Tyndall during a previous federal investigation. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been criticized for taking a less vigorous approach to examining sexual misconduct than predecessors, called for a systemic examination of USC and urged administrators to fully cooperate. Read More Facebook
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Judge to sentence woman and her boyfriend for the murder of an 8-year-old that led to L.A. child welfare reforms By Marisa Gerber A woman and her boyfriend are expected to be sentenced Thursday for the torture and murder of an 8-year-old boy whose killing in 2013 provoked public outrage, prompted sweeping reform of Los Angeles Countys child welfare system, and led to unprecedented criminal charges against social workers who handled the childs case. Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 34, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for her role in the death of her son, Gabriel. A jury decided last year that her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 37, should be executed. When paramedics arrived at the boys Palmdale home in May 2013, Gabriel had slipped out of consciousness. He had a fractured skull, broken ribs, burned skin, missing teeth and BB pellets embedded in his groin. A paramedic would later testify that every inch of the boys small body had been abused. Read More Facebook
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L.A. Unifieds spending out of step with similar school systems, task force says By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school district is out of step with similar school systems, spending more on teachers pay and health benefits and less on activities that could enhance student learning, according to a new report by an outside task force. The L.A. Unified School District Advisory Task Force did not make specific recommendations, but instead posed a series of questions it said the district needs to answer to make sure its funding is aimed at providing a full opportunity for all students to succeed. What were trying to say is: Lets put the data on the table. Lets look at the truth. Lets be transparent and here are the numbers, said task force member Renata Simril. This is not to say that we should cut teachers salaries. Read More Facebook
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Top USC medical school official feared dean was doing drugs and alerted administration, he testifies By Paul Pringle A former vice dean of USCs Keck School of Medicine testified Tuesday that he feared the schools then-dean, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, could be doing drugs and expressed concerns about his general well-being to the universitys No. 2 administrator before Puliafito abruptly left his job in 2016. Dr. Henri Fords testimony at a hearing of the state Medical Board marks the first suggestion that any USC administrator had suspicions about Puliafitos possible drug use before he stepped down. A Times investigation in 2017 found Puliafito led a secret second life of using illegal drugs with a circle of young criminals and addicts. Puliafito testified about his behavior at the hearing Tuesday, saying he took drugs with one young woman on a weekly basis. Ford said that he decided to alert USC Provost Michael Quick after receiving reports in early 2016 that Puliafito was partying in hotels with people of questionable reputation, and that he came to worry about his mental stability. Read More Facebook
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Why L.A. Unified may face financial crisis even with a giant surplus this year By Jessica Calefati With more than half a billion dollars socked away for next school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District hardly seems just two years from financial ruin. Its a scenario that is especially tough to swallow if youre a low-wage worker seeking a raise or a teacher who wants smaller classes. But budget documents show that todays $548-million surplus cannot be sustained and that even basic services face steep, seemingly unavoidable cuts because of massive problems barreling the districts way. Theres a disconnect between the rosy short-term picture and what we know is coming, said board member Kelly Gonez. Read More Facebook
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We have failed: Top USC officials try to reassure students amid gynecologist scandal By Joy Resmovits Top administrators at USC are reaching out to students in the wake of misconduct allegations against the universitys longtime gynecologist, acknowledging failings and vowing reforms as they try to address growing outrage over the revelations. Several USC deans have sent out messages trying to reassure students and faculty that the university is committed to changing. We have failed, wrote Jack H. Knott, dean of USCs Sol Price School of Public Policy, in a May 24 letter. What happened is antithetical to everything we know is right. Read More Facebook
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Rick Caruso is named chair of USCs trustees, vows swift investigation of gynecologist scandal By Thomas Curwen The University of Southern Californias board of trustees has elected mall magnate Rick Caruso to be the new chair of the board, giving fresh leadership as the university navigates a widening scandal involving a longtime campus gynecologist. The move marks the latest effort by USC to address the case, which has sparked a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and dozens of civil lawsuits. More than 400 people have contacted a hotline that the university established for patients to make reports about their experience with Dr. George Tyndall. In his first act as chairman, Caruso announced that the white-shoe L.A. law firm OMelveny & Myers would conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the gynecologists conduct and reporting failures at the clinic. He set an ambitious timeline for the review, pledging it would conclude before students return for the fall semester. Read More Facebook
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UC Berkeley students persistence helps win more liberal rules for in-state tuition By Teresa Watanabe Ifechukwu Okeke thought shed be a shoo-in for in-state tuition when she was admitted to UC Berkeley for fall 2016. She had moved to the United States from Nigeria in 2012 to go to Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. By the time she got her acceptance to transfer to UC to study molecular and cell biology, she had lived in California four years. She had a California drivers license, bank account and rental records as proof. UC Berkeley, however, ruled she was a nonresident which meant she would have to pay nearly $27,000 more. Read More Facebook
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State medical board calls former County-USC doctor a sexual predator, suspends his license By Matt Hamilton A UCLA cardiologist has been temporarily stripped of his medical license after state regulators described him as a sexual predator who assaulted three female colleagues when he was working and training at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Read More Facebook
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Global California 2030 aims to get more students learning more languages By Joy Resmovits Tom Torlakson (Andrew Seng / Associated Press) Outgoing state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson on Wednesday announced a new statewide effort to encourage students to learn more languages. Called Global California 2030, its goal is to help more students become fluent in multiple tongues. Torlakson said that by 2030, he wants half of the states 6.2 million K-12 students to participate in classes or programs that lead to proficiency in two or more languages. By 2040, he wants three out of four students to be proficient enough to earn the State Seal of Biliteracy. Torlakson announced the initiative at Cahuenga Elementary School, which offers a dual-language immersion program in English and Korean. Californias public school students speak more than 60 languages at home, and 40% come to school with knowledge of a language other than English. Torlakson called his plan a call to action that invites parents, legislators, educators and community members to pool resources to expand language offerings in schools and get more bilingual teachers trained. He said the state already is working with Mexico and Spain to expand a teacher-exchange program. Fluency, the plan argues, can help students succeed economically and language acquisition can help their overall critical thinking. The initiative builds on Proposition 58, a ballot initiative passed in 2016 that undid an earlier requirement that English learners be taught in English-immersion classes unless their parents signed waivers. Torlakson recently visited Mexico and met with that countrys education secretary. They later signed a pact to increase collaboration, particularly in language education. This [Global California 2030] is great follow-through on Toms part and very important, Patricia Gandara, a UCLA education professor who hosted the Mexico meeting, said in an email. It hands over a plan to move forward in an area in which California has a unique advantage, but must seize the opportunity. Facebook
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Jury convicts man of murder in 2015 slaying of UCLA student found inside her burning apartment By Marisa Gerber A jury on Tuesday convicted a man in the 2015 slaying of a UCLA student found dead inside her burning apartment a gruesome stabbing case that led to a fierce rebuke of the police response amid concerns that the killing could have been prevented. The panel deliberated for about six hours before finding Alberto Medina, 24, guilty of murder, arson, burglary and animal cruelty. On Sept. 21, 2015, firefighters found the charred body of Andrea DelVesco inside her apartment after responding to the complex a block from campus. The 21-year-old student an Austin, Texas, native known to her sorority sisters as a fearless giver who befriended others with ease was stabbed at least 19 times, authorities said. Read More Facebook
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LAPD begins sweeping criminal probe of former USC gynecologist while urging patients to come forward By Adam Elmahrek The Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday it is investigating 52 complaints of misconduct filed by former patients of USCs longtime campus gynecologist as detectives launch a sweeping criminal probe into the scandal that has rocked the university. LAPD detectives also made an appeal for other patients who feel mistreated to come forward, noting that thousands of students were examined by Dr. George Tyndall during his nearly 30-year career at USC. More than 410 people have contacted a university hotline about the physician since The Times revealed the allegations this month. Tyndalls behavior and practices appear to go beyond the norms of the medical profession and gynecological examinations, said Asst. Chief Beatrice Girmala. We sincerely realize that victims may have difficulty recounting such details to investigators. We are empathetic and ready to listen. Read More Facebook
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At L.A.'s only school for the deaf, parents want leaders who speak the same language By Anna M. Phillips Ever since her son was 6 months old, Juliet Hidalgo has been bringing him to the Marlton School, a low-slung building in Baldwin Hills that for generations has been a second home for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Los Angeles. Marlton staff taught Hidalgos brother and sister, both of whom are deaf. The school was where her deaf son learned to make the signs for milk and food. Hidalgo had planned to enroll her daughter, taking advantage of a popular program that allows hearing children to learn American Sign Language alongside their deaf siblings. But after more than a decade of involvement, she and other family members are considering withdrawing their children. They are not alone. Read More Facebook
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Fueled by unlimited donations, independent groups play their biggest role yet in a California primary for governor By Ryan Menezes An unprecedented amount of money from wealthy donors, unions and corporations is flowing into the California governors race, giving independent groups unrestricted by contribution limits a greater say in picking the states chief executive than ever before. The groups have already spent more than $26 million through Thursday, the most ever spent by noncandidate committees in a gubernatorial primary, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance reports. California elections have always been expensive, and the future is even more expensive, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former state Republican leader. The stakes are very real. Read More Facebook
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2 hurt in Indiana middle school shooting; suspect in custody, authorities say By Associated Press Authorities say two victims in a shooting at a suburban Indianapolis school are being taken to a hospital and the lone suspect is in custody. Bryant Orem, a spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office, said in a news release that the victims in Friday mornings attack at Noblesville West Middle School are being taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and their families have been notified. He says no other information is available about the victims. Orem said the suspect is believed to have acted alone and was taken into custody. No additional information about the suspect was made public. Read More Facebook
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For new L.A. schools chief Austin Beutner, some key unions are giving no honeymoon period By Howard Blume In the less than two weeks since Austin Beutner took charge of Los Angeles schools, unions representing teachers and administrators have staged a job action and a protest. Theyve made it clear that they will not give the new superintendent the traditional honeymoon period, and they are bashing him for his wealth and lack of experience running either a school or a school district. Beutner is a billionaire investment banker with zero qualifications, local teachers union President Alex Caputo-Pearl told members in a phone alert urging them to participate in a Thursday afternoon rally in Grand Park. The board is saying that billionaires who made their money blowing institutions up and making money off it know best not the education professionals who have dedicated our careers to working with students. Read More Facebook
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Pressure grows on Board of Trustees amid USC gynecologist scandal By Paul Pringle USCs large and powerful Board of Trustees is coming under growing pressure to provide a stronger hand as the university faces a crisis over misconduct allegations against the campus longtime gynecologist that has prompted calls for President C.L. Max Nikias to step down. Allegations that Dr. George Tyndall mistreated students during his nearly 30 years at USC have roiled the campus, with about 300 people coming forward to make reports to the university and the Los Angeles Police Department launching a criminal investigation. USC is already beginning to face what is expected to be costly litigation by women who say they were victimized by the physician. So far, the trustees to whom Nikias reports have expressed sympathy for the women who have come forward and launched an independent investigation while also publicly backing the president. Read More Facebook
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UC regents approve leaner budget for Janet Napolitano By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents on Thursday unanimously approved a leaner, more transparent budget for President Janet Napolitano, moving to address political criticism over the systems central office operations. The $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 reflects spending cuts of 2%, including reductions in staffing, travel and such systemwide programs as public service law fellowships, carbon neutrality and food security. Napolitano shifted $30 million to campuses for housing needs and $10 million to UC Riverside to support its five-year-old medical school. She also permanently redirected $8.5 million annually to help enroll more California students, as required by the state. Read More Facebook
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USCs Academic Senate calls on university president to resign after a series of scandals By Matt Hamilton The body that represents USCs faculty called on President C.L. Max Nikias to resign Wednesday in the wake of relevations that the universitys longtime gynecologist faced years of accusations of misconduct by students and colleagues at the campus health clinic. The Academic Senate took the vote late Wednesday afternoon after a fiery town hall meeting attended by more than 100 faculty members, many of whom voiced outrage over Nikias and the Board of Trustees leadership. The vote came a day after the trustees executive committee stood firmly behind Nikias, saying it has full confidence in his leadership, ethics and values. At the town hall meeting, Senate President Paul Rosenbloom said he did not think Nikias or Provost Michael Quick committed wrongdoing but that the university president deserved criticism for a lack of transparency. Read More Facebook
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Californias public universities on the way to getting a big longed-for boost in funding By Teresa Watanabe The University of California and California State University systems are poised to get major funding boosts that will help them enroll thousands of additional state students and eliminate the need for tuition increases in the coming school year. A key Assembly budget panel on Wednesday approved $117.5 million in new funds for the UC. A Senate panel approved a similar sum last week. The same committees recently approved even more funding for the Cal State system. Read More Facebook
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UC regents to scrutinize Janet Napolitanos office budget in a step toward stronger oversight By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents this week plan to scrutinize the budget of President Janet Napolitano, whose office came under political fire last year for questionable spending and murky accounting. Regents will vote on the proposed $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 during their two-day meeting, which starts Wednesday, at UC San Francisco. They also will discuss state funding, financial aid, online education and transfer student policies. Board Chairman George Kieffer said regents are stepping up to exert stronger oversight of the presidents office after a blistering state audit last year found financial problems including an unreported $175 million budget reserve. Read More Facebook
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State legislative panels approve major funding boost for Cal State By Teresa Watanabe After months of intensive lobbying, Cal State University has convinced two key legislative panels to approve funding to enroll nearly 11,000 more students, hire more faculty and expand housing aid to those without shelter this fall. An Assembly budget panel on Tuesday approved $215.7 million more for Cal State, adding to Gov. Jerry Browns proposed $92.1 million general fund increase. A Senate budget panel approved a similar increase last week. The extra funding which went beyond Cal States own request to the Legislature of $171 million is still subject to final budget negotiations with Brown. But the actions by the Senate and Assembly panels amount to a demand from Democrats that the governor hike higher education spending. Cal State University is the workhorse undergraduate university serving hundreds of thousands of Californians, said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), who heads the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. We need more graduates for the California workforce and higher education is the ticket to the middle class. Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White hailed the actions, but said it was too soon to celebrate. The CSU has a singular focus on helping students earn high-quality degrees sooner, and the entire university community has rallied to reinforce that message to our states lawmakers, he said in a statement. The actions taken thus far by the Assembly and Senate are promising and show that our message is being received, but there is still work to be done. Funding for the University of California was not taken up Tuesday as originally scheduled. McCarty would not comment on sticking points but said he was confident that a resolution would be reached this week. Were looking to provide resources above whats in the governors budget, but negotiations are ongoing, he said in an interview. State per-student funding is not what it once was, leaving both Cal State and the UC in a tough financial squeeze. Both systems raised tuition last year after a six-year freeze on higher costs. For this year, Cal State had asked for funding to enroll an additional 3,621 students, but both the Senate and Assembly panels approved three times that amount. Cal State, the largest public university system in the nation, turned away 32,000 eligible students last year because its campuses werent able to accommodate them. The panels asked that at least $50 million of the extra funding be used to hire more tenure-track faculty to help boost graduation rates. The Assembly panel also approved one-time funding of $5 million to ease hunger on campuses and $14 million for rapid rehousing pilot projects at three campuses, offering needy students rental support and short-term case management. Other items approved include $5 million to support the CSU Long Beach Shark Labs research on sharks and beach safety and $2 million for equal employment opportunity practices. This post has been updated to include comments from Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White. Facebook
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Faculty members call for USC president to step down: He has lost the moral authority to lead By Matt Hamilton Two hundred USC professors on Tuesday demanded the resignation of university President C. L. Max Nikias, saying he had lost the moral authority to lead in the wake of revelations that a campus gynecologist was kept on staff for decades despite repeated complaints of misconduct. Read More Facebook
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Gun battle, negotiations lasted 15 minutes before Texas school shooter was apprehended, sheriff says By Molly Hennessy-Fiske Minutes after a school shooter opened fire in an art class last week, killing 10 people and wounding 13, including a local police officer, fellow officers returned fire in a protracted gun battle before isolating the suspect, the local sheriff said Monday. Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset praised first responders as well as Santa Fe Police Officer John Barnes, who was working as a resource officer at the school the day of the shooting. Their actions, he said, prevented the attack from spreading to other classrooms and potentially claiming additional victims. As officials continue to probe last Fridays shooting at Santa Fe High School, students are worried about returning to the scene of the attack when classes resume next week. Read More Facebook
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6 women sue USC, alleging they were victimized by campus gynecologist By Richard Winton Six women filed civil lawsuits Monday alleging that a longtime gynecologist at the University of Southern California sexually victimized them under the pretext of medical care and that USC failed to address complaints from clinic staff about the doctors behavior. One woman alleged Dr. George Tyndall forced his entire ungloved hand into her vagina during an appointment in 2003 while making vulgar remarks about her genitalia, according to one of the lawsuits. Another woman alleged that Tyndall groped her breasts in a 2008 visit and that later he falsely told her she likely had AIDS. A third woman accused the doctor of grazing his ungloved fingers over her nude body and leering at her during a purported skin exam, the lawsuit states. The wave of litigation comes as USC continues to grapple with the scandal, which legal experts said could prove costly to the university as scores of former patients come forward about their experiences with the gynecologist. Read More Facebook
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Fatalities reported in Texas high school shooting; suspect arrested, officials say By Associated Press Houston-area media citing unnamed law enforcement officials are reporting that there are fatalities following a shooting at a local high school Friday morning. Television station KHOU and the Houston Chronicle are citing unnamed federal, county and police officials following the shooting at Santa Fe High School, which went on lockdown around 8 a.m. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports. The school district has confirmed an unspecified number of injuries but said it wouldnt immediately release further details. Assistant Principal Cris Richardson said a suspect has been arrested and secured. Read More Facebook
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This student followed the new L.A. schools chief on his first-day tour Melissa Barales-Lopez, a senior at Garfield High School followed Supt. Austin Beutner on his first day on the job, as he toured a variety of programs around the Los Angeles Unified School District. Heres what she took from the experience. LAUSD students and staff alike are looking for a personal champion, someone who will address and improve the difficulties afflicting their education. What LAUSD students need is someone whos willing to listen and learn, someone who can understand the current issues affecting their schools and act to efficiently amend them, someone who can unlock the full potential of LAUSD students and enable them to reach their goals. During the entirety of his first day, superintendent Austin Beutner did indeed demonstrate a willingness to learn. Posing questions to teachers and students, Beutner engaged with the student communities he encountered to gain a better comprehension of the minutiae and nuances that distinguish each school inside an overwhelmingly large district. From inquiries about Grand View Boulevard Elementary Schools dual language program to questions regarding the services of LAUSDs after-school program, Beyond the Bell, Beutner revealed he has a lot to learn about the system. But, Beutner also showcased a willingness to tackle challenges head-on on his first day. Read More Facebook
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USC let a gynecologist continue treating students despite years of misconduct allegations By Matt Hamilton For nearly 30 years, the University of Southern Californias student health clinic had one full-time gynecologist: Dr. George Tyndall. Tall and garrulous with distinctive jet black hair, he treated tens of thousands of female students, many of them teenagers seeing a gynecologist for the first time. Few who lay down on Tyndalls exam table at the Engemann Student Health Center knew that he had been accused repeatedly of misconduct toward young patients. The complaints began in the 1990s, when co-workers alleged he was improperly photographing students genitals. In the years that followed, patients and nursing staff accused him again and again of creepy behavior, including touching women inappropriately during pelvic exams and making sexually suggestive remarks about their bodies. Read More Facebook
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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook
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On his first day as L.A. schools chief, Beutner plans a day of visits across the district By Howard Blume L.A. Unifieds new superintendent, Austin Beutner, will kick off his first day of work on Tuesday with a choreographed tour of the nations second-largest school district, from the San Fernando Valley to Carson. His day is scheduled to begin at 5:15 a.m. at a school bus depot and end more than 12 hours later at a parent meeting at Garfield High School. Along the way, Beutner is expected to be joined by school district administrators, L.A. Unified board members and the vice president of the union that represents school bus drivers. Though he will be covering a lot of ground, Beutners tour has him skipping Tuesdays school board meeting, when board members are expected to discuss labor negotiations in closed session. Read More Facebook
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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook
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Why a handful of rich charter school supporters are spending millions to elect Antonio Villaraigosa as governor By Ryan Menezes California voters have seen a barrage of sunny television ads in recent weeks touting former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosas record on finances, crime and education, aired by Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018. But the group is, in fact, largely funded by a handful of wealthy charter-school supporters. Together they have spent more than $13 million in less than a month to boost Villaraigosas chances in the June 5 primary at a time when his fundraising and poll numbers are lagging. Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, jump-started the group with a $7-million check, by far the largest donation to support any candidate in the election. Their efforts are part of a broader proxy war among Democrats between teachers unions longtime stalwarts of the party and those who argue that the groups have failed low-income and minority schoolchildren. Read More Facebook
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Talking schools with L.A. Unifieds new superintendent By Anna M. Phillips Austin Beutner, who officially starts Tuesday as the new superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is taking on a famously difficult job at a particularly difficult time. The school board is divided and did not back him unanimously. The nations second-largest school district has deep-seated problems, including declining enrollment, lagging academic achievement and rising pension and healthcare costs that eat away at its budget. The 58-year-old former investment banker and former L.A. Times publisher has years of experience in the financial world but none as an educator. Earlier this week, he sat down with the Times education team to discuss the challenges facing the district, which has about 60,000 employees and 500,000 students in traditional public schools. He did not talk about his plans saying repeatedly, stay tuned but he spoke in broad terms about his mindset in approaching the tough decisions ahead. Read More Facebook
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Suspect detained, authorities search campus after reports of armed man at Palmdale high school By James Queally One person has been detained after a report of an armed man at a Palmdale high school sparked a massive law enforcement response Friday morning. The suspect was spotted at 7:05 a.m. on the campus of Highland High School in Palmdale, according to Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida. The person was detained in a nearby parking lot, according to Nishida, who did not know whether that person was an adult or juvenile. Deputies at the scene are clearing the school methodically, and students will be transported home via school buses once the campus is deemed safe, Nishida said. Read More Facebook
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The education of Bertha Perez: How a UC Merced custodians disenchantment led to a political awakening By Robin Abcarian Its the third day of a three-day strike, and UC Merced custodian Bertha Perez is taking a break from a picket line at the universitys unremarkable entrance, an intersection with stop lights. Photos from other UC campuses this week have shown big crowds of striking service workers members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees marching and chanting pro-labor slogans as they try to force the University of California back to the negotiating table. But here, at UC Merced, whose handful of big buildings rise from a flat expanse of farmland, the picket line is tiny, maybe two dozen workers and a few students. Its not a big-city-style show of force. Then again, a union sympathizer is banging relentlessly on a snare drum, so its noisier than youd expect. Read More Facebook
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Ref Rodriguez resigns from teacher credentialing commission By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez appears during a court appearance. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez has resigned from the states Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which oversees the integrity and quality of Californias teachers. Rodriguez faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. Separately, his former employer, a charter school organization, has accused him of improperly authorizing checks to a nonprofit under his control. Rodriguez has denied wrongdoing. Rodriguezs resignation from the state body was effective May 4, days after he cast a crucial vote as part of a narrow majority that voted to authorize contract negotiations with Austin Beutner to become superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District. Beutners first official day on the job is Tuesday. Rodriguez remains in his $125,000-a-year position on the Los Angeles Board of Education. The mission of the state body is to ensure integrity, relevance, and high quality in the preparation, certification, and discipline of Californias teachers. Critics had questioned Rodriguezs continued service on the commission, given that teachers can be suspended from work if they face criminal charges. They also can lose their jobs for lapses in personal behavior, such as excessive drinking, with the potential to affect their performance. Police in Pasadena arrested Rodriguez on a Friday afternoon in March for public drunkenness. He was not charged in the incident and has apologized. The state commission reviews teacher discipline cases and can take action to remove a teachers credential to work in a California classroom. The commission has 15 members. Rodriguezs departure was disclosed in a one-sentence announcement on the agencys website. Facebook
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School board members request for restraining order against blogger is rejected By Priscella Vega An Orange County Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a school board members petition for a permanent restraining order against a Huntington Beach blogger. Attorney Jeffrey W. Shields filed the petition on behalf of Ocean View School District trustee Gina Clayton-Tarvin, 46, who alleged in court documents that Charles Keeler Johnson, 56, has threatened her on social media and at school board meetings, causing her to fear for my own safety and for that of my immediate family members. Johnson, who goes by Chuck and publishes HBSledgehammer.com, said the trustee tried to stifle his freedom of speech. He also contended that Clayton-Tarvin took his blog posts and Facebook comments too seriously and out of context, saying anyone who is afraid of metaphors has serious issues. Read More Facebook
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Deal with workers averts one-day strike that could have shut down L.A. schools By Howard Blume Los Angeles school district and union officials announced a contract agreement Tuesday night that averted a one-day strike planned for next week. The pact, which runs through June 2020, removes one labor problem from the desk of incoming Supt. Austin Beutner whose first day on the job would have coincided with the strike. Plenty of other challenges remain. Read More Facebook
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UC labor strike expands with show of support from more unions By Teresa Watanabe Fong Chuu is a registered nurse who has assisted with countless liver transplants, kidney surgeries and gastric bypasses during 34 years at UCLA. Working with her are scrub technicians who sterilize equipment, hand medical instruments to the surgeon and dress patient wounds. They are a team, Chuu says, which is why she walked off her job Tuesday in support of those technicians and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The 25,000 member AFSCME local, the University of Californias largest employee union, launched a three-day strike Monday. Read More Facebook
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We are humans too: Voices of UCLAs striking custodians, hospital aides and imaging technicians By Joy Resmovits Demonstrators parade in front of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) This week, thousands of UC employees are staging a three-day strike for better pay and working conditions. On Monday, more than 20,000 custodians, cooks, lab technicians, nurse aides and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 walked off their jobs. By Tuesday, two more unions joined in sympathy strikes. The union and UC reached a bargaining impasse last year. The university has said it wont meet the workers demands. The strikers said they wanted better pay, more equity in the allocation of work, stable healthcare premiums and an end to the universitys use of contract workers. These are their stories. Read More Facebook
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Massive UC workers strike disrupts dining, classes and medical services By Joy Resmovits A massive labor strike across the University of California on Monday forced medical centers to reschedule more than 12,000 surgeries, cancer treatments and appointments, and campuses to cancel some classes and limit dining services. More than 20,000 members of UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, walked off their jobs on the first day of a three-day strike. They include custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Two altercations involving protesters and people driving near the rallies were reported at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz. At UCLA, police took a man into custody Monday after he drove his vehicle into a crowd, hitting three staff members. They were treated for minor injuries at the scene and released, said Lt. Kevin Kilgore of the UCLA Police Department. Read More Facebook
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Sen. Kamala Harris to skip UC Berkeley commencement in support of striking workers By Teresa Watanabe California Sen. Kamala Harris has canceled plans to deliver UC Berkeleys commencement address this weekend in support of UC workers who are on strike over wages and health benefits. Due to the ongoing labor dispute, Sen. Harris regretfully cannot attend and speak at this years commencement ceremony at UC Berkeley, said a statement from Harris office issued Monday. She wishes the graduates and their families a joyous commencement weekend and success for the future. They are bright young leaders and our country is counting on them. UCs largest employee union, the 25,000-member American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees Local 3299, launched a three-day strike Monday and had earlier called for a speakers boycott. The union and university reached a bargaining impasse last year and subsequent mediation efforts have failed to produce an agreement. The union is asking for a multiyear contract with a 6% annual pay increase while the university is offering 3% annual increases over four years. UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ will deliver the keynote address instead, the university announced. About 5,800 students are expected to participate in the ceremony Saturday. Facebook
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School mural depicting Trumps bloody, severed head sparks controversy By Gary Warth A Chula Vista school mural that depicts the bloody, severed head of President Trump on a spear sparked a controversy that prompted officials to cover it and issue a response distancing themselves from the work. The statement also said the artist will alter the painting. We understand that there was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our schools philosophy of non-violence, read the statement from MAAC Community Charter School director Tommy Ramirez. We have been in communication with the artist who has agreed to modify the artwork to better align with the schools philosophy. Read More Facebook
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New blackface incident at Cal Poly prompts calls for state investigation By Kim Christensen Cal Poly San Luis Obispo officials have asked the state attorney generals office to investigate after a new photo of a white student in blackface surfaced on a fraternity groups private Snapchat. I am outraged, Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong said in a video address Friday to the campus. These vile and absolutely unacceptable acts cannot continue. We must not allow these acts to define us as an institution. Armstrong said the latest photo was intended to imitate an incident last month in which a white member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity was photographed at a party wearing blackface. Read More Facebook
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More than 50,000 UC workers set to strike this week but campuses will remain open By Teresa Watanabe More than 50,000 workers across the University of California are set to strike this week, causing potential disruptions to surgery schedules, food preparation and campus maintenance. The systems 10 campuses and five medical centers are to remain open, with classes scheduled as planned. UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, plans to begin a three-day strike Monday involving 25,000 workers, including custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Read More Facebook
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New L.A. schools chief Beutner pledges to listen, learn and take action By Howard Blume New Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner proved Wednesday that hes a quick learner even without an education background. Like countless public officials before him, he appeared at an important event his first speech and news conference with a photogenic background of students. His message that he would put those students first seemed heartfelt if hardly original. Nor was it a huge surprise that he pledged to push cooperatively but unflinchingly to improve the districts academic performance and stabilize its finances. As an introduction, Beutner, a former investment banker who made a fortune on Wall Street, offered little flash, but that was partly the point. Read More Facebook
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In a school lockdown, one student takes stock of the stressful scene At the beginning of lunch one day late last month, Duarte High School, Northview Middle School, and California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley were advised by the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department to go into lockdown mode due to police activity in the immediate area. Phalaen Chang, a junior at the California School of the Arts, wrote a series of notes on her iPhone while she sat in a room with her classmates. By the time the lockdown ended an hour later, she wrote, she knew which of her friends would hold open the door for others, be the ones calming others down, be the ones barricading the doors. She knew that all of them have the potential to be such strong people. Read More Facebook
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Tale as old as time: L.A. Unified superintendent pick follows a historical pattern of outside-the-box choices By Joy Resmovits L.A. Unified has long gone back and forth between picking insiders and outsiders to run the nations second largest school district. The choice of Austin Beutner, announced Tuesday, places the district squarely back in the outsider camp months after a consummate insider, Supt. Michelle King, announced that she had cancer and would not return to the job. Check out this timeline of former L.A. superintendents to see how the school board members have changed their minds, sometimes favoring leaders who come from the world of education and sometimes executives from elsewhere, recruited to shock the system into change. At one point, the district hired someone from the military retired Navy Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, who served as superintendent from 2006-2008. In hiring Brewer, board members had opted for a non-educator largely because they sought a fresh thinker, unwedded to the bureaucracy, unafraid to make bold, even unorthodox moves, reads a 2008 Times story. Facebook
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Austin Beutner named superintendent of Los Angeles schools By Howard Blume Austin Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker, on Tuesday was named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nations second-largest school system. His selection was the biggest move yet by a Los Angeles school board majority elected with major support from charter school advocates. The decision came after lengthy public testimony, most of it in support of the other remaining finalist, interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian, who is well known within the school system. Beutner, 58, has no background leading a school or school district. Less than 2 years ago, a school board with a very different balance of power named Michelle King, a former teacher who rose through the district throughout her career, to L.A. Unifieds top job. Read More Facebook
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Hearing delay gives both sides more time in Ref Rodriguezs potential trial By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez and his attorneys will have more time to prepare their defense against charges of political money laundering, a judge ruled Monday. The preliminary hearing in the case had been scheduled to begin May 9, but that date will now be pushed back to July 23 per the ruling from L.A. Superior Court Judge Deborah S. Brazil. Rodriguez, 46, faces three felony charges of conspiracy, perjury and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. Read More Facebook
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L.A. school board poised to name Beutner as superintendent By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is poised to select philanthropist and former investment banker Austin Beutner to be the next superintendent of the nations second-largest school system. Barring a last-minute development, the only mystery is whether Beutner emerges with four or five votes from the boards seven members. Terms of his contract already have been under discussion, according to sources close to the process who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak. The selection of Beutner, 58, who has no experience managing a school or a school district, would be a signal that the board majority that took control nearly a year ago wants to rely on business management skills instead of insider educational expertise. Read More Facebook
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Teacher walkouts in Arizona and Colorado continue national debate on money for schools By Michael Livingston Following the lead of teachers who walked off the job in other states in recent weeks, thousands of teachers and their supporters took to the streets in Arizona and Colorado for the second day in a row to demand better pay and more funding for education. Read More Facebook
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Three decades before the #MeToo movement, UC San Diego led the way against sexual assault By Teresa Watanabe When Nancy Wahlig first started her fight against sexual assault, one company was marketing a capsule for women to stash in their bras and then smash to release a vile odor. Because of the very nature of society, the only person who can prevent rape is the woman herself, read a 1981 advertisement for the Repulse rape deterrent. Ideas about how to prevent sexual violence have come a long way since then, and Wahlig has helped lead that evolution on college campuses. In 1988, she started UC San Diegos Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC), the first stand-alone program at the University of California. Today, she remains the systems most senior specialist. Read More Facebook
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Andres Alonso withdraws from consideration for L.A. schools job By Howard Blume Andres Alonso, believed to be one of three remaining finalists to lead the Los Angeles school system, has withdrawn from consideration. The remaining known candidates in the confidential search are former investment banker Austin Beutner and interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian. Alonso, 60, announced his decision on Twitter on Thursday night, saying he had notified the L.A. Unified School District on Monday. The exit of Alonso, the former Baltimore schools chief, seems to solidify the front-runner status of Beutner, who also was a former L.A. Times publisher and a Los Angeles deputy mayor. He held each of those positions for about a year. Read More Facebook
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Heres why the apparent increase in autism spectrum disorders may be good for U.S. children By Karen Kaplan The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among American children continues to rise, new government data suggest. And that may be a good thing. Among 11 sites across the U.S. where records of 8-year-olds are scrutinized in detail, 1 in 59 kids was deemed to have ASD in 2014. Thats up from 1 in 68 in 2012. Normally, health officials would prefer to see less of a disease, not more of it. But in this case, the higher number is probably a sign that more children of color who are on the autism spectrum are being recognized as such and getting services to help them, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More Facebook
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UC shelves tuition increase for now, in hopes of getting more state funding By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents will not vote on a tuition increase next month, shelving the plan for now in hopes that state lawmakers will come through with more funding. Raising tuition is always a last resort and one we take very seriously, UC President Janet Napolitano said Thursday in a statement. We will continue to advocate with our students who are doing a tremendous job of educating legislators about the necessity of adequately funding the university to ensure UC remains a world-class institution and engine of economic growth for our state. Last week, Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White said the 23-campus system no longer would consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year. But unlike Cal State, UC officials have not taken a tuition increase off the table entirely. Read More Facebook
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A chemical spill, unchecked eyewash stations, poor training: Audit details Cal States lax lab safety By Joy Resmovits In May 2016, two bottles tumbled off a poorly supported shelf and broke, leading to a chemical spill in a Sacramento State University lab. The liquid got onto one students legs and soaked anothers feet. Five employees cleaned up the mess, even though no one knew for sure what it was and whether it was dangerous. They called fellow employee Kim Harrington, their union representative, to let her know what happened. Read More Facebook
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After blackface incident, minority students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo say they dont feel welcome By Hailey Branson-Potts Aaliyah Ramos was walking through the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus last year when a prospective student approached her. Ramos was the only black person, the young woman said, that she and her mother had seen that day. They asked about the quality of education and the diversity of the student body. Ramos, a mechanical engineering student, didnt want to sugarcoat the truth: Cal Poly long has been predominantly white. But she told the young woman who also was black that she didnt want to discourage her from applying, because that wouldnt help with diversity at a school where only 0.7% of students are African American the lowest percentage of any university in the California State system. Read More Facebook
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El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills wins the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon By Carlos Lozano El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills has won the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon, officials said. The winner was announced early Saturday at a ceremony in Frisco, Texas. More than 600 students from the U.S., Canada, China and the United Kingdom gathered there over the last three days to compete in the 37th annual U.S. Academic Decathlon. Congratulations to El Camino Real Charter High School for another impressive victory, said Vivian Ekchian, interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Your academic stamina and competitive spirit to win is remarkable. The entire L.A. Unified family is so proud of you. Read More Facebook
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Anticipation mounts as L.A. school board meets over superintendent selection By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is reconvening in closed session Friday at noon as anticipation mounts about the choice of the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. The presumed front-runner is former investment banker and philanthropist Austin Beutner, but interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian and former Baltimore Supt. Andres Alonso also are in the running. Most district insiders appear to be rooting for Ekchian, who has spent her entire career in education within the school system. After her 10 years as a teacher, her roles have included head of human resources, chief labor negotiator and regional administrator for campuses in the west San Fernando Valley. Shes managed the district since September, when then-Supt. Michelle King went on medical leave and chose Ekchian to fill in for her. King, who is battling cancer, never returned and announced her retirement in January. Numerous influential civic leaders have urged and pressured the board to select Beutner. Also lending their weight have been advocates for charter schools, which are independently operated, growing in number and competing for students with district-operated campuses. Four of the seven board members enough to control the outcome were elected with major financial support from charter supporters. Beutner has two ongoing connections with the L.A. Unified School District. The first is his leadership of an outside task force that is making recommendations on how to improve the school system. The second is his charity, Vision to Learn, which supplies glasses to low-income students. The charity and the school system are in a dispute at the moment over who is responsible for delays in providing services to students as part of a $6 million contract, half of which is paid for by L.A. Unified. Unlike Ekchian and Buetner, Alonso, who currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has no deep-seated local constituency, but the prospect of his selection has generated some excitement. While in Baltimore, Alonso was recognized for pushing for progress at low-performing schools, and for being willing to take strong action. While in Baltimore, he also weathered a test-score cheating scandal and occasionally rocky relations with the teachers union. But by the time he resigned, after six years, he and union leaders seemed to be working together without rancor. Leaders of some community groups have split from the pro-Beutner camp. They worry that Beutners approach to confronting the districts financial problems could shut out their voices or involve severe economic cutbacks that would undermine programs that are helping students. Some prefer Ekchian; some Alonso. Theyve been reluctant to speak out publicly because theyll have to work with whoever is selected, but they have tried to get the ear of board members. On Friday morning, one leader of a community group decided to come out in favor of Alonso. L.A. Unified has the opportunity to bring in an instructional leader of color with a history of success, said Alberto Retana, president and chief executive of Community Coalition, which works on behalf of low-income students and families in South Los Angeles. If we have a shot at that, we should go for it because its in the best interests of our kids and of our community. Retana said his statement was not meant to criticize Beutner or Ekchian but to alert board members that there also is community support for Alonso. Facebook
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Cal State leader shelves proposed tuition hike: Its the right thing to do, but its not without risk By Joy Resmovits Cal State, the nations largest public university system, will no longer consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year, Chancellor Timothy P. White announced Friday. The decision is a bet that Sacramento will come through in the end. If Cal State loses that bet, it could mean cuts to campus programs. White said in an interview that Californias economy is strong enough that families should not be shouldering the burden of higher college costs. Read More Facebook
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L.A. students to participate in national walkout activities on Friday By Joy Resmovits Students are taking to the streets again Friday to protest gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting. Starting at 10 a.m., students at many schools will spend 13 seconds honoring the 13 people 12 students and one teacher killed on that day in Littleton, Colo. After that, theyll participate in a host of different activities. Within L.A. Unified, one school is having an open-mic event for students to talk about school violence, and lawmakers are visiting campuses to hear students thoughts. According to a central hub for organizing the protests written by the students of Ridgefield High School in Connecticut the walkouts are intended to drive the political change necessary to curb school violence. The day is also a time for students to interact on an elevated platform they have never had before, the site states. It is a day of discourse and thoughtful sharing. Bringing together communities and students to get a national discussion rolling. Organizers have suggested using the event to convey the importance of curbing gun violence to legislators. They are encouraging students to push legislation that would ban assault weapons and tighten up rules around who can buy guns and how. Over 2,500 schools nationwide are expected to participate. In L.A., some students at campuses including Eagle Rock High School, the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts and Bravo Medical Magnet plan to walk out. Students from various schools expect to join area marches, including those in Santa Monica and Huntington Park. Other schools are hosting career days and voter registration drives. At 1 p.m., students plan to start a rally in front of L.A. Unified headquarters. For the record: An earlier version of this article stated that 12 teachers and one student were killed in the Columbine shooting. The opposite is true: twelve students and one teacher died. Facebook
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Stabbing of popular student devastates South El Monte High School; teen friend suspected in slaying By Sonali Kohli When administrators at South El Monte High School called Jeremy Sanchezs parents to say he never showed up for class Wednesday, his father began to worry. It was unusual for the 17-year-old junior to miss school, so his father filed a missing persons report and assembled two of Jeremys close friends to look for the popular student-athlete. Their search took them to a scenic stretch of the San Gabriel River Trail, where one of the friends a 16-year-old boy made a tragic discovery. Among the bushes in the riverbed near Thienes Avenue and Parkway Drive was Jeremys body, punctured with stab wounds, according to Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Read More Facebook
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Racist fliers spark outrage at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo By Alene Tchekmedyian Soon after Neal MacDougall arrived on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus Tuesday, the professor noticed university police standing outside a restroom near his office. A racial slur against African Americans had been scrawled in red marker on a stall wall. Later, he discovered a series of racist fliers pinned up next to his door. Someone had also slashed posters hed hung outside his office supporting students in the country illegally. The discovery was the latest controversy on the prestigious campus which the president said is less than 55% white that MacDougall said demonstrates a culture of racism at the university. Last week, photographs emerged of white fraternity members, including one in blackface, flashing gang signs. Read More Facebook
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The superintendent waiting game, paying for L.A.'s College Promise, Princetons slave history: Whats new in education By Joy Resmovits Acting LAUSD superintendent Vivian Ekchian is a finalist for the permanent job. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) In and around Los Angeles: The L.A. Unified school board spent 10 hours interviewing and discussing candidates for superintendent. When they adjourned after 10 p.m., they said they would reconvene on Friday. Who is paying for Mayor Eric Garcettis much-touted College Promise, a program that promises two years of community college for LAUSD grads? In California: The Legislature is considering a proposal that would boost K-12 education funding for black students. When the cost of living is taken into account, California has the highest rate of child poverty. Nationwide: The families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School are suing Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never occurred. Princeton will name two spaces an arch and a garden after slaves who lived or worked on the campus. Facebook
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L.A. school board meets privately with finalists and debates choice for school district leader By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education adjourned late Tuesday after spending more than 10 hours interviewing candidates and trying to reach a decision on who would be the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. When the meeting finally recessed at 10:11 p.m., a spokesman announced only that the school board would reconvene Friday at noon. Going into the days meetings, there were apparently four finalists, according to sources who could not be named because they were unauthorized to speak. Read More Facebook
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Two Sandy Hook families sue Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never happened By David Altimari Families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed lawsuits in Texas against controversial radio host Alex Jones for continually claiming the massacre never happened. Neil Heslin, the father of Jesse Lewis, and Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah Pozner died in the massacre, filed separate lawsuits late Monday in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the parents by constantly calling them crisis actors and insisting the shooting was a false flag operation; they also claim Jones accusations have led to death threats against the Sandy Hook families by Jones followers. Read More Facebook
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Beutner emerges as a top pick for L.A. schools superintendent amid last-minute jockeying By Howard Blume Austin Beutner has emerged as a leading contender to run the Los Angeles school district, with backers saying he is smart enough and tough enough to confront its financial and academic struggles. Though he does not have a background in education, the former investment banker has in the last year examined some of the districts intractable problems, serving as co-chair of an outside task force with the support of then-Supt. Michelle King. Sources inside and outside the school district said Beutner appears to have more support on the seven-member board than other finalists, and his name could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday. Read More Facebook
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Challenge at Chicago school construction site: Watch for 38,000 unmarked graves By Nereida Moreno A 15-year effort to build a school in Chicagos Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil. The $70-million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House, where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the countys insane asylum. There can be and there have been bodies found all over the place, said Barry Fleig, a genealogist and cemetery researcher who began investigating the site in 1989. Its a spooky, scary place. Read More Facebook
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Oklahoma teacher walkout winds down despite lawmakers failure to meet demands By Washington Post Oklahomas largest teachers union has announced an end to a walkout that has drawn thousands of educators out of classrooms and to the state Capitol demanding greater investment in the states schools, which have endured the nations steepest funding cuts. The announcement Thursday from the Oklahoma Education Assn. does not necessarily end the protests at the Capitol, as teachers not affiliated with the union vowed to stay longer. Instead of a walkout, the union and school districts across the state have said they plan to send delegations of teachers to Oklahoma City to keep the pressure on lawmakers. Teachers and their supporters have also promised to push education issues to the forefront of November elections, when the state chooses a new governor. As school districts begin to reopen, the protests may lose steam. The Legislature is not in session Friday, and observers are waiting to see what happens Monday, when lawmakers return. Read More Facebook
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Most Californians are worried about school shooting threats and oppose arming teachers, survey finds By Joy Resmovits Hamilton High School student Aiyana Dabriel holds a sign during a March 14 walkout in support of the Parkland shooting victims. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Most Californians are worried that a school shooting like the one that occurred in Parkland, Fla., in February could shed blood closer to home, a new survey found. Some 73% percent of adults and 82% of public school parents said they were very concerned or somewhat concerned about school shootings. The Public Policy Institute of California surveyed 1,704 adults in the state by phone just after the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence. Latino and black respondents were significantly more likely to be concerned about school violence than white or Asian respondents, the institute found. Two-thirds of adults and public school parents said they opposed letting more educators carry weapons in school. The response differed across party lines, with 86% of Democrats and 69% of independents voicing their opposition, while 60% percent of Republicans said they would support a measure to arm educators. The poll, which had a margin of error of 3.2% in either direction, also asked Californians about school funding, educational issues in the governors race and the impact of immigration enforcement on students. You can find the full results here. Facebook
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Californias largest virtual charter school network agrees to contract with its teachers By Anna M. Phillips Nearly four years after teachers at Californias largest online charter school voted to unionize, they have reached a deal to increase pay and create job protections, according to a spokesman for the California Teachers Assn. The contract, which is still tentative and subject to ratification, is a victory for the teachers union. Although charter schools are publicly funded, most are privately managed and their employees arent protected by labor contracts. Under the terms of the contract the result of years of negotiation and legal wrangling approximately 500 teachers working for California Virtual Academies will no longer be at-will employees who can be dismissed for almost any reason. Their average salary will rise to just over $45,000, according to union estimates, a figure that remains far below the norm for traditional public school teachers. Still, it is an improvement over the previous average of $38,000. The accord also places a limit on the number of students each teacher is responsible for monitoring in online homeroom classes. Were very satisfied with the gains we made, said teacher Brianna Carroll, president of California Virtual Educators United. I think were going to see some extraordinary changes in our schools. According to Carroll, teachers at California Virtual Academies better known as CAVA had grown frustrated with the organizations foot-dragging and were making preparations to go on strike when CAVAs leadership agreed to the deal. CAVA and K12, the Virginia-based for-profit company linked to its schools, did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday asking for comment. The network currently operates nine virtual charter schools across California. In 2016, the charter network agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle claims of false advertising, misleading parents and inadequate instruction. The state attorney generals office had also accused K12 of controlling the charters for its own financial benefit. Neither CAVA nor K12 admitted to wrongdoing in the settlement. A year later, the state imposed a $2-million fine on CAVA after an audit found that it had misspent public funds. The network disputed the findings. Facebook
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School board approves a new formula for funding high-need schools By Sonali Kohli L.A. schools will soon get more money if they are located in neighborhoods with such problems as high levels of gun violence and asthma. The Los Angeles Unified school board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a new formula to determine how to dole out some funding to schools, based not only on the characteristics of the student populations but on the traumas that affect the communities around campuses. The new formula will be applied to $25 million in funding next fiscal year and about $263 million annually in future years a small part of the districts $7.5 billion annual budget. Read More Facebook
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Protesters demand Ref Rodriguez resignation outside school board meeting By Sonali Kohli Students, parents, teachers and UTLA marching outside the board meeting chanting "Ref resign" pic.twitter.com/W0LRWZSIXY Sonali Kohli (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 A few dozen parents, students and teachers marched outside the Los Angeles Unified School Board meeting Tuesday, some calling for board member Ref Rodriguez to resign the week after news broke that he was taken into custody on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena bar and restaurant. Rodriguez was not cited or charged in that incident, but was held for more than five and a half hours before being released. The school board member faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. He is accused of getting more than two dozen people people to donate to his campaign for his school board seat with the understanding that he would reimburse them. He stepped down from his post as school board president after he was charged last fall, but he did not give up his seat on the board. He has pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of conspiracy, perjury, and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May. He cant give his full focus to our students, said Rebecca LaFond, a Highland Park parent whose three children marched with her as she chanted, Ref resign. One daughter marched in front of her, using a drum stick to hit the bottom of a gallon-size empty water jug. Our kids deserve someone who has the utmost ethical standards representing them, LaFond said. The protests continued into the board meeting, where some addressed Rodriguez directly, calling on him to step down during public comment portions of the meeting. Rodriguez, through his chief of staff, declined to comment. Some parents outside the board meeting did not know about the charges against Rodriguez but came out to protest the possibility of sharing their school campuses with charter schools. Protesters also oppose colocation not all of the parents are here to ask Ref Rodriguez to step down pic.twitter.com/1Co8zQ9zSi Sonali Kohli (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 Cynthia Martinez said her son, who goes to Christopher Dena Elementary School in Boyle Heights, has been bullied in the past by students from a charter school sharing the campus. She said she didnt know who Rodriguez was. Some parents and teachers are worried about losing computer labs, robotics rooms and fitness centers if they are required to share their campus with charter schools, said Ilse Escobar, a parent community organizer for United Teachers Los Angeles. The issues of Rodriguez and colocation are related, Escobar said. Rodriguez is part of a majority on the school board elected with financial backing from charter school supporters, and many parents, she said, feel that the school board is compromised if he is a part of it. Staff reporter Howard Blume contributed to this post. Facebook
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Delaine Eastin tries to gain momentum in the California governors race, one voter at a time By Seema Mehta Delaine Eastin was a sophomore in high school when a drama teacher urged her to try out for a part in The Man Who Came to Dinner. She hesitated until he told her: This is a metaphor for your whole life. If you never try out, you will never get the part. Eastin auditioned and won the role. Decades later, the advice sticks with the former state schools chief, this time in her unlikely run for governor. Despite calls for more women in leadership roles in state politics following sexual misconduct allegations in Sacramento, Eastin has been largely overlooked in the race, lagging far behind her Democratic rivals in fundraising and the polls. Read More Facebook
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Arizona high court rejects in-state tuition for DACA recipients By Associated Press Young immigrants granted deferred deportation status under a program started by President Obama are not eligible for lower in-state college tuition, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday. The unanimous ruling will affect at least 2,000 students attending the states largest community college district and hundreds more at other colleges and the states three public universities. The Maricopa County Community Colleges District and state universities said they would begin raising tuition immediately for the coming school year. Read More Facebook
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New York high school students injured when bus strikes overpass By Associated Press A charter bus carrying teenagers returning from a spring break trip Sunday night struck a bridge overpass on Long Island, seriously injuring six passengers and mangling the entire length of the top of the bus. The crash happened shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday on the Southern State Parkway in Lakeview, according to New York State Police. One of the six injured passengers had very serious injuries, said State Police Maj. David Candelaria. Thirty-seven other passengers suffered minor injuries. Read More Facebook
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Some good news for California in national student test scores By Joy Resmovits Every two years, the nations fourth- and eighth-graders are tested in math and reading and newly released results from last years tests give California at least a little reason to be pleased. The 2017 results out Monday night were mostly flat nationwide compared with 2015, though the average score in eighth-grade reading went up. But while that improvement largely came from the increased scores of the highest-performing students, California eighth-graders showed some reading progress from the lowest levels to the highest. Read More Facebook
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Under state control, Inglewood school districts financial picture worsened By Anna M. Phillips When Eugenio Villa agreed to return to the Inglewood schools for a second tour last summer, he knew the district remained one of Californias most troubled. Inglewood Unified had been nearly insolvent when it was taken over by the state Department of Education in 2012. Six years later, its enrollment was still declining. Its school buildings were tired some edging into decrepitude. Its test scores and graduation rates were still below the state average. And the public was out of patience. Still, Villa, who had signed back on as the districts chief business official, was shocked at what he found when he arrived in June 2017. Two years earlier, he had left the school system on what he thought was firm ground. Read More Facebook
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Charter school group drops two lawsuits against L.A. Unified By Howard Blume A charter schools advocacy group last week announced that it would end two long-running lawsuits in which it was seeking more classroom space and construction money from the Los Angeles school district. The decision, the California Charter Schools Assn. said, reflects better relations between charter schools and the L.A. Unified School District. But the move also suggests that the litigation, which already contributed to significant gains for area charters, was unlikely to produce much more. It takes time, money and effort to litigate, said Ricardo Soto, general counsel for the charter group. Maybe its better to see if we can find the time and opportunity for collaboration. Read More Facebook
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L.A. school board member Ref Rodriguez is arrested on suspicion of public intoxication By Richard Winton Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez was arrested recently on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena restaurant, the latest trouble for an elected official who faces political money-laundering charges. Pasadena police took Rodriguez into custody on March 16, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. Officers arrested Rodriguez at about 4:30 p.m. at the Yard House restaurant and bar at the Paseo Mall and held him in jail for more than five-and-a-half hours. Rodriguez was ultimately released without being cited or charged, Derderian told The Times. Other details about the arrest were not available, she said. Read More Facebook
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Kentucky teachers rally at Capitol over state budget By Associated Press Thousands of Kentucky teachers filled the streets near the state Capitol in Frankfort on a cold, overcast Monday to rally for education funding. Teachers and other school employees gathered outside the Kentucky Education Assn. a couple of blocks from the Capitol chanting, Stop the war on public education and holding or posting signs that say, Weve Had Enough. Were madder than hornets, and the hornets are swarming today, said Claudette Green, a retired teacher and principal. Read More Facebook
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Feb. 17, 2017, 3:04 p.m. During Oroville evacuations, authorities say these people tried to exploit the emergency Although Butte County sheriffs officials say there were no reports of looting during recent evacuations below Ororville Dam, there were a handful of burglaries and robberies that targeted fleeing residents, officials said. The incidents began Sunday night, hours after authorities ordered more than 100,000 people to flee to high ground, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office. About 6:30 p.m., deputies said, Cody Bowles, 27, and Lucia Ripley, 31, carjacked the vehicle of an Oroville resident who was packing it to flee. The resident left the car running and was moving in and out of the house with items when the couple jumped into the vehicle, officials say. When the resident confronted the pair, they ran him over, seriously injuring him, officials say. Authorities are looking for the pair. About half an hour later, authorities said, Teran Washington 25, and a 16-year-old boy used a shotgun to blast through the front door of a local market and tried to ransack the business before they were confronted by neighbors. Though the two got away, deputies later searched their home and say they found the shotgun and arrested Washington and his young accomplice. The next morning, Michael Matlock, 31, was seen riding an ATV in Gridley and towing a gun safe, authorities say. Tailed by state Department of Water Resources employees who became suspicious, Matlock ran away when his vehicle got stuck on railroad tracks, investigators said. The ATV, the trailer and the gun safe had all been stolen, officials said. Matlock was identified as the ATV driver and arrested on suspicion of burglary, vehicle theft and looting during an emergency, officials said.
Feb. 17, 2017, 1:51 p.m. 150,000 cubic yards of debris stand in the way of Oroville Dams hydroelectric plant restart Helicopters ferry sand and rocks from a staging area to the Oroville Dams emergency spillway repair project. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Officials at Lake Oroville reduced the rate of water release once again Friday as workers continued make repairs to a damaged spillway and clear debris from a hydroelectric plant. State Department of Water Resources engineers will decrease the flow of water in the Oroville Dams main spillway from 80,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000 by Saturday morning, giving crews space to dredge debris from a pool at the bottom of the spillway, said DWR acting director Bill Croyle. Engineers had been pumping water out of the lake at 100,000 cfs for several days to make room for incoming storm runoff and to keep the lake from overflowing like it did over the weekend. That overflow badly eroded an emergency spillway and sent debris flowing into a pool at the bottom, forcing the closure of an underground hydroelectric plant. This reduction in flow will allow us to work on the debris pile in the spillway, Croyle told reporters at a news conference. He estimated that 150,000 cubic yards of sediment and debris were in the pool. The other focus by workers at the dam is the eroded emergency spillway, Croyle said. Rain began falling again in the area on Thursday and its not expected to stop until the middle of next week at the earliest. The heaviest showers are expected Monday and could drop up to 10 inches of rain onto the mountains and foothills that drain into the reservoir, the National Weather Service said. The storms arent likely to produce enough runoff to exceed the lakes capacity, Croyle said. Hundreds of thousands of tons of rocks and concrete slurry have been dropped into four fissures that threatened a retaining wall of the emergency spillway on Sunday. They were 50%, 75%, 90% and 100% full, respectively, Croyle said. Rain falling onto the slurry and a small stream that had formed on the hillside Friday did not worry DWR engineers, he said.
Feb. 16, 2017, 8:51 a.m. OROVILLE
New worry for Oroville Dam: a storm next week that could dump a lot of rain Its raining in the Oroville Dam area, though officials have said they are confident their efforts will prevent any problem. But now another storm is set to hit Monday. Heres a look at whats to come: ca_state2 95e1612 0.01 0.1 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.5 3 4 5 7 Legend Source:NOAA Projected at 2 a.m. Thursday 0.1 1 2 3 4 5 7+ @latimesgraphics Projected peak 11.3 inches Lake Oroville Sacramento 5-day forecast Cumulative inches of precipitation
Feb. 17, 2017, 7:19 a.m. Reporting from Sacramento
The crisis at the Oroville Dam could become a catalyst for change Reconstruction continued Wednesday in a race to shore up the emergency spillway, left, at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Jeffrey Mount, a leading expert on California water policy, remembers the last time a crisis at the Oroville Dam seemed likely to prompt reform. It was 1997 and the lake risked overflowing, while levees further downstream failed and several people died. If this doesnt galvanize action, I dont know what will, Mount said he thought at the time. But spring came, the waters receded and no changes came to pass. Now another threat looms in Oroville, where deteriorating spillways forced widespread evacuations, and more heavy rain is around the corner. State officials have remained focused on quick fixes at the dam needed to prevent catastrophic flooding, but some already are thinking about how the crisis could spur long-term shifts in policy. Its a conversation thats gaining momentum in think tanks and government offices from Sacramento to Washington, and it touches on climate change, infrastructure spending and statewide water policy. Wade Crowfoot, a former advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown who now leads the Water Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Sacramento, compared the situation to the states years-long drought. This is a wake-up call, he said. The drought reminded us we need to use water more wisely. Oroville reminds us that we need to upgrade our infrastructure and our management to move water more wisely. Read more
Feb. 16, 2017, 6:14 p.m. Flood warning for Oroville Dam lifted The National Weather Service has canceled the flash-flood warning issued Sunday, when officials worried the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville might collapse.
Feb. 16, 2017, 1:35 p.m. As storm moves in, engineers reduce outflow from Lake Oroville to clean up debris Spillway repairs continue at Oroville Dam on Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Confident that a series of incoming storms wont overwhelm the Oroville reservoir a second time, state officials said Thursday that they would slow drainage of the lake so they can do work on an adjacent power plant. The reservoir exceeded its capacity over the weekend, which sent water overflowing into an unlined, emergency spillway. That overflow sent soil, rock and forest debris into the Feather River below. With the reservoirs water level down more than 30 feet since Sunday and getting lower, state Department of Water Resources acting director Bill Croyle said at a news conference Thursday that engineers will slow the flow down the Oroville Dams damaged main spillway from 100,000 cubic feet of water per second to 80,000 cfs over a period of several hours. The reduction will allow crews to move into the concrete channel to clear out trees, branches and other debris that has clogged the spillway and forced the downstream hydroelectric plant to go offline, Croyle said. There was no estimate on when the power plant would be back up and running, but it will probably not be before Monday, Croyle said. Meanwhile, the Herculean effort to reinforce the emergency spillway before more rain arrived used a caravan of helicopters and trucks to fill three deep fissures in the dirt hillside with rocks and cement. As of Thursday, repairs on one erosion site was completed, the second was 25% filled and the third was 69% filled, Croyle said. As long as the lake doesnt reach capacity the emergency spillway wont be used, Croyle said. The incoming storm system is weaker than the one that overwhelmed the lake last week after the dams main spillway eroded to the point of fracture, Croyle said. More than 100,000 residents south of the dam remain under an evacuation advisory and should be prepared to flee to higher ground should the dam overflow and the spillways collapse, authorities said.
Feb. 16, 2017, 11:14 a.m. Storm headed to Oroville Dam area could bring 10 inches of rain, revised forecast warns Friends Johnny Eroh, from left, Cody Balmer, Kristien Bravo and Jerel Bruhn hang out by the swollen Feather River in Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Spillway repairs at the troubled Oroville Dam will get their first major test this weekend after meteorologists revised their forecast and are now predicting a much wetter and warmer storm outlook for the region. Light to moderate rain began falling across Northern California early Thursday and will probably continue for several days, according to the National Weather Service. However, the situation will change substantially Sunday, when a larger storm arrives at Oroville and the Feather River basin. It looks like its going to be a pretty good rainmaker, said NWS meteorologist Mike Smith. Youre looking at 10 inches from Sunday night to Monday night. Read more
Feb. 16, 2017, 10:40 a.m. Oroville Dam flooding risks keep schools closed McKenna Harvey, 9, left, Kylie Atteberry, 11, and Brooklyn Atteberry, 7, hold signs thanking workers for the repair efforts at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Time) Several schools remain closed in communities affected by the Oroville Dam emergency. All school districts except for Chico and Paradise in Butte County will be closed through Friday. Wheatland High School, Yuba College and the Marysville Joint and Wheatland Elementary school districts in Yuba County also will be closed. We believe this gives our families and staff sufficient time to make longer-term plans, said Supt. Craig M. Guensler of the Wheatland Elementary School District. Most school districts in Butte County will resume classes Tuesday. Monday is a holiday. Guensler said the district could reassess school closures next week. The safety of our staff and students is our largest priority, and we will continue to make sure we keep our schools safe, he said.
Feb. 16, 2017, 6:17 a.m. Oroville reservoir level continues to drop amid new rain storms In the hours since a series of storms in Northern California began dropping rain on the damaged Oroville reservoir, data shows that state water officials continue to drain the lake faster than the storms are filling it. Less than a tenth of an inch of rain has fallen in Oroville since the first of the storms arrived early Thursday, the National Weather Service reported. The area and surrounding foothills are expected to receive several inches of rain through the weekend. But that shouldnt be enough to fill Lake Oroville back up to capacity, when the lake reaches 900 feet, the Department of Water Resources said. The lake is draining water at 100,000 cubic feet per second, enough to drop the lake a foot every three hours. Meanwhile, runoff from the current and previous storms is sending water into the lake at only a fraction of that pace. The lake has dropped more than 30 feet since it overflowed during the weekend and damaged an emergency spillway that had never been used. If it drops another 30 feet by Sunday, officials hope, the reservoir should have enough space to catch water from rain and melting snow without overflowing the rest of the year.
Feb. 15, 2017, 8:31 p.m. OROVILLE
No looting but some burglaries during Oroville evacuation, sheriff says Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea repeated his insistence Wednesday that there had been no looting while Oroville was under mandatory evacuation orders, but he conceded that the town had seen burglaries. Certainly weve had burglaries, he said, adding that there are burglaries every day. Honea drew a firm distinction between the two forms of theft. Looting, he said, is a massive and organized stealing of everything within a structure, and is very rare. Honea urged residents returning to the area to be prepared to leave again if necessary. This is an ongoing situation. He said the state has agreed to post National Guard units in the region, part of what he called staging of resources should another emergency arise.
Feb. 15, 2017, 3:49 p.m. Community puts on Valentines Day wedding for couple evacuated in Oroville emergency
Leotta Litke and Henry Rueda had planned a romantic Valentines Day wedding at their community church in Olivehurst. But on Sunday, the couple was forced to evacuate their home after a hole developed in an emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam. The couple went to an evacuation center at the Placer County fairgrounds in Roseville and had been staying there through Tuesday. It appeared their dream of a Valentines Day wedding was crushed. That was until shelter workers found out about their wedding plans and decided to help them get hitched. So Placer County workers spread the word on Facebook, asking for help: We have one last, very special donation request for our Oroville emergency evacuees, workers wrote. This young couple, Leotta and Henry, planned to be getting married today at their home church in Olivehurst. Instead, theyll be honoring us today at our evacuation shelter. To help Leotta and Henry. To make this day as special as it should be, we need a wedding dress and suit ASAP! Message us if you can help, and please join us in wishing them congratulations! Soon after the call went out, donations from residents and area businesses began pouring into the fairground, according to workers. By the end of the day, the bride was given a beautiful white gown and the groom a black tux and a large tree was converted into a wedding altar. Surrounded by a large group of evacuees who remained at the shelter for the night, Litke walked down the grassy aisle to an acoustic version of the Elvis Presley hit Cant Help Falling In Love. The couple had been together 10-years before deciding to tie the knot, they said. I want to thank everybody, Litke told CBS Sacramento. I am happy to be Mrs. Rueda. To cap off the night, a limo and hotel room were also donated, KTXL-TV reported. Its hard to imagine a better way to celebrate Valentines Day than the surprise wedding we were honored to witness tonight at the Placer County shelter for Oroville spillway emergency evacuees, county workers wrote on Facebook.
Feb. 15, 2017, 1:33 p.m. reporting from OROVILLE, Calif.
Officials confident Oroville Dam will withstand new rainstorm: Its holding up really well Reconstruction continues in a race to shore up the emergency spillway, left, at Oroville Dam on Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Even as rain began to fall in Northern California on Wednesday, state officials said the storms forecast over the next few days will not be enough to test the integrity of the Oroville Dam or its two damaged spillways. Bill Croyle, acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, called the storms fairly small and said the public wont see a blip in the reservoir levels, now dropping about eight inches an hour. Croyle said it was not the weather he was concerned about so much as the damage done to the dams already compromised main spillway during days of sustained heavy releases of water. Its holding up really well, Croyle said, but continued mass water releases could be causing hidden damage to the rocky subsurface adjacent to the concrete chute. A swarm of trucks and helicopters dumped 1,200 tons of material per hour onto the eroded hillside that formed the dams emergency spillway. One quarry worked around the clock to mine boulders as heavy as 6 tons. An army of workers mixed concrete slurry to help seal the rocks in place. At the main spillway, a different and riskier operation was underway: Despite a large hole in the concrete chute, officials have been sending a massive amount of the swollen reservoirs water down the spillway to the Feather River in a desperate attempt to reduce the lakes level. The objective is to lower the level enough so that the lake can accept runoff from the upcoming storms without reaching capacity. If the reservoir filled up again, water would overflow into the emergency spillway, which on Sunday appeared to be nearing collapse, forcing the evacuation of more than 100,000 people downstream. Croyle said there were plans to begin to taper off the water discharges at the end of the week. Data from the Department of Water Resources shows Shasta Dam discharges began to be sharply increased on Feb. 10 and have increased substantially every day since that. Federal emergency officials and the Trump administration approved Gov. Jerry Browns requests for presidential disaster declarations for the Oroville Dam and for the 34 counties struck in January by major winter storms that caused mudslides and power outages. I want to thank FEMA for moving quickly to approve our requests, Brown said in a statement from his office. At a news briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Trump has been keeping a close eye on the situation at Oroville. The situation is a textbook example of why we need to pursue a major infrastructure package in Congress, Spicer said. Dams, bridges, roads and all ports around the country have fallen into disrepair.
Feb. 15, 2017, 12:54 p.m. Rio Linda
Sikhs opened their temple doors to Oroville Dam evacuees and strangers came pouring in Evacuees and Sikhs chat at Shri Guru Ravidass temple in Rio Linda, Calif., north of Sacramento. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Each morning before the break of dawn, Nirmal Singh makes his way to a small stage at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple, adorned with roses and silk. There, the priest sits and reads prayers from a centuries-old Indian text to open the day. Its usually a quiet affair, with words spoken in Punjabi to an empty hall the size of a large backyard a solemn start at the small Sikh temple that sees few people outside of weekend services. But this week, Singh had company. Bodies shuffled under blankets in front of him. On Tuesday a Mexican couple and their kids woke up to his right, revealing the head scarves they wore in respect of Sikh traditions. In a nearby room, an African American man was also was getting up to the sounds of prayer. As tens of thousands fled low-lying regions on the Feather River this week amid warnings of flooding from the rapidly filling Lake Oroville, Sikh temples across in the Sacramento area opened their doors to evacuees. Read more
Feb. 15, 2017, 2:05 p.m. As new storms approach Lake Oroville, authorities warn residents to remain vigilant Although officials say the risk of flooding below Oroville Dam has dropped substantially since the weekend, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea warned area residents Wednesday that they remained in an emergency situation. During an afternoon news conference, Honea urged residents to maintain vigilance as dam operators continued to drain Lake Oroville before a string of storms began soaking the region again Wednesday evening. They need to pay attention, Honea said of residents. Its important for people to be prepared. This is an opportunity for them to get things together, so that if the risk level increases and there is a need for us to issue an evacuation order, theyll have the things they need and theyll be able to do that quickly and efficiently. The sheriff also asked residents to start making travel plans should they need to evacuate. On Sunday, when erosion of the lakes emergency spillway triggered a sudden evacuation order, area roads quickly suffered gridlock. That was an incredibly chaotic situation, and I was aware of it, Honea said. Sundays emergency order was lifted Tuesday afternoon, allowing more than 100,000 residents and business owners to return to their communities. Honea said that during the evacuation order, Oroville had seen some thefts, but he insisted there was no widespread looting of properties. Certainly weve had burglaries, he said. Looting, the large-scale and organized theft of property from a structure, is very rare, the sheriff said. Honea also said that the state has agreed to post National Guard units in the region, part of what he called staging of resources should another emergency arise.
Feb. 15, 2017, 11:54 a.m. Graphic: Lake Oroville water levels dropped dramatically
After exceeding capacity this week, Lake Oroville has seen water levels drop significantly in the last three days. The charge above shows the story, as officials bumped massive amounts of water through the damaged main spillway.
Feb. 15, 2017, 11:48 a.m. L.A. County dams to be inspected in wake of Oroville crisis
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has ordered inspections of all county dams, spillways and other flood control infrastructure. The move was sparked by the emergency at Lake Oroville in Northern California over the last week, when failures of two spillways used to lower the lakes water level prompted mandatory evacuations. Supervisor Kathryn Barger called for the inspections on Tuesday, and her motion was unanimously approved by the board. The supervisors have asked the countys Department of Public Works to provide a report on the condition of the dams within 30 days and to develop a list of priority flood-control infrastructure projects that need to be completed. The Oroville situation reminds us of the need to proactively evaluate our countys risk with regard to dams and other facilities which may be prone to failure from storms, earthquakes or other foreseeable events, Barger said in a statement. Read more
Feb. 15, 2017, 11:01 a.m. Rep. Doug LaMalfa says Oroville Dam looks stable for now Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) said Wednesday that officials will investigate what went wrong at the Oroville Dam once the emergency situation is over. In a Facebook post, LaMalfa wrote that Oroville Dam looks stable for now. LaMalfa said officials are focused on providing support to residents who were evacuated Sunday night. Residents were allowed to return home Tuesday afternoon after officials said the risk of flooding had diminished. Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, LaMalfa said the soil in front of the emergency spillway must be stabilized with rock and concrete. It looks good, he said. I think things are stable for now. We also need prayer for no more rain for a while. After meeting privately with emergency officials on Tuesday, state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) said he was told the repairs were temporary. This cannot be a case of put rocks in the spillway and it is taken care of, he said.
Feb. 15, 2017, 10:20 a.m. Kangaroos, zebra and deer, oh my! Woman sheltered wild animals during evacuation
Before evacuees returned home Tuesday afternoon, a woman cared for kangaroos, zebras and other animals left behind by residents. California Highway Patrol officers were checking on abandoned properties in the affected areas on Tuesday morning, when they came across the exotic animals at Tamara Archer Houstons family farm in Sutter County, said Officer Chad Hertzell, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in North Sacramento. It was like Wow, a zebra, he said. Archer Houston and her family had been collecting animals left during the rush to evacuate, according to the CHP. We had fun, she said in a video on Facebook. It was good. Among the rescued animals were two kangaroos named Kenzie and Dottie, Archer Houston said in the video, filmed by CHP officers. Kenzie actually sleeps inside with her owner every night in her bed in her diaper, so this has to be a whole new deal for her, she said. The sight was a rare treat for officers. We are thankful for the random acts of kindness we find out in the community, the CHP wrote on Facebook. Everyone seems to be coming together to take care of each other. This is what makes California so special. More than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate from communities downstream of Lake Oroville on Sunday night after the emergency spillway at the dam developed a hole, prompting fears it could collapse. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea lifted the mandatory evacuation order Tuesday and changed it to a warning. Although residents and business owners were allowed to return to their communities, he urged them to be prepared to evacuate again at a moments notice should new problems arise.
Feb. 15, 2017, 9:59 a.m. Oroville
Dam operators now hope to lower Lake Oroville by 60 feet in preparation for rain and snowmelt Even after Lake Orovilles water level is reduced by a targeted 50 feet, water managers intend to further drain the reservoir so that it can absorb major rain storms and spring snowmelt, according to state planning documents. The most recent 10-day forecast calls for water levels to be dropped 60 feet below the lakes maximum of 901 feet, which would give it the ability to hold nearly 1 million acre-feet of water before overtopping a damaged emergency spillway that is still undergoing temporary repairs. A joint plan created by the Department of Water Resources, Cal Fire and the Butte County Sheriffs Office calls for the reduction of water releases down the reservoirs main spillway later in the week. Water has been coursing down the damaged spillway at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second but will taper off to a third of that by late Friday, according to the plan. A new series of storms forecast to arrive late Wednesday is expected to last through the weekend. Likewise, a cooling trend will drop more snowfall in the Sierra. Officials hope to reduce the lake level to below 840 feet by next Wednesday. That level falls below what engineering documents show is normally required for flood control in wet weather. The biggest surge in water reaching the lake from the Feather Basin is forecast to arrive Tuesday, according to the planning documents. With the mandatory evacuation order for the Feather River lifted, life in Oroville is returning to normal. As a result, the Gold Country Casino and Hotel which has served as housing for emergency work crews is now asking contract workers to leave by Friday so the hotel can honor prior reservations. The workers can return Monday. The state also is operating a less luxurious emergency base camp nearby with meals provided by inmates on state firefighting crews.
More than 100,000 people in communities downstream of Lake Oroville were told to evacuate Sunday evening after authorities grew concerned that dangerous flood waters would start surging out of the huge reservoir.
The flood threat emerged suddenly Sunday afternoon when a hole developed in the auxiliary spillway that was being used for an emergency spill to lower the level of the full-to-the brim reservoir, the second-largest in California.
If the erosion advanced quickly uphill, it could undermine the concrete top of the spillway, allowing torrents of water to wash downhill into the Feather River and flood nearby Oroville and other downstream towns.
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Kevin Lawson of CalFire said it had threatened to unleash a 30-foot wall of water coming out of the lake.
But by 10 p.m. Sunday, officials said the immediate threat had passed because water had stopped washing over the emergency spillway.
Nonetheless, the situation at the reservoir remained precarious. The two main avenues for getting water out of the lake the unpaved emergency spillway and the main concrete spillway were both damaged.
Both spillways are separate from Oroville Dam itself, which state officials continued to say was not in danger. The main spillway, a long concrete chute off to the side of the dam, has a gaping gash in it that forced officials to reduce releases last week.
That caused the lake to quickly rise with heavy storm runoff, triggering emergency releases down the auxiliary spillway, which consists of a concrete weir at the reservoirs edge that sends flows down a hillside into the Feather River.
Although the emergency spill was small, it started to erode the hillside Sunday afternoon.
There was significant concern that [the erosion] would compromise the integrity of the spillway, resulting in a substantial release of water, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a Sunday evening news briefing.
We had to make a very critical and difficult decision to initiate the evacuation of the Oroville area, he added.
Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered, proclaimed a Sheriffs Department statement posted on social media. This is NOT A Drill.
The order affected rural communities located along the Feather River and included the counties of Butte, Yuba and Sutter. Oroville residents were told to make their way north of the lake to Chico, where an impromptu evacuation shelter had been set up at the fairgrounds.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services urged evacuees to travel only to the east, south or west. DO NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE, the department said on Twitter.
As traffic slowed to a crawl, travelers reported encountering road blocks heading north on California highways 70 and 99. For those headed south, the driving was no easier as thousands poured onto the highways in an attempt to evacuate.
Belen Castaneda, 23, a preschool teacher from Biggs, fled her home around 4:30 p.m. for the Silver Dollar fairgrounds.
We just grabbed everything we could, she said. Everyone was freaking out.
Castaneda and her family three sisters and her mom and dad drove in two separate cars, bringing along their elderly neighbor who doesnt speak English.
Castaneda said her family took special care to bring irreplaceable items. Old family pictures we had brought from Mexico that we had for a long time, Castaneda said, and our birth certificates.
1 / 66 An aerial view of the water flowing out of the Oroville Dam main spillway, in Oroville, Calif., on Tuesday, February 21, 2017. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 66 An aerial view of the water flowing out of the Oroville Dams main spillway on Feb. 21. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 66 Reduced water releases at the Oroville Dam have made damage to its main spillway more visible. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway; it has broken through and is flowing down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway, its broken through and is going down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway, its broken through and is going down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 66 Juan Alvarez reassures his girlfriend, Sarah Hendrix, after helping her move out of her home in rural Maxwell. Water was a foot high and crews had to evacuate 100 people because of flooding-- some by boat. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 66 Ron Chambers lets Duke out of his crate for the first time in hours since the flooding began n Maxwell, Calif. on Saturday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 66 Kevin Anfinson and other volunteers help shovel the muddy sediment that has built up in the salmon raceway at the Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 66 Fernando Martinez and his mother, not pictured, wade through a road in Gridley, Calif., flooded by the Feather River as it continues to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 66 A man in a 4x4 truck turns around on Gridley Road after having second thoughts about making it across the flooded road, which had been closed. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 66 Randy Boheim packs up his tools and emergency supplies in anticipation of having to evacuate his whole family as floodwaters creep closer to his home in an Oroville, Calif., mobile home park. The nearby Feather River continued to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville ahead of this weekends storm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 66 A plantation in Oroville, Calif., sits in floodwaters as the Feather River continues to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville ahead of this weekends storm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 66 Helicopters ferry sand and rocks to the Oroville Dams emergency spillway reconstruction project in Oroville, Calif., ahead of coming rains. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 66 California Water Service district manager Toni Ruggle surveys the Feather River at Bedrock Park downstream from the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 66 McKenna Harvey, 9, left, Kylie Atteberry, 11, and Brooklyn Atteberry, 7, hold signs thanking workers in the repair effort at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 66 A helicopter flies over as water flows from the main spillway at Lake Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 66 Reconstruction continues in a race to shore up the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 66 As rain clouds gather, friends from left, Johnny Eroh, Cody Balmer, Kristien Bravo and Jerel Bruhn hang out by the flooded Feather river in the Bedrock neighborhood of Oroville, Calif., last week. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 66 Evacuees at the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., listen to Butte County sheriffs deputies in February as the mandatory evacuation order was lifted. An evacuation advisory was lifted Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 66 Evacuees at the Bangor Community Hall get the news from Butte County sheriffs Deputy Jeff Heath that the evacuation order has been lifted. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 66 Evacuee Sharon Dalton, right, hugs Raiden Ellis, 10 months, and Chris Ellis as they say their goodbyes as she leaves the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., on Tuesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 66 David McGlamery returns to his Oroville home with his belongings after the evacuation order was lifted. The family had to retreat to Chico, where they initially stayed at a Walmart parking lot with other evacuees. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 66 Bill Tirey helps family members move back into their home in the Bedrock neighborhood of Oroville near the Feather River after evacuation orders were lifted. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 66 Maria Alancar returns home to greets her pet pig Bacon, who was left behind when the family moved to higher ground in Honcut, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 66 Sulet Lopez, 21, left, Melissa Mendoza, 3, and Yeanet Lopez, 18, pack up their car at the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., to head home after the evacuation order was lifted. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 66 Erica Stenholm, left, Ronnie Vaughan, and Brooklyn Jackson, 7, unpack their car upon returning home after the evacuation order had been lifted in Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 66 Jonah Avina, left, and his wife, Eileen, pray before lunch at the Maranatha Mennonite Fellowship in Bangor, Calif., on Tuesday. The Bangor-area Mennonites are hosting several immigrant families evacuated from the nearby town of Honcut. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 66 Evacuee Estafani Reynoso, left, colors with Mennonite children at the Maranatha Mennonite Fellowship in Bangor, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 66 Crews work on a damaged section of the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday. (Josh Edelson / AFP/ Getty Images) 31 / 66 An Oroville property is flooded on Monday as thousands were under evactuation orders. (Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images) 32 / 66 The Marysville cemetery underwater along the Feather River. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 66 Nirmal Singh, a Sikh priest, conducts a morning prayer ritual as evacuees sleep in the background at the Shri Guru Ravidass, a Sikh temple that has opened its doors for evacuees of the Oroville Dam crisis in Rio Linda, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 66 Kamlesh Nahar, far left, talks to fellow evacuees at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 66 Maria Lopez reads on her smartphone as she spends a second night in her fathers car in the parking lot of the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 66 Sharon Dalton finds a quiet spot under a table as she spends a second night with her dog Cruiser inside the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 66 Verna Chadwick and 10-month-old son Raiden Ellis during a second night in the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 66 The emergency spillway, left, and the damaged main spillway at Lake Oroville are seen in an aerial photo Monday. (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images) 39 / 66 A dump truck crosses the primary spillway to deliver boulders to the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 66 Helicopters place large rocks on the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 66 Around-the-clock monitoring continues on the damaged primary spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 66 Water rushes down a spillway at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 66 California Department of Fish and Game wardens view the damaged spillway on Monday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 66 Bill OKelley, 86, and wife Doris OKelley, 84, of Oroville sit near a flagpole Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 66 Coua Tha, of Oroville prepares a meal for her family in the parking lot at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 66 Desiree Garcia and daughter Kaylee Pearl Garcia, 3, of Oroville look over donated clothing Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 66 Members of Orovilles Jordan Crossing Mission pray with a volunteer service member Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation shelter in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 66 The swollen Feather River flows through Oroville, Calif., on Monday. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) 49 / 66 A building is submerged in Riverbend Park as more water is released from Lake Oroville. (JOSH EDELSON / AFP) 50 / 66 Siblings Zach Soto, 11, left, and Gabby Soto, 13, keep an eye on the Feather River along a railroad bridge in Oroville, Calif., on Monday. The family decided to stay in Oroville as they live on high ground near downtown. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 66 Water flows down the damaged main spillway of the Oroville Dam at 55,000 cubic feet per second into the Feather River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 66 Water from Lake Oroville flows down the damaged main spillway. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 66 Water from Lake Oroville flows down the emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam toward the Feather River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 66 Pacific Gas & Electric crews aided by a helicopter removed transmission lines and insulators from towers standing in the bed of the emergency spillway of Lake Oroville. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 66 A rainbow appears over Feather River as water cascades down the damaged spillway at Lake Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 66 Water cascades down the spillway below Oroville Dam. The water is being released by authorities to avoid flooding at Lake Oroville because of recent heavy rain. (David Butow / For The Times) 57 / 66 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews move two electric transmission line towers on the bank of Feather River as a precaution if the Lake Oroville Dam emergency spillway needs to be used. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 66 A California Highway Patrol cruiser patrols Lake Oroville Dam, which is closed to the public due to the damaged spillway. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 66 Water cascades down the spillway below the Oroville dam. The water is being released by authorities to ease flooding in Lake Oroville because of recent heavy rain. (David Butow / For the Times) 60 / 66 Butte Country Sheriff Kory L. Honea speaks with department of water and power workers at an overlook as the observe runoff from the Oroville Dam. (David Butow / For the Times) 61 / 66 Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure in Oroville, Calif. (Randy Pench / Associated Press) 62 / 66 A boat launch at Bidwell Canyon is still hundreds of yards above the current lake level on Jan. 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 66 California State Park Ranger Bryan Taylor searches for signs of disturbance or theft as Californias severe drought conditions are revealing historic artifacts at Lake Oroville, June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 64 / 66 Severe drought conditions are evident as a family treks across a long path back to their car at Lake Oroville, June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 66 Houseboats are dwarfed by steep banks that show the water level down 160 feet from the high water mark at the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge over Lake Oroville on June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 66 Houseboats at Bidwell Canyon Marina at Lake Oroville, January 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
She also grabbed a couple items from her sprawling makeup collection.
Some of that stuff is limited edition, she explained.
By Sunday night, experts were planning to plug the crevice in the emergency spillway with bags of rocks dropped from helicopters.
They had also doubled discharges down the main spillway to help lower the lake level and reduce the overflow.
Lake Oroville is the keystone of the State Water Project that sends Northern California water hundreds of miles south to the southern San Joaquin Valley and the Southland.
In addition to flooding concerns, if operators cant easily get water out of the lake that could interfere with deliveries to contractors, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
A series of powerful storms in Northern California sent runoff rushing into the lake just as a gaping hole developed in the main spillway Tuesday, forcing managers to reduce releases.
That pushed the reservoir to overflow Saturday, marking the first time the emergency spillway was used since the dam was finished in 1968. Until Sunday afternoon, it seemed to be going smoothly.
Millions of gallons of rushing water continued to pound and erode the massive Lake Oroville Dam spillway.
James Nash, 86, heard about the evacuation order from his apartment building manager. A retired chef and Korean War vet, he wasnt sure where to go.
He couldnt get to Chico on his bike. He had a small bag with shaving gear, a washcloth and paper towels. No blankets. No water, he said.
He remembered the 1997 evacuation order, which he ignored. There was no flooding then and he was pretty sure nothing would happen this time.
I dont believe its going to happen, he said.
But he wasnt comfortable enough to go back home, so he kept watching the water in the river below.
On Sunday evening, Christopher Cruz, 21, and his girlfriend, Jessica Isaacson, 18, waited outside of a CVS surrounded by the plastic jugs they had filled with water and the snacks and clothes theyd packed.
Stranded in Oroville, where they rent a room, they had hoped Isaacsons mother would pick them up, but she was stuck in Chico. Finally, they called local law enforcement, who told them to wait outside the pharmacy until someone came for them.
Cruz said that when Lake Oroville started to hit its overflow point a few years earlier, he had thought about packing a bag.
I just thought everything was going to blow over, he said.
This time, with no car, he and Isaacson had set out walking, only to run into a police officer who told them in no uncertain terms that they were going in a dangerous direction.
Heading that way is heading for death, he told them.
bettina.boxall@latimes.com | chris.megerian@latimes.com | paige.stjohn@latimes.com | melanie.mason@latimes.com
Times staff writers Anna Phillips and Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.
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Presley Amata had a little more warning than most that the emergency spillway releasing millions of gallons of water from Lake Oroville might fail.
A friend of her uncles works at the dam and called her Sunday afternoon with a warning to leave. Amata, 23, and her husband packed up their belongings with care and left their home in Yuba City on the Feather River, where floodwaters have been rising for the last few days as runoff from Lake Oroville spills downhill.
Yet for all her forewarning, Amata and her family made it only four miles out of town before they hit a traffic jam of epic proportions. Her father, who lives in nearby Marysville, couldnt even get to his car.
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I dont know what hes going to do, she said. He is trapped at a gas station and they have told him he has five hours to figure it out.
With estimates putting the number of residents ordered to evacuate at around 160,000, major roadways in rural communities along the Feather River came to a standstill Sunday night. Travelers reported encountering road blockades heading north on interstates 70 and 99. For those pointed south, the driving was no smoother. Fear of being trapped in flooded homes had sent people fleeing into a river of gridlock.
The evacuation orders arrived Sunday afternoon, only hours after officials with the California Department of Water Resources sought to assure residents that the rain-engorged reservoirs dam and its spillways were stable. The orders included the counties of Butte, Yuba and Sutter. Oroville residents were told to make their way north of the lake to Chico, where an impromptu evacuation shelter had been set up at the Silver Dollar fairgrounds.
Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered, the Butte County sheriff said in a statement posted on social media. This is NOT A Drill.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services urged evacuees to travel only to the east, south or west. DO NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE, the department said on Twitter.
Belen Castaneda, 23, a preschool teacher from nearby Biggs, fled her home around 4:30 p.m. for the fairgrounds. Along with her three sisters and her parents, she brought an elderly neighbor who doesnt speak English.
We just grabbed everything we could, she said. Everyone was freaking out.
She said her family made sure to pack irreplaceable items. Old family pictures we had brought from Mexico that we had for a long time, Castaneda said, and our birth certificates.
She also grabbed a couple of items from her sprawling makeup collection.
Some of that stuff is limited edition, she said.
Beau Bates, 31, of Yuba City said he had been watching the level of the Feather River rise for days. When it climbed high enough to submerge half of a small building across the water, he knew it was time to go.
Thats what I remember from the last flood, he said, referring to the flood in 1997 that led to an evacuation order. I remember my dad saying, Watch the river, Watch the river.
For Oroville City Councilwoman Marlene Del Rosario, 79, Sundays evacuation order was much more serious than what she remembered from 20 years ago.
I never thought anything like this would happen in my lifetime, she said. Theres never been a problem.
Not everyone could get out of the floodwaters projected path.
Sunday evening, Christopher Cruz, 21, and his girlfriend Jessica Isaacson, 18, waited outside a CVS surrounded by the plastic jugs they had filled with water and the snacks and clothes theyd packed.
Stranded in Oroville, where they rent a room, they had hoped Isaacsons mother would pick them up, but she was stuck in Chico. Finally, they called local law enforcement, who told them to wait outside of the pharmacy until someone came for them.
Cruz said that when Lake Oroville started to hit its overflow point a few days earlier, he had considered packing a bag.
I just thought everything was going to blow over, he said.
With no car, he and Isaacson had set out walking, only to run into a police officer who told them in no uncertain terms that they were going in the wrong direction.
Heading that way, he told them, is heading for death.
paige.stjohn@latimes.com
chris.megerian@latimes.com
melanie.mason@latimes.com
anna.phillips@latimes.com
A teacher at Montara Avenue Elementary School in South Gate died last week after contracting meningitis, leading parents to worry about whether their children might have been exposed.
The Los Angeles Unified School District issued a statement saying the Los Angeles County Public Health Department "is taking appropriate measures to identify and protect those who may have come in contact with our employee. They have provided preventative antibiotics, as well as information about meningococcal disease."
Parents gathered in front of the school Monday morning.
Public health officials also arrived to share more information with parents, said L.A. Unified spokeswoman Barbara Jones.
"We realize that our teachers death from a meningococcal bacteria-related illness may be causing concern. However, we want to assure our students, families and employees that their health and safety remain the district's top priority," the L.A. Unified statement said.
"L.A. Unified was notified late Friday of the cause of our teachers death."
District officials said they could not share the identity of the teacher for privacy reasons, but other news outlets have identified her as third-grade teacher Ramona Gedney.
A 2012 photo of Ramona Gedney (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
According to the Los Angeles County coroner's office, Gedney, who was 39, was pronounced dead in a Downey hospital Feb. 6. Coroners spokesman Craig Harvey said Monday morning that the cause of death had not been finalized.
Some are sharing memories of Gedney on Facebook.
The L.A. Unified news release directed parents to a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health information page on meningococcal disease. The disease can spread through coughing, sneezing or direct contact such as sharing food and drinks.
Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.
Kim Preston lodged her walking stick against a steep slope of crumbled granite dotted with dusty lupine, and began her descent.
Her destination lay 160 feet below the high-water mark a maze of bone-dry rock piles that miners had moved by hand to divert the Feather River in their search for gold.
Her task was to note any sign of vandalism or looting holes in the ground made by metal detectors, piles of treasure amassed by visitors who may not know that messing with artifacts or disturbing the soil of prehistoric Maidu tribal sites is illegal.
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Preston was accompanied one recent Saturday by Doug Richards, a fellow archaeological site steward, and state parks ranger Bryan Taylor. Not far from bedrock mortars worn over the ages by the grinding of acorns, they found a digging stick conspicuously close to several holes.
Weve had people filling up buckets and taking them home, said Preston, 61. But you cant dig in a state park not even with a spoon.
The activity exposed dark gray soil that contains carbon deposits indicative of ancient human settlement. She snapped a photograph while Richards, 71, noted the GPS location.
Both are volunteers with the California Archaeological Site Steward Program, which has grown over the last 15 years thanks to a Southern California couple who run it under the auspices of the Society for California Archaeology.
With reservoirs headed for historic lows, the program has taken on added importance.
At Lake Oroville State Recreation Area, the reservoir is at 42% capacity. As water levels gradually drop across the state, cutting grooves into the slopes like bathtub rings, archaeological sites are becoming more accessible offering a chance for new knowledge as well as temptation for looters.
The volunteer steward program gives rangers a whole other set of eyes that are just focusing on one thing, said Leslie Steidl, state parks archaeologist for the Northern Buttes District.
Its not our goal to keep people from enjoying the recreation, she said, but rather to enlist their help in protecting these cultural resources so that for generations people will have the opportunity to walk in these areas and actually see something.
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Hugging the Feather River 70 miles north of Sacramento, Oroville for millenniums has been home to the Maidu, who thrived as hunter-gatherers until their way of life was upended. In 1848, just months after the strike at Sutters Mill, John Bidwell discovered gold on the Middle Fork, and the town that would come to be known as Bidwells Bar sprang up.
With surface deposits exhausted, prospectors constructed small dams, flumes and ditches to redirect the river and access its bottom riches. Remnants of the boom dot the region but were extensively surveyed only recently.
Construction of Oroville Dam in the 1960s left historic sites such as Bidwells Bar and the smaller Enterprise inundated deep and out of reach. Sites closer to the edges, however, rise like ghosts when the water drops.
Many have now been studied, as required under a 1966 U.S. law, and because of federal re-licensing of the state Department of Water Resources to operate hydroelectric facilities here.
The lengthy and ongoing process prompted a massive inventory beginning in 2002 by scientists from Cal State Sacramento and Sonoma State who teamed with local tribes.
Although initial fieldwork is complete, Jacqueline Wait, a Department of Water Resources archaeologist, said work will continue: Theyve come to learn through the re-licensing surveys just how rich it is.
At the site that Preston and Richards recently monitored, Sonoma State researchers matched hand-drawn maps and letters from the historical record to the physical artifacts the rock piles those very miners had moved more than 160 years ago.
The details, however, will remain closely guarded. Documents with identifying details are exempt from public records law, Wait said, and stewards sign confidentiality agreements.
I dont even tell my husband, said Jolan Dobis, who works at the Lake Oroville visitor center and became a volunteer steward two years ago.
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Launched in 1999 by a U.S. Bureau of Land Management archaeologist, the steward program was soon handed to Beth and Chris Padon, who run a Signal Hill archaeological consulting firm.
Three years later, Steidl helped the Northern Buttes District become the first in the state parks system to participate. She was spurred by the horror of a visit to a looted Maidu site.
We came up over a rise and it looked like it had been dug up by a bunch of pigs, she recalled. And that area doesnt have wild pigs.
Steidl scrounged a grant for the training and worked with rangers to set up the program. She eventually became the district archaeologist and now has nearly three dozen volunteers.
With 167 miles of shoreline, the rangers welcome the help.
Taylor recently positioned himself at an overlook and saw no vehicles or people. If anyone had been there, he would have pulled out his spotting scope to scan for potentially illegal activity before beginning the climb down.
The district positions cameras in sensitive areas to capture license plate data. And if rangers manage to come upon looters in the act, they cite them. They did so this spring, Taylor said, after encountering men with shovels and sifters who conceded they had been chased from Folsom Lake by stricter enforcement.
Though many who disturb artifacts may not know any better, others can be troublesome. Among them are insomniac tweakers high on methamphetamine.
They just dig and dig like little squirrels, Dobis said.
Site stewards arent law enforcement and are trained to avoid conflict or confrontation. Instead, they blend in as hikers, surreptitiously photographing looters in action, jotting down license plates numbers and radioing rangers when they see something suspicious.
The drought has prompted a surge in monitoring close to the water, after Steidl last winter discovered Internet footage shot by a drone-mounted camera at Folsom Lake directing looters to previously submerged artifact-rich areas.
Right away I sent all those links to the rangers and said, We need to go back inside of the lake, she said.
At Steidls prompting, the Padons conducted another training in May at Clear Lake State Park. Of 18 new stewards, six will focus on Lake Oroville, the others at the three additional district parks.
Richards, retired and with a houseboat on the lake, completed his training two years ago. He was among stewards who recently walked a site with Michael Delacorte, co-director of Cal State Sacramentos Archaeological Research Center, and was delighted by an impromptu lecture on obsidian trading.
We learn so much, he said.
As for Preston, she retired a decade ago from the state parks system after 34 years and became a steward. Her son, a member of the Pit River tribe, worked at her side as a boy.
Ive always been around native people, she said. Ive learned so much from them. This is my way of giving back.
lee.romney@latimes.com
Twitter: @leeromney
Last spring, transportation officials opened two light-rail extensions to Azusa and Santa Monica, connecting the eastern and western reaches of Los Angeles County to the passenger rail system for the first time in decades.
Six months later, 71.5% of voters approved Measure M, a sales tax increase to expand the transit network again.
It was a red-letter year for public transportation with one exception: Ridership.
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Trips taken on the Metropolitan Transportation Authoritys sprawling bus and rail system dropped again in 2016, by nearly 6%, driven by a continuing slide in bus ridership, according to agency data.
Subway and light-rail boardings rose 4.4%, bolstered by the debut of the Gold Line and Expo Line extensions. But those gains did not cancel out a decline in annual bus ridership, which fell 8.9% to 304 million the lowest in more than a decade.
Although year-to-year ridership changes are worth noting, the bigger issue is how Metro has fared over time, said Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at UCLAs Luskin School of Public Affairs.
Since 2009, Metro has opened four new rail extensions at a cost of more than $4 billion. In the same period, rail ridership soared 21%, but bus trips a much larger share of overall ridership dropped 18%.
Weve made a lot of investments, and were going forward to make a lot more investments, Manville said. And at best, ridership hasnt grown.
Where bus riders have gone, and how to win them back, are questions that are vexing Metro officials as they lay the groundwork for the most ambitious rail expansion in L.A.s modern history.
Even if the rail network doubles in size, experts say, ample bus service will still be an essential cog in the transit system to shuttle passengers to and from train stations, to add capacity along major corridors, and to serve neighborhoods where rail wont be built.
Metro Chief Executive Phil Washington has said he hopes to convert 20% to 25% of commuters in the county into transit users. Right now, that number is closer to 7%, and it is lower in surrounding counties.
Passenger Ruben Villalobos departs the Metro Rapid Bus in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Officials say theyre studying why riders have left the system, and how to bring them back. They add that L.A.s bus woes are in line with other major cities that have shed passengers, including New York and Washington, D.C.
Some experts, including Manville, say Metro may have lost a small group of dedicated riders, who formerly took transit for commuting, running errands and other trips. Because those passengers take multiple trips per day, they have an outsize impact on overall ridership.
If we lose our core, bread-and-butter riders who use the system for every purpose, then thats going to have a bigger impact on us than losing someone who takes transit to Dodgers games, said Conan Cheung, Metros executive officer for finance.
Its possible that some Metro buses just dont take people where they need to go anymore or the trips just take too long, he added.
Some riders have found, after moving or getting a new job, that their once-simple transit commute now requires transferring multiple times.
Weve made a lot of investments, and were going forward to make a lot more investments. And at best, ridership hasnt grown. Michael Manville, UCLA urban planning professor
Passengers crowd a Metro bus in downtown Los Angeles. Trips taken on the Metropolitan Transportation Authoritys sprawling bus and rail system dropped in 2016 by nearly 6%. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Customers are saying that their travel patterns have changed, but we havent changed to reflect that, Cheung said.
In many major cities, commuters converge on a city center in the morning, then flow outward again at the end of the workday. In Los Angeles, Metro tries to serve an estimated 26 commercial hubs scattered across the region, from downtown to the Westside and the South Bay, by providing a grid of bus and rail lines.
But tweaks over the years to routes and schedules may have eroded the efficiency of some workhorse bus lines that serve major corridors, or made the routes more confusing for riders. It has been more than a decade since Metro has examined and overhauled the bus network, Cheung said.
As L.A.s economy has steadily improved, traffic has grown worse, and so has Metros on-time performance. Agency figures show that about 76% of buses arrived on time in the 2014 fiscal year. This year, the number is near 72%.
Were stuck in traffic, Cheung said. It makes bus service less attractive than other alternatives.
Those include driving and hailing an Uber or Lyft car, but also alternatives that Metro has publicly supported, including walking and biking.
As she boarded a Line 81 bus in downtown, Jessica McLane, 25, said she has taken transit since she was a child. McLane doesnt like the stress of driving, but after one too many times being late to work on the bus, she decided to start saving for a car.
For now, shes putting away small amounts each month, and catching rides with friends when she can.
I dont want anything fancy, McLane said, as the bus rumbled toward USC. Just something a little more reliable.
Officials say security also is a concern. In a recent survey, nearly three in 10 former passengers told Metro they stopped riding because they felt unsafe.
Metro has recently doubled its fleet of private security guards and has urged the agencys directors to hire other law enforcement agencies to patrol parts of the system traditionally overseen by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.
What we consistently hear is that security issues and customer conduct are the main reasons folks have left our system, Metro spokeswoman Pauletta Tonilas said.
Recent changes to policies that affect immigrants one of Metros most loyal customer bases play a role too, she said.
Census data show that many immigrants ride the bus or train when they first arrive in Los Angeles. But the longer they live in the area, the less likely they are to keep riding, either because they gain access to a car or move to a suburb with fewer transit options.
Immigration rates to Southern California also have slowed since a peak in the 1980s, reducing the number of new immigrants who rely on Metro, Cheung said.
Other riders may have taken advantage of a new law in 2015 that allowed undocumented immigrants to apply for California drivers licenses. In its first year, more than 600,000 people received licenses.
Metro officials add that some ridership declines are a sign that new investments in the system are working as they should.
The systems most-traveled bus route, which connects East Los Angeles and Santa Monica, saw a 13% decline in ridership from 2015 to 2016. But some of those riders on the 720 Rapid may have transferred to the Expo Line, which runs along a roughly parallel route a few miles to the south.
To a certain extent, the rail lines cannibalize the bus, Manville said. If you happen to live near a rail line that opens up, and the rail line is faster and more comfortable, then you move over.
The Expo Line saw a 15.5% increase in trips in 2016, driven by the $1.5-billion extension to Santa Monica that opened in May.
laura.nelson@latimes.com
Twitter: @laura_nelson
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In a case that has sent a chill through the ranks of child protection workers nationwide, a Los Angeles County judge will soon decide if there is sufficient evidence to put four social workers on trial for criminal negligence in the death of an 8-year-old Palmdale boy they were charged with protecting.
Gabriel Fernandez died in May 2013, after suffering months of torture and abuse at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend, according to prosecutors. The two are awaiting trial on capital murder charges.
But the spotlight is also on four former Department of Children and Family Services employees who are charged with felony child abuse and falsifying public records.
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Prosecutors allege that caseworkers Stefanie Rodriguez and Patricia Clement and supervisors Kevin Bom and Gregory Merritt ignored evidence of repeated abuse and minimized Gabriels injuries.
L.A. sheriffs deputies disciplined after horrific torture death of 8-year-old boy
The Fernandez case is the first in Los Angeles in which social workers face criminal charges in performing their duties, said prosecutors, and is one of only a handful of such cases filed nationwide in recent decades.
In two weeks of testimony during a preliminary hearing, Gabriels first-grade teacher and other witnesses testified to their mounting concern over signs of physical abuse facial bruises, scabs, missing tufts of hair, busted lips and alarm that their calls to the caseworkers went unheeded. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge M.L. Villar is scheduled to rule this week on whether the evidence warrants a criminal trial.
The county fired the social workers, but Merritt is appealing his termination in court. All four vehemently deny any wrongdoing.
They are scapegoats, said Merritts attorney, Jim Barnes. There are plenty of other people here involved in the decision-making.
The decision by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey to prosecute the employees surprised many child protection experts, who fear the case may hamper efforts to recruit social workers for public sector jobs.
This case is creating a lot of apprehension, said Janlee Wong, executive director of the California chapter of the National Assn. of Social Workers. People considering whether to choose to go into the field of child protective social work are now considering, Could I face criminal charges if something goes wrong?
Wong would not comment on the merits of the Los Angeles prosecution, but said social workers are ground troops who, for the most part, follow orders from their superiors.
When a kid dies, there is plenty of guilt to go around and responsibility that ought to be shouldered, Wong said. When we pick on certain people we want to be held responsible, were not holding the entire system responsible.
Marilyn Flynn, dean of USCs Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, said the county department had been deeply troubled for years, plagued by outdated systems, high caseloads and frequent turnover of leadership. This affected the quality of supervision, the ability of the workers to make consistent decisions and demoralized employees, Flynn said.
Prosecutors filed the case after the countys child welfare department requested a review of its own internal investigation.
In our rigorous reconstruction of the events surrounding Gabriels death, we found that four of our social workers had failed to perform their jobs. I directed that all of them be discharged, the departments then-director, Philip Browning, said.
Social workers Stefanie Rodriguez, third from left, and Patricia Clement, far left, and supervisors Kevin Bom, second from right, and Gregory Merritt, fourth from right, appear for their arraignment. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
In testimony during the preliminary hearing, Summerwind Elementary School teacher Jennifer Garcia said in the months before Gabriels death, she repeatedly reported to county child service workers new signs of abuse that prosecutors say came at the hands of his mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre.
A few weeks into the 2012-13 school year, Garcia saw a facial bruise the size of a half-dollar on the boy and he revealed he was beaten with a belt buckle, drawing blood, she said. She immediately called a county child abuse hotline and received a call back from social worker Rodriguez, she testified.
In January 2013, Garcia said, Gabriel came to school with swollen eyes and a pockmarked face. At first, he said he had fallen, but he then told her, My mom shot me in the face with a BB gun, she testified.
On two occasions, she testified, a fearful Gabriel asked, Can you call that lady?, referring to the county social worker he knew she had been calling. Garcia said she began to lose confidence in child protective services as months passed and Gabriel remained with his mother.
I kind of started to feel nothing was happening, she testified.
Records show Rodriguez went to the home to investigate and documented small bruises and swelling on Gabriels face. His mother blamed her other son for firing rubber pellets at Gabriel, according to her notes. Rodriguez also looked into the belt beating, but the boy denied his earlier story, calling it a joke, she wrote in her report. After the BB gun incident, Clement, a former nun and juvenile hall chaplain, took over the case from Rodriguez.
In announcing the charges, Lacey said: When their negligence is so great as to become criminal, young lives are put at risk. We believe these social workers were criminally negligent and performed their legal duties with willful disregard for Gabriels well-being.
Prosecutors have declined to provide details of the charges, such as how records may have been falsified.
Lance M. Filer, Rodriguezs attorney, said there is no evidence his client fabricated anything in her case notes or reports. They are trying to hold our clients responsible for the independent actions of criminals, he said, referring to Gabriels mother and her boyfriend.
Hagop Kuyumjian, the attorney for Bom, one of the supervisors, has insisted that his client was reliant on Rodriguezs reports and had no direct knowledge of abusive acts.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant in January 2016 overturned a civil service commissions decision to reinstate Merritt, noting that as the supervising social worker he approved Clements proposal to override the familys high-risk score on an assessment and directed the case be closed in April 2013.
The next month, paramedics arrived at the Palmdale home to find Gabriel not breathing. His skull was cracked, three ribs were broken and his skin was bruised and burned. He had BB pellets embedded in his lung and groin. Two teeth had been knocked out.
Merritts attorney has suggested that the escalation of violence occurred after the case was closed and the family was no longer under the supervision of the child services department. According to testimony of a detective assigned to the case, Gabriels brother said the boy was shot with metal BBs and had his teeth knocked out in the weeks before his death, and alleged violence at the hands of Aguirre increased after he thought Gabriel had taken a knife and a credit card.
Shelly Albert, Clements attorney, asserted that the four social workers are the target of selective prosecution and that other social workers and mandated reporters, including sheriffs deputies who responded to abuse reports, are being given a pass. Garcia, the boys teacher, said she never spoke directly with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.
Several deputies who went to the home to conduct welfare checks have been disciplined, according to sheriffs officials. None, officials said, have lost their job or faced prosecution.
To read the article in Spanish, click here
richard.winton@latimes.com
Twitter: @lacrimes
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A man stole a van parked outside a mortuary in Riverside early Sunday morning, only to discover there was a body inside, police said.
Bobby Joe Washington, 24, returned the van about an hour later, then stole a different van from the same business, police said. When a mortuary worker tried to stop him, he tried to run that person over, according to police.
I dont think Ive ever heard of anything like this, said Riverside Police Department spokesman Ryan Railsback. Out of all the bad decisions he made, he at least made one good one and brought back the deceased person.
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Washington was arrested about 2 miles from the mortuary on the 1900th block of Chicago Avenue. He was charged with two counts of auto theft, one count of evading police and one count of assault with a deadly weapon.
He wasnt charged with stealing the dead body because police officials said they believe he didnt mean to take it.
We dont think he knew it was in there at the time he stole it, Railsback said.
The incident began around 1:30 a.m. The driver had just picked up a deceased person and returned to the mortuary to pick up some paperwork. He left the keys in the car and briefly went inside, officials said.
Thats when the first van was stolen. About an hour later, police were notified that a second van was stolen.
Washington, who is from Riverside, led police on a 10-minute chase that ended at Linden Street and Canyon Crest Drive, police said.
The suspect was uncooperative, Railsback said. Until the canines got there.
esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com
@LATBermudez
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A man was arrested early Monday in connection with attempting to rape a 17-year-old girl while she was jogging in a residential neighborhood in Ontario, police said.
Christopher Collins, 24, of Ontario was taken into custody at his home on suspicion of attempted rape, according to the Ontario Police Department. He remains in custody in lieu of $250,000 bail.
The girl was jogging at 4:43 p.m. Sunday through the Creekside neighborhood in Ontario when Collins tackled her, police said.
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Collins pinned the girl to the ground and attempted to remove her clothes, police said. But the girl fought back and Collins to ran away, authorities said.
The girl was not seriously injured in the attack.
Police said Collins was later identified as the attacker.
veronica.rocha@latimes.com
Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
California officials are frantically trying to rapidly reduce water levels behind Oroville Dam the nations tallest after issuing evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people who live downstream.
Heres an explainer for the current crisis, and how authorities are racing to prevent catastrophic flooding from affecting the Central Valley.
Whats the biggest concern?
The biggest concern was that a concrete wall, built atop a hillside, that keeps water in Lake Oroville Californias second largest reservoir would suddenly crumble Sunday afternoon, threatening the lives of thousands of people by flooding communities downstream.
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With Lake Oroville filled to the brim, such a collapse could have caused a 30 foot wall of water coming out of the lake, Cal-Fire incident commander Kevin Lawson said at a Sunday night press conference.
Live updates: Crisis at Oroville Dam
1 / 66 An aerial view of the water flowing out of the Oroville Dam main spillway, in Oroville, Calif., on Tuesday, February 21, 2017. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 66 An aerial view of the water flowing out of the Oroville Dams main spillway on Feb. 21. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 66 Reduced water releases at the Oroville Dam have made damage to its main spillway more visible. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway; it has broken through and is flowing down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway, its broken through and is going down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway, its broken through and is going down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 66 Juan Alvarez reassures his girlfriend, Sarah Hendrix, after helping her move out of her home in rural Maxwell. Water was a foot high and crews had to evacuate 100 people because of flooding-- some by boat. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 66 Ron Chambers lets Duke out of his crate for the first time in hours since the flooding began n Maxwell, Calif. on Saturday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 66 Kevin Anfinson and other volunteers help shovel the muddy sediment that has built up in the salmon raceway at the Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 66 Fernando Martinez and his mother, not pictured, wade through a road in Gridley, Calif., flooded by the Feather River as it continues to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 66 A man in a 4x4 truck turns around on Gridley Road after having second thoughts about making it across the flooded road, which had been closed. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 66 Randy Boheim packs up his tools and emergency supplies in anticipation of having to evacuate his whole family as floodwaters creep closer to his home in an Oroville, Calif., mobile home park. The nearby Feather River continued to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville ahead of this weekends storm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 66 A plantation in Oroville, Calif., sits in floodwaters as the Feather River continues to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville ahead of this weekends storm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 66 Helicopters ferry sand and rocks to the Oroville Dams emergency spillway reconstruction project in Oroville, Calif., ahead of coming rains. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 66 California Water Service district manager Toni Ruggle surveys the Feather River at Bedrock Park downstream from the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 66 McKenna Harvey, 9, left, Kylie Atteberry, 11, and Brooklyn Atteberry, 7, hold signs thanking workers in the repair effort at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 66 A helicopter flies over as water flows from the main spillway at Lake Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 66 Reconstruction continues in a race to shore up the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 66 As rain clouds gather, friends from left, Johnny Eroh, Cody Balmer, Kristien Bravo and Jerel Bruhn hang out by the flooded Feather river in the Bedrock neighborhood of Oroville, Calif., last week. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 66 Evacuees at the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., listen to Butte County sheriffs deputies in February as the mandatory evacuation order was lifted. An evacuation advisory was lifted Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 66 Evacuees at the Bangor Community Hall get the news from Butte County sheriffs Deputy Jeff Heath that the evacuation order has been lifted. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 66 Evacuee Sharon Dalton, right, hugs Raiden Ellis, 10 months, and Chris Ellis as they say their goodbyes as she leaves the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., on Tuesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 66 David McGlamery returns to his Oroville home with his belongings after the evacuation order was lifted. The family had to retreat to Chico, where they initially stayed at a Walmart parking lot with other evacuees. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 66 Bill Tirey helps family members move back into their home in the Bedrock neighborhood of Oroville near the Feather River after evacuation orders were lifted. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 66 Maria Alancar returns home to greets her pet pig Bacon, who was left behind when the family moved to higher ground in Honcut, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 66 Sulet Lopez, 21, left, Melissa Mendoza, 3, and Yeanet Lopez, 18, pack up their car at the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., to head home after the evacuation order was lifted. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 66 Erica Stenholm, left, Ronnie Vaughan, and Brooklyn Jackson, 7, unpack their car upon returning home after the evacuation order had been lifted in Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 66 Jonah Avina, left, and his wife, Eileen, pray before lunch at the Maranatha Mennonite Fellowship in Bangor, Calif., on Tuesday. The Bangor-area Mennonites are hosting several immigrant families evacuated from the nearby town of Honcut. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 66 Evacuee Estafani Reynoso, left, colors with Mennonite children at the Maranatha Mennonite Fellowship in Bangor, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 66 Crews work on a damaged section of the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday. (Josh Edelson / AFP/ Getty Images) 31 / 66 An Oroville property is flooded on Monday as thousands were under evactuation orders. (Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images) 32 / 66 The Marysville cemetery underwater along the Feather River. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 66 Nirmal Singh, a Sikh priest, conducts a morning prayer ritual as evacuees sleep in the background at the Shri Guru Ravidass, a Sikh temple that has opened its doors for evacuees of the Oroville Dam crisis in Rio Linda, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 66 Kamlesh Nahar, far left, talks to fellow evacuees at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 66 Maria Lopez reads on her smartphone as she spends a second night in her fathers car in the parking lot of the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 66 Sharon Dalton finds a quiet spot under a table as she spends a second night with her dog Cruiser inside the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 66 Verna Chadwick and 10-month-old son Raiden Ellis during a second night in the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 66 The emergency spillway, left, and the damaged main spillway at Lake Oroville are seen in an aerial photo Monday. (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images) 39 / 66 A dump truck crosses the primary spillway to deliver boulders to the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 66 Helicopters place large rocks on the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 66 Around-the-clock monitoring continues on the damaged primary spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 66 Water rushes down a spillway at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 66 California Department of Fish and Game wardens view the damaged spillway on Monday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 66 Bill OKelley, 86, and wife Doris OKelley, 84, of Oroville sit near a flagpole Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 66 Coua Tha, of Oroville prepares a meal for her family in the parking lot at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 66 Desiree Garcia and daughter Kaylee Pearl Garcia, 3, of Oroville look over donated clothing Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 66 Members of Orovilles Jordan Crossing Mission pray with a volunteer service member Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation shelter in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 66 The swollen Feather River flows through Oroville, Calif., on Monday. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) 49 / 66 A building is submerged in Riverbend Park as more water is released from Lake Oroville. (JOSH EDELSON / AFP) 50 / 66 Siblings Zach Soto, 11, left, and Gabby Soto, 13, keep an eye on the Feather River along a railroad bridge in Oroville, Calif., on Monday. The family decided to stay in Oroville as they live on high ground near downtown. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 66 Water flows down the damaged main spillway of the Oroville Dam at 55,000 cubic feet per second into the Feather River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 66 Water from Lake Oroville flows down the damaged main spillway. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 66 Water from Lake Oroville flows down the emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam toward the Feather River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 66 Pacific Gas & Electric crews aided by a helicopter removed transmission lines and insulators from towers standing in the bed of the emergency spillway of Lake Oroville. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 66 A rainbow appears over Feather River as water cascades down the damaged spillway at Lake Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 66 Water cascades down the spillway below Oroville Dam. The water is being released by authorities to avoid flooding at Lake Oroville because of recent heavy rain. (David Butow / For The Times) 57 / 66 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews move two electric transmission line towers on the bank of Feather River as a precaution if the Lake Oroville Dam emergency spillway needs to be used. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 66 A California Highway Patrol cruiser patrols Lake Oroville Dam, which is closed to the public due to the damaged spillway. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 66 Water cascades down the spillway below the Oroville dam. The water is being released by authorities to ease flooding in Lake Oroville because of recent heavy rain. (David Butow / For the Times) 60 / 66 Butte Country Sheriff Kory L. Honea speaks with department of water and power workers at an overlook as the observe runoff from the Oroville Dam. (David Butow / For the Times) 61 / 66 Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure in Oroville, Calif. (Randy Pench / Associated Press) 62 / 66 A boat launch at Bidwell Canyon is still hundreds of yards above the current lake level on Jan. 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 66 California State Park Ranger Bryan Taylor searches for signs of disturbance or theft as Californias severe drought conditions are revealing historic artifacts at Lake Oroville, June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 64 / 66 Severe drought conditions are evident as a family treks across a long path back to their car at Lake Oroville, June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 66 Houseboats are dwarfed by steep banks that show the water level down 160 feet from the high water mark at the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge over Lake Oroville on June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 66 Houseboats at Bidwell Canyon Marina at Lake Oroville, January 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Whats so special about this concrete wall ?
This particular concrete wall was chosen to act as an emergency spillway for Lake Oroville a pathway for excess water to drain when the reservoir is filled to the brim.
If Lake Oroville became too full, and a main concrete spillway couldnt drain the reservoir fast enough, water would then empty out of this emergency spillway, flowing over this low concrete wall known as a weir washing past a roadway and down a tree-lined hillside.
The emergency spillway was designed so that water would always drain at this location when the dam was full. That would keep Oroville Dam, built at a different location, safe from being overtopped by water.
So on Saturday, rising reservoir water put the emergency spillway to use for the first time since Oroville Dam was completed in 1968.
When did officials realize something was terribly wrong?
Officials had thought things were going fine until suddenly, on Sunday afternoon, authorities were alerted to what they described as erosion developing near the emergency spillway.
(Raoul Ranoa/Los Angeles Times)
The erosion was occurring so fast that officials feared the concrete wall would be undermined, and that it would cause a catastrophic release of water downstream. Officials said they couldnt wait to act if the worst-case scenario struck, and ordered sweeping evacuations.
What has happened since the evacuations were ordered?
The situation has improved. There has been no catastrophic collapse of the concrete wall on top of the emergency spillway, which would have resulted in an overwhelming release of water downstream.
Officials decided to focus their efforts on draining the lake to funneling more water down the main spillway, a concrete slide that is supposed to be the primary way of draining a full Lake Oroville. The main spillway itself was hobbled last week, as parts of it began disintegrating as a giant pothole formed underneath a section.
Authorities knew they had to take pressure off the emergency spillway, so they began sending more water down the main spillway late Sunday. They increased the flow from 55,000 cubic feet per second to 100,000 cubic feet per second, and hoped for the best.
They were in luck on Sunday night. Sundays increased flows did not appear to damage the main spillway further. And before midnight, the main spillway had drained the lake enough so that water was no longer flowing down the emergency spillway.
The dry weather early this week helped. As of Sunday night, only 40,000 cubic feet of water per second was flowing into Lake Oroville, and because 100,000 of cubic feet of water per second is flowing out, lake levels are being reduced.
All 23,000 California National Guard soldiers and airmen ordered to be on alert for Oroville
So whats the plan Monday morning?
Officials need to assess the emergency spillway this morning. Authorities havent been able to begin to make a fix.
And theyre hoping to drain as much water as they can before a new round of storms is forecast to arrive in Northern California later this week.
If officials believe they can send an even faster torrent of water down the main spillway, they will, said Bill Croyle, the acting director of the California Department of Water Resources, at a late night news conference.
What level does the water in Lake Oroville need to get down to for officials to start feeling better?
At the height of the crisis on Sunday, the lake was topped out at 902 feet. Officials would like the lake to fall by an elevation of 50 feet.
Why is it a bad sign for officials to even need to use the emergency spillway?
Its a bad sign because officials dont have any ability to control how much water goes into the emergency spillway, as can be done with the main spillway.
Authorities want to keep a speed limit on how fast water flows from Lake Oroville down the Feather River, which runs past Oroville, Marysville and Yuba City before merging with the Sacramento River and heading to Californias capital.
Californias flood control system along Oroville can handle only a speed of 150,000 cubic feet of water per second. If water flows faster than that, catastrophic flooding can happen.
We dont like to press it to the edge if we dont have to, Croyle said.
Have officials had to push the Feather River to its limit before?
Yes, during the historic 1997 rains. There was flooding in and around the valley, but we did pass water through this region without too much trouble, Croyle said.
What happened in 1997?
Several levee breaks were reported in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. But it was nothing compared with the worst-case scenarios envisioned Sunday.
Is there any way this situation could have been avoided?
Thats a question many people will be wondering about for some time. Croyle was asked this question at Sunday nights news conference: why didnt officials increase the flow down the damaged main spillway earlier?
Croyles answer, essentially, was that officials were reacting to the best information they had at the time.
What were they reacting to?
The first situation officials reacted to was news of the damage in the main concrete spillway Tuesday. Officials stopped water draining out of the lake to inspect the damage, and studied it to see if they could fix it.
But we determined we could not fix the hole, Croyle said. It was 250 feet long, 170 feet wide, and almost 40 to 50 feet deep. There wasnt enough time to keep the chute dry and fix it. Officials thought they had no choice other than to use the main spillway even in its crippled state, even though it would be further damaged by resuming its use.
The result is a balancing act drain as much water as quickly as possible while trying not to further damage the spillway as much as can be helped. After all, the crippled main spillway needs to last for the remainder of the rainy season.
By Friday, officials had held out hope that they wouldnt need to use the emergency spillway. But then it rained Friday night.
It came in a little wetter. The storm system parked over this region of California was parked a little longer, Croyle said.
It was only after the emergency spillway was revealed to be in dire condition that officials roughly doubled the amount of water flowing out of the main spillway. By that point, luckily, the deterioration of the main spillway had largely stabilized, although there is still cause for concern.
How much time do officials have before the next rainstorm arrives?
The National Weather Service forecasts Monday and Tuesday will be dry and mild, allowing river levels to recede.
Light to moderate rain is expected Wednesday into Thursday, which is forecast to cause limited rising in rivers.
The situation gets worse by the weekend, however, as new storms arrive. The river could begin rising again as early as Friday, and area-wide flooding could happen between Sunday and Tuesday.
ron.lin@latimes.com
@ronlin
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Workers are expected on Monday to begin repairing erosion at the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville that threatened to flood downstream towns and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes Sunday.
Officials said they would use bags of rocks to try to plug the hole at the emergency spillway. Preparations were underway Monday morning, with workers gathering supplies for the repair job and trucks bringing in rocks and other materials.
They emphasized the situation remains dangerous at the reservoir and urged residents in communities along the Feather River to evacuate to higher ground.
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The flood danger emerged suddenly when a hole developed Sunday in the auxiliary spillway that was being used to lower the levels of the full-to-the brim reservoir, the second-largest in California.
The erosion could undermine the concrete top of the spillway, allowing torrents of water to wash downhill into the Feather River and flood Oroville and other towns in Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties.
Sunday night, officials said the threat had diminished because the lake level had dropped and water was no longer washing over the emergency spillway.
But the situation at Oroville remained precarious. The two main avenues for getting water out of the lake the unpaved emergency spillway and the main concrete spillway were both damaged.
Both spillways are separate from Oroville Dam itself, which state officials continued to say was not in danger. The main spillway, a long concrete chute off to the side of the dam, has a gaping gash in it that forced officials to reduce releases last week.
But a new storm system forecast for later this week put water officials on a race against time. Bill Croyle, the acting director of the state Department of Water Resources, said they planned to continue discharging flows at a rate of 100,000 cubic feet per second, with the hope of lowering the reservoir level by 50 feet.
Gov. Jerry Brown late Sunday issued an emergency order aimed at speeding up state aid for the Oroville efforts.
Ive been in close contact with emergency personnel managing the situation in Oroville throughout the weekend and its clear the circumstances are complex and rapidly changing, Brown said in a statement. I want to thank local and state law enforcement for leading evacuation efforts and doing their part to keep residents safe. The state is directing all necessary personnel and resources to deal with this very serious situation.
Earlier in the day, Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said that the hole was developing near the lower edge of the emergency spillway and eroding at a rather significant rate.
There was significant concern that [the hole] would compromise the integrity of the spillway, resulting in a substantial release of water, Honea said. We had to make a very critical and difficult decision to initiate the evacuation of the Oroville area.
Those in Oroville, a city of about 16,000 people, were asked to flee northward toward Chico, along with Gridley and Biggs. In Yuba County, those in Marysville and other communities in the countys valley floor were urged to take routes to the east, south or west. In Sutter County, evacuations were ordered for Yuba City, Live Oak, Nicolaus and all communities around the Feather River basin.
This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill, proclaimed a Sheriffs Department statement posted on social media. Authorities urged residents to contact neighbors and family members and reach out to the elderly and assist them in evacuating.
To slow the erosion on the emergency spillway, state Department of Water Resources officials doubled the flow of water down the main spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second. The rapid increase drastically reduced the water coming over the emergency spillway.
The dam itself is structurally sound, officials said.
1 / 66 An aerial view of the water flowing out of the Oroville Dam main spillway, in Oroville, Calif., on Tuesday, February 21, 2017. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 66 An aerial view of the water flowing out of the Oroville Dams main spillway on Feb. 21. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 66 Reduced water releases at the Oroville Dam have made damage to its main spillway more visible. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway; it has broken through and is flowing down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway, its broken through and is going down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 66 With a reduced flow on Sunday, most of the water being released from the Oroville Dam is not going down the spillway, its broken through and is going down the hillside. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 66 Juan Alvarez reassures his girlfriend, Sarah Hendrix, after helping her move out of her home in rural Maxwell. Water was a foot high and crews had to evacuate 100 people because of flooding-- some by boat. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 66 Ron Chambers lets Duke out of his crate for the first time in hours since the flooding began n Maxwell, Calif. on Saturday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 66 Kevin Anfinson and other volunteers help shovel the muddy sediment that has built up in the salmon raceway at the Feather River Fish Hatchery in Oroville, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 66 Fernando Martinez and his mother, not pictured, wade through a road in Gridley, Calif., flooded by the Feather River as it continues to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 66 A man in a 4x4 truck turns around on Gridley Road after having second thoughts about making it across the flooded road, which had been closed. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 66 Randy Boheim packs up his tools and emergency supplies in anticipation of having to evacuate his whole family as floodwaters creep closer to his home in an Oroville, Calif., mobile home park. The nearby Feather River continued to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville ahead of this weekends storm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 66 A plantation in Oroville, Calif., sits in floodwaters as the Feather River continues to swell from the water being let out of Lake Oroville ahead of this weekends storm. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 66 Helicopters ferry sand and rocks to the Oroville Dams emergency spillway reconstruction project in Oroville, Calif., ahead of coming rains. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 66 California Water Service district manager Toni Ruggle surveys the Feather River at Bedrock Park downstream from the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 66 McKenna Harvey, 9, left, Kylie Atteberry, 11, and Brooklyn Atteberry, 7, hold signs thanking workers in the repair effort at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 66 A helicopter flies over as water flows from the main spillway at Lake Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 66 Reconstruction continues in a race to shore up the emergency spillway at Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 66 As rain clouds gather, friends from left, Johnny Eroh, Cody Balmer, Kristien Bravo and Jerel Bruhn hang out by the flooded Feather river in the Bedrock neighborhood of Oroville, Calif., last week. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 66 Evacuees at the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., listen to Butte County sheriffs deputies in February as the mandatory evacuation order was lifted. An evacuation advisory was lifted Wednesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 66 Evacuees at the Bangor Community Hall get the news from Butte County sheriffs Deputy Jeff Heath that the evacuation order has been lifted. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 66 Evacuee Sharon Dalton, right, hugs Raiden Ellis, 10 months, and Chris Ellis as they say their goodbyes as she leaves the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., on Tuesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 66 David McGlamery returns to his Oroville home with his belongings after the evacuation order was lifted. The family had to retreat to Chico, where they initially stayed at a Walmart parking lot with other evacuees. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 66 Bill Tirey helps family members move back into their home in the Bedrock neighborhood of Oroville near the Feather River after evacuation orders were lifted. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 66 Maria Alancar returns home to greets her pet pig Bacon, who was left behind when the family moved to higher ground in Honcut, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 66 Sulet Lopez, 21, left, Melissa Mendoza, 3, and Yeanet Lopez, 18, pack up their car at the Bangor Community Hall in Bangor, Calif., to head home after the evacuation order was lifted. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 66 Erica Stenholm, left, Ronnie Vaughan, and Brooklyn Jackson, 7, unpack their car upon returning home after the evacuation order had been lifted in Oroville. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 66 Jonah Avina, left, and his wife, Eileen, pray before lunch at the Maranatha Mennonite Fellowship in Bangor, Calif., on Tuesday. The Bangor-area Mennonites are hosting several immigrant families evacuated from the nearby town of Honcut. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 66 Evacuee Estafani Reynoso, left, colors with Mennonite children at the Maranatha Mennonite Fellowship in Bangor, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 66 Crews work on a damaged section of the emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday. (Josh Edelson / AFP/ Getty Images) 31 / 66 An Oroville property is flooded on Monday as thousands were under evactuation orders. (Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images) 32 / 66 The Marysville cemetery underwater along the Feather River. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 66 Nirmal Singh, a Sikh priest, conducts a morning prayer ritual as evacuees sleep in the background at the Shri Guru Ravidass, a Sikh temple that has opened its doors for evacuees of the Oroville Dam crisis in Rio Linda, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 66 Kamlesh Nahar, far left, talks to fellow evacuees at the Shri Guru Ravidass Temple. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 66 Maria Lopez reads on her smartphone as she spends a second night in her fathers car in the parking lot of the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 66 Sharon Dalton finds a quiet spot under a table as she spends a second night with her dog Cruiser inside the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 66 Verna Chadwick and 10-month-old son Raiden Ellis during a second night in the Bangor Community Hall. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 66 The emergency spillway, left, and the damaged main spillway at Lake Oroville are seen in an aerial photo Monday. (Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images) 39 / 66 A dump truck crosses the primary spillway to deliver boulders to the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 66 Helicopters place large rocks on the damaged emergency spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 66 Around-the-clock monitoring continues on the damaged primary spillway at Lake Oroville on Monday evening. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 66 Water rushes down a spillway at the Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 66 California Department of Fish and Game wardens view the damaged spillway on Monday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 66 Bill OKelley, 86, and wife Doris OKelley, 84, of Oroville sit near a flagpole Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 66 Coua Tha, of Oroville prepares a meal for her family in the parking lot at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 66 Desiree Garcia and daughter Kaylee Pearl Garcia, 3, of Oroville look over donated clothing Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation center in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 66 Members of Orovilles Jordan Crossing Mission pray with a volunteer service member Monday at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds evacuation shelter in Chico, Calif. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 66 The swollen Feather River flows through Oroville, Calif., on Monday. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) 49 / 66 A building is submerged in Riverbend Park as more water is released from Lake Oroville. (JOSH EDELSON / AFP) 50 / 66 Siblings Zach Soto, 11, left, and Gabby Soto, 13, keep an eye on the Feather River along a railroad bridge in Oroville, Calif., on Monday. The family decided to stay in Oroville as they live on high ground near downtown. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 66 Water flows down the damaged main spillway of the Oroville Dam at 55,000 cubic feet per second into the Feather River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 66 Water from Lake Oroville flows down the damaged main spillway. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 66 Water from Lake Oroville flows down the emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam toward the Feather River. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 66 Pacific Gas & Electric crews aided by a helicopter removed transmission lines and insulators from towers standing in the bed of the emergency spillway of Lake Oroville. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 66 A rainbow appears over Feather River as water cascades down the damaged spillway at Lake Oroville Dam. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 66 Water cascades down the spillway below Oroville Dam. The water is being released by authorities to avoid flooding at Lake Oroville because of recent heavy rain. (David Butow / For The Times) 57 / 66 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews move two electric transmission line towers on the bank of Feather River as a precaution if the Lake Oroville Dam emergency spillway needs to be used. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 66 A California Highway Patrol cruiser patrols Lake Oroville Dam, which is closed to the public due to the damaged spillway. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 66 Water cascades down the spillway below the Oroville dam. The water is being released by authorities to ease flooding in Lake Oroville because of recent heavy rain. (David Butow / For the Times) 60 / 66 Butte Country Sheriff Kory L. Honea speaks with department of water and power workers at an overlook as the observe runoff from the Oroville Dam. (David Butow / For the Times) 61 / 66 Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure in Oroville, Calif. (Randy Pench / Associated Press) 62 / 66 A boat launch at Bidwell Canyon is still hundreds of yards above the current lake level on Jan. 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 66 California State Park Ranger Bryan Taylor searches for signs of disturbance or theft as Californias severe drought conditions are revealing historic artifacts at Lake Oroville, June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 64 / 66 Severe drought conditions are evident as a family treks across a long path back to their car at Lake Oroville, June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 66 Houseboats are dwarfed by steep banks that show the water level down 160 feet from the high water mark at the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge over Lake Oroville on June 21, 2014. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 66 Houseboats at Bidwell Canyon Marina at Lake Oroville, January 21, 2016. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The evacuations marked a dramatic turn of events at the Oroville Dam, located about 75 miles north of Sacramento.
For several days, officials have been trying to figure out how to get water out of Lake Oroville after the main spillway was damaged. A massive hole was discovered last week on the main spillway and eventually spread across the full width of the concrete-lined channel.
Saturday marked the first time the emergency spillway was used since the dam was finished in 1968, and until Sunday afternoon it seemed to be working well. But water from rain and snow continued to flow into Lake Oroville at a rapid pace, causing water levels to rise to emergency levels.
Lake Oroville is the linchpin of Californias state water movement system, sending water from the Sierra Nevada south to the farms across the San Joaquin Valley and cities in the Southland.
Video from television helicopters Sunday evening showed water flowing into a parking lot next to the dam, with large flows going down the damaged main spillway and the emergency spillway.
Officials feared a failure of the emergency spillway could cause huge amounts of water to flow into the Feather River, which runs through downtown Oroville, and other waterways. The result could be flooding and levee failures for miles south of the dam, depending on how much water is released.
On Sunday, officials said that although they expected the uncontrolled spill to end, they plan to continue using the concrete spillway to create more storage in the reservoir in anticipation of rainfall later in the week.
Were going to continue to flow water down the spillway and lower the lake, said Eric See, a spokesman for the Department of Water Resources. Youre going to see the lake dropping over the next several days.
Officials emphasized that despite the damage to the spillways, the dam itself was not at risk of failing.
Believe me, in the last several days there have been a lot of eyes on it, said Bill Croyle, acting director of the water department. Oroville Dam is not in any way a part of the damage that occurred.
Officials have estimated it could cost $100 million to $200 million to repair the damage to the spillways and other features.
Live updates on the Oroville Dam
Times staff writers Megerian and St. John reported from Oroville; Hamilton and Phillips reported from Los Angeles.
anna.phillips@latimes.com
Twitter: @annamphillips
matt.hamilton@latimes.com
Twitter: @MattHjourno
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UPDATES:
8:44 a.m.: This story was updated with more information on preparations for repair work.
7:10 a.m.: This story was updated with news that the repair is expected to begin.
1:25 a.m. Feb. 13: This story was updated with news of Gov. Browns action.
11:35 p.m.: This story was updated with new information from the Department of Water Resources.
8:15 p.m.: This story was updated with comments from evacuating residents.
7:50 p.m.: This story was updated with additional background on the flow of water down the spillway and minor editing.
6:55 p.m.: This story was updated with comments from Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.
6:30 p.m.: This story was updated with additional details and minor editing.
5:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the evacuation orders.
4:55 p.m.: This article was updated with news of emergency evacuations.
This article was originally published at 1:50 p.m Feb. 12.
With its nine campuses and annual enrollment of about 230,000 students, the Los Angeles Community College District is one of the most significant, yet little-watched, public institutions in Southern California. It offers programs and classes for young people entering vocational careers, provides students with less-than-stellar high school records a chance to restore some academic credibility, gives high-performing high schoolers an early taste of college, and allows low- and middle-income students a cheap way to earn credits before transferring to a four-year college.
Unfortunately, LACCD struggles with many of those missions. Only one of its nine colleges, Pierce College in Woodland Hills, exceeds the state average for community colleges across a range of student success metrics, including the percentage of students earning an associates degree or sufficient credits to transfer within six years, and those making progress in remedial English, ESL, or math courses.
District officials argue that their students face more hurdles than those elsewhere in the state, and theres some truth to that. Los Angeles Countys poverty rate is among the states highest, and the cost of living is inordinately steep here. Half the students who attend community college in the district live below the poverty line. Theyre overwhelmingly from Latino and non-white backgrounds, and a significant number are homeless, living in cars or on friends couches. Those conditions pose distinct challenges.
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The district ought to look at a better and more professional governance structure, such as moving to an appointed board.
There have been some positive steps, including the launching of the Los Angeles College Promise program, which offers a free years tuition to Los Angeles Unified School District students (beginning with those who will graduate this spring) who otherwise would not qualify for free tuition; new efforts to support students recently emancipated from foster care and those leaving jail or prison, and a program that allows high schoolers to take remedial courses to prepare them for when they enroll.
Yet the district does not have a system for tracking what happens to students once they leave their college, and has limited ways of measuring whether they have added to the quality of the students lives. If a student is working in a fast-food restaurant when she enters community college and is still at that level of the economy after graduating, there are grounds to wonder how effective the education has been.
The districts elected board of trustees, in fairness, works part-time for $2,000 a month per trustee, and while theres little doubt the trustees are committed to the work, the district ought to look at a better and more professional governance structure, such as moving to an appointed board.
With that overview in mind, these are our recommendations for the trustee seats in the March 7 election.
Seat 2: The Times recommends a vote for Steven Veres. The only other serious candidate for the seat is Thomas J. Norman, a management and marketing professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills who, while offering a fresh set of eyes, doesnt seem to grasp the scope of the problems facing the LACCD. (Two other candidates, Steve Goldstein and Sergio Vargas, have been invisible in the race.) Veres, an aide to state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, served one term as a district trustee before launching an unsuccessful City Council bid in 2015. His knowledge of the district and Sacramento, whence the district gets much of its funding, make him the better candidate.
Seat 4: Ernest H. Moreno is the clear choice. A retired district administrator (and former president of East Los Angeles Community College), Moreno possesses an impressive level of institutional knowledge, albeit heavy on the financial and operational side. His challenger, Dallas Denise Fowler, is a Democratic activist who has injected an unwelcome level of partisanship into a non-partisan race.
Seat 6: We endorse challenger Gabriel Buelna, an ethnic studies teacher at Cal State Northridge and executive director of Plaza Community Services in East L.A. The incumbent, Nancy Pearlman, has in her 16 years as a trustee been a gadfly, persistently challenging the board and district administrators. While important, thats too limited a role, and Pearlman has few significant policies to show for her time there. Buelna not only has experience with the districts graduates entering Northridge, but he has a ground-level view through Plaza Community Services of the challenges many LACCD students face.
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Rapidly though incoherently, President Trump is redefining Americas place in the world. Inevitably though accidentally, he is doing the same to Canada a perilous situation, but one that presents certain opportunities.
Dont get me wrong. Its not pleasant, the new order. After the terrorist attack on a Quebec City mosque, which killed six, Press Secretary Sean Spicer offered one of the more offensive statements ever uttered by a White House spokesman to the Canadian people.
Its a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant, and why the president is taking steps to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to our nations safety and security.
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In the middle of our national catastrophe, carried out by a man very much inspired by the hateful rhetoric of the American president, Spicers logic was as savagely selfish as it was twisted. And there was nothing we could do about it. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met Trump on Monday, he shook his hand and smiled, as required.
But there are definitive advantages, not the least of which is national clarity. The chaos of the Trump executive order on refugees provoked a startlingly consistent response from the political class in Canada.
The chaos of the Trump executive order on refugees provoked a startlingly consistent response from the political class in Canada.
Trudeau tweeted his opposition: To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada. And its not just the liberals who have spoken up. Former Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney not a Trudeau supporter, to say the least also tweeted his outrage. Brad Wall, the right-wing premier of Saskatchewan, added to the chorus: Sask has welcomed approx 2000 refugees this past year. We stand ready to assist fed govt re: anyone stranded by the US ban.
Trumps policies could also lead to benefits far more tangible than clarity.
Although many Americans may not realize it, the tech industry is booming in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Formerly seed communities for Silicon Valley, they are sites of excellence in their own right now, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence. However, even as tech companies and executives move north, workers havent followed, creating a massive shortage in skilled labor predicted to reach 200,000 jobs by 2020.
Perhaps Trumps executive order will help fill the gap a possibility Id bet was on tech leaders minds when 150 of them, including the CEOs of Wattpad, Shopify and Wealthsimple, signed an open letter against the actions of the U.S. government: Canadian tech companies understand the power of inclusion and diversity of thought, and that talent and skill know no borders. While the letter was in one sense a statement of opposition to the Trump executive order, it was also a political argument in defense of Canada and its current government. The Canadian tech community supports Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus message that Canada will and must remain inclusive to all nationalities. And, finally, it was a not too subtle pitch to the denizens of Silicon Valley: Come north. The 21st century will be driven by pluralistic economies powered by pluralistic societies. The letter writers didnt need to state the obvious: The United States may not fit into that category anymore.
Russian-born Google co-founder Sergey Brin showed up at San Francisco International Airport to protest, explaining, because Im a refugee. Netflix, Facebook and Airbnb issued public statements against their government. Meanwhile, Canadas tech leaders asked Ottawa to provide immediate and targeted assistance to people refused H1-B visas. The federal immigration minister himself a Somali refugee once offered temporary residence to anyone stranded in Canada because of the ban.
The war between Trump and Silicon Valley is set to escalate. Bloomberg reported that another executive order, still being drafted, will overhaul the entire work-visa program on which Silicon Valley relies. Here, too, is an opportunity for Canada. If the Americans dont want the highly skilled mobile people of the world, we do.
Canada has always defined itself with and against America. In the age of Trump, we are defining ourselves by our openness in a world closing off. Trudeau has explicitly defined Canada as a post-national country the ideal place for the globalized tech sector to flourish. So if you want to live in a stable, liberal economy, open to immigrants and unafraid of otherness, start packing. Bring a warm coat.
Stephen Marche is the author of the forthcoming book The Unmade Bed: The Messy Truth About Men and Women.
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The new administration has introduced Washington to a new mantra on trade. Complicated multilateral trade deals, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership or NAFTA, are a thing of the past. No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many countries, that are thousands of pages long and which no one from our country even reads or understands, President Trump promised on the campaign trail.
A Free Trade Agreement, or FTA, does not have to be thousands of pages long, the new conventional wisdom goes. From now on, the United States will seek simple bilateral agreements. Dump the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, known as TTIP, and its opaque investment courts and rules of origin. Instead, lets fast-track a U.S.-Britain FTA, ready to enter into force as soon as the Britain leaves the European Union.
As laudable as the idea of a U.S.-Britain FTA may be, the new narrative is naive at best. At worst, it could bring genuine trade liberalization to a standstill.
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Trade agreements are not long and intricate primarily because trade negotiators are incompetent or captured by special interests; the true source of complexity is that modern economies are governed by complex rules. In other words, theyre complicated because regulation is complicated.
Those who say that [Free Trade Agreements] should be short and simple are effectively saying that they do not wish to deal with the real issue.
The idealized one-page trade agreement that scraps tariffs, quotas and other explicit forms of discrimination is no longer sufficient to reduce costs. Were not in the 19th century anymore; tariffs are at historic lows and quotas are practically nonexistent. Open-trade barriers directed at specific countries typically run against World Trade Organization rules.
Meaningful liberalization, then, has to focus on smoothing over the differences in regulatory regimes. Value chains extend through numerous countries and often involve shipping intermediate products across borders. As a result, there are countless environmental, safety and sanitary rules enforced by different conformity assessment bodies.
In a case cited by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, for instance, a U.S. company that sought to export a popular model of light truck to Europe had to create 100 unique parts, spending an additional $42 million on design and development, and perform rigorous tests of 33 different vehicle systems without any performance differences in terms of safety or emissions.
Car manufacturers and large corporations with armies of lawyers can muddle through the morass; smaller businesses and start-ups less so.
Given this state of affairs, those who say that FTAs should be short and simple are effectively saying that they do not wish to deal with the real issue.
Although trade agreements sometimes involve a harmonization of rules, thats just one form of international regulatory cooperation used to bring down trade barriers. More frequently, governments commit to open-ended partnerships on regulatory policy, agree to take into account existing international standards set by transnational organizations, or recognize each others regulatory requirements as equivalent.
For some free-market advocates, mutual recognition is the preferred tool of trade liberalization. Taken to the extreme, it could lead to FTAs written on a single page. However, governments use mutual recognition only when they are confident that the regulatory practices in question are closely aligned.
It is no coincidence that the most successful example of mutual recognition, the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Arrangement, involves Australia and New Zealand two countries with shared political history and common legal heritage. By contrast, the United States and the EU have a number of mutual recognition agreements that are not actually enforced due to underlying divergences in regulations on both sides of the Atlantic.
None of this is to deny that a U.S.-Britain FTA is a good idea. Those eager to make progress, though, will soon find that the two economies are separated not only by an ocean, but by differences in regulation as large as those the E.U. and the U.S. attempted to bridge during TTIP negotiations. That reality will not miraculously change after Brexit, and no matter Trumps fervent desires, a successful FTA is bound to be complicated and politically controversial.
Those who imagine otherwise are living in a fantasy and are in for a rude awakening.
Dalibor Rohac is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Twitter: @daliborrohac.
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To the editor: We have seen an unbelievable amount of attention being devoted to extreme vetting and the not a ban on people traveling to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Those countries probably have dangerous people, but they have not been responsible for any deadly terrorist attacks within our country. (Homeland Security secretary says a border wall wont be built all at once, Feb. 7)
While these measures are obviously draconian and being brought against people with legitimate entry documentation, what are we to expect if and when we actually do have a terrorist attack? Will that be sufficient cause to suspend the Constitution?
No action seems beyond the pale for this president or his closest advisers. Democracy is fragile, and we are finding out just how vulnerable it is in these trying times. We must be vigilant.
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John Goodman, Oak Park
..
To the editor: Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly stated, I work for one man. His name is Donald Trump.
I was always of the belief that government officials, elected or appointed, worked for the people of the United States, not one man. The above quote is contrary to any form of governing I have ever lived under or care to live under. It is the beginning of a very scary slippery slope.
I certainly hope that our elected representatives of both parties have the courage to combat this attitude.
Steve Sharp, Chino Hills
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To the editor: The Times acts as if it is shocked, shocked to find there is gambling going on and that President Trump is critical of judges. (Trump attacks federal judges in unusually personal terms, Feb. 8)
Perhaps the most brazen critic of judicial independence was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was willing to try to restructure the Supreme Court when it didnt go his way. The war he waged on the judiciary was one for the books.
And lets not forget Barack Obama publicly attacking the Supreme Court justices to their faces in front of the entire nation during his State of the Union speech because they dared disagree with him on a case they had recently decided. Indeed, Obama made a habit of commenting on pending cases.
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Suddenly, we discover the evil of encroaching on judicial territory. At least for four years.
David Goodwin, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: Trumps inappropriate intrusion into the judicial review of his executive order on immigration contains an important and correct observation.
The president said that even a bad high school student can recognize that the law is on his side. Thats probably correct.
What he didnt say is that only a bad high school student can recognize that the law is on his side. Good high school students, and those with higher education, may have a different opinion.
Bruce Barnbaum, Granite Falls, Wash.
..
To the editor: After six years of obstruction against Obama, it was difficult to imagine that Republican lawmakers could descend any further politically. Yet they have done just that.
Despite Trumps bullying, false proclamations, poorly executed orders and now personal attacks on federal judges, Republican leaders have yet to display any meaningful disapproval. Their lack of criticism may endear them to Trump and, in turn, allow them to advance their legislative interests, but it does nothing to inspire confidence that our leaders are acting in the best interests of the country.
Marc Branson, Anaheim
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Former President George W. Bush says his recent remarks have been misconstrued as criticism of Trump
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Former President George W. Bush on Wednesday pushed back at the notion that his recent remarks about the media were criticisms of President Trump.
Im asked the question, Do I believe in free press? and the answer is absolutely, I believe in free press because the press holds people to account, he said. Power is very addictive and its corrosive if it becomes central to your life and therefore there needs to be an independent group of people who hold you to account. And so I answered that question and of course the headlines were, Bush criticizes Trump. And so therefore I needed to say, There should be a free and independent press, but it ought to be accurate.
Bush made the remarks at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley during an hourlong question-and-answer session promoting Portraits of Courage, his new book that features his paintings of veterans. While doing media interviews about the book in recent days, he has raised eyebrows by making comments about the media, immigrants and allegations of Russian interference in the November presidential election that were widely viewed as criticisms of the new president.
He said that he decided once he left the office not to second-guess his successor, former President Obama, and that the same holds true for Trump. Doing so would undermine the office, Bush said, adding that he wants all of his successors to succeed because it is good for the nation.
I dont want to make the presidents job worse, no matter what political party it is. Its a hard job, Bush said. Sometimes my remarks can be construed as criticism. Theyre certainly not meant to be, and after I finish this book tour you probably wont hear from me for a while.
But he was willing to offer advice to those who follow him.
Know what you dont know and find people who do know what you dont know and listen to them, he said. My advice is that the job is different once you get in. It looks one way and then you get in the Oval Office and it looks different. Trust me.
Bush also made an implicit criticism of Obamas foreign policy when asked whether the world is more dangerous than it was four years ago.
This may be taken as criticism of one of my successors and I dont really mean it to be. There is a lesson however when the United States decides not to take the lead and withdraw, he said. Vacuums can be created when U.S. presence recedes and that vacuum is generally filed with people who dont share the ideology, the same sense of human rights and human dignity and freedom that we do.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Aside from a handful of serious moments, Bush was jovial and self-effacing as he described how he became an oil painter after leaving the White House. Seeking ways to fill his time, he said he read an essay by Winston Churchill about painting.
I basically said, What the hell, this guy can paint, I can paint, Bush said.
He hired an instructor and started painting a cube and a watermelon before moving on to portraits. Former First Lady Laura Bush was not pleased with his depiction of her, so when he painted his mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, he decided to depict her from behind.
Barbara Bush and former President George H.W. Bush are doing well despite their recent hospitalizations, the younger Bush said.
Theyre both great given their limitations. Dad cant walk, hes confined to a wheelchair and yet his spirit is joyful, Bush said. Moms doing fine. Shes shrinking, and as she does, her voice gets louder. But shes a, shes a piece of work is what she is.
Bush has been reclusive since leaving office, but said he wrote the book and is publicizing it to raise money for veterans and to draw attention to the invisible wounds many of them suffer.
I think when you read [their stories] youll be moved by stories of courage, injury, recovery willingness to help others, he said. Ive got a platform its not as big as it once was and I intend to use it to help our veterans for the rest of my life, and this is one way to do so.
Whats next for President Trumps travel and refugee ban? Well have to wait and see what the White House decides.
Trump told reporters Friday that hes considering a new, more tailored executive order, and a White House official said Sunday the administration is still weighing how to respond to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold a stay on the ban to the Supreme Court.
The court said on Friday it wants the executive branch to decide within 14 days.
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Im Sarah Wire. Welcome to the Monday edition of Essential Politics.
Trump has rushed to fulfill campaign promises in his first three weeks, occasionally sacrificing clarity and depth for speed, and David Lauter kicks off the fourth week with a look at how Trump has lost significant ground in public approval since taking office.
Noah Bierman and Brian Bennett have a look at the adjustments Trump could potentially make to his style and team.
Get the latest about the Trump administration on Essential Washington, follow @latimespolitics and keep an eye on our Essential Politics news feed
NO WORD ON CONFIDENCE IN FLYNN
During interviews on several of the Sunday morning news shows, Trumps senior policy advisor Stephen Miller wouldnt say if the president still has confidence in his national security advisor, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, following news that Flynn may have tipped off the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about sanctions put in place by the Obama administration before Trumps inauguration.
Flynn reportedly mischaracterized the conversations to Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials and the FBI has been examining Flynns contact with the ambassador, according to multiple news reports. Democrats are demanding answers about the potentially illegal conversations, saying Flynn should be suspended or fired.
Miller also continued to assert a widely debunked claim that massive vote fraud helped deprive the president of a popular-vote victory in Novembers election.
IMMIGRATION RAIDS
State and federal Democrats said they were dismayed by the lack of clear information from immigration officials after a series of recent raids that authorities called routine, but have rattled advocates for immigrants.
California Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) is demanding more information and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called news of the raids alarming.
23 CANDIDATES FOR THE 34th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Yup, you read that right. A total of 23 candidates filed papers to run in the race to replace Xavier Becerra in the 34th Congressional District. The filing deadline was Thursday, and a final certified list of candidates is expected to be released Wednesday. Need a refresher on whos who? Christine Mai-Duc has you covered here.
In other 34th District news, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez was endorsed last week by Planned Parenthoods advocacy arm. He also held a campaign kickoff event over the weekend, where L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti stumped for him.
REBUILDING CALIFORNIAS ROADS
Director of the advocacy group Transportation California Will Kempton said he is frustrated and disappointed that California has failed for decades to agree on a plan to pay for a $136-billion backlog of repairs to state highways and local roads. Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders said they will take another crack at a deal during the next two months.
Patrick McGreevy spoke with Kempton ahead of his retirement from his 40-year career working on the Golden States transportation needs.
PODCAST: DECONSTRUCTING THE DEFUNDING THREAT
On the latest California Politics Podcast episode, John Myers leads a discussion on the policy and political impacts of the presidents suggestion of defunding California programs that receive money from the federal government.
TODAYS ESSENTIALS
In his weekend column, Myers explores another round of poll data that show just how little many Californians know about where their state government spends taxpayer dollars.
Californias lawmakers are focused on opposing Trump and protecting the states policies against the new presidents administration, but theres a problem at home that needs their attention, George Skelton writes in his Monday column. The issue? Contaminated drinking water in the San Joaquin Valley, Skelton says.
Hezbollahs leader says Trump gives him optimism. (He doesnt mean it as a compliment.)
Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time as president in Washington on Tuesday, and Tracy Wilkinson has the story on the presidents shifting policy positions on Israel.
Thousands of demonstrators waving Mexican flags and signs denouncing President Trump marched through central Mexico City on Sunday.
LOGISTICS
Essential Politics is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 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?
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Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com.
While President Trump and his California resistors dominate the spotlight, a little outfit without much pizazz is trying to draw state governments attention to sickening drinking water in the San Joaquin Valley.
Whats normally heard about water in the parched valley or read on farmers crude signs along Interstate 5 and Highway 99 between Bakersfield and Stockton is that the federal and state governments have cruelly tightened the irrigation spigots.
Never mind that were only now emerging from a historic drought, caused not by government, but by the supreme rainmaker. And never mind that water also is needed for spawning salmon in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to keep alive the ocean fishing industry.
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Whats heard about a lot less is that hundreds of thousands of people mostly low income, and many of them farm workers are being forced to drink unhealthy, contaminated tap water unless they can get healthy water trucked in or buy it bottled.
And what the political power structure doesnt like to acknowledge above a whisper is that much of this health problem is caused by farmers fertilizer and cow manure. There are lots of dairies and beef cattle in the valley, as you may have smelled driving I-5 near Coalinga.
A typical dairy cow produces 33 tons of manure a year, according to the activist Community Water Center, and there are 1.6 million dairy cows in the San Joaquin Valley.
Animal manure and chemical fertilizer produce nitrate that sinks into the groundwater and is pumped up through wells into home plumbing.
An overload of nitrate can cause blue baby syndrome shortness of breath and skin-darkening miscarriages, stillbirths, premature births, sudden infant death syndrome, diarrhea and cancer.
Forget about boiling the water. That only makes the nitrate worse.
Theres also another prime valley poison: arsenic. It occurs naturally in the ground, but is augmented by fertilizers and pesticides. Too much arsenic can cause skin damage, circulatory trouble and cancer, especially among children and pregnant women.
The deeper the well, the more arsenic there is. So thats a huge problem right now. Farmers drilled deeper and deeper during the drought to replace dwindling surface water normally supplied by aqueducts. As aquifers were drained, community and family wells were left high and dry, or producing crud.
Health problems are particularly acute in Tulare County, where more than 90% of residents rely on wells for drinking water. It has above average death rates for, among other maladies, sudden infant death syndrome, liver diseases and all sorts of cancers, according to the Community Water Center.
The bad drinking water extends throughout the valley not every place, but too many and affects an estimated 300 communities.
The small Community Water Center, which sprung up a few years ago in Tulare, is trying to prod the Legislature and Brown administration into paying more attention to the problem.
Updates from Sacramento
The groups activists came to Sacramento last week to meet with legislators and reporters, but didnt attract much interest. Thats typical of an organization that doesnt wield hefty political clout and cant afford to donate campaign money. The agriculture industry, by contrast, is a well-heeled mover and shaker.
Theyre awesome, says Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the state Water Resources Control Board, referring to the center. Theyre not only good at raising an important issue, but very good at empowering local people to speak for themselves.
A co-founder, Laurel Firestone, 38, took an uncommon route to the California farm belt. She grew up in Venice near the beach and in a Washington, D.C., suburb. Her father was a professor and her mother a sculptor. Firestone graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and began working in Brazil on human rights and environmental issues.
I decided weve got these same issues in our own state, so how can I work overseas, she says. I had a law degree for the U.S., not Brazil. I started worrying about challenges in my home state.
She and her attorney husband a poverty activist moved to Delano, a far cry from Venice and Harvard.
There were not a lot of attorneys or services, she says. There were plenty of people like us in L.A. and the Bay Area. The valley seemed where we could have the most impact.
They lived in Delano about nine years and then moved to the political action in Sacramento.
Unhealthy drinking water is also pumped from wells along the Central Coast and in parts of Southern California, affecting around 1 million people. But larger communities have money to operate water-filtering systems. Most little San Joaquin Valley towns dont.
The state can supply the filtering systems with bond money. But local people need significant funds to operate and maintain them.
In such a sophisticated state, its shameful in this day and age that people are living in these conditions, says Wade Crowfoot, who heads the California Water Foundation, another activist group.
The goal this year is to persuade the Legislature to develop funding options perhaps fees on fertilizer, bottled water and all Californians water bills.
Im for whatever will pass, Marcus says.
One problem: Most San Joaquin Valley legislators are Republicans, and they really dont like anything that smacks of taxes.
Democrats should take some time off from fighting Trump and find a way to supply healthy water for people they profess to care about, including immigrants here illegally.
george.skelton@latimes.com
Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter
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As the healthcare vote looms, Trump sees opposition from conservatives, both on Capitol Hill and in the media By Kurtis Lee Its a really important vote in President Trumps fledgling first term. Will House Republicans pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act a promise from Trump on the campaign trail or reject it? (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan rushed to the White House on Friday morning for a last-minute meeting with Trump as both attempted to corral enough votes.) Trump spent much of the week trying to win support from members of the Freedom Caucus, among the most conservative lawmakers, some of whom are holdouts because they believe the bill does not go far enough. After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan! Trump tweeted Friday. But even some in conservative media arent all that thrilled about the bill. Here are some of Fridays headlines: Polls: Ryancare even more unpopular than Obamacare and Hillarycare (Breitbart) So, its been clear in recent weeks that the right-wing website Breitbart does not like the new healthcare proposal. The news site has dubbed the current bill Obamacare-lite or Ryancare an homage of sorts to Ryan, who helped craft the legislation and argued it does not go far enough in its overhaul. Most conservatives want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare, they just differ on what the replacement should look like. For example, some on the far right want to see so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity and newborn care, stripped from the bill.) This piece highlights several of the dismal polls the legislation has received. Among them: A recent Fox News survey that showed 54% oppose the bill, compared with 34% who support it. The article also references an analysis of polling and data by FiveThirtyEight.com, which shows the GOP legislation is more unpopular than Obamacare and President Bill Clintons healthcare reform bill were when they were first introduced. A modest immigration proposal (Weekly Standard) Trumps recent immigration orders have left many immigrants on edge. Through social media and pop-up legal clinics, immigrant rights groups have doled out around-the-clock assistance, as families fear being separated. In this piece, Irwin Stelzer notes that at some point, our border will be secure, resistance to deporting felons will collapse, and we will have accepted the fact that Dreamers will be allowed to stay in this country, probably on a path to citizenship. He lays out his views of immigration reform, citing, among other things, setting an annual immigration limit and adopting a system that has the effect of enriching our citizens by filling that annual quota with immigrants who are likely to increase the well-being of the existing citizenry. Jeff Sessions is Rip Van Winkle on drug policy (American Conservative) Its clear from polls that most Republicans oppose marijuana legalization, while Democrats support it. However, libertarian-leaning Republicans often tend to support legalization. This piece highlights Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions recent comments in opposition to states legalizing pot. The attorney general regurgitates simplistic cliches right out of the 1970s and 1980s about marijuana use. I dont think America is going to be a better place when people of all ages, and particularly young people, are smoking pot, Sessions told reporters on February 26, the author, Ted Galen Carpenter, writes. He adds, Such comments confirm that critics may be right when they label him a drug war dinosaur. He seems either oblivious or scornful about the trend in public opinion regarding marijuana. Facebook
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FCC Chairman Pai wants to halt Internet privacy rules before they begin taking effect this week By Jim Puzzanghera (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) The nations new top telecommunications regulator wants to halt tough Internet privacy rules before they begin taking effect this week, arguing they would unfairly impose tougher requirements on broadband providers than on websites and social networks. Privacy advocates and a key Senate Democrat vowed Monday to fight the move as well as a separate effort in Congress to overturn the regulations, which were approved in October on a party-line vote by the Federal Communications Commission when it was controlled by Democrats under President Obama. Following President Trumps inauguration, control of the commission passed to Republicans and Ajit Pai took over as chairman. All actors in the online space should be subject to the same rules, and the federal government shouldnt favor one set of companies over another, a spokesman for Pai said Friday. Read More Facebook
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Trump says Hollywoods obsession with him led to best picture Oscar gaffe By Michael A. Memoli (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) President Trump is often loath to accept responsibility when things go wrong, but in the case of Sundays Oscars broadcast, he made an exception. As he explained it Monday, it was Hollywoods obsession with attacking him that contributed to the botched best picture announcement, calling the embarrassing episode sad, of course. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has apologized for the mix-up that led Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to announce La La Land as the winner of the top Academy Award prize, instead of Moonlight. But in Trumps eyes, the blame falls more broadly on an entertainment industry so preoccupied with politics that they didnt get the act together, he told Breitbart News. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars, Trump told a reporter from the website, which was once led by his chief White House strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. It didnt feel like a very glamorous evening. Ive been to the Oscars. There was something very special missing, and then to end that way was sad, he added. The ceremony did contain a number of slights at Trump during its telecast, some more subtle than others. Host Jimmy Kimmel openly at one point begged the president to weigh in by tweeting at him. Trump spent part of Sunday night hosting a black-tie dinner at the White House honoring the nations governors, who were visiting Washington for their annual winter meeting. But it appears from excerpts of the Breitbart interview that he may have spent at least part of the evening watching. Facebook
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Justice Department shifts course in closely watched Texas voter ID case By Del Quentin Wilber The Trump administration has scaled back its assault on a strict Texas voter identification law that federal courts have ruled discriminated against minorities, portending a shift in how the Justice Department plans to pursue allegations of voter suppression. The government revealed its decision in court papers filed in federal court Monday, dealing a blow to civil rights advocates who have relied on federal support to help them knock down the controversial Texas statute. Its a very concerning signal to American voters about the Department of Justices commitment to enforcing the Voting Rights Act, said Danielle Lang, deputy director of the voting rights unit of the Campaign Legal Center, which is suing Texas in the case. The administrations partial retreat in the dispute highlights how Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, a conservative Republican who has championed voter identification measures, is expected to handle such cases. The Obama administration had joined civil rights groups in aggressively challenging the Texas law and other such measures around the country. At issue in the case was how the Justice Department would proceed in a federal lawsuit that alleged the Texas legislature discriminated against minority voters when it enacted the strict voter identification law in 2011. Known as SB 14, the measure requires voters to present a specific form of government-issued photo identification - such as a drivers license, military ID card, U.S. passport or citizenship certificate - to be permitted to cast a ballot. The Obama administration and civil rights groups argued the state pushed the law, in part, to suppress the power of the states minority voters, who frequently dont drive or have a passport. State officials and lawmakers countered that the law was aimed at preventing voter fraud, though there is scant evidence that the problem exists. The law was challenged in court by civil rights groups and the Justice Department under provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was intended to help overcome legal barriers erected at the local and state level to keep African-Americans from the polls. Last July, a federal appeals court ruled that the Texas law had a discriminatory impact on minority voters. It told U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos to craft a temporary remedy in time for the November elections. Ramos subsequently ordered Texas to permit voters to present other forms of documentation to verify their identities. The judges order is expected to remain in force until she imposes a permanent remedy or Texas addresses the judges concerns. According to the court papers filed Monday, the Justice Department will continue to work with civil rights groups to address those issues but will seek to withdraw from another important aspect of the suit. In the same decision that found the Texas law had a discriminatory impact, the appeals court reversed Ramos finding that Texas legislators had intended to harm minority voters. It ordered Ramos to reconsider the evidence of that finding. If the judge determines discriminatory intent in crafting the voter ID requirements, she could throw out the entire law. Civil rights groups will continue to press that claim. In its court filing, the Justice Department asked Ramos to permit it to withdraw its claim that Texas acted with intent, arguing that it is best to give the Texas legislature time to address the matter. With the loss of their key ally in court, civil rights groups will argue on their own in an effort to prove that Texas acted with a discriminatory purpose in passing the law. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. Voting advocates complained that the Trump administration was backing away from a key safeguard of voting rights. The Justice Department decision defies rationality and stands diametrically opposed to positions they have taken at every stage of this litigation, Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. This reversal of position was taken despite years of work and effort that the government has invested in fighting the Texas Voter ID law, one of the most discriminatory voting restriction of its kind. Facebook
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House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes warns against witch hunt over Trump-Russia ties By Sarah D. Wire House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) talks to reporters about his committees Russia investigation. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes said on Monday he has seen no evidence from the intelligence community that there was contact between Russia and the Trump campaign. I want to be very careful, we cant just go on a witch hunt against Americans because they appear in a news story, said Nunes (R-Tulare). We still dont have any evidence of them talking to Russia. He said the committee has been briefed on the highlights of what the intelligence community has found, but is still collecting evidence. The committees ranking Democrat, Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), quickly responded, saying the committees investigation is in its infancy and its too soon to reach conclusions about the evidence. We havent obtained any of the evidence yet, so its premature for us to be saying weve reached any conclusion about the issue of collusion, Schiff said. The most that weve had are private conversations, the chair and I with intelligence officials. Thats not a substitute for an investigation. The House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees are conducting separate investigations into Russias reported attempts to influence voters in 2016 in an effort to curtail Hillary Clintons chances and boost Donald Trumps. A leaked U.S. intelligence report on the attempts did not look at whether the effort succeeded. The House committee has expanded a previous ongoing investigation of Russia cyberhacking to include a look at efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, Nunes told reporters Monday. Though it is still in its early stages the leaders of the committee are still discussing the investigations scope Nunes said he expects the findings to be made public. Schiff and Nunes spoke separately to reporters Monday. Schiff said the two agreed privately that they would jointly address reporters about the investigation going forward. Nunes, who served as a member of Trumps transition team, said he continues to be concerned about leaks of classified and sensitive information from the White House and intelligence communities. The leaks one of which resulted in a report about the FBI investigating Trump campaign officials will be part of the committees investigation. A government cant function with massive leaks at the highest level, Nunes said. Facebook
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Appeals court denies Justice Department request to put appeal of travel ban on hold By Jaweed Kaleem (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the
Justice Departments request to pause proceedings in an appeal of President Trumps travel ban. The court in a filing Monday said its schedule for the governments appeal of a lower courts halt on the travel ban will proceed, with the first brief due to the appeals court on March 10. In early February, the Justice Department appealed a Seattle-based federal district judges order blocking enforcement of Trumps executive action. which established a series of immigration and refugee restrictions aimed at preventing potential terrorists from entering the country. Last week, government lawyers asked the appeals court to stop proceedings in the case because the president planned to issue a new executive order and rescind the original one. A three-judge panel of the court previously denied a request from the government to reverse a nationwide stay on the travel ban. The same panel on Monday ruled that the appeal will proceed. Trump has said he will sign a new executive order tailored to deal with court decisions that have largely gone against him. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he expected the order to be issued mid-week. Spicer has said Trump wants to fight for the current order while also issuing a new one, but the Justice Department has said in multiple court filings that the the current order will be undone after a new one is issued. The states of Washington and Minnesota, which brought the case in Seattle now under review, have pushed for courts to move forward on a review of the constitutional issues. Facebook
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No random ICE stops on streets of America, Homeland Security chief tells governor By Lisa Mascaro Gov holds closing media briefing on Capitol Hill to wrap up @NatlGovsAssoc Winter Meeting. pic.twitter.com/3mZMBA4S0o Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) February 27, 2017 President Trump received some unsolicited advice at dinner with the nations governors when Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe told him he needs to do a better job explaining his policies regarding deportations. McAuliffe, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Assn., told the president that there has been a chilling effect going on as businesses stay away from his state and as immigrants fear being rounded up. If theyre not going to be deported, we need to hear that from the president, McAuliffe said, recounting his conversation from the governors Sunday night dinner with Trump. What I told the president is these actions are hurting us. McAuliffe, a longtime ally of Hillary Clinton, said Trump agreed in large part. McAuliffe also met privately with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, and said the secretary assured him during an hourlong talk that Trumps enforcement actions were only targeting criminals -- despite widespread reports of otherwise law-abiding immigrants being detained for being in the U.S. illegally. He assured me there will be no random ICE stops on the streets of the United States of America, McAuliffe said, referring to the raids being conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. If thats the case, McAuliffe said, Trumps policy does not sound much different than the operations under former President Obama, whose administration deported more immigrants than its predecessors. Obama, however, explicitly put a priority on deportations of criminals, a distinction the Trump administration has done away with as part of the presidents executive action. My advice to him was he needs to let the American public know what theyre doing, McAuliffe said. Facebook
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Trump: I havent called Russia in 10 years By Brian Bennett President Trump rejected calls for an independent investigation of his ties to Russia, telling a group of business leaders Monday that he hasnt called Russia in a decade. At the start of a White House meeting with healthcare executives, a reporter asked Trump whether a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate allegations of Russian meddling during the election. In response, Trump mouthed the word no to the executives. As reporters were led out of the room, Trump said: I havent called Russia in 10 years. Democratic lawmakers have ramped up their calls for additional investigations into allegations that Trump allies had been in contact with Russian officials during the election and inappropriately discussed U.S. sanctions against the Moscow regime during the transition. White House officials have denied reports that Trump associates were frequently in touch with senior Russian intelligence officials during the election. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had authorized an operation to damage Hillary Clintons campaign and tilt the 2016 election in Trumps favor. Facebook
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Trump: Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated By Michael A. Memoli View Twitter post President Trump promised the nations governors Monday that his yet-to-be-revealed replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act would give states greater flexibility and thanked some Republicans in the room who advised him on healthcare. Its an unbelievably complex subject, he said. Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated. The remark likely surprised state leaders; spending on Medicaid alone was the second-biggest driver of increased state general fund spending, according to the 2016 Fiscal Survey of States conducted by the National Assn. of State Budget Officers. And it was just eight years ago that Washington dove head-first into a raging debate over healthcare reform under President Obama, which simmered long after his signature health law was enacted. But the finer points of healthcare policy are likely new to Trump, who is immersed in discussions with Republican leaders and his senior staff on that and other subjects ahead of his high-profile address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. Trump offered no hint as to the details. Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, but their effort has stalled as they debate how to do so and await word from the White House on what Trump wants to do. The president seemed keenly aware of the political ramifications of whatever steps he takes. As soon as we touch it, if we do the most minute thing, just a tiny little change, whats going to happen? Theyre going to say its the Republicans problem, Trump said after telling the governors the easiest thing for him to do would be nothing, and, in his view, watch Obamacare collapse. But we have to do whats right because Obamacare is a failed disaster. Facebook
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Trump wants to add $54 billion to defense budget while slashing domestic spending and foreign aid By Brian Bennett President Trump is proposing a massive increase in defense spending of $54 billion while cutting domestic spending and foreign aid by the same amount, the White House said Monday. Trumps spending blueprint previewed a major address that he will give Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, laying out his vision for what he called a public safety and national security budget with a nearly 10% increase in defense spending. We never win a war. We never win. And we dont fight to win. We dont fight to win, Trump said Monday in remarks to the nations governors. So we either got to win or dont fight it at all. Trump noted that the U.S. has spent nearly $6 trillion on fighting wars since the Sept. 11 attacks but said that cutting military spending was not the answer. Instead, the increase he is proposing would be offset by cuts to unspecified domestic programs and to foreign aid, which would in turn be made up for in part by demanding that other countries pay more for security alliances that have historically been underwritten by the U.S. This budget expects the rest of the world to step up in some of the programs that this country has been so generous in funding in the past, an official from the Office of Management and Budget said, demanding anonymity to discuss the presidents spending plans. Foreign aid makes up about 1% of the budget. This budget speaks for itself, the official said. I dont think this budget has anything to do other than putting Americans first. Trumps call for deep cuts to spending at home is likely to set up major battles on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and even House Republicans will likely be reluctant to pass a spending bill that includes such major reductions in programs for their constituents. Facebook
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Trump says businesses cant borrow because of Dodd-Frank. The numbers tell another story By Jim Puzzanghera President Trump was preparing the first step in a key campaign promise dismantling the 2010 DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act when he repeated a frequent criticism of the law. We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that had nice businesses, they cant borrow money, Trump told leading corporate chief executives, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Larry Fink of money management giant BlackRock Inc., meeting at the White House earlier this month They just cant get any money because the banks just wont let them borrow it because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank, Trump said. Shortly afterward, he ordered a wholesale review of the landmark act, which was passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But a main reason for dismantling Dodd-Frank often cited by Trump and critics of the law that its slew of tougher financial regulations have significantly restricted bank lending isnt borne out by the data. Read More Facebook
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Another Trump nominee withdraws nomination to top national security post due to business interests By W.J. Hennigan Philip M. Bilden, President Trumps pick for Navy secretary, withdrew from consideration late Sunday, becoming the second White House nominee to bail on a top Pentagon position due to problems untangling his financial investments. After an extensive review process, I have determined that I will not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my familys private financial interests, Bilden said in a statement. He did not detail the issues but he said he fully supported the presidents agenda to modernize and rebuild our Navy and Marine Corps. Bildens withdrawal comes after billionaire investor Vincent Viola dropped out from becoming Army secretary after he decided his extensive financial holdings would hamper his ability to win Senate confirmation. The White House shot down reports that surfaced two weeks ago that Bilden was considering stepping down. Just spoke with him and he is 100% commited [sic] to being the next SECNAV pending Senate confirm, White House spokesman Sean Spicer tweeted on Feb. 18. Bilden, a venture capitalist and Army veteran, was a surprise selection from Trump but had the backing of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. This was a personal decision driven by privacy concerns and significant challenges he faced in separating himself from his business interests, Mattis said in a statement. While I am disappointed, I understand and his respect his decision, and know that he will continue to support our nation in other ways. Bilden served ten years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a military intelligence officer from 1986 to 1996. He then co-founded private equity firm HarbourVest Partners LLC and spent 25 years there, mainly in the companys Hong Kong headquarters. He also serves on the board of directors of the United States Naval Academy Foundation and the board of trustees of the Naval War College Foundation. Mattis said he intends on recommending a replacement nominee to Trump in the coming days. The withdrawal marks another setback for Trumps national security team, which has struggled to find its footing since the fledgling administration began. Earlier this month, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign after it became public that he held secret talks with a Russian ambassador and then misled Vice President Mike Pence about it. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster took the job last week after Trumps first choice to replace Flynn, retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward, passed on the opportunity. Facebook
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New DNC chairman Tom Perez ridicules Trump tweet over rigged vote By Laura King Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was chosen to lead the Democratic Party over a congressman backed by the progressive wing. (Branden Camp / Associated Press) President Trump claimed Sunday that the race for Democratic National Committee chairman had been rigged -- drawing a quick riposte from Tom Perez, who narrowly won the partys leadership race. Trump insinuated that Perezs DNC victory on the second ballot at a party conference in Atlanta on Saturday was because Hillary Clinton had backed Perez, a former Labor secretary in the Obama administration who was seen as representing the partys establishment forces. Clinton did not make a formal endorsement, but Perezs rival, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the partys more liberal wing. Bernies guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance, Trump tweeted early Sunday morning. Clinton demanded Perez! Perez, appearing on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday, told host Jake Tapper that he and Ellison got a good kick out of that, adding: Donald Trump, up in the morning tweeting about us. Sanders, appearing on the same show, said Trump doesnt have a point about the DNC vote. Moments after Perez beat Ellison by 35 votes out of 435 cast, he named Ellison as the deputy chairman of the party, leading to widespread applause. Perez is the first Latino to lead the Democratic Party, and he faces the challenge of trying to rebuild a party that suffered devastating losses in the 2016 election. Republicans now control not only the White House and Congress, but 33 governorships and dozens of state legislatures. In his CNN interview, Perez sarcastically suggested that Trump should address questions about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign rather than concerning himself with the DNC leadership battle. Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin, he said. Facebook
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White House again bats away call for special prosecutor on Russia By Laura King A White House spokeswoman said Sunday that it was too soon to say whether a special prosecutor should look into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, while President Trump again inveighed against coverage of Russia-related queries as FAKE NEWS. Calls have grown louder from Democrats in Congress for U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the issue because of his role as a prominent Trump supporter during the campaign, and to appoint an independent special prosecutor to carry out a Russia probe. A few Republicans have joined in that chorus some reluctantly. Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista, appearing on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher, voiced support Friday for naming of a special prosecutor to probe the Russian connection, though he also said congressional intelligence committees should continue their work. He also said he considered Sessions a friend, but pointed to his role as a political appointee who had worked on the Trump campaign. Issa, who narrowly won reelection, was a vociferous critic of the Obama administration during his former tenure as head of the House Oversight Committee. In that post, he spearheaded an array of investigations on topics from Benghazi to bank bailouts. Some Republicans pushed back against the notion of Sessions needing to recuse himself. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on NBCs Meet the Press that he had seen no credible information about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians and no allegations that rose to the level of criminal activity. If we get down that road, thats a decision that Attorney General Sessions can make at the time, said Cotton, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence agencies hacked Democratic Party computers and used other tactics last year to interfere with the election. The FBI is separately investigating whether anyone on Trumps campaign had improper contacts with Russian authorities during the campaign. On Sunday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said congressional investigations on Russia and the campaign should be allowed to go forward before a special prosecutor appointment was considered. I dont think were there yet, Sanders said on ABCs This Week. Lets work through this process. Echoing the previously stated White House stance, Sanders said the Trump campaign had not colluded in any Russian meddling. We had no involvement in this, she said. The president is known to keep a close eye on surrogates performances on the talk shows, and Sanders repeated a prime administration talking point: that questions about possible Trump campaign contacts with Russia amounted to Democratic excuses for losing the election. If Democrats want to continue to relive their loss every single day, by doing an investigation or review after review, thats fine by us, she said. We know why we won this race. Its because we had the better candidate with the better message. Trump himself underscored that notion with an afternoon tweet denouncing media coverage of the ongoing Russia investigations as FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks! Facebook
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Whose news is fake? Heres the latest in Trumps war with the press By Kurtis Lee Every president since 1981 has attended the annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner. That year, President Reagan missed out. The reason? He needed to recover after a would-be assassin fired a bullet into his chest a few weeks earlier. On Saturday, President Trump announced he will not be attending the annual dinner in April, long considered the premier social event of the Washington press corps and typically an evening of good-natured bantering between presidents and the Fourth Estate. Trumps announcement added to the ratcheting tensions between his administration and the media. Almost daily, in speeches or on Twitter, he calls particular news outlets fake, disgusting or dishonest and news organizations have responded by digging in, standing united and devoting more resources to covering a president who has branded the press the enemy. Read More Facebook
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Crucial group of Americans like Trumps stands, not him, poll finds By David Lauter Trump still gets dismal ratings on temperament but is above water on economy, decision-making, promises of change. pic.twitter.com/Md0H096n9m Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) February 26, 2017 With the public deeply split in its views of President Trump, one potentially key group stands out -- those who dislike the man, but approve of the direction in which hes moving. Thats a central finding of a new nationwide survey by NBC News and the Wall St. Journal. The new poll confirms what other major surveys have shown: Trump starts his administration with less support than any president in the seven decades of presidential polling. Asked if they approve or disapprove of the job Trump is doing, 44% approve, 48% disapprove. No previous president has begun his tenure with a net negative job approval. Trump has held onto the support of his ardent backers. At the other end of the spectrum, he gets almost no approval from Democrats. In the middle, the poll found, are many Americans -- just over a third of those polled -- who either voted for Trump with reservations, voted for a third party candidate or did not vote at all in 2016. Just over half of that group gives Trump positive marks, the poll found. Their support is enough, currently, to keep Trumps standing from collapsing, and holding them is likely key to his future. Just under one third of Americans say they like Trump and approve of his policies, the poll found. Another one in six approve of most of his policies even though they dislike him. Well over half, 59%, said they did not like him personally. On a separate question, only 43% of those surveyed have a positive view of Trump -- up from the low points of the campaign, but still far below the standing of most new presidents. By contrast, 86% agreed with one of the central lines of Trumps inaugural speech, that government insiders had reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. On other issues, the public is more closely divided. The public splits evenly, for example, on Trumps proposed temporary ban on travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. Just over half of those surveyed, 52%, said that the problems Trump has encountered in his first month were unique to this administration and suggest real problems; 43% said they were growing pains similar to those other administrations have had. And by 51%-41%, the public thinks the press has been too hard on the new administration. The NBC/WSJ poll, run by a bipartisan team of two polling firms, was taken by phone, using cell phones and landlines, Feb. 18-22 among 1,000 American adults. It has a margin of error for the full sample of 3.1 percentage points in either direction. Facebook
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Trump appears to think Perez at head of Democratic National Committee is good news for Republicans By Evan Halper Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 The Democratic Party put its faith in its old guard Saturday to guide it out of the political wilderness, choosing as its new leader an Obama-era Cabinet secretary over the charismatic congressman backed by the progressive wing of the party. Tom Perez, a former secretary of Labor with strong ties to unions, persuaded the spirited assembly of party delegates in Atlanta that he can best help harness a grass-roots outpouring of anti-Trump protest and anger into a Democratic resurgence at the ballot box. Read More Facebook
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Trump to Washington reporters: Not going to your dinner By Kurtis Lee I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 The annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner will be missing a key guest this year: President Trump. On Saturday, Trump tweeted he will not attend the April 29 dinner, considered the premier social event of the Washington press corps -- and typically an evening of good-natured bantering between presidents and reporters with a mix of celebrities watching. His announcement comes amid growing tensions between his administration and the media. Trump has decried stories he doesnt like as fake news, and described unnamed news groups as an enemy of the people. A day earlier, the White House barred reporters from several major news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, CNN and Politico, from attending an off-camera press briefing. In a sign of the growing rift, several media organizations that traditionally sponsor lavish parties around the black-tie dinner had announced they would not do so this year. At the annual dinner, the president usually delivers self-deprecating jokes and often is roasted by a high-profile comedian. The president also greets students who win journalism scholarships and awards, a major part of the evening. Trump has been a frequent guest of media organizations at the dinner in the past, but he always sat at a table in the crowded ballroom, not up at the front dias. President Obama singled Trump out during the dinner several years ago, mocking Trump for raising doubts about whether Obama was born in the United States. This year, as we do every year, we will celebrate the First Amendment and the role an independent press plays in a healthy republic, the White House Correspondents Assn. said in a statement earlier this month about the upcoming dinner. Facebook
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Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez named Democratic Party leader By Evan Halper Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez (Branden Camp/Associated Press) The Democratic Party put its faith in its old guard Saturday to guide it out of the political wilderness, choosing as its new leader an Obama-era Cabinet secretary over the charismatic congressman backed by the progressive wing of the party. Tom Perez, a former secretary of Labor with strong ties to labor unions, persuaded the spirited assembly of party delegates in Atlanta that he can best help harness a grass-roots outpouring of anti-Trump protest and anger into a Democratic resurgence at the ballot box. We are suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance, Perez told delegates before they chose him in a down-to-the-wire contest with Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, whom the Bernie Sanders wing of the party had rallied round. We need a chair who can not only take the fight to Donald Trump. We also need a chair who can lead a turnaround and change the culture of the Democratic Party, Perez said. The ascendance of an establishment liberal is certain to renew tension between veteran party stalwarts and the unruly progressive movement aligned with Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both of whom backed Ellison. Some Ellison supporters erupted in protest as the final vote was announced. Perez quickly sought to unite the party by naming Ellison his deputy chair, a move unanimously approved by the 435 assembled delegates, who had supported Perez 235-200. Read More Facebook
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Trump chastises media for not reporting minor dip in national debt By Del Quentin Wilber President Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to blast the news media for not highlighting a minor dip in the national debt. The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo., he tweeted at 8:19 a.m. The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 Trumps tweet came shortly after Herman Cain, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, made a similar comment on Fox News. While the numbers are accurate, Trumps tweet suggests he deserves credit for something that is largely beyond his control, especially since he hasnt yet given Congress any proposals to change tax laws or the financial industry. Considering that Trump hasnt enacted any fiscal legislation, its a bit of a stretch for him to take credit for any changes in debt levels, Dan Mitchell, a libertarian economist at the Cato Institute, told the fact-checking website Politifact. President Obamas first month in office in 2009 was largely taken up with spending bills aimed at easing the massive recession that he had inherited. Trump inherited an economy with low inflation, low unemployment and a booming stock market. The national debt, which stands at just under $20 trillion, is expected to rise by more than $500 billion in the fiscal year ending in September. Facebook
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Mexico rejects U.S. plan to deport Central Americans to Mexico By Patrick J. McDonnell Mexico has informed the Trump administration that it cannot accept non-Mexican nationals whom U.S. authorities arrest along the border and seek to remove from U.S. territory, the nations internal security chief said Friday. Earlier this week, the Trump administration rolled out a broad immigration crackdown that included a proposal to send non-Mexican detainees apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico while their immigration cases were pending in the United States. The vast majority of non-Mexican nationals detained along the U.S.-Mexico border are Central Americans. They often travel overland through Mexico to reach the United States. In a fact sheet released Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said that releasing detained, third-country nationals to the foreign contiguous territory from which they arrived would save on detention and adjudication resources. The idea would be to keep them out pending their hearings on deportation, the fact sheet said. However, Mexican authorities have reacted coolly from the outset to the notion. Now, they appear to have formally nixed the idea. On Friday, Mexicos interior secretary, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, told a radio interviewer than Mexican authorities had informed a pair of visiting U.S. Cabinet officers Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly that Mexico could not oblige the U.S. request. We told them that our legal framework doesnt allow this, Osorio Chong told Radio Formula, referring to the visit this week of the two Trump Cabinet officials. We told them it is impossible. There is no way, legally, nor is there capacity. In recent years, non-Mexicans, mostly Central Americans, have become a larger proportion of illegal immigrants apprehended along the Southwest border as the relative number of Mexican nationals has declined. In fiscal year 2016, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics, agents recorded apprehensions of almost 191,000 undocumented Mexican citizens along the Southwest frontier. In the same fiscal year, the Border Patrol said it registered 218,000 detentions of non-Mexican nationals, most of them Central Americans. Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report. An earlier version of this blog post misspelled Miguel Angel Osorio Chongs name as Osorio Chung. Facebook
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Trump blasts FBI over Russia leaks after a brief Twitter hiatus By Kurtis Lee (Alex Wong / Getty Images ) After several days of relative silence on Twitter, President Trumps feed came alive Friday with a direct attack on the FBI. Yes, hes done this before. But recent news reports that suggest his administration pressed the FBI to quell claims that members of his campaign had contact with Russians throughout the 2016 election appear to have inspired a response. The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time, he tweeted. And conservative news was all over it. Here are some of todays headlines: Trump blasts FBI leakers (Fox News) Trump has assailed everyone from Democrats to intelligence officials for the leaks which he often refers to as fake news about his ties to Russia. Reports from several news outlets this week, citing anonymous sources, claim Trumps chief of staff, Reince Priebus, asked FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to publicly dispute media reports that Trumps campaign advisors frequently were in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election. While some reports made it appear Priebus had contacted McCabe, this piece disputes that. Fox News has learned that McCabe indeed had initiated the conversation, asking to speak with Priebus for a few minutes at the end of an intelligence meeting last week, their article reports. Ed Schultz at CPAC: Trump promised Americas heartland a deal (Daily Caller) He was once among the top liberal voices in the country. Now, Ed Schultz, the former MSNBC anchor, is speaking glowingly about President Trump. Between covering high-profile speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference from Trump and his aides, the Daily Caller popped into a panel at which Schultz provided commentary. Shultz, who now works with the Russian government-funded RT television network, blasted the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, asserting that Trumps claim that it would cost U.S. jobs was a game changer in the 2016 election. Trump went into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin and he took down the progressive firewall, because he talked to the American people about a deal, Schultz said. It was a Wall Street deal, it was not a Main Street deal, he said, referring to the TPP. Trump is about blowing up Washington as it exists (Rush Limbaugh) Remember when Trump talked about draining the swamp? Since he entered the White House, some conservatives have wondered if Trump means business. Many members of his cabinet including Priebus and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions are the ultimate Washington insiders. Still, Rush Limbaugh, one of the firebrand conservatives out there, is certain the president will blow up traditional Washington. Whats Trumps No. 1 obstacle? I have concluded that the media is the No. 1 obstacle because of the success they have, he said on his radio show this week. The people in Washington, media is every bit as big a part of the establishment as anybody else is. He added: The media is creating this narrative, if you will, and this picture this series of pictures, this overall image that Trump is stalled, that everybodys opposing him, that his agenda is backlogged. Facebook
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After Trump calls media an enemy of the people, White House bars many news outlets from briefing By Noah Bierman Fridays White House press briefing, normally an on-camera affair open to all reporters with press credentials, was turned into an exclusive event for certain outlets hand-picked by the administration. The action came after President Trump on Friday described the media and what he terms fake news as the enemy of the people."On the list were Trump-friendly outlets such as Breitbart News, the Washington Times and OANN, a conservative television network that employs former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a commentator. Off the list were some of Trumps favorite targets, including the New York Times and CNN. The Los Angeles Times was also excluded. The off-camera briefing with Sean Spicer, the press secretary, was not solely for conservative outlets. Several mainstream reporters were also allowed in, including the three major broadcast networks and wire services, such as Bloomberg News. Also allowed in were pool representatives who transmit news events to a far larger group of reporters. The Associated Press and Time magazine were also invited but declined to participate in solidarity with other news organizations that were denied entry. The White House Correspondents Assn. protested, as did editors at several of the organizations that were excluded. In a statement, Times editor Davan Maharaj said that it was unfortunate that the Los Angeles Times has been excluded from a White House press briefing today. The public has a right to know, and that means being informed by a variety of news sources, not just those filtered by the White House press office in hopes of getting friendly coverage, Maharaj said. Regardless of access, The Times will continue to report on the Trump administration without fear or favor, he added. 12:30 p.m.: This post was updated with a statement from Times editor Davan Maharaj. Facebook
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Its a Russian flag! Trickster strikes CPAC before Trumps speech By Matt Pearce Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017 As the crowd waited to hear President Trump speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, little red-white-and-blue flags appeared without warning, handed down the aisles by a man with a green bag, according to a witness. The flags said Trump. They also happened to be the flag of the Russian Federation. He was dressed like any one of us, said Tyler Dever, 20, a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who was wearing a suit. He passed them to me and was like, Pass them down, pass them down. Dever, caught up in the moment, passed them down, before someone sitting next to him said, Oh, its a Russian flag! CPAC staff quickly recollected the flags. If it was just a red-white-and-blue flag, I would have picked it out, Dever said. He said it was his first time attending an event like CPAC and was surprised to see a provocateur in the audience, especially beyond the cordon set up by the Secret Service. Someone tried to victimize me, Dever said. You have Secret Service out here, and Id expect it to be fully screened. ... Thank God someone noticed. Facebook
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Trump still loves the USC/L.A. Times poll: What it got right and what it got wrong By David Lauter Throughout the fall campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump and his allies loved the USC/L.A. Times Daybreak poll -- the only major survey that consistently showed him winning. A couple polls got it right. I must say Los Angeles Times did a great job, shocking because, you know, they did a great job, Trump declared in his speech this morning at CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists. But did the poll get it right? In the simplest terms, no, and after considerble analysis, we know why. Read More Facebook
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A celebration, and wake, for a campaign legend and a Republican Party that is no more By Mark Z. Barabak (Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times) It was a cool and rainy day when elders of the Republican tribe recently gathered to honor one of their own. The honoree, Stuart K. Spencer, was unmistakable in his white duck pants and a lime-green sport coat so bright it almost hurt to see. A reformed chain-smoker, he snapped merrily away on a wad of chewing gum. The event marked Spencers 90th birthday, but the mood beneath the surface conviviality was unsettled and gray, like the clouds fringing the mountains outside. If the occasion was intended as a personal celebration, it also had the feel of a wake for a time in politics long passed. Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and former California Gov. Pete Wilson, veterans of the Reagan years turned out in force. It was Spencer, more than anyone, who took a political long shot and washed-up B-movie actor and helped transform him into the Reagan of legend. Read More Facebook
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CPACs reaction to President Trumps speech: Two thumbs up By Matt Pearce Supporters cheer President Trump as he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Friday. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump loves CPAC, and CPAC loves Trump. As hundreds of Conservative Political Action Conference attendees spilled out into the hallways Friday after Trumps speech to the group, they had glowing reviews of the man who has been tormenting Democrats and the media and transforming the Republican Party. It was fantastic, unbelievable, absolute truth, said Shia L. Lome, 84, a retired Air Force colonel from Deerfield Beach, Fla., appraising Trumps remarks. If he carries through [his promises], this will be the greatest country ever. Lome added that there is no question about it, Trump is his own type of Republican. Whether its conservative or whatever you want to call it, Lome said he is happy as long as [Trump] causes the Democrats heartaches. Kayne Robinson, 73, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said Trump was simply taking the party in the direction that people want it to go. I think the party is every bit as united behind him as it was behind either of the Bushes, Robinson said. Trump led a revolution in the party, very much like Reagan. ... I think Trump is doing just fine. Frank March, a 50-year-old Army retiree from Fairfax County, Va., emerged from the ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center wearing a red Make America Great Again cap, which carried Trumps jagged signature on the bill. Marchs daughter had gotten the hat signed when she previously met Trump, and he proudly showed off photos of that event. I recognize the signature! a woman exclaimed as she saw the hat. March praised Trumps follow-through and his commitment to workers as incredible. Hes bringing in new people to the party, March said. The hope is, by his follow-through, doing what he said he was going to do, then the non-Republicans who voted for Trump will stick. Helping workers will be one of the ways Trump can make that happen, he said. In politics, youre supposed to help people, March said. Workers are the people. Theyre people who earn money to take care of their families. Republicans should support those people because theyre the ones who make America run. Facebook
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Donald Trump shows up at conservatives most prominent gathering and defines a new GOP By Noah Bierman President Trump shows up at conservatives most prominent gathering and defines a new GOP. President Trump made one of his strongest pitches Friday to unite the Republican Party and the conservative movement behind a nationalist, anti-globalist ideology that until recently would have been unthinkable for many Republicans. There is no such thing as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag, Trump said to great applause from thousands of conservatives. Im not representing the globe. Im representing your country. He echoed ideas he has espoused in the past -- denouncing trade deals as the antithesis of economic freedom, warning that the great cities of Europe have been ruined by mass immigration, denouncing intervention in the Middle East by both parties. But while many of the words were familiar, the venue and the passion made Fridays speech remarkable. The comments came at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, just outside of Washington, D.C., the most prominent gathering of right-leaning groups and activists in the country. Such a speech would have been shocking from a conservative, much less the president, at almost any other time in the conferences history. Trump has been popular at CPAC in the past. He credits a speech there with launching his political career. But he snubbed last years event amid a heated primary in which many conservatives rejected his tone and the direction he was trying to move the GOP. I would have come last year, but I was worried that I would be at that time too controversial, Trump said in his speech, which lasted nearly an hour. Trump, the first president since Ronald Reagan to address the group during his first year in office, made clear that he is moving those once controversial ideas to the movements center. In addition to his usual critiques of the media and frequent references to his electoral success, Trump spoke directly of his ambition for reshaping the Republican Party to attract blue-collar voters, the forgotten men and women who helped propel his electoral victory. Im here today to tell you what this movement means for the future of the Republican Party and for the future of America, Trump said. The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that [must] put and will put its own citizens first. Later, he added that the GOP will be from now on also the party of the American worker. While Trump tried to unite conservatives, the speech made little effort to bridge the countrys larger political divide. For example, Trump dismissed people who have shown up at town halls around the country to protest reversal of Obamacare. Theyre not you, he said. Theyre the side that lost. Facebook
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Justice Department rescinds order phasing out use of private prisons By Del Quentin Wilber Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has jettisoned an Obama administration order to phase out the use of private prisons to hold federal inmates. The new order reverses one issued by former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates in August that sought to eliminate the departments use of private for-profit prisons, which hold just over 10% of the current prison population. The Obama administration order changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the bureaus ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system, Sessions wrote Thursday to announce the reversal. Civil rights and prisoner rights groups decried the Sessions decision, saying private prisons are not as cost-effective or as safe as government-run facilities, citing numerous abuses in the past. The Bureau of Prisons houses about 21,000 of its 190,000 inmates in a dozen private prisons, including one near Bakersfield. Atty. Gen. Sessions has shown that he is not taking the mass incarceration crisis seriously, said Wade Henderson, who heads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Continuing to rely on private prisons for federal inmates is neither humane nor budget conscious, Henderson added. We need a justice system that can work better for all people. Yates order did not affect facilities used to detain people in the country illegally. The use of private prisons is expected to surge under President Trumps promised crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump has signed an executive order calling for expansion of immigrant detention facilities and authorized the use of private contractors to construct, operate, or control facilities. Stocks in private prison companies have jumped on Wall Street since Trump won the presidential election, and they continued their rise on news of Sessions order. Facebook
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CPAC and conservative media prepare for Trump By Kurtis Lee The future path of the Republican Party is being debated in the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland this week. Will it be the party of Donald Trump, an outsider of the GOP establishment, or House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the definition of establishment? Or, perhaps, of Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader of the so-called alt-right movement? (Spencer was kicked out of CPAC on Thursday.) Trump is set to address the conference on Friday, and the conservative media are ready for the much-anticipated address. Tomorrow it will be TPAC when hes here, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump told reporters Thursday. Here are some of todays headlines: Go Big, Go Bold: Walker, at CPAC, pushes GOP to carry out agenda as party controls Congress, White House (Fox News) Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, once a Trump foe, is urging conservatives to use the November election as a mandate. Do what you said you were going to do, Walker said to attendees. In the Fox News piece, which leads its website, it notes that leaders at the conference are hoping to use it to strategize about what they can accomplish and to better articulate their values at a time when the very definition of conservatism has seemed to waver. Sweden Democrats: Trump was right (Fox News) Remember last weekend when everyone including many Swedish politicians were really confused about Trumps comments at a recent rally? You look at whats happening last night in Sweden, Trump, at a rally in Florida on Saturday, said about the Scandinavian country that has accepted large numbers of refugees. Sweden. They took in large numbers. Theyre having problems like they never thought possible. Actually, not much happened in Sweden on Friday night. Trump said later that he had been referring to a broadcast on Fox News on that night. Still, recent riots in the country were covered extensively by conservative media. This post notes a recent op-ed penned by Jimmie Akesson and Mattias Karlsson, both leaders of the Sweden Democrats, in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday supporting Trumps characterization of a Muslim immigrant-led crime crisis in Sweden. In it they write, Trump did not exaggerate Swedens current problems. If anything, he understated them. Trump Is Letting DREAMers Stay, And Rush Is Fine With That (Daily Caller) Hes an immigration hard liner, and, apparently, hes OK with Trump allowing DREAMERs to remain in the country. This piece highlights comments by Rush Limbaugh this week. A lot of people think that Trumps caving because if you allow the DREAMers to stay, were talking 750,000 DREAMers, kids, who each have two parents who could come in. Look, this is a-no-win, Limbaugh said this week. Nobodys gonna win anything by deporting a bunch of kids that we let in. Facebook
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Trump advisor Steve Bannon rails at corporatist, globalist media By Noah Bierman Steve Bannon to the #CPAC crowd: "If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you're sadly mistaken" pic.twitter.com/ryw7iO0Snr POLITICO (@politico) February 23, 2017 The two men with the most heavily dissected relationship in President Trumps White House held a rare public appearance together Thursday and agreed on one common enemy: the media. Reince Priebus, the chief of staff who is often described as embattled, said he has grown conditioned to the media counting Trump out: during the presidential campaign, the transition and the first month of the presidency. The biggest misconception is everything that youre reading, Priebus said. Steve Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, framed his complaint as an ideological war. He consistently called the media the opposition party throughout a 20-minute joint interview on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside of Washington. Its not only not going to get better, it gets worse every day, Bannon said. Theyre corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has. If you think theyre going to give you your country back without a fight, he added. You are sadly mistaken. Bannon, former executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News, seldom speaks in public. His nationalist rendering of Republican ideology is often seen in contrast to Priebus, the former chairman of the GOP, who is viewed as the more mainstream conservative advocate within the White House. The two men said the tension between them portrayed in the media is inaccurate. But as they praised each other, the men made clear that Bannon sees his role as dominant in shaping Trumps policy. Bannon praised Priebus for doggedly keeping the trains running -- one of the toughest jobs Ive ever seen in my life. Bannon talked about being in the first inning of shaping a new political order and beginning the deconstruction of the administrative state. Priebus used more prosaic language and spoke of Bannon as the one who pushes Trump to maintain his bold vision. He is very dogged in making sure that every day the promises that President Trump made are the promises were working on, Priebus said of Bannon. Facebook
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In Mexico, Homeland Security chief says there will be no mass deportations of people in U.S. illegally By Patrick J. McDonnell Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, left, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Mexico City on Thursday. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, on a visit to Mexico, said Thursday that there will be no mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally. Kelly also said U.S. military forces would not be used in deportation efforts and that any deportation cases would go through the U.S. legal system. No. Repeat, no use of military force in immigration operations, Kelly said at a news conference at the Foreign Relations Ministry in Mexico City. None. Well approach this operation systematically, in an organized way, in a results-oriented way, in an operation and and in a human dignity way. Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are in Mexico City to discuss a wide variety of issues, including immigration and security, with Mexican government officials. Kellys remarks came the same day President Trump called recent raids in the U.S. an unprecedented enforcement effort. You see whats happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, were getting gang members out, he said. Were getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobodys ever seen before. Read More Facebook
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Mexico bracing for long battle with Trump administration, foreign minister tells lawmakers By Patrick J. McDonnell Mexico Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray (Brian Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) Mexico is preparing for a long battle with the administration of President Trump, its foreign minister reportedly told lawmakers in private comments, adding that the country was prepared to retaliate with new tariffs if necessary. We are here preparing for a battle that is going to be long, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told federal deputies Wednesday, according to the newspaper La Jornada, which said it had obtained a copy of the comments. This is not going to be resolved in three days. In the reported remarks, Videgaray said Mexico was prepared to retaliate with new tariffs on U.S.-made goods should the Trump administration follow up on its threats to slap an export tax of 20% or more of goods imported from Mexico to the United States. There was no official response from the Mexican Foreign Ministry on Videgarays reported remarks. Videgaray was among the Mexican officials, including President Enrique Pena Nieto, who met this week with a pair of visiting White House Cabinet members, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. The private remarks were apparently made on Wednesday, when the two Trump envoys were scheduled to arrive in Mexico City. Read More Facebook
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Homeland Security tried to downplay immigration raids as routine. Now Trump says theyre unprecedented By Michael A. Memoli (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) After nationwide immigration raids this month in which more than 680 people were arrested, the Department of Homeland Security issued a nothing-to-see-here statement downplaying the sweeps as strictly ordinary. ICE conducts these kind of targeted enforcement operations regularly and has for many years, the agency said last week, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But President Trump had a different take Thursday, labeling the raids an unprecedented enforcement effort. You see whats happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, were getting gang members out, he said before a roundtable on manufacturing. Were getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobodys ever seen before. Under President Obama, deportations peaked at 400,000 people in 2012, touching off widespread criticism from immigration advocates, which prompted Homeland Security to scale back deportations. Last year, deportations fell to 240,000 as the Obama administration focused on targets similar to what Trump described in the raids conducted under his authority: criminals, repeat immigration violators and recent arrivals. Trump also called the sweeps this month a military operation, even though no military resources were involved and the White House has pushed back aggressively on reports that the administration was considering seeking National Guard forces to assist in deportations. Homeland Security said the raids were conducted by ICE agents, U.S. marshals and state and local law enforcement agencies. What has been allowed to come into our country, when you see gang violence that youve read about like never before, and all of the things much of that is people that are here illegally, Trump said. Theyre rough and theyre tough, but theyre not tough like our people. So were getting them out. Of the 680 arrests last week, 161 occurred in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. Three-quarters of those detained in the Los Angeles-area sweeps were from Mexico. Trump noted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly traveled to Mexico this week on a tough trip. We have to be treated fairly by Mexico, Trump said. Facebook
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White nationalist leader Richard Spencer booted from Conservative Political Action Conference By Matt Pearce Reporters surround white supremacist Richard Spencer during the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 23, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) One of Americas most prominent white nationalists, Richard Spencer, was kicked out of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday after conference organizers gave him credentials to attend and then wavered on whether to let him stay. Spencer, who coined the term alternative right to describe his far-right views on separating the races, came to CPAC to attend a speech that was critical of the alt-right. CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp took pains to distance CPAC from the fringe Spencer represents. The alt-right does not have a legitimate voice in the conservative movement, said Schlapp, adding that nobody from that movement is speaking at CPAC. Read More Just talked to CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp. Said he didn't endorse Richard Spencer's ideas but won't kick him out of the conference. Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Basically their line on this is, if they actually agreed with his ideas, they'd put him on stage, but they don't, and it's a free country. Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Change of plans. Richard Spencer just got kicked out of CPAC. Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Facebook
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Obamacare 101: Are health insurance marketplaces in a death spiral? By Noam N. Levey (Don Ryan / Associated Press) Its been a rocky few months for the health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Even if youre not one of the roughly 11 million Americans who rely on these online markets to get your health insurance, youve probably seen the headlines about rising premiums and insurance companies pulling out of the system. Last week, national insurance giant Humana announced it would stop selling plans on the marketplace. Aetnas chief executive claimed the marketplaces are in a death spiral. Republicans say the marketplaces are Exhibit A that Obamacare is collapsing. So whats the real story? Are these things really kaput or can they be fixed? Heres a rundown of where things stand. Read More Facebook
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Trump administration wants tax reform done by August, Mnuchin says By Jim Puzzanghera The Trump administration wants to overhaul the tax code by August, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday, laying out an aggressive timetable in his first significant public comments since taking office last week. Our economic agenda, the No. 1 issue is growth, and the first most important thing that will impact growth is a tax plan, Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC. So we are committed to pass tax reform, he said. We want to get this done by the August recess. Read More Facebook
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Loud and angry, protesters turn congressional town halls into must-see political TV By Mark Z. Barabak (Bill Pugliano / Getty Images) They came by the hundreds, in big cities and rural hamlets, to heckle, plead, badger and, in some instances, to protest the protests themselves. Congress is in recess this week, and a citizenry suddenly spurred to action used the opportunity to let their returning lawmakers know just how they feel about the tempestuous last month in Washington. Winners make policy and losers go home, a taunting Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, told an invitation-only gathering in his home state of Kentucky, as about 1,000 protesters gathered outside. Not exactly. The town hall meeting, a throwback to a time of more intimate connection, has become a political organizing tool in the social media age a piece of performance theater and a worldwide stage. Obamacare, immigration, environmental regulation, Social Security, Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump, Trump, Trump all poured forth this week in the form of questions, loudly and heatedly. Read More Facebook
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Trump administration rescinds guidelines on protections for transgender students By Michael A. Memoli The Trump administration rescinded an Obama-era directive Wednesday aimed at protecting transgender students rights, questioning its legal grounding. Under the guidelines, schools had been required to treat transgender students according to their stated gender identity, and either allow access to restrooms and locker rooms for the gender they identify with or provide private facilities if requested. The Obama administration had said that students gender identities were protected under Title IX requirements, which prohibit federally funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex. But officials in the Education and Justice departments said that their predecessors failed to make their case, citing significant litigation spurred by the policy. Read More Facebook
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Americans in Mexico protest Trumps inflammatory rhetoric during Tillerson visit By Kate Linthicum A group of Americans living in Mexico is planning a protest Thursday to send a message to visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Their gripe? President Trumps inflammatory rhetoric. Thats according to a draft of a letter that several groups organizing the protest hope to deliver to Tillerson, who is in town along with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly for talks with top Mexican officials. The letter, which will be cosigned by the Mexican chapter of Democrats Abroad, as well as other groups, complains about Trumps hostile attitude toward Mexico, which it says is engendering nationalistic sentiments in Mexico. Among Trumps hostile acts, the letter says, is Trumps vow to build a border wall and force Mexico to pay for it. The idea of building a wall ... frames Mexico and Mexicans as foreign invaders, the letter says. It also criticizes Trump for pledging to renegotiate NAFTA, saying, The U.S. and Mexico are deeply connected economies and it is in the interest of the United States to strengthen the regional production network to boost manufacturing employment in the U.S. and ensure the long-run competitiveness of manufacturing in the region. There are more than a million U.S. citizens living in Mexico, and many have been vocal since Trumps election. Last month, thousands turned out for a womens march outside the American Embassy that saw crowds chanting anti-Trump slogans. Facebook
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Mexico will never accept unilateral American immigration rules, foreign secretary says By Patrick McDonnell Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said defending the rights of Mexican immigrants is the first point in the agenda for talks with U.S. officials. (Christian Palma / Associated Press) Mexico will reject any unilateral effort from the United States to impose immigration or other policies on the Mexican government, the countrys foreign secretary said Wednesday. I want to make clear, in the most emphatic way, that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept measures that, in a unilateral way, one government wants to impose on another, Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said in public comments. That we are not going to accept. He spoke a day after the Trump administration unveiled tough new measures to enforce immigration laws and deport people who are in the country illegally proposals that were widely portrayed in the Mexican media as a prelude to massive deportations. On Wednesday, two top Trump administration cabinet members Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly were arriving in Mexico for talks with that nations officials, including Videgaray. Immigration, trade and law enforcement issues were expected to be discussed at a tense moment in U.S.-Mexican relations. In his reported comments, the Mexican secretary did not single out any specific U.S. proposal as objectionable. Mexican officials have acknowledged there is little they can do to counter U.S. immigration policies. Among other things, the Trump administration has proposed sending non-Mexican citizens detained along the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico. Mexican officials would presumably have to sign off on such a plan. Mexico already detains and deports thousands of Central Americans annually who cross Mexican territory with the hope of entering the United States illegally via the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. authorities have worked with their Mexican counterparts to halt the Central American influx. The Mexican foreign secretary made it clear that immigration would be at the top of the list of items to be discussed during meetings with the U.S. Cabinet secretaries. Defending the rights of Mexican immigrants is the first point in the agenda, said Videgaray. He also said Mexico could take the issue of the rights of Mexican immigrants to the United Nations and other international agencies. Facebook
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Both in power and in turmoil, conservatives head to Conservative Political Action Conference to see whats next By Matt Pearce Josh Platillero (Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times) The eyes of men in crisp blazers darted toward passing faces and identification badges, looking for a familiar face, a famous name. As Fox News host Sean Hannity prepared to broadcast a live show from a ballroom, a brief chant burst out from the audience: U-S-A! U-S-A! Its that time of year again: Hundreds of Republicans began arriving Wednesday at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md., just south of Washington, for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC, as its best known, is a place for conservative political figures and activists to gather, schmooze, hammer out new ideas and audition for starring roles in the Republican Party. And this year, CPAC attendees have a lot to talk about. Their party is in control of Congress, the White House and dozens of state governments across America, and yet not at all at peace with itself. President Trump is expected to address the conference later in the week after winning on a platform of populist nationalism that some conservatives have accused of not being conservative at all. Breitbart News, the brash rising star of right-wing media, is one of the conferences top promoters, but one of its staffers, Milo Yiannopoulos, lost his speaking slot at CPAC and resigned from the news organization after video circulated showing him appearing to promote pedophilia. Some conservatives had backed Yiannopoulos and cried censorship when the provocateur offended liberals at college speaking events, but now they had become offended themselves. Still, as CPAC began on Wednesday, the mood was upbeat. This was a victorious movement, after all. Many new guests were greeted by the sight of Josh Platillero, 23, wearing a cartoonishly large stovepipe hat and a suit the colors of the American flag. I love networking, said Platillero, who recently lived in Knoxville, Tenn., before moving to the D.C. area to work with a conservative nonprofit, the Leadership Institute. Its his second year attending CPAC, and he was excited about the lineup of speakers, which include some of the White House staff. I think our new president is not perfect, but I think hes doing good things, he said. Ariel Kohane, 45, who came from the Upper West Side in Manhattan, stood in the lobby holding signs that read, Jews for Trump, in both English and Hebrew. I love the fact that I can get together with many of my fellow conservative friends and colleagues and we can all be very proud of ourselves with all our accomplishments and the fact that we get to strategize and plan ways to further expand conservatism across America and across the whole world, Kohane said. Facebook
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Pence condemns Jewish center bomb threats and visits desecrated cemetery in Missouri By Jaweed Kaleem (Michael Conroy / Associated Press) Visiting Fenton, Mo., on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence condemned a string of bomb threats against Jewish community centers around the nation and the desecration of a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery over the weekend. Speaking just yesterday, President Trump called this a horrible and painful act. And so it was. That along with other recent threats to the Jewish community centers around the country, said Pence, who was visiting the headquarters of the Fabick Cat machinery company. He declared it all a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil. We condemn this vile act of vandalism and those who perpetuate it in the strongest possible terms. The vice president said it was inspiring how the people of Missouri have rallied around the Jewish community with compassion and support. Among those showing solidarity with the Jewish community is a group of Muslims who launched an online fundraising campaign to help repair the cemetery. Donors had pledged more than $90,000 by Wednesday afternoon. Pence later visited the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Mo., where nearly 200 tombstones had been toppled over the weekend. Facebook
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Trumps move on transgender bathroom access sparks interest By Kurtis Lee (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) For President Trump, commenting on social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion has never seemed much of a priority. Indeed, throughout the campaign, Trump hardly discussed the topics. When asked about transgender bathroom access at a town hall in April 2016, Trump said people should be able to use whichever bathroom they choose. He then moved on from the question, offering little else. Now it appears his administration is set to wade into the controversy. Its a topic the conservative media loves to explore. Here are some of todays headlines: Return to normalcy: Trump readies reversal of transgender bathroom lunacy in public schools (Daily Caller) What will the Trump administration do about transgender bathroom access? The Caller highlights White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers pronouncement on the issue: This is a states rights issue and not one for the federal government, Spicer told reporters. The lunacy referred to is the federal guidance President Obama issued prior to leaving office directing schools that receive federal funding to allow transgender students to use restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identities. Several states filed suit to overturn the directive, and a federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring its enforcement, which remains in place. Several states, following the lead of North Carolina, are seeking to implement legislation that bans transgender people from using the bathrooms of the gender with which they identify. 66 percent of Trump voters change the channel when awards shows get too political (Daily Caller) When Meryl Streep criticized President Trump last month in her Golden Globes speech, he replied quickly. Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesnt know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes, Trump tweeted. Well, Trump can probably expect more barbs as actors (in overwhelmingly liberal Hollywood) take the stage at the Oscars on Sunday. Lots of Trump voters can be expected to change the channel, according to this piece, which highlights a new poll on the subject. The Hollywood Reporter says that 66% of Trump voters said they have stopped watching an awards show because a celebrity started talking about politics while accepting an award. By contrast, only 19% of Hillary Clintons supporters have done so. Trump talks tolerance, decries anti-Semitism, but media remain skeptical (Fox News) Well, Trump finally did say something to condemn the anti-Semitic vandalism and threats that have taken place since his presidential victory. Anti-Semitism is horrible, Trump said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. In the Fox News piece, Howard Kurtz argues the media should give the president more credit for speaking out. I always think its unfair to blame a political leader for violence or vandalism carried out by people who support him, he writes. I felt the same way about critics who blamed Barack Obama for urban riots or shootings of police officers. Facebook
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Among Republicans, Trump is more popular than congressional leaders By David Lauter Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) walk together. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) Amid strain between the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress, the White House holds the high ground, a new survey indicates. Among Republicans, President Trump has greater popularity than the partys congressional leaders. Asked specifically who they would trust if the two sides disagreed, most Republicans chose Trump over their partys leadership. The findings, from a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center underscore Trumps continued sway with the Republican congressional majority. Although the president has historically low job approval ratings among the public at large, he remains highly popular among Republican partisans and in Republican districts. As for Democrats, theyre strongly in an oppositional mood. Asked if they were more worried that Democrats in Congress would go too far in opposing Trump or not go far enough, more than 70% of Democrats said they feared their party would not go far enough. Only 20% said they worried the party would go too far. Republicans in Congress have eyed Trump warily on several fronts. His positions on trade and entitlement reform break with years of the partys positions. His reluctance to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin has generated tension. And the administrations lack of clarity on healthcare and tax policy have Republican leaders guessing which way to turn on major issues. But Republican partisans have fewer reservations than their elected representatives. Eighty-six percent to 13%, those who identify as Republicans or as independents who lean Republican have a favorable view of Trump, the Pew survey found. By comparison, 57% have a favorable view of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, with 22% unfavorable and 21% having no opinion. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is slightly better known, with 65% of Republicans holding a favorable view, 23% an unfavorable view and 13% having no opinion. Asked who they would trust if the two sides disagreed, 52% of Republicans said they would side with Trump and 34% with the Republicans in Congress. Republicans younger than 40 were the only major exception; 52% to 36%, they said they would side with Congress. At the same time, Republican partisans now have a warmer opinion of their party leadership than they had during most of President Obamas tenure. Republicans' approval of their congressional leaders has more than doubled since 2015 https://t.co/KSo1hRMhJj pic.twitter.com/WHTHxCNEFq Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) February 22, 2017 During the Obama years, GOP partisans tended to be frustrated that their side could not reverse the presidents initiatives, even with a majority in the House, starting in 2010, and then in the Senate for Obamas last two years. Their view of the GOP leadership has rebounded strongly since the election. Democrats view of their congressional leadership has been more stable. And both sides widely dislike the other partys leaders. Facebook
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Supreme Court rejects use of racial stereotypes in death penalty cases By David Savage The Supreme Court rejected the use of racial stereotypes in death penalty cases Wednesday, reopening the case of a black man in Texas who was sentenced to die after his jury was told African Americans are more likely than whites to commit crimes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said this testimony had no place in a sentencing hearing and appealed to the racial stereotype that black men are prone to violence. Our laws punish people for what they do, not for who they are, the chief justice said in the courtroom. The 6-2 decision faults Texas authorities for refusing to give a new sentencing hearing to Duane Buck, a Houston man who was convicted of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend and seriously injuring her new boyfriend in 1995. Buck was found guilty of murder, but when his jury was debating his fate, his court-appointed defense attorney put on the witness stand an expert who cited statistics showing blacks are more likely to commit future crimes than whites. After hearing this testimony, the jury decided to sentence Buck to death. Years later, Texas state attorneys set aside the death sentences for six other black defendants whose juries heard similar testimony, but they refused to reopen Bucks case. In Buck vs. Davis, the high court said that was a mistake. The jury was deciding the question of life or death, and this is no place for the introduction of a particularly noxious strain of racial prejudice, Roberts said. The court sent the case back to judges in Texas to reconsider the death sentence. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, along with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Thomas said Buck was properly sentenced to die for a brutal murder, and he insisted the court should not have heard the case for procedural reasons. Having settled on a desired outcome, the court bulldozes procedural obstacles and misapplies settled law to justify it, he wrote. Facebook
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At Rep. Tony Cardenas town hall, Democrats worry about what Donald Trump may do By Kurtis Lee (Kurtis Lee/Los Angeles Times ) They arrived with soggy jackets, hats and umbrellas. The topic was supposed to be the Affordable Care Act. But many who attended Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas town hall meeting Tuesday night in a crammed auditorium at the Cesar E. Chavez Learning Academies came with a question: What can we -- as Democrats -- do to help you? Show up and vote, said Cardenas, who represents a slice of the staunchly liberal San Fernando Valley. (Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in this district by nearly 60-percentage points in the fall election.) Sign people up, get people involved, he said. At times the meeting had the feel of a therapy session for Democrats, wondering aloud how to function under a Trump administration. Where is the anger among Democrats? asked one man. I want to see more anger. Cardenas, standing at a lectern on an elevated stage, offered a stern look and nodded in agreement as rain could be heard splattering on the roof above. The complaints included Republicans efforts to repeal Obamacare and Trumps new immigration mandates. Trust me, Im pissed. Im upset, Cardenas said. But we have to act constructively. We have to be responsible. Last month, Trump signed executive orders directing the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize the removal of people in the U.S. illegally who have criminal convictions. In addition to speeding up the deportation of convicts, Trumps orders also call for quick removal of people in the country illegally who are charged with crimes and waiting for adjudication. And in recent days, a handful of people who have received protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents nationwide. Cardenas said that for him, the issue is personal. His parents were immigrants from Mexico, who lived in the San Fernando Valley for decades, raising 11 children, he said. Today his district is nearly 70% Latino. Im going to fight for you, he said. Im going to fight for the people who are my immigrant father. When a young man, a DACA recipient, asked him, via Twitter, if hell be safe in the weeks ahead, Cardenas seemed at a loss. I pray that [Trump] doesnt go after you, he said. Facebook
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Killing with kindness, GOPs McClintock faces down hostile questioners as town hall goes into overti
Four teams from Thurston Middle School, three from Top of the World Elementary School and one from Laguna Beach High School qualified for the state finals of the Destination Imagination competition with their performances in a regional tournament Saturday in Laguna Beach, Thurston science teacher Ina Wu said.
Thurston Middle School hosted 41 teams from Orange and San Diego counties for various timed scientific, technical and fine-arts challenges that tested their creativity, problem solving and time management skills.
Participants usually represent schools but also can hail from the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and 4-H, Wu said.
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Teams from Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach did not participate, Wu said.
The state finals are scheduled for April 1 in McClellan Park in Sacramento County.
Destination Imagination is an educational company that conducts competitions nationwide focusing on risk-taking while incorporating elements of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the arts.
She lived an amazing life all 96 years!
Adelyn Lyn Bonin worked during her life as an ambulance driver; a shoemaker; a medical assistant; a nurse; an addressograph operator; a secretary; a comptroller; a switchboard operator; an assistant buyer; a school bus driver; and, finally, an Orange Coast College professor.
You name it, Ive done it, " she told me in a 2006 interview.
Bonin died last month in Laguna Woods.
She joined OCCs faculty in the fall of 1959 as a German language instructor. That was more than a decade after shed served on the front lines of North Africa, Italy and Austria, during World War II. As a member of the British military, she faced Field-Marshal Erwin Rommels vaunted Afrika Korps.
She was an OCC professor for 24 years, until her retirement in 1983. Lyns life was captured in her 1993 autobiography, Allegiances.
She was born in pre-fascist Berlin in the summer of 1920, the daughter of Prussian-Jewish landowners. Lyn enjoyed her childhood in the German capital. She had no idea that being Jewish differentiated her in any way from her classmates.
When she was 13, Hitler came to power and the world soon realized that evil had taken over.
She developed a thirst to know more about her Jewish heritage. Lyn convinced her parents to allow her to join a kibbutz in Palestine. That move probably saved her life. In 1936, at age 16, she left Germany for Palestine as part of the Youth Aliyah Movement.
Lyns parents remained behind and perished in the Holocaust.
Ive never known when or how they died, she told me. I only know they didnt survive the war.
Lyn left the kibbutz after two years and lived in England. She experienced the Nazi air assault, the Battle of Britain, in 1940. She enlisted in the British army in 1942 and served as an ambulance driver on the front lines in North Africa and Italy.
A member of Gen. Montgomerys 8th Army, she participated in the second battle of El Alamein a huge victory for Montgomery over Rommel, who was widely known as the Desert Fox. She spent three years on the front lines and won six decorations.
As a field ambulance driver, she could deftly maneuver a Meat Wagon through harsh desert conditions and chaotic field circumstances. Lyn later served in Austria as part of the occupation army. She was discharged in 1946.
She lived for a time with an uncle in Chicago, but, without a high school diploma, worked in menial jobs. She moved to Southern California.
Lyns salvation came through Americas higher education system.
She enrolled at Riverside City College in 1953 and earned an associate of arts degree at age 35. Two years later she completed a bachelors in German at UC Riverside, and garnered an masters from UCLA.
In 1979, at the age of 58, she completed her doctorate.
Lyn was a teaching assistant at UCLA for two years before joining OCCs faculty in the fall of 59. She retired 24 years later as a full professor of German.
During her second year on staff, she had an article published in a national community college journal. Titled A Language Lab For Teaching English to the Foreign Born, the topic became her area of specialty.
During her tenure at OCC, she visited Europe every summer and spent considerable time in the nation of her birth, Germany. She recognized the value of forgiveness. She refused to harbor bitterness.
Years ago, Lyn said in a 1979 interview with an OCC campus publication, people used to describe the U.S. as a country whose streets were lined with gold. I believe the gold is still present.
Only in the United States could an individual like myself, with no high school diploma, succeed in completing a doctorate and teach at a college.
Adelyn Bonin is well remembered at OCC. She was a great teacher and role model.
---
OCC is screening nominees for its Alumni Hall of Fame. The 2017 recipient will be honored May 24 at commencement.
To submit a nomination, contact the Foundation Office at (714) 432-5707.
JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.
Bob Hope, thanks for the memories. The entertainers name that has graced Bob Hope Airport (BUR) for more than a decade is expected to vanish soon from its landmark tower and elsewhere around the facility.
Airport officials approved a plan last May to change the name to Hollywood Burbank Airport to make it more catchy and recognizable to the rest of the world.
A lot of people east of the Rockies didnt know where Bob Hope Airport was, says Lucy M. Burghdorf, the airports director of public affairs and communications. Was it in Palm Springs? Or Vietnam?
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Signs reflecting the name change may be in place as early as June, Burghdorf says. Airport officials are expected to approve the installation of new signage and other rebranding moves in a vote on Feb. 21.
This isnt the first time the airport has changed identities. It started out as United Airport in 1930 and eventually became Hollywood-Burbank Airport from 1967 to 1978.
In 1986, the Burbank airfield was known as Burbank Glendale Pasadena Airport. (Bob Carey / Los Angeles Times)
The airport then went hyper-local with the name Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport, the name of the authority that runs it, until it was changed in 2003 to honor Hope.
In legal terms, the airports name will remain Bob Hope Airport. And there will still be a prominent tribute to the legendary performer on display.
Sculptor Don F. Wiegand unveils a bronze likeness of comic legend Bob Hope at the airport that bore his name in 2010. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Inside the terminal is a bronze bas-relief sculpture of his famous profile by artist Don F. Wiegand that was dedicated in 2010.
You can expect more changes at Burbanks airport too. Voters on Nov. 8 approved a measure to build a modern 14-gate terminal that would replace the current one built 87 years ago.
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You may not know that when you search for a low airfare with an online travel agency such as Travelocity or a popular search app such as Hopper, Kayak or FareCompare, you may not be seeing the lowest possible airfares.
In fact, if you use these sites to buy airfare from or to an airport such as Atlanta, where Delta commands more than 80% of the market, or Kansas City, Mo., where Southwest controls 50% of traffic, you may pay more than you should.
But dont blame the aforementioned websites and apps. Instead, blame the airlines.
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Delta and Southwest, which together control about 35% of U.S. domestic seats, are the main players in this airfare drama.
That shouldnt surprise anyone who knows Southwests history. Except for a period on the Easy Sabre search site, a consumer product that existed from 1986 to 1999, Southwest has declined to show its airfares anywhere other than Southwest.com.
But Delta is a relative newcomer to the airfare hide-and-seek game. The Atlanta-based carrier now withholds its airfare data from sites such as TripAdvisor, FareCompare and Hopper, among others.
That means youre not always getting the full airfare picture, which makes it harder to compare prices.
Its impossible to calculate how much this is costing consumers who dont realize what they are not seeing.
But my recent experience suggests the amount could be substantial.
One day, I was searching for a flight between Austin, Texas, and Newark, N.J. On Southwest.com, the dates and flight times I decided on would cost $216 round trip. The least-expensive comparable itinerary (same dates and flight times) on United, which I found using Google Flights, was $763 round trip. Google Flights doesnt display Southwest fares.
Should the government force airlines to share their data? That depends on your viewpoint.
We continue to believe that airlines, like all other private businesses, have the right to sell their product where and how they choose, Vaughn Jennings, spokesman for Airlines for America, the lobbying group for U.S. airlines, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune last month.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is looking into the issue of airlines withholding prices from third-party websites and apps, but the airlines arent the only entities that do this.
For instance, some hit songs are available only on iTunes. Or, conversely, they may not be on iTunes at all; for years, youll recall, the Beatles catalog was withheld from Apples music service.
Fashion designers such as Marc Anthony can negotiate exclusive marketing deals with retailers such as Kohls. Once upon a time, home design guru Martha Stewart sold her products exclusively at Kmart. (She later branched out to J.C. Penney Co. and Macys, which ruffled some retailers feathers.)
But these examples may be a bit of false equivalence. Consumers probably are not overpaying because of those marketing agreements. (Show me the consumer who has suffered a financial hardship because he or she cannot buy a Louis Vuitton handbag at Target.)
Instead, when online travel agencies cant display all airfares, they should acknowledge that on their websites.
If you search, say, for an airfare from LAX to Kansas City, Mo., on aggregator Kayak.com, Southwests logo appears with a line that says, Our nonstop flight and low fares only online at Southwest.com. A link takes you to the carriers website.
Most consumers are not airfare search pros. Many understandably assume that when they go to an airfare comparison website or app they will compare all airlines.
Thus the key here is transparency. If those fares arent available, the sites should say so. Until all websites do, consumers should beware and be wise.
travel@latimes.com
Twitter: @latimestravel
Spring training beckoned a couple of years ago, so my husband and I decided to splurge on a two-night stay in a luxury hotel and scale back for the other nights. As we returned from our breakfast at the modest inn, he said he preferred this place to the luxury joint. I wanted to say, in my snootiest voice, that he was a peasant, but if he was, so was I because I agreed. The peasant charge may be true, but it also indicates two truths about hotels: First, star ratings dont always indicate how much youll like your stay, and second, the fault, dear Brutus, is, in fact, in our stars, not in ourselves.
If I did have stars in my eyes about hotels, William Beckler, a co-founder of AlltheRooms.com, set me straight: Be mindful of the difference between user ratings and, say, AAA Five Diamond awards.
Those AAA awards are based on evaluations by the Auto Clubs full-time inspection staff, AAA told me in an email.
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The visits arent announced so that service may be evaluated without influence. The evaluation also takes a hotels physical attributes into account.
You may stay at a great property, but if it lacks, say, a critical amenity (a spa or 24-hour room service, perhaps), its not going to make it to the head of the class.
Contrast that with our stay at the modest inn: No spa, no room service, no high-thread-count sheets, no chic shampoo/conditioner samples. But we liked it anyway because the bed was comfy, the TV worked well and the breakfast was hearty.
It is not unusual, hotel experts say, to be more satisfied with a lower-cost hotel. In the same way that we tend to cut Southwest Airlines some slack, we ease up a bit on lesser properties because we dont expect perfection.
Thats part of the value of user reviews instead of professional evaluations, but the user review field is rife with misunderstandings, some chicanery and some inconsistency.
For instance, how do you know the reviewer wasnt paid or compensated in some way? How do you know a hotel didnt disguise itself as a person and say rotten things about a competitor? And do star ratings mean the same thing to everyone?
Answer: You dont know if there is pay to play, you dont know if someone is trying to gig someone, and what you think is a two-star experience might be four stars to me.
Generally speaking.
In Europe, for example, stars usually do mean something because rating systems often are regulated by the government.
In Portugal, there is a national star system based on a mix of quantitative and qualitative criteria, said Rita Alves Machado, director of marketing for Minor Hotels in Portugal and Brazil.
Achieving a five-star rating is more demanding in terms of services, said Alves Machado, who has spent 15 years in the hotel business.
Youll need 24-hour room service, for instance, to earn the coveted five, not just the 15 hours a day you need for a four, she said.
But, she added, theres no consistency from country from country about how these hotels are rated.
Thats where user reviews come in, but again, let the reader beware.
Two online companies, though, do get mentioned frequently because of the integrity of their reviews, experts said, and those are Expedia.com and Booking.com.
There are others, perhaps, but both online travel agencies, or OTAs, have this requirement: You must have completed a stay to write a review. (That doesnt mean a competitor cant check in and write bad stuff about your property, but its going to cost at least a night in a hotel and some effort too.)
You want accurate information, of course, but its also in the OTAs interest to provide it.
We want to help you get a hotel and make you so happy youre going to come back and shop on us, said Sarah Gavin, an Expedia travel expert.
Leslie Cafferty, head of global communications for Booking.com, knows what her shoppers want, and its not an assessment by the OTA.
People dont want to hear our opinions, she said. They want to hear real opinions. And that means people who have stayed there.
Expedia uses stars as well as words that explain them exceptional, or wonderful or excellent, depending on the stars words that people use conversationally to describe their experience, Gavin said.
Booking uses words too superb, excellent, wonderful, among them along with a numeric rating.
Both show the number of ratings written.
Nothing will absolutely guarantee youll be thrilled with your place. Much can go wrong between the time you book and the time you stay.
I also know from experience that a call to the hotel, not just booking blindly online, can pay off too, especially if you ask two critical questions: Are you doing any renovation right now? If so, is there noise? If the answers are yes and yes, ask what kind of discount you can expect because, yes, your pain should have a payoff.
When Beckler of AlltheRooms.com and I first talked about star ratings, he said they were like the Wild West. That may still be true, but knowing what to look for on a site and understanding what those ratings mean may help restore calm to what is otherwise chaos.
Read the review but understand what youre reading. Also consider rankings done by independent evaluations. A blend of both evaluations may ensure the sweetest of dreams.
Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.
travel@latimes.com
@latimestravel
The fallout from a Chinese billionaires apparent abduction in Hong Kong has engulfed a Beijing newspaper, deepening the mystery over his disappearance and setting the citys mainland Chinese community on edge.
Xiao Jianhua, a 45-year-old Chinese-born Canadian citizen, vanished from his home at the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong in the early hours of Jan. 27, raising suspicions that he was abducted by Chinese security agents and whisked onto the mainland. Chinese law enforcement officers do not have the legal authority to operate in the city, a former British colony now governed as a special administrative region by Beijing.
Since Xiaos disappearance, conflicting reports suggest that he may be under investigation for financial crimes or may be the victim of a political crackdown overseen by Chinas president, Xi Jinping. Xiao had a fortune of nearly $6 billion in 2016, according to the respected Hurun Rich List, making him Chinas 32nd-richest person.
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Caixin, an independent news magazine in Beijing, reported this weekend that Securities Daily a state-backed securities industry newspaper is under investigation for links to Xiao. Authorities have ordered the newspaper to undergo two months of rectification for various business issues, Caixin reported, without detailing allegations against the paper.
Xiaos conglomerate, the Tomorrow Group, has investments in real estate, insurance, banking, coal, cement and rare earth minerals as well as a substantial stake in Securities Daily Media, the beleaguered newspapers parent company, Caixin reported.
The news has fueled speculation that Xiaos disappearance may be related to a financial industry crackdown. The head of Chinas securities regulator, Liu Shiyu, told an official meeting on Feb. 10 that China will capture a group of tycoons living abroad and bring them back to the mainland to face justice in relation to a stock market rout in summer 2015, which knocked an estimated $3.2 trillion in value from global markets.
The South China Morning Post reported last week that Xiao returned to the mainland to help authorities in investigations related to the Chinese stock market crash in 2015 and over his business ties with relatives of some top Chinese leaders.
Yet experts say the timing of Xiaos disappearance may be related to a major Chinese political meeting scheduled for October, when Xi widely considered Chinas most powerful leader since Mao Tse-tung is expected to further consolidate his authority.
Willy Lam, an expert on elite Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that Xiao had two political liabilities his financial dealings with the son of Zeng Qinghong, Chinas vice president from 2003 to 2008, and with family members of Xi himself.
Top Chinese officials, he said, rarely engage in trading or investments themselves, for fear of attracting undue scrutiny. So they usually have go-betweens, or bookers. Mr. Xiao is a booker, in terms of handling financial transactions for, I think, a few dozen major clients and several of them, including Zeng, happen to be political enemies of Xi Jinping.
In 2012, a company owned by Xiao bought at least $2.4 million worth of shares from Xis sister and brother-in-law, Qi Qiaoqiao and Deng Jiagui, according to a 2014 investigation by the New York Times. If [Xiao] were in Hong Kong, its possible that he might spill the beans regarding family financial transactions of the Xi Jinping clan, Lam said. So they might want to keep him quiet.
Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory of 7.3 million people, is geographically joined to southern China. Yet the city is governed under a one country, two systems framework, granting its residents civil liberties that are unthinkable on the mainland, including an independent judiciary, an uncensored Internet and a relatively freewheeling press.
Many Hong Kong residents feel that the two systems part of the agreement is under siege.
In late 2015, Chinese authorities detained five Hong Kong booksellers who specialized in publishing salacious tomes about top Communist Party leaders. One vanished from Hong Kong; later, he resurfaced on the mainland in police custody, leading human rights groups and Hong Kong politicians to accuse Beijing of conducting an extralegal cross-border abduction.
The circumstances of Xiaos disappearance remain unclear. On Jan. 28, the day after Xiaos disappearance, his wife, Zhou Hongwen, filed a request for police assistance. The following day, she requested that police withdraw the request, then fled to Japan, according to the Hong Kong news website Initium Media.
On Jan. 31, a statement under Xiaos name appeared on the front page of Ming Pao, a local newspaper, claiming that he had not been abducted to the mainland and was simply recovering from an illness abroad.
Yet the Four Seasons security camera footage showed Xiao being whisked away in a wheelchair with his head covered, surrounded by at least five men in casual attire, Hong Kong media later reported. Xiao was not known to use a wheelchair.
Hong Kong police have suggested that Xiao entered the mainland through a Hong Kong border control point; but the New York Times and Reuters reported that he was taken by boat, to avoid normal channels. Chinas foreign ministry has not commented on his disappearance.
Four Seasons spokesperson Amy Powell declined to comment on the case, citing the active nature of the police investigation.
I think the chilling effect of [Xiaos] abduction is not so much on the freedom of expression area academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, said Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based commentator on Chinese politics. Its more on the mainland tycoons who have taken refuge in Hong Kong, thinking that Hong Kong will still be a safe place outside the jurisdiction of China.
That will be a bigger impact on them than ordinary citizens in Hong Kong, he said. But of course, the point is that Beijing authorities pay no attention to one country, two systems, and try to take things into their own hands. And people are very angry about it.
Special correspondents Nicole Liu, Yingzhi Yang and Jessica Meyers in The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report
jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com
For more news from Asia, follow @JRKaiman on Twitter
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The cartoon depicts a clutch of young demonstrators bundled up warm, their eyes fixed on their smart phones as they scroll through an endless stream of social media updates and hyper-speed newsflashes.
The accompanying text reads: We all suffer these days from civic FOMO [fear of missing out].
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The drawing by a Romanian protester who, each day, has sketched black ink renderings of the demonstrations that have swept Romania this month, speaks to what many see as a moment of political awakening in this nation of 20 million.
The demonstrators are young and predominantly middle class, organizing online, using humor, said the artist, 37-year-old Andreea Chirica. They have started to think, Maybe I can do something to change this country.
For the last two weeks, anti-corruption protesters have marched down alleys and boulevards across Romania, gathering in public squares to challenge an emergency government decree issued in the dead of night last month that would have dramatically weakened attempts to clamp down on graft.
Many protesters described the decree which decriminalized official corruption involving less than the equivalent of about $50,000 as a deliberate retreat from European Union standards and a thinly veiled attempt to protect corrupt politicians from prosecution.
The ordinance was widely condemned in Romania and by the EU. It would favor the people who will henceforth commit acts of abuse of office, wrote Romanias National Anticorruption Directorate.
At their apex, the demonstrations swelled to some 500,000 people, half of those gathering outside the government offices in Bucharests Victory Square alone. It was the biggest display from the people since the collapse of communism nearly three decades ago.
A young woman sings during a protest against the government in Bucharest, Romania, on Sunday. (Andrei Pungovschi / AFP/Getty Images)
Protesters beat on drums and blew horns, laser pointers skimming across the government building, while chanting: Like thieves, in the night and Resign!
As snow fell and temperatures plummeted, the demonstrators forced two government ministers to resign and the government to rescind the decree five days after its passage. Perhaps emboldened by that victory, the demonstrators have kept up the pressure, demanding more high-level resignations.
I dont want to live in a corrupt country, said Marina Cordun, 33, a demonstrator wrapped up against the winter chill one recent evening.
For Romanias urban young literate, tech-savvy and outward-looking, yet normally deeply apolitical the protests were the latest in a series of successful demonstrations that began in 2013. Analysts suggest they may augur a broader politicization of Romanias millennial generation.
There is this idea that to be involved in politics is to be dirty, that nobody goes into politics unless theyre in it for themselves, said Radu Umbres, a political anthropologist and lecturer at Bucharests National School of Political Sciences and Public Administration.
One of the aspects of these protests, a growth phenomenon, is that it does reveal a kind of political awakening.
That awakening began, many demonstrators said, with environmental protests in scenic Rosia Montana in 2013.
Those protests, uniting demonstrators across the country, forced the government to backtrack on plans to allow cyanide gold mining in the countrys picturesque west. Activists said the mining would have polluted rivers, damaged the ecosystem and caused villages to be razed.
It was a sort of preparation time, said 46-year-old Florinakkis Arhire, speaking in the western city of Timisoara, where the revolt against Romanias long-time dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, began in 1989 as the Soviet Union crumbled.
The networks established during the Rosia Montana demonstrations and a flash-mob, decentralized-style of organization became prominent again after the Colectiv nightclub fire in Bucharest in 2015, when 64 people died.
Mass demonstrations forced then-Prime Minister Victor Ponta to resign as vast corruption in the health sector, including a scam involving the use of watered-down disinfectants in hospitals, was revealed in the fires aftermath.
A technocratic government was installed for a year, but Pontas party, the Social Democrats, returned to power with a strong electoral showing last December.
Social Democratic Party leader Liviu Dragnea is on trial on charges of abuse of power. (Darko Bandic / Associated Press)
Its leader, Liviu Dragnea, was widely viewed as among the intended beneficiaries of the emergency decree: He is presently on trial on charges of abuse of power and was recently found guilty of referendum rigging.
The decrees would have allowed him to clear his name and rise to the prime ministry, from which he has been barred because of his conviction. But, demonstrators were able to mobilize quickly, much of it done through a Facebook page, started during the Colectiv scandal called Corruption Kills.
Romania is one of Europes poorest countries, despite being an EU member since 2007. It hosts NATOs $800-million, U.S.-built ballistic missile site, which outraged Russia when it became operational last year, further embroiling Romania in escalating East-West tensions.
Like many countries, it is no stranger to corruption.
On one recent evening in Victory Square, Claudia Pascu, a 40-year-old demonstrator, recalled her experiences in the maternity ward of a state hospital.
If I wanted my pillows or sheets changed, I had to pay the nurses each time, she said. I was in there suffering, my mouth dry, and they wouldnt even bring me a glass of water unless I paid them a bribe.
The country has made significant strides in tackling corruption over the last five years, with the National Anti-Corruption Directorate prosecuting a slew of corrupt politicians and businessmen. It scores fairly high in Transparency Internationals rankings of government integrity tied with Hungary and Jordan for 57th place out of 176 countries.
Since 2014, some 1,100 cases of abuse of office have been brought to trial, with a further 2,000 cases under investigation.
However, the directorate has come under repeated criticism for a lack of transparency and a reliance on wiretaps provided by the countrys secret police, amid fears of politicized prosecutions.
Meantime, the protests of the last two weeks have triggered a backlash, with several thousand government supporters gathering in Bucharest. There is little doubt that, as vast as the anti-corruption street movement is, the government maintains substantial support.
Romania is a two-speed society: You have Bucharest and the other big cities. But if you go deep into the countryside, the living conditions are often of a developing country, said Umbres.
In that context, many Romanians depend on connections, which can lead to patronage. There have been examples of entire villages protesting for the release of mayors and other public servants convicted of corruption.
On one hand, the middle class has managed to detach itself from corruption they can go to a private hospital and not pay bribes and they want the entire society to get rid of it, Umbres said.
But, he added, Others would prefer a corrupt state. For them, its the guarantee of a workplace, or heating supplies in the winter of survival.
Johnson is a special correspondent.
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U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan are investigating reports that at least 18 civilians were killed in American airstrikes last week, officials said Monday.
The airstrikes occurred Feb. 9 and 10 in Sangin, a heavily contested district in Helmand province where U.S. forces have been offering increased support to Afghan soldiers seeking to dislodge Taliban militants.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said over the weekend that initial inquiries suggest that the airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children.
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Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, deputy chief of staff for the U.S.-led coalition, confirmed that the U.S. conducted airstrikes in Sangin last week and said investigators were looking into the reports.
The investigation is continuing and has not yet reached any conclusions, Cleveland said.
The U.S. airstrikes come amid a widening battle in Helmand, the poppy-growing province and Taliban haven that saw the most casualties among Afghan civilians in 2016 and the most U.S. military fatalities since the 2001 American-led invasion.
In recent months, hundreds of U.S. troops, operating mainly in an advisory role, have been deployed to the province to assist Afghan soldiers in battling Taliban fighters who have claimed control of most of the districts.
A spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry, Dawlat Waziri, denied the reports of civilian casualties but said the ministry had sent a delegation to Sangin to investigate the incident.
Abdul Ghafar Akhund, a 54-year-old supervisor of polio vaccination programs and prayer leader at a mosque in Sangin, said his wife, two daughters, a son and a daughter-in-law were killed when an airstrike hit his house. A 9-year-old boy was injured, he said.
Akhund, who was away from home, returned to find his house destroyed. He denied that there were Taliban members in the area, saying U.S. troops had visited his neighborhood days before the incident.
The Americans have been taking revenge on us, he said. They dont differentiate between civilians and noncivilians, women and children. They must coordinate with the Afghan government.
U.S. airstrikes have been increasing in Afghanistan since former President Obama expanded the militarys authority to conduct operations against the Taliban and Islamic State. The U.N. reported last week that airstrikes caused 250 deaths and 340 injuries in Afghanistan in 2016, twice the number recorded the year before.
Special correspondent Faizy reported from Kabul and Times staff writer Shashank Bengali from Sofia, Bulgaria.
shashank.bengali@latimes.com
Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia
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In an interview, Paraguay's finance minister says the sovereign plans to tap the market for up to $550m in March
Hubble Telescope Surprises Astronomers: Captured Image Unveils Death Of Star
staff@latinoshealth.com By partha das Feb 13, 2017 12:43 PM EST
Astronomers witness a very rare moment when the Hubble Telescope captures the death of a star. It is a spectacular incident that creates a new dimension in the space research.
According to CNN, a red giant star blows out its own outer layers and forms the clouds of dust and gas. The Hubble Telescope beautifully reveals this incident. This cloud of dust and gas is called nebula.
NASA and the ESA or the European Space Agency jointly releases this rare incident, which is discovered by the Hubble Telescope. Usually, astronomers can't experience such incident as it happens "within the blink of an eye". This time the astronomers succeed to observe it.
According to NASA, the said Nebula is called the Calabash Nebula and the technical name of it is "OH 231.8+04.2". The Hubble Telescope points out that the giant star rapidly transforms into a planetary nebula. During this transformation process, it blows out the outer layer of dust and gas.
The released picture of this incident shows that the gas is yellow in color and it was ejected with a speed of 621,371 miles per hour. Sources say that this nebula will turn into a complete planetary nebula over the next thousand years. The image, captured by the Hubble Telescope, unveils some new features.
Another name of the nebula is the "Rotten Egg Nebula". The reason behind this name is it contains a big amount of sulphur that smells like the rotten eggs. ESA says that luckily this incident, unveiled by the Hubble Telescope, resides about "5000 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis".
A good number of nebulae are big in size and previously they got the identity from any diffuse astronomical object, even galaxies had the same identity. Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble unveiled the actual identity of the galaxies and introduced people with the true definition of the nebula. Currently, the Hubble Telescope can produce the real fact.
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The biggest storm is struck the Northeast dropped a foot or more of snow along the New York-to-Boston corridor on Thursday. As a result turning road made treacherously and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day.
According to CNBC, the first snow-related death was reported in New York on Thursday. The doorman shoveling snow on the Upper East Side died after slipping and falling through a glass window. The 59-year old man sustained cuts to his neck and face and he was pronounced death at Metropolitan Hospital center.
As a result of this Airlines already have canceled more than 1,600 flights along the storm path as of midday Thursday. According to Flight Aware, most of those canceled flight were at the Newark, New Jersey; Boston; and John F. Kennedy International Airports.
The Akron Beacon Journal has reported the public school has closed in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. The latter two have also declared snow emergencies, which affect city services and parking. All the local offices of the New Jersey have been closed for non-essential personnel.
The National Weather Service has estimated that 8 to 12 inches of snow in New York and 12 to 15 inches in Boston are possible. More than 60 million people will be dealing with the wintry weather, said by the spokesperson from National Weather Service.
The local government official has taken few crucial steps for this condition. With whiteout conditions and snow, ice roads, officials urged residents not to drive. In New York city the bus service was not operating for the whole day.
Martin Walsh, Boston Mayor also said the city's public school system have shut down for Thursday. He urged people to be "looking out for your elderly neighbors, disabled neighbors who might not be able to help themselves".
Meanwhile, the local state police responded to nearly 200 vehicles crashes on Thursdays. The natural phenomenon was known as "thundersnow" in Rhode Island.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married in 1981 but ultimately divorced in 1996. The divorce was followed by the Princess' high profile car accident in 1997 where she died of a car crash. According to a book, the marriage of the former royal couple was doomed from the start as it was for convenience.
Prince Charles Marries Princess Diana Because of His Father Prince Philip
Prince Charles married Princess Diana out of convenience, according to a new book by Sally Bedell Smith entitled "Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes Of An Improbable Life." The couple was dating in the 1980s and was caught in a scandal that led to their marriage.
Radar Online reports that the two were apparently caught in a scandalous situation where they spent the night together alone aboard a royal train. Prince Charles' father, Prince Philip apparently pressured him to marry Diana after compromising her honor.
Prince Philip reportedly wrote Prince Charles a letter explaining his concern for Diana's reputation. He wanted Prince Charles to decide whether to marry the late Princess. Charles chose to propose and the book claimed that he wasn't enamored with Diana and wasn't ready to partake the holy matrimony.
The couple went on to get divorced several years after and Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005.
Prince Charles' Goddaughter Tara Palmer-Tomkinson Dies
Meanwhile, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla are saddened over the passing of Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Palmer-Tomkinson reportedly died at 45 years old for a brain tumor, according to People. The late socialite moved in the same circles as the British royals and is said to be a close family friend of Prince Charles and his family.
In a statement last week, Prince Charles and his wife said that they are "saddened" by Tara's passing. Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson issued her condolences saying she and her entire family were "shocked" by the news.
Eminem who is known to court controversy around his rapid-fire freestyle raps a no-holds barred artistic criticisms against homos and gays. He also sauntered into the political rap arena with this scathing rap against both new U.S. president Donald Trump and conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter.
According to Hiphop DX,15-time Grammy Award winner Eminem unleashed an 8-minute tirade freestyle rap against the new U.S. President Donald Trump in the song "No Favors" in Big Sean's album "I Decided". Not only did he lambast Donald Trump in this track, calling him a "b--ch" but he also rapped about having a fantasy sexually assaulting conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter.
Eminem blatantly attacked U.S. President Donald Trump with the said lyrics, "I'm anti / Can't no government handle a commando ... I'll make his whole brand go under."
But the more heated verses came from the "imaginary" sexual assault on Ann Coulter with the following lyrics:
"And f--- Ann Coulter with a Klan poster. With a lamp post, door handle, shutter. A d--- bolt cutter, a sandal, a can opener, a candle, rubber."
With that being said, Ann Coulter fights back by calling the rapper a "homophobic, misogynistic idiot". She stated that Eminem's verbal assaults have been violent attacks against women, The Rappler has learned.
"He talks about f-ing women with an umbrella until the bleep comes out," Ann says, TMZ has reported.
This is the second time Eminem has pulled out a political tirade in his rap songs. The first one was last year's "Campaign Speech" in which he rapped about attacking a volunteer neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman when he shot Trayvon Martin dead. Trayvon is a young African American going home with iced tea and candy.
On Sunday, Space X test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket. The test-fire took place at the historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre. The pre-flight test was done to mark the return of the launch pad that was done by NASA.
The Space X executed the test to verify that both the modified pad and falcon 9 were ready to launch. It was a three-second test fire on the historic launch pad to check whether it's ready to get launched. The main mission was to see that it delivers supplies and science equipment to the International Space Centre.
Earlier, the same launch pad was used to launch Saturn V rocket. It was in the year 1969 when the rocket first took people to the moon. According to Space, the complex of the launch was first was built in 1960 to support the Saturn V launch. Till now the pad has hosted 94 launches which include 12 Saturn V rockets and 84 shuttles.
Space X CEO, Elon Musk was seen sharing the picture of the Falcon 9. He posted the picture on Instagram mentioning that he was honoured to be allowed to use it. According to Florida Today, SpaceX is planning to launch astronauts from the same pad that launched Apollo astronauts to the moon. Space X is also planning to launch astronauts on its Dragon Spacecraft that will begin orbiting in early 2018. The Dragon spacecraft will help in several science investigations.
A severe explosion happened in the year 2016 where a fire also destroyed Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Airforce station. Repairing of the station is still going on. But the company left no bounds to prepare to prepare pad 39A for the launch of Space X.
Space X has already developed 3 launch pads and is preparing to build another fourth one. It already has two in Florida, one in Southern California. The upcoming one will be built in Texas. Stay tuned for more Space X updates.
Feb 13, 2017, 11:29am ET
Automakers ask Trump to review 2025 mpg mandate
Executives from 18 major automakers sent a letter asking the Trump administration restore a mid-term review before the targets are finalized.
Major automakers have ramped up their lobbying effort to reverse the Obama administration's last-minute move to finalize tighter fuel-efficiency targets for 2025.
The companies sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking for his administration to restore a mid-term review period extending through April 2018, giving the Environmental Protection Agency -- now under new leadership -- more time to make a decision on the higher corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard.
"As recently as late last fall, EPA assured us that the [mid-term review] would not result in a final determination before the next administration came into office," the letter claims, according to excerpts published by Bloomberg.
Automakers have argued that low gasoline prices and a related shift in consumer tastes toward crossovers and SUVs could make it unrealistic to hit a CAFE target above 50 mpg.
"We are committed to continued gains in fuel efficiency and carbon reduction," the letter added. "At the same time, ignoring consumer preferences and market realities will drive up costs for buyers and threaten future production levels."
The request was signed by executives from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford, General Motors, along with foreign automakers Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen, among others.
Feb 13, 2017, 9:47am ET
Ford invests $1B in AI startup Argo
Argo AI will work to develop a new software platform for Ford\'s fully autonomous vehicle, due in 2021.
Ford has announced plans to invest $1 billion in Argo AI, a startup focused on artificial intelligence technology.
The funds will help pay for five years of development, allowing Argo to create an entirely new software platform to power Ford's first fully autonomous vehicle due in 2021.
"The team of experts in robotics and artificial intelligence is led by Argo AI founders Bryan Salesky, company CEO, and Peter Rander, company COO," Ford said in a statement. "Both are alumni of Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and former leaders on the self-driving car teams of Google and Uber, respectively."
The Argo AI team will work alongside Ford's own engineers to develop the 'virtual driver system' for an SAE Level 4 vehicle. The standard is defined as capable of operating autonomously in almost any situation, except for inclement weather and other extreme scenarios. While activated, such systems do not require a human to remain attentive to the driving task. The company will still have more work ahead to achieve Level 5 autonomy, where a human can simply pick the destination and let the car handle all driving tasks in any conditions.
Ford CEO Mark Fields suggest AI will have as significant an impact on society as the moving assembly line did at the beginning of the 20th century.
"This open collaboration is unlike any other partnership - allowing us to benefit from combining the speed of a startup with Ford's strengths in scaling technology, systems integration and vehicle design," says Ford CTO Raj Nair.
Argo AI will also be allowed to license its autonomous driving software platform to other automakers.
Two Bethlehem City Councilman have announced their re-elections bids.
Councilman Eric Evans (left) and Councilman Bryan Callahan (right).
Councilman Eric Evans announced Sunday he is running for his third term on council while Councilman Bryan Callahan said Monday that he is seeking his second.
Four council seats are up for grabs in 2017.
Councilwoman Olga Negron-Dipini has said she plans to run again. Council Vice President Adam Waldron is also up for re-election, but has not said if he plans to seek another term.
"It's been an honor to serve on council," Evans, who lives in the northeast section of the city, said in a news release. "I have worked hard to make a positive impact on the city, and I'm excited to campaign for the opportunity to continue serving Bethlehem."
Evans, who teaches American history at East Hills Middle School, was first elected to council in 2009 and re-elected in 2013. He's a former council president and has chaired the pubic safety and parks and public property committees.
Callahan, who lives in Center City, said in a press release that he chose to run on a simple platform: keep Bethlehem growing, keep taxes low and maintain clean and safe neighborhoods. He feels he has delivered on this promise, but there's more work to do.
"Living in the heart of the downtown has allowed me to experience the vibrancy of our city from a unique point of view. Bethlehem really is a special place," Callahan, a Freedom High School teacher, said. "Our Main Street is bustling and is the envy of many. We have a great city but we cannot afford to become complacent."
Bethlehem is seeing significant economic development right now, adding to its vibrant downtown and commercial areas, Evans said.
"At the same time, our housing stock and park system offers many options, making Bethlehem a wonderful place to live, work, and play," Evans, who is married and has two sons, said. "I love living in Bethlehem and want to protect that quality of life for future generations."
Callahan touted his focus on the city's finances, noting he was the only person to vote against the 2016 property tax increase. During the 2017 budget process, Callahan pushed for a tax decrease, but did not succeed. Council passed a zero tax hike spending plan.
"I supported additional transparency efforts on the way we spend your tax dollars and ways to reduce and streamline our city government," he said.
To keep taxes low, Callahan supports economic development to grow Bethlehem's tax base and ensure a strong future. He pointed to his support for a new Bethlehem Parking Authority garage in South Bethlehem to support the new Dennis Benner project and Third and New streets.
"I am confident that continued private investment in South Bethlehem will follow once the garage is complete," Callahan said. "We need to do more of this throughout the city."
He vowed to keep pushing for redevelopment of former Bethlehem Steel Corp. land, Martin Tower and infill development throughout the city.
Callahan pointed to his support for various initiatives, such as the revamped blighted property ordinance, which he said protects Bethlehem's strong neighborhoods.
A widower and father of two, Callahan said he is quite proud of his involvement in creating the city's first Italian festival as a tribute to his late wife. He is the brother of former city Mayor John Callahan.
Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Bethlehem Township police are trying to arrest a man and woman they say stole items from Best Buy in the Southmont Shopping Center.
Bethlehem Township police said this pair stole items Friday from Best Buy stores in the township and Phillipsburg. (Courtesy photos)
The incident occurred on Friday. Township police said the pair also were involved in a similar theft earlier Friday at the Best Buy in Greenwich Township.
The female was seen on store surveillance footage wearing a pink hooded sweatshirt, black leggings and black boots. The male was seen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, denim jeans and white sneakers.
Police took to the department's Facebook page Sunday in hopes of finding the pair. Police did not state exactly what was reported stolen from the store.
The two individuals in the accompanying photos were involved in a retail theft from the Best Buy in Southmont Plaza on... Posted by Bethlehem Township Police Dept on Saturday, February 11, 2017
Those with information are urged to call the dispatch center at 610-759-2200 or text "TIP BETHLEHEMTWP" followed by your message to 888777 or visit https://local.nixle.com/tip/township-of-bethlehem/
Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A meeting to discuss plans for a school for tractor-trailer drivers and mechanics is moving to the Charles Chrin Community Center in Palmer Township.
That venue can handle a much larger crowd than at the municipal building.
The Palmer Township planning commission will hear plans at 7 p.m. Tuesday from Werner Enterprises for the new facility at 1460 Tatamy Road.
After hearing opposition from residents last year, Werner revised its plans to re-route the entrance from neighbors.
About 100 people packed an informational meeting in June concerning the school. About 240 people are members of the closed Facebook group "Concerns & Complaints Villages of Mill Race/Tatamy Hunt," which circulates news and opinions about the trucking school and its effect on nearby home property values.
Neighbors are circulating fliers urging attendance at the planning commission meeting. That group will make a recommendation to the township board of supervisors, which will have the final say on whether the trucking school can be built.
"Get involved now!" the flier says.
The initial plan called for 75 parking spaces for truck tractors, 169 spaces for trailers and 179 car parking spaces. It's unclear how plans have changed for the 50-acre site.
Werner Enterprises is based in Omaha, Nebraska. The international trucking company was founded 60 years ago and has a facility in Upper Macungie Township.
Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A driver stopped for an illegal U-turn had a concealed gun on his leg and several small bags of marijuana and $18,000 in small bills in his car, Upper Macungie police said.
Dallas Lane, of West Virginia, initially told township police his name was Danielle Lee Carter, but his true identity was confirmed via fingerprints, police said.
Lane was arrested, and is now facing carrying a firearm without a license, giving a fake name to police, two counts of DUI and other related charges.
The 27-year-old Lane is being held in Lehigh County Jail in lieu of $75,000 bail.
Township police said they stopped Lane Sunday night on Route 100, after he made a U-turn at the intersection with Penn Drive, which has a "No U-turn" sign.
An officer smelled a strong odor of burnt marijuana, and Lane reportedly admitted to smoking marijuana about two hours prior.
Lane was asked to get out of the vehicle to perform field sobriety tests, when, during a weapons frisk, Lane told the officer he had a loaded firearm hidden in his left pant leg near his ankle, police said. The officer secured the firearm, and police said they learned Lane does not have a permit to carry a concealed firearm.
Lane could not complete the field sobriety tests, and was arrested under suspicion of DUI. Officers then searched his Jeep Liberty and found the pot and cash, according to police.
Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
NETCONG -- The past 18 months have been hell for Heidi Strus and her family.
Dylan Bright, 22, of Bath, Pa.
Her son, Dylan Bright, 22, of Bath, Pa., was last seen by family members on June 24, 2015, but that was the last time anyone heard from him.
"Pure hell," Strus said. "Just not knowing (what happened)."
Strus and Bright's five siblings tried contacting him but as holidays passed without word, they grew more worried. Strus herself constantly checked on her son's Facebook for any change.
This past April, bones were found near Furnace Pond in Netcong, and, last month, investigators confirmed they were Bright's.
During the nearly year and a half in between, Strus held a fleeting hope her son would turn up alive.
"I was suspecting something that happened to him, but I never gave up hope because without proof there's still a possibility he could show up," she said.
Morris County Prosecutor's Office spokesman Paul Merkler confirmed Tuesday the remains found near the pond were Bright's, but indicated the cause and manner of death remain pending.
Strus, who lives in Palm Bay, Fla., said the prosecutor's office told her her son's death is currently considered an accident unless investigators find evidence suggesting another cause.
She also acknowledged her son had had troubles with the law and drugs in the past but Strus doesn't believe her son's death was the result of an overdose.
She's also skeptical of some of the investigation's findings. Bright's head, hands and part of his torso were not recovered, she said, pointing out that dental records and fingerprints are the standard means of identifying remains.
Strus also said her son was last seen running toward Furnace Pond on June 24 -- an area he was known to frequent with friends
Strus also said when she spoke to one investigator in early January asking for an update whether the bones belonged to her son she was told, "This isn't CSI. It doesn't happen in an hour."
The next day, two officers with her local police department came to her door and told her New Jersey authorities had identified the bones as Bright's
"I get it doesn't happen in an hour," she said. "I get that they're overwhelmed, but you know what, this is my son. I just want to know what happened."
Strus also said authorities had her son's DNA on file from a previous arrest, but it wasn't properly put into the system. Instead, she and her daughter ended up driving across Florida in December in order to provide New Jersey investigators with samples of their DNA for comparison.
Strus did, however, praise officers with the Netcong Police Department who took her to Furnace Pond on Monday to show her where her son's remains were found.
"My interpretation is he decomposed and started flowing down across multiple locations (in Furnace Pond)," she said. "Nobody knows how he got in the water. Why aren't we trying to find out how he got in the water?"
Bright grew up in Newton and attended Newton High School but later moved to Bath, Pa., according to his obituary.
A memorial service will be held for Bright on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 4 p.m. at the Smith-McCracken Funeral Home, 63 High St., Newton. Memorial visitation will be held on Saturday, Feb., 11, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the funeral home.
Donations may be made to the Center for Prevention and Counseling, 61 Spring S., Newton, NJ 07860, for the Dylan Bright Memorial Fund.
More information on the funeral arrangements is available at the funeral home's website.
Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Demonstrators Protest At The White House Against Muslim Immigration Ban
Protestors in Washington and around the country gathered last month to protest President Donald Trump's executive order barring the citizens of Muslim-majority countries Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen from traveling to the United States.
(Photo by Zach Gibson | Getty Images)
Jeff Bust's recent op-ed column about "deplorables" sums up the opinion of the silent majority. People are demonstrating over everything and when questioned, many don't know what they are demonstrating about and many are not even from the area. The same few show up on TV (paid?) rioting. Why aren't they arrested, jailed and made to make restitution for their damages? Don't any of these people work? Don't the younger ones have school?
President Trump's stance on immigrants coming from countries that can't be vetted should be applauded, as was done when Bill Clinton made his speech to Congress in 1995. 109 people coming from the seven countries Obama had declared were suspect were detained, bringing hordes of demonstrators that disrupted thousands of travelers. News media were quick to show teary-eyed reunions. What does a terrorist look like? Do protestors or the media have access to classified information on anyone entering America?
Trump was never my choice, but after a month in office and Congress holding up his cabinet nominees, he isn't being given a chance. Democrats declared they will oppose anything Trump tries to do and Republicans will match this with arrogance. Is this what they are elected to do? America has so many problems and we have a useless Congress squabbling among themselves like children.
The demonstrators who kept Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from entering a school in D.C. didn't seem to know how poorly their schools are doing. When something isn't working, it's time to try different ideas.
Our enemies are watching! Isn't it time we become Americans instead of Democrats, Republicans, demonstrators and naysayers?
Bea Mackey
Harmony Township
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The Government has given the green light for plans to create 21,000 jobs and generate 123 million for business over the next 25 years.
The Minister for Local Government will today announce backing for an enterprise zone covering three key industrial sites in Leicester and Loughborough.
The 400 acres of office and industrial land is made up of the Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park; the 200 million Charnwood Campus the huge former AstraZeneca laboratory complex in Loughborough and the new Leicester Waterside scheme.
Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said there were now even more incentives for national and global businesses to invest here.
He said: "It will help to deliver our ambitious plans for the Waterside area in the city and strengthen the University of Leicester's proposed National Space Park at Pioneer Park, which will give Leicester even greater prominence on a global scale."
Leicester Waterside will build on the city's reputation for space science, with the National Space Park built in partnership with the University of Leicester, next to the National Space Centre.
The Loughborough University site specialises in advanced engineering and manufacturing, energy and low carbon technology.
While the old AstraZeneca site has 70 acres of high quality labs and offices for the bio-medical and pharmaceutical industries.
The plans were drawn up by Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) and complement an existing enterprise zone created in 2011 at the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA), at Higham on the Hill, near Hinckley.
Companies in enterprise zones benefit from:
Up to 100 per cent business rate discounts, worth up to 275,000 over five years
Simplified planning rules
Government backing for superfast broadband
Powers for local enterprise partnerships to reinvest all business rates generated by the zones.
Formally announcing the three part zone this morning, Local Government Minister Marcus Jones was expected to say it would "fire up" the Midlands Engine as Britain prepared to exit the EU.
LLEP chairman Nick Pulley said: "Confirmation of this second enterprise zone will make Leicester and Leicestershire extremely attractive to science, innovation and hi-tech manufacturing companies looking for research facilities and industrial and office space to base and expand their businesses.
"We have already seen this model working brilliantly at MIRA Technology Park in the automotive sector and we will look to replicate this in the science, innovation and hi-tech manufacturing sectors. Together, the zones give us four specialist commercial sites that really enable us to cement our distinctive place as the research and development capital of the Midlands."
He said he now hoped the Government would support an application for 144 million from the local growth fund, for roads and infrastructure which would help the zones. job
Bob Allison, vice-chancellor at Loughborough University, said: "This exciting proposal reinforces the unstinting commitment of our three universities to make a significant impact on the economic prosperity of the area, through the provision of a world-class research and development base, skilled graduate supply and innovation partnership opportunities."
Professor Paul Boyle, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester, said: "It's great to hear that the Government is again backing Leicestershire's success by investing in our world-class research and development clusters.
"From the life sciences to R&D supporting investment in energy, space and satellite technologies, Leicestershire is emerging at the forefront of UK research."
Gosia Khrais, marketing manager of Charnwood Campus, said: "Confirmed enterprise zone status will boost our potential considerably."
A Kildare comedian is due to appear on RTE tonight to discuss how organ donation can save lives, after he donated a kidney to his brother.
Jarlath Regan, who hails from Newbridge, hosts the An Irishman Abroad podcast on ITunes. He has come to national and international attention over the past few years as a successful comedian.
The operation took place in the US over a week ago and both brothers are recovering well. Jarlath flew home on February 8 and has been raising awareness of the importance of organ donation throughout the process. He will be speaking to Claire Byrne on RTE tonight about his experience.
Speaking to Eoghan McDermott on 2FM in August, Jarlath said he didn't hesitate when asked if he would be willing to donate a kidney to his brother.
Of course Im going to save my brothers life, he said. Lets be honest, too its the ultimate good guy thing to do. From this point on, nobody can call me selfish. I have medical evidence that I am a decent human being.
I have two sistersI have a kid and a wife. I have to support them. Families fall out over organ donation all the time. But the mad thing is there are people walking around with two kidneys when you only need one.
Without the operation, he said his brother would probably have died within five years.
Tweeting after the operation, Jarlath said; "Thanks for all the messages guys. We're both over the moon with the results. So far so good."
ALONE, the charity that supports older people to age at home, is highlighting the importance of their Befriending Service during Friendship Week 2017 (February 13-17).
ALONE believes that Befriending can act as a preventative health measure in tackling the effects of loneliness among older people.
In Ireland, one third of older people over 65 live alone and 60% of people aged over 80 live alone. In recent years, a wide range of studies have shown that isolation and loneliness affect the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of an individual. With the number of over-65s living in Ireland expected to increase to 1.4m by 2046, ALONE is reminding the general public to extend the hand of friendship to the older members of their communities this Friendship Week.
Sean Moynihan, CEO of ALONE commented, It is vitally important that as we age we maintain strong links with our local community. Older people need good services of a consistent quality, to ensure that they dont slip through the cracks and become isolated from other people.
ALONEs Befriending Service provides companionship to over 500 older people who are socially isolated through a weekly volunteer visit as well as a range of social events. ALONE are continually developing the service to ensure that all older people who require it will have access to a quality assured Befriending Service.
Sean Moynihan commented, As an organisation that works with older people, we see firsthand the effects of loneliness. I dont think that people are aware just how devastating loneliness can be for your general health. Not only can loneliness lead to depression, but it is also a predictor for dementia, cardiovascular disease and decreased immune system responsivity. Loneliness is twice as dangerous to the health of an older person as obesity, and is as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
He continued Many older people think that by asking for help and support they are bothering people. We want them to know that they deserve more than a little help and support and they shouldnt be afraid to ask for it.
Befriending Network Ireland, led by ALONE, is a national network of Befriending Services for vulnerable and older people that aims are to provide training, quality, transparency as well as a national voice for befriending. ALONE is the only Befriending Service in the country to have a quality award and are passionate about ensuring quality across Befriending Services.
Moynihan concluded, This Friendship Week, we implore older people who are feeling isolated to reach out to Befriending Network Ireland or someone in their own community for help. Were also asking the public to set aside 10 minutes to call in on any older persons they think may benefit from seeing a friendly face. It could be the highlight of someones week.
For those who have concerns about their own wellbeing, or the wellbeing of a vulnerable older person in the community, ALONE can be contacted on (01) 679 1032. To make a donation and help aid ALONEs work visit www.alone.ie
ESB has awarded more than 80,000 to 17 community and voluntary groups in the vicinity of their wind farms located near the townlands and villages of Arigna, Co Roscommon, Drumkeerin, Co Leitrim and Geevagh, Co Sligo.
This funding is part of ESBs Wind Farm Community Fund, which makes grants available to community and voluntary organisations for projects located in close proximity to their wind farms.
The 17 projects that received funding in 2016, are as follows:
15,000 was awarded to Keadue sports field committee towards the construction of a multi-use games area in Kilronan Parish (Keadue, Arigna and Ballyfarnon). The project, when complete, will deliver an all-weather sports pitch with provisions for GAA, football and basketball thereby providing a central resource for people of all ages to partake in physical activity in a safe environment.
8,600 was awarded to Dromahair Development Association Tidy Towns towards the refurbishment of their depot, with the introduction of a new heating system, security system and the installation of solar panels.
7,300 was awarded to The Trial Management Committee towards the upgrade and preservation of the Miners Way and Historical Trail to ensure it remains safe, continues to meet user expectations and remain free from erosion or other issues which may impact the user or the environment.
6,000 was awarded to Dromahair Arts and Recreation Centre Association Ltd towards the upgrade of their welfare facilities so as to create ease of access for disabled users.
5,000 was awarded to Geevagh Local Area Development towards enhancing the safety around the local playground with a tarmacadam road at its entrance.
5,000 was awarded to Drumkeerin GAA Club towards the draining and upgrading of the existing pitches to improve their quality and make them all-weather surfaces.
4,000 was awarded to Strabraggan National School in Arigna towards the creation of a multi-sensory play garden on the school grounds, where all pupils can experience, explore and experiment with a wide variety of plants and materials.
4,000 was awarded to Arigna Energy Valley Co. Ltd towards replacing elements of their internal haulage system, which is an integral component of their tour.
4,000 was awarded to Mountallen Residents towards the construction and maintenance of a number of rafts suitable for nesting terns on Lough Allen.
3,900 was awarded to Drumkeerin Tidy Towns towards enhancing the appearance of the village for residents and visitors, via the creation of welcome displays on the approach roads.
3,800 was awarded to Keadue Social Services towards the purchase of IT equipment for use in training sessions with their elderly and disabled members.
3,500 was awarded to Keadue Development Association Tidy Towns towards enhancing the appearance and heritage of the village, via the installation of sculptures depicting the musical heritage of the area.
3,000 was awarded to Scoil Cill Ronain in Keadue towards the construction of an outdoor classroom where students will have the opportunity to learn about gardening, and growing plants and vegetables.
2,500 was awarded to Arigna Youth Club towards the purchase of a variety of equipment to assist in the provision of activities for the youth in the area.
2,000 was awarded to Grupa Oidhreachta Dhroim Dha Thiar, Co Leitrim towards the installation of road markers at milestones throughout the area which preserve the old Irish townland names.
1,700 was awarded to St. Brigid's National School in Drumkeerin towards the encouragement and promotion of sports and exercise via the purchase of new sports equipment.
1,500 was awarded to Arigna Hall Committee towards the provision of carpentry equipment for use by the Mens Shed members.
900 was awarded to Geevagh Community Resources Ltd towards painting the exterior of their premise.
Over the past six years, ESB has invested more than 5.5 million in 604 projects across 18 communities living in the vicinity of its wind farms.
Michael Bermingham, Stakeholder Manager, ESB, comments: ESBs position as Irelands foremost energy company makes us a vital part of our transition to a low carbon society. This is why we are committed to being a good neighbour, supporting the communities in which we operate; we want to help them reach their full potential. In making this scheme available to groups close to these four wind farms, we are contributing to development of essential infrastructure and services, and the creation of a brighter future the residents of its neighbouring rural communities.
Katherine said she was more Olivia from Newtownforbes than Olivia Newton John, but the judges and the audience loved her dance to 'Your'e the one that I want' from the Grease musical.
Love was in the air last night with RTE's special Valentines themed show. Hearts and sparkles were the order of the day as our 8 celebrities took to the floor. Unfortunately it was tough love for Des Bishop and partner Guila Dotta as they failed to make it through to the next round.
Katherine Lynch and Kai Widdrington performed a quickstep routine to Youre the One that I Want by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. It was graceful, elegant and fast and was topped off with a big smooch on the lips for Katherine.
The judges gave much praise, Lorraine said, "I thought it was dazzling, it was brilliant. You showed me quarter turns you are committed and I want you to do more." Darren and Brian also have a lot of praise for the Mohill dancer. They received 21 points in total from the judges.
Darren: Youre back at your best, it was light, bright and fun. Great bounce in the knees and feet the play between you is always spot on. Great job.
Also announced last night was the switch up! On next weeks show the celebrities will have a different pro dance partner. Tune in to find out who!
A REVIEW of traffic calming measures on the N21 at Templeglantine has prompted proposals for changes to the existing system.
At a meeting of Newcastle West Municipal District last week, councillors were assured that the proposed modifications would solve the problems highlighted by them since the project was completed in 2014.
Councillors had called for a review because of mounting concern about accidents and near-misses, at the start of the traffic calming measures at the west end of Templeglantine.
The single biggest problem, Cllr Michael Collins said, was the line of the road at the Abbeyfeale side of Templeglantine. It forced traffic to the right almost into the path of oncoming traffic, he explained.
As part of the review, council official Deirdre Clarke told the councillors, day and night times visits were made to Templeglantine and a speed survey and accident survey was carried out. That survey showed that 85% of cars drove at 74kph or lower while 85% of trucks drove at 72kph or lower in what is a 60kph zone, she said. The data for accidents, given just one year of operation, was insufficient to draw conclusions, she added.
But she went on to propose modifying the road lining on the approach to the first set of traffic islands inside the speed limit on the western side.. She also proposed kerbing the edge of the road between the first and second set of traffic islands. This would help soften the curve on approach and guide traffic through, Ms Clarke explained.
I think that is a waste of money, Cllr Liam Galvin protested. The design was wrong the first day, he argued and the modifications would not change that.
Engineer Ger Carey, however, explained that the roads authority, Transport Infrastructure Ireland was not keen to straighten the line of the road from the west. Rather, he said, they were very keen on chicanes, forcing traffic to travel through an S shape and ultimately to slow down.
But Cllrs Francis Foley and Seamus Browne said they were prepared to accept the professionals advice. at face value.
poses placing bollards near the pedestrian crossing in front of the Devon Inn Hotel to improve sightlines for drivers and ensure greater safety for pedestrians.
A YOUNG man whose fingerprints were found inside a stolen car which was abandoned in the city has been sentenced to four months imprisonment.
Clyde Keogh, aged 21, who has an address at Ballyclough Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston denied allowing himself to be carried in the car which was stolen in Shannon on July 28, 2015.
During a contested hearing, Garda Michelle OCarroll said the stolen vehicle was forensically examined after it was located at Rosbrien at around 9.10pm.
She said Mr Keoghs fingerprints were found on the underside of the radio which she believed was reasonable grounds to suggest Clyde Keogh was a suspect.
The defendant, who was arrested for separate offences early last year, was taken out of Limerick Prison and interviewed on March 25, 2016.
Judge Marie Keane was told nothing of evidential value emerged during the interviews.
Being cross-examined by solicitor Darach McCarthy, Garda OCarroll agreed that Mr Keogh was suspected of stealing the car and that she did not put it to him (in interview) that he was a passenger in the stolen car.
The witness accepted it was possible that the defendant had come upon the stolen car after it had been abandoned.
I cant say where or when he was in the vehicle, she said.
Seeking to have the case dismissed, Mr McCarthy submitted that the State had not proven the charge before the court.
It may be unsavoury to say but there is no evidence to say he was carried in the vehicle, he said.
Judge Keane rejected the application stating she was satisfied the State had proven its case.
The judge said she was noting that Mr Keogh, who has more than 50 previous convictions, had not offered any explanation as to how his fingerprints came to be inside the vehicle.
She imposed a four month prison sentence, which she ordered be served consecutively to the prison sentence which the defendant is currently serving.
An appeal against the conviction and sentence has been lodged.
FUNDING totalling almost 1m is to be awarded to arts and culture centres in Limerick under the States Creative Ireland programme.
The capital funding, announced this Monday by arts minister Heather Humphreys, will see local cultural organisations receive 996,097 in funding from her Department.
The Minister made the announcement as part of the Creative Ireland programme, with funding provided under her Departments Arts and Culture Capital Scheme 2016-2018 9m in total for 56 bodies nationwide.
The Limerick arts institutions to benefit include: the Hunt Museum, Dance Limerick, Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick City Gallery of Art and the Irish Aerial Creation Centre.
This breaks down into the following:
- The Hunt Museum LTD is to receive 400,000 to carry out remedial and fire safety works, enhance the visitor centre, extend exhibition space and complete works to reduce running costs
- Dance Limerick Hub CLG Limerick is to receive 75,015 for thermal imaging of the building, upgrade of the heating system and fabric/energy upgrade
- Lime Tree Theatre Limerick Limited is to receive 45,232 for the refurbishment of Belltable Theatre to address the safety & comfort of patrons
- Limerick City Gallery of Art Limerick is to receive 125,850 to undertake essential repairs and address fire safety issues and reduce costs
- The Irish Aerial Creation Centre Limerick is to receive 350,000 to increase access to: The 1826 Franciscan Church on Henry Street and the Irish Aerial Creation Centre, home of Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Company
Fidget Feet will take over the Franciscan Church as part of this development, moving from its home near the University of Limerick while the Limerick Museum is to move into the adjoining Friary.
Welcoming the funding, Senator Maria Byrne said it would come as a very welcome announcement to artists and audiences who use the various centres.
Investing in infrastructure, like theatres and performance spaces, is critical for a vibrant arts and culture sector, which in turn underpins social cohesion and supports economic growth, she explained.
I am confident that this funding injection for the Hunt Museum Ltd, Dance Limerick Hub CLG, Lime Tree Theatre Limerick Limited, Limerick City Gallery of Art and the Irish Arial Creation Centre will help to grow local audiences and attract further people into Limerick.
Creative Ireland, the Governments ambitious new 5 year strategy, aims to place culture and creativity at the heart of every community nationwide. A vibrant cultural sector is essential to society and investment in local arts and cultural centres helps to facilitate access to and participation in the arts in communities nationwide.
Minister Humphreys said the 9 million announcement is the most significant investment in regional arts and cultural centres in a decade.
The Creative Ireland Programme places a focus on investing in our cultural infrastructure, because high quality infrastructure is critical for a vibrant arts and culture sector, which in turn underpins social cohesion and supports sustainable economic growth, she added.
A father-of-two charged with murdering his flatmate at their home in Limerick has said he does not know why he gave gardai a different account of the death to the one he gave the jury.
The accused told gardai that he had come home to find his flatmate with serious injuries, but has since told the jury that he inflicted them.
Arnis Labunskis, aged 56, with an address at Wolfe Tone Street denies murdering 39-year-old Dainius Burba in their house there on April 21 or April 22, 2015.
The Latvian national entered the witness box on Friday and became emotional, as he described hearing Mr Burba scream when he hit him with the leg of a table. He said he had taken it from the deceased, who had begun swinging it at him, after calling him into his darkened room in the middle of the night.
This Monday morning, his barrister, Michael Bowman SC, asked him about giving arresting gardai a different account to the one he gave in court.
The answers. I dont know why I did that, why I thought I have to do it, he replied. Only when I spent a week in prison, I realised: Why I cant tell? Why did i do it? Everything could be different, he continued. Yes I acknowledge that, but why I cant answer.
Being cross-examined by Anthony Sammon SC, prosecuting, the defendant said he did not know that his t-shirt, stained with Mr Burbas blood, was in a plastic bag that he threw into wheelie bin that morning.
He said that it might have landed in that bag when he pulled it off. He said he then put bottles into the bag and threw them away.
He said that Mr Burba was still alive and snoring when he left the house to walk to his daughters house that morning.
You had bashed his head in, fractured his skull, broken his jaw, damaged his brain, said Mr Sammon. Are you seriously suggesting that you thought that Mr Burba was still alive when you returned?
He said he was sure he would be alive.
I thought I just make him dizzy, he said.
I suggest you would hear the sound of a skull being fragmented by a table leg, said Mr Sammon.
I didnt hear that, he replied.
Mr Sammon put it to him that he had known that his flatmate wouldnt get better.
You knew you had killed him by battering his head in. You knew you had killed him because you had intended to kill him, he suggested.
I didnt want to kill him. He wanted to kill me, he responded.
The only thing that saved my life was the bed, he said, referring to having jumped up onto the bed to get away from Mr Burba.
If there was no bed, maybe he would be sitting here, he said, becoming emotional. We would swap places.
The trial continues before Ms Justice Deirdre McCarthy and a jury of three women and nine men.
THE number of patients on trolleys at University Hospital Limerick has seen a dramatic fall this Monday, according to figures released by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
There are just 16 people on trolleys at UHL this Monday in A&E and on wards according to figures collated by the INMO, a drop from 35 on Friday and a high of 46 last Tuesday.
The overcrowding figure has been consistently high at UHL and the hospital is regularly the most overcrowded in the country. A fall to 16 this Monday is significant, and the Leader understands there was about half of the usual amount of patients on trolleys overnight on Sunday also.
It is understood that there was fewer patients presenting at the hospital this Monday. Pressure on UHL may well be decreasing after the strain a particularly virulent flu outbreak placed on services in the region over the last number of month.
27 beds that were opened between St Johns Hospital, Ennis and Nenagh hospitals to alleviate overcrowding have now reverted back to their original use.
A state-of-the-art emergency department is expected to open this May, subject to a successful recruitment campaign and HSE funding.
It will be three times the size of the current facility, and is expected to improve the patient and staff experience at the hospital, a spokesperson for the UL Hospitals Group has said.
THE Limerick man who won more than 200,000 in the Lotto has said he plans to divide the win among family and friends.
The man, who the National Lottery said wishes to keep his 209,241 win private, collected the cheque at Lotto HQ in Dublin this Monday, accompanied by his wife and family.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, said the emotional Limerick man after claiming his Lotto Match 5 + Bonus prize which was the result of a Quick Pick ticket bought in Kellys Costcutter on Main Street in Foynes last Wednesday.
This is an incredible amount of money just for one person. Since we found out about the win on Wednesday, my wife and I have been putting plans in place to divide the win among family and friends, he explained.
We know that a small amount of money would mean the world to a lot of people. Its a special feeling knowing that we will be making a huge difference.
The winning father did admit that he would allow himself one special indulgence just the ticket with Valentines Day looming.
The one and only thing I want to buy is a handbag for my wife, he laughed.
My wife took a shine to some handbags in the shops last week so Id like to give her a special treat to celebrate our win, he added.
Manager Eoin Kelly told the Limerick Leader last week that the expectation in the store was that winner could be a local person.
About 90 percent of our trade is local trade when it comes to Lotto, so wed be very confident that it would be someone local, he said, speaking before the winner collected his ticket this Monday.
We dont have petrol pumps where thered be a lot of passing trade, so wed have a lot more local trade, he added.
News of the winning ticket had caused much excitement in the store, Mr Kelly said.
The footfall this morning has been increased, theyre in checking their tickets, and theres a good bit of banter around the place about who won it, said Mr Kelly.
The National Lottery said that this Wednesdays estimated jackpot is heading for a massive 10 million.
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Khadi Indias notice to FabIndia kindles debate on who owns khadi Khadi India's legal notice to Fabindia opens a larger debate on Khadi ownership and what it means for aspirant buyers of India's freedom fabric /news/talking-point/khadi-india-s-notice-to-fabindia-kindles-debate-on-who-owns-khadi-111646901481840.html 111646901481840 story
Brands that put out Khadi products or garments must, in accordance with this existing legal framework, apply for a Khadimark Regulation Certificate. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint.
New Delhi: Just before the working week ended on Saturday, the state-run Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) sent a legal notice to Fabindia for continuing to sell garments in the name of khadi.
The communication forwarded by KVICs media cell called it a strongly worded legal notice" that stressed its ownership over brand khadi, a symbol of Indias freedom struggle that went on to become the uniform of choice for post-independence politicians and then evolved into a fashion statement.
To quote from the notice, the organisation (Fabindia) was continuing to sell its garments in the name and style of khadi despite earlier warnings by KVIC and assurances by Fabindia that it will not do so. It is an illegal act and amounts to indulging in unfair trade practice."
KVIC threatened Fabindia with legal action if the latter did not stop the practice immediately. Established in 1960, Fabindia Overseas Pvt. Ltd, an Indian brand, claims to be the countrys largest retail platform for goods produced by artisans who live largely in rural areas. The KVIC notice alleges that Fabindia uses the word khadi" on its price tags while calling them Fabindia cotton" on the labels stuck to the garments. This misleads consumers," said KVIC chairperson V.K. Saxena.
Citing the KVIC Act of 1956 and the Khadi Mark Regulations, of 2003 notified by the union ministry of micro, small and medium Enterprises, Saxena says no product can be sold as khadi without the Khadi Mark tag. Not only that, any private brand or producer of khadi must buy khadi from a government-cleared khadi institution. This is the only way to protect khadi artisans," he says.
Brands that put out khadi products or garments must, in accordance with this existing legal framework, apply for a Khadimark Regulation Certificate.
From 2 October 2016, this procedure was made simpler and faster, according to Saxena. The KVIC website shows a Khadi Registration Seva tag which clarifies the 45-day process. Rs10,000 as fee for the certificate and a list of 25 spinners and 5 weavers is all we seek. Anyone can sell khadi as long as they follow KVICs checks and balances and follow regulations," said Saxena.
He also reiterated that there had been official, written back-and-forth with Fabindia since August 2015, when the company had put out advertisements on the sale of khadi products. They were in negotiations with us since last year but did not adhere to the procedural formalities of Khadi Mark certificate despite agreeing to do so in written communication."
Fabindia CEO Viney Singh said in an e-mailed statement: We are in receipt of the notice and have responded to KVIC, requesting a meeting with the designated authorities to understand the issues that have been raised, and to resolve them."
Given KVICs increasing assertion of its legal ownership of khadi, companies like Raymond, for instance, applied for a regulation certification last year to sell khadi fabrics, according to Saxena. Numerous other khadi players remain unaware about the obligations they have to KVIC if they use the word khadi on their tags.
Also read: Why Modi is upset his picture replaced Mahatma Gandhis on khadi calendar
And thats exactly the warp and weft of the khadi story. While Fabindia and KVIC may soon come to a truce given the legal binding, what must consumers make of what is sold in stores and brands, including websites, under the name of khadi?
Khadi exponent Rta Kapur Chishtis label Taanbaan uses handspun, handwoven Khadi but nowhere does it say khadi". By definition though, khadi is handspun, handwoven fabric".
In fact, Chishti, who has always raised questions about the authenticity of whats paraded as khadi says most, if not all khadi sold by KVIC institutions is from semi-mechanized Ambar Charkhas.
Desi charkhas have been completely forsaken because they are slow in production," she said.
For the aspirant khadi wearer, its brand value as the fabric of freedom endorsed by the greatest handloom marketer of all timesMahatma Gandhiis clear. Whats not clear though is what does khadi really mean? Is it handloom? Is it handspun and handwoven? Is it okay to accept Ambar Charkha Khadi sold by KVIC and its regulated institutions as authentic khadi because of the Khadi Mark tag? Legally, the last is correct, but realistically, there are very few khadi centres that still make handspun, handwoven khadi.
So in a way Ambar Charkha Khadi is authentic khadi given that it carries the tag? So what happened to Gandhis handspun khadi?
Those buying khadi from fashion designers or established and credible brands may even be deeper in the dark about how this authenticity" should be defined. Should they accept Arvind Mills Ltd Khadi Denims, an eco-friendly and laudable piece of clothing that carries artisan names on its labels, as authentic"? Were khadi jeans introduced in 2015 by Levis genuine khadi or not? (Levis no longer sells that range). What does a khadi sari by Sabyasachi Mukherjee really mean?
Designer Shani Himanshu of 11:11 Celldsgn, known for its khadi creations including, indigo-dyed khadi jeans, says, All our creations are 100% khadi. I do know that one has to register to get access to the khadi logo, this requires paperwork and submission of fees at KVIC Delhi or Mumbai. All our purchases of khadi though are from KVIC. Otherwise any weaver can say this is khadi and it is difficult to know whether it is woven on the Ambar Charkha or an industrial Charkha."
Under the heap of ambiguities (largely for the consumer) is a broader and messy khadi war. Is Fabindia within its rights to challenge the Khadi Mark notification of 2003? Should private brands wage a battle with the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME)-controlled KVIC over the ownership of khadi? Is khadis economic growth as an aspirational fabric and protection of rural artisans"as Saxena claimsstrictly the prerogative of the government?
Khadi India may need to do a lot of efficient and unbiased work to employ vigilance. Taking out the numerous, unlisted spurious khadi outlets across the country is one. But there are other concerns. Especially as there are industry rumours that Baba Ramdevs Patanjali Ayurved brand currently in the fray to make khadi jeans could be clouding KVICs stance against Fabindia. It wasnt so long back after all, when Baba Ramdev raised a hue and cry over Fabindia being a foreign company".
Whose khadi is it then?
Nikita Doval and Sounak Mitra contributed to this story.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Our Earth has unimaginable diversity, from seascapes 8,000 meters below the ocean's surface to landscapes 8,000 meters above it. Its physical beauty comes in inconceivable living varieties. Some mammals lay eggs; some lizards are legless. Bats catch fish. Birds catch bats. Wood frogs in Alaska survive through winter even as two-thirds of their body tissues turn to ice.
But as climate alters habitats to which animals have spent thousands of years adapting, snow disappears more quickly now in some places and deepens in others. Receding sea ice strands polar bears on land and reduces the length of their hunting season. As permafrost at the bottom of Siberian lakes cracks, water drains into the ground; fish die.
My research focuses on conserving large species adapted to life in cold places, including the Northern Rockies, Central Asia, and on permafrost in both Asia and Alaska. This winter, for the 11th straight year, I am returning to the Arctic. I want to understand how changing temperatures may be impacting muskoxen animals that once roamed with extinct woolly mammoths.
To address this issue, I need to discern population trends and possible stressors, and to gain insights into these animals' physiology, reproduction, predators and food sources. The overarching umbrella is a story of ice, snow and temperature.
A vulnerable Arctic
Earlier this year scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a sobering finding: According to independent studies by both agencies, 2016 was the third year in a row to set a new record for global average surface temperatures. Warming patterns are most extreme in the polar regions, particularly in the Arctic.
NASA animation of warming trends shows that polar regions are warming faster than lower latitudes.
One of the most striking trends we are observing in the Arctic is an increasing occurrence of winter days when temperatures never drop below freezing. Precipitation falls as rain, melting snow on the ground. This can be more serious than it sounds. In 2002 a winter rain-on-snow event on Canada's Banks Island encased the ground in ice and prevented muskoxen from reaching their food supply. Some 20,000 animals died.
Cold-adapted species are feeling the heat. Moose experience more ticks, caribou more pathogens from the south. As northern vegetation grows more profuse, some species lose habitat. Red foxes displace Arctic foxes.
We know of the enormous changes in polar environments because of creative interdisciplinary collaborative studies by teams of scientists from dozens of countries. But at fine-scale levels, we know less about how these changes are affecting individuals, or how much flexibility many species have to adapt.
Research on American ice
Logistics related to traveling in the Arctic are significant year-round, and especially complex in winter. In Alaska, I work with two assistants and we travel light. Typically, it is just Fred Goodhope Jr. (a Native Alaskan whose ancestors survived here for 12,000 years), a bio-technician, and me. Fred knows these lands like the back of his hands, whether he is fixing the throttle of a snowmachine with dental floss at 10 degrees below zero or navigating ground blizzards without GPS.
Muskoxen occur in tightly knit herds, at times 50 kilometers apart. We navigate the tricky ice and tundra between the groups and gather data. For years, my colleagues and I used helicopters to pursue, tranquilize and radio-collar muskoxen. This was a very useful way to garner biological insights, but I abandoned it five years ago because about 5 percent of the animals that we radio-collared failed to reconnect with their herds when the drugs wore off. Instead they sheltered alone in snow-holes for safety for up to two months.
I wanted more compassionate ways to collect data, so I continue to gather and analyze frozen poop sans radio-collaring. It contains iced hormones that we can assess to infer stress levels (gluco-corticosteroids) and pregnancy rates (progestagens). We know from these data that isolated females experienced stress levels three to six times greater than their companions back in the herd. The change to gentler tactics has been well worth it.
We also use a method called photogrammetry, or making measurements from photos. When muskoxen perceive a threat, they stand clumped together in defensive formations rather than fleeing. Working with animals the size of a Volkswagen has benefits: They stand out in the vast Arctic. We can approach them when they group up this way and photograph them at known distances and angles, then use these shots to develop algorithms and estimate their sizes.
By comparing our estimates with data on the growth and size of captive animals, we can explore how factors like winter and summer temperatures, availability and health of vegetation, and rain-on-snow events affect wild muskoxen's growth and size.
Poorly fed or otherwise stressed juveniles from many species tend grow slower, achieve puberty later in life and have reduced survival. I want to learn about these parameters in muskoxen. For example, during rain-on-snow events, pregnant females cannot eat because their food is locked under impenetrable ice. My colleagues and I expect that their growing fetuses deplete the resources that are available to them in utero, and that these stores are not replenished because food is unavailable to the mothers. We are now developing our first estimates of how warming temperatures may be affecting this little-studied species.
Research on Asian ice
In both Greenland and the High Canadian Arctic there have been limited reports of polar bears eating muskoxen, but we do not know whether they are feeding on dead animals or hunting live ones. We know that polar bears are foraging more frequently on land as the Arctic warms, melting the sea ice where they normally hunt, rest and breed. To determine whether polar bears are a threat to muskoxen, we need to know whether they are feeding on animals that have died from other causes such as disease, or are attacking live muskoxen.
I use a common experimental technique: simulations, which requires a fake polar bear and, as a control, a fake caribou. I take these two costumes, fashioned from cloth and Styrofoam, into the field and do approaches to muskoxen to see how they will react. This research follows in the footsteps of Nobel Laureates Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz, who were interested in animal behavior and manipulated the perceptual worlds of gulls and geese.
Now such field deployments are more common. Recently they have been used in the gas fields of Wyoming to assess how sage-grouse react to increased noise generated by fracking. I have also used acoustic and olfactory models in Alaska and the Yellowstone region to sort out how naive prey like moose respond to reintroduced wolves and recolonizing grizzly bears.
On Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean, my apprehension heightens as I approach muskoxen herds on all fours. There is always a possibility of being gored, yet for my protection I can't carry a gun, and it's too cold to pepper spray when they charge. But I can leap from the ground onto my feet, which confuses them and halts any charges.
At the edge
Across Earth's vastness, humans have done a marvelous job of erasing or threatening the living magnificence that has come before. Field research gives me opportunities to look at the world through the eyes of animals, and to work with many other scientists to configure plans to do better for all living beings who rely on our planet's life support systems.
Cold-adapted species have figured out how to survive across thousands of generations. To dampen climatic challenges, we humans need to modify our behavior in a far shorter time frame.
Joel Berger, Barbara Cox Anthony Chair in Wildlife Conservation, Colorado State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The woman was nine weeks pregnant. She and her husband had recently been kicked out of her in-laws' home in the refugee camp where the whole family lived on the Thai-Myanmar border.
Two days after a routine checkup and ultrasound at a camp clinic, in which she raised no alarms with the clinicians who saw her, the 18-year-old woman and her 22-year-old husband each drank a cup of herbicide and went to their bed in her father's house to die.
The couple left no real explanation for their suicides, but a recent report on their case in the journal BMJ Case Reports highlights the risks for refugees: Cut off from their homelands and from many of the usual sources of social support, most refugees also lack access to mental health care. It's a problem that persists not only along the Thai-Myanmar border, where decades of conflict have created semi-permanent camp settlements, but also in the Middle East and Europe among Syrians displaced by the civil war in their country. [5 Myths About Suicide, Debunked]
"I often think, 'Could we have said something more or been more proactive somehow and helped her?'" said Gracia Fellmeth, a public health researcher at Oxford University in the U.K. and lead author of the case report published in September 2016.
The refugee experience
Fellmeth and her colleagues met the woman while they were doing a study of depression and mental health in refugees at the Maela camp, which is home to about 38,000 people, mostly ethnic minority refugees from Myanmar. Conflict in Myanmar has been ongoing for decades, and the camps have become a permanent home for many refugees who have nowhere else to go, Fellmeth told Live Science. There is very limited access to health care, with two non-governmental organizations providing the bulk of services. Mental health professionals are nearly nonexistent within the camps, she and her colleagues wrote in BMJ Case Reports. There is no psychiatrist, only a small team of counselors with three months' training.
A woman living in Thailand's Maela refugee camp talks with Gracia Fellmeth, a public health researcher at Oxford University in the U.K., and another counselor. (Image credit: James Connor)
A similar dearth of mental health care persists for Syrian refugees. A 2015 report by the International Medical Corps found that 54 percent of Syrian refugees interviewed in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and within Syria itself (where many were internally displaced by fighting) had a severe emotional disorder, typically anxiety or depression. The displaced people cited stressors ranging from the continued fear of violence, limited access to education and health care, inability to work and discrimination from people in the host country.
"You really got a sense of hopelessness, just really feeling at a loss," said Alessandra Von Burg, a communications professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, who studies citizenship and who visited refugee and migrant camps in Italy and Greece in 2016. "The one thing that we did also hear a lot is that [hopelessness and loss becomes] translated into cynicism and distrust."
Life in limbo
The causes of mental health disorders in refugees are not necessarily the same as the causes of these conditions in people who are not refugees, according to a 2015 report by UNHCR, the United Nations' refugee commission. Depression and anxiety are natural responses to displacement and disruption, the authors wrote.
"Difficult life circumstances often lead to demoralisation and hopelessness, and may be related to profound and persistent existential concerns of safety, trust, coherence of identity, social role and society," they wrote. [Psychology of Immigration: Why Responses to Migrant Crisis Vary]
For the permanent refugee populations along the Thai-Myanmar border, life is on hold, with little opportunity to move forward. Refugees can't legally work, Fellmeth said, though many act as illegal laborers because the food rations at the camps aren't enough to feed a family.
"People are just bored," Fellmeth said. "There's not much to do in the camps."
Similarly, refugees from Syria and migrants from other war-torn places like Libya are in limbo, Von Burg said. According to the United Nations, more than half of the displaced people from Syria are children, and three-quarters of those are under age 12. Nearly half of the Syrian refugee children evaluated in one study in Turkey met the criteria for having clinical anxiety, according to a 2015 paper in the journal Global Mental Health. Young men traveling alone were particularly hopeless and frustrated at the camps Von Burg visited.
"A lot of the males, particularly those traveling by themselves, really had no support system," she said.
In the Maela camp, Fellmeth's research found, around 30 percent of women have symptoms of depression. Mild or moderate symptoms are the most common, but that fact no longer comforts Fellmeth or her colleagues: The 18-year-old who drank herbicide with her husband exhibited only mild symptoms two days before their suicide.
"That suddenly made us look at all the women who had these very low-grade symptoms and take even the mild end of the spectrum more seriously," Fellmeth said.
Paired suicides are rare, representing less than 1 percent of all suicides, Fellmeth and her colleagues wrote. (According to the World Health Organization, there were around 800,000 suicide deaths globally in 2012, the last year for which complete data are available.) The woman did not seem to be physically coerced into the act, but psychological coercion is possible, the researchers wrote. No one ever psychologically assessed the woman's husband, and it's unclear why the couple killed themselves. The husband did use drugs and alcohol, a risk factor for suicide, and the woman had cited family tensions as a cause of her own feelings of unhappiness.
Some aid agencies in Europe, Turkey and the Middle Eastern countries that are taking in large numbers of Syrian refugees are attempting to provide mental health services. The Israel-based humanitarian agency IsraAID, for example, has sent psychologists to Lesvos (also called Lesbos) Island, where many migrants and refugees arrive in Greece after dangerous sea crossings. International Medical Corps provides services as well. Even the MV Aquarius, a rescue boat operated by SOS Mediterranee and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), takes counselors aboard when it ventures into the Mediterranean in search of stranded or swamped dinghies overcrowded with refugees and migrants, Von Burg said. At the Maela camp on the Myanmar border, the community is becoming more aware of mental health issues, Fellmeth said, and there are an increasing number of counselors available to provide talk therapy.
But whether on the border of Myanmar or the shores of Greece and Italy, access to care remains scant, Fellmeth and Von Burg said.
"It's never enough in terms of numbers," Von Burg said, "because the numbers are so big."
Original article on Live Science.
How can humans stay relevant in an age of artificial intelligence? Elon Musk thinks cyborgs are the answer.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO discussed the need for a "merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence" during a talk today (Feb. 13) at the World Government Summit in Dubai, CNBC reported.
One of the main advantages computers have over humans is the speed at which they can send out information, Musk said. While humans are limited by the the speed of theirtyping, a computer can send out information at "a trillion bits per second," Musk said. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more advanced, humans will also need to evolve to remain relevant, he added. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]
"Some high-bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence, and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem," Musk said of the need for humans to merge their minds with computers, according to CNBC.
Musk has previously discussed a system that could link human brains to a computer interface. This so-called "neural lace" concept, which would add a digital layer of intelligence to the human brain, was first mentioned at Recode's Code Conference last year. Since introducing the idea, Musk has hinted at the interface's progress and has further discussed his views on an artificially intelligent future.
Musk has also expressed his fear of "deep AI," explaining that an artificial general intelligence would be "smarter than the smartest human on Earth." Though this technology is not an immediate threat, Musk said the combination of human brains with machine intelligence will ensure humanity's continued relevance.
However, one aspect of AI that is an immediate threat is the displacement of jobs, Musk said. During the World Government Summit talk, Musk specifically noted that with autonomous cars, an industry in which Tesla is a leader, AI will displace people in driving-focused positions such as truck drivers, delivery drivers and taxi drivers.
"The most near-term impact from a technology standpoint is autonomous cars," Musk said at the Summit, according to CNBC. "But there are many people whose jobs are to drive. In fact, I think it might be the single largest employer of people ... driving in various forms."
Musk estimated that 12 to 15 percent of the global workforce will be out of a job once autonomous vehicles AI take over driving duties, CNBC reported.
Original article on Live Science.
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As drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" sat in a Mexican prison, he knew the United States also wanted him for prosecution.
But, one of his former lawyers said, Guzman didn't know he would be sent to New York in January.
And, when it did happen, things moved so fast that his lawyer in Mexico wasn't aware the extradition was taking place.
JAIL CONDITIONS: Attorneys call prison for 'El Chapo' 'worse than Guantanamo'
"He didn't know he would be extradited," attorney Silvia Delgado told KVEO-TV. "This was evidently planned by both governments."
Guzman has pleaded not guilty to charges of running a massive drug trafficking ring and laundering billions of dollars as well as allegations of overseeing murders and kidnappings.
Delgado visited Guzman in Cefereso No. 9, a Mexican federal prison in Ciudad Juarez, frequently for seven months. She said Guzman was aware of the charges in the United States, but insisted he wasn't a drug kingpin.
IN PICTURES: Photographer captures heartbreak of those with family missing in Mexico
"I don't know. I defended an agriculturalist. I have to believe what the client tells me," Delgado said. "If the client tells me 'I'm an agriculturalist' if the client hires me to defend him, that's what I'm going to do."
Guzman is currently held in a federal jail in New York where his American attorneys described the conditions as "worse than Guantanamo."
Delgado said Guzman's treatment in the United States is better than what he had in Mexico, including the ability to go outside for one hour a day for exercise.
The result, Delgado said, is Guzman's health is better.
>>>Scroll through the above gallery to learn more about "El Chapo's" life and alleged activities
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Before and after the drought at the Oroville Dam
Local Cystic Fibrosis (CF) campaigner, Jillian McNulty is spearheading a second protest march in her bid to get Orkambi funded by the Irish Government.
On Wednesday, March 1 at 1:30pm a protest will take place outside Dail Eireann where it is expected that a large number of CF sufferers and their families will descend on the streets.
Their aim will be to highlight to the HSE how necessary it is for the health body to fund the drug here in Ireland.
Speaking to the Leader this week Ms McNulty said that CF sufferers had now been waiting eight months for the drug to come onto the market.
While negotiations between the manufacturer - Vertex - and the Minister for Health Simon Harris broke down following the last protest, much work has been done in the intervening months to negotiate a deal with the HSE so that it can provide the drug to Irish patients long term.
Talks are going on at the minute with the Minister for Health and the HSE, Ms McNulty told the Leader on Friday.
Vertex has made a transformative offer in respect of Orkambi that includes Kalydeco; there are currently 18 patients in this country waiting for Kalydeco so it is vital that this deal is accepted.
Meanwhile, Ms McNulty plans to visit the Vertex site when she visits Boston later this year.
She is also meeting with Minister Simon Harris later this week.
Really the HSE needs to move on this now - we are in the second stage of the negotiations process and while that is very positive, we need to get that drug made available here in Ireland as soon as possible, Ms McNulty, whose own health has greatly improved in recent months, continued.
The campaign has been successful, there is no doubt about that and we have people all over the world offering us their support.
I hope that the HSE accepts this offer and I hope Minister Harris makes Orkambi available to CF patients soon.
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases
By Long Island News & PR Published: February 13 2017
Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Councilwoman Tracey A. Edwards have joined with YAM Community Resource Inc. to champion a humanitarian effort in support of Haiti.
Huntington, NY - February 10, 2017 - Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Councilwoman Tracey A. Edwards have joined with YAM Community Resource Inc. (a not-for- profit organization dedicated to serving the underserved Haitian population on Long Island) to champion a humanitarian effort in support of Haiti. Hurricane Matthew, a category 4 storm with wind speeds of 145 mph was one of the hardest hitting storms in Haitis history and sadly one of the deadliest.
Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Councilwoman Tracey A. Edwards are asking Town of Huntington Pharmacies to join forces with YAM to donate much needed medical supplies to Haiti following this impactful storm.
Ginette Rows is a dedicated and wonderful community leader and I am proud to join my colleague Councilwoman Tracey A. Edwards in this worthy cause. The devastating effects of Hurricane Matthew continue to challenge the people and children of Haiti with the bare essentials to survive and I hope other Huntingtonians will help to donate items to help make this volunteer-based mission a success, stated Councilman Mark Cuthbertson.
We are a very fortunate to have caring and supportive community in our town and the great work that is being done by Ginette and the volunteer members of YAM, the Huntington Church of God, the Caribbean American Network and the Haitian Alliance for Health are the be commended and it deserving of our help. Hurricane Matthew destroyed Haitis infrastructure which is making it a challenge to feed and provide much needed medical care to this hard-hit region. I hope you will join us in donating whatever supplies you can to this grassroots effort and help make the difference in the loves of so many who need it most, said Councilwoman Tracey A. Edwards.
We are pleased to join together with Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Councilwoman Tracey A. Edwards to provide support to residents in Aquin, Haiti. These supplies will help the residents of Aquin meet the daily needs for adults and children to recover from this devastating storm. We will be in Haiti from Feb 17- Feb 27 providing much needed help and care during our Medical Clinic. We are thankful for the support from the Town of Huntington stated Ginette Rows and Pastor Georges Franck.
Here is how you can help. Much needed medical supplies, and hygiene items are needed to help the people of Haiti recover. We are very fortunate to have a caring and supportive business community in the town; we hope that you will join the efforts of our community to help the citizens of Haiti. For a list of much needed supplies please go to www.yamcommunity.com. All Donations are tax deductible.
For information on how you can donate please contact:
About Nassau County SPCA
Located in Nassau County, New York, The Nassau County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a 501(c) (3), nonprofit organization originally designed to protect animals in the county from abuse and neglect, and to provide basic welfare. We hold special authority to enforce NYS Agriculture & Markets Law, and all other state and local humane laws. We are the only animal protection agency officially designated to operate within the county's borders.
The NCSPCA is a volunteer organization dedicated to the rescue, care and placement of needy animals. The Society is run entirely by unpaid volunteers and its operations have been historically funded through contributions solicited from the public and through corporate grants.
Lifestyle / Travel
Feb 13, 2017 | By Vimi Haridasan
All aboard! From now until April 28, guests travelling on the Belmonds Eastern & Oriental Express will be able to enjoy a whole new experience as they travel from Singapore to Thailand. Turning the concept inside out, Belmond not only offers its 82 guests breath-taking scenery over the course of two to three-night journeys but provides an emerging artist a chance to share his art in a unique way. Taking Art in Motion literally, the brand has enrolled the help of artist Rajesh Kumar to deck out the exterior of two of its train carriages to become a rolling canvas.
A graduate in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University of London, Kumar chose to create his one of a kind artwork called The Koi Pond. The piece, that is a treat for those who see the train as it chugs along, represents the joy of travel, movement and the gathering of friends and family. When asked about his artwork, the Singapore-based street artist said, The Koi Pond, has always been something I have been fascinated about. Throughout my journey, it made me feel like a koi fish in a pond. The colours and vibrancy of the fish and the water that displays emotions in many and felt it would beautifully represent Eastern & Oriental Express in aspects of luxurious travels.
The artwork is not the only sensory treat for guests by Belmond. To make this a holistic journey, the brand has worked with other creative experts such as mixologists Cocktail Professor as well as DJ & Music producer Mr Has. Thanks to a new cocktail menu, signature cocktails such as Mist of the rice paddies and Malay Jungle can be enjoyed as the train passes through Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Combining classic cocktail etiquette, modern techniques and an imaginative presentation, the concept provides a treat to the senses.
With Mr Has, Belmond offers the bar car where one can raise their glass while meeting new friends. The experience is enhanced thanks to the live recordings of cool jazz that is combined with future classics and deep grooves to make this a journey to remember.
The Eastern & Oriental Express Asia by Belmond travels between Singapore and Bangkok on two to three-night journeys from January to April and September to December.
While Apple CEO Tim Cook is looking forward to his companys next big idea, which sounds like its going to be augmented reality-related, hes also stunned by the tech industrys inability to stem the tide of fake news.
In between tours of schools and meetings with developers in a trip to Britain, Cook spoke excitedly about the potential of AR in Apple devices to The Independent, and was equally impassioned about the scourge of fake news in comments to The Telegraph.
The problem with fake news
The term fake news has basically lost all meaning at this point, but Cook pointed to false stories that spread like wildfire across the internet as a big problem in a lot of the world. Tech companies have a responsibility to intervene, he told the Telegraph.
It has to be ingrained in the schools, it has to be ingrained in the public, Cook said. There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic. We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will.
But tech companies responsibility extends beyond just commercials, Cook said.
All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news, he added. We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader. Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and havent figured out what to do.
Apple is one of the companies that has spoken out against the Trump Administrations ban on refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The company joined rivals Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and other tech industry giants to legally challenge the ban, which was blocked by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week.
Augmented reality is the future
Cook is never one to give away Apples top-secret product plans, but for the last year or so, hes been hinting at the companys pet project: augmented reality.
I regard it as a big idea like the smartphone, he said in an interview with The Independent. The smartphone is for everyone, we dont have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: its for everyone. I think AR is that big, its huge.
Cook said that AR isnt a stand-alone product, but rather a core technology built into other devices.
There are things to discover before that technology is good enough for the mainstream, he added.
Cook has spoken about augmented reality before, and we know from job postings that the company has staffed up to develop AR-related projects (though of course we dont know what those will look like when theyre done).
Cook made the remarks toward the end of his European tour, during which he visited France, Germany, and Scotland to accept an honorary doctorate from Glasgow University.
Director Damien Chazelle's musical "La La Land" continued its award dominance by taking five trophies, including the best film and best actress for Emma Stone, at the 70th British Academy Film Awards, which also recognised British-Indian star Dev Patel in the best supporting actor category for "Lion". "La La Land", which also won Chazelle a best director Bafta, is expected to sustain its momentum at the Oscars on February 26 where it has scored a record 14 nominations. Veteran director Ken Loach's "I, Daniel Blake" was named outstanding British film at the ceremony on Sunday night.
Casey Affleck was named best actor for "Manchester by the Sea" while its director Kenneth Lonergan won the award for best original screenplay. Viola Davis won the best supporting actress prize for "Fences". Having won the other major awards this season as well, Davis is a strong contender at the Oscars too. While the Golden Globes were dominated by Meryl Streep's moving speech criticising US President Donald Trump, he was not mentioned that much at the Baftas though Stone referred to him indirectly while accepting her best actress trophy.
"This country - and the US, and the world - seems to be going through a bit of a time, just a bit. "In a time that's so divisive, I think it's so special we were able to come together tonight thanks to Bafta, to celebrate the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it can help people to feel a little less alone," Stone said. Patel, 26, was greeted with a round of applause as he accepted the prize for best supporting actor for "Lion", about a man who was adopted as a child and is trying to find his family in India through the help of Google maps.
The actor seemed stunned, saying, "Wow, that just happened." Patel said the film is about a love that "transcends borders, race, colour, anything". "Arrival", which was nominated for nine Baftas alongside "Nocturnal Animals", won just one trophy for best sound while the Tom Ford-directed movie had to return empty handed. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were guests of honour at the star-studded ceremony, held at London's Royal Albert Hall. They were there to award the fellowship to veteran actor and comedian Mel Brooks.
Loach, director of "I, Daniel Blake" which deals with the struggles of living in the UK benefits system, condemned the government in his acceptance speech. He apologised for making a political speech so early on, but said: "Thank you to the academy for endorsing the truths of what the film says, which hundreds and thousands of people in this country know. PTI
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It is 7:20 a.m. on Sunday, February 12th, and I have just opened my eyes. To my left sits an open water bottle and to my right lies an unconscious body. I feel like it is 2010 and I am single (alive) again for 30 seconds before I remember that its my father-in-laws birthday and I have to call him.
By 7:45, Im in the bathroom scrubbing the shit out of my face. The photo above is what I looked like when I arrived at my sink. The photo below
is what I look like after I use all of this shit:
But never mind all of that gods work awaits me! I have to write a review of Alexander Wangs Fall 2017 show. By 8:05 Im at my computer. I hang out with my friends a bucket of sunglasses and a mug full of lipsticks
while I write, or think about writing. On this particular morning, I am sending maniacal Slack messages to my team about where the F the Alexander Wang photos are. To my embarrassment, theyre already uploaded to a post I didnt see.
8:38 a.m.: The review has been filed. I had to omit the best sentence, but whatever.
I linger at my computer, eating a combo platter of toast with avocado and toast with peanut butter and bananas until exactly 11:22, when I get dressed.
11:25 a.m.: Im dressed.
11:27 a.m.: I leave home and write this down: What the actual fuck is with this weather? Its raining ice. I also write, I believe they call it sleet, and then put my phone away because the multiple voices in my head are starting to pour into my notes and that is not a comfortable position to be in!
11:40 a.m.: I pick up Amelia, who has, rather impressively, turned our car into her bathroom and kitchen in a matter of 30 seconds.
12:26 p.m.: The Tome fashion show starts. It looks awesome; the color scheme is mainly black, yellow and pink. There is also some blue. There are a shit-ton of black looks to start, all the shoes (pointed-toe flat slides and round-toe wedges) are velvet and by Louboutin. I notice rhinestone earrings, and then rhinestone accents, like a banana stitched into a lapel. I remember the rhinestone story that I ran in October and feel stupidly validated.
1:34 p.m.: Amelia and I arrive at J.Crew, which Amelia has already seen because she got a preview a couple of days before. They did something similar to last season where many friends of the house moonlit as models and the clothes were fresh-as-fuq. Taylor Tomasi Hill wore a leopard print coat, tutu skirt and shoes I cant believe I dont own yet.
2:02 p.m.: I stop by fittings at Rosie Assoulin. This collection is so many things: antique, modern, apres-ski in Switzerland. It looks like my parents ornamental-ass apartment. There is this weird and cool silk fabric that Rosie and Claire keep referring to but that is flying way over my head. And the earrings look like furniture moldings. See?
Cut to 2:45 p.m. when I haul ass to the Hilton at 54th Street and 6th Avenue where Sies Marjan is showing. Of course I get there at 3:24, in spite of the fact that its Sunday and Waze misled to believe I could be there at 3:08, so I miss the show but!!! I do get to watch it from outside. I see models being cued to start walking and then, I see what they look like when theyre off the runway post-walk. Its kind of eye-opening because there is so much conversation about how sad models look on the runway. When theyre backstage, though, theyre jumping and dancing and giggling and really making the clothes feel alive. And re: those clothes think melon and mint green and light blue and all of those colors in metallic, too. The shoes are groovy and
4:09 p.m.: now Im at DVF, where Jonathan Saunders is (or at least should be) celebrating his second collection for the house. What great energy hes bringing to the establishment. All of the designers that Americans are recruiting from overseas (see: Raf Simons for Calvin Klein) are single-handedly responsible for the fresh air being injected into this market.
When I get back into my car, I ask myself this: Is there an element and attitude of FUCKKIT everywhere? I remember feeling damn miserable last year at this time. Is that personal affliction, or am I vibing on the zeitgeist? You dont have to answer that; I dont want to either.
4:53 p.m.: Im now on Ludlow Street and walking into Sandy Liangs presentation. The first thing I notice is a pink, velvet dress with rhinestone spaghetti straps. I ask Sandy about the awesome shoes black slingbacks with green ostrich feathers at the front. She tells me she found those feathers in midtown and taped them into the black Manolos shes been using for shows and lookbooks and campaigns since season one. Genius, no?
5:17 p.m.: Hey, Im currently at a liquor shop buying a bottle of white Burgundy.
5:27 p.m.: Im home, opening the bottle, hoping to get ~intellectual.~
5:43 p.m.: My delivery from Souen arrives (I did that while I was at the liquor shop); its salmon and rice and steamed vegetables.
6:09 p.m.: This is being written in real time. As in, as Im writing this, its 6:09 p.m., Im about finished with that first glass of wine and have a mouthful of squash and salmon in, you know, my mouth.
6:10 p.m.: Woah, so weird, I just recorded the happenings of the previous minute, also: feast your eyes on THIS! Boom boom pow.
6:23 p.m.: I just reread all the copy and now dont remember what THIS! meant at 6:10, sorry.
7:25 p.m.: Prabal Gurung starts at 558 Washington Street. Sarah Jessica Parker is here, seated right across from Anna Wintour, and the clothes look fantastic. You Dont Own Me is playing and Im watching the pictures stream onto Vogue Runway as theyre walking in real time and thinking what a shame it is not to see these clothes in person the way the color comes off the garment and the fabrics move. Before I could finish that thought, the finale begins and each model is now dressed in a different shirt boasting a feminist slogan. The crowd goes wild. Prabal comes out in a T-shirt that reads, This is what a feminist looks like. It is so honest and so true.
7:42 p.m.: On our way to Altuzarra, Amelia and I talk about the political statements being made at fashion week the Planned Parenthood pins and the white bandanas and the various comments designers have used their clothing to make. We talk about turning it into a story (she calls it a package as if she is Leslie Price), but wander off to specifically mention the designers of Tome, Prabal Gurung himself and whats expected tomorrow from Phillip Lim. Noting that we follow them on social media and thus know how involved and active theyve been, Amelia wonders if this is the only reason their political intentions shine through so brilliantly.
8:34 p.m.: Im sitting behind Christina Ricci (forever Wednesday Addams in my playbook), Alexa Chung and Emily Ratajkowski. I very much look forward to observing my photo bombs tomorrow morning. At one point, I stack my head on top of Alexas. Its weird but we forget all of that once the show starts and boom boom pow! Velvet headbands (very Hillary Clinton ca. 1990s), big combat boots, suspender belts over delicate dresses with big huge pockets attached. I feel like I need to throw away all of the clothes I own and start over. This happens every season.
9:16 p.m.: Just got home; Abie is in bed with the city of New York complaining about a car alarm that has straight-up been going off for 48 hours, no exaggeration. I have to take a shower. He says its too late to watch Girls. I watch it anyway. See u tomo.
Photos by Simon Chetrit; follow him on Instagram @simonzchetrit. iPhone Photos by Leandra Medine. Runway Photos Courtesy of Vogue Runway.
Nobody wants bad vibes in their life, says Paul-Louis, handsome surf instructor and recreational pube admirer, towards the end of Girls very last season premiere. Its the kind of assertion that sounds true, obvious. But like the dozens of episodes before it, these 40-odd minutes counter the claim.
It seems these girls, these women, these Rays, these Adams, all of us we do want bad vibes. We crave them. We yearn for the drama. We dont always want to improve or grow, even when we know it would do us some good. And just when we resolve to make the decision, to maybe get an Airbnb in town and write and heal and learn to love the beach, were reminded that our realities are not our own to define and narrate. Its the hardest lesson. Five full seasons and one episode in, the Girls are still just beginning to learn it. We never have all the answers; obviously. But if youre game, here are 23 questions we can puzzle over together.
1. When did Marnie become a person who pees with the door open?
2. How many copies of The New York Times would you buy if you nabbed a Modern Love column?
3. Are you more of a dumpling or a woman at this point? Please discuss.
4. But is that how Shailene Woodley gets her glow?
5. What do the teens call it when someone brushes you off by saying this: In fact, I want to spend more time with you. I just want some of that time to be apart. Ghosting? Breadcrumbing? Trumping?
6. Should we all take a 30-second dance break for Justin Bieber, Baby, if only because Marnie and Ray cant stop prefacing every damn sentence they utter with it? Okay, obviously, yes.
7. When Marnie painted her nails, do you think there was a runner-up color or was she just like, Yes, this garish shade of Barbie pink is what my online therapist thinks I need.
8. Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby?
9. What do you call the cutouts in Hannas sweatshirt? Do you think they facilitate armpit breathability, because Ive always thought thats what Id take on Shark Tank.
10. Who makes Hannahs sunglasses? Really, I must know. Serious respondents only in the comments section.
11. Do you think Jessa ate that entire container of yogurt?
12. There are two kinds of women in this world: those who can pull off pigtail braids and those who cannot. Which kind are you?
13. If you wanted to get out of physical exertion, what would your most creative medical excuse be? I wouldnt go with front arm injury, personally. But, like, I wouldnt go to surf camp.
14. Who missed Hannahs dance moves? All of us. We all did.
15. How do you secure such a massive perimeter for your butt thumping on a crowded dance floor?
16. Did Paul Krugman ever expect to score a mention on Girls for his socio-economic anxieties?
17. How many hours did it take Shosh to color-code her books?
18. Under what circumstances would you let a surf instructor who would rather be in the Bahamas lick your eyeball?
19. What would Marnie and Desi merch even look like? I feel sure paisley print would be involved. Sketches accepted below.
20. Is it ever appropriate to fuck someone on Kilimanjaro?
21. Could we count the number of men whove ever apologized to Hannah and meant it?
22. Who loves to be tickled?
23. How much of Hannahs entire existence was summed up within her expression during the last five seconds of this episode, that brilliant transition from movie-soundtrack glee to stone-cold realism? 99 percent, I think. At least.
Follow our Girls girl and author Mattie on Twitter @mattiekahn.
Photo via HBO.
MARTINSVILLE After more than 34 years as a sheriffs deputy, Roy Prillaman is slowing down.
Prillaman officially retired from the Martinsville Sheriffs Office on Feb. 1, but he plans to continue working there part-time. He said he enjoys his job too much to think about quitting entirely.
I cant sit and home and do nothing, he said. But he wants more time to spend with his family, he added.
People who have visited the municipal building may recognize Prillaman as one of the deputies at the front door security checkpoint. However, he has done various tasks for the sheriffs office over the years, from providing jail and courtroom security to transporting inmates to other correctional facilities.
For most of his career, he has supervised inmate work crews who tackle various projects, from picking up litter on the sides of roads to handling maintenance and minor construction needs on city properties.
By using inmates instead of hiring outside crews, the city has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, Prillaman mentioned.
Ive done it all at the sheriffs office, he said, and Ive enjoyed everything Ive done.
That includes, for the most part, dealing with people who have committed crimes.
Law-enforcement officers seem to get less respect from people who are incarcerated or in court now than they did years ago, said Prillaman, 58, noting that occasionally he has had to get rough with them.
An example is when he has been involved in inmate transports. Some of the trips have been to jails as far away as New Jersey and New Mexico.
During those trips, inmates are mad at the world, Prillaman said. But they generally come around as time wears on.
You have to be respectful of their needs, such as to eat and receive restroom breaks, he said. Theyre people, just like we are.
Law-enforcement officers must have patience and understand circumstances that might be affecting a persons behavior or may have contributed to situations that got them in trouble with police.
Ive always tried to treat people with the utmost respect, like I want to be treated, he added.
Generally, Prillaman is a jovial man with a smile on his face and kind words for those he encounters.
Roy gets along with everybody, said his wife of 40 years, Wendy.
Prillaman persuaded Sheriff Steve Draper to start a program in which trees that fall on city property or onto city rights of way are removed by inmates who chop them into firewood for the needy.
Because of economic problems that the community has suffered, we have people in Martinsville and Henry County who truly are in dire straits and desperately need help, he said.
Lots of times, people have to work two or three jobs just to maintain their households, he observed.
He believes that the community is poised to make an economic comeback. Yet for that to happen, everyone including city and county officials must work together, he said, adding that seems to be happening more and more.
Prillaman has worked since he was 14. His first job was at the former Main Street Grocery in Bassett, where he swept floors, stocked shelves and eventually moved into the meat department.
But he longed to work in law enforcement because he wanted to serve the public and he thought it would be a good way, he said.
He enjoys working for the city, he continued, because the sheriffs office, police and fire departments and other city organizations work together well and are like a family. That extends from administrators and office workers to the trash truck, to the paving crews and the guys working in a ditch, he said.
Prillaman is especially close with his fellow deputies as well as Draper, for whom he has high praise.
As a boss, he said, Draper is not going to ask you to do something hes not already done or isnt willing to do himself.
Draper said Prillaman is one of the few current deputies who were working when he first became sheriff in 1994. He praised Prillaman for his willingness to do whatever is needed to help someone.
Roy knows so many people in the community, Draper said. And, he cares so much about the community.
Prillamans public service is not just within the sheriffs office.
Over the years, he has been involved with the Bassett Rescue Squad, the Martinsville Transportation Safety Commission, Gateway Streetscape Foundation and the Christmas Parade Committee. He now is involved with Christmas Cheer.
He plans to stay active as long as he is in good health.
Youll still see my smiling face out and about, he said, laughing.
Smith and Wesson 1.jpg
Smith & Wesson is diversifying its products in hopes of supplementing the boom-and-bust cycle of firearms sales.
(Dave Roback / The Republican)
SPRINGFIELD -- Smith & Wesson, one of the world's largest manufacturers of firearms and Springfield's largest manufacturing employer, might have a new name, but the core of the business is what it has always been: making and selling firearms.
Smith & Wesson switched its corporate name to American Outdoor Brands in December. The name on the firearms won't change, but the official name of the holding company has.
Increasingly Smith & Wesson is relying on assault-type modern sporting rifles for sales as it starts to navigate a firearms marketplace with a Republican in the White House. When Democrats are in power, many gun customers fear greater regulation and so they buy more guns and accessories.
The impact of President Donald Trump's election might already be evident. FBI background checks, which the firearms industry uses as a proxy for sales nationwide, were off 17 percent in December. Wall Street has apparently taken notice and Smith & Wesson's stock is off 32 percent from a high of $30.36 a share recorded back in August 2016.
Also, Smith & Wesson lost out this summer in its bid along with General Dynamics to provide $580 million in handguns to the U.S. Army.
Otherwise, the year 2016 was a big one for Smith & Wesson, which officially changed its name in December to American Outdoor Products to better reflect a diversification strategy.
The idea, the company said during a presentation at last year's SHOT gun and outdoors trade show in Las Vegas, is to get off the boom-and-bust nature of the firearms business but still leverage its audience of shooters and hunters to sell more products, equipment and supplies that go with the lifestyle.
It didn't take long for Smith & Wesson to implement that strategy in 2016.
Smith & Wesson bought Taylor Brands, for $85 million. Taylor Brands manufactures knives under a number of brands, including Old Granddad and Buck, and had long made Smith & Wesson knives under contract. It also bought Crimson Trace, a maker of laser gun sights and other accessories, for $95 million.
In November, Smith & Wesson wrapped up the year when it finalized its purchase of Ultimate Survival Technologies Inc., or UST, for $32.3 million in cash. UST's products include LED lights, patented all-weather fire starters, unbreakable signal mirrors, outdoor cutting tools, first aid kits, signal whistles and camp kitchen products.
Sales figures show, however, that firearms account for the bulk of Smith & Wesson's business. According to reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Smith & Wesson sold $195 million in firearms in its most recent quarter. That's compared with $40 million in accessories and other goods.
Also in 2016, Smith & Wesson added solar panels covering the parking area of its massive factory on Roosevelt Avenue in Springfield, panels designed not only to generate power but to shelter employees as the come and go.
A major industrial employer, Smith & Wesson has 1,758 full-time employees, according to its annual report. Some 1,462 are engaged in manufacturing and most of those workers are at the Roosevelt Avenue factory. Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a statewide business lobbying group with a focus on manufacturing, honored Smith & Wesson as an employer this year with one of AIM's 2016 Next Century Awards.
And it has been adding workers, running ads frequently for temp-to-hire assembly workers though Springfield firm United Personnel. Temp-to-hire allows Smith & Wesson to test out employees before bringing them on full time.
With an aging workforce, Smith & Wesson has worked over the years to grow its talent pool here in Western Massachusetts, partnering with trade schools like Roger L. Putnam Vocational-Technical Academy in Springfield and Springfield Technical Community College, where its name is on the machine manufacturing technology lab.
STCC and Smith & Wesson have collaborated on numerous training programs in recent years, according to a written statement from the college. That includes blueprint reading courses for purchasing managers, Excel for supervisors and problem-solving class for production supervisors. Smith & Wesson helped STCC develop and implement its manufacturing production technician program, including hosting tours, providing guest speakers and interviewing students for jobs.
Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson founded the company in Connecticut in 1852, later building it in Springfield, where it grew into a worldwide leader in the firearms business. Smith & Wesson sold guns to the old West, the army of the Russian czar and the allies in both world wars.
Clint Eastwood made the Model 29 famous when he brandished it as Dirty Harry in the famous "Do I feel lucky?" scene.
But the road wasn't always smooth. Under previous ownership, Smith & Wesson entered into an agreement with the Clinton administration to manufacture and sell "smart gun" technology. In 2001, the Justice Department gave Smith & Wesson $1.7 million and promised another $1 million the following year to develop weapons with safety features allowing them to be fired only by authorized users.
But those smart guns were, and still are, anathema to many gun enthusiasts. There were boycotts and the market was flooded with used Smith & Wessons no one wanted.
Smith & Wesson's owners ended up selling out to an Arizona gun parts maker called Saf-T-Hammer. Saf-T-Hammer mended its fences with the NRA and later changed its name to Smith & Wesson Holdings Corp.
Since then, Smith & Wesson has grown, buying rifle maker Thompson/Center and introducing its own Smith & Wesson line of M&P -- which stands for military and police -- compact rifles built on the popular AR-15 platform. Often called assault rifles by critics, the industry calls these semiautomatics "modern sporting rifles."
Long guns, mostly the M&P modern sporting rifles, are a growing business for Smith & Wesson. In fiscal 2016, Smith & Wesson shipped 309,000 rifles, up 46.4 percent from the 211,000 shipped the previous fiscal year.
That compares with its higher-volume but slower-growing handgun business. Smith & Wesson shipped 1.5 million handguns in fiscal 2016, up 27.3 percent from the 1.2 million it shipped in fiscal 2015.
By Jay Minkarah, president and CEO of DevelopSpringfield
As I was admiring a large notched beam in the attic of an historic building we plan to rehabilitate in downtown Springfield, I was struck by the thought that the beam was likely taken from an earlier 18th century structure and adapted to support a mid-19th century building that will soon be repurposed to support a new 21st century use.
Next door, in the recently restored Merrick-Phelps House (circa 1841), images of patents on the conference-room wall are a testament to the inventiveness of the former home's first owner, Solomon Merrick.
Whether it's the invention of something wholly new, or the adaptation of something existing for a new purpose, innovation has always been a central part of Springfield's DNA, a trait shared by communities up and down the Pioneer Valley.
At DevelopSpringfield, it is that legacy which we strive to continue through strategic interventions in the built environment intended to adapt, reshape and repurpose land and buildings as they exist today into building blocks for the advancement of the community's economic and social well-being.
The completion of the first phase of the Lower Maple Business Park, the rehabilitation of the Merrick-Phelps house at 83 Maple St. referenced above, is one such initiative. The long abandoned and blighted building has been converted into professional offices with completely updated systems and amenities while preserving its historic integrity.
During 2017, work is expected to begin on the adjacent building, the former Female Seminary (circa 1830) at 77 Maple St. The site also includes a 19th century carriage house, parking lot and a row of commercial garages from the early 20th century.
When complete in 2018, the business park will function as a three-building campus on the edge of downtown, restoring economic activity and vibrancy to a once dormant corner of the city, and, we trust, providing an environment that inspires those who work within it and uplifts those who attend school, live or work or around it.
This new year will also witness completion of the Springfield Innovation Center, a catalytic project intended to jump start redevelopment within Springfield's recently designated downtown Innovation-Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) district. The project involves the substantial rehabilitation of three, adjacent, early 20th century buildings into a center of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Buildings that once housed a diverse range of uses, including a commercial bakery, shoe store, a furrier and, later, nightclubs, apartments and a church, will be transformed into space for co-working, business accelerators and an event space together with modern office suites and a synergistic restaurant or cafe.
This innovation center is the largest project undertaken by DevelopSpringfield to date and the first designed specifically to foster innovation and entrepreneurship.
DevelopSpringfield is deeply grateful for the support the project has received from the commonwealth of Massachusetts through the MassWorks grant program, the MassMutual Foundation, the Beveridge Family Foundation, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts (the Eugene A. Dexter Charitable Fund administered by its trustee, Bank of America), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city of Springfield, Berkshire Bank, Webster Bank and the Charles T. Hall Foundation, for which Bank of America also serves as trustee.
As a stand-alone project, the innovation center is an exciting initiative, but it does not exist in isolation. It is part of a broader economic development and revitalization strategy focused on the TDI District centered around Stearns Square and bounded roughly by Main, Chestnut, Lyman and Bridge streets.
Within the these blocks a core partnership comprised of DevelopSpringfield, MassDevelopment, MassMutual, the Springfield Business Improvement District and the city of Springfield, represented by its Office of Planning & Economic Development, have been working collaboratively to leverage the tremendous potential of Union Station and MGM Springfield. The area is envisioned as a vibrant, mixed-use urban lifestyle district focused on innovation and entrepreneurship, dining and market rate housing, and each core partner has committed resources to help realize this vision.
This year, the city will undertake a major restoration of Stearns Square and Duryea Way, creating an attractive sequence of public spaces leading from Union Station to the heart of downtown with opportunities for outdoor events, dining and passive recreation.
The city also recently approved creation of a low-interest loan fund to support the development of new restaurants in the district. MassDevelopment has purchased a former nightclub on Stearns Square adjacent to the innovation center with plans to completely rehabilitate and repurpose the building and has committed a full-time fellow for a three-year period tasked solely with advancing development in the district.
On the heels of these initiatives, several new businesses are moving into the area, and a number of private property owners are investing in rehabilitating or fitting-out vacant commercial spaces for new tenants.
From the unprecedented level of development in the downtown area to neighborhoods as diverse as East Springfield and Maple High Six Corners, Springfield continues to adapt and reinvent itself. For DevelopSpringfield, it is a privilege to play a part in that process.
Jay Minkarah is president and CEO of DevelopSpringfield. To learn more about the agency and its work, visit developspringfield.com.
mSmith_1.jpg
Smith & Wesson donated $10,000 in 2016 to the Springfield Museums to provide field trip busing for every third grade public and private school student in Springfield.
(Photo provided)
SPRINGFIELD - Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson donated $10,000 in 2016 to the Springfield Museums, paying for field trip busing for every third grade public and private school student in Springfield.
The donation paid for 2,054 third-graders to go to the museums. That is 82 classrooms at public and private schools across the city, according to Smith & Wesson.
They visited Then & Now: Life at the Turn of the Century, an on-site history and social sciences program that teaches children Springfield's role as a center of industry and innovation in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Students become historians as they interpret early-20th century history by examining Indian Motorcycles, Rolls Royce automobiles, Milton Bradley games, and Barney ice skates.
Mark Smith, President of Manufacturing Services at Smith & Wesson, went to the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield history on Thursday, Jan. 12 to assist third-graders visiting from St. Michael's Academy.
"It was exciting to explore the assembly line process with the students from St. Michael's Academy. Smith & Wesson and manufacturers all over the world have been relying on assembly lines to bring their products to market for over a century, and they are still a vital part of our manufacturing process today. We are proud to be able to sponsor this wonderful program helping young students in Springfield learn about our home city's rich history and the significant role that many local businesses played in the industrial revolution." Smith said in a news release.
Smith & Wesson has been a part of Springfield since 1852 and is one of the area's leading manufacturers, employing over 1,600.
Verizon
Verizon launches its new unlimited data plan on Feb. 13.
(Associated Press)
Smartphone or tablet users may soon purchase an unlimited data plan from Verizon Wireless for the first time in more than five years.
The company on Sunday announced plans to launch an unlimited LTE data plan on Feb. 13, Business Insider reports. Individual users will pay $80 per month and groups of four or more will pay $45 a line under the forthcoming plan.
The move comes not only more than five years since Verizon stopped offering unlimited data plans, but also amid company efforts to kick legacy unlimited data users of their plans and comments by executives downplaying the usefulness of such plans, Business Insider notes.
Perhaps most enlightening, Sunday's announcement comes following aggressive efforts by competitors like T-Mobile to market unlimited plans.
Dubbed Verizon Unlimited, the plan promises high definition video streaming, up to 10GB of LTE mobile hotspot data before downgrading to 3G speeds and unlimited calling and texting to Canada and Mexico, according to the report in Business Insider. The company's other tiered plans will remain available as well.
Last summer, Verizon hiked its prices by $5 to $10 per month but offered customers more data by lowering its per-gigabyte costs.
The Verizon unlimited data plan will be more expensive than those offered by Sprint and T-Mobile -- $60 and $70 per month, respectively -- but cheaper than AT&T's $100-per-month plan.
A recent study cited by Business Insider found Verizon still maintains the fastest and most widely available network in the U.S., but T-Mobile is now "neck-and-neck" with the company in terms of speed.
Bruno Mars
Bruno Mars performs "Let's Go Crazy" during a tribute to Prince at the 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)
(Matt Sayles)
The band, The Time and Bruno Mars took to the 59th annual Grammy Awards stage to perform a tribute to seven-time Grammy winner Prince.
Bruno Mars performed a rendition of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" and stole the show while decked out in full Prince attire and hitting a crazy guitar solo.
Prince died on April 21, 2016.
I wanted that Prince tribute to last at least another 45 minutes omg -- Gaby Diaz (@itsgabydiaz) February 13, 2017
Bruno Mars is perfect for the Prince tribute. #Grammys #Prince -- Chriss Coniglio (@chrissc85) February 13, 2017
The 59th annual Grammy Awards was hosted by James Corden at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and aired on Sunday, Feb. 12 on CBS.
This is the first of a two-part story about Norwegian wine. Part two will appear in next week's Wine Press column.
Norwegian wine.
You would think there would be at least one you could easily buy and taste in Norway.
Nearly every country in the world makes wine. Why not Norway?
Before going there on a recent trip, a friend even sent me an email about Norwegian wine. In the link in the email, there was an image of a bottle of wine with what looked like a cheesy blue snowflake on the bottle.
Looks ridiculous, I thought, but there has to be better Norwegian wine in Norway. Then I didn't really think about it again until my wife and I were in Oslo.
Actually, that's not completely true. I did think about Norwegian wine before I went to Norway. Or rather, I thought about buying wine in Norway. And the thing I kept thinking about was how to buy wine there and avoid paying Norway's notorious, sky-high alcohol prices.
Just how expensive is alcohol in Norway?
Consider a six-pack of Heineken beer. According to a website called globalalcoholprices.com, which tracks the cost of alcohol around the world, Norway is far and away the most expensive country.
In most countries, a six pack of the Dutch beer costs $6 to $10, as of December 2015, the most recent prices. The lowest price can be found in Nigeria ($3.86 a six pack) and the second highest price can be found in Iceland ($16.39 a six pack).
As for Norway? $28.62 for a six pack. I know, that's crazy.
As for wine, Norway did do a little better but I was still worried.
The website only tracks the price of Champagne. The site doesn't specify which Champagne. But it did say that the average price in Norway is $47.81 a bottle. To put that in perspective, the lowest price listed for a bottle of champagne was $28.63 a bottle in Azerbaijan and the most expensive place was Thailand, which listed the average price of a bottle of champagne at $117.31.
And since my wife and I were going to spend four nights in a cabin near a remote fjord in Norway, we wanted to make sure we had a bottle or two of red wine to enjoy at night, especially since the temperatures were supposed to dip down into the low 40s, which is normal for this part of Norway in August.
So before we even boarded the airplane in Boston for Oslo the last Friday in August, we stopped by the Duty Free store in Terminal E at Logan International Airport. I didn't expect to find any Norwegian wines there, just some bargains. I was also aware that you can only buy a certain amount of alcohol in Duty Free stores and take them to another country.
Oslo Opera House in Oslo, Norway.
Unfortunately, the wines there weren't anything special and weren't that cheap. So instead of wine, we picked up a bottle of
Glenmorangie's Nectar d'Or ($51)
, a 12-year-old single malt whiskey aged in a Sauterne cask, and a bottle of
Absolut Vodka ($22)
.
The next morning, when we arrived early in Oslo after an overnight flight, the last thing I was thinking about was buying wine. Fortunately, my wife happened to notice several people from our flight with shopping carts full of wine in the Duty Free store in the Oslo airport.
I didn't think much of it at first. But my wife said she thought we should get a few bottles of wine there. Then my half-awake brain noticed all the people buying wine. There weren't just a few people. Half the airplane seemed to be really stocking up, filling up their shopping cards with bottles and bottles of wine. Maybe my wife's onto something, I thought.
Sure enough, there were definitely bargains to be found in the Duty Free shop in Oslo's airport. There also didn't seem to be any limit. I kept thinking we were going to have to go through another customs checkpoint and declare the alcohol we were bringing into the country. But after we left the Oslo Duty Free store, no one asked to see our bags or check to see how much alcohol we had with us. I could have been carrying a case of wine (which I once did years ago on a flight back from Chile) and no one would have cared.
So what was the wine selection like in the Oslo Duty Free store? The prices were about the same by American standards and the selection was quite good. We ended up buying three bottles of wine. But in my half-awake state, I forgot to see if they had any Norwegian wines. Instead, we ended up buying two French wines and one Italian wine:
2013 Zenato Valpolicella Classico Superiore
2012 E. Guigal Cotes Du Rhone
20101 E. Guigal Chateauneuf du Pape
Later that day in Oslo, we wandered down to the beautiful Aker Brygge area near the water. Where warehouses once stood, there's now a long row of restaurants with a lots of outdoor patios facing the harbor and Akershus Fortress, a stunning, 13th-century castle perched atop a small hill.
The weather was gorgeous as we walked around the harbor - sunny, upper 70s, barely a cloud in the sky. After wandering for a bit, we stopped for lunch at Albert Bistro, a French bistro located among the row of restaurants on the harbor in Aker Brygge. This beautiful French bistro with an outdoor patio had a small wine list, most of it French. And since the weather was so warm for Oslo in August (it's normally in the low 60s this time of year), there were lots people eating outside. It felt like a perfect day for Rose.
The Aker Brygge area in Oslo, Norway.
Looking at the menu, that's when it hit me. Wine's very expensive in Norway. We ordered the cheapest Rose wine on the menu -
Vin de pays DOC Rose from Chapoutier
in the Rhone region. The wine cost 495 Norwegian Kroner. That's the equivalent of roughly $60. That seemed like a lot. I soon learned that was pretty standard in Norway. In fact, finding a bottle of wine for less than $60 a bottle in Oslo in a restaurant can often be a challenge. Now I knew why there were so many people filling up their shopping carts at the Duty Free store in the Oslo airport. Suddenly those "reasonable" prices in the Oslo airport seemed liked a steal.
It was only after lunch that it hit me that I forgot to look on the wine list to see if they had Norwegian wine. But I wasn't too worried. This was the first place we went in Norway. There would be many more.
Later that day, we went to an early opera at the stunning Oslo Opera House, a gorgeous, modern masterpiece with curving, swooping lines right on the waterfront. When we ordered a glass of wine before the opera, that was the first time I asked if they had any Norwegian wine. The woman smiled and said no. So we shared a glass of Italian red wine (don't ask me which one, I wasn't taking notes) instead and I didn't think anything of it.
After the opera, the sun was still perched above the skyline and we went back to the Aker Brygge area for dinner. We went to another place right on the water. This time, I looked through the menu to see if there was any Norwegian wines. Not a single one. So instead, I had a Norwegian beer on draft - good but nothing special.
After dinner, we went to a rooftop bar and sat outside. I asked the bartender if he had any Norwegian wine. I was quickly becoming comfortable asking this question. I also very curious to find out what Norwegian wine tastes like.
That's when I first got "the look."
This is "the look" I noticed I got each time I asked someone if they had Norwegian wine. It was as if I had just asked the bartender if he knew how to make a martini without a glass - or maybe without vodka or gin. The look instantly told me that no, they didn't have Norwegian wine and that I was completely daft for even asking.
But I still didn't think too much of it, especially since the bartender made an amazing drink called a Norwegian Sour, a combination of Aquavit (more on this later), elderflower, lemon, syrup and bitters.
The next day, Sunday, we went back to Albert Bistro. This time, I looked through the wine list more carefully - nothing but French wines. After dinner, we went to a whiskey bar. Why even bother asking about Norwegian wines.
On Monday, we went to three different restaurants in two different neighborhoods in Oslo - Grunerlokka and Gronland. Grunerlokka's selection of cool bars, restaurants and small shops is staggering. Gronland's a little grittier but the neighborhood has real character.
In two of the restaurants, there was no Norwegian wine. Then again, one place was an Italian restaurant in Grunerlokka. But the other place, Olympen, was Norwegian. What's going on? Where's this Norwegian wine I read about before my trip?
We also went to another Norwegian restaurant, Asylet.
Olympen restaurant in Olso, Norway.
You could easily walk by both Norwegian restaurants and never even realize how amazing both are inside.
Olympen
has an impressive array of massive murals depicting what the street used to look like a century ago. (Someone later told us that the restaurant also used to have phones at each table that patrons could use to call other tables in the restaurant.) I asked the waiter at Olympen if they had Norwegian wine. He didn't give me "the look." Instead, he just smiled and shook his head no.
I was drawn to Asylet by the entrance to the courtyard. From the street, you could see several, long wooden tables and several large trees in the courtyard surrounded by picnic tables. We wandered in the courtyard, then went inside to order a drink. Soon after we were inside the low-ceiling, wooden restaurant, we chatted with the restaurant's owner, Harald. He gave us a tour of the second floor, which was once a hospital long ago and has since been transformed into a charming, antique-filled dining room. (There's also a room filled with space-age, modern-looking furniture personally designed by Harald.) He also told us to come back the next week and have dinner at his restaurant.
After we left, I realized I forgot to ask Harald if Asylet had any Norwegian wine. It was a little after 6 o'clock on Monday. And time was running out. Or at least it felt that way. The next day, we were taking a train in the morning for Gudvangen, a small village on a fjord where we had rented a cabin for four nights.
I remember when we got off the train from the airport in downtown Oslo a few days earlier, there was a large liquor store in the train station. Our walk back from Olympen and Asylet to our hotel would take us right by the train station. So I figured we could stop in the liquor store there and finally buy some Norwegian wine, especially since it was only about 6:20 at night.
But when we got to the train station, the liquor store, Vinmonopolet, was closed. The store closed at 6 p.m. In fact, all the Vinmonopolet stores nationwide close most days at 6 p.m. The exception is Saturday, when the stores close at 3 p.m. They're completely closed on Sundays. And I thought Massachusetts used to be bad!
I later learned that the government-owned Vinmonopolet stores are the only stores licensed in Norway to sell wine since they're the only stores nationwide allowed to sell alcohol with an alcohol content of 4.75 percent.
But I didn't know that after we walked away empty-handed Monday night from the train station in Oslo. But I had a felling there wouldn't be a lot of options in Gudvangen. And I was getting more determined to try the Norwegian wine I casually read about before going there.
So later that night in Oslo, we went to Verite, a wine bar we saw the night before in the Aker Brygge area down by the harbor. We were the only people in Verite. Perfect, I remember thinking. Now I'll finally get to talk to someone about Norwegian wine.
But this time, when I asked if they had any, not only did I get "the look." The bartender was more blunt. He said Norwegian wine is "undrinkable." If you wanted to buy some, he said you could put it on your salad. But you definitely wouldn't drink it. And the wine bar didn't have any. So instead of Norwegian wine, I had a glass of 2010 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon, a great, California red wine I first fell love with when I visited the winery in Napa Valley in the late 90s.
Another bartender later in the trip in Bergen used the exact same word to describe Norwegian wine - undrinkable. Maybe Norwegian wine really is that bad. But I wanted to find out for myself. In fact, the more people kept telling me how bad it is, the more determined I was to try it. How bad could it be?
It reminds me of a "Seinfeld" episode, the one with the Maestro. The orchestra conductor keeps telling Jerry there's not a single house to rent in Tuscany. Jerry had no interest in going to Tuscany. Then he's determined to go because everyone keeps telling him he can't find a house to rent there.
I had also just started reading Volume One of Karl Ove Knausgaard's six-part, autobiographical novel, "My Struggle." Near the start of Volume One, Knausgaard spends nearly 50 pages writing about his epic struggle to buy beer on New Year's Eve as a teenager. Who knew alcohol was so hard to get in Norway?
But rather than give up on trying to find Norwegian wine, I was actually more determined than ever to do so as we prepared to go to a fjord in Norway...
End of Part One.
Wine Press by Ken Ross appears on Masslive.com every Monday and in The Republican's weekend section every Thursday.
Forty years ago this week a story about the residents of Martha's Vineyard voting to secede from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They were upset with the prospect of losing their only delegate to the state Legislature under a proposal to make the Vineyard and Nantucket into one district. After the 10-2 vote, some residents spoke of seceding from the United States and therefore becoming eligible for U.S. foreign aid.
Earlier in the week federal authorities recommended that building permits be issued for the construction of a twin nuclear power plant in Montague. The construction schedule had already been delayed for five years and at this point the plant was expected to be completed in 1986.
Five years ago this week a story on Millie's Pierogi in Chicopee. The business profile story highlighted their labor intensive process used in making pierogi for forty years.
These are some of the headlines you'll see from Page 1 of The Republican and its predecessors over the past fifty years for the week of February 12 - February 18. Each week I'll put together a slideshow of Page 1 images from selected years over the course of that week. We're starting with a look back at one, five, thirty, forty and fifty years ago, with Page 1s from each day of the week for those years.
The slideshow for February 12 - February 18 is embedded at the top of this article.
From the February 13, 1967 edition of The Springfield Union
We'll also find some humor printed out on page one over the years. In 1967 'Dennis The Menace' could be found on the bottom of page one six days a week.
A year ago this week MassWildlife announced its proposal to establish a community of timber rattlesnakes at the Quabbin Reservoir. Young rattlesnakes would be relocated to Mt. Zion, an island on the Quabbin which is off-limits to the public.
As you'll find with looking through the slideshow, that while many stories come and go, many of the issues and topics that affected lives in the past, continue to have an impact on our lives today.
Copies of these and other stories can be found in the online archives. Links to the archives are at the bottom of the page at www.masslive.com/republican
The historic archive includes stories prior to 1989, and the Newsbank archive covers 1988 through the present day.
Eversource: 7,000 without power in Eastern Mass. Monday afternoon
Eversource reported more than 7,000 customers without power in Eastern Mass. on Monday afternoon.
Reports of power outages increased in areas around Boston and on the Cape Monday afternoon as strong winds blew through the state.
About 2,500 people in cities and towns northwest of Boston lost power earlier in the morning. But as snow stopped and winds picked up after noontime, Eversource reported more than 7,000 customers were without power.
As of 2 p.m. on Monday, 1,404 people in Burlington, 805 in Stoneham and 1,375 in Harwich on the Cape were without power, according to the Eversource outage map. There does not appear to be any reports of knocked down power lines in these areas.
Power out to most of East Harwich. 20 minute eta for restoration of power. Use extreme caution at intersections. Harwich Police Dept. (@HarwichPolice) February 13, 2017
Hey @EversourceMA any word yet on restoring power in Burlington?! It's a little chilly over herethank you for your work! melissa rose (@melissa1424) February 13, 2017
Eversource is reporting that over 2,300, or about 20 percent, of Burlington customers are currently without power BNEWS (@BCATTVNEWS) February 13, 2017
The storm's two-part system brought several inches to most of Massachusetts on Sunday, then remained confined to the northeast part of the state Sunday night into Monday. The National Weather Service reports that the state is still under a high wind warning, with gusts ranging from 40-60mph.
Le Premier Ministre a mis le Cabinet au courant de son prochain voyage a Rodrigues dans le cadre des 20 ans de laautonomie de lile et les 50 ans des vols dAir Mauritius.
Cabinet has taken note that the Prime Minister would effect an official visit to Rodrigues from 09 to 13 October 2022 in the context of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Autonomy of Rodrigues. On that occasion, he would also proceed with the inauguration of the Green Space in Port Mathurin to be named after Late Sir Anerood Jugnauth, GCSK, KCMG, QC and also the Commemoration of 50 years of operations of Air Mauritius in Rodrigues.
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The Ministry of Health and Wellness informs the public that the administration of the Second Dose of Pfizer Vaccine in Secondary Schools will be carried out on Saturday 11 December 2021, for those students aged 15 to 17 years who have received their First Dose from the 15th November to 17th November 2021.
In addition, those students who were due for their Second Dose during the 15th November to 17th November 2021 are also being rescheduled on the same date.
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McDowell County and the Old Fort community in particular has lost one of its strongest pillars.
Longtime businessman and civic leader A.C. Bud Hogan died Friday at the age of 87. For many years, he played an important role in the economy and development of Old Fort and the rest of McDowell County as well.
In my personal opinion, he was one of the pillars of our community, said Mayor Rick Hensley. He was always a huge advocate for Old Fort.
He did a lot both with his public service and his benevolence, said David Setzer, former McDowell News publisher and long-time friend of Hogans.
His funeral service was held Monday at the First Baptist Church of Old Fort.
Born on April 26, 1929, Hogan grew up in the Bethlehem community of McDowell County. He often attributed his success in life to the values he learned from his parents. His upbringing on the family farm taught how him the importance of hard work and being self-sufficient. In a 2015 interview, Hogan talked about using a 50-pound block of ice to make ice cream and having to hand crank it out.
I wouldnt take anything for my years on the farm, said Hogan to The McDowell News in March 2015. It was the best education. We raised everything and we canned it.
Hogan said he did not get to serve in World War II but his brothers did. He had one brother who was killed in the South Pacific during the war.
He had a successful career as a well-known businessman in the Old Fort and McDowell communities. He started in Cohama Knitting Mill and worked his way up to become a co-owner of Arrowhead Corp., according to his obituary.
Hogan worked for United Merchants Old Fort manufacturing plant for 34 years and during that time rose with the company from invoice clerk to officer manager, then production manager and finally plant manager. In 1981, the company he worked for decided to close the plant and Hogan instead purchased it so the facility could stay in operation. The plant in Old Fort continued to operate for another 15 years making a profit each year until it closed in 1996.
Setzer said this was a good example of how Hogan made a positive impact on the lives of others.
He was quiet about it but he influenced the lives of a lot of people, said Setzer. He gave people a lot of jobs when jobs were scarce.
Starting in the early 1970s, Hogan served 11 years as a member of the Old Fort Board of Aldermen with eight years as the mayor pro tem.
Setzer said Hogan also built the first low-income apartments in Old Fort, which provided much needed housing for those with limited means. He was also a great contributor to his church, First Baptist of Old Fort, and other local churches.
Hogan owned a lot of property in Old Fort and he put it to good use. And today, a beautiful modern building built on land that he once owned bears his name.
In 1977, the Old Fort Nutrition Site started offering good meals, activities and exercise programs for senior citizens in the town and surrounding communities. For many years, this senior center for Old Fort was housed in a section of the First Presbyterian Church. But as McDowells population of older residents increased, the program in time outgrew its location at the First Presbyterian Church. Also, handicapped accessibility and parking were often issues there.
Hogan and his wife Thurlene saw the changes taking place at the old location and worked for several years with McDowell County government to get a new location for the Old Fort senior program.
In 2008, the Hogans purchased and donated the land across from Ethan Allen to the county. The McDowell County Commissioners accepted the donation and agreed to build a community center with a central purpose of serving the seniors in the Old Fort area.
In March 2009, the couple cut the ribbon for the new A.C. Bud Hogan Community Center at 909 E. Main St. The 3,724-square-foot building has a large dining room, classroom and fitness area for seniors to use along with additional office and kitchen space.
It provides all kinds of activities and food for the elderly of Old Fort and surrounding communities and is a satellite facility of the McDowell County Senior Center.
In addition to providing a daily lunch on-site for area seniors, the new facility has more opportunities for classes, fitness programs as well as volunteer work. Also the Old Fort part of the McDowell home-delivered meals program are run out of this site bringing meals more quickly to homebound senior citizens than it was before.
At the dedication in March 2009, Program Manager Mary Grindstaff said, Dreams do come true. Just look around you.
That dream couldnt have been possible without the generous donation from Bud and Thurlene Hogan, say many long-time friends and associates.
In February 2015, Hogan was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine by the governor of North Carolina. That honor was presented to him at the regular meeting of the McDowell County Commissioners.
He has been a quiet and positive voice for the town of Old Fort over many decades, said County Manager Chuck Abernathy at that event.
On Monday, Abernathy, who is now the countys economic development director, said Hogan did so much for the local community. He spoke to The McDowell News after attending the funeral service.
Where I got to know Mr. Hogan was because he was a philanthropist and he would always say I dont want anyone to know, said Abernathy.
When Davidsons Fort Historic Park was started, it was built on land owned by Hogan. He was there to help this effort to commemorate Old Forts history and boost tourism get off to a good start.
Hensley said Hogan donated money to the town to help pay for Christmas lights and plants that grace the streets.
Bud loved Old Fort, probably more than I do, said Hensley.
Abernathy said Hogan quietly donated to the Senior Center and the Old Fort library.
Setzer said his late friend did all this to help Old Fort and did not seek publicity.
He was very quiet and unassuming, he added.
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by Tanya Gazdik , February 12, 2017
CHICAGO Nissan Motor Corp. is expanding its Midnight Edition packages to six models, the automaker announced at the Chicago Auto Show.
Previously only offered on the Maxima SR, the equipment package which includes black wheels, black spoiler, black mirror caps and available special floor mats will now be offered on the Sentra, Altima, Rogue, Murano and Pathfinder. Additional equipment will be added by model.
The editions will continue the automakers growth momentum, says Eric Ledieu, director, chief marketing sedans, sports cars and Nissan Motorsport at Nissan Motor Corp.
The automaker will market the editions via digital assets to urban intenders, Ledieu tells Marketing Daily. We have a separate landing page on the Nissan website. Social media will also continue to be used prominently.
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The six models offering Midnight Edition packages account for more than 75% of Nissans U.S. sales.
The original Midnight Edition package was offered on the 2016 Maxima SR and now accounts for 85% of Maxima SR sales. While first offered exclusively with black exterior paint, the color palette for Midnight Editions now includes a choice of black, white, gray and red colors for all six models.
All Midnight Edition models are offered with high-optimized pricing, with the packages MSRPs offering discounts up to $1,300 on select models (versus similar equipment priced separately).
Nissan also revealed the new 2017 Titan and Titan XD King Cab pickup truck models.
"The launch of the new King Cab body is the last step in a journey that began in December 2015 with the debut of the breakthrough TIitan XD, which continues to carve out a unique white space between competitors' heavy-duty and half-ton trucks," said Fred Diaz, division vice president and general manager, North America trucks and light commercial vehicles, Nissan North America, Inc.
With the addition of a half-ton Titan, the new Endurance V8, three body configurations, three bed lengths and a range of grade levels and equipment packages, Nissan is covering nearly every segment in the personal and commercial full-size truck markets.
Nissan was a non-player in truck segment as recent as a year ago, Diaz told reporters in Chicago. We had less a half a point of market share, he says.
The addition of the Titan King Cab is Nissans fifth truck and gives the automaker a presence in 85% of the truck segment.
Diaz says he is very happy to see the percentage of customers coming from Ram, GM and Toyota. The automaker purposely had a slow ramp-up of the truck to insure there would be no recalls. If you mess up the quality, you are done, Diaz says. You are just not a contender.
As for marketing the truck, the digital spend will increase from last year.
We are getting more and more creative with digital and social media, he told an exclusive group of reporters at a private Nissan event. We never feel like we have enough marketing dollars we need to create awareness.
One struggle has been communicating to potential buyers that the trucks warranty is bumper to bumper and not just the powertrain. A full 50% of customers dont realize the extent of the warranty.
We are working to get that awareness up, Diaz said.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, February 12, 2017
Once again, reports have surfaced that journalists across a variety of publications have begun to receive warnings from Google that state-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal their Gmail passwords to gain access to their email accounts.
Google sent the warnings out of "an abundance of caution," reports one media publication, but the warnings did not necessarily mean the accounts were compromised.
Among those who received the message, Politico reports Jonathan Chait of New York magazine, Julia Ioffe from The Atlantic, Brian Stelter from CNN, and Paul Krugman from the Times.
For Ioffe it appears the threat of an attack is old hat. "Another day, another state-sponsored phishing attack," she writes, posting a copy of the warning along with the Twitter tweet.
"Some journalists getting the warnings say they suspect the hackers could be Russians looking to find incriminating emails they could leak to embarrass journalists, either by revealing alleged liberal bias or to expose the sausage-making of D.C. journalism," reports Politico.
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Vox Founder Ezra Klein and Washington Bureau Chief Garance Franke-Ruta also received letters. Some said they had been receiving letters for weeks. Some believe the potential attacks are linked to U.S. politics.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft began issuing warnings years ago. In June 2012, Google posted on its Security Blog that it would take step to alert users of state-sponsored attacks, and posted a version of the alert. In the post, Eric Grosse, VP security engineering at Google, wrote that without going into details, the company's algorithms know when the hacking "strongly suggests the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored."
A Google spokesperson confirmed in an email that these kinds of warnings are not new. From the frequency of Google's blog posts on the subject, these warnings seem to surface more often during an election or during political seasons.
State-sponsored warning from email providers have become too common of late. In September 2016, Yahoo sent an email message to Yahoo users confirming that a "copy of certain user account information was stolen from the company's network in late 2014. The email reported "a state-sponsored" attack where at least 500 million users had their account data stolen from its network.
As winter draws to a close, those of us living in snowy areas might be relieved that we no longer have to shovel our way out of the house every morning and for good reason. New research suggests that snow shoveling can increase the risk of heart attack. Share on Pinterest New research suggests that shoveling snow increases the risk of myocardial infection among men. Snow shoveling is a particularly strenuous activity, and our cardiovascular system knows it, too. The intense aerobic activity may be good exercise, but lifting too much heavy snow puts a disproportionate amount of strain on our arms compared with our legs, therefore increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen demand. Together with the inhalation of cold air, this can lead to adverse cardiovascular events, also known as the snow-shovelers infarction. A new study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, examines the link between large snowfalls, long periods of snow, and the risk of myocardial infarction (MI). Researchers led by Dr. Nathalie Auger, of the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre in Montreal, Quebec, examined data from two databases, gathering a total of 128,073 patient admissions and 68,155 MI-induced deaths that occurred in Quebec between 1981 and 2014. They analyzed the data only in areas prone to heavy snowfalls, and they collected information during the winter months between November and April. Furthermore, the researchers received detailed weather information from Environment Canada for each of the regions studied, such as daily snowfall and temperature.
Studying the link between snowfall and the risk of heart attack Overall, Dr. Auger and team found an association between heavy snowfall and a higher risk of both nonfatal and fatal MI. Specifically, heavy snowfall defined as approximately 20 centimeters correlated with a 16 percent relative increase in the chances of being admitted to the hospital due to an MI. Heavy snow was also associated with a 34 percent relative increase in the odds of dying from an MI in men. Approximately 60 percent of al MI-related hospital admissions and deaths were in men, but no adverse cardiovascular effects were noticed in women. The study also found that the probability of fatal MI increased proportionally with the consecutive number of snow days. The likelihood rose particularly in the day most close to the snowfall period, with a third of the MIs in men occurring the day following a snowfall. This association was even stronger for longer-lasting snowfalls 2 to 3 days, for example. As Dr. David Alter points out in an accompanying commentary to the study, this makes the possibility of causality between snow shoveling and MI very plausible. Researchers adjusted for age, cardiovascular risk factors, and other health conditions. The risks remained high independent of these variables. However, the authors suggest that men over 50 who are at risk of cardiovascular disease or lead a sedentary lifestyle may have the highest risk of MI if they shovel large amounts of snow.
One morning in 1952, when anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar was eating breakfast in a hospital cafeteria, a medical student commented on the need for a way to assess how well a baby has endured delivery. Dr. Apgar immediately wrote down five evaluation criteria: breathing, heart rate, muscle tone, reflexes, and skin color. Share on Pinterest Anesthesiologist Dr. Virginia Apgar, pictured in 1959.
Image credit: Library of Congress
One year later, Dr. Apgar suggested that using these five criteria to generate a score is an effective way to determine which babies are likely to need medical attention after birth. A practical method of evaluation of the condition of the newborn infant 1 minute after birth has been described, she wrote in her 1953 proposal paper. A rating of 10 points described the best possible condition with two points each given for respiratory effort, reflex irritability, muscle tone, heart rate and color. This method was soon coined the Apgar score, and the technique was rapidly adopted by clinicians across the globe. In the first of a series highlighting female role models in medicine, we explore Dr. Apgars life, career, and lasting legacy, particularly as they apply to healthcare professionals today.
A woman of firsts Dr. Apgars list of achievements is impressive. She was the first woman to direct a division at Presbyterian Hospital, the first woman to become a full professor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and the first woman to devise a critical tool for neonatal care, to name but a few. She was also a great advocate for patients. Her relatively simple solution to an unmet clinical need made a key contribution to reducing infant mortality rates. Importantly, the Apgar score also had a lasting effect on changing the perception of newborn babies. Previously viewed as a byproduct of birth, newborns were now at the center of care in the delivery room. More than 60 years on, despite significant advances in technology, the Apgar score remains the first medical assessment of a newborn baby. But why has Dr. Apgars solution persisted, and what can modern clinicians learn from her approach?
The woman behind the Apgar score Dr. Apgar graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons as an M.D. in 1933, as one of just nine women in a class of 90. Despite her promising surgical skills, she specialized in anesthesia, as career opportunities for women in surgery were limited at the time. Following her training, Dr. Apgar became the director of the newly established Division of Anesthesia at the New York-Presbyterian Department of Surgery the first woman to hold such a position. In 1949, Dr. Apgar became a professor of anesthesiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, making her the first woman to hold a full professorship at the university. As a professor, she was able to focus more of her attention on research. It was during this time that she developed her interest in obstetric anesthesia, which was an understudied field of medicine. Dr. Apgars breakthrough was to follow shortly.
Changing perceptions of newborn care Though it may seem that the Apgar score was a spur-of-the-moment creation in a hospital cafeteria, evidence suggests that there was much more thought behind its development. In 1950, there were more than 20 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births in the United States, and Dr. Apgar was concerned by these figures. Anoxia primarily due to obstetric anesthesia was to blame for the majority of neonatal deaths. However, in the delivery room, the presence of medical staff who were skilled in anesthesiology and resuscitation was sparse. Furthermore, there was no consensus on what a normal newborn state was, nor were there any measures in place to determine which newborns required resuscitation. The Apgar score filled this void, providing five criteria that clinicians could use to determine a babys condition 1 minute after birth and whether they required medical assistance. Most importantly, and as Dr. Apgar herself stated, the Apgar score gets people to look at the baby. Finally, newborn babies were getting the attention they deserved. As noted in the March of Dimes archives: In essence, the Apgar score was revolutionary because it was the first clinical method to recognize the newborns needs as a patient. It helped spur the development of neonatology as a medical focus, establishing the need for protocols and facilities such as the newborn intensive care unit to provide specialized care.
Standing the test of time By the early 1960s, the Apgar score was in use at many hospitals across the U.S. Dr. Apgar pointed out in a review in 1966 that five [signs] were chosen which could be evaluated without special equipment and could be taught to the delivery room personnel without difficulty. It is not surprising that the Apgar score quickly gained popularity, being easily implemented in delivery rooms worldwide. Share on Pinterest Dr. Apgar, pictured assessing a newborn baby in 1966.
Image credit: Library of Congress
Today, it remains the gold standard of newborn evaluation. The past 60 years have seen some significant advances in neonatal care, such as the introduction of mechanical ventilation and surfactant replacement therapy. Unsurprisingly, attempts have also been made to improve the Apgar score. In 2010, researchers from Stanford University reported the creation of what they claim is a more reliable, electronic version of the Apgar score, called PhysiScore. When tested in preterm babies, PhysiScore demonstrated greater accuracy than the Apgar score, according to study results. Whether PhysiScore or another form of neonatal assessment will one day supersede the Apgar score remains to be seen, but it seems that its simplicity is holding it in good stead. Its convenience, ease of use and applicability in identifying babies that need immediate support helps explain its endurance, Dr. Yasser El-Sayed, of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Maternal Fetal Medicine at Stanford and member of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Medical News Today. [] several investigators have proposed adding to or changing the Apgar score, but so far there hasnt been a major effort to do so, noted Dr. Kristi Watterberg, professor of pediatrics and neonatology at the University of New Mexico and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I think that its so well-known and relatively easy to perform (even though subject to individual variation) that it would be hard to easily change, she told MNT.
Beyond the Apgar score The development of the Apgar score inspired a wealth of research related to the prevention and treatment of birth defects, much of which Dr. Apgar was involved in. In 1959, she became director of the division of congenital defects at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as March of Dimes) a position she held until her death in 1974. She also popularized use of the term birth defects, which was more accessible to the public than the medical term congenital anomalies, used by doctors, Dr. Edward R.B. McCabe, chief medical officer of the March of Dimes, told MNT. Drawing national attention to birth defects led to the recognition that these conditions are significant contributors to infant mortality, he added. Dr. Apgars work at the March of Dimes led to nationwide activities to prevent birth defects and thus reduce infant mortality. By finding a practical solution for communicating complex medical problems to the public, Dr. Apgar once again demonstrated how a change in perception can have a profound impact on health.
Older adults who live in poor and violent urban neighborhoods are at greater risk for depression, a study by researchers from UC Davis, the University of Minnesota and other institutions published in the journal Health & Place has found.
The research specifically showed that older adults who lived in neighborhoods with more homicide and a higher poverty rate experienced more depressive symptoms. In fact, neighborhood homicide rates accounted for almost a third of the effect of neighborhood poverty on older adult depression.
According to the World Health Organization, depression affects 120 million people worldwide. It is the third leading cause of global disease burden and it is projected that unipolar depressive disorders will become the leading cause of global disease burden by 2030. While depression is a major issue at any age, it is a particular concern for the elderly, increasing disability and mental decline and reducing quality of life.
"Given the shift towards an aging population and the growing rates of depression among older adults, understanding the factors that contribute to depression is critical," said Spruha Joshi, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and first author on the paper. Neighborhoods in which older adults live are an important factor influencing depression and overall mental health, she said.
"We wanted to investigate the total effect poverty has on older adult depression, but also look at particular characteristics that might explain that relationship," said Magdalena Cerda, associate professor in the UC Davis Health Department of Emergency Medicine and senior author. "Specifically, what is it about poor neighborhoods that make people depressed? This study really highlights the role violence plays in affecting mental health."
While previous studies revealed a link between poverty and depression, few have focused exclusively on older adults. In addition, previous efforts had not addressed the many conditions in poor neighborhoods that could contribute to older adult depression.
"Older adults tend to be less mobile and more dependent on the amenities, services and sources of social support in the neighborhoods where they live," Joshi said.
For the study, the researchers queried data from the New York City Neighborhood and Mental Health in the Elderly Study II (NYCNAMES II), a three-year study of elderly residents in the nation's most populous city. Depression was measured using the nine-question Patient Health Questionnaire.
The team looked at several neighborhood factors that might contribute to depression, such as high homicide rates, poor perception of safety, pedestrian and bicyclist injuries, green space, social cohesion and walkability. The study sample was 61 percent female and 47 percent non-Hispanic white. In addition, 60 percent of respondents had incomes below $40,000.
While many factors were examined, violence was the only neighborhood characteristic that substantially contributed to depression in older adults in impoverished, urban communities.
"We found that about 30 percent of the relationship between neighborhood poverty and depression was explained by the higher homicide rate," Cerda said.
These findings could help shape policy to improve quality of life for older adults in urban neighborhoods.
"Violence in the pathway between poverty and depression is a critical finding," Joshi said. "Now we can look at neighborhoods that are not only poor but also have high levels of violence and possibly provide support for older adults in the area."
The study highlights the key role that violence can play in shaping the mental health of local residents. By investing in violence prevention in high-poverty neighborhoods, it's possible to reduce violence and improve the mental health of vulnerable populations, Cerda added.
More work will need to be done to tease out the relationships between neighborhood conditions and depression for older adults in impoverished neighborhoods.
"There are still many pathways through which poor neighborhoods can shape mental health that we don't yet understand," Joshi said. "Identifying these pathways will be critical if we want to identify suitable ways to promote mental health in local residents."
Other researchers included Stephen J. Mooney, Andrew G. Rundle and James W. Quinn at Columbia University and John R. Beard at the University of Sydney.
This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Article: Pathways from neighborhood poverty to depression among older adults, Spruha Joshi, Stephen J. Mooney, Andrew G. Rundle, James W. Quinn, John R. Beard, Magdalena Cerda, Health & Place, doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.12.003, published online 1 January 2017.
COLOGNE, Germany
February 13, 2017
Germany
15.2.2017
Andreas Meyer
Karl Schucht
Herbert Wartensleben
Jan Hegemann
Berlin
Jan Hegemann
Karl Schucht
Gernot Lehr
Hans Dahs
Hermann Wirtz
15.2.2017
Andreas Meyer
/PRNewswire/ --60 years after the market launch of Contergan (active ingredient: thalidomide), the greatest pharmaceutical scandal in the Federal Republic ofcontinues to boil. A lawsuit will be heard in the Bonn Regional Court at 12:00 hrs onthat is more explosive than appears at first sight.The Contergan victim, who was born without arms or legs and is confined to a wheelchair, is suing the former member of the Management Board of the Contergan Foundation, Attorney, for injunction and rectification.In a letter to the members of the Family Affairs Committee of the German Federal Parliament, Schucht had asserted that Meyer, as an expert witness at a public hearing of the Committee, had publicly stated various untruths about events connected with the Contergan Foundation.Meyer had said among other things that for 30 years the Contergan (thalidomide) manufacturer Grunenthal GmbH had had access to the medical files of the Contergan victims in the Contergan Foundation. In addition, Grunenthal had also paid the Foundation's medical experts.In his letter, Schucht asserted to the contrary that Grunenthal had at no time had access to the medical files of the Contergan victims, but that the files were always kept by the Contergan Foundation. Further, he asserted that the experts of the Medical Commission were always paid from the funds of the Contergan Foundation.Why so explosive? Because if Meyer wins the lawsuit it will mean that not only Schucht had told untruths to the members of Parliament. No, the Federal Government had also told untruths to Parliament.Because the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, which has been responsible for supervision of the Contergan Foundation since 1972, stated in a reply to a Minor Interpellation by the Parliamentary Group Die Linke that Schucht's letter also expressed the opinion of the Federal Government.A pivotal question, according to Meyer, is the double role of Attorneywho has also been invited as a witness by the Bonn Regional Court. From 1972 until the end of 2003, Wartensleben was not only Chairman of the Medical Commission of the Contergan Foundation, which judges whether a victim is or is not damaged by Contergan and also evaluates the degree of damage - on the basis of which the amount of the Contergan pension is assessed, for example. Since the Contergan trial, Wartensleben acted again and again as the legal representative of Grunenthal in cases relating to Contergan; most recently in 2007 in the lawsuits concerning the two-part ARD feature film "Eine einzige Tablette" (One single tablet)."The case deals with the question of whether the Contergan Foundation was, or perhaps still is, an undercover subsidiary of Grunenthal under the eyes of the Federal Government," said Meyer.Meyer will be represented by Prof. Dr.from the law firm Raue Rechtsanwalte LLP in. Attorney Prof. Dr.already successfully represented Meyer in 2009 in the case of Meyer's call to boycott the products of Dalli-Werke, Maurer & Wirtz and 4711 - companies belonging to Grunenthal's owner. Attorneywill be represented by Attorneysand Tobias Wurkert LLM from the Bonn office of the law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs. For Meyer, this is significant. The founder of that law firm, Prof. Dr.senior who died in 1972, represented the late owner of Grunenthal, Dr.senior, in the Contergan trial.You can find further important information at the following link:http://www.gruenenthal-opfer.de/Materials_Meyer_vs_Schucht_15_2_2017c/o Mr(Chairman) Dohmengasse 7 , 50829 Koln Email: bcg-brd-dachverband@gmx.de Website: http://www.Grunenthal-opfer.de Mobile: +49(0)172 / 2905974
Diabetes Awareness Month means kidney stone prevention awareness, too PITTSBURGH , Nov. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- November is Diabetes Awareness Month and since people who are pre-diabetic and diabetic are more likely to get kidney ...
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Fluctuations in the Gut Microbiome
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Patients who consumed steroids were faced with more microbiome fluctuations
Flare-ups in symptoms were also associated with microbiome fluctuations
Inflammatory bowel disease belongs to a group of diseases where the immune system of the patient targets the microbes in the host gut resulting in aThere are two main types of IBD, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis . The main symptoms of both the types of inflammatory bowel disease areThe symptoms that are associated with IBD are not consistent; there could be periods of intense symptoms, termed, and periods where there are no symptoms, termedThe treatment for inflammatory bowel disease involves the administration ofas well as. In extreme cases,would have to be considered.It has always been known that the microbiome of people with inflammatory bowel diseasewho was associated with the statistical analysis and is a PNNL scientist said that the study was designed to identify not only what microbes were present in patients with inflammatory bowel disease but how the microbial community changed as the symptoms of the patient became worse. The study showed that there was a dynamic nature of the disease which correlated with the dynamic nature of the microbes in the gut.from the Orebro University and colleagues analyzed 137 people, which included patients with, as well as healthy controls, for a period of two years.The findings of the study were, while the gut microbial community was stable over time among healthy participants, in patients with IBDThe study can be used to identify the course of the disease and analyze the effectiveness of the medications administered using the microbiome of the intestine.Dr. Halfvarson said that the results were an important step in identifying how the microbiome was associated with the dynamism of the inflammatory bowel disease. Alterations in the microbiome by mirroring the microbiome of healthy individuals could aid in better treatment.The scientists involved in the study claim that avoiding immune suppressants could play a key role in preventing flare-ups while the addition of beneficial microbiome in the intestine of patients with the inflammatory bowel disease could maintain patients in remission.It has always been fascinating to understand the intricacy of the relationship between gut microbiome and the health of an individual. The current study that focuses on the relevance of gut microbiome on the symptoms associated with inflammatory bowel disease highlights the need to actively maintain aSource: Medindia
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Standard therapy - involves a short-course radiotherapy followed by a direct surgery within a week.
Delayed Surgery - involves a short-course radiotherapy that is followed by surgery after 4-8 weeks.
Delayed Surgery - involves a long course radiotherapy followed by surgery after 4-8 weeks.
Around 90% of colorectal cancers are adenocarcinomas (Cancer formed in the mucus-secreting glands) which initially was a polyp that further developed to cancer.
Around 40,000 people in the United States develop rectal cancer every year.
Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the world.
The incidence and mortality rate of colorectal cancer is highest among African American men and women.
Rectal cancer is more common among people above the age of 50 years.
Following regular exercises, maintaining healthy weight, and avoiding cigarettes and alcohol can reduce the risk of rectal cancer.
Johan Erlandsson, Torbjorn Holm, David Pettersson, Ake Berglund, Bjorn Cedermark, Calin Radu, Hemming Johansson, Mikael Machado, Fredrik Hjern, Olof Hallbook, Ingvar Syk, Bengt Glimelius, Anna Martling. Optimal fractionation of preoperative radiotherapy and timing to surgery for rectal cancer (Stockholm III): a multicentre, randomised, non-blinded, phase 3, non-inferiority trial. The Lancet Oncology, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(17)30086-4 Colorectal Cancer Facts & Figures - ( https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/colorectal-cancer-facts-figures.html) Rectal Cancer Facts - (https://www.mdanderson.org/cancer-types/rectal-cancer/rectal-cancer-facts.html)
Preoperative radiotherapy usually involves the use of high-energy radiations to shrink the tumor before performing the surgery. This is commonly used for the treatment of rectal cancer.The introduction of preoperative radiotherapy in 1990s has improved the prognosis of rectal cancer patients and has also reduced the risk of local recurrence.Anna Martling, a senior consultant surgeon and professor at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, said, "Back then we showed that preoperative radiotherapy reduces the risk of local recurrence by over 50 per cent for patients with rectal cancer.""Thanks to our results, radiotherapy is recommended to many rectal cancer patients."Adverse side-effects associated with radiotherapy method and the period between the method and the surgery has raised.The research study now published in The Lancet Oncology is now based on the claim that adverse effects of radiotherapy for rectal cancer treatment can be reduced by administering low doses of radiation for longer time or by increasing the time interval between radiotherapy and surgery.The patients with rectal cancer were randomly assigned to three different treatmentsThe study findings found that patients with delayed surgery had fewer complications with good improvements in cancer outcomes.The study also showed that there was no difference between long-course and short-course radiotherapy, except that long-course treatment was found to lengthen the time for the treatment.Professor Martling, said, "The results of the study will give rise to improved therapeutic strategies, fewer complications with a sustained low incidence of local recurrence, and better survival rates for rectal cancer patients.""The results can now be immediately put to clinical use to the considerable benefit of the patients."Source: Medindia
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Genovese and colleagues found, in a subset of tumor cells, after the original oncogenic driver fades, depletion of a gene called SMARCB1 results in a cellular change to mesenchymal status, a mobile and invasive cell state.The team also found a vulnerability for mesenchymal cells: they are overly reliant on accelerated protein production to meet increased metabolic needs."Inhibiting proteostasis in combination with standard of care chemotherapy was highly effective in killing these most aggressive subpopulations of pancreatic cancer," Genovese said.This led the team to look at a drug called AUY922, an inhibitor of heat shock protein 90, which blocks proteostasis - the creation, folding, distribution and degrading of proteins. Both as a single agent and combined with the chemotherapy gemcitabine, AUY922 increased the response rate and lengthened survival of mice whose tumors faithfully recapitulated key features of human pancreatic cancers.A key challenge in treating cancer stems from molecular and genomic variability of tumor cells, which causes functional differences across cells that can fuel resistance to treatment."We are working to dissect the cell populations within tumors to attempt to understand the functional vulnerabilities of each, then to plan for more rational combinatorial treatment approaches," said Giulio Draetta, professor of Genomic Medicine and director of MD Anderson's Institute for Applied Cancer Science.Draetta, who is corresponding author of the paper, noted that identifying the subpopulation of aggressive cells and establishing their vulnerability to proteostasis inhibitors allows a match of treatment to specific cell type. "This is truly functionally defined, personalized medicine."To identify and study the impact of pancreatic cancer cell plasticity, the team established an experimental approach to isolate and characterize single cell clones called "escapers" that spontaneously acquire malignant features. They identified two major sub-populations, one preserving simpler epithelial differentiation, one displaying mesenchymal features.Profiling the two types of escaper populations revealed that mesenchymal clones are characterized by the extinction of KRAS signaling, a common driver of pancreatic cancer, and the abnormal activation of epigenetic programs regulated by the chromatin remodeling factor SMARCB1.To explore the clinical relevance of these findings, the researchers analyzed surgically removed tumors from 134 patients and identified a subset of patients whose tumors displayed low levels of SMARCB1, independence from KRAS signaling and who had a dismal prognosis.Subsequent experiments ablating the SMARCB1 gene in mouse models led to the rapid expansion of mesenchymal sub-populations with powerful growth and metastatic characteristics. Restoring SMARCB1 caused mesenchymal cells to revert to the less aggressive epithelial type, establishing SMARCB1 as a gatekeeper of epithelial identity.The researchers also found that SMARCB1-deficient cells had increased protein synthesis rates and activation of a number of protein-related stress-response pathways. They also found that expression of the oncogene MYC is required to maintain the mesenchymal state in SMARCB1-deficient cells.To test the stress-response connection, they ablated a crucial stress response gene, which resulted in tumor regression and prolonged survival in mice.These findings led to the experiments with the HSP90 inhibitor AUY922, which caused tumor cell death and hindered growth in SMARCB1-deficient mice but had a limited impact on mice with intact SMARCB1. The combination with gemcitabine extended survival in mice transplanted with patient-derived xenografts."This work represents the first step of a major effort to understand the mechanisms allowing malignant cells to hijack specific gene programs to adapt to stress and survive," Genovese said. "Today we have a detailed map of the genetic landscape driving cancer initiation and progression, but our knowledge of the epigenetic, metabolic and molecular programs conferring on tumors cells the ability to change state are still elusive."The team is developing novel technological tools to dissect those mechanisms in detail and also collaborates with the Institute for Applied Cancer Science to translate its findings by designing tailored clinical trials to exploit the vulnerabilities of those highly aggressive mesenchymal cells.Source: Eurekalert
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The preliminary results were submitted to Oncotarget in June 2016 and were then spent several months in review.The group has made a number of improvements to the system and were engaged with number of pharmaceutical companies.Currently, the inorganic molecule base contains hundreds of millions of substances, and only a small fraction of them are used in medicinal drugs. The pharmacological methods of making drugs generally have a hereditary nature. For example, pharmacologists might continue to research aspirin that has already been in use for many years, perhaps adding something into the compound to reduce side effects or increase efficiency, yet the substance still remains the same. Earlier this year, the scientists at Insilico Medicine demonstrated that it is possible to substantially narrow the search using deep neural networks. But now they have focused on a much more challenging question: Is there a chance to create conceptually new molecules with medicinal properties using the novel flavor of deep neural networks trained on millions of molecular structures?Generative Adversarial Autoencoder (AAE) architecture, an extension of Generative Adversarial Networks, was taken as the basis, and compounds with known medicinal properties and efficient concentrations were used to train the system. Information on these types of compounds was input into the network, which was then adjusted so that the same data was acquired in the output. The network itself was made up of three structural elements: an encoder, decoder and discriminator, each of which had its own specific role in "cooperating" with the other two. The encoder worked with the decoder to compress and then restore information on the parent compound, while the discriminator helped make the compressed presentation more suitable for subsequent recovery. Once the network learned a wide swath of known molecules, the encoder and discriminator "switched off", and the network generated descriptions of the molecules on its own using the decoder.Developing Generative Adversarial Networks that produce high-quality images based on textual inputs requires substantial expertise and lengthy training time on high-performance computing equipment. But with images and videos, humans can quickly perform quality control of the output. In biology, quality control cannot be performed by the human eye and a considerable number of validation experiments will be required to produce great molecules.All the molecules are represented as "SMILEs", or graphical annotations of chemical substances that allow their structure to be restored. The standard registration taught in schools does not fit for network processing, but SMILEs do not do the job very well either, as they have a random length from one symbol to 200. Neural network training requires an equal description length for the vector. The "fingerprint" of a molecule will solve this task, as it contains complete information on the molecule. There are a lot of methods out there for making these fingerprints, but the researchers used the simplest binary one available consisting of 166 digits. They converted SMILEs into fingerprints and taught the network with them, after which the fingerprints of known medicinal compounds were input into the network. The network's job was to allocate inner neuron parameter weights so that the specified input created the specified output. This operation was then repeated many times, as this is how training with large quantities of data is performed. As a result, a "black box" capable of producing a specified output for the specified input was created, after which the developers removed the first layers, and the network generated the fingerprints by itself when the information was run through again. The scientists thus built "fingerprints" for all 72 million molecules, and then compared the network-generated fingerprints with the base. The molecules selected must potentially possess the specified qualities.Andrei Kazennov, one of the authors of the study and an MIPT postgraduate who works at Insilico Medicine, comments, "We've created a neuronal network of the reproductive type, i.e. capable of producing objects similar to what it was trained on. We ultimately taught this network model to create new fingerprints based on specified properties."The anticancer drug database was used to check the network. First the network was trained on one half of the medicinal compounds, and then checked on the other part. The purpose was to predict the compounds already known but not included in the training set. A total of 69 predicted compounds have been identified, and hundreds of molecules developed using a more powerful extension of the method are on the way.According to one of the authors of the research, Alex Zhavoronkov, the founder of Insilico Medicine and international adjunct professor at MIPT, "Unlike the many other popular methods in deep learning, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) were proposed only recently, in 2014, by Ian Goodfellow and Yoshua Bengio's group and scientists are still exploring its power in generating meaningful images, videos, works of art and even music. The pace of progress is accelerating and soon we are likely to see tremendous advances stemming from combinations of GANs with other methods. But everything that my groups are working on relates to extending human longevity, durability and increasing performance. When humans go to Mars, they will need the tools to be more resilient to all kinds of stress and be able to generate targeted medicine on demand. We will be the ones supplying these tools.""GANs are very much the frontline of neuroscience. It is quite clear that they can be used for a much broader variety of tasks than the simple generation of images and music. We tried out this approach with bioinformatics and obtained great results," concludes Artur Kadurin, Mail.Ru Group lead programmer of the search optimizing team and Insilico Medicine independent science advisor.Source: Eurekalert
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The finding, though preliminary, is significant in part because "the brain stem is really involved in autonomic activities - breathing, heart rate, staying awake - so this is evidence that there's something core and basic, this connection between aggression and autism," said coauthor and BYU clinical psychology Ph.D. student Kevin Stephenson.For the project, the team examined MRI images from two groups of children with autism: one that exhibited problematic levels of aggression and one that didn't. Study coauthor Terisa Gabrielsen, a BYU assistant professor of school psychology, said identifying the brain stem as having at least a partial involvement in aggression helps lay a foundation for better treatment. "If we know what part of the brain is different and what function that part of the brain controls, that can give us some clues into what we can do in the way of intervention," she said.Coauthor and BYU psychology professor Mikle South added, "Once the body arousal in a child is too much - the heart is beating, the hands are clenched and the body is sweating - it's too late. Some of these kids, if the brain isn't working as efficiently, they may pass that point of no return sooner. So with behavioral interventions, we try to find out what the trigger is and intervene early before that arousal becomes too much."BYU's Autism Connect team originated three years ago in BYU's David O. McKay School of Education, though it now includes researchers from other colleges on campus and collaborators beyond BYU. This paper, spearheaded by BYU psychology assistant professor Rebecca Lundwall, had 11 authors from BYU, one from the University of Utah and one from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The group used data collected from a University of Utah autism study funded by the National Institutes of Health.Studying aggression is Autism Connect's "overarching agenda," said Gabrielsen, "because it impacts families' quality of life so significantly. If we look long-term at things that affect the family the most, aggression is one of the most disruptive."South recounted a conversation with the mother of a child he recently diagnosed: to cope with stress, the child often pulled her mother's hair, "so I just have a lot less hair than I used to," she told him. Aggression, South noted, "makes the family dynamic very difficult, the school dynamic very difficult. It's just a particularly difficult type of autism."In addition to a number of other studies planned or in process, the team is interested in exploring further how the brain stem is connected functionally to other areas of the brain, "because usually the brain doesn't work from just one area; it's a network of areas that all work together," Stephenson said. "So if one area is disrupted, it's likely that other areas are disrupted as well."Source: Eurekalert
On one hand, we are planning to celebrate tomorrow i.e. the Valentines Day, the official day to profess love (on rest of the days you can drive each other crazy) with much fervour; our neighbour Pakistan seems to have other plans in mind. The Islamabad high court has put a ban on the celebration of Valentines Day across the country and people cant even promote anything related on the social media. This ban comes in the wake of a petition submitted by a certain Abdul Waheed, arguing that the Valentines Day celebration was un-Islamic. Or, maybe the citizens were scared that their beloved Taher Shah might take this opportunity to release a love song that will surpass Eye-to-Eye or Angel and scar the hearing abilities of people forever.
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Well, jokes apart, the petitioner argued that Valentines Day was not a part of the Muslim culture and its promotion should be banned and this plea was not only accepted by the court but also ordered the administration to take necessary action to stop such celebrations in the country. According to the reports, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), Ministry of Information and the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad were nominated to ensure that this ban gets implemented properly. Whats more, print and electronic media too are warned to stop the promotions ASAP as well.
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Well, Valentines Day has always been controversys favourite muse in Pakistan and every year several religious parties take it on their shoulders to give youngsters a piece of their mind, but a high court passing such an order is definitely the first one. While we talk about Pakistan banning celebrations, India isnt far behind and like every year, tomorrow too will witness a lot of drama that all singles will enjoy with a bucket of popcorn in their hands. On a lighter note, we do miss Taher Shahs melodious voice and hope that he destroys our ears with his sass soon.
Source: The Times Of India
(All Images is for representation only)
A meeting dedicated to cruise tourism and the issuance of relevant visas was held at the Foreign Ministry today, under the chairmanship of Alternate Foreign Minister G. Katrougalos. The meeting was attended by the Minister for Shipping and Island Policy, P. Kouroumblis, the Minister for Tourism, Elena Kountoura, the Alternate Minister for Citizen Protection, N. Toskas, and personnel from the co-competent ministries.
At the meeting, which was held on the initiative of Messrs. Kouroumblis and Katrougalos, there was a discussion of ways to facilitate tourists entering Greece on cruises, as arrivals of foreign visitors are expected to increase significantly this summer.
It was decided at the meeting to bolster personnel at consular missions in countries where an increase in demand for visas has been ascertained. Among these countries are Russia, China, India and Iran.
In an interview on CNN Greece, Deputy Foreign Minister Ioannis Amanatidis expressed the assessment that the negotiations with the institutions will be concluded by 20 February.
Mr. Amanatidis said it was a great success for Greece that, for the first time, the International Monetary Fund, in the person of Christine Lagarde, acknowledged the sacrifices of the Greek people.
Regarding the Greek economy, he said that the indicators are more positive than the government had planned, adding that this is why the latest IMF report does not provide an accurate reflection of the Greek economy. This fact, he stressed, prompted even the president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to be critical of the report.
Mr. Amanatidis told CNN that the Grexit scenarios brought back to centre stage by Wolfgang Schauble are aimed at the domestic German audience, pointing out the opposition to these scenarios from the German social democrats, who were critical of them in their announcement.
Regarding the Turkish provocations in the Aegean, Mr. Amanatidis noted that Greece is keeping a close eye on Ankara's moves and handling them effectively, carefully and with composure, defending Greece's national rights. In his assessment, he told CNN, Erdogan's aggressive rhetoric is mainly for domestic consumption.
Regarding the Cyprus issue, Mr. Amanatidis underscored that a solution is feasible, as the Geneva meetings have created a positive dynamic.
Referring to the non-extradition of the eight Turkish military personnel, he stressed that Greece has rule of law and functions accordingly.
Here are five noteworthy news stories and events to start your week, from the editors at Military.com.
1. Senate Expected to Confirm Shulkin as VA Secretary
The Senate is expected to vote as early as today to confirm Dr. David Shulkin as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department. Shulkin, the current under secretary for health at the VA and an internist with more than 30 years of experience in major health care systems, last week was unanimously confirmed by the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee by a vote of 14-0, signaling he'll also likely easily receive the support of the full chamber. During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Shulkin vowed to fight full privatization of veterans care while seeking to expand community choice programs.
2. Two US Soldiers Wounded in Fighting in Afghanistan
A couple of American soldiers were wounded last week in Helmand province's contested Sangin district, Stars and Stripes reported. One was shot and flown out of country for treatment; the other was struck by shrapnel and returned to duty, according to the report. The incident came as Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the war has reached a stalemate due in part to growing Russian support for the Taliban. Nicholson commands about 12,500 troops in the country, including 8,400 U.S. service members. He said the plan to send about 300 Marines back into Helmand on a training and advisory mission would help.
3. North Korea Tests Ballistic Missile in Challenge to Trump
North Korea on Saturday tested a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile, The Associated Press reported. At the time, U.S. President Donald Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Abe condemned the launch as "absolutely intolerable" and Trump said the U.S. "stands by Japan." U.S. Strategic Command detected and tracked the projectile at 5:55 p.m. Eastern time from its launch near the northwestern city of Kusong to its splashdown into the Sea of Japan about 500 kilometers away, the Pentagon said. The so-called Pukguksong-2 was described by the North as a new type of strategic weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but it wasn't believed to be an ICBM.
4. National Security Adviser Faces Scrutiny for Russia Talks
Michael Flynn, President Trump's national security adviser and the retired Army lieutenant general who previously directed the Defense Intelligence Agency, faces increased scrutiny after refusing to deny that he spoke about Russian sanctions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., before Trump took office, according to multiple news organizations. One official told CNN that Flynn has no plans to resign and doesn't expect to be fired, even though he may have misled other administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, who last month told CBS News that Flynn and Kislyak "did not discuss anything" related to sanctions.
5. 'We Were Soldiers' Author and Retired Army General Dies
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Harold G. "Hal" Moore, a hero known for saving most of his men in the first major battle between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies, died Friday at his home in Auburn, Alabama, just two days shy of his 95th birthday, The Associated Press reported. Moore co-authored with journalist Joseph Galloway the 1992 book "We Were Soldiers Once and Young," a New York Times bestseller about the Nov. 14, 1965, Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. The book inspired a 2002 film, "We Were Soldiers," starring Mel Gibson as Moore. His son, Dave Moore, last year acknowledged to Military.com discrepancies in the service records of a soldier in the book.
-- Richard Sisk contributed to this report.
-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.
Enlisted airmen hoping to become drone pilots may find out by the end of this month if they have been selected to begin intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance training.
The first enlisted remotely piloted aircraft pilot selection board met last week to deliberate and choose from 185 active-duty enlisted airmen who made it past an initial qualifying phase of the program, according to a release.
"We anticipate the board will select 30 airmen with five alternates," Air Force Personnel Center spokesman Mike Dickerson told Military.com on Monday. The board is still "in coordination," but the results are expected soon, he said.
Two airmen from that board are expected to begin the Initial Flight Training program at Colorado's Pueblo Memorial Airport by April, Dickerson said. Subsequently, two enlisted airmen will be part of each class thereafter throughout this fiscal year and into early next fiscal year, Dickerson said.
"Integrating enlisted pilots into the RQ-4 [Global Hawk] community enables the Air Force to meet mission requirements as the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission grows, while providing an opportunity to our highly skilled enlisted force," said Chief Master Sgt. Eric Rigby, enlisted aircrew assignments chief at AFPC.
The Air Force announced in 2015 it would begin training enlisted airmen to operate the unarmed RQ-4 Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft.
RELATED: Two Enlisted Airmen Complete First Solo Flights in Decades
The AFPC said in November that 305 active-duty enlisted airmen had been identified to apply for the selection board.
The center saw a surge of interest from potential RPA airmen during the application process that began last year, AFPC said at the time. It received more than 800 applicants, compared to a typical 200 applicants.
RELATED: Enlisted Drone Pilots to Get Same Bonus Pay as Officers: Cody
"Expanding opportunities in the RPA program is one of many ways the Air Force is tapping into the talent of our skilled, diverse and innovative enlisted force," Rigby said in the release.
Through a separate program, officials in September touted that the Enlisted Pilot Initial Class, or EPIC, would begin Oct. 12 with four of 12 total students training alongside 20 recently commissioned officers. The second group started training in January; the third will begin training in March.
-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
Beale Air Force Base in northern California was sheltering several hundred evacuees from the Lake Oroville flood threat Monday, and the entire California National Guard has been put on alert as the military gears up for an emergency response.
The base opened its gates to evacuees from local communities Sunday night, and by Monday was caring for more than 400 people. "This was an immediate and emergency action to support a portion of the 180,000 evacuees of the Oroville Dam emergency situation," the base said in a release.
"Team Beale understands the hardships many are enduring during this crisis, and we want to offer all of the aid we can," it said in a Facebook post.
The base is working with the California Office of Emergency Services to help residents who need long-term and specialized care. "Shelter, food, and water are being provided to those affected by this crisis," Beale said in the release.
"At the current time and per the direction of the Yuba County Office of Emergency Services, personnel in need of shelter should proceed to Wheatland High School or the Placer County Fairgrounds," Col. Christopher Stricklin, 9th Reconnaissance Wing vice commander, said in an update Monday afternoon.
"The members of Beale Air Force Base are a vital part of the local community and understand the struggle the current situation is placing on the area. While we are proud to assist and open our gates in response to an immediate crisis, we have limited resources. We stand at the ready to assist in the future as the need exceeds the local community capacity," he said.
The base, about 40 miles north of Sacramento, has also authorized transit across the installation for residents seeking higher ground. Beale is home to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing of the Air Combat Command and its inventory of U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes and RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles.
At the Pentagon on Monday, officials said that the 23,000 members of the California National Guard have been put on alert for possible response to the flood threat from overflowing Lake Oroville in northern California.
"We are watching that situation very carefully," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. He said the entire California National Guard is on alert status, and "we are leaning forward and ready to assist with this if needed."
Thousands of California residents have already been evacuated from the area in Butte County about 75 miles north of Sacramento in the upper Central Valley. The fear is that an emergency spillway from the lake could fail and send a 30-foot wall of water down the Feather River Basin.
The 770-foot Lake Oroville Dam, the highest in the nation, is in sound condition, California officials said, but the dam is structurally separate from the reservoir spillways. Officials fear the earthen spillway will not be able to handle the overflow with more rain expected later this week.
California Gov. Jerry Brown can call up the National Guard and also request assistance from the National Guards of other states, Davis said. For Title 10 federal military assistance, Brown would go through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Region 9 in northern California and then to Air Force Gen. Lori Robinson, commander of U.S. Northern Command, Davis said.
"We would provide those capabilities very quickly" for aviation response, water rescue, mass casualty care and shelter assistance if requested, he said. "One of our most solemn duties is to assist the American people in their time of need."
Already, about 35,000 people from Butte County; 65,000 from Yuba County; 76,000 from Yuba City; and 12,000 from Marysville City have evacuated, according to California officials.
-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
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...
Do you embrace, fear or ignore technological changes?
Those are questions facing the average consumer and many workers. But the stakes are higher in the answers from corporate executives in manufacturing, with implications for jobs, productivity and the nation's economy across the $5.8 trillion sector.
Many companies are not yet focused on the technology changes coming to manufacturing, according to Automation Alley's annual technology report, released Feb. 13.
"We discovered both technology and manufacturing executives lack awareness of Industry 4.0," said Automation Alley CEO Tom Kelly in the report. "And even for the companies who are beginning to transition to this new era of manufacturing, barriers to technology adoption remain. Clearly, there is much work to be done. "
One example: 52 percent of manufacturing executives have a budget and process to support new technology.
Among the other 48 percent, they "reported that the top barriers to technological advancements within their organizations are cost, uncertainty about which technology supplier has the best solution, and employees who are reluctant to change."
Beyond that, only about one-fourth of manufacturers recognized the term "Industry 4.0."
According to the study: "Industry 4.0 represents the convergence of the digital and physical technologies disrupting manufacturing: the Industrial Internet of Things, autonomous robotics, advanced materials, additive manufacturing, big data, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and modeling, simulation and visualization."
It's important for manufacturers, Kelly said, because "if you don't adopt it, you will become less efficient and more expensive than your competitors ... if you don't go down this path, won't be able to extract improvements to keep up with everyone else."
That's critical in Southeast Michigan, where the auto industry still dominates manufacturing - and where, thanks to its resurgence with back-to-back record-setting sales years, suppliers are making money, Kelly said.
Yet as the automakers and their top suppliers make advancements, particularly in prioritizing electric and autonomous vehicles, changes will roll down to smaller suppliers. What once may have been an order for a stamped metal part now may include the need for a sensor. Robotics, 3-D printers and virtual reality all may be playing a role, if they're not yet.
In Metro Detroit, about 4,600 small suppliers - representing 500 employees or less - "are trying to figure out what does this mean for them," Kelly said.
The study by Automation Alley, which is based Oakland County, will help guide the nonprofit organization as it sets up programs and connections among its members. It's already actively working on setting up eight committees "so we can dispel some of the fear," Kelly said.
Participants will come from OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, who Kelly described "as the ultimate customers in the region. They're large enough that they know where they're going in the next three years."
Those companies are making the so-called "capital bets" in systems and technology that they'll expect their suppliers to connect to, Kelly said.
It appears to be working so far. According to Automation Alley's study, 68% of its member manufacturers reported having a dedicated budget and process to support the adoption of new technologies.
Other results from the Automation Alley report:
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Minnie Dentmond has been struggling to find a house she can afford ever since last September, when she had to move after her landlord raised the rent on her home from $475 to $700 a month.
The 58-year-old widow had lived in the house on Logan Street SE for 25 years. Now, it's empty and for sale as her old landlord tried to cash in on the renewed demand for housing in Grand Rapids. She now lives with a daughter until she can find a place of her own.
Dentmond was one of about 100 citizens and community activists who gathered at the Baxter Community Center one evening last week for a "speak-out" event by Homes for All, a grassroots group that advocates for affordable housing in Grand Rapids.
The gathering was held to share stories and develop strategies for renters who are being forced out of their homes by rising rents and redevelopment projects that are eliminating or renovating older homes and neighborhoods.
"How can I face the future if I don't have a place to sleep?" asked a 13-year-old 8th grader who said her family had experienced homelessness in the past year.
Others blamed race. "You have white people moving into our neighborhoods and the only thing they know is taking it away from us," said an elderly black woman.
Handyman Tim Salisbury said his rent was raised from $500 from $700 a month on his apartment in the city's East Hills neighborhood, which has become popular with young professionals.
Salisbury, who does not own a car, said he is living in a Well House shelter home near South Division Avenue until he finds a new apartment he can afford. While cheaper apartments can be found in the suburbs, they don't offer the reliable public transportation he needs.
"I would like to live back out here again," Salisbury said. "But I can't afford the rents. They're starting to rehab every in sight."
Persons attending the meeting were given handouts that included the addresses and phone numbers of their city commissioners. The handout included summaries of each commissioner's position on affordable housing.
Solutions from the two-hour session ranged from lowering property taxes to imposing rent controls that would bar landlords from raising rents on their existing tenants.
Audrey McIntosh, a community organizer who planned the get-together, said they hope to use the group and their stories to lobby city commissioners and housing officials who have overlooked the needs of residents who are being pushed out by the resurgent demand for housing in the city.
"Market rate housing keeps going up and housing is getting really tight," McIntosh said. "People who have lived in the city for years are being pushed out."
McIntosh said they hopes to convince city commissioners to require an affordable housing component from developers every time they seek a tax break for a project. The goal is to create housing choices throughout the city through mixed income developments, she said.
Jeff Smith, an organizer for the Grand Rapids Tenant's Union, said they hope to achieve housing reforms by working with city commissioners.
"We're going to try to do this without a lot of screaming and hollering," Smith said. "But if it takes screaming and hollering, we are prepared to do it."
The "Homes for All" movement comes as Grand Rapids has become one of the nation's hottest housing market, thanks to a resurgence in the economy and the city's growing popularity among millennials who prefer the vitality and accessibility of urban neighborhoods.
DDA Map of Ann Arbor.JPG
The Emerging Ann Arbor 2030 District will likely share the same boundaries of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, outlined in red on this map, including all commercial buildings, except single- and two-family structures. The area outlined in green represents the downtown core; areas shaded red are publicly owned.
(Courtesy: Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority)
ANN ARBOR, MI - An energy-saving movement that boasts strongholds in cities like Seattle, Cleveland and Los Angeles is on its way to Ann Arbor.
Local property owners and managers are seeking to join cities such as these and others across the country by launching a 2030 District, a unique private-public partnership formed with the goal of a 50 percent reduction in energy usage, water consumption and transportation emissions.
"The 2030 District is a cooperative effort by commercial properties to voluntarily monitor their energy use," said Sean Reed, executive director of Clean Energy Coalition.
"Understanding that individual buildings and those that occupy them have different opportunities and challenges for energy improvements, they agree to collectively report their energy use and work together to achieve a district-wide target."
Ann Arbor's 2030 District, currently categorized as "emerging," recently received a $15,000 grant from Architecture 2030 and Summit Foundation as a match to various local commitments, according to a release from the CEC.
The plan for the immediate future is to build the founding membership of property owners and managers, professional service providers and community stakeholders for an official 2030 District launch by the end of 2017.
CEC, which will be managing the initial phase of the project, said the district also will begin hosting events to showcase local and regional high-performing projects and the teams that made them happen, while also aligning buildings with the technical assistance necessary to set up tracking and monitoring of their energy use.
Architects in the Ann Arbor area have been educating themselves about The 2030 Challenge and responsive design solutions since 2010.
The Huron Valley chapter of the American Institute of Arts, for example, has been organizing professional training sessions, co-sponsoring continuing education events with the Detroit chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and testing building energy monitoring through the A2 Kilowatt Crackdown competition.
"For Ann Arbor to become a community of low carbon buildings, the entire local building support industry, including designers, engineers, suppliers and contractors, need to be ready with straightforward and cost effective solutions," said Jan Culbertson, senior principal with A3C Collaborative Architecture.
While 2030 Districts are as diverse as the communities they represent, local leadership by the private sector is key in keeping a district connected to market realities and solutions, the CEC release stated.
QR Management, Sun Baths, Jones Lang LaSalle, Bivouac, Shaffran Companies and MAV Development comprise a list of property owners and managers in Ann Arbor that have already committed to manage their building energy use and actively participate in the Ann Arbor 2030 District.
The new district will leverage the private sector in meeting the goals of the City of Ann Arbor's Climate Action Plan, according to the CEC, which includes reducing carbon emissions 25 percent by 2025 -- consistent with the University of Michigan's goal -- and 90 percent by 2050.
"Through our experience in offering PACE (property assessed clean energy) financing, we have realized that building owners need a more streamlined process for monitoring their energy use and implementing efficiency improvements," said Nathan Geisler, the city's energy programs analyst.
"The 2030 District will enable property owners and managers to identify and direct the support they believe they need most."
Bonnie Bona, a project manager with the CEC, said the Ann Arbor 2030 District will probably comprise all commercial buildings within city boundaries.
"At this point, we are assuming when the Ann Arbor 2030 District is launched at the end of 2017, it will include the entire city boundary," Bona said. "All Districts also have plans for expansion to adjacent areas as the program gains strength."
In addition to Ann Arbor, Detroit is also home to an Emerging 2030 District, and a full-fledged 2030 District was launched in Grand Rapids in December 2015.
Close
Lesson 101: it is prudent to do in-depth scrutiny of reviews before downloading any app from Google Play Store because the service is apparently teeming with data-stealers masquerading as legit apps. Google calls these scums as zombie apps and intends to write them off Play Store.
The Next Web revealed a series of letter that Google sent to developers about their apps that lacks privacy policy. Google stressed the need for clear privacy policy and users should know where their data goes. More so for apps that ask for sensitive information like bank details and digital accounts.
The same report also said that some developers may be legitimate but the problem of unsecured privacy stemmed from hastily publishing their apps and subsequently forgetting them due to lack of downloaders. Other accounts ask for subtle access like smartphone account, contacts or pone access. Even camera and microphone access might also pose privacy concern in some rare cases where recordings are automatically uploaded.
Greenbot disclosed that Google Play Store sternly said that there is a guideline in place for apps that collects and transmits data. All data should be related to functionality of the app and should highlight how the user data should be used.
It is unclear how many apps are affected by Google's call but sources revealed that it could be millions. Developers were given up to March 15 to comply and those who will fail might face removal from Play Store. Google is also going to implement a sliding scale policy where apps that has "minor" violations will simply suffer less visibility and not total removal.
To recall, users and security experts have long complained about lax policy and rules against zombie apps. Play Store is also peppered with tons of disputes and questions but the company shied away from the issue for sometime. At any rate, this renewed vigor about privacy standpoint and consumer protection is a nice way to clean the littered Google service.
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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,
Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity
A writer gains inspiration from the strangest of places for their work. When local romance novelist Heatherly Bell woke up from a dream with a storyline that fit nicely for her next piece, she quickly wrote it down.
I had a dream about a girl who discovers through genealogy research that shes related to the first licensed female pilot in the state of California, said Bell, who turned that vision into the basis for her latest novel. I woke up thinking, wouldnt that be interesting if you wanted to make a connection while at a crossroads in your life.
Bells new book, titled Breaking Emilys Rules, was released Feb. 1 and is part of a series of three romance novels she has planned for 2017 with the backing of publishing company Harlequin. The Super Romance book can be purchased at all retailers in print and e-reader form as well as online at barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com.
Bell, 56, who moved to Morgan Hill with her family in 1980, used characteristics of South Countys hamlet as the setting for her latest novel. She will be on hand for a Feb. 18 meet-and-greet and book launch from 6 to 9 p.m. at the local BookSmart (1295 E. Dunne Ave., Suite 120).
Ive been reading (romance novels) for most of my life, said Bell, a member of the Romance Writers Association of America and the Silicon Valley Romance Writers Association. This book has a lot of Morgan Hill in it. But its a completely fictional town called Fortune.
The storyline follows the character Emily Parker, who is at a crossroads in her life, and her new love interest, Stone Macallister, an Air Force pilot back home after his fathers death. Mcalllisters dad owns an aviation flight school that Parker starts to take lessons at. While Parker tries to get in touch with her family lineage through flight, Mcallister is selling off his fathers business while dealing with a contentious relationship with his sister. The two meet and form a bond that helps them in their life journeys.
Sex is a very small part of my books. Maybe 10 pages at most, if that. Its really about personal relationships.subplots with family members and challenges people go through in life, Bell explained. The books I write are not about a woman finding a man as a solution to her problems.Its more complementary.
Bell, who annually attends a national conference for romance writers, said she writes for an audience of smart, independent women. She wrote her first book in 2011 and has had nine published since then, both independently and from different publishing companies.
For this particular novel, Bell pitched the idea to an agent in late 2015 and then started making submissions to publishing companies.
We got a lot of rejections and then Harlequin came in and said, We want to offer you a contract. It was amazing, Bell recalled. I was very happy about the whole thing, especially a three-book contract.
Bell graduated from high school in Maryland before moving with her family to Morgan Hill in 1980. She left for a while to follow her passion for music. Bell then married and returned to Morgan Hill with her husband in 2001. She has three grown children.
The man accused of making hundreds of fake bomb threats in Burke, Catawba and Caldwell counties last year could spend up to two decades in prison.
Cody Matthew Startt, 27, of Matoaka, West Virginia , pleaded guilty Monday in Burke County Superior Court to 253 counts of felony false bomb reports and 253 counts of felony terrorism charges. He was sentenced to serve between 11 to 21 years in the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.
From May through July, Startt made more than 400 bomb threats, all of which were all determined to be hoaxes. He made the calls to businesses and agencies in Burke, Catawba and Caldwell counties. Law enforcement agencies within those jurisdictions worked together as part of a large scale investigation that led to identifying Startt as the source of the threats. He was arrested in West Virginia on July 6, 2016.
Prosecutors said Startt admitted to police that he was using methamphetamines when making the fake bomb threat calls. Court officials said Monday that Startt would make the calls using apps on smartphones and Hickory Police and the FBI traced the IP address and Wi-Fi connection to a residence in Matoaka, West Virginia.
District Attorney David Learner addressed Superior Court Judge W. Todd Pomeroy on Monday about the effects the threats had on the community.
Our district was subject to terror from May to July, Learner said.
Due to the fake bomb threats being made, citizens became fearful and it it eroded the publics confidence and caused a fear of going out in public, he said.
Merchants lost incredible amounts of income dealing with threats, he said.
The case was solved by outstanding police work and technology, Learner said.
Officials with Morganton Department of Public Safety, Burke County Sheriffs Office, Lenoir and Hickory Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation were present at the court session on Monday.
Pomeroy also imposed judgments for an additional 10 to 20 years of suspended sentences for Startt and placed him on supervised probation over a period of 36 months, said a press release from the DAs office.
If those terms of probation are violated, those sentences will be activated, and he will serve the time at the end of his initial active sentence, the release said.
Morganton Department of Public Safety Chief Ronnie Rector spoke to the court about the effects of the bomb threats. He told the court the bomb threats disrupted other calls such as wrecks or domestic situations. Those calls had to be pushed back because of the bomb threats. He said five public safety officers had to go to each bomb threat call.
At each bomb threat call, it took public safety officers one hour to clear out each business and restore it, he said.
It costs the city quite a bit of money in terms of the amount of time we spent investigating and responding to all the bomb threats, Rector said. The public lost trust in going to town. We had so many people that would call us and say should we go out to eat tonight, can we go shopping, should we even go to the store.
Over the whole timeframe of bomb threats being made, MDPS officers totaled more than 1,000 man hours responding to these calls, which equals out to approximately $40,000 to $50,000 in taxpayer money, Rector said.
I think they lost revenue just in terms of people not responding, not to mention all the people that were there when the businesses were evacuated and people just left buggies with merchandise and food on the table, he said.
Startt read an apology letter he had written aloud to the courtroom apologizing for his actions.
He said while in jail he had time to reflect and made many changes, but knows that apologizing will not make everything go away.
If I could change anything about this , I could if I would, Startt said. I was dumb and at the time I did not realize the impact it did (have) and how it scared a lot of people. I want to apologize for everything I did.
Learner said that the drug use may have had an impact, but there was still no excuse for this type of behavior.
Seeing that Startt was sentenced will hopefully restore the trust in our community, Rector said.
We see that law enforcement is a work doing their job and that the court is at work doing their job and the people are paying for their crime it just restores trust in the community because people can now trust that they can now go out and shop and feel safe, Rector said.
Startt was convicted in October 2015 on three counts of making false bomb reports in May 2015. When he was arrested in July 2016 , he admitted to violating terms of his probation by absconding from supervision, being in arrears of court indebtedness and failing to complete court-directed community service , according to previous News Herald reports . His probation was revoked in July 2016 in Catawba County, activating a prison sentence of four to 14 months that Startt served in custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.
Startt is still awaiting his trials for more bomb threat charges in Caldwell and Catawba counties.
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Amid increased popular and political momentum in favor of cannabis legalization, Canadas leading multi-tenant industrial REIT is betting on marijuana as the next big winner in its portfolio.Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (PIRET), which holds approximately 21 million square feet of space across over 170 locations nationwide, is looking to add the flourishing medical marijuana industry to its list of tenants, although it has yet to name the companies it is currently forging links with.At the beginning, we shied away from it but more and more its becoming mainstream, PIRET CEO Kevan Gorrie said, as quoted by The Globe and Mail.We would treat them as any other tenant that would require a lot of due diligence.At present, around 130,000 Canadians are prescribed with medical marijuana. And while official statements are still pending, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously pledged to legalize recreational marijuana by next spring at the earliest.A recent CIBC World Markets study noted that the potential $10-billion industry that would spawn from legalization represents a gold mine for the Canadian industrial and commercial real estate sectors.With a market value of $1.4 billion, PIRETs stock has grown by 34 per cent over the past 12 months (up to a record level of $5.91). In its Canadian REIT index, Bloomberg cited PIRETs latest numbers as the best performance in the net worth $500 million and above category.PIRET has also predicted that e-commerce will account for fully 50 per cent of its portfolio in the next few years, up from todays 30 per cent today.Were focused on growth in e-commerce, Gorrie stated. I dont think enough companies worry about obsolescence. We think about it all the time.
Alberta industrial market to immensely benefit from marijuana grow-op
Firmly established as one of Canadas most expensive residential property destinations, Vancouver continues to squeeze middle-class families and hopeful home owners out of the market despite a conspicuous slowdown in sales volume and home price growth.While Vancouver is a national leader in terms of job creation and economic fundamentals, vacant or momentarily occupied homes have increased by more than two-fold in the 15 years since 2001, up to 66,719.Many of these unoccupied properties cost a million dollars or more. Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser Universitys City Program, noted that this sharp growth in the number of empty homes reflects the middle-class consumer bases particular difficulties in getting into the market.[Many homes] have become just luxury items like Ferraris, Yan wrote in his analysis last week, as quoted by Bloomberg. Theyre not affordable for most local incomes.In particular, the median price of a single-family home in Vancouvers west side is now at $4.9 million, roughly 65 times the citys average household income.Multiple observers have pinned much of the blame on wealthy foreign nationals, many of which purchase homes that they otherwise leave empty, and are acquired only for flipping purposes.As a response to the proliferation of unscrupulous investment practices, the B.C. government implemented a 15 per cent property transfer tax on overseas buyers in Augusta move that has led to a major decline in sales numbers, from 2,519 in January 2016 to 1,523 last month.While we saw near record-breaking sales at this time last year, home buyers and sellers are more reluctant to engage so far in 2017, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president Dan Morrison said.
Related stories:
Vancouver finally feeling the pain of foreign home buyers tax
Vancouver proposal for thicker walls might cost new buyers thousands more
An 11-year veteran of the business, Andrew Russell helps clients in Blackfalds, Penhold, and the Red Deer County. Cited as one of the areas most versatile and reliable real estate professionals, he specializes in construction, investments, condominiums, luxury homes, and residential acreages.
In your experience, what sets Red Deer apart from other markets?
Red Deer is not just diverse in terms of its people, but also in its economy. While oil does account for about 10% of our job market, weve weathered the downturns well because there are so many other industries with steady employment unrelated to the price of oil.
What are the kinds of buyers/investors that you usually encounter in the line of duty? What have been your most memorable transactions?
Our primary focus is residential homes as a primary residence (mostly young families, first time buyers, etc.). However, lately, Ive had a handful of investors from Edmonton/Calgary looking to invest in Red Deer as the price of multi-family units here is substantially more affordable than what theyre finding in the larger cities.
As far as memorable transactions, we were able to help 2 families avoid bankruptcy and foreclosure in 2016 by helping to negotiate with their banks/lenders and getting their homes sold. To assist somebody who thought they were about to lose everything, and watch them walk out with their credit and finances reasonably intact, is a great feeling.
What do you see as the most challenging parts of being a real estate professional in Red Deer?
Albertas rollercoaster economy is certainly a challenge. In 11 years, this is the third downturn Ive seen, and Ive seen a lot of agents come and go in the process. Too many agents just look for their next transaction, rather than building their businesses to generate repeat and referral business from their existing and past clientele.
What industry advice would you give to younger brokers who are just starting out in Alberta?
Build relationships. People will refer business to people they know and like, regardless of your experience, so spend time building genuine relationships without the expectation of receiving something in return.
Also, communicate well. Agents appreciate a broker who keeps us updated on the progress of our deals, and were more likely to refer more business to those people.
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)
Today
Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..
Tonight
Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
by Paolo Taruc
Stonegate Mortgage has named a new third party origination (TPO) Pacific regional manager. The firm said that Lori McLaughlin will lead TPO sales teams in the Pacific region, including Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and the greater Los Angeles area up through central California.
MacLaughlin, who has more than two decades of industry experience, will focus on selling products in all four TPO channels: broker, delegated and non-delegated correspondent, and bulk mandatory.
Most recently, she worked as vice president and correspondent account manager for SunTrust Mortgage. She also held various other positions at SunTrust, managing national wholesale production and operations
McLaughlin will be based in Seattle and report directly to Scott Houp, Stonegate senior vice president and TPO Western Division manager.
"Lori is focused on providing her clients with the products and strategic solutions they need to maximize their growth, said Steve Landes, national sales director for Stonegate. We are excited to have her join the team and continue to build our presence in the Pacific Region.
The US Ball Corporation producing drinking cans for the domestic market at Thilawa Special Economic Zone is planning to export its products , according to the firm's country manager Min Tala Nyan .
Currently we produce cans for the domestic market. Were discussing how to expand our business . After that, we will export, he said.
The Ball-operated factory at the zone is capable of manufacturing about 500 million cans a year.
At present were producing 350ml, 330ml and 250ml cans. 550ml is coming soon, Min Tala Nyan added.
Ball invested US$ 45 million in the Thilawa factory and is expected to increase its investment soon.
The factory was officially opened on November 16 last year at Zone A of Thilawa.
It is reportedly the first direct US investment in the country.
From April to October last year, foreign investment in Thilawa in Yangon reached US$900 million, according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration.
A total of 14 countries have invested in 74 projects in the SEZ. The major investors are Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE, Panama, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan.
Singapore topped the investors list with US$395 million in 21 projects. It has been used as a conduit for investment by western firms looking to avoid sanctions. It accounts for more than 44 per cent of the total investment.
Source: Eleven Weekly
Titusville Police Sgt. Tyler Wright's night shift last Thursday was fairly quiet until he got a call on the radio about a crash that was 1 mile from his current location.
Titusville officer talks about pulling man away from burning vehicle
Sgt. Tyler Wright said he would do it again without hesitation
WATCH: Titusville Police pull man away from crashed vehicle before it explodes
"You could see the flames over the tree line, so I knew it was pretty big," Wright said Monday. "Catastrophic looking."
The dash-cam in Wright's patrol car was rolling when he arrived at the scene along Riveredge Road.
Flames were roaring from an SUV after it collided with a barrier on the dead-end street.
Wright knew he needed to do one thing: find the driver.
A Brevard County deputy was already at the scene.
"We hear him yelling, and we are going in the woods now," Wright said Monday as he rewatched the dash-cam footage.
As the flames soared higher into the sky, the authorities at the scene found 44-year-old Phillip Thistle, of New Jersey, just outside the SUV. They worked the pull him away from the burning vehicle and toward safety.
"As soon as we got a glove on him, things starting popping more with the car," Wright said. "It was time to go at that point."
Seconds later, the SUV exploded. Everyone was safe.
Wright said the entire rescue seemed like seconds, not several minutes.
In the days following, he said, he has received handshakes, text messages and calls from across the country.
Despite the danger, Wright who just marked 10 years with the Titusville Police Department said he would do it again without hesitation.
"I have no reservations that any of us wouldn't do the same thing if it happened right now," Wright said.
Thistle remains in critical condition. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
The officers who helped pull the man farther away from the burning vehicle will soon receive commendations for their bravery.
Jacom Stephens/Getty Images
A series of early morning raids Monday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Santa Cruz Police Department led to the arrests of at least nine men believed to be affiliated with violent gang activity, including two unsolved homicides, police said.
The raids, which capped a 5-year investigation into gang violence in Santa Cruz, were conducted between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. and targeted members of the MS-13 gang, also known as the Mara Salvatrucha gang, officials said.
Most drivers dont expect to be hit with a rate hike on their auto insurance after a car accident that wasnt their fault. But a consumer group says it happens, and its a problem.
The Consumer Federation of America says it found rate hikes on annual premiums as high as $400, in some cases.
In the report released Monday, the group analyzed premium quotes in 10 cities, including New York and Chicago, from five of the nations largest auto insurers. The researchers found that Progressive aggressively used a not-at-fault penalty, surcharging drivers in eight of the 10 selected cities. Rates in Oklahoma City and Los Angeles did not change. Oklahoma and California prohibit not-at-fault penalties.
The group said Geico and Farmers raised rates in some states by 10 percent or more. Allstate had occasional penalties. State Farm was the exception, with no increases on premiums for not-at-fault accidents.
Most people know that if they cause an accident or get a ticket they could face a premium increase, but they dont expect to be punished if a reckless driver careens into them, said Bob Hunter, the federations director of insurance and the former insurance commissioner of Texas.
In response, the Insurance Information Institute said the underwriting of a new auto insurance policy requires the collection of much more information beyond what the association gathered from the auto insurers websites.
Loretta Worters, vice president of communications at the industry trade group, says it also is rarely clear-cut as to who the at-fault party is after a collision. But she said one reason rates may rise for the not-at-fault driver is subrogation when an insurer, after paying a loss, seeks to recover money from the at-fault drivers insurer.
Telecom
Verizon adds
unlimited data
Verizon, in a major reversal, has joined other carriers in offering an unlimited data plan.
As recently as January, Verizons chief financial officer said unlimited plans were not something we feel the need to do even though rivals had made inroads against Verizon by offering them. Verizon stopped offering such plans to new customers in 2012 and has been trying to push longtime customers off those old plans through rate hikes.
The arrival of the iPhone and other smartphones made unlimited plans more of a rarity as carriers saw opportunities to make money by charging customers based on how much data they use.
But Sprint and T-Mobile recognized in unlimited data an opportunity to snare customers from heavyweights Verizon and AT&T. Because carriers must poach each others customers to grow, the competition has intensified.
AT&T also started offering unlimited plans after discontinuing them, but they are available only to customers who also subscribe to DirecTV, which AT&T owns. Its prices are similar to Verizons for a family; Verizon is cheaper for an individual.
Verizons new unlimited plan replaces several higher-data plans and starts at $80 for one person, not counting fees and taxes. (Existing customers can keep their plans.)
For a family of four, unlimited costs $180 at Verizon. To compare, Sprint just launched a new promotion for new customers that costs $90 a month for four lines, and T-Mobile, which includes taxes and fees in its total price, is $160. AT&T costs $180 for four but also requires a TV subscription.
Verizon is trying to differentiate itself by letting customers watch high-definition video with the unlimited plan, while competitors run streaming video at DVD-level quality.
T-Mobile responded Monday by saying that it would include HD video as well starting on Friday. Before, customers had to pay extra for HD streaming.
Restaurants
Hooters
hears a Hoot
Hooters is hoping people really do like it for its food.
Hooters Management Corp., a licensee of Hooters of America, says it opened a restaurant Monday that doesnt feature waitresses in tight tops. It says the Hoots restaurant near Chicago has people order at the counter rather than at tables, from male and female employees. Neil Kiefer, CEO of Hooters Management Corp., says the restaurant in Cicero is a test and will serve only about a dozen menu items, including chicken wings.
The move comes as the restaurant industry faces flat customer traffic, though fast-food places are expected to steal business from sit-down chains, according to the NPD Group.
Chronicle News Services
Wouldnt it be great to see the doctor without taking off during the middle of a busy work dayor pulling the kids out of school? Wouldnt it be great to go where youll always see a doctorand where they take most insurance plans?
Now there is just such a placeFamily Care Clinic! Theyre open till 7:00 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Theyre also open the second and fourth Saturday of every month from 8-12.
You can take everyone in the family who is more than a year old. No more shuffling various family members to different primary care physicians. Theres a real time saver.
Plus, Dr. Kenneth Winton, who has more than 30 years of experience in ER and other types of medical care, can get to know your whole family. If there are inherited health conditions, preferred treatment methods or any other whole-family situations, Dr. Winton can track everything in one place.
Hes excited about how Family Care Clinics extended hours will help busy families. This is great for those with jobs because they can come when its more convenientand they wont have to worry about getting back to work. We can take time to really diagnose the issue.
Its great for other family members because parents can trade off taking one child to see us, Dr. Winton continues, while the other parent takes care of other children at home.
And when its time for a physical, you REALLY arent interested in taking off work, because you feel fine. The extended hours will make it less painful to be smart about your health.
I love getting to know my patients and follow their progress, Dr. Winton says. This is one thing I like better than ER practice.
My one rule is that I want everybody to have the best experience they have ever had with a physician, he says. I want them to look forward to coming back and continuing to let us work together to improve their health.
And after working previously in Virginia, Nevada and in Texas (Iraan, Crane, Kermit and most recently in Winters), hes pleased to settle down in Midland. I love the folks heretheyre some of the best!
Family Care Clinic has been providing medical services to Midlanders since 1999. You can make an appointment, but walk-ins are also welcome.
So now you can see the doctor at a time thats much more convenient for you. Family Care Clinic: A Lifetime of Health Care.
Family Care Clinic is located at 4506 Briarwoood. The phone number is 432-689-6818. Hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday; 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. They are also open 8-12 on the second and fourth Saturday of every month. Most insurance accepted.
My Fit Foods an Austin-based chain of stores that sold healthy, freshly prepared meals abruptly closed all of its stores over the weekend, the company wrote on its website.
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of all our stores, the company said in a statement. We know that you have depended upon us to support your healthy habits, and we are deeply sorry for any inconvenience our closure may have caused you.
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A Mauriceville restaurant remembered for its soft, warm, buttery dinner rolls and "mile-high" meringue pies is making a comeback.
A building that sat vacant for 5 years at the corner of Texas 12 and Texas 62, will reopen as Tuffy's in "mid to late May," said owner Van Choate.
The drive to Mauriceville requires effort for those who don't live nearby, Choate said. "So we're going to make it worthwhile."
Diners can expect baskets of fresh rolls - made from the same recipe as before - to arrive as soon as seated, Choate said. Southern staples like chicken-fried steak will be on the menu, alongside Cajun dishes of gumbo, etouffee, barbecue crabs and catfish.
Choate, 50, owns Hushpuppy Seafood Restaurant in Vidor and Hushpuppy Catering Co. in Port Arthur.
His first restaurant, the Cajun Cookery in Orange, was ruined in 2005 by Hurricane Rita.
The namesake of Tuffy's was Donald Bishop, manager and nephew of original owners Janet and James Linscomb, Choate said. The Linscombs opened Tuffy's in 1985 and sold the business to Mike Hamilton in 1990, according to previous Enterprise reporting.
Hamilton used the moniker "Tuffy" in his campaign to become a state representative.
Choate and his wife Josette purchased Tuffy's in 2005 and sold it in 2010, according to previous Enterprise reporting. Two years later, Tuffy's shuttered.
Choate understands why Hamilton took on the nickname "Tuffy" during his campaign, but said he wants to use the reopening as a chance to "set the record straight."
A section on one of the restaurant's walls will display the history of Tuffy's, including photos from Bishop's family.
"We're going to make it neat this time," Choate said.
"We're going to do it the right way."
Have an "In the Works" tip? Email LocalNews@BeaumontEnterprise.com.
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Photography is taken to another level as more advanced technology is developed - technology including drones.
Chinese tech firm DJI specializes in drone and aerial photography and they have begun SkyPixel Photo Contest, an annual submission competition for artists around the world to participate in.
BIRD'S EYE: Aerial video of Houston's January floods captures severity of storms
Last year's competition included a Texan in Lubbock who captured an astonishing photo of a thunderstorm rolling into the college town. The cloud formation photographer Darin Kuntz obtained in his drone photography looks much like a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.
SkyPixel / Darin Kuntz
To see more of the beautiful photography highlighted by SkyPixel as their best submissions, click through the gallery above.
SkyPixel's goal in the competition is to highlight the incredible work "dronies" (the nickname for drone photographers) are able to achieve with DJI's technologies.
"Through this competition, we aim to show the world why aerial imaging is the next evolution of photographic art, and highlight new talents found on SkyPixel," the website says about the contest details.
TEXAS OVERFLOWING: Google Earth aerial photos show just how flooded Texas was in April 2016
The grand prize winner of 2016 won prizes worth over $5,000, which included a new DJI drone, an Epson printer and other tech prizes from DJI. The company plans to continue their annual photo contest and more information on the photo contest can be found here.
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GREENWICH Greenwich will have the chance to hear from two of its Congressional representatives in separate events next week.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4th) will be the weekly featured speaker before the Feb. 22 Retired Mens Association of Greenwich to discuss the climate of Washington. D.C. in the Early Days of the Trump Administration.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) will be in Greenwich Feb, 23 for a roundtable discussion about infrastructure at Town Hall.
Murphys roundtable will take place at 3 p.m. with a focus on the $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan he and others in the Senate have introduced to focus on rebuilding Americas roads, rails, bridges and other systems during the next 10 years.
Murphy has claimed the project would create 15 million jobs while addressing a deteriorating infrastructure that costs the country close to $200 billion a year.
Murphy said the roundtable, which is open to the public but has limited seating, will allow him to meet with local elected officials, advocates and organization about transportation priorities.
During his campaign, Trump had listed infrastructure as a major priority of his administration. Murphys press secretary, Laura Maloney, said infrastructure was one area where Trumps promises aligned with Murphys priorities.
If President Trump is ready to make good on those promises, Sen. Murphy will be ready to work with him, Maloney said.
Murphy will be introduced at the roundtable by Selectman Drew Marzullo.
At this point, all across the country, including Connecticut, infrastructure investment has been piecemeal at best, sometimes with a Band Aid-type approach that is now going to cost double, Marzullo said. The need for trillions of dollars will probably only catch us up to basic standards, never mind catching us up to the rest of the world. Safe bridges, a highway system that doesn't leave you in traffic for absolutely no reason and clean water all need to be priorities.
Himes, who will speak on the role of Congress and its work with Trumps administration, will appear before the RMA at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church.
Himes, a member of the Houses Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will give some opening remarks and then is expected to spend most of the discussion answering questions from the audience. Topics could include sanctions on Russia, national security and Trumps reportedly contentious relationship with the intelligence community.
Congressman Himes would be willing to work with President Trump on issues such as infrastructure, tax reform and prescription drug prices, Himes Communications Director Patrick Malone said on Monday. These are top priorities for the people living in the 4th District, but, so far, we havent seen that these are priorities for the new administration. The time that President Trump spends pushing a divisive agenda or pursuing some Twitter feud instead of working on issues that will actually help our families and business is a waste, especially in these all-important first 100 days.
Jim Fishbein, co-chair of the RMAs speaker program, said the organization has a long history of having local officials in to talk about the issues of the day.
They have often chosen to articulate their thoughts to their constituents directly, sometimes provocative and controversial but almost always interesting to our members, Fishbein said. We see this as an important responsibility of ours to our members and our community.
Himes remarks before the RMA will be recorded and posted online at www.greenwichrma.org along with remarks from past weekly speakers.
kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
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DANBURY - Western Connecticut State Universitys effort to entice nearby New York students with a low in-state tuition rate has resulted in a 400 percent jump in non-resident applications for the fall semester.
If our current numbers hold true and there is no reason to expect they wouldnt we expect to have 200 or more new students from New York in the fall, said Paul Steinmetz, the university spokesman.
The across-the-border recruitment effort, which was authorized this summer by the Connecticut Board of Regents, is meant to reverse an enrollment decline of 700 full-time students over the past five years.
Under the deal, students from Westchester, Putnam and five other counties in New Yorks Hudson Valley region pay the same $10,000 rate as students from Bethel and Newtown - a savings of $12,800 over the out-of-state rate.
All those counties should be in our enrollment area, Steinmetz said. Putnam County doesnt have a university or a community college.
Steinmetz said the university has looked at New York for years as part of its natural recruitment area, but its efforts were hampered by the state line. It took the lobbying efforts of WCSU President John Clark, who was appointed in 2015, to convince state officials that the university was being penalized by being so close to the New York border.
It helped WCSUs case with the Board of Regents that Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield near Connecticuts northern border with Massachusetts had a similar in-state tuition offer for students in the greater Springfield, Mass., area.
The Regents will review WCSUs New York initiative after two years to determine whether it is worth continuing.
Western has seen its full-time enrollment drop to 4,200 students from a high of 5,100 students a decade ago.
It is a two-year experiment, so we will see how it goes, Steinmetz said. But we fully expect that if we are successful, this will continue.
Clark and other university officials have already been in New York, speaking with community college presidents, high school principals and prospective students about the campaign, entitled Look West, Pay Less.
The campaign is part of a larger effort in Danbury to capitalize on economic opportunities of mutual interest with neighboring New York.
For example, Mayor Mark Boughton is putting together separate task forces to work with Putnam County legislators on connecting New York customers to the citys wastewater treatment plant and cooperating in areas of mutual interest such as recreation, cultural events and shared services.
rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342
Caroline A. Wojtaszek, the Niagara County district attorney, filed an affidavit last week recusing her office from an ongoing investigation into the campaign accounts of former state Sen. George D. Maziarz.
Wojtaszek, who was elected in November, asked a judge to hand over her office's files on the probe to Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn. She disclosed in a court filing obtained by the Times Union that she has a conflict because her husband, Henry, an attorney and former Niagara County GOP chairman, testified two years ago before a federal grand jury probing Maziarz.
The probe by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of Manhattan never resulted in any charges and was eventually picked up by the office of state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose investigation is ongoing.
Wojtaszek said in the affidavit that she discovered her office still had two files on the investigation that involve "alleged stolen funds of the Committee to Elect George Maziarz" that said she thought had been forwarded to the state attorney general's office by her predecessor, District Attorney Michael Violante.
Wojtaszek said she discovered the files were still at her office after she was contacted last month by Joseph M. LaTona, a private attorney for Maziarz. Wojtaszek said LaTona called her to discuss the Maziarz campaign fund investigation, but the court filing did not say why.
Maziarz, a Republican, wielded strong political clout in the Senate and in western New York.
The federal grand jury review of his campaign funds was sparked by an investigation of 28 state senators by the state Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. Bharara picked up the probes after the commission was abruptly shut down in April 2014 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Bharara subpoenaed the commission's records and criticized Cuomo for disbanding the commission but later said his office concluded that dismantling the panel did not violate any federal statutes.
Schneiderman's investigation is focusing on dozens of expenditures from the account, which still holds more than $700,000.
The Times Union reported three years ago that the federal investigation was examining dozens of payments to the family of Maziarz's longtime re-election committee treasurer as well as tens of thousands of dollars in unitemized checks made out to cash and never reported to the state Board of Elections.
Maziarz announced in 2014, amid the federal investigation, that he would not seek re-election to the seat he held for nearly 20 years.
The Buffalo News reported in September that The Committee to Elect Maziarz State Senate filed a petition against its former 20-year treasurer, Laureen M. Jacobs, demanding that she file detailed reports explaining more than $200,000 in undocumented expenditures. The petition also sought to have Jacobs account for a shortfall of more than $100,000 in the fund. Last week, Jacobs filed amended campaign spending documents with the state Board of Elections.
The Justice Department's investigation of Maziarz' campaign fund examined more than $137,000 in checks written to "cash," including roughly $60,000 in expenditures not reported to the Board of Elections, according to a person briefed on the case.
Moreland Commission investigators sifted bank records from the campaign accounts of Maziarz and 27 other senators whose campaigns had credit card or unitemized expenses exceeding $10,000. Sources familiar with the findings, but not authorized to comment publicly, said the information showed large amounts of money flowed from campaign accounts to elected officials, their staffers and campaign workers. In many instances, these were unitemized payments from debit cards, ATM withdrawals and checks made out to "cash."
blyons@timesunion.com 518-454-5547 @brendan_lyonstu
The Lone Star College System board last week approved revisions to the college's 2016 Policy Manual that will expand the scope of the anti-discrimination policies to protect sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
Noah Miller, student at LSC-Cy-Fair, spoke at the podium prior to the vote in support of the system's policy revision to protect all students and make the campuses a safe space for all. For Miller and his family, it's more than a political position - it is personal.
Miller said his younger brother is transgender and the strongest person he knows.
While his brother has overcome scrutiny from others, Miller said, he also excelled in academics and was nominated for homecoming court.
But Miller said it is "unnecessary and unrealistic" to expect all students to show his brother's resilience.
"Underpinning every student success story that I have heard is the basic understanding that our campus is an extension of their home," Miller said. "That they are protected, that they are welcome. All students deserve to be included in the college's nondiscrimination ordinance.
In the event of a tragic event, they have the right to file a complaint and receive swift, disciplinary action."
A September 2016 Pew Research Center report showed that 87 percent of U.S. adults said they know someone who is gay or lesbian, but only 30 percent said they knew someone who is transgender.
The same study showed that 18 percent of Americans said their views on homosexuality changed in recent years, with 15 percent saying their views became more accepting.
Alan Hall, president of the Lone Star College American Federation of Teachers, also spoke in favor of the policy revision and said the policy's language needs to mirror the diversity and inclusiveness of the student body.
"Many colleges and universities in our area have already adopted nondiscrimination policies that include gender identity and expression, including Houston Community College, San Jacinto College, Sam Houston State University, Texas A&M and University of Texas at Austin," Hall said.
"It's time for Lone Star College to take this step as well."
Across the room, audience members - and a few board members - wore purple in a gesture of solidarity for the transgender community and the anti-discrimination amendment. Unanimously, the ordinance revision was approved, thus declaring that the admissions, non-academic student travel and civil rights complaints ordinances be inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression."
The policy manual's revision went into effect immediately and a revised copy will be published in the next week.
Burglaries of homes and businesses increased in The Woodlands the past two months, resulting in nearly $900,000 in stolen property, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office
The MCSO responded to 41 burglaries combined in December and January, compared with 28 over the same period a year ago.
The burglars have hit homes throughout The Woodlands from Grogan's Point to College Park, as well as apartments and businesses. As much as $289,715 in property was stolen from one house, all the way down to $5.01 from an apartment.
MCSO Capt. Allison Allen, who leads the patrol division in The Woodlands, said there had been a slew of burglaries where the burglars entered homes through the back by breaking in while the homeowners were away and had not set the alarm system. Allen said the Sheriff's Office conducted extra patrols and undercover surveillance in the areas where the burglaries occurred and that the investigations are ongoing.
"What we're seeing is alarms not being activated," Allen said. "We're suggesting that everybody set their alarms."
In spite of the high number, MCSO does not believe the burglaries are part of an organized crime ring, Lt. Scott Spencer said. MCSO officials are unsure how many people were involved in the burglaries and believe that the majority are not related crimes.
Some area businesses also have been hit by high-profile burglaries. Two men robbed the Helzberg Diamonds jewelry store at The Woodlands Mall in early January by smashing the displays with hammers and fled with $75,000 worth of jewelry. Another smash-and-grab robbery occurred at Zales jewelry store in Shenandoah Jan. 12. Four men were arrested after a dramatic chase by MCSO deputies and Shenandoah Police officers.
Sheriff Rand Henderson called the people involved in the jewelry store robberies "gangsters" who are coming from Houston and elsewhere.
"They're coming to The Woodlands because that's where the stuff is," Henderson said.
AUSTIN -- A bill filed in the Senate Monday seeks to curb the skyrocketing number of lawsuits filed against insurers for bogus or inflated hailstorm claims. According to a survey by the Texas Department of Insurance, the number of hailstorm-related lawsuits filed against insurance companies has increased fifteen-fold since 2011. This activity has led to insurers decreasing and even declining to insure homes against hailstorms in the areas with the most litigation. The Business and Commerce Committee was directed to study this issue over the interim, and Chair Kelly Hancock announced Monday a bill to combat this trend.
One of the factors at the heart of this problem, according to Hancock, is the practice of inciting clients to sue companies, known as barratry. "Essentially they're storm chasers who partner with unethical roofers and public adjusters and recruit homeowners to file unnecessary lawsuits instead of moving through the standard insurance claims process," he said. Another factor contributing to the surge in hailstorm litigation is that insurers can be sued separately under two different sections of state law, potentially doubling the number of suits and damages paid by a losing insurer.
Since I was a kid, Ive admired people who worked hard: Jack Lalanne, my dad, famous war leaders, the guy who delivered the legendary message to Garcia, the immigrants who build themselves up from nothing. I love the people who just got it done. But as I get older and I meet more and more people through my podcast, Im realizing that success isnt just about working hard. Something has to come first.
Related: How Hard Do You Need to Work to Reach Success?
As I was working up a sweat climbing 40 flights of stairs with my kettle bell the other day, I thought about someone I interviewed a while back who went through a dramatic change of heart. His name is Scott Harrison. You might know him: Hes the guy who runs Charity Water, an international non-profit dedicated to bringing clean water to people around the globe who dont have any. He has worked hard his entire life, but I only admire him for what he does now.
That empty feeling.
When Scott was a young guy, he put his nose to the grindstone for a different master. He was a nightclub promoter in New York. His one goal was keeping the beautiful people high and happy. In his quest to become the best, he filled his life with super models, rap stars, drinking, drugs, porn and gambling. But despite all this superficiality, Scott was a thoughtful guy. One day when he was sitting on the beach in South America, he realized how all his work left him feeling empty. He quit all his vices cold turkey and started looking for ways to help people.
Related: 7 Sure Signs Now Is the Time for a Career Change
Scott started putting his work ethic to good use helping doctors in Liberia, the polar opposite of New York City, where there was no running water, no electricity and no sewer system. He watched in sadness as his doctors had to turn away thousands of people who saw them as their only hope. As he worked, he realized there was no one solely focused on providing clean water and got the idea to start his own foundation. Now, he's using the grit and determination hes always had to provide clean water for more than six million people.
Get it done, plus.
Its not surprising to me that some of the grittiest people in the world end up doing the most good. After all, without motivation, you cant get anything done, good or bad. But even if you have all the motivation in the world to get it done day-in, day-out, you have to step back and look at the value of what it is youre getting done. Are you spending your precious time chasing a flag? Or are you turning your own blood, sweat and tears into water that gives people life? By all means, get it done, work long hours, and become obsessed with your goal. But you have to make sure the goal is worthy.
Related: Deepak Chopra's 7 Tips for Business Success
By then I had reached the top of the stairs, so I finished with 100 burpees and took a rest at the top of the building. I stood by one of the huge windows and looked out over the city. It was beautiful in Osaka that day, and I felt immensely grateful that I still had time there.
Related:
Don't Believe Success Comes From Hard Work Alone
Should You Regret the Gift You Didn't Give That Client?
8 Things the Successful Elite Do Quietly
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New York
The nearly century-old American Civil Liberties Union says it is suddenly awash in donations and new members as it does battle with President Donald Trump over the extent of his constitutional authority, with nearly $80 million in online contributions alone pouring in since the election.
That includes a record $24 million surge over two days after Trump banned people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. The organization said its membership has more than doubled since the election to a record of nearly 1.2 million, and its Twitter following has tripled.
"It feels like we're drinking from a fire hydrant," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, adding that the election has brought immigration, refugee, reproductive, civil and voting rights "to a high boil."
"What's really heartening is people are paying attention. They're aware of the crisis on the horizon," he said. "There's a real sense of urgency."
After Trump's election, the ACLU greeted the age of Trump on its website and magazine with a fresh slogan: "See you in court." That was the same expression Trump used in his tweeted response to a federal appeals court's decision refusing to reinstate the travel ban.
The ACLU has won court orders in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland against the president's travel ban. It has also filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on the billionaire's potential conflicts of interest. And it intends to bring a legal challenge accusing him of violating the Constitution's Emoluments Clause by accepting payments from foreign governments at his hotels and other properties.
Trump has defended the travel ban as critical to keeping America safe, saying terrorists could otherwise slip into the country. He predicted the courts will eventually find his order constitutional. Also, Trump's business empire has said it will donate profits from any foreign governments that use his hotels.
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SOUTHEAST TEXAS TALES
A caboose that one day will serve as a piece of public art representative of a long-gone era in railroading remains under cover of a storage shed at the Port of Beaumont, only a few hundred feet from its final destination.
Its makeover has been a long haul for the iconic car once attached to the end of a train and used by crews to rest, eat or observe the freight cars under a conductor's care.
"We've been at it for about three years, steady," said Bill Carpenter, deputy port director.
Maintenance worker Robert Whynot oversees the project in his extra time, Carpenter said.
The caboose sits at the end of a port transit shed line, where other freight cars are parked. A plastic sheet flutters on the outside of the shed and protects the caboose from wind and debris.
Most of it is repainted, except the side facing the open air. The interior's bunk and bathroom will be added once the caboose is completed and moved into its exhibit space on a slab near the port administration building.
Carpenter said he doesn't know when the project will be done, since the in-house work is done when there is time.
Built in 1981, the 28-ton caboose is among the last of a series ordered by the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad before it merged with Burlington Northern to become BNSF. It is one of 75 built for the company that year. It is about 40 feet long from sill to sill, the grated area in front of the doors at either end.
BNSF donated the car to the port.
Inside, it's about 15 feet high from the floorboards to the top of the cupola and about 11 feet wide. It includes a diesel fuel tank for the oil-fired heater and stove and a fresh water tank. There are a toilet and lavatory and bench seats that can fold down for a crew member to recline.
In the waist of the car is a flared-out section on either side equipped with a swivel chair where a crew member can look out to see the train.
The port's former customer service director, John Roby, speculated about the evolution of the caboose, according to literature he compiled on the subject.
"One theory holds that its use dates to the days of the early sailing ships when sailors customarily set up a fireplace or a stove on deck," Roby said. "To protect their fires and to provide shelter for themselves, seafarers erected boxes over their fireplaces. These shelters were known in various European tongues as 'kabuis,' 'kabys,' or 'kabuse.' Another theory is the word originated in Texas, Americanized from the Spanish 'calabozo,' meaning jailhouse."
"In different parts of the United States, the caboose was known as a way car, cabin car, accommodation car, conductor's van, shanty or crummy," Roby said.
Once done, the caboose will become a piece of public art next to the port's copper-colored ship's propeller on a pedestal between its main gate and administration building at 1225 Main St.
The caboose will serve as a second emblem of the port's major activities - shipping cargo in and out on oceangoing vessels and on freight trains.
Technology and automation killed the caboose about 30 years ago.
In the old days of railroading, people working as brakemen actually walked the length of the train, throwing switches, ensuring cars were attached, waving flags and lanterns.
An automated device about the size of a shoebox performs those functions now, eliminating the job and the extra car.
A caboose could cost $80,000 to build, more than the normal freight car. To railroad accountants, the caboose was a "non-revenue" car and was "just along for the ride."
Most cabooses went to the scrap yard or became diners or hunting lodges or static displays, as the one at the port eventually will be.
"It'll be eye-catching," Carpenter said.
Southeast Texas Tales is a weekly feature that revisits regional history.
DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dwallach
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NORWALK When Momhammad Sarosh immigrated from India to the U.S. there was little uncertainty about how welcome he was.
Now, with several immigration related executive orders from President Donald Trump, he said there growing concern in the immigrant community, even those from countries not listed in Trumps most controversial Muslim Ban order.
It brings a level of uncertainty and chaos and a lot of panic, Sarosh said. Theres a lot of people who are unsure what is going to happen and what their rights are.
Sarosh, who lives in Stamford, weathered Sundays storm to attend a Know Your Rights panel hosted in Norwalk by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Connecticut chapter and the Yale Law School. The discussion was broadcast live via Facebook to garner questions and generate a larger audience.
The panel included Diana Blank, a staff attorney at New Haven Legal Assistance and co-supervisor for the Immigrant Rights Clinic, which is a collaboration between New Haven Legal Assistance and the Yale Law School. Law students Hannah Schoen, Tal Eisenzweig and Yusef Saei, who are all members of the Immigrant Rights Clinic, also sat on the panel and offered their advice to immigrants who may be concerned about potential legal issues relating to their immigration status as a result of the executive orders.
An increase in raids by U.S. immigration authorities across the country this week was one of the primary issues discussed by the panel.
The advice were sort of offering people is to watch out for raids because weve been seeing them more across the country, Schoen said. We also recommend that if you are arrested, remain silent. Dont lie. Say only that you demand to speak to a lawyer. If you provide your name, we suggest that you provide your real name but dont provide information about your immigration status. We also suggest that people get screened by a reputable immigration attorney to see if you are eligible for relief. We also suggest that you not sign any documents before speaking with a lawyer.
Schoen also recommended immigrants carry a written list of important phone numbers and a red card at all times. A red card can be given to law enforcement officials as an assertion of constitutional rights set forth in the Fourth and Fifth amendments.
The cards, which are available to citizens and noncitizens, state I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.
The card also references the Fourth Amendment, preventing search and seizure without a warrant, and concludes with the phrase I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.
The panel addressed the most controversial of Trumps executive orders, currently under a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Washington state, which barred entry to the U.S. for 90 days of immigrants from seven muslim-majority countries. Trump is expected to release a new executive order Monday rather than fight the injunction in court.
The panel recommended that anyone from the seven countries listed in the ban that is, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia limit international travel regardless of their current immigration status, and if they are currently outside of the U.S., to return as soon as possible.
We can only offer advice on what is happening right now, but this is a legal situation that is changing very quickly, Schoen said. We recommend that people stay as up to date as possible.
Farhan Memon, chairperson of CAIR-Connecticut, said CAIR will continue to host panel discussions with the team from Yale as the legal landscape changes. Because the impromptu broadcast garnered a substantial audience, Memon said they will likely broadcast all future panels.
Its a good resource to have, Memon said. The world might change tomorrow, so were going to be active in helping people understand what this means for them.
Sarosh said he believes the panel discussion will help alleviate some of the concerns expressed by the immigrant community.
They answered a lot of questions and they clarified a lot of doubts, Sarosh said. Any help in terms of answering questions will help lesson the chaos and uncertainty we feel.
kkrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
In what is easily described as government dysfunction (possibly corruption) of the Texas judicial system from bottom-to-top, conservative political grassroots activist Adrian Heath was unbelievably arrested last week for a concocted voter fraud by the local powers-that-be.
What was his crime that resulted in a three-year prison sentence? Attempting to expose hidden corruption in secretive special-purpose district elections, particularly RUDs and MUDs (road and municipal utility districts, respectively). This is where hundreds of millions of dollars are approved by a handful (or fewer) of developer-friendly voters, so the developers don't have to front infrastructure investment dollars, all the while mitigating their risk, as well as hanging the liability on developers' performance bonds and even the taxpayers, if their subdivision developments don't work out. Some free market, huh?
Heath and Jim Jenkins had been a thorn in sides of the developers and others related to the powers-that-be in exposing this corrupt process, a scam that Kevin Brady (state rep back then) carried the legislation for in 1991 http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=72R&Bill=HB2818. In fact, for the RUD election in question back in 2010, Heath and others changed their voter registration. After consulting with the attorney (Michael Page) for the developer regarding the election, the local DA's Office and then staff attorney Joe Kulhavey in the Secretary of State's Office to confirm they were within the law, they voted from a Residence Inn inside the district. To solidify their position, or so they thought, they applied for a change in address. The elections administrator back then, Carol Gaultney, certified their change of address to the Residence Inn. The ambiguous law says specifically "Neither bodily presence alone nor intention alone will suffice to create the residence, but when the two coincide at that moment the residence is fixed and determined. There is no specific length of time for the bodily presence to continue." Yep, as screwed up as that sounds, it is allowed by law. Come to think of it, military, college students, some law enforcement and even President George H. W. Bush did the exact same thing back in 1988 - all legal. Most may recall that the Bushes' residence was in Kennebunkport, Maine, but he (legally) voted from a Houston Hotel. I don't remember Bush, or many other hundreds who voted like that, being incarcerated. Nope, just Heath and possibly Jenkins.
To be clear, Heath, Jenkins and others voted in a RUD election to expose the developer's corruption in this whole special-purpose district process of RUDs and MUDs. The actual corruption (and breaking of the law) was the developers "compensating" the MUD Rent-A-Voters, with cheap or even free rent, as well as other "compensation" in exchange for their votes (which is a federal code violation 18 U.S.C. 597). But what Heath, et al, did was to upset the developers and movers-and-shakers of the county, who mostly feed at the public trough known as government (our tax dollars), to the extent that something had to be done to Heath, Jenkins, et al, to shut them up. They were causing too much trouble.
So a local attorney (James Stilwell), along with RUD attorney Mike Page, asked state Sen. Tommy Williams to concoct a voter fraud charge off on DA Brett Ligon. Ligon wasn't buying it, though. He knew better than to prosecute, because the law (and precedence) would've been against him. Unfortunately, he nor did his office convey that very well to Stilwell and Williams.
So the latter took their ball to the state attorney general (Greg Abbott, at that time), who said the accusation needed to go through the SOS's election office and back to the AG. It would appear that, in this case, having a handful of GOP voters to prosecute would help Abbott balance out the massive amounts of Democrats who had been prosecuted for actual voter fraud. So Abbott put two of his top prosecutors on it, to ensure success.
After getting their conviction, the MoCo powers-that-be, on up to Abbott, probably were surprised at their dumb luck of winning a seemingly unwinnable case, right? Especially after the 14th Court of Appeals predictably upheld the lower court's verdict, based on a similar/related case. Heath and Jenkins' only chance at this point was basically two-fold. Either the Court of Criminal Appeals hearing the obvious miscarriage of justice to date, and/or Ken Paxton stepping in and calling this charade off. AG Paxton never addressed an MCTP detailed referenced letter to him in February 2016 asking for his office to drop this.
So then, Heath's last hope was the CCA. They didn't even hear his appeal. In an opinion rendered Nov. 23 of last year, on another case by Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Judge Elsa Alcala, an opinion which affects both men having their 14th amendment violated (both "Due Proses" and "Equal Protection" clauses), she indicates that even the CCA is not following the Texas Constitution legally regarding fair "appeals hearings." Which may explain why the CCA refused to hear Heath's case. In fact, it was pointed out to me that most of the time, law clerks are reviewing these CCA cases, then submitting possibly biased opinions and memorandums to the judges to consider, rather than the judges themselves reviewing the case as required by law. That, folks, is an egregious violation of both Texas and U.S. constitutional law. Shame on everyone at the CCA for that practice, notwithstanding Judge Acala for bringing that to light.
In summary, a terrible miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated and nurtured by the executive and justice systems in Texas on Adrian Heath, Jim Jenkins and others, as well as us grassroots citizens. They should be ashamed of this attempted intimidation and blatant miscarriage of justice. And as taxpaying citizens, we should be outraged -- all of us.
John Wertz is a member of the Montgomery County Tea Party.
We live in an increasingly globalized society, where businesses are expanding to offer products and services to consumers and companies in every corner of the world.
Related: 10 Ways to Successfully Manage Virtual Teams
Providing the best level of service possible may require developing new physical locations or hiring employees in other time zones.
Thats the approach that the domain name company, Namecheap, takes, hiring talent from around the world whenever the company expands. We want to build a business with the best talent we can find, Hillan Klein, COO for Namecheap, has said. We looked at talent without geographic boundaries. This gives us a global source pool.
Buffer takes the same approach to pushing the limits of its business internationally, and like Namecheap, its team is split across time zones, one of the ways it's been able to acquire such amazing talent.
Like Buffer, which is scattered across 11 time zones, my own companies, WebProfits and Mailshake, operate around the world in five zones, covering the cities of San Francisco, Austin, Indianapolis, Sydney and the nation of Romania.
That presents some unique challenges in the way we conduct business on a multinational level.
Naturally, this fact changes the way we work just a bit, writes Courtney Seiter, whose title at Buffer is inclusivity catalyst. And, as our team grows and changes, we sometimes have to change and renegotiate the way we work through time zones.
I recently featured Buffer in a post about the top 10 tools to get maximum value for your content, and theres plenty more to learn about the company based on how it runs its operations. Heres how the Buffer team handles its disconnects of time zones; these are tips any startup can utilize to improve its own operations.
1. Awareness of time zones
The team at Buffer developed a tool that tracks team performance across time zones. With it, the company's leaders can see at a glance what their people are doing. This helps them avoid pushing projects on team members when theyre asleep (legitimately) or about to finish their workday.
If you yourself outsource work to other time zones, keep scheduling and availability in mind as projects crop up. A tool thats similar to what Buffer uses is Every Time Zone, which allows companies to easily keep track of time differences across their various time zones.
Another great tool is Pick.co, a calendar-scheduling app that has helped me eliminate a lot of back-and-forth in getting things booked among my teams.
I also use Google Calendar to manage pretty much my whole life, so I rely on a handful of Google Calendar extensions and plugins to make sure I'm getting as much as I can out of these tools.
Related: 7 Tips for Managing a Remote Team (Infographic)
2. Handling out-of-sync discussions
Buffer has several tools it uses, like HipChat, to engage employees whose schedules are synched-up. But it also has a lot of team members with schedules that dont always align, so it needs tools that also allow for respond as you go interactions among teams.
If, like Buffer, youre working across time zones and deal with asynchronous communication, try incorporating tools with historic chat options that make it easy for others to catch up and join the discussion. Trello and Hackpad are great tools, as is Slack for archived discussions.
Brandwatch is another company spread out across time zones that uses asynchronous communication via Slack to stay in touch.
Team comms tool Slack is a godsend for staying close and in the loop with colleagues you dont get the chance to have face-to-face time with, writes Natalie Meehan, content manager for Brandwatch. By setting up different channels for different teams, subjects and areas, we can dip in and out, or stay online all day -- there are no hard-and-fast rules.
3. Emphasizing communication
With employees spread across so many time zones, Buffer requires a great amount of clarity in communicative processes. "Communication" is even one of its ten core values. Clarity is especially important when employees for the same company don't work the same schedule, dont punch a clock and dont work out of the same physical location.
Precise and detailed communication ensures that everyone knows whats going on, when people are available and what the status of projects is. Another major benefit to this heightened awareness of communication issues is that, as a company leader, you'll share a closer, more personal bond with your employees and contractors.
Its the stuff that keeps teams working in unison, despite the fact that they live halfway around the world.
4. Getting together
Buffer is well-known for its employee retreats, where the company brings everyone together. Throughout the year, employees work autonomously because they work their own hours and make their own decisions. But every five months, Buffer brings the team together in one place for a retreat thats dedicated to leisure as well as meetings, in-person interactions and team consolidation.
Once you return home, the conversations you have with team members are enhanced, says Joel Gascoigne, co-founder of Buffer. You know the tone of somebodys voice and the way they approach problems and discussions. You read their emails differently. This changes things, and is why weve found retreats to be not only a fun part of our culture, but an absolute necessity.
Related: Good Call: This App Lets Virtual Teams Stay Connected
Even if you build and manage a remote team for your startup, consider investing in opportunities that will bring everyone together for meetings. Theres a tremendous benefit in building a culture within your business that favors employee interactions and growth as a team.
Related:
Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Visionaries are not mystics. They are merely men and women who have an insight that they communicate well. You too may be a visionary in the making.
But being a visionary never starts with a vision. It begins more humbly, with a simple observation. The old joke says that great discoveries are not launched with shouts of Eureka! but with a scientist muttering, Well, thats odd. Likewise, your business vision begins when you ask Why are people doing what they do? This is the core of any business concept.
One definition of insight is a deep understanding of a person or thing. Many entrepreneurs launch their products and their companies after they have been involved in an industry for some time and see defects within it. A product idea arises because the entrepreneur sees people struggling, notes inefficiencies and detects a trend in demand. There is often an Ah ha! moment only when the inequities within a market show where a product or service could solve the problem.
This is entrepreneurial insight -- the ability to grasp needs and devise solutions. But this is just an idea, and ideas by themselves are worth little. For such insights to become products, and products with market demand, many people have to understand the value. It requires transforming what is in the entrepreneurs insight into something else.
Take the Old Testament story of the Promised Land. Getting an entire population to relocate to an unknown environment requires them to see a common value. Thus, the Promised Land was also described as The Land of Milk and Honey. These commodities were well understood by the masses, and thus the abstract insight (a hunk of land where we move to) was made visual and desirable (milk and honey).
This is where insight is turned into vision. Again, a visionary is a mere mortal with an insight they communicate well. Moses inherited the Promised Land insight, and made it a shared vision for the Israelites. Without his communicating this vision, they might well have stayed in Egypt.
Steve Jobs was no Moses, but he was a visionary. He saw what other people were doing with computer graphics and controls, and also saw how reducing the entire computing experience to graphics simplified computing from the users perspective. These were just insights. But Jobs knew how to communicate his vision and make Apple and the world embrace the approach.
Founders, especially technology founders, often struggle with this. The vision may be perfectly clear to them, but they fail to articulate it, to make it vivid to their employees, vendors or customers. A lack of communicated and expressive vision means that nobody else will be excited by the product. Employees wont work to create and glorify the vision, and customers wont beat down the doors to buy it.
Leadership is primarily an act of communication. Great generals wade into battle with their soldiers, in part, to communicate confidence in victory. Great politicians link their promises to perennial ideals like apple pie and the flag. Any good salesman makes a product's features and benefits personal, and thus easily understood.
Once you have your product idea locked into your mind, spend a lot of time trying to tell its story. Like any good tale, try to write it large, to make it mentally visual, to make it as exciting as it is understandable. Sell your idea with verbal visuals, much like Moses did. Get people to think your vision is an invitation to a party they would hate to miss, as Jobs did with the Macintosh. Then test your story and refine as necessary. If you communicate your vision well, you will see the expressions people wear change. You will see them having their own Ah Ha! moment.
You will then be a visionary.
Related:
Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
As four-year college degrees grow more costly in Texas, state leaders have encouraged students to consider a cheaper solution spending the first two years at a local community college.
But many students who have heeded that advice have hit a frustrating roadblock: When they transfer to a four-year school, their course credits dont always come along with them.
Classes taken to save cash end up being a waste of money.
The problem is vexing for state lawmakers, who say they receive calls year after year from angry students and parents. An estimated two-fifths of Texas students lose all of their credits when they transfer schools, according to one advocacy group. That helps add up to about $60 million in wasted tuition payments in the state each year.
This legislative session, lawmakers are in search of a true fix. Were going to try to do something that we havent been able to do in the last 20 years, said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.
Late last month, Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson asked West to lead a working group on the issue. Nelson, a Republican from Flower Mound, said she and other legislators were growing impatient with the schools inability to solve the problem.
Theres no easy solution. Higher education experts and officials cast the blame up and down the community college-to-university pipeline. And in Texas, home to dozens of colleges and university systems with their own chains of command, theres no single person with the power to make a statewide fix. No state agency has the authority to enforce rules on transferability, and degree plans can differ within university departments let alone among different schools.
We have a state in which we have a plethora of systems and colleges that are very used to operating independently, Rex Peebles, an assistant commissioner at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, told lawmakers recently. But they also have different missions and goals in mind, and their curriculum tends to reflect that.
At community colleges, the problem can lie in a lack of student advising. Many students pick their own courses signing up for sociology to fulfill a social sciences requirement, for example, when what they really need for their chosen four-year degree is economics.
Universities, meanwhile, sometimes worry about the rigor of certain community college courses.
Some experts even question whether there are financial incentives for four-year universities to refuse credit for transfer courses. Lower-level courses which have big class sizes and fewer costly technology needs are lucrative for universities, said Melissa Henderson, deputy director of policy at Educate Texas, a partnership of private foundations and state government agencies that advocates for improvements to the education system. The universities would take a financial hit if fewer students needed those classes, she said.
The lack of alignment between our institutions of higher education results in increased costs and lower completion rates, she said.
For years, the coordinating board has been seeking some common ground, devising blocks of courses that community college students can take toward degrees in fields like business, engineering and computer science. If students take all of the courses in a block, those credits can be used meet the lower-level requirements for the corresponding major at a Texas university.
Right now, the coordinating board has 12 of those blocks, known as fields of study. Its goal is to come up with 25 to 30, which it says would cover about 80 percent of the states transfer students. Progress is slow, however. The board has asked lawmakers for an additional $500,000 in its next two-year budget to hasten the process. Board officials say they need the money to orchestrate public meetings to allow university officials to design the blocks. The earliest version of the Senates budget did not include those funds.
Some impatient lawmakers are wondering whether they should be focusing their energy on punishing schools where students struggle to transfer credit, rather than spending more money on new classroom options.
This isnt, in the 21st century, an unbelievable problem to solve, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said last month.
West said its too early to know what solutions his working group will settle on. But he said he hopes the group can put an end to the complaints.
I am tired of answering these questions from parents of Why cant this transfer and Why cant that transfer, he said. And I know I am not the only one.
The University of Houston will halt classes at its northwest campus in August as the university expands its presence in Sugar Land and Katy.
Professors and lecturers teach courses in communications, engineering, mechanics, psychology and logistics at the northwest campus, located at Lone Star College's University Park at Highway 249 and Louetta Road.
UH began teaching students at the satellite center in fall 2010.
Eight employees learned last week that they would lose their jobs at the end of the summer, two staff members said Sunday. UH could not immediately confirm this figure.
UH created the northwest site to help students juggling work and families earn credits toward a degree. Officials said at the time that the property was well placed to capitalize on the region's expected population growth.
"They love going there; it's a wonderful place to be," said Greg Haney, who works in IT at the satellite campus. Students, he said, like avoiding the "hustle and bustle" of downtown - and lengthy commutes.
UH Provost Paula Short said in an email Sunday that the change had long been planned.
UH-Downtown will continue to offer courses at the site, she said, and several UH courses will move to the university's Sugar Land campus and forthcoming Katy campus. The UH System bought 46 acres in Katy to construct a 80,000 square foot building to open for the fall 2019 semester.
UH leases the space in University Park from Lone Star College, which purchased more than a million square feet from Hewlett Packard for the campus in 2009.
A Lone Star College spokesman could not be reached for comment.
UH signed a five-year lease on the property with Lone Star College in 2010. The system paid $674,375 annually for each of the first three years, and it estimated that initial costs of furniture and facilities reached more than $2.3 million.
In 2013, UH's regents voted to allow the system to negotiate lease amendments, including extending the agreement through the end of 2017.
Two faculty members who teach at the campus this semester said that the university had not officially told them of the plans. News had spread by word of mouth.
"I'm not sure if I'll be reassigned to teach other classes," said Annette Fuller, an adjunct professor who is teaching print and digital media writing this semester.
The FBI on Monday arrested a Floresville man who allegedly served as an administrator for a child pornography group that operated on Kik, the social media messaging app.
Fabian Joseph Perez, 18, was charged with distributing child pornography after being ensnared in an investigation originating in Germany, court records show.
RELATED: San Antonio photographers sites go dark after child porn arrest
A police officer investigating child porn there last year was able to capture the Internet protocol address that was later traced to Perez's home.
When agents obtained a search warrant and served it Feb.9, he used a hammer he kept by his bed to try to smash the computers he was using because he knew they contained a large amount of child pornography images and videos, a criminal complaint affidavit said.
The affidavit said the child porn group he oversaw routinely contacts minor male children on the Internet and baits them into producing child pornography images and videos.
RELATED: Warrant: Central Texas man forced teen into sex, threatened to 'kill her family'
Just last week, Perez was able to coerce a minor to provide him with child porn images, the affidavit said. Perez had child porn images and videos of 50 minors, all males, the affidavit said. He has been using the internet to access and distribute child porn since he was 14, the affidavit states.
If convicted, he faces five to 20 years in federal prison.
gcontreras@express-news.net
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SAN ANTONIO After an hours-long standoff situation during which a hostage managed to escape her alleged armed attacker, police finally took a man into custody just after 9 a.m. Monday, police said.
According to Sgt. Jesse Salame, officers received calls about a man armed with a handgun who was beating and choking a woman around 4 a.m. at an apartment complex in the 2000 block of South Zarzamora St.
Officers arrived shortly thereafter and met the woman who had made the call. She told officers that she and another woman, who police believe is either the suspect's girlfriend or recently separated ex-girlfriend, were sleeping when the man entered the apartment and began beating her.
RELATED: SAPD: Woman stabbed to death at San Antonio Walmart parking lot
She was able to make it outside, but the other woman was held hostage for a time by the suspect inside the apartment, police said.
"We could hear activity and movement, so we knew they were inside," Salame said.
Later, the suspect tried to escape out a backdoor of the apartment, at which point his hostage escaped, Salame said. The suspect was not successful in his escape attempt.
RELATED: Major crash causes traffic congestion on Loop 410 on Northwest Side
No one was injured in the incident, police said. The women are now being questioned by police.
Salame said that police evacuated most of the building where the barricaded person was located.
The apartment complex is located just northwest of Storm Elementary School. Officials have said the school is not on lockdown.
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cdowns@mysa.com
Twitter: @calebjdowns
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SAN ANTONIO A woman and her two pet dogs escaped a house fire uninjured Monday afternoon on the East Side.
According to Battalion Chief Connie Hall, firefighters responded to the blaze around 2:50 p.m. in the 200 block of West High Avenue, and extinguished the blaze shortly afterwards.
"They're aggressive. They're badass. They got in and knocked it out," Hall said of the responding firefighters.
No one was injured in the fire, as the woman was able to escape on her own, and her two dogs ran out the back door into the yard.
READ ALSO: SAPD, BCSO join DPS search for wrong way driver who may have shot at trooper
Hall said an electrical failure is to blame for the fire, which began in the bathroom and spread to the attic.
"The tenant did tell us she was having some electrical issues," Hall said.
Hall said once they clean up the scene, they are going to install smoke detectors in the house, as it did not have any before the blaze.
"We hope at some point in time everyone will have a smoke detector in San Antonio," Hall said.
Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com
cdowns@mysa.com
Twitter: @calebjdowns
SAN ANTONIO Area law enforcement are searching for a suspect who they believe may have fired on a state trooper Monday after being caught driving the wrong way on U.S. Highway 281 near Stone Oak.
Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Orlando Moreno said the trooper was traveling northbound on 281 near Bulverde Road when he saw a brown Toyota Venza traveling southbound in his lane at around 9:30 a.m.
The trooper tried to pull the vehicle over and then heard a loud pop, which he believed to have been a gunshot, as the suspect fled the scene, according to DPS.
READ ALSO: SAPD: Hostage flees apartment after armed attacker tries to escape during standoff
Moreno said the trooper lost sight of the vehicle shortly afterwards.
Helicopter units patrolled the area around Loop 1604 and U.S. Highway 281 Monday morning searching for the suspect.
The trooper was not injured, and there were no bullet holes in his squad car.
Roxane Dorn, administrative assistant at Buckner Fanning School at Mission Springs, said the campus was placed on lockdown around 10:30 a.m.
She said they were told the suspect was headed in their direction, and that their sister school, Specht Elementary School, had also been placed on lockdown. Officials at Specht were not immediately available for comment.
Dorn said the lockdown at Buckner Fanning was lifted around 11:40 a.m.
The San Antonio Police Department and the Bexar County Sheriff's Office assisted in the search.
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cdowns@mysa.com
Twitter: @calebjdowns
Police are seeking a woman in her 30s believed to be connected to a fatal stabbing of another woman Sunday evening in the parking lot of a Walmart on the Far West Side.
Authorities were dispatched about 6 p.m. to 11200 Potranco Road for a report of a cutting. When officers arrived, they found a woman in her 30s lying on the ground with a stab wound to her chest.
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SAN ANTONIO A grace period starts Monday for those who have yet to pay fines for outstanding warrants before San Antonio police and other Texas law enforcement agencies begin making arrests.
SAPD announced Friday that it would be joining more than 320 municipalities across Texas in a three-week Warrant Resolution Campaign.
RELATED: SAPD: Shots fired in NE Side day care parking lot, gunmen flee
Individuals with Class C misdemeanor violations will have from Monday, Feb 13 until Feb. 26 to resolve said warrants. Those warrants include offenses such as hands-free violations and speeding tickets.
Starting Feb. 27, officers will enforce these warrants, making arrests and taking offenders before a judge at the Frank D. Wing Municipal Court for their offenses.
For two weeks, members of the SAPD Volunteers in Policing program will be calling people to remind them that they have warrants and explain to them the options for getting them resolved. The Municipal Court will also mail notices informing individuals of their outstanding warrants, according to a news release.
RELATED: Police: Gunmen flee on foot after shooting man who was visiting family on NE Side
Anyone with outstanding traffic warrants have a couple options to pay their citations:
-Going online here.
-By mail to Municipal Court, 401 S. Frio, San Antonio, Texas 78207
-Pay in person at Frank D. Wing Municipal Court building at 401 S. Frio St. There will be free parking at the court during the three-week period.
You can check your outstanding warrants by going to this website.
SAPD Assistant Chief Anthony Trevino said the court has primarily seen a large amount of speeding and hands-free citations being given out, but there are numerous other types of citations that have yet to be resolved.
RELATED: Sheriff: Wimberley man confesses to killing his wife, who called 911 moments before her death
The City of San Antonio will work with individuals to come up with a fair resolution in reference to these tickets or warrants, Trevino said during a news conference Friday.
Last year during the warrant event, more than 21,000 outstanding citations were resolved, Trevino said.
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twhite@mysa.com
Twitter: @tylerlwhite
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U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, introduced a resolution earlier this month that could put the wheels in motion for President Trumps impeachment.
The resolution, filed Feb. 7, calls on the U.S. Department of Justice to appoint an independent counsel to investigate whether President Trump or his staff directed, or knowingly permitted, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) actions that violated judicial orders designed to stay the January 27, 2017 travel ban executive order, a news release from Castros office states.
RELATED: Joaquin Castro considering Senate run against Ted Cruz in 2018
After Trump signed the executive order, which bans immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S., stays were issued to freeze the order. CNN reported a federal judge in New York blocked part of Trump's order the day after he signed it.
The blocking made it so those who arrived in the country before the order was signed could not be removed. Castro and other Democrats are concerned the White House ignored the stay and had people detained anyway, they told Buzzfeed.
Castro filed his resolution after reports that CBP did not follow the court-ordered stays on the ban.
I hope President Trump obeyed the law, but if he didnt, the Congress should censure him, the San Antonio native said. If after censure the president again acts unconstitutionally, Congress should take steps to remove him from office.
RELATED: Trump's immigration ban leaves former Texas A&M center Joseph Jones stranded in Dubai
CBP spokesperson Gillian Christensen told Buzzfeed that its officers were not detaining anyone at airports, despite reports on the contrary.
"Green card holders who arrive in the U.S. have to go through secondary screening but that process is working smoothly and relatively quickly," Christensen said. "Furthermore, visa holders who would be affected by the executive order are being denied boarding at their point of departure so they are not even making it into the U.S."
Days after Castro filed his resolution, a federal appeals court refused Feb. 9 to reinstate Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, unanimously rejecting the administration's claim of presidential authority, questioning its motives and concluding that the order was unlikely to survive legal challenges.
The three judges of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the argument that the ban targets Muslims raised "serious allegations" and presented "significant constitutional questions," and they agreed that courts could consider statements by Trump and his advisers about wishing to enact such a ban.
RELATED: Protest over President Trump's ban spreads to San Antonio's Main Plaza downtown
Moments after the ruling, Trump tweeted, "SEE YOU IN COURT," adding that "THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"
In response, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat who leads one of the states that challenged the ban, said: "Mr. President, we just saw you in court, and we beat you."
Castro tweeted about the decision, saying: No president is above the law.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
kbradshaw@express-news.net
Twitter: @kbrad5
The Feb. 1 vote by the General Assembly approving an agreement to refinance state employee pensions is a continuation of the same practices that put the state in disastrous financial shape. Instead of making the hard decisions that need to be made, we have a continuation of the bad practices of the past.
The vote came down to an even split between Senate Republicans and Democrats: 17-17. Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman used her tie-breaking position in the Senate to approve the resolution.
Much has been made of previous administrations that did not face their financial problems and moved pension reform out 10 years, 20 years, and 30 years. There was a pledge not to ever do this again and here we are doing the same thing. Weve all heard the saying, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, and that is exactly what the state is doing here.
Rather than put our state on the path of financial stability, as the Governor claims, this agreement fails to address three issues that virtually guarantee instability for the state employee pension plan.
One issue is that the agreement projects a 6.9 percent rate of return on pension fund investments over the next 30 years. It fails to take into consideration the inevitability that two or three recessions will occur and the actual rate of return could be -2 percent or -3 percent or even lower during those periods. This makes it likely that the pensions will find themselves in deficits much like today. Connecticut has experienced budget and pension deficits continually since I first started in the state Senate in 2008.
Another point is that by extending the payment plan, the agreement actually increases the cost to future generations. It fails to keep the pressure where it should be, and that is the recognition that pensions, like the one Connecticut has, are no longer in place in our towns and municipalities. All of the states around us have recognized that these types of plans are too expensive and that is the reason we have the problem we have today.
Furthermore, this agreement adds $11 billion more in payments that the state must make and adds to an already bad fiscal situation, while also bolstering Connecticuts reputation as a state in financial trouble. Actions like this have companies like GE looking for a more financially stable, growth-oriented environment in other states.
Finally, this agreement doesnt include important structural changes that would help keep the funds solvent. We must begin the conversation with state employees about changing both the way the pensions are funded and how payments are calculated.
Like employees in corporate America, state employees need to contribute more for their retirement and health care costs. Twenty-five percent of state employees make no contributions to their pension plan, while the 75 percent who contribute dont pay more than 2 percent of their salaries. Compare this to employees in other states who contribute 6 to 7 percent toward their pensions.
Allowing overtime and travel reimbursements to be included when calculating pension payments also must end. We know that some employees specifically use those mechanisms to inflate, sometimes even double, their pension payments. Its no wonder we face a significant deficit.
In addition to creating future budget problems, not addressing these issues put employee pensions in jeopardy. There may come a time when there just isnt any money left.
Approval of the governors pension agreement doesnt mean we have to accept it as the final word on pension reform this year. I believe there is enough will in the legislature, and hopefully in the state employee unions, to bring everyone to the table.
If we take a realistic assessment of the situation, we can find solutions that will provide the best possible outcome for the state, state employees, and, most importantly, the taxpayers.
State Sen. Toni Boucher, a Republican, represents the 26th District of Bethel, Ridgefield, Redding, Wilton, Weston, Westport and New Canaan.
Experts will be on hand 1-5 p.m. Feb. 18-19 at Coventry Homes Gruene Haven model home, located at 108 Gruene Haven in New Braunfels, to answer questions and guide attendees through the intricate process of building a custom home on land they own.
The decision to design and build your own home can be a daunting one, said Jim Eller, division president for Coventry Homes in San Antonio. Our goal with these Build on Your Lot workshops is to provide people with the information they need to make well-informed decisions when they are ready to start.
Attendees will be able to meet one-on-one with experts, including a licensed Realtor, a mortgage specialist, an architectural designer and an experienced Coventry Homes representative to discuss all aspects of the site selection and construction process, Eller said.
We have assembled a panel of very knowledgeable specialists, he said. They will be able to answer whatever questions you have from how to get started and how to finance a construction loan to how to develop a custom floor plan. In fact, our architectural designer can help you create a personalized floor plan to take home.
With more than 25 years of experience and a 98 percent customer recommendation rate, Coventry Homes is uniquely qualified to guide attendees through the homebuilding process. The companys Build on Your Lot program allows buyers to work with one construction superintendent from site evaluation to move-in.
There are so many advantages to building with us, Eller said. We are a nationally recognized builder, so we have some serious buying power, and we can pass those savings on to our customers. Additionally, we offer a free site evaluation, which allows you to lock-in pricing before construction begins, and we offer more plans to work from and more flexibility because we have more experience.
Energy efficiency is another advantage. Every Coventry Home in the San Antonio area is certified through the U.S. Green Building Councils LEED for Homes program. Homes certified through this program use less water and energy, use fewer natural resources, create less waste and are healthier for the occupants.
Coventry Homes was the first major builder in San Antonio to construct its homes to the LEED for Homes standards, Eller said.
We are also the first volume builder certified green under the Green Built Texas specifications. What this means is that we have outside inspection companies come in and inspect your home, so you are assured that your home has been built to the highest possible eco-friendly standards.
The builder backs its homes with a two-year written heating and cooling cost guarantee, provides a two-year warranty on materials and workmanship and a 10-year structural warranty. Our homes are a smart choice for consumers, whether they buy in one of the communities we build in or choose to build on property they own, Eller said. Not only do we offer high-quality construction, we really work with you to make sure you get the home of your dreams.
The builders designs are flexible, so homebuyers can make changes limited only by building codes, deed restrictions, budget and imagination. Adding options such as wine or media rooms and outdoor kitchens are not the only ways the builder can help buyers.
Design professionals can help customers choose the perfect kitchen island, decide how much cabinet space they need and add all the small architectural and design details that will make the home uniquely theirs.
Whatever you need, whatever your lifestyle demands, we will work with you, Eller said. We have built a lot of homes over the past 25 years and have worked with a lot of homeowners. If there is a way to do it, we will find it.
The Build on Your Lot workshop is open to the public and is a come and go as you please type of event. There is no need to stay for the entire length of the workshop.
For more information about Coventry Homes or this event, call (210) 885-3110 or visit BuildOnYourLot.CoventryHomes.com.
Editors Note: This content is made possible by Coventry Homes. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com.
Survey suggests that 22% of retailers who dont currently support Apple Pay plan to accept the payments service within the next 12 months.
BOSTON Recent Boston Retail Partners research reveals that Apple Pay is now accepted by 36% of U.S. merchants, up from 16% in 2016.
The group found that 22% of retailers who dont currently support Apple Pay said they plan to accept the payments service within the next 12 months, while 11% plan to do so in the next one to three years. Thirty-one percent plan to take a wait and see approach before implementing Apple Pay support.
PayPal was the next most widely accepted payments service at 34%, while MasterCards PayPass came in third with 25%. Twenty-four percent of merchants claimed support for Android Pay, while 18% said they accept Samsung Pay. Given that many of these technologies are all NFC-based and accepted anywhere NFC payments are available, it seems merchants may be referring to official support or may be unaware of the way contactless payments work.
The study notes that fewer retailers are adopting a wait and see approach for Apple Pay and PayPal, likely because of the growing support from the payment software ecosystem and the acceptance for these mobile payments by the public.
One of the critical factors for any mobile payment success going forward is education. We have found repeatedly that not only are consumers unsure of how and when mobile payments can be used, but even more telling, associates are unsure, notes the study.
For mobile paymentsor mobile walletsto succeed, there must be further education at the point of sale to ensure that a transaction using a mobile device is not longer or more complicated than traditional payments methods for either the customer or associate. The other critical factor is explaining the value of tying mobile wallets to loyalty rewards programs. Customers need to feel that utilizing mobile payments enhances the shopping experience and that they are being rewarded for the experience; this will enable a win-win experience for retailers and customers, according to the study.
Convenience stores make up 34% of all retail, a universe of 450,000 stores in the United States. Those 154,000 overall convenience stores are the largest category of store, with 98,000 one-store convenience operators coming in as the second largest category of store.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. Did you return to the office after the 2016 NACS Show with some critical questions regarding your business? Now that 2017 is underway, would it be helpful to connect with top-notch industry experts for some assistance executing your strategy? Well, you're in luck.
This February and March, NACS is hosting a series of live chats with the top-rated speakers from the 2016 NACS Showso you can get answers to the questions that affect your business. These sessions aren't designed to be a re-delivery of their presentations, but rather a way to personally connect with these professionals in their area of expertise.
Taking a few minutes to ask the right questions could make a fundamental difference in your success this year. Browse the wide range of topics and speakers below, and reserve your spot today. All chats begin at 2 pm ET.
Live Q&A Chats With 2016 NACS Show Speakers:
By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Readers, I got caught up in the Oroville situation, so Ill add some more on politics shortly. lambert
Trade
President Donald Trumps threats to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement are already rippling across the Mexican economy. Mexican output growth is projected to slow to a near halt in 2017, the WSJs Robbie Whelan reports, with business investment tumbling amid long-term concern over Mexicos dependence on exports. Exports account for a third of the countrys economic activity, and some 80% of those go to the U.S. Mexicos leaders are speeding up negotiations for expanded trade deals with the European Union and opened talks with Argentina and Brazil aimed at easing the countrys dependence on U.S. grain [Wall Street Journal].
#OrovilleDam
Alert reader Bob got interested and provide some material. Heres a useful video giving a helicopters-eye view. Note that this video was taken before the emergency spillway was used. They knew they had a problem before they had to use it.
Bob comments: [A]t about 6:30 they zoom in and show a concrete pumper truck with a concrete truck feeding it. They are trying to patch an area below the emergency spillway with A) boulders and then B) grout. Where those pumper trucks are is where they think they have the problem. Bob summarizes:
They have 2 ongoing problems, one new, one old: 1) the spill way is not intact. The main spillway is broken. They cant do much to fix it, and the hole keeps getting bigger, although its far enough from the lake and impoundments that its not undermining them. 2) the emergency spillway. This is getting lost in the newz mess. That area to the left thats meant to shed water is apparently being undermined by the water flowing over it for the first time ever. Thats the area with the pumper trucks, just next to the higher wall for the main spillway. Not sure how its being undermined, but it looks like it is being undermined. This is geology of the existing hlll, and I cant add anything to it. It may be concrete tied to bedrock (should be) but I dont know. Too much other mess there to see. Water like this tends to scour down til it cant anymore.
To which I would add 3) they need to lower the lake so predicted rain later this week doesnt overtop the dam. So, they have to use the spillways to do that, but using the spillways is dangerous. I dont envy them the trade-offs.
Hey, as long as the cores dont melt
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Heres a handy diagram showing the dam and the spillways:
Live updates: Mass evacuation below Oroville Dam as officials frantically try to make repairs before new storms [Los Angeles Times]. More than 100,000 people were told to evacuate because of a hazardous situation involving the Northern California dams emergency spillway. At one point, the [National Weather Service] warned that the auxiliary spillway was expected to fail and could send an uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville. However, by late Sunday night, officials said the immediate threat had passed because water had stopped washing over the emergency spillway.
Water stops spilling over Oroville auxiliary spillway [KCRA]. While evacuation orders remain in place for many communities and cities around Lake Oroville and downstream along the Feather River, Lake Oroville has fallen below 100 percent capacity of 901 feet to 896 feet 3,489,000 acre-feet of water as of 9:30 a.m., according to the California Department of Water Resources. At its peak, the lake was at 902.59 feet However, officials are still looking to lower the lake another 50 feet or more than 675,000 acre-feet of water to allow space in the lake for the upcoming storm, projected to arrive Thursday.
UPDATE There was an inspection of the spillway at first light (see here), but I cant find information that gives the results, hours later [snarl]. Readers?
Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago [San Jose Mercury News]. Three environmental groups the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dams relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dams emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside. See also State was warned about inadequacy of emergency spillway [Oroville Mercury Register]. More quotes from locals and activists.
UPDATE Too much water: How Oroville Dam problems became a crisis [Los Angeles Times]. With northern Sierra precipitation levels tracking ahead of the wettest year on record so far this winter, Oroville managers have a nerve-racking several months ahead of them. Theres a lot of snow up there, said Bill Croyle, acting director of the Department of Water Resources. Yikes. So the story isnt over with this weeks storm to come. Unless it is.
PHOTOS: Oroville Dam Spillway Trouble and Evacuation [KQED].
Politics
Trump Transition
Moreover, given some past comments by Mr. Trump and his aides, many companies worry that the administration plans new restrictions on visas for high-skilled workers from abroad, among other potential changes to the immigration system that could be unwelcome to Silicon Valley [Wall Street Journal, Trump Takes on Tech Industry in Early Policy Moves]. Thats the lead. UPDATE Reality check: After three weeks, Trump has hit a Washington wall [USA Today]. Being head of a family business is just about the worst preparation imaginable for the institutional constraints of Washington, says William Galston, a veteran of the Clinton White House staff. Donald Trump is in for a set of experiences that will be entirely novel to him.' Thats why Trump needs his own James Baker; but one doesnt seem to be on offer. That said, volatility voters didnt elect Trump because he wouldnt rock the boat. And surely Galston knows that the Clinton Dynasty is, exactly and precisely, a family business? UPDATE Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down [New York Times]. One way to shovel back the tide of bullshit is to look at the sourcing. Six paragraphs down, here it is: This account of life inside the council offices made up of several hundred career civil servants who advise the president on counterterrorism, foreign policy, nuclear deterrence and other issues of war and peace is based on conversations with more than two dozen current and former council staff members and others throughout the government. All spoke on the condition that they not be quoted by name for fear of reprisals. So the access journalism here could be true, even given priors at the Times. What I get out of the story: The Blob is pissed. And if Trump really is the person he is portrayed as being Baby Hitler, a lunatic with his hands on the button, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera youd think that at least one of these sources would be willing to risk their career by going on the record about it. But no. UPDATE Trumps national security adviser Flynn trying to survive crisis [Reuters]. Same deal. Lets look at the sourcing: officials said. Oh, OK. Again, if the story means that Flynn is a traitor or a Russian stooge, doesnt it make sense that somebody would be willing to go on the record about it? UPDATE The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins [The Observer]. Begins? Begins?! Whats interesting is that The Observer is Kushners house organ. So WTF? President Trump is backtracking on every economic promise he made to the American people, Mr. Sanders, (I., Vt.), said on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. He is appointing Wall Street bankers, the same people he told us he would oppose, to very high positions' [Wall Street Journal]. Mr. Sanders, who has emerged as a leader of Democratic Party progressives, also pointed to pledges by Mr. Trump not to cut entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Gotta love Bernie, plugging away on actual vote-getting policies amidst the pearl-clutching and yammering. I mean, come on. If we didnt appoint bankers to high office, would that end racism? No! UPDATE Sanders in West Virginia: So what if you lose, youll win the next time, Sanders said. Let me just tell you, I also know one of the things that really troubles me when I talk to people, they say, You know Bernie, I just dont know enough about education or economics or health care to run. I work in the United States Senate. If you saw some of the guys in the United States Senate, your confidence in yourself would soar [Charleston Gazette-Mail].
Realignment and Legitimacy
Every leading contender to take over the Democratic National Committee believes Hillary Clinton focused too much on attacking Donald Trump at the expense of articulating an affirmative case for holding the White House [which theyve obviously doubled down on, along with doubling down on every other tactic that failed]. During their final showdown before the chairmans election in Atlanta on Feb. 25, there was consensus that the partys problems derive mainly from subpar organization and communication not anything fundamental [WaPo]. Like organization isnt fundamental. And one of the few lessons I retained from organization behavior is that communication is never the problem. Perez is the clear front-runner, but he still does not have the votes locked up. With backing from key figures in Barack Obamas orbit (Joe Biden) and the Clinton machine (Terry McAuliffe), he is the establishment favorite. But his progressive bona fides are beyond question, from his tenure as a Montgomery County councilman to helming the Justice Departments civil rights division. That makes it hard for Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who won an early endorsement from Sanders and Chuck Schumer, to get too far to Perezs left. That is part of the explanation for why the chairmans race lacks much ideological tension. Well, there is that little matter of the Podesta mail where Perez explains to the DNC how to smear Sanders as a racist. But other than that UPDATE The DNC Contenders Are Not Interested In Your Populist Moment [HuffPo]. Many committed Democrats are following the DNC race as a fight for the future of the party. After a devastating presidential defeat and nearly a decade of steady losses in Congress and at the state level, there arent many other political battles for party activists to focus on. But the candidates themselves are not catering to grass-roots organizers or rank-and-file voters. Theyre seeking the support of a majority of DNC members mostly state party leaders and political appointees and doing their damnedest to avoid ruffling any feathers. UPDATE Three weeks into President Trumps term, the Democratic Party and progressive establishment have almost entirely adopted the demands of a restive, active and aggressive base [WaPo]. BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!! I mean, really? The Democrats are now supporting Medicare for All? Did I not get the memo? You dont know who does what in a bloc, you dont look to find out. If bodies run out of formation to take a rock to a Starbucks window, they melt back to the bloc in as many seconds. Bodies reconciled, kinetic beauty [Natasha Leonard, The Nation]. I remember Graeber peddling the same nauseating stuff from his own comfortable perch. And so what if half the black bloc are cops? Ego, ego, ego.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics today, so Ill catch up on The Bezzle.
Supply Chain: Dutch payments company Adyen saw a big jump in the number of transactions it processed last year for clientele including Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Uber and Netflix. Transaction volume increased by 80 percent on-year to $90 billion in 2016, the company said on Wednesday [CNBC]. While Adyens 2016 revenue is yet to be released, in 2015 it earned about $350 million in revenue against a transaction volume of $50 billion which means Adyen grossed about 0.7 percent of every dollar processed in 2015. The company says its been profitable since 2011.
Supply Chain: [Kellogs,] the maker of Froot Loops, Pop-Tarts and Keebler cookies will ship its goods to the stores own warehouses and leave it up to grocery chains to manage the movement to their retail sites. Kellogg says its following its customers who are increasingly doing their shopping online, a shift that is chipping away at the traditional economics behind supplier-store relationships. At Kellogg, that will mean shuttering 39 U.S. distribution centers with more than 1,000 workers as it consolidates moves to grocery warehouses [Wall Street Journa].
Shipping: Aggressive cape scrap price could entice owners to head for the beach [Splash 247]. Global shipowning body BIMCO warned recently that far more scrapping is needed in dry bulk to try and right the still troubled supply/demand equilibrium. BIMCO said it is vital that 30m dwt of bulkers are scrapped this year as there is a serious influx of new tonnage coming in from Asian yards this year and next. Why dont we just set up the shipyards right on the beach, then? Wouldnt that be more direct?
Shipping: While US east coast ports reported increased volumes in 2016, there is little evidence of a boost in volumes from the expanded Panama Canal, according to new research from SeaIntel [Lloyds List].
Concentration: Amazons Antitrust Paradox [Lina M. Khan, Yale Law Journal]. Amazon is the titan of twenty-first century commerce. In addition to being a retailer, it is now a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction house, a major book publisher, a producer of television and films, a fashion designer, a hardware manufacturer, and a leading host of cloud server space. Although Amazon has clocked staggering growth, it generates meager profits, choosing to price below-cost and expand widely instead. Through this strategy, the company has positioned itself at the center of e-commerce and now serves as essential infrastructure for a host of other businesses that depend upon it. Elements of the firms structure and conduct pose anticompetitive concernsyet it has escaped antitrust scrutiny.
The Bezzle: Amazon does have a very complex system in place for weeding out counterfeits. These processes range from taking action based off of buyer and seller complaints to a sophisticated algorithm that spiders through all the pages on the site, flagging potential counterfeits and dumping them into a massive queue for fraud prevention teams to inspect manually. It is in this later stage where the system appears to break down [Forbes]. Michael Jakubek, who worked on Amazons fraud and abuse prevention teams between 2004 and 2012, stated bluntly that the quality of the Amazon marketplace comes down to the quality of these manual investigations. He posits that one of the main reasons why so many counterfeit listings continue falling through the gaps of Amazons quality control dragnet is that these investigation teams are not simply being trained or administered properly. The big problem with this is that the investigators get rewarded based on how quickly they go, Jakubek said. Theres no reason they cant identify that these sellers are bad, but theyre compensated to go so quickly that they typically just do really cursory reviews.'
The Bezzle: Despite passing the big-scary-number and terrifying-narrative tests, the college debt burden just doesnt quite analogize so well with the housing collapse. Though there are some factors that weigh on the side of eventual catastrophe the debt cant be extinguished in bankruptcy, the population of borrowers are particularly vulnerable to suasion and fraud there are more differences than similarities [Dealbreaker]. For one thing, Goldman wont build a credit-default swap for you based on some student loan metric. Without a universe of CDSs and CDOs floating around, the industry doesnt face the same threat of systemic rupture in the event that millions of students stop making payments. Moreover, the government backs up most student loans, making the bubble, in the worst scenario, a fiscal headache rather than a financial risk, as one Wall Street economist told Business Insider.
The Bezzle: Uber hires veteran NASA engineer to work on flying cars [Daily Dot]. Weigh the salary against the PR value
The Bezzle: Full list of 22 companies with California permits to test self-driving cars [247 Wall Street]. Ubers not on it.
The Bezzle: I can report that [the Tesla Model S] autopilot works perfectly on motorways, and adequately on undivided A-roads, but you probably shouldnt use it on B-roads unless youre feeling brave. Basically, autopilots primary mode of operation is following road markings. If there arent any central or side lines, autopilot attempts to follow the car in frontand if theres no car in front, autopilot disengages. I had one particularly close call when the road markings had disappeared due to resurfacing, and then the car in front turned a corner. The car didnt really know what to do, and ended up veering sharply towards a hedge [Ars Technica]. It is a curious thing, though, that Tesla recommends you only use autopilot on divided highwaysbut that recommendation isnt enforced in software. Perhaps Tesla should just disable autopilot completely when GPS detects that youre on a B-road?
The Bezzle: Heres How Time Warner Cable Was Ripping You Off All Those Year [Vice]. In a blockbuster lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York State Supreme Court, Schneiderman accused Time Warner Cable, which last year was absorbed by telecom titan Charter Communications, of conducting a years-long systematic scheme to defraud and mislead consumers by promising internet service that the company knew it could not deliver. The complaint alleges that Time Warner Cable executives were well aware that the company could not fulfill advertised claims about a variety of offerings, including high-speed internet service, in-home wireless connectivity, and reliable access to services like Netflix and online gaming platforms.
The Bezzle: A Florida software engineer and a New Jersey pastor are expected on Monday to face trial in a case stemming from an investigation into a bitcoin exchange and a data breach at JPMorgan Chase & Co [Reuters]. 2017 is already great!
Honey for the Bears: The January US Federal Budget recorded a surplus of $51.3bn compared with a surplus of $55.2bn the previous year and compared with consensus forecasts of a surplus near $40.0bn [Economic Calendar]. Just what the economy needs: Money sucked out of it.
Political Risk: Given the importance of the forthcoming Presidential election, French opinion polls will continue to be monitored very closely in the short term. Only a relatively small move in polling support in either direction for National Front leader Le Pen would lead to sharp fluctuations in French asset prices and also trigger important Euro moves with major concerns surrounding the Euros future if National Front poll ratings improve further [Economic Calendar].
Political Risk: Congress could limit the Feds independence and hurt the U.S. economy [WaPo]. My research shows that the Fed has had tremendous influence over international standards on bank capital since the 1980s, ensuring that domestic efforts to prevent another financial crisis are not undercut by lax regulations in other parts of the world. Since the 1980s Worked great, didnt it?
Rapture Index: Closes down on volcanos: A decrease in volcanic activity has downgraded this category [Rapture Ready] Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181.
Todays Fear & Greed Index: 72 Greed (previous close: 68, Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 57 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Feb 13 at 11:39am. Any political risk that the Clintonite irredentists in the intelligence community might create is already in the price?
Dear Old Blighty
Journalists who obtain leaked official material could be sent to prison under new proposals [Telegraph]. In theory a journalist leaked Brexit documents deemed harmful to the UK economy could be jailed as a consequence.
A council is facing ridicule after advising residents to put their rubbish in the freezer to stop it smelling after it cancelled collections over Christmas and New Year [Telegraph].
Our Famously Free Press
Ask people here about their news habits, as I did last week, and youll discover that their choices transcend easy categories and inside-the-Beltway perceptions (like, for example, that CNN is for liberals). And youll hear, over and over, that what matters most are the news sources that are closest to home [WaPo]. Trump may have effectively demonized the national media. But in a dozen interviews here last week, Luzerne residents indicated their satisfaction with their main news sources: WNEP Channel 16, the ABC affiliate in Wilkes-Barre; and the two competing Wilkes-Barre daily papers: the Citizens Voice (which endorsed Clinton) and the Times Leader (which made no endorsement). Which explains why your letter to the editor is far more important than clicking on a petition, or even calling your Congression. (If your first doesnt get published, keep at it; the editor likes a track record. Be calm, focused, and concise. Anger isnt a plus, either, unless expressed as humor.)
The term fake news itself is a masterpiece of ideological speech. Calling reports fake news is a desperate attempt to communicate that ones own report is real news. But making this claim is clearly a power play just as much as it is an attempt to refer to something in the world [Hampton Institute (DB)]. Not sure about Althusser. Im an E.P. Thompson person myself.
Class Warfare
Excellent tweetstorm:
1. You spend time in places like Youngstown. And you walk around. And you think, "Damn. This is what the status quo has provided" pic.twitter.com/HNUEKhZYAN Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade) February 13, 2017
Creating Career Advice For The About-To-Be-Automated Worker [Fast Company]. Darkly hilarious.
How Womens Studies Erased Black Women [Daily JSTOR]. Now that Womens Studies itself is on the chopping block at many institutions, perhaps white women are better able to identify with the women they once overlooked. Of course, economics has nothing to do with any of this
Update: Scariest jobs chart ever' [Calculated Risk]. Reality is just as scary even if the chart is not, because the jobs are crapified and precarious, wages are in the toilet, and ZOMG!!!! Robots!!!!
I accept the Truman Capote Award in this spirit of justice. I would be remiss, therefore, if I did not address another injustice tarnishing the literary critical profession. I am, so far as I can tell, the first adjunct faculty member to receive this award. To be sure, I have one of the best non-ladder positions available. My paychecks cover my bills. I have health insurance. I can work full time. I know by the end of June if my appointment is renewed for the fall. And yet I am one of over one million non-tenure-track instructors working on a temporary or contingent basis and whose position offers no possibility of tenure. To be contingent means not to know if youll be teaching next semester or if your class will be canceled days before it starts. Most adjuncts receive less than three weeks notice of an appointment. They rarely receive benefits and have virtually no say in university governance [Chronicle]. Yet to talk about adjuncts is to talk about the centerpiece of higher education. Tenured faculty represent only 17 percent of college instructors. Part-time adjuncts are now the majority of the professoriate and its fastest-growing segment. From 1975 to 2011, the number of part-time adjuncts quadrupled. And the so-called part-time designation is misleading because most of them are piecing together teaching jobs at multiple institutions simultaneously. A 2014 congressional report suggests that 89 percent of adjuncts work at more than one institution; 13 percent work at four or more. The need for several appointments becomes obvious when we realize how little any one of them pays.
News of the Wired
Anonymous social networks expose the dark underbelly in medicine [KevinMD].
University attacked by its own vending machines, smart light bulbs & 5,000 IoT devices [Network World]. Exciting! (As I read it, though the case study is anonymized, the events are real.)
Shoveling Snow Can Kill Men, Canadian Study Finds [CNBC].
* * *
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And heres todays plant (via):
One for the East Coast.
Readers, Water Cooler is a standalone entity, not supported by the very successful Naked Capitalism fundraiser just past. Now, I understand you may feel tapped out, but when and if you are able, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your continued help.
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends most of her time in Asia researching a book about textile artisans. She also writes regularly about legal, political economy, and regulatory topics for various consulting clients and publications, as well as scribbles occasional travel pieces for The National.
Late last month, in Republicans to Use CRA to Roll Back Midnight Rules and Benefit Oil Companies, I first wrote about how Republicans were poised to use the 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA) to roll back regulations enacted during the waning hours of the Obama administration.
The CRA allows for Congress, by simple majority votes in both houses, to pass legislation rescinding any regulation that was finalized in the preceding 60 session days. The relevant legislation a CRA resolution of disapproval is brought to the floor of each chamber using expedited procedures, without need for prior committee consideration, and is not subject to Senate filibuster procedures.
The Congressional Research Service has determined that any rule made final on or after June 13, 2016, is in theory, vulnerable to a CRA resolution of disapproval, according to a New York Times DealBook article, Republicans Paths to Unraveling the Dodd-Frank Act. As is the case with other legislation, the CRA resolution must be presented to the President for signature or veto. In the case of a veto, the regulation could still be voided if a 2/3 majority in each house votes to override the presidential veto. Once the regulation is successfully rescinded, the regulatory agency is barred from bringing the rule back in substantially the same form, absent new authorizing legislation.
Two Measures Targeting Energy Companies Squelched
As I noted in my earlier post, rescinding regulations targeting energy companies is a top Republican priority. In Congress Moves to Rescind Two Obama-Era Energy Regulations, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that separate legislation was sent to President Trump for signature that would squelch rules approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in June requiring resource extraction issuers to disclose payments made to governments for the commercial development of oil, natural gas or minerals, as well as repeal a measure completed by the Interior Department in December toughening standards for coal mining near streams. Trump is expected to sign each bill.
The CRA has been around since 1996, when it was passed as part of the Contract with America. So why are we just now hearing of it? Prior to this administration, this legislation was only used once before, in 2001 to roll back an ergonomics rule finalized by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration.
Yet Republicans are not the only party to consider using the CRAs authority to roll back rules enacted by an outgoing administration of another party. Practically speaking, the CRA is only likely to be invoked when that party that controls the Presidency changes. A President needs to sign the legislation rescinding the regulation, and is unlikely to do so for regulations passed during his tenure (or passed while the office was held by a member of the same party). It also seems necessary for the same party to control both houses of Congress although as this 2015 piece, The Congressional Review Act, rarely used and (almost always) unsuccessful in The Hill explains, this did not stop a Republican-controlled Congress from trying to overturn a National Labor Relations Board rule by passing a resolution of disapproval. A presidential veto thwarted this tactic.
When did these two conditions last apply? Well, think back to 2009 when a Democrat had been solidly elected President, winning both the popular vote and electoral college, the party had a comfortable Senate majority (especially when the two Independents, who caucused with them, were included), as well as a greater House majority than Republicans currently enjoy. Unsurprisingly, as the New York Times reported in a January 2009 article Democrats Look for Ways to Undo Late Bush Administration Rules:
Democrats say that they are also considering using the Congressional Review Act of 1996, an obscure and rarely used process that sets up fast-track procedures to overturn regulations. The law allows Congress to rescind a rule by passing a resolution of disapproval, which cannot be filibustered. The resolution also requires presidential approval and can be invoked only for a few months after a rule is issued.
So, why wasnt CRA used more extensively at that time? Well, the answer is that a successful CRA resolution of disapproval not only void a rule, it prevents the agency from reconsidering the issue, unless new authorizing legislation is passed, and thus shuts down further regulation of the area. Effectively, the legislation functions as a one-way ratchet, structurally favoring an anti-regulatory baseline.
CRA Pipeline: Ten Pending CRA-related Bills, Further Authority?
At the moment, at least 10 CRA bills are proceeding in some form through the House and Senate, according to an article in The Hill, The unintended consequences of the Congressional Review Act, and to date, [t]he act itself has never been tested in court.
At least 160 Obama-era regulations are subject to repeal under the CRA, according to an article, The Congressional Review Act: A Powerful Reform Tool, but Not a Panacea published in January by the law firm Squire Patton Boggs. The DealBook article cited above estimates that ten such vulnerable rules were authorized by Dodd-Frank.
Although I failed to mention the CRA in this earlier post, Mary Jo White Leaves Behind a Weakened SEC for Trump to Weaken Further, I noted at that time that the task of unravel[ling] the entire multi-faceted Dodd-Frank regulatory program would be seriously complicated if the SEC had managed to complete rule-making procedures mandated previously by Congress, according to statutory deadlines. Also worth mentioning is that one reason Democrats found it more difficult to unwind regulations issued during the tenure of George W. Bush, despite solid majorities, is that previous administration imposed an early deadline on agencies to finalize them, according to the January 2009 New York Times article cited above.
Yet perhaps the CRAs authority might actually stretch further than the sources cited above suggest. Kimberley Strassels WSJ piece, A Regulatory Game Changer, has attracted lots of chatter, for its assertion that the CRA could be used to rescind rules that go back as far as 2009. Strassel makes two arguments. First, she points out that the CRA mandates any federal agency promulgating a rule to submit a report on said rule to the House and Senate, and recognizes that the 60-day window for invoking CRA is triggered by the later of when the rule is published in the Federal Register or when Congress receives the report. At least in theory, if current regulators were to submit the missing reports no matter when the underlying rule was finalized Congress could invoke the CRA and pass a resolution of disapproval and invalidate the rule. Strassel asserts that there are rules for which no required reports were filed, which suggests that potentially more rules could be rescinded under CRA procedures: Bottom line: There are rules for which there are no reports. Really? Im willing to believe there are. Unfortunately, she fails to identify any specific rule.
Another potential problem, according to Strassel, is the CRAs expansive definition of what counts as a rule which extends beyond measures published in the Federal Register to include guidance that agencies issue (e.g., on transgender bathrooms or on campus sexual assault). This means in theory that the CRA could be invoked against any rules or guidance dating back to 1996, when it was passed, for which results were not correctly filed.
Whether either issue opens a major new avenue for CRA resolutions of disapproval or is a nothingburger depends on how many missing reports exist whether they apply to rules or guidance and if so, if Republicans choose to exploit such putative gaps.
Jerri-Lynn here: Maybe California wont secede just yet after all.
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street
Do Trump and California suddenly see eye-to-eye on high-speed rail?
President Donald Trump met with airline CEOs at the White House on Thursday. At the core of the discussion was the overhaul of the Federal Aviation Administration, including changes to the totally out of whack national air-traffic control system. He had other goodies for the airline CEOs.
Afterwards, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly told reporters that the meeting had been delightful. It seems theyd gotten pretty much what theyd wanted. We are very well-aligned on some very key topics: income tax reform, regulatory reform, and especially growing our industry, he said.
But something wasnt picked up by the US media, though it was picked up by hedge funds and other speculators: In his remarks, Trump mentioned high-speed rail in the US. And on Friday, Japanese stocks dealing with high-speed rail systems soared on huge volume! And even in China, it happened.
In his remarks (transcript) to the aviation CEOs, Trump said this about US high-speed rail, while complaining about airports:
As an example, some of you were saying yesterday to me that you go to China, you go to Japan, they have fast trains all over the place. We dont have one. I dont want to compete with your business (laughter) but we dont have one fast train.
And a few sentences on US airports and the Middle East later, he added:
And we have an obsolete plane system, we have obsolete airports, we have obsolete trains. We have bad roads. Were going to change all of that, folks. Youre going to be so happy with Trump. I think you already are.
Were going to change all of that, folks. And that apparently includes high-speed rail in the US.
This was followed up by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who after his meeting with Trump on Friday in his remarks (transcript) mentioned investment by Japan Inc. in the US, and then veered into high-speed rail and what Japanese companies with expertise in high-speed rail could do in the US to help move these projects forward. It would be nurtured with federal stimulus funding:
With President Trump taking on the leadership, Im sure there will be major-scale infrastructure investment will be made, including the fast-speed train. Those of you who have rode on the Japanese Shinkansen, Im sure you would appreciate the speed, the comfort and safety with the latest maglev technology. From Washington, D.C. to New York, where Trump Tower exists, only one hour would it take if you ride the maglev train. Japan, with our high level of technical capability, we will be able to contribute to President Trumps growth strategy.
But in the US, no one paid attention to this
Not even those Republicans whove been vigorously opposing the high-speed rail project in California which has been steeped in controversy from the official day one, which was in November 2008, when California voters approved a proposition for funding the project. By early 2012, even I, a supporter of high-speed rail to connect large urban areas that are not too far apart, was beginning to snicker about how wed been baited-and-switched and how it has gone nowhere. Today, it still has gone nowhere, though the price tag has changed and more money has evaporated.
So are Trump and California suddenly seeing eye-to-eye on something? Namely high-speed rail? And will Trump whod threatened to defund this out-of-control state include Californias high-speed rail project in his $1-trillion infrastructure wish list, if it ever takes off? Governor Jerry Brown did you listen to Trumps remarks?
Other states too have high-speed rail projects, including Texas and Florida. So for suppliers of high-speed rolling stock, technology, signaling, etc., this could be big bucks.
Speculators such as US hedge funds that gamble in Japanese stocks certainly seem to think so at least for the moment.
Nippon Sharyo, of which Central Japan Railway Company holds 50.1%, makes trains, including the high-speed Shinkansen trainsets. It already has a plant in Illinois. Its shares soared 18% on the Tokyo stock exchange on Friday early on to a high of 332 before easing back to 322, up 14.6% for the day. Volume soared to nearly 5.3 million shares:
Daido Signal, which makes railway signaling equipment, after surging as much as 15% in early trading on Friday, ended the day up 9.2%.
Shares of Kawasaki Heavy Industries jumped 4.5% on Friday. Commuter trains and subway trainsets of Japans largest manufacturer of rolling stock are already cruising around US cities, and it produces trains in the US. So it might have a leg up.
Even in China, Trumps high-speed rail enthusiasm caught on. CRRC, which makes rolling stock including high-speed trainsets, saw its shares jump 5% early on.
Alas, as so many times, these Trump-induced stock surges or plunges tend to run out of steam before reality sets in once again as the traders that follow Trumps every breath abandon the trade. In early trading on Monday, Nippon Sharyo is down 1.6%, Diado Signal is down 1.9%, but Kawasaki Heavy edged up 0.5%.
High-speed rail in the US progresses at snails pace, if at all. Just trying to lay the track, which needs to run in as straight a line as possible and tends to cross private land where landowners and homeowners really dont want a high-speed train go by every 20 minutes, triggers endless court battles. This is in part why the project in California has become such a fiasco. So real investors, rather than just short-term traders, who want to ride this to big profits better be ready to practice infinite patience.
It remains unclear how this scenario fits into Trumps plans to deal with the US trade deficit with China, Japan, and other countries after 25 years of apathy. Read This Is How Out-Of-Whack US Trade Relationships Really Are
Luminescence switchable carbon nanodots follow intracellular trafficking and drug delivery (Nanowerk News) Tiny carbon dots have, for the first time, been applied to intracellular imaging and tracking of drug delivery involving various optical and vibrational spectroscopic-based techniques such as fluorescence, Raman, and hyperspectral imaging. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated, for the first time, that photo luminescent carbon nanoparticles can exhibit reversible switching of their optical properties in cancer cells.
'Caged' non-fluorescent carbon dot enters the cancer cell, loses its caging and lights up. (Image: University of Illinois)
"One of the major advantages of these agents are their strong intrinsic optical sensitivity without the need for any additional dye/fluorophore and with no photo-bleaching issues associated with it," explained Dipanjan Pan, an assistant professor of bioengineering and the leader of the study. "Using some elegant nanoscale surface chemistry, we created a molecular 'masking' pathway to turn off the fluorescence and then selectively remove the mask leading to regaining the brightness.
"Using carbon dots for illuminating human cells is not new. In fact, my laboratories, and several other groups around world, have shown that these tiny dots represent a unique class of luminescent materials with excellent biocompatibility, degradability, and relatively facile access to large-scale synthesis in comparison to other popular luminescent materials such as quantum dots," added Pan.
And, the entire process of is highly controlled and can be observed in living cells as they reported in the group's study appearing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society ("Macromolecularly 'Caged' Carbon Nanoparticles for Intracellular Trafficking via Switchable Photoluminescence").
"We can apply this technique for intracellular trafficking by means of switchable photo-luminescence in mammalian cells in vitro, wherein the endocytic membrane-abundant anionic amphiphilic molecules participates in the 'de-caging' process," stated Pan. "The carbon dots, each measuring less than 50 nanometers in diameter, are derived from agave nectar and are highly luminescent. The in situ nanoscale chemical exchange further probed into the mechanistic understanding of the origin of carbon luminescence and indicated that it is primarily a surface phenomenon.
"This can be reversibly turned on and off by a simple counter-ionic nanoscale chemistry," Pan said. "These results can become the basis for new and interesting designs for carbon-based materials for intracellular imaging probing cellular function and to study other biological processes."
@nascarcasm: Why each driver will or wont win 2022 title It seems way harder to pick a winner out of this year's Championship 4. To help you, here are a few reasons why each of them may ... or may not ... win the 2022 Cup Series championship.
Scientists are finally one step closer to harnessing massive amounts of clean energy via nuclear fusion. If all goes well, humans may not need fossil fuels as early as 2030.
To recall, nuclear fusion is a process that replicates the Sun's ability to generate energy. The Sun harness energy by fusing two hydrogen atoms to make helium -- the energy released is hypothetically replicable enough to be everlasting. If the theory behind nuclear fusion is correct, this means that humans can now harness energy from an "almost limitless source" without harmful effects to the environment.
Now, a team of Canadian scientists is hoping to take nuclear fusion into a larger scale by building a full-blown nuclear fusion device and plant by 2030 through a project called Fusion 2030, Science Alert reports. But in order to this, the team -- composed of students and organizations -- need the government's help to make this happen.
University of Alberta and University of Saskatchewan, two of the universities that are part of Fusion 2030, said that the project needs around $96 million -- a "minor investment," according to the group, considering the benefitial returns once the plant is built.
Given that we are still in an era where humans mainly depend on fossil fiels, there are reasonable doubts of nuclear fusion's efficiency. However, a Fusion 2030 report says how nuclear fusion is the best source of energy available because it has the best payback ratio with high amount of energy production while, at the same time, having extremely low carbon footprint.
Not only will it give cleaner energy, it can also be a platform for new learning. Michael Delage, the chief technology officer of General Fusion, told CBC News that the project opens up new opportunities for graduates, who have skills on the field, to contribute.
Just a few hours after what was considered to be the third largest whale stranding event ever recorded in New Zealand, a different pod of whales mysteriously beached themselves in New Zealand's Farewell Spit.
According to a report from the National Public Radio, over 650 pilot whales beached themselves in Farewell Spit last week. Among the stranded whales, 350 died, including 20 that were euthanized by the officials. Volunteers and officials were able to refloat 100 of the whales, while more than 200 of the whales were rescued by nature itself.
The over 200 that were able to refloat by themselves were stranded just days after what was considered to be the third largest whale stranding event ever recorded in New Zealand. Local authorities and volunteer were surprised when most of the whales in the second stranding were not there when they came back the next morning.
"We had 240 whales strand yesterday in the afternoon and we were fearful we were going to end up with 240 dead whales this morning," said Herb Christophers, a spokesman for the Department of Conservation, in a report from Reuters. Christophers added that the animals were able to free themselves from being stranded as the tide came in, which enabled them to swim out to the sea.
The initial stranding of the pilot whales was first reported by a conservation worker. The worker spotted more than 400 pilot whales in the thin strip of land in Farewell Spit. Most of the whales in this group were already dead when they were found. Volunteers and conservation workers poured water over the beached whales to cool them down and they were able to refloat about 100 of the whales.
Conservation workers were sure that the whales that beached days later belonged to a separate pod. The rescuers noted that they tagged all the rescued whales in the initial beaching. None of the whales in the second stranding had tags.
Although the two stranding events ended on a positive note due to the self-rescued pilot whales, local officials were still left with the grim task of properly disposing of the whale carcasses.
The New York Times reprimanded a reporter Monday following an allegation the reporter publicly referred to unfounded rumors about first lady Melania Trump.
The allegations were made public by model/actress Emily Ratajkowski, who said the unnamed reporter repeated unsubstantiated claims about Trump's past in her vicinity at an event Sunday night.
Sat next to a journalist from the NYT last night who told me "Melania is a hooker." Whatever your politics it's crucial to call this out for Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) February 13, 2017
Ratajkowski added the "gender specific attacks" were "disgusting" and "sexist."
In a statement released to NBC, a Times spokesperson did not identify the reporter, but confirmed an incident occurred.
"At a party last night, a Times reporter who does not cover Washington or politics, referred to an unfounded rumor regarding Melania Trump. The comment was not intended to be public, but it was nonetheless completely inappropriate and should not have occurred. Editors have talked to the reporter in question about the lapse."
Earlier this month a Maryland judge dismissed Trump's libel lawsuit against Britain's Daily Mail newspaper over an article that contained insinuations that she had worked as an escort.
Trump refiled the lawsuit last week.
Dozens of home-sweeps targeting undocumented immigrants across the country have sparked a wave of panic in San Diego.
Local churches are preparing for the worst and are offering refuge to those who are seeking refuge.
Pastor Bill Jenkins says his doors are wide open. He has helped refugee men and women in the past at the United Methodist Church in Normal Heights.
I get calls all the time, of people who are particularly women and children, said Pastor Jenkins.
He's talking about the coordinated sweeps that have deported hundreds of undocumented immigrants across the country since President Donald Trump signed an executive order to enforce the country's immigration laws.
Immigration officials say the enforcement actions are nothing new.
President Trump's executive order states the Secretary of Homeland Security will prioritize the deportation of people who have been convicted or charged with any criminal offense. Others, who have participated in something that can potentially be chargeable, can also be detained. According to President Trump's executive order, ICE and border patrol agents have the right to detain a person if they feel that person is a risk to public safety or national security.
During Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly's visit to San Diego Friday, he addressed the issue.
These folks are executing the law, said Secretary Kelly.
He went on a ride along with ICE agents on what immigration officials call a knock-and-talk.
At 6 a.m. we went to a house, knocked on the door and took a particular bad individual into custody," he said.
What I saw today, the professionalism that I observed in a very potentially dangerous environment gave me great pride," Kelly said.
Pastor Jenkins said he is ready to make his church a sanctuary and will continue to offer information on legal services to those seeking it.
What we want to do is to try to give hope and love, said Jenkins.
Parents were outraged Saturday in the View Park-Windsor Hills area of Los Angeles after a controversial homework assignment was given to second graders.
"When I read it I immediately told her she would not complete that assignment," parent Kelly Gray said.
The math assignment out of Windsor Hills Elementary School used the words "slave," "master" and "cotton" - an assignment handed out to students during Black History Month.
Gray's 7-year-old daughter was sent home with the math homework.
"It's definitely disturbing using terms like plantation, master - my daughter doesn't know what these things mean," she said.
Gray was outraged at what she saw but doesn't blame the teacher since she said all second graders at Windsor Hills Elementary had the same assignment.
"I don't think it was a racial thing," she said.
The assignment still baffles Karole Gray. She said her granddaughters' school had homework assignments coinciding with the start of Black History Month a few weeks ago.
"Someone could have said, 'No! Are we really giving this assignment?'" she said. "I can't image a month of any year of any era when this would be appropriate."
School officials said they were investigating the case.
"This is Black History Month - it's hard enough to know you have ancestors who were slaves, but to hear it's blown up in this type of way is disturbing," said parent Karla Clark.
Gray said she's received Facebook posts from parents at three other schools claiming their children also received the same math homework. LAUSD said it takes this case seriously and is now investigating.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, a congresswoman representing California's 18th congressional district, on Sunday toured a number of battered spots around San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties that were walloped by recent storms.
Various locations across the Peninsula and the Santa Cruz Mountains have been overwhelmed by mudslides, collapsed roads, toppled trees and flooding during this winter season.
Eshoo spoke with impacted homeowners to get a sense of what local, state and national leaders need to do during the relief and repair efforts.
State Senator Jerry Hill, San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley and San Mateo County Director of Public Works Jim Porter also joined Eshoo on the tour.
Dozens of people gathered in San Francisco on Sunday to take part in a National Day of Jewish Action for Refugees.
It was one of several rallies in cities across the United States, and it was co-sponsored by a number of jewish groups, including HIAS, which is an opponent of President Donald Trump's executive order on immigrants and refugees.
One organizer said the event coincided with the recent International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the executive order.
The San Francisco event was held at the Holocaust Memorial at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.
When asked about the recent ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to not reinstate the the president's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations, one rabbi said it's a small victory, but they must remain vigiliant.
During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that poured 4.9 billion into the Gulf of Mexico TV images showed a thick, glowing sheen of oil clinging to the waters surface, along with heartbreaking images of oiled pelicans and dolphins. Below the surface, another unseen, less obvious calamity was taking place.
The oil spill coincided with the peak of the spawning season for Atlantic blue fin tuna in the gulf, an Olympian of the sea known for swimming great distances across vast oceans. Now years later, the effects of the tunas exposure to the oil are becoming clear.
Scientists at Stanfords Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey, where blue fin and yellow tuna are a focus of study, a newly published paper reveals that exposure to a component in the spilled oil caused heart problems in the tuna.
What we found was one in particular - phenanthrene, actually blocked the excitable part of every heart beat, Stanford scientist Barbara Block said of the petroleum component, so it caused an irregular heartbeat thats called arrhythmia.
Working alongside NOAA, the scientists added crude oil to tuna heart cells which immediately caused a noticeable impact a blockage that interrupted the rhythm of the heartbeat.
When you put crude oil on heart cells it interrupts the beat to beat contraction, Block said, the physiology of the heart cell, such that it causes irregularities of heart beat.
Inside the Hopkins campus, the Tuna Research center represents one of the few tuna research centers in North America. Inside a smattering of buildings facing the Monterey Bay, blue fin and yellow tuna up to 200 pounds swim in circular pens.
Blue fin tuna are remarkable fish, Block said sitting in the centers office where images of tuna covered the walls. They grow up to 1500 pounds theyre capable of transoceanic migrations.
Stanford and NOAA began their study of the oil spills impact on tuna at the request of the federal government following the devastating oil spill. Block said the group first dive into the study discovered the oils impact on embryonic tuna. The study went-on to pinpoint the main culprit phenanthrene which is also found in cigarette smoke, storm runoff and air pollution.
Levels in the range of 1 to 15 parts per billion was enough to affect the larval development, researcher Luke Gardner said, specifically how the heart forms.
Because the tuna center has long developed long-range tagging of tuna, the scientists were able to retroactively determine that the tuna were in the gulf at the time of the oil spill.
So then we were able to go back in time and look at when the oil spill actually occurred, said Stanford scientist Aaron Carlisle, and look at how much of the blue fin spawning habitat was oiled.
Block said what may be the studys most compelling thought is that the workhorse tuna hearts function like human hearts which could reveal impacts of pollution on human cardiovascular systems as well. Since the contaminant is readily found in air pollution, it could have a widespread impact on human health globally.
We hypothesize the phenanthrene found in crude oil would also bind our hearts too, Block said, in such a way that we get an arrhythmia and we could also get sudden death.
Block said next phases of the study could reveal the extent the exposure to pollution on humans potentially revealing that components of pollution could be the smoking gun behind some heart attacks and other cardiovascular issues.
What weve been studying in the tuna, Block said, actually relates to us.
Rescue crews pulled a man from the surf at Ocean Beach on Sunday afternoon, according to the San Francisco Fire Department.
The department responded to a call of a person face down in the water at Ocean Beach near Judah Street just after 3 p.m. Beachgoers pulled the man out of the water and began CPR, fire officials said.
When paramedic arrived, they continued CPR on the 45-year-old man as he was being transported to San Francisco General Hospital, fire officials said.
The man's condition was not known, and no further details were available.
The department also tweeted around 4 p.m. about assisting in a bay rescue of a kayaker between Piers 33 and 35 but indicated a San Francisco police marine unit was able to save the person, and there were no injuries in that incident.
Emergency tree removal work on Sunday created BART delays for riders traveling through San Francisco.
The 15 to 20 minute delays were scheduled to take place between 7 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., according to BART.
Riders traveling along the blue line from Dublin/Pleasanton to Daly City were required to transfer at the 24th Street Mission Station.
The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned North Korea late Monday over its latest ballistic missile launches and warned of "further significant measures" if Pyongyang doesn't stop nuclear and missile testing.
A council statement agreed to by all 15 members followed strong condemnation by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of the latest launch and U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to deal with North Korea "very strongly."
The Security Council condemned Saturday's launch and a previous test Oct. 19, saying North Korea's activities to develop its nuclear weapons delivery systems violate U.N. sanctions and increase tensions. It called on all U.N. members "to redouble their efforts" to implement U.N. sanctions.
North Korea has repeatedly flouted six Security Council resolutions demanding an end to its nuclear and ballistic missile activities and imposing increasing tougher sanctions.
The latest missile test is seen as an implicit challenge to Trump, who has vowed a tough line on North Korea but has yet to release a strategy for dealing with a country whose nuclear ambitions have bedeviled U.S. leaders for decades.
"North Korea is a big, big problem and we will deal with that very strongly," Trump said at a joint news conference Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Nikki Haley, his U.N. ambassador, said in a statement later: "We call on all members of the Security Council to use every available resource to make it clear to the North Korean regime and its enablers that these launches are unacceptable."
"It is time to hold North Korea accountable not with our words, but with our actions," she said.
There was no indication of what "actions" the Trump administration has in mind, and Ukraine's U.N. ambassador, Volodymyr Yelchenko, the current council president, and Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho wouldn't comment on possible "further significant measures."
Those same words were used in the last Security Council statement on the unsuccessful Oct. 17 missile test by North Korea. That was followed by the latest sanctions resolution Nov. 30 targeting North Korea's hard currency revenues by placing a cap on coal exports, cutting them by at least 62 percent or by an estimated $800 million.
The council statement issued Monday was almost exactly the same as the one adopted Oct. 17 a practice that makes it much easier for members to reach quick agreement.
Guterres called the latest launch "a further troubling violation" of council resolutions and urged North Korea to comply with its international obligations, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
"The secretary-general appeals to the international community to continue to address this situation in a united manner," Haq said.
The United States, Japan and South Korea requested the urgent Security Council meeting.
Japan's Bessho told reporters the key is implementing sanctions to get North Korea to change course.
"I think we need to keep pushing because we're not looking for a military solution," he said. "We have to have a peaceful solution, and the Security Council ... is the body that is most suited for that role."
Monday's council statement stressed "the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in northeast Asia at large" and expressed members' "commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation."
South Korea earlier condemned what it called "serious military and security threats" and predicted more such tests. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is also the acting president, said his country would punish North Korea for the missile launch.
In previous Security Council actions on North Korea, the United States and China, a neighbor and ally of Pyongyang, have been the key negotiators.
China said Monday that the root cause of North Korean missile launches is friction with the United States and South Korea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China opposed the launch.
North Korea already has a variety of land-based missiles that can hit South Korea and Japan, including U.S. military bases in those countries. It has also successfully tested a submarine-launched missile and development of such missiles would add a weapon that is harder to detect before launch.
North Korea's Central News Agency said the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, was at the launch site to observe Sunday's test and expressed pleasure at the North's expansion of its strategic strike capabilities. The report early Monday said Kim gave the order to fire the "Pukguksong-2," which the agency said was a "Korean style new type strategic weapon system."
It is believed to have flown about 500 kilometers (310 miles) before splashing down into the ocean in international waters.
The report said the test proved "the reliability and security" of a new mobile launching system, the solid fuel that was used, and the guidance and control features of the ballistic missile. Solid fuel can give missiles longer range and make detecting them before launch more difficult because they can be readied faster than liquid fuel missiles.
The Trump administration decreed sanctions against Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami on Monday, accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking.
The announcement, made on the Treasury Department's website late in the day, is bound to ratchet up tensions between the U.S. and its harshest critic in Latin America. El Aissami is the most senior Venezuelan official to ever be targeted by the U.S.
The U.S. government is also sanctioning Samark Lopez, a wealthy Venezuelan businessman believed to be El Aissami's main front man. As part of the action, 13 companies owned or controlled by Lopez, including five in Florida, will be blocked and both men will be barred from entering the United States.
There was no immediate reaction from El Aissami, but he has long denied any criminal ties.
The move comes a week after a bipartisan group of 34 U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to Trump urging him to step up pressure on Venezuela's socialist government by immediately sanctioning top officials responsible for corruption and human rights abuses as well as El Aissami for his purported ties to Hezbollah.
In the wake of President Nicolas Maduro's crackdown on dissent following anti-government protests in 2014, the U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing the U.S. president to freeze the assets and ban visas for anyone accused of carrying out acts of violence or violating the human rights of those opposing Venezuela's government. Monday's sanctions were imposed under rules passed during the Clinton administration allowing the U.S. to go after the assets of anyone designated a drug kingpin.
El Aissami, 42, has been the target of U.S. law enforcement investigation for years, stemming from his days as interior minister when dozens of fraudulent Venezuelan passports ended up in the hands of people from the Middle East, including alleged members of Hezbollah.
Venezuela's top convicted drug trafficker, Walid Makled, before being sent back from Colombia in 2011, said he paid bribes through El Aissami's brother to officials so they could turn a blind eye to cocaine shipments that have proliferated in Venezuela during the past two decades of socialist rule.
El Aissami was named vice president last month as Maduro struggles to hold together a loose coalition of civilian leftist and military supporters whose loyalty to the revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez has frayed amid triple-digit inflation and severe food shortages. Recent polls say more than 80 percent of Venezuelans want Maduro gone.
El Aissami is feared by many in the opposition for his association with Venezuela's intelligence services from his long run as interior minister under Chavez. Since El Aissami became vice president, Maduro has handed him control of an "anti-coup commando unit" to go after officials and opponents suspected of treason.
A former Obama administration official said the decision to sanction El Aissami was months in the making and involved several U.S. federal agencies. But it was held up last year, at the insistence of the State Department, for fear it could interfere in a Vatican-backed attempt at dialogue between the government and opposition as well as efforts to win the release of a U.S. citizen, Joshua Holt, jailed for months on what are seen as trumped-up weapons charges.
"This was an overdue step to ratchet up pressure on the Venezuelan regime and signal that top officials will suffer consequences if they continue to engage in massive corruption, abuse human rights and dismantle democracy," said Mark Feierstein, who served as Obama's top national security adviser on Latin America.
The talks between the opposition and Venezuela have since collapsed. The opposition blames Maduro's administration, saying it didn't follow through on a pledge to release dozens of activists that government opponents consider political prisoners. The opposition also says Maduro didn't set a date for regional elections that his opponents are favored to sweep after the government suspended a recall referendum against the president in October.
"The sanctions in and of themselves will not bring about a democratic transition," Feierstein said. "That will require the Venezuelan opposition to remobilize its followers and U.S. diplomatic efforts to marshal governments in the region to isolate Maduro."
Tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela have been on the rise for years. The countries haven't exchanged ambassadors since 2010.
But Trump mentioned the country only briefly during the campaign, and amid uncertainty on whether he would break from the Obama administration's policy of relative restraint, Maduro had adopted a softer tack. After blasting Trump as a "bandit" and "mental patient" during the campaign, Maduro has remained quiet since.
"He won't be worse than Obama, that's the only thing I dare to say," Maduro said last month in an appeal to supporters to withhold judgment on Trump.
In the wake of a travel ban against top Venezuelan officials in 2014, Maduro ordered the U.S. to slash staffing at its embassy in Caracas, accusing diplomats of conspiring to overthrow his government.
Two public hearings on the spending plan for Chicago Public Schools will be held Monday, ahead of another round of budget cuts that are likely coming to the struggling district.
Chicago Public Schools is looking to trim $104 million as part of its 2017 spending plan, the Chicago Tribune reports. The district says the cuts are needed because of Governor Bruce Rauners veto of millions of dollars in state aid. CPS officials plan to continue to pursue the funding, but if the district does no receive it additional cost-cutting steps will be taken, according to the Tribune.
CPS principals have until Monday afternoon to submit the budget cuts, the Tribune reports.
The public will have the chance to weigh in on the spending plan at two hearings being held at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Monday at the Chicago Board of Educations office in The Loop at 42. W. Madison St.
In between the hearings, students are holding a budget cut protest at the Thompson Center at 4:30 p.m.
The board is expected to vote on the new budget on Feb. 22.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is visiting Washington, D.C. Monday for a series of meetings related to priorities and issues facing the City of Chicago, including crime and infrastructure.
Today the Mayor will be in DC for a series of meetings with agencies and senior administration officials about our ongoing partnerships with the government, Emanuel spokesman Matt McGrath said in an email. Among the topics hell be discussing are several priority projects that would invest in Chicagos infrastructure and put people to work.
Although Emanuels office didnt provide a full agenda for Mondays meetings, a top mayoral aide told the Chicago Sun-Times that Chicago's crime would absolutely be discussed.
Sources also told the Sun-Times that Emanuel was scheduled to meet Monday with President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, as well as U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and White House Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, the former chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs.
According to the report, the mayor was also hoping to arrange meetings Monday with White House chief-of-staff Reince Priebus and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who promised increased prosecutions against Chicago gun crimes during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Since taking office last month, Trump has repeatedly made an example of the citys spiking violence, warning local authorities in January that he would send in the Feds if they cant get a handle on the carnage.
Emanuel shot back earlier this month, urging Trump to "just send them."
Send more FBI, DEA, ATF agents, Emanuel said during a news conference. We dont have to talk about it anymore.
Days after Trumps warning, Emanuel reportedly spoke to Priebus about the issue. The mayor's meetings in D.C. Monday come on the heels of yet another violent weekend in Chicago that left two innocent girls, aged 11 and 12, shot in the head.
Last week, Mayor Emanuel announced the next phase of his sweeping infrastructure plan, vowing to add 40,000 jobs through a variety of projects including an express rail to OHare International Airport and a new CTA Green Line station.
During his speech, the mayor also said he was making it a priority to complete an estimated $1 billion redevelopment of Chicagos Union Station, which he hopes to get federal funding for.
The project is reportedly being vetted as part of Trumps yet-to-be-announced federal infrastructure program, according to McClatchy. A preliminary plan, circulated by Trumps team to the National Governors Association, included the $1 billion Union Station upgrade, which would reportedly create an estimated 1,000 direct jobs.
Another project put forth in Trumps plan would modernize North Side CTA Lines at a cost of $2.1 billion. That project would create an estimated 2,100 jobs.
This story will be updated as more details on the mayor's trip become available.
Custody questions are being raised about the child of a Chicago woman imprisoned in Indonesia for the 2014 killing of her mother.
The paternal grandmother of Stella Schaefer petitioned for guardianship to bring the toddler back to Illinois, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The child was born March 17, 2015, as her parents, Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer faced charges in the murder of Mack's mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack. The 62-year-old's body was found in a suitcase.
The couple was convicted and sentenced to prison. Mack has been allowed to care for the child behind bars until she turns 2.
Kia Walker of Forest Park is Schaefer's mother. She filed for guardianship Thursday in Cook County.
She says her granddaughter deserves an equal opportunity to get a better start in life.
Custody questions are being raised about the child of a Chicago woman imprisoned in Indonesia for the 2014 killing of her mother.
The Chicago Tribune reports the paternal grandmother of Stella Schaefer petitioned for guardianship to bring the toddler back to Illinois.
The child was born March 17, 2015, as her parents, Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer faced charges in the murder of Mack's mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack. The 62-year-old's body was found in a suitcase.
The couple was convicted and sentenced to prison. Mack has been allowed to care for the child behind bars until she turns 2.
Kia Walker of Forest Park is Schaefer's mother. She filed for guardianship Thursday in Cook County.
She says her granddaughter deserves an equal opportunity to get a better start in life.
Just six days into his presidency, Donald Trump was informed his national security adviser had misled his vice president about contacts with Russia. Trump kept his No. 2 in the dark and waited nearly three weeks before ousting the aide, Michael Flynn, citing a slow but steady erosion of trust, White House officials said Tuesday.
Flynn was interviewed by the FBI about his telephone conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., a sign his ties to Russia had caught the attention of law enforcement officials.
But in the White House's retelling of Flynn's stunning downfall, his error was not that he discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russian before the inauguration a potential violation of a rarely enforced law but the fact that he denied it for weeks, apparently misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other senior Trump aides about the nature of the conversations. White House officials said they conducted a thorough review of Flynn's interactions, including transcripts of calls secretly recorded by U.S. intelligence officials, but found nothing illegal.
Pence, who had vouched for Flynn in a televised interview, is said to have been angry and deeply frustrated.
"The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable incidents is what led the president to ask General Flynn for his resignation," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Tuesday, one day after the president asked Flynn to leave.
Flynn, in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation, said Monday "there were no lines crossed" in his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
The explanation of the episode left many questions unanswered, including why Trump didn't alert Pence to the matter and why Trump allowed Flynn to keep accessing classified information and taking part in the president's discussions with world leaders up until the day he was fired.
White House officials also struggled to explain why Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway had declared the president retained "full confidence" in Flynn just hours before the adviser had to submit his letter of resignation.
Later Tuesday, The New York Times reported that U.S. agencies had intercepted phone calls last year between Russian intelligence officials and members of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign team. Current and former U.S. officials, who spoke to the Times anonymously, said they found no evidence that the Trump campaign was working with the Russians on hacking or other efforts to influence the election.
The White House shakeup, less than one month into Trump's tenure, marked another jarring setback for a new administration already dealing with tensions among top aides and a legal fight over the president's travel ban order. Flynn's firing also heightened questions about the president's friendly posture toward Russia. Democrats called for investigations into Flynn's contacts, and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Congress needed to know whether he had been acting with direction from the president or others.
Trump initially thought Flynn could survive the controversy, according to a person with direct knowledge of the president's views, but a pair of explosive stories in The Washington Post in recent days made the situation untenable. As early as last week, he and aides began making contingency plans for Flynn's dismissal, a senior administration official said. While the president was said to be upset with Flynn, he also expressed anger with other aides for "losing control" of the story and making his young administration look bad.
Pence spokesman Marc Lotter said Pence became aware that he had received "incomplete information" from Flynn only after the first Washington Post report Thursday night. Pence learned about the Justice Department warnings to the White House around the same time.
The officials and others with knowledge of the situation were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and requested anonymity.
Ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration, Pence and other officials insisted publicly that Flynn had not discussed sanctions in his talks with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. On Jan. 26, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates contacted White House counsel Don McGahn to raise concerns about discrepancies between the public accounting and what intelligence officials knew to be true about the contacts based on routine recordings of communications with foreign officials who are in the U.S.
The Justice Department warned the White House that the inconsistencies would leave the president's top national security aide vulnerable to blackmail from Russia, according to a person with knowledge of the discussion. The president was informed of the warnings the same day, Spicer said.
Flynn was interviewed by the FBI around the same time, according to a U.S. official was briefed on the investigation.
It was not immediately known what questions the FBI asked of Flynn or what he told law enforcement officials.
McGahn, along with chief of staff Reince Priebus and strategist Steve Bannon, also questioned Flynn multiple times in the ensuing weeks, a White House official said. Top aides also reviewed transcripts of Flynn's contacts with the ambassador, according to a person with knowledge of the review process.
At the same time, the official said Trump aides began taking steps to put some distance between the president and Flynn. CIA Director Mike Pompeo and retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, a top Flynn aide, started taking part in Trump's daily security briefings.
Top Trump advisers quietly met with Vice Admiral Robert Harward last week and spoke with the former Navy SEAL again Monday, the White House official said. Harward is seen as the top contender for the job, though former CIA Director David Petraeus and Kellogg, who has temporarily stepped into the role, are also under consideration.
Spicer said other "questionable incidents" had contributed to Flynn's firing. According to one person with knowledge of the matter, those incidents included Flynn seeking a security clearance for his son during the transition.
At the time, it was Pence who was again put in the position of defending Flynn on television, saying he had not sought a clearance for the retired general's son.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition. Spicer said Flynn was not discussing sanctions at the president's behest.
Before he resigned Monday night, Flynn told the investigative news nonprofit affiliated with the website The Daily Caller that he and Kislyak spoke only generally about the Russian diplomats expelled by President Barack Obama as part of the previous administration's response to Moscow's interference in the U.S. presidential election.
"It wasn't about sanctions. It was about the 35 guys who were thrown out," Flynn said. "It was basically: 'Look, I know this happened. We'll review everything.' I never said anything such as, 'We're going to review sanctions,' or anything like that."
Who said Captain America needs a shield to shut down a loudmouth?
On screen Chris Evan has battled everyone from The Red Skull to fellow Avenger Iron Man. But in recent days Evans has been taking on a real life troll in former Imperial Wizard of the KKK David Duke.
The Twitter war was apparently ignited by Evans' opposition to Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions.
If David Duke....DAVID!...DUKE!... thinks you're right, then you are unequivocally wrong. The confirmation of @jeffsessions is beyond words. https://t.co/CuLUznwO6S Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) February 9, 2017
Duke, a white nationalist who tossed his support to Trump during the campaign, fired back at the actor with a tweet of Evans with several women of color, including Oscar nominee Naomie Harris, questioning why the actor "hate the women of his people so much."
https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/830820650482880512
Evans fired one final volley at Duke Monday morning.
I don't hate them. That's YOUR method. I love. Try it. It's stronger than hate. It unites us. I promise it's in you under the anger and fear https://t.co/RGnH4rrblq Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) February 13, 2017
"I don't hate them. That's YOUR method. I love," Evans wrote.
An Enfield man reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds about what he thought was a fraudulent check.
Enclosed with the check for $69.99 was a letter addressed to Vincent Klezos. It was from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and explained Klezos was receiving the check as reimbursement for annual fees paid to a company called Student Financial Aid Services, Inc.
Klezos never took out student loans. Thinking it was a scam, he reported it NBC Connecticut Responds.
Our consumer team contacted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which confirmed the payment is legitimate. It stems from a 2015 settlement; the CFPB started distributing checks at the beginning of February.
The payments to consumers from this enforcement action dont actually relate to student loans; there were recurring fees charged by SFAS for FAFSA preparation services. Many consumers visited the website FAFSA.com and were subsequently charged a recurring fee each year without their knowledge or consent," CFPB spokeswoman, Sam Gilford said.
Those fees ranged from $67 to $85 and were renewed annually.
Student Financial Aid Services, Inc. agreed to pay $5.2 million in restitution. The company also ceased operations and turned over FAFSA.com to the U.S. Department of Education.
Four people were arrested after gunshots rang out during a large fight in Cromwell early Sunday morning.
Police said they received several 911 calls reporting a large fight outside Chicago Sams, at 51 Shunpike Road, at 12:40 a.m. Sunday and officers saw several people fleeing in the parking lot.
Witnesses gave descriptions of the people involved and several surrounding police departments helped to quickly arrest three suspects.
Twenty-four-year-old Sherron Barnes and 23-year-old Michael Bolton, both of Middletown, were charged with breach of peace and third-degree assault.
Andrew Brown, 24, of Waterbury, was charged with breach of peace and interfering with an officer.
While investigating, police arrested 28-year-old Michael Baecker, of Cromwell, and charged him with interfering with an officer.
Police said they found evidence of gunshots but it does not appear anyone was hit by gunfire.
Cromwell police and the midstate major crime squad are investigating.
Anyone with information should call Cromwell police at 860-635-2256.
A Boston University student from Shelton, Connecticut and two other students helped nab a man suspected of trying to steal five paintings from a Boston art gallery after the Super Bowl last weekend.
Mackenzie Thompson, a Shelton resident and Boston University student, said he and two other students were walking near the Galerie D'Orsay on Newbury Street after the Super Bowl last weekend and heard glass breaking.
Then, Thompson said, a man walked out with several paintings.
"We yell out, 'Hey, what's going on - did you take those?' He looks behind, sees us running after him, and he drops the paintings in attempt to flee. We really didn't have any thought process about it. We just chased after him and we grabbed him," Thompson said.
The three students chased the man down, apprehended him and flagged down a police officer.
The art thief took advantage of an empty Newbury Street as Boston was celebrating the New England Patriots' Super Bowl victory on Feb. 5.
"We were walking down to the Common after the Super Bowl and we were walking back on Newbury when we heard the glass break and saw some guy walking out with a bunch of paintings," Jesse Do, another of the students, said.
"We saw the guy come out with some paintings, looked at each other, and said, 'This isn't normal,'" added Chris Savino.
The three chased the man down, apprehended him and flagged down a police officer, who arrested Jordan Russell Leishman, 29, of Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Leishman was arraigned on Monday on multiple charges and ordered held without bail.
Surveillance video obtained this week captured the moment the theft happened and shows the suspect breaking the front door.
Among the stolen items were Picasso and Rembrandt etchings, some of the gallery's most prized pieces. In total, the pieces were worth about $50,000.
"There was a brick through the front door that was completely shattered, then there was a pane of glass shattered in the door itself, and that is how he was able to access - he put his arm through the broken glass to open the door," Camille Super, one of the fine arts consultants at the gallery, said.
International trade has been good for businesses in Texas and consumers.
One week after President Donald Trump took office, he suggested that the United States would impose a 20 percent tax on all imports from Mexico. There is still uncertainty surrounding international trade and the North American Trade Agreement.
President Trump will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday to discuss NAFTA.
Trade in Texas has increased under the North America Free Trade Agreement, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1994. Under NAFTA, tariffs were eliminated, investments and trade could flow freely between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Texas leads the nation with more than $270 billion worth of goods and services, which helped support 1.1 million American jobs. The majority of Texas exports head to Mexico. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2015 $92.5 billion goods and service were exported from Texas to Mexico and $25.5 billion to Canada.
Its almost hard to overstate how important trade is for Texas, Southern Methodist University professor of finance and economics Mike Davis said. Out of all of the states in the country we export more from Texas than anywhere else. We export a lot of energy, agricultural products, and lots of high-tech manufacturing goods come out of Texas and go to the rest of the world. We also have are car factories."
There is a give and take. The Lone Star States largest import from Mexico is vehicles and auto-parts. Even American based companies like General Motors and Ford purchase parts south of the border.
If Texas-based companies cant buy in the world market, if they cant get parts and raw materials at the best prices, they cant compete, Davis said.
Dallas police said two people were arrested and officers are searching for two more in connection with a robbery at a 7-Eleven in east Oak Cliff.[[413584163,R]]
According to police, officers responded to reports of a robbery at the store in the 2200 block of South Beckley Avenue at about 1:40 a.m. Monday morning.
Shortly after, officers chased a vehicle suspected in the robbery a few blocks away from the original crime scene. Two of the four robbers were captured, police said.
No injuries were reported and no further information was released.
Maren Morris, an Arlington native and country music break-out star, has won her first Grammy Award.
Morris won best country solo performance with her song "My Church." This is the first time Morris has attended the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
A watch party for Morris was held at Atomic Subs & Wings in Arlington. The party erupted in applause when the win was announced. [[413549153,C]]
Morris was also nominated for best new artist, best country album and best country song.
Morris got her first guitar at age 12 and began writing songs. On weekends, her dad would drive her across Texas to any venue that would let her perform. Some of her first gigs took place a few doors down from the salon at Grease Monkey. [[387340371,C]]
She moved to Nashville where she wrote songs for artists like Tim McGraw and Kelly Clarkson. She then focused on her own music and signed with Columbia Nashville.
Morris also won the 2016 CMA Award for new Artist of the Year and performed as a music guest on "Saturday Night Live."
A 33-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the December 2016 fatal shooting of an Arlington mom who was trying to sell jewelry to buy Christmas presents for her 6-year-old daughter, police say.
Arlington detectives, working with a U.S. Marshals task force, arrested Mario Hernan Lopez Gamez on Saturday.
Investigators said 33-year-old April Vancleave listed some jewelry for sale online in December 2016. Then, she and her husband agreed to meet the potential buyers inside the Target store on West Arbrook Boulevard, thinking they would be safe in a busy public place.
But when Vancleave and her husband came to meet the potential buyers at Target, they didn't show. Detectives believe they followed the couple home, instead, and when Vancleave's husband dropped her off and left for work, police said two men pulled up, stole her purse and shot her once, killing her. [[408861085,C]]
"I believe heavily in karma. They killed someone in cold blood and they're going to get what's coming to them," said Vancleave's stepsister, Margie Morton Aguirre.
Although police made an arrest, Aguirre said there will never be closure for the family.
"It still opens up old wounds. It was senseless. It was tragic. There was no reason for it," Aguirre said.
Lopez's bond was set at $150,000, according to an arrest warrant and affidavit issued for him.
The arrest warrant and affidavit also said a woman from Mansfield helped police connect the dots in the case.
After the murder, police released surveillance video from the Target showing two men that police believed may have been involved in Vancleave's murder.
Documents reveal the woman recognized the two men in the surveillance video. The woman called police and said the men responded to her resale ad.
She claimed she was robbed by them in November, the arrest warrant and affidavit said.
In the documents, police said one of the men in the surveillance video is Lopez. The status and identity of the other man in the video was not immediately known.
NBC 5 Reporter Alice Barr contributed to this report.
Residents in a Fort Worth neighborhood are concerned about a growing population of homeless camps.
[It is] a biohazard. I mean theres used needles, condoms [and] they are urinating [and] defecating in our creeks, Thomas Hamilton said. Its not safe for someone to take their kids to experience nature at the creek.
Hamilton has lived in the Meadowbrook area of Fort Worth for two years and has documented around 18 camps in his community.
People just going out to enjoy their neighborhood will go into a wrong area, so to speak, and not be aware of the dangers that lie there, Hamilton said. Heaven forbid some kids go off to the creek to play and something bad happens.
Hamilton said they have learned of a new threat.
People are actually setting booby traps along these creeks to keep people out of their camps, he said. All its going to take is for an innocent individual who doesnt know that these things exist and end up hurt or killed or something bad.
A North Dallas group that works with the homeless told police, while on an outreach mission, a homeless man said he set fish hooks around his camp and taught other homeless people how to do the same. Group members said they saw the hooks hanging in a trail, noticed a strand of barbed wire across a trail and a makeshift alarm system of leaves placed over sheet metal.
Fort Worth police sent a memo to officers saying, while their officers had not seen the devices, they should use caution.
Im not against the homeless, Fort Worth has some great programs to assist the homeless and help them get back on track and into productive lives, Hamilton said. Were all looking for solutions. One thing we spoke about was making it uncomfortable to camp to try to help these people move in the right direction to where the help is.
Police said a man has died after being shot near a Dallas intersection Monday morning. [[413582333,C]]
Dallas police said the man was shot in the 1300 block of Empire Central Drive near Interstate 35E.
The victim was transported by private vehicle to a hospital where he died, according to police.
Police blocked some westbound lanes of Empire Central Drive to northbound I-35W during the investigation. They reopened all lanes at about 8 a.m.
No further details have been released.
Since 1927, Fort Worth Troop 43 has helped boys become men thanks to the help of a local church thats been by their side every step of the way.
On Sunday, scouts past and present gathered outside of Arlington Heights Methodist Church to celebrate the nine decades that the church has chartered the troop.
"I think theres only one other troop in the state of Texas thats older than we are," said Scout Master Andy Davis.
The church has served as home base for the troop and helped them continue their mission with the Boy Scouts of America over all those years.
Scout members said thank you before Sundays service by frying up doughnuts and coffee campfire-style for church members. Members also set up various camp sites on the church lawn to show how much their techniques have changed over the decades.
A group of students from Cockrell Elementary School in Prosper are working on a big project.
The project it so big, it will help save many people from human trafficking in the West African country of Ghana.
Kids can make just as big of a difference as adults can, said Tyler Mercer, a fifth grade student at Cockrell.
Tyler and his classmates are proving just that.
All of my kids that I teach in Prosper just have huge hearts, said Kimberli Brackett, a fifth grade math teacher at Cockrell. And from day one they've been like, Tell us about your kids Miss Brackett. Tell about your kids. When are you going to tell us about Ghana?'
So, Brackett shared the story with her students Her story igniting something much bigger than she ever imagined.
Our teacher, Ms. Bracket, she has actually gone and saved trafficked children in Ghana, said Addison Smith, a fifth grade student at Cockrell. And we kept bugging her about who are those people on your wall and she finally said those are the kids that I saved in Ghana. And we were like, Well, we want to help. And thats how it was basically born. Its how it was stared.
The kids started raising money to build a school in Ghana. Since December, the kids have raised about $20,000.
Its all part of an effort to fight human trafficking in the West African country.
They are trafficked because they dont have an education, said Smith. So, we decided we are going to build a school there to break the cycle of everybody being trafficked there.
But raising money was not enough for the young minds. They wanted to start their own nonprofit organization. And that's just what they did.
They picked the name Kids Prosper Kids because it was huge, said Brackett. Because we are not just going to do things here or there. The kids are prospering each other already. The community is prospering each other already and now we get to do something that's going to prosper the whole world.
Details about the cost of the school and when it will be built are being worked out.
On Monday, Brackett says Kim Lewis from HGTV will meet with the kids to help design the school that will be built in Ghana.
A 33-year-old man is hospitalized in critical condition after Bryan police said he approached officers in a threatening manner and was shot.
Bryan authorities said in a statement that officers responded late Sunday to a disturbance call and were speaking with a woman when the man approached.
Police said he disregarded commands given by officers and made statements and movements that led them to believe he was armed.
An officer shot the unidentified man and he was taken to a hospital where he remained Monday. The officers and the woman were not hurt.
Authorities said the Texas Rangers are participating in the investigation into the shooting.
The officer who shot the man was placed on administrative leave, which is consistent with department procedure in an officer-involved shooting.
My Fit Foods, an Austin-based chain of health food stores with several locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has closed all of its stores.
On Sunday, My Fit Foods' website showed only a single page that announced the closure. The company said they were "deeply sorry for any inconvenience our closure may have caused you."
As of Sunday night, the company's Twitter account appeared to have been taken offline.
My Fit Foods last fall reported having more than 50 locations in five states, plus grocery retailers and corporate and college campuses.
My Fit Foods didn't immediately provide additional information on the locations, offering what the company called nutritionally balanced, ready-to-eat meals and snacks.
Pope Francis asked forgiveness for what he called an "absolute monstrosity" in the Roman Catholic Church's history in the preface to a new book by a survivor of clerical sexual abuse, NBC News reported.
"It is difficult for a victim of pedophilia to speak out about what they have endured and to describe the trauma that still persists many years later," Pope Francis writes in "Father, I Forgive You" by Daniel Pittet, a Swiss man who was repeatedly raped by a Capuchin friar as a child.
Francis has spoken out against clerical sexual abuse before, but his latest word on the subject is uniquely personal, with the pontiff saying the suicides of victims "weigh heavy on my heart, on my conscience and on the Church as a whole."
The book will be published in Italy on Thursday but La Republica newspaper ran the pope's preface in full on Monday.
Hollywood actor Gary Sinise, a longtime supporter of U.S. military veterans and their families, visited San Diego Saturday to put on a show with his band, the Lt. Dan Band.
Sinise, who runs The Gary Sinise Foundation, dropped into Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) for his organization's 5th annual Invincible Spirit Festival, an event that aims to show appreciation for veterans and their families, and the sacrifices they've made.
The fest included food created by celebrity chef Robert Irvine, special prize giveaways, face painting for kids and an eclectic car show.
The headliner was a performance by Sinise's band, whose namesake is inspired by the actor's iconic role as wounded U.S. military veteran Lt. Dan in the film, "Forrest Gump."
The Invincible Spirit Festivals are one of the many causes organized by the Gary Sinise Foundation to honor the organization's mission to support veterans and their families.
Im inspired each and every day by the men and women who serve our country, Sinse told NBC 7 on Saturday. This is a full time thing for me I started the foundation so that we could be an effective resource for our fellow citizens, too, who want to support the military.
The advocate for veterans also makes sure that those working for his foundation can relate to the men and women they help support.
Ambassador to the Gary Sinise Foundation and retired U.S. Marine Core Colonel Jay Vargas understands the importance of having veterans who served in the military work for the foundation. Col. Vargas helps counsel and provides resources for families and vets on suicide prevention measures, and understands the struggle of having PTSD.
The troops like that. They like to hear from somebody whos been through it, he tells NBC 7.
For the staff that work at NMCSD, this event reminds them of how important the work is that they do on a daily basis.
"[It] feels like we are supported," NMCSD staffer Teresa Miller said. "I think that a lot of people are under the impression that warriors are not getting wounded. We still have people out on the front lines and they are still getting wounded, and thats our job to take care of them. Were excited to see people coming out and supporting our troops.
Fellow employee Natasha Wooden shares the same passion for helping those recovering at NMCSD.
Every day I wake up and Im excited to come here to work. I know that the patients are going to be here waiting and were here to help them get better and continuing the legacy of what we do here as military and civilian employees.
For Chief Petty Officer Larry Deleon, the sense of community that the Invincible Spirit Fest invokes reminds him of the importance of helping those who strengthen this community.
As a fellow active duty, were here to help out each other -- retirees, and veterans. It puts a little notch in your heat knowing that everybody is here for the cause, taking care of everybody, he said.
Authorities are searching for a baby Gray Whale that swam into the San Diego Bay Sunday morning, hoping to create a safe zone to protect it from boats in the area.
The U.S. Coast Guard began searching after an initial report at approximately 8:15 a.m. of a young gray whale entering the bay.
The Coast Guard contacted National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and has a boat out looking for the whale. If they find the whale, they would create a safety zone to keep high speed vessels out of the area directly surrounding it.
It is unclear what part of the bay the whale may be in.
Coast Guard officials were told Gray Whales commonly pass through the region this time of year.
Southern California agencies are sending help to Northern California where nearly 200,000 people were ordered to evacuate Sunday due to concerns about a spillway from the nation's tallest dam.
The Oroville Dam is just outside of Oroville, about an hour north of Sacramento, and serves mainly to provide drinking water. Evacuations were ordered Sunday due to erosion on the dam's emergency spillway, raising the threat of water pouring over and into low-lying neighborhoods.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris said at least 250 California law enforcement officers are in the area of the dam and evacuation routes to manage the exodus of residents and ensure evacuated towns don't face looting or other criminal activity. If the emergency spillway failed, it could send a 30-foot wall of water into residential areas, according to authorities.
Southern California agencies assisting with the response include a 14-member team with the Long Beach Fire Department Flood Rescue team. The Orange County Fire Authority, the city of Orange and Anaheim all teamed up to deploy a 15-person Swift Water Rescue team late Sunday evening.
A California National Guard official said they will provide eight helicopters to assist with emergency spillway reconstruction. Gov. Jerry Brown issued an emergency order late Sunday to fortify authorities' response.
President Donald Trump praised the "outstanding" trade relationship between the United States and Canada Monday, saying he would only be "tweaking" it going forward.
The comments were received positively by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who came to the United States seeking to ensure Canada was not crippled as Trump re-negotiates the North American Free Trade Agreement. The neighboring leaders, polar opposites in nearly every way, took up the thorny subjects of trade and immigration at their first face to face meeting Monday.
"We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada. We'll be tweaking it," Trump told reporters of the trade relationship. "We'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It's a much less severe situation than what's taking place on the southern border."
At a joint news conference after their meetings, the two emphasized their shared goals. Trump pledged to work with Canada "in pursuit of our many shared interests." Trudeau spoke of a special bond and the "deep abiding respect" between the two countries, though he also said that "relationships between neighbors are pretty complex."
While the two leaders stressed shared interests, their contrasting views were also on display. Responding to questions from reporters, Trump defended his refugee and immigration orders, saying that "we cannot let the wrong people in." Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to "pursue our policies of openness."
Trudeau later noted that there have been times when the two countries "have differed in our approaches." But he said "the last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves."
On trade, Trump said he would be "tweaking" the relationship with Canada, but said "it's a much less severe situation than what's happening on the southern border." He also noted the "outstanding trade relationship with Canada." Those were likely welcome comments for Canadians concerned that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Trump greeted Trudeau with a firm handshake as he arrived at the White House on a blustery morning. The two posed silently before reporters, until Trump suggested they shake hands for the cameras. Trudeau did bring a personal gift a photo of Trump with Trudeau's father, the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Trump said he knew and respected Pierre Trudeau and would keep the photo in a "very special place."
At a roundtable discussion with female executives from the United States and Canada, Trump and Trudeau announced a task force focused on women in the workforce. Trump said it was important to ensure the economy is a place where "women can work and thrive." Trudeau stressed that women have had to overcome barriers to succeed in business.
Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump was in attendance at the meeting and helped recruit participants and set the agenda. The high-profile meeting is evidence of her rising policy influence.
Trudeau, age 45, and Trump, age 70, have vastly different outlooks of the world.
Trudeau is a liberal who champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. He calls himself a feminist and his Cabinet is 50 percent women. Trump has few women in his Cabinet. He has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees.
Trump's order to temporarily halt entry into the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim nations, which is tied up in court, might come up during his bilateral meeting with Trudeau. But Trudeau is expected to focus on common economic interests.
Relations with the U.S. are crucial as more than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of U.S. exports go to Canada. There are fears among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Trudeau's close cooperation with Trump and the first daughter on women in business could ease some worries among Canadians that the U.S. president will enact protectionist measures that could hurt the Canadian economy. It could also alleviate some fears that Trump will be as combative with Trudeau as he has been with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.
A Canadian official said Trudeau's administration had suggested the task force, because the prime minister considers the issue of working women an important part of his agenda and economic growth plan.
"It's a smart thing if Canada proposed this," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto. "It takes attention off of NAFTA. And from Trump's point of view, it contributes to softening Trump's image, and he's got a problem with women."
Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy advisor to Trudeau, said the prime minister needs to build a relationship with Trump to ensure Canada is not shut out economically.
"The overriding priority will be for Canada to maintain secure and reliable access to the U.S. market and the supply chains that crisscross the border," Paris said.
Trudeau has been preparing for the Trump meeting for months. He will also meet with legislative leaders on Capitol Hill.
Graffiti is on the rise in Southern California. In the city of Los Angeles alone, requests for removal are up 64 percent over the past five years. But Santa Monica-based Beautify Earth is empowering street artists to use their talent to help end urban blight.
"Artists are people who can use the support to do something positive and create the next renaissance of our planet," said Beautify Earth founder Evan Meyer.
The nonprofit is dedicated to turning urban blight into colorful murals. What started as a grassroots movement along Lincoln Blvd. in Santa Monica has grown to a nationwide collective of street artists who are changing the face of the world-- one mural at a time.
"There's millions and millions of sad walls and the world is our canvas," said founder Evan Meyer.
*********** https://www.instagram.com/p/BP-lHuOD3M1/?taken-by=beautifyearth ********
Businesses can donate their walls and community members can sponsor a project, giving artists like Marcel "Sel" Blanco a chance to share their talent.
"There's a lot of ugliness in the world, so if I can put up a little beautify, I feel good," said Blanco.
It might also keep new graffiti artists out of trouble. Back in the 1980's, Blanco was a rebellious teenager who got kicked out of school for illegally spraying graffiti. He relates to young artists who are frustrated by not having an outlet for their artform.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQa04rgjf78/?taken-by=beautifyearth
Blanco said, "The more I see them pull art out of school, the more graffiti I see up. A creative mind is going to express itself one way or another."
He eventually graduated and went to art school, where he came to realize his creativity wasn't a crime.
"It finally felt like I wasn't insane. When i went to art school I met people who had that in common. They were outcasts left out of school with a different way of thinking."
He has gone on to paint dozens of murals around Southern California since he linked up with Beautify Earth, lifting spirits of countless people along the way.
"People come up and say thanks for putting this here, now i have pride in the community. They didn't before," said Blanco.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOC-VDqjVNB/
He said he hopes young artists will capitalize on the support Beautify Earth provides.
Blanco Said, "Instead of just putting your name up you could put a whole piece up and not sneak out at night. Take your time with it, grow as an artist and see what you can do."
https://beautifyearth.or
Graffiti is on the rise in Southern California. In the city of Los Angeles alone, requests for removal are up 64 percent over the past five years. But Santa Monica-based Beautify Earth is empowering street artists to use their talent to help end urban decay.
"Artists are people who can use the support to do something positive and create the next renaissance of our planet," said Beautify Earth founder Evan Meyer.
The nonprofit is dedicated to turning urban decay into colorful murals. What started as a grassroots movement along Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica has grown to a nationwide collective of street artists who are changing the face of the world one mural at a time.
"There's millions and millions of sad walls and the world is our canvas," said founder Evan Meyer.
Businesses can donate their walls and community members can sponsor a project, giving artists like Marcel "Sel" Blanco a chance to share their talent.
"There's a lot of ugliness in the world, so if I can put up a little beauty, I feel good," Blanco said.
It might also keep new graffiti artists out of trouble. Back in the 1980s, Blanco was a rebellious teenager who got kicked out of school for illegally spraying graffiti. He relates to young artists who are frustrated by not having an outlet for their artform.
"The more I see them pull art out of school, the more graffiti I see up. A creative mind is going to express itself one way or another," he said.
He eventually graduated and went to art school, where he came to realize his creativity wasn't a crime.
"It finally felt like I wasn't insane. When i went to art school I met people who had that in common. They were outcasts left out of school with a different way of thinking."
He has gone on to paint dozens of murals around SoCal since he linked up with Beautify Earth, lifting spirits of countless people along the way.
"People come up and say thanks for putting this here, now I have pride in the community. They didn't before," Blanco said.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOC
He said he hopes young artists will capitalize on the support Beautify Earth provides.
"Instead of just putting your name up you could put a whole piece up and not sneak out at night. Take your time with it, grow as an artist and see what you can do."
To get involved or sponsor the project, visit https://beautifyearth.org.
It was a Sunday ritual for them an early bicycle ride with the usual group of friends.
But on Aug. 8, 2012, Chris McConnell and Dean Amelkin never got to finish the route and go home to their families. A suspected burglar fleeing Broward Sheriffs deputies ran a light, hit another vehicle, then slammed into two bicycles, killing McConnell, 61, and Amelkin, 60.
"He was 10 minutes late and I knew something was wrong, said Donna Amelkin, his wife of 28 years.
In 2014, Delbert Efren Rodriguez-Gutierrez, a young street artist, was hit by an unmarked police vehicle that was chasing him as he ran on foot from Miami Police undercover officers trying to arrest him for tagging or spraying painting, a minor offense, at a privately-owned building in Wynwood.
He died.
And before the year of 2016 came to a close, Christianne Weiner became another casualty of an alleged police chase. Weiner was driving her 10-year old son to the dentist the morning of Dec. 27, 2016 when a 17-year-old boy, fleeing away from Coral Springs police driving a stolen vehicle ran a red light and collided with Weiners Mercedes.
The beloved 53-year-old elementary school teacher died leaving behind a husband, three children and a community devastated by the loss. Her son survived.
It happens almost weekly in South Florida police pursuits ending in crashes. In 2015, the Broward Sheriffs Office and Miami-Dade Police Department the largest law enforcement agencies in South Florida reported being involved in 44 chases combined that ended in crashes.
In Florida, at least 196 people have been killed innocent bystanders, suspects fleeing police and officers as well in police pursuits documented from 2002 until 2015, according to data provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Nationwide, at least 4,048 people police, innocent bystanders, and feeling suspects have been killed during the same period.
Most law enforcement agencies have vehicle pursuit policies that allow police to pursue suspects of violent crimes and specifically forbid them from chasing suspects of non-violent offenses such as car thieves, burglars or drug buyers.
But in some cases people are injured and/or killed during high-speed chases between police and suspects that too often begin with a traffic violation or a misdemeanor.
Sometimes officers, in the heat of the moment, engage in vehicle pursuits for minor infractions and supervisors in some cases fail to stop chases before they become deadly, records show.
Whats more, pursuits are not always documented as required by policy, and in some cases, law enforcement officials have denied that a pursuit took place like Amelkins and Weiners case even when circumstances suggest the opposite.
Retired Capt. Tom Gleason, who trains officers about pursuits, said agencies must take a look at their own vehicle pursuit data to address issues with their policies.
"The risk is too high than the reward," Gleason said. "We need to ask ourselves how can we apprehend them later? I dont want to try running a car in downtown Miami at 100 miles per hour. Its a risk to the publicto everybody."
Broward Sheriff Lt. Col. Jim Polan said BSO changed its policy after Sheriff Scott Israel took office in 2013. Polan is responsible for upholding the current pursuit policy, which now specifically defines "forcible felony" as the only reason for allowing a pursuit.
"Chasing folks for a traffic violation, for stealing my phone out of my car, for breaking my window," Polan said. "The risks outweigh the benefits. The risk of catching you does not outweigh the possible harm that may come during the car chase."
BSO vehicle pursuit policy states that deputies can engage in a vehicle pursuit when the deputy has reasonable belief that an occupant of the vehicle has committed or is in the process of committing a forcible felony or has a reasonable belief that pursuing the fleeing vehicle is necessary to prevent the death or serious bodily injury to any person.
The agency collects data on vehicle pursuits every year, which is later reviewed by the Pursuit Review Board to determine whether a pursuit was justified and theres a need to issue any disciplinary action against deputies and supervisors.
"There have been a few times that I'd tell the PRB, 'I dont agree with this, send it back. We need more information.' I think that having that very strong level of accountability has helped this policy tremendously and in return it has helped the agency," Polan said.
Even though the number of vehicle chases have dropped since Sheriff Israel was elected, the trend has remained the same many vehicle chases begin with a traffic infraction, a violation of BSOs vehicle pursuit policy, and many of them end in a crash.
Almost two-thirds of vehicle chases started with a traffic infraction in 2012 and one out of six vehicle pursuits ended in a crash. In 2015, only 24 percent of vehicle pursuits originated with a traffic infraction and almost a quarter of them concluded with a crash.
The events that unfolded before the violent crash that killed Amelkin and McConnell started with a non-violent crime two young men breaking into cars as people slept in their homes.
And in just 18 minutes during that August morning in 2012, the lives of many would change forever after Obrian Oakley decided to drive away and leave his friend, Sadik Baxter, behind.
After a night at the Seminole Casino in Hollywood, the duo drove to Rock Creek, a two-mile development east of I-75 and north of Stirling Road, to steal items from inside vehicles parked in driveways.
Baxter was arrested quickly after a neighbor spotted him breaking into his car and called 911. Oakley, who told investigators he never got out of the vehicle, drove away.
BSO deputies followed as Oakley got onto Stirling Road and then Palm Avenue.
Driving at 81-miles-per-hour, Oakley ran a light at the intersection of Sheridan Street and Palm Avenue striking a vehicle and plowing into Amelkin and McConnell, killing them instantly, records show.
Donna Amelkin knew something was wrong when someone rang her doorbell before noon.
"It began with two stupid kids breaking into cars," said Amelkin, adding it ended in "two murders."
Oakley, then 26, and Baxter, then 25, were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, among other charges including burglary, for the deaths of Amelkin and McConnell. They are serving life sentences in prison.
Donna Amelkin blames the man behind the wheel for her husbands death, but also the deputy, who was chasing Oakley for 2.5 miles.
"That is [BSO] the people who are supposed to protect us," said Amelkin, an English teacher. "Did they make a good decision that morning? Of course not."
The Broward County Sheriffs Office in court documents denies there ever was a pursuit and no vehicle pursuit report exists.
But NBC 6 Investigators obtained a surveillance video and sheriffs audio recordings that seem to say otherwise.
Surveillance video from a school, just 500 yards north of the crash on Palm Avenue, shows the suspect vehicle speeding. Four seconds behind him the first Broward deputy in pursuit and then 5.5 seconds behind is the second deputy.
When BSOs Polan learned about the details that led to the pursuit and watched the surveillance video, he said such a pursuit would have not been justified under the current policy.
"If all the information you are telling me is correct and accurate, and I can presume that it is, then that would be classified as a pursuit, Polan said.
In court records, the sheriff claims there was no pursuit, but police dispatch recordings from that day are peppered with pursuit references.
"I need you guys over here Sheridan and Palm regarding a 31 and 21 and two bicyclists got struck. I presume theyre 10-7 (deceased) because they got yellow tarp over them," a supervisor said when he called a detective at 7:30 a.m.
"From a pursuit?" the detective asked.
"Yeah," the supervisor responded.
"We are involved or outside agency?" the detective asked.
"We are," the supervisor said.
Life Without Her Partner
Its been over three years since Donna Amelkins lost her husband. She misses him and the life they had together.
"We didnt do exotic things. We couldnt afford it, but we liked just being together," she said. "It was a really nice time in our lives. He loved turning 60."
The mother of three says she knew little about vehicle pursuit policies before she got that knock on the door.
But shes certain about one thing.
"We do believe had there not been a police chase, he [her husband] would be alive, the high school teacher said. "We all believe that."
Donna Amelkin is suing BSO for negligence.
"It was tragic, it was unnecessary, it was careless, it was needless and negligent," she said. "Maybe if more cops didnt chase when they were not supposed to, there would be less deaths, less violence."
As for Oakleys and Baxters convictions and prison sentences: The Amelkins, including her three adult children all attorneys practicing in the New York-area, believe the punishment is too harsh. The young attorneys wrote letters to the judge presiding over the case, stating as much.
"These two 26-year-old guys did not wake up that day to go kill somebody and that I believe in my heart and soul, she said. Do I think they were stupid? Yes. Did they deserve to be punished for something? One-hundred percent. Not felony homicide."
The attorney representing the estate of Miami Marlins star Jose Fernandez is responding to lawsuits filed by the families of two men who were killed in a boat crash with the pitcher.
Ralph Fernandez, the attorney representing the Fernandez estate, says he speaks for Jose's mom. He does not wish to comment on the merits of the lawsuits, but is confident that the final investigation report will dispel any misconceptions.
Fernandez says the 24-year-old Marlins pitcher was an expectant father, making this case even more difficult.
"I was extremely disappointed with the timing given that Mariah is about to have the baby and she did not need to have any additional medical tension," he told NBC 6 Sunday.
The pitcher died back in September after his boat crashed into a jetty just off of Miami Beach. Eduardo Rivero, 25, and 27-year-old Emilio Macias were also on board and died. Now the families of the two men are suing the Jose Fernandez estate, both seeking $2 million.
"He had insurance on the boat and the attorney has made a decision not to accept a tender of $1 million and to demand in excess of what could be in the estate. Which means that Jose Fernandez's little girl would have nothing," Fernandez said.
Autopsy reports state that Fernandez had alcohol and cocaine in his system before the fatal boat crash. An autopsy report for Rivero indicates that he too had cocaine and alcohol the morning of the collision. Macias had alcohol, but no illegal drugs in his system.
What remains unclear is whether or not Fernandez was driving the boat. Ralph Fernandez is confident the official crash investigation will support their position that Jose was not driving the boat at the time of the crash.
"That is something that will probably be resolved at the time that the homicide report is finally published," Fernandez said.
Fernandez said they have been in a holding pattering waiting for that report which would allow them to address the findings which will support their position. NBC 6 reached out to Christopher Royer, the attorney representing the families of Rivero and Macias, but hasn't heard back.
Coral Gables officials put an end to motels that offer hourly rentals along one major roadway they say cater to prostitution but need the help of the city of Miami to continue with their plans.
The city commission approved an ordinance in December that prohibits hourly rentals at hotels and motels in the city. The move which fines the business between $5,000 and $15,000 depending on the offense was designed to shut down many of the hotels located along SW 8th Street that border the city.
However, just one of those hotels buildings that can be seen starting west of LeJeune Road all the way to the Palmetto Expressway featuring neon signs, some with hearts and other symbols is actually in the city limits of Coral Gables, as the rest fall within the jurisdiction of the city of Miami.
Officials from Coral Gables recently met with Miami city commissioner Francis Suarez to discuss a possible agreement between the cities to help police the area and enforce restrictions.
"I look forward to hopefully implementing this and cleaning up an area that for such a long time has been a blight not only for the city of Miami but for the city of Coral Gables," Commissioner Vince Lago said. "For some reason theres been a blind eye turned to it for a long time."
"I think that oftentimes this kind of activity can be seasonal, and when theres an uptick in it everyone starts paying attention," Suarez said. "It all depends on where we see things happening."
Existing zone code currently defines hotels as utilized for daily, weekly and monthly occupancy.
The Stardust Motel, which is located in the affected area, released a statement to NBC 6 regarding the crackdown:
"We do not condone, nor permit any illegal activity on or about our business premises or its vicinity. We have in the past cooperated with law enforcement any time we have been requested to do so, and are always ready to do anything necessary to combat prostitution and drug abuse."
A disturbing sight in one Boca Raton neighborhood has residents on edge and wondering who would do such a thing.
Those living in the area off San Salvador Drive woke up Sunday to find a swastika painted on a car sitting on the side of one road. Residents told NBC affiliate WPTV they are saddened and worried after seeing the image of hate in the predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
"It's just terrifying because I never saw anything like that before in my life," said 9-year-old Judah Lutz. "I never saw someone spray paint a car like that out of nowhere, and especially that sign. It's just scary."
Palm Beach Sheriffs Office deputies responded to the area, taking fingerprints and asking residents for any surveillance video that can be used in their investigation.
"They think it's a joke," said Yona Lunger, a community activist from Miami who has helped to set up a neighborhood watch in the area after the incident. "It's a very serious crime, and if the individual who's done this gets caught, it's serious consequences."
Anyone with information is asked to call the PBSO.
Miramar High School is mostly known for two highly unrelated things: powerhouse football teams and for being the alma mater of Johnny Depp. Oh, but theres so much more going on at this south Broward County institution. The home of the Patriots has two magnet programs and, basically, something for every interest.
"We have over 60 clubs and organizations, its actually hard to think of something Miramar doesnt offer," said Maria Formoso, the schools principal.
Got school spirit and an overwhelming desire to let it show? Miramar Highs cheerleading squad just finished among the nations top ten teams at major competition in Orlando.
One could argue the signature program at the school is the aviation magnet, in which students learn all facets of flying and the aviation industry. Its a partnership with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. When students in the program graduate, they leave high school with 24 college credits from Embry-Riddle.
"It really prepares them, not only for college but also beyond," said Formoso, who points out the program also exposes kids to contacts in all areas of the aviation world.
"The aviation program, of course, has a strong stem connection and it allows the students to explore areas, everything from flight to air traffic control to engineering, meteorology," said John Lamb, who is the schools magnet program coordinator.
Miramar High has an award-winning speech and debate team. It also has a unique partnership with the Miramar Police Department, which sponsors the criminal justice course. The City hopes the new, extremely popular program will funnel new recruits into law enforcement careers.
Several high schools have the International Baccalaureate Program. Miramars is the largest in Broward County. The academically rigorous magnet program sends graduates to the best universities in the country, from MIT to Stanford, in part because it teaches students to connect the dots between subjects.
"They are gonna be able to be better readers, better thinkers, and theyre gonna be able to see things as a whole and not just a narrow field of view, explained Jermaine White, who teaches IB biology.
Next time you drive by that big school on the north side of the Turnpike Extension just west of University Drive, think about all the learning going on behind those walls.
A police-involved shooting in North Miami Beach has officers from multiple agencies on the scene Monday.
Crews from both Miami-Dade and North Miami Beach Police departments responded to a home near Northeast 13th Avenue and 151st Street.
Police said they received a call about a burglary at the aforementioned location. When North Miami Beach officers arrived there was a confrontation with two suspects and the driver of the getaway car was shot.
It appears the suspect drove through a hedge before shots were fired. The suspects took off and ran about a block away where an NMB K-9 bit one the suspects, police said.
Chopper 6 captured at least two people being taken away in ambulances one in handcuffs and neither appearing to have serious injuries while another man was in handcuffs and being talked to by officers.
Police said they arrested 20-year-old Dwanaunne Williams and 33-year-old Olajuwon Baker.
The area where the K-9 bit the suspect is within Miami-Dade Police's jurisdiction. North Miami Beach Police requested the County's aid in the police-involved investigation.
No officers were hurt.
Participants from across Miami-Dade County are fasting throughout the week heading into Fridays County Commission Meeting calling for social justice for the South Florida immigrant community.
Called the "Fast for Social Justice," faith leaders from St. Stephens Episcopal Church and community members say they will take part in the 90-hour fast to send a message to Gimenez.
"I am not sure what to expect but whatever pain or discomfort I may feel pales in comparison to the anxiety that thousands of families, immigrant families are facing right now in Miami Dade County," activist Muhammed Malik said.
Trump says he will deny federal grants to what have been called sanctuary cities and counties that don't fully cooperate with immigration authorities. Gimenez directed the Miami Dade Department of Corrections to comply with detainer requests.
Those request mean if an undocumented immigrant in jail is flagged by immigration officials, the jail will hold them up to two days while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents then determine whether or not to pick that person up of let them free.
"As a mayor of a county that has so many immigrants both in terms of first generation but also to a past generations, we think that he owes it to them to let the courts decide that and not take an impromptu decision by himself," said protester Elbert Garcia.
Protests have taken place at County Commission meetings in the past few weeks after Gimenezs decision, while the Miami Beach City Commission addressed the issue last week at their meeting, saying they would ask the mayor to reverse his position.
"This is a fast which is offered as a special spiritual intention 'for' something, not against something," St. Stephens Rev. Willie Allen-Faiella said.
What to Know Most of the tri-state, including New York City, is under a wind advisory Monday
The National Weather Services warns of wind from 20 mph to 30 mph with gusts up to 60 mph
By early morning, the wind had already been blamed for a transformer fire and train suspensions
Double-pane-glass windows on the 23rd and 14th floors of a Manhattan hotel somehow shattered late Monday morning, sending glass flying to the ground, though no one was hurt, city officials and hotel representatives said.
Authorities were called to the Millenium Hilton on Church Street around 10:30 a.m. for reports of falling glass.
According to hotel spokesman Chris Hill, only the exterior pane of the 23rd-floor window broke. The room was vacant at the time. Photos from inside showed a gaping hole in the window pane.
City officials said a 14th-floor window directly below the 23rd-floor one that broke also shattered. While the cause of the shattered glass remains unclear, crews were planning to cut out the remaining pieces amid concern 60-mph wind gusts could send the rest tumbling to the street.
The Department of Buildings responded to the scene.
The sidewalk below was roped off and the nearby street was shut down as a precaution.
"The well-being, safety and security of our guests are of paramount importance and we continue to make every effort to ensure that all practices and standards are in line with strict safety and security regulations," Hill said in a statement. "The hotel is currently cooperating fully with the local authorities in their investigation."
It was the second time in little more than a month shattered glass fell from the lower Manhattan building. In early January, the Department of Buildings said a piece of metal flew off a nearby building and broke a 27th-floor window of the hotel. No one was hurt in that accident either.
An investigation is underway after Ku Klux Klan fliers were found outside homes in two towns in Burlington County, New Jersey.
On Sunday around 11:45 a.m. police were called to a home on South Boulevard Avenue in Maple Shade after a resident found a KKK recruitment flier outside the house. Responding officers searched the neighborhood and found three more KKK fliers outside of two additional homes and a closed business.
I am surprised, said Sandy Sauselein, a Maple Shade resident. I dont know. It was a shock to me.
The fliers, which were placed in plastic bags and weighed down with rice, include the messages love your own race, stop homosexuality and race mixing, and join the Klan today. The fliers also include a phone number with a North Carolina area code. When NBC10 called the number it went straight to a recorded message.
"Greetings you've reached the loyal white knights of the Ku Klux Klan," a man in the recording says. "The largest and most active klan in America."
Investigators believe whoever delivered the fliers doesnt know the area well since one of the locations where one was found is a closed business storefront.
Theres no room for that kind of hate here in Maple Shade, said Lou Manchello, a Maple Shade council member.
Rita Strough also told NBC10 she found the flier outside her home in Cinnaminson, New Jersey.
"This was very disturbing to me," she said. "It just doesn't make any sense at all. They're afraid of something. What is it? What drives that fear? How can they not see the humanity in another person regardless of what God they pray to or what color their skin is?"
If you have any information on who distributed the fliers, please call Maple Shade Police at 856-779-7111 or Cinnaminson Police at 856-829-6666.
A shooting at a Valentine's Day party killed one person and injured three others, police said.
The party was in the basement of a church at 253 South William Street in Newburgh, police said. The basement had been rented out and the church wasn't connected to the shooting, police said.
Gevontay Owens-Grant, 24, of Newburgh, was killed in the shooting, police said. He was pronounced dead at St. Luke's Hospital.
The motive wasn't clear. No other information was immediately available.
Newburgh is on the Hudson River in Orange County, about 60 miles north of New York City.
Police asked anyone with information to contact the City of Newburgh Police Department at (845)561-3131.
A 16-year-old boy has been hospitalized in critical condition and faces charges of driving while intoxicated after a police chase ended with a two-car collision, authorities said.
He was driving a 2016 Ford Fusion southbound in the northbound lanes of Lakeland Avenue in Bohemia shortly before 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Suffolk County police said. An officer tried to pull him over but he fled, and authorities followed.
The teen crashed into another car at an intersection shortly after, police said. He was taken the hospital. The woman driving the other car was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.
Authorities say other charges are pending against the teen in addition to DWI.
Gov. Chris Christie has rejected legislation to cut the sales tax in five New Jersey cities as part of a longtime program that allowed businesses to levy half the state's rate.
Christie conditionally vetoed the legislation on Friday. He called the Urban Enterprise Zone program that dates back three decades a failure that hurts state tax revenues.
The program expired at the start of the year for Bridgeton, Camden, Newark, Plainfield and Trenton.
It allowed businesses to offer half of the state's full 6.875 percent sales tax, which took effect Jan. 1.
The legislation came in response to a proposed 10-year expansion of the program that the Republican governor vetoed last year.
Lawmakers say the bill would have helped urban areas compete economically.
One person was injured in a fiery crash involving a school bus and two other vehicles in Horsham, Pennsylvania
The crash occurred Monday afternoon on Lower State and Horsham roads. A bus carrying students from Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School in Maple Glenn was involved in an accident with a van and one other vehicle. The crash caused the van to catch fire.
One person who was not on the bus suffered non-life-threatening injuries. None of the students on the bus were hurt. They were released to their parents.
Officials continue to investigate the cause of the crash.
A second man sought in the killings of three people found shot to death in a New Jersey apartment was arrested Saturday, authorities said.
Lavelle Davis, 33, of Galloway, was found early Saturday in Yonkers, Essex County prosecutors said. They declined to provide further details about his capture.
The arrest came one day after the other suspect, former Egg Harbor Township resident Jimmy Mays, was captured in Maryland.
Both men are charged with three counts of murder, as well as conspiracy, felony murder, robbery and weapons offenses.
Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for the slayings of 45-year-old Michael Davis, of Maplewood, 30-year-old Roshana Kelson, of Paterson, and 44-year-old Lance Fraser, of Newark. The three were found shot to death in a Maplewood home on Jan. 29.
Authorities say Lavelle Davis is not related to Michael Davis.
It's not clear whether Lavelle Davis or Mays have attorneys.
Hundreds of thousands of people remained under evacuation orders Monday in the low levels of Oroville, California, and several areas downstream from Lake Oroville as authorities try to fix erosion of the emergency spillway at the nation's tallest dam, which could unleash uncontrolled flood waters if it fails.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville one of California's largest man-made lakes had water levels so high that an emergency spillway at Oroville Dam was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years. The main spillway was damaged in storms this week.
The evacuation of nearly 200,000 people was ordered Sunday afternoon after engineers spotted a hole on the concrete lip of the secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour. The potential impact would be all the way to MarysvilleYuba City and Beale Air Force Base.
Crews on Monday were busy filling large bags with rocks to help shore up the erosion concerns along the spillway. Those bags are expected to be flown via helicopters to the spillway and installed in hopes of quelling a serious flood.
The sheriff's office posted the following on its Facebook page Sunday afternoon, emphasizing that the evacuation orders were not a drill:
"A hazardous situation is developing with the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. Operation of the auxiliary spillway has led to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of the structure. Failure of the auxiliary spillway structure will result in an uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville.
"In response to this developing situation, DWR (Department of Water Resources) is increasing water releases to 100,000 cubic feet per second.
"Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered."
Greg Levias, who was evacuating with his wife, Kaysi, two boys and a dog said, "I'm just shocked."
What they couldn't fit in their trunk they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
Panicked and angry residents sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the evacuation order was given.
Late Sunday, officials said the evacuation orders remained in place despite the fact water was no longer spilling over the eroded area.
"There is still a lot of unknowns," Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference. "We need to continue to lower the lake levels and we need to give the Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the area."
At least 188,000 people on Sunday had been asked to evacuate areas south of the dam, according to state officials. They said the cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheatland, Yuba City, Plumas Lake and Olivehurst are all under evacuation orders. Those mandatory orders remained in place as of Monday morning, with the exception of Wheatland, which was under a voluntary evacuation mandate.
Gov. Jerry Brown issued an emergency order Sunday night to bolster the states response to the situation.
"Ive been in close contact with emergency personnel managing the situation in Oroville throughout the weekend, and its clear the circumstances are complex and rapidly changing," Brown said. "I want to thank local and state law enforcement for leading evacuation efforts and doing their part to keep residents safe. The state is directing all necessary personnel and resources to deal with this very serious situation."
Traffic jammed up quickly on highways 99 and 70 out of the area. The southbound lanes on each of the highways eventually were closed and made into northbound lanes to aid in the evacuations.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the dam in Northern California on Saturday for the first time in its nearly 50-year history after heavy rainfall.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier in the week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers don't know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the DWR, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it's being used for water releases.
Department of Water Resources spokesman Eric See said earlier Sunday that skies were clear, and the overflow was steadily slowing. It was expected to stop by midday Monday.
The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
Some evacuees waited for hours to get out of Marysville and surrounding communities. Judy and John Jenkins grabbed what they could loaded up their motor home and left home shortly after 5 p.m., and at 7 p.m. they were still stuck in traffic just a few miles from home.
"Even when we evacuated for '97, it wasnt that bad," John Jenkins said. "This is the worst Ive ever seen it."
A list of evacuation shelters, animal shelters and school closures can be found on the Butte County website.
The sheriff's office said residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico and that other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, according to The Associated Press.
Sheriff Honea said engineers with the California Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion on the emergency spillway was not advancing as fast as they thought, but water was still coming over the dam at that time.
"We had to make the very difficult and critical decision to initiate the evacuation of the Orville area and all locations south of that," he said. "We needed to get people moving quickly to save lives if the worst-case scenario came into fruition."
Late Sunday night, the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) activated the State Operations Center to provide assistance to Butte County for the potential spillway failure. Cal OES Fire, law enforcement and inland region personnel were working with various response agencies to address all emergency management, evacuation and mutual aid needs, the office said.
DWR officials said later Sunday they plan on deploying helicopters to drop large rocks into a gouge in the auxiliary spillway to stabilize it.
"The day that never comes" is finally here: Wherever Metallica may roam apparently includes a just-announced tour stop in San Diego on Aug. 6 at Petco Park!
The metal legends -- fresh off a surprising collaboration with Lady Gaga at Sunday night's 59th annual Grammy Awards -- are kicking the tour machine into high gear with their North American WorldWired Tour, which kicks off May 10 in Baltimore. The local summertime stop will feature Avenged Sevenfold and Gojira as musical support.
Metallica's Legacy Fan Club members can buy presale tickets starting at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, while Met Club members can start scoring seats two hours later. Fans who are Citi Cardmembers can get presale tickets starting at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, with the general public starting to snatch them up at 10 a.m. on Friday. Fans with deeper pockets can pay for early access to the venue, meet-and-greets or a visit to the "Memory Remains" exhibition, which features band memorabilia. If you're lucky enough to get a ticket, no matter when or how you buy it, you'll also be getting a copy of Metallica's newly released "Hardwired to Self Destruct" album.
It's been four years since the masters of metal puppetry descended on San Diego (sad but true) for a surprise show at Spreckels Theatre during Comic-Con 2013. That secret show obviously had very limited seating, which caused most area fans to miss out -- but a show at Petco Park should make up for that. It should be noted though that tickets will be a very hot commodity given that Metallica's last "proper" San Diego show was a stop at SDSU's Viejas Arena (then named Cox Arena), with openers Lamb of God and the Sword on Dec. 15, 2008.
While the Aug. 6 show (presented by Live Nation, a SoundDiego sponsor) is certainly a rare occurrence for us, the upcoming tour comes as no surprise given that the group is in peak promotion mode for "Hardwired to Self Destruct." The record -- their first in eight years (which, by the way, also coincides with their last San Diego tour stop) -- showcases the band making a much-heralded return to their thrash-metal roots and received glowing reviews from both critics and fans alike. It easily topped the Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart in its November release, the sixth time Metallica has debuted at No. 1 on that chart.
We don't know about you but we'd rather not wait till 2025 for the band to return to San Diego, go grab some tickets like nothing else matters when they go on sale -- because, ladies and gentlemen, the Lords of Summer are back.
Neither the topic nor the process of death are easy. As such, theres no right way to deal with the darkness. Some shine a light in it, and some wear it like a blanket. On their new album, Snowdonia, Surfer Blood treat death with a rebellious familiarity -- skirting it, prodding it, teasing it like the friend they lost.
On May 31, 2016, the bands guitarist, Thomas Fekete, died of a sarcoma that invaded his lungs and spine. While every band has its ups and downs, as frontman John Paul Pitts put it to me over the phone last week, this was a different sort of down. He didnt say much else about it, but he didnt need to.
Surfer Blood are known for their scaled back, surfy sound, which they dont stray from on the new album -- in fact, they embrace it head on -- but if the album artwork is any indication, there is something different about the mood and headspace of this collection of songs. Where other albums, like their critically-acclaimed debut, Astro Coast, or their Gil Norton-produced (Pixies, Foo Fighters) follow-up, Pythons, are angular and youthfully passionate, Snowdonia is smoothed out, present and serene. Where 1000 Palms invokes the communality of the tropics, Snowdonia operates within a solitary geography -- that lone, blue glacier between the clouds and the Arctic.
Its definitely not something we were expecting. This is our fourth record, and its the first time without him [Fekete] there. We were creative partners for a lot of songs I just decided I was going to write a lot of songs, Pitts said.
Originally from Florida (where the rest of his band still resides), Pitts now lives in the Bay Area with his girlfriend (who, coincidentally, went to high school in San Diego). Hes still coastal, but hes able to explore different topographies: I love being able to see for miles from the top of a mountain, he said.
The band has 60 or 70 shows lined up for this tour. Theyre going to Europe, the East Coast and everywhere in between. And while hes not as invincible as he used to be -- and certainly now more aware of that fact -- Pitts is just grateful that he can wake up every morning and play music.
Im taking it one day at a time, he said -- not with sadness, but with a sense of optimism and the affirmation of life.
Passionate routine, new geographies and presence -- thats how Pitts faces the darkness of loss.
Surfer Blood play Soda Bar on Saturday, Feb. 18, with Prism Tats. Get tickets here.
Rutger Rosenborg was almost a Stanford neuroscientist before he formed Ed Ghost Tucker. He now plays in the Lulls and makes music on his own when he's not writing. Follow his updates on Facebook or contact him directly.
A San Diego man with a medical condition was found dead at a hotel in Poway Friday after he went missing, confirmed the San Diego County's Medical Examiner.
Louis Yoe, age 70, was last seen leaving his workplace at 3:15 p.m. He was diagnosed with a medical condition called "Global Transient Amnesia," according to San Diego police.
This condition caused Yoe to suffer "sudden, temporary episodes of memory loss," according to a police statement. Due to this condition, Yoe could forget where he is or how he got there.
Police attempts to track his cell phone and vehicle were unsuccessful, according to the SDPD.
His death was not considered suspicious, according to the San Diego County's Sheriff Department.
The Medical Examiner is working to determine his cause of death.
Check on back on this developing story for further details.
Border Patrol agents have arrested a Guatemalan national previously convicted of felony homicide in the U.S. illegally.
Humberto Vasquez-Alonso, 56, was seen walking north from the U.S.-Mexico border fence near Calexico in an open desert area with another man, according to El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents.
When agents approached the men, they determined they were in the U.S. illegally.
Both men were arrested and taken to the El Centro station for processing.
During record checks, agents learned Vasquez-Alonso was convicted in 2003 for felony homicide and was sentenced to a 12-year prison term.
Vasquez-Alonso will be criminally prosecuted for Re-Entry After Removal as a convicted felon.
An overnight fire destroyed the headquarters for a local motorcycle club just as members were getting ready for a fundraiser.
The Boozefighters Motorcycle Club assembles bicycles for their annual Christmas with Kids bike giveaway in a Kearny Mesa business park.
Just after 1 a.m., a two-alarm fire swept through the club on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard near Mercury Street.
Nearly 60 firefighters battled the fire and kept it from spreading to other units.
Club members say they lost some raffle prizes that were just dropped off Sunday.
Brian Trum said the fire strikes the club at a bad time.
"Fires happen all the time, he said. Unfortunately it's us this time.
I'm speechless to tell you the truth and that doesn't happen much.
One of the things that survived the fire was a flag in a case hanging in the hallway of the club.
Members say the flag flew in Afghanistan. Since many of them are veterans, the members say they're grateful the flag wasn't destroyed.
The club has launched an online fundraising page to help replace the items lost in the fire.
A proposed gondola system between Georgetown and Rosslyn could be less likely to happen after the Arlington County Board announced they would not give the project any further funding.
"Given our identified and pressing transportation needs, along with some ongoing concerns about the long-term value of the gondola, the Board is not in favor of any further funding of the gondola project," wrote Board Chair Jay Fisette in a letter to the committee formed to explore the system's impact and feasibility.
While this is undeniably a setback, supporters of the plan insist this is not the end. Joe Sternlieb, president of the Georgetown Business Improvement District, said conversations about the project will continue in D.C.
"By no means is this a death knell," Sternlieb told The Washington Post.
One way the project could continue at this point would be with private funding, WTOP reported.
"The biggest issue is really funding. It's that the board is not in favor of further funding this project," Arlington County Board Vice Chair Katie Cristol told WTOP. "If it goes forward with private funding, we'll look forward to continued conversation."
The system could cost up to $90 million to build and more than $3 million a year to maintain, according to a study released last November. The system is intended to relieve traffic on the Key Bridge and connect Georgetown to the Metro system via the Rosslyn station.
Similar systems exist in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Like the proposed Georgetown-Rosslyn system, the Portland system shuttles commuters to and from a large university and the surrounding neighborhood.
The man seriously hurt in a car crash in Kensington, Maryland, Saturday evening is a Catholic deacon who was on his way to evening Mass.
Deacon Carlos Hernandez, 64, is in critical condition after his Volvo was broadsided by a Chevrolet Camaro. Montgomery County police are investigating whether the driver of the Camaro was speeding or even racing.
Hernandez is a deacon at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church on Wayne Avenue, near downtown Silver Spring. Monsignor Eddie Tolentino called him a beloved member of the church community.
"He is almost love personified," Tolentino said.
Hernandez was turning left onto Denfeld Avenue from a southbound lane of Connecticut Avenue about 5:30 p.m. Saturday when a Camaro headed north crashed into his car, police said.
The deacon was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver of the Camaro, a 23-year-old man, was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say the Camaro driver may have been speeding or even racing another driver. A third driver returned to the scene of the crash and was cooperating with authorities, police said.
The deacon received multiple fractures and lost mobility in his right arm, the monsignor said. He had bleeding in his brain, but it later stopped, Tolentino said.
Hernandez was ordained as a deacon three years ago. His celebrates baptism and heads the church's service ministries.
The church has dedicated services to Hernandez and is raising money for his medical expenses via a GoFundMe page.
"He has been impacting this parish for many years," parishioner Sonia Melendez said. "The way that he is, I know, he will be fighting there, but God will be fighting for him."
Neighbors have complained about the safety of the intersection where Hernandez's car was hit. Neighbor Tabitha Sripipatana said she often sees cars racing, even during the day.
No charges were immediately filed against the driver of the Camaro.
Anyone who saw drivers speeding or who knows anything about the crash is asked to call Montgomery County police.
Charlie Sakran made the 20-minute drive from his home in Mechanicsville to the small post office in this St. Mary's County community -- a simple trailer -- to secure a special postmark for an important piece of mail that needed to go out this week.
The 78-year-old could have just handed the card to the recipient, his wife of 44 years, Violet, at home.
But the Sakrans -- and generations in Southern Maryland and around the country -- have been sending each other valentines from Loveville for years.
"It's my once-a-year trip to Loveville," Sakran said.
The Loveville post office, with only about 300 regular postal customers, is one of 37 romantically named branches across the United States -- from Bridal Veil, Oregon, to Venus, Florida; from Loving, N.M., to Bliss, New York -- that are allowed to use locally designed, love-themed Valentine's Day postmarks for holiday mail.
In Loveville, that postmark -- the 2017 version features a big heart, with cupids on either side -- draws an annual stream of visitors, and packages containing stacks of pre-addressed, pre-stamped mail to be canceled and sent out.
Ellynne Brice Davis, a retired music teacher in nearby Leonardtown, brought valentines last week to send to her husband and granddaughter and friends in Japan and Italy.
"It's part of the culture of the area," she said.
Some of the branches redesign their postmarks annually; others stay with same design year after year. Some send tens of thousands of valentines each year; others do only dozens. In some areas, it's mostly a local tradition; others send more cards out of state and overseas.
Valentine, Texas, holds an annual design contest in the local schools. Elvis Durango, a senior in the Valentine Independent School District, beat a dozen other entrants this year with a postmark that features a pair of rolling hilltops, a heart-shaped sun and the words "LOVE STATION."
"The kids enjoy it, and we usually kind of make a little plaque and present them with it to show them our appreciation," Postmaster Leslie Williams said.
The Loveland, Colorado, Chamber of Commerce boasts that "the Sweetheart City" of roughly 75,000 is swamped with more than 130,000 valentines each year. The chamber organizes the Valentine's Day postmarking program and also hosts a business decorating contest.
The Heart Butte Post Office in Montana attracts mostly valentines from out of state -- just a hundred or so each year -- to be canceled and mailed back out of state, Postmaster Relief Carol Bunyan said.
"Hardly anybody local does that," she said. "It's a very small community. Most of the people in this community don't even mail valentines. If they're doing valentines, they probably hand them out."
That's not the case in Loveville.
A line formed inside the trailer one morning last week, with several local residents clutching stacks of red, pink and white envelopes to be postmarked for girlfriends and boyfriends, wives, husbands, children, grandchildren and others.
The longtime tradition is cause for pride in the tiny, unincorporated community, named for long-ago postmaster and attorney A. Kingsley Love.
The Sakrans have been exchanging Loveville-postmarked valentines for more than 40 years, Charlie Sakran said. When he saw one arrive for him last week, he knew he'd better get Violet's in the mail soon, so she would receive it before Feb. 14.
"At this point, she would be upset if she did not," he said.
Hours at the Loveville Post Office were reduced a few years ago from eight hours a day to four, according to Shawn Guy. He's postmaster of the Leonardtown Post Office, which means he oversees operations in Loveville, too.
He said the cut in hours and the advent of instant digital communication have reduced the Valentine's Day load in Loveville since the 1990s, when it used to send more than 10,000 each year, he said.
Still, Loveville continues to receive a steady flow of valentines for re-mailing from senders outside Maryland. Packages arrived this year from Massachusetts, Alabama and Canada.
Guy said residents take pride in their small town's amorous name. Many families, including his, have lived in the area for generations.
"It really means a lot to the community here to be from Loveville," he said.
The special postmark is available year-round upon request. It has become increasingly popular among engaged couples looking to add some pizazz to their wedding invitations -- a market that has now far outstripped valentine-senders, Guy said.
"People are looking for that little something extra for wedding invitations and valentines, to make it just a little more special," he said.
Rene DePuy, 52, of La Plata, mailed a stack of 101 invitations from Loveville this week for the May 6 wedding of her daughter, Adrianna DePuy, to Shane Cleaveland.
"When I got married 30 years ago, I did it," she said. "It's just really cute."
It's cheap, too. The postmark is free on up to 50 envelopes; the Postal Service charges 5 cents per postmark after that.
Those who want to save the trip can mail their pre-addressed and pre-stamped valentines in a box or large envelope to Postmaster, Valentine re-mailing, 27780 Point Lookout Road, Loveville, MD, 20656.
When the line died down, Matt Boggs used the time to spread out dozens of the envelopes on a table and postmark them one by one. In his first Valentine's Day season as the Loveville Post Office clerk, he estimated he's done hundreds, but perhaps not yet 1,000.
"It hasn't gotten that bad yet," he said Wednesday. "Everyone says it's going to."
While most people outside the area mail theirs in, Boggs said, some do make the trip.
"I'm astonished at how far people drive sometimes," he said. "It caught me off-guard. I guess they just have different sensibilities."
Eli Stauffer owns the property on Route 5 on which the post office trailer and a family-owned small engine repair business sit.
In recent years, he said, the rush to get the Loveville postmark for Valentine's Day has caused minor traffic snarls, with cars overflowing from the small gravel parking lot onto both sides of Stauffer's long driveway.
"When it gets busy here, that whole driveway is full," he said. "There's probably been as many as 30 cars here at one time."
Alice Lavender, 83, of Leonardtown, could have just sent her 16 or 17 cards to friends or family in the regular mail. But why not spice them up a bit?
"I think it's real neat," she said. "People who get them say, 'Oh, isn't this neat? Where is this place?'"
Rose Beitzell, 80, of Coltons Point said she was sending hers to her children and grandchildren in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
"They wouldn't think it's Valentine's Day if they didn't get one," she said.
The 2017 Red Sox spring training is ready to roll in Ft. Myers, Florida, as pitchers and catchers report on Monday and will begin working out on Tuesday.
The rest of the Red Sox report on Thursday and will take the field on Friday.
There are several storylines taking shape this spring, as the Red Sox prepare for life without Big Papi.
David Ortiz, who retired at the end of the 2016 season, was the face of the Red Sox, as well as their most prolific power hitter. While Boston will look to fill Ortiz's void in the lineup, it also remains to be seen who will step into the team's leadership role.
All eyes will be on pitcher Chris Sale, the superstar who was acquired from the White Sox during the off-season. Sale will headline a formidable trio of starters, with 2016 Cy Young award winner Rick Porcello and David Price.
Pablo Sandoval has lost weight and is ready to battle for the starting job at third base. Red Sox manager John Farrell says the position is up for grabs.
Police are searching for three men they believe are responsible for an armed home invasion in Methuen, Massachusetts.
Three masked men knocked on the door of the apartment on 14 Kirk Street just after 9 p.m., according to officials from Methuen Police. The suspects claimed to be looking for a man they believed lived at the apartment. When they learned he wasnt home, police say the suspects forced their way inside.
Allegedly held a gun to the victims head, one suspect demanded to be taken to the residents bedroom. The suspects then ransacked the room and fled the apartment in a grey car similar to a Kia Soul with cash and other items.
Police describe the suspect with the handgun as a 56 male with bushy hair, possibly wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The other two suspects are believed to be males about 6-feet tall. Additionally, each of the suspects was wearing a winter coat.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Methuen Police.
A 46-year-old Brookfield woman died after she collided with another skier on Mohawk Mountain in Cornwall Saturday night, according to state police.
State police said they responded to 46 Great Hollow Road around 8:30 p.m. after two skiers collided.
When they arrived, troopers said an ambulance had already transported 46-year-old Lisa Kelly, of Brookfield, to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. LifeStar then flew her to Hartford Hospital, where she died at 11:12 p.m.
"Mohawk Mountain values the safety and well-being of its customers and an investigation that includes the Connecticut State Police is ongoing. The thoughts and prayers of Mohawk Mountain management, staff and Ski Patrol are with each person touched by this incident, especially this skiers family, friends and loved ones," Mohawk Mountain said in a statement posted on its website.
State police said they are investigating. Anyone with information is encouraged to call state police at 860-626-1820.
Terminal C at Boston's Logan International Airport was temporarily evacuated on Sunday night due to high levels of carbon monoxide, believed to be caused by a snow-melting machine, Massachusetts State Police said.
A photo from the scene showed a large crowd of people huddled together in the cold outside the terminal. Massport said the pre-security areas of the terminal were evacuated around 6 p.m. "out of an abundance of caution" after a carbon monoxide alarm sounded.
Massport released a statement following the evacuation. "The issue has since been resolved and the Terminal has returned to normal operation," it said.
Police said the terminal was vented and reopened around 6:30 p.m.
Officials are investigating the homicide of a man found dead in the snow in Lynn, Massachusetts, Monday morning.
According to the Essex County District Attorneys Office, police officers responded to a 911 call around 4 a.m. near 10 Surfside Rd., but did not find anything out of the ordinary.
Around 5 a.m., police received another call from an area resident who found the body while snowblowing.
Police say 38-year-old Carlos Aponte was found dead from visible injuries to his upper chest and lower neck. The cause of those injuries will be determined by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Neighbors, who live at the same building as Aponte, said he had been living in Lynn for four months. They said he left behind two children in Lynn and one in the Dominican Republic.
No other details were immediately available.
A plow truck driver who was contracted by New Hampshire's transportation department has been charged with aggravated DWI after allegedly crashing into a bridge.
State police say Lewis Elliott, 45, crashed into a bridge on Route 123 in Alstead around 4 a.m. Saturday.
The crash resulted in the loss of the "wing" plow blade from the truck, but police say Elliott kept driving.
Elliott was located in Walpole, where he was arrested.
Its not clear when he will appear in court or if he has an attorney.
No one was hurt.
The more than 10 inches of snow that fell Sunday night into Monday morning in the area of Burlington, Vermont, certainly made a lot of work for a lot of people -- namely plow operators and homeowners who had to clear driveways and vehicles.
But for the Hoffmanns from Brazil, visiting Vermont as a family for the first time, it was all play.
"It's fun," beamed 8-year-old Hugo Hoffman as he prepared to try sledding.
The accumulations of powder were so deep at their friends' house that the family's first sledding runs were pretty tough, until some of the snow became packed down.
"It's the first time we're seeing snow," laughed mom Marta Hoffman. "And we love it because in Brazil, it's so different. There, it is too hot, and we are freezing here!"
Of course, Vermont's ski areas were thrilled with this snowfall, especially because it came so close to school vacations and the key Presidents' Day weekend.
However, it wasn't smooth sailing for all resorts. Several announced on social media accounts that they had to temporarily close lifts because of high winds.
Town's resident's step up to help end homelessness
THE response to an appeal for the town to come together to end homelessness in Newbury has been amazing, according to campaigner and charity worker Catherine Knight.
Two weeks ago Mrs Knight called through the Newbury Weekly News for collective action to help those sleeping rough find more permanent accommodation and re-integrate themselves back into the community.
Within days, the calls began to come through, with offers of help from tradespeople, politicians, churches, charities and businesses from the area.
We can safely say the community has engaged, said Mrs Knight. Weve had a range of people come forward, including a few landlords and a solicitor, who have offered their help.
We are having a meeting this week to establish everyones thoughts and see where we are.
In January, the Newbury Weekly News featured the stories of two rough sleepers in the town George, a former soldier who has spent the last 17 years on the streets of Newbury, and Ashley, a 25-year-old who had recently been made homeless.
In a move that has delighted Mrs Knight, both have since been offered accommodation.
We heard from Donnington Hospital Trust, who offer help to the elderly, and Young People and Children First West Berkshire were very quick to try to get in touch with Ashley, she explained.
Its been an amazing response in such a short period of time.
Mrs Knight has spent years working in the community to help tackle a variety of issues, including linking with the church, Loose Ends charity and the Salvation Army, and put herself forward as a go-between for the different parties who wish to become involved in the initiative.
Working with the chairwoman of homeless charity Loose Ends, Pamela Hayden, and fellow community campaigner Erica Gassor, Mrs Knight is hoping to harness the goodwill of the people of Newbury to end the homeless situation for good.
She ultimately hopes the community will provide the means to establish a centre for the homeless in Newbury, focusing on re-integrating people back into society.
Its still very early days, she said. And we still need a piece of land to set up some form of accommodation.
What is clear there are plenty of people out there doing great work and there are plenty of people out there willing to help. And so far the reaction has been very pleasing, but in Newbury we can always do better.
In January, Government figures revealed that the number of homeless people sleeping rough on any given night in West Berkshire was 14. However, local experts agree that the true number is likely to be far higher as the statistics do not include those who find accommodation through couch surfing.
Anyone wanting to get involved in discussions to help tackle the homelessness issue in Newbury can contact Catherine Knight on 07470 400285 or email catherine.m.knight@hotmail.co.uk
By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Indradhanush, the central governments scheme announced in August 2015 to revamp public-sector banks, is set to be rejigged and re-launched.
The new roadmap, to be called Indradhanush 2, will have a comprehensive plan for recapitalisation public-sector lenders, with a view to making sure they remain solvent and fully compliant with the global capital adequacy norms, Basel-III. Indradhanush 2.0 will be finalised after the completion of the Asset Quality Review (AQR) by the Reserve Bank, which is likely to be completed by March-end.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had embarked on the AQR exercise from December 2015 and asked banks to recognise some top defaulting accounts as non-performing assets (NPAs) and make adequate provisions for them. It has had a debilitating impact on banks numbers and their stocks. The central bank has set a deadline of March 2017 to complete the AQR exercise.
Post Asset Quality Review (AQR) exercise by the RBI to clean up the balance sheets of PSBs, the numbers are being re-looked at and a revised programme of capitalisation will be issued as part of Indradhanush 2.0, said a finance ministry document.
Under the Indradhanush roadmap announced in 2015, the government had announced it would infuse `70,000 crore in state-run banks over four years, while they will have to raise a further `1.1 lakh crore from the markets to meet their capital requirement in line with global risk norms, known as Basel-III.
NEW DELHI: Indradhanush, the central governments scheme announced in August 2015 to revamp public-sector banks, is set to be rejigged and re-launched. The new roadmap, to be called Indradhanush 2, will have a comprehensive plan for recapitalisation public-sector lenders, with a view to making sure they remain solvent and fully compliant with the global capital adequacy norms, Basel-III. Indradhanush 2.0 will be finalised after the completion of the Asset Quality Review (AQR) by the Reserve Bank, which is likely to be completed by March-end. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had embarked on the AQR exercise from December 2015 and asked banks to recognise some top defaulting accounts as non-performing assets (NPAs) and make adequate provisions for them. It has had a debilitating impact on banks numbers and their stocks. The central bank has set a deadline of March 2017 to complete the AQR exercise. Post Asset Quality Review (AQR) exercise by the RBI to clean up the balance sheets of PSBs, the numbers are being re-looked at and a revised programme of capitalisation will be issued as part of Indradhanush 2.0, said a finance ministry document. Under the Indradhanush roadmap announced in 2015, the government had announced it would infuse `70,000 crore in state-run banks over four years, while they will have to raise a further `1.1 lakh crore from the markets to meet their capital requirement in line with global risk norms, known as Basel-III.
By PTI
NEW DELHI: Months after India and the US signed a key logistics pact, Reliance Defence and Engineering today announced an agreement with the American Navy for repair and alteration services for warships of the largest forward-deployed Seventh Fleet operating in the region.
The Seventh Fleet's area of responsibility includes the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean and at any given time, there are roughly 5070 ships and submarines, 140 aircraft and approximately 20,000 sailors under its command.
A statement by the Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) controlled RDEL said it has signed the Master Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA) with the US Navy. It added that earlier in January, Reliance Shipyard was qualified by the US Navy as an approved contractor to perform complex repair and alteration services for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet vessels operating in the region.
Reliance Shipyard at Pipavav, Gujarat is the first shipyard in India to have received MSRA Certification to undertake servicing and repairing works for the vessels of Seventh Fleet. It is estimated that the potential business for RDEL will be very high. The fleet has about 100 vessels of different types, including auxiliaries. Currently, the vessels of US Navy's Seventh Fleet visit Singapore or Japan for such works.
Reliance Shipyard has been selected after a detailed site survey by US Government representatives in end October 2016, the statement said.
After over a decade of negotiations, India and the US had in August last year signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), a tweaked India-specific version of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), which the US has with several countries with close military-to-military ties.
The pact enables their militaries to use each other's assets and bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, making joint operations more efficient. LEMOA facilitates the provision of logistical support, supplies and services between the US and Indian militaries on a reimbursable basis and provides a framework to govern them. This may include food, water, billeting, transportation, petroleum, oils, lubricants, clothing, medical services, spare parts and components, repair and maintenance, training and other logistical services.
NEW DELHI: Months after India and the US signed a key logistics pact, Reliance Defence and Engineering today announced an agreement with the American Navy for repair and alteration services for warships of the largest forward-deployed Seventh Fleet operating in the region. The Seventh Fleet's area of responsibility includes the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean and at any given time, there are roughly 5070 ships and submarines, 140 aircraft and approximately 20,000 sailors under its command. A statement by the Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) controlled RDEL said it has signed the Master Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA) with the US Navy. It added that earlier in January, Reliance Shipyard was qualified by the US Navy as an approved contractor to perform complex repair and alteration services for the US Navy's Seventh Fleet vessels operating in the region. Reliance Shipyard at Pipavav, Gujarat is the first shipyard in India to have received MSRA Certification to undertake servicing and repairing works for the vessels of Seventh Fleet. It is estimated that the potential business for RDEL will be very high. The fleet has about 100 vessels of different types, including auxiliaries. Currently, the vessels of US Navy's Seventh Fleet visit Singapore or Japan for such works. Reliance Shipyard has been selected after a detailed site survey by US Government representatives in end October 2016, the statement said. After over a decade of negotiations, India and the US had in August last year signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), a tweaked India-specific version of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), which the US has with several countries with close military-to-military ties. The pact enables their militaries to use each other's assets and bases for repair and replenishment of supplies, making joint operations more efficient. LEMOA facilitates the provision of logistical support, supplies and services between the US and Indian militaries on a reimbursable basis and provides a framework to govern them. This may include food, water, billeting, transportation, petroleum, oils, lubricants, clothing, medical services, spare parts and components, repair and maintenance, training and other logistical services.
By Express News Service
BENGALURU: Based on a tip-off, the Bangalore City Crime Branch (CCB) police arrested an international smuggler on charges of exporting red sanders worth Rs 7 crore to foreign countries.
The arrested has been identified as Hasmukh Patel, 42, a resident of Ramamurthy Nagar.
According to CCB, a special team raided Jai Hanuman Wood Works--a warehouse at Ramamurthy Nagar on Sunday and recovered 87 pieces of red sanders.
Patel had stocked the sandals to export them to foreign countries and had brought them from Andra Pradesh and other states.
Two of the accused are still at large, said police. The well-organised gang was involved in smuggling for the past four years, they added.
BENGALURU: Based on a tip-off, the Bangalore City Crime Branch (CCB) police arrested an international smuggler on charges of exporting red sanders worth Rs 7 crore to foreign countries. The arrested has been identified as Hasmukh Patel, 42, a resident of Ramamurthy Nagar. According to CCB, a special team raided Jai Hanuman Wood Works--a warehouse at Ramamurthy Nagar on Sunday and recovered 87 pieces of red sanders. Patel had stocked the sandals to export them to foreign countries and had brought them from Andra Pradesh and other states. Two of the accused are still at large, said police. The well-organised gang was involved in smuggling for the past four years, they added.
Team Edex By
Express News Service
IIMBs EPGP ranked in top 50 in Global MBA Ranking
IIM Bangalores one-year full-time Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management has been ranked among the top 50 in the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2017 released on Monday. IIMBs programme has shot up 13 spots to be placed at No 49 in the FT ranking. The other management schools in the top 50 include INSEAD, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, MIT: Sloan, University of etc
KCG College organises seminar on education opportunities in the UK
The Higher Education Cell of KCG College of Technology, a unit of Hindustan Group of Institutions, organised a seminar on Higher Education Opportunities in the UK recently.
Merrin Raikhan from British Council, in her presentation on Education UK discussed the education system in the United Kingdom and how beneficial it is for students to pursue higher studies in UK universities which attract many foreign students every year.
DSC invites applications
The Delhi School of Communication (DSC) invites applications for its Post Graduate Programme in Communication (PGDPC). This integrated program awards PGDPC along with the MA in Journalism and Mass Communication. Graduates or students in the final year of graduation (all streams) are eligible to apply. Application forms may be downloaded and submitted online at www.dsc.edu.in. For admission to DSC, students have to clear either the MAT/CAT examination or DSCS internal admission test. The DSC admission test is of 1 and half hours duration, focuses on basic reasoning, logic and creative writing skills, in addition to basic knowledge of Advertising and Media.
FLAME Varsity joins hands with Babson
FLAME University joins with Babson College, United States to build and grow commitment in providing world-class entrepreneurship education. Babson College, a private business school in the United States is a global authority in entrepreneurship education. It has consistently appeared on World Report rankings as the number one college in entrepreneurship education.
KPITs innovation contest recieves 1500 ideas
KPIT Technologies, a global technology company specializing in IT consulting and product engineering, announced earlier that KPIT Sparkle 2017 an annual national design and development innovation contest received 1,500 ideas from over 10,500 engineering and science students across 300 colleges in India. Top 35 shortlisted teams will exhibit their solutions through working prototypes at the grand finale, scheduled on February 18 and 19, at the Deccan College Ground in Pune. The winners of this contest would be finalized by a panel of eminent jurors and announced at an award ceremony on February 19, 2017, where cash prizes of over 20 lakh rupees will be awarded to them.
ORBIT Live 2017: Confluence of Intl icons and students
Arena Animation recently concluded the latest edition of Orbit Live 2017, an international animation students festival. This confluence saw over 200 international industry stalwarts deliberating upon the latest trends in the industry in the presence of over 500 Arena Multimedia students from its centres across the country.
Shiamak Davar all set to hold auditions for his Dance Prog
Shiamaks One Year Dance Certification Programme (OYP) is a full time course for one year that helps potential dancers nurture their skills in a professional environment. Dance enthusiasts from across the world between ages 15 to 28 are auditioned by Shiamak.
OFCCA
Launches in Chennai
Orient Flight Civil Aviation Academy (OFCAA), a centre for Cabin Crew and Ground Staff training programmes has inaugurated its academy in Chennai recently. OFCAA is part of Orient Flights Private Limited, a division of Hindustan Group of Institutions. With this inauguration OFCAA will offer training and certification for people aspiring to take up a career as part of a Cabin Crew in an Civil or Commercial Airline and for people who wish to take up a career as a Ground Staff.
Applications open for the LSE programmes in India
Indian School of Business & Finance, New Delhi (ISBF) invites students to apply for its undergraduate degree programmes which are designed, examined and assessed by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
St Peters Varsity launches MS in Cyber Security
Saint Peters University, the Jesuit University of New Jersey, launches a program called Master of Science in Cyber Security. The masters degree program will provide students with the advanced skills needed to help protect and defend information systems from cyber-attacks. The program will have two areas of focus one being information systems security and assurance and secod being cyber security and computer forensics.
TATA ClassEdge launches Thinking About Values books for children
TATA ClassEdge, a provider of innovative technology based learning solutions for schools, launched Thinking About Values, a series of books on values and life skills for classes 1 to 5, at their Principal Leadership Programme at Chennai. Thinking About Values, based on NCERTs values framework, is a unique contemporary take on values and life skills for children.
IIMBs EPGP ranked in top 50 in Global MBA Ranking IIM Bangalores one-year full-time Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management has been ranked among the top 50 in the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2017 released on Monday. IIMBs programme has shot up 13 spots to be placed at No 49 in the FT ranking. The other management schools in the top 50 include INSEAD, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, MIT: Sloan, University of etc KCG College organises seminar on education opportunities in the UK The Higher Education Cell of KCG College of Technology, a unit of Hindustan Group of Institutions, organised a seminar on Higher Education Opportunities in the UK recently. Merrin Raikhan from British Council, in her presentation on Education UK discussed the education system in the United Kingdom and how beneficial it is for students to pursue higher studies in UK universities which attract many foreign students every year. DSC invites applications The Delhi School of Communication (DSC) invites applications for its Post Graduate Programme in Communication (PGDPC). This integrated program awards PGDPC along with the MA in Journalism and Mass Communication. Graduates or students in the final year of graduation (all streams) are eligible to apply. Application forms may be downloaded and submitted online at www.dsc.edu.in. For admission to DSC, students have to clear either the MAT/CAT examination or DSCS internal admission test. The DSC admission test is of 1 and half hours duration, focuses on basic reasoning, logic and creative writing skills, in addition to basic knowledge of Advertising and Media. FLAME Varsity joins hands with Babson FLAME University joins with Babson College, United States to build and grow commitment in providing world-class entrepreneurship education. Babson College, a private business school in the United States is a global authority in entrepreneurship education. It has consistently appeared on World Report rankings as the number one college in entrepreneurship education. KPITs innovation contest recieves 1500 ideas KPIT Technologies, a global technology company specializing in IT consulting and product engineering, announced earlier that KPIT Sparkle 2017 an annual national design and development innovation contest received 1,500 ideas from over 10,500 engineering and science students across 300 colleges in India. Top 35 shortlisted teams will exhibit their solutions through working prototypes at the grand finale, scheduled on February 18 and 19, at the Deccan College Ground in Pune. The winners of this contest would be finalized by a panel of eminent jurors and announced at an award ceremony on February 19, 2017, where cash prizes of over 20 lakh rupees will be awarded to them. ORBIT Live 2017: Confluence of Intl icons and students Arena Animation recently concluded the latest edition of Orbit Live 2017, an international animation students festival. This confluence saw over 200 international industry stalwarts deliberating upon the latest trends in the industry in the presence of over 500 Arena Multimedia students from its centres across the country. Shiamak Davar all set to hold auditions for his Dance Prog Shiamaks One Year Dance Certification Programme (OYP) is a full time course for one year that helps potential dancers nurture their skills in a professional environment. Dance enthusiasts from across the world between ages 15 to 28 are auditioned by Shiamak. OFCCA Launches in Chennai Orient Flight Civil Aviation Academy (OFCAA), a centre for Cabin Crew and Ground Staff training programmes has inaugurated its academy in Chennai recently. OFCAA is part of Orient Flights Private Limited, a division of Hindustan Group of Institutions. With this inauguration OFCAA will offer training and certification for people aspiring to take up a career as part of a Cabin Crew in an Civil or Commercial Airline and for people who wish to take up a career as a Ground Staff. Applications open for the LSE programmes in India Indian School of Business & Finance, New Delhi (ISBF) invites students to apply for its undergraduate degree programmes which are designed, examined and assessed by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). St Peters Varsity launches MS in Cyber Security Saint Peters University, the Jesuit University of New Jersey, launches a program called Master of Science in Cyber Security. The masters degree program will provide students with the advanced skills needed to help protect and defend information systems from cyber-attacks. The program will have two areas of focus one being information systems security and assurance and secod being cyber security and computer forensics. TATA ClassEdge launches Thinking About Values books for children TATA ClassEdge, a provider of innovative technology based learning solutions for schools, launched Thinking About Values, a series of books on values and life skills for classes 1 to 5, at their Principal Leadership Programme at Chennai. Thinking About Values, based on NCERTs values framework, is a unique contemporary take on values and life skills for children.
By IANS
LONDON: Hollywood romantic musical "La La Land" on Sunday won five awards out of its eleven nominations at the 70th BAFTA Awards. The ceremony, where Indian-origin British actor Dev Patel bagged the Best Supporting Actor honour for "Lion", also saw celebrities making political statements uninhibitedly.
"La La Land", a feel-good movie exuding an old world charm, clinched the Best Film title, along with a Best Director for Damien Chazelle, Best Leading Actress for Emma Stone, Best Cinematography for Linus Sandgren and Best Original Music for Justin Hurwitz.
The movie's lead star Ryan Gosling missed out on the Best Actor going to Casey Affleck for "Manchester by the Sea" and Chazelle was pipped to the Best Original Screenplay prize by Kenneth Lonergan for the same film. But largely, the awards at the historic Royal Albert Hall were spread widely.
Movies like "Manchester by the Sea", "Fences", "Lion", "Arrival", "Hacksaw Ridge", "Jackie" and "Florence Foster Jenkins" won, while "Moonlight" seemed to have been eclipsed by them all at the gala, attended by Duke of Cambridge Prince William and Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton.
Prince William awarded the BAFTA Fellowship to 90-year-old comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks, who said it was "mighty nice" of the BAFTA heads to choose an American for the prestigious honour.
In the Supporting Actor category, Dev Patel's act in "Lion" -- which also won the Best Adapted Screenplay title for Luke Davies -- won among the men, and among the women, Viola Davis took home the honour.
Davis commented on the anomaly that the awards season has diverse nominees this year, telegraph.co.uk reported.
She also took a dig at US President Donald Trump, saying, "Anyone who labels Meryl Streep 'overrated' doesn't know anything about acting".
It was earlier reported that BAFTA heads had fears that this year's ceremony will be full of celebrities vocalising their political standpoint. And as expected, many of them spoke out.
Lonergan told the audience how his 15-year-old daughter had woken in tears after Donald Trump was elected US President, but had since been on five protest marches since, theguardian.com reported.
"I'm very, very proud of her," he added.
Before the official start of the ceremony itself, BAFTA chair Jane Lush commented on diversity issues within the industry. Lush said it was shocking that in the 21st Century "your gender, race, and background can still hold you back".
Lush also remarked on the success of British talent in US films, commenting that she feared "someone might build a wall across the Atlantic to keep us out", reported variety.com.
Also, Stephen Fry, who was hosting the gala for the 12th time, took a swipe at Trump. While welcoming veteran actress Meryl Streep to the ceremony, he said Streep was "one of the greatest actresses of all-time. Only a blithering idiot would think otherwise."
Ken Loach, whose gritty movie "I, Daniel Blake" won the Outstanding British Film award, spoke passionately about BAFTA endorsing a truth "that the most vulnerable and poorest people are treated by this (British) government with a contempt and a callous brutality that is disgraceful".
Other award winners -- "Jackie" won the Best Costume Design Award, "Arrival" won Best Sound, "Hacksaw Ridge" won Best Editing, and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" got Best Production Design.
Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes's "Son of Saul" won the Best Film Not in the English Language, while "Kubo and the Two Strings" emerged as a surprise winner in the Animated Film category, and "The Jungle Book" won for special visual effects.
Now with "La La Land" registering maximum wins at BAFTA Awards, all eyes are on the Oscars -- to be held on Februay in Los Angeles -- where the film has 14 nominations.
LONDON: Hollywood romantic musical "La La Land" on Sunday won five awards out of its eleven nominations at the 70th BAFTA Awards. The ceremony, where Indian-origin British actor Dev Patel bagged the Best Supporting Actor honour for "Lion", also saw celebrities making political statements uninhibitedly. "La La Land", a feel-good movie exuding an old world charm, clinched the Best Film title, along with a Best Director for Damien Chazelle, Best Leading Actress for Emma Stone, Best Cinematography for Linus Sandgren and Best Original Music for Justin Hurwitz. The movie's lead star Ryan Gosling missed out on the Best Actor going to Casey Affleck for "Manchester by the Sea" and Chazelle was pipped to the Best Original Screenplay prize by Kenneth Lonergan for the same film. But largely, the awards at the historic Royal Albert Hall were spread widely. Movies like "Manchester by the Sea", "Fences", "Lion", "Arrival", "Hacksaw Ridge", "Jackie" and "Florence Foster Jenkins" won, while "Moonlight" seemed to have been eclipsed by them all at the gala, attended by Duke of Cambridge Prince William and Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton. Prince William awarded the BAFTA Fellowship to 90-year-old comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks, who said it was "mighty nice" of the BAFTA heads to choose an American for the prestigious honour. In the Supporting Actor category, Dev Patel's act in "Lion" -- which also won the Best Adapted Screenplay title for Luke Davies -- won among the men, and among the women, Viola Davis took home the honour. Davis commented on the anomaly that the awards season has diverse nominees this year, telegraph.co.uk reported. She also took a dig at US President Donald Trump, saying, "Anyone who labels Meryl Streep 'overrated' doesn't know anything about acting". It was earlier reported that BAFTA heads had fears that this year's ceremony will be full of celebrities vocalising their political standpoint. And as expected, many of them spoke out. Lonergan told the audience how his 15-year-old daughter had woken in tears after Donald Trump was elected US President, but had since been on five protest marches since, theguardian.com reported. "I'm very, very proud of her," he added. Before the official start of the ceremony itself, BAFTA chair Jane Lush commented on diversity issues within the industry. Lush said it was shocking that in the 21st Century "your gender, race, and background can still hold you back". Lush also remarked on the success of British talent in US films, commenting that she feared "someone might build a wall across the Atlantic to keep us out", reported variety.com. Also, Stephen Fry, who was hosting the gala for the 12th time, took a swipe at Trump. While welcoming veteran actress Meryl Streep to the ceremony, he said Streep was "one of the greatest actresses of all-time. Only a blithering idiot would think otherwise." Ken Loach, whose gritty movie "I, Daniel Blake" won the Outstanding British Film award, spoke passionately about BAFTA endorsing a truth "that the most vulnerable and poorest people are treated by this (British) government with a contempt and a callous brutality that is disgraceful". Other award winners -- "Jackie" won the Best Costume Design Award, "Arrival" won Best Sound, "Hacksaw Ridge" won Best Editing, and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" got Best Production Design. Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes's "Son of Saul" won the Best Film Not in the English Language, while "Kubo and the Two Strings" emerged as a surprise winner in the Animated Film category, and "The Jungle Book" won for special visual effects. Now with "La La Land" registering maximum wins at BAFTA Awards, all eyes are on the Oscars -- to be held on Februay in Los Angeles -- where the film has 14 nominations.
By PTI
MUMBAI: Former Finance Minster P Chidambaram today slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "raincoat" barb at Manmohan Singh and said even US President Donald Trump had praised his predecessors in his speech.
The senior Congress leader said he wondered whether former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee would have used such language in Parliament.
"The remarks (by Modi) were in absolute poor taste. If he had made these remarks in a public meeting in Varanasi or a BJP parliamentary meet or in a closed door meeting, I would not have cared a bit.
"(But) speaking from a place where people like Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once spoken...it made me wonder if they would have used such phrases. Parliament has its own sanctity. You must respect all those who have formerly occupied this office," he said.
In a scathing attack in Rajya Sabha, the PM had said one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from his predecessor Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.
Comparing Modi with Trump, Chidambaram said though he had several disagreements with the US President, he respected the latter for starting his first presidential speech remembering his predecessors. The Congress politician was in the city to campaign for February 21 elections to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Referring to protests in his home state Tamil Nadu over holding of Jallikattu (a bull taming sport), he said they were "symbolic" as they represented different concerns, anxieties, angst of people who finally converged and demonstrated.
"Many youth who had converged there (at Chennai's Marina beach) may not even have seen Jallikattu. But their coming together gives me hope that people are aware and concerned about what is happening in the country today," the former minister said.
On administration of Mumbai, Chidambaram said the megalopolis was one of the worst governed cities in eastern part of world.
"This place (Mumbai), which was once a magnet for foreign investors and a part of the plan to make it into a financial centre in late 1990s, lost out to other cities in the region.
"There is no dearth of human resources, talent, technology and money. It's all there. But there is still a big hole that needs to be filled," he said.
BMC, currently ruled by the Shiv Sena-BJP combine, is going to polls on February 21.
MUMBAI: Former Finance Minster P Chidambaram today slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "raincoat" barb at Manmohan Singh and said even US President Donald Trump had praised his predecessors in his speech. The senior Congress leader said he wondered whether former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee would have used such language in Parliament. "The remarks (by Modi) were in absolute poor taste. If he had made these remarks in a public meeting in Varanasi or a BJP parliamentary meet or in a closed door meeting, I would not have cared a bit. "(But) speaking from a place where people like Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had once spoken...it made me wonder if they would have used such phrases. Parliament has its own sanctity. You must respect all those who have formerly occupied this office," he said. In a scathing attack in Rajya Sabha, the PM had said one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from his predecessor Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime. Comparing Modi with Trump, Chidambaram said though he had several disagreements with the US President, he respected the latter for starting his first presidential speech remembering his predecessors. The Congress politician was in the city to campaign for February 21 elections to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Referring to protests in his home state Tamil Nadu over holding of Jallikattu (a bull taming sport), he said they were "symbolic" as they represented different concerns, anxieties, angst of people who finally converged and demonstrated. "Many youth who had converged there (at Chennai's Marina beach) may not even have seen Jallikattu. But their coming together gives me hope that people are aware and concerned about what is happening in the country today," the former minister said. On administration of Mumbai, Chidambaram said the megalopolis was one of the worst governed cities in eastern part of world. "This place (Mumbai), which was once a magnet for foreign investors and a part of the plan to make it into a financial centre in late 1990s, lost out to other cities in the region. "There is no dearth of human resources, talent, technology and money. It's all there. But there is still a big hole that needs to be filled," he said. BMC, currently ruled by the Shiv Sena-BJP combine, is going to polls on February 21.
Ejaz Kaiser By
Express News Service
RAIPUR: Two weeks after a 1000-year-old Ganesha idol was toppled from the Dholkal hilltop in the restive Dantewada district, the outlawed CPI (Maoist) has denied their involvement in the issue in a statement released on Sunday.
The secretary of the south sub-zonal bureau of CPI (Maoist), Ganesh Uike, blamed the Bastar police for "falsely accusing" the rebels behind the destruction of the idol.
Its a conspiracy by the police to defame the Maoists. They had deliberately carried out a malicious campaign against us in the media. The CPI (Maoist) respects the religious beliefs of people and never engage in such atrocious acts, Uike said in the press release.
The police, however, stand by their claims. The investigation will reveal the truth, Dantewada superintendent of police, Kamal Lochan Kashyap told Express.
The police had blamed the Maoists for attempting to destroy the Ganesha idol. After visiting the spot, we were absolutely sure that such a misdeed (sic) is the handiwork of left-wing extremists. The rebels were seemingly worried owing to the tourists and visitors in increasingly number (sic) visiting the picturesque spot and praying there. The region happens to be their stronghold", Kashyap said.
Earlier, the Ganesha idola 4-feet high stone statue, weighing around 500 kg was found toppled from a height of about 300 feet. Noted archaeologist Arun Sharma says it is prudent not to jump to a conclusion as to who was responsible for the sabotage. "Let the investigation be completed. There could possibly be another reason for the 11th century-old idol felling (sic) from such a height", Sharma said.
The Dantewada collector Saurabh Kumar also preferred not to outrightly hold the rebels accountable. Its really difficult to ensure security in that area during the night the region being highly inhospitable, densely forested and being the epicentre of Maoists. If the rebels had vandalised the idol, they can easily do it again after we restored it, Kumar told TNIE.
The archaeological team and the conservationists collected 18 big pieces ones of the idol along with various smaller ones. As per the wishes of the local villagers we decided to restore the idol to its previous spot under the supervision of archaeologist Arun Sharma. The village youths have assured us of safeguarding the Ganesha idol, the director of state archaeological department Ashutosh Mishra said. The idol was assembled and placed to the original spot on February 4.
RAIPUR: Two weeks after a 1000-year-old Ganesha idol was toppled from the Dholkal hilltop in the restive Dantewada district, the outlawed CPI (Maoist) has denied their involvement in the issue in a statement released on Sunday. The secretary of the south sub-zonal bureau of CPI (Maoist), Ganesh Uike, blamed the Bastar police for "falsely accusing" the rebels behind the destruction of the idol. Its a conspiracy by the police to defame the Maoists. They had deliberately carried out a malicious campaign against us in the media. The CPI (Maoist) respects the religious beliefs of people and never engage in such atrocious acts, Uike said in the press release. The police, however, stand by their claims. The investigation will reveal the truth, Dantewada superintendent of police, Kamal Lochan Kashyap told Express. The police had blamed the Maoists for attempting to destroy the Ganesha idol. After visiting the spot, we were absolutely sure that such a misdeed (sic) is the handiwork of left-wing extremists. The rebels were seemingly worried owing to the tourists and visitors in increasingly number (sic) visiting the picturesque spot and praying there. The region happens to be their stronghold", Kashyap said. Earlier, the Ganesha idola 4-feet high stone statue, weighing around 500 kg was found toppled from a height of about 300 feet. Noted archaeologist Arun Sharma says it is prudent not to jump to a conclusion as to who was responsible for the sabotage. "Let the investigation be completed. There could possibly be another reason for the 11th century-old idol felling (sic) from such a height", Sharma said. The Dantewada collector Saurabh Kumar also preferred not to outrightly hold the rebels accountable. Its really difficult to ensure security in that area during the night the region being highly inhospitable, densely forested and being the epicentre of Maoists. If the rebels had vandalised the idol, they can easily do it again after we restored it, Kumar told TNIE. The archaeological team and the conservationists collected 18 big pieces ones of the idol along with various smaller ones. As per the wishes of the local villagers we decided to restore the idol to its previous spot under the supervision of archaeologist Arun Sharma. The village youths have assured us of safeguarding the Ganesha idol, the director of state archaeological department Ashutosh Mishra said. The idol was assembled and placed to the original spot on February 4.
Namita Bajpai By
Express News Service
DEHRADUN: A heady mix of desertions, dissentions, deceit and rebellion election in the hill state has the making of a Shakespearean drama. While the two key players BJP and Congress are firing on all cylinders with just a day left for polls, both are striving equally hard to come to grip with rebels who may cast a shadow on their respective prospects.
According to political scientists, the poll dynamics this time have become very complex thanks to an astronomical number of rebels on both sides. They have come down heavily on rebels expelling them in hoards but still facing a stiff challenge from these dissenters fighting as independent candidates on a number of seats across the state.
Ignoring the opinion of the partys state leadership, BJP took a lead in fielding 13 Congress turncoats, nine of whom switched loyalty to the BJP along with former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna in May last year as they were disqualified from the Assembly under the anti-defection law for raising a banner of revolt against CM Harish Rawat.
Party sources say that senior state leaders like Bhagat Singh Koshiary, Major General (retd) BC Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal had cautioned the central leadership about a revolt by party cadre if outsiders were preferred over them. There are strong opposing forces within the party who are putting their might to ensure defeat of Congress turncoats contesting on BJP tickets, says a political commentator based in Dehradun.
To add to the saffron partys woes, there are at least 17-18 rebel candidates, including some sitting MLAs of BJP, who are contesting as independents after being denied tickets from their traditional constituencies like Yumkeshwar, Devprayag, Dhanulti Ranikhet, Rishikesh, Kashipur, Kaladungi, Uttarkashi, Yumnotri, Tehri, Khatima, giving sleepless nights to the party leadership as they still hold sway in their bastions.
In Chaubattakhal, from where ex-Congressman Satpal Maharaj is contesting on a BJP ticket and being projected as a potential CM candidate, Kavindra Ishtwal is contesting as an independent after being ignored by the party. Partys sitting MLA Tirath Singh Rawat was also miffed after being ignored by party and was ready to fight as an independent. He was later pacified with a post of national secretary in the party organisation. Similarly, other Congress leaders contesting on BJP tickets -- Harak Singh Rawat in Kotdwar and Rekha Arya in Someshwar are facing stiff resistance from the BJP cadre.
The equations in Yumkeshwar are equally complex. The seat is grabbing attention as the BJP has fielded Major General BC Khanduris daughter Ritu Khanduri from here. She is facing Shailendra Singh Rawat, an ex-BJP MLA from Kotdwar. Shailendra rebelled against the saffron party as it fielded former Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat on his Kotdwar seat and he promptly joined Congress to get a ticket from Yamkeshwar to take on Khanduris daughter.
Meanwhile, the Congress has fielded seven BJP and two BSP rebels. Giving tickets to "outsiders" has not gone down well with the grassroots leaders of Congress as well. Of the 70 assembly seats, nearly 50 rebel candidates are contesting to challenge the party choice.
In such a complex scenario, if Independents win seven or eight seats, they are likely to hold the key to government formation if any of the two major parties remain short of the magic number of 36.
Even the role of BSP as kingmaker cannot be ruled out if the party, which is contesting on 68 of 70 seats manages to touch the double-digit in the hill state, says an expert on Dalit politics in the state. The BSP made its electoral debut in Uttarakhand in 2002, contesting 68 seats and winning seven seats with a vote share of 11.2%. In 2012, though it could win only three seats but its vote share increased to 12.28 per cent. The party had backed Rawat government when it was in constitutional crisis last year.
DEHRADUN: A heady mix of desertions, dissentions, deceit and rebellion election in the hill state has the making of a Shakespearean drama. While the two key players BJP and Congress are firing on all cylinders with just a day left for polls, both are striving equally hard to come to grip with rebels who may cast a shadow on their respective prospects. According to political scientists, the poll dynamics this time have become very complex thanks to an astronomical number of rebels on both sides. They have come down heavily on rebels expelling them in hoards but still facing a stiff challenge from these dissenters fighting as independent candidates on a number of seats across the state. Ignoring the opinion of the partys state leadership, BJP took a lead in fielding 13 Congress turncoats, nine of whom switched loyalty to the BJP along with former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna in May last year as they were disqualified from the Assembly under the anti-defection law for raising a banner of revolt against CM Harish Rawat. Party sources say that senior state leaders like Bhagat Singh Koshiary, Major General (retd) BC Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal had cautioned the central leadership about a revolt by party cadre if outsiders were preferred over them. There are strong opposing forces within the party who are putting their might to ensure defeat of Congress turncoats contesting on BJP tickets, says a political commentator based in Dehradun. To add to the saffron partys woes, there are at least 17-18 rebel candidates, including some sitting MLAs of BJP, who are contesting as independents after being denied tickets from their traditional constituencies like Yumkeshwar, Devprayag, Dhanulti Ranikhet, Rishikesh, Kashipur, Kaladungi, Uttarkashi, Yumnotri, Tehri, Khatima, giving sleepless nights to the party leadership as they still hold sway in their bastions. In Chaubattakhal, from where ex-Congressman Satpal Maharaj is contesting on a BJP ticket and being projected as a potential CM candidate, Kavindra Ishtwal is contesting as an independent after being ignored by the party. Partys sitting MLA Tirath Singh Rawat was also miffed after being ignored by party and was ready to fight as an independent. He was later pacified with a post of national secretary in the party organisation. Similarly, other Congress leaders contesting on BJP tickets -- Harak Singh Rawat in Kotdwar and Rekha Arya in Someshwar are facing stiff resistance from the BJP cadre. The equations in Yumkeshwar are equally complex. The seat is grabbing attention as the BJP has fielded Major General BC Khanduris daughter Ritu Khanduri from here. She is facing Shailendra Singh Rawat, an ex-BJP MLA from Kotdwar. Shailendra rebelled against the saffron party as it fielded former Congress leader Harak Singh Rawat on his Kotdwar seat and he promptly joined Congress to get a ticket from Yamkeshwar to take on Khanduris daughter. Meanwhile, the Congress has fielded seven BJP and two BSP rebels. Giving tickets to "outsiders" has not gone down well with the grassroots leaders of Congress as well. Of the 70 assembly seats, nearly 50 rebel candidates are contesting to challenge the party choice. In such a complex scenario, if Independents win seven or eight seats, they are likely to hold the key to government formation if any of the two major parties remain short of the magic number of 36. Even the role of BSP as kingmaker cannot be ruled out if the party, which is contesting on 68 of 70 seats manages to touch the double-digit in the hill state, says an expert on Dalit politics in the state. The BSP made its electoral debut in Uttarakhand in 2002, contesting 68 seats and winning seven seats with a vote share of 11.2%. In 2012, though it could win only three seats but its vote share increased to 12.28 per cent. The party had backed Rawat government when it was in constitutional crisis last year.
By Express News Service
MUMBAI: A total of 9,199 candidates are in the fray for 1,268 seats in the Maharashtra municipal elections, the first phase of which will take place on February 16.
Elections are taking place to ten municipal corporations in the state, among which Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbais municipal lawmaking authority with 227 seats, has the highest number of candidates, 2,271.
As per data released by the State Election Commission of Maharashtra (SECM), 1,190 of the BMC candidates are male and 1,084 female with one from the third gender.
Amongst the political parties, the Shiv Sena is contesting all the 227 seats in the BMC.
Elections to the states Zilla Parishads also start on February 16, with 15 of the 25 districts voting in the first phase.
There are 4,278 candidates in the fray for the 855 seats in the 15 Zilla Parishads voting in the first phase.
Among them, Beed district with 60 seats has the maximum number of candidates, 440. Beed is where estranged cousinsthe BJP governments minister for rural development Pankaja Munde is locked in a battle with the NCPs Dhananjay Munde.
MUMBAI: A total of 9,199 candidates are in the fray for 1,268 seats in the Maharashtra municipal elections, the first phase of which will take place on February 16. Elections are taking place to ten municipal corporations in the state, among which Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mumbais municipal lawmaking authority with 227 seats, has the highest number of candidates, 2,271. As per data released by the State Election Commission of Maharashtra (SECM), 1,190 of the BMC candidates are male and 1,084 female with one from the third gender. Amongst the political parties, the Shiv Sena is contesting all the 227 seats in the BMC. Elections to the states Zilla Parishads also start on February 16, with 15 of the 25 districts voting in the first phase. There are 4,278 candidates in the fray for the 855 seats in the 15 Zilla Parishads voting in the first phase. Among them, Beed district with 60 seats has the maximum number of candidates, 440. Beed is where estranged cousinsthe BJP governments minister for rural development Pankaja Munde is locked in a battle with the NCPs Dhananjay Munde.
By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Monday sparked a controversy by posting tweets in which he claimed the population of Hindus was declining in India because Hindus do not convert people. The Minister also stated that minorities were flourishing in India unlike some countries in the region.
Hindu population is reducing in India because Hindus never convert people. Minorities in India are flourishing unlike some countries around, the Minister tweeted.In another tweet, Rijiju said, Congress should not make such provocative statements. India is a secular country. All religious groups enjoy freedom & living peacefully.
Rijiju was reacting to a newspaper report published from Itanagar and was headlined Cong says BJP converting Arunachal as Hindu State.
The minister also posted the clipping of the newspaper report in both of his tweets.
According to the newspaper clipping titled Cong says BJP converting Arunachal as Hindu State, the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) alleged that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government was trying to convert Arunachal Pradesh into a Hindu state.
The rich tradition and culture of the indigenous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh are at stake under BJP rule, the newspaper report said quoting APCC.
Rijiju is himself a practising Buddhist and hails from Arunachal Pradesh.
Reacting to Rijijus statement, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted, MoS Home should remember he is a Minister of India for all Indians not for Hindus only, remember your oath as minister.
NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Monday sparked a controversy by posting tweets in which he claimed the population of Hindus was declining in India because Hindus do not convert people. The Minister also stated that minorities were flourishing in India unlike some countries in the region. Hindu population is reducing in India because Hindus never convert people. Minorities in India are flourishing unlike some countries around, the Minister tweeted.In another tweet, Rijiju said, Congress should not make such provocative statements. India is a secular country. All religious groups enjoy freedom & living peacefully. Rijiju was reacting to a newspaper report published from Itanagar and was headlined Cong says BJP converting Arunachal as Hindu State. The minister also posted the clipping of the newspaper report in both of his tweets. According to the newspaper clipping titled Cong says BJP converting Arunachal as Hindu State, the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) alleged that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government was trying to convert Arunachal Pradesh into a Hindu state. The rich tradition and culture of the indigenous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh are at stake under BJP rule, the newspaper report said quoting APCC. Rijiju is himself a practising Buddhist and hails from Arunachal Pradesh. Reacting to Rijijus statement, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted, MoS Home should remember he is a Minister of India for all Indians not for Hindus only, remember your oath as minister.
Prasanta Mazumdar By
Express News Service
GUWAHATI: Beleaguered Nagaland chief minister TR Zeliang went live on All India Radio on Monday in an attempt to reach out to the people and the protesting tribal organisations and assert his governments position on the urban local bodies (ULBs) election, which triggered widespread violence and a standoff between him and the protestors.
He appealed to the protesting organisations to lift their indefinite statewide bandh which began on Monday. The bandh poses a serious threat to the holding of class X and XII board examinations beginning on Wednesday.
My government has had a series of discussions with various tribal organisations regarding the obligations to uphold the provisions of the Constitution as we are within the Union of India. And holding of elections to the ULBs with 33 per cent reservation of seats for women was one of them, Zeliang said in his address on radio.
The tribal bodies, which had earlier set a deadline to Zeliang to resign and enforced the bandh after he failed to do so, are opposed to quota on the ground that it will infringe upon Article 371(A) which commits to protect Naga customary laws and rights.
The chief minister said: The fate and content of Article 371(A) was on the verge of being decided by the Supreme Court after the Joint Action Committee on Women Reservation (JACWR) filed a Special Leave Petition stating that Article 243(T) had superseded Article 371(A). And to pre-empt such an eventuality where the courts verdict might go against the special provisions we enjoy through the provisions of Article 371(A), the Cabinet decided that holding of elections to the ULBs with reservation for women was the best option and decided accordingly.
It was under Article 243(T), in force since 1993, that the government provided 25 per cent reservation to women in village development boards.
Zeliang said his government had decided not to impose any tax on land, commercial or otherwise, or on buildings in municipal and town areas as demanded by the tribal organisations but false propaganda were spread by a few individuals saying that once elections to the ULBs are held, the local bodies would start imposing taxes even on domestic animals, vegetables and agricultural produce.
Stating that the government is open for dialogues, he appealed to the protestors to come forward for talks and lift the bandh in the interests of the students, who would appear in their exams, and government employees who had not been able to attend offices following the protests.
GUWAHATI: Beleaguered Nagaland chief minister TR Zeliang went live on All India Radio on Monday in an attempt to reach out to the people and the protesting tribal organisations and assert his governments position on the urban local bodies (ULBs) election, which triggered widespread violence and a standoff between him and the protestors. He appealed to the protesting organisations to lift their indefinite statewide bandh which began on Monday. The bandh poses a serious threat to the holding of class X and XII board examinations beginning on Wednesday. My government has had a series of discussions with various tribal organisations regarding the obligations to uphold the provisions of the Constitution as we are within the Union of India. And holding of elections to the ULBs with 33 per cent reservation of seats for women was one of them, Zeliang said in his address on radio. The tribal bodies, which had earlier set a deadline to Zeliang to resign and enforced the bandh after he failed to do so, are opposed to quota on the ground that it will infringe upon Article 371(A) which commits to protect Naga customary laws and rights. The chief minister said: The fate and content of Article 371(A) was on the verge of being decided by the Supreme Court after the Joint Action Committee on Women Reservation (JACWR) filed a Special Leave Petition stating that Article 243(T) had superseded Article 371(A). And to pre-empt such an eventuality where the courts verdict might go against the special provisions we enjoy through the provisions of Article 371(A), the Cabinet decided that holding of elections to the ULBs with reservation for women was the best option and decided accordingly. It was under Article 243(T), in force since 1993, that the government provided 25 per cent reservation to women in village development boards. Zeliang said his government had decided not to impose any tax on land, commercial or otherwise, or on buildings in municipal and town areas as demanded by the tribal organisations but false propaganda were spread by a few individuals saying that once elections to the ULBs are held, the local bodies would start imposing taxes even on domestic animals, vegetables and agricultural produce. Stating that the government is open for dialogues, he appealed to the protestors to come forward for talks and lift the bandh in the interests of the students, who would appear in their exams, and government employees who had not been able to attend offices following the protests.
Prasanta Mazumdar By
Express News Service
GUWAHATI: Taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modis book, Nagaland chief minister TR Zeliang will address the people in the state at 7.30 PM on Monday on the lines of Mann Ki Baat.
The chief minister of Nagaland Mr. TR Zeliang will be delivering an address to the state at 7.30 PM on Monday on All India Radio, Kohima. Listeners are requested to tune in and listen to the address, a statement issued by the chief ministers office said.
Zeliang is locked in a conflict with some influential tribal organisations over his governments decision to hold urban local bodies elections with 33 per cent reservation for women.
Despite opposition from them, his government went ahead with the polls that were held in some of the 32 ULBs on February 1 but as the exercise triggered widespread violence, the government, as well as the state election commission, declared the polls as null and void.
However, that could not pacify the protestors who demanded Zeliangs resignation and set a deadline. But as he refused to step down, they called an indefinite bandh from Monday.
The bandh will coincide with class X and XII board examinations beginning on Wednesday and an uncertainty now looms large over the exams.
The basic idea of Zeliangs radio address is to reach out to more and more people to assert his governments position on the polls. His Naga Peoples Front (NPF) is an ally of BJP.
Both NPF and BJP are constituents of ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN).
GUWAHATI: Taking a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modis book, Nagaland chief minister TR Zeliang will address the people in the state at 7.30 PM on Monday on the lines of Mann Ki Baat. The chief minister of Nagaland Mr. TR Zeliang will be delivering an address to the state at 7.30 PM on Monday on All India Radio, Kohima. Listeners are requested to tune in and listen to the address, a statement issued by the chief ministers office said. Zeliang is locked in a conflict with some influential tribal organisations over his governments decision to hold urban local bodies elections with 33 per cent reservation for women. Despite opposition from them, his government went ahead with the polls that were held in some of the 32 ULBs on February 1 but as the exercise triggered widespread violence, the government, as well as the state election commission, declared the polls as null and void. However, that could not pacify the protestors who demanded Zeliangs resignation and set a deadline. But as he refused to step down, they called an indefinite bandh from Monday. The bandh will coincide with class X and XII board examinations beginning on Wednesday and an uncertainty now looms large over the exams. The basic idea of Zeliangs radio address is to reach out to more and more people to assert his governments position on the polls. His Naga Peoples Front (NPF) is an ally of BJP. Both NPF and BJP are constituents of ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN).
Manish Anand By
Express News Service
NEW DELHI: After the conclusion of the Assembly elections in five states, the Centre is likely to embark on spearheading reforms in the labour laws in a bid to give a boost to formal economy and push employment growth. The NITI Aayog claims that the objective of the demonetization to enlarge the size of the formal economy could not be achieved until concrete reforms in the labour laws are not carried out across the country.
Demonetization has forced the informal and unorganised sector economy to become formal. But its under compulsion due to cash in circulation suddenly squeezed due to the decision of demonetization. But once the cash returns back into the system, with the Reserve Bank of India remonetising the economy, the objectives of expanding the formal economy may get hurt. Therefore, reforms in the labour laws have to be carried out not just by the Centre, but the states as well to give incentives to the small enterprises to join formal economy, said a senior official of the think-tank panel.
While the Parliament enacted the Model Shops and Establishment law along with the amendment in the payment of wages, the NITI Aayog is of the opinion that the pace of reforms in labour laws is too slow to give results in the short span of time. The Centre has shared the Model Shops and Establishment law with all the state governments, which besides other relaxations allows women to work in the night shift subject to the safety conditions. We hope that all state governments soon roll out the law to give a boost to retail activities in the country and boost employment, added the official. However, trade unions, including those affiliated to the RSS, have ensured that such reforms are not taken up by the state government barring a few.
In place of too many labour laws (there are about 40) in the country working as roadblock to the expansion of the formal economy, the Centre will soon unveil a slew of measures to compress them into a set of four or five to help achieve better compliance and enforcement. The NITI Aayog is working with the state governments also to arrive at a consensus on the needed reforms in the labour laws, said the official, who added that except for Rajasthan, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Telangana, not much have been seen from other states.
The think-tank has also impressed upon the Ministry of Skill Development to give more thrust in skilling of the marginalized people in the rural areas to make them available for absorption in the coming days in small enterprises joining the formal economy to take the benefits of the tax relief to the Small and Medium Enterprises announced in the Budget for 2017-18.
NEW DELHI: After the conclusion of the Assembly elections in five states, the Centre is likely to embark on spearheading reforms in the labour laws in a bid to give a boost to formal economy and push employment growth. The NITI Aayog claims that the objective of the demonetization to enlarge the size of the formal economy could not be achieved until concrete reforms in the labour laws are not carried out across the country. Demonetization has forced the informal and unorganised sector economy to become formal. But its under compulsion due to cash in circulation suddenly squeezed due to the decision of demonetization. But once the cash returns back into the system, with the Reserve Bank of India remonetising the economy, the objectives of expanding the formal economy may get hurt. Therefore, reforms in the labour laws have to be carried out not just by the Centre, but the states as well to give incentives to the small enterprises to join formal economy, said a senior official of the think-tank panel. While the Parliament enacted the Model Shops and Establishment law along with the amendment in the payment of wages, the NITI Aayog is of the opinion that the pace of reforms in labour laws is too slow to give results in the short span of time. The Centre has shared the Model Shops and Establishment law with all the state governments, which besides other relaxations allows women to work in the night shift subject to the safety conditions. We hope that all state governments soon roll out the law to give a boost to retail activities in the country and boost employment, added the official. However, trade unions, including those affiliated to the RSS, have ensured that such reforms are not taken up by the state government barring a few. In place of too many labour laws (there are about 40) in the country working as roadblock to the expansion of the formal economy, the Centre will soon unveil a slew of measures to compress them into a set of four or five to help achieve better compliance and enforcement. The NITI Aayog is working with the state governments also to arrive at a consensus on the needed reforms in the labour laws, said the official, who added that except for Rajasthan, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Telangana, not much have been seen from other states. The think-tank has also impressed upon the Ministry of Skill Development to give more thrust in skilling of the marginalized people in the rural areas to make them available for absorption in the coming days in small enterprises joining the formal economy to take the benefits of the tax relief to the Small and Medium Enterprises announced in the Budget for 2017-18.
Aishik Chanda By
Express News Service
KOLKATA: In a new twist to serial killer Udayan Das murder spree, Bankura police found that the serial killer had two more women from Bhopal on his radar. The accused has revealed during interrogation that he had allegedly promised a job in the United Nations to both these women, akin to his victim and deceased live-in partner Akansha Sharma. However, the two women are untraceable.
"Scanning of Udayan's laptop has revealed intimate photographs of Udayan with a Bhopal resident. During a search in Udayan's Bhopal residence, photographs with another woman were also found. On questioning, Udayan has confessed that he had promised jobs in UN to both the women. He claimed that both the women are residents of Arera Colony in Bhopal," a Bankura Police official told New Indian Express.
Bhopal police, who on Monday raided the two addresses given by Udayan Das found them empty. Bankura police suspect that the triple murder accused became close to the two women after murdering Akansha Sharma on July 14, last year. "Udayan has even claimed that he went to watch a movie with one of them the day after Akansha's murder. Her biodata was found on his laptop," added the officer.
A hunt is on for the whereabouts of the two women, and Udayan is being interrogated to ascertain whether they are still alive or have met the same fate as Akansha Sharma.
Bankura police meanwhile claim that Udayan Das made 22 calls to a close friend, Vikas Singh, who lives in Patna, three days after he murdered Akansha Sharma. Police sources said Vikas Singh is absconding from his Patna residence.
Bhopal resident and Bengal native Udayan Das had murdered and entombed his girlfriend Akansha in his Bhopal house since July last year and killed and buried his parents at their Raipur residence seven years ago.
KOLKATA: In a new twist to serial killer Udayan Das murder spree, Bankura police found that the serial killer had two more women from Bhopal on his radar. The accused has revealed during interrogation that he had allegedly promised a job in the United Nations to both these women, akin to his victim and deceased live-in partner Akansha Sharma. However, the two women are untraceable. "Scanning of Udayan's laptop has revealed intimate photographs of Udayan with a Bhopal resident. During a search in Udayan's Bhopal residence, photographs with another woman were also found. On questioning, Udayan has confessed that he had promised jobs in UN to both the women. He claimed that both the women are residents of Arera Colony in Bhopal," a Bankura Police official told New Indian Express. Bhopal police, who on Monday raided the two addresses given by Udayan Das found them empty. Bankura police suspect that the triple murder accused became close to the two women after murdering Akansha Sharma on July 14, last year. "Udayan has even claimed that he went to watch a movie with one of them the day after Akansha's murder. Her biodata was found on his laptop," added the officer. A hunt is on for the whereabouts of the two women, and Udayan is being interrogated to ascertain whether they are still alive or have met the same fate as Akansha Sharma. Bankura police meanwhile claim that Udayan Das made 22 calls to a close friend, Vikas Singh, who lives in Patna, three days after he murdered Akansha Sharma. Police sources said Vikas Singh is absconding from his Patna residence. Bhopal resident and Bengal native Udayan Das had murdered and entombed his girlfriend Akansha in his Bhopal house since July last year and killed and buried his parents at their Raipur residence seven years ago.
By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has appointed three private persons as consultants to monitor and analyse social media contents relating to the ministry.
The Ministry has appointed SB Navrang, Shishir Tripathi and Ravi Ranjan as consultants on contractual basis for a period of one year.
The assignment will be part of the Social Media Cell of the Ministry of Home Affairs and shall work under the overall supervision and control of Additional Director General (Media) of this Ministry, reads the order relating to the appointment of the consultants.
While Navrang will get a monthly salary of Rs 70,000, Tripathis compensation will be Rs 50,000 per month and Ranjan will be paid Rs 30,000 every month.
The trio is said to have been associated with the IT Cell of the BJP during the 2014 Parliamentary polls in Uttar Pradesh, sources said.
NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry has appointed three private persons as consultants to monitor and analyse social media contents relating to the ministry. The Ministry has appointed SB Navrang, Shishir Tripathi and Ravi Ranjan as consultants on contractual basis for a period of one year. The assignment will be part of the Social Media Cell of the Ministry of Home Affairs and shall work under the overall supervision and control of Additional Director General (Media) of this Ministry, reads the order relating to the appointment of the consultants. While Navrang will get a monthly salary of Rs 70,000, Tripathis compensation will be Rs 50,000 per month and Ranjan will be paid Rs 30,000 every month. The trio is said to have been associated with the IT Cell of the BJP during the 2014 Parliamentary polls in Uttar Pradesh, sources said.
Namita Bajpai By
Express News Service
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat is the lone ranger from his ruling party taking on a galaxy of stars from the rival BJP in the electoral battlefield. When it came to blame games, he did his part by pointing fingers at Vijay Bahuguna for the mishandling of rescue operations during the Kedarnath tragedy. In a free-wheeling interview with NIEs Namita Bajpai, Rawat is confident that the partys star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi campaign for him in Haridwar will help him return as Chief Minister. Excerpts:
You seem to be a lone soldier spearheading the party campaign in the state while BJP is going full-throttle with a battery of leaders, right from the PM?
Since it is a State election, it should solely be my responsibility to inform people about my achievements and policies for the future. However, BJP is a vote-lutwa (vote-snatcher) party. At present, they are busy doing carpet bombing in Uttarakhand and, interestingly, the PM himself is leading that attack.
Whats your take on Harda tax which PM referred to during his public meetings?
It is for the first time in state elections that a PM is stooping down to the lowest level for launching personal attacks on rivals. Harda Tax (the Chief Minister is often referred to as Harda) was a slogan coined by BJPs small time leaders and Modiji has picked it up.
None of the erstwhile Prime Ministers have ever used such terms. I believe Modiji should ponder over the point that by using such language he is bringing disgrace to the position he holds. I want to challenge the Prime Minster to get this Harda tax probed by a Supreme Court judge, along with the Central Bureau of Investigation, within six months to find out if I minted money misusing my position as the CM. Otherwise, this will crop up as a big question and the PM will have to answer it in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
What are the real challenges you are facing on the ground?
At present, the biggest challenge for us is resources. As the famous ghazal sung by Pankaj Udhas goes: Ek tu hi dhanwaan hai goree baki sab kangal can be rephrased as Ek tu hi dhanwan hai Modi baki sab kangaal.
How will you stem the rebellion that threatens the partys prospects in the elections?
It is not that big an issue for Congress since it is limited to a few pockets. Moreover, at some places, the rebels are benefitting the party. BJP has more factions compared to us this time.
What about Congress turncoats who have been given ticket by the BJP?
This time Uttarakhand will vote against the turncoats as people are already fed up with the frequent change of chief ministers. They feel if the tradition of defections gains ground, they will probably have frequently changing CMs and, in turn, instability. Hence, they will avoid such a situation and vote for stability this time.
What about the sting operation BJP leaders are playing up?
It is fake and is a conspiracy hatched by rivals. If there is any case at all, it is against the BJP as the anchor in it claims a plot was hatched to destabilise the government. He takes names of BJP leaders claiming money changed hands.
Will Congress bring Priyanka Gandhi to campaign for you?
Strategically, Haridwar is a densely populated area with 11 Assembly seats. So, we kept her for the last leg to sum up the campaign conclusively.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat is the lone ranger from his ruling party taking on a galaxy of stars from the rival BJP in the electoral battlefield. When it came to blame games, he did his part by pointing fingers at Vijay Bahuguna for the mishandling of rescue operations during the Kedarnath tragedy. In a free-wheeling interview with NIEs Namita Bajpai, Rawat is confident that the partys star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi campaign for him in Haridwar will help him return as Chief Minister. Excerpts: You seem to be a lone soldier spearheading the party campaign in the state while BJP is going full-throttle with a battery of leaders, right from the PM? Since it is a State election, it should solely be my responsibility to inform people about my achievements and policies for the future. However, BJP is a vote-lutwa (vote-snatcher) party. At present, they are busy doing carpet bombing in Uttarakhand and, interestingly, the PM himself is leading that attack. Whats your take on Harda tax which PM referred to during his public meetings? It is for the first time in state elections that a PM is stooping down to the lowest level for launching personal attacks on rivals. Harda Tax (the Chief Minister is often referred to as Harda) was a slogan coined by BJPs small time leaders and Modiji has picked it up. None of the erstwhile Prime Ministers have ever used such terms. I believe Modiji should ponder over the point that by using such language he is bringing disgrace to the position he holds. I want to challenge the Prime Minster to get this Harda tax probed by a Supreme Court judge, along with the Central Bureau of Investigation, within six months to find out if I minted money misusing my position as the CM. Otherwise, this will crop up as a big question and the PM will have to answer it in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. What are the real challenges you are facing on the ground? At present, the biggest challenge for us is resources. As the famous ghazal sung by Pankaj Udhas goes: Ek tu hi dhanwaan hai goree baki sab kangal can be rephrased as Ek tu hi dhanwan hai Modi baki sab kangaal. How will you stem the rebellion that threatens the partys prospects in the elections? It is not that big an issue for Congress since it is limited to a few pockets. Moreover, at some places, the rebels are benefitting the party. BJP has more factions compared to us this time. What about Congress turncoats who have been given ticket by the BJP? This time Uttarakhand will vote against the turncoats as people are already fed up with the frequent change of chief ministers. They feel if the tradition of defections gains ground, they will probably have frequently changing CMs and, in turn, instability. Hence, they will avoid such a situation and vote for stability this time. What about the sting operation BJP leaders are playing up? It is fake and is a conspiracy hatched by rivals. If there is any case at all, it is against the BJP as the anchor in it claims a plot was hatched to destabilise the government. He takes names of BJP leaders claiming money changed hands. Will Congress bring Priyanka Gandhi to campaign for you? Strategically, Haridwar is a densely populated area with 11 Assembly seats. So, we kept her for the last leg to sum up the campaign conclusively.
By PTI
LUCKNOW: A 22-year-old woman, who had accused Samajwadi Party MLA Arun Verma of raping her along with some other youth in 2013, was found murdered near her house in Sultanpur, police said today.
The body of the woman, who was missing since Saturday, was found yesterday near a primary school in Jaisinghpur, they said. A FIR has been registered in this regard.
Police said the injury mark around her neck suggested that she was strangled to death. The body has been sent for postmortem to ascertain the cause of death.
The woman had alleged that the local MLA, who is also the SP's Sultanpur candidate for the February 27 polls, and some others had gangraped her in September 2013.
At one stage, the woman had withdrawn her allegation and some local youths were charge sheeted in the police investigation. The trial in the case is still continuing.
Police is probing the matter and going through call records of the woman.
LUCKNOW: A 22-year-old woman, who had accused Samajwadi Party MLA Arun Verma of raping her along with some other youth in 2013, was found murdered near her house in Sultanpur, police said today. The body of the woman, who was missing since Saturday, was found yesterday near a primary school in Jaisinghpur, they said. A FIR has been registered in this regard. Police said the injury mark around her neck suggested that she was strangled to death. The body has been sent for postmortem to ascertain the cause of death. The woman had alleged that the local MLA, who is also the SP's Sultanpur candidate for the February 27 polls, and some others had gangraped her in September 2013. At one stage, the woman had withdrawn her allegation and some local youths were charge sheeted in the police investigation. The trial in the case is still continuing. Police is probing the matter and going through call records of the woman.
Vikram Sharma By
Express News Service
MUZAFFARNAGAR: Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi puffed up his chest to 56 inches, other political leaders are trying to see whether they measure up to those herculean dimensions. All-India Muslim Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) boss Asaduddin Owaisi thinks he does well enough in the body language sweepstakes.
"Chey foot do inch ka aadmi hoon. Mere se bada koi star hai kya UP elections mein?'' (Im six feet two inches. Is there a bigger star than me in the UP elections?) says the MP from Hyderabad, taking care to chuckle to signal that he means it in jest.
On a serious note, the 47-year-old barrister says his little party is a ''twinkle twinkle little star'' in the Uttar Pradesh political theatre but the other parties that are offering themselves to the voter are no stars at all with no glow or shine.''
With the first phase of the UP poll over and the second slated for February 15, the MIMs lone MP is busy in the bellwether state, trying to expand the footprint of his Hyderabad-based party, this time by trying to stitch together a coalition of Muslims and Dalits.
Under Asaduddin Owaisi, the MIM has embarked upon an audacious campaign of spreading to states adjacent to Telangana and to pockets of Muslim influence in Uttar Pradesh and even Bihar. The Dalit-Muslim Jodi has been fantasized about by other players before Owaisi but none has been able to stitch up the real deal. Not even Kanshiram, the BSP patriarch.
But then, Owaisi counters, I will work much much harder than Kanshiram.
Its a brash confidence but so it was too when boss of the one-MP party declared four years ago that he saw green pastures in Karnataka, Maharashtra, UP, and Bihar. It seemed like an optimists pipedream then, but the MIM, as it is better known in Hyderabad, did prove a point by winning seats in municipalities and even the legislature of Maharashtra. Now contesting 35 seats in UP, Asaduddin Owaisi is busily travelling about Uttar Pradesh in his pursuit of wider relevance for his little party. In an exclusive interview with New Indian Express, Asaduddin Owaisi opens up on his plans.
MIM is making its debut in UP. Where does MIM stand in these elections?
This is the first time we are fighting an election in this state. But we are getting a good response. MIM can emerged as a strong alternate political force in UP.
This time around, who do you think Muslims in UP will vote for?
Unfortunately, the Muslim community is addressed only during the elections. Every political party and media analyst only discusses which way the 19 per cent Muslim population in UP will vote. Nobody discusses which way Brahmins, Thakurs or Kushwahas will vote. Its become a habit for these so-called secular parties. Muslims like to vote for their overall development. They voted for the Samajwadi Party in 2012 and what did they get?
Some Muslim leaders accuse your party of being a BJP agent out to divide the Muslim vote? In fact, some leaders in eastern and western UP say MIM khali vote katwane ke liye election ladta hai?
People are entitled to their opinion. I dont agree. To all those who say that, I want to ask why there is not a single Muslim MP from this state? Samajwadi Party can have five MPs from Mulayam Singh Yadavs family but not one Muslim. Let them say anything, I will continue to do my work for Muslims and weaker and backward sections.
What is your take on the UP ke Ladke campaign about Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi?
Lets talk about the Muzaffarnagar riots. Seven Muslim women were raped. Chargesheets have been filed but not a single person has been convicted. Rapes have increased manifold in UP. Now, look at Akhilesh Yadavs priorities. In the Saifai zoo, six lions died. To treat the remaining lions, doctors from UK were called. Lions were getting RO purified water. Go to Purvanchal. Children are dying due to water-borne diseases but Akhilesh Yadav spends crores on lions and providing them safe drinking water.
The priorities of the SP government are clearly misplaced. Recently, even Amnesty International castigated the SP government for the Muzaffarnagar riots. What happened to the promise of reservation for Muslims? Muslims accepted Mulayam, Akhilesh and Rajiv Gandhi as their leaders but they betrayed the community and thats why MIM had to enter the fray. As per the data, only 5 per cent of Muslims get employment here, but there is about 50 per cent vacancy in the police department. The BJP, both SP and BJP are two sides of the same coin on this.
Is it true that you tried to have an alliance with BSP but Mayawati was not interested.
No, no. Thats not correct.
Talking of Kairana and the issue of Hindu exodus, recently BJP MP Yogi Adityanath said Kairana will not be allowed to be turn into another Kashmir. Your take on this?
Firstly, the BJP should realize that Kashmir has been turned into hell by them as they are in power there along with Mehbooba Mufti. Because of their misgovernance, the situation in Kashmir has become worse. They are simply playing politics in Kairana and the electorate will teach them a lesson. People of Kairana want to earn their livelihood and are therefore going to other places. What can they do, SP promises schools, jobs, infrastructure but not a single promise was kept.
Is notebandi helping BJP or harming it?
Notebandi is definitely a major issue in this election which will decide the peoples vote. The decision was taken in haste and caused havoc to the people.
What are your predictions, who will form the government in UP?
Im not a soothsayer. But yes, MIM is the twinkle twinkle little star in UP while other parties are stars without glow or shine. As far as we are concerned, this is our debut here and we are working hard.
Unlike other parties, you have no stars to campaign for the MIM
Chey foot two inch ka admi, mere se badke koi star hai kya?
MUZAFFARNAGAR: Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi puffed up his chest to 56 inches, other political leaders are trying to see whether they measure up to those herculean dimensions. All-India Muslim Ittehadul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) boss Asaduddin Owaisi thinks he does well enough in the body language sweepstakes. "Chey foot do inch ka aadmi hoon. Mere se bada koi star hai kya UP elections mein?'' (Im six feet two inches. Is there a bigger star than me in the UP elections?) says the MP from Hyderabad, taking care to chuckle to signal that he means it in jest. On a serious note, the 47-year-old barrister says his little party is a ''twinkle twinkle little star'' in the Uttar Pradesh political theatre but the other parties that are offering themselves to the voter are no stars at all with no glow or shine.'' With the first phase of the UP poll over and the second slated for February 15, the MIMs lone MP is busy in the bellwether state, trying to expand the footprint of his Hyderabad-based party, this time by trying to stitch together a coalition of Muslims and Dalits. Under Asaduddin Owaisi, the MIM has embarked upon an audacious campaign of spreading to states adjacent to Telangana and to pockets of Muslim influence in Uttar Pradesh and even Bihar. The Dalit-Muslim Jodi has been fantasized about by other players before Owaisi but none has been able to stitch up the real deal. Not even Kanshiram, the BSP patriarch. But then, Owaisi counters, I will work much much harder than Kanshiram. Its a brash confidence but so it was too when boss of the one-MP party declared four years ago that he saw green pastures in Karnataka, Maharashtra, UP, and Bihar. It seemed like an optimists pipedream then, but the MIM, as it is better known in Hyderabad, did prove a point by winning seats in municipalities and even the legislature of Maharashtra. Now contesting 35 seats in UP, Asaduddin Owaisi is busily travelling about Uttar Pradesh in his pursuit of wider relevance for his little party. In an exclusive interview with New Indian Express, Asaduddin Owaisi opens up on his plans. MIM is making its debut in UP. Where does MIM stand in these elections? This is the first time we are fighting an election in this state. But we are getting a good response. MIM can emerged as a strong alternate political force in UP. This time around, who do you think Muslims in UP will vote for? Unfortunately, the Muslim community is addressed only during the elections. Every political party and media analyst only discusses which way the 19 per cent Muslim population in UP will vote. Nobody discusses which way Brahmins, Thakurs or Kushwahas will vote. Its become a habit for these so-called secular parties. Muslims like to vote for their overall development. They voted for the Samajwadi Party in 2012 and what did they get? Some Muslim leaders accuse your party of being a BJP agent out to divide the Muslim vote? In fact, some leaders in eastern and western UP say MIM khali vote katwane ke liye election ladta hai? People are entitled to their opinion. I dont agree. To all those who say that, I want to ask why there is not a single Muslim MP from this state? Samajwadi Party can have five MPs from Mulayam Singh Yadavs family but not one Muslim. Let them say anything, I will continue to do my work for Muslims and weaker and backward sections. What is your take on the UP ke Ladke campaign about Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi? Lets talk about the Muzaffarnagar riots. Seven Muslim women were raped. Chargesheets have been filed but not a single person has been convicted. Rapes have increased manifold in UP. Now, look at Akhilesh Yadavs priorities. In the Saifai zoo, six lions died. To treat the remaining lions, doctors from UK were called. Lions were getting RO purified water. Go to Purvanchal. Children are dying due to water-borne diseases but Akhilesh Yadav spends crores on lions and providing them safe drinking water. The priorities of the SP government are clearly misplaced. Recently, even Amnesty International castigated the SP government for the Muzaffarnagar riots. What happened to the promise of reservation for Muslims? Muslims accepted Mulayam, Akhilesh and Rajiv Gandhi as their leaders but they betrayed the community and thats why MIM had to enter the fray. As per the data, only 5 per cent of Muslims get employment here, but there is about 50 per cent vacancy in the police department. The BJP, both SP and BJP are two sides of the same coin on this. Is it true that you tried to have an alliance with BSP but Mayawati was not interested. No, no. Thats not correct. Talking of Kairana and the issue of Hindu exodus, recently BJP MP Yogi Adityanath said Kairana will not be allowed to be turn into another Kashmir. Your take on this? Firstly, the BJP should realize that Kashmir has been turned into hell by them as they are in power there along with Mehbooba Mufti. Because of their misgovernance, the situation in Kashmir has become worse. They are simply playing politics in Kairana and the electorate will teach them a lesson. People of Kairana want to earn their livelihood and are therefore going to other places. What can they do, SP promises schools, jobs, infrastructure but not a single promise was kept. Is notebandi helping BJP or harming it? Notebandi is definitely a major issue in this election which will decide the peoples vote. The decision was taken in haste and caused havoc to the people. What are your predictions, who will form the government in UP? Im not a soothsayer. But yes, MIM is the twinkle twinkle little star in UP while other parties are stars without glow or shine. As far as we are concerned, this is our debut here and we are working hard. Unlike other parties, you have no stars to campaign for the MIM Chey foot two inch ka admi, mere se badke koi star hai kya?
Suresh Sundaram By
Within just nine months of going to the polls, Tamil Nadu is searching for its third chief minister, all of them from the ruling AIADMK. The transfer of power after the demise of J Jayalalithaa had been smooth: it created two levels of leadership the party with V K Sasikala and the government with O Panneerselvam . And it was always known that in the event of a conflict between the two power centres, the partys decision would prevail. In other words, the AIADMK created a working arrangement akin to the dyarchy of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh in the UPA, with the former as the super Prime Minister, as documents exclusively published by New Indian Express in recent weeks established.
Sonia had to do backseat driving since the question of her Italian nationality had thwarted her attempts to become prime minister herself. Though she sought to give it a different spin through scripted media interviews in which she claimed never to have been interested in occupying the throne herself, no one believed she was a political saint.
Sasikala had no such hang-ups. She is the general secretary of a party that has always been monolithic. So the command and control of both the party and the government had to be vested in her sooner than later. The big decision came at a legislature party meeting on February 5 where the incumbent chief minister Panneerselvam announced his abdication and proposed Sasikala as his successor.
OPS, as the chief minister is better known, immediately faxed his resignation letter to acting Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao who was in Ooty at that point in time. Parallelly, the resolution of the AIADMK legislature party proposing Sasikala as the head of government was sent to him. Vidyasagar Rao accepted the resignation and asked Panneerselvam to continue in office as caretaker chief minister until alternative arrangements were made. The AIADMK expected the Governor to return to Chennai immediately and formalise the new arrangement. But that is where he changed the plot.
Vidyasagar Rao took three long days to return to Chennai to address the constitutional crisis. That he had better things to do on those three days, including attending a marriage reception in New Delhi and addressing a university convocation in Mumbai, made many wonder what he was up to. They suspected he was acting out a script written by the powers in New Delhi.
A week is a long time in politics, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said in 1964. That ought to be pared down to three days if Tamil Nadus experience is anything to go by. In those three days when the Governor played the missing referee, there where attempts to cut open the AIADMK through a surprise rebellion by Panneerselvam. Sasikala blamed it on the DMK, pointing to the cozy body language between OPS and DMK stalwart Durai Murugan in the Assembly session. She went on to claim that their mutual warmth was what prodded her to expedite the take over the mantle of governance.
Governor Vidyasagar Rao later tried to defend the delay in his arrival, saying there was no constitutional vacuum since there was a caretaker chief minister in place. There was no need for alarm, he added. But even Panneerselvam wouldnt claime he was running a functioning government. Most of his ministers and MLAs have been safely herded away by the Sasikala camp to a resort in Koovathur, about 83 km from Chennai, to prevent poaching.
Anyway, it is now known that Vidyasagar Rao wanted to wait till the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict in the disproportionate assets case involving Sasikala, which is due next week. He didnt want to get into an awkward situation in which a person installed as chief minister might not be able to get elected to the Assembly within six months. He built his opinion on a Supreme Court ruling according to which even if there is an iota of doubt about a persons ability to get elected to the Assembly within six months, Article 164(4) of the Constitution would come into play and be interpreted as a restriction and disqualification. The Governor could have avoided much of the current controversy had he quickly reached Chennai to lead from the front and shared his views upfront.
With her patience wearing thin, Sasikala has accused the Governor of dithering, saying his delay in decision making was driving a wedge into her group of lawmakers. She also gave enough indications that she is not going to take it lying down. An interesting week lies ahead.
Suresh Sundaram is Deputy Resident Editor (Tamil Nadu) of New Indian Express
Email: ssuresh@newindianexpress.com
Within just nine months of going to the polls, Tamil Nadu is searching for its third chief minister, all of them from the ruling AIADMK. The transfer of power after the demise of J Jayalalithaa had been smooth: it created two levels of leadership the party with V K Sasikala and the government with O Panneerselvam . And it was always known that in the event of a conflict between the two power centres, the partys decision would prevail. In other words, the AIADMK created a working arrangement akin to the dyarchy of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh in the UPA, with the former as the super Prime Minister, as documents exclusively published by New Indian Express in recent weeks established. Sonia had to do backseat driving since the question of her Italian nationality had thwarted her attempts to become prime minister herself. Though she sought to give it a different spin through scripted media interviews in which she claimed never to have been interested in occupying the throne herself, no one believed she was a political saint. Sasikala had no such hang-ups. She is the general secretary of a party that has always been monolithic. So the command and control of both the party and the government had to be vested in her sooner than later. The big decision came at a legislature party meeting on February 5 where the incumbent chief minister Panneerselvam announced his abdication and proposed Sasikala as his successor. OPS, as the chief minister is better known, immediately faxed his resignation letter to acting Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao who was in Ooty at that point in time. Parallelly, the resolution of the AIADMK legislature party proposing Sasikala as the head of government was sent to him. Vidyasagar Rao accepted the resignation and asked Panneerselvam to continue in office as caretaker chief minister until alternative arrangements were made. The AIADMK expected the Governor to return to Chennai immediately and formalise the new arrangement. But that is where he changed the plot. Vidyasagar Rao took three long days to return to Chennai to address the constitutional crisis. That he had better things to do on those three days, including attending a marriage reception in New Delhi and addressing a university convocation in Mumbai, made many wonder what he was up to. They suspected he was acting out a script written by the powers in New Delhi. A week is a long time in politics, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said in 1964. That ought to be pared down to three days if Tamil Nadus experience is anything to go by. In those three days when the Governor played the missing referee, there where attempts to cut open the AIADMK through a surprise rebellion by Panneerselvam. Sasikala blamed it on the DMK, pointing to the cozy body language between OPS and DMK stalwart Durai Murugan in the Assembly session. She went on to claim that their mutual warmth was what prodded her to expedite the take over the mantle of governance. Governor Vidyasagar Rao later tried to defend the delay in his arrival, saying there was no constitutional vacuum since there was a caretaker chief minister in place. There was no need for alarm, he added. But even Panneerselvam wouldnt claime he was running a functioning government. Most of his ministers and MLAs have been safely herded away by the Sasikala camp to a resort in Koovathur, about 83 km from Chennai, to prevent poaching. Anyway, it is now known that Vidyasagar Rao wanted to wait till the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict in the disproportionate assets case involving Sasikala, which is due next week. He didnt want to get into an awkward situation in which a person installed as chief minister might not be able to get elected to the Assembly within six months. He built his opinion on a Supreme Court ruling according to which even if there is an iota of doubt about a persons ability to get elected to the Assembly within six months, Article 164(4) of the Constitution would come into play and be interpreted as a restriction and disqualification. The Governor could have avoided much of the current controversy had he quickly reached Chennai to lead from the front and shared his views upfront. With her patience wearing thin, Sasikala has accused the Governor of dithering, saying his delay in decision making was driving a wedge into her group of lawmakers. She also gave enough indications that she is not going to take it lying down. An interesting week lies ahead. Suresh Sundaram is Deputy Resident Editor (Tamil Nadu) of New Indian Express Email: ssuresh@newindianexpress.com
A Surya Prakash By
Aconfidential assessment made by the West-European Division of the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) of the US in the late 1980s had said that although there was sufficient and clinching evidence of bribery and commissions in the Bofors Scandal, the Swedish government called off the investigation in order to protect the image of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
According to Manu Pubby of the Economic Times who got to see recently declassified CIA records, the documents said that Stockholm wanted to save (Rajiv) Gandhi the troubles caused (to) him by the Swedish leak and ward off a possible bribery indictment. Therefore, in order to achieve this, the two governments worked out a scheme to keep details of the payments secret.
The documents said that almost certainly payments were made by Sweden to win the India deal. It said the Swedish National Audit Bureau had concluded that as much as USD $ 40 million had been paid in commissions to middlemen.
However, in order to save Rajiv Gandhi, the Swedish government terminated its probe two years after the scandal broke out. The CIA documents only corroborate the fact that Bofors paid commissions and bribes to win the India deal.
The Bofors story dates back to the early 1980s when the process of procuring field guns for the Army began. Although Sofma of France was ahead in evaluations, Bofors clinched the deal in the final stages. Investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Sweden and Switzerland, following brilliant international investigation by Geneva-based journalist Chitra Subramaniam, clearly established that Bofors had paid commissions. The CBI procured bank documents that established Ottavio Quattrocchi as one of the beneficiaries.
These investigations by media persons and the CBI provided damning evidence that took the allegation of commissions and bribes right up to the doorsteps of the Nehru-Gandhis. For example, the investigators found that Bofors entered into a contract with a company called AE Services in the latter part of 1985 and offered this company three per cent commission, if the Indian contract was concluded before March 31, 1986. In other words, it was a time-bound deal.
AE Services had to deliver the contract within that deadline and strangely, the Rajiv Gandhi government signed the contract with Bofors on March 24, 1986just one week before the expiry of this deadline! Two months later, India paid 20 per cent of the contract sum to Bofors, and Bofors, as per its contract with AE Services, promptly transferred 3 per cent of this amount$7.383 million to the bank account of this company in Nordfinanz Bank, Zurich. The CBI found that AE Services, in turn, transferred this money to the bank account of a company called Colbar Investments. And who owned Colbar Investments? Maria and Ottavio Quattrocchi, the dear friends of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi!
The Delhi Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal which also probed payment of commissions also fully corroborated the money trail.
The bribery scandal broke out in April 1987, when the Swedish Radio declared that it had evidence of Bofors having paid bribes to people in India to clinch the deal. As Rajiv Gandhis image plummeted and he struggled to keep afloat in the swirl of scandal, another strange development took place. An AE Services official wrote to Bofors and said it did not want any more commission on the India deal!
The question on every Indians lips since 1987 is: How did Quattrocchi, an Italian, manage to swing the Bofors deal, before the expiry of the deadline set by the company? Who helped him achieve this rather extraordinary feat?
Why did Bofors pay this Italian a commission when we purchased guns for our Army? And finally, why did Quattrocchi forego subsequent payments that were legitimately due to him, after the scandal broke?
As everyone is aware, the Opposition went after Rajiv Gandhi, saying he had taken bribes in a defence deal and this led to the defeat of the Congress in the 1989 election. So many individuals involved in this scandal are no more. Rajiv Gandhi; Ottavio Quattrocchi; Martin Ardbo, who was President of Bofors when the deal was signed and whose diary entries provided vital clues to the Swedish police; the former Defence Secretary S K Bhatnagar; and Win Chadha, the companys agent in India.
With the passing of each of these individuals, there would be speculation that the saga of Bofors would now end. But no such thing has happened. No financial or bribery scandal will fade out of public memory until there are adequate reparations for the losses suffered by the exchequer. Unless this happens, a scandal is deathless. It will linger in the public mind and will be passed on, possibly with some embellishments from one generation to another. While this is generally the case, it is more so in cases concerning national security.
The taking of bribes or commissions when India bought guns for her soldiers is deemed an act of treachery (Desha Droha) and is never forgiven. Despite this clinching evidence of the money trail, Maria Quattrocchi claimed after her husbands death in 2013 that her husband was hounded for over 20 years.
The ghost of Bofors will continue to haunt the Nehru-Gandhis until they own up that bribes and commissions were paid to their near and dear ones by the Swedish arms manufacturer. The only Prayaschittha is honest admission by the family. Until then, as the latest evidence from the CIA files shows us, the ghost of Bofors will continue to haunt them and extract its price in political terms for the decisions made in 1986.
Aconfidential assessment made by the West-European Division of the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) of the US in the late 1980s had said that although there was sufficient and clinching evidence of bribery and commissions in the Bofors Scandal, the Swedish government called off the investigation in order to protect the image of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. According to Manu Pubby of the Economic Times who got to see recently declassified CIA records, the documents said that Stockholm wanted to save (Rajiv) Gandhi the troubles caused (to) him by the Swedish leak and ward off a possible bribery indictment. Therefore, in order to achieve this, the two governments worked out a scheme to keep details of the payments secret. The documents said that almost certainly payments were made by Sweden to win the India deal. It said the Swedish National Audit Bureau had concluded that as much as USD $ 40 million had been paid in commissions to middlemen. However, in order to save Rajiv Gandhi, the Swedish government terminated its probe two years after the scandal broke out. The CIA documents only corroborate the fact that Bofors paid commissions and bribes to win the India deal. The Bofors story dates back to the early 1980s when the process of procuring field guns for the Army began. Although Sofma of France was ahead in evaluations, Bofors clinched the deal in the final stages. Investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Sweden and Switzerland, following brilliant international investigation by Geneva-based journalist Chitra Subramaniam, clearly established that Bofors had paid commissions. The CBI procured bank documents that established Ottavio Quattrocchi as one of the beneficiaries. These investigations by media persons and the CBI provided damning evidence that took the allegation of commissions and bribes right up to the doorsteps of the Nehru-Gandhis. For example, the investigators found that Bofors entered into a contract with a company called AE Services in the latter part of 1985 and offered this company three per cent commission, if the Indian contract was concluded before March 31, 1986. In other words, it was a time-bound deal. AE Services had to deliver the contract within that deadline and strangely, the Rajiv Gandhi government signed the contract with Bofors on March 24, 1986just one week before the expiry of this deadline! Two months later, India paid 20 per cent of the contract sum to Bofors, and Bofors, as per its contract with AE Services, promptly transferred 3 per cent of this amount$7.383 million to the bank account of this company in Nordfinanz Bank, Zurich. The CBI found that AE Services, in turn, transferred this money to the bank account of a company called Colbar Investments. And who owned Colbar Investments? Maria and Ottavio Quattrocchi, the dear friends of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi! The Delhi Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal which also probed payment of commissions also fully corroborated the money trail. The bribery scandal broke out in April 1987, when the Swedish Radio declared that it had evidence of Bofors having paid bribes to people in India to clinch the deal. As Rajiv Gandhis image plummeted and he struggled to keep afloat in the swirl of scandal, another strange development took place. An AE Services official wrote to Bofors and said it did not want any more commission on the India deal! The question on every Indians lips since 1987 is: How did Quattrocchi, an Italian, manage to swing the Bofors deal, before the expiry of the deadline set by the company? Who helped him achieve this rather extraordinary feat? Why did Bofors pay this Italian a commission when we purchased guns for our Army? And finally, why did Quattrocchi forego subsequent payments that were legitimately due to him, after the scandal broke? As everyone is aware, the Opposition went after Rajiv Gandhi, saying he had taken bribes in a defence deal and this led to the defeat of the Congress in the 1989 election. So many individuals involved in this scandal are no more. Rajiv Gandhi; Ottavio Quattrocchi; Martin Ardbo, who was President of Bofors when the deal was signed and whose diary entries provided vital clues to the Swedish police; the former Defence Secretary S K Bhatnagar; and Win Chadha, the companys agent in India. With the passing of each of these individuals, there would be speculation that the saga of Bofors would now end. But no such thing has happened. No financial or bribery scandal will fade out of public memory until there are adequate reparations for the losses suffered by the exchequer. Unless this happens, a scandal is deathless. It will linger in the public mind and will be passed on, possibly with some embellishments from one generation to another. While this is generally the case, it is more so in cases concerning national security. The taking of bribes or commissions when India bought guns for her soldiers is deemed an act of treachery (Desha Droha) and is never forgiven. Despite this clinching evidence of the money trail, Maria Quattrocchi claimed after her husbands death in 2013 that her husband was hounded for over 20 years. The ghost of Bofors will continue to haunt the Nehru-Gandhis until they own up that bribes and commissions were paid to their near and dear ones by the Swedish arms manufacturer. The only Prayaschittha is honest admission by the family. Until then, as the latest evidence from the CIA files shows us, the ghost of Bofors will continue to haunt them and extract its price in political terms for the decisions made in 1986.
By Express News Service
VIJAYAWADA: Actor and politician Pawan Kalyan got a rousing welcome for his debut speech from the audience during the India Conference 2017 being held at Harvard Kennedy School in the US, on Sunday. As the management students chanted Power Star, Power Star, the Jana Sena party chief explained his political agenda and said his party stands for integrating India.
Pawan Kalyan, who is one of the chief guests along with a few other renowned personalities from various fields in India, was visibly overwhelmed by cheering from the 500-odd select audience at the Harvard as he fumbled to speak.
You have to understand my situation. I started my education in a street school, so it is little difficult for me to address the audience at Harvard, he said while addressing the crowd on the topic Emerging India-Role of Andhra Pradesh at John F Kennedy Junior Forum in the Harvard University.
The actor who spoke for over 15 minutes during the introductory session, is expected to speak on his topic during the next session on Monday.
During his schooling, the actor had a lot of time to contemplate lifes problems and it became his lifetime obsession to compare what is being said and what is being done.
I received a good beating from my teacher for raising doubts over the lack of facilities in school. Now, I am being criticised by the politicians for doing the same with regard to societal problems, he laughed as the crowd of the 500-odd select audience cheered for him.
The Jana Sena chief also gave a glimpse into his health problems and plans to commit suicide, before his tryst with yoga and martial arts.
My focus was not on education, my focus was on issues that plagued the society. I never wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a yogi, he added. He also explained how his brother Chiranjeevi made him realise his responsibilities and make something concrete out of life when he bothered the latter with his philosophies.
Dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt, Pawan Kalyan had set the tone for his speech on Monday by stating that the law in India is applied weakly on the strong and strongly on the weak.
Passiveness and divisiveness of our political system has compelled me to enter politics. Though I entered politics to support my brother and fell out of it earlier, I have returned to approach the problem the way it should be, the Power Star said generating a huge applause from the audience.
VIJAYAWADA: Actor and politician Pawan Kalyan got a rousing welcome for his debut speech from the audience during the India Conference 2017 being held at Harvard Kennedy School in the US, on Sunday. As the management students chanted Power Star, Power Star, the Jana Sena party chief explained his political agenda and said his party stands for integrating India. Pawan Kalyan, who is one of the chief guests along with a few other renowned personalities from various fields in India, was visibly overwhelmed by cheering from the 500-odd select audience at the Harvard as he fumbled to speak. You have to understand my situation. I started my education in a street school, so it is little difficult for me to address the audience at Harvard, he said while addressing the crowd on the topic Emerging India-Role of Andhra Pradesh at John F Kennedy Junior Forum in the Harvard University. The actor who spoke for over 15 minutes during the introductory session, is expected to speak on his topic during the next session on Monday. During his schooling, the actor had a lot of time to contemplate lifes problems and it became his lifetime obsession to compare what is being said and what is being done. I received a good beating from my teacher for raising doubts over the lack of facilities in school. Now, I am being criticised by the politicians for doing the same with regard to societal problems, he laughed as the crowd of the 500-odd select audience cheered for him. The Jana Sena chief also gave a glimpse into his health problems and plans to commit suicide, before his tryst with yoga and martial arts. My focus was not on education, my focus was on issues that plagued the society. I never wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a yogi, he added. He also explained how his brother Chiranjeevi made him realise his responsibilities and make something concrete out of life when he bothered the latter with his philosophies. Dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt, Pawan Kalyan had set the tone for his speech on Monday by stating that the law in India is applied weakly on the strong and strongly on the weak. Passiveness and divisiveness of our political system has compelled me to enter politics. Though I entered politics to support my brother and fell out of it earlier, I have returned to approach the problem the way it should be, the Power Star said generating a huge applause from the audience.
By Express News Service
BENGALURU: Karnataka Congress leaders on Monday termed BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa's allegation of kickbacks against chief minister Siddaramaiah as part of a conspiracy to destabilise the ruling government.
Senior ministers MB Patil, Basavaraj Rayareddy and Sharan Prakash Patil in a joint press conference released a CD of a purported conversation between Yeddyurappa and Ananth Kumar which shows the two leaders engaged in private conversation at a BJP function.
The two leaders are heard discussing the diary seized by the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax officials from a Congress MLC's residence, which is said to have notes about payments made to Congress high command.
Ananth Kumar is heard asking Yeddyurappa to keep the issue alive till the next Assembly election as the contents of the diary is quite explosive.
The two leaders are also heard speaking about having made similar payments to their own (BJP) high command when the party was in power in Karnataka.
It may be recalled that Yeddyurappa had recently accused CM Siddaramaiah of paying Rs1000 crore to party high command to retain his position as the chief minister.
He was also accused of having received a kickback of Rs65cr in the proposed Steel Flyover project in Bengaluru.
Yeddyurappa when asked about the CD row, declined to comment.
BENGALURU: Karnataka Congress leaders on Monday termed BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa's allegation of kickbacks against chief minister Siddaramaiah as part of a conspiracy to destabilise the ruling government. Senior ministers MB Patil, Basavaraj Rayareddy and Sharan Prakash Patil in a joint press conference released a CD of a purported conversation between Yeddyurappa and Ananth Kumar which shows the two leaders engaged in private conversation at a BJP function. The two leaders are heard discussing the diary seized by the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax officials from a Congress MLC's residence, which is said to have notes about payments made to Congress high command. Ananth Kumar is heard asking Yeddyurappa to keep the issue alive till the next Assembly election as the contents of the diary is quite explosive. The two leaders are also heard speaking about having made similar payments to their own (BJP) high command when the party was in power in Karnataka. It may be recalled that Yeddyurappa had recently accused CM Siddaramaiah of paying Rs1000 crore to party high command to retain his position as the chief minister. He was also accused of having received a kickback of Rs65cr in the proposed Steel Flyover project in Bengaluru. Yeddyurappa when asked about the CD row, declined to comment.
By Express News Service
THRISSUR: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is probing the death of engineering student Jishnu Pranoy has named Nehru Group of Institutions chairman P Krishnadas as the first accused in the investigation report submitted to the Vadakkachery chief judicial magistrates court on Monday.
The SIT head Kiran Narayanan appeared in the court to submit the report.
Vice-principal Sakthivel, assistant professor C P Praveen, public relations officer Sajith and exam cell member Vipin and Vimal are the other accused in the case.
The police have charged them with abetment of suicide, assault and conspiracy. All the charges are non-bailable.
Meanwhile, all the accused are reportedly absconding. A search operation is on for the accused and it has been extended to Tamil Nadu, said police.
THRISSUR: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is probing the death of engineering student Jishnu Pranoy has named Nehru Group of Institutions chairman P Krishnadas as the first accused in the investigation report submitted to the Vadakkachery chief judicial magistrates court on Monday. The SIT head Kiran Narayanan appeared in the court to submit the report. Vice-principal Sakthivel, assistant professor C P Praveen, public relations officer Sajith and exam cell member Vipin and Vimal are the other accused in the case. The police have charged them with abetment of suicide, assault and conspiracy. All the charges are non-bailable. Meanwhile, all the accused are reportedly absconding. A search operation is on for the accused and it has been extended to Tamil Nadu, said police.
By Express News Service
THRISSUR: An 18-year-old BJP worker was stabbed to death on Sunday night in a clash that occurred during the festival in Kokkulangara temple in Mukkattukara near here.
The BJP alleged political conspiracy behind the murder and held CPM responsible for it. The saffron brigade has also called for a hartal today (Monday) in Thrissur district.
The deceased has been identified as Nirmal (18), son of Balan, Poradan House, Cheradam. The incident happened Sunday night at 11.15 PM. Nirmal had succumbed to death in Jubilee hospital in Thrissur around midnight. Another person, one Midhun, was injured in the clash, said Krishnakumar, sub-inspector of Mannuthi Police Station.
Police have registered a case against six CPM workers--Sidhu, Sachin, Arun, Sandeep, Jesudas and brother of Sidhu.
THRISSUR: An 18-year-old BJP worker was stabbed to death on Sunday night in a clash that occurred during the festival in Kokkulangara temple in Mukkattukara near here. The BJP alleged political conspiracy behind the murder and held CPM responsible for it. The saffron brigade has also called for a hartal today (Monday) in Thrissur district. The deceased has been identified as Nirmal (18), son of Balan, Poradan House, Cheradam. The incident happened Sunday night at 11.15 PM. Nirmal had succumbed to death in Jubilee hospital in Thrissur around midnight. Another person, one Midhun, was injured in the clash, said Krishnakumar, sub-inspector of Mannuthi Police Station. Police have registered a case against six CPM workers--Sidhu, Sachin, Arun, Sandeep, Jesudas and brother of Sidhu.
By Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: The much-hyped three-tier panchayat elections in Odisha commenced on Monday with the first phase recording over 50 percent polling amidst stray cases of violence and boycotts across the districts.
However, no Maoist violence has been reported during the polls although the Left Wing extremists torched a contractors camp in Balangir's Khaprakhole block on Sunday night. The State Election Commission (SEC) said the incident had nothing to do with the elections.
The polling which began at 7 am was moderate and by 10 am, when the voting rate was about 35 percent which rose to 50 percent at around 11 am. When the day's voting closed at 12 noon, there were still people in booths exercising their rights. The overall polling is likely to go past 55 percent.
SEC secretary Rabindra Nath Sahu said, there were reports of a disturbance at Cuttack's Mahanga block. In two booths of Haladia, miscreants resorted to booth capturing and rigging. Similarly, in six booths of Dokada and Balijhari, election was boycotted. A change in election symbol of a candidate in Tikanpur GP of Kendrapara district led to agitation.
In the northern district of Keonjhar's Hatadihi block, voting was affected after voters list of the presiding officer and polling agents did not match.
"Barring sporadic incidence, the election process has been, by and large, peaceful in the Central Range districts," inspector general (Central), Saumendra Priyadarshi said.
Despite threats from the Left Wing extremist outfit in the recent weeks, disturbances were not reported from southern Odisha districts of Koraput, Malkangiri, and Nabarangpur. In fact, in 27 booths under Lamataput under Koraput, polling was above 30 percent till reports last came in.
"Voting has been peaceful across the southern districts and we are keeping a close watch on the proceedings," deputy inspector general, South Western Range S Shyni said.
As many as 65 blocks in 29 districts went to polls in the first phase where the fate of 188 Zilla Parishad (ZP) members was sealed. The polling has been conducted for 198 ZP zones comprising 1,506 gram panchayats and 20,369 wards.
Counting of votes started from at 1 am at booths where voting was complete. However, results would be announced only on February 22, a day after the five-phase polls are complete. However, the results will be unofficially out by Monday evening, setting the tone for the next four phases of polls.
BHUBANESWAR: The much-hyped three-tier panchayat elections in Odisha commenced on Monday with the first phase recording over 50 percent polling amidst stray cases of violence and boycotts across the districts. However, no Maoist violence has been reported during the polls although the Left Wing extremists torched a contractors camp in Balangir's Khaprakhole block on Sunday night. The State Election Commission (SEC) said the incident had nothing to do with the elections. The polling which began at 7 am was moderate and by 10 am, when the voting rate was about 35 percent which rose to 50 percent at around 11 am. When the day's voting closed at 12 noon, there were still people in booths exercising their rights. The overall polling is likely to go past 55 percent. SEC secretary Rabindra Nath Sahu said, there were reports of a disturbance at Cuttack's Mahanga block. In two booths of Haladia, miscreants resorted to booth capturing and rigging. Similarly, in six booths of Dokada and Balijhari, election was boycotted. A change in election symbol of a candidate in Tikanpur GP of Kendrapara district led to agitation. In the northern district of Keonjhar's Hatadihi block, voting was affected after voters list of the presiding officer and polling agents did not match. "Barring sporadic incidence, the election process has been, by and large, peaceful in the Central Range districts," inspector general (Central), Saumendra Priyadarshi said. Despite threats from the Left Wing extremist outfit in the recent weeks, disturbances were not reported from southern Odisha districts of Koraput, Malkangiri, and Nabarangpur. In fact, in 27 booths under Lamataput under Koraput, polling was above 30 percent till reports last came in. "Voting has been peaceful across the southern districts and we are keeping a close watch on the proceedings," deputy inspector general, South Western Range S Shyni said. As many as 65 blocks in 29 districts went to polls in the first phase where the fate of 188 Zilla Parishad (ZP) members was sealed. The polling has been conducted for 198 ZP zones comprising 1,506 gram panchayats and 20,369 wards. Counting of votes started from at 1 am at booths where voting was complete. However, results would be announced only on February 22, a day after the five-phase polls are complete. However, the results will be unofficially out by Monday evening, setting the tone for the next four phases of polls.
By Express News Service
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu police detained several persons as a preventive measure across the state on the basis of intelligence reports of a possible outbreak of violence between the two factions of the ruling AIADMK which are locked in a tussle for power.
In Chennai, following intensive checking of lodges and marriage halls during the weekend, police teams picked up 105 persons for questioning. About 1340 hotels and 540 lodges were searched in various localities of Chennai.
Meanwhile, reports have come in of arrests and detentions in other districts of the state. Fourteen persons were arrested in Cuddalore, 19 in Dharmapuri district, 15 in Krishnagiri district. Police detained 77 as a preventive measure in Thoothukudi district.
A total of 143 persons were detained in the three districts of Madurai, Sivagangai and Ramanathapuram. Nearly 32 persons including a minor were arrested in Madurai district while 17 persons were picked up in Madurai City. Similarly, in Sivaganga 45 persons and 49 persons in Ramnad were arrested.
In Trichy alone, 22 were arrested, while 18 persons were arrested in Villupuram. Police also carried out arrests in Virudhunagar (31), Salem (43), Tirunelveli (34) and Tirupur (51).
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu police detained several persons as a preventive measure across the state on the basis of intelligence reports of a possible outbreak of violence between the two factions of the ruling AIADMK which are locked in a tussle for power. In Chennai, following intensive checking of lodges and marriage halls during the weekend, police teams picked up 105 persons for questioning. About 1340 hotels and 540 lodges were searched in various localities of Chennai. Meanwhile, reports have come in of arrests and detentions in other districts of the state. Fourteen persons were arrested in Cuddalore, 19 in Dharmapuri district, 15 in Krishnagiri district. Police detained 77 as a preventive measure in Thoothukudi district. A total of 143 persons were detained in the three districts of Madurai, Sivagangai and Ramanathapuram. Nearly 32 persons including a minor were arrested in Madurai district while 17 persons were picked up in Madurai City. Similarly, in Sivaganga 45 persons and 49 persons in Ramnad were arrested. In Trichy alone, 22 were arrested, while 18 persons were arrested in Villupuram. Police also carried out arrests in Virudhunagar (31), Salem (43), Tirunelveli (34) and Tirupur (51).
By Express News Service
CHENNAI: Caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam visited the Secretariat at Fort St George on Monday, accompanied by the minister for school education Ma Foi K Pandiarajan, five days after he triggered a surprise rebellion in AIADMK.
According to the sources, Panneerselvam, who has not ventured out of his official residence ever since the February 7 revolt, reached the Secretariat at 12.15 PM. The police made elaborate security arrangements both along the route and in the premises of the Fort under the speculation that his visit may turn into a road show as his supporters are gearing to cheer all along the route.
Duty conscious, CM O Panneerselvam reaches office at Secretariat, meets govt officials' assn, receives petition of demands.#OPSvsSasikala pic.twitter.com/03UyX4NyLu gopu mohan (@gopumohan_TNIE) February 13, 2017
Ahead of the CMs visit to the office, chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan earlier in the day held consultations with the State police chief TK Rajendran and Chennai city commissioner S George. It assumes significance in the wake of allegations leveled against certain top police officials of acting in partisan and refusing to take commands from the caretaker CM.
The CM is expected to issue some orders regarding the detention of the MLAs supporting VK Sasikala.
O Panneerselvam is likely to issue certain orders regarding drought relief distribution to the affected people and augmentation of drinking water supply as the State is undergoing severe drought, added the sources.
CHENNAI: Caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam visited the Secretariat at Fort St George on Monday, accompanied by the minister for school education Ma Foi K Pandiarajan, five days after he triggered a surprise rebellion in AIADMK. According to the sources, Panneerselvam, who has not ventured out of his official residence ever since the February 7 revolt, reached the Secretariat at 12.15 PM. The police made elaborate security arrangements both along the route and in the premises of the Fort under the speculation that his visit may turn into a road show as his supporters are gearing to cheer all along the route. Duty conscious, CM O Panneerselvam reaches office at Secretariat, meets govt officials' assn, receives petition of demands.#OPSvsSasikala pic.twitter.com/03UyX4NyLu gopu mohan (@gopumohan_TNIE) February 13, 2017 Ahead of the CMs visit to the office, chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan earlier in the day held consultations with the State police chief TK Rajendran and Chennai city commissioner S George. It assumes significance in the wake of allegations leveled against certain top police officials of acting in partisan and refusing to take commands from the caretaker CM. The CM is expected to issue some orders regarding the detention of the MLAs supporting VK Sasikala. O Panneerselvam is likely to issue certain orders regarding drought relief distribution to the affected people and augmentation of drinking water supply as the State is undergoing severe drought, added the sources.
By Express News Service
CHENNAI: The verandah outside caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvams official residence, the headquarters of the rebel camp, is increasingly getting crowded, with as many as six Parliament members joining the revolt on Sunday.
This, however, does not improve his chances of capturing power in the State. There are only seven MLAs on Panneerselvams side, including himself. Nevertheless, it boosted the mood in the rebels camp.
In the morning, four Lok Sabha members - Jaisingh Thiyagaraj Natterjee (Thoothukudi), B Senguttuvan (Vellore), RP Marutharaja (Perambalur) and S Rajendran (Villupuram) and Rajya Sabha member R Lakshmanan joined Panneerselvam amid cheers from a sizeable crowd that had gathered there.
Later in the day, Theni MP R Parthiban, too, joined, taking the total number of MPs supporting Panneerselvam to 11 (9 Lok Sabha members and 2 Rajya Sabha members).
My support is reflective of the peoples choice, a collective decision that was taken on basis of self-respect. The post of the Chief Minister is won by wooing peoples affection, as Panneerselvam has done, said Lakshmanan.
Joining him, Rajendran said he also faced questions from people, like other party leaders, on his position. People told us OPS is their choice. The rebel camp claimed they would eventually win over as many as 45 of the 50 AIADMK MPs from both Houses.
CHENNAI: The verandah outside caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvams official residence, the headquarters of the rebel camp, is increasingly getting crowded, with as many as six Parliament members joining the revolt on Sunday. This, however, does not improve his chances of capturing power in the State. There are only seven MLAs on Panneerselvams side, including himself. Nevertheless, it boosted the mood in the rebels camp. In the morning, four Lok Sabha members - Jaisingh Thiyagaraj Natterjee (Thoothukudi), B Senguttuvan (Vellore), RP Marutharaja (Perambalur) and S Rajendran (Villupuram) and Rajya Sabha member R Lakshmanan joined Panneerselvam amid cheers from a sizeable crowd that had gathered there. Later in the day, Theni MP R Parthiban, too, joined, taking the total number of MPs supporting Panneerselvam to 11 (9 Lok Sabha members and 2 Rajya Sabha members). My support is reflective of the peoples choice, a collective decision that was taken on basis of self-respect. The post of the Chief Minister is won by wooing peoples affection, as Panneerselvam has done, said Lakshmanan. Joining him, Rajendran said he also faced questions from people, like other party leaders, on his position. People told us OPS is their choice. The rebel camp claimed they would eventually win over as many as 45 of the 50 AIADMK MPs from both Houses.
By PTI
NEW DELHI: Following is the chronology of events in the disproportionate assets (DA) case involving AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala, late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and others in which the Supreme Court will pronounce its judgement tomorrow.
1996: Subramanian Swamy, then Janata Party chief, files a case against Jayalalithaa alleging that during her tenure as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, she amassed properties worth Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate to her known sources of income.
Dec 7, 1996: Jayalalithaa arrested. Many allegations follow, including accumulation of disproportionate assets.
1997: Prosecution launched in sessions court in Chennai against Jayalalithaa and three others for having assets 'disproportionate' to their known income.
Jun 4, 1997: They are charge-sheeted for offences under sections 120-B IPC, 13(2) read with 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
Oct 1: Madras High Court dismisses 3 petitions by Jayalalithaa including one challenging the sanction granted by then Governor M Fathima Beevi for prosecuting her.
Trial progresses. By August 2000, 250 prosecution witnesses examined and only 10 more remained.
In the May 2001 Assembly elections, AIADMK secures absolute majority and Jayalalithaa becomes CM. Her appointment is challenged due to her conviction in October, 2000 in the TANSI (Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation) case. The Supreme Court nullifies the appointment.
September 21, 2001: Jayalalithaa ceases to be CM.
After her conviction is set aside, Jayalalithaa is elected to the Assembly in a bypoll from Andipatti constituency on February 21, 2002, and again sworn in as CM.
2003: DMK general secretary K Anbazhagan approaches SC for transferring the trial to Karnataka on the ground that a fair trial was not possible in Tamil Nadu with Jayalalithaa as CM.
November 18, 2003: SC transfers the case to Bengaluru.
February 19, 2005: The Karnataka government appoints B V Acharya, a former Advocate General, as Special Public Prosecutor to conduct the prosecution.
October/November 2011: Jayalalithaa deposes in the Special Court and answers 1,339 questions.
August 12, 2012: Acharya expresses his inability to continue as SPP. Karnataka government accepts his resignation in January, 2013 and discharges him from the case.
February 2, 2013: Karnataka government appoints G Bhavani Singh as SPP.
August 26, 2013: Karnataka government issues a notification withdrawing the appointment of Bhavani Singh as SPP without assigning any reason and without consulting the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court.
September 30, 2013: SC quashes the notification withdrawing appointment of Bhavani Singh as SPP.
December 12, 2013: Special Court allows a plea by DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan and directs physical production of valuables and other assets seized from Jayalalithaa in 1997 and deposited in an RBI treasury in Chennai.
February 28, 2014: Special Court dismisses plea by SPP seeking a direction to produce before it the seized silver articles belonging to her. Judge says SPP had filed it only with the purpose of delaying the proceedings.
March 14/15, 2014: Special Court imposes a cost of one-day salary on SPP Bhavani Singh for not resuming final arguments citing ill-health.
March 18, 2014: Singh moves Karnataka HC challenging the special court order imposing cost.
March 21, 2014: HC rejects his petition saying the order of the special court imposing cost was right.
August 28, 2014: Special Court reserves judgement for September 20 and directs all the four accused, including Jayalalithaa, to appear before it on that date.
September 16, 2014: Special Court defers by a week to September 27 the pronouncement of its verdict.
September 27, 2014: Special Court convicts Jayalalithaa and three others including aide Sasikala. Awards four years' prison term to Jayalalithaa, slaps Rs 100 crore fine.
September 29, 2014: Jayalalithaa moves Karnataka HC challenging conviction, seeks bail.
October 7, 2014: High Court denies bail, citing 'no grounds,' to do so.
October 9, 2014: Jayalalithaa moves SC seeking bail.
October 17, 2014: SC grants bail to Jayalalithaa.
October 18, 2014: After 21 days in prison, Jayalalithaa released from prison on bail. SC says it will ask Karnataka High Court to complete hearing on appeal in three months.
December 18, 2014: SC extends Jayalalithaa's bail by four months. A bench headed by CJI H L Dattu orders that her appeal challenging conviction in Karnataka HC be conducted on a day-to-day basis by a Special Bench.
February 26, 2015: DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan moves SC seeking stay of the case against Jayalalithaa questioning impartiality of SPP Bhawani Singh.
March 9, 2015: SC issues notice to Jayalalithaa and others on plea by Anbazhagan seeking removal of prosecutor.
March 11, 2015: Karnataka HC reserves order on appeal by Jayalalithaa and three others including confidante Sasikala in disproportionate assets (DA) case.
April 1, 2015: Jaya defends Singh's continuance.
April 15, 2015: SC gives split verdict on plea seekingremoval of Bhawani Singh in Jayalalithaa's DA case before Karnataka HC, refers the matter to a larger bench.
April 27, 2015: SC rejects Bhawani Singh's appointment as "bad in law", says case does not warrant de novo (fresh) hearing of appeals. Allows Anbazhagan and Karnataka to file
written submissions in HC.
April 27, 2015: Anbazhagan files written submission with Karnataka HC seeking confirming Jayalalithaa's sentence.
April 28, 2015: B V Acharya appointed new SPP, files written submission before Karnataka HC praying for dismissal of Jayalalithaa's appeal.
May 8, 2015: Karnataka High Court notification says Special Vacation Bench of Justice CR Kumaraswamy will pronounce verdict on Jayalalithaa's appeal on May 11, 2015.
May 11, 2015: Karnataka HC acquits Jayalalithaa and three others.
June 23, 2015: Karnataka Govt moves SC against Jayalalithaa's acquittal in DA case.
July 27, 2015: SC issues notice to Jayalalithaa on appeal challenging her acquittal.
Feb 23, 2016: SC commences final hearing on the appeals against Jayalalithaa's acquittal.
June 7, 2016: SC reserves verdict on appeals in DA case against Jayalalithaa.
Dec 5, 2016: Jayalalithaa dies after prolonged illness in Chennai.
NEW DELHI: Following is the chronology of events in the disproportionate assets (DA) case involving AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala, late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and others in which the Supreme Court will pronounce its judgement tomorrow. 1996: Subramanian Swamy, then Janata Party chief, files a case against Jayalalithaa alleging that during her tenure as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, she amassed properties worth Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate to her known sources of income. Dec 7, 1996: Jayalalithaa arrested. Many allegations follow, including accumulation of disproportionate assets. 1997: Prosecution launched in sessions court in Chennai against Jayalalithaa and three others for having assets 'disproportionate' to their known income. Jun 4, 1997: They are charge-sheeted for offences under sections 120-B IPC, 13(2) read with 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Oct 1: Madras High Court dismisses 3 petitions by Jayalalithaa including one challenging the sanction granted by then Governor M Fathima Beevi for prosecuting her. Trial progresses. By August 2000, 250 prosecution witnesses examined and only 10 more remained. In the May 2001 Assembly elections, AIADMK secures absolute majority and Jayalalithaa becomes CM. Her appointment is challenged due to her conviction in October, 2000 in the TANSI (Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation) case. The Supreme Court nullifies the appointment. September 21, 2001: Jayalalithaa ceases to be CM. After her conviction is set aside, Jayalalithaa is elected to the Assembly in a bypoll from Andipatti constituency on February 21, 2002, and again sworn in as CM. 2003: DMK general secretary K Anbazhagan approaches SC for transferring the trial to Karnataka on the ground that a fair trial was not possible in Tamil Nadu with Jayalalithaa as CM. November 18, 2003: SC transfers the case to Bengaluru. February 19, 2005: The Karnataka government appoints B V Acharya, a former Advocate General, as Special Public Prosecutor to conduct the prosecution. October/November 2011: Jayalalithaa deposes in the Special Court and answers 1,339 questions. August 12, 2012: Acharya expresses his inability to continue as SPP. Karnataka government accepts his resignation in January, 2013 and discharges him from the case. February 2, 2013: Karnataka government appoints G Bhavani Singh as SPP. August 26, 2013: Karnataka government issues a notification withdrawing the appointment of Bhavani Singh as SPP without assigning any reason and without consulting the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. September 30, 2013: SC quashes the notification withdrawing appointment of Bhavani Singh as SPP. December 12, 2013: Special Court allows a plea by DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan and directs physical production of valuables and other assets seized from Jayalalithaa in 1997 and deposited in an RBI treasury in Chennai. February 28, 2014: Special Court dismisses plea by SPP seeking a direction to produce before it the seized silver articles belonging to her. Judge says SPP had filed it only with the purpose of delaying the proceedings. March 14/15, 2014: Special Court imposes a cost of one-day salary on SPP Bhavani Singh for not resuming final arguments citing ill-health. March 18, 2014: Singh moves Karnataka HC challenging the special court order imposing cost. March 21, 2014: HC rejects his petition saying the order of the special court imposing cost was right. August 28, 2014: Special Court reserves judgement for September 20 and directs all the four accused, including Jayalalithaa, to appear before it on that date. September 16, 2014: Special Court defers by a week to September 27 the pronouncement of its verdict. September 27, 2014: Special Court convicts Jayalalithaa and three others including aide Sasikala. Awards four years' prison term to Jayalalithaa, slaps Rs 100 crore fine. September 29, 2014: Jayalalithaa moves Karnataka HC challenging conviction, seeks bail. October 7, 2014: High Court denies bail, citing 'no grounds,' to do so. October 9, 2014: Jayalalithaa moves SC seeking bail. October 17, 2014: SC grants bail to Jayalalithaa. October 18, 2014: After 21 days in prison, Jayalalithaa released from prison on bail. SC says it will ask Karnataka High Court to complete hearing on appeal in three months. December 18, 2014: SC extends Jayalalithaa's bail by four months. A bench headed by CJI H L Dattu orders that her appeal challenging conviction in Karnataka HC be conducted on a day-to-day basis by a Special Bench. February 26, 2015: DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan moves SC seeking stay of the case against Jayalalithaa questioning impartiality of SPP Bhawani Singh. March 9, 2015: SC issues notice to Jayalalithaa and others on plea by Anbazhagan seeking removal of prosecutor. March 11, 2015: Karnataka HC reserves order on appeal by Jayalalithaa and three others including confidante Sasikala in disproportionate assets (DA) case. April 1, 2015: Jaya defends Singh's continuance. April 15, 2015: SC gives split verdict on plea seekingremoval of Bhawani Singh in Jayalalithaa's DA case before Karnataka HC, refers the matter to a larger bench. April 27, 2015: SC rejects Bhawani Singh's appointment as "bad in law", says case does not warrant de novo (fresh) hearing of appeals. Allows Anbazhagan and Karnataka to file written submissions in HC. April 27, 2015: Anbazhagan files written submission with Karnataka HC seeking confirming Jayalalithaa's sentence. April 28, 2015: B V Acharya appointed new SPP, files written submission before Karnataka HC praying for dismissal of Jayalalithaa's appeal. May 8, 2015: Karnataka High Court notification says Special Vacation Bench of Justice CR Kumaraswamy will pronounce verdict on Jayalalithaa's appeal on May 11, 2015. May 11, 2015: Karnataka HC acquits Jayalalithaa and three others. June 23, 2015: Karnataka Govt moves SC against Jayalalithaa's acquittal in DA case. July 27, 2015: SC issues notice to Jayalalithaa on appeal challenging her acquittal. Feb 23, 2016: SC commences final hearing on the appeals against Jayalalithaa's acquittal. June 7, 2016: SC reserves verdict on appeals in DA case against Jayalalithaa. Dec 5, 2016: Jayalalithaa dies after prolonged illness in Chennai.
By Express News Service
CHENNAI: Having spent the last few days on the back-foot after the shock rebellion by one-time loyalist Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala on Sunday responded with an offence, defence and a dash of nostalgia to assert that she would not back down in this war within.
Some had made detailed enquiries to know whether I am an amenable person. But they were told that for the past 33 years, I have been a commander to Amma, and thus have the capacity to lead the party, she said, addressing the MLAs who have been accommodated at a resort outside Chennai.
Many think Panneerselvam is a soft person who would agree to whatever is told to him, leading to a comparison between us. But they see me as a tiger cub who was with a tigress for a long time... It cannot be caught despite spreading many nets, she said.
Addressing widespread concerns about the impending verdict in the wealth case that the Supreme Court is expected to deliver later this week, Sasikala - the number-two accused after Jaya herself - said she would not be cowed down by it.
Both Amma and I have seen jails in Chennai and Bangalore and returned to capture power. So if anyone thinks that I can be cowed down because I am a woman, they are mistaken. It wont work, just like in the case of Amma.
We are passing through a crisis. Panneerselvam, who became a minister due to this party, is now trying to split it. The priority now is to form the government to continue the welfare measures Jaya initiated. If all of you are with me, we can serve the people and the party. If we do that, from Tamil Nadu to Delhi, none can do anything to this party. If you are with me... I will not fear anyone and I will not go back on the decision I took, she told the cheering MLAs. Those who have gathered here are the government. They alone can form the government.
The 1.5 crore strong party cadre believed anyone of them could become an MLA. To such cadre, the MLAs have a responsibility of unveiling Jayas portrait in the Assembly hall, next to that of party founder and late Chief Minister MG Ramachandran, Sasikala reminded them.
This is markedly different from how the AIADMK leadership has been responding to the biggest crisis that it is facing since the split in 1987. But despite her thinly-veiled warning against delaying government formation any further, that she delivered on Saturday, the party has not precipitated the situation further.
CHENNAI: Having spent the last few days on the back-foot after the shock rebellion by one-time loyalist Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala on Sunday responded with an offence, defence and a dash of nostalgia to assert that she would not back down in this war within. Some had made detailed enquiries to know whether I am an amenable person. But they were told that for the past 33 years, I have been a commander to Amma, and thus have the capacity to lead the party, she said, addressing the MLAs who have been accommodated at a resort outside Chennai. Many think Panneerselvam is a soft person who would agree to whatever is told to him, leading to a comparison between us. But they see me as a tiger cub who was with a tigress for a long time... It cannot be caught despite spreading many nets, she said. Addressing widespread concerns about the impending verdict in the wealth case that the Supreme Court is expected to deliver later this week, Sasikala - the number-two accused after Jaya herself - said she would not be cowed down by it. Both Amma and I have seen jails in Chennai and Bangalore and returned to capture power. So if anyone thinks that I can be cowed down because I am a woman, they are mistaken. It wont work, just like in the case of Amma. We are passing through a crisis. Panneerselvam, who became a minister due to this party, is now trying to split it. The priority now is to form the government to continue the welfare measures Jaya initiated. If all of you are with me, we can serve the people and the party. If we do that, from Tamil Nadu to Delhi, none can do anything to this party. If you are with me... I will not fear anyone and I will not go back on the decision I took, she told the cheering MLAs. Those who have gathered here are the government. They alone can form the government. The 1.5 crore strong party cadre believed anyone of them could become an MLA. To such cadre, the MLAs have a responsibility of unveiling Jayas portrait in the Assembly hall, next to that of party founder and late Chief Minister MG Ramachandran, Sasikala reminded them. This is markedly different from how the AIADMK leadership has been responding to the biggest crisis that it is facing since the split in 1987. But despite her thinly-veiled warning against delaying government formation any further, that she delivered on Saturday, the party has not precipitated the situation further.
B Anbuselvan By
Express News Service
VELLORE: The chairman of a private engineering college in Tamil Nadu's northern district of Vellore was on Sunday brutally hacked to death by an armed gang in another case of thriving gang wars that continue in the state's smaller towns. GG Ravi's case is suspected to have been a fight for businesses, backed by local politicians that ended in his gory murder in full public view.
GG Ravi, a financier-turned-politician affiliated to the ruling AIADMK party, had started his career, along with his brother Ramesh by lending money in the small, but thickly populated Thottapalayam locality in Vellore. While he had a set of criminal cases pending against him, his growth was phenomenal and he managed to build the GGR College of Engineering.
GG Ravi had on Sunday, around 8.30 pm, emerged from Rangalaya Kalyana Mandapam in Gandhi Nagar, Katpadi, about eight kilometers from Vellore when a gang of armed men surrounded him and repeatedly hacked him with sickles. He was there to attend an engagement of a family friend.
Police said the enmity began at least five years ago when Ravi's brother Ramesh was fighting a battle for the domination of auto stands at Thottapalayam, a thickly populated area in the city. In 2012 Kuppan, an associate of a local ruffian, Maha alias 'Athiradi' Mahalingam, tried to operate autos and was threatened by Ramesh not to venture into the business.
Mahalingam, who came in support of Kuppan was threatened by Ramesh and managed to escape a murder attempt. Exactly, a year later, Ramesh was murdered in April, 2013 in front of a finance company in Arcot allegedly by Mahalingam's gang. Mahalingam and Kuppan were arrested but later released on bail.
A series of revenge attacks had since followed from both gangs. GG Ravi's family members allegedly tried to kill Mahalingam twice but he managed to escape.
However, in September 2015 Ravis sons R Gokul and R Tamil Mani killed Mahalingam near Thottapalayam. He was chased by them and stoned to death in public view near the Dharamaraja temple. Mahalingam, who was out on bail, had allegedly tried to kill GG Ravi by stabbing him at a function on Arcot Road, but Ravi escaped the attack with injuries and was rushed to a hospital by supporters.
Police suspect that GG Ravis murder on Sunday was orchestrated by Kuppan as revenge for Mahalingam's death. "To take revenge for the murder of Mahalingam, Kuppan for whom Maha entered the gang war with GGR family is suspected to have murdered GG Ravi," said a senior police officer. The situation remained tense on Monday and Vellore was under heavy police deployment, while all the shops in Gandhi Nagar in Katpadi remain closed.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Superintendent of Police (SP) P Pakalavan said that special teams have been formed to nab the accused. As of now, the murder seems to be a result of the previous enmity, he added.SP Pakalavan visited the murder spot and launched an inquiry and the Viruthampattu police have registered a case.
The rise & fall of GGR
GG Ravi
1. In the early 2000s GG Ravi and his brother Ramesh, natives of Thottapalayam in Vellore began their life as money lenders. Thottapalayam was a thickly populated area covering Arcot road, Old by pass road and Christian Medical Hospital (CMC) Hospital.
2. Ravi later ventured into several businesses including real estate and transport. He was arrested in several cases including smuggling of Sandalwood trees in Jawadhu hills in late 2000. A few cases of land grabbing and Katta panchayat (unofficial courts) were also registered against him.
3. He became a trusted aide of Congress MLA C Gnanasekaran and was briefly with the Congress before parting ways and showing allegiance to Dravidian parties. In 2009, he was elected as an independent councilor and joined AIADMK.
4. Following charges of land grabbing and criminal suits, he was expelled from the AIADMK in 2011. However, he was said to be closely associated with the incumbent Vellore MP B Senguttuvan and former MLA and Minister of Health V. S. Vijay.
5. He suffered a personnel loss when a rival gang led by Mahalingam killed his brother GG Ramesh in 2012.
6. Six months ago, GG Ravi was arrested by police for allegedly assaulting the then Inspector of Sathuvachari, Pandiyan, who entered GGR engineering college while chasing a sand-laden lorry. He was later released on bail.
6. On Sunday, GGR succumbed after a group of men attacked him with sickles killing him on the spot.
Mahalingams gang known for notoriety
Mahalingam
1. In late 2009 Vellore police killed a notorious ruffian Kora Krishnan in an alleged encounter. He was wanted in Vellore for several decades for smuggling, extortion and Katta Panchayat, and was supported by three aides - Maha Alias Athiradi Mahalingam (42), Kuppan (40) and Vasur Raja (35).
2. Mahalingam was a native of Keezh vadugan kuttai in Vellore and his father was a retired VAO; he studied upto class 8. He reportedly smuggled liquor via autos for Kora Krishnan.
3. Mahalingam was involved in several anti social activities, his notoriety came to the fore in 2009 after he murdered then Public Relations Officer of Christian Medical College (CMC), John Sekar for refusing to lease the Ambulance service to one of his close aides. He allegedly murdered him for a ransom of Rs 50,000, and was convicted and awarded a life sentence.
4. In 2012, Kuppan joined the gang and waged a war against the GGR family.
VELLORE: The chairman of a private engineering college in Tamil Nadu's northern district of Vellore was on Sunday brutally hacked to death by an armed gang in another case of thriving gang wars that continue in the state's smaller towns. GG Ravi's case is suspected to have been a fight for businesses, backed by local politicians that ended in his gory murder in full public view. GG Ravi, a financier-turned-politician affiliated to the ruling AIADMK party, had started his career, along with his brother Ramesh by lending money in the small, but thickly populated Thottapalayam locality in Vellore. While he had a set of criminal cases pending against him, his growth was phenomenal and he managed to build the GGR College of Engineering. GG Ravi had on Sunday, around 8.30 pm, emerged from Rangalaya Kalyana Mandapam in Gandhi Nagar, Katpadi, about eight kilometers from Vellore when a gang of armed men surrounded him and repeatedly hacked him with sickles. He was there to attend an engagement of a family friend. Police said the enmity began at least five years ago when Ravi's brother Ramesh was fighting a battle for the domination of auto stands at Thottapalayam, a thickly populated area in the city. In 2012 Kuppan, an associate of a local ruffian, Maha alias 'Athiradi' Mahalingam, tried to operate autos and was threatened by Ramesh not to venture into the business. Mahalingam, who came in support of Kuppan was threatened by Ramesh and managed to escape a murder attempt. Exactly, a year later, Ramesh was murdered in April, 2013 in front of a finance company in Arcot allegedly by Mahalingam's gang. Mahalingam and Kuppan were arrested but later released on bail. A series of revenge attacks had since followed from both gangs. GG Ravi's family members allegedly tried to kill Mahalingam twice but he managed to escape. However, in September 2015 Ravis sons R Gokul and R Tamil Mani killed Mahalingam near Thottapalayam. He was chased by them and stoned to death in public view near the Dharamaraja temple. Mahalingam, who was out on bail, had allegedly tried to kill GG Ravi by stabbing him at a function on Arcot Road, but Ravi escaped the attack with injuries and was rushed to a hospital by supporters. Police suspect that GG Ravis murder on Sunday was orchestrated by Kuppan as revenge for Mahalingam's death. "To take revenge for the murder of Mahalingam, Kuppan for whom Maha entered the gang war with GGR family is suspected to have murdered GG Ravi," said a senior police officer. The situation remained tense on Monday and Vellore was under heavy police deployment, while all the shops in Gandhi Nagar in Katpadi remain closed. Speaking to The New Indian Express, Superintendent of Police (SP) P Pakalavan said that special teams have been formed to nab the accused. As of now, the murder seems to be a result of the previous enmity, he added.SP Pakalavan visited the murder spot and launched an inquiry and the Viruthampattu police have registered a case. The rise & fall of GGR GG Ravi1. In the early 2000s GG Ravi and his brother Ramesh, natives of Thottapalayam in Vellore began their life as money lenders. Thottapalayam was a thickly populated area covering Arcot road, Old by pass road and Christian Medical Hospital (CMC) Hospital. 2. Ravi later ventured into several businesses including real estate and transport. He was arrested in several cases including smuggling of Sandalwood trees in Jawadhu hills in late 2000. A few cases of land grabbing and Katta panchayat (unofficial courts) were also registered against him. 3. He became a trusted aide of Congress MLA C Gnanasekaran and was briefly with the Congress before parting ways and showing allegiance to Dravidian parties. In 2009, he was elected as an independent councilor and joined AIADMK. 4. Following charges of land grabbing and criminal suits, he was expelled from the AIADMK in 2011. However, he was said to be closely associated with the incumbent Vellore MP B Senguttuvan and former MLA and Minister of Health V. S. Vijay. 5. He suffered a personnel loss when a rival gang led by Mahalingam killed his brother GG Ramesh in 2012. 6. Six months ago, GG Ravi was arrested by police for allegedly assaulting the then Inspector of Sathuvachari, Pandiyan, who entered GGR engineering college while chasing a sand-laden lorry. He was later released on bail. 6. On Sunday, GGR succumbed after a group of men attacked him with sickles killing him on the spot. Mahalingams gang known for notoriety Mahalingam1. In late 2009 Vellore police killed a notorious ruffian Kora Krishnan in an alleged encounter. He was wanted in Vellore for several decades for smuggling, extortion and Katta Panchayat, and was supported by three aides - Maha Alias Athiradi Mahalingam (42), Kuppan (40) and Vasur Raja (35). 2. Mahalingam was a native of Keezh vadugan kuttai in Vellore and his father was a retired VAO; he studied upto class 8. He reportedly smuggled liquor via autos for Kora Krishnan. 3. Mahalingam was involved in several anti social activities, his notoriety came to the fore in 2009 after he murdered then Public Relations Officer of Christian Medical College (CMC), John Sekar for refusing to lease the Ambulance service to one of his close aides. He allegedly murdered him for a ransom of Rs 50,000, and was convicted and awarded a life sentence. 4. In 2012, Kuppan joined the gang and waged a war against the GGR family.
By Express News Service
HYDERABAD: Taking a dig at the President of United States of America, Donald Trump, Dalai Lama said that instead of building walls, world leaders should engage in dialogue to resolve differences and form a Union for peaceful co-existence and development.
He added that all countries should develop the spirit of the European Union (EU) in coming together. His statement comes at a time when the US president has openly called for the dismantling of the European Union.
I am one of the admirers of European Union, said Dalai Lama. The EU spirit eventually should the African Union. Eventually Latin America, I think, we should develop one Union. Also, sometimes I feel Mexico should be a part of United States. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said the Latin American continent, Africa, India and China should also follow the EU model and come together.
We should create a Union of the World and demilitarise the world, the Tibetian spiritual leader said. He was delivering a talk on Ethics, Values and Wellbeing at Hyderabad on Sunday.
The function was attended by KT Rama Roa, minister of IT and the Deputy Chief Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali. In order to achieve a demilitarised world, we must make effort to create the spirit of dialogue, it is a practical way.
The best method is dialogue, whenever some different interest or different view arises, through dialogue and talks we can resolve it, he said.
HYDERABAD: Taking a dig at the President of United States of America, Donald Trump, Dalai Lama said that instead of building walls, world leaders should engage in dialogue to resolve differences and form a Union for peaceful co-existence and development. He added that all countries should develop the spirit of the European Union (EU) in coming together. His statement comes at a time when the US president has openly called for the dismantling of the European Union. I am one of the admirers of European Union, said Dalai Lama. The EU spirit eventually should the African Union. Eventually Latin America, I think, we should develop one Union. Also, sometimes I feel Mexico should be a part of United States. The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said the Latin American continent, Africa, India and China should also follow the EU model and come together. We should create a Union of the World and demilitarise the world, the Tibetian spiritual leader said. He was delivering a talk on Ethics, Values and Wellbeing at Hyderabad on Sunday. The function was attended by KT Rama Roa, minister of IT and the Deputy Chief Minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali. In order to achieve a demilitarised world, we must make effort to create the spirit of dialogue, it is a practical way. The best method is dialogue, whenever some different interest or different view arises, through dialogue and talks we can resolve it, he said.
By Express News Service
KHAMMAM/HYDERABAD: With the date for Telangana Joint Action Committees (TJAC) proposed Nirudyoga Nirasana Rally fast approaching, the outfit chairman M Kodandaram sharpened his verbal attack on the government over unemployment in the State. On Sunday, he asked the government to fill posts lying vacant in various departments in a systematic manner rather than issuing job notifications as per its whims.
Release notifications by formulating a year-long schedule (recruitment calendar), which was the practice earlier. This will help job-seekers in preparing themselves for competitive exams in a planned manner, he said.
While taking part in the second day session of the Telangana Vidyavantula Vedika workshop, held at Nayakangudem in Kusumanchi mandal of Khammam district, on Sunday, Kodandaram asked the government to fill all the two lakh vacant posts in the government, which was their poll promise, adding that they should focus attention on creating more jobs in private sector as well.
The TJAC chairman called upon youngsters across the State to attend the proposed rally to be held from Sundarayya Vignana Kendram to Indira Park in Hyderabad on February 22 to make it a grand success.
Back in Hyderabad, extending support to Kodandarams proposed rally, the Congress and TDP too began firing salvos at the government for allegedly not implementing its promise of the creation of one lakh jobs.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy and party working president Bhatti Vikramarka said the ruling TRS had promised to fill more than one lakh jobs lying vacant in various government departments in the State. Despite holding of exams by the Telangana State Public Services Commission (TSPSC) and the Police Recruitment Board, even the 6,000 posts for which notifications were already issued, have so far, not been filled, they criticised.
TDP Telangana unit spokesperson Nannuri Narsi Reddy said the yellow party had decided to support the Nirudyoga Rally being organised by the TJAC.
Finance department has already prepared a report saying that more than 2 lakh jobs are vacant in the government. Even the State government announced in the Assembly saying that 1,07,774 posts are vacant in various departments but, till now, there has been no concrete step from the government side to fill all the vacant posts, he said.
Interestingly, Kodandaram said the TJAC would extend its support to any political party, which works hard for the betterment of people.
Ahead of the Nirudyoga Nirasana Rally, social networking sites such as Facebook and messaging Apps like WhatsApp are getting flooded with messages ridiculing Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Raos statement during the winter session the State Assembly, saying that it was not possible for the government to provide employment to all the unemployed youth.
For instance, a video clip is going viral on Facebook and Whatsapp in which Raos political speech delivered during Telangana movement, promising that he would fill lakhs of jobs with unemployed youth once the new State of Telangana was formed, and his latest statement in State Assembly in which he said it was not possible to provide government jobs to all those who completed their education.
Telangana Nirudyoga Joint Action Committee (JAC) leaders have decided to sit on a protest fast on Monday at the Arts College of Osmania University here, demanding that the government drop even the amended rule that those who got at least 50 per cent marks in degree/PG are eligible to take the exam for filling the 7,000 teacher posts in residential schools in the State.
The government should direct the TSPSC to fill all these vacant posts as per the rules formulated in 2012 to recruit teachers. Candidates should be given six months time to prepare for the exam, the JAC chairman K Manavatha Roy said.
Alleging that the government is planning to fill the 40,000 vacant posts in 89 corporations in the State on an outsourcing basis, he asked it to fill these 40,000 posts with Telangana youth on a permanent basis.
KHAMMAM/HYDERABAD: With the date for Telangana Joint Action Committees (TJAC) proposed Nirudyoga Nirasana Rally fast approaching, the outfit chairman M Kodandaram sharpened his verbal attack on the government over unemployment in the State. On Sunday, he asked the government to fill posts lying vacant in various departments in a systematic manner rather than issuing job notifications as per its whims. Release notifications by formulating a year-long schedule (recruitment calendar), which was the practice earlier. This will help job-seekers in preparing themselves for competitive exams in a planned manner, he said. While taking part in the second day session of the Telangana Vidyavantula Vedika workshop, held at Nayakangudem in Kusumanchi mandal of Khammam district, on Sunday, Kodandaram asked the government to fill all the two lakh vacant posts in the government, which was their poll promise, adding that they should focus attention on creating more jobs in private sector as well. The TJAC chairman called upon youngsters across the State to attend the proposed rally to be held from Sundarayya Vignana Kendram to Indira Park in Hyderabad on February 22 to make it a grand success. Back in Hyderabad, extending support to Kodandarams proposed rally, the Congress and TDP too began firing salvos at the government for allegedly not implementing its promise of the creation of one lakh jobs. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy and party working president Bhatti Vikramarka said the ruling TRS had promised to fill more than one lakh jobs lying vacant in various government departments in the State. Despite holding of exams by the Telangana State Public Services Commission (TSPSC) and the Police Recruitment Board, even the 6,000 posts for which notifications were already issued, have so far, not been filled, they criticised. TDP Telangana unit spokesperson Nannuri Narsi Reddy said the yellow party had decided to support the Nirudyoga Rally being organised by the TJAC. Finance department has already prepared a report saying that more than 2 lakh jobs are vacant in the government. Even the State government announced in the Assembly saying that 1,07,774 posts are vacant in various departments but, till now, there has been no concrete step from the government side to fill all the vacant posts, he said. Interestingly, Kodandaram said the TJAC would extend its support to any political party, which works hard for the betterment of people. Ahead of the Nirudyoga Nirasana Rally, social networking sites such as Facebook and messaging Apps like WhatsApp are getting flooded with messages ridiculing Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Raos statement during the winter session the State Assembly, saying that it was not possible for the government to provide employment to all the unemployed youth. For instance, a video clip is going viral on Facebook and Whatsapp in which Raos political speech delivered during Telangana movement, promising that he would fill lakhs of jobs with unemployed youth once the new State of Telangana was formed, and his latest statement in State Assembly in which he said it was not possible to provide government jobs to all those who completed their education. Telangana Nirudyoga Joint Action Committee (JAC) leaders have decided to sit on a protest fast on Monday at the Arts College of Osmania University here, demanding that the government drop even the amended rule that those who got at least 50 per cent marks in degree/PG are eligible to take the exam for filling the 7,000 teacher posts in residential schools in the State. The government should direct the TSPSC to fill all these vacant posts as per the rules formulated in 2012 to recruit teachers. Candidates should be given six months time to prepare for the exam, the JAC chairman K Manavatha Roy said. Alleging that the government is planning to fill the 40,000 vacant posts in 89 corporations in the State on an outsourcing basis, he asked it to fill these 40,000 posts with Telangana youth on a permanent basis.
By Express News Service
WARANGAL: district..An Indian software engineer, Mamidala Vamsi Chander Reddy (27), was shot dead by a suspected thief who was trying to flee after robbing a woman in Milpitas in California on Saturday. Vamsi was a native of Vangapahad village in Hasanparthy mandal of Warangal district.
Mamidala Vamsi Chander Reddy
Though the family is yet to receive an official communique, they allege the killing to be a case of a hate crime after Donald Trump took over as the President.
The incident occurred at Vamsis apartment garage. The killer is suspected to have robbed a womans car at gunpoint and while trying to flee, collided with Vamsis car. When Vamsi stepped out of his vehicle to check the damage, the killer shot Vamsi, killing him on the spot.
His parents were informed of the incident by Vamsis friend, Praveen, at 4.30 am on Sunday. Vamsis father M Sanjeeva Reddy, a farmer, said he was first told that his son was missing.
Around 8.30 am, he came to know of Vamsis death through media reports. However, the Milpitas police have not declared it as a death, and are investigating it as a missing case.
Neither the Milpitas police nor the External Affairs Ministry had contacted Vamsis family, whose only source of information are his friends in the US.
Vamsi, who went to the US to do his MS in 2015, completed his masters from a Silicon Valley University and was working part-time for last 40 days.
Two days ago I spoke to him. He was worried about his future as the new US government is imposing restrictions on providing jobs to foreigners. I asked him not to worry and to come back to India if he did not find a job there. But, within two days we had to hear this sad news, Reddy said.
What kind of government is functioning in the US. They are targeting people from other countries. What is our fault? This boy has gone there to do higher studies. He had not harmed anyone in his life and he was killed so brutally. The US government should take steps to prevent such incidents in future and punish the guilty severely, Vamsis uncle Raghupathi Reddy said. Vamsis father made it clear that he was not in a position to bring his sons body back from the US and appealed to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the Centre to help him.
Worrying that Optional Practical Training (OPT) time period might be curtailed under US president Donald Trump rule and that more changes would be taken up to send back Indians, members of Telangana NRI Parents Association requested State and Central governments to intervene in the issues faced by Indian students and working professionals.
As on date, there have been reports that OPT period might be trimmed. As per the present provisions, post study, graduates can stay in the USA for up to three years during which students find a job. Members of the association, at a press conference, said if the OPT period is trimmed to 18-months or less, graduates might not have enough time to find a job.
The parents said they take hefty loans by mortgaging properties to fund their childrens education in the US and if their children were to return soon after completing Masters, they would be in financial problems.
NRI Parents Association president M Raj Kumar said they are pondering to find if there are other countries to which they can send their children for higher education. Vice president of the association, N Susheela said that her daughter has been pursuing Masters course from January 2016.
I sent her to the US after mortgaging our property. We have already spent Rs 14 lakh which was taken on loan and plan to spend Rs 10 lakh more. I cannot ask her to come back since we already spent money on her Masters and I dont think I can afford another course here. Only if she gets a job, we will get back the mortgaged property, Susheela said.
She closed her ears with her palm when a question was asked about the death of the Indian youth who was shot dead in San Francisco, California on Saturday evening. Usually, Indian students or people who work there avoid to inform their parents if they are mugged or threatened at gunpoint. Susheela said that her daughter tries to comfort her saying that she is safe.
WARANGAL: district..An Indian software engineer, Mamidala Vamsi Chander Reddy (27), was shot dead by a suspected thief who was trying to flee after robbing a woman in Milpitas in California on Saturday. Vamsi was a native of Vangapahad village in Hasanparthy mandal of Warangal district. Mamidala Vamsi Chander ReddyThough the family is yet to receive an official communique, they allege the killing to be a case of a hate crime after Donald Trump took over as the President. The incident occurred at Vamsis apartment garage. The killer is suspected to have robbed a womans car at gunpoint and while trying to flee, collided with Vamsis car. When Vamsi stepped out of his vehicle to check the damage, the killer shot Vamsi, killing him on the spot. His parents were informed of the incident by Vamsis friend, Praveen, at 4.30 am on Sunday. Vamsis father M Sanjeeva Reddy, a farmer, said he was first told that his son was missing. Around 8.30 am, he came to know of Vamsis death through media reports. However, the Milpitas police have not declared it as a death, and are investigating it as a missing case. Neither the Milpitas police nor the External Affairs Ministry had contacted Vamsis family, whose only source of information are his friends in the US. Vamsi, who went to the US to do his MS in 2015, completed his masters from a Silicon Valley University and was working part-time for last 40 days. Two days ago I spoke to him. He was worried about his future as the new US government is imposing restrictions on providing jobs to foreigners. I asked him not to worry and to come back to India if he did not find a job there. But, within two days we had to hear this sad news, Reddy said. What kind of government is functioning in the US. They are targeting people from other countries. What is our fault? This boy has gone there to do higher studies. He had not harmed anyone in his life and he was killed so brutally. The US government should take steps to prevent such incidents in future and punish the guilty severely, Vamsis uncle Raghupathi Reddy said. Vamsis father made it clear that he was not in a position to bring his sons body back from the US and appealed to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the Centre to help him. Worrying that Optional Practical Training (OPT) time period might be curtailed under US president Donald Trump rule and that more changes would be taken up to send back Indians, members of Telangana NRI Parents Association requested State and Central governments to intervene in the issues faced by Indian students and working professionals. As on date, there have been reports that OPT period might be trimmed. As per the present provisions, post study, graduates can stay in the USA for up to three years during which students find a job. Members of the association, at a press conference, said if the OPT period is trimmed to 18-months or less, graduates might not have enough time to find a job. The parents said they take hefty loans by mortgaging properties to fund their childrens education in the US and if their children were to return soon after completing Masters, they would be in financial problems. NRI Parents Association president M Raj Kumar said they are pondering to find if there are other countries to which they can send their children for higher education. Vice president of the association, N Susheela said that her daughter has been pursuing Masters course from January 2016. I sent her to the US after mortgaging our property. We have already spent Rs 14 lakh which was taken on loan and plan to spend Rs 10 lakh more. I cannot ask her to come back since we already spent money on her Masters and I dont think I can afford another course here. Only if she gets a job, we will get back the mortgaged property, Susheela said. She closed her ears with her palm when a question was asked about the death of the Indian youth who was shot dead in San Francisco, California on Saturday evening. Usually, Indian students or people who work there avoid to inform their parents if they are mugged or threatened at gunpoint. Susheela said that her daughter tries to comfort her saying that she is safe.
By PTI
LAHORE: The death toll in the Lahore suicide attack today rose to 14 with one more person succumbing to his injuries, as officials arrested a key facilitator of the blast which took place outside Pakistan's Punjab assembly.
"One more injured of the Monday's Lahore Mall Road blast succumbed to his injuries rising the death toll to 14," Punjab Police spokesman Niyab Haider told PTI. He said the condition of over half-a-dozen injured was still very critical.
Two senior police officers were among 13 people killed when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during a protest rally outside Pakistan's Punjab assembly on Monday that also wounded more than 71 others.
"Police have taken more than 50 suspects including some Afghans into custody in connection with the blasts and they are being interrogated," Haider said.
A senior police officer has said that intelligence agencies have got a lead in the case and arrested a facilitator of the suicide bomber. "We are positive about getting the mastermind and other culprits through him. The facilitator/handler is being interrogated," the officer said.
The Home Department has directed law enforcement agencies to ensure extreme vigilance and heightened security. "Combing operations [must] be conducted in all targeted areas, particularly where the Afghan/Pathan community is residing," it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the government has formed a Joint Investigation Team headed by Crime Investigation Department's Senior Superintendent of Police Muhammad Iqbal to probe the matter. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said the federal government will speak to Afghan government about action against Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the outlawed Tehreek-i- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack. The group had claimed responsibility for a blast on March 27 last year at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore that left 75 people dead, mostly Christians who were celebrating Easter.
Founded in August 2014 by a former TTP leader, the outfit has staged several attacks in Pakistan targeting civilians, religious minorities, military personnel and law enforcement agencies. "The only solution to end the continuing acts of terror seems to be an indiscriminate, immediate and ruthless operation against terrorists," Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had said.
LAHORE: The death toll in the Lahore suicide attack today rose to 14 with one more person succumbing to his injuries, as officials arrested a key facilitator of the blast which took place outside Pakistan's Punjab assembly. "One more injured of the Monday's Lahore Mall Road blast succumbed to his injuries rising the death toll to 14," Punjab Police spokesman Niyab Haider told PTI. He said the condition of over half-a-dozen injured was still very critical. Two senior police officers were among 13 people killed when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during a protest rally outside Pakistan's Punjab assembly on Monday that also wounded more than 71 others. "Police have taken more than 50 suspects including some Afghans into custody in connection with the blasts and they are being interrogated," Haider said. A senior police officer has said that intelligence agencies have got a lead in the case and arrested a facilitator of the suicide bomber. "We are positive about getting the mastermind and other culprits through him. The facilitator/handler is being interrogated," the officer said. The Home Department has directed law enforcement agencies to ensure extreme vigilance and heightened security. "Combing operations [must] be conducted in all targeted areas, particularly where the Afghan/Pathan community is residing," it said in a statement. Meanwhile, the government has formed a Joint Investigation Team headed by Crime Investigation Department's Senior Superintendent of Police Muhammad Iqbal to probe the matter. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said the federal government will speak to Afghan government about action against Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the outlawed Tehreek-i- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack. The group had claimed responsibility for a blast on March 27 last year at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore that left 75 people dead, mostly Christians who were celebrating Easter. Founded in August 2014 by a former TTP leader, the outfit has staged several attacks in Pakistan targeting civilians, religious minorities, military personnel and law enforcement agencies. "The only solution to end the continuing acts of terror seems to be an indiscriminate, immediate and ruthless operation against terrorists," Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had said.
By PTI
LONDON: Buckingham Palace is offering a 30,000 pounds annual package for a job to run Queen Elizabeth's personal Twitter account, having 2.77 million followers. A job advertisement has been placed on the Queen's official website seeking a new 'digital communications officer' to join a "fast-paced" and "dynamic" team.
The full-time role will involve managing the Queen's Twitter account and letting the world know about her work and the Royal Family's public role. Tasks will include writing posts on the Queen's social media accounts including Facebook and YouTube as well as documenting state visits, award ceremonies and Royal engagements, The Sun newspaper reported.
The Royal job comes with a "comprehensive benefits package" and the perks include 15 per cent employer contribution pension scheme as well as training and "personal development". The online advert reads: "It's knowing your content will be viewed by millions. It's finding new ways to maintain The Queen's presence in the public eye and on the world stage". "This is what makes working for the Royal Household exceptional," it said.
According to the advertisement, the right candidate must be university educated with an "eye to the future" and experience of managing websites. They also need to be "innovative and with creative flair" and have good photography and video skills. The advertisement, which is posting a maternity cover role, reads: "The reaction to our work is always high-profile, and so reputation and impact will be at the forefront of all you do".
The Queen also personally tweeted on her 90th birthday in June last year. She posted: "I am most grateful for the many digital messages of goodwill I have received and would like to thank you all for your kindness. Elizabeth R." The monarch has 2.77 million followers on Twitter, as well her own website and Youtube channel.
LONDON: Buckingham Palace is offering a 30,000 pounds annual package for a job to run Queen Elizabeth's personal Twitter account, having 2.77 million followers. A job advertisement has been placed on the Queen's official website seeking a new 'digital communications officer' to join a "fast-paced" and "dynamic" team. The full-time role will involve managing the Queen's Twitter account and letting the world know about her work and the Royal Family's public role. Tasks will include writing posts on the Queen's social media accounts including Facebook and YouTube as well as documenting state visits, award ceremonies and Royal engagements, The Sun newspaper reported. The Royal job comes with a "comprehensive benefits package" and the perks include 15 per cent employer contribution pension scheme as well as training and "personal development". The online advert reads: "It's knowing your content will be viewed by millions. It's finding new ways to maintain The Queen's presence in the public eye and on the world stage". "This is what makes working for the Royal Household exceptional," it said. According to the advertisement, the right candidate must be university educated with an "eye to the future" and experience of managing websites. They also need to be "innovative and with creative flair" and have good photography and video skills. The advertisement, which is posting a maternity cover role, reads: "The reaction to our work is always high-profile, and so reputation and impact will be at the forefront of all you do". The Queen also personally tweeted on her 90th birthday in June last year. She posted: "I am most grateful for the many digital messages of goodwill I have received and would like to thank you all for your kindness. Elizabeth R." The monarch has 2.77 million followers on Twitter, as well her own website and Youtube channel.
By PTI
BEIJING: A wary China today firmly opposed comments by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about Diaoyu islands and warned Tokyo to refrain from seeking American support for its illegal territorial claims under the mutual defence treaty.
"China is gravely concerned about and firmly opposed to relevant comments by Japan and the US. Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands are China's inherent territory," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told media briefing here. China calls the uninhabited Senkaku islands in the East China Sea held by Japan as Diaoyu islands.
While the islands and waters, believed to contain rich deposits of oil and minerals are in the administrative control of Japan, China has stepped up naval patrols around it after jostling with Japanese coast guard. "We are firmly against Japan's attempt to try to gain the US support for its illegal territorial claims in the name of the so-called mutual defense treaty," Geng said.
During the current visit of Abe to Washington, President Trump agreed to further strengthen security ties and confirmed that US forces will continue to be committed to defending the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japanese media said.
Expressing strong reservations over US extending the umbrella of its security treaty with Japan to the disputed islands, Geng said, "no rhetoric or actions, from whomsoever, will change the fact that Diaoyu Dao belongs to China or waver China's resolve and determination to uphold its national sovereignty and territorial integrity."
He said Japan and the US should exercise prudence and stop making wrong remarks so as not to complicate relevant issues or bring negative impact on regional peace and stability. This is not the first time US is extending such a support. China reacted the same way when US assured such a backing to Japan under previous Barack Obama administration.
At a joint press conference yesterday with Abe, Trump described Japan as being "an important and steadfast ally" and affirmed continued US commitment to defending the Senkakus. "We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control," the US President said.
Abe supplemented Trump's remarks by articulating that they "have confirmed that Article 5 of the Japan-US Security Treaty will be applied to the Senkaku Islands," the Japan News reported. The confirmation was also stipulated in a joint statement issued after the meeting, which added, "[Both nations] oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japans administration of these islands." Geng also asserted China's sovereignty over the disputed South China Sea (SCS), saying that its construction of the artificial islands are within its rights.
BEIJING: A wary China today firmly opposed comments by US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about Diaoyu islands and warned Tokyo to refrain from seeking American support for its illegal territorial claims under the mutual defence treaty. "China is gravely concerned about and firmly opposed to relevant comments by Japan and the US. Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands are China's inherent territory," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told media briefing here. China calls the uninhabited Senkaku islands in the East China Sea held by Japan as Diaoyu islands. While the islands and waters, believed to contain rich deposits of oil and minerals are in the administrative control of Japan, China has stepped up naval patrols around it after jostling with Japanese coast guard. "We are firmly against Japan's attempt to try to gain the US support for its illegal territorial claims in the name of the so-called mutual defense treaty," Geng said. During the current visit of Abe to Washington, President Trump agreed to further strengthen security ties and confirmed that US forces will continue to be committed to defending the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japanese media said. Expressing strong reservations over US extending the umbrella of its security treaty with Japan to the disputed islands, Geng said, "no rhetoric or actions, from whomsoever, will change the fact that Diaoyu Dao belongs to China or waver China's resolve and determination to uphold its national sovereignty and territorial integrity." He said Japan and the US should exercise prudence and stop making wrong remarks so as not to complicate relevant issues or bring negative impact on regional peace and stability. This is not the first time US is extending such a support. China reacted the same way when US assured such a backing to Japan under previous Barack Obama administration. At a joint press conference yesterday with Abe, Trump described Japan as being "an important and steadfast ally" and affirmed continued US commitment to defending the Senkakus. "We are committed to the security of Japan and all areas under its administrative control," the US President said. Abe supplemented Trump's remarks by articulating that they "have confirmed that Article 5 of the Japan-US Security Treaty will be applied to the Senkaku Islands," the Japan News reported. The confirmation was also stipulated in a joint statement issued after the meeting, which added, "[Both nations] oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japans administration of these islands." Geng also asserted China's sovereignty over the disputed South China Sea (SCS), saying that its construction of the artificial islands are within its rights.
By AFP
GENEVA: Delayed UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending Syria's civil war will resume on February 23 in Geneva, a few days later than previously planned, the UN envoy's office said Monday.
The announcement came a day after Syria's opposition announced its 21-member delegation for the new round of talks, which had been due to start next Monday, February 20.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura had already announced a delay in the planned resumption from February 8 to February 20, to give the opposition more time to prepare.
Last week he had warned the opposition that he would pick their delegates himself if they could not decide on time.
De Mistura's office said Monday that delegations representing the Syrian government and the opposition are set to arrive in Geneva around February 20 for "prior consultations" with the UN envoy.
The negotiations will then start on February 23, his office said in a statement.
The talks are aimed at ending the nearly six-year war in Syria that has killed more than 310,000 people.
Ahead of the Geneva talks, Kazakhstan has invited Syrian rebels and government officials back to its capital Astana this week.
The Kazakhstan talks are being brokered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's allies Russia and Iran and rebel backer Turkey, which are all key players in the conflict.
The meeting in Astana last month ended without a breakthrough.
GENEVA: Delayed UN-sponsored peace talks aimed at ending Syria's civil war will resume on February 23 in Geneva, a few days later than previously planned, the UN envoy's office said Monday. The announcement came a day after Syria's opposition announced its 21-member delegation for the new round of talks, which had been due to start next Monday, February 20. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura had already announced a delay in the planned resumption from February 8 to February 20, to give the opposition more time to prepare. Last week he had warned the opposition that he would pick their delegates himself if they could not decide on time. De Mistura's office said Monday that delegations representing the Syrian government and the opposition are set to arrive in Geneva around February 20 for "prior consultations" with the UN envoy. The negotiations will then start on February 23, his office said in a statement. The talks are aimed at ending the nearly six-year war in Syria that has killed more than 310,000 people. Ahead of the Geneva talks, Kazakhstan has invited Syrian rebels and government officials back to its capital Astana this week. The Kazakhstan talks are being brokered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's allies Russia and Iran and rebel backer Turkey, which are all key players in the conflict. The meeting in Astana last month ended without a breakthrough.
By Associated Press
AMSTERDAM: Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici won the 2017 World Press Photo competition Monday for his image of a gun-wielding off-duty Turkish policeman standing over the body of Russia's ambassador, whom he had just fatally shot.
Ozbilici's image was part of a series titled "An Assassination in Turkey" that also won the Spot News - Stories category. The photos were captured in the moments before and after policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas drew a handgun and shot Ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibition in Ankara on Dec. 19.
In the winning photo, the gunman, wearing a suit and tie, stands defiantly, pistol in his right hand pointed at the ground and with his left hand raised, his index finger pointing upward. His mouth is wide open as he shouts angrily. The ambassador's body lies on the floor just behind Altintas.
Another image in the series showed the ambassador before the shooting, with Altintas standing behind him.
Ozbilici said his professional instincts kicked in despite the shocking scene unfolding in front of him.
"It was extremely hot, like I had boiled water on my head, then very cold, very cold. Extremely dangerous," Ozbilici said in an interview. "But at the same time I understood that this was big history, it was history, (a) very, very important incident."
So the veteran AP photographer did what he has learned to do over some 30 years: "I immediately decided to do my job because I could be wounded, maybe die, but at least I have to represent good journalism," he said.
The winning image announced Monday was among 80,408 photos submitted to the prestigious competition by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries. The jury awarded prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries.
"Burhan's striking image was the result of skill and experience, composure under extreme pressure and the dedication and sense of mission that mark AP journalists worldwide," said AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee. "We are enormously proud of his accomplishment."
Jury chair Stuart Franklin called Ozbilici's image "an incredibly hard-hitting news photograph" and part of a strong series documenting the assassination.
"I think Burhan was incredibly courageous and had extraordinary composure in being able to sort of calm himself down in the middle of the affray and take the commanding pictures that he took," Franklin said. "I think as a spot news story it was terrific."
Denis Paquin, AP's acting director of photography, said Ozbilici's actions that day were typical of his professionalism.
"Burhan would tell you he was just doing his job. His humble professionalism, combined with incredible courage, enabled him to capture these unforgettable images," he said.
The eclectic selection of winners highlighted the dominant news topics of the last year including conflict in Syria and Iraq, the migrant crisis, the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Olympic Games in Rio. Among winning nature photos were images depicting humanity's devastating effect on wildlife, including a gruesome photograph of a poached rhino with its horn hacked off and another showing a turtle swimming while enmeshed in a green fishing net.
Among other winners, Jonathan Bachman of the United States, a photographer for Thomson Reuters, won the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an image of Ieshia Evans being detained in Baton Rouge during a protest on July 9 over the death of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by police. Evans stands bolt upright in a flowing dress as two police officers in heavy body armor and helmets move to take her into custody.
Franklin called Bachman's image "an unforgettable sort of comment on passive resistance. It's really a lovely photograph. You'll never forget it."
AP photographer Vadim Ghirda, based in Romania, won second prize in the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an emotionally charged photo of migrants crossing a river as they attempt to reach Macedonia from Greece, while another AP photographer, Felipe Dana, came third in the Spot News - Singles category for his image of an explosion in Mosul, Iraq. And Santi Palacios won second in the General News - Singles category for a photo that ran on the AP wire of two Nigerian children who said their mother died in Libya aboard a rescue boat in the Mediterranean Sea.
AMSTERDAM: Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici won the 2017 World Press Photo competition Monday for his image of a gun-wielding off-duty Turkish policeman standing over the body of Russia's ambassador, whom he had just fatally shot. Ozbilici's image was part of a series titled "An Assassination in Turkey" that also won the Spot News - Stories category. The photos were captured in the moments before and after policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas drew a handgun and shot Ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibition in Ankara on Dec. 19. In the winning photo, the gunman, wearing a suit and tie, stands defiantly, pistol in his right hand pointed at the ground and with his left hand raised, his index finger pointing upward. His mouth is wide open as he shouts angrily. The ambassador's body lies on the floor just behind Altintas. Another image in the series showed the ambassador before the shooting, with Altintas standing behind him. Ozbilici said his professional instincts kicked in despite the shocking scene unfolding in front of him. "It was extremely hot, like I had boiled water on my head, then very cold, very cold. Extremely dangerous," Ozbilici said in an interview. "But at the same time I understood that this was big history, it was history, (a) very, very important incident." So the veteran AP photographer did what he has learned to do over some 30 years: "I immediately decided to do my job because I could be wounded, maybe die, but at least I have to represent good journalism," he said. The winning image announced Monday was among 80,408 photos submitted to the prestigious competition by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries. The jury awarded prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries. "Burhan's striking image was the result of skill and experience, composure under extreme pressure and the dedication and sense of mission that mark AP journalists worldwide," said AP Executive Editor Sally Buzbee. "We are enormously proud of his accomplishment." Jury chair Stuart Franklin called Ozbilici's image "an incredibly hard-hitting news photograph" and part of a strong series documenting the assassination. "I think Burhan was incredibly courageous and had extraordinary composure in being able to sort of calm himself down in the middle of the affray and take the commanding pictures that he took," Franklin said. "I think as a spot news story it was terrific." Denis Paquin, AP's acting director of photography, said Ozbilici's actions that day were typical of his professionalism. "Burhan would tell you he was just doing his job. His humble professionalism, combined with incredible courage, enabled him to capture these unforgettable images," he said. The eclectic selection of winners highlighted the dominant news topics of the last year including conflict in Syria and Iraq, the migrant crisis, the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Olympic Games in Rio. Among winning nature photos were images depicting humanity's devastating effect on wildlife, including a gruesome photograph of a poached rhino with its horn hacked off and another showing a turtle swimming while enmeshed in a green fishing net. Among other winners, Jonathan Bachman of the United States, a photographer for Thomson Reuters, won the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an image of Ieshia Evans being detained in Baton Rouge during a protest on July 9 over the death of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by police. Evans stands bolt upright in a flowing dress as two police officers in heavy body armor and helmets move to take her into custody. Franklin called Bachman's image "an unforgettable sort of comment on passive resistance. It's really a lovely photograph. You'll never forget it." AP photographer Vadim Ghirda, based in Romania, won second prize in the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an emotionally charged photo of migrants crossing a river as they attempt to reach Macedonia from Greece, while another AP photographer, Felipe Dana, came third in the Spot News - Singles category for his image of an explosion in Mosul, Iraq. And Santi Palacios won second in the General News - Singles category for a photo that ran on the AP wire of two Nigerian children who said their mother died in Libya aboard a rescue boat in the Mediterranean Sea.
By Associated Press
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump will participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the work force Monday, an early sign of cooperation as Trudeau seeks to have good relations so Canada is not targeted in trade talks.
In his first face-to-face meeting with the new U.S president, Trudeau will also meet with Trump to talk about trade and participate in a working lunch.
A White House official and a senior Canadian government official said the two countries plan to launch a new task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The officials agreed to confirm the move only if they were not quoted by name because they were not authorized to make the information public.
Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter who has been an advocate for policies benefiting working women, was involved in recruiting participants and setting the agenda for the roundtable. Female executives from the United States and Canada are expected to participate.
Trudeau's close cooperation with Trump and the first daughter could ease some worries among Canadians that the U.S. president will enact protectionist measures that could hurt the Canadian economy. It could also alleviate some fears that Trump will be as combative with Trudeau as he has been with the leaders of Mexico and Australia.
The Canadian official said Trudeau's administration had suggested the task force, because the prime minister considers the issue of working women an important part of his agenda and economic growth plan.
"It's a smart thing if Canada proposed this," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto. "It takes attention off of NAFTA. And from Trump's point of view, it contributes to softening Trump's image, and he's got a problem with women."
Trudeau, 45, and Trump, 70, are polar opposites. Trudeau is a liberal who champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. He calls himself a feminist and his Cabinet is 50 percent women. Trump has few women in his Cabinet. He has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees.
Trump's order to temporarily halt entry into the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim nations, which is tied up in court, might come up during his bilateral meeting with Trudeau. But Trudeau is expected to focus on common economic interests.
Relations with the U.S. are crucial as more than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of U.S. exports go to Canada. There are fears among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy to Trudeau, said the prime minister needs to build a relationship with Trump to ensure Canada is not.
"The overriding priority will be for Canada to maintain secure and reliable access to the U.S. market and the supply chains that crisscross the border," Paris said.
Trudeau, whose father was the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has been preparing for the Trump meeting for months. He will also meet with legislative leaders on Capitol Hill.
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump will participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the work force Monday, an early sign of cooperation as Trudeau seeks to have good relations so Canada is not targeted in trade talks. In his first face-to-face meeting with the new U.S president, Trudeau will also meet with Trump to talk about trade and participate in a working lunch. A White House official and a senior Canadian government official said the two countries plan to launch a new task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The officials agreed to confirm the move only if they were not quoted by name because they were not authorized to make the information public. Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter who has been an advocate for policies benefiting working women, was involved in recruiting participants and setting the agenda for the roundtable. Female executives from the United States and Canada are expected to participate. Trudeau's close cooperation with Trump and the first daughter could ease some worries among Canadians that the U.S. president will enact protectionist measures that could hurt the Canadian economy. It could also alleviate some fears that Trump will be as combative with Trudeau as he has been with the leaders of Mexico and Australia. The Canadian official said Trudeau's administration had suggested the task force, because the prime minister considers the issue of working women an important part of his agenda and economic growth plan. "It's a smart thing if Canada proposed this," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor at the University of Toronto. "It takes attention off of NAFTA. And from Trump's point of view, it contributes to softening Trump's image, and he's got a problem with women." Trudeau, 45, and Trump, 70, are polar opposites. Trudeau is a liberal who champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. He calls himself a feminist and his Cabinet is 50 percent women. Trump has few women in his Cabinet. He has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees. Trump's order to temporarily halt entry into the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim nations, which is tied up in court, might come up during his bilateral meeting with Trudeau. But Trudeau is expected to focus on common economic interests. Relations with the U.S. are crucial as more than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of U.S. exports go to Canada. There are fears among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy to Trudeau, said the prime minister needs to build a relationship with Trump to ensure Canada is not. "The overriding priority will be for Canada to maintain secure and reliable access to the U.S. market and the supply chains that crisscross the border," Paris said. Trudeau, whose father was the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has been preparing for the Trump meeting for months. He will also meet with legislative leaders on Capitol Hill.
By Reuters
SEOUL: Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee appeared at the South Korean special prosecutor's office for questioning on Monday as part of a wider investigation into an influence-peddling scandal that could topple President Park Geun-hye.
The special prosecutor has focused on South Korea's biggest conglomerate, accusing Lee in his capacity as Samsung chief of pledging 43 billion won ($37.31 million) to a business and organisations backed by Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for support for a 2015 merger of two Samsung companies.
The funding included sponsorship for the equestrian career of Choi's daughter, who is under arrest in Denmark after being sought by South Korean authorities.
Park, Lee, Choi, and Samsung Group have all denied bribery accusations.
Proving illicit dealings between Park or her confidantes and Samsung Group is critical for the special prosecutor's case that ultimately targets Park, analysts have said.
Park was impeached by parliament in December and South Korea's Constitutional Court will decide whether to uphold that decision. She has been stripped of her powers in the meantime.
Lee arrived at the prosecution office in southern Seoul early on Monday in a black sedan, dressed in a dark blue suit and tie and flanked by Samsung Group officials and his lawyer.
"I will once again tell the truth to the special prosecution," the third-generation leader of South Korea's biggest conglomerate told reporters before entering an elevator, without giving further details.
Outside the prosecutor's office, protesters held up signs calling for his arrest.
EXECUTIVES QUESTIONED
The special prosecution team said it also planned to question two other Samsung executives as suspects. Both are officers of the Korea Equestrian Federation and have been questioned previously in the case.
One of those two, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd president Park Sang-jin, did not respond to reporters on his arrival at the special prosecution team's office.
Investigators are expected to decide, possibly this week, whether to again seek a warrant to arrest the 48-year-old Lee.
In January, the special prosecution sought a warrant to arrest Lee after questioning him for more than 22 hours, accusing him of paying bribes to win the state pension fund's support for the controversial merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc.
However, a Seoul court rejected that request.
Chang Choong-ki, deputy head of Samsung Group's corporate strategy office, known informally as its "control tower", was also questioned on Sunday as a suspect and returned home hours later. The special prosecutor's office said it had not decided yet on its plans for Chang.
Shares in Samsung Electronics had fallen 1.25 percent by 0108 GMT on Monday, compared with a flat wider market.
"The issue will have limited impact on share prices, except if the worst-case scenario happens, since political issues previously did not have a big influence on share prices or earnings," said Bae Sung-young, a stock analyst at Hyundai Securities.
SEOUL: Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee appeared at the South Korean special prosecutor's office for questioning on Monday as part of a wider investigation into an influence-peddling scandal that could topple President Park Geun-hye. The special prosecutor has focused on South Korea's biggest conglomerate, accusing Lee in his capacity as Samsung chief of pledging 43 billion won ($37.31 million) to a business and organisations backed by Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for support for a 2015 merger of two Samsung companies. The funding included sponsorship for the equestrian career of Choi's daughter, who is under arrest in Denmark after being sought by South Korean authorities. Park, Lee, Choi, and Samsung Group have all denied bribery accusations. Proving illicit dealings between Park or her confidantes and Samsung Group is critical for the special prosecutor's case that ultimately targets Park, analysts have said. Park was impeached by parliament in December and South Korea's Constitutional Court will decide whether to uphold that decision. She has been stripped of her powers in the meantime. Lee arrived at the prosecution office in southern Seoul early on Monday in a black sedan, dressed in a dark blue suit and tie and flanked by Samsung Group officials and his lawyer. "I will once again tell the truth to the special prosecution," the third-generation leader of South Korea's biggest conglomerate told reporters before entering an elevator, without giving further details. Outside the prosecutor's office, protesters held up signs calling for his arrest. EXECUTIVES QUESTIONED The special prosecution team said it also planned to question two other Samsung executives as suspects. Both are officers of the Korea Equestrian Federation and have been questioned previously in the case. One of those two, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd president Park Sang-jin, did not respond to reporters on his arrival at the special prosecution team's office. Investigators are expected to decide, possibly this week, whether to again seek a warrant to arrest the 48-year-old Lee. In January, the special prosecution sought a warrant to arrest Lee after questioning him for more than 22 hours, accusing him of paying bribes to win the state pension fund's support for the controversial merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc. However, a Seoul court rejected that request. Chang Choong-ki, deputy head of Samsung Group's corporate strategy office, known informally as its "control tower", was also questioned on Sunday as a suspect and returned home hours later. The special prosecutor's office said it had not decided yet on its plans for Chang. Shares in Samsung Electronics had fallen 1.25 percent by 0108 GMT on Monday, compared with a flat wider market. "The issue will have limited impact on share prices, except if the worst-case scenario happens, since political issues previously did not have a big influence on share prices or earnings," said Bae Sung-young, a stock analyst at Hyundai Securities.
By AFP
UNITED NATIONS: The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's missile launch, Pyongyang's first test since US President Donald Trump took office.
The council is expected to hold consultations on Monday after North Korea confirmed it had "successfully" tested a ballistic missile.
"The United States, along with Japan and the Republic of Korea, have requested urgent consultations on the DPRK's launch of a ballistic missile on February 12," said a US mission spokesman, adding that the meeting would likely take place in the afternoon.
The North Korean missile flew about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before falling into the sea, South Korea's defence ministry said.
The state-run KCNA news agency said "a "surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile" was "successfully test-fired" on Sunday, describing it as a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system."
The launch was seen as a test of the response from Trump, who pledged "100 percent" support to Washington's regional ally Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose country would be in range of a hostile North Korean missile launch, called the test "absolutely intolerable" during an impromptu press conference with Trump in Florida.
The reclusive regime carried out more than 20 missile tests last year, one of which reached Japanese-controlled waters after a launch in August.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile and nuclear technology.
The council has imposed six sets of sanctions since Pyongyang's first nuclear test in 2006.
The latest round of sanctions imposed in November includes a cap on Pyongyang's coal exports to China, aimed at depriving the communist state of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
UNITED NATIONS: The United States, Japan and South Korea on Sunday requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's missile launch, Pyongyang's first test since US President Donald Trump took office. The council is expected to hold consultations on Monday after North Korea confirmed it had "successfully" tested a ballistic missile. "The United States, along with Japan and the Republic of Korea, have requested urgent consultations on the DPRK's launch of a ballistic missile on February 12," said a US mission spokesman, adding that the meeting would likely take place in the afternoon. The North Korean missile flew about 500 kilometres (310 miles) before falling into the sea, South Korea's defence ministry said. The state-run KCNA news agency said "a "surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile" was "successfully test-fired" on Sunday, describing it as a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system." The launch was seen as a test of the response from Trump, who pledged "100 percent" support to Washington's regional ally Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose country would be in range of a hostile North Korean missile launch, called the test "absolutely intolerable" during an impromptu press conference with Trump in Florida. The reclusive regime carried out more than 20 missile tests last year, one of which reached Japanese-controlled waters after a launch in August. North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile and nuclear technology. The council has imposed six sets of sanctions since Pyongyang's first nuclear test in 2006. The latest round of sanctions imposed in November includes a cap on Pyongyang's coal exports to China, aimed at depriving the communist state of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
By PTI
WELLINGTON: A woman pilot was removed from a flight from New Zealand after she started "ranting" to the passengers about her divorce and then proceeded to complain about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
United Airlines confirmed a pilot on a flight from Austin to San Francisco was removed from a plane on Saturday evening. United flight 455 was scheduled to depart Austin's Bergstrom airport just after 5 pm. Austin police also confirmed Saturday evening that the pilot was removed from the plane.
In a statement, United Airlines said, "We hold our employees to the highest standards and replaced this pilot with a new one to operate the flight, which we expect will depart shortly. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience". A passenger on the flight said the pilot, who was not in uniform, "started to rant to the passengers" over the plane's intercom, KXAN reported.
According to the passenger, the pilot "first complained of her divorce, and then proceeded to complain about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton". According to FlightAware, the plane departed ABIA approximately two hours late. PTI
WELLINGTON: A woman pilot was removed from a flight from New Zealand after she started "ranting" to the passengers about her divorce and then proceeded to complain about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. United Airlines confirmed a pilot on a flight from Austin to San Francisco was removed from a plane on Saturday evening. United flight 455 was scheduled to depart Austin's Bergstrom airport just after 5 pm. Austin police also confirmed Saturday evening that the pilot was removed from the plane. In a statement, United Airlines said, "We hold our employees to the highest standards and replaced this pilot with a new one to operate the flight, which we expect will depart shortly. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience". A passenger on the flight said the pilot, who was not in uniform, "started to rant to the passengers" over the plane's intercom, KXAN reported. According to the passenger, the pilot "first complained of her divorce, and then proceeded to complain about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton". According to FlightAware, the plane departed ABIA approximately two hours late. PTI
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Should a couple have trouble conceiving, despite trying for more than a year, both partners may be checked for issues leading to infertility.
Evaluating infertility is different for men and women. The health care provider will start by asking the couple specific questions about their medical history in order to isolate the possible causes of infertility.
Based on the responses received, different diagnostic tests will be recommended for the couple. The typical tests required to diagnose male infertility are discussed here.
Evaluating General Health
The health care practitioner will ask about any recent or past injuries to the genital region. A physical examination will be undertaken to check for discharge or swelling of the prostate, any possible hernia, or extra tumorous growth.
The male will be checked out thoroughly and the health care practitioner will be able to identify any obvious defect in the genital area.
Should there be nothing visibly wrong with the patient, then the next set of diagnostic tests will be suggested.
Testing the Semen
Male infertility can result if there is an inadequate production of sperm to fertilize an egg, if the sperm is not shaped properly and if the sperm is unable to swim as is required.
In order to check if any of these issues exist, a sample of the males semen will be collected by ejaculation into a special container.
This specimen sample will be tested in a laboratory to check for sperm count, health, shape and motility.
Any abnormalities in the sperm morphology will also be tested along with signs of other problems and infections. It may be noted that the sperm count can vary from one sample to another. For this reason, a number of samples may be collected over a period of time to obtain accurate results.
Ultrasound of Scrotum
An ultrasound produces images of internal organs, allowing the doctor to check for any structural problems in the testicles.
Problems such as varicocele, in which veins inside the scrotum become enlarged, can be easily diagnosed.
Since nearly 40% of male infertility is caused by varicocele, it is important to exclude this before proceeding to other possible problems.
The ultrasound may also allow the doctor to diagnose torsion, or twisting of the testes within the scrotal sac. This also results in a swelling in the region.
The condition must be surgically treated to ensure that permanent infertility does not result as a consequence of the physical problem.
Testing Hormone Levels
Spermatogenesis is hormone-driven. The hypothalamus releases the Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH).
This acts on the anterior pituitary gland, signalling it to release the Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and the Luteinizing Hormone (LH). FSH flows through the blood and prompt the seminiferous tubules to begin producing sperm. LH encourages the Leydig Cells to produce testosterone.
Each hormone in the chain has an important role to play.
If the hormones are not balanced, spermatogenesis does not take place and only Sertoli cells are seen when a testicular biopsy is conducted.
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Some health care practitioners will check the hormones via blood tests to see if there is a problem related to production of sperms.
Testicle Biopsy
This test is used to determine whether the sperm production is normal. It is not a commonly suggested test for male infertility.
The process involves removing a sample of sperm from inside the testicle using a needle before studying it in a laboratory for structural problems.
Should there be problems such as the outer layer of the sperm being broken, or the sperm having fragile DNA or impaired motility, they will be easily identified using this diagnostic test.
If the sperm is normal and healthy, then the infertility may be caused by a blockage of the ducts or a sperm transportation issue.
Transrectal Ultrasound
A high frequency transrectal ultrasound shows images of the prostate, seminal vesicles and ejaculation ducts. It allows the health care practitioner to check for any duct blockages in the transportation path of the semen.
A lubricated wand is placed within the rectum to perform the procedure. The small wand allows real time imaging of the seminal vesicles and ejaculatory ducts. This diagnostic test can confirm or eliminate the problem of blockages.
Other Tests
There are a number of other tests to check for male fertility issues, but most of them will not be recommended by the health care practitioner. These tests include the following:
Vital Staining test this shows how many sperm in the semen sample are alive
Antisperm Antibodies test this checks if sperm have antibodies attached to them, making it difficult for them to swim.
Semen Culture - this checks if there is an infection affecting the semen
Hypo-osmotic Swelling test this checks if the sperm outer layer is intact
Chromosome analysis this will check for genetic defects
Specialized sperm function tests these allow one to see how well the sperm moves, attaches itself to the egg and manages to penetrate the egg.
Most of these tests are not required to prove male infertility. Once the core problem has been identified, the health care practitioner will provide possible solutions to the couple to overcome the infertility.
References
Further Reading
Today Future Science Group announces the publication of an article in Future Virology highlighting the clinical complications associated with antiretroviral therapy in Chinese HIV/ Tuberculosis (TB) coinfected patients.
In HIV infected individuals, coinfection with TB advances HIV to AIDS. As per the recommended guidelines by the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, it is advised that these patients receive anti-tubercular treatment followed by timely initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy.
"Despite the availability of the National Free Antiretroviral Treatment Program in China, HIV-related opportunistic infections continue to cause mortality in Chinese HIV-infected individuals due to lack of awareness of HIV infection until opportunistic infections become the first indicator of their disease" explained the authors (Huarun-WISCO Hospital and Beijing Shijitan Hospital, China).
In this investigation, the authors set to identify the aetiology of clinical complications associated with this coinfection by retrospectively studying 180 HIV-infected patients admitted to the Beijing Ditan Hospital from January 2012 to April 2014. Amongst the most frequent complications were AIDS-defining illnesses with a prevalence of 20%.
There are hopes that these findings will help educate physicians treating patients with HIV/ Tuberculosis especially after initiating combination antiretroviral therapy.
Commissioning Editor for Future Virology, Frances Adlam commented: "This study addresses the important clinical problem of continued high mortality in HIV/TB coinfected patients and contains data especially applicable to resource limited settings."
Source: https://www.future-science-group.com/future-virology-press-release/
A new Guide published online today gives recommendations on how to boost cancer control in Europe. The Guide is the result of a three-year effort by top experts in 25 countries and 126 partner organisations. They have been working together in an EU co-funded joint action, known as Cancon (officially titled European Guide on Quality Improvement in Comprehensive Cancer Control Guide).
- The quality improvement of cancer care is at the heart of the Cancon Guide. It will be reached by focusing on the patients experience, care and health services organization, delivery and accessibility, says Tit Albreht, the coordinator of Cancon joint action.
The Guides authors stress that besides saving money and time, effective cancer control increases quality of life. Currently some 2.6 million people in Europe are diagnosed with cancer annually. But more and more cancer patients are overcoming the disease. Therefore greater attention needs to be given to access to care, early diagnosis, rehabilitation, and survivorship.
- The good practice recommendations in the Guide strive to improve the national situations. The Guide is meant for decision-makers and cancer care professionals in Europe, explains Albreht.
The Guide includes a detailed survivorship care plan and evidence-based recommendations on cancer screening programmes for the member states of the European Union. This is the main outcome of the joint action.
The Guide will be officially launched at the Cancon Final conference, 14-15 February in Malta. The recommendations will be presented and discussed at the conference. This high-level conference includes a panel of European Health Ministers, and discussion on challenges in cancer policy at EU level.
- The implementation of these recommendations is the next step. We do not want the Guide to be just another book on the shelf, says Albreht.
Scientists at the University of Wurzburg have generated new insights into the intricate molecular underpinnings of ubiquitin signaling. Their results may provide new avenues for cancer therapy.
The small protein ubiquitin regulates a plethora of physiological and pathophysiological processes in the human body. It lives up to its name quite literally by being ubiquitous, both in terms of its abundance and its far-reaching regulatory impact. How ubiquitin exerts its diverse functions is intensely studied all over the world. Finding answers to this question is essential to exploit the ubiquitin system efficiently for therapeutic purposes. Researchers from Wurzburg have taken a key step towards this goal. Their results reveal new ways of regulating a ubiquitin ligase.
Enzymes that determine a protein's fate
"Ubiquitin ligases are enzymes that decorate cellular target proteins with ubiquitin and thus determine the fate of these target proteins," says Dr. Sonja Lorenz, senior author on the study. Ubiquitin can act as a "molecular postal code" that can guide target proteins to specific locations in the cell, lead them to serve distinct functions, carry molecular signals, integrate into large complexes, or even be destroyed.
Sonja Lorenz heads a research group at the Rudolf Virchow Center for Experimental Biomedicine at the University of Wurzburg. Her team and colleagues study a particular ubiquitin ligase, HUWE1, that has been ascribed key roles in tumor formation and is considered a promising, yet unexploited cancer-therapeutic target. Their new results on the molecular mechanism of HUWE1 are reported in the journal eLife.
Divide and rule: breaking down a protein giant
With almost 4.400 amino acids HUWE1 is an extremely large protein. Its three-dimensional structure, for the most part, is unknown. "The enormous size of HUWE1 and its flexibility present a considerable challenge for structural biologists," says Sonja Lorenz. To get a handle on the protein giant, her research team followed the ancient Roman principle "divide et impera - divide and rule" and has initially determined the atomic structure of a portion of HUWE1 using X-ray crystallography.
This structure reveals a new and intriguing feature of HUWE1: Two HUWE1 molecules can pair up to form a complex known as a "dimer", thereby shutting down their enzymatic activities.
Imbalances with consequences
How does the cell prevent HUWE1 from forming dimers when the enzyme needs to be active? The Wurzburg researchers also provide an answer to this question: HUWE1 exists in a fine-tuned balance of inactive dimers and single, active molecules. "Various cellular factors can regulate this balance," says Sonja Lorenz.
The tumor suppressor protein p14ARF is one such factor. It inhibits HUWE1, but is frequently lost in cancer cells. The new study provides the first mechanistic explanation of how p14ARF inhibits HUWE1. "The effects of p14ARF on the structure and activity of HUWE1 are extremely exciting," says Sonja Lorenz. "They open up a range of possibilities to manipulate HUWE1 activity that we are following up on."
Personal details: Sonja Lorenz
Dr. Sonja Lorenz holds an Emmy Noether grant from the German Research Foundation with which she established her lab at the Rudolf Virchow Center of the University of Wurzburg in April 2014. She is the deputy speaker of the new Research Training Group 2243, "Understanding Ubiquitylation: From Molecular Mechanisms to Disease", that will start in April 2017. Her studies on the interplay of HUWE1 and p14ARF are supported by the Wilhelm Sander-Foundation for medical research.
If the last blast of winter has you longing for sun-soaked beaches in tropical locales, be sure to stop at the drug store for sunscreen and insect repellant before leaving for spring vacation.
"In places like the Caribbean and South and Central America, where it is already summertime, people can potentially be exposed to health risks that they may not have at home," said Christopher Ohl, M.D., infectious disease specialist and director of the International Travel Clinic at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. "They aren't life threatening, but they can certainly wreck a vacation."
Most people don't realize that the closer you get to the equator the faster you get sunburned. Be especially careful on the beach or at poolside where the water reflects sunlight and intensifies the burn potential, Ohl said. In the Caribbean and Central America, people can get sunburned in as little as 10 to 15 minutes, so wear sunscreen and a tee shirt or cover-up during the middle of the day when the sun is strongest.
Being careful about what you eat and drink can help prevent traveler's diarrhea. Bottled water, carbonated beverages, coffee, tea, cooked food and peelable fruit are considered the best options, Ohl said. Some travelers may want to talk with their doctor about taking along an antibiotic to use for treatment of traveler's diarrhea should they get it while traveling.
Many spring travel destinations also can put people at greater risk of contracting mosquito-borne diseases:
Malaria - Areas most at risk are northern South America, eastern Panama, Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Guatemala, Honduras and parts of southern Mexico. Ohl suggests bringing bed netting to sleep under and a good insect repellant with 30 to 35 percent DEET. Talk with your doctor or travel medicine specialist before leaving to see if you also need to be on anti-malarial pills.
Dengue fever - Transmitted by daytime-biting mosquitos, the disease is prevalent throughout the tropics in villages, small towns and urban areas or where beaches are backed by trees. Symptoms include headache with high fever and severe body aches.
"It's like the worst case of flu you've ever had," Ohl said. "It probably won't kill you but you'll wish you were dead for a few days. There isn't a vaccine or medicine so you just need to avoid mosquito bites. Although mosquitos aren't a problem on the beach, you certainly can get bitten if you pull your chair back into the shade of trees lining the beach."
Zika - Miami Beach and Puerto Rico are still considered risk areas. If out in the sun and wind, mosquitos aren't a problem, Ohl said, but more of an issue when you get back into cabanas at resorts and hotels.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Zika is primarily a concern for women who are pregnant or for people thinking about starting a family. Women should consider not getting pregnant for eight weeks after returning from a Zika-prone area, Ohl said. Men can spread Zika through their sperm for up to six months after contracting the virus, and should consider using barrier contraceptives during that time frame.
Chikungunya - The Caribbean and Central America have sporadic cases. The virus causes fever, rash and joint aches that can last a while, Ohl said, so again avoiding mosquitos is the best protection.
If you want to prevent both sunburn and mosquito bites, the best way is to put sunscreen on first and then wait 15 to 30 minutes before applying insect repellant. Ohl prefers ointment or cream repellants because they last longer on the skin, are easier to apply and to carry with you in 2 to 3 ounce tubes.
Ohl offers one more tip to ensure a healthy spring vacation: Be sure you've gotten a flu shot before traveling. In tropical areas, influenza circulates throughout the year but at a lower level. Spring break occurs at the tail end of flu season in the U.S., and you can get it from other people on the plane.
Source: http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2017/Too_Much_Sun_Mosquito_Bites_Can_Wreck_Tropical_Travel.htm
Volkswagen Passat is set to make a comeback into the Indian auto market by mid-2017 in its eight generation avatar. The company had first showcased the hybrid version of the model christened Passat GTE at the 2016 Delhi Auto Expo.However, the company plans to launch the petrol version of the Passat first, which will be followed by the launch of hybrid and diesel variants towards the end of this year.The new Passat will be smaller in terms of length as compared to the old model which was sold in India but will boast of an increase in cabin space, thanks to the longer wheelbase and VWs MQB platform. The weight of the car is also expected to be lesser by almost 85 kilos, as compared to its predecessor.The biggest attraction of the car has to be the new design language which includes a new grille, LED wrap-around headlamps with daytime running lights.Powering this car will be the 1.8-litre TSI petrol engine which also powers the current generation Skoda Octavia and Superb, and is expected to churn out almost 180 horsepower. This engine is expected to come mated with a 7-speed dual clutch transmission setup.The Passat will be one of the major launches that were announced by Volkswagen at the 2016 Delhi Auto Expo last year which included the Polo GTI , Ameo, the Tiguan and the Passat. Out of these, the Ameo and the Polo GTI have already been launched and as of now, there is no confirmation about when the Tiguan will be launched.Watch this space for updates.
Kolkata: A 23-Year-old girl was critically injured after she was attacked with acid while travelling in a local train in Kolkata on Sunday night. The girl was travelling to Kalyanpur from Baruipur railway station.
The family of the victim has alleged that Kalyanpur resident Swarup Halder was behind the attack. The victim was admitted at Bangur Hospital in Kolkata.
"Swarup had once threatened the family owing to his acrimony with the victim's father over a plot of land. And since then he has been continuously harassing her for many years," said victim's family.
Some other passengers were also injured in the acid attack. The family also alleged that Swarup had also hurled bombs in their house before Kali puja last year.
New Delhi: The Border Security Force (BSF) and West Bengal police have seized close to 50 Fake 2000 rupee notes from Indo-Bangladesh border striking a body blow to government's demonitization success claim.
Prime minister Modi had recently told parliament that demonitization is a success since the parallel economy of fake currencies have been wiped clean.
Minister of state for Home affairs Kirean Rijiju said, "We will take all possible measures to stop flow of fake currencies." Earlier, Ministry of Home Affairs had stated that printing press in Pakistan which were printing fake notes had come to a grinding halt after November 8th.
As per a BSF report, fake 2000 rupee note worth forty thousand rupees were seized from Murshidabad district of west Bengal on February 8. Local police arrested 26 year old Azizur Rahman, a resident of Malda district, on suspicion of smuggling fake currencies. "Interrogation revealed that the currencies he was carrying were low quality fake," a source said.
This was the third haul of fake 2000 rupee notes in the past fifteen days.
On January 22, one fake 2000 rupee note was seized and a juvenile from Malda district arrested for carrying it. On February 4, another seizure was made from the same area. A 42-year-old was found carrying two counterfeit notes worth 2000 rupee each.
The case is now being probed by NIA. The government is also studying the security features on the fake notes most of which are similar to the ones in the real notes.
New Delhi: The Indian government co-sponsored the Karachi Literature Festival which was held between the 10th and 12th of February in Pakistan. At least that's what KLF's website says. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations is mentioned as a co-sponsor in a list that also includes the French, Swiss, British and US embassies in Pakistan.
After a controversy erupted over India's endorsement of the program at a time when India and Pakistan are locked in a diplomatic war over cross-border terror,the Indian government rushed to defend itself. Government sources said, "Our involvement in Karachi Literature Festival is restricted to providing airfare to four Indian authors."
Government sources confirmed that the ICCR had funded the travel of four authors including Preeti Shenoy, Mamang Dai and Urvashi Butalia. ICCR director Amarendra Khatua told CNN News18, We are not sponsoring Karachi Literature Festival. We provide funds to the authors who are going there.
He was earlier quoted in the Times of India saying, We are working to increase India's cultural footprint across the world under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, including in Pakistan."
The KLF began in 2010 and has gained significance since then as it now counts foreign missions of several countries in Pakistan as sponsors. This comes at a time when Pakistani artistes are finding it difficult to perform in India with a veritable ban in force. Missions on both sides remain reluctant to issue visas to people who can help encourage cultural contact.
While the Indian government maintains silence, it is clear that they are looking to encourage cultural ties even as bilateral dialogue remains suspended.
Rajiv Singh sits outside his house in Nayagaon village and points to a cart stacked to the top with sugarcane. Uska hi bhara hua ganna hai yeh (He had filled this cart with sugarcane himself), he says. Rajiv is referring to his 17-year-old nephew Vishal Kumar, who was murdered on late Friday night when he had gone with his father Sanjay Singh to water their sugarcane fields in Bijnor.For the second time in less than six months, the twin villages of Peda and Nayagaon, both on the outskirts of Bijnor, were on the edge with communal tensions rising. On late Friday evening, Sanjay Singh and his son had gone to water the fields when a dozen men, allegedly belonging to another community, attacked them with knives and guns. The son, 17-year-old Vishal Kumar, was killed in the attack while trying to protect his father.Police was deployed in Peda and Nayagaon villages and communal tensions were high. Leading the protests were local BJP leaders, who demanded the arrest of all the accused. According to the police, an FIR was filed against eight residents of neighboring Peda village and one of them, Mohammed Hanif, was also arrested. On Saturday afternoon, while 15 districts in western UP were heading to polls, BJP workers blocked one of the main crossings in the city for five hours and demanded Justice for Vishal. Traders, too, downed their shutters in protest. That is when Vishals family realized the situation could get out of control.Some people who were protesting were asking us to bring Vishals body on to the main crossing so that we could all protest together. When I went out, I noticed that the crowd was getting aggressive. In fact, a couple of people in the crowd were even drunk and started shouting expletives at the other community. We realized that the situation could soon get out of control. We decided to just go back home instead of joining the protest. If we had gone there with Vishals body, passions would have erupted and there would be riots in Bijnor. I am glad that better sense prevailed over our family. We dont want any more bloodshed, Rajiv Singh says.The timing of the murder, just five days before Bijnor goes to polls in the second phase and the night before the first phase, has raised eyebrows in the village. While Sanjay Singh, 42, had contested the village panchayat elections in 2015 and lost by a narrow margin of 18 votes, his family claims that they do not have any links with any political party whatsoever. Subhash Singh, Sanjay Singhs cousin, says, We dont want anything to do with politicians or politics. When the matter is being handled by the police at the moment, what need do politicians have to derive mileage out of this? We just want justice for our child and we have faith that we will get it. We dont want enmity with any particular community. We just want the truth. Till now, we dont even know why our child was murdered.In September last year, the alleged eve-teasing of girls in Peda village on the outskirts of Bijnor city had triggered communal riots, claiming three lives and injuring 12 others. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had rushed state home secretary Mani Prasad Mishra and ADG (law and order) Daljeet Chaudhary to the spot and announced Rs 20 lakh each to the next of the victims kin. Seven companies of the PAC and additional police forces were deployed in the area. Two days after the clashes broke out, police investigations revealed that Aishwarya Chuadhary, the district president of the RSS-affiliated Adhivakta Sangh, had been accused of leading the violence.Statements of the accused, police had said, named both Chaudhary and his gunner. According to reports, the violence had died down after an initial flare up but Aishwarya Chaudhary had instigated the mob to return and fire upon members of the other community. Cops also recovered evidence, including pictures of Chaudhary at the scene. Interestingly, Chaudharys wife Shuchi Chaudhary is the BJP candidate for the Bijnor assembly constituency.Several BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had claimed that the Samajwadi Party government in UP was unfairly framing innocent people in the Peda clashes case. Just days before Bijnor heads to polls on February 15, local BJP leaders will be looking to make an issue out of Vishal Kumars murder. As Sanjay Singh was recuperating in Bijnor district hospital on Sunday, he received a visit from Bijnors BJP MP Bharatendra Singh. As Sanjay is about to go back to sleep, the MP says, Koi pareshani ho toh phone kar dena (If you face any problem, just give me a call).Speaking to News 18 later, the Bijnor MP denied that the allegations that his party was trying to polarise voters ahead of the second phase of polling. This is a peace-loving district. Even when India was being partitioned in 1947, Bijnor saw no violence. Unfortunately, such incidents only take place when the Samajwadi Party is in power. When Mulayam Singh Yadav was CM, the city witnessed a near-riot situation. During Akhileshs tenure, too, there has been communal tension. The credit goes to the people of Bijnor for maintaining peace in the city.Meanwhile, Rajiv wonders why anybody would attack his nephew. The family still doesnt know the motive behind the attack. Bahut achcha ladka tha. Gaon mein sab ko Ram-Ram karta tha. Aakhiri samay mein bhi pitaji ki jaan bacha gaya. Usko koi kyun marega? (He was a very nice boy. He used to greet everyone in the village. Even in his final moments, he saved his fathers life. Why would anyone ever kill him?)
of Al-Ameer Used Oil Trading in a diesel tank in Sharjah. It appears the cause of death is suffocation. /2 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 12, 2017
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has directed Indian mission in the United Arab Emirates to follow up the investigation by local police regarding the death of three Indians after a fire in a diesel tank."@cgidubai has informed me about the unfortunate death of three Indian nationals Kishan Singh, Mohan Singh and Ujendra Singh all employees Of Al-Ameer Used Oil Trading in a diesel tank in Sharjah," she said in a series of tweets."My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. Our mission will provide them all help and assistance," she said."I have asked our mission to follow up investigation by the Police," Swaraj tweeted.According to a Khaleej Times report, Sharjah Police have launched an investigation to rule out criminal acts behind the deaths which occurred in Al Saja'a area.The bodies have been sent for autopsy, it said.
New Delhi: Switzerland has issued notices to an Indian art curator, his family members and two related companies after the receipt of request from India for administrative assistance, including information about their Swiss bank account details.
Five separate notices were issued by Switzerlands Federal Tax Administration (FTA) last week, asking the individuals and the companies involved to designate within 10 days a representative to exercise their right to be heard before the assistance is extended to India.
India has been seeking administrative assistance, including access to bank account details of the persons and the companies suspected to have stashed undisclosed funds in banks in Switzerland, after furnishing some evidence to justify the suspicion.
As per the local law, Switzerland gives an opportunity to the entity concerned to challenge the sharing of information, before providing the assistance to the requesting nation.
As per the latest notification published in its federal gazette in Berne, such notices were issued last week to Abdul Rashid Mir, Tabasum Mir, Mujeeb Mir and Cottage Industries Exposition (CIE) from India, as also to Panama-based Mondale SA. Their names had figured in leaked Panama Papers too.
As per the details filed with Panamas registrar of companies, Mondale SA was incorporated in September 2002 and Abdul Rashid Mir is one of the directors.
On its website, Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd describes itself as a standalone curator of art and names A Rashid Mir as its Founder Chairman.
According to the website, CIE was established in 1978 as an export-trading house and the small business, possibly worth a few lakhs then, is today a thriving business worth billions in silk carpets alone.
It further says that CIEs network of luxury outlets are spread across the world at key tourist locations like in Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Mauritius, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and many cities in India.
The Swiss notices mention the names of the individuals as also their nationality and dates of birth. In case of the companies, their names and the countries of incorporation are mentioned.
Kangana Ranaut, whose fashion game on most occasions has been spot on, did not disappoint even during the promotion of her upcoming film Rangoon, which hits the silver screen on February 24.The upcoming film casts actors Shahid Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan and Kangana Ranaut in the lead.Recently, while the three were promoting their film, it was Ranaut's Galang Gabaan blush pink saree with heart-motifs, that caught everyone's attention. The actress paired the attire with ivory coloured blouse with puffed-sleeves and finished her look with minimum make-up, her hair left open in natural curls and a pair of elegant earring by Amrapali Jewels.Ranaut's look was styled by Ami Patel and Sanjay Kumar Dauhaliya.While the two actors - Shahid and Saif - opted for a casual look, pairing round-neck tees with jackets, it was Ranaut who stole the limelight.Not only did the Queen star look cute, she literally swept thousands of 'hearts' with her look.In fact, girls could also take cue from Ranaut's 'heart-y' saree for this Valentine's Day.Take a look:(Photo: Yogen Shah)(Photo: Yogen Shah)(Photo: Yogen Shah)The actress will be seen as 'fearless Julia', a leading actress who travels, performs and entertains soldiers of the British Indian Army in Vishal Bhardwaj's period drama.
Adele on Sunday won the top two Grammys of Album and Record of the Year for her blockbuster hit Hello and the album 25.
The tearful English balladeer took the stage and paid tribute to her main award rival Beyonce, heaping praise on her album Lemonade and calling it an inspiration.
"All us artists adore you. You are our light," Adele said to a visibly moved Beyonce.
25 is the best-selling album of the past decade -- with the exception of Adele's last album, 21, which won Album of the Year in 2012.
Adele, who has named her albums after her ages at the time of recording, kept the same formula for "25" of emotional, often tear-jerking songs of heartache and nostalgia.
25 was led by the ubiquitous single Hello, which returns to Adele's theme of separation and the haunting feeling that ensues. Elsewhere on the album, Adele reminisces of her childhood in north London.
With a global fan base that crosses demographics, Adele adopted an unusual commercial strategy of not streaming 25 for more than six months after its release in November 2015.
But even with only CDs, vinyl and downloads, the success of 25 in the final weeks of 2015 made it the top-selling album of the whole year and it remained a chart success in 2016.
Adele recruited an impressive cast to help on 25 including a diverse team of producers and songwriters such as fellow pop star Bruno Mars and indie rocker Tobias Jesso Jr.
Mars was also a winner Sunday he won for his producing work on Adele's album. Adele's other wins included best pop vocal album and pop solo performance.
Until Adele's abrupt restart, Beyonce was the talk of the show. In glittery gown, gilded crown and gold choker, a pregnant Beyonce took the Grammy stage in a lengthy performance of two songs from her critically acclaimed album "Lemonade." She was introduced by her mother and former stylist, Tina Knowles: "Ladies and gentlemen, with my mother's pride, my daughter, Beyonce."
Beyonce sang on top of a long table on "Sandcastles" and "Love Drought" and later sang while sitting down in a chair that tilted alarmingly backward, still hitting high notes.
She earned a loud applause from the audience, including daughter Blue Ivy and husband Jay Z. Beyonce, who walked into the show with nine nominations, won two: best music video ("Formation") and urban contemporary album ("Lemonade").
"My intention for the film and album is to create a body of work that would give voice to our pain, our struggles, our doubts, and our history, to confront issues that make us uncomfortable. It's important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can grow in a world, where they look in the mirror, first with their own families as well as in the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House and the Grammys and see themselves," said Beyonce, reading from a card. "This is something that I want for every child of every race, and I feel that it's vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes."
Beyonce's speech wasn't the only political moment: A Tribe Called Quest, along with Anderson .Paak and Busta Rhymes, gave a rousing performance and shouted "resist, resist" at their end of the performance, which featured a number of people onstage, including women in hijabs.
Like Adele, David Bowie who died last year from cancer won all four awards he was nominated for. "Blackstar," his final album released days before he died, won best alternative music album and engineered album, non-classical. The title track won best rock song and rock performance.
Adele and Mars worked overtime onstage, each performing twice. Adele kicked off the show with "Hello" and Mars and his groovy band gave a memorable performance of "That's What I Like" as Jennifer Lopez, Faith Hill, Rihanna and even some of the men in the audience watched closely, looking impressed.
Chance the Rapper won the first award in the live telecast for best new artist. He also won best rap album the first streaming-only album to do so and bested Drake and Kanye West.
"I didn't think we were gonna get this one," said Chance, who also won best rap performance.
Twenty one pilots won best pop duo/group performance for the hit "Stressed Out." They removed their pants when accepting the award in homage to their earlier days when they watched the Grammys at home in their boxers.
Producer Greg Kurstin won four honors: He shared album, song and record of the year with Adele, and was also named producer of the year, non-classical.
In the pre-telecast, Beyonce's younger sister, critical R&B darling Solange, won her first Grammy for best R&B performance (it was her first-ever nomination). Drake, who didn't attend the live show, won best rap song and rap/sung performance for the smash hit, "Hotline Bling."
Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling!" which is nominated for an Oscar won best song written for visual media. Best new artist nominees The Chainsmokers won best dance recording for the pop hit "Don't Let Me Down," while Simpson, an album of the year nominee, won best country album for "A Sailor's Guide to Earth."
The country music rebel thanked his wife, who he said told him to quit his job on the railroad years ago and move to Nashville.
Joey + Rory won best roots gospel album for "Hymns," and Rory Feek was emotional onstage as he remembered his wife Joey, who died last year from cancer.
Some actors won Grammys, too: Don Cheadle picked up best compilation soundtrack for visual media for "Miles Ahead," where he is credited as a compilation producer, and Carol Burnett won the best spoken word album Grammy.
"The Color Purple" won best musical theater album, giving Jennifer Hudson her second Grammy and earning Tony winner Cynthia Erivo and "Orange Is the New Black" actress Danielle Brooks their first Grammys.
Kangana Ranaut and Saif Ali Khan, the stars of Vishal Bhardwajs upcoming period drama Rangoon will be seen sharing the couch in the upcoming episode of Koffee with Karan.The trailer of the episode shows Kangana and Saif taking coffee shots as they sneakily admit to cheating on partners and getting jealous of other co-stars.While Saif admits to have cheated on his partner, he mentions that he doesnt get jealous of his peers and their success. Kangana though on the other hand admits that she does get jealous seeing other peoples film do well. (Its a) Human emotion. Like the fact that Dangal made so much money. So much?! Kangana also admits that a girl has kissed her.The actress is seen slyly taking a jab at Karan Johar at one point. If ever a biopic is made on me, you will play the strereotypical Bollywood biggie who is very snooty and completely intolerant to outsiders. A flag bearer of nepotism. The movie mafia.Saif has featured three times before on the show. The actor has come with Preity Zinta, his sister Soha and wife Kareena Kapoor. Kangana has made an appearance before with Sanjay Dutt and Anil Kapoor.
Sandeep Das has joined the league of a few extraordinary Indians after winning the prestigious Grammy Awards. On Sunday night, the famous tabla player won Best World Music Album with Yo-Yo Ma at the 59th Grammy Awards. Mas project titled The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble is a fusion of Indian classical and world music. Talking exclusively to News18.com after his big win, the artist said, "It's a proud moment for me to represent my culture on such a big platform. I am feeling proud and grateful to my roots. The entire feeling of winning is great."Das, who has been nominated the three times before at the Grammys is considered one of the leading Tabla players in the world today. In a professional career spanning over 25 years, he has composed and played alongside the legendary Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, String quartets and Orchestra's such as The New York Philharmonic, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Boston Symphony Orchestra to name a few.Born and brought up in India, Das started playing at the age of 16. He learned the intricacies of the instrument from Kishan Maharaj in Banaras and made his debut with Pandit Ravi Shankar. In 1990, he moved to Delhi and played with every big name in the Indian Classical circuit including Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pt.Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Dr L Subramaniam but ultimately found recognition in USA where he moved in the 1990s.Talking about his move abroad, Das said, "It's unfortunate that while people in the west are growing fond of our culture we are busy mimicking their below average numbers. We have a rich heritage and we should be proud of it and by virtue of our culture and heritage we are a rich civilisation."He further added, "Youngsters in India are happy playing keys in a band and perform in clubs for no money. They should understand that the key to success is ultimately your knowledge about the art. Music has to be of good quality if you need recognition in the long run."Citing his own example Das said, "I found my path in fusion. Good collaboration at a good level is a must and I found it with all the artists I've worked with. It's a nice feeling when the work you enjoy gets recognition. While I have been featured in New York Times and Washington Post, it still feels good when media from back home take note of ones achievements."Das sees his win as a gateway for youngsters to take cue and focus on Indias rich musical heritage. "Indians are working hard and getting their dues with time. I hope we give the required respect to the classical artistes as well.""Media should also encourage good work and it will automatically become popular." said Das. The elated musician mentioned he would be travelling to Boston to celebrate his win with friends and family soon.
The rebellion by caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam against AIADMK leader VK Sasikala grew on Monday with a party parliamentarian and an MLA jumping ship.Panneerselvam now has the backing of 12 party MPs and seven MLAs.The latest to join his camp were Madurai MP Gopalakrishnan and Madurai South MLA Saravanan, who walked out of a luxury resort, where party MLAs have been put up for the last few days, during a visit by party leader Sasikala.Sasikala, who decided to stay the night at the resort, has claimed the support of 129 MLAs. Panneerselvams loyalists have disputed the figure and say the lawmakers are being held captive at the Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur.The big boost to team Panneerselvam comes a day before the Supreme Court is set to deliver its verdict in a disproportionate assets case against Sasikala.A conviction would shatter Sasikalas dream of taking over the CMs chair in Tamil Nadu and bar her from electoral politics. She may then prop up a loyalist as the leader of her faction within the AIAMDK.The court also has the option of setting aside the acquittal and the matter then goes back to the Karnataka HC. This scenario, too, would deal a blow to Sasikala as the trial courts conviction would come into force till the HC verdict, barring her from becoming the CM.Sasikala and her loyalists would be hoping that the top court upholds the acquittal as a floor test looms over the Assembly.
: With the stalemate over who will occupy the chief minister's chair deepening, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi on Monday advised the Tamil Nadu Governor to call for a floor test to determine who has the numbers.Rohatgi opined that a special Assembly session be convened within a week for a composite floor test to determine who among the two AIADMK leaders - O Panneerselvam and V K Sasikala - enjoys majority.Two days after Sasikala was elected AIADMK's state Legislature Party Leader on February 5, paving the way for her to take over as chief minister, Panneerselvam had raised a banner of revolt saying he was forced to resign.Sources said that the opinion was sought by Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao from the Attorney General who has cited the 1998 Supreme Court judgment in the Jagdambika Pal case in which the apex court had ordered a floor test in the Assembly to determine who among the two claimants -- Pal and Kalyan Singh -- had majority for chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh.The opinion, the sources said, has stated that "he (Governor) should call a special session within a week's time and have a composite floor test as was ordered by the Supreme Court in the Jagdambika Pal case".The opinion on floor test was given as the two claimants are from the same party and they will be pitted against each other to determine who commands majority support in the Assembly, the sources said.
Thiruvananthapuram: A BJP worker was allegedly hacked to death in Keralas Thrissur district late on Sunday.
Sources told CNN News18 that a BJP worker called Nirmal was stabbed to death after a tussle during celebrations at a temple in Mukkattukara.
The BJP state unit has alleged that the ruling CPM was behind the act and has called for a strike in Thrissur district.
Police sources told CNN News18 that they suspect personal rivalry behind the act and more can be said only after the investigation.
This comes as conflict between the CPM and the BJP-RSS has been escalating over the past few months. BJPs Kerala vice president P P Vava lost eye sight in his left eye and eight other party workers after getting injured a clash with police during a protest earlier this month.
Bengaluru: Nara Lokesh, son of Chandrababu Naidu, will soon join his father in the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet.
The Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon educated Lokesh is currently the youth wing head of TDP, and is the chief ministers pointsman in developing the new capital of Andhra, Amaravati.
Our leader has expressed his intent to induct me into his Cabinet during his next Cabinet expansion. It was actually expressed publicly by the chief minister, Lokesh told News18 over phone from Amaravati.
By inducting his 34-year-old son into the Cabinet, Naidu is following the Indian political tradition as laid out by Parkash Singh Badal, M Karunandhi, and in the immediate neighbourhood, K Chandrashekhara Rao whose US-educated son KT Rama Rao is a minister with the crucial portfolios of rural development and IT in the Telangana Cabinet.
Currently, Lokesh is tasked with keeping an eye on media coverage of his party and the government, according to top bureaucrats of the state. Party leaders say he is known his power point-approach on subjects like membership, cadre grievance management, training, and monitoring of active leadership.
I need all the support to make AP the best state in the country, Lokesh told News18.
Lokesh is my firewall. He updates and tutors me in the use of technology, Naidu told his close Cabinet colleagues who sat next to him in the audience at a public function where Lokesh made a presentation recently, according to sources.
C. Vidyasagar Rao is in an unenviable position, as the cliche goes. The debate is no longer whether he, as the acting governor of Tamil Nadu, should have invited VK Sasikala to form the government, once he had accepted incumbent Chief Minister O Panneerselvams resignation.
Going strictly by the letter, and probably spirit of the Constitution, he should have but all that is water under the bridge now. The question that now before Rao is simply: where does he go from here?
The deferment of a decision pending a Supreme Court verdict on the disproportionate assets case in which Sasikala is accused Number 2 (the Number 1 being former Tamil Nadu Chief minister J Jayalalithaa, now deceased) has created a situation where there are serious doubts whether the choice of Sasikala as the leader of the AIADMK legislature party was made on the free will of the legislators are not.
Sasikala camps decision to sequester the legislators, said to be about 129 (clear majority in the 234 member assembly) has made the issue murkier, especially with some of the legislators who switched sides in the last few days claiming that they had been asked to sign on blank papers.
Sasikala has also upped the ante by threatening action (the nature of which she has not disclosed) is the governor did not announce his decision by 6 pm today (Feb 13).
The leaked note on the governors state of mind on the issue made it clear that he was seriously taking Sasikalas possible conviction by the Supreme Court that would render her disqualified from becoming a member of the legislature, and therefore ineligible to be the chief minister.
But how long can the governor wait for the Supreme Court verdict? Last week, when an urgent mention was made on behalf of the Karnataka government that had appealed against the High Court ruling quashing a special courts conviction of Jayalalithaa and the others, the Apex Court bench had said that it would deliver the verdict this week. With the case not being listed for Monday, the general expectation is that it might be delivered either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
If it does not come in the next couple of days, can he wait any longer? Rao has already burnt his bridges on this count. He has no option but to wait.
If the verdict comes in the next couple of days, and Sasikalas conviction is confirmed, Raos predicament might look to have been solved. But that may not necessarily be so. In the event of her conviction being confirmed, nothing prevents Sasikala and the MLAs, now cooling heels in a resort, from electing one of her own loyalist nominees like Edappadi Palanichamy as the leader of the legislature party and stake claim again.
If on the other hand if her acquittal is upheld, it would seem that Rao has no option but to accept last weeks legislature party resolution electing her as the leader, and hence Chief Minister nominee.
Though the Chennai police, after an inquiry, told the Madras High Court that the MLAs are staying at the resort out of their own free will, it is being speculated that in either case, the governor might still ask to meet the legislator individually and ascertain their will. This is looking more and more unlikely though as the pro-Sasikala MLAs do not seem to be breaking ranks.
However, this again is fraught with problem. The Supreme Court has established in the SR Bommai case that the place for testing the strength is not the Raj Bhavan but the floor of the assembly.
The other option that is being bandied about is the possibility of asking Panneerselvam to prove his majority or lack of it on the floor of the House. But Panneerselvams resignation has already been accepted and his protestations, coming two days after the original sin, that it had been taken under duress, cannot be a reason for him being given another chance.
Having painted himself into a corner, Rao can only wait for the verdict and either swear in Sasikala (if she is acquitted) or another person (if she her conviction is confirmed) chosen by the legislature party as chief minister.
Though this may be the legal and constitutional position, on the ground level the political reality may change. As the days drag, the ground swell against Sasikala as chief minister is increasing, and the steady defection of Member of Parliament and other senior leaders, though inconsequential in terms of strength in the assembly, might put psychological pressure on some more MLAs to change their minds to bring the strength of the pro-Sasikala MLAs below the magic figure of 118 that she would require to win a floor test.
Though there is no sign of any further defection from the Sasikala camp of MLAs, the Panneerselvam camp hopes that some more MLAs might switch sides when the voting in the motion of confidence does take place, defying the whip and leaving themselves open for disqualification under the Anti-defection law, to defeat the motion.
The floor test, if and when it takes place, is not likely to be a smooth affair. The spectre of January 28, 1988, when in the aftermath of MG Ramachandrans death, his widow Janaki, who had been elected leader of the AIADMK legislator party by a majority of legislators (who incidentally were opposed to Jayalalithaa), tried to prove her majority looms large. The entire process ended in utter chaos and unprecedented violence within the Assembly hall.
If a similar situation does arise, the governor may take the extraordinary step of recommending the dissolution of the assembly, and imposition of Presidents Rule, as was done in 1988. In either case, the state will be plunged into further crisis.
There is also the possibility of legal pressure on the Governor to act soon if either Sasikala or a maverick like Subramanian Swamy decide to move the Supreme Court, seeking a direction to Rao to immediately invite Sasikala to form the government.
Whichever way he turns, Rao will emerge from the current crisis with muck sticking on to him. There is a perception that he has been acting on behalf of the BJP at the Centre. In fact, Sasikala even hinted at it during her press conference and her address to the MLAs at the resort on Sunday evening. Sasikala had said that some forces had made enquiries to find out whether she would be a pliable chief minister and having found that she was made of sterner stuff, had been backing Panneerselvam who is seen to be pliable. The remark, contrary to general belief that it was against the DMK, was a veiled attack on the BJP, which is desperately trying to gain a toe-hold in the state.
Kalyan Arun is senior Print and Television journalist and political analyst who has written on Tamil Nadu politics for more than three decades. Currently teaches in Asian College of Journalism. All Views are personal.
Chennai: With no solution in sight for government formation in Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK has asserted that a majority of its MLAs are behind General Secretary V K Sasikala and claimed the chances of Governor C Vidyasagar Rao "inviting" her today were "high."
Party spokesperson Vaigai Chelvan said Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had the support of seven MLAs and cannot therefore prove his majority in the state Assembly in the event of a floor test.
"He says he can prove his majority based on the wrong information given by someone. Majority of the AIADMK MLAs are with Chinnamma (Sasikala) and we are ready to prove our strength (in a floor test)," he told reporters.
Sasikala was the elected Legislature Party leader of AIADMK and therefore the Governor should invite her to form government, he added.
"We expect the chances of his inviting (meeting) her today are high," he said.
To a question on 11 MPs switching over to the camp of Panneerselvam, Vaigai Chelvan expressed confidence that they would return to the Sasikala fold.
In growing support for Panneerselvam, six more AIADMK MPs had joined his camp yesterday, taking the number of Parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
Sasikala had yesterday vowed to protect the party nurtured by her long-time friend, late Jayalalithaa, saying "I will give my life for this cause".
Addressing the MLAs at the resort near here, which she visited for the second time in two days, Sasikala had said, "You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain it by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government. None can hurt us and there is no need to fear."
She also dismissed allegations that they have been held "hostage" at the resort, saying the MLAs were staying at the resort of their own accord and that they were "free".
The Supreme Court will deliver a verdict in the disproportionate assets case against VK Sasikala at 10:30 am on Tuesday. With the crisis worsening in Tamil Nadu, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has advised Governor Vidyasagar Rao to call for a floor test in the Assembly.
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The Supreme Court is set to deliver a verdict in a disproportionate assets case against AIADMK leader VK Sasikala on Tuesday morning.The ruling may well decide the future political course of Tamil Nadu where Sasikala and caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam are vying for the reins of the government and the party.The matter has been listed before a two-judge bench at 10:30 am.Sasikala, along with the late CM J Jayalalithaa, was convicted in a disproportionate assets case by a Karnataka court, but was subsequently acquitted by the states High Court. A batch of appeals, including by the Karnataka government, were filed against the acquittal.A conviction would shatter Sasikalas dream of taking over the CMs chair in Tamil Nadu and bar her from electoral politics. She may then prop up a loyalist as the leader of her faction within the AIAMDK.The court also has the option of setting aside the acquittal and the matter then goes back to the Karnataka HC. This scenario, too, would deal a blow to Sasikala as the trial courts conviction would come into force till the HC verdict, barring her from becoming the CM.Sasikala and her loyalists would be hoping that the top court upholds the acquittal as a floor test looms over the Assembly.Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has advised Governor Vidyasagar Rao to hold a composite floor test in the Assembly.Sasikala has claimed the support of 129 party MLAs while Panneerselvam claims that the lawmakers have been held captive at a luxury resort near Chennai. So far, 12 AIADMK parliamentarians and seven MLAs, excluding Panneerselvam, have sided with the 'caretaker' CM. The latest additions to his flock are Madurai South MLA Saravanan and MP Gopalakrishnan.Charges and counter-charges, including over Jayalalithaas death, have been flying thick in the state since Panneerselvam revolted against Sasikala at Amma Memorial on February 7. Both have met the Governor but there has been no indication of a decision from Raj Bhavan.Sasikala, who met party MLAs at the luxury resort for the third consecutive day on Monday, would be camping with the lawmakers overnight. I will stay back here with you We will walk out with happy faces tomorrow, she told the MLAs. She also accused Panneerselvams camp of threatening families of the MLAs.
Chennai: A setback to the moves by the O Panneerselvam camp in the war for power in Tamil Nadu, state police has informed Madras High Court that all the 119 MLAs in the Golden Bay resorts were staying on their own volition and were not being held captive.
The Panneerselvam camp has been alleging that the AIADMK MLAs were being held captive by the Sasikala camp at the resort on the outskirts of Chennai.
Now the state police itself debunking the allegation of the caretaker chief minister is a setback for Panneerselvams move to attract more and more legislators to his side ahead of a probable floor test in the assembly
The police told the court that it has recorded the statement of all the 119 MLAs. No one is in illegal custody and none of them has raised any complaint, the police told the court.
The petitioner in the case sought appointment of an amicus curiae in the case. The court has now asked the governments stand in appointing an amicus curiae.
Tamil Nadu had plunged into a political crisis last week after the caretaker chief minister openly rebelled against Sasikala, former aide to later chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who had been nominated as first the AIADMK general secretary and then as the chief minister-designate.
Even after frequent attacks, Thackeray, however, said, "There was no hypocrisy in continuing with the BJP in Maharashtra."
Uddhav Thackeray also criticised Minister of State Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju over his tweet in which the latter claimed that "Hindu population" in India was "reducing because Hindus didn't convert people".
: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to show some "sabhyata" (decency), days after the PM attacked former PM Manmohan Singh in Rajya Sabha, saying, "only he knew the art of bathing wearing a raincoat".In an interview to CNN-News18, Uddhav said, "PM should show some sabhyata like Manmohan Singh showed his sabhyata when he stopped a parliamentary panel from attacking Urjit Patel on demonetisation."Shiv Sena functionaries and Udhhav have repeatedly taken potshots at PM Narendra Modi and the BJP, their ally in Maharashtra. When asked about the status of the ruling alliance, he said: "This government is on notice and we will see how it goes from here."Last week, Modi had attacked Manmohan Singh while referring to his clean image despite "several scams" that took place under the previous UPA government."BJP always raises all these issues at the time of an election. They raise Ram Mandir at the time of election," he said, adding that the BJP says it will build the temple there but doesn't tell the date.
He has given oxygen to a dead Congress at the cost of annihilating ourselves, which would boomerang in the long term for SP, this leader said.
Jhande mil gaye hain, magar dil nahin mile (The flags are flying united, but minds are not), Momin, a 25-year-old SP supporter, summed it up neatly.
Well begun, they say, is half done. The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh began quite well with the two UP ke ladke Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi both clad in white kurta and black jacket making their joint public appearance in Taj Hotel, Lucknow on January 29, 2017.But two weeks later, the alliance is exactly at where it began: Half-done.Friendly fights a euphemism for SP and Congress putting up candidates in the same constituency continues to be a worry, and neither of UPs boys are being able to rein in their respective parties. SP patriarch Mulayam has refused to campaign for alliance candidates, his sole appearance so far has been for his brother Shivpal Yadav, who is estranged from Akhilesh. And Priyanka Gandhi, perhaps the biggest crowd puller for Congress, has postponed her campaign in the family pocket boroughs of Rae Bareli and Amethi, because of the friendly fights.So just why is a promising alliance that has the social equations firmly on its side struggling to take off from the ground?News18 spoke to a number of people on the ground, including leaders from the SP and the Congress, the candidates fielded by these parties, and the strategists working behind the scenes.All of them swear there is no lack of chemistry between Akhilesh and Rahul. But both are struggling to shed legacy burdens and are up against walls unique to their parties.Insiders point out that the alliance isnt really a coming together of two political parties but a political partnership between two individuals. It doesnt have the endorsement of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav who has on more than one occasion openly criticised any pre-poll alliance of his party with the Congress. The consummate politician that Yadav is, he has his logic. Since its creation in 1992, the SP has always fought elections alone. An old Mulayam loyalist told News18 how the wily Hindi heartland politician feels that a pre-poll alliance could only come at SPs cost. Party ka jhanda girta hai (our flag goes down), this leader remembered Mulayam as saying.SP veterans say that by giving 105 seats to the Congress which today exists on the margins of UP polity after ruling for several decades unchallenged Akhilesh Yadav has made SP irrelevant in all these seats.And then there is the little thing about the political cunning of the Akhilesh-Rahul duo. Among the backroom boys, there are many who point out that the seeds of discord were evident from the first press conference on January 29.At that press conference, the two UP ke ladke appeared in sync with each other, showering praises on each other, hugging, smiling and talking about how they exchange messages and made a perfect made-for-each-other picture. The optics couldnt have been better until they started taking questions from the media. Rahul Gandhi sounded impatient and angry while Akhilesh Yadav appeared unruffled. When questions were asked about whatever happened to the 27 saal behaal plank (the slogan with which the Congress started its campaign to show how UP has been, in its view, destroyed by successive SP and BSP governments that ruled the state for 27 years after dislodging the Congress), Rahul didnt hesitate in playing down the achievements during the SP tenure. He said Akhilesh may have worked, but he hasnt really delivered on all counts. The young Chief Minister, whose campaign pitch has been kaam bolta hai (My work speaks for itself), was quick to defend this rebuffing of his track record.Besides, there is no shortage of political analysts who feel the alliance would have worked better if Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Mulayam were on board. On the side of the Congress, the alliance architects were Priyanka Gandhi and Prashant Kishor, with little involvement of Sonia. Congress leaders would contend that given the historical animosity between Sonia and Mulayam, thanks to Mulayam famously ditching the Congress president at the last hour in 1999, bringing them on board would be a difficult task.And then there are the inevitable comparisons between that other unlikely combo, which worked like a dream trouncing BJP in the Bihar Assembly polls in 2015. Both JD(U)s Nitish Kumar and RJDs Lalu Prasad Yadav, despite their historical rivalry, were deeply methodical in their approach when it came to the Bihar Mahagatbandhan.While it was Kishor who brought both the SP-Congress and the JD(U)-RJD together, the Nitish-Lalu duo had realised the necessity to sink differences by themselves. The anecdotal story is that Nitish called up Lalu as the results for 2014 General Elections started coming in indicating a Narendra Modi sweep, and discussed how they should hold on to their forts.A source privy to this call told News18 that Nitish expressed concerns that Lalu Yadav's wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti both had lost. The two talked about how RJD-JD(U) combined vote share was more than the BJPs and that the picture would have been different if they had fought the 2014 polls together. That ice-breaker of a phone call made them come together in the by-elections where the alliance showcased their might winning six out of 10 seats. So, when the seat sharing talks began for the Mahagatbandhan in 2015 it went along smoothly. Yes, it helped a lot that both Nitish and Lalu were essentially running one-man shows. Every decision regarding the Mahagatbandhan its working, common agenda and campaigning rested solely with them alone not with anyone else.Cut to the UP grand alliance, the picture is far removed. For starters, there is a deep entrenched bureaucracy within the Congress and the decision-making process is multi-layered. The way the party chose to react to the political crisis unfolding in Tamil Nadu is a case in point. Its been a week since caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam rebelled against AIADMKs chief minister-designate VK Sasikala, but Congress is still talking in many voices. While the central leadership has slammed the delay on part of Governor Vidyasagar Rao in inviting Sasikala for swearing-in former Union minister Manish Tewari even demanded the Governor be sacked leaders like P Chidambaram and national spokesperson Khushboo Sundar have been batting for Panneerselvam.On the other side, Akhilesh Yadav is on a balancing act since as he has got hold of the party machinery only after the polls were declared, thanks to the family feud that continued for two months. This, SP sources say, has made him cautious, and he is wary of upsetting too many apple carts within.Sources say Rahul Gandhi may have dismissed their mutual disagreements as operational, but its making the day-to-day working of the alliance difficult. With a plethora of opinions and points of view, and a battery of second and third rung leaders, the decision making is slow and time is an essence in any election.The bane of friendly contests then is just the tip of iceberg for an alliance thats struggling to do justice to its potential.This reporter ran into Momin at Kidwai Nagar in Kanpur where Akhilesh and Rahul were about to address a joint rally.An SP leader close to Akhilesh told News18 that the feeling inside the party remains that SP is carrying the burden of Congress. So just why has his leader handed over Congress 105 seats on a platter? Akhilesh had agreed in-principle, so he gave Congress a long rope, the SP leader shrugs.The two sides may have put up huge posters, plastered the landscape of Uttar Pradesh with the two leaders smiling UP ko ye saath pasand hai (UP likes this friendship). For Prashant Kishor, hoping to score a hattrick after his success with the Modi campaign in 2014 and the Mahagatbandhan in 2015, this one looks like an altogether new cup of tea. Can he manage the messengers along with the message? Can he build synergies, coherence and bring a disjointed campaign under a single umbrella with time running out?UP will get to know on March 11.
During the campaign trails locals are left wondering who just spoke to them if it was Ahmad, BSP candidate and a radiologist or his surgeon brother Ali.
The two brothers were in the same mode last elections of 2012 when Ahmad fought on Congress ticket from Rampur and won 32,500 votes. This time he has got ticket from BSP but the issue is the same, Azam Khan and his anti-development activities, added Ali.
Those who know them since childhood will be able to differentiate between the two but not all. Outsiders are bound to get confused and in this elections time, they are not able to figure it out. This has been happening since school days, for Alis mischief Ahmad got a shouting, and vice versa, said Wasim Alam, a property dealer in Rampur.
: If you are looking for Dr Tanveer Ahmad, the BSP candidate from Rampur constituency of Uttar Pradesh you might be taken to his twin brother also a doctor, Mahmood Ali, and get to hear, No difference, ek hi baat hai inse hi baat kar lijiye. (You can speak to him, it is the same thing).Their stark similarity in the way they look, style their hair and clothes has come in handy for political purpose in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.While one stays indoors for meetings with the party workers, the other goes door to door for campaigning. If one is busy in the rural, the other manages the city area, one might speak to print media, the other faces the camera for television. Thats how the division of labour is taking place between the twin brothers.Zameer Maulana from the Machchli Bazaar area said with a laugh, Rampur is seeing its own Ram aur Shyam or Seeta aur Geeta with the two of them hopping on and off from different alleys of the city. If I tell someone doctor sahib was here, he counters me saying no, he is in the meeting, If Ali doesnt tell us we dont get to know who it is.Speaking to News 18, Ali said, Right now my brother is busy in the meetings and I am occupied with the door to door campaigns. People look at me and say doctor saab aagaye because Ahmed is popularly called doctor saab and since I am a radiologist some of them thank me for conducting the ultrasound on them. They get confused but on such occasions I prefer to keep quiet. I move out after addressing the crowd. While campaigning we are also enjoying the confusion, not many get to know who is who! He is my photocopy.Locals think that in the second innings the BSP candidate, Ahmad has acquired political finesse and will give a tough fight to Azam Khan, the SP candidate from Rampur this time in UP polls. Rampur goes to polls in second phase of elections and has five constituencies - Rampur, Milakshabar, Bilaspur, Swar Tanda, Chamraua.Ahmad and Ali were born and brought up in Rampur, went to the same school and college. The only time they headed for separation was when they got admissions in different medical colleges of Gorakhpur and Kanpur. That is when their late father Ahmad Ali Khan protested and got them in one college, He came to Kanpur and spoke to the administration requesting that the two of us should be made to study together in one college otherwise it would get difficult for him to manage, added Ali.Shoeb Khan, a local leader who has been supporting Ahmads political ambitions for long, represented Ahmad for Amar Singhs Lok Manch.Their clinic is opposite Azam Khans party office, lot of things happened between them - cycles were found punctured and parking became an issue since the road was quite narrow for too many vehicles to be parked. - Unhappy with this and Azam Khans work in Rampur they decided to enter politics, he said and added, There is not much difference between the two, only of few kilos, one is heavier than the other. But when the issue of development is defining their politics how does it matter who is Ali or who is Ahmad.
New Delhi: A 22-year-old woman, who had accused Sadar MLA Arun Verma from Sultanpur district and 7 others of raping her in 2013, was found dead on Sunday night near her house, police said on Monday.
The body of the woman, who was missing since Saturday, was found near a primary school Jaisinghpur, a police official added.
The injury marks around her neck suggested that she might have been strangulated, police said. The family of the victim filed an FIR against Verma, a confidant of Akhilesh Yadav.
Sultanpur Superintendent Police Pawan Kumar told CNN-News18 that a case had been lodged against the MLA and post-mortem had been conducted. "Viscera has been preserved... however, we cannot say if she was murdered," he said.
"We have initiated the investigation and looking for the evidence before making any arrests," he said.
In his defence, MLA Arun Verma told CNN-News18 that the case was a "political conspiracy against him during the election season". Sultanpur district is slated to go to polls in the fifth phase of Uttar Pradesh elections on 27th February.
The allegations levelled against Arun Verma, if proved, could have huge political ramifications on the Samajwadi party's prospects in the ongoing elections.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Juhie Singh told CNN-News18 that the investigation should be carried out and all the allegations should be examined. "He is contesting the election. He is our candidate and was given a clean chit before," Juhie said.
In September 2013, the woman had alleged that Verma and seven others had gang raped her. However, she had withdrawn her allegations later. The Police had Chargesheeted some youths in connection with the case and trial was underway.
Google has announced that the forthcoming update to its Chrome mobile application will allow any web user to enjoy 3D content, without necessarily using the firm's Daydream View virtual reality headset.Read more: Uber Sued of $48 Million Over a Love Affair This new version of Chrome will let mobile device users enjoy 3D content from online platforms such as Matterport, with its 300,000 virtual tours (museums, palaces, celebrity homes, etc.) and the Sketchfab community, featuring around a million animations. WebVR support in Chrome will considerably boost the choice of 3D scenes, previously available via the YouTube application.Read more: Top 5 Xiaomi Android Smartphones Under Rs 10,000 Owners of Google 's Daydream View can slip their smartphone into the headset for instant immersion into all of these virtual worlds.Read more: BHIM iOS App Launched by NPCI That goes for other VR headsets currently on the market too, including Google's famous Cardboard VR viewer. Users who don't yet have this kind of headset can still enjoy the content by navigating around the scene using their finger on smartphone's touchscreen.The Google Daydream View, available in selected countries, is a relatively rudimentary VR headset. Like the Cardboard viewer, it's designed for use with a smartphone, which slides into the headset. However, it offers a more robust build than the Cardboard and comes with a remote control with a trackpad, a gyroscope and an accelerometer. Although considerably less sophisticated than the likes of the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, this type of headset seems to have a bright future in the tech market. The Daydream View sells for $79 in the USA.Unfortunately, very few smartphones are currently compatible with the Daydream View ( Google Pixel phones, the Moto Z range, the ZTE Axon 7 , for example), which could explain why Google is making a conscious effort to broaden the reach of virtual reality content, making it accessible on all devices. Without that, VR technology could struggle to gain ground among the public at large.
South Korea's special prosecutor said it would again summon Samsung Group scion Jay Y. Lee to question him on suspicion of bribery, as it investigates a graft scandal that has engulfed the country's president.Don't miss: Apple iPhone 7, 7 Plus Matte Black Coating Chipping Off? Last month, special prosecution officials questioned 48-year-old Lee for more than 22 hours straight, but a court rejected a warrant to arrest him in the inquiry into a scandal that led parliament to impeach President Park Geun-hye.Read more: Top 5 Xiaomi Android Smartphones Under Rs 10,000 Lee Kyu-chul, a spokesman for the special prosecutor, told a news briefing the office would decide later, possibly this week, whether to again seek an arrest warrant for Lee after he is questioned on Monday.Read more: Uber Sued of $48 Million Over a Love Affair The special prosecution team would also question two other executives of Samsung, the country's largest conglomerate, on Monday, the spokesman said.Read more: BHIM iOS App Launched by NPCI The special prosecution had investigated further during the three weeks since the court rejected the earlier application for an arrest warrant, the spokesman added."We are summoning Jay Y. Lee to check with him on our further findings," Lee, the spokesman, said on Sunday.A spokeswoman for Samsung Group declined to comment.Prosecutors have been investigating whether Samsung pledged to provide 43 billion won ($37.54 million) to a business and foundations backed by President Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for support by the state pension fund for the controversial merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015.The funding included sponsorship for the equestrian career of Choi's daughter, who is under arrest in Denmark, after being sought by South Korean authorities.Samsung and President Park have denied the bribery accusations.South Korea's Constitutional Court is hearing arguments in its case to decide whether to uphold parliament's impeachment of Park, who has been stripped of her powers pending the verdict.The two executives who also face questioning are Park Sang-jin, a Samsung Electronics Co Ltd president and Hwang Sung-soo, a senior company official.Both are also office-bearers of the Korea Equestrian Federation and have previously been questioned in the case.
Tokyo: Japan, South Korea and the US on Monday called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC) following the launch of a mid-range missile carried out by North Korea on Sunday.
A spokesperson for Japan's Foreign Ministry confirmed to Efe news the request made by the Japanese administration in coordination with its two allies to hold a meeting of the UN executive body as soon as possible.
The launch of a missile carried out by the Pyongyang regime on Sunday is the first since last October and also becomes the first military provocation of the Kim Jong-un regime since Donald Trump took charge as the US President.
The Pukguksong-2, a medium long-range ballistic missile, was test fired on Sunday under the supervision of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to North Korea's Korean Central News Agency, KCNA.
South Korea and the US confirmed the launch Sunday.
A US official told CNN the missile travelled 500 km before landing in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and that it was launched from North Pyongan province
Washington: Alec Baldwin has two Emmys and an Oscar nomination. But a newspaper in the Dominican Republic may have given the actor his highest praise yet.
El Nacional apologized Saturday after identifying Baldwin as President Donald Trump, whom the actor impersonates regularly on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" to critical praise and Trump's oft-tweeted displeasure.
On Friday the newspaper published a photo of the actor along with a caption calling him, "Donald Trump, president of the USA." The photo accompanied a news article about Israeli settlements which also had a photo of (the actual) Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The situation went unnoticed by those who revised page 19," the newspaper said in a statement Saturday. "El Nacional apologizes to its readers and anyone who felt affected" by the error, it said.
Baldwin, sporting a blond wig, orange makeup and a constant pucker, has been lampooning Trump on "SNL" since October. His impersonation has apparently not gone unnoticed by Trump, who tweeted last month, "NBC News is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television!"
Trump has yet to tweet about El Nacional's mistake or the latest "SNL" episode. Baldwin hosted the show Saturday for a record 17th time and portrayed Trump taking his travel-ban case to "The People's Court."
Meanwhile, a former "SNL" cast member says Trump should "calm down" about the ribbing. Joe Piscopo also told CNN's "Smerconish" on Saturday that his is "seriously" considering a run for New Jersey governor.
Piscopo wouldn't be the first "SNL" comedian to run for public office. Former actor and writer Al Franken is now a US Senator from Minnesota.
Karachi: A cameraman of a prominent Pakistani news channel was shot dead by motorcycle-borne Taliban gunmen who indiscriminately fired upon a news gathering van in the country's biggest port-city here.
The Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) van of Samaa channel had gone to the North Nazimabad area of Karachi when it came under attack on Sunday from gunmen on motorcycles who fired indiscriminately on the van.
Police said that assistant cameraman Taimur received a bullet shot to the head during the attack.
"He was brought to the hospital with a single shot to the head and he died after a while," additional police surgeon, Rohina Hasan told the media.
The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack.
TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khorasani said in a statement, "The media is not impartial and weve issued several warnings to them."
A spokesman for the channel said that the van had gone to the area to cover a cracker attack on a police van.
A senior police official, Farooq Malik said that the same suspects appeared to be involved in the attack on the DSNG van who had earlier also carried out attacks on DSNG vans of other channels in the same area.
He said initial investigations indicated that the cracker attack on the police van was a ploy to get the media to the area to cover the incident and then attack them.
A DSNG van of the Samaa channel had also come under attack in September 2015, while another was attacked last year.
In other attacks on television channel crew in Karachi, three gunmen had attacked a Geo TV DSNG, killing a Geo News employee and injuring another in 2015, while in 2014 three employees of the Express News channel were shot dead in an attack claimed by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
Zurich: Switzerland faced uncertainty on Monday after voters rejected a tax reform plan aimed at keeping the country attractive to foreign businesses but derided by critics as a corporate handout.
The wealthy Alpine nation had come under intensifying pressure from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) over a tax regime that treats foreign companies more favourably than domestic ones.
The OECD has called the Swiss system harmful and said it fuels market distortions. Bern had promised to resolve the issue by 2019.
Central to that effort was a government-backed plan approved by parliament but defeated by 60 percent of voters in Sunday's referendum, the latest poll in Switzerland's direct democracy system.
The proposal would have levelled the tax rate for domestic and foreign firms while creating new deductions for innovation as well as research and development, tailored to attract global companies.
"There is now a real danger that Switzerland will disappear from the radar of international companies," Finance Minister Ueli Maurer was quoted as saying Sunday by the RTS public broadcaster.
He also confirmed that Switzerland will not meet its pledge to the OECD on reforming its tax system within two years.
Bern is under pressure to resolve the impasse quickly amid fears that companies will start putting money in places where long-term tax stability is assured.
There is even a risk of Switzerland's "blacklisting" by the OECD and European Union, the Zurich-based chief of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andreas Staubli, was quoted as saying by the Bloomberg news agency.
Swissmen, which represents the mechanical and electrical engineering industry, said in a statement that the government should "quickly find a solution for a new reform plan", warning that Sunday's vote had plunged companies into "a great deal of uncertainty."
But opponents of the reform plan were rejoicing.
The leftwing Socialist Party (PS) called the government's plan a "scam" that would have forced ordinary taxpayers to fill inevitable revenue shortfalls.
The referendum had "shown the red card to arrogance" the party said in a statement, claiming the days of giving sweetheart deals to powerful corporations were "no longer tolerated."
The PS however said it was committed to working with the government in generating a new plan to address both the OECD and EU concerns, while also appealing to voters.
Mexico City: Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested on Sunday against US President Donald Trump, hitting back at his anti-Mexican rhetoric and his pledges to make their country pay for his "big, beautiful" border wall.
"Mexico must be respected, Mr Trump," said a giant banner carried by protesters in Mexico City, who waved a sea of red, white and green Mexican flags as they marched down the capital's main avenue under the watchful eyes of thousands of police.
Protester Julieta Rosas was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Trump sporting an Adolf Hitler mustache.
"We're here to make Trump see and feel that an entire country, united, is rising up against him and his xenophobic, discriminatory and fascist stupidity," said Rosas, a literature student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
In what looked set to be Mexico's biggest anti-Trump protest yet, some 20 cities joined the call to march made by a group of dozens of universities, business associations and civic organizations.
There were 20,000 demonstrators in Mexico City, according to local authorities. Marches in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Morelia also drew thousands of people -- though a planned protest in the border city of Tijuana fell flat.
US-Mexican relations have plunged to their lowest point in decades since Trump took office on January 20.
Trump, who launched his presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants "criminals" and "rapists," has infuriated the United States' southern neighbor with his plan to stop illegal migration by building a wall on the border.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a January 31 trip to Washington over Trump's insistence that Mexico pay for the wall.
"This is a time to build bridges, not walls," said 73-year-old protester Jose Antonio Sanchez, who was marching in Mexico City with his nine-year-old granddaughter.
American protester Erick Smith, who is married to a Mexican woman, marched with a sign reading "Sorry Mexico."
"I came to say that I'm ashamed of my president," he told AFP. "I don't want this wall."
Trump has also wrought havoc on the Mexican economy with his threats to terminate the country's privileged trade relationship with the United States, blaming Mexico for the loss of American jobs.
The Mexican peso has taken a beating nearly every time Trump has insisted he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), attacked car-makers and other companies that manufacture in Mexico, or vowed to slap steep tariffs on Mexican-made goods.
Mexico sends 80 percent of its exports to the United States -- nearly $300 billion in goods in 2015.
New Nationalism
The confrontation has stoked patriotic pride in Mexico, where US companies like Starbucks, Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the targets of boycotts. Many people have taken to putting the Mexican flag in their profile pictures on social media.
Not everyone is on board with Sunday's protests, however.
Some accused Pena Nieto of using them to try to bolster his own popularity -- which has taken a beating over perceptions that he has been too conciliatory toward a bullying neighbor.
The hashtag "#It'sNotTrumpIt'sPena" is trending on Twitter in Mexico.
The new nationalism appears to be giving a boost to Mexican presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom some political analysts call a "leftist Donald Trump" for his populist, anti-establishment rhetoric.
Lopez Obrador -- widely known by his initials, AMLO -- was the runner-up in the past two presidential elections.
An activist writes the word "Racism" on a mock wall during an anti-Trump march in Mexico City, on February 12, 2017
He is leading in opinion polls for presidential elections in 2018 and appears to be benefiting from Trump's anti-Mexican vitriol, which has badly dented not only Pena Nieto -- who is ineligible for re-election -- but also the ruling PRI party.
Ironically, a Lopez Obrador victory next year could work to Trump's disadvantage, giving him a far more hardline counterpart to work with.
As Sunday's protests unfolded in Mexico, Lopez Obrador was visiting the United States to address both Mexicans and Americans in Los Angeles about what he called Trump's "poisonous" rhetoric.
Washington: The Trump Administration is considering "all options" on travel ban including approaching the Supreme Court or issuing a new executive order, the White House said on Sunday, alleging "judicial usurpation" of power by the federal court which blocked President's earlier executive order.
"We have multiple options and we're considering all of them. We can appeal the emergency stay to the Supreme Court.
Or we can return to the district court and have a trial on the merits. We can pursue further executive actions. All options are on the table," Stephen Miller, the White House Policy Advisor, told ABC News in an interview.
President Donald Trump's earlier executive order which temporarily suspended entry of refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US was blocked by a federal court.
Earlier this week, a federal appeals court had refused to let Trump reinstate the temporary ban on travelers, ruling that it violates the due process rights of people affected without a sufficient national security justification.
Miller said there are equal branches of government in this country.
"The judiciary is not supreme. A district judge in Seattle cannot force the President of the US to change our laws and our Constitution because of their own personal views.
The President has the power to suspend the entry of aliens when it's in the national interest," he asserted.
"He has that same power under the Article II powers to conduct the foreign affairs of our country. And we will do whatever we need to do consistent with the law to keep this country safe," Miller said.
Appearing on Fox News on another Sunday talk shows, Miller slammed the judges for their verdict against the executive orders of President Trump, which he asserted are legal and constitutional.
"The President's powers here are beyond question. The President has the authority to suspend the entry of aliens into this country," Miller told Fox News.
"He has powers to also engage in conducting border control and immigration control into this country. Those powers are substantial. They present the very apex of presidential authority," he said.
The three judges of the 9th Appeals Court in San Francisco, he alleged made a broad overreaching statement about the ability to check the executive power.
"The Ninth Circuit has a long history of being overturned and Ninth Circuit has a long history of overreaching. We don't have judicial supremacy in this country. We have three coequal branches of government.
"This is a judicial usurpation of the power. It is a violation of judges' proper roles in litigating disputes. We will fight it. And we will make sure that we take action to keep from happening in the future what's happened in the past," Miller alleged.
Geneva: The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, sent invitations on Monday for Geneva peace talks beginning on Feb. 23, after initial prior consultations beginning on or about Feb. 20, his spokeswoman Yara Sharif said.
"We can confirm that letters have been sent today, and also that consultations are continuing," she said.
The talks were already delayed from Feb. 8.
Syria's main opposition body, the High Negotiation Committee (HNC), on Sunday approved a new delegation to take part in Geneva peace talks, which include Russian-backed blocs that have been critical of the armed insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad.
Gavin Grimm, the transgender teen from Gloucester County who is suing for the right to use the boys' bathroom at his high school, received a mention at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.
Actress Laverne Cox gave the shoutout before introducing a performance by Lady Gaga and Metallica.
Everyone please Google Gavin Grimm, she said as she began her remarks onstage. Hes going to the Supreme Court in March.
Cox, who also is transgender, appears on the Netflix show "Orange Is the New Black."
The Supreme Court agreed in October to hear the Gloucester case. This month, the court released its calendar for March, which has the case being argued on March 28.
Grimm was born female but identifies as male. Early on in high school, he was allowed to use the boys' room. But the School Board, citing complaints from parents and students, approved a policy that limited bathroom use to a student's biological sex.
He would have to use a unisex bathroom in the nurses office or the girls' room.
He sued and said the policy is a violation of Title IX and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The case has been working its way through the federal court system since.
Title IX is the 1972 law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.
Grimm will have graduated long before the court rules and the case ends. But the suit he filed could expand permanently the rights of transgender students and people nationwide.
He believes that whether he wins or loses, the world is becoming more accepting of transgender people.
"There is nothing about this process that I've regretted so far. And I don't think there will be anything I will regret no matter what happens, " Grimm told the Richmond Times-Dispatch late last year.
"This was a conversation that needed to be had, and this is a fight that needed to be fought."
The ACLU, which is representing Grimm, tweeted Sunday night: "Thank you @Lavernecox, for using #Grammys spotlight to draw attention to Gavin Grimm."
For her part, Cox wrote on Instagram: "#StandwithGavin he is going to #SCOTUS in March. He is just 17 years old and wants the same rights as every other boys in his high school."
Virginians who want to post scathingly honest online reviews on websites such as Yelp and Angies List soon could be able to fire away with less fear of getting sued.
But whether a new free-speech law pending in the General Assembly extends beyond political speech to cover the increasingly online rating-powered marketplace will depend on how the House of Delegates and Senate reconcile two versions of the bill.
Commonly known as anti-SLAPP statutes (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), the proposals are aimed at cracking down on defamation lawsuits that, despite having little merit, could scare people into holding back their opinions for fear of a costly court case.
The legislation doesnt slam the door shut on defamation lawsuits over provably false statements, but some legislators fear it could leave businesses susceptible to damaging attacks on their reputation by competitors or others.
Yelp, the San Francisco-based online platform for user-powered reviews of restaurants and other businesses throughout the country, is backing the legislation with the help of Richmond lobbying powerhouse McGuireWoods.
Yelp is proud to provide an online platform where consumers can post their honest, fact-based opinions, Laurent Crenshaw, Yelps director of public policy, said in a written statement.
Virginians need anti-SLAPP protections to ensure that bogus lawsuits can no longer undermine their free expression.
In one closely watched lawsuit in Virginia, a contractor sued a Fairfax woman in 2012 over negative reviews she posted on Yelp and Angies List after hiring the company to do work at her home.
The postings implied the contractor may have stolen her jewelry because no one else had a key. In 2014, a jury essentially declared the case a draw.
Though some lawmakers are skeptical of adding protection for online reviews, a separate provision shielding speech on government and civic affairs appears to have wide bipartisan support.
That element of the legislation was inspired by the case of a Richmond Public Schools principal who sued a group of parents who wrote a letter criticizing the principals performance.
A bill that passed the House 74-23 covers both political and consumer speech.
What my bill would do is say if youre in the marketplace and youre holding yourself out to the public, then folks can go on and make an honest take on your business, said Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, the patron of House Bill 1941.
The bill that cleared the Senate 38-2 covers only political speech, after the consumer element was stripped out in committee.
The Senate bills sponsor is Glen H. Sturtevant Jr., R-Richmond, who had an up-close view of the principals defamation case in his former role as a member of the Richmond School Board.
In 2014, the then-principal of Lucille M. Brown Middle School filed a $3 million lawsuit accusing four parents of conspiring to write a damaging letter criticizing the schools administration and atmosphere.
The letter, written to school system leaders, later was published by Style Weekly, Richmonds alt-weekly newspaper.
The lawsuit was struck down, but the principal appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which struck down the case again.
That didnt prevent the parents from having to hire lawyers to defend themselves, Sturtevant said.
Were talking about private citizens. Parents who are concerned about the education of their kids, Sturtevant said. And they were being faced with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that had the potential to cost them their homes, their life savings, kids college funds, their livelihoods.
Wendy Martin, one of the parents named in the suit, along with her husband, said in a statement that their insurance company bore legal costs that approached $40,000.
Every court that saw this case the Richmond Circuit Court and the Virginia Supreme Court shut it down immediately, she said. Yet winning didnt feel like a victory. It felt more like wed survived a 486-day hostage situation. The overwhelming emotion was trauma.
This bill when it becomes law will represent the true victory for me.
Martin said at a recent legislative hearing: These suits are brought to be vindictive, adding: I am confident that if I had lived in any of the 28 other states, red and blue, that have this legislation, I never would have been sued.
State law already protects comments on public matters made before a governing body in a public hearing. This years legislation would widen that protection to statements communicated to a third party, which could cover letters, online comments and other forms of expression.
Sturtevant and Del. G. Manoli Loupassi, R-Richmond, pushed for a bill signed into law last year to allow people who beat meritless defamation suits to recoup attorneys fees and costs.
Though the added protection for political speech outside of public hearings seems headed for easy passage, the commerce provision sought by Yelp faces tougher odds.
At a Courts of Justice committee hearing Feb. 1, Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Rockingham, said it could be particularly perilous for small businesses.
For every action, there is a reaction, said Obenshain, the committee chairman. And I get what youre trying to protect, but youre going to hurt other people in the process.
Without the marketplace provision, matters of public concern would be defined as issues properly before a governing body or reasonably likely to encourage consideration or review by a governing body.
Sturtevant said he doesnt expect the commerce provision sought by Yelp to make it out of the Senate.
Kilgore was more optimistic.
Hopefully well get it all, he said.
Writer: Refugees are not our enemy
In his Feb. 8 letter to the editor (Do as I say, not as I do), David Hight suggests that individuals who disagree with President Trumps immigration order sponsor refugees from the targeted countries, paying resettlement costs. Individual citizens are not legally permitted to sponsor refugees. However, they may work with groups that have permission.
Many churches and Christian denominations sponsor refugee families including those from targeted countries. Nassau Presbyterian Church in New Jersey is sponsoring its 10th family, Syrian refugees. Its part of how we live out the Christian faith, remarked their minister. The Lutheran Immigration Service is one of many denominational sponsors. It has welcomed more than 379,000 refugees to the U.S. since 1939 including those from targeted countries. They note: Witnessing to Gods love for all people, we stand with and advocate for migrants and refugees, transforming communities through ministries of service and justice.
One-hundred evangelical pastors including the president of the National Association of Evangelicals published a full-page ad in The Washington Post last week denouncing the presidents order. Citing Jesus call to love they neighbor, they state, In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus makes it clear that our neighbor includes the stranger and anyone seeking persecution and violence, regardless of their faith and country.
Hight recommends that if any sponsored refugee from a targeted country commits a terrorist act, the sponsor should pay related costs. That chance is slight. Fifteen of the 19 9/11 terrorists were Saudi Arabian, but Saudis are not included in the order. No refugees from the targeted countries have committed terrorist acts against Americans.
HEIDI KORING
Lynchburg
Stop the name-calling
I have observed a lot of name-calling lately, a lot of it related to the application of a label to other people. It has been my experience that people slap labels on opponents in order to easily dismiss their arguments without having to listen to them. The labels vary conservative, liberal, snowflake, moron Im sure you can come up with your own list. The point is that the intellectual laziness demonstrated by this practice does not speak well of the person throwing out the label.
Whenever I see a letter to the editor that begins something like Those (insert label here) think/do/act in (insert some broad belief/behavior here), Ive come to expect a half-baked, simple-minded rant to follow, and I rarely see any positive contribution to the public discourse.
Have we yet had enough of empty malarkey from the campaigns?
MICHAEL CORBIN
Lynchburg
Davis for lieutenant governor
Why should you go with Glenn Davis for lieutenant governor?
Davis is the clear choice for the position of lieutenant governor. He is currently a Republican member of the House of Delegates from the Virginia Beach area and has a record that proves his support of businesses, especially small businesses and understands how to create the best environment for job growth. In 2014, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce named him Freshman Legislator of the Year and in 2015 awarded him their Economic Competitiveness Award and Small Business Advocate Award. It is no surprise the chamber said There is no mistaking the voting record and leadership exhibited by Delegate Davis and went on to say that Delegate Davis understands the needs of businesses.
Before entering public office, he started a telecommunication management firm in his apartment, and by 2007, it was ranked one of the 100 fastest g rowing IT companies in America by Inc. 5000. He is using his background in technology to give Virginias economy a 21st century upgrade by using new technologies and finding new markets for the resources Virginia has. In fact, in December, he visited Estonia to explore opportunities to export Virginia coal and met with a robotics company to discuss how to bring the company here to Virginia to manufacture.
His plan to make Virginia No. 1 again is to modernize education, grow small businesses, create 21st century jobs and enact real tax reform. If you want Virginia back on top, then you need to go with Glenn for lieutenant governor on June 13.
JOHN WOOD
Lynchburg
No matter the bank, most branches have similar, familiar features. Customers stand in line to be waited on by tellers behind tall counters, while employees specializing in different areas of banking see customers in their offices.
Instead of going down this traditional path, Lynchburg-based Bank of the James decided to take a different route with its new branch in Charlottesvilles 5th Street Station shopping center.
Dubbed the UnBranch, the new banking office features an open floor plan. Customers can use free WiFi or the banks own smartphones and tablets to look at online banking products. Employees trained in all aspects of banking aim to provide customer service more easily.
Were merging your traditional banking experience and culture with a more engaging retail environment, said Brandon Farmer, executive vice president for Bank of the James. In essence, youre taking a Best Buy flow with employees walking around, versus having a lot of furniture between you and the employee.
Instead of a traditional rope line and counters that separate tellers from the customer, the UnBranch has a lower counter traditionally seen in retail stores with no barriers, so a customer can see the employees screen while being assisted. Instead of relying on traditional security measures to protect cash, the branch has a machine called a cash recycler that automatically dispenses cash and protects it from theft.
In the new format, any of the banks three employees can help a customer with deposits, set up accounts, assist with online banking products or answer questions, rather than being confined to specialized areas.
Branch manager Philip Gould said the change brings banking back to its roots as a financial resource.
The idea of this is really going to universal banking and going back to old-school banking, which is about answering questions, Gould said. Were trying to make it as convenient as it can be, but if you have more complicated questions like education for your children or purchasing a house where you need someone you can trust, you can come here as well.
For those more complicated questions, customers can use the Expert Nearby service, which allows customers to video-call privately with mortgage experts or other specialists located in Lynchburg or Harrisonburg. In the future, the bank hopes to allow people to sign documents remotely during these calls.
The UnBranchs emphasis on a more relaxed atmosphere extends to the exterior, which features a patio where customers can meet with employees, a community board for events and announcements, free coffee and tea and an exploration area for customers to look at Bank of the James mobile banking products on a variety of different tablets and phones.
The design process began in 2015 when Farmer learned about the new branch concept catching on throughout the country. Once the bank decided to move forward with the concept, they contracted with financial design firm DBSI, based in Phoenix, Arizona.
The company helps banks in all 50 states create branches centered around new models for customer service. CEO John Smith said DBSI works with all aspects of the design, including signage, interior decor and training employees.
We look at all of the barriers that get in the way of ineffective sales and service and create an environment thats inviting that allows the customer to discover all the ways the bank can help them on lifes journey.
For Farmer, this drastic change in how banking is done is a response to customers changing needs.
We just believe that this is the evolution of a bank branch, Farmer said. People are visiting [banks] less often because they dont have to because the technology is evolving quickly. We want to evolve our branch setup to be a destination for folks for education and to be engaged with us as their financial institution instead of just a stop on their days journey.
For now, Bank of the James plans to keep the format just in the Charlottesville market, although Farmer said there are opportunities in Lynchburg, Roanoke and Harrisonburg for possible UnBranches.
In the Richmond area, Capital One is rolling out another style of nontraditional bank branch with its Capital One Cafe branches. One recently opened at Short Pump Town Center in western Henrico County, and another is planned for the citys Carytown area by the end of the year.
At Capital One Cafes, anyone can purchase coffee, baked goods and use the free WiFi, but those who bank with Capital One get a 50 percent discount on coffee and can do their banking with ambassadors who assist customers with questions. The large bank has 14 Capital One Cafe locations around the country, mostly in big cities like Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia.
Even though this new style of banking has mostly grown in big cities by large companies such as Capital One, Gould, the Bank of the James Charlottesville branch manager, said the focus on customer service helps smaller banks grow and provide for customers needs.
I believe this model fits community banks, he said. This is for building community relationships. Theres no hiding behind closed doors here.
The worlds biggest maker of generic drugs is looking for a new CEO to oversee one of the toughest turnaround jobs in the industry.
The only thing that probably wont be big is the pay: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.s outgoing chief executive officer, Erez Vigodman, earned $5.7 million in 2015, making him the second-lowest paid CEO among rivals tracked by Bloomberg with at least $20 billion market value.
Vigodmans successor has a lot to clean up. Tevas stock has plunged by half since 2015 and some analysts and investors predict the drugmaker will need to cut thousands of jobs and revamp its business model to avoid becoming a takeover target itself.
Teva employs hundreds at its Perrowville Road facility in Bedford County. In 2015, Teva announced a five-year, $170 million military contract to manufacture an adenovirus vaccine there.
Finding the right man or woman to Vigodman may mean Teva has to abandon unspoken recruitment principles its abided by in recent years, namely, that the CEO be Israeli, live near Tel Aviv and show the same penchant for the fewer-frills lifestyle endorsed by past CEOs.
Whoever will join as CEO will either need to be someone who can substantially turn around the company or someone who knows how to maximize a major sale, said Leemor Machnai, CEO of Machnai Weiss & Partners, an executive search firm thats helped Teva fill jobs domestically and abroad for more than a decade.
After three management shake-ups in just five years, the Israeli company can hardly afford any more recruitment missteps.
Vigodman stepped down after the $41 billion acquisition of Allergans generics unit he engineered last year failed to live up to the sales boost he promised. That revealed cracks in Tevas strategy of aggressive acquisitions that made it into a pharmaceutical giant but also left it with a debt burden thats almost as big as its market value.
Adding insult to injury, Tevas best-selling drug Copaxone is set to face competition from cheaper knock-offs after U.S. courts denied its attempt to protect its patents.
It will be hard to find a candidate even on a global search who can turn around a company with 40,000 workers, said Shmuel Ben Arie, the head of investments for Israel at Pioneer Wealth Management Ltd., who started buying Teva shares in January as they fell to 12-year lows. He predicts the new CEO will need to cut 10 percent to 20 percent of jobs.
If its competitors are anything to go by, Teva will need to up its pay package multiple times to lure qualified candidates.
Generics drugmaker Mylan rewarded its CEO Heather Bresch with $19.4 million in 2015, almost four times more than Vigodman. The compensation Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. offered its CEO Joe Papa last year to restructure the company was almost four times more than that.
Its not only Tevas remuneration policies that need a rethink. Israels biggest company, which was founded in 1901, turned itself into a global giant this century by acquiring rivals like Ivax Corp. in 2006 and Ratiopharm in 2010 with the aim of rolling out as many new generic drugs as possible to shore up revenue.
The fact that the Actavis acquisition failed to bear fruit as quickly as anticipated shows Teva can no longer rely on the same playbook, according to Rudi van Den Eynde, who helps oversee about $1 billion in assets at Candriam Investors Group, including Teva shares.
Just before the Actavis deal closed in July, Vigodman, 57, predicted 2017 profit-per-share would range from $6.5 to $7. Five months later, he conceded hed misjudged the pace of new product roll outs, and slashed the guidance by 25 percent.
For its part, Teva isnt revealing details on what will happen next beyond saying its planning a thorough review of the business. Yitzhak Peterburg has stepped down from his post as chairman to stand in as chief executive during the recruitment process.
Investors, though, are already divining theories on what Tevas new CEO might do.
Den Eynde of Candriam said the drugmaker should focus on biosimilars, or copies of medicines produced using the bodys own cells rather than through chemical reactions in a lab, and typically delivered in the form of injections.
Others, like Janus Capital Management money manager Andy Summers, hope Teva will agree to split its generics and branded drugs businesses into separate entities. A survey of clients conducted by New York-based Evercore ISI showed more than half also favor this strategy.
I cant think of anyone in Israel who can step up to this job right now, said Raphael Eppler, CEO at Eppler Consulting, which provides recruitment advice to big Israeli companies. If they want someone major from abroad, they might need to dispense with that part of the culture and certainly pay as much as needed.
Bloombergs Johannes Koch, Sharon Wrobel and John Ainger contributed.
Bostwana ambassador checks in on giraffes
The Ambassador, who is based in Washington DC, was accompanied by Botswanas First Secretary (Economic Affairs) Maseo SD Nkgomotsang and Honorary Consul to Botswana for Trinidad and Tobago Robin Debideen. He met with the zoos curator Nirmal Biptah and the President of the Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, Gupte Lutchmedial to continue discussions that were opened last year by Debideen.
The dialogue included his countrys ability to assist with the procurement of animals for the African Exhibit. There was also a strong interest in providing African artifacts, paintings, music and a live video stream of Botswanas wildlife in order to develop the theme of the exhibit.
The African Exhibit was opened to the public almost exactly one year ago. This exhibit is home to a chimpanzee, mandrills and the zoos iconic reticulated giraffes Melman and Mandela. The Ambassador took the opportunity to feed the giraffes and the newly acquired llamas during his tour of the zoo.
Here Are the Most Overrated
Tourist Spots in the US
When he worked as a reporter, Thomas Hargrove was known as a numbers guy, a data cruncher. Now in retirement at 61, that's even more true. Hargrove has made a national database on murders, using data from the FBI and police departments, and he's created a system to spot connections that mere humans may miss. The result? "Serial killers should fear this algorithm," declares the headline on a Bloomberg story about his mission. Hargrove has created the Murder Accountability Project, a nonprofit whose goal is make national data on murders accessible to everyone, police and citizens alike. I think there are a great many uncaught serial killers out there, he explains. I think most cities have at least a few.
To create his algorithm, Hargrove reverse-engineered it with details from the slayings of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, in mind. He fine-tuned it over and over, finally settling on four characteristics: geography, sex, age group, and method of killing. Now he spends his time showing investigators across the country how it can be done. The story recounts one jarring anecdote: Back in 2010, Hargrove sent emails to police officials in Gary, Indiana, informing them that his numbers pointed to a serial killer in their midst. He got no response. Four years later, police arrested a man in nearby Hammond, who confessed to multiple murders going back decades. "There are at least seven women who died after I tried to convince the Gary police that they had a serial killer, says Hargrove. Officials in Gary are under a gag order and cannot address the matter, notes the story. Click to read the full piece. (Read more Longform stories.)
A hearty Vancouver police officer is being hailed as a hero for plunging into a freezing lake to save a dog, the CBC reports. (Police retweeted images here.) The pooch became trapped after he chased a ball onto Lost Lagoon on Friday afternoon and plunged through thin ice. By the time cops arrived, the dog was struggling to stay above water. Constable Peter Colenutt pulled off his coat and shoes and plunged into the frigid lake in short sleeves. "He took hold of one end of a rescue rope, and with his co-workers holding the other end, he made his way to the dog," Constable Jason Doucette tells CTV.
Photos posted on Twitter show Colenutt grabbing the black shaggy dog by the scruff and easing him through blocks of ice to the shore. Others show him padding in his bare feet in the snow to a squad car. "The dog and our officer were both pretty chilly, but thankfully okay," Vancouver police tweeted. It's not Colenutt's first water rescue. Last June, the officer raced into the water to save a swimmer in distress, per CTV; he had just been given an award in that case. Photos of the latest heroics unleashed a flood of praise for Colenutt on Twitter. "An officer AND a gentleman," tweeted one user. (A family dog saved a boy trapped in clothes dryer.)
Authorities are investigating the death of a Missouri man who identified himself as an "imperial wizard" of a Ku Klux Klan chapter, reports AP. The body of 51-year-old Frank Ancona of Leadwood, Missouri, was found near the Big River Saturday by a family fishing. Ancona had been missing since Wednesday, and his car was found Friday evening. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death, but Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen called the incident a tragic and senseless act of violence," per the Kansas City Star. Ancona led the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which he maintained was a Christian group, not a hate group. Police say Ancona's wife reported last seeing her husband Wednesday morning before he left for work.
She says he got a call from his employer stating he needed to drive across the state to deliver auto parts, reports the Daily Journal. However, his employer says he didn't receive any such instructions from them. Police also questioned Malissa Ancona about an online posting she put up the day he disappeared in search of a roommate. She stated she did it because when he said he was leaving to go out of state on this job, he took a bag of clothes with him and said when he got back he was filing for divorce, says Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey. She told us she figured she would need help to pay the rent, so she put an ad out looking for a roommate. Looking inside the house, police say they found a safe that had been forced open with a crowbar, its contents missing. (Read more KKK stories.)
Student protesters at Harvard have been clearing their Wednesday schedules in preparation for the arrival of "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli. After the Harvard Financial Analysts Club invited the former CEO to speak, a judge granted Shkreli permission to travel to Massachusetts, which he needs because he is out on bail on fraud charges in New York, reports CNBC. Protesters say Shkreli isn't welcome because of his controversial career and public persona, though he tells the Harvard Crimson that his speech won't be controversial. "I'm not a political activist," he says. "I am here to give a speech about investing. Its not going to be controversial." (Protesters shut down a Shkreli-Milo Yiannopoulos event in California last month.)
It was crime that shocked Australia: A British man shot dead in the wild outback of the Northern Territories by a man who then abducted his girlfriend. She managed to escape and hide in the scrub for hours as the killer stalked her with a dog. Now, 15 years later, Joanne Lees is back in the "untamed heart of Australia" to look for Peter Falconio's body, trailed by an Aussie TV crew. "I need to bring him home," she tells Network 9's 60 Minutes. "Pete lost his life on that night, but I lost mine, too." Bradley Murdoch, the man convicted in 2005 of killing Falconio, 28, has never revealed what he did with Falconio's body, the Guardian reports.
The vacationing couple was driving on an isolated highway at night in July 2001 when Murdoch flagged down their camper van. He shot Falconio in the head, and beat Lees, then 27, and tied her up. When Murdoch left her to check Falconio, Lees bolted. She was found on the highway with her hands bound. Her calm demeanor during questioning initially led police to consider her a suspect, per the Telegraph. Flying over the remote scene in a helicopter, Lees, now 43, tells 60 Minutes, "I know that hes somewhere here. His spirit just feels stronger." Members of the local Aboriginal community are helping scour the bleak landscape for the body and have donated artwork to help Lees pay for a memorial. She is planning to dedicate a silver falcon sculpture to Falconio's memory. (The killer of the ex-wife of a Righteous Brothers member was identified after 41 years.)
Mike and Julie Bennet died of cancer five days apart, and an image of their final moments together is attracting attention. The British couple's three children have released a bittersweet photo of their parents holding hands from their hospital beds; it was taken shortly before Mike Bennet, 57, died last Monday, the BBC reports. Julie Bennet, 50, died on Saturday, leaving behind Luke, 21; Hannah, 18; and Oliver, 13. Family friend Heather Gallagher says the "down-to-earth" clan was "known to all for their generosity." That generosity is being returned to them: A crowdfunding campaign begun to help the kids, who are from Irby in Wirral, has raised $175,000 as of this writing.
"Julie has kept the children in a normal routine whilst dealing with Mike's illness over the past few years," says Gallagher; the cabinet maker was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2013. Then last May, Julie got a devastating diagnosis of her own. Cancer had invaded the grade school teacher's liver and kidneys, and would eventually spread to other organs, ITV reports. Friend Sue Wright tells the BBC she made Julie Bennet a bedside promise: "I told her the community would come together to help look after her kidsand she opened her eyes and smiled." Gallagher tells the BBC the kids "are astounded" by what's been contributed so far, which is 280% of the initial target. She adds that their aunts and uncles plan to look after them, and that the money will help them get through college. (These viral photos involve a 3-year-old boy.)
A special assembly elected former German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier by an overwhelming majority Sunday to be the country's new president. Steinmeier was elected in Berlin by the assembly made up of the 630 members of parliament's lower house and an equal number of representatives from Germany's 16 states. He received 931 of the 1,260 votes. Steinmeier succeeds Joachim Gauck, a 77-year-old former pastor and East German pro-democracy activist who did not seek a second five-year term because of his age, the AP reports. The German president has little executive power, but is considered an important moral authority and symbol of the country as its host for visiting dignitaries.
"Let's be brave, because then we don't have to be afraid of the future," Steinmeier said in his acceptance speech. He said the world faces "rough times," but that Germany, as a functioning democracy, had the responsibility to fight for stability. Steinmeier is normally studiously diplomatic, but he strongly criticized Donald Trump during the US election campaign. Asked in August about the rise of right-wing populism in Germany and elsewhere, Steinmeier criticized those who "make politics with fear." He cited as examples the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, the promoters of Britain's exit from the European Union, and "the hate preachers, like Donald Trump at the moment in the United States." (Read more Germany stories.)
Two Detroit carjackers are back in prison after their victim went online and found they'd been mistakenly released, the AP reports. Local and federal authorities are pointing fingers at each otherbut there's no dispute that Brittany Guerriero is the person who had to get her own justice. The men were free for months until December. Per the Detroit Free Press, Guerriero was moving into a new apartment in September 2014 when she was carjacked while waiting in the valet line. Thanks to surveillance camera tapes and Guerriero's testimony, Kendall Kelly and DeMarcus Catlin were captured, and each received sentences of nine to 20 years in prison on the carjacking charge (Kelly had other time added on for a fatal shooting).
But Guerriero tells the Detroit Free Press that she went online in November and found Kelly and Catlin had been released from federal prison. They were sent there first because their carjacking convictions in state court violated their probation. Kelly and Catlin were supposed to go to a Michigan prison last year to serve their carjacking sentences, but the US Bureau of Prisons says it wasn't told that the men were supposed to be transferred. A rep for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office says the snafu was the federal prison bureau's fault, but the feds deny any wrongdoing and say the proper detainer paperwork wasn't filed to alert them that the convicts shouldn't have been released. "It shouldn't take some random victim looking through the system," Guerriero says. "Who else have they accidentally released?" (Read more carjacking stories.)
Catholic Church officials in Portugal said Monday they have assembled more than 15,000 pages of testimony and documentation to support the proposed beatification of Sister Lucia, one of three shepherd children who said the Virgin Mary appeared to them in the town of Fatima in 1917. The officials said the case for Sister Lucia's beatificationthe first step toward canonization as a saintwill be sent to the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in line with church procedure. Her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, who also said they witnessed the apparitions, died at ages 9 and 11 of pneumonia during the 1918 influenza pandemic. They were beatified in 2000, reports the AP.
The documentation was presented at a church ceremony in the convent in Coimbra, 120 miles north of Lisbon, where Sister Lucia lived from 1948 until her death at age 97 in 2005. In her obituary, the New York Times reported that Lucia said only she heard what Mary told the children. The third of the "three secrets" of Fatima, said to relate to the attempted assassination of John Paul II in 1981, was revealed in 2000. The Catholic bishop of Coimbra, Virgilio Antunes, said the documentation on Sister Lucia took eight years to compile and includes information from 11,000 letters she wrote as well as some 61 witness statements. Pope Francis is to visit Fatima on May 12-13 for the pilgrimage marking their centenary. He will be the fourth pontiff to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. (Read more beatification stories.)
Well, that didn't last long: One year after it banished naked photos from its pages, nudity is back at Playboy magazine. The magazine had instituted its no-nudes policy, starting with the March 2016 issue, in an effort to ramp up circulation and get more mainstream advertisers to buy in, but it didn't work, the New York Post reports. Cooper Hefner, founder Hugh Hefner's son, became chief creative officer last October, and he says said on Twitter Monday that it was "a mistake" to remove nudity entirely. It will be back as of the March/April 2017 issue, which is currently hitting newsstands.
"Nudity was never the problem, because nudity isnt a problem. Today, were taking our identity back and rediscovering who we are," Hefner's tweet continued, though he admitted that "the way in which the magazine portrayed nudity was dated." Breasts and buttocks are on display in the new issue, but there is no full-frontal nudity, which the magazine used to feature. The official Playboy twitter account tweeted out a picture of the March/April 2017 cover Monday with the hashtag, #NakedIsNormal. (Read more Playboy stories.)
The parents of a 10-year-old boy who died while riding on the world's tallest water slide at a water park in Kansas said they are still grieving but are thankful for the condolences they have received from around the world, the AP reports. In an interview Monday on Good Morning America, Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab and his wife, Michele, recalled the "surreal" events of Aug. 7, 2016, when their son, Caleb, died aboard the "Verruckt" waterslide at the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas. "Six went to the park, five came back," Scott Schwab said. The Schwabs, of Olathe, took their four sons to the waterpark that day because it was offering free admission for state lawmakers. When they arrived, Caleb and his 12-year-old brother, Nathan, went right to the "Verruckt," which featured a 17-story plunge.
Scott Schwab recalled the last conversation he had with his son. "Before they took off, I said, 'Brothers stick together,' and he said, 'I know, Dad.' I said, 'Look at me, brothers stick together.' 'I know, Dad.'" Nathan was waiting at the bottom when Caleb was somehow decapitated by the ride. Investigators have not publicly indicated how the boy was injured. "(Nathan) was screaming, 'He flew from Verruckt. He flew from Verruckt,'" Michele said, adding her son was so distraught he couldn't explain what he had seen. Michele said a man wouldn't allow her to get close enough to see what was going on. "He just kept saying, 'Trust me, you don't want to go any further,'" she said. No criminal charges have been filed in Caleb's death, but the family has reached settlements with several organizations. Schlitterbahn officials have said the ride will be dismantled as soon as the investigation is complete. (Read more Kansas water slide stories.)
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New Delhi:
In the ongoing Tamil Nadu turmoil over chief ministerial position, Panneerselvam got a boost after an MLA and 4 MPs of AIADMK joined him, deserting V K Sasikalas faction.
Sasikala on Saturday targeted Governor Vidyasagar Rao for delay in swearing-in and threatened to hold protest on Sunday.
Sasikala, the AIADMK General Secretary who met the legislators supporting her at a retreat near Chennai said that the delay by the Governor in inviting her to form the government appeared to facilitate split in our party.
Sasikala, earlier in the day wrote to the Governor, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest.
She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him.
Things turned a bit difficult for Sasikala when MLA and School Education Minister K Pandiarajan and four MPs -- P R Sundaram, K Ashok Kumar, V Sathyabama and Vanaroja -- switched over to OPS faction pledging their support to him amid mounting pressure from the party cadres and apparent public sentiment.
ALSO READ | OPS vs Chinnamma: Sasikala camps starts bleeding, vows to change game today; Panneerselvam gains supporters
Party veteran C Ponnaiyan, party spokesman has also offered his support to Panneerselvam.
Panneerselvam camp now has seven MLAs, including him. In the 235-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, AIADMK has 135 MLAs.
As the Governor remained indecisive even 48 hours after she staked claim to form the government, Sasikala tonight said, We waited till today. Tomorrow, we will protest in another form.
Sasikala to avoid any further desertions, drove to the luxury resort, in an attempt to prevent the MLAs who have been put up there for the last three days from switching sides.
With PTI Inputs
READ FULL COVERAGE: TAMIL NADU TURMOIL
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New Delhi:
Tamil Nadu turmoil saw a dramatic turn of events when an MLA and four MPs deserted VK Sasikala and joined O Panneerselvams faction, citing a groundswell of support for OPS.
Education Minister K. Pandiarajan and party spokesperson C. Ponnaiyan switched sides on Saturday giving further boost to the rebel camp.
Sasikala, the AIADMK General Secretary who met the legislators supporting her at a retreat near Chennai said that the delay by the Governor in inviting her to form the government appeared to facilitate split in our party.
Live updates:
# Panneerselvam launches attack on Sasikala, says 'Amma had many servants, all of them can't take her place
# Shedding crocodile tears, passing new remarks every day is not going to help. Will prove everything in assembly: Panneerselvam on Sasikala
# Only Amma stood by me all these years.Telling this for the 1st time, I was subjected to harassment & torture all these years: Panneerselvam
# Many party cadres not even in Chennai, are voicing their opinion against Sasikala assuming charge as TN CM: OPS
# We will form the Govt, will then visit Amma's memorial & take a photograph, I'll show it to the world then. This is our pledge: VK Sasikala
# Panneerselvam who was a minister for so long, is today all out to destroy. It is same as hitting your eye with your own finger: V K Sasikala
# Tamil Nadu: V KSasikala breaks down while addressing party MLAs at Golden Bay resort
# You all are aware as to what extent our opponents have gone against us, we must stay together and foil their evil attempts: VK Sasikala
# VK Sasikala addresses MLAs at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur
# Opposition parties are spreading rumours. Party MLAs are not locked up: VK Sasikala at Golden Bay resort
# We are working on it V K Sasikala on being asked if she would protest if not invited to form Government.
# Party workers and forces now opposing us will not succeed in their attempts, won't let it happen: VK Sasikala at Golden Bay resort
# Let it come, I will see: VK Sasikala when asked about the pending verdict in DA Case
# Please wait and see our next move: V K Sasikala
# You can see truth that non of our MLAs have been forcibly kept here, we are living here as a family: VK Sasikala
# Meeting between VK Sasikala and MLAs begins at Golden Bay resort
# Supporters chant slogans for Panneerselvam as he meets and greets the crowd gathered at his residence in Chennai
# I have extensively worked with Panneerselvam,he is a very nice man. Under his leadership, one can pop his collar and walk: Manobala
# Tamil Nadu: Panneerselvam meets supporters at his residence in Chennai.
# Sasikala reaches Kuvathoor to meet party MLAs for second consecutive day
# Sasikala still holds majority of MLAs, we're sure that she only will carry forward legacy of periamma: Piramila (Jayalalithaa's nurse in 2001)
# We believe in democracy, all MLAs are with me, will interact with them. You all know why all MPs are going to the other side: VKSasikala
#Staying by choice, no compulsion.Heard that OPS will come here&seek support but he has no right-T.Tamilselvan MLA lodged at Koovathur resort.
#Whether it(next course of action after waiting for Guv's response) will be protest or legal remedy to be decided by V K Sasikala
#Tamil Nadu Education Minister K.Pandiarajan has offered support to Panneerselvam, now reached to meet V K Sasikala's husband M.Natarajan at their residence
#Party general secy V K Sasikala waiting for Guv's response, will announce upcoming step if nothing comes by today: AIADMK MP R Vaithiligam
#Total of 10 MPs, 8 from Lok Sabha & 2 from Rajya Sabha have joined Panneerselvam's faction. 6 MLAs already on his side
#Tamil Nadu Governor must decide CM issue by tomorrow otherwise a WP under Art 32 of Constitution can be filed charging abetment of horse trading: S Swamy
#Senior AIADMK leader and former minister P. Vijayalakshmi Palanisamy has sided with Panneerselvam amidst political crisis in Tamil Nadu
#AIADMK's Tuticorin MP Jaisingh Thiyagaraj Natterjee and Vellore MP Senguttuvan join Panneerselvam camp
# AIADMK Perambalur MP RP Marutharaja also present at Panneerselvam's residence
# Party members and supporters felicitate Panneerselvam at his residence in Chennai
# Panneerselvam is our leader now, he is following path of M G Ramachandran: Former AIADMK MP and actor Ramarajan
# Former AIADMK MP Ramarajan meets Panneerselvam, extends his support
#AIADMK MPs B.Senguttuvan and J.Jeyasingh extend support to O Panneerselvam; reach his residence to meet him
Sasikala, earlier in the day wrote to the Governor, asking him to take steps immediately to swear her in at the earliest.
She said she was ready to parade the party MLAs supporting her before him.
ALSO READ | OPS draws more blood from Sasikala camp; minister, two MPs join him
Panneerselvam camp now has seven MLAs, including him. In the 235-member Tamil Nadu Assembly, AIADMK has 135 MLAs.
As the Governor remained indecisive even 48 hours after she staked claim to form the government, Sasikala tonight said, We waited till today. Tomorrow, we will protest in another form.
With PTI Inputs
ALSO READ | OPS vs Chinnamma: Sasikala and Panneerselvam in bitter battle over Jaya's legacy in Tamil Nadu. What's next? An explainer
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Shrinagar:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the voters in Uttarakhand to give exemplary punishment in the polls to people who had ruined their future while claiming that he will not rest till those who looted the country paid back. He launched a frontal attack on Congress for "insulting"the armed forces by questioning the surgical strikes,"sleeping" over OROP for 40 years and for "indulging" in corruption.
"The time for those who looted the country for 70 yearshas come to an end. I promise that those who looted thecountry will have to pay back now. Neither will I rest nor will I let the looters rest in peace till this task is complete. It is time everyone gives an account now," Modi told his last poll rally in Pithoragarh ahead of the February 15 election.
He exhorted the people to vote out the "tainted" Congress government that sullied 'devbhoomi's' image turning it into a"lootbhoomi" and "ruined" the state due to its lack of vision to tap its full potential.
Also Read: Uttarakhand Elections 2017 | Our Govt is devoted to serve poor, says PM Modi in Srinagar rally
He also hit out at Congress accusing it of opposing Uttarakhand's creation and said it has now aligned with the SP government in Uttar Pradesh which had then committed atrocities on people agitating for the state's formation.
Modi asked the people to take a pledge to hand down exemplary punishment in the polls to those who played with their future so that no future government dares to do so. Describing Uttarakhand as a land of brave soldiers, he attacked Congress for questioning the veracity of the surgical strikes, which, he said, "insulted the armed forces and the valour of those who made supreme sacrifice for the country".
"It is a misfortune of our country that some parties andleaders raise questions about our armed forces and the valourof those who laid down their lives for the country. No one should ever question their bravery," he said.
Also Read: Uttarakhand Elections 2017: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi holds road show in Haridwar
Terming the cross-LoC strikes as a "big incident" inmilitary history which various security agencies across the world are studying, he said when Indian soldiers carried out the operation and demolished terrorist camps without losing a single life, Congress posed several questions including how no one was killed in the attack.
"Does it behove Congress to do this. Is this not an insult to the armed forces? Is this not an insult to the valour of our brave soldiers? You do politics and attack Modi as much as you can, but don't ever raise doubts about our military andthe soldiers' bravery," he said.
Attacking Congress for "sleeping over" the one-rank one-pension (OROP) issue for 40 long years, Modi said, "Did they not insult the armed forces by ignoring the soldiers' claims for so long.
Also Read: PM Modi in Haridwar: 'I take decisions for betterment of nation' | Highlights
"Did they not make fun and insulted the armed forces by earmarking a mere Rs 500 crore in the budget for OROP which would have cost a total of Rs 12,500 crore. Our government has already paid Rs 6,500 crore to the soldiers as OROP benefit,"he said.
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Bengaluru:
Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy on Monday denied that he had withdrawn his concerns about governance lapses at the firm, saying the Board has to address these properly and full transparency should be displayed and people responsible for it should become accountable.
No, I have not withdrawn my concern. They have to be addressed properly by the Board and full transparency should be displayed and people responsible for it should become accountable, Murthy told PTI.
Murthy was responding to reports that he had backed down from the confrontation with the Board over corporate governance issues.
Asked about his view on the integrity of Infosys Board members, Murthy said while all the member are good intentioned people of high integrity, but even good people sometimes make mistakes.
ALSO READ | Have a heartfelt, warm relationship with Narayana Murthy: Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka
...good leadership demands that they listen to all concerned shareholders, re-evaluate their decisions, and take corrective action. I hope they take corrective action soon and improve governance for a better future for the company, he added.
Over the last few days, Infosys has come under fire from co-founders like Murthy who have publicly raised concerns on alleged corporate governance lapses at the Bengaluru-based firm.
Some of the founders have aired concerns about CEO Vishal Sikkas USD 11 million pay and expensive severance packages for former executives Rajiv Bansal (CFO) and David Kennedy (General Counsel).
They had also called for re-constitution of the Board, demanding that Chairman Ramaswami Seshasayee step down, taking responsibility for the lapses.
Infosys has, however, defended itself saying all decisions were made in the overall interest of the company and that it has made full disclosures on all developments.
Infosys founders, along with their family members, owned 12.75 per cent in the company at the end of December 2016, as per the data available with BSE.
New Delhi:
In another incident of political violence in Kerala, a 20-year-old BJP worker Niramal was hacked to death late on Sunday night in Thirssur district.
BJP (Bhartiya Janta Party) is blaming CPI (M) Communist Party of India (Marxist) for the death of Nirmal and have called for a strike in Thirssur district on Monday.
Earlier in January, a BJP worker was stabbed to death allegedly by CPI(M) activists at Andaloor in Dharmadam, the constituency of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
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New Delhi:
Pakistan Army initiated indiscriminate firing of Small arms, automatics and mortars at 1805 hours on Indian Army posts along the Line of Control in Sunderbani Sector, officials said.
The Army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively, an army release said.
The firing is presently on. More details are awaited.
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New Delhi:
Tamil Nadu political turmoil seems to have intensified with time as Chief Minister Panneerselvam on Monday reported to work at Chief Ministers Office (CMO).
After the death Jayalalithaa, Panneerselvam took oath as the state chief minister, who says he must remain the head of the government.
Here are the live updates:
# All MLAs at the resort are mentally and emotionally traumatised, Madurai South MLA Saravanan
# Madurai MLA S S Saravanan says he escaped before Sasikala arrived.
# We would eat 3 times a day, secretly interact with public through social networking sites & support OPS, Madurai MLA Saravanan
# All MLAs at the resort are mentally and emotionally traumatised, Madurai South MLA Saravanan
# I am a kitten, I myself have escaped & come...d "lion cubs" will also come, escaped MLA Saravanan
# Everything will be good for me: Sasikala on tomorrow's DA case verdict in Supreme Court
# AIADMK's South Madurai MLA Saravanan and MP from Madurai R Gopalakrishnan extend support to Paneerselvam
# Sasikala says "will stay with MLAs tonight" at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathu
# When I was coming here (resort), ppl called me to a hut & I went there; I saw Amma's photo there. That's where she lives, in their hearts: Sasikala
# Amma still alive in our hearts: Sasikala at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur
# DMK is an expert in calculating things. When MGR passed away they did the same thing: Sasikala at Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur.
# Amid allegations of illegal detention, 119 pro-Sasikala MLAs inform Madras HC in writing that they were staying on their "own volition"
# We are not supporting any faction, AIADMK is our opponent and we oppose them as a whole: MK Stalin
# We will only comment on the DA case once it is out, can't comment right now: MK Stalin
# Governor should immediately take steps to establish a stable Govt in the state: MK Stalin
# Many of the development works have stagnated, most important issues are drinking water, farmer suicides, drought situation: MK Stalin
# Sasikala reaches resort in Kovathur where AIADMK MLAs are lodged
# AG Mukul Rohatgi suggests to Governor to summon special session of Assembly in a week to test support enjoyed by Paneerselvam and Sasikala - reports
# No, I don't think so: VK Sasikala on being asked if the delay in forming Government is because of pending DA case verdict
# DMK treasurer MK Stalin reaches party HQ in Chennai for strategy meeting
# VK Sasikala meets people en route to Golden Bay resort in Kuvathur
#We will continue our peaceful protest for formation of Government: AIADMK
#Betrayer Panneerselvam's true colours can be seen now: V K Sasikala addressing supporters gathered outside Poes Garden residence in Chennai
# Sasikala addressing supporters gathered outside Poes Garden residence, says attempts to divide AIADMK will not succeed
#OPS can do all tactics, but Sasikala will 100 per cent become the CM of Tamil Nadu, she will take Amma's legacy forward says Apsara Reddy of AIADMK
#We have seen 1000 such 'Panneerselvams'. For the past 33 years, we both have seen everything. So I am not scared
#Panneerselvam asked me to take charge then, but I said I can't at this juncture. So Panneerselvam was given responsibility.
#When I was in so pain, for the party's future I stood firm on my stand. All of you must know what is the truth.
#When Amma passed away, I came to know about conspiracy being hatched to divide the party.
ALSO READ | OPS vs Chinnamma: Security beefed up in Chennai; Police on 24x7 vigil as political turmoil intensifies
#Peopel are trying to divide the organisation, I won't let this happen: V K Sasikala at Poes Garden.
#GS Mani says that the apex court should hear his side before passing any order in Sasikala matter
#G S Mani, lawyer for Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, files a caveat in the Supreme court on Sasikala matter.
#OPS reaches Tamil Nadu Secretariat.
#PIL filed in Supreme Court asking the Tamil Nadu Governor to invite VK Sasikala to form the government within 24 hours.
# DMK working president MK Stalin reaches Tamil Nadu secretariat.
# Panneerselvam offers prayers and meets supporters at his residence before leaving for Tamil Nadu secretariat.
However, things snowballed into a factional rivalry when VK Sasikala claimed her right to the post of chief minister, making it a political battle.
The power battle has intensified with the two factions trading charges. Panneerselvam claimed earlier in the day that MLAs were held there against their will and tortured and sought their release.
Chennai: #OPanneerselvam offers prayers and meets supporters at his residence before leaving for Tamil Nadu secretariat. pic.twitter.com/4bpPbaBJcw ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
Chennai: DMK working president MK Stalin reaches Tamil Nadu secretariat. pic.twitter.com/0ynVWLTyVG ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
Five Lok Sabha members and one Rajya Sabha member earlier on Sunday deserted Sasikala's faction and joined OPS, consolidating the support for latter, taking the total count to MPs to 10.
ALSO READ | Tamil Nadu crisis: Sasikala struggles to keep her flock of MLAs together, trashes allegations of holding them as captives
With no solution in sight for government formation in Tamil Nadu, the ruling AIADMK has asserted that a majority of its MLAs are behind General Secretary V K Sasikala and claimed the chances of Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao inviting her today were high.
Party spokesperson Vaigai Chelvan said Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had the support of seven MLAs and cannot therefore prove his majority in the state Assembly in the event of a floor test.
He says he can prove his majority based on the wrong information given by someone. Majority of the AIADMK MLAs are with Chinnamma (Sasikala) and we are ready to prove our strength (in a floor test), he told reporters here.
Sasikala was the elected Legislature Party leader of AIADMK and therefore the Governor should invite her to form government, he added.
We expect the chances of his inviting (meeting) her today are high, he said.
To a question on 11 MPs switching over to the camp of Panneerselvam, Vaigai Chelvan expressed confidence that they would return to the Sasikala fold.
In growing support for Panneerselvam, six more AIADMK MPs had joined his camp yesterday, taking the number of Parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
Sasikala had yesterday vowed to protect the party nurtured by her long-time friend, late Jayalalithaa, saying I will give my life for this cause.
Addressing the MLAs at the resort near here, which she visited for the second time in two days, Sasikala had said, You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain it by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government. None can hurt us and there is no need to fear.
She also dismissed allegations that they have been held hostage at the resort, saying the MLAs were staying at the resort of their own accord and that they were free.
With PTI Inputs
READ FULL COVERAGE: TAMIL NADU CRISIS
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New Delhi:
Trying hard to keep her flock of MLA supporters together, AIADMK interim general secretary V.K. Sasikala trashed allegations of holding them as captives at a resort on the East Coast Road in Chennai to prevent them from deserting her side.
Locked in a fierce battle of attrition with caretaker Chief Minister Panneerselvam, Ms Sasikala declared that they were all by her side of their free will. You see for yourself how independent they (the AIADMK MLAs) are and talk freely and are sincere that there should not be any disrepute to the government, she told journalists for the first time since Tuesday.
The power battle has intensified with the two factions trading charges. Panneerselvam claimed earlier in the day that MLAs were held there against their will and tortured and sought their release.
ALSO READ | BJP has no role to play in political situation of Tamil Nadu, says Venkaiah Naidu
Five Lok Sabha members and one Rajya Sabha member earlier on Sunday deserted Sasikala's faction and joined OPS, consolidating the support for latter, taking the total count to MPs to 10.
Sasikala addressing reporters at the resort alleged that the MLAs have been receiving threats that their children will be abducted, but undeterred, they have chosen to stay there and asked their relatives to take care of them.
ALSO READ | OPS vs Chinnamma: Panneerselvam launches attack on Sasikala, says 'Amma had many servants, all of them can't take her place
It shows their dedication to this movement. I was moved.. they (all the MLAs) are keen that there should not be the slightest impediment to AIADMK and the government, she said.
Exuding confidence, Sasikala said, You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain it by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government. None can hurt us and there is no need to fear.
With Inputs from Agencies
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New Delhi:
Supreme Court on Monday extended the deadline for Justice CS Karnan to personally appear before the apex court in a contempt case against him.
Apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) J.S. Khehar granted three weeks to Karnan to appear before the court.
This is the first time in history that Supreme Court has issued a contempt notice against a serving judge of another court.
After the court took suo moto cognisance of Karnans alleged misconduct while he was serving as a judge in the Madras high court, he was subsequently transferred to Calcutta high court.
Although Karnan had written a number of dignitaries including PM Modi, CJI and various sitting judges alleging corruption against several sitting and retired judges in the country.
ALSO READ | SC issues notice to Calcutta HC Judge CS Karnan, seeks his personal appearance
Last week, justice Karnan made allegations of caste bias against him by the senior most judges of the supreme court.
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New Delhi:
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj directed the Indian mission in UAE to follow up the investigation by local police regarding the death of three Indians during a fire in a diesel tank.
Swaraj on Twitter offered her heartfelt condolences over the death of Indian nationals in the fire incident.
@cgidubai has informed me about the unfortunate death of three Indian nationals Kishan Singh, Mohan Singh and Ujendra Singh all employees /1 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 12, 2017
I have asked our mission to follow up investigation by the Police. /3 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 12, 2017
My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. Our mission will provide them all help and assistance. /4 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 12, 2017
According to a Khaleej Times report, Sharjah Police have launched an investigation to rule out criminal acts behind the deaths which occurred in Al Saja'a area. The bodies have been sent for autopsy, it said.
ALSO READ | EAM Sushma Swaraj expresses condolences on youth killing, seeks report from High Commission in Jamaica
ALSO READ | EAM Sushma Swaraj helps secure 5 Indians jailed in Togo
With PTI Inputs
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Morena:
Two undertrial prisoners lodged in the district jail in Morena escaped from the facility apparently in wee hours on Monday, an official said.
Omprakash Jat (36), who is awaiting trial in a murder case and Anil Rathore (26), an accused in a rape case, dug a hole into a closed cemented entry leading to a staircase to slip out.
Alarmingly, the jail authorities came to know about the incident only after relative of Rathore came to meet him in morning hours.
We came to know about the jail break when a relative of Rathore came to meet him in morning. We searched for the prisoner inside but couldnt find him, Jailor BS Mourya said, adding they found Rathore and Jat missing after taking a head count.
He said in the head count taken last evening the duo were found to be present, which meant they escaped apparently in wee hours on Monday.
Citing circumstantial evidence, Mourya said Jat and Rathore broke their way through the closed cemented entry to reach the staircase which opens into a small terrace located near the boundary wall of the jail and jumped out.
A complaint has been lodged with Kotwali Police in this regard, following which a search is on to trace the duo.
We are in the process of initiating action against chief warder Dattaram and three warders Ramavtar, Brijendra Singh and Phool Singh on duty during the jail break, he added.
Incidentally, eight SIMI men awaiting trial had escaped from highly-fortified Bhopal Central Jail on Diwali night last year after killing a warder. They were subsequently killed in an alleged exchange of fire by police on the same day.
The prison authorities in the state have been claiming they have ramped up security since the Bhopal jailbreak.
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New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday addressed an election rally in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Lucknow and launched a direct attack on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The ongoing UP elections have witnessed a lot of political activity in form of rallies, roadshows to woo the voters.
Modi's speech in Lakhimpur Kheri: As it hapened
#Why should youngsters from UP leave their villages and face discomfort in cities? I want youth of UP to get work in their areas only?
#Why are so many villages in UP lacking access to electricity? The previous governments did no work in this direction.
#Is it true that in UP if an officer wants to be DM, he or she has to pay money. Amounts have to be paid for transfers and postings also.
#The Government here is more familiar with 'Karnama' and not 'Kaam.
#Due to your anti-farmer nature, insurance cover in UP stands at a low. And even in that there is discrimination.
#The crop insurance scheme of the Central Government is a comprehensive one and caters to the welfare of the farmers.
#A scam that you promised to look into from the tenure of Mayawati Ji was not done. Can CM answer why was it not probed.
#Every farmer of UP is saying - we need our dues. When will justice be done to us.
#Wherever people of UP go, their hard work has enriched those places. Sadly, the politics of SP, Congress & BSP is impacting the state.
#People are in jails but they operate their gangs from the jail and these gangs are killing people, indulging in rape, kidnapping, riots
#You say 'Kaam Bolta Hai' but projects are incomplete. What is speaking volumes is the instances of women harassment in the state.
ALSO READ | UP Polls 2017: Akhilesh Yadav tells PM Modi to do 'kaam ki baat' instead of Mann Ki Baat
#In the midst of the campaign, fearing losses they released a 3rd Ghoshna Patra & started deviating from the core issues.
#By allying with the Congress, the SP and the CM have insulted Dr. Lohia, who resisted the Congress.
#People thought CM is young & will do well but in 2014 people showed their anger & thereafter CM focussed on his own survival & alliances.
#These parties, SP, Congress and BSP have failed in the previous exams. They have not lived up to their expectations in serving people.
#UP has seen Governments of INC, SP & BSP. Have these parties brought any change in your lives? Did they work for farmers.
Rahul Gandhi also is also slated to address an election rally in Kheri district today.
ALSO READ | Uttarakhand Elections 2017: Will not rest till those who looted country paid back, says PM Modi
READ FULL COVERAGE: UTTAR PRADESH ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2017
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Cincinnati, OH (45221)
Today
Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 51F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..
Tonight
Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 51F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
Germanys only independent newspaper says Germanys government is controlled by US government
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN), or German Economic News an online daily news service for Germans, which has vigorously fought against the U.S. CIAs longstanding (and now intensifying control over Germanys news media, and which has also helped to promote a book by an editor for the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung who publicly exposed and denounced his previous subordination to the CIA , and who is now being blackballed by Germanys newsmedia for reporting such things is finally going behind a pay-wall to sustain its independence, and alleges that the reason for doing this is that financial pressures from the Establishments newsmedia require that this be done, or else DWN will be forced to shut down service altogether.
(Article by Eric Zuesse from Strategic-culture.org
Germany, as an outpost of the U.S. Empire, has its newsmedia seeking to crush fake news, just as is the case inside the Empires center the U.S.
Here is the announcement, translated by me:
ON OUR OWN BEHALF
German Radio Defames DWN: Please support us!
German Economic News | Released:29.12.16 01:08 Clock
The Deutschlandradio has tried to defame the DWN with a smooth counterfeit. Please support the independence of DWN with a subscription.
Dear readers,
From now on, three articles of the German Economic News are free to read other articles only after completing a subscription of 7.99 [currently around $8] per month [or else $80/year]. You do not enter into any obligation, the subscription can be terminated at any time.
The first successes in the subscription show us that you, dear readers, want to support us: We have immediately won our first sponsors. Numerous readers even support us with donations, which are clearly above the subscription price. We would like to thank you very much!
This action is necessary because the German media market is distorted by the massive presence of public service broadcasters. The broadcasters have an annual budget of 8 billion from a taxpayer-funded budget. The DWN recently had to take note of the fact that broadcasting fees are not only used for the [German Radios] program [service], but also for the denunciation of other media. In an article in which German Radio has uncritically reported the boycott call by an employee of Scholz & Friends on numerous websites, German Radio denounced the DWN in however an unusually clumsy way: The German Radio has quite boldly falsified a quotation, to defame DWN. In response, we have proceeded legally and have sought a preliminary injunction from the Landgericht Berlin, against German Radio, on pain of a fine of up to 250,000.00 Euro, to prohibit [their] continuing to spread the hoax.
The situation is grotesque: money from their broadcasting is used to falsify quotations. This type of action by a public broadcaster, against DWN, in connection with a report on the advertising industry is potentially threatening.
The situation is critical because Facebook is rapidly breaking the economic base of critical and independent media. US platforms such as Facebook and Google have largely overriden the classic advertising model. This has several reasons.
The US corporations are already making the most of the growth in online advertising. Facebook and Google do not know any separation between advertising and editorial content. Due to their inscrutable system of algorithms, they are unrestrainedly able to manipulate their readers, and to offer themselves to many commercial and politically interested parties as an advertising platform. This benefits many companies: they can hide their advertising messages in seemingly unsuspicious postings, or can manipulate themselves in Google search results. The public broadcasters also make massive use of this. In practice, this means that broadcasting fees from Germany go to US corporations, so that the public-law media [German-government media] in the search results stand above the independent media [which consequently suffer greatly].
Another trend is that purchased media are directly competing with the purely journalistic media. The advertising agency WPP has been registered with the US magazine vice. This allows WPP to redirect its advertisers to their own product. WPP, on the other hand, is the parent company of the advertising agency Scholz & Friends the agency has been discredited in recent days because one of its employees denounced critical websites such as those of Henryk Broder or Roland Tichy. Broder has reportedly lost significant ad sales.
The business model of many [such] alternative media is out of the question for DWN: they finance themselves by selling texts as promotional measures for books, magazines, events or political activism. Many NGOs [non-profits] also seem to be making journalistic offers to promote their core business political campaigns [propaganda].
Twitter, Facebook and Google offer all sorts of possibilities for disinformation and manipulation: secret services, lobbyists, parties, corporations, associations, states and speculators run accounts that appear to be informative, but actually serve bare manipulation. This model also destroys the classic advertising model, because it is now easy for a company to create the field for commercial interests via a seemingly journalistic channel.
This development has led to a dramatic decline in online advertising across all critical-journalistic products. It is cheaper and more efficient for advertisers to address their audience through covert channels.
All these circumstances are presented by the media and it is not just the question of DWN about the central question: Is there a demand for our offer? We openly address this issue to you, dear readers: You are the only public who really have an interest in a prosperous future of DWN specifically as a medium that reports critically and completely independently. Against the backdrop of the above-mentioned presence of PR, spin-doctors and disinformation, critical and independent reporting has become even more complex: all important documents in the financial sector are in English. Most EU papers are in EU-English. It is only possible to report on the Syrian War if one can read Arabic and Turkish sources in the original. For a well-founded Europe coverage, one has to master 27 languages and not just that: you must have a team that is familiar with the political and cultural context of these countries in order to correctly classify what the linguistic messages really mean.
These costs usually arise in areas where there is neither advertising nor political support: Who wants to pay for research and articles on geopolitics, central banks, raw materials, war, corruption, deception and manipulation? The core business of DWN is exactly these issues at the interface between business and politics. We do not deal with any problem-free [safe, uncontroversial] subjects.
We want to be quite open at this point: Only you, dear readers, can secure the future of DWN. It is a sort of publicist referendum to which we submit: We ask you if the DWN is worth 7.99 per month. The result is open. It is in the nature of the market economy that it is not our discretion to accept the result of this referendum or not. If there are not enough subscribers, then there is also no market for the DWN. However, if enough readers hold the DWN for an important voice in Germany, put us in the position to forcefully raise this voice with your subscription. A democracy needs free and incorruptible media. There is no alternative.
We sincerely request your support.
The editorial office
Read more at: Strategic-culture.org
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This is the current American political environment.
President Donald Trump questions whether climate change is real. He has pledged to end American participation in the Paris accords on global warming.
The Republican-led Congress seems intent on undoing as many environmental regulations as it can whether they govern air pollution, water pollution or endangered species.
Scott Pruitt, Trumps choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, has made a career out of suing it. U.S. Rep Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has proposed shuttering the EPA altogether.
Its frustrating, said Mitch Wagener, professor of biologic and environmental science at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. But heres the thing: The governor of Florida can rule that you cant use the words climate change. But thats not going to change anything. Miami will be one of the first places affected by rising sea levels.
Wagener is launching Westerns second annual series of five public lectures on climate change. These talks will be held every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Westerns Science Building on its Midtown campus, with the last scheduled for March 7.
Well do it every year, Wagener said.
The lectures allow Wagener and his students to talk about the many different aspects of climate change and to update people on a constant flow of new research.
Theres a ton of new information, he said. None of it is very comforting.
The talks will touch this year on changing ice and sea levels, human health and of the potential for creating a sustainable society. At each session, students will collaborate with Wagener.
On Feb. 28, Western anthropology professor Laurie Weinstein will explain how climate change in the past altered the lives of the Native Americans living in the Southwest.
I could go farther back, Weinstein said. The rise of homo sapiens happened 2.5 million to 3 million years ago, and that involved changes in climate.
Last week, Wagener began the series by talking about the basics the difference between weather and climate.
Weather, he said, is what we live with on a day-to-day basis rain, snow, sleet and sun with reliable forecasts extending out for a couple of weeks at best. Climate is the study of weather over an extended period of time, with data gathered on precipitation, temperature, wind speed and direction, and barometric pressure.
Climate is what you expect, Wagener said. Weather is what you get.
What climate study has shown, Wagener said, is that since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, humans have burned fossil fuels primarily coal, oil, gasoline and natural gas at an accelerating rate.
Theres more people, he said. We need energy.
Thats sent an ever-increasing flow of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, capturing heat. As a result, global temperatures have been rising at an accelerating rate.
Wagener said the evidence for this comes from what scientists call consilience when the study of a wide variety of independent research ends up pointing to the same conclusion.
This is the heart of the argument that leads us to know whats going on, he said.
Some evidence of the effects of climate change are now happening in real time.
Shannon McFarland, a junior at Western and one of Wageners students, will speak Tuesday on how global warming is both acidifying and warming the ocean. Thats causing corals one of the most important and diverse biological communities on earth to eject zooxanthellae, the photosynthetic algae essential for their growth.
Theyre committing suicide, she said.
Chris Potter, a senior at Western, spoke last week on biomes the large-scale environmental habitats on Earth that include deserts, tropical forests, taiga, grasslands and tropical forests.
Potter said in the past, these habitats adapted when the earths climate changed at a much slower pace.
The problem with human climate change is that its so rapid, he said before his talk.
When does this hit home? Wagener said there have been estimates that, given the rise rate of the worlds oceans, 30,000 people in Connecticut will have to relocate from the coastline.
Thats nothing compared to Florida or Louisiana, he said. In countries like Thailand and Bangladesh, it means millions moving.
Which is why, he said, even if some American politicians turn a blind eye to climate change, the rest of the world cant.
Otherwise, well be cooking our grandchildren, he said.
Contact Robert Miller at Earthmattersrgm@gmail.com
We, the undersigned members of the New Milford Clergy Association, write to express our strong opposition to President Trumps recent Executive Order, signed on Jan. 27, titled Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry.
Issued in the midst of the worst worldwide refugee crisis since World War II, this order includes among other requirements suspension of our countrys refugee resettlement program for 120 days; suspension of the resettlement of Syrian refugees for an indefinite period; reducing the number of refugees to be admitted into the U.S. this year by more than half; and prohibiting entry into the U.S. of citizens from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen for a period of 90 days.
TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2017 /CNW/ - Just launched in time for Valentine's Day, couples can now plan their destination wedding in a fun and stress-free way with Wedding Vacations by Sunwing. As Canada's #1 for wedding vacations, Sunwing has launched the new web site to provide inspiration and practical assistance for couples looking to adopt 2017's newest destination wedding trend of getting 'hitched on holiday'enjoying a vacation with friends and family that celebrates your wedding for more than just a day. From choosing the ideal resort and destination, to deciding on all the finer details like signature cocktails and bridal floral arrangements; Wedding Vacations by Sunwing helps its customers every step of the way to ensure their big day in paradise is picture perfect.
The site gives couples the option to connect with an experienced wedding consultant who can take care of all the travel arrangements and start planning their ceremony and reception for them. As well as benefitting from the assistance of a knowledgeable wedding consultant to help them deal with all the local requirements necessary for the ceremony, couples can also take advantage of attractive wedding packages offered at Sunwing's top-rated partner resorts, along with a host of wedding group perks such as a dedicated check-in and priority boarding on Sunwing Airlines.
Wedding Vacations has also teamed up with top-industry expert and celebrity contributing editors like Jessica Mulroney, a style guru who returns to the magazine for the third consecutive edition. This regular bi-annual magazine will include Mulroney's six inspiration-worthy gowns for 2017, signature cocktail recipes, and a host of other bridal styling tips. The cover story features Canada's first-ever Bachelorette, Jasmine Lorimer, with her new fiance, Kevin Wendt. Inside the pages of the magazine, the couple give an in-depth interview about their time on The Bachelorette Canada, falling in love and their stunning proposal that took place on beachfront at Royalton Hicacos Varadero Resort and Spa in Cuba.
The latest edition is out now and available in selected travel agencies across the country. Copies are also inserted within the spring/summer edition of Today's Bride currently on newsstands; an electronic copy can be downloaded on the site.
*Details of current Sunwing group packages can be found here. Wedding group offers are subject to change and terms and conditions apply.
About Wedding Vacations by Sunwing
Wedding Vacations by Sunwing offers couples a fun and hassle-free way to tie the knot in paradise. Couples that entrust Wedding Vacations by Sunwing to make all the arrangements for their big day will be assisted by a knowledgeable wedding consultant who will be with them every step of the way and help them with all aspects of a destination wedding. They'll also benefit from access to exclusive wedding packages at Sunwing's top-rated resorts, along with a host of wedding group perks from a dedicated group check-in and priority boarding on Sunwing Airlines, to pre-allocated rooms in the resort they select and more. A leading resource for destination wedding inspiration, Wedding Vacations by Sunwing offers couples a host of style and beauty tips, venue decor ideas, honeymoon recommendations and more. As Canada's #1 to the sun and North America's largest vertically integrated travel company, Sunwing has more flights to the south than any other leisure carrier with convenient direct service from over 34 airports across Canada to over 50 popular sun destinations. Couples seeking to be inspired should follow Wedding Vacations by Sunwing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or download their latest magazine at weddingvacations.com.
SOURCE Sunwing Vacations Inc.
For further information: For all media enquiries, please contact: Kim Banjac, PR Specialist, Signature Vacations, 1-800-387-5602, [email protected]
Related Links
http://www.signature.ca
Judith Carlisle, Head of Oxford High School, UK, joins BSS for 2017-18 school year
TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2017 /CNW/ - The Bishop Strachan School (BSS) today announced the appointment of Judith Carlisle as Head of School, succeeding outgoing Head, Deryn Lavell. Ms. Carlisle joins BSS from Oxford High School, an independent day school for girls in the UK, with nearly 900 students spanning the ages of 4-18 years. Oxford High School is one of the top-performing independent schools in Britain.
Among her many accomplishments as Head, Ms. Carlisle is perhaps most widely known for a bold initiative called, "Goodbye Little Miss Perfect," the goal of which has been to teach students to make the distinction between high standards and "unhelpful perfectionism.'' She is also respected for her work in pioneering research-based, inquiry-oriented education for girls.
Her illustrious career includes six years as Head of Dover Grammar School for Girls in the UK, where she guided the school to record-breaking A-level results and an International School Award. For the previous 14 years, Judith held progressive leadership roles at King Edward VII School and Whitley Abbey School.
"I am thrilled and honoured to be entrusted with the leadership of such a highly regarded school as BSS," said Ms. Carlisle. "The school's mastery of inquiry-based learning and emphasis on educating girls to be leaders is renowned throughout the international education community. My own focus, beliefs and values are entirely aligned with the BSS Culture of Powerful Learning."
The appointment of Ms. Carlisle is the result of a rigorous international search conducted under the leadership of the BSS Search Committee, chaired by Tony Gaffney, with input from a Faculty Advisory Committee, and contributions from the entire BSS community. The search was guided by Heather Ring of Caldwell Partners.
"The BSS Board is thrilled with the result of this search," said Cindy Tripp, Chair of the BSS Board of Governors. "BSS is a unique and academically exceptional school, having evolved over 150 years with a reputation for empowering girls to be leaders. We required a very particular mix of skill, experience, personality and energy, all of which Ms. Carlisle possesses."
Founded in 1867, BSS is Canada's oldest independent day and boarding school for girls, celebrating its 150th anniversary alongside Canada in 2017. Within a uniquely challenging, active and supportive environment, 900 girls in JK to Grade 12, from Toronto and all over the world, explore their potential and find their voice. Students aspire to the highest academic standards and develop the character and diverse skills required to thrive in today's marketplace.
SOURCE The Bishop Strachan School
For further information: Marianne Chilco, BSS Director of Communications, [email protected], 416-483-4325, ext. 1660
Related Links
http://www.bss.on.ca
MONTREAL, Feb. 13, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - The YMCA and The Cowan Foundation are pleased to announce a commitment of $150,000 from The Cowan Foundation to YMCA Alternative Suspension, a program developed and rolled out nationally by the YMCAs of Quebec that supports teens who have been suspended from school. Thanks to The Cowan Foundation's support over the next three years, troubled teens will have a chance to turn their time away from school into a positive experience. Instead of being at home or on the street and isolated without any kind of guidance, they will have access to personal counselling, and the support and care they need to address the real issues they are facing, giving them a chance to succeed as they return to school. With the support of The Cowan Foundation, thousands of at-risk youth from six YMCA Associations and over a dozen communities across the country in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Newfoundland will have the support and resources they need to stay in school.
"Donors like The Cowan Foundation make all the difference to the lives of young people by helping them realize their full potential in school and in life. Day in and day out, we hear things like "Now, I know I am able to succeed." And parents who tell us "I saw a difference in his life and at home." We also hear it from the schools that the students attend, where teachers tell us that kids that have been suspended are able to come back to school and not be suspended again," notes Stephane Vaillancourt, President and CEO, The YMCAs of Quebec. "We are deeply grateful to The Cowan Foundation. By encouraging an at-risk student to stay in school, The Cowan Foundation makes a major investment in reducing Canada's dropout rate and changing young lives forever."
Year over year the YMCA Alternative Suspension Program has proven its effectiveness. 85% of youth in the program were able to return to school and avoid future suspension following their participation. Last year alone, the program helped more than 3,000 students in more than 30 communities in six provinces across Canada. 150,000 hours of support from program youth workers helped them become more resilient, reduce their troublesome behaviour, avoid future suspensions, and improve their academic results.
To reach this many kids, the YMCAs across the country work closely with parents, teachers, school and community partners and depend on the generous support of donors like The Cowan Foundation.
"A fundamental value of The Cowan Foundation is to support transformational programs for at-risk children and youth to help build life skills and expand leadership capabilities," says Heather McLachlin, President, Cowan Insurance Group. "We're committed to making a difference in the lives of Canadians, investing in the future of our youth, and building better communities. The YMCA Alternative Suspension program has proven success in these areas and we look forward to bringing this program to more communities across Canada."
"The YMCA is proud to work with Cowan Insurance Group and The Cowan Foundation, who continue to demonstrate their aim of building healthier communities in Canada through their ongoing support of the YMCA's work. Their support for the YMCA Alternative Suspension program will improve the overall health and well-being of teens across the country, and help to build future leaders for our communities," says Peter Dinsdale, President and CEO, YMCA Canada.
About the YMCA in Canada
YMCA Canada is the national office providing support to a federation of 48 independent YMCA Associations that collectively represent one of Canada's longest standing and largest charitable networks. We serve more than 2.1 million people annually, with a special focus on children, teens and young adults. The YMCA's mandate is to advance the health and well-being of Canadians in spirit, mind and body. Across the country, YMCA Member Associations are providing vital community services that are having a positive impact on some of Canada's most pressing issues including chronic disease, unemployment, early childhood education, social isolation, poverty, inequality and more.
We offer wrap around programs that help Canadians become physically active, better connected to their communities, and equipped with the skills needed to achieve success in work and life. By addressing the social determinants of health, we are playing an essential role in the building of a healthier Canada today and for generations to come. For more information, please visit ymca.ca.
About the YMCAs of Quebec
The YMCAs of Quebec is a charitable organization that builds stronger communities by providing opportunities for everyone to lead fulfilling, active, healthy and engaged lives. Its 10 YMCA centres, International Language School, Residence, Camp YMCA Kanawana and its 40 service sites across the province are visited each year by more than 120,000 people. The first YMCA in North America was founded in Montreal in November 1851. The YMCAs of Quebec is part of the Canadian network of 48 YMCA associations. For more information, visit ymcaquebec.org or our Facebook and Twitter pages.
About the Cowan Foundation
The Cowan Foundation was started in 1995 in honour of Frank Cowan, the founder of Frank Cowan Company and Cowan Insurance Group. The Foundation is sustained by the ongoing success of the Princeton Holdings group of companies including Cowan Insurance Group (and its subsidiaries: The Williamson Group, Millennium CreditRisk Management, Wentworth Financial Services and Cowan Financial Solutions), Frank Cowan Company, The Guarantee Company of North America and Cowan Asset Management. Together they provide insurance and risk management products and services for individuals, businesses, organizations and public entities as well as assist employers with their group benefits, retirement and health and disability management plans. The goal of The Cowan Foundation is to make a positive difference in the lives of Canadians and the broader well-being of our communities. www.cowanfoundation.ca
SOURCE YMCA
For further information: Nathalie Viora, Manager, YMCA Campaign Communications - YMCAs of Quebec Foundation, 514 849-5331, #1215, [email protected]; Maggie Hall, Communications Specialist, Cowan Insurance Group, 519 650-6363, #31333, 1-866-912-6926, #31333, [email protected]
Elon Musk says humans need to merge with machines to become a sort of cyborg. Over time I think we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence, Musk told an audience at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he also launched Tesla in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Its mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output.
Musk explained what he meant by saying that computers can communicate at a trillion bits per second, while humans, whose main communication method is typing with their fingers via a mobile device, can do about 10 bits per second.
In an age when AI threatens to become widespread, humans would be useless, so theres a need to merge with machines, according to Musk.
Some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem, Musk explained.
The technologists proposal would see a new layer of a brain able to access information quickly and tap into artificial intelligence.
Driverless cars will happen faster than people realize
During his talk, Musk touched upon his fear of deep AI which goes beyond driverless cars to what he called artificial general intelligence. This he described as AI that is smarter than the smartest human on earth and called it a dangerous situation.
While this might be some way off, the Tesla boss said the more immediate threat is how AI, particularly autonomous cars, which his own firm is developing, will displace jobs. He said the disruption to people whose job it is to drive will take place over the next 20 years, after which 12 to 15 percent of the global workforce will be unemployed.
The most near term impact from a technology standpoint is autonomous cars That is going to happen much faster than people realize and its going to be a great convenience, Musk said.
Tesla launches electric cars in Dubai
Tesla has started selling its luxury electric cars in Dubai, marking its first foray into the Middle East.
Sales of luxury cars in the Gulf states are among the highest in the world per capita, although some brands have suffered as lower oil prices have dampened consumer demand.
California-based Tesla is accepting online orders from customers in the United Arab Emirates, a pop-up store in the Dubai Mall and a Tesla service center being built on Dubais Sheikh Zayed Road, which is due to open in July.
Founder Elon Musk said on Monday that Tesla will open a store and service center in Abu Dhabi in 2018 and plans to expand to Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Musk declined to elaborate on his wider plans or timeline for expansion outside the UAE at a press conference in Dubai.
Telsas prices start from 275,000 dirhams ($74,884) for its Model S, which has a range of 632 km from a single charge and 344,000 dirhams for the Model X, which can travel up to 565 km.
Customers who take delivery of the cars, which will begin in July of this year, will be able to charge their vehicles at home or at 28 locations across the UAE, which Tesla hopes to increase to 50 by the end of the year.
Outside the U.S., Teslas website says it is in Mexico, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan.
While a new naval future fleet architecture study from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) suggests that the U.S. Navy should maintain a fleet of 12 full-sized supercarriers, the paper also suggests that the service should develop a new class of light carriers. In the interim, while the new aircraft carriers are being developed, large deck amphibious assault ships could fill the role of the smaller flattops.
The United States faces a very different set of security challenges than it has since the Cold War. Great power competitors such as China and Russia improved their military capabilities over the last two decades while America focused on Middle East insurgencies, and now appear willing to challenge the international order. They are likely to replace transnational terrorism in the near future as the primary concern of U.S. military planners. Gaining an advantage in great power competitions, deterring aggression, and reassuring allies will require changes to the ships, aircraft, weapons, sensors, basing, and readiness processes of U.S. naval forces, which essentially operated unopposed since the Berlin Wall fell. CSBAs Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the United States Navy explores those implications and proposes a new fleet construct for the U.S. Navy to pursue over the next two decades.
The Navy will need to take a new approach to deterring great power competitors than it did against regional powers such as Iraq. This new approach will also require innovative operating concepts, adaptive force packages, and a more distributed and robust naval posture that emphasizes effectiveness over efficiency. Together, new ways of operating, new deployment approaches, and new force packages require a larger and more diverse fleet of ships, aircraft, and unmanned systems. If the U.S. Navy does not pursue such a new architecture, by the 2030s the United States may not be able to effectively compete with great powers such as China and Russia or even regional powers such as Iran. This will undermine its alliance relationships, its economic health, and ultimately its place as an exceptional country.
New conventional carriers would be roughly the same size as the World War II-vintage Midway-classas they were configured toward the end of their service livesand would carry a formidable air wing. Initially, the new carrier strike groups would be equipped the Lockheed Martin F-35B, but once the new CVLs are built and are operational, they would be able to embark more capable air wings.
In the near-term, existing LHA/LHD amphibious assault ships would be employed as CVLs using a loadout of twenty to twenty-five F-35B aircraft. As they reach the end of their service life, LHA/LHD-derived CVLs would be replaced by purpose-built CVLs with a displacement similar to a Cold War-era Midway-class aircraft carrier and equipped with catapults and arresting gear, the report states. As a result, CVL air wings would be able to become slightly larger and incorporate airborne electronic attack (AEA) and airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft that are catapult-launched and require an arrested landing.
In February 2016, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Vice President and Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum appointed Shamma Al Mazrui as the countrys youth minister. (how old is Nigeria's youth minister, again? lol). The announcement officially made 22-year-old Mazrui the worlds youngest minister. Her appointment came two years after graduating from the New York University (NYU), Abu Dhabi with a degree in Economics, and just after shed earned her Masters from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.Mazrui was selected to lead the countrys younger generation and forge links between them and the countrys public entities.
Investigations have revealed that the Delta State Government paid former Governor James Ibori N250m while he was in jail in the United Kin...
Investigations have revealed that the Delta State Government paid former Governor James Ibori N250m while he was in jail in the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2016.The former Delta State governor was convicted on February 27 2012, after pleading guilty to 10 counts of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud at a Southwark Crown Court, London.The law makes provision for an ex-governor to be paid N50m per year among other perks.According to punch, calculations showed that for the five years Ibori spent in the UK prison, he was paid N250m by the state government.Confirming the report, the Delta State Government on Saturday said it was legal for it to honour the laws of the state by paying severance packages and other entitlements ascribed to former governors and deputies including Ibori.The state government said it would be flouting the law if it decided not to pay the former governor.Speaking through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa said on Saturday that if the state government was owing Ibori his severance package, the government would clear the backlogs as clearly stipulated by law.
Former Special Adviser to Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on Electronic Media, Reno Omokri has urged Nigerian critics of President Muhamm...
Give @MBuhari his due. When opposition becomes hatred or death wish, it stops being Godly and becomes satanic. I am an opponent not a hater. February 13, 2017
I salute both Presidents @realDonaldTrump and @MBuhari for their call which expressed a willingness to boost US/Nigeria relations. February 13, 2017
Former Special Adviser to Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on Electronic Media, Reno Omokri has urged Nigerian critics of President Muhammadu Buhari not to allow their hate for the president affect their love for Nigeria.Omokri gave the advise while commending the presidential call between U.S President, Donald Trump and Nigerias President, Muhammadu Buhari today. According to Omokri said the call by the two presidents expressed a willingness to boost US/Nigeria relations.
Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state, has alleged that Ali Modu Sheriff, his predecessor, played into the hands of Boko Haram insurgen...
Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state, has alleged that Ali Modu Sheriff, his predecessor, played into the hands of Boko Haram insurgents.Delivering a keynote address at the 2017 Murtala Muhammed memorial lecture in Abuja on Monday, Shettima blamed Sheriff for mismanaging the situation that led to the rise of Boko Haram.I have restrained myself from blaming the previous government for the emergence of Boko Haram, but the fact of the matter is that Ali Modu Sheriff, the former governor, allowed his ego to stand in the way of a dispute between the army and followers of Mohammed Yusuf, he said.Ali Modu Sheriff mismanaged the crisis by ignoring the situation, and he played into the hands of the insurgents.Shettima also alleged that former President Goodluck Jonathan did not understand the Boko Haram crisis until March 2013.The Boko Haram crisis became intense in 2011 when Jonathan began his term as president.He said conspiracy theories such as Boko Haram being sponsored by the northerners to destabilise the government on the insurgency encumbered Jonathan from taking proactive measures to end the crisis.I think before President Jonathans fact-finding mission, he didnt understand the Boko Haram crisis until March 2013, he said.The governor said Boko Haram had inflicted damages of about $9bn on the north-east, and that it would take concerted effort to rebuild the region.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has said he will, like other consumers, be more resistant to payment of e...
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has said he will, like other consumers, be more resistant to payment of electricity bill if there is no supply.Fashola said this on Monday at the 12th Monthly Power Sector and Stakeholders Meeting in Ibadan hosted by Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company.Power generation in the country has worsened in recent weeks after hitting the 4,000 megawatts mark in December last year, with many consumers without prepaid meters complaining about over-estimated bills despite the dip in supply.Commenting on the problems in the power sector, the minister said sabotage of gas assets and pipelines had decommissioned power plants and their ability to provide up to 3,000 megawatts of power.He said, The 3,500MW to 3,800MW that we have been able to keep on the grid over the last few months will be assisted greatly if we can have the gas pipelines back and add 3,000MW to it. That means we will be able to deliver well over 6,000MW if the gas pipelines are safe.Fashola said the sabotage had also created debt and liquidity problems, shortfall in power expectation, and in revenue recovery by power distribution firms.Consumers are more resistant to payment when they dont have electricity, and I will be, too, and you will be too, he told the power investors and other stakeholders at the meeting.We see that they (consumers) pay more when the power is more stable. Of course, there are issues also at the retail end metering, estimated bills.Noting that all stakeholders have different roles to play in solving the problems, the minister said, You will see that government has begun to act. The Vice President, representing the President, is going round those Niger Delta communities, engaging them more openly, more robustly.The idea is to bring them to the table to stop the vandalism while the issues that agitate them can be treated and resolved. I believe that if we are successful as we expect to be, we should be able to, sometimes, this year recover all the 3,000MW that has been lost to gas pipeline outages.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday described the loss of the 2015 general election as a temporary setback for the Peoples Democr...
Former President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday described the loss of the 2015 general election as a temporary setback for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).Speaking when he hosted stakeholders of the party at his Abuja residence, Jonathan said he was happy with the plans of the party to regain the presidency.He said the PDP remains the strongest political party in Nigeria, and that every other party knows that PDP is leading.Yes we lost the presidential election but that doesnt diminish us. Every other party still knows that PDP is a leading party, he said.Losing the presidency is something temporary. We should be able to get that position back as long as we are able to get our acts together.I am happy that you people are working towards that.He said he had the strong belief that for a nation to grow, its institutions must be very strong.Making reference to the courts rejection of President Donald Trumps executive order, Jonathan said such a measure is needed in Nigeria at the moment.There is no way a nation will grow with weak institutions, because everything about politics is about the people, not about the individuals, he said.As long you are interested in the people, you are interested in the growth of the society and the development of the nation.The only thing that will make this possible is that the institutions must be strong.As powerful as America is, President Donald Trump took a decision and the court said `No you cant do this and of course, they have to shut down the decision to move forward.That is the strength of an institution. That is the only way individuals could be regulated so that you can grow.The former president also said direct primary, especially under presidential system of government, was the ultimate and best way of selecting candidates for elections.However, he said the greatest problem was how to manage the direct primaries.Jonathan said for a party like PDP, with true membership across all polling units, it meant that voting would take place at wards or local government levels.The best way to stop imposition is to make sure that people dont control the delegates, he said.How to select delegate is that at least 70 percent of the delegates should not be under the control of anybody.Jonathan said if the party could not do direct primary, it should make sure that it increased the number of statutory delegates with people who had held elected or party offices at different levels.He said the party could come up with criteria where its national chairman, state chairmen, senators and others in offices that controlled the government were made statutory delegates.All these group of people if they are still in the party should be automatic delegates, he said.These are people that are known by everybody and nobody can go and manipulate them or their names.By the time we have a reasonable number of statutory delegates who are more than 75 per cent of total delegates that will vote, then, it will be difficult for somebody to go and manipulate the list.Jonathan commended the committee for the report as well as the caretaker committee under the leadership of Ahmed Makarfi, a former governor.This is the only way to strengthen political parties. It is a clear sign that PDP will win in 2019, he said.Presenting the report earlier, Jerry Ghana, chairman of the committee, said they had submitted the report to the party leadership on Tuesday and were directed to submit a copy to the former president.Gana said the report contained thoughtful recommendations that would help PDP to be strong and win future elections.
Wife of the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State, Mrs Rachael Dickson arrived Yenagoa on Sunday with her quadruplets.
Wife of the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State, Mrs Rachael Dickson arrived Yenagoa on Sunday with her quadruplets.Governor Dickson and the good people of Bayelsa received them at the King of Glory Chapel and rounded up in their official residence in Government House.Rachael Dickson gave birth to quadruplets; a baby boy and three baby girls in the United States of America last year after several years of marriage.See photos:
South African Presidency has confirmed a request from the White House for a telecon between President Zuma and President Trump this aftern...
South African Presidency has confirmed a request from the White House for a telecon between President Zuma and President Trump this afternoon.It was earlier reported that United States President, Donald Trump will today speak by phone to Nigerian president Buhari at 3:45 pm (Lagos time) or 2:45pm London time; then speak to Jacob Zuma.Trump is expected to speak with President Jacob Zuma immediately after speaking with President Muhammadu Buhari but none of the Presidency handler on social media has confirmed the phone meeting.Nigerians are also wondering - who will receive the call - Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo or President Muhamamdu Buhari who is currently on medical vacation in UK.
This was made known by Majeks manager, Uzoma Day Omenka, who disclosed that the two artistes will be meeting in court before the end of March,
after they return from a trip to the United Kingdom.
We are not taking this case lightly. We are just awaiting the arrival of our solicitors from the U.S., and the UK then we will hit the courts. For crying out loud, this guy is making money from itunes and he did what he did because he thinks in Nigeria, anything goes. If he can prove as he claimed that he paid for the use of the song and he can show concrete proof of it then he will go free, but if not, we will definitely meet in court he said.
Earlier before now during a courtesy visit to a local media house in January 2017, Majeks manager disclosed how angry he was with Timi Dakolo, who he said had no respect for the music legend;
Timi remixed the song without the knowledge of Majek Fashek, during that period that I was in the US. When I came back I heard the song on iTunes where people were downloading it and they were making money, I was surprised. As a sign of respect he would have come to meet the legend because the song is not an ordinary song.
When we asked Timi what happened, he said he spoke with the manager. I was now asking, who is the manager? Am I not the manager and didnt he speak with me? People started saying all kinds of things thinking I knew something about the it.
On the hand, Majek Fashek who was asked what he thought about the whole issue, said; Well, I dont want to talk about young artistes, he is a kid. Let my manager speak on that.
Timi Dakolo who reacted to the accusation in 2016 when he was notified wrote;
My people, it saddens me to see such. I always try to do things rightly and lawfully.
I paid his manager to remake the song, I got my invoice, I even mentioned to him during our rehearsals at the Headies. So, honestly I dont understand this write-up.
Oga Majek Fashek. I respect and love you. Your voice gives life to lyrics. You are one of the best musicians I know. God bless you.
Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano state, says President Muhammadu Buhari's sickness should not be used as propaganda material.
Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano state, says President Muhammadu Buhari's sickness should not be used as propaganda material.The Governor told journalists in Kano state that Buhari deserves a good rest.We pray for the president to be back home safely. His sickness was not an agenda and could not also be an agenda?, so you see the issue is, he said.I know Nigeria is a big country with multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi everything that you can think about, so is easy to politicise issues that are not supposed to be politicised.What we believe is that everybody can get sick. So you want to us to start calling him while he is sick, he needs some rest. If he is to talk with every governor, why is he there to get treatment and rest?People seize the opportunity to talk rubbish. Some are not wishing him well, so they are expressing their mind that he is sick, he is this and he is that. But he wrote formally that he would go for a vacation and medical treatment. So what kind of information are we looking more than that?
Security agencies are probing alleged espionage on Nigeria by Turkey
Security agencies are probing alleged espionage on Nigeria by TurkeyDiyanet, Turkeys Directorate of Religious Affairs, has been implicated in the alleged espionage.Maarif Foundation, set up by the Turkish government, has been placed under watch.The probe followed a petition to the National Security Adviser( NSA), Gen. Babagana Monguno.The Turkish government has been uncomfortable with the refusal of the Federal Government to clampdown on the followers of United States-based Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gulen.His Hismet Movement established the Nile University and some colleges in the country.The espionage have been targeted at the Movement.A security source said: Security agencies have been grappling with the after effects of the internal politics in Turkey. This involves counter-claims on alleged sabotage and the Hismet Movement.We are now in receipt of a petition on alleged espionage activities in Nigeria by the Turkish government. We are investigating this allegation which may be true or not.But the petitioner asked the Federal Government to take action urgently to avoid any breach of security.The petition reads: Turkey has also been undermining Nigerias sovereignty by engaging in acts of espionage through Diyanet, the countrys Directorate of Religious Affairs. On the directives of the Turkish government, Diyanet has been engaging in spying activities through some Imams in Nigeria, Germany and 36 other countries.Whereas this criminal activity is purportedly aimed at tracking the activities of the followers of US-based Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gulen, chances are that Turkey could well be leveraging on that fact to partake in other acts of espionage that may undermine or threaten our national interest.Hurriyet Daily News, a major newspaper that fully supports the policies and actions of Turkish President Erdogan, published this disturbing news on its website: www.hurriyet dailynews.com.Though the publication is now almost a month old, the Turkish government has not issued a rebuttal, which means the story is true.Germany, being one of the countries spied on, is not taking the matter lightly. It has since commissioned an investigation into the matter.Nigeria and other African countries mentioned in the report should waste no time in doing same.In the petition, Turkey is also accused of setting up Maarif Foundation for covert religious activities.The petition said: In 2015, the government of Turkey set up the Maarif Foundation with the dubious objective of taking over foreign investments of Turkish nationals that the government of Turkey disagrees with.On the surface, Maarif has deliberately been made to look inviting and noble, with the stated intention of granting scholarships to Muslims from poor homes.But our investigation has shown that that is only a bait. In a recent partnership Turkey struck with Saudi Arabia, the funding of Maarif Foundation is going to be taken over by the Islamic Development Bank and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in an unholy alliance that is bound to negatively affect the new world order.In exchange for the funding it is going to provide, Saudi Arabia is going to latch on the opportunity to introduce to unsuspecting Nigerians, the extreme concepts of Wahabism and Salafism, with all the dire implication of that.We wonder how a leader that styles himself as a Caliph will order for the detention of an innocent Nigerian young Muslim woman, Miss Rukayya Usman, in a cell with men, for the ridiculous offence of attending a school belonging to his political opponents.This was on September 26, last year at 8am, when Miss Usman, a student of political science and international relations of Malikseh University, arrived at Istanbul Airport as a student.
President of the United States of America, Donald Trump is scheduled to speak with President Muhammadu Buhari on phone on Monday, February...
Today is "Africa day" for Donald Trump. He speaks by phone to Nigerian president Buhari at 3:45 pm (Lagos time); then speaks to Jacob Zuma. Geoffrey York (@geoffreyyork) February 13, 2017
Trump scheduled to speak by phone to Zuma today at 5:10 pm, after speaking to Buhari first. Geoffrey York (@geoffreyyork) February 13, 2017
President of the United States of America, Donald Trump is scheduled to speak with President Muhammadu Buhari on phone on Monday, February 13, according to reports.Trump will have a telephone conversation with Buhari at 3:45 pm, according to the Africa correspondent for Globe and Mail, Geoffrey York.Today is "Africa day" for Donald Trump. He speaks by phone to Nigerian president Buhari at 3:45 pm (Lagos time); then speaks to Jacob Zuma, York wrote on Twitter.Trump scheduled to speak by phone to Zuma today at 5:10 pm, after speaking to Buhari first.Buhari's phone call with Trump today will be fascinating; many Nigerians frustrated that Buhari has been gone from Nigeria for over 3 weeks.Nigerians, having heard almost nothing from Buhari for 24 days, are wondering how Donald Trump will even locate him for the phone call today, he said.President Buhari is presently on medical vacation in the United Kingdom and the presidency is yet to confirm this all important call with Donald Trump.
US President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon spoke with President Muhammadu Buhari in a telephone conversation.
US President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon spoke with President Muhammadu Buhari in a telephone conversation.Trump invited Buhari, who is currently in London on vacation, to come to Washington DC at a mutually convenient date, presidency sources informed newsmen.Buhari congratulated Trump on his election as US president and the two leaders highlighted areas to improve cooperation in the fight against terrorism.The Nigerian president specifically requested support for arms an area that has frustrated the country because of negative human rights reports on the activities of Nigerian soldiers in the north-east.Trump also commended the president for the rescue 25 of the Chibok girls, the presidency source said.The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina described the conversation between the two leaders as cordial.He quoted Buhari as congratulating Trump on his election as the US President and on his cabinet.The presidential spokesman said the two leaders discussed ways to improve cooperation in the fight against terrorism through provision of necessary equipment.The statement read, President Trump encouraged President Buhari to keep up the good work he is doing, and also commended him for the efforts made in rescuing 24 of the Chibok girls and the strides being taken by the Nigerian military.President Trump assured the Nigerian President of US readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism.President Trump also invited President Buhari to Washington at a mutually convenient date.
Professor Remi Sonaiya , the presidential candidate of Kowa Party and the only female candidate in the 2015 general election, has reacted ...
Professor Remi Sonaiya , the presidential candidate of Kowa Party and the only female candidate in the 2015 general election, has reacted to President Donald Trump's proposed call to President Muhammadu Buhari.President Buhari will this afternoon in the United Kingdom receive a call from his US Counterpart, Donald Trump at his London residence, according to Bashir Ahmad, Presidential aide on social media.The 61-year old professor of French and Applied linguistics said Nigerians have been waiting for days, hoping the President will talk to them but he is ready to speak with United States President, Mr. Trump.She said: We hear President @MBuhari will speak on the phone with Mr. Trump today. Meanwhile, WE have been waiting for days, hoping he'd talk to us!.President Muhammadu Buhari's phone conversation will Donald Trump will once again confirm to Nigerians that the president is hale and hearty on vacation.
US President Donald Trump vowed Monday to deliver a strong response a day after North Korea announced it had successfully tested a new b...
US President Donald Trump vowed Monday to deliver a strong response a day after North Korea announced it had successfully tested a new ballistic missile.We have problems that a lot of people have no idea how bad they are, how serious they are, Trump told a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at his side.Obviously, North Korea is a big, big problem, he said. And we will deal with that very strongly.He was speaking hours before an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council called to address Sundays test, which was seen as a challenge to Trumps new US administration.
The content of the meeting between Bola Tinubu and President Buhari in London has been revealed.
The content of the meeting between Bola Tinubu and President Buhari in London has been revealed.Tinubu said that Buhari expressed worry over the hardship in Nigeria and ask everyone to contribute their quota to solve the problem."Mr President is aware that hes losing supporters due to the troubling economic situation and wants his friends and associates to help come up with solutions that could assist government navigate the challenges and get Nigeria out of recession and improve the lives of Nigerians."
TETERBORO -- U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez will join with animal welfare advocates on Monday to oppose the removal of animal handling records from a federal website - a move they say will allow puppy mills and other animal abusers to go undetected.
Menendez and representatives of the Humane Society, the Animal Protection League of New Jersey, and the Best Friends animal welfare society will gather at the Bergen County Animal Shelter in Teterboro, in reaction to the removal of records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's website involving the care and treatment of animals by dealers and other handlers.
New Jersey is one of seven jurisdictions, including New York City, to require that puppies, kittens, horses and other animals only be sold by vendors that are registered with the USDA and have no outstanding animal welfare violations.
Animal welfare advocates say deletion of the data from the USDA website on Feb. 3 makes it difficult if not impossible for would-be purchasers to confirm that handlers meet those requirements.
Menendez and animal welfare advocates will discuss initiatives intended to offset the move. An advisory by Menendez mentioned, "the Trump Administration's purging of vital information from government websites, including data and inspection reports on breeders who abuse their animals."
However, the USDA posted a statement on its website saying the removal of the information was part of a review that began in 2016, under the Obama Administration, to address privacy concerns and litigation, "well before the change of Administration."
And, the USDA said the information was removed out of "an abundance of caution," and that "these decisions are not final."
In the meantime, the USDA said, the records could still be made available through freedom of information requests.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
BEDFORD, Mass. -- A small plane with five people aboard aborted takeoff and slid off a runway at a Massachusetts airport.
No injuries were reported.
Authorities say the accident happened at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Hanscom Field in Bedford, about 20 miles northwest of Boston. Officials say the flight was headed to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.
Officials say the twin-engine jet slid into a grassy area off the runway.
It wasn't immediately clear if the snowstorm on Sunday played a role.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.
HACKENSACK -- Hundreds of protestors gathered on the Bergen County courthouse steps Sunday to object to President Donald Trump's recent travel ban targeting seven majority-Muslim countries.
The event, billed as an event to come together "to defend our values" was organized by Bergen County Concerned Citizens and was similar to previous protests in the area in that it attracted a large, diverse group of residents, some of whom stood in the crowd holding signs condemning Trump's policies.
"Neither sleet, not rain will keep us from speaking up and speaking out," said Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen).
As the rain continued to fall, a number of community activists and elected officials took the stage and the crowd continued to grow with many of those in attendance standing in the snow to get a better view.
"The men and women of Bergen are here united," said County Executive James Tedesco. "We are united with you."
The crowd broke out in chants, including, "no hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here" while some were speaking, such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th Dist.)
There was confusion throughout the country's airports, including Newark Liberty International, after Trump announced he was banning people from seven countries from coming to the United States.
Marqueritha Clarke, 57 of Teaneck, was born in the Netherlands, but came to the United States in 1972 from Canada.
After being here so many years, she said she considers herself a New Yorker, but says she's noticing a trend of his rhetoric causing hatred to flow throughout the country.
"This country was made with immigrants," Clarke said. "I don't think he knows what he's doing."
Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.
UPDATE: Police unsure if specific residents targeted in KKK leafleting
CINNAMINSON -- Residents of two Burlington County communities awoke Sunday to find literature from the Ku Klux Klan at their doorsteps, CBS Philly reported.
The fliers -- printed on white paper and placed inside plastic bags weighed down with brown rice -- urged Cinnaminson and Maple Shade residents to "love your own race" and to "stop homosexuality and race mixing," according to the report.
The fliers reportedly were found along both Lenola Road in Cinnaminson and South Boulevard Avenue in Maple Shade, the report said.
Maple Shade police received a complaint about the KKK messages from a resident and found additional fliers at homes and a closed business, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.
It was unclear how many residents had received the fliers. The New Jersey chapter of the NAACP has condemned the fliers as a hate crime, the report said.
How would you react? Some neighbors in Cinnaminson are finding these KKK fliers in their driveways. I'll have the story tonight @CBSPhilly. pic.twitter.com/SKfw6G8ns7 Anita Oh (@anita_oh) February 12, 2017
Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
boozle_CrazyMedBills_miller_10.JPG
Jim Quinn reviews the bills from his emergency room visit.
(Andrew Miller/for NJ Advance Media)
Jim Quinn had an eventful bicycle ride in August.
While riding near his home, he fell. A passing motorist called 911 and Quinn's wife.
North Caldwell police arrived quickly, Quinn said.
"I was in pain but lucid and declined their suggestion for an ambulance," he said.
His wife arrived on the scene and was prepared to drive him to Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, which was about 5 miles away. But police called for an ambulance and insisted it take him to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson, more than 10 miles away.
The township ambulance was unavailable, Quinn said, so a third-party ambulance company arrived. It transported Quinn to St. Joseph's.
Quinn said he was thoroughly and quickly examined at the hospital, with two residents in charge of his care.
He was diagnosed with a broken left wrist and a broken right clavicle. The clavicle didn't need treatment, but the residents said they would set Quinn's wrist and release him once they got the okay from the physician, Quinn said.
The treatment was completed and Quinn was released that afternoon.
When the explanation of benefits statements came in from his insurance company, UnitedHealthcare (UHC), Quinn was shocked by the cost of his care, he said.
The redacted orthopedist bill for "surgery" that Jim Quinn said he didn't have.
There were several charges: a hospital charge for $7,349, two ambulance charges totaling $3,745, and a $15,833 charge for the orthopedist with another $1,500 for related services.
The total cost was nearly $30,000.
Almost all of the bills were covered by Quinn's insurance. He said he received extensive attention when he first arrived - that was the $7,349 hospital charge. But the nearly $16,000 charge for the orthopedist, he said, seemed excessive for what amounted to a splint on a broken wrist applied by the two residents. UHC paid, actually sending Quinn a check to remit to the provider because it was an out-of-network doctor.
Quinn looked more closely at the bills.
The $15,833 charge from the orthopedist was labeled "surgery."
"Since I did not have surgery, I expected that this was a billing error," Quinn said. "Wrong."
He said he called the orthopedic practice to ask about the charge, and he was told it was for the doctor consulting at the hospital.
But Quinn never saw the doctor in the emergency room, he said he told the rep. He was told again the charge was correct.
He called UHC next.
"They defended the payment as 'usual, customary and reasonable,'" Quinn said. "They were not persuaded that nearly $16,000 for looking at X-rays and concurring with the residents' view of the diagnosis was an unreasonable charge."
The rep said Quinn could challenge the payment in an appeal.
So he did, and he informed the orthopedic group and the ambulance company he was disputing the charges.
UHC responded on Nov. 22, saying his concerns "do not qualify as an appeal."
But his correspondence would be directed to the correct -- but unnamed -- department, the letter said, and he would receive a response from them.
"I think the charges are outrageous and shed light on the dismal state of escalating medical costs," Quinn said. "My interest here is to bring some focus on the Byzantine costing structure for medical charges."
He asked Bamboozled to look more closely.
LOOKING CLOSER
We reviewed Quinn's bills, insurance statements and timeline of events.
Quinn was right to question the charges, patient advocates said.
Studies show nearly half of hospital bills have errors, said Caitlin Donovan of the National Patient Advocate Foundation.
A recent study by New Jersey Policy Perspective found surprise out-of-network bills cost 168,000 consumers an average of $2,500 a year.
Donovan said Quinn could have refused the ambulance and as long as the paramedics didn't work on him, he wouldn't have been charged.
"Otherwise, that seems like the horrific medical equivalent of ordering 20 pizzas to your neighbor's house," she said.
Cynthia Lucas, senior director of anti-fraud initiatives for the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, saw something unusual with the ambulance bills.
The ambulance company charged $850 for basic life support, or BLS, on one claim. The second claim charged $2,395 for advanced life support, or ALS.
"Advanced life support seems excessive for a broken wrist," Lucas said, noting the definition of ALS from Johns Hopkins: "continuous IV medicine," "any patient on a cardiac monitor," "patients with potential airway compromise," obstetrical patients or those from urgent care centers.
Quinn said he thinks he was on a morphine drip but he wasn't sure.
"Billing ALS when BLS is more appropriate is a common scheme," Lucas said, noting she doesn't know exactly what care Quinn needed. "If only one ambulance trip occurred, it is highly inappropriate to bill both ALS and BLS. It would definitely be double billing, at the least."
Both bills had the same $250 charge for mileage, but alas, Quinn's wife drove him home from the hospital.
On to the charge for "surgery" that wasn't really "surgery."
Quinn said he couldn't find the Current Procedural Technology code, or CPT code, for his "surgery" charge on the statements.
Different codes for treatment, and the different prices for each, can be confusing. One study Donovan cited found wide disparities in charges at different facilities for the same procedure. Another study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health found emergency room charges for a sprain ranged from $4 to $24,110. That's not a typo.
"This type of unpredictability undoubtedly has an extreme, adverse effect on both patients and the entire health system," Donovan said.
Lucas said not all surgical codes include the actual cutting into the patient.
"Some surgical codes describe procedures, such as resetting/casting a broken wrist," she said.
Lucas reached out to UHC's special investigations unit on Quinn's behalf.
The insurance company said the "surgery" charge was coded as a consultation, which falls under the surgery codes, and was "paid correctly."
It said it is still looking at the ambulance charges.
So it's now six months since Quinn's accident, and Quinn still doesn't have a resolution.
With the delays, he had to take action to avoid collections.
He deposited the $17,333 insurance check for the orthopedist and related services in a separate account for safekeeping while waiting for an answer. In late January, he sent the orthopedist $3,000 to stop collection threats, he said.
Also in late January, Quinn paid the $600 and $264.50 he owed for the two separate ambulance charges.
His out-of-pocket costs for the emergency room totaled $150.
And he's still waiting for an answer from UHC.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
The Patient Advocate Foundation provides free case management services to patients with chronic, debilitating conditions. Other patients can find help through Medical Billing Advocates of America at (855) 203-7058. You can also get help with Medicare claims from the Senior Medicare Patrol at (877) SMP-4359.
If you receive a bill you think is wrong or you can't afford, check these tips from Donovan of the Patient Advocate Foundation:
1. Contact your insurer. Ask about possible mistakes and how to resolve the issue.
2. Contact your provider. If it's a legal and legitimate charge, negotiate based on the Medicare rate or ask for a payment plan.
3. Stay updated on state laws. New Jersey legislators are fighting over bills to stop surprise medical bills.
4. Get everything in writing. You will need to back up all your claims and make sure your bill doesn't go to collections.
5. Be patient. Disputing a bill can be a long process. Donovan said she only recently resolved one that took over a year.
Donovan said we need a system with greater transparency and with better consumer protections against surprise medical bills.
"Patients should be able to see exactly for what they're being charged; there should also be a clear and standardized system for contesting bills that could be made in error," she said. "These changes, coupled with greater consumer protections, would help bring down costs and promote fair pricing."
We'll keep you posted on Quinn's case.
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.
WEST CALDWELL -- A pilot seriously injured when a small plane crashed in a residential West Caldwell neighborhood last month lost power at about 100 feet off the ground shortly after takeoff.
New details about the Jan. 21 crash were released in a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary accident report issued last week.
The Hawker Beechcraft had been delayed at the Essex County Airport for inbound traffic and weather before taking off shortly before 12:45 p.m., according to the report.
The plane turned left, but experienced "a loss of engine power during the initial climb," the report said. It does not name a cause of the accident, which is still under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane crashed in a residential neighborhood and burst into flames about half a mile from the airport. The plane's left wing struck the roof of a warehouse, its nose hit trees, and the belly of the plane hit the ground, the report states.
The landing gear was down when the plane crashed, the investigation revealed. The plane's propeller was detached during the wreck, and the fire destroyed most of the cabin, the report said.
The pilot, who was rescued from the wreckage by local residents teaching a softball clinic nearby, was identified by NewJerseyHills.com as Dominick Cannavo, 57, of New York City.
The NTSB said the pilot received serious injuries in the crash. Local authorities at the time of the crash said he suffered from a broken leg and burns to his face and chest.
Officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on his condition Monday.
According to the NTSB report, the pilot had received a medical certificate in June 2016, and as of that report, had flown 1,430 hours. An NTSB spokesman declined to comment further on the report's findings.
The pilot, the only person on board, had planned to fly to White Plains, N.Y.
Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- The cache of guns found in a truck adorned with pro-Second Amendment rights messages after it was pulled over outside the Holland Tunnel last year can be used as evidence in the case against the three Pennsylvania residents who were in the vehicle, a judge ruled Monday.
Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez announced the decision in Superior Court in Hudson County after attorneys for the trio argued the evidence should be suppressed because they were pulled over unlawfully.
James Lisa, an attorney representing John Cramsey, the owner of the vehicle pulled over on June 21, 2016, said Monday that he understood the judge's decision, given the testimony of Port Authority police Officer John Bastile.
Bastile said in a January hearing that he stopped the trio's Dodge pickup because of a crack in the windshield and objects hanging from the rear view mirror that were obstructing the driver's view.
"I think that the judge made the correct decision under the circumstances," Lisa told a group of reporters after the hearing. "Do I think the officer was forthright in his testimony? No."
Cramsey declined to comment Monday.
The decision comes nearly eight months after Cramsey, 51, of East Greenville, Pa., Dean Smith, 53, Upper Milford Township, Pa., and Kimberly Arendt, 29, of Lehighton, Pa., were arrested outside the Holland Tunnel.
During the traffic stop, Bastile found five loaded handguns, a shotgun, an assault rifle, body armor, three bags of marijuana and a pipe inside the car.
All three were indicted in October on a total of 63 counts of weapons and drug possession. They remain free on bail.
The Dodge SUV authorities say the three people allegedly found with a cache of guns and body armor drove outside the Holland Tunnel on Tuesday sits in a Port Authority of New York & New Jersey impound lot. (Luke Nozicka | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
Attorneys for the trio have argued that truck was stopped because it was decorated with a large set of cross-hairs, the words "Higher Ground Tactical," and "We the People." The markings, the lawyers said, suggested to police that the occupants were gun-rights advocates who might be carrying weapons.
The judge disagreed with the lawyers' assertion that making the stop was a violation of search and seizure laws.
Basile testified that he first addressed Smith, who was driving, but that Cramsey interjected, telling him that the three were on their way to New York City, to rescue the teenage daughter of a Pennsylvania friend who was in a house where heroin was being abused. Bastile said Cramsey also told him that his daughter had died of an overdose, and that his son was an addict.
The girl the trio was on its way to save was 18-year-old Jenea Patterson, who later died of an apparent drug overdose at a hospital near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., according to her father, James Patterson.
At Monday's hearing, Cramsey wore a black suit with a purple ribbon pinned to his lapel in memory of Patterson.
A pair of Pennsylvania residents, Ted Hockfelder and Charles Wallace, were also on the courthouse steps to address reporters after the hearing, though not as Cramsey supporters.
Hockfelder said he had lost $100,000 investing in Cramsey's gun range, Higher Ground Tactical in Emmaus, Pa., while Wallace said he had suffered lead poisoning as an employee there due to poor ventilation.
Over the course of his arrest, detention and release, the two said they were fed up with Cramsey being portrayed in the media as some kind of folk hero defending teenagers from drugs and the Constitution from overzealous police.
"He's been conning people and stealing from people since he was 18 years old," said Hockfelder, 46, of Sinking Springs, Pa.
Cramsey's lawyer said his client had no comment on the accusations.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Paul Amico, who served at the mayor of Secaucus for over two decades, died on Thursday. He was 103.
(EJA)
SECAUCUS -- Paul Amico, who served as the mayor of Secaucus for over two decades, died on Thursday. He was 103.
Amico was born in New York and moved to Secaucus as a young boy. He was the owner of Paul's Diner up until he was 43 and decided to work in public service full time.
He was first elected mayor in 1964 and has been credited with turning Secaucus into a community oriented town separated from its commercial district.
Current Mayor Mike Gonnelli described Amico as being a man who was dedicated to serving Secaucus and did great planning to build the Meadowlands town.
"He was a great man," Gonnelli said. "He was a great mayor."
Since leaving office, the town has dedicated Paul Amico Way and a section of Secaucus High School in his honor. Gonnelli said he and the town council are planning to honor Amico is some capacity.
Following Gonnelli's first term election, Amico wrote a letter to The Jersey Journal where he described the important or supporting elected leaders.
"We must do our part to support our leaders, both by our words and our actions," he wrote in 2010. "Our goals should be for the betterment of our town, not ourselves. We must be patient, reasonable and honest in our demands of our government officials. And if we disagree, we can do so without being disagreeable."
Amico leaves behind two stepsons, eight nieces and nephews, 10 grandchildren, and 15 great grandchildren.
A wake will be held on Sunday and Monday from 4 to 9 p.m. at Mack Memorial Home in Secaucus. Funeral services are scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at Immaculate Conception Church, with the town's fire department expected to participate in the procession.
Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- Ask Suha Shaaban why she fled Syria more than two years ago and she responds with a simple answer.
"Missiles."
Shaaban, 35, escaped the war-ravaged Middle Eastern country with her husband and two children, settling in Jersey City's McGinley Square neighborhood 21 months ago. The increasing number of explosions in her home country was too much for her 9-year-old, autistic son, she told The Jersey Journal, speaking in Arabic through a translator.
"His condition worsened with all the bombing," Shaaban said.
Shaaban's family is one of about 40 refugee families from Syria who now call Jersey City home. They were welcomed at "friendship day," an event hosted by refugee aid group Church World Service to give the newly settled a chance to learn what resources are available to them, and to offer city residents a chance to meet the families that are at the center of a global controversy.
Held Saturday afternoon on the second floor of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sip Avenue, the event was a mix of fun and practical activities: for the kids, balloon animals and a photo booth; for the parents, information on how to be paired with an American family who can help them navigate life in the United States.
People were encouraged to write messages to the refugee families on a sheet of brown paper hanging in the hallway. "We welcome you with love & friendship," one person wrote.
There was some undeniable tension related to President Trump's recent executive order, which has been halted by a federal judge, that seeks to restrict refugee admittance and suspend it indefinitely for people fleeing Syria.
Lama Alargeh, who lives near Lincoln High School with her husband and four children, moved to Jersey City about a year and a half ago, after her house in Syria was bombed. After fleeing Syria she spent time in a refugee camp in Jordan.
Much of Alargeh's family remains in Syria, and she said, also speaking Arabic through a translator, that she worries about refugees in a state of limbo until the court battle over Trump's order ends.
"The people who stayed in Syria, they got used to the life there," she said. "But the people in the refugee camps need to be taken care of. Life in the refugee camp can be worse than life in Syria."
Trump on Jan. 27 issued an executive order suspending the nation's refugee program for 120 days; banning for 90 days visitors from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen; and indefinitely blocking all refugees from Syria. The president said the move was intended to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.
A federal judge on Feb. 3 granted the states of Washington and Minnesota a temporary restraining order on the travel ban, freezing the Trump order. In a unanimous decision on Feb. 9, a federal appeals panel upheld the judge's decision to suspend the ban, saying the government had not offered evidence that any immigrant from any of the countries named in the order had perpetrated any terrorist attack on the United States.
The United States admitted nearly 85,000 refugees last year, 12,587 from Syria. A smaller number came from Eritrea, an African nation in an ongoing conflict with neighboring Ethiopia. Teshome Berhe, 31, and Simret Woldemichael, 29, came to Jersey City from Eritrea with their 5-year-old daughter in December.
The couple, who spoke Tigrinya through translator Khulud Adam, said Jersey City residents have been welcoming to them. Asked whether Trump's action targeting refugees has them frightened, they said no.
"They've been through worse," Adam said.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
santos
Jenny Santos, 29, fell to her death at the World Trade Center Oculus Saturday morning.
(Courtesy of Bergen County Rowing Academy)
The Kearny woman who fell to her death was playing around on an escalator handrail at the World Trade Center's Oculus transit hub when she lost her balance, the New York Daily News reported.
Jenny Santos, 29, fell early Saturday morning when she and her sister were returning home at 5:30 a.m.
The Daily News reported that sources who had seen a video of the tragedy said Santos was lying on the banister of the escalator, as if she were flying. She then fell roughly 30 feet onto a marble floor.
Initially it was reported that Santos, a rowing instructor and Kearny High graduate, fell while trying to grab her sister's hat.
The source said the hat was still somehow involved but could not elaborate, the report said.
Port Authority police spokesman Joe Pentangelo said he could not confirm the Daily News account because he has hasn't seen the video. He said the tragedy is still under investigation.
The Daily News reported that the city's medical examiner said Santos died from "blunt-impact injuries to her head and torso."
torah scroll.jpg
Torah Scroll vandalized by the British during the Revolutionary War is on loan from Congregation Shearith Israel for the exhibit at the New York Historical Society.
(New York Historical Society)
"Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492." This is probably one of the historical facts known by most U.S. students. But what we may only be discovering is that Christopher Columbus may have been a secret Jew, who was trying to find a haven for Jews being persecuted by the Catholic Inquisition.
During the reign of the Catholic Monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Jews had four months to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain. Tens of thousands fled in 1492. They also created "ghettos" of closed quarters for Jews who paid increased taxes and faced other social restrictions.
Now historians believe faith may have been the motivation for Columbus to make his voyage across the Atlantic. They believe he was a Marrano, or a Jew who pretended to be a Catholic to avoid religious persecution, and sailed to North America in order to find a new homeland for Jews who had been forced out of Spain.
Tens of thousands of Marranos were targeted so keeping their identity secret was a must. Columbus followed certain Jewish customs and his real patrons may not have been the king and queen but two prominent Jews forced to convert to Catholicism, Louis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez.
With this backdrop, the New York Historical Society has mounted an exhibit, "The First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World," open until March 12, 2017. It tells the story of early Jewish participation in the cultural, social and political developments in the New World. Key among the literature, art, sculptures, maps, and historical documents are recently recovered manuscripts relating to a Mexican Inquisition victim, Luis de Carvajal. These are on public display for the first time.
Luis de Carvajal (ca. 1567-1596) autobiographical manuscripts with devotional manuscripts are part of the exhibit at the New York Historidal Society
These are considered the earliest extant Jewish books in the New World. "These exceptional documents and other materials in the exhibition underscore the long reach of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, which followed settlers of Jewish ancestry into the New World, forcing confessions and burning suspected 'Judaizers' at the stake," according to the Historical Society's description.
European Jews seeking religious freedom settled on the western shores of the New World until the Inquisition followed them across the ocean. In 1595, de Carvajal, a "converso" Jew in Mexico and the nephew of a prominent governor, was tried by the Inquisition and denounced more than 120 other secretly practicing Jews before he was burned at the stake in 1596. The recently rediscovered documents, which disappeared from the National Archives of Mexico more than 75 years ago, will be returned to Mexico.
The exhibit then looks at the rise of Jews in the main eastern seaboard cities from colonial times through the 19th century. Establishing vibrant communities in American port cities like New York, Philadelphia, Newport, Savannah, and Charleston, "early Jewish settlers adopted American ideals while remaining a distinctive and socially cohesive group, giving birth to a new Jewish American tradition with the stamp of both cultures," according to the curators.
During the colonial period, Jews founded Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation in colonial North America in Lower Manhattan in 1730. The congregation has loaned significant objects to the exhibition, such as a Torah scroll that was burned by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War and a rare set of Torah bells (or rimonim) designed by Myer Myers--one of colonial America's preeminent silversmiths and an active congregation member. Also on view are six oil paintings circa 1735 of the prominent Levy-Franks family of New York, also members of the congregation. On loan from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, they emulate paintings of the British aristocracy.
Thomas Sully's portrait of Rebecca Gratz in 1831.
Also featured are portrait paintings of Philadelphia merchant Barnard Gratz, a signer of the resolution who supplied American militias and of his niece Rebecca Gratz, who in 1819 established the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, the first Jewish lay charity in the country. In the first decades of the 19th century, Charleston was home to more Jews than any other place in North America and became a site of cultural and religious ferment. Congregation K.K. Beth Elohim, whose elegant synagogue is depicted in an 1838 oil painting on view, was the birthplace of the Jewish Reform movement in 1824 by introducing innovations that included prayers in English.
This was my first visit to the NYHS on Central Park West, within a block of a vibrant commercial district. You will find a brass statue of Abraham Lincoln on the front steps and statues of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton facing off on the bluffs of Weehawken inside the main entrance. All its exhibits are doable on a day's excursion.
F.Y.I.
New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street), New York, Phone (212) 873-3400. Hours: Tuesday-Thursday, Saturday - 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday - 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday - 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday - CLOSED. Admission: Adults $20, Seniors/Educators/Active Military $15, Students $12, Kids (5-13 years old) $6; Kids 4 and under free; Admission is pay-as-you-wish from 6-8 pm on Fridays.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, 07030, FAX: 201-659-5833; Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken
Weehawken High School juniors, from left, Jose Mesa, Devynn Givens, and Chris Arias perform their original skit at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in Manhattan.
WEEHAWKEN - A trio of Weehawken students got their shot at Broadway earlier this month.
Weehawken High School juniors Jose Mesa, Devynn Givens and Chris Arias saw the Broadway smash hit "Hamilton" and performed on stage during a pre-performance educational event on Feb. 8 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in Manhattan.
The students represented one of 14 high schools from the New York City area during a Hamilton Education Program event hosted by the cast of "Hamilton."
Before taking in a matinee performance of the show, the Weehawken kids -- whose high school is only a few hundred feet away from the site of Alexander Hamilton's fatal duel with Aaron Burr - performed a skit about American neutrality during the French Revolution.
The skit was developed as part of an interdisciplinary project-based learning activity in the students' U.S. history and English courses taught by Laurie Kroll and Kate Kitzie.
"That's how we're teaching history here at Weehawken High," said Weehawken Superintendent of Schools Robert R. Zywicki. "The entire experience was electrifying for the students."
The three students were excited to perform an original skit modeled after the Tony Award-winning show, making the connection that the program was intended to foster, Givens said.
"It felt amazing to be on stage, I was super excited, it was kind of surreal," said Givens.
Following the student performance, members of the Hamilton cast conducted a question and answer session about the musical and its historical and modern contexts.
The Hamilton Education Program is sponsored by The Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and funded by The Rockefeller Foundation. The program enables participating schools to see the acclaimed rap musical and then integrate Alexander Hamilton and period-related history into classroom curriculum.
Prior to the performance, the entire Weehawken High School junior class submitted similar skits, from which four or five groups were chosen to perform at the school. From that group, Mesa, Givens, and Arias were named winners and chosen to represent Weehawken at the Hamilton Education Program event.
"The students enjoyed the experience on many levels," Kitzie said. "For many of them it was the first chance to see a Broadway play, so getting to see 'Hamilton' was mind-blowing."
Weehawken High School teachers Michelle McCormick and Christine Mantineo were instrumental in the school's acceptance into the Hamilton Education program in December, Zywicki added.
The PennEast Pipeline Co. has received a water permit from the state of Pennsylvania that the company announced Monday as an important regulatory milestone in building the $1 billion natural gas pipeline.
The pipeline company received a Water Quality Certificate Friday from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, as required by section 401 of the Federal Clean Water Act, the company said.
It's commonly called a 401 Water Quality Certification, and PennEast touted it as a major prerequisite to receiving a federal license or permit for activities that involve waterways.
It validates that the company has "effective measures in place to minimize impacts on streams and other waterways during the construction, as well as long-term operation, of the PennEast Pipeline," PennEast said in a statement.
Jeff Logan, president of the Pennsylvania Chemical Industry Council, hailed the development in the PennEast announcement.
"This is great news for all those who use natural gas, especially for the region's energy intensive chemical industry and the more than 80,000 Pennsylvania and New Jersey residents the industry employs," Logan said.
The New Jersey Conservation Foundation and ReThink Energy NJ, a PennEast opponent, said the project still faces "tremendous opposition and a long uphill battle in New Jersey."
"We are disappointed that (Pa. DEP) rushed to approve permits for PennEast despite the significant impacts the pipeline would have on our water, land and wildlife," Tom Gilbert, campaign director of the organization said.
Gilbert said the water permit does not change the fact that PennEast does not have approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and hasn't begun the process to obtain permits from the Delaware River Basin Commission and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
FERC is scheduled to issue the pipeline's environmental impact statement, or EIS, in April.
The 36-inch-diameter, 110-mile natural gas pipeline will go from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, through Hunterdon and Mercer counties before ending at a location in Hopewell Township. A connector pipeline, also 36 inches in diameter, will link it to an existing compressor in West Amwell.
PennEast maintains that the project will reduce energy costs and support thousands of jobs with clean-burning, American energy. The company hopes it will be operational in the second half 2018.
Opponents of PennEast maintain it's an environmental nightmare that will cut a scar through communities, preserved open space and farmland and destroy ecosystems.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
PRINCETON -- Joining with 16 other national schools, Princeton University on Monday filed a legal brief in opposition of President Donald Trump's executive order banning travel into the United States from seven mostly Muslim countries.
In the filing, an amicus curiae brief, the universities say their global missions greatly "benefit from the contributions of diverse students, faculty, and scholars from around the world."
The legal paper, often called a "friend of the court" brief, was filed in federal court in New York City as part of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's civil action against President Trump's order.
The universities say in the brief that students and faculty affected by the order not only benefit their campus communities, but the United States and the world as a whole.
The executive order is currently suspended after one federal court put a halt to it and last week the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted against reinstating the president's order.
The Jan. 27 executive order had barred citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days and refugees for 120 days, and indefinitely blocked all refugees from Syria.
Critics of the order say it targets Muslims and is not American. President Trump argues the order is not a Muslim ban and is important for national security and fighting terrorism.
In the universities' brief, they say the institutions collectively, "take extremely seriously the safety and security of their campuses and of the nation."
If their campuses were not safe, or the towns and cities in which they are located were not secure, they could not maintain "their world-renowned learning environments."
The universities, "believe that safety and security concerns can be addressed in a manner that is consistent with the values America has always stood for, including the free flow of ideas and people across borders and the welcoming of immigrants to our universities," the brief says.
Earlier this month, the presidents of Princeton and Rutgers universities' were among over 40 college leaders who wrote President Trump a letter arguing the order threatened American higher education and the nation's principles.
The other universities who joined the Monday brief are: Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Emory University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Vanderbilt University and Yale University.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
MADISON -- Madison became the first municipality in Republican-dominated Morris County to adopt a resolution on being a "welcoming community" to immigrants earlier this month.
Mayor Robert Conley, a Democrat, said the Feb. 6 resolution stemmed from the national debate over immigration.
"We just wanted to reinforce that Madison has always been a welcoming community," said Conley, adding that the borough has the third-largest population of Spanish-speaking residents in Morris County.
It was passed on the same day the Democratic-controlled State Senate passed a resolution condemning President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration.
Since taking office Jan. 20, Trump has moved forward with his proposed wall on the Mexican border and attempted to ban travel to the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslin nations.
The title of the Madison resolution, which does not mention Trump, expresses the borough's "commitment to equal, respectful and dignified treatment of all people, regardless of their immigration status and to remain a welcoming community."
It asserts that "no department, employee or official of the Borough of Madison shall take part in the registration of individuals based on religion, race, ethnicity, national origin or immigration status."
The resolution was adopted last month by Maplewood, in Essex County, and introduced in Madison after Conley said he saw it on Facebook.
It is being forwarded to the other three dozen municipalities in Morris County and is listed on the meeting agenda for Tuesday's council meeting in Morristown, though a vote is not scheduled.
While registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in Madison, five of the six town council members are Democrats, in addition to Conley.
Conley said the resolution was approved in a 5-0 vote on Feb. 6, with Councilman Patrick Rowe, a Republican, abstaining.
Rowe, contacted Monday, said he abstained because he did not see a purpose to the resolution.
"Thee was really nothing in it that changed what we currently do," Conley said. "I wasn't going to vote against a resolution calling Madison a welcoming community."
In restating the borough's existing policies, the resolution states that Madison's services and benefits do not hinge on "citizenship or immigration status."
It says borough officials and employees "shall monitor any efforts by the federal government to withdraw or withhold federal funding as a result of the borough's policies to protect and defend the rights and liberties of all its residents and shall take action to protect such funding."
It further notes that Madison will comply with all federal and state statutes, applicable regulations and directives from the county prosecutor's office and state attorney general.
Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Last week's round-up of undocumented immigrants by the Trump administration is nothing new. The Obama administration did precisely the same thing, over and over, and in larger numbers.
But it is nonetheless grotesque to see federal agents rip apart decent and peaceful families, people who came here to build a better life for their children, as did most of our ancestors. Deporting violent criminals is one thing; but going after people who are "criminals" only because they used phony documents to get a job is quite another.
It is a mystery that so many Trump supporters - unlike most Americans -- can be so blind to that history, and can look at these people with such hard hearts.
First, let's agree on this core principle: Every country has a right to control its borders, and to deport people who enter illegally.
But that's not the end of the story. Because the United States government, its businesses, and its consumers are all complicit in this mess. The 11 million undocumented immigrants living amongst us did not arrive as an invading army. Most of them came because they wanted jobs and were willing to work for low wages.
And we looked the other way, for decades, happy to soak up the benefits of that cheap labor.
Do you eat at restaurants? If so, the chances are good in New Jersey that you're getting a discount because of this labor.
Do you like salads, or avocados, or strawberries? Farmers in California are worried about a spike in prices, given that an estimated 70 percent of their workforce is living in the country illegally.
Want someone to take care of your children, or clean your home, or cut your grass? There's a good chance you, too, are cashing in. Trump's nominee as labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, just admitted that for years he employed a housekeeper who was here illegally.
Granted, the economic impact is mixed. Many economists argue that this wave has depressed wages for low-skilled Americans, though most see the impact as small when compared to automation. Some point to the public costs of providing health care and education to the undocumented, though a review of the economic literature by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the taxes they pay more than cover the cost.
The point, though, is that we are complicit. We could have cracked down hard on illegal immigration decades ago, and we chose not to. During the fight over the last reform, in 1986, tough provisions to punish employers who hired undocumented workers were gutted after business lobbyists pressed for changes. They saw benefit to their firms, just as those worried farmers in California do today.
And because we are complicit, we have a moral obligation to be humane as we move to tighten controls.
That means that the federal government should not break apart decent families who happen to be unlucky enough to be swept away in a random dragnet. It should focus on criminals who threaten the public safety, period.
It means, too, that local police should not force the undocumented deeper underground by enforcing immigration laws against witnesses, victims, or petty criminal like shoplifters. It means we should see our ancestors when we look in their eyes, and treat them with humanity, and even respect.
Trump's wall is a primal scream, an irrational answer that will be as expensive and it is ineffective. A solid majority of Americans oppose that wall, and support a path to citizenship. Trump is signaling a reckless charge in the wrong direction, at his own political peril.
More: Tom Moran columns
Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
The following exchange between former New Jersey governors Brendan T. Byrne and Tom Kean took place via telephone this week.
Q: With the legal battle over President Trump's immigration ban likely to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, what chances do you give the eventual enactment of his executive order?
GOV. BYRNE: I don't think it will go through - and I'm not sure he wants it to. Donald Trump did whatever he had to to get elected, but I don't think he has any issue on which he's willing to fight.
GOV. KEAN: The law gives the president wide latitude to do what it takes to protect the country. He may not get everything he wants, but I suspect we'll end up with most of it.
Q: Should we go ahead with the Southern border wall?
BYRNE: No. It doesn't make any sense. I know that makes me sound like a Hillary fan, but it really doesn't make any sense.
KEAN: People tell me there are a few areas of the border where a wall would be helpful. We should build one only in those places.
Q: Is the current situation similar to or different from other times in American history when we've tried to cut down the flow of immigrants?
BYRNE: It's entirely different. The principal here is not based on how many immigrants are coming in.
KEAN: Yes, it's different. In the past we argued over numbers and place of origin, but we never argued that immigration could affect our personal safety. Terrorism has changed everything.
Q: President Trump reportedly wants to eliminate funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities. Do you think that will happen?
BYRNE: Winston Churchill found himself in a similar situation when asked to cut arts funding during the war. He said, "Then what are we fighting a war for?"
KEAN: I couldn't say it any better. The arts bring jobs. Every dollar spent returns three or four. It enriches our communities and creates jobs in areas that need them. Look at the growth in Newark around the performing arts center and the Newark Museum. I don't know a great country that doesn't spend at least some money preserving its culture and promoting its arts.
Q: The New Jersey Supreme Court has again ordered that municipalities submit plans for affordable housing. Will it happen one of these times, or will this simply be tied up in the courts forever?
BYRNE: Maybe both. Yes, it will be tied up in the courts forever. But the effort will continue, because you have to have affordable housing.
KEAN: It was a bad decision from day one. The intention was good, to provide housing for people in need of it. But in practicality it didn't work out. This is true in most instances where a court decides to legislate. Most of the housing that has been built has benefitted builders and not the poor. We will not solve this problem until the governor and the Legislature step up to their responsibility to provide affordable housing for our poorest citizens.
Q: Gov. Christie has declined to endorse his lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, as his successor. Could this hurt Guadagno's chances. Or might it actually help her establish an identity apart from the current administration?
BYRNE: Kim Guadagno is a good candidate, and probably the best the Republicans have. And it might work to her advantage. I think she handles herself very well.
KEAN: The governor's active support could mean money and some organizational support in the primary. He's got to decide what to do. It should be possible for her to gain his support without necessarily agreeing with him on every issue.
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PATERSON -- A corrections officer with the Passaic County Sheriff's Office was arrested Monday for stealing cash as treasurer of the local union chapter.
Gwendolyn Broughton, 53, of Paterson, allegedly made unauthorized cash withdrawals from multiple accounts while she was treasurer for PBA Local #197, authorities said.
Gwendolyn Broughton, 53
Authorities did not say how much she is accused of taking.
Broughton was arrested without incident Monday morning by the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, authorities said.
The thefts were made from December 2011 through May 2016. She is no longer treasurer, they said.
Broughton was charged with one count of third-degree theft. If found guilty, it carries a sentence of up to five years in New Jersey State Prison. Bail was not required to be set, the prosecutor's office said.
The investigation is ongoing, authorities said.
Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.
Statehouse last voting session of year
New Jersey Senate voting session file photo.
(Ed Murray/NJ Advance Media)
TRENTON -- Democratic lawmakers will soon vote on a bill that would protect so-called sanctuary cities in the state from financial hits if President Donald Trump follows through with a promise to cut funding to them.
State Sen. Brian Stack, who represents Union City, sponsored the legislation (S2007) that would require the state dole out grants to any municipality or county that has its federal dollars cut for being a sanctuary for unauthorized immigrants.
But the bill, which Senate Republican Leader Thomas Kean Jr. (R-Union) said could cost the state billions, didn't get a vote in the Senate Monday because the absence of some Democratic legislators would have prevented it from passing.
The bill describes sanctuary jurisdictions as areas where local resources are not used to enforce federal immigration laws.
"We're not going to do what federal law enforcement is supposed to do," said Stack (D-Hudson), who's also the mayor of Union City, a sanctuary city.
But with the absence of some Democratic senators, the vote was put off until another voting session.
"If they had the votes to pass this bill, it would be up for a vote," Kean.
The state expects to receive $15.7 billion from federal dollars in the current budget, Kean said, arguing whatever portion of that the Trump administration tries to pull from sanctuary cities would put taxpayers on the hook to fill the gap.
But Stack said he is confident the bill will clear the upper house.
Some of New Jersey's largest cities -- including Newark, Jersey City and Camden -- are sanctuary cities.
The bill would need to clear the Democratic-controlled Assembly before heading to Gov. Chris Christie, who is all but certain to veto it.
When the governor campaigned for president he argued sanctuary cities should lose any federal funding. As recently as earlier this month, Christie made clear he still supports the measure when he was asked about it during an interview on Fox News.
Sen. Brian Stack.
"Let me tell you, when I ran for president I said I'd do exactly the same thing. The fact is those folks should be enforcing federal law and the federal government has to give tools to the states to be able to help them have have the enforcement of federal law," Christie said.
But the governor has stopped short of cutting state funding to New Jersey cities like Newark and Hudson City over its officials refusal to comply with Trump's executive order sanctuary cities.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked state funding to Austin after its sheriff announced it would only honor immigration holds in instances of violent crimes. The sheriff's move came after Trump signed an order last month that strips funding from cities that shield unauthorized immigrants.
"I will tell you this, I think this has got to be something that the federal government has got to do," Christie said earlier this month.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook.
Irish Garda Brian Hanrahan, 34, is charged with two counts of assault in his home country, after being accused of punching two women after a night of off-duty drinking in March 2016. A verdict in his case is scheduled to be rendered Feb. 10.
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.
New Orleans reaches settlement in case that says 94 percent of bus stops not ADA-compliant
Weather Alert
...DENSE FOG ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT CDT TONIGHT TO 9 AM CST SUNDAY... * WHAT...Dense fog will reduce visibility to 1 NM. * WHERE...Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, Mississippi Sound and Lake Borgne. * WHEN...From midnight CDT tonight to 9 AM CST Sunday. * IMPACTS...Low visibility will make navigation difficult. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... If you must navigate, proceed with caution. Use proper fog signals. Make sure all running lights are on. Remember to use your radar and compass. &&
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!
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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.
The Ohio man who murdered a Glenwood teenager was sentenced to life in prison without parole Monday, which authorities hope brings closure to the victims family and friends.
Mark Alan Troutman, 27, of Sylvania, Ohio, was found guilty of first-degree murder after he shot and killed Katie Weber, 18, in September 2016.
Troutman was sentenced in Glenwood by Fourth Judicial District Judge James Heckerman.
Assistant Mills County Attorney Tyler Loontjer said the state was pleased with the result of both the conviction and sentencing.
The process went quickly and hopefully provides peace of mind for the family and friends of the victim, Loontjer said. Hopefully, this can help them move past the tragedy.
Troutman shot Weber, his ex-girlfriend, outside the Linnwood Estates assisted living facility while she was taking a break from work. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Troutman was found at the Glenwood motel an hour later and arrested as a suspect.
In the trial, the prosecution said Troutman had stalked Weber for months, telling others he was suicidal.
Troutman was convicted in December after a jury trial.
MUNSTER The developers who bought one of the town's last available multi-lot pieces of land believe they got a good deal on property that will only become more valuable.
The 15 acres in the West Lake Estates neighborhood borders the CSX freight railroad and, if things go according to plan, in five years the South Shore Line's West Lake Corridor.
As area residents get the chance at two public forums this week to voice their opinions on development around the West Lake Corridor's stations, the developers of the property in West Lake Estates see the train as a bonus.
"We think we got a very good price on the land," said Mark Reynolds, president of the investment firm Blackhall Corp., which bought the land for $780,000 from the School Town of Munster.
"The price had been discounted because of the uncertainty of what was going to happen with the train," Reynolds said. "I think there was a lot more fear than justified because of the railroad."
Blackhall is selling the 34 lots for $90,000 to $130,000. Three, including the largest and most expensive, have sold since the group closed on the property in December. They intend to put in roads and other infrastructure early this year.
Then, purchasers can have "custom homes" built conforming to the neighborhood's covenants.
Another Blackhall investor, Mihai Raicu, said Munster schools are among the main attractions, along with low property taxes, but commuter rail could make it more attractive, particularly to people who work in Chicago.
The commuter rail line's last station stop is planned just south of the development on Main Street.
"It's walking distance to the train station, and yet they can't see the train station," Raicu said. "Anyone who's within driving distance of the station will benefit."
They said houses on the lots should resemble others in West Lake, though on slightly larger lots, and have values of $450,000 to $600,000.
"When (the railroad) gets built it will be a real boon to home values in West Lake," Reynolds said.
The proposition that commuter rail expansion boosts property values isn't universally held many residents near the proposed West Lake station at Ridge Road in Munster don't accept the notion and have organized opposition to it of late.
New, high-value development and rising property values, project proponents say, depends on advance planning and financial incentives similar to those used for local redevelopment projects. Private investors like Blackhall will be critical to the success of such development in the future.
'Value capture'
Public officials and consultants involved in planning transit oriented development (TOD) around train stations say those financial resources can come from what they call "value capture."
Generally, the idea is to collect some of the extra tax revenue generated by a transit project, or to impose a fee on new development, and use that to support transit-oriented development. Tax increment financing districts and impact fees can be part of the equation.
"These are tools that are used pretty broadly across the United States," said Regional Development Authority President and CEO Bill Hanna. The RDA has become the lead agency in TOD planning for the South Shore.
As state lawmakers contemplate legislation that would assist that effort, the RDA is working on the other half of the equation finding developers interested in participating.
Hanna said the key is to form partnerships with private investors and developers. He said the RDA, with its consultant KPMG, has been interviewing potential TOD investors.
"The bottom line to us," he said, "is we're really trying to get the private sector excited about investing in these neighborhoods. There's energy and activity here to grab the attention of private investors."
CROWN POINT Lake County Superior Court intends to create a new mental health court to adjudicate cases involving the mentally ill.
The court is expected to accept its first defendants March 3, but the program will first need to be approved by the Indiana Judicial Center, according to Judge Salvador Vasquez.
Vasquez, the presiding judge, said the court will be created to address the population of mentally ill defendants who are incarcerated because of behavior that resulted from their disease. He said five defendants charged with low-level felony offenses were selected to be the first participants in the program.
The incarcerated defendants will be released from jail and placed on probation, where they will be required to receive mental health treatment and help from a mentor. The defendants will appear before the court once a month to update the judge on their progress.
Defendants who complete the 12- to 18-month program could have their cases dismissed or receive leniency in sentencing, Vasquez said.
The program will not accept defendants charged with a first- or second-degree felony, registered sex offenders, or defendants required to register as sex offenders if convicted of their underlying offense, according to Vasquez.
Calls to Lake County Public Defender Marce Gonzalez Jr. and Lake County Prosecutor Bernard A. Carter were not returned.
The mental health court will be the third diversion program created by the superior court. A veterans treatment court was created in 2014 to assist military veterans in the criminal justice system. The court celebrated its second graduation ceremony in November.
Vasquez also serves as judge of the community transition court, or re-entry court, which was created in 2011 to assist inmates recently released from prison.
Gary City Court also operates a drug court to help rehabilitate addicted defendants.
Three other counties in the state Allen, Madison and Marion currently have mental health courts, according to a state directory. Vanderburgh County is in the planning stages to create such a court.
Vasquez said there have been discussions for years about creating a mental health court in Lake County, but the program began to take shape about six months ago.
It got to the point where we said we can't put this off anymore, Vasquez said.
Vasquez said the program would be operated through Lake County Community Corrections, which would provide a case manager and mental health therapist to assist defendants in the mental health court.
Kellie J. Bittorf, executive director of Community Corrections, did not respond Friday to a request for comment.
MICHIGAN CITY A new plea agreement that could produce more time in prison for the severe injuries to a puppy rescued Christmas Day 2015 has been accepted by a judge.
LaPorte Superior Court Judge Greta Friedman on Friday found a 48-month cap more acceptable than the 30-month cap she rejected in late January.
Sentencing is scheduled March 10, after the defense and prosecution argue how much of the cap Richard Cope should receive and how his time should be split between prison, home detention, work release and probation.
Defense attorney Jonathan Howes would not specify the type of sentence he'll be seeking, but said it would be under the cap.
"She'll probably have her eyes set on 48, but we'll see what she does," Howes said.
Cope, 51, pleaded guilty to intimidation and torturing or mutilating an animal, both level 6 felonies, along with animal neglect or abandonment, a class A misdemeanor.
He would be facing as much as six years if the sentences for each count were to be served consecutively.
Sherri Christopher, director of Guardians of the Green Mile, a Porter County-based animal rescue group, said the pit bull has been placed in a home outside the area and is doing fine.
It still walks with a slight limp, though, and will never regain some of its lost agility, she said.
The court is considering a defense motion to prevent the dog rescue group from speaking on behalf of the animal prior to sentencing, but Christopher said she plans on insisting that someone as an advocate for the dog gets to provide comment.
"Chance will have a voice on what he did to him," Christopher said.
INDIANAPOLIS State lawmakers are fast-tracking a proposal to allow Porter County Special Olympics groups to again rent buses from local school corporations to take athletes to events.
A Senate committee unanimously endorsed House Bill 1507 Monday. It could be approved by the full Senate as soon as Thursday, which would send it to Gov. Eric Holcomb for his signature.
The legislation, sponsored by state Sens. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, and Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, eliminates a long-ignored requirement that an organization serving individuals with developmental disabilities be state-supported to rent a school bus.
"Since the Porter County Special Olympics program is fully volunteer, fully funded by contributions, it's not a state agency," Charbonneau said.
"Because of that, the school district was going to lose their insurance coverage any time they rented buses to the Special Olympics."
The proposal also deletes a mandate that every individual riding the rented bus live in the school corporation's boundaries, which Charbonneau said is not practical because Special Olympics serves athletes throughout Porter County.
Charbonneau noted that the organization already has twice had to shell out extra funds in February to rent non-school buses.
He hopes this measure will become law prior to the March competitions so Special Olympics can rent buses from Valparaiso schools, as it has for years.
Typically, House-approved legislation does not begin receiving consideration by the Senate until early March.
Charbonneau said he's grateful House and Senate leaders agreed to expedite this proposal.
It passed the House 97-0 on January 31.
INDIANAPOLIS State Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond, was honored Monday for her seven-year effort aimed at reducing the number of unwanted dogs and cats euthanized at animal shelters.
Spay-Neuter Services of Indiana and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals presented Lawson and state Rep. Mike Karickhoff, R-Kokomo, an award in recognition of their work to win General Assembly approval last year for House Enrolled Act 1201.
The law, signed by now-Vice President Mike Pence, requires all healthy cats and dogs at public and private animal care facilities be spayed or neutered prior to adoption, starting in 2021.
It's expected to reduce uncontrolled reproduction and correspondingly cut down on the number of animals that shelters take in and sometimes must destroy.
Lawson said she was grateful to be honored by the animal protection groups, but believes the real award will be in "knowing that we're not euthanizing ... knowing that animals are safe."
CEDAR LAKE Hanover Central High School sophomore Katie Sivak was recognized with one Gold Key Award and two Silver Key Awards from the 2017 Scholastic Art Awards competition in the Indiana/ SW Michigan Region.
Sivaks Gold Key recognition qualifies her artwork to be eligible for the national competition.
While Sivak earned the Gold Key award for her sculpture entitled Dr. Leslie, she is comfortable in a variety of art mediums, and considers painting her favorite. Her winning sculpture was part of a class project, but Sivak admits I didnt exactly stick to the guidelines, I made it my own thing." She describes "Dr. Leslie" as the depiction of a doctor from the black plague springing out from a book. Its really creepy, she said. I was inspired by the masks they wore during that time.
Sivaks other submissions included a painting entitled, Threads of Fate, which features a hand shaped claw with pixels coming out of it. I wanted to capture the feel of skin and the pixels represent the body, she said. Her second sculpture All Seeing Cake was also a Silver Key award winner and it too was a class project done the Katie Sivak way. We we were supposed to be sculpting a cake, but Im kinda of creepy so I did eyeballs coming out of the cake, said Sivak laughing.
Sivak is the daughter of Angie and David Sivak but she has no idea where her self-described creepiness or her interest in art comes from.
Art is definitely going to be part of my future, said Sivak. I think Id like to teach art someday. My teacher (John Cotey) can be really strict, but hes really good at teaching art, she said with a sparkling laugh that quickly convinces you she is comfortable in her talent and creepiness.
HOBART A Hobart animal shelter will need a kennel license before it would be allowed to house animals there again.
Hobart Sgt. Ron Russo said he received numerous complaints about Lucky's Legacy, 608 E. 3rd St. He said the animal shelter was operating without a kennel license, and there were around 55 animals there.
There also were some health concerns regarding the animals. Russo said inadequate quarantine areas for ill animals, overwhelming odor of dirty litter boxes within the facility and infrequent visits by staff to exercise the dogs outdoors were among other issues.
The matter was first brought before he Board of Public Works and Safety on Jan. 18 for its review.
Michael Williams, board president of Lucky's Legacy, indicated the organization stopped taking in animals and began checking the dogs and cats that were there for viruses.
He also told city officials guidelines and checklists had been established to keep the facility clean. Williams said staff at Lucky's Legacy consists of three board members and seven volunteers, and the organization used a Valparaiso animal clinic to examine the animals there.
Lucky's Legacy had been given until last Wednesday to relocate the animals that had been there, and the organization was able to complete that task. The facility was found to be in compliance and removed from the Board of Public Works and Safety agenda.
To begin housing dogs and cats again, Lucky's Legacy will need to obtain a kennel license, which requires approval from the city's Board of Zoning Appeals and City Council, Mayor Brian Snedecor said.
It appears the organization will seek that approval.
City officials also indicated the organization might benefit from seeking guidance from other local animal rescue organizations.
ST. JOHN The Lake Central School Board will meet with the state legislators representing the area covered by the school district on March 3, and they are hoping residents will be there to join them in speaking out for or against laws under consideration during the current session.
More than 100 bills dealing with schools and education are pending in the Legislature ranging from funding and student testing to requiring background checks for school employees every five years.
Superintendent Lawrence Veracco said a major concern is the use of student test results to determine school performance ratings. The legislature had a study committee look at the issue over the summer without finding a satisfactory solution, and that doesn't seem to be changing during the session.
With the board about to embark on negotiations with teachers on a new contract, state education funding ranks high on the list of priorities for the school administration. Gov. Eric Holcomb has proposed an 1 percent increase, but the actual amount each district would receive would vary and could be higher or lower.
Lake Central Board President Janice Malchow asked Business Services Director Rob James how the administration planned to deal with the budget deficit in the coming school year.
During a discussion at the last board meeting, James estimated the district will spend about $550,000 more than it takes in this school year, but Superintendent Lawrence Veracco said it probably will be closer to $300,000 to $400,000 as a result of retirements.
Veracco said a dean resigned in December and the position hasn't been filled, and James said about 10 teachers are expected to retire. The schools had a cash balance of about $6.1 million heading into the school year as a result of savings accumulated over several years. When the current two-year teacher contract was negotiated, the school district knew it would have a deficit the second year but was willing to accept that on a one-time basis, Veracco said.
"We could overspend for several years, but we don't want to do that," he said. "We don't want to over or underspend. The challenge will be 'Can we keep pace with other districts in the area that have gone back to the taxpayers for referendums when we are rubbing every nickel. We've been fortunate in keeping a first-rate health insurance plan. That helps us retain employees.'"
Negotiations will begin soon, but Veracco said the crunch time won't come until summer when the district has a better idea of how much more money, if any, it will get from the state and what its student population will be. Malchow said two possible solutions to the deficit are open enrollment of students from anywhere to increase state funding and elimination of extracurricular activities, and she asked what other solutions James is looking into.
James said positions are evaluated as people leave to see if they need to be refilled or if the duties can be absorbed by others. With enrollment declining in recent years, class sizes have dropped making it possible to eliminate teacher positions.
"We have a healthy cash balance of 10 percent (of the total budget)," James said. "We'd like between 10 and 12 percent, but I could be satisfied with 8 to 10 percent. We are looking at what we can cut internally, but it will be up to the board to make the final decisions. Nobody likes this, but we've been able to balance the budget without going to the taxpayers for more money."
"The magic ends at some point," Malchow said.
The meeting with legislators Hal Slager, Julie Olthoff, Rick Niemeyer and Frank Mrvan will be at 1:30 p.m. in the Kay Trap Board Room at the high school.
EAST CHICAGO American Legion Allied Post 369 hosts its annual Americanism Dinner starting at 6 p.m. Friday at the post, 1401 W. Chicago Ave.
Cost for the dinner is $12 with a cash bar.
This year the post presents the Americanism Award to a Northwest Indiana community member for supporting veterans and active military personnel. Keynote speaker for the evening is Joseph S. Van Bokkelen, U.S. Distirict Court judge from the Northern District of Indiana. Also speaking are James May, the American Legion state commander, and Peggy Bishop, American Legion Auxiliary president.
The Hammond High School JROTC Honor Guard will conduct the opening ceremony. A POW/MIA ceremony follows, then dinner is served.
The dinner is open to the public. Call the post at 219-398-1802, ext. 23 to reserve tickets.
Allied Post 369 has been in East Chicago for 70 years.
LAKE STATION Residents will soon know if the City Council will support Indiana American Water's proposal to acquire Lake Station's water system.
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday to consider the first reading of an ordinance regarding the possible privatization of the department, Mayor Christopher Anderson said. Council members will then vote on the second reading of the measure at 6 p.m. Thursday.
Several Indiana American Water officials went before residents during an informational meeting Thursday to explain the company and what would happen if the council approves the sale. Indiana American is offering nearly $20.7 million for the department.
There was a possibility the council would've taken initial action on the proposal during its regular session that followed the meeting with Indiana American officials, but city leaders believed it was best to wait a few days to give them time to consider everything that was discussed.
Matthew Prine, of Indiana American, said it would take 30 to 45 days to establish an asset purchase agreement for the water system if the council approves the sale. It will then be filed with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, which will have to approve the sale. That process could take six to seven months, Prine said.
Deborah Dewey, Indiana American's president, said the company believes it has a lot of value to bring to Lake Station, and it would provide affordable, reliable and safe water to the community.
Indiana American officials explained their rates are currently less than the water fees Lake Station has in place, and any rate increases sought by the company would need to be approved by the IURC.
Prine said Indiana American would supply water from Lake Michigan. Water currently provided in Lake Station comes from groundwater wells.
The city has a water filtration plant, and Indiana American would use that plant as an emergency backup when needed, Prine said.
He said Indiana American also has plans to improve the aging water infrastructure in the city if it acquires the utility.
Anderson said Lake Station's current water employees would be offered the opportunity to work in other city departments if the water system is sold.
On several occasions, Anderson has said Lake Station would use funding from the possible sale to pay of debt associated with the Water Department and stabilize the general fund, which has been operating in a deficit.
The city also could establish a rainy day fund to help pay for projects.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. The question of whether to continue paying government workers during Illinois's budget stalemate will surface again this week as a court takes up the state attorney general's motion to halt payments and lawmakers consider a threat by Gov. Bruce Rauner to veto one of two proposals to keep them going.
A judge in St. Clair County on Thursday is scheduled to hear Attorney General Lisa Madigan's request to end paychecks until the state breaks its nearly two-year-long budget gridlock. She is asking the judge to reverse a previous court order requiring Illinois to pay state employees even in the absence of a budget, arguing that stopping pay is constitutional and will hasten a budget agreement.
House Democrats and Republicans each say they agree that paychecks should continue and have launched competing legislation as a precaution, to avoid a government shutdown if Madigan's motion succeeds.
But Rauner on Thursday threatened to veto the Democrats' plan, which he said was only temporary. On the other hand, the Republican proposal to keep the payments going longer is unlikely to be approved by the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
In a video sent to state workers, Rauner on Thursday repeated his refrain that Madigan the daughter of longtime Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan is trying to "shut down the government." He condemned the Democratic proposal, which would appropriate funds for state agencies to continue paying employees through the end of the fiscal year on June 30, calling it a "crisis shutdown" that would help Democrats pass a tax increase.
Speaker Madigan's spokesman, Steve Brown, told The Associated Press on Friday that the first-term governor's response is "incomprehensible" because the original version of the rival Republican proposal would have guaranteed state employee pay through the same date. An amended Republican plan would keep the paychecks going indefinitely.
The Democratic bill's sponsor, Rep. Sue Scherer, of Decatur, issued a statement arguing that her bill was intended to prevent a government shutdown. But her statement also referenced a comment the governor made when he was campaigning for office suggesting that a government shutdown might be necessary to get Illinois functioning properly again.
The text of the Republican measure would also put the governor's office and state agencies in charge of deciding how much money employees receive.
"This is not the time to give the governor a blank check and say 'do what you want,'" Scherer told The Associated Press on Friday.
Attorney General Madigan filed her motion in January to stop the $400 million-a-month payroll, arguing the state Constitution stipulates that money should not be spent unless lawmakers have passed legislation to OK it.
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The bills are HB2803 and HB1798.
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Follow Kiannah Sepeda-Miller at https://twitter.com/kiannahsepeda.
Perhaps the scariest part of bringing baby home is the ride home itself. Our children are our treasures, which is why its essential that you dont simply wing it when it comes to installing child safety seats, says Jennifer Homan, trauma program coordinator for Franciscan Health hospital in Crown Point. Its best to see a certified child passenger safety technician from the get-go, she says. It only takes a half hour, but it can save a life.
Homan cites statistics that some 90 percent of all child safety seats are either improperly installed or improperly used. How can concerned parents and caregivers ensure their childrens safety in vehicles?
Know the Guidelines
Do keep your child rear-facing for as long as possible, advises Sgt. Robert Taylor of the Hammond Police Department. Its recommended that children remain in rear-facing child safety seats until at least the age of two or up to 65 pounds. A child in a rear-facing seat receives more protection in an accidentin particular, theres less stress on the spine and neck, Taylor says. To accommodate current child safety seat recommendations, there are several convertible safety seats on the market that allow children to remain rear-facing up to 40 pounds or more.
Dont add unsafe or unnecessary items to, or under, your childs car seat or harness. Homan says, Some of the biggest mistakes Ive seen involve adding things to car seats that arent safety tested or that adversely affect the way that the five-point harness fits, such as head supports, blanket sleepers, and seat belt pads. She adds that children in seats with five-point harnesses should be dressed in a regular layer of clothes, nothing bulky, particularly puffy winter coats during winter. Wearing bulky items such as big coats causes big gaps between the child and the harness, allowing the child to slip out of the seat in the event of an accident. Instead of coats, she says, place blankets over your secured child while traveling.
Do ensure that the car seat and harness are tightly secured. Car seats should be tightly secured so that, when tested, they dont move more than an inch side-to-side or front-to-back, says Taylor. To check that the harness is properly secured, Taylor advises doing the pinch test: When your child is secured in the car seat, pinch the webbing of the harness material at your childs collarbone. If your fingers dont slide right off of the webbing and you can pinch any of the material, its too loose.
Dont skip reading the owners and child safety seats manuals. Parents and caregivers may be short on time, but its important that they read and refer to both the owners manual of their vehicle as well as the child safety seat manual for proper child safety seat installation and usage. From instructions on using your vehicles LATCH system or seat belts to child safety seat height and weight limits, the manuals contain essential safety information. The engineers who designed the car seats are the ones whove crash-tested them, Taylor says.
Not Just for Babies
Do secure your older children. Younger school-aged childrentypically those aged four to eightshould be in booster seats until they can sit safely with seat belts alone, Homan says. Although this is usually the age of eight, the true test of a childs readiness to sit secured without a booster seat is when she has reached an appropriate height and weight to do so. The seat belt should sit across the childs hips and shoulder, not the belly and neck, and not tucked behind the child, she says. Improperly fitting seat belts lead to injuries, especially abdominal ones as children dont have as much belly fat as adults, which makes them more prone to belly injuries. Taylor adds that even older children should remain in the back seat until they are 13 years of age, or at least 49 and 80 pounds. The passenger side air bag is a danger to undersized children sitting in the front passenger seat, as serious injury or death can occur if the air bag hits the child in the head during an accident, he says.
Make It Fun
Dont make safety a drag. Nothing kills a childs enthusiasm and encourages stubborn resistance like boring safety have-tos, so make safety fun. Taylor recommends keeping children in safety seats with five-point harnesses for as long as possible, but acknowledges that active children are often resistant. To add some cool appeal to the five-point harness, he advises parents to tell their kids that race car drivers use five-point harnesses, too. And, if wily kids try to sneak out of their safety restraints while the vehicle is moving, use the destination itself as a safety incentive. If your child has a favorite place to go, let him know that the seat belt or harness has to stay on for the entire trip. Tell him the first time it comes off, we go home.
For Taylor, Homan and other certified child passenger safety technicians, a passion for keeping kids safe is the incentive and motivation for what they do. Taylor says, If we can save a childs life, its worth it.
Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed of thousands of protesters today at a rally in Lower Manhattan to support refugees.
HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, held the event at Castle Clinton in Battery Park at 11 a.m.
Organizers said they were calling on elected officials to keep America's doors open to refugees fleeing violence and persecution.
"This is what a fight for conscience looks like," de Blasio said to the crowd as sleet rained down. "Nothing holds us back. The weather doesn't hold us back, executive orders don't hold us back."
"We're gathered at a moment that really makes us think deeply about who we are and what we value and this right to protest is something we have to protect in our nation right now," he added.
The mayor did not specifically address federal raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week that saw 40 people arrested in the New York City area, according to immigration advocates.
This comes after an appeals court shot down the President Trump's travel ban against seven Muslim-majority countries from being reinstated on Thursday.
The controversial executive order has sparked weeks of protests across the country including here in the city.
Organizers say this is one of several events being held today nationwide.
No injuries are being reported after a facade of a Queens gas station was knocked over by high winds Monday morning.
It happened just after 11 a.m. at the Gulf station located at Horace Harding Expressway and Fresh Meadow Lane in Fresh Meadows.
The city Department of Buildings says all of the pumps are being shut down and gas valves closed.
The National Weather Service says a high wind warning is in effect citywide until 6 p.m.
Wind gusts in excess of 60 mph are possible.
The DOB is advising property owners, contractors and crane operators to take proper precautions.
Wind-related delays are being reported at the area's airports.
Air travelers are urged to check with their carriers before heading out.
Stay with NY1 for the latest weather updates.
NEW YORK - Federal immigration officials say last week's arrests of 40 foreign nationals across the city were part of a targeted search for criminals, but that explanation is not sitting well with some New Yorkers.
Five people on Staten Island were among those detained.
The New York Immigration Coalition posted a leaked memo from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that details the arrests.
The group is characterizing the ICE operations as raids.
ICE says these are not random sweeps.
Instead, it says its agents are cracking down on people who pose a threat to public safety or who have re-entered the country after being deported.
But one New Yorker who spoke with NY1 says even those without a criminal record are afraid.
"People are really scared, because our President Donald Trump he said he's going to deport a lot of people, so people who are criminal, people who aren't criminal, people who are trying to make their life better in this country, everybody scared," said one city resident.
Mayor Bill de Blasio says city police officers will not act as immigration agents and will never ask New Yorkers about their immigration status.
October 27, 1922 - February 11, 2017 Joseph Lowrie Dean (" Mr. Joe") was born October 27, 1922 in Opelika and passed away at home on February 11, 2017 after a long and happy life. He was 94 years old. Joe Dean was preceded in death by his parents, Sudie Robertson Dean and Augustus Baker Dean, his wife of 40 plus years, Jean Torbert Dean, and his brother, A.B. Dean, Jr. He is survived by his son, Joseph L. Dean, Jr. and wife Kathy, his daughter Cathy Dean Gafford and husband Doug, his granddaughters Jessica Dean, Meg Gafford Beard and husband Tom, his grandson Joseph Dean III and wife Kim, and his great grandchildren Paxton Dean, Joseph Dean IV, Grady Dean and Luke Beard. A lifelong member of First Presbyterian Church of Opelika, Joe attended Northside Elementary when it opened. He graduated with the first 12th grade class at Cliff High School, where he played trombone in the band and was Valedictorian of his class. He later earned a BS in Agricultural Economics from Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now AU). In college, he was an active ATO, continued to enjoy music and be recognized for his grades. Having lost an eye as a child, he was not accepted for military service in World War II, but instead served his country by teaching veterans to farm. His long business career included running the family farm at Danway and over 50 years working with his father and brother in A.B. Dean Agency, where he managed the business, was an independent insurance agent and a real estate broker for over 40 years. The last over 20 years of his career he owned and operated Joe Dean Agency. Dean was active in the community, giving many hours to Scouting. He was a Life Scout himself, was recognized for his many years of leadership of a Cub Scout Pack, and was honored with a Silver Beaver Award for his lifetime activities for scouting. He also devoted many hours to helping Girl Scouts in Opelika. After his children got older, he joined Kiwanis because he saw it as a valuable organization in the community. When his beloved Jean died soon after he became the Alabama District Governor of Kiwanis, instead of withdrawing from service, he devoted his energies, talents and personal resources to helping the at-risk young children of Alabama. During his over 40 years in Kiwanis, he served in all offices of the Opelika Kiwanis Club, Lt Governor of his Division, District Governor, District Young Child Priority One Chair and was twice honored as a Hixon Fellow. While Governor, he helped DHR to design a "Choosing Childcare Brochure" to assist parents in making decisions about care for their children. Hundreds of thousands of this brochure were distributed across Alabama. He and Harvey Watson designed, produced and distributed a Kiwanis statewide directory of agencies with services for children, including ways to contact and help those agencies. He also served for several years as the Chairman of the Board for the Alabama Council on Child Abuse. He carried service for children one more step by starting a statewide organization in 1991 to help provide at-risk young children with books and caring adults to read those books. That organization, Jean Dean RIF (Reading is Fundamental) has been recognized nationally several times and has provided 550,000 at risk young children in Alabama with over 1.5 million books in their homes- for most, the FIRST BOOK in their homes. Joe Dean was a faithful son, a loving and supportive husband, a father, grandfather and great grandfather of the highest order, and friend to all in need-- be they people or animals, but most especially to children. He dearly loved his family and Danway, the land and the animals on it, and made every effort to protect those he loved and meet their needs. He was knowledgeable about and enjoyed hunting, reading, land, animals and their care, growing things, music, local and family history, Scouting and Kiwanis service. He was a strong man with " broad shoulders", a great sense of humor, deep inner strength all of his life and an outstanding father a person who has received a great deal of satisfaction knowing he has helped his fellow man and made the road he walked a better placea true gentleman who will be missed by all who loved him. After he closed the business and retired in his early eighties, he continued to be a champion for children, speaking on their behalf and packing books for RIF distributions. He also found great pleasure in making annual bird hunting trips to Argentina with his son Joe and David Bayne. Always an excellent shot, he also enjoyed some bird hunting around Danway and spending time with his dogs. Visitations will be held in the Parlor at Frederick-Dean Funeral Home on Monday, February 13, 2017 from 5:00 until 7:00 p.m. CST, and in the Sanctuary at Trinity United Methodist Church Tuesday, February 14, 2017 from 10:00 until 10:45 a.m. CST. Funeral Services will be held in the Sanctuary at Trinity United Methodist Church at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 with Reverend Earl Ballard officiating. Interment will follow at the family lot at Rosemere Cemetery in Opelika. Pall bearers will be Tutt Barrett, David Bayne, Tom Beard, Joseph Dean, III, William Dean, Danny Robertson, Jack Robertson, Judge Hal Smith, Doug Vaughan, Lee Waller and Chuck Ward. Honorary Pall Bearers will be Doug Gafford and members of the Opelika Kiwanis Club, past and present. The family wants to sincerely thank his caregivers who helped him enjoy the last years of his life. Frederick-Dean Funeral Home is directing. www.FrederickDean.com Funerals & Cremations Since 1900
NEW YORK The nearly century-old American Civil Liberties Union says it is suddenly awash in donations and new members as it does battle with President Donald Trump over the extent of his constitutional authority, with nearly $80 million in online contributions alone pouring in since the election.
That includes a record $24 million surge over two days after Trump banned people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. The organization said its membership has more than doubled since the election to a record of nearly 1.2 million, and its Twitter following has tripled.
It feels like were drinking from a fire hydrant, said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, adding that the election has brought immigration, refugee, reproductive, civil and voting rights to a high boil.
Whats really heartening is people are paying attention. Theyre aware of the crisis on the horizon, he said. Theres a real sense of urgency.
After Trumps election, the ACLU greeted the age of Trump on its website and magazine with a fresh slogan: See you in court. That was the same expression Trump used in his tweeted response to a federal appeals courts decision refusing to reinstate the travel ban.
The ACLU has won court orders in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland against the presidents travel ban. It has also filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on the billionaires potential conflicts of interest. And it intends to bring a legal challenge accusing him of violating the Constitutions Emoluments Clause by accepting payments from foreign governments at his hotels and other properties.
Trump has defended the travel ban as critical to keeping America safe, saying terrorists could otherwise slip into the country. He predicted the courts will eventually find his order constitutional. Also, Trumps business empire has said it will donate profits from any foreign governments that use his hotels.
The ACLU said it has raised $79 million online from nearly 1 million individuals since the election. It had no immediate figures for contributions made by other means.
The boost to the ACLUs $220 million budget will allow it to spend more on its state operations, which Romero said became critical after some legislatures took Trumps election as a license to promote anti-immigrant, anti-civil rights and anti-abortion legislation.
The 1,150-employee ACLU also plans to hire more lawyers and staff in New York and Washington and spend $13 million more on citizen engagement, including protests and lobbying. That is a new front for an organization that has primarily been a policy and legal group.
Sheryl Douglas, receptionist at the ACLUs New York City headquarters since 1972, has been collecting some of the recent emails, letters and postcards.
Sic em! Thanks! read one.
We commend your heroic efforts, said another.
You give me hope, yet another said.
Among the new donors was Andrew Mcdonald, 52, of Odessa, Missouri.
Im ashamed to say I havent donated to any organizations in the past, he said. But things havent felt so threatening before either. This time I felt like I couldnt just sit here and do nothing.
Another donor, Steve Berke, 35, of Miami Beach, Florida, said: I think the ACLU is going to be a huge thorn in the side of the Trump administration. Trump has already demonstrated that he has a thin skin when it comes to anyone challenging his authority or power, but Im confident that the ACLU will fight to protect American civil liberties.
Over the years, the ACLU has been bitterly criticized for taking up unpopular causes, such as defending the rights of neo-Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan to demonstrate.
Geraldine Engel, ACLU deputy development director, said the recent outpouring has been heartening. We were always unpopular, misunderstood, she said.
The ACLU was born in 1920 when a small group of idealists challenged then-Attorney General Mitchell Palmers order that thousands of people branded foreign anarchists or communists be arrested without warrants. Many were deported.
Soon the organization was defending peoples constitutional rights to due process, privacy and freedom of assembly, speech and religion and looking out for societys vulnerable, including minorities, women, gay and transgender people, immigrants, prisoners and the disabled.
Esha Bhandari, an ACLU attorney in New York, said the publics reaction lately is encouraging to those who gave up bigger salaries to work for the nonprofit organization.
This is why were here, said the Columbia Law School graduate. The importance comes into sharp relief. We exist for moments like this. Lives are on the line.
People on the move
Jim Girouard has been appointed maritime manager for Southern California at WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff, an engineering and professional services organization in Orange. Girouard will be responsible for business development, client relations and management of maritime consulting, planning, design and construction projects.
Also at WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff: Michelle C. Marston has been named the Southern California regional marketing manager. She will be based in the firms Orange office. Marston will manage marketing efforts for the firms transportation practice in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, Orange County and San Diego.
Sunny Youngsun Park of Huntington Beach has been appointed to the California Board of Accountancy by the Senate Rules Committee. Park is the principal partner at Park & Asher in Irvine. She is certified by the California State Bar Association as a specialist in estate planning, probate and trust laws.
Tony de Almeida, director of Global Sourcing at Fluidmaster of San Juan Capistrano, has joined the board at the nonprofit Project Independence of Costa Mesa. He joined Fluidmaster in 2011 after having held purchasing-related positions with CM Automotive Systems, Shepard Bros, Interbath and Tele-Com Products.
Irvine-based White Nelson Diehl Evans LLP, certified public accountants and consultants, has hired three managers: Usman Ilyas, David Moya and Rex Vollmer. Ilyas and Vollmer are audit managers; Moya is a tax manager.
Robert Glowczwski is the new director of coastal catering at Island Hotel in Newport Beach. Glowczwski will work with Island Hotels executive chef, David Man.
Michelle Miller has joined Placentia-Linda Hospital as chief human resources officer. Miller comes from Californias high desert region, where she most recently served as director of human resources for Barstow Community Hospital.
New ventures
Two Irvine-based tax firms, Haskell & White LLP and Katherman Kitts & Co. LLP, have combined their practices and are operating under the Haskell & White name. The entire team at Katherman Kitts & Co. moved to Haskell & White. James Katherman and Stacie Kitts joined the firm as partners.
Milestones
MedicusTek USA, a Newport Beach patient safety technology company, has won the Medical Device & Manufacturing West 2017 Innovation Prize for its Sensable Care System. The Sensable system was honored for its innovative ability to reduce both bed falls and pressure injuries in hospitals and nursing homes.
Childrens Hospital of Orange County was named a 2016 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Enterprise Davies Award recipient for achieving improvements in patient care through the use of health information technology. CHOC is the only childrens hospital on the West Coast and third in the country to be honored with the award since its inception.
Seal Beach attorney Hector C. Perez, founder of Hector C. Perez & Associates, is marking his 45th year as an attorney. Perez is a former federal prosecutor and IRS attorney. He was recently invited to join the Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers Association.
San Bernardino-based Stater Bros. made a top 20 list of companies based on job security, Forbes reported. The online story cited findings in a report from Indeed.com, a search engine that aggregates job listings from several platforms. Stater Bros. No. 20 ranking put the Southern California supermarket company among several national and regional companies. Washington-based Costco, the Texas-based HEB grocery chain and Publix, a supermarket chain based in Florida, were the other retailers to make the list.
Richard DeAtley
Nominations sought
The Santa Ana College Foundation is seeking nominations for its 2017 Hall of Fame Alumni Achievement Awards, which honor outstanding alumni achievement. The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. Feb. 24. The nominees should have made significant contributions to their professions and/or to the local or global community. Recipients will be honored at an induction ceremony June 8.
The selection criteria for this honor are:
Graduation from Santa Ana College or completion of a minimum of 30 units of coursework
Documented distinction and achievement through professional and/or personal efforts since leaving Santa Ana College
Must be available to attend the awards ceremony and commencement
Nomination forms can be obtained by contacting the foundation office or by visiting sac.edu/foundation. For more information, call 714- 564-6091.
Status Update is compiled by contributing writer Karen Levine and edited by
Samantha Gowen. Submit items to
sgowen@scng.com.
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:
U.S., CHINESE SURVEILLANCE AIRCRAFT IN CLOSE ENCOUNTER NEAR SCARBOROUGH
Unlike previous close encounters between U.S. and Chinese military aircraft, the latest incident last week near the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal appears to be unintentional, highlighting risks in an increasingly militarized region.
A Navy P-3C Orion surveillance plane was on a routine mission when a Chinese KJ-200 turboprop which is equipped with radar mounted on top of the fuselage crossed its nose within 1,000 feet, causing it to make an immediate turn, said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis.
He said that both planes were in normal radio contact.
Clearly we have our disagreements with China over militarization of South China Sea, Davis said, adding, however, that interactions between ships and planes are largely professional and safe.
The Chinese Defense Ministry did not comment, but the Communist Party-run Global Times quoted an unidentified ministry official as saying the Chinese pilot had responded in a legal and professional manner.
Such encounters are not unusual in an area China claims virtually in totality despite neighbors rival claims and the U.S. insistence on safeguarding unimpeded navigation at sea and in the air. Twice last year U.S. and Chinese aircraft came close, in one instance to within 50 feet, of each other. In August 2014, a Chinese fighter jet came within 30 feet of a Navy P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance plane off Hainan Island a major military hub and pulled a series of risky maneuvers, including rolling over it.
The U.S. and China in 2015 signed rules of behavior for safety of air-to-air encounters , but some analysts say they dont go far enough.
The location of the latest incident is significant. China seized the tiny, uninhabited shoal, which lies within the Philippines 200-mile exclusive economic zone, after a tense standoff with Philippine vessels in 2012. The Philippines initiated international arbitration, which last year invalidated Chinas claims to most of the South China Sea. Beijing refused to recognize the ruling, and despite warming ties with Beijing, the Philippines worries whether China will build military installations on the shoal similar to what it did on seven other features farther south in the Spratlys.
CHINA BUILDS UP FACILITIES ON PARACELS
Satellite imagery provided by the Center for International and Strategic Studies purportedly shows an upgrade of military facilities in Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.
China occupies 20 outposts in the Paracels, roughly the same distance from Chinese and Vietnamese shores, including the main base on Woody Island, which is also the administrative center for the South China Sea. According to the think tank, China has undertaken substantial land reclamation in the last few years to link Woody with its small neighbor Rocky Island, expand two sheltered harbors, an air base and four larger hangers.
CSIS says that in early last year, China deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles and they still appear to be deployed on Woody. China also test-fired anti-ship cruise missiles from Woody in the middle of the last year, CSIS reported. The island development has been used as a blueprint for building the largest military facilities in the Spratlys, on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs.
Four other islands have been equipped with smaller harbors, and a fifth is under construction at Drummond Island. Five of the islands contain helipads, with Duncan Island housing a full helicopter base, CSIS said. The presence of a cement plant on North Island suggests construction will continue in the Paracels, it said.
INTERNATIONAL TEAM OF SCIENTISTS EXPLORE SOUTH CHINA SEA
Dozens of scientists from the U.S., China, European and other countries in Hong Kong boarded the American drilling research ship Joides Resolution dubbed the floating laboratory to collect sediments in the seafloor and explore the formation of the South China Sea.
The two expeditions over two months each will study the Earths crust by drilling at a depth of up to 13,123 feet in the northern edge of the South China Sea.
China joined similar expeditions in 1999 and 2014.
Police are investigating a shooting that left one man dead Sunday afternoon in Santa Ana.
At 1:45 p.m., a man called police to report that his friend had been shot and he was taking him to South Coast Global Medical Center, said Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.
At this time, it appears to be gang-related, Bertagna said.
He said witnesses told police the shooting happened at 1000 S. Flower Street and Cubbon Street.
The victim, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the hospital, Bertagna said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7868 or desalazar@scng.com
SAN CLEMENTE Authorities are investigating a suspicious Sunday afternoon fire that broke out in a beachfront home where deputies were responding to a report of a burglary in progress.
About 25 firefighters responded to the 4:25 p.m. fire on the 300 block of Paseo Cristobal, near T-Street Beach. They reported it was out at 5:44 p.m.
As deputies were arriving, at some point there was a fire in the residence, Sheriffs Lt. Nathan Wilson said. A man was taken into custody. Deputies released no information about the man, where or how he was taken into custody, what he did or what charges he might face.
An investigation was continuing. The house had major damage to the second floor together with smoke and water damage to the first floor, said Capt. Steve Horner of the Orange County Fire Authority.
Contact the writer: fswegles@scng.com or 949-492-5127
WASHINGTON National security adviser Michael Flynn has resigned following reports he misled Vice President Mike Pence about contacts with a Russian diplomat, up-ending President Donald Trumps White House team less than a month after his inauguration.
In a resignation letter, Flynn said he gave Pence and others incomplete information about his calls with Russias ambassador to the U.S. The vice president, apparently relying on information from Flynn, initially said the national security adviser had not discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy, though Flynn later conceded the issue may have come up.
Such conversations would breach diplomatic protocol and possibly violate the Logan Act, a law aimed at keeping private citizens from conducting U.S. diplomacy. The Justice Department also had warned the White House late last month that Flynn could be in a compromised position because of contradictions between his public depictions of the calls and what intelligence officials knew to be true based on routine recordings of communications with foreign officials who are in the U.S.
Kellyanne Conway, a close aide to Trump, had said Monday that Flynn continued to have the full confidence of the president. On Tuesday, she said in televised interviews that Trump had supported Flynn out of loyalty but that the situation reached a fever pitch and had become unsustainable.
By nights end, Mike Flynn had decided it was best to resign. He knew hed become a lightning rod, and he made that decision, Conway told NBCs Today show.
When asked why the White House didnt move sooner after being warned by the Justice Department that Flynn was at risk of blackmail, Conway was vague: As time wore on, obviously the situation became unsustainable, she repeated.
She added: Were moving on.
Trump named retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as the acting national security adviser. Kellogg had previously been appointed the National Security Council chief of staff and advised Trump during the campaign. Trump is also considering former CIA Director David Petraeus and Vice Admiral Robert Harward, a U.S. Navy SEAL, for the post, according to a senior administration official.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition.
An administration official and two people with knowledge of the situation confirmed the Justice Department warnings on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. It was unclear when Trump and Pence learned about the Justice Department outreach.
The Washington Post was the first to report the communication between former acting attorney general Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, and the Trump White House. The Post also first reported last week that Flynn had indeed spoken about sanctions with the Russian ambassador.
Trump never voiced public support for Flynn after that initial report but continued to keep his national security adviser close.
The White House officials sent contradictory messages, meantime, about Flynns job status. While Conway was remarking that Trump had full confidence in the retired general, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president was evaluating the situation and consulting with Pence about his conversations with the national security adviser.
Asked whether the president had been aware that Flynn might have planned to discuss sanctions with the Russian envoy, Spicer said, No, absolutely not.
The Kremlin had confirmed that Flynn was in contact with Kislyak but denied that they talked about lifting sanctions. On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers mounted a fierce defense of Flynn.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee at the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, said in a post on Facebook that firing a national security adviser for his contacts with Russia is not just paranoia but something even worse. Kosachev also expressed frustration at the Trump administration:
Either Trump hasnt found the necessary independence and hes been driven into a corner or russophobia has permeated the new administration from top to bottom, he said.
Kosachevs counterpart at the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted shortly after the announcement that it was not Flynn who was targeted but relations with Russia.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Flynns resignation does not end questions over his contacts with the Russians. He said the White House has yet to be forthcoming about whether Flynn was acting at the behest of the president or others.
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Catherine Lucey and Matthew Daly in Washington and Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM As President Donald Trump appeared to shift closer to the political center on several contentious policies on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested Sunday that it was unrealistic to expect their two countries to agree completely on all issues.
But amid growing challenges from the right, Netanyahu said he was the strongest leader to navigate the relationship the nations most important, yet often its trickiest.
The Israeli leaders comments came the night before he leaves for Washington for his first face-to-face meeting with Trump as president.
While Trump at first appeared to give Israels leaders carte blanche he remained silent, for example, as the nation announced the construction of thousands of new homes in the occupied West Bank he has since said he does not believe that going forward with these settlements is a good thing for peace.
And on Sunday, Netanyahu was quoted on Army Radio telling members of his right-wing Likud Party that to believe there are no restrictions now would be a mistake.
The meeting with Trump on Wednesday is expected to set the tone for the U.S.-Israeli relationship, which was notably frosty under President Barack Obama because of Israeli settlements in occupied territory, Israels vehement opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran and personality clashes with Netanyahu.
Although Trumps comments on the settlements have tamped down expectations on the right of a new era unfettered by U.S. constraints, some analysts here portray the presidents position as politically beneficial to Netanyahu. He is portraying himself as an experienced hand in dealing with Washington unlike, he suggested, more aggressive forces on the right who are suggesting an annexation of some settlements.
I have navigated Israeli-U.S. relations in a prudent manner, and I will continue to do so now, he told cabinet members on Sunday, according to an official transcript of his remarks, in which he noted that he and Trump have known each other for years.
His main rival to the right, Naftali Bennett, the Jewish Home Party leader and education minister, warned Netanyahu not to discuss the possibility of a state for Palestinians though Netanyahu has tepidly endorsed one and Trump has said repeatedly that he would like to make an unspecified deal for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
If in their statements after the meeting they mention, for the first time in Trumps term, their obligation to forming Palestine or two states in one way or another, we will all feel it in our flesh for years to come, Bennett warned in a Facebook post. The earth will shake.
The tussle between the two men is personal Bennett would like to succeed Netanyahu as prime minister and central to the long-standing conflict here: Bennett argues that the time for a separate state for Palestinians is over and that Israel has an opportunity under Trump to significantly expand the Jewish presence in the West Bank.
Apart from the challenge from the right, the meeting comes at a difficult time for Netanyahu, as he faces at least three investigations into allegations of corruption.
Trump has also backed off, for now at least, a campaign promise to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, a move opposed by the Palestinians, who would consider it a de facto recognition of Israels annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 war.
Here again, political analysts have seen Netanyahus influence, with the prime minister possibly communicating that such a move was not a top priority given the reaction it could provoke among Palestinians.
In his statements on Sunday, Netanyahu also said he had registered his opposition to appointing the well-regarded former Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, as the United Nations envoy to Libya.
On Friday, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, opposed the appointment. For too long, the U.N. has been unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel, she said.
The Israeli news media also reported over the weekend that Tzipi Livni, a prominent Israeli lawmaker, may be offered a position as an under secretary-general for the U.N. chief, Antonio Guterres.
OROVILLE Nearly 200,000 people remained under evacuation orders Monday as California authorities try to fix erosion of the emergency spillway at the nations tallest dam that could unleash uncontrolled flood waters if it fails.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville one of Californias largest man-made lakes had water levels so high that an emergency spillway was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years.
Water levels at northern Californias Lake Oroville are continuing to drop and stopping water from spilling over a big dams potentially hazardous emergency spillway.
California Department of Water Resources officials say flows into the lake are just under 45,000 cubic feet per second. Outflows remain high at nearly 100,000 cubic feet per second.
Officials ordered the evacuation because the possible failure of the emergency spillway could send a 30-foot wall of water into communities.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris says at least 250 California law enforcement officers are in the area of the dam and evacuation routes to manage the exodus of residents and ensure evacuated towns dont face looting or other criminal activity.
The evacuation was ordered Sunday afternoon after engineers spotted a hole on the concrete lip of the secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.
Im just shocked, said Greg Levias, who was evacuating with his wife, Kaysi, two boys and a dog.
What they couldnt fit in their trunk they piled as high as they could in their downstairs Yuba City apartment and joined the line of traffic attempting to leave the city where they had moved just three weeks ago.
Panicked and angry residents sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the evacuation order was given.
Raj Gill was managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and snacks while waiting for gridlocked traffic to clear. His boss told him to close the station and flee himself, but he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
You cant even move, he said. Im trying to get out of here too. Im worried about the flooding. Ive seen the pictures thats a lot of water.
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people were at an evacuation center in Chino, California. The shelter had run out of blankets and cots, and a semi-tractor trailer with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the gridlock of traffic fleeing the potential flooding, said Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch.
A California Highway Patrol spokesman said they would have two planes out Monday to help with traffic control as well as search and rescue.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris said at least 250 law enforcement officers from throughout the state are in the area or on their way to help with the evacuation.
Late Sunday, officials said the evacuation orders remained in place despite the fact water was no longer spilling over the eroded area.
There is still a lot of unknowns, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a news conference. We need to continue to lower the lake levels and we need to give the Department of Water Resources time to fully evaluate the situation so we can make the decision to whether or not it is safe to repopulate the area.
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties were ordered to evacuate.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the lake levels have been lowered.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville. Those potential flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways, channels and levees and flood towns in three counties.
Oroville Lake levels had decreased by Sunday night as they let water flow from its heavily damaged main spillway.
Croyle said the department will continue releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main spillway to try and reduce the dams level by 50 feet ahead of storms forecast to reach the area Wednesday.
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.
Honea said there was a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse. But Croyle said at that no repair work was done after officials looked at the flow and available resources.
Gov. Jerry Brown late Sunday issued an emergency order to fortify authorities response to the emergency at the dam and help with evacuations.
Adjutant General David S. Baldwin of the California National Guard said at a news conference late Sunday that eight helicopters will be available Monday to assist with emergency spillway reconstruction.
The California National Guard put out a notification to all 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy if needed, he said. Baldwin says an alert for the entire California National Guard hadnt been issued since the 1992 riots.
Earlier Sunday, officials stressed the Oroville Dam itself was structurally sound.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway during heavy rain earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers dont know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a Department of Water Resources spokesman, said it appears the dams main spillway has stopped crumbling even though its being used for water releases.
The lake is a central piece of Californias government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
Staff writer Sharon Noguchi and the Sacramento Bee contributed to this story.
Its far more than just the supply of avocados thats at risk in any U.S.-Mexico trade war, with these international deals linked to 3.25 percent of California employment, according to one study.
WalletHub used government data to evaluate the relative levels of economic ties each state had to the $600 billion-a-year trade business with Mexico. President Donald Trump has harshly criticized Mexicos government and its trade relations with the U.S., putting the economic ties between the two nations in jeopardy. To be kind, the ideas were poorly received south of the border.
The international political banter overshadows big business that goes both ways over the border. For example, WalletHub estimated that roughly 1 in 33 California jobs (or approximately 550,000 positions) are tied to trade with Mexico, but thats relatively small: It ranks as the 37th largest share out of 50 states.
Jobs-wise, the District of Columbia has the most to lose if trade sours, as 6.9 percent of its employment is tied to Mexico. Next at risk is Hawaii (4.2 percent) and New York (3.6 percent).
Overall, WalletHub calculates that California ranks 11th among all states in terms of relative risk to its economy from a full-blown trade war. Analysts based the risk on five factors: jobs plus the proportional value of exports and imports.
Its not just food supplies at stake, though potential avocado scarcity is a tangible outcome of a trade battle. U.S.-Mexico trade also moves large amounts of energy, electronics, appliances and vehicles.
So how does Californias risk with Mexico trade compare to other states in terms of dollars coming and going, according to Wallethub?
Import-to-output: This is Californias most vulnerable spot. Mexican goods headed here equal 1.8 percent of the states total business output, the eighth highest risk among the states. Michigan has the most at stake (9.4 percent of its output), followed by Texas and Kentucky.
Share of exports: California businesses ship to Mexico goods worth roughly 16.2 percent of all the states exports, the ninth highest among the states. Most at risk is New Mexico (44 percent of its exports), followed by Arizona and Texas.
Export-to-output: Goods to Mexico equal 1.08 percent of California business output, the 15th highest level among all states. Texas could lose the most (5.8 percent of its output), followed by Arizona and Louisiana.
Share of imports: Mexico ships to California goods that are equal to 11 percent of everything imported to the state, 15th highest level nationwide. Most at risk is Arizona (38.6 percent of its imports), followed by Michigan and Texas.
The U.S.-Mexico tension shouldnt be any surprise. Trump aggressively campaigned on a platform claiming trade deals were hurting U.S. workers by killing opportunity and lowering wages.
Curiously, WalletHubs rankings show the 30 states that supported Trump in the election have significant economic links to Mexico: Trump states averaged a 21st rank in this risk scorecard vs. a 32nd rank for the other states.
Hopefully, voters understood what was at stake.
Contact the writer: jlansner@scng.com
ANAHEIM More than 200 people marched, screamed and chanted outside CKE Restaurantss corporate offices here to protest Andy Puzders nomination for U.S. labor secretary.
Janitors, fast-food workers and security officers held signs at noon that read, Andy Puzder earns more in 1 day than I do in 1 year. #NotOurLaborSec.
Marisol Rivera, vice president for SEIU USWW, said about 35 union members were there to support the Fight $15 campaign.
We are not OK with having a person that only wants to provide the minimum wage to the workers, Rivera said. We want $15 an hour with benefits.
Puzder is a lawyer and CEO of CKE Restaurants, which has 3,263 franchised or company restaurants that include Carls Jr. and Hardees stores.
President Donald Trumps nomination of Puzder has been met with resistance from pro-labor groups, which have called out Puzders long-standing opposition to the Affordable Care Act and increasing the national minimum wage.
Fast-food operators have jumped to defend Puzders pro-small-business position, including some of his employees. Cheryl Doerr, a Carls Jr. director of operations and an Orange County franchisee, said Puzder knows that happy workers are the key to a successful restaurant.
Ive known Andy for just shy of a decade, and during that time Andy has always treated me fairly and equitably, she said in a statement.
In a statement, a Puzder spokesman said, Andy Puzder will resign from CKE when he is confirmed as secretary of labor. Its unclear who will run the company if Puzder is confirmed.
Puzder acknowledged last week he had employed a housekeeper who wasnt authorized to work in the U.S.
Puzder has been a loud critic of rising minimum wages. To him, the wage rules unfairly raise the cost of doing business for restaurant operators.
CKE Restaurants will leave its Carpinteria-based headquarters in March, ending a decades-long era for the fast-food company founded 60 years ago in Anaheim by Carl Karcher. The company is consolidating offices for Hardees and Carls Jr. in Tennessee.
In 1945, Carl Karcher moved his hot dog business from Los Angeles to Anaheim, where he opened a full-service restaurant, Carls Drive-In Barbeque. A year later, hamburgers were added to the menu. He opened the first Carls Jr. in 1956 in Anaheim.
For years, the main corporate offices were based in Anaheim. In 2000, the headquarters relocated to Carpinteria.
An office in Anaheim will continue to operate with 275 employees working in various departments such as human resources, finance, customer service call center, payroll and accounting. It will be the only office left in California, CKE said.
California teachers unions are furious about the approval of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. DeVos, a staunch advocate of school choice, school vouchers and charter schools, was narrowly approved Tuesday by a 50-50 vote of the Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie. More revealing than the final vote, though, is just how frenzied the rhetoric of the teachers unions has been.
While DeVos hasnt always given the most polished of answers throughout her confirmation, her commitment to innovation and choice in education has been made clear. Why, in 2017, are we still questioning parents ability to exercise educational choice for their children? DeVos asked during her Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 17. I am a firm believer that parents should be empowered to choose the learning environment thats best for each of their individual children.
To the average person, such statements might sound perfectly sensible, but for those for whom ideology and political control trumps all other considerations, there was something sinister lurking behind such talk of educational choice and parents doing whats best for each of their individual children.
The day after her hearing, Eric Heins, president of the California Teachers Association, shared his strongly worded statement of the week. It seems clear to us: she is an anti-public education activist more interested in funneling public monies into private schools and for-profit charter schools, he said. She doesnt value the diversity we celebrate and hold dear here in California.
Incredibly, to the teachers unions, wanting parents to have their pick of traditional public schools, public charter schools and private schools constitutes an opposition to public schools and diversity. United Teachers Los Angeles took its opposition to hysterical levels, holding protests before Inauguration Day in which teachers, parents and even students held signs linking DeVos and President Trump to racism, sexism and privatization.
Its the sort of rhetoric that only a far-left ideologue could appreciate and merely muddies the waters of what is a critical debate, in California and in most local school districts across the country, over the value of school choice.
Upon DeVos approval, things didnt get much better. The California Federation of Teachers put out a statement lamenting DeVos confirmation. It is unfortunate that someone so openly anti-public education is running public education, the union argued. Likewise, the CTA attempted to find some solace in the 50-50 vote, asserting the bipartisan public outcry denies President Trump and DeVos any mandate to take over our public schools.
Such rhetoric reveals a profound, but probably deliberate, misrepresentation of what DeVos can achieve as education secretary. The head of the federal Education Department can hardly be said to be running public education, or really in a position to literally take over our public schools.
It is true, of course, that the Department of Education, launched in 1979 under the Carter administration, has nevertheless seen its mission, and budget, perpetually expand, but it is simply incorrect to assert that DeVos is actually running public education. The powers of the secretary of education are actually quite constrained.
While a fundamental debate to have here is whether the federal government needs to play any role whatsoever in public education, considering that education is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, what the unions are actually so upset over is that DeVos position provides her a national bully pulpit to advocate for school choice.
Californias teachers unions have long waged a campaign to denigrate charter schools, in particular largely because such schools are growing in popularity and in DeVos they have a prominent foe. While honest critiques of DeVos and her ideas should be freely expressed, Californias teachers unions have made clear that they prefer hyperbole and hysteria to reasoned debate.
Sal Rodriguez is a staff columnist. He may be reached at: salrodriguez@scng.com.
MEXICO CITY Thousands of Mexicans took to the streets of their capital and other cities Sunday afternoon to denounce President Donald Trumps depictions of them as rapists and robbers and to demand the respecting of Mexico.
But according to much of the pre-protest chatter, many Mexicans planned to protest their own unpopular president and political class rather than Trump even as the U.S. leader proceeds with plans for building a border wall and continues to target the countrys currency and economy with barbed tweets.
Vibra Mexico (roughly, Mexico Moves), a nonpartisan and respectful protest organized by more than 70 civic groups, universities and nongovernment organizations, envisaged a protest that would condemn Trumps treatment of Mexico, but also demand more of Mexican politicians.
The balance was proving difficult to maintain Sunday, however. Even with the perceived Trump threat looming, hashtags criticizing the Vibra Mexico protest were trending on Twitter and march organizers were pleading with protesters to recognize Trump as the primary worry.
Mexicans are outraged by many things. Were outraged by poverty, were outraged by inequality, were outraged by impunity, said Enrique Graue, rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the countrys largest public university and part of the Vibra Mexico coalition. The point is: What outrages us most? At this time, were most outraged by the treatment Mexico has received from the U.S. president.
Organizers of a rival march in Mexico City, calling itself Mexico Unido, or Mexico United, agree although they explicitly called for support for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose approval rating has plunged to 12 percent.
Dirty laundry is washed at home, Laura Herrejn, an advocate for the Mexico Unido march, told broadcaster Televisa.
Polls show a deep dislike of Trump south of the border, but many voice more discontent about domestic matters than disrespect from a foreign leader.
Trumps election coincided with mass protests over a 20 percent hike in the government-set gasoline price, accusations that governors in eight states were pilfering the public purse and stories of politicians paying themselves inexplicable bonuses in a country with a minimum wage of $4 per day.
Analysts are skeptical that castigating a foreign villain will change many Mexicans minds about their political class, who are being accused of weakness in the face of Trump and his threats.
Trump is being presented as Mexicos main problem. The main problem for most Mexicans is Pena Nieto, said Ilan Semo, history professor at the Iberoamerican University. They wont back the current regime because theres a feeling that Pena Nieto and his team are going to use the nationalist script to try to rebuild some sort of consensus.
Vibra Mexico organizers stressed that their march is open to everyone, have called on the president to provide transparency in his negotiations with Trump and demanded that his government come to terms with inequality, corruption, impunity and human rights abuses.
But its been a tough sell, and organizers have had to fend off allegations they are not interested in protesting injustices at home. Some supporters have tried scaring and shaming people off the sidelines and into the streets, including historian and public intellectual Enrique Krauze, who tweeted, Not marching projects passivity, indifference and even cowardice.
The admonitions highlight the consensus coalescing among Mexicos elite on the Trump topic, with media, the business class and religious leaders calling for unity. Billionaire Carlos Slim who dined with Trump at the presidents Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago, in December told the media in a rare news conference: We have to back (Pena Nieto). All of the country has to do so in the face of a special risk in U.S. relations we have not seen in 100 years.
PRSA VP of Education Jeneen Garcia, with the Society 25 years, was among those at the initial event of Black PR History Month Feb. 9 at Edelmans offices. Oddly, we had never met or talked to her.
Jeneen Garcia
Garcia is also executive director of the Societys PR Student Society of America. She is listened to by its 11,000 members.
We have never talked to her because she has been kept under wraps by the Societys boycott against the ODwyer Co. We have plenty of educational materials for the students including the 800-volume O'Dwyer PR library, PRs biggest physical library; 48 years of newsletters devoted to PR; 30 years of a monthly magazine, and 16 years of website stories, databases and commentaries.
(L to R) IPR head Tina McCorkindale checks out O'Dwyer's PR library with associate publisher Jane Landers.
Emails to student leaders are never answered.
It was beyond ironic that the opening session of Black PR History Month, sponsored by the Museum of PR, should take place at Edelman since founder Dan Edelman was a staunch opponent of the PRSA boycott against the ODwyer Co. He advised this reporter many times to fight it.
It has been instituted since 1999 by the accredited members who have controlled the board since the late 1970s, holding 16 of the 17 seats in 2017. Attempts were made by members in 1999, 2006 and 2010 to oust the APRs but they failed. Richard Edelman was a leader of the 2010 foray.
Dan Edelman Denounced Boycott
Dan Edelman in 1999 denounced PRSA when the board headed by Sam Waltz declared a formal boycott against the ODwyer Co., saying our reporters were taking up too much staff time. Waltz publicized the boycott in PR Week. The Waltz board did not want to discuss the $150,000 PRSA Foundation/Rockefeller Foundation study of credible sources of information that found PR spokesperson to rank 43rd on list of 45. No PRSA publication ever carried the list.
Dan issued a lengthy statement that ran in the Sept. 29, 1999 ODwyer NL. He noted he was the 1999 recipient of the Gold Anvil of PRSA and asked the Society to rescind its ODwyer boycott.
Dan Edelman
He wrote COO Ray Gaulke that, Its contrary to appropriate PR practice to withhold information from a reporter. The Clinton White House, he said, had difficult relations with the press during the impeachment process but no reporter was ever barred. Dan urged Gaulke to meet with ODwyer reporters. No such meeting ever took place.
Gaulke, apparently carrying out the wishes of the APR-dominated board, was blatantly anti-ODwyer. At his first Assembly meeting in 1994, he came down from stage to the New York delegation where this reporter was sitting (a practice of mine for 20 years), took me by the elbow, and marched me to the back of the room while the entire Assembly watched.
I was never again to set foot in the Assembly, he said. Delegates sat in silence during this atrocity as did the New York delegation.
The staff had shown who is the bossthe staff and not the Assembly or the members. Pat Jackson had ousted virtually all PR pros from the staff starting in 1980, saying the staff should be association professionals. Failure of PR people run their own house is a bad advertisement for PR. No wonder a lot of talented blacks and others are not attracted to the field.
Boycott Briefly Lifted by Pisinski
Steve Pisiniski, 2000 PRSA president, rescinded the ODwyer boycott in early 2000. He let us sit in the first row of the Assembly. Steve and his Strategic Planning Committee in 1999 unanimously urged removal of anything related to APR from the bylaws. The Waltz board rejected the proposal.
However, something far worse than the boycott started taking place with the arrival of Bill Murray as head of staff in 2007. All-out attacks on this reporter became the norm, many of them carried out by VP-PR Arthur Yann. Currently, no one attached to PRSA, from the board to the sections, the chapters and the Student Society, will have anything to do with me as though I had done something wrong to the Society. In fact, the Society had wronged the ODwyer Co. by selling tens of thousands of copies of ODwyer articles without our permission.
We addressed the 150 at the Feb. 9 event quoting Fraser Seitels column of that day saying that the Trump Administration is dashing many of the chief principles of PR. Its titled Donald Trump and the End of PR.
PR Execs, Reporters Are Stressed
PR executive is No. 8 on Careercasts 2017 list of the ten most stressful jobs. No. 6 is newspaper reporter. Both cause each other a lot of stress.
PR executives are the face of public entities such as business, government, institutions, non-profits, celebrities and athletes, says Careercast which has for many years put PR jobs in its top ten stress list.
The services of PR people are most needed at times of crisis, says Careercast. They have to do damage control. A problem for PR people is that they dont have ultimate control of what is said or communicated, says Careercast.
PRSAs Truncale Not at Meeting
Conspicuous by his absence at the Feb. 9 meeting was Joe Truncale, CEO of PRSA. All the other heads of major PR groups were thereRenee Wilson of PR Council, Roger Bolton of Arthur Page, Tina McCorkindale of Institute for PR, Patrick Ford of The Plank Center and Neil Foote, National Black PR Society. Truncale told others he was out of town.
We are saddened by the current inaction of the Edelman firm in the face of this boycott.
The ODwyer Co. cannot roll over and play dead. We are compiling a list of the worst things PRSA is doing and has done. This is not a private war. Efforts were made in 1999, 2006 and 2010 to bust the monopoly of the APRs. We hope to get such a movement started again. Richard Edelman was one of the leaders of the 2010 Committee for a Democratic PRSA.
Actions and policies of PRSA include:
--The copying scandal.
--Moving h.q. three times far from the midtown ad/PR media community with no input or advance notice to members. NY members are afraid to even to ask for details. No details of the new lease at 120 Wall St. are available at the present time.
--Cancelling the printed members directory after the 2005 edition with no input from members, thus blocking press access to members after decades of supplying that. Free copies had been given to the press in the early 2000s.
--Declaring a formal boycott of the ODwyer Co. in 1999 after a $150K PRSA Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation study show PR spokesperson to rank 43 in credibility among 45 sources of information. Sam Waltz announced the boycott in PR Week.
--Invalidating the enforceable Ethics Code in 1999 after a member charged the boards boycott of ODwyer violated five Code provisions. A new code with no enforcement provisions was created in 2001 at a cost of about $200K. The professions of law, medicine and accounting all have enforceable codes.
--Refusing in 1977 to obey an FTC order that two anti-competitive articles be removed from the Code. The result was a formal FTC consent decree PRSA had to sign and publicize, embarrassing the industry. The board had passed the FTC demand to the Assembly which rejected it.
--Battling attempts by members in 1999, 2006 and 2010 to break the monopoly that APRs have on governance even though they are only 18% of membership. Sixteen of the 17 board members in 2017 are APR when the proportion should be 3 or 4 at the most. The 2010 Committee for a Democratic PRSA, led by Richard Edelman and others, was not allowed to use the member email list to press its case.
--Taking active part in the $21 million lawsuit of TJFR Publishing Co. vs. Jack ODwyer and the ODwyer Co. charging this reporter with false and malicious reporting of Dean Rotbarts speech. It was recorded by two videotapes for the PRSA library but then PRSA refused to sell it to anyone or make it available to me. PRSA had unlimited, perpetual rights to it. I was a credentialed reporter at the speech. NYT falsely said I slipped in to the speech. NYT did not cover my victory which was first page news in the NY Law Journal.
APCO Reps Leader of Democratic Opposition in Belarus Wed., Sep. 28, 2022 APCO Worldwide is providing media relations services for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the democratic opposition to Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko. She stepped in for her husband and ran for president in 2020 but lost in the rigged election.
What is Cultural Competency? BerlinRosen Shares Why Brands Need It Tue., Oct. 25, 2022 Americas consumers and employees have never been more mission-driven when it comes to the brands they support and where they choose to work. BerlinRosens Cultural Competency division offers guidance to organizations seeking to convey their values and impact.
Agricultural News
Oklahoma Farmers Intend to Plant 30 Percent More Acres in Cotton this Year According to Survey
U.S. cotton producers intend to plant 11.0 million cotton acres this spring, up 9.4 percent from 2016, according to the National Cotton Council's 36th Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey, which indicates also that planted acres of cotton in Oklahoma are expected to increase by over 30 percent this year.
Upland cotton intentions are 10.8 million acres, up 8.8 percent from 2016, while extra-long staple (ELS) intentions of 266,000 acres represent a 36.9 percent increase. The survey results were announced today at the NCC's 2017 Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Jody Campiche, the NCC's vice president, Economics & Policy Analysis, said, "Planted acreage is just one of the factors that will determine supplies of cotton and cottonseed. Ultimately, weather, insect pressures and agronomic conditions play a significant role in determining crop size."
She said that with abandonment assumed at 12 percent for the United States, Cotton Belt harvested area totals 9.7 million acres. Using an average U.S. yield per harvested acre of 830 pounds generates a cotton crop of 16.8 million bales, with 16.0 million upland bales and 760,000 ELS bales.
The NCC questionnaire, mailed in mid-December 2016 to producers across the 17-state Cotton Belt, asked producers for the number of acres devoted to cotton and other crops in 2016 and the acres planned for the coming season. Survey responses were collected through mid-January.
Campiche noted, "History has shown that U.S. farmers respond to relative prices when making planting decisions. During the survey period, the cotton December futures contract averaged 70 cents per pound, which is higher than year-ago levels. Looking at competing crops, corn prices were lower than year-ago levels while soybean prices were about 12 percent higher. The price ratio of cotton to corn is more favorable than in 2016."
Southwest growers intend to plant 6.6 million acres of cotton, an increase of 10.7 percent. Increases in cotton area are expected in each of the three states. In Oklahoma, a 30.1 percent increase is expected as wheat acreage declines. In Kansas, land is shifting away from wheat, corn, and soybeans. Overall, Texas acreage is expected to increase by 9.5 percent as land shifts away from corn and wheat.
Survey respondents in the Southeast indicated a 0.1 percent increase in the region's upland area to 2.2 million acres. Across the six states, the results are mixed with increased acreage in Alabama and Florida and a decrease for the other four states. In Alabama, the survey responses indicate 14.2 percent more cotton acreage and less corn and wheat area. In Florida, respondents indicated more cotton and less soybeans. In Georgia, cotton acreage is expected to decline by 3.1 percent with 'other crops', likely peanuts, pulling acres from cotton, corn and wheat. In South Carolina, acreage is expected to decline by 0.4 percent as cotton acres shift to soybeans and 'other crops.' In North Carolina, a 4.8 percent decline is expected as cotton acreage shifts to soybeans and 'other crops.' Cotton acreage is expected to decline by 1.0 percent in Virginia as acreage shifts to corn and 'other crops.'
In the Mid-South, growers have demonstrated their ability to adjust acreage based on market signals, in particular, relative prices of cotton and competing crops. This year's survey results are no different with growers intending to plant 1.7 million acres, an increase of 12.8 percent from the previous year. Across the region, all states are expected to increase cotton acreage while decreasing acreage of corn and 'other crops.' The largest increase was reported in Mississippi with 26.8 percent more cotton acreage in 2017. Mississippi respondents expect to decrease acreage of all other crops as more cotton acreage is planned. In Tennessee, cotton acreage is expected to increase by 16.6 percent as land shifts away from corn. In all states except Mississippi, soybean acreage is expected to increase. In Arkansas and Missouri, corn, wheat, and 'other crops' are expected to decline. In Louisiana, respondents indicated more cotton, soybeans, and wheat and less corn and 'other crops.'
Far West producers are expecting to plant 268,000 upland cotton acres a 15.1 percent increase from 2016. Arizona is responsible for the large increase, with California acreage down slightly and New Mexico acreage up slightly. The survey results for Arizona suggest a shift from corn and 'other crops' to cotton.
The increase in cotton acreage is largely the result of weaker prices of competing crops, improved expectations for water availability in the West, and above average cotton yields in 2016.
While current futures markets have increased since last year, many producers will continue to face difficult economic conditions in 2017. Production costs remain high, and unless producers have good yields, the higher price still may not be enough to cover all production expenses.
NCC delegates were reminded that these expectations are a snapshot of intentions based on market conditions at survey time. Actual plantings will be influenced by changing market conditions and weather.
Click here to view a table detailing the Prospective Area of Growth in the US Cotton Crop for 2017.
Source - National Cotton Council of America
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LINCOLN Top state officials launched a public information campaign Monday in hopes of sparing Nebraska from the worst of the nations opioid drug abuse epidemic.
The Dose of Reality campaign involves public service announcements for radio and television, as well as advertisements and editorials for use by newspapers.
Gov. Pete Ricketts said the campaign aims to educate people about the dangers of prescription painkiller medicines and ways they can reduce those dangers.
So far, Nebraska has not seen as big a problem with opioid abuse as many states, he said.
But opioid overdoses killed 54 people in Nebraska in 2015, and the rate of drug overdose deaths increased more than 20 percent over the past decade.
The state of Nebraska is certainly not at the epidemic level, said Attorney General Doug Peterson. Were at the challenge point.
The public information campaign is being launched a month after Nebraska started using a new prescription drug monitoring program.
The program tracks prescriptions for controlled substances that are written and filled in the state. The goal is to prevent people from doctor- and pharmacy-shopping to feed their addictions.
In other states, one result of such monitoring programs has been an increase in the use of street drugs, especially heroin.
Peterson said another result has been that addicts start raiding bathroom cabinets of friends and family. For that reason, he urged people to return any unused opioid pain medications to the pharmacy.
Opioids include such drugs as oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine and fentanyl.
Peterson said it takes law enforcement, prevention and treatment to address the opioid problem. People involved with all of those areas in Nebraska gathered last fall to coordinate their efforts.
He said a shortage of treatment options, especially in rural areas, is one of the states biggest challenges.
Opioid abuse, because it usually starts with prescribed medication, can be found in even the most sparsely populated parts of the state and among people who do not typically use street drugs.
John Adrian is no stranger to speed dating at the W. Dale Clark Library.
Last year some librarians persuaded him to attend the free, Valentines Day-inspired event. He had recently gotten divorced and thought speed dating would be a low-stress way to meet new people, especially with the time constraint on each date.
Its very difficult to make a fool out of yourself in three minutes, he said.
Adrian, 79, said his first time speed dating was such a good experience that he decided to try his luck at the library again. He was one of about 200 people signed up for the Omaha Public Librarys eighth annual speed dating event this weekend, including 80 on Sunday.
The downtown library hosted speed dating groups for ages 25 to 35 and 35 to 45 Friday evening. On Sunday afternoon, the program was held for those 45 to 55 and 56 and older.
Participants sat at long tables based on their age, with women on one side and men on the other. Each date lasted three minutes, and participants could expect to finish a few dozen of them before the event was over.
If a connection was sparked during a conversation, daters circled yes on a sheet of paper to indicate theyd be open to speaking again. The events organizers try to email contact information for pairs that express interest in each other within a week. Then the couples can decide whether they want to schedule another date.
Emily Getzschman, the Omaha Public Librarys marketing manager, said the event is one way to bring people to the library who may not have visited in awhile.
(We) try to reconnect them with the library while theyre here, and hopefully they make a love connection too, she said.
The event also shows how the library can be a community space, she said.
Rob Wilson, 60, was coaxed by his daughter to attend Sundays event. But once he came, only one woman really caught his eye, and she wasnt in his age group. He went on a speed date with her anyway, and left once he accomplished that goal.
I would try it again, if I could lie about my age, he said with a laugh.
Some speed dates, though, have led to fairy-tale endings. Getzschman said she knew of three couples who met at past events and are now married. The unions have produced two children so far.
Speed dating match Kenny Champoux, 45, and Trisha Champoux, 42, are expecting a baby girl in April.
When Trisha entered the speed dating event in February 2015 she had no expectations of meeting her future husband.
Shed been back home in Omaha for less than a year following more than a decade teaching first- and second-graders in India and Oman.
I was having tons of adventures, but I realized there was something missing, she said.
So she came back to the Midwest to look for love, and her sister eventually persuaded her to give the librarys speed dating a try.
Although Trisha was intimidated by the idea, she thought rushing through 30 first dates would let her dip her toe back in the dating pool.
Kenny, a retirement plan administrator, was the last person Trisha spoke with that night.
She remembered him telling her about his family and how some of them lived overseas like her.
Kenny was struck by her smile and how much energy she still had at the end of the event.
When they were matched later, Kenny sent Trisha the nicest email to plan their next date.
The second time they met, the couple stayed talking at a restaurant so long they were the only people left there, and Trisha drove home thinking Kenny would be the man she would marry.
About nine months after they met, Kenny proposed to Trisha in front of the W. Dale Clark Library. The proposal lasted three minutes, in honor of their first date.
If the wedding wouldve been three minutes, that wouldve been great too, Kenny said.
The library is still a large part of their lives, and Kenny said he is excited to soon share books with their daughter.
On Sunday, clerk Richard Andrews, 50, said finding a special someone at the speed dating event would be nice. But trying to find common interests with the people he met and finding friends were priorities too.
After going on all of his speed dates, Adrian said he expected to find a few matches of his own. But he said hes more interested in the speed dating experience than anything. Its revealing what people choose to bring up about themselves in three minutes, he said.
It must be important to them, he said. But thats all you have to gauge your interaction with.
Trisha Champoux said what people gain from speed dating depends on the mindset they have going in to it.
You get out of it what you put into it, she said. And theres a little luck involved too.
LEXINGTON, Ky. Think of it as the trip of a lifetime, or the perfect send-off for that relative you could never get far enough away from.
Jokes aside, the founders of Lexington-based Mesoloft think they have a service that could become popular as more Americans choose cremation over burial: The company uses high-altitude balloons to scatter ashes from more than 75,000 feet up and make a video of it for loved ones.
Since working out systems design and logistics on 10 test flights two years ago, the company has scattered the ashes of four paying customers.
Were positive there is a market here, although we may be in it a little early, said Alex Clements, noting that cremations are soon expected to outnumber burials in the United States. Plus, were learning a lot, because none of us have any experience in the (funeral) industry.
Mesoloft was the brainchild of Chris Winfield, an engineer who has started several Kentucky technology companies. He and four young engineers Clements, Chris Mitchell, Alan Beaven and Rachel Nevill began the company out of a fascination of high-altitude balloons and tiny GoPro video cameras.
Heres how it works: Up to 3 pounds of ashes are put in an urn that is covered by a decorative origami shroud. The urn hangs from a metal bar that has a parachute, three GPS devices and a GoPro camera on each end. That rig is attached to a big latex balloon filled with helium.
As the balloon approaches the mesosphere, a trapdoor at the bottom of the urn is opened and atmospheric pressure sucks out and scatters the ashes. They slowly drift down until they are caught by jet stream winds that can carry them literally around the world for several months. Eventually, ashes may return to earth as rain or snow.
After the ashes are released, the urn and camera rigging detaches from the balloon, which rises until it disintegrates. The rigging falls, and at about 10,000 feet a parachute is deployed to bring it gently to the ground.
Before each flight, Mesolofts partners use weather data and computer modeling to predict where the balloon will rise and where the rigging will land.
We havent lost one yet, Clements said. Were still using the same GoPros. But logistically its pretty challenging.
So far, all four of Mesolofts launches have been done from private land in the Lexington area, but if business grows the partners would like to schedule a few launches a year from some of the vast open spaces in Colorado or New Mexico to make retrieval easier.
Clements acknowledges that the company is operating in a gray area legally. While there are restrictions about scattering cremated remains from aircraft, Mesoloft is literally flying above the regulations, which are mostly designed to protect against water pollution.
Mesolofts packages, which range from $4,500 to $7,500, include video of the entire trip.
UPDATE: An alum and adviser of the Creighton fraternity Phi Kappa Psi said Tuesday morning that the fraternity will release a detailed statement as early as Tuesday afternoon giving its account of the events leading up to slashing in a Creighton dorm room.
Bryan Mick, an Omaha attorney, said fraternity members have been "stonewalled" in their attempts to meet with Creighton officials and offer their account of what occurred Friday night into Saturday morning.
"We have been attempting to schedule a meeting with Creighton officials, but have been unsuccessful in doing so," Mick said.
Christopher Wheeler, 19, has been charged with second-degree assault and use of a weapon to commit a felony. He is accused of using a pocket knife to slash the neck of a fellow student in a Creighton dorm room.
Wheeler's attorney, Matthew Burns, said in court Monday that before the cutting, Wheeler may have been forced to take or unknowingly took drugs as part of a hazing incident because he had performed poorly on a fraternity test.
Burns said Tuesday that Wheeler doesn't remember anything from that night, noting that he based the account he presented in court from people who were with Wheeler.
"Our investigator called a number of people, and they all said the same thing," Burns said. The drugs were "either forced upon him or he did it unknowingly."
Burns said he hadn't talked to the witnesses himself. "All their stories were substantially similar," he said.
Wheeler was a new member of the fraternity, a Phi Kappa Psi spokesman said.
Mick has said on Facebook and Twitter that Wheeler's account is false.
"No hallucinogens in PKP house," he tweeted. "Eating garbage from Wheeler atty. Phi Psi statement soon."
Creighton officials announced the fraternity's suspension Monday afternoon. Creighton spokesman Jim Berscheidt declined Tuesday to give the reasoning behind the decision to suspend the fraternity.
"We're not going to be able to share anything," he said. "This is an ongoing investigation and we won't comment any further."
He said he doesn't know when the investigation would be finished and couldn't say whether officials would release their findings upon the conclusion.
Creighton student charged in assault was babbling before slashing incident, friend says
Less than an hour before authorities believe he slashed a fellow students neck, Christopher Wheeler was lying on the floor of a Creighton University dorm room, babbling, a friend said.
Wheeler, known as Duke, is a friendly, nice guy, said the friend, Brittany Harner. But the 19-year-olds behavior around midnight Friday was out of character and so unnerved Harner, she said, she decided to go back to her own dorm room, where she locked the door.
It just didnt make sense. (He) sounded really aggressive, Harner, 19, said Monday. I knew at that point it wasnt Duke.
Wheeler has been charged with second-degree assault and use of a weapon to commit a felony. He is reported to have cut 18-year-old Teresa Spagna with a pocketknife while in a dorm room about 1 a.m. Saturday.
Wheelers attorney said in a court appearance Monday that his client acted erratically that night because he was forced to take or unknowingly took hallucinogenic drugs by members of the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi.
Thats hazing, said Matthew Burns, the attorney for Wheeler.
The university also is investigating the incident.
Wheeler no longer is enrolled and is banned from campus, Creighton officials said at a Monday afternoon press conference.
The Creighton chapter of Phi Kappa Psi has been suspended, university officials also said.
While out on bail, Wheeler will live with his parents, Susie and Sean Wheeler of Olathe, Kansas, under an agreement OKd by prosecutors.
Prosecutor Eric Fabian said in court Monday that Christopher Wheeler entered a dorm room in Gallagher Hall on the Creighton campus early Saturday.
He asked for Dana, Fabian said, but the woman there, Spagna, said he had the wrong room.
Wheeler sat down on the bed and told Spagna, Sorry for bothering you, Fabian said.
As Wheeler went toward the door to leave, Fabian said, he swung around and cut Spagna in the neck with a pocketknife.
Spagna was treated at Creighton University Medical Center and released Saturday. Attempts to contact her Monday were unsuccessful.
The two didnt know each other, Wheelers friends have said.
On Monday, Douglas County Judge Sheryl Lohaus set bail at $100,000, and Wheeler was released on 10 percent of that, or $10,000.
Sean Wheeler said his son carries a knife that he says hes going to use if anybody needs saving.
Christopher Wheeler fled and was arrested by Omaha police on another floor in the dormitory.
Wheeler was unable to provide officers with enough information about himself for them to ascertain his identity, according to a police report.
Police found a fake Illinois drivers license in Wheelers wallet, according to the report. Wheeler told officers he used the ID to buy alcohol, because he is under 21.
Susie Wheeler said she received a call from her son in jail about 4:45 a.m. Saturday.
Her son had no recollection of the slashing that occurred about four hours earlier.
I was completely taken off guard, Susie Wheeler said. He wouldnt hurt a fly.
She said her son was a Phi Kappa Psi pledge and had done poorly on a fraternity exam.
Wheeler was not tested for drugs when he was booked in jail, his attorney said. However, the family was to have him tested upon release from jail.
Its unclear what, if any, drug Wheeler may have ingested, but Burns said he believes it was a hallucinogen possibly LSD or marijuana laced with PCP.
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said hes unaware of any criminal complaints against the fraternity. Authorities are still investigating the claims of drug use.
Somebody being under the influence isnt a defense in and of itself, Kleine said. Certainly its frightening any time you have something like this happen in a school atmosphere.
More than 25 students attended Wheelers court appearance Monday afternoon as a sign of support. Many cried during the hearing.
Hes a gentle giant, said Matt Canfield, 18, a friend of Wheelers since elementary school. Whatever happened is completely out of his character.
Creighton officials announced Wheelers banning and the frats suspension at a press conference Monday afternoon.
I would like to emphasize that this was an isolated attack and there is no ongoing threat to the campus community, Berscheidt said.
Creighton spokesman Jim Berscheidt said another student reported that Wheeler knocked him down in a dorm elevator before the knife incident. That student suffered minor injuries and was treated at Creighton University Medical Center and released.
Harner said she was in the elevator during that altercation. It occurred roughly 15 minutes after she had left Wheeler lying on the dorm floor. She and a group of friends had gone back to take Wheeler to another friends room. In the elevator, he shoved a member of the group. After the doors opened, Wheeler ran off.
He was clearly scared and was not in his right mind, she said. An attempt by The World-Herald to reach that student was unsuccessful.
About 1 a.m. Harner didnt know if it was before or after the slashing Wheeler met up with the group and they talked with him. But, still paranoid, he again ran off.
Wheeler could be allowed to return to campus, based on the outcome of the investigation.
That is definitely something that we will be looking into, said Tanya Winegard, the vice provost for student life.
Phi Kappa Psis suspension means that the chapter cannot take part in intramural contests or conduct initiation activities, and members cannot wear their letters on campus until further notice.
Asked if there was a fraternity event leading up to this, Winegard would not go into detail.
Thats what our investigation is looking into right now. And some of the fact-finding we have been able to do has led us to the decision we made today, she said. This action was taken ... for safety reasons as to what resulted on Friday night and our investigation into that situation.
She did say that the frat hadnt been suspended in the nearly two decades she had been at Creighton.
Garret Walton, the marketing communications manager of Phi Kappa Psi, said the national fraternity sends thoughts and prayers to Spagna and her family.
The suspect Christopher Wheeler was a new member of Phi Kappa Psi. Phi Kappa Psi is cooperating with the ongoing investigation, Walton wrote in a statement.
Collin Gill, the president of the Creighton's Phi Kappa Psi chapter, referred questions to Walton.
Christopher Wheeler told his father that he remembers very little, other than entering a room and seeing people who were not who they claimed to be. He got scared and hid.
Sean Wheeler said his son told him he has never tried drugs.
Hes an Eagle Scout, Wheeler said. I mean, hes a good kid, a really good kid.
Christopher Wheeler is the oldest of six children and was a pre-med major at Creighton, his attorney said.
His father expressed distress over the injured woman. That poor girl, he said.
The thing hes going to be most disappointed in is he cant talk to Teresa. Hes mentioned, like, six times how sorry he is. He just wants to tell her. Its really eating at him.
LINCOLN (AP) Members of a grand jury investigating the fatal shooting of a man by a Lincoln police officer have been studying a 3-D re-creation of the scene using technology that attorneys and law enforcement believe will help all involved better understand what happened.
Before such technology was introduced jurors typically relied on photos, satellite images and maps to place them at the scene.
This takes all the guessing out of all of that, and everybody gets a common understanding of the area theyre looking at, Lancaster County Attorney Joe Kelly said.
The Lincoln Journal Star reported that the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office bought a 3-D scanner in 2015 to assist in crime and motor accident investigations.
The scanner has a laser that can measure and record 20 million to 40 million points at a scene. Investigator Drew Bolzer said the scanner is so sensitive that it can even note the color of objects.
Once the scene is scanned, data is uploaded into a 3-D printer that creates scale renderings of the scene. Bolzer said the scaled renderings are accurate to within 1/10,000th of an inch, or the thickness of a piece of paper.
Kelly said the renderings can help judges, jurors and attorneys familiarize themselves with the scene of the shooting.
Capt. Josh Clark showed the scanners renderings while testifying at the investigation into the June 26 killing of Germichael Kennedy.
The scanner has yet to be tested at a criminal trial in Lincoln, but Kelly said hes confident it will withstand any legal challenges.
Its like DNA (evidence) in that its uses that 3-D use were being utilized by many, many other professions other than trial attorneys long before we were using it in court, he said.
The scanner is worth $80,000. Sheriff Terry Wagner said his office used forfeited assets to pay for the hardware and training in its use.
Copyright 2017 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Police arrested four men early Saturday in connection with a traffic stop in Norfolk, Nebraska.
Around 2 a.m., police said an officer spotted a 25-year-old Norfolk man he recognized. The mans drivers license had been suspended. The 25-year-old was arrested on suspicion of driving under suspension, police said.
The man had three passengers in the vehicle who were also arrested, police said.
One of the passengers, a 22-year-old Bellevue man, gave police a false name. Police said he had a Madison County warrant for possession of a controlled substance. He was arrested on the warrant and for suspicion of criminal impersonation, police said.
Another passenger, a 24-year-old from Battle Creek, Nebraska, had a Madison County arrest warrant for driving under the influence, police said. He was arrested on that warrant, police said.
The third passenger, a 35-year-old Norfolk man, had Madison County warrants for making terroristic threats, use of a firearm to commit a felony and burglary, police said. He was arrested on those warrants, police said.
Mueller Planetarium at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will feature laser light shows Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The shows are Laser Safari, Black History Laser Tribute and Laser Beatles (not for children). They range in length from 35 to 42 minutes.
The planetarium is part of the University of Nebraska State Museum at Morrill Hall, south of 14th and Vine Streets.
Laser Safari will show once Friday evening, three times Saturday and once Sunday afternoon. Black History Laser Tribute will show once Friday evening and three times Saturday. Laser Beatles will show once Friday night, twice Saturday and once Sunday afternoon.
Children must be 4 years of age to be admitted because of overhead motion and the occasional loudness of the shows.
Tickets may be purchased in advance by calling 402-472-2637. They also may be acquired at the front desk in Morrill Hall.
For more, visit spacelaser.com or call 402-472-2641.
MCC courses will teach you how to pair spirits with meals
Metropolitan Community Colleges open kitchen workshops will soon offer three non-credit courses at the Institute for the Culinary Arts.
The institute is at 32nd Street and Sorensen Parkway. Each course will focus on different spirits and how to pair them with meals.
The first is Pairing Studio: Tiny Bubbles from 6 to 9 p.m. March 3. It will feature a five-course meal paired with sparkling wines.
Pairing Studio: Bourbon will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. April 7. Instructors will lead the class through a five-course meal paired with different whiskeys.
Pairing Studio: Springtime in Germany will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. April 28. The class will include a five-course meal paired with German-style beer.
Registrants must be 21 or older. To register, visit mccneb.edu or call 531-622-5231. For information, call 531-622-2548.
Dick Cavett to make appearance at Wayne State College
Wayne State College will host Dick Cavett with Ron Hull on Feb. 20 at 6:30 p.m.
The event will be held in Wayne States Ramsey Theater.
Cavett is best known as host of The Dick Cavett Show, a popular television interview program on multiple networks for more than 35 years.
A native of Gibbon, Nebraska, he will appear onstage with longtime friend Hull, a producer-director at Nebraska Educational Television. Hull also served with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Foreign Service in Vietnam.
Cavett also will appear for a book-signing after the program with DVDs and books available for purchase. Admission for the event is $10 for the public and is free for Wayne State students, faculty and staffers. Pay at the door.
Proceeds will support the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site, a branch museum in Bancroft, Nebraska, of the Nebraska State Historical Society.
For information, contact Amy Kucera, executive director of the Neihardt State Historic Site, at 402-648-3388.
GRETNA Nestled in the gravel covering the bottom of the fish tank, the tiny trout hope to avoid notice. At less than a week old, the alevins, as they are known, still have yolk sacs attached and stay hidden by instinct.
Across the state, however, hatchlings just like these are being closely watched by excited students in more than 50 schools.
The 250 or so hatchlings at the Aksarben Aquarium in Schramm State Park are just a few of thousands that are part of this years Trout in the Classroom program. The program provides an opportunity for students to learn about aquatic resources while hatching and raising trout.
Theyve had the most positive reaction. They get so excited. It becomes a school wide project, said Lindsey Chizinski, who coordinates the program for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. They name their fish and get pretty attached. For such little things, they are pretty exciting.
The Trout in the Classroom program has been around nationally for decades, Chizinski said, and in Nebraska since 2013. Since its pilot year, the state program has expanded to include 64 schools, with 57 participating in this years program.
While students learn about the life cycle of trout in the program, it doesnt serve as a stocking program or as a way to teach youth to fish. The programs focus is not on the fish themselves so much as it aims to teach students about the importance of clean water, healthy watersheds and human impacts on the environment, Chizinski said.
They get a chance to see how we impact water quality, Chizinski said.
For the program, about 10,000 fertilized eggs from a Montana hatchery arrived to the aquarium in early January, said Tony Korth, the director of Aksarben Aquarium. The eggs were then prepared and distributed to each of the participating schools.
To participate in the program, teachers must first attend a workshop to learn about the set up and maintenance of the cold water tank required to raise the trout as well as other instructions and guidelines for the program. The Nebraska Environmental Trust and several other groups provide the funding and equipment for the program.
The programs curriculum includes the life cycle of the trout, but students also do water sampling and other related science, Korth said.
They learn a lot of different things through the program, a lot of chemistry and math, Korth said.
The students will continue to care for the trout as they grow from egg to alevin to juvenile fish over the next several months. When the fish are 1 to 2 inches long, the trout may be released in approved waters, Chizinski said, and many of the schools involved in the program will visit the aquarium in April or May and release their trout in the canyon ponds.
As for the alevins at the aquarium, their yolk sacs will disappear in another week or so and then the trout will swim freely in the tank for visitors to observe.
Once the trout have grown large enough, they will be released into the wild just like the other fish in the program.
Drumming has always come naturally to Dean Fornoff of Springfield. Hes loved drumming ever since he was in elementary school when he would play around with the drums in his basement.
If you can count to two you should be able to play drums, Fornoff said.
Although hes played in almost 60 bands throughout his nearly six decades of drumming, polka music was always his real passion. As a child he used to wake up at 5:30 a.m. every Saturday morning so he could listen to polka music on the radio.
What it all comes back to, where it started and ended for me is polka music, Fornoff said.
To honor his musical achievements, Fornoff was one of five musicians inducted Jan. 21 into the Musicians Hall of Fame during the 18th annual ceremony and jamboree at Rons Tavern in Milligan, Nebraska.
In addition to Fornoff, others honored for their dedication to the preservation of Czech music were Alan Brunkow of Western and Leonard Lisec of Dorchester. Honored posthumously were Milo Brchan of Lincoln; and Anton Kvasnicka of Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Musicians were honored for of their dedication and contributions to Czech music.
That was a real honor because I was not expecting that at all, Fornoff said.
This is not the first hall of fame for Fornoff, who was also inducted into the Sokol Omaha Polka Hall of Fame in 1997.
His career officially started when he was only 10 years old in 1961. Fornoffs uncle, Elmer Helwig, was forming a five-piece polka band. Looking for a drummer, Hewlig enlisted his young nephew to join the Double BB Beer Barrel Polka Band.
That would be the first of 58 bands Fornoff would perform with throughout his career, from the Platteview High School band to dozens of polka bands that played across the country.
While farming during the day, Fornoff would often have gigs four nights a week for different bands, especially during the 1970s, where many restaurants, bars and halls had polka performances every week. Over the years, hes played with noted bands such as Frank Hazuka, Polka Kings, Bobby Z and Polka Joy.
Included in his stops were Sokol Auditorium, the Livestock Exchange Building and many bars which have since closed.
Fornoff would play in his regular bands and fill in for other bands in need of a drummer.
Perhaps the highlight of Fornoffs career was a trip to Czechoslovakia in 1987 where he drummed with the Omaha Czech Brass Band.
That was unbelievable to be playing music where it originated in the 1800s, Fornoff said.
His band was warmly greeted in the old country, where the Czechs were thrilled to see the popularity of their music had been passed on to the United States.
People were amazed that the culture is still alive in America, Fornoff said.
Although Fornoff is German, he sees a lot of similarities between Czech and German polka. Both differ from the Polish version, which is played at a slower tempo.
A lot has changed in the polka world since Fornoff began drumming, and hes seen the popularity of polka music decline over the years. He believes it started in the 1980s when DJs started to become more popular.
We used to play a lot of weddings and anniversaries in the 1960s and 1970s, but when the 1980s came around the DJs took over, Fornoff said. The live music started to fade.
Fornoff can now count on one hand the establishments that still provide live polka music one of which is the Starlite Ballroom in Wahoo, Nebraska. The crowds have also aged and Fornoff estimates the average polka enthusiast in Nebraska is somewhere around 70.
Many of the places that used to play polka music every night have closed, most recently The Bohemian Cafe in Omaha, a Czech restaurant which featured polka music on a weekly basis. Sokol Auditorium, which used to feature polka music every weekend, now only features polka performances once a year.
Despite all this, Fornoff believes polka music is still a crowd pleaser that can get people dancing.
At weddings, when they play a polka, itll get everyone on the dance floor and itll liven the party up, Fornoff said.
Still banging on the same drum set hes been using for 50 years, Fornoff plays at a variety of parties and events with many of the same people hes been playing with for decades.
Its like a lifetime hobby, Fornoff said. Ive made lifetime friends that I never would have met before, Fornoff said.
COUNCIL BLUFFS For the first time in more than a decade, Council Bluffs residents will see a small increase in the property tax levy needed to balance the citys budget, for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Mayor Matt Walshs preliminary budget for fiscal year 2018, which is expected to be the subject of a public hearing Feb. 27, calls for a city property tax levy of $17.9072 per $1,000 of taxable valuation, up from $17.75. Walsh said the increase in the citys property tax levy was needed to repay the first $7.5 million of the $20 million bond issue that voters approved for a new Council Bluffs Police Department headquarters.
Property tax levies have not yet been announced by the Pottawattamie County Board or either of the citys two school districts.
Along with the increase in the city property tax levy, the state-mandated property tax rollback has increased to 56.94 percent, up from 55.6 percent for the current fiscal year.
The change in the rollback means that a house with an assessed valuation of $100,000 will have a taxable valuation of $56,940 in the next fiscal year, up from $55,600 in the current year.
The increased rollback, coupled with the increase in the citys property tax levy, will result in a city property tax bill of $1,019.64 for the owner of a home with an assessed valuation of $100,000, up from $986.90 in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
Walsh said he estimates city property tax collections for the next fiscal year at $43,306,289, up $979,578 or 2.31 percent, from the current fiscal years estimated property tax collections of $42,326,691.
He said $527,313 of the $979,578 increase in the total estimated property tax collection will be generated by the increase of 16.436 cents per $1,000 of taxable valuation in the citys debt service levy for the police headquarters bond measure.
Overall, the budget anticipates the total amount of revenue available for fiscal year 2018 at $171,233,109 with slightly more than 25 percent of that total coming from property taxes.
An unrepentant Ohio man who stalked and murdered his ex-girlfriend in Glenwood, Iowa, was sentenced to life in prison Monday.
Mark Alan Troutman, 27, of Sylvania, Ohio, will not be eligible for parole, according to the sentence issued by Mills County District Judge James Heckerman. Troutman was convicted in December of first-degree murder in the death of Katie Weber-Kuhl, 18.
Weber-Kuhl was shot to death Sept. 17 in the parking lot of her Mills County employer, Linnwood Estates, an assisted living facility.
During the trial, the prosecution said Troutman had stalked Weber-Kuhl for months, telling others he was suicidal.
Weber-Kuhls family and friends packed the courtroom. The judge received multiple letters depicting how much she was loved.
As you can expect, the senseless murder of an innocent young lady is going to have a huge impact on her family and the community, said Mills County Attorney Naeda Elliott.
The family left the courtroom when Troutman went on a bizarre rant, making unsettling allegations. He also said he proposed to Weber-Kuhl.
It took Katie only 20 days to start cheating on me. Not once did she tell me she was unhappy, Troutman told the court.
On top of the life sentence, the judge also ordered a civil penalty of $150,000.
Weber had graduated from Glenwood High School and was attending Iowa Western Community College.
Assistant Mills County Attorney Tyler Loontjer said the state was pleased with the conviction and sentencing.
The process went quickly and hopefully provides peace of mind for the family and friends of the victim, Loontjer said. Hopefully, this can help them move past the tragedy.
This report includes material from The World-Herald News Service and KMTV.
LINCOLN A fight is brewing in the Nebraska Legislature over proposed changes that craft brewers say will stifle their industry.
The proposals sponsor says its meant to address any potential constitutional issues and better regulate the industry.
Another supporter a state association representing beer distributors is arguing the change would level the playing field for all beer industry players, big and small.
Opponents have declared the measure a job killer, saying its overly burdensome and would bring the boom of craft breweries in Nebraska to a halt.
And some suggest the bill sponsors big beer campaign donors may have something to do with the legislation.
Legislative Bill 632 would require craft brewers to make beer at each of their locations, though it doesnt specify how much. It also would require that beer go from a brewery to a distributors warehouse before delivery.
It appears to us theres a desire to stop the growth, said Tom Wilmoth, co-founder of Zipline Brewing Co. and president of the Nebraska Craft Brewers Guild.
State Sen. Tyson Larson of ONeill said his proposal aims to crack down on entities that have stretched the spirit of a law passed last year and attempted to circumvent the states three-tier system that separates the manufacturing, distribution and sale of alcohol to promote regulation and stop certain tax abuses.
He said hes not out to kill craft beer but to protect the states taxpayers from a potential lawsuit.
The bill, which is part of the annual liquor omnibus package, will be heard today at the State Capitol before the Nebraska Legislatures General Affairs Committee, of which Larson is the chairman.
It would tweak part of a measure lawmakers passed last year that let breweries maintain up to five retail operations, such as taprooms, without going through a distributor when the brewery exceeded making 20,000 barrels of beer a year.
The goal of the legislation, which Larson sponsored, was to allow brewers to continue making beer while expanding their business plans that may include restaurants and taprooms.
When Nebraska carved out an exemption for craft breweries from the three-tier system it was meant to apply to entities that wholly owned their other operations, which would lessen worries about unconstitutionality, Larson said.
But in some instances a bar bought a 1 percent interest in a brewery in an attempt to self-distribute.
The Liquor Control Commission fielded a couple of complaints last year, investigated and put a stop to it, said Executive Director Hobert Rupe. The commission is neutral on LB 632.
Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2005, Larson said out-of-state companies, which arent afforded the same benefit, could allege the state is favoring in-state producers.
There have been concerns, he said. I cant mention who, but there are serious concerns.
To Bill Baburek, owner of Infusion Brewing Co. and Crescent Moon Alehouse, the motivation of the bill is clear.
Unless a brewery could afford to have production at each location, the change would require a brewery that wants to sell its product at its own taproom to make beer and sell it to a distributor, only to buy it back at a marked-up price, he said.
Distributors dont want to lose their cut, he said.
Larson has received more than $2,500 in campaign donations from Anheuser-Busch since 2011 and nearly $14,000 from the state distributors association and a handful of distributors since 2010.
Larson said he introduced last years bill that gave the craft brewers new freedoms despite receiving the bulk of the donations from distributors before that. The most recent one he received was $300 from Anheuser-Busch in September.
I can guarantee $300 in one year didnt sway my votes, he said.
Craft brewers said the proposal would have immediate impact. As a result of last years legislation, Zipline built a taproom in south Lincoln and has plans to open another in north downtown Omaha.
LB 632 as written is effective retroactively to Jan. 1. Should the bill pass, it wouldnt be feasible for Zipline to open its Omaha taproom on time and with the facilities to make beer.
That location is set to open in early May with 25 employees. Thats an economic development the state needs, Wilmoth said.
Larsons bill also would require that beer go from a brewery to a distributors warehouse before it is delivered. Distributors now can pick up beer from a craft brewery and take it directly to local bars and grocery stores.
Kim Kavulak, co-founder of the Nebraska Brewing Co. who sits on the executive committee for the Nebraska Craft Brewers Guild, said the change would be burdensome to rural breweries with distributors in Omaha or Grand Island.
Larson said brewers could work with distributors that serve western Nebraska, including ones in Norfolk, ONeill, Scottsbluff and North Platte.
Supporters of Larsons proposal say that out-of-state beer such as Anheuser-Busch InBev has to go to a warehouse before being distributed, and not requiring the same of craft brewers could show preferential treatment.
Larson said the current practice among craft breweries also doesnt allow for the product to be inspected. And, because distributors are tasked with collecting excise taxes, it raises concerns about whether taxes are being collected, he said.
The Associated Beverage Distributors of Nebraska said through a representative that the proposal is meant to create a level playing field for all industry members, not to penalize or restrict the growth of craft breweries.
Wilmoth rejected that idea, saying craft brewers represent just 2.7 percent of overall beer sales in the state.
Still, the industry is valuable for Nebraska, generating about $60 million in revenue annually and employing 300 people, Wilmoth said. Breweries are part of the fabric of communities, many of which are rural, he said.
Theyre like the old VFW Hall, he said. People come to talk about issues and have a beer. Theres rarely been a more important time in American history than now to facilitate that.
LINCOLN Adjustments aimed at helping to close the states $900 million budget gap are headed to the governors desk.
Lawmakers on Monday voted 42-3 to give final-round approval to legislation that would bring the projected shortfall to roughly $760 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019.
The vote came after more than two hours of debate Monday, prompting senators to invoke a cloture motion, which forces an immediate vote on a bills advancement.
State Sen. John Stinner of Gering, chairman of the budget-making Appropriations Committee, said the adjustments are needed to provide certainty for state agencies.
The committees vice chair, Sen. Kate Bolz of Lincoln, said shes pleased the plan is moving forward, as tougher decisions are before the committee. The committee is currently working on the 2017-19 biennial budget.
The (current) changes are changes that are more palatable than others facing the committee at this point, Bolz said. Im glad we could have a consensus moving ahead. Ill count on the governor to do the same.
The Governors Budget Office is reviewing the budget changes under Legislative Bill 22 and preparing to implement those changes to agency appropriations, said Taylor Gage, Gov. Pete Ricketts spokesman.
Ricketts appreciates the Legislatures swift action and will take quick action himself after fully reviewing the Legislatures decisions, Gage said.
Under the plan, budget cuts amount to about $137 million through across-the-board cuts, specifics cuts and taking back unspent dollars.
The plan preserves K-12 education, corrections and some Health and Human Services programs, while making across-the-board cuts to most state agencies.
Lawmakers opted to restore some cuts Ricketts had recommended. That includes restoring $5.2 million in unspent 2015-16 research dollars to the University of Nebraska, $4 million to the Supreme Court for probation-related programs and $3.5 million to providers of developmental disability services.
While Ricketts proposed pulling $92 million from the cash reserve, lawmakers wont do that now. Members of the Appropriations Committee have said they plan to address the cash reserve in the next budget cycle.
Lawmakers also did not count on an expected $11.2 million increase in state sales tax revenue from Amazon purchases, which Ricketts did.
State Sens. Ernie Chambers and Bob Krist of Omaha and Dan Quick of Grand Island voted against advancing the budget plan.
Krist objected to cuts to the Legislature that would help with paying for overhauling the State Capitols heating and cooling system. He also has raised concerns about Ricketts withholding money from all state agencies, not just those under the governors control, in an effort to control their spending.
Stinner said he believed the Legislature shouldnt make an exception for itself, and that everyone should share in the budget pain. Bolz said shes confident the committee will work out a solution in the 2017-19 budget.
LINCOLN A Gretna state senator is facing criticism for sponsoring a bill some say is a conflict of interest.
State Sen. John Murante introduced legislation that would remove the Nebraska Public Service Commissions ability to regulate political robocalls.
Legislative Bill 654 would instead place that authority with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
Jack Gould of the government watchdog group Common Cause Nebraska said that the bill stands to benefit companies that produce the calls because, he said, the accountability commission cant look into misconduct, which the Public Service Commission can.
Among those that use robocalls is Victory Enterprises, an Iowa-based political consulting company that does work throughout the region. Murante is listed as a state director for Victory on his latest statement of financial interest, on which officials are required to file their sources of income of more than $1,000.
Murante said the bill wouldnt help or hurt any company, and simply moves regulation of the automated calls that are popular during campaign seasons to an agency that he believes could do a better job.
He hadnt filed conflict-of-interest paperwork as of Friday.
I dont believe a conflict of interest exists, Murante said.
Gould disagrees.
Given Murantes employment with the company, he should have disclosed that when he introduced the bill, Gould said.
We have the bare minimum of rules about conflicts of interest, Gould said. The bottom line is you tell the public right from the start, and he didnt do that. Thats wrong.
Robocall scripts must be filed with the Public Service Commission within 24 hours of placing a call. Murantes bill would shift that filing requirement to the accountability commission.
The accountability commission also would have to ensure calls have the proper disclaimer about whos behind them.
Murante said his bill wouldnt decrease regulations on such calls.
Both the Public Service Commission and accountability commission are expressing concerns about the bill.
The Public Service Commission in 2015 filed a complaint against Victory Enterprises, saying the company didnt file a political message within 24 hours of sending it. The company paid a fine for the violation.
Murante said he wasnt involved with that call, which was a poll conducted over a period of days.
And Murante said his interaction with Victory has been limited since he was elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 2012. He may have to list the company on his statement of financial interest this year, he said, but his payment would have just barely crossed the $1,000 threshold.
Murante, a Republican in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, said the bill isnt an attempt to fix any wrongdoing by the Public Service Commission but is rather an approach at a broad policy.
Murante said the current system puts the Public Service Commission in a difficult position when commissioners are contacted by political candidates to inquire about their opponents.
Political speech should not be regulated by partisan elected officials, he said.
The Public Service Commission is a constitutionally created commission of five officials, who run on partisan tickets. It regulates telecommunication carriers as well as oil pipelines and natural gas utilities.
The Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission is an independent agency tasked with enforcing the states campaign finance, lobbying and conflict-of-interest laws. Its commissioners are Secretary of State John Gale, plus eight others appointed by the governor and secretary of state.
No more than four of the eight appointed members can be from the same political party, and at least one must be a registered independent.
But Gould said the accountability commission doesnt work with phone companies as the Public Service Commission does.
Its putting (the accountability commission) in a position to be working on something that they really have no background in, Gould said.
The move would cost more than $70,000 for the accountability commission to hire someone to carry out the bills requirements, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office.
Crystal Rhoades, a commissioner with the Public Service Commission, said she believes her commission remains a good fit for the task.
I think that the Legislature originally put it with Public Service Commission because of our ability to actually do the investigation and enforcement in a way the accountability commission cannot, said Rhoades, a Democrat.
She acknowledged that she will send scripts to those who request them because they are a public record.
Frank Daley, executive director of the accountability commission, also said he doesnt like the bill as written, saying it leaves various gaps and problems.
Whenever were talking about speech in the area of political speech, you walk into a First Amendment land mine field, he said.
Murante said hes working with all parties involved to reach a consensus. A public hearing on the bill is scheduled for today.
Council Bluffs officials are considering a new road along the Missouri River to spur economic and recreational development.
This road in effect gives us a continuous river access, said Greg Reeder, director of the citys Public Works Department. Its an investment for our future.
Currently, people attending events at the Tom Hanafan Rivers Edge Park or at Harrahs Casino must travel back east to Interstate 29 or South 35th Street if they want to go to Ameristar Casino or other sites in that area, Reeder said. In a short time frame, though a specific timetable isnt set, the plan calls for a road west of I-29 that would connect Ninth Avenue with Nebraska Avenue to the south, Reeder said. After that, the road could be extended farther south, to Veterans Memorial Highway.
To make the project a reality, city officials have received a once in a lifetime opportunity from the Iowa Department of Transportation, which must lengthen the Union Pacific Railroad bridge over I-29 to make way for a wider Interstate, Reeder said.
The DOT has agreed to lengthen the bridge even farther west to allow for the proposed two-lane river road, he said, though the city would have to pay for that extension. Without this extension, the city would need to tunnel a connection.
The cost for the extended bridge work is estimated at less than $3 million, and the department has agreed to a five-year repayment plan by the city for that work.
Sarpy County may have snagged another big name.
Facebook, it appears, is considering a site south of Papillion for a new data center. Although the social media giant hasnt confirmed any plans, public documents submitted to the City of Papillion suggest Facebook is behind a massive data center in the works for 146 acres on Nebraska Highway 50 and Capehart Road.
Facebook is always evaluating potential new sites for data centers, a spokeswoman said Monday afternoon. By doing site work upfront, the company can move fast when it needs more capacity, she said.
But were not committing to anything right now, she said.
The project has already gone through multiple layers of approval from Papillion. The company has also negotiated the purchase of the land it would build on. Those property owners werent told who was buying their land.
The name listed on the data center applications is Raven Northbrook LLC, a company created to keep the identity of the actual company secret. Corporation Service Company, a Delaware-based firm, created the LLC.
But in an application for the out-of-state LLC to operate in Nebraska, the address of the principal office is listed as 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California the address of Facebooks headquarters.
Additionally, another address listed in applications is the office of Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm that has represented Facebook in a number of acquisitions and moves.
The Sarpy County Economic Development Corporation declined to confirm that Facebook was behind the data center. Development corporation policy prevents staff from commenting on ongoing projects.
Andrew Rainbolt, executive director of the development corporation, said the company hes been working with is still considering other sites around the country.
Were hopeful everything gets finalized, he said, but we dont know exactly when.
If all goes to plan, the data center could see a groundbreaking this spring, Rainbolt said.
Should Facebook select the Sarpy County site, itll be in good company. Yahoo, Fidelity, Cabelas and Travelers also operate data centers in the county.
The data center would involve four 610,000-square-foot buildings east and west of Highway 50, just north of Capehart Road. A tunnel under the highway would connect the two campuses. It would operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The largest work shift would involve less than 150 employees, according to the projects final plat.
The development corporation has been working with the company on the project for a year.
Facebook also built a $300 million data center in Altoona, Iowa, in 2015.
High temperatures this week are forecast to be above normal in the Omaha area, especially late in the week.
The weather outlook calls for mild conditions today and Tuesday, a slight cooldown Wednesday, then very mild temperatures to end the week, the National Weather Service office in Valley said.
Were talking temperatures well above normal, said Ryan McPike, a KMTV meteorologist.
Average high temperatures for the Omaha area in mid-February are the mid- to upper 30s.
McPike said the current upper-level weather tract is looking favorable for the Omaha area for the next seven to 10 days.
Nothing is really coming into our area from the north or from the northwest, he said. Nothing out of Canada.
Forecasters said the Omaha area can expect mostly sunny skies today and Tuesday with highs around 50 to the lower 50s. Winds could gust both days up to 20 to 25 mph. Wednesday will also be sunny and the high will be around 45.
The big warm-up is to begin Thursday and run through the weekend, with highs around 60 under mostly sunny skies. Overnight lows will be in the mid-30s to around 40, the weather service said.
Well have overnight low temperatures that are usually daytime highs for us, said McPike.
He said by mid- to late next week, the Omaha area could turn cooler with the possibility of rain or snow developing.
Elsewhere, relative humidity in central to southeast Nebraska could dip to around 25 percent to 35 percent this week, which could increase the potential for wildfires due to dry vegetation in those locations, the weather service said.
Helen Condon Jenkins, the mother of University of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, died early Monday at the Nebraska Medical Center from injuries she sustained when she was struck by a car.
She was 88.
Helen Jenkins was walking in the Westroads parking lot about 12:30 p.m. Friday when she was bumped by a car that was backing out of a parking stall and hit her head when she fell, according to an Omaha Police Department report. The driver, Judy Freed, 71, of Omaha, told police she never saw Jenkins.
John Jenkins said in an interview Monday that his mother had a lot of energy and was a tremendously joyful and positive person. She was the spark plug behind our family, and it was a very joyful home.
John Jenkins celebrated Mass with his 11 siblings at their mothers bedside before she died.
Helen Jenkins, a nurse, and her husband, Dr. Harry Jenkins, a gastroenterologist who died in 2004, raised 12 children in Omaha. In addition to her children, she is survived by 43 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.
John Jenkins will preside at his mothers funeral Mass at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at St. Leos Catholic Church, 1920 N. 102nd St. A delegation from Notre Dame will attend, the university said in a press release. A wake will be held from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the church.
At his inauguration in 2005 as Notre Dames president, according to the press release, John Jenkins said of his mother:
As I accept responsibility as head of the Notre Dame family, I look to my mother for inspiration. She raised 12 children ... As you may have guessed, shes Catholic Twelve is a nice biblical number.
I remember the day we all visited the Grand Canyon, and then drove to a park for lunch. Mom was handing out the sandwiches when a look of horror came across her face. She had one sandwich too many. She was no mathematician, but she knew that if she had one sandwich too many she had one child too few.
In contrast to the good shepherd who would leave all her sheep to go off in search of the one, Mom herded us all into the car and Dad stomped on the gas. We found Rick safe and sound. But after Mom declared that your brother was lost and now is found, we were disappointed not to get the fatted calf.
My mother has always shown a supernatural talent for making 12 people all feel important and loved to the same degree at the same time. If ever I display any of that talent in the future, as I hope I do, you can be sure it did not originate with me.
Memorial contributions can be sent to the University of Notre Dames Harry and Helen Jenkins Scholarship Fund.
A $4 million project to improve 84th Street roughly between Dodge and Pacific Streets will take out three trees in the Ayers familys front yard and block through traffic on the street for about 10 months.
But Cara Ayers, a mother of eight, said she is looking forward to better sidewalks for her children.
I think (the project) will be good, said Ayers, 50. Pavement is failing, and the underlying foundation is deteriorating due to poor drainage conditions. The Metropolitan Utilities District needs to rebuild the water main due to the age and condition, she said.
Prep work for the upgrade, which will include the removal of about two dozen mature trees and a gas-line installation, is scheduled to start Feb. 20. The stretch of 84th will close to all but local motorists.
The city has sent letters to area residents explaining the project, which will start just south of Methodist Hospital halfway between Dodge Street and Farnam Drive and work its way down 84th to Pacific. Dodge Street, which is up the hill from West Dodge Road, wont be affected.
The project is scheduled to wrap up by mid-December.
Crews will tear out asphalt and replace it with concrete. The project will add sidewalks, gutters and curbs, a new water main and a storm sewer. Drainage ditches currently handle stormwater along the road.
Left-turn lanes will be added at the intersection of 84th Street and Farnam Drive.
Construction costs will be split between the city and Metropolitan Utilities District, said Murthy Koti, a city traffic engineer and interim design engineer. The city will use $3.5 million in transportation bond money through the Capital Improvement Program. MUD will pay about $660,000. No federal dollars will be used.
Bob Bohacek, who has lived in his house along 84th Street for 40 years, will lose at least two trees, two decorative stone pillars and two-thirds of his two-lane driveway.
Its going to be very inconvenient, said Bohacek, 91. I guess its progress.
The city is reimbursing him for the loss, he said.
Years ago, Edward Carusi was forced to pay for installation of a curb at the edge of his property along 84th Street to keep water runoff from pouring into his home and garage. Carusi, 89, and his wife, Jean, 90, have lived for almost 50 years in their home.
This is really more for the purpose of the city than for the residents of 84th Street, Edward Carusi said. All the city is doing is bringing 84th Street up to where it should have been back in 1986.
Koti said some residents will be forced to park away from their homes and walk to their residences during parts of the project. That will occur only during the phase of the work directly in front of residents properties, he said.
Temporary parking areas will be provided.
Accommodations are being made for residents with special needs, Koti said. These include temporary vehicle access routes to the property.
Ayers said she will be forced to park away from her home for up to two months.
Well work around it, she said. You have to pay a price for improvements.
Police, fire, garbage and postal officials have been notified of the improvement work, city officials said, with garbage to be collected each week and mail to be delivered on schedule.
No homes or small businesses will need to be eliminated to make way for the upgrade, Koti said. But some minor property acquisitions at street corners will be necessary, he said, including at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, which is on the northeast corner of 84th and Pacific.
The Rev. John Schaefer, rector at St. Andrews, said one or both of the churchs entrances off 84th Street could end up closing for the work, forcing the churchs 400-plus parishioners to use the Pacific Street entrance.
Schaefer also said the church would lose a mature tree in the project.
Weve been fairly compensated, Schaefer said. The city has been very good and very informative with us.
We understand that the work has to be done.
FREMONT, Neb. Papillion native Shirley Long has been to her fair share of military ceremonies in the past. Her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Ira Long, has served for 32 years, and she has welcomed him home from each deployment. But Saturdays ceremony was special.
Shirley Long and her 15-year-old son, Iain, were on hand to celebrate the return of 32 Fremont-based Army Reserve soldiers.
On Saturday, Ira Long was celebrating not only his return home but also his final deployment. He plans to retire from the military this year and said the best part of returning from deployment was being back home with his family.
Families, friends and officials gathered at Eppley Auditorium on Midland Universitys campus to recognize members of Detachment 3 of the 394th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion. The unit was deployed to the Middle East last March and returned home in mid-December.
The unit provided strategic and logistical support to multiple operations overseas, including in the fight against the Islamic State.
Shirley Long said it was bittersweet to see her husband receive one final honor for his deployment. Without the ceremony, she said, there would be no formal recognition of the soldiers upon their arrival home. But there will likely be more ceremonies in her future.
While Ira Long is expecting to end his military career soon, his son is planning to start one. Iain plans to join the Air Force after he graduates from high school.
Gov. Pete Ricketts spoke at the ceremony, held near the units headquarters, to thank the soldiers for their work.
We have the best place to live here in Nebraska. ... Nebraskans are involved in their churches, their schools and in their communities. You all take that spirit of Nebraska one step further, Ricketts said.
He said Nebraskans across the state are grateful for those who serve the nation, and he thanked the families of soldiers for their sacrifices while the group was deployed.
The soldiers served overseas under the command of Capt. Zachariah Bowen, who was also recognized at the ceremony.
Lt. Col. Eldon Dettmer, the battalions commander, presented the soldiers to the audience. He said the experience was something the unit would not forget.
The knowledge you bring back, I challenge you with this: Dont hold it to yourself, teach the next generation, Dettmer said. Pass on what you have gotten to learn, because that is the best gift you will give.
With construction of the U.S. Strategic Commands new Command and Control Facility now hitting the homestretch, engineers in charge of the $1.2 billion project are just a tad nervous.
More than four years into construction, the buildings shell is finished. Many floors, walls and ceilings are in place. The mechanical, electrical and building security systems are almost finished. The structural work is 88 percent complete.
Soon all systems will be switched on in the building, which measures nearly 1 million square feet and sits near Offutt Air Force Bases Capehart Road entrance.
Usually this part of the project is just fraught with risk, Col. John Henderson, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District, said in an interview last week. Theres an amazing number of systems that have to interact.
The risk is magnified because the StratCom headquarters is meant to keep running smoothly even in the most dire national emergencies. Besides command and control for all U.S. nuclear and global strike forces, the building backs up both the Pentagon and the Northern Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The power cant be interrupted, not even for a second.
Theres almost a zero tolerance for any glitches in the system, Henderson said. There cant be a blip.
The most critical part of the building is the new operation center, built beneath a concrete plaza near the buildings entrance. It has been constructed inside a thick steel cube, encased in a concrete shell, surrounded by catwalks and scaffolding essentially, suspended in midair, underground.
The new headquarters is designed to replace StratComs current office complex, built in 1957 an era before computers and modern satellite communications to house what was then known as the Strategic Air Command.
When it opened, the building had one mainframe computer, said Steve Callicutt, StratComs primary overseer on the project. Now it has 10,000 individual workstations.
Senior StratCom leaders for years sought a new building designed for todays technology. Nebraskas congressional delegation secured funding almost a decade ago, and workers broke ground on the project in October 2012.
Building contractor KiewitPhelps a partnership of Omaha-based Kiewit Corp. and Colorado-based Hensel Phelps quickly ran into drainage problems because of the high water table at the 80-acre site, which is close to the Missouri River.
Water seeped in at some of the anchor points that stabilized a bathtub-like retention wall designed to surround the command center and keep it dry. Shoring up the anchors took several months.
Then, in fall 2014, engineers discovered that some of the concrete floors hadnt been properly designed to withstand a progressive structural collapse. That took about four months to fix.
The most persistent problem, though, has been the presence of mold growing in some of the buildings heating and air-conditioning ductwork.
If left to grow in an enclosed building, mold can cause respiratory problems in people who work there.
The discovery in September 2015 startled engineers because mold infestation is typically associated with older, poorly ventilated buildings rather than ones still under construction.
Inspectors found the mold in ducts that had already been installed as well as in those stored inside semitrailers for future use. The Army Corps stopped work until large fans could be put up to keep down moisture in the half-completed building. Air-quality monitors also were added.
Engineers spent months using robot cameras to search for mold in the 3 miles of ductwork that had already been installed. (The completed building will have 12 miles of ducts.) About 4,000 feet of ductwork was infested with mold and removed at great cost and disruption, Henderson said.
The corps instituted frequent and thorough inspections. The major colonies of mold are long gone.
We inspected everything we could get access to, Henderson said. Were coming across little spots of mold, and weve removed it.
The threat should end once heated and chilled air is circulating throughout the HVAC system, he said, although continued inspections will be recommended just to be safe.
Our guarantee is to turn over a mold-free building, he added.
That turnover is expected to take place in November 14 months late, Henderson said. After that, StratCom had planned to bring in contractors to outfit the building with $600 million worth of equipment and critical electronics for its supersensitive mission.
The number of change orders on the project stands at about 800. Thats inevitable in a one-of-a-kind project of this complexity, Henderson said, especially one thats heavy with fast-changing technology.
You dont do 800 changes and 14 months without incurring some costs, he said. These changes arent necessarily bad, and they arent necessarily out of line.
The cost of the corps share of the project had already risen from $564 million to $601 million by last spring. Henderson said more money will be needed because the final costs havent been tallied, but he guessed that it would amount to a couple of percent of the project total.
The mold was an unanticipated black-swan event that has kind of hounded us, he said.
The delays also could push up the cost of StratComs work on the buildings interior electronics and furnishings. To lessen those costs, the corps has allowed StratComs contractors to begin working on the site already. The current schedule calls for the building to be fully completed, and occupied, in July 2019.
Still, things have improved from a year ago, when the extent of the mold infestation wasnt yet known.
Its not all rainbows and lollipops. Well continue to have challenges, Henderson said. But were in a way better position than we were.
Ultimately, he said, people wont care about the construction schedules or change orders.
The most important thing is we have to get the quality right, Henderson said. Were going to fix it, and get the job done.
WASHINGTON (AP) Embattled national security adviser Michael Flynns fate as one of President Donald Trumps senior aides is uncertain following reports that he discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian envoy before Trumps inauguration.
A top White House official sidestepped repeated chances Sunday to publicly defend him.
The president, who spent the weekend at his private club in Florida, has yet to comment on Flynns status. Nor has Vice President Mike Pence, who previously denied that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
Pence and Flynn spoke twice on Friday, according to an administration official.
Trump has told associates he is troubled by the situation, but he has not said whether he plans to ask Flynn to step down, according to a person who spoke with him recently.
Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he is viewed skeptically by some in the administrations national security circles, in part because of his ties to Russia.
The administration official and both people with ties to Trump spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Stephen Miller, Trumps top policy adviser, skirted the issue on several Sunday news shows, saying it was not his place to weigh in on the sensitive matter or to say whether the president retains confidence in Flynn.
Several other White House officials did not respond Sunday to questions about whether Trump had confidence in his national security adviser. Their silence appeared to reflect some uncertainty about the views of the president, who is known to quickly change his mind.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Flynn addressed sanctions against Russia in a call with Kislyak. The report contradicted repeated denials from Trump officials, including Pence, who vouched for Flynn in a televised interview.
Flynn has since told administration officials that sanctions may have come up in the calls, which coincided with the Obama administration slapping penalties on Russia for election-related hacking.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who led Trumps transition planning before the election, said Flynn would have to explain his conflicting statements about his conversations with Kislyak to Trump and Pence.
Gen. Flynn has said up to this point that he had not said anything like that to the Russian ambassador. I think now hes saying that he doesnt remember whether he did or not, Christie said on CNN. So, thats a conversation he is going to need to have with the president and the vice president to clear that up, so that the White House can make sure that they are completely accurate about what went on.
The controversy surrounding Flynn comes as the young administration grapples with a series of national security challenges, including North Koreas reported ballistic missile launch. The president, who was joined at his Mar-a-Lago estate by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the weekend, voiced solidarity with Japan.
Trump meets Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and later in the week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House is also dealing with fallout from the rocky rollout of Trumps immigration executive order, which has been blocked by the courts. The order was intended to suspend the nations refugee program and bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
Advocacy groups contend the government has rounded up large numbers of people as part of stepped-up enforcement. The agency calls the effort no different from enforcement actions carried out in the past.
Copyright 2017, the Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) The water level dropped Monday at the nation's tallest dam, easing slightly the fears of a catastrophic spillway collapse that prompted authorities to order nearly 200,000 people to leave their homes downstream.
But with more rain expected later in the week, time was running short to fix the damage ahead of the storms.
Officials from the California Department of Water Resources were considering using helicopters to drop loads of rock on the eroded spillway at Lake Oroville, about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Authorities ordered mass evacuations Sunday for everyone living below the lake out of concern that the spillway could fail and send a 30-foot wall of water roaring downstream.
Nancy Borsdorf described a scene of chaos on her way out of Oroville, including drivers abandoning cars as they ran out of gas.
"People were just panicking," said Borsdorf, who was at a shelter Monday in Chico.
"We've always loved and trusted our dam," she said, having lived in Oroville for 13 years. "I'm really hopeful Oroville wasn't flooded."
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the region was not yet safe, but officials were working on a plan for evacuees to return home.
The water level in the lake rose significantly in recent weeks after storms dumped rain and snow across California, particularly in northern parts of the state. The high water forced the use of the dam's emergency spillway, or overflow, for the first time in the dam's nearly 50-year history on Saturday.
The threat appeared to ease somewhat Monday as the water level fell. Officials said water was flowing out of the lake at nearly twice the rate as water flowing into it.
Sunday afternoon's evacuation order came after engineers spotted a hole in the earthen secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.
With more rain expected Wednesday and Thursday, officials were rushing to try to fix the damage and hoping to reduce the dam's water level by 50 feet ahead of the storms.
The sudden evacuation panicked residents, who scrambled to get their belongings into cars and then grew angry as they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic hours after the order was given.
Raj Gill, managing a Shell station where anxious motorists got gas and snacks, said his boss told him to close the station and flee himself. But he stayed open to feed a steady line of customers.
"You can't even move," he said. "I'm trying to get out of here too. I'm worried about the flooding. I've seen the pictures that's a lot of water."
A Red Cross spokeswoman said more than 500 people showed up at an evacuation center in Chico, California.
The shelter ran out of blankets and cots, and a tractor-trailer with 1,000 more cots was stuck in the gridlock of traffic fleeing from the potential flooding Sunday night, Red Cross shelter manager Pam Deditch said.
A California Highway Patrol spokesman said two planes would fly Monday to help with traffic control and possible search-and-rescue missions.
At least 250 California law enforcement officers were posted near the dam and along evacuation routes to manage the exodus and ensure that evacuated towns do not become targets for looting or other criminal activity.
About 188,000 residents of Yuba, Sutter and Butte Counties were ordered to evacuate.
Acting Director Department of Water Resources Bill Croyle said officials will be able to assess the damage to the emergency spillway now that the lake level has come down.
The erosion at the head of the emergency spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville. Those flows could overwhelm the Feather River and other downstream waterways and levees and flood towns in three counties.
Department engineer and spokesman Kevin Dossey told the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday after flows peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second.
The California National Guard notified all its 23,000 soldiers and airmen to be ready to deploy, the first time an alert for the entire California National Guard had been issued since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted four police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
The sudden decision Sunday to evacuate tens of thousands of people was a departure from earlier assurances, when officials had stressed the Oroville Dam itself was structurally sound.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway during heavy rain earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing.
Officials are most concerned about the dam's emergency, earthen spillway that began taking on water after water was diverted from the main concrete spillway because of the damage.
Engineers do not know what caused the cave-in. Chris Orrock, a Department of Water Resources spokesman, said it appears the dam's main spillway has stopped crumbling even though it is being used for water releases.
The lake is a central piece of California's government-run water delivery network, supplying water for the state's Central Valley agricultural heartland and homes and businesses in Southern California.
Copyright 2017 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The latest discussions for the Nebraska Hall of Fame have brought forward a host of notable nominations. Its an occasion to recognize the impressive variety of ways that Nebraskans have contributed to American life.
Its also an occasion, though, to remember that Nebraska is best served if nominations for the Hall of Fame reflect the states diversity. Having nominees from minority populations is a needed improvement for the Hall of Fame process.
The African-American and Latino communities, for example, both have a rich heritage in our state and merit consideration for inclusion when Nebraskans submit nominations in the future.
We underscore that point even as we acknowledge the strength of the nominees who have been put forward to a state commission. The nominations this year include:
Thomas R. Kimball (1862-1934) developed the splendid designs for St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha and for the Hall County Courthouse in Grand Island. The Omahan is praised for the unique process to select a designer of the Nebraska State Capitol.
Howard Hanson (1896-1981) led the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, one of the countrys most respected centers for classical music, for four decades and received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1944. His birthplace in Wahoo has been preserved.
Charles Gere (1838-1904), a state legislator and publisher from Lincoln, was a strong advocate for creation of the University of Nebraska and organized the Nebraska Press Association.
George E. Johnson (1885-1967) helped build major hydro-irrigation projects, including Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughy, as chief engineer and general manager of the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District. He helped lay out the state highway system as state engineer from 1915 to 1923.
Solon Hannibal de la Mothe Borglum (1868-1922), a Cairo cattle rancher, was a nationally respected sculptor, focusing on cowboys, Native Americans and other frontier figures.
Thomas Vincent Golden (1853-1928), a newspaper publisher and mayor of ONeill, was a key figure facilitating Irish immigration to Nebraska.
A state commission considers an additional figure for the Nebraska Hall of Fame every five years. Nominees must be deceased for at least 35 years and either have been Nebraska-born or gained prominence while in Nebraska.
One of the great aspects of the Nebraska State Capitol is the series of bronze busts of Hall of Fame honorees on the buildings second floor.
Among those admirable figures:
Charles E. Bessey, botanist and chancellor of the University of Nebraska, who contributed to scientific understanding and helped the university achieve high academic standards.
Chief Standing Bear of the Ponca and Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota, who are revered for their character and leadership.
Father Edward J. Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, which has gone on to become a national leader in helping disadvantaged boys and girls.
Grace Abbott, who made tremendous contributions to the field of child welfare.
And Willa Cather, John Neihardt and Mari Sandoz, who enriched the world of literature.
The Hall of Fame provides Nebraskans with an excellent opportunity to better understand the state and to appreciate the positive difference made by these men and women of talent and accomplishment.
The state commission has received a strong set of nominees. Making sure to have a greater diversity of nominations in the future would make the process serve Nebraska even better.
In 2015, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas denounced then-President Barack Obamas threatened use of an executive order to move prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.
Why do we even have a Congress, Roberts thundered, if the president can issue an executive order on anything?
It was an important question then and now.
Dont expect Roberts to bring it up. Hes fine with executive orders now that President Donald Trump is in office.
But this politics-as-usual hypocrisy should not distract Americans from this truth: Presidents in both parties are dangerously overusing their authority to issue orders that bypass Congress and voters.
Obamas defense was specific. Were not just going to be waiting for legislation, he said three years ago. Ive got a pen and Ive got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders.
That pen got a workout. Obama took executive action on overtime pay, environmental protection, health care, immigration, foreign policy, trade, gun control, abortion and other issues.
There are two problems with the approach. What can be done with an order can be easily undone with another order. And Obamas use of the executive order has encouraged Trump to use the same mechanism, making Congress more irrelevant than ever.
Lawmakers have no one but themselves to blame. Congress has failed to address important issues such as immigration and trade. It has handed the executive branch wide authority to make up whatever rules it wants.
Members of Congress wail when the opposition party controls the White House, yet purr like a kitten when friendly presidents use the pen.
It wont be easy, but the legislative branch must begin to reclaim power usurped by presidents in both parties. Otherwise, voters will echo Roberts complaint and wonder why we have a Congress at all.
Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.
Coretta Scott King, 1986 letter and written testimony to Senate Judiciary Committee
Desecrators of our national monuments do their most despicable deeds at night. And early Tuesday evening, a dour-faced perpetrator turtle-walked quietly but confidently to his predetermined position and launched an attack on the heart, soul and core principles of our capitals monument to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
And he got away with it perhaps because this perp was none other than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Wielding a rarely, if ever, used 114-year-old parliamentary weapon known as Rule 19 (it says a senator must not impute any unbecoming conduct or motive to another senator), the GOP leader set out to stifle Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who always seems to find a way of driving McConnell to distraction as she scores her points.
As the Senate was debating the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to be President Donald Trumps attorney general, Warren was speaking. She was somberly reading a powerful civil rights plea written more than 30 years earlier by Coretta Scott King, widow of the iconic civil rights leader.
. . . The irony of Mr. Sessions nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods.
Back in 1986, King was warning senators that if they confirmed Sessions (then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama) as a federal judge, it would decimate the dreams of her husband, who had been assassinated 18 years earlier. The Senate listened and rejected Sessions judicial nomination.
. . . The actions taken by Mr. Sessions in regard to the 1984 voting fraud prosecutions represent just one more technique used to intimidate Black voters and thus deny them this most precious franchise. The investigations into the absentee voting process were conducted only in the Black Belt counties where blacks had finally achieved political power in the local government.
On Tuesday evening, Warren was warning her colleagues that to confirm Sessions as attorney general could still be every bit as destructive.
Whites had been using the absentee process to their advantage for years, without incident. Then, when Blacks realizing its strength, began to use it with success, criminal investigations were begun.
Enter the Senates top Republican. McConnell was suddenly all about upholding Senate decorum and the letter of the law as long as it was his law and not Kings letter or Warrens message. Suddenly McConnell was invoking Rule 19 and demanding she be rebuked and silenced. The full Senate voted along party lines to rebuke Warren and bar her from further participation in the debate on Sessions.
Consistency is not a McConnell virtue. Not when it comes to holding hearings for a presidents Supreme Court nominees and especially not when it comes to Senate chamber decorum. For example, in 2015, on the Senate floor, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused another senator of telling a simple lie. Yet no one invoked Rule 19. Could it be that theres something about Elizabeth? Something that drives McConnell to extremes?
On Wednesday morning and midday, with Warren officially rebuked and barred from debating the issue further, three other Senate Democrats read Kings entire 1986 letter on the Senate floor. No one mentioned Rule 19. McConnell watched silently.
. . . Based on his record, I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made everywhere toward fulfilling my husbands dream.
And Wednesday evening, the Senate voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as the new attorney general. In one sense, McConnell may figure he won. But in the process, he may have made his most nettlesome critic, Warren, the shiniest star in the oppositions dimmed galaxy.
Restore felon voting rights quicker
Nebraska is one of 38 enlightened states that restore a former felons voting rights. Currently, Nebraska is among 20 states that require a waiting period after parole is completed.
Legislative Bill 75, introduced by Omaha State Sen. Justin Wayne, would eliminate the two-year waiting period in Nebraska. This is an idea whose time has come.
One rationale for the waiting period is that some returning citizens reoffend and wind up back in prison. However, to require all former felons to wait two years because some might reoffend is effectively punishing the majority of prisoners because of the lapses of the minority.
I was a field organizer on the 2016 presidential campaign. One of my duties was to register voters. Numerous times, I encountered a person who told me they were ineligible to vote. When I asked why, he or she would respond, Im a felon.
Most of these people had no idea that their voting rights had been restored two years after their parole ended. Seeing the look on someones face when you tell them they can vote when they thought it was a right lost forever was one of the greatest rewards of my job.
Kietryn Zycha, Omaha
Its winter snow happens
I find it mildly amusing to read the complaints people have about snow removal each and every winter. This last storm of 3 inches was no exception, of course.
This is winter, this is Nebraska, it snows sometimes, and if it snows during rush hour, we have to deal with it as best we can.
Although perhaps not perfect, the city handles this the best it can. Kudos to the hard-working city crew members and contractors for a thankless job.
More than mildly amusing was Heath Mellos criticism of Mayor Jean Stothert, blaming her of course, for the snowfall during rush hour. It gave me a good chuckle when he said it was her fault for being out of town during this crisis, as if city departments dont know what to do unless the mayor is in her office.
Of course, he offered no explanation for what he would do differently if he were mayor.
Wayne Carroll, Omaha
Needed: education advocate
The late State Sen. Ardyce Bohlke, then chairwoman of the Legislatures Education Committee, visited the Valley High School alternative ed class where my wife was teaching. Bohlke was from Hastings, teacher-educated, a school board veteran and had visited many classrooms around the state.
She visited Valley High School to find out why the dropout rate had been reduced to zero and to talk to teachers about what was working and what they needed to do better for our hard-to-handle kids.
State Sen. Mike Groene was recently installed as chairman of the Education Committee. An ultra-conservative curmudgeon, he goes from complaining about high property taxes to saying low-quality teachers should quit and apply for jobs at Walmart.
He blames teachers, teachers unions, wasteful spending by local school boards, bad parents, President Barack Obama and everyone else except the Legislature for failing to address problems in Nebraska classrooms.
In Nebraska, we used to care about our kids schools more than anything. We often couldnt afford to pay our teachers as much as they deserved, but we respected them for the important work they did.
Property-tax relief will mean Nebraskans will need to kick in state money to help rural and urban school districts pay for good teachers, books and buildings. If Groene doesnt speak up for smart spending for public schools, he should step aside and let someone who cares take over.
Jim Boucher, Valley
Fischer, Sasse need a Norris refresher
The U.S. Senate, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has confirmed Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education, despite her clear animosity to public education and inept testimony.
The Senate then barred Sen. Elizabeth Warren from reading into the record a letter sent by Coretta Scott King in 1986 when Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trumps choice for attorney general, was a candidate for a federal judgeship. Curiously, when several male Democratic senators subsequently read Kings letter, they were not muzzled. McConnells rationale for enforcing an arcane rule by stifling Warren was, She was warned. Still, she persisted.
In 1986, the Senate rejected Sessions for the bench because of racially insensitive statements, but last week, it approved him to be attorney general.
Our two Nebraska senators voted with the majority on last weeks actions. I am appalled by their performance.
When I was in grade school, we learned about the great Sen. George Norris from Nebraska. He spoke truth to power and, in 1957, was voted as one of the top five U.S. senators in history. Sens. Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse would do well to study and emulate this giant of the Senate instead of blindly following the leadership of their party.
Tom Purcell, Omaha
A poor resume for the job
Nebraska U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse dismisses the objections of most Nebraskans over the appointment of Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education, saying they are shrill boogeyman arguments. He would like us to ignore that DeVos has virtually no qualifications for the job. Surely he sees that, too.
Mark Hunsicker, Omaha
The Trump era has finally begun
Thanks to the Old Establishment in both political parties, we have change in the air each and every morning we wake up.
With President Donald Trump, we have his continuous energy fully devoted to correcting the direction of this country, which has for 16 years been heading into a huge dark hole. Its too early to tell what we voted into office, but we at least know that there will be change.
After a rocky 16-year itinerary; a new day is finally born.
Les Krings, Columbus, Neb.
Vishal Sikka calls Narayana Murthy an 'incredible man'
Business
oi-PTI
New Delhi, Feb 13: Vishal Sikka, the embattled chief of Infosys, on Monday said he has always shared a "heartfelt, warm relationship" with the company's co-founder N R Narayana Murthy.
The comments come at a time when there has been a lot of buzz around some of the founders flagging concerns about governance lapses at Infosys and issues like hike in Sikka's compensation to USD 11 million and huge severance pay doled out to former executives, Rajiv Bansal and David Kennedy.
Asked about his relationship with the founders, Sikka said: "My relationship with the founders? It is wonderful. I meet Mr Murthy quite frequently...I have always had a heartfelt warm relationship with Mr Murthy, probably meet him 4-5-6 times a year." He added that he, however, hasn't met the other founders off late.
Describing Murthy as an "incredible man", Sikka said the two usually discussed topics like quantum physics and technology whenever they met. "The other day he was telling me about the Paris Metro and how he worked on the Paris Metro in the 1970s before he started Infosys, and it had this whole ideas about automation and autonomous driving and all," he reminisced.
Sikka, speaking at Kotak's Chasing Growth Conference in Mumbai, said the "drama" going on in the media is very "distracting". "It takes away our attention but underneath that, there is a very strong fabric that this company is based on. And it is a real privilege for me to be its leader," he added. Sikka is scheduled to meet media representatives on Monday evening along with some of the Board members.
Infosys, on its part, has denied any governance lapses and said it has made "full disclosures" on all developments. Another issue that some of the former senior executives have raised is the huge cash pile of USD 5.25 billion that Infosys has. Asked about his views on the matter, Sikka said his "official" answer is that the Board, from time to time, will consider capital allocation policies and when there is something to report, the company will do so.
"The unofficial answer is, you look at the circumstances over the next 4-5 years, what you need the capital for and then decide. In our case, it is the strategic growth initiatives, capital for building infrastructure and then acquisitions," he said. Based on how that mix changes over the next 5 years, one takes a decision on how the cash is utilised, he added.
PTI
After 'raincoat' jibe, Congress fumes over Modi's 'horoscope' remark
India
oi-PTI
Vadodara, Feb 13: Joining the chorus of Congress leaders, Ahmed Patel has come down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's horoscope remarks, saying his party was not afraid of such threats.
Addressing a Janvedna Sammelan and later a press conference on Sunday at Ankleshwar town, about 90 kms from Vadodara, Patel said, "The party is not afraid of such full of arrogance threats."
He claimed that the outcome of assembly elections in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab will reveal that BJP's days are numbered. Under fire from the opposition over his 'raincoat' barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in Parliament, Modi at a poll rally in Haridwar had recently asked the Congress to hold its tongue and show regard to the dignity of language.
"I tell Congress leaders to hold their tongue or else I have their entire horoscope. I do not want to give up dignity of words and conduct but if you speak nonsense, your past will chase you, your misdeeds, your sins will chase you," Modi had said.
Dubbing November 8, 2016, as 'black day', Patel said demonetisation reflects the economic 'anarchy' imposed on the country because of which businesses have been shut, massive job losses have happened and the common man has suffered immense hardships.
"The government is accountable for the daily hardships faced by people. Over 120 deaths that have taken place because of people having to stand in long queues to withdraw their own money, this national tragedy has happened because of the wrong policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Patel, the political secretary of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, alleged.
It will take time for normalisation of the situation on the economy front due to demonetisation, which has resulted in closure of large number of MSMEs across the country and rendering a large number of people unemployed, he said.
Referring to Modi's campaigns like 'Clean India', 'Digital India', 'Startup India' among others, he alleged that the PM is interested in marketing his own image while pointing out that the river Ganga remains uncleaned.
Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee's former president Arjun Modhwadia and former Union minister of state for tribal affairs Tushar Chaudhary also criticised the Modi-led government's economic policies.
PTI
Jaitley statue at Kotla: Angry Bedi asks DDCA to remove his name from stands, quits membership
Reforms in India being done by conviction, not compulsion: PM Narendra Modi
BJP leaders pay tribute to former minister Arun Jaitley on his third death anniversary
Arun Jaitley says global slowdown has not affected India
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Bengaluru, Feb 13: India remained unaffected by global slowdown and the rhetoric of protectionism in developed economies, said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday.
"Unpredictable global slowdown and the rhetoric of protectionism in developed economies have not affected India," he said at the 'Make in India - Karnataka' conference here.
Asserting that the government would continue to focus on investments and growth, Jaitley said the policy-makers were under pressure as the people wanted the country to grow at a faster rate.
"Unlike in the developed countries, we don't get to hear about protectionism in India, which indicates that we are willing to accept investments and fine tune our policies," he said.
Calling upon the state governments to work together with the central government for going ahead on the growth path jointly, the Finance Minister said the country had hunger to grow faster than the current (GDP) rate of 7-7.5 per cent.
"We are not satisfied with the tag of being the fastest economy in the world. We think we have a potential to do better," he pointed out.
Lauding Karnataka for proactively taking part in realising GST by the middle of this year, Jaitley told the gathering that the state would accrue a lot of revenue when the new tax regime was implemented.
"Karnataka was the first state to become an educational hub in the country. As the state had limited resources, it allowed private organisations to enter the education sector by providing a conducive atmosphere and infrastructure," he added.
Organised by the state Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the Confederation of Indian Industry, the two-day conference is showcasing the state as an investment destination across the sectors.
IANS
100 metres in just 9.55 seconds? Meet Srinivasa Gowda who is already running faster than Usain Bolt
Bill to allow Kambala passed in Ktaka assembly
India
oi-Anusha
The Karnataka assembly on Monday passed a bill legalising the conduct of Kambala. The Karnataka High court in 2016 had stayed the buffalo racing sport after PETA in a petition claimed that conducting Kambala was in violation of a 2014 Supreme Court order. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had been vocal about passing a legislation legalising Kambala on the lines of Tamil Nadu assembly passing a bill legalising Jallikattu despite a Supreme Court order banning it.
[What you need to know about Kambala]
The demand to legalise Kambala, a traditional coastal Karnataka sport grew after Jallikattu legislation by the Tamil Nadu government owing to protests. The Karnataka government also chose to amend the Central governments' act to legalise the sport. The legislation comes in the backdrop of Kambala committees and various organisations staging protests demanding legalisation of the sport.
The Karnataka high court has refused to pass an order on Kambala before the Supreme Court's verdict on Jallikattu. Despite a pending petition, the Karnataka assembly passed a bill legalising Kambala.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 15:05 [IST]
BJP demands U'khand CM's resignation
India
oi-PTI
Dehradun, Feb 13: Accusing Harish Rawat of striking a deal with a former BJP MLA to desert the party following a sting by a private news channel, state BJP chief Ajay Bhatt demanded the chief minister's resignation, saying he had again brought disrepute to Uttarakhand.
Bhatt also urged the CBI which is currently looking into an earlier sting operation on Rawat to bring the latest video under the ambit of its investigations. The earlier sting puportedly showed Rawat negotiating a deal to buy the support of disgruntled party MLAs at the the time of the political crisis in the state in March last year.
Dan Singh Bhandari who was BJP's MLA from Bhimtal resigned from the state assembly at the time of the political crisis when nine Congress MLAs rebelled against Rawat and joined BJP. Bhandari had joined Congress later. On the basis of the latest sting, Bhatt accused Rawat of striking a deal of Rs 7 crore with Bhandari to make him resign from the assembly to reduce the number of BJP MLAs in the House. However, Bhatt said out of the promised amount of Rs 7 crore Bhandari was paid Rs 3 crore.
Charging Rawat with once again sullying the reputation of the state also called Devbhoomi, Bhatt asked him to step down as chief minister saying he had no moral right to remain in office. However, commenting on the development Pradesh Congress Vice President Jot Singh Bisht said it was BJP's conspiracy to tarnish the image of the chief minister and the party ahead of the February 15 Assembly elections.
PTI
Choose wisely: 1st-time voters urge Mumbai citizens ahead of BMC polls
India
oi-Anusha
A bunch of first-time voters are urging the people of Mumbai to vote in the upcoming local body polls. Come February 21, people of Mumbai will vote in the Brihanmumbai Municipal corporation elections and the low voter turnout year after year has disappointed many. Not the ones to sit and crib, a group of students have taken it upon themselves to urge people to go out and vote.
Students from various colleges in Mumbai have come together to run the 'Vote for Mumbai' campaign. Armed with social media, students are also going door-to-door encouraging people to vote. "All it takes is 15 minutes. Every vote counts and it can make a difference. We complain about bad roads, garbage disposal, public transport but none of us wants to vote. We want to encourage people to come out and vote so we can have a better tomorrow," said Lishu, a student volunteer.
Making their social media presence felt on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, the enthusiastic bunch of students are getting people to talk about the BMC polls which in itself is an achievement. The city recorded just about 45 percent voting in the 2012 BMC polls and this time around, 'Vote For Mumbai' campaign wants the rest 5 per cent to exercise their right to choose the right people to run the city.
What started off as an initiative by a group of five students is now gaining momentum with close to 25 students contributing to the campaign. Videos, photos, posters, door-to-door campaigns, public interaction etc, the students are doing everything in their capacity to get people to vote. Highlighting concerns of every Mumbaikar is key to their campaign. The students want to reach out to more first-time voters and youngsters to make a difference for the city they call home.
"We are a bunch of students from different colleges across Mumbai, running a campaign 'VOTE FOR MUMBAI'. This campaign is to encourage p eople of Mumbai to VOTE for the upcoming BMC Elections in high numbers. The fact that only 45% of people voted in last elections led us to run this campaign," said Rushi, one of the students who initiated the campaign.
Their social media pages are attracting more audiences and the students are hopeful that the same will translate into action on February 21 when the city goes to polls. Drawing parallels with Goa's high voter turnout, students are encouraging Mumbaikars to come out and vote and become an example for others.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 13:30 [IST]
Fake Rs 2,000 note: 11 out of 17 security features replicated
India
oi-Vicky
Bengaluru, Feb 13: The fake currency racketeers have managed to replicate 11 out of the 17 security features on the new Rs 2,000 notes. On February 1, a consignment of fake notes had been seized along the Bangladesh border. Forensic analysis showed that the racketeers had replicated eight out of the 17 security features.
Fake currency: 50 per cent of security features have been replicated in Rs 2,000 note
However, in the latest seizure once again conducted along the Bangladesh border, it was found that 11 out of the 17 features had been replicated. During the February 8 seizure at Murshidabad, security forces arrested Azizur Rehman, 26, from Malda in West Bengal. He had on him 40 fake notes in Rs 2,000 denomination. The notes were sent for forensic analysis and it was found that 11 out of the 17 features were replicated to perfection.
The features replicated were the transparent area, watermark, Ashoka Pillar emblem, the letters 'Rs 2000' on the left, the guarantee clause with the RBI governor's signature and the denomination number in Devanagari on the front.
In the earlier seizure it was found that eight features had been replicated. They were a motif of the Chandrayan, the Swachh Bharat log, language panel and also the year of printing. On the other side of the note, racketeers had managed to replicate the Devanagari numeral, the guarantee clause with the RBI governor's signature and the watermark.
During Rehman's interrogation, he revealed that these notes were printed in Pakistan. Investigators say that the new notes are being printed in ISI sponsored mints in Pakistan. Investigations also revealed that these mints have not been printing the new Rs 500 notes.
During a seizure conducted on February 1, officials had seized fake Rs 500 notes, but they appeared to be printed locally and were of very bad quality.
OneIndia News
Why is the DMK continuing to oppose the imposition of Hindi? - 50 years of struggle and the truth!
Tamil Nadu: Heavy rains in several parts of Tamil Nadu in next 2 days
Intruder threatens Karunanidhi's wife at gun point
India
oi-Anusha
Chennai, Feb 13: In a major security breach an armed thief allegedly broke into former Tamil Nadu Chief minister M Karunanidhi's residence.
Police who apprehended the man said that he was carrying a toy gun and threatened Karunanidhi's wife Rajathi Ammal to part with valuables.
The security breach was reported at Karunanidhi's house in CIT Colony. DMK MP Kanimozhi is said to have rushed home from the executive meet after hearing of the incident.
The intruder has been apprehended as per initial reports. The intruder has been identified as Rejendra Prasad who hails from Bengaluru. He was caught following an alarm raised by Rajathi Ammal.
Initial inquiry revealed that petty cases have been registered against him previously. It was learnt that he is a resident of Triplicane in Chennai. Rajendra Prasad is currently in Mylapore police custody.
OneIndia News
SC likely to deliver seperate verdicts in Jaya DA case tomorrow
India
oi-Vicky
By Vicky
The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict in the Jayalalithaa Disproportionate Assets case on Tuesday. Seperate verdicts will be delivered by a Bench comprising Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy at 10.30 am. The verdict was reserved for orders in June 2016. If a split verdict is delivered by the Bench then it would be referred to a three judge bench.
Earlier Karnataka once again reminded the Supreme Court about the verdict in the case. Dushyanth Dave who appeared for the state of Karnataka sought to know about the order. He said that he is unable to enter into the court as it is too crowded. The court however told him, " you will come to know when we pass an order."
The court had on Monday last told Karnataka the prosecuting state in the case an order would be passed in one week's time. The court had however not indicated any particular date for the same. The order would however not be passed today as one of the judges on the Bench, Justice Amitava Roy is not sitting.
Sources say that in all probability a verdict may be delivered on Tuesday. The cause list of the Supreme Court which is uploaded by 6.30 pm will give a clear indication of the same.
The DA case verdict is crucial since Sasikala Natarajan, the Chief Minister in waiting was an accused in it. She along with Jayalalithaa and two others were acquitted in the case by the Karnataka High Court following which an appeal was preferred in the Supreme Court. The SC had reserved its verdict in June 2016.
OneIndia News
Justice Karnan REFUSES to appear before SC in contempt case
India
oi-Vicky
By Vicky
Justice C S Karnan who is facing contempt charges defied the orders of the Supreme Court and refused to appear before it. He was directed to appear before a seven judge bench of the court on Monday. The bench is currently debating how to deal with the defiance. The court has now given Karnan time till March 10 to reply to the contempt notice.
Karnan had created a storm after he alleged that he was being targeted because he was a Dalit. He also questioned the collegium of the Supreme Court which transferred him from the Madras high court to Calcutta. Senior counsel, K K Venugopal appearing for the Madras high court told the Bench that the judges need protection from Justice Karnan's verbal abuse and wild charges. He also said that the judge had levelled malicious rape charges against a Madras HC judge. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had issued contempt notices to Karnan, a sitting judge of the Calcutta high court.
The SC also directed the judge to be present before the court on February 13 to explain why contempt proceedings could not be initiated against him. The court also withdrew all judicial work from Karnan and asked him to return all files. It is for the first time in history that a contempt case is being heard against a sitting judge of a high court. A seven-judge Constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice of India J S Khehar is hearing the case against Karnan who had lashed out at his colleagues accusing them of corruption.
Karnan had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 23 accusing a sitting high court judge due for elevation of corruption. He also said that the charges levelled by him must be probed.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 11:25 [IST]
Kashmir's bloody Sunday witnessed public attending slain militant's funeral
India
oi-Vicky
Srinagar, Feb 13: It was a bloody Sunday in Kashmir. Two jawans were martyred and four militants were killed following a fierce encounter on the streets of Kulgam in south Kashmir. The separatists have called for a shutdown on Monday to protest the crackdown by security forces. As the encounter took place, there were protests in which two civilians died and 21 others were injured.
The attack by four militants was a joint operation by the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba. This is the first major attack in the Valley following the house arrest of Hafiz Saeed the chief of the LeT.
Politics is already at play following the encounter. The National Conference has demanded a probe into the incident involving a crackdown on civilians. However, security forces say that it was the public which had protested against the encounter. They had even resorted to violence, security officials informed.
Following the encounter, a huge crowd turned up at the funeral of the militants. The crowds were heard chanting pro-Azadi slogans and even questioned the use of indiscriminate force against civilians. Reports from Kashmir even suggest that the militants were given a gun salute by other terrorists who too had taken part in the funeral.
The problem with this encounter was that it took place on the streets. The militants decided to engage the security forces on the streets of Kulgam. The security forces urged the public to clear out of the site, but many did not pay heed. Some even tried to distract the security forces by protesting on the street where the encounter took place.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 7:15 [IST]
I will break your legs: SFI issues threat to principal in presence of cops in Kerala
'If I have nominated even one person using authority, I'll resign': Kerala governor on VC row
Kerala: Congress slams LDF over shifting of liquor outlets
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 13: The Congress party in Kerala is up in arms over reports that the ruling LDF is likely to file a petition in the Supreme Court over its order on shifting of liquor outlets. State Congress President V M Sudheeran told reporters on Monday that this is nothing but seeking time to delay implementing of the apex court order.
The Supreme Court in December last year banned the sale of liquor on highways, forcing them to relocate to interior areas. The order has forced around 300 such outlets comprising beer and wine parlours, five star hotels and state owned liquor retail outlets to look for new places by the beginning of the new fiscal.
"The Supreme Court order is quite clear and there is no ambiguity as aired by the Kerala government. These are all nothing but playing truant as the state government wants to delay implementing the order. The government through these tactics is inviting protests," Sudheeran added.
Due to the directive, more than 170 retail outlets of the state-owned Kerala State Beverages Corporation have to be moved out latest by March 31.
The Kerala State Beverages Corporation is to approach the apex court seeking more time to move their outlets.
Senior Communist Party of India leader Benoy Viswam voiced his displeasure over the statements of the Congress party.
"Everybody knows about the series of controversies that broke out during their tenure with regards to the bar, so it's better that they do not speak much. While the left government agenda is for pursuing a policy of abstinence from liquor, one thing that needs to be looked at seriously is if this rule is applicable to toddy shops. To the best of my knowledge, pure toddy has medicinal properties and hence it has to be treated differently," said the former Minister.
The Pinarayi Vijayan-led government was caught unaware when massive protests broke out earlier this month against liquor shops relocating to residential areas. School children too took part in the protests.
Following the protests, the liquor vends have not been able to relocate.
Former lawmaker Sebastian Paul, of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, has defended the action of the state government by pointing out that there is nothing wrong in seeking clarity.
IANS
New IT rules will make sure no unlawful content is posted online: Minister
Misusing LTC to result in disciplinary action against govt employees
India
oi-PTI
New Delhi, Feb 13: The Department of Personnel and Training has warned the central government employees against misusing Leave Travel Concession.
A government employee gets reimbursement of tickets for to-and-fro journey, in addition to leaves, when he avails LTC. As per fresh guidelines by DoPT, the employees are required to submit a declaration that he and the members of the family in respect of whom the claim is submitted have indeed travelled upto the declared place of visit.
The declaration is required in the cases where a government servant travels on LTC up to the nearest airport, railway station or bus terminal by authorised mode of transport and undertakes rest of the journey to the declared place of visit by private transport or own arrangement.
"Furnishing of false information will attract disciplinary action," the DoPT said in a directive issued to secretaries of all central government departments.
The Centre is trying to put a strict system in place to check misuse of LTC after it had noticed certain instances where some of its employees allegedly colluded with private travel agents to submit inflated airfare to clandestinely obtain undue benefits like free boarding, lodging, transport or cash refunds.
"If public transport is available in a particular area, the government servant will be reimbursed the fare admissible for journey by otherwise entitled mode of public transport from the nearest airport, railway station or bus terminal to the declared place of visit by shortest direct route," it said.
In case, there is no public transport available in a particular stretch of journey, the government servant may be reimbursed as per his entitlement for journey on transfer for a maximum limit of 100 kms covered by the private or personal transport based on a self-certification from the government servant, the DoPT said.
Beyond that, the expenditure shall be borne by the employee himself.
PTI
Why is the DMK continuing to oppose the imposition of Hindi? - 50 years of struggle and the truth!
Tamil Nadu: Heavy rains in several parts of Tamil Nadu in next 2 days
No one can destroy AIADMK, Sasikala reveals Amma's last words
India
oi-Oneindia
By Oneindia Staff Writer
Chennai, Feb 13: At a time when a bitter war of succession is underway in Tamil Nadu to inherit the legacy of former chief minister Jayalalithaa, her 'longtime associate' Sasikala Natarajan has revealed Amma's last words.
"Amma told me, no one can destroy the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam," the 61-year-old general secretary of the AIADMK told her party leaders on Sunday.
Jayalithaa died in a hospital in Chennai last December. Very little information is available about Jayalithaa's 'actual' health status. Several groups claim various reasons behind Amma's death.
The former CM of TN was admitted in Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, last September, and very little information was shared by the hospital authorities and the AIADMK about her health status when she was undergoing treatment. Apart from the doctors attending Jayalalithaa, Sasikala had the access to meet the former CM.
Both caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam and Sasikala are claiming their stake to the CM's post in TN. However, till now majority of the MLAs of the ruling party are maintaining that they support Sasikala to be the next CM after Panneerselvam resigned recently.
According to media reports, currently 129 MLAs are backing Sasikala and six Panneerselvam. However, 10 Parliamentarians are supporting Panneerselvam camp. The caretaker CM claims that more MLAs will join his camp in the coming days.
The pending corruption case against the AIADMK leader is the main reason behind governor Vidyasagar Rao delaying his decision to call Sasikala to form the next government in the state.
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 12:20 [IST]
P Chidambaram accuses BJP of using 7 phase poll in UP to polarise voters
How the numbers add up in UP: This is what BJP's win percentage was
Phase 2 UP election- Samajwadi Party faces tough challenge
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Saharanpur, Feb 13: As the battle for ballot in Uttar Pradesh shifts to 67 second-phase seats, including those in Rohilkhand and the Terai region, much seems at stake for the Samajwadi Party, which had done well in many of these constituencies in 2012 elections.
This time round, the party is facing a tough challenge to its bid to maintain its lead in the area from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
The 67 second-phase seats across 11 districts of Uttar Pradesh, where balloting will be held on Wednesday, have a sizeable population of Muslims. In some districts, including Rampur, Moradabad and Bijnor, their population is over 40 per cent.
The SP's alliance with the Congress is expected to work to advantage of the two parties amid a vigorous push by the BSP for minority votes.
The BSP has given more tickets to Muslims than it did in 2012 elections and party chief Mayawati has been striving hard to build a rainbow coalition based on consolidation of Dalit and Muslim votes.
Both the BSP and the BJP have also been attacking the SP over law and order situation in the state. The case registered by the police on Monday against SP's legislator Arun Verma has spelt fresh trouble for the state's ruling party.
The legislator was booked after a woman, who had accused him of rape, was found dead under mysterious circumstances.
However, Verma, contesting from Sultanpur, has denied any role in the death of the 21-year-old, who was found dead on Sunday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his rally on Monday at Lakhimpur-Kheri, sharply attacked the SP government, saying that women in the state did not feel safe.
In 2012 elections, the SP had won 35 of the 67 constituencies falling in the second phase polls now. It had finished second in 18 others. The Congress had won three and finished second in eight.
The campaigning for the second-phase polls ended on Monday. The state is having seven-phase elections for 402 of the 403 assembly seats (election to one seat has been countermanded) and results will be declared on March 11.
Top leaders of all parties, including SP chief and state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, have held rallies in the second-phase constituencies.
The SP leaders said the party would improve on their 2012 performance.
"Our performance will be better this time, as we are in alliance with Congress. 'Cycle' (election symbol of the SP) with 'Hand' (the poll symbol of the Congress) will increase their pace from the second phase and race till the last phase," Samajwadi Party MP from Badaun Dharmendra Yadav told IANS.
"We are expecting to win over 50 seats this time (in second phase) compared to 35 we won on our own in 2012," he added.
Another party leader, Naresh Agarwal said that increased voting percentage in the first phase was a good sign for the party.
"We are confidant of winning 300 seats (overall). We are banking on our development work. Demonetisation is a big issue for us," Agrawal told IANS.
The BJP could win only 10 of the 67 second phase seats in the 2012 elections and finished second in 15. However, it vastly improved its position in the second-phase assembly segments in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Apart from appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP is banking on support of Other Backward Classes, which have a sizeable population in several constituencies.
The party is also trying to woo the agricultural community, which faced problems due to demonetisation, and has promised loan waiver to small farmers, apart from time-bound payment to sugarcane farmers.
BJP leader and Union Minister Santosh Gangwar said the atmosphere was in favour of the party.
"People are fed up with SP and BSP. Law and order situation is at its worst. There is a wave in favour of BJP as people see it as the only option. We will win the polls. In Bareilly district, we will win seven out of nine seats," he said.
The 11 districts going to polls in the second phase are Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Bareilly, Amroha, Peelibhit, Lakhimpur-Kheeri, Shahjahanpur and Budaun.
In the 2012 polls, the BSP had won 18 seats and finished second in 22 others. BSP's Rajya Sabha member Veer Singh said that the party might not be getting too much play in the media, but it did well in the first phase too.
"We will perform much better in the second phase. There is anti-incumbency wave against the ruling Samajwadi Party and law and order situation is bad."
"People are also angry with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he has not fulfilled promises. Demonetisation has ruined their life. People of Uttar Pradeh will take revenge. For them, BSP is the only option," Veer Singh told IANS.
The constituencies going to elections include those in the Terai belt bordering Nepal and the Rohilkhand region. There are 721 candidates in the fray, including 69 women. The polls will test influence of several leaders, including BJP's Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi, SP's Azam Khan, and gthe Congress' Jitin Prasada.
IANS
Reject bad candidates, NOTA campaign creates waves in UP
India
oi-Oneindia
By Oneindia Staff Writer
Lucknow, Feb 13: In poll-bound Uttar Pradesh a 'new' campaign has attracted the attention of voters. This campaign has nothing to do with any political party or candidate. The None Of The Above campaign, initiated by a Lucknow-based teacher, is creating awareness among the voters to reject 'bad' candidates during elections.
What is NOTA?
In September 2013, the Supreme Court upheld the right of voters to reject all candidates contesting the elections, saying it would go a long way in cleansing the political system of the country.
The apex court directed the Election Commission to have an option of None Of The Above or NOTA on the electronic voting machines and ballot papers in a major electoral reform.
"A teacher in Lucknow has embarked on a door-to-door campaign to make voters aware of NOTA option in polls," reported ANI. "I started the campaign as politicians ask for votes, but don't work. I want people to reject candidates who aren't good," Arvind, the brain behind the campaign, told ANI.
We don't know how the politicians will react to the campaign, but voters in the capital city have surely welcomed the move initiated by Arvind. "Through this campaign got to know that there is an option called NOTA that we can vote for. I was not aware of it," said a Lucknow resident.
This time, the assembly polls in UP is divided into seven phases. The first phase of polling got over on February 11. The second phase of voting is scheduled on February 15.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 13:18 [IST]
Sasi's emotional presser
Sasikala's impatience is visible. She has already twice visited the resort in which her MLAs have been staying in the last two days.
Pitching Amma to gain support
She has been issuing veiled threats and has even gone on to say that she is not being invited (to form the government) because she is a woman.
OPS giving Sasi sleepless nights
Her impatience and desperation is to do with the fact that Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who very surprisingly revolted has been getting a lot of support both from the public and cadres of the AIADMK.
Guv decides to wait
Although there is no official statement from Raj Bhavan, sources say that Rao is waiting for the verdict in the disproportionate assets case.
Is there a plan B?
The party, however, maintains that there is no plan B in place and Sasikala is their undisputed leader. Even if she wants to put into force plan-B she may do it after the Supreme Court verdict. If she is cleared in the case, then the governor will have no option but to invite her. In case of a conviction, she is likely to enforce her second plan in a bid to keep control over the party.
Who will lead TN?
It is clear that Sasikala is the not the kind who will take things lying down. For her it has become an ego issue and she would go that extra mile to ensure that OPS does not have his way. There is already talk that she has a plan-B in place. She may pick K A Sengottaiyan or E K Palaniswami as the leader of the party.
Scaled a wall to escape from resort, says AIADMK MLA
India
oi-Anusha
Chennai, Feb 13: In what can come as an embarrassment to Sasikala Natarajan's camp, an AIADMK MLA claimed that he disguised himself and scaled a wall to escape from a resort where MLAs have been herded.
Saravanan, an MLA from Madurai claimed that he escaped from the resort on Monday before Sasikala visited. He immediately joined the O Panneerselvam camp adding strength to the acting Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
Addressing the media after extending support to Panneerselvam, Saravanan said that MLAs were interacting in secrecy through social media and supported Panneerselvam despite being herded in the resort. His 'escape' and claims come on a day when the Kanchipuram police filed an affidavit in the Madras High court that none of the MLAs was being forced to stay at the resort. His claim comes as a slap in the face of the police who told that court that MLAs were at the resort willingly.
Meanwhile, AIADMK MP from Madurai R Gopalakrishnan also pledged support to Panneerselvam. Actor and director Lawrence also extended his support to OPS. Sasikala meanwhile, decided to spend the night at the resort with the rest of the MLAs and party cadres.
OneIndia News
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 23:33 [IST]
Tibetan PM wishes Donald Trump supports issues in Tibet
India
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Dharamsala, Feb 13: Tibetan Prime Minister in-exile Lobsang Sangay on Monday said he hoped US President Donald Trump will meet the Dalai Lama and support human rights issues in Tibet.
"We also hope that President Trump will continue the past tradition of US Presidents meeting with the Dalai Lama, support the middle-way approach and human rights of the Tibetan people," Sangay, the head of the self-declared Tibetan government, told reporters in Tokyo.
Urging the Japanese government to support the "middle-way approach" of the Tibetan people towards seeking genuine autonomy for Tibet, he said: "It does not contradict China's sovereignty and is a win-win solution for Tibetans and Chinese."
"We are seeking genuine autonomy for Tibet through non-violence and Chinese government can't say no to this. During their meetings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, former US Presidents Barack Obama have expressed their strong and consistent support for the middle-way approach," he said.
"Your support is not for the six million Tibetans but it is a support for justice, human rights and environment of Tibet," Sangay said during a public talk on the way forward to resolve the problem of Tibet in Tokyo.
He said that to understand China, one must understand Tibet. "China is everywhere in Asia. All this happened because people did not pay attention to what happened in Tibet 60 years ago," he added
Sangay is currently in Japan to meet Japanese officials and Tibetan supporters to resolve the problem of Tibet.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet with many of his supporters and took refuge in India when the Chinese troops moved in and took control of Lhasa in 1959. The Tibetan administration is based in Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh.
IANS
Benjamin Netanyahu departs for US visit
International
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Jerusalem, Feb 13: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday before departing to Washington that he and US President Donald Trump have shared views on Middle East issues.
"The alliance between Israel and the US has always been very strong, and it's about to be even stronger," Netanyahu told reporters before embarking on the four-day trip to Washington.
"President Trump and I see eye-to-eye on the emanating threats in the region, and also the opportunities, and we will talk about both and also upgrading the relationship between Israel and the US," he said. Netanyahu's schedule includes meetings with Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Republican and Democrat leaders of the House and Senate, Xinhua news agency reported.
Ahead of the visit, Netanyahu's hard-line coalition partners pressured him to denounce the two-state solution, which the US has been supporting as the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Israel should say it loud and clear: no to a Palestinian state, yes to an extended, united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty," said Yisrael Katz, transportation minister and a member of the ruling Likud Party.
IANS
Build bridges not walls: Protesting Mexcians tell Trump
International
oi-PTI
Mexico City, Feb 13: Tens of thousands of Mexicans protested against US President Donald Trump, hitting back at his anti-Mexican rhetoric and his pledges to make their country pay for his "big, beautiful" border wall. "Mexico must be respected, Mr Trump," said a giant banner carried by protesters in Mexico City on Sunday, who waved a sea of red, white and green Mexican flags as they marched down the capital's main avenue under the watchful eyes of thousands of police.
Protester Julieta Rosas was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Trump sporting an Adolf Hitler mustache. "We're here to make Trump see and feel that an entire country, united, is rising up against him and his xenophobic, discriminatory and fascist stupidity," said Rosas, a literature student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
In what looked set to be Mexico's biggest anti-Trump protest yet, some 20 cities joined the call to march made by a group of dozens of universities, business associations and civic organisations. There were 20,000 demonstrators in Mexico City, according to local authorities.
Marches in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Morelia also drew thousands of people -- though a planned protest in the border city of Tijuana fell flat. US-Mexican relations have plunged to their lowest point in decades since Trump took office on January 20.
Trump, who launched his presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants "criminals" and "rapists," has infuriated the United States' southern neighbor with his plan to stop illegal migration by building a wall on the border. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a January 31 trip to Washington over Trump's insistence that Mexico pay for the wall.
"This is a time to build bridges, not walls," said 73-year-old protester Jose Antonio Sanchez, who was marching in Mexico City with his nine-year-old granddaughter. American protester Erick Smith, who is married to a Mexican woman, marched with a sign reading "Sorry Mexico." "I came to say that I'm ashamed of my president," he told AFP.
"I don't want this wall." Trump has also wrought havoc on the Mexican economy with his threats to terminate the country's privileged trade relationship with the United States, blaming Mexico for the loss of American jobs.
PTI
Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau to discuss women in workforce
International
oi-PTI
Washington, Feb 13: President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the workforce on Monday, showing the rising policy influence of the first daughter who has stressed her commitment to issues like child care.
A White House official said the two countries would launch a new task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs. The official said Trudeau's office reached out to discuss working on a joint effort, noting that this was seen as an area of shared interest between both leaders.
Ivanka Trump, who has been a vocal advocate for policies benefiting working women, was involved in recruiting participants and setting the agenda for the meeting and will attend, the official said. Ivanka Trump stressed the importance of maternity leave and child care on the campaign trail, and has recently been meeting with business leaders to discuss those issues.
The White House official said that Trump's economic agenda will include a "focus on ensuring women enter and stay in the work force and addressing barriers facing female entrepreneurs." The official requested anonymity to provide details in advance of the meeting.
Advancing women has been a clear priority for Trudeau. In late 2015, he drew attention for naming a Cabinet that was 50 per cent women, saying that he chose a group that "looks like Canada." Trump did not promise to appoint a gender-balanced Cabinet and has named a smaller number of women and minorities to top jobs.
"Our team reached out and suggested as it is an important part of the prime minister's agenda and of our economic growth plan," a Canadian official said. "It seemed like a natural fit given their commitments in their platform as well." The official requested anonymity to discuss the meeting in advance. Trump has offered a childcare plan and has signalled an interest in working on those issues. The business round table will be part of an itinerary that includes a bilateral meeting and a working lunch.
The visit is crucial for Canada, which relies heavily on the United States for trade. Trump has said he wants to discuss his plan to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, which involves the United States, Canada and Mexico. There are fears Canada could unintentionally be sideswiped as Trump negotiates with Mexico.
Female executives from the United States and Canada are expected for the round table, including General Electric Canada CEO Elyse Allan, TransAlta Corp. CEO Dawn Farrell, Linamar Corp. CEO Linda Hasenfratz, T&T Supermarket Inc. Tina Lee and Schnitzer Steel Industries CEO Tamara Lundgren.
PTI
Former Pak diplomat questions Islamabad's Kashmir policy
International
oi-PTI
Washington, Feb 13: Questioning Pakistan's decades- old Kashmir policy, a former top envoy of the country has said even resolving the issue would unlikely address the challenge of terrorism, sectarian conflict or the Taliban problem.
"Even if Kashmir is resolved how would that end sectarian terrorism, because sectarian terrorism is about killing people who do not have same religious sect as you have. How would resolving Kashmir stop the Taliban, who are aimed at creating their old Islamic order in Afghanistan," former Pakistani ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani told a Washington audience on Friday.
"So sometimes ... making this a hyper nationalistic argument on the side of Pakistan and a very simplistic one that we have no choice in Pakistan's approach in America ... We want both sides to actually rethink their positions," he said.
He said this during a discussion on a report, released by nearly a dozen top American thinktanks, that urges the Trump administration for a tougher line against Pakistan, involving both pragmatic engagement and consequences for uncooperative behaviour.
'A New US approach to Pakistan: Enforcing aid conditions without cutting ties'- co-authored by Lis Curtis of The Heritage Foundation and Haqqani of the Hudson Institute- stops short of recommending declaring Pakistan a 'state sponsor of terrorism'.
Authored by a group of eminent US-based Pakistan experts, it calls for a sharper, clear-eyed US policy approach towards Pakistan.
"Pakistan needs to do a little introspection that can we continue this for ever and ever and still have credibility," Haqqani said about Islamabad's continued support to terrorist activities against its neighbours.
During the discussion, Haqqani was joined by Curtis and Christine Fair, a Georgetown University scholar and South Asia expert.
Fair, in her intervention, said Pakistan was 'obsessed with trying to illegally occupy' other's territory.
The discussion witnessed acrimonious scenes when a group of pro-Pakistanis, including officials from the Pakistan embassy here and journalists, tried to disrupt the event. One of the individuals was forced to leave the venue, as he repeatedly tried to disrupt the proceedings. While leaving, the individual accused Haqqani of being a 'RAW agent.'
PTI
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Story first published: Monday, February 13, 2017, 13:03 [IST]
H1B visa bill: Indian-American professionals express concern
International
oi-PTI
Washington, Feb 13: Silicon valley-based Indian American IT professionals have expressed concerns over new bills on H1B visa being introduced in the US Congress by the Trump administration, saying it would adversely affect the community.
Over a hundred Indian-American technology professionals gathered in the Silicon valley recently to express their concerns on the issues and felt the need to create an awareness on this issue among lawmakers and policy makers.
"While we support, reforms to curb any abuses, most of the bills are targeted to increase minimum salary and requirements very high that would adversely impact fresh Indian graduates from US universities as well as skilled professionals with fewer years of experience and they will not be able to find employers who can be ready to pay the minimum salary as required by the criteria of one of the bills is suggesting USD 130K per annum," said Khanderao Kand, president of global indian technology professionals association.
The H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields. The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year.
Following the meeting, GITPRO recommended to create awareness among policy makers as well as industry leaders, to set salaries appropriate for skills, experience in a given geographical zone according to a market rate.
In a letter to the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Rao said that currently, Green Card applicants from India are unfairly being impacted due to a country-wise quota set for green cards.
"As a result of it, the applicants from India have to wait for more than a decade to their priority date become current compared with a less than one year wait for countries like Pakistan. Their children may lose an opportunity to have residence's status for studying in universities," he said.
GITPRO has recommended to create awareness to support HR392 bill that has been introduced in the US Congress to abolish unfair country-wise quota. Noting that currently, dependent spouse of H-1B visas are allowed to work in the US, Rao said a reform or bill has been in discussion to revoke the same.
"As a result, most of these talented professionals who won't be eligible to work in the US if the bill is approved," he said.
As such GITPRO has recommended to create awareness among policy makers as well as industry leaders, to create awareness about the impact of approval of this bill may lead to employees lose their ability to work in the US.
Khandarao said GITPRO would like to raise an issue that children of Overseas Citizens of India who are facing difficulties in education system in India. Specifically, even though their parents are earning mostly in India and paying taxes to the government of India, the children are subjected to the status and fees same as NRI's earning and staying outside India, he rued.
PTI
No one has guts...: Junior defence minister's reply to China question
Lantern festival leaves New Zealanders dazzled
International
oi-Oneindia
By Oneindia Staff Writer
The Lantern festival is held to celebrate the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunisolar Chinese calendar. It marks the final day of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations and usually falls in February or March in the Gregorian calendar.
The Chinese Lantern festival has now become popular across the globe and is being seen as the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day in some nations.
Lets take a look at this colourful festival celebrated in Auckland, New Zealand, from February 9 to 12.
Hundreds turn up in Auckland domain Hundreds of people turned up to celebrate the annual Chinese Lantern festival in the Auckland Domain. According to Taoist tradition, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendarcorresponds to the 'Official of light'. Over 800 lanterns leaves visitors dazzled Over 800 lanterns lit up the evening to leave the visitors dazzled. The lanterns almost always symbolize good fortune. Lanterns of diverse forms Lanterns in the form of camels, polar bears and dinosaurs were lit up as well as traditional Chinese symbols, flowers and people. Chinese festival of lights celebrated across globe In ancient times, the lanterns were fairly simple, and only the emperor and noblemen had large ornate ones. In modern times, lanterns have been embellished with many complex designs. Glimpse of Chinese culture The celebrations included stunning performances of traditional and contemporary Chinese culture including martial arts, dance and live music from international performers.
All photos: aucklandnz.com
OneIndia News
Talented, driven and great potential: President Putin is all praise for India and Indians
Putin, Trump to meet around G20 July summit
International
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Moscow, Feb 13: Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump will probably meet in July around the G20 summit, the Kremlin announced on Monday.
"To start with, we must fix the date and time of a meeting between the two Presidents. Aides are working on this now," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press conference.
Peskov said a meeting between the two leaders could happen before the G20 summit, scheduled to be held in Hamburg on July 7-8, but no specific agreements had been made so far, Efe news reported.
The Kremlin has dismissed the possibility that a Reykjavik summit was being prepared, similar to the historical summit that took place 30 years ago between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Last week, the Russian President stated he was willing to meet his US counterpart in Slovenia, the birthplace of US First Lady Melania Trump, after the President of Slovenia offered to host the summit.
Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov had expressed his confidence in "casting light" over a possible Putin-Trump summit after his first meeting with the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
"Both Presidents have agreed that it would be desirable to meet as soon as possible. We were tasked with finding a time and place acceptable to both. We are working on it now," Lavrov said.
IANS
12-year-old Indian in Guinness World Record for identifying most aeroplane tails in UAE
Indian security forces get non-lethal weapons inspired by traditional weapons to tackle Chinese army
After attack in DR Congo, India calls for UNSC meet
Watch: Four Indian women racially abused in Texas in most horrific manner
8 month old among 4 Indian origin people abducted in California
Three Pakistani soldiers killed in 'Indian firing'
International
oi-IANS
By Ians English
Islamabad, Feb 13: Three Pakistani soldiers injured by "Indian firing" along the Line of Control on Monday succumbed to their injuries, a Pakistani Army statement said.
According to the ISPR, Indian forces violated ceasefire in Thoob sector near Bhimber. However, Pakistani troops "responded effectively".
According to Pakistan Army, Indian forces committed at least 178 ceasefire violations along the LoC and Working Boundary (International Border) in 2016, killing 19 civilians and injuring 80 others.
IANS
UNSC's counter-terror meet in India to focus on use of internet, new payment mechanism by terrorists
UNSC meet in India to begin its deliberations in Mumbai is a message in itself: MEA
From being a victim of terrorism to exploring global solutions: India praised at UN's Counter Terrorism meet
UNSC to discuss North Korea's missile test
International
oi-IANS
By Ians English
United Nations, Feb 13: The UN Security Council will assemble on Monday for emergency consultations on North Korea's successful ballistic missile test after Japan, South Korea and the US called for an urgent meeting, diplomats said.
The closed door meeting will be held at 5 p.m., said a spokesperson of Ukraine's mission, which is holding the presidency of the organisation this month, Efe news reported.
The launch of the missile carried out by the Pyongyang regime on Sunday is the first since last October and also becomes the first military provocation of North Korea since Donald Trump took charge as the US President.
The Pukguksong-2, a medium long-range ballistic missile, was test fired under the supervision of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to North Korea's Korean Central News Agency.
A US official told CNN the missile travelled 500 km before landing in the sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and that it was launched from North Pyongan province.
After the launch, Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in the US on a visit, urged North Korea to stop its provocations.
Last year, the security council had imposed tough sanctions on the North Korean regime in response to its nuclear and missile tests, which it further toughened in November.
IANS
In Pics: US dam develops snag, several Indian Americans evacuated
International
oi-Oneindia
By Oneindia Staff Writer
California, Feb 13: Several Indian Americans were evacuated as a part of an emergency rescue operation undertaken in Northern California, US, on Sunday, as reports suggest that Oroville Dam, located in the vicinity might collapse.
"Several of the people being evacuated are of Indian origin Americans; approximately 13% is of Punjabis/Sikhs descent," stated ANI.
USA: Emergency evacuation of Yuba City & areas in Sutton County as there is danger that the damaged Oroville Dam could burst. ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
USA: Large population in areas being evacuated is that of Indian origin Americans, appx 13% is of Punjabis/Sikhs #YubaCity #OrovilleDam ANI (@ANI_news) February 13, 2017
According to Associated Press, the emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam in Northern California could fail unleashing uncontrolled flood waters from Lake Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources on Sunday asked people in downstream areas to leave their homes immediately to avoid any casualties.The department added that it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.
The Butte County Sheriff's office said, the residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies.
Here we bring you few images of the dam:
Rising water level at Oroville Dam Water overflowing for the first time ever at Oroville.
Picture Credit: Dave Petley @davepetley Oroville Dam is fine The integrity of the dam is not jeopardized in any way because the problem is with the spillway and not the dam, according to an official of the California Department of Water Resources. Picture Credit: Kelly Huston @ProComKelly Problem in the dam occurred last week The initial damage to the spillway occurred last week, about 3,000 feet from where water enters from the lake, say reports. Picture Credit: California Department of Water Resources Mystery shrouds snag in the dam Unfortunately, the engineers don't know what caused the damage, which they say is expected to grow. Picture Credit: California Department of Water Resources
OneIndia News
BJP leader hacked to death in Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram
oi-Vicky
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 13: A 20-year-old BJP worker was hacked to death at Thrissur district in Kerala. The incident took place late on Sunday night at the Mukkattukara village. The deceased BJP worker has been identified as Nirmal.
The police are investigating the matter and say that the motive behind the killing is not clear as yet. The police, however, do not rule out politics to be the motive behind the killing. Investigations are on, police officials say and a manhunt has been launched to nab the culprits.
The murder comes barely a month after the killing of another BJP worker at Andalur in Kerala. C Santhosh, 52, was hacked to death allegedly by members of the CPI(M) in January.
There were widespread protests following the incident and the BJP had complained that the police are not doing enough to protect their members. They blamed the ruling dispensation of not providing enough security to their workers.
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A South Giza prosecution has ordered that political writer and researcher Zizo Abdo to remain in custody pending a court decision on Tuesday after he violated probationary measures imposed on him following his September release from prison, defence lawyer Mokhtar Mounir told Ahram Online.
The prosecution says that Abdo, who is a spokesperson for the 6 April Youth Movement, violated his probationary measure last week that mandates that he must report in to a police station three days per week from 4pm to 6pm.
According to Abdos defence lawyer, he was unable to report in as scheduled because he was arrested at a cafe in Cairo on Wednesday and held for several hours.
Abdo was released in September pending trial five months after he was arrested on charges of inciting to topple the regime.
He had participated in an April protest against the government deal handing over two Red Sea islands under Egyptian control to Saudi Arabia.
In January, 6 April Movement co-founder Mohamed Adel was released after finishing a three-and-a-half year prison sentence on charges of violating Egypt's protest law, and must serve a three-year probation where he is required to report in to a police station on a daily basis for 12 hours.
Adel is facing the same probationary terms imposed on Ahmed Maher, the founder of 6 April, who was also released from jail in January after serving his sentence on similar charges.
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Chairwoman of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko is set to lead an official delegation to visit Cairo this spring, the upper house of parliament's vice chairman told Russian newspaper Izvestia, according to state news agency MENA.
The Russian newspaper cited Egyptian parliamentary sources as saying the delegation will mainly discuss resuming air flights between Russia and Egypt.
Russia imposed a ban on flights to Egypt shortly after a Russian passenger jet crashed in Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board, most of them holidaymakers.
The Russian official said the visit is expected to boost Russian-Egyptian relations, especially on counterterrorism and security issues.
Earlier this year, Russias Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said that Russian flights to Egyptian Red Sea resort cities would resume in the "near future.
Nearly 3 million Russians, out of 9.6 million tourists of all nationalities, visited Egypt in 2014, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism.
Egyptian tourism, a pillar of the country's economy and a key source of hard currency, has taken a blow since the passenger plane crash. The economy of Sinai's Sharm El-Sheikh is believed to have suffered the most.
Egypts revenues from tourism dropped from $6.1 billion in 2015 to $3.4 billion in 2016, according to statements made last week by Central Bank Governor, Tarek Amer.
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Promising GGC 2017 Looks More and More Groundbreaking
Published February 13, 2017 by Lee R
This year Tbilisi may give attendees not just a jump on the year, but decades to come.
Some interesting developments are making Georgia Gaming Congress GGC 2017 not only formidable, but incredibly unique.
Welcome Federbet
One development is the confirmed participation of international non-profit federation of gambling industry professional Federbet as a GGC demo zone participant for the March 1, 2017 event in Tbilisi.
Showing Its Stuff
Established in 2011 to protect operator and player rights through ensuring fair play in iGaming, the Brussels-based organization which has since expanded to Madrid will be demonstrating the methods and technology that has forged their reputation as a leader in detection and prevention of match-fixing and money laundering as well as unmatched techniques social commitment to protection of minors against gambling.
CEO Speaking
Federbet CEO and newly appointed chairman of the FFU Committee on Ethics and Fair Play Francesco Baranca is set to present at GGC as well. He will speak about protecting against match-fixing in eSports, and expand on how the prevention of fixed matches in eSports can prescribe a similar arc to the same mechanisms in traditional sports.
Showing How Prevention Works
In an exclusive preview, Baranca promised at GGC that he was set to provide real examples of how the eSports match-fixing detection system has worked in competitions involving famous teams so far.
VR and AR Incoming
Another unique presentation shaping up for GGC is insights into the implementation of VR and AR technologies in gambling.
Pioneering CEO Speaks
GGR 2017 speaker and CEO of pioneering VR company CASEXE CEO Ivan Kondilenko is set to present the first VR casino ever created with full use of VR technologies.
AR Augmentation
Kondilenko has already gone so far as to make the claim of his companys capability of delivering any VR casino our customers order. He also will speak about the related emerging technology of augmented reality being integrated with real world and virtual objects.
Whole New Eras
The GGC 2017 Demo Floor and presentations look to be unforgettable as they usher in new eras of protective prevention and technological engagement.
In December 2001, a little over 15 years ago, I was on the small five-person team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Now 15 years later, the same questions we asked almost two decades ago are being asked about the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and we are getting many of the same answers.
The questions are: why have we been in Afghanistan for 15 years and where are the billions of dollars the U.S. put into Afghanistan?
And the answers are the same year after year -- the U.S. is in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, (and now other extremists groups) so they can't attack the United States. For 15 years, the most advanced and well-funded military in the world has attempted to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, arguably the least funded and least equipped militia forces in the world, and has not succeeded.
Where has the money gone? Much has gone to Dubai for apartments and condos for Afghan leaders and to contractors (U.S., Afghan and others) who have made millions off the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
At the February 9, 2017, Senate Armed Services committee hearing on Afghanistan, John Nicholson, the commanding General of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, answered questions for two hours in the Senate hearing about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. He also submitted a 20-page written statement on the current situation in Afghanistan.
In response to one Senator's question, "Is Russia meddling in Afghanistan?" Nicholson responded: "While Russia has counter-narcotics about Afghanistan and terrorist attack concerns from the extremist groups in Afghanistan, since 2016 we believe Russia has been helping the Taliban in order to undermine the U.S. and NATO mission. The Taliban is the medium through which other extremist groups operate in Afghanistan. We are concerned about the increasing cooperation between Russia and Pakistan that continues to provide a sanctuary for Taliban senior leadership. Russia and Pakistan have held joint military exercises in Pakistan. We and our Central Asian allies are nervous about Russian intentions."
Nicholson said, "progress continues to be made on the U.S. mission of training, advising and assessing (TAA) the Afghan security forces." No Senator asked why after 16 years the U.S. has to continue to do the same training -- and how long this type of training had to go on to train forces capable of defeating the Taliban and other groups.
Nicholson said that U.S. and NATO had committed to a minimum of four more years in Afghanistan at the NATO conference in Warsaw, Poland in July 2016. At a donor's conference in Brussels in October 2016, 75 donor countries offered $15 billion for the continued reconstruction of Afghanistan. The U.S. will continue contributing $5 billion per year through 2020.
In his written statement Nicholson added that 30 other nations pledged more than $800M annually to fund the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) until the end of 2020 and that in September, India added $1B to the $2B it already committed to Afghanistan's development.
Since 2002, the U.S. Congress has appropriated more than $117 billion for Afghanistan's reconstruction (training Afghan security forces, standing up the Afghan government, providing health care and education to the Afghan people, and developing the Afghan economy), the largest expenditure to rebuild any country in the history of the United States.
Nicholson said the 8,448 U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan now must remain to protect the U.S. from extremist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan where 20 of the 98 designated terrorist groups in the world are located. He said there is no cooperation between the Afghanistan Taliban and ISIS, but that most ISIS fighters come from/through the Pakistani Taliban.
A year ago, as of March 2016, there were approximately 28,600 Department of Defense (DOD) contractor personnel in Afghanistan, compared to 8,730 U.S. troops, with contract personnel representing approximately 77% of the total DOD presence in country. Of the 28,600 DOD contractor personnel, 9,640 were U.S. nationals and approximately 870, or about 3%, were private security contractors.
Since the military troop levels have remained the same in the past year, one would extrapolate that the number of civilian contractors is about the same for 2017 for a total of about 37,000 U.S. military personnel and DOD contractors in Afghanistan.
The largest number of U.S. military in Afghanistan was 99,800 in the second quarter of 2011 and the highest number of military contractors was 117,227 of which 34,765 were U.S. nationals was in the second quarter of 2012 for a total of approximately 200,000 U.S. personnel in the country, excluding State Department employees and contractors. Data on the numbers of State Department personnel and contractors each year in Afghanistan is not available.
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Egypt's Court of Cassation ordered a retrial on Monday for Yasmine El-Narsh, who was sentenced to four years in prison for assaulting a policeman and drug possession at Cairo Internation Airport in 2015.
A video went viral in April 2015 showing El-Narsh arguing with a policeman at the airport after she was told she could not board the plane because she was late.
El-Narsh, who was attempting to board a flight to Hurghada, is seen in the video aggressively tapping a policemans chest with both her hands during an argument.
Shortly after the video went viral online, the interior ministry released a statement saying that drugs were discovered on El-Narsh when she was searched during the incident.
El-Narshs lawyer, prominent MP Bahaaeddin Abu Shoqa, argued before the court on Monday that the female airport employee who conducted the search on El-Narsh and found the hashish had no legal right to do so since she was not part of the police force.
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Interview with Marianne Williamson, founder and host of Sister Giant
Marianne Williamson photo by Elizabeth Granli, collage image by Meryl Ann Butler for OpEdNews
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My guest today is Marianne Williamson, internationally acclaimed spiritual lecturer and best-selling author of 12 books.
Joan Brunwasser: Welcome to OpEdNews, Marianne. You are also the founder and host of Sister Giant, a conference in Washington, D.C., that just concluded. Many of our readers are not familiar with Sister Giant. Can you tell us a bit about it, please?
Marianne Williamson: Sister Giant is a series of weekend conferences that began as a call to women to become more active in transforming the world. My question was, and is, around the relative quietude and complacency -- perhaps this is changing now -- of Western women in the face of so many global challenges. We based the first conference on three films: The Burning Times, a film by the Canadian Film Board on the burning of the witches during the Middle Ages; Iron-Jawed Angels, the HBO special about the Women's Suffragette movement; and Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about women in the Liberian Civil War. I wanted to explore how we got quiet, where we have not been quiet, and examples of women best showing up now. Scholars were there to help us understand all three of those situations and apply their meaning to our own lives. It was wonderful.
That first conference was followed by two and now three more, evolving into a focus on more current political events. Bernie Sanders was our keynote speaker in 2015 and again this year.
Like millions of other people, after Trump was elected I just wanted to do something, and I thought perhaps doing another Sister Giant would contribute to the energy of this moment. We hosted a fantastic assortment of speakers -- people that I read and listen to and learn from, on topics I think are among those most important right now. I partnered with Derrick Harkins, Vice-President at Union Theological Seminary and former Director of Religious Outreach at the DNC, and it was a great weekend. Thousands of people were feeling quite lit up at the end of it.
JB: I heard that! OpEdNews was well represented at Sister Giant - Editor-in-Chief Rob Kall, Managing Editor Meryl Ann Butler, Senior Editor Marta Steele, and OpEdNews contributor Mike Rivage-Seul - and the reports were glowing. [Readers: there are at least ten articles about Sister Giant* published so far on OpEdNews; Check them out!] The timing seemed very fortuitous, coming on the heels of the Women's March on Washington and all the satellite marches. Like the Women's March, did you get a bigger turnout than you expected? And if so, what do you attribute that to?
OEN Sen. Ed., Marta Steele; Managing Ed Meryl Ann Butler, and Ed-in-Chief Rob Kall attended the Sister Giant Conference
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From Our Future
Steve Mnuchin clears Senate procedural hurdle
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There are plenty of signs that Steve Mnuchin is not a good guy, even by the lax standards of today's banking industry. OneWest, a bank he established with partners and ran from 2009 to 2015, mounted a record of ruthless foreclosures (in one case over a 27-cent error). A memo from top prosecutors in California's state attorney general's office saw evidence of its "widespread misconduct" and repeated violations of law, according to The Intercept. Mnuchin misled the Senate (accidentally, he says) on his banking history, his personal finances and his role in running a Cayman Islands tax-haven account.
Nevertheless, Senate Republicans will almost certainly succeed at their goal of confirming Mnuchin as the next Treasury Secretary as soon as possible.
Republican senators like Rob Portman of Indiana used contorted logic in an attempt to convince voters that Mnuchin did not mislead them. Mnuchin attributed his failure to list $100 million of his own assets in his disclosure forms to "oversight." (If you're rich enough to overlook $100 million, it's safe to say you're obscenely rich.)
Mnuchin will soon run a department that once reprimanded him and OneWest, requiring them to work with an independent monitor. Yet his areas of responsibility will include "supervising national banks and thrift institutions" and "enforcing Federal finance and tax laws."
"It Takes One to Catch One"
Aggressive bankers have held high office before, and it hasn't always ended badly. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. had a reputation for playing rough and cutting corners, at a time when banks were largely unregulated and unsupervised. Kennedy was also said to have smuggled moonshine during Prohibition, but no evidence of that has ever come to light. (Kennedy, like Mnuchin, invested heavily in show business and did well.)
When Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Kennedy to serve the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), FDR was reportedly asked why he had appointed such a crook. "Takes one to catch one," Roosevelt is said to have replied. By all accounts, Kennedy did an excellent job.
But there was a major difference between Joe Kennedy's outlook and Steve Mnuchin's. Kennedy understood that Wall Streeters were rascals who needed strict oversight. Mnuchin wants to go easy on them.
"Way Too Complicated"
Mnuchin wants to loosen regulations on the bankers whose misbehavior and massive fraud cost the economy trillions of dollars in lost income in the 2008 financial crisis. He used the same phrase to describe both the Dodd-Frank law, which took some needed first steps toward reining in predatory bankers, and the "Volcker rule" limiting banks' ability to gamble with federally insured deposits. "Way too complicated," he complained.
To paraphrase what Sen. Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle when he faced him in a vice presidential debate: Steve Mnuchin, you're no Joe Kennedy.
During his confirmation hearing, Mnuchin said he now supported the Volcker rule, although he said it needed to be "improved" in ways he did not describe. He also said he supported some version of a "21st century Glass-Steagall Act" to separate commercial banking from the speculative and often high-risk world of investment banking. But again, Mnuchin offered no specifics.
Mnuchin is part of a wave of former Goldman Sachs bankers joining the Trump administration just a few short months after a campaign in which Trump vilified Goldman Sachs as representing the worst aspects of American finance.
Assuming that his confirmation proceeds as expected, Mnuchin and Trump -- together with Mnuchin's ex-Goldman Sachs colleagues -- will work with a Republican-led House and Senate that shares a basic antipathy to banking regulation and has increasingly diverted Wall Street campaign contributions from the Democrats.
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From Truthdig
The four-decade-long assault on our democratic institutions by corporations has left them weak and largely dysfunctional. These institutions, which surrendered their efficacy and credibility to serve corporate interests, should have been our firewall. Instead, they are tottering under the onslaught.
Labor unions are a spent force. The press is corporatized and distrusted. Universities have been purged of dissidents and independent scholars who criticize neoliberalism and decry the decay of democratic institutions and political parties. Public broadcasting and the arts have been defunded and left on life support. The courts have been stacked with judges whose legal careers were spent serving corporate power, a trend in appointments that continued under Barack Obama. Money has replaced the vote, which is how someone as unqualified as Betsy DeVos can buy herself a Cabinet seat. And the Democratic Party, rather than sever its ties to Wall Street and corporations, is naively waiting in the wings to profit from a Trump debacle.
"The biggest asset Trump has is the decadent, clueless, narcissistic, corporate-indentured, war-mongering Democratic Party," Ralph Nader said when I reached him by phone in Washington. "If the Democratic strategy is waiting for Godot, waiting for Trump to implode, we are in trouble. And just about everything you say about the Democrats you can say about the AFL-CIO. They don't control the train."
The loss of credibility by democratic institutions has thrust the country into an existential as well as economic crisis. The courts, universities and press are no longer trusted by tens of millions of Americans who correctly see them as organs of the corporate elites. These institutions are traditionally the mechanisms by which a society is able to unmask the lies of the powerful, critique ruling ideologies and promote justice. Because Americans have been bitterly betrayed by their institutions, the Trump regime can attack the press as the "opposition party," threaten to cut off university funding, taunt a federal jurist as a "so-called judge" and denounce a court order as "outrageous."
The decay of democratic institutions is the prerequisite for the rise of authoritarian or fascist regimes. This decay has given credibility to a pathological liar. The Trump administration, according to an Emerson College poll, is considered by 49 percent of registered voters to be truthful while the media are considered truthful by only 39 percent of registered voters. Once American democratic institutions no longer function, reality becomes whatever absurdity the White House issues.
Most of the rules of democracy are unwritten. These rules determine public comportment and ensure respect for democratic norms, procedures and institutions. President Trump has, to the delight of his supporters, rejected this political and cultural etiquette.
Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" noted that when democratic institutions collapse it is "easier to accept patently absurd propositions than the old truths which have become pious banalities." The chatter of the liberal ruling elites about our democracy is itself an absurdity. "Vulgarity with its cynical dismissal of respected standards and accepted theories," she wrote, infects political discourse. This vulgarity is "mistaken for courage and a new style of life."
"He is destroying one code of behavior after another," Nader said of Trump. "He is so far getting away with it and not paying a price. He is breaking standards of behavior -- what he says about women, commercializing the White House, I am the law."
Nader said he does not think the Republican Party will turn against Trump or consider impeachment unless his presidency appears to threaten its chances of retaining power in the 2018 elections. Nader sees the Democratic Party as too "decadent and incompetent" to mount a serious challenge to Trump. Hope, he said, comes from the numerous protests that have been mounted in the streets, at town halls held by members of Congress and at flash points such as Standing Rock. It may also come from the 2.5 million civil servants within the federal government if a significant number refuse to cooperate with Trump's authoritarianism.
"The new president is clearly aware of the power wielded by civil servants, who swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not to any president or administration," Maria J. Stephan, the co-author of "Why Civil Resistance Works," writes in The Washington Post. "One of Trump's first acts as president was a sweeping federal hiring freeze affecting all new and existing positions except those related to the military, national security and public safety. Even before Trump's inauguration, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives reinstated an obscure 1876 rule that would allow Congress to slash the salaries of individual federal workers. This was a clear warning to those serving in government to keep their heads down. Trump's high-profile firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates, who refused to follow the president's immigration ban, sent shock waves through the bureaucracy."
A sustained, nationwide popular uprising of nonviolent obstruction and noncooperation is the only weapon left to save the republic. The elites will respond once they become afraid. If we do not make them afraid we will fail.
"The resiliency of democratic institutions has been encouraging -- the courts, the protests," Nader said. "Trump boomerangs himself. He personally outrages people around the country based on race, gender, class, geography, his lies, his false statements, his narcissism, his lack of knowledge, his flippancy and his morbid desire to respond to slurs with tweets. He is not a smart autocrat. He weakens himself daily. He allows the opposition to have more effect than it ordinarily would."
"Most dictatorial heads of state deal with abstract ideologies -- the fatherland and so forth," Nader went on. "He doesn't do much of that. He attacks personally, low on the sensuality ladder. You are a fake. You are a loser. You are a crook. You are a liar. This arouses people more, especially when he does this based on gender, race and religion. The best thing going for the democratic awakening is Donald Trump."
Nader said that Trump will, however, be able to consolidate power if we suffer another catastrophic terrorist attack or there is a financial meltdown. Dictatorial regimes need a crisis, either real or manufactured, to justify total suspension of civil liberties and assuming uncontested control.
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This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Consider it an irony or simply a reality of our moment, but these days Donald ("America First") Trump is looking ever less like an old-fashioned, pre-World War II isolationist. In a mere three-plus weeks in office, he's managed to mix it up royally with much of the rest of the planet. He threatened to send American troops into Mexico (hey, it was a joke, just lighthearted banter!); he insulted the Prime Minister of Australia by shouting at and hanging up on him ("fatigue was setting in" and anyway maybe he thought it was Austria!); he threatened Iran with everything but the kitchen sink (which he evidently couldn't find in the new, under-inhabited White House); he insulted Iraq by banning its citizens from visiting the land that had invaded and occupied them and essentially dynamited their country; he insulted German Prime Minister Angela Merkel for her handling of the refugee crisis and may still be playing with the idea of appointing an ambassador to the European Union who would like to see it go the way of the old Soviet Union. He put in place the Muslim ban that wasn't a ban on immigrants and visitors from seven largely Muslim lands -- before an obviously Islam-loving so-called judge in San Francisco (natch!) temporarily banned it. After being played like a fiddle by military officials who told him that President Obama would never have had the guts to order such a raid -- great presidential button-pushing, guys! -- he green-lighted a disastrous Special Operations mission in Yemen in which the raiders didn't get their guy (but did get a long available terror video), while one American and up to 30 civilians, including children, died. (The Yemeni government, possibly also angered by being put on Trump's list of banned countries, has now banned such raids in its country, or not.) And to give Trump total credit, he staunchly defended the honor of the American people, as he had always promised he would. When Bill O'Reilly, in a pre-Super Bowl interview, called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "killer" without offering a single kind, offsetting word of praise for the United States, the president promptly insisted that the Russians had no monopoly on killers in high places, not on an America First planet. He shot back: "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Exactly, Donald. We kill with the best of them!
According to recent research by the Global Impact Institute (GII), in his first 21 days in office, President Trump only missed messing with 13 of the 190-plus nations on the planet, an oversight he's undoubtedly planning to rectify in week four. (Okay, okay, the GII only operates inside my brain, but take my word for it, it's no less accurate for that.) And the president has obviously been saving the best for last, despite a recent molifying gesture. I'm talking, of course, about that ominously rising power, China. No other country offers such a mix-it-up opportunity for global economic chaos, outright war, and future Armageddon. But let TomDispatchregular Rajan Menon, author of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention, fill in the details on a country that gives Trump the chance to replay a reel of best of John F. Kennedy moments from the Bay of Pigs to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and believe you me, if Donald Trump had been there, Cuba might not have been. Tom
Is President Trump Headed for a War with China?
All Options Are "On The Table"
By Rajan Menon Forget those "bad hombres down there" in Mexico that U.S. troops might take out. Ignore the way National Security Adviser Michael Flynn put Iran "on notice" and the new president insisted, that, when it comes to that country, "nothing is off the table." Instead, focus for a moment on something truly scary: the possibility that Donald Trump's Washington might slide into an actual war with the planet's rising superpower, China. No kidding. It could really happen. Let's start with silver-maned, stately Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state. Who could deny that the former ExxonMobil CEO has a foreign minister's bearing? Trump reportedly chose him over neocon firebrand John Bolton partly for that reason. (Among other things, Bolton was mustachioed, something the new president apparently doesn't care for.) But an august persona can only do so much; it can't offset a lack of professional diplomatic experience. That became all-too-apparent during Tillerson's January 11th confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was asked for his view on the military infrastructure China has been creating on various islands in the South China Sea, the ownership of which other Asian countries, including Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei claim as well. China's actions, he replied, were "extremely worrisome," likening them to Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, an infraction for which Russia was slapped with economic sanctions. The then-secretary-of-state-designate -- he's since been confirmed, despite many negative votes -- didn't, however, stop there. Evidently, he wanted to communicate to the Chinese leadership in Beijing that the new administration was already irked beyond measure with them. So he added, "We're going to have to send China's leaders a clear signal: that, first, the island building stops and, second, your access to those islands is not going to be allowed." Functionally, that fell little short of being an announcement of a future act of war, since not allowing "access" to those islands would clearly involve military moves. In what amounted to a there's-a-new-sheriff-in-town warning, he then doubled down yet again, insisting, slightly incoherently (in the tradition of his new boss) that "the failure of a response has allowed them to just keep pushing the envelope on this." All right, so maybe a novice had a bad day. Maybe the secretary-of-state-to-be simply ad-libbed and misspoke... whatever. If so, you might have expected a later clarification from him or from someone on the Trump national security team anyway. That didn't happen; instead, that team stuck to its guns. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer made no effort to add nuance to, let alone walk back, Tillerson's remarks. During his first official press briefing on January 23rd, Spicer declared that the United States "is going to make sure we defend our interests there" -- in the South China Sea, that is -- and that "if those islands are in fact in international waters and not part of China proper, then yes, we are going to make sure that we defend international territories from being taken over by one country." And what of Trump's own views on the island controversy? Never one to pass up an opportunity for hyperbole, during the presidential campaign he swore that, on those tiny islands, China was building "a military fortress the likes of which the world has not seen." As it happened, he wasn't speaking about, say, the forces that Hitler massed for the ill-fated Operation Barbarossa, launched in June 1941 with the aim of crushing the Red Army and the Soviet Union, or those deployed for the June 1944 Normandy landing, which sealed Nazi Germany's fate. When applied to what China has been up to in the South China Sea, his statement fell instantly into the not-yet-named category of "alternative facts." Candidate Trump also let it be known that he wouldn't allow Beijing to get away with such cheekiness on his watch. Why had the Chinese engaged in military construction on the islands? Trump had a simple answer (as he invariably does): China "has no respect for our president and no respect for our country." The implication was evident. Things would be different once he settled into the White House and made America great again. Then -- it was easy enough to conclude -- China had better watch out. Standard campaign bombast? Well, Trump hasn't changed his tune a bit since being elected. On December 4th, using (of course!) his Twitter account, he blasted Beijing for having built "a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea." And it's safe to assume that he signed off on Spicer's combative comments as well. In short, his administration has already drawn a red line -- but in the way a petulant child might with a crayon. During and after the campaign he made much of his determination to regain the respect he claims the U.S. has lost in the world, notably from adversaries like China. The danger here is that, in dealing with that country, Trump could, as is typical, make it all about himself, all about "winning," one of his most beloved words, and disaster might follow. Whose Islands? A military clash between Trump-led America and a China led by President Xi Jinping? Understanding how it might happen requires a brief detour to the place where it's most likely to occur: the South China Sea. Our first task: to understand China's position on that body of water and the islands it contains, as well as the nature of Beijing's military projects there. So brace yourself for some necessary detail.
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Chalk up a big environmental win for the Cherokee Nation. On Friday, Feb. 10, the largest tribe of the Five Tribes and the largest Native nation in the country, legally acting in conjunction with the State of Oklahoma, was granted a restraining order against Sequoyah Fuels Corporation near Gore, Okla., to stop this corporation from dumping radioactive waste near the Arkansas and Illinois Rivers.
In the early days of Trump, this is indeed a big win. He has been aggressive, dangerous, and reckless in signing executive order after executive order, and he's stated that he's not concerned about environmental regulations. Industry, even big, dirty industry that emits poisonous byproducts, are Trump's golden chips. He could care less about pollution. Trump and his kakistocracy seem to want to make mass pollution 'the new normal'. Maybe strength in numbers helped, too, as far as the Cherokee Nation is concerned. Where smaller tribes and bands of American Indians seem to be getting stalemated by Uncle Sam - even by having established treaties ignored and trampled on by the ruling elites - the largest grouping of American Indians country-wide stopped a noxious werewolf right in its path and sent it running back into the woods.
"The Cherokee Nation is a staunch defender and protector of our natural resources," said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker, as quoted in Earth First and Native News Online. "We will not stand idly by and allow the Arkansas River, one of our most precious resources, and the Cherokee community of Gore to be polluted. The Cherokee Nation will fight for the rights of our people to live safely in their communities, and for the rights of our future generations to inherit an environment free of hazardous pollution."
"Sequoyah Fuels Corporation was opened by Kerr-McGee in 1970 to convert yellowcake uranium into uranium hexafluoride, a compound that produces fuel for nuclear reactors. The company switched hands several times over the years before closing in 1993 after several releases of hazardous chemicals. In January 1986, one worker was killed and dozens more were injured after a cylinder of uranium hexafluoride ruptured. It has since been in the decommissioning process, under the authority of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission," a Feb. 10 posting of Earth Firstreads.
"During the decommissioning process, Sequoyah Fuels collected approximately 11,000 tons of uranium-contaminated sludge in several basins, lagoons and ditches at the site. In November of 2004, the state of Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation and Sequoyah Fuels entered into a settlement agreement wherein Sequoyah Fuels agreed to spend up to $3.5 million to responsibly dispose of the waste off-site," the article continues.
According to official statements issued by the Cherokee Nation, the Sequoyah Fuels facility, which converted yellowcake uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors, left tons of uranium-contaminated sludge in many basins, lagoons and ditches at the site when it closed its operations here in 1993. The order will temporarily keep the company from disposing of the waste at the site and court records indicate that tribal and state officials want their own experts to review options for off-site disposal.
It's rather commonplace to see this seal displayed on the bumper stickers of cars in the Sooner State. The largest tribal grouping of American Indians live in Okloahoma, with nearly 190,000 enrolled members there and almost 300,000 members the world over.
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Well, as far as this writer sees things, all I can say is: Bravo, Cherokee Nation! Kudos to the State of Oklahoma, too! Although the site in question is already horribly polluted with radioactive waste, at least the rogue company responsible for this hellish mess has agreed to foot the bill for the cleanup of the site. Things won't be able to get worst, either, with further dumping of radioactive waste prohibited.
It's good to know that there are valiant vanguards out there, still, in America, to fight the ridiculous manifest destiny of environmental disaster that the Trump Administration seems to have set free on America. And although Trump cannot be implicated in any way with this toxic nightmare, this despotic lunatic doesn't care about pollution or its effects on the country, our people, our watersheds, lands, flora and fauna. Lord knows what the outcome would have been if it was up to him to decide on this issue. How would the two major river systems be effected if more dumping was allowed to continue?
All this dim-witted bully seems to be concerned about is making money. And if it was about making money for the parochial and provincial people in America's never-never lands - or, to put it bluntly, the very folks who voted Trump into office because they bought into his lies about the creation of 25 million high-paying jobs during his Presidency - this is still a dirty deal. When someone's livelihood is placed on a higher order than the well-being and the lives of others, it is time for the worker whose work poses a dangerous threat to others to find another line of work.
In the words of Native American Activist Wnona LaDuke, "Mother Earth needs us to keep our covenant. We will do this in courts, we will do this on our radio station, and we will commit to our descendants to work hard to protect this land and water for them. Whether you have feet, wings, fins, or roots, we are all in it together." And to use another voice from Native American Traditionalism and its antiquity: "When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money." So in the meantime, until we have another healthy, pristine, wonderful planet where life can thrive to just skip off to at a moment's notice, let's try to keep this blue, green, and brown ball flying around in the Milky Way Galaxy as clean as we can. And Trump's ridiculous assumption that climate change was some myth started by the Chinese, well, that's just ridiculosity at its worst. Isn't that Trump's default blame button? If all else fails, I'll just blame the Chinese.
In all actuality, the only people who make money from industries like radioactive harvesting, Big Oil & Gas exploration, and a host of other noxious industries ranging from uranium mining to fracking to harvesting rare metals like gold, silver and copper, are a handful of top leaders in these industries. Owners of such heavily-polluting corporations, along with their cronies, have the biggest stake in the lion's share of profits. Why do you think Trump wants to be a good pal with Vladimir Putin? It's all about that Russian oil, baby, and that new Secretary of State we have who is also a Big Oil & Gas fat cat who will put his Exxon label, most likely, or some derivative of this brand, on all that untapped oil lying underground in the former USSR - well, Rex Tillerson wasn't chosen by Trump to be Secretary of State out of happenstance. No, Tillerson joined ExxonMobil in 1975 and served as the chairman and chief executive officer of the company from 2006 to 2016 and he got appointed under Trump so as to work with the Russian government on harvesting energy. Tillerson knows Putin well, along with other major players in the Russian oil and gas structure. There is a vast supply of oil in Russia, too, and with Tillerson, Trump, and Putin in cahoots together, that old song "Oil Always Love You" will be blaring far and wide throughout the Siberian forests and other outlying Soviet outbacks where a good portion of that black gold lies.
Trump's voting base thinks his promise of better jobs through a rebirth of heavy industry, which he's also said that he will see come to fruition under his rule, will increase their quality of life and add a big boost to their lifestyles. Sadly, this is also a lie. In comparison to the windfall profits enjoyed by the leaders of these industries, even the "high-paying jobs" being boasted by Trump and the fat cats in these noxious, dangerous, heavy pollution industries, well - the empty promises equate to mere peanuts for rank and file workers - as compared to the top dogs who manage and run things, especially in the energy sector. The work of extraction of fossil fuels and minerals is very dangerous. Workers must live in harrowing, lonely places for extended periods, far away from their spouses and their families. The high cost of living, the proclivity of workers to become lonely and depressed and turn to mind-altering chemicals to cope with such a dauntingly spartan life, along with the low quality of life experienced by those stuck in very remote villages located near oil rigs, fracking wells, radioactive mines, and mineral-extraction outposts, is enough to at least make many consider taking up another line of work. And a large majority take up other work after a time, as well, even for much lower wages. Because money can't buy happiness. Even sadder, nixed or renegotiated trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP have led to some economic reports by those who track the world's job markets that warn that most jobs created for Americans under the insane Trumpian promises will go to robots, not people. Have you ever witnessed a robot walk into a bank to cash a paycheck?
Still, the Native American community must savor this win with much relish. Just like those old movies where the cowboys always won and the Indians always lost, in the economics of the U.S.A.'s history, Native Americans and their bands, tribes, and nations have also come out as big losers. Uncle Sam has reneged on each and every one of about 500 treaties signed with a plethora of Indian tribes throughout history. And the land you're standing on right now? If you're standing on land in the 50 states known as the United States of America? Well it's Indian land. It always has been and always will be - as far as any Native American is concerned. This land was stolen by Europeans from Native Americans. Continuing this bipolar Eurocentric disease, Donald Trump set the wheelhouse back in motion for the further construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline just a few weeks ago, much to the chagrin of Native Americans everywhere in the country. After President Obama put an end to the further construction of these two venomous, crude-pumping snakes, "The Donald" gave his okay to both pipelines on Tuesday, Jan. 24, by scribbling his name on two executive orders. Influential Native American attorneys have set the legal wheelhouse in motion to sue Trump and the U.S. government over continuation of these pipelines.
Before signing these executive orders, I wonder if Trump knew that the crude carried from in or very near Hardisty, Alberta, Canada, will be some of the dirtiest crude oil in the world. I wonder if Trump knew that all pipelines leak and they cause environmental problems for the Indian reservations, cities, villages, along with lonely homes with not a neighbor within miles, and farms the pipeline will pass through, or near, along their pathways. And I also wonder if Trump knew one of the biggest things the Standing Rock Sioux are concerned about is that this pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, is being planned to run underneath the Missouri River, a major source of the tribe's water supply, and also, the river is a water source for innumerable municipalities along its course. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe also relies on hunting buffalo to feed their families. The Missouri River is used to transport dead buffalo kills downstream since the carcasses of the heavy beasts are so heavy and hard to haul. Who wants to eat meat tainted with crude oil? What could possibly go wrong? Why in the world would the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe not vehemently oppose the further construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline?
Tribal leaders have also cautioned their people about the dangers of protesting, since who knows what kind of retaliatory measures peaceful water protectors will face under the Trump regime. Even though water cannons, trained attack dogs, rubber bullets, and exploding tear gas canisters are far from being safe and can leave lasting scars, live ammo from M-16s, tanks, and rocket launchers are much more dangerous. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is also interested in getting Trump and the federal government at the place where injury hurts the most - their pocket books and revenue lines. Civil suits are very good ways to negotiate things, after all. According to accounts, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault, II, writes that it is "vitally important for his tribe to have our rights be heard by this Court before Dakota Access drills under Lake Oahe."
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On February 10, 2017, Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network provided to the Organization of American States--InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights information about human subjects and medical experimentation in the U.S.A. The human-rights issues presented by Dr. Janet Parker DVM were about the use of human subjects in medical experimentation and the prescription of off-label medications and unapproved medical devices. The human-rights issue is the patient's right to free prior informed consent for medical treatment. The OAS-IACHR has not previously explored the subject of human rights as it pertains individuals in the U.S.A. who are subjects of medical experimentation and the use of non-FDA approved medical treatments. These non-FDA approved medications and medical devices have not met the standards of safety or efficacy set by the Food and Drug Administration. This issue potentially impacts every patient in health care in the U.S.A. and impacts the human rights of every patient worldwide who is prescribed medications and devices developed by US corporations.
The Inter-American Commission on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities states in Article II that "The objectives of this convention are to prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities and to promote their full integration into society."
The prohibition of torture is one of the few absolute and nondisputable human rights. Medical interventions can become inhuman and degrading treatment. They might arguably meet the criteria for torture, which is prohibited by international law. The United States of America has a duty to have to prevent, prosecute and redress abuses in health care. (Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture.)
There are many more cases of torture and ill-treatment in health-care settings than are officially reported to US authorities. Victims/survivors of this kind of abuse often are unable or unwilling to report what has happened to them. Thus, official reports represent only a small fraction of this problem. Ill treatment is not justified by health-care system inadequacies or lack of medical resources. Individuals have the right to an adequate standard of health care ("right to health"). The right to be protected from torture and ill treatment also provides objective restrictions on certain kinds of therapies.
Crucial to the protection of the human rights of vulnerable patients are:
1) Right to Legal Capacity (right of recognition of juridical personality and civil rights)
2) Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent
3) Right for an individual to choose a surrogate decision maker or Guardian that will best represent his/her wishes
4) Protection for Human Subjects in medical, social and behavioral research
These rights have been delineated in multiple international human rights documents and in the relevant case law, but unfortunately color of law, and color of official right violations of these rights routinely happen within mental health institutions, prison and correctional institutions, long term care facilities and in the provision of health care to financially disadvantaged populations such as foster children.
The doctor-patient and doctor-human subject relationship is a relationship in which the doctor has great power and authority. In this imbalance of power, ethical violations of human rights can and do occur. The persons most vulnerable to exploitation as human subjects of medical research are those who are already marginalized and disadvantaged. Groups such as migrants, prisoners, children, people with disabilities, Native Americans, racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to be targeted by researchers.
Medical research and the approval of prescription drugs are global concerns. Much of the research done by U.S. pharmaceutical companies is happening worldwide. Africa and other nations who are economically disadvantaged have been targeted by large international pharmaceutical companies to be sites of clinical testing. However, as human-rights violations of corporations become known, people in the developing world are less willing to become guinea pigs -- and for good reason. This fundamental distrust lies in the paradox of Hobson's choice "Experimental medicine or no medicine at all". Often the medical research offered does not fully protect human rights nor provide to those participating in the research the full benefits of the findings. This leads to another concern regarding the "Right to Life". In that persons in the developing world are often denied innovative therapies and important research developments regarding diseases and conditions important to their communities. Even within the U.S.A., there are impacts of the withholding of the potential benefits of research while at the same time exploiting those same vulnerable populations as research subjects. This leads to unequal access to treatment modalities as well as treatment that is not inclusive of the specific needs of those vulnerable populations.
Human-subject research includes experiments and observational studies in basic biology, clinical medicine, nursing, psychology, and all other social sciences. There are various codes for the proper and responsible conduct of human experimentation in medical research; the best known of these codes are the Nuremberg Code of 1947, [i] and the World Medical Organization's Helsinki Declaration of 1964 (revised in 1975). [ii]
In the U.S.A., the Nuremberg Code and the related Declaration of Helsinki delineates what is considered ethical conduct for human-subjects' research and forms the basis for the US Code of Federal Regulations - Title 45 Volume 46 (The Common Rule). The Nuremberg Code's influence on global human-rights law and medical ethics has been profound. Its basic requirement of informed consent, for example, has been universally accepted and is articulated in international law in Article 7 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966). ICCPR Article 7 states "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation."
The US Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects or the "Common Rule" was codified in separate regulations by 15 federal departments and agencies. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations 45 CFR part 46 governs all federally-funded research in the United States. The Right to Informed Consent is delineated in the federal regulation Protection of Human Subjects, 45 CFR 46 also known as the Common Rule under the authority granted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There are also Welfare Codes for the conduct of social and behavioral research such as that published by the American Psychological Association in 1973.
Informed consent is consent obtained freely, without threats or improper inducements, and after appropriate disclosure to the patient of adequate and understandable information in a form and language understood by the patient. Engaging in an informed-consent process between a clinical doctor and a patient should be an essential part of the standard of care in medicine. Informed consent is a process, not just a formality, and engaging in that process is of the essence of good medical care. Information must be provided to the patient in a timely manner and in accordance with the accepted standard of practice among members of the profession with similar training and experience. A health-care professional may be legally liable if a patient does not give "informed consent" to a medical procedure and it results in harm to patient even if the procedure is properly performed. [iii]
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From Paul Craig Roberts Website
Co-written by George Abert
Figuratively speaking, a ginormous asteroid is hurtling to a cataclysmic rendezvous with earth, but we are not supposed to notice. The asteroid is the rising threat from environmental degradation. Evidence is accumulating that environmental degradation is becoming global.
We can either act responsibly by accepting the challenge or take refuge in denial and risk the consequences.
There is nothing new about climate change. It has been ongoing for as long as earth has had an atmosphere. Through change, nature produced an atmosphere supportive of life. We know for a fact that human activities can have adverse impacts on the air, water, and land resources. If these impacts become global, as independent scientists believe, life on earth might be at risk.
We're in a state of perpetual crisis
Moreover, environmental degradation can contribute to, and be worsened by, other changes that are not under our control. Presently humanity is challenged by three revolutions which collectively constitute a perpetual crisis: the technological revolution that is displacing humans in the production of goods and services, the volatility and instability of the global financial system, and environmental degradation. Our focus is on environmental degradation.
It's a matter of balance
The weight of the atmosphere, at 14.7 PSI, has remained relatively constant throughout much of earth's existence. What has varied is the makeup of the atmospheric gaseous mix. The mixes that existed prior to the current era would prove toxic to the contemporary biosphere. As the biosphere evolved over the hundreds of millions of years prior to the current era, the gaseous mix of the atmosphere and the biosphere came into perfect, or indeed as some might say, heavenly balance.
Indeed, our very existence as well as the existence of the biosphere depends on this balance. There is no question that human activities can affect this balance. Perhaps not enough that nature wouldn't eventually be able to reset the balance, but perhaps enough to end civilization before nature could correct the disturbance. While some are cavalierly dismissive, others have concluded that things are already so irreversibly out of balance that civilization as we know it will cease before the middle of this century.
Easter Island is an example of death by environmental degradation on a local level. When the island was first settled, it was covered by a forest. Soil analysis suggests that the natural environment was reasonably diverse and, absent human settlement, resilient enough to recover from natural disturbances that included volcanic eruptions. The humans that settled on Easter Island thrived until the population degraded the environment to the point that it could not support the population.
Tree removal was one of the activities that proved detrimental to the island's natural balance. As trees were removed, so too was the island's natural diversity and its ability to support human habitation. Many have wondered what Easter Islanders were thinking as they cut down the last tree.
Environmental degradation's role in the collapse of civilizations is well told in Jared Diamond's book, Collapse. At least two pre-Columbian empires fell to sudden environmental collapse. Environmental degradation even contributed to Rome's fall. Throughout history, empires and civilizations have collapsed once they degrade the environment below its capacity to carry the human footprint imposed on the environment.
Global warming introduces a difference. In the past environmental destruction was local or regional. But what is now underway appears to be global. It can take a long time to unbalance the biosphere, but once the line is crossed, collapse can be rapid and irreversible.
Global Warming a hoax?
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With regard to President Trump's Presidential Executive Order on Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers, February 09, 2017
Wrecking the Founders' House
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What would Mr. Thomas Paine say?
Mr. Trump:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to:
(a) enforce all Federal laws in order to enhance the protection and safety of Federal, State, tribal, and local law enforcement officers, and thereby all Americans;
Thomas Paine (or Pain;[1] February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736][Note 1] -- June 8, 1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain.[2] His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights.[italics added] [3] He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination."[4]
Mr. Paine
By enhancing the safety and protection of US and Tribal law enforcement officers, the safety and protection of Americans are enhanced. Therefore, if the safety and protection of Americans is not maintained, and instead is violated by the law enforcement charged with maintaining the protection and safety of Americans, law enforcement shall be subject to the same procedures and penalties for violating this Executive Order (EO) as are non law enforcement officers who violate law in specific relationship to this EO. This shall be known as the "what is good for the goose rule" and shall remain in effect as long as any United States government whether federal, state, local, tribal or otherwise that derives its reason to exist from those it governs. If at any time such government no longer is subject to the goose rule, or willfully disregards the goose rule, the people shall no longer have any allegiance to that governance and may without regard for prejudice or force, withdraw their consent to be governed.
Mr. Trump:
(b) develop strategies, in a process led by the Department of Justice (Department) and within the boundaries of the Constitution and existing Federal laws, to further enhance the protection and safety of Federal, State, tribal, and local law enforcement officers; and
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Global Micro Shear and Nipper Market 2016: Industry Demand, Segment, Statistics and Research to 2021
Micro Shear and Nipper
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MRS Research Group added new research report on Global Micro Shear and Nipper Market 2016 includes Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth, Demand, Supply, Application, Segmentation, Opportunity, Market Development, production, capacity utilization, supply, Analysis and Forecast by 2021The Global Micro Shear and Nipper Industry 2016-2021 Market Research Report' is analytical reports based on a current situation and trends of the global as well as Chinese market. It is in-depth study of the comprehensive content which compiles statistics for the key elements of subject. The repot ensure the quality of the content and guideline which needed. It includes basic information of the company profile, products, generated revenue and future treads and various other vital data.Complete Report With TOC Available @It keeps the main focus on the priority need of the individualand provides a brief report on the annual basis. The global Micro Shear and Nipper market report will provide significant and reliable information on the market clearly in structured format. The report will offers you a key manufacturer of the products, applications, DROS and others.Our experts team takes out key information from the various sources which include primary and secondary sources and help to provides related information of the client interest. Report will easily mold information as per client requirement which covers forecast and analysis of Micro Shear and Nipper market on global and regional level.We generate reports on market variations across verticals like energy, chemicals, technology, food, electronics and others. It consists of a highly detailed analysis of the subject.Access Free Sample Report @We use numerous tools and techniques to collect information on various parameters. The report includes key competitors in global Micro Shear and Nipper market. Our experts team provides forward-looking insight on market growth. It will clear you with the suitable schematics diagrams, statistical analysis and related deep insight. It will also cover value chain analysis, market attractiveness, supply-demand & Chinese import export and 2011-2016 revenue for each company.It includes proper segmentation at the micro and macro level, dominant, largest and leading segment in the market. Moreover, includes future projects in the market with most reliable information indispensable for marketplace.The machinery industry produces products which are useful for industry, consumers and other industries. This machine industry traditionally was includes heavy machines. Nowadays, not only small companies but also household consumer use machine for their production. The machine industry manufactures number of products range from power tools, different types of machines and domestic technology to factory equipment etc. Raising demand of the machine in industrial and manufacturing sector from to auto making to packaging will leads to drive market.The report has includes drivers, opportunities, forecast of market and other related information. The intense research provides comprehensive analysis on market size along with market attractiveness.Browse more reports at:Table of Content (Index) :1 Industry Overview1.1 Definition and Specifications1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Classification1.3 Applications1.3.1 Heating1.3.2 Air conditioning1.3.3 Refrigeration1.3.4 Industrial applications1.4 Industry Chain Structure1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis2.3 Labor Cost Analysis2.4 Other Costs Analysis2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis2.6 Manufacturing Process AnalysisMRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting. It consists of head such as, latest report, category, niche market and news. Reports published on the million of category like chemical, machinery and equipment, consumer goods, manufacturing and construction etc. Latest national, international, business News published under news portal.Contact UsJoel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free : +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@mrsresearchgroup.com
Egypt's cabinet sent on Monday a list of minister hopefuls to parliament ahead of an expected cabinet reshuffle, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.
According to informed sources, parliament will vote on the list during its general assembly on Tuesday.
No names on the list have been announced yet, or leaked.
The much-anticipated cabinet reshuffle was set to be presented to parliament Sunday, but was postponed to accomodate Lebanese President Michael Aoun's visit to Cairo.
Last week, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail told state-owned news agency MENA that between eight and 11 new minister positions would be included in the limited reshuffle.
In January, Ismail said that some ministries could be merged and some eliminated in the reshuffle, but that no new ministries would be created.
Some figures who had been nominated to take ministry portfolios declined the offer, Sherif said, due to difficult conditions the country was facing at the time. According to the PM, this limited the government's available choices.
Ismail's 34-minister cabinet underwent its last reshuffle in March 2016, when 10 ministers, mainly those with economic portfolios, were replaced.
The March changes included the ministers of tourism, finance, investment, justice, civil aviation, irrigation, human resources, antiquities and transportation.
Under Article 147 of Egypt's 2014 constitution, the president is entitled to conduct a cabinet reshuffle in consultation with the prime minister and with the approval of an absolute majority of attendees of the house, or no less than a third of its members.
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Global Aspherical Optical Lense Market 2016 Growth Rate, Production, Specifications, Demand & Forecast
Aspherical Optical Lense
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MRS Research Group added new research report on Global Aspherical Optical Lense Market 2016 includes Market Size, Share, Trends, Growth, Demand, Supply, Application, Segmentation, Opportunity, Market Development, production, capacity utilization, supply, Analysis and Forecast by 2021The Global Aspherical Optical Lense Industry 2016-2021 Market Research Report' is analytical reports based on a current situation and trends of the global as well as Chinese market. It is in-depth study of the comprehensive content which compiles statistics for the key elements of subject. The repot ensure the quality of the content and guideline which needed. It includes basic information of the company profile, products, generated revenue and future treads and various other vital data.Complete Report With TOC Available @It keeps the main focus on the priority need of the individualand provides a brief report on the annual basis. The global Aspherical Optical Lense market report will provide significant and reliable information on the market clearly in structured format. The report will offers you a key manufacturer of the products, applications, DROS and others.Our experts team takes out key information from the various sources which include primary and secondary sources and help to provides related information of the client interest. Report will easily mold information as per client requirement which covers forecast and analysis of Aspherical Optical Lense market on global and regional level.We generate reports on market variations across verticals like energy, chemicals, technology, food, electronics and others. It consists of a highly detailed analysis of the subject.Access Free Sample Report @We use numerous tools and techniques to collect information on various parameters. The report includes key competitors in global Aspherical Optical Lense market. Our experts team provides forward-looking insight on market growth. It will clear you with the suitable schematics diagrams, statistical analysis and related deep insight. It will also cover value chain analysis, market attractiveness, supply-demand & Chinese import export and 2011-2016 revenue for each company.It includes proper segmentation at the micro and macro level, dominant, largest and leading segment in the market. Moreover, includes future projects in the market with most reliable information indispensable for marketplace.The chemical industry plays a crucial role in the existing business as well as manufacturing units. This industry manufactures a variety of chemical substances which are used in various sectors and fields which include agriculture, medicine, automobile, healthcare and many other commercial purposes. These industries make use of metals, oil, natural gas and water to create a range of chemicals as well as chemical products that are used by various organizations throughout the world. Chemical companies purify and process the raw materials to produce pure chemicals.The materials industry includes building and construction material which are used worldwide for earth supports, fabrication of structures, completion of excavations and embankments. Heavy industrial materials are used in construction and they range from readily available non-supply chain materials such as mud and brush to commodity supply materials obtained for projects such as plastics (PVC), synthetic textiles and fibers, plastics and polymers, composite cement are a few to name.Browse more reports on Chemicals-and-Materials at:MRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting. It consists of head such as, latest report, category, niche market and news. Reports published on the million of category like chemical, machinery and equipment, consumer goods, manufacturing and construction etc. Latest national, international, business News published under news portal.Contact UsJoel John3422 SW 15 Street,Suit #8138Deerfield Beach,Florida 33442United StatesToll Free : +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@mrsresearchgroup.comWebsite:
Dengue Vaccines Market - Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2016-2024
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Dengue Vaccines Market Outlook Research PipelineThere are approximately five vaccine candidates under evaluation in clinical trials, including other live-attenuated vaccines, as well as subunit, DNA and purified inactivated vaccine candidates. Also, technological approaches, such as virus-vectored and VLP-based vaccines, are under evaluation in preclinical studies. In September 2016, Takeda announced the beginning of the phase 3 clinical trials of its dengue vaccine TAK-003 vaccine. This vaccine is also aimed at prevention against all four dengue virus strains.Get Free PDF Research Brochure for more Professional and Technical Insights :Dengue is a mosquito-borne flavivirus debilitating disease with high prevalence in most tropical and sub-tropical regions. Dengue is a painful disease that is also known as break bone fever due to the excruciating bone and joint pain associated with it. No therapeutics have been discovered for treatment of the disease caused by four closely related dengue viruses (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4). Therefore, focus has been mainly on prevention by controlling the vectors being borne. Severe dengue was discovered in the 1950s during dengue epidemics in Philippines and Thailand. The disease has since spread to Asian and Latin America countries and is one of the leading causes of hospitalization and deaths among children and adults in these regions.Prevalent Scenario in the Global Dengue Vaccines MarketMember states in three of the WHO regions regularly report the annual number of dengue cases. These statistic suggest that the number of dengue cases increased from 2.2 million in 2010 to 3.2 million in 2015. The actual number remains underreported. One recent estimate by Bhatt et al., (also quoted by the WHO) mentions that there are around 390 million dengue cases worldwide each year, with number of cases reported increasing each year. In 2015, 2.35 million cases of dengue were reported in the Americas alone, of which 10,200 cases were diagnosed as severe dengue that led to 1,181 deaths. Dengue is a pertinent health issue affecting people across South America, Europe, and Asia. A large number of dengue outbreaks were reported worldwide in 2015, with over 169,000 cases in the Philippines and over 111,000 suspected cases of dengue in Malaysia. This was a staggering 59.5% and 16% increase respectively in the number of cases compared to that in 2014. The global dengue vaccines market therefore, offers lucrative growht opportunities for vaccine manufacturers.Dengvaxia the only approved product in the global dengue vaccines marketSanofi Pasteurs Dengvaxia, is the culmination of over two decades of scientific innovation and collaboration. The vaccine received its first marketing authorization in 2015, in Mexico. Dengvaxia is the worlds first licensed vaccine for prevention of dengue. It is a tetravalent dengue vaccine that prevents the disease from all four dengue viruses in people aged 9 to 45 years. Sanofi launched the worlds first public dengue vaccination program in the Philippines (2016), followed by Brazil. Dengvaxia is approved in 10 endemic countries worldwide, namely, Singapore, Mexico, the Philippines, Paraguay, Brazil, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Peru, and Guatemala. The global dengue vaccines market is thus, expected to expand with growing market approvals.Browse Global Strategic Business Report :India is however taking a precautionary approach in approving this vaccine due to lack of studies among the population in the country. A scientist in India has developed a dengue vaccine that was successfully tested in monkeys. If successful in human trials, this could be a breakthrough invention for prevention of dengue among the populace in the country. Moreover, various philanthropists and global organizations are investing in developing vaccines for malaria and dengue.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Raj ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit Coherent Market Insights Blog @Connect with us on LinkedIn @
Agriculture Equipment Market Expected to Dominate Worldwide by 2025
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Agriculture equipment are the machine tools used in the various stage of agriculture such as harvesting, planting, threshing and agro processing. Agriculture equipment are replacing traditional tools: for traditional practice in land development, tillage and seed bed preparation plough and blade harrow were used but current practice includes tractors, mould board plough and power tiller.Agriculture Equipment Market: Drivers & RestraintsGrowing population at faster pace is the main driver for agricultural equipment market as it spurs the need of food which aggressively demand for better equipment for agriculture. Though agriculture equipment help in the cultivation but farmers are in having financial issues to replace the old equipment with new machinery, which hindered the growth of the global agriculture equipment market. Asia Pacific is one of the major user of tractor.Request Free Report Sample@Agriculture Equipment Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, agriculture Equipment market is broadly segmented as:TractorCombine HarvesterThrasherRotavatorSelf-Propelled Vertical Conveyer ReaperZero Till Seed DrillMulti Crop PlanterPower TillerLaser Land LevelerRice TransplanterPower SprayPower WeederDrip Irrigation EquipmentSprinkler Irrigation EquipmentOn the basis of process, the market is segmented into:Land Development, Tillage, Seed Bed PreparationSowing & PlantingWeed Inter CultivationPlant ProtectionHarvesting & ThreshingPost-Harvest & Agro ProcessingAgriculture Equipment Market: Region Wise OutlookAsia Pacific region is expected to dominate the market during the forecasted period aided by China and India the fastest growing agriculture equipment market. Growing population will increase the demand of food in these countries, which in return increase the demand of better harvesting machinery. Europe and North America agriculture equipment market is expected to show a moderate growth. With rapid technological advancement and growing population agriculture Equipment market is expected to increase at a double CAGR during the forecast period.Request For TOC@Agriculture Equipment Market: Key PlayersSome of the players in the market we identified includes, CNH Industrial NV, AGCO Corp, J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited, Iseki & Co. Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, Deere & Company and Kubota Corporation.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand 2016-2026
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Common cold, cough and sore throat are minor disorders of respiratory system, usually arises due to infection in respiratory tract and autoimmune response. The number of patients suffering from cold, cough and sore throat usually increases during monsoon and winter season, owing to fluctuations in the environmental conditions. Children and women under 35 years are more prone to suffer from cold, cough and sore. Underdeveloped immune system increases the risk of exposure to cold related infection viruses in children mostly. It is expected that children are three times more susceptible to cold and cough than an average adult.Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies Market: Drivers & RestraintsGlobal Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies market is projected to grow rapidly due to increasing incidences of cold, cough infections, economic price and wide availability of products and demand for rapid and long lasting effective products by the patients. Rising demand for such remedial products is one of the major factor influencing the market growth. Other major drivers includes, and a growing trend to self-diagnose and self-treat minor ailments and growth in the child, senior and female populations. For instance, considering the irritation caused by common cold, Novartis AG launched its formulation Otrivin Nasal Drops that act against cold for around 12 hours, followed by a number of similar formulations. Owing to large number of available and upcoming products, the market is expected to grow rapidly. However, number of side effects, threat of resistance and large manufacturing cost and distribution are some of the key restraints that might hamper the growth of the market.Request Free Report Sample@Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies Market: SegmentationGlobal cold, cough and sore throat remedies market is classified on the basis of class of drugs, route of administration and geography.Based on class of drugs, the global cold, cough and sore throat remedies market is segmented into the following:AntihistaminesPain relieversExpectorantsBronchodilatorsDecongestantsAntibioticsOthersBased on route of administration, the global cold, cough and sore throat remedies market is segmented into the following:ParenteralTabletsLozengesOral SyrupsNasal DropsOthersBased on distribution channels, the global cold, cough and sore throat remedies market is segmented into the following:Hospital PharmaciesRetailer PharmaciesCompounding PharmaciesCold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies Market: OverviewEurope and North America are the important markets for Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies. In Europe, mainly Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain and the U.K. are estimated to account for a major share of the Western Europe Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies market over the forecast period. The developing countries such as India and China are growing with a higher CAGR compared to other countries of the world. By route of administration, oral syrups and nasal drops segments held half the share in the global cold, cough and sore throat remedies and the trend is forecast to continue through 2025. Based on class of drugs, antihistamines, bronchodilators and antibiotics are expected to register a substantial CAGR through the forecast period.Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies Market: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, the global cold, cough and sore throat remedies market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Approximately 1 billion cases of the common cold occurs in U.S. annually. In U.S on average 200,000 Americans are hospitalized annually due to influenza, and flu-related deaths in the United States have been estimated to range from 3,000 to 49,000 over the past 30 years. North America is the largest revenue generating segment in global cold, cough and sore throat remedies market. The increasing prevalence of viral infections and rapid economic developments benefiting healthcare sectors in Asian countries is projected to drive the growth of cold, cough and sore throat market in Asia.Request For TOC@Cold, Cough and Sore Throat Remedies Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players identified in the global contraceptives market are Bayer HealthCare AG, GlaxoSmithKline plc., Novartis AG, AstraZeneca plc., Procter & Gamble, Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and Abbott Laboratories.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.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Arabescato Marble Market 2017 - Levantina, Polycor Inc., Etgran, Vetter Stone, Topalidis S.A., Antolini, Temmer Marble, Tekma, Dimpomar, Pakistan Onyx Marble,
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A market study based on the "Arabescato Marble Market (URL)" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Arabescato Marble Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Arabescato Marble industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Arabescato Marble market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Report1 Levantina2 Polycor Inc.3 Vetter Stone4 Topalidis S.A.5 Antolini6 Temmer Marble7 Tekma8 Pakistan Onyx Marble9 Dimpomar10 Indiana Limestone Company11 Mumal Marbles12 Can Simsekler Construction13 Aurangzeb Marble Industry14 Etgran15 Amso International16 Fujian Fengshan Stone GroupThe report studies the industry for Arabescato Marble across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Arabescato Marble market & dynamics of demand and supply of Arabescato Marble into consideration. The 'Arabescato Marble' research study covers each and every aspect of the Arabescato Marble market globally, which starts from the definition of the Arabescato Marble industry and develops towards Arabescato Marble market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Arabescato Marble market is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Arabescato Marble market. The geographical segmentation of the Arabescato Marble industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Arabescato Marble is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Arabescato Marble market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Arabescato Marble market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Arabescato Marble market 2017 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Arabescato Marble production volume, data regarding demand and Arabescato Marble supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Arabescato Marble across the globe.About UsApexResearch offer reports from top publishers and update to serve you with immediate on-line access to professional insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact US:Frank ValadezDirector of Business DevelopmentWebsite:Email: sales@apexresearch.biz
Cladding Panels Market 2017 - Copal, Equitone, Allura, Nichiha USA, American Fiber Cement, Fry Reglet, Swiss Pearl, Vitrabond, British Architects (RIBA)
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A market study based on the "Cladding Panels Market (URL)" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Cladding Panels Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Cladding Panels industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Cladding Panels market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Report1 British Architects (RIBA)2 Rieder Smart Elements GmbH3 Copal4 Equitone5 Allura6 Nichiha USA7 American Fiber Cement8 Fry Reglet9 Swiss Pearl10 Vitrabond11 James Hardie Building ProductsThe report studies the industry for Cladding Panels across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Cladding Panels market & dynamics of demand and supply of Cladding Panels into consideration. The 'Cladding Panels' research study covers each and every aspect of the Cladding Panels market globally, which starts from the definition of the Cladding Panels industry and develops towards Cladding Panels market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Cladding Panels market is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Cladding Panels market. The geographical segmentation of the Cladding Panels industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Cladding Panels is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Cladding Panels market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Cladding Panels market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Cladding Panels market 2017 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Cladding Panels production volume, data regarding demand and Cladding Panels supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Cladding Panels across the globe.About UsApexResearch offer reports from top publishers and update to serve you with immediate on-line access to professional insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact US:Frank ValadezDirector of Business DevelopmentWebsite:Email: sales@apexresearch.biz
Ivory Vena Oro Travertine Market 2017 - Tarmac, Fels-Werke GmbH, Graymont Limited, Elliott Stone Company, Inc., Adelaide Brighton Ltd., Taiheiyo Cement Group, Buechel Stone Corp.
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A market study based on the "Ivory Vena Oro Travertine Market (URL)" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Ivory Vena Oro Travertine Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Ivory Vena Oro Travertine industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Report1 Elliott Stone Company, Inc.2 Adelaide Brighton Ltd.3 Taiheiyo Cement Group4 Mississippi Lime Company5 Buechel Stone Corp.6 Todaka Mining Co. Ltd.7 chaefer Kalk GmbH & Co KG8 Xella International GmbH9 Fels-Werke GmbH10 Graymont Limited11 Tarmac12 Independent Limestone Company, LLC13 Indiana Limestone Company, Inc.14 LafargeHolcim Ltd.15 Lhoist GroupThe report studies the industry for Ivory Vena Oro Travertine across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market & dynamics of demand and supply of Ivory Vena Oro Travertine into consideration. The 'Ivory Vena Oro Travertine' research study covers each and every aspect of the Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market globally, which starts from the definition of the Ivory Vena Oro Travertine industry and develops towards Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market. The geographical segmentation of the Ivory Vena Oro Travertine industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Ivory Vena Oro Travertine is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Ivory Vena Oro Travertine market 2017 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Ivory Vena Oro Travertine production volume, data regarding demand and Ivory Vena Oro Travertine supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Ivory Vena Oro Travertine across the globe.About UsApexResearch offer reports from top publishers and update to serve you with immediate on-line access to professional insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact US:Frank ValadezDirector of Business DevelopmentWebsite:Email: sales@apexresearch.biz
Cutting Equipment, Accessories & Consumables Market - Construction Industry Has Been Contributing Towards The Growth Of The Market
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Cutting equipment or cutting tool or a cutter, in the context of machining, could be any tool which is used to remove any material from a work piece through means of shear deformation. This act of cutting can be done through multipoint or single-point tools.Construction industry has been witnessing a growth across the globe and thus has been contributing towards the growth of the cutting equipment, accessories & consumables market. An increase in consumer spending and an increase in automobile sales have contributed to the growth of this market. These factors are expected to propel market during the forecast year of 2016-2024.The market has been segmented on the basis of equipment, accessories, consumables and technology. By equipment, the market is segmented into mechanized and manual. The market, on the basis of accessories, is divided into gas filters and gas regulators. By consumables, the market has been divided into Oxy-fuel Gases and Shielding and by technology, the market is segmented into Oxy-fuel gases and plasma.PDF Sample For Latest Innovations And Advancements @In the cutting equipment, accessories & consumables market, the segment of mechanized cutting equipment is forecasted to be the fastest growing in the years to come. The main factors that are driving the market growth in the steel industry and manufacturing industry. Steel industry has an important role to play owing to the consumption of steel in the construction industry, manufacturing industry and the fabrication industry.In the consumables segment, oxy fuel and shielding gases are obtain maximum momentum during the forecast period. The category of shielding is likely to grow during the forecast period owing to the increasing demand of argon gas.In the technology segment, plasma cutting is likely to witness the highest growth. Oxy fuel gases technology is forecasted to witness the second largest market share. The demand for Oxy fuel gases are increasing as it is relatively inexpensive, investment on equipment is also minimal.Geographically, the market is segmented into North America, Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, Middle East and America (EMEA) and Latin America. Asia Pacific has been leading the market and accounts for the biggest market share. Large population of the region has led to the increasing demand of housing and this has led to the increasing demand for cutting equipment and accessories. Apart from housing, owing to large population of the region, there is a fast growing demand in end-use industries such as infrastructure, industrial, commercial and marine. As such, the demand for cutting equipment, accessories and consumables in these sectors have also increased.The market in North America is also anticipated to grow rapidly during the forecast period of 2016-2024. The U.S. accounted for the biggest market share in this geographical segment and is expected to remain dominant this geographical segment throughout the forecast period.Europe also accounts for a substantial market share in this market and occupies a large market share of cutting equipment, accessories & consumables market. The region is expected to grow well over the forecast period of 2016-2024. The market of Middle East and Africa is also expected to grow significantly over the forecast period. The regions of Latin America is largely driven by the increasing demand for housing, residential and commercial needs in this region.The global market of cutting equipment, accessories and consumables is fragmented with many large and well-established players. Also, many new players are trying to enter the Cutting Equipment, Accessories & Consumables Market owing to the expected high growth of the market.Some of the major players of the Cutting Equipment, Accessories & Consumables Marketare Air Liquide (France), British Oxygen Company (U.K.), Bug-O (the U.S.), Gentec (Sanghai) Corporation (China), Cavagna Group (Italy), GCE Holding AB (Sweden), Colfax Corporation (the US), Muller Opladen (Germany), Messer Group (Germany), Matheson TRI-Gas (the U.S.), Illinois Tool Works Inc. (the U.S.), Rotarex (Luxembourg) amongst many others.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Fiber Optic Test Equipment (FOTE) Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024
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Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) are used for the function of cleaning and inspection operation. Moreover, they also help with the troubleshooting and comprises of testers such as certification testers, advanced optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDR) testers and verification testers. These testers are used across various industry verticals such as oil and gas, defense and military and telecom among others. The transfer of data is very critical as far as business operations are concerned. It is useful in the designing, building and development of business strategies. The loss of signal is inevitable when a signal is sent through optical fibers. There might be some losses in the transmission as a result of the coupling of output signals and input signals. Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) are very effective to characterize and measure the physical attributes of light, which is a very important aspect in the fiber optic networks.The need for higher bandwidth is expected to rise in the near future and coupled with the growing demand for FTTH, the market for Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) is expected to grow significantly over the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. Moreover the emergence of newer technologies and next generation networks is also expected to impact the growth of the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) maket positively. Furthermore, fiber optic communication systems have brought a revolution in the telecommunication industry and are expected to be the future of the telecom and network. The development of broadband infrastructure across various countries is driving the growth of the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market. Another important factor contributing to the growth of the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market is the growing demand for faster and high performance data transfers. The transfer of data through fiber optic is considered to be more cost effective. The use of digital technologies is on the rise and in particular high-definition electronic products require a greater bandwidth in case of both upstream and downstream applications. The expansion in the deployment of FTTX is further expected to fuel the demand for Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE). A growing number of multimedia and business services in this regard is contributing to the growth of the market.PDF Sample For Latest Innovations And Advancements @Despite the various benefits associated the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE), there are few challenges which is hampering the growth of the market. The lack of skilled technicians is one of main restraints impacting the growth of the market. It is important for the technicians to keep pace with the ever changing technologies. Moreover, high maintenance costs coupled with high initial investment are other restraints existing in the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market.As per trends it has been observed that, the various vendors of test equipments are in an intense completion to keep the price of their product low and at the same time enhance the performance of product. Moreover, the vendors are also focusing on providing technical support and specialized customer service to stay ahead in the competition.The Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market on the basis of product can be segmented into; OSA, DWDM, OTDR, OLS, OPM, OLTS AND RFTS.On the basis of end user, the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market can be categorized into; oil & gas, cable television, telecom and broadband, private data network and military and aerospace among others.Geographically, the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market can be segmented into five regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.Some of the key players operating in the Fiber Optic Test Equipments (FOTE) market are Anritsu, Agilent Technologies, Fluke, EXFO, JDS Uniphase, Corning, Keysight Technologies, Tektronix, Kingfisher International, okogawa Electric Corporation and Exfiber Optical Technologies among others.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Medical Adhesives And Sealants Market to grow at a CAGR of 9.04% between period 2017-2021
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Medical adhesives and sealants are usually used for surgical procedures and the bonding of medical appliances. Medical adhesives and sealants are used for the fabrication of an extensive range of medical appliances. These medical appliances are either disposable or can be used several times. Some medical adhesives and sealants are ideal for fixing an extensive range of substrate surfaces including plastics, metals, and rubbers, whereas others are suitable for skin applications.The global medical adhesives and sealants market to grow at a CAGR of 9.04% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global medical adhesives and sealants market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of medical adhesives and sealants market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeNorth AmericaROWGet The Sample Copy Of This Report:Global Medical Adhesives and Sealants Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors3MAshlandCryoLifeH.B. FullerHenkelOther prominent vendorsAdvanced Medical SolutionsAdhesive ResearchBaxter InternationalDentsply SironaJohnson & JohnsonMarket driverGrowing importance of adhesive dentistryFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeConformance to stringent regulations and statutory normsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportBrowse More Publihed Healthcare Market Research Reports:Market trendIncrease in the number of surgeries carried out worldwideFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 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?You can request one free hour of our analysts time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.To View The Latest Industry Press Releases:ContactMr. Nachiket90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E-Mail: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:Thanks..!!!!!!!!!!!MarketResearchReports.biz supports your business intelligence needs with over 100,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
In reaction to Sunday's recommendation from the parliament's ethics committee that the House strips him of membership in parliament, high-profile MP Anwar El-Sadat told reporters on Monday that he has officially asked the prosecutor-general to investigate him over allegations levelled against him in parliament in order to clear his name.
Sources affiliated with the ethics committee told reporters Sunday that its 15 members agreed Sadat must be stripped of his parliamentary membership after he was found guilty of giving top secret state information to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), leaking copies of a government-drafted NGO law to the Dutch ambassador in Cairo, and faking the signature of 15 MP colleagues.
In response, Sadat lodged a complaint against himself with the prosecutor-general's office, asking Prosecutor-General Nabil Sadeq to take all measures necessary to question him over the committee's accusations.
In his complaint, Sadat said, "as these accusations negatively affect my dignity and reputation as an MP, I hope that you officially request from parliament that I be stripped of my parliamentary immunity," in order to "uncover the truth about all the facts related to these accusations before Egyptian public opinion and in line with the constitution."
Sadat told reporters Sunday that he had not been officially or personally informed of the ethics committee's recommendations.
"While I was investigated, I said I do not trust the ethics sub-committee which questioned me and that I should instead be investigated by the prosecutor-general himself," said Sadat.
Sadat has denied all the accusations against him, insisting that he never leaked the draft NGO law to foreign ambassadors in Cairo or sent classified information to the IPUan international institution.
A number of MPs expressed solidarity with Sadat on Monday, saying, "It is completely unjust that Sadat be stripped of his parliamentary membership."
The leftist 25-30 parliamentary group said in a statement Monday that stripping Sadat of his membership would be highly arbitrary. "Most of the accusations levelled against Sadat are groundless and largely politicised," the statement read.
Samir Ghattas, an independent leftist MP, also told reporters that the accusations against Sadat should be thoroughly investigated by the prosecutor-general himself because the ethics committee is politicised and cannot be trusted.
Ghattas said the Dutch ambassador in Cairo denied that Sadat had given him a copy of the government-drafted NGO law.
"The foreign ministry should summon the Dutch ambassador in an official way to question him on this issue," Ghattas said, adding "the Dutch ambassador himself has said before that he has never seen Sadat in person."
Ghattas also argued that two experts in handwriting should be appointed to investigate whether Sadat faked the signatures of his colleague MPs.
Ghattas insisted that what Sadat sent the IPU was merely a complaint.
"He [Sadat] never sent top secret information to any foreign institution as the ethics committee alleges," said Ghattas.
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E-Beam Wafer Inspection System Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024
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Electron beam wafer inspection system is a semiconductor fabrication device, which is primarily used during the process of semiconductor wafer manufacturing. The primary application of the system is to locate a fault in the wafers before packaging it. With the growing technological advancement the application of electron beam wafer inspection system is spreading across the automotive, industrial and consumer electronics field globally. The market has been segmented into by application which includes consumer electronics, automotive, industrial segment among others. The market for electron beam wafer inspection systems by geography has been segmented into, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and South America.With rising research activities in the field of e-beam wafer inspection system, the application of the system are growing in the high-end industrial, consumer electronics and automotive application segments. Growing adoption of consumer electronic and communication devices is one of the major reasons behind the rising popularity of e-beam wafer inspection system. Increasing usage of smartphones, LCDs, SSDs, LEDs, tablets, and other wearable smart gadgets are fueling the market for e-beam wafer inspection system across different regions globally. Furthermore, rising demand for advance quality silicon wafers in the semiconductor devices is one of the prime factors fueling the market.The growing research and development in the field of advanced electron beam wafer inspection solutions and equipments for major semiconductor processing fabs is contributing in the positive development of the market. Electron column and electron gun technologies are effective and crucial fault inspection solutions and algorithms. Furthermore, in the manufacturing process of high end and advanced IC, electron-beam inspection plays a crucial role. Moreover, the application of electron-beam inspection system plays an essential role where sensitivity is required to find defects in the process. The system is also important in the production process in order to monitor major process steps primarily for fault excursions. E-beam wafer inspection technology is generally applied to locate physical faults which are unable to detect optically. The system can find the subtle defects in the time of manufacturing process while introducing new device structures and materials.PDF Sample For Latest Industry Happenings @Asia Pacific is dominating the electron beam wafer inspection systems market worldwide. Rapid usage of consumer electronics and communication devices such as smartphones, tablets, wearable, LCDs, LEDs, SSDs and other smart electronic devices in economies such the Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, South Korea and India is contributing in the positive growth of this market across Asia Pacific (APAC). North America is another major region which is contributing in the positive growth of the electron beam wafer inspection systems. The U.S., Mexico and Canada are some of the major economics contributing in the positive development of this market. Brazil, Argentina and U.A.E are expected to witness positive growth over the forecast period from 2016 to 2024 across South America, Middle East and Africa. With increasing advancement in the consumer electronics, industrial and automotive field, the application of electron beam wafer inspection systems is growing rapidly.Research and development along with merger and acquisitions and strategic partnership agreements are some of the key business strategies adopted by the companies operating in this industry in order to strengthen its presence across different regions globally. Applied Materials, Inc. (The U.S.), ASML Holding (The Netherlands), KLA-Tencor Corporation (The U.S.), Lam Research Corporation (The U.S.), Hermes Microvision Inc (Taiwan), Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation (Japan), Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (California, The U.S.), STMicroelectronics (Switzerland), GlobalFoundries (The U.S.), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (Shanghai, China), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Limited (Taiwan), NXP Semiconductors N.V. (The Netherlands), Renesas Electronics Corporation (Japan) among others are some of the major players operating in the electron beam wafer inspection systems market.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Semiconductor Photolithography Equipment Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024
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There has been an increasing application of semiconductor photolithography equipment across the globe. Widespread use of semiconductor photolithography equipments for technological advancement of smart phones, tablets and computers has augmented the demand during the last couple of years. The semiconductor photolithography equipment market can be categorized on the basis of two segments; product category and geography. The product category segment of the semiconductor photolithography equipment includes advanced packaging, MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) devices, and LED (Light Emitting Diode) devices. The amplified demand for high-definition, mid-sized, and small-sized LED panels, used in manufacturing of ultra-high definition (UHD) TVs, is expected to encourage market growth during the forecast period. In addition, emergence of advanced consumer products is expected to fuel the growth of the market in the coming years. The growing trends of miniaturization of semiconductor components and the increasing number of fabless semiconductor companies are also expected to fuel the demand for photolithography equipment during the forecast period.With the growth of electronic device industry, the demand for semiconductor ICs (Integrated Circuit) for different applications, such as consumer electronic devices, communication devices, memory devices, and sensor devices, increases which in turn helps to drive the market for photolithography equipment. The increase in demand for semiconductor devices, especially ICs used in computers, storage, and memory devices, is expected to impel the growth of the semiconductor photolithography equipment market. Moreover, an oversupply of semiconductor ICs in 2015 and 2016 is expected to reduce the capital spending of semiconductor device manufacturers in 2016, which is anticipated to reduce the overall demand for lithography systems including photolithography equipments in the coming years.PDF Sample For Latest Innovations And Advancements @However, in spite of various advantages offered by semiconductor photolithography equipment, there are some restraining factors that inhibit the growth of the market. The major hindering factor behind the growth of this market is uncertain economic condition across different region.Geographically, the semiconductor photolithography equipment market can be categorized into five regions; North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. As per recent trends it has been observed that various semiconductor photolithography equipment manufacturing companies are constantly engaged in research and development activities in order to develop and design their production of semiconductor photolithography equipment. The market for semiconductor photolithography equipment in Asia Pacific has witnessed rapid growth in the last few years and this trend is likely to be witnessed across various industries in the North America, Europe, and Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Latin America regions as well. In Asia Pacific, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are the key contributing countries for the growth of the market. The presence of a several prominent semiconductor foundries, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Semiconductor Manufacturing International and United Microelectronics is propelling the demand for photolithography equipment in the region. The presence of dominant players in the mobile devices and consumer electronics market, such as Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Toshiba in the region is supporting the demand for semiconductor devices in Asia Pacific. The market in the North Americas is expected to grow moderately and maintain its market share in the global space till 2024, while market in Europe and Middle East and Africa (MEA) is growing at a comparatively lower rate due to the presence of low number of semiconductor device manufacturers in this region.Some of the key players operating in the semiconductor photolithography equipment market are Applied Materials, SUSS Microtec, ASML, and Tokyo Electron, Nikon, Canon, NuFlare Technology, JEOL, Ultratech andVistec Semiconductor Systems among others. The top four players in the semiconductor photolithography equipment market accounts for a significant market share in different product category in 2016.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze informationTransparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Photovoltaic Device Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024
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The main function of a photovoltaic device is the conversion of sunlight into electricity. There are end numbers of benefits associated with these devices which have made their adoption on a large scale across various industries. The solar panels used in photovoltaic devices are comprised of solar cells which result in the generation of electrical power. The various materials used for photovoltaics include polycrystalline silicon, cadmium telluride, monocrystalline silicon and amorphous silicon among others. Photovoltaic installations can be mounted either on rooftop, ground or wall. Initially, the application of photovoltaics was limited to spacecrafts and orbiting satellites, but nowadays its application has been mostly for grid connected power generation. The popularity of photovoltaic device has been on the rise as a result of technological advancements coupled with large scale manufacturing which has led to the reduction in its cost and at the same time increased the efficiency and reliability of these devices.The photovoltaic device market is expected to grow as a result of increasing focus on the part of the governments of various countries towards the issue of climate change and at the same time develop and expand the alternate sources of energy. The governments are more willing to provide funds than ever before for the adoption of solar energy, which is further propelling the demand for photovoltaic devices market. Moreover, factors such as reliability, safety, cost effective and ease of installation have led to the increasing adoption of these devices. Low maintenance cost is another important factor contributing to the growth the photovoltaic devices market. As no fuel costs are associated with these devices, the adoption of photovoltaic devices is considered to be a cost effective option in lieu of the high diesel and electricity prices. The increasing application of photovoltaic devices across segments such as military, power plants, and defense and space among others are further resulting in the increased demand for these devices. Considering these factors the photovoltaic device market is likely to register a healthy growth rate during the forecast period from 2016 to 2024.However, the material availability, production cost and toxicity are some of the major restraints that are hindering the deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells across different industries.PDF Sample For Latest Innovations And Advancements @As per recent trends it has been observed that, Perovskite, which is a very inexpensive material, is replacing crystalline silicon due to it being expensive. Crystalline silicon forms a part of photovoltaic cell build.The photovoltaic device market can be categorized on the basis of types, components, application and geography. On the basis of type, the market can be segmented into two types; organic PV and inorganic PV.Based on components, the photovoltaic device market can be segmented into two categories; thin film PV cells and crystalline silicon PV cells. Thin film PV is comparatively a newer technology as compared to crystalline silicon PV. The semiconducting layers are comprised of materials such as copper indium diselenide (CIS), amorphous silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS).The application segments of the photovoltaic device market will include military, power plants, industrial, defense and space, residential and non residential among others.Geographically, the market has been categorized into five broad regions; North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin AmericaSome of the key players operating in the photovoltaic device market are Kyocera Corporation (Japan), Panasonic Corporation (Japan), Kaneka Corporation (Japan), JA solar Co. Ltd (China), Sharp Corporation (Japan), , Jinko Solar (China), Trina Solar (China), Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd (China), Canadian Solar (Canada), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Japan), ReneSola Co. Ltd (China) and Yingli Green (China) among others.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Airless Packaging Market: Global Analysis 2024; Top 5 Vendors & Must Watch trends
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The global airless packaging market is likely to progress at a CAGR of 5.5% from 2016 to 2024 in terms of value. The overall value of the market by the end of 2016 is expected to be US$4.13 bn. It is expected to reach US$6.34 bn by the end of 2024. By volume, the global airless packaging market is expected to reach 29,303.2 kilo tons by the end of 2024.Global Airless Packaging Market: SnapshotThe global airless packaging market is currently being propelled by its appeal in terms of minimizing space taken. The ability of airless packaging to provide zero wastage of space and product material required is putting it far ahead of its competitive packaging types. The market is also being driven by the massive incoming demand from the cosmetics industry, where airless packaging can be far more beneficial than other types. The global airless packaging market is, however, currently restricted in its overall growth rate by factors such as high machinery costs, the extremely low scope of product differentiation, and the steadily growing demand for its direct competitor modified atmosphere packaging.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional and Technical industry insights:The global airless packaging market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.5% within a forecast period from 2016 to 2024, in terms of value. The markets overall value by the end of 2016 is expected to reach US$4.13 bn. Assuming the above CAGR and incorporating the ups and downs that the market may experience over the given forecast period, it is expected to reach US$6.34 bn by the end of 2024. By volume, the global airless packaging market is expected to reach 29,303.2 kilo tons by the end of 2024.Plastic Continues to be Lead Material Used for Airless PackagingBased on the type of packaging, the global airless packaging market can be segmented into the two generalized segments of plastics and glass. Of these, the market has consistently been dominated by plastics in the recent past. It is also highly likely for plastics to remain the leading material type used in the global airless packaging market for the coming years. The typical process of airless packaging allows users to seal the contents especially food and beverage products into an airless environment, thereby considerably increasing the products life expectancy. Plastics make the entire process much easier than glasses or any other material, owing to their elasticity and the ease with which they can be molded. Plastics also provide a much greater storage life than the other packaging materials, thereby making it a highly popular material for airless packaging.Europe to Lead Demand for Airless PackagingFor a regional assessment, the global airless packaging market is segmented into the key regions of North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, The Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. For the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, Europe is expected to remain the dominant region in terms of demand for airless packaging, registering a positive CAGR of 5.1% for the same. The packaging industry holds a strong ground in Europe owing to a high demand in general coupled with speedy rates of product innovation and development. The airless packaging market in Europe is also being pushed towards providing greener alternatives to conventional plastic airless packaging. North America is also likely to continue contributing a large stream of revenue in the global airless packaging market, primarily due to the massive demand originating from the U.S.Meanwhile, Asia Pacific is expected to register a phenomenally high rate of growth in demand for airless packaging. A high and still increasing urban population in this region is expected to ramp up its demand for several types of packaging in the consumer goods industry, providing plenty of opportunities for players in the global airless packaging market.The key players that have been a part of the global airless packaging market to date, include Albea Beauty Holdings S.A., Aptar Group, Inc., HCP Packaging, LUMSON SPA, Libo Cosmetics Company, Ltd., Quadpack Industries, WestRock, Fusion Packaging, and ABC Packaging, Ltd.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:
Global Shirting Apparel Fabrics Market 2017- TESTA, Lutai, Youngor, Lianfa, S.I.C
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The market study, titled Global Shirting Apparel Fabrics Industry 2017, has been compiled by industry experts and is based on a comprehensive analysis of the Shirting Apparel Fabrics market in the world. The geographical distribution and various segments of the Shirting Apparel Fabrics market are extensively studied in this report.The in-depth analysis of the industrial chain supporting the Shirting Apparel Fabrics market in the globe incorporates factual information about every aspect of the market such as details about the players operating in the Shirting Apparel Fabrics market, the manufacturing chain, production capacity, sales volume, and the contribution to the global Shirting Apparel Fabrics industry in terms of revenue.Download Sample Report @The report also examines the market on the basis of the products. The pricing of products, production volume, supply chain dynamics, revenue generated as well as the policies influencing production are all described in this market study.The Shirting Apparel Fabrics market is evaluated based on its regional penetration, explaining the performance of the market in each regional market. This information can be used to make specified strategies for particular regional markets. Apart from this, the market dynamics between every application and the overall industrial chain is analyzed with respect to each regional market in order to provide a better understanding of how the market works.Access Full Report @Several analytical tools such as market attractiveness analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis are employed to study the global Shirting Apparel Fabrics market, whereas SWOT analysis and Porters five forces analysis are utilized to evaluate the major players in the Shirting Apparel Fabrics market in this report.This report not only provides a complete picture of the overall condition of the Shirting Apparel Fabrics market, but also assists the players in this market to create profitable market strategies in order to gain a competitive edge.Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Global Forestry and Agricultural Tractor Market 2017- Deere, Jinma, New Holland, Kubota, Mahindra
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The research study titled Global Forestry and Agricultural Tractor Industry 2017 evaluates the performance of the Forestry and Agricultural Tractor market the world, at present and historically, and makes future projections based on the result of the analysis. The report analyzes the global market for Forestry and Agricultural Tractor from the perspective of the market chain supporting the industry, the statistical data regarding import and export, and the dominant market dynamics.Download Sample Report @Starting from the definition of Forestry and Agricultural Tractor, the market study covers every aspect of the market for Forestry and Agricultural Tractor in the globe. Various segments of the Forestry and Agricultural Tractor market, their prime end-use applications, and the geographical distribution of the global market is also discussed at length in this report.The research report examines the market for Forestry and Agricultural Tractor in the world through an assessment of the market players, their manufacturing chain, the production capacity of the respective manufacturers, and the revenue generated.Access Full Report @The Forestry and Agricultural Tractor market in the globe is examined on the basis of pricing of the products, total volume produced, the dynamics of demand and supply, and the revenue generated by the products. Various analytical tools such as investment return, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the report to provide a comprehensive picture of the global Forestry and Agricultural Tractor market.The research report elaborates upon the competitive landscape of the Forestry and Agricultural Tractor market in world by profiling the major participants of the market in order to identify the leading players in the market. It thus assists current market players, consultants, and stakeholders operating in the market to work out crucial strategies and make rewarding decisions.Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Global Spirulina Consumption Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2021
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Spirulina is a microscopic spiral shaped blue-green vegetable algae which grows in mineral-rich freshwater and saltwater sources. It provides an abundance of protein, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, essential fatty acids, phytonutrients, and antioxidants.Download PDF Sample of Spirulina Consumption Market@Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Spirulina Consumption 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.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversDICCyanotechParry NutraceuticalsHydrolina BiotechKing DnarmsaCBNGreen-ASpirinChenghai Bao ERShenliuSBDLanbaoTianjianWuli LvqiGangfaBrowse Full Report with TOC:Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth 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, coversPowderTabletSpirulina ExtractsPlace Purchase Order for this Report@Market Segment by Applications, can be divided intoHealth ProductsFeedOthersThere are 13 Chapters to deeply display the global Spirulina Consumption market.Chapter 1, to describe Spirulina Consumption Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Spirulina Consumption, with sales, revenue, and price of Spirulina Consumption, in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Spirulina Consumption, for each region, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 5, 6, 7 and 8, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 9 and 10, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 11, Spirulina Consumption market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2016 to 2021;Chapter 12 and 13, to describe Spirulina Consumption sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, appendix and data source.Table of Content:1 Market Overview2 Manufacturers Profiles3 Global Spirulina Consumption Market Competitions, by Manufacturer4 Global Spirulina Consumption Market Analyses by Regions5 North America Spirulina Consumption by Countries6 Europe Spirulina Consumption by Countries7 Asia-Pacific Spirulina Consumption by Countries8 South America, Middle East and Africa Spirulina Consumption by Countries9 Spirulina Consumption Market Segment by Type10 Spirulina Consumption Market Segment by Application11 Spirulina Consumption Market Forecast (2016-2021)12 Sales Channel, Distributors, Traders and Dealers13 AppendixList of Tables and Figures:Figure Spirulina Consumption PictureFigure Global Sales Market Share of Spirulina Consumption by Types in 2015Table Spirulina Consumption Types for Major ManufacturersFigure Powder PictureFigure Tablet PictureFigure Spirulina Extracts PictureTable Spirulina Consumption Sales Market Share by Applications in 2015Table DIC Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and CompetitorsTable Spirulina Consumption Type and ApplicationsTable DIC Spirulina Consumption Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2015-2016)Table Cyanotech Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and CompetitorsTable Spirulina Consumption Type and ApplicationsTable Cyanotech Spirulina Consumption Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2015-2016)Table Parry Nutraceuticals Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and CompetitorsTable Spirulina Consumption Type and ApplicationsTable Parry Nutraceuticals Spirulina Consumption Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2015-2016)Orbis Research 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 customised 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 specialisation. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required Market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email ID: sales@orbisresearch.com
Augmented Reality will Revolutionize the Concept of Head-up Displays, Says TMR
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Companies such as BAE Systems plc, Nippon Seiki Co. Ltd., Rockwell Collins Inc., and Continental AG currently lead the global head-up display (HUD) market. As per the findings of Transparency Market Research (TMR), these players are mainly focusing on giving users a comprehensive experience through incorporating cutting-edge technologies. Many players are also taking recourse to strategic collaborations and business partnerships to strengthen their position in the market. Besides this, the leading companies are looking to add novel solutions to their portfolios to expand their geographical reach.Research and development activities have enabled the leading companies to innovate for improving their existing HUDs in terms of wider angle of view, clarity in projection, and easy integration with other electronic devices. Such innovations are aimed at gaining the lions share in the market.Get More Information :Demand for Improved Safety to Boost HUD Uptake in Automotive and Aviation SectorsThe demand for head-up display mainly arises from the automotive and defense & aviation sectors. In the automotive sector, demand for these products has been surging rapidly from the high-end and luxury cars segment. The increasing demand for improved safety systems in aircrafts and automobiles is another key factor aiding the uptake of HUDs. The automotive industry witnesses cut-throat competition, which is compelling manufacturers to explore technological innovations as a key strategy for competitive advantage. This is in turn fueling demand for HUDs from the industry as they enhance road safety by displaying critical information, said a lead TMR analyst.HUDs have been incorporated in combat aircrafts since decades. Due to the surging air traffic, their use in civil aircrafts is also expected to increase gradually. This recent development will in turn create opportunities for increased HUD sales. Strong growth witnessed in the luxury car segment across emerging economies will also boost the incorporation of HUDs in the forthcoming years, added the TMR analyst. The demand for luxury cars is rising at a robust pace in India, Brazil, China, Mexico, and Russia. All these countries boast a growing economy, rising disposable income levels, and changing demographics, which are key factors fuelling demand for HUDs.High Cost of Manufacturing to Limit HUD Adoption in Mid-range Cars SegmentDespite witnessing favorable growth opportunities, high cost of manufacturing is restraining the adoption of HUD around the world. Until recently, the application of HUDs was limited to the defense and military sector, because only government could afford the high investment required for its production. Despite the technology gaining a footprint in the automotive sector, small and medium scale manufacturers are yet to participate in the popular trend. The technology was thus able to attract only large manufacturers. This in turn has led to the limited deployment of HUDs.Demand for HUDs to Increase with the Launch of Augmented RealityNevertheless, TMR forecasts attractive opportunities for the market in the forthcoming years. The launch of augmented reality in automotive HUDs holds immense potential for growth. The technology will provide real-time traffic information to drivers. It will also display information from driver assistance systems such as lane departure warning and adaptive cruise control.The HUD technology has its root in the automotive industry, witnessing robust deployment in the luxury and high-end car segment. Furthermore, TMR expects the technology to gradually penetrate in the mid-range car segment, as its cost of production decreases. This will bolster sales of head-up displays in the near future.By applications, the aviation industry accounted for approximately 79% of the overall demand witnessed in the market. However during the forecast period from 2015 to 2022, the application of HUDs in the automotive sector is expected to rise at a faster pace. Regionally, North America led the global HUD market in 2014. Besides increasing application in the aviation sector, the rising demand for luxury cars will boost the North America HUD market at a CAGR of 19% between 2015 and 2022.As per TMR, the global head-up display market stood at US$1.76 bn in 2014. TMR forecasts the market to reach US$7.05 bn by 2022, exhibiting a CAGR of 19.1% from 2015 to 2022.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.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
3PL Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Growth, Trends & Forecasts Analysis For 2024
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Global 3PL Market: OverviewThird party logistics, also known as 3PL, is an outsourcing system wherein storage and transportation services are outsourced to a specialist company. Outsourcing these services allows companies to cut costs and focus on their core competency. Inventory management, delivery, packaging, and cross-docking services are now usually bundled with 3PL services, making the 3PL platform even more cost-effective. The global 3PL market is driven primarily by the rising preference to outsource all non-essential tasks in the corporate sector. This boosts the profit margin of the vendor significantly and the trend is expected to remain influential in the forecast period.Download Research Brochure PDF@The global 3PL market is also driven by the increasing demand from the ecommerce sector thanks to the latters steady growth in recent years. This is another major driver for the global 3PL market, particularly in developing countries, where the ecommerce sector stands to grow handsomely in the coming years.The report presents a detailed profile of the global 3PL market, including a review of the markets historical trajectory and the key factors influencing its growth at present. The current market figures are given in detail in the report and are used to project the global 3PL markets future. The major segments of the global 3PL market are examined in the report to get an idea of the hierarchy of the market by each criterion. The competitive landscape of the market is also examined in the report.Global 3PL Market: Drivers and RestraintsApart from the increasing preference to cut costs on non-essential functionalities, the global 3PL market is majorly driven by the fall in shipping rates, which have allowed 3PL operators to make a profit even while allowing their clients to cut their own total expenditure. Utilizing 3PL results in a smoother, more streamlined supply chain, making the process of marketing and selling the products much easierThe rise of the ecommerce sector has been a major driver for the global 3PL market in the last few years. Ecommerce giants focus on selling the products through an online platform, and not all have their own logistics services. Startups, which are becoming increasingly numerous in todays business environment, may not be able to afford their own logistics services, necessitating the use of third party logistics.The convenience of shopping online has resulted in consumers unanimously showing their support to the expansion of ecommerce. This will remain a major driver for the global 3PL market, as developing economies are expected to witness a steady expansion of their ecommerce sectors in the coming years, leading to an increase in the demand for 3PL services.Global 3PL Market: Regional AnalysisThe global 3PL market was led by Asia Pacific in 2015. A trifecta of increasing disposable incomes, increasing availability of the Internet, and escalating investments by ecommerce players has seen the ecommerce sector grow by leaps and bounds in emerging countries such as China and India. This is expected to remain influential for the global 3PL market in the coming years.Europe and North America accounted for the next largest shares in the global 3PL market. The recent eurozone crisis has held the Europe 3PL market back, but the increasing demand from the automotive industry is likely to turn the tide in the years ahead. Latin America is expected to become another key market for 3PL service providers in the near future due to the increasing demand for ecommerce in the region.Key players profiled in the report include C.H. Robinson, DSV, Nippon Express, CEVA Holdings, DB Schenker, Yusen Logistics, Kuehne + Nagel, Hellman Worldwide Logistics, and Ryder System.Browse Full Report@About Us:-Transparency Market Research 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 ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Physical Security Information Management Market will expand at a remarkable 18.7% CAGR
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Global Physical Security Information Management Market: Scope of the ReportThis report provides an analysis of the global physical security information management (PSIM) market for the period from 2014 to 2024, wherein the period from 2016 to 2024 comprises the forecast period and 2015 is the base year. Data for 2014 is provided as historical information. The report covers all the prominent trends and technologies playing a major role in the growth of the PSIM market over the forecast period. It also highlights various drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to influence the markets growth during this period. The study provides a holistic perspective of the growth of the PSIM market throughout the forecast period in terms of revenue estimates (in US$ Mn), across Asia Pacific (APAC), South America, North America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). The report provides analysis of the global PSIM market in terms of market estimates and forecasts for all the segments across different geographic regions.Get More Information :Global Physical Security Information Management Market: OverviewPSIM software allows user to monitor and improve real-time visibility of security applications within the organization, and helps to manage and control field situation through software interface. PSIM software enables users to enhance the situational awareness by providing incident verification, incident resolution, event analysis, incident reporting, and other features such as incident audit trail and information collection. The increasing development of smart city projects across the world, and rising demand for security solutions for safe cities are mainly driving the PSIM market. The rising cyber/physical security threats in emerging economies has led to the increasing implementation of PSIM software and services. In addition, the strong demand for centralized control over the disparate security systems is anticipated to contribute in the growth of global PSIM market. Furthermore, businesses are focusing on improvement of situational awareness and incident management to manage incidents/situations in real-time.Moreover, companies are delivering PSIM security platforms to create real-time updates across the multiple locations to improve the security performance. The growing demand for wireless and remote accessibility provided by the PSIM system and changing security requirements across the industries are leading to the increasing adoption of customized cloud-based PSIM software. In addition, at present industries are improving situational awareness through the deployment of PSIM solutions in order to provide fast response to the incidents and in event management. Among the other sectors, PSIM solutions are being deployed in educational institutions, religious buildings, and stadiums to build customized integrated security systems as per the security requirements of the site/infrastructure. The increasing developments in internet of things (IoT) technology is expected to offer opportunities for PSIM market. The integration of IoT with PSIM solutions would provide additional services such as visualized services platform to enhance the performance of PSIM solutions across the security applications.Global Physical Security Information Management Market: SegmentationBased on component, PSIM market is categorized into software, and services. Software PSIM market is further categorized into off-the shelf and customized. Whereas, service PSIM market is segmented into installation /system integration, operation & maintenance, and consulting & training. On the basis of end-user, PSIM market is segmented into telecom and IT, residential, banking financial services and insurance (BFSI), transportation and logistics, retail, government and defense sector, energy & utility, hospitality, industrial manufacturing, health care, and others.Global Physical Security Information Management Market: Competitive DynamicsThe report also includes competitive profiling of the key players associated with the PSIM market. The important business strategies adopted by them, their market positioning, and recent developments have also been identified in the research report. The growing deployment of PSIM software and services has led to the strong presence of PSIM vendors across the world. The key players in PSIM market include NEC Corporation, CNL Software Ltd., VidSys, Inc., NICE Systems Ltd., Tyco International Ltd. (Proximex Corporation), Mer, Inc., Intergraph Corporation, videoNEXT Federal, Inc., Milestone Systems A/S, Genetec, Inc., S2 Security Corporation, and AxxonSoft.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:
During his meeting with the Egyptian president in Cairo on Monday, the Lebanese leader said Beirut relies on Egypt in the attempt to resolve Middle Eastern crises, especially the Syrian crisis
Egypt will continue supporting Lebanon in all aspects, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said in a speech during a visit by Lebanese counterpart Michel Aoun during his first visit to Cairo since he assumed office.
In a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, El-Sisi said that Egypt is confident that Aoun's term will strengthen Lebanons character as a country that enjoys pluralism and political consensus, guiding the country away from any attempts to drag it into sectarian or religious conflict.
A free, strong and stable Lebanon is a powerful force for the Arab world, and you will find [Egyptian] support for your efforts to preserve stability and development in Lebanon, El-Sisi said told the Lebanese president.
El-Sisi said that Egypt has always supported the unity and stability of the Lebanese state and has always stressed dialogue as a means of resolving conflicts.
Prior to Aouns win in the November 2016 presidential elections, Egypt worked to open lines of communication with several political forces in Beirut in hopes of facilitating efforts to bring an end to the country's more than two-year presidential political vacuum.
Egypt was among the first states to congratulate Lebanon for its ability to reach political reconciliation without any foreign intervention while keeping the unique Lebanese model of coexistence between all segments [of society], the Egyptian president said, adding that this makes Lebanon a pioneering model in the region for resolving political conflicts.
El-Sisi also said that he has discussed with Aoun means of strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries in the fields of economy and trade.
The two leaders also agreed on the importance of bolstering trade relations with African countries.
The talks also included a discussion on combating terrorism, the Syrian civil war and the resulting refugee crisis in Lebanon.
Lebanon has been hosting over more than one million Syrian refugees since the eruption of the Syrian conflict in 2011, according to statistics by the UNHCR.
El-Sisi said that the two leaders agreed on the importance of standing together against the dangers of terrorism, adding that he expressed the Egyptian army's readiness to support the military capabilities of the Lebanese army.
The two leaders also discussed ongoing preparations for the upcoming Arab Summit to be take place in Jordan's Amman in March.
We aim to make [the summit] a success amid the challenges that face the Arab world during this critical period in history, El-Sisi said.
Aoun said that he came to Cairo to assert the strength of Lebanons unprecedented relationship with Egypt.
Beirut relies on Egypt in the attempt to resolve Middle Eastern crises, especially the Syrian crisis, which has affected neighbouring countries including Lebanon, Aoun said, adding that Cairo and Beirut agree the conflict should be resolved through a political solution.
Aoun also invited his Egyptian counterpart to visit Lebanon, which El-Sisi said he would do soon.
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Animal Parasiticides Market - Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2016-2024
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Market ConsolidationThere has been various consolidation activities in the global animal health industry. In just one year, 2016, Boehringer Ingelheim acquired Sanofi's animal health business, Novartis sold its animal health business to Eli Lilly and Merck Animal Health (subsidiary of Merck & Co.) acquired Valleea leading animal health product manufacturer based in Brazil. Some of the major market players operating in the global animal parasiticides market include Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer Ag, Eli Lilly And Company, Ceva Sante Animale, Novartis Ag, Merck & Co., Inc., Zoetis, Inc., Virbac Sa, and Merial.Get Free PDF Research Brochure for more Professional and Technical Insights :Animal parasiticides or antiparasitics are chemical substances used to eradicate parasites that infect livestock, pets, and other animals and subsequently improve animal health. Most parasiticides finished products consist of one or more active ingredients that help carry out a specific action against particular parasites. Parasiticides also comprise inert ingredients (water and alcohol) called as solvents (stabilizers, preservatives, emulgants, etc.). Animal parasiticides market size is expected to grow at a significant rate owing to increased pet adoption worldwide.Global Animal Parasiticides Market TaxonomyThe global animal parasiticides market outlook can be classified on the basis of type of parasiticides, animal type, and end user. There are five types of parasiticides, namely ectoparasiticides, endoparasiticides, endectocides, anthelmintic, and anti-protozoans. Parasiticides used for killing external parasites in animals such as fleas, ticks, lice, fleas, and mites are termed as ectoparasiticides. Most ectoparasiticides are called pesticides, as these chemicals are also used for agriculture and hygiene purpose. Likewise, endoparasiticides are utilized to kill internal parasite such as flukes, roundworms, and tapeworms in animals. Most endoparasiticides are termed as veterinary medicines, as the active ingredients of the products are not used for agriculture and hygiene purpose. Endectocides or macrocyclic lactones are effective in both internal and external parasites. They are either natural products or chemically-modified derivatives that show strong parasiticidal efficacy in animals. On the basis of their chemical structure, endectocides are segmented into avermectins and milbemycins. Parasiticides are available in various formulations namely, liquids, tablets, injectables, sprays, spot-on, and pour-on.On the basis of animal type, the global animal parasiticides market scenario can be segmented into food producing animals (cattle, pigs, poultry, sheep, and goats) and companion animals (dogs, cats and horses). On the basis of end user, the global animal parasiticides market is segmented into farms, R&D facilities, and veterinary clinics. Increasing pet adoption in the Asia Pacific region is a major driving factor fueling demand for animal parasiticides in veterinary clinics.Growing Livestock Population and Increasing Adoption of Pet Animals in the Asia Pacific Region is expected to boost growth of the animal parasiticides market size over the forecast periodBrowse Global Strategic Business Report :Geographically, the global animal parasiticides market outlook can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East. Key factors driving growth in adoption of animal parasiticides in Europe and North America include increasing pet adoption, high number of R&D activities, increasing expenditure on animal health, and rising demand for animal-derived food products. However, Asia Pacific (India, China, Australia, Japan, and Malaysia) is expected to be the most lucrative market for animal parasiticides in future due to a number of driving factors such as increasing number of companion animals, growing livestock population, increasing expenditure on animal health, and rising awareness about animal health.Animal Parasiticides Market TrendsKey driving factors for the growth of the global animal parasiticides market include increasing awareness about animal zoonotic disease, rising number of animal population especially in developing nations of the world, increasing demand for animal-based food and animal proteins, and increasing animal research activities. Furthermore, increasing expenditure on animal health and government initiatives to protect animal health is fueling demand for animal parasiticides. However, high cost of R&D activities, new species of parasites, stringent regulatory policies for approval of animal parasiticides, and high cost of animal parasiticide products is hindering growth of the animal parasiticides market.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Raj ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit Coherent Market Insights Blog @Connect with us on LinkedIn @
Automated Breast Ultrasound Systems (ABUS) Market - Global Industry Insights, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2024
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Automated Breast Ultrasound Systems The Future of Breast ScreeningBreast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed type of cancer and the second leading cause of death among women, as evident from stats revealed by the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Growing awareness of breast cancer has increased number of women undergoing breast screening and in turn would propel demand for automated breast ultrasound systems (ABUS) in hospitals and diagnostic centers. ABUS enables physicians to screen women, especially with denser breasts and provides superior image quality, thus providing them a competitive edge over handheld ultrasound systems (HHUS)Get Free PDF Research Brochure for more Professional and Technical Insights:The global automated breast ultrasound systems market was valued at US$ 236.5 million in 2015 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 21.6% during the forecast period (2016 2024).Source: Coherent Market Insights Analysis (2016)ABUS are primarily used for screening purpose in adjunct to mammographyABUS are approved by the U.S. FDA for screening in conjunction with mammography for dense breasts. Radiologists are inclined towards adoption of ABUS as they provide high quality 3D images. Surgeons are adopting this system for pre-operative evaluation of breast to accurately identify the tumor size and location. HHUS are mainly preferred for preoperative evaluation as compared to ABUS, due to high cost associated with ABUS and lack of skilled radiologists to operate the ABUS system during the crucial preoperative period.High prevalence of breast cancer and awareness campaigns driving demand for ABUS in developed countriesFactors attributable to the growth of ABUS in North America and European markets include increased patient awareness, high uptake of early breast screening, and availability of funds to install relatively expensive ABUS.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 232,924 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2013. Moreover, the American Cancer Society estimates that until 2016 there are over 2.8 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S.According to the Cancer Research UK, the incidence rate of breast cancer in the U.K is expected to rise by 2% from 2014 to 2035Public Health England launched a campaign called Be Clear on Cancer (2015) to raise breast cancer awareness among women over 70 years. Moreover, research and development in the field is encouraged through the Breast Cancer Now Catalyst Programme (2016).High prevalence coupled with government awareness drives are driving demand for ABUS in the U.S. and U.K.Increasing awareness programs related to breast cancer driving demand in Asia-Pacific regionAsia-Pacific possess immense revenue potential for the growth of ABUS market. Demand for ABUS in Asia-Pacific in terms of volume is expected to increase at a CAGR of 24.4% during 2016 2024. Lack of awareness had deterred the uptake of early breast screening until various cognizance initiatives were undertaken by ABUS manufacturers and non-profit and regional cancer organizations. Some noteworthy initiatives include The Pink Initiative organization in India, Breast Cancer Initiative East Africa Inc. and Pink Ribbon Breakfast initiative by Cancer Australia. Moreover, denser breast tissues in the Chinese population is driving demand for ABUS in China at a rapid pace.Browse Global Strategic Business Report :Automated breast ultrasound systems manufacturers are following inorganic strategies to increase their footprintInorganic growth roadmap is the key strategy followed by market leaders. For instance, GE Healthcare acquired U-Systems, Inc. in 2014 to expand their breast care innovations portfolio. Philips partnered with SonoCine, Inc. in 2014 to provide ABUS imaging for its ultrasound systems. Hitachi Aloka Medical America, Inc. entered into a strategic alliance with iVu Imaging Corporation in 2014, gaining exclusive distribution rights for iVus SOFIA (ABUS) system in North America. This agreement helped iVu Imaging Corporation to get access to the expanded channel and also helped both the companies to leverage the technical expertise of the other which further improved the performance of SOFIA.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Raj ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit Coherent Market Insights Blog @Connect with us on LinkedIn @
Art Glass Global Market 2017: Popular Trends And New Business Opportunities 2020
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Global Art Glass Market Research ReportTo Request Sample Copy Of This Report:The MRS Research Group Art Glass report by QY Research represents an inclusive evaluation of the Global Art Glass Market and comprises considerable insights, historical data, facts, and statistical and industry-validated data of the global market. Additionally, it consists of estimated data that is evaluated with the help of suitable set of methodologies and assumptions. The MRS Research Group report by QY Research highlights informative data and in-depth analysis of Art Glass market and its corresponding segments that are based on technology, geography, and applications.Browse Complete Report At:The report comprises precise information, comprehensive analysis in two waysqualitative and quantitativeindustry experts inputs, and information provided by industry analysts and industry participants involved in the entire value chain. The report highlights exhaustive study of major market and their present trends, along with corresponding market segments. The Art Glass report also provides data regarding various market factors and their impact on the overall market and its segments.This Art Glass report is an in-depth market research report in this domain.The report focuses on regional as well as global market, its key players, along with market segments including detailed study on various divisions and its applications. The report provides comprehensive information on each and every segment covered of the Art Glass market.The research report analyzes the scope of Art Glass industry including size, share, analysis, sales, supply, production, definition, specification, classification, demands, application, forecast trends, industry policy, and news.Inquiry Before Buying Report Here @Further, the examination on value chain of Art Glass market is also provided which covers the growth factors and restraints of the industry along with the key market competitors.Furthermore, The report evaluated major market points such as production, revenue, capacity utilization rate, gross, price, capacity, gross margin, supply, cost, demand, export, consumption, import, growth rate, market share, and so on.The Art Glass report is a helpful source which assists manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, customers, and individuals and investors who have interest in this market.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent market.Important changes in market dynamics.Market segmentation up to the second or third level.Historical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volume.Reporting and evaluation of recent industry developments.Market shares and strategies of key players.Emerging niche segments and regional markets.MRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting. It consists of head such as, latest report, category, niche market and news. Reports published on the million of category like chemical, machinery and equipment, consumer goods, manufacturing and construction etc. Latest national, international, business News published under news portal.3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,Tel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Global Machine Safety Market continuous to increase by 2024
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Global Machine Safety Market: OverviewMachine safety is the use of safeguards that are applicable to the machine operators as well as the machinery. For instance, use of interlocks that can stop the motor if a human being is too close to it. Growing concern for the safety of the workers in the industry has increased the use of machine safety devices.Request Free Sample Report @Global Machine Safety Market: Growth FactorsThe global machine safety market is likely to have a boost in coming future. Use of advanced technology in the development of machine safety devices is the main reason that has driven the growth of the global market. Similarly, increasing demand from the industry for machine safety devices is also boosting the growth of the global machine safety market. Additionally, rising concern of the safety of workers in the industry is also driving the global market growth. Moreover, increased job opportunities are also powering the growth of the global machine safety market.On the other hand, factors such as reduce operation and maintenance costs are the main reason hampering the growth of global machine safety market. Non-adherence to safety policies in developing countries is one of the reasons that is decreasing the growth of the global market. In addition to this, high cost of ownership is also one of the significant reasons that are restraining the growth of the global market. The huge labor charges are also one of the main reasons that are hindering the growth of the global market.Global Machine Safety Market: SegmentationBased on the types of product, the global machine safety market is mainly classified as emergency stop controls, presence sensing safety sensors, safety controllers, safety relays, safety modules, safety PLCs, two-hand safety controls, safety interlock switches, and others.On the basis of implementation, the global market is divided into embedded components and individual components.Based on the application, the global market for machine safety segmented into material handling, materials, packaging, metalworking, welding, robotics, and others.Request Report TOC (Table of Contents) @On the basis of geography, the global market is bifurcated into Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World.Global Machine Safety Market: Regional AnalysisGeographically, the global market for machine safety is significantly segmented into North America, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World. Use of advanced technology is boosting the global market in the U.S. and Canada. On the other hand, non-adherence to safety policies in developing countries such as Indian is hampering the global market in Asia Pacific. Increasing demand from the industry for machine safety devices has elevated the global market in Europe.Global Machine Safety Market: Competitive PlayersKey players in the global machine safety market are Ametek, ABB, Emerson Electric, Eaton, Rockwell Automation, Honeywell, Siemens, and Schneider Electric.Browse detail report @Global Machine Safety Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeUKFranceGermanyAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilThe Middle East and AfricaWhat Report ProvidesFull in-depth analysis of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsSegmentation details of the marketFormer, on-going, and projected market analysis in terms of volume and valueAssessment of niche industry developmentsMarket share analysisKey strategies of major playersEmerging segments and regional marketsTestimonials to companies in order to fortify their foothold in the market.For More Inquiry contact our sales Team @ sales@zionmarketresearch.comAbout UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristically, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, a company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite:
RationalPlan 4.15 Microsoft Project 2016 Integration and Projects Dashboard Gets Out of Beta
Starting with RationalPlan 4.15 the Projects dashboard for the web client is out of beta, the process of adding resources was simplified and the performance of Timesheet view was improved. Additionally it was added the possibility to read Microsoft Project 2016 files and more.RationalPlan started as an easy to use and straightforward project management software but it evolved into an embedded and powerful system that is now available even as a project management cloud service both for individuals and for companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access from multiple users.Important changes for this versionFor the online and server side segment:Projects dashboard is out of betaSimplified process for adding resourcesPerformance improvements for Timesheet viewFor the On-Premise products:Added support for MS Project 2016 filesUpdated to Dropbox API 2.0Introduced week numbering since project startAdded task highlighter in Portfolio viewSend assignments by email only for currently selected projectBug fix for computing the critical pathBug fix for daylight saving timeAfter a prolonged period of testing, even on customers side, the Projects dashboard is out of beta. This means the web-based interface for managing projects and resources is stable and users can now safely use it as a complementary solution to the Planner+ client. For those that do not need all the advanced planning features of the Planner+ client and just require a lighter interface, the Projects dashboard is the right choice. Even more this offers the advantage of concurrent access from multiple users at a more granular level. Each change a user makes is saved automatically and the interface gets updated to all the other users in real time.Current version comes with an improved Timesheet view: resource overallocation is only computed on request and then cached for a faster rendering and a more responsive behavior. It gets updated only when a change occurs that may potentially affect the resource work distribution. At the same time the process for adding resources was simplified to be more user friendly.RationalPlan added support for opening Microsoft Project 2016 files. Users can now easily import their projects to either view or edit them.Other functionalities where implemented at users requests. It was added the possibility to set weeks numbering (in Gantt chart view) to begin from project start. Colors for projects are now also used in Portfolio to offer a better overview of their status since users set different colors for various meanings. Assignments are now sent by email only for the currently selected project and not for the entire portfolio to improve communication and reduce clutter.Products from RationalPlan suite include:RationalPlan Single Project an alternative to Microsoft Project and the perfect solution for novice or accidental project managersRationalPlan Multi Project project management software for multiple projects, projects that are interconnected through dependencies and share common resourceRationalPlan Project Viewer free project management software viewer, the solution for anyone (from project stakeholders to team workers) to view projects detailsRationalPlan Project Server a centralized place to manage the companys projects while offering concurrent access to different usersStand By Soft was founded in 1997 as a software company specialized in building desktop applications and components. RationalPlan is a project management solution that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. MOOS Project viewer is a Microsoft Project viewer that allows users to open, view in a dynamic way and print any Microsoft Project file.Contact name: Crina PopescuAddress: Aleea Parului, Nr.4A, Craiova, Dolj, 200346, RomaniaEmail: marketing@rationalplan.comPhone: +40771610710
United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Forecasts for 2016-2021
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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021" to its huge collection of research reports.The report on the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Vehicle Steer-by-wire System market has been compiled to serve as an asset for companies wanting to make informed decisions for growth in this space, and also presents a figurative estimation of the future of the market. The report has been a result of primary and secondary research using proven market research methodologies such as Porters five forces and SWOTT analysis. The primary research formed the bulk of our research efforts along with information collected from telephonic interviews and interactions via e-mails. Secondary research involved study of company websites, annual reports, press releases, stock analysis presentations, and various international and national databases. The report provides market size in terms of US$ mn for each segment for the period from 2016 to 2021, considering the macro and micro environmental factors.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @For the estimation of the future lucrativeness of the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia market for Vehicle Steer-by-wire System, the report studies various factors that are expected to positively influence the growth rate. It also analyzes the challenges expected to hinder the growth rate during the forecast period, besides highlighting the emerging trends and opportunities, which will significantly define the future scenario. The report also divides the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Vehicle Steer-by-wire System market into quantitative segments and studies the opportunities available in the regional markets based on geography. Growth rate for each of the product and geographical segment has been provided.The key feature of the report is the section on company profiles. Here, this report lists out some of the key players who are currently functional in the United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Vehicle Steer-by-wire System market, providing details such as market share, product portfolio, recent developments, and strategies for the future.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Vehicle Steer-by-wire System1.1 Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Overview1.1.1 Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 21.3.3 Application 32 Global Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future4 Global Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.1 Global Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.2 Potential Application of Vehicle Steer-by-wire System in Future4.3 Top Consumer/End Users of Vehicle Steer-by-wire System5 United States Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size (2011-2016)5.2 United States Vehicle Steer-by-wire System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)For Market Research Latest Reports Visit @QYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States
Succinic Acid Market various products and applications, Industry Demand, Growth Patterns New 2016 Report
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Market HighlightsThe global succinic acid market is expected to grow over the CAGR of 29% during the period 2016 to 2022.Over the past few years, the global market has seen a substantial growth due to increasing demand of succinic acid. This has resulted into a higher growth rate at the end of forecasted period. As per the market analysis, different factors have created boom in the global succinic acid market are growing application segment, rising interest in green chemicals, shifting trends towards bio based succinic acid, increase use in pharmaceutical sector and succinic acid has replaced the use of adipic acid and others.Request a Sample Report @Major Key Player BASF SE Anhui Sunsing Chemicals Co. Ltd Kawasaki Kasei Chemicals Lixing Chemicals Nippon Shokubai Mitsubishi Chemical Bioamber Gadiv Petrochemical Industries Ltd. Succinity Anqing Hexing Chemical Co. LtdStudy Objectives of Succinic Acid Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 6 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the succinic acid market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the succinic acid market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segments by product types, by end use applications and by regions To provide overview of key players and their strategic profiling in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global marketMarket Synopsis of Succinic Acid Market:The global succinic market has witnessed a significant growth over the last decade and it has been analyzed that the global market will achieve the same growth during the forecast period. As per MRFR analysis, the global succinic market is accounted to reach USD 750 million by 2022 with a CAGR of 29%.The major factors which are driving the global market are growing application segment, rising interest in green chemicals, shifting trends towards bio based succinic acid, increase use in pharmaceutical sector and succinic acid has replaced the use of adipic acid and others. Geographically, Europe has accounted the largest market share in 2015 and expected to lead the market during the forecast period.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 60 market data tables and figures spread over 136 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content (TOC) & market synopsis on Global Succinic Acid Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022Access Report Details @Brief TOC1 Executive Summary2 Scope Of The Report2.1 Market Definition2.2 Scope Of The 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 Market Landscape4.1 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 Succinic Acid Market5 Industry Overview of Global Succinic Acid Market5.1 Introduction5.2 Growth Drivers5.3 Impact analysis5.4 Market Challenges5.5 Impact analysis6 Market Trends6.1 Introduction6.2 Growth Trends6.3 Impact analysis7. Global Succinic Acid Market by RegionThe report for Global Succinic Acid Market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.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 Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.comAt 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.Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Membrane Switch market Analysis | 2016 2021
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Global Membrane Switch Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2021A membrane switch is a printed electronic circuit that uses pressure to open and close a circuit. The membrane switch circuitry is most often screen printed using conductive inks, which are typically made of silver, carbon, and/or graphite.Membrane switches are part of a range of devices considered to be user interfaces (also called operator interfaces, or man-machine interfaces) along with display-based touch screens, and mechanical switches such as push-button, toggle, rocker, and slide switches. The ultimate purpose of a membrane switch is to serve as the interface between man and machine, enabling an operator to communicate with a piece of equipment, instrument, or machinery.Browse our 152 Pages of Recent Research on Global Membrane Switch Market @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Membrane Switch in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Global Membrane Switch Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversMolex, Human E&C, XYMOX, Douglas Corporation, Fujikura, Danielson, Dyna-Graphics Corporation, Sytek, You-Eal Corporation, Sensigraphics, BUTLER , GOT Interface, Lustre-Cal Corp, GGI International, Nelson-Miller, Esterline, Epec, SUNWODA, LUNFENG Technology and INESA.Market 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) Latin America, Middle and AfricaMarket Segment by Type, covers PVC Membrane Switch PC Membrane Switch PET Membrane SwitchMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Medical Equipment Industrial Control Equipment Retail Equipment Household Appliances Consumer Products OthersAvail more information from Sample Brochure of the Report, Get a Copy @There are 11 Chapters to deeply display the global Membrane Switch market.Chanter 1, to analyze the top manufacturers of Membrane Switch, with sales, revenue, and price of Membrane Switch, in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 2, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 3, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Membrane Switch, for each region, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 4, 5, 6 and 7, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 8 and 9, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2011 to 2016.Chapter 10, Membrane Switch market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2016 to 2021.Procure this Report Directly @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.Contact us:Sales ManagerMayur S2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400,Wilmington,Delaware,19808United Statespr@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-261-5343
The Goddard School Names Amy Williams Director of Real Estate
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KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. (February 13, 2017) Goddard Systems, Inc. (GSI), franchisor of The Goddard School, announces the hiring of seasoned real estate professional Amy Williams as the systems Director of Real Estate. In her new role, Williams will be tasked with establishing and executing a long-term vision and strategy for growth, managing development for franchise trade areas in the GSI market plan and performing in-depth industry, market and competitor research.Williams has an extensive background in real estate management with more than 15 years of experience in a variety of industries, such as franchising, outdoor advertising, commercial real estate and retail. Before joining The Goddard School franchise, Williams held the position of real estate manager at Outfront Media, an outdoor media owner formerly known as CBS Outdoor, where she consistently ranked in the top two percent of real estate representatives each quarter. Williams managed a team responsible for all real estate functions for the Pennsylvania, New York and Washington, D.C. markets and played a key role in establishing a presence in the non-metro markets.I am honored that Goddard Systems has provided me with the opportunity to join its talented team, said Williams. Im looking forward to playing an integral role in expanding The Goddard Schools network across our country and reinforcing its reputation as the best-in-class preschool system.Williams spent the first half of her career as a general certified real estate appraiser. As an independent contractor, she appraised residential, commercial and industrial properties and managed clients such as The Nestle Warehouse, Solebury Orchards and Jones of New York Warehouse. Williams later moved to Quiznos, where she acted as real estate manager and leasing coordinator, handling over 300 transactions for 300 reopening sites and 50 new stores. Williams acted as a real estate consultant for Gap Inc. before becoming a project manager for the rollout of a new management system at TCA Envista, a commercial real estate service company.Amys proven history of developing strategic real estate plans supports our philosophy of reasonable and responsible growth, said Jim DiRugeris, VP of Franchise Development for GSI. As the Director of Real Estate, Amys role will be crucial as weachieve our ultimate goal of opening successful Goddard School locations across the country.For general information about The Goddard School franchise, please visitABOUT GODDARD SYSTEMS, INC.The franchisor of The Goddard School is consistently named one of the top childcare franchises in the United States by Entrepreneur magazine, and Goddard School preschools are listed as one of the Top 200 Franchise Systems (in worldwide sales) by Franchise Times. Headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, The Goddard School franchise currently licenses more than 460 Goddard Schools with more than 65,000 students in 36 states. The Goddard School's AdvancED- and Middle States-accredited F.L.EX. Learning Program (Fun Learning Experience), a comprehensive play-based curriculum developed with early childhood education experts, provides the best childhood preparation for social and academic success. With a proven system in place and a strong network of dedicated franchisees, The Goddard School franchise is the acknowledged leader in franchised childcare and a premier educational childcare provider. For more information, visitKonnect Agency, Emily Johnston888 S. Figueroa Street, Ste. 1000Los Angeles, CA 90017ejohnston@konnectagency.com
Is Digitization of Manufacturing and IoT the New Industrial Revolution?
Digitization of Manufacturing
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Are we on the verge of another industrial revolution in manufacturing? Signs of increased cooperation and competition between consumer technology companies and traditional industrial manufacturers indicate the answer is yes.Is the Dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution at Hand?You say you want a revolution?Many economists and technology consultants feel we are on the cusp of a new, fourth industrial revolution.We've had three industrial revolutions since the 1800s: First Industrial Revolution: Early mechanization powered by water and steam. Second Industrial Revolution: Assembly-line mass production powered by electricity. Third Industrial Revolution: Computer-aided design (CAD) and automation powered by digital technologySo what would 'power' a Fourth Industrial Revolution?The Boston Consulting Group has identified nine key technologies that it calls the building blocks of our fourth industrial revolution: Autonomous Robots Simulation Horizontal and Vertical System Integration The Industrial Internet of Things Cyber Security The Cloud Additive Manufacturing Augmented Reality Big Data and AnalyticsHow would we describe a Fourth Industrial Revolution? Looking into the crystal ball, we can see many possibilities. Product technology platforms first developed in the consumer space will enter more and more industrial markets, changing the way manufacturers interact with customers and products in the field. Artificial intelligence and robotics will extend our abilities to research and develop new products and technology. And immersive virtual reality will allow us to visualize information and new ideas as never before.Let's take a look at each of these building blocks one-by-one:Autonomous RobotsWhat is it?Robots that can access vast amounts of data and analytics to make well-informed decisions quickly.Amazon Warehouse RobotsExamples include: Factory robots that work side-by-side with human workers (...) or replace them on the factory floor. Google's experimental, autonomous driving cars.SimulationWhat is it?Use of computer software programs that allow the creation of virtual models to examine complex systems under different conditions.Examples include: Computer simulation of prototype aircraft or rocket's performance in flight before building a physical prototype. Computer simulation of traffic flows on congested roads and freeways during different conditions. Computer simulation of factory production, such as worker and material movements during assembly operations.Horizontal and Vertical System IntegrationWhat is it?Horizontal System integration refers to increasing the number of product lines or service offerings in the marketplace. Vertical System Integration refers to taking on increasing amounts of a product manufacturing (https://formaspace.com/industrial-workbenches/manufacturi...) process.Examples include:Amazon acquiring a fleet of aircrafts to deliver customer orders is an example of Vertical System Integration.Google providing a suite of online services ranging from word-processing to shopping is an example of Horizontal System Integration.The Industrial Internet of ThingsWhat is it?Read more...Formaspace advances the spirit of discovery and creation through the design and manufacture of custom business furniture. Our furniture marries form to function with flexible solutions for clients in the laboratory, industrial, and office environments.Formaspace serves over 80% of the Fortune 500, as well as universities, governments, small businesses, and individuals.800.251.1505design.consultant@formaspace.com1100 E. Howard Lane, Suite 400 Austin, TX 78753
Some members of Egypts parliament were informed on Monday of the names of the ministerial candidates submitted to parliament by the cabinet ahead of a vote on the list in a plenary session on Tuesday.
Hussein Eissa, the head of parliament's budget committee, told reporters on Monday that parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal had officially received a list of the new cabinet ministers, with their curriculum vitae attached.
Eissa said MPs will be required to approve or reject the list as a whole, not on a case by case basis, in line with Article 147 of the constitution.
While Prime Minister Sherif Ismail will not attend parliament's session [on Tuesday], parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal will be required to officially inform President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi whether the new cabinet reshuffle has been approved by MPs, said Eissa.
Meanwhile, Ali El-Moselhi, the head of parliament's economic affairs committee and a Mubarak-era minister of social solidarity, told reporters that he was approached by PM Sherif Ismail to become a minister.
Some parliamentary sources said El-Moselhi would take charge of the investment portfolio in place of the current minister Dahlia Khorshid.
Sources also said that Hesham El-Sherif, a former head of the cabinet's Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC), will be appointed minister of local development in place of Ahmed Zaki Badr; economist Lubna Hilal will become minister of planning in place of Ashraf El-Arabi; and Muawad El-Khouli will be appointed minister of higher education.
Sources also said that judge Ayman Abbas will be appointed as minister of legal affairs and representative councils in place of Magdi El-Agati, and agronomist Abdel-Moneim El-Banna will become minister of agriculture in place of Essam Fayed.
Sources also said the cabinet reshuffle might see the departure of Minister of Education El-Hilali El-Sherbini and Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomma.
They added that four cabinet ministers Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi, Minister of Interior Magdi Abdel-Ghaffar, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukri, and Minister of Justice Hossam Abdel-Reheim will keep their posts.
The sources also said that Minister of Finance Amr El-Garhi will also stay in office.
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Medical Aesthetic Devices Market: Evolving Market Trends & Dynamics 2024
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The global market for medical aesthetic devices is characterized by a highly consolidated competitive landscape, wherein the top two vendors, Mentor Worldwide LLC and Allergan Plc., collectively held a nearly 60% of the market in 2015, observes a recent report by Transparency Market Research. Mentor Worldwide LLC, the market leader with a 32% share in the global market, stayed ahead of the competition with the help of strategic collaborations and a strong emphasis on aesthetic products such as breast implants and body contouring.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:In September 2016, the company announced its plans for a new collaboration with Galderma, a medical solutions firm with strong operations in skin health. Under the collaboration, the companies plan to partner with Canadian surgeons to improve patient experience across innovative aesthetic procedures and solutions, broadening consumers' access to and awareness of aesthetic treatment options.Transparency Market Research estimates that the global medical aesthetic devices market will rise from a valuation of US$6.5 bn in 2015 to US$15.1 bn in 2024. This reflects a 9.0% CAGR from 2016 through 2024. In terms of product types, the segment of laser and energy devices presently leads. The segment held a nearly 30% share in the global market in 2015 and is expected to remain one of the most promising product segments over the forecast period as well. From a geographic perspective, the market earns a significant share of its revenues from sales across developed regions such as North America and Europe. North America dominated in 2015, accounting for a 43% of the global market.Increased Usage of Lasers for Medical Aesthetic Procedures to Stimulate Market GrowthIn the past few years, the global consumer has become more open to aesthetic procedures owing to a vast reduction in cultural prohibitions and social taboos. The resultant rise in surgical procedures for enhancing personal appearance is the key driver of the global medical aesthetic devices market.Other key trends positively influencing the overall development of the market include the increased adoption of laser-based devices, heightened demand for minimally invasive and non-invasive equipment, and the high demand for augmentation and reconstructive surgeries. The global adoption of laser-based devices has increased owing to the widening utility of laser devices.Cost-effectiveness and versatility of laser devices are also the key factors increasing adoption and usage of laser procedures in the aesthetics market.Increased adoption of minimally invasive surgeries, owing to the fewer post-surgery complications and side effects, and shorter recovery spans, have driven innovations and technological developments, bringing about a huge change in the quality and effectiveness of surgeries. As a result, the number of minimally invasive procedures in dermatological applications has significantly increased lately. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimated that the number of minimally invasive aesthetic procedures performed in the U.S. increased to 15.9 mn 2015, a rise of 2% over 2014.Competitively Priced Equipment and Services from Domestic Vendors to Limit Market GrowthThe global medical aesthetic devices market is characterized by intense competition wherein local manufacturers and service providers offer devices/services at affordable costs. The resultant need to reduce costs of equipment to stay ahead of competition can severely hamper the overall profitability of international vendors, especially across cost-sensitive emerging economies.Continuous technological developments in the aesthetic devices market with respect to product design and efficiency require manufacturers to provide up-to-date solutions to the customers. Such upgrades could be highly cost-intensive and lead to erosion of investment and not many service providers may be open to adopting them on a regular basis. The scenario is expected to have a negative impact on the overall development of the market in the long run.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Radiofrequency Ablation Devices for Pain Management Market: Consumer Preference for Minimally Invasive Pain Management Options to Boost Growth Opportunities, says TMR
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The radiofrequency ablation devices for pain management market features a markedly high level of consolidation, with the top three vendors, St. Jude Medical, Inc., Halyard Health, Inc., and Boston Scientific Corporation, accounting for a share of over 88% in 2015, observes Transparency Market Research. These companies have strengthened their hold on the market owing to diversified product portfolios, extensive geographical presence, and strategic acquisitions over the past few years, states a TMR analyst. Increased focus on emerging economies and increase in product launches are some of the most popular strategies adopted by top players.Transparency Market Research states that the global radiofrequency ablation devices for pain management market, which valued at US$372.7 mn in 2015, is expected to rise to US$1,114.5 mn in 2024. This translates to a potential 13.0% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:In terms of product varieties, the segment of disposable RF products dominated, accounting for a 40% of the overall market in 2015. The segment of RF generators is expected to exhibit expansion at the most promising pace over the forecast period. From a geographic perspective, the market in North America dominated in 2015, accounting for over 40% of the global market in 2015. However, the global market is expected to witness most lucrative growth opportunities in emerging economies across regions such as Asia Pacific and Latin America over the forecast period.Rising Prevalence of Chronic Pain to Have Sizeable Positive Impact on Market GrowthThe rising prevalence of chronic pain conditions and the rising geriatric population of the world are among the key factors leading to the rising global demand for pain management therapies such as the ones that use radiofrequency ablation devices. The global market for these devices for pain management is also highly influenced by the rising demand for minimally invasive procedures across the globe.Benefits such as lesser post-surgery complications, low chances of side effects, and shorter span of recovery work in favor of minimally invasive surgeries and related devices. Radiofrequency ablation devices for pain management are also gaining increased focus owing to the higher known side effects and lower efficiency of alternate pain relief procedures and therapeutics options such as acupressure, acupuncture, and opioids. The easy availability, cost-effectiveness, and easy access to highly effective radiofrequency ablation devices for pain management have also propelled the market for these devices of late.Regulatory Hurdles Delaying Approval of New Devices to Hamper Market GrowthThe need to comply with stringent laws and regulations set by regulatory authorities that are closely associated with product approvals, clinical trials, design, development, and commercialization hamper the overall development of the market to a sizable extent. Ablation devices come under class III medical device category in Europe and the U.S. Owing to this, the efficacy and safety of devices such as catheters and generators are paramount to gain approval. Strict regulations do not only delay approval, launch, and marketing of these products but also lead to increased prices.Decisions of regulatory authorities and cost containment measures undertaken by government authorities also have a negative impact on the reimbursement scenario and restrain the market for radiofrequency ablation devices for pain management. Along with these factors, the low costs of several pain management therapeutic options such as anticonvulsants, antidepressants, and NSAIDs also significantly impact and restrain the overall development of the global radiofrequency ablation devices for pain management market.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Healthcare Information Systems Market Research Report by Geographical Analysis and Forecast to 2024
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Global Healthcare Information Systems Market: SnapshotThe global healthcare information systems market has witnessed impressive growth over the years since their launch, and presently, there has been a noticeable rise in adoption of healthcare information systems world over. The report states that the global healthcare information systems market is expected to be worth US$44.8 bn by the end of 2024 as against US$19.2 bn in 2015. Between 2016 and 2024, the global market is expected to surge at a CAGR of 10.1%.Continued increase in the cost of health care products and services over last few years has forced the health care institutions to adopt health care IT systems in order to curb the ever rising cost. About 30% of the healthcare cost is due to clinical insufficiencies. Advancements in healthcare information systems have led to the significant growth of the market in the recent years. Use of healthcare information systems in medication management, electronic prescribing, intelligent wearable technologies to curb lifestyle diseases, and smart robots to automate repetitive tasks are expected to significantly reduce health care costs and hence contribute towards the growth of this market.Furthermore, increasing government initiatives and growing healthcare expenditure across the world will further propel the market during the forecast period. Governments across the world are increasing their spending to provide better health care services. For instance, an analysis based on preliminary government data by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services revealed that health care spending in the U.S. increased by 5% in 2014 as compared to 3.6% in 2013.Browse full report on Healthcare Information Systems Market -Hospital Information Systems to Lead Global Market as Demand for Organized Data IncreasesThe global health care information systems market has been estimated on the basis of application, components, deployment and end users. On the basis of application, hospital information systems market is projected to lead the market in terms of revenue and continues to dominate the market during the forecast period. Factors such as high adoption rate and improved efficiency are contributing to the leadership position of hospital information system segment. On the basis of deployment, web-based systems are expected to account for the largest market share in terms of revenue due to increase in demand for easy access to data at any point of time from any device.North America Emerges as Dominant Region in Global MarketGeographically, healthcare information systems market has been segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. North America held the largest share of 38.4% of the global healthcare information systems market in terms of revenue in 2015 followed by Europe. Rising patient population, presence of major players, and well-structured distribution channel are driving the growth of these regions. Asia Pacific was the third largest market for healthcare information systems, the region is expected to register the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. Large untapped opportunities, improving health care infrastructure, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, expansion of market players, and in the region would contribute to the market growth.The key players operating in the global healthcare information systems market are Cerner Corporation, McKesson Corporation, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc., athenahealth, Inc., and Medidata Solutions, Inc. GE Healthcare, Agfa- Gevaert, Epic Systems Corporation, Siemens Healthineers and NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, LLC.Request for sample of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Coil Coating Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2021
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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Global Coil Coating Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2021 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.Coil Coating is high performance liquid coatings applied to metal strip. It contains base material, Crosslinking agent, pigment filled agent, additives and volatile component. Generally, it can be divided into primer coat, back paint and top coat.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Coil Coating 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.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers AkzoNobel PPG Industries Valspar BASF Beckers NIPSEA Group KCC Actega(Altana) Axalta Dura Coat Products Henkel Daikin Titan Coating KelCoatings Srisol Yung Chi Paint&Varnish Unicheminc Shanghai Huayi Fine Chemical Jiangsu Lanling Group Shaanxi Baotashan Paint Pingyuan Wente Tangshan Wick painting chemical industry CNOOC Changzhou EP Coating Ningbo Zhengliang Coatings Zhejiang Tiannv Group Changzhou Baoxin Anticorrosive MaterialMarket 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 Polyester Coil Coating Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) Coil Coating Polyurethane (PU) Coil Coating Plastisol Coil Coating OthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Building Industry Transport Industry Appliance Industry OthersThere are 13 Chapters to deeply display the global Coil Coating market.Chapter 1, to describe Coil Coating Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Coil Coating, with sales, revenue, and price of Coil Coating, in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2015 and 2016;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Coil Coating, for each region, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 5, 6, 7 and 8, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 9 and 10, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2011 to 2016;Chapter 11, Coil Coating market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2016 to 2021;Chapter 12 and 13, to describe Coil Coating sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, appendix and data source.To 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
Global Ophthalmic Drugs Market to Reach US$21.6 bn by 2018 due to High Incidence of Eye-related Disorders amongst Geriatrics
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The increasing number of cases of retinal disorders has compelled ophthalmic drug companies to shift their focus towards the implementation of combination therapies, reports Transparency Market Research. Due to the lack of market fragmentation, the existing companies are initiating research and development investments regarding product innovation. The leading companies in the global ophthalmic drugs market are Novartis (Alcon), Roche, Pfizer, Santen, Allergan, and Merck. These companies accounted for close to 70% of the global ophthalmic market in 2012.The leading companies in the global ophthalmic drugs market are engaging in numerous mergers and acquisitions as they seek growth opportunities. The mergers and acquisitions are based on tactical business requirements, which include product portfolio expansion, business expansion, geographical expansion, and expansion of research and development channels. The growth trajectory of the ophthalmic drugs market will depend on how companies capitalize on opportunities such as the growing government initiatives for healthcare infrastructure in developing countries.Advancement in Drug Delivery Techniques to Provide Manufacturers of Ophthalmic Drugs with Substantial Growth OpportunitiesRecent studies have stated that advancements made in the technology of drug delivery techniques are likely to drive the sales of ophthalmic drugs globally. Compared to conventional drug delivery techniques, advanced techniques comprising intraocular implants and nanoscale techniques are stated to have sustained drug delivery and higher bioavailability. These modern nanoscale techniques are beneficial for the diagnosis and treatment of several eye diseases. TMR analysts state that these nanoparticle drugs carry significant growth prospects for companies as they have the potential for innovative uses such as in contact lenses, which would result in optimal bioavailability.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:Healthcare Infrastructure Development Initiatives by Governments to Boost Demand for Ophthalmic DrugsGovernments of developing regions are taking initiatives towards creating awareness regarding eye disorders through the development of advanced healthcare infrastructure. For instance, the Indian Governments initiatives, such as the National Program for Healthcare of the Elderly (NPHCE) and the National Rural Health Mission, are projected to improve the nations healthcare services. Similarly, initiatives taken up by governments of other developing countries are likely to boost the demand for ophthalmic drugs in the respective countries. Due to the initiatives taken up by the Brazilian government, the healthcare services in the country have improved substantially and its per capita expense for healthcare was valued at US$1,402 in 2015.Lack of Proper Health Reimbursement Facilities to Hinder Demand for Ophthalmic Drugs in Developing NationsDespite the promising prospects created by the proactive stance taken by governments, developing nations such as China and India lack the resources to provide primary healthcare services and health insurance to a large population due to poverty. Statistics published by the WHO stated that in 2013, out of pocket expenditure was much lower in developed countries than in developing countries. This is anticipated to hinder the demand for ophthalmic drugs in developing regions as the expenses in the use of ophthalmic drugs are not covered by reimbursement facilities.North America is expected to dominate the global ophthalmic drugs market between 2013 and 2018 due to the rise in eye disorders among its aged population. Asia Pacific has been reported to be the fastest growing market, also owing to its large geriatric population. The global ophthalmic drugs market is expected to rise to a market value of US$2.16 bn expected by the end of 2018.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Patient Engagement Solutions Market to Reach US$34.94 Bn by 2023, Driven by Government Push for Patient-centric Services
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According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research Patient Engagement Solutions Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2015 - 2023, the global patient engagement solutions market was worth US$6.66 bn in 2014 and is expected to reach US$34.94 Bn by 2023, expanding at a CAGR of 23.0% from 2015 to 2023. North America was the largest market for patient engagement solutions in 2014. Growth in this region is expected to be driven by patient-centric government reforms and augmented demand for quality healthcare services. Along with this, rising awareness about self-care will be the key driver for the markets growth.Browse the full Patient Engagement Solutions Market (Delivery Mode: Self-hosted, Software as a Service (SaaS), Application Managed Services; End-users: Hospitals & Providers, Healthcare Payers, Pharmaceutical Companies) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023 reportatPatient engagement solutions are the need of the hour for the healthcare industry. The rising incidences of chronic diseases and an aging population in most parts of the world have raised the demand for patient-oriented healthcare services. Patient engagement solutions are methods to engage patients monitoring their own health. These tools help patients to take better care and improve of their health even outside the hospitals and clinics. Patient engagement solutions result in overall effective healthcare management and reduces re-admissions in hospitals. Also, these solutions help mitigate the financial burden from healthcare payers. The rising trend of using smartphones and other personal digital assistants such as wearables and tablets has provided ease of access to patient engagement solutions. The inclusion of IT in healthcare services (HCIT Healthcare IT) has refined the working trend in hospitals and other healthcare organizations. For instance, the adoption of electronic health record systems instead of paper-based health records can be seen as the effective involvement of IT in healthcare services. Furthermore, government regulations, which are primarily aimed at patient-centric services, have boosted the patient engagement solutions market. Further, improving healthcare infrastructure globally can be foreseen as an emerging opportunity for patient engagement solutions providers.The patient engagement solutions market can be segmented on the basis of delivery mode and end-users. On the basis of delivery mode, the patient engagement solutions market is further segmented into self-hosted, software as a service (SaaS), and application managed services. In 2014, self-hosted solutions were the most preferred patient engagement solutions, and accounted for around 43.6% of the revenue of the global patient engagement solutions market. SaaS is expected to expand at the highest CAGR of 23.6% from 2015 to 2023. The most significant factor driving the market for self-hosted solutions is the rising adoption of HCIT services by hospitals and healthcare providers. Furthermore, the hospital-specific customization that is possible with self-hosted solutions is further accelerating its market penetration.In terms of end-users, the patient engagement solutions market is segmented into hospitals and providers, healthcare payers, and pharmaceutical companies. In 2014, the hospitals and providers segment held the largest revenue share, 42.4%, of the overall patient engagement solutions market. However, investment by pharmaceutical companies is expected to drive market growth, with pharmaceuticals segment alone expected to record CAGR of 24.1% from 2015 to 2023.Geographically, North America is the largest market for patient engagement solutions and is anticipated to dominate the global patient engagement solutions market during the forecast period. In 2014, North America accounted for approximately one-third of the global patient engagement solutions markets revenue. The key players of the patient engagement solutions market are McKesson Corporation, Axial Exchange Inc., Medecision, Inc., Phytel, Inc. (An IBM Company), Emmi Solutions, LLC, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, GetWellNetwork Inc., Orion Health Ltd., and Athena Health, Inc.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause Market Research Report by Geographical Analysis and Forecast to 2024
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Global Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause Market: OverviewMenopause is the stage during which women stop producing ovaries and there is an end of the fertile phase. It occurs in 85% of premenopausal women during their late 40s, resulting in the cessation of their menstrual cycle. Due to the cessation of menstrual flow, the production of estrogen decreases and gonadotropin increases, which gives rise to various physiological and psychological changes, called vasomotor symptoms. Vasomotor symptoms of menopause are the actions which are related to nerves and muscles that cause the blood vessels to dilate. Vasomotor symptoms of menopause are basically a transition between two phases: perimenopause and menopause. The major vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause are listed below:Hot flashes:Hot flash is one of the most frequent symptoms of menopause. During this condition, women feel enormous intensity of heat accompanied with excessive sweating. Hot flashes with sweating also occur at night and the condition is termed as night sweats which disturbs the sleep pattern of an individual.Formication:Formication is basically a form of paresthesia which results in an abnormal skin sensation, illusion or hallucination that some insects are crawling over the skin. It causes feelings of itchiness, tingling or even burning on the skin.Migraine:Due to the hormonal fluctuations of menstrual cycle, migraine headaches pose a serious impediment to women undergoing menopausal phase. They are a form of recurrent headaches that can last from few hours up to three days.Dysfunctional uterine bleeding:Due to abrupt changes in hormonal levels, ovulation becomes inconsistent causing endometrial hyperplasia to develop and result in abnormal bleeding.Psychological symptoms:There are a number of psychological symptoms associated with onset of menopause such as fatigue, anxiety, irritability, mood swings, insomnia etc.Global Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause Market: SegmentationThere are various therapies related to vasomotor symptoms of menopause and henceforth the market can be segmented as follows:Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT):HRT is a hormone therapy which is given to women whose estrogen and progesterone hormone level have dropped enormouslySelective estrogen receptor modulators (SERM):SERMs are a type of drugs that block the effect of estrogen in the breast cells and activate the action of estrogen in other cells such as uterine cellsGabapentin:They are a type of medications which reduces the effect of hot flash and night sweatsAntidepressants:Few vasomotor symptoms are relieved with the aid of antidepressants. Example: fluoxetine and venlafaxine.The driving factors that will augment the growth of menopausal symptoms therapeutics market are introduction of new treatments and therapies in the market, increasing awareness among female patients about their health and use of non-hormonal therapies.Browse full report on Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause Market -Global Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause Market: Geographical DynamicsGeographically, North America dominates the menopause therapeutics market followed by Europe. According to NutritionMD, about 40% of North American women seek treatment for menopausal symptoms. Increasing cases of menopausal symptoms and the rising need of women population to go for novel therapies are the major factors, which have driven the growth of the menopausal symptoms therapeutic market. Asia-Pacific is one of the most rapidly developing region and the prime factors that will drive the growth of menopausal symptoms therapeutics market in this region are increasing geriatric female population with menopause disorders, and a shift in preference from hormonal therapies to non-hormonal therapies that will create an opportunity for many pharmaceutical companies to develop novel technologies and therapies.Global Vasomotor Symptoms of Menopause Market: Company ProfilesSome of the top market players of this market are Eli Lilly and Company. Procter & Gamble, Pfizer Inc., Ausio harmaceuticals, LLC, EndoCeutics, Inc., Edgemont Pharmaceuticals, LLC and many others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Request for brochure of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Insulin Resistance Market Research Report by Geographical Analysis and Forecast to 2024
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Insulin Resistance Market: OverviewDiabetes has become a major concern across the globe owing to its increasing prevalence. Statistics published by World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that over 350 million individuals suffer from diabetes globally. The data also details that more that 80% cases are recorded in low and middle income countries, majority of which are from Asia Pacific, the Middle East and African countries. India accounts for maximum cases of diabetes with more than 30 million cases registered in year 2000. According to Medscape, a healthcare website, in the United States, the prevalence of insulin resistance is over 3%.Insulin resistance is a complication in which body develops resistance to insulin due to its over production. As the sensitivity towards insulin decreases, body produces excess insulin for better absorption of glucose. This conditions leads to development of type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. Prediabetes is a condition in which blood glucose level is higher than the normal level, but not enough for proper diagnosis of diabetes. Although exact cause of insulin resistance is not known, scientists and doctor believe that excess and sedentary lifestyle are main causes for development of the disorder. Major symptoms of insulin resistance are lethargy, hunger, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, and kidney damage. Insulin resistance diagnosis is difficult and involves combination of tests. Usually hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp test is used to measures the amount of glucose which is necessary to compensate for increased insulin level without causing hypoglycemia. Other tests include glucose tolerance test and fasting insulin level.Browse full report on Insulin Resistance Market -Insulin Resistance Market: Drivers and RestraintsFew drugs approved by FDA are available in the market for treatment of insulin resistance. Humulin by Lilly LLC, and Novolin and Velosulin by Novo Nordisk, are the major brands in the market. Various off label drugs are also prescribed to suppress the symptoms of insulin resistance. Inadequate clinical information on insulin resistance has restricted the scope of drug development. Although scientists are trying to gain insight for exact cause of insulin resistance, development of drugs may take more time owing to lengthy clinical trials. Diabetes and the consequent insulin resistance being a major concern in most of the countries, government initiatives to motivate research in diabetes is expected to give rise to more research projects for diabetes and insulin resistance. Aging population and increasing obesity prevalence in developing countries is expected to give rise to patients suffering from insulin resistance. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 35% of the U.S. population is obese. In another data published by OECD, more than 50% of the European Union population is overweight or obese. Obesity prevalence rates are on the rise in China, India and Brazil, making more and more population suitable to insulin resistance. China is now the second obese country in the world followed by India. Adoption of sedentary life style due to and reduced physical activities are adding to worries. Various educational institutes are taking serious steps to curb child obesity by increasing physical activities in schools. These factors are expected to increase the prevalence of increase prevalence of insulin resistance in India, China and other countries. Developing healthcare sector, increasing per capita income and increasing awareness about medical treatments will drive the market in these countries. Reimbursement and other government policies governing pricing will also play a major role in determining the future of the market.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Request for brochure of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Prostatic Acid Phosphatase Testing Technologies Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2019
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Prostatic Acid Phosphatase (PAP) test is a type of blood test to determine health of prostate gland by measuring prostatic acid phosphatase levels. PAP is an enzyme found in men and majorly present in the prostate gland and semen. Significant amounts of PAP are also found in platelets, bone, spleen, kidney and liver. PAP measurement is important in the management of prostatic cancer patients especially in monitoring remission or relapse of prostatic malignancy and in assessing the effectiveness of various treatment regimes.PAP testing technology market is segmented as follows:Monoclonal and polyclonal antibodiesImmunoassaysRadioimmunoassay (RIA)Enzyme Immunoassays (EIA)Fluorescent ImmunoassaysLuminescenceLatex agglutinationImmunoprecipitationMolecular diagnosticsChromosome analysisChronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)Acute myeloid leukemia (AML)Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)Malignant lymphomasChronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)Solid cancersChromosomal translocation and oncogenesArtificial intelligenceFlow cytometryTwo dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DGE)BiosensorsCompeting/complementing technologiesCTMRINMRPETPhotonics SpectroscopyPersonal testingIt was observed that cancer diagnostics market is on a verge of exponential growth in coming years as the R&D activities of major organizations are intensively developing products in the field of tumor diagnosis and therapy, discovery of new specific antigens and understanding of relation between genetics and disease.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:North America is the leading market for prostatic acid phosphatase testing technologies, due to factors such as increase in awareness about prostate cancer and anticipated technological breakthroughs in determination of genetic predisposition, detection of specific tumors and monitoring of biological response to cancer therapy. The other regional markets for PAP testing technologies include Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of World (RoW).Some of the key players contributing to this market include life sciences companies such as Abbott Laboratories, Beckman Coulter, Inc., Binding Site, bioMerieux SA, Carolina Liquid Chemistries Corp., Dia Sorin, Horiba Group, Inverness Medical Technology, Johnson and Johnson Ltd., Roche, Siemens AG and Others.This research report analyzes this market depending on 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.Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a technological growth map over time to understand the industry growth rateIt provides a seven-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsIt provides distinctive graphics and exemplified SWOT analysis of major market segmentsDownload Exclusive Brochure of This Report :About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Commercial Refrigerators Market - Offer 20% to 30% Reduced Energy Consumption
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The commercial refrigerators market in Asia Pacific will continue to rise, with China leading the market from the front, Transparency Market Research says. As the region faces the mushrooming of convenience stores, hypermarkets, super markets, grocery shops, and restaurants, the installation of commercial refrigerators is expected to rise considerably in the forthcoming years. Along with this, the conspicuous demand for energy-efficient solutions will pave the way for research and development activities in the market.With opportunities for foreign direct investment widening in the food retail sector, Transparency Market Research (TMR) expects the commercial refrigerators market in Asia Pacific to surge at a 9.8% CAGR between 2016 and 2024.Around this time, technologies such as magnetocaloric refrigeration, which offer 20% to 30% reduced energy consumption, will witness wider commercialization.The booming hospitality sector and the food retail industry will enable the commercial refrigerators market in Asia Pacific to reach US$38.83 bn by 2024, rising steadily from nearly US$16.99 bn in 2015.The commercial refrigerators market is gaining considerable traction across China, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. The rapid proliferation of quick service restaurants and the increasing penetration of multinational retailers in these countries have fuelled the demand for energy-efficient commercial refrigerators.China reports the highest demand for commercial refrigerators in Asia Pacific. It held over 33.5% of the Asia Pacific commercial refrigerators market in 2015. The country boasts a considerable presence of both local and multinational manufacturers; hence, commercial refrigerators are available at a comparatively lower purchasing cost in China. This will in turn propel the China commercial refrigerators market at a CAGR of 7.3% by revenue, from 2016 to 2024.Request A Sample Of This Report:Demand for commercial refrigerators is also likely to increase considerably in India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Rest of Asia Pacific.Demand for Beverage Refrigerators to Surge, Fuelled by Rising TourismThe market for commercial refrigerators has been segmented based on beverage refrigerators, freezers, refrigerated display cases, glass door refrigerators, retail channels, and fridge freezers. Based on beverage refrigerator type, the market has been bifurcated into beverage refrigerator and wine refrigerator.In terms of revenue, the beverage refrigerator segment emerged dominant in the market, accounting for a share of over 57.2% in 2015. The growth witnessed in the tourism sector is expected to positively influence the sales prospects of beverage refrigerators during the forecast period. However, the segment is expected to lose its market share to the wine refrigerators as alcohol consumption increases in the Philippines.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:
Egyptian parliament's ethics committee recommended on Monday that MP Ilhami Agina, known for his contentious remarks on women, be stripped of his parliamentary membership over insulting the House of Representatives.
Agina, an independent MP from the Nile Delta governorate of Daqahliya, has been investigated by the committee because of insulting the House of Representatives, and insulting Egyptian women and society.
The ethics committee issued two recommendations that the MP be stripped of his membership for insulting the Parliament, and be suspended for the remainder of the current session on the second count.
The investigations were triggered following public outrage against a number of controversial public statements made by the MP on viriginty tests for women, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual prowess of men.
In early October 2016, the MP proposed that girls hoping to attend university should first undergo a mandatory "virginity test."
A month earlier, he voted against a new bill that made female genital mutilation (FGM) a felony, arguing that the FGM should remain in place to balance the "weak" sexual prowess of most Egyptian men.
Earlier in the year, the MP also demanded that female MPs should "dress modestly" inside parliament.
In October, The National Council for Women filed a complaint with parliament against the fiery MP, demanding the that the House undertake all the legal procedures against the MP according to the constitution and parliamentary bylaws, and that he be internally investigated for his remarks."
Agina previously defended his statements on public issues in Egypt, saying these should be viewed as part of his right to practice freedom of speech.
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Marine Engines Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth :2024
Global Marine Engines Market
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Global Marine Engines Market: OverviewMarine engines are machines that supply power to several kinds of vessels, auxiliary equipment, generators, and propulsion systems central to maritime activities and vehicles. Different types of marine engines are available that serve different purposes of various marine vehicles and systems. Marine engines can be classified according to different criteria, including the type of propulsion system in use, the power range of the engine, fuel used to power the engine, and major applications.Download the Exclusive Report Sample Here :This report on the global marine engines market provides users a proper understanding of all the crucial elements of the market and its present state. The report presents a 360-degree overview of the market and its major segments, its drivers, restraints, major trends influencing consumer choices, regulatory factors at play across major regional territories, technological and product advancements, and competitive landscape of the market.The exhaustive market data included in the report has been gathered with the help of a number of research methodologies and narrowed-down to conform to the specific needs of business decision makers in the global marine engines market.Global Marine Engines Market: Trends and OpportunitiesRise in the number of leisure marine travelers, vast expansion of the global seaborne transport industry, advent of technologically advanced and highly reliable engines, economic stability, and rising disposable incomes are the major factors that have driven the global marine engines market in the past few years.Stringent government regulations regarding emissions from marine vessels, increased awareness among consumers about the need to adopt greener fuels, and depleting reserves of conventional fuels are likely to boost the growth of the market. The global marine engines market is expected to witness development of products that conform to the stringent regulatory norms about emission and work with greener fuels such as LNG and solar and wind power.Nevertheless, the diesel marine engines segment is anticipated continue to dominate the global marine engines market. Major factors supporting the growth of this segment include easy availability of spare parts and repair networks and availability of trained personnel for repairing diesel engines across the globe. Steam engines have been phased out from several application areas. However, these will continue to dominate traditional and niche application areas such as LNG and coal carriers, icebreakers, and warships.Global Marine Engines Market: Region-wise OverviewThe global marine engines market has been examined from the point of view of the following key regional markets: Middle East & Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.Asia Pacific is the largest market for marine engines due to the flourishing shipbuilding industry in countries such as South Korea, India, China, and Japan. Flourishing seaborne transport in the region will allow the region to sustain its leadership position in the global marine engines market during the forecast period.Presence of some of the worlds largest manufacturers of marine engines in North America and Europe is likely to lead to an increase in investments in the marine engines market in these regions.Global Marine Engines Market: Competitive LandscapeMarine engine manufacturers are focusing on the design and development of fuel efficient and cleaner engines due to the stringent emission-related regulations laid down by major regions across the globe. Development of engines that will be powered by greener energy sources such as solar and wind power and LNG have gained increased focus in the past few years. Major companies operating in the global marine engines market are GM Powertrain, Caterpillar, Inc., Cummins Engines, Wartsila Corporation, and Rolls Royce.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.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.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
Battery Alloys Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share :2024
Global Battery Alloys Market
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The global battery market worth is worth USD 100 billion and is growing at a rapid pace owing to increasing application of batteries in various industries. Alloy used in batteries are one of the most important components, which sustain the battery functionality. Different kinds of battery require different varieties of battery alloy as per the requirement of the respective applications. Batteries can be broadly classified into primary batteries and secondary batteries. The most common types of battery alloys contain metals such as lead, selenium, calcium, antimony and tin. Alloys are generally used in the battery anodes.Download the Exclusive Report Sample Here :The battery alloys market has been propelled by the growth of battery market across the world. New applications of battery are developed every other day and the technological advancement and reach among the masses have augured well for the battery market and subsequently the battery alloy market. Battery alloys find most of its demand from the automotive industry. The growth of automotive market in Asia Pacific and the reviving market in North America has fuelled the growth of battery alloy market. Moreover the gradual transformation of petroleum driven car into battery operated vehicles and hybrid vehicles have boosted the battery alloy market. Industrial usage of batteries is the second largest market for battery alloys. Manufacturing industries require extensive battery service for power backup and storage. The grids in these high power batteries are made of alloys such as lead antimony, lead calcium and lead selenium. The high growth of manufacturing sector and the growth of transportation infrastructure are the leading causes for the growth of battery alloy market.There is very little threat to the battery alloy market since it is indispensible to the batteries. However some alloys are preferred over the others owing to environmental concerns as well as functionality. Although lead alloys display extremely good characteristics, the use of lead in battery alloys are increasingly discouraged. Lead calcium battery alloy is again preferred over lead antimony due to its higher longevity and performance dynamics.The major opportunity of the battery alloy market lies in the electric vehicles application. Matured economies of North America and Europe have shifted focus towards electric vehicles in a bid to achieve a sustainable future free of petroleum requirements. According to research about 40% of all cars on road in 2035 will be electrically powered in North America which is one of the largest market for automotives. Asia Pacific region has also initiated the process of promoting hybrid vehicles which is expected to provide tremendous stimulus to the battery alloy market.The battery alloy market is dominated by Asia Pacific region. More than 90 % of the market for battery alloys is derived from this region as Asia Pacific acts as the battery supplier to the world. Japan and South Korea used to be the main countries manufacturing batteries. However China has surged ahead in recent times and is the highest growing country in the world in terms of demand and production of battery alloys. North America and Europe account for high demand of batteries which are mostly imported from Asia. The battery alloy market is expected to be dominated by Asia Pacific in the near future as well.Som of the major companies operating in this market are Mitsubishi Corporation and Furukawa Co.Ltd among many others.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 include-North America-Asia Pacific-Europe-Middle East and Africa-Latin AmericaAbout 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.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
Run Of River Power Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share :2024
Global Run Of River Power Market
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A run of river power plant is a small hydro power plant harnessing energy from the river water. This hydropower being renewable in nature, small in size, and dependent upon the natural water flow, seems to be a suitable low-impact alternative to the existing large-scale plants.Download the Exclusive Report Sample Here :A run of river plant produces hydropower from kinetic energy of the natural flow of a river. A small portion of the river is diverted and led to the power house through a channel or penstock. The flowing water rotates the turbine which in turn rotates the generator coupled to it. This plant can produce substantial power provided there is sufficient water flow and its kinetic energy. The kinetic energy of this flowing water can be increased by having a sufficient pitch. Hence a location having such geographical features is suitable for the power plant to operate efficiently.There are many advantages of a run of river power plant. A dam is required only if the available head is not enough to produce the power demanded. Existing dams can also be used to meet the dam requirement. Since dam is not necessary for such power plant, flood risks are reduced. Thus negative impact on the environment is less. Flowing river water is source of energy which is converted to electricity. It is also environment friendly as it produces no pollution or any particulate matter. It is convenient for use by factories, residential areas and all those whose power requirement is not much. The run of river is an intermittent source of power. The power produced from such plant is suitable only to meet the peak power loads and not base load. Thus its operation and maintenance cost becomes high.The market for run of river plants has high prospects of development. In North America run of river projects are expected to perform well due to its high dependency on hydropower in renewable sector. Europe is expected to see gradual development of such market due to its high concern for the environment and less availability the most economically attractive sites. But it is also been seen as an important source of energy security among other energy sources to meet for Europes future energy requirement. So development but on limited levels are expected in the forecasted period. China in Asia Pacific is the largest producer of hydropower in the world. Other major countries expected to contribute to renewables through hydropower are India, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Hence the run of power projects can be beneficial in Asia Pacific too. Brazil is the second largest hydropower producer in the world. Thus the rest of the world provides a high scope of run of river market developmentMarket segmentation in run off power projects is dependent upon the water- head availability in the river. A run of river with pondage is the one where low head is available throughout the year. A pondage is a storage facility to store the water and can be utilized during dry seasons when water head is very low. In meeting the peak power demands of consumers this stored water can be used. Another type of such power plant is a run of river without a pondage. Due to enough head availability of the water in the river throughout the year. No storage is required as water availability is enough to produce the required power.Some of the key players in the run off the power market are China Yangtze Power Co. Ltd., Duke Energy, Ontario Power Generation, and Stat Kraft AS.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.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
For those of us responsible for family members with dementia, "Marjorie Prime" begins as a secret, guilty fantasy.
In Jordan Harrison's science fiction drama, holographic androids called "primes" help persons living with dementia recall memories. Because primes are artificial, they also provide tireless, patient companionship and comfort. When you're spending as much time dealing with doctors, nurses, social workers, memory specialists, pharmacists and insurance administrators as you are with your loved one, it's easy to see why these pixelated caregivers would be so swiftly welcomed.
On opening night at Artists Repertory Theatre, certainly some audience members had to be wondering if the primes program had early enrollment and how much Medicare would cover.
Harrison's play initially targets the delicate dynamics between 85-year-old Marjorie (Vana O'Brien) and the prime replication of her late husband, Walter (Chris Harder). And that's plenty to chew on. Frisky, blunt Marjorie and warmly programmed Walter, both convincingly realized by O'Brien and Harder, actualize all those dicey questions. Is artificial intelligence an enhancement or a substitution for human relationships? Are primes merely conveniences for the family? How effective is palliative treatment when it stirs up memories that don't always soothe or heal?
It doesn't give too much away to say that the play then detours sharply, and that Marjorie and Walter's dyad is only about a third of the 75-minute running time. Though the play is not billed as a two-hander, it's still a disappointment that they are the launching pad, not the focus, of the work. (Press and promotions for the movie adaptation sure play up the pairing of Lois Smith and Jon Hamm as Marjorie and Walter.)
That abrupt swing, and another, turn "Marjorie Prime" into a cerebral exercise. The script is terrific sci-fi, without a doubt. It's just not affecting. Harrison develops his conceit while shrinking his characters.
And there's a tonal anomaly. Perhaps because of the play's sudden lack of an emotional core, Linda Alper exaggerates her interpretation of Marjorie's manic-depressive daughter, Tess. Or perhaps in 2062, when the play is set, we've run out of Xanax.
The rest of the cast enjoys a naturalistic, organic flow, In terms of recent films about artificial intelligence, they're in the thoughtful groove of "Her"; Alper is fired up for "Terminator Genisys."
The result is what could be called the "Westworld Paradox," which viewers of the futuristic HBO series suffered week after week: that the artificial beings are more intriguing than most of the humans.
Line of the night: "I'll be right here, Marjorie. Whenever you need me. I have all the time in the world," Walter says to Marjorie.
Strengths: Harrison's tightly worded piece flies with the speed of an hour-long series, which makes sense for a writer and producer for "Orange is the New Black." He's not a manipulator, either. The plot twists are all earned. "Marjorie Prime" makes for solid coffee talk for fans of well-crafted sci-fi.
Director Adriana Baer and her design team added sparkles in hair and clothes to indicate when actors are portraying primes -- an inventive and eye-catching alternative to computer-generated imagery.
Weaknesses: Absent O'Brien and Harder, the stage becomes a forensics tournament between Alper's Tess and her husband, Jon (Michael Mendelson). They're un-engaging abstractions, and it's hard to believe that Tess is meant to be played so overwrought. This may fall to Baer. Last season she directed "In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play," for Profile Theatre, and another lead character seemed oddly, very broadly acted.
Takeaway: A detached, unevenly directed bit of futurism. But the questions "Marjorie Prime" posits about the value, provenance and veracity of memories won't quickly be forgotten.
--Lee Williams, for The Oregonian/OregonLive
***
"Marjorie Prime"
Where: Artists Repertory Theatre, Alder Stage, 1516 S.W. Alder St.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays and 2 p.m. Sundays through March 5; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28; noon Wednesday, Feb. 22.
Tickets: $25-$50, artistsrep.org or 503-241-1278
woolner arraignment.jpg
Alex Matthew Woolner (left), a former Kaiser Permanente nurse, was sentenced to to prison on Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, in Washington County Circuit Court for sexually abusing patients.
(Rebecca Woolington/Staff )
A former Kaiser Permanente nurse was sentenced Monday to 2 1/2 years in prison for sexually abusing at least five woman who were patients last year.
Alex Matthew Woolner
Alex M. Woolner, 38, pleaded guilty last week in Washington County Circuit Court to attempted second-degree kidnapping, second-degree invasion of personal privacy, third-degree sexual abuse and computer crime. He was taken into custody pending his sentencing.
Judge D. Charles Bailey ordered Woolner to register as a sex offender, have no contact with any of the victims and avoid all medical care facilities unless he gets permission from his probation officer.
Woolner made no statements in court and stood in an orange jail uniform with his head hung low as Bailey sentenced him.
The abuse occurred at a Kaiser Permanente clinic along Southwest Western Avenue in Beaverton between last January and February. The women were between the ages of 18 and 20, according to Kevin Barton, Washington County senior deputy district attorney.
None of the women appeared in court for the sentencing. A college student who was 20 when abused said in a letter to the court that she wasn't attending because seeing the former nurse again would do more harm than good.
Since Woolner assaulted her a year ago, she is reminded daily of what he did to her, she wrote. She now lacks the high confidence and self-esteem she once had and often feels unsafe and socially isolated because she now finds it hard to connect with people. She said she also feels overwhelmed and degraded when receiving looks from random men or when people are physically near her.
"The belief I once had of being in a safe world where I would not be physically and mentally abused in such a way have dissipated," she wrote. "I will never have a life without this pain."
The woman said she had to quit a job where she closed the business at night because it brought stress and paranoia that she would be taken advantage of and have no one to help her. She said she can no longer go to a hospital, doctor's office or nurse's station without panicking and doesn't believe she will be able to trust a health practitioner again.
Woolner had been registered with the Oregon State Board of Nursing since 2009 and a licensed practical nurse since November 2010, according to state records. He voluntarily surrendered his license in March 2016, and it expired in July.
Two women have since filed suit against Kaiser Permanente -- where he worked for two years -- alleging negligence by the medical company and sexual abuse and exploitation by Woolner.
Woolner used his position as a nurse to persuade female patients to undergo unnecessary tests, such as breast examinations, or to take their tops off while getting a shot, according to Barton. The nurse also would make derogatory comments to them about their bodies.
He used Kaiser medical records to get a phone number for one of the women, called her and persuaded her to come back to the clinic for additional testing. He then performed an ultrasound on her lower body, touching her pelvic area, Barton said.
Woolner typically targeted women he deemed attractive, Barton said. In at least one case, he spotted a woman in the waiting room who made an appointment to see a doctor, but Woolner persuaded her to see him instead.
While the woman was in his care, a worker at the front desk called her about her appointment and left a voicemail message. Woolner got the woman's phone and deleted the message, the prosecutor said.
According to Beaverton police, an investigation began after a woman reported on Jan. 28, 2016, that Woolner inappropriately touched her and made sexual statements to her during a clinic visit two days earlier. She had already reported the nurse to Kaiser for inappropriate conduct.
Kaiser said Woolner was placed on leave the same day. He was allowed to return to work after an initial internal investigation found no evidence of misconduct, the hospital said. It is unclear when he returned.
Woolner abused at least one other woman while back at the clinic on Feb. 17 and Feb. 26, police said. On Feb. 29, he was placed on administrative leave a second time. That woman reported being abused by Woolner on March 6. He resigned while under investigation.
Woolner was arrested in April and released on bail later that month. He was out of custody until his guilty plea last week.
Barton said after court that this case demonstrates "a gap in Oregon law" because the charges available weren't able to reflect the harm done to the victims. The sexual contact Woolner had with the women are considered misdemeanors under Oregon law, he said. The felonies in this case -- computer crime and attempted kidnapping -- were for deleting the voicemail and for luring a victim back to the clinic after she left.
"I struggled with not having the tools available to hold him accountable for what he did," Barton said. "It just seemed like the harm he caused was so much greater than the charges I was able to file.
"I felt like the most I could do still wasn't enough."
-- Everton Bailey Jr.
SEATTLE - Though Boeing paid $12 million in late 2015 to settle more than a dozen Federal Aviation Administration investigations, details of the problems found by the safety agency were not disclosed at the time.
Documents obtained this month by The Seattle Times through a Freedom of Information Act request show the cases revealed a disquieting pattern of falsified paperwork and ignored procedures that created quality issues on the production lines of Boeing and its suppliers.
The FAA found that Boeing repeatedly failed to follow protocols designed to guard against production errors that put safety at risk.
Some tasks were signed off as completed and checked when they were not. Other work was done without authorization.
The result was multiple errors in manufacturing, some of which passed right through the system to airplanes in service.
Boeing also failed to take corrective action in a timely way after issues were discovered, the FAA found.
In one case, Air Canada ground crews in January 2015 discovered a 3-foot-wide puddle of fuel that had leaked from an engine pylon of the airline's first 787 Dreamliner after it landed at an unnamed airport.
Leaking fuel around a hot engine is a fire hazard.
An FAA investigation revealed that Boeing had noted the leak nine months earlier, before it delivered the plane, and had supposedly reworked the pylon at the Everett plant to fix the problem.
A mechanic and a quality-control inspector signed off on the rework as completed. But as the FAA noted, this "did not represent work performed." In other words, the repair work hadn't been done.
Even after this instance of leaking fuel discovered on a jet carrying passengers, Boeing's actions to prevent such an error from happening again were "unsatisfactory," the FAA found.
The FAA investigations also reached down into Boeing's supply chain, where a more egregious violation was noted.
In January 2015, a mechanic rigging a large 777 cargo door at a Boeing supplier was questioned about his work by an FAA investigator. The mechanic acknowledged that "he does not use the inspection tools required and enters false inspection data on the work order."
"He admitted to falsely entering the data for approximately 7-8 years," the FAA letter of investigation states.
Capt. John Cox, a veteran pilot and founder of Washington, D.C.-based aviation safety consultancy Safety Operating Systems, said this startling admission worried him far more than any of the inadvertent mistakes listed in the FAA investigation.
"When you have a deliberate act, and a culture that condones such a deliberate act, that is of much greater concern from a safety standpoint," Cox said. "If the culture is, 'We've got to get it out the door,' and we start creating workarounds and normalized deviations from required procedures, that's a culture that is far more likely to experience serious safety issues."
Corrective action
In addition to the relatively light fine in 2015, Boeing committed as part of the settlement to improve its internal quality oversight and management procedures.
The FAA also put Boeing on probation for five years, subject to $24 million in additional penalties if it fails to carry through on those improvements.
However, this is not the first time the FAA has found Boeing's manufacturing controls wanting.
An intensive FAA audit in 2000 found "systemic" failures in the jetmaker's quality control processes -- chiefly inadequate inspection and deviance from required manufacturing procedures.
That earlier investigation shook up the company's relations with the FAA and prompted Boeing to add hundreds of full-time quality inspectors.
Seventeen years after that audit, the 2015 FAA settlement represents a new shake-up as some of the same issues resurface.
Responding to Seattle Times questions, Boeing defended its broad commitment to quality and safety, and offered specific responses to some of the incidents detailed in the reports.
Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said, "None of these matters involved immediate safety of flight."
He added that the settlement "reflects the FAA's recognition that (Boeing) has made a number of substantial improvements to its quality and compliance systems" following the investigations.
"Boeing has worked with the FAA and invested significant resources to implement these improvements ... including enhancing management oversight and accountability," Alder said.
As for the fuel-leak incident on the Air Canada 787, Alder said a subsequent audit determined that "this was an isolated event," and the company took "immediate corrective action" against both the Boeing mechanic and the Boeing inspector involved.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the incident was one of "the typical types of issues that arise when introducing a new aircraft type."
Regarding the falsified supplier data in the rigging of 777 cargo doors, Alder said that after this incident, all 777 large cargo doors manufactured by that supplier were re-checked and met specifications.
He added that Boeing's standard tests would in any case have detected any non-conformance in the doors before delivery.
Nevertheless, he said the supplier's senior leadership had to present to Boeing a detailed plan to make sure it wouldn't happen again, and the mechanic who had been falsifying data was retrained.
Other failures in quality workmanship cited by the FAA included:
* After an FAA audit of 787 production processes found loose nuts incorrectly installed without a locking safety wire, Boeing's corrective action was found "insufficient to prevent further occurrences."
Subsequently, airlines found heavy fuel leaks on 787s in passenger service, due to lock wire being either missing or installed backward.
The FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive warning airlines the situation was "unsafe" and ordering immediate inspection of the same fuel connections on all 787s to prevent possible fuel fires.
Following that directive, airlines found five more 787s with the faulty fuel couplings.
New instructions, more training
Boeing says it has revised work instructions and employee training "to prevent this from happening again."
* The wrong tool was used to rig a 777 passenger door, and was then discovered left inside the door after a flight. And another tool was found post-flight left inside the leading edge of a 777 wing.
Boeing says it has changed procedures so that employees are required to check out and check in tools, and some are decorated with bright paint or with streamers "to increase tool visibility."
* Wiring bundles "on numerous aircraft at numerous station locations within the aircraft" had wires that were excessively taut, or bent too acutely, or riding over one another with crossovers unprotected, or installed without sufficient clearance.
Poorly installed wiring can lead to electrical shorts.
* Composites were cooked at too high a temperature at Boeing's advanced composites center on Marginal Way.
* Tubing was not installed per the engineering drawing in 777s.
* Decompression panels in the cargo bay of a 787 were improperly installed.
A constant thread throughout the catalog of concerns in the investigation documents is that Boeing production workers and quality inspectors signed off on work that had not been done.
Rules were also violated through lack of a required paper trail.
Every step in the building of an airplane is supposed to be copiously documented, checked and rechecked. Yet the FAA found that parts and assemblies were removed and reworked, then reinstalled "without documentation or quality authorization," the investigations showed.
A culture of safety
The FAA now has fewer on-site quality inspectors than it did 17 years ago and relies on Boeing to follow precise procedural checks to assure airplane safety.
The safety agency's main role is to check that Boeing sticks to the required quality assurance processes.
Under the settlement, Boeing must provide the names and addresses of individual employees found to have falsely stamped any work, so the FAA could potentially initiate criminal prosecutions of such employees -- though that has never actually happened at Boeing.
The settlement also addresses weaknesses in Boeing's supply chain.
Boeing agreed to audit by last month a minimum percentage of its parts suppliers -- the percentage was redacted in the documents the FAA provided -- to determine if any are "accepting work that is not complete."
As part of the settlement, the FAA said it agreed to limit the fine to $12 million only because of Boeing's "current and planned remedial efforts."
Capt. Cox said he generally has a high regard for Boeing's commitment to safety and its system of repeated independent checks and so was surprised to hear of crucial details overlooked and failures passing through unnoticed.
"First the worker and then a quality-assurance inspector both failing to address an issue such as a proper lockwire installation, this is not the Boeing way of doing business I've been familiar with -- which is a culture of safety, a culture of procedural compliance," he said.
Given the millions of individual tasks that go into building each of the roughly 10,0000 Boeing aircraft now safely flying around the world, Cox said "it's pretty self-evident that they have good solid procedures."
Still, he added, "they are not perfect."
"This audit found weaknesses and gives them the opportunity to improve. It sounds like the FAA did their job."
- The Seattle Times
A man accused of shooting four people and killing three in July 2016 attempted to escape Sunday from the Clark County Jail days before he was scheduled to be arraigned, officials said.
The Clark County Jail is locked down until further notice while deputies investigate the circumstances of Brent Ward Luyster's escape attempt, Undersheriff Mike Cook said in a news release. The incident forced a significant police response, said Israel Young, who saw the police respond to the escape.
"The jail will remain in lockdown until we've had a chance to assess the security of the entire facility," Cook said. "We need to make sure this escape attempt was isolated to this one inmate and does not involve other inmates or other areas of the jail facility."
The attempt, discovered by a jail deputy, occurred about 9 p.m., according to the news release. The deputy was walking the jail perimeter when he noticed a broken window.
Luyster's attorney, Edward Dunkerly, could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.
Sgt. Fred Neiman, Sheriff's Office spokesman, said in a news release an outer window of the jail had been broken. Vancouver police, Clark County deputies and SWAT members initially helped jail deputies clear all inmate cells. They conducted a search because of concerns that weapons or contraband might have been smuggled in, Neiman said early Monday.
Young, who works at Affordable Bail Bonds near the jail, said dozens of officers from various agencies had quickly converged at the jail. Later, some officers were seen in tactical gear and armed with rifles. He said police began to disperse shortly after 11 p.m.
"I've worked here for a lot of years," Young said. "I've seen them come and go. I've never seen that many of them at one time."
Luyster is accused of fatally shooting Joseph Lamar, Zachary Thompson and Janell Knight in the 4000 block of Northwest 417th Street in Woodland in July. He was arrested less than 24 hours later.
His girlfriend, Andrea Danielle Sibley, was also arrested on a first-degree rendering criminal assistance charge, records show.
The shootings triggered a manhunt for Luyster, who was arrested while camping near Abernathy Creek Road in Cowlitz County with Sibley and their toddler son, according to records. Luyster, whose crimes carry the potential for the death penalty, remains scheduled for a 9 a.m. Tuesday after delays to his case.
The county's prosecuting attorney will review the Sheriff's Office Major Crime Team investigation of the reported escape attempt before considering filing new charges.
This post will be updated as news develops.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reporter Jim Ryan contributed to this report.
-- Tony Hernandez
503-294-5928
The cabinet reshuffle in Egypt will include nine ministries from the economic and public service ministries group, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said in a media statement on Monday evening.
The PM said that the new reshuffle would include the merger of two ministries into one.
Ismail said the cabinet plans to appoint four deputies for each minister, following the success of a similar experience at the Ministry of Finance.
The PM did not reveal which ministries will witness a change in leadership or which will be merged.
He also confirmed that the list of names of ministerial candidates in the reshuffle was submitted on Monday to the House of Representatives, which is set to vote on the changes on Tuesday.
The philosophy of change adopted by the cabinet depends mainly on continuing the social and economic reforms, the statement said.
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Did Adele break her Grammy award in half, to hand a piece over to her "idol" Beyonce?
Sort of.
Adele won five Grammy trophies at the Los Angeles ceremony on Sunday night, including three of the four top categories: Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. She spent her speeches for the first two paying tribute to Beyonce's "Lemonade," the album that Adele personally thought should've received the honors. And after giving an emotional speech, she pulled one of her trophies apart, seemingly to hand over to her fellow diva.
But it wasn't quite a real Grammy.
"The Grammys used during the television broadcast are for show," the New York Times. Billboard reports they're recycled "stunt" Grammys, left blank unlike the real trophies.
The real Grammy trophies are made by a man named John Billings, the mold maker who has been building the awards for decades from his Ridgway, Colorado studio, according to the Times profile. He and his workers made 350 this year. Building a Grammy award takes 15 hours and are made of a zinc alloy dubbed "grammium" before being plated in 24-karat gold.
They aren't finalized until after the ceremony, when the winners' names are engraved onto plates.
"I've always just hand-delivered them," Billings told the Times. "I just think it would be a nightmare to try and ship these. In the old days, there weren't so many Grammys, so I would put them in my truck and make several trips."
So Adele's five Grammys are just fine--she'll have to ship that Album of the Year trophy over to the Knowles-Carter house, fully intact.
"I can't possibly accept this award," Adele said in her final speech, as Beyonce looked on and mouthed "Thank you." "I'm very humbled and I'm very grateful... but my artist of my life is Beyonce and this album for me, the 'Lemonade' album is so monumental... and so well thought-out and so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side to you that you don't always let us see, and we appreciate that. All us artists here adore you, you are our light. and the way you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel is empowering and you make them stand up for themselves. I love you, I always have, and I always will."
-- David Greenwald
dgreenwald@oregonian.com
503-294-7625; @davidegreenwald
Instagram: Oregonianmusic
Mideast Egypt
In this Jan. 25, 2016 file photo, supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, chant slogans and raise an image of him after the Muslim Brotherhood called on its supporters to take to the streets on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising, in Cairo, Egypt.
(Hesham Elkhoshny/AP Photo)
By The Washington Post Editorial Board
Those who favor the United States designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, a move being considered by the Trump administration and advanced by a few members of Congress, think it will strike a singular blow against violent extremism. But they labor under an illusion. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a single, cohesive unit, but rather a sprawling organization. It does not systematically engage in terrorism, although some parts of it have turned to violence. A blanket designation would be a mistake.
Founded in 1928 in Egypt as a religious, social and political organization, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved over subsequent decades. After endorsing the use of violence in its early years, the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood disowned it in the 1970s in exchange for the freedom to organize politically and socially. Following the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, the Brotherhood moved into politics and one of its members, Mohamed Morsi, was elected president in 2012. His faltering performance led to mass protests, and he was deposed by the military a year later. Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, now Egypt's president, has outlawed the Brotherhood, arrested its leaders and members, and pressed hard for Washington to impose the foreign terrorist designation.
In Tunisia, a party inspired by the Brotherhood is openly engaged in politics, and the democratic transition would have been impossible without its moderate leadership. Among Palestinians, the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has waged a violent conflict against Israel, is also an offshoot of the Brotherhood and is already on the U.S. foreign terrorist organization list. A Jordanian branch, purged of extremists, is represented in parliament. A 2015 review by the British government concluded that "for the most part, the Muslim Brotherhood have preferred non violent incremental change," but "they are prepared to countenance violence - including, from time to time, terrorism - where gradualism is ineffective." A blanket designation would injure those who seek change without terrorism.
Under U.S. law, the designation as a foreign terrorist organization is to be made by the secretary of state. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., have reintroduced legislation that would urge the secretary to make the designation, saying the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, "espouse a violent Islamist ideology with a mission of destroying the West." If the Muslim Brotherhood were so labeled, anyone in the United States or abroad who provided "material support or resources," including something such as democracy training, would be at risk of removal from the United States, as well as financial sanctions.
The possibility of this being used unfairly against Muslim groups in the United States is real, and worrisome, given the inclination of President Donald Trump and some members of his team to unfairly conflate all Muslims with the danger of terrorism. An overly broad designation against the Brotherhood would also have unwanted blowback in the Middle East, tainting people who are working for nonviolent change. This is a case where the United States needs a laserlike attention to real threats, not a senseless political designation that would miss the mark.
-- The Washington Post Editorial Board
APTOPIX France Nice Carnival
A float showing U.S. President Donald Trump parades during 133th Nice carnival parade, Saturday in southeastern France.
(AP Photo/Henri Grivot)
By Kathleen Parker
WASHINGTON -- Good news: In two years, we'll have a new president. Bad news: If we make it that long.
My "good" prediction is based on the Law of the Pendulum. Enough Americans, including most independent voters, will be so ready to shed Donald Trump and his little shop of horrors that the 2018 midterm elections are all but certain to be a landslide -- no make that a mudslide -- sweep of the House and Senate. If Republicans took both houses in a groundswell of the people's rejection of Obamacare, Democrats will take them back in a tsunami of protest.
Once ensconced, it would take a Democratic majority approximately 30 seconds to begin impeachment proceedings selecting from an accumulating pile of lies, overreach and just plain sloppiness. That is, assuming Trump hasn't already been shown the exit.
Or that he hasn't declared martial law (all those anarchists, you know) and effectively silenced dissent. We're already well on our way to the latter via Trump's incessant attacks on the media -- "the most dishonest people in the world" -- and press secretary Sean Spicer's rabid-chihuahua, daily press briefings. (Note to Sean: Whatever he's promised you, it's not worth becoming Melissa McCarthy's punching bag. But really, don't stop.)
With luck, and Cabinet-level courage not much in evidence, there's a chance we won't have to wait two long years, during which, let's face it, anything could happen. In anticipation of circumstances warranting a speedier presidential replacement, wiser minds added Section 4 to the 25th Amendment, which removes the president if a majority of the Cabinet and the vice president think it necessary, i.e. if the president is injured or falls too ill to serve. Or, by extension, by being so incompetent -- or not-quite-right -- that he or she poses a threat to the nation and must be removed immediately and replaced by the vice president.
Aren't we there, yet?
Thus far, Trump and his henchmen have conducted a full frontal assault on civil liberties, open government and religious freedom, as well as instigating or condoning a cascade of ethics violations ranging from the serious (business conflicts of interest) to the absurd (attacking a department store for dropping his daughter's fashion line). And, no, it's not just a father defending his daughter. It's the president of the United States bullying a particular business and, more generally, making a public case against free enterprise.
To an objective observer, it would seem impossible to defend the perilous absurdities emanating from the White House and from at least one executive agency, the USDA, which recently scrubbed animal abuse reports from its website, leaving puppies, kittens, horses and others to fend for themselves.
In a hopeful note, a few Republicans are speaking out, but the list is short.
GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz recently got a taste of what's ahead for Republican incumbents. Facing an unruly crowd at a town hall meeting in Utah, the House Oversight Committee chair was booed nearly every time he mentioned Trump. Even if many in the crowd were members of opposition groups, the evening provided a glimpse of the next two years. From 2010's tea party to 2018's resistance, the pendulum barely had time to pause before beginning its leftward trek.
While we wait for it to someday find the nation's center, where so many wait impatiently, it seems clear that the president, who swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, has never read it. Nor, apparently, has he ever even watched a Hollywood rendering of the presidency. A single episode of "The West Wing" would have taught Trump more about his new job than he currently seems to know -- or care.
Far more compelling than keeping his promise to act presidential is keeping campaign promises against reason, signing poorly conceived executive orders, bashing the judicial and legislative branches, and tweeting his spleen to a wondering and worrying world.
Trump's childish and petulant manner, meanwhile, further reinforces long-held concerns that this man can't be trusted to lead a dog-and-pony act, much less the nation. Most worrisome is how long Trump can tolerate the protests, criticisms, humiliations, rebuttals and defeats -- and what price he'll try to exact from those who refused to look away.
Contact Kathleen Parker at kathleenparkerwashpost.com.
(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group
Defense lawyers for the four Oregon standoff defendants set for trial this week want Pete Santilli, who awaits prosecution in Nevada, to be flown to Oregon to testify on their behalf and to impeach another co-defendant, Blaine Cooper, now expected to be a government witness.
Jury selection starts Tuesday morning for the remaining four defendants accused of federal conspiracy, weapons and depredation of government property charges stemming from the 41-day seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last winter.
U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown already has issued orders for occupation leaders Ammon Bundy, who was acquitted of all charges, and Ryan Payne, who has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, to be flown from Nevada to Oregon to testify for the defense.
The defendants' request for Santilli was filed on Sunday, after defendants learned that Cooper, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in the refuge case last summer, is expected to testify for the prosecution.
The defense team estimated that Santilli's testimony would last about half a day, and the lawyers have requested he be transferred to Oregon in early March. Santilli has agreed to testify, as long as his lawyer in Nevada can be present in court with him.
"Peter Santilli is a journalist who reported on the protest at the refuge from its inception, and has extensive personal knowledge of events relevant to these proceedings,'' defense lawyer Jesse Merrithew wrote in his Sunday motion. "He was close to Blaine Cooper throughout the events at issue. Defendants intend to call Mr. Santilli to impeach the testimony of Blaine Cooper, who the government recently disclosed will testify as a government witness.''
Both Santilli and Cooper are in custody in Nevada. Santilli is awaiting trial in connection with the April 2014 armed standoff with Bureau of Land Management officers near the Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada.
Cooper, of Humboldt, Arizona, in August pleaded guilty to conspiracy and assault on a federal officer in the Nevada case, and is set to be sentenced in mid-March. Prosecutors are expected to recommend a six-year sentence, but he can argue for less time.
In the Oregon refuge takeover case, 26 people were indicted on federal conspiracy, weapons and other charges stemming from the occupation of the federal wildlife sanctuary outside of Burns in eastern Oregon. Seven people were acquitted of the charges after a five-week trial in Portland last fall. Eleven people have pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, and three others have pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
Santilli had all charges dismissed against him on the eve of the fall trial. He never stayed overnight at the federal wildlife refuge, and his defense attorney in Oregon argued that much of the material he broadcast on his YouTube channel was protected speech under the First Amendment.
Cooper was part of the first convoy of people to drive to the refuge in Harney County on Jan. 2 from a demonstration in Burns, where he was protesting the return to federal prison of father and son ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond.
Cooper, who has registered a film company called Third Watch Media, carried a camera while co-defendants armed with firearms cleared the refuge buildings that day, a prosecutor said at his plea hearing. Cooper also was seen driving government trucks on the refuge.
On Jan. 3, Cooper appeared on a video with occupation leader Ammon Bundy, in which Bundy promised to make the refuge a base for patriots to live and stay for several years, according to prosecutors. Cooper introduced himself on the video, and urged those who come to the refuge to, "Bring your arms!'' Cooper left the refuge on Jan. 26 or 27, and was arrested in Utah on Feb. 11.
In the Nevada case, a Facebook exchange Cooper had with Santilli on April 8, 2014, was cited in court documents, in which Cooper wrote to Santilli that it was time to stop "all this huffing and puffing'' over the microphones and "go down and do what we got to do'' in Nevada. Prosecutors in Nevada described Cooper as a mid-level leader and organizer in the 2014 standoff there.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
public_safety_oregonian_100.JPG
(The Oregonian/OregonLive)
MEDFORD -- An Oregon woman who stopped to observe troopers after they stopped a black driver has been found guilty of interfering with a police officer.
Keely Meagan of Ashland parked on the edge of Interstate 5 after noticing the traffic stop in September, reported The Mail Tribune. Meagan, 55, said she was concerned about the driver's safety because of nationwide reports of police violence against black men.
Jackson County Circuit Judge David Hoppe found Meagan guilty of the misdemeanor interfering charge Thursday and dismissed a violation for illegal parking. He said Meagan has a right to observe police but shouldn't have stopped so close to a highway interchange.
"You can continue to do that in a safe area. That wasn't safe, and I think you recognize that," said Hoppe.
Deputy District Attorney Jordan Bailey said he was pleased with the guilty verdict because Oregon State Police have to manage situations on I-5 that can be very dangerous.
Meagan said she understood the police officer's concern about the situation after watching police video of the incident. But she also said during Wednesday's trial that she feels a duty to stop every time she sees a black driver pulled over by police.
Meagan, who lost her job as a driver's education instructor after being charged in the incident, will face no further punishment, Hoppe ruled. He said he didn't consider her actions a case of civil disobedience but lauded the activist for her empathy.
Although there have been no shootings of black people by local law enforcement officers, Meagan said she has "witnessed a lack of understanding on the part of officers of the reality of black people in this country and the fear they have of being killed for no good reason."
According to testimony during the trial, the driver who was pulled over admitted to having consumed marijuana but passed field sobriety tests. He was not charged with a DUI but his vehicle was towed because he was driving without insurance.
-- The Associated Press
The Syrian government is prepared to swap prisoners in its jails for people "kidnapped by terrorist groups", state television reported on Monday, citing an official source.
The government is "continuously ready" for such an exchange with rebel groups, "particularly in the framework of efforts being made for the coming meeting in Astana", a news flash on the state-run al-Ikhbariya TV station said.
The Kazakh foreign ministry said on Saturday that Syrian government and rebel delegations had been invited to attend meetings on the Syria crisis in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana on February 15-16.
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Monday 13 February 2017 12:37pm
Ronald W. Jones
A new book Doctors in Denial: The forgotten women in the unfortunate experiment by Ronald W. Jones is being launched today.
Published by Otago University Press, Doctors in Denial is a gripping inside account of professional arrogance and denial written by one of the doctors who exposed the truth about the unfortunate experiment at National Womens Hospital.
When Dr Ron Jones joined the staff of National Womens Hospital in Auckland in 1973 as a junior obstetrician and gynaecologist, Professor Herbert Greens study into the natural history of carcinoma in-situ of the cervix (CIS) had been in progress for seven years.
By the mid-1960s there was almost universal agreement among gynaecologists and pathologists worldwide that CIS was a precursor of cancer, requiring complete removal. Professor Green, however, believed otherwise, and embarked on a study of women with CIS, without their consent, that involved merely observing, rather than definitively treating them.
Many women subsequently developed cancer and some died.
In 1984 Jones and senior colleagues Dr Jock McLean and Dr Bill McIndoe published a scientific paper that exposed the truth, and the disastrous outcome of Professor Greens experiment.
In a public inquiry in 1987 Judge Silvia Cartwright observed that an unethical experiment had been carried out in large numbers of women for over 20 years.
Since that time there have been attempts to cast Professor Greens work in a more generous light.
Author Dr Ron Jones says he believes he had a moral duty to record his personal journey, extending over more than 40 years, and his role in exposing the 'unfortunate experiment' and its appalling outcomes.
For many years I have observed attempts to undermine the conclusions of the Cartwright Report, and historical revisionism about what happened.
University of Otago Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Blaikie, who is attending the launch on behalf of the University of Otago, says he welcomes the publication of Doctors in Denial as a valuable account on a major episode in New Zealands social and medical history.
Auckland University of Technology Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Professor Max Abbott, says AUT is pleased to co-host the launch for Dr Jones, whom he describes as a medical professional of high standing and credibility in the New Zealand medical community.
Author details
Ronald W. Jones is a retired obstetrician and gynaecologist and former clinical professor at the University of Auckland. He is a widely published international authority on lower genital tract pre-cancer and cancer. For over 30 years he has served on a range of national and international committees addressing the natural history, prevention and management of these cancers. He is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease and chair of the Scientific Committee of the International Federation of Cervical Pathology and Colposcopy.
Internationally-known pianist Ralph Votapek comes to the Grove Music Festival at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, at Chapel Lane Presbyterian Church, 5501 Jefferson Ave. Tickets are $10 at the door.
Its quite a coup that he agreed to give a recital in Midland, said Robin Von Wald, director of the Grove Music Festival.
Votapek, who makes his home in East Lansing, promises a good program for his fourth appearance in Midland. His past three performances have been with the Midland Symphony Orchestra. This time around he will be performing solo.
The first half of the program includes a sonata from Amadeus Mozart, the six-piece Opus 118 by Johannes Brahams and the works from Claude DeBussy, with tunes from George Gershwin including the fantasy themes of Porgy and Bess by Earl Wild in the second half.
Its a serious program in the first part, Votapek said. After intermission it lightens up. Tunes that are familiar to most people. I dont play jazz, Im not a jazz pianist, but Ive always been attracted to Gershwin. Ive played Rhapsody in Blue many times.
Votapek says he got a late start for a pianist. In fact, he started with the Hawaiian or lap slide guitar at age 7. it wasnt until the ripe old age of 9 that he began taking piano lessons.
The guitar got me interested in music, he said. My uncle gave it to me. I learned to read notes. When I was 9 my parents bought a piano for my sister. I found I could be good at the piano The repertoire (for the piano) is much more interesting than the guitar. I always enjoyed the fact I didnt have to carry it around.
Although he had a passion for the piano, in high school he played the cello.
It was when he headed to Northwestern University that he and piano hooked up again.
That was a good place to be, he said. It wasnt New York, but Chicago had some good competitions. I played with the Chicago Symphony. Hearing the symphony under Fritz Reiner. It was a great experience.
Hed also managed to receive some awards along the way including being a gold medalist in the first ever Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, important for not only being the first one, but the fact that there for four entrants from Russia.
Its one of the biggest competitions in the country, he said. It was the first time the Russians came to this country. It was one week before the Cuban missile cirrus. I expected the Russians to win, but I had the home field advantage.
He also won the Naumburg Award.
Moving to New York in 1963, he hooked up with a great manager who got him a lot of great concerts. Then came the call from Michigan State University, where he taught for 36 years and still keeps a studio.
Votapek travels the world doing recitals, sometimes joined by his wife, Albertine on a piano as well.
Known around the world, Votapek was soloist on Arthur Fiedlers last Boston Pops recording, The Arthur Fiedler Legacy, which features Gershiwn.
Acknowledging piano recitals arent the most common form of music, Votapek is hoping music lovers will come and check it out.
This is an opportunity to hear a pianist - a one man show for 80 minutes of music, he said. Its not as visually exciting as a ballet or orchestra, but the music is first rate. I guarantee it.
For more on Votapek, www.ralphvotapek.com.
Grove Music Festival once again hosts the Ed Carney Memorial Jazz Festival featuring Shawn Wallace and the Ohio Jazlet on March 11.
Keep up with the music at grovemusic.wordpress.com
High School students entering their junior or senior year in the fall are invited to apply for a three-week student exchange opportunity in Midlands Sister City of Handa, Japan.
Two or three Midland students will be selected to travel to Handa for the exchange that is scheduled to take place during a three-week time frame from July 20 to Aug. 11. Students will receive airfare to travel to Japan and will stay with Japanese host families during the exchange.
The following list includes reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department.
Sunday, Feb. 12
1:16 a.m. Police were called to the 5500 block of Drake Street for a report of fireworks.
Saturday, Feb. 11
12:29 a.m. A motorist was arrested at East Patrick Road and Bayliss Street for driving without insurance and fifth-offense driving on a suspended license.
3:11 a.m. Police were called to a domestic assault at a Gibson Street address.
4:50 p.m. Officers investigated a hit and run traffic crash in the 4900 block of Universal Drive.
5:54 p.m. Property was stolen from the 900 block of Joe Mann Boulevard.
7:18 p.m. Officers investigated a case of retail fraud in the 6800 block of Eastman Avenue.
11:05 p.m. A motorist was arrested at Waldo Avenue and Eastlawn Drive for driving without insurance.
11:38 p.m. A motorist was arrested at Burrell Court and Eastman Avenue for driving on a suspended license.
Friday, Feb. 10
1:38 p.m. Officers investigated an ordinance violation in the 800 block of Ashman Street.
7:11 p.m. Officers were called to a case of retail fraud in the 900 block of Joe Mann Boulevard.
8:50 p.m. Officers were called to a case of retail fraud in the 900 block of Joe Mann Boulevard.
9:37 p.m. Police investigated a case of harassing communication in the 4000 block of Holland Drive.
11:29 p.m. A motorist was arrested at Sturgeon Avenue and Valorie Lane drunken driving.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas elected a leading member of its armed wing as its new Gaza head Monday, Hamas officials said.
"Yahya Sinwar was elected to head the Hamas political office in the Gaza Strip", succeeding Ismail Haniya, the officials said.
The movement, which has controlled the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip for a decade, has been conducting internal elections for several months.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online
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BLOOMINGTON A self-proclaimed history buff, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin appreciated the timing of Sundays tour of the McLean County Museum of History in downtown Bloomington.
Its Abraham Lincolns birthday today, he said after completing a tour of the museum, which also served as the former McLean County Courthouse in Lincolns day. Its the perfect time to do a tour of one of his stops while he was on the circuit in Central Illinois. I am a really big history buff and really proud of Central Illinois and seeing what is being preserved here.
"What is great is to not only see the older history of McLean County, but they still have Beer Nuts, Steak 'n Shake, and lots of other things that mean so much to our world. This is the real deal here. People shouldnt miss this.
Durbins visit to Bloomington-Normal was two-fold. While at the museum, he promoted the Cruisin with Lincoln on 66 Visitors Center. Durbin introduced and supported federal legislation that established the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area that includes historic sites in Bloomington and Normal.
Following the tour, the Democratic senator was a special guest at the McLean County Democratic Partys annual Honoring the Roosevelts dinner at Illinois State Universitys Alumni Center in Normal.
Whats interesting is that we have had so many new people who want to get involved, said Mike Matejka, co-chairman of the McLean County Democratic Party's communications committee. We have oversold this event, actually, and its because we are getting new people interested in what we are doing. When you have someone like Dick Durbin here, people want to know what he is thinking and doing.
More than 200 people attended the event, which also featured a speech from State Sen. Daniel Biss from Illinois' 9th Senate District.
Ive never been, but with all that is going on with our government, I felt like I wanted to start doing something to make a difference, said Teresa Hollings of Normal. A friend of mine was coming and I felt this would be a good opportunity to see how politics really works at the local level.
During the dinner, the party presented its annual Roosevelt Award to Ron Morehead. The award honors the legacy of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor.
Ron has been the president of the Bloomington-Normal Trades and Labor since about 1980, Matejka said. He is the former chair of the Special Olympics and he took Special Olympics from a half-time person at ISU to the point where they have a building here in Normal and are doing so much for these athletes. He did job development and job training programs, and really helped the youth out so much. He definitely deserves this honor.
PONTIAC Pontiac Correctional Center was on full lockdown Monday following a stabbing incident on Sunday that sent a correctional officer to the hospital.
The officer was treated and released, according to Nicole Wilson, director of communications for the Department of Corrections.
Wilson said the department is investigating what happened and would not release further details at this time.
But William Lee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 494, the union that represents Pontiac prison workers, said the correctional officer was stabbed in the head with a sharpened weapon around noon Sunday.
No one else was injured, said Lee, who also works as a guard at the prison. He said the injured correctional officer was not at work on Monday.
Lee declined further comment.
The prison also was placed on lockdown in August after four correctional officers and two lieutenants were injured in an altercation with inmates. All were treated and released.
Following the August incident, the union organized an informational picket outside the prison that questioned policy changes that the union said made the prison a more dangerous place to work.
International Paper Chairman Mark Sutton Named Executive Papermaker of the Year Mark Sutton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of International Paper. February 13, 2017 PaperAge announced that Mark Sutton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of International Paper is the recipient of PaperAge's 30th annual "Executive Papermaker of the Year" award. An exclusive interview with Mr. Sutton will be published in the March/April 2017 issue of PaperAge magazine. PaperAge selects its Executive Papermaker of the Year based on corporate vision, strategic objectives and strong leadership both within the individual's company and in the paper industry as a whole. The award has been an industry tradition since 1988. In May of 2016, Sutton announced that IP had entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Weyerhaeuser's pulp business for $2.2 billion. The deal, which closed on Dec. 1, 2016, bolstered IP's legacy pulp business with the addition of five pulp mills and two converting facilities that produce fluff pulp, softwood pulp, and specialty pulp products for a number of consumer applications including diapers, other hygiene products, tissue, and textiles. Weyerhaeuser's pulp business has an outstanding customer base served from low-cost, well-run assets that complement our existing system and offers significant synergy opportunities, said Sutton. This transaction will position us as the premier global supplier of fluff pulp and will enhance our ability to generate additional free cash flow. Also in 2016, IP acquired a newsprint mill in Madrid, Spain. IP plans to convert the mill's relatively new paper machine during the second half of 2017 for the production of recycled containerboard with an expected capacity of 380,000 metric tonnes. After completion of the machine conversion, the mill's production will support IP's growing corrugated packaging business in the EMEA region. Bio Mark Sutton
Mark Sutton became chairman of the International Paper Board of Directors on January 1, 2015 and CEO of International Paper on November 1, 2014. Immediately prior to becoming CEO, he served as president and chief operating officer with responsibility for leading and running the company's global businesses. He has been a member of the International Paper board of directors since June 1, 2014. Sutton has been with the company his entire career. He joined International Paper in 1984 as an engineer at the Pineville, Louisiana mill. In 1994, he was named mill manager at the Thilmany, Wisconsin mill, which at the time was part of International Paper's industrial papers business. In 2000, Sutton relocated to Europe to serve as director of European corrugated packaging operations and was promoted to vice president and general manager responsible for all corrugated packaging operations across seven countries in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region in 2002. In 2005, Sutton was named vice president of corporate strategic planning and relocated to IP's headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. He was named senior vice president, global supply chain, in 2007 and in 2009 became senior vice president, printing and communications papers the Americas. Sutton was appointed to senior vice president, industrial packaging, in November 2011. Sutton is a member of The Business Council and the Business Roundtable. He serves on the American Forest & Paper Association Board of Directors and the International Advisory Board of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo. He was appointed Chairman of the U.S. Russian Business Council and was also appointed to the U.S. Section of the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Memphis Tomorrow and Board of Governors for New Memphis Institute. Sutton holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University. About International Paper
International Paper is a global leader in packaging and paper with manufacturing operations in North America, Europe, Latin America, Russia, Asia and North Africa. Its businesses include industrial and consumer packaging along with uncoated papers and pulp. To learn more, please visit: internationalpaper.com. About PaperAge
Originally founded in 1884 as a paper industry news publication titled, United States Paper Maker, PaperAge today has evolved into the premier publication for paper industry professionals around the world. To learn more please visit: www.paperage.com. SOURCE: PaperAge
Aside from being undeniably talented and insanely gorgeous, Emily Ratajkowski has also proudly claimed the label of staunch feminist. The model/actress/all-around-bad-girl has continued to back up other women, most notably when she and fellow body-posi celebrity friend Kim Kardashian broke the internet with their #liberated topless bathroom mirror selfie.
But, unlike certain other women who have revealed that their specific brand of feminism comes with strict guidelines, Emily Ratajkowski wants everyone to know that all women deserve respect. This even includes Melania Trump.
Last year, The Daily Mail started a rumor about the First Lady working as an escort in the 1990s. Though the publication has since retracted their statement, Ms. Trump has had a hard time separating herself from the rumors. Even now, five months after the rumor was proven to be untrue, Melania is still the subject of some very misogynist criticism.
This morning, Emily Ratajkowski took to Twitter to offer some support for Melania after a New York Times reporter allegedly referred to the First Lady as a "hooker."
Sat next to a journalist from the NYT last night who told me "Melania is a hooker." Whatever your politics it's crucial to call this out for
Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) February 13, 2017
what it is: slut shaming. I don't care about her nudes or sexual history and no one should.
Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) February 13, 2017
After noting that referring to a woman as a "hooker" is still slut shaming no matter whose side you may be on politically, Emily, who was an extremely vocal Bernie Sanders supporter during the primaries, then told her followers that no one should "care about [Melania's] nudes or sexual history."
Now that's what I call feminism.
Splash photo via Billy Farrell/BFA.com.
While Kate Nash surfaced back in the mid-00s as a rising pop phenom, she's become so much more than that. Candy-coated hits like " Foundations" and "Mouthwash" first put her on the map, it's been her punk-fueled, feminist melodies and activism that have really shaped her career. After first releasing songs through Universal/CherryTree, the British musician went on play in a variety of punk bands and form her own label, Have 10p Records, alongside creating the Kate Nash's Rock n Roll for Girls After-School Music Club to inspire teenage girls.
Nash has always spoken her mind and made sure that her fans felt safe with her, so it's not surprising that as our political climate has inched into shaky territory, she's been speaking out about causes near and dear to her hear. In late 2016, Nash was one of many celebrities who assisted in efforts to help stop the Dakota Access Pipeline completion by starting a petition for like-minded musicians. PAPER caught up with Nash to talk about mental health issues in the music industry, fighting for Standing Rock and her forthcoming album.
What inspired you to make the petition for artists for Standing Rock?
I had seen a lot of talk online [about the protests], and I was like, "What the fuck is this?" The more I looked into it, the more fucked up I thought it was. I just really felt for the tribe. There's been a lot of eye-opening things about moving to America and learning about the history of America as an English woman--what I've seen in movies versus what I've seen on road trips and trying to find the truth out there. This is an example of something America should address the truth about.
I love Mother Nature -- I'm really inspired by the planet. As I've gotten older it's more a part of my life. Something so basic as water...we need it to survive. We're 60 percent water. I got to know my friend Danielle Owens-Reid who founded Everyone Is Gay, wrote a book for parents of gay kids, and started the tumblr Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber a couple of years ago. She's one of those people who I knew we were going to be friends, but kept missing each other. When Donald Trump got elected, we were like, "we need to be friends now." Danielle was very involved with Shailene Woodley's work with Standing Rock, so she knew a lot about it. I thought the music industry should have a perspective on this, and maybe I should ask musicians to sign it. We finished this letter and started asking people to sign it. We got such a great reaction to it -- we got 300 musicians to sign it. It went up on Noisey, NYLON and a bunch of other publications, but we're waiting on Standing Rock to tell us what to do about it. The end goal is to elevate the voices of Standing Rock.
Where are you living right now?
I'm living in L.A. right now, but I'm going to be spending a lot of time in New York working on a musical. I've been working with Annie XX, who works on Hamilton, on a show we've been working on for years. I'll be spending some time in the spring in New York.
Are you releasing a new record soon too?
Yes! I'm releasing a record this summer.
Will your new work branch into the pop realm again? You've been in the lo-fi punk space for your last two records.
The new work is actually a mix of pop and the other stuff. I think it's a good mix of all three records. I think it's really different. I'm actually working on a fifth record, which is really different, so I was like, "I need to release this record." It's something I've never done before. This [new record] feels like me. There's definitely some pop on there, which has been fun to go back to. I love pop music and loads of different kinds of music. I want to experiment with that and my career.
What were you listening to when you made your fourth record?
I was listening to a lot of pop I listened to growing up: Pink's Missundaztood, Blink-182, Sum 41, M.I.A.--and musical theater because I've been working on a musical.
I know you dropped your single "My Little Alien" in the fall, but what's your forthcoming record about?
This record is really about moving to the U.S. and the end of my twenties: I'm 29 now. As soon as you hit 27 you feel like, "fuck, I'm leaving my twenties." It doesn't stop: you just keep feeling it. I'm going to be 30 in six months, but I've felt like this since I turned 27, so I had written these songs over that period of time. A lot of it is about my mental health and addressing some of the stuff that happened to me in the [music] industry.
What happened to you in the music industry?
When I look at people who were working with me, they were all old men and they took advantage of me. I just don't think there's a lot of support and care for artists and their mental health. Most artists have mental health issues. This tour I'm doing in the UK -- we're doing it with MIND (a mental health charity in the UK). A lot of the songs I've written address the topic of [mental health]. I just want it to become really easy to talk about.
What's been the hardest thing you've dealt with in regards to mental health issues?
Anxiety and OCD. I started learning about my issues in 2010, and then I started really learning about them in 2011, 2012 and 2013. I really learned what to do to take care of myself. I'm not against [medicine], but I don't take it. I definitely think it's overprescribed in America, but I also think that some people need medication. If in two years these [coping mechanisms] aren't working, I'd be open to it. I've seen some of my heroes in bad places. I've seen some things where I'm like, this generation of women got forgotten about and lost. Men get to be treated as rockstar legends and behave a certain way, which is attributed to addiction. It's just seen as a cool thing, and I think that needs to be addressed. Drug addiction and alcohol addiction is why we've lost some of the greats and will continue to do so.
What do you think is needed resource-wise to combat mental health issues?
Your own choices about who you work with -- that's it. I've made differences to my career with regards to who I work with, and I've worked with some terrible people. I've also worked with a lot of people that took advantage of me, wanted me to work for them and make lots of money for them and not for myself. I was also 19 or 20. There really isn't anyone out there to be like, "Hey, how are you? maybe you should see a therapist or take care of your own health." No one is asking those questions until you pick the right group of people to work with you. It really comes down to your choices of who surrounds you.
Last month you posted on Twitter about your sexuality, noting that you feel it's fluid. What prompted you to open up about it now?
My sexuality is fluid. I have had feelings for/ been attracted to/ had sex w both men & women.
Kate Nash (@katenash) January 15, 2017
Trump. So inspiring [laughs]. We're entering a political climate that I find very frightening and serious. Someone is going to be in power and influence the country that I've chosen to live in speaks in ways that I don't agree with, has policies I don't agree with, is a bully, has said racist, homophobic and sexist things. He's been horrible about everything.
I don't feel the need to have an identity myself -- I've always loved the gay community. I see myself as fluid, in that, I can fall in love with any human. I have fallen in love with a woman before. I have a boyfriend right now--I love him and I'm really happy with him, but it wouldn't be weird to me if one day I was like, "I want to be with a woman." I've never felt like I needed this to be my identity. I think that comes from having super open, liberal parents. I know that they'll accept me. I've never felt the need to talk about it because it's always been very normal to me. I was at the airport the other day, and I was like, I should just be open about this because we'll enter a time where all of these people will be in power and there are threats to civil rights that will take us back years. Being a true voice is really important right now, and I think it's my only power. I want my fans to know they're so safe with me and can be themselves. Some people don't have a family [like mine]. I want them to know they can come to my shows and be themselves.
Splash photo by Kelsey Hart
A roadside bomb killed three Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in a restive northwestern tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said Monday.
The Improvised Explosive Device went off as the trio were on patrol Sunday on a motorbike in Toikhola village in South Waziristan tribal district.
"Three FC (Frontier Corps) soldiers were martyred in a bomb blast during a patrol in South Waziristan," a senior security official told AFP, adding that the bomb had been detonated remotely.
The attack came as the powerful army chief of staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited the district, the military said, confirming the soldiers had died.
South Waziristan is one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal areas where the army has for more than a decade been battling militants linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
The areas are off-limits to journalists and it is impossible to independently verify incidents reported by the military or militant groups.
The army launched an operation in June 2014 in neighbouring North Waziristan to wipe out militant bases in the tribal areas and end an insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives since 2004.
As a result security has improved. Attacks still take place, but fewer than previously.
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A group of teachers from Philadelphia has declared it will put its focus on empowering and helping educators more than addressing political issues. At a summit for 200 educators Saturday, the Teach for America Greater Philadelphia signified their commitment to teachers and students regardless of who is leading and changing the political landscape that will affect America's education system.
One of the chief problems the group intends to address is teacher burnout. Putting the focus on this will help with the improvement of the quality of education in the city even if the sector changes its leaders.
"Teach for America is bipartisan in our politics, but we stay grounded and rooted in expanded opportunity for young people," director Charles Adams said, according to CBS Philadelphia. "Regardless of who is in the seat of power locally and or nationally to make sure that we are agile and responsive to that, so the work that we do in Philadelphia continues."
The statement comes as other Philadelphia educator groups are voicing their opposition against the new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers through its president Jerry Jordan expressed disappointment over DeVos' confirmation, citing the secretary as "an unqualified, unfit nominee," according to another CBS Philadelphia report.
Philly reports that the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers rounded up its members to call state senators and raise their concerns about DeVos before she was confirmed. One member even set up a GoFundMe to "buy Pat Toomey's vote," but the money will actually go to a leadership camp in the city, which will likely lose funding when Devos and President Donald Trump decide to overhaul the public school system.
DeVos, however, took office on Wednesday, Feb. 8, despite mounting opposition against her confirmation. In one of her first visits to a public school, the government official was met with angry protesters, Parent Herald previously reported.
Americans who are poorly educated low-income earners suffer the most when it comes to chronic pain. A new study has revealed the disparity between this demographic and the educated and wealthy is greater than previously thought.
A researcher studied 12 years of data from 19,000 subjects above the age of 51 and discovered that poorly educated low-income Americans suffer chronic pain 370 percent more than the rich. The study was published in the Journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain.
Study author Hanna Grol-Prokopczyk of the University of Buffalo learned more adults reported chronic pain cases from 1998 to 2010 and that number is rising. Her study supports the 2011 findings from the National Academy of Science Health and Medicine Division, which stated that chronic pain is a bigger health problem in America than a combination of three diseases: heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
"I found that people with lower levels of education and wealth don't just have more pain, they also have more severe pain," Grol-Prokopczyk said in a press release. "I also looked at pain-related disability, meaning that pain is interfering with the ability to do normal work or household activities."
The researcher believed her latest report is a fitting reminder for health workers to consider all chronic pain cases as legitimate, especially for low-income earners. Grol-Prokopczyk also cited the need for more research in treatment options.
"There are a lot of pressures right now to reduce opioid prescription," the expert noted. "Health care providers shouldn't assume that someone who shows up in their office complaining of pain is just trying to get an opioid prescription."
As it is, an opioid is tagged as a high-risk option for treating chronic pain. Even with this knowledge, however, no other safer option has been provided by the health industry. "We need to invest in other effective treatments for chronic pain, and/or figure out how to prevent it in the first place," Grol-Prokopczyk said.
A 10-year-old girl was able to buy her dream car after her business venture took off one year after it opened. After Ashlin Albright from North Carolina established her welding craft business, Tri 5 Girl, she was able to save enough money for a 1955 Chevy Bel Air.
Albright grew up watching her father Mark work with wood and metal that she took interest in doing this, too. Tri 5 Girl specializes in specially-crafted wood and metal home decorations that have become a hit in her local community.
"She took it and made it her own and she's just astonished me in what she's accomplished," Albright's dad said, according to WHAS 11. The young girl impressed her parents not only with her ability to create hand-crafted items but also because she managed to operate her business with a lot of sales.
According to My Fox 8, Albright had a goal of saving up to purchase Ethel, the Chevy Bel Air she had been eyeing on since two years ago. Now, she's working to refurbish Ethel, named after an "I Love Lucy" character, and make the car road-ready with a new paint job, new engine, a CD player and air conditioning.
She'll able to drive the car when she's 16-years-old. "I'll drive it every day," the 10-year-old said.
The idea to start a business came from Albright's mother Nina, who said her daughter has always been an old soul. The young girl was looking for photos online for her birthday invitation and that's when she started falling in love with the Chevy Bel Air.
"She said, 'Maybe I can drive that when I'm 16.' It started progressing, she wanted to save and got upset because she was only 9," Albright's mom said. "I said, 'Maybe you can make things and sell them,'" Nina added.
The 10-year-old grew her business by assisting her father and also showcasing her creations at local craft fairs. When she's not working on her car or completing orders for Tri 5 Girl, Albright is busy with school as a fourth grader at Seagrove Elementary School. She's a straight-A student, according to Courier-Tribune.
A convicted sex offender was arrested and charged in relation to the death of an Ohio State University student. The student vanished and was found with a gunshot wound later.
The convicted sex offender was identified as 29-year-old Brian Golsby. He was released from prison last November. As for his new charges, he faced aggravated murder, rape, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in the death of 21-year-old Reagan Tokes. Grove City police said in a statement Tokes' nude body was found last Thursday near a park entrance in the area, Fox News reported.
Tokes was last seen after she got off from work at a restaurant in Columbus on Wednesday evening. She was reported missing by her off-campus roommates and co-workers after not being able to go home. She was found with two gunshot wounds in the head, as per Grove City Police Sgt. Chris White.
As for Golsby, he was arrested on Saturday at around 4 a.m. He was identified as a suspect via DNA evidence gathered inside and around Tokes' vehicle, which was found near the home where Golsby lives in Columbus. Authorities believed the encounter of Golsby and Tokes was after she left the restaurant.
It was not confirmed if Golsby admitted he killed Tokes but White said he gave statements and details of the events of that night, which are almost the same as the police's findings. Tokes and Golsby were not in any way related.
Golsby registered as a sex offender last year. He pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery charges in May 201 and received a six-year penalty. The case was about him and a woman he raped in front of her two-year-old child. Golsby then forced the woman to withdraw cash from an ATM machine then robbed her apartment.
The Columbus Dispatch reported Tokes' employed planned a candlelight vigil to honor her. All the proceeds from the sales of the restaurant for one day will benefit a scholarship fund to remember the slain student. A GoFundMe page was also set up for the scholarship.
The funeral service for Tokes will be this Tuesday at 10 a.m. Tokes was a fourth-year psychology major and was set to graduate this May.
Meryl Streep and Donald Trump have never gotten on the same page following her Golden Globes speech. In a recent event, the multi-award winning actress once again talked about the president. Streep also defended and honored her former teacher, a transgender.
In January, Streep slammed the president without dropping his name in her Golden Globe speech and she did the same during the Human Rights Campaign Manhattan gala. The event was mounted by a nonprofit organization that protects the rights of the LGBT community and advocates for the minority group's equality.
In her latest speech, Streep focused on the tweets of the president and noted his Twitter posts can lash, intimidate, punish, humiliate and delegitimize the press and his enemies. After her Golden Globes speech, Trump took to Twitter to call Streep one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood.
She addressed the president's criticism as she spoke to the delegates of Human Rights Campaign event, saying she is overrated but is also "over-berated" as she became the target of attacks after speaking against Trump. "If we live through this precarious moment, if his catastrophic instinct to retaliate doesn't lead us to nuclear winter, we will have much to thank our current leader for," the actress said, The Washington Post reported.
The Hollywood Reporter also shared Streep received the Human Rights Campaign's National Ally for Equality Award. She dedicated her award to her gay and transgender teachers, friends and colleagues.
She focused on one particular New Jersey teacher from middle school who taught music. Streep said her teacher became one of the first transgender women in the country.
Streep said her particular teacher lived unnecessarily under duress but noted she talked about that specific teacher because she is one of the most influential personalities in her past who helped her be an artist. Streep said she is amazed with the human history because the culture has now shifted as per the LGBT community.
Streep ended her speech by saying people have the human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. She also called for others to stand up and act. Listen to the actress in the video below.
Or, by tight medical-school admissions, high tuition rates, and the long hours of residency, have we made it into one?
Among the innumerable articles on the dreadful effects of Trumps temporary 7-country entry ban is this one from the Chicago Tribune, Travel ban uncertainty worries hospitals, med students as Match Day nears, which starts with the human-interest angle of a Sudanese-trained doctor worrying that the ban will prevent him from getting his hoped-for residency in the United States.
Now, the article doesnt explicitly specify that the doctor intends to remain in the United States, but it implies this later in the article, which strikes me as, well, a bit disturbing for a country with a physician ratio of 0.28 doctors per 1,000 people to be sending its citizens to a country with a ratio of 2.45 doctors per 1,000, though, of course, whats going on seems to be that the upper class in Sudan as well as a variety of other third-world countries comes to the U.S. for residencies and then secures the necessary visas to stay on. (See the CIA Factbook for these statistics.)
And the Tribune places this in a broader context: we need these non-citizen residents because
. . . hospitals in Illinois and across the nation rely heavily on doctors from abroad. Last year, about 14 percent of residents who matched through the main matching program more than 3,700 people were non-U.S. citizens who graduated from medical schools outside the U.S., according to the National Resident Matching Program. This year, more than 42,000 people are expected to apply for 32,000 residency spots across the country, in all.
Whats more,
The Association of American Medical Colleges projects that the U.S. will have a shortage of between 46,100 and 90,400 doctors by 2025. Doctors from other countries can help ease that gap, said Dr. Atul Grover, executive vice president of the association.
Here are some more statistics:
In 2015, 18,705 students graduated from American medical schools. The only data I was able to find on how many of these were non-Americans came from 2010, when a total of 171 students came from outside the United States, which is a surprisingly small number (perhaps its increased in the meantime), attributed to the difficulty in gaining admission to medical school from non-US universities. On the other hand, comparatively larger numbers complete their medical education abroad and then seek residencies in the United States: a Slate article reports that 12,380 doctors attempted to match from medical schools outside the United States, and 6,301 succeeded, out of a total of 27,293 PGY-1 available positions (2015 data; PGY-1 seems to be the standard program for medical school graduates and there are about another 3,000 positions which seem to be for those who have already completed some residency); for 2016, the Tribunes 3,700 non-US citizen, non-US medical school graduates seem to be relative to a total of 27,860 PGY-1 spots (at least, this get you to their cited 14%), the corresponding 2016 data is here. How to make sense of this data isnt entirely clear it doesnt seem to be the case that U.S. medical school graduates losing out to foreign would-be residents, but just that there arent as many students graduating from U.S. medical schools as the need, based on residency slots, would suggest.
And the residency positions, as described in the Tribune article, are lucrative for the hospitals at which they train; they are paid about $50,000 but work long hours. Whats more, according to The Hill, the residency slots are actually funded primarily by the government, not the hospitals themselves (the exception is that foreign medical schools, e.g., in Grenada, spring for slots for their graduates), based partly on budgetary constraints and partly on projections of need. It seems to me that at some point I read that its actually the Medicare budget that contains this funding.
And the larger context is a projected shortage in doctors. According to the New York Times (and surely only one of many such articles),
The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that by 2025 there will be a shortfall of between 46,100 and 90,400 doctors. In primary care, it projects a shortfall of between 12,500 and 31,100 doctors. The baby boomers are getting older and sicker, and they have more complex conditions than they did when they were younger, including arthritis, high blood pressure, pulmonary disease, diabetes and cancer. The Affordable Care Act is expected to accelerate the need for additional medical care. Increased insurance coverage increases demand, and Obamacare alone is projected to require about 16,000 to 17,000 more physicians than would have been required without it.
The Times follows this up by making the argument that we dont really need more physicians, but rather need to move to delivering more of the medical services that people need by physicians assistants and licensed nurse practitioners. The Tribune, on the other hand, and other similar articles, seems to put this, too, into the category of jobs Americans wont do which simply doesnt make sense to me, considering that, at the same time, were constantly talking about the fact that rote mechanical jobs will dry up and Americans will have to expect to work at jobs requiring a higher level of skill. Yes, sure, what with an aging population, there will be an increasing need for doctors and medical professionals of various kinds relative to the size of the working-age population, but are we really saying that there are not proportionately enough Americans with the intellectual capacity to practice medicine? Or is whats really going on that, at all levels lawmakers, government officials, policymakers, hospital administrators, medical school directors its easier to maintain the status quo and recruit from abroad than make the sorts of changes that would bring more Americans into the medical profession?
Lets face it: there are substantial obstacles to practicing medicine. Unlike the typical case (so far as I understand) abroad, where university students study medicine from the start, the U.S. requires a bachelors degree before even beginning to study medicine in a specialized manner. Medical school tuition is so high as to mean that students, from the outset, adopt a mindset of earning a high income. Residencies, which could be considered the start of ones professional career (considering that in other fields a fair amount of on the job training also happens before one can work independently) instead require so many hours and are, in general, structured such that it requires placing a personal life on hold or at least thats my understanding, and if thats not the case, I doubt the message is getting to students who might be considering a career in medicine. If the entire system dissuades all but the most determined (and foreigners who are willing to put up with this for the sake of coming to America), then maybe the system needs fixing, rather than relying on importing doctors from abroad.
I am not an expert in medical training systems in, for example, Europe. I have the vague impression that there are not nearly as many obstacles and nothing like the projections of shortages we have here, but my various attempts at finding out from google arent getting me anywhere. Readers, what do you know?
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADoctor_examines_patient_(1).jpg; By Unknown photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Rep. Justin Humphrey, an Oklahoma lawmaker, has introduced a bill that would require a woman to get written permission from her sexual partner before obtaining an abortion. And theres more.
At first, Humphrey said that the original intention of the bill was to ensure that fathers are involved in supporting a child from conception. I was wanting fathers to have to pay child support at the beginning, he said, but that specific language was excised from the bill. Ultimately, he said, his intent was to let men have a say. I believe one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all of these types of decisions, he said. I understand that they feel like that is their body, he said of women. I feel like it is a separate what I call them is, is youre a host. And you know when you enter into a relationship youre going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and dont get pregnant, he explained. So thats where Im at. Im like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after youre irresponsible then dont claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when youre the host and you invited that in.
Its 2017, people! This wasnt okay in 1950 and it isnt okay now!
Humphrey went so far as to refer to a pregnant woman as a host. I often try to shift individuals who are anti-abortion away from abortion restrictions by arguing that things like effective birth control or maternity leave and childcare subsidies are a far better way to cut the abortion rate than a ban (with its accompanying DIY abortions and elevated womens health problems). But this? Rhetoric like this makes it hard for me to have a rational conversation.
Lets look closer at this bit for a moment:
And you know when you enter into a relationship youre going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and dont get pregnant.
This is incredibly garbled, but if Im reading it correctly Humphrey is saying that having unprotected sex is the equivalent of agreeing to be a host and inviting the zygote? embryo? fetus? into your body. This idea isnt actually that fringe in anti-abortion circles, its just not usually stated in such a blatantly offensive way.
After all, check out this bit:
Im like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after youre irresponsible then dont claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when youre the host and you invited that in.
Interestingly, the people who make this argument are the same ones who are completely behind the Castle Doctrine, which allows individuals to lethally shoot people who come into their home uninvited. Based on his statement above, Humphrey would argue that having unprotected sex is the equivalent of inviting the parasite (Ill use that language since Humphrey is) into your body. But at the same time, I doubt Humphrey would see leaving ones front door unlocked (or even open) as the equivalent of inviting strangers into ones home.
This is veering uncomfortably close to drawing an equivalence between a womans body and a piece of property. Let me just leave you with this: Conservatives believe in individuals right to protect the sanctity of their homes with lethal force, but not in womens right to protect the sanctity of their bodies with lethal force.
Ive been writing about this basic issue for at least half a decade and Im seriously tired of it. I well remember being pregnantIve done it twiceand I didnt like feeling inhabited. It did feel like Id lost control over my body. I tolerated it because my pregnancies were intentional, wanted pregnancies. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to require someone to go through an entire pregnancy against their will.
I could go into all the various arguments at play here. I could point out that the vast, vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester, and that having an abortion is a form of taking responsibility. I could point out that all birth control methods fail sometimes, and that his party typically opposes giving women affordable access to the most effective forms of contraceptives. I could point out the absurdity of Humphrey introducing a bill that does not actually affect him, given his reproductive anatomy. I could point out the horribly huge problems with treating women as a host, and robbing her of her of her control of her own body.
But today I am just tired.
On the plus side, at least Humphrey is laying bare an argument conservatives have been making for quite some time, and using language so extreme that maybejust maybeitll jolt some people out of their complacency.
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Reportedly, some progressive circles have seen calls for homeschooling in response to Betsy DeVos confirmation as United States Secretary of Education. I suspect that this is primarily a made-up controversy. The pattern was predictablefirst, several news articles showcasing a handful of tweets, and then a slew of conservative think-pieces mocking liberals for a supposedly widespread movement toward homeschooling in reaction to DeVos.
Given that I was homeschooled and now have a daughter in public schooland given that I was raised conservative and am now progressiveI am inclined to provide my perspective on this nonetheless. First, homeschooling in response to DeVos makes no sense given that it actively furthers DeVos goalprivatizing education. Second, I know what it is like to be homeschooled as a political statement made by my parents, and I dont recommend it.
I am not anti-homeschooling. If your child wants to be homeschooled and you have the drive, the resources, and the interest to make it happen, more power to you! It is with homeschooling as a response to DeVos confirmation that I take issue. If you want to oppose DeVosand I am with you 100% on thatthe most effective way to do so is to support your local public schools (something you can do whether or not you have school-age children).
Lets be clear hereDeVos has made no secret of her goal to privatize the United States education system. I read one interview where she refused to state that she supported public schools, preferring to say she supported public funding of education. This is actually an idea I heard growing up in a conservative homethe argument was that we should abolish public schools entirely, replacing them with private schools; the government would assign a certain amount of money to each child to use as a voucher, to attend the private school of their choice.
Whats wrong with this vision? Well, for one thing, the lack of accountability. Many states provide no oversight whatsoever, and as a result, there are private schools out there with the poorest of standards. Did you know there is a Christian school curriculum designed specifically to eliminate the need for a teacher, replacing the teacher with a classroom monitor? And then there is the problem of abuse going unchecked in private schools, due to a lack of public accountability and transparency.
I am by no means saying public schools are perfect in these areas, but at least we can create federal or state policy initiatives designed to fix problems and improve education. Without standards, public money will flow into private schools that do a poor job of educating their students, sometimes miseducating them entirely (dont get me started on the problems with much of the Christian school curriculum out there).
Theres more wrong toowhat options would secular parents have when choosing a private school in the Bible belt? it is easy to imagine full swaths of the country where, without public schools, Christian schools might offer the only educational option. What of Muslim families, or Jewish families, living in these areas?
If you believe that public schools are an important part of a democratic society based on the separation of church and stateand those who support DeVos typically believe exactly thisthe best way to oppose DeVos plans is to support your local public school. One way I support public education is by sending my children to our local public school and volunteering there regularly. Individuals without school-age children can support their public schools as wellmany schools need literacy tutors, or individuals willing to assist with school clubs. Attend school board meetings. Find out what supplies your local public school needs and make a donation.
Become involved in your local public schools.
I am not saying that progressive parents have to send their children to public schools, or else they betray the cause (or some such). I would never suggest putting support for public schools ahead of a childs wellbeing. There are times when homeschooling or private or charter schools are in a childs best academic and socio-emotional interest. But homeschooling for these reasons is different from homeschooling in direct response to DeVos, and it doesnt forestall being involved in your local public schools in the ways outlined above.
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The first edition of Sharm's Arab and European Film Festival announced the participation of two critically-acclaimed Egyptian films - 'Ali, The Goat and Ibrahim' and 'In The Last Days of The City' -
Ali, The Goat And Ibrahim, directed by Sherif El-Bindary and In The Last Days of The City by Tamer Said were announced as the two Egyptian films to be screened at the first edition of Sharm El-Sheikh Arab and European Film festival in March.
The festival will run between 5 and 11 March and is headed by Samir Seif.
Artistic director of the festival Ahmed Hassouna said that both films will be premiering in Egypt after they had their world premieres at international festivals and garnered awards.
The festival is organised by the Noon Foundation for Culture and Arts (NOONCA).
Journalist Gamal Zayda, secretary-general of NOONCA, stressed in a report on Al-Ahram Arabic his keenness to present distinctive contemporary Egyptian films to the local and international audiences of the festival.
Ali, The Goat, And Ibrahim had its world premiere at DIFF alongside eight other Egyptian films.
Directed by Sherif El-Bendary, Ali, The Goat And Ibrahim was written by Ahmed Amer and is based on the story by Ibrahim El-Batout.
Ali, The Goat, And Ibrahim tells the story of a man who believes that his dead girlfriend has been reincarnated as a goat that he names Nada. At the healers clinic, Ali meets Ibrahim, and they are both diagnosed as being cursed.
When the healer prescribes a solution to break the spell, it sets them off on an adventure that takes them to the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Nile.
The film premiered at the 13th Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), where Egyptian actor Ali Sobhy won the Muhr feature award for Best Actor.
Directed by Egyptian filmmaker Tamer El-Said,In the Last Days of the Citysees his alter-ego, actor Khalid Abdalla, star as a Cairo-based filmmaker strugging to make a film about the city, which is in a state of uproar.
Also starring Laila Samy and Hanan Youssef, the shooting of the film began in 2008, taking the filmmakers to Cairo, Alexandria, Beirut, Baghdad and Berlin and bringing together many talents from the Arab world.
The film premiered at the Berlinale, where it received the Caligari award, and later won the Grand Prix at the Polish MFF T-Mobile Nowe Horyzonty Film Festival in Wroclaw.
It also won the Grand Prix and the Jury of Youth Best film Award at the Festival des 3 Continents in France, and also garnered the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Arab Film Festival in San Francisco.
In October, the film was excluded from participating at the Cairo International Film Festival after it had been accepted, a decision the filmmakers tried to fight.
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
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Global automakers gather in Tehran
02/13/17
Source: Tehran Times
TEHRAN- Major European and Asian automakers have participated in the 4th Iran Automotive Industry International Conference (IAIIC) which was inaugurated in Tehran on Sunday.
In addition to Peugeot Citroen, Scania, and Renault, some other automobile and auto part manufacturers from Turkey, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and China are also taking part in the two-day event, IRNA reported.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Renault Senior Vice-President and Chairman for Africa-Middle-East-India Bernard Cambier called Iran one of his company's major participants in the expansion of its international ties.
"We intend to develop collaboration with our Iranian counterparts and to do so we plan to provide some fast and quality services," he said.
Also speaking at the conference, Ambassador of South Korea to Tehran Kim Seung-Ho asserted that Iranian automotive industry will soon turn into a powerful competitor for its European and Asian rivals, regarding the supports that domestic manufacturers receive from the Iranian government and the taken steps to improve their capabilities as well as international relations.
For his part, the chairman of the board of directors of Iran's Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO) Mansour Moazzami also made some remarks in the conference underlining Iran's post-sanction era as a chance to improve cooperation between Iranian companies and their foreign counterparts and take advantage of the country's potentials in the automotive sector.
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Expect ransomware to grow more aggressive in the coming years, including higher ransom payments and attempts to go beyond attacking data by shutting down entire computer systems to utilities or factories.
I see no reason for ransomware to stop, said Neil Jenkins, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Its shown to be effective.
On Monday at the RSA cybersecurity conference, experts gave a grim outlook on the future of ransomware, which they fear will spread. Through the attacks, cybercriminals have already managed to rake in US$1 billion last year, according to at one estimate.
The computer infections work by first targeting the victims data, and encrypting it. The ransomware will then threaten to delete the data, unless a payment, usually in bitcoin, is made.
However, a key concern is that ransomware will start targeting critical infrastructure, said Jenkins, the director of the DHS enterprise performance management office.
He pointed to the recent example of an Austrian hotel hit with ransomware that took out its keycard system for the hotel doors. Future ransomware attacks might try to lockdown control systems for a water utility, threatening its operations, Jenkins said.
I worry thats going to be the next step, he said.
Too many important computer systems are also connected to the internet when they shouldnt be, said Gal Shpantzer, CEO of Security Outliers. Small businesses are also failing to properly segregate their computers from other processes, like a factory assembly line, he said. When a ransomware infection hits, it has the potential to shut down the entire operation.
Thats where ransomware is going to go, Shpantzer said. I think its inevitable. People are going to be injured or lose their life. This is starting to affect things that shouldnt be on the internet, or are physically moving.
The hackers behind ransomware infections are also demanding higher and higher payments, some times over $40,000, said Jeremiah Grossman, chief of security strategy at SentinelOne.
There have even been a few ransomware cases where victims had no choice but to pay over seven figures to recover their system, Grossman added, declining to provide details.
Bottom line, its getting worse out there, and it will continue to do so, he said.
Ransomware infections are already harassing small and medium businesses, according to Robert Gibbons, CTO at security provider Datto. His company conducted a survey that found 60 percent of its partners have experienced one to five ransomware attacks in the last year.
The remainder had experienced over five attacks. Ransomware is still an epidemic, he said.
Experts recommend that businesses and users frequently back up their data and also test to those backups to make sure they work. Security vendors have also published tools that can free computers from some ransomware infections.
When an attack hits, victims may be tempted to pay the hackers the ransom. But Gibbons warned that one out of four times, the hackers still declined to decrypt the victims data, despite receiving payment.
Break out that Ride the Lightning T-shirt, Metallica has announced two Southern California tour dates for the summer.
The Bay Area metal band will play the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on July 29 and Petco Park in San Diego on Aug. 6 in support of the groups late 2016 release, HardwiredTo Self-Destruct. The openers for the two dates are Orange Countys Avenged Sevenfold and Frances Gojira.
The announcement came on the heels of Metallicas fire-filled performance with Lady Gaga at the Grammys on Sunday night, which was followed up by a gig at the Hollywood Palladium. Metallica had hinted at a Rose Bowl date for the summer during an intimate show at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles in December.
Tickets for Pasadena and San Diego go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 17 for $55.50-$155.50.
Fan club members can get tickets on Tuesday, Feb. 14. Legacy Fan Club members have access at 9 a.m., with Met Club members following at 11 a.m.
Every ticket purchase also comes with a physical CD or a digital download of HardwiredTo Self-Destruct.
Metallica has sold more than 62 million records in the U.S., first cultivating a fan base as one of the big four of thrash metal in the early 80s. As the bands popularity grew with albums such as Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, Metallicas big mainstream breakthrough came in 1991 with a self-titled album that spawned hits such as Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven, Sad But True and big ballad Nothing Else Matters.
HardwiredTo Self-Destruct, which was released in November, is the bands first album of new material since 2008s Death Magnetic.
OROVILLE State officials are waiting for the light of dawn to inspect an erosion scar on the potentially hazardous emergency spillway at northern Californias Oroville Dam.
California Department of Water Resources Action Director Bill Croyle says officials in helicopters overflew the spillway Sunday night to visually inspect it.
Evacuations for at least 188,000 people living below the dam were ordered Sunday after officials warned the emergency spillway was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below. Officials said a failure could send a 30-foot wall of water into communities.
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Water levels at the huge dam are continuing to drop and stopping water from spilling over the emergency spillway.
California Department of Water Resources officials say flows into the lake are just under 45,000 cubic feet per second. Outflows remain high at nearly 100,000 cubic feet per second.
State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris says at least 250 California law enforcement officers are in the area of the dam and evacuation routes to manage the exodus of residents and ensure evacuated towns dont face looting or other criminal activity.
With a storm expected to arrive Wednesday, the state Department of Water Resources needs to make room for the water that will be flowing in. The agency aims to drain about 1.2 million acre feet of water from the reservoir over the next day or so. The capacity of the reservoir, Californias second-largest, is about 35 million feet.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency late Sunday to beef up the states response to the evacuations and dam threat.
The evacuation of residents in Oroville and surrounding communities in the shadow of the nations tallest dam was issued around 4:30 p.m., with California Department of Water Resources officials saying floodwaters could arrive within the hour. By 6:30 p.m., the Butte County sheriff said the threat had diminished, although it was prudent to rather be safe than sorry given the gravity of the situation.
I didnt have the luxury seeing if everything was going to be OK, said Sheriff Kory Honea, We needed to get people moving quickly in order to save lives in case the worst-case scenario came to fruition.
Just four hours before the evacuation, water officials held a news conference during which they said they didnt anticipate such problems. But Honea said that it was discovered that a hole was developing in the emergency spillway one that was growing at a rate could quickly cause a breach.
But after increasing the water flow through the main spillway which wasnt being used to capacity because of a gaping hole that developed in it early last week officials discovered that the erosion that called all this concern was not advancing as rapidly as thought, and thats a very good thing, the sheriff said.
He added that they have a plan to plug the hole.
That would include using helicopters to drop bags of rocks into the crevice to prevent any further erosion, he said.
Authorities drastically increased the amount of water allowed out of the main spillway, from 55,000 feet of water per second to 100,000. Earlier in the day, officials said the water was about 8 inches above the crest by the evening it was down to 2 inches, Honea said.
Its definitely one of those white-knuckle moments, said Jay Lund, an engineering professor at UC Davis. Theyre evacuating downstream as well they should, but it hasnt busted yet and the goal is to get the water level down below the lip.
The erosion comes from the water running down the side of an earthen hill. But its an unreinforced berm and the falling water was creating a hole farther down the embankment.
The problem is that, if it erodes too much, it jeopardizes the integrity of the structure, he said, meaning the spillway and not the dam itself.
Water district officials have repeatedly said that the dam is structurally sound and not at risk of failing.
More than 162,000 people live in areas of Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties affected by the evacuation order.
Some Marysville evacuees were bordering on panic Sunday night. Erin English, of Linda, said she was first told to go to Chico, then because of looming danger, to go the Colusa Casino Resort. She fled with her husband, two children and dogs, and didnt have time to grab anything from their home.
Im scared to death. Ive never been through anything like this before, she said. I pray for the safety of everybody here.
Some residents obeyed the mandatory order reluctantly. Kevin Carroll lives in a Marysville home along the Feather River, and gathered clothes and his dogs to head out, even though he believes the river would not flood.
My wife said go, he said. The river is right on our back door.
Except for the crowded roads Sunday, Oroville looked liked a ghost town.
Evacuees were quickly filling up hotels along Highway 99 and Interstate 5 in Sacramento. In an hour Sunday evening, the Homewood Suites near Sacramento International Airport received 20 reservations in back-to-back phone calls, said Gao Hang, who was working the front desk.
They didnt care about the price at all because they just need a place to go, she said. Its not just us.
An evacuation center has been set up at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico and the Glenn County Fairgrounds in Orland. Black Butte Lake west of Orland has also opened up the Buckhorn Campground to evacuees.
Butte County Superintendent of Schools Tim Taylor has called for nearly all schools to close Monday except those in the Chico and Paradise districts.
The city of Oroville has about 16,000 residents. Karl Swanberg, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, said a failure of the spillway could potentially affect most of the town.
Its quite a large town, he said. This is an ongoing situation that could get worse.
Residents were alerted to the evacuation through reverse 911 calls, a local man told NBC Bay Area.
The emergency spillway had not been used before at the reservoir, which opened in 1968. The structure is a key feature in a series of dams and canals that deliver water to 25 million Californians, including many in San Jose, Livermore, Pleasanton, Fremont, Union City, and Los Angeles.
State officials were hoping to avoid using the emergency spillway, which is basically a dirt hillside, because it would send tons of dirt, rock and silt cascading into the Feather River and then downstream into the Delta.
But dam operators decided early Saturday morning they needed to ease the beating on the main spillway.
Oroville Dam, built into a rocky canyon 70 miles north of Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada foothills, is a critical part of Californias drinking water system, providing water for 23 million people and vast stretches of farmland.
At 770 feet tall, the structure that holds back the Feather River is taller than the Washington Monument and as thick as 10 football fields at its base. Lake Oroville, at 10 miles long, is the second largest reservoir in California behind Shasta Lake.
Staff writer Sharon Noguchi, The Sacramento Bee and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
San Jacinto High School has a new principal, sort of. Luke Smith, interim principal since October, is expected to be promoted to the position full-time when the San Jacinto Unified District Governing Board meets Wednesday, Feb. 15.
Frank Jimenez, the person Smith replaced, will be moving back to the school as an assistant principal after working in the district office as coordinator, student, community and personnel support.
Also at the meeting, which was moved to Wednesday from the usual Tuesday meeting day because of Valentines Day, the board will vote on a raise for non-teaching employees. If approved, employees such as classroom aides, school secretaries and custodians will receive a 2 percent raise as of April 1, plus a one-time 5 percent bonus.
The meeting will be at the district office, 2045 S. San Jacinto Ave.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9086 cshultz@scng.comTwitter: @PE_CraigShultz
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) Officials now say the erosion on the emergency spillway at the Oroville Dam that brought a mass evacuation order was not as severe as earlier assessed.
Butte County Sheriff Koney Honea says engineers with the California Department of Water Resources informed him shortly after 6 p.m. that the erosion is not advancing as fast as they thought.
Honea says two inches of water is still coming over the dam, but that is significantly down from earlier flows.
Honea says there is a plan to plug the hole by using helicopters to drop rocks into the crevasse.
He says the evacuation order went out after engineers spotted a hole that was eroding back toward the top of the spillway.
Honea adds authorities wanted to get people moving quickly to save lives in case the worst-case scenario came into fruition.
California officials say the cities of Gridley, Live Oak, Nicolaus, Yuba City and communities near Feathers River have been added to the evacuation order.
Hundreds of cars in wall-to-wall traffic can be seen on Highway 99 as people stream out of Oroville away from the dam.
Officials earlier ordered residents near one of the nations biggest dams to evacuate the area, saying a hazardous situation is developing after an emergency spillway severely eroded.
They feared the emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam in Northern California could fail unleashing uncontrolled flood waters from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said on Sunday afternoon.
Officials earlier Sunday stressed the dam was structurally sound and said there was no threat to the public.
Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, were told to head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriffs office said.
The Yuba County Office of Emergency Services asked residents in the valley floor, including Marysville, a city of 12,000 people, to evacuate and take routes to the east, south, or west and avoid traveling north toward Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources said it is releasing as much as 100,000 cubic feet per second from the main, heavily damaged spillway to try to drain the lake.
Department spokesman Kevin Dossey tells the Sacramento Bee the emergency spillway was rated to handle 250,000 cubic feet per second, but it began to show weakness Sunday at a small fraction of that. Flows through the spillway peaked at 12,600 cubic feet per second at 1 a.m. Sunday and were down to 8,000 cubic feet per second by midday.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the dam on Saturday after heavy rainfall damaged the main spillway.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers dont know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dams main spillway has stopped crumbling even though its being used for water releases.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of Californias largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nations tallest. The lake is a central piece of Californias government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
Schools are in the education business, not the immigration business.
Thats the message behind a resolution recently approved by Riverside Unified School District trustees.
The decision comes as the national debate rages over whether cities and districts should get involved in immigration issues.
In the Inland area, Riverside Unified joins San Jacinto Unified and San Bernardino City Unified, which in January passed proposals declaring their campuses safe places for all students.
Last week, about 200 people squared off at Riverside City Hall to support or oppose resident Rafael Elizaldes suggestion that Riverside become a sanctuary city. The council has not voted on the issue and some councilmen say they dont plan to bring the topic forward.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in December wrote a letter to all 1,025 California school districts and urged them to adopt safe haven resolutions.
Riverside Unified board member Angelov Farooq said he introduced the safe learning zone proposal after attending two district community meetings. Parents here illegally expressed worries about schools sharing their kids personal information with immigration authorities.
The district serves about 42,000 students, more than 60 percent of them Latinos, state data show.
In these forums, I got a direct sense of how palpable those concerns are, Farooq said. Even a resolution of a symbolic nature would let people know where we stand in terms of our values.
All students have a right to learn in a comfortable environment without fear or sense of threat, he said.
The measure, unanimously passed Monday, does not include the word sanctuary.
Board President Brent Lee said trustees were very careful not to jump into the current headlines and national debate about immigration.
We wanted to clear up any confusion regarding the rights of our students despite what they might hear in the media, Lee said. The district will abide by the same rules and laws it always has. Schools should be a safe place where kids can be dropped off in the morning and picked up in the evening.
The vote affirms the districts policy of complying with federal law barring school officials from releasing students immigration status. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that all children have the right to an education even if theyre here illegally.
Riverside Unified will not use school resources to help immigration authorities find and arrest people solely on whether they are legally in the country, a district news release states.
When parents are worried about being deported, they cant focus on their kids studies, board member Tom Hunt said.
We need to help our families stay calm, he said. We need our families involved on campus with teachers and their childrens education plans. Without that, its a partnership that breaks down.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9292 orstwall@scng.comTwitter: @pe_swall
The Film Prize is part of Berlinale Talents at the currently-running 67th Berlin International Film Festival
Arab filmmakers Ahmed Saleh, Nada Riyadh and Yakout Elhababi were the announced winners of the Robert Bosch Stiftung Film Prize, recognized in a ceremony that took place on Sunday as part of Berlinale Talents at the 67th Berlin International Film festival.
Saleh's animation film Night was the winner in the animation category, director and writer Riyadh's film The Trap in the short fiction category, and director Elhababi's Behind Closed Doors in the documentary section.
Berlinale Talents is a summit and networking platform that is part of the annual Berlinale festival.
The film prize is comprised of three grants, each worth 60,000 Euros, for co-production between German and Arab filmmakers.
The awards may be used to partially or completely fund the films, and winners are provided with the foundations consultancy services during the production period.
Salahs animation Night revolves around a mother who has not been able sleep for years and meets a storyteller whose stories can heal sleepless souls.
According to a press release from Mad Solutions, the film received the prize for its sad yet compelling story, its craftsmanship that brings to life what is not living through the beautifully drawn animations.
Saleh was also a winner of the Student Academy Award in 2016 for Best Foreign Short Animation Film for his previous film Ayny.
The Trap, written and directed by Riyadh, takes place in a desolate, run-down Egyptian seaside resort, where working-class Aya finds herself increasingly trapped by her domineering boyfriend Islam.
To what lengths will she go to break free? the film asks.
The story tackles pain and desperation, and the impossible.
The artistic direction of The Trap impressed the jurors.
We feel that the director will be able to deal with the challenge of the film, with the thoughts, with the emotions, with the bodies and the frustrations of the main characters. With the visual profile and identity of the film, the jury said at the ceremony, according to the press release.
Elhababi's documentary Behind Closed Doors centers on farmer's family living in the most marginalized region of Morocco, the Rif mountains ,where livelihood relies exclusively on growing cannabis, a risky illegal practice.
The film explores the inherent taboo weighing on the familys adults and children, who mimick the parent's work with their games.
With the stakes high for the film's characters, the jury is drawn into this community's search for stability in the day-to-day as they confront anxieties stemming from their shared livelihood.
This film provokes the type of questions we all face about enduring for the sake of the future, while wondering how the next generation will survive in a continuously shifting landscape.
The international jury members include the Arab members: Marianne Khoury, the co-director of of Misr International Films (MIF) in Egypt, Hania Mroue, the founder and director of the Metropolis Art Cinema in Lebanon, and George David, the general manager of The Royal Film Commission in Jordan (RFC) from the Arab World.
Five other international members are Vincenzo Bugno, Project Manager of the World Cinema Fund and Berlinale delegate, Doris Hepp, Commissioning Editor of ZDF/ARTE, Dr. Elke Kaschl Mohni, Regional Director of the Goethe-Institut for the MENA region, Hania Mroue, Founder and Director of the Metropolis Art Cinema in Lebanon; and Producer Alexander Wadouh, Founder of Chromosom.
The first edition of the Robert Bosch Stiftung Film Prize for German-Arab projects was launched in 2013. Offering a yearlong training programme it primarily aims to support young emerging talents from Germany and the Arab world in the film business, provide expert knowledge in the development of their projects and open a door to the international film market.
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
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The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has assured that his government will fund the cost of public Senior High Schools for all those who qualify for entry from the 2017/2018 academic year onwards.
Spelling out the details of policy, so that no one in Ghana is left in any doubts, President Akufo-Addo explained that by free SHS, we mean that, in addition to tuition which is already free, there will be no admission fees, no library fees, no science centre fees, no computer lab fees, no examination fees, no utility fees; there will be free textbooks, free boarding and free meals, and day students will get a meal at school for free.
The President added further that Free SHS will also cover agricultural, vocational and technical institutions at the high school level. I also want to state clearly again that we have a well-thought out plan that involves the building of new public Senior High Schools and cluster public Senior High Schools.
President Akufo-Addo made this known on Saturday, February 11, 2017, when, as the Special Guest of Honour, he delivered a speech at the 60th Anniversary celebration of Okuapeman School.
Speaking on the theme of the celebration, One Vision, Many Lives, the President noted that a society that aims to transform itself into a modern, productive player in the global market needs an educated workforce; and that means it must get its educational policies right.
According to the President, the fact that we have been unable to give all our citizens the education which has enabled the countries of the West and of Asia to thrive is the missing link in our economic development.
For this reason, the President told the gathering that he is committed, without any equivocation, without any reservation, without any doubt, to take Ghana to the stage where public Senior High School education will be free for every Ghanaian child.
Motivated Teachers
President Akufo-Addo noted that a well-trained, confident and contented teacher is at the heart of his governments delivery of quality education.
He assured that the views of teachers will be sought on education policy, innovation and implementation. Their professional development and needs will be treated with respect and we shall ensure that teachers salaries and allowances are paid regularly and on time.
President Akufo-Addo also indicated that teacher trainee allowances, as already announced by the Vice President, will be restored in the first budget of his presidency, which is scheduled for next month.
My administration will also focus on the provision of incentives that will motivate teachers, and reward their hard work in the classroom. Government will collaborate with GNAT, NAGRAT, and other teaching associations to facilitate an affordable housing scheme for teachers. Teachers will be afforded the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications and we aim to make the teaching profession, once again, a proud choice, he added.
The President, in concluding, pledged his commitment to the renovation and the full equipping of the Science Resource Centre of Okuapeman School as a commemorative event of its 60th birthday.
Source: Peacefmonline.com
Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.
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Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the government wants a relationship with the international community driven by trade rather than aid.
According to him, such position will help Ghana position itself in the continents growth.
Dr Bawumia made the comment while contributing to a panel discussion on Leapfrogging Development: The African Story, at the 5th World Government Summit currently ongoing in Dubai, UAE.
He noted that there was a great potential for Africas growth leveraging technology and that opportunity must be tapped urgently to realize the Africas growth.
He added that, Africa has to understand that the process of leapfrogging must be homegrown and implemented in fullIn the next five years, Africa will become the fastest growing continent.
Other leaders on the panel were the president of Guinea, Alpha Conde, who is also AU Chairman and Mr Ashish Tkakkar, Founder of Mara Group and Mara Foundation.
Dr Bawumia is among the over 90 top government and business leaders who have gathered in the gulf country for the event.
The 3-day World Government summit which started on Sunday, 12th February will end on Tuesday 14th February with an awards ceremony.
The World Government Summit is a global platform dedicated to shaping the future of governments worldwide.
The annual summit sets an agenda with a focus on harnessing innovation and technology to solve universal challenges.
It functions as a thought leadership platform and networking hub for policymakers, experts, and pioneers in human development.
Source: Citifmonline
Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.
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The Presiding Archbishop and General Overseer of the charismatic Action Chapel International ministry, Nicholas Duncan-Williams has advised Christians never to allow prophets to prophesy into their lives on whether they will make it or not during rapture.
Dont allow people to confuse you with their Shebrew, Hebrew, and Latin, Dont allow any prophet to prophesy unto you and to tell you that you will make it or not make it. That prophet/prophetess may not make it himself so dont let anybody fool you, he told his congregation.
Speaking about the second coming of Christ, he advised his congregation to be wary of the prophets who give their own interpretation of rapture.
You are going to meet lots of teachers, prophets, evangelist and Archbishops who will give you their own view of the rapture and the second coming.
Archbishop Duncan Williams added that Christians can easily be deceived no matter how long they have been born again, hence they should be cautious so as not to miss been saved by God.
I dont care how long you have been a born again, you can be deceived and Satan can fool you, he cautioned.
Source: Ghanaweb.com
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All 21 suspects arrested in connection with the renewed chieftaincy violence in Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District of the Northern region, will be arraigned before a Tamale Circuit Court on Monday February 13, 2017.
The suspects who were arrested from various hideouts in the troubled town provisionally face charges ranging from murder, arson, using weapons without lawful authority to causing harm among others.
Sources at the Regional Police Headquarters in Tamale revealed to mynewsgh.com that the suspects will be screened in order to determine those who were indeed culpable in the latest violence that claimed 10 lives leaving dozens of residents with gunshot injuries.
A combined team of armed police and military personnel who were deployed from Accra to augment the number on ground has since arrived in Bimbilla with a promise by the minister of interior Ambrose P. Dery to protect lives and property.
Meanwhile, farmers in the area continue to count their losses as thousands of tubers of yam in one of the notable yam producing areas of the north were burnt in the heat of the violence which started on Thursday morning.
According to the Northern Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) ASP Ebenezer Tetteh, several houses have been torched rendering more than 500 persons homeless with some fleeing into neighboring communities including Yendi for safety.
But Mr Dery has assured that his ministry will take the necessary steps to protect lives and properties in the area while it continue to monitor the situation through security agencies to ensure there is no recurrence of violence.
Source: mynewsgh.com
Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.
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Some private sector business associations have rebuffed assertions that the estimated cost for Ghanas 60th anniversary celebration is outrageous. According to them, the estimated GHS2o million is enough for the country to celebrate its 60th anniversary, even though details of the expenditure must be published.
Speaking to Citi Business News, the President of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), Barima Dr. Ofori Ameyaw said what is prudent is accountability in expending the funds. In every project there are always estimates, so I will describe this one also as an estimated budget. In Ghana if you are talking about 20million Ghana cedis budget for our 60 years celebration, well Ill say its good although we dont know actually what will go into the activities, he said.
Dr. Ameyaw observed that a lot of preparatory works will go into the celebration, hence adequate funds needed to implement the event. You need to do a lot of underground work; you need to do a lot of organizational work before you can succeed in some of these things and yet all these things come at a cost.
So for me I dont see that 20 million as any big money. he stated. He reiterated that the cost should be accepted by Ghanaians especially as the new government is outlining measures to cut down spending. You need budget that will make everything successful and I believe at the end of the day we are looking for its success. So if this is the cost we will need to make it work then so be it. After all, its not an outrageous sum.
Source: citibusinessnews.com
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Former President John Dramani Mahama has settled on the immediate past Deputy Minister of Transport, Mrs Joyce Bawah Mogtari as his Special Aide.
Recent media reports suggested there was intense lobbying by some individuals close to the former President for the position.
However, an official statement from the office of the former President last Thursday evening announcing his visit to Kenya, was signed by the former Deputy Minister with her new position, Special Aide to the Former President.
Mrs Mogtari, was also the spokesperson of the John Mahama 2016 election campaign team,
Profile
Her profile obtained by Graphic Online indicates that she holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree from the Holborn College, University of London (1997).
She also holds a Master's degree in Maritime Law (L.L.M) from the International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Maritime Law Institute, (IMLI) Malta, where she was the recipient of the IMO Legal Committee Chairman's Award for Best Overall Performance in International Transport Law.
Source: Daily Graphic
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The Special Committee set up by Parliament to investigate Mahama Ayarigas allegation of bribe-taking by some Members of Parliament (MPs) is set to commence public sittings.
The committee, chaired by Joe Ghartey, MP for Essikado Ketan and Minister for Railways Development, has scheduled Wednesday, February 15 to Friday, February 17 as the dates for the sittings at the Speakers Conference Room in Parliament House.
Other members of the committee are Ben Abdallah Banda, MP for Offinso South; Magnus Kofi Amoatey, MP for Yilo Krobo; Ama Pomaa Boateng, MP for Juaben and Benson Tongo Baba MP for Talensi.
The committee had earlier scheduled today, February 13 as the date to start work, but the star witness, Mahama Ayariga, is in Nigeria for Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) parliament assignment, and its the hope of the committee that he would return before Wednesday.
It has been tasked to investigate Mahama Ayarigas allegation that Boakye Agyarko who was being vetted by the Appointments Committee through some people, paid GH3,000 to the minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) MPs on the committee to influence his (Agyarkos) approval as Minister of Energy.
They are specifically looking into the allegation against the Chairman of the Appointments Committee, Joe Osei-Owusu, who Mahama Ayariga had mentioned as being the conduit for the bribing and Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Muntaka Mohammed Mubarak, who Mahama Ayariga claimed had brought the money.
The Joe Ghartey committee will call upon Mahama Ayariga, Joseph Osei-Owusu, who is also the 1st Deputy Speaker; Sampson Ahi and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa members of the Appointments Committee to appear before it.
Others to appear are Alhassan Suhuyini, Mohammed Mubarak-Muntaka, Eric Opoku and Boakye Kyeremateng Agyarko.
The investigation was launched after Mahama Ayariga and two minority MPs Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and Alhassane Suhuyini had accused Boakye Agarko of bribing them.
Ayariga, the MP for Bawku Central, caused public outrage when he claimed on pro-NDC network Radio Gold recently that the Minority Chief Whip who is the NDC MP for Asawase, shared envelopes containing GH3,000 for minority members serving on the Appointments Committee to approve Mr. Agyarko.
The Minority Chief Whip has already denied ever sharing envelopes containing GH3,000 each to approve the nomination of Mr. Agyarko to become Minister of Energy, but this appears to have incensed his colleagues on the minority side of parliament.
Mahama Ayariga claimed Alhaji Muntaka had told them that it was the Committees Chairman Joe Osei-Owusu, who gave the money to them and said they later got to know that it was coming from Mr. Agyarko.
In the ensuing debate, Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, a minority member of the Appointments Committee, was also said to have said on Montie Fm a sister station of Radio Gold that he didnt know anything about the alleged bribe, even though he was expected to have benefitted from it.
Source: Daily Guide
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Former deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has observed that the Akufo-Addo led administration is able to roll out the free Senior High School programme for the 2017/2018 academic year due to strategic investments he inherited from his predecessor.
The former Minister of Education in charge of tertiary revealed that former President Mahama relied on available data in implementing his vision of the progressively free SHS policy.
President Mahama's investment in the educational secotor has yielded positive results and Mr. Ablakwa observes that Over the last consecutive years, Ghana has been awarded the best WASSCE performing country because of the strategic investment that Mahama made.
He continued that during the tenure of the NDC, they could have easily decided to make education in second cycle schools free but explained that "Looking at the statistics that we had at the time, it wouldnt have been feasible in terms of access because there werent enough SHS . . . There was acute shortage of secondary schools and it could have affected quality of education.
Hon. Okudzeto Ablakwa noted in an interview on Radio Gold that former President Mahama, laid a solid foundation in the educational sector by expanding access to Senior High School.
President Mahama laid a very solid foundation and that is why it is possible for President Akufo-Addo to start the implementation of free SHS this academic year, he said.
Last Saturday, President Akufo-Addo reassured Ghanaians that his government will fund the cost of public Senior High Schools for all those who qualify for entry from the 2017/2018 academic year onwards.
In addition to tuition which is already free, President Nana Akufo-Addo noted that there will be no admission fees, no library fees, no science centre fees, no computer lab fees, no examination fees, no utility fees; there will be free textbooks, free boarding and free meals, and day students will get a meal at school for free.
The President maintained that he is willing to take Ghana to the stage where public Senior High School education will be free for every Ghanaian child.
To add to this, Hon. Okudzeto Ablakwa stated that had the past NDC administration not taken the toil to add community day SHS to the already existing schools, it would have been challenging for Nana Addo to fund the cost of public Senior High Schools.
According to him, the decision by the NPP administration to make SHS free isnt a departure from the NDCs own programme of action. If you look at the NDCs model, it was progressively free which we were implementing. It was a policy taken from the 1992 constitution.
You would notice that when President Mahama was in power, he decided to do first things first. It wouldnt be possible to implement a policy that is well thought-out without expanding access . . . The framers of the constitution knew the challenges confronting the second cycle institutions, that is why the provision of the progressively free senior high secondary school was made, he added.
Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email: [email protected]
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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will not be intimidated by agitations from party members over the appointment of District Chief Executives (DCEs) and Municipal, Metropolitan District Chief Executives (MMDCEs), says National Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu.
Addressing the media at the party's headquarters in Accra, John Boadu said appointments are strictly based on merit and as such, the party will not succumb to any "noise" from any quarters.
President Akufo-Addo on January 11, 2017 revoked the appointments of MMDCEs and is expected to appoint new ones to serve in his administration.
Even before the announcement, some members of the party are suggesting that appointees must be people who contributed to the partys victory in the 2016 elections.
But John Boadu who doubles as acting General Secretary of the party stated that appointments are made in consultation with party executives and other stakeholders who know the calibre of people who would help President Akufo-Addo achieve the list of promises made to Ghanaians.
You must realise that we have made some commitments in our manifesto. A promise to make sure that we are able to have a factory in each and every district. We expect that we will have MMDCEs who understand what it takes to establish an industry in a particular district he said.
We want people who are capable of managing the MMDCEs such that by the time we go for elections, it will not be difficult for the NPP or people we will sponsor. It is not just about working for the party. No. I dont have interest in a particular district We are not going to allow ourselves to be blackmailed by noise. We will make sure that everything that is done will be in the interest of the party and party people should understand, he added.
Source: ghanaweb
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The other night I woke up because the pedestal fan that Ive had pointed directly at my sleeping face for the last four weeks was making alarming noises. Weirdly enough after about 1000 hours of straight service, it was broken.
Thats okay, I thought. I will go to my local appliance vendor and purchase another one. Fans are cheap and abundant.
How heady they were, the last hours of my innocence.
Thanks to ongoing conditions that can charitably be described as hellish, akin to the surface of the sun, and the profoundly uncomfortable end result of generations of wilful ignorance re: humanitys detrimental effects on the one planet that we know is conducive to life, the state of Queensland is suffering a widespread fan shortage.
Weve run out of fans.
Reporters at the Courier Mail visited four separate stores yesterday in search of cooling devices, to no avail. A staff member at Bunnings Stafford said that theyd sold out of their entire summer stock, Harvey Norman is sold out across Queensland, and according to their online store, Kmart has no fans in the entirety of Australia.
A Harvey Norman worker told the Courier Mail in what I can only imagine is the voice of the pimply teen from The Simpsons:
We bought more than last year to cover us to March but this year has been so hot.
Well, youre not wrong about that one, Jeremy: 17 temperature records were broken in Queensland over the weekend. It really has been just so hot.
Source: Courier Mail.
Image: Fox.
Teens are driven by biology to go to sleep later
When high schools start at 8:30 a.m. or later, attendance rates and graduation rates improve, according to a new study.
The study backs previous research that says additional sleep boosts psychological, behavioral and academic benefits for teens.
So much research explains the impact of insufficient sleep on suicide, substance abuse, depression, auto accidents and more, said lead study author Pamela McKeever of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.
This connects the dots between the world of science and education, she told Reuters Health. Through this, educators and parents can see how lack of sleep impacts the school indicators that we use to measure student success.
McKeever and colleague Linda Clark looked at school start times, graduation rates and attendance rates for 30,000 students in 29 high schools across seven states. They found that two years after a delayed start was implemented at these high schools, average attendance rates and graduation rates had increased several percentage points.
For example, the average graduation completion rate was 79 percent before the delayed start was implemented, and it was 88 percent afterward.
This doesnt only impact our high school students. This impacts all of society, McKeever said. As graduation rates improve, young adults experience less hardship after graduation, a lower chance of incarceration and a higher chance of career success.
Delayed bell times could close the achievement gap as well, McKeever and Clark wrote in Sleep Health, the journal of the National Sleep Foundation. When schools start later, students in lower socioeconomic categories are more likely to get to the bus on time. When they arrive at school on time, theyre more likely to stay in class and graduate.
When kids miss a bus early in the morning and thats their only form of transportation, they miss class and then soon the credits, said Kyla Wahlstrom of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who wasnt involved with this study. People dont understand the link between early wakeup times and graduation rates, but its that direct.
Since the late 1990s, Wahlstrom and other researchers have suggested that delayed high school start times may help students. In 2014, she and her colleagues reported that in a three-year study with 9,000 students in eight public high schools across three states, attendance rates increased with a start time of 8:35 a.m. or later.
In December, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine advised that later school start times could improve sleep, reduce car accidents and reduce sleepiness. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends 8:30 a.m. as the earliest time to begin school.
Teens are driven by biology to go to sleep later, and theres not much we can do about that, but school start times are the main reason they get up when they do, said Anne Wheaton, an epidemiologist at the CDC in Atlanta, in email to Reuters Health. Wheaton wasnt involved with this study.
The debate about school start time and adolescent sleep patterns has been going on for a number of years, said Mary Carskadon of the Sleep for Science Research Lab at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who wasnt involved with this study.
Efforts to delay the school bell are more likely to succeed best when parents and the teens themselves use better choices, she told Reuters Health by email. This includes having a set bedtime and limiting arousing activities in the evening.
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Founded by a few of the brains behind Frank Body Coffee Scrub, Willow + Blake is a content agency that likes to get their creative hands dirty in getting witty and writing for brands. Willow + Blake are in need of an Accounts & Business Development Manager (MELB) to jump on board and get amongst the creative thinking and conceptualising. To be perf for this role youll need to have a minimum of 5 years experience working on campaigns, be confident in pitching and securing clients and have an aptitude for problem solving. If youre keen to work for this clever and tight knit team, get applying.
PHD launched way back in the UK in 1990, as the worlds first planning-led media agency. And has since grown into a global network spanning over 60 markets! PHD is now known for being one of the most innovative agencies around (with a solid amount of award winning work to show for it). A rad opportunity has arisen for a Digital Ad Operations Executive (SYD) to work across a not-so-caj client, Volkswagen! This role will see some solid candidate looking after the day to day management of agreed initiatives and implementation of campaigns, the buying of media and managing of campaign delivery tracking across all channels, as well as ensuring each brief is delivered with appropriate criteria. If working for one of the largest and most sought after accounts in Aus excites you and youve got the experience to match, then get it, here.
With the talented and creative Kim Ellery at the helm, it is no surprise that Ellery has evolved into one of the most sought after Australian Designer labels. Channelling avant-garde aesthetic, with a strong focus on exceptional quality fabrics and simple yet surprising cuts, the luxury label continues to inspire and set the trend on a national and international scale. The lovely folk at Ellery are on the hunt for a switched-on, proactive Junior Production Assistant (SYD)! As Junior Production Assistant, youll get the opportunity to shadow the production team with spesh projects and daily tasks such as preparing trims for manufacturers, quality controlling, maintaining the production room and working with interns. So if youre creative to the core, know a thing or two about garment construction and patterns, youre keen to get some industry experience under your belt and can rock an Ellery piece while youre at it, shoot through your CV here!
Sold on short n sweet sentences? DW, weve got a few more gigs up our sleeves.
Into interiors? Specix are on the search for a Graduate Design Product Consultant (SYD) here, an Account Manager (SYD) here and an Architecture & Interior Design Product Representative (MELB) here. Good luck!
Dig digital retail media businesses? Become a Commercial Operations Executive (SYD) for Shopper Media. Get it.
Keen on Creative Cloud? Become a Graphic Designer (SYD) for Mesh Direct here.
Maybe beverages are more your thing? Become a Business Development Executive (AUS) for Carlton + United Breweries here.
Go get em.
All deets courtesy of Pedestrian Jobs.
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Boasting about how many hot matches youve had on Tinder is usually the reserved for legless evenings at the pub with mates.
But not for one 19-year-old.
Meet Jazz Egger, an Austrian model living in London who has publicly claimed to have more than 5,400 bloody matches on the infamous dating app. Thatsa lotta data.
A photo posted by J A Z Z E G G E R ???????? (@jazzegger) on Dec 9, 2016 at 4:25am PST
Speaking to Femail, Egger is pretty proud of her efforts and says she thinks she might have reached a world record.
I travel a lot and people keep Super Liking me [every Tinder user has one Super Like to give away per day]. I reached a point where I couldnt answer everyone anymore, because I [had] swiped right on every Super Like.
oomph
Eggers Tinder game was so strong, and the thirst of suiters was so real, that she was forced to add a disclaimer to her profile stating she couldnt respond to everyone.
Sorry this is getting out of hand. I cant answer everyone anymore. I only reply if your message is super interesting. Hope you understand.
The message had the opposite effect, she claims, and it improved her Tinder game even more.
I would receive the craziest pick up lines and unbelievable offers, she said. Not one to shy away from dropping a name, she continued:
I even matched with Conor Maynard and other well known musicians, YouTubers, and actors. Another crazy offer was when a guy invited me for a week in Greece on his yacht. He offered to pay for everything, even my flight. Just so he could have a chance. Of course I declined that offer. A photo posted by J A Z Z E G G E R ???????? (@jazzegger) on Sep 4, 2016 at 6:05am PDT
Egger is no stranger to the limelight, having appeared on Germanys Next Top Model. She also went viral last year for editing the captions of her Insta uploads to better reflect the reality of the fashion industry. With that in mind, disclosing the crazy figures of her Tinder seems like a pretty darn crafty publicity stunt.
Moral of the story: harness the power of thirst and ye shall be handsomely rewarded.
Source: Femail.
Photo: @jazzegger / Instagram.
The Grammys serve to celebrate the best acts in music, but look, sometimes the things you hear away from the ceremony itself are even bloody better. PEDESTRIAN.TV was on deck today to catch all of the gravity-defying, scene-stealing, Lemonade-crushing action and all of the swish afterparty goodness.
It was a time, pals. Rest assured Bey and Jay Z roll with a serious security complement who didnt leave their side during commercial breaks, and you better believe they sat right behind em for the remainder of the show.
We also clocked Rihanna sippin from that beaut diamond-encrusted flask. Somehow, the pics didnt do the scene justice.
Before even rolling into an afterparty at The Peppermint Club in West Hollywood, we caught a security guard block a lil French Bulldog and its handler from entering. An assistant piped up, telling the guard oh no, wait, this is [Lady] Gagas dog. The doggo was granted entry, because sometimes youve just gotta chill out with your pooch after crowd-surfing with Metallica.
Perhaps a lil more emphasis was placed on Gagas entry itself, and a flock of 50 phones were raised in her direction as she made her arrival. We suppose thats to be expected, but damn if its not impressive in person.
Photo by: @chrispolkimaging @thepeppermintclub @interscope #grammys @ladygaga @emcbowery #johntravolta A photo posted by Benjamin Russo (@benjaminrusso) on Feb 13, 2017 at 12:13am PST
That wasnt the only ~ glam ~ entrance. Some bloke rolled through with impressive headgear, at which point we overheard is that guy wearing a Vivienne Westwood hat? I hope he doesnt run into Pharrell. Well keep you posted on whether the ageless wonder is overprotective of his fuck-off-huge Stetson.
Inside, punters went off. Highlights include John Travolta having a full-on shimmy to Aretha Franklins Aint No Mountain High Enough as you do, hey and Rumer Willis treating herself to a boog on a Chance The Rapper track. TBH, that one makes too much sense, considering he just landed Best New Artist.
via Christopher Polk / Getty.
Even the random banter delivered. Example: in the bathroom line, a query of whats the best way to do coke when theres a bathroom attendant inside? was blurted out without a second thought. Similarly, thank God, its an open bar. Last year, the afterparties were fucking cheap.
We caught a glimpse of Diana Ross son Evan kissing wife Ashlee Simpson, before the fella himself pulled Yours Truly up to dance. An impromptu sashay with Ross to an acoustic performance from an up-and-coming Interscope Records artist was, uh, unexpected, but hey. HOLLYWOOD.
Not seen dancing: Lil Jon, who was heard chatting someone up, before directly asking his sidekick is she 19? Yeah. Well check back in next year to see if his estimate bumps up by twelve months.
via Christopher Polk / Getty.
Until next time, Grammys you crazy, luxe, dog-filled wonderland.
Photo: Christopher Polk / Getty.
Special thanks to our m8s at Discover Los Angeles for flying us to the home of glitz and glam, L.A. If youre booking a trip to the City of Angels, be sure to hit them up for all the best tips on what to see and do. You can do that right HERE.
LOS ANGELES -- Things got a bit wacky at Sunday night's 2017 Grammy Awards -- and that's even before they started handing out trophies. No, it was the celebrity fashion on the red carpet that first got tongues wagging.
It's billed at the music industry's biggest night, and the 59th annual Grammys featured plenty of music awards and performances when the show aired live on CBS at 8 p.m. Eastern from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Hosting was "Late Late Show" host James Corden.
Before that, fans and critics were taking note of celebrity fashions and weighing in on the good, bad and what-the-heck-was that?
On the red carpet, CeeLo Green looked part Tin Man, part big gold statue with a strange, monsterish headpiece while Lady Gaga showed up in bitty black leather shorts and an underbreast-baring top, a pair of towering, thigh-high boots to match, for the anything-goes parade of wacky fashion at the Grammys on Sunday.
Green's message, including a full tunic to the ground, was unclear, but he certainly generated a stir on the red carpet.
Gaga was fashionably late and cheesed for the cameras.
Earlier, Adele walked in long-sleeve military green and Paris Jackson looked all grown up in a skin-baring rainbow jumpsuit by Balmain as the Grammys competed with the British Academy Film Awards for celebrity fashion air. Though the London event was earlier in the day, U.S. time, the red carpet there shined big with Hollywood stars in more traditional carpet clothes.
At the Grammys, things are often wackier, more casual, though many wore formal gowns. Gaga, her hair pink, was her usually edgy self, a bit rocker chain at the waist.
Katy Perry, her hair a tousled blond bob, wore an outfit of shaggy light pink feathers with a burnished copper sequin mock turtleneck top, all by Tom Ford.
Fashionably late, Rihanna showed up in a tiny, encrusted orange midriff-baring top paired with a bulbous black skirt.
Beyonce, who is pregnant with twins, did not walk the carpet but performed in a queenly gold crown and fitted, embellished gown to match. Her sister, Solange, shimmered in a metallic green one-shoulder look with finlike ruffles down one side.
Today's tumultuous political climate bubbled in spots. Red carpet provocateur Joy Villa flung off a white frock to reveal a gown of patriotic red, white and blue that urged "Make America Great Again" and had "Trump" in sparkly letters on the back hem.
Adele's gown was custom Givenchy Haute Couture by Riccardo Tisci. It was two tones of silk satin and lace in a checkerboard design with all-over Swarovski crystals. It crossed at the chest, looking a tad like armor.
The 18-year-old Jackson, a Grammy presenter, stunned in the sexy one-piece jumpsuit of sparkly stripes that included shades of green, pink, orange and blue. It had an open skirt and sexy cutouts up top.
Carpet favorite Carrie Underwood chose fiery red with a sexy keyhole front by Elie Madi, while first-time nominee and newly engaged Kelsea Ballerini stood out in a sheer tulle look with delicate, three-dimensional ice blue flower embellishment and a train. It was by Ines Di Santo, who is known more for bridal gowns. Underwood's sleeves distracted from her look overall, billowing below the elbow.
"I usually don't do red but I was feeling it," she said.
Faith Hill also wore long-sleeve red with a keyhole effect, by Zuhair Murad. She way fudged trying to say the designer's name.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bernie Sanders Town Hall in Reading
Senator Bernie Sanders held a Town Hall at the Santander Performing Arts Center on N. 6th St, in Reading Pennsylvania on Thursday April 21, 2015. Daniel Zampogna, PennLive
(Daniel Zampogna, Pennlive)
Sen. Bernie Sanders says the last-minute denial of the use of a National Guard armory won't stop him from holding a town hall meeting in McDowel County, West Virginia.
The event was to be held Feb. 13 and filmed by MSNBC, and had been scheduled for weeks, according to the Washington Post. But Sanders was told late last week the venue couldn't be used for political purposes.
The posted cited this statement by Sanders: "If anyone in West Virginia government thinks that I will be intimidated from going to McDowell County, West Virginia, to hold a town meeting, they are dead wrong. If they don't allow us to use the local armory, we'll find another building. If we can't find another building, we'll hold the meeting out in the streets. That town meeting will be held. Poverty in America will be discussed. Solutions will be found."
McDowell County is the poorest part of West Virginia, with the state's highest drug overdose rate, and the shortest life expectancy, 64 years, of any county in the United States, the Post reported.
President Donald Trump won 74 percent of the vote in McDowell in November, although Sanders, a Vermont Independent running as a Democrat, won 55 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, according to the Post. The Post quoted Sanders as saying "hundreds" of people had signed up for the town hall.
As of Sunday afternoon, the governor of West Virginia, who is a Democrat, had not commented on the matter, according to the Post.
Egypt's UNICEF added three well-known names to its list of ambassadors fighting for health and rights of Children
UNICEF in Egypt celebrated on Sunday the organisation's 70th anniversary, inducting three Egyptian celebrities into its goodwill ambassador programme.
The mission of the UN body's newly appointed ambassadors -- which include comedian Ahmed Helmy and actresses Mona Zaki and Donia Samir Ghanem -- is to support, through various initiatives and activities, UNICEF's mission to end violence against children and protect children's rights, especially in the first 1000 days of life.
UNICEF has operated in Egypt and the region since the early fifties, in collaboration with the government, private sector and the civil society groups to advance the rights and wellbeing of children.
One of the organisations most effective tools has been capitalising on the fame and popularity of celebrities and public figures to advocate on behalf of its mission.
Helmy, Zaki and Ghanem participated in UNICEF's Fight Unfair campaign in Egypt, which worked to address challenges facing children here and the Arab World, including child labor, disease, emotional and physical abuse, and the marginalisation of children with disabilities.
The Egyptian celebrities now join a fleet of ambassadors worldwide, which includes Liam Neeson, Katy Perry, Kazem El Saher, Nancy Ajram, Lionel Messi and David Beckham among others.
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Hundreds gathered for a candlelight vigil remembering a Penn State student who died after a fall at his fraternity house last week.
Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, New Jersey, died Feb. 4 at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. His death came two days after falling at the Beta Theta Pi house on Penn State's campus in State College.
The Interfraternity Council at Penn State held the vigil Sunday on the Old Man patio on the university's campus to remember the sophomore engineering student. Piazza's family and friends spoke at the event somber event memorializing the teen.
Police said fraternity members told them Piazza was intoxicated when he fell down the basement stairs during a party at around 11 p.m. Feb. 2. Help was not called until about 12 hours later.
Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick ruled Piazza's death as accidental. Piazza died of multiple traumatic injuries sustained in the fall.
Beta Theta Pi has been suspended and a moratorium on social gatherings for fraternities and sororities has been levied.
No injuries are reported in a school bus accident Monday morning in Middletown.
Bus 1 transporting Fink Elementary School and Seven Sorrows school students was involved in a minor crash on Race Street near Hoffer Park, said a message from Middletown Area School District.
Students were transferred to another bus and transported to Fink Elementary safely. Upon arrival, all students were examined by the school nurse and there were no reported injuries.
FILE PENNSTATE AP P1
File photo
(Associated Press)
A pair of mumps cases on its main campus has caused Penn State University to "strongly discourage" any students with symptoms from attending Thon, the danceathon scheduled for this weekend that raises money for sick children, including some who typically attend.
Mumps is highly contagious.
have been in touch with people who had close contact with them. The Pennsylvania Department of Health has been notified of the cases.
most children began receiving the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.
It's best known for causing puffy cheeks and a swollen jaw which are the result of swollen saliva glands. The main symptoms are fever, headache, muscle aches tiredness, loss of appetite and swollen and tender salivary glands under the ears, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most people recover within a few weeks, according to the CDC.
Mumps can be spread through coughing and sneezing, sharing cups and touching surfaces touched by an infected person. It can take up to 25 days following exposure for symptoms to appear.
Penn State is advising students and staff to check whether they have been fully vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. It has informed students that, in the event of an outbreak, students without proof of immunization may be asked to stay off campus until 25 days after the last date of possible infection.
Penn State said in a news release, "With THON fast approaching, anyone who develops mumps symptoms is strongly discouraged from attending THON activities and should contact University Health Services at 814-863-4463."
prison hands
A federal appeals court has blocked a bid by an inmate who contracted food poisoning to get more than $3,000 in damages from the U.S. government.
(PennLive file photo)
A convicted drug dealer will have to be satisfied with the $3,000 he wrung from the U.S. government after contracting food poisoning in a federal prison.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has made sure of that by thwarting Gary Rhines' attempt to get an even bigger payday.
Rhines took his case to the appeals court after U.S. Middle District Judge A. Richard Caputo set his damages at $3,000 during a non-jury trial. Federal officials had previously admitted responsibility for Rhines becoming sick after eating tainted food in the federal prison at Canaan.
The $3,000 set by Caputo was to compensate Rhines for his pain and suffering. The federal government paid out more than $700,000 to hundreds of inmates who became ill after eating chicken tainted with salmonella at the Canaan prison in northeastern Pennsylvania in 2011.
Rhines wanted more. He asked the appeals court to overturn Caputo's refusal to reopen the case so he could add evidence, including his sensitivity to antacids and a news article about prisoners supposedly being served pet food, to his lawsuit.
The appeals judges shot down Rhines' plea, finding the information he wanted to add to the case either wasn't new or had no bearing on his sickness.
Officials are estimating the damage done by a vandal who broke into the Capitol at 1:46 a.m. Sunday to be between $10,000 and $30,000.
Ryan Stump
Ryan Stump, 27, of Gettysburg, has been charged with multiple offenses for gaining access to the state Capitol through a window on the House side of the building, according to a news release from the state Department of General Services.
Once inside, he is accused of proceeding to cause damage to the Senate side of the Capitol by discharging a fire extinguisher and destroying three visitor signs, according to a news release from the state Department of General Services, which oversees the Capitol Police. Stump was apprehended by Pennsylvania Capitol Police after a brief foot chase.
He was taken to the Dauphin County Booking Center and charged felony counts of burglary, criminal trespass, criminal mischief, and institutional vandalism, along with misdemeanors of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct and a summary offense of public drunkenness. He was released after posting $25,000 bail.
The vandalism caused the Senate to close its offices on Monday while awaiting results from air quality tests.
Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, said, "Unless something really dramatically changes, I suspect we'll be open tomorrow."
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Harbor Springs women reflect on Ukraine war after time with refugees
Julie Bacon and Sujo Offield of Harbor Springs went to Poland in March to help refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.
Julian Lee: OPEC's amazing and shortlived compliance
Data show 90% compliance with OPEC cuts lifted Brent by about 80 cents in 10 minutes
LONDON
Petroleumworld.com 02 13 2017
Don't get your hopes up that the oil market's headed back to the future.
Ever since OPEC output quotas were introduced in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia has been the group's great leveler, making more than its share of production cuts when prices needed support, while remaining the only member with enough spare capacity to raise production in times of shortage.
That all changed in 2014. In November that year, oil minister Ali Al-Naimi said the Saudis would no longer cut output to support prices and subsidize high-cost rivals. His successor, Khalid al-Falih, only agreed last year to return to actively managing supply provided production cuts were collective and the burden was shared equitably.
Early evidence of actual cuts seems to show that the kingdom has resumed its old swing producer role, doing more than its share to cut output in the hope of rebalancing the oil market. But there's more to it than that.
Data published on Friday by the International Energy Agency show Saudi Arabia reduced its output in January by more than required under the November 2016 agreement. A cut of 560,000 barrels a day from the October baseline level was 14 percent more than the kingdom's pledged reduction of 490,000 barrels. That certainly looks like the behavior of a swing producer.
Unfair Shares
Saudi Arabia's apparent resumption of its swing producer role may prove premature
Source: The International Energy Agency Note: Chart shows percentage of agreed cut made by each OPEC member in January
Note: Iran, Libya and Nigeria were exempt from the November agreement on production cuts.
So how should we read that bigger-than-required output cut? It may be tempting to see it as a move by the kingdom to offset rising output from Libya and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria -- both of whom were exempt from cuts under the November deal. But I see it as a further indication that this may be as good as it gets for compliance with the deal -- a suggestion I raised last week.
When challenged on less-than-total compliance with previous output deals previous Saudi oil ministers invariably responded that it was the kingdom's average production level over the duration of an output deal that should be considered, not its compliance on a month-to-month basis. If this is their argument this time around -- and I see no reason to expect anything different -- then Saudi production should rise in the coming months.
BURNING NEED
Saudi Arabia's output cuts may wane as season for heavy power usage approaches
Average Saudi crude usage, 2011-2015
Source: Joint Organizations Data Initative
From one perspective, this should come as little surprise. The kingdom derives its oil income from exports of the black stuff, not from domestic consumption, which is still heavily subsidized. The logical desire for Saudi Arabia is to cut its output with minimal impact on its exports. It can do this by concentrating the output cut in the period -- right about now -- when its domestic oil demand is lowest.
Oil use in the kingdom is highly seasonal, peaking in the hot summer months when soaring demand for electricity to run air conditioners has required as much as 900,000 barrels of crude to be burnt in power stations. The increase in demand usually begins in April or May, although last year it was as early as March.
To avoid making significant cuts to high-value oil exports in order to meet loss-making domestic demand, Saudi Arabia will need to boost output as consumption at home rises. Reducing output more than it needs to now gives it the flexibility to do just that, while still abiding by its commitment on an average basis over the six-month life of the deal.
Oil's Big Day
Data showing 90% compliance with OPEC cuts lifted Brent by about 80 cents in 10 minutes
Brent crude price
Source: Bloomberg
Intraday times are displayed in ET.
Front-loading the cuts also gives an early impression that the kingdom, and OPEC collectively, are serious about rebalancing the market. And this is working. Crude oil prices jumped by around 80 cents a barrel immediately after the publication of the IEA data -- the biggest price response to the publication that I can remember in more than 25 years of studying the oil market.
At 90 percent, it looks like January may be as good as it gets for compliance. We may have another month or so before Saudi Arabia needs to choose between cutting exports or boosting supply, but it is difficult to see overall adherence getting much better without involuntary cuts somewhere due to accident or unrest.
Petrobras $5.2 billion natural gas deal with Brookfield halted by court
Petrobras is taking the necessary legal steps to protect its interests and those of its shareholders, the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer said in a statement .
RIO DE JANEIRO
Petroleumworld.com 02 13 2017
Petroleo Brasileiro SA's $5.2 billion sale of a natural gas distribution unit to Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and other investors has just hit a legal snag.
A Brazilian federal judge granted an injunction against the acquisition of Nova Transportadora do Sudeste on Friday on grounds that the sale wasn't sufficiently publicized to foster competition, according to a copy of the court decision reviewed by Bloomberg. Petrobras is taking the necessary legal steps to protect its interests and those of its shareholders, the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer said in a statement .
Petrobras's plan to restore financial health through a massive divestment program has been facing legal challenges since late 2016 when Brazil's audit court, known as TCU, suspended all asset sales not in the final stages of negotiations. A separate regional court has temporarily suspended some divestments including the sale of two offshore fields to Karoon Gas Australia Ltd.
The producer has been dumping assets in an effort to reduce its massive debt load that led to the loss of its investment grade rating.
They might have to come up with a different strategy and make it more transparent, which is what the courts are demanding,'' said Horacio Cuenca, a Rio de Janeiro-based analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. In one way or another, I'm sure the company will go ahead.
Fire Sale
Petrobras has previously said it would incorporate recommendations from the audit court and reiterated its plan to sell about $35 billion in assets from 2015 through 2018.
Nova Transportadora supplies gas to Brazil's most populated and industrialized states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. When the deal was announced in September, Brookfield said it was a unique opportunity to participate in a natural gas market that will grow substantially by 2030 as Brazil develops associated gas at giant offshore fields.
The bankers who control Brazilian banking giant Itau Unibanco Holding SA are in talks with Brookfield to join the deal , people with direct knowledge of the matter said this week.
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP, a unit of Canada's largest alternative asset manager, is leading the group of buyers including CIC Capital Corp. and GIC Private Ltd. that has agreed to take a 90 percent stake in Nova Transportadora
Mervat Hamza, 27, senior risk analyst
In my apartment, it was me, my friend who is Congolese, and two Liberian friends. Just right before we were leaving to go out, I was fiddling around with my playlist, and "Aye" by Davido came on. That song started playing, and we all transformed into our natural selves.
We all just started dancing. It was such a magical moment. The way that song starts, it's such a classic. We all just dropped everything, even though everyone is so different. When that song dropped, all of us were one.
Because we are African, we have very strong identities, and we are proud of it. It's only when we are so far away from home that we're able to fit under the umbrella of African. It takes something really special to bind us in a moment as one. I'm completely East African. One is Central. The other two are deep West African. Yet, in that moment, we were lovers of Africa.
I was born in Ethiopia, and I lived there for eight years. Then I moved to Kenya from age 8 to 18. When I'm home, in Kenya, there's nothing about me that's Kenyan. Even though I lived there consecutively for 10 years, my parents raised me very Ethiopian. I only eat Ethiopian food and celebrate Ethiopian traditions. I'm super Ethiopian, even when I lived in Kenya. So when I came here, I saw that because there are fewer of us, we can unite under a greater umbrella of being African.
I've learned that joy isn't something that you always feel when you're experiencing triumph. It's the people who have explored the depth of their struggle who are able to feel the height of happiness and success. I surround myself with people like that.
Those friends have lived here for a while, and their families are here. To be in a moment that feels like home is a very difficult moment, not only to achieve but to actually feel. It's a moment that even if you try to create, it is so rarely authentic like that. In that moment, the space we were in was just hovering. We were no longer planted in America. The space was an illusion, and in that illusion, we were home.
Buley Rockhole and Florence Falls Litchfield National Park Northern Territory Australia
Which national park to visit in Darwin? Kakadu National Park? Well, Kakadu National Park is a good place to visit but you need to overnight there and the journey to there is quite far. So where to visit for a one day excursion? Well, why not you try the Litchfield National Park excursion?
Depending on the local tour, some paired Litchfield National Park excursion with the Jumping Crocodile Tour while some paired it with other mini tours.
For this trip, we went to see the Jumping Crocodile Tour first and the Termite Mounds before we went to Buley Rockhole in Litchfield National Park. We had our lunch at Buley Rockhole and it was a simple picnic lunch.
Despite being a national park, you dont get to walk or hike a lot there. We probable spend around one to two hours in the national park checking out the Buley Rockhole.
It is one of the places where locals and tourists chilled during the hot summer days in Northern Territory Australia. Get your bikinis, wet suits and towels ready as you dipped onto the streams of Buley Rockhole. Even though the stream is not deep but do take precautions as the rocks and stones are very slippery. Make sure you inform someone where you go or go in a group. This is a national park so it is really huge. There are public toilets in this national park.
There is also the Florence Falls which is nearby the Buley Rockhole in Litchfield National Park. We viewed from the view point and the birds eye view of the waterfall is spectacular. You can feel breeze of the wind from the mountains here. This is the beauty of Litchfield National Park in Northern Territory Australia.
What to bring to Buley Rockhole and Florence Falls ?
First of all, you should bring sun tan or sunblock and not forgetting after sun gel or lotion. Bring a hat or cap at least as it is hot in Darwin. Bring a bottle of water keep yourself rehydrated.
You can bring a small towel if you intend to swim or chill at the Buley Rockhole stream. Just wont wear flippers or sandals while you are in water.
The Buley Rockhole tour generally is very safe and there is no tough hiking or intense walking. It is good for everyone including family with children.
We highly recommend you to visit Buley Rockhole and Florence Falls in Litchfield National Park in Northern Territory near Darwin.
For more info on this tour, please visit www.DarwinTours.com.au. Advance booking is required.
Flying To Darwin
Fly direct from Malaysia to Darwin with MalaysiaAirlines, for more information on their latest promotions visit MalaysiaAirlines.com. The timing of the flight is quite odd so do make the proper arrangements for airport transfers and your hotel arrangements.
This is a sponsored post by Darwin Tours, Tourism NT and Tourism Australia Malaysia.
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
Id put the attendance at about 80 people. NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, which is working on a solar sailing CubeSat called NEA Scout, was well represented, as was the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA. The rest of the attendees were predominantly from academia.
Absolutely, especially since we hope to be launching this year. LightSail is so unique, being a citizen-funded space mission. I think the solar sailing community appreciates how much we have done on a relatively small budget. One researcher from the UK asked if additional ground station support is desired for LightSail 2. Ive passed that along to Dave Spencer our program manager. The more telemetry we can collect, the better!
Researchers were asking about access to our hardware specs, software and data. I know weve already started a repository on the Planetary Society website to provide this information. The community is requesting more!
ADCS stands for Attitude Determination and Control System. We have hardware onboard LightSail 2 that falls into two categoriessensors and actuators.
The sensors literally sense, or take physical measurements, of things like the direction of the sun as viewed from the spacecraft, angular rates and accelerations being experienced by the spacecraft, and measurements of the Earths magnetic field in the vicinity.
The actuators are devices that help us move the spacecraft or torque it in the directions we want. The flight software takes the sensor information and feeds it into an algorithm to tell the actuators what to do. This is essential for the LightSail mission since we are moving the sail to take advantage of solar radiation pressurephotonsto push us from a circular orbit into a more elliptical one.
Every second the sailing control algorithm receives updated sensor readings from the magnetometers, gyros and sun sensors. It also receives spacecraft position and velocity from software that propagates the orbit, meaning that it predicts where the spacecraft will be during the next software poll.
The solar sailing algorithm uses a reference called Earth Centered Inertial (ECI) to determine where LightSail is on orbit and what the sun direction is, based on our sun sensor measurements. Through some mathematical manipulations, we determine when LightSail will intersect that sun direction and whether it will be moving towards the sun or away from it.
Based on this information, the software commands the torque rods and momentum wheel to move the spacecraft, and the sail along with it. When we move away from the sun direction, we present the full sail face to the sun to take advantage of the photons that will accelerate the spacecraft. When we move towards the sun, we orient the sail edge on.
12 Top-Rated Attractions & Places to Visit in Colombia
Written by Mark Johanson
Updated Sep 13, 2021
We may earn a commission from affiliate links ( )
Cast all of your outdated ideas aside, like drug wars and gangsters, and you'll find that Colombia is a nation brimming with confidence and rushing headfirst into a more peaceful and prosperous future.
In this land of contrasts, you'll encounter snowcapped Andean peaks, tropical Amazonian jungles, turquoise Caribbean coasts, and two sun-kissed deserts. You'll also find a host of spectacular attractions at the places in between, from the magic of Cartagena and the buzz of Medellin to the quiet colonial villages of Salento and Mompox.
Above all else, the famous Colombian hospitality will undoubtedly find you coming back for more. Find the best places to visit with our list of the top attractions in Colombia.
1. Cartagena
Cartagena
Cartagena is the crown jewel of Colombia's Caribbean coast and one of the best-preserved colonial destinations in the Americas. Take a stroll through the historic walled city, and you may feel as if you've stepped back in time to a different era.
Maybe it's the 13 kilometers of centuries-old walls, or the colorful colonial architecture, many of which are now beautifully restored restaurants and luxury hotels. Perhaps it's the bougainvillea-covered balconies along the labyrinthine streets or the soaring Catholic churches that tower above every plaza. Whatever it is, visitors can't help but fall for this Caribbean charmer.
Beyond the old city center lies laid-back Getsemani, and along the oceanfront is Bocagrande, a newer part of town, where upscale condos and hotels fight for prime seafront real estate. And less than an hour away by boat are islands and beaches, offering ideal getaways and day trips. Accommodation: Where to Stay in Cartagena: Best Areas & Hotels Read More: Top-Rated Attractions & Things to Do in Cartagena
2. Medellin
Medellin
Bogota might be the Colombian capital, but it's the smaller and more manageable city of Medellin that tends to capture the hearts of visitors. Medellin was dubbed the most dangerous city in the world in the early 1990s, but a quarter of a century later, it has earned a reputation for something entirely different: innovation.
The city boasts cable cars linking the settlements in its hills to a modern metro system in the valley below, a greenbelt of lush "eco parks," and striking libraries and community centers in some of the poorest neighborhoods.
A great day of sightseeing in Medellin might start in the Old Quarter at Botero Plaza, where you'll find a collection of 23 portly sculptures donated by the beloved Colombian artist Fernando Botero. Adjacent to the plaza is the must-visit Museum of Antioquia and the striking Rafael Uribe Uribe Palace of Culture. Then, head into the hills above town by riding the sleek escalator system through Comuna 13 to explore this neighborhood's colorful homes and elaborate street murals.
Finish your day in Medellin's trendiest commune, El Poblado, where you'll find buzzing eateries, boutique shops, and the vast majority of the city's hotels. Accommodation: Where to Stay in Medellin
3. Eje Cafetero
Eje Cafetero
The world's third-largest producer of coffee beans, Colombia is a fantastic country for tastings and tours. The vast majority of production takes place in the subtropical Andean hills west of Bogota between the small cities of Armenia, Pereira, and Manizales. This region, known as the Eje Cafetero (or Coffee Axis), is home to a growing number of coffee plantations that have opened up their operations to the public in recent years for tours, tastings, and lavish farm stays.
These small (and often organic) plantations are the kind of places where the farmer-owner might take an hour out of his day to explain the process of how a humble "cherry" turns into a coffee bean that will one day be roasted and ground into a latte back home.
The small resort town of Salento is easily the most attractive place to base yourself, with numerous farm tours nearby and plenty of things to do. You'll also have easy access to attractions like Cocora Valley, home to the tallest palm trees in the world. You can rent bicycles from Salento to explore the region under your own steam or ride on one of the old-fashioned Willy jeeps that serve as the town's de facto taxis. Accommodation: Where to Stay in Salento
4. Leticia
Squirrel monkeys, Leticia
Picture the Amazon, and Colombia may not be the first country to come to mind which is odd, because about a third of the nation is blanketed in its thick (and often impenetrable) jungles. The capital of the vast Amazon Basin is the small frontier town of Leticia, which sits along the banks of the mighty Amazon River, right where Colombia bumps up against Brazil and Peru.
Leticia makes a great base for eco-tourism, wildlife safaris, or hikes into the Amazon to learn about the Indigenous tribes that call this area home. The only way to arrive here is by plane from Bogota, and you can continue onward by boat either downriver to Manaus, Brazil, or upriver to Iquitos, Peru.
5. Tayrona National Natural Park
Tayrona National Natural Park
You'll find some of the best beaches in Colombia within the protected Tayrona National Natural Park, which is known for its palm-shaded coves and crystal-clear coastal lagoons. Most beaches are set against the dramatic mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, whose rainforested hills make for a great side trip on any beach vacation.
Tayrona is also a fantastic place for snorkeling at protected areas near La Piscina beach and Cabo San Juan. Though remote, these secluded beaches aren't exactly a secret, so it's best to visit in low season (February to November) to avoid the massive crowds. Also, unless you're paying for the lavish Ecohabs Tayrona, be prepared to sleep in a tent (or hammock) at one of the many beachside campgrounds.
6. Bogota
La Candelaria, Bogota
Most visitors to Colombia will inevitably begin their trip in the nation's largest cityand beating heartBogota. It's a city that often divides opinion, with some complaining of its gridlocked streets and dreary weather, and others falling head over heals for its unique combination of colonial charm and urban sophistication. Either way, this city of eight million tends to grow on people who give it enough time.
Begin your sightseeing in the historic center of La Candelaria, where you'll find the impressive buildings lining Plaza de Bolivar and can't-miss cultural attractions like the blindingly bright Museum of Gold. Then, head over to the wealthier neighborhoods of North Bogota for some of the nation's best boutique shops and chef-driven restaurants. Accommodation: Where to Stay in Bogota
7. The Lost City (Ciudad Perdida)
The Lost City
Colombia's most popular hike is undoubtedly the four-day, 44-kilometer trek to Ciudad Perdida, a lost city hidden deep in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains that was only rediscovered in the 1970s. Built and occupied by Tayrona Indians between the 8th and 14th centuries, this ancient city is said to be one of the largest pre-Columbian settlements discovered in the Americas.
Much of the site remains buried beneath a thick jungle quiltthe modern Indigenous inhabitants of the area have banned excavationsbut you'll find that the stone terraces and stairways are in outstanding shape.
Independent treks are not allowed, you will need to go with a sanctioned and approved tour operator who will provide a guide and all meals. You can book a tour from Santa Marta in advance.
If you decide to go, be prepared, this is no walk in the park. You'll face blazing heat, stifling humidity, rainstorms, copious quantities of mud, and insects. The trail, although easy to follow, is never flat, plan to always be going up or down. However, it's not all drudgery. Along the way, you'll be treated to spectacular jungle views and the opportunity to swim in rivers and ponds.
Hikes start early, usually around 5am to make use of the coolest part of the day. At the designated campgrounds, you'll either sleep in a hammock or on a mattress; mosquito nets are provided. You should count on being able to walk about 12 to 14 kilometers or seven to nine hours in a single session.
The trail is closed every September as part of an agreement with the local Indigenous community. The best time to go, with the least rain, is January and February.
8. Providencia Island
Lovers Bridge, Providencia Island
This quirky Caribbean Island leaves many first-time visitors perplexed. For starters, it's far closer to Nicaragua than Colombia. Then there's the fact that its residents don't speak Spanish but rather an English Creole. Of course, none of that really matters when you find yourself sunning on the most stunning beaches under the Colombian flag.
Little more than a dollop of golden sands and perky palms, this isolated island is the jewel of the UNESCO-protected Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, with some of the world's greatest marine biodiversity just waiting to be explored.
You'll need to first stop on the more popular San Andres Island and catch a short hopper plane or three-hour catamaran ride to reach Providencia. Once here, you'll find the largest collection of cottages and hotels in the small hamlet of Aguadulce on the stunning west coast of the island.
9. Mompox
Mompox
Lovers of magic realism and the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez will fall for the sleepy charms of Mompox. It features prominently in the Nobel laureate's book The General in His Labyrinth and is thought to be the inspiration for the fictional town of Macondo in his most famous novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Mompox was once a prosperous cog in the trading route between the Caribbean coast and the Andes, famed as the spot where "El Libertador" Simon Bolivar recruited his army to gain independence for neighboring Venezuela. Now, this colonial relic along the muddy shores of the Magdalena River is truly a town that time forgot.
Though it lacks a wealth of things to do, many visitors find themselves spending far longer than planned strolling through the cobbled streets; soaking in the ambience of the colonial architecture; or taking boat trips through the Pijino Swamp, a popular attraction for birders. Accommodation: Where to Stay in Mompox
10. La Guajira Peninsula
La Guajira Peninsula
It's the most northerly point in South America, so perhaps it's only fitting that La Guajira is unlike anywhere else on the continent. This remote and little-visited peninsula is a quiet oasis of sweeping sand dunes, bird-covered mangrove swamps, and vast stretches of empty land where the orange-brown La Guajira Desert meets the turquoise Caribbean Sea.
Indigenous beliefs are the law of the land here, as the peninsula is home to the proud Wayuu people, who were never subjugated under Spanish rule and maintain a vibrant culture to this day.
Keep in mind that tourism is still new in La Guajira, and the ride in from the regional capital of Riohacha requires both patience and a sense of adventure. The windsurfing Mecca of Cabo de la Vela has the most tourism infrastructure and will likely be your best entry point into the region.
11. Hacienda Napoles
Entrance to Hacienda Napoles | Jess Kraft / Shutterstock.com
If there's one man who lingers large over Colombia's recent history, it's the billionaire drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. What few people realize is that you can actually visit the lavish estate built and owned by Escobar in Puerto Triunfo, about 110 miles east of Medellin.
The sprawling complex, known as Hacienda Napoles, fell into disrepair in the decade after Escobar's death in 1993. But the local municipality took control of the property in the mid-2000s and turned it intoof all thingsan ever-growing amusement park with an eclectic mix of themed zones, hotels, a water park, and safari-style zoo.
The amusements and hotels are new, and signs of Escobar are now limited. The ruins of his former mansion were bulldozed, and one of the Cessna planes he used to smuggle drugs to the US that used to be perched atop the entry gate is gone (as is the gate). The only thing remaining is a small museum that grapples with his legacy and some of his antique car collection rusting peacefully in the sun.
There is also a Jurassic zone filled with the life-size dinosaur replicas he purchased for his son and a wild hippo herd that, after years of heavy procreation, has grown from four to 40 and now represents the largest herd outside of Africa.
12. Cano Cristales
Cano Cristales
Cano Cristales was off limits for decades while in the grip of guerrilla fighters but is officially back in business and welcoming more tourists than ever before. Most visitors come to this remote river canyon in the Orinoquia region to hike between its waterfalls and bathe in its natural swimming holes.
While worth the trip in any season, the canyon is particularly prismatic between July and November, when an algae bloom turns the riverbed into a rainbow of colors. The isolated outpost of La Macarena is your base for trips to Cano Cristales, and it's only reachable by air from Bogota or Villavicencio.
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Whether through sheer luck or strength of spirit, many Prisoners of War were able to return home after their ordeal, but for others the struggle proved too much and they died before they could see their families again.
David Hutson's father Cyril was one of those men.
Cyril, born in 1916, was one of four brothers who all went off to fight in World War Two. He was captured by the Japanese in 1941 and endured thee and half years of captivity.
Cyril was first imprisoned in Tandjong Priok Camp (known as Bicycle Camp), but was later moved to Batavia - modern-day Jakarta - to work as a slave labourer.
In March 1943 he was selected among 1000 other prisoners to be transported on so-called hellships to the Moluccas in Indonesia to build roads and airstrips
"The conditions aboard these ships were terrible with the prisoners locked in overcrowded holds in extreme heat with no sanitation or water save what the Japanese guards gave them," David said.
"With their weakened condition many died or were unfit for work when they arrived in Ambon - the capital of the Maluku province of Indonesia.
"Here they were marched many miles in blistering heat and forced to work with primitive tools and little food. This went on through 1943 and well into 1944 under constant bombing from the Allies unaware that in destroying the airfields they were also killing POW's."
The men who endured this torture became known as 'The Liang 1000'.
"The PoWs that survived this period were transported back to Java aboard the hellships and Cyril was put aboard one of the worst," David said.
"It was called the Maros Maru - and old coal ship which continually broke down. During these breakdowns, however long, the PoW's were battened down in the holds in the intense heat and many died.
"It was during one of these breakdowns that lasted 40 of the 60 days of voyage that the PoW's endured horrific conditions with little water and even less food.
"Of the 650 that had boarded the ship, 325 died and their burial consisted of a rope and rock to weigh them down before being thrown into the sea."
Tragically, Cyril was one of the men who died onboard the Maros Maru on October 11, 1944.
"Here at home we knew nothing of his death until January 1946," David said.
"It was not until I started research into my father's service, capture and subsequent events that I learnt the true story of the men and women who endured, survived or perished during these terrible years under a cruel enemy.
"Of the four brothers and one brother-in-law that went off to war, four returned; one with the military medal, one with the Distinguished Service medal, and one with a mention in dispatches. My father was the only one not to return."
A memorial service is being held to commemorate Cyril, his fellow servicemen, and their families who suffered as Japanese Prisoners of War. The service is due to take place at St Andrews Church on Wednesday, February 15 all attendees must be seated by 10.45am.
To help raise funds for the service visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/fall-of-singapore-75th-anniversary
Burglary suspect Felix Perez is suing New York City claiming PTSD after an August police shooting left him with a bullet in his butt. (Photo: NY Dept. of Corrections)
A burglary suspect shot in the rear end by NYPD officers who caught him inside a Queens home claims he is the victim and wants $10 million for PTSD.
Felix Perez, 38, already had six burglary arrests on his rap sheet when he was found skulking through a 66th street home in Maspeth in August, police said.
Police say he was shot during a struggle with officers.
Perez, who is being held at Rikers Island on charges stemming from the burglary, has filed a suit in a Manhattan Federal Court that says he has nightmares of being killed by officers and fear of anyone in uniform. He is acting as his own attorney in the suit, the New York Post reports.
Officer Jon Richey was found dead at his home in Salt Lake City Saturday. Richey was wounded in a January 2016 shooting that killed another officer. (Photo: Unified PD)
An officer with the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake, who was injured in a fatal shooting last year, was found dead at his Salt Lake City home Saturday.
Officer Jon Richey had recovered from gunshot wounds in both legs after Cory Lee Henderson shot him and fatally shot Officer Doug Barney on Jan. 17, 2016, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
The Salt Lake City Police Department was investigating Richey's death Saturday and stated there were no indications of foul play. The department said in a tweet that a medical examiner would determine Richey's cause of death.
In a news release from Unified Police, Lt. Brian Lohrke said the department was heartbroken over Richey's death.
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During a town hall in Elm Grove, WI, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) hinted that Congress would have to do something if NSA Mike Flynns lies about contact with Russia go all the way up to President Trump. According to the Constitution, that something is impeachment.
John Harwood of CNBC tweeted:
WI GOP Rep Sensenbrenner, at town hall, on NSA Flynn: "If he ended up lying up food chain to POTUS, then something would have to be done" John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) February 12, 2017
Congress does have the power to censure a president, but the reprimand means nothing and carries no punishment. A censure would be useless in a circumstance where a president-elect colluded with a hostile actor towards the United States to undermine sanctions. If Congress feels like Trump has endangered national security or committed a high crime, their only true course of action after a comprehensive investigation would be impeachment.
Republicans in Congress are terrified of Trump launching a primary campaign against them, so Sensenbrenner spoke very carefully, but his comments if accurately reported by John Harwood reflect what Congressional Democrats say is a great deal of concern among their Republican colleagues about Trump and Russia.
Trump and Flynn may give Republicans in Congress no choice but to launch a full-scale investigation. The fact that an elected Republican would hint at Congress doing something about the growing Russia scandal suggests that impeachment isnt a fantasy. It is a thought that is entering the minds of some of our elected leaders.
Note: Article will be updated with audio or video if they become available.
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Donald Trump has some serious issues that are absolutely getting in the way of his ability to function on any kind of expected, adult level.
This was never cute. But now President Trump is whining about the media not covering his enthusiastic supporters while Russian smokes threatens to bring this country down thanks to him and his administration. This is more than pathetic. Its deeply troubling.
Just leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017
Donald Trumps National Security adviser was busted Thursday and Friday for having talks with the Russian ambassador about the sanctions imposed in retaliation for Russia interfering with our election. He had some of these talks before the election. Before Donald Trump won the election.
On Friday, a top aide to Trumps NSA was denied security clearance.
Friday and Saturday, Democrats called for Trump to fire his National Security adviser.
Friday evening, Trump pretended he knew nothing of the explosive report that his NSA was talking to Russia even before the election.
Sunday, Trump adviser Stephen Miller refused to comment on this matter saying the White House hadnt given him anything to say on it.
On Sunday, a former national security expert quoted a Senior Pentagon intelligence official as saying, Since January 20, weve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the Situation Room Theres not much the Russians dont know at this point.
On Sunday evening, Michael Flynn was on Air Force One with President Trump, returning to D.C.
So basically D.C. is on fire with Russian flames encroaching our most vital national security and Donald Trump is whining about crowds and the media.
Senator Al Franken said today that a few Republicans are worried about Trumps mental health. Just a few? That says a lot.
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Sen. Angus King (I-ME) joined the panel on Mondays Morning Joe to talk about the extraordinary statement by that fella Miller that the president is in charge of everything.
John Marshall settled that question in 1803. This is Mr. Trump meet Mr. Madison. Division of powers, independent judiciary, fundamental principals of our Constitution. And those statements yesterday were absolutely breathtaking.
Watch courtesy of MSNBC:
To former Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803 Joe Scarborough added Warren Berger in 1974s United States v. Nixon. King allowed that presidents do have expansive authority in foreign policy and particularly in national security but its limited by the Constitution.
There is, as the panel pointed out, a system of checks and balances and presidents have to abide by the Constitution, leading King to say that he doesnt think Miller and Trump have a gut-level understanding of checks and balances, of the Constitution.
King lamented what he and many others see as a systematic effort to de-legitimize any opposition, the press, now the judiciary.
Mika Brzezinski made the important point that We cant pretend the president doesnt know about this. This claim was, by the way, widespread in Nazi Germany, If only the Fuhrer knew Well, the Fuhrer knew, and so does Trump.
We cant pretend the president doesnt know about this and tweeted something he didnt mean. We just have to stop thinking that maybe he doesnt get it, or maybe hes not smart enough, or maybe hes not educated in rules of the law. We cant do that anymore. This is becoming really dangerous.
Brzezinski says there is an angle to all this and that though Scarborough doesnt want her to say it, the time is coming when we are all going to have to say it, what this looks like.
Truer words were never spoken, and Scarboroughs reticence even now to call a spade a spade does not reflect well on him. His belief that Trump will for some reason walk back the comment a belief rebutted by the panel seems to be more of that math Republicans do to make themselves feel better.
Even so, the moment has finally come when Trump has revealed his autocratic tendencies for all to see, when it becomes impossible even for sometimes-Trump-apologists Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to claim Trump is not ultimately responsible for all the scary things coming out of his administration.
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Donald Trump does not like to be made fun of, but it is proving almost impossible not to crack jokes about a man and an administration as laughably incompetent as his.
Last Week Tonights John Oliver put it like this in speaking of Trumps inauguration lies: We have a president capable of standing in the rain and saying it was a sunny day.
Oliver goes on to say Donald Trump lies is clearly not a fresh observation. If that were the extent of it we could just laugh and shake our heads and walk away. But its not.
As one acute observer has noted of the Trumpcapades:
Seriously, what the actual fuck is up w these Trump Admin ppl. They are the most smug, smarmy, cartoon villain-y ppl Ive EVER seen. EVER.
Testify, sister. Youre not alone. What could be more cartoonish than an orange-headed Groucho Marx claiming he has unquestioned political power?
In that vein, Twitter has turned into an endless series of one-liners, if not from the primary source, Trumps own account, then from his critics. Guantanamo prosecutor Col. Morris Davis got off a good one last night in response to a Fox News tweet about a missing Adolf Hitler impersonator:
Austrian police go on hunt for Adolf Hitler impersonator https://t.co/kgS0Fr40Ut Fox News (@FoxNews) February 13, 2017
Did they check Mar-a-Lago? https://t.co/ha1R01Qy2h Col. Morris Davis (@ColMorrisDavis) February 13, 2017
Its a cheap shot, sure, but Trump himself claiming he has unlimited political power is the reason it is funny.
Trump has made himself into a caricature through his efforts to pretend to be somebody he so glaringly is not and the goings on of his administration seem more satirical than real. Saturday Night Live does not even need comedy writers at this point; they just need direct quotes.
In fact, when Davis asked Morning Joe and MSNBC to Name one thing @realDonaldTrump and @GOP Congress have done thats been a tangible benefit to average Americans, it caused Princeton Universitys Steven Strauss to respond,
Does providing material for Saturday Night Live and comedians everywhere count? https://t.co/Z1aYtCnSdc Steven Strauss (@Steven_Strauss) February 13, 2017
Dead States Sky Palma proves you dont have to tell a joke about Trump to destroy him; you only have to point to a fact, and you dont even have to mention Trumps name:
Remember when people warned against a female president because she might be irrational, vindictive, and prone to mood swings? Sky Palma (@DeadStateTweets) February 10, 2017
Ana Navarro nails Trump for his administrations butchering of English, rivaling that of George W. Bush by taking illiteracy administration-wide:
For people who insist on "English-only", this Administration sure as hell butchers the written language. Sad! Make Spelling Great Again! https://t.co/nyKkwEvfUL Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) February 13, 2017
To the same typo Keith Olbermann quipped, Well, there were translation problems from the original Russian. Another cheap shot but Trump again has only himself to blame.
Sky Palma went the other way, but you can also nail Trump based on actual facts, as John Oliver proved when he said of Trump, He is making real policy out of fake facts.
If you want proof from Trumps own Twitter feed, serial liar Trump just praised his advisor Stephen Miller for his round of lies Sunday by saying Miller did a great job of representing him. You cant get more unintentionally forthright than that.
That makes us laugh, and perhaps it should, but Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin points to a far less funny if incredibly serious problem with the administration:
It's curious how Trump is fixated on imaginary voter fraud, while he courts the foreign adversary that subverted our election on his behalf. Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) February 13, 2017
Oliver quipped, It has been so busy that its gotten to where the most terrifying sound is your phone buzzing with a news alert, and hes right.
As CNN editor Zachary Wolf put it in all seriousness, This is what makes covering Donald Trump so very difficult: what does he mean when he says words?
This is a skill we teach children: use your words, we tell them in elementary school, but a functionally illiterate serial liar like Trump is still struggling.
Which only serves to highlight the fact that if Donald Trump is a joke, he is a very dangerous joke, because we cannot afford to have a walking, talking joke in the White House.
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In a joint press conference this afternoon with Canadia Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that the U.S. and Canada share values certainly an arguable point, given Trumps highly criticized Muslim ban, especially when contrasted with Canadas much more open policy of welcome.
Trudeau had sent this tweet after Trumps Muslim ban:
To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 28, 2017
Watch courtesy of the White House (begins at the 43:11 mark):
In these dangerous times, Trump said, reading from prepared remarks, the U.S. is thankful for Canadas efforts to combat ISIS and work in common cause against terrorism, which he stressed is a huge threat, though he also promised to deal with North Korea very, very strongly.
A very low-key Trump called for close coordination to protect jobs in our hemisphere and keep wealth on our continent and keep everyone safe. He pledged to work with Trudeau in a number of areas, including trade and international and domestic security.
In contrast to Trumps almost somber tone, Trudeau was upbeat and spoke in both English and French. He also spoke of the unique relationship enjoyed by the two nations, calling them fundamentally linked and totally integrated.
Trudeau like Trump spoke of mutual respect and noted that two nations do not always agree on everything, but said that despite these differences, each will remain the others essential partner.
Though he focused on economic ties, Trudeau also brought up environmental treaties between the two nations. He talked not only of the energy sector but also of the environment, words which must have been much less pleasing to Trumps ears, as the president completely ignored environmental concerns in his own brief remarks.
The Canadian Prime Minister said the US and Canada are a model of how to be good neighbors, a far cry from what Mexico is seeing on the other side of the United States, though Trump promised improved relations with Mexico.
Both men dodged questions about any potential differences between them regarding security and immigration, and when asked, given their conflicting views, if he felt the northern border is secure, Trump said he was totally confident though earlier in the press conference he had seemed less certain.
Seemingly unable to speak without plugging himself, the insecure Trump also stressed his very large electoral college vote that in fact was one of the lowest margins in history, and that he was doing what people wanted in getting criminals out and not let the wrong people in.
This meant, of course, stressing that A lot of people are very, very happy right now.
Trudeau, more on point if no less evasive, said Canada continues to pursue its policies of openness without compromising security. Trudeau very carefully avoided criticizing Trumps harsh immigration policies and said it was not for Canada to lecture the U.S. but rather to continue to reflect Canadas approach and stay true to its own values.
This was at the least a veiled reference to differences between the two countries, and as much of a criticism as we are likely to see from the Canadia Prime Minister outside of the tweet made immediately after it was announced, when even then did not directly reference Trumps actions.
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Rather than focusing on facts or on Constitutional principals the Supreme Court has repeatedly re-affirmed, Trump apologist Sean Hannity took the Donald Trump tweetstorm response instead when MSNBCs Joe Scarborough criticized Stephen Millers claims that Trumps authority is not to be questioned.
Scarborough was initially incredulous over Trumps pat on the back to Miller for representing him:
I hope the president is talking about The Steve Miller Band and not that kid who embarrassed the White House this morning. #SweatsLikeMarco https://t.co/IqHiOXtE3V Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 13, 2017
He led with this tweet, straight out of the Trump playbook:
Joe why don't you focus on getting your horrific ratings up. They totally suck. And I'll take Steve Miller on my team over u any day. https://t.co/9FKBvpYRXp Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) February 13, 2017
Because poor ratings always validate violation of the United States Constitution, right, Sean?
Having put a little more thought into it, he came back with this one, which really shows little in the way of thought at all but seems to amuse Hannity:
Joe maybe it's time we start talking about who you really are. What do you think? https://t.co/9FKBvpYRXp Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) February 13, 2017
Finally, he lauded Miller for working OT to destroy the United States Constitution on behalf of his boss while all Scarborough and co-host Mike Brezinski do is talk:
Steve Miller works 18 hour days serving the country and the @POTUS What do you do? Basically talk to yourself & @morningmika Nobody watches! https://t.co/9FKBvpYRXp Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) February 13, 2017
Scarborough has not directly responded to Hannity but besides devoting an entire episode of Morning Joe to Millers anti-Constitutional diatribe, he did tweet this morning that Stephen Millers performance this weekend made Susan Rices the day after Benghazi look smooth, which is sure to ruffle Hannitys feathers.
More is sure to follow as Hannity flails helplessly in defense of the indefensible by making repeating ad hominem attacks because like Trump, he has no understanding at all of the actual issues.
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There have been reports that Trumps National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is on thin ice at the White House but CNN reports that White House sources say Flynn has no plans to resign and that he doesnt expect to be fired.
However, outspoken Trump critic Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, told CNNs Manu Raju this morning that if Flynn lied, he cant continue as National Security Adviser.
I think this is pretty black and white. If theres evidence that makes it clear that Flynn lied to the Vice President and others, then his credibility is shot, and he cant continue to be national security adviser.
If the reports are true, President Trump has access to a transcript that can tell him very clearly whether his National Security adviser lied to the vice president and to the White House. If he did, then he probably has to go.
In a statement Friday, Murphy condemned Flynn, saying,
There is no good way to explain todays report that Michael Flynn was coordinating sanctions relief for Russia before his boss was inaugurated. Either Donald Trump directed his National Security Adviser to undermine U.S. foreign policy on Russia, or Michael Flynn went rogue and did it on his own. Then he either lied to the Vice President or the Vice President went on television to lie to the American people. Whatever transpired, the President needs to get his White House under control. Im glad the FBI is continuing its investigation, because these troubling reports raise more red flags about the administrations intentions and integrity.
What Trump does if he does anything is a big deal. He can distance himself from Flynn and protect his presidency, or he risks going down with his National Security Adviser if investigations prove him guilty.
Nancy Pelosi has called for Flynn to be suspended and his intelligence clearance revoked. And things are bad enough for Trump as they stand, with each passing day costing him credibility.
As Amy Siskind puts it, The fact that Flynn still has a job confirms that he was doing as instructed by Trump and the rest of the regime knew too.
Murphy is right. Flynn has to go. And if Trump does nothing, his inaction alone will tell us everything we need to know about Donald Trumps relations with Vladimir Putin:
As former Nixon White House counsel John Dean tweeted Friday, If Michael Flynn survives lying to Pence, Priebus & Spicer, Trump is either complicit or compromised by Putin or both!
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In an interview Sunday on ABCs This Week Stephen Miller doubled down on Donald Trumps voter fraud lies and claimed that voter fraud is a common state of affairs in New Hampshire:
This issue of busing voters in to New Hampshire is widely known by anyone whos worked in New Hampshire politics. Its very real, its very serious.
Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:
PolitiFact calls this a baseless claim. Miller had told George Stephanopoulos,
Ive actually, having worked before on a campaign in New Hampshire, I can tell you that this issue of busing voters in to New Hampshire is widely known by anyone whos worked in New Hampshire politics. Its very real, its very serious. This morning on this show is not the venue for me lay out all the evidence.
PolitiFact wasted no time making mincemeat of Millers baseless claims:
We searched widely, as have others, and failed to find any evidence corroborating Miller and Trumps claim.
Fergus Cullen, who ran the New Hampshire Republican Party from 2007-08, said the stories about voters coming over from Massachusetts are as old as the invention of the bus. What fuels the concern is New Hampshires same-day voter registration law, even though it was adopted in the 1990s with strong Republican support to avoid the federal governments motor voter law, which allows people to register to vote at their DMV.
The result is that yes, it is possible and legal for someone to drive into a polling place in a car with out-of-state tags, register to vote, and vote, Cullen told PolitiFact. Of course they have to sign affidavits and they would be risking significant legal penalties if they voted in more than one place or state. The odds of being caught are pretty high.
Not only that, they added that, Millers claim has been analyzed by our colleagues at PolitiFact New Hampshire, who found no evidence busing exists. They rated a similar claim about Massachusetts residents boarding buses to vote in New Hampshire Pants on Fire.
PolitiFact New Hampshire, in particular, talked to several state and local officials about whether anything fishy occurred Nov. 8. Nashua City Clerk Tricia Piecuch, who works in the states second-largest city on the border with Massachusetts, said nothing out of the ordinary went down. Officials in the Secretary of States office, Attorney Generals office and U.S. Attorneys office all reported no complaints of voter fraud in the 2016 election.
It appears that not only does Miller not understand the Constitution or our system of checks and balances, he has the same tendency toward reckless dishonesty as his boss, Donald Trump when it comes to issues like voter fraud.
PolitiFact concluded that there is no evidence this occurs, and Republicans and Democrats in New Hampshire say it does not. Trump and his White House have been asked multiple times to provide evidence but have not.
We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
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President Trump humiliated himself in front of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by suggesting that the northern border is not secure and lying about the size of Electoral College win.
Video:
Trump was asked if he believed the northern border is secure.
He answered, You can never be totally confident, but through the incredible efforts already I see it happening of formerly General Kelly, now Secretary Kelly we have really done a great job. Were actually taking people that are criminals, very very hardened criminals in some cases with a tremendous track record of abuse and problems, and were getting them out, and thats what I said I would do. Im just doing what I said I would do when we won by a very very large Electoral College vote.
For the record, Trumps Electoral College win wasnt large. His margin of victory ranks near the bottom in the history of presidential elections.
Trumps constant insecurity about losing the popular vote is causing him to humiliate himself in front of foreign leaders and the entire world. President Trump is so desperate for legitimacy that he suggested the US/Canadian border is not secure, and that he is making it secure.
President Trump has shown once again that he doesnt understand the concept of a border. The northern border has two sides. Trump cant unilaterally make the northern border secure, just like he cant unilaterally make Mexico pay for his wall along the southern border.
Prime Minister Trudeau deserves credit for not bursting into laughter while Trump was rambling on and trying to cover up his complete lack of knowledge.
We are only in week four of the Trump administration, but this president continues to find new ways to humiliate himself and the United States in front of the entire world.
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Not all subversive communications have to be in secret. Sometimes the best way to avoid detection is to communicate publicly, although it helps to be a bit more subtle than this.
On December 30, the day after President Barack Obama retaliated for Moscows interference in the U.S. election and Trumps National Security adviser Mike Flynn had multiple phone calls with Putin during which Obamas sanctions on Russia were discussed, Trump praised Putin for his delay in reacting to the sanctions.
Trump wrote, Great move on delay (by V. Putin) I always knew he was very smart!
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) I always knew he was very smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016
Back on January 23, the Trump White House denied there had been several phone calls between the Russian U.S. Ambassador and Mike Flynn on the 29th (they also changed the date of their ownership of a call).
A Reuters report indicated there were in fact five phone calls that day (emphasis mine):
The White House said on Monday that national security adviser Michael Flynn held just two phone calls with Russias ambassador to Washington, amid reports that Flynns communications are being scrutinized by U.S. counterintelligence agents. Reuters reported earlier this month, citing three sources familiar with the matter, that Flynn had held five phone calls with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak on Dec. 29, the day then-President Barack Obama retaliated for Moscows interference in the U.S. presidential election.
This looks like a ham-handed way of letting Putin know that he was right to listen to Flynns reassurances that once Trump was in office, he would take care of the sanctions imposed by President Obama, in retaliation for Moscows hostile efforts to give the election to Trump.
Once Obama issued these harsher sanctions on Russia, Putin had even more incentive to ensure that Trump won the election. He had reason to believe Trump would repay him by rolling the sanctions back.
Just a few days ago, Putin offered Edward Snowden to Trump as a gift. (Trojan Horse, more likely, a win/win for Putin- again.)
In July of 2016, Trump said of Snowden, whom Trump has said should be executed, And if I were president, Putin would give him over.
Well. Now we have a report that Putin is offering to do just that, which if true exemplifies how these two men communicate with each other publicly without ever having a direct conversation. (It is possible they have communicated privately about these matters, but there isnt public evidence of that.)
On July 27, Donald Trump invited Russia to hack Hillary Clintons emails, and read in context with what we know today, Trumps comment reads as if he knew they were listening to him and waiting for direction, Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
He continued with what appears to be a slip because it was not public knowledge that Russia was behind the hacking of the DNC, By the way, they hacked they probably have her 33,000 e-mails. I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 e-mails that she lost and deleted because youd see some beauties there. So lets see.
The big question right now is did Trump order Flynn to take these calls with Russia, and specifically of the calls before the election, did Trump and or the people working for him conspire with Russia to hand the election to Trump.
This public tweet is evidence of communication between Trump and Putin. It is evidence that Trump signaled to Putin that he was very smart for his delay. Now what else could that mean other than Putin was smart for trusting that the Trump administration would take care of him and would be rewarded for his delay.
On December 30, Donald Trump was not the president.
This tweet suggests very strongly that Trump knew about the Flynn calls.
This is yet another reason why Republicans need to join Democrats passing legislation to give Congress the authority to review any rollback of sanctions on Russia.
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Well, people. I dont even know what to say anymore.
The New York Times published a very alarming report on the Trump administration. The President Trumps National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, of the talking to Russia about sanctions while Obama was still President infamy, did not know how to call the National Guard for an emergency.
Several staff members said that Mr. Flynn, who was a career Army officer, was not familiar with how to call up the National Guard in an emergency for, say, a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina or the detonation of a dirty bomb in an American city.
Not knowing how to call the National Guard up during an emergency even for a few minutes literally endangered all Americans. It is something every administration should know before they walk in the door. Regular administrations do know this.
Its something incoming administrations are briefed on during the transition. But the Trump administration blew many of those transition briefings off.
Trump himself said he didnt need to attend intelligence briefings because, You know, Im, like, a smart person.
The National Guard provides protection of life and property and preserves peace, order and public safety. These missions are accomplished through emergency-relief support during natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires; search and rescue operations; support to civil defense authorities; maintenance of vital public services and counter-drug operations. The National Guards federal mission is to maintain well-trained, well-equipped units available for prompt mobilization during war and provide assistance during national emergencies.
We have a National Security Adviser who didnt know how to call the National Guard in an emergency. It is not clear that he knows how to do this now, either, since the wording is, Several staff members said that Mr. Flynn was not familiar with how to call up the National Guard in an emergency.
That is not the comforting had not been familiar with how to call up the national guard. It is they said he was not. That could mean he is still not.
Flynn was also surprised to learn that President Trump couldnt just order up some foreign arms sales all by himself. And it seems there was no one around who could explain this to him.
Two people with direct access to the White House leadership said Mr. Flynn was surprised to learn that the State Department and Congress play a pivotal role in foreign arms sales and technology transfers. So it was a rude discovery that Mr. Trump could not simply order the Pentagon to send more weapons to Saudi Arabia which is clamoring to have an Obama administration ban on the sale of cluster bombs and precision-guided weapons lifted or to deliver bigger weapons packages to the United Arab Emirates.
While this is less of a everyone knows that incidence, it boggles the mind how unprepared these people are, how incompetent they are, how much power they think is Trumps alone, and how unwilling to learn from past administrations they are.
There is no excuse, ever, for not knowing how to call the National Guard the moment he stepped into his position as NSA.
Trump said he would surround himself with the best people. He did not.
The Trump administration is full of stunningly incompetent people. They already, in their first three weeks, bungled the Yemen raid and got a Navy SEAL killed due to their lack of preparation and frightening incompetence. Now it comes out that Flynn did not even know how to call up the National Guard during an emergency.
This is the stuff of nightmares and horror movies.
[Editor's Note: the following opinions are entirely my own.]
Last night, at the 59th GRAMMY Awards, there was an elephant in the room that has been lurking in the shadows this entire award season: Trump's presidency.
The decision on whether or not to speak up about the illegal Executive Orders, fascist-level branding of journalists as "the opposition", unethical Cabinet appointments, and overall racial injustice is one that has cemented a celebrity's status in history: and this fact is lost on no one.
Those who have spoken out (read: Meryl Streep , Michael Moore ) have been disregarded as the "liberal Elite", an oxymoron in itself, and if they're lucky, a tweet from @realDonaldTrump insulting them and their entire career. In result, celebrities have seemed to chosen a more subtle route, like Katy Perry's vague "No hate!" remark at the end of last night's performance and Lady Gaga's faux-progressive (I mean, when a song addresses Latinx and Asians to be of "chola" and "orient" descent - really, need I say more?) rendition of Born This Way at last weekend's 51st Superbowl. To this, we say: it is not enough.
It is not enough because while you blindly overlook the power of your platform, mothers are being torn from their families indefinitely. To have any sort of say in your level of resistance is privilege. To not wake up in fear over ICE raids, many of which will affect everyone you know, is privilege. To settle for saying the bare minimum in favor of your career and sponsors while many of your young, impressionable fans live day to day completely terrified is privilege - and dangerous.
The stage has always been by the people, for the people - if A Tribe Called Quest had anything to say about it. In the most powerful performance of the night (and quite possibly recent memory), A Tribe Called Quest was joined on stage by Anderson Paak, Busta Rhymes, and Consequence to pay tribute to dearly departed Tribe member Phife Dawg - in the form of a fist of resistance to President "Agent Orange." Before launching into a powerful rendition of "We the People", Busta Rhymes thanked the President for his "unsuccessful attempt at a Muslim ban." Once again proving that people of color are the only ones to do a movement's heavy lifting, they brought the injustice of the current administration into the room where it is most prominently ignored: seats filled with the top 1% of Hollywood's elite, having the immeasurable privilege to look the other way. Tearing down a wall in the process and bringing Muslims on stage to showcase the very real people (not a number, not a statistic) affected by this ban, Tribe made the night's most necessary statement by saying what no one else wanted to say.
The fact that this took place at the GRAMMY Awards is monumental and an accomplishment in itself. The Recording Academy has long proven itself to have a history with racial bias. One can argue, but the facts are clear: during a decade where the only memorable source of music has come from Black culture, how is it possible that the last Black artist to win the "prestigious" Album of the Year award was Herbie Hancock in 2008? How is it possible, then, that the last Black woman was Lauryn Hill in 1999? We poke fun at Kanye for calling out injustices ever since the 2009 VMA's Taylor Swift incident (yet another picture painted by the media of the angry Black man overpowering the white victim), but he has been preaching a very real truth that the Academy has repeatedly chosen to ignore.
Most of 2016's most socially significant and essential work was solely the voice of Black artists. Devonte Hynes (under his alias Blood Orange) released 'Freetown Sound', a celebration of Hynes' identity deriving from Freetown, Sierra Leone. It hosted a variety of collaborators, ranging from Nelly Furtado to writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. While at the receiving end of high critical acclaim and success, it was undeniably disregarded by all mainstream recognizers of achievement.
In a Tumblr post published by Frank Ocean the day before the Awards, he called out everything everyone's been thinking but too hesitant to say out loud without a single fault: "I've actually been tuning into CBS around this time of year for a while to see who gets the top honor and you know what's really not 'great TV' guys? 1989 getting album of the year over To Pimp A Butterfly. Hands down one of the most 'faulty' TV moments I've seen. Believe the people. . And if you're up for a discussion about the cultural bias and general nerve damage the show you produce suffers from then I'm all for it." We live in the age of artists taking back control over their music and just who gets to benefit from it. Ocean calling out the Recording Academy for their racism is long overdue and necessary in every sense of the word. By dismissing them as nothing more than a gold statue than an actual accolade of accomplished artists, the GRAMMY Awards lose their power for failing to be anything of any real consequence.
In the culmination of the night, the Album of the Year award was given to Adele's 25 over the highly-praised, #1-selling record Lemonade. To witness Beyonce lose another title to a white woman was, in fact, not surprising to me at all. In fact, I expected it. However, the disrespect stayed with me, and it stayed with everyone else too - there was a brief pause upon Adele's name being called out that neither she or her team knew what to do with themselves. This time, the GRAMMY Awards made it clear: we will continue to use Black artists for our ratings, views, and benefit - and we will continue to rob them of any recognition. After all, who's to say any different after who was elected President?
In a moment of rare sincerity, Adele broke down in tears upon addressing Beyonce: "The Lemonade album was so monumental, and so well thought out, and so beautiful and soul-bearing. You are our light. And the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel, is empowering, and you make them stand up for themselves." I'm not going to point fingers at Adele for being part of a broken system, and for all intents and purposes we all know she is probably a much bigger Beyonce fan than I am. It would be unfair to dismiss Adele as someone who is not aware of the social and political context her award was given under, as even a Brit can see the very real race war coming to a peak under our noses. Her calling-out of the snub is necessary and important, because if the recipient of the award is saying you fucked up: you truly fucked up.
The last word of A Tribe Called Quest's performance, accompanied with Black power fists, summed up the award show by bringing the opposition into the room where it has been repeatedly ignored, by making sure every single person heard it loud and clear: "Resist."
Watchdog and Public Service reporter
Thad Moore is a reporter on The Post and Couriers Watchdog and Public Service team and a graduate of the University of South Carolina. To share tips securely, reach Moore via ProtonMail at thadmoore@protonmail.com or on Signal at 843-214-6576.
'You're not sharing in the same success that you're creating for Boeing.' Workers, union rally ahead of North Charleston labor vote
Charleston, SC (29403)
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As Laffittes case has moved toward trial, it has helped shed new light on Alex Murdaughs alleged financial crimes. His trial is poised to unpack them in the finest detail yet. Read moreEx-SC banker Russell Laffitte set to face trial in first Murdaugh case to be heard by jury
S.C. Education Superintendent Molly Spearman wasnt dreaming up hypothetical problems when she went to the Statehouse in 2019 to ask for authority to remove school boards in districts the state has to take over. Read moreScoppe: Allendale interventions show SC school takeovers work while they last
The oft-told story of a frog perishing in a pot as the water slowly warms and then cooks him is not actually based in fact; the metaphor persists because it describes something that is true: We are less aware of change that occurs gradually than when it happens all at once. Read moreEditorial: Referendums based on slow evolution: Berkeley, Dorchester aren't so rural anymore
The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication.
All flights were halted for several hours due to the evacuation, but air traffic started running again around 2 p.m., airport spokeswoman Karen Stein said.
German firefighters on Sunday evacuated hundreds of passengers at Hamburg Airport after about 50 people were injured by an unknown hazardous material that likely spread through the airport's air conditioning system.
More than 50 people -- both passengers and staff -- had complained about breathing problems, burning eyes and nausea. Firefighters were examining them to find out whether they had to be taken to the hospital, the German news agency dpa reported.
Those who were evacuated from the airport but not injured had to wait outside the terminals in freezing temperatures.
Firefighters designated special areas outside the airport building where physicians were examining those injured by the unknown substance.
The cause for the incident was not known, Stein said, "but we're working closely together with the authorities to find out more."
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
A 30-year-old Rochester man is in police custody after allegedly receiving shipments of marijuana from Colorado to sell locally.
David Baca was arrested Friday afternoon pending charges of fifth-degree sale of marijuana after police executed a search warrant at his home, 1911 Viking Drive Northwest, according to Rochester police Capt. John Sherwin.
The investigation started when a U.S. Postal Inspector contacted the Rochester Police Department regarding suspicious deliveries from Colorado to Baca's residence.
Baca had allegedly received a shipment the day before and had sold much of it advertising it for sale on Facebook by the time police executed the search, according to Sherwin.
Police found about 50 grams at his home, Sherwin said.
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Sherwin added police routinely get calls from the U.S. Postal Service and other letter and parcel carriers about suspicious packages.
Two national movements met on a Rochester sidewalk Saturday as anti-abortion and abortion rights supporters came out to voice their opinions about Planned Parenthood .
About 30 to 35 to people turned out to pray and participate in the "National Defund PP Rally" in front of Northgate Center on Seventh Street Northwest, where Planned Parenthood has offices, while about 200 to 250 people rallied nearby, holding "I Stand With Planned Parenthood" signs and chanting that "women's rights are under attack."
The event brought out many people who have never participated in political events of this kind.
"Protecting life is one of the most important things you can do," said Jan Hansgen of St. Charles, who organized the local rally to defund Planned Parenthood. Her documents describe the organization as "the nation's largest abortion chain."
Hansgen, who is a member of Catholic Daughters of the Americas , previously sang Christmas carols in front of the local Planned Parenthood offices but hadn't organized anything such as Saturday's rally.
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"I looked on the national list (of more than 200 cities where 'de-fund rallies' were taking place) and I didn't see anything in Rochester, so I thought I should do something," she said as others around her prayed and marched with signs saying, "Stop abortion now."
Planned Parenthood operates 18 clinics in Minnesota, 21 in Wisconsin, 12 in Iowa and one in South Dakota. Nationwide, federal Medicaid reimbursement made up nearly half the organization's total revenue in 2014, according to the Associated Press. Should that funding be cut, it could mean the loss of more than $13 million for its Minnesota clinics.
There is a long-standing ban on the use of federal funds for abortion services, but Planned Parenthood clinics provide a host of other services such as health screenings, counseling, vaccinations, vasectomies, Pap smears and birth control refills.
Of the 9,861 abortions recorded by the Minnesota Health Department in 2015, more than half 5,048 were performed at a Planned Parenthood clinic, though only one of the 18 Minnesota clinics provides abortion services.
Hansgen's group was outnumbered by the loud and much larger crowd of Planned Parenthood supporters, many of whom wore pink hats from recent protests. Organizers tapped into growing social media protest groups to quickly mobilize the crowd for Saturday's event, though many were not the "usual" protesters.
Amid the chanting crowd stood Cindy Adamson, of Rochester, with a sign featuring a "definition" of the word "Gynotician." According to her sign, the word is a noun that refers to "a politician who feels more qualified that a woman and her physician to make health care decisions."
"This is my first time at something like this," she said. "But I believe all women should have access to health care."
Loren Thomas, of Rochester, who also supports Planned Parenthood, said being at the event was a new experience for him. "This is the first time I've done something like this here," he said. "This is a cause I care about and I do think think the climate right now is creating a lot of momentum, which is bringing people out."
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Thomas said that so many people misunderstand what Planned Parenthood does that it inspired him to take part.
Adamson said that growing up Catholic, she had misconceptions about what Planned Parenthood is about. "Now I know that Planned Parenthood provides health care to people who need it," she said.
Linda McGuire, of Mantorville, of the Defund Rally disagreed with that characterization. She said she's has been opposing Planned Parenthood for about 30 years."This is about protecting the most innocent among us. If we don't stand up for them now, who will stand up for us when we need it?"
Dr. Beth Elliot, who is a member of Planned Parenthood's Rochester Advisory Council as well as a member of a state committee, said the organization helps those who most need it. The national organization offers "nonjudgmental and confidential" STD and HIV testing and pap smears as well as basic services such as monitoring blood pressure for people who have trouble affording traditional medical care.
"Many people use Planned Parenthood for their primary health care," said Elliot, who does not personally provide medical services there.
Bob Maegerlein, who also serves on the Rochester Advisory Council, said Planned Parenthood also provides important health care services for men.
Hansgen and McGuire say that local people have more plans to oppose Planned Parenthood. On March 1, a "40 Days for Life" protest campaign is expected to kick off in Rochester, they said.
The future of healthcare coverage is still in murky waters.
It was standing room only at the Southeastern Minnesota Center for Independent Living (SEMCIL) on Sunday. A bipartisan forum consisting of democratic representatives Tina Liebling and Duane Sauke, and republican senators Carla Nelson and Dave Senjem, addressed around 60 attendees who had concerns about the future of their health care coverage, and other pressing matters such as mental health care, and care for those with disabilities.
Part of the discussion addressed the future of the Affordable Care Act under President Donald Trump's administration, and attempts made by lawmakers to repeal and replace the legislation.
Liebling considered those efforts harmful.
"If the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is repealed, Minnesota stands to lose $2 billion a year in funding we are getting now," she said. "A lot of that funding, guess where that funding goes? It goes to people with disabilities and services for people with disabilities. So, that is a disaster for Minnesota right out of the box."
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The Affordable Care Act assisted nearly 20 million Americans get health care coverage . It prevented insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing illnesses, and provided subsidies to those who couldn't afford health care coverage, Liebling said.
Nelson stated that the Affordable Care Act does more harm than good for those already paying high premiums.
"After the Affordable Care Act, what we've seen is a total decimation of the health insurance market, particularly for those in the small and individual group," she said. "We're seeing premiums of more than $40,000 a year and deductibles of more than $13,000. My friends, that's not insurance."
There was also discussion of the shortage of beds at hospitals and centers for those who struggle with mental illnesses, as well as suicide rates in rural areas of the state, where resources are not readily accessible in crisis situations.
While the future of the Affordable Care Act is still being debated, the lawmakers agreed that they'll work together in order to make sure Minnesotans are represented in future discussions and plans.
"We're all here to serve the people," Senjem said.
Mayo Clinic CEO Dr. John Noseworthy defended the clinic's response to President Donald Trump's travel ban during a recent interview.
Noseworthy appeared on Twin Cities Public Television's public affairs show "Almanac" on Friday. During the interview, he was asked about Mayo's response to Trump's executive order, which suspended the nation's refugee program and bans people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals recently upheld a restraining order on the travel ban.
Almanac host Cathy Wurzer asked Noseworthy, "The Mayo was criticized about being a little mild on the president's immigration order. What do you say to that criticism?"
Noseworthy responded that he brought up the travel ban when he met with White House officials last week about veterans' health care.
"When I was with the administration on Tuesday, they heard our message that America requires this global talent pool, particularly in science and medicine, but in many sectors," he said.
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Noseworthy added that he told representatives of the Trump administration, "we could have signed a petition, written a letter; we could have gone on television. That's not Mayo's style. We'd rather work with them to try to support our patients and support our staff. That's the way we do things."
Lewis' take
Also weighing in on Trump's immigration executive order on "Almanac" was 2nd District Republican Rep. Jason Lewis. He said he is not pleased with how the ban was rolled out and that it affected people with green cards. But he said it also is important to take steps to protect America from extremists.
If an individual is "recruited out of Minnesota and they go to Syria or Somalia or any place and become radicalized, it's probably a good idea to prevent them from coming back in. I think that's a reasonable position," Lewis said.
Trump has indicated he may revise his executive order or pass a new one this week. The administration also has the option of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the restraining order.
Klobuchar on Gorsuch
Minnesota DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar paid a visit to Claremont's Al-Corn Clean Fuel ethanol plant on Friday. During her stop, my colleague Brita Moore asked her about Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court Judge Neil Gorsuch. Klobuchar met with Gorsuch earlier in the week.
Klobuchar didn't indicate whether she would be willing to vote for Gorsuch, saying it is still early in the process of vetting the nominee.
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"We're still getting questions answered in writing, and then we'll have those major televised hearings and the chance for the public to hear from him," she said.
Klobuchar added, "I continue to have concerns about some of his past opinions on campaign finance, which is near and dear to my heart after the Citizens United decision has really blown a hole in our campaign finance laws. Already we have so much outside money. I'll continue to raise questions."
ST. PAUL Even former Minnesota lawmakers can't agree on whether their old colleagues should make more money.
A newly created citizen commission is weighing whether to raise pay for state legislators for the first time in nearly two decades and several former lawmakers gathered at the Capitol Friday to give their two cents on legislator pay. The citizen council was formed after voters overwhelming decided to take pay decisions out of legislators' hands.
The five speakers talked about the stresses that lawmakers face while juggling their career and a legislative seat that pays $32,000.
Former Democratic House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher was a strong supporter of an increase in legislator pay. Anderson Kelliher said increasing salaries to more than $60,000, while also getting rid of the daily stipends lawmakers get during session, would ease the burden on legislators and increase pay transparency.
She said the Legislature may be considered part-time, but the time commitment is much closer to second full-time job.
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Former Rep. Mary Liz Holberg said legislators' use of the daily stipend varies widely, and many use it as a "backdoor way to adjust salary". Holberg said she joined the Legislature in 1999, just as the state's last increase to lawmaker pay took effect she never received a raise.
"I shudder to think what my hourly rate of pay was over those years," she said. Often times, she would sleep on a couch in her legislative office to save time, rather than drive home to Lakeville because her schedule was so tight.
And sometimes, legislators sacrifice their prime money-making years to be in the Legislature. Former Sen. Gene Merriam, who worked as a CPA before becoming a state senator, said he had to leave his job when he became a lawmaker. During his 22 years in the Senate, Merriam said he never worked a full-time job.
"The pool of candidates was reduced because of the size of compensation," he said.
Still, not all ex-legislators agreed. Former Republican Senate Minority Leader David Hann said the current pay is plenty for a part-time job because people don't join politics for the paycheck.
Hann suggested that the council may have the ability to force the Legislature's hand on certain pay issues, such as daily stipends, mileage reimbursement and housing allowances, which the council doesn't control. The group could attach conditional rules to their pay decision, he said, forcing lawmakers to act on those demands before any pay change occurs.
Polls have suggested a tight race over the complex tax reform initiative, which aims to get Switzerland in line with international standards by scrapping a two-track tax system that offers lower rates to foreign firms to lure investment.
The "simplified naturalization of third-generation immigrants" measure is expected to pass in Sunday's referendum. It would simplify applications for anyone under 25 whose parents and grandparents have lived in Switzerland for years.
Swiss voters are considering two issues that will affect immigrants and foreign companies in Switzerland, deciding whether to make it easier for "third-generation foreigners" to get Swiss citizenship and whether to lock in competitive low tax rates for businesses.
Olympics Also up for a Vote
Sunday's referendum is the latest installment of Switzerlands direct democracy that gives voters a frequent say on political decisions. A third issue on the national ballot involves infrastructure spending.
Voters in the eastern Graubuenden canton, or region, are also deciding whether to bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics. Four years ago, the region rejected a similar referendum about the 2022 Winter Games, which were eventually awarded to Beijing.
Those hoping to benefit from a new, easier way to Swiss citizenship include high school student Selena Mercado. The 17-year-old was born in Switzerland, has gone to school in Switzerland, considers herself Swiss and dreams of a political career in the country one day.
Born in Switzerland But Not Swiss
But her passport is from Chile, a country that she's never set foot in but was home to her grandparents before they moved to this small Alpine nation decades ago. Being born in Switzerland doesn't mean automatically mean becoming Swiss, a situation echoed in a few other European nations.
Swiss voters are considering giving "third-generation foreigners" like Mercado the same fast-track, simplified access to Swiss citizenship that foreign spouses of Swiss nationals often enjoy.
"I want to give back to Switzerland," said Mercado, who lives in Vallorbe on the French border.
LA CROSSE, Wis. The La Crosse City Council signed off Thursday night on a $260,000 settlement with a former assistant city attorney.
To avoid further legal costs, the city and its insurer reached an agreement earlier this week with Peter Kisken to settle his claim that he was unfairly targeted and eventually fired in 2013. The council approved the settlement unanimously with one member abstaining after discussing the matter for almost half an hour in closed session Thursday night.
The agreement provides $260,000 for compensatory damages, attorney fees and other costs, with $65,000 coming from the city and the rest from insurance. The city of La Crosse denies Kisken's allegations in the agreement but will change its description of Kisken's termination to a resignation effective April 12, 2013.
According to the agreement, Kisken will not seek or accept future employment with the city. The settlement bars both sides from commenting on the agreement other than to state it had occurred.
Kisken was placed on paid administrative leave in May 2012 and fired 11 months later after an investigation. A 135-page report chronicled Kisken ignoring the city attorney's orders, neglecting cases, sharing confidential legal information and having an improper, two-year workplace relationship with another employee.
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Kisken denied the findings, arguing city officials sought to oust him after more than 20 years in City Hall. He filed complaints with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's Equal Rights Division and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
He received a $55,000 settlement in 2006 and an office outside the legal department after numerous confrontations with former city attorney Pat Houlihan. He sought damages again in 2010 after moving back to the department, but those claims never went anywhere.
All of this talk from the left of Trump being a fascist is so much twaddleor projection, since the left tacitly approves of Mussolinis version of it (Everything inside the state; nothing outside the state). But even if there was some truth to the idea, liberalsor at least liberal academicswould be the last to figure it out. How do I know this? Because Ive checked the academic literature on Hitler from the 1930s. The best one word description of it is clueless.
Herewith an excerpt from a certain forthcoming book (that Amazon started shipping yesterday!but only nine copies left in stock this morning, so hurry!) on how the academic political scientists evaluated Hitler and the rise of Nazism:
In general most of the flood of books and academic articles about Hitlers Nazi regime and the rise of fascism in Europe in the late 1930s partook of the current enthusiasms for historicism, evolutionism, behaviorism and positivism that reigned supreme over the interment of political philosophy. Hitlers rapid and ruthless centralization of power, entailing the abolition of Germanys previously robust federal structure, was analyzed with the clinical detachment of a biologist looking at bacteria in a petri dish under a microscope. In some cases the phenomena of fascism and Communism were treated as reciprocal symptoms for the weaknesses of democracy. The diffuseness of fascism as an ideology, in stark contrast with Soviet Communism, reinforced the tendency to analyze it institutionally rather than ideologically or philosophically. Eric Voegelin wrote about debates over the changing political scene in Germany: At that time there was the great debate among jurists abut whether the Weimar constitution, which indeed was never abolished but only changed, was in fact still the constitution of the Hitler Reich or whether a revolution had occurred. Wonderful discussion among jurists. In the meantime, people were killed.
Examples abound. One book at the time said that the dictatorship of fascism is charismatic, nationalistic, and permanent. In The Nazis Reform the Reich, Albert Lepawsky of the University of Chicago wrote in 1936:
This process of the internal balance of power may be fruitfully examined in Nazi Germany today. What has the National Socialist government set out to do, what has it accomplished, and which way is it tending in this matter of the shifts in power in national, state, regional, and local government and administration? . . .
The Nazis profess to be welding a true German Folk out of the confusion of social and economic groupings, but their job seems to be also one of fashioning an integrated state structure. Indeed, the class consciousness which the Nazis abhor may remain, and the Nazis themselves may pass it on. Nevertheless, they certainly will have made some contribution to the historic process of reforming the German Reich.
Roger Wells of Bryn Mawr College, writing in 1935 about Hitlers rollup of the previously robust local governments in Germany, concluded: There is some justification, therefore, for the National Socialist contention that the Deutsche Gemeindeordnung does not destroy local self-government, but, on the contrary, aims to build it anew upon more secure foundations so that it may once again recover and bloom as in the nineteenth century.
Or take Arnold J. Zurcher of New York University, writing about Hitlers popular referenda in 1935:
Although the ultimate form of the National Socialist political system in Germany is not yet clear, certain institutions are emerging which bid fair to make more than a passing claim to perdurance in that system. . . Even after discounting intangible official pressure, of which there undoubtedly was a great deal, and downright coercion and intimidation at the polls, of which there was probably very little, the electoral record remains an amazing one, both as respects participation in the balloting and the endorsement given the cabinets policy.
A 1936 book, Fascism and National Socialism by Michael Florinsky, was an open apologia for Mussolinis regime, comparing it favorably to FDRs New Deal. A number of books and articles criticized fascism for failing to represent a true alternative to industrial capitalism, which was assumed to be on its last legs, even in the U.S. Voegelin recalled in his memoirs the conversation he had while applying for a visa to leave Austria for America following the Anschluss: In waiting for the visa, I had dealings with the American vice-consul in Zurich, a very nice Harvard boy who had grave suspicions about me. He explained that, since I was neither a Communist not a Catholic nor a Jew, I therefore had no reason not to be in favor of National Socialism and to be a National Socialist myself. It was ironically not an entirely risible suggestion. Not normally given to demonstrative poses, Voegelin expressed disgust with the disposition of the West: In the wake of the Austrian occupation by Hitler, I even for a moment contemplated joining the National Socialists, because those rotten swine who called themselves democratsmeaning the Western democraciescertainly deserved to be conquered and destroyed if they were capable of such criminal idiocy. Voegelin escaped from Austria barely a step ahead of the Gestapo, which had him on a list of academics whose passports they planned to confiscate.
Having previously declared that the name of Calhoun College was to survive the grand renaming project undertaken by the university, President Peter Salovey was at pains to explain why the university had changed its mind. What was once Calhoun College is now to be Hopper College.
What happened? Roger Kimball explores the question in the Wall Street Journal column Yales inconsistent name-dropping (accessible here via Google). In the column Roger mischievously explicates the text of the Letter of the Advisory Group on the Renaming of Calhoun College. Roger declares it a masterpiece of the genre.
What is the genre? Roger refers to tortuous verbal legerdemain. Whatever the genre, it lies somewhere at the crossroads of history and politicsand fundraising. If it werent for the money at stake, the renaming project would be so much easier. Like the bloody crossroads where Lionel Trilling found the meeting of politics and literature, danger abounds here. It represents an existential crisis. The torture reflects careful calculation in a good cause.
The powers that be at Yale united to condemn Calhoun in contemporary terms as a white supremacist. Roger poses the question: Who among whites at the time was not? I can think of a few, but they are in short supply among those honored in the names of other Yale colleges, or in the name of the university itself:
Calhoun owned slaves. But so did Timothy Dwight, Calhouns mentor at Yale, who has a college named in his honor. So did Benjamin Silliman, who also gives his name to a residential college, and whose mother was the largest slave owner in Fairfield County, Conn. So did Ezra Stiles,John Davenport and even Jonathan Edwards, all of whom have colleges named in their honor at Yale. Writing in these pages last summer, I suggested that Yale table the question of John Calhoun and tackle some figures even more obnoxious to contemporary sensitivities. One example was Elihu Yale, the American-born British merchant who, as an administrator in India, was an active participant in the slave trade. President Saloveys letter announcing that Calhoun College would be renamed argues that unlike . . . Elihu Yale, who made a gift that supported the founding of our university . . . Calhoun has no similarly strong association with our campus. What can that mean? Calhoun graduated valedictorian from Yale College in 1804. Is that not a strong association? (Grace Hopper held two advanced degrees from the university but had no association with the undergraduate Yale College.)
If youre not going to go full Bolshevik, the degree of difficulty involved here is high. The university has therefore turned to its best minds to assist in finding its way toward the desired results. The desired results must include whiling away the time until the fever passes.
I wrote here about the Washington Posts solicitation of sob stories from people who say their lives were adversely affected by President Trumps executive order on immigration. I called it the journalistic equivalent of ambulance chasing.
The Post is at it again. Now, it is soliciting activists.
Here is the introduction to a questionnaire that follows a silly story about a random woman from Pennsylvania who attended the anti-Trump march in Washington and who, after the Post publicized her participation, received a touching letter from Hillary Clinton:
Have you also gotten involved since the Womens March? Heres a chance to share your story: After the Womens March: What actions are you taking next? Did you attend the Womens March, in either Washington or a location closer to you? We want to know what motivated you to attend or what kept you home. And most importantly, we want to know what you plan to do after the March. Were you inspired to donate money, run for office or otherwise take action? A Post staffer may contact you regarding your thoughts. We may use your submission in related Washington Post coverage online, in print or on social media. Full terms here.
The Post then asks for the respondents name, email address, age, phone number, address, and location.
Next, the Post asks the following questions:
Did you attend the womens march? Where did you march? Was it your first time participating in political activism? Please explain why yes or no. Tell us what you plan to do after the March. Please specify. Tell us what you are doing or plan to do to continue your activism. Name the groups you are joining or the causes you are giving to, etc. Please be specific.
The last question seems like an effort to induce activism by holding out the possibility of getting your name in the newspaper (and maybe even a touching letter from Hillary). It also seems like an attempt to guilt march participants into following up by engaging in anti-Trump activities. Okay, the Post seems to be saying, so you marched but what have you done to go beyond that gesture?
It reminds me of my college days. Back then, if you attended a meeting of (say) the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the next day a grim looking guy showed up at your dorm room to find out whether you were all talk or, instead, actually planned to do something radical.
Joining SDS was the key to showing that you werent all mouth. However, you might also be expected to get up at 5:00 in the morning and hand out commie literature to disbelieving workers at a factory gate, or to disrupt a professor, or even to take over a college administration building.
I attended the womens march, and thus decided to answer the Posts questionnaire as follows:
I attended the womens march in Washington, D.C. on January 21. This was not my first time participating in political activism. I have a long and checkered history of doing so. The march inspired me to write a blog post politely ridiculing it. Going forward, I intend to write posts criticizing those who are responding hysterically to the Trump presidency, those who are unwilling to give President Trump a fair chance, and those who are unwilling fairly and honestly to cover his presidency. I have in mind, especially, the Washington Post. I also intend to criticize President Trump on our blog when I think he merits criticism. I plan to give money to Republican candidates in 2018, especially in Senate races so the GOP can get a filibuster proof majority. I intend to encourage readers of our blog to do the same. I plan to resist the resistance.
If a Washington Post reporter contacts me to follow up, I will let readers know. Im guessing the Post will leave me in peace.
Przepraszamy!
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Former Chief of Army Staff, Ishaya Bamaiyi, says he has written a book, titled Vindication Of The General to correct misinformation about his role during the regime of former dictator, Sani Abacha.
Mr. Bamaiyi, who was charged in 1999 with the attempted murder of the publisher of the Guardian newspaper, Alex Ibru, is seen as one of the henchmen of the 1993-1998 Abacha regime.
He was discharged and acquitted on April 2, 2008 after nine years in detention.
I have written a book for people to know what really happened to me during my active service inside and outside government, he said when he received Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn NaAllah, who paid him a condolence visit on Sunday in Zuru, Kebbi State, over the death of a relation.
He said the date for the book launch will be made public as soon as all arrangements are concluded.
He used the opportunity to advise elders and youth of his native Zuru emirate to desist from acts that have brought political, social and economic underdevelopment of the area.
Eight people expressed their desire to aspire for governorship from the emirate during our agitation for power in 2015 and the emirate was asked to produce a governor.
At the end of the day, three that emerged as aspirants did not make it.
Your religion is between you and your God and not with a fellow human being, he said.
He expressed appreciation to the Deputy Senate Leader for the visit and the long standing relationship.
NaAllah has been in the team of my lawyers during my trials, he said.
Mr. NaAllah condoled Mr. Bamaiyi, his family, the people of Zuru and Kebbi State over the loss.
I have made it a duty that whoever has a hand in making me what I am today will always be remembered and carried along, he said.
Late Habila Andrew Nama, Mr. Bamaiyis relation, died in Port Harcourt after a protracted illness. He is survived by a wife and three children.
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A 16-year-old boy has been arranged before a Magistrate Court in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, for allegedly clubbing his father, Michael Ejeh, to death.
The accused, Ifeanyichukwu Ejeh, lives in Ndiogodo Idoko village, Ishieke community of Ebonyi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State.
Ifeanyichukwu, an SS2 student of Community Secondary School, Mbeke, was accused of hitting his father severally with a pestle when the father was asleep.
The incident, it was gathered, happened shortly after a misunderstanding between them over N1,000 given to the boy to buy food for the family. The teenager allegedly used the money to meet his school needs.
The act according to court records in No MAB/105/2017 is an offence punishable under section 319(1) cap 33 vol. 1 laws of Ebonyi State of Nigeria.
The accused, who pleaded guilty to the crime while in the dock, begged the court for leniency even as he blamed his act on evil spirit.
He said he was reading his book in their compound when something suddenly came over him and asked him to kill his father.
The suspect said he regained his senses after committing the crime and saw his father laying in his pool of blood.
The wife of the deceased, Mary Ejeh, a Cross River based businesswoman who said she was not around when the incident occurred, said the deceased gave N1, 000 to the suspect for cooking; but he used it for his school expenses. That annoyed the father, leading to a heated argument between the deceased and the boy, she said.
She disclosed that her husband had gone to bed to sleep after the misunderstanding when Ifeanyichukwu descended on him with a pestle, hitting him severally until he died.
The magistrate, Stella Ogoke, transferred the matter to the family court slated to sit on February 17 because of the boys tender age.
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The Federal Government says the National Prosecution Coordination Committee (NPCC) sacked Charles Adeogun-Philips, the lead prosecutor in the suit against Supreme Court judge, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta for unprofessional conduct.
Salisu Isah, Special Adviser on Media to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, revealed this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja.
Mr. Adeogun-Philips had on Thursday, at the resume hearing of the case, announced his withdrawal but did not give any reason for his action.
Mr. Ngwuta is facing trial before Justice James Too on charges of money laundering, age falsification and illegal possession of multiple international passports, among others.
Mr. Isah, who is also Head of Communication and Public Affairs, NPCC, said that Mr. Adeogun-Philips sack was conveyed to him in a letter.
He said that the NPCC that engaged the services of Mr. Adeogun-Philips, withdrew the fiat issued to him to prosecute the case over non-disclosure of conflict of interest and for other sundry reasons.
He said the impression given by Mr. Adeogun-Philips suggesting that he withdrew from the case on his own volition was not true.
The report that he left in protest due to last week Tuesdays dropping of charges earlier instituted against the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, Ahmed Gambo Saleh and two other officials of the apex court which he is also handling cannot be relied upon.
The insinuation that the attorney-general withdrew the case against the three Supreme Court officials because they are Northerners is also unwarranted.
The dropping of the suit was done in good faith and in the context of plea bargaining to achieve greater goals in the prosecution of the other bigger cases that are ongoing against Justice Sylvester Ngwuta among others.
According to Mr. Isah, it is wicked and childish for anyone to allude undue colouration to an action taken in national interest and reduce it to a North/South thing.
This is not the first time such process will be entered into in law, especially so as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 allows plea bargaining in line with national interest.
And as a way of precedence, there was a time in the history of this nation that the allegations against Sgt. Rogers, who was accused of killing Kudirat Abiola, were stepped down for him to be used to testify against Maj Hamza Al-Mustapha.
This was in the case between him and the Lagos State government over the killing of the wife of the acclaimed winner of the 1992 presidential election, late Chief M.K.O Abiola.
It has now clearly shown that, either corruption is fighting back or simply that some people want to be mischievous and to hoodwink and divert the estimation of Nigerians from the core issues at stake.
He expressed concern that no one was talking of the unprofessional conduct of Mr. Adeosun-Philips who was handling a brief in an ongoing suit at the Federal High Court in Lagos against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He said this amounted to conflict of interest which he failed to disclose when being engaged.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the NPCC, chaired by Mr. Malami, was inaugurated by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo on May 27, 2016.
It is charged with assisting the Attorney- General in the exercise of his prosecutorial powers under Section 150 and 174(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; especially as it involves high profile criminal cases.(NAN)
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North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Sunday as an attention-getter shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The missile, which flew some 500 km and reached a height of 550 km before falling into the East Sea, is believed to be an improved version of a projectile observers call Musudan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Trump and Abe denounced the launch in an urgently called press conference the same night. The North fired the missile in the morning, about 28 hours after Trump and Abe met at the White House.
On Friday the two leaders had urged North Korea "to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and not to take any further provocative actions." Trump the same day told reporters defending against the North Korean missile and nuclear threat is "a very, very high priority."
A Federal Capital Territory High Court on Monday adjourned till March 9, the final judgement in the case of alleged extra-judicial killings of six Igbo traders by the police in Abuja in 2005.
Five police officers were found culpable in the killings and are facing trial.
Judgement had been set to be delivered on Monday, 11 years after the act.
Justice Ishaq Bello of the FCT High Court, however, failed to deliver judgement and adjourned the suit.
The protracted trial has been hindered mostly due to institutional challenges ranging from series of adjournments, conveyance of defendants from the prison to court and difficulty in getting witnesses to testify.
Danjuma Ibrahim, Othman Abdulsalami, now at large, Nicholas Zakaria, Ezekiel Acheneje, Baba Emmanuel, and Sadiq Salami were alleged to have murdered the victims who were traders in Apo, a satellite town in Abuja.
The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation is accusing the police officers of killing Ifeanyi Ozo, Chinedu Meniru, Isaac Ekene, Paulinus Ogbonna, Anthony Nwokikeand Augustina Arebun.
The deceased, aged between 21 and 25 years, were returning from a night party in 2005 when they were killed.
The defendants had pleaded not guilty to the allegations, making the trial to go through full stretch of adjudication from 2005 to date.
The nation woke up to the horrific news of the victims deaths at the hands of the police who claimed the five men and one woman were armed robbers who opened fire first.
Following the deaths and the subsequent public outcry, an official panel of inquiry was set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Five officers accused of the killings and eight other police witnesses eventually testified that the senior officer involved, Ibrahim, allegedly ordered the killings.
The report of the panel held that the victims were at a nightclub located at Gimbiya Street, Area 11 in Abuja on the night of the incident.
The panel further had it on its record that the face-off between Ibrahim and the group allegedly started when the female victim (Augustina) turned down the senior police officers love advances at the club.
The testimonies of the witnesses that formed part of the panels report also said that Ibrahims pride and ego was bruised by late Augustinas refusal to accept his love proposal and, therefore, set out to exact revenge.
The report also said Ibrahim had allegedly gone to a police checkpoint at the end of the street and told officers on duty that they were a group of armed robbers in the area.
According to the report which forms the bulk of the evidence in court, when the six young people came in their car, Ibrahim allegedly drove into them, blocking their way and ordered the police officers to shoot.
Four of the six died on the spot while Ifeanyi and Augustina had survived the initial onslaught.
The report had it that Ifeanyi had called his friends after surviving the burst of gunfire but that was the last they were to hear from him.
NAN reports that police officers testified at the criminal trial that Ifeanyi and Augustina were taken outside Abuja metropolis where they were executed.
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Governors of Nigerias 36 states have threatened to declare war on the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, over what they described as unwarranted attack on the Nigeria Governors Forum, its officials and associated entities, presidency officials familiar with the matter have told PREMIUM TIMES.
The EFCC has in the past weeks been investigating the governors handling of the Paris Club refund made to states by the Federal Government, and has invited officials of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) secretariat over the matter.
The anti-graft commission accused the governors of making some unclear payments to consultants which helped the NGF in computing and negotiating the refund due to each state of the federation.
The EFCC also blocked an Access Bank account belonging to the NGF, a development that led the Forums chairman, Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara, to storm the presidential villa to protest, our sources said.
Our sources said the meeting between Mr. Yari and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo held on January 30.
The governor met Vice President Osinbajo saying he has the mandate of his colleagues to request him (the VP) to call Magu to order or that the governor would do all they can to defend their integrity and that of their states, one of our sources said.
The governor said should Magu continue to harass the NGF, the 36 governors would strike in a way never seen before.
Mr. Yari was further quoted as telling Mr. Osinbajo that Mr. Magu had in the past weeks subjected officials at the NGF secretariat to harassments and ceaseless interrogations.
We have done nothing wrong and we view this onslaught on the NGF as a fishing expedition designed to embarrass, humiliate and insult the 36 governors for perceived or imaginary wrongdoing, the Zamfara governor is quoted as saying.
We urge urge you to call him to order or we will fight back whichever way we can.
The EFCC is asking the NGF to explain payments made to Mallam Alu Agro Allied Limited, Melrose General Services Co. Ltd, Bizplus Consulting Services Ltd., Bina Consults & Integrated Services and other consultants and legal experts.
But in explaining the payments, Mr. Yari reportedly told Mr. Osinbajo, As a duly registered organisation, we, in the course of our work engage consultants and experts in areas where we do not have in-house capacity and these consultants and experts are paid for the services they render.
The right to engage staff and other experts and professionals to carry out work on behalf of the governors is within the purview of the NGF and we are hard put explaining the current development.
We fear that the harassment has gone on for too long without any signs of abating and we are urging you to call this man (Magu) to order and desist from any further harassment of our officials and consultants.
In his response, the acting president was said to have thanked Mr. Yari for calling his attention to the matter and pleaded with him and his colleagues to be patient while he looked into the matter.
PREMIUM TIMES however learnt that the governors are not taking the matter lightly, and have fixed a general meeting for Wednesday in Abuja.
Laolu Akande, the spokesperson for Acting President Osinbajo could not be reached to comment for this story.
But the Director General of the NGF, Asishana Okauru, confirmed that Mr. Yari recently met Mr. Osinbajo over the matter.
I dont know the details of their discussion, but I am aware the two leaders met, Mr. Okauru said. I am also aware that the governors are very angry with what appears a deliberate attempt by the EFCC and its leadership to malign them and to feed the media with misinformation.
Mr. Okauru said contrary to reports, he was never arrested over the matter at anytime, but that he willingly responded to enquiries by EFCC operatives.
The spokesperson for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, declined to comment saying he was not aware of the meeting between Mr. Yari and Mr. Osinbajo.
Mr. Uwujaren however later issued a statement saying the EFCC investigation on the matter was still at a preliminary stage and that no governor had so far been indicted.
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Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state on Monday released the grim statistics of deaths and material losses suffered by the state due to the Boko Haram insurgency.
Mr. Shettima gave the data at the annual Murtala Mohammed memorial lecture held at the Shehu YarAdua Centre in Abuja.
The governor, who delivered a paper Managing the Boko Haram Crisis in Borno State, Experiences and Lessons for a Multiparty, Multiethnic and Multireligious Nigeria, said the insurgency has led to the deaths of almost 100,000 persons, based on estimates by community leaders in the state over the years.
The Boko Haram insurgency has led to deaths of almost 100,000 persons going by the estimates of our community leaders over the years, he said.
This casualty figure is the highest ever provided by any government official from a state where remote areas which witness attacks by the insurgents are difficult to reach.
Two million, one hundred and fourteen thousand (2,114,000) persons have become internally displaced as at December of 2016, with five hundred and thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and fifteen (537,815) in separate camps; 158,201 are at official camps that consists of six centres with two transit camps at Muna and Customs House, both in Maiduguri.
There are 379,614 IDPS at 15 satellite camps comprising Ngala, Monguno, Bama, Banki, Pulka, Gwoza, Sabon Gari and other locations in the state. 73,404 persons were forced to become refugees in neighbouring countries with Niger having 11,402 and Cameroon having 62,002.
We have an official record of 52,311 orphans who are separated and unaccompanied. We have 54,911 widows who have lost their husbands to the insurgency and about 9,012 have returned back to various communities of Ngala, Monguno, Damboa, Gwoza and Dikwa, the governor said.
Mr. Shettima also said based on the post-insurgency Recovery and Peace Building Assessment, RPBA, report on the north-east which was jointly validated by the World Bank, the European Union, the Presidency and the six states of the north-east, Boko Haram has inflicted damages to the tune of $9 billion on the region.
He said of this amount, the destruction in Borno State amounts to $6 billion and they are supported by grim statistics.
Conspiracy theories hampered effort to tackle insurgents early
Mr. Shettima also gave accounts of how conspiracy theories hampered the fight against Boko Haram under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
For me, the most critical experience and lesson I have had and learnt within the last five years has been the power of conspiracy theories and how they can strongly undermine the fight against insecurity and the management of the humanitarian crisis, he said.
The governor said Boko Haram insurgency grew from strength to strength because of an initial conspiracy theory that began after the 2011 general elections.
Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen, after the Boko Haram carried out its first suicide attack on the headquarters of the Nigerian Police Force in June 2011 and a later attack on the UN building in August, both in Abuja, a conspiracy theory emerged immediately alleging that the Boko Haram was set up by Muslim-majority northern leaders to target Christians and make Nigeria ungovernable for His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
Given the fact that both attacks took place in June and August, which were within three months after President Jonathan was sworn-in, this conspiracy hypothesis immediately assumed a life of its own, he said.
He also said those who believed the theory did not care to recall that the first major attacks by Boko Haram in Borno and Bauchi states which took place in June 2009, had occurred under the late President Umaru YarAdua, a Northern Muslim from Katsina State.
The proponents of this ridiculous conspiracy theory didnt care to recall that a Northern Muslim from Kaduna State was actually the Director-General of President Jonathans 2011 elections campaign.
Surprisingly, when it suited their narrow political agenda even pro-Jonathan northerners propagated that the insurgency reflected the collective will of the Northern opposition to undermine the federal government.
What that meant in effect, was that the theory changed from all Northerners using Boko Haram to undermine Jonathan into a narrower theory that northerners in the opposition were using Boko Haram to destabilise Jonathans administration. The end result was an alibi for the state not to admit its failure to rout the Boko Haram at the earliest opportunity.
It appeared the President himself initially believed the conspiracy theory. For instance, when he visited Borno State on Thursday, 13th of March, 2013, President Jonathan requested to meet differently with officials of the Borno State Chapters of the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Jamaatul Nasril Islam.
The President neither invited nor stopped me from participating but I understood he wanted to meet each group without me. Both meetings were arranged for the President without me knowing the agenda.
To his credit, I must acknowledge, President Jonathan was actually on a fact finding mission because the following day, during his courtesy call at the Government House in Maiduguri, he said that officials of the Christian Association in Borno State had told him that Boko Haram was not targeting only churches and Christians but rather, had attacked many Mosques and killed many Muslims.
President Jonathan went further to say that from his findings, the Boko Haram had actually attacked more of majority Muslim communities in the state. The Presidents revelation was an indication that he didnt understand the crisis before March, 2013.
Whether his initial lack of understanding of the situation caused his ineffective response to the crisis before 2013, is a matter for conjecture.
But Borno people consigned to the receiving end of poor policy articulation and response, were simply victims of the resultant inaction or paralysis. And they paid with their lives and property, for which the Nigerian Constitution in its fundamental directive principles, compels the state to use its exclusive possession of the organised means of violence to guarantee, he said.
Mr. Shettima also said he got upset over the Chibok schoolgirls abduction of April 14, 2014 and the conspiracy theory that followed it.
He said that the abduction gave him the impression that the correct lessons were not learnt at the presidency despite Mr. Jonathans personal findings in Borno.
He said instead of both the federal and state governments to combine strength towards rescue efforts, a conspiracy theory was immediately created that denied that an abduction of the poor schoolgirls was real.
The theory, he said, presumed that key politicians in the opposition APC cooked up the abduction story mainly to embarrass Mr. Jonathan and the PDP.
He said days later; when the Bring Back Our Girls campaigns began, the theory was changed from cooked abduction story to one saying it was designed and masterminded by the opposition led by his administration.
Meanwhile, the failure by the state to perform its constitutional duty in rescuing the schoolgirls and bringing back the Sambisa forest into the Federal Republic of Nigeria, by whatever means necessary, were glossed over as an embarrassed nation sought refuge in yet another conspiracy to undermine a Christian and Southern President.
As God would ordain it, President Goodluck Jonathan, in May, 2014, constituted an investigative panel to gather facts regarding the abduction. The panel had credible persons from all segments, including representatives of the majority Christian community in Chibok, serving and retired personnel of the armed forces, local and foreign-based women and civil rights activists, journalists and some persons believed to be very close to both President Jonathan and his wife.
The panel met all stakeholders from heads of security establishments, leadership of the West African Examination Council in Borno State, and the panel was also in Chibok to meet agonizing parents and community members. After an exhaustive investigation, the panel submitted its report to President Jonathan.
The Presidency didnt disclose the content of the report and didnt point any more accusing fingers at Borno State Government, he said.
Mr. Shettima said despite these experiences, the conspiracy theorists are still at work under President Buhari.
He said months after the 2015 elections and the inauguration of Mr. Buhari, another conspiracy theory was cooked up following resumed attacks by militants in the Niger Delta.
There were some northerners who began to create a conspiracy theory that the militants were regrouped and being funded by those who lost out in the 2015 elections, in order to destabilize President Buharis administration.
There were those who even believed and supported the theory in the south and they went as far as posting through the online and social media, that it was the turn of the Niger Delta to exact revenge on how Boko Haram was used to destabilize President Jonathans administration.
Again, the main issue, namely the inability of the state to guarantee production of oil and secure vital strategic investments in the Niger Delta, being the only variable outside the price of oil in the international markets within the ability of the Nigerian state to influence for good, was side-tracked.
Interestingly, even though it is crystal clear that conspiracy theories do no one any good, they seem to be stubbornly attractive in Nigeria because even as we speak, there have been series of social media messages in recent weeks, alleging that Fulanis were being deployed to churches to cause mayhem.
The whole thing seems to be a sort of effort to link a Presidency led by a Fulani man with the activities of murderous criminals, some or most of whom may be Fulanis by ethnicity, he said.
Mr. Shettima therefore, called on Nigerians to always suppress their biases by working hard to get facts on all issues; otherwise, he said, we will continue to fall victims of conspiracy theories.
We must recognise that for every conspiracy theory, there is group that stands to gain politically. As Nigerians, we should regularly free our minds and ask ourselves, who stands to gain on any conspiracy theory we come across.
We must also not, anymore, allow figments of crazy imaginations as excuses for the state to fail to protect life and property.
We must stop condoning our collective callous attitude that predispose us to blaming victims for their losses in lives and property, the protection of which is a main reason for the existence of every government in the first place, he said.
Earlier in short messages, both acting President, Yemi Osinbajo and former President, Olusegun Obasanjo extolled the virtues of the late former Head of State, Murtala Mohammed.
Mr. Osinbajo said it is a thing of pride for Nigeria to have had a leader like the late Mr. Mohammed.
He also commended Governor Shettima for providing true leadership in this humanitarian crisis in his state.
Mr. Osinbajo also said it is the political and religious elites who promote the conspiracy theories that the governor spoke about.
The acting president said all Nigerians have the same need, which is food, comfort and future for the children which, he said, have no tribe, culture or religion.
Also, Mr. Obasanjo, who, chairs the Board of Trustees of the Murtala Mohammed Foundation, said the Foundation, led by the daughter of the late Head of State, Aisha Oyebode, is achieving the purpose for which it was established.
He said when the decision to set up the foundation was taken 16 years ago, we did not know how it would grow, but we had faith and belief that it will grow and it has grown.
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President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday had a telephone conversation with President Donald Trump at the request of the American President.
The conversation was cordial and Mr. Buhari congratulated Mr. Trump on his election as the President of the United States, the presidency said.
The two leaders discussed ways to improve cooperation in the fight against terrorism through provision of necessary equipment.
Presidential media aide, Femi Adesina, confirmed the conversation in a series of tweets on the official twitter handle of the Nigerian presidency @NGRPresidency.
Mr. Trump assured the Nigerian leader of U.S. readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism.
He commended Mr. Buhari for the efforts he made in rescuing 24 of the Chibok girls and the strides being taken by the Nigerian Army in combating Boko Haram.
Mr. Trump also invited the Nigerian President to Washington at a mutually convenient date.
This is the first time the two leaders are communicating directly since Mr. Trumps inauguration as the 45th president of the United States.
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Students at the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, who went for a night class to read for their examinations, had a nightmarish experience at the hands of armed robbers who invaded their reading hall, the CBN auditorium, at the Town Campus, Ikpa Road, Sunday night.
Following the event, the school has announced a one-day postponement of the first semester examinations which was to begin Monday.
The students, PREMIUM TIMES learned, were robbed of their laptops, phones, money and other personal belongings during the robbery incident which occurred around 10.36p.m.
The robbers were said to have raped a female student in the hall.
Another set of armed robbers were said to have also robbed the students who were reading that night at Old Business Lecture Hall, at the annex campus of the university, still along Ikpa Road.
A female student who resides on campus told PREMIUM TIMES that some of the female students who were robbed ran down to the female hostel, Hall 3 (Prefab), that night at about 10.50pm.
The hostel door was already locked, but they had to open it for them, she said.
They girls looked distressed. They were crying. Their dresses were dusty, which is an indication that the robbers may have forced them to lie down on the floor, she said.
On Monday morning, some angry students protested within the campus against the robbery incident. They blocked the university main gate, preventing people from coming in or going out of the school.
The protesting students dispersed after the deputy vice chancellor (administration) and the dean of students affairs came to address them.
When a PREMIUM TIMES reporter visited the campus, two police Hilux trucks were seen parked in front of the school gate.
The Students Union President, Kufre Samuel, admitted to this newspaper that there was tension within the campus. He said he was going round to talk to the students to remain calm while the school authorities investigate the incident.
The university spokesman, Godfrey Essien, said the incident was not a very ugly one.
This is a higher institution where you have different kinds of people. It is almost like a village with a 20,000 population. Its a thing that normally happens in institutions like this, Mr. Essien said.
Mr. Essien said the university has its own internal security as well as a private security outfit which provides security on campus. He said the school was going to get a report of the incident from the security personnel on campus.
The police could not be reached for their comment on the issue. The police spokesperson in the state, Cordelia Nwawe, did not respond to the calls and a text message sent to her phone.
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The Federal Government has now released enough funds to start the delivery of one hot meal a day to more than one million primary school pupils across seven states in the country, under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said.
Mr. Osinbajo, speaking through his spokesperson, Laolu Akande, said on Monday in a statement that a total sum of N844, 360, 550 has so far been released for the commencement of the programme in Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Zamfara as at the end of last week.
While funds have been released to the seven states to kick off the programme, not all of them have actually started the implementation as at press time, the statement said.
In the States of Anambra, Enugu, Osun, Ogun, and Oyo, the feeding has actually started, while it is expected to start this week in the two other states of Ebonyi and Zamfara, that have been funded already.
That means, the Buhari Presidencys Homegrown School Feeding Programme would be feeding this week a total of 1, 043, 205 pupils in those seven states.
Equally a total number of 11,775 cooks have now been employed to prepare the meals in those states already, while local farmers in the states are also the one producing the food prepared and served.
Of all the States, Anambra, which was the first state to receive funding late last year has now received three full funding tranches covering 30 school days, totaling N188, 769,000. The state has a total of 937 cooks and feeding 96,489 pupils.
In Ebonyi, FG has also released a total of N115, 218, 600, while 1466 cooks have been engaged and 164, 598 pupils are to be fed.
Also in Enugu State, the government released N67,244, 800 to feed 96, 064 pupils and 1128 cooks engaged.
In Ogun State, it released N119, 648, 900 to feed 170, 927 pupils and engaged 1381 cooks, while in Osun a total of N92, 425, 400 have been released to feed 142, 193 pupils with 2688 cooks engaged.
For Oyo State, a total of N72, 288, 300 has been released by the FG to feed 103, 269 pupils, engaging 1437 cooks, while Zamfara received a total sum of N188, 765, 500 to feed 269, 665 pupils and engaged 2, 738 cooks, the statement said.
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A 26-year-old man, Anuoluwapo Samuel, was on Monday sentenced to death by an Ikeja High Court for killing his friend during a brawl after a drinking binge.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mr. Samuel was found guilty of a count of murder by Justice Raliatu Adebiyi.
The defendant, Anuoluwapo Samuel is hereby sentenced to death in accordance with Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
May the Lord have mercy on your soul, Mrs. Adebiyi said.
The judge ruled that prosecution had established the ingredients necessary to secure a murder conviction.
The defendant from the facts of the case did not set out to kill the deceased but he must have known that the machete wound he inflicted caused a grievous bodily harm.
The defendant left the scene of the fight to fetch a machete. That action was a proof of his intent to inflict the maximum injury on the deceased.
Adebiyi faulted the claim of self-defence claimed by Samuel during his trial.
When the defendant faced what he said was a fear for his life, he crossed the road, went to his home to pick a machete.
The spontaneous reaction to an immediate threat is to pick up the nearest weapon to defend himself or to flee.
The defendant by his action failed to prove the ground of self-defence, Mrs. Adebiyi said.
In her allocutus, counsel to Mr. Samuel, Y.A. Ajayi, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy.
The defendant is a young man, who has many years ahead of him; we plead that my Lord should temper justice with mercy.
He did not try to withhold facts from the court, he was remorseful and was weeping uncontrollably during his testimony, she said.
Immediately after the sentence was read, Samuel who was in the dock broke down in tears while a female family member was crying and wailing so loudly that the court had to go on a short recess.
According to the prosecution, led by Akin George, the convict committed the offence on May 2, 2012 at Oke-Afa Secondary School at Badagry, near Lagos.
The convict and the deceased, John Omobere, were involved in a drunken fight after drinking locally-made gin.
The fight was allegedly instigated by a third friend who goes by the name Lampard, the convict was allegedly stabbed by the deceased with a broken bottle.
After the convict was stabbed, he ran to his house to get a machete and inflicted deep cuts in his right arm.
The deceased did not die at the scene but at his home, the autopsy established that he died of haemorrhagic shock and severe lacerations on his right hand, Mr. George said.
The prosecutor said that the deceased was discovered the next day lying dead in a pool of blood in his home by members of his family.
(NAN)
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The absence of the defence witness on Monday stalled the trial of a female lawyer, Yewande Oyediran, who allegedly killed her husband, Lowo.
Ms. Oyediran, a staff of the Department of the Public Prosecution, DPP, Oyo State of Ministry of Justice, at Akobo Area of Ibadan allegedly murdered her husband by stabbing him with a knife.
The private prosecutor, Sanya Akinyele, had on January 5 closed his case and the case was adjourned till February 13 for the defence counsel to open its defence.
However, the defence counsel, Leye Adepoju, informed the court that he would not be able to open the defence because a subpoena was yet to be served on the witness he intended to call.
Mr. Adepoju said that the witness must be subpoenaed before he could be called.
The defence counsel, while requesting for some photographs taken by the prosecutor, which they failed to tender to the court, sought for an adjournment.
In his reaction, Mr. Akinyele opposed the application for adjournment.
Mr. Akinyele said that the case has been adjourned for more than a month, which according to him, is enough time for the defence to have served their witness.
Justice Munta Abimbola overruled the objection of the prosecutor, saying justice of the case was paramount.
Justice Abimbola said that it would not be proper for the court to prevent the defence from getting the documents that would assist them in their case.
The judge adjourned the case till March 21 and March 22 for continuation of hearing.
Ms. Oyediran is standing trial on a one-count charge of murder to which she pleaded not guilty and was remanded in prison without bail.
(NAN)
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Governor Umaru Al-Makura of Nasarawa State has warned employers in the state against rejection of corps members posted to their organisations for national service.
Mr. Al-Makura gave the warning at the closing ceremony of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) 2016 Batch B (Stream 2) orientation course for corps members at the Magaji Dan Yamusa Orientation camp in Keffi on Monday.
The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Silas Agara, described youth corps members as national asset that should be treated well and received with open arms.
He said that the patriotic zeal exhibited by the corps members leaving their states was enough for employers of labour to accept them.
These patriotic citizens of our great nation have shown great desire and commitment to help build our country.
Therefore, I call on employers of labour in the state to exhibit the same character by accepting all corps members posted to their organisations.
Employers in the state must no longer reject corps members posted to their place because of the sacrifice they made and their contribution to developing our state and country for the benefit of all, he said.
The governor assured the corps members that necessary machinery would be put in place to ensure a smooth service year and end rejection and marginalisation of some corps members.
He urged them to desist from drug abuse, prostitution and other social vices that might hamper their stay and commitment to serve their fatherland..
I want to urge you to take advantage of your posting and stay in the state to learn more about the people and their culture and the resources in the state, he said.
Zainab Isah, NYSC Coordinator in the state, said the 2016 corps members showed high sense of patriotism and commitment in all they did.
Ms. Isah said that no major health challenges were recorded and appealed to the state government to provide a Toyota Hilux van to enable officials carry out routine inspection of corps members across the state.
She said that the available vehicle for inspection was older than nine years and could not go through the rough terrain of the state.
Consequently, I humbly request his Excellencys intervention in this regard by providing us with a Hilux van, she said.
She urged the corps members to integrate fast into their host communities to avail them the opportunities to know their areas of intervention through community development projects.
(NAN)
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The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, on Monday in Abuja called for enactment of the law that would protect whistle blowers in the country.
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, made the call when the union picketed the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the union took the action to protest non-removal of Angela Uwakem, as the Medical Director of the Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Owerri.
The workers had on January 26 picketed the ministry for same reason after Ms. Uwakem was allegedly indicted of corrupt practices.
The union also called for the reinstatement of 200 workers sacked for blowing the whistle of the alleged corrupt practices.
According to him, if such law is in place whistleblowers will be protected and encouraged.
No worker that has actually given himself to serve as a whistleblower should be allowed to be punished.
We canvass for enactment of a law to protect whistle blowers. They should not only to be rewarded, but they should also be protected.
We have seen in many cases of corruption, where whistleblowers and witnesses in those cases were killed.
So, we will not allow a situation where they are killed or victimised, he said.
Mr. Wabba said that the reinstatement of Mr. Uwakem, who had been arraigned by the EFCC on an 18-count charge, was a violation of the Public Service Rule.
The whistle blowers that are supposed to testify in court are the people that have their names removed from the pay voucher.
A lot of impunity is going on. So, we must continue to defend these whistle blowers.
It should be noted that it was through the assistant of these whistle blowers that 9.8 million dollars was recovered recently, he said.
He further stated that the picketing of the ministry of health would be suspended for three days to allow for negotiation between the union and the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Binta Bello.
We are having an interface with the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, and I think the ministry has made some progress, he said.
She has actually stated with strong commitment that the rule of law would be respected and that we should allow for peace to drive the process.
So with that commitment, we have decided that the action would be suspended for three days to allow the leadership of the union to report back to us on any progress made.
We have also received a word of assurance from the Head of Service that the right thing will be done, he added.
Josiah Biobelemoye, President, Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), commended the Permanent Secretary of the ministry for her intervention.
Mr. Biobelemoye said that the permanent secretary had given assurance to the union that its demand would be given due consideration.
(NAN)
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The buddy film "Confidential Assignment" has surpassed the 7-million viewer mark, the Korean Film Council said on Sunday.
It became this year's first movie to achieve the feat, after hitting theaters on Jan. 19.
Starring Hyun Bin and Yu Hae-jin, the action film tells the tale of a North Korean agent and a South Korean detective who cooperate to take down a North Korean criminal hiding in the South.
Meanwhile, "The King," which was released in the same week as "Confidential Assignment" to much fanfare as it brought together top actors Jung Woo-sung and Zo In-sung, has drawn some 5.22 million viewers.
The Cross River police command, has paraded a 35-year-old man, Sunday Ushie, who confessed to killing his girlfriend identified as Nnena Samuel and went ahead to have sex with the corpse.
Hafiz Inuwa, the acting Commissioner of Police in Cross River, who paraded the suspect before journalists on Monday in Calabar, said the deceased was a mother of two.
He said the incident happened on January 27, 2017 at Adijinkpor village in Ikom Local Government Area of the state.
The incident happened on January 27, 2017, following a report at Ikom Divisional Police headquarters from one Cletus Etta of Adijinkpor village that his tenant had killed someone.
Upon receiving this information, my men swung into action and arrested the suspect.
The suspect confessed to have killed the woman before having carnal knowledge of her.
Investigation is ongoing after which the suspect will be charged to court for murder, Mr. Inuwa said.
The commissioner appealed to members of the public to continuously avail the command with useful information that would help it respond to emergency cases promptly.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, Mr. Ushie, a cocoa farmer, said the deceased never gave him the opportunity to have sex with her while alive.
He told NAN that he invited the deceased to his house and killed her with a knife before having sex with the corpse.
Ushie, who said he regretted his action, blamed the incident on the devil.
It is the work of the devil. I do not know why the devil used me. I am the one that killed her. I killed her with a knife.
She was my girlfriend and I knew her for just two months before this incident happened. I had to sleep with her corpse after killing her.
It was strange sleeping with a corpse. I never had sex with her when she was alive because she never gave me that opportunity.
I was always giving her money but she didnt allow us to have sex with her, Mr. Ushie confessed.
(NAN)
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A woman arrested by the police in Lagos Tuesday last week for allegedly drugging and robbing her medical doctor consort has several identities on social media, findings by PREMIUM TIMES have shown.
The woman, Mitchel Harrold, 37, from Warri, Delta State was arrested by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of the Lagos State Police Command in Agbor, Delta State.
She had allegedly drugged the medical doctor in a hotel room in Ojodu area of Lagos and made away with his car, laptop and mobile phone. The security operatives later traced her through a car dealer in Lagos, whom she had engaged to perfect import papers for the stolen Volkswagen Passat Wagon, 2001 model.
In a statement on Sunday, the police said the suspect and the medical doctor had on January 19 at about 5:30 p.m. checked into an hotel in the Ojodu Berger area of Lagos with the plan to spend the night together.
I went in to take a bath and when I returned, she had gone to buy some drinks. I took the malt drink and yoghurt and I slept off. I slept off at 6:00 p.m. and woke up around 2:00 p.m., the victim whose name was not revealed had told the police.
He realised his phone, gadgets and car had been taken away when he woke up from his drug-induced sleep.
According to the victim, he met the accused on a social media dating site, Badoo, about a year ago, where she introduced herself as Aisha Ibrahim. He only became aware of Ms. Harrolds real name after her arrest.
Apart from her Badoo account, checks on Facebook reveal that the suspect has two accounts, Harrold Mitchel and Otite Mitchel.
Pictures from the two Facebook accounts confirmed the same face and tattoos (crucifix on the right arm) as those of the suspect when she was arrested. (pix1)
In the account she posted as Otite Mitchel, she claims to live in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt; studied at University of Lagos and worked at First Battallion Regiment in the United States.
Investigation on Mukoro Okpako revealed the double identity of Ms. Harrold on Facebook.
The police said Mr. Okpako is Ms. Harrolds brother and accomplice who was to assist her in perfecting custom papers for the stolen car two days before she was arrested.
Mr. Okpako also keeps two Facebook accounts: Okpako Mukoro and Mukoro Okpako Glory.
Also arrested alongside Ms. Harrold was a generator repairer, Gbenga Adesanya, whom she engaged to drive the stolen vehicle.
According to Mr. Adesanya, I was surprised to see her opening the gate of the hotel herself for me to drive out instead of the gate man. That wasnt the first time I would be helping her take a vehicle out of Lagos to Sapele. It was about the third time.
First, it was a Toyota Camry Big for Nothing. I helped her move it from Ajah to Sapele, Delta State. The second one was an End of Discussion Honda Accord and thirdly, Volkswagen Passat, 2001 model. I moved that too all night to Sapele.
Mr. Adesanya said he was introduced to Ms. Harrold last year by her elder brother who worked as clearing and forwarding agent.
However, on one of Mr. Okpakos Facebook account, Ms. Mitchels alleged brother had advertised a Evil Spirit Honda Accord car.
As it were now, whereabouts of the other stolen, Honda Accord, End of Discussion and Toyota Camry, Big for Nothing remained unknown as she refused to cooperate with the Police during preliminary investigation, the police stated.
The Lagos State police spokesperson, Dolapo Badmus, who confirmed the arrest, noted that the case has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department for further investigation.
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The Federal Government has inaugurated its 16-member team tasked with renegotiating the 2009 agreement with unions in Nigerian universities, headed by Wale Babalakin.
Speaking at a ceremony held in Abuja on Monday, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, said: The inauguration of the Renegotiating Team is significant as it confirms to the unions that government is committed to keeping to its own side of the promise and in ensuring that an environment that is conducive for teaching, learning, research and community service is engendered through lasting industrial harmony in all our tertiary education institutions.
Assuring the renegotiating team of the full support of government, the minister charged the members to undertake this important responsibility with patriotism, dedication, mutual trust and selflessness, considering that the future and stake of the university system will be affected by its success or otherwise.
The Chairman of the Team, Wale Babalakin, responded by saying: We want to thank the government for considering us worthy of this enormous assignment.
He noted that the setting up and inauguration of the team bore testimony to the education ministers commitment to the actualisation of the vision of the 2009 Agreement.
We want to also assure you that we intend to rise even beyond your expectations for the furtherance of tertiary education in Nigeria. This task should not be underestimated but with the commitment of all, we will provide a very serious enhancement for education in Nigeria, Mr. Babalakin declared.
Giving his remarks on behalf of the unions was Biodun Ogunyemi, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. He said: This is a dream come true, and we only hope it does not end up at the level of dream.
The ASUU President expressed his appreciation to government, saying, We want to thank you for this platform, and hope for a useful engagement.
Mr. Adamu assured that: The administration does not consider the unions enemies.
He further observed that the unions are patriotic people whose struggle is not for their own personal gain.
In a statement to the press, Mr. Babalakin noted that: A conducive environment in the tertiary institution is the bedrock for the development of a nations intelligentsia. A nations development can be seriously enhanced by the active participation of the intelligence in the pursuit of the countrys developmental goals.
The team signalled its readiness for the task ahead and hit the ground running by holding a meeting straight after the inauguration ceremony.
The first full meeting of the FG Team for Renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU Agreement is scheduled for March 6.
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The National Working Committee, NWC, of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, has set up a peace and reconciliation committee to intervene in the crisis affecting some of its chapters across Nigerias 36 states.
The party said it is disturbed by the internal crises in its state chapters.
Recently, some state chapters of the APC have been engulfed in internal crisis, leading to suspensions of party leaders and other members.
Concerned by this ugly trend and as part of preparation for its non-elective National Convention which is expected to hold not later than April 2017, the NWC has decided to set up the committees to resolve all outstanding issues in order for the party to have a united front going to the convention, APC said in a statement by its spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, on Monday.
Mr. Abdullahi said the committees will be made up of senior members of the party and some members of the National Executive Committee, NEC.
They will have the mandate to investigate all issues with a view to finding a lasting solution and reconciling members in the affected state, he said.
In the interim, the party said, it has directed that where actions have been taken and disciplinary measures applied, state chapters should be strictly guided by the relevant provisions of the partys constitution on disciplinary procedures.
Therefore, where those actions have been taken in breach of the processes and procedures that are laid down in the party constitution, such actions should be reversed and the status quo maintained pending the intervention of the peace and reconciliation committees, the party said.
A PARTY IN CRISIS
Since coming to power, the APC has been engulfed in one internal crisis or another.
At its national office, a leader of the party and ex-Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu, has called for the exit of the partys national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun.
Also, no fewer than 12 state chapters of the APC are having unresolved crises.
They include Adamawa, Kogi, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Kaduna and Kano.
However, those of Kaduna and Kano, both in the north-west, appear more intense as they repeatedly reverberate at the national level.
In Kaduna State, the hostility between the governor, Nasir El-Rufai, and the senator representing the central district of the state, Shehu Sani, has continued unabated.
The animosity between the two political gladiators in the state began shortly after the APC took over in Kaduna and has led to a split of the party with members queuing behind them.
In neighbouring Kano, there is also a raging feud between Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his predecessor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, now a serving senator. Mr. Ganduje had served as deputy to Mr. Kwankwaso while the latter was in power.
The governor made moves to undermine Mr. Kwankwasos influence in the state chapter of the APC by sacking some loyalists of his predecessor from his government and also ensuring the removal of others from the state executive committee of the party.
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Some operatives of Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested a lady in Agbor, Delta State, for drugging her friend, a medical doctor, in a hotel in Ojodu area of Lagos and carting away his car, laptop and mobile phone.
The lady, Mitchel Harrold, 37, from Warri, Delta State was on Tuesday arrested after the operatives traced her through a car dealer in Lagos, whom she had engaged to help perfect import papers for the stolen Volkswagen Passat Wagon, 2001 model.
In a statement on Sunday, the police said the suspect and the medical doctor had on January 19 at about 5:30 p.m. checked into a popular hotel in the Ojodu Berger area of Lagos with the plan to spend the night.
Ms. Harrold had, after settling down, gone to get a malt drink and yoghurt while the boyfriend was taking his bath.
According to the victim, Daniel Biyi (not real name) I went in to take a bath and when I returned, she had gone to buy some drinks. I took the malt drink and yoghurt and I slept off. I slept off at 6:00 p.m. and woke up around 2:00 p.m.
Behold, when I woke up, my personal effects such as phone and laptop had gone.
Unfortunately for me, I do not know any of her relatives. We only met on a social media dating site, Badoo about a year ago.
As I woke up, I rushed straight to meet with the receptionist and gateman to ask for her whereabouts, that was when I realised my car had been taken away too.
They told me someone came to pick the car for her. And, she said she was going to get food. Immediately, I reported the incident at Omole Police Station.
The victim said he was just aware of the ladys real name as Mitchel Harrold after the arrest, because she gave him Aisha Ibrahim as name.
I was getting to know her for real now, he said.
Since the incident, I had been trying to call her but to no avail. One of the numbers was switched off, she wasnt picking the other.
Arrested alongside with her, was one Gbenga Adesanya, a generator repairer, whom she engaged to drive the stolen vehicle.
According to Mr. Adesanya, I was surprised to see her opening the gate of the hotel herself for me to drive out instead of the gateman. That wasnt the first time I would be helping her take a vehicle out of Lagos to Sapele.
It was about the third time.
First, it was a Toyota Camry Big for Nothing. I helped her moved it from Ajah to Sapele, Delta State. The second one was an End of Discussion Honda Accord and thirdly, Volkswagen Passat, 2001 model. I moved that too all night to Sapele.
Mr. Adesanya said he was introduced to Ms. Harrold last year by her elder brother, who worked as clearing and forwarding agent.
I was told she needed the assistance of a good driver to take to Warri. I later met her in Ajah where I helped take a Toyota Camry to Sapele, he said.
About four months later, she summoned me to GRA Ikeja. She gave me a Honda Accord (End of Discussion) to help her collect fuel from her brother at Wawa, Ogun State. I took the fuel and returned the car. She then told me that she has gotten another driver to take her. She gave me N5000 and I left.
The last vehicle is the one that has created crisis for me. Although, I have been wondering where she has been getting these cars but she told me that she hired them from Delta whenever she comes to Lagos, and that a driver brought her to Lagos and returned to Delta. I dont know she steals cars.
The police said Ms. Harrold had already informed her brother, Mukoro Okpako, of her desire to sell the car urging him to assist her in perfecting custom papers for the Volkswagen Passat two days before she was arrested in Agbor, Delta State.
The police added that the vehicle was recovered in Warri. It was further learnt that she had removed the number plate and put it in a car mart for sale.
She attempted concealing the stolen phone when she was arrested, the police stated.
As it were now, whereabouts of the other stolen, Honda accord, End of Discussion and Toyota Camry, Big for Nothing remained unknown as she refused to cooperate with the Police during preliminary investigation.
The Lagos State Police spokesperson, Dolapo Badmus, who confirmed the arrest, noted that the case has been transferred to State criminal Investigation Department for further investigation.
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A former senior official at the State Security Service has been kidnapped.
Mike Ejiofor, who served as a state director with the service, was kidnapped on Sunday in Kogi State, according to initial reports by Sahara Reporters.
Some of his friends later confirmed the development to PREMIUM TIMES and said efforts are underway to secure his release.
He was kidnapped truly, a close associate of Mr. Ejiofor said. But we are making frantic efforts to secure his safe release without further hassles.
I will get back to you if we have further updates.
The source did not say if Mr. Ejiofors abductors have made demands.
Mr. Ejiofor has been the chairman of Apex Safety and Security Consultants in Abuja since retiring from service years ago.
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A federal court in Lagos has adjourned to March 6 the suit filed by former first lady, Patience Jonathan, seeking to un-freeze bank accounts she says belong to her.
The judge adjourned the matter following requests for more time by some of the defence counsel those representing companies linked to Mrs. Jonathan to study the case.
Mrs. Jonathan had sued the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission after the agency froze the bank accounts containing a total of $15 million.
She is demanding $200 million as damages.
Details later
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Embattled former Delta State governor, James Ibori, says he was wrongly accused and maligned by those who typecast him as a thief.
Mr. Ibori , who recently returned to Nigeria after serving jail term in the United Kingdom for corruption, made the remark at a special thanksgiving held in his honour, at the First Baptist Church in Oghara, Delta State on Sunday.
Speaking to the mammoth congregation, Mr. Ibori said he was wrongly accused and that the biggest pain he felt aside from his travails was the anguish his people went through because of his absence.
The former governor, who hailed the crowd of politicians, clergy, traditional rulers and other enthusiasts, said he was aware those behind his travails wanted to separate him from his people.
He said: They want me to go to the corner where I wont be seen. Today, I have decided to speak for myself. I am not a thief; I cannot be a thief. Today is the day they say I should give testimony to God. For those who know me, you know that my life is a testimony itself. I have said it over and again that my life is fashioned by God, directed by God, sealed, acknowledged and blessed by God. I believe that since the day I was born.
Like the Archbishop said, when this whole commotion started, what was most painful to me was the pain and suffering that my people were going through.
It has nothing to do with me as a person because, for some reasons, like I said to you, I drew my strength from God. So, somehow, I knew that God would stand by me. I knew that one-day, this day would come. I am indeed very pleased that I can now stand before you and look at your faces, the faces that I have missed, and those of you who have indeed suffered the pains of my absence. It has nothing to do with me.
So, when I reflect, it gives me joy that all your prayers, God has answered them, with your support and solidarity with me all through this period. It is indeed not what I can begin to say.
The only testimony that I have is the fact that I am back and alive in your midst. And again, I say that I never had any doubt in my mind that I would get back home.
When I looked at how things were going, I discovered that they wanted to separate me from you, my people. They wanted me to go to the corner where I wouldnt be seen. Thats how I see it. At a point, I called my older brother (former Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan): How to get home is what I am about to do now. It was a pragmatic decision.
I am happy to be home with my people. There is nobody who can battle with the Lord. An Urhobo adage says there is time for everything (okiemute). A day will come when I will tell my story and every one of you will hear me. Today is to thank God, he said.
Mr. Ibori was convicted of corruption and money laundering on April 17, 2012, after five years of trial.
The Southwark Crown Court, UK, sentenced him to 13 years in prison while his houses, luxury cars and other property items were confiscated.
The judge, however, ruled that Mr. Ibori would spend half of the jail term, which is six and half years.
Born on Aug. 4, 1959, Mr. Ibori was the governor of Delta from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
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Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun, has confirmed visiting President Muhammadu Buhari in London where the Nigerian leader is currently receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment.
There has been controversy over a picture showing Mr. Amosun and the president in the United Kingdom, amid allegations an old image was edited to make it look recent.
However, on Monday at an event at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Mr. Amosun told journalists that he indeed visited the president in London.
The event at the library was a climate change knowledge immersion workshop organised by the Federal Government in conjuction with the World Bank.
Yes it is true I visited our president in London and he is doing fine. If you ask me pointedly whether I saw him or not, yes I did and that is the only thing that I can say. And of course you can see he is very well, he is okay. So I dont know what else you want me to say, Mr. Amosun said.
Asked of the condition he found the president when he visited, the governor said he was not in the right position to talk about his health, saying such should be left to his spokes person who were already doing that.
I am not one of the spokespersons of Mr. President; so it will be out of place for me to talk on that. But then, they are doing their job and youve listened to all that they have said, Mr. Amosun said.
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The president of the United States of America, Donald Trump will speak with President Muhammadu Buhari today at 3:45 p.m. Nigerian time.
Mr. Trump, who was inaugurated on January 20, has been calling world leaders by phone as he begins a four-year mandate.
Reports said Mr. Trump was billed to speak to African leaders on Monday, and President Buhari who is currently on medical vacation in London, would be the first to be called.
South African president, Jacob Zuma, will be next on the line after Mr. Buhari.
When PREMIUM TIMES contacted presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, he said he was yet to be briefed from London and could not therefore, confirm or deny the expected call.
However, both Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geofrey Onyeama, and an aide of Mr. Buhari, Bashi Ahmad, confirmed the schedule on their verified Twitter handles.
President Trump will speak with President Buhari at 3:45 PM Nigerian time, today, Mr. Onyeama tweeted.
Also, Mr. Ahmad twitted, President @MBuhari will speak to @POTUS, @realDonaldTrump today at 3:45 pm (Nigerian Time) from his London residence.
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But Radio Free Asia reported Friday that the reason was that a building had collapsed, killing or injuring around 30 people.
But construction is often rushed and materials are substandard. The official Rodong Sinmun daily carried a photograph early this month of Workers Party Secretary Choe Ryong-hae visiting a building site there.
Ryomyong Street in Pyongyang is a showcase boulevard for the regime's ambitions, the subject of feverish building activity and home to the privileged scientists who work on the nuclear and missile programs.
The boulevard is also home to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the embalmed corpses of nation founder Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il lie in state. One apartment block shoots 70 stories into the sky.
The boulevard was supposed to be completed in late 2016, but massive floods that hit North Hamgyong Province in September held the project up.
The Daily NK website reported that North Koreans are being ordered by authorities to hand over pots and pans and other metal utensils to supply raw materials for the boulevard.
Leader Kim Jong-un himself visited Ryomyong Street early this year and ordered completion by Kim Il-sung's birthday on April 15. A source said the building probably collapsed because corners were being cut to meet the deadline.
Choi Kyung-hee at Hanyang University said, "Kim Jong-un is forcing completion to give the impression that international sanctions are not having any effect. But really the project is a Potemkin Village that caters only to the elite and has nothing to do with the welfare of the general North Korean public."
A Federal High Court sitting in Kaduna on Monday ruled that it has jurisdiction over a suit before it against MTN.
The case was instituted by Umar Tata, the governorship candidate of APGA in Katsina State during the 2015 general election.
Mr. Tata is accusing the telecommunication company of negligence, which caused him to lose the governorship election.
The plaintiff told the court that his GSM line number 08033223322, maintained and controlled by MTN was cloned and used to send voice and text messages across Katsina State that he has withdrawn from the race.
Mr. Tata contended that the MTN was negligent in allowing its network to be tempered with, adding that the negligence aided or abetted the cloning of the GSM number through 08034542945 which conveyed the voice and text messages.
He stressed that the false voice and text messages made him to lose the goodwill of his supporters and followers and consequently lost the election.
Mr. Tata, therefore, prayed the court to among other things mandate MTN to pay N27 billion as payment for damage to his personality, N350 million for expenses incurred during campaign and N1 billion for the psychological trauma he suffered.
The counsel to the defendant, Nathan Dadien had asked the court to strike out the case for want of jurisdiction.
Mr. Dadien argued that the Federal High Court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case based on Section 251 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended.
According to him, the section which confers jurisdiction on the Federal High Court clearly does not include dealings on any case of simple contact, damages or negligence.
He therefore, asked the court to strike out the case.
On the contrary, counsel to the plaintiff, Masud Aladewele, argued that the court has jurisdiction by virtue of the additional jurisdiction conferred on the court by an Act of the National Assembly.
He said that Section 138 of the Nigerian Communication Act, Cap 897, Laws of the Federal 2004, stipulates that the Federal High Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all matters in the act.
In his ruling, Justice Suleiman Shuaibu upheld the argument of the plaintiff and declared that the court has jurisdiction to hear the case.
He explained that case is a dispute between a telecom service provider and a customer, upon which section 138 of the Nigeria Communication Act becomes relevant.
The section is therefore, additional jurisdiction and independent of section 251 of the constitution, he said.
Mr. Shuaibu adjourned the case to February 27 for hearing.
(NAN)
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The trial of Umar Dikko continued on Monday before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja, with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, presenting its first witness, S. A. Yushau, who narrated how the defendant used NAF funds to acquire properties in Abuja.
Mr. Dikko, an air marshal who served as the Chief of Air Staff, Nigerian Air Force, between September 2010 and 2012, was arraigned on January 25 on a seven-count charge of money laundering and procurement fraud to the tune of N9.7 billion.
Mr. Yushau, a commodore, while being led in evidence by counsel to the EFCC, Sylvanus Tahir, told the court that he was appointed as the director of finance and account, DFA, by the defendant (Dikko), a position that put him in charge of all the financial roles.
I receive all money of the Nigerian Air Force and disburse it as authorised by the defendant. The Nigerian Air Force received its funds to the tune of N4billion monthly, he said.
According to the witness, Of the N4 billion received monthly, the actual figure used in paying staff salary was between N2.3 billion to N2.4 billion. Out of the remaining N1.6 billion, N558,200.000.00 (five hundred and fifty eight million, two hundred thousand naira) was usually set aside for upkeep of the defendant, while N120 million was for the office of the DFA.
The PW1 went further to explain how the sum of N558,200.000.00 that was set aside for the upkeep of the Chief of Air Staff office was always converted to dollar equivalent and taken to Mr. Dikko in his personal house.
The defendant (Dikko) purchased a five-bedroom duplex with a swimming pool, a guest chalet at N700million in Maitama, Abuja for his retirement, Mr. Yushau disclosed.
The witness further told the court that the defendant had a property with underground hall in Asokoro purchased at N860 million and renovated at the cost of N66 million in early 2012. He added that, in 2011, the defendant acquired a property in Kano and another property in Kaduna.
The Kaduna property was purchased at the cost of N80 million and a sum of N75 million or N80 million was used to renovate it, said the PW1.
Mr. Yushau also disclosed that Mr. Dikko had a property at Mabushi, which cost N500 million.
Further hearing on the matter has been adjourned to February 16, 2017.
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The ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, in Yobe State was declared winner in all the 17 local government areas where council elections were conducted by the state electoral commission, YOSIEC, on Saturday.
Residents of Yobe State at the weekend filed out to cast their votes in an election where only the ruling APC candidates were contestants.
Before the elections, the deeply weakened opposition political parties in the state, including the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, lamented the high cost of nomination forms, which they said would not give them fair chance of participating in the polls.
The opposition politicians argued that having been in opposition for a long time, they could not afford the N300,000 cost of purchasing nomination forms for local government chairmanship seat.
Despite the controversy, the Yobe State governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, took credit as the only governor in northeast Nigeria to conduct local government polls for the second time since 2011.
Mr. Gaidam had in December 2013 conducted Yobe council polls when he was in the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, with his party also winning with a landslide.
The defunct ANPP had always swept the polls at the local government level since 2003.
Last Saturdays election was as well predicted to be a walkover. And due to the bandwagon nature of politics in Yobe, most of the opposition politicians said they would not waste their resources going into a contest they already knew they would loose.
Declaring the results on Sunday in Damaturu, the state capital, the Executive Chairman of YOSIEC, Muhammad Abdu, said all the APC chairmanship candidates and their deputies were returned winners in the 17 council areas.
He made the declaration citing Section 197 of the Yobe State Independent Electoral Commission Law, as well as sub-section 1 paragraph (b) and part two of the third schedule to the 1999 constitution.
Governor Gaidam had in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Abdullahi Bego, hailed the citizens and the electoral body for ensuring smooth conduct of the election.
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The Federal Government has secured funding of over $1 billion from Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to develop the Niger Delta region, acting President Yemi Osinbajo has announced.
Mr. Osinbajo made the announcement on Monday in Port Harcourt at a town hall meeting with governors, former governors, community leaders, women and various youth groups in the Niger Delta region.
He said the vicious cycle of abandonment amidst plenty, and neglect of the region must stop, adding that this underscored the priority given to the clean up of Ogoniland by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mr. Osinbajo said the inauguration of governing council and board of trustees on August 4, 2016 and January 12, 2017, were some measures taken by the administration to ensure the clean up of Ogoniland.
A funding of 1 billion dollars at 200 million dollars per annum over five years has been provided by Shell to provide drinking water, conduct health impact assessment and demonstrate remediation technologies.
A groundbreaking for the construction of Centre of Excellence will be launched in a few days.
Training of 2,000 women from four local government areas in greenhouse, shrimp, poultry farming for empowerment will commence soon.
Environmental remediation is important throughout the entire region, Mr. Osinbajo said.
He said that fears being expressed that these projects would be abandoned should not be entertained as they were not being handled alone by the federal government.
He said there was no reason why infrastructure built in the region could not be compared to infrastructure built in oil-producing communities anywhere in the world.
He promised that coal-powered refineries and issues surrounding petro-chemical plants would be looked into by the government.
He said the Federal Government was interested in the continuation of the amnesty programme.
We must re-commit to making the Niger Delta region a vibrant economic zone, Mr. Osinbajo said, adding that the government intended to use small, medium businesses to drive, create employment and stimulate growth in the area.
I have made notes, I have listened carefully; this will be a beginning that will change the narrative of the Niger Delta, Mr. Osinbajo promised said. (NAN)
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Commuters using the LAGBUS and Bus Rapid Transit, BRT, buses in Lagos will pay more from March 1, following the Lagos State Governments approval of upward review in their fares.
Thousands of Lagos residents queue up daily to make use of the buses to enjoy lower fares and use the BRT to beat gridlock in the city due to their use of dedicated lanes.
The Lagos State Government said on Monday that it had approved fare increase ranging from 20 per cent to 67 per cent on different routes plied by the buses.
Abiodun Dabiri, Managing Director, Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, LAMATA, told journalist in Alausa that the new fare structure for regulated bus operators in the state would take effect from March 1.
He said that though the government was mindful of the current financial difficulties residents were going through, it approved the fare increase to save the bus schemes from collapse.
Mr. Dabiri said what the bus operators spent on fuel had gone up 71 per cent, oil by 64 per cent and tyre by 90 per cent, threatening their continued operations.
In view of this and with governments responsibility to avert a collapse of the franchise scheme, which currently serves over 500,000 commuters daily, government had to consider request by the operators for an upward review of bus fares, he said.
Mr. Dabiri said the current fares charged on some of the schemes had stayed constant for more than six years in the case of some operators.
He said that though the government granted the request for fare increase, it would not allow transport users to do so arbitrarily.
According to him, the operators have also been advised to improve their cost efficiency and effectiveness.
It will be difficult to pass the entire cost of operations to the consumers, bearing in mind that a lot of the users are in the low income bracket, Mr. Dabiri said.
He appealed to commuters to show understanding as the new fares take effect.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that from March 1, commuters from Ikorodu to Mile 12 would pay N100 as against N75.
According to Mr. Dabiri, combining two zones like going from Ikorodu to Fadeyi will be N200 instead of N120, while combining three zones Ikorodu to CMS will be N300, instead of N200.
Giving a breakdown of the new fares on the LAGBUS routes, its Managing Director, Idowu Oguntona, said that the fare from CMS to Ajah would be N200, up from N150.
He said that commuters from Leventis to Eko Hotel would pay N100 instead of N70, while those going to CMS from Oshodi would pay N150 as against N100.
Mr. Oguntona said the new fare regime would affect the 61 routes of LAGBUS.
(NAN)
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Kang Jung-ho of the Pittsburgh Pirates is unlikely to join the club's spring camp in time due to a trial on drunk driving charges here.
Pittsburgh general manager Neal Huntington on Friday said the team will help him as much as they can as he goes on trial in Korea.
The trial is scheduled for Feb. 22, and the Pirates' spring training begins later this week, so he is expected to miss the early sessions of training in Florida.
On Dec. 2 last year, Kang crashed into a guard rail near Samseong Subway Station in Seoul while driving under the influence and fled the scene.
With high Victorian collars and corsets laced up tight, the cast of Intimate Apparel readies for rehearsals at Stockton Universitys Experimental Theater and the plays five-day run, which starts Wednesday.
The play focuses on Esther, an African-American seamstress working in New York City in 1905. But Esther doesnt sew hemlines or stitch dresses. The seamstress creates corsets for clients who range from rich white women on Fifth Avenue to prostitutes in the tenderloin.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, the play explores what its like to be a single black woman at the turn of the century and the relationships in her life.
Its a production Pamela Hendrick, director and theater arts professor, has wanted to sink her teeth into for a long time. As a professor, she has used the script for scene studies in her acting classes.
But Hendrick wanted to wait until the time was right, and with a February slot available, she felt the play was a good fit for Black History month though shed do it anytime of the year, she added.
Its very much a play about various levels of intimacy, from intimate friendships to intimate desires, intimate conversations, and it is definitely a love story with a lot of complications, Hendrick said. She buys her fabric from a Jewish immigrant, and they also have a very special relationship. And that comes into play with the decisions she makes.
In Intimate Apparel, Hendrick said, Nottage puts the complexities of race and gender at the forefront.
At 35, Esther is unwed, living in a boarding house and begins a correspondence with a man who is working at the Panama Canal. Esthers relationships span from a Hasidic shopkeeper named Mr. Marks who sells her fabric to her landlady, friends and clients.
Hendrick said her students have had to challenge themselves to delve into the complex characters of Intimate Apparel as well as the time period.
They learn about life in New York City in 1905, but they also have to understand what it was like to be employed, digging the Panama Canal and how many people died and how most of them were people of color working in the trenches, she said.
Hendrick said the play also gives audiences a glimpse of what life was like for black people living in the segregated North at the turn of the century.
Esther has a kind of unique experience in she can go places other African-Americans wouldnt go because shes fitting women for intimate apparel and sewing it for them, she said. But that doesnt mean in anyway shape or form shes an equal, and the play looks at that.
Allana Harrell, 19, of Long Branch, plays the main character, Esther. She said she cant identify with Esthers struggles, but she relates to how the character handles them.
I see a lot of myself in Esther, the way she handles things and how she tries to stay very reserved, but sometimes she cant contain her emotion, Harrell said. She thinks in such vibrant colors, but its hard for her to express those.
Primarily a comedy actress, Harrell has surprised herself with the role.
She cant even fully express herself to one of her clients because shes white, and thats very hard, she said. Im such an expressive person and express myself to everyone and to know back then, you had to bite your tongue with everything and always be on edge, that was something I struggled with a lot at rehearsals.
Harrell said the show will take audiences on an emotional roller coaster with Esther, laughing, crying, feeling angry and maybe even hopeless at some point.
Anthony Cornatzer, of Cherry Hill, plays Mr. Marks. He said audiences will be surprised by how they relate to the characters.
There are so many things that still hold us back as a society and culture, as well as a society of numerous cultures and how that conflicts with us personally, Cornatzer said, noting that in many ways he feels the play often delves into the conflicts between intimacy and isolation.
Even though he said its very much a black feminist play, Intimate Apparel, is also about Jewish culture and looks at numerous perspectives.
Though many of the obstacles are personal, Hendrick said Nottages play highlights the societal barriers as well. As for audiences, Hendrick is confident:
I think theyre going to love it.
TRENTON The state Senate failed Monday to override Gov. Chris Christies veto of a bill that would have punished billionaire investor Carl Icahn for closing Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City.
Senate President Steve Sweeney, D-Salem, Gloucester, Cumberland, put up the bill but pulled it before a final vote was recorded.
Christie vetoed the bill Feb. 6, claiming it represented the Legislature at its worst.
CRDA spending in North Jersey topped $201 million Yogi Berra immortalized the phrase it aint over till its over, but it was an Atlantic Ci
The bill would have disqualified a casino license applicant for five years if that person substantially closes a casino in New Jersey.
It is a transparent attempt to punish the owner of the Taj Mahal casino for making the business decision to close its doors after its union employees went on strike and refused to negotiate in good faith, Christies veto letter stated.
The original bill passed the Senate 28-7 and the Assembly 60-17. A two-thirds vote is needed to override the veto.
Despite the veto, Icahn said he plans on selling the more than 4.3 million-square-foot property.
In January, Trump Taj Mahal Associates LLC notified the state Department of Gaming Enforcement it intends to surrender its casino license. The company also placed a deed restriction on the property not allowing gambling if it is sold, according to paperwork filed with the Atlantic County Clerks Office on Dec. 19.
The Cumberland County Prosecutors Office should identify the police officer who shot and killed Bridgeton resident Darryl Fuqua on Friday, community activist Walter Hudson said Monday.
In a letter to county Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae and Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly, Hudson said authorities have not been forthcoming with information to Fuquas family and with the Bridgeton community.He said family and friends of Fuquas mother, Gwen Benson, contacted his organization, the National Awareness Alliance, which organized several protests after Bridgeton police fatally shot Jerame Reid in December 2014.
Fuqua, who is black, was shot multiple times about 4 p.m. Friday on the 200 block of South Avenue.
Man shot, killed by Bridgeton police identified BRIDGETON The Cumberland County Prosecutors Office identified the person shot by city pol
I understand people have concerns, rightfully so, Kelly said Monday. But Im going to follow, and the Prosecutors Office is going to follow, the guidelines set forth by the attorney general. Im sure theyll release the name of the officer at the appropriate time.
Webb-McRae has not said what prompted the shooting, except that it followed an apparent foot chase. At least one officer is believed to have shot at Fuqua, she said.
Webb-McRae did not say whether Fuqua shot at police. A gun was recovered where Fuqua was taken into custody, she said.
Police Chief Michael Gaimari identified the officer who allegedly shot Fuqua only as a five-year veteran of the Police Department who is assigned to the departments Criminal Investigation Bureau. The officer is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, he said.
Gaimari said the officer was one of three taken to Inspira Health Center Bridgeton for observation and treatment of undisclosed injuries after the shooting. They were released late Friday, he said.
Kelly said he contacted clergy and community leaders, asking them to work with residents to ensure the investigation proceeds without incident.
Some Bridgeton residents were still shaken Monday by the news of the shooting.
Prosecutor's office investigating after man fatally shot by Bridgeton police BRIDGETON The Cumberland County Prosecutors Office is investigating the death of a man wh
Its happening, and its going to keep happening, Roberto Rodriguez, 24, said of violence and drug issues in the area. If you look at (the police) a certain way, theyre going to harass you.
Rodriguez, of Maple Drive, said he used to talk to Fuqua occasionally when he lived on the street with his mother. He said Fuqua was laid-back and didnt look for trouble.
He said Fuqua and his mother recently moved from their Maple Drive home.
LOS ANGELES Adele, who had trouble with her live performance at last year's Grammys, restarted her tribute to George Michael Sunday at the Grammy Awards, telling the audience: "I can't mess this up for him."
She stopped and used an expletive after singing some of a new arrangement of Michael's "Fastlove," as videos and photos of Michael played in the background. She re-sang the song and earned applause and support from the crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, though Adele was teary eyed.
At last year's show, the British singer had a hiccup after a microphone inside a piano fell onto the instrument's strings.
She was still a big winner with best pop vocal album and pop solo performance, and she and could win even more awards later in the show.
A tribute for Prince by Bruno Mars and The Time will happen later in the show.
Until Adele's restart, Beyonce was the talk of the show. In glittery gown, gilded crown and gold choker, a pregnant Beyonce took the Grammy stage Sunday in a lengthy performance of two songs from her critically acclaimed album "Lemonade." She was introduced by her mother and former stylist, Tina Knowles: "Ladies and gentlemen, with my mother's pride, my daughter, Beyonce."
Beyonce sang on top of a long table, even leaning back on a chair while singing "Love Drought." She later sang "Sandcastles" while sitting down, hitting high notes.
She earned a loud applause from the audience, including daughter Blue Ivy and husband Jay Z. Earlier, Beyonce won best music video for "Formation."
David Bowie, who died last year from cancer, won all four awards he was nominated for. He won three in the pre-telecast, and took home best rock song for "Blackstar" during the live show.
"Blackstar," his final album released days after he died, also won best alternative music album, rock performance, and engineered album, non-classical (Bowie is listed as one of the engineers on "Blackstar.") In the latter category, he beat out Prince, who also died last year.
Adele kicked off the Grammys with a live rendition of her comeback anthem, "Hello," which helped her win two early Grammys: "Hello" won best pop solo performance and "25" won pop vocal album in the pre-telecast ceremony. In the top three categories, she will go head-to-head with Beyonce.
Mars and his groovy band gave a memorable performance of "That's What I Like" as Jennifer Lopez, Faith Hill, Rihanna and even some of the men in the audience watched closely, looking impressed.
Chance the Rapper won the first award in the live telecast for best new artist. He also won best rap performance during the pre-show awards and later took home best rap album honors.
"Glory be to God. I claimed this victory in the name of the Lord. I want to thank God for my mother and my father who supported me since I was young," Chance the Rapper said onstage after winning best rap performance.
James Corden, hosting the Grammys for the first time, rapped some of his monologue at the top of the show, namedropping Prince, Rihanna and Drake.
Twenty one pilots won best pop duo/group performance for the hit "Stressed Out." They removed their pants when accepting the award in homage to their earlier days when they watched the Grammys at home in their boxers.
In the pre-telecast, Beyonce's younger sister, critical R&B darling Solange, won her first Grammy for best R&B performance (it was her first-ever nomination). Drake, who isn't attending the live show, won best rap song and rap/sung performance for the smash hit, "Hotline Bling."
Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling!" which is nominated for an Oscar won best song written for visual media. His No.1 hit is from the "Trolls" soundtrack. Lady Antebellum's Hillary Scott won two Grammys in the Christian category for the album she recorded with her family. Scott, who has won seven Grammys with Lady A, cried onstage both times when accepting the wins.
"We've been crying since this project started," her father, Lang Scott, said.
Best new artist nominees The Chainsmokers won best dance recording for the pop hit "Don't Let Me Down," while album of the year nominee Sturgill Simpson won best country album for "A Sailor's Guide to Earth."
The country music rebel thanked his wife, who he said told him to quit his job on the railroad years ago and move to Nashville.
Joey + Rory won best roots gospel album for "Hymns," and Rory Feek was emotional onstage as he remembered his wife Joey, who died last year from cancer.
"My wife's dream was to make a hymns album. She didn't have the chance to do it until she'd been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, so she'd sing in hotel rooms while she did chemotherapy and radiation," said Rory, who added that his wife said if they were nominated he had to attend the Grammys. "She got a big smile on her face and she said, 'Remember, if we win, I'll know before you will."
Some actors won Grammys, too: Don Cheadle picked up best compilation soundtrack for visual media for "Miles Ahead," where he is credited as a compilation producer, and Carol Burnett won the best spoken word album Grammy.
"The Color Purple" won best musical theater album, giving Jennifer Hudson her second Grammy and earning Tony winner Cynthia Erivo and "Orange Is the New Black" actress Danielle Brooks their first Grammys.
Beyonce was the overall top nominee with nine. There are few things the pop diva has not conquered, and the Grammy for album of the year is one of them.
For the third time, Beyonce is nominated for the coveted trophy, an award given to few R&B-based performers and only two hip-hop acts in the Grammy's 59-year history.
She was nominated for the top prize in 2010 with "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" (losing to Taylor Swift) and in 2015 with "Beyonce" (Beck was the surprise winner). Her "Lemonade" album is competing Sunday, along with its hit "Formation" for record and song of the year.
Beyonce has lost record of the year four times, and she's marking her third nomination for song of the year (she won in 2010 with "Single Ladies").
Beyonce's main competition is Adele, who won album, song and record of the year in 2012 with "21" and "Rolling In the Deep." While some critics argued that Beyonce's "Lemonade" was more artistic and had a stronger impact on culture, Adele's "25" marked her comeback and became a multiplatinum juggernaut, setting a record when it sold over 3 million units in its first week.
Their competition for album of the year aside from Simpson includes Drake's multihit "Views" and Justin Bieber's redemption album "Purpose."
Nominees battling "Formation" and "Hello" for record of the year include Rihanna and Drake's "Work," twenty one pilots' "Stressed Out" and Lukas Graham's "7 Years."
Song of the year nominees are "Formation," ''Hello," ''7 Years," Mike Posner's "I Took a Pill in Ibiza" and Bieber's "Love Yourself," shared with co-writer Ed Sheeran.
Collaborative performances include Lady Gaga and Metallica, Alicia Keys and Maren Morris, and A Tribe Called Quest and Anderson .Paak. Chance the Rapper will perform with Kirk Franklin, who won two awards, including best gospel album and gospel performance/song for writing "God Provides" for Tamela Mann.
Rihanna, Drake and Kanye West are the second-most nominated acts with eight each.
New Jersey residents wont get a break from election talk.
Just three months after the presidential election, the state Assembly and Senate races are beginning to heat up.
In Atlantic County, all eyes are focused on state Sen. Jim Whelans open seat as he prepares to retire. Assemblymen Chris Brown, R-Atlantic, and Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, have already announced their candidacies for the Senate.
If history is any indication, that race could get expensive and ugly.
The previous Assembly race involving the two was the most expensive race in the state in 2015, with nearly $5 million spent between both parties.
Both Brown and Mazzeo kept their seats in the Assembly that year. Brown was the top vote-getter.
This year, the losing Senate candidate will not keep his Assembly seat.
Brown has begun campaigning. On Friday, he addressed the Egg Harbor Township Veterans Advisory Commission on issues facing veterans in South Jersey and other topics, including the state takeover of Atlantic City.
Mazzeo was invited to the meeting to debate Brown but was unable to attend because of a prior commitment, his chief of staff Marshall Spevak said.
Meanwhile, the race to fill the two Assembly seats left open by Brown and Mazzeo is underway.
Former Atlantic County Freeholder Jim Carney, a Democrat, announced his candidacy last week.
Carney, who was a Republican on the freeholder board until 2005 when he ran for Atlantic County surrogate, said in a statement he feels inspired and strong going into the campaign.
My experience in all levels of government, along with leadership in both large and small business, aptly prepares me to assume this office, he said.
Carney is the director of asset acquisition and liquidations for Surplus Services Co. and the commissioner of the New Jersey Casino Revenue Fund Advisory Commission.
An announcement that Democrats Colin Bell and John Armato will run for Assembly could come this week.
Bell is an attorney and former Atlantic County assistant prosecutor. He was also named one of Atlantic City Weeklys Top 40 Under 40 in 2008.
Armato is a committeeman in Buena Vista Township and an Air Force veteran known for his four decades as a volunteer firefighter.
Atlantic County Freeholder Ernest Coursey announced on Monday he is running for the Assembly.
Coursey is the only Democrat on the freeholder board.
Before becoming a freeholder, Coursey was a three-term councilman in Atlantic City.
On the Republican side, former Margate Commissioner Brenda Taube announced her candidacy for an Assembly seat.
New Jersey faces some of the toughest financial problems in its history, and the Democrats are committed to the status quo. There is no accountability to taxpayers and no regard for the future, Taube said.
Brigantine Councilman Vince Sera announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for Assembly at a rally on Monday.
TRENTON The New Jersey League of Conservation Voters endorsed Phil Murphy on Monday in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, citing a commitment to environmental protection and vision for combating climate change.
In thanking the group, Murphy said he will re-enter the state in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, identify a path to get to 100 percent clean energy by 2050, safeguard clean drinking water and reinvigorate wind and solar industries so we can make up for the good, middle-class green jobs we have lost due to Governor Christies obstruction.
Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Barack Obama administration official, entered the race last May and quickly garnered the support of key county Democratic chairs and public and private-sector unions.
The relatively unknown Murphy shot to front-runner status and has pledged to spend $10 million of his own money on the race.
But the endorsement drew criticism from another statewide environmental group, the New Jersey Sierra Club.
The League of Conservation Voters finally endorsed someone for Governor, but in 2013, they stayed neutral in spite of Governor Christie having the worst environmental record in state history, said NJ Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel.
NJLCV spokeswoman Angela Delli Santi said the group was relatively new in 2013 and chose to focus resources where it could make a difference. She said NJLCV has led the fight to keep Christie from grabbing environmental settlement money and redirecting it to the general fund.The NJLCV is the first statewide environmental group to announce its support of a major-party candidate in this years New Jersey governors race, according to the group.
NJLCV Political Committee Chair Kelly Mooij said New Jersey faces growing threats from state and federal regulatory rollbacks, pollution, climate change and other issues.
Other Democrats in the primary are Jim Johnson, a former Clinton administration Treasury official who recently asked Murphy to agree to a $15 million spending cap in the primary, and Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, who has served in the Assembly for 21 years and co-chaired the legislative inquiry into the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closings. He is known as a strong critic of Gov. Chris Christie.
Two people formerly seen as front runners dropped out after Murphy secured the backing of party bosses, in part by promising them financial backing. They are Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and Senate President Stephen Sweeney.
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, had positioned himself to run but later announced he wouldnt.
Yogi Berra immortalized the phrase it aint over till its over, but it was an Atlantic City casino reinvestment fund that helped immortalize the New York Yankees legend.
Parts of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center at Montclair State University in Essex County were built using funds from the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.
Now, with Atlantic Citys government taken over by the state, the CRDA has been stripped of its yearly funding, nearly $22 million annually, forcing the agency to search for a new role other than economic kickstarter.
Projects such as the Berra museum still rankle local officials, including one member of the authoritys board of directors, who said funding projects outside the area was a mistake and signaled a dark period.
Im sure if I was a family in West New York, New Jersey, and all of my kids went to the YMCA that was paid for by CRDA, then I would be praising CRDA, said Mayor Don Guardian, the former Special Improvement District director for the agency and a current member of the board. I dont know if that stuff changed a community.
When CRDAs board of directors approved funding for a portion of the Berra museum in 2000, some questioned the usefulness of it, but officials sold it as an educational venture. The $1.3 million was provided to the museum to help it pay off its debt.
The museum and several other projects in North Jersey were funded in part by the agency through casino taxes. North Jersey received more than $201 million from CRDA for projects that have no relation to or effect on Atlantic City from 1989 to 2011.
During that period, the agency funded several high-profile projects, including spending more than $10 million on a boardwalk in Long Branch, Monmouth County, and $52 million to increase purses at horse races at the Meadowlands Race Track in exchange for Atlantic City keeping its gaming monopoly.
Since its creation, the CRDA has invested $1.85 billion in Atlantic City through April 19, 2016, according to an analysis by The Press of Atlantic City of 454 resolutions passed by the authority. Overall, CRDA has invested $2.2 billion since its inception, including $374 million spent outside the city.
The Casino Control Act, the legislation that legalized Atlantic City gaming in 1977, required each casino to reinvest 2.5 percent of its gross gaming revenue. In 1984, the CRDA was established after casinos failed to make investments that had been promised. During that time, projects were selected from throughout the state for funding.
It was a compromise to bring support for casinos in Atlantic City, James Karmel, professor of history at Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland, and author of Gambling on The American Dream: Atlantic City and the Casino Era, said of the funding for North Jersey projects.
Everyone seemed to be happy about it, Karmel said. A rising tide lifts all ships, and that is the way people looked at it.
But the practice of funding projects outside Atlantic City ended in 2012, when Gov. Chris Christie decided to focus all funds on projects in the resort.
CRDA spending mission turned from neighborhoods to casino attractions ATLANTIC CITY Inside an unfinished Revel Casino Hotel in 2011, Gov. Chris Christie declare
The history of CRDA sending money that was generated in Atlantic City all over the state, in my view a sad history, is over, Christie said then.
State Assemblyman Chris Brown, R-Atlantic, said over the years political interests have used CRDA to fund pet projects.
He said the funding of such projects is just another example of outside special interests getting rich at the expense of Atlantic County families.
In 2002, CRDA invested more $11 million for the redevelopment of the oceanfront in Long Branch. At the time, the project was touted to redevelop the area and bring in more than 447 jobs, according to the resolution approving the funding.
But Guardian said the money could have been used to help spur development in Atlantic City.
They did a beautiful job on the boardwalk in Long Branch, Guardian said. But why didnt they do that here? Couldnt you have done that on Texas Avenue?
Staff Writer Christian Hetrick contributed to this report.
The Atlantic City chapter of the NAACP was once among the country's most active, with 400 to 500 teens in its youth group, said new President Kaleem Shabazz.
Back then, the youth group demonstrated on the Atlantic City Boardwalk against the practice of marking people's voter registration card with either "C" for colored or "W" for white, he said.
"That shows you how far back we were," said Shabazz. "African Americans were not allowed to go on cash registers in the stores they worked in. We demonstrated against that, too."
Today the total membership is about 200, with about 40 to 50 teens in the youth group.
Shabazz wants to turn those numbers around, and said Black History Month and the 108th anniversary of the national NAACP combined to make a good time to try.
"I'm reaching out to religious leaders in Atlantic City to encourage memberships for the NAACP and take people's temperatures about some of the things that are going on," said Shabazz, who is also a city councilman.
He was talking about actions of President Donald Trump's administration, such as an attempted ban of people entering the country from seven Muslim nations, that brought many people to a recent interfaith service at City Hall to show support for Muslims.
As challenging as he thinks some of Trump's actions are to civil rights, he said, in a way, it will help the membership drive.
"The actions of President Trump have given us a jolt," he said. "People are asking how to join."
He's looking for people of all backgrounds join.
"Some people have the understanding the NAACP is only for people of African American descent," said Shabazz. "I want to dispel that. It's never been the case. Anyone who values social justice and civil rights can join."
The Atlantic City chapter is almost 60 years old, said Shabazz, who has been chapter president for only about a month.
The chapter has had its troubles.
Back in 2011 it was temporarily suspended by the national group because of infighting and organizational problems, which members at the time said resulted from the actions of just a few people.
Shabazz grew up in the resort and said he was an active member of the NAACP Youth Council during high school in the 1960s when there were almost 500 teens in his group.
"The Atlantic City chapter has a long history of being in the forefront of civil rights, and the youth council in Atlantic City was one of the most active in the country in the 1960s," he said.
The Atlantic City chapter is planning a commemorative program April 4, the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, but is still working on a location, said Shabazz.
A Freedom Fund annual breakfast fundraiser is set for 8:30 a.m. April 22 at Golden Nugget. The keynote speaker will be Phil Murphy, Democratic candidate for governor, Shabazz said. Tickets are $50.
For information on joining the Atlantic City branch, attending the breakfast, becoming a sponsor or taking an ad, call 609-344-2590. A website is being developed, he said.
In Atlantic County, the Mainland/Pleasantville branch has a webpage at mlpnaacp.org.
For a list of all chapters in New Jersey with contact information, including the Greater Vineland and Mizpah chapters, see njscnaacp.org/unit/.
Membership is $30 for adults, $10 for youth.
Downtown Seoul saw both massive candlelight protests for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and rallies by die-hard supporters on Saturday. Although no physical clashes were reported between the two sides, tensions were running high.
More than two months have passed since the National Assembly passed a bill impeaching Park, but the situation is worsening rather than improving as her legal team do everything to stall proceedings and grandstanding continues on all sides.
The Constitutional Court has ordered the prosecution and defense in Park's impeachment trial to submit their final opinions by Feb. 23. It is unclear whether the court can wrap up the case before acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi retires on March 13, but it now seems certain that the court's ruling is not far away.
It is no secret what the candlelight protesters and pro-Park supporters want. Demonstrations being held in front of the Constitutional Court have long passed the boundaries of a peaceful expression of political views and now constitute brute force. This is beginning to look like an assault on the rule of law.
Yet organizers of the protests keep competing over attendance figures, and that will only intensify as the date of the ruling approaches. A violent reaction by the side that is deemed to have lost would end up costing Korea's entire society dearly. The time has come for everyone to calm down and wait for the court's ruling.
Most importantly, organizers of the demonstrations must say that they are willing to accept the ruling of the court. If not, the justice they have been calling for will become a farce.
Former Minjoo Party leader Moon Jae-in, South Chuncheong Province Governor Ahn Hee-jung and Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung attended the candlelight protests against Park on Saturday, while Saenuri Party lawmakers Kim Moon-soo and Lee In-jae took part in pro-Park rallies and spoke in front of the embattled president's die-hard supporters.
People's Party head Ahn Cheol-soo and lawmakers with the conservative splinter Bareun Party were the only senior political figures who did not attend any rallies.
Moon on Friday said he would accept a ruling that "differs from public sentiment," but warned that the public will not. It was a relief to hear Moon at least pledge to abide by the rule of law.
All presidential hopefuls must promise to accept the ruling of the Constitutional Court and refrain from participating in mob rule. That is the only way to avoid chaos after the court's decision. Voters can trust only candidates who promise to accept the court's decision and follow their pledge with action to show they are truly concerned about the future of our nation. Those who do not are simply opportunists.
Around this time in each of the past four years, New Jersey government has been beaten up for failing to spend any of its massive revenue from cigarette taxes and the nationwide tobacco settlement on smoking-prevention programs. Deservedly so.
Cigarette taxes of $2.70 a pack and lawsuit money from tobacco companies amounted to $921 million last year. New Jersey used it all for the general budget. Think of it as a symptom of state governments most serious and potentially fatal illness poor fiscal management and inability to control spending.
The state has some modest anti-smoking efforts, supported by relatively small amounts of dedicated federal funding, and theyre quite effective. A hotline for counseling and nicotine replacement therapy runs on $2.2 million in federal assistance. Another program provides counselors to new and expecting mothers who want to quit. An enforcement program ensures that retailers require tobacco buyers to be at least 19 years old. And a Rutgers-based quit-smoking program achieves long-term success of 35 percent, about 10 points above rates nationwide.
New Jersey also has discouraged tobacco use by banning smoking from schools, care and recreational facilities, stores, restaurants, most bars and nearly all workplaces.
The smoking rate in New Jersey compares favorably to that of the nation, with 15 percent of adults smoking vs. 18 percent for the U.S. Smoking may not deserve the kind of urgent effort the governor and Legislature are mounting against the opioid addiction epidemic, but surely it merits a little more.
The annual misuse of tobacco settlement funds started in he late 1990s. As if he were responding to one of those Need cash now? TV commercials, then-Gov. Jim McGreevey sold the future settlement payments to bondholders for a fraction of their worth. The state then spent much of that $3.5 billion in just two years.
Govs. Jon Corzine and Chris Christie managed with refinancing to claw back about a quarter of what McGreevey wasted. But Christie in 2013 ended the annual $7 million of state funding for smoking-cessation programs.
This year Christie and legislative leaders are rightly being praised for enacting laws to boost addiction-recovery programs and reduce dependency caused by prescription opioids. Theyve pledged $100 million for addiction and mental-health services.
Thats about how much the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends New Jersey spend on preventing tobacco addiction. That might be optimal considering the states nearly 12,000 tobacco-related deaths annually, but given the states finances, its not possible without serious budgetary reform. With this years tobacco tax and settlement funds increasing by $24 million, however, surely the $7 million for smoking prevention could be restored.
This nickel-and-diming of programs that benefit the public is the result of past politicians promising state workers (including themselves) salaries, benefits and pensions substantially greater than what nongovernment workers get. The cost of state government itself will increasingly crowd out sensible and necessary programs until political leaders and/or voters insist on responsible spending, taxing and borrowing.
Addictions that afflict the public would be more effectively addressed if state officials werent addicted to spending more than they have and leaving future generations to pay up or clean up the financial mess.
Make Cuba return state troopers killer
Forty-four years ago New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster was executed in cold blood on the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike. Today, his convicted killer remains at large, a guest of the Cuban government.
JoAnne Chesimard was tried and convicted of the brutal slaying of Trooper Foerster. Unfortunately, she escaped from prison and made her way to Communist Cuba, where she was granted asylum and has lived since 1979.
As an elected freeholder in New Jersey and a longtime friend and ally of law enforcement, I renew my call for the immediate return of this cop killer. Under former President Obamas administration, steps were taken to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba. However, absolutely no effort was made to include Chesimards return in any of these new agreements.
I would like President Donald J. Trump to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that Chesimard is returned to prison. Any further diplomatic agreements with Cuba must include Chesimards return.
Its well past time shes put back where she belongs, in a cell.
Joseph H. Vicari
Toms River Ocean County freeholder director
Feminists of all types should work together
I am a feminist and I am against abortion and I am not the only one. The first time I heard about the Womens March, I committed to being there. Then I read a New York Times article about a founder of the march commenting: If you want to come to the march, you are coming with the understanding that you respect a womans right to choose. That temporarily stopped me in my tracks. I considered taping a disclaimer on my back: I am a feminist, I am against abortion and I belong here too. Regretfully, I didnt do that, but I will at the next march.
I joined the march because every other issue spoke to my concerns about the kind of world we are creating for our children and grandchildren. The march was an amazing outpouring of positive energy that will not go away: Today we march, tomorrow we run for office.
My hope is that all feminists work to find common ground, thereby not contributing to the damaging divisiveness in the country. While there are limits, there is a surprising variety of issues that are common ground. As challenging as it is, keeping an open dialogue is crucial. I think its safe to assume that both sides want the culture to be more supportive of mothers and families. Lets start there and work together.
Barbara Reynolds
Manahawkin
Vote fraud nonexistent
I am proudly an independent voter. I have voted for members of both parties. I vote for the person I think is the best candidate for that particular office. Now we have a president who really thinks he is a king. His ego is so huge, like his hands, that he believes millions of votes were cast for Hillary Clinton illegally by dead people or people who voted twice in different states. In his mind a massive voter fraud denied him the popular vote. After all, the king must to be loved by all his subjects.
Now the taxpayers will end up paying to prop up his ego by looking for nonexistent voter fraud. I hope that the GOP just tells him to let it go but doubt that they will. Oh, and by the way, kings adviser Steve Bannon was registered in two states.
Tom Depko
Atlantic City
Carman attacked men
It is very obvious that Freeholder John Carman was attacking men when he stated the female demonstrators should be home cooking for the men. Carman insinuated that men cant cook and need women to cook for them.
Note that there werent that many men in the demonstrations. Obviously, they were home cooking for the wives, so they would have something to eat from a hard day of demonstrating.
Geez, people, get a life.
Jim Dunbar
Absecon
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that four of the casinos that have been closed in the city have, or had deed restrictions barring gambling there.
But that doesn't make it right, or a good thing for a city trying to rebuild its Boardwalk. Does it?
This week, for our second podcast on Atlantic City, Nicholas Huba and I drilled into the issue a bit.
It turns out, Nick and I don't see eye to eye on whether deed restrictions are killing Atlantic City's boardwalk, saving it, or whether they even matter.
But we did agree that a poor perception of the resort still persists. That view was reinforced when Jeffrey Gural, the Meadowlands developer who supported last November's public vote on casino expansion, came down to talk our editor board about gaming.
Gural still wants a casino and believes he'll get on, he just has to wait six more years. That's when New York's casinos will be so close to the state's border New Jersey will have no choice but to open one up in the north (You can find that at the 6:00 mark of the podcast).
Gural, at 74, is a pretty patient and optimistic guy.
We were also finally able to pull Christian Hetrick out of his stacks of documents and spreadsheets long enough to get him to come over and talk about the Atlantic City takeover.
Christian's been reporting on the state takeover of Atlantic City government, including point man Jeff Chiesa's bid to cut 100 jobs from the fire department (starts at 8:24). Firefighters are suing and there's a ton of documents online. Christian claims he's read all 1,000 pages of filings.
I put him to the test.
Thanks for the listen and the comments last week.
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.
BEIRUT, JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia and KUWAIT CITY, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
In partnership with Community Jameel and Zain Group; with this year ' s strategic partner Tamkeen Bahrain
Unprecedented turnout with more than 8,272 applications
Prize money exceeds $160,000 ; Winners ceremony in Bahrain 27 April, 2017
The MIT Enterprise Forum (MIT EF) of the Pan Arab Region announced the much anticipated semifinalists of the 10th edition of the MIT Arab Startup Competition, in partnership with Community Jameel, a social enterprise organization that operates a wide range of initiatives to promote a positive society and economic sustainability and Zain Group, a leading telecommunications innovator in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa. This year's strategic partner is Tamkeen, a semi-government organization in Bahrain with the task of making the private sector as the key driver of sustainable economic development.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467353/MIT_Arab_Startup_Competition.jpg )
This year's edition has witnessed an unprecedented turnout with more than 8,272 applications, constituting a 39% increase in comparison to last year's edition. The highest number of applications came from Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Saudi Arabia (through the MIT EF Saudi competition). The submitted projects tackled a variety of sectors, among the most prominent of which were software related followed by education, healthcare and creative industries.
The semifinalists of the 10th MIT Arab Startup Competition hailed from 11 Arab countries as follows: Egypt (22), Lebanon (11), UAE (10), Jordan (8), Tunisia (6), Morocco (5), Bahrain (3), Sudan (2), Libya (2), and Algeria (1). Nine Saudi Arabian teams will be added to the list from the MIT EF Saudi Competition that will be announced in March. These teams will be invited to participate in the pre boot camp training which will be held during the month of March 2017 in Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. The semi-finalists list can be viewed on http://www.mitefarab.org .
The participating teams submitted their applications through the competition's website: mitefarab.org between 17 October 2016 till 4 January 2017.
This year's edition is of special importance as it celebrates 10 years of success and excellence while serving generations of young Arabs and their creative entrepreneurial ideas. Very much like last year's competition, this edition included three exciting tracks - Ideas, Startups, and Social Entrepreneurship. Cash prizes exceeding USD 160,000 will be distributed among the nine lucky winners, three per track. Beyond the cash prizes, all semifinalists will benefit from advanced training sessions, personal mentorship and guidance not to mention a great deal of media coverage and excellent networking opportunities.
Hala Fadel, Chair of the board of MIT EF Pan Arab, commented on the importance of this 10th edition. She said, "This year, we are celebrating 10 years of entrepreneurial success in the region by bringing together our biggest edition to date. We are also celebrating everything we have accomplished so far especially in terms of our ability to develop young entrepreneurs and support their ideas that a substantial portion of which have become success stories that we take deep pride in. We have great expectations for this year's competition whether it's in terms of ideas, startups or social entrepreneurship. We are expecting more and more technology innovations from the MENA region this year and we aim to take the most innovative of these entrepreneurs to new heights."
Fady Jameel, President of Community Jameel International, commented on the semifinals saying: "We are happy with the diversity of the semifinalists, which reinforces the fact that the Arab world is full of talent and creativity. We have offered our full support to this successful event for 10 consecutive years now, and remain true to our commitment to see it through. As it has been the case in previous years, our strong belief in this competition continues, as we strive to help generations of young entrepreneurs realize their hopes and bring their aspirations to life."
Mr Jameel also referred to the successes achieved by the MIT Enterprise forum Arab Startup Competition in the past 9 years, which made the 10th edition a mathematical certainty. He said, "The MIT Arab Startup Competition has demonstrated its ability to help young entrepreneurs achieve their deepest aspirations, accepting a mind blowing 8,272 applications this year."
Commenting on Zain Group's support of the latest MIT Arab Startup Competition, CEO Scott Gegenheimer said, "We are excited to support the competition again this year, and congratulate the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab for another milestone for the 10th year of running. We congratulate everyone responsible for bringing to life yet another edition of this outstanding competition which supports young aspiring entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams and appeals to a number of our core constituents, aligning with our outlook and values at Zain Group perfectly."
Gegenheimer continued, "We look forward to seeing the face of innovation being revealed throughout the course of the competition and shall take the opportunity to capitalize on the most promising ideas, supporting our evolution in becoming a digital lifestyle operator."
On this occasion Dr. Ebrahim Mohammed Janahi, Chief Executive of Tamkeen expressed his pleasure in Tamkeen's support to this competition and said: "In Tamkeen we support all initiatives through which we empower entrepreneurs to start and sustain their innovative projects in various vital sectors. We are proud to host this regional competition for the first time in the Kingdom of Bahrain as we believe such competitions has the ability to encourage entrepreneurs to offer the best of their creativity in a healthy competitive environment."
Dr. Janahi added "We are truly pleased with the number of applicants that exceeded 8,000 applications as it reflects the region's wealth of youthful energies that seek the opportunities to showcase their innovations and excellence."
The MIT Arab Startup Competition will culminate in a four-day event from April 24 to April 27, 2017 in Bahrain, with the announcement of the competition winners set to take place during the final award ceremony.
For more information on this year's MIT Arab Startup Competition eligibility and judging criteria, as well as the planned roadshows, please visit http://www.mitefarab.org
About MITEF Pan Arab:
Founded in 2005, the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Pan Arab Region (http://www.mitefarab.org) is one of the 28 worldwide chapters of the MIT Enterprise Forum Global, an avid promoter of entrepreneurship and innovation worldwide. The MIT Enterprise Forum- Pan Arab has a proven record in promoting MIT-style entrepreneurship by organizing each year the MITArab Startup Competition targeting 21 countries of the Arab region and attracting over 12,000 entrepreneurs a year.
About Zain Group:
Zain is a leading telecommunications operator across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to over 47 million active customers as of 31 December, 2016. With a commercial presence in 8 countries, Zain operates in: Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and South Sudan. In Lebanon, the Group manages 'touch' on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain has a 15.5% stake in 'INWI', through a joint venture. Zain is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN).For more, please email info@zain.com or visit: http://www.zain.com; http://www.facebook.com/zain; http://www.twitter.com/zain; http://www.youtube.com/zain; http://www.instagram.com/zaingroup; http://www.linkedin.com/company/zain
About Community Jameel:
Established in 2003, Community Jameel is a social enterprise organisation that operates a wide range of initiatives to promote a positive society and economic sustainability. From individual, community and Arab life as a whole, in Saudi Arabia and beyond, Community Jameel promotes Arab arts and culture in the Middle East and around the world, works against unemployment, enables research for poverty alleviation and food and water security, and provides education and training opportunities.
Community Jameel supports and partners with global institutions, which employ hundreds of people, all aiming to provide people with opportunities and training in the following areas:
Job Creation - Bab Rizq Jameel
Arts and Culture - Art Jameel
Global Poverty Alleviation
Food and Water Security
Education and Training
Health and Social
About Tamkeen:
Tamkeen is tasked with developing Bahrain's private sector and positioning it as the key driver of economic development. Established in August 2006, Tamkeen is one of the cornerstones of Bahrain's national reform initiatives and Bahrain's Economic Vision. Tamkeen has two primary objectives: Firstly, fostering the creation and development of enterprises, and secondly, providing support to enhance the productivity and growth of enterprises and individuals.
To achieve these objectives, Tamkeen's strategy focuses on quality enhancement, customer care and having a results-oriented approach. Through this strategy, a number of innovative programmes are provided to Bahrainis and businesses in Bahrain, which include training, consulting, financing, entrepreneurship support and others. These programmes help develop the capabilities of Bahrainis and enterprises and integrate new critical concepts for a vibrant sustainable private sector. To date, Tamkeen's programmes have benefited more than 130,000 Bahrainis and businesses.
SOURCE MITEF Pan-Arab
Leading Market Intelligence Team to Moderate the Best Mobile Innovations in 5G, Automotive, Apps, Business, Mobile Payments, and Wearables
OYSTER BAY, New York, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A team of ABI Research leading analysts will pack the 2017 GSMA Glomo Awards judging panel, drawing on their extensive mobile communications knowledge to moderate the best mobile innovations in 5G, automotive, apps, business, mobile payments, and wearables.
Participating analysts include Stuart Carlaw, Managing Partner and Chief Research Officer; Dominique Bonte, Managing Director and Vice President; Malik Saadi, Managing Director and Vice President; Sam Rosen, Managing Director and Vice President; Dimitris Mavrakis, Research Director; Jeff Orr, Research Director; Ryan Martin, Senior Analyst; and Phil Sealy, Senior Analyst. Winners will be announced during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 in Barcelona, Spain.
"ABI Research is honored to once more play a part in the leading mobile industry awards program," says Stuart Carlaw, Managing Partner and Chief Research Officer at ABI Research. "Our substantial presence on this year's panel speaks to the high level of respect and knowledge our analysts tout in the industry due to their unwavering commitment to producing provocative, insightful, and impactful research in next-generation 5G, smart mobility and automotive, app, business, mobile payment, and wearable technologies."
Outlined below are the ABI Research judging responsibilities:
Stuart Carlaw , The Green Mobile Award
, Dominique Bonte , Best Mobile Innovation for Automotive
, Malik Saadi , The Green Mobile Award
, Sam Rosen , Most Innovative Mobile App
, Dimitris Mavrakis , Outstanding Contribution for LTE Evolution to 5G
, Jeff Orr , Best Mobile App for Business
, Ryan Martin , Best Wearable Mobile Technology
, Phil Sealy , Best Mobile Payments Solution
The international judging panel represents a pool of independent experts, all boasting broad knowledge of how mobile communications can deliver both local and global impact.
About ABI Research
ABI Research stands at the forefront of technology market research, providing business leaders with comprehensive research and consulting services to help them implement informed, transformative technology decisions. Founded more than 25 years ago, the company's global team of senior and long-tenured analysts delivers deep market data forecasts, analyses, and teardown services. ABI Research is an industry pioneer, proactively uncovering ground-breaking business cycles and publishing research 18 to 36 months in advance of other organizations. For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com.
Contact Info: Mackenzie Gavel Tel: +1.516.624.2542
pr@abiresearch.com
Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/276887/abi_research_logo.jpg
Related Links
http://www.abiresearch.com
SOURCE ABI Research
CAMBRIDGE, England, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Extensive Phase 3 programme demonstrates clinical potential of BAREMSIS in rescue treatment and prophylaxis of PONV - NDA to be submitted to the US FDA 1H 2017
Acacia Pharma Group Ltd ("Acacia Pharma"), the supportive care company developing products for US and international markets, announces positive results from its fourth and final pivotal Phase 3 study investigating BAREMSIS (amisulpride injection, formerly APD421) for the rescue treatment of patients who develop post-operative nausea & vomiting (PONV), despite having received prior antiemetic prophylaxis.
Dr Julian Gilbert, Acacia Pharma's CEO commented: "We are delighted with these results demonstrating that BAREMSIS is safe and effective at rescuing patients who suffer PONV despite having received prior prophylaxis with standard anti-emetics. No other anti-emetic has a specific label for treating this significant unmet need and we intend to position BAREMSIS as the drug of choice for treating the 30-40% of surgical patients who suffer PONV despite prior prophylaxis, as well as for combination prophylaxis in high-risk patients."
Acacia Pharma has now completed four pivotal Phase 3 studies of BAREMSIS successfully, all meeting their primary endpoint, and these will form the basis of the efficacy and safety package which the Company aims to submit to the US FDA as part of its New Drug Application (NDA) in 1H 2017. The Company will seek a broad and unique approval for BAREMSIS for the rescue treatment and prophylaxis of PONV, alone and in combination.
PONV is distressing, can have a detrimental impact on surgical outcomes and significantly impede the post-operative recovery process. It can delay hospital discharge, lead to unanticipated readmissions increasing healthcare costs and give the patient a poor surgical experience. Better management of PONV can therefore decrease hospital costs and improve patient outcomes and satisfaction scores.
Surgical patients at moderate or high risk of PONV are given prophylactic antiemetics prior to surgery, with standard-of-care based upon 5HT 3 antagonists and corticosteroids. However, up to 40% of these patients develop PONV and must be treated with an antiemetic from a different mechanistic class. BAREMSIS is a dopamine antagonist antiemetic and offers anaesthetists a drug that is able to fulfil this important unmet medical need and better manage PONV.
The Phase 3 rescue treatment trial compared two doses of BAREMSIS, a novel dopamine D 2 /D 3 antagonist antiemetic, against placebo in patients with established nausea and/or vomiting after surgery, who had previously received prophylactic antiemetics. The double-blind study, the first ever major study to investigate rescue with a different class of antiemetic, took place in leading institutions in the USA, Canada, France and Germany and recruited 2,285 patients, of whom 705 (31%) went on to experience PONV and were randomised into the trial. The primary endpoint was the successful resolution of the episode of PONV (no recurrence of vomiting or requirement for further antiemetic rescue) in the 24-hour period after rescue treatment, termed a complete response. The optimum dose of BAREMSIS significantly improved the complete response rate when compared to placebo (p=0.003); the magnitude of effect was consistent with the Company's previous Phase 3 trial results. Detailed data will be presented in due course at relevant scientific meetings and submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Acacia Pharma
Acacia Pharma is developing supportive care product opportunities for post-surgical and cancer patients. Patients and healthcare professionals urgently need new and improved interventions in these rapidly expanding, yet poorly served, areas of supportive care, to improve treatment outcomes and patients' quality of life.
Acacia Pharma has generated its pipeline of product opportunities using a commercially driven approach to product discovery, identifying completely new uses for marketed drugs, a process termed repurposing. This strategy leads to opportunities with a higher probability of success and enables more rapid development. All of Acacia Pharma's repurposed programmes are optimised for their new use, by using a new route of delivery and dose that are appropriate for the new indication identified, thereby differentiating them from the original marketed product.
The lead project, BAREMSIS for post-operative nausea & vomiting (PONV), has generated positive results in Phase 3 clinical studies and it is aimed to submit regulatory submissions from 1H 2017. Its sister project, APD403 for chemotherapy induced nausea & vomiting (CINV) has successfully completed one Phase 2 dose-ranging study in patients receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy. In addition, the company has completed a Phase 2 study with APD515 for xerostomia (dry mouth) in advanced cancer patients and a Phase 2a study with APD209 for cancer cachexia (muscle wasting).
Acacia Pharma, is led by an experienced management team. Management, Gilde Healthcare, Lundbeckfonden Ventures, Novo A/S and F-Prime Capital are the Company's key shareholders. Acacia Pharma is based in Cambridge, UK and has US operations in Indianapolis, IN. www.acaciapharma.com
About BAREMSIS
BAREMSIS (formerly APD421) comprises a low dose intravenous formulation of the marketed dopamine antagonist amisulpride, which Acacia Pharma has repurposed for the completely new, patent-protected use of management of PONV. Amisulpride is currently indicated for the management of psychoses, and is given at high doses in oral form. Amisulpride is not available for any use in the US.
Data generated by Acacia Pharma indicate that BAREMSIS is an effective, safe, dopamine antagonist that can prevent and treat PONV alone and in combination. The company believes that a drug with these characteristics can be particularly useful
rescuing patients who develop PONV despite having received prior PONV prophylaxis with standard of care (5HT 3 antagonist and corticosteroids, alone or in combination), and
antagonist and corticosteroids, alone or in combination), and prophylactically to prevent PONV in combination with standard of care (5HT 3 antagonists and/or corticosteroids) in the highest risk patients.
About PONV
PONV
Post-operative nausea & vomiting (PONV) is a common complication of surgery which is distressing to patients and increases healthcare costs. In untreated patients, the incidence of vomiting is ~30%, the incidence of nausea is ~50% and the PONV rate in high-risk surgical patients is up to 80%[1]. PONV is reported by patients as one of the most troublesome of all post-operative complications[2].
PONV can lead to prolonged discharge times and unanticipated hospital admissions (increasing healthcare costs)[1] and to the possibility of reduced healthcare provider income as a consequence of Medicare's Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and the pay-for- performance payment system in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program, in the US[3]. The objective of PONV management, therefore, is to decrease the incidence of PONV, reducing patients' length of stay in the hospital, particularly the post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU), and avoiding hospital readmission, thereby reducing healthcare costs; and reducing patient distress, improving overall satisfaction, thereby optimising provider income through improved patient outcomes.
PONV risk factors
A simplified risk scoring system has been developed by Apfel et al to assess the risk of PONV in surgical patients[4]. The four "Apfel risk factors" are:
Being female
Being a non-smoker
Having a prior history of PONV or motion sickness
An expected use of post-operative opioid analgesia.
Each of these four risk factors independently contributes around 20% risk of PONV. Patients with two "Apfel risk factors" are considered at moderate risk of PONV, while those with three or four are considered at high risk. A patient with all four risk factors has up to an 80% chance of PONV in the absence of effective prophylaxis.
Guidelines for the management of PONV
Prophylaxis
It is recommended that surgical patients are prescribed prophylactic antiemetics alone or in combination, according to their risk of PONV. Those considered at moderate risk of PONV should be given at least one prophylactic antiemetic and those at high risk of PONV, should be given multiple antiemetics of different mechanisms of action to optimise efficacy[1].
Rescue
It is recommended that when a patient who has received antiemetic prophylaxis suffers PONV, an antiemetic from a different mechanism of action to that given prophylactically, is used to provide rescue treatment[1]. Repeating the mechanism given prophylactically confers no additional benefit[5].
Current management of PONV
Two classes of drugs are predominantly used for the management of PONV: 5HT 3 antagonists (eg ondansetron); and corticosteroids (eg dexamethasone). Ondansetron and dexamethasone have been investigated in many clinical studies and generally deliver a relative risk reduction (RRR) in the incidence of PONV of 15-30%[2],[6],[7].
Prophylaxis
The majority of surgical patients receiving prophylaxis are given a 5HT 3 antagonist alone or in combination with a corticosteroid[8]. However, Acacia Pharma believes that drug choices are limited in the highest risk patients where a third antiemetic of a different mechanism is required.
Rescue
Up to 40% of patients experience PONV, requiring rescue medication, despite the routine use of prophylactic antiemetics[2]. The majority of surgical patients have been given a prophylactic 5HT 3 antagonist[8] therefore precluding their use for rescue[1]. Dexamethasone (a corticosteroid) has a slow onset of action and is not recommended for rescue[1]. Therefore Acacia Pharma believes antiemetic choices for rescue are extremely limited.
Unmet need for a dopamine antagonist for PONV
Droperidol (a dopamine antagonist) was previously considered the drug of choice for PONV management until it received a boxed warning for QT-interval prolongation[9]. A boxed warning is the most serious form of warning issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for prescription drug products. The boxed warning and concerns about its side effect profile (particularly extra pyramidal movement disorders and sedation) have severely limited the use of droperidol as an antiemetic[8].
Therefore there is currently no safe, effective, dopamine antagonist antiemetic available for anaesthetists to:
Rescue patients having previously been given prophylaxis with a 5HT 3 antagonist (alone or in combination).
antagonist (alone or in combination). Add to the most prevalent prophylactic regimen of a 5HT 3 antagonist plus a corticosteroid, in the highest risk patients.
Contacts
Acacia Pharma
Telephone: +44-(0)1223-875130
Dr Julian Gilbert
Christine Soden
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Telephone: +44-(0)20-7638-9571
Dr Mark Swallow
David Dible
[1]Gan et al, Anesthesia & Analgesia (2014) 118 1 85-113
[2]Apfel et al, N Engl J Med (2004) 350 2441-51
[3] http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/linking-quality-to-payment.html
[4]Apfel et al, Anesthesiology (1999) 91 109-118
[5]Kovac et al, J Clin Anesth (1999) 11 453-459
[6]Fortney et al, Anesthesia & Analgesia (1998) 86 731-738
[7]Gan et al. Anesthesia & Analgesia (2011) 112 4 804-812
[8]Habib & Gan, J Clin Anesth (2008) 20 35-39
[9]Gan et al, Anesthesia & Analgesia (2007) 105 6 1615-1628
SOURCE Acacia Pharma
SAN FRANCISCO, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
The global automotive aftermarket is expected to reach USD 486.36 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Digitalization of automotive repair & component sales complemented by advanced technology incorporations in the automobile aftermarket component manufacturing is expected to boost the market growth. The surging reception of semi-autonomous, electric vehicles, and hybrid & autonomous cars, in the years to come, is further expected to bolster the new component market growth. The market can be categorized, based on replacement parts, into tire, battery, brake parts, filters, body parts, lighting & electronic components, wheels, and exhaust components.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 )
The increasing vehicle penetration is driven by the overall improvement of lifestyle in the developing countries, such as India and Brazil, and is expected to drive the growth of the automobile industry in the region. Similar surges in the automotive manufacturing sector across various regions along with the increasing stringent emissions norms are expected to drive the growth of automotive aftermarket component sales over the forecast period.
The Asia-Pacific regional market is expected to be the fastest growing market for automotive collision repair services over the forecast period, owing to its developing living standards and high vehicle production. It is also anticipated to be the fastest-growing market in automobile production. With the growing penetration and acceptance of gas and hybrid electric cars, specialized repair centers dedicated toward repair of particular vehicles are expected to increase.
The global automotive aftermarket is expected to witness tremendous growth due to an upsurge in the number of vehicle collisions along with the inclination of owners toward repair of their automobiles.
Browse full research report with TOC on "Automotive Aftermarket Analysis By Replacement Part (Tire, Battery, Brake Parts, Filters, Body Parts, Lighting & Electronic Components, Wheels, Exhaust Components), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2014 - 2025" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/aftermarket-automotive-parts-market
Further key findings from the report suggest:
The automotive aftermarket is estimated to grow significantly over the forecast period, owing to an increase in the number of lightweight vehicles coupled with the increasing age of the light vehicle fleet
North America has a higher technology adoption rate, which is anticipated to result in faster and higher adoption of hybrid electric automobiles in the region as compared to the other geographies
has a higher technology adoption rate, which is anticipated to result in faster and higher adoption of hybrid electric automobiles in the region as compared to the other geographies The global automotive aftermarket is anticipated to witness a phase change attributable to the growing proportion of specialized automotive collision repair centers that are dedicated toward serving specific vehicles such as alternate fuel powered vehicles
The key industry participants include Magneti Marelli S.p.A., Continental AG, 3M Company, Federal-Mogul Corporation, Delphi Automotive PLC, Robert Bosch GmbH, and Denso Corporation.
Browse related reports by Grand View Research:
Automotive Air-conditioning System Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/automotive-air-conditioning-system-market
Automotive Embedded Telematics Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/automotive-embedded-telematics-market
Automotive Seat Belts Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/automotive-seat-belts-market
Automotive Camshaft Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/camshaft-market
Grand View Research has segmented the automotive aftermarket based on replacement part and region:
Automotive Aftermarket Replacement Part Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025) Tire Battery Brake parts Filters Body parts Lighting & Electronic components Wheels Exhaust components Others
Automotive Aftermarket Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2014 - 2025) North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany UK Asia Pacific China India Japan South America Brazil The Middle East & Africa
Read Our Blog: Global Automotive Aftermarket Outlook: Analyst Perspective
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.
Cannon has capitalized on its extensive intellectual property, technology expertise, and a 40-year history of creating diverse data center facilities to assemble Cannon Stock Data Centersa portfolio of the most popular and frequently requested specifications. The advantage of these pre-engineered, pre-designed, and pre-specified solutions is that 100% of the expensive computer-aided designs, mechanical and electrical (M&E) designs, and specifications are tried and tested. This saves a year or more of effort in heavy designing, significantly lowering the upfront costs.
The Stock Portfolio enables easy customization because Cannon offers unmatched speed in new project configuration. Additionally, the Stock Data Centers present numerous options and fixed budget solutions, allowing customers to focus on their core business. This visionary approach has genuine potential to disrupt the market and help the company get significantly ahead of competition.
"Cannon's modular data centers offer true expandability with power and cooling upgradability, best of breed infrastructure, low PUE, and high resilience. The company has especially demonstrated excellence in data hall usability and compliance as well as future-proofing financial investments," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Gautham Gnanajothi. "Most importantly, Cannon's products and solutions deliver the best value for the price in the market. Its solutions are highly commendable for their low initial cost, use of available site, and easy and affordable power/cooling density upgrades and space expansions."
Cannon's future-ready solutions have powered the company's evolution from a European pioneer to a global trailblazer. It runs several internal programs to identify industry pain points, the key one being its 'Sector Need' program. Some examples of the innovations inspired by this program include:
Cannon Smart Space Cabinet, an integrated system that addresses the industry's need to effectively manage cooling air flow within the rack
The integrated range of Rack Door Locks, which enable the easy upgrade of rack door locking systems from a standard key lock to a mechanical combination locking system, electronic/key pad locking system, stainless steel and motor-driven high security locking system, and finger print locking system
Cannon Free Form Infrastructure, which aids instant change in the architecture while preserving the operational environment
"Superior customer ownership experience is another competitive feature that sets Cannon apart from its peers," noted Gautham. "Its exceptional product performance and client relationships have won it a loyal global customer base. Indeed, its customer acquisition rate has rocketed over the last 12 to 18 months, as has its application scope."
Cannon's excellence in growth, innovation, leadership, and forward-looking strategies has driven its business performance, placing it well ahead of its competitors in this highly competitive market.
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in terms of growth strategy and implementation. The award recognizes a high degree of innovation with products and technologies and the resulting leadership in terms of customer value and market penetration.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.
About Cannon Technologies Ltd.
Cannon Technologies has been delivering cutting edge Data Centre infrastructure and Turnkey Data Centres to leading global brands, Governments and Defence clients around the world for forty years. With copious international awards and peer accolades Cannon designs, manufactures and delivers end to end solutions which range from Multi Megawatt scalable Data Centres through medium size and POD deployments, to Mini Micro Data Centres for EDGE deployments. Cannon provides Low PUE, High Efficiency facilities with up to Tier 4 resilience with lean cost.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector, and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion.
Contact:
Chiara Carella
P: +44 (0) 207.343.8314
F: 210.348.1003
E: chiara.carella@frost.com
Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467148/Cannon_Technologies_Award.pdf
Related Links
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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan
End-to-end offerings deliver advanced functionalities and enhanced consumer experience to Czech Republic
PRAGUE, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Air Bank, an emerging financial institution in the Czech Republic, is partnering with Diebold Nixdorf (NYSE: DBD), the global leader in driving connected commerce, based on its ability to innovate and deliver enhanced consumer experiences with the CS 2020 cash dispenser, software and services. The cash dispensers feature a range of advanced software-enabled digital functions, including the ability to authenticate and transact without the use of a traditional card reader or PIN pad.
Air Bank is piloting the new contactless machine that enables consumers to withdraw cash without inserting a card into the card reader. Instead, for user authentication, they can tap a near field communication (NFC)-enabled card, a NFC-stick or a NFC-sticker, that can be stuck onto a smartphone, for example, to the reader and enter their PIN on an encrypted touchscreen. The simplification of the user interface enables consumers to benefit from fast, convenient transaction processing which creates a better consumer experience. The addition of a contactless reader and an encrypted touchscreen for PIN entry further enhances the consumer experience by eliminating the risks of card trapping and skimming attacks.
For the first timeand within less than six months of becoming a combined companyDiebold Nixdorf has rapidly configured and deployed a complete end-to-end solution for Czech Republic's Air Bank with state-of-the-art hardware technology powered by advanced software and supported with world-class services.
As a recipient of the Red Dot Design Award in 2016, the CS 2020 conveys a minimalistic design and innovative consumer experience, in turn supporting Air Bank's philosophy of easy-to-use services. "Simplicity is one of the key values of our bank," said Jaromir Vostry, product manager for cards, at Air Bank. "With enhanced functions, the new contactless ATMs enable customers to withdraw cash as easily, comfortably and securely as they are used when making contactless payments in shops and other places."
"With the CS 2020, we as a technology innovation leader created a system that merges today's needs with tomorrow's vision for cash access for all users. And we are offering the familiarity, security, and functionality consumers expect across retail banking omnichannel environments," said Dr. Ulrich Naher, senior vice president, systems at Diebold Nixdorf. "As an integral technology partner, we look forward to working with Air Bank to support its successful connected commerce offering."
The CS 2020 can also be configured to authenticate users cardlessly through pre-staging a transaction on the consumer's smartphone. Once the transaction is staged, the user receives a secure QR code or one time PIN. When the QR code is scanned or the PIN is entered at the ATM, it quickly dispenses the cash.
Air Bank cooperates with Diebold Nixdorf since its founding in 2011. Since then, Air Bank has invested heavily in the expansion of its self-service channel and plans to grow their existing network of 160 terminals with both contactless and traditional card reader technology throughout 2017.
About Air Bank
Air Bank, a member of PPF Group is a modern and innovative 21st century Czech bank offering a new generation of online banking and running its own branch network. It officially started its operations in the Czech Republic in November 2011 with a view to be the first bank that people can like. Air Bank's key values include simplicity, courage, user-friendly approach and transparency. In November 2016, five years since its start, Air Bank had more than 700 employees, 34 branches in major Czech cities, and more than 500,000 customers, and it managed deposits in excess of CZK 75 billion.
About Diebold Nixdorf
Diebold Nixdorf is a world leader in enabling connected commerce for millions of consumers each day across the financial and retail industries. Its software-defined solutions bridge the physical and digital worlds of cash and consumer transactions conveniently, securely and efficiently. As an innovation partner for nearly all of the world's top 100 financial institutions and a majority of the top 25 global retailers, Diebold Nixdorf delivers unparalleled services and technology that are essential to evolve in an 'always on' and changing consumer landscape.
Diebold Nixdorf has a presence in more than 130 countries with approximately 25,000 employees worldwide. The organization maintains corporate offices in North Canton, Ohio, USA and Paderborn, Germany. Shares are traded on the New York and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges under the symbol 'DBD'. Visit www.DieboldNixdorf.com for more information.
Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/458878/diebold_nixdorf_logo.jpg
Related Links
http://www.DieboldNixdorf.com
SOURCE Diebold Nixdorf
AMSTERDAM, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
The Dutch bilateral development bank FMO today committed USD 30 million in the senior capital tranche of the Amsterdam based financial markets development company Frontclear. The investment represents a significant increase in the risk capital of Frontclear and allows Frontclear to extend its efforts to support the development of more inclusive and more liquid interbank markets in emerging and frontier economies. FMO's investment is further testimony to the value of Frontclear's development mandate.
"FMO is a leader in the global financial markets development agenda and the investment by FMO allows us to begin scaling our operations and deliver on our projected growth path of our financial guarantee portfolio," says Philip Buyskes, CEO of Frontclear. "We are thus very pleased to welcome FMO to Frontclear and look forward to building a long term partnership in the areas of capital market development of emerging and frontier economies."
"The innovative proposition of Frontclear is stimulating capital markets development in the geographies we are active in. FMO is very pleased to be able to contribute to Frontclear's mission of supporting economic development globally by catalysing the establishment of more stable and inclusive financial markets in emerging and frontier markets," added Huib-Jan de Ruijter, Director Financial Institutions of FMO.
About FMO
FMO (the Netherlands Development Finance Company) is the Dutch development bank. For 45 years, FMO has been investing in the private sector in developing countries. We believe in a world in 2050 where nine billion people can live well and within the boundaries of the planet. In pursuit of this vision, our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to build a better world. We specialize in sectors where we believe our contribution can have the highest long-term impact: financial institutions, energy and agribusiness. Alongside partners, we invest in the infrastructure, manufacturing and services sectors. With an investment portfolio of EUR 9.2 billion, FMO is one of the largest bilateral private sector development banks.
About Frontclear
Frontclear is a financial markets development company focused on catalyzing stable and inclusive interbank markets in emerging and developing countries (EMDC). Frontclear facilitates access by local financial institutions to interbank markets through providing credit guarantees to cover a transacting institution's counterparty credit risk. This on the condition that local currency assets can be used for collateral management purposes. Frontclear is funded by European governments and development finance institutions including BMZ, DFID, FSDA, EBRD, Proparco and TCX. Frontclear's Basel III compliant guarantees specifically cover due payment of the Early Termination Amount under ISDA contracts and corresponding claims under GMRA. The guarantees are in turn counter-guaranteed by KfW, an AAA-development financial institution. The guarantees are complemented by a technical assistance programme (FTAP). FTAP supports targeted and planned interventions in bank and system development, which reduce the operational and country risks obstructing interbank trading.
For further information, please visit http://www.frontclear.com and http://www.fmo.nl.
SOURCE Frontclear
KOLLIKEN, Switzerland, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
KannaSwiss will grow and sell 100,000 legal clones a month
Starting March, 2017 KannaSwiss will be selling up to 100,000 CBD clones a month from its state-of-the-art grow facility in Kolliken. KannaSwiss will be the first company in Europe to offer up to 7 strains of high CBD low THC strains. These strains will be legal for the Swiss and European markets.
(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466951/KannaSwiss_logo_Logo.jpg)
"KannaSwiss believes that CBD should be available for everyone, anybody should be able to grow a legal plant in their home for a small price," commented Ivan Enderli, co-founder of KannaSwiss.
"Having lived with ulcerative colitis for many years, I want to share the many benefits of CBD with as many people as I can," commented Corso Serra di Cassano, co-founder.
KannaSwiss has been producing the highest quality CBD oil since 2014 and it will stay as their main focal point. They are looking forward to rolling out their product range in 2017.
Since moving into their new head office in Kolliken, they have decided to give back by offering CBD genetics to the general public for a very low price.
About KannaSwiss:
KannaSwiss GmbH was started in 2014. It's the first vertically integrated CBD company in Switzerland. They believe that in order to have the best end product one has to begin with the best quality product. This is why they personally handle every step from seed to end product. "We only produce CBD oil of the highest quality."
Contact:
Heidi Basar,
KannaSwiss GmbH,
+41-56-631-3456,
info@kannaswiss.com
SOURCE KannaSwiss
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of the Congo, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
- $3 billion in tax revenues generated by Mutanda and KCC since Fleurette's initial investment
- Fleurette invested over US$ 0.5 billion in the Mutanda mining project
- Mutanda operating consistently at full capacity of over 200,000 tonnes of copper p.a. - the right time to exit
Fleurette Group ("Fleurette") is delighted to announce it has completed the sale of its 31% stake in Mutanda Mining Sarl ("Mutanda") to Glencore. Fleurette has also exited its remaining 11.05% shareholding in Katanga Mining Limited ("Katanga").
The consideration for the Mutanda shares and the Katanga shares has been determined based on an independent analysis by BMO Capital Markets of the value of the Mutanda and Katanga shares for the purposes of the transaction.
The consideration for the Mutanda shares is US$922 million and the Katanga Shares is US$38 million. The net aggregate cash consideration to be paid by Glencore in respect of the transactions is $534 million after taking into account the settlement of outstanding loans payable by Fleurette to Glencore and shareholder loans owed to Fleurette by Mutanda.
The sale of Fleurette's stake in Mutanda ends its equity interest in what is now one of the leading mining assets in the African Copperbelt, following a period of extensive investment and operational improvement by the partners. Fleurette's success with Mutanda, which has now reached its full operational capacity, highlights its ability to identify an opportunity, bring together the right parties and fully commit over the long term to building a flagship mining asset in a challenging environment, creating thousands of jobs and significant revenue for the DRC.
Fleurette has invested over $500 million in the acquisition and development of Mutanda, resulting in a huge boost to production, and in turn, significant revenues to the DRC State in the form of taxes and royalties. During Fleurette's involvement, employment of local Congolese has tripled and production has reached nameplate capacity, more than tripling from just over 60,000 tonnes of copper, to 213,000 tonnes of copper in 2016. Mutanda has also made extensive investments into the surrounding local community, as well as creating a flourishing micro economy around the mine site.
Mutanda and KCC (Katanga's DRC subsidiary) have generated some $3 billion in tax revenues since Fleurette's initial investment, providing a huge boost to the DRC Treasury. Fleurette has helped build a true DRC mining champion in Mutanda and shown how long-term commitment and huge investment can create significant value for the DRC people and all stakeholders. Mutanda highlights the positive benefits the resources industry can deliver to a local economy.
Dan Gertler, Senior Adviser to Fleurette Group commented:
"We are extremely proud of what we have achieved at Mutanda. Together with Glencore, Fleurette has enabled the mine to deliver on its full potential and it has become one of the largest taxpayers in the DRC. We have shown we can make massive investment decisions in challenging, complex operating environments, and expand great assets which in turn provide huge benefits to the people of the DRC. Mutanda and KCC have generated $3 billion in tax revenues since our investment - a significant contribution to the DRC economy. With the mine now operating at full capacity, we feel now is the right time to exit our investment and to re-invest in further brown and greenfield opportunities.
"The resources sector is core to the on-going development of the DRC. I call on the international mining community to look at the opportunity in the DRC. It is only through the involvement of the international investment community and the resources sector sharing its expertise that the country can capitalise on its resources heritage. We remain committed to the DRC and will continue to re-invest into the country as we have done for the last 20 years."
Fleurette has also exited its remaining shareholding in Katanga through the $38 million share sale to Glencore of 195,440,700 Katanga shares. Having originally invested in Katanga in 2007 at a share price of up to C$18 per share, Fleurette will have exited its shareholding in Katanga at a loss of over $190m since 2007.
As part of the transactions, Glencore also acquired 15,325,000 shares in Katanga which were held as security for a loan provided to Fleurette's wholly-owned subsidiary Ruwenzori Limited.
-Ends-
About Fleurette - www.fleurettegroup.com / LinkedIn / Twitter
The Fleurette Group of Companies ("Fleurette") is an entrepreneurial business with significant investment in diverse sectors, including natural resources, infrastructure, agriculture and technology. Fleurette has substantial investments and operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The parent company of the group, Fleurette Properties Limited, is owned by Line Trust Corporation Limited strictly and solely as trustees of the Ashdale Settlement, a trust established in 2006 for the benefit of the family of Dan Gertler. Mr Gertler is a citizen and resident of Israel and the DRC (and honorary counsel to the DRC) and is committed to developing the country's natural resources and infrastructure, while investing in the Congolese people and their communities.
Fleurette has a proven track record of successful co-operation with diverse parties, including the DRC State-owned mining company Gecamines, and to date has brought more than USD $7 billion of investment into the DRC, on top of its USD $2 billion in private investment. As a result, Fleurette's subsidiaries and partnerships support around 30,000 jobs in the DRC and are amongst the DRC's leading taxpayers, contributing significant revenues to the State.
Fleurette is also a major contributor to social development in the DRC through the Gertler Family Foundation (GFF) and through direct investment in social infrastructure. The GFF is the largest charitable organization in the DRC, funding more than 50 programs and projects across the DRC, which help tens of thousands of Congolese every year. These include rebuilding key hospitals, notably the Kisangini "Hospital du Cinquantenaire"; supporting the Operation Smile campaign in Lubumbashi and Kinshasa; rebuilding Blaise Pascal School in Lubumbashi; and supporting the Lubumbashi Zoo.
Additional information about the transaction consideration
The consideration for the Mutanda shares is US$922 million and the Katanga shares is US$38 million. The Katanga shares were purchased for a purchase price of US$0.19285 per share, equating to C$0.25214 per share. Fleurette and its affiliates owe Glencore outstanding loans, secured over the Mutanda shares, amounting to US$556 million of which US$120 million comprises accrued interest. In addition, Glencore has acquired shareholder loans owed to the Fleurette group by Mutanda in the amount of approximately US$130 million. Accordingly, the aggregate cash consideration payable by the Glencore group in respect of the transactions is US$534 million.
Media enquiries
Powerscourt
+44-(0)207-250-1446
SOURCE Fleurette Group
DUBLIN, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Metal Injection Molding (MIM) Market Analysis By End-Use (Automotive, Consumer Product, Medical, Industrial, Defense), By Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, CSA, MEA),Competitive Landscape, And Segment Forecasts, 2014 - 2025" report to their offering.
The global metal injection molding market size is anticipated to reach USD 6.52 billion by 2025
Further Key Findings from the Study Suggest:
MIM saves time & cost, allows ultimate design freedom, large production volume, and no wastage of raw materials which are some of the factors influencing its demand in various end-use verticals
The growing demand for smartphones, watches, laptops, electrical & electronic products and other components used in consumer durables is anticipated to boost the market growth in the consumer product segment
The medical segment is projected to grow the second highest CAGR on account of growing demand for small surgical instruments and implants
Asia Pacific is projected to grow at the highest CAGR on account of increasing manufacturing activities undertaken in China , India , and Japan
is projected to grow at the highest CAGR on account of increasing manufacturing activities undertaken in , , and High investments in the medical and defense sector of North America is also projected to impact market growth positively
is also projected to impact market growth positively Companies are engaged in the development of specialized components in accordance to clients customized requests
The growing demand for small components in the automotive, consumer products, and medical equipment industry is projected to propel market demand over the coming years.
Metal injection molding technique enables the production of a large number of parts which high precision, this has increased the demand for MIM components used in surgical equipment, fire arms, aerospace, telecommunication, and the automotive sector.
The metal injection molding is projected to experience tremendous growth over the forecast period on account of increasing investment in the medical and defense sector. The injection molding technique is preferred by manufacturers as it is cost-effective, requires less production time & finishing, and reduces wastage of raw materials.
Influential companies operating in this market include
Dynacast
GKN Plc
Britt Manufacturing
DeanGroup International Ltd
Cypress Industries
Sintex
CMG Technologies
Indo-MIM Pvt. Ltd.
Real Technik AG
ATW Companies
Key Topics Covered:
1 Methodology and Scope
2 Executive Summary
3 Metal Injection Molding Market Variables, Trends & Scope
4 Metal Injection Molding Market: End-use Estimates & Trend Analysis
5 Metal Injection Molding Market: Regional Estimates & Trend Analysis
6 Competitive Landscape
7 Company Profiles
For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/42kpxc/metal_injection
Media Contact:
Laura Wood, Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
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SOURCE Research and Markets
ALBANY, New York, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
The leading players in the Global Healthcare Information Systems Market are Cerner Corporation, McKesson, and All Scripts. Collectively, these players held a share of 26% in the global market in 2015, states Transparency Market Research. The diversified portfolio of these companies is expected to help them maintain a lead in the coming years. Several companies in the global healthcare information systems market are expected to focus on increasing geographical presence through mergers and acquisitions to increase their revenues.
According to the research report, the global healthcare information systems market is expected to reach a valuation of US$44.8 bn by the end of 2024 as compared to US$19.2 bn in 2015. During the forecast years of 2016 and 2024, the global market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.1%.
Download PDF Brochure of Research Report: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=1457
North America Poised to Acquire a Share of 36.6% by 2024
The end users in the global market are hospitals, academic and research centers, and diagnostic centers. The report indicates that hospitals are expected to key users of healthcare information systems by the end of 2024. This end-user segment is projected to expand at a CAGR of 11.1% between 2016 and 2024. The increasing adoption of healthcare information systems in hospitals for storing a large amount of information and making it easily accessible to physicians is expected to boost the demand.
In terms of geography, the global healthcare information systems market is segmented into North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Europe. Of all these regions, North America is expected to dominate the global market in the coming years. This regional market is slated to acquire a share of 36.6% in the overall market by the end of 2024. Asia Pacific too is expected to offer the healthcare information systems market a significant boost in the near future.
Need to Reduce Errors and Costs Ensures Swift Uptake of Healthcare Information Systems
Growing number of government initiatives to digitize healthcare systems has led to the adoption of healthcare information systems. These systems are aimed at achieving an accurate analysis of the health of the patient by maintaining the records about patient's disorders or diseases in an organized manner. Over the years, the usage of healthcare information systems has allowed improved the quality of medical assistance provided to the patients along with improving disease surveillance. These systems have also enabled reduction of medication error. The market for healthcare information systems is also expected to be fueled by the growing need to cut down on healthcare costs that are associated with paperwork and maintenance of physical records.
High Cost of Investments and Maintenance Likely to Discourage Growth of Global Market
The high cost of investments in such as purchasing the systems, installing them, and the cost training labor to use them is discouraging many end users from adoption the new-age healthcare information systems. The maintenance cost of these systems includes software upgradation, hardware replacement, and support. Thus, all of these factors are acting as a major restraint for the global market. The report also points that concerns pertaining to cyber security are also likely to hamper the growth of the overall market in the coming years. Lastly, issues related to integration and interoperability are also likely to hold the market back to a noticeable extent.
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This review is based on Transparency Market Research's report, titled "Healthcare Information Systems Market - Global & North America Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024."
The global healthcare information systems market has been segmented as follows:
Global Healthcare information Systems Market, by Application
Hospital Information Systems Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record Real-time Healthcare Patient Engagement Solutions Population Health management Others
Pharmacy Information systems Prescription Management Automated Dispensing Systems Inventory Management Others
Laboratory Information systems
Medical Imaging Information System Radiology Information systems Monitoring Analysis Software Picture Archiving & Communication Systems Others
Revenue Cycle Management
Global Healthcare information Systems Market, by End-user
Hospitals
Diagnostics Centre
Academic and Research Institution
Others
Global Healthcare information Systems Market, by Component
Software
Hardware
Services
Global Healthcare information Systems Market, by Deployment
Web-based
On Premise
Cloud-based
Global Healthcare information Systems Market, by Geography
North America U.S. Canada
Asia Pacific China Japan Australia & New Zealand Rest of APAC
Europe U.K. Germany France Italy Rest of Europe
Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America
Middle East & Africa UAE South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa
&
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SOURCE Transparency Market Research
CHENGDU, China, Feb. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Worldwide semiconductor wafer foundry leader GLOBALFOUNDRIES published its global manufacturing business expansion plan today. The company will continue investing in its wafer plants in the United States and Germany, expand its capacity in Singapore, and construct a facility to produce 12-inch wafers in Chengdu, China in order to satisfy Chinese and global demands for the company's cutting-edge 22FDX technology.
According to the cooperation plan of the two parties, the Chengdu plant will start production in Q4 of 2018, with fabrication of the advanced 22FDX to begin in Q4 of 2019.
CEO of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Sanjay Jha, indicated that, "From the world-class RF-SOI platform used for wireless Internet devices, to the technical roadmaps of the state-of-the-art FD-SOI and FinFET, they all serve as evidence of the market's tremendous demands for our main staple and progressive technologies. The construction of the 12-inch wafer plant in the High and New Technology Development Area of Chengdu will be conducive to accelerating our expansion in the Chinese market."
The High and New Technology Development Area of Chengdu is home to one of China's most prominent IT industry clusters, hosting a plethora of global IT giants including Intel, Texas Instrument, AMD, MediaTek, Dell, Lenovo and Foxconn, as well as 115 of the Fortune Global 500 companies. In 2016, the High and New Technology Development Area posted total trade amounting to USD 24.9 billion.
On the same day, GLOBALFOUNDRIES also unveiled its brand new trade name for the Chinese market: "Ge Xin", and announced the establishment of a new joint venture -- Gexin (Chengdu) Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd. In Chinese, the name "Ge Xin" shares the same pronunciation as the Chinese word for "innovation" and signifies rebirth, reinvigoration and reform.
SOURCE Chengdu High-tech Industrial Development Zone
COLOGNE, Germany, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
60 years after the market launch of Contergan (active ingredient: thalidomide), the greatest pharmaceutical scandal in the Federal Republic of Germany continues to boil. A lawsuit will be heard in the Bonn Regional Court at 12:00 hrs on 15.2.2017 that is more explosive than appears at first sight.
The Contergan victim Andreas Meyer, who was born without arms or legs and is confined to a wheelchair, is suing the former member of the Management Board of the Contergan Foundation, Attorney Karl Schucht, for injunction and rectification.
In a letter to the members of the Family Affairs Committee of the German Federal Parliament, Schucht had asserted that Meyer, as an expert witness at a public hearing of the Committee, had publicly stated various untruths about events connected with the Contergan Foundation.
Meyer had said among other things that for 30 years the Contergan (thalidomide) manufacturer Grunenthal GmbH had had access to the medical files of the Contergan victims in the Contergan Foundation. In addition, Grunenthal had also paid the Foundation's medical experts.
In his letter, Schucht asserted to the contrary that Grunenthal had at no time had access to the medical files of the Contergan victims, but that the files were always kept by the Contergan Foundation. Further, he asserted that the experts of the Medical Commission were always paid from the funds of the Contergan Foundation.
Why so explosive? Because if Meyer wins the lawsuit it will mean that not only Schucht had told untruths to the members of Parliament. No, the Federal Government had also told untruths to Parliament.
Because the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, which has been responsible for supervision of the Contergan Foundation since 1972, stated in a reply to a Minor Interpellation by the Parliamentary Group Die Linke that Schucht's letter also expressed the opinion of the Federal Government.
A pivotal question, according to Meyer, is the double role of Attorney Herbert Wartensleben who has also been invited as a witness by the Bonn Regional Court. From 1972 until the end of 2003, Wartensleben was not only Chairman of the Medical Commission of the Contergan Foundation, which judges whether a victim is or is not damaged by Contergan and also evaluates the degree of damage - on the basis of which the amount of the Contergan pension is assessed, for example. Since the Contergan trial, Wartensleben acted again and again as the legal representative of Grunenthal in cases relating to Contergan; most recently in 2007 in the lawsuits concerning the two-part ARD feature film "Eine einzige Tablette" (One single tablet).
"The case deals with the question of whether the Contergan Foundation was, or perhaps still is, an undercover subsidiary of Grunenthal under the eyes of the Federal Government," said Meyer.
Meyer will be represented by Prof. Dr. Jan Hegemann from the law firm Raue Rechtsanwalte LLP in Berlin. Attorney Prof. Dr. Jan Hegemann already successfully represented Meyer in 2009 in the case of Meyer's call to boycott the products of Dalli-Werke, Maurer & Wirtz and 4711 - companies belonging to Grunenthal's owner. Attorney Karl Schucht will be represented by Attorneys Gernot Lehr and Tobias Wurkert LLM from the Bonn office of the law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs. For Meyer, this is significant. The founder of that law firm, Prof. Dr. Hans Dahs senior who died in 1972, represented the late owner of Grunenthal, Dr. Hermann Wirtz senior, in the Contergan trial.
Place and date of the court hearing
Date: 15.2.2017
Time: 12:00 hrs
Place: Bonn Regional Court, Wilhelmstrae 21, 53111 Bonn
Room: Courtroom S. 0.15 (Saalbau)
You can find further important information at the following link:
http://www.gruenenthal-opfer.de/Materials_Meyer_vs_Schucht_15_2_2017
Contact:
Federation of Thalidomide Sufferers and Grunenthal Victims
c/o Mr Andreas Meyer (Chairman)
Dohmengasse 7 , 50829 Koln
Email: bcg-brd-dachverband@gmx.de
Website: http://www.Grunenthal-opfer.de
Mobile: +49(0)172 / 2905974
SOURCE Federation of Thalidomide Sufferers and Grunenthal Victims
BANGALORE, India and PALO ALTO, California, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
TO ALL STOCK EXCHANGES
BSE LIMITED
NATIONAL STOCK EXCHANGE OF INDIA LIMITED
NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE
EURONEXT LONDON
EURONEXT PARIS
Dear Sir/Madam,
Please find enclosed the press release comprising details of an investor call to provide investors an opportunity to seek clarification regarding ongoing media reports. The call will take place on February 14, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. IST. The details of the call is available in the enclosed press release and will also be made available on the Company's website www.infosys.com .
This is for your information and records.
Yours sincerely,
For Infosys Limited
A G S Manikantha
Company Secretary
Infosys Limited (NSE, BSE, NYSE: INFY), a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services, will organize an investor call to provide investors an opportunity to seek clarification regarding ongoing media reports. The call will take place on February 14, 2017.
The company will conduct a 60 minute conference call at 6:00 p.m. IST (7:30 a.m. US ET; 4:30 a.m. PST; 12:30 p.m. London time; 8:30 p.m. Singapore/Hong Kong time) on February 14, 2017 (open to investors / analysts in all regions), where the senior management shall address the queries from participants. To participate in the conference call, please dial the numbers provided below 10 - 15 minutes before the scheduled start time of the call. During this time, the operator will provide instructions on how to ask questions. As participation in the call is limited, early registration (by calling the numbers 10 - 15 minutes before the scheduled start time) is encouraged.
This event will be webcast live on the Investor Relations section of the Infosys website, following which it will be archived at www.infosys.com. . The archive will be available after 9:00 p.m. IST on February 14, 2017 (after 10:30 a.m. US ET on February 14, 2017). In addition, a transcript of the conference call will be available at www.infosys.com.
Event Date and Time Website/ Channel Telephone/ Fax Call 6:00 p.m. www.infosys.com Toll Mumbai February 14, 2017 +91 22 3938 1098 (IST) India Toll Bangalore: 080 3940 3977 7.30 a.m. Toll Free: February 14, 2017 800 101 2045 (ET) Singapore Toll Number: +65 3157 5746 Toll Free: 800 964 448 Hong Kong Toll Number: +852 3018 6877 Toll Free: 0053 116 1110 Japan Toll Number: +81 3 4589 9421 Toll Free: 0 808 101 1573 UK Toll Number: +44 203 478 5524 Germany Toll Free: 00 8001 424 3444 Canada Toll Free: 011 8001 424 3444 France Toll Free: 0 800 914 745 Toll Free: 1 866 746 2133 US Toll Number: +1 323 386 8721 Replay of Till February 21,www.infosys.com US Toll Free Number: the 2017 18554360715 Conference Call US International Toll Number: +1 8639490105 Toll Number/India +91 22 6181 3322 +91 22 3065 2322 Toll Number Bangalore +91 80 3940 3988 Playback code: 75293#
About Infosys Ltd.
Infosys is a global leader in technology services and consulting. We enable clients in more than 50 countries to create and execute strategies for their digital transformation. From engineering to application development, knowledge management and business process management, we help our clients find the right problems to solve, and to solve these effectively. Our team of 199,000+ innovators, across the globe, is differentiated by the imagination, knowledge and experience, across industries and technologies that we bring to every project we undertake.
Visit www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY) can help your enterprise thrive in the digital age.
Safe Harbor
Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. In addition, please note that the date of this press release is mentioned at the beginning of the release, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law.
Contact
Investor Relations
Sandeep Mahindroo
+91 80 3980 1018
Sandeep_Mahindroo@infosys.com
Media Relations
Sarah Vanita Gideon
+91 80 4156 3998
Sarah_Gideon@infosys.com
Pete Daly
+1 857 600 6839
pete.daly@teamlewis.com
This is a disclosure announcement from PR Newswire.
SOURCE Infosys Limited
SAO PAULO, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberje, the Brazilian Association for Business Communication, published #8 of its newsletter, BRpr, in January. BRpr is an Aberje initiative to disclose good practices in communication developed in Brazil, in an exchange with the international community.
Number 8 includes a conversation with David Grinberg, the Communications Director for Golden Arches (the operator of McDonald's in Brazil), who talks about some of the brand's new strategies. This number also talks about the Aberje Mobility Communication Lab in a presentation by GM Brazil. Lab meetings bring together communication professionals, urban developers, activities, engineers and public policy formulators to discuss urban mobility and communication.
BRpr # 8 was sponsored by LATAM Airlines, Bayer, FCA Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Fibria, Petrobras and Vale, and had the support of PRNewswire and Valor Economico newspaper.
If you want to receive the BRpr newsletter each month, please register here.
About Aberje Aberje, the Brazilian Association for Business Communication, is the main domestic reference for the production and dissemination of knowledge and practices in Communication and Relationships. Established in 1967, Aberje is a non-profit professional and scientific organization whose main objective is to improve business and institutional communication, and create respect for the role of the communicator. Its pillars are Advocacy, Content, Education and Career.
Aberje is active beyond Brazil, with relationship and exchange projects with organizations in countries such as the United States, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, India, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. It is the Think Tank of Business Communication in Brazil.
Contact information:
Tato Carbonaro
Public Affairs and International Relations
+55 11 5727-9090
tatocarbonaro@aberje.com.br
Related Links
http://www.aberje.com.br
SOURCE Aberje
MOSCOW, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" or the "Company" - NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, launches MTS Money Wallet, that enables users to get an easy "one-click" access to MTS's financial services and be rewarded with bonuses and loyalty points. The new service combines all payments tools on one platform - electronic wallet, bank cards, and customers' mobile account balances. Not just a payment system, MTS Money Wallet is a hub for all of MTS's financial services.
Vasyl Latsanych, Vice President for Strategy and Marketing at MTS, believes the launch of MTS Money Wallet marks the transformation of the smartphone into a functional and versatile financial tool. "Today we are entering into a new era of mobile and financial services. We created the unified ecosystem, which would become a convenient, transparent, and secure alternative for cash and bank cards. The initial functions included in the service only mark the beginning of our journey. We will combine all possible payment solutions with leading loyalty programs. We believe that cash and cards will become redundant in near future. All we'll need for comfortable communications and financial management is a smartphone".
MTS clients got an option to make payments and money transfers from the e-wallet through a smartphone or MTS website. There is no need to open a bank account or issue a bank card. Users are able to access the MTS Money Wallet through the iOS and Android apps or the MTS Money Wallet website (www.dengi.mts.ru). The service is available for both individuals and businesses.
Once signed up to the service, MTS Money Wallet customers will have access to their platform, where they can add payment cards to their wallet. Customers will then be able to make purchases online and transfer funds from MTS Money Wallet without having to re-enter their bank details each time. The user-friendly interface also makes it quick and easy to check wallet balances. The issuer of electronic money is MTS Bank.
All MTS Money Wallet users are automatically enrolled onto the MTS Bonus program, which offers loyalty points and access to exclusive offers and discounts.
The service will be updated every month taking into account feedback from customers. Users can email their feedback to feedback.dengi@mts.ru.
Extra advantages of MTS Money Wallet:
CONVIENIENT MONEY TRANSFERS: the user can simply indicate the phone number of the money recipient and choose the account (either mobile account balances or MTS e-wallet)
SIMPLIFIED IDENTIFICATION AND INCREASED LIMITS ON TRANSACTIONS: MTS subscribers are identified automatically and get an immediate access to money transfers and payments on websites of foreign companies with the limits for a single transaction up to 60,000 rubles or 200,000 robles (for customers of MTS Bank)
MTS Money Wallet will be enhanced with the following functions during 2017:
SERVICE AVAILABILITY FOR ALL CLIENTS: both MTS and non-MTS customers will be able to use all the functions of the service except payments through mobile account balances
PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND STORES: contactless payments through either the app or USSD/SMS.
MTS MONEY BUTTON on online merchants to allow one-click purchases from devices connected to the service.
INTEGRATION OF MTS MONEY INTO MOBILE BANKING: clients of MTS Bank will be able to monitor their bank cards, make money transfer, and get bank products
MIGRATION OF 'EASY PAYMENT' CUSTOMERS to MTS Money Wallet.
MTS Money Wallet has evolved from the MTS Money app, which launched in August 2016 and allowed customers to make in-store contactless payments. The service is developed in partnership with MTS Bank and Runet Business Systems.
***
For further information, please contact in Moscow:
Joshua B. Tulgan
Director, Department of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC
Tel: +7-495-223-2025
E-mail: ir@mts.ru
Learn more about MTS. Visit the official blog of the Investor Relations Department at www.mtsgsm.com/blog/
* * *
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" - NYSE:MBT; MOEX:MTSS) is the leading telecommunications group in Russia and the CIS. We provide wireless Internet access and fixed voice, broadband and pay-TV to over 100 million customers who value high quality of service at a competitive price. Our wireless and fixed-line networks deliver best-in-class speeds and coverage throughout Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Belarus. To keep pace with evolving customer demand, we continue to grow through innovative products, investments in our market-leading retail platform, mobile payment services, e-commerce and IT solutions. For more information, please visit: www.mtsgsm.com.
* * *
Some of the information in this press release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of MTS, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "will," "could," "may" or "might," and the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We do not undertake or intend to update these statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. We refer you to the documents MTS files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Company's most recent Form 20-F. These documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained in the section captioned "Risk Factors" that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements, including, among others, the severity and duration of current economic and financial conditions, including volatility in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; the impact of Russian, U.S. and other foreign government programs to restore liquidity and stimulate national and global economies, our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so, strategic actions, including acquisitions and dispositions and our success in integrating acquired businesses, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, our competitive environment, dependence on new service development and tariff structures, rapid technological and market change, acquisition strategy, risks associated with telecommunications infrastructure, governmental regulation of the telecommunications industries and other risks associated with operating in Russia and the CIS, volatility of stock price, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks.
* * *
SOURCE Mobile TeleSystems (MTS)
LONDON, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
A top British sex therapist has revealed the secrets to getting and keeping your date this Valentine's Day.
From writing personal, heartfelt love letters, putting down your phone to talk, and refraining from sexting - those wanting to find romance are being given top tips to finding true love.
Sexpert Joanna Coker, from the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT), has warned the art of love letters could be lost with the rise of texts and selfies.
Research carried out by British notebook brand Nu: and COSRT, unearthed some interesting results.
"Writing things down gives time for reflection and the opportunity to re-consider what is written, unlike a text that once sent, cannot be recovered. The exchange of feelings by the written medium is personal and romantic - texts are not exactly romantic, although the younger generations may disagree with this.
"A letter lasts forever. It is tangible and stimulates our senses, you can see it, feel it and smell it -the paper the ink and often the person's fragrance," said Joanna.
She also warned that couples were sacrificing intimacy and connection by using their phones in bed.
"It's important to make personal time with each other. No one wants sex with a person who has one eye on the phone. A phone should never be taken to bed, another person should."
The sexpert also hinted that bringing back the art of writing love letters would help bridge the communication gap in a relationship.
"The ability to write a meaningful love letter is a skill which is not acknowledged today. As a therapist we spend more time teaching communication skills to couples than anything else. We use letter writing as a way of slowing down hot emotion and encouraging reflections," she added.
Top Love Letter Tips:
Include personal feelings, hopes and wishes
Write statements of love
Keep it honest and an expression of true feelings
Focus on the other person, not yourself
Don't include football scores or gossip
Louise Spencer-Stevens, Product Manager at Nu: Notebooks, said: "We were intrigued to find that a love letter is still the best way to someone's heart. The most significant love stories in history were recorded with pen and paper and are still the ultimate relationship goals. We could all benefit from putting down our phones this Valentine's Day."
SOURCE Nu: Notebooks
LAUSANNE, Switzerland, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Sophia Genetics, global leader in Data-Driven Medicine, announced today that ten new genomic institutions from Latin America have started using SOPHiA - the company's AI - to democratize access to clinical genomics on the continent, and improve patient diagnosis and care.
(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466752/Sophia_Genetics_Logo.jpg )
Using the Sophia DDM advanced SaaS analytics platform for clinical genomics, the institutions will first deploy SOPHiA for hereditary cancer diagnosis. About 1.1 million new cancer cases and 600,000 cancer deaths are estimated to occur annually in Latin America and the Caribbean[1]. Hereditary cancer predisposition syndromes comprise approximately 10% of diagnosed cancers but familial forms are believed to account for up to 30% of some cancers. In the Hispanic population, the most commonly diagnosed hereditary cancers include colorectal cancer syndromes, such as Lynch Syndrome, Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, and hereditary breast and ovarian cancers, which can all be diagnosed using SOPHiA.
In this context, SOPHiA will help leverage genomic data to improve and accelerate patient diagnosis and care. The increased use of SOPHiA in Latin America will also ensure that the highest standard of genomic testing is provided to all patients in need, and that they have access to the latest advances in the detection of hereditary cancers. Following a first partnership announced in October 2016 with DASA, the largest medical diagnostic company in Latin America, SOPHiA has been rapidly adopted in the region for its superiority and ease of use to obtain actionable insights from genomic data and improve patient care.
Latest genomic institutions to adopt SOPHiA in Latin America:
In Mexico , Servicios Genomicos, a spinoff from INMEGEN ( Mexico's National Genomic Medicine Institute), a predominant actor in clinical genomics, will use SOPHiA to better diagnose hereditary cancer predispositions, develop preventive medicine and design treatments tailored to patient's genetic makeup. Dr. Carmen Alaez Verson, Chief of the Genomic Diagnosis Laboratory at Servicios Genomicos commented "Sophia Genetics first helped us quickly overcome the burden and complexity of a complete validation program to obtain consistently reliable top quality data. We then saw in Sophia DDM's friendly interface, a decisive tool in optimizing the data analysis and interpretation of our growing patient database."
In Colombia , SOPHiA will be used by GenCell Pharma, a national pioneer in molecular diagnostics, to offer genomic profiling to patients at risk of hereditary cancers. Andres Zapata , Director of GenCell commented: "Offering the best in class diagnostic grade sequencing reports to our patients from Colombia and LATAM is our goal at GenCell. Through Sophia Genetics we saw the best partner to efficiently and confidently implement such technology. The access to data pooling information from the community through Sophia DDM analytical platform is crucial to help us better diagnose patients."
In Uruguay , Genia is one of the major regional actors in clinical genomics. They will use SOPHiA to analyse the genetic makeup of patients from the five countries of the Southern Cone, and produce the relevant diagnoses. Juan Martin Marques scientific director at Genia commented: "Thanks to the superior results obtained by SOPHiA on previously hard to find genetic alterations for BRCA1/2 and the easiness to detect all these variants in one complete simple workflow, we have decided to implement Sophia DDM in routine for all of our samples."
1. The Cancer Atlas, 2017
SOPHiA is currently used by 240 healthcare institutions from 39 countries. In Latin America the AI will gradually be deployed further in oncology, metabolism, paediatrics and cardiology. Thanks to its Sophia DDM platform which scales the world-class expertise of its clinical genomics community and provides online secure access to genomic analysis, Sophia Genetics allows any institution, no matter their experience in Next Generation Sequencing, to embrace the advances of the genomic revolution, ensuring no patient misses out.
Jurgi Camblong, CEO and co-founder of Sophia Genetics commented: "By continuing to deploy SOPHiA globally we are democratizing access to the world's most advanced technology for clinical genomics. In Latin America, SOPHiA will help speed up diagnosis and treatment, and provide the highest standard of genomic testing to all patients in need."
About Sophia Genetics
Global leader in data-driven medicine, Sophia Genetics is a technology company which has developed SOPHiA, the most advanced collective artificial intelligence for clinical genomics, helping healthcare professionals better diagnose and treat patients.
The global network of 240 institutions in 39 countries using the Sophia DDM advanced SaaS analytics platform for clinical genomics powered by SOPHiA form the world's largest clinical genomics community.
By enabling the rapid adoption of genomic testing worldwide, turning data into actionable clinical insights, and sharing knowledge through its community, Sophia Genetics is democratizing Data-Driven Medicine to save lives worldwide.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.sophiagenetics.com
@SophiaGenetics
@JurgiCamblong
Media contact:
Alphonse Daudre-Vignier
Weber Shandwick Switzerland
+41-79-127-63-58
ADaudre-Vignier@webershandwick.com
SOURCE Sophia Genetics
JOHANNESBURG, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, founder of the PanAfrican Tobacco Group, has announced the forthcoming official opening of Meridian Tobacco Company (MTC) factory, together with its farmer development program, and food crop and forestry improvement, scheduled for May 2017. The project comprising the USD8 million factory, USD10 million, leaf-grower program, and USD2 million food crops and forestry development, have been operational since 2015/2016. MTC factory directly employs 352 workers and empowers 15,000 small farmers that supply the facility. An additional 1,600 workers and small businesses such as transporters expand the workforce seasonally.
Reflecting on the investment climate in Uganda, Ayabatwa stated: "My relationship with Uganda goes back two decades. Our partnership with the authorities and people of Uganda has always been excellent. This investment in northern Uganda is further strengthening our collaborative efforts with communities and government to improve lives. Together we are creating greater employment opportunities, improving agricultural practices, enhancing food security, supporting small businesses, and taking care of the environment."
Ayabatwa highlighted the corporate social responsibility imbedded in the project: "In 2016 we trained farmers and community leaders in good agricultural practices in crops other than tobacco to enhance food security. We trained some 350 farmer/leaders on improving yields of over 15 different crops. Equally important is our reforestation effort. In 2016, we distributed 1,5 million of tree seedlings to communities thus supporting preservation and expansion of indigenous forest reserves. We are very pleased with our partnership and outcomes."
PTG's senior adviser, David Himbara, concurred: "A good corporate citizen is never about profit only but also social responsibility. MTC is a good example of this mindset. Based on the average Ugandan family of 5, MTC's workforce and farmers totaling 15,352 are supporting 76,760 people. Over 1,600 additional seasonal workers and small businesses such as transporters increase the number considerably. MTC is also one the largest taxpayers in northern Uganda. Clearly, MTC is a great corporate citizen of Uganda."
Highly anticipated guests of honour from central government, Arua District, and community leaders to officially open the new facility will be shortly announced.
For more information about Ayabatwa, his businesses and his philanthropy, go to http://tribertrujugiro.com/ and http://panafricantobacco.com/
Contact: David Himbara, email dhimbara@hushmail.com, tel +1-416-878-6343.
SOURCE Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa
MISGAV, Israel, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
The Trendlines Group Ltd. (Trendlines) (SGX: 42T, OTCQX: TRNLY) marks its 10th anniversary of activity in 2017, holds its 7th Annual Trendlines Company Showcase in Israel on 29 March, and looks forward to another decade of achievements.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467301/Trendlines_IPO_Singapore.jpg )
(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467300/The_Trendlines_Group_Logo.jpg )
10 Years by the Numbers
75 p ortfolio compan ies established
P ortfolio value reaches $84 m illion
6 e xits / 2 p ublic c ompanies
Over 15 a wards , including two Best Incubator awards
28 conferences & r oad s hows
Collaboration agreements with multinational corporations, including B. Braun and Bayer
"Showcasing" Our Network
In its 10th year of activity as the owner of award-winning medical and agtech technologies incubators, The Trendlines Group will hold its 7th Annual Trendlines Company Showcase on 29 March 2017, featuring nine of its portfolio companies presenting to investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders from Israel, Singapore, China, the United States, and more. Trendlines' 2016 event drew a record 450 participants. Uri Levine, Serial Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Waze, will give the keynote address, "Passion for Entrepreneurship."
Trendlines by the Numbers: In 2010, Trendlines held its 1st Annual Trendlines Company Showcase in Israel, with 100 participants.
From Chicago to Shorashim
While Trendlines Chairmen and CEOs, Steve Rhodes and Todd Dollinger both grew up in Chicago, they met in Israel 26 years ago, at a place they and their families still call home, Moshav Shorashim in the Western Galilee. That's where the Trendlines story begins. Recognizing the need to assist Israeli companies in "going global," and drawing on decades of experience in finance (Steve) and business development (Todd), they founded Trendlines International as a business development firm focused on assisting and guiding innovation-based Israeli companies in the complex U.S. market. Todd and Steve were among the pioneers in Israel's high-tech start-up nationhood.
From the Hills of the Galilee to Shores of Singapore
Ten years ago, Steve and Todd established The Trendlines Group to acquire the incubators now known as Trendlines Medical and Trendlines Agtech, two incubators that operate under license from the Israeli Government. Trendlines completed its evolution from consulting to investing after the formation of The Trendlines Group and brought forward the vision of "creating and developing companies to improve the human condition." The Company's mission focuses its investments on early-stage medical device and agricultural technologies; Trendlines has succeeded in a manner that has earned it a reputation as an innovator and leader in its fields.
From 10 employees in 2007, The Trendlines Group now employs 40 people in Israel, Singapore, and China. In accordance with Trendlines' business model, the team provides its 46 portfolio companies with intensive hands-on support in finance, business development, technology development, marketing communications, and human resources - in every aspect necessary to the success of its companies.
Trendlines by the Numbers: From 100 m2 of office and laboratory space in Misgav, Israel to 2,620 m2 of office space in Misgav, Ramat Gan, and Singapore
As a natural extension of their leadership in early-stage investing, Todd and Steve took the Company public on the Singapore Exchange in November 2015, raising approximately SGD$38 million in IPO-related financings. In 2016, Trendlines established Trendlines Medical Singapore, leveraging partnerships with B. Braun, the Government of Singapore, and investment bank PrimePartners, to create and develop innovation-based medical device companies with a view toward global markets success.
Trendlines by the Numbers: Over 15 awards to Trendlines' incubators, portfolio companies and CEOs in Israel and abroad.
Putting Israeli Agtech on the Map
To support the Company's commitment to invest in agricultural technologies, in 2011, Trendlines Agtech became the first and only incubator in Israel to focus solely on this sector. At that time, agtech investments lagged behind other sectors (even in Israel, historically an agtech powerhouse); the global investment community has recently awoken to the immense opportunities in this critical market. Trendlines has been an important force in creating and nurturing a burgeoning agtech ecosystem for Israeli start-ups by bringing together vital elements necessary to support and build agtech investing: entrepreneurs, multinationals, and investors.
Trendlines co-initiated the first AgriVest event in 2012 when 100 attendees gathered to learn about the fledgling sector. By the 4th conference in 2016, AgriVest was recognized as the must-attend event for anyone who is anyone in the international agtech arena. The 2016 conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science attracted over 400 attendees from around the globe and, more importantly, Trendlines and AgriVest placed Israeli agtech firmly on the map of investors and industry players.
Expanding Business Diversity
Trendlines established its in-house 'innovation center,' Trendlines Labs, to invent products and technologies to resolve unmet medical and agricultural needs for Trendlines and its strategic partners. Trendlines Labs has established collaboration agreements with Israel's two largest hospitals as well as hospitals in the United States and Singapore. Trendlines Labs has executed partnering agreements with multinational companies in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
The Company and its portfolio companies regularly appear in the international media. Steve, Todd, and members of Trendlines' senior management team speak at conferences around the world on innovation, entrepreneurship, and early-stage investing.
As Trendlines enters its second decade, it redoubles its commitment to 'improving the human condition' by inventing, investing in, and incubating evermore early-stage, breakthrough medical and agricultural technologies in Israel, Singapore, and beyond.
About The Trendlines Group
The Trendlines Group is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agricultural technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development to business building. The Trendlines Group is traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX: 42T) and in the United States as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) on the OTCQX International (OTCQX: TRNLY).
Investor Contact Information:
Israel
Judith Kleinman
Director
Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
The Trendlines Group
judith@trendlines.com
Tel: +972-72-260-7000
Singapore
Reyna MEI
Financial PR
reyna@financialpr.com.sg
Tel: +65-6438-2990
SOURCE The Trendlines Group Ltd. (Trendlines)
DUBLIN, Feb 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Banking Summit 2017 - Risk Management and Data Security" conference to their offering.
Banking and financial services play a vital role in today's globalized economy. Banking industry is the most heavily regulated and the regulators are demanding a far greater level of insight and awareness about the risks banks manage, and the effectiveness of the controls they have in place to reduce or mitigate these risks. This banking summit will discuss numerous banking regulations and will feature key topics including risk innovation, modelling and simulation.
Banking industry is more often the target for cybercrimes including financial fraud, identity theft, data manipulation, and persistent hacking attacks on payment systems and other critical information systems and communication channels. This BFSI summit brings together banking security professionals, regulators, banking specialists, risk managers, asset managers and supervisors to debate the threats to data security to the global financial services industry.
The panel discussions, debates, workshops and exhibitions will also throw light on the direction the industry will take in the future - making it all the more important for today's banking professionals to actively take part in this Summit.
Format:
Compliance
Online Banking Summit - Risk Management and Data Security will include the following:
Keynote Addresses:
Leading experts and data scientists working in banking and financial services give their view of the current issues and future challenges in the industry. This banking summit allows participants to discuss and evaluate key challenges, trends and opportunities in the banking industry.
Focused Workshops: Expert-led workshops that will help those banking professionals starting out in their careers and even more senior professionals who need to brush up on new technologies, regulations, processes and more.
Panel Discussions:
Panels comprising of some of the well-known banking specialists and senior finance professionals will discuss and debate the hottest issues that are affecting the industry. Attendees will be able to interact with panel members during these debates and get unparalleled insight into the state of the industry.
Networking Sessions: This banking summit is the leading platform to know about the latest trends in banking innovation, discuss global best practices and network with key industry influencers and decision makers to exchange ideas, discuss business opportunities and share strategies in focused, small groups.
Multiple Tracks:
The Summit will have event tracks dedicated to topics affecting each division/segment of the banking industry.
Exhibitors' Stalls: A unique opportunity for banks and other financial institutions both big and small to market their offerings and identify new business opportunities.
Post-Event Community Access:
Attendees will get access to community that ensures they can continue to build on the networking opportunities and interest that began during the event.
Agenda:
Day 01 - April 27, 2017
8:00 - 9:00 am Registrations and Networking Breakfast
9.00 - 9.15 am Welcome Speech with an Introduction of ComplianceOnline & Summit
9:15 - 10:00 am 2017 Banking Outlook - Emerging Industry Changes and Its Impact on Bank Strategies - Keynote Speech
10:00 - 10:45 am Risk Governance & The Board of Directors' Role in It - Keynote Speech
10:45 - 11:00 am Networking Coffee/Tea Break
11:00 - 11:45 am Integrated GRC in Banks and Financial Services Companies - Panel Discussion
11:45 - 12:00 pm Sponsorship & Speaking Opportunities
12.00 - 1:00 pm Networking Lunch
Track A - Sessions
1:15 - 1:55 pm Perceptions and Reality of Panama Papers and AML Investigations
2:00 - 2:40 pm Understanding and Avoiding the Curse of Mortgage Fraud - Hot Legal Issues
Track B - Sessions
1:15 - 1:55 pm DFS Cyber Requirements
2:00 - 2:40 pm Compliance & Data Breach - From Evolution to The Risk and Why Security Matters
2.40 - 2:55 pm Networking Coffee/Tea Break
Track A - Sessions
3:00 - 3:40 pm Credit Risk & Risk Mitigation - Identifying the Risky Business
Track B - Sessions
3:00 - 3:40 pm Block Chain as a Risk Management / Data Security Emerging Technological Approach with Respect to KYC and Transactions
3:45 - 4:30 pm Avoiding the Crisis in Piracy & ID Threat- The Implications of both in Todays Banking Age - Panel Discussion
4.30 - 4:45 pm Closing Mark - Next Day Plan
Day 02 - April 28, 2017
8:00 - 9:00 am Registrations and Networking Breakfast
9:00 - 9:45 am Social Media and Banking - The Evolution of Social Media and Using it as a Growth Engine - Keynote Speech
9:45 - 10:30 am Payment Risks and Securing the Payment Franchisee - The Future of Secure Payments - Keynote Speech
10:30 - 10:45 am Networking Coffee/Tea Break
11:00 - 11:40 am Cyber Security Risk Assessment - Panel Discussion
11:40 - 12:00 pm Sponsorship & Speaking Opportunities
12:00 - 1:00 pm Networking Lunch
Track A - Sessions
1:15 - 1:55 pm Emerging AML/BSA Threats - Recent Developments to Tackle
2:00 - 2:40 pm High Level Overview of How to Use Big Data for an AML/ AB&C Compliance Overview
Track B - Sessions
1:15 - 1:55 pm Social Engineering & Payments Fraud
2:00 - 2:40 pm Effective Regulatory Change Management Process for Banks
2:40 - 2:55 pm Networking Coffee/Tea Break
3:00 - 4:00 pm Panel Discussion
4:00 - 4:30 pm Vote of Thanks & Participatory Certificates Distribution
For more information about this conference visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6m23s2/banking_summit
Media Contact:
Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470
For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630
For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
Related Links
http://www.researchandmarkets.com
SOURCE Research and Markets
DUBLIN, Feb 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Vietnam Textile Chemicals Market By Product Type (Auxiliaries and Colorants), By Application (Apparel, Home Furnishing and Technical Textiles), By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2011-2025" report to their offering.
The textile chemicals market in Vietnam is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of over 16% during 2016-2025
On the basis of product type, the market of textile chemicals in the country has been broadly segmented into two categories, namely, Textile Auxiliaries and Colorants. Textile Auxiliaries are the chemicals used during each and every step of textile manufacturing process in order to impart certain characteristics to the fabric, while colorants are used to impart color to the textile products.
With booming garment & textile industry, the demand for textile chemicals in the country is expected to grow at a robust pace over the next ten years. Moreover, rapidly growing industrialization, increasing consumption of high quality textile products and promotion of textile chemicals in factories on account of their several recognized advantages are expected to boost the country's textile industry, subsequently driving the Vietnam textile chemicals market over the span of next ten years. Additionally, reduced barriers in trading and increasing foreign trade agreements are expected to aid the demand for textile chemicals in the country during forecast period.
Textile Auxiliaries dominated the Vietnam textile chemicals market in 2015. The segment is anticipated to maintain its dominance over the next ten years as well owing to its usage and involvement during each and every step of textile processing.
Few of the leading players operating in Vietnam textile chemicals market include Nicca Vietnam Co., Ltd., Archroma Vietnam, Jintex Vietnam Company Limited and Huntsman Textile Effects, among others.
Vietnam Textile Chemicals Market discusses the following aspects of Vietnam textile chemicals market:
Vietnam Textile Chemicals Market Size, Share & Forecast
Segmental Analysis - By Product Type (Textile Auxiliaries Vs. Colorants), By End Use Application (Apparels & Garments, Home Furnishing and Technical Textiles), By Region
Policy & Regulatory Landscape
Changing Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities
Competitive Landscape & Strategic Recommendations
Market Trends & Developments
Digital Fabric Printing
Upcoming Textile Chemical Plants
Nano Finishing
Green Chemistry
Innovative Product Range
Companies Mentioned
Archroma Vietnam
Avco Vietnam Company Limited
Connell Brothers Vietnam
Dow Chemical International Ltd.
Evonik Vietnam Limited Liability Company
Huntsman Textile Effects
Jintex Vietnam Company Limited
Lautan Luas Vietnam Company Limited
NICCA VIETNAM CO.,LTD
CO.,LTD Texchem Materials ( Vietnam ) Co., Ltd
For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/cswss8/vietnam_textile
Media Contact:
Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470
For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630
For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
Related Links
http://www.researchandmarkets.com
SOURCE Research and Markets
Worldcore and cloud biometrics developer BioID announced a joint project in which BioID's facial recognition will be used to secure Worldcore, adding a second form of biometric authentication called FaceKey.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466933/Worldcore_CMO_FaceKey.jpg )
"From the earliest days of banking, security has always been key to the financial services world, but it has, unfortunately, been associated with an increasingly painful user experience," says Worldcore CEO Alex Nasonov. "Delivering a simple, intuitive experience for online financial services has always been central to our mission. With our new FaceKey authentication, based on BioID's advanced face recognition technology, we can extend this philosophy to user authentication."
"With its broad and flexible offering, Worldcore is a true innovator in the online financial services market, and we are pleased to help them continue to improve their services," said BioID CEO Ho Chang. "Facial recognition represents an excellent combination of security and convenience that is ideally suited to online payments, providing the virtual-world equivalent of face-to-face transactions."
Worldcore has rolled out a new payment option that allows payments to be instantly sent to a mobile phone account holder's balance. Mobile phone recharge is available for 150+ countries with a 0% fee.
Worldcore website is now localized in four additional languages. "Localization of our website to the French, German, Spanish, and Polish communities will enable us to reach our growth plans for 2017. More languages will be also added every 1-2 months," comments CEO Nasonov.
About Worldcore
Worldcore global payment platform offers a wide range of payment solutions for individuals, e-commerce, and most business verticals, including execution of SWIFT/SEPA bank transfers, prepaid debit cards, mass payments, and international money transfers to any Visa/MasterCard/UnionPay payment cards around the world. Worldcore and VoiceKey are registered trademarks, owned by EUPSProvider s.r.o., a Czech Republic-licensed payment institution regulated by Czech National Bank.
About BioID
BioID is a cloud biometrics company with advanced solutions for both public and private clouds. The company makes strong, convenient, privacy-assured face, iris, and voice recognition available to everyone, on any device, anytime, anywhere so people can be protected in the cyber world and forget about passwords. Privately held with R&D based in Germany, BioID has offices in Switzerland and the US, and its technology has been proven through many years of use at enterprises, banks, and government institutions.
Worldcore Presents FaceKey Biometrics Authentication
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJoYjslFPKo&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Worldcore
Contact:
Sean Patterson
PR/Marketing
Worldcore
pr@worldcore.eu
+420-777-878-985 (CZ Mobile/FaceTime/iMessage)
Kremencova 186/7
110 00 Praha 1-Nove Mesto
Czech Republic
SOURCE Worldcore Prague
POKHARA, Nepal, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Rishikul Yogshala, a name most yoga enthusiasts around the world reckon with, is ready to host their 200 hour Hatha and Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Training programs in the beautiful town of Pokhara, Nepal in March and April of 2017.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160406/798673 )
After successfully wrapping the previous year with 5 successful yoga teacher training batches in Kerala, India in just three months, Rishikul Yogshala is all geared up to start the first trimester of new year 2017 in Pokhara, Nepal. Pokhara is amongst the school's top turfs, and undoubtedly, the location brings a great opportunity for yoga learners to study and practice here while taking in the awe-inspiring views of this gorgeous town.
Rishikul Yogshala has been conducting yoga teacher trainings since 2010. After a triumphant first year on their home ground, Rishikesh, India, the school began expanding its wings of wisdom to other part of the country and neighbouring nations. Nepal was an obvious choice. The country is home to over 90 peaks of which eight are amongst the list of world's 10 highest mountain summits, including Mount Everest. The scenic surroundings and the tranquil atmosphere serve as the perfect backdrop for a life-altering yoga teacher training. The many lakes, caves, and the famous Sarangkot viewpoint in Pokhara are the incentives our students get for visiting us here.
Rishikul Yogshala has been accredited by Yoga Alliance International and Yoga Alliance US and all Yoga Teacher Training programs run by the school are acknowledged and certified by Yoga Alliance. The school conducts 200 hour, 300 hour, and 500 hour YTTCs along with retreats and several workshops. Each year, the school plans and tries to bring something innovative and surprise themselves as well as their students - last year it was the course in Ayurveda in Kerala and this year it is the Beginners' and Advanced Level Adjustment and Alignment workshops in Nepal.
Located just 3 kilometres from the famous Phewa Lake in Pokhara, Rishikul Yogshala's property offers majestic views of the surrounding mountains and provides a true yogi environment to all its students.
The 200 hour YTTC program conducted in Pokhara, Nepal by Rishikul Yogshala covers more than just the practical aspects of Yoga. Along with Hatha and Ashtanga Yoga, the curriculum also includes a lot of theoretical studies including that of human anatomy in respect to yoga, Yoga philosophy, understanding the importance of Mudras, understanding of Mantra chanting, knowledge of Bandha, introduction to Ayurveda, and significance of teaching methodology. Additionally, the course also involves study and practice of Pranayama, Yoga Nidra, Adjustment and Alignment, and Shatkriyas. The course is conducted in March, April, September, and October of every year.
Joanna, a former student who attended the YTTC in Nepal last year, says "Pokhara is stunning and it's situated right in the heart of Nepal, surrounded by Himalayas. The course itself is one of the beast treats I could ever given to myself, for sure. Vast variety of subjects from Hatha and Ashtanga through all sorts of pranayama, kriyas, alignment, therapy, anatomy, mantra classes ending every school day on a wonderful meditation. I've learned heaps from the best teachers on earth. They are all very different but all equally inspiring. I can definitely recommend it to everyone, no matter what path of their life they're on. Thank you Rishikul!!!!"
Rishikul Yogshala has been spreading and promoting the sagacity of Yoga and Ayurveda around the world for almost seven years now and the school has been rewarded in its efforts from time to time. It was only last year that Rishikul Yogshala became the top choice for visitors looking for "Spa and Wellness" in India on TripAdvisor. Shortly before that, it was acknowledged by the same brand name in tourism as the most positively reviewed yoga training school in the country.
Headquartered in Rishikesh, India, Rishikul Yogshala currently operates in Dharamsala and Kerala (also in India), and Pokhara, Nepal.
About Rishikul Yogshala:
Rishikul Yogshala is the most reviewed yoga school in India and has been successfully conducting various Yoga Teacher Training courses and retreats in India and neighboring countries since 2010. The school has been approved by Yoga Alliance USA. Rishikul Yogshala also offers courses in meditation and Ayurveda. For more information, visit their website or join their Facebook page.
Media Contact:
Manmohan Singh
+91-7060060954
SOURCE Rishikul Yogshala
BEIJING, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 360 Enterprise Security Group announced today that during the RSA Conference, the company will hold in-depth discussions with a number of well-known vulnerability response platforms to jointly build the world's white hat collaboration mechanism, and cooperate in such aspects as vulnerability response, security testing and others to cope with the worldwide cyber attacks and the increasingly rampant global data breach and data trafficking.
Cyber attacks and other crimes show clear global features
The "2015 Network Security Report" issued by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (known as CNCERT or CNCERT/CC) shows that Anonymous and other overseas hacking organizations continued to attack sites in China, and in 2015 among IP addresses that implemented backdoor attacks to sites in China, 31,348 were located outside of China, mainly from the United States (13.9%), Hong Kong (6.5%) and South Korea (6.0%) and other countries and regions.
According to the latest "2016 China Website Security Vulnerability Analysis Report" by 360 Internet Security Center, cyber attacks that we are facing are characterized of obvious globalization features. As of November 15, 2016, 360 Internet Security blocked 1.71 billion various website vulnerability attacks, and in the full year, the number of websites that suffered vulnerability attacks reached 636,000 (deduplicated). Among them, the overseas attackers accounted for 23.4%, and victims with IPs from outside of China accounted for 33.1%.
360 Enterprise Security Group President Wu Yunkun said cyber attacks from different countries are technically both interlinked and diversified. The resulting cyber criminal industry chain has also become borderless. For example, it has become common for cyber criminal gangs from China to set up phishing websites in Europe and the United States and then return to China for fraud through strict teamwork.
Global data breach and data trafficking are rampant
From illegal drugs to weapons, all kinds of network databases are available in the dark web.
In a recent list exposed, a well-known dark web provider called "DoubleFlag" was selling user data stolen from a number of Chinese internet companies, and the amount of data was up to 1 billion, mainly from Tencent, NetEase, Sina and other local internet companies. In the same list, DoubleFlag also provided user data stolen from other countries such as Japan, of which the account leaked from the three Yahoo domain names alone totaled 23.59 million.
Data sales trends in the dark web market began to emerge from 2016, and some data providers provided data from a number of key companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Dropbox. Over the past few months, the amount of databases uploaded and sold by DoubleFlag was huge. Moreover, it began selling other information that is unique and highly sensitive, and even attractive to intelligence agencies around the world, including data stolen from the US-based Cellular Corporation (this cellular service company owns and operates the fifth largest telecommunications network in the United States and provides services for 4.9 million customers in 426 major markets across 23 states in the US), containing information like names, addresses, cities, states and cell numbers of 130 million Americans.
360 Internet Security Center recently released the "2016 China Website Security Vulnerability Situation Analysis Report". According to the report, in 2015 among the vulnerabilities recorded by the 360 Butian Platform alone, more than 1,400 could cause personal information leakage, which may leak as many as 5.53 billion pieces of information. In 2016, it collected more than 300 new vulnerabilities that may lead to personal information leakage, which may leak as many as more than 5 billion pieces of personal information.
Jointly build a white-hat collaboration mechanism to curb cybercrimes
Bai Jian, who is in charge of the Butian Vulnerability Response Platform, revealed that it has held several discussions with three well-known vulnerability platforms, and during the RSA Conference, the parties will also make in-depth consultations. He said, "We will cooperate on security test, vulnerability notification, etc., and sign the memorandum of understanding on cooperation at the right time."
Wu Yunkun said that due to the huge number of Internet users and the complex network environment, all countries also become victims of cyber attacks and other criminal acts while benefiting from the internet. Only through extensive international cooperation to create a comprehensive, wide-ranging, multi-level, effective coordination mechanism can we effectively curb the increasingly rampant, borderless cyber attacks and other criminal activities.
The vulnerability platforms from different countries each pool a large team of white hats. The number of white hats registered on the Butian Platform has reached more than 30,000, and the vulnerability platforms in the United States have issued bonuses to nearly 10,000 white hats. We should strengthen cooperation and collaboration between the vulnerability platforms of different countries and combine the respective technological advantages of Chinese and western hackers, to effectively enhance security capabilities of websites. More extensive and timely vulnerability response conducive to the realization of technology and talent sharing will greatly promote the global Internet security capabilities.
SOURCE 360
The MIT Enterprise Forum (MIT EF) of the Pan Arab Region announced the much anticipated semifinalists of the 10th edition of the MIT Arab Startup Competition, in partnership with Community Jameel, a social enterprise organization that operates a wide range of initiatives to promote a positive society and economic sustainability and Zain Group, a leading telecommunications innovator in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa. This year's strategic partner is Tamkeen, a semi-government organization in Bahrain with the task of making the private sector as the key driver of sustainable economic development.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467353/MIT_Arab_Startup_Competition.jpg )
This year's edition has witnessed an unprecedented turnout with more than 8,272 applications, constituting a 39% increase in comparison to last year's edition. The highest number of applications came from Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Saudi Arabia (through the MIT EF Saudi competition). The submitted projects tackled a variety of sectors, among the most prominent of which were software related followed by education, healthcare and creative industries.
The semifinalists of the 10th MIT Arab Startup Competition hailed from 11 Arab countries as follows: Egypt (22), Lebanon (11), UAE (10), Jordan (8), Tunisia (6), Morocco (5), Bahrain (3), Sudan (2), Libya (2), and Algeria (1). Nine Saudi Arabian teams will be added to the list from the MIT EF Saudi Competition that will be announced in March. These teams will be invited to participate in the pre boot camp training which will be held during the month of March 2017 in Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. The semi-finalists list can be viewed on http://www.mitefarab.org .
The participating teams submitted their applications through the competition's website: mitefarab.org between 17 October 2016 till 4 January 2017.
This year's edition is of special importance as it celebrates 10 years of success and excellence while serving generations of young Arabs and their creative entrepreneurial ideas. Very much like last year's competition, this edition included three exciting tracks - Ideas, Startups, and Social Entrepreneurship. Cash prizes exceeding USD 160,000 will be distributed among the nine lucky winners, three per track. Beyond the cash prizes, all semifinalists will benefit from advanced training sessions, personal mentorship and guidance not to mention a great deal of media coverage and excellent networking opportunities.
Hala Fadel, Chair of the board of MIT EF Pan Arab, commented on the importance of this 10th edition. She said, "This year, we are celebrating 10 years of entrepreneurial success in the region by bringing together our biggest edition to date. We are also celebrating everything we have accomplished so far especially in terms of our ability to develop young entrepreneurs and support their ideas that a substantial portion of which have become success stories that we take deep pride in. We have great expectations for this year's competition whether it's in terms of ideas, startups or social entrepreneurship. We are expecting more and more technology innovations from the MENA region this year and we aim to take the most innovative of these entrepreneurs to new heights."
Fady Jameel, President of Community Jameel International, commented on the semifinals saying: "We are happy with the diversity of the semifinalists, which reinforces the fact that the Arab world is full of talent and creativity. We have offered our full support to this successful event for 10 consecutive years now, and remain true to our commitment to see it through. As it has been the case in previous years, our strong belief in this competition continues, as we strive to help generations of young entrepreneurs realize their hopes and bring their aspirations to life."
Mr Jameel also referred to the successes achieved by the MIT Enterprise forum Arab Startup Competition in the past 9 years, which made the 10th edition a mathematical certainty. He said, "The MIT Arab Startup Competition has demonstrated its ability to help young entrepreneurs achieve their deepest aspirations, accepting a mind blowing 8,272 applications this year."
Commenting on Zain Group's support of the latest MIT Arab Startup Competition, CEO Scott Gegenheimer said, "We are excited to support the competition again this year, and congratulate the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab for another milestone for the 10th year of running. We congratulate everyone responsible for bringing to life yet another edition of this outstanding competition which supports young aspiring entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams and appeals to a number of our core constituents, aligning with our outlook and values at Zain Group perfectly."
Gegenheimer continued, "We look forward to seeing the face of innovation being revealed throughout the course of the competition and shall take the opportunity to capitalize on the most promising ideas, supporting our evolution in becoming a digital lifestyle operator."
On this occasion Dr. Ebrahim Mohammed Janahi, Chief Executive of Tamkeen expressed his pleasure in Tamkeen's support to this competition and said: "In Tamkeen we support all initiatives through which we empower entrepreneurs to start and sustain their innovative projects in various vital sectors. We are proud to host this regional competition for the first time in the Kingdom of Bahrain as we believe such competitions has the ability to encourage entrepreneurs to offer the best of their creativity in a healthy competitive environment."
Dr. Janahi added "We are truly pleased with the number of applicants that exceeded 8,000 applications as it reflects the region's wealth of youthful energies that seek the opportunities to showcase their innovations and excellence."
The MIT Arab Startup Competition will culminate in a four-day event from April 24 to April 27, 2017 in Bahrain, with the announcement of the competition winners set to take place during the final award ceremony.
For more information on this year's MIT Arab Startup Competition eligibility and judging criteria, as well as the planned roadshows, please visit http://www.mitefarab.org
About MITEF Pan Arab:
Founded in 2005, the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Pan Arab Region (http://www.mitefarab.org) is one of the 28 worldwide chapters of the MIT Enterprise Forum Global, an avid promoter of entrepreneurship and innovation worldwide. The MIT Enterprise Forum- Pan Arab has a proven record in promoting MIT-style entrepreneurship by organizing each year the MITArab Startup Competition targeting 21 countries of the Arab region and attracting over 12,000 entrepreneurs a year.
About Zain Group:
Zain is a leading telecommunications operator across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to over 47 million active customers as of 31 December, 2016. With a commercial presence in 8 countries, Zain operates in: Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and South Sudan. In Lebanon, the Group manages 'touch' on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain has a 15.5% stake in 'INWI', through a joint venture. Zain is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN).For more, please email [email protected] or visit: http://www.zain.com; http://www.facebook.com/zain; http://www.twitter.com/zain; http://www.youtube.com/zain; http://www.instagram.com/zaingroup; http://www.linkedin.com/company/zain
About Community Jameel:
Established in 2003, Community Jameel is a social enterprise organisation that operates a wide range of initiatives to promote a positive society and economic sustainability. From individual, community and Arab life as a whole, in Saudi Arabia and beyond, Community Jameel promotes Arab arts and culture in the Middle East and around the world, works against unemployment, enables research for poverty alleviation and food and water security, and provides education and training opportunities.
Community Jameel supports and partners with global institutions, which employ hundreds of people, all aiming to provide people with opportunities and training in the following areas:
Job Creation - Bab Rizq Jameel
Arts and Culture - Art Jameel
Global Poverty Alleviation
Food and Water Security
Education and Training
Health and Social
About Tamkeen:
Tamkeen is tasked with developing Bahrain's private sector and positioning it as the key driver of economic development. Established in August 2006, Tamkeen is one of the cornerstones of Bahrain's national reform initiatives and Bahrain's Economic Vision. Tamkeen has two primary objectives: Firstly, fostering the creation and development of enterprises, and secondly, providing support to enhance the productivity and growth of enterprises and individuals.
To achieve these objectives, Tamkeen's strategy focuses on quality enhancement, customer care and having a results-oriented approach. Through this strategy, a number of innovative programmes are provided to Bahrainis and businesses in Bahrain, which include training, consulting, financing, entrepreneurship support and others. These programmes help develop the capabilities of Bahrainis and enterprises and integrate new critical concepts for a vibrant sustainable private sector. To date, Tamkeen's programmes have benefited more than 130,000 Bahrainis and businesses.
SOURCE MITEF Pan-Arab
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Bankers Association through its subsidiary the Corporation for American Banking has endorsed the digital lending solution provided by Akouba, which provides community and regional banks with an origination and underwriting platform for small business loans. ABA members will receive preferred pricing.
Akouba is transforming the way banks help business owners through a cloud-based, white-labeled technology that provides business lending quickly, accurately and profitably. Akouba's business lending platform provides banks with leading edge technology that integrates the bank's own unique credit policies into a convenient, online processfrom application to documentation all the way to closing and funding. The bank uses its own credit policies, originates its own loans and owns the entire brand and customer relationship.
"The small business loan application process is very time-sensitive and costly for banks, and there is a need to simplify and accelerate the process," said Bryan Luke, chairman of ABA's Endorsed Solutions Banker Advisory Council. "Akouba was chosen because they have established an effective and reliable platform for banks to execute the business lending process quickly, efficiently and profitably while also delivering a great customer and banker experience." Luke is also president and COO of Hawaii National Bank in Honolulu.
"In a rapidly changing lending environment, and with marketplace lenders disrupting the business lending space, our platform will help banks bring their customers the technology they have been lacking," said Chris Rentner, CEO, Akouba. "The ABA's endorsement will give lending institutions the assurance that Akouba's solutions meet the highest standards."
Prior to awarding the endorsement, the ABA conducted an extensive due diligence process, which included evaluation by Aditya Khurjekar, CEO of Let'sTalk Payments, and oversight from ABA's Endorsed Solutions Banker Advisory Council. Careful evaluation led to this endorsement based on a number of factors including Akouba's ability to assess and manage risk as well as comply with the FDIC's proposed guidance for third-party lending to address common issues in the industry.
To learn more about Akouba's digital lending solution, ABA will offer a free webinar on Wednesday, March 8 at 2:00 p.m. EST. For more information on this and other endorsed solutions, visit www.aba.com/endorsed.
About American Bankers Association
The American Bankers Association is the voice of the nation's $16 trillion banking industry, which is composed of small, regional and large banks that together employ more than 2 million people, safeguard $12 trillion in deposits and extend more than $9 trillion in loans.
About Akouba
Akouba is a cloud-based, white-labeled technology that enables the bank's customers and prospects to access diverse financing options and ensure better matching of a business's banking needs to the bank's solutions. The online, end-to-end, omni-channel business lending platform leverages leading edge technology and integrations to deliver a great customer and banker experience in a way that enables the bank to execute the business lending process quickly, efficiently, and profitably.
SOURCE American Bankers Association; Akouba
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AIRMALL USA is spreading kindness at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) and Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) during Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Week, Feb. 13-18.
"Our RAK Week celebration is designed to bring smiles to the air travel experience," said Jay Kruisselbrink, chief operating officer, AIRMALL USA. "We hope the spirit of kindness encourages people to do something special that will brighten the day of a stranger, friend or travel mate."
The annual observance was established by the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, inspiring people to practice kindness and to pass it on to others. AIRMALL first participated in 2015 to spread kindness in the airport community.
Throughout the week, AIRMALL and its tenants restaurants to retailers will be surprising airport travelers with special treats and kindness tips. On RAK Day, Friday, Feb. 17, a spirited street team will descend on each airport to deliver an extra touch of kindness to travelers.
AIRMALL also encourages travelers to share kindness on social media using #RAKWeek2017. For more information about AIRMALL, follow @airmallusa on Twitter or visit airmall.com.
About AIRMALL
Airmall is the developer and manager of the retail, food and beverage operations at Pittsburgh International Airport, Boston Logan International Airport (terminals B and E), Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. A leading airport concessions model in North America, Airmall boasts among the highest per-passenger spending and receives accolades for innovation and customer service. For information, visit airmall.com. Airmall USA, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide, the global airport company based in Frankfurt, Germany. For more information about Fraport, visit fraport.com.
SOURCE AIRMALL USA
Related Links
https://www.airmallusa.com
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AliveCor, the leader in FDA-cleared mobile electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) technology, was today named as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Health for 2017 by Fast Company as part of the publication's annual ranking of the world's Most Innovative Companies. The list honors leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in nimble business and impactful innovation.
AliveCor's scientifically validated machine-learning platform is setting a benchmark for the digital health industry, promoting early disease discovery, aiding in disease prevention, and giving people the information they need to be in control of their health and wellbeing. Having recorded over 12 million ECGs, the company is poised to lead the next evolution in healthcare innovation.
"This recognition as a top health innovator further fuels our commitment to put power in patients' hands and help them take an active role in their total heart health," said Vic Gundotra, CEO, AliveCor. "We are providing patients and doctors with an unprecedented view of risk factors for stroke and other diseases, advancing the doctor-patient connection and creating a new standard of care."
Most Innovative Companies is one of Fast Company's most significant and highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. To produce the 2017 list, Fast Company reporters surveyed thousands of enterprises across the globe to identify the most notable innovations of the year and trace the impact of those initiatives on business, industry, and the larger culture.
Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March 2017) is now available online at www.fastcompany.com/MIC as well as in app form via iTunes, and on newsstands beginning February 21.
ABOUT FAST COMPANY
Fast Company is the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethical economics, leadership, and design. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, one of the U.S.'s leading media companies.
ABOUT ALIVECOR
AliveCor, Inc. is pioneering the creation of FDA-cleared machine learning techniques to enable proactive heart care and is recognized around the world for transforming cardiac care. The FDA-cleared Kardia Mobile is the most clinically validated mobile ECG solution on the market and is recommended by leading cardiologists and used by people worldwide for accurate ECG recordings. This simple to use mobile device and app-based service provides instant analysis for detecting atrial fibrillation (AF) and normal sinus rhythm in an ECG. AliveCor was recognized as a 2015 Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and one of the 50 Smartest Companies in 2015 by the MIT Technology Review (#14). AliveCor is a privately-held company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information, please visit alivecor.com. AliveCor and Kardia are trademarks of AliveCor, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. For more information on where to buy Kardia Mobile please visit store.alivecor.com.
SOURCE AliveCor
Related Links
http://www.alivecor.com
HAIFA, Israel, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
APERIO Systems, the company providing the last line of defense for protecting industrial control systems against cyberattacks, announced today that it was recognized as the "Hot Company" in ICS/SCADA security winner of the Cyber Defense Magazine InfoSec Award. APERIO Systems was honored for pioneering Data Forgery ProtectionTM (DFP) for critical infrastructure. The company will be participating in the RSA Conference in San Francisco, CA, this week.
The prestigious Cyber Defense Magazine Award gives recognition to information security companies that provide unique value. Each submission is judged by security professionals who have certification such as CISSP, FMDHS, or CEH - and the evaluation process is based on an independent review of each company's materials and other market variables.
"We're delighted to recognize next-generation innovation in the information security marketplace and that's why APERIO Systems has earned this award from Cyber Defense Magazine. Some of the best INFOSEC defenses come from these kinds of forward thinking players," said Pierluigi Paganini, Editor-in-Chief, Cyber Defense Magazine.
This honor comes on the heels of several other distinctions. Earlier this month, APERIO Systems was selected as the most innovative startup at CyberTech TLV. In September, the company won Enel's Cybersecurity Hackathon and was chosen as the first company to work in Enel Group's new Innovation Hub at SOSA in Tel Aviv. APERIO Systems was also selected as a winner in the 2016 Government Security News (GSN) Awards.
APERIO Systems is already working with several sites across EMEA. Its Data Forgery Protection technology detects artificial manipulations of industrial process data, allowing operators to take real-time corrective action - and providing the last line of defense in protecting SCADA systems against both insider and external threats.
"When attackers breach a system, in order to avoid detection and cause serious damage, they must falsify operational data to blind the operators and protection mechanisms," said Yevgeni Nogin, CEO, APERIO Systems. "APERIO Systems operates like a polygraph for process data - and this enables unprecedented resilience and operational integrity for critical infrastructures."
About APERIO Systems
APERIO Systems secures critical control systems with a last line of defense against both internal and external cyber threats and malicious actors. APERIO Systems uses statistical physics and state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to detect operational data forgery attempts and reconstruct the true state of industrial control systems in real time. APERIO Systems enables unprecedented resilience and operational integrity for critical infrastructure such as power plants, water and waste control, manufacturing, oil and gas, energy, transportation, pharma, and food and beverage. More information at http://www.aperio-systems.com.
Media Contact:
Leron Kornreich
Silicon Valley Communications
[email protected]
+1-415-937-1724
SOURCE APERIO Systems
TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Fast Company listed Argus Cyber Security, the world's largest independent automotive cyber security company, as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Israel for 2017.
"We are honored to be named as one of Israel's Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company," said Yoni Heilbronn, VP Marketing at Argus. "There are no shortage of amazing startups here, and to be named in the top 10 is a real honor. Argus aims to be the world leader in cyber security for the automotive industry, and this award is a real recognition of our position."
Most Innovative Companies honors leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in nimble business and impactful innovation and is one of Fast Company's most significant and highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. To produce the 2017 list, Fast Company reporters surveyed thousands of enterprises across the globe to identify the most notable innovations of the year and trace the impact of those initiatives on business, industry, and the larger culture.
"Each year, our reporting team scours the globe to identify organizations that have been both innovative and impactful in their industry, the business world, and the larger culture," said Robert Safian, editor and managing director of Fast Company. "At a time marked by political and economic uncertainty, your ability to rise to the top of your field is especially meaningful."
Argus Cyber Security is committed to helping customers stay ahead of cyber threats and is already working with the world's leading car manufacturers (OEMs), their Tier 1 suppliers, aftermarket connectivity providers and fleet managers. Argus offers the industry's most comprehensive, multi-layered vehicle protection built on the innovation of 24 granted and pending automotive patents and the insights of more than 30,000 hours of automotive cyber security research. Our award winning research team keeps customers up-to-date with current and future threats and continually ensures that our solutions remain on the cutting edge.
Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March 2017) is now available online at www.fastcompany.com/MIC as well as in app form via iTunes, and on newsstands beginning February 21.
ABOUT FAST COMPANY
Fast Company is the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethical economics, leadership, and design. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, one of the U.S.'s leading media companies.
ABOUT ARGUS
Argus is the world's largest, independent automotive cyber security company, whose customers include the major private and commercial OEMs, Tier 1s, aftermarket connectivity providers and fleet managers. Led by a team of cyber security experts and auto industry veterans, Argus solutions are built on decades of experience in both cyber security and automotive. Futureproof and ready to embed today, Argus security technology promotes car connectivity with security and privacy. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, Argus has a global presence with offices in all of the world's major automotive centers including North America, Europe and Asia.
For further information, visit www.argus-sec.com or follow Argus via @ ArgusSec or LinkedIn
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160721/391784LOGO
Media Contact:
Aaron Kliner
[email protected]
+1-516-595-1843
SOURCE Argus Cyber Security Ltd
LONDON, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ART Carbon International AG will present at CleanEquity Monaco 2017 on March 9th & 10th at the Fairmont Monte Carlo.
CleanEquity is an annual invitation-only event hosted by Innovator Capital, the London based specialist investment bank. The conference provides an intimate and collegiate setting for inventors and entrepreneurs to share their stories with delegates - key decision makers looking to assist them with reaching their commercial and strategic goals.
Other partners and sponsors include Prince Albert II of Monaco's Foundation, Covington & Burling, Cisco EIR, Cision, Cranfield University, Hobbs & Towne, the Monaco Economic Board, Parkview and the Social Stock Exchange.
ART Carbon International AG has been identified by an expert panel as one of the world's most innovative sustainable technology companies and has been selected to present to senior financial and strategic cleantech investors, policy makers, legislators, end users and media.
ART Carbon is a leading Swiss material technology company in the domain of Carbon Nanotubes (CNT), a revolutionary material that will transform material sciences. The company mission is to deliver commercially viable applications to bring environmentally friendly urbanisation and development to the world.
ART Carbon's primary patented application is in building materials (concrete), and we consistently invest in cutting edge research, exploring 3D Printing, energy storage and composite materials. ART Carbon's CNT solutions make these materials stronger and more resistant, while delivering environmental benefits and cost reductions: lowering material consumption, replacing chemical additives, reducing emissions and saving energy.
Art Carbon provides end-to-end solutions to our partners, including engineering and designing the operational process, customized development, and CNT production, making them unique in the market.
ART Carbon International AG
Grafenauweg 10
6300 Zug, Switzerland
Phone +41 41 / 7232702
E-Mail [email protected]
About Innovator Capital
Innovator Capital, established in 2003, is a specialist investment bank advising emerging technology companies on corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions. Its expertise includes intellectual property and multi national strategic partnering.
www.cleanequitymonaco.com
SOURCE Innovator Capital
Related Links
http://www.innovator-capital.com
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )
Browse 133 market data Tables and 41 Figures spread through 169 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Automotive Interior Materials Market"
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/automotive-interior-materials-advanced-technologies-and-global-market-89.html
Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.
Automotive Interior Materials Market growth is fueled by the high demand for automotive interior materials from the automotive industry in Asia-Pacific, North America, South America, and Middle East & Africa.
Sample PDF Brochure of the Report at http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=89
Synthetic Leather: The most-widely used type of automotive interior materials
Synthetic leather is the largest type segment of the automotive interior materials used in different vehicle types. The market for synthetic leather is large because it is cheap, easily available, easy to clean, and has an appearance similar to genuine leather. Hence, it is highly preferred. The market for this type segment is further expanding as synthetic leather is customizable and can be molded into various shapes, sizes, and patterns.
Passenger Vehicles: The largest vehicle type segment using automotive interior materials
Passenger vehicles is the largest vehicle type segment using automotive interior materials as the number of passenger vehicles is the largest. The growth of the passenger vehicles is attributed to high living standards, growing economy, and higher incomes. In addition, the need for comfortable and safe commute is growing and hence the market of passenger vehicles is expected to grow. This is further expected to drive the demand for automotive interior materials.
Make an Inquiry @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=89
Asia-Pacific: The largest automotive interior materials market
Asia-Pacific was the global forerunner in the Automotive Interior Materials Market, in terms of both value and volume, in 2015. Countries in this region such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea are witnessing significant increase in the use of automotive interior materials for different vehicle types. This is due to the growing choices in automotive materials, increasing need to own a car, and improving living standards. India is estimated to be the fastest-growing market in this region till 2021. This growth is mainly due to the rapid economic growth and increasing population that is driving the demand for automotive interior materials type in India.
The automotive interior materials market has a few numbers of global players competing for market share. These companies are actively investing in various strategies such as expansions, new product developments, mergers & acquisitions, and joint ventures globally to increase their market share. Major players such as Johnson Controls (U.S.), Toyota Boshoku Corporation (Japan), Lear Corporation (U.S.), Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Faurecia S.A. (France), and others have adopted various organic and inorganic developmental strategies.
Browse Related Reports:
Automotive Adhesive Tapes Market by Backing Material (Polypropylene, Paper, Polyvinyl Chloride), by Application (Exterior - Part Mounting, Labelling, Masking, Interior - Wire Harness, Part Mounting, NVH) and by Region - Global Forecast to 2020
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/automotive-adhesive-tapes-market-209565940.html
Automotive NVH Materials Market by Type (Rubbers, Thermoplastic Polymers, and Engineering Resins), Application (Absorption and Insulation), Vehicle Type (Cars, LCV, HCV, and Bus) and Regional Analysis - Global Forecast to 2020
http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/automotive-nvh-material-market-227596009.html
Subscribe Reports from Chemicals & Materials Domain: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp
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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
DALLAS, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aviall, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company, has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Triumph Group, covering spare parts for Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier aircraft. The agreement expands Aviall's product support with Triumph Integrated Systems to include its Clemmons, North Carolina and Valencia, California sites of its Fluid Power & Actuation (FP&A) business. Products involved in this agreement include hydraulic pumps and motors, linear actuators, valves and other hydraulic actuation components used on a variety of commercial aircraft.
"Aviall is pleased to extend our relationship with Triumph by distributing their vast actuation product line offerings for the commercial sector," stated Aviall President and CEO Eric Strafel. "Through our integrated partnership, we have utilized our comprehensive supply-chain network to deliver world-class support for Boeing, Airbus, and Bombardier large platforms, while enhancing supply-chain visibility and connectivity to better anticipate customer needs."
Under this agreement, Aviall will continue to utilize its advanced technologies to support the additional FP&A locations through spare part sales, line-item forecasting, production planning, advanced provisioning and supply-chain administration.
"Aviall has extensive expertise as an aviation parts distributor supporting a world-wide customer base," stated Dan Sims, President of Triumph Integrated System's Fluid Power & Actuation business. "Over the years Aviall has demonstrated their strong record of customer service and industry leading supplier standards. We are pleased to extend our distribution agreement with them."
About Aviall:
Aviall operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company, supporting both commercial and defense business units within Boeing. Aviall is a leading solutions provider of aftermarket supply-chain management services for the aerospace and defense industries.
Aviall, which has headquarters in Dallas, is the world's largest provider of new aviation parts and related aftermarket services. The company markets and distributes products for more than 240 manufacturers and offers approximately 2 million catalog items from 40 customer service centers in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Aviall also provides maintenance for aviation batteries, wheels and brakes, as well as hose assembly, kitting and paint-mixing services. The company offers a complete set of supply-chain and logistics services, including order processing, stocking and fulfillment, automated inventory management and reverse logistics to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and customers.
Follow Aviall on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
SOURCE Aviall
Related Links
http://www.aviall.com
HOUSTON, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bristow Group Inc. (NYSE: BRS) announced today that it will be presenting at the 2017 Credit Suisse Energy Summit to be held in Vail, Colorado on February 13 16, 2017.
Jonathan E. Baliff, President and Chief Executive Officer, is scheduled to present on Wednesday, February 15, at 10:25 a.m. Mountain Time (12:25 p.m. Eastern Time). A live broadcast of the presentation and the accompanying slides will be available in the Investor Relations section of the Bristow Group website at www.bristowgroup.com and will be archived there for approximately 90 days.
ABOUT BRISTOW GROUP INC.
Bristow Group Inc. is the leading global industrial aviation services provider offering helicopter transportation, search and rescue (SAR) and aircraft support services, including maintenance and training, to government and civil organizations worldwide. Bristow has major operations in the North Sea, Nigeria and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and in most of the other major offshore oil and gas producing regions of the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Trinidad. Bristow provides SAR services to the private sector worldwide and to the public sector for all of the U.K. on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. For more information, visit bristowgroup.com.
Contact:
Linda McNeill
Investor Relations
(713) 267-7622
SOURCE Bristow Group Inc.
Related Links
http://www.bristowgroup.com
NAPERVILLE, Ill., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Calamos Investments, global investment management firm, has appointed Michael Grant, Senior Vice President, to lead portfolio management of the firm's approximately $2.3 billion in US growth strategies, including the $1.8 billion Calamos Growth Fund (CVGRX), announced John Koudounis, Chief Executive Officer. With 30 years of investment management experience, Grant joined Calamos in 2015 following the acquisition of his firm, Phineus Partners LP, where he launched a successful long/short investment strategy that was reorganized into a retail mutual fund, Calamos Phineus Long/Short Fund (CPLIX), in 2016.
"Michael is an exceptional investment manager with a demonstrated track record of performance. He will apply his deep knowledge and expertise as part of the team responsible for the Calamos US growth strategies. This step is a continuation of our mission to strengthen our existing capabilities as we address the evolving needs of our clients," Koudounis said.
John P. Calamos, Sr., Founder, Chairman and Global Chief Investment Officer, stated: "Michael has brought to Calamos a breadth of experience across asset classes, including in US growth equities. His proven capabilities and approach to the markets make him an excellent addition to the investment team of our US growth strategies, including Calamos Growth Fund."
Under Grant's management, Calamos Phineus Long/Short Fund ranks in the 1st percentile for both the since inception and 10-year periods ending December 31, 2016 within the Morningstar US Funds Long/Short Category.* Prior to founding Phineus Partners in 2002, Grant held a variety of investment positions at Schroders Investment Management, including Managing Director, Head of the US Equity Team in London, and Head of the Global Technology Team. As Head of the US Equity Team, he was responsible for multi billions of dollars in long-only assets, primarily in US mandates. During his tenure as Head of the Global Technology Team, Schroders had more than $30 billion in technology equities under management. Earlier in his career, Grant was a portfolio manager for the National Investment Trust Co. in Taipei, Taiwan, and a US equity analyst for the Principal Group in Canada.
In 1998, Grant was listed as one of the Top 10 Best Managers of US Equities (Overseas) by Forbes magazine. He earned a master's degree from the London School of Economics.
About Calamos
Calamos Investments is a diversified global investment firm offering innovative investment strategies including U.S. growth equity, global equity, convertible, multi-asset and alternatives. The firm offers strategies through separately managed portfolios, mutual funds, closed-end funds, private funds, and UCITS funds. Clients include major corporations, pension funds, endowments, foundations and individuals, as well as the financial advisors and consultants who serve them. Headquartered in the Chicago metropolitan area, the firm also has offices in London, New York, Miami and San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.calamos.com.
Disclosures
Performance data quoted represents past performance, which is no guarantee of future results. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. The principal value and return of an investment will fluctuate so that your shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Performance reflected at NAV does not include the Fund's maximum front-end sales load of 4.75% had it been included; the Fund's return would have been lower. For the most recent month-end fund performance information visit www.Calamos.com.
* Within the Morningstar US Funds Long/Short Category, Calamos Phineus Long/Short Fund was ranked in the 7th percentile (20 of 311 funds), the 10th percentile (19 of 186 funds), the 23rd percentile (25 of 106 funds), 1st percentile (1 of 45 funds) and 1st percentile (1 of 24 funds), for the 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year and since inception (5/1/2002) periods, respectively. Morningstar Ratings are based on I share total return and are through 12/31/16 and will differ for other share classes. Morningstar long-short category: long-short portfolios hold sizable stakes in both long and short positions in equities and related derivatives. Some funds that fall into this category will shift their exposure to long and short positions depending on their macro outlook or the opportunities they uncover through bottom-up research. Some funds may simply hedge long stock positions through exchange-traded funds or derivatives. At least 75% of the assets are in equity securities or derivatives.
The performance shown for periods prior to April 5, 2016 is the performance of a predecessor investment vehicle (the "Predecessor Fund"). The Predecessor Fund was reorganized into the Fund on April 5, 2016, the date upon which the Fund commenced operations. On October 1, 2015 the parent company of Calamos Advisors purchased Phineus Partners LP, the prior investment adviser to the Predecessor Fund ("Phineus"), and Calamos Advisors served as the Predecessor Fund's investment adviser from October 1, 2015 until it was reorganized into the Fund. Phineus and Calamos Advisors managed the Predecessor Fund using investment policies, objectives, guidelines and restrictions that were in all material respects equivalent to those of the Fund. Phineus and Calamos Advisors managed the Predecessor Fund in this manner either directly or indirectly by investing all of the Predecessor Fund's assets in a master fund structure. However, the Predecessor Fund was not a registered mutual fund and thus was not subject to the same investment and tax restrictions as the Fund. If it had been, the Predecessor Fund's performance may have been lower.
An investment in the Fund is subject to risks, and you could lose money on your investment in the Fund. There can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Your investment in the Fund is not a deposit in a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency. The risks associated with an investment in the Fund can increase during times of significant market volatility. The Fund also has specific principal risks, which are described below. More detailed information regarding these risks can be found in the Fund's prospectus.
Alternative investments may not be suitable for all investors.
The principal risks of investing in the Calamos Phineus Long/Short Fund include: equity securities risk consisting of market prices declining in general, short sale risk consisting of potential for unlimited losses, foreign securities risk, currency risk, geographic concentration risk, other investment companies (including ETFs) risk, derivatives risk, options risk, and leverage risk.
Short Sale Risk The Fund may incur a loss (without limit) as a result of a short sale if the market value of the borrowed security (i.e., the Fund's short position) increases between the date of the short sale and the date the Fund replaces the security. The Fund may be unable to repurchase the borrowed security at a particular time or at an acceptable price.
Leveraging Risk Leverage is the potential for the Fund to participate in gains and losses on an amount that exceeds the Fund's investment. Leveraging risk is the risk that certain transactions of the Fund may give rise to leverage, causing the Fund to be more volatile and experience greater losses than if it had not been leveraged. The Fund's use of short sales and investments in derivatives subject the Fund to leveraging risk.
Derivatives Risk Derivatives are instruments, such as futures, options and forward foreign currency contracts, whose value is derived from that of other assets, rates or indices. The use of derivatives for non-hedging purposes may be considered more speculative than other types of investments. Derivatives can be used for hedging (attempting to reduce risk by offsetting one investment position with another) or non-hedging purposes. Hedging with derivatives may increase expenses, and there is no guarantee that a hedging strategy will work.
The principal risks of investing in the Calamos Growth Fund include: equity securities risk consisting of market prices declining in general, growth stock risk consisting of potential increased volatility due to securities trading at higher multiples, mid-sized company risk, foreign securities risk and portfolio selection risk.
As a result of political or economic instability in foreign countries, there can be special risks associated with investing in foreign securities, including fluctuations in currency exchange rates, increased price volatility and difficulty obtaining information. In addition, emerging markets may present additional risk due to potential for greater economic and political instability in less developed countries.
Assets are as of December 31, 2016 and include $409 million in assets under advisement.
Before investing, carefully consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Please see the prospectus and summary prospectus containing this and other information or call 1-800-582-6959. Read it carefully before investing.
Calamos Investments LLC, referred to herein as Calamos Investments, is a financial services company offering such services through its subsidiaries: Calamos Advisors LLC, Calamos Wealth Management LLC, Calamos Investments LLP and Calamos Financial Services LLC.
From time to time, information or statements provided by us, including those within this news release, may contain certain forward-looking statements relating to future events, future financial performance, strategies, expectations, the competitive environment and regulations. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time those statements are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. For a discussion concerning some of these and other risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could affect future results, see "Forward-Looking Information" in "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and, where applicable, "Risk Factors" in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
SOURCE Calamos Investments
Related Links
http://www.calamos.com
NATCHEZ, Miss., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Callon Petroleum Company (NYSE: CPE) ("Callon" or the "Company") today announced the closing of its previously announced acquisition of oil and natural gas assets in the southern Delaware Basin from American Resource Development LLC. On February 13, 2017, the Company completed the acquisition of approximately 16,700 net surface acres in Ward and Pecos Counties, Texas, comprised of an initially disclosed amount of 16,098 net acres and an incremental 590 net acres acquired between signing and closing of the transaction that are either within or contiguous to the Ward County footprint. Inclusive of the incremental acreage and the purchase of the midstream assets of Ameredev Midstream Development LLC, total cash consideration paid for the acquisition was $633 million, subject to customary purchase price adjustments.
The Corbets 34-149 2WA well, with a 10,000' drilled lateral targeting the Lower Wolfcamp A, is currently flowing back in Ward County. In addition, a second 10,000' drilled lateral targeting the Wolfcamp B is awaiting completion in an offsetting drilling unit. After closing of this transaction, Callon's position in the Permian Basin now totals over 56,000 net surface acres.
Fred Callon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commented, "Our initial entry into the Delaware Basin represents another important strategic step for Callon in the Permian Basin. The contiguous acreage position resides within a deep, over-pressured region and includes multiple, oil-weighted target intervals. We currently estimate over 480 gross horizontal locations on the acquired Ward County acreage in just the Wolfcamp A and B zones that have been well-delineated in the area, with potential upside locations in the Wolfcamp C and various Bone Spring intervals, in addition to emerging development opportunities in Pecos County. This new development unit, our fourth core operating area in the Permian which we have named Spur, will be an important component of our growing portfolio of investment opportunities that we believe will drive attractive returns on total capital employed as our Permian drilling activity increases. We are preparing to add a dedicated horizontal drilling rig to the Spur operating area by mid-year 2017, which will be our fourth operated rig in the Permian, with the potential for incremental drilling activity in the Delaware Basin in 2018."
About Callon Petroleum Company
Callon is an independent energy company focused on the acquisition, development, exploration, and operation of oil and gas properties in the Permian Basin in West Texas.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements include all statements regarding the implementation of the Company's business plans and strategy, including future drilling plans, as well as statements including the words "believe," "expect," "plans" and words of similar meaning. These statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events and performance. No assurances can be given, however, that these events will occur or that these projections will be achieved, and actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of certain factors. Some of the factors which could affect our future results and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include the Company's ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition, the volatility of oil and gas prices, ability to drill and complete wells, operational, regulatory and environment risks, our ability to finance our activities and other risks more fully discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, available on our website or the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.
This news release is posted on the Company's website at www.callon.com and will be archived there for subsequent review. It can be accessed from the "News" link on the top of the homepage.
For further information contact:
Eric Williams
Manager, Finance
1-800-451-1294
SOURCE Callon Petroleum Company
Related Links
http://www.callon.com
CHICAGO, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- CatholicVote.org, a national Catholic advocacy group is warning Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner that support for new legislation forcing taxpayers to directly fund abortion will effectively doom his re-election bid in 2018.
CatholicVote.org President Brian Burch issued the following statement:
"We have been following the developments surrounding H.B. 40, a new spending bill pending before the Illinois General Assembly that, if passed, would authorize the use of state dollars to fund abortion services for qualified Medicaid recipients. Should Governor Rauner sign the bill as it is currently written, pro-life voters will be left with no choice but to oppose his candidacy next year.
"We have been in conversation with pro-life groups around the state. The overwhelming consensus is that support for any legislation that would coerce Illinois taxpayers into directly funding abortion would disqualify him from receiving their support.
"We understand Governor Rauner has been unfairly blamed for the budget crisis and financial catastrophe created by Democrat political leaders in recent decades. The state owes $10 billion in unpaid bills, with tens of billions more in unfunded liabilities. Yet now politicians want to spend scarce state resources to pay for abortions. Rauner's support of this reckless bill would rip apart the Republican Party and destroy any chance of his re-election.
"Let me be clear. If Governor Rauner signs the bill as written, we will urge our members along with every pro-life voter in the state to support an alternative candidate -- or to abstain from voting for his re-election. And we won't be the only group doing so.
"Governor Rauner pledged to remain neutral on social issues. He repeatedly said he does not have a social agenda yet is already defending himself in a lawsuit for breaking this promise. If Bruce Rauner signs his name to this abortion spending bill, he cannot be trusted with another term as Governor."
CatholicVote.org, a national faith-based advocacy group with over 600,000 members and is based in Madison, WI.
SOURCE CatholicVote.org
Related Links
https://catholicvote.org/
BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The men and women of Lockheed Martin congratulate 35 of their colleagues who were recognized at the annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) STEM Conference, held in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 9-11.
The Lockheed Martin employees were honored for their career achievements in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and for their efforts to open up opportunity for all. Industry leaders and attendees at the conference also joined together to encourage more students to become STEM professionals, sharing their experiences and practical advice for life-long success.
Lockheed Martin has been a sponsor of BEYA since its inception 31 years ago. Today, BEYA is widely considered the premier event of its kind and is part of Lockheed Martin's ongoing commitment to promote diversity in STEM disciplines and greater inclusion in the workplace.
Lockheed Martin Chairman, President and CEO Marillyn Hewson spoke at the awards event on Saturday, Feb. 11, congratulating award recipients on their professional achievements in leadership and innovation and on their personal efforts to increase STEM outreach.
"The BEYA conference and awards gala is a celebration in which we honor scientists and engineers who are the best in their fields scientists and engineers who are building a brighter future for us all," said Hewson. "At BEYA, we advance important issues such as STEM education, diversity and inclusion, and economic opportunity. Because of our shared dedication to the next generation, we are making a difference."
Read Hewson's full remarks.
The BEYA STEM Conference provides a talent-rich atmosphere for networking, sharing best practices and recruitment. BEYA Awards recognize STEM professionals and leaders for their career accomplishments and personal dedication to helping build a more diverse and inclusive technology workforce.
Steven Hill, director of Communications and Security Technologies at Lockheed Martin's Rotary and Mission Systems division, received a Career Achievement Industry Award for his guidance of strategic, operational and program execution for the organization. His volunteer efforts with the University of Akron's Women in Engineering Career Day programs to encourage STEM learning for first through sixth graders were also honored.
Terrance Moore, advanced technical leadership program engineer at Lockheed Martin's Aeronautics division, received Most Promising Engineer Industry Award for his work with customers, leadership across the F-22 program, volunteerism in the community building homes with Habitat for Humanity and mentoring at alternative schools for juveniles.
Other employees were honored with a Science Spectrum Trailblazer Award or Modern Day Technology Leaders Award:
Science Spectrum Trailblazers : Doreen Foggy, Lynnette Drake
Modern Day Technology Leaders : Aaron Butler , Alan Conley , Claudie Busby , Claude Brown , Eric Broadhurst , Eric Dees , Ezra Ward , Geoffrey Vibert , Nigel Francois , Steven Walker , Travis Rose , Troy Lambert , Vatanna Gaines , Xavier Thomas , Zelda Gills , Angelo Guevara , Paulette Nassiff , King Dukes , LaCresha Martin , Melvin Redmond , Rena Hill , Adrian Knight , Alvarez Clay , Andrew Ambris , Brandon Montgomery , Chanel Johnson , Eric Tillman , Jamal Davis , Richard Thompson , Roland Brooks , Larry Ramie
As part of Lockheed Martin's commitment to diversity and inclusion, the company also recognizes its talent during other key events throughout the year, including the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference and the Asian American Engineer of the Year event.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 97,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
SOURCE Lockheed Martin
Related Links
http://www.lockheedmartin.com
NEW YORK, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
ChineseInvestors.com (OTCQB: CIIX) ("CIIX" or the "Company"), the premier financial information website for Chinese-speaking investors, today provides an update on the Company's financial and business achievements in January 2017, as well as offers insight into plans moving forward.
"January represents a significant milestone in CIIX's 18-year history, and we are pleased to update shareholders on key highlights of our progress. This includes sequential revenue growth and our entrance into the hemp-based CBD oil industry," says CIIX founder and CEO Warren Wang. "I am grateful for investors who support our ongoing development plans and look forward to a prosperous year ahead."
January Financial Highlights:
We filed form 10Q with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reflecting significantly higher revenues for the three- and six-month periods ended November 30, 2016 , as compared to the same periods of 2015. Operating revenues increased 133% and 121%, respectively.
With diversified revenue streams, CIIX successfully achieved revenue growth for three consecutive quarters.
January Business Highlights:
We completed a $5 million private placement for our Series C-2016 convertible preferred stock, the proceeds of which will be allocated to the development and branding of hemp-based cannabidiol (CBD) oil online and retail sales operations; to invest in growing hemp and producing hemp-based CBD oil products in China to yield greater production and sales margins; to invest in the pursuit of regulatory approval for use of hemp-based CBD oil products for specific health applications in Mainland China; and to invest in early-stage emerging public companies in the legal cannabis industry in Colorado , California and other states where legal.
Launched Chinese language site http://www.ChineseCBDoil.com to offer hemp-based CBD oil health products to the Chinese community in the United States and Mainland China.
Rolled-out a new Chinese language app, 'Da Ma Dian Ping', which provides crowd-sourced cannabis and CBD oil product reviews and location information for dispensaries and CBD retail stores in the United States .
Participated in various roadshows targeting mainstream American investors, including the Southern California Investment Forum, the South Florida Investment Forum, and NOBLE Capital Markets Institutional Investor Conference. Additionally, CIIX plans to attend the upcoming Disruptive Growth & Healthcare Conference in New York , the SeeThruEquity Microcap Investor Conference in Miami , and the National Investment Banking Association (NIBA) New York Conference.
Building on the traction of January's achievements, CIIX intends to focus on becoming a recognizable leader in the hemp-based CBD oil industry. The Company is hopeful that if the medicinal value of hemp-based CBD oil is accepted by Chinese regulatory authorities, the CBD oil that we help promote will find market acceptance among China's nearly 1.4 billion people. CIIX is reaching out to this market through http://www.ChineseCBDoil.com, and in upcoming months will open a retail store in the predominantly Chinese community of San Gabriel, California, also where the Company's headquarters are located.
"The hemp-based CBD oil market has great potential and our management team and employees are very excited to develop this new division of the company," says Wang. "Our longer term plans include opening additional brick-and-mortar retail locations in the U.S. and around the world."
In addition to continued growth of its online and retail distribution business, CIIX intends to invest in hemp-based CBD oil drug research and development enterprises in China.
"Our ultimate goal in this arena is to obtain regulatory approval for the use of hemp-based CBD drugs to combat Epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease. The application period for new drugs of this type in China is two to four years, much shorter than US Food and Drug Administration approval timelines. Our goal is to be the first company in China to use hemp-based CBD oil products to help mitigate the suffering of patients with Epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease," concludes Wang. As yet, neither the US Food and Drug Administration nor the Chinese drug regulatory authorities have accepted CBD oils to treat either disease.
About ChineseInvestors.com (OTCQB: CIIX)
Founded in 1999, ChineseInvestors.com endeavors to be an innovative company providing: (a) real-time market commentary, analysis, and educational related services in Chinese language character sets (traditional and simplified); (b) support services to our various partners; (c) consulting services to smaller private companies considering becoming a public company; and (d) advertising and public relation related support services.
Forward Looking Statement
Our discussion may include predictions, estimates or other information that might be considered forward-looking. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment on what the future holds, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation. Please keep in mind that we are not obligating ourselves to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. Throughout today's discussion, we will attempt to present some important factors relating to our business that may affect our predictions. You should also review our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for a more complete discussion of these factors and other risks, particularly under the heading 'Risk Factors'.
For more information visit http://www.ChineseInvestors.com
Subscribe and watch our video commentaries: https://www.youtube.com/user/Chinesefncom
Follow us on Twitter for real-time Company updates: https://twitter.com/ChineseFNEnglsh
Like us on Facebook to receive live feeds: https://www.facebook.com/Chinesefncom
Add us on WeChat at: Chinesefn or download iPhone iOS App: Chinesefn.
Contact:
Chineseinvestors.com Inc.
14 Wall Street, Suite 2038
New York, NY 10005
Investor Relations:
Alan Klitenic
+1-(214)-636-2548
Corporate Communications:
NetworkNewsWire (NNW)
New York, New York
http://www.NetworkNewsWire.com
212-418-1217 Office
SOURCE ChineseInvestors.com
DOVER, Del., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware (CPBD), the advocacy group supporting TransPerfect employees and Delaware's incorporation-driven economy, released the following statement after meeting with members of the Section 226 Committee of the Delaware Bar Association's Section of Corporate Law on February 9th, 2017.
"We are grateful to the members of the Section 226 Committee for taking nearly three hours to meet with our group and hear our concerns about Delaware law as it worked in the TransPerfect case and the ways it could be improved. It was productive conversation and it was clear they had done their research and their homework," said Chris Coffey, Campaign Manager for CPBD. "We outlined our position and answered many constructive and thoughtful questions. We're hopeful that the Committee will agree over the next few weeks with us on a positive solution."
In addition, Mr. Coffey and members of CPBD had a meeting with the newly elected Governor John Carney's office in Wilmington to discuss the TransPerfect case and the group's concerns. "We are looking forward to continuing an open dialogue with Governor Carney's office and working together to keep Delaware a safe place for business," Mr. Coffey noted. "Recently discovered comments by a shareholders' lawyer reinforce the necessity of our legislation, our meetings with officials and offices like Governor Carney's, and our unwavering resolve to let employee's voices be heard."
The comments Mr. Coffey is referring to include a statement made by shareholder Elizabeth Elting's lawyer on June 3, 2015 during a hearing in Delaware's Chancery Court of Delaware. The comments made by Mr. Gerard Harper and assert that Elting's lawyers are from a firm which "represents private equity companies that could staff this business in a week with people of, [Mr. Harper] would suggest, equal, if not superior, talents to those who currently occupy the positions."
CPBD was created to save the jobs of 4,000 employees at TransPerfect the group was formed after the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered an appointed custodian to sell TransPerfect amid an internal dispute among company owners. Over the past few months, CPBD has been involved with court proceedings, submitting an amicus brief and arguing that the Court of Chancery appoint a custodian to act as a provisional director until the dispute is resolved. The group intends to introduce legislation that would amend the law to require a three-year waiting period before forcing the break-up of a company.
CPBD is a group made up of more than 2,200 members including employees of the global translation services company TransPerfect, as well as concerned Delaware residents, business executives and others. The group has proposed legislation that would amend Delaware law to require a three-year waiting period before forcing the sale of a solvent company.
For more information on Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware visit DelawareForBusiness.org.
Contact: Mary Urban, [email protected]
Julijana Englander, [email protected]
SOURCE Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware
Related Links
http://www.delawareforbusiness.org
ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. dairy sector is urging President Donald Trump to discuss Canada's protectionist milk pricing policy during Monday's meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) are calling the issue "one of the most sensitive and urgent topics complicating the relationship between the two countries." The White House will host Trudeau in Washington today to discuss matters related to trade policy and the renegotiation of NAFTA, among other issues. According to the four groups, the two leaders need to devote time to addressing an imminent change in Canada's milk pricing policy that would further antagonize industry relations between the United States and Canada.
The pricing scheme, already implemented in Ontario last year and slated to be used by Canada's other provinces this year, is expressly intended to slash milk imports from the United States. The policy will also enable Canada to sell dairy ingredients below cost in international markets, in effect dumping the product at below cost in competition with U.S. dairy exports. The Ontario program has already cost U.S. companies $150 million in exports, thereby harming the American dairy farmers, dairy plant employees and rural communities that depend on the benefits of those foreign sales.
Implementation of this pricing measure "comes at a time when compliance with the letter and spirit of trade agreements is of paramount importance, both here in Washington and around the world," said NMPF President and CEO Jim Mulhern. "Despite this, Canada still wants to move ahead with a policy that clearly violates its trade agreements with our country. We hope President Trump will remind Prime Minister Trudeau how important it is that Canada honor its commitments."
The importance of U.S.-Canada trade issues was also raised last week in a meeting between House Speaker Paul Ryan and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. Ryan said after their meeting Tuesday that dairy market access is a key issue the two nations must improve upon.
Tom Vilsack, president and CEO of USDEC, said, "American dairy producers and processors want a fair and level trade relationship, and have deep concerns about proposed changes to the Canadian supply-side management system, which are designed, in part, to discourage U.S. exports."
Michael Dykes, D.V.M., president and CEO of IDFA, noted, "Canada's intentional and continued flouting of its trade obligations effectively blocks imports of U.S. ultra-filtered milk. What's more, existing Canadian tariffs that range from 200 percent to more than 300 percent on other U.S. dairy products are unacceptable. Exports are vitally important to the health of the U.S. economy, especially in the rural heartland of our country, and we urge President Trump to stress the importance of market access for U.S. dairy products during his meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau."
The organizations believe that this meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau offers an ideal opportunity for the dairy pricing policy to be on the table during their discussion.
"The states are deeply troubled by recent actions taken in Canada, at the provincial and national level, which raise serious concerns about Canada's compliance with international trade obligations," said NASDA CEO Dr. Barbara P. Glenn. "We encourage President Trump to make this a top priority for his administration and we urge Prime Minister Trudeau to ensure Canada meets its obligations."
Holding Canada to its dairy trade agreements has remained a strong focus for NMPF, USDEC and IDFA over the last year. Last week, a group of 17 dairy companies representing dairy farmers and processors from all over the United States asked governors in 25 states to urge Canadian policymakers to halt the national implementation of the milk pricing system. NMPF, USDEC, IDFA and NASDA also raised the matter with Trump last month before he assumed office.
About NMPF
The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the wellbeing of dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF's cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. Visit www.nmpf.org for more information.
About IDFA
The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), Washington, D.C., represents the nation's dairy manufacturing and marketing industries and their suppliers, with a membership of nearly 525 companies within a $125-billion a year industry. IDFA is composed of three constituent organizations: the Milk Industry Foundation (MIF), the National Cheese Institute (NCI) and the International Ice Cream Association (IICA). IDFA's nearly 200 dairy processing members run more than 600 plant operations, and range from large multi-national organizations to single-plant companies. Together they represent more than 85 percent of the milk, cultured products, cheese, ice cream and frozen desserts produced and marketed in the United States. IDFA can be found online at www.idfa.org.
About USDEC
The U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) is a non-profit, independent membership organization that represents the global trade interests of U.S. dairy producers, proprietary processors and cooperatives, ingredient suppliers and export traders. Its mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and assist the U.S. industry to increase its global dairy ingredient sales and exports of U.S. dairy products. USDEC accomplishes this through programs in market development that build global demand for U.S. dairy products, resolve market access barriers and advance industry trade policy goals. USDEC is supported by staff across the United States and overseas in Mexico, South America, Asia, Middle East and Europe.
About NASDA
The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) represents the elected and appointed commissioners, secretaries, and directors of the departments of agriculture in all fifty states and four U.S. territories. NASDA grows and enhances agriculture by forging partnerships and creating consensus to achieve sound policy outcomes between state departments of agriculture, the federal government, and stakeholders. To learn more about NASDA please visit www.nasda.org.
SOURCE International Dairy Foods Association
Related Links
http://www.idfa.org/
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Oprah Book Club-Selected Fiction Favorite Alyson Foster's GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT Is Now Prolific Music And Lifestyle Video Director's Current Feature THE BABYMOON Debuting 2/14.
Websites Depot Inc.
Double Entente Films and writer/director Bailey Kobe, creators of music and lifestyle videos for clients including Big Sean and Kanye West, Louis Vuitton, and Dior have been selected to adapt the top-selling Alyson Foster novel, GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT for the screen. An Oprah Book Club selection, the story is of a family in crisis set amidst the space race, told in the unique format of the protagonists' emails. The deal was made by Massie & McQuilkin Literary agent Rayhane Sanders. With the screenplay expected by summer 2017, the film will begin casting and is forecast to begin production in early 2018.
Kobe's recent feature, THE BABYMOON will debut in digital format on iTunes (currently a pre-order best-seller) and VOD, on February 14 and Blu-ray and DVD March 28. The comedy, adventure film is the story of a young couple who set off on a pre-baby vacation (a 'babymoon'), only to find out the tropical getaway is in a country quickly heading for revolution! The film's first screening at LA's Dances With Films Film Festival caused a minor bidding war among specialty distributors, before ultimately being sold to Gravitas Ventures. It features a fantastic ensemble cast including Julie McNiven (Mad Men, Supernatural) Shaun Sipos (Vampire Diaries, Melrose Place), Jessica Camacho (Dexter, DC Comics/CW's The Flash), Michael Steger (90210, True Blood), Phillip Garcia (Scandal/ Criminal Minds), Mark DeCarlo (Studs), Kelly Perine (Drew Carrey Show, The Parent'Hood), and Micheal DeLorenzo (Fame, New York Undercover).
Bailey Kobe began producing European luxury brand commercials after graduating from the Peter Stark Cinema Program at USC School of cinema. He has completed stewardships with industry leaders including director Anthony Russo (Captain America: Winter Soldier, and upcoming Avengers: Infinity War), and under industry greats including legendary executive Gareth Wigan (Star Wars, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and super-agent Robert Newman (WME).
Kobe's talents for adaptation are known in the industry where he has developed studio projects for a sweeping Madam Tussaud biopic, a Nobel Prize winning Muhammad Yunus biopic, a hit play from France, a handful of spec rewrites, and an F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation.
Praise for GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT
"A provocative debut [that speculates] on what the future may bring."
~O, The Oprah Magazine ("10 Books You Must Pick Up This August")
"Opens in a shocking manner and unfolds into a painful yet comic tale about the mysteries of the cosmosand our daily lives."
~Marie Claire UK ("A 'Must Read' Pick")
"An incredibly powerful modern love story."
~Cosmopolitan UK
SOCIAL MEDIA/PRESS PHOTOS:
Official Sites:
http://doubleententefilms.com
www.thebabymoon.org
Facebook: www.fb.com/thebabymoonadventure
#Babymoon
Instagram: The_Babymoon
Twitter: @TheBabymoonFilm
Digital Press Kit: See our press kit here.
CURRENT FEATURE FILM 'THE BABYMOON' AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW
CONTACT:
Rick Rhoades
[email protected]
Related Images
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Related Links
The Babymoon Website
Official Facebook Page
Related Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oAhrWiK-8k
This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com
SOURCE Double Entente Films
Related Links
http://doubleententefilms.com
NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Empire State Realty Trust (NYSE: ESRT) has signed a long-term lease with Sidney Frank Importing Company, Inc. for a full-floor of nearly 30,000 sq. ft. at 10 Bank Street.
Sidney Frank Importing Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mast-Jagermeister, the global manufacturer of its namesake spirits brand. The company is known for its innovative and internationally recognized products.
"This upper floor availability at 10 Bank Street provided Sidney Frank with a unique opportunity to house its operations on a single, efficient floor plate, with an abundance of natural light and expansive corner views, and easy access to mass transit," said Jeffrey H. Newman, Senior Vice President of ESRT. "We are thrilled to welcome Sidney Frank to our portfolio."
Jay Hruska and Skip Lane of Cushman & Wakefield represented Sidney Frank in the lease negotiations. Mr. Newman represented ESRT along with Senior Leasing Associate, Kimberly Zaccagnino, and Leasing Associate, Tara Long.
About Empire State Realty Trust
Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT), a leading real estate investment trust (REIT), owns, manages, operates, acquires and repositions office and retail properties in Manhattan and the greater New York metropolitan area, including the Empire State Building, the world's most famous building. Headquartered in New York, New York, the Company's office and retail portfolio covers 10.1 million rentable square feet, as of September 30, 2016, consisting of 9.4 million rentable square feet in 14 office properties, including nine in Manhattan, three in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and two in Westchester County, New York; and approximately 707,000 rentable square feet in the retail portfolio.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal securities laws. You can identify these statements by our use of the words "assumes," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects" and similar expressions that do not relate to historical matters. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements, because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond ESRT's control and could materially affect actual results, performance or achievements. Such factors and risks include, without limitation, a failure of conditions or performance regarding any event or transaction described above, regulatory changes, and other risks and uncertainties described from time to time in ESRT's filings with the SEC. Except as may be required by law, ESRT does not undertake a duty to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
SOURCE Empire State Realty Trust, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.esbnyc.com
SAN FRANCISCO and SACRAMENTO, Calif. and IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, a retail property & casualty brokerage and employee benefits consultant, announced today that Adam Frugoli has joined the firm as a vice president of EPIC's Health Care Strategy Group.
Frugoli will be responsible for new business development, program design and management, marketing and coverage placement, and will oversee EPIC's delivery of products, services and solutions to clients in the healthcare, consumer finance and banking industries. He will divide his time between EPIC's new presence in Idaho Falls, Idaho and EPIC's offices in Sacramento, Calif. Frugoli will report to Tom McCready, Managing Principal, Sacramento Property & Casualty Operations.
Frugoli brings over 16 years of experience serving health care and financial services clients to EPIC. He started his career in 2001 at US Bank N.A. where he was a Vice President of Branch Investment Advisory Services, providing investment counseling, business planning and advisory services to physicians and other medical industry professionals. Frugoli has received many business and community awards, including a "Distinguished Under 40 Award" from the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals Network and now serves on their Board of Directors.
Prior to joining EPIC, Frugoli spent 8 years as vice president and insurance broker with the Leavitt Group (aka Archibald Insurance Center, Rexburg, Idaho), where he focused on creating unique risk transfer strategies for accountable care organizations, hospitals, physician groups, individual doctors and long-term care centers. He has extensive experience working with complex health care clients and understands their unique needs and exposure to risk.
"EPIC has quickly earned a solid reputation nationally of being the brightest in the industry based on their people, client capabilities and their unique culture of innovation," said Frugoli. "I am excited for my clients to see what risk management and insurance the EPIC way can do for their business."
"We are excited to have a professional of Adam's caliber join our team," said EPIC's Tom McCready. "His background and experience, healthcare industry risk management expertise and strong consulting skills will materially contribute to our growth plans and the service excellence we deliver to EPIC clients, here in California, across the west and nationally."
Frugoli attended Idaho State University where he studied Business as well as The American College of Financial Services, where he focused on Personal Financial Services as well as certified HIPAA consultant.
Adam Frugoli can be reached at:
EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants
adam.frugoli [at] epicbrokers.com
208-604-2228.
About EPIC:
EPIC is a unique and innovative retail property and casualty and employee benefits insurance brokerage and consulting firm. EPIC has created a values-based, client-focused culture that attracts and retains top talent, fosters employee satisfaction and loyalty and sustains a high level of customer service excellence. EPIC team members have consistently recognized their company as a "Best Place to Work" in multiple regions and as a "Best Place to Work in the Insurance Industry" nationally.
EPIC now has more than 850 team members operating from offices across the U.S., providing Property Casualty, Employee Benefits, Specialty Programs and Private Client solutions to more than 13,000 clients.
With more than $250 million in revenues, EPIC ranks among the top 20 retail insurance brokers in the United States. Supported by the Carlyle Group, the company continues to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions across the country.
For additional information, please visit http://www.epicbrokers.com/.
*PHOTO for media: Send2Press.com/mediaboom/17-0213s2p-frugoli-300dpi.jpg
This release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com
SOURCE EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants
Related Links
http://www.epicbrokers.com
TEL AVIV, Israel, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Exceed.ai recently secured funding of $1.5M from Glilot Capital Partners, a venture capital fund specializing in Enterprise Software that was recently ranked as the 3rd best preforming fund in the world (according to Preqin).
Exceed.ai's chatbot solution helps brands increase revenue and customer loyalty by enabling personalized one-on-one conversations with their customers at scale, through any messaging application. Compared to other chatbot platforms, Exceed.ai gives each chatbot a personality that encapsulates the brand's tone, bringing it to life and thereby creating a real experience between the brand and consumer. Global companies are already usingExceed.ai to easily create conversational chatbots for sales, marketing and user engagement. Using natural language understanding and artificial intelligence, the platform connects to the enterprise product catalog, knowledge base, CRM, as well as other back-end systems and automatically creates a first-in-class conversational user experience.
Exceed.ai was founded by Ilan Kasan and Yaron Ismah-Moshe early in 2016. Prior to founding Exceed.ai, Mr. Kasan managed the WebEx product portfolio for Cisco Systems and held various leadership roles in startups. Mr. Ismah-Moshe graduated from an elite military tech unit and has held several leadership positions in both startups and large companies.
Exceed.ai is part of a 3rd wave of alumni from SigmaLabs accelerator - a nonprofit program for early-stage ventures located in Tel Aviv.
"Messaging applications are becoming a new medium for user engagement. The future of marketing and sales will include channels that speak to the customer where they are and where it is most convenient for them. That is why in the next few years, chatbots will be part of the marketing mix of big brands - just like websites, mobile applications and email are today. Exceed.ai has developed an AI-based conversational engine designed specifically for brands to market and sell to their consumers. We want to be the go-to chatbot company for these brands," explained Ilan Kasan, Exceed.ai CEO.
According to the 2016 Internet Trends by Mary Meeker (Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers), messaging is evolving from simple social conversations to business related. 24% of the younger generation commented that they prefer to communicate with businesses and brands through chat applications.
"I believe that chatbots will have a leading role in the future of commerce and marketing," said Kobi Samboursky, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Glilot Capital. "Exceed.ai is perfectly positioned to take a leading position in this exciting market."
With a headquarters in Tel Aviv, Exceed.ai currently employs a team of 8 and is looking to expand its engineering team.
For further information please contact:
+972-58-4291270 | [email protected]
+972-54-6833983 | [email protected]
SOURCE Exceed.ai
NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Fast Company today announced its annual ranking of the world's 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2017, honoring leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in nimble business and impactful innovation. Earning the No. 1 spot on the list this year is Amazon "for offering even more, even faster and smarter." The company's founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is the subject of the cover story, which delves into Bezos's strategy for meshing size and agility through several key driving factors: Amazon Prime, the company's rapidly growing membership program; the launch of brick and mortar stores; and a factory of the future that features high-tech robots working alongside human workers.
Most Innovative Companies is one of Fast Company's most significant and highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. To produce the 2017 list, Fast Company reporters surveyed thousands of enterprises across the globe to identify the most notable innovations of the year and trace the impact of those initiatives on business, industry, and the larger culture.
The coverage also highlights Top 10 lists in 36 sectors and geographies, from artificial intelligence to health to travel.
Among the first-time honorees on this year's list: Headspace, Open Whisper Systems, GoFundMe, Vivint Smart Home, Glossier, Clique Media Group, RewardStyle, Hypebeast, Related Companies, Nvidia, Home Depot, Pledge 1%, TaskRabbit, Medtronic, Thinx, MailChimp, BeyondMeat, Orbital Insight, Resy, Celmatix, Drone Racing League, One Medical, Farmers Business Network, and Simplify.
The Top 50 list features only 12 companies that made the 2016 listAmazon, Airbnb, Apple, BuzzFeed, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Netflix, Snap (Snapchat), Slack, Spotify, and Uber. "These enterprises continue to set the pace for their industries, showing agility and aggressiveness that makes them undeniable," says Fast Company editor and managing director Robert Safian. Additionally, six of the companies making the list are ChineseAlibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, BBK Electronics, Huawei, and Dalian Wandamore than ever before. "This was not a strategic objective of ours, but a natural result of our bottom-up reporting. The days of dismissing Chinese businesses as mere copycats are long gone," continued Safian.
Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies issue (March 2017) is now available online at www.fastcompany.com/MIC as well as in app form via iTunes, and on newsstands beginning February 21.
ABOUT FAST COMPANY
Fast Company is the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethical economics, leadership, and design. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, one of the U.S.'s leading media companies.
SOURCE Fast Company
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- sonnen today announced that Fast Company recognized the global leader in intelligent energy storage in its annual ranking of the world's 10 Most Innovative Companies in Energy for 2017. The ranking honors leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in nimble business and impactful innovation.
Most Innovative Companies is one of Fast Company's most significant and highly anticipated rankings of the year. To produce the 2017 list, Fast Company reporters surveyed thousands of enterprises across the globe to identify the most notable innovations of the year and trace the impact of those initiatives on business, industry, and the larger culture.
"We are extremely proud to receive this honor, one that is only possible as a result of the efforts of our colleagues, partners, and customers," said Christoph Ostermann, CEO of sonnen Group. "It is also a strong representation of our corporate vision of energy independence and a reduced carbon footprint, as well as our strength in innovation. We are appreciative of this global recognition, and hope it continues to drive awareness to the advances of the energy storage industry."
This marks yet another industry award sonnen has received since the beginning of 2017. Recently, sonnen also received the $1.5M Zayed Future Energy Prize, was ranked among The Global Cleantech 100 , and earned the Continued Excellence Award, further distinguishing the company with notable honors for special innovations in the global energy sector.
"These enterprises continue to set the pace for their industries, showing agility and aggressiveness that makes them undeniable," says Fast Company editor and managing director Robert Safian. "Over the past year, the nation's political dialogue offered many reasons for uncertainty and pause. Culture will keep moving, and enterprises that move with itthat attack their missions with fearlessnesswill find themselves in the strongest position to weather whatever political or economic disruption comes our way."
The publication's ranking of the 50 Most Innovative Companies and 36 sector-specific lists can be found in Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies March 2017 issue, which is available online at www.fastcompany.com/MIC, and on newsstands beginning February 21.
About sonnen
At sonnen, we believe clean, affordable, and reliable energy for all is one of the greatest challenges of our time. With 16,000 sonnenBatterie systems installed worldwide, sonnen is a proven global leader in intelligent energy management solutions that provide greater energy control for residential and commercial customers through increased solar self-consumption, reduced peak energy usage and reliable backup power during outages contributing to a cleaner and more reliable energy future. sonnen has won several awards for its energy innovations and sonnenBatterie products, including Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Energy, the 2017 Zayed Energy Innovation Award, MIT's Technology Review's 50 Smartest Companies in 2016, Cleantech Global 100 for 2015-2017, Greentech Media's 2016 Grid Edge Award for innovation, and Cleantech's 2015 Company of the Year Award in both Israel and Europe.
About Fast Company
Fast Company is the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethical economics, leadership, and design. Headquartered in New York City, Fast Company is published by Mansueto Ventures LLC, one of the U.S.'s leading media companies.
SOURCE sonnen
CARROLLTON, Texas, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- FASTSIGNS International, Inc., franchisor of FASTSIGNS, the leading sign, graphics and visual communications franchise, announced today that it is attending and sponsoring at the National Business Media Show from Feb. 16 to 18, 2017 at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. The company is recruiting franchisees, promoting expansion throughout the state of Florida and across the Caribbean, with a focus on targeting conversion and co-branded locations.
"With the increasingly high demand for visual communication needs worldwide, FASTSIGNS is looking to expand our presence throughout Florida and across the Caribbean," said Mark Jameson, EVP of Franchise Support and Development, FASTSIGNS International, Inc. "We look forward to utilizing our presence at the National Business Media Show in Fort Lauderdale to network with potential franchisees and discuss the impact that our brand has to offer business owners within the print and signage industry."
Local entrepreneurs are invited to meet with the brand's franchise development team at booth #2425 to learn more about conversion and co-branded location opportunities throughout the state of Florida and across the Caribbean. The fast-growing brand currently has 49 locations in Florida plus 7 in Development, three in Puerto Rico and one in Grand Cayman and recently signed a Master Agreement for expansion into the USVI and the Dominican Republic but is looking to expand with additional centers throughout Florida, with an emphasis on the Treasure Coast up to Jacksonville, as well as throughout the Caribbean Islands, including Barbados, Bermuda, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Due to the ongoing worldwide need for visual communications and digital signage technology, the company expects to open a projected 45 locations in 2017.
For information about the FASTSIGNS franchise opportunity, contact Mark Jameson ([email protected] or 214-346-5679) or download an eBook that explores the FASTSIGNS franchise opportunity at http://amzn.to/1FrnDJu.
About FASTSIGNS
FASTSIGNS International, Inc. is the largest sign and visual communications franchisor in North America, and is the worldwide franchisor of more than 650 independently owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers in nine countries including the US, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Grand Cayman, Mexico and Australia (where centers operate as SIGNWAVE).
FASTSIGNS locations provide comprehensive sign and visual graphic solutions to help companies of all sizes and across all industries attract more attention, communicate their message, sell more products, help visitors find their way and extend their branding across all of their customer touch points including decor, events, wearables and marketing materials. Learn more about sign and visual graphic solutions or find a location at fastsigns.com. Follow the brand on Twitter @FASTSIGNS, Facebook at facebook.com/FASTSIGNS or LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fastsigns.
CONTACT: Chelsea Bear
Fish Consulting
954-893-9150
[email protected]
SOURCE FASTSIGNS
Related Links
http://www.fastsigns.com
FirstLight Home Care was among 300 franchise brands and more than 6,400 female franchise owners that participated in Franchise Business Review's research. FirstLight Home Care's franchisees were surveyed on 33 benchmark questions about their experience and satisfaction regarding critical areas of their franchise systems, including leadership, training and support, financial opportunity, and work/life balance.
"We pride ourselves on maintaining gender equality and diversity throughout our franchise community, and this valued reward is just another sign that we are building our company in the best possible ways," said Jeff Bevis, FirstLight Home Care CEO. "Our female franchisees exhibit the passion and discipline that make them excellent leaders and owners."
FirstLight Home Care distinguishes itself from other industry brands by offering assistance to a wide demographic of adults in need. The company assists seniors, new mothers, veterans, adults with disabilities, and those recovering from illness, injury or surgery, who need help on short term or long term basis.
"The franchise industry provides many options to women seeking business ownership on a full- or part-time basis in multiple sectors," says Michelle Rowan, president of Franchise Business Review. "The number of franchise opportunities can be overwhelming, so it's critical to examine feedback from other female franchise owners on how well the franchise meets their expectations regarding support, work/life balance, financial opportunity, and other key areas of business ownership."
FirstLight Home Care survey data showed the following of FirstLight female franchisees:
86 percent enjoy operating their business
88 percent enjoy being part of their franchise
92 percent respect their franchisor
94 percent believe their franchisor acts with a high level of integrity
78 percent would "do it again" knowing what they know today
86 percent would recommend their franchise brand to others
This year, FirstLight Home Care was named to Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 list and Top Franchise for Veterans by Franchise Business Review. The company also made the Franchise Times Top 200+ list, 2016 Inc. 5000 ranking and was honored at number 21 for all private businesses based in the Cincinnati metro area.
For more information on Franchise Business Review Top Franchise for Women, visit www.FranchiseBusinessReview.com.
For more information on FirstLight Home Care and franchise ownership opportunities, visit www.firstlightfranchise.com.
About Franchise Business Review
Franchise Business Review (FBR) is the only independent market research firm that specializes in benchmarking franchisee satisfaction based exclusively on ratings and reviews from franchise owners. FBR publishes free and unbiased franchisee satisfaction research reports throughout the year online at http://www.FranchiseBusinessReview.com .
About FirstLight Home Care
FirstLight Home Care is a top rated non-medical home care provider with a network of offices that provides care for more than 2,500 clients in over 32 states. The company has created a new standard in home care by combining best practices with innovative approaches to make them an emerging market leader in a rapidly-growing industry. Companion and personal care services can be provided at private residences, assisted living and retirement communities, nursing homes, adult-family homes or group homes. Clients include seniors, new mothers, individuals recovering from surgery, adults with disabilities and anyone who might just need a little extra care or assistance. Visit www.firstlighthomecare.com to learn more.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Heather Ripley
Ripley PR
865-977-1973
[email protected]
SOURCE FirstLight Home Care
Related Links
http://www.firstlighthomecare.com
BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tamir Pardo will join Sepio Systems to serve as chairman of the board as part of the company's expansion. "Cyber attacks on critical infrastructure and financial institutions are a major threat to the global economy," notes Mr. Pardo. "Most cyber security products protect the internet, applications, and dataSepio's security suite addresses an attack vector underserved by current market solutions. I look forward to addressing these challenges as Sepio's leader."
Mr. Pardo began his military service at age 18 with the Israeli Special Forces where he served as an officer. He joined the Mossad in 1980, and served in field and technical positions until he rose to become Director of Operations and Technology. In January 2011, Mr. Pardo was appointed by the Israeli Prime Minister to lead the Mossad, serving as Director. He proudly served in this role until January 2016. Under Mr. Pardo's command, the Mossad received numerous prestigious decorations for operations and technological innovations.
"We are proud to have Mr. Pardo on our team and confident that his experience, vision and leadership will impact results," notes Yossi Appleboum, Co-CEO of Sepio Systems.
Sepio Systems, a cyber security company protecting organizations against device supply chain attacks, will introduce its Supply Chain Security Suite at San Francisco's RSA Conference on February 13. The platform combines hardware and software to stop rogue hardware before it damages normal operations of an organization. It isolates and contains potential attacks without degrading system performance.
"Penetrating supply chainsonce done only by governmentshas become a common attack vector of criminal organizations," notes Mr. Appleboum. "Sepio's suite secures organizations against supply chain attacks. Our product closes the supply chain's 'open door'; voiding supply chain attacks."
Several financial institutions and corporations are evaluating the suite. The company expects to begin fulfilling orders during the second quarter of 2017.
About Sepio Systems
Sepio Systems was founded by cyber security experts from private industry and government agencies, with global recognition and decoration in combating supply chain threats. Sepio Systems is headquartered in Maryland with offices in New York, South Carolina and the Research and Development Center in Tel-Aviv. The mission of Sepio Systems is to protect organizations from the existing threat of supply chain attacks.
For more information about Sepio Systems solutions and supply chain attack risks, visit www.sepio.systems, call +1 (240) 660-8690 and follow us on LinkedIn.
Media Contact:
Blue Studios, LLC
Allyson Ruscitella
571.230.0157
This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com
SOURCE Sepio Systems
Thorpe joined Boostability as an Infrastructure Architect in January 2013 and helped migrate the company's systems into the cloud. He was promoted to COO in 2014 and was given the title of President in mid-2015. Prior to joining Boostability, Thorpe served in an executive position at OrangeSoda and technical positions at Ancestry and Ah-ha.com.
Thorpe is optimistic about Boostability's present and future, and he expressed an appreciation for all the employees that have made the company a success.
"The company is in a great spot," Thorpe said. "We're well positioned for growth in 2017. We have fantastic partners and team members. I expect big things this year in terms of customer growth and additional partners. I foresee a continued expansion into Europe and customer growth on the social media and website front. We're also making a major push to really define ourselves by provide outstanding customer service for all 26,000 of our clients."
"I appreciate each member of the Boostability team," he continued. "Boostability wouldn't be the company it is without the culture that's been established by the outstanding team members that make this a fantastic place to work."
For more information on Boostability, please visit www.boostability.com.
About Boostability
Established in 2009, Boostability was founded on a simple business model: to create affordable and effective SEO for the small business marketplace. And it's worked. Today, Boostability serves over 26,000 small businesses, helping them elevate their digital presence and succeed online. Boostability primarily works with partners that offer their white-labeled SEO, social media, and website building services to their SMB clients. The company has over 400 employees based in three offices across the Silicon Slopes of Utah and satellite locations in Amsterdam and Berlin. It has been ranked in the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America for three straight years.
Contact:
Kelly Shelton
Vice President of Marketing
800.261.1537 ext. 7254
[email protected]
SOURCE Boostability
Related Links
https://www.boostability.com
SAN FRANCISCO and TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GuardiCore, a leader in data center and cloud security, today announced it has expanded the breach detection capabilities of its Centra Security Platform to now include reputation analysis and ransomware mitigation, enabling its customers to more quickly detect active breaches, including ransomware attacks and dormant or hidden threats lurking in modern data centers and clouds. GuardiCore has also enhanced its flow visualization and segmentation policy management, allowing security teams to quickly and easily define application-centric segmentation policies to secure east-west traffic.
These new features will be demonstrated on the floor of this week's RSA conference in San Francisco, CA in GuardiCore booth #N4321.
The GuardiCore Centra Security Platform empowers organizations charged with securing the modern data center to quickly detect and respond to even the most sophisticated attacks while they are in process, and do so without impacting performance or overburdening security teams.
"The traditional security stack is inadequate in defending always on, always connected modern data centers and clouds against emerging threats," said Pavel Gurvich, CEO and co-founder of GuardiCore. "Our customers require more specific and more novel protection from threats traditional perimeter solutions miss. With these security enhancements, GuardiCore continues to bolster the breach detection and response capabilities of the Centra Security Platform to address more attack vectors, giving our customers increased data center and cloud protection at a time when they need it mostnow."
GuardiCore Centra Security Platform New Features
GuardiCore Centra is the only single platform to address the five key areas of data center securityflow visualization, micro-segmentation, breach detection, automatic analysis and response.
GuardiCore Centra's new threat reputation analysis and ransomware detection and mitigation adds to its multi-method detection capabilities featuring patented dynamic deception and segmentation policy-based detection methods, further reducing the attack surface and providing even broader coverage for today's most advanced and prevalent attacks. These features benefit data center customers with:
Enhanced breach detection through reputation analysis GuardiCore's patented dynamic deception quickly flushes out active breaches by detecting their lateral movements. But sometimes threats lay dormant and do not move laterally, making them more difficult to spot. GuardiCore's new Reputation Services allows customers to detect an attacker even if lateral movement was not performed, surfacing dormant and hidden threats lurking in the data center and eliminating them before they can be activated. It identifies indicators of compromise based on suspicious domain names, IP addresses and file hashes associated with known malicious activity. GuardiCore Reputation Services leverages GuardiCore's network of attack sensors and deception engines, threat intelligence feeds and the insights of our security research team. It also distinguishes "negative processes" indicating the presence of an untrusted asset that warrants investigation.
GuardiCore's patented dynamic deception quickly flushes out active breaches by detecting their lateral movements. But sometimes threats lay dormant and do not move laterally, making them more difficult to spot. GuardiCore's new Reputation Services allows customers to detect an attacker even if lateral movement was not performed, surfacing dormant and hidden threats lurking in the data center and eliminating them before they can be activated. It identifies indicators of compromise based on suspicious domain names, IP addresses and file hashes associated with known malicious activity. GuardiCore Reputation Services leverages GuardiCore's network of attack sensors and deception engines, threat intelligence feeds and the insights of our security research team. It also distinguishes "negative processes" indicating the presence of an untrusted asset that warrants investigation. Ransomware detection and mitigation Leveraging GuardiCore's patented redirection and deception capabilities, the Centra platform extends the scope of data center protection to endpoints that are increasingly targeted for ransomware attacks. By placing lures on physical and virtual endpoints and redirecting attackers to its dynamic deception environment, GuardiCore detects ransomware threats in real-time and isolates the threat preventing it from spreading further. New mitigation options allow IT security teams to mitigate ransomware in multiple ways including pausing the infected machine, creating a VM snapshot and disconnecting network cards.
Leveraging GuardiCore's patented redirection and deception capabilities, the Centra platform extends the scope of data center protection to endpoints that are increasingly targeted for ransomware attacks. By placing lures on physical and virtual endpoints and redirecting attackers to its dynamic deception environment, GuardiCore detects ransomware threats in real-time and isolates the threat preventing it from spreading further. New mitigation options allow IT security teams to mitigate ransomware in multiple ways including pausing the infected machine, creating a VM snapshot and disconnecting network cards. Quick and easy segmentation policy creation Micro-segmentation policy creation and management is one of the most difficult tasks for IT security teams trying to secure workloads and business applications in dynamic cloud environments. Building on the flow visualization, policy definition and monitoring capabilities in Centra, GuardiCore has added key new features that make defining applications and segmentation policies easier and more intuitive. New capabilities include asset, application and flow discovery wrapped with automated policy recommendations - including policy creation wizards - that simplify and accelerate micro-segmentation rollouts.
GuardiCore Centra Security Platform
GuardiCore Reputation Analysis, ransomware detection and mitigation, and intuitive segmentation policy creation features are part of the latest release of the GuardiCore Centra Security Platform, and are available now. The GuardiCore Centra Security Platform is the only security product on the market that provides a single, scalable platform that covers five critical capabilities for effective modern data center security: flow visualization, micro-segmentation, breach detection, automated analysis and response. Distributed per hypervisor or server, GuardiCore Centra secures internal data center traffic and scales to very large network sizes and traffic rates, with low impact on hypervisor/server performance.
About GuardiCore
GuardiCore is an innovator in data center security focused on delivering more accurate and effective ways to stop advanced threats through real-time breach detection and response. Developed by the top cyber security experts in their field, GuardiCore is changing the way organizations are fighting cyber attacks in their data centers. For more information, visit www.guardicore.com.
CONTACT:
Cinthia Portugal
Guyer Group
[email protected]
206.619.8183
SOURCE GuardiCore
Related Links
http://www.guardicore.com
RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A review of Americans' Valentine's Day travel plans by customers of leading travel insurance provider Allianz Global Assistance found that Havana, Cuba has made the list of the top 10 international destinations for the first time since American travel restrictions to the Caribbean country were eased.
Allianz Global Assistance reviewed more than 18,000 trips planned by its customers for travel for two people from U.S. airports departing between February 10, 2017 and February 12, 2017, returning between February 12, 2017 and February 13, 2017 and staying at least one night.
New York and Cancun top the list as this year's most popular domestic and international destinations for the romantic weekend.
Domestically, the results showed that couples are heading to New York followed in popularity by Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Dallas and Miami.
Internationally, Americans are traveling to Cancun, Mexico for a getaway followed in popularity by San Juan, Puerto Rico; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Montreal, Canada; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; Havana, Cuba; Nassau, Bahamas; Oranjestad, Aruba; Toronto, Canada and Montego Bay, Jamaica.
"It's exciting to see that this Valentine's Day, Americans are taking advantage of the opportunity to travel to Cuba for an approved activity such as an educational or humanitarian visit," said Daniel Durazo, director of communications for Allianz Global Assistance USA. "Whether couples are headed to Cuba or just getting away to a bustling city or relaxing beach, they should protect their investment with travel insurance. The right policy** can provide peace of mind with coverage and assistance for many unforeseen or unexpected events like covered trip cancelations and delays, lost, stolen or delayed luggage, medical emergencies and more."
Allianz Global Assistance offers travel insurance through most major U.S. airlines, leading travel agents, online travel agencies, other travel suppliers and directly to consumers. For more information on Allianz Global Assistance and the policies offered for travelers, please visit: http://www.allianztravelinsurance.com.
*Methodology: The data of U.S. travelers' Valentine's Day plans was gathered by analyzing the number of travelers that went through the online booking process of airfare and package paths for partners offering Allianz Global Assistance travel to purchase roundtrip flights for two passengers departing from U.S. airports 2/10/2017 2/12/2017 and returning 2/12/2017 2/13/2017 and staying at least one night. The findings are listed below:
Top Valentine's Day Destinations 2017 Rank Domestic City # of Tickets International City # of Tickets 1 New York, NY 2,350 Cancun, Mexico 408 2 Las Vegas, NV 2,164 San Juan, Puerto Rico 284 3 Chicago, IL 2,102 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico 144 4 Los Angeles, CA 2,000 Montreal, Canada 128 5 Atlanta, GA 1,648 Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 112 6 Boston, MA 1,462 Havana, Cuba 108 7 Phoenix, AZ 1,446 Nassau, Bahamas 106 8 San Francisco, CA 1,426 Oranjestad, Aruba 98 9 Dallas, TX 1,392 Toronto, Canada 98 10 Miami, FL 1,250 Montego Bay, Jamaica 88
Allianz Global Assistance USA
Allianz Global Assistance USA (AGA Service Company) is a leading consumer specialty insurance and assistance company. We provide insurance to 21 million customers annually and are best known for our Allianz Travel Insurance plans. In addition to travel insurance, Allianz Global Assistance USA offers tuition insurance, event ticket protection, registration protection for endurance events and unique travel assistance services such as international medical assistance and concierge services. The company also serves as an outsource provider for in-bound call center services and claims administration for property and casualty insurers and credit card companies.
To learn more about Allianz Travel Insurance, please visit allianztravelinsurance.com or Like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/AllianzTravelInsuranceUS.
** - Terms, conditions, and exclusions apply to all plans. Plans are available only to U.S. residents. Not all plans are available in all jurisdictions. For a complete description of the coverage and benefit limits offered under your plan, carefully review your plan's Letter of Confirmation/Declarations and Certificate of Insurance/Policy. Insurance coverage is underwritten by BCS Insurance Company (OH, Administrative Office: Oakbrook Terrace, IL), rated "A-" (Excellent) by A.M. Best Co., under BCS Form No. 52.201 series or 52.401 series, or Jefferson Insurance Company (NY, Administrative Office: Richmond, VA), rated "A+" (Superior) by A.M. Best Co., under Jefferson Form No. 101-C series or 101-P series, depending on state of residence. Allianz Global Assistance and Allianz Travel Insurance are brands of AGA Service Company. AGA Service Company is the licensed producer and administrator of these plans and an affiliate of Jefferson Insurance Company. The insured shall not receive any special benefit or advantage due to the affiliation between AGA Service Company and Jefferson Insurance Company. Non-insurance benefits/products are provided and serviced by AGA Service Company.
SOURCE Allianz Global Assistance USA
Related Links
http://www.allianztravelinsurance.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. and BLUFFTON, S.C., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HealthSouth Corporation (NYSE: HLS) announced today that it plans to build a freestanding 38-bed comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Bluffton, South Carolina. The project was granted a certificate of need from the South Carolina Board of Health and Environmental Control.
Located at 107 Seagrass Station Rd. in Bluffton, the future inpatient rehabilitation hospital will serve patients in Hilton Head and surrounding counties and provide access to specialized rehabilitation programs and innovative equipment and technology for patients recovering from conditions such as stroke and other neurological disorders, cardiac and pulmonary conditions, brain and spinal cord injuries, complex orthopedic conditions and amputations. The hospital will operate as HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of the Lowcountry.
Construction on the hospital will begin in the second quarter of 2017 with an anticipated completion in the second quarter of 2018. This development represents a $22 million investment in the community and, once fully operational, is expected to generate more than 89 new, full-time jobs.
"We are excited to be expanding in South Carolina and providing rehabilitation services to Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties," said Ed Mowen, president of the MidAtlantic region for HealthSouth. "This hospital coupled with our specialized teams of rehabilitation healthcare experts and state-of-the-art technologies will be a strong addition to the highly reputable care already provided in these communities."
This will be HealthSouth's sixth hospital in South Carolina joining HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Florence, HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Columbia, HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Charleston, HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Rock Hill, and AnMed Health Rehabilitation Hospital, an affiliate entity of AnMed Health and HealthSouth Corporation. In addition, HealthSouth and Tidelands Health announced last August they have formed a joint venture to own and operate Tidelands' existing inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Murrells Inlet and plan to build a second inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Little River, South Carolina.
About HealthSouth
HealthSouth is one of the nation's largest providers of post-acute healthcare services, offering both facility-based and home-based post-acute services in 35 states and Puerto Rico through its network of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, home health agencies, and hospice agencies. HealthSouth can be found on the web at www.healthsouth.com .
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements contained in this press release which are not historical facts, such as those relating to the likelihood, timing and effects of the finalization of this project, are forward-looking statements. In addition, HealthSouth may from time to time make forward-looking public statements concerning the matters described herein. All such estimates, projections, and forward-looking information speak only as of the date hereof, and HealthSouth undertakes no duty to publicly update or revise such forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily estimates based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. HealthSouth's actual results or events may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors. While it is impossible to identify all such factors, factors which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated include, but are not limited to, the regulatory review and approval process; any adverse outcome of various lawsuits, claims, and legal or regulatory proceedings that may be brought by or against HealthSouth; the possibility this project will experience unexpected delays; the ability to successfully complete and integrate this project consistent with HealthSouth's growth strategy, including realization of anticipated revenues, cost savings, and productivity improvements arising from the related operations and avoidance of unforeseen exposure to liabilities; changes in the regulation of the healthcare industry at either or both of the federal and state levels; competitive pressures in the healthcare industry and HealthSouth's response thereto; this hospital's ability to maintain proper local, state and federal licensing; potential disruptions, breaches, or other incidents affecting the proper operation, availability, or security of the hospitals' information systems; the ability to attract and retain nurses, therapists, and other healthcare professionals in a highly competitive environment with often severe staffing shortages and the impact on labor expenses from potential union activity and staffing shortages; changes, delays in (including in connection with resolution of Medicare payment reviews or appeals), or suspension of reimbursement for services by governmental or private payors; general conditions in the economy and capital markets; and other factors which may be identified from time to time in HealthSouth's SEC filings and other public announcements, including HealthSouth's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2016, June 30, 2016 and September 30, 2016.
HEALTHSOUTH CONTACTS:
Media: Casey Lassiter, 205 447-6410
[email protected]
Investor Relations: Crissy Carlisle, 205 970-5860
[email protected]
SOURCE HealthSouth Corporation
Related Links
http://www.healthsouth.com
COLOGNE, Germany, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
60 years after the market launch of Contergan (active ingredient: thalidomide), the greatest pharmaceutical scandal in the Federal Republic of Germany continues to boil. A lawsuit will be heard in the Bonn Regional Court at 12:00 hrs on 15.2.2017 that is more explosive than appears at first sight.
The Contergan victim Andreas Meyer, who was born without arms or legs and is confined to a wheelchair, is suing the former member of the Management Board of the Contergan Foundation, Attorney Karl Schucht, for injunction and rectification.
In a letter to the members of the Family Affairs Committee of the German Federal Parliament, Schucht had asserted that Meyer, as an expert witness at a public hearing of the Committee, had publicly stated various untruths about events connected with the Contergan Foundation.
Meyer had said among other things that for 30 years the Contergan (thalidomide) manufacturer Grunenthal GmbH had had access to the medical files of the Contergan victims in the Contergan Foundation. In addition, Grunenthal had also paid the Foundation's medical experts.
In his letter, Schucht asserted to the contrary that Grunenthal had at no time had access to the medical files of the Contergan victims, but that the files were always kept by the Contergan Foundation. Further, he asserted that the experts of the Medical Commission were always paid from the funds of the Contergan Foundation.
Why so explosive? Because if Meyer wins the lawsuit it will mean that not only Schucht had told untruths to the members of Parliament. No, the Federal Government had also told untruths to Parliament.
Because the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, which has been responsible for supervision of the Contergan Foundation since 1972, stated in a reply to a Minor Interpellation by the Parliamentary Group Die Linke that Schucht's letter also expressed the opinion of the Federal Government.
A pivotal question, according to Meyer, is the double role of Attorney Herbert Wartensleben who has also been invited as a witness by the Bonn Regional Court. From 1972 until the end of 2003, Wartensleben was not only Chairman of the Medical Commission of the Contergan Foundation, which judges whether a victim is or is not damaged by Contergan and also evaluates the degree of damage - on the basis of which the amount of the Contergan pension is assessed, for example. Since the Contergan trial, Wartensleben acted again and again as the legal representative of Grunenthal in cases relating to Contergan; most recently in 2007 in the lawsuits concerning the two-part ARD feature film "Eine einzige Tablette" (One single tablet).
"The case deals with the question of whether the Contergan Foundation was, or perhaps still is, an undercover subsidiary of Grunenthal under the eyes of the Federal Government," said Meyer.
Meyer will be represented by Prof. Dr. Jan Hegemann from the law firm Raue Rechtsanwalte LLP in Berlin. Attorney Prof. Dr. Jan Hegemann already successfully represented Meyer in 2009 in the case of Meyer's call to boycott the products of Dalli-Werke, Maurer & Wirtz and 4711 - companies belonging to Grunenthal's owner. Attorney Karl Schucht will be represented by Attorneys Gernot Lehr and Tobias Wurkert LLM from the Bonn office of the law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs. For Meyer, this is significant. The founder of that law firm, Prof. Dr. Hans Dahs senior who died in 1972, represented the late owner of Grunenthal, Dr. Hermann Wirtz senior, in the Contergan trial.
Place and date of the court hearing
Date: 15.2.2017
Time: 12:00 hrs
Place: Bonn Regional Court, Wilhelmstrae 21, 53111 Bonn
Room: Courtroom S. 0.15 (Saalbau)
You can find further important information at the following link:
http://www.gruenenthal-opfer.de/Materials_Meyer_vs_Schucht_15_2_2017
Contact:
Federation of Thalidomide Sufferers and Grunenthal Victims
c/o Mr Andreas Meyer (Chairman)
Dohmengasse 7 , 50829 Koln
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.Grunenthal-opfer.de
Mobile: +49(0)172 / 2905974
SOURCE Federation of Thalidomide Sufferers and Grunenthal Victims
Mayer joins Henry Ford from Mount Sinai Health System in New York, where he served as the Director of Neurocritical Care and was also the Founding Director of the Institute for Critical Care Medicine at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine. Before Mount Sinai, Mayer was the Director of Neurological Intensive Care Unit at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center. He has published more than 800 journal articles, books, case reports, book chapters, and abstracts.
"Dr. Mayer is an internationally renowned leader in neurocritical care," said William Conway, M.D., CEO, Henry Ford Medical Group. "His clinical innovations are unmatched and we also admire his productivity in designing and executing clinical trials. With Henry Ford being the fourth largest NIH-funded research institution in Michigan, it's an ideal fit, and we are proud to welcome Dr. Mayer."
Dr. Mayer was the principal investigator of the FAST Trial, a worldwide multicenter clinical trial evaluating ultra-early hemostatic therapy for brain hemorrhage. He also served as principal investigator of the NIH-funded New York Presbyterian Hospital hub of the Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT) Network. NETT is a program designed to encourage collaboration between emergency medicine physicians and specialists in order to facilitate participation in high-quality clinical trials in multiple types of emergency neurological disorders affecting both children and adults. Henry Ford Hospital is also a NETT hub.
"It is an honor and a privilege to be selected to lead the Department of Neurology at Henry Ford at this crucial juncture," said Stephan Mayer, M.D., F.C.C.M. "We are on the threshold of introducing exciting new breakthrough treatments for stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson's Disease, and a variety of other neurological disorders. Moving forward, we will build on Henry Ford's long tradition of innovation and strive to become a national leader in the development of neurological therapeutics."
Dr. Mayer recently served as one of two new co-editors for Merritt's Neurology, 13th Edition (Wolters Kluwer, 2016). He was a founding member and past president of the Neurocritical Care Society. He has been honored with numerous awards over the past decade, including the Society of Critical Care Medicine Neuroscience Specialty Award. He has been named to "Best Doctors in America" and "Best Doctors, Neurology/Neurocritical Care" (New York Metro Region) annually since 2003. He was also the recipient of the American Heart Association's New York City Chapter Lifesaver Award. His work in helping to organize therapeutic hypothermia for victims of cardiac arrest in New York City was recently featured in the book Cheating Death, by CNN medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
Dr. Mayer is a graduate of Brown University and received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. He completed his medical internship, neurology residency, and neurocritical care fellowship training at Columbia University Medical Center.
SOURCE Henry Ford Health System
Related Links
http://www.henryford.com
CHICAGO and SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York African American Business Leaders Fund, in partnership with Google, is providing more than 4,000 free tickets to the Oscar-nominated movie Hidden Figures for students in Chicago and San Francisco. This is an extension of a program, which has already provided 25,000 New York students with free screenings of the movie.
The overall goal of the program is to educate students about the many contributions made by African-Americans to science, technology, engineering, and math with the aim of inspiring more students to enter those fields. Like the 2015 project to screen Oscar-winner Selma - which reached 300,000 students across the country - the business leaders driving this initiative to hope to expand this program into more US cities in the coming months.
"We are proud to continue to support this excellent program and help in its expansion across the US," said Rebecca Prozan, Chief of Public Policy and Government Affairs at Google. "As a company, Google has worked continuously to empower young people to embrace their talents and skills. We strongly believe that inspiring them with this story of triumph over adversity will help that effort."
More than 4,000 tickets to Hidden Figures are on offer across the two cities. Tickets are being distributed via public school authorities and After School Matters: a non-profit, out-of-school activities organization operating in Chicago.
Mary Ellen Caron, CEO of After School Matters, said: "We are extremely grateful for this opportunity to inspire our students with this movie. Movies like Hidden Figures which underscore the contributions of our unsung communities can have a huge impact on our teens' self-image. And as we know from our work, a positive self-image is so important to enabling our students to reach their full potential."
This initiative also dovetails with Google's launching of a new Made with Code project that invites teen girls and students everywhere to code a statement around Equality with themes from Hidden Figures.
Hidden Figures is the incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae)brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation's confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.
About Hidden Figures
Based on a previously untold story, Hidden Figures highlights the achievements of African-American mathematicians and computer scientists in the 1960s. During World War II the aeronautics industry began hiring black female mathematicians to address an acute labor shortage. These pioneering engineers ended up at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory where, in working for NASA, they enabled the U.S. to win the space race. Astronaut John Glenn thought them so critical that he required confirmation of critical orbit calculations from these women before he made his historic trip around the earth. The film is released by Twentieth Century Fox Film.
Media Contact:
Robert Kellner
[email protected]
212 642 7784
SOURCE The New York African American Business Leaders Fund
CITRUS HEIGHTS, Calif., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ITC Service Group ("ITC"), a leading provider of broadband installation, planning, design and staffing solutions to the telecommunications and IT industries, today announced the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Clear Cell Management, Inc. ("CCM").
The acquisition of CCM allows ITC to become a turnkey provider of services to the wireless telecommunications industry. CCM, with offices in the New York, New Jersey and California, adds new service lines, clients and markets to ITC's rapidly expanding platform of services and locations around the country.
"I am pleased to announce this strategic acquisition," said Tim Sauer, ITC's President. "ITC has an ongoing growth strategy, and this acquisition is an important part of that plan. CCM is an outstanding addition to the ITC family. In addition to the business they bring to our portfolio, this acquisition allows us to offer the full array of wireless services to ITC's existing telecommunications clients. Rob Bradley, CCM's Chief Executive Officer will serve as Senior Vice President of ITC's Wireless Division, and he brings with him a very talented team of committed professionals. With the upcoming roll out of 5G wireless networks nationwide, ITC is perfectly positioned to support these projects on a large scale, providing both fiber and wireless solutions. I have enjoyed getting to know the entire CCM team, and I look forward to the synergies we will create for our clients in the wireless sector."
"I am excited about this transaction," added Rob Bradley. "As an integral part of the ITC family, we will continue to provide excellent service and support to our wireless clients. With the financial strength and support of ITC, and its owner Moorgate Capital Partners, our combined team will provide even more value to our wireless clients and, at the same time, drive significant expansion of new markets and services. We will be able to strengthen our subcontractor and vendor relationships and also provide employees with more opportunity. I could not be more impressed with the ITC and Moorgate teams, and the emphasis they have placed on our clients and employees throughout the integration process. Our current team will remain in place to ensure a seamless transition for our clients and stakeholders."
About ITC Service Group
ITC, with headquarters near Sacramento, CA, provides technical staff augmentation, OSP / ISP design and broadband installation service solutions for the planning / design, construction management, installation / maintenance of voice, data and video networks, nationwide. ITC has offices in the west and midwest and now, with the acquisition of CCM, in the northeast as well. ITC employees more than 700 people nationwide.
About Moorgate Capital Partners
Moorgate Capital Partners is an independent merchant bank and advisory firm focused on the technology, media, and communications industries. Moorgate partners with industry leading executives and management teams to source and invest in middle market growth opportunities. Moorgate has offices in New York, NY and San Francisco, CA.
About CCM
CCM is a provider of outsourced services for the wireless communications industry, including planning, deployment, construction and management of network build-outs. CCM provides wireless carriers with comprehensive real estate site acquisition and zoning services, radio frequency and network design and engineering, infrastructure equipment construction and installation, maintenance, DAS and in-building services, small cell deployment, radio transmission base station modification and project management services.
Contact:
ITC Service Group
Corporate Office
7777 Greenback Lane, Suite 201
Citrus Heights, CA 95610
Phone: (877) 370-4482
Fax: (877) 360-4482
This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com.
SOURCE ITC Service Group
SINGAPORE, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kaligo Travel Solutions, the leading innovator in the loyalty industry, in partnership with Hainan Airlines' loyalty program Fortune Wings Club, has launched car rental redemption on its travel booking platform to enable 18 million Fortune Wings Club members to redeem Fortune Wings Club Points for car rentals at over 200 countries worldwide.
The platform established by Kaligo Travel Solutions allows Fortune Wings Club members to redeem points for car rentals instantly. It's the first mainland China's program to offer non-air travel redemption leveraging inventory from major car rental brands to local specialists. Fortune Wings Club members enjoy the flexibility to book cars and hotels entirely with Points or with Points + Cash. When choosing Points + Cash an interactive slider allows members to explore the points and cash combinations that can be used to book.
"Kaligo Travel Solutions is excited to collaborate with Hainan Airlines continuously to provide its members new travel redemptions which are proven to increase customer engagement," said Kyle Armstrong, CEO of Kaligo. "Our TravelEdge technology is growing constantly and we strive to keep discovering new ways of providing customers the best booking experience."
"Our partnership with Kaligo enables us to deliver world-class redemption options to Fortune Wings Club members," said Director of Product at Hainan Airlines, Huifang Yuan. "We are seeing that our program benefits for this innovative booking platform for hotel bookings. Now this car rental redemption's launch will help our members to enjoy road trips when traveling around the world."
For Hainan Airlines' car rental platform and for more information about this partnership, please visit travel.ffp.hnair.com.
About Kaligo Travel Solutions
Kaligo Travel Solutions is operated by Kaligo Pte Ltd., the global leader for innovative travel and loyalty technology. Established in Singapore in 2014 with offices across APAC, Europe and the Americas, Kaligo Travel Solutions enables 50+ of the world's leading loyalty programs to drive engagement through rewarding travel experiences.
Loyalty programs all over the world turn to Kaligo's TravelEdge technology to accelerate revenue growth and delight customers. Across hotels, cars, cruises and activities, the TravelEdge accrual & redemption suite can be quickly integrated into a brand's web or mobile presence. Using the latest e-commerce design principles and a localized experience across 22 languages, the platform consistently achieves market-leading conversion rates for its partners.
For more information about Kaligo Travel Solutions and the TravelEdge suite, please visit www.kaligosolutions.com or contact media relations at [email protected].
About Hainan Airlines
Hainan Airlines Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as "Hainan Airlines") was founded in January, 1993 in Hainan Province. As one of the most renowned, fastest developing and most popular airlines in China, Hainan Airlines is committed to providing passengers with holistic, seamless and high-quality service.
Since 1993, in addition to its main hub Haikou, Hainan Airlines has established 7 bases/branch companies located in Beijing, Xi'an, Taiyuan, Urumqi, Guangzhou, Dalian and Shenzhen. Our extensive network routes cover China, Asia, and extend to Europe, and North America, with more than 700 domestic and international routes flying to almost 100 cities worldwide. Since its beginning, Hainan Airlines has seen 23 years of safe operations and has accumulated over 5 million hours of safe flights maintaining an outstanding safety record and has been listed as one of JACDEC (Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre) the World's top 10 safest airlines for the fourth time. Hainan Airlines' fleet is mainly comprised of Boeing 737s and 787s, and Airbus 330s. As of December 2015, Hainan Airlines has 202 aircrafts in operation, which are used for both passenger and cargo transportation, and provide passengers with individual and spacious new business class. Since 2011, Hainan Airlines, with its high quality service standards and continuous years of service innovation, has won six consecutive global SKYTRAX five-star airline ratings.
With their "Eastern hospitality", Hainan Airlines emphasizes "customer orientated" services, follows "SMILE" service guideline, delivers brand concept of "Cherished Experience", presents new international brand image of "Eastern Beauty", aspires to be world-class airline company and make prominent airline brand of China.
Natasha Cui
Marketing Communications
[email protected]
+6598953344
SOURCE Kaligo Travel Solutions
Related Links
http://www.kaligosolutions.com
PITTSBURGH, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kennametal Inc. (NYSE: KMT) announced today they will attend Evercore ISI Industrial Conference on Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at the St. Regis Hotel in NYC. Ronald M. De Feo, President & CEO, Jan Kees van Gaalen, Vice President & CFO and Kelly Boyer, Vice President, Investor Relations will be attending. The presentation slides will be available on the company's website www.kennametal.com on February 27, 2017. Once on the homepage, select "About Us", "Investor Relations" and then "Events".
At the forefront of advanced materials innovation for more than 75 years, Kennametal Inc. is a global industrial technology leader delivering productivity to customers through materials science, tooling and wear-resistant solutions. Customers across aerospace, earthworks, energy, general engineering and transportation turn to Kennametal to help them manufacture with precision and efficiency. Every day approximately 11,000 employees are helping customers in more than 60 countries stay competitive. Kennametal generated nearly $2.1 billion in revenue in fiscal 2016. Learn more at www.kennametal.com
SOURCE Kennametal Inc.
Related Links
http://www.kennametal.com
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the way of the future when it comes to social development; and face recognition technology, a core segment of the AI spectrum, is already being used in finance, security and identity recognition applications. During the three years spent on continuous optimization of the application through innovations in technology and confirmation of each iteration through deployments in real use case scenarios, PING AN Tech's face recognition technology was repeatedly used by Ping An Group's business units. The in-house usage yielded several tens of millions of usage instances which provided a constant inflow of test material, creating a virtual closed loop of continuous product improvements. The end product boasts two features that assured the technology's leading position among its peers: rapid identification and a high accuracy rate.
The technology has been applied to 108 use cases involving more than 103 million users, creating a high-precision, easily accessible 100 million+ face database. It is used in high security areas including financial risk control, health insurance, social security benefits programs, railway facility access and airport security. In addition to Ping An's 13 professional companies, the technology has also been successfully deployed by Ping An's 55 partners.
The face recognition technology was first used in Ping An Puhui's small loan app Ping An iLoan 2.0. When applying for loans through the app, users can remotely complete identity verification and obtain a loan within no more than 3 minutes by simply activating the camera on their phone, letting the system take a snapshot of the loan applicant's face and archiving the image for authentication. Since the app's launch, the number of "face swiping" transactions has reached 30,000 daily.
iLoan 2.0. When applying for loans through the app, users can remotely complete identity verification and obtain a loan within no more than 3 minutes by simply activating the camera on their phone, letting the system take a snapshot of the loan applicant's face and archiving the image for authentication. Since the app's launch, the number of "face swiping" transactions has reached 30,000 daily. Using the face recognition technology, Ping An Life Insurance started to provide customer-centric policy services via "face swiping" in 2015, and has constantly improved the customer experience through ongoing simplification of process, while continually upgrading the security features.
Since Shenzhen Social Insurance Wallet was launched on June 1, 2016 , many hospitals in Shenzhen have adopted Ping An Technology's face recognition technology, marking the beginning of the medical community's adoption of the technology as a routine component of a consultation with one's doctor.
In addressing ongoing concerns over the accuracy and recognition rate of the technology, Liu Fei, Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence at PING AN Tech, said, "Face recognition technology is embedded as a module in many complex business processes. It is just one tool among many that should be applied as part of a holistic monitoring system and can only be responsible for its own functionalities within the larger system. When a problem occurs, those not familiar with the technology often attribute the problem to the technology, sometimes confusing the recognition rate with the pass rate or other indicators, leading to misunderstanding. The announcement of the authoritative test results is an effective response to these concerns."
LFW was established in 2007 by the University of Massachusetts and is used to evaluate the performance of facial recognition algorithms under unconstrained conditions. It is the most widely used evaluation set in the field of facial recognition. Up until now, a few dozen teams from around the globe have provided more than 80 test results. These teams come from companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft Research Asia, Baidu, Tencent, SenseTime, Face++, Chinese University of Hong Kong and other leading teams from industry and academia. Many of the top ranking methods have played a crucial role in promoting the development of facial recognition technology.
About PING AN Tech
Founded in 2008, PING AN Tech is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ping An and is headquartered in Shenzhen, with divisions in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Nanjing. The company has more than 4,000 IT technologists and IT management professionals. The establishment of PING AN Tech was a milestone for Ping An in the IT sector, serving as the announcement of Ping An's foray into the professional IT market and initiating a period of exploration that it has deemed "Technology Leads Finance".
Over the next few years, PING AN Tech, as the high-tech core business and key growth driver of Ping An, will implement the "Technology Leads Finance" roadmap, developing mobile web, cloud and big data applications. PING AN Tech plans on taking the lead in exploring new internet-based business models, by building a leading IT organization, creating a foundation to support the core business, and innovating in collaboration with all business units across the parent company.
SOURCE PING AN Tech
PHOENIX, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Lithium Exploration Group Inc. (USOTC: LEXG) today announced receiving a report authored by Eric R. Dix of Innovation Associates. Mr. Dix is a leading advanced battery technology industry expert engaged to evaluate a targeted portfolio of U.S. Patented Lithium Technologies. The targeted lithium patents are part of a suite of products being evaluated by LEXG in conjunction with a recently announced, comprehensive lithium technology strategy. The cost to develop the portfolio is estimated to be between $5 and $7 million and the highlight of the portfolio is a series of patents that are geared towards solving overcharging issues like those encountered by the Galaxy Note 7.
"The target portfolio is the foundation of the $1.2 million contract we recently announced where LEXG is considering an investment in our client's technology. We wanted to do an independent analysis of their portfolio to ensure that it has legs as we finalize the negotiation of our licensing deal with them," commented CEO Alex Walsh. "Our initial analysis shows that these patents are certainly worth the effort. We are excited to continue our testing this week in Houston which will include a in person demonstration with the group that we are in discussions with about a $1.2M contract."
About Lithium Exploration Group
Lithium Exploration Group is a US-based exploration and development company focused on the acquisition and development potential of lithium brines and other precious metals that demonstrate high probability for near-term production. Currently the company is focused testing its SonCav Technology and the acquisition of oil and gas related assets in Western Canada. Lithium Exploration Group is traded on the OTC Markets under the symbol LEXG.
Website: http://www.lithiumexplorationgroup.com .
Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains "forward-looking statements". Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future testing of the ultrasonic technology.
Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with mineral exploration and difficulties associated with obtaining financing on acceptable terms. We are not in control of lithium prices and these could vary to make development uneconomic. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements.
Although we believe that the beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our most recent annual report for our last fiscal year, our quarterly reports, and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Contact Info
Shanon Chilson
+1-480-641-4790
[email protected]
SOURCE Lithium Exploration Group Inc.
MOSCOW, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" or the "Company" -NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, launches MTS Money Wallet, that enables users to get an easy "one-click" access to MTS's financial services and be rewarded with bonuses and loyalty points. The new service combines all payments tools on one platform - electronic wallet, bank cards, and customers' mobile account balances. Not just a payment system, MTS Money Wallet is a hub for all of MTS's financial services.
Vasyl Latsanych, Vice President for Strategy and Marketing at MTS, believes the launch of MTS Money Wallet marks the transformation of the smartphone into a functional and versatile financial tool. "Today we are entering into a new era of mobile and financial services. We created the unified ecosystem, which would become a convenient, transparent, and secure alternative for cash and bank cards. The initial functions included in the service only mark the beginning of our journey. We will combine all possible payment solutions with leading loyalty programs. We believe that cash and cards will become redundant in near future. All we'll need for comfortable communications and financial management is a smartphone".
MTS clients got an option to make payments and money transfers from the e-wallet through a smartphone or MTS website. There is no need to open a bank account or issue a bank card. Users are able to access the MTS Money Wallet through the iOS and Android apps or the MTS Money Wallet website (www.dengi.mts.ru). The service is available for both individuals and businesses.
Once signed up to the service, MTS Money Wallet customers will have access to their platform, where they can add payment cards to their wallet. Customers will then be able to make purchases online and transfer funds from MTS Money Wallet without having to re-enter their bank details each time. The user-friendly interface also makes it quick and easy to check wallet balances. The issuer of electronic money is MTS Bank.
All MTS Money Wallet users are automatically enrolled onto the MTS Bonus program, which offers loyalty points and access to exclusive offers and discounts.
The service will be updated every month taking into account feedback from customers. Users can email their feedback to [email protected].
Extra advantages of MTS Money Wallet:
CONVIENIENT MONEY TRANSFERS: the user can simply indicate the phone number of the money recipient and choose the account (either mobile account balances or MTS e-wallet)
SIMPLIFIED IDENTIFICATION AND INCREASED LIMITS ON TRANSACTIONS: MTS subscribers are identified automatically and get an immediate access to money transfers and payments on websites of foreign companies with the limits for a single transaction up to 60,000 rubles or 200,000 robles (for customers of MTS Bank)
MTS Money Wallet will be enhanced with the following functions during 2017:
SERVICE AVAILABILITY FOR ALL CLIENTS: both MTS and non-MTS customers will be able to use all the functions of the service except payments through mobile account balances
PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND STORES: contactless payments through either the app or USSD/SMS.
MTS MONEY BUTTON on online merchants to allow one-click purchases from devices connected to the service.
INTEGRATION OF MTS MONEY INTO MOBILE BANKING: clients of MTS Bank will be able to monitor their bank cards, make money transfer, and get bank products
MIGRATION OF 'EASY PAYMENT' CUSTOMERS to MTS Money Wallet.
MTS Money Wallet has evolved from the MTS Money app, which launched in August 2016 and allowed customers to make in-store contactless payments. The service is developed in partnership with MTS Bank and Runet Business Systems.
***
For further information, please contact in Moscow:
Joshua B. Tulgan
Director, Department of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC
Tel: +7-495-223-2025
E-mail: [email protected]
Learn more about MTS. Visit the official blog of the Investor Relations Department at www.mtsgsm.com/blog/
* * *
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" -NYSE:MBT; MOEX:MTSS) is the leading telecommunications group in Russia and the CIS. We provide wireless Internet access and fixed voice, broadband and pay-TV to over 100 million customers who value high quality of service at a competitive price. Our wireless and fixed-line networks deliver best-in-class speeds and coverage throughout Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Belarus. To keep pace with evolving customer demand, we continue to grow through innovative products, investments in our market-leading retail platform, mobile payment services, e-commerce and IT solutions. For more information, please visit: www.mtsgsm.com.
* * *
Some of the information in this press release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of MTS, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "will," "could," "may" or "might," and the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We do not undertake or intend to update these statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. We refer you to the documents MTS files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Company's most recent Form 20-F. These documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained in the section captioned "Risk Factors" that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements, including, among others, the severity and duration of current economic and financial conditions, including volatility in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; the impact of Russian, U.S. and other foreign government programs to restore liquidity and stimulate national and global economies, our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so, strategic actions, including acquisitions and dispositions and our success in integrating acquired businesses, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, our competitive environment, dependence on new service development and tariff structures, rapid technological and market change, acquisition strategy, risks associated with telecommunications infrastructure, governmental regulation of the telecommunications industries and other risks associated with operating in Russia and the CIS, volatility of stock price, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks.
* * *
SOURCE Mobile TeleSystems (MTS)
It has crowdfunded more than EUR 20,000 which exceeded the pledge goal by 375%. NoteBook Modular will still accept backers until February 27th.
NoteBook Modular is a re-invented notebook that has embedded magnetic clips on each edge, which allows users flexibly to add or remove sheets when needed, providing a solution for people who do want to walk with unwanted pages. Also, NoteBook Modular offers both left and right-handed individuals enhanced comfort to work freely throughout their writing or sketching due to its ergonomically crafted contour.
NoteBook Modular comes in 4 colors: Grey, White, Orange and Brown. Its hardcover sleeve is designed to hold 100 sheets (50 on each side), while its compartment enables users to hold business cards and pens. NoteBook Modular is compatible with A4 and US letter paper, which also offers 8 different paper templates (download) to cater to various office work scenarios.
Kickstarter project link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/389140893/notebook-modular
About the Company
allocacoc is an industrial design company that started its operations in the Netherlands and now expanded operations worldwide. The corporation's philosophy is to re-invent and redesign existing products, to improve the design and value of well-established products that can provide a new user experience, and make them accessible to every household in the world. To learn more visit: www.allocacoc.com.
For business inquiries please contact us at:
U.S. Office: [email protected]
Phone Number: (949) 861-4992
For marketing and PR purpose please contact:
[email protected]
SOURCE allocacoc
Related Links
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network announced today that it has invested in Landmapp BV, an Amsterdam-based property rights company that enables smallholder farmers to document and protect their land holdings. The investment will help Landmapp to grow its customer base in Ghana, where the company is providing this unique service primarily to cocoa farmers. The transaction also involved participation by HERi Africa, an existing investor in the company. Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Landmapp was established in 2015 by two Amsterdam-based entrepreneurs, Simon Ulvund and Thomas Vaassen. Landmapp offers a mobile platform that provides smallholder farmer families with documentation of their land. Their first country of operation is Ghana, and Ulvund and Vaassen have plans to expand into other countries following this successful rollout.
Many of the world's 500 million smallholder families face two interrelated challenges: they hold little, if any, rights to their land and lack formal documentation; being restricted to the informal sector, they often cannot access technical and financial services to improve their livelihoods. Documented property rights enable them to plan for their future, including by investing in their land and property, insuring the health of their families and sending their children to school. This has a highly positive impact on the economic wellbeing of the farmers, their families and their communities.
For smallholder farmers, securing their land is often a large and very complex challenge. Landmapp provides an end to end affordable service, from the time the farmer signs up, till they hold a legal land certificate in their hands.
Landmapp has a field-based team of surveyors who use handheld GPS devices to map each farmer's plot. The team verifies the farmer's identify, validates the land claim with neighbours, submits the claim to the authorities for legalisation and delivers a final land certificate to the farmer. Already, the company has sold more than 2,000 documents to smallholder farmers in Ghana, demonstrating that farmers are willing and able to pay for this valuable documentation.
"We are delighted to be investing in Landmapp and its exciting model," said Omidyar Network Venture Partner Peter Rabley. "They have clearly shown that farmers in Ghana understand the value of land documentation and are willing to pay for the legal protection they offer. We believe this model can be replicated in other countries."
"Land and property rights is a complex sector, requiring significant knowledge and deep relationships in order to succeed. Omidyar Network has both, so we really couldn't have a better partner on board," said CEO Simon Ulvund. "And with HERi Africa, we have an investor with a thorough understanding of agriculture value chains and smallholders."
"We're now able to focus on growing our business in Ghana, first looking at scaling the number of land documents sold, while also partnering with complimentary businesses such as financial service providers, unlocking new products and services for smallholder farmers," said Thomas Vaassen, the company's CTO.
About Omidyar Network
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. Omidyar Network has committed more than $1 billion to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple initiatives, including Education, Emerging Tech, Financial Inclusion, Governance & Citizen Engagement, and Property Rights.
To learn more, visit www.omidyar.com, and follow on Twitter @omidyarnetwork
#PositiveReturns
SOURCE Omidyar Network
Related Links
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NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, today announced Clean TeQ Holdings Ltd., Melbourne (ASX: CLQ; OTCQX: CTEQF), owner and developer of the Syerston Nickel/Cobalt/Scandium Project in NSW, Australia, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX Best Market. Clean TeQ upgraded to OTCQX from the Pink market.
Clean TeQ begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol "CTEQF." U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.
"We are pleased to welcome Clean TeQ to our family of established, investor-focused U.S. and global companies," said Jason Paltrowitz, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "Trading on OTCQX will allow Clean TeQ to expand its shareholder base and visibility in the U.S. market by providing U.S. investors with efficient trading and convenient access to its news and financial disclosure."
"We are seeing a significant increase in the level of North American investor awareness and interest in Clean TeQ. In the United States, this timely upgrade to OTCQX will provide improved accessibility and liquidity for a broad range of private and institutional investors," stated Co-Chairman and CEO Sam Riggall.
Clean TeQ was sponsored for OTCQX by Dorey & Whitney LLP, a qualified 3rd party firm responsible for providing guidance on OTCQX requirements and recommending membership.
Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (ASX:CLQ; OTCQX: CTEQF) is the owner of the Syerston Nickel/Cobalt/Scandium Project in NSW, Australia. Syerston's unique mineral resource, when combined with Clean TeQ's proprietary ion exchange extraction and purification processing technology, positions Clean TeQ to become one of the largest and lowest cost suppliers of key cathode raw materials to the lithium-ion battery market nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate. The Syerston Project will also produce significant quantities of scandium for the next generation of light-weight aluminum alloys for transportation markets.
About OTC Markets Group Inc.
OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market, and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors.
To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com
OTC Link ATS is operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC and SEC regulated ATS.
Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed
Media Contact:
OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected]
SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc.
Related Links
http://www.otcmarkets.com
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PerfectServe announced today its newest client is Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), the world's largest academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health. HSS has been top-ranked for both orthopedics and rheumatology in the U.S. for 25 consecutive years.
Based in New York City with locations in Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, Hospital for Special Surgery is the latest healthcare organization to sign a multi-year contract with PerfectServe. HSS performs more than 30,000 surgical procedures annually, and has over 15,000 total inpatient admissions annually. HSS was the first hospital in New York City to receive the Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence and the first Hospital in the State of New York to be re-designated with nursing's highest honor four consecutive times.
HSS leaders are looking to PerfectServe to improve its large volume of nurse-to-provider and care team communications, in addition to developing an integrated, enterprise-wide communication platform that securely connects all care team members across in-patient and outpatient settings easily and quickly.
"Our clinicians are often in and out of surgery. Naturally, complexities arise in getting hold of the correct care team member in the fastest way especially in the context of schedules," explained Jamie Nelson, HSS Senior Vice President and CIO. "PerfectServe can pull in those highly complex workflows and schedules beyond basic call schedules, so physicians can be reached effectively and efficiently based on severity of case and urgency level."
"We're honored and proud to partner with Hospital for Special Surgery," said Terry Edwards, President and CEO of PerfectServe. "Surgeons, nurses and other care team members involved in transmitting information will be empowered as PerfectServe eliminates the communication barriers that hinder clinical workflows, speeding the delivery of care."
More than 400,000 clinicians use the PerfectServe Synchrony solution. They include 70,000-plus physicians employed by approximately 165 hospitals and 25,000 practices and post-acute provider organizations in the U.S.
Edwards concluded, "The healthcare industry is looking for strategic, interoperable solutions to coordinate patient-centered care. PerfectServe Synchrony can help build and support systematic, patient-centered team collaboration to drive transformative care across settings, better outcomes and cost efficiencies. With our next-generation technology and financial strength, we are well positioned to accelerate growth and revenue in 2017 and beyond."
About Hospital for Special Surgery
Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is the world's largest academic medical center focused on musculoskeletal health. HSS is nationally ranked No. 1 in orthopedics and No. 2 in rheumatology by U.S. News & World Report (2016-2017), and is the first hospital in New York State to receive Magnet Recognition for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing Center four consecutive times. HSS has one of the lowest infection rates in the country. HSS is an affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical College and as such all Hospital for Special Surgery medical staff are faculty of Weill Cornell. The hospital's research division is internationally recognized as a leader in the investigation of musculoskeletal and autoimmune diseases. Hospital for Special Surgery is located in New York City and online at www.hss.edu.
About PerfectServe
PerfectServe Synchrony is healthcare's most comprehensive and secure care team collaboration platform. The platform is unique in its ability to improve communication process accuracy and reliability via its proprietary Dynamic Intelligent Routing capability, which automatically identifies and provides immediate connection to the right care team member for any given clinical situation at every moment in time. More than 400,000 clinician users, including over 70,000 physicians, in forward-looking organizations across the U.S. rely on PerfectServe to help them speed time to treatment, expedite care transitions, enhance the patient experience and reduce HIPAA compliance risk. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, with offices in Alpharetta, Georgia and Chicago, PerfectServe has helped clinicians provide better care since 2000. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and subscribe to our blog.
Media Contact: PerfectServe Contact: Angela Jenkins Heather Dorsett, MBA Agency Ten22 Director, Content Strategy and Marketing 303.877.0115 855.871.7299 [email protected] [email protected]
SOURCE PerfectServe
Related Links
http://perfectserve.com
"Gas leaks in Brooklyn and the five boroughs are serious, potentially life-threatening events," says Michael Petri, owner of Petri Plumbing & Heating. "We cannot stress enough the importance of having your gas lines regularly inspected to keep your home and family safe."
Natural gas is colorless and odorless, but an odor that smells similar to rotten eggs is often added to make the smell of gas leaks noticeable. Other warning signs of a gas leak include:
Dead or discolored grass or other vegetation near a pipeline
Persistent, constant bubbling in wet areas
Whistling, hissing or roaring sounds coming from a gas appliance or pipeline area
Debris, dirt or other items being thrown into the air
Identifying susceptible gas pipelines is one of the many ways the professionals at Petri Plumbing help safeguard families from potential gas leaks, as they have helped numerous Brooklyn and Manhattan residents on gas line repairs.
To find out more information on how to prevent gas line leaks in your home, call Petri Plumbing at 718-748-1254.
About Petri Plumbing and Heating, Inc.
Petri Plumbing and Heating, Inc. is a family owned and operated business serving Brooklyn and the New York City area. Founded in 1906, the company offers a 100 percent guarantee on all services, upfront pricing, and friendly and knowledgeable Service Experts for all kinds of home and business plumbing and heating needs. Services offered include water and gas pipe leak repair and installation, fixture installations, inspections, boiler repair, water heater installation, complete bathroom, kitchen, laundry & utility room remodeling and more. Petri is also licensed and certified by Green Plumbers USA, the first in New York City to receive this designation. For more information, please visit www.petriplumbing.com or call 718-748-1254.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Heather Ripley
Ripley PR
865-977-1973
[email protected]
SOURCE Petri Plumbing and Heating, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.petriplumbing.com
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Piper Jameson will join Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI), as executive vice president and chief marketing officer effective February 14. She replaces Jeff May, who is leaving the company by mutual agreement.
Jameson will be responsible for leading the company's marketing and advertising strategies, with a focus on growing new student enrollment. She brings to the job more than 20 years of marketing experience in the education sector, including 11 years previously at UTI.
"We thank Jeff for his years of service and his many contributions to UTI. We wish him well in his future endeavors," said Kim McWaters, chairman & CEO. "We are excited to have Piper back on our team to lead Marketing at this critical time. She knows our business and is passionate about our mission. She is a seasoned and effective strategist and leader, and has the experience and expertise to help us grow our enrollment and meet the growing demand for skilled technicians."
Jameson joins UTI from Northern Arizona University - Extended Campuses, where she served as chief marketing officer. Prior to that, she was executive vice president and chief marketing officer with Lincoln Educational Services. During her nine-year tenure with Lincoln, she generated record level inquiry and enrollment growth in the company's automotive and skilled trade programs while lowering advertising costs.
Jameson was with UTI from 1994 to 2005, serving in various operational and executive positions, including senior vice president, Marketing. Prior to that, she was a member of the executive team at The Ritz-Carlton - Phoenix.
Jameson holds bachelor of science degrees in Marketing and Business Management from the University of Phoenix and a masters degree in Strategic Communication & Leadership from Seton Hall University.
About Universal Technical Institute, Inc.
Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE: UTI) is the leading provider of post-secondary education for students seeking careers as professional automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle and marine technicians. With more than 200,000 graduates in its 52-year history, UTI offers undergraduate degree and diploma programs at 12 campuses across the United States, as well as manufacturer-specific training programs at dedicated training centers. Through its campus-based school system, UTI provides specialized post-secondary education programs under the banner of several well-known brands, including Universal Technical Institute (UTI), Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and Marine Mechanics Institute (MMI) and NASCAR Technical Institute (NASCAR Tech). For more information visit www.uti.edu .
Contact:
Jody Kent
Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs
Universal Technical Institute, Inc.
(623) 445-0872
SOURCE Universal Technical Institute, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.uti.edu
SINGAPORE, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- China's apparent* oil demand in December 2016 rose 2.3% year over year to 11.69 million barrels per day (b/d), according to an analysis of Chinese government data by S&P Global Platts, the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets.
Refinery throughput in December last year averaged 11.31 million b/d, data from China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed January 20. This was up 3.6% year over year to a new record high, as refinery maintenance tapered off and production picked up in preparation for higher demand in the first quarter of 2017. Platts China Oil Analytics, an S&P Global Platts on-line analysis platform for supply/demand and trade data, has adjusted runs for December upwards to 11.63 million b/d based on data on independent refinery run rates.
China's imports of key oil products fuel oil, gasoil, jet fuel, gasoline, naphtha and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) -- averaged 1.0 million b/d in December, data from China's General Administration of Customs showed. Exports rose to 972,000 b/d from November's 851,000 b/d. This means net imports during December averaged 62,000 b/d, slumping 88% from the same month in 2015.
When using official government data for calculations, China's apparent oil demand in 2016 averaged 11.11 million b/d in 2016, declining 0.8%. However Platts China Oil Analytics believes refinery processing volumes last year averaged 11.08 million b/d versus 10.83 million b/d reported by the NBS. Last year's increase followed significantly higher runs by independent refiners, which received beginning late 2015 the right to import crude oil. These refiners, mainly in eastern Shandong, raised utilization rates to an average 54% last year, up from approximately 40% in 2015. Thus, this group likely saw overall runs increase by more than 500,000 b/d in 2016.
With the adjustment in refinery runs, apparent oil demand for the year therefore trended higher than if calculated using government data, at 11.35 million b/d.
"This represented a 1.3% increase in 2016," said Song Yen Ling, senior analyst with Platts China Oil Analytics.
"That said, the pace of growth fell in 2016 from 6.6% in 2015, when oil demand had been boosted by a crude oil price drop to levels just over $50/b."
Platts China Oil Analytics, adjusting for higher production in gasoline and gasoil than was reported by China's government, estimates that gasoline apparent demand in December averaged 2.87 million b/d. This marks a 6.9% increase from a year ago, while gasoil apparent demand fell 2.4% over the same period to an average 3.51 million b/d. Gasoil demand took a hit on lower winter temperatures that hampered industrial activity, as well as transport disruptions due to both colder conditions in north China and severe smog in parts of the country, the latter of which prompted some local governments to institute curbs on transport activity.
Fuel oil apparent demand in December continued to decline on a year-over-year basis, dropping 22.4% to 783,000 b/d on dampened buying from independent refiners.
Platts China Oil Analytics estimates that 2016 gasoline apparent demand expanded by 7.8% and gasoil apparent demand declined by 0.6%, further reflections of the Chinese economy's move toward more consumption-focused growth.
In the first quarter of 2017, demand remained muted until after the Lunar New Year holidays. Gasoil sales picked up in early February in preparation for the spring planting season, while gasoline demand remained steady supported by increased travel during the holiday season. Refineries are expected to reduce their runs slightly as a number of maintenance programs have already been scheduled, particularly from March going into the second quarter.
MONTHLY CHINA OIL DATA IN '000 B/D
Dec '16 Dec '15 % Chg Nov '16 Oct '16 Sep '16 Aug '16 Net crude imports 8,522 7,787 9.4 7,858 6,739 7,973 7,715 Crude production 3,966 4,260 -6.9 3,931 3,794 3,904 3,889 Apparent demand 11,691 11,424 2.3 11,898 11,249 11,157 10,851
Sources: China's General Administration of Customs, National Bureau of Statistics, S&P Global Platts
Month-to-month demand in China is generally viewed to be subjected to short-term anomalies which are of interest and important to note, but often fail to reveal the country's underlying demand trends. Year-to-year comparisons are viewed by the marketplace to be more indicative of the country's energy profile.
*S&P Global Platts calculates China's apparent or implied oil demand on the basis of crude throughput volumes at the domestic refineries and net oil product imports. S&P Global Platts also takes into account undeclared revisions in NBS historical data.
The government releases data on imports, exports, domestic crude production and refinery throughput data, but does not give official data on the country's actual oil consumption figure and oil stockpiles. Official statistics on oil storage are released intermittently.
In view of some significant shifts in Chinese consumption and trade patterns in recent years, S&P Global Platts has revised its methodology starting July 2015 to include production and net imports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as imports of petroleum bitumen blend, a popular imported feedstock for China's teapot refineries.
S&P Global Platts has also refined its calculation of exports of jet fuel and fuel oil to exclude international marine bunker sales and aviation fuel delivered to international flights. This also impacts net imports, and hence apparent demand calculations.
All historical figures used for comparison have also been calculated using the new methodology to ensure consistency.
S&P Global Platts aims to release its monthly calculation of China's apparent demand between the 18th and 26th of every month via press release and via its website. Any use of this information must be appropriately attributed to S&P Global Platts. Note: S&P Global Platts uses a conversion rate of 7.33 barrels of crude per metric ton, the widely-accepted benchmark for markets East of Suez.
For more information on crude oil, visit the S&P Global Platts website at www.platts.com. For Chinese-language information on oil and the energy and metals markets, visit http://www.platts.cn/.
Contact
Americas: Kathleen Tanzy, + 1 917 331 4607, [email protected]
About S&P Global Platts
At S&P Global Platts, we provide the insights; you make better informed trading and business decisions with confidence. We're the leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets. Customers in over 150 countries look to our expertise in news, pricing and analytics to deliver greater transparency and efficiency to markets. S&P Global Platts coverage includes oil and gas, power, petrochemicals, metals, agriculture and shipping.
S&P Global Platts is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), which provides essential intelligence for individuals, companies and governments to make decisions with confidence. For more information, visit www.platts.com.
SOURCE S&P Global Platts
Related Links
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NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Brunswick Group, a leading corporate advisory firm, announced today that Kevin P. Helliker has joined the firm as Brunswick Editor, a newly created global role based in New York. A Wall Street Journal editor and writer for more than 27 years, Kevin seamlessly combines compelling story telling with a deep understanding of business and technical issues and an uncompromising focus on uncovering the real story.
In 2004 he and Thomas M. Burton shared the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, citing "their ground-breaking examination of aneurysms, an often overlooked medical condition that kills thousands of Americans each year." Their work demonstrably changed medical protocol and saved lives.
Group Chief Executive Susan Gilchrist said: "I am delighted to welcome Kevin to Brunswick. His fantastic experience and expertise will be a great addition to the firm and highlights the quality of our thought leadership. His contribution will be instrumental in developing the insight we bring to clients and help us continue to build our brand."
Kevin Helliker said: "It is a privilege to bring the knowledge and experience I gained during a quarter century at the Wall Street Journal to Brunswick Group. As reflected in the pages of its flagship publication, the Brunswick Review, the firm is committed to the hard work of researching and writing articles that explain and illuminate topics and trends of importance to business and political leaders across the globe. Readers of the Brunswick Review know that its voice is reliable, authoritative and enlightening, and I look forward to helping the firm build upon that tradition."
During his tenure at the WSJ, Kevin was a Bureau Chief in Dallas and Chicago where in addition to covering Healthcare he reported on Technology, Retail and Agriculture. His first job out of college was writing for his hometown paper, The Kansas City Times. He is a graduate of the Department of English at the University of Kansas.
About Brunswick Group
Brunswick Group LLP is an advisory firm specializing in critical issues and corporate relations. Founded in 1987, Brunswick is an organically grown, private partnership with 23 offices around the world. For more information, visit: www.brunswickgroup.com.
Contact
Cecilia Arradaza
Tel: +1 202 393 7337
Email: [email protected]
SOURCE Brunswick Group
Related Links
http://www.brunswickgroup.com
SAN DIEGO and DARIEN, Conn., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Renovate America, the nation's leading provider of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing, and Greenworks Lending, the nation's most experienced commercial PACE financing team, today announced a national partnership to spur efficiency and renewable-energy investments on commercial buildings.
Under the national partnership, Greenworks Lending and Renovate America will begin offering commercial PACE financing through the HERO Program in Missouri. The partnership will expand to other HERO markets as the Program grows around the country. Greenworks Lending currently offers commercial PACE in Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas and the District of Columbia. HERO residential PACE financing is currently offered in Missouri and California, and is set to expand to Florida this year.
PACE financing, which has been approved in some form in more than 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, allows owners to access upfront financing for clean energy and efficiency improvements to their properties. Commercial PACE investment has doubled every year since its inception in 2009 and is continuing to accelerate with 380% growth in the last quarter of 2016 compared to the same period of 2015, according to PACENation, a PACE policy advocacy organization. In states that have adopted PACE legislation, the number of buildings that could be eligible for commercial PACE financing is around 1.5 million.
With commercial PACE, the owner repays the financing over time through an additional, voluntary assessment on their property taxes over a term of up to 25 years, depending on the jurisdiction. This structure allows most building owners to see immediate cash flow from the improvements, and secures the repayment to the property rather than the owner meaning the PACE assessment transfers to the new owner upon sale of the building. Payments may be passed along to tenants where appropriate, and interest on the payments may also be tax-deductible.
The partnership between Renovate America and Greenworks Lending will allow both companies to leverage considerable synergies in PACE financing from access to capital markets to experience in the commercial lending space to existing relationships with building-improvement contractors while bringing a commitment to best-in-class customer service.
"This partnership enables us to better serve and support the efforts of more than 500 cities and counties to improve the efficiency of the commercial building sector," said Renovate America CEO and founder J.P. McNeill. "Greenworks Lending shares our goals of empowering owners to invest in their properties in a way that boosts sustainability and, ultimately, value."
"By joining forces with Renovate America on commercial PACE, we are creating an enterprise that will be far greater than the sum of its parts," said Greenworks Lending CEO and co-founder Jessica Bailey. "PACE lending is uniquely important for businesses because it lowers key barriers that discourage building owners from adopting smart energy improvements. Partnering with the company that has driven the massive growth in the PACE industry will allow us to bring commercial PACE to more businesses throughout the country. Renovate America's experience, tools and platform will be a huge advantage as we partner together."
About Renovate America
Renovate America offers a tech-enabled market platform for home improvement and commercial retrofits that empowers communities to modernize and make their housing stock more efficient while giving small businesses the tools they need to grow. In addition to financing home improvements through an unsecured lending product, Benji, Renovate America offers communities the HERO Program. HERO is the leading residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program in the U.S. and has financed more than $2.1 billion of home improvements in partnership with local governments. HERO is on track to save its customers nearly $3.5 billion in energy and water bills, and has created over 18,000 local jobs that cannot be offshored or automated. Renovate America has built the world's largest green bond platform, with a volume of originations that enables securitization of HERO PACE bonds multiple times a year, attracting international investment to meet U.S. clean-energy objectives.
About Greenworks Lending
Greenworks Lending provides financing to commercial property owners to make their buildings more energy efficient or install clean energy systems through a structure called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) which allows repayment to be made through the property tax bill. PACE can provide 100 percent of the hard and soft costs and allows building owners to use energy savings to cover the repayment. Based in Connecticut, Greenworks Lending was founded by developers of the most successful state commercial PACE program in the country. Upgrades financed by the team at Greenworks Lending have increased building owners' bottom lines by over $150M. Since its founding in 2015, Greenworks Lending has become the outsourced finance partner for hundreds of energy contractors across the country, financed a wide range of energy measures, and supported the development of dozens of commercial PACE markets across the country. The leadership team has been honored by the White House and sits on the board of PACENation.
Contacts:
Renovate America
Greg Frost
(858) 879-7216
[email protected]
Greenworks Lending
Chris Gale
(646) 695-2883
[email protected]
SOURCE Renovate America
YORK, Pa., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning this month, Rutter's rolled out chef coats for all Restaurant Management, including Restaurant Managers, Assistant Restaurant Managers, Roving Restaurant Managers, and Roving Store Managers.
Rutter's is the first in their competitive footprint to introduce chef coats into their kitchens. For the restaurant management team, Rutter's t-shirts are no longer part of the uniform. Instead, they are honored with wearing short sleeve or long sleeve chef coats.
Pictured Rutter's Kayla Groft and Chuck Moyer
"Rutter's takes pride in not only our employees, but in our food options and restaurant focus. By upgrading to chef coats, we feel it differentiates us in the convenience store industry. It shows great professionalism and makes the statement that we offer the highest quality food options to our customers. It's time to kick it up a notch!" said Ryan Krebs, Director of Food Service.
Chef coats have a great deal of significance and rich history in the restaurant industry and Rutter's has taken that meaning under profound consideration and believes their award-winning program follows suit. The Rutter's chef coats are all black, feature the traditional double-breasted design and cloth buttons and are embroidered with Rutter's branding.
"We have always been about fresh food, high quality, and innovation. Chef Coats allow management leaders in foodservice to be easily recognized by customers. This aligns with restaurant like-mindedness and the expectation of excellence that our customers will recognize," said Derek Gaskins, Chief Customer Officer.
With roots dating back to 1747, Rutter's 269 year history makes it the oldest vertically-integrated food company in the United States. Rutter's is widely recognized as an industry leader in food service, innovative technology, and customer service, recently receiving awards for International Convenience Retailer of the Year award given by NACS and Insight, Best Milk for 14 years in a row by the York Newspaper Company, 1st Nationally in Brand Loyalty and Customer Fit in a Technomic Survey, and Food Service Retailer of the Year given by CSNews Magazine. Rutter's is currently guided by the family's 3rd generation of leadership with Scott Hartman president and CEO, Todd Rutter as president of Rutter's Dairy, and Tim Rutter as president of M&G Realty.
Rutter's Farm Stores
Kirsten Dickason
717-771-5904
[email protected]
SOURCE Rutter's Farm Stores
Related Links
http://www.rutters.com
This new Advanced Clinical Spa opens in Sugar Land, Texas, in partnership with one of their founding physicians, board-certified dermatologist Sherry Ingraham. Dr. Ingraham has distinguished herself in the medical community through her extensive training in both medical and cosmetic dermatology and clinical research, her scientific presentations and her published work. As a national trainer for Voluma, Kybella, Restylane Silk and Juvederm, Dr. Ingraham has unparalleled experience with these injectables, and the products for post-care to guarantee superior results for patients.
Dr. Ingraham takes pride in establishing a seamless merger between in-office procedures and topical skincare, to provide the best and most natural results. Dr. Ingraham says of the opening, "We are thrilled and honored to be partnering with a world-renowned brand like SkinCeuticals. The Advanced Clinical Spa will allow our practice to offer scientifically proven skincare technology and state-of-the-art medical procedures in a premium environment."
Dr. Ingraham continues, "SkinCeuticals has created some of my favorite products and I'm thrilled to be deepening my partnership with them. H.A. Intensifier is multi-beneficial hyaluronic acid serum that supports skin's natural hyaluronic acid levels to visibly improve plumpness, elasticity, and firmness. I always recommend it to patients who receive fillers to use as homecare after their procedures. C E Ferulic is a tried-and-true vitamin c serum that works to protect skin and prevent free radical damage resulting from sun and pollution."
Specifically formulated for use before, during and after in-office procedures, SkinCeuticals offers premium products that offer both immediate and long-term benefits. Of the partnership, Brenda Wu, SkinCeuticals US General Manager, says, "We are beyond thrilled to partner with Advanced Dermatology. Dr. Ingraham's dedication to providing a holistic skincare regimen is perfectly aligned with SkinCeuticals's ultimate goal to improve overall skin health. We look forward to supporting Dr. Ingraham to provide the best possible results to her patients."
ABOUT SKINCEUTICALS
Founded in Dallas, TX in 1997, SkinCeuticals discovers, develops, and delivers an advanced line of scientifically backed cosmeceutical treatments. As leaders in antioxidant and sun protection technology, SkinCeuticals products have been shown to dramatically improve skin health by protecting skin from environmental damage and visibly improving skin clarity, tone, and texture to minimize the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. For more information, visit the brand on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or at www.skinceuticals.com.
Contact: Laura Cummins at SkinCeuticals: (212) 984-4907/[email protected]
SOURCE SkinCeuticals
Related Links
http://www.skinceuticals.com
Following the aftermath of 2016, Israel forest suffered massive wildfires destroying 130,000 dunams (32,124 acres) across Israel caused by extremely dry and windy weather conditions and human negligence: campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, tossing a cigarette butt out of their car and intentional acts of arson.
Stockton's staff in Israel decided that they wanted to make a difference. Something had to be done in order to give back some TLC (tender loving care) to our land and the forest. Organized under the auspices and in full cooperation with Israel's afforestation and reservoir-building a national organization known as Keren Kayemuth LeIsrael (the Jewish National Fund - JNF), Stockton sets out to the northern part of Israel in an area which was severely devastated by these massive wildfires to restore and clean out unnecessary debris.
Guy Elitzur, CEO of Stockton commented on the 'Planting 4 Life' project, stating, "I am proud of Stockton, its employees and friends who humbly volunteered their time to make a difference in helping to clean and restore the land and the beauty of our forest in the wake of the recent wildfires. 'Planting 4 Life' is a great way to reverse the destruction caused by these fires, and help rehabilitate our forest to life again."
About the Stockton STK
Stockton STK specializes in the development and marketing of botanical-based biopesticides. Its core focus is on the incorporation of these biopesticides into integrated agriculture spraying programs that use conventional chemical products, thus creating a balanced, cleaner and sustainable agricultural environment.
Stockton is a global company established in 1994 and has an active R&D Center for the development of future natural products for crop protection. Its unique research and development center in Israel invests substantial resources in developing 'green' products. Stockton has a variety of products adapted to different agro ecological areas, biological parameters and regulatory guidelines.
Stockton's flagship product Timorex Gold is used to control a broad spectrum of diseases in diverse crops. The product demonstrates an efficacy equivalent to chemical fungicides and is suitable to be used in conventional and organic agriculture. Timorex Gold is registered and sold in over 30 countries.
Contact: For more information, please visit our website: www.stockton-ag.com or contact Judy Jamuy at: +972-52-7599242 or [email protected] .
SOURCE Stockton STK
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- RSA Conference -- Thales, a leader in critical information systems, cybersecurity and data protection, announces support for Google Cloud Platform's Customer-Supplied Encryption Key (CSEK) functionality. Google Cloud Platform customers can now generate, protect and supply their encryption keys to the cloud using an on-premise, FIPS-certified nShield hardware security module (HSM) from Thales. The new CSEK support empowers enterprise customers who want to move workloads and data to the Google Cloud Platform, but need to retain control of their key material on-premise.
Click to Tweet: BYOK w/@Thalesesecurity @Google Cloud Platform makes it easier for customers to control #encryption keys http://bit.ly/2lxEJgs
Jon Geater, CTO at Thales e-Security says:
"While most enterprises want to take advantage of public clouds, some have requirements to generate and manage encryption key material on-premise. In introducing Customer-Supplied Encryption Keys, Google is allowing customers to implement a separation of duties as required. Customers using nShield HSMs and leveraging Google Cloud Platform can manage their keys from their own environments for use in the cloud, giving them greater control over how key material is generated."
Protected by FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified hardware, nShield uses strong methods to generate keys based on nShield's high-entropy random number generator. Following generation, nShield exports customer keys into the cloud for one-time use via Google's Customer-Supplied Encryption Key functionality. Using this feature, keys are only stored in memory, and discarded by Google after use. Customers can also leverage nShield HSMs on-premise for key storage protection and resilient disaster recovery mechanisms, giving them greater control over their key lifecycle.
Many enterprises must meet strict security standards due to internal or regulatory compliance rules, which sometimes presents a barrier to cloud usage. Thales nShield support for Google's Customer-Supplied Encryption Key allows them to adopt key management practices that strengthen their cloud security and subsequently helps them implement their compliance controls.
Thales nShield HSMs are FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified, tamper-resistant devices. nShield HSMs are also Common Criteria certified and are recognized as Qualified Signature Creation Devices (QSCDs) under the European eIDAS requirements. Thales is a technology member of the Google Cloud Platform partner program.
About Thales e-Security
Thales e-Security is the leader in advanced data security solutions and services that deliver trust wherever information is created, shared or stored. We ensure that the data belonging to companies and government entities is both secure and trusted in any environment on-premise, in the cloud, in data centers or big data environments without sacrificing business agility. Security doesn't just reduce risk, it's an enabler of the digital initiatives that now permeate our daily lives digital money, e-identities, healthcare, connected cars and with the internet of things (IoT) even household devices. Thales provides everything an organization needs to protect and manage its data, identities and intellectual property and meet regulatory compliance through encryption, advanced key management, tokenization, privileged user control and high assurance solutions. Security professionals around the globe rely on Thales to confidently accelerate their organization's digital transformation. Thales e-Security is part of Thales Group.
About Thales
Thales is a global technology leader for the Aerospace, Transport, Defence and Security markets. With 62,000 employees in 56 countries, Thales reported sales of 14 billion in 2015. With over 25,000 engineers and researchers, Thales has a unique capability to design and deploy equipment, systems and services to meet the most complex security requirements. Its exceptional international footprint allows it to work closely with its customers all over the world.
Positioned as a value-added systems integrator, equipment supplier and service provider, Thales is one of Europe's leading players in the security market. The Group's security teams work with government agencies, local authorities and enterprise customers to develop and deploy integrated, resilient solutions to protect citizens, sensitive data and critical infrastructure.
Thales offers world-class cryptographic capabilities and is a global leader in cybersecurity solutions for defence, government, critical infrastructure providers, telecom companies, industry and the financial services sector. With a value proposition addressing the entire data security chain, Thales offers a comprehensive range of services and solutions ranging from security consulting, data protection, digital trust management and design, development, integration, certification and security maintenance of cybersecured systems, to cyberthreat management, intrusion detection and security supervision through cybersecurity Operation Centres in France, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Hong Kong.
SOURCE Thales
Related Links
http://www.thalesesec.com
ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Lukens Company, a direct response marketing agency serving the Republican political arena for over 30 years, announced today the expansion of its political services division with the addition of four team members who possess a wealth of experience and expertise. The new team will be led by Ohio native Matt Mason, who previously held leadership roles on presidential campaigns and Republican Party committees. Rounding out the team are Lindsay Shuba Donnelly, Jonathan Gormley, and Ehren Oates, each of whom brings an impressive track record of success in the areas of political strategy and consulting, state- and national-level field operations, and issue-advocacy and policy experience.
"After a highly successful 2016 Election cycle, The Lukens Company is looking forward to leading even more campaigns to victory under the expert guidance of this bright, ambitious team," said Walter Lukens, CEO and President of The Lukens Company. "Our political consulting and campaign strategy services will benefit greatly from their knowledge and expertise."
Added Vice President Seth Colton: "The Lukens Company has already established itself as one of the most creative and client-centric Republican consultancies in the nation. We are confident our new team members will add even more value to our clients, helping us expand the services we offer while continuing to raise more dollars, earn more votes and win more hearts and minds in support of our clients' causes."
Matt Mason joined The Lukens Company in October 2016, bringing more than 10 years of senior leadership experience on national campaign organizations, including Scott Walker for President, the Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party, and Rudy Giuliani for President. Matt is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps who completed a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005.
Lindsay Shuba Donnelly comes to TLC with a background rooted in federal policy and grassroots advocacy. She most recently served as Senior Political Representative for the National Association of REALTORS, helping to oversee the organization's advocacy, communications and PAC operations, and she will put that expertise to use for TLC's clients by enhancing our data-driven fundraising, voter contact, and issue advocacy programs.
Jonathan Gormley has spent 15 years helping Republicans win elective office and empowering conservative 501(c) 4 activist groups, and he joins TLC with broad experience managing large-scale voter contact operations and political campaigns as well as leading elite education initiatives within the Republican National Committee. His detailed knowledge of how campaigns, party committees, and non-profits achieve success will be invaluable to TLC's growing roster of top-tier clients.
Ehren Oates comes to TLC from Florida, where he helped Republican Party committees and candidates achieve a string of successes, from victories in state legislative contests, to gubernatorial campaigns, and his most recent post as Florida's Statewide Field Director for Donald Trump for President. He will provide acute knowledge of voter contact strategies, grassroots campaign tactics, and data management.
About the Lukens Company
The Lukens Company specializes in highly creative and targeted multichannel advocacy, voter contact, and fundraising campaigns for Republican candidates, committees, and causes. In 2016, TLC enjoyed the most successful cycle in our 31-year history with a win rate of 98.5% and $130 million dollars raised for its clients.
PRLog ID: www.prlog.org/12619517
SOURCE The Lukens Company
Related Links
http://www.tlcpolitical.com/
NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Rockefeller Foundation announced today that it will be making grants of $500,000 each to the ACLU Foundation, the International Rescue Committee, and the Anti-Defamation League. The organizations will use the funds at their discretion to provide a variety of legal, advocacy, and social services to refugees and immigrants coming to the United States.
"At The Rockefeller Foundation we are always guided by our values of diversity, pluralism, and respect for all," said Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin. "Our values reflect a belief in progress, held by our founder and advanced by generations since. When progress is threatened we will always stay true to our mission and both defend and advance our values. At this time of discrimination, fear, and confusion, we think it is vital for philanthropy to stand with, and financially support, organizations that are working to defend and assist refugees and immigrants."
The Rockefeller Foundation has a history of supporting those who face discrimination and oppression and those fleeing persecution. Between 1933 and 1945, while the European intellectual community was dismantled by the racial and ideological tenets of Nazism, The Rockefeller Foundation responded by supporting and operating a refugee scholar program. Hundreds of scholars and their families were rescued under this program. Today, in addition to the grants being announced, the Foundation's Innovative Finance team is working with grantees to create digital economic identities for tens of millions of refugees with no access to electronic banking, and also to design a new financing facility for funding critical gaps in education, housing, healthcare, and sanitation in countries surrounding Syria that have seen the greatest influx of refugees.
The funding to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) will support those who come to the IRC's 29 offices across the United States for necessary and immediate aid on arrival and beyondincluding housing, cultural orientation, health care, education, employment, and immigration services. Contributions will also support the work of IRC's dedicated field teams who are helping clients successfully integrate into American society and supporting refugees in conflict zones across the globe.
"We are incredibly grateful that The Rockefeller Foundation has chosen to support the IRC's work with this generous gift," said David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. "This contribution will help refugees beginning a new life in the United States as well as those whose lives have been upended by war, conflict, and natural disasters in more than 40 countries."
The funding to the ACLU Foundation will support the organization's enduring mission to preserve and promote civil rights and civil liberties protected by the U.S. Constitution, with a particular current focus on addressing the multi-front assault against refugees and immigrants.
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, said: "As we face the greatest civil liberties crisis of our time, The Rockefeller Foundation is the first large, independent foundation in the U.S. to step up and give the ACLU a grant to fight President Trump's Muslim ban and the rest of his unconstitutional agenda. This is the fight of our lives and we are so grateful that The Rockefeller Foundation has had the courage to support us."
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will use the funding to support ADL's advocacy in response to the executive order on immigration and refugees, including outreach to political leaders, law enforcement officials, coalition partners, community groups, and the American public. It will also support legal advocacy, including the filing of amicus briefs in various courts across the country now reviewing the order's constitutionality.
Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said: "Ours is a nation dedicated to ideals of equality, liberty, and justice. These ideals have often been tested with respect to immigration, and they are being tested again today. Sometimes we have risen to the challenge, but other timeswhen prejudice and fear predominate over reason and compassionwe have faltered, often with devastating consequences. Support from The Rockefeller Foundation will help us expand and deepen our advocacy to ensure that our nation does not repeat the mistakes of the past, and continues to be a beacon of hope for those seeking refuge from persecution."
About The Rockefeller Foundation
For more than 100 years, The Rockefeller Foundation's mission has been to promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world. Today, The Rockefeller Foundation pursues this mission through dual goals: advancing inclusive economies that expand opportunities for more broadly shared prosperity, and building resilience by helping people, communities and institutions prepare for, withstand, and emerge stronger from acute shocks and chronic stresses. To achieve these goals, The Rockefeller Foundation works at the intersection of four focus areasadvance health, revalue ecosystems, secure livelihoods, and transform citiesto address the root causes of emerging challenges and create systemic change. Together with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation strives to catalyze and scale transformative innovations, create unlikely partnerships that span sectors, and take risks others cannotor will not. To learn more, please visit www.rockefellerfoundation.org.
SOURCE The Rockefeller Foundation
Related Links
http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org
HOUSTON, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Texas Medical Center (TMC) Innovation Institute today welcomes 24 startups into its accelerator programits largest class since the institute's inceptionto introduce their health IT applications to the Houston health care market. This is the fourth installment of TMCx, a program that is designed to meet the needs of startups at every stagefrom ideation to commercializationand to lower the barriers of access to hospital stakeholders and key opinion leaders across the world's largest medical center.
This new cohort also includes three Australian companies from the TMC's new BioBridge health technology startup exchange program designed to create a global health ecosystem linking the two countries.
"The Texas Medical Center hosts more than eight million patient visits each year, with people coming to Houston from all over the world, so it is fitting that this new cohort includes the best of the best in digital health startups from several international locations," said Erik M. Halvorsen, Ph.D., director of the TMC Innovation Institute. "Our mission is to help these startups connect their promising technology to the leading minds in medicine and business in our network."
Companies accepted to the new TMCx digital health cohort include:
Arterys ( San Francisco ) Automated, intelligent software that uses real-world clinical data to make imaging more accurate and data driven.
Automated, intelligent software that uses real-world clinical data to make imaging more accurate and data driven. Avalon AI ( London, England ) Machine learning to automatically measure key features from brain MRI scans to increase speed and accuracy of neuroradiology diagnosis.
Machine learning to automatically measure key features from brain MRI scans to increase speed and accuracy of neuroradiology diagnosis. Babyscripts ( Washington, D.C. ) Remote monitoring to better identify high-risk pregnancies.
Remote monitoring to better identify high-risk pregnancies. Clipboard Health ( San Francisco ) Online marketplace connecting nursing staff with medical systems for tailored job placement.
Online marketplace connecting nursing staff with medical systems for tailored job placement. CNSDose ( Melbourne, Australia ) Genomic solution to fast track finding the most suitable antidepressant.
Genomic solution to fast track finding the most suitable antidepressant. ConsultLink ( Houston ) Mobile workspace for care team members to streamline and improve patient care.
Mobile workspace for care team members to streamline and improve patient care. DOT ( Ottawa, Canada ) Precise and effective wearable consumer devices that diagnose and treat neurobehavioral disorders.
Precise and effective wearable consumer devices that diagnose and treat neurobehavioral disorders. Glidian ( Palo Alto, Calif. ) Electronic portal that streamlines prior authorizations for medications and procedures.
Electronic portal that streamlines prior authorizations for medications and procedures. Healthcoin ( Portland, Ore. ) Blockchain-based incentives and data platform for diabetes prevention.
Blockchain-based incentives and data platform for diabetes prevention. InContext Reporting ( Houston ) Quality management and clinical decision support tools powered by cognitive computing.
Quality management and clinical decision support tools powered by cognitive computing. Insight Rx ( San Francisco ) Quantitative pharmacology and machine-learning enabled precision medicine platform.
Quantitative pharmacology and machine-learning enabled precision medicine platform. Lantern ( San Francisco ) Personalized programs that combine daily exercises and professional coaching to strengthen emotional well-being.
Personalized programs that combine daily exercises and professional coaching to strengthen emotional well-being. M&S Biotics ( Scranton, Pa. ) Artificial Intelligence and RFID technology improve resource utilization and efficiency.
Artificial Intelligence and RFID technology improve resource utilization and efficiency. ManageUP PRM ( Santa Clara, Calif. ) Communication and collaboration solution to improve the ability to deliver quality patient care.
Communication and collaboration solution to improve the ability to deliver quality patient care. Medable ( Palo Alto, Calif. ) Provides a fast path to secure, HIPAA-compliant health care applications for researchers, startups, pharma, payers and academia.
Provides a fast path to secure, HIPAA-compliant health care applications for researchers, startups, pharma, payers and academia. Medifies ( San Francisco ) Platform to improve the hospital waiting room experience by keeping families informed through real-time updates.
Platform to improve the hospital waiting room experience by keeping families informed through real-time updates. NeuroLex Laboratories ( Atlanta ) Voice analysis platform to detect health conditions before advanced symptoms appear.
Voice analysis platform to detect health conditions before advanced symptoms appear. Oncomfort ( Houston and Brussels, Belgium ) Virtual reality technology to help ease patients' stress, pain and anxiety during their medical journey.
Virtual reality technology to help ease patients' stress, pain and anxiety during their medical journey. Personify Care ( Adelaide, Australia ) Mobile platform enabling clinical teams to monitor patient recovery beyond the hospital stay.
Mobile platform enabling clinical teams to monitor patient recovery beyond the hospital stay. Psious ( Barcelona, Spain ) Virtual reality immersion therapy for mental health disorders.
Virtual reality immersion therapy for mental health disorders. SensorRx ( Houston ) Patient-centered application to improve outcomes for migraine sufferers.
Patient-centered application to improve outcomes for migraine sufferers. Stroll Health ( San Francisco ) EHR-integrated referral platform.
EHR-integrated referral platform. Vios Medical ( Minneapolis and Bangalore, India ) Patient management information systems focusing on clinical workflow automation and remote patient care services.
Patient management information systems focusing on clinical workflow automation and remote patient care services. Ward Medication Management ( Melbourne, Australia ) Decision support analytics engine that provides evidence-based prescribing recommendations.
TMCx provides a comprehensive and practical curriculum to assist participating founders on their entrepreneurial path. Successful investors, entrepreneurs, subject-matter experts, industry professionals and hospital leaders guide each startup in the areas of intellectual property, product development, regulatory strategies, health policy, marketing, fundraising, contract negotiations and communications.
The 24 companies will present their final pitch to an audience of advisors, hospital stakeholders and investors as part of Demo Day on June 8. Information on that event will be forthcoming.
About TMCx
TMCx is the Texas Medical Center's accelerator program housed in a 100,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility, designed to catapult the development of early-stage life science and digital health startups. TMCx is one of the core components of the Texas Medical Center's Innovation Institute and a major step in the Texas Medical Center's long-term plans to become one of the world's premiere life science commercialization clusters. TMCx provides entrepreneurs the essential resources for growth including office and meeting space, training curriculum and an extensive advisor network comprised of business and legal experts, health care professionals, executives and investors. The inaugural TMCx program launched in Spring 2015. The Innovation Institute programs also include the TMC Biodesign fellowship and TMCx+ incubator. Corporate residents include Johnson & Johnson Innovation's JLABS @ TMC and AT&T Foundry for Connected Health, as well as a partnership with Apple. For more information, visit www.tmcinnovation.org.
PR Contact
Christen David
Vice President of Communications
[email protected]
713-791-8838
SOURCE Texas Medical Center
Related Links
http://www.tmcinnovation.org
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Browse 34 market data Tables and 17 Figures spread through 151 Slides and in-depth TOC on "Top 10 Plastics Market"
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This progress is fueled by the growth in key end-use industries, such as automotive, building & construction, packaging, electrical & electronics, and construction; substitution of metal-based products with various plastic materials; and rising disposable income of middle class in emerging economies.
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Polyethylene (PE): The largest type segment of the top 10 plastics market
Polyethylene is the largest type segment of the global top 10 plastics market, followed by the polypropylene segment. The high demand for polyethylene is mainly due to its effective and substantial usage in consumer products, especially in packaging materials. Properties, such as flexibility, thermal & electrical insulation, and chemical & thermal resistivity, make its usage widespread in applications such as packaging, construction, electrical, electronics, automotive, and so on. Polyethylene is also lightweight, easy to manufacture, and easily available, which further boost its demand in the aforementioned applications.
Packaging: The largest application segment of the top 10 plastics market
Packaging is currently the largest application segment of the Top 10 Plastics Market. Plastics provide a much cleaner, tougher, and aesthetically appealing form of packaging, especially for the food & beverage industry and the electronics industry. This is anticipated to fuel its demand in the packaging application segment. The extensive use of plastics in bags, pouches, and sachets as well as in conventional packaging methods is also expected to drive the growth of the packaging segment.
Asia-Pacific: The largest market for top 10 plastics
The Asia-Pacific region was the largest market for top 10 plastics, in terms of value and volume, in 2015. The steady growth in construction spending of countries this region, such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand, has led to increased investments in industrial and public infrastructure where plastics products are widely used. The extensive use plastics in electronics & consumer products and automotive applications and the growing preference of people for urbanized lifestyle are also key factors responsible for making Asia-Pacific the largest market for the top 10 plastics.
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The Dow Chemical Company (U.S.), ExxonMobil Chemical Company, Inc. (U.S.), and SABIC (Saudi Arabia) are the most important players in the global top 10 plastics market. These companies witnessed the highest strategy adoptions in the market, and accounted for the largest share of the overall activities from 2011 to 2016.
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High Performance Plastics Market by Type (Fluoropolymers, High Performance Polyamide, PPS, SP, LCP, AKP, and PI), End-Use Industry (Transportation, Electrical and Electronics, Medical, Industrial), and Region - Global Forecast to 2026
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10 Years by the Numbers
75 p ortfolio compan ies established
P ortfolio value reaches $84 m illion
6 e xits / 2 p ublic c ompanies
Over 15 a wards , including two Best Incubator awards
28 conferences & r oad s hows
Collaboration agreements with multinational corporations, including B. Braun and Bayer
"Showcasing" Our Network
In its 10th year of activity as the owner of award-winning medical and agtech technologies incubators, The Trendlines Group will hold its 7th Annual Trendlines Company Showcase on 29 March 2017, featuring nine of its portfolio companies presenting to investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders from Israel, Singapore, China, the United States, and more. Trendlines' 2016 event drew a record 450 participants. Uri Levine, Serial Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Waze, will give the keynote address, "Passion for Entrepreneurship."
Trendlines by the Numbers: In 2010, Trendlines held its 1st Annual Trendlines Company Showcase in Israel, with 100 participants.
From Chicago to Shorashim
While Trendlines Chairmen and CEOs, Steve Rhodes and Todd Dollinger both grew up in Chicago, they met in Israel 26 years ago, at a place they and their families still call home, Moshav Shorashim in the Western Galilee. That's where the Trendlines story begins. Recognizing the need to assist Israeli companies in "going global," and drawing on decades of experience in finance (Steve) and business development (Todd), they founded Trendlines International as a business development firm focused on assisting and guiding innovation-based Israeli companies in the complex U.S. market. Todd and Steve were among the pioneers in Israel's high-tech start-up nationhood.
From the Hills of the Galilee to Shores of Singapore
Ten years ago, Steve and Todd established The Trendlines Group to acquire the incubators now known as Trendlines Medical and Trendlines Agtech, two incubators that operate under license from the Israeli Government. Trendlines completed its evolution from consulting to investing after the formation of The Trendlines Group and brought forward the vision of "creating and developing companies to improve the human condition." The Company's mission focuses its investments on early-stage medical device and agricultural technologies; Trendlines has succeeded in a manner that has earned it a reputation as an innovator and leader in its fields.
From 10 employees in 2007, The Trendlines Group now employs 40 people in Israel, Singapore, and China. In accordance with Trendlines' business model, the team provides its 46 portfolio companies with intensive hands-on support in finance, business development, technology development, marketing communications, and human resources - in every aspect necessary to the success of its companies.
Trendlines by the Numbers: From 100 m2 of office and laboratory space in Misgav, Israel to 2,620 m2 of office space in Misgav, Ramat Gan, and Singapore
As a natural extension of their leadership in early-stage investing, Todd and Steve took the Company public on the Singapore Exchange in November 2015, raising approximately SGD$38 million in IPO-related financings. In 2016, Trendlines established Trendlines Medical Singapore, leveraging partnerships with B. Braun, the Government of Singapore, and investment bank PrimePartners, to create and develop innovation-based medical device companies with a view toward global markets success.
Trendlines by the Numbers: Over 15 awards to Trendlines' incubators, portfolio companies and CEOs in Israel and abroad.
Putting Israeli Agtech on the Map
To support the Company's commitment to invest in agricultural technologies, in 2011, Trendlines Agtech became the first and only incubator in Israel to focus solely on this sector. At that time, agtech investments lagged behind other sectors (even in Israel, historically an agtech powerhouse); the global investment community has recently awoken to the immense opportunities in this critical market. Trendlines has been an important force in creating and nurturing a burgeoning agtech ecosystem for Israeli start-ups by bringing together vital elements necessary to support and build agtech investing: entrepreneurs, multinationals, and investors.
Trendlines co-initiated the first AgriVest event in 2012 when 100 attendees gathered to learn about the fledgling sector. By the 4th conference in 2016, AgriVest was recognized as the must-attend event for anyone who is anyone in the international agtech arena. The 2016 conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science attracted over 400 attendees from around the globe and, more importantly, Trendlines and AgriVest placed Israeli agtech firmly on the map of investors and industry players.
Expanding Business Diversity
Trendlines established its in-house 'innovation center,' Trendlines Labs, to invent products and technologies to resolve unmet medical and agricultural needs for Trendlines and its strategic partners. Trendlines Labs has established collaboration agreements with Israel's two largest hospitals as well as hospitals in the United States and Singapore. Trendlines Labs has executed partnering agreements with multinational companies in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
The Company and its portfolio companies regularly appear in the international media. Steve, Todd, and members of Trendlines' senior management team speak at conferences around the world on innovation, entrepreneurship, and early-stage investing.
As Trendlines enters its second decade, it redoubles its commitment to 'improving the human condition' by inventing, investing in, and incubating evermore early-stage, breakthrough medical and agricultural technologies in Israel, Singapore, and beyond.
About The Trendlines Group
The Trendlines Group is an innovation commercialization company that invents, discovers, invests in, and incubates innovation-based medical and agricultural technologies to fulfill its mission to improve the human condition. As intensely hands-on investors, Trendlines is involved in all aspects of its portfolio companies from technology development to business building. The Trendlines Group is traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX: 42T) and in the United States as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) on the OTCQX International (OTCQX: TRNLY).
Investor Contact Information:
Israel
Judith Kleinman
Director
Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
The Trendlines Group
[email protected]
Tel: +972-72-260-7000
Singapore
Reyna MEI
Financial PR
[email protected]
Tel: +65-6438-2990
SOURCE The Trendlines Group Ltd. (Trendlines)
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Running a successful business is all about perseverance. It takes drive, passion, and creativityand for thousands of women across the globe, it represents their ability to overcome tremendous adversity. That's why one company is turning heads with an event dedicated solely to helping women succeed in business. Recently USANA, a global health company, celebrated its sixth annual Successful Women Encouraging Entrepreneurs Together (SWEET) Retreat in Phoenix, AZ.
"The women on stage at this event built successful USANA businesses their own way, and it's incredible to see how they have changed their lives and the lives of so many others," said Lori Truman, vice president of US field development.
While the event was filled with ambitious and successful women sharing their stories and advice, USANA took things one step further and worked to make a difference beyond the event itself. The company teamed up with the Phoenix Rescue Mission Changing Lives Center, a women's shelter dedicated to helping women get back on their feet and providing them with the tools necessary to do so. USANA asked SWEET Retreat attendees to donate professional clothing, purses and shoes to the cause, and this group of entrepreneurs really stepped up to the plate with hundreds of donations.
"I've been attending this retreat every year since it began and I absolutely love learning from USANA's women leaders," said Viola Creb, a USANA Executive Gold Director. "Women have unique gifts and talents and USANA's SWEET Retreat gives us the added bonus of helping us explore our powerful female forces."
According to the Direct Selling Association, more than 77 percent of participants in the direct selling industry are women.
About USANA
Founded in 1992, USANA Health Sciences (NYSE: USNA) is a U.S.-based nutritional company that manufactures high-quality supplements, personal care and healthy food products in its FDA-registered facility in Salt Lake City. Learn more about USANA by visiting our web site http://www.usana.com or the official USANA blog http://whatsupusana.com.
Media Contact: Ashley Collins
VP Marketing & Public Relations
(801) 954-7629
media(at)us.usana(dot)com
SOURCE USANA Health Sciences
Related Links
http://www.usana.com
ATLANTA and TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WellCare of Georgia, a subsidiary of WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG), announced today that Sonya Nelson has joined the company as state president, effective Feb. 13, 2017. In this role, she will be responsible for WellCare of Georgia's Medicaid and Medicare Advantage businesses including strategy, regulatory compliance, network management, sales and marketing, medical management, finance and administration. She will report to Gregg MacDonald, senior vice president, division president.
"With a career in health care spanning more than 25 years, Sonya has exceptional experience in providing quality, cost-effective health care solutions that deliver better health outcomes for the members we serve," said MacDonald. "Her leadership skills and managed care services background will be a tremendous asset for WellCare."
"I am honored to have been chosen to lead WellCare's operations in Georgia," said Nelson. "My number one goal is to help make the communities we serve healthier. This will encompass many coordinated strategies, including continuing to partner with the state and providers to offer quality health care access for our members; expanding our Medicare Advantage presence; and building on WellCare's culture of service excellence."
Nelson joins WellCare from Amerigroup Louisiana, where she held leadership roles including state president and chief operating officer, and served approximately 229,000 members who participate in the state's Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion and LaCHIP programs. Before joining Amerigroup, Nelson held positions of increasing responsibility with BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and Humana, Inc. Nelson graduated from Auburn University with a bachelor's degree in business administration, management and operations.
As of Dec. 31, 2016, WellCare serves approximately 571,000 Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids plan members, 40,000 Medicare Advantage plan members and 23,000 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members in Georgia. To learn more about how WellCare cares for Georgians, watch Gloria's story at http://youtu.be/qyn-nywze04.
About WellCare Health Plans, Inc.
Headquartered in Tampa, Fla., WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) focuses exclusively on providing government-sponsored managed care services, primarily through Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, to families, children, seniors and individuals with complex medical needs. The company serves approximately 3.9 million members nationwide as of Dec. 31, 2016. For more information about WellCare, please visit the company's website at www.wellcare.com or view the company's videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/WellCareHealthPlan.
SOURCE WellCare Health Plans, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.wellcare.com
LAWRENCEBURG, Ky., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps, Wild Turkey Master Distiller Eddie Russell decided to dabble in the family business a few miles from his boyhood home at the Wild Turkey Distillery. That was back in 1981, and the new college grad wasn't quite sure the distilling business was for him. Flash forward more than three decades and the student has become the master, celebrating his 35th anniversary and releasing some of the finest whiskies the Bluegrass State has to offer. To mark the occasion, Eddie is releasing Wild Turkey Master's Keep Decades, the second limited-edition Bourbon in the Master's Keep series.
Celebrating the 35th anniversary of Master Distiller Eddie Russell, Wild Turkey(R) is releasing Master's Keep Decades, the second limited-edition Bourbon in the Master's Keep series.
"For Master's Keep Decades, I went all out and used some of the rarest and most precious barrels in our stocks," shared Eddie Russell. "The final product is a whiskey with the finesse and deep character of older Bourbon, anchored by the bold, balanced, and vibrant backbone of younger bourbon. I have to say, this is a whiskey I truly love and I'll be holding a few bottles back for my personal collection."
With this release, Wild Turkey looks back on the long road to the release of Master's Keep Decades, which started on June 5, 1981, when Edward Freeman Russell put his work boots on for the first time at Wild Turkey. Starting the same way his father did, Eddie had to master every menial job in the distillery before being promoted to supervise the rickhouses where the barrels aged. As he got further along in his career, his father, legendary Master Distiller Jimmy Russell, began to pass down the knowledge he had learned from his own mentors, while instilling in Eddie the values of integrity, craftsmanship and never compromising on quality.
In 2015, Eddie earned the illustrious title of Master Distiller and joined his father at the distillery's helm. Today, the two Bourbon Hall of Famers work side by side as the industry's only active father and son master distiller duo, boasting almost 100 years of combined experience. With the same sense of humility, humor and passion for perfection as his father, Eddie continues to influence the ever-expanding whiskey industry and bring new products to market, including Wild Turkey Bourbon (formerly known as Wild Turkey Bourbon 81), Wild Turkey Diamond Anniversary, Wild Turkey Master's Keep and now, Wild Turkey Master's Keep Decades.
"When Eddie started working at the distillery, I didn't make it easy for him. I didn't want people to think I was giving him special treatment, so I made him do a lot of hard, thankless work to earn everyone's respect," recalled Master Distiller Jimmy Russell. "Watching him step into his own, earn the admiration of his peers and create some of the best whiskies I've ever tasted has been the most fulfilling experience a father could ask for."
Made from a blend of whiskies aged 10 to 20 years, this 104 proof (52% alc. /vol.) Kentucky Straight Bourbon has a nose of oak and caramel. It delivers beautifully intricate notes of butterscotch, dried fruit, chocolate, and smoke, and lingers with a smooth, sweet, and spicy finish. Available nationally and at the Wild Turkey Visitor Center in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, Wild Turkey Master's Keep Decades will retail for $150 for a limited time.
About Campari America
Campari America is a wholly owned subsidiary of Davide Campari-Milano S.p.A. (Reuters CPRI.MI - Bloomberg CPR IM). At the heart of Campari America are two legends in the American spirits industry. The first, Skyy Spirits, was founded in San Francisco back in 1992 by the entrepreneur who invented iconic SKYY Vodka. The second is the world-famous Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, where they have been making the world's finest whiskies since the 1800's. Both companies were purchased by Davide Campari-Milano and together they form Campari America, which has built a portfolio unrivaled in its quality, innovation and style, making it a top choice among distributors, retailers and consumers. Campari America manages Gruppo Campari's portfolio in the US with such leading brands as SKYY Vodka, SKYY Infusions, Campari, Aperol, Wild Turkey Straight Kentucky Bourbon, American Honey, Russell's Reserve, Glen Grant Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Forty Creek Canadian Whisky, BULLDOG Gin, Cabo Wabo Tequila, Espolon Tequila, Appleton Estate Rum, Wray & Nephew Rum, Coruba Rum, Ouzo 12, X-Rated Fusion Liqueur, Frangelico, Cynar, Averna, Braulio, Carolans Irish Cream, Irish Mist Liqueur and Jean-Marc XO Vodka.
Campari America is headquartered in San Francisco, California. More information on the company can be found at www.campariamerica.com, www.facebook.com/campariamerica, Twitter: @CampariAmerica and www.camparigroup.com. Please enjoy Campari America brands responsibly and in moderation.
For Additional Information, Contact:
Sarah Bessette Jarryd Boyd Campari America Edible [email protected] [email protected] 401-595-2241 212-729-2129
SOURCE Campari America
Related Links
http://www.campariamerica.com
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ZirMed, a recognized leader in revenue cycle software and predictive analytics, today announced that HIMSS attendees can learn best practices directly from their industry experts and customers at the 2017 HIMSS Conference and Exhibition, in Orlando on Feb. 1922. These educational experiences, along with new solutions being unveiled at the ZirMed booth (#4871), reflect the company's focus on helping providers to optimize their revenue cycle across the continuum of careand to get paid faster and more completely, with less effort.
To hear real-world success stories from ZirMed customers:
Keys to Collaboration in The Midst of New Payment Models
Wednesday, Feb. 22; 4 p.m. EST
Andrew Ray, Director of Professional Revenue Cycle
Stanford Children's Health
Stanford Children's Health recognized that the key to success in healthcare's new marketplace is making collaboration and joint decision-making between clinical and financial staff a top priority. This session describes the three-step approach that the organization developed to optimize revenue, boost organizational efficiency and enhance the overall patient experience during a period when the network grew its physician business by more than 20 percent. It will also discuss the importance of proactively managing the revenue cycle to effectively tackle healthcare's new payment mechanisms. For more information, click here.
Tech Accelerates AR, Reduces Denials, Improves Staff Morale
Sunday, Feb. 19; 2:30 p.m. EST
Melissa Rigdon, Director of Coding and Revenue Management
Aultman Hospital
This presentation during the Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit at HIMSS17 explains how consolidating revenue cycle activities onto one digital platform with ZirMed enabled Aultman Hospital to improve its performance by $5.4 million, including $1 million in savings. Attendees can also learn more about Aultman's success in the ZirMed booth (#4871) on Feb. 21 at 2:30 p.m. ET. For more information, click here.
To learn from the company's subject matter experts at the ZirMed booth (#4871):
How to Thrive Under MACRA/MIPS and the Transition to Value-Based Reimbursement
Monday, Feb. 20; 10:30 a.m. EST
Holly Taylor, Value Based Care Strategist
ZirMed
This presentation in the ZirMed booth (#4871) aims to help providers understand how to prepare for MACRA and other quality-based payment measures. Taylor's practical guidance will include a breakdown of the must-dos for providers during this challenging time.
Why Predictive Analytics Matters
Wednesday, Feb. 22; 9:30 a.m. EST
Paul Bradley, Ph.D., Chief Data Scientist
ZirMed
This presentation in the ZirMed booth (#4871) explains why leveraging predictive analytics is critical to navigating an increasingly complex revenue cycle. It will also provide tips for moving from just analyzing data to achieving results that impact the bottom line.
Technology and the Patient-Centered Revenue Cycle
Sunday, Feb. 19; 9:45 a.m. EST
Holly Taylor, Value Based Care Strategist
ZirMed
This panel discussion during the Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit at HIMSS17 features a group of seasoned revenue cycle experts. Taylor, and her fellow panelists, will discuss the important role of technology in helping organizations to succeed in a value-based care environment. The conversation will highlight how technology enables providers to increase POS collections, reduce leakage and lessen administrative burdens for staff. For more information, click here.
At HIMSS17, ZirMed will also spotlight its new Professional Charge Integrity and Charge Integrity solution, as well as its Contract Management, Modeling and Payment Variance solution, with live product demonstrations. These solutions are part of the company's dynamic cloud-based revenue cycle management platform which addresses eligibility, charge integrity, claims management, AR management, patient responsibility and value-based care reimbursement. To schedule a meeting or demo in the ZirMed booth (#4871), please email [email protected].
Also, the following members of the ZirMed executive leadership team will be available at the conference: Tom Butts, Chairman and CEO; Jim Lacy, Chief Financial Officer; Ric Sinclair, Vice President of Product; Sean Cassidy, Vice President of Value Based Reimbursement; Paul Bradley, Ph.D., Chief Data Scientist; Wayne Grodsky, Enterprise Growth Officer; and Scott Ablin, Vice President of Marketing. To speak with a representative of the ZirMed leadership team, please email [email protected].
Lastly, the company welcomes David Johnson, author of Market vs. Medicine: America's Epic Fight for Better, Affordable Healthcare, for an evening cocktail reception on Monday, Feb. 20 in the ZirMed booth (#4871). Johnson will share his perspective on industry trends, based on his book, and sign copies for attendees.
About ZirMed
ZirMed empowers healthcare organizations to optimize revenue and population health with a dynamic end-to-end platform of cloud-based financial and clinical performance management solutionsincluding Claims Management, Charge Integrity, AR Management, Eligibility & Coverage Detection and Value Based Reimbursement. By combining breakthrough predictive analytics technology with innovative development and the industry's most advanced transactional network, ZirMed's award-winning solutions extract actionable insights that improve our clients' revenue cycles and support effective management of population healthwhile streamlining workflows and increasing operating efficiencies. To learn how ZirMed can help your organization boost its financial and clinical performance, visit www.ZirMed.com.
Media Contact:
Lisa Chernikoff
Amendola Communications for ZirMed
[email protected]
734-678-5513
SOURCE ZirMed
Related Links
http://www.zirmed.com
New Delhi, Feb 10 : The Rafale multi-role combat aircraft, set to become an important part of the Indian Air Force inventory in the near future, will be showcased at Aero India 2017 and perform solo flights daily, officials from its manufacturer Dassault Aviation said.
Three Rafale fighter aircraft that will take part in the biennial air show and aviation exhibition will include a single-seat Rafale C and two twin-seat Rafale B aircraft.
A daily flight "solo" display will be performed, officials said.
This comes as India has inked a deal with France for 36 Rafale fighter jets in a government-to-government contract.
"Dassault Aviation, the Rafale manufacturer, has contributed proudly to India's defence preparedness for more than 60 years. Demonstrating Rafale's capabilities in the Aero India reaffirms our total commitment to India's sovereignty," said Eric Trappier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dassault Aviation.
The deliveries of the aircraft will start in September, 2019 and will be completed in April, 2022, according to the Defence Ministry.
India and France signed an inter-government agreement for purchase of 36 Rafale fighters off-the-shelf on September 23, 2016.
This was after a long negotiation between the two countries over the price and other aspects of the deal which was agreed upon during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to France in April, 2015.
The 11th edition of the biennial International Aerospace and Defence Exhibition, Aero India, will be held on February 14-18 at Yelhanka in Bengaluru.
Around 30 countries and 72 aircraft will be participating in the event this year.
Vijayawada, Feb 11 : Andhra Pradesh police on Saturday detained opposition YSR Congress Party leader Roja as she was proceeding to attend National Women's Parliament at Amaravati.
The actress-turned-politician was detained for more than an hour at Gannavaram Airport here and was later forcibly taken towards an undisclosed location. She informed media houses that she was being taken towards Ongole in a vehicle.
Roja entered into heated argument with police officials for detaining her though she was invited to attend the Women's Parliament and she had the invitation and entry pass.
Several YSRCP leaders including women legislators rushed to the airport and alleged that Roja was Akidnapped. On the other hand, ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) alleged that she was coming to disrupt the event.
Roja, a member of Andhra Pradesh assembly, said the incident proved what kind of security women enjoyed in the state. She said the government was trying to prevent her from speaking truth at the conclave.
She said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Speaker Kodela Sivaprasad Rao had no moral right to organize the Women's Parliament. She said the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government was not sincere about women's empowerment and wanted to know why leaders like Brinda Karat and AMedha Patkar, who were working for the cause, were not invited to the event.
She claimed that National Women's Parliament has turned into a show of family of members of some leaders. She pointed out that daughter-in-law of Chandrababu Naidu and daughters of central minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao addressed the conclave.
More than 10,000 women delegates from across India and abroad are participating in three-day Women's Parliament, which began on Friday.
Washington, Feb 11 : Senator Bernie Sanders has called US President Donald Trump "delusional" and said that the country under his leadership could move into "authoritarian mode".
"I use the term 'delusional' with regard to Trump when he said there were 3 to 5 million 'illegals' who voted in the last election ... That is delusional," Sanders told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront" on Friday.
"Nobody in the world believes that is the case. There is zero evidence to back it up. But he makes that statement. So I think the word 'delusional' is correct."
Sanders said Trump, whom he called "a total hypocrite," put everyone in "a new era."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sanders, a failed presidential candidate and independent senator from Vermont, also took Trump to task for attacks on the media and the judiciary. He said Trump did not grasp the Constitution, which he swore to uphold when he reached the highest office in the nation.
"Clearly, we have a President who does not understand what our Constitution about, what democracy is about. And I think there is a fear that this country under Trump is moving into a more authoritarian mode," Sanders said.
Adding that he also calls the President a "pathological liar," Sanders said he didn't feel good using such harsh terms.
"I disagreed with George Bush all the time -- never called him a pathological liar, because he was not. Just a conservative President. But this guy lies all of the time," Sanders said of Trump.
Pyongyang, Feb 13 : North Korea on Monday claimed it successfully test-fired a surface-to-surface medium-to-long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 and its top leader Kim Jong Un guided the test firing, according to the state news agency KCNA.
The state media called Pukguksong-2 a "Korean style new type strategic weapon", which was developed on the instructions of top leader Kim Jong Un on the basis of the success made in the test-firing of the submarine-launched ballistic missile last August, Xinhua news agency reported.
Kim received the report on the development of this surface-to-surface ballistic missile, set the date for the test launch and personally guided the preparations on the spot, it said.
The state-run media noted that the test firing was conducted at a high angle considering security of the neighbouring countries.
Kim was satisfied with the test launch, saying that the new type ballistic missile system "provides convenience in operation and ensuring speed in striking".
South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff said that North Korea fired a ballistic missile which flew about 500 km into its eastern waters early on Sunday.
The presumed intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile was launched at around 7.55 a.m. local time (2255 GMT Saturday) near Banghyeon in North Korea's North Pyongan province.
Pyongyang test-fired Musudan missiles near the same place, where an airfield is located, in October last year.
It was North Korea's first test-launch of a ballistic missile in 2017 and also the first since US President Donald Trump took office on January 20.
South Korea's military said Pyongyang's launch of ballistic missile was a provocative act in violation of UN Security Council's resolutions, which ban North Korea from testing any ballistic missile technology.
The launch, the South Korean military believed, was aimed at drawing attention by showing off its nuclear and missile capability and was also part of armed protest against the Trump administration's hard-line stance toward North Korea.
Los Angeles, Feb 13 : Hollywood star Tom Hiddleston says the ensemble cast of "Kong: Skull Island" communicated with GIFs of their own movies.
The cast, which includes Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman, struck up a close bond working on the film and enjoyed laughing at themselves by sending out brief animated clips of their work to express their feelings on a situation, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
Hiddleston told Empire magazine: "John C. Reilly has instructed me in the way of the GIF. It's fun because you can take the p**s out of yourself. I've been sending people a particularly humiliating dancey one of me. And John recently, when he was disappointed by something, sent a gif of me from 'The Deep Blue Sea'.
"I just said, 'Where did you find that?' He said, 'I just googled disappointed gif.'"
New York, Feb 13 : A Twitter war spurred between US President Donald Trump and American businessman and TV celebrity, Mark Cuban after the latter cautioned the CEOs in a newspaper article "not to cozy up to Trump", media reports said.
According to a report in Esquire on Sunday, Cuban in Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper advised CEOs on how to act during the Trump administration. He cautioned them not to cozy up to Trump, even though the immediate political payoff could be tempting.
"Do what you think is right. Be an American citizen first," Cuban was quoted as saying.
However, these remarks did not apparently go well with Trump as he tweeted, accusing Cuban of being a disgruntled former supporter.
"I know Mark Cuban well. He backed me big-time but I wasn't interested in taking all of his calls. He's not smart enough to run for president!" he tweeted.
Cuban responded by simply writing "LOL".
Cuban posted the receipts of his correspondence with Trump during the campaign, when Trump sent Cuban a letter questioning why Cuban no longer supported him.
Cuban responded with a note of his own, and even dropped a hint that he may also campaign for presidency someday.
Mocking Trump, Cuban tweeted that it was better that the President was tweeting rather than governing.
"I don't know. But isn't it better for all of us that he is tweeting rather than trying to govern?".
Chennai, Feb 13 : Tamil Nadu's acting Chief Minister O. Panneeerselvam will be attending office on Monday after a week's gap, said officials.
On Sunday, he the media that he would be going to the state secretariat on Monday.
School Education Minister K. Pandiarajan will also be attending office, the officials said.
Panneeerselvam did not attend office ever since he revolted against AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala on February 7, alleging that his resignation was a forced one.
He resigned on February 5 paving the way for Sasikala to become the Chief Minister.
New Delhi, Feb 13 : China will participate for the first time in the Aero India, the biennial International Aerospace and Defence Exhibition, officials said Monday.
A delegation of 5-6 members from People's Liberation Army Air Force will participate, but there will be no aircraft from China in the air show, an Defence Ministry official said.
Aero India will be held from February 14 to 18 at Yelahanka in Bengaluru.
Around 30 countries and 72 aircraft will be participating in the 11th edition of Aero India. Over 500 companies and over two lakh business visitors are expected to attend the show.
Washington, Feb 13 : At least 188,000 people were evacuated from several northern California counties after authorities warned an emergency spillway in the countrys tallest dam was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.
The erosion prompted concerns that it could endanger the communities living downstream and evacuation orders were made on Sunday for cities and counties near Lake Oroville, which remain in effect, CNN reported.
"I would rather be safe than sorry. I would rather have people move out of the area hopefully to safety," Sheriff Kory Honea said.
"A hazardous situation is developing with the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. Operation of the auxiliary spillway has led to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of the structure," the sheriff's office posted on its Facebook page on Sunday night, emphasising that it was not a drill.
California Governor Jerry Brown also issued a state emergency order to help local authorities with the emergency situation and the evacuations.
The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheat Land, Yuba City, Plumas Lake and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders. The order was sent out after engineers discovered a hole that was eroding back towards the top of the spillway.
It's possible that crisis could be averted, however, because the California Department of Water Resources told the sheriff that the erosion "was not advancing as rapidly as we thought."
A plan is currently in place to employ helicopters to drop rocks into a crevice atop the erosion, which would plug the hole, said the sheriff.
As of about 6:30 p.m, about two inches of water was coming over the spillway, which was down significantly from when authorities first issued the evacuation orders, according to the report.
Department of Water Resources officials said they expect the flow to soon stop entirely, which will reduce the pace of erosion.
"The next several hours will be crucial in determining whether the concrete structure at the head of the auxiliary spillway remains intact and prevents larger, uncontrolled flows," the Butte county sheriff's office said in a statement.
In an effort to mitigate the situation, the DWR was increasing water releases from the main spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second in an effort to lessen the amount of water going down the emergency spillway, the sheriff's office said.
New Delhi, Feb 13 : The government is working towards increasing exports to China to balance a wide trade deficit and formulate a sustainable trade relationship between the two nations, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Monday.
"Our Commerce and Trade Department is working with China to increase our exports there so that there is parity in trade with China," Das said in a tweet.
Das held a meeting with the Chinese media delegation here.
"For sustainable trade relationship, balance of trade is required between India and China. There has to be evenness and balancing regarding our huge trade deficit... So we are able to move together," he added.
Total trade between India and China in 2016 was $71 billion. India had a very wide trade deficit of $46 billion in this.
"We are very strong in IT software and pharma. We would like to export these to China along with fruits, fish and vegetables," he said.
"We would like to have greater market access to China. So far as government is concerned, our economic policy is to have a very good economic partnership with China," he added.
"We are looking for more inflow of investment from China. Our embassy is working closely with China for this. We value our economic relations with China," he added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to India in 2104, had announced $20 billion investment in India, which has started flowing now.
"Now in India, you can start a new company in just two days by getting online permissions. We have simplified many procedures to increase ease of doing business. Clearances are given very quickly," Das added.
The Economic Affairs Secretary further said that Goods and Services Tax (GST) will improve business environment and GDP growth.
"Last time when I was in China, they showed a lot of interest in our GST," he said.
New Delhi, Feb 13 : A court here said on Monday it will deliver on February 16 its verdict in the 2005 Delhi serial blasts case which killed over 60 people.
Additional Sessions Judge Reetesh Singh, who was scheduled to announce the order on Monday, put it off for Thursday.
Tariq Ahmed Dar, Mohammed Hussain Fazili and Mohammed Rafiq Shah are facing trial in the case.
The court in 2008 framed charges against Dar, the alleged mastermind, and the other two for waging war against the state, conspiring, collecting arms, murder and attempt to murder.
The Delhi Police chargesheeted Dar, mentioning his call details that allegedly proved he was in touch with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives.
The police have registered three separate First Information Reports (FIRs) in three separate incident that took place in Sarojini Nagar, Kalkaji and Paharganj.
New Delhi, Feb 13 : In a narrow lane of an east Delhi neighbourhood, people queue up outside an inconspicuous building -- some holding kids. It houses one of the 110 Mohalla Clinics the AAP government has opened in the capital to make healthcare accessible to people for free.
The Patparganj facility, part of an initiative lauded by The Lancet Journal and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is housed in two rooms and a small hallway of the ground floor of a three-storey complex.
Doctors and other staff say around 150 patients come every day to get free consultation, medicines and medical examinations.
One of the visitors, Sonia's son is suffering from cold and cough for some days. This is her second visit to the clinic. The mother says the boy is feeling a lot better.
The clinic has proved to be an asset for low income people, Sonia told IANS.
"For minor ailments like cough, cold and fever, we would earlier just get medicines from medical stores without consulting a doctor. Even then, it would cost Rs 150-200.
"Now we don't pay anything. We get proper medical advice and even get medical tests free of cost," she said.
Ranjana Saxena, the doctor at the clinic, sees at least 130 patients daily.
"Sometimes this goes up to 180. We conduct all kinds blood tests and also provide immunization for children and pregnant mothers," she said.
Food-stall vendor Vinod Kumar is carrying some tablets and a cough syrup he has got from the clinic. He had come for a medical check-up of his wife but ended up getting consultation for himself as well.
"This is the biggest benefit" of the Mohalla Clinics, he said, referring to a unique primary healthcare initiative launched by the Arvind Kejriwal government that begins its third year on Tuesday.
"People who would normally avoid treatment for financial reasons now seek medical help for every illness," Vinod told IANS.
A majority of the 110 Mohalla Clinics in the capital are located mostly in poor neighbourhoods although a handful are in middle class colonies.
Delhi's soft-spoken Health Minister Satyendar Jain said people who visit these clinics "are quite happy" but he is not because "my work is not done yet".
"The real change will come only after we build all 1,000 clinics we had promised. Only then these clinics will be evenly spread across the city and residents will find one within a kilometre of their homes," Jain told IANS.
He said once all 1,000 Mohalla Clinics are up and running, the burden on hospitals will substantially reduce. "They will then look like hospitals, not railway platforms."
The AAP leader said there was a lot of demand for healthcare in the city of 18 million.
Till now, over 23 lakh people have availed of the services at the Mohalla Clinics. Of this around 50 per cent were those who used government medical services for the first time, the minister said.
"Poor will come for treatment when they are sick. But people from middle class will also come for regular check-ups and preventive measures as well, which is great," he said.
The AAP blames the delay in building 1,000 Mohalla Clinics by December 31 to the hurdles imposed by former Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, an appointee of the central government.
Jain says it will take another four to five months to build all of them. "It is unfortunate such a good project is being delayed due to political reasons."
(Vishav can be contacted at vishav@ians.in)
New Delhi, Feb 13 : At a time when the diplomatic dialogue between India and Pakistan has come to a virtual standstill, a sign of a temporary thaw in the cultural space is visible as Indian governments flagship culture body sponsored the travel of four Indian authors to the Karachi Literature Festival that concluded on Sunday.
Founder and Director of the Karachi lit fest, Ameena Saiyid, is seemingly overwhelmed by ICCR's support and has said that she regards it as a "friendly and progressive initiative" by India's flagship culture body.
"I regard it as a friendly and progressive initiative by ICCR and appreciate their support for literary and cultural events. It is precisely because there are some differences between our two countries that such festivals and support of them are necessary.
"I think such people-to-people contacts are of great importance in promoting peace and harmony between India and Pakistan. This is one of the objectives of the Karachi Literature Festival of which I am the founder and director," Saiyid told IANS in an email from Islamabad.
This development is particularly crucial as it comes at a time when India has undertaken a diplomatic offensive to isolate Pakistan internationally but on the other hand, Indian Council for Cultural Relations' (ICCR), which promotes the country's relations with the external world by executing the foreign ministry's projects abroad, supported the travel of Indian authors to Karachi Literature Festival.
Primary reports suggested that ICCR was one of the sponsors of the lit fest in Pakistan as the official website of the lit fest lists the culture body in its sponsors page. However, ICCR director general has said that they only sponsored the travel of four Indian authors to the festival.
"We did not sponsor the event. We only sponsored the travel of four Indian authors to the festival. The total amount was less than Rs 1.6 lakh. What happens is that a lot of authors reach out to us for travel assistance during such festivals and we support them. The decision was made in 2016 itself," ICCR director general Amarendra Khatua told IANS.
Khatua further said that this is in no way responsive of the government's changing foreign policy as far as Pakistan is concerned.
"We are a small body with an aim to promote Indian culture. We do not take decisions with regards to foreign policy. We try and promote Indian culture," added Khatua.
Ameena Saiyid also confirmed that ICCR "supported the Karachi Literature Festival in a small way by sponsoring the visit to Karachi of four Indian literary personalities."
The Karachi Literature Festival has become one of the major cultural events in Pakistan and serves as a melting pot of literature with participants from various countries. Since its inception in 2010, the literary event has grown by leaps and bounds and has served as a platform for discussions, debates, poetry readings and book launches.
Following the Uri attack last year, India had boycotted the SAARC summit in Islamabad, which ultimately led to its postponement as several other members walked out. There was also an "unofficial ban" on Pakistani artists called by Shiv Sena and other extreme-Right groups. Pakistan too had banned Indian films briefly, which has now been lifted.
Although Indian authors appear at the lit fest almost every year, it is for the first time that ICCR has sponsored the travel of Indian authors to Pakistan.
Pakistani author Reema Abbasi also expressed hope at the recent developments.
"I see it as a step in the direction we all want for this region -- freedom in the arena of arts and culture and for people to people contact. There was a considerable number of recognised writers from India at the Karachi Literature Festival and there was no dearth of enthusiastic audiences for them.
"Hopefully, at all levels, it is perhaps a sign of new beginnings and positive dialogues in 2017," Abbasi told IANS in an email.
The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) was founded in 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, independent India's first Education Minister.
Its objectives are to actively participate in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes pertaining to India's external cultural relations; to foster and strengthen cultural relations and mutual understanding between India and other countries; to promote cultural exchanges with other countries and people; and to develop relations with nations.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
Lucknow, Feb 13 : Campaigning for the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections came to an end on Monday evening at 5 p.m.
Voting will be held for 67 state assembly seats spread over 11 districts in the second phase on Wednesday. The first phase was held on February 11.
The 11 districts going to the polls in the second phase are Saharanpur, Bijnore, Moradabad, Sambhal, Pilibhit, Bareilly, Rampur, Amroha, Lakhimpur Kheri, Shahjahanpur and Budayun.
In the high-stake elections, in this phase much is at stake for both the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) ability to draw votes in this phase will also face a litmus test. Modi attracted impressive gatherings in Bijnore, Budayun and Lakhimpur Kheri, where he urged people to vote for the BJP for a stable government and to ring in prosperity for all.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav addressed five rallies, while Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and BSP supremo Mayawati too chipped in for their candidates on the last day of campaigning for the second phase of voting.
Chennai, Feb 13 : Private life insurer Reliance Nippon Life Insurance Company Ltd, part of Reliance Capital, is on the lookout for a suitable acquisition that would scale up its distribution network, said a top Reliance Capital official on Monday.
"We are interested in small life insurer promoted by banks or the one with distribution tie-ups with banks," Reliance Capital's Executive Director and CEO Sam Ghosh told IANS over phone from Mumbai.
According to him, Reliance Nippon Life is primarily an agency-driven company and would like to expand its distribution width.
He said there are some bank-promoted life insurers in the market and the company can look at them for acquisition if their promoters are also willing to sell.
Acquisition is part of the company strategy to scale up its distribution network aggressively, especially using the bancassurance (banks selling insurance policies) route, Ghosh added.
"The life insurance space in India has over 20 insurance players and there is bound to be consolidation in this sector. We are open to value accretive acquisition in this space, especially with a view to strengthen our distribution network and would be keen to acquire companies with strong business model and bancassurance channel," he said.
Reliance Nippon Life has over 770 offices with around 80,000 advisors/agents.
The company is amongst the very few insurers not to have a bancassurance tie-up. However nearly 50 per cent of the business for the Indian life insurance sector is from the bancassurance channel.
Reliance Nippon Life Insurance reported a 10 per cent increase in its renewal premium to Rs 776 crore, new business premium of Rs 215 crore and total premium of Rs 981 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2016.
The company's persistency or the renewal ratio has also gone up to 61 per cent last quarter.
Previously, a bank could only tie-up with one life insurer which restricted options for investors and was also responsible for mis-selling through this channel.
Later the insurance regulator announced guidelines to open up bancassurance architecture in the life insurance space allowing one bank to tie-up with multiple banks with a purpose to provide options to customers.
However, the policy has not found many takers as the bulk of business of top six players continue to come from their bancassurance partners.
"We are also in talks with various large banks for a bancassurance tie-up and hope to have few large banks as our distribution partners soon," Ghosh added.
The Reliance group entered the life insurance sector acquiring AMP Sanmar Life Insurance several years back.
Mumbai, Feb 13 : GVK has been finalised by Maharashtra's CIDCO to construct the upcoming Rs 16,000 crore Navi Mumbai International Airport, a greenfield project situated on the mainland, an official said here on Monday.
GVK, which currently manages the Mumbai International Airport Ltd, submitted the highest revenue sharing model of 12.6 percent per annum, while its sole closest competitor GMR, which managed the New Delhi airport, quoted a figure of 10.44 percent.
"Since the GVK bid is the best on the last day of the bidding process, the project will be awarded to them," City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) chief spokesperson Mohan Ninave told IANS.
The new airport will be constructed on a public-private-partnership model (PPP) for which CIDCO will foot the pre-development expenses that will be later recovered from GVK.
MIAL Executive Chairman and founder Chairman and MD of GVK, G.V.K. Reddy said: "It is a matter of immense pride for MIAL and GVK to have won the bid for building, developing and operating the Greenfield Navi Mumbai International Airport project. This is further testimony to our commitment that was ably demonstrated in the making of the iconic Terminal 2, along with the creation of efficient airside operations in a severely constrained Mumbai airport."
He said th GVK will remain committed towards creating, designing and managing yet another state-of-the-art airport, and deliver a world class gateway from Navi Mumbai to the world.
Reddy added that it looked forward to working with the Maharashtra government, CIDCO and all other stakeholders for the successful implementation of this exciting and challenging project.
The first phase of NVIA, coming up on 1,660 hectares of land spread across the adjacent districts of Thane and Raigad, is expected to be operational by December 2019 with a capacity of 10 million passengers per annum, he added.
Ninave said that when the full NMIA is completed by 2030, it will have a capacity of handling 60 million passengers, making it among the biggest in the world.
After the new airport is fully operational, it would decongest the load on single-runway MIAL which is considered to have reached a saturation point.
The MIAL is overstretched currently, handling 40 million passengers per year, with growth in passenger traffic estimated at 23 percent annually, with virtually no scope for expansion.
Over the years, the NMIA is expected to become a focal point for the emergence of a South Asian trans-shipment centre.
Geneva, Feb 13 : The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) "will spare no effort" to support Morocco in the implementation of its migration policy, IOM Director General William Lacy-Swing said on Monday.
He made this statement in a meeting with Morocco's permanent representative in Geneva, Ambassador Mohamed Aujjar, who informed him of the latest developments of the second phase of the Kingdom's campaign to regularise the legal situation of undocumented Sub-Saharan nationals.
"Morocco is showing the way to a much better humanitarian and benevolent approach to migrants," Lacy-Swing said.
He noted that the Moroccan initiative to regularise the legal situation of migrants "demonstrates a coherent, comprehensive, humanist and responsible approach", adding that the international community praises efforts made by Morocco to improve migrants' socio-economic living conditions.
The IOM Director General noted that this initiative will require significant human and financial resources, adding that his organisation is ready to provide "all possible assistance".
He also congratulated Morocco on its return to the African Union, noting that "this historic return will open new horizons to its relations with African countries and will have a positive impact on migration and migrants".
New Delhi, Feb 13 : The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the city government's response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking strict implementation of the ban on chewable tobacco products.
A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal directed the Delhi government to file its reply on the plea filed by an NGO, Fariyaad Foundation, and posted the matter for May 2.
The non-governmental organisation said the government issued a notification in 2015-16 to ban the sale, supply and manufacture of 'gutka' and other chewable tobacco products but it was not being strictly implemented.
The alleged inaction by the authorities showed their callousness, said the PIL, while seeking directions to the Delhi government and its Food Safety Department to strictly implement the ban.
On February 9, the high court had agreed to hear the plea on February 13.
New Delhi/Chandigarh, Feb 13 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday accused officials in Punjab of trying to move EVMs from a strong room in Punjab where polling was held on February 4. Officials denied the charge.
"This is absolutely shocking. Punjab officials trying to remove EVM machines," Kejriwal tweeted.
The incident related to some trunks, carrying EVMs inside, being moved in Punjab's Patiala district and a video of the exercise being shot by a local AAP leader.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader also posted a video showing some men opening and moving boxes which appeared to be containing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
"Officers entered strong room on the pretext of taking some papers but started removing EVMs," Kejriwal added.
Kejriwal's reaction came in response to another tweet claiming that a Returning Officer "allowed four people to enter the strong room where EVMs were kept".
AAP leader Sanjay Singh said he had asked the Chief Election Commissioner and other officials to take "strict action" in the matter.
However, Patiala Deputy Commissioner Ramvir Singh, who visited the striongroom, claimed that the EVMs being moved related to the municipal corporation elections held in 2015 and that these were being moved to make space for counting of votes on March 11.
He said that the EVMs of the assembly elections were "intact in the strongroom". In a communication to the EC and the CEO, the Deputy Commissioner said that the strongroom was under the protection of central forces 24 x 7.
The AAP Punjab unit also complained to Punjab chief electoral officer V.K. Singh in Chandigarh. AAP candidates in Patiala district alleged that officials were trying to "sabotage" the assembly polls.
"The stopped removing the trunks carrying the EVMs when the AAP leaders objected to it," a AAP leader said in Patiala.
The Deputy Commissioner, in his communication, claimed that the seals of the strongroom, which were intact, were shown to all candidates.
The AAP has already sought greater security for all strongrooms across Punjab where EVMs are kept. At many places, AAP volunteers have pitched tents outside the buildings where EVMs were kept under guard in strongrooms.
We have been able to leverage our industry knowledge with Engel & Volkers best practices, technology, international network, and brand recognition unique resources no other company offers.
Engel & Volkers Miami, a luxury real estate firm, is pleased to announce the launch of the Estrada-Zea Team. Juan Estrada and Margarita Zea, residential real estate advisors who specialize in luxury condos, have built on their momentum and established a team within Engel & Volkers Miami.
The husband-and-wife duo, previous owners of VIP Florida Real Estate, merged their company with Engel & Volkers in late 2015 after recognizing the competitive advantage and benefits the renowned brand provides. The brands strength, growing global network, innovative technology and collaborative local company culture aligned with their business development goals. Since joining the brand, Juan and Margarita have brought a level of talent that has not only resulted in success for their own business, but for the company as a whole.
My wife and I are proud of the successful track record weve built and are thrilled to be able to work with one of the worlds most prominent real estate companies, Juan Estrada said. We have been able to leverage our industry knowledge with Engel & Volkers best practices, technology, international network, and brand recognition unique resources no other company offers.
Engel & Volkers is growing in Miami and we have been successful in attracting market-leading real estate professionals, said Irving Padron, Engel & Volkers Miami License Partner. That said, were focused on quality, not quantity, and were strategically building our firm with like-minded professionals like the Estrada-Zea Team who share our same excitement and passion about our brand and Miamis future. I thank them for their tremendous contribution to our company, and were excited to see whats next for this power duo.
Since joining, the Estrada-Zea Team has tripled their personal sales volume, listed several million-plus dollar listings including a $6.7 million luxury condo last month and is on track to reach at least $40 million in sales in 2017. Additionally, the team was recognized as a 2016 Top Producer for the Miami office while Estrada was recently promoted to Director of Luxury Condo Sales - a new position created to reward his efforts and meet the growing market demand for agents with his level of expertise.
The Miami Shop has a great team, headed by license partner, Irving Padron. If you or anyone you know is interested in joining a team who conducts business with Competence, Exclusivity and Passion feel free to stop in or call. The shop is located at 300 Altara Ave #1415, Coral Gables, FL 33146 , Tel: (305) 443-2424,
http://miami.evusa.com/en/
About Engel & Volkers Florida
Since opening our doors in 1977 as a specialty boutique providing exclusive, high-end real estate services in Hamburg, Germany, Engel & Volkers has become one of the worlds leading companies specializing in the sale and letting of premium residential and commercial property, yachts and private aviation. We currently operate a global network of over 7,000 real estate Advisors in more than 700 brokerages spanning 37 countries across five continents. We offer both private and institutional clients a professionally tailored range of luxury services. Committed to exceptional service, we support our Advisors with an array of premium quality business services; marketing programs and tools; multiple platforms for mobile, social and web; as well as access to its global network of real estate professionals, property listings and market data.
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For more information about Engel & Volkers Florida, please visit http://www.florida.evusa.com.
For media enquiry, please contact: Linzee Werkmeister
Tel: (239) 348-9000
Email: Linzee.Werkmeister(at)EngelVoelkers(dot)com
SurgiCode takes the nearly incomprehensible language and structure of ICD-10 PCS and makes it easy to use...no small feat.
SurgiCode LLC, an innovator in cloud-based medical code search systems, launches SurgiCode PCS. After years of coding, programming, research, and testing, the most powerful ICD-10 PCS code search system ever developed is now available in its pre-launch beta test. The code search system, SurgiCode PCS, is available as a software subscription service through the company's website at http://www.surgicodeusa.com.
According to RAND Corporations study The Costs and Benefits of Moving to the ICD-10 Code Sets dated March 2004 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2004/RAND_TR132.pdf the benefits and costs of switching from ICD-9 codes for diagnoses and procedures to ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS, ICD-10 coding allows for more accurate payment for new procedures, fewer rejected claims, fewer fraudulent claims, a better understanding of new procedures and improved disease management. As stated in the full report, Most observers believe that ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS are technically superior to their ICD-9-CM counterparts. If nothing else, they represent the state of knowledge of the 1990s rather than of the 1970s. They have also been deemed more logically organized, and they are unquestionably more detailedby a factor of two in diagnoses (and twenty for injuries) and by a factor of fifty in procedures.
An increase by a factor of 50 in the number of procedure codes available increases the accuracy of coding possible, but also increases the difficulty of the coding task performed by medical coders and billers. SurgiCode was created to address this performance gap, improve coder efficiency and ultimately improve reimbursement.
SurgiCode takes the nearly incomprehensible language and structure of ICD-10 PCS and makes it easy to use...no small feat. The goal was to create a program so powerful that the user would be able to simply type in the name of the operation directly from a surgeons operative report and get the correct ICD-10 PCS code. According to Dr. Stephen Kerr, the surgeon who pioneered the system, In order to accomplish this a number of things had to happen;
Create a comprehensive list of all surgical procedures performed in a hospital operating room setting;
Individually code each unique procedure into ICD-10 PCS (more than 8500 procedures and growing);
Give each operation an easily identifiable name, one that both surgeons and coders alike would be able to recognize, and lastly and perhaps most importantly;
Develop a surgical terminology thesaurus for each and every unique operation, which includes any potential alternate terminology (herniorrhaphy vs hernia repair), Named operations (Hartmanns procedure, Nissen fundoplication) and some abbreviations as well (CABG, PTCA, IABP, lap choli).
The result of this effort is the most powerful and easy to use ICD-10 PCS search program ever developed. With SurgiCode PCS, medical coders and billers enter the operation performed from the operative report, click search, and instantly receive the ICD-10 procedure code. No more having to navigate online decision trees or offline coding books. With SurgiCode PCS, practitioners involved in medical coding and billing can now get accurate codes, lighting fast.
Interested medical coders and billers are encouraged to visit http://www.surgicodeusa.com to register for a free trial today.
About SurgiCode, LLC.
SurgiCode, LLC., provides cloud-based software services for matching standard medical terminology and procedures to diagnosis and procedural billing codes. Hospitals and medical practices survive on the shoulders of medical coders and billers. SurgiCodes mission is to improve the experiences and efficiencies surrounding medical coding and billing practices.
For more information, visit the companys website at http://www.surgicodeusa.com on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/surgicodeusa or follow Surgicode USA on Twitter at @SurgiCode or on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/surgicode-usa
About RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.
Learn more at http://www.rand.org
About
In spring 2003, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) asked the RAND Corporation to conduct a study of the benefits and costs of switching from ICD-9- CM (International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification) codes for diagnoses and procedures to code sets based on the 10th revision of ICD: ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Procedure Classification System). This technical report presents RANDs first-order analysis of the benefits and costs of mandating such a switch (of both codeseither simultaneously or sequentially). View the full report.
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The Community for Accredited Online Schools, a leading resource provider for higher education information has ranked the best colleges for online learning in the state of California. 48 four-year schools were honored, with University of Southern California, Stanford University, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley and Fresno Pacific University coming in as the top five. The states top 40 two-year schools were also ranked, with Santa Rosa Junior College, Diablo Valley College, Long Beach City College, City College of San Francisco and American River College taking the top five spots.
California schools are world-renowned for their quality, and their online programs are no exception, said Doug Jones, CEO and founder of AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org. The schools on our list have a proven track record of excellence, flexibility and an abundance of online courses for students who want to take a nontraditional route to earn their degree.
Schools on the Best Online Schools list must meet specific base requirements, including being institutionally accredited, public or private not-for-profit entities. Each college is scored based on more than a dozen unique criteria that includes student-teacher ratio, graduation rate and financial aid availability.
For more details on where each school falls in the 2017 Best Online Schools in California rankings and the data and methodology used to determine these lists, visit:
http://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/california/
Californias Best Online Four-Year Colleges for 2017 include the following schools:
Alliant International University-San Diego
Azusa Pacific University
Bethesda University
Biola University
Brandman University
California Baptist University
California College of the Arts
California Institute of Integral Studies
California Lutheran University
California State University-Chico
California State University-Dominguez Hills
California State University-East Bay
California State University-Fullerton
California State University-Monterey Bay
California State University-San Bernardino
Coleman University
Concordia University-Irvine
Fresno Pacific University
Golden Gate University-San Francisco
Hope International University
Humboldt State University
Humphreys College-Stockton and Modesto Campuses
John F. Kennedy University
Loma Linda University
Loyola Marymount University
Mount Saint Mary's University
National University
Notre Dame de Namur University
Pacific Oaks College
Palo Alto University
Pepperdine University
San Diego Christian College
San Diego State University
San Jose State University
Shasta Bible College and Graduate School
Simpson University
Southern California Seminary
Stanford University
The California Maritime Academy
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Irvine
University of California-Los Angeles
University of La Verne
University of San Diego
University of San Francisco
University of Southern California
Vanguard University of Southern California
World Mission University
Californias Best Online Two-Year Colleges for 2017 include the following schools:
Allan Hancock College
American River College
Barstow Community College
Cabrillo College
Citrus College
City College of San Francisco
Coastline Community College
College of the Desert
College of the Sequoias
College of the Siskiyous
Contra Costa College
Cosumnes River College
Cypress College
Diablo Valley College
Foothill College
Hartnell College
Imperial Valley College
Las Positas College
Lassen Community College
Long Beach City College
Los Angeles Harbor College
Mendocino College
Merced College
Modesto Junior College
Moorpark College
Mt. San Jacinto Community College District
Ohlone College
Oxnard College
Palo Verde College
Pasadena City College
Rio Hondo College
San Diego Mesa College
San Diego Miramar College
Santa Rosa Junior College
Solano Community College
Ventura College
West Hills College-Coalinga
West Hills College-Lemoore
West Los Angeles College
West Valley College
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About Us: AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org was founded in 2011 to provide students and parents with quality data and information about pursuing an affordable, quality education that has been certified by an accrediting agency. Our community resource materials and tools span topics such as college accreditation, financial aid, opportunities available to veterans, people with disabilities, as well as online learning resources. We feature higher education institutions that have developed online learning programs that include highly trained faculty, new technology and resources, and online support services to help students achieve educational success.
Every essay was a winner in my mind.
The winners for the third annual Russ Wilson Essay Contest were announced earlier this week. Russ Wilson was a dear friend of Executive Director Phil Valentine and of the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR), a man in recovery, a father, a son, a brother and a person who loved to write. Russ was an inspiration to many and a pillar of the recovery community. Russ died on June 28, 2014, he was sober when he passed and just 55 years old. CCAR continues to honor his passion for writing.
Contestants chose between three topics:
1. Living in recovery in a non-recovery environment.
2. Fear and faith an inner conflict.
3. My personal pathway of recovery.
Submissions, received from around the country, were reviewed by Russ Wilsons siblings: Dan, Cheryl, and Mike. In a Facebook Live announcement, Dan Wilson said, Every essay was a winner in my mind.
This years honorable mention is The Beautiful Mosaic of Shattered Glass by Shawn Kain. A story fueled with emotion and powerful metaphors, Mosaic tells the story of a man and his father. Through the juxtaposition of glass and vision, Kain is able to paint a picture of the passion we hold for family. The piece culminates in Kains journey into his own passion: teaching. Each being drawn to an omega point, clouded by smoke and mirrors, but visible to me only after years of observation; a lyric, a helping hand, a smile, pieces of heaven shown to us if only for a moment; each combine to create a constellation that cannot be broken.
The third place winner is Fear and Faith by Andrea Macone. Macones piece tells a story of fear through personification of the emotion, providing a rare glimpse into a humbled mind. Macone tackles topical issues, pinpointing acts of discrimination surrounding this years election as potentially dangerous for her recovery. [Fear] compounds upon itself and snowballs until I am no longer a collection of bone and tissues but an object of vibrating panic propelled by anxiety and sustained by dread. In the end, through sprawling prose, Macone conveys her daily victorious struggle against her fears. Andrea Macone will receive $100.
The second place winner is My Perfectly Designed Path by Amy Baumgardner. Baumgardners piece, written with an honesty that bites, tells a story that is all too familiar. My marriage, my health, my body image, my self esteem, and ultimately my children were all infected with the dis-ease I ignored and pushed back into the darkest corners of my soul. My Perfectly Designed Path speaks to all of us. Baumgardners simplistic prose makes the reader feel like her new confidant, as if she left alcohol behind in order to confide in us. Baumgardner will receive $250.
The first place winner is The Sweet Spot by Meghann Perry. The Sweet Spot manages to bring the reader in close, so close that we get a clear picture of the authors life in a few carefully chosen words. Perry skillfully brings the reader from childhood bliss, to transition years filled with fear and struggle, and finally into an adulthood that was worth waiting for. Perry ends her piece with a beautiful metaphor, uniting all stages of her life under the umbrella of her faith. And now, when Im feeling frisky, I eat my M&Ms a handful at a time, colors and sides be damned, and I trust that I will be okay no matter what, because I am so blessed, and because I have found the sweet spot between fear and faith. Perry will receive $500.
About CCAR:
Since 1998 the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) has organized the recovery community (people in recovery, family members, friends and allies) to put a face on recovery and to provide recovery support services to help sustain recovery. By promoting recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction through advocacy, education and service, CCAR strives to end discrimination surrounding addiction and recovery, open new doors and remove barriers to recovery, maintain and sustain recovery regardless of the pathway, all the while ensuring that all people in recovery, and people seeking recovery, are treated with dignity and respect. CCAR envisions a world where the power, hope and healing of recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction is thoroughly understood and embraced.
Peter Trippi Consider how hard art professionals work to conceive and organize their exhibitions, and also how much money is spent to mount and tour them. Now ask yourself: how are the best of these projects honored?
At the third annual Global Fine Art Awards (GFAA) Ceremony, the winners of the 2016 awards were honored at a black-tie Award Ceremony and Gala on February 11th, 2017, selected from 78 nominees in 22 countries, 5 continents and 52 cities.
Museum directors and curators, gallery directors and owners, artists and art aficionados were among the guests at the historic National Arts Club in New York City. Some of the honorees in attendance include: Charles de Mooij, Director of Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch,The Netherlands; Gary Tinterow, Director Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Sean Hemingway, Curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Susie Guzman, Director, Hauser and Wirth Gallery; Susan Davidson, Co-curator of Rauschenberg in China with David White and Curatorial Advisor to the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; Helen Hsu, Assistant Curator, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; Lee Glazer, Curator, the Smithsonian Museums Freer and Sackler Galleries; Bryan Keene, Assistant Curator, The J. Paul Getty Museum; Fariba Farshad, Director Candlestar, and Co-Founder Photo London; Lina Lin, Researcher, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan); and Jonathan Henery, nephew of Christo, accepting the award for best Public Art on behalf of the artist Christo and Jeanne Claude.
The J. Paul Getty Museums Traversing the Globe through Illuminated Manuscripts exhibition receives the award for Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters, Dynasties group or theme exhibition. Timothy Potts, Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, says this exhibition paints a vivid picture of the dynamic interchange of ideas, narratives, styles and images that characterized these eras. It is a useful reminder that globalization is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, it has lain at the foundation of much of our intellectual, artistic, social and economic life throughout history.
The event was co-hosted by GFAA President and CEO, Judy Holm, and GFAA Advisory Board Chair, Lawrence M. Shindell, and presided over by Master of Ceremony, Peter Trippi, Editor in Chief of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine, and GFAA Advisory Board member, GFAA Judge emeritus.
Trippi says, "... Oddly, in a world teeming with award ceremonies for seemingly every possible artistic activity (think Oscars), there is no program that recognizes (the best ) exhibitions until the GFAA initiative was launched in 2014.
This years judges are Dean Phelus (American Alliance of Museums, Washington, D.C.); James M. Bradburne (Pinacoteca di Brera and Biblioteca Braidense, Milan); Gina Costa (independent art historian and curator, Director for marketing and public relations at the Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Chicago); Barbara Aust-Wegemund, independent art historian and curator, Hamburg); and Joe Lin-Hill (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo). They selected the winners in the following 11 categories: Contemporary and Post-War Art (solo artist and group/theme); Impressionist and Modern Art (solo artist and group/theme); Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties (solo artist and group/theme); Ancient Art; Public Art, Design, Photography and Fringe.
In addition to the juried awards, the final award, Youniversal, recognizes the best exhibition of the year as determined by public vote from people across the globe, which all nominees are eligible to win. Thousands of votes were cast during the voting period, from October 26th through November 13th, 2016. To expand the digital presence of GFAA further, a new award was added this year: YOU-2. The Top 10 Nominees, based on the Youniversal votes, became eligible for this Twitter-based award.
The Global Fine Art Awards 2016 Winners:
Best Contemporary / Post-War solo artists
Rauschenberg in China / Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) / Beijing, China
Best Contemporary / Post-War group or theme
Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947 2016 / Hauser Wirth Schimmel Gallery / Los Angeles, USA
Best Impressionist / Modern solo artist
Degas: A New Vision / National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Fine Arts Houston / Melbourne, Australia; Houston, USA
Best Impressionist / Modern group or theme (TIE)
The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art / Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries / Washington DC, USA
Jewel City: Art from San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition / de Young / Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco / San Francisco, USA
Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties solo artist (shared)
Jheronimus Bosch - Visions of genius / Het Noordbrabants Museum/ Den Bosch, Netherlands
Bosch. The Centenary Exhibition / Museo del Prado / Madrid, Spain
Best Renaissance, Baroque, Old Masters and Dynasties group or theme
Traversing the Globe through Illuminated Manuscripts / The J. Paul Getty Museum / Los Angeles, USA
Best Ancient Art
Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World / The Met Fifth Avenue / NYC, USA
Best Public Art
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Floating Piers / Lake Iseo / Lake Iseo, Italy
Best Design
Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology / The Met Fifth Avenue / NYC, USA
Best Photography (shared)
Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium / Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and The J. Paul Getty Museum / Los Angeles, USA
Best Fringe / Alternative
Susan Philipsz: War Damaged Musical Instruments / Tate Britain / London, England
YOUNIVERSAL (shared)
Jheronimus Bosch - Visions of genius / Het Noordbrabants Museum/ Den Bosch, Netherlands
Bosch. The Centenary Exhibition / Museo del Prado / Madrid, Spain
YOU-2
Traversing the Globe through Illuminated Manuscripts / The J. Paul Getty Museum / Los Angeles, USA
Rick D'Amato is the fourth architect at LPA to be elected to the AIA's College of Fellows. Ricks award-winning work for these most public of projects provides important models of sustainability and how our public facilities can teach users and visitors alike about the importance of place.
Rick DAmato, Principal at LPA Inc., has been elected to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows as the fourth architect to be elevated from the integrated design firm. One of the highest individual achievements that the AIA recognizes, DAmato joins the less than 3 percent of members to receive this honor.
Working with civic agencies and corporate users in California, DAmato has devoted his career to furthering the positive effect sustainable design can have on the built environment. With more than 30 years of design experience, and 25 years at LPA, he has accumulated more than 40 AIA design awards and numerous other industry awards.
In his Fellowship nomination letter to the AIA, LPA President Dan Heinfeld states, Ricks award-winning work for these most public of projects provides important models of sustainability and how our public facilities can teach users and visitors alike about the importance of place.
Heinfeld adds, His rigor and personal commitment to providing the best our profession has to offer for these important institutional places are a powerful testimony to how design can change lives.
One of DAmatos notable projects in his career is the Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach, Californiathe first LEED Platinum project in Orange County, California. This project incorporates a simple yet dynamic structural form that is passively heated and cooled, and is also one of the first net-zero projects. Aggressive sustainable design strategies are used as educational tools for the students who interact with the facility. The project earned awards from the AIA California Chapter and Orange County Chapter.
Additionally, D'Amato was integral in the design of the West Hollywood Automated Parking Garagethe first automated parking garage on the West Coast for a municipality. The fully-automated parking structure contains four bays for entry and exit as well as an outdoor community plaza area for community events. The structure provides a clean, environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional parking systems.
Along with his passion for sustainability and pragmatic sense of design, DAmato has lectured on design-build practices and public library design, sustainable design and progressive office design throughout the country. He currently serves on the board of the AIA Long Beach, South Bay Chapter as well as the Long Beach Memorial Navy Heritage Association.
DAmato will officially receive his new Fellowship distinction at the AIAs National conference April 28 in Orlando, Florida.
Humbled by the honor, DAmato says, It is truly an honor to be elected to the AIA College of Fellows. This is an organization which I respect and admire and a profession with which I am very proud to be a part. This, however, is an honor that must be shared with the amazing and talented individuals I have worked with throughout the years at LPA. I am continually inspired by their dedication and passion to their work.
For interview opportunities with Rick DAmato, please contact Carina Calhoun at ccalhoun(at)lpainc(dot)com.
About LPA
Founded in 1965, LPA has more than 350 employees with offices in San Antonio and Irvine, Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose, California. The firm provides services in architecture, sustainability, planning, interior design, landscape architecture, engineering and graphics. With a proven commitment to integrated sustainable design, LPA designs facilities that span from K-12 schools, colleges and universities to corporate, health care and civic establishments. More than 700 major design awards attest to LPAs commitment to design excellence. For more information, visit http://www.lpainc.com.
About the College of Fellows
The AIA College of Fellows seeks to stimulate a sharing of interests among Fellows, promote the purposes of the Institute, advance the profession of architecture, mentor young architects and be of ever-increasing service to society. The College of Fellows, founded in 1952, is composed of members of the Institute who are elected to Fellowship by a jury of their peers. Fellowship is one of the highest honors the AIA can bestow upon a member. Elevation to Fellowship not only recognizes the achievements of the architect as an individual but also elevates before the public and the profession those architects who have made significant contributions to architecture and to society.
Grimbleby Coleman CPAs, Inc., a full-service CPA and advisory firm, is proud to announce that Chad Van Houten, CPA/MST and Jane Johnson, MBA, have been named Partners of the firm effective January 1, 2017. This brings the firms partnership to a total of eleven partners.
Chad Van Houten has worked in public accounting for over 11 years and has expertise in a variety of fields, including agriculture, manufacturing, professional services, government, and not-for-profit organizations. In the 3 years since Chad joined Grimbleby Coleman, he has showcased tremendous leadership in our firm. Equipped with the powerful combination of strong technical aptitude and exemplary client service skills, Chad helps businesses achieve growth and maximize profitability, says Partner Jeff Coleman, CPA. Chad holds two degrees from Calvin College in Michigan: a BA in Economics and BS in Public Accountancy and has completed his Master of Science in Taxation from Golden Gate University.
After managing medical practices for nine years, Jane Johnson came to Grimbleby Coleman to manage "pretty much everything. Since 2004, Jane has been an integral part of the firm and has managed all firm-wide functions on behalf of the Partners and ensures that the firm is creating and refining systems, processes and tools to support the firm's strategic direction. We are extremely pleased with Janes style of management and her commitment to the firms continued success and growth, said President Clive Grimbleby, CPA. Jane holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Business Administration from California State University, Stanislaus.
Grimbleby Coleman has been serving the Central San Joaquin Valley since 1973 and is known for its focus on not just the numbers, but on the people who give them meaning. The firm encourages and supports its staff members to advance their education and pursue areas of interest to them.
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About Grimbleby Coleman CPAs, Inc.
Grimbleby Coleman CPAs is an accounting and business advisory firm with headquarters in Modesto, California. Since 1973, the firm has been trusted by the families and businesses of the Central San Joaquin Valley to tackle every challenge with deep skill, insight, and experience. You can count on the people at Grimbleby Coleman to go beyond the numbers to actively support your personal and business success. They know that you, too, have people counting on you. http://www.gccpas.net
US hits China with more trade probes
From:Xinhua | 2017-02-10 11:00
Chinese exporters have suffered a total of 20 trade remedy probes initiated by the United States in 2016, an 81.1 percent increase year on year, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday.
The 11 anti-dumping and nine anti-subsidy investigations involved US$3.7 billion, up 131 percent from 2015, according to the ministry.
Recently, the US published a series of trade remedy rulings involving Chinese products, including truck and bus tires as well as imports of Chinese stainless steel sheet and strip.
China suffered 140 trade remedy measures from the US as of the end of 2016, including 102 anti-dumping and 38 anti-subsidy measures, according to the ministry data.
Given that the trade scale between China and the US is huge, it is normal that trade frictions will occur, said Wang Hejun, head of the ministrys trade remedy and investigation bureau. However, it is noticeable that the US is imposing high taxes on Chinese imports and many of its measures are against WTO rules.
Wang said China hoped to work with the US to solve trade friction through talks within the WTO framework for a win-win relationship.
Last year, Chinese exporters suffered a record 119 trade remedy probes, initiated by 27 countries and regions, up 36.8 percent year on year.
Trade friction is normally sporadic and played under the WTO rules ... while trade wars lay aside trade rules, Wang said. We do not want trade wars ... but we will be well prepared for and are capable of defending our own rights and interests.
The most fulfilling aspect of the program for us was realizing the caliber of students applying. The chance for success is greatly enhanced when the student presents as a bright, motivated self-starter, both confident and eager to begin their career.
Planet Depos LLC, an international court reporting and legal videography firm, is pleased to announce the inaugural year success of Planet Institute, a program launched in February of 2016 to assist court reporting students transitioning into the profession. The announcement comes at the start of National Court Reporting & Captioning Week designated by the National Court Reporters Association to recognize the court reporting and captioning professions and to help raise public awareness about the growing number of employment opportunities the career offers.
We couldnt be more pleased with the results from our first year of offering this student-to-career mentoring program for court reporting students, said Kathy DiLorenzo, Director of Court Reporting with Planet Depos. The most fulfilling aspect of the program for us was realizing the caliber of students applying. The chance for success is greatly enhanced when the student presents as a bright, motivated self-starter, both confident and eager to begin their career.
Planet Institute is specifically designed to assist the court reporting graduate in successfully assimilating into the profession. Applicants to the program must be within the final speed requirements for completion or a recent graduate and submit a letter of reference from an instructor or working court reporter. A successful applicant is proficient with court reporting technology and will have passed a stenographic writing and transcription evaluation, as well as spelling and vocabulary exams.
Students of Planet Institute are provided shadowing opportunities with professional court reporters, followed by one-on-one mentoring in the areas of skills development, research, reporting procedures, transcript preparation, and overall professional development.
Darlene Williams is Professional Development Specialist with Planet Depos. It was refreshing for us to realize that our students were not only skilled writers, but were also experts in reporting technology, a few of them certified trainers of key industry software. They enter the profession with a keen understanding of how technology enhances their skillsets and their value to the profession.
The program has successfully assimilated 100% of its students in the first year of the program. With a firm foundation in place, the company plans to strengthen school partnerships in an effort to raise awareness of mentoring opportunities available to students no matter where they live or wish to start their career.
About Planet Depos
Headquartered in Washington, DC, and with 50+ offices around the globe, Planet Depos, LLC, is the only international court reporting agency led by court reporters and world-renowned industry experts. Planet Depos provides court reporting, videography, videoconferencing, interpretation, and trial support services throughout the United States and abroad to international law firms, worldwide corporations, and government entities. The Company has extensive experience reporting complex matters around the globe, including arbitrations, trials and depositions. A forward-thinking company, Planet Depos is conversant with the latest technologies and works closely with clients to implement case-winning tools, including streaming text and video, realtime to iPads, mobile videoconferencing, and digital exhibits.
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In Defense of Christians (IDC) calls upon the Trump administration to designate a Nineveh Province Safe Zone to protect the religious and ethnic minorities of the region who have suffered genocide, including Yazidis, Christians, and Turkmen. The safe zone would include Tal Afar, Sinjar, and the Nineveh Plain.
President Trump has said that he will take steps to protect Christians in the Middle East. This can begin with the creation of a safe zone in Nineveh Province to help those persecuted religious minority communities to rebuild their lives. The Christians, Yazidis, and Turkmen are the natural allies of the U.S. Protecting these communities is not only in U.S. national security interests, and it is also consistent with the values of the American people.
Several months ago, as displaced Yazidis and Christians returned to their homes after ISIS was driven back toward Mosul, they found their homes destroyed and their churches desecrated such was the ISIS commitment to drive Christians and others from the region forever. The U.S. and its allies should not permit ISIS to complete its genocide, driving Christians and others out of the region permanently.
Christians, Yazidis, and others in northern Iraq have been long-standing reliable allies to the U.S., including in the struggle against ISIS. There have been no U.S. casualties in Iraq since 2003 at the hands of Yazidis, Christians, or Turkmen. These communities simply want to survive in their ancestral homelands.
IDC joins those in Iraq, including Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, who said of his country in 2015, If we don't decentralize, the country will disintegrate. A Nineveh Province safe zone will help this vision decentralization without disintegration to be realized.
IDC also supports the creation of safe zones in Syria. This will do much to help the Muslim victims of that conflict. IDC has been at the forefront of support for this effort to aid Muslims. We also ask for the same protection for the indigenous ethnic and religious minority communities of the Nineveh Province region of northern Iraq.
IDC believes that a safe zone in northern Iraq to protect Christians, Yazidis, and Turkmen can be achieved through a multinational force, beginning with coalition troops already in the region. There are precedents for such interventions by the U.S. and its allies, which should be used as models to protect these ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq who have been the victims of genocide.
To be named a leader in the New York Design Community is an acknowledgment of our brand and the foresight we have shown in creating a unique position with unique products in the marketplace in NY and in North America.
Resource Furniture, named the biggest retailer in the multifunctional space by The Wall Street Journal, is excited to announce their nomination for the New York Spaces' Leaders in Home Products Design Awards. New York Spaces, a Davler Media Group luxury interior design brand, is celebrating the firms and products whose innovations are keeping New York at the forefront of the home and design industry.
Based in New York, Resource Furniture has been leading the way in innovative furniture design for over 16 years.
"To be named a leader in the New York Design Community is an acknowledgment of our brand and the foresight we have shown in creating a unique position with unique products in the marketplace in NY and in North America," said Ron Barth, co-founder of Resource Furniture. "Resource Furniture is the company that predicts the marketplace while others follow it."
Extraordinary Leaders in Home Products Design Awards is awarded to the top firms and manufacturers in categories including Interior Designers with a Product Line, Architecture, Furniture, Fabric, Lighting, Kitchen, Bath, Landscape, Art and Flooring. This year marks the first installment of the award.
These new awards are our way of focusing the spotlight on the product innovators who touch every corner of our homes and lives, but a way to help them continue to grow their businesses to brighten the lives of even more style-centric home renters and owners, says Jason Kontos, Editorial Director of New York Spaces.
The 10 winners will be announced live at a party and awards ceremony, Tuesday, May 2 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in NYC. The elegant evening will bring together the best and the brightest from New Yorks home and design products and industry to learn more about the latest creations and share experiences.
Industry professionals and the public alike are invited to vote on these nominees from February 6 March 3, 2017 at NewYorkSpaces.com/vote2017 to determine the five finalists in each category. Resource Furniture is nominated in the Furniture category.
About Resource Furniture
Resource Furniture is the original and largest source for cutting-edge, multi-functional living systems, offering the most inspired and innovative furniture solutions available in the world for more than 16 years. With nine showrooms in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Mexico City Resource Furniture continues to define and revolutionize the industry by offering the most technologically innovative, space-saving and sustainable products in the world, all of which transform any space with both beauty and functionality. http://www.resourcefurniture.com
About New York Spaces
New York Spaces is the only luxury interior design media brand thats 100 percent dedicated to the incredible talent, products and resources in Metro New Yorks design and interiors community. Always ahead of the design curve, New York Spaces uncovers the citys wonderful hidden treasures: shops, showrooms, show homes, in-vogue apartments, best designers and latest trends. New York City is bustling with creativity, imagination, great taste, local artistry and international style. New York Spaces celebrates the diversity and vitality of the city itself, fusing the latest trends with contemporary, classic and traditional interiors and products. The magazine reaches 200,000 magazine readers, seven times each year. Stay up-to-date with the latest design news: Like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.
Media Contact
Laura Anderson
laura(at)resourcefurniture(dot)com
212-753-2039
Ali A. Zaidi
Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce that Ali A. Zaidi, who recently served the Obama Administration as the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, and Science and before that as the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) Deputy Director for Energy Policy, has joined the firm as a Senior Advisor. Based in Washington, D.C., and working closely with the San Francisco and New York offices of the firm, Mr. Zaidi will assist Morrison & Foerster lawyers advising on legislation, regulation, litigation, and project development matters related to climate change, clean energy, transportation, water, and environmental policy, technology, and markets.
The clean energy revolution is delivering enormous economic and environmental benefits in the United States and around the world. Ali will help us advise our clients on all facets of the move toward a clean energy economy and on how to strategically address any changes in policy or regulation that may impact that trend, Chris Carr, chair of Morrison & Foersters Environment and Energy Group, said. Ali was on point for implementing key elements of the Climate Action Plan, and he is steeped in the complex, cross-sectoral issues surrounding clean energy policy, technology, and markets. So he has exactly the right experience and expertise that our clients need to navigate any regulatory changes and advance their interests.
Susan Mac Cormac, co-chair of the firms Energy and Clean Technology Groups, added: We will benefit from Alis advice and insights on novel and important climate issues, for instance, climate risk accounting and mitigation as they relate to projects, companies, and markets, and burgeoning climate solutions like water technology and resilient infrastructure.
Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Mr. Zaidi served for eight years in the Obama Administration. In 2014, President Obama appointed Mr. Zaidi as a senior member of the OMB, to lead a team of experts overseeing a wide array of policy, budget, and management issues across a nearly $100 billion portfolio and a number of federal agencies, including the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers civil works, and the National Science Foundation. For this work, Forbes named Mr. Zaidi among its 30 Under 30 in Law and Policy.
As part of his duties at OMB, Mr. Zaidi served as the agencys chief policy official for implementation of the Climate Action Plan, which he helped design and draft. Implementation included efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions through policy, technology, and finance innovation; bolster extreme-weather resilience through analysis, disclosure, and mitigation of climate risk; and spur complementary private, philanthropic, subnational, and global climate action through new strategic partnerships. Mr. Zaidi was also a leader on a number of other aspects of the Administrations economic and environmental policy. The team he led at the White House oversaw critical aspects of the Administrations efforts on infrastructure, technology, fundamental science, and conservation.
Starting in 2009, Mr. Zaidi served in a number of other roles within the Obama Administration. Before OMB, Zaidi served as the Deputy Director of Energy Policy for the White House Domestic Policy Council. He also formerly served as senior director for Cabinet Affairs at the White House and as a policy aide to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
I decided on Morrison & Foerster because it is uniquely positioned to help clients adapt to and address the challenges that come with advancing clean energy and innovative water technology and tackling climate change. The firm has market-leading expertise at the intersection of policy, technology, and finance, and has a well-deserved reputation for representing companies that are policy, technology, and finance innovators and disruptors, Mr. Zaidi said. I look forward to helping MoFo attorneys advise clients on these critical matters at a time of increased uncertainty.
Mr. Zaidi currently serves as Precourt Energy Scholar at Stanford University, where he is engaged in research, writing, and teaching at the interdisciplinary intersection of policy and technology innovation through Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy.
Jean Marie Connolly
Altium Wealth Management, LLC is pleased to announce that Jean Marie Connolly has joined the firm as Senior Director of Client Relations and Development, effective January 3, 2017.
Jean Marie is an experienced corporate leader and has gained the trust and respect of her clients throughout her 30 years of relationship management. She has a history of successful organizational planning combined with broad work experience on corporate mergers, management, sales and marketing.
Anthony DeStefano, Managing Director and cofounding Partner of Altium, commented: Jean Marie embodies Altiums values through her client advocacy, business leadership and involvement in the not-for-profit community. Her dedication, experience and reputation is a welcome addition to our firm.
Jean Marie added: I am excited to join the Altium team, where we strive to ensure that each client receives the clarity, confidence and control needed to create meaningful wealth solutions for their life.
Prior to joining Altium, Jean Marie was a Senior Wealth Director at BNY Mellon Wealth Management providing investment management, fiduciary services and private banking to high net worth families, corporate executives and business owners. Previous to joining the Wealth Management group, Jean Marie was the Regional Manager of Connecticuts Consumer Banking Region at Bank of New York.
Jean Marie is active in the not-for-profit community and serves on various boards and committees for charitable organizations throughout the region. She serves on the Board for Food Bank for Westchester and sits as Vice Chair, Business Development on the Board of Directors for The Business Council of Westchester. Additionally, she serves on the Community Advisory Board for New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Advisory Board for Hopes Door. Jean Marie works closely with the Westchester Womans Bar Association and is an active member of the Westchester County Bar Association where she serves on the Events Committee. She has chaired large scale events including the Westchester/Fairfield American Heart Associations Go Red for Women, Go Red Society, Hopes Door, Arts Westchester and Food Bank for Westchester.
About Altium Wealth Management
Altium Wealth Management, LLC is a wealth advisory firm with principal offices at 2500 Westchester Avenue in Purchase, New York. The firm also has a satellite office in Bergen County, New Jersey. The firm's primary clients are high net worth families. This firm is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Any references to the terms registered investment adviser or registered, do not imply that Altium Wealth Management or any person associated with the firm have achieved a certain level of skill or training. For more information about Altium Wealth Management please visit http://www.altiumwealth.com, the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure web site (http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov), or send an inquiry to us at info(at)altiumwealth(dot)com.
I learned how to be a leader and how to be a better person. I thought volunteering was something to help others, but I learned I could also help myself in the process." D. Pochapin, 12th Grade, Riverdale Country School
Intern with a group of socially-engaged high school students to facilitate intergenerational programs at the Riverdale Y Senior Center. DOROTs Summer Teen Internship in partnership with the Riverdale Y is an opportunity for high school students to engage their passions while they give back to their community and learn from a generation full of wisdom. Apply now.
DOROT is a social services organization located in New York City whose mission is to help alleviate social isolation among older adults. The Riverdale Y Senior Center is an organization that brings the Jewish community together to learn, grow and explore communal Jewish values. The partnership between these two organizations was born out of the shared belief that seniors have a plethora of untapped knowledge and wisdom that can benefit the entire community. When the generations are brought together, everyone benefits.
Applications for the Summer Teen Internship Program are open for high school students entering 10th grade through graduating seniors. Through a competitive process, we choose up to 15 interns for a three week session with an optional pre-program session in Manhattan.
INTEGRIS, the largest Oklahoma-owned not-for-profit health system in Oklahoma, will present at HIMSS 2017 on how it leveraged virtual care to boost patient engagement in both rural and urban areas, and exceeded its business goals.
The presentation Patient Engagement Success: A Consumer-Driven Approach to Promoting Virtual Clinics will be hosted by Dr. Pam Forducey, INTEGRIS system director of eHealth. It is scheduled for 22:30 p.m. on Feb. 20 at Hyatt Regency Orlando.
Forducey will discuss the benefits of INTEGRIS partnership with virtual care provider Carena, and the two most significant factors in the success of the health systems virtual care marketing efforts: taking a retail approach to advertising; and continually reviewing engagement data to optimize media buys.
INTEGRIS Virtual Visit enabled our organization to offer high-quality innovative care at an affordable price to all Oklahomans beginning in February 2015 in partnership with Carena, Forducey said. INTEGRIS is pleased by the publics adoption of our virtual visit capabilities and we look forward to even more virtual care offerings in this consumer-driven healthcare environment.
Forducey will provide insights into leveraging integrated virtual clinics to engage patients and garner loyalty. She will also present on marketing virtual clinics in an age of on-demand consumerism.
We are proud to be INTEGRIS virtual care partner as they continue to see great success in patient engagement, said Ralph C. Derrickson, president and CEO of Carena. Those who attend Pams presentation will no doubt come away with a better understanding of how to bring more patients to their virtual clinic, and how to leverage healthcares new front door to offer high-quality care that meets patients where theyre at online.
HIMSS 2017 attendees can connect with Carena directly at the McKesson booth (#3479) on the main show floor.
About INTEGRIS
INTEGRIS, the largest Oklahoma-owned not-for-profit health system in the state, is known for innovation and unparalleled quality offering advanced treatment options and specialties found nowhere else in the region. INTEGRIS is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. For more information, visit http://integrisok.com/.
About Carena
Carena designs and operates virtual clinics for health systems. We combine technology and new care delivery methods to provide healthcare for the way consumers live and work today. Carena has offered on-demand care since 2000, informing our telemedicine solution with industry-leading expertise in clinical quality and consumer preferences. Today, our virtual care model and configurable technology platform make it possible for health systems to offer care to consumers anytime, anywhere as a natural extension of each systems brand, mission, and service. We now partner with over 120 hospitals, offering virtual care access to over 20 million consumers. To learn more, please visit http://www.carenamd.com/.
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We are so pleased with the way this project came out! We gave the homeowners exactly what they wanteda fully-integrated home, with systems that can be easily controlled with the touch of a button on their own iPads and iPhones.
Good Sounds, a Newport Beach company specializing in home automation and home theater installation, announced recently that the company has completed a home automation project for a new, custom, two-story home that overlooks Newport Harbor. The homes system utilizes technology by Savant Systems to integrate many of the homes functions, including audio, video, security, and lighting, allowing the homeowners to control them from their iPhones and iPads.
On the lower level of the Orange County home, Good Sounds completed a home theater installation that features a SIM2 HD video projector, a Stewart screen, and speakers by Triad Speakers. There are five zones of distributed HD video in the home, as well as twelve zones of distributed audio. For sound throughout the home, Good Sounds mated in-ceiling Sonance speakers with Triad subwoofers.
For home security, Good Sounds installed a high-definition IP security camera system that covers the full perimeter of the homes property. The video can be accessed from the homeowners iPad, iPhone, or displayed on any of the homes televisions via the Savant distributed video system. Remote access to security video is also available. In addition, Good Sounds set up the communication and door release systems for the propertys entry portico, front door, and side pedestrian gates.
The homes Vantage lighting system is also controlled using Savant technology, as well as all of the homes motorized shades, making it easy for the homeowners to control the mood and lighting within the home. Finally, the homes water featuresone in the entry courtyard and one on the patiocan be turned on or off via the homeowners iPad or iPhone.
Mitch Goodz, owner of Good Sounds, said of the Newport Beach residence, We are so pleased with the way this project came out! We gave the homeowners exactly what they wanteda fully-integrated home, with systems that can be easily controlled with the touch of a button on their own iPads and iPhones. Their new home functions exactly how they hoped it would, which means we did our job!
Goodz continued, Savant Systems technology makes the type of integration found in this home seamless, which is why we use it in many of our Orange County home automation and home theater installation projects. It really allows our customers to have the smart home or home theater theyve always dreamed of.
About Good Sounds
Good Sounds has been delivering audiovisual, home automation, and home theater systems in Orange County and the surrounding areas of Southern California for more than 30 years. Good Sounds is a technical innovator in residential AV, designing fully customized systems that can operate lighting, climate control, shades, security systems, as well as music and video systems from a single hand-held device or touch screen. Find out more about Good Sounds at their website: http://goodsounds.net/
This is a great opportunity to join Barron & Newburger.
Brit Suttell, an industry leading attorney and compliance professional, has joined Barron & Newburger as an attorney in its new Pennsylvania office. Brit will join the firms Consumer Financial Practice Law practice group, where she will focus on compliance, regulatory issues, and defense of consumer litigation.
For the last ten years, Ms. Suttell has been employed by Burton Neil & Associates, most recently as a shareholder and its Director of Compliance. In addition to her work responsibilities, Ms. Suttell is the current President of the Pennsylvania Creditors Bar Association, and she is the Co-Chair of the National Creditors Bar Spring 2017 Conference Planning Committee.
Brit brings with her a background that adds to the operational expertise of our defense and compliance team, explained Manny Newburger, the firms co-founder and leader of the firms financial services practice group. Providing clients with assistance in the development and implementation of strong compliance policies and procedures is a critical part of our practice in todays collection environment.
This is a great opportunity to join Barron & Newburger, according to Ms. Suttell. I am excited to move my practice to the next level, using my operations and compliance experience, combined with my litigation experience, to help a broader segment of the financial services sector.
Ms. Suttell is a cum laude 2003 graduate of Mount Holyoke College where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree with an honors thesis in American History. She earned her Juris Doctor Degree cum laude in 2006 from the Seattle University School of Law. She is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania.
About Barron & Newburger, P.C.
Barron & Newburger, P.C. is a national law firm based in Austin, Texas with offices throughout the United States. The firms Consumer Financial Services Law practice group represents credit grantors, debt buyers, collection agencies, and law firms in litigation, regulatory, and compliance matters. Its attorneys have practiced before the Supreme Court, seven federal appellate courts, and in over thirty federal districts across the country. The firm is known for creative problem-solving, cost-effective litigation management and class action defense, operations experience and regulatory affairs.
Contact
For more information about this announcement or the firm of Barron and Newburger, P.C., please contact Thomas Good at 512-476-9103, Ext. 248 or at tgood(at)bn-lawyers(dot)com. The firms website is http://www.bn-lawyers.com
Greg Rose, MD, PhD As we mobilize for closer collaboration among member practices, I couldnt be more excited for the future of private practice through Strategic Radiology."
Radiologist Greg Rose, MD, PhD, has joined Strategic Radiology LLC, as its chief medical officer. His primary focus will be to lead clinical quality efforts and extend subspecialized reading service lines offered to members across its reading network.
As a physician owned and led organization, we recognize in Dr. Rose the passion for excellence and leadership that will help us to add value for our patients, hospital clients, and member practices, said Arl Van Moore, Jr., MD, FACR, chairman of Strategic Radiology. Through collaboration, Strategic Radiology combines the best features of local independence with centralized leadership to move us forward as a united organization.
Dr. Rose is the founder of Rays, a teleradiology service recognized by the industry and the market for quality and service. He completed his radiology residency at Baylor University and an MRI fellowship at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Rose earned a PhD in physics from Texas A & M, and holds three radiology technology patents.
It will be my great privilege to serve such a large group of talented and honorable radiologists and its great vision for the future of radiology, said Dr. Rose. As we mobilize for closer collaboration among member practices, I couldnt be more excited about the future of private practice through Strategic Radiology.
Dr. Rose has published research in the fields of solid state theory, laser theory, mammography, teleradiology, and magnetic resonance elastography. He was a co-architect of a trademarked distributed-reading platform with a unified worklist and has been in private radiology practice since 1998.
About Strategic Radiology
SR consists of 25 radiology group practices across the United States representing more than 1,400 radiologists. The companys goal is to achieve higher quality patient care and more cost-efficient delivery of medical imaging through an integrated approach of shared data and best practices, interchanging clinical expertise, and consolidating certain practice expenses.
SR Core Members:
Advanced Radiology Services; Grand Rapids, MI
Austin Radiological Association; Austin, TX
Central Illinois Radiological Associates; Peoria, IL
Charlotte Radiology; Charlotte, NC
Diversified Radiology; Denver, CO
Huron Valley Radiology; Ann Arbor, MI
Inland Imaging; Spokane, WA
Jefferson Radiology; Hartford, CT
Mountain Medical Physician Specialists; Salt Lake City, UT
Northwest Radiology; Indianapolis, IN
Quantum Radiology; Atlanta, GA
Radiant Imaging, Inc. (including The Hill Medical Corporation and Arcadia Radiology Medical Group divisions); Pasadena, CA
Radiology Associates of North Texas; Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
Radiology Associates of South Florida; Miami, FL
Radiology Ltd.; Tucson, AZ
Southwest Diagnostic Imaging, Ltd. (EVDI Medical Imaging, Scottsdale Medical Imaging, and Valley Radiologists); Phoenix, AZ
University Radiology; East Brunswick, NJ
SR Affiliate Members:
Casper Medical Imaging and Outpatient Radiology; Casper, WY
Medical Center Radiology Group; Orlando, FL
Modesto Radiologic Medical Group (MRMG); Modesto, CA
Professional Radiology, Inc.; Cincinnati, OH
Radiologic Medical Services; Iowa City, IA
Radiology Associates PA; Little Rock, AR
Rome Radiology Group; Rome, GA
Southeast Radiology, Ltd.; Glen Mills, PA
More information can be found at http://www.strategicradiology.org.
Shanghai ranks No. 4 of worlds top-30 cities
From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-02-10 10:55
Shanghai is the highest of five Chinese mainland cities at No. 4 in the list of the worlds 30 most dynamic cities, according to the Global City Momentum Index released yesterday by real estate services provider JLL.
Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Nanjing are the other four Chinese cities that appeared in the fourth annual list, ranking 15th, 22nd, 26th and 29th, respectively, according to the index, which monitors 134 major business hubs across the world and tracks the rate of change of a citys economy and commercial real estate market.
The most dynamic cities are able to embrace technological change, absorb rapid population growth and strengthen global connectivity, JLL said.
Shanghai has strong ambitions to continue its growth and explicitly aims to become a global center for both financial services and technological innovation, said Joe Zhou, head of research for JLL China.
For now, Shanghais real estate market remains one of the worlds most dynamic markets, with strong demand being driven by the growth of domestic firms.
Asian cities made up half of the top 10, with Bangalore in India replacing London to take the top spot for the first time.
Our research showed that the Asia-Pacific region is home to more than half of the globes 30 most dynamic cities and real estate markets, highlighting the rise of commercial cities such as Bangalore and Ho Chi Minh City as major hubs of commerce, said Megan Walters, head of research for Asia Pacific at JLL.
Now students in Hong Kong and Dubai can benefit from the iD Tech experience. We are so excited to be working with these prestigious locations to bring almost two decades of technology education experience and the spirit of Silicon Valley to Dubai and Hong Kong.
The #1 tech camp and leader in STEM education in the United States, iD Tech, has partnered with GEMS Nations Academy and The University of Hong Kong (HKU) to bring technology camps to international students in summer 2017.
We are so excited to be working with these prestigious locations to bring almost two decades of technology education experience and the spirit of Silicon Valley to Dubai and Hong Kong, says Joy Meserve, Chief Program Officer of iD Tech. While visiting Dubai and Hong Kong, I spent time visiting with students and teachers from top private schools. Seeing their enthusiasm for technology and passion for learning, I knew iD Tech would be well received.
Over the years, thousands of families have traveled from all over Asia and the Middle East to attend iD Tech programs in the US. Now, students in Dubai and Hong Kong will receive the same world-class instruction from top-notch staff right in their backyard. With only eight students per instructor, students will spend the week exploring technology, creating an impressive project, and building skills for college and beyond. iD Tech delivers the academic rigor and hands-on experience that students need to build a competitive advantage for their future.
The GEMS Nations Academy facilities are of bold and creative design, with inspiring interior spaces housing technology-rich learning environments. The campus goes beyond state-of-the-art and provides a stimulating environment for students. Here, kids and teens will be to be immersed in Java and C++ coding, LEGO and VEX robotics, in addition to engineering and game design courses. Courses will be held at GEMS Nations Academy for eight weeks starting July 2, 2017.
The University of Hong Kong is the territorys oldest institute of higher learning and is an internationally recognized, research-led, comprehensive university. While recognizing the strength of its heritage and traditions, HKU also engages in frontier research and academic endeavours that reflect and address the needs of an ever-changing, knowledge-based world. Courses will primarily focus on coding for kids and teens, and will also include electrical engineering and game design. Courses will be held at The University of Hong Kong for seven weeks starting June 26, 2017.
These new locations are just the first step in our international opportunities, says Pete Ingram-Cauchi, CEO of iD Tech. We plan to grow our program overseas to deliver our unique blend of essential STEM education and summer fun to additional campuses across the Middle East and Asia.
About iD Tech
iD Tech is the leader in summer STEM education programs for students ages 618. Over 275,000 students have attended iD Tech since 1999. Camps are held at over 150 prestigious campuses in the United States, including Stanford, Harvard, UCLA and many others. In addition to its flagship program, iD Tech Camps, the company offers four distinct divisions all aimed at delivering inventive technology experiences to the next generationone student at a time. Learn more at iDTech.com.
Trizics laser focus on enabling, rather than disrupting, the existing wealth industry resonated with us as the right approach to this market.
Trizic, the leader in enterprise class digital advice technology, today announced an oversubscribed $3.3MM equity investment led by Freestyle Capital, with participation from Broadhaven Capital Partners and Commerce Ventures.
The new capital will accelerate Trizics already rapid growth and reinforce its position as the preeminent provider of enterprise grade digital advice technology.
The digital advice space is incredibly disruptive to the existing wealth management industry, so it is a sector that is particularly interesting to investors, commented Drew Sievers, Trizic CEO. With this investment, were well positioned to continue executing our strategy to be the premier solution for large scale digital wealth deployments.
Conceived from the start as an industry-focused offering, the Trizic platform provides a turnkey, enterprise grade digital advice solution for RIAs, broker dealers, asset managers, wirehouses, banks, and credit unions.
We see the digital advice sector as being critical to the existing players in wealth management, said Dave Samuel, Co-Founder and Partner at Freestyle. Trizics laser focus on enabling, rather than disrupting, the existing wealth industry resonated with us as the right approach to this market.
Digital advice solutions are changing the advisor-client relationship and Trizic's enterprise-grade platform and cutting edge technology stood out to us, noted Michael Sidgmore, Venture Partner at Broadhaven Capital Partners. Trizic's strong list of clients and strategic partnerships, in addition to Drew's proven leadership in fintech, make us excited about participating in Trizic's growth.
"We have known Drew for nearly a decade and are excited to be working with him and the Trizic team as they help modernize the investing world, added Dan Rosen, Founder and Partner at Commerce Ventures. Today's wealth management technology is decades old and is sorely overdue for an upgrade to a cloud-architected, digital platform like Trizic's.
Aerial Photography by Les Vant Aerials Leveraging over 10 years of industry experience, we were able to provide Martignetti with a customized solution that meets their unique needs and business goals."
Beaumont Solar, a leading, full-service solar developer and Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) company, announced today the successful completion of a 2.2 MW DC rooftop solar PV system at the new Martignetti Companies LEED certified facility in Taunton, MA. The collaboration resulted in the efficient and timely completion of the companys new headquarters.
Due to the regulatory complexity and tight program deadlines, the project involved working closely with the MA Department of Energy Resources (DOER) to ensure eligibility under the Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SRECII) program, assurance of interconnection and negotiation of net metering with the Taunton Municipal Light and Power (TMLP) Transmission & Distribution teams, and the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) MASS System of Assurance of Net Metering Eligibility (MassACA), before construction commenced.
Martignettis 680,305 square foot building accommodated 7,030 solar modules that will generate approximately 2,596 MWh. With net metering secured, this means that the company is not paying higher energy rates for consumption during non-production hours.
We are honored that Martignetti Companies has chosen to work with us on their solar project, said Phil Cavallo, President and CEO of Beaumont Solar. Leveraging over 10 years of industry experience, we were able to provide Martignetti with a customized solution that meets their unique needs and business goals. In this case, we utilized GameChange racking with wind deflectors for the low ballast weight this particular buildings design called for.
As corporations look at ways to better manage energy costs, deploying solar has become an attractive investment vehicle that can provide financial stability, quick ROI, as well as decreasing tax liability, and a boost to the bottom line. With various financing options available, off-taker power agreements and regulatory incentives, it has never been easier or more economically feasible to deploy solar. Solar is no longer a feel-good corporate program, but a proven financial vehicle to stabilize energy costs providing significant competitive advantage.
Beaumont has deployed over 200 solar projects with over 35 MW of power for commercial, industrial and municipal customers harnessing the value of sunlight providing the affordable, fixed rate energy to power their offices, factories, schools, hospitals and more. Beaumont is known for providing best in class technologies backed by our unmatched capabilities to design and construct highly advanced solar systems on landfills, carports, rooftops and ground arrays for streamlined, reliable, cost-effective renewable energy solutions. Beaumont manages the entire project in-house, providing our customer an integrated, full-service approach.
About Beaumont Solar
Beaumont Solar is a leading, full-service solar developer and Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) company. We specialize in the development, design, building and long-term operation & maintenance (O&M) of solar systems in the commercial & industrial (C&I), utility, agriculture and public sectors. With a long history dating back to 1918, we have the experience, infrastructure and expertise to help maximize the value of underutilized assets (rooftop, carport, landfills, hazmat sites, and land). We help structure financing; both debt and tax equity, provide off-taker power agreements and ground or rooftop leases and determine site feasibility. Beaumont works closely with customers to help them meet financial, energy and sustainability goals by identifying the most efficient systems and cost effective financing. With offices in MA, RI, and NJ, we provide installation and support across the USA. To learn more, please visit http://www.beaumontsolarco.com/.
Or meet up with Phil Cavallo, President & CEO of Beaumont Solar and other company executives directly at Solar Power Northeast being held at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, February 13-14, 2017.
Contact information:
Marlene Arruda
Marketing
Beaumont Solar Co.
508-990-1757 ext. 201
marlene(at)beaumontsolarco(dot)com
We got our happily ever after back
This year Marriage Encounter/MarriageRestored will be holding weekends in more than 30 locations including Seattle, Atlanta, Sacramento, Wichita, Dallas, San Antonio and many more. The dates and locations are located on the websites at: http://www.agme.org and http://www.marriagerestored.com.
Marriage Encounter and its sister ministry MarriageRestored are faith based weekends focused on helping couples begin to communicate again. Since inception, more than 50,000 couples have been impacted by the two ministries. Marriage Encounter specializes in couples who want to improve or enhance their healthy marriage, and MarriageRestored focuses primarily on couples who are in crisis or have been in crisis. The format of the weekends and the communication technique taught are virtually identical.
The biggest problem with marriage today is not that couples dont love one another, said Mark Rhoades, National Director of AG Marriage Encounter. Couples fail to communicate their feelings. In a world where communication is reduced to text messages and Facebook posts, couples are not taking the time to work through the bigger issues of life and their impact on the marriage. Birth, raising and departure of children, money, career options, retirement and death are all issues directly impacting marriage. Our weekend events focus on teaching couples how to communicate about the tough issues of life and get them back on the same page.
When David and Lyn Thomason started the drive to the MarriageRestored weekend, they both knew this was the last chance to save their 25 year marriage. Divorce papers had been filed. David was living out of the country with no intention of permanently returning. After three days of intensive study at the weekend, they arrived home equipped with hope and a new communication technique and began the process of creating the marriage they always wanted.
When our Pastor recommended the weekend, I was very skeptical, said Lyn Thomason, I have never been a person who appreciated weekend retreats or conventions. Most seminars I had attended were focused on creating social contacts rather than real education, but my Pastor insisted this was different. I never in my wildest dreams expected to arrive home after the weekend reconciled to my husband, armed with a communication technique that really worked, and ready to work on our marriage.
The Thomasons had fallen into the classic marital trap of growing apart. With a busy family, two careers and many church and community activities, they were a typical couple working hard to make a good life, too busy and too tired to realize their relationship was growing stale. By the time their grown children left home, their marriage was more of a business partnership than any kind of love affair.
Now six years after our MarriageRestored weekend, our marriage is healthier and more vibrant than I ever thought possible, said David Thomason. We got our happily ever after back, and it has been life changing for us and our family."
About AG Marriage Encounter:
AG Marriage Encounter is a weekend away for couples who want to take their marriage from good to great.
About MarriageRestored:
MarriageRestored is a weekend away for couples who need hope for their marriage.
Both weekends are scheduled from Friday evening at 8 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. You and your spouse will experience unique presentations and dynamic discussions in the comfort of a secluded environment. Its not a retreat or a seminar, and theres no circle time or sharingjust you, your spouse, and a better marriage.
Guisto Sapore brand of imported Italian fine foods "Now on Amazon, everyone can enjoy our Giusto Sapore line of Italian fine foods," says Justin Comparetto, founder and president of Just Ryt Foods.
In honor of National Italian Food Day, Just Ryt Foods has launched its new website and online sales for its Giusto Sapore brand of imported Italian fine foods. Pronounced joos-sto sa-po-re and meaning Just the Right Flavor in Italian, the Giusto Sapore line includes balsamics and vinegars, olive oil, cookies and biscuits, canned goods and pasta, available at http://www.giustosapore.com and on Amazon.
Founded in 2010, Just Ryt Foods, Inc. operates as South Florida Imports, serving Central and Southern Florida and has expanded its distribution to include the upscale mid-Atlantic grocery chain Harris Teeter that carries the companys line of imported Italian vinegars.
My grandpa Joe and I started the business selling just 12 products to green markets and small local grocers, says Justin Comparetto, the company president. Today we offer over 2,000 items. Our family-run business is dedicated to bringing our customers authentic Italian foods made with the finest ingredients and time tested recipes.
The product selection sold at Harris Teeter and online includes balsamics, balsamic glazes, organic vinegars, saba and five sweet fruit vinegars all imported from Modena province in the heart of the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, considered the only true source for balsamic vinegars.
Other Giusto Sapore products available online through Amazon.com include the traditional Italian Panettone, a sweet dome-shaped bread studded with candied fruits and frequently served as special treats for Christmas and Easter holidays, pastas, cookies and olive oils.
Adding the Harris Teeter stores, and now on Amazon, greatly expands our presence outside of Florida and positions us for future growth, says Comparetto. We want to build our brand and bring the fine foods of Italy and the Mediterranean to everyone. As we like to say from our family to yours Buon Appetito.
Just Ryt Foods employs 20 people and recently doubled its Pompano Beach, Florida warehouse facility. For more information, see http://www.giustosapore.com
While it is common for students to feel butterflies in their stomachs when taking tests, research has found that test anxiety has increased as a result of high-stakes tests, like the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). A U.S. Dept. of Education study found that 61 percent of high school students suffer from test anxiety. More worrisome is that 26% are handicapped by that anxiety, and it can start as young as age seven. A National Louis University (NLU) professor has offered tips for parents to recognize and help children of all ages with test anxiety.
Symptoms of anxiety express physically, behaviorally and cognitively and include dizziness, nausea, fidgeting, faking illness, absence on test day and negative self-statements (e.g. Ill never pass this test.). Most students can overcome test anxiety by simply using good study habits, knowing how to relax during a test and using effective test-taking strategies.
Some degree of student test anxiety is normal, said Jennifer Cooper, Ph.D., NCSP and assistant professor in National Louis Universitys School Psychology program. When the anxiety causes impairment and students cant demonstrate the knowledge they have, its time to take a closer look, and potentially seek help from a qualified professional.
Below are a few of the tips that Cooper, a school psychologist, shared for parents to help recognize and reduce student anxiety when taking tests.
1. Know when your childs anxiety needs attention. To do this, Cooper suggests maintaining an open line of communication with teachers. Since teachers are in the classroom and observe students taking tests, they often are the first to recognize symptoms of anxiety.
2. Initiate age-appropriate conversations and inquire about childrens feelings. Conversation starters can include: Are you feeling worried about something? How often do you have these feelings of worry? I noticed that when you were taking your practice test yesterday, you seemed nervous and distracted. Do you feel that way often? When you feel this way, tell me what you are feeling in your body. For younger students who are not as verbal, parents can share feeling faces as visual helpers for children to identify their feelings.
3. Identify past coping strategies and build on what has worked. When you feel this way, how have you had success turning things around?
4. Replace negative thoughts with positive self talk. Encourage the adoption of an upbeat, but realistic attitude: I prepared carefully for this test. If I do my best, I have a good chance of passing it.
5. Validate and support their feelings. Let children know that everyone worries to some degree, as a protection and safety mechanism. However, when anxiety goes into overdrive, that is not healthy, and parents are there to support them and get them help.
More tips are available on how parents can help students with severe test anxiety at http://www.nl.edu/testanxiety and NLU professor Jennifer Cooper is available to comment as well.
About National Louis University
Founded in 1886, National Louis is a nonprofit, non-denominational University offering bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in fields of education, management, human services, counseling, public policy, and others concerned with human and community development. From its inception, National Louis has provided educational access to adult, immigrant and minority populations a mission it sustains today. National Louis is well-known for an exceptional history in teacher preparation, and continues to be a leader in educating future teachers and community leaders to succeed in urban environments. For more information, visit http://www.nl.edu.
Enjoy fresh off-the-grill-fajitas delivered to home or office.
Fajita Pete's newest location will celebrate its grand opening with free, family-friendly festivities at the restaurant, at 15718 S. Highway 288, Suite 170.
The celebration begins at 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 26th, and last until 6 p.m. that evening. The event includes Fajita Petes famous fajitas, popcorn, cotton candy, and multiple bounce houses for kids and young adults. KRBE 104.1 will provide a live DJ, giveaways, and prizes.
Pearlands franchisee, Ram Aguilera, anticipates introducing this new restaurant concept that has a successful track record in the Houston Metro area. Our company, Noble Restaurant Group, signed an agreement to open five stores, and being involved in the beginning stages of a concept that is about to explode into this market is very exciting, says Aguilera.
Fajita Petes provides fresh-off-the-grill fajitas, hand-rolled tortillas, and sides that are made-from-scratch every time. Perfect for home or office, Fajita Petes convenient online ordering is a fresh alternative to Chinese food and pizza delivery.
The Pearland location is the seventh restaurant for the Houston-based chain. Fajita Petes currently has locations in Bellaire, Richmond, Memorial, Tomball, Dallas and Katy Mason. With more franchise agreements in progress, the next two locations are set for Sienna Plantation and Cypress.
Every opening consist of hands-on training, founder Pedro Pete Mora says that training new employees reminds him of whats truly important and thats getting back to the basics. My favorite part of grand openings is the excitement the event brings for both the staff and the community, says Mora.
About Fajita Pete's
Fajita Pete's is a Houston-based Mexican restaurant that offers fresh, made-from-scratch fajitas and a variety of authentic dishes for delivery, pick-up, catering and dine-in. Founder Pete Mora opened his first restaurant in 2002 and soon received an overwhelming amount of catering request from local companies. Envisioning a better way to fill a growing niche, he decided to close his profitable 5,000 sq. ft. full-service restaurant to focus on a 1,000 sq. ft. catering and delivery model that soon became Fajita Pete's. For more information, visit http://fajitapetes.com.
This session will provide those in attendance with an actionable strategy that they can implement now, as well as the confidence that comes with having an effective contingency plan in place.
Brown, Gruttadaro, Gaujean, Prato & Sastow PLLC (BGGPS), a full-service law firm with offices in White Plains, New York City and Rochester, and the Gardiner Group at Morgan Stanley, have announced the final event of their three-part lecture series which launched in the fall of 2016. On Wednesday, March 1, the companies will host Protecting Against Non-Financial Retirement Shocks at Morgan Stanleys offices in Purchase, NY.
When planning for the future, many people follow a simple formula: save money while working, keep spending down during retirement, and pass on the remainder to your loved ones, said Max Gaujean, founding member of BGGPS and senior managing attorney for the firms White Plains office. But you also have to think of those life events that you cant plan for. This event will focus on the legal and non-financial pitfalls that you could encounter, and how to best prepare for them.
Designed to provide useful financial planning and legal guidance to local professionals, the seminar will arm attendees with tools and valuable insights on how to best prepare a strategy to tackle those hard-to-anticipate life events, including health care costs, longevity, widowhood and chronic illness care.
This session will provide those in attendance with an actionable strategy that they can implement now, as well as the confidence that comes with having an effective contingency plan in place, said Gary S. Sastow, BGGPS member.
The event will be hosted by Gaujean and Sastow along with Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors Mary Gibbons Gardiner, CRPC CDFA, and Cindy Rudbart. It will feature keynote speaker Dr. Robert Pokorski, Prudentials Vice President and Medical Director, who is committed to working with financial advisors on the importance of incorporating health and longevity planning into financial planning.
Gardiner stated, Dr. Bob has been in the insurance industry for more than 30 years and specializes in longevity research and product design. Were thrilled to have him join us for this seminar and believe he will be a great resource to all of those in attendance.
Protecting Against Non-Financial Retirement Shocks will take place from 6 pm-7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 1, at the Executive Conference Center at Morgan Stanley Wealth Managements offices located at 2000 Westchester Avenue in Purchase. Attendance is free, but reservations are required as seating is limited. To register, please contact Sharon Masse at Sharon(dot)masse(at)ms(dot)com or 914-225-5526.
For more information, visit http://www.bggplaw.com or http://www.morganstanleyfa.com/gardiner/.
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About Brown, Gruttadaro, Gaujean, Prato & Sastow PLLC
Brown, Gruttadaro, Gaujean, Prato & Sastow PLLC (BGGPS) is a legal professional limited liability corporation serving clients throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. BGGPS represents individuals, physicians and their group practices, corporations and municipalities in all matters involving medical malpractice and general litigation, administrative proceedings, health law and business transactions. A firm with a proven track record of success, BGGPS attorneys are consistently top-rated by Martindale-Hubbell and the firm was honored as a U.S. World Report Best Law Firm in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The firm has offices in White Plains, Rochester and New York City. For more information, visit http://www.bggplaw.com.
Left-Handed Valentine's Day contest photo
Lefty's the Left Hand Store discovered a surprising fact about left-handed Valentines. In 2016, Leftys ran a Facebook contest for the best photos of peoples left-handed Valentines, and had a great response. Surprisingly, though, most of the photos were not of husbands or wives, girlfriends or boyfriends, but of kids.
All the hoopla around Valentines Day is focused on romantic love, but thats not really what its about, for lefties or righties. Yes, kids are more photogenic than adults, but Leftys photo contest drew more images of lefty kids than adults. The winner received $100 cash, and runners up $50 gift certificates, so there was incentive to take very engaging photos.
On Valentines Day, many people think of all those they care about kids, parents, grandkids and parents, good friends, and, in elementary school, many classmates. It is, in fact, a day to celebrate feelings for friends and family as well as others. Romantic love may be more appealing to the media, but parental love is also widely celebrated on Valentines Day.
Are lefty kids more loved by their parents than righty kids? Left-handed kids definitely have a harder time, especially when they are just learning to use tools and how to navigate a right-handed world. Watching this struggle, feeling a bit helpless as a mother or father, does create a particular bond between lefty kids and their parents. While this doesnt really equate to greater love, it does add an enduring layer to the relationship.
Visit Leftys Facebook page to see the results of the 2016 Valentines Day photo contest. Visit Leftys retail stores on Pier 39, San Francisco, or in Downtown Disney, Walt Disney World Resort, in Orlando. Visit the store online at leftyslefthanded.com.
Battling food and financial insecurity in the community is a cause we strongly believe in. After all, neighbors helping neighbors is what its all about.
Augustine Insurance Agency, which protects the families and businesses of north Dallas through professional insurance and financial planning, has announced the latest nonprofit organization to benefit from their vibrant community enrichment program. Metrocrest Services provides an assortment of vital services to seniors and other community members experiencing hunger and financial insecurity. Donations to this worthy cause are now being accepted here.
Metrocrest Services has been serving the greater Denton County community for over 40 years. By providing programs for individuals, families and seniors which foster independence and lead to self-sufficiency, dedicated volunteers served 15,000 neighbors in need last year alone. Many seeking assistance are low income, but others have fluctuating income or are coping with a financial crisis due to injury or illness. Metrocrest offers help and hope with a variety of educational programs, as well as maintaining a food pantry, emergency rent and utility assistance and home-delivered meals.
We are very pleased to be helping Metrocrest provide for local people in need, said Aaron Augustine, principal of Augustine Insurance Agency. Battling food and financial insecurity in the community is a cause we strongly believe in. After all, neighbors helping neighbors is what its all about.
The agencys caring team is hard at work promoting the campaign through a dynamic social media and email campaign and has even featured Metrocrest in their monthly community magazine. Our Hometown magazine, which is delivered to thousands of households in Addison and surrounding communities every month, has dedicated a full page to showcase the campaign for Metrocrest Services. Current and archived issues may be enjoyed and shared at http://augustineinsuranceagency.com/magazines/.
Readers who would like to join Augustine Insurance in supporting struggling community members in need may visit http://augustineinsuranceagency.com/causes/lets-lend-helping-hand-local-families/ to make a donation. Even better, the agency has pledged to contribute $10 to the campaign for each and every recommendation they receive for an insurance quotation, with no purchase necessary, making so simple for people to rally friends and family members in a common cause.
The agency has made an ongoing commitment to positively impact the communities it serves by vigorously seeking out and supporting local worthy causes as part of the celebrated nationwide Agents of Change movement. To keep tabs on new opportunities to support the community, readers are encouraged to bookmark http://augustineinsuranceagency.com/community/ and share the page with others. Concerned community members may submit ideas for future initiatives at http://augustineinsuranceagency.com/submit-causes/.
About Augustine Insurance Agency
Serving families from offices in Addison, TX, Augustine Insurance is committed to bringing local people an agency which understands their needs. Aaron Augustine and his team of dedicated professionals work with carriers to assemble a variety of products and services which will ensure their clients peace of mind. From all of the products a typical consumer needs (home, auto, boat, ATV, etc.), to financial planning services, Augustine Insurance delivers consistently superior service. Their caring experts may be reached by calling 972-746-0434. To learn more about the agency, please visit http://augustineinsuranceagency.com/
The State Council has abolished 491 items that previously required administrative approval, and delegated 127 items of approval to lower levels since 2013, as part of a wider drive by the government to cut bureaucracy and streamline the economy in the context of a complicated global landscape.
The government released on Feb 10 the full list of items that have been canceled on its website. About 168 items mainly involve resources exploration, enterprise investment, taxation and securities trading, all of which are key areas where the government wants to improve efficiency. The 618 items canceled or delegated to lower levels represent 36 percent of all items that were previously subject to administrative approval.
Premier Li Keqiang inspects the citizens service center in Shiyan city of Hubei province on May 23, 2016.
Clearing up administrative procedures represents a crucial step in improving government services, and can speed up economic activities, cut business costs, and reduce burdens and hurdles for enterprises and the people, meanwhile promoting sustained and healthy economic development.
China has given the green light to allowing 76 percent of investment projects to go ahead without review, after they previously required the central governments approval. More than 95 percent of foreign investment projects and over 98 percent of overseas investment projects can now be registered online.
Since 2015, 40,000 businesses on average have been set up every day, due to lowered business thresholds and an improved business environment.
Its a fun and poignant 24 hours dedicated to remembrance, celebration and raising crucial funds for cancer, and we invite the community to join us, athletes and non-athletes alike, to take a stand (or a walk!) against cancer.
A. Kevin Spann Insurance, a full-service insurance and financial services provider serving New York families from offices in Middle Village, has announced the latest beneficiary of their thriving community involvement program. The current campaign fundraises to support the American Cancer Societys Relay For Life of Middle Village. Donations to this worthy cause may now be made here.
The American Cancer Societys Relay for Life is an annual event held in May, during which four million people in over 20 countries around the world come together to raise awareness and funds to support groundbreaking cancer research and vital patient services by walking as teams for 24 hours. During the Relay, participants and survivors celebrate what theyve overcome, remember those lost to cancer and honor those currently fighting the disease. The atmosphere is fun and overwhelmingly celebratory, with themed campsites, music, food, games and activities. The Juniper Valley Park Running Track of Middle Village is hosting the festive local event this year on June 24.
Were excited to be participating in this 15th anniversary event to save lives, said Kevin Spann, owner of A. Kevin Spann Insurance. Its a fun and poignant 24 hours dedicated to remembrance, celebration and raising crucial funds for cancer, and we invite the community to join us, athletes and non-athletes alike, to take a stand (or a walk!) against cancer.
The agencys team is hard at work mobilizing support for the campaign through a variety of channels, including utilizing social media and email and text communications. Additionally, theyve shown a spotlight on Relay For Life in this months issue of their community magazine. Our Hometown is a vibrant print and digital publication which is delivered to thousands of households in Middle Village and surrounding areas every month. To enjoy current and past issues, please visit http://www.akspann.com/Our-Hometown-Magazine_39.
Caring community members may show support for the Community Cause without it even impacting their own wallets. A. Kevin Spann Insurance has pledged to donate a $15 for each and every referral they receive for an insurance quote, with no purchase necessary. To have the agency make a donation in their name, readers may recommend friends and family for a no-obligation quotation at http://www.akspann.com/Saving-Lives-and-Celebrating-Life_15_community_cause.
The agencys innovative Agents of Change Community Program selects a new local organization, family or individual every two months to receive exposure and support. To stay abreast of opportunities to support the community, readers are encouraged to bookmark and share http://www.akspann.com/community-cause.
About A. Kevin Spann Insurance
Serving New York families and businesses from offices in Middle Village, award-winning A. Kevin Spann Insurance is committed to bringing local people an agency which understands their needs. Kevin Spann and his caring team of dedicated professionals work with carriers to assemble a variety of products and services which will ensure clients peace of mind. From all of the insurance products a typical consumer needs (home, business, auto, boat, ATV, etc.), to developing long-term financial planning strategies, A. Kevin Spann Insurance delivers consistently superior service. Their caring experts may be reached by calling 718-381-1400. For more information on the agency, please visit http://www.akspann.com/.
The debilitating cycle of poverty and homelessness can only be solved together, as a community. Were happy to do our part for families in need by partnering with Family Promise.
Old Savannah Insurance Agency, an insurance and financial services firm serving families and businesses in the greater Savannah area, has unveiled a new charity campaign to tackle homelessness. Family Promise brings together the core elements of community assistance to transform lives on the local level, helping homeless families to regain their housing, their independence and, ultimately, their dignity. Donations to this worthy cause may be made at https://www.crowdrise.com/strengthening-lives-in-our-community/fundraiser/oldsavannahinsurance.
Family Promise was founded in 1997 as a local response to the national crisis of poverty and homelessness. This year in America, more than 2.5 million children and their parents will experience homelessness. Coordinating services and volunteer efforts on the grassroots level, Family Promise of Greater Savannah keeps families together while providing crucial services such as food, lodging, laundry and child care, enabling stability and the accumulation of family savings. The opportunity to prepare resumes and apply for employment is invaluable, as are the supportive connections made which can help families gain independence and success.
Strengthening lives in our community is why we created our community involvement program, said James Grusheski, principal of Old Savannah Insurance Agency. The debilitating cycle of poverty and homelessness can only be solved together, as a community. Were happy to do our part for families in need by partnering with Family Promise.
Old Savannah Insurance has made it simple for the community to help local homeless families without even reaching into their own pockets to do so. Instead, the agency has pledged to donate $10 to the cause for every person recommended for an insurance quotation, with no purchase necessary. Readers wishing to have a donation made to Family Promise on their behalf may submit recommendations of friends and family members for a no-obligation quote at http://www.oldsavannahinsuranceagency.com/Strengthening-Lives-in-Our-Community-_27_community_cause.
Grusheski and his team are working vigorously to build support for the charity drive by connecting with local families and businesses via social media channels and an email and text message outreach campaign. They have also dedicated a full page of their print and online community magazine, Our Hometown, to feature all the details. Helping customers and friends to Live Well and Thrive, the publication is delivered to thousands of households in and around Savannah every month. Current and archived issues may be enjoyed by visiting http://www.oldsavannahinsuranceagency.com/Our-Hometown-Magazine_41.
Old Savannah Insurance Agency has made an ongoing commitment to positively impact the community they serve by seeking out and supporting local worthy causes every two to three months as part of the nationally celebrated Agents of Change movement. Concerned community members are encouraged to submit information on groups, families or individuals in need of a helping hand to be considered for future initiatives at http://www.oldsavannahinsuranceagency.com/Submit-A-Community-Cause-Idea_45. Readers interested in staying involved may visit http://www.oldsavannahinsuranceagency.com/community-cause, and are invited to share the page and bookmark for future reference.
About Old Savannah Insurance Agency
A full-service firm serving Georgias families and businesses from offices in Savannah, Old Savannah has one simple mission: to provide the finest insurance and financial products in the industry while delivering consistently superior service. James Grusheski and his dedicated team of caring professionals focus on helping clients to protect the things which are most important to them (their families, homes, businesses, cars and more) and on developing strategies to fulfill long-term financial goals. More information on the agency may be found at http://www.oldsavannahinsuranceagency.com/ and a caring expert may be reached by calling 912-352-7620.
Naveed Khan, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Leesburg and Dulles-Aldie, VA locations The primary goal at SGF is not only to help patients achieve a family, but provide optimal, affordable patient care. The patient comes first is the core of our practice and what we believe is a strong differentiator among other fertility practices.
Shady Grove Fertility, the largest fertility center in the United States, with more babies born than any other center in the nationcontinues to educate the community about the importance of early infertility evaluation. The practice will be hosting a myriad of events in February as part of its ongoing patient education series intended to help those who are struggling to conceive.
These events provide attendees with the opportunity to learn about how common infertility is, why early intervention matters, four simple tests to diagnose infertility, common fertility myths, and more. Each event live or virtual also offers attendees the opportunity to ask questions. Shady Grove Fertility reproductive endocrinologists and program specialists will field your questions at the conclusion of each event. Informed patients often have more favorable outcomes.
The events also offer the opportunity to learn from experts and leaders in the field. With a 25 year history and more than 40,000 babies born, Shady Grove Fertility remains a trusted national leader in IVF and infertility care; a pioneer in infertility research and cutting-edge technologies.
At each event, attendees will be introduced to SGFs innovative financial solutions. Shady Grove Fertility offers several exclusive financial programs designed to make infertility care accessible and affordable to more people. The primary goal at Shady Grove Fertility is to not only to help patients achieve a family, but to provide optimal, affordable patient care. The patient comes first is the core of our practice and what SGF believes is a strong differentiator among other fertility practices, says Howard McClamrock, M.D., of SGFs Baltimore Harbor, MD location. Dr. McClamrock will be hosting a Is it time to see a fertility specialist? live event on Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 6:30 PM.
At Shady Grove Fertility, we strive to help our patients make sound, informed decisions. There are many misconceptions that abound when it comes to infertility, so we use this time together to debunk the myths, make the topic understandable, and give individuals and couples a straightforward path, reassures Naveed Khan, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Leesburg and Dulles-Aldie, VA locations. Dr. Khan will be hosting two events in February: a live question and answer ask-the-expert Glow chat on the topic of Weight and Fertility on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, at 12 PM, as well as a webinar Is it time to see a fertility specialist? on Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 12 PM.
While all SGF in-person and online events are complimentary, interested parties must register to attend by visiting the Shady Grove Fertility calendar of events.
Upcoming February Events:
Wednesday, February 15, 12 PM | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Stephanie Beall, Glow App Live Physician Q&A**
Wednesday, February 15, 6:30 PM | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Howard McClamrock | Baltimore Harbor, MD
Thursday, February 16, 12 PM | Become an Egg Donor | Webinar
Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 12 PM | Weight and Fertility | Dr. Naveed Khan | Glow App Live Physician Q&A**
Thursday, February 23, 12 PM | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Naveed Khan | Webinar
Tuesday, Feb. 28, 12 PM | Egg Freezing | Dr. Shruti Malik | Webinar
**For those who enjoy using an app to learn about their fertility, Shady Grove Fertility has partnered with the fertility app, Glow, to educate the thousands of active app users about their personal fertility health, reproductive options, and the infertility treatment process. Click to download the free app.
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.
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The third and final day of AWP 2017s closed on Saturday evening with a candlelight vigil in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, organized by Split This Rock, and co-sponsored by 30 literary organizations and creative writing programs. Nine speakers, most of them prominent poets, addressed a crowd of over 1,000 people, with one, Carolyn Forche, declaring that it was the best AWP panel ever. While recent controversies including the Muslim ban, ICE immigrant raids, Standing Rock and even Simon & Schusters publishing a book by Milo Yiannopolous were condemned by some speakers, others emphasized the impact of the Trump administration upon Americans Constitutional rights and the responsibility of writers to defend those rights.
This is a freedom of speech issue, a freedom of expression issue, this is a writers issue, Sarah Browning, Split This Rocks executive director and the vigils moderator, told the crowd, while Luis J. Rodriguez declared that every writer has to do acts of truth because truth matters, but has become a subversive act.
In addition to the scheduled march upon the Capitol and the candlelight vigil, several spontaneous demonstrations took place inside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center throughout the weekend and even inside the book fair area itself. Friday morning, a large number of attendees linked arms and chanted in a human chain that wended its way around the perimeters of the exhibit hall and through a center aisle. While some exhibitors stopped what they were doing and applauded, others simply continued to go about their business.
It was wondrously disruptive, Spartanburg, S.C.s Hub City Press editor Meg Reid told PW, Thats what makes this years AWP such a rich experience. Were not just living in our bubble. Were engaged with the outside world. Theres a lot more engagement. Everyones talking politics.
I think our attendees welcome the opportunity to voice their frustrations among their peers, AWP conference director Christian Teresi said, AWP values free press and freedom of expression: were happy the attendees are here to exercise those rights. There has never been a more important time for writers to assemble.
Despite the outpouring of political sentiment throughout all three days, AWP remains both an academic conference and an opportunity for literary presses and literary organizations to display and sell their offerings to consumers in the book fair area, while universities promote their MFA programs.
Its been a great show, Copper Canyons co-publisher, Joseph Bednarik said on Saturday afternoon, were connecting directly with readers. To talk to human beings about real books: its not an abstraction. AWP at its core is a celebration of creativity; that in itself is worth the price of admission.
Bednarik also noted the impact upon him personally as a publisher, setting up a book display, and to see hundreds of [Copper Canyon titles] all in one place: you see the cover art and the relationship between the titles. Its inspirational. Bednarik reported that Copper Canyon had shipped a huge pallet of books from its Washington state offices and that sales had been brisk, with advance copies of two April poetry collection releases it brought as AWP show specials selling out: Alex Dimitrovs Together and By Ourselves and Natalie Shaperos Hard Child.
For his part, Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson noted that this years book fair may not have been quite as busy in terms of sales for the Brooklyn-based indie press as other AWP conferences in recent years, but praised it highly nevertheless, reporting that there were good discussions on the panels he had sat on. When you get 200 people to discuss the form and structure of the novella, he said, Its a beautiful thing.
Read all our coverage of the 2017 AWP conference.
Here are all our daily stories of the AWP 2017 Conference, which took place in Washington D.C. between February 8-11.
Anti-Trump protests and political actions are planned throughout this years AWP conference.
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, kicked off its annual conference on Thursday with politics on people's minds, as exhibitors, panelists and attendees expressed their opposition to the Trump presidency.
AWP 2017's keynote speaker, Azar Nafisi, the author of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran,' blasted President Trump in a fiery presentation and urged writers to use their imaginations to resist the Trump administration.
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference in Washington D.C. continued in a highly politicized vein through its second day, with a march and rally at the Capitol building, in addition to a packed event featuring Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
The AWP book fair, always a centerpiece of the conference experience, was as politically charged as this year's panels and protests.
This year's politically-charged AWP conference concluded Saturday evening with a candlelight vigil outside the White House and strong sales reported from the book fair floor.
The conversation at this years conference, from the formal presentations to the informal interactions between attendees, perhaps inevitably focused upon current events, including the airing of issues that have roiled the organization and the publishing industry in recent years: diversity in childrens book publishing.
Illinois and Iowa family caregivers who care for aging relatives and friends may talk with exhibitors and hear speakers at the 7th annual Quad City Regional Family Caregivers Conference, going on from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 4 at the Waterfront Convention Center, 2021 State St., Bettendorf.
According to a news release, keynote speakers will be Dr. Cheryl True and Jon Turnquist, a St. Ambrose Professor. They will speak at 9 and 10:30 a.m. respectfully.
According to a release, presentation titles are I dont have time to take of myself, do I? and Theres no place like home: adaptations to enhance safety and independence."
Caregivers will learn about services and programs from more than 50 local providers and organizations who serve the Illinois and Iowa Quad-Cities region, the release states.
There also will be light refreshments and door prizes.
The event is sponsored by Milestones Area Agency on Aging, Alternatives, Western Illinois Area Agency on Aging and the Alzheimers Association.
For more information, call 563-484-3147 or 855-410-6222, or visit milestonesaaa.org.
ORLAND PARK, Ill. (AP) Authorities in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park say a 60-year-old man has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife.
Raymond Homolka of Orland Park is scheduled to appear at a bond hearing in Chicago on Sunday afternoon.
Orland Park police conducting a well-being check Friday discovered the body of 60-year-old Mary Homolka in the garage of the couple's home. The Cook County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide Saturday and said Mary Homolka died of a single gunshot wound to the head.
ALEDO -- One mans desire to pay tribute to every veteran has become a movement for Mercer
County.
Jay Doherty, Aledo American Legion Post 121 commander and founder of the Mercer County Honor Marker Committee, said every veteran deserves to be honored.
If they served and have an honorable discharge, they qualify for and should be able to get a marker, he said.
Mr. Doherty, an Army National Guard Veteran said, We discovered just over 700 veterans in the Aledo cemetery, however 300 or so of them, did not have a marker."
I just decided I was going to do something about it, Mr. Doherty said. Thats when he formed a committee composed of members of both the American Legion and VFW and auxiliaries in late August 2016. We really wanted to reach out.
The discovery came when Bryan Nash, member of the Eliza American Legion, mapped the locations of the veterans in the Aledo Cemetery to make it easier to put flags in the markers on Memorial Day.
When word got out, private donations began flooding in to support their efforts to provide every veteran with an honor marker: a wreath around a star that says "US veteran."
A story aired on a local TV station spurred an additional $1,500 in private donations, for a total of $7,500. Mr. Doherty said that leaves just $1,500 to raise to make sure every veteran is recognized to the complete the Aledo Cemetery.
Thats after only one major fundraiser, the Veterans Ball, the rest has been raised through private donations. The markers cost $30 each and come from an operation out of Fremont, Ohio.
Mr. Doherty said, I feel very blessed to be apart of a community that has pulled together this quickly to move this project along.
He said the committee has, lofty goals.
We decided wed like to try to make sure that all the active cemeteries in Mercer County got taken care of, he said. The committee has yet to officially decide where to go next.
Mr. Nash told Mr. Doherty hes going to map New Boston's cemetery this summer. Nash has been a valuable resource, said Mr. Doherty, Half the battle is doing the research.
He puts a lot of time and research into it.
The process to find every buried vet includes walking the cemetery to see if theres an indication on the stone, then scouring through records to see if their service is indicated.
Im in it for the long haul, doesnt matter how long it takes. I'm just going to stick with it and make sure the mission is accomplished, Mr. Doherty said.
Inspiration comes from a childhood neighbor. Mr. Doherty said he grew up next door to Saveria Sam Guccione, a World War II U.S. Navy veteran who was stationed on the USS Arizona. He was home on leave when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
It was always an emotional thing for him. Mr. Doherty remembers Sam getting teary-eyed when he would talk about visiting the memorial and seeing his friends names who died during Pearl Harbor. Mr. Doherty was appalled to find Sams grave did not already have an honor marker.
The movement is catching on. Mr. Doherty said he has been in contact with Moline American Legion Commander Harry Scharff about starting a similar program for Rock Island County.
Mr. Scharff said, Right now were doing a lot of investigating.
Mr. Doherty has a big vision. Im hopeful itll catch on from county to county. It would be really neat if this was taken care of nationwide, he said.
The Mercer County VFW Auxiliary and American Legion have fundraising opportunities in the works; updates are posted on the Aledo American Legion, Post 121 Facebook page. Donations can be mailed to 2000 State Highway 17, Aledo, IL 61231, Or call 309-737-9199 to get involved.
It's not an easy lifestyle to be a volunteer firefighter.
There's the constant balancing act between multiple commitments, the interrupting demands of a call and the persistent risk of potentially losing your life.
For all for those reasons, volunteer fire departments are seeing a decline in participation nationwide, including in the Quad-Cities.
That drop in numbers increases the pressures on firefighters still volunteering.
Annawan Fire Chief Dan Johnson said that, during his 23 years of firefighting, his normal roster of volunteer firefighters runs around 25. This year he's down to 20, but the team is OK for now.
"We've got a solid core of guys that will be around for many years," Chief Johnson said. "We're in no immediate danger of anything."
Cordova Fire Chief Chuck Smalley said his squad is well-staffed to handle about 130 calls a year, but he knows of other stations that have been hit hard by declining volunteers.
"Right now we've got it pretty good, but we lost a couple of guys," Chief Smalley said. "We have about 26 guys right now. A healthy number is about 25-30, so we're healthy."
"You have stations such as the one in Colona where they get up to 600 calls a year," Mr. Smalley said. "And it's not just here; it's all across the country."
Colona Fire Chief John Swan said over 70 percent of Illinois is protected by volunteer firefighters, but retention and recruitment of volunteers now is at a critical low. The main reason for that, besides the lack of benefits and salary, is the hundreds of hours it takes for volunteers to maintain their training requirements.
Chief Swan also said taxes will rise dramatically if the volunteer fire service ends.
"I have calculated a cost savings of over 7 billion dollars the first year that the volunteer fire service has saved our communities. This is a direct savings that would otherwise be paid out in local taxes from your community," he said.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, 69 percent of the 1,134,400 firefighters in the U.S. are volunteers. More than half of all the firefighters in the U.S. -- about 52 percent -- are between the ages of 30 and 49.
Both fire chiefs said that age group has taken the most hits to its numbers because of time, family and other commitments -- including the will to volunteer.
"Volunteerism is one of the things you see suffering all across the board," Chief Johnson said.
"It [volunteer firefighting] eats up time," he said. "It's not the job or education that keep people away, but the time away from doing things people would rather be doing."
Training also demands volunteers' time, and Chief Smalley said some state policies also hurt volunteer firefighters. One of these policies, he said, is the location of testing centers for firefighters' basic education. Those centers could be as away far as Galesburg or Rockford, he said.
"It's hard to give up that time to drive that distance," Chief Smalley said.
While the number of volunteer firefighters is decreasing, the need for them isn't. Chief Smalley said he wants volunteers -- but he also wants them aware of all the job entails.
"We are open to people coming in, but it's not for everybody," he said. "It can get ugly."
"All departments in the area are looking for volunteers," Mr. Smalley said.
KEWANEE - Hope and heroes were recurring themes of Sunday's program for Black History month in Kewanee.
The Rev. Marshall Jones found hope in a Riceville, Ohio, teacher's experiment in an all-white classroom soon shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King. The teacher purposefully discriminated against brown-eyed students one day and blue-eyed the next. The brown-eyed students were hugging the blue-eyed ones the second day, having learned the effects of prejudice.
As a people we all need to grow and point to the great things that we all can do, said Rev. Jones.
He detailed the life of Carter G. Woodson, father of black history, as a historian and founder of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History.
Rev. Jones said his son had asked why he didn't find much black history in school. He remembered wondering the same thing when he was at junior high age, then finding a class after entering high school.
Until we start writing and recording our own history, it won't be there, he said. Once we start acknowledging the contributions of each other, we'll find, as a nation, we'll grow closer together.
He recalled a coast guardsman who could not get co-workers to work with him, so he built his own crew and had an all-black station from 1880 to 1900. He talked about the black man Pedro Alanso Nino, who created the potato chip in 1853, and the uncle of writer Langston Hughes who was the first black lawyer in Ohio and one of many blacks elected to Congress during Reconstruction. Others he cited were the inventor of the spectronometer, the women who have made great contributions at NASA and a woman working now on three-dimensional television images that could come out of your set into your living room.
You can look at all the negative things that are happening in the world and fail to highlight people who are actually doing great things, he said.
Retired state trooper Floyd Blanks, who was in attendance, also was recognized for making Kewanee a safer and better place to live.
We all fall down every now and then. We all have doubts and struggles, said Rev. Jones. He went on to describe an Air Force colonel who was struggling as he walked on the beach and came to a jellyfish that had washed ashore. Col. James Oliver Culver Sr. had been told he couldn't fly helicopters because of the color of his skin, but he saw the beached creature, asked himself if he was a jellyfish or a man and went on to achieve his goal.
The Rev. Louis Guthrie said he was encouraged by Sunday's turnout. A former chief master sergeant in the Air Force, Rev. Guthrie said he'd seen plenty of dying. He said times are changing at lightning speed and cited scripture as a source of setting hopes on things eternal. He said people should hope that the united they have in collective diversity should eliminate divisiveness
Even though we live in a world of hate, Jesus commands us to love, he said. Let hope prevail in our homes, in our community, in our churches, in our governmentin this great nation called America.
Moderator Etta LaFlora said watching the news has been scary but she is optimistic.
I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. I'm still looking forward to the future for us and for our children, she said. We have to remain hopeful. Young people, don't give up. Keep the lights trimmed and burning.
State Rep. Dan Swanson, Kate Jennings of U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos' office, and Anayanzi Mendez, of Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin's office, were in attendance.
Environmental activists and local government officials warned more than a decade ago about the risk of catastrophic flooding below a major Northern California dam the very scenario that threatened to unfold over the weekend, forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream.
But those fears were dismissed at the time by the state and federal regulators, who said they were confident the hillside that helps hold back billions of gallons of water was stable.
That decision has come under scrutiny now that the hillside or emergency spillway, as officials call it has been put to its first test in the Oroville Dam's nearly 50-year history.
Over the weekend, water from the storm-swollen reservoir behind the dam spilled down the unpaved slope, causing such heavy erosion that authorities feared a huge breach would open and send a 30-foot-high torrent downstream, devastating thousands of homes. The dam is about 70 miles north of Sacramento.
The danger appeared to ease slightly on Monday as the water level behind the dam dropped, but more rain was in the forecast, and residents were not allowed back into their homes.
In 2005, at the start of dam's still-unfinished relicensing process, environmental groups asked federal regulators to require that the California Department of Water Resources "armor" the hillside or reinforce it, typically with concrete or boulders to prevent potentially catastrophic erosion from water escaping around the side of the 770-foot-high dam.
The groups said soil, rocks and debris could be swept into the Feather River below, damaging highway bridges and power plants. In a worst case, they warned, a major breach would unleash floods that could take lives and destroy property.
But the water resources department dismissed the need to fortify the natural earthen barrier and insisted the hillside would not be in danger if water flowed down it. In a final environmental impact report dated June 2008, state officials wrote that no "significant concerns" about the hillside's stability had been raised in any government or independent review.
"I think that the warning that was given should have been taken with the utmost seriousness," Bob Wright, attorney at Friends of the River, which flagged the concern along with the Sierra Club and South Yuba River Citizens League, said Monday. "We're talking about the danger to life and property."
On Monday, Bill Croyle, acting head of the Department of Water Resources, refused to comment on the 2005 concerns, saying he was not familiar with the warnings and would need to research the matter.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees the dam's licensing and which received the request for mandatory armoring, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WASHINGTON (AP) A political odd couple, President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resolutely played up their similarities at their first meeting Monday, even as obvious differences lurked behind their public smiles.
After their White House meeting, the North American neighbors emerged to hail their close ties, with Trump promising to "build upon our very historic friendship" and Trudeau noting the "special" bond between the countries.
But it was hard to escape their contrasting worldviews.
Speaking to reporters, Trump defended his restrictive refugee and immigration orders, saying that "we cannot let the wrong people in." Trudeau, on the other hand, said Canada continues to "pursue our policies of openness."
Trudeau later acknowledged that there are times when the two countries differ. But he said, "The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves."
During their post-meeting news conference, the reporters Trump called on did not ask about two pressing issues of the day the future of embattled National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and North Korea's reported ballistic missile launch.
The stakes for Trudeau in his Washington visit are high: He is seeking to ensure Canada is not crippled as Trump re-negotiates the North American Free Trade Agreement. And he got much of what he was looking for. Trump praised the "outstanding" trade relationship between the United States and Canada and said he would only be "tweaking" it going forward.
"We'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries. It's a much less severe situation than what's taking place on the southern border," said Trump, who has been strongly critical of America's trade situation with Mexico.
Trade relations with the U.S. are crucial to Canada as more than 75 percent of Canada's exports and 98 percent of its oil exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of American exports go to Canada.
Monday's meeting was billed as one the most important for a Canadian leader with a U.S. president in decades because of Canada's heavy reliance on its southern neighbor.
Trump greeted Trudeau with a firm handshake as the Canadian arrived at the White House on a blustery morning. The two posed silently before reporters, until Trump suggested they shake hands for the cameras. Trudeau did bring a personal gift a photo of Trump with Trudeau's father, the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Justin Trudeau, age 45, and Trump, age 70, have vastly different outlooks on the world.
Trudeau is a liberal who champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. He calls himself a feminist and women make up half his Cabinet.
Trump has few women in his Cabinet. He has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees. His order to temporarily halt entry into the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim nations is currently tied up in court.
Trump already has been good for Canada as he has said he'll expedite approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline from Alberta through America's midsection would carry more than one-fifth of the oil Canada exports to the United States. Former President Barack Obama turned down the pipeline, a major blow Canada's oil industry.
Canada has the third largest known oil reserves in the world and needs infrastructure to export its growing oil sands production. The country is America's largest supplier of foreign oil.
In addition to private meetings, the leaders held a roundtable discussion with female executives from the U.S. and Canada and announced a task force focused on women in the workforce.
Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump was in attendance at the meeting and helped recruit participants and set the agenda, fresh evidence of her policy influence.
Said Trump: "In order to create economic growth and lots of very good, well-paying jobs, we must ensure that our economy is a place where women can work and thrive, and I think that's happening in the United States much more so. And Ivanka is very much involved in this. And I appreciate you being involved in it."
Trudeau's Canadian administration suggested the task force as a way to work on a shared interest. Dina Powell, assistant to the president and senior counselor for economic initiatives, worked to set up the event, along with Katie Telford, Trudeau's chief of staff and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Trudeau said the task force was "about understanding that women in leadership positions is a very powerful leverage for success, for business, for communities and for our entire economy."
Female executives at the table, from major companies in both countries, included General Electric Canada CEO Elyse Allan, TransAlta Corp. CEO Dawn Farrell, Linamar Corp. CEO Linda Hasenfratz, T&T Supermarket Inc. CEO Tina Lee and Schnitzer Steel Industries CEO Tamara Lundgren.
Also there were Julie Sweet, CEO-North America for Accenture; NRStor CEO Annette Verschuren; Monique Leroux, chair of the board of directors for Investissement Quebec, and Carol Stephenson, of the board of directors for General Motors Co.
Trudeau met later with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump is "evaluating the situation" regarding his embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn's conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., the White House said Monday, deepening the uncertainty surrounding Flynn's future in the new administration.
Flynn apologized privately for the controversy to Vice President Mike Pence, according to a White House official. Pence, relying on information from Flynn, publicly vouched that the retired Army lieutenant general did not discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia in calls with the Russia late last year. Flynn has since told the White House that sanctions may have come up.
Trump, who comments on a steady stream of issues on his Twitter feed, has been conspicuously silent about the matter since The Washington Post reported last week that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy. A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition.
Earlier Monday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump had "full confidence" in Flynn, though her assertions were not backed up by other senior Trump aides.
Flynn sat in the front row of Trump's news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier Monday. But the president did not receive a question about Flynn's future from a pair of reporters, and he ignored journalists' shouted follow-up inquiries as he left the room.
Trump has told associates he is troubled by the situation, but he has not said whether he plans to ask Flynn to step down, according to a person who spoke with him recently. Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he is viewed skeptically by some in the administration's national security circles, in part because of his ties to Russia.
In 2015, Flynn was paid to attend a gala dinner for Russia Today, a Kremlin-backed television station, and sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the event.
Flynn spoke with the vice president about the matter twice on Friday, according to an administration official. The official said Pence was relying on information from Flynn when he went on television and denied that sanctions were discussed with Kislyak.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said that if Pence were misled, "I can't imagine he would have trust in Gen. Flynn going forward." She said it would also be "troubling" if Flynn had been negotiating with a foreign government before taking office.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for Flynn to be fired, saying he "cannot be trusted to put Putin before America."
It's illegal for private citizens to conduct U.S. diplomacy. Flynn's conversations also raise questions about Trump's friendly posture toward Russia after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Moscow hacked Democratic emails during the election.
The controversy surrounding Flynn comes as the young administration grapples with a series of national security challenges, including North Korea's reported ballistic missile launch. The president, who was joined at his Mar-a-Lago estate by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the weekend, voiced solidarity with Japan.
The White House is also dealing with fallout from the rocky rollout of Trump's immigration executive order, which has been blocked by the courts. The order was intended to suspend the nation's refugee program and bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Flynn's contacts with Kislyak coincided with the Obama administration slapping penalties on Russia for election-related hacking. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia hacked Democratic groups to help Trump win the election.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who led Trump's transition planning before the election, said Flynn would have to explain his conflicting statements about his conversations with Kislyak to Trump and Pence.
"Gen. Flynn has said up to this point that he had not said anything like that to the Russian ambassador. I think now he's saying that he doesn't remember whether he did or not," Christie said on CNN. "So, that's a conversation he is going to need to have with the president and the vice president to clear that up, so that the White House can make sure that they are completely accurate about what went on."
I am 88 years old, so I have seen a few elections, some I was pleased with and some I was not.
But never have I seen anything like what is going on now. Apparently some people have not been informed that the election is over and Donald Trump won.
They were bashing him even before he took office. They called him a "comb-over", "the great swine who walks on two legs" and those who voted for him "pigs."
A senator calls him an "Illegitimate president," and Hillary Clinton called all his followers "deplorables"!
Well, guess what! Thirty "deplorable" states voted for him to be our next president.
Donald Trump is not perfect, he has his faults just like the rest of us.
He has four years to prove himself or we elect someone else. If he can do half of what he says he can, we will be better off.
As a nation, we can't keep going trillions of dollars in debt each year and survive Let's all get behind him and make America great again!
Donald Griffin,
Moline
As a retired full-time educator and substitute teacher for many years, I am responding to your recent article concerning substitute teacher shortages.
Districts who have shortages may consider the following:
1. Substitute teachers need to be given the necessary information regarding fire and safety procedures in each district. An initial meeting for substitutes held at the beginning of the school year should be a requirement for district administration to meet their substitutes, pass out pertinent information and discuss district policies.
2. Are substitutes treated with the same level of respect as professional staff when teaching in our building? Are they "subs" or "guests"?
3. Is substitute teacher compensation comparable to other districts in our area? Realizing a school district's financial position, it is not unreasonable for districts with substitute teacher shortages to align their compensation to match other districts. One area district has not raised substitute pay in seven years!
4. Are substitute teachers expected to perform tasks we do not ask our contracted staff?
Since substitute teachers are not under contract, they may be asked to cover another teacher's class during their "prep" time because of no substitute for that class, while a contracted teacher cannot be asked to give up their "preps".
We should expect students in our schools to have excellent, well-prepared full-time and substitute teachers. Unfortunately, substitute teachers are often not as informed or prepared by the district as the teacher whose absence they are covering.
Sharon Johnson Heinze,
Milan
I was at a desktop computer in a public library recently when the internet went down. The distraught looks of my fellow library patrons stimulated me to wonder how they (and I) would react if a real digital disaster struck.
That same afternoon my New Yorker arrived, carrying a disturbing article about how so many Silicon Valley centi-millionaires and above are making plans for the apocalypse (Survival of the Richest, Evan Osnos, Jan. 30).
Osnos reports that as many as half of these entrepreneurs are preparing, for example, by having laser eye surgery (to anticipate loss of access to glasses and contacts). They are also buying luxury condos in underground bunkers in Kansas (I kid you not) as well as whole islands offshore and retreats in New Zealand.
What do these mostly young, very smart, tech-savvy, to say the least, people know that I dont?
According to Osnos, some worry that their advances in artificial intelligence will result in even fewer jobs for those further down the economic food chain. This might in turn cause the hoi-polloi to bring out their pitchforks and someday storm the redoubts of the one-percenters.
They apparently see a fragility in our civic society that could cause it to collapse. Its not that they think an unraveling of society is likely, but that apocalypse insurance is worth taking out, since they have the money to do so.
Americans have always been captivated by doomsday scenarios.
Older readers will remember the drills in grammar school where we learned to crouch under our desks to protect ourselves somehow from nuclear attack.
Today I worry less about conventional warfare than I do about the disruption of our nations electrical grid by computer hackers, something maybe less evocative than marauding mobs with pitchforks out of a Frankenstein movie, but more likely.
How would American society handle a total, lengthy blackout of electricity. And all that is dependent upon electricity, like digital communications and all the stuff of our daily life that requires juice from the grid? Not well, Im thinking.
I think this is a real threat, though I am clueless when it comes to technology. There are, we all know, thousands of hackers out there, in bedrooms, or in terrorist cells, and in nations like Russia and China. They are probing for weaknesses continuously. The Holy Grail for them is to disrupt and harm.
Russia recently brought down the Ukrainian power grid for six hours, and the U.S. and Israel, as I understand it, a few years ago used malware called Stuxnet to bring down Irans nuclear centrifuge processing machines.
I called around to federal and state agencies, and to electrical utilities sources. In large part, they bounced me around, as if nobody wanted to talk on the record about cyber-security and the grid.
Scott Aaronson is executive director for security for the Edison Electric Institute, the research and trade group in D.C. for our nations 300+ electric utility companies.
Aaronson said basically: Trust us. No problems. There has never been a cyber-attack that has affected electrical grid operations -- but we must do a better job of protecting the grid! Aaronson called the electric grid one big North American machine (it includes Canada).
That worries me. I do know that in our electrical-digital world, everything seems connected, as in the old Gospel tune about how the leg bones connected to the thigh bone, and so on.
So, could a successful attack in one part of our system cascade rapidly throughout the whole? I dont know, as Im still awaiting unreturned phone calls.
I have heard knowledgeable folks say that it isnt a matter of if but rather when there will be a successful cyber-attack on our grid.
I have a shirttail cousin John who is a coureur des bois, a reenactor of the 18th Century French trapper world. He makes his own knives, shoots and field dresses his deer, scrapes the hides and make supple leather from them, turning the leather into exquisite luggage.
When I sense the apocalypse coming, I will run out to Johns place in the country to tell him Im signing up to be on his team. He can survive anything, Im sure.
Until then, I will, finally, take up the recommendation of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and purchase a kit of supplies to weather a three-day electrical outage.
After all, its a dicey world out there.
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!
LVB awarded the Polish manufacturer a framework contract in March 2015 to supply up to 41 1458mm-gauge vehicles to replace the citys ageing fleet of Tatra trams. The contract included an initial firm order for five vehicles and an option for nine vehicles was exercised in November 2016.
The 37.63m-long, 2.3m-wide Tramino XL is equipped with four motor bogies and one unpowered Jacobs bogie. Each LRV accommodates up to 220 passengers, 58 of them seated.
The design concept or the four-section 65% low-floor vehicle has been developed by Solaris and LVB in collaboration with IFS Design.
In December 2014, SWRT awarded MobiLiege, a consortium of Alstom, BAM PPP PGGM and DG Infra, a design-finance-build-maintain (DFBM) contract for the 12.5km line from Standard Liege stadium in the west to Liege-Guillemins station and Coronmeuse in the city centre, with a short branch crossing the river Meuse to serve Bressoux station.
However, in early 2015 Eurostat raised concerns over the structure of the PPP concession and work on the project was suspended. Eurostat decreed that the 380m investment in the project should be classified as public funding and placed immediately on the governments balance sheet. The Wallonian government rejected this and opted to retender the concession with a revised structure, cancelling its contract with MobiLiege.
Last October SRWT shortlisted MobiLiege alongside two other consortia: CAF-Colas-DIF, and Skoda-Vinci-CFE-Meridiam and the SRWT board approved the applications of all three bidders on February 8. SWRT expects to finalise the contract early next year.
Originally due for completion this year, the delays have pushed opening of the line back to spring 2022.
For detailed data on light rail projects around the world, subscribe to IRJ Pro.
CRRC was awarded a Lira 192m ($US 64.6m) contract in February 2015 to supply the fleet of 19 five-car trains, which are being assembled at the companys plant in Tangshan, China.
Eleven trains have now been delivered and the entire fleet will enter service before the end of 2017.
The 22.6km line will connect Thailand Cultural Centre with Suwinthawong in the eastern district of Min Buri, serving 10 underground and seven elevated stations.
Four of the six contracts were awarded to the CKST joint venture of CH Karnchang, Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction, and Unique Engineering and Construction. The remaining two contracts were awarded to Unique Engineering and Construction.
A second 17km phase is planned which will extend the line west to an interchange with the Red Line at Taling Chan.
For detailed data on metro projects around the world subscribe to IRJ Pro.
In 2015 Arafer asked SNCF Network to recast its track access charging system by 2018. The current system dates from 2008 and has been updated on a piecemeal basis, largely in response to budgetary considerations, resulting in a regime which has gradually become more complex and less transparent.
Arafer argues revisions are necessary because the current system does not comply with EU rules on direct charging, which require infrastructure managers to levy tolls based on the costs directly incurred by the train service. To cover all or part of the fixed costs of the network beyond the direct cost, any tariff increase must be justified.
SNCF Network charges operators using train-km as the billing unit for direct costs. Arafer claims that this could result in uneven charging between operators, irrespective of the weight of the train. The regulator is therefore advocating billing per tonne-km or by train type.
Arafer also warns that SNCF Network has not provided sufficient justification for proposed price increases and has failed to demonstrate that the new charges would be sustainable for operators. For example, international passenger operators Eurostar and Thello would face a 6% increase in fees despite instability in the market, with Eurostar suffering the effects of declining ridership and intensifying competition from other modes.
Arafer also expresses reservations about changes that constrain operators ability to modify train paths - a particular issue for freight operators.
In response to these issues the regulator has launched infringement proceedings against SNCF Network.
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Sinclair Broadcast Group expects to receive an estimated $313 million of gross proceeds from the just-concluded TV spectrum incentive auction in the US.
Broadcasters were asking for an aggregate $10 billion to clear 84MHz of spectrum that has been freed up by the transition from analogue to digital TV. The largest local TV station conglomerate in the US, Sinclair has 173 affiliates in 82 designated market areas (DMAs), broadcasting a total of 480 channels. But it didnt bring in as large of a haul as FOX TV, which garnered $350 million from the proceedings.Other station groups that have announced their totals include Tribune ($190 million), Gray ($91 million) and Central Michigan University in Flint ($14 million).Central Michigan University will take the money and run, so to speak: it plans to end its public broadcast transmissions three months after the sale closes, given that 99% of the viewers of the Flint station reside in areas that are served by other public broadcasting stations.The auction ended on Friday (10 February).
Woman sentenced for sharing video turns down pardon in favor of other inmates
MOSCOW, February 13 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) Yevgeniya Chudnovets, kindergarten teacher, who was sentenced for distribution of pornography by sharing video in a social network, will not seek out pardon, lawyer Aleksey Bushmakov wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.
Friend of Chudnovets, Andrey Myasnikov, confirmed this information on his account. I turn down pardon in favor of three girls who were sentenced for long terms, they were separated from their children, Chudnovets said, according to Myasnikov.
Earlier, the Prosecutors Office for the Kurgan Region has filed a motion with the Kurgan Regional Court to send the criminal case for retrial.
According to the case documents, Chudnovets published video, where little child was shown naked, on the Vkontakte social network. Aleksey Bushmakov earlier told RAPSI that this was a video made by someone else, shared by Chudnovets to bring attention to situation in recreational camps for children. She was sentenced to six months in a penal colony.
Later, the appellate commission for the Kurgan Regional Court ruled to change her sentence to five months. Prosecutors asked to choose another punishment for Chudnovets, one not related to imprisonment. During the initial hearings prosecutors asked for five years in prison.
Russian government commission approves bill on blocking mirror websites
MOSCOW, February 13 (RAPSI) The government commission for legislative drafting activities has approved a bill on blocking mirror websites containing illegal information, according to the Cabinets statement.
The bill was drafted based on examination of practice of blocking forever websites, which repeatedly and illegally distributed information containing objects of copyright and (or) related rights or information required for their procurement with the use of data telecommunications networks. The examination revealed some deficiencies including inapplicability of prompt measures regarding automatically created mirrors of the blocked websites.
The proposed bill would introduce the term derived Internet site into Russian legislation and prescribe the procedure of access restriction to such websites on grounds of rights holders reference to the Moscow City Court.
The draft law would also oblige search systems providers to delete information on such webpages from the search results.
IWPR, February 12, 2017
By Sudabah Ehrari
The razor scars on 18-year-old Leilas hands and neck bear witness to her past attempts at suicide. The Herat teenager told IWPR that she had become deeply depressed after her marriage to a 45-year-old man.
I married a much older man because of my parents, she said. Later, I realised that this was not what I wanted. I was controlled and banned from going anywhere, and his interference in every little detail of my life became unbearable. I was so aggravated that I decided to end my life by taking poison, but survived. Later, I tried again to commit suicide with a razor, but again I was rescued.
Leila subsequently sought treatment for her mental health problems.
Now, I feel better following medication and a long series of consultations, she said.
Mental health issues are rampant across Afghanistan, fed by the legacy of more than three decades of conflict. Psychologists note that women bear the brunt of the problem.
Experts in the northern province of Herat say that rates of depression are rising among women, fuelled by factors including gender violence, poverty and associated social problems.
Local mental health practitioners estimate that they have dealt with 20 per cent more referrals this year than last year.
Abd Al Rahman Hamraz, an official with the Herat department of public health, told IWPR, Our statistics show that rates of depression have risen, with more referrals to mental health services.
Wahid Nourzad, head of mental health services in Herat Regional Hospital, said that this reflected a growing awareness of the problem among women.
I estimate that this same high rate of depression was also true in the past, except it wasnt reflect by statistics due to a lack of awareness and fewer mental health clinics.
Herat psychologist Mahdi Hossaini said that the condition could be categorised as minor, mild, and major depression.
He said that symptoms included aches and pains, feelings of sadness, reduced energy, fatigue, helplessness and crying, guilt, anger, and [social] withdrawal.
Treatment involved a combination of counseling and medication, he added.
Nourzad said that the treatment offered in state-run clinics was tailored to the severity of the individuals symptoms.
Those presenting with mild depression are treated with four to five consultation,, whereas patients with symptoms of major depression are hospitalised for a six-month period where they receive medication as well as counseling, he said.
Mohammad Asef Kabir, head of Herats public health department, said that psychotherapy and medication were available at all the provinces health centres.
In addition, he continued, There are ten clinics dedicated to patients suffering minor [mental health issues] and one, located in the Herat Regional Hospital, for severely ill individuals.
Kabir added that these clinics also raised public awareness of mental disorders and how to prevent them.
Zahra, 38, who has a long history of depression, spoke to IWPR while an in-patient at Herat Regional Hospital.
Ive been suffering from this illness for 15 years, trying different medications in several places like Iran and Pakistan; however, all treatment ultimately failed although sometimes I feel better. Recently, losing my sister intensified my depression. I frequently struggle with headaches, I always quarrel about nothing with my family. This is my third day of hospitalisation.
IMPACT OF GENDER VIOLENCE
Public health minister Firoozuddin Firooz announced on World Mental Health Day last year that 72 per cent of Afghan women had experienced depression.
He said that war, poverty and displacement and lack of resources were the main causes of mental health issues in Afghanistan. Psychological services were available at some 1,500 health centres around the country, he continued, with 300 dedicated mental health clinics. The government planned to create another 200 specialist centres, he said.
But others say that the impact of Afghanistans conservative traditions and associated gender inequality are central to the issue of womens mental health. Little progress was possible with a fundamental change in attitudes.
Fatemah Bagheri, director of womens affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said, Almost all womens rights organisations as well as [the AIHRC] are concerned about the large number of women experiencing mental health problems.
Madinah, who was diagnosed with depression more than a year ago, attributes her illness to the effects of poverty and her fathers drug addiction.
My only wish was to go to school, but I was beaten and deprived of education because of my fathers addiction, she said. I was in a constant state of distress, so I went to a psychologist and was told that I was suffering from depression.
Mahboobeh Jamshidi, head of the department of womens affairs in Herat, noted that the overwhelming majority of women who experienced domestic violence developed mental illness.
She said that her department had recently established a psychological consulting centre for women, but lamented the lack of a wider strategic plan to address mental health issues among women.
The initial treatment for a depressed woman is counseling, which is inefficient because medication, which is usually tried last, is more effective, she said.
Hossniyah Nikzad, dirrector of the Afghan Womens Network, agreed that discrimination both at home and in the wider society was the major cause of depression among women.
The state must create a system under the auspices of the department of education, the department of information and culture and the department of haj [and religious affairs], to closely cooperate to reduce violence, since womens depression is associated with increased violence, she said. If people are more are aware of the rules and regulations [governing gender discrimination], then violence and depression will be reduced.
But with the proper treatment, some women say that they have been given new hope for the future. Leila, the 18 year-old with a history of suicide attempts, now works at a mental health centre which she said has helped her address her own trauma.
I asked to work here since I understand what happened to these women and the pain that they went through, she said. I intend to help these women recover.
The Killid Group, February 13, 2017
Afghan officials confirmed killing of 22 members of two families in foreign forces' airstrikes in Sangen district of Helmand. US and Afghan forces targeted the area last Friday and asserted that armed anti-government militants fired bullets on them from the area. Later, tribal elders reported of civilian casualties in the airstrikes, a claim which was rejected by local officials. Meanwhile Abdul Jabar Qahraman, operative commander of all security forces in Helmand, confirmed killing of 22 civilians in the airstrikes conducted by foreign troops. Qahraman added that 13 of the victims were members of a family and nine victims were members of another family. UNAMA also said that the airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children.
Kazakhstan made the front pages of international newspapers last month when it hosted the first round of Syria peace talks. The diplomatic initiative is kicking off a year that will see a major PR push to portray Kazakhstan as a global player.
With uncertainty afflicting Europe on three fronts over Brexit, relations with Russia and the future of the transatlantic alliance it is easy to forget that similar uncertainty plagues other parts of the world, with potentially more immediate and more lethal effects. North Korea's firing of a missile halfway across the Sea of Japan, at the very time when the Japanese Prime Minister was being hosted by the new US President, offered a salutary case in point. Let no one talk of North Korea as the hermit kingdom; Kim Jong-un is looking out and responding to what he observes.
If you asked a Wisconsin farmer why he voted for Donald Trump when his great-grandparents supported Senator Robert La Follette, a maverick progressive, he might not have an answer. If you asked a French voter from the wider suburbs what he might have in common with a Wisconsin farmer, he would give a bewildered laugh.
Yet there is a link between the upsurge for Trump, which surprised even the Republican establishment, and the tide of French voters for the National Front and its vocal candidate, Marine Le Pen, who just launched her raucous campaign. Each combines disaffection from the established parties -- all liars, damn liars -- a sense of dispossession where one cannot separate economic and job safety issues from wider cultural insecurity, which leads to a reversal of attitude towards newcomers and foreigners. Voters come from both the right and left.
The reversal towards foreigners is particularly telling. France alone in Europe shares a unique characteristic with the United States: It has long been an immigrant country. Every other European nation saw large waves of emigration from the mid-19th century to the 1930s. Millions of Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Poles, North Africans and Western Africans came to France in the heyday of economic growth, and while there was friction, xenophobic groups were not a significant force. In fact, the strongest discrimination targeted competitors from within -- antisemitism defined the French far right more than xenophobia in the pre-WW2 era. Republicanism was the functional equivalent of In God we trust, also serving to paper over obvious inequalities and common prejudice.
Post-war, immigration turned to non-European newcomers. Still French speaking for the most part, and despite of racism, they gradually integrated in what was, until a decade ago, the worlds most functional melting pot, as measured, for example, by the rate of intermarriage. Two events tipped the balance: a generous policy adopted in the late 1970s, allowing family relatives to join immigrants already in place, at the same time that unemployment rates began an inexorable rise. The French-born children of the previous generation of immigrants are not integrating and often revert to imagined communities from their countries of origin. The simultaneous shift of policy from integration to multiculturalism transformed into a political disaster. Never mind what is really responsible, whether the rise of militant Islam, which reduces intercommunity exchanges and marital unions, or mass unemployment, now at 10 percent and reaching 50 percent in the most disaffected neighborhoods. Communitarianism and destitute ghettos are worse in the United States, but fear pervades France too: Marseilles roughly 30 violent murders per year are talked about as much as Chicagos 700 victims.
This suggests that France could be sensitive to the Trump vote effect. Here is a brash celebrity from New York who battles the status quo with plebeian appeal, whose money largely originated in the building industry the brick and mortar economy. In France, too, there is widespread suspicion, especially in la France peripherique of the elites: journalists, who rate even lower than politicians in opinion polls, high civil servants with their revolving door from politics to large companies and finance. A major issue for the less educated French is what jobs and acquired benefits they might keep as the digital economy takes control. Here is a politician who talks about us and them, what the elites like to call a nativist. The United States and France share similar feelings of dispossession: It may be economic, the fear of falling or declinisme is widespread. It may be based on tensions about identity, with Mexican immigrants and the language issue, the few but conspicuous Muslim immigrants, viewed as threats. In France, with the largest percentage of Muslims of all EU countries except Bulgaria, the prospect of another wave of Muslim newcomers, combined with an immediate terrorist threat, has tipped public opinion against immigration.
But there are also great differences. In the United States, the wage decline of blue-collar as well as many white collar employees is as undeniable as the record-breaking surge of a small class collecting the benefits of globalization. In France, wages have continued to rise, and an extensive tax system targets the rich. A majority of Americans still rejects universal health care, but the French seem ready to go to the barricades if it is withdrawn for French citizens -- they are less touchy about foreign residents. The Christian right exists in France, but has less influence than in the United States. Part of the radical right in the United States rejects the federal government, while this is almost unknown in France. In the United States, the 65+ age group voted predominantly for Trump, and the Democrats still hold on to the youth vote. In France, the National Front is the leading party among young voters, while retirees still vote for traditional conservative parties.
The real political crux is that its hard to find someone as different from Donald Trump as Marine Le Pen. The family business she inherited is a political party, the Front National with a structure of top-down and personal leadership, exclusions and elaborate united front tactics. While Trump may have taken a leaf from Bernie Sanders, a Democratic challenger to Hillary Clinton, he admires entrepreneurs and business people, naming more billionaires to cabinet positions than any of his predecessors. Marine Le Pen, instead, has an economic program that seems a resurrection of the old 1970s French Communist platform with systematic opposition to bankers, Europe and any economic reform. Her first motto for the coming campaign -- La France apaisee, France appeased -- borrowed from an old Francois Mitterrand slogan, not exactly words for a revolutionary upsurge or to make France great again. She manages a smiling media presence that often disarms criticism while Trump seems to revel in polarizing hyperboles. In short, Le Pen has all the trappings of a highly professional politician -- and is sometimes criticized as such by more radical members of her own party.
More fundamentally, in France it is the political left that is exploding under the weight of contradictions. While the officially designated candidate comes from the left wing of the Socialist party, he is overtaken by two other candidates running outside the party, one even more to his left, the other claiming to be neither right nor left. The conventional right by and large kept its unity. In the United States, the Republicans may have won an unexpected majority, but they are divided as they have never been in their history with Trump upending his share of bedrock Republican principles.
For now, Marine Le Pen, the far right candidate, leads the polls for the first turn of the election. The same polls indicate that she would be defeated by a wide margin in the second round by Emmanuel Macron, the newcomer who is neither left nor right, and more narrowly by Francois Fillon, the conservative candidate who is hit by a financial issue.
It may turn out that the rocky start of the Trump years becomes a deterrent for voters in France and Europe. If Frances political right -- which has conducted a successful primary -- failed to draw voters away from the National Front, it would not be because Le Pen has successfully symbolized anger and discontent, but because she has reassured voters beyond her camp. Her public footprint of the last two years has been designed to show her as a reasonable and acceptable candidate, up to and including some wobbling on leaving the euro.
Were she to succeed, still possible at present, she would be constrained by such political requirements. She could simply not carry out what was once the crux of her program -- leaving the euro and the EU. The immediate shock would be in terms of dealing with immigration from outside Europe -- that is an area where both the traditional right and Socialist government of Francois Holland have undergone profound change.
Whatever superficial similarity there might be between the movements of Trump and Le Pen, their rise in power would produce very different results.
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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 02/13/2017
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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 02/13/2017
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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
bachelor, Robby Hayes , is putting his good looks to good use after getting some exposure on JoJo Fletcher 's season last year.Hayes has signed a modeling contract with the agency Wilhelmina Denver, Us Weekly reported "I've never been with a major agency such as Wilhelmina Denver," Hayes, 28, told Us of the opportunity. "I've been signed with a couple smaller local agencies in my past, but this will be a big step in the right direction for me."Before officially signing the deal, Hayes moved from his hometown of Jacksonville, FL, to Denver, CO. He also grew out a fairly lengthy beard, which he was probably asked to do considering he'll be representing the Rocky Mountain region."The entire industry in Denver excites me," Hayes revealed."It's grown so much in recent years and the opportunity of not only great Colorado projects but national projects as well will be greatly beneficial for both Wilhelmina and my career moving forward."Hayes insisted Wilhelmina Denver was "not the reason" he moved to a different state, but the potential of finding modeling representation was "definitely something I was hoping would come about knowing I was moving out here."Wilhelmina will reportedly work to book Hayes for hosting gigs and product endorsements.Hayes is currently roommates with fellow suitor Chase McNary in Denver. The guys have managed to get some press recently after leaking their text-message conversation during The Bachelor's Season 21 premiere. McNary also publicly discussed Corinne Olympios on pal Vinny Ventiera 's podcast.Hayes finished as Fletcher's runner-up on when she chose Jordan Rodgers instead at the final Rose Ceremony of Season 12. McNary was eliminated by the show's star right in the middle of their overnight Fantasy Suite date.Fletcher and Rodgers' relationship appears to still be going strong, although the engaged pair has yet to set a wedding date
Few singers around the world have as long a list of accomplishments as soprano opera singer Renee Fleming. Known to many as the peoples diva
Four frightening words: Valentines Day is coming. Few things are more terrifying than Feb. 14 and the expectations that arrive with it. They
University of Michigan professor Heather Thompson will talk about her book, "Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy" on Monday, Feb. 13 at the Richard B. Russell Building.
Some airlines, says Anjuli Bhargava, are convinced there's a conspiracy to malign them.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
The last few weeks of 2016 and the first few of 2017 have been full of woes for passengers and fun and games for the aviation sector in India.
Loads of flights across the country had been delayed.
With fog enveloping Delhi and north India somewhat earlier than usual, flight schedules in and out of Delhi and many other northern sectors had gone haywire.
On-time performances of most airlines took a severe beating.
Late has, of late, truly turned out to be a four-letter word for IndiGo, the largest private player with the airline's OTP taking a particularly severe beating.
I know this even without Directorate General of Civil Aviation data because three of the four IndiGo flights I have taken in the last couple of months were late.
Consequently, an ugly battle has broken out between IndiGo and SpiceJet, with the latter issuing full page advertisements in newspapers.
They showed SpiceJet's OTP to be at 70 per cent while IndiGo -- which prides itself and has marketed itself on this single parameter -- is in fifth position, with an OTP of 61.6 per cent.
The battle between the two has been simmering for a while now and it hasn't helped that a key official from SpiceJet recently defected to IndiGo, leading to more bad blood between the two rivals.
As usual -- with this industry that seems to lack maturity all across -- everyone is blaming everyone else.
Airports say airlines are to blame.
A report filed by the Delhi International Airport Private Ltd to the DGCA argues that a majority of the delays were due to airline unpreparedness.
Airlines say airports and airport officials are to blame.
Some airlines are convinced there's a conspiracy to malign them and everyone -- as usual -- is blaming the government, the only point on which all unite.
The absurdity of the situation is highlighted by the fact that the airlines are arguing over not 90 or 95 per cent OTPs but in the 70 per cent range -- hardly something to advertise, to my mind.
When I asked IndiGo's President Aditya Ghosh why his airline was lagging behind -- given that external factors are faced by all equally -- he refused to give any concrete reason.
He said there was "fudging of data" by certain players and that two Mumbai International Airport Limited officials had been suspended in connection with this.
He also said the DGCA was investigating all private airports and a report on this would be available by the end of this month.
To my mind, the fact that IndiGo's OTP has slipped during this period should actually be of no surprise.
Forty per cent of the airline's aircraft are parked in Delhi and one foggy morning plays havoc with the entire schedule as delays snowball.
Even while the industry is preoccupied with its petty battles, I think there is a larger point that needs looking into by the authorities.
Delays are usually a function of one of the four factors: Inclement weather, congestion at airports due to heavy traffic, airport services related delays and finally inefficiencies of the airline.
While the last remains strictly within the airline's control, some steps can be taken almost immediately to mitigate the other factors.
Better usage of runway capacity is one area.
There has been improvement in this area, pilots and aviation sources say that we are still far from the international best practices.
To mitigate the impact of fog and bad weather, all aircraft, pilots and airports need to be Cat 3B compliant (a landing system which allows aircraft to land in very low visibility) and equipped.
A separate blame game is on between the airports and airlines on this count.
And lastly, since new runways and airports cannot spring up overnight, airports like Mumbai and now even Bengaluru (slot constraints are evident at all the major airports especially in peak times) have to come up with some innovative new solutions to manage their traffic till they could add capacity.
What's scarier is that report after report suggests that India is heading for an 'airport capacity crisis.'
A recent CAPA report points out that 12 airports have reached saturation, six will be saturated in FY17 and five in FY18 (including critical ones like Mumbai and Chennai).
Forty of the large airports are expected to exceed their design capacities in the next decade.
All this while traffic and aircraft grow at a fast clip.
Close to 1,000 aircraft (including SpiceJet's latest order of 205 Boeings) are on order by Indian airlines.
Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation estimates that traffic would grow to around 240 million by 2021 (from around 139 million in 2016).
If the gap is not bridged, delays could well become a way of life.
Every service provider, say analysts, now needs to make a much larger investment, and therefore needs a much larger share of the market to be profitable.
Image: Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. Photograph: PTI Photograph.
It takes an exceptional businessman to change an industry once, it takes a Mukesh Ambani to do it twice.
Back in 2002, the Reliance Industries chief paved the way for incoming calls to become free, and for mobile phones to proliferate. Now, having exited the business in a 2005 settlement with his brother, and entered it again last year with Reliance Jio, Ambani is nudging the consumers towards more data than voice.
Since the launch of RJio on September 5 -- free under a plan that now extends to March -- the average consumption of data by a mobile phone user has increased four times from 300 MB to 1.2 GB, show industry figures. For Jio, it is more than 6 GB.
In the interim, Jio has acquired about 80 million customers -- it claims to have one in every three persons in the National Capital Region on its network.
No wonder, everyone sees Ambanis hand in the intent to merge declared by Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. Every service provider, say analysts, now needs to make a much larger investment, and therefore needs a much larger share of the market to be profitable.
Gopal Vittal, chief executive of Airtel, issued a statement to say the merger, if it happens, would be a forced one, triggered by an unfair playing field granted to one company.
If the merger goes through, the combined Vodafone-Idea entity will vault ahead of Airtel to lead the market on all the parameters that matter: market share, revenue share, and spectrum.
Vittorio Colao, Vodafone Group chief executive, very nearly agreed with Vittals assessment. Talking about his companys performance and its merger talks with Idea, he said: Our strong organic performance in South Africa and Turkey was partially offset by India, where the sector is affected by free services from the new entrant.
Neither Vittal nor Colao named RJio in the statement, but Morningstar, an equity research house, had no such qualms. Its most recent report says: We think this merger also demonstrates the difficulty that RJios entrance has caused for the Indian wireless telecom market.
More than a dozen analysts and brokerage houses have come out with reports that see a clear role played by RJio in triggering the merger talks.
With the entry of Reliance Jio, the investment levels have skyrocketed, necessitating a minimum 25% revenue market share for profitable operations. We see a three-player mobile market more sustainable in the long-term, says JM Financial.
The consolidation will benefit everyone and ensure profits for the few that remain at the end of it.
However, as Credit Suisse points out, the gains may not come in a hurry: We do not see competitive pressures from Jio's entry abating till the company reaches its targeted market share. Thus, we see reported financials continue to drag lower for telcos in the coming 15-18 months.
RJio wont comment officially, but one of its senior executives says it is doing no wrong by not charging for its services for now.
To cause a behavioural change, such as making consumers use more data instead of voice, you have to pay a price. We are paying that price by not charging the consumer, and yet paying the government all our fees, and we pay the other operators for connecting our calls, said this executive.
To RJios credit, a survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in December showed nearly a third of respondents saying they loved the RJio service not just for because it was free but also for its high speed and the content on its eco-system.
This, therefore, is just the beginning of the cataclysmic changes the industry may see this year. CLSA tells us to expect for a sharp increase in data capacities of about 35%, RJio's starting to charge for its services, more plans by other service provide offering free voice and cheap data, and faster consolidation.
Expect more rumble soon.
In the longer term, says Morningstar, we view RJios position as unsustainable, as it has spent billions building its network and acquiring spectrum and licences. At some point, it needs to generate a return on that investment.
Not surprisingly, it is a thought that has occurred to the RJio management, which is geared to start charging from March.
But what the analyst community needs to take grater note of is one of Jios other plans: To launch feature phone that would work on its 4G network and cost about Rs 1,500 -- give or take a few.
That will be the time to look at the health of, and consolidation in, the handset making industry.
Given the escalating cost of doing business, the revenue opportunity is decreasing and consolidation is an inevitable part of the industry.
The heady days of rising ARPU (average revenue per user) are long over.
But the ARPU decline now is sharp and steady, which, combined with falling profits and in some cases serious losses, is prompting the Indian telecom industry to look at consolidation as the only way to boost revenues.
Consider the latest financial numbers of Idea Cellular, which is already in merger talks with Vodafone. Idea has reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 383.87 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2016.
Sequentially, its ARPU fell nine per cent to Rs 157, from Rs 173 in the earlier quarter. While in financial year 2015-16, the rise in ARPU was marginal for the company, the fall began in the second quarter of financial year 2016-17.
The biggest telco by revenue, Bharti Airtel, has also been losing the ARPU plot over the last few quarters, and the top management of the company has blamed it on the new operators (without naming Reliance Jio) freebies.
Bharti Airtel reported a 55 per cent fall in its net profit for the third quarter (Oct-Dec 2016) at Rs 504 crore. The company's ARPU fell nearly seven per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 123 in the October-December period.
While Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal has talked about locking the right ARPU customers in the network for revenue market share to grow, consolidation is a route that both big and not so big telcos are eyeing to stop the free fall, analysts have said.
UK-based telecom giant Vodafone kicked off the consolidation mantra early in the year when it announced on January 31 that it was in talks for an all-stock merger of its unlisted Indian subsidiary with rival Idea Cellular.
Given the escalating cost of doing business, the revenue opportunity is decreasing and consolidation is an inevitable part of the industry, Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India, said.
He added that consolidation in the industry is good at this point in time as it would lead to greater economies of scale, optimum utilisation of spectrum and efficient use of marketing spend by the companies.
India is a $40 billion telecom industry compared with the US at $150 billion.
From India's standpoint, the number of operators should be four to five in the medium to long term, even as some of the developed economies including the US have lesser number of players, an analyst with a multinational said.
Consolidation in the Indian context means four to five companies and not three, as India is not just a country but it is 22 circles, where some players are dominant on one circle and some in other circles, the analyst added.
The current situation in the sector is becoming difficult for companies like Telenor, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, Aircel, among others to survive, industry observers said.
Tatas have been in talks with several telcos for a merger possibility, but nothing has fructified.
Telenor too is learnt to be in similar talks.
"The current challenge for a smaller player is to ensure that it does not lose out on its existing customers," an analyst, who did not want to be named, said.
The talk of consolidation in the sector can be partially attributed to the entry of Reliance Jio, which forayed into the Indian telecom market in September 2016, starting a price war in the industry with its competitive tariffs.
The new entrant also forced the incumbents to re-think their business strategy which was evident from the announcement of Idea-Vodafone deal.
"Logically it makes sense for smaller players to merge with bigger players, more so in order to sustain price pressure," another expert said.
But theres a flipside of consolidation too -- fear of a cartel. However, Mathews said cartel can happen even when there are 10 players. "It requires a strong regulatory focus to stop cartelisation."
'Modernisation will bolster our capabilities to counter military challenges in the future.'
Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa speaks to BharatShakti.in Editor-in-Chief Nitin Gokhale.
IMAGE: Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa before his solo MiG-21 flight, January 13, 2017. It is rare for an air chief to fly solo and the flight highlighted the air chief marshal's courage and impressive flying skills.
The biennial Aero India Show 2017 will begin at Bengaluru on Tuesday, February 14.
The Indian Air Force is one of the prime movers of the show along with other ministry of defence organisations.
BharatShakti.in Editor-in-Chief and long-standing Rediff.com columnist Nitin A Gokhale spoke to Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa about his priorities for the IAF in coming years.
The Chief of the Air Staff, in his first interview since taking over on December 31, discusses the emerging geopolitical situation in the sub-continent, the IAF's search for a 5th Generation aircraft, its plans for force accretion, more drones and many other issues that are his and the air force's challenge, everyday.
What are your top priorities, as air chief?
The foremost priority of the IAF is to maintain combat readiness and military professionalism to fight and defeat any external threat.
Our networked operations and progress in network centric operations will ensure that the Indian skies are under continuous surveillance and the challenges of the growing sub-conventional aerial threats are also effectively neutralised.
Enhancing security of our air bases and installations to thwart a possible 'Pathankot type fidayeen attack' and furthering our combat potential not only by operationalising our planned inductions but also through indigenisation and training will continue to remain our focus areas.
The aim is to ensure that the IAF is always prepared to undertake operations across the entire spectrum of war and also conduct humanitarian and disaster relief operations to aid the civil authorities.
It is also our endeavour to progressively increase our combat inventory with indigenous equipment to achieve complete self-reliance.
IMAGE: A Tejas aircraft, the fourth plus generation lightweight, multi-role supersonic single engine jet sporting the IAF colours, soars to the skies, July 1, 2016. Photograph: PTI
The IAF's fighter squadron strength is depleting faster than it can be replenished. What are the plans to expand the force to a size required for the threat perception that India has?
The IAF is undertaking its modernisation plan with an aim to build up the authorised squadron strength of combat aircraft at the earliest.
Modernisation plans are being executed with a two pronged objective of induction of state-of-art fighter aircraft and upgradation of existing fighter fleet to ensure their operational relevance in the light of rapid technological advancement in the field of defence equipment.
Induction of fighters include the LCA, MK1A, Rafale and the balance of contracted Su-30 MKI aircraft.
Further, suitable fighter aircraft are also planned to be inducted through the 'Make in India' route.
Comprehensive upgrade of the Mirage 2000, MiG-29 and Jaguar fleet is under progress and the IAF is in discussion with HAL and OEM to define the contours of the Su-30 MKI enhancement programme.
Induction of new aircraft along with an upgrade of the existing fleet will give the IAF an edge over its adversaries.
The China Pakistan Economic Corridor is apparently a reality now. How does it affect the security calculus?
Is the threat of a two front war a reality now?
Is the IAF prepared to meet that challenge?
The CPEC is an emerging contentious issue and has the potential of leveraging a collusive military threat.
Geo-strategic alignment of nations would require to be factored in our plans.
We have optimised own force application plans with existing resources to protect our national interests.
With the implementation of our acquisition plans, this capability will systematically improve.
Our operational plans are continuously reviewed to factor any emerging challenges in the changing threat scenario.
Modernisation plans would bolster our capabilities to counter the military challenges in the future.
IMAGE: An IAF Su-30MKI fighter aircraft assigned to the 15 Squadron, Sirsa Air Base in Haryana, takes off from the Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, May 4, 2016, during RED FLAG-Alaska 16-1. Photograph: Staff Sergeant Joshua Turner/US Air Force
What is the schedule for the induction of the Rafale, the Tejas Mk1 and the MK 1A?
Induction of the Rafale aircraft will commence in September 2019 and is expected to be completed by April 2022.
Induction of Tejas aircraft in the Initial Operational Clearance configuration is under progress.
This will be followed by induction of the Tejas in Final Operational Clearance configuration and Tejas Mk-1A aircraft.
It is expected that the induction of the Tejas will be completed by 2025-2026.
What is the status of India's partnership for a 5th Generation Fighter Aircraft?
The Indian version of the FGFA called the Prospective Multirole Fighter is being jointly designed and developed by India and Russia.
HAL from the Indian side and Rosoboronexport from Russia are designated as the lead agencies.
At present, the research and development contract is under finalisation.
The government has formed a committee for comprehensive review of the PMF project.
The case will be further processed after the committee submits its report to the MoD.
The Americans have offered to manufacture the F-16s and F/A-18s in India. Sweden's Saab has offered the Gripen.
What does the air force think is the best suitable option? Single or twin engine?
The future requirement of fighter aircraft projected by the IAF is to ensure that we maintain an optimum ratio of Light, Medium and Heavy class of combat aircraft.
There is also a requirement to maintain an optimum mix of single and twin engine aircraft.
Based on the inputs given by the IAF, the government is preparing a roadmap for induction of fighter aircraft in the IAF.
All future inductions in IAF will be in accordance with this roadmap.
SAAB, Lockheed Martin and Boeing have expressed their interest in setting up manufacturing facilities for fighter aircraft under the 'Make in India' initiative.
The government is finalising the policy for selection of a strategic partner.
Suitable fighter aircraft to be manufactured in India through 'Make in India' will be selected thereafter.
IMAGE: An IAF helicopter seen during rescue operations after the 2015 Nepal earthquake
Please give us an update on the IAF helicopter fleet.
The requirements are both diverse and large in numbers.
Which are the models being considered for induction and how many?
The IAF's medium lift helicopter fleet has undergone a major transformation with induction of Mi-17 V5 helicopters.
Additional Mi-17 V5 helicopters are planned to be inducted in the near future.
A contract has been signed for the procurement of Apache attack helicopters and Chinook heavy lift helicopters.
Induction of these will boost the IAF's offensive and heavy heli-lift capabilities.
Induction of the ALH Mk-III and ALH Mk IV and Weapon System Integrate of helicopters is under progress.
Ten LSP light combat helicopters are also being procured from HAL.
In order to address the light utility helicopter fleet requirements, a case is under progress for the procurement of Kamov 226T helicopters from Russia under an inter-governmental agreement through a joint venture.
Subsequently, based on the progress of the indigenous light utility helicopter, being designed and developed by HAL, the balance requirement of helicopters in the light utility category will be progressed.
Both these helicopters are planned to replace the Cheetah and Chetak fleets.
IMAGE: The Harop, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, is the IAF's first combat UAV for offensive strikes
What about the UAVs and armed UAVs? Any new inductions being planned by the IAF?
The IAF modernisation plans factor in the sustained growth of remotely piloted aircraft fleet.
The IAF has a requirement of high altitude long endurance (HALE) and medium altitude long endurance (MALE) class of RPAs along with requirement of combat UAVs/armed RPAs.
The IAF is processing a case for procurement of MALE UAVs from Indian companies through the 'Make in India' route.
The UAVs are proposed to be developed and manufactured by Indian industry under an appropriate category of the DPP like 'Buy & Make (Indian).'
Besides, the IAF is in the process of upgrading its existing UAV fleet by procuring a number of modern systems.
Also, Rustom-2 -- an indigenous MALE RPA being developed by DRDO -- has recently carried out its maiden flight.
Rustom-2 is also planned to be inducted in the IAF.
We are participating in activities towards the design and development of Ghatak, an indigenous unmanned combat aerial vehicle.
What is the IAF doing to replenish/augment air defence systems?
The IAF is in the process of a comprehensive makeover of its air defence system.
The new generation air fefence radars are being inducted at a brisk pace.
Medium power radars, Rohini radars and low level light weight radars have already been inducted in the IAF.
The low level transportable radars are in the process of induction.
Apart from the two aerostat systems already inducted, request for information has been sought for procurement of additional systems.
The indigenous Akash missile system has already been inducted and a case for some more such squadrons is under process.
Procurement of very short range air defence systems for the IAF and Indian Army, under the 'Buy & Make' category is being processed by the army.
The induction of SPYDER QRSAM has commenced and the MRSAMs will commence shortly.
Also, RFP for the S-400 triumph air defence system is under process.
Close in weapon systems are also planned to be inducted through the 'Make in India' route.
Apart from procurement of radars and weapon systems, the IAF is networking all its air defence assets on a common grid through the integrated air command and control system.
The IACCS is the backbone of the IAF's network centric warfare capability which provides a fused air situation picture based on the inputs from a network of ground based sensors.
The integration of AWACS and IACCS strengthens both detection and control capabilities and reduces sensor to shooter time.
IMAGE: Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh, the IAF's first women fighter pilots, with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
The man behind the machine is the most important imperative in a battlefield.
What measures need to be undertaken to attract the best talent to the IAF?
The IAF is expanding at a fast pace with the induction of sophisticated and state of the art systems planned in the next 5 to 10 years.
To exploit these systems, there is a requirement for qualified human resources.
The IAF has a specialised cell which looks after induction of officers and a similar one established for recruitment of airmen.
The personnel in the cell are tasked to create awareness through publicity and motivational lecture tours to various establishments, to highlight the requirements of the IAF and make efforts to attract the youth to join our elite force.
They are doing a good job and we are getting more qualified and talented youth volunteering to join.
This process is continuous and done all year round.
The selection processes at our recruitment boards are continuously updated and made contemporary.
The officer cadets who are being selected to undergo training at the NDA will graduate with a BTech degree from this year onward.
This firm education base should help them in meeting the challenges of handling the machines/ combat assets driven by the very latest technologies.
There is a lot of debate on creating a post of permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee and even a CDS. How does the IAF view the issue?
The creation of a Permanent Chairman COSC/CDS is an ongoing process and has been supported by the three services.
The issue is under consideration by the political leadership.
IMAGE: IAF lady officers make a mark at the Republic Day parade, January 26, 2016.
Social media and its use/misuse by service personnel is creating a new challenge to the forces. How is the IAF dealing with it?
The IAF has necessary guidelines regarding interaction of service personnel on social media.
Moreover, all personnel are sensitised from time to time for strict compliance of the guidelines.
The CAS online forum has been established over our intranet architecture in which grievances of any personnel are directly routed.
I explain the organisational stand point and redress their grievances immediately.
This system is working well.
This system also helps me in understanding the environment and any problem that arises is flagged for preventive action by the IAF at the earliest.
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'This is not the country certainly that my parents came to -- right? -- that they have made their home.'
'Many of the people who were detained for hours on end were people like my family, right?'
'You would never treat your own mother, never treat your own aunt, the way people were being treated.'
Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the New York mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs and the daughter of Indian immigrants, discusses Donald Trump's executive order on immigration with Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
IMAGE: Scenes like this greeted volunteers and officials =t the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City, January 28, 2017, the day after Donald Trump issued his executive order on immigration. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
In New York City, one of the people standing between President Donald Trump's January 27 executive order on immigration and the travellers and immigrants from seven Middle Eastern and African countries is a feisty Indian-American attorney.
Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the New York nayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.
Once a public interest lawyer and advocator for immigrant reform, she now works with Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The weekend starting January 27, after the American president signed the 'Muslim ban' was immensely hectic for Agarwal, along with so many New York lawyers, interpreters, social workers, judges, activists, even pizza delivery men.
The morning after Trump issued his diktat, she rushed to the John F Kennedy airport, the busiest passenger entry point into the United States, to see what she and her office could do to help the unfortunate folks who had arrived in New York, but had been held by America's Customs and Border Patrol, CBP.
Being the mayor's representative, she quickly became a liaison between the volunteering lawyers, the despondent and anxious families missing an arriving relative, and JFK's immigration and customs enforcement agents.
At that point, any scrap of information on the location of an elderly parent, a young nephew/niece or spouse brought enormous relief.
She also coordinated to have New York's members of Congress visit the airport to offer assistance.
As the number of protestors steadily multiplied, along with eager volunteers, it was a heady moment to have witnessed, in spite of the bleak and tense circumstances.
Moments that will probably go down in the country's history.
For Agarwal, who lives in Brooklyn and is the daughter of first generation immigrant parents (Father: A nuclear scientist; mother: A human resources executive, from Fayetteville, upstate New York), Trump's executive order was a wrenching blow to everything this commissioner stands for.
The granddaughter of an Indian freedom fighter, who followed Gandhi and for whom a road is named in New Delhi, Agarwal, after graduating summa cum laude from Harvard, doing her JD -- also from Harvard -- and studying as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, devoted her career to working for social justice.
Apart from her noteworthy successes at de Blasio's MOIA, she also helped Judge Robert A Katzmann set up the Immigrant Justice Corps, that offers pro bono legal representation to immigrants.
Her Twitter feed, since January 27, is an indication of the battle presently in progress.
In this lucky hiatus from the effect of the president's official announcement, it's important that all immigrants from these seven countries return lickety split to JFK.
She sends out tweets to Singapore Airlines, Alitalia, Lufthansa and other reluctant airlines, asking them to accept and fly passengers with valid documentation from the banned seven nations to America.
She keeps retweeting the New York message of inclusion, #AlwaysNewYork via articles and more.
The road ahead is undefined for Nisha Agarwal and Mayor de Blasio & Co, struggling to contain the damage of orders emanating from the White House, in New York, a quintessentially immigrant city.
She recalls to Rediff.com, with both anguish and elation, the events of the last fortnight.
IMAGE: Nisha Agarwal, right, commissioner of the New York Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs since 2014, with activist Sarah Sayeed at JFK airport, January 28, the day after Trump issued his executive order on immigration. Photograph: Kind courtesy @NYCImmigrants/Twitter.com
Before I ask what happened that Friday, January 27, let me ask about the latest situation. What has been the reaction locally to Judge James Robart's ruling?
What is your view as the commissioner?
We are pleased with Judge Robart's ruling in terms of both stopping the Muslim ban executive order and also for (bringing) some order, frankly to our airports, where there was really quite a chaotic situation, with family members and passengers kind of not knowing what was happening with them.
Now there is the regular flow of traffic, the way we have always had, without the major interruptions and confusion (that came after) the executive order.
On the ground -- as well as on the legal merits -- we are very happy with Judge Robart's ruling, recognising, of course, it is temporary and will still have to be further litigated.
Robart's ruling has chances of being overturned. There might be a continuous flip flop on how matters go further. How has that emotionally affected New York's immigrant families, especially recent ones? How much fear is there really?
We have seen an incredible response in New York.
On the one hand, I think, it is really quite devastating.
The stories of folks whose parents were travelling to visit them, because their daughter was having a baby, they were stopped at the airport and detained for 24 to 36 hours.
We heard some terrible stories that had a huge impact on folks living in New York and the New York area.
That really comes from the executive order itself and the restrictions it placed for people from certain countries.
On top of that, New Yorkers responded the way we tend to respond, which is we had lots of people come out to protest against the (order) and support the people coming in, or trying to come in, as well lawyers who were volunteering.
Many, many lawyers set up shop at JFK airport to help passengers and families, as they were trying to enter the country.
Around the city we have seen just so many people step up and want to be helpful.
I certainly think there is a tremendous lot of fear.
It's caused a lot of problems for New York's immigrant and refugee community. But at the same time, New Yorkers, as a whole, are coming together to speak out against this.
One really powerful action, that happened last week, was that we had... bodega (small grocery store) owners, people who own small delis here in New York... on a day-long strike.
It was just a beautiful event, in front of Brooklyn borough hall -- very peaceful kind of commentary on the impact that this executive order is having on New York and on the country.
What was your role on that fateful Friday? I believe it was stellar. That was evident on Twitter too.
What was the emotional take away of that day?
It has been a crazy 7 to 10 days for you. As you just said, things were so negative.
At the same time it was positive, too. Was the positive part very emotional too?
It was emotional and exhausting for everyone involved.
We went to JFK last Saturday (the day after the executive order was issued) from the morning onwards... I was there along with other members of the mayor's team.
There were about three dozen protestors initially. Inside the airport there were a handful of lawyers, who were there to help.
Our role was really one. To support the lawyers, who were so busy figuring out: Who was detained and who can we help. Helping to work with them, to coordinate.
Most importantly, we are the mayor's office and we were able to actively work with members of Congress to get them to come in person to the airport...
The Senator from New York Chuck Schumer?
Yes, Chuck Schumer. Yvette Clark, Jerrold Nadler, most of our Congressional delegation came at one point or another to JFK...
The role that we played was essentially to say: 'We are here from the mayor's office, with representatives from Congress. We would like to talk to folks at JFK airport, senior officials from border patrol, from the airport to (ask): What's happening? This family is saying their mother, their father, whomever, may be detained. What's happening with them? Are you putting them on a plane back to their home country? What are you doing?'
Just that very basic information people weren't even getting.
We were able to help get that information and share it back out with their family, share it back out with their lawyers and really be able to be a bridge, during the very confusing and very hectic initial day of the executive order being in place.
I am sure it is one of the most important historic moments for you in your life, as a child of immigrants. Nothing like this has happened in decades in America.
What was the emotional takeaway for you?
Look, I will be honest. I'll say (that) Friday evening when (the) executive order was signed I was in tears (a lot of emotion in her voice).
This is not the country certainly that my parents came to -- right? -- that they have made their home.
It's an embarrassment, honestly, and then watching how it played out. I have never seen anything like this.
I have been in the immigrant rights world for my whole career. I think there was a lot of emotion associated with that.
Many of the people who were detained for hours on end, were people like my family, right?
You would never treat your own mother, never treat your own aunt, the way people were being treated, under the argument that these are folks who are a danger to society.
I was very disappointed... This was certainly not the country that I believe in and take pride in being part of.
IMAGE: JFK airport became a key venue of protest against Donald Trump's travel ban. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
As disappointing as this was, hasn't the positivity that has risen from so many people coming forward been a wonderful thing too?
It's amazing.
It's been absolutely amazing to see how folks across the borders are coming together and speaking out about this.
This isn't just an immigration issue. This isn't a New York City rights issue.
Even nationally we have seen huge marches, huge protests, people really participating in our democracy in a really deep way.
That's very, very inspiring.
At JFK that protest group, from three dozen people (became) 3,000 people. There were folks ordering pizza (laughs).
There was a really kind of positive attitude even while people were very angry about what was happening.
It was one of the best, certainly, actions like that, that I have had the opportunity to participate in.
And really, in some ways, unifying about what it is that we believe in as a city.
As you talk about it right now to me, is it still very emotional and raw for you?
Yes.
I think we have a lot of work to do.
At the same time I feel really reassured by the fact that there are so many people who are feeling the same way and want to make sure we work together to make bad situations like this (better) to resolve them.
We also continue building the kind of city and country that we want to have.
So, your heart has to be in it as much as your mind.
Now because of the relaxation on the ban, after the ruling passed by Judge Robart, you must be having to deal with a different set of problems.
People must be trying to rush into America as fast as they can. Faster than they had planned...
We will see what happens.
We are monitoring it very closely -- what happens on the ground, at JFK, but in general how that legal back and forth will impact people.
It is hard to say now. My understanding is that at the moment we don't have anybody who is detained at JFK and things are moving along there.
That said, the volunteer lawyers continue to be organised. They have contact information for people who may have concerns, who think their family members are detained.
And we are just going to keep monitoring it in real time to make sure we can respond again, if we need to.
At all American airports, including JFK, which is a leading airport, there must be much higher traffic, right?
We'll see what ends up happening. I don't think we have seen that yet.
Really we have to just wait and see if the numbers go up, because people are trying to travel before the ban goes back into place, if it goes back into place.
It may only be a seven country ban at the moment. But Indians are equally anxious. Anyone travelling to America is worried.
How does it affect Indians coming into America on a visit?
How does it affect the local Indian community in New York, especially in terms of changes in immigration policy?
Here it is a matter of looking much more broadly, than just at this particular executive order.
There is a lot that is happening or could happen with regard to immigration policy, that is I think of significant concern for both immigrant communities here, as well as their family members abroad, who may want to travel.
That's what we need to monitor very carefully.
There has been some discussion that maybe there might be some executive order on employment visas.
So, there will be other ways to restrict who is able to come to the United States.
Those are the kinds of policy changes we have to keep a very close eye on.
There will be an impact on H-1B visas.
There will be an impact on other kinds of immigration benefits, that certainly people from India are part of, and really use. Like student visas.
Plenty of the people were impacted by this Muslim ban are students -- they were researchers, they were people who were studying in our universities and were stopped right there.
It is hard to predict what will happen in the future. But we have to be really vigilant.
IMAGE: A coalition of volunteer attorneys at Terminal 4 at JFK airport, January 30, 2017. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
And average Indians who are just visiting and coming through JFK -- do they need to be worried?
I am sure Indian Muslims will definitely be worried. Or do you think that's just over-anxiety.
I don't think they need to be too worried about it.
I do think they need to just be prepared and be thoughtful.
Unfortunately, (one has) heard some stories of from people, whose countries were not on the list, being impacted. Those are not the vast majority of people.
Just follow what's happening in the news. But right now, I don't think there is need to be overly concerned.
We haven't heard of any problems like that on the ground, certainly (not at) JFK.
Any tips you can offer people entering America through New York? If they are stopped what should they do?
The advice the lawyers have been giving is if you get stopped or detained, and you (have a visa) or are a green card holder and you get asked to sign some forms, don't do anything, without talking to a lawyer.
Be very smart and thoughtful about what you are saying.
If you are detained you have no access to the outside world. Now, I am not saying this is going to happen to folks.
Be smart about asking to be able to speak to other people.
Ask if you can talk to a lawyer.
Don't sign away paperwork if you don't know what it is or you don't understand what the implications are. That's the most important thing.
There might be other kinds of fallouts since the signing of this executive order. Won't it bring in its wake racist incidents, hate crimes?
There have already been a few incidents in different places in the country.
How is your office preparing for this prospect? How can people safeguard themselves?
We have seen an uptick, unfortunately, of hate crimes across the board, for a variety of communities, in the last several months.
We have a New York City Commission on Human Rights. They have a tip line you can call, if you are experiencing discrimination, if you want to file a complaint, or want to take action on that.
We really encourage people to do that, if that's what they are experiencing. Or they know someone who is experiencing that.
Of course, if you are a victim of a hate crime or you are witnessing a hate crime happening in action, NYPD has a hate crime unit you can call.
Call 911 and inform (them) that you are seeing that this is happening right now.
We are really, really encouraging New Yorkers to step forward and share that information.
How is that message is getting across? Via social media?
The mayor has repeated it many times when he has spoken. We have put that information out through social media.
We have created a one-page document that basically summarises all of the rights and services that immigrant New Yorkers have access to.
None of that's changed (with) any of these federal policy changes. In that we also list phone numbers you can call around bias and discrimination issues.
Since this situation started on January 27, can you sum up the two or three main strategies your office is doing to proactively fight this?
I understand it is an evolving situation and very hard to plan for. But what is your day-to-day action plan or is it changing every day?
Basically, we have a plan in place. Some things will have to evolve based on what happens.
One of our first strategies is to reassure immigrant New Yorkers. Many of them who feel fearful may not realise that what is happening at a federal level does not necessarily directly... impact what the city is planning to do.
Just sending this message, through a hashtag or a slogan, which we use, which is Always New York.
We will always be committed to immigrant communities.
We don't ask for your immigration status when you use public services, education, health care.
All these things are still available to you regardless of immigration (status).
That message cannot be said more. We just have to keep repeating that.
Making sure that we are making the city feels safe and inclusive.
Immediately, there is the importance of legal services. We saw that at JFK. But that's across the board.
In the last few years, under Mayor De Blasio's leadership, the city has made a huge investment in legal services for immigrants, whether you want to become a citizen or you may have a more complex case and you are looking to get some kind of benefit or you are undocumented... it is really very important.
Those are two of the key areas that we are going to be continued to be focused on.
Then finally, just being a source of good information about what's actually happening.
What did the executive order actually say? How much of it is in effect now? How much of it is: We will have to wait and see what happens.
Showing that the city is willing to take action, if bad things come out of these various policies or other subtle actions.
Those are the three prongs of our strategy. Then it will start to shift, based on what actually happens.
IMAGE: Nisha Agarwal, right, applauds Mayor Bill de Blasio's remarks at a Manhattan rally to end the refugee and Muslim ban, January 29, 2017. Photograph: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Trump is talking about vetting. Maybe he is going about it entirely in the wrong way, but vetting is important because 9/11 did happen.
India's 26/11 was also the result of poor vetting.
What is your take on it? How can vetting improve and what has not been done as far as vetting goes?
The reality is that some of the groups that we are talking about extreme vetting for, like refugees, are extremely vetted (laughs).
The US government has a tremendously high degree of vetting.
It often takes some refugees a year, two years, just to be allowed entry in, because they are going through FBI checks, they are going through a number of hoops to be able to be vetted.
The number of people, who have slipped through, is not even worth having a conversation about, because the system has been so vigorous in terms of who is allowed through.
Some of it is looking critically at that rhetoric about extreme vetting.
Certainly, the people who were coming through JFK -- a 70-year-old mother of somebody who is an active duty military officer, a four-month-old girl who needed a heart transplant... They have been vetted first of all.
When they actually show up at JFK airport further vetting doesn't really add to anything.
All it did was cause them to be detained. Or be kept from their families, in not very good conditions for a long period of time.
I think that's reality. That our system (vetting) has been pretty strong.
In New York, we deeply care about public safety issues and making sure the residents of our city are safe. We also don't think safety comes at the expense of being inclusive and being able to be a city that serves our many diverse communities.
We think those two things go hand in hand.
You sort of see that in the numbers, right?
In the last few years, we have had historic lows in crime. We have been really fortunate, because we have a great police department thinking both about: How do police officials interact with communities in a way that is acceptable and at the same time keep everybody safe.
I heard a Trump voter say on television that America is a land of immigrants, so we have to protect the original immigrants as well. That's even more so for New York. Would you agree with that?
Certainly, we want to protect all New Yorkers. Right?
Whether their families arrived a 100 years ago or arrived a 100 days ago. The idea is that safety and inclusion work hand in hand.
Immigrant New Yorkers, no matter when they came, have to feel comfortable talking to the police, reporting crime, sharing if they are a victim of a crime, so the police can do their job. The officers are also committed to keeping everyone safe.
The point of our local policy is to make that happen...
Is there any one incident since January 27 that is stuck in your mind and shows how these individual stories are playing out?
How is it going to affect the fabric of New York? Any one thing that shows that something has changed?
I feel the response that New York has had -- really coming to support folks during this time -- is very much a part of New York's character. It was really wonderful to see that happening.
My view: That hasn't changed. It was just put into relief during the last weekend at JFK.
The stories of people who were detained or who were stopped at JFK are really powerful.
The mother of an active duty military officer, a Muslim American, who is serving his own country and this is how his family members are treated (Iraqi-origin American soldier, Ali, who was stationed in South Carolina, had to fly to New York to rescue his detained mother. She was held for 36 hours and handcuffed for a time. His mother and father have US visas to come and visit Ali, but there was a delay after his father died)?!
Amazingly, her response, when she was finally released from detention, was to share sweets! (Laughs heartily.)
My mother would have done the same thing!. (Still laughing).
That's also what's powerful, seeing the kind of stories that we are talking about. Those people's family members. They are stories we can relate to.
This is not how we treat American families.
I do think that's changed fundamentally at a national level, but people are pushing back against it.
When this first happened on January 27 I read about all kinds of situations. There were tweets about how this order had caused people's lives to suddenly get suspended.
There were folks who had parked their cars in airport parking. Or had jury duty coming up. Or an apartment on lease. Or were green card holders who owned property. Suddenly, they were not being allowed to go home!
In the future, if and when this federal order gets revived, what can the New York City government do for these people whose lives might get suspended in this way? They didn't know even who to call...
One of the things that has happened since in JFK -- and in many of the airports around the country -- is that now there are groups of people.
There is contact information, so if you are in a kind of situation, you can reach out to them. Or if there is a family member, maybe already in the country, who can reach out to them and find (out what to do).
What we want to be able to do is not just have a spontaneous response system, but really figure out what's our best way to respond to any of these emergency situations in the future.
So, people know where to go and how to get information. That's the important work that is ahead of us.
It must be great to work for someone like Mayor De Blasio. He is right there, saying what needs to be said
I feel very lucky to have this job (laughs)!
It is wonderful to be under his leadership. No questions asked, this is what we are about as New Yorkers, and (these) are the values that we hold. Act on those values.
Certainly, the mayor's office of immigrant affairs follows his lead and that mission for his administration, he has really set.
With no solution in sight for government formation in Tamil Nadu, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has asserted that a majority of its MLAs are behind General Secretary V K Sasikala and claimed the chances of Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao "inviting" her on Monday were "high."
Party spokesperson Vaigai Chelvan said that Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had the support of seven MLAs and cannot therefore prove his majority in the state assembly in the event of a floor test.
"He says he can prove his majority based on the wrong information given by someone. Majority of the AIADMK MLAs are with Chinnamma (Sasikala) and we are ready to prove our strength (in a floor test)," he told reporters in Chennai.
Sasikala was the elected Legislature Party leader of AIADMK and therefore the governor should invite her to form government, he added.
"We expect the chances of his inviting (meeting) her today are high," he said.
To a question on 11 MPs switching over to the camp of Panneerselvam, Vaigai Chelvan expressed confidence that they would return to the Sasikala fold.
In growing support for Panneerselvam, six more AIADMK MPs had joined his camp on Sunday, taking the number of Parliamentarians in his favour to 11.
Sasikala had on vowed to protect the party nurtured by her long-time friend, late Jayalalithaa, saying "I will give my life for this cause".
Addressing the MLAs at the resort near Chennai, which she visited for the second time in two days, Sasikala had said, "You 129 MLAs are like an ocean. None can contain it by building a check dam. No efforts will destabilise this government. None can hurt us and there is no need to fear."
She also dismissed allegations that they have been held "hostage" at the resort, saying the MLAs were staying at the resort of their own accord and that they were "free".
To curb pollution, the Mysuru corporation has launched a bicycle-sharing initiative, reports Apurva Venkat.
The southern city of Mysuru is turning to bicycle sharing to cut pollution as it looks to retain its tag as India's cleanest city. Trin Trin, an initiative thought up by the city corporation will look to rent bikes to commuters and travellers to get around cleanly and in a lot more fun way.
The city has purchased about 430 bicycles that will be parked at any of the 52 docking stations at prominent locations for people to rent on an hourly basis. Users will have to register for a smart card online and preload it with money in order to utilise the service with weekly, monthly and yearly subscriptions available.
The idea is to encourage more people and tourist to use bicycle. It is cheap and environmentally friendly. Mysore is already Indias cleanest city. To keep that titile, this is one more step we have taken, said, V J Ravikumar, Mayor of Mysore. The formal inauguration of the initiative will be done in the next two months.
With an estimated cost of Rs 20.5 crore, which is being funded by the World Banks Global Environment Facility Grant, the city wants to replicate a model that has been successful in other global cities.
The scale might not be huge, but Mysurus authorities are looking to reach a large number of people through incentivising people to take short trips. Trin Trin is being marketed as a perfect way to visit the citys many tourist attractions in a more fun and sustainable way.
We want to promote more people to use the cycles that is the reason we have kept first 30 minutes free. Also since it is a shared system, we have increased the rate for longer hours. We want people to switch cycles in case they have halts so that there is distribution of cycles in the docks, added Ravikumar.
Despite Mysurus traffic being far less congested than its neighbouring Bengaluru, the city has already begun working on ways to cut pollution and free up space on roads. The name Trin Trin was selected to bring back memories from an old Mysuru that had an abundance of cycles with the sound of their peculiar horns being heard all around.
Keeping with the idea of getting tourists to go green, at Chamundi Hill, one of the most visited tourist spots in the city, will get 20 multi speed and 5 electric bicycles so that tourists can ditch the autorickshaws and taxis that usually make the trip.
The cycles for the project are being manufactured by a local vendor, Green Wheel Ride. The company says it will wait to see user preferences and then gauge whether it should add more geared cycles or electric ones to expand Trin Trin in Mysuru.
The response for the initial trials have been very positive. This is not only the first time such a project is being carried out in India but also in Asia. We are very happy that we are a part of it, said Mahesh Gowda, managing director, Green Wheel Ride.
Photograph: Trin Trin/Facebook
A Bharatiya Janata Party worker was stabbed to death and another was injured when they were attacked by some persons during local temple festivities at Mukkattukara in Thrissur district, police said.
The BJP has alleged that the Communist Party of India-Marxist activists were behind the attack. Police, quoting eyewitnesses, said at least seven persons were involved in the attack of whom some were allegedly from the Marxist party.
During 'pooram' festivities at Kokkulangara Temple on Sunday night, the worker Nirmal, 20 was stabbed following an altercation, police said.
Though he was rushed to hospital, the youth succumbed to injuries, they said.
Another person, Mithun, also a BJP worker, who was injured, has been hospitalised.
The BJP is observing a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the district on Monday in protest against the attack.
The AIADMK MP from Thoothukudi explains why he is backing O Panneerselvam as Tamil Nadu chief minister.
While Ch Vidyasagar Rao, Tamil Nadu's governor who turned 76 on Sunday, waits for the Supreme Court to deliver its verdict in the disproportionate assets case against V K Sasikala and two of her relatives before deciding who to call to form the government, political activity is at an all-time high in the state.
It all started on the night of February 7 when Chief Minister O Panneerselvam went to the Jayalalithaa samadhi at Marina beach in Chennai to meditate after which he raised the flag of revolt against Sasikala's decision to become the CM.
In the days since then, both camps have been claiming the support of party legislators.
While OPS, as he is known, has only a handful of MLAs beside him -- Sasikala has whisked most of them off to an offsite for safe-keeping -- All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members of Parliament have been making a beeline to the CM's camp.
Among them is the first-time MP from Thoothukudi (Tuticorin), J Jayasingh Thiyagaraj Natterjee, who was initially with the Sasikala group, but on Saturday crossed over with five other MPs to the rival camp.
Speaking to Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar, he said, "I am supporting OPS because he is a humble man."
"He is a straightforward man and he has governed the state well when he has been in charge, not once, but three times. He has the support of the people of Tamil Nadu. Everyone is speaking in one voice supporting him."
"I am a representative of the people of my constituency. And my people have overwhelmingly come out in support of OPS."
"I have to do what they want and that is why they have voted for me, and they will continue to vote for me only if I listen to them and do what they want."
"My constituency voters want OPS as their chief minister and so I am supporting him."
DeMo references have all but vanished from Modi, Amit Shah's speeches, reports Archis Mohan.
Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed over 30 public rallies for the 243-member Bihar aAssembly polls in October-November 2015, but he is likely to address less than half of that in the run-up to the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The PM launched his UP campaign by addressing a public rally in Meerut on February 4, and followed with another one in Aligarh on February 5.
In Aligarh, the PM promised a Bharatiya Janata Party government in UP would deliver vikas (development), which he said was an acronym for vidyut (improved power supply); kanoon (better law and order); and sadak (roads).
There was only a passing reference to demonetisation.
As UP goes to the polls, references to the Modi government's currency ban decision have all but vanished from his, BJP President Amit Shah and other candidates' speeches. This was not the case a month ago.
After November 8, the demonetisation announcement, the PM addressed several rallies across north India, particularly half a dozen in UP, to reach out to people on his note ban decision.
The last of these was in Lucknow on January 2 to mark the end of '50 days of pain' caused by note ban.
There was a only passing reference to demonetisation in his Meerut and Aligarh speeches.
Shah has also come across as keen to change the public discourse to the alleged corruption charges on opponents.
December 20, Shah had issued a statement lauding his party's performance after winning the Chandigarh municipal elections.
That had come on the heels of victories in assembly bypolls and civic and panchayat polls in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
Then, Shah had stated the people had stamped their seal of approval on the PM's demonetisation decision by making the party victorious in all elections after November 8.
Shah, in an interview to a television channel last month, disagreed that the results of the UP polls would be a referendum on the note ban.
He said the results 'would not be a referendum on demonetisation policy, but if the Opposition wanted to play it that way, then the BJP is game for it.'
In UP, party leaders are finding it difficult to get people for public rallies and roadshows.
Shah's February 3 roadshow in Meerut was cancelled, ostensibly to protest the murder of a youth in Lucknow but the party unit was sceptical that it would attract enough people.
Reports of infighting among BJP workers and dissatisfaction in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ranks are dime a dozen.
RSS publicity chief Manmohan Vaidya's anti-reservation remarks have also been exploited by rival parties.
According to sources, Shah warned BJP Lok Sabha members that the party was unlikely to renominate them for the 2019 elections if it fared poorly in the assembly seats under their constituencies.
It is vital for the BJP to bag a good number of seats in UP.
The state sent 71 of the BJP's 282 members in the Lok Sabha.
A good performance will keep it in good stead for the next general election.
It is also important for BJP to improve its tally in 2018 in the Rajya Sabha, where it is in a minority, and for election to the President this July.
Senior police officers were among 13 people killed on Monday when a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up targeting them during a protest rally outside Pakistan's Punjab assembly in Lahore that also wounded more than 71 others.
IMAGE: People check the condition of a victim after a blast in Lahore, Pakistan. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters
Inspector General Police Punjab Mushtaq Sukhera said that 13 people, including six security men, were killed in the suicide blast which had targetted police officials.
He said the suspected suicide bomber reached the police officials by foot and blew himself up.
Lahore Traffic Police chief Capt (R) Ahmed Mobeen and Senior Superintendent Police Zahid Gondal were among the dead.
Lahore police chief Amin Wains confirmed the death of Mobeen. He, however, did not confirm about other casualties.
Deputy Commissioner Lahore said that at least 73 people had been injured in the blast.
Punjab Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique said the condition of some 11 injured was critical.
The Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.
The group had claimed responsibility for a blast on March 27 last year at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore that left 75 people dead, mostly Christians who were celebrating Easter.
The security forces have cordoned off the area and the inner cordon was taken over by Army personnel. Forensic teams were collecting evidence and had started investigations.
The blast was so powerful that it was heard several kilometers from the spot.
IMAGE: A policeman stands guard at the scene after a blast in Lahore. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters
"The chemists were protesting against the controversial drug regulations the government has recently imposed. Several protesters were lying on the road before the rescuers shifted them," said Ishtiaq Ahmed, a representative of the Lahore Chemist Association.
DIG Mobeen had survived an attempt to his life during his posting in Balochistan.
A Lahore police officer said that apparently it was a suicide attack and the bomber targeted the police personnel present there.
"The target was not the protest demonstration but the police officers," he added.
The blast occurred minutes after Mobeen arrived at the scene to negotiate with the chemists and pharmaceutical manufacturers who had been protesting outside the assembly. A TV footage shows that a motorcyclist dragging his bike close to police officers and blew himself up. Mobeen is seen in the footage negotiating with the protesters.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast and said that fight against militants would continue. He promised to avenge the lives lost in Monday's terror attack.
"We have fought this fight against the terrorists among us, and will continue to fight it until we liberate our people of this cancer, and avenge those who have laid down their lives for us," Sharif said in a statement.
Lahore is home town of Sharif and seat of his power as Punjab is the only province where his party rules without support of any other party.
Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa condemned the terrorist attack in Lahore, the army said in a statement.
Gen Bajwa instructed area Army commander and intelligence agencies to provide all necessary assistance to the civil administration in the evacuation of injured to hospitals and also to apprehend those responsible for this heinous act.
Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanullah said the agencies had issued a threat alert that terrorists might target Punjab Assembly building and Governor's House on the Mall Road.
"We have provided security to these venues. Had no demonstration taken place outside the PA building this incident might not have taken place," he said.
A notification issued by the National Counter Terrorism Authority on February 7 warned that an unidentified terrorist group was plotting a terror attack in Lahore.
Her eyes crinkle as she speaks; a smile is never far away.
Though she speaks in a rush -- words tumbling over each other in a race to save time or keep up with her thoughts -- she is unfailingly polite.
A simple sari, a string of flowers in her hair, basic jewellery and a wrist watch... that's all one of India's richest women wears.
Sudha Murty has various roles -- philanthropist, author, teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt -- and she revels in each one of them, discovers Rediff.com's Savera R Someshwar in the first of a two-part fascinating profile.
Videos: Afsar Datayar/Rediff.com
IMAGE: Sudha Murty signs a copy of her latest book for a fan. Photograph: Afsar Dayatar/Rediff.com
Let me tell you a story about Krishna, a fond Ajji (grandmother) visiting her granddaughters in London, said.
"I am very keen that our children should know the great epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and I thought I should tell some stories to them and teach them like all naanis and daadis do."
So this Ajji, with a sweet smile, began to tell her two little granddaughters a story of a naughty, blue-skinned god, who stole the clothes of women who were bathing in a river, of how they pleaded with him and how Lord Krishna returned their clothes.
Before she could delve into the meaning of the story...
"Oh no, Ajji," said the other Krishnaa -- the feisty elder granddaughter who lived in today's modern world. "That's not how it happened."
"I will tell you Krishna's story."
So the grandmother listened.
"Krishna was a very naughty boy," began the granddaughter. "One day, he went to the swimming pool. There were many aunties there and they were complaining to his mother that your child comes to our house, opens the refrigerator and eats all the butter."
"He thought he should really teach them a lesson."
"But when he wanted to go inside, the security told him he could not as it was the ladies's hour at the pool."
"So he went to the first floor, took away all the clothes from the dressing room and waited to see what the aunties would do."
"When all the aunties finished their swimming session, they had a shower and when they came out there were no dresses at all."
"They thought, oh, Krishna must have done this. They called Krishna from the first floor and told him, 'Look, if you don't give our dresses, we will sue you'."
"So he said okay. Then, after some negotiation, Krishna returned the dresses."
IMAGE: Sudha Murty with actor Anant Nag on the sets of the Kannada film, Prarthane, which released in 2012.
Sudha Murty, then author of 16 books in Kannada and 15 books in English, former teacher, chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, actor (yes, she's acted in the Marathi film, Pitruroon, which is based on her Kannada novel Rhun, and a Kannada film, Prarthane) and Infosys Co-founder N R Narayana Murthy, was "heartbroken."
"My God," she wondered, "what are my grandchildren learning about Krishna?"
"I think of Krishna, the lord, the young boy, Balakrishna, Gopalakrishna -- so many names we call him... And here they are going to sue him."
"Then I felt, that because of the environment they live in, a Krishna story or any Bhagvata story, or any story from our epics, would not make sense to them. Most of them are difficult to read because there is too much exaggeration, there is too much illogical narration."
"These stories had to be told in a much simpler way. More than my grandchildren, I felt my daughter should know about this. If the mother knows it, then she can pass it on to her children."
So she sent their mother, her daughter, Akshata, a book.
And promptly received an email in return. 'I don't want this huge fat book, 80 per cent of which is exaggeration and praising God all the time. I cannot go beyond 10 pages. Can you send something which is simple to read?'
Thus was born her latest book, The Serpent's Revenge: Unusual Tales From The Mahabharata, the first draft of which she wrote in 11 days "because the book was in my mind for 50 years."
IMAGE: Sudha Murty signs every copy she is presented with at the launch of her latest book, The Serpent's Revenge, in Mumbai. Photograph: Kind courtesy Crossword Bookstores
Writing, says Murty, is her "pickle."
"I write," she says, "for my joy, but I don't make writing my full time. My work is my full time. Because of my work, I can write better. It makes me sensitive to people's difficulties, their reactions."
Murty describes her work at the Infosys Foundation -- a non-profit organisation founded by the IT behemoth in 1996 to support and help the underprivileged sections of society -- as her "bread."
She enjoys both aspects of her life tremendously, so much so that "every day at work is like a holiday for me," says one of the richest women in India -- according to Forbes, the Murty family ranked 62nd in 2016 among India's richest families, number 39 among the billionaries in India and number 959 among the world's richest billionaires.
Yes, you will spot Sudha Murty in simple saris and minimal jewellery, flowers in her hair and a watch on her wrist; she doesn't need more, she says.
For all her wealth, she hates shopping -- rumour has it that she hasn't shopped for 20 years -- and, if she absolutely has to, she will gift a book.
IMAGE: Sudha Murty, chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, believes that the "human touch" is more important than a blind pursuit of excellence.
If she is not travelling -- of which she does a lot for the foundation -- then you will find her at her desk at 8.30 in the morning.
A typical day at office will see her answer about "400 emails" and take "about 400 calls, both incoming and outgoing."
She is back at her two storied house in Jayanagar, Bengaluru -- it is where she has lived for over 28 years and brought up her two children, son Rohan and daughter Akshata -- by 5.30 pm.
The avid reader -- "I read about 100 to 200 pages a day" -- then reaches out for a book.
If there is nothing else to read, she kids, she will read the newspapers four times over. But with a personal library at home, that's a stage she hasn't reached yet.
"Right now, I am reading Shashi Tharoor's book (An Era Of Darkness: The British Empire In India) and Twinkle Khanna's fiction book (The Legend Of Laxmi Prasad) and Karan Johar's book (An Unsuitable Boy)."
"I just finished reading Rishi Kapoor's Khullam Khulla."
Then, she listens to music and watches a movie.
"Movie I have to watch for half an hour. I really enjoy watching movies," she says gleefully.
By 9 pm, she is in bed because "I get up at 5 am every day, and at 4 am if I am writing a book."
The 8.30 am to 5.30 pm is a routine she would like her staff to follow as well.
Though she won't comment on the murder of Infosys employee Rasila Raju OP at the company's Pune campus on January 29 -- "It is better you speak to the Infosys spokesperson" -- she does feel that women are still not considered equal citizens in society.
"At work," she says, "there is no problem. We are equal in work. Probably we are better in work. We are more hardworking. But when it comes to equality in social life, still we do not have it."
Personally, too, she says, she is careful.
Though her work at the foundation requires her to travel -- "I have travelled in areas infested by thieves and bandits" -- she prefers to err on the side of caution.
"I calculate the risk. In such areas, I avoid travelling at night even if it can save time. I ensure I travel between 10 am and 5 pm. I make sure I have somebody, or some security, with me."
"I am not a daredevil in such matters. If my gut says I should not take a risk, I don't."
Do watch the video to see what else Sudha Murty suggests working women should do to ensure their own safety.
When it comes to challenging stereotypes, though, Murty began early.
As an engineering student at the BVB College of Engineering and Technology in Hubli, Karnataka, in 1968 -- that's nearly 50 years ago -- Sudha Kulkarni, as she was known then, was the only female student in her class.
When she realised that none of the male students would help her, she decided she would not miss a class during the four year course. And she didn't.
"I was never dependent on my classmates for notes because they would never give it to me. If I didn't understand something, I would re-read it, and re-read it, and re-read it, till I understood it."
Soon, the situation reversed.
As her story continues, you glimpse the determined 16-year-old girl in the 66-year-old woman with flyaway hair that is now more silver than black, sitting in front of you, laughing at the memory.
"Later," she smiles, "they were dependent on me because I wrote proper notes in a proper handwriting. That made me realise I can stand on my own feet and face any difficult situation all alone."
It was an important lesson, one that has stood her in good stead all her life.
IMAGE: Sudha Murty, her husband N R Narayana Murthy, another Infosys Co-founder Nandan Nilekani and his wife Rohini Nilekani, at a picnic near Bangalore in the early 1980s. Photograph: Kind courtesy, Infosys
Her experience at engineering college has also translated into her next book, tentatively titled My BVB.
She jokes that Penguin always changes her working titles though "very few people have told me they brought my book because of its title" and she should know; she has sold over a million books and is one of India's most successful writers.
My BVB, she says, looks at her experiences in engineering college and the life lessons she learnt from those character-strengthening days.
Her next challenge came in 1974, when she was doing her master's course in computer science at what was then called the Tata Institute in Bangalore; today, we know it as the Indian Institute of Science.
Excellent at academics, the double gold medallist -- she won a gold medal that was given to her by the chief minister of Karnataka after she completed her engineering. Later, she was awarded another gold medal by the Indian Institute of Engineers, this time after she topped her master's in engineering, specialising in computer science, from the Indian Institute of Science -- was planning to go abroad for further studies when she spotted a flyer from Telco, asking for bright, young, male engineers only.
Infuriated at the discrimination, she dashed off a postcard to J R D Tata, protesting against the gender discrimination.
It was something she had not faced at home and it was not something she had expected from the Tatas.
Please click on the video below to find out how Sudha Murty was brought up, and how she brought up her children "my way".
According to her post on the Tata Web site, within 10 days, she 'received a telegram asking her to appear for an interview at the company's expense.'
Her postcard, clearly, had reached JRD.
During the interview, which went well, she was told that Telco, now known as Tata Motors, had never employed ladies on the shop floor.
'But you must start somewhere,' she told them, according to her post on the Tata Web site,'otherwise no woman will ever be able to work in your factories.'
She became the first female engineer to be employed by Telco. It was a decision that would change her life in more ways than one.
As she says in her post, 'I met a shy young man from Karnataka there, we became good friends and we got married.'
Do read the INTERESTING FEATURES in the RELATED LINKS below.
The move is to hand them over to Nigeria, as per reports.
Security Council strongly condemns continued fighting in South Sudan
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Security Council strongly condemns continued fighting in South Sudan, 11 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a16dcc412.html [accessed 6 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.
11 February 2017 - The Security Council has strongly condemned continued fighting across South Sudan, particularly incidents in the country's Equatoria and Upper Nile regions, and called on all parties to cease hostilities immediately.
In a Press Statement issued overnight, the Council also condemned in the strongest terms all attacks directed against civilians and expressed serious concern, once again, about reports of killing of civilians, sexual and gender-based violence, destruction of homes, ethnic violence, and looting of livestock and property.
The Council urged the Transitional Government of National Unity to take measures to ensure that those responsible for the attacks are held accountable, and expressed deep alarm that more than 84,000 individuals have fled South Sudan since the beginning of January and that many continue to be displaced internally.
The Council stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict, and in this regard, welcomed the continued and collective commitment in the search for lasting peace, security and stability expressed by the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the UN during the joint consultative meeting on South Sudan that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on January 29, 2017.
The Council expressed deep concern that the Transitional Government of National Unity is hindering the ability of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to carry out its mandate to protect civilians and create conditions conducive to delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The Council reminded the transitional government of its commitment in the September 4, 2016, Joint Communique to permit freedom of movement of UNMISS.
The Council reiterated that targeting civilians may constitute war crimes and those involved could be subject to sanctions under resolution 2206 (2015).
South Sudan, Africa's largest refugee crisis, needs urgent response - UN agency
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, South Sudan, Africa's largest refugee crisis, needs urgent response - UN agency, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a16df340e.html [accessed 6 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.
10 February 2017 - With already more than 3.5 million displaced within and outside the borders of South Sudan and thousands more driven to neighbouring countries every day, the United Nations refugee agency has appealed for an urgent peaceful resolution to what has now become Africa's worst refugee crisis.
Recent new arrivals report suffering inside South Sudan with intense fighting, kidnappings, rape, fears of armed groups and threats to life, as well as acute food shortage, William Spindler, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the media at a regular briefing in Geneva.
More than 60 per cent of the refugees are children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition enduring devastating impact of the brutalities of the ongoing conflict, he added.
However the crisis, third only to the displacements in Syria and Afghanistan and now in its fourth year, has received less attention and is plagued by chronic levels of underfunding.
UNHCR said that its response capacities are overstretched in the countries hosting the refugees and the lack of funds is affecting critical and life-saving efforts such as providing clean, drinking water, food, health and sanitation.
Last month, the agency revised upwards its funding requirements for 2017 to $781.8 million (some $297.9 million or 61 per cent higher than the earlier budget) in light of new needs of those who have been displaced due to renewed fighting, increased violence and resulting food insecurity since July last year.
The agency's last year funding appeal of $649 million received only 33 per cent of the amount needed.
500,000 displaced in four months more than 4,000 every day
The period between September and December 2016 saw almost half a million South Sudanese seeking refuge in neighbouring countries an average of almost 4,100 people every day for four months.
According to Mr. Spindler, as the global displacement trends reflect, those fleeing South Sudan are being hosted by the poorest communities in the neighbouring countries, under immense pressure with scarce resources.
Noting that the welcome South Sudan refugees received in the neighbouring countries is encouraging he cautioned that the lack of resources to respond is also extremely worrying.
The majority of the refugees are being hosted by Uganda (about 698,000), followed by Ethiopia (about 342,000), Sudan (305,000), Kenya (89,000), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (68,000) and the Central African Republic (4,900).
We are working with authorities in South Sudan's neighbouring countries to provide life-saving support and look after the basic needs of those arriving in desperate conditions, the UNHCR spokesperson said, renewing a call on donor countries to step up support to the humanitarian efforts for the South Sudan situation.
South Sudan has faced ongoing challenges since a political face-off between President Salva Kiir and his then former Vice-President Riek Machar erupted into full blown conflict between forces loyal to each in December 2013. The crisis has produced one of the world's worst displacement situations with immense suffering for civilians.
Despite the August 2015 peace agreement that formally ended the war, conflict and instability have also spread to previously unaffected areas.
Afghanistan: UN mission expresses grave concern at high civilian casualties in Helmand
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Afghanistan: UN mission expresses grave concern at high civilian casualties in Helmand, 12 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a16e3140e.html [accessed 6 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 February 2017 - The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today expressed its grave concern at the recent escalation of violence in Helmand province, which reportedly claimed the lives of at least 25 civilians, mostly women and children, and injured many more.
On 9 and 10 February, international military forces conducted airstrikes in Helmand's Sangin District reportedly targeting anti-Government elements, according to a news release. UNAMA's initial enquiries suggest that the airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children. UNAMA notes that Resolute Support has initiated an investigation into the incident.
On 11 February, Taliban conducted a suicide attack targeting Afghan National Army soldiers outside of Kabul Bank in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand. The attack killed at least seven civilians, and at least as many were injured, mainly child vendors outside the bank, the release added.
The people of Helmand have suffered greatly due to the armed conflict in Afghanistan, with 891 civilians killed or injured during 2016. This figure was the highest in the country in 2016 outside of Kabul.
UNAMA reiterated the need for all parties to the conflict to strictly adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law to take all feasible measures to protect civilians from harm while expressing its sincere condolences to the families of victims and hopes for a speedy recovery to those injured.
Afghanistan has been in protracted conflict for some 35 years, which has seen an ever-growing number of civilians killed and poverty reduction and development efforts seriously hampered.
UNAMA is mandated to support the Afghan Government and the people of Afghanistan as a political mission that provides 'good offices' among other measures. 'Good offices' are diplomatic steps UN takes publicly and in private, drawing on its independence, impartiality and integrity, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading.
UNAMA also promotes coherent development support by the international community; assists the process of peace and reconciliation; monitors and promotes human rights and the protection of civilians in armed conflict; promotes good governance; and encourages regional cooperation.
DR Congo: UN mission strongly condemns persistent violence in Kasai Provinces
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, DR Congo: UN mission strongly condemns persistent violence in Kasai Provinces, 11 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a16e6440c.html [accessed 6 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.
11 February 2017 - The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today expressed its concern about the persistent conflict in the Kasai provinces where violent atrocities are being committed by the Kamuina Nsapu militia.
The militia is recruiting and using child soldiers while targeting symbols and institutions of State authority, according to a news release issued by the UN Stabilisation Mission in the African country (MONUSCO), which also cited the disproportionate use of force by Government security forces known as FARDC in their response to the situation.
Particularly, since 9 February 2017, there have been ongoing clashes between Kamuina Nsapu militia and Congolese security forces within the area of Tshimbulu (160 Kilometers South East of Kananga) with unconfirmed reports of 30 to 50 deaths resulting from these clashes.
The news release stated that the Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of MONUSCO, Maman S. Sidikou, strongly condemned the actions of the militia, and expressed his concern about repeated reports of the disproportionate use of force by the FARDC.
Mr. Sidikou expressed regret about the deaths and injuries suffered in these clashes and called upon the Congolese security forces to act in line with acceptable standards of national and international laws in their response to the situation. He offered the Mission's support to a credible investigation of this regrettable situation.
MONUSCO has deployed one of its mobile monitoring response team in the area covering Tshikapa, Dibaya, Bunkode, Tshimbulu and Luiza to possibly prevent, investigate and document human rights violations in line with its mandate.
MONUSCO redeployed most of its resources to the country's east in 2014. Given the improved security situation at the time, there was also a drastic reduction of military and civilian personnel affecting the Mission's presence in Kananga in central Kasai. However, since December 2016, MONOSCO has deployed a military company of soldiers in Kananga with the task of protecting the Mission's personnel and assets as well as protecting civilians.
Somalia: UN Security Council urges sustained momentum towards democratic governance
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Somalia: UN Security Council urges sustained momentum towards democratic governance, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a16e7c40e.html [accessed 6 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.
10 February 2017 - Welcoming political and security progress in Somalia since 2012, including the recently concluded elections in the country, the United Nations Security Council today highlighted the need to maintain the momentum towards democratic governance in the African nation.
In a Presidential Statement adopted today, the 15-member Council also hailed the increased representation of women in the Upper House and the House of the People and underscored the important contribution of women to Somalia's peacebuilding and State-building processes.
The UN body responsible for matters concerning international peace and security also congratulated President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed 'Farmajo' and paid tribute to tribute to former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud for his service and commended the swift and gracious transfer of power in Somalia.
The new President, known as 'Farmajo,' was declared the winner on Wednesday after two rounds of voting by the Somali Parliament in the capital, Mogadishu. The runner-up, incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, chose to withdraw from a third and final round.
It also underscored the importance of timely and transparent appointment of ministers and the cabinet, in consultation with the Somali Parliament, and called on the on the Parliament and all federal and provincial leaders to cooperate fully with the Federal Government in driving forward reform and addressing immediate priorities without delay.
The Security Council further emphasized the need to accelerate agreement between the federal and regional authorities on a federal security sector architecture as well as the importance of good faith cooperation between the authorities to speed up the country's peacebuilding and State-building process.
It also called on the international community and Somalia's partners to step up their support to efforts to build and strengthen the country's national institutions, governance structures and socio-economic infrastructure.
The Council further urged the Federal Government to promote a comprehensive reconciliation process that brings about local, regional, and national cohesion and integration in a climate of respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to establish an effective federal political system.
Also in the statement, the Council recognized that the coming months would be an important
period for Somalia, and said that it would to follow progress closely, and reaffirmed its support for peace, stability and development in Somalia.
In Turkey, UN chief Guterres discusses Syria, Iraq, Cyprus with President
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, In Turkey, UN chief Guterres discusses Syria, Iraq, Cyprus with President, 11 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1718940e.html [accessed 6 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.
11 February 2017 - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today met with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul to discuss the situations in Syria, Iraq and Cyprus.
Mr. Guterres is on his first major trip since taking the helm of the UN on 1 January, which will also take him to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Egypt as well as Germany.
According to a readout issued by the office of Mr. Guterres' spokesperson, the Secretary-General and the President discussed the Syrian conflict and the ongoing diplomatic efforts to end it.
The Secretary-General said he was grateful that the Astana conference was held in support of the Geneva process, the readout said.
The talks between the Syrian government and the opposition brokered by Russia and Turkey were held in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, on 23-24 January. The United Nations-facilitated intra-Syrian talks are scheduled to resume in Geneva on 20 February.
The Secretary-General underscored the need to fight terrorism and extremists in Syria but that effort would not be successful without a political solution supported by the people of country, the readout added.
On Iraq, the Secretary-General expressed the need that the on-going operations to liberate Mosul and other areas from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) not exacerbate sectarianism but instead be a symbol of national reconciliation.
The Secretary-General commended Turkey for its outstanding generosity in hosting millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq.
The two leaders also discussed the latest developments in the peace process in Cyprus, the readout said.
Senior UN officials call for close cooperation to address migrant, refugee flows in Libya
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Senior UN officials call for close cooperation to address migrant, refugee flows in Libya, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a171bf40c.html [accessed 6 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.
10 February 2017 - The heads of the United Nations agencies for human rights, migrants, and refugees, and the UN envoy for Libya, today met in Geneva calling for international solidarity to address the flows of migrants and refugees in the North African country.
The senior UN officials stressed the need for a comprehensive approach to address the situation of migrants and refugees in Libya as well as to assist the hundreds of thousands of Libyans displaced and impacted by the crisis, according to a press release.
The meeting was between the Director-General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi; the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein; and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya, Martin Kobler.
They called for close cooperation at the regional and international levels, and highlighted the need to protect and rights of migrants and refugees.
Along with many Libyans, migrants and refugees are heavily impacted by ongoing conflicts and the breakdown in law and order in Libya, the four senior UN officials said.
They noted that untold numbers of people particularly those smuggled or trafficked, and those in detention outside of any legal process face grave human rights abuses and violations.
Migrants and refugees are also exposed to malnutrition, extortion, torture, sexual violence and other abuses, according to the joint press release.
Haiti: Peacekeeping chief points to changes in mandate of UN mission
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Haiti: Peacekeeping chief points to changes in mandate of UN mission, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a171dd40c.html [accessed 6 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.
10 February 2017 - While the security situation in Haiti is not perfect, solid progress has been made over the past few years, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations has said, stressing that the Organization is considering a change in the mandate of the UN Stabilization Mission in the island nation, known as MINUSTAH.
Wrapping up a week-long visit during which he attended the swearing in of the new Haitian President, Jovenel Moise, and carried out an out an evaluation of Mission, Herve Ladsous, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told reporters yesterday in Port-au-Prince: The military component of MINUSTAH is likely to disappear in the relatively near future. We are looking at the modalities.
At the heart of the Mission's work is ensuring stability, he continued, noting that the recent elections had gone off with few incidents, thanks to MINUSTAH and particularly the Haitian National Police, and the Provision Electoral Council. I think this is something to be noted, he said.
He recalled that in October 2016, when the UN Security Council renwed MINUSTAH's mandate, it had expressed its wish to examine the mandate of the Mission in mid-April. The Secretary-General is to make recommendations to the Security Council on 15 March.
"I think that when we look at the situation in this country compared to what it was a few years ago, we have made a lot of progress," Ladsous said. "Security is not perfect, but I think it is much better."
Mr. Ladsous went on to note that the regular strength of the Haitian National Police is set to reach 15,000 and that efforts will continue to strengthen the capacities of this police.
In Turkey, UN chief Guterres spotlights collective responsibility for refugee protection
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, In Turkey, UN chief Guterres spotlights collective responsibility for refugee protection, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a171f940d.html [accessed 6 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.
10 February 2017 - Underscoring the enormity of the plight of refugees, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today appealed for effective burden-sharing in supporting those who have been forced to flee their homes, as well as to those providing them refuge.
This is a moment to launch an appeal when we see so many borders being closed and when we see so many escaping their responsibilities [] for effective burden-sharing and to make sure that the integrity of the international refugee protection regime is maintained, Mr. Guterres said at a press encounter in Istanbul alongside Binali Yildirim, the Turkish Prime Minister.
One area is [supporting] the countries of first asylum, support to the host communities, support to projects that can help [] both refugee populations and the host communities, he explained.
The second area of burden-sharing is the resettlement of refugees [] because the protection of refugees is not only the responsibility of neighbouring States of a crisis; it is a collective responsibility of the international community, added Mr. Guterres.
The UN chief, on his first official visit to the region, also thanked the Turkish Government and people for their large humanitarian support to Syrian people as well as to those from other parts of the world.
In particular, he expressed his appreciation for the role of Turkey in convening and orienting the Astana conference on Syria and that it would lead to the Geneva talks in which the political solution dimension will be at the centre of the discussions.
The role that Turkey has played has been, in our opinion, extremely positive and we are very grateful and very appreciative for that fact, he said.
Mr. Guterres also thanked Turkey for its role in convening of the Astana Conference and said: It is now very important to have in Geneva discussions that go to the substance of the issues and allow for a political solution to start [being] built.
Recalling the country's contributions to the international multilateral system, he noted that Turkey is one of the guarantor powers in the UN-supported Conference for Cyprus for the unity of Cyprus, and expressed hope that the efforts of the two communities that go on meeting at the highest level and the efforts of the guarantor powers will allow for a breakthrough in the near future.
A breakthrough able to fully respect the concerns of the Turkish Cypriot community about its security but, at the same time, compatible with the concerns of the Greek Cypriot community, added the Secretary-General, pledging the support of the UN to the two communities and the guarantor powers to support the search for a solution that is acceptable for all.
The UN chief also noted the importance of political solutions in which people feel duly represented at the political level for successfully fighting terrorism.
Secretary-General Guterres also said there is no plan B but for the two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and underscored: It is absolutely essential to avoid unilateral actions that undermine the possibility of that two-state solution.
He also noted that his discussions in Istanbul included the situation in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan as well as the on importance of rule of law and protection of human rights.
Executive Order: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements
Publisher United States President Publication Date 25 January 2017 Cite as United States President, Executive Order: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements, 25 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a18ff04.html [accessed 6 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.
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IMPROVEMENTS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.) (INA), the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Public Law 109 367) (Secure Fence Act), and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Public Law 104 208 Div. C) (IIRIRA), and in order to ensure the safety and territorial integrity of the United States as well as to ensure that the Nation's immigration laws are faithfully executed, I hereby order as follows:
Section 1. Purpose. Border security is critically important to the national security of the United States. Aliens who illegally enter the United States without inspection or admission present a significant threat to national security and public safety. Such aliens have not been identified or inspected by Federal immigration officers to determine their admissibility to the United States. The recent surge of illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico has placed a significant strain on Federal resources and overwhelmed agencies charged with border security and immigration enforcement, as well as the local communities into which many of the aliens are placed.
Transnational criminal organizations operate sophisticated drug- and human-trafficking networks and smuggling operations on both sides of the southern border, contributing to a significant increase in violent crime and United States deaths from dangerous drugs. Among those who illegally enter are those who seek to harm Americans through acts of terror or criminal conduct. Continued illegal immigration presents a clear and present danger to the interests of the United States.
Federal immigration law both imposes the responsibility and provides the means for the Federal Government, in cooperation with border States, to secure the Nation's southern border. Although Federal immigration law provides a robust framework for Federal-State partnership in enforcing our immigration laws and the Congress has authorized and provided appropriations to secure our borders the Federal Government has failed to discharge this basic sovereign responsibility. The purpose of this order is to direct executive departments and agencies (agencies) to deploy all lawful means to secure the Nation's southern border, to prevent further illegal immigration into the United States, and to repatriate illegal aliens swiftly, consistently, and humanely.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the executive branch to:
(a) secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism;
(b) detain individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law, including Federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations;
(c) expedite determinations of apprehended individuals' claims of eligibility to remain in the United States;
(d) remove promptly those individuals whose legal claims to remain in the United States have been lawfully rejected, after any appropriate civil or criminal sanctions have been imposed; and
(e) cooperate fully with States and local law enforcement in enacting Federal-State partnerships to enforce Federal immigration priorities, as well as State monitoring and detention programs that are consistent with Federal law and do not undermine Federal immigration priorities.
Sec. 3. Definitions. (a) "Asylum officer" has the meaning given the term in section 235(b)(1)(E) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)).
(b) "Southern border" shall mean the contiguous land border between the United States and Mexico, including all points of entry.
(c) "Border States" shall mean the States of the United States immediately adjacent to the contiguous land border between the United States and Mexico.
(d) Except as otherwise noted, "the Secretary" shall refer to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
(e) "Wall" shall mean a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier.
(f) "Executive department" shall have the meaning given in section 101 of title 5, United States Code.
(g) "Regulations" shall mean any and all Federal rules, regulations, and directives lawfully promulgated by agencies.
(h) "Operational control" shall mean the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.
Sec. 4. Physical Security of the Southern Border of the United States. The Secretary shall immediately take the following steps to obtain complete operational control, as determined by the Secretary, of the southern border:
(a) In accordance with existing law, including the Secure Fence Act and IIRIRA, take all appropriate steps to immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border;
(b) Identify and, to the extent permitted by law, allocate all sources of Federal funds for the planning, designing, and constructing of a physical wall along the southern border;
(c) Project and develop long-term funding requirements for the wall, including preparing Congressional budget requests for the current and upcoming fiscal years; and
(d) Produce a comprehensive study of the security of the southern border, to be completed within 180 days of this order, that shall include the current state of southern border security, all geophysical and topographical aspects of the southern border, the availability of Federal and State resources necessary to achieve complete operational control of the southern border, and a strategy to obtain and maintain complete operational control of the southern border.
Sec. 5. Detention Facilities. (a) The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct, operate, control, or establish contracts to construct, operate, or control facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico.
(b) The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign asylum officers to immigration detention facilities for the purpose of accepting asylum referrals and conducting credible fear determinations pursuant to section 235(b)(1) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)) and applicable regulations and reasonable fear determinations pursuant to applicable regulations.
(c) The Attorney General shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign immigration judges to immigration detention facilities operated or controlled by the Secretary, or operated or controlled pursuant to contract by the Secretary, for the purpose of conducting proceedings authorized under title 8, chapter 12, subchapter II, United States Code.
Sec. 6. Detention for Illegal Entry. The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country to the extent permitted by law. The Secretary shall issue new policy guidance to all Department of Homeland Security personnel regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as "catch and release," whereby aliens are routinely released in the United States shortly after their apprehension for violations of immigration law.
Sec. 7. Return to Territory. The Secretary shall take appropriate action, consistent with the requirements of section 1232 of title 8, United States Code, to ensure that aliens described in section 235(b)(2)(C) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(C)) are returned to the territory from which they came pending a formal removal proceeding.
Sec. 8. Additional Border Patrol Agents. Subject to available appropriations, the Secretary, through the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, shall take all appropriate action to hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and all appropriate action to ensure that such agents enter on duty and are assigned to duty stations as soon as is practicable.
Sec. 9. Foreign Aid Reporting Requirements. The head of each executive department and agency shall identify and quantify all sources of direct and indirect Federal aid or assistance to the Government of Mexico on an annual basis over the past five years, including all bilateral and multilateral development aid, economic assistance, humanitarian aid, and military aid. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the head of each executive department and agency shall submit this information to the Secretary of State. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall submit to the President a consolidated report reflecting the levels of such aid and assistance that has been provided annually, over each of the past five years.
Sec. 10. Federal-State Agreements. It is the policy of the executive branch to empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law.
(a) In furtherance of this policy, the Secretary shall immediately take appropriate action to engage with the Governors of the States, as well as local officials, for the purpose of preparing to enter into agreements under section 287(g) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1357(g)).
(b) To the extent permitted by law, and with the consent of State or local officials, as appropriate, the Secretary shall take appropriate action, through agreements under section 287(g) of the INA, or otherwise, to authorize State and local law enforcement officials, as the Secretary determines are qualified and appropriate, to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary. Such authorization shall be in addition to, rather than in place of, Federal performance of these duties.
(c) To the extent permitted by law, the Secretary may structure each agreement under section 287(g) of the INA in the manner that provides the most effective model for enforcing Federal immigration laws and obtaining operational control over the border for that jurisdiction.
Sec. 11. Parole, Asylum, and Removal. It is the policy of the executive branch to end the abuse of parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens.
(a) The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate action to ensure that the parole and asylum provisions of Federal immigration law are not illegally exploited to prevent the removal of otherwise removable aliens.
(b) The Secretary shall take all appropriate action, including by promulgating any appropriate regulations, to ensure that asylum referrals and credible fear determinations pursuant to section 235(b)(1) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1125(b)(1)) and 8 CFR 208.30, and reasonable fear determinations pursuant to 8 CFR 208.31, are conducted in a manner consistent with the plain language of those provisions.
(c) Pursuant to section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(I) of the INA, the Secretary shall take appropriate action to apply, in his sole and unreviewable discretion, the provisions of section 235(b)(1)(A)(i) and (ii) of the INA to the aliens designated under section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(II).
(d) The Secretary shall take appropriate action to ensure that parole authority under section 212(d)(5) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(5)) is exercised only on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the plain language of the statute, and in all circumstances only when an individual demonstrates urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit derived from such parole.
(e) The Secretary shall take appropriate action to require that all Department of Homeland Security personnel are properly trained on the proper application of section 235 of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (8 U.S.C. 1232) and section 462(g)(2) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 279(g)(2)), to ensure that unaccompanied alien children are properly processed, receive appropriate care and placement while in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, and, when appropriate, are safely repatriated in accordance with law.
Sec. 12. Authorization to Enter Federal Lands. The Secretary, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Interior and any other heads of agencies as necessary, shall take all appropriate action to:
(a) permit all officers and employees of the United States, as well as all State and local officers as authorized by the Secretary, to have access to all Federal lands as necessary and appropriate to implement this order; and
(b) enable those officers and employees of the United States, as well as all State and local officers as authorized by the Secretary, to perform such actions on Federal lands as the Secretary deems necessary and appropriate to implement this order.
Sec. 13. Priority Enforcement. The Attorney General shall take all appropriate steps to establish prosecution guidelines and allocate appropriate resources to ensure that Federal prosecutors accord a high priority to prosecutions of offenses having a nexus to the southern border.
Sec. 14. Government Transparency. The Secretary shall, on a monthly basis and in a publicly available way, report statistical data on aliens apprehended at or near the southern border using a uniform method of reporting by all Department of Homeland Security components, in a format that is easily understandable by the public.
Sec. 15. Reporting. Except as otherwise provided in this order, the Secretary, within 90 days of the date of this order, and the Attorney General, within 180 days, shall each submit to the President a report on the progress of the directives contained in this order.
Sec. 16. Hiring. The Office of Personnel Management shall take appropriate action as may be necessary to facilitate hiring personnel to implement this order.
Sec. 17. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or 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 shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) 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.
DONALD J. TRUMP
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 25, 2017.
How President Trump's spat with Mexico will crush Central American refugees
Publisher Amnesty International Author Erika Guevara-Rosas Publication Date 12 February 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, How President Trump's spat with Mexico will crush Central American refugees, 12 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a19056d.html [accessed 6 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.
Judging by the spat between US President Donald Trump and his Mexican counterpart, President Enrique Pena Nieto, over who will pay for the infamous wall to separate their countries, the two leaders could not be further apart.
But the two presidents have something in common: they are both ignoring the lives of the many men, women and children who are desperately fleeing some of the most violent countries on earth.
Trump's scandalous Executive Orders are already proving devastating for hundreds of thousands of refugees across the world. But it is Central Americans who are immediately affected by what has now turned into one of the largest human rights crises in the Americas.
You need only look at the fine print in President Trump's Executive Order on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements to see it.
The Order allows for migrants, many of them asylum seekers, to be detained as soon as they cross the US-Mexico border and to be immediately deported to Mexico. Many have endured unspeakable horrors in one of the most dangerous journeys on earth.
President Trump's proposed system violates the fundamental right not to be deported to a country where an individual would be at risk of suffering serious human rights violations, including torture or death.
Mexico simply does not have the resources to deal with what would turn into a new mass flow of deportees. Local authorities in border cities including Tijuana and Mexicali have already said they would not be able to provide adequate reception for high numbers of people being pushed back.
With no protection, migrants and refugees will be at immensely high risk of being kidnapped, suffering extortion, sexual violence or even death.
But even if President Trump's signature is the one adorning the Executive Orders, this crisis has many authors notably Mexico which has, for years, failed to protect some of the most vulnerable people escaping extreme violence as they pass over its territory.
Presidents Trump and Pena Nieto and the Presidents of the countries these people are fleeing from - claim that most of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children fleeing Central America are economic migrants, people who choose to leave their countries in search of a better life.
This could not be further from the truth.
El Salvador and Honduras are not at war in the sense that Syria is but they might as well be. The United Nations has ranked El Salvador as one of the deadliest countries on earth outside of a war zone, with more than 108 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015. In Honduras the rate was 63.75 per 100,000 inhabitants.
And it is not only the shocking homicide rates that make these countries virtual living hells for hundreds of thousands of people.
You only need to walk the streets of San Pedro Sula in Honduras or the Salvadoran capital San Salvador to see it. Beneath the apparent calm, entire communities are held hostage as ruthless rival armed gangs fight a bloody turf war.
Some groups mark their territory with wall paintings to dictate where locals can and can't go. Crossing the street to a rival gang's area could be a virtual death sentence.
The gangs impose "taxes" on local business owners and bus drivers. Refusal to comply with the rules brings a penalty of abuse or even death. The security forces, whose duty is to protect people, often collude with the gangs or turn a blind eye to their brutal reign of terror.
Faced with this Dantean scenario and with nowhere to run, it is no wonder that people are desperately fleeing north in growing numbers.
For Saul, being turned down by this cruel system meant facing an early and brutal death. The 35-year-old was gunned down by a gang in his native Honduras less than three weeks after he was deported from Mexico in July 2016 after his asylum application was rejected.
Saul fled the country in November 2015 after he survived a shooting along with his two sons, who were severely injured. The police failed to follow up on his report or offer him protection.
His wife and sons are now living in terror of what might happen to them, desperate to leave the country.
Federal judges in the USA might have temporarily stopped President Trump's Executive Order on travel bans and the global refugee programme. But, for the moment at least, the fine print on his Executive Order on Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements has seemingly gone unchallenged.
All countries are entitled to regulate the entry and residence of foreign nationals. However, closing the door to those desperately seeking safety is not only against basic international standards but utterly cruel.
Instead, the USA should have sufficient, appropriately located, secure, and regular crossing points at the Mexican border. They should train all security personnel working at the border to ensure they can identify and assist all individuals in need of international protection and allow them to enter the USA.
Presidents Trump and Pena Nieto's arguments about the wall must not become a smokescreen for the many other barriers that have already gone up to keep refugees from their dream of reaching safety.
This story was originally published in Al-Jazeera.com
Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International
Hungary stoops to new low with plan to round up asylum seekers in container camp
Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Hungary stoops to new low with plan to round up asylum seekers in container camp, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a190ec4.html [accessed 6 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 Hungarian government's announcement that it will detain all asylum seekers in containers near the border is yet another disturbing move in a pattern of demonizing this already very vulnerable group, Amnesty International said today.
The government will submit its proposal to Parliament which will then debate and vote on the measures within weeks. If adopted, it will be in clear contravention of EU law and the Refugee Convention.
"Rounding up all men, women and children seeking asylum and detaining them months on end in container camps is a new low in Hungary's race to the bottom on asylum seekers and refugees," said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for Europe.
Under the measure, all current and future asylum seekers would be transferred to container camps in a so-called "transit zone" near the border with Serbia, where they would be held for the duration of their asylum application process. Asylum appeals would by default be conducted with the asylum seeker attending only via video-link to a court rather than in person.
"By amending a raft of laws to lock up all asylum seekers, the Hungarian government will inflict unnecessary trauma, compounding what people seeking protection have already suffered. The government has in no way proven that the detention of each asylum seekers would be reasonable, necessary and proportionate. Detention should always be the last resort and not an immediate knee-jerk reaction as is the case here," said Gauri van Gulik.
"This is further evidence that the EU needs to stand firm on Hungary's flagrant disregard for European and International law."
Background
Currently, people seeking asylum cannot be detained in the so-called "transit zones" along Hungary's border with Serbia for more than four weeks, after which they must be allowed inside the country. The reform under consideration would remove that time limit and introduce mandatory detention for the whole duration of the asylum procedure.
Access to transit zones set up at the border with Serbia has already been severely restricted for NGOs and human rights monitors.
Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International
Disclaimer
This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
President Bashar al-Assad's response to Amnesty International report on Saydnaya
Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 10 February 2017 Related Document(s) Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison, Syria Cite as Amnesty International, President Bashar al-Assad's response to Amnesty International report on Saydnaya, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1921a4.html [accessed 6 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 President Bashar al-Assad's interview with Yahoo News in which he dismisses the findings of Amnesty International's recent report on mass hangings and extermination at Saydnaya military prison in Syria, the organization's Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, said:
"In his interview President Bashar al-Assad repeatedly attempts to discredit Amnesty International's findings. However, he admits he has not visited Saydnaya military prison and provides not a shred of information about the 'true' situation there.
"He acknowledges that executions take place in Syria, but fails to give any details whatsoever about the number carried out in Saydnaya or anywhere else in the country.
"If he has nothing to hide he must immediately grant access for international monitors to Saydnaya and all other places of detention in Syria. He must also reveal the truth about the number of executions taking place. Russia, which has also publicly dismissed the findings of the report should use its influence with the Syrian authorities to make this happen."
Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International
Russia: Court offers 'chink of light' in case brought by jailed protester Ildar Dadin
Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Russia: Court offers 'chink of light' in case brought by jailed protester Ildar Dadin, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a192b14.html [accessed 6 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.
This morning's Constitutional Court ruling in Saint Petersburg scaling back Russia's draconian rules on public protest offers a rare glimmer of hope for the right to peaceful assembly, Amnesty International said.
In the case brought by Ildar Dadin, a prisoner of conscience who is the first and so far only person thrown behind bars because of the law, the Court stated clearly that criminal liability of protesters should be based on harm caused, or the threat of such harm, rather than the mere fact of holding an 'unauthorized' peaceful gathering.
"This ruling represents a chink of light in an otherwise bleak outlook for the right to peaceful assembly in Russia. It sends a strong message to the authorities who have used this draconian legislation to persecute peaceful protesters like Ildar Dadin," said Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International.
The Court also required a review of Ildar Dadin's case. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights. The authorities must promptly conduct the review to ensure he is immediately and unconditionally released.
"While this is a step in the right direction, Russia's anti-protest laws remain chillingly harsh. We reiterate our call on the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Dadin and to ensure that nobody else is prosecuted solely for holding a peaceful protest," said Denis Krivosheev.
Background
Ildar Dadin's legal challenge questioned the constitutionality of Article 212.1 of Russia's Criminal Code. The Article was introduced in July 2014 to criminalize the repeated violation (more than three times within 180 days) of Russia's unduly restrictive rules governing public assemblies. This "crime" is punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.
A Moscow court applied the rule to sentence Ildar Dadin to three years' imprisonment on 7 December 2015 (reduced to two and a half years on appeal).
The Constitutional Court did not find the article to be unconstitutional but ruled that criminal punishment for these violations must be proportionate to the actual public danger caused by an offense. Furthermore, courts are now required to prove a person's criminal intent to commit such violations.
The Court called on Russian lawmakers to adjust the Criminal Code accordingly.
Ildar Dadin's first "violation" was for peacefully protesting - as a lone picketer - against the conviction of peaceful activists from Bolotnaya demonstration of 6 May 2012 in Moscow, for which he was detained and fined. He has since been either fined or detained on three more occasions for similar "offences".
On 1 November 2016, in a letter to his wife published on a news site, Ildar Dadin described the torture and other ill-treatment he was subjected to, including severe beatings and rape threats, in Segezha prison colony (Republic of Karelia), around 1,200 km north of Moscow. Since then, Ildar Dadin was moved to another prison colony in Southern Siberia, thousands of kilometres away from his home and family. This appears to be intended as a form of harassment for his complaints about torture and other ill-treatment.
Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International
Title Regulation (Eu) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (recast)
Publication Date 29 February 2013
Citation / Document Symbol OJ L. 180/31; 29.6.2013, (EU)2013/604
Other Languages / Attachments French
Cite as European Union: Council of the European Union, Regulation (Eu) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (recast), 29 February 2013, OJ L. 180/31; 29.6.2013, (EU)2013/604, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1ab0d4.html [accessed 6 November 2022]
How Thailand's junta uses lese-majeste charges to censor information
Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 11 February 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, How Thailand's junta uses lese-majeste charges to censor information, 11 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1b2d04.html [accessed 6 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.
Condemning yesterday's decision by a Thai court to put a young pro-democracy activist on trial for sharing a BBC profile of the new king on Facebook, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the authorities to stop using the lese-majeste law both to jail critics and to deter the media from covering the monarchy.
Student activist Jatupat "Pai" Boonpattararaksa has been held since 2 December for sharing the BBC's Thai-language profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who formally agreed to succeed his late father on 1 December. It detailed some of his past indiscretions and old lese-majeste cases.
As well as sharing the profile, Jatupat posted quotes from it. No charges have been brought against the BBC but Jatupat is accused of defaming the new king in violation of article 112 of the penal code and the Computer Crimes Act.
A judge refused to free him on bail on 27 December and extended his detention until yesterday, when he was formally indicted.
Jatupat was already known to the authorities as a pro-democracy activist and has been arrested in the past for taking part in anti-government demonstrations. There has been a great deal of comment on social networks about the decision to charge him with lese-majeste, with many seeing it as politically motivated.
"It is outrageous that an Internet user can be charged under the lese-majeste law just for sharing an article he did not write and for which the author, the BBC, is not being prosecuted," said Benjamin Ismail, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk.
"This blatant inconsistency fools no one. It is a dissuasive message with more than one target. Pro-democracy activists are being told that the regime can use its legislative arsenal to neutralize them at any time, while Internet users are being reminded that sensitive content critical of the regime will not be tolerated online.
"At the time, journalists and media are being warned that the regime is still monitoring content closely and that, if at any time they dare to defy the prevailing self-censorship, their courage could have dramatic consequences for their readers. We call for withdrawal of the charges against Jatupat and we reiterate our request for the repeal of article 112 of the penal code."
"Illegal" online content is punishable by imprisonment under several Thai laws including the Computer Crimes Act, which was used to prosecute the news website Phuketwan's journalists in 2013.
But journalists' biggest fear is being charged with lese-majeste (defaming the monarchy), which is publishable by 3 to 15 years in prison under article 112. It even makes them think twice about covering lese-majeste cases or searching online for lese-majeste-related terms.
When media outlets cover lese-majeste cases, they refrain from detailing the charges because that could also be regarded as an act of lese-majeste.
In a November 2015 report on the situation in Thailand, entitled "Media hounded by junta since 2014 coup," RSF urged the Thai authorities to stop using draconian legislation to gag critical and independent media, censor the Internet and spy on bloggers and anyone posting "critical" information on social networks.
Ranked 136th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index, Thailand has seen drastic curbs placed on media freedom since the military staged a coup in May 2014.
Free Anwar, arbitrarily imprisoned for two years
Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 10 February 2017 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Free Anwar, arbitrarily imprisoned for two years, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1b5f64.html [accessed 6 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.
Malaysian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, reinstate his right to run for political office, and award him compensation for the arbitrary deprivation of liberty to which he has been subjected, FIDH and its member organization Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) said today.
The two organizations make the call on the two-year anniversary of Anwar's latest imprisonment. Anwar is currently incarcerated in Sungai Buloh prison, Selangor State.
Anwar has been detained since 10 February 2015, when the Federal Court in Putrajaya upheld the Court of Appeals' decision to convict Anwar on charges of sodomy (Article 377 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced him to five years in prison. FIDH observed the Court of Appeals and the Federal Court's hearings of Anwar's trial and found that the proceedings failed to meet international standards for fair trials.
On 18 January 2017, the Court of Appeals ruled that Anwar has standing to petition the Federal Court to determine if he has the constitutional right to challenge the Pardons Board's decision to reject his request for clemency. A date for the case to be heard in the Federal Court has not been set.
Anwar's family filed a petition for a royal pardon to the Malaysian King on 24 February 2015. The request was rejected by the Pardons Board, which advises the King on candidates for clemency, on 16 March 2015. On 24 June 2015, Anwar and his family filed a legal challenge against the Pardons Board's decision. On 15 July 2016, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed Anwar's challenge.
If his bid to obtain clemency fails, Anwar is expected to be released by mid-2018, as a result of the Malaysian practice to grant a one-third reduction of jail terms to prisoners with good behavior. However, the conviction renders him ineligible to stand as a candidate in the next general election that must be held by 2018.
In an opinion issued on 1 September 2015, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) deemed Anwar's detention arbitrary. The UNWGAD called for Anwar's immediate release and for his political rights to be reinstated.
As long as Anwar remains incarcerated, FIDH and SUARAM reiterate their call for Malaysian authorities to guarantee him his prisoner rights - including the rights to receive adequate medical care in accordance with relevant international standards.
Title Preventing sexual violence initiative: shaping principles for global action to prevent and tackle stigma
Author Joanne Neenan
Publication Date January 2017
Citation / Document Symbol WP1508
Cite as United Kingdom: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Preventing sexual violence initiative: shaping principles for global action to prevent and tackle stigma, January 2017, WP1508, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1ba544.html [accessed 6 November 2022]
Comments Wilton Park reports are brief summaries of the main points and conclusions of a conference. The reports reflect rapporteurs personal interpretations of the proceedings as such they do not constitute any institutional policy of Wilton Park nor do they necessarily represent the views of the rapporteur.
Russia on the Verge of a 'Cyber Purge?'
Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Sergey Sukhankin Publication Date 9 February 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 16 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Russia on the Verge of a 'Cyber Purge?', 9 February 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 16, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1c16f4.html [accessed 6 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Link to original story on Jamestown website
The Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) adopted a new set of laws, on January 27, aiming to "protect critical infrastructure of the Russian Federation against hacker attacks" (Rosbalt.ru, Duma.gov.ru, January 27). Dmitry Shalkov, a top-ranking ultra-conservative official of the Federal Security Service (FSB) articulated the initiative before the Duma. He justified the need for new cyber infrastructure legislation on the basis of a growing number of cyberattacks against Russia's information resources. According to the official, in 2016 alone, Russia was subjected to 70 million cyberattacks targeting its critical IT infrastructure.
The adopted package of laws puts particular emphasis on the following points:
The main principles of protection of critical informational infrastructure of the Russian Federation;
The scope of power to be exercised by the state;
The bulk of rights and responsibilities of private IT companies.
Moreover, the laws have exponentially expanded the notion of "critical infrastructure," which has obtained a much more thorough definition that covers strategically vital branches such as electronics, energetics/energy economics, the healthcare system, transportation, mining, as well as the space, chemical and nuclear industries (Filearchive.cnews.ru, December 6, 2016). By and large, this means that from now on, the Russian state will be able to exercise even greater control over public and private entities employing IT technologies and infrastructure.
Consisting of three separate though tightly interrelated blocks of legislation, the adopted laws impose additional state controls over domestic cyberspace. This is done via the introduction of a roster of the most crucial objects of critical IT infrastructure. That list is to be additionally categorized in accordance with weight and importance. However, that information will be labelled "classified" (gosudarstvennaja tajna).
The Penal Code of the Russian Federation has been supplemented by Article No. 274.1, which concerns various types of "illegal activities" in the domain of Russian cyber security, with emphasis on "secret information" and "critical IT infrastructure of the Russian Federation." Infringement of this law will be punishable by imprisonment of up to ten years and a considerable financial fine (Rapsinews.ru, January 27).
The new cyber infrastructure protection initiative was hailed by most conservative forces serving in the Russian Duma, including former KGB agents, representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party. High-ranking Duma deputy Leonid Levin underscored that the initiative is particularly timely and fully complies with the country's recently adopted Information Security Doctrine (Emigrados.ru, January 27). During the discussion that followed ratification of these laws, lawmakers once again explicitly declared that the strategic goal of the Russian IT sector is to eliminate its dependence on external gadgets and technologies as a means to decrease the "foreign factor," diminish Russia's dependence on the external market, and optimize the work of domestic IT-sector producers (Scilla.ru, January 28).
A deeper and more comprehensive review of surrounding domestic circumstances shed additional light and provide a somewhat different prospective on the nature of these laws, however. On January 28, it was announced that Vladimir Anikeev (a.k.a. Lewis, the creator of the Shaltay Boltay international hacking group), Segey Mikhaylov (the head of the Center for Information Security division at the FSB), Dmitry Dokuchayev (Mikhaylov's deputy director) and Ruslan Stoyanov (a top manager at the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab) were accused of high treason. Incidentally, the arrests of these and several other persons were carried out between October 2016 and January 2017, but the details of their cases were kept secret by the authorities until now. Allegedly, these figures had provided foreign special services with valuable information pertaining to Russian cybersecurity. Later, charges put forth against Mikhaylov and Dokuchayev were specified: both are accused of alleged collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supplying the United States with information classified as "secret" (Rufabula.com, January 31).
Yet, these charges are being contested by external sources. According to cybersecurity experts at the UkrainianCyberAlliance (UCA), the aforementioned arrests should primarily be seen as the Russian state's retaliation for the so-called "SurkovLeaks" scandal. These alleged leaks of Vladislav Surkov's hacked e-mails dealt a severe blow to the reputation of the chief architect of the so-called "Russian Spring" and the notorious "Novorossiya project"political-informational-military initiatives that culminated in the unlawful Russian annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in southeastern Ukraine. Furthermore, the alleged hacking of Surkov's e-mail account (reportedly done by Shaltay Boltay and later exposed by Ukrainian hacker collective Cyber Hunta) implicated other powerful Russian elites in Moscow's surreptitious aggression against Ukraine. For example, "Orthodox oligarch" Konstantin Malofeev, who has been repeatedly accused of sponsoring Russian aggression in Ukraine and financing the activities of the so-called "rebels" in Donbas (eastern Ukraine), surfaced in the SurkovLeaks dump. Malofeev chairs the board of directors of the business group "Tsargrad" as well as the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation and is close to the Russian Orthodox Church. The leaked e-mails also cast a shadow on Russian far-right (and Kremlin-backed) philosopher Alexander Dugin (Cyberhunta.com, accessed February 6).
It appears that the "Surkov affair" was not only a huge embarrassment for Moscow, but in many ways also identified the Russian state's susceptibility to attack in the cyber domainhence the wave of arrests in recent months and the new cyber infrastructure legislation. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is also preparing to implement the notorious "Yarovaya Package" of laws (scheduled to go into effect in 2018), which will give Moscow greater control over the personal online information of Russian citizens as well as empower the authorities to label and prosecute critical online speech as "extremist" (see EDM, July 15, 2016). Taken together, it appears the Kremlin is preparing to undertake a great "cyber purge" that may change the entire architecture of relations between Russian IT companies and the state, leading to the establishment of full government control over this sector (UNIAN, January 26). Indeed, a number of well-known and highly esteemed domestic sources have confirmed this supposition, predicting visible cadre reshuffles in the near future, which are likely to affect the most powerful figures within Russia's cyber security architecture (Kommersant, January 13).
Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation
'Crawling Advance': A New Tactic of Ukrainian Troops in Donbas
Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Vladimir Socor Publication Date 9 February 2017 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, 'Crawling Advance': A New Tactic of Ukrainian Troops in Donbas, 9 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1c1e84.html [accessed 6 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 assault on the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka (January 28February 4) was a combined-arms operation by Russia's proxy forces, aiming to reverse the recent Ukrainian gains on the ground in a sector of key significance (see below) and, more broadly, to seize the initiative in the ongoing positional warfare. This proceeds in several sectors along and between demarcation lines.
Ukrainian forces have held the initiative for the last few months, using small-unit operations to push into "gray zones" that separate Ukrainian positions from those of the "Donetsk people's republic's" (DPR) forces. Since last autumn, Ukrainian forces have regained small but valuable portions of territory which the Minsk armistice had left under Ukrainian control, but which were subsequently seized by Russian-DPR forces with impunity.
Ukrainian commentators describe the pushback to recover the lost ground as "creeping [crawling] advances." The term denotes the crawling tempo of these Ukrainian operationsit can take weeks to advance a few hundred meters in a given sectorand the tactic of enveloping enemy positions with small Ukrainian units in a noose-tightening process ("anaconda tactic"). These operations' inconspicuous character has kept them out of the media's limelight (until the Avdiivka battle). Specialized commentators in Kyiv (such as Dmytro Tymchuk, Yurii Butusov, Kostyantin Mashovets and Oleksandr Motuzyanik), however, regard the "crawling advances" as a new chapter in this conflict and a reflection on the Ukrainian forces' capacity to plan and execute challenging operations (Sprotiv.info, Tsenzor.net, Info.napalm, January 28February 8; RFE/RL, January 30).
Those are purely tactical operations within the paradigm of positional warfare on a sector-by-sector basis. Whether the local crawling advances are subsumed into a strategic design is unclear. But they do seem to correspond to a common denominator. Ukrainian units in each case seek to improve their defensive positions against possible attack by massed hostile forces. By the same token, the Ukrainians seek to occupy favorable jumping-off locations for possible offensive action. They aim to seizeor position themselves for possibly seizingkey sections of highways, railroads or junctions thereof, electricity and heating plants, water reservoirs, or dominant hills, preferably on the outskirts of DPR-controlled towns.
These moves are certainly not intended to reopen all-out hostilities against superior adversary forces. The more likely intent is, first, to improve Ukraine's defensive resilience against a possible hostile invasion/incursion across the demarcation line, as Ukraine has repeatedly experienced. Equally, they appear designed to improve Ukraine's bargaining position in the eventwhich many in Kyiv fear, rightly or wronglythat Western powers might pressure Kyiv into a political-territorial accommodation with the Moscow-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk.
The first known (but hardly publicized) "crawling advance" seems to have occurred in October 2016, when Ukrainian troops gained control of the Svitlodar strip, north of Debaltseve. In December 2016, the Ukrainians moved further into the town of Novoluhanske, six kilometers from the railway and highway junction of Debaltseve (the main Donetsk-Luhansk connecting link), which Russian regular forces captured from the Ukrainians in 2015 (see below). By the end of 2016 and in early January 2017, Ukrainian troops gained one or two more kilometers in several sectors, edging closer to the outskirts of the DPR-controlled towns Horlivka and Yasynuvata (parts of the wider Donetsk agglomeration) as well as half-encircling Dokuchaeve (farther south). And from their long-held Avdiivka stronghold, Ukrainian troops edged southward to the village Spartak, three kilometers from the Donetsk city line. They also edged eastward from Avdiivka, poised to interdict the Donetsk-Horlivka highway and even the Yasynuvata highway and railroad junctions (Tsenzor.net, Sprotyv.info, Info.napalm, January 28February 8).
Ukrainian troops carefully avoid any move that might be interpreted as intending to cross the Minsk One armistice line (September 19, 2014). Kyiv recognizes this line, not the subsequent changes. Russian and proxy forces breached that line massively in two stages, seizing territories that the Minsk One armistice had left under Ukrainian control. The first stage of land-grabs unfolded in the winter of 20142015, as Russia supplied overwhelming firepower, compelling Ukraine to request another armistice. Minsk Two (February 12, 2015), officially purporting to implement Minsk One, did the opposite: Russian and proxy land-grabs in breach of Minsk One were ratified by Minsk Two. And within days of the Minsk Two armistice, Russian forces seized a large Ukrainian-held salient, including Debaltseve (see above), which Minsk Two had left under Ukrainian control. Germany and France, purported guarantors of the armistice, kept silent (see EDM, February 14, 19, 20, 2015).
Ukraine takes the position that the Minsk One armistice line is the only valid line, and therefore the only acceptable reference in terms of disengaging military forces on either side. If the Minsk Two demarcation lineindeed the Russian-breached Minsk Two lineis taken as the basis for a disengagement of forces, then Russian-supplied heavy firepower would threaten to reach more deeply into Ukrainian-held territory, adding to Russia's capacity for coercion. On these and other grounds, Kyiv aims to reinstate the Minsk One demarcation line. Ukraine has reasserted this position in the Minsk Contact Group's meetings, including the latest (Ukrinform, February 1).
The Minsk One line has validity as a military arrangement in the field: one that was negotiated, officially recognized, never abrogated, and guaranteed (if only on paper) by the top leaders of the "Normandy" powers (see above). This does not imply that the demarcation line has legal validity. The Minsk One and Two documents have no legal force (it is Russia that seeks to turn their political provisions into legal obligations of Ukraine). For its part, Ukraine is determined to have the Minsk One demarcation line reinstated. This means that Ukrainian forces have no intention of crossing that line. It also means that Ukraine is fully justified to recover ground in the gray zone, between the Minsk One and Minsk Two lines, as it has done recently through "crawling advance" tactics.
Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Armenia: Is Concern About Domestic Violence a Liberal Value?
Publisher EurasiaNet Author Gayane Abrahamyan Publication Date 9 February 2017 Cite as EurasiaNet, Armenia: Is Concern About Domestic Violence a Liberal Value?, 9 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1c34c4.html [accessed 6 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.
Legislation aimed at preventing domestic violence in Armenia has been scuttled after opponents charged that it is a European attempt to undermine traditional Armenian values.
The draft law, titled "Prevention of and the Struggle against Domestic Violence" was published in November on the website of the Ministry of Justice. The bill would have strengthened laws against domestic violence, and created mechanisms aimed at preventing it, as well as services for its victims. It was introduced as part of a European Union program, under which Armenia would be eligible for 11 million euros in aid, contingent on the country passing a law on domestic violence.
After an immediate outcry, the ministry withdrew the bill the next day, and promised to organize public discussions and elicit citizens' feedback on the legislation.
"If we think that the Europeans woke up one day and became all of sudden very concerned about Armenian women, then we are gravely mistaken," Arman Boshian, founder of the Pan-Armenian Parents' Committee, said at a press conference. Boshian claimed that the bill was a "very dangerous" European attack on Armenian family values.
"The problem is that the issue of domestic violence is more pronounced in Europe. The main aim of the project is the penetration into family, and shattering the traditional roots of our families." The legislation "introduces direct mechanisms for taking children away from families," he added.
Supporters of the law, meanwhile, argue that many outspoken opponents of the bill have links to the Russian government, and are, in effect, complicit in a campaign to extend Russian influence across Eurasia.
"The majority of those speaking out against the law, as well as the majority of the media outlets who oppose the law, are clearly pro-Russia, many of them receive grants from Russia," said Daniel Ioanisian, the head of the Union of Informed Citizens, a pro-Western think tank in Yerevan.
The Union produced a report in December linking Armenian organizations opposing the domestic violence bill, including the Pan-Armenian Parents' Committee, to the Russian government. "This merely serves as a convenient pretext to boost anti-European sentiments within the wider public, as it is known that family and children remain the sensitive points of our society," Ioanisian said.
Russia's parliament recently voted to soften laws against domestic violence. And over the past several years, Russia has pushed a socially conservative agenda in its soft power efforts, arguing that liberal social movements like gay rights are Western ideas foreign to the Eurasian mentality. That idea has been taken up, whether with or without Russian support, across the former Soviet space, not least in Armenia.
"The themes of domestic violence and gender equality are instruments that certain groups in the society, as well as some authorities, use to divert public attention from real social issues and depict the Western democratic values as degenerate," said Lara Aharonian, the director of the Women's Resource Center and a women's rights activist in Yerevan.
About 60 percent of Armenian women reported that they had suffered from domestic violence at least once in their lives, according to a 2011 survey conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In the last seven years, 30 women were murdered in cases of domestic violence; in seven of those cases, the murder took place with children present, according to the advocacy group Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
The Armenian government has disputed claims that the law would take children away from families; the legislation does not in fact address child custody, which is already dealt with in other parts of Armenian law.
"This is clear disinformation; the law has nothing to do with taking children away from their families: to the contrary, it stipulates a clear mechanism for protecting children's rights and preventing domestic violence. This is what is missing today; often the police lack the ability to exercise any preventive measures," said Bagrat Ghazinian, an adviser to the Minster of Justice, in an interview with EurasiaNet.
This is not the first time Armenian social issues have gotten caught up in geopolitics. In 2013, a contentious public debate erupted about a so-called "Gender Equality Law," with opponents painting the law as a European promotion of non-traditional gender roles. That debate got enmeshed in a separate debate about whether to sign an association agreement with the European Union, or to instead join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Ultimately, the gender bill was passed albeit with a different name, which excluded the word "gender" and Armenia opted for the Eurasian Union.
The same year, after a strong public backlash against raising prices on transportation, the speaker of Armenia's parliament, Galust Sahakian, called on protesters "to struggle against the gay rights agenda, instead of the price hike."
In 2013, "the wave of misrepresentation of European values began," said Styopa Safarian, a political analyst and the head of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs. "Those events were carefully exploited by certain groups in order to equate European values with gender and LGBT issues, and to sabotage the signing of the association agreement," Safarian said.
"During those days, pro-Russian circles were actively involved in that propaganda; they were arguing that by signing the Association Agreement we would be accepting gay rights, and organizations that were dealing with women issues were deliberately targeted," Safarian added.
That pattern has repeated itself with the current debate, said Karine Achemian, an MP from the ruling Republican Party, in an interview with EurasiaNet.org. "The impression I drew from discussions in parliament was that many members weren't concerned about supporting the victims of domestic violence, but in accusing one another," Achemian said. "This has turned into a struggle between pro-Russian and pro-European forces. The same happened in 2013 during the discussions of the law on Gender Equality, when, instead, we should have focused on the law and creating real mechanisms for supporting the families."
Copyright notice: All EurasiaNet material Open Society Institute
Georgia: Protecting an Ancient Alphabet in a Digital Age
Publisher EurasiaNet Author Monica Ellena Publication Date 10 February 2017 Other Languages / Attachments Russian Cite as EurasiaNet, Georgia: Protecting an Ancient Alphabet in a Digital Age, 10 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1c3924.html [accessed 6 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.
Dato Dolidze's fingers move slowly on the old handset as he writes a text message to his son.
"My phone only has the Latin alphabet, so every time I text I need to translate the Georgian letters into the Latin. It's a pain," says the 50-something orange vendor at a Tbilisi vegetable market.
While newer smartphones enable the use of the Georgian alphabet, many in Georgia where the average wage is $333 a month are, like Dolidze, stuck with cheaper, older phones.
Georgia's unique alphabet is one of the unintended casualties of such digital compromises.
The curvy Georgian alphabet has seduced scholars and calligraphers for centuries, most recently the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Last December, UNESCO included the Georgian alphabet in the organization's register of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity .
Georgian in fact features three scripts the mkhedruli, the one commonly used today, and the ancient asomtavruli and nushkhuri, used mainly in religious scripts, and in most ancient documents. The three scripts, UNESCO wrote in its citation, "coexist thanks to their different functions, reflecting an aspect of Georgia's diverse cultural identity."
The Georgian alphabet is hardly in imminent danger. But it is a linguistic underdog, used only for Georgian and related languages in Georgia like Mingrelian and Svan, spoken by about 3.7 million people, or 0.06 percent of the world population. And with minor languages around the world dying at the rate of one every 14 days, some in Georgia are trying to make sure their language or alphabet is preserved for the long haul.
"Minor languages are particularly vulnerable today thus need protection," says Nino Doborjginidze, who heads the Institute of Linguistic Studies at Tbilisi's Ilia Chavchavadze State University. "A lack of technology development for such languages, including Georgian, in turn, impedes international dissemination of valuable Georgian-language data surviving in different media, oral, manuscript and printed."
Of the 7,100 languages currently in use worldwide, only 500 are used online while only 348 are supported by Google, the world's leading search engine, according to a UNESCO report published in 2015. And even many of those languages that do make it on the Internet have limitations: Georgian, for example, is represented by only a single font on Microsoft Word.
As a result of Georgia's limited online reach, Latin script is often used instead. Retail companies as well as service providers, for example, tend to use the Latin alphabet in their promotional texts. "25% p'asdaklebas akhal ch'amosvlis" instead of "25% " (25% off on new arrivals).
Private initiatives have emerged to bolster Georgia's web presence. In 2015, industrial designer Zviad Tsikolia teamed up with Georgia's largest lender, TBC Bank, and launched the contest #WriteinGeorgian, calling on volunteers' creativity to create new styles for the alphabetic characters. Georgians responded enthusiastically, with 160 new fonts submitted in five weeks.
"Our language and our alphabet is our heritage; it is a treasure that needs to be not only protected but also kept alive and updated," explains Tsikolia, 45, a staunch advocate of using the Georgian script in day-to-day digital communication. "The world is becoming increasingly digital, and our characters must be able to evolve and adapt to a reality that is no longer just on paper."
By March, all the fonts will be available on the contest's website for open-source download, Tsikolia said. "The future is glocal, global citizens who value national traditions," notes Tsikolia. "Switching to the Georgian keyboard takes two seconds, but many people cannot be bothered even to do that," Tsikolia says.
Neighboring Armenia faces similar challenges, as it also has a unique language with an alphabet used solely for Armenian.
"Transliteration is common, especially among the vast diaspora, but not only," explains Gegham Vardanyan, editor-in-chief of the media discussion platform media.am. "It is not only the Latin script, Armenians in Russia will communicate in Armenian using the Cyrillic script. The result is just bizarre, often you just cannot understand it."
As in Georgia, enthusiasts have taken the initiative. Zohrab Yeganyan, press officer at Armenia's human rights ombudsman, grew tired of seeing Armenian ill-treated on the web and vented on his Facebook page. "Let's make February 7 the day to write Armenian on the Internet," he wrote in a 2012 post. The response was overwhelming, both in Armenia and among the diaspora.
"There were people who only spoke Armenian and decided to learn how to write in Armenian, starting with posts on social networks," Yeganyan told EurasiaNet from Yerevan. Yeganyan said that while the Armenian government has been relatively inactive in supporting the alphabet, there are signs that the private sphere is increasingly embracing it. "Recently one mobile company started sending texts to its customers in the Armenian script, switching from the Latin alphabet," he said.
The popular push has supported the national scripts to become fashionable again, Yeganyan argues, as people have grown to realize that their particular alphabets are uniquely suited to represent the sounds of their language.
"Transliteration is no longer trendy," says Yeganyan. Nowadays, he says, "it is often used to ridicule something or someone."
Copyright notice: All EurasiaNet material Open Society Institute
Turkmenistan: Election Spectacle Hides Disturbing Economic Decline
Publisher EurasiaNet Publication Date 13 February 2017 Other Languages / Attachments Russian Cite as EurasiaNet, Turkmenistan: Election Spectacle Hides Disturbing Economic Decline, 13 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1c5114.html [accessed 6 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.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov Turkmenistan's car-racing, horse-riding, operation-performing, book-publishing and singing-songwriting president clearly likes to put on a show.
But few spectacles would seem as pointless as the upcoming presidential election that would extend Berdymukhamedov's time in office. After all, Berdymukhamedov's regime is widely considered one of the most repressive on earth. On the surface, his power appears so absolute that he has been able to turn groveling by bureaucrats into a new form of performance art.
All is not well in Berdymukhamedov's world, however. What watchers of the region describe as the sham vote coming up on February 12 is masking some worrying and unpleasant realities for the government.
"The election takes place at a time of an unprecedented economic crisis. The regime's failure to acknowledge this crisis while staging the election is exactly what makes the vote distinctive another step towards the collapse of the state," Luca Anceschi, a lecturer in Central Asian Studies at the University of Glasgow, told EurasiaNet.org.
Turkmenistan's level of isolation is such that it is difficult to make precise evaluations about how badly the economy has been hit by the falling global prices for energy and, more recently, the loss of two important buyers of natural gas exports Russia and Iran.
Even the International Monetary Fund, which tends to accept much of Ashgabat's official data at face value in its official reports, returned some sobering assessments in December.
"Hydrocarbon prices remain low and trading partner growth is muted. As a result of these external factors, Turkmenistan's overall economic growth has slowed down," the IMF said in a statement following a visit to the country by one of its missions.
State television had to admit as much in early February when it announced that the economic growth rate slowed down to 6.2 percent in 2016, from 6.5 percent the previous year. Such boasts are considered broadly unreliable and the real scale of the slowdown is almost certainly much greater.
"The severity of the economic crisis is incredible. There are food shortages and the government reportedly banned private fishing. We know that Central Asia's population tends to be resilient, but Turkmenistan is fast approaching the point of no return. It is hard to imagine a prosperous future for a gas state receiving little to no revenues for its energy exports," Anceschi said.
Berdymukhamedov has spent his time during the ostensible election campaign avoiding all references to the crisis. Instead, he has stuck to his trademark public-relations stunts.
A recent one that earned him much coverage in the Russian-language press, as well as in Britain's Guardian newspaper, was a musical performance in front of gas-sector workers. As a state television report late last month showed, the workers first staged their own sing-song on a woefully out-of-tune guitar. But the president later took over the show, singing a ditty of his own composition, and strumming along on a now-perfectly tuned instrument as the workers cheerfully clapped along.
And there was more.
"Participants in this event were surprised to learn that the head of state was preparing to make a gift to women for International Women's Day [on March 8] by writing a few new songs," the state news agency reported.
Such actions are all part of a well-established pattern of myth-making. In the early years of his rule, Berdymukhamedov, who came to power in 2006, was routinely depicted in action poses, such as riding a horse, or winning car races. The intent was in part to strike a contrast with the indulgent image exuded by his erratic predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov, who supposedly died of heart failure in December 2006. In a demonstration of his hands-on skills, Berdymukhamedov in 2009 also reportedly performed an operation to remove a tumor from behind a patient's ear.
Again trying to burnish his benevolent image, state media in late January carried reports of Berdymukhamedov visiting the Ahal region to hand out gifts to locals, including television sets. While such stunts are not officially recognized as campaigning, the timing is clearly significant.
While the sheer pervasiveness of the police state means that no one will openly grumble, some media outlets, in particular Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Turkmenistan service, Radio Azatlyk, have managed to document the consequences of the economic downturn.
Basic groceries like cooking oil and sugar have become hard to find in many shops, including in the capital. And scarcity has driven up the prices of what is available, like bread and meat.
This has prompted authorities in recent days to take more robust action to contain prices, according to a Radio Azatlyk report on February 6.
"Already for several days in a row, workers from the tax service, the city administration and trading organizations have been going around markets, forcing traders to sell their wares at set and lower prices," one anonymous market trader at an Ashgabat bazaar told Radio Azatlyk.
Shortages of goods and hard cash have prompted the authorities to think of ever more draconian mechanisms to keep information from leaking out. Internet providers appear to be implementing steps to prevent the proper functioning of VPNs, which enable Internet users in repressive nations to circumvent blocks on certain websites.
And the few reporters who have been willing to risk doing their job have been targeted for criminal prosecutions.
Independent reporter Khudayberdy Allashov, for example, was detained together with his wife and mother by police in the Dashoguz region on December 3 on suspicion of possessing chewing tobacco an illegal offense in Turkmenistan. It has been alleged Allashov was later tortured and forced to confess to possessing 11 kilograms of chewing tobacco. Nothing has been heard of the reporter, whose work focused on food shortages among other things, for more than two months.
As befits a spectacle, authorities are seeking to create the illusion of a competitive vote by allowing, for the first time, the inclusion of representatives from non-government parties among the nine candidates. Given the circumstances, it is unlikely the outcome will be much different from the 2012 vote, in which Berdymukhamedov won 97 percent of the vote.
"Turkmenistan has never held a free and fair election and this one is no exception," Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Genuine elections are impossible where authorities maintain tight control over all aspects of public life."
Copyright notice: All EurasiaNet material Open Society Institute
Egypt: A year after Regeni's death, still no justice or steps to end torture in Egypt
Publisher World Organisation Against Torture Publication Date 25 January 2017 Cite as World Organisation Against Torture, Egypt: A year after Regeni's death, still no justice or steps to end torture in Egypt, 25 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1c7a14.html [accessed 6 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.
On the first anniversary of the death of Italian student Giulio Regeni, Egypt still has not brought before justice those responsible for his enforced disappearance, torture and killing.
It has also been two years since Egypt - now a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council - has committed before the international community to bring its instruments for the prevention of torture in compliance with international standards. Yet the country has to this day shown no sign of wanting to effectively fight against torture.
Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD candidate at Cambridge University conducting his research on labour rights and independent trade unions in Egypt, disappeared in the outskirts of Cairo on 25 January 2016. His body, found nine days after in a ditch, showed signs of severe torture. The investigation into his case has so far lacked independence and effectiveness, for it followed a number of false tracks, observers have said[1]. Moreover, Regeni's death is only the tip of the iceberg of widespread human rights violations happening in the country, where an average of three to four people are disappeared and tortured every day, according to recent reports[2].
"This is a sad anniversary that reminds us that it is time for Egyptian authorities to hold their word and finally put into practice their commitments to the eradication of torture in the country," declared Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General.
In March 2015, Egypt agreed before the UN Human Rights Council to follow four main recommendations coming from the country's Universal Periodic Review to strengthen the fight against torture. The Egyptian Government, however, has not yet ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), still has not submitted a report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) since 2002, while it is supposed to submit one every four years. Nor has Egypt issued an open and standing invitation to the Special Rapporteur on Torture nor brought the definition of the crime of torture in its Penal Code in line with the definition contained in Article 1(1) of the Convention Against Torture.
Instead, throughout the past two years, the Egyptian authorities have been undermining any attempt to effectively fight torture in the country. This included criminalizing three members of the "United Group - Attorneys-at-law, Legal Advisors"[3], for presenting before the Egyptian authorities a bill for the prevention of torture and advocating for its adoption in order to bring the national legislation in compliance with international standards.
Moreover, a local organization, the "El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture and Violence", has been subjected to threats of closure, assets freezing and administrative harassment for conducting activities beyond its victims' assistance mandate, such as producing torture reports and statistics.[4]
Despite all this, Egypt was last year awarded a seat on the Human Rights Council until 2020. The council is made of 47 Member States, elected based on candidates' "contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard".
About the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
OMCT is short for the World Organisation Against Torture - in French, as the organization created in 1985 is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. OMCT works for, with and through an international coalition of over 200 non-governmental organizations - the SOS-Torture network - fighting torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and all other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment in the world.
For more information, please visit: www.omct.org
For our latest campaign #HumansAgainstTorture: www.joinhat.org.
Follow #OMCT30Forum this week and read us online: Twitter, Facebook,
https://vimeo.com/omct, Instagram.
For information on this press release, please contact Human Rights Officer Chiara Cosentino ([email protected]) or Lori Brumat, OMCT Head of Communications ([email protected]).
[1] The Guardian, Who murdered Giulio Regeni?, 4 October 2016, available at
[2] Amnesty International Report, Egypt: 'Officially, you do not exist' - Disappeared and tortured in the name of counter-terrorism..
[3] For more information, see the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders' Urgent Appeal.
[4] For more information, see the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders' Urgent Appeal..
Copyright notice: OMCT
Amid unprecedented needs, UN and partners launch $1.6 billion aid appeal for South Sudan
Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Amid unprecedented needs, UN and partners launch $1.6 billion aid appeal for South Sudan, 13 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58a1cb3440c.html [accessed 6 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 February 2017 - Against the backdrop of dramatic' deterioration of the humanitarian situation in South Sudan due to the combination of conflict, economic decline and climatic shocks, the United Nations and relief organizations have appealed for $1.6 billion to provide life-saving assistance and protection to 5.8 million people across the country.
We are facing unprecedented needs, in an unprecedented number of locations, and these needs will increase during the upcoming lean season, said Eugene Owusu, the Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan in a news release issued by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Humanitarian organizations estimate that some 7.5 million people across South Sudan are now in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, including some 3.4 million people who had been forced to flee their homes since conflict began in December 2013.
While disturbing accounts of violence and atrocities, including sexual violence, continue to be reported, food insecurity and malnutrition have skyrocketed. Furthermore, the risk of famine looms over thousands of people in conflict-affected communities and food deficit areas.
With needs rising rapidly, we have rigorously prioritized the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan to target those who most urgently require assistance and protection, added Mr. Owusu.
Under the Plan, 137 aid organizations, including 62 non-governmental organizations (an increase of 55 per cent over the number in 2016) aim to respond to the most urgent life-threatening needs of the target population. The objectives include:
Saving lives and alleviating the suffering of those most in need of assistance and protection
Protecting the rights and upholding the dignity of the most vulnerable
Supporting at-risk communities to sustain their capacity to cope with significant threats
Swift action during the dry season essential
According to OCHA, delivering supplies in the country depends, in a large part, on good weather conditions.
Humanitarian organizations strive to maximize the window of opportunity provided by the dry season to deliver supplies by road. Once rain set in usually in May most roads become impassable and supplies must be delivered by air, multiplying the cost of the humanitarian operation, which is one of the largest and most complex in the world.
It is imperative that this appeal is funded early, and funded fully, so that the aid workers deployed across South Sudan can respond robustly and rapidly, said Mr. Owusu.
I appeal to the international community, which has given so generously to this young country, to support us now. If we fail to act swiftly, lives may be lost.
a) training, equipment and support to the Libyan national coast guard and other relevant agencies. Complementary EU training programmes must be rapidly stepped up, both in intensity and numbers, starting with those already undertaken by Operation SOPHIA and building on its experience. Funding and planning for these activities needs to be made sustainable and predictable, including through the Seahorse Mediterranean Network;
b) further efforts to disrupt the business model of smugglers through enhanced operational action, within an integrated approach involving Libya and other countries on the route and relevant international partners, engaged Member States, CSDP missions and operations, Europol and the European Border and Coast Guard;
c) supporting where possible the development of local communities in Libya, especially in coastal areas and at Libyan land borders on the migratory routes, to improve their socio-economic situation and enhance their resilience as host communities;
d) seeking to ensure adequate reception capacities and conditions in Libya for migrants, together with the UNHCR and IOM;
e) supporting IOM in significantly stepping up assisted voluntary return activities;
f) enhancing information campaigns and outreach addressed at migrants in Libya and countries of origin and transit, in cooperation with local actors and international organisations, particularly to counter the smugglers' business model;
g) helping to reduce the pressure on Libya's land borders, working both with the Libyan authorities and all neighbours of Libya, including by supporting projects enhancing their border management capacity;
h) keeping track of alternative routes and possible diversion of smugglers' activities, through cooperative efforts with Libya's neighbours and the countries under the Partnership Framework, with the support of Member States and all relevant EU agencies and by making available all necessary surveillance instruments;
i) continuing support to efforts and initiatives from individual Member States directly engaged with Libya; in this respect, the EU welcomes and is ready to support Italy in its implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding signed on 2 February 2017 by the Italian Authorities and Chairman of the Presidential Council al-Serraj;
j) deepening dialogue and cooperation on migration with all countries neighbouring Libya, including better operational cooperation with Member States and the European Border and Coast Guard on preventing departures and managing returns.
Denver, CO -- (ReleaseWire) -- 02/13/2017 --"President Trump's current criticism of federal judges, while unwarranted, is refreshing because the media takes a hands-off approach in dealing with wrongdoing by federal judges and prosecutors, even when there is irrefutable evidence," says Lamont Banks, Executive Director of A Just Cause. Today, A Just Cause presents an opinion by Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch where he reversed and remanded a criminal case on the same legal grounds his 10th Circuit peers, trial judge Christine M. Arguello, U.S. Attorney John Walsh and federal prosecutor Matthew T. Kirsch, disregarded to uphold the wrongful conviction in the IRP6 case (Dist. Colo. no. 09-cr-00266-CMA), which is the subject of a judicial complaint (http://bit.ly/2ba9827) and a letter (http://bit.ly/2b06Rpm) to Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts.
In the 2014 10th Circuit case (No. 13-1363), Gorsuch found that when both the federal prosecutor and trial judge misstates the law, it warrants reversal. Gorsuch stated the following in his opinion:
"The transcript of the hearing shows the government misstating the law. The transcript then shows the court signaling its agreement with the government's mistaken view of the law. After that, however, the transcript never shows the government or the district court disavowing the error...But even if the government isn't willing to correct the error it invited, this court retains power to do so under its authority to address plain but unpreserved errors...But we can think of few things that affect an individual's substantial rights or the public's perception of the fairness and integrity of the judicial process more than a reasonable probability an individual will linger longer in prison than the law demands because of an obvious judicial mistake."
In the IRP6 case, trial transcripts show Kirsch intentionally misstated the law, specifically Rule 16(b)(1)(C) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which states: "The defendant must, at the government's request, give to the government a written summary of any testimony that the defendant intends to use...at trial, IF (and only if) -- the defendant requests disclosure of the government and the government complies." Congressional judiciary committees make it clear in their Rule 16(b)(1)(C) advisory notes that the disclosure of expert summaries are "defense triggered" and stress that defendants are not required to turn over written summaries unless they first make a request for written summaries of government experts and the government provides them to the defense. However, Kirsch, absent any "defense triggered" requests from the IRP6 defendants, argued to Judge Arguello that he was still entitled to defense expert witness summaries and asked Judge Arguello to exclude defense experts from testifying for failing to comply with Rule 16. Judge Arguello agreed with the government's misstatement of Rule 16, issued a ruling based using the government's false representation,s and improperly excluded the expert witnesses in violation the IRP6's 6th Amendment constitutional right to present witnesses in their favor. Shockingly, when the case was appealed to the 10th Circuit, three of Gorsuch's colleagues (Judges Bobby Baldock, Harris Hartz & Jerome Holmes) used the same Rule 16 misrepresentations in their August 2014 opinion (10th Cir. case no. 11-1487), concluding that Judge Arguello didn't abuse her discretion or violate the IRP6's 6th Amendment rights when she misstated the law and wrongly excluded the expert witnesses. Judges are presumed to know the law and it is completely unreasonable to conclude that Kirsch, Judge Arguello and the highly-experienced and reputed 10th Circuit judges Baldock, Hartz and Holmes did not know or understand Rule 16(b)(1)(C) or their requirement to reverse the conviction. The only rational conclusion is that these officials acted intentionally and maliciously to violate the law and the constitutional rights of the IRP6.
It is telling and worth mentioning that Judge Holmes, in writing the 10th Circuit opinion, didn't cite the entire Rule 16(b)(1(C) statute but only the first half that benefits the government's argument, stating that the defendant "must, at the government's request, give to the government a written summary of any testimony that the defendant intends to use...at trial." Judge Holmes conveniently eliminated the second half of the statute that cites the "defense triggered" condition upon which the government was entitled to receive the summaries, specifically that: "IF -- the defendant [first] requests disclosure of the government and the government complies" then the government is entitled to receive written summaries of defense experts.
The judicial complaint also discusses a gross 5th Amendment violation which has to be one of the worst constitutional transgressions in American history. The 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that "no person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..." but in the IRP case Judge Arguello threatened to terminate the pro se defendants defense if they did not agree to testify after a subpoenaed law enforcement witness failed to appear. Fearing their defense and their lives were in jeopardy, the pro se defendants huddled together and decided who would first testify and took the stand against their will. During cross-examination, the frustrated defendants interrupted Kirsch in front of the jury and complained to the judge they were forced to testify. Judge Arguello denied threatening the defendants but when the IRP6 requested the transcript, Judge Arguello refused, saying she could not remember what her "exact phrasing" was and speculated that her statements were not recorded because the court reporter's headphones may have fell off or the defendants were speaking too far from the microphone. Kirsch and his co-prosecutor, Suneeta Hazra, were present at the sidebar and heard Judge Arguello's statements but remained silent to benefit from Judge Arguello's coercion. The judicial complaint cites unambiguous 10th Circuit and Supreme Court law that required a reversal of the conviction which was ignored by the 10th Circuit panel, who, without the sidebar transcript, absurdly asserted the defendants voluntarily testified -- an unimaginable conclusion starkly contradicted by trial transcripts even without the missing sidebar portion -- contradictions discussed by former federal appeals judge H. Lee Sarokin at (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judge-h-lee-sarokin/the-case-of-the-missing-t_1_b_5340397.html).
None of the 10th Circuit judges, Judge Arguello or Kirsch has disavowed their mistake or taken responsibility for their violations of the law and the Constitution that resulted in the defendants not receiving a fair trial, not receiving a fair appeal and being wrongly imprisoned. Judge Andrew Hurwitz of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says it is not uncommon for federal judges to avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes or admit wrongdoing. "To err is human, but "to make a mistake and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it -- that's judicial," Hurwitz said in the June 9, 2014 Arizona Law Review. "Federal judges and prosecutors have been turned into infallible Gods by the mainstream media and many legislators who are so awestruck by their unbridled power are unwilling or scared to criticize or hold them accountable, even when there is undeniable proof they violated the constitutional rights of individual citizens," says Banks.
The February 8, 2017 Bloomberg Criminal Law Reporter (Vol. 100, No. 18, pp. 392-393) reported that Judge Gorsuch says he is willing to follow the law when he doesn't like the outcome and insists that courts "adhere strictly to the text of federal statutes" which his 10th Circuit peers failed to do in the IRP6 case. If Judge Gorsuch is to be the next Supreme Court justice, he should have the integrity, fidelity and commitment to the Constitution and rule of law to speak out and correct injustice wherever he sees it, even when it involves judicial colleagues within his own circuit.
"The malicious actions of Kirsch, Judges Arguello, Baldock, Hartz and Holmes deserves criticism from President Trump, the media and Judge Gorsuch, but it is unlikely to happen because the image of federal justice officials and other big government interests are valued more in America than the life and liberty of the IRP6 and the pain and suffering of them and their families," concludes Banks.
A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017
Note all articles are independently researched and written by myself. However, if you buy via one of the links it may be an affiliate and I may earn a small commission.
If you like the idea of some classic David Bowie vinyl albums in your collection, then you are in luck as some have just been reissued.
The albums hover around the mid-1970s, taking in Bowies rock into soul period. Specifically we are looking at Diamond Dogs, David Live, Young Americans, Station To Station and perhaps most interestingly of all, Live Nassau Coliseum 76, which was never an official release but was in the Station To Station box set of a couple of years back.
If you love Bowie and love vinyl, all these remastered vinyl albums really should be in your collection, with each essential in its own way. Although if you bought them all, the price would soon mount up.
Thats because the price of each is between 15.99 and 24.99, depending on your choice of disc. Not cheap, but if you are a fan, youll get so much enjoyment out of these gems.
Diamond Dogs at the Amazon website
David Live at the Amazon website
Young Americans at the Amazon website
Station To Station at the Amazon website
Live Nassau Coliseum 76 at the Amazon website
WASHINGTON Radio Free Asia (RFA) today announced the hiring of veteran journalist Min Lee Mitchell as its new Managing Director for East Asia. Mitchell will oversee RFAs four language services for Chinese audiences (Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese, and Uyghur) and its Korean Service, broadcasting into North Korea.
Min brings a great range of broadcasting expertise from her well-respected career as a reporter with Phoenix Television and Taiwanese media, said Libby Liu, President of RFA. Shell be a strong addition to RFAs news team leading our China and North Korea services. We are thrilled to have Min on board.
Im proud to join Radio Free Asias talented team of journalists, who do great work in some of the worlds most challenging media environments, Mitchell said. I look forward to working for an organization with such a critical mandate of bringing free press to closed societies across Asia.
As Managing Director for East Asia, Mitchell will work closely with the directors of five language services to manage the daily and long-term operations of RFA Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese, Uyghur, and Korean. She will focus on expanding the operations of these services to meet audience needs. Min reports to RFAs Vice President of Programming, Parameswaran Ponnudurai.
Prior to becoming RFAs Managing Director, Mitchell covered U.S. politics and global affairs as the Washington- and New York-based correspondent and news anchor for several major Chinese-language news organizations, including Hong Kongs Phoenix Satellite Television and Taiwan Television, where she served as the organizations D.C. bureau chief, and as a stringer for BBC Chinese News. In Taiwan, Mitchell also worked for Ming Sheng Daily News and as RFAs Taipei stringer, providing daily headline coverage of news events. A native of Taiwan, Mitchell received a BA in Russian language and literature from National Chengchi University in Taipei. Mitchell holds a masters degree in journalism from the University of Texas in Austin.
Acting president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party Kem Sokha (2nd R) walks past a portrait of Sam Rainsy, the former president of Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), at the CNRP headquarters in Phnom Penh, Feb. 12, 2017.
In an effort to preserve a cohesive political opposition, Sam Rainsy stepped down as president of Cambodias major opposition party this weekend.
The move comes as Prime Minister Hun Sen and the National Assembly threatened to enact new laws that would enable the government to dismantle the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).
On Saturday, Sam Rainsy announced his resignation as president of the CNRP on his Facebook page, where he criticized the National Assembly as a puppet parliament.
I need to protect the party, he said in the post. If I remain party president, the party will be dismantled, and then what would be the point?
Hun Sen is proposing an amendment to Cambodias law on political parties that seeks to bar anyone convicted in Cambodian courts from holding a political partys top office.The culprit law would also dissolve any party whose president is convicted of a crime and would enable the government to seize the partys property.
Cambodian courts are notorious for their lack of independence. Opposition politicians often find themselves before the courts on various charges, and Sam Rainsy is no exception.
He has been convicted in a number of cases brought before the Cambodian courts by Hun Sen or members of the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP), and has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest in a defamation case brought by former Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in 2008.
In September he was found guilty of defamation for claiming that Prime Minister Hun Sens social medial team had bought likes on Facebook from click farms abroad to increase the appearance of support.
In October, Hun Sen ordered police, immigration, and aviation authorities to "use all ways and means" to prevent the opposition leader from returning to the country, as Sam Rainsy has pledged to do before the countrys elections.
And in December, he was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for posting what authorities said was a fake government pledge to dissolve the Southeast Asian country's border with Vietnam.
Hun Sen has said that the law needs to be changed to rid Cambodian politics of any individual with culprit status.
We shall ban not just a few people, but we shall get rid of the whole slate so that they are deterred, he said.
Cambodias local elections are set for June 2017 and national elections are scheduled for 2018. In the disputed 2013 elections, the CPP lost 22 seats in its worst showing since 1998.
So what do we want?
Remaining at the top of the CNRP would not just threaten the party, but the country, Sam Rainsy said in his message.
If the CNRP is dismantled then it would destroy the whole nation and partys interest, he said So what do we want? We want the election because we want change through the electoral process.
CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann told RFA the party accepted Sam Rainsys resignation and agreed to have vice president Kem Sokha lead the party as interim president until a party congress chooses a new president. Kem Sokha has also recently been an acting president of the CNRP.
No matter what, Sam Rainsy is always in the hearts of the Cambodian people and the hearts of the party leaders, Yom Sovann said.
Independent political analyst Meas Nee described Sam Rainsys resignation as a smart move that could protect the party from disaster.
Having Kem Sokha lead the CNRP may not be a panacea, however, as he has legal issues of his own.
According to local media reports, the countrys Anti-Corruption Unit is investigating Kem Sokha for corruption over leaked audio recordings in which he is allegedly heard promising to buy property for a mistress.
Kem Sokha has neither confirmed nor denied that he is the man in the recordings, but he was sentenced to five months in prison last year for failing to present himself as a witness in the womans prostitution case. Although Kem Sokha eventually received a royal pardon at the request of Hun Sen, the case still hangs over his head.
While Hun Sen may have succeeded in getting Sam Rainsy to resign, he shows no signs of easing his legal campaign against anyone who speaks against him.
Hun Sens new attack
Hun Sen filed a lawsuit Monday against social and political commentator Kim Sok, demanding $500,000 in compensation for accusing the CPP of orchestrating the 2016 murder of popular political analyst Kem Ley.
First he accused the CPP of plotting the assassination and planning to rob power from the opposition party, said Ky Tech, the prime ministers attorney. The CPP cant stand for such an allegation.
During a speech inaugurating a bridge along the Cambodian-Chinese border in Kandal province, Hun Sen said Kim Sok was inciting social chaos and threatened him with jail and monetary forfeiture.
Maybe you will face two years in prison and have to pay all the money, Hun Sen said. Dont even say you dont have money. If you dont have the compensation money, we will confiscate your house and sell it.
Kem Ley was gunned down in broad daylight on July 10 when he stopped in a Star Mart convenience store beside a Caltex gas station in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
Though authorities charged a former soldier, identified as Oueth Ang, with the killing, many in Cambodia dont believe the governments story that Kem Ley was killed by the man over a debt. The accused killer has used the alias Chuop Samlap, which roughly translated means meet to kill.
Just days before he was gunned down, Kem Ley had discussed on an RFA Khmer Service call-in show a report by London-based Global Witness detailing the extent of the wealth of the family of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for 31 years.
Since the arrest, the investigation has apparently stalled, or is not being pursued as the Cambodian authorities have someone in custody.
Kim Sok denied the allegations, saying what he told RFA was a reflection what many Cambodians think.
A person who is speaking about the truth and wants justice is not a person who is creating social chaos, he said. A person who creates serious social chaos is a person who doesnt respect the law.
Reported by Leng Maly for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sarada Taing. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
Authorities in China's eastern province of Zhejiang have handed down prison sentences to two men for selling "banned" political books from Hong Kong, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party continues its campaign against any form of political dissent.
Dai Xuelin, social media editor at the Guangxi Normal University Press, was handed a five-year jail term by a court in Zhejiang's Ningbo city, while his business partner Zhang Xiaoxiong was jailed for three-and-a-half years, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported.
The pair had been found guilty by the court of "illegal business operations," and their conviction came as part of the same investigation that targeted the five Hong Kong booksellers linked to the now-shuttered Causeway Bay Books store and its Mighty Current publishing imprint, the paper said.
The sentences were handed down earlier this month after a secret trial found that they had bought Hong Kong-published books not authorized for sale across the internal border in mainland China.
A source close to the business told RFA that the pair had been traveling to Hong Kong to buy the books directly, and had been targeted by a nationwide police investigation that questioned "large numbers" of people.
"This is all part and parcel of the Causeway Bay Books case, which has become a really big case now, and the authorities are in the middle of strike hard campaign against it, involving both customs and police," the source said.
"It's bad enough just selling these books privately, among friends, but doing it in bulk is bound to meet with a harsh response," he said.
One person contacted by RFA confirmed he was questioned as part of the investigation, but declined to comment on the case, citing "huge pressure."
'Huge pressure'
An employee who answered the phone at the Guangxi Normal University Press asked for questions to be e-mailed, but no response was made to the e-mail on Saturday.
Among the books named in the indictment was How the Red Sun Rose, a historical analysis of the role of late supreme leader Mao Zedong in the rise of the Chinese Communist Party during the 1940s, before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Using official Communist Party archives, the book details Mao's role in a series of factional struggles and internal "purges" during the period.
Two of the five Hong Kong booksellers reported having been taken to Ningbo for interrogation following their return to the former British colony.
One of the men, Lee Bo, is a U.K. national who the British government said was "involuntarily removed" from Hong Kong for the investigation.
Another Causeway Bay bookseller, Swedish national Gui Minhai, is still in detention at an unknown location after being removed from his holiday home in Pattaya, Thailand, in October 2015. Three others have been conditionally released and allowed to return to Hong Kong.
Books sold online
Nanjing-based author Jiang Chun said the jailing of the publishers in Zhejiang comes after authorities in Guangxi detained the former head of the Guangxi Normal University Press on "bribery" charges last May.
He Linxia was detained after he published a number of cutting-edge titles under the publisher's Lixiangguo imprint, including Gao Hua's book.
The Lixiangguo titles weren't published through traditional channels, but were sold via the online auction site Taobao, using an account which the authorities later shut down, sources told RFA at the time.
"The authorities did a clean-up of this publishing imprint last year, but they have gone too far," Jiang said. "[Dai] was selling so-called banned books from the Causeway Bay Books store, but at most he should have received a warning. Sending him to jail for five years is too harsh."
"How the Red Sun Rose was written by Gao Hua, who was a history professor here in Nanjing," he said. "This book was very well received in academic circles here in China, but it seems that telling the truth and recording history are crimes."
"They only want you to sing [the party's] praises."
Political purges
Shenzhen-based online author Tian You said there are currently political purges afoot in Chinese academia that recall the denunciations of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
"If they carry on like this, it will basically be the Cultural Revolution all over again," Tian said. "I was locked up for five days over this last year."
"What did I do? I just criticized their stupidity by saying that nobody would pay any attention to those books if they just allowed them to go on sale," he said.
"As soon as they start arresting people, they are pretty much doing the selling for them, aren't they? They said I had insulted [the government]."
"I think that if they carry on like this, something big is going to happen," Tian said.
Retired Shandong University professor Sun Wenguang said many Chinese authors are now forced to get their books published in Hong Kong.
"There's no freedom of publication in China at all," Sun said. "Some authors just send their books straight to Hong Kong on completion, so the Chinese Communist Party uses 'illegal business operations' as a way of stopping those books finding their readership."
"There are a lot of books published in Hong Kong and Taiwan getting passed around now, all of which are treated as illegal business operations, and severely punished," he said.
The cross-border detentions and interrogation of the five Causeway Bay booksellers has been cited by U.S. and European officials as evidence that Hong Kong is losing the "high degree of autonomy" and traditional freedoms guaranteed for 50 years under the terms of the 1997 handover from the U.K. to Chinese rule.
Reported by Wong Siu-san and Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Xin Lin for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Updated at 2:40 p.m. ET on 2017-02-14
The UN Security Council on Monday condemned North Korea's weekend ballistic missile test, while the Pentagon said it was prepared to defend allies South Korea and Japan from missile attack.
A council statement agreed to by all 15 members condemned Saturdays launch and a previous test Oct. 19 as actions that violate UN sanctions and threaten peace. It called on all UN members to redouble their efforts to implement UN sanctions.
The Council met Monday evening, after a call earlier in the day by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a united international response to the test.
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing the first challenge from Pyongyang of his three-week-old presidency, told reporters that Washington would have a strong response to what North Korean state media said was a successful launch Sunday of the Pukguksong-2, a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system."
"Obviously, North Korea is a big, big problem," he said. "And we will deal with that very strongly," Trump told a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The intermediate-range missile flew about 500 kms (310 miles) before landing into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, according to South Korea's military. The North's first missile launch of 2017 drew condemnation, from Trump, U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, as well as from North Korea's traditional backers Russia and China.
Russia and China were to join the United States and other members of the UN Security Council for an urgent meeting Monday evening to discuss Sunday's test, which violates a raft of Security Council resolutions aimed at halting the North's drive for a deliverable nuclear weapon.
Guterres said in a statement that North Korea "must return to full compliance with its international obligations and to the path of denuclearization."
AFP quoted Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis on Monday as saying the United States and its Asian allies are capable of shooting down any missile from North Korea.
North Korea is "very open and transparent about their desire to build this capability, and we are open about our ability to defeat it," the agency quoted Davis as saying.
"We are capable of defending against a North Korean ballistic missile attack and will take all necessary measures to deter and defeat threats to us and our allies," he added.
North Korea's state-run KCNA said leader Kim Jong Un had "personally guided" test preparations for the "medium long range" Pukguksong-2, which it said was powered by a solid-fuel engine.
Kim Jong-Un "expressed great satisfaction over the possession of another powerful nuclear attack means which adds to the tremendous might of the country," said KCNA.
Analysts told RFA's Korean Service that the Trump administration should expect more provocative behavior from North Korea.
"North Korea's rocket test is much more than a 'provocation' -- it is part and parcel of Pyongyang's plan to perfect its long range intercontinental missile capability for hitting New York and Washington with nuclear warheads," said Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
"The Trump Administration must recognize that the threat will only grow unless America and her allies take a new and different approach to the North Korea problem," he told RFA in emailed remarks.
More tests are likely no matter how Washington responds, said North Korea expert Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul.
"I expect tough talk, and may be some gestures, like sending bombers to fly near North Korean borders. But this will not have any impact. We will see more tests, more launches in months to come," said Lankov, on occasional columnist for RFA.
Reported by Changsop Pyon and Sungwon Yang for RFA's Korean Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
Lao high school girls are being lured into China with promises of rich husbands only to find they have been sold to a brothel or forced into street prostitution, RFAs Lao Service has learned.
Chinese involvement in sex trafficking is a new wrinkle for Laos, as Thailand has been the most common destination for young women or girls forced into prostitution.
This is a new trend, said an official with an anti-trafficking nongovernmental organization (NGO), who requested anonymity because members of the group are not allowed to talk to the media.
Girls are lured to China to get married, the official said. Its a form of human trafficking.
The victims are not just confined to northern Laos, where the land-locked nation borders China.
They come from all over the country, the South, the center and Vientiane, the official said. The government is now very worried about this.
Chinese men typically come to villages looking for poor high school girls who think that all Chinese are rich. They believe they are going to China or another part of Laos where they will get married, but more often than not they are forced into prostitution.
These are grade 11-12 students whose families are poor, a Xieng Ngeun resident told RFA. They drop out of school to get married to Chinese men.
In Xayaburi provinces Pak Lai district, one girl sent a message to her parents two months ago saying she was forced to provide sex service at a brothel. When she resisted, she was detained and physically attacked, a Pak Lai resident told RFA.
The Lao people who spoke to RFA did so on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation in a country where media is tightly controlled.
The Pak Lai district girl, who had finished high school, met a Chinese man who had come to her village, the resident said. The man told her he loved her and then made arrangements with a middle man, the resident added.
He sold her to a brothel
Not long after they were engaged, the man took her to China where she disappeared, except for an occasional online message.
She was detained for three or four days. Her husband was not truthful, the Pak Lai resident told RFA. He sold her to a brothel.
Its a story thats repeated again and again inside Laos, but it is next to impossible to determine with any accuracy how many times it happens.
Its unknown, the NGO official said. We dont have any information about the number because there has been no survey on this.
While human trafficking, particularly for sex, is an illegal activity, making it difficult to track, the uptick in sex trafficking to China has been recognized by the U.S. State Department.
A small, possibly increasing, number of women and girls from Laos are sold as brides in China and subjected to sex trafficking, the State Department said in its 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report.
The State Department kept Laos on its Tier 2 Watch List, but the country barely escaped being named a Tier 3 countrythe departments lowest ranking.
The government did not demonstrate overall increasing anti-trafficking efforts compared to the previous reporting period; therefore, Laos is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for a third consecutive year, the report said.
Per the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, Laos was granted a waiver from an otherwise required downgrade to Tier 3 because its government has devoted sufficient resources to a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute significant efforts to meet the minimum standards, the State Department wrote.
Laos efforts to combat sex trafficking have not translated into a way out for impoverished Lao teenage girls.
Never brides, but unwed mothers
Many people in the villages believe Chinese men are rich, one villager told RFA.
In her village at least eight girls have gone to China. One girl who left for China three months ago has never contacted her worried parents.
Many, many Chinese men come to our village looking for brides, the villager said. Some of the girls come back to the village, and a few of them come with one or two babies, but without their Chinese husbands.
Laos and China signed an anti-human trafficking cooperation memorandum of understanding in 2014, and the countries have drafted an action plan to combat human trafficking, but local officials have done little to help and may in fact be part of the problem.
In the past police officers would come to our village ask us if our daughters have been lured to China, but now there is no police presence, the villager told RFA.
According to the State Departments report, government officials sometimes stand in the way.
Civil society organizations with trafficking expertise report a lack of transparency from the government. At times, authorities may have impeded the work of NGOs by requiring prior government approval of all anti-trafficking activities, the State Department found.
Some local officials may contribute to trafficking by accepting payments to facilitate the immigration or transportation of girls to Thailand, it added.
While the State Department singled out Thailand, it is likely that local Lao officials are also doing the same with regard to China.
Bribes, kickbacks, document forgery, and fraud have become a part of life in Laos, which Transparency International ranks as the 139th most corrupt out of 168 nations.
Although the girls who left Laos were looking for love, or at least a husband, the girls who have returned to their country say have had enough of China.
These girls say they dont want to go back to China, said the villager.
Reported by RFA's Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.
The Nautical Aliya, a Malaysian ship transporting tons of food, medicine and other aid destined for Rohingya Muslims, arrives in the port of Thilawa in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 9, 2017.
A Malaysian ship transporting humanitarian aid destined for Rohingya refugees in southeastern Bangladesh stopped off the regions coast Monday before authorities cleared it to sail on to Chittagong port and dock and empty its cargo there.
The Nautical Aliya anchored off Coxs Bazar district until Bangladeshi officials finally gave the crew permission to sail onward to Chittagong, as well as to allow volunteer aid workers who were on board to disembark at Bangladeshs busiest port, government sources told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Initially, local authorities had denied clearance for the ship to dock at Chittagong, saying there was too much traffic in the port to accommodate the vessel carrying 1,700 tons of food, medicine, clothes and blankets in relief supplies, according to a source aboard the Aliya and news reports.
The supplies will now be transported overland from Chittagong to refugee camps in Coxs Bazar, where at least 66,000 Rohingya have taken refuge after fleeing from a military crackdown in recent months across the border in their home state of Rakhine in Myanmar.
Hopefully, the ship will anchor at the Chittagong port tonight or early Tuesday. We will allow the volunteers to distribute relief materials among the Rohingya living at the camps in Coxs Bazar, Rear Adm. Khurshed Alam, Bangladeshs foreign secretary for maritime affairs, told BenarNews.
He said the government had yet to determine how many people among 230 volunteers from several countries would be allowed to get off the ship.
We will meet them and issue visas to those interested. All of them may not be interested in going to refugee camps after a seven-hour journey from Chittagong, he said.
After the supplies are off-loaded from the ship, the authorities will hand them over to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and government officials from affected districts in Coxs Bazar for distribution among Rohingya refugees.
The government of Bangladesh has also promised all necessary assistance throughout the mission in Cox Bazar and at the Rohingya refugee camps, Azeez Abdul Rahim, a Malaysian who was heading the humanitarian mission and was on the ship, told BenarNews on Monday afternoon.
We are also grateful to Bangladesh Navy officer, Nizamul Haque, who boarded the Nautical Aliya to welcome the Malaysian mission to Bangladesh, he said via WhatsApp.
Coming from Myanmar
The ship entered Bangladeshi waters after sailing from a port serving Yangon, Myanmar, where last week the vessel off-loaded 500 tons of relief supplies destined from Rohingya in Rakhine. These included rice, instant noodles, potable water and hygiene kits.
The ship arrived in Yangon on Feb. 9 amid an anti-Rohingya protest near the dock staged by Buddhist nationalists. Myanmar authorities had prohibited the vessel from docking in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, and they also barred any of the 230 volunteers from disembarking in Yangon.
The volunteers include doctors from Turkey, Indonesia, China, the United States, France, Thailand and the Palestinian territories. In Myanmar, 30 people were allowed to disembark at Yangon port for a handover ceremony on Thursday.
Yes, we have made all necessary arrangements to welcome the ship in Chittagong, an official with Bangladeshs Navy told BenarNews on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak on this issue.
Reported by Kamran Reza Chowdhury in Dhaka and Hata Wahari in Malaysia for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
An armed Myanmar border guard walks along the river dividing Myanmar and Bangladesh in Maungdaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Oct. 15, 2016.
Authorities in Myanmar have sentenced a Rohingya man to death for leading and participating in terrorist attacks on border police stations that left nine officers dead in Rakhine states Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships four months ago, police officials said Monday.
Muhammad Nul, also known as Ula, received the sentence at the district court in Rakhines capital Sittwe on Feb. 10 for intentional murder during a raid on Rathedaungs Kotankauk border post, police said.
The 23-year-old from Maungdaws Kyautpyinsite village is one of 14 people police have charged in the attacks, but the only one so far to receive the death penalty, they said.
Trials are under way for the other 13 in special courtrooms in Maungdaw and neighboring Buthidaung township, though they have yet to be sentenced, lawyers said.
Myanmar has said those who carried out the attacks were militant Rohingya Muslims who had received training and financial support from Islamists abroad.
The news comes as Myanmar police investigate allegations of human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims who live in the areas where the border guard attacks occurred on Oct. 9, 2016.
More than 1,000 Rohingya are believed to have died in a subsequent security operation by Myanmar soldiers and border police in northern Rakhine state, while about 69,000 Rohingya have fled mainly to neighboring Bangladesh, according to United Nations estimates.
Some Rohingya have accused the security forces of murder, torture, rape, and arson, prompting the U.N.s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to issue a report on Feb. 3 saying that the abuses indicate the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.
The Myanmar government has denied allegations of abuse, but set up an investigation commission in December to look into the violence in northern Rakhine.
In an interim report in January, the commission said it had found no evidence of genocide or religious persecution of Rohingya Muslims living in the region, and that its probe of rape allegations had yielded insufficient evidence to take legal action.
On Friday, the commission set out on a six-day fact-finding mission to the affected areas to investigate the U.N.s allegations of human rights violations.
Other investigation teams
Last week the Myanmar military also created a team to investigate whether soldiers stationed in northern Rakhine used excessive force and committed human rights violations.
Myanmars police have also set up a team of high-ranking officials to investigate the allegations of human rights abuse by security forces.
A statement issued by the home affairs ministry on Sunday said that if security force members violated human rights, they would be charged under police disciplinary law, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.
The statement also said that action was being taken against officers who did not follow instructions, but gave no further details, the report said.
It was an apparent reference to a small group of police officers caught on video abusing Rohingya civilians in a village in Maungdaw during the security sweep early last November. Those involved in the incident were sentenced to two months in prison.
Reported by Min Thein Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
For the second year in a row, large numbers of Chinese security forces have been deployed during a major religious festival at a Tibetan monastery in Qinghai province in an apparent bid to intimidate worshippers, sources in the region say.
The prayer gathering, called Chotrul Monlam, is held each year at Kumbum monastery in Qinghais Tsoshar (in Chinese, Haidong) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and features the display of large and colorful sculptures made of butter, sources said.
But on Feb. 11, the Chinese government sent a large number of uniformed paramilitary police to Kumbum in a show of intimidation, one source told RFAs Tibetan Service.
It is really inappropriate for such a show of force to be made during a religious gathering, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This has made the Tibetan pilgrims very uncomfortable, and has provoked anxiety and fear in the daily lives of ordinary Tibetans, he added.
Also speaking to RFA, a second local source said that many Tibetans attending the event are now blocked by surging crowds from seeing the display of butter sculptures, with children and the elderly especially pushed aside.
The security presence here is pervasive, the source said.
Chinese visitors paying 100 yuan (U.S.$14.54) for tickets are meanwhile being allowed to view the display without waiting, while Tibetan pilgrims are being held further down the road and have to wait in long lines, one source said.
Similar scenes last year
Similar scenes took place at Kumbum last year after Chinese authorities deployed large numbers of armed police and conducted exercises to intimidate the monks and other Tibetans in the area, sources said in earlier reports.
And on the last day of the Chotrul Monlam festival on Feb. 22, police carrying weapons merged with the crowd, one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This caused great inconvenience to the devotees who had gathered at the monastery, he said.
Buddhist monasteries in Tibetan-populated regions of China have frequently become the focus of efforts to promote not just religion but Tibetan cultural values, and Chinese security forces often monitor and sometimes close down events involving large crowds.
Annual public assemblies at the monasteries have greatly increased in size in recent years, as thousands of Tibetans gather to assert their national identity in the face of Beijings cultural and political domination.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin and Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Relatives and supporters greet prominent Vietnamese rights defender Bui Thi Minh Hang (2nd from R) upon her release from Gia Trung prison camp in Vietnam's Central Highlands, Feb. 11, 2017.
Vietnamese authorities released prominent human rights defender and blogger Bui Thi Minh Hang on Saturday after she served a three-year prison sentence.
The activist had been held in Gia Trung prison camp in the countrys Central Highlands since Feb. 11, 2014, on charges of causing public disorder and obstructing traffic when she and two other bloggers were on their way to visit a former political prisoner.
She was later sentenced in August of that year to up to three years in jail after a one-day trial in Dong Thap in the Mekong Delta region, on what rights activists said were phony and politically motivated charges.
While she was detained, Hang went on a hunger strike to protest her arrest.
My health at this moment is relatively stable, but because I have been in prison for too long, going back out its like a whole new place, she said.
Im now freefree meaning free from prisonyet we all know that whoever lives in Vietnam will never have freedomnot yet, she said.
I think I will continue my fight for democratic fairness, Hang said. I was jailed unjustly, so I will fight more for myself and for all the people in Vietnam.
Hangs relatives, supporters, and an RFA reporter were at the scene when Hang was released. Traffic police escorted her back to Ho Chi Minh City.
In 2011, Hang staged peaceful demonstrations condemning what many Vietnamese see as Chinese intrusions into Vietnamese territory in the disputed South China Sea.
In November of that year, authorities sent Hang to the Thanh Ha Education Center in Binh Xuyen district, Vinh Phuc province, after arresting her a day earlier outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City for allegedly causing public disorder. She was freed the following year.
Reported by Chan Nhu Hoang for RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
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Demonstrators in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas called for the abolition of a set of laws from British rule that allow authorities to arrest relatives of a convicted criminal. (RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal)
MINSK -- A Belarusian official says an order requiring Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan to leave the country and barring him from entry was rescinded after high-level officials intervened.
Zhadan, an acclaimed novelist and poet who traveled to Minsk for a literary event, said on February 11 that he had been taken into custody by KGB officers who burst into his hotel room, kept in a cell overnight, and ordered to leave the country.
However, the head of the migration department at the Belarusian Interior Ministry, Alyaksey Byahun, told RFE/RL on February 13 that Zhadan's case had been studied and that a decision was made at "a very high level" to cancel the ban.
Byahun said that the Interior Ministry informed Zhadan later on Febrtuary 11 that the ban had been cancelled, and the writer returned to Ukraine on February 12.
Zhadan said that after he was detained, he was told that he was not allowed to be in Belarus because neighboring Russia banned him in 2015 for alleged "involvement in terrorist activities" -- an apparent reference to his support for the protests that drive a Moscow-friendly president from power in Ukraine in 2014.
Belarus and Russia have close ties and share a visa regime.
Two gatherings in Germany, G20 foreign ministers meeting in Bonn and the Munich Security Conference, will provide the first venue for face-to-face contacts between top Kremlin officials and the new U.S. administration.
The Kremlin has announced that it is trying to arrange a meeting between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial in Bonn later this week.
Lavrov will also appear at the Munich Security Conference later this week, which will provide another venue of contacts with top U.S. officials. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will also be in attendance.
On this week's Power Vertical Briefing, we look ahead to the upcoming U.S.-Russian diplomacy. 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.
The data points are hard to miss.
We've had an escalation in fighting in the Donbas.
We've had a State Duma deputy, Pavel Shperov, ominously saying that "borders are not eternal," referring to Russia's former Soviet neighbors as "so-called countries," and calling for Moscow to take back what he called the "eternal Russian lands" of northern Kazakhstan.
We've had escalating tension with Belarus over energy, meat imports, a proposed Russian airbase, and border checkpoints.
And oh by the way, Vladimir Putin just ordered snap military drills involving 45,000 troops, 150 aircraft, and 200 antiaircraft units -- a move that caused jitters across the Baltic states.
The Kremlin has also announced that massive military exercises will be held near Russia's western borders later this year.
Now Russia bullying its neighbors, of course, is nothing new.
But what is new is that the Kremlin now sees a more favorable geopolitical environment for its bullying.
Putin's regime expects less pushback from the West and so it is testing the waters to see what it could get away with.
An escalation in fighting here, a provocative statement there, and some political pressure someplace else.
But Putin is not just testing the West's reaction.
He's also sending a message to Russia's neighbors.
He's saying: We're in a new world now and whether or not you know it yet, in that new world, your sovereignty is limited and it's conditional.
Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page.
Russian and Ukrainian forces exchanged heavy artillery fire in multiple locations, officials in both countries said, as Russian-appointed officials continued evacuating people from the west bank of the Dnieper River amid a mounting Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
Ukraine's national grid operator, meanwhile, said on November 5 that it would increase rolling blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions as the countrys national grid remained severely damaged by weeks of Russian air strikes.
Electricity consumption is rising across Ukraine as the weather turns colder, and energy providers have raced to do repairs, ordering planned power cuts to avoid overloads.
Ukraines General Staff said that its troops thwarted Russian attacks a day earlier in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The military also claimed that Ukrainian air defenses shot down multiple Russian and Iranian drones and two Kalibr cruise missiles. The claim could not be immediately verified.
The head of the Vynnytsya region, Serhiy Borzov, said the central region was hit overnight by Russian kamikaze drones.
Russian troops have been actively using Iranian drones in recent weeks to attack critical civilian and infrastructure objectives.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the fiercest fighting over the last week had taken place around Bakhmut and Soledar in Donetsk and that Ukrainian forces are holding their positions there and elsewhere.
He also spoke of "good gains" in the south, praising infantry and artillery brigades for destroying enemy equipment, Russian manpower.
The claims of battlefield success could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian forces have been mounting a slow, incremental counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region for weeks now, moving closer to directly threatening the Dnieper River port of Kherson, which was captured early after Russias February invasion.
In response, Russian authorities have been evacuating civilians and military troops to the opposite bank of the Dnieper.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-installed administration in the Kherson region, announced a 24-hour curfew on November 4, saying it was necessary to defend it from an expected Ukrainian attack.
The Russian military said "more than 5,000 civilians" were being evacuated daily to the east bank of the river. And Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 4 called for civilians to be moved out from Kherson.
Those who live in Kherson must now be removed from the zone of the most dangerous hostilities, Putin said in remarks broadcast on state television. The civilian population should not suffer from shelling, from the offensive, counteroffensive, and other measures related to military operations.
Russias Defense Ministry said on November 5 that troops had repelled Ukrainian attacks in in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions. In the Kherson region, which the Kremlin last month declared had been annexed, authorities reported the heaviest artillery fire in days.
Ukrainian officials have likened the departures of Kherson residents to Soviet-style deportations, though its unclear to what extent the departures are forced or voluntary. Russian officials said people were being moved to safety from the path of the Ukrainian advance.
Ukraines counteroffensives in Kherson and the northern Kharkiv region have been powered in large part by powerful Western weaponry. On November 4, the U.S. Defense Department announced another $400 million shipment of weapons and other equipment, including refurbished tanks, surface-to-air missiles, new coastal defense boats, and other items.
The announcement came around the same time that the U.S. national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv to meet with top Ukrainian officials.
At a news conference later, Sullivan sought again to calm Ukrainian jitters about whether U.S. weapons would continue after the upcoming midterm U.S. congressional elections.
Polls show that Republicans are poised to take control of one, or possibly both, chambers of Congress, and a small but vocal number of Republicans have voiced misgivings about the amount and duration of U.S. aid for Ukraine.
There will be no wavering, Sullivan said at a news conference. Im confident U.S. support for Ukraine will be unwavering and unflinching.
Asked about the prospect of peace talks with Russia, Sullivan repeated what U.S. officials have said in the past: "Nothing is discussed about Ukraine without Ukraine."
"For me, the main question about these negotiations is what a just peace looks like and how it can be achieved, Sullivan said. If you look at Russian accusations, Russian actions, in particular regarding the annexation of [Ukrainian] territories, it does not really encourage negotiations.
With reporting by RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service, Reuters, dpa, and AP
TBILISI -- Authorities in Tbilisi have arrested an archpriest of the Georgian Orthodox Church on suspicion of planning to "murder a high-ranking cleric," shaking the South Caucasus country's dominant church as its 84-year-old leader underwent medical treatment in Germany.
Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze said on February 13 that the head of the Georgian Patriarchate's Property Management Service, Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze, had been arrested on February 10 as he boarded a plane to Berlin, where Patriarch Ilia II was awaiting a gallbladder operation.
Shotadze said cyanide was found in Mamaladze's luggage.
He refused to name Mamaladze's alleged target, but said that the chief of the Special Service for State Guards, Anzor Chubinidze, had been sent to Berlin "to protect the security of the Georgian patriarch.
Ilia, 84, has led the Church since 1977 and wields significant influence on social and political life in the predominantly Orthodox Christian former Soviet republic of 4.9 million.
The patriarch, who has suffered health problems in recent years, underwent successful gallbladder surgery in Berlin on February 13, church officials said.
With reporting by civil.ge, AP, and AFP
The Iraqi Air Force has said 13 Islamic State (IS) commanders were killed in air strikes on a building where the extremist group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was believed to be.
Baghdadi's name was not on the list of the dead published by the Iraqi military.
In a statement on February 13, the air force said at least 64 lower-ranked IS militants were killed in the air strikes in the region of Qaim in western Iraq.
The Iraqi military said Baghdadi moved last week in a convoy from the extremist group's de facto capital in Syria, Raqqa, to Qaim, over the border.
Baghdadi was supposedly meeting other senior commanders to discuss a possible successor as well as the extremist group's military situation in its Iraqi stronghold, Mosul.
The IS leader has been reportedly wounded and even dead several times in the past.
Based on reporting by AFP and BBC
ALMATY -- The acting chief editor of an independent Kazakh newspaper has been arrested on money-laundering charges.
The Almaty-based Adil Soz nongovernment organization said on February 13 that Zhanbolat Mamai was ordered put in pretrial detention over the weekend for two months.
Mamai's newspaper, The Sayasi Qalam -- Tribuna (The Political Pen -- Tribune), is known for articles critical of the Kazakh government.
Investigators say Mamai was involved in laundering money "stolen" by fugitive Kazakh tycoon Mukhtar Ablyazov.
Mamai denied any connection with Ablyazov and said the case against him was politically motivated.
Ablyazov, a former head of Kazakhstan's BTA bank who is currently living abroad, is a major opponent of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
He is wanted by Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine on suspicion of embezzling some $5 billion. Ablyazov denies the accusations, saying they are politically motivated.
A parliamentary commission in Montenegro has approved a request by the special prosecutor to lift the immunity of two senior opposition leaders allegedly involved in a pro-Russian plot to overthrow the government.
Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic has made the motion so that Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic can be detained and eventually put on trial.
Katnic has claimed that both leaders of the pro-Kremlin Democratic Front, which oppose NATO membership, are suspected of "establishing a criminal organization" and being involved in attempts against "the constitutional rule and security of Montenegro."
The motion to strip the immunity of the two opposition leaders will be decided in a parliamentary vote, which is expected to be held on February 15.
Mandic and Knezevic have dismissed the plot allegations as "fiction."
Montenegro has arrested around 20 people in connection with the alleged plot in October, most of them Serbian nationals.
Russia has denied involvement, but has actively supported local groups that oppose Montenegro becoming a NATO member.
With reporting by AP
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North Korea says it has "successfully" test-launched a medium-to-long-range ballistic missile, leading the United States, South Korea, and Japan to request an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.
The North's state-run KCNA news agency on February 13 identified the missile as a Pukguksong-2, calling it a new type of strategic weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
KCNA said the missile was fired on February 12, deliberately at a high angle to take "the security of the neighboring countries into consideration." It said leader Kim Jong Un was present and "guided" the launch.
Kim "expressed great satisfaction over the possession of another powerful nuclear-attack means which adds to the tremendous might of the country," KCNA reported.
Pyongyang has made no secret of its desire to develop nuclear weapons and carried out two atomic tests and a series of missile launches last year, including one in August of a missile identified as a Pukguksong.
Late on February 12, an official of the U.S. mission at the United Nations said the United States, Japan, and South Korea requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting and that he expected the hearing to take place on February 13.
Tensions have risen on the Korean Peninsula since Kim last month said the country was close to test-launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
U.S. officials said they had tracked the launch and that it was not an ICBM and respresented no danger to the United States.
The weekend launch was the Norths first such test since U.S. President Donald Trump took office and was seen by many as a direct challenge to the president.
The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said that "our assessment is that it is part of a show of force in response to the new U.S. administration's hard-line position against the North."
The launch drew strong condemnation from Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who were meeting in Florida during the Japanese leaders U.S. visit.
Abe said the launch was "absolutely unacceptable," while Trump said he stood with Japan "100 percent."
A U.S. official said the Trump administration had expected a "provocation" from the North and that it would consider the "full range" of options, including financial sanctions and increased naval assets in the region.
Later, White House aide Stephen Miller told Fox News that "we are going to reinforce and strengthen our vital alliances in the Pacific region as part of our strategy to deter and prevent the increasing hostility that we've seen in recent years from the North Korean regime."
South Korean acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said his country will respond to punish the North for the missile launch, condemning it as a "blatant and obvious" violation of UN Security Council resolutions and a "serious threat" to international security.
UN resolutions forbid North Korea from carrying out ballistic-missile tests.
Japan said it will press the Security Council for a "serious response" to the launch.
NATO and the European Union also condemned the launch.
North Korea said the missile was propelled by a solid-fuel engine, which provides less warning of an impending launch because it takes less time to fuel the rocket. It also boosts the power of ballistic missiles, giving them longer range.
With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa, and TASS
Pakistani officials say at least 13 people were killed and dozens wounded when a large explosion hit a protest rally near the Punjab provincial assembly in the city of Lahore on February 13.
The blast ripped through the crowd of hundreds of pharmacists, who were protesting new amendments to a law governing drug sales.
Mushtaq Sukhera, the inspector-general of police in Punjab, said five police officers were killed in what he described as a "suicide attack."
"The bomber exploded himself when successful negotiations were under way between police officials and the protesters," Sukhera told reporters.
Sameer Ahmad, the Lahore deputy commissioner, said 58 people were wounded, including nine who were in critical condition.
A loud bang could be heard on live television, which showed smoke billowing up as people ran from the scene, some of them carrying injured victims.
Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The militant group warned that the attack was the start of a new campaign against government institutions.
The group also claimed responsibility for a bombing during Easter last year that killed more than 70 people in a public park.
In a statement, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said his country would continue to fight militancy.
"We have fought this fight against the terrorists among us, and will continue to fight it until we liberate our people of this cancer, and avenge those who have laid down their lives for us," he said in a statement.
Security in Pakistan has improved markedly in recent years but extremist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State still pose a threat and have carried out deadly attacks.
With reporting by AP and Reuters
Pakistani police say gunmen shot dead a member of a TV news crew in Karachi after launching a hand-grenade attack on a police vehicle.
Police officer Bashir Barohi said the SAMAA TV crew members were on their way to cover the grenade attack on February 12 when the gunmen attacked their vehicle.
Privately run SAMAA TV reported that Tamour Khan, 22, a satellite technician, died after being taken to a hospital with bullet wounds.
Police said no one was wounded in the attack on the police patrol.
No one has claimed either attack.
Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and a major business center, has been the scene of political, sectarian, and ethnic militancy.
Based on reporting by AFP and AP
A roadside bomb attack has killed three paramilitary soldiers in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border, the military has said in a statement.
The statement on February 13 said the three soldiers were wounded during a search-and-cordon operation in the Zarmilan area late on February 12 and later died at a hospital.
Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the banned militant organization Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying five soldiers were killed in the bomb attack and a vehicle completely destroyed.
The army has carried out large-scale operations in tribal regions but militants still strike sporadically.
Khurasani also claimed responsibility for a February 12 night attack on a media van in the port city of Karachi that killed a technician. He said in a text message that media are being attacked for siding with the government and army.
Based on reporting by AP and dpa
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Locals in Russia's northern capital who oppose a government plan to hand control of the iconic St. Isaac's Cathedral over to the Russian Orthodox Church have vowed to continue mass protests and other actions.
About 1,000 protesters formed a living ring around the massive cathedral on February 12 to protest the decision, which they see as part of the church's strengthening grip over the country's cultural life.
"We will carry out other protests as well, although I don't want to get too specific about them now," said protest organizer Aleksei Sergeyev. "We are thinking of erecting a monument 'To The Unknown Offended Believer.' We might ask Gazprom to arrange an eternal flame for us, a little reminder of the eternal flame in which sinners spend eternity. Since they are going after libraries, we might show what they would be like with only spiritual books. We have many ideas."
For the second time, the protests have prompted a prominent government official to direct seemingly anti-Semitic remarks at two Jewish St. Petersburg lawmakers, Maksim Reznik and Boris Vishnevsky, who have been leading the protests.
Former St. Petersburg lawmaker and current State Duma Deputy Vitaly Milonov told a small February 12 rally in favor of handing over the cathedral to the church that "Christians survived even when the ancestors of Boris Lazarevich Vishnevsky and Maksim Lvovich Reznik were boiling us in kettles and leaving us to be gnawed to pieces by animals."
Vishnevsky responded to Milonov's comment by writing on Facebook that such remarks convince him more and more that the theory that "humans evolved from monkeys" must be true and that some people evolved from monkeys with large brains, while others didn't.
Less than a month earlier, Duma deputy speaker Pyotr Tolstoy -- a great-grandson of the renowned 19th-century novelist -- said the two men were "continuing the work" of their forebears, "who destroyed our cathedrals after jumping over from the Pale of Settlement with revolvers in 1917."
Tolstoy's remarks echoed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory suggesting that Jews fomented the 1917 Bolshevik coup, although Tolstoy later denied such an intention.
The protests erupted when St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko announced the decision on January 10. The first protest was held on January 28, and more than 200,000 people have a signed on online petition calling for the decision to be rescinded.
UNESCO Heritage Site
In Soviet times, the cathedral housed a museum of atheism. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has been run as a museum, a UNESCO world heritage site that attracts about 3.5 million visitors a year.
Although there is no sign the government is prepared to back down on handing control of St. Isaac's over to the Orthodox Church, the protests are attracting official attention. Lawmakers from the ruling United Russia and nationalist Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia passed a resolution calling on the authorities to crack down on the protesters.
Also on February 1, lawmakers passed a local law banning deputies from holding "public meetings with voters" without the permission of the government -- a move aimed at preventing Reznik and Vishnevsky from protecting the protests.
The chairman of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, Vyacheslav Makarov, said he had received dozens of letters from concerned citizens calling for a crackdown. Markarov said "millions" of believers have been offended by the protests' slogan, "The museum belongs to the city."
In response, Sergeyev organized a protest at which demonstrators demanded that lawmakers declare the slogan to be "extremist" and proposed transferring control of the legislature to the Orthodox Church and renaming it as the Committee of State Spirituality.
'Offending Christian Feelings'
The Russian chapter of the International Council of Museums has issued a statement opposing the government's decision.
However, the rectors of 23 state-controlled institutions of higher education wrote an open letter to Poltavchenko urging the government to accelerate the handover process so that it could be completed by Orthodox Easter on April 16. The rectors wrote that the protesters are "provocateurs using the matter of St. Isaac's as an excuse to foment tensions in society and sow religious enmity." The purpose of the protests, they claimed, was to "offend the feelings of Christians."
Two of the men whose signatures appeared on the letter later told journalists they hadn't signed it.
Lawmaker Vishnevsky told RFE/RL's Russian Service that such incidents convince him that the public response to the decision has rattled the government.
"I think the matter is still being decided at the highest levels and no decision has been made," Vishnevsky said. "That is why they are now practically hysterical, realizing that they can't suppress the protests or break public opinion."
"As for the repressive law banning deputies from meeting with voters, that is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers," Vishnevsky said. "It is a legal absurdity that I should have to ask a bureaucrat for permission to talk to the voters. We will take this matter to court."
Vishnevsky is incredulous about claims that the slogan "The museum belongs to the city" offends the sensibilities of "millions of believers."
"And how does it sound when you hear on the floor of the Legislative Assembly assertions that we are 'Christian soldiers' who are ready to die for our Orthodox faith?" he said. "You have the feeling that you are in some sort of religious school or at a rally before the beginning of a crusade. I can't tell if I am in a 21st-century secular legislature or at a convention of religious fanatics. If that is what they want, let them resign their mandates and go off to a monastery."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stressed that Moscow is hoping for closer cooperation with the United States on Syria under new U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lavrov spoke on February 13, ahead of two gatherings in Germany this week that could provide the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Russia is "counting on establishing close, much more effective interaction on Syria with Donald Trump's administration, given his absolutely unequivocal approach to terrorism as an absolute evil," Lavrov said.
Both Trump and Putin have called for closer cooperation against terrorism and the extremist group Islamic State, and the Kremlin and the White House indicated that was a major topic of discussion during their telephone conversation on January 28.
But so far there has been little public discussion of details.
Lavrov said that a new round of Syria peace talks sponsored by Russia, Turkey, and Iran will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan, on February 15-16.
Russia has given crucial diplomatic and military support to the Syrian government throughout a six-year-old civil war that has killed some 300,000 people.
Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
The Kremlin has weighed in on a heated discussion in the United States over telephone conversations President Donald Trump's national security adviser held with the Russian ambassador to Washington in late December.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, suggested on February 13 that Michael Flynn and Sergei Kislyak did not discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia, or the possibility that they could be lifted, during the calls.
"We have already said that they did not take place," Peskov said in response to a question about the issue. He appeared to be referring to discussion about sanctions.
Flynn initially denied discussing sanctions in phone calls with Kislyak around the time the Obama administration imposed new punishments on Russia over alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election and harassment of diplomats.
After The Washington Post quoted officials as saying the subject of sanctions had in fact come up, Flynn said through a spokesman that he could not recall, leaving open the possibility that they were discussed.
The phone calls took place weeks before Trump took office.
Trump has not commented on the issue, saying at one point he was not aware of the reports.
Based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, the New York Post, and AP
ON MY MIND
This week, U.S.-Russian relations move out of the realm of the hypothetical and into the realm of the real.
In all likelihood, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial in Bonn on February 17. And as Steve Gutterman and I discuss on today's Power Vertical Briefing, the Munich Security Conference on February 18-19 will provide another opportunity for top U.S. and Russian officials to meet.
Since the election of Donald Trump, U.S.-Russian relations have been entering an odd and often confusing new landscape -- with a president who aimed to improve ties with Moscow and a foreign-policy establishment that remained deeply skeptical of the Kremlin.
This week, we should get our first hints about what that landscape will look like.
IN THE NEWS
U.S. Democrats have called for an investigation into whether White House national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow's ambassador to the United States while President Barack Obama was still in office.
Stephen Miller, a top White House aide, has declined several opportunities to defend Flynn, who has come under fire for phone conversations he had with a Russian diplomat before President Donald Trump's inauguration.
Georgia's Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze says that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed Washington's firm support for the ex-Soviet nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed support for Ukraine's territorial integrity in a letter to the president of Lithuania, which has often backed Ukraine in its disputes with Russia.
Vladimir Putin says he would be happy to hold his first meeting with Trump in Slovenia, but that there are many factors in a decision on a venue for the meeting.
An exhibition of Russian revolutionary art objects has opened in London's Royal Academy of Arts, part of events to mark the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.
Serhiy Zhadan, a popular Ukrainian writer, says he was seized by Belarusian security agents in the middle of the night while visiting Minsk and ordered to leave the country.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has said U.S. demands that NATO partners increase defense spending are "fair," while her U.S. counterpart praised Germany's role in fighting the war in Afghanistan.
LATEST POWER VERTICAL PODCAST
In case you missed it, the latest Power Vertical Podcast, New Model Empire, looked at Vladimir Putin's imperial toolkit in the former Soviet space. My guests were Agnia Grigas, a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council and author of the books Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire and the forthcoming book The New Geopolitics Of Natural Gas; and Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, author of the books The Ukraine Crisis: What It Means For The West and Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship.
NEW POWER VERTICAL BRIEFING
On the new Power Vertical Briefing, we look ahead to the first face-to-face meetings between top Russian officials and members of the Trump administration at this week's G20 ministerial in Bonn and at the Munich Security Conference. Joining me is RFE/RL's News Editor Steve Gutterman.
WHAT I'M READING
More Analysis Of The Navalny Verdict
RBK reports that the Kremlin has decided not to follow a strategy of allowing a strong opposition candidate like Aleksei Navalny to run for president in order to boost turnout.
Aleksandr Ryklin writes in Yezhednevny Zhurnal that the reason the verdict in Navalny's trial was a word-for-word copy of the 2013 verdict was because the Kremlin wanted to send a message to the West.
The Intelligentsia's Dilemma
In his column for Republic.ru, opposition journalist Oleg Kashin looks at why Russia's intelligentsia almost always opts to collaborate with the authorities.
Known Knowns About Shaltai-Boltai
Meduza's Andrei Sokolov has a piece outlining what we know about five members of the hacking group Shaltai-Boltai, three of whom have been arrested.
The New Labor Camps
Gazeta.ru looks at the practice of forced labor, which officially returned as a form of legal punishment in Russia on January 1.
Internet Non-Freedom
Daria Litvinova has a piece in The Moscow Times on six signs that "theres no such thing as Internet freedom in Russia."
"Writing about Crimea, Ukraine, Syria or religion on social media in Russia has become a dangerous business. Saying -- or typing -- the wrong thing on the Internet could now land you a harsher sentence than if you beat your wife," Litvinova writes.
KYIV -- International rights groups have urged separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine to disclose the location and ensure the safety of a Russian LGBT activist and a fellow performance artist who went missing there two weeks ago.
Friends of transgender activist Seroye Fioletovoye (Gray Purple) and musician Viktoria Miroshnichenko say they have not heard from the two since they entered separatist-controlled territory on January 31.
The Kremlin-loyal tabloid news outlet Life News on February 13 cited an unidentified source with the separatists as saying that the two were detained because Fioletovoye had planned to stage a protest in support of sexual minorities in a separatist-held area of Donetsk.
There has been no formal confirmation of that claim, and Amnesty International said in a February 13 statement that it has "serious concerns" about the safety of the two Russians.
The international rights group published a petition calling on separatist leaders to reveal the location of the two Russians and protect them from "physical and psychological" abuse.
Russia-backed separatists control areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine's east nearly three years after the start of their war against Kyiv's forces that has killed more than 9,750 people.
International rights watchdogs and Western governments have repeatedly accused the separatists of illegal detentions and abuses, including torture.
Fioletovoye, who was born Oleg Vasliyev and also goes by the name Maria Shtern, is a former member of the Russian art group Voina, which drew international attention with its daring antigovernment stunts and spawned the dissident art collective Pussy Riot.
The activist typically uses "it" in self-reference, and rights advocates became increasingly concerned after a February 9 update appeared on Fioletovoye's Twitter feed referring to the activist as male.
The tweet was subsequently deleted and replaced with a new post consistent with the activist's typical gender identification.
"Friends, I am in the far-flung regions of the DNR," the tweet reads, using an acronym used by the separatists that stands for Donetsk People's Republic.
"I am busy with a film. There is almost no Internet. I'm alive and well," it continued.
The Twitter feed had been dormant since August, and the sudden tweet has raised suspicions that the activist was not the person who posted it.
"It was very, very creepy, and very concerning, too," Tanya Cooper, a Ukraine researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL.
Miroshnichenko is a musician who previously collaborated with Fioletovoye. She staged a performance-art piece at a 2013 event related to LGBT issues that Fioletovoye moderated.
In her most recent Facebook post -- on January 31 -- Miroshnichenko wrote that she would be online infrequently until February 15. She added in a comment to the post that she was traveling to the southern Russian region of Rostov, which borders the Donetsk region.
Human Rights Watch said in a February 10 statement that it feared the two had become the victims of "forced disappearance."
"Their disappearance demands an immediate and effective investigation," Cooper said in the statement.
Based on reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv and Carl Schreck in Washington
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Sun Ho Nuon was smart enough to become a schoolteacher in his native Cambodia.
And he was smart enough not to tell anyone when the Khmer Rouge terrorized the country in the 1970s, arrested those considered professionals and intellectuals, and executed them in the dead of night. Brutality was the Khmer Rouge style, and their implements of death varied. Nuon carried a serious-looking hoe when I met him for an interview last week. By day, he said, such a hoe would have been used to work the fields; by night, it was a killing tool.
The hoe was just another piece of his past that he wanted me to see, like the aging photographs and papers he brought to show me, pulling them from the same no-frills plastic bag he carried off the plane when he arrived in the United States in May 1981.
All these years he kept that bag, which serves as a reminder of the new, miraculous, almost unfathomable life he embarked upon almost 36 years ago and the sad, cruel existence he left behind.
I feel safe, said Nuon, replying to my question about what it feels like to be here. Im proud to be an American.
Nuon, 68, came to America back in the olden days when presidents of the United States did not refer to refugees as illegal immigrants. He made the most of his chance.
He and his family were sponsored by St. Stephens Episcopal Church on Grove Avenue. One thing led to another, and Nuon wound up working as a sexton at the church. He retired a few weeks ago as the senior member of the parish staff after more than 35 years on the job. St. Stephens held a reception in his honor.
The church is sorry to see him go, and not just because he was an incredibly hard worker. They already miss his smile and laugh.
His friend and fellow sexton Matt Oltmann, who at age 29 came to consider Nuon as not only a really cool dude but a grandfatherly figure, marvels at Nuons humility and his ability to resist burdening others with his troubles or complaints rather than call attention to himself.
He was like this balancing force for me, reminding me to keep calm, Oltmann said. It wasnt anything specific he taught me. It was the fact that he still exists. Hes a person who has survived all this stuff, and comes to work and smiles and laughs and talks with me. He has dedicated his entire life as a learned person to sweeping the floors of a church, and he doesnt complain about that. That in itself was powerful.
We all love him very, very dearly.
The sextons at St. Stephens do a lot more than merely sweeping floors, but Oltmanns point is well taken. Nuon perhaps could have gone in another career direction, but he enjoyed the people of the church, and his loyalty to St. Stephens runs deep.
Nuon does not talk to just anyone about his experiences in Cambodia and later in the refugee camps in Thailand. But when he does speak of those times the fear, terror and hunger, the dangerous escape from Cambodia and the long walk to Thailand, the loss of friends and family it is always matter-of-factly, never in a woe-is-me tone, said Oltmann, who has heard some of those stories.
He doesnt like to get sympathy or pity from people, Oltmann said.
Nuon, who in recent years has survived prostate cancer, worked a number of other part-time jobs over the years: at what used to be known as Franklin Federal Savings and Loan, Mills Godwin High School and Rehrig International, a company that formerly manufactured shopping carts at a plant on Lombardy Street.
But the job at St. Stephens has been the constant through the years and the one that required most of his attention and devotion and received much of his gratitude.
He considers the people of St. Stephens the people who assisted him as he adapted to a new culture and a new language his family.
The Rev. Gary Jones, rector of St. Stephens, has described Nuon as one of the most grateful people Ive ever met, even on his worst day.
In an interview for a feature in a church publication, Jones also said Nuon was far more than a sexton for St. Stephens.
For me, he is a spiritual teacher, Jones said. He would laugh and wave off that idea, but the best spiritual teachers are humble like that. Ive learned more from Sun Ho and his way of life than I can express. For me, his smile was his clerical collar.
Nuon and his wife, Sophany, raised three children and have two grandchildren.
They arrived in the United States with son Soksan and daughter Sophia.
Their youngest son was born eight years after they settled in Richmond.
His name?
Stephen.
BY BRYAN DeVASHER
Police are investigating after a man was shot to death Monday in Richmonds Mosby Court.
Shortly after noon, police were called to the 1900 block of Raven Street for a report of gunfire but didnt find the source, Police Chief Alfred Durham said.
About 12:30 p.m., police received another report of gunshots in the area, and officers found a man who had been shot to death behind a building nearby.
Durham said there were two crime scenes in connection with the shooting: one in the roadway in the 1900 block of Raven Street and another behind the building nearby.
Police did not immediately release the victims name.
Two people were being questioned in connection with the shooting Monday afternoon, Durham said.
Durham urged neighbors not to take matters into their own hands and instead help police identify the killer. People in the neighborhood know whats going on, Durham said. I heard some comments saying, Thats OK, we have it. Well, we dont want them to have it.
If you have some information, bring it to the police so we can solve this murder and bring some closure to the family, he said. We have another loss of life unfortunately in this city. Its just way too many.
Although Mondays investigation is not complete, Durham stressed that many of the killings in the city are between people who know each other.
These are not random acts of violence, he said.
Henrico County police have arrested a 19-year-old Glen Allen man in connection with an armed robbery last week at Short Pump Town Center.
Wyatt Glen Collins is accused of pulling a gun and demanding merchandise about 6 p.m. Thursday at a store in the 11800 block of West Broad Street. He was last seen speeding away in a white SUV, police said.
Collins is charged with two counts of robbery and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
The fire happened in the 9000 block of Lee Davis Road and was contained to the exterior of the home, according to a post on the Hanover County Fire and EMS page on Facebook.
American Motorcycle manufacturing king Harley-Davidson has come up with its brand new crossover in the market of United States of America. Recently Harley announced its new crossover 'Road King Special'.
The new motorcycle will have four color variants- Charcoal Denim, Vivid Black, CompanyOlive Gold and Hot Rod Red Flake Hard Candy CThe company have completely changed the design of Road King, it looks completely different from its predecessors.
Reports revealed that all the bit chromes are painted 'Moody Black', windscreen has been removed, handlebars are replaced with 9inch tall ape handlebars and placed with 1,750cc Milwaukee Eight Engine.
The new engine gives 10% more torque than previous one. When officials were asked about the launch in India they said that Company says that, they are not sure about King's launch in India.
Also Read:
Piaggio Group launched Aprilia SR150 Race scooter in India
Ducati seeking for Indian company for its Mini Bikes'
List of the cheapest motorcycles in India!!
Plans for an elaborate 400-year commemoration in Virginias Historic Triangle have found their way into Gov. Terry McAuliffes crosshairs.
McAuliffe proposed deep cuts to the Jamestown-Yorktown 2019 Commemoration, a subgroup of the politically connected Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, when he released his budget in December.
Last week, when the House and Senate restored most of the money he had stripped away, McAuliffe pounced. He said the General Assembly was supporting a celebration at the expense of important mental health programs.
Honoring our history is important, but I am confident that the board can accomplish that mission for the $5 million in the budget I proposed in December, McAuliffe said.
He called on lawmakers to put $4.2 million in the budget for mental health screenings and assessments in jails a proposal in his December budget that also was supported by a bipartisan subcommittee studying mental health reform in Virginia. Lawmakers in charge of crafting the budgets said there was not enough money to fund the proposal.
In an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Joe Flores, deputy secretary of health and human resources, and Suzanne Gore, a senior policy adviser for McAuliffe on health care, said $5 million should be enough funding for a celebration.
Budgets are a reflection of our priorities, Flores said.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City; Del. S. Chris Jones, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; and a host of other lawmakers from both parties and well-heeled Virginians sit on the board of trustees of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.
The foundation is a state agency that administers the Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, two living-history museums in the Historic Triangle.
Its operating budget in the current fiscal year is $17.9 million 54 percent of which comes from the states general fund, spokeswoman Tracy Perkins said.
The commemoration is set to take place throughout 2019 with a series of events and projects highlighting four major milestones that took place 400 years ago, said Kathy J. Spangler, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown 2019 Commemoration.
The milestones include the first representative assembly in the New World; the arrival of the first recorded Africans to English settlements; the recruitment of English women to the colony; and the first English Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation.
The wheels began turning this fiscal year after the General Assembly approved more than $11 million in funding in last years biennial budget, Spangler said. Eight staff members and 11 committees of more than 130 leading Virginians are involved in the planning process.
Based on last years appropriation, we put a fairly auspicious plan together, Spangler said. These crucial general funds were important to leverage private-sector engagement.
If the funding is cut, plans for the commemoration will have to be scaled back, Spangler said.
Jones said the House budget restored most of the money McAuliffe eliminated, but the foundation would still have to deal with a 10 percent cut, which is higher than I think most any other agency took, he said.
This is a very seminal year, not only for the commonwealth but for the nation, Jones said. The cuts that were made by the governor were severe.
Jones said the House set aside an equal amount of money as McAuliffe did for behavioral health services in the community and state mental hospitals.
Funding was not appropriated for mental health screenings in jails, because the General Assembly approved an 18-month pilot program last year for $3.5 million in six local and regional jails, he said. Lawmakers wanted to get the results back from the jails before spending more money on screenings.
Flores and Gore said that was not enough.
Doing nothing more at this time does not meet the need, Gore said.
Mental health funding has been in the spotlight this session after the death of Jamycheal Mitchell in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth in August 2015.
Several agencies investigated Mitchells death, but none reached any conclusions about how he wasted away behind bars under what was supposed to be near-constant supervision.
Winds increased dramatically across Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic after a cold front passed through on Sunday evening and an area of low pressure strengthened over New England.
The wind prompted gale warnings for the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic coastline, while high-wind warnings were in effect for the Washington area and the higher elevations to the west.
In Northern Virginia and Maryland, the northwest winds were enhanced by a line of severe thunderstorms that passed through about midnight, which brought down a number of trees.
Here are some of the peak wind gusts on Sunday night and early Monday morning from the National Weather Service offices in Sterling and Wakefield:
Reagan Washington National Airport: 66 mph
Wintergreen, Nelson County: 63 mph
Washington Dulles International Airport: 58 mph
Winchester: 58 mph
Tangier Sound Light: 57 mph
Quantico: 53 mph
Richmond International Airport: 45 mph
Chesterfield County Airport: 43 mph
Hanover County Municipal Airport: 43 mph
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
New Delhi: Indian Multinational Automotive Tata Motors is one of the best automobile dealers in India. Tata has created a significant place in the global market. Tata Motor is planning to launch its new crossover in the market- Tata Prima.
The company has decided to launch its new truck brand in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Two variants of Tata Prima will be launched- The Prima 4438.S(4X2) tractor head and the Prima 4038.K (6X4) construction tipper.
Both the trucks are launched with Tata's dealer partner Manahil International company. Tata Motors Executive Director of Commercial Vehicle Business Unit Ravindra Pisharody said, "The launch of our next-generation range of Tata Prima heavy-duty commercial vehicles is an important milestone in our journey towards further enriching the value trucking proposition, in one of the largest construction and infrastructure hubs in the Middle East."
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Plans for an elaborate 400-year commemoration in Virginias Historic Triangle have found their way into Gov. Terry McAuliffes crosshairs.
McAuliffe proposed deep cuts to the Jamestown-Yorktown 2019 Commemoration, a subgroup of the politically connected Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, when he released his budget in December.
Last week, when the House and Senate restored most of the money he had stripped away, McAuliffe pounced. He said the General Assembly was supporting a celebration at the expense of important mental health programs.
Honoring our history is important, but I am confident that the board can accomplish that mission for the $5 million in the budget I proposed in December, McAuliffe said.
He called on lawmakers to put $4.2 million in the budget for mental health screenings and assessments in jails a proposal in his December budget that also was supported by a bipartisan subcommittee studying mental health reform in Virginia. Lawmakers in charge of crafting the budgets said there was not enough money to fund the proposal.
Joe Flores, deputy secretary of health and human resources, and Suzanne Gore, a senior policy adviser for McAuliffe on health care, said $5 million should be enough funding for a celebration.
Budgets are a reflection of our priorities, Flores said.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment, R-James City; Del. Chris Jones, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; other lawmakers from both parties; and a host of other well-heeled Virginians sit on the board of trustees of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.
The foundation is a state agency that administers the Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, two living-history museums in Americas Historic Triangle.
Its operating budget in the current fiscal year is $17.9 million 54 percent of which comes from the states general fund, spokeswoman Tracy Perkins said.
The commemoration is set to take place throughout 2019 with a series of events and projects highlighting four major milestones that took place 400 years ago, said Kathy Spangler, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown 2019 Commemoration.
The so-called Red Letter Year milestones of 1619 include the first representative assembly in the New World; the arrival of the first recorded Africans to English settlements; the recruitment of English women to the colony; and the first English Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation.
The wheels began turning this fiscal year after the General Assembly approved more than $11 million in funding in last years biennial budget, Spangler said. Eight staff members and 11 committees of more than 130 leading Virginians are involved in the planning process.
Based on last years appropriation, we put a fairly auspicious plan together, Spangler said. These crucial general funds were important to leverage private sector engagement.
If the funding is cut, Spangler said plans for the commemoration will have to be scaled back.
Jones said the House budget restored most of the money McAuliffe eliminated, but the foundation would still have to deal with a 10 percent cut, which is higher than I think most any other agency took, he said.
Funding was not appropriated for mental health screenings in jails, because the General Assembly approved an 18-month pilot program last year for $3.5 million in six local and regional jails, he said. Lawmakers wanted to get the results back from the jails before spending more money on screenings.
Flores and Gore said that was not enough.
Doing nothing more at this time does not meet the need, Gore said.
When asked who her older sister is, 3-year-old Caliann Lafkin looks up and says, Cami.
And where does Cami live? asks Calianns mother, Elly Lafkin.
God, Caliann says.
Thats right, her mother encourages. Cami lives with God.
In 2012, Elly and Cameron Lafkin of Harrisonburg trusted their 3-month-old daughter, Camden, with a child care provider recommended by friends and on whom they did a public knowledge background check based on the providers name. The check did not turn up any suspicious results.
Then, after four weeks with the care provider, Cami was found unresponsive and rushed to an emergency room. After CPR efforts failed to revive her, she was pronounced dead.
After Camden died, the police arrested [the provider] and fingerprinted her, and thats unfortunately how we found out she had five alias names and she was on felony probation under one of the alias names, Elly Lafkin said.
Since Camis death, the Lafkins have been pushing Virginia to expand the background check requirements for child care providers.
A measure known as Camis Law, passed in 2015, required all licensed providers in the state to get fingerprint background checks to prevent other providers from hiding behind aliases.
The Lafkins are aiming to push those requirements even further this year. Similar bills in the House and Senate would require all providers even those operating under a religious exemption to undergo fingerprint background checks.
Some religiously exempt day care centers have voiced strong opposition to the bill, claiming it represents government overreach and unfairly targets ministry facilities. Currently, those facilities self-report to the Virginia Department of Social Services that their providers undergo name-based background checks.
It feels like the Department of Social Services just wants to have authority over us, said Pastor John Godfrey of Immanuel Baptist Church in Clifton Forge, which runs a day care center.
We are not the problem. In fact, we believe that we are the safest option.
Each bill has passed its branch of the General Assembly. One is sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Wexton, D-Leesburg, and the other by Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline.
The issue has become more urgent, as the federal government is threatening states with financial penalties.
If Virginia does not change its rules by October to require that all child care providers undergo fingerprint background checks, the state will risk losing some or all of the $117 million it receives through the Child Care and Development Fund.
Those federal funds fuel Virginias Child Care Subsidy program, which in 2016 contributed toward the care of nearly 38,800 children and allowed their parents to go to work or receive job training, according to the Department of Social Services.
Virginia would be penalized at least 5 percent or nearly $6 million of the $117 million it receives. Or the U.S. secretary of health and human services could decide the penalty and potentially disqualify Virginia from receiving any funding.
The federal government is figuratively holding a dollar gun to our heads, Orrock said during a recent House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee meeting.
But even with that money at stake, some who support religiously exempt day care facilities remain fiercely opposed to the bills.
The overarching fear is that expanding background check requirements could lead to the government controlling everything about ministry day care centers or even removing the religious exemption option .
Orrock was among those who have raised reservations about the bill.
Religious day care [centers] feel this is an overreach, and I must say I concur, Orrock said.
Orrock included a sunset clause in his bill that would end Virginias fingerprint background check requirements should the federal government change its regulations.
He said he ultimately supports the bill because if Virginia does not change its policies, it risks losing money for low-income families.
Others, though, feel differently. When Del. Peter Farrell, R-Henrico, asked one of the opponents of Orrocks bill if he would rather have the state give up the federal money than risk contributing to government overreach, the answer was yes.
Some religiously exempt day care centers accept federal subsidies, though Godfrey emphasized his ministry does not.
Our church day care doesnt get the money, so they preach this mantra about safety its not, he said.
According to the Department of Social Services, in 2016 Virginias 275 religiously exempt day cares received just over $5 million in federal funds and more than $1.7 million in state money.
The issue, said Dan Zacharias, executive director of the Old Dominion Association of Church Schools, is philosophical. By placing further regulations on child day care centers that operate under religious exemptions, the government is breaching the fundamental idea of the separation of church and state.
We view this through a religious liberty lens, Zacharias said. For the state to license any ministry of a church, in our perspective, is a violation of the separation of church and state and can lead to other kinds of controls beyond just safety controls.
He said he believes the federal rules have been misinterpreted to impose further regulations on religiously exempt day care centers.
Its not that he wants Virginia to refuse federal funds for low-income families, he said. He wants Virginia lawmakers to band together to challenge the federal regulation and protect religiously exempt institutions.
Those who want to take the money, thats their business, he said. Im not going to try to stand in the way of that. Were interested in protecting our own autonomy and freedom.
The other argument, though, comes from families such as the Lafkins and organizations including Child Care Aware Virginia, whose executive director, Kimberly Taylor, said the goal of the bills is not to impinge upon the rights of religiously exempt day care centers but to protect children.
I have my grandson in a religious exempt [day care center]. Its wonderful. I like that theyre getting Christ-centered education, she said.
However, I want to know his teacher does not have a criminal background. Just because youre working in a church does not mean you dont have a criminal background.
Requiring fingerprint background checks, Taylor said, is the surest way to ensure that a child care provider does not have a criminal past. Unlike fingerprint checks, name-based background checks are not capable of exposing aliases.
That is exactly why the Lafkins have been meeting with lawmakers in recent weeks to share their story.
We had no idea, Cameron Lafkin said. When you do a background check, you think its going to be extensive, and then we were blinded with the polices news.
Elly Lafkin said Camis day care provider hid behind a fake name, and now the Lafkins are hoping to prevent others from doing the same thing.
Nobody leaves their child with a felon on purpose, she said.
What does free speech on campus mean?
A few generations and culture wars ago, provocateurs speaking out on college campuses were labeled outside agitators. Now they might be called invited guests.
A day after riots erupted at Berkeley over a talk planned by an inflammatory Breitbart editor, a bill protecting free speech at public colleges quietly made it through the House of Delegates.
Its just a restatement of the First Amendment, said Del. Steve Landes, R-Augusta, who sponsored the legislation with 19 co-patrons.
How can anybody be against free speech and promoting free speech? he said. Especially on campuses.
Its not that straightforward, say others who see the bill as unnecessary, if not problematic, and a reflection of a larger, polarizing debate over academic freedom.
Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, released a survey of bias response teams nationally and on seven Virginia campuses that the group says encourage students to anonymously report on other students or faculty members if they perceive someones speech to be biased.
Theres a moral panic in America that free speech is under assault at universities, but its absolutely not true, said Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of modern media studies at the University of Virginia.
Landes legislation, now in a Senate committee, is a single sentence that belies the complexity around it.
The bill would prohibit public institutions of higher education from abridging the freedom of any individual, including enrolled students, faculty and other employees, and invited guests, to speak on campus, except as otherwise permitted by the First Amendment.
He said he decided the legislation was necessary after finding inconsistencies in policies at Virginia schools.
But he also said schools should not rescind an invitation to a speaker with unpopular opinions because of protests. Thats not promoting free speech, he said.
Virginia Tech was caught in such a controversy last spring. Jason Riley, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, said he was disinvited from speaking because he is a black conservative, resulting in an apology and a new invitation from the university.
That followed a backlash over an appearance by Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve whose writings on race and intelligence drew protests.
The decision by the University of California, Berkeley, to cancel an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart editor known for his vile insults, drew a threat from President Donald Trump.
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view NO FEDERAL FUNDS? Trump tweeted.
Berkeley blamed the violence on 150 masked agitators who infiltrated student protesters on the campus, which gave rise to the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. The complaint then was that outside agitators were stoking unrest.
Yiannopoulos, whose racist tweets got him banned from Twitter, had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans.
Landes said schools have the discretion to not invite a speaker who might incite violence.
They need to do the legwork beforehand, he said.
The First Amendment allows for such exceptions, he said. But free speech is free speech, and its protected. Any viewpoint should be heard on campus.
Vaidhyanathan has a different perspective.
Universities are not park benches or street corners, he said. They are not places where anything goes.
Universities have long been committed to allowing informed, respectful, dispassionate deliberation, he said. But they are also workplaces with thousands of employees who deserve to work in a respectful environment free from harassment.
He said he can see absurd consequences of the legislation an invited guest, for example, politicking from a faculty office, something thats now prohibited.
Universities have no obligation to sponsor crackpot expressions, he said. We have no obligation to sponsor every poet who wants to issue a verbal haiku and no responsibility to sponsor every or any climate change denier.
Marcus Messner, social media professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, sees the legislation as overregulation.
What happened at Berkeley was an exception, he said. The event was canceled because of security not because the administration didnt like the speaker.
Anyone who thinks First Amendment rights are being abridged, he said, should come to the Compass in front of VCUs library, where we have a broad variety of free speech on campus every single day.
In this country theres not a European-style regulation of hate speech, he said. In the U.S. that is a nonstarter discussion.
FIRE, however, said it found 232 Bias Response Teams nationally and called them illiberal, and antithetical to a campus open to the free exchange of ideas.
VCU and UVa were among the universities criticized by FIRE, as were Tech, George Mason, Mary Washington, the University of Richmond and Longwood University, which was singled out for special scrutiny for including the threat of education sanctions in its policy.
The FIRE report is extremely misleading, Longwood spokesman Matthew McWilliams said.
Longwood has a protocol to identify when bias might be a factor in behaviors such as harassment that may violate the law or conduct code, but we do not under any circumstances punish students simply for their beliefs or opinions.
No bias issues have been reported, he said.
Charles Klink, VCUs vice provost for student affairs, said the response team, established in 2015, has responded to about 10 cases. He declined to give details about the cases.
The team was created to respond in a thoughtful and supportive manner to students impacted by bias-motivated behaviors that cause harm and constitute threat and harassment, he said by email.
But, he said, it also provides a mechanism to assist students in understanding the distinction between protected speech and behavior that harms or speech that constitutes harassment or threat.
Audrey Alves is a teeny tiny 2-year-old from California with a great big challenge. Theres a gulf of several inches between where shes sitting on the floor of a Roanoke hotel room and a bin of shiny beads.
Three weeks ago, Audrey probably wouldnt have cared about the beads, but if she did, she would have had no way to reach them. She would, at most, have cried and flopped over.
Now, she squeals with delight, moves her hands together to sign more, and then, with much encouragement from her therapist, plants them firmly on the ground, lifts her bottom so shes on all fours and tries to crawl.
Audrey has a rare gene mutation that resulted in her brain failing to grow the way it should. She has microcephaly, which means a small head and brain, and she has little control over her muscles. Her challenge is to overcome the medical opinion delivered to her parents along with her diagnosis: Shell never walk, shell never talk, and a whole lot of other nevers.
But what did Audreys doctors know? Her mom, Rachel Alves, soon discovered that specialists in Sacramento were unfamiliar with the CASK mutation. The disease has been diagnosed in only about 100 children worldwide. So Alves turned to the internet and found one place that knows about CASK mutation: the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. She found a small, but determined, network intent on kicking CASK.
Konark Mukherjee, perhaps the only neuroscientist in the world studying the CASK gene at its molecular level, created a website, caskmutation.org, as a way to connect with families and to discover whether what hes learning from mice is applicable to children. And if it helps children with a CASK mutation, could it help all children with microcephaly, regardless of the cause?
Families told him the only thing that seemed to help was a lot of therapy, so Mukherjee turned to his colleague Stephanie DeLuca. She runs the institutes Neuromotor Research Clinic and brings in several children each month, mostly with cerebral palsy, for intensive bursts of therapy.
DeLuca said she wasnt sure whether she could develop a therapy for children with CASK mutation because the condition is so rare, but there was only one way to find out. We literally said lets bring a child in and see if we can get positive results.
They are taking a bench-to-bedside approach to research that, while not as rare as a CASK mutation, is a unique model.
We are trying to bridge the gap between bench science and clinical science that many places cant do simply because they dont have the same similar researchers from both lines in the same facility, DeLuca said.
Ordinarily, Murkherjee would work in the lab and develop protocols, and someone at another institution would try them out with patients. The results would eventually funnel back to his lab to refine, and the cycle would repeat until an effective therapy was developed. At VTCRI, hes able to partner with DeLuca and both of them can make adjustments at a quicker pace.
Paying their own way
DeLuca said she sent off a grant application seeking funds to cover the travel and living expenses for the families of 36 children with microcephaly to come to Roanoke during the next few years. The Alveses had to pay their own way, and as a one-income family, Audreys dad, Matthew, had to stay behind to work. Her nana, Patti Hutton, came along to help with Audreys round-the-clock care.
Finding an effective therapy for microcephaly is becoming more urgent. The term, which means small brain, worked its way into the lexicon last year when the mosquito-borne Zika virus began to spread in the Western Hemisphere. Though the virus appears to have a mild effect on healthy adults, that isnt the case for developing fetuses. Pregnant women who are infected with Zika are at risk of delivering a baby with microcephaly, in which the brain does not develop and grow as it should.
Zika is just one cause of microcephaly. Sometimes the cause is not known, and the condition can vary in severity.
Audreys challenges
Audrey Alves, the first child of Rachel and Matthew Alves, arrived on Jan. 16, 2015, following an uneventful pregnancy. It wasnt clear at first that she was ill.
When she was born, they were concerned with her small head size, but they didnt classify it as microcephaly yet. They just said to watch if milestones werent met, Alves said. Audrey didnt roll over, sit up, pull herself up, rock back and forth or begin to help feed and dress herself.
She was a tiny baby. Full-term, Audrey weighed in at 5 pounds 9 ounces and was slow to grow. Alves found it difficult to nurse as she wasnt producing enough milk. She knows now that Audreys low muscle tone prevented her from suckling properly.
At 6 months, Alves knew her daughter wasnt developing as she should. Audreys right hand remained clenched like a newborns. She couldnt sit and she was missing all the infant milestones. At 9 months, Audreys pediatrician sent her to neurology for an MRI.
They were expecting to find a brain abnormality, and they didnt. That is why we were sent to genetics, Alves said. They told us basically they had ruled out everything and theres a such a small chance theyd find anything with genetics, but it was the next protocol.
During the six-week wait for the genetic test results, the Alveses became reconciled to not knowing why their daughter was so small and developmentally delayed.
Then the doctor called and told them Audrey has a defect on her CASK gene. Shes one of only 100 or so children in the world with this diagnosis, though most likely many other childrens microcephaly was caused by this mutation they just havent had genetic testing.
The gene is located on the X chromosome. Since boys have but one X chromosome, if this gene is defective, they die at birth or shortly after. Girls generally will have microcephaly and low muscle tone and are at risk of being deaf, blind and having heart and kidney problems. They can survive with the mutation.
Mukherjee and DeLuca believe they also can thrive.
Intensive treatments
Every day for three weeks, therapist Dory Wallace spent four hours with Audrey helping her learn to use and control certain muscles. Audrey learned how to take bigger bites of food and eat from a fork. She can move from sitting to a crawling position and back to sitting without flopping over. She can pick up small toys and release them with both hands. Her right hand is no longer clenched in a fist.
She delights in toys of different shapes and textures, which bothered her when she first arrived.
Most of all, shes beginning to talk through hand signs.
I know the motor skills are exciting, but the communication is huge, DeLuca said. What we know that often happens with older children is the communication and social interaction is delayed. So its exciting to help her start early, and she can build on those skills.
DeLuca said evidence suggests Audrey will keep the skills shes gained and can build on them, depending on the type of therapy she gets at home.
From the time of her diagnosis, Audrey began to receive one hour of therapy five days a week through Californias early intervention program. One day she has feeding therapy, another day speech, another physical therapy and so on.
In Roanoke, she had all of it for hours each day.
The amount of therapy we are getting in three weeks is what we get in a year, Alves said.
DeLuca said from what shes seen in more than 30 years of working with children with cerebral palsy and now microcephaly, the traditional delivery of therapy does not work.
We are simply diluting therapies too much when we give it for an hour a week, she said.
She credits her colleague Sharon Ramey with a descriptive analogy.
Suppose you had to treat 10 children with an ear infection that requires a 10-day course of antibiotics, but you had enough for only one child. Would you give 10 children one dose or one child 10 doses and then figure out how to get 10 more doses to treat the next child?
DeLuca said shes hoping to secure a grant to treat 36 more children with microcephaly with intensive bursts of therapy.
The bursts are similar to teaching a child the ABCs by buying ABC bedsheets, hanging the alphabet on the wall, putting magnets on the refrigerator and singing the song over and over until the child gets it. Then its a matter of reinforcing and building on the skill.
As she watched Audrey sign for more toys, DeLuca said she was encouraged by how much the little girl has progressed in three weeks and by the fact that she is now developing skills to communicate. Similar improvements were seen in the other two children with CASK mutations who came to Roanoke.
Moving forward
I dont have specific evidence it will be applicable to all children with microcephaly, but I dont have specific evidence that it wont, she said. If I have seen anything work for all children with motor disorders, it has been intensive therapy bursts.
Mukherjee said he sees the same in the lab with his mouse model. Hes planning next to pull in another colleague, Stephen LaConte, a pioneer in functional MRI, which allows scientists to watch the brain as it works and interacts.
Through this, they might be able to peek inside a childs brain and see what occurs on the inside.
The changes in Audrey in three weeks were dramatic, her mom said. Shes beginning to move and shes beginning to communicate, and Rachel Alves believes her daughter is capable of so much more.
Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam on Monday called for decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana in Virginia, saying enforcement is expensive and disproportionately jails African-Americans.
As a doctor, I like to make the point to people, over 100 of the medicines that we use on a daily basis come from plants, he said in an interview Monday. So I think we need to be open-minded about using marijuana for medical purposes.
But Northam, a Democrat, is talking about more than just medicine.
Northam wrote a column about various aspects of criminal justice and posted it Monday to his channel on Medium. In it, he cited an ACLU study showing African-Americans in 2010 were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Virginia, which spends more than $67 million annually on marijuana enforcement.
That money could be better spent, he said.
Where there is evidence-based data that suggests that marijuana is useful, then I think we should be open-minded, he said.
Northam joins a growing list of Virginia politicians interested in the issue. Late last year, Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment, R-James City, questioned whether possession of small amounts of marijuana should remain a crime.
Norment in November requested a study of the issue from the Virginia State Crime Commission.
Because of the pending study, legislation from Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, was put on hold this year. Ebbin has proposed changing punishment for possession of small amounts of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil fine.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia had decriminalized small amounts of marijuana as of November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In November, voters in California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada backed adult use of recreational marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, bringing to eight the number of states that have legalized small amounts of marijuana, along with Washington, D.C.
When asked how often he encountered a patient who used marijuana, Northam said often.
Veterans suffering from a brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder and people with multiple sclerosis find it helpful, he said.
PLANNING bosses are expected to approve proposals for the 37m Gullivers Valley Theme Park at a meeting later this week.
Rotherham Borough Council is expected to grant permission for the family firm to build on 250 acres of the former Pithouse West site at a planning board meeting on Thursday.
The plans include a main theme park hub, with rides and attractions aimed at children aged two to 13.
A water play zone, climbing centre, glades attraction and an education and ecology centre are also proposed.
The resort will offer accommodation in the form of glamping, self-catering lodges and hotels. It will have nature trails, walks, outdoor gyms and woodland runs and is expected to create around 400 jobs.
A report to the planning board said: The proposed development is considered to constitute inappropriate development within the Green Belt, however very special circumstances are considered to exist due to the economic benefits of the development in terms of increased local employment opportunities and the increase in numbers of tourists and visitors to Rotherham.
The proposal will positively contribute to the local economy and tourism opportunities with a diverse range of job opportunities created both within the construction and operational phases, and will create up to 125 full time jobs and 325 part time jobs. The proposal will attract tourists to Rotherham which would be beneficial for the local economy.
Gulliver's hope to begin construction before the end of the year and the first phase of development the main entrance and access roads, theme park hub and core parking could be open in 2020.
Lesotho said it is working towards increasing its diamond production from 340 000 carats to about 1 500 000 carats by 2020.
Mines minister Lebohang Thotanyana told delegates at the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town that the opening of four additional diamond mines in the country would augment production currently coming from Letseng and Storm Mountain Diamonds.
He said Liqhobong Diamond Mine commenced production last year and was expected to reach full production in 2018 while Kolo Diamond Mine was currently under trail mining and expected to start production in the second quarter of 2017.
Just recently, Lesotho completed a sale of 70 percent shareholding in Mothae to Lucapa Diamond Company.
The diamond mine, previously owned by Lucara Diamond, was expected to commence production by end of the year, said Thotanyana.
He also said that an expression of interest had been issued to investors interested in the Lemphane Diamond Mine.
The minister said the country had 20 areas open for prospecting.
The first batch (five areas) was advertised in the last quarter of 2016 and currently under evaluation, he said.
The next batch will be advertised in the second quarter of 2017prospecting licences are issued for an initial period of two years and may be extended for an additional year.
Meanwhile, Thotanyana said Lesotho was set to add value to diamond produced in the country.
Our government is reviewing its mining legal framework and making recommendations on streamlining or eliminating regulatory barriers and to provide for diamond beneficiation, he said.
Lesotho was known for producing some of the largest diamonds attracting highest price per carat.
Its operating mines recorded an average price of $931.39 per carat in 2015 compared with a global average of $108.96 per carat.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
Mountain Province Diamonds recovered the largest gem-quality stone yet from its Gahcho Kue mine in Canada.
At 67.87 carats, the octahedron-shaped rough diamond was extracted during the ramp-up of the mine, which was launched in September last year.
The presence of large gem-quality diamonds at Gahcho Kue was established during the bulk sampling when a 25.13-carat octahedron was recovered. The recovery of a 67.87-carat, gem-quality diamond during production ramp-up is very encouraging, said Patrick Evans, chief executive officer of Mountain Province.
The mine is on track to achieve commercial production, meaning 70 percent of capacity, during the first quarter, Evans added. The companys second sale of diamonds from initial output will take place in Antwerp from February 20 to March 1.
Mountain Province, which has a 49 percent stake in the mine, is a co-owner along with De Beers.
The Zimbabwean government has reached an out of court settlement with OFECC, a Chinese company that owns Anjin and Janin, which had claims in Marange, but later pushed out to pave way for the consolidation of diamond mining in the country.
OFECC together with Mbada Diamonds had taken Harare to High Court to stop the takeover of their claims, but lost the case.
They then went to the Constitutional Court where the matter was yet to be finalised.
However, mines minister Walter Chidhakwa told Rough & Polished on the sidelines of the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town that they had reached an out of court agreement with the company.
We have managed to hammer out an out of court agreement were we have said to them that they will leave and we will take over the area and they will take all their equipment, he said.
Chidhakwa said OFECC had not yet dropped the Constitutional Court case despite the agreement.
They have not officially dropped their case. We have finalised on the movement of Jinan and we are now starting discussions on how Anjin will start also movingAll we need to do is to facilitate them through our customs, reserve bank processes to export their equipment.
Chidhakwa said the Lebanese and Russian companies did not oppose the consolidation of diamond mining in Marange.
We paid for their (Lebanese) equipment and took over the (DMC) ground and we started negotiations also with the RussiansI was very impressed that as we took national decisions the Russians did not oppose us, he said.
Chidhakwa admitted that the actual consolidation was yet to be concluded because of the legal fights and the protracted time it had taken negotiating with the mining companies.
It has taken much longer than we anticipated [reaching] an agreement on these matters but I am happy to say that we are now finalising the matters, he said.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
Carl Chapman
The Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC), citing reduced business and revenues, has cut 49 positions, laying off 31 employees.
ARRC said the current round of position eliminations is part of a major corporate restructuring effort as the railroad attempts to counter a 44-percent downturn in freight tonnage since 2008. Of the 49 positions eliminated, 18 were left vacant, lowering the actual lay offs to 31 employees.
Hard decisions had to be made to ensure the Alaska Railroad can continue to provide critical transportation services to the state, said ARRC Board Chair Jon Cook. Our management team, along with the railroad Board of Directors, focused on safety, customer service and meeting regulatory requirements as decisions were made. Of utmost importance is our ongoing commitment to provide exemplary service to our passengers, freight and real estate customers.
ARRC says factors contributing to this latest action include a significant drop in revenue from oil industry customers largely due to low oil prices; a significant drop in revenue from other key customers resulting from Alaskas recession; loss of export coal business resulting in closure of the coal export facility in Seward; an 84 percent drop in refined petroleum business due to closure and dismantling of the refinery in North Pole; an increase in labor and benefit cost, which the railroad says is largely due to the unsustainable rising cost of health care and a need to increase resources to comply with the regulatory environment including Positive Train Control and other hurdles increasing the cost of doing business.
These personnel decisions are the hardest for leaders of any company to make, said ARRC President and CEO Bill OLeary. They are difficult for those who are leaving the Railroad and hard on all of us saying goodbye to our friends and peers. Our human resources department will work closely with affected employees to ensure they have the information and resources they need to help with the transition.
This reorganization represents an eight-percent reduction in the year-round ARRC workforce, which the railroad says equates to an estimated savings of $4.7 million in wage, salary and benefit costs. ARRCs year-round workforce is currently at 609 and this number increases to approximately 760 employees to address seasonal operating needs. This latest reduction in personnel comes on top of three previous layoffs since 2008. Overall, ARRC has eliminated more than 300 year-round positions since 2008.
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will withhold five percent of federal funds to the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia until a new Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) State Safety Oversight Program (SSOP) is in place.
FTA notified the transit systems in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia that effective immediately the transit formula funds from Fiscal Year 2017 will be held until a SSOP is certified for WMATA rail operations. The funds will be withheld until the jurisdictions pass identical legislation and meet related requirements in order for FTA to certify a new SSOP for WMATA Metrorail and can be restored once the jurisdictions establish a federally-compliant, FTA-certified SSOP.
The governors of Maryland, Virginia and the mayor of the District of Columbia have been informed of the FTAs decision. The funding freeze affects eight FTA fund recipients, which allocate the funding to transit agencies in their respective areas. FTA says that under the current continuing budget resolution through April 28, 2017, this amounts to approximately $8.9 million, in total, for the two states and the district. Based on a full-year appropriation, the total amount that may be withheld in Fiscal Year 2017 is estimated at approximately $15 million.
In order for FTA to certify a SSOP for WMATA rail, the jurisdictions must still take several key actions, including:
Passing identical legislation by Maryland and Virginia state legislatures and the District of Columbia and signed by the state governors and district mayor.
Submitting a certification application and documentation to FTA showing that the State Safety Oversight Agency (SSOA) has independence from the rail transit system it oversees; enforcement and investigation authority; adequate staffing and training; FTA grant recipient status; and has met general program requirements.
Participating in a transitional hand-off period whereby FTA officials work side-by-side with new SSOA officials to ensure they are capable of conducting all oversight responsibilities required by Federal law.
Verifying with FTA that the new SSOAs enforcement and oversight capabilities, as well as their inspection, investigation and audit activities are adequate and meet all statutory requirements.
By law, states have the primary responsibility for overseeing the safe operation of their rail transit systems, not only for riders but for transit operators and workers, said FTA Executive Director Matthew Welbes. FTA has been providing oversight for WMATA Metrorail since October 2015, but the role is temporary. We will continue to direct safety oversight of Metrorail only until the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia step up and establish an FTA-certified State Safety Oversight Program.
French drug maker Ipsen SA (IPSEY) announced Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire five consumer healthcare products in certain European territories from Sanofi (SNY).
Under the terms of the agreement, Ipsen will pay 83 million euros cash upon closing for the products.
The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including the European Commission's approval, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017.
The transaction will be fully financed by Ipsen's existing cash and lines of credit.
These products include Prontalgine, an analgesic for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, which has grown at double digit rates over the last four years and is available only in France. The portfolio also includes Buscopan, an antispasmodic; Suppositoria Glycerini, a laxative; and Mucothiol and Mucodyne, expectorants for cough and flu.
Combined, these regional brands span a geographic scope of eight European countries. Manufacturing will be provided by third parties.
David Meek, CEO of Ipsen, said, "This tactical bolt-on transaction resulting from the European Commission's requirement to divest certain assets from the Sanofi / Boehringer Ingelheim consumer healthcare deal strengthens our consumer healthcare portfolio in France with the addition of Prontalgine. The opportunity immediately improves the profitability profile of Ipsen's Primary Care ."
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd. (KNBWF.PK) Monday announced fiscal net income attributable to the owners of the parent of 118.158 billion yen, compared to loss of 47.329 billion yen last year. On a per share basis, earnings were 129.49 yen, while the loss was 51.87 yen last year.
Net sales for the full year declined to 2.075 trillion from 2.196 trillion in the previous year.
Looking ahead, the company expects fiscal 2017 net income to be 68.00 billion yen. Net sales for the period is expected to be 2.100 trillion.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
Copper prices are likely to trade higher, taking cues from global situations and on evaluation of tense strike at world's major copper mine owner BHP Billiton Ltd.
The company reported vandalism by a group of people at the Escondida mine. The strike has forced to stop output of the mine. A group of 300 people from outside tried to enter the premises, set off alarms and cut the electricity at security posts. BHP said the attack has left the cameras and verification systems at the site inoperable.
In a statement, the company said it would go ahead with legal actions to guarantee security of all workers.
The workers of around 2500 went on strike after failure of a discussion to raise wages on Thursday. The strike might restrict supply of copper. The mine has a production output of around 1.15 million tonnes that comes around 6 percent of global output.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Business News
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau landed in Washington on Monday for a White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, scheduled for later in the day.
Trudeau has vowed to preserve Canada's close ties with its most important ally, and said he will highlight creating jobs and opportunity for Canadian citizens through the continued close integration on both sides of the border.
A task force called the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs is expected to be launched in the presence of Trump's daughter Ivanka.
Trudeau is the third leader after British Prime Minister Theresa May and Japanese Prime Minster Shinto Abe to visit Trump after he assumed office less than a month ago.
Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto had canceled a scheduled meeting with his American counterpart last month after Trump said that if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the planned border wall, then it would be better to cancel the Nieto's visit.
Trudeau, a Liberal leader, is polar opposite to tycoon-turned politician Trump.
They are divided on mainly two issues - trade and immigration.
Canada is worried over the US president's pledge to renegotiate free trade deal NAFTA. Trudeau is known as an advocate for free trade. US is the main destination of Canada's exports.
Trudeau was one of the first world leaders to respond to Trump's immigration ban, by saying Canada welcomes refugees who have been rejected from the US.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Political News
FM: What came in Al-Jubeir and Guterres conference is false
SANA'A, Feb. 13 (Saba) Foreign Minister Hisham Sharaf said that what is stated in the press conference of the Saudi aggression Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir with the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres is a barefaced lie and a failed attempt to mislead the media.
"It is a lie, and a continuation for the Saudi aggression Foreign Minister failed attempts to promote for a misleading media campaign funded by Riyadh leadership in order to deceive the Arab and world public opinion, which is trying to show Saudi Arabia as a dove of peace in the region". Sharaf said.
He said that the international conscience is in a deep sleep for two years because of the kingdom's oil money which bought the voices of the most of the Arab and international media.
He added that the Saudi Arabia killing in Yemen is not justified and if it is sincere in its fears of the Islamic Republic of Iran, why not engage in a battle or a military conflict with it. Also its allegations to restore a finished legitimacy to Hadi will not absolve them of the responsibility of killing more than ten thousand Yemeni citizen mostly women, children and elderly people and destroying the infrastructure that damaged the Yemeni economy with high costs reached $ 220 billion at end of January 2017 .
"Al-Jubair did not mention the responsibility and role of his country support for terrorism and extremist groups in different Yemeni regions which are funded by the Saudi Arabia."
Sharaf said.
TN
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[13/February/2017]
By SA Commercial Prop News
Zendais master plan seeks to spell out guiding principles for Modderfontein New City development and gauge its environmental, social and economic effects.
Zendai Development South Africa (ZDSA), the local subsidiary of Hong Kong listed Shanghai Zendai, held a series of public information sessions during July 2015 on the master plan for the proposed development of Modderfontein New City.
Attendees were taken through the master plan and the guiding principles and included presentations on the details of the framework, project scope and a preliminary roll-out schedule.
The sessions also offered the community from the surrounding areas an opportunity to meet Atkins Global and Arup representatives, the appointed technical consultants on the project.
Atkins scope includes the strategic and operational framework for the development; including land-uses, sustainability practices, spatial planning, design and landscaping while Arups scope covers services and infrastructure master planning, and traffic impact assessments.
The sessions, held at the historic Franz Hoenig Haus, were attended by amongst others delegates from the Gauteng Premiers office, City of Johannesburg officials, local businesses owners and community members.
Traffic congestion, environmental impact and the status of Modderfontein Reserve were some of the main concerns raised by community members during the sessions. Atkins Global and Arup took visitors through presentations in order to clarify informing principles which address these concerns, including Modderfontein Reserves status in the project. It was explained that the Reserve forms a focal point in the development and is integral to the future of the development.
The master plan will guide the development of the town and sets the principles on which the development is premised. The plan also allocates and identifies areas for protection (nature reserve, historic buildings), development precincts, and provides an indication of the proposed density of development and the types of land uses that are planned.
The envisioned developments footprint includes various functional zones within the precincts and seeks to encourage a mixed-use approach to achieve the ultimate work, live, play solution which caters for residential, commercial, logistics and industry.
As part of the master plan, Zendai together with Arup have assembled a comprehensive evidence base to assess the impact of development on demand for transport. Mitigation measures that would be required are already being put into place to lessen the localised impact and link into surrounding road networks; these include the completion of the 1.7 km Marlboro Drive extension, the completion of 2.4 kms of roads which links to the London Road off/on ramp, the commencement of a section of the proposed K113 (which will ultimately link Edenvale to Marlboro Drive) and the current 2km extension to Centenary Road (under construction) to link through to Longmeadow Business Estate and ultimately the N3.
Furthermore, several crossings under and over the Gautrain line have been designed for future links through the site. The traffic impact study also takes into account future public transport facilities - such as the Gautrain and related facilities, connecting to the proposed Municipal Bus Rapid Transport system and accommodating pedestrians and cyclists within development precincts.
Detailed environmental impact assessments will be carried out for specific developments as planning applications are submitted. Current environmental planning seeks to proactively identify environmental assets and ascertain significant negative impacts on the environment and where possible mitigate these.
This does not mean that potential environmental impacts will not be assessed in the future; detailed studies will be undertaken at the next stage of the planning process i.e. at the detailed planning application stage. To this end Zendai is forging working partnerships with City of Johannesburgs Environmental Department, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture & Rural Development and various key departments within local and provincial authority offices.
Zendais master plan seeks to spell out guiding principles for development and gauge its environmental, social and economic effects.
A number of local business owners attended the public information sessions to look at the range of opportunities the project would afford once it gets underway these included guest house owners, IT firms, and commercial & residential property agencies.
Margot Orr, the project technical lead at Atkins said, These sessions have encouraged a dialogue with the community whose suggestions and concerns are the bedrock of the development framework.
Market conditions will ultimately determine the release of land and related development pace. The town will be developed as a vast system of interconnected parks and open spaces, and rapid rail transport in the shape of Gautrain around which the thriving city will grow.
Public comments will be used to refine the master plan.
"This project epitomises a modern, transit-oriented, mixed use, ecologically sound environment that we believe will become a focal point of community activity and pride for the city and region, Orr concludes.
Following a separatist appeal for a protest shutdown across the Kashmir Valley, authorities on Monday made heavy deployment of security forces to avoid violence, police said.
"There will be no curfew anywhere in the valley," S.J.M. Gilani, inspector general of police (IGP) Kashmir zone, told the media here.
Violent clashes erupted on Sunday in Fraesal village of Kulgam district where eight people -- two civilians, two soldiers, four local militants -- were killed during a gunfight.
Over two dozen people were injured in these clashes.
Police said two militants belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the other two to the Hizbul Mujahideen.
Shops, public transport and other business establishments remained closed.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday sought a report from Indian consulate in Dubai regarding three Indians who reportedly suffocated to death in diesel tanks in the Gulf nation.
"@cgidubai has informed me about the unfortunate death of three Indian nationals Kishan Singh, Mohan Singh and Ujendra Singh all employees of Al-Ameer Used Oil Trading in a diesel tank in Sharjah. It appears the cause of death is suffocation," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.
"I have asked our mission to follow up investigation by the Police," she added.
Khaleej Times on Sunday reported: "Sharjah Police are investigating the death of three Indians whose bodies were found in diesel tanks in Al Saja'a area in Sharjah. After receiving an alert, Police dispatched their team, an ambulance and forensic experts."
"The bodies were removed and transferred to forensic laboratory for autopsy to determine the cause of the death," report said.
"The Police launched an investigation to rule out criminal acts behind their death," the report added.
Offering her condolences to the bereaved families, Sushma Swaraj said: "Our mission will provide them all help and assistance."
The Supreme Court on Monday deferred, for three weeks, a hearing on contempt proceedings against Calcutta High Court judge Justice C.S. Karnan as he did not appear before the court as directed.
A seven judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar directed the next hearing on March 10, noting that "we are not aware of the reasons for non-appearance" of Karnan, said: "We refrain from proceeding in the matter as of now."
"Despite due notice, Shri Justice C.S. Karnan has not appeared. No one has been authorised by Sri Justice C.S. Karnan to represent him today. In any case, no one having a power of attorney has represented him today. We are not aware of the reason(s) for his non-appearance. It is therefore, that we refrain from proceeding with the matter as of now", the bench said in its order.
The order came even as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that under the Supreme Court Rules, it was mandatory for Karnan to appear.
Rohatgi, who is assisting the court in the matter, urged the bench to frame a charge and asked Karnan to respond to it on the next date of hearing.
"Frame a charge today (Monday). Record that you (Justice Karnan) have not appeared and showcause him on the charge," Rohatgi told the bench.
As Rohatgi tried to focus on Karnan's non-appearance pointing out that the tone of his February 10 communication to the Secretary General of the apex court was no different from his earlier ones, the bench said :"The letter doesn't say he can't appear. He says that he has not been granted time."
Justice Dipak Misra said: "We grant him more time to appear and answer to the notice."
Justice Karnan, in his communication to the top court in response to its February 8 order, said: "Before obtaining any explanation from me, I wish to state that the Courts have no power to enforce punishment against a sitting judge of the High Court. The said order does not conform to logic; therefore it is not suitable for execution."
He also alleged that he was a victim of his Dalit background.
The bench, which besides Chief Justice Khehar and Justice Misra, comprises Justice J. Chelameswar, Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan B. Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Kurian Joseph, directing Justice Karnan to be present in the court on March 10 and continued its February 8 order taking away all the judicial and administrative work from him.
The bench said that the registry of the court would communicate to Justice Karnan its today's (February 13) order in the same way it had communicated the last order.
The Supreme Court had on February 8 issued the contempt notice and had asked Justice Karnan to appear before it on February 13.
Rejecting the prayer for impleadment by some advocates, the court in its order said: "Since contempt proceedings are a matter strictly between the Court and the alleged contemnor, anyone who enters appearance and disrupts the proceedings of this case in future, should understand that he/she can be proceeded against, in consonance with law."
"All that we need to say is, that no one should appear in this matter, without due consent and authorisation," it added.
Even as the political imbroglio continues in Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court will pronounce on Tuesday its verdict on the Karnataka government's plea challenging the acquittal of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, her close aide V.K. Sasikala and two others in a disproportionate assets case.
Even as the political imbroglio continues in Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court will pronounce on Tuesday its verdict on the Karnataka government's plea challenging the acquittal of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, her close aide V.K. Sasikala and two others in a disproportionate assets case.
The Karnataka government had challenged the May 11, 2015, state High Court verdict acquitting Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and her two relatives - V.N. Sudhakaran and Elavarasi - for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 66.65 crore during her first term as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996.
The bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy would pronounce the verdict, that was reserved on June 7, 2016.
The High Court's acquittal verdict had come on May 11, 2015.
The High Court, while acquitting the four, had reversed the trial court judgment convicting them on September 27, 2014.
The Bengaluru trial court had sentenced the late leader to four years in jail and imposed a Rs 100 crore fine in the disproportionate assets case. The trial lasted for 18 years.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday slapped a fine of Rs 20, 000 on Uttarakhand government and other agencies for not filing reply against a plea seeking rehabilitation of villages inside Rajaji National Park.
The Tribunal bench, headed by chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, slapped the fine on the Uttarakhand government, forest department and the chief conservator of forests of Pauri Garhwal District.
Rajaji National Park, which is known for leopards, elephants and tigers, has about ten villages towards south of its western region. According to the park officials, mass scale rehabilitation of some communities is already going on.
The Tribunal imposed fines against the government and agencies following their careless attitude against a plea of Uttarakhand's resident Madan Singh Bisht, who demands to set a monitoring committee for rehabilitation of the revenue villages inside the park.
"I am not aware of what happened in the tribunal today but those ten villages are outside the boundary of the national park," a senior forest official told IANS on the condition of anonymity.
According to the officials, Rajaji Park was declared a National Park in 1984 but the same was notified in 2013 and in May 2015 the park was declared a Tiger Reserve.
"When the boundaries of the park were notified, it was found that those villages are outside the forest boundary, but the villagers still want to move," another official added.
According the Indian government's policies, the families shifted from the forest areas are offered a relocation package, which is land against land or Rs 10 lakh per adult. The Forest Rights Act, however, leaves the choice of moving or staying with the families.
The AAP government in Delhi will celebrate its second anniversary on Tuesday without Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is in Bengaluru receiving treatment for diabetes.
In Kejriwal's absence, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, a confidant of the Chief Minister, will preside over the AAP event at the Delhi Secretariat.
The entire Delhi cabinet minus Kejriwal will be at the function organised to celebrate two years of the Aam Aadmi Party government, an official told IANS.
After relentlessly campaigning in Punjab over one month, Kejriwal flew to Bengaluru on February 7 to get his blood sugar treated at a naturopathy institute.
His blood sugar level was "quite high", one official said. Kejriwal has been on three doses of insulin a day.
"The Chief Minister is expected to return to Delhi 10-12 days. Sisodia and his ministerial colleagues will present their report card of the two years, the official said.
Kejriwal has visited Bengaluru for his medical treatments earlier also, leaving Sisodia in charge of the city government.
He underwent naturopathy treatment for chronic cough last year. In 2015 too, Kejriwal was admitted to the Bengaluru hospital for 12 days for treatment of chronic cough and high blood sugar.
Kejriwal, who along with others founded the AAP in 2012, became the Chief Minister of Delhi for the first time in December 2013 but resigned after just 49 days.
He then led the AAP to a sweeping win in February 2015, garnering 67 of the 70 seats. The AAP, under his leadership, contested just ended assembly elections in Goa and Punjab.
At least 188, 000 people were evacuated from several northern California counties after authorities warned an emergency spillway in the countrys tallest dam was in danger of failing and unleashing uncontrolled flood waters on towns below.
The erosion prompted concerns that it could endanger the communities living downstream and evacuation orders were made on Sunday for cities and counties near Lake Oroville, which remain in effect, CNN reported.
"I would rather be safe than sorry. I would rather have people move out of the area hopefully to safety," Sheriff Kory Honea said.
"A hazardous situation is developing with the Oroville Dam auxiliary spillway. Operation of the auxiliary spillway has led to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of the structure," the sheriff's office posted on its Facebook page on Sunday night, emphasising that it was not a drill.
California Governor Jerry Brown also issued a state emergency order to help local authorities with the emergency situation and the evacuations.
The cities of Oroville, Gridley, Live Oak, Marysville, Wheat Land, Yuba City, Plumas Lake and Olivehurst were all under evacuation orders. The order was sent out after engineers discovered a hole that was eroding back towards the top of the spillway.
It's possible that crisis could be averted, however, because the California Department of Water Resources told the sheriff that the erosion "was not advancing as rapidly as we thought."
A plan is currently in place to employ helicopters to drop rocks into a crevice atop the erosion, which would plug the hole, said the sheriff.
As of about 6:30 p.m, about two inches of water was coming over the spillway, which was down significantly from when authorities first issued the evacuation orders, according to the report.
Department of Water Resources officials said they expect the flow to soon stop entirely, which will reduce the pace of erosion.
"The next several hours will be crucial in determining whether the concrete structure at the head of the auxiliary spillway remains intact and prevents larger, uncontrolled flows," the Butte county sheriff's office said in a statement.
In an effort to mitigate the situation, the DWR was increasing water releases from the main spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second in an effort to lessen the amount of water going down the emergency spillway, the sheriff's office said.
Twelve people were arrested in a Paris suburb as protests continued over alleged police violence against an alleged rape of a young man by an officer, the media reported on Monday.
Unrest in some of the French capital's low-income suburbs has been ongoing since the February 2 arrest of Aulnay-sous-Bois resident, Theo, a 22-year-old black man who was hospitalised for an anal tear after police officers allegedly sexually assaulted him with a nightstick, Efe news reported.
One officer has since been charged with rape, while three others were being investigated for intentional violence.
The arrests on Sunday night occurred in the Drancy area in the north of Paris, where protestors burnt several cars and caused damage to public amenities.
Although initial investigative lines suggested that the charged officer did not intentionally cause an anal tear during the violent arrest, Theo's case has caught the attention of the French public and officials alike.
President Francois Hollande visited Theo in the hospital following the incident and Interior Minister Bruno Le Rouz on Monday called for calm, adding that no act of violence from either protestors or the police would be tolerated.
He said the investigation into Theo's case was ongoing.
The Islamabad High Court on Monday imposed a ban on Valentine's Day celebrations across Pakistan.
The Islamabad High Court on Monday imposed a ban on Valentine's Day celebrations across Pakistan.
The order came during the hearing of a petition arguing that the day was not part of Islamic tradition and should be banned, the Dawn reported.
According to the court order, Valentine's Day related festivities have been banned in public places.
The electronic and print media have also been told not to give coverage to any promotion of the day.
Last year, President Mamnoon Hussain urged Pakistanis not to celebrate Valentine's Day.
Recap: Rally falls short for Kansas State, falls to Texas at home
Follow along here for live updates as Kansas State takes on Texas at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Philippine Airlines and Bombardier finalize order for up to 12 Q400 aircraft
- Order confirms airline as launch customer of two-class, 86-seat Q400 aircraft
Via MARKETWIRE
December 9, 2016
TORONTO, Ontario Bombardier Commercial Aircraft announced today that it has finalized a firm purchase agreement with Philippine Airlines, Inc., flag carrier of the Philippines, consistent with the Letter of Intent announced on October 14, 2016. The purchase agreement includes a firm order for five Q400 aircraft and purchase rights for an additional seven Q400 aircraft.
Based on the list price of the Q400 aircraft, the firm order is valued at approximately US $165 million and could increase to US $401 million, should Philippine Airlines exercise all its purchase rights.
"With the lowest seat-mile costs in the regional aircraft market, the extra-capacity, two-class Q400 aircraft will offer Philippine Airlines significant opportunities to differentiate itself competitively," said Fred Cromer, President, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. "The Q400 aircraft is the ideal solution for the airline as it develops its domestic operations network from secondary hubs and increases intra-island connectivity."
"As we strive to become a top-rated airline, the Q Series family of aircraft has enabled us to develop our business model into one which efficiently meets our domestic route requirements while providing our passengers with a full service onboard experience", said Jaime J Bautista, President and Chief Operating Officer, Philippine Airlines. "We are proud of our collaboration with Bombardier and welcome the first modern and innovatively configured two-class, 86-seat Q400 aircraft to our growing fleet."
The five firm-ordered Q400 aircraft are expected to be delivered throughout 2017.
Bombardier's customer support network for commercial aircraft in the Asia-Pacific region includes Regional Support Offices in Singapore, Narita (Tokyo), Sydney, Beijing, Shanghai and Mumbai, as well as Parts Depots in Sydney, Beijing and Singapore. Operating from the company's regional office located in Singapore, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft's sales and marketing team is well positioned to provide industry-leading solutions to its current and prospective customers.
About the Q400 Aircraft
Designed as a modern, 21st-century turboprop, the Q400 aircraft is the most recent development in the Q Series family of aircraft. It provides unmatched performance, operational flexibility and passenger comfort. In addition to the standard single-class configuration, Q400 aircraft are available with a two-class interior for enhanced passenger comfort; in an extra-capacity configuration offering up to 90 seats for higher-density markets; and in a cargo-passenger combi configuration.
Thanks to its combination of turboprop attributes, jet-like features, industry-leading passenger experience and environmental footprint, the Q400 aircraft is exceptionally versatile and can be adapted to a variety of business models. By offering a 30 per cent reduction in fuel burn over the jets it often replaces, the Q400 aircraft radically reduces carbon emissions and increases cost efficiency. Its high-speed cruise 160 km/h faster than conventional turboprops places the aircraft's flight time within minutes of jet schedules, at the same seat cost as larger single-aisle jets. Its large propellers operate at a lower RPM, generating more power with less noise and making it a friendly option for city centres.
The Q400 aircraft family includes over 60 owners and operators in almost 40 countries. The worldwide fleet has logged more than 6.9 million flight hours and has transported more than 429 million passengers. Long recognized as a high-value asset by operators, the Q400 aircraft is now also attracting growing interest from the leasing community.
Bombardier has recorded firm orders for a total of 571 Q400 aircraft.
About Philippine Airlines
Fexco Samoa and Western Union have congratulated ten lucky winners for their January (Christmas finale) promotion.
Deputy General Manager, Mulipola Anarosa Molioo presented $200 cash prizes to each of the January winners of their three month promotion based on remittances.
An amount of $4,000 was allocated for the winners of January.
The first promotion we did this morning is mainly related to the Christmas spirit. Mulipola Anarosa said
Weve done the presentation for the November-December Awareness and this morning is the presentation of January so this is the finale of the Christmas promotion because we see that most of the people that were sending money just sent it in January, which is part of the New Year and thats why January was included in this promotion.
Mulipola said that this promotion wasnt like their usual local promotions.
This promotion is actually organized by our Western Union office in New Zealand so they selected the winners.
This is how we give back to our customers. We run a promotion, so that they will be eligible to be part of the services.
Weve already done the presentation of the winners for December and November and its about $12,000 that we actually spent for that first promotion.
Mulipola Anarosa Molioo acknowledged the winners for their support with the hopes that they will continue on using Western Unions services.
We do this annually and for every special occasion. At the moment, we are preparing our promotion for Mothers Day, which sees some of the highest remittances coming to Samoa.
Ioasa Leiataua, one of the winners said how happy he was about winning the promotion.
I am truly thankful for this because its not every day that we get money just like this.
I really didnt expect to win anything so I want to thank the company for their services especially for holding these promotions.
It has been a great help and I hope next time I win, the amount of money will be more than what I just got, he smiled.
After the recent rain, the road conditions have turned from bad to worse in most parts of the country, said Junior Ulugia from Leauvaa.
Speaking to the Village Voice yesterday he said that the government should do something
I think the road from Toamua towards Faleolo is in the worst possible condition, said 30 year-old, Junior.
Huge potholes make it a nightmare for car owners.
Other than potholes, many road surfaces have deteriorated due to a lack of maintenance, this is because of using cheap tar.
He went on to say that all roads in the country were in a deplorable condition.
I am always worried about cars overturning in one of the many huge craters and potholes at Saleimoa and other roads towards Faleolo.
When we talk about cars, then we talk about money, and its not easy....
Personally, I think this is the time to put call on the constructions company to construct proper roads to use for long periods of time, not just for one week.
Make traffic flow easily by building good quality roads ..... thats it!
You see, when it rains, with potholes and drains overflowing, traffic still continues.
Moreover he said that in town, several roads at Taufusi and Fugalei are in a very bad condition.
I think there was a massive jam in the traffic to Apia last week because of flooded areas in town.
We all know that its a low level area and all the overflowing rain and drain water from Mt. Vaea, Palisi and other nearby villages wash all the rubbish down.
Their condition seems to have worsened after the spell of heavy rain that we received last week.
Now we see, that with one week of rain, these roads become slushy and, also it becomes very difficult to even drive.
During every rainy season, roads fall apart and despite repeated attempts by construction companies to fix them, the problem remains.
They do minor repair works which dont last and the majority of roads stay the same.
Yes, the road conditions have turned from bad to worse.
Our roads need to be fixed properly.
Despite road problems, he told the Village Voice that life in the village is great.
I think thats the only problem now in Samoa, but life is great.
We work together for the good of everyone especially in Samoa.
Think a minuteRecently the biggest-selling book in America was about the end of the world. Sometimes watching the worlds news is like watching a horror movie, isnt it?
You know that the 20th century had more people killed in wars than all the other centuries of history combined!
Besides all the wars, were seeing an increase in many kinds of natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes; plus totally new weather patterns that never existed before such as El Nino and La Nina.
Then, there are the terrible diseases, plagues, and new mystery viruses. AIDS, the worst disease in history, is killing millions of people worldwide with still no cure in sight! In Africa, entire towns have no adults because theyve all died from AIDS, so just babies and children are left to survive alone.
According to a new United Nations report, we now have the worst world hunger and famine in history. Hundreds of millions are starving with countless thousands dying every day.
You know that Jesus Christ told us that all these things would happen and that theyre like labor pains just before a mother gives birth. These terrible things are the sign that Hes getting ready to come back. Only this time, Hes coming to judge all this worlds evil and wrong. Jesus said we cant know the exact day of His return, so it will be sudden and here before we know it.
But Jesus explained its because He loves us so much that Hes waited as long as He can for more of us to choose to receive His gift of forgiveness and eternal life, before its too late!
But if you know the worlds Judge personally as your friend, then His return is good news because youre going home with Him to live forever in paradise, just as He promised.
That morning of September 11, those people who went to work at the World Trade Center in New York had no idea they would never see their family again.
And neither do we know if well live to see tomorrow. Jesus made it clear that we all live forevereither in heaven or hell.
The choice is ours. So why not ask Jesus to forgive you and take charge of your life every day? Then youll have absolutely nothing to fearneither your sudden death, nor even the end of the world.
Just Think a Minute
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) Protesters numbering in the tens of thousands gathered again Sunday outside the Romanian government's offices to demand the resignation of the East European country's leadership.
The enormous crowds assembled in Victory Square marked the 13th consecutive day of anti-government demonstrations in Bucharest, the capital. They later formed a huge human Romanian flag.
The protests demanding a new government and a new style of governance started last month when the center-left government passed an emergency ordinance that would have watered down laws that punish official corruption.
"I've been coming here to show them they can't just govern the way they like. They can't trick us or buy us off with a few lei," demonstrator Bogdan Bogatoniu said, referring to the Romanian currency.
Thousands also protested in the cities of Cluj, Sibiu, Iasi, and Timisoara.
"Romanians have woken up, they can't be fooled anymore," said Bogatoniu, a 33-year old IT expert who came to the square with his wife and 2-month-old son.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 government supporters gathered outside the presidential palace. For the eight consecutive day, they called for the resignation of President Klaus Iohannis, who condemned the emergency decree and has vocally supported the anti-government protests.
Premier Sorin Grindeanu withdrew the disputed ordinance a week ago following days of demonstrations, the biggest street protests since communism ended in 1989. The justice minister resigned last week over widespread public anger.
The withdrawn decree was one of a series of government initiatives that would have also eased penalties for the ruling Social Democrats' leader, Liviu Dragnea. A vote-rigging conviction has blocked Dragnea from becoming prime minister.
And so once again we have seen another story of how an escaped convict has ruined the Samoa experience for a visitor to this country.
This time, the victim is a Norwegian woman who had been working in Samoa and loving every moment of it until that forgettable day up at the scenic Mt. Vaea trail when she ran into a prisoner, Daniel Vailopa, who had escaped and found his way up there.
The details of the incident are chilling enough just thinking about it. From what the Court was told, the defendant and three fellow prisoners had escaped from prison and stayed at an abandoned house at Mt. Vaea the night before.
When the woman, whose name and identity is being suppressed, went for her routine hike, she was confronted Vailopa on her way back down.
The prisoner had chased after her and attempted to kiss the woman, who resisted him. During the struggle, the womans phone somehow slipped out.
It diverted Vailopas attention and it made him let go of her hand as he became interested in the phone. This allowed the woman to run from the prisoner, screaming for help.
At this point, we are grateful she is alive and that she managed to free herself.
Imagine if she wasnt able to do that? Imagine if he had somehow managed to push her down that steep hill? She could have been killed.
Anyone who has been up the trail will tell you that its a beautiful place but it has got to be one of the most dangerous places to fall.
And yet thats precisely what could have happened to this innocent woman who did not deserve what happened to her.
The Mt. Vaea trail is one of the most iconic trails in Samoa and a must do for tourists. But this prisoners behaviour will no doubt make many woman think twice about going up there. Which is sad but unfortunately in Samoa today, that is the reality.
Keep in mind that this is not the only incident up on those beautiful walking trails. At the beginning of this year, women and young females were urged to ensure they always have someone to accompany them when they hike up Palisi or the Robert Louis Stevenson trail.
The warning came after another frightening incident where a middle-aged female was attacked while hiking up Palisi.
A source told the Weekend Observer the woman, who is a prominent member of the business community, was lucky to have been heard by other hikers when she was attacked. The source said the attacker came out of nowhere and tried to rape the woman. When he realised that he couldnt, he punched the woman and fled into the bush.
Following news, a regular hiker up both mountains who wanted to be identified only as Peter said the attack should provide another warning for women and females not to trek up by themselves.
Its genuinely safe but I wouldnt allow my daughter to go up there by herself, Peter said.
There have been a few incidents up there now involving women who were either attacked or harassed and I think this should ring the alarm bells for everyone.
Its such a pity because it is one of the best hikes on the island. But we live in a world where there are many nasty things happening and more and more we are seeing girls attacked up there.
So I would recommend for girls and women to always ensure they have company.
We couldnt agree more with Peter. Girls and women should not be left on their own on the trail. We encourage women and girls to always ensure they hike up in groups.
Now last week, prisoner Daniel Vailopa was handed three more years at Tafaigata by Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren. During sentencing, Justice Tafaoimalo said the ordeal was violent and terrifying in nature for the victim.
One of the worst aspects for Samoa is the damage Vailopa has done to all the hard work by the government and everyone involved in the tourism industry to promote Samoa as a safe destination for all.
This is yet another sad case for Samoa.
One the struggling tourism industry in this country did not need.
Dear Editor,
Re: Chinas generosity to Samoa
When I first read the news that China donated the big screens to colleges, I felt very happy for the students because they can benefit from these advanced equipment.
I also felt very sad because there is always someone standing out immediately to suspect the goodwill. Every time!
Maybe they are just ungrateful. Maybe it is insufferable for them to see Samoan has a good impression about China, although China really helps these Samoan students. So they spread rumors.
I know you cant wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. But I want to break the silence and say something today.
There are nearly 200 countries in the world. Samoa is not the only country to receive assistance from China. Our neighbors, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and almost all the Pacific countries get the similar assistance from China.
Most Samoans dont not know more than 150 countries get aid from China in the world. Among them, Samoa is one of the smallest countries. So other countries get much more aid than us. Someone told us all of these China does, and so many countries that China provides aid to, is just to invade Samoa. What a joke!
When you ask them why they say that, they will ask why China give us so much money? They say there is no such things as a free lunch.
But they forget one fact. Does only China provide the aid in the world? No, every developed country provides assistance to developing countries, including U.S.A., E.U., Japan, U.K., Germany, France, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand. Why do they provide assistance? What do they want? This is part of the international responsibility of these countries.
China is the second biggest economy. Now when China donates medical and educational equipment to Samoa, these people say such ugly words. If China does not provide the assistance, what will happen? These people will criticize China for being stingy.
You can never satisfy them forever.
Faasuaga T.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has a prominent presence.
But he was made to feel rather small yesterday when he met with the Worlds Tallest Man living, Sultan Kosen.
The meeting was arranged by Ringmaster, Tupai Bruno Loyale, at the Prime Ministers office.
Tuilaepa said he was happy to have finally met Sultan.
I guess there is no other feeling than to realise how short we are when we stand next to him, Tuilaepa said.
Its just amazing and unbelievable.
Tupai told the media he did some research and found that P.M. Tuilaepa is the only leader who had met the shortest man in the world and the tallest man in the world.
I did a little bit of research and the Prime Minister of Samoa Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi is the first dignitary, president and prime minister that has ever welcomed both the tallest and the shortest man in his office, said Tupai.
Sultan is 35 years old and so far he has made a great impression in Samoa at the magic circus, at Tuanaimato.
Everyone that comes to see him at the circus want to have their pictures taken with him.
It has been a very big hit and people are very amazed to see someone so incredibly tall.
Sultan is in Samoa for the Magic Circus of Samoa being staged at Tuanaimato.
The sentencing of a Chinese businessman found guilty of assaulting and causing bodily harm to another Chinese businessman and his mother has been rescheduled for today.
Zhu Jian Chen was supposed to have been sentenced yesterday but the non-appearance of a lawyer from the National Prosecution Office (N.P.O.) forced the Supreme Court to reschedule.
Chen was represented by lawyer, Teo Richard Faaiuaso, before Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren.
When the matter was called, Justice Tafaoimalo became concerned about the absence of a prosecutor. She said it was unprofessional for the prosecutor not to appear.
We need to hand out the sentence but I am hesitant to find out if we can do so without the prosecution here, she said.
Can we just call the prosecution again please?
A police officer at the Court informed Her Honour there was no sign of an official from N.P.O.
Justice Tafaoimalo said not having a prosecutor present was unacceptable.
The Court cant seem to find where they are and I think we have only just set this date a few weeks ago, she said.
So the Court will be letting them know that we are very unhappy.
Im sorry that we have to put this on hold because of the inconvenience of not having a prosecution.
We will let you know today once we make some phone calls to try and have them here at 1 oclock if thats okay.
About five minutes later, Justice Tafaoimalo came back and said the Court doesnt have to wait around for the prosecution.
There is no reason why we should wait around for the prosecution to come, she said.
But if you are agreeable with it we can come back tomorrow at 10a.m. before our next matter starts.
And we will be sending a very stirring message to the prosecution for the unprofessionalism.
Chen is owner of Princessa Shop. He has been found guilty of beating up Wilson Fang and his mother, the owner of the Country Shop in January last year.
The trio got involved in a fight because the defendant was angry he had lost customers after the victims tipped bus drivers to take passengers to their shop.
Police said the defendant and a few others had met at the victim's residence where the fight took place after they had attended celebrations marking the Chinese New Year at the Chinese Ambassador's residence.
The criminal charges against two others accused over the same incident have been dismissed.
More than 2,700 years ago, the Assyrian king Sennacherib invaded the biblical kingdom of Judah, spreading destruction nearly to Jerusalem before withdrawing. The Assyrians boasted they had shut in Judahs King Hezekiah like a bird in a cage. The Bible says an angel slew Sennacheribs troops. Modern historians say Hezekiahs crafty diversion of Jerusalems water supply also played a role.
Neither king nor anyone else alive then could have known the Earths protective magnetic field was rapidly weakening. The field diminished by 27 percent in three decades.
The event, unprecedented in 100,000 years, may shed light on the current state of the Earths diminishing field, which protects us (and satellites) from dangerous cosmic radiation. It may even provide clues to geophysicists about how the magnetic field is generated in the first place.
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This marriage of Biblical history and the field known as paleomagnetism forms the core of a study published Monday by a team of San Diego and Israeli researchers, spanning six centuries of records. And Sennacheribs ravages helped make it possible. Destruction layers and contemporary accounts provided an unusually tight temporal window to date pottery artifacts found at the site.
Moreover, the research highlights how collaboration among scientists in two such apparently unconnected fields can spur unforeseen advances.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University, and a former student at UC San Diegos Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was first author. Lisa Tauxe of SIO was a co-author. Oded Lipschits, also of Tel Aviv University, was senior author. The study can be found at j.mp/jarmagnetism.
Pottery becomes imbued with the Earths magnetic field at the time of manufacture. As the pottery cools after firing, iron oxide particles in the clay become fixed in alignment with the field. From this frozen record, SIO scientists, working with colleagues at Tel Aviv University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, deduced the fields intensity.
The pottery artifacts, royal Judean stamped jar handles, were inscribed in characteristic fashions during the studys period, from Sennacheribs time to that of Judah Maccabee, who defeated the Selucid Empire and restored worship in the temple of Jerusalem, an event memorialized in the festival of Hanukkah.
There was no exalted religious significance to the artifacts themselves: they were tax accounting tools. The large jars contained oils and wine to be sent to the state. Their numbers and locations give clues to the ancient economy of the region, and have become a field of study in its own right.
During these six centuries covered in the study inscription styles changed and so did the contents of the inscriptions. These changes, along with the well-documented history of ancient Israel, have converged to closely fix these artifacts in time, the researchers say.
And together, these artifacts form a nearly continuous readout of magnetic field intensity over those six centuries in that part of the world. By comparison, modern recording of the field by scientific instruments goes back less than two centuries.
Reassurance
The stamped handles from Hezekiahs time bear the Hebrew letters, LMLK, interpreted to mean to or of the king. A great amount of research has been done on their significance.
Ben-Yosef said the study provides reassurance that the weakening of the earths magnetic field over the last 180 years, during which it has declined by 10 percent, is not unusual. The loss of 27 percent intensity over three decades during the time of Hezekiah and Sennacherib proves that.
Moreover, the record also indicates a short spike of an intensified magnetic field during the late eighth century BC, he said. Over these six centuries, the evidence is that the magnetic field is unstable, and fluctuations are not the exception, but the rule.
Although there are some scholars that are concerned we are going to lose the magnetic field and be exposed to cosmic radiation, we can say quite securely this is not such a unique phenomenon, Ben-Yosef said. It has changed through time in a much more dramatic way.
Co-author Tauxe, of SIO, said this is the second Iron Age spike found. If this is confirmed in other parts of the world, it will force geophysicists to re-examine magnetic field models.
To have such a large, rapid feature, in the magnetic field has implications for how the magnetic field is generated, Tauxe said by phone from Cambodia. The people who study the models of how the magnetic field is generated were very puzzled how this could even be true and were skeptical. And so when its replicated in several different studies, then theyre going to have to start changing the way they think about how the magnetic field is generated.
Because the geomagnetic field differs not only in time but by location, the team isnt focusing solely on ancient Israel. Ben-Yosefs work has led him to Cyprus. And Tauxe is now looking at places where iron was smelted in association with the ancient and renowned temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Theres no data at all from Cambodia published, ever, about what the field did, Tauxe said.
Partnership
The study is the latest product of a partnership that began 15 years ago between Tauxe and the late Israeli paleomagnetist Hagai Ron, Ben-Yosef said. It united scientists of various fields, each contributing his or her own expertise.
This is a real collaboration between geophysicists, archaeologists and other scientists, he said. The archaelogists get better dating for their artifacts, while the geophysicists get better records of the geomagnetic field.
This was done in tight collaboration with the paleomagnetic lab in San Diego at Scripps Institution of Oceanography with Lisa Tauxe and also with a colleague from the Hebrew university, Dr. Ron Shaar, some students and some archaeologists working on biblical archaeology of the Holy Land, Ben-Yosef said. It involved decades of research into these administrative systems in Judea, and actually quite magnificent finds of the inscriptions on handles.
And here we have this team of researchers which we consider one group, located in three different universities, he said. San Diego is the base. In Israel, Its me and my colleague Ron Shaar, who is now head of the paleomagnetic lab at the Hebrew University.
The bottom line is this thorough study of the ancient magnetic fields intensity has a lot of different and diverse contributions, not only to archaeology, not even only to geophysics, but also to other aspects: biology, atmospheric science and others.
Ben-Yosef, who said he considers San Diego his second home from his days at SIO, said each sciences field benefits from closer collaboration with other fields.
I grew up also as an archaeologist. And Lisa, shes a paleomagneticist. and Ron (Shaar) is a paleomagnetist. They are coming to the excavations. They excavate with us when we take the materials from the ground, Ben-Yosef said. This is super-important for the success of all this research Because they get into all the nuances of the dating, all of the complications of archaeological context, and they can take it as part of the interpretation of the data.
Science is not easy, and if you dont get into the details and the nuances and then share all of the different details, you wont get a good result.
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
bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com
(619) 293-1020
Three years after jacarandas, a hip cafe and a widened bayside promenade transformed a section of the downtown waterfront, the San Diego Unified Port District is jumpstarting talk of Phase 2.
A public workshop will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at the port headquarters, 3165 Pacific Highway, to explore ways to improve transportation, parking and public spaces between B Street Pier and Laurel Street and from Navy Pier to G Street.
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We havent specifically identified which phase will be next and what the phase will entail, said port spokeswoman Tanya Castaneda.
But the public feedback will go to port staffers who will decide which ideas to include in the ports upcoming master plan update. Castenada said the staffs initial thoughts will probably be unveiled at the port boards meeting in May.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of what came to be the North Embarcadero Visionary Plan for San Diegos proverbial front door. A landscape architecture consultant, Sasaki & Associates, drafted the plan and the first phase, costing $31.1 million, was dedicated in September 2014.
I think when San Diegans see Phase 1, theyll demand that Phases 2 and 3 be completed, said then-City Councilman (now Assemblyman) Todd Gloria at the time.
Over the years, other improvements have added reasons to visit the waterfront.
The USS Midway Museum alongside Navy Pier draws millions of visitors who want to explore an aircraft carrier.
The county government completed the $50 million County Waterfront Park with its underground parking, interactive fountains, family playgrounds, low-water-using gardens and expansive lawn area surrounding the County Administration Center between Ash and Grape streets.
Lane Field is being redeveloped with two hotel towers, one completed and the other under construction, and a setback park was built honoring the home of the minor league Padres from 1936 to 1957.
The Broadway Pier Port Pavilion, doubling as a cruise ship terminal and public event space, opened in 2013.
And Anthonys Fish Grotto served its last clam chowder Jan. 31 before closing down to make way for a bigger restaurant complex by the local Brigantine chain.
Whats also changed, however, is the funding available for public improvements. The state terminated property-tax-funded redevelopment and thus took away the funding used for the North Embarcaderos first phase.
Now, the port has to come up with a plan as well as funding.
Four elements will be analyzed: strengthening connections to the waterfront; prioritizing movement for pedestrians and bicyclists; increasing park and plaza space; and balancing the need for parking and optimization of valuable land. Details are available at portofsandiego.org/northembarcadero.
During the preparation of the original master plan and detail work for Phase 1, many ideas surfaced for additional improvements.
The county spoke of extending its west plaza across Harbor Drive to the waters edge.
The San Diego Maritime Museum began thinking of a better way to display its artifacts and archives and arrange its historic ships, including the 1863 Star of India and the recently completed replica of Cabrillos 1542 San Salvador.
The Midway Museum toyed with a 500-foot sail-like sculpture and a park on top of a parking garage on Navy Pier.
The County Waterfront Park, featuring interactive fountains. opened in 2014. (Alejandro Tamayo / U-T)
A citizens advisory committee solicited other ideas that have yet to be implemented, such as a manmade beach in an area known as the Crescent near the Grape Street piers.
A youth hostel was proposed for the parking lot used by Solar Turbines, located at the north end of the Embarcadero.
Don Wood, who served on the committee, said he hopes the next phase will simplify the traffic pattern to and from Lindbergh Field.
Another goal, he said, should be redevelopment guidelines for the Wyndham Hotel property at Ash Street so the setback park can be extended northward.
The replacement of the B Street Pier Cruise Ship Terminal has been considered several times over the last decade.
Originally, a joint-powers authority comprising the port, city and citys former redevelopment agency carried out the first phase. It remains to be seen if that arrangement is needed to tackle.
The role of the county and the Navy, which were original members of the North Embarcadero Alliance that coordinated early planning, also remains to be considered.
Not included in the discussion but certainly figuring into the whole stretch of the North Embarcadero from Laurel to G streets is the pending construction of Pacific Gateway, the $1.2 billion redevelopment of the Navy Broadway Complex by developer Doug Manchester in a 99-year lease with the Navy.
Also in the works is the equally pricey redevelopment of Seaport Village into a new mixed-use project approved in concept by the port.
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roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
Train travel from the Oceanside Transit Center to almost anywhere else is about to get a little easier.
A third track, a new boarding platform, better lighting, and more shelters, seating and other amenities are being added at the transit center, which is one of the busiest bus and commuter rail stops in San Diego County. The improvements will speed up boarding and transitions for existing trains and make room to add new ones, officials say.
San Diego Countys regional planning agency, SANDAG, is investing $24 million in the Oceanside project, believing it will help serve the growing number of commuters who use passenger trains to avoid driving on Southern Californias clogged freeways.
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One recent convert is Glenda Noyes, a Vista resident who was waiting Friday at the Oceanside Amtrak station to board a northbound train.
The train is wonderful, she said. Its comfortable and scenic.
Noyes said she began riding the train about two years ago after her son moved to Thousand Oaks. Now she takes it three or four times a year from Oceanside to Camarillo, where the station is a 10-minute drive from her sons house.
I love it, she said. The trains are so clean and nice.
North County Transit District launched its Coaster commuter train between Oceanside and San Diego in 1995 and the Sprinter train from Oceanside to Escondido in 2008. Together the commuter trains reported a high of 4.2 million passenger trips in 2014, though ridership has declined a few percentage points since then, perhaps because of lower gas prices.
About 1.2 million train and bus passengers board at Oceanside annually, said Linda Culp, principal transit planner for SANDAG. About two-thirds of those passengers are rail, and those riders are expected to increase as more trains are added over the next few years.
All these improvements get us better equipped to meet that goal, Culp said.
Construction on the Oceanside improvements began in June and should be finished by the end of this year.
The third track and additional boarding stations will increase the number of trains that can board passengers simultaneously and will allow freight trains to move through the station without stopping for the passenger trains, transportation officials said.
That increases the capacity and reliability of the entire Los Angeles to San Diego system, said Kimy Wall, a spokeswoman for NCTD.
Eliminating the need for trains to sit idle at the station also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of cascading delays throughout the system, Wall said.
Amtrak added its 12th daily round-trip between San Diego and Los Angeles in November. Amtrak officials say the company carried a record 31.3 million passengers nationally in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
The Sprinter commuter route between Oceanside and Escondido now runs a train every 20 minutes during peak weekday commuter hours, and plans to bump that up to every 15 minutes. The Coaster also plans to increase service.
San Diegos downtown Santa Fe Station is the only stop in the county that serves more passengers and has more rail lines four, Culp said.
Sorrento Valley also has a heavily used commuter rail service, she said, but doesnt have as many buses as Oceanside.
Oceanside also is the southernmost stop for the Metrolink commuter train system, which serves Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.
philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @phildiehl
For the sixth weekend in a row, protests over the spike in Mexicos gasoline prices led authorities to shut down the freeway border crossing in San Ysidro.
Shortly after 1 p.m., California Highway Patrol officers began closing the crossing and diverting southbound traffic on Interstate 5 away from the San Ysidro Port of Entry, across from El Chaparral in Tijuana. Freeway lanes were reopened shortly after 5 p.m.
It was also unclear how many protesters participated or where the demonstration took place. In past weekends, thousands of people have swarmed lanes just south of the border.
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The protests have spread across Mexico since the countrys Jan. 1 gasoline price hikes of up to 20 percent as part of an effort to deregulate the countrys energy sector.
teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
Adele and the late David Bowie were the big winners at the 59th annual Grammy Awards Sunday night, with five victories each. But the biggest star of the night in a manner was thousands of miles away.
Or as host James Corden put it in rap form as he opened the three-hour-and-40-minute telecast: With President Trump, we dont know what comes next / We can survive by sticking together.
James Corden and Jennifer Lopez both engaged in soical commentary during Sundays 59th annual Grammy Awards telecast. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for NARAS)
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Later in the show, the usually apolitical Jennifer Lopez told the audience at the Staples Center (and TV viewers in a record 200 countries and territories): At this particular point in history, your voices are needed more than ever. As Toni Morrison once said, this is precisely the time when artists go to work.
Lopez then referenced No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear, a 2015 essay by Morrison, saying: There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence and no room for fear. We do language. That is how civilizations heal. So tonight, we celebrate our most universal language, music, as we honor the voices of the past and the present.
Then there was Katy Perry, who ardently supported Hillary Clintons failed presidential bid. She performed her new song, Chained to the Rhythm, with reggae legend Bob Marleys grandson, Skip Marley.
Its most pointed verse goes: Break down the walls to connect, inspire, ay / Up in your high place, liars / Time is ticking for the empire / The truth they feed is feeble / As so many times before / They greed over the people / They stumbling and fumbling / And we about to riot.
Behind them was a large projected image of the United States Constitution, with the words We the People in jumbo size. For good measure, Perry wore an armband with the word PERSIST, which appeared to be inspired by Elizabeth Warren being cut off on the Senate floor when she recently gave a speech objecting to Jeff Sessions Attorney General nomination. Just before the song concluded, Perry yelled: No hate!
In such a setting, those expressing more conservative viewpoints appeared few and far between. A notable exception was Orange County-bred singer Joy Villa, who wore a red-white-and-blue gown with President Trumps campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. The train of the dress was emblazoned with the word TRUMP.
Other artists Sunday used their speeches, rather than their performances or attire, to speak out.
When Beyonce accepted her award for Best Urban Contemporary album for Lemonade, which includes a video for each of its songs, she offered some social commentary of her own.
We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible, she told the audience. My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.
Its important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can grow up in a world where they look in the mirror, first through their own families as well as (on) the news, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House and the Grammys and see themselves, and have no doubt that theyre beautiful, intelligent and capable. This is something I want for every child of every race. And I feel its vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes ...
There was more, including a speech by Grammy honcho Neil Portnow that began: We are constantly reminded about the things that divide us. Race, region and religion. Gender, sexual orientation, political party. But what we need so desperately are more reminders of all that binds us together our shared history, our common values and our dedication to build for ourselves a more perfect union ...
Prior to introducing a duet by The Weeknd and Daft Punk, Michael Jacksons 18-year-old daughter, Paris, said: We can really use this excitement at a pipeline protest, guys. No DAPL!
But it was the incendiary Grammy performance by a Tribe Called Quest that seemed most likely to fuel the wrath of our new president. Thats assuming hes ever heard of this pioneering New York hip-hop trio, which last year lost one of its co-founders, Phife Dawg, to diabetes-related causes.
Wed like to say to all those people around the world, all those people who are pushing people in power to represent them: Tonight, we represent you, Quests chief rapper, Q-Tip, said. A short while later, during We The People, he rapped such hard-hitting lines as: All the black folks, you must go / All the Mexicans, you must go / All the poor folks, you must go / Muslims and gays, we hate your ways, as actors dressed as refugees kicked down a small faux wall.
Their Grammys performance came on the same weekend that tens of thousands of people in Mexico staged protests against President Trumps immigration policies and plan for a border wall.
The words NO WALL / NO BAN appeared on a stage backdrop for A Tribe Called Quest, which was joined by several guests, most notably Busta Rhymes and Anderson .Paak.
Rhymes didnt pull any punches, shouting out: I just want to thank President Agent Orange for perpetuating all of the evil youve been perpetuating in the United States. I want to thank President Agent Orange for your unsuccessful attempt of the Muslim ban. When we come together, we the people, we the people, we the people, we the people ...
A moment later, Q-Tip repeated a one-word musical manifesto: Resist. Resist. Resist.
Of course, the Grammys have showcased social issues in the past.
In 2013, during Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performance, Queen Latifah presided over the simultaneous marriages of 68 people many of them same-sex couples to protest discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
In 2015, the Grammy telecast included a salute to the Civil Rights movement, pegged to the movie Selma, while Katy Perrys performance that year of By the Grace of God was paired with a segment that spoke out against sexual abuse.
But Sundays show seemed designed not so much to court potential controversy as to embrace it.
A cynic might wonder if this was done to boost ratings of the telecast, which last year drew about 25 million people. But given the polarized times in which we live, its possible the record amount of political commentary Sunday could have cost the show viewers, especially those who contend musicians should simply entertain, not speak out on current events.
Speaking backstage after the telecast concluded, Grammy honcho Portnow made it clear that neither he nor the Recording Academy under whose auspices the annual awards show is presented had any problems with artists speaking their minds, no matter how vehemently.
When youre a public figure and president of the United States, there are some that will be very happy with you and sing your praises, and some who are not, and thats what democracy is about, Portnow said, responding to a question from the Union-Tribune.
We just had a major election that has us divided, in many ways. So I dont think it should be unexpected that the Recording Academy is the staunchest protector of the ability of artists to speak their mind through their art. So we didnt weigh in on the pros and cons of what we like, or dont like.
We give the stage to artist to express their views.
And speak out they did Sunday.
While introducing Lady Gaga and Metallicas fiery performance, transgender actress Laverne Cox urged viewers to Google Gavin Grimm. Hes going to the Supreme Court in March.
Gavin, a 17-year-old Virginia high school student, was born female but identifies as male. He filed suit two years ago to be able to use the boys bathroom at his school. Next month, his case will be held by the highest court in the land.
Surely, there were some conservatives in the audience and among the nominees and winners. But one of the few to win a Grammy Sunday who then came backstage Megadeth leader and La Mesa native Dave Mustaine declined to answer a question about the current political turbulence.
Im not answering any political questions, he said, in response to a question. Because, whenever I do, I get in trouble.
Twitter @georgevarga
george.varga@sduniontribune.com
It was to be a symbolic, if not political gesture that ultimately fell flat.
The labor-friendly San Diego school board had planned to consider issuing an invitation to U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos at its public meeting Tuesday, but the proposed resolution was withdrawn with an apology Monday amid complaints from the teachers union.
Its not happening, said San Diego Unified School District spokeswoman Shari Winet.
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Proposed by trustee John Lee Evans and board President Richard Barrera, the invitation was to have the controversial education czar visit the district on a fact-finding mission to learn what the school district is doing to create quality public schools in every neighborhood, so that she can collect the data needed that will allow her to base her decisions on what is best for students rather than on any political ideology.
A longtime labor leader, Barrera issued a statement Monday morning explaining his change of heart about co-sponsoring the proposed resolution intended to help her learn all the things that public schools are doing well and to challenge her views openly and in a public setting.
Given the polarizing nature of the DeVos nomination and confirmation vote, however, it is clear this would be the wrong time to engage the Secretary in dialogue, Barrera said. Now is the time for those of us who believe in public education to stand together and confront the threat clearly posed by the DeVos ideology.
Barrera went on to apologize to all of those we excluded from the conversation by moving forward so quickly.
DeVos, a Republican fundraiser from Michigan, has backed school vouchers across the country.
The San Diego school board invitation was made public Friday night when its meeting agenda was posted. Before 9 a.m. Monday, the San Diego Education Association took issue with the gesture.
Although the visit would reveal how wrong and destructive (DeVos) well-funded efforts to destroy public education have been, her history and recent confirmation hearing testimony say otherwise, the union said in a statement.
The reality is that DeVos has committed her personal life, abundant wealth and political connections, in the pursuit of dismantling and destabilizing public education in Michigan, the union continued. She has now set her sights on all of Americas public schools. DeVos has advocated for diverting public money to voucher programs and profit-driven charter management organizations, who operate with little or no regulatory oversight while draining desperately needed resources from local schools and communities.
Would DeVos have visited San Diego schools?
The U.S. Department of Education had not responded to an inquiry from The San Diego Union-Tribune as of Monday afternoon.
The San Diego school board has adopted resolutions over the years to make political statements on everything from the election of President Donald Trump and the reaffirmation of the districts commitment to the values of peace, tolerance and respect for multiple perspectives to support for a disgraced trustee forced to step down from office.
To place a resolution on a school board agenda, two trustees must sponsor a proposal. Evans first pitched the DeVos invitation with Barrera co-sponsoring the effort to get it on the agenda for consideration.
The confirmation last week of DeVos had been widely opposed by teachers unions, educators and politicians.
All 48 Democrats voted against her, as did two Republicans. Vice President Mike Pence broke a 50- 50 tie vote in the Senate to confirm DeVos. It the first time a cabinet secretary was confirmed on a tie- breaking vote by the vice president.
On Friday, on her third day on the job, DeVos visited a middle school in southwest Washington, D.C., where she was met by protesters.
maureen.magee@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @MaureenMagee
At a time when many of its peers have been forced to close or consolidate, the San Diego Blood Bank is thriving thanks to a new focus on research and dogged competition for business outside of its home market.
For decades, the nonprofits focus has been on getting freshly collected units of red blood cells, platelets and plasma to the surgeons who use them to save lives. While that role remains the core of its business, a documented decline in the need for traditional blood products has forced this vital enterprise to expand its horizons from the operating room to the lab bench.
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The drop in demand for blood transfusions has also forced already-competitive blood banks to compete even more directly. The San Diego Blood Bank is increasingly reaching out to hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties, widening its scale as profit margins on each blood unit narrow.
Though there were years where the blood bank saw demand for its products decline, chief executive David Wellis said the situation is now reversed. Hes importing blood from other areas to meet demand even as the blood-bank industry as a whole continues to see the need for traditional blood products dwindle.
I think were going outside the bounds of what the average has been for the industry. Were diversifying and we want to have an even greater impact on our patients health, Wellis said.
The public face of blood banking is benign. After all, banks are asking people to give of themselves out of a sense of altruism and care for their fellow citizens.
But behind the scenes, the competition among blood banks is fierce. All of them know that they need to achieve a certain market size and merchandise volume to pay their staffs and run their blood-collection mobiles.
In San Diego County, for example, the San Diego Blood Bank works with most local hospitals while the Red Cross supplies UC San Diego and Scripps Health facilities. The bank has been active north of the countys boundaries for more than a decade, but only recently started operating under the name Southern California Blood Bank outside of this county. A newly rebranded blood mobile is set to make the rounds in Orange County five days a week and new, larger office has been set up in that area.
Wellis said the blood banks proprietary inventory management system, which monitors the stock at each hospital in real time so his group can quickly replenish any low supplies, also has helped persuade more facilities to contract with the bank.
I think our ability to make sure blood is delivered on time has really helped us, he said.
The Red Cross, which runs the nations largest blood banking operation, doesnt seem to mind the competition.
Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs a blood transfusion. We are glad there are blood collection organizations across the country that can help meet this critical need of patients, Chris Hrouda, executive vice president of American Red Cross Blood Services, said in an email.
Demand
Experts said several trends in medicine have contributed to the drop in traditional demand for blood products.
Growing adoption of bloodless surgical techniques are shrinking the amount of blood spillage occurring in operating rooms. Special harmonic scalpels and electrocautery machines are able to seal incisions almost immediately after they are made, lessening the chances, for example, that a blood vessel cut in the course of heart surgery will gush into a patients body cavity.
There are also new medications available to lower blood pressure and hemostatic agents, which can help blood coagulate more quickly.
Wellis pointed to another factor: Surgeons are ordering fewer units of blood per surgery, the result of cost reforms built into the Affordable Care Act. Surgeons used to routinely order a few extra blood units, just in case.
And surgeons are moving away from the practice of topping off patients blood supply with a few extra units after surgery, said Dr. Steven Kleinman, senior medical adviser for AABB, formerly the American Association of Blood Banks. Studies have shown that topping off provides little measurable benefit yet raises the risk of suffering an infection.
Today, Kleinman said, there is simply a different philosophy in many operating rooms than from just five years ago: If they dont need it, dont transfuse it.
Surveys regularly conducted by the association have documented the decline in both the number of blood units collected and the number of transfusions of red blood cells. From 2011 to 2015, the nations blood supply shrank by 17.6 percent and the number of transfusions performed fell by nearly 20 percent.
This drop in capacity has recently caused some blood shortages nationwide, suggesting that there is a need to bolster blood inventories even though overall demand is lower than it used to be. Our inventory is not any more secure than it used to be, but we are collecting less blood, which has caused a myriad of changes at blood centers, Kleinman said.
Collection
One of those changes can be seen in a special room at San Diego Blood Banks headquarters on Gateway Center Avenue in San Diegos Mount Hope neighborhood.
On a recent morning, Michael Padilla of Chula Vista settled in for a four-hour session hooked up to a special machine that slowly separated and collected some of his white cells before pumping most of his blood back into his body. To collect a large-enough sample, his bodys entire blood volume had to be cycled through the machine twice during that session.
The harvested white cells were then processed by a specially trained team in the banks research lab before being sent off to a drug company that uses it in a clinical trial. That study is examining whether white blood cells called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes can effectively attack metastatic melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.
The procedure that Padilla underwent is much harder on donors than the typical blood draw. It involves inserting needles in both arms, and it takes significantly longer than the roughly 90 minutes needed to separate platelets from human blood using the same machine.
Padilla said he is honored to spend the additional time it takes to aid scientific research. It was his third time going through the four-hour process, and he said he is willing to come back because of the courteous treatment he gets while hes in that chair.
The men and women are good to have a conversation with, and if you have an itch on the side of your face, theyll scratch it, he said.
Service
Customer service is ultimately the San Diego Blood Banks true strength, Wellis said. He stressed the importance of taking the time to fully explain the value of sitting in a chair for four hours to donors if you want them to participate. And its crucial, he added, to listen to hospitals and researchers so the products and services they need can be identified.
To be clear, blood banks have always worked with the research community. They have provided expired units of whole blood or other blood components to labs.
Whats different now, Wellis said, is the focus not just on collecting and separating blood, but also in performing additional steps in the lab that meet the very customized needs of specific clinical trials.
Weve been providing samples to researchers for many years. Its the depth of what we do for researchers that has evolved and changed, he said.
Last year, the San Diego Blood Bank worked with 60 labs on everything from testing of liquid biopsies to a new stem cell growth medium made in-house from expired blood platelets, which have a shelf life of only five days.
San Diegos blood bank is one of a handful nationwide pushing this extensively into the scientific research world, Wellis said. Perhaps its no surprise: The executive, who holds a doctorate in cell biology, was recruited in 2013 after a 25-year career in biotechnology to help broaden the local blood banks offerings.
Kleinman, the AABB medical director, said San Diegos bank is considered a national leader in working more directly with the research community.
I think San Diego Blood Bank is not unique in this regard, but theyre certainly on the cutting edge. Not every blood center is doing this, Kleinman said.
Health Playlist On Now Video: Why aren't Americans getting flu shots? 0:37 On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now Video: Vaccine can prevent human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer 0:31 On Now 23 local doctors have already faced state discipline in 2017 0:48 On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life
paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com
(619) 293-1850
Twitter: @paulsisson
The 39-year-old woman who was critically injured in a Saturday shooting that left one man dead and another hurt in the Jamacha-Lomita neighborhood is expected to survive, San Diego police said Monday.
Monique Santos and her boyfriend Quentin Mims, 47, were injured in the shooting at their residence on Armacost Road south of Woodrow Avenue about 4:30 p.m. Mims son, 26-year-old Andre Mims, died during the incident.
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Investigators have not yet determined who shot whom, but they dont believe there are any outstanding suspects, San Diego police Lt. Mike Holden said.
We need to determine what role each person had, Holden said. I dont want to put out that someone is a victim if they arent, or a suspect if they arent.
A neighbor said Saturday that the three adults lived together along with Santos two daughters.
Twitter: @LAWinkley
(619) 293-1546
lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
A fire that sparked at a Kearny Mesa warehouse early Monday caused about $200,000 in damage, San Diego fire officials said.
A number of people called 911 about 1:10 a.m. after spotting smoke billowing from a business park off Clairemont Mesa Boulevard west of state Route 163, fire officials said.
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Firefighters found smoke pouring from one of the buildings at the location and cut their way inside. A fire was burning in what appeared to be a tile business and crews doused the flames. It took about 45 minutes to find and put out the blaze.
Two suites were blackened by the fire, which caused about $150,000 in damage to the warehouse and $50,000 in damage to contents inside, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokeswoman Monica Munoz said.
No one was injured. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Twitter: @LAWinkley
(619) 293-1546
lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
A city camp for the homeless is worth a try
Regarding City camp could be San Diegos homeless solution (Feb. 10): The homeless problem for cities is the camping out and associated begging and trash in areas that should be attractive to our visitors and working citizens.
The first impression for tourists is not Americas Finest City, nor is it for the working, taxpaying residents.
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The Camp Hope San Diego on city-owned land adjacent to Brown Field suggested by George Mullen and Brian Caster is the solution.
Barry M. Bongers
Pacific Beach
Warehousing homeless is not a viable answer
This sounds suspiciously like the Japanese internment camps of the 1940s or moving the Indians to the reservation of an earlier era.
Letters and commentary policy
The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy.
E-mail letters@sduniontribune.com
Mail: Andrew Kleske, Reader Outreach Editor San Diego Union-Tribune P.O. Box 120191 San Diego, CA 92112-0191.
You can also leave a comment below
Round up and dump is not a practice that benefits the homeless.
All it does is create a homeless ghetto in the desert where it is out of sight and out of mind. We are better than this, and not so easily fooled.
Alternative facts may play out in Washington, but not here.
Spectacular open space, with breathtaking views and fresh air indeed.
Bruce Higgins
San Diego
Dont blame Nordstrom for a business decision
Regarding Brand name dismissal smacks of politics (Feb. 10): Im compelled to comment on the two Ivanka Trump clothing defenders.
Cliff Lindroth says Nordstrom should show us financial data to prove poor sales. Yet he would likely defend Donald Trump, who would not and never will show us his tax returns. Such hypocrisy.
And regarding C. Clemans comment, he makes no sense whatsoever.
Finally, Ivanka should make America great again and produce her clothes in the U.S.
Terrance Relles
Santee
* * *
Obviously those complaining about Nordstrom dropping Trumps daughters fashion line have never had any retail experience.
The line was dropped because it was underperforming. Either it was overpriced for the quality or it did not have the correct fashion direction at that price point. If it had been profitable, Nordstrom would have never dropped it. Very common for brands to come and go very quickly in a very competitive marketplace.
Those criticizing would not understand the available statistics to a merchant to make the correct decisions for profitability.
Jerry Hecker
San Diego
Sessions, DeVos will be great in new positions
The recent editorial about Jeff Sessions and Betsy DeVos (Sessions, DeVos are Trumps most troubling Cabinet picks, Feb. 4) is a false narrative.
Sessions is a great choice. He prosecuted the KKK and marched with Rep. John Lewis to commemorate the civil rights movement.
Hes well-qualified with lots of experience as Arkansas attorney general. Hell observe and enforce the laws of the land.
As a public school teacher of more than nine years, I support DeVos. Shell utilize best practices, be innovative in the use of vouchers (its been very successful and helpful for the black community), virtual and charter schools.
Control will be returned to the districts instead of dictating failed programs such as Common Core.
The unions oppose her but they dont care about the kids. Power and control and a leftist worldview is their priority.
Mark A. Peter
Solana Beach
DeVos an appropriate pick for Trump to make
So we now have a secretary of education with no experience in education, seemingly little or no knowledge of applicable legislation and significant ties to millionaires who are positioned to make even more millions as a result of policy decisions implemented by her administration.
What did you expect from a president with no governmental experience, little or no knowledge of applicable legislation and significant ties to millionaires who are positioned to make even more millions as a result of policies implemented by his administration?
I feel for our children.
E.J. Anderson
San Diego
Rest of the nation is scoffing at California
Regarding Dont forget day jobs, state Democrats (Feb. 5): What happened to the American Dream in California?
State lawmakers have abandoned it and replaced it with the California Welfare Nightmare. They have stolen the birthright of Americans to achieve the American Dream.
One lawmaker said that the rest of the country should watch what California is doing and follow its example. He is right in one sense: They are watching us, and that is why most of America is not following Californias example.
Dianna Piper
San Diego
State wise to not let Trump push it around
Trump got that wrong when he said California is out of control. He is.
Right into office and he is pushing the pipelines, barring immigrants, eliminating grants to the Office on Violence Against Women, weakening consumer financial protections, to name a few.
He should have taken his oath of office on a stack of cash.
Patricia Bleha
Carlsbad
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The end of the latest in a series of storms to hammer Northern California has at least temporarily eased the crisis conditions at the Oroville Dam, 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, but the situation became dire quickly this weekend. Late Sunday afternoon, fears that Lake Oroville the states second-largest reservoir would overflow and send billions of gallons of water down the dams damaged spillway were so strong that authorities ordered the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people in neighboring towns.
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An unlined emergency spillway that had never been used since construction of the 770-foot-tall dam was completed in 1968 was rushed into service after the main spillway was found to be gouged in recent days by a hole that has grown to be an estimated 45 feet deep and more than 200 feet across. The dam itself is in strong shape, but spillway repairs are expected to cost $100 million to $200 million. The sudden erosion amounts to a wake-up call for state officials to upgrade their maintenance efforts at Oroville Dam, the tallest in the United States, and the nine other large reservoirs built in California from 1927 to 1979.
A 50-year-old person isnt as robust as a 16-year-old, Bob Bea, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at UC Berkeley, told the Bay Area News Group. And neither is a 50-year-old dam. Most of our infrastructure dates back to this time period. Its now in its old age the geriatrics phase and we are still using a reactive approach to manage these systems. We wait until we have a big problem. It is much more cost-effective and safe to be proactive than waiting to fix something after an infrastructure disaster.
A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown says public safety, sound engineering and smart water management will continue to guide decision-making. With a deep snowpack and more wet weather ahead, Brown and his administration must seize this opportunity to check all the states reservoirs.
Twitter: @sdutIdeas
Facebook: UTOpinion
UPDATES:
An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly said the emergency spillway had a hole in it. That gouge was actually in the main spillway. The Union-Tribune regrets the error.
After a pointed speech by Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes took aim at President-elect Donald Trump and Trump blasted her attack by calling Streep one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, all eyes were on the Grammy Awards on Sunday to see if anyone in the music industry would try to make political points.
RELATED: Grammy Awards Trump card: Music with lots of social commentary
No one single moment caused a stir like Streeps big speech, but musics biggest night did pause several times for political statements.
Busta Rhymes introduces a new nickname for Trump
Busta Rhymes probably had the most overt political moment of the night as he joined A Tribe Called Quest and Anderson .Paak on stage. The rapper introduced a new nickname for the president.
I just want to thank President Agent Orange for perpetuating all of the evil that youve been perpetuating throughout the United States, he said. I want to thank President Agent Orange for your unsuccessful attempt at the Muslim ban.
The performance was filled with calls to resist! and rapper Q-Tip dedicated the show to all those people around the world, all those people who are pushing people in power to represent them.
Paris Jackson advocates for Dakota Access Pipeline protesters
Michael Jacksons daughter Paris was a presenter at the Grammy Awards Sunday and took a brief moment to show support for protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
We can really use this kind of excitement at a pipeline protest, she told the crowd and viewers watching before giving a shout out to the NoDAPL hashtag that supporters have been using on social media.
Katy Perry s performance
Just days before the awards show, Katy Perrys new single Chained to the Rhythm was already being discussed as subversive and political. She performed it wearing an armband that said persist, likely a nod to the resist theme of many protesters of President Donald Trump and his administration.
The longtime Hillary Clinton supporter also momentarily sang in front of a backdrop of the Constitution and yelled, No hate! at the end of her performance.
Laverne Cox mentioning an upcoming Supreme Court case
Laverne Cox was a presenter at the Grammys and used a few moments of her time at the microphone to tell viewers to search the name Gavin Grimm on Google. She also mentioned the supportive hashtag StandWithGavin.
Gavin Grimm is a transgender teenager from Virginia who is headed to the Supreme Court to argue against a school boards policy which bars him from the boys bathroom. The case will be heard on March 28.
Recording Academy president calls for unity
Nail Protnow, the president of the Recording Academy, comes out every year to give a speech about the importance of music and music education. But this year his statement was very pointed.
"We are constantly reminded about the things that divide us. Race, region and religion, gender, sexual orientation, political party, he said. But what we need so desperately are more reminders of all that binds us together our shared history, our common values and our dedication to build for ourselves a more perfect union.
He also called on the president and Congress to take action when it comes to supporting the arts.
You can read the full speech here.
Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, speaks at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles (REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)
Did you watch the show? Did you think it was particularly political?
Chime in below in our comments section.
Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @abbyhamblin
Ouray, CO -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/13/2017 -- Twin Peaks Lodge & Hot Springs has hosted large-scale events in the past, including events with over 700 people. The hotel is popular for hosting weddings, tours, family reunions, birthday celebrations, and plenty more.
The Jeep Jamboree is among the world's largest and oldest adventure companies, an event that's been held since 1953. In addition, the Colorado 1000 and Colorado 500 charity rides are popular events where participants ride through the Rocky Mountains. The largest event group hosted by Twin Peaks is the FJ Summit, where Toyota FJ Cruiser aficionados from different parts of the world come together to experience the 4x4 trails. The hotel is also one of the closest properties to Ouray's 4th of July Festival. In fact, guests can watch the fireworks from the comfort of the hotel's pool and outdoor soaking tub.
If you would like to book an event, reservations must be made with sufficient notice. For more information on events, meetings, and conventions, please visit the following page: http://www.twinpeakslodging.com/meeting.html.
About Twin Peaks Lodge & Hot Springs
Located in Ouray, Colorado, the Twin Peaks Lodge and Hot Springs is a full-service hotel offering Ouray lodging accommodations near the mountains. The hotel is within walking distance to shops and restaurants and there are hundreds of miles of biking, Jeep, and hiking trails to explore. It is located at 125 3rd Avenue, Ouray, Colorado 81427.
For more information on the hotel, Ouray lodging, or Twin Peaks lodging room types, please call 888-799-5295 or 970-239-4715.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/13/2017 -- The demand for water pumps across North America and Latin America continues to grow in parallel with the growth in the region's population. More households emerging in countries such as the US, Canada, Brazil or Mexico will certainly require water pumps for domestic purposes. Concurrently, agricultural, administrative and industrial sector in these regions will also adopt such pumps to keep up with the surging demands of consumers. Water pumps being deployed in the residential sector of North America and Latin America are projected to grow as municipalities & county authorities from this region will strive to improve their drinking water facilitation and upgrade the wastewater treatment plants.
North And Latin America Water Pumps Market:
Request to view Table of Content @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/north-and-latin-america-water-pumps-market/toc
Nevertheless, a recent study developed by Persistence Market Research projects that revenues garnered from sales of water pumps across Latin America and North America will soar at a moderate CAGR of 4% over an eight-year forecast period. After amassing an estimated US$ 9,422.9 million revenues in 2016, the water pumps market in North America and Latin America is anticipated to reach a valuation of US$ 13,412 .8 million by the end of 2024.
Key Deterrents for Adoption of Water Pumps in North & Latin America
-Availability of cheap Chinese water pumps: North American and Latin American manufacturers of water pumps are constantly at risk of losing market presence to newly-entered Chinese pump makers. Consumers in these regions end up opting for cheap Chinese water pumps, which tend to go kaput in short span of time. On the other hand, availing Chinese water pumps becomes more practical for consumers with tight budget, especially for deploying them in agricultural activities.
-Durability & energy efficiency of centrifugal pumps: Manufacturers of centrifugal water pumps in this region are improving the operating life of their products. This has decelerated the rate at which water pumps get replaced. Low replacement rate has dragged down the aftermarket sales of water pumps in North America and Latin America, thereby impeding the aggregate market revenues.
-Budget limitations in industrial and agricultural sectors: Expenditure on water pumps fares on a tightrope in North America. Submersible pumps are also expected to impact the adoption of centrifugal water pumps in this region. Latin America's industrial sector is likely to trim its gross expenditure, which will incidentally impact the sales of water pumps in this region. Low profit margins in North America's agriculture industry have also slowed down the rate at which water pumps were being installed or replaced in farming activities.
Sample of this report is available upon request @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/13618
In the report, titled "Water Pumps Market: North & Latin America Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024," Persistence Market Research predicts that more than 90% of water pump revenues in Latin America and North America will be accounted by sales of centrifugal pumps. While over 936 thousand units of positive displacement pumps are estimated to be sold in the Americas during the forecast period, sales of centrifugal pumps will be raking in revenues worth over US$ 12 billion by the end of 2024. In 2016, centrifugal pumps worth nearly US$ 3 billion were estimated to be consumed by wastewater and water treatment plants across North America and Latin America. Oil and gas industries in this region have been predicted to have consumed over 200 thousand units of positive displacement pumps in 2016.
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Compared to Latin America, North America will continue to have a large share in their collective regional market for water pumps. In 2016, the US water pumps market accounted for more than two-third of North America's water pump revenues, while Brazil and Mexico attributed to more than 50% growth in Latin America's water pumps revenues. US-based companies Xylem Inc. and Flowserve Corporation are the leading native players in North America and Latin America's water pumps market. The market will continue to witness higher participation from European water pump manufacturers such as KSB AG, Weir Group Plc., Grundfos, and Sulzer AG. Japanese water pump manufacturer, Ebara Corp is also observed to be a key participant as the company has established two manufacturing plants in North America and one in Latin America.
About Persistence Market Research
Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients' business needs.
PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients' business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMR's engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.
Westerville, OH -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/13/2017 -- Transitions Optical honored Professional VisionCare, Westerville, Ohio with the 2016 Best in Patient Experience title, a category of the Transitions Innovation Awards program, during a recognition ceremony on Tuesday at Transitions Academy in Orlando, FL.
"We extend our warmest congratulations to Professional VisionCare on the programs they initiated in 2016 that helped the company grow and continue to innovate," said Drew Smith, director, North America Channels, Transitions Optical. "Professional VisionCare smartly asked all staff members to help define what a great patient experience would look like in their office. Thanks to this process, they employed new strategies for improving patient experience with the best products, including Transitions lenses."
Raquel Miller, Practice Director at Professional VisionCare, accepted the award on behalf of the practice at Transitions Academy. Read more about the practice here: http://www.professionalvisioncareinc.com/our-story/
"Listening to our staff and asking them for their honest opinions about what they think and know about Transitions lenses as well as suggestions for how to improve our company culture was the best step we could take to better our patient interactions and practice overall," said Miller. "We are very excited to give our patients the best experience in our office possible and receive this honor from Transitions Optical."
During Transitions Academy, Best in Patient Experience finalists Costco Optical (Canada) and Visionworks were also recognized for their commitment to providing patients the highest level of support and protection.
About the Best in Patient Experience Award
Launched in 2015, the Best in Patient Experience award celebrates an individual or company for developing a forward-thinking approach to consistently dispense Transitions lens products and meet individual patient needs.
About Transitions Optical
Transitions Optical is the leading provider of plastic photochromic (adaptive) lenses to optical manufacturers worldwide. Having been the first to successfully manufacture and commercialize plastic adaptive lenses in 1990, and as a result of its relentless investment in research and development and technology, Transitions Optical offers a wide variety of products, setting new standards of advanced performance to provide ever increasing visual comfort and UV protection.
Product leadership, consumer focus, and operational excellence have made the Transitions brand one of the most recognized consumer brands in optics.
For more information about the company and Transitions lenses, visit Transitions.com or TransitionsPRO.com.
About Professional VisionCare
Professional VisionCare is a full service eye care clinic with locations in Westerville and Johnstown Ohio. Providing eye health services beyond comprehensive eye exams, they are dedicated to changing lives through innovative vision care. Not Your Ordinary Eye Doctor, this eye care practice truly stands out in the optomeric field.
For more information about Professional VisionCare, visit http://www.professionalvisioncareinc.com/
Ice in the arctic is rapidly decreasing as global warming is at its alarming rate. Some scientists have proposed to refreeze the arctic and that move will cost $500 billion.
Physicist Steven Desch and his team have a plan to solve the problem. Their solution is to build wind-powered pumps over the Arctic ice cap. His team is from the Arizona State University and they have laid it all out. According to The Guardian, the pumps will be used during winter. They would be pumping out water to the surface of the ice, and the water will freeze.
The method, which will cost $500 billion, will create 10 million pimps and it would add one meter of ice to the Arctic's two to three meters melting ice caps. Steven Desch said in a newspaper interview that thicker ice would be great as it would last longer. Melting of ice caps during the summer will no longer be a problem because of the extra ice the pumps will give.
Straits Times noted that the Arctic's ice is melting twice as fast as how it was predicted before. It would be completely gone by 2030. In a recently published paper of Dr. Steven Desch, he estimated the project to cost at least $500 billion. It was published in Earth's Future, the journal of the American Geophysical Union.
There are also many other scientists who are concerned about the fast decline of the climate in the Arctic region. In November, it was supposed to freeze more water and add in the ice caps but it became warmer that melted ice rather than freeze them. Many polar bears and other living things in the Arctic region would be gravely affected if the event would continue.
It has been reported before that this plan was brought up back in 2012. Scientist David Keith of Harvard has also said the same solution. However, he asked if it was necessary. He also said that it might do more harm than good to the environment. Other scientists are suggesting that fossil fuel consumption should just be controlled.
South Sudan's radio is getting a revamp. Issa Kassimu, the radio community's electrical engineer has provided the best solution to the country's lack of information problem.
According to Radio World, Issa Kassimu has built solar panels to provide their FM radio station, Mayardit, a longer sustain of power that will give them longer broadcasting time. Kassimu is the engineer who always repairs the generator of the station. He then suggested to Mayardit to revert to solar power.
Yahoo Finance has reported that Mayardit FM has now 84 solar panels and 48 batteries. It provided the radio station a 24-hour broadcast using the reserved energy from the panel. It is placed in the northeast part of South Sudan, in Turalei. It cost $172,000 and that amount will be covered within five years. The change will definitely save them money on fuel, equipment and repairs.
In those remote locations, fuel is two to three times more expensive than the cost in Juba, so I thought of something that could at least be sustainable," he said.
Internews stated that Mayardit used to spend $22,000 a year for the maintenance of the generators. They have also stated that fuels in the remote areas are super expensive and it is so hard to afford so Mayardit opt to not broadcast at all to those places.
Issa talked about his project to an audience earlier this year. He said that as of March 2016, Mayardit FM has been solely running on solar power. Its broadcast hours have been extended from 8 to 16 hours a day. It also never recorded a down time or off air. He further explained that the power and batteries were used interchangeably. If the batteries are full, the power will take over, if there is no sun, the battery will automatically be running.
He also encouraged other people to use the same method. He believes that solar power is the better option than fuels that cause harm to the environment.
See how solar power helps South Sudan in other ways.
Space robots, specifically designed to repair technical snags in government and private owned satellites, have been under proposition for a long time. It caught the headlines when Pentagon gave the contract of building such space robots to a subsidiary of Canadian-owned firm. However, the project hit a major roadblock when Orbital ATK raised legal issues against the contract and filed a lawsuit against it.
The space robot project was launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which functions under the U.S. Department of defense. DARPA envisioned the creation and application of space robotic devices that can repair technical issues in satellites as and when required.
It is speculated that, if successful, the space robots could potentially decrease the cost of operation of satellites, because often the satellite owners have to leave their satellites as dead after they encounter any technical issues. This is not only costing them way too much but also adding to the growing problem of space junk, which is emerging as a potential risk factor in the success of future space missions, The Huffington Post reported.
DARPA gave the contract of building such robots to the Space Systems Loral (SSL), which is a subsidiary of a British Columbia-based IT company named MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA).
In the meantime, Orbital ATK, another aerospace manufacturing corporation based in Virginia, which is also a fierce competitor of SSL, made an announcement that the project is illegal and went on to file a lawsuit against it, Space News reported.
Orbital ATK said that the project is in violation of the 2010 National Space Policy of the U.S., which states that government agencies cannot run space programs, which may compete with those run by private companies.
On the other hand, some others are of the opinion that the U.S. government is planning to go ahead with the program because it will be a great benefit for the National Reconnaissance Office, which is responsible for the operation of spy satellites.
Given the current situation, the commencement and successful operation of the project is highly doubtful.
In New Zealand, it was a week of heartbreak when over 650 pilot whales were found to have beached themselves on two different instances in Farewell Spit. There were over 350 of them dying on the thin strip of land in the past few days.
However, not it seems that there is a silver lining to the tragedy. According to NPR.org, volunteer rescuers left the beach Saturday night with hundreds of whales from the second stranding still ashore. But they returned early the following day to only 17 on the beach -- the others are expected to have swam back into the ocean.
Herb Christophers, a spokesman for the Department of Conservation (DOC), told Reuters, "We had 240 whales strand yesterday in the afternoon and we were fearful we were going to end up with 240 dead whales this morning. That isn't the case, however, because it seems that they have "self-rescued," which Christophers took to mean that they floated off and swam out to sea when the tide came in that night.
By high tide on Sunday, the volunteers managed to send the remaining 17 whales back to sea, which were said to then have rejoined their large pod of over 200 whales about a mile off the shore. The Department of Conservation in New Zealand noted that this is a remarkable twist of events, as they have put out an urgent call for help to keep the whales alive. However, by Sunday, there were no need for volunteers.
The initial stranding was discovered earlier last week, putting over 400 whales on Farewell Spit. Although the area was a notorious whale trap, few people were able to see one of such massive scope, as it was tagged as the third largest whale beaching to have ever been seen in the country.
A wide range of reasons could have put the whales on the thin strip of land at shore, including disorientation by sonar blasts, odd land masses or as a way to protect injured members of whale pods. However, nobody knows the exact reason for the latest mass stranding.
According to Associated Press, Andrew Lamason, another spokesman for the DOC said that work is still to continue. Whale corpses will have to be "buried" by tethering them to stakes in the shallow water to prevent them from floating into bays or near people's homes.
A 12th cave associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls has recently been discovered by scholars. It contained yet another scroll and manuscripts from the early days of Judaism and Christianity.
Scientists were said to have retrieved over 800 documents from 11 caves. Mirror Daily noted that most of the documents found were of papyrus, but there were a significant number made of forged copper and animal skin. Carbon dating also revealed the documents to be at least 2,000 years old, making them particularly invaluable as they can help broaden humanity's understanding of the Bible.
National Geographic reported that the Israeli team that found the cave also found storage jars that had been hidden in places cut into cave walls. However, they were either broken or have had their contents removed. The cave has not been totally emptied out, though. Leather scroll ties, textiles for scroll wrapping and a pair of rusty pickaxes from the 1950s were taken to be signs of the cave being looted some decades ago.
A manuscript found in a jar, however, is currently being translated. But other than that, there is little that researchers know about the cave. There was no way of telling what was stolen and when. But if they will take into account the fact that the cave is similar to the others, scientists assume that it may have contained at some point some of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Other things found in the cave include pieces of parchment with no writing on it -- materials that are now considered a hot commodity, especially to looters who sell them at high prices. Randall Price of the Liberty University said these material have been supplied by looters who have been aggressively targeting Dead Sea caves in the past few years. The Israel Antiquities Authority has apprehended a growing number of such hunters attempting to enter the caves, usually at night.
Scientists could finally be resolved the bewilderment over Albert Einstein's theory through tests using advanced technology. They are researching on how the universe's accelerated expansion is being driven.
In Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, which was published in 1915, he suggested that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity. He indicated it to explain a static universe based on his mathematical element called Cosmological Constant. On the other hand, he discarded his mathematical factor after discovering that the universe is expanding.
The research was printed in Physics Letters B. It was led by scientists from University of Edinburgh. It was conducted two decades ago. The research indicates that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This suggests that Einstein's Constant may still have a part to play in accounting for dark energy. Without the dark energy, the acceleration could not support Albert Einstein's theory of gravity across the largest distances in the universe, according to Phys.org.
The researchers could have resolved this bewilderment by identifying the speed of gravity in the cosmos from a study of gravitational waves-space-time ripples propagating in the universe. In their calculations, they show that if the gravitational waves are found to travel at the speed of light, this would rule out alternative gravity theories, with no dark energy, in support of Albert Einstein's Cosmological Constant. On the other hand, if their speed differs from that of light, then Einstein's theory must be reviewed, according to the team.
Dr. Lucas Lombriser from the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy stated that the recent direct gravitational wave detection has opened a new observational window to the universe. He further stated that their results give an impression of how this will guide them in solving one of the most fundamental problems in physics.
In the experiment, the team will use the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the U.S. This could resolve the puzzle in time for the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Constant.
The cosmological constant is defined as the value of the energy density of the vacuum of space. This is Albert Einstein's additional theory to his theory of general relativity to "hold back gravity" and achieve a static universe. On the other hand, this was abandoned after discovering that all galaxies outside the Milky Way Galaxy are moving away from each other. The Cosmological Constant is also the simplest possible form of dark energy since it was found out that it is constant in both space and time.
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- A former Darlington County deputy was charged with third-degree assault and battery on Monday, Feb. 13 after turning herself into the Darlington County Detention Center.
Darlington deputies responded to the alleged assault that involved a deputy on Sunday, Feb. 12 at approximately 10:30 a.m.
According to the incident report, former deputy Ruby Brockenberry got into an altercation with her wife Cherryl. The argument turned physical, the report stated, as "Ruby pushed her (Cherryl) to the floor and started kicking her in the side."
Following the altercation, Brockenberry left the residence. Sheriff Tony Chavis requested that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigate the incident.
SLED agents arrived on scene shortly before Brockenberry returned to the residence. Brockenberry told SLED agents that she was concerned Cherryl was cheating on her, according to the report. Brockenberry denied fighting with Cherryl and said "she never hit her."
Brockenberry, 51, turned herself into SLED agents the day after the alleged assault and was issued a personal recognizance bond of $1,500.
Law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard, Sheriff Chavis said. We, as law enforcement officers, must conduct ourselves in a manner that there cannot be the belief we involve ourselves with impropriety.
FLORENCE, S.C. Francis Marion University will host renowned Gullah advocate and storyteller Anita Singleton-Prather at 4 p.m. today at the Lowrimore Auditorium.
Singleton-Prather brings Gullah culture to countless people through her character Aunt Pearlie, which is inspired by her grandmother. Her performance entertains as it educates, introducing traditional Gullah customs into an innovative and enlightening presentation.
She has appeared in the film Forrest Gump and on the Food Network program "Christmas Across America."
The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the FMU Multicultural Advisory Board and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.
As one who loves Chicago, I hope President Donald Trump is not toying with my affections.
So far, the native New Yorker had been treating Chicago like the weather; he can't stop talking about it, but is there really much he can do about it?
He's been talking about Chicago's violence epidemic since a June 29, 2015 meeting with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, which he addressed as if he was bringing news of which Chicagoans already were not painfully aware:
"Crime in Chicago is out of control, and I will tell you, outside of Chicago, it's a huge negative and a huge talking point, a huge negative for Chicago," he said. "You've got to stop it. You're not going to stop it by being nice. You're going to stop it by being one tough son of a bitch."
Right. This is the same Big Apple city slicker who had so poor of a grasp of the obvious that he refused to accept President Barack Obama's birth certificate until it became a political liability.
Trump has made numerous other references to Chicago's homicide problems as a candidate and nominee and at least four more times in the first three weeks after his inauguration.
In each instance he sounds sympathetic, bemoaning how terribly "sad" Chicago's situation is. Hosting a meeting of county sheriffs Tuesday in the White House, he segued into how Chicago's "hundreds of shootings a month" are "worse than some of the places that we read about in the Middle East, where you have wars going on."
The problem is bad, although Trump's numbers are inflated. Chicago did record more than 700 homicides last year for the first time in 19 years. That was more than New York's and Los Angeles' numbers combined.
The reasons are multiple, an imperfect storm of long-simmering distrust between police and civilians, a flood of guns from neighboring suburbs and states, huge financial deficits in city and state budgets, political gridlock holding up funding for violence reduction programs you name it.
There's plenty of blame to go around with city and state government leaders and plenty are blaming. Trump has joined in the chorus, prompted at least partly by the commentators on his favorite news network, Fox News.
Chicago, Democrat-controlled like most major American cities, has long been a target of conservative criticism, even more so after the city's favorite son Obama became president. Suddenly, its local woes became a convenient symbol for national Republicans who wanted to highlight Democratic failures.
Sure, the city's leaders bear the main responsibility for its success or failures. But now that Trump, a native New Yorker who used to vote Democratic until he found greener pastures in the Grand Old Party, has stepped into the problem, he also owns a piece of it. He needs to do more than use Chicago's woes as an excuse to pander to his own base.
That sort of cynicism was most apparent in a Jan. 24 tweet that threatened to "send in the Feds" if Chicago didn't do something to reduce its violence. Besides revealing his apparent ignorance of the federal law enforcement agencies that already are working with Chicago's police, Trump's tweet was notable in its duplication of statistics and language broadcast in Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show the previous evening.
Is Trump paying attention to the words coming out in his tweets? He had earlier tweeted on Jan. 2 as president-elect that Chicago should ask for "federal help," even though Mayor Rahm Emanuel already did just that on Dec. 7 in a New York meeting with Trump. How soon we can forget.
Yet Trump is full of surprises. Without any advance public notice, he signed three new executive orders late Thursday after he swore in newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The orders direct Sessions to establish a task force and produce at least one report within the next year with recommendations on how to reduce violent crime, illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
The conservative, get-tough approach to crime-fighting favored by Sessions and Trump runs counter to the findings of a just-completed Department of Justice investigation of Chicago's police. Obama's DOJ was not shy about using civil rights laws to force police departments across the country to change how they interact with suspects and citizens the opposite of what is suggested by Trump's threat to "send in the Feds."
If he's truly interested in helping Chicago, Sessions will study the DOJ's report with an open mind. It details how poor training, low police morale and a cover-up culture contribute to poor relations between police and citizens. It would be a mistake to discard those findings.
Getting tough isn't everything. To get the violence under control, Chicago must first rebuild trust between its police and the communities they serve.
Those of us who love Chicago and other similarly troubled American cities should care less about who's liberal or who's conservative than about what works.
E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.
To start the launch, AIDAcara is taking 'Selection' guests to Norway on four 14-day itineraries designed to offer genuine winter experiences.
The first itinerary which includes calls at Haugesund, Bod, Troms, Alta, Vesteralen, Trondheim and Bergen started with a special celebration as the ship departed Altona Cruise Terminal at 20:00 for a harbour roundtrip featuring a sail past the Elbphilharmonie concert hall.
After turning in front of Hamburg's newest landmark, AIDAcara set sail towards the North Sea, with her fleet mate AIDAprima following her at close distance.
At 22:30 a fireworks display off Hamburg's Blankenese district bid both ships farewell.
AIDAcara is the first major cruise ship to offer a series of winter cruises to Norway in the German market.
In addition to the current cruise, she will embark on three more itineraries to Norway on February 25, March 11 and March 25.
Norway's snow-covered winter landscape as well as the Northern Lights are among the highlights of the first four 'AIDA Selection' cruises. Shore excursions have been tailored accordingly, including among others whale watching in small groups and dog-sled tours.
The news wire cited coal traders and ship operator as saying the disruptions were affecting coal ports near Samarinda in the province of East Kalimantan and Taboneo, near the capital of South Kalimantan, Banjarmasin, with some 130 vessels currently offshore Kalimantan according to Reuters.
"The area most affected is getting coal down the Barito River to coastal ports like Taboneo," one coal barge shipper from Kalimantan, was quoted as saying. Shipping data shows around 30 large vessels are currently waiting to load coal at Taboneo, with several having already waited for about six weeks.
The number of vessels waiting to load coal at one of the world's top thermal coal mining areas has risen from 108 a week ago and some of the ships have been waiting since late December.
"Local authorities are delaying shipping and export licenses, and that is what is causing delays," a local source was quoted as saying. Meanwhile local media reported that coal hauling roads in three locations had been closed by the South Kalimantan government.
Sources said the persistent delays could start resulting in vessel cancellations or repositioning to other areas in Indonesia to clear some of the backlog.
Supply shifts to Australian coal could also lead to rises in the price of seaborne coal and higher ton-miles for shipowners.
The figures for 2016 were the fifth year of steady growth for traffic in the Straits since 2012, when 75,477 vessels over 300gt transited the straits, according to analysis of the Malaysian Marine Departments STRAITREP figures by the Nippon Maritime Center (NMC), provided exclusively to Seatrade Maritime News.
The average number of daily transits reported to Port Klang VTS in Malaysia in 2016 was 229, up seven from 2015, and compares to 201 in 2011.
VLCC traffic
Leading the growth in number of transits in percentage terms in 2016 were VLCCs with 5,973 transits of Straits, an increase of 649 or 12.19% over 5,324 transits by tankers of more than 150,000 dwt in the previous year. This is well above the 4.8% average annual growth in VLCC transits seen since 2007.
As a whole VLCCs account 6% of all transits of the Straits. Loaded VLCCs headed to Singapore and Northeast Asia transit the deepwater lane, which is just 1.3 km wide at One Fathom Bank goalposts in the Malacca Strait, and only 800 m wide at one point in the Philip Channel in the Singapore Strait, if sailing eastwards beyond Singapore.
Total tanker traffic
Overall tanker traffic, including VLCCs, in the SOMS in 2016 was up 6.91% at 25,439 transits, an increase of 1,645 compared to 23,794 transits in 2015, making it the fastest growing segment as a whole. The 2016 reports mostly tankers carrying clean oil products, and the yearly increase indicate the growing number of oil refineries in operation within East Asia, especially in China, the report by NMC commented.
Tankers, excluding VLCCs, were the second largest vessel type to use the Straits accounting for 23% of traffic in 2016 with 19,466 transits.
Containership traffic
Containerships remained the largest segment to transit the Straits in 2016 with a 33% share of traffic a figure which has remained consistent since year 2000. However, containership transit growth has been relatively slow in recent years with 1.54%, or 393 transits, increase last year to 25,786 compared to 25,393 in 2015.
The trend towards very large and ultra large containership tonnage has dampened the overall growth in transits. Container carrying capacity of newer ships have greatly increased in recent times. As a result, container ports in the Straits handled higher cargo tonnage on fewer ships calling in recent years, the report commented.
The number of containership transits in 2016 still remains marginally below the record of 26,359 set in 2008.
Bulker traffic
Bulk carrier traffic in the Straits has enjoyed relatively strong and steady growth since 2011 averaging 4.3%, however, it tailed off somewhat last year in what was widely regarded as the worst market in living memory with the Baltic Dry Index hitting an all time low of 290 points in February 2016.
Bulker traffic in the SOMS grew 2.49, or 378 transits, to 15,547 in 2016 compared to 15,169 transits in the previous year. Bulk carriers accounted for 12% of the traffic in the Straits in 2016.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a New York-based brokerage firm has agreed to pay a $100,000 penalty to settle charges of compliance and trading surveillance failures.
Federal securities laws require firms to enforce policies and procedures to prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic information to which their employees routinely have access. The SECs order finds that Sidoti & Company LLC had no written policies or procedures in place from November 2014 to July 2015 as it pertained to those making investment decisions for an affiliated hedge fund that invested in issuers covered by Sidotis research department and some other issuers for which Sidoti provided investment banking services. For example, Sidoti maintained a daily restricted list of securities restricting personal trading because Sidoti was involved in investment banking or marketing activities or the firm was publishing research on the security. There were 126 instances from Nov. 3, 2014 to May 5, 2015 when the hedge fund traded in a stock that appeared on the daily restricted list.
Sidoti did not devote sufficient resources to set up the requisite trade surveillance and compliance systems and failed to meet its obligation to prevent the misuse of material nonpublic information, said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SECs New York Regional Office.
Without admitting or denying the findings, Sidoti consented to the SECs order finding that the firm violated Section 15(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The SECs investigation was conducted in the New York office by Pamela Sawhney, Jason W. Sunshine, and Sandeep Satwalekar, and the case was supervised by Sanjay Wadhwa. The SEC examination that led to the investigation was conducted by Jennifer Grumbrecht, Lourdes Caballes, Evett Evelyn, and Sabrina Rubin.
Mysterious, 3,000-year-old footprints of ancient Egyptian children have emerged alongside rare painting fragments, at what appears to be the site of a royal palace or temple.
The prints were uncovered at the remains of a large building in the fabled Pi-Ramesse, a city which was Egypt's capital during the reign of the King Ramses II.
Mahmoud Afifi, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities department, described the building complex as "truly monumental."
"It is likely to be a temple or a palace," he said.
As they excavated the structure, a team of archaeologists from the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany, found a mortar pit measuring approximately 8 by 26 feet.
At the bottom of the pit, a layer of mortar was still present, etched with the small prints.
"The children's footprints had a size of 15-17 centimeters (5.9 6.6 inches) , thus relating to children between 3 and 5 years of age if one follows charts for modern children," Henning Franzmeier, field director of the Qantir-Piramesse project in Egypt's Nile Delta, told Seeker.
RELATED: 800,000-Year-Old Footprints Found in Desert
The archaeologists cannot yet say if there was more than one child.
"The differences in size are not big enough for us to clearly differentiate. And they are also not so well preserved that we could distinguish so far any other features of the feet," Franzmeier said.
Built on an island in the easternmost Nile branch, some 65 miles northeast of Cairo, Pi-Ramesse (modern Qantir) flourished during the 66 years of Ramses II's reign and for more than a century after his death.
"The city had an extension of about 10 square miles, making it the one of the largest settlements of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East," Franzmeier said.
However, toward the end of the 20th Dynasty the city began to decline, and in the 21st Dynasty (1075950 BC) the capital was moved about 18 miles north to Tanis.
But the long-entrenched opposition is vowing a multi-pronged effort to disrupt those plans, including direct action protests on the ground in North Dakota, continued challenges in court, divestment campaigns and solidarity protests around the country.
A spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners projected it would take two months to complete work on the remaining portion of the pipeline - and three for oil to begin flowing.
"The law says you need to do a full environmental review for actions that have significant impacts or carry significant risks," Hasselman said. "This is one of the largest, longest, underground river bores in the world for a crude oil pipeline, in a waterway that serves 17 million people in addition to the Standing Rock tribe. The government made a mistake by reversing itself and issuing this decision [...] and we're going to take that to the judge."
Construction had resumed late last week, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted an easement allowing its final stretch to be completed. According to Jan Hasselman, lead attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, opponents will file a motion Tuesday asking the judge to rule directly on the Army Corp's decision.
"We're extremely disappointed with today's ruling, [...] but we are not surprised," Chase Iron Eyes, a member of the Standing Rock tribe and the Lakota People's Law Project, said in a Facebook post. "We know this fight is far from over. Tribes will continue to pursue legal remedies through the courts, seek an injunction against the pipeline and push for the full Environmental Impact Statement to be completed."
The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux were seeking a temporary restraining order, arguing the pipeline would prevent them from practicing religious ceremonies at a lake surrounded by what they consider sacred ground. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied their request, ruling that there was no immediate harm to the tribes because oil isn't flowing, but set a February 27 hearing to re-consider their arguments before it does.
Construction will continue on the Dakota Access pipeline after a federal judge in Washington, D.C. declined on Monday afternoon an emergency appeal to halt the project.
Dakota Access, a $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile oil pipeline that spans four states, would funnel hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil daily from western North Dakota to an existing pipeline in Illinois. An early proposal called for the line to pass by the overwhelmingly white capital city, Bismarck, but was rerouted near Native American water supplies and cultural sites.
For months, thousands of demonstrators - led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe - have camped in the project's revised path. They've withstood regular clashes with an increasingly militarized police force, which has deployed water cannons in sub-zero temperatures, used attack dogs and pepper spray, and arrested protesters en masse.
Construction was delayed and the Obama Administration ordered an expanded environmental review of the project. But six days after that evaluation began, President Trump called for the review and approval of Dakota Access and Keystone XL, another contentious pipeline that was halted after years of protests, to be expedited.
"The Trump administration may have announced termination of the [Environmental Impact Statement] but that will not go unchallenged," Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman David Archambault said last week. "This administration has expressed utter and complete disregard for not only our treaty and water rights, but the environment as a whole."
RELATED: Army Corps of Engineers Greenlights Final Leg of Dakota Access Pipeline
Energy Transfer Partners maintains the line is safe, but opponents fear that a spill would not only contaminate the local water supply - risks the tribe argues were never adequately assessed - but could lead to a wider disaster.
That's because the pipeline also crosses the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest subterranean water tables in the world, spanning eight states and providing water to millions of Midwesterners. And, as with any new fossil fuel infrastructure, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, which Trump has also greenlighted, climate activists worry about the long-term greenhouse gas implications of a pipeline with a decades-long lifespan.
May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, said that efforts to resist the project would continue despite the easement.
"Trump thinks he's getting what he wants, but the people who've been emboldened by the worldwide fight against the Dakota Access pipeline won't quietly back away," Boeve said in a press statement. "Indigenous leaders, landowners and climate activists are ready to challenge this decision in the courts and in the streets - as we have each time the fossil fuel industry steamrolls over human rights for their own profits."
In 2015, Trump owned between $500,000 and $1 million of Energy Transfer Partners stock, and between $15,000 and $50,000 last year, according to Trump's federal disclosure forms from the past two years. In November, Trump spokesman Hope Hicks said that he'd sold his share in the company months earlier.
Ties between pipeline and president run both ways: Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren gave more than $100,000 to Trump's campaign, and he donated millions to former Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign. Trump has nominated Perry to head the U.S. Department of Energy, an appointment that the Senate may vote on this week.
RELATED: The Twilight of American Coal and the Rise of Renewables
In December, more than 2,000 veterans converged at Standing Rock, to act as human shields and protect the demonstrators' First Amendment rights. Now, Veterans Stand, a group formed in the wake of the last trip, is planning a second 'deployment.' They've raised more than $200,000 through GoFundMe over the past two weeks, to be used for supplies, operations and transporting veterans to and from the camp.
Anthony Diggs, communications director for Veterans Stand and a former Marine, said there's an advance team already on site in North Dakota, with more vets on the way or soon to join.
"We're here to make sure the water protectors are supported, well-equipped and protected," Diggs said. "Everybody at the camp is still here in peaceful protest and prayer ceremony. But the law enforcement has become increasingly more aggressive, increasingly more militarized. There are people who are being arrested and brutalized for non-violently demonstrating."
Demonstrators will take to the streets of Washington, D.C. on March 10 for the Native Nations March. Pipeline opponents also look to catalyze a divestment movement, a tactic increasingly embraced by environmentalists. On Tuesday, Seattle cut ties with Wells Fargo - which had managed about $3 billion annually for the city - over the $120 million the company has loaned to Energy Transfer Partners for the pipeline.
As long as protesters remain peaceful, they will continue to be a potent force, said Diggs.
"What we are dealing with is Big Oil in our government essentially choosing the opportunity for a few people to profit over the sustainability of our environment and the health of literally millions and millions of people," Diggs said. "Their whole philosophy for dealing with this situation - and anyone that stands in the way of them and their profits - is based on things like intimidation, instigation and violence. But that's the power of people protest - they don't know what to do when we refuse to give up nonviolence as our main approach."
WATCH: The Keystone XL Pipeline Debate Explained
People the world over, from high tech executives to hunter-gatherers, have very similar social networks, according to new research that reveals the importance of maintaining bonds with family, as well as three to five close friends.
The results, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, were drawn by studying the Philippines-based Agta and Congo-dwelling BaYaka hunter-gatherers. Lead author Andrea Migliano, an evolutionary anthropologist at University College London, explained that she and her team chose to focus on hunter-gatherers because they represent the closest examples of human lifestyles and social organizations from the past.
"They have been little influenced by technology, they have very old traditions, but the most important thing for us is that they have to deal in their day-to-day life with problems that are similar to the ones our ancestor hunter-gatherers had to cope with, such as unpredictable resources," Migliano told Seeker.
"So they have developed specific social adaptations that are central to this kind of lifestyle: they are mobile, highly cooperative - as they do not store food and resources are unpredictable they need to share everything - highly egalitarian, and all is equally shared."
RELATED: Hunter-Gather Tribes: The Original Social Networks
The researchers gave each hunter-gatherer study participant a "mote device," which they wore like an activity tracker around one wrist. In this case, the gadgets tracked each wearer's social interactions.
Migliano explained that the device emits a radio signal every two minutes, which is recorded by every other such gadget around and within about ten feet. With this technology, the researchers were able to map a person's network of close social interactions.
The hunter-gatherers often communicated with family members, and had a lot of other occasional acquaintances. Especially central to their networks were close friends whom they often knew since childhood.
On Sunday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket put some fire in the trenches at Florida's Launch Complex 39A as part of a routine, preflight engine test. The rocket is scheduled to blast off on Saturday to deliver a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA.
"First static fire test of Falcon 9 at historic launch complex 39A completed in advance of Dragon's upcoming mission to the space station," SpaceX wrote on Twitter after Sunday's engine firing.
SpaceX in 2014 signed a 20-year lease for one of the space shuttle's old launch pads for its Falcon 9 and planned Falcon Heavy rockets.
SpaceX founder and chief executive noted on Twitter that 39A previously was used by the Apollo program's moon rockets.
RELATED: SpaceX Must Still Prove That It Can Safely Launch Astronauts Into Space
"This is the same launch pad used by the Saturn V rocket that first took people to the moon in 1969. We are honored to be allowed to use it," Musk wrote.
NASA is keeping the second shuttle pad, 39B, for its heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket.
SpaceX's new pad is located just north of what had been its main launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. That pad, known as Launch Complex 40, was heavily damaged during a botched Falcon 9 engine test firing on Sept. 1.
Repairs to the launch pad are underway. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the costs should be far less than half the price of a new launch pad, which typically runs about $100 million.
I'm about to be teleported. Romain Vakilitabar smiles warmly as he hands me a Samsung Gear VR headset and a pair of noise-canceling headphones. We're standing around a small conference table at Spark Boulder, a basement-level co-working space run by CU students. Soft electronic music plays overhead. The 25-year-old American social entrepreneur wears a white button-down shirt over jeans. A red, green and black bracelet spelling "Kenya" - given to him by children at an orphanage there - peeks out from his sleeve. He tells me that what I'm about to experience isn't the final cut, and admits with a laugh that getting the video just right is taking much longer than he planned. His light brown eyes shine. I slip on the gear, and the office chairs and conference table disappear from view. The music stops. Sounding muffled and far away, Vakilitabar (pronounced "Vah-kee-lee-tah-bar") guides my hand to a button on the side of the headset that controls the cursor. And then I'm in Kenya, standing amid roughly a dozen men, women and children who are speaking to each other under the midday sun in an unfamiliar language. Their homes are shacks patched together from old corrugated metal that crowd us on all sides. A shallow ditch dotted with trash runs alongside the shacks and out past two women scrubbing clothes in plastic tubs. Under the whitish-blue sky, lines of laundry hang listlessly between two shacks. RELATED: A Young Girl's Life in Africa's Largest Slum The sunlight is almost blinding. In the distance, a tangle of wires hangs from a telephone pole. Against one building, a woman with two toddlers clamoring at her sides sits on a plastic 10-gallon water jug, hugging herself. She says something to me but I cannot hear her over the voices of the others. This is Kibera, Africa's largest slum, on the outskirts of Nairobi. Kibera is synonymous with extreme poverty. Sanitation and clean water are lacking. Unemployment is high and crime is as rampant as disease. Visitors are told to avoid the area - but here I am. A woman with a gentle Kenyan accent speaks to me. "What do you see before you? Poverty? Sadness? Desperation? Lack of will? Dependence?" her voice asks. The view briefly goes dark, as if I'm closing my eyes. "No, you see me, Lucy Ochieng, 25, in my beautiful home." "Can I show you the Kibera that I see?" Ochieng whispers.
In the next moment, I'm standing in a busy market between stalls, facing a crowded dirt-packed road bustling with people and laughter. To my right, I'm momentarily transfixed by a man peeling carrots over a wide container on a table. In the dim light under the market's metal awnings, a woman carrying an empty plastic pitcher brushes past me, and I turn all the way around to see a table covered in samosas ready to be fried, a shiny metal pot smoking from the fire below. I can almost smell the dough frying. Another subtle blink and I find myself inside a small building, standing in front of a group of seated children. Vibrant unframed paintings of animals and landscapes cover the walls, overlapping. Each child concentrates quietly on painting a tree with dark branches. "I see creativity where there is no limitation to the creative mind, where beauty can be found and recreated anywhere and by anyone," Ochieng continues. Despite my open mind, this isn't the tough, tragic tour I expected. And for Vakilitabar, that's the whole point. He led production on this virtual reality experience, called "My Beautiful Home," through his new lab PathosVR. He wants to take the technology beyond simply walking in someone else's shoes, seeing what she sees. He believes that strategic storytelling combined with subtle brain stimulation can turn us into more empathetic beings. When we see people as fellow humans rather than a label, we're able to tackle global problems more effectively, he argues. RELATED: The Evolution Of South Africa's Skyscraper Slum For "My Beautiful Home," he added a 3 Hz frequency to the audio, which some researchers think could help stimulate the part of a person's brain involved in feeling empathy. Vakilitabar said he's not sure whether adding it actually works, but I definitely felt something through the headphones. The effect was akin to the bass thrum at a concert, only more pleasant. His narrative aims to go further than other VR experiences that are designed to create empathy. Vakilitabar collaborated with Paris-based visual effects producer Maxime Parata on the final cut. In each scene, Ochieng challenges the viewer to see the beauty she sees, the strength, the energy, the feeling of community. When I ask about this approach, Vakilitabar cites the classic Pygmalion Effect study, where higher expectations of school children led to better academic performances. His VR isn't about pity. It's about respect.
Embracing the Unknown
Vakilitabar grew up in Denver in a tight-knit, hard-working family. His father had come to the United States from Iran and his mother from France. The route he took to reach this point wasn't an expected one. After his sophomore year at the University of Colorado Boulder, he left school and began working at the Unreasonable Group accelerator program, which was created for aspiring entrepreneurs. He then enrolled in Watson University, a nontraditional, Boulder-based degree program for budding social entrepreneurs. After he graduated, he served as vice president of Watson for three years. Now he's seeking to bridge divides using technology. "I started with a hypothesis, which was that by using virtual reality you can hack your body into becoming more empathetic," he said. Vakilitabar thinks that humans are born with the capacity to be imaginative, but many lack a reference point to turn that imagination into empathy. Those who have never known what it's like to experience absolute need on a daily basis, he offered, will have trouble comprehending it. RELATED: Virtually Tour Yosemite Park with President Obama "How can you empathize with a situation that's so foreign?" Vakilitabar asked. "You don't necessarily have those reference points." Several years ago, Vakilitabar attempted to travel from Denmark to St. Petersburg without spending any money, just relying on the kindness of strangers. He slept on park benches, battled hunger and felt invisible. The experiment only lasted two weeks, but it transformed him. He could empathize with the homeless, and wanted to find a way to bring that capacity to others. Last fall, he set off for Kenya with a VR camera rig that he had built himself. He accompanied a small team from the Boulder-based company K23 Media to Kibera. They planned to produce a virtual reality film for one of their clients, the nonprofit Global One Foundation. When he wasn't assisting them with production, Vakilitabar recorded footage for his own VR project. The inspiration to film in VR came a few months before his visit to Kibera, when he attended a showing of director Chris Milk's virtual reality film "Clouds Over Sidra" at a United Nations conference in New York. In the film, a 12-year-old Syrian girl walks the viewer through her life at the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. By the end, Vakilitabar was in tears. "It was a humbling experience to see their resilience," he told me.
Vakilitabar is convinced of VR's potential to change how we connect with other humans and even how we learn. He became obsessed with the technology after his New York visit, and began assembling his own unique VR camera rig. GoPros mounted on helmets are everywhere, but he found that a comfortable wearable device capable of recording steady VR video didn't exist. In his DIY rig, the main circular part was 3D-printed from high-grade polymer and had slots for 16 GoPro cameras, equally spaced eye distance apart. Although his original plan was to attach that to a helmet, it proved too heavy and unstable, so he resorted to a tripod. Last year he'd posted a Facebook request for help constructing the rig, and a former high school classmate responded. A few weeks later, Vakilitabar said, a box arrived in the mail for him from a Boston-based, 3D-printing shop. They loved what he was doing and had produced the 3D-printed parts for free. RELATED: VR Video Gives Homelessness in Seattle a Close Look Luke Frydenger, founder and creative director of K23 Media, was also struck by Vakilitabar's eager optimism. In 2016, the creative agency started focusing on the conscious company sector and had a team shooting VR in Nepal that fall. They were trying to figure out who to send to Kibera from their small crew, when Vakilitabar connected with Frydenger for coffee and a conversation about VR. "We have an affectionate term here, especially in our family, of a punk - in a good way," Frydenger said, describing their first meeting. "They do things out of the ordinary, they're going to be a little bit pushier, they're always going to push the boundaries. So he came in just looking like a young punk to me." K23 needed a production assistant on the trip, and Vakilitabar wanted to learn VR. "Even though he hadn't really done any VR yet, I trusted that he would just figure it out," Frydenger remarked. "He puts his brain to something and that's the outcome."
A Kickstarter to recreate and remaster the Voyager Golden Record has been so successful that the founders plan other projects that will combine the interests of art, science and consciousness. The original record was an initiative to put a capsule of Earth's culture and history on to the twin NASA Voyager spacecraft, which launched from Earth in 1977 for a prime mission to fly by Jupiter, Saturn and out of the solar system. Voyager 2's mission was extended to image Uranus and Neptune as well, making it the only spacecraft to visit those planets. The spacecraft are still flying and communicating with Earth, with Voyager 1 passing into interstellar space in 2012. In 40,000 years, it is expected that both will pass by neighboring star systems; the record is on the spacecraft just in case a curious (and very lucky) extraterrestrial wants to learn more about where they came from. David Pescovitz, managing partner of Boing Boing and a research director at Institute for the Future, has followed the twin Voyager spacecraft since their launch, when he was seven years old. He said recreating the famed record on the spacecraft was an "inspiring learning experience." He and Timothy Daly, a manager at San Francisco's iconic Amoeba Music store, created a company called Ozma Records to continue work of this kind even after this Golden Record project is finished. More announcements will be made in the coming months. RELATED: Hubble Is Mapping 'Interstellar Ecology' to Track NASA's Voyager Probes "We've continued to have amazing experiences and breakthroughs, which were possible because of support we received from the Kickstarter," Pescovitz told Seeker. The project raised $1.36 million, far exceeding its original $198,000 goal and allowing more copies of the record to be shipped to supporters.
Making the record again has sparked a journey across time and space, even for the people involved in Pescovitz's project. Archivists at Sony Music were able to locate the original master tapes used to make the golden records back in 1977, tapes that have sat unplayed in underground bunkers since they were created. This will be the source of the audio released for the Kickstarter records. A recent visit to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., yielded archival pictures of the Voyager Golden Record being made, many of which were never released before. These will be included in an accompanying book with the Kickstarter project. The team even was able to track down some of the creators of the indigenous music on the record after consulting with anthropologists worldwide. In some cases, the creators could not be found, but the anthropologists were able to identify the location at which the music was performed. RELATED: Interstellar Song: Solar Tsunami Washes Over Voyager 1 "We're grateful... and we think about how fortunate we are every day to have this opportunity," Pescovitz said. The records should be shipped to backers before the 40th anniversary of the Voyager 2 launch in August. Suzy Dodd, project manager of the Voyager mission since 2010, says the Golden Record has kept the mission in the public eye. Inquiries still come into her at least every few months about the record, and how perhaps NASA would recreate a time capsule if they were to redo it today.
JV EJERCITO WANTS TO PROBE TELCOS' AWFUL SERVICES
Senator JV Ejercito wants to probe the country's top telecommunication companies for their awful services such as sudden signal loss, slow Internet connection, and lack of a refund scheme for overcharging load.
Speaking via phone patch on a radio show yesterday, Ejercito also scored that no significant improvement has been made for millions of Filipinos for years, despite being massive consumers of telecommunication services.
"This is a HUGE DISSERVICE to us Filipinos. Lagi na lang kinakain load natin, tapos walang signal at mabagal pa ang internet. We have to demand for improved services. This should be the equivalent to every peso we Filipinos pay for every call, text, and internet service," the senator yesterday said on DZMM's Omaga-Diaz Report.
Ejercito added that the lack of competition between telecommunication companies should also be looked into.
Press Release
February 13, 2017 Senate approval needed to end treaty, say 14 senators Fourteen senators believe that the Senate should have a say when a treaty or international agreement concurred in by the Senate is terminated or abrogated. The 14 senators filed on Monday a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the termination of any treaty and international agreement concurred in by the Senate should not be valid without the concurrence of the chamber. Senate Resolution No. 289 titled "Resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that termination of, or withdrawal from, treaties and international agreements concurred in by the Senate shall be valid and effective only upon concurrence by the Senate." The resolution was principally authored by Senate President Pro-Tempore Franklin M. Drilon and was signed by 13 other senators as co-authors. These include Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, Minority Leader Ralph Recto, Senators Benigno Aquino IV, Leila De Lima, Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, Panfilo Lacson, Loren Legarda, Miguel Zuibiri, Gregorio Honasan, Joseph Victor Ejercito, Sonny Angara, and Joel Villanueva. "The power to bind the Philippines by a treaty and international agreement is vested jointly by the Constitution in the President and the Senate," it emphasizes. Thus, it underscores: "A treaty or international agreement ratified by the President and concurred in by the Senate becomes part of the law of the land and may not be undone without the shared power that put it into effect," the resolution states. Article VII, Section 21 of the Constitution provides" that "no treaty of international agreement shall be valid and effective unless concurred in by at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate." The principle of checks and balances, historical precedent and practice accepted as law in most jurisdictions, and the Constitution's dictate for a shared treaty-making power, according to the resolution, require "that a termination, withdrawal, abrogation or renunciation of a treaty or international agreement can only be done with the same authority that gave it effect - executive ratification with Senate concurrence."
Press Release
February 13, 2017 Transcript of Interview with Senate President Pro-Tempore Franklin M. Drilon Q: On the resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the termination of any treaty should have the concurrence of the Senate SFMD: We are just formalizing the resolution approving the AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) treaty. When we ratified the treaty there, we included a provision there that says that any withdrawal should have the Senate concurrence, and that was approved. So we are just reiterating and formalizing the resolution. This is in recognition of the right of the Senate to participate in the withdrawal of a treaty, because the Senate concurrence is required in the approval of the treaty. A treaty that is approved by the Senate becomes part of the law of the land, and any repeal of any treaty by a withdrawal should also require the concurrence of the Senate. Q: Sir, may implication ba doon sa ongoing deliberations on the revival of the death penalty? SFMD: Well, that is a legal position that the 14 senators have taken: that any withdrawal from any treaty should require the concurrence of the Senate. But it is argued by those who oppose the death penalty that in fact, the Philippines cannot withdraw from that Second Protocol. Q: Saan batas nakikita yung may karapatan ang senado? SFMD: That is the result of the power of the Senate to concur in the treaty ratification. A treaty cannot be effective without the concurrence of the Senate. Q: Explicit ba na sinabi iyon? SFMD: Explicit in the Constitution is the power of the Senate of the Senate to concur and with the concurrence of the Senate, the treaty becomes effective. In other words, it is not simply an act of the executive. When we concur in a treaty, it becomes part of the law of the land. The concurrence of the Senate is required to make the treaty effective and therefore any withdrawal should have the concurrence of the Senate. Let me repeat that a similar provision was already approved by the Senate in the concurrence in the treaty wherein the Philippines agreed to become a member of the AIIB. Q: Sir, yung possible arrest po kay Senator De Lima? SFMD: If that happens, we will see to it that the rile of law is followed. Q: Exactly how? SFMD: It should be followed. Q: What's the process are you talking about? SFMD: Firstly, by tradition we will oppose service of the warrant of arrest inside the session hall. The sanctity of the session hall must be respected. Q: Outside? SFMD: Theoretically, it can be served, because it is an alleged offense where the penalty is beyond six years. But we will object to any service of the warrant in the session hall. Q: Sir, is there any opportunity wherein the arrest can be stopped by the Senate? SFMD: No. We will...That is a legal process and the general statement that I can make is that we will see to it the process is followed strictly in accordance with the rule of law. Q: So hindi pwede na i-custody muna ng Senate si Senator De Lima? SFMD: That is not within our power to assert. It will be the court that will allow that, because at that point, theoretically, she is under the custody of the court. Q: Questionable po ba na sa court at hindi sa Ombudsman nag-file? SFMD: That is a legal issue which the court will have to determine if the case is brought before it.
Press Release
February 13, 2017 Senator Loren Legarda
Privilege Speech: Continue the Peace Talks
13 February 2017 | Senate Session Hall Mr. President, I wish to put on record my views on the peace negotiations between the Philippine Government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). I call on all parties to continue the peace talks. War is not an option. More death and suffering will be the result of the resumption of hostilities which neither the government nor the NFDP can win. As someone who has been involved in negotiating releases of prisoners by the New People's Army (NPA), I have seen the sincerity of all sides to this conflict and have witnessed the intense desire for peace. There is a reservoir of goodwill inside all of us that we must now draw from so guns are not drawn and fired once again. I support a negotiated bilateral ceasefire agreement, with effective monitoring procedures and strict compliance mechanisms. This ceasefire agreement should be unconditional as it benefits both parties to the conflict. More importantly, it is good for our people and they will welcome this. It will also prevent unexpected and untoward incidents that could derail the peace process. I support the unconditional release of all political prisoners. I understand that this might have to be done in batches and according to legal procedures. But let us begin with the sick detainees and those who are already seniors, 60 years old and over. As Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, I commit to work on a national budget for 2018 that would support and advance the gains of the peace process. That is the least Congress can do. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has a solid and comprehensive vision for peace. He has been willing to back it up with the strongest political will. Let us support the peace process so that this vision is achieved. Thank you, Mr. President.
Press Release
February 13, 2017 PANGILINAN TO CONGRESS: PRIORITIZE BILLS THAT SAVE LIVES, NOT KILL MANILA - Congress should prioritize passing laws that focus on saving lives, instead of killing people, said Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan Monday, after the signing and approval of the committee report on consolidated Senate Bill 1268 or the Government Doctors' Salary Upgrading Act of 2017. "Some of the priority bills of Congress trample on an individual's right to life, such as the death penalty bill, and the rights of a child with its proposal to lower the age of criminal liability. We urge Congress to instead focus on bills that aim to save lives," said Pangilinan, principal author of Senate Bill 1628 which seeks to raise the minimum salary of government doctors from Salary Grade 16 (Php28,417) to Salary Grade 24 (Php56,610). Senators Antonio Trillanes IV, Risa Hontiveros, and Loren Legarda filed similar bills heard by the Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization, and Professional Regulation. "Only ten percent of Filipinos in rural areas benefit from medical professionals. We hope that this measure will encourage our doctors to serve their communities instead," said the Liberal Party president. According to the World Health Organization, 22,000 health professionals leave the Philippines every year to work overseas. "There are better earning opportunities abroad. The same can be said of our OFWs. If Congress focuses on improving other sectors, particularly the labor sector, many of our people would be empowered. They will not resort to crimes to better their lives. Improving the labor sector can help eradicate the cycle of poverty. This is a better deterrent against criminality. Increasing the salary of government doctors is just the first of the many steps we have to take in improving the labor sector in the country," the senator said. Pangilinan earlier filed Senate Bill 59 seeking to grant civil service eligibility to casual and contractual government employees who have been in continuous and efficient service for five years.
Press Release
February 13, 2017 POE: GO AFTER PAST OFFICIALS IN COMMON STATION DELAY Government officials responsible for the long-winded delays in the construction of the common station that would link Metro Manila's three elevated railways should be hauled to court, Sen. Grace Poe said today. Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on public services that spearheaded a legislative inquiry about the MRT-LRT common station, said past Transport officials, in effect, held hostage the completion of the common station, which had been in limbo for nearly eight years. "Huwag nating kalilimutan na dahil sa kanila, natali tayo nang walong taon diyan [sa pagkumpleto ng common station]. The government should not get into agreements and change the plan later on because investors will not come in. This should be a lesson learned," Poe said during the hearing. Poe said she asked the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to furnish her committee a copy of the previous agreements on the common station. "In the past, whoever has approved the previous agreement with naming rights as well as those who whimsically reneged on the same, all without public consultations and due regard to public interest should be held accountable because of the undue delay that plagued this project," Poe said. "Yun ang hinihingi natin. Yung mga lumang kontrata na sinasabi nitong DOTr ay hahalungkatin nila para matunton natin yung mga tao na nasa likod nito," the senator added. In a move that finally ended the impasse, the DOTr signed last Jan. 18 with local conglomerates an agreement for the construction of the common station at EDSA and North Avenue in Quezon City that would link LRT-1 from Caloocan, the EDSA MRT-3 and the proposed MRT-7 which will originate from San Jose del Monte in Bulacan province. "Kaya nagtagal ng ganito dahil may mga iligal at pansariling interes na nangyari at pinagbigyan. Kung merong dapat kasuhan, kasuhan 'yan." The DOTr, for its part, hoped that the TRO would be "lifted by October this year" as the project will commence in December and is scheduled to be completed in April 2019. "I hope that this would be for the interest of the public and not for the interest of a few," Poe said.
Press Release
February 13, 2017 Sen. Villanueva's sponsorship speech on bill declaring August 25th as National Tech-Voc Day Mr. President, I stand before you to sponsor Senate Bill No. 209 or "An Act Declaring the Twenty-Fifth Day of August of Every Year as the National Tech-Voc Day" with the belief that if we pay increased attention to tech-voc as a nation, we can harness its power in creating jobs, increasing our workers' productivity, securing the future of our industries, and achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development. Tech-voc is not only an important pillar in the country's human resources development, but it is also crucial to the fulfillment of the basic rights to education and to work. The International Labor Organization in its 2015 recommendation concerning technical and vocational education and training (TVET), stated that "tech-voc is understood as being part of both the universal right to education and the right to work". Hindi po hiwalay sa karapatang makapag-aral at makapag-trabaho ang tech-voc bagkus, kasama o kaakibat ito. Tech-voc encompasses training and education, jobs, and lifelong learning. According to ILO, "tech-voc is understood as comprising education, training and skills development relating to a wide range of occupational fields, production, services and livelihoods...As part of lifelong learning...it includes work-based learning and continuing training and professional development which may lead to qualifications. Tech-voc also includes a wide range of skills development opportunities attuned to national and local contexts." Pwede nga pong ihalintulad ang tech-voc sa isang "swiss army knife" - magagamit saanman o kailanman dahil ito ay mabilis, matipid pero masinsin at angkop sa pangangailangan ng mga industriya. Mr. President, tech-voc is a veritable instrument for poverty reduction because it is shorter in duration, rapid, cost-effective, flexible, and jobs-oriented. This is what businesses and entrepreneurs need right now. Bakit po itinutulak ng Committee on Labor ang panukalang ito? Mr. President, in many parts of the globe, tech-voc is set as a national and regional priority: According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD, "a highly skilled labour force is increasingly important for economies to remain competitive and achieve sustainable growth. Effective skills strategies can play a significant role in helping national economies to adjust to changes in working practices, advances in technology, and challenges associated with globalisation." For its part, the Asian Development Bank or ADB stressed that "the evolution of skills development for employability, or tech-voc, has become the cornerstone of policy priorities of many countries in Asia." The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization or UNESCO made clear that "external demands on tech-voc systems go far beyond the familiar call for tech-voc to contribute to economic growth, employment and competitiveness. Today, tech-voc is considered to be a crucial vehicle for social equity and inclusion, as well as for the sustainability of development." In 2010, the World Bank issued a report prefaced by the statement, "Skills, and skills development, are an essential component of all efforts in creating jobs, increasing productivity especially for developing countries that are seeking to grow in an inclusive way and reducing poverty." Undeniably, the special recognition given to tech-voc by these international organizations attests that prioritization of tech-voc is a global trend, it is an integral component of the ASEAN integration, it is an important pillar of the country's overall human resources development strategy. Unfortunately, Mr. President, tech-voc is still regarded as "second rate" and perceived to be suited only for the poor or less intelligent individuals. Your committee believes that this negative perception about tech-voc will change through the observance of a National Tech-Voc Day. Let me cite some accomplishments in the tech-voc sector from 2010 up to now, under the Duterte administration: For the past seven years, over 13 million Filipinos graduated in various tech-voc courses, majority of them or 65% found employment locally and abroad. Of course, this is considering that some of the trainees took multiple courses which opened up a lot of opportunities for them in terms of employment and livelihood. Our scholars even registered an employment rate of 70% and has even reached 96.4% in specific sectors like the semi-conductor and electronics industry. Tech-Voc Enrolment and Graduates, 2010-2016 Indicators 2010-2016 Number of Enrollees 13,473,550 Number of Graduates 12,110,210 Source: TESDA Corporate Planning Office The numbers prove that since the creation of TESDA on August 25, 1994, as part of the EDCOM recommendations, the tech-voc sector in the Philippines provided opportunities to our kababayans who have the willingness to devote their time and energy improving their lot in life. Through an effective information campaign, expansion of scholarship programs at the barangay level, private sector engagement, quality-assured systems, together with the implementation of the Philippine Qualifications Framework or PQF, more Filipinos will change their outlook about tech-voc. Ang observance ng National Tech-Voc Day ay magiging daan para iangat ang dignidad ng mga blue-collar workers tulad ng mga kapwa ko barista at mga bartenders, plumbers, carpenters, welders, household workers, drivers, cooks, dressmakers, graphic designers, call center agents, at iba pa. Nakakalungkot lang na hanggang ngayon, second-rate pa rin ang katayuan nila sa ating lipunan. Mr. President, it is possible to change this perception because more and more Filipinos see that blue-collar jobs offer some real advantages, there are jobs available for tech-voc graduates and oftentimes the pay is even greater than white collar work. Mr. President, your committee believes that highlighting the importance of tech-voc can help us face challenges, take advantage of opportunities, and widen the prospects of tech-voc system in the Philippines. What are these challenges and opportunities? The first challenge is economic disparities in the country. In the 2016 competitiveness rankings of provinces, Rizal got the highest index of 35.7 while Capiz got only 6.2, the lowest among 74 provinces. We can adjust the scope and means of delivery of tech-voc as a means to confront economic challenges in various parts of the country. Through tech-voc, we can also take advantage of the growing market and exciting production possibilities in different parts of the country, especially in Mindanao. Our young population makes our country attractive to Foreign Direct Investments. In fact, Mr. President, the Philippines is now among the top 15 preferred investment destinations of multinational enterprises in the next three years, according to the latest World Investment Report 2016 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Based on studies, tech-voc can also address the skills needs of micro and small enterprises and new and emerging industries, especially renewable energy and green industries. The second challenge is the shortage of workers for high-technology qualifications. We believe that the supply of high-technology workers is one of the key factors for doing business in the Philippines. Mr. President, there should be an extensive promotion of tech-voc to ensure that our workers will get the necessary skills demanded by the labor market. If more Filipinos go to tech-voc, we can also encourage innovation and entrepreneurship and promote the use of English language and ICT. Tech-voc training will ensure movement to high labor productivity. In relation to this, Mr. President, I filed the "TULONG-TRABAHO BILL" to ensure the productivity of our workers and to assist our industries in providing competency enhancement to existing workers through a Tulong-Trabaho Fund. The Committee on Labor is also set to hear the "APPRENTICESHIP REFORM BILL" this week. The bill aims to increase productivity and competitiveness of enterprises by ensuring supply of skilled human resource through work-based learning. The third challenge is the low enrolment in tech-voc programs especially in hard-to-fill occupations. Hence, we should continue our consultation with the industries to face challenges related to the relevance of curricula, poor-quality instruction and infrastructure and the absence of certification frameworks that meet the standards of employers. Mr. President, innovative approaches, especially work-based learning and mobile and online training, can boost participation in tech-voc programs, especially in the TVET track in our senior high schools. Finally, Mr. President, the country has several laws recognizing various professions and fields of specialization by declaring a certain day, week or month of the year for them. I personally believe that tech-voc workers also deserve our attention by declaring August 25, the founding anniversary of TESDA, as the National Tech-Voc Day in the Philippines. For example, Proclamation No. 1789 declared September 27 as the National Physicians' Day, Proclamation No. 1365 declared the third week of September as Chemical Engineering Week and Proclamation No. 1972 declared the month of May as Guidance Month to focus attention on the important role played by guidance counselors and personnel workers in the development of human potentials in the country. In 2015, Republic Act 10753 declared the fifth of October as the National Teachers' Day. A National Tech-Voc Day, a special working holiday, can boost the confidence of our workers to face the world of work. Mr. President, my dear colleagues, it is very clear to us that tech-voc plays a key role in realizing both universal right to education and to work, people-oriented and socially responsible community, and the full potential to deliver more and better jobs. But, as I've mentioned, many challenges persist if the "tech-voc lang" mentality remains. Through the promotion of tech-voc and adequate government and private sector support, we can create more jobs, increase the productivity of our workers, secure the future of our industries and achieve inclusive growth and sustainable development. Hindi ko po sinasabing kulang sa pansin ang tech-voc, siguro'y dagdag na pagtingin sa mas maraming bilang ng mga Pilipinong nagpapagulong ng ating ekonomiya. Let us pass Senate Bill No. 209 and hopefully, we can use the celebration of the first National Tech-Voc Day on August 25, 2017 to hasten our progress in stepping up skills in the country. Maraming salamat Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, thank you for your support.
The handful of runners gathered under a large cypress tree at Crissy Field and were blessed with smoke from burning sage and anointed with a prayer before beginning a 3,946-mile journey traversing the country to draw attention to substance abuse and domestic violence within American Indian communities.
Along the path of this Longest Walk, these runners and groups of walkers will travel through various Indian reservations before arriving in Washington, D.C., in mid-July, organizers said.
The journey is part of a series of such Longest Walks to raise awareness of the health, environmental and other issues facing American Indians across the country, including diabetes and suicide.
Every time somebody is in danger, we need to walk in that direction, said Dennis Banks of the Red Lake Band of Anishinaabe people. We cant stop walking, because theres pain in every direction.
Banks organized the first Longest Walk in 1978. It was called the Trail of Broken Treaties, protesting threats to American Indian schools as well as fishing and hunting rights. It began on Alcatraz and gained widespread attention as celebrities, including actor Marlon Brando and boxer Muhammad Ali, voiced support.
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This years journey is the second walk to address domestic violence as well as drug and alcohol addiction, inspired by Banks granddaughter, Rosie Downwind, who was killed in a violent attack by her boyfriend, her body then burned.
The first walk in this series started a year ago in San Diego and passed through the southern United States. On the rim of the Grand Canyon, Banks told participants that the path to the future was waiting in the past.
We shall entrust our young people to cross this country on foot, crossing every mountain, every river, overcoming any obstacle and visiting our troubled homes of drug-abuse and domestic-violence victims, he said. And in this entrapment we shall seek out ancestral, cultural and spiritual answers, and apply them to our nations at risk. That is our mission, and we shall not fail.
Dee Dee Ybarra of the Rumsen Ohlone people planned to participate in this second walk on and off over the next several months, saying she was walking for her community and her family, including her two brothers, who suffered from drug addiction and later died of health problems.
Its not only time to clean up the air and the water, but its time to clean up our souls, she said. What we want is unity, peace and sobriety.
The walkers and runners plan to travel through American Indian communities, to share stories about sobriety and success, mostly camping along the way. The itinerary also includes a stop at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, where thousands have been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
About 100 people gathered at Crissy Field on Sunday morning to kick off the walk. Elders spoke, relaying the history of mistreatment, including the 1830 order by President Andrew Jackson to march American Indians thousands of miles along the Trail of Tears, from their ancestral homes to land designated as Indian Territory. Banks also spoke of what was later forced assimilation, including boarding schools for children.
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We have been marched, we have been moved, Banks said. We have been hauled by bus to places far from our homes.
Now, American Indians walk for themselves.
It must continue. We must run and walk, Banks said. Every footstep is a ceremony.
Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
View video of the ceremony
To see Longest Walk footage: http://tinyurl.com/zssguhe
For most of her 101 years, Emily Skolnick rattled cages, raised hell and fought the good fight.
In the 1990s, that meant lying down in the street in front of a congressmans office to protest the Iraq War. In the 1950s, it meant battling demands for loyalty oaths. In the 1930s, it meant helping to organize a newspaper strike.
Throughout, Mrs. Skolnick was a firebrand and proud of it.
My mother was always in a hurry, her daughter Marcia Simonson recalled. She was always moving faster than anyone else. There was never enough time for her to do everything she needed to do.
Emily Marks Skolnick died Jan. 29 after a brief illness at her home in Santa Cruz with her family by her side.
A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Mrs. Skolnick started talking passionately at an early age. In her teenage years, she was state debate champion, arguing eloquently during the Great Depression about the need for unemployment insurance. In 1937, she was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
She moved to San Mateo in the 1940s and became active in the battle to desegregate public schools. She demonstrated against the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and in the 1990s, she dressed as Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and lay down in the roadway in front of the San Mateo office of Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, blocking traffic.
Emily Skolnick has pursued her quest for human rights, equality and economic justice since she was a child, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, said in a statement on the floor of Congress. I salute her for her remarkable contributions and commitment to our community.
Mrs. Skolnick loved to cook bouillabaisse and salmon, she enjoyed attending the ballet and playing bridge, and she was a downhill skier well into her 70s. She also designed and directed the building of her own house in Santa Cruz.
She had a commanding presence, her daughter said. She was compassionate, but she was formidable. My mother was an impossible act to follow.
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Surviving are her children, Marcia Simonson of Germantown, Md., Mark Skolnick of La Jolla (San Diego County) and Ellen Skolnick of Santa Cruz; and sisters, Dorothy Vogel of San Mateo, who is 100, and Bell Lipsky of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who is 95. Her husband of 61 years, Alec, died in 2004.
The family requests memorial donations to the ACLU Foundation of Northern California: www.aclunc.org/donate/tribute-gifts.
A private memorial service will be held in March in San Mateo.
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
Ron Chapple/Getty Image
A man died Sunday in a car outside a San Leandro hospital, surrounded by family, after being shot in a possible road rage incident, police said.
Officers responded to a call of gunshots around Marina Boulevard and Verna Court at 9:47 p.m. They soon received another call about a woman screaming in the parking lot of Kaiser Permanente San Leandro Medical Center, a few blocks away, officials said.
The first prosecution in the police sex scandal involving a teenager who allegedly was exploited as a minor went into a tailspin the other day, when the now-19-year-old suffered what prosecutors called a medical emergency on the eve of the trial.
The young woman is at the center of several cases involving officers and sheriffs deputies from around the Bay Area who allegedly had sex with her some when she was underage. When she was going by the pseudonym of Celeste Guap, the woman told The Chronicle that some of the officers paid her and that some tipped her off about anti-prostitution stings.
One of the accused law enforcement workers was former Livermore police Officer Daniel Black, who was charged with having sex with the woman while off duty in his motor home in parking lots in Albany and Berkeley. Alameda County prosecutors said the two had sex after Black took the woman out to dinner and gave her alcohol.
Blacks attorney, Michael Cardoza, said no money was exchanged and that said the woman was not underage at the time.
Prosecutors disagreed they said the dinners constituted payment. But just as the jury was being selected for Blacks trial on charges including lewd conduct, engaging in prostitution and giving alcohol to a minor, the young woman suffered an undisclosed medical emergency.
It happened while she was going over her testimony with lawyers from the John Burris firm, which is handling lawsuits she has filed against various law enforcement agencies.
No witness no trial.
Black pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor count of lewd conduct in public, for having sex in the RV.
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The entire case will be dismissed in 15 months if Black stays clean.
Last summer, the young woman was sent to a rehab center in Florida for substance abuse and sex addiction. No one is saying what last weeks medical emergency was, but we are wishing her the best and certainly hope that she recovers, Burris said.
San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross
On the same day the Contra Costa County Sheriffs Office requested approval from the Board of Supervisors for a jail expansion, the agencys top cop, Sheriff David Livingston, was in Washington, D.C., schmoozing with Jeff Sessions, the recently confirmed attorney general.
Livingston was one of six California sheriffs who provided an audience for the man who will drive the White Houses anti-immigration policies. Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas was also there.
I spoke with him about public safety and the help the Federal Government can provide us to make our communities safe, Livingston said in a statement to reporters.
Livingstons department happens to hold a multimillion-dollar contract with the feds to run a federal immigration detention center out of one of its two jails: the West County Detention Facility in Richmond.
The county is paid $82 per day per detainee for holding people for deportation on the governments behalf. And it holds about 200 immigrants a day, which adds up to $6 million a year.
So, its no wonder the Sheriffs Office is complaining that it needs to expand its Richmond jail to alleviate overcrowding at its Martinez jail.
On Feb. 7, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to fund an expansion of the West County Detention Facility. A majority of the funding for the $95 million project will come from a $70 million grant if the California Board of State and Community Corrections accepts the proposal submitted by Contra Costa.
Livingston has been pushing for this for two years. But its not a done deal, because there are several counties applying to the jail funding program.
If approved, it will cost the county $25 million for construction and $5 million a year to run. The annual cost includes $2 million for additional staffing.
So what will the county receive from a 150,000-square-foot expansion?
The addition of a high-security wing that will allow the transfer of about 400 inmates currently housed at the overcrowded Martinez Detention Facility. Im told the facility in Martinez wont close, and there will still be 300 beds there.
The Sheriff's Office has said it wants to offer more mental health programming and re-entry services, programs that havent been available because of space. But what about crime prevention?
We need to be putting more of our investment in prevention services to keep people out of jail, said John Gioia, the lone supervisor who opposed the expansion plan. From a monetary standpoint, its not the best investment.
Ive sought comment from Livingston about the countys collaboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency commonly referred to as ICE, to deport people from an area listed as a sanctuary.
How many of the new beds will be used to increase the number of ICE detainees?
I cant get Livingston to return my calls, but I bet Sessions, who vehemently opposes immigration reform that would allow immigrants in the country illegally to remain, can get him on the phone.
Sessions now has oversight of local police forces and federal civil rights laws, and that should scare people.
Since the country elected a clueless president, its the people in his Cabinet, like Sessions, who will be wreaking havoc as they storm the halls of justice.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
Crews at Lake Oroville on Monday prepared bags of boulders they will use to shore up the reservoirs emergency spillway the morning after erosion on the overflow area threatened the nearly 200,000 residents downstream from the lake.
The water level in the lake fell below the lip of the emergency spillway overnight, slowing rapid erosion on the hillside that appeared to be nearly collapsing.
Officials hope to stabilize the emergency spillway in time for another round of winter storms that are forecast to sweep over the Sacramento Valley starting Wednesday.
The rain and runoff from streams and rivers that feed Lake Oroville could push water back over the emergency overflow area, officials said.
Obviously, we dont want to have to use it, said Bud England, a firefighter working at an emergency command center in Oroville. They want to prepare it to be used if necessary. This is part of the mitigation to prepare it for future use if necessary.
An estimated 188,000 people in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties were ordered to evacuate around 4:30 p.m. Sunday when water resource managers detected the trouble with the emergency spillway.
A hole in the reservoirs primary concrete spillway that was first detected on Tuesday had forced officials to allow water on Saturday to cascade over the emergency spillway. The overflow area was used for the first time since the Oroville dam was put into operation in 1968.
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Water resource managers increased the volume of water flowing out of the primary spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second to relieve the emergency spillway, despite erosion problems caused by the hole in the 3,000-foot concrete slide.
The California National Guard was ready to deploy more than 20,000 soldiers and airmen should an emergency arise.
Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
Theres no clearer example of failure than Oakland officialdoms negligent handling of the trouble signs that led to the deadly Ghost Ship fire. Time and again, the city was tipped to dangers and did next to nothing.
Police arrived, took in the problems ranging from fights to unpermitted raves, and then essentially drove away. Inspectors who were alerted to code violations filed paperwork that produced nothing. Since 2004, fire officials didnt conduct a yearly inspection because the building was supposedly unoccupied though it plainly wasnt. Its a bare minimum performance that completely failed.
Theres lots of excuse-making that cites slashed budgets and unclear jurisdictions in a city that specializes in top-level turmoil. But the result is the same: one of Californias worst fires, which killed 36 people. All were trapped in a tangle of illegal living quarters, tangled wiring and poorly built stairs that made escape impossible.
The record of mistakes is documented in 600 pages of reports collected over two years leading up to the Dec. 2 fire. Theres no single error or case of bad judgment. Instead its a string of missed signals and opportunities.
Departments repeatedly noted the problems and shelved the issues after minimal attention. Just weeks before the blaze, a city inspector responded to a pair of complaints about trash and illegal construction but left without verifying any problem. The documents indicate there was no full inspection of the two-story building to make sure it was safe and legal. The response typifies the collective shrug the city gave the warehouse.
This sorry record should not be the final word. The Alameda County district attorney is weighing possible charges, but prosecutors are likely to go after the property owner and informal landlord who rented out live/work spaces in the building which wasnt permitted for such use. To be sure, those individuals deserve a severe examination about their culpability. Lawsuits brought by the families of victims is sure to add more details on the actions of the owner and on-site landlord.
But that shouldnt be the end of it. City leaders, including Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Council members, need to be involved, too. Oakland needs a functioning and alert bureaucracy that spots harm before it happens. Better communication that shares warning signs among departments about community problems would be one starting point.
The hundreds of documents released last week depict a reactive and sluggish outlook that cant be tolerated. City lawmakers have a duty to change this posture before the next disaster happens.
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Roger Boas, a longtime San Francisco supervisor, mayoral candidate and the citys chief administrative officer, whose 25 years in public service ended in scandal, died on Friday. He was 95.
Mr. Boas was a wealthy businessman running an auto dealership when he entered politics in 1962, winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors. He served 10 years and earned a reputation as a liberal environmentalist. But arguably his biggest impact on the city came when Mayor George Moscone appointed him the citys sixth chief administrative officer in 1977.
He brought his business-minded approach to government, replacing longtime civil servants with professional managers from the private sector. He oversaw construction of massive projects, including a controversial $1 billion system to treat San Franciscos wastewater to meet the latest pollution standards.
Mr. Boas also spearheaded construction of the Moscone Convention Center at Yerba Buena Center, a project that had been delayed for years because of lawsuits, demand for more environmental studies and cost overruns. Boas encountered many of those same problems but got the project done. It opened in December 1981, and it made San Francisco a magnet for large conventions.
In 1987, after 10 years as city administrator, Mr. Boas ran for mayor, campaigning as a no-nonsense, hard-nosed businessman who is tough enough to keep this city great. He came in third in a field of 11, losing to Assemblyman Art Agnos.
Agnos recalled that he met Mr. Boas two decades earlier. The future mayor was a social worker and a volunteer for New York Sen. Robert Kennedys presidential campaign in 1968. Mr. Boas was chairman of the state Democratic Party and needed someone to drive him to a rally for Kennedy, Agnos said.
He was as gracious and thoughtful as anyone treated me in my political life. He was the same way 20 years later when I defeated him, Agnos said.
John Roger Boas was born in 1921, the only child of a Republican businessman who started one of the most successful car dealerships in California. His mother was a Roosevelt Democrat. He attended Galileo High School and Stanford University. The day after his graduation from Stanford in 1942, he enlisted in the Army.
Mr. Boas spent 3 years fighting in Europe during World War II under Gen. George Patton. He directed artillery and mortar fire and was one of the first soldiers to enter a concentration camp at the end of the war. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action and Bronze Star for heroism.
The war has changed me in ways that it will take the better part of my life to understand, let alone make peace with, Mr. Boas wrote in the prologue to Battle Rattle: A Last Memoir of World War II, his 2015 account of his years in the war.
A profile of Mr. Boas that ran in The Chronicle during his mayoral run described him as alternatively courtly and profane, someone who reflects both the genteel Pacific Heights society to which he was born and the rugged fellowship of the Army of General George Patton in which he served in World War II.
After the war, Mr. Boas went to work at his fathers San Francisco Pontiac dealership, Boas Motors, eventually taking over ownership of the company in 1965. By then, he had been elected to the Board of Supervisors.
In 1955, Mr. Boas hosted a civic affairs show on public television station KQED called Profile Bay Area. Capitalizing on the name recognition he earned through that program, Mr. Boas successfully ran for the board in 1961. As a supervisor, he was best known for promoting the nascent Bay Area Rapid Transit system and fighting against freeways and high-rises.
In 1963, he debuted a weekly public television program called World Press that featured discussions of national and international news. The program became nationally syndicated and was carried on 185 stations.
Mr. Boas resigned from the Board of Supervisors a few months after losing a 1969 race for Congress. He didnt return to public office until 1977, when he became city administrator.
Shortly after his unsuccessful bid for mayor in 1987, Mr. Boas was identified as a patron of a brothel that offered sex with underage girls. He pleaded guilty to seven felony charges of statutory rape of girls as young as 15 and the judge sentenced him to a year of community service and a $100,000 fine. Citing Mr. Boas good record, public embarrassment and obvious remorse, the judge ruled out a jail sentence.
I am going to be sentenced and I will pay my debt to society and I hope I am going to be able to return to society, Mr. Boas said in a statement after his sentence.
Mr. Boas later taught at the University of San Franciscos Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning, which offers college-level classes for retirees over 50, and was also the institutes longest-serving board member.
Mr. Boas died of natural causes in his Presidio Heights home surrounded by his family, his family said in a statement.
He is survived by his wife of almost 60 years, Nancy, an art historian and author; their four children, John, Christopher, Anthony and Lucy; and six grandchildren.
A private family service was held Sunday at Temple Emanuel. A public service will be held at a later date. Email rbmemorialservice@gmail.com for more information.
The family asks that contributions be made to the Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning or the SF-Marin Food Bank.
The sunny weather worked in favor of a group of nudists who took to the streets on Sunday for the second annual Nude Valentine's Day Parade.
The parade began at noon in the Castro District, with the crowd making its way from Jane Warner Plaza to City Hall.
Nude activist Gypsy Taub released a statement inviting fellow nudists to join in the parade. Taub stated that during this current "climate of hate" the parade is the time to "demand freedom on all levels of human existence":
We want to show the world that we are not afraid, that we are united in the name of love and that we have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. We want our naked bodies to demonstrate that we don't fight with weapons nor violence, but with our hearts and minds using the power of our spirit and the power of love. We don't hide under military camouflage, nor do we cover our faces nor our bodies out of fear. We are not afraid to just be ourselves in the name of love, in the name of freedom.
The group also prepared some chants for the event, many centering around the theme of acceptance and stopping body shaming.
"Clothes are boring, clothes are lame! Let's say 'No' to body shame!" went one chant.
"We got skin, you got skin. Love your body ain't no sin!" goes another chant.
Taub has organized similar events in the past, along with the inaugural Nude Valentine's Day parade that began last year. She also instigated the nude "Summer of Love" parade last August, which saw two dozen people walk from the Castro district to Haight-Ashbury in the buff.
RELATED VIDEO: Stripped-down march in SF for right to bare all
Taub's activism has led to run-ins with city government, particularly over a ban on public nudity in San Francisco enacted in 2013 (with the exception of events where proper permits are obtained). In 2015, a federal judge ordered that the city grant a permit to Taub and other nudists, after the city sought to block the group from holding a "Nude-In March."
Thousands of protesters gathered on San Francisco's Ocean Beach on Saturday, using their bodies to send a political message.
To spectators on the beach, the purpose of the protest may have seemed unclear. But from the sky, there was no question. Thousands of people spelled out "RESIST!!" on the sand.
Organizer Brad Newsham wrote on Facebook that "a close study of a high-resolution overhead shot shows between 4,600 and 5,600 participants."
Newsham, a San Francisco taxi driver since 1985, says he has been organizing events like this since 2007, when he hosted his first aerial protest calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. Since then, he says he has hosted between 12 and 15 similar events.
According to SFist, Newsham has advertised in the past that overflow participants could form an underline beneath the message, but that has never been necessary. At Saturday's protest, there were enough to people to spell out "resist," two exclamation points, and a bold underline.
This is the latest San Francisco protest aimed at fighting back against the Trump administration. On the day of President Trump's inauguration, thousands of protestors formed a human chain on the Golden Gate Bridge and chanted, "Love trumps hate." The following day there were six Bay Area protests associated with the Women's March.
As for the possibility of future protests and what messages may be spelled out on Ocean Beach next, Newsham writes, "It is too early to say where this current effort might lead."
Nearly 200,000 people living in the shadow of Oroville Dam who were forced to evacuate Sunday left behind empty houses and vacant storefronts, deserted parks and abandoned cars.
Among the evacuees were 579 inmates from Butte County Jail, removed from the facility that threatened to flood if the dams emergency spillway gave way and bused some 150 miles south to Alameda Countys Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
Though the integrity of the dam itself the tallest in the United States at 770 feet, which holds back Californias second-largest reservoir wasnt in question, officials were worried that the operation of the emergency spillway was rapidly eroding a hillside surrounding it.
That could have caused the emergency chute, which had never been used before the weekend in the dams almost 50-year history and which dumps water, and debris, down a the hillside, to collapse, which would have been a catastrophic event, officials said. Downstream communities would have flooded, officials said.
It took 80 people and five buses Sunday around 4:30 p.m. to load up the hundreds of inmates and ensure the caravan arrived safely, according to the Butte County Sheriffs Office. California Highway Patrol officers provided assistance on the long ride.
Once the Butte inmates made it to Dublin, they were processed like any other new arrival to the jail, said Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriffs Office. They were interviewed and classified, keeping men with men, women with women and rival gang members away from each other, he said.
The Dublin jail averages about 2,500 inmates any given day, but the facility has room for nearly 5,000 in all, Kelly said, so there was ample space for the influx.
The inmates do require additional guards and other personnel, meaning some overtime would likely be required for workers, Kelly said.
We dont anticipate that this will be very long, Kelly said. What we need to happen is we need things to stabilize up there in Butte County. We need the all-clear to be given. It wont be a very long stay for the prisoners here.
Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley
While some of us schlep around with our limited vacation days and occasional gift card, some lucky slobs at these companies are getting paid to go the gym and drink fancy juices.
Job search and company review website Glassdoor has posted a list of the "Top 20 Employee Benefits & Perks for 2017." Each named business offers a little something extra for employees aside from the pay and time off.
Pastor Fred Morris looked out over his congregation Sunday as news ricocheted around the world that American authorities were rounding up immigrants in an enforcement surge that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.
Parishioners did not smile as on any other Sunday morning. Their eyes darted around the room. They stared down at their feet. Others didnt attend at all.
There is a dreadful sense of fear. Its more than palpable. Its radiating. People are terrified, said Morris, whose United Methodist mission is in a predominantly Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles. They were just sitting there in stunned silence.
For days, fear and confusion have gripped immigrant communities across the nation after word spread that federal agents were rounding up hundreds of immigrants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, California, Illinois and Texas. The scope of the operation remained unclear Sunday.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said the efforts were routine and no different than the targeted arrests carried out under former President Barack Obama.
But Trump took to Twitter to claim credit. The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise, he wrote Sunday. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!
On the Sunday morning talk shows, the presidents representatives said the enforcement was a result of Trumps policies. White House adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News Sunday that the administration had taken new and greater steps to remove criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.
Nearly 200 people were arrested in the Carolinas and Georgia. More than 150 more were rounded up in and around Los Angeles, and an additional 40 were arrested in New York City and surrounding areas, ICE confirmed.
A decade ago, immigration officers searching for specific individuals would often arrest others encountered along the way, a practice that drew criticism from advocates. Under the Obama administration, agents focused more narrowly on specific individuals. ICE now appears to be reverting to old policies.
Immigrant rights groups cite the case of Manuel Mosqueda, a 50-year-old house painter, as an example of how they believe ICE agents in the new administration are going too far.
During last weeks enforcement operation, ICE agents showed up at Mosquedas home looking for someone else. While there, they inquired about Mosqueda, learned he was here illegally and put him on a bus to Mexico.
Karla Navarrete, a lawyer for the advocacy group CHIRLA, said she sought to stop Mosqueda from being placed on the bus and was told by ICE that things had changed. She said another lawyer filed federal court papers and got a judge to stop the deportation. The bus turned around, and Mosqueda is now jailed in Southern California, waiting to learn his fate.
Agents who went to a Virginia apartment Thursday looking for a wanted man picked up everyone else in the apartment too, except for one women with a baby in her arms, said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director for Legal Aid Justice Centers immigrant advocacy program in northern Virginia.
For supporters of Trumps immigration policies, the new and broader approach was welcome news.
The main thing is to send the message that the immigration laws are actually being enforced again. That in itself is an important message thats got to be sent, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for tighter controls on immigration.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the agency is simply enforcing federal law. But immigration advocates said many immigrants are afraid to send their children to school and afraid to go to church or work or the hospital.
Claire Galofaro is an Associated Press writer.
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WASHINGTON A federal judge on Monday turned down a request to temporarily block construction on the Dakota Access pipeline, saying there would not be any risk of immediate harm until oil starts flowing.
But U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, while denying American Indian tribes request for a temporary restraining order, directed the pipeline company to provide weekly updates about when it expected oil to begin flowing, leaving open the possibility of further court action. He set a date of Feb. 27 for a hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction at that time.
Ted Richardson/Associated Press
FORT BRAGG, N.C. A military judge called President Trumps scathing campaign criticism of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl disturbing on Monday and questioned whether it would make the public think the soldier cant get a fair trial for walking off his post in Afghanistan in 2009.
During a pretrial hearing, defense attorneys played part of a video exhibit in which Trump repeatedly says at campaign appearances that Bergdahl is a traitor who should be harshly punished. Bergdahls lawyers argue the comments violate their clients due-process rights and that the case should be dismissed.
President Trumps embattled national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned late Monday, following reports that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his contacts with Russia. His departure upends Trumps senior team after less than one month in office.
In a resignation letter, Flynn said he held numerous calls with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition and gave incomplete information about those discussions to Vice President Mike Pence. The vice president, apparently relying on information from Flynn, initially said the national security adviser had not discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy, though Flynn later conceded the issue may have come up.
The revelations were another destabilizing blow to an administration that has already suffered a major legal defeat, botched the implementation of a signature policy and stumbled through a string of embarrassing public relations missteps.
Trump on Monday named retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as the acting national security adviser. Kellogg had previously been appointed the National Security Council chief of staff and advised Trump on national security issues during the campaign. Trump is also considering former CIA Director David Petraeus and Vice Admiral Robert Harward for the post, according to a senior administration official.
The Trump teams account of Flynns discussions with the Russian envoy changed repeatedly over several weeks, including the number of contacts, the dates of those contacts and, ultimately, the content of the conversations.
Last month, the Justice Department warned the Trump administration that Flynn could be in a compromised position as a result of the contradictions between the public depictions of the calls and what intelligence officials knew to be true based on recordings of the conversations, which were picked up as part of routine monitoring of foreign officials communications in the U.S.
An administration official and two people with knowledge of the situation confirmed the Justice Department warnings on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. It was unclear when Trump and Pence learned about the Justice Department outreach.
The Washington Post was the first to report the communication between former acting attorney general Sally Yates and the Trump White House.
Even before the Post report, the White House was signaling that Flynns future was in doubt. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was evaluating the situation and consulting with Pence on Monday.
Trump, who comments on a steady stream of issues on his Twitter feed, had been silent about the matter since the Washington Post reported last week that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy.
Julie Pace, Eric Tucker and Jill Colvin are Associated Press writers.
LEADWOOD, Mo. The wife and stepson of a Ku Klux Klan leader found fatally shot next to a river in eastern Missouri have been charged in his death.
Malissa Ann Ancona, 44, and son, Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., 24, were charged Monday with first-degree murder in the death of Frank Ancona. Both are jailed without bond.
A probable cause statement alleges that Frank Ancona, 51, was fatally shot in his sleep on Thursday at his home in Leadwood, about 70 miles south of St. Louis. St. Francois County Sheriffs Department Detective Matt Wampler wrote that after the shooting, Anconas body was taken in Jinkersons vehicle to an area near Belgrade, about 20 miles from Leadwood.
A family that was fishing found the body Saturday. An autopsy conducted Sunday revealed that Ancona died of a gunshot to the head.
Ancona called himself an imperial wizard with the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. A website for the group includes an image of Ancona in a white hood and robe standing in front of a burning cross.
The Park Hills Daily Journal said investigators placed yellow police tape around Anconas home in Leadwood on Saturday, believing he was killed there. His safe had been broken into and the contents removed.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said a U.S. Forest Service employee found Anconas car Thursday on a service road near Potosi, about 30 miles from where his body was eventually found.
Prior to the discovery of Anconas body, Malissa Ancona told police her husband had left the state on a delivery job. She said he planned to file for divorce when he returned.
Crews at Lake Oroville on Monday prepared bags of boulders they will use to shore up the reservoirs emergency spillway the morning after erosion on the overflow area threatened the nearly 200,000 residents downstream from the lake.
The water level in the lake fell below the lip of the emergency spillway overnight, slowing rapid erosion on the hillside that appeared to be nearly collapsing.
Officials hope to stabilize the emergency spillway in time for another round of winter storms that are forecast to sweep over the Sacramento Valley starting Wednesday.
The rain and runoff from streams and rivers that feed Lake Oroville could push water back over the emergency overflow area, officials said.
Obviously, we dont want to have to use it, said Bud England, a firefighter working at an emergency command center in Oroville. They want to prepare it to be used if necessary. This is part of the mitigation to prepare it for future use if necessary.
An estimated 188,000 people in Butte, Sutter and Yuba counties were ordered to evacuate around 4:30 p.m. Sunday when water resource managers detected the trouble with the emergency spillway.
A hole in the reservoirs primary concrete spillway that was first detected on Tuesday had forced officials to allow water on Saturday to cascade over the emergency spillway. The overflow area was used for the first time since the Oroville dam was put into operation in 1968.
Water resource managers increased the volume of water flowing out of the primary spillway to 100,000 cubic feet per second to relieve the emergency spillway, despite erosion problems caused by the hole in the 3,000-foot concrete slide.
The California National Guard was ready to deploy more than 20,000 soldiers and airmen should an emergency arise.
Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
OROVILLE, Butte County The crisis at Lake Oroville may grind on for weeks or longer leaving the nearly 200,000 people ordered to evacuate on Sunday in nail-biting limbo as crews work to flush water out of the reservoir and shore up a badly eroded emergency spillway, officials said Monday.
State water officials have been purging nearly 100,000 cubic feet of water per second out of the reservoirs damaged but functioning primary spillway, an effort that brought the level down below the lip of the emergency spillway Sunday night, averting catastrophe.
But they are just beginning to assess the scope of the weekend damage, a first step in developing a plan to secure the reservoir and allow residents to return to their homes.
More rain is forecast to soak Lake Oroville and the surrounding mountains beginning Wednesday night, increasing the urgency of the work being done at the reservoir.
Were working very hard to deal with the challenges we have, said Bill Croyle, acting director of the California Department of Water Resources. Were focused on the whole facility. The dam itself is sound, but we have some pieces that are critical to the operation that have been impaired.
Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday evening that there might be an indication Tuesday on when evacuees can return to their towns, but added that caution was the watchword. Better safe than sorry, he said.
My message is that were doing everything we can to get this dam in shape so they can return and live safely, said the governor, who declared a state of emergency Sunday to mobilize disaster resources.
Crews noticed Sunday that the hillside under the emergency spillway also called the auxiliary spillway had begun rapidly deteriorating, just one day after water started cascading over its ledge for the first time since the Oroville Dam was put into operation in 1968.
That deep erosion scar carved its way back to the foot of the spillways apron, a concrete lip perched at the top of the hill, threatening the integrity of the barrier.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea ordered an estimated 188,000 residents downstream along the Feather River to evacuate around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, when the possible breach in the spillway was detected. There was no plan for that evacuation order to be lifted, but Honea said officials were working on a repopulation plan for the residents.
When its safe, based upon the evaluation by the Department of Water Resources and the state and federal partners, then well be in a better position to decide when to lift that evacuation, he said.
The Department of Water Resources began dropping large bags of rocks Monday afternoon via helicopters onto the eroded emergency spillway to divert water coming down the earthen hillside during future heavy rains and snowmelt. State officials did not give a timeline on how long it would take to shore up the scarred hillside.
Evacuees, meanwhile, anxiously cooled their heels in evacuation centers scattered throughout the area, without any sense of when they could return home.
Jaswinder Phagura, admitted she was scared as she stayed at the Sikh Temple emergency shelter in West Sacramento with family.
How long will we be here? said the 48-year-old Live Oak resident, who fled to the shelter with her 4-year-old daughter, sister-in-law and brother-in-law. I hope when we go back that everything is OK there pictures, our kids stuff.
We just grabbed some stuff. Its scary, she said.
At the Cal Expo fairground in Sacramento, where families poured in throughout the evening, Treena Manion pointed out that many, like her, were losing income for every day they werent able to go to work back home and that could quickly become a hardship. Still, she could understand the caution.
Our lives are more important, and everything else can be replaced, said the 43-year-old Marysville woman, who fled with her husband, daughter and five other relatives.
Among the others getting a hasty change of scenery: 579 inmates from Butte County Jail, who were evacuated in guarded buses 150 miles south to Alameda Countys Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
Officials tried to assure evacuees that it was better to endure the inconvenience than to risk death beneath a roiling wall of water. .
We dont want people coming back into the community, then having another incident and having to evacuate again, said Chris Orrock, spokesman for the water resources department. Our No. 1 priority is the safety of the community and our staff.
Complicating matters is a series of storms set to hit the area around Lake Oroville starting late Wednesday that will accelerate inflow into the reservoir.
The area around Lake Oroville and mountains around Lake Oroville will see 1 to 2 inches with that storm, said Tom Dang, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Sacramento.
That system will be followed by several more soaking storms through the weekend. Weekly rain totals could be as much as 8 inches in the mountains around Lake Oroville, Dang said.
Water continued to pour into Lake Oroville at 37,000 cubic feet per second on Monday while the lake level fell from 901 feet on Sunday to about 895 feet around noon Monday. Based on the current inflow and outflow, the Department of Water Resources said the reservoir is dropping at a rate of 8 feet per day.
It wasnt clear if the next series of storms or any rains or snowmelt that may follow could push the water back up and over the emergency spillway.
It all depends on the runoff, the weather systems and the air temperature, Croyle said. Were going to deal with it as it comes in. When or how long this take depends on the day and the watershed.
Water officials could be dealing with the spillway challenges for 10 to 15 days or longer, he said.
Chronicle staff writers Sarah Ravani and Michael Bodley contributed to this report.
Melody Gutierrez, Evan Sernoffsky and Kevin Fagan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com, esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com and @kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky, @MelodyGutierrez and @KevinChron
Where's Oroville Dam located?
Situated in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the Oroville Dam is five miles northeast of the city of Oroville in California's Butte County.
It's about 75 miles north of Sacramento and 160 miles northeast of San Francisco.
What's the purpose of Oroville Dam?
This earthen dam was built on the Feather River in 1968 to capture storm-water and snow-melt runoff from the Sierra Nevada and store it in Lake Oroville.
The dam can hold back up to 3.5 million acre-feet of water in the expansive reservoir known as Lake Oroville.
Runoff collected by the the North, Middle, and South Forks and the West Branches of the Feather River all pours into Lake Oroville.
Oroville is the tallest dam in the United States, measuring 6,920 feet across and 770 feet high that's 44 feet taller than Hoover Dam. Lake Oroville is the second-largest man-made reservoir in California after Shasta.
Together, the dam and lake are important for the state's flood control, water use and recreation.
Regulating flows on the Feather River, the dam provides flood control for the eastern Sacramento Valley.
Lake Oroville is a key gauge of the state's water health and plays an essential role in the State Water Project, a government water-delivery system that carries storm-water runoff from the Sierra Nevada to farmers in the Central Valley and residents and businesses that run from the South Bay to Southern California.
What's more, fresh water releases from the lake control salinity intrusion into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and protect the health of fish and wildlife.
Why were 180,000 people evacuated?
A moisture-packed storm drenched Northern California early last week, and a torrent of stormwater and snow melt poured into Lake Oroville. The lake reached full capacity.
To make room in the reservoir and prevent flooding, water was released down the main spillway, a 3,000-foot-long concrete chute that dumps water into the Feather River.
A gaping hole was discovered on the main spillway on Tuesday.
Dam operators gingerly continued to release water, reducing the flow to prevent the main spillway from becoming inoperable. The hole grew into a massive crater measuring more than 300 feet wide and 500 feet long.
As more stormwater flowed down from the mountains, the reservoir continued to swell and at 8 a.m. on Saturday, it began tumbling over the emergency spillway that had never been used in the 48-year history of the dam.
While the main spillway is lined with concrete and controlled by gates, the auxiliary spillway has no gates and dumps water down an earthen hillside.
Officials noticed erosion and a hole opening below the concrete lip of the emergency spillway on Sunday.
Fearing the emergency spillway was in danger of failing and unleashing flooding on towns below, state officials ordered evacuations for at least 188,000 people.
Evacuation areas included low-lying areas of Butte County and south of the Feather River, including Yuba City and Marysville.
What does the future look like?
There's no longer an immediate threat. The lake level is dropping and by early Monday water was no longer poured over the emergency spillway. Works crews are repairing the damage by plugging the hole with rocks.
Water is continuing to be released down the damaged spillway at nearly 100,000 cubic feet per second and the reservoir is dropping at about four inches per hour.
Forecasters say up to nine inches of precipitation could fall in the region over the next seven days. Monday and Tuesday are predicted to be dry, and rain will return Wednesday.
As storms fill the lake later in the upcoming week, damaged infrastructure could create further dangers.
Officials are continuing to monitor the spillways for erosion and say it's unknown when evacuated residents can return to their homes.
Google's autonomous car project, now operating as its own organization called Waymo, is funded by an incredible amount of money. So much of that money was distributed to staffers on the project, as it's now being reported, that they no longer had an incentive to stay with the company.
In a report by Bloomberg, the self-driving car organization had an "unusual" way of compensating employees, where workers' pay was calculated by considering the overall performance of the autonomous car project. Salaries and bonuses, rather than remaining consistent, increased when the project hit certain milestones.
SURIGAO, Philippines Philippine officials on Sunday warned survivors of a powerful earthquake that killed at least eight in the countrys south to ensure their homes and buildings are sturdy enough before venturing back amid continuing aftershocks.
A strong aftershock alarmed residents, some of whom screamed in fear, while waiting for President Rodrigo Duterte to arrive to console earthquake survivors gathered in a gymnasium in the hard-hit capital of Surigao del Norte province.
The 6.7-magnitude quake struck late Friday, killing at least eight people, injuring more than 200 and damaging the main provincial airport and about 1,000 houses in Surigao, officials said. Some residents said the shaking was so strong they could not stand to rush out of their houses.
Officials appealed for volunteer engineers to help check the stability of damaged schools, hospitals, malls, hotels and other buildings, especially in the provincial capital of Surigao city, which has been placed under a state of emergency to ensure a rapid release of funds. Power was restored Sunday in some parts of the city.
Our call is do not return hastily after the strong quake, said Romina Marasigan, spokeswoman of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. We have to ensure that our residences are safe.
The critical infrastructures the schools, the hospitals and offices that provide services should also be checked if they are still safe for use, she said. We are again reiterating our appeal for help from civil and structural engineers to ensure the safety of the people.
Renato Solidum, who heads the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology, said at least 137 aftershocks hit after the quake. Aftershocks are normal after a strong earthquake. Typically, these may last for days, up to weeks, he said.
Among the structures damaged by the quake were 12 schools, six bridges and some shopping malls, many of which had visible cracks, shattered glass windows and damaged roofs. The quake may have broken water pipes, limiting supply in Surigao city, which lies about 430 miles southeast of Manila, and in three outlying towns, officials said.
Duterte arrived more than three hours late in Surigao city because his entourage had to make a detour after the closure of its airport because of cracks in its runway. He later expressed sympathy and pledged financial help to quake survivors needing medical treatment.
The Philippines sits in the Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes and volcanoes are common.
The last major earthquake that struck Surigao, an impoverished region also dealing with a communist insurgency, was in 1879, Solidum said. A 7.7-magnitude quake killed nearly 2,000 people on the northern island of Luzon in 1990.
After Fridays quake, communist guerrillas declared an indefinite cease-fire in quake-hit areas to foster rehabilitation work and help people recover faster from the calamity. Rest assured we will not do any harm to the military as long as they will not come to our areas, Comrade Oto, a regional rebel spokesman, said in a statement.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the former German foreign minister who was a vocal critic of Donald Trump during the U.S. campaign, was elected Sunday as the countrys 12th postwar president.
The Social Democrat, who served two stints as foreign minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel, emerged as her governing coalitions candidate in November as the parties sought to avoid a political spat over the appointment in an election year. With the support of Merkels Christian Democratic-led bloc and the Social Democrats in a special assembly Sunday, Steinmeier was elected in the first round to the mostly ceremonial post.
While Merkel steered clear of sharing her views on Trump before his election as president, her top diplomat vociferously derided what he saw as a campaign that broke taboos and threatened trans-Atlantic bonds. At one point, Steinmeier called Trump a hate preacher. As head of state, Steinmeier will be Trumps counterpart according to protocol, even if the German presidency lacks the political or policymaking power held by the chancellor.
The day after Trumps surprise election victory, Merkel issued a couched warning that offered the new U.S. president German cooperation based on joint values, including democracy, respect for the rule of law and for human dignity independent of origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views.
Steinmeier was less diplomatic. The result is not what most Germans would have wished, he said Nov. 9. I dont want to sugarcoat anything. Nothing will be easier, many things will become more difficult.
Steinmeier shunned political tension or any mention of Trump in an eight-minute speech after his election, though he cited Germany as an anchor of hope in an increasingly unsettled world.
Were living in tumultuous times; many in our country feel insecure, Steinmeier told the assembly after winning 931 of 1,253 votes cast.
Steinmeier, 61, will succeed Joachim Gauck, 77, the onetime Protestant pastor and political dissident in communist East Germany who opted to stand down after serving a single five-year term. Gauck will remain in office until March 18.
The Federal Assembly, a constitutionally mandated body made up of lawmakers from the lower house and party representatives from the German states, convened in Berlin. Germanys presidency mostly involves representing the country abroad, though Gauck has also intervened in domestic politics, including on Merkels handling of the refugee crisis.
Steinmeier, who had a 79 percent approval rating this month in a poll for public broadcaster ARD, came forward as a presidential hopeful after Merkel failed to find a suitable candidate from within her party bloc willing to run. Sigmar Gabriel, the outgoing Social Democratic leader who succeeded Steinmeier as foreign minister, stepped into the void, advocating for Steinmeier as the coalitions choice. Wanting to avoid a costly battle over a presidential pick ahead of the Sept. 24 election, Merkel relented.
That setback is more pronounced now that the Social Democrats have enjoyed a surge in support after the surprise candidacy for chancellor of Martin Schulz, the former European Parliament president. Enthusiasm for Schulz in the SPD base has narrowed the gap with Merkel seven months before the vote, with one poll last week showing the party ahead.
Steinmeier came to Berlin as the chief of staff to former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, overseeing German foreign intelligence in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.
Patrick Donahue is a Bloomberg News writer.
A human rights group accused the Syrian government on Monday of conducting at least eight chemical attacks using chlorine gas on opposition-controlled residential areas during the final months in the battle for Aleppo.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday that it used witness interviews and video footage to document government helicopters carrying out the attacks in rebel-held eastern Aleppo that killed at least nine civilians, including four children, and injured around 200 people.
The pattern of the chlorine attacks shows that they were coordinated with the overall military strategy for retaking Aleppo, not the work of a few rogue elements, said Ole Solvang, the organizations deputy emergencies director.
The Syrian government has previously denied any chemical attacks.
Human Rights Watch said the attacks were carried out between Nov. 17 and Dec. 13 two days before President Bashar Assads forces took control of eastern Aleppo in a humiliating defeat for opposition fighters trying to oust the Syrian leader.
In five of the chemical attacks, the rights group said it reviewed photographs or video footage of remnants of chemical-filled improvised munitions posted online or shared with Human Rights Watch. In all five, it said, the footage showed the same type of yellow gas cylinder and on one remnant a label was still visible with a warning that the cylinder contained gas.
The United States, Britain and France have been pressing the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on the Syrian government for using chemical weapons. But Russia, Syrias closest ally, has repeatedly questioned investigators conclusions linking chemical weapons use to the Assad government.
Also Monday, Russia released footage from one of its drones in Syria, revealing for the first time the latest destruction to the ruins of the historic city of Palmyra since it was recaptured by Islamic State militants.
The footage shows militants have badly damaged the facade of the Roman-era theater and the Tetrapylon a set of four monuments with four columns each at the center of the colonnaded road leading to the theater. The video appears to show that only two of the 16 columns remain standing.
The Islamic State group has destroyed ancient sites across its self-styled Islamic caliphate, perceiving them as monuments to idolatry.
Edith M. Lederer is an Associated Press writer.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan Afghan officials and local residents said Sunday that 22 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed during a joint operation carried out by U.S. and Afghan forces last week in southern Helmand province.
The presidential envoy for security in Helmand, Jabar Qahraman, said the raid against Taliban insurgents in the Sangin district killed 13 people from one family and nine from another.
We are saddened to hear the news of civilians being killed, he said. When the Taliban use civilians as their shield against security forces, such incidents occur.
U.S. Navy Cpt. Bill Salvin, a military spokesman, said we are working diligently to determine whether civilians were killed or injured as a result of U.S. air strikes carried out to support Afghan forces in and around Sangin. The investigation is continuing and has not reached any conclusions, he added in a written statement.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan expressed grave concern at the violence in Helmand, saying its initial inquiries suggest air strikes by international forces killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children.
Hameed Gul, a local resident, said he lost nine members of his family, including his mother and sister, in Thursdays raid. Its all lie that they were attacking the Taliban, he told the Associated Press in the Helmand provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, where he was staying at the time of the raid.
Kareem Atal, the head of the provincial council in Helmand, said a man, two women and two children who were wounded in the raid have been brought to Lashkar Gah for treatment.
Helmand has seen months of heavy fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban, who have repeatedly attacked Lashkar Gah. A suicide bomber attacking soldiers in the city Saturday killed at least seven people.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks across Afghanistan since the U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, leaving a smaller contingent of troops behind to focus on training and counterterrorism.
Mirwais Khan is an Associated Press writer.
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The independent hearings panel that provided the foundation of Auckland's unitary plan did not operate outside its remit, the High Court has found in a decision that gives guidance for further appeals to the Environment Court.
In the High Court in Auckland, Justice Christian Whata today ruled against a group of appeals that claimed the panel misinterpreted its statutory duties when it included capacity for more than 400,000 new residential homes to meet the regions projected population growth over the next 30 years in the new Auckland unitary plan.
"In accordance with relevant statutory obligations, the IHP (independent hearings panel) correctly adopted a multi-layered approach to assessing scope, having regard to numerous considerations, including context and scale (a 30 year plan review for the entire Auckland region), preceding statutory instruments (including the Auckland Plan), the Section 32 (of the Resource Management Act) reportage, the PAUP (proposed Auckland unitary plan), the full gamut of submissions, the participatory scheme of the RMA and Part 4, the statutory requirement to achieve integrated management and case law as it relates to scope," Justice Whata said.
The plan attracted 106 appeals after it was passed and notified by the council last August, of which 39 were filed to the High Court. Justice Whata resolved to hold a test case or cases to help resolve the scope and jurisdiction of the hearings panel and to provide a framework for sorting out individual claims.
Justice Whata ruled on 10 test cases, of which he found two where the independent hearings panel didn't apply the legal framework correctly. He said he considered appeals concerning residential upzoning out of scope.
Of the two cases where he thought the appeals should be upheld, one needed "greater specificity" to provide fair and sufficient notice and the other was "misled into assuming" its site was never at risk of rezoning. Justice Whata said both cases should be referred to the Environment Court.
"The purpose of resolving the test cases was to provide affected appellants with guidance on the issue of scope," the judge said. "It will be for them to decide whether and to what extent they wish to pursue their appeals in light of my decision."
BusinessDesk.co.nz
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Contact Energy shareholders can expect an increase in annual dividend policy later in the current financial year as the electricity producer and retailer's debt levels fall to within its target ratio against operating earnings.
Contact today announced an interim dividend of 11 cents per share for the six months to Dec. 31, the same as it has paid every year since 2008, although final dividends, special dividends and share buybacks have put total annual distributions on a steadily increasing trend. Interim and final dividends have totalled 26 cents per share for the last three financial years, but a 50 cps special dividend in the year to June 2015 reflected the departure of Origin Energy as the company's cornerstone shareholder.
That distribution also exhausted imputation credits, which are only slowly rebuilding, so that the interim dividend announced today is only imputed for 8 of the 11 cents per share.
The $261 million earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and the value of financial instruments announced today for the six months to Dec. 31 represents a current ratio of net debt to ebitdaf of 3.1 times, just outside the target ratio band of 2.6 and 3.0 times ebitdaf.
Chief operating officer Graham Cockroft said the company expected to fall within the ratio band by the end of the current calendar year.
Discussions on a change to dividend policy would start in the next six months or so, chief executive Dennis Barnes told a media briefing.
Trading during the first half of the current financial year reflected ongoing intense competition for customers in the retail electricity market, low wholesale electricity prices that are keeping prices to consumers relatively stable and encouraging new competitors, and falling national demand for electricity.
The 2 percent nationwide reduction in demand in the half-year under review appeared to reflect warmer temperatures and high rainfall, reducing demand for home heating and agricultural irrigation, on top of long term falling demand caused by energy efficiency investment and industrial sector changes.
While the main source of price increases to consumers in the June and September quarters of last year was increasing charges from monopoly electricity network owners totalling around 8 percent, Contact achieved around 1 percent increases in both quarters in the "energy and other component" element of the bill, reflecting what Barnes said was "slight margin recovery".
"By many sector comparisons, that margin (on electricity retailing) is very low," he said.
The financial results were presented in a new format from the past, with separate profit and loss accounts for the generation and customer sides of the business.
On that basis, customer ebitdaf was $51 million, down $6 million on the same half a year earlier, on total revenues of $818 million, while the generation business turned over much less, at $559 million, but posted ebitdaf of $204 million, up $1 million on the previous year.
Where Contact previously emphasised the 'integrated' nature of its business, which demonstrated its capacity to earn steady returns irrespective of fluctuations in wholesale electricity prices, the new reporting structure is intended to focus two very different sides of the business on their own profitability, using a transfer price derived from the electricity futures market to calculate the cost to the customer business of buying electricity from the generation side.
During the year, Contact entered into no new contracts for the supply of natural gas, with Barnes noting that the decreasing reliance on gas in the largely renewable New Zealand electricity system would make the sector's transition easier if the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter were ever to close.
The smelter uses about 12 percent of all electricity generated in New Zealand and its ongoing viability is under constant review, although Barnes said the Rio Tinto-controlled plant near Bluff "looks cashflow-positive to us" at present.
Contact shares were trading mid-afternoon at $4.91, up 2.5 percent.
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Representatives from Lyttleton Port Co and the Maritime Union of New Zealand reached an agreement in principle and all strike notices have been lifted.
Lyttelton Port is now returning to normal operations, marketing manager Simon Munt said in a statement on the company's website.
A spokesman from the Maritime Union confirmed today that an agreement in principle had been reached and would be put to MUNZ members this week for ratification. "We've got a good feeling about it," he said.
The port's Munt said the fact that strike notices were lifted was an "extremely positive development as we move much closer to achieving settlement".
Between 160 and 180 Lyttelton Port employees are part of the Maritime Union covered by the collective contract for the container terminal, which employs more than 250 people. Port management wants to line up work rosters more closely with the company's operating needs.
The existing Lyttelton agreement was set to expire on March 7, 2016, and negotiations for a new collective agreement started in January last year, with 30 meetings in the second half of 2016. On Dec. 1, union members unanimously voted to go on strike after rejecting a proposal by port management, with the outstanding issues over planned changes to the start and finish times for night shift workers by up to four hours. Several weekend strikes have occurred since them, forcing the port to implement contingency plans.
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1 rail worker killed, another injured while working One railway worker was killed and another injured after being struck by a cargo train in Uiwang, just southwest of Seoul, officials said Sunday. The accident occurred at 8:20 p....
WASHINGTON: US retailers Sears and Kmart's websites no longer sell products from the Trump Home line, which is owned by the Trump Organisation, a Business Insider report said.
As of Friday, a search for Trump Home items on both retailers' websites yielded no results, except items sold by third-party sellers, the report issued on Saturday said.
A Sears spokesperson told the Business Insider that the company is looking into the disappearance of the Trump line.
As of Tuesday, Sears was still selling 19 Trump Home items online and Kmart was selling 13 items, according to Shannon Coulter, the brand strategist who started the #GrabYourWallet boycott against retailers selling products owned by US President Donald Trump's organisation.
It is unclear if Trump Home merchandise is still for sale in the retail stores.
Last week, luxury retailers Nordstrom officially cut ties with Ivanka Trump's fashion brand, and her line of clothing and accessories also disappeared from Neiman Marcus' website.
Home Shopping Network stopped selling a Trump Home line of lamps.
On Wednesday, President Trump weighed in, saying Nordstrom's treatment of his daughter is "unfair".
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BENGALURU: India will showcase its aerospace technologies and products for military applications on Sunday ahead of the Aero India 2017 air show starting in Bengaluru from Tuesday, said an official on Saturday.
"A three-day international seminar on 'Aerospace: Technology Collaboration and Self-reliance' is being held as a prelude to the 11th edition of the biennial air show where we will showcase technologies and products developed by our defence labs and the aerospace industry," Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chairman S Christopher told reporters.
The state-run DRDO and its various aerospace arms like Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) have developed technologies and applications for aircraft systems, unmanned platforms, C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), avionics, space and missile systems, propulsion, materials and manufacturing.
Speakers from Airbus, CIAM, Eurojet, GE, Honeywell, Opal-RT, Pulse Electronics, Rolls Royce, Siemens, SAAB and UAC will address the gathering while specialists from Britain, Canada, Germany, India, Russia, Sweden and the US participate in the seminar.
The Indian delegates will represent the state-run research and development centres and organisations such as Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Iandian Air Force (IAF), Navy, Army, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
Organised by the DRDO in association with the Aeronautical Society of India, the brain-storming event has attracted about 900 delegates, including 73 speakers from global aerospace majors, technocrats, policy makers, defence experts and students.
"The seminar will provide opportunities for synergetic interaction among aerospace experts from the world over, including scientists, designers, manufacturers, operators and academia. We expect the event to result in collaborative programmes in research, development and manufacture in view of the government's aMake in India' flagship programme for greater indigenisation and self reliance," added Christopher.
Niti Ayog member and senior defence scientist V K Saraswat will inaugurate the seminar on Sunday while ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar will address the delegates on Monday.
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NEW DELHI: Enhancing its capability to dealing with a nuclear attack threat, India on Saturday successfully test fired a Prithvi Defence Vehicle (PDV) interceptor missile designed to intercept and destroy hostile ballistic missiles in space even before they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
The test took place at 7.45 a.m., and an incoming missile was successfully intercepted at a height of 100 km with a direct hit by an interceptor missile, said a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) official. The PDV can reach even higher altitudes.
"India successfully conducted a test wherein an incoming ballistic missile target was intercepted by an exo-atmospheric interceptor missile off the Bay of Bengal," an official statement said.
"With this commendable scientific achievement, India has crossed an important milestone in building its overall capability towards enhanced security against incoming ballistic missile threats. It has entered an exclusive club of four nations with developing capabilities to secure its skies and cities against hostile threats," it said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar lauded the efforts of the DRDO and all the scientists involved for their dedicated efforts in this significant achievement.
"Today (Saturday) our scientists have made a missile that could attack an incoming missile in the sky. Only four-five countries in the world have done this," Modi said at a poll rally in Uttarakhand.
The two stage PDV missile is part of the two layered Ballistic Missile Defence system developed by the DRDO, the research and development wing of the Defence Ministry, with the Hyderabad based Research Centre Imaarat (RCI) as the nodal laboratory.
Its interception window spans from 80-120 km.
The fully automated system consists of a network of sensors, computers and launchers, designed to intercept hostile ballistic missiles, possibly carrying nuclear weapons and destroy them before they can cause any damage.
This was the second test of the PDV.
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NEW DELHI: Customs intelligence officers will be posted by India in four countries, including the US and Singapore, to check trade-related frauds and black money transactions.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the lead agency to check customs frauds and smuggling, has decided to post officers at India's Mission in New York (US), Singapore, Brussels (Belgium) and in Nepal's Birgunj.
The DRI has sought nominations from eligible officers of the Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise) to fill up posts of Customs Overseas Intelligence Network (COIN) in the four countries, as per an official communique.
The COIN units pass on intelligence gathered from overseas to assist in DRIs investigation.
India has customs mutual agreements with these countries which provide the framework to seek information, official sources said on Monday.
"The COIN officers play a crucial role in checking smuggling and tax evasion by sharing intelligence with agencies concerned here. These officers, once posted, will keep an eye on trade transactions to avoid under-invoicing or over-invoicing of goods," a source said.
The process to select COIN officers will involve interview by a high-level committee and the final approval will come from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A sub-committee comprising Directors General of DRI, Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), and others will initially evaluate the service records of the officers concerned.
Another panel comprising the Chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), two members of the board -- Member (P&V) and Member (Customs) -- and the DG, DRI, will then interview the officers based on the assessment carried out by the evaluation committee.
The CBEC, after taking into account the marks secured by an officer in the interview and the marks given by the evaluation committee, will recommend a panel of three officers for each post for approval by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
As per the procedure, after obtaining the FM's approval, the panel will be forwarded to the Ministry of External Affairs for their concurrence followed by a reference to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister for the final approval.
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BENGALURU: India will build six more next-generation Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) on the Airbus platform to enhance surveillance and detection with longer range and complete view, a top official said on Sunday.
"Once the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) clears and the Cabinet Committee for Security approves the proposal, the six AWACS will be made in seven years after the contract is signed with Airbus Defence & Space," Chairman of the state-run Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) S. Christopher told IANS here.
Estimated to cost 20,000 crore ($3 billion), the AWACS will have 300-km range and 360 degree angle of coverage as against 200-km range and 240 degree angle of Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) the DRDO has built on the Brazilian Embraer-145 modified jet for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
"As the DAC had cleared two AWACS in 2014-15 and Airbus was the sole bidder, we will negotiate the deal with it soon after the cabinet approval for the additional six systems," Christopher told an aerospace seminar here.
The two AWACS were approved two years ago for a development cost of 5,113 crore ($820 million.)
The IAF is already using the Israeli Phalcon AWACS on the Russian IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft -- though it is a fuel guzzler -- to detect aerial threats from jets or missiles even from targets 400 km away.
"India is the fourth country in the world to have indigenously-built three robust radars and sensors (AEW&C) with Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) for the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas and other fighters," claimed think-tank Niti Aayog member for Science & Technology and defence scientist V.K. Saraswat.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will hand over the AEW&C-mounted Prying plane to the IAF on Tuesday at the biennial Aero India 2017 expo in this tech hub for induction into the IAF and for Initial Operational Clearance (IOC).
"The AWACS will also have a robust monitoring system with a better range and greater endurance than existing radars and surveillance systems the world over," said Christopher.
The DRDO invested 2,400 crore in the design, development and production of AEC&W, with AESA as a primary radar, Identification of Friend or Foe (IFF), Electronic Support Measures (ESM) and Communications Support Measures (CSM) at its Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS) in this aerospace capital since 2004.
"The radar-fitted surveillance aircraft also has data links to network with combat jets, ground-based control systems and Satellite-based Communication Network (Satcom)," added Christopher.
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NEW YORK: Microsoft has to "look like everyone and every organisation in the world" for it to accomplish its mission, the technology giant's Indian-born CEO Satya Nadella has said, asserting the importance of "diversity and inclusion" amid an environment of divisiveness.
"We want to empower the world, everyone and every organisation. That means we have got to look like everyone and every organisation in the world," Nadella said during an interaction with students and faculty at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering and the Stern School of Business last week.
Asked by a student about the actions he has taken since assuming the role of Microsoft's CEO to change the culture within the company, Nadella alluded to Microsoft's mission to "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more."
He stressed that diversity and inclusion are critical to achieve this core mission.
"Diversity and inclusion is huge. It obviously starts by having a workforce that is diverse but inclusion is a cultural piece that we all have to work on everyday," he said at the interaction during his visit to the University on February 7.
He said inclusion "shows up in every meeting, starting with me."
"Am I able to actually conduct a meeting where everyone is able to contribute their best because we all come with different styles, we have different cultural upbringings, what makes us tick is different. So you got to have leaders who are in-tuned with that," he said.
Nadella stressed the culture of diversity and inclusion has to be developed across the company and Microsoft is striving hard to achieve it.
"I will not by any stretch say at Microsoft we have excellence in it. I'll say we are going to, everyday of the week, push to get better and better at creating that more inclusive culture. It starts with each mindset," he said.
"The culture is just a reflection of you and what you do in an organisation. The more you take responsibility for it, the more you feel empowered to change culture versus being stuck in some culture you don't like," he said.
Nadella's comments come against the backdrop of a divisive and anti-immigrant rhetoric engulfing the US under the presidency of Donald Trump.
In particular, Trump's executive order to temporarily ban entry into the US of immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations was met with severe criticism and opposition by American companies across the spectrum.
Hyderabad-born Nadella, during an employee Q&A on January 30, had addressed the executive order on immigration, saying there is no place for bias or bigotry in any society.
He had credited America's "enlightened immigration policy" that had helped him achieve tremendous professional success.
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NEW DELHI: Important works of ancient Indian mathematicians on topics like obliquity of earth or value of "pi" can now be deciphered from classical texts using a new software application, researchers have claimed.
R Anusha, student of Sastra University in Thanjavur, tweaked modules of an engineering software, used for signal processing and circuit testing, to decrypt ancient numerical systems used in classical texts authored by Indian philosophers of yore.
Their findings have been published in the science journal Current Science.
In ancient times, astronomers and mathematicians represented digits using linguistic phrases, a common practice in civilisations across globe that time.
Speaking to PTI over phone, V Ramanathan, one of the authors of the paper and a faculty at the Chemistry Department of the University, explained that in ancient literature and bodies of knowledge, numerals are embedded as words.
In India, philosophers, astronomers and mathematicians used three systems-- Katapaydi, Aryabhata and Bhutasankhya which used linguistic phrases-- to represent numbers.
In Bhutasankhya system, words for earth and moon were used to depict "1" while those for eyes, ears were used to denote "2". Katapaydi and Aryabhata's system use Devnagri consonants and vowels in a complex manner to depict numerals.
Giving an example of such numerical values in ancient scriptures, he said in 'Aryabhatiya', penned by Aryabhata, there is a verse "Bha Apakramo Grihaamsha".
Ramanathan, Fulbright fellow and member of INYAS, said the letter 'bha' represents number 24 and this completes the meaning of the sentence which reads as earth's obliquity is 24 degrees.
"It is very important to know the coding procedure to correctly decode the number. The software helps in decoding the numbers from words in an error free and fast manner," he said.
The Indian National Young Academy of Science (INYAS) is an Initiative of Indian National Science Academy (INSA).
It was Ramanathan who seeded the idea in the mind of one
of his B Tech students, Anusha, having interests in historical and classical science literature.
With active help from C Nithya, another faculty at the University, and R Venketeswara Pai of Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Anusha was able to develop a software platform wherein if a particular text from these scriptures was entered, the user can get numerical value associated with it quickening the decoding process.
The group plans to make the software open source and also develop an app so that anyone having interest can get down and starts decrypting these texts.
Ramanthan cited another text which gives value of "pi" "anunanunnanananunnanityai, ssmahatascakra kalavibhaktoh, candamsucandradhamakumpbhipalair, vyasastadarddham, ibhamaurvika syat".
In this, he said, the second and fourth lines are lyrical in nature while the first and third lines are numbers in codes using Katapayadi system of numerals.
He said the above verse means that the circumference of a circle with diameter 10000000000 (anunanunnanananunnanityai) is 3.1415926536 (candamsucandradhamakumpbhipalair).
"This verse is found in the text called Karana Padhati composed by Kerala mathematician Puthumana Somayaji and dated to the 15th century," Ramanathan said.
"pi" is commonly defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.The ratio is constant,regardless of the circle's size.
He also cited classic text Narayaneeyam written by Kerala philosopher and mathematician Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri who concludes his collection of about 1000 verses by saying AayurArogyasoukhyam Krishna which gives the number of days passed since the beginning of Kaliyug when this scripture namely Narayaneeyam was completed.
"From the above example of Narayaneeyam we see the creative and poetic ways of our thinkers incorporating the time stamp on their composition. They had not only given the accurate information of the time but also have managed poetic excellence by adhering to the metre and other requirements purely from poetry point of view," he said.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.
-- Cigarettes
, according to the
FDNY.
Fire marshals determined the blaze Thursday at 1028 Post Ave. was accidental,
FDNY
said.
An FDNY spokesman said that carelessly discarded smoking materials -- cigarettes, specifically -- started the three-alarm fire
.
John Russell, 69, was found on the first floor of the home and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.
His brother, Joseph Russell, also 69, was badly injured. He was transported to the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, where he remains in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman told the Advance.
The fire started at around 7 a.m. in the two-and-a-half story dwelling and reached a third alarm before being brought under control at 8:59 a.m., an
FDNY
spokesman said.
The fire left 15 people injured, including eight civilians and seven members of the
FDNY.
The six firefighters and one
EMS
worker suffered minor injuries, the
FDNY
spokesman said.
ICE 2.jpg
Immigrants in New York City detained by federal officials last week are expected to receive legal counsel Monday for the first time in connection with the reported arrests. (AP/File photo)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- While defense attorneys were on route Monday to consult immigrants recently detained under federal law, an emergency hotline established by the Legal Aid Society was bombarded with calls from panicked residents.
The nearly 40 foreign nationals reportedly arrested last week in the New York City area are being held at Bergen County Jail or Hudson County Jail in New Jersey, or Orange County Jail in New York, said Adriene Holder, attorney-in-charge of civil practice for the Legal Aid Society.
Holder said employees manning the 24-hour hotline established Sunday have taken calls from the New York City area and beyond, in part, concerning expired VISAs and deportation orders.
"What we're getting is a bunch of people calling in who are hysterical," she said. "They are so fearful now, thinking if they go anywhere in the city they might get picked up."
Five Mexican immigrants were arrested outside their home or in front of the Richmond County Courthouse last week; four of them have children who are U.S. citizens, said Daniel Altschuler, a community organizer with Make The Road New York.
Two of the men, who were arrested Saturday, likely will be represented by the Legal Aid Society, Holder said. The others will be represented by similar legal organizations in the city.
Holder said she's concerned that executive orders signed by Trump, both now and in the future, will make it harder for attorneys to defend clients from convictions and ultimately deportation based on factors such as clients' ties to the community and family members who are U.S. citizens.
Immigration Raids Fact Check
In this Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows foreign nationals being arrested this week during a targeted enforcement operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens in Los Angeles. Immigrant advocates on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, decried a series of arrests that federal deportation agents said aimed to round up criminals in Southern California but they believe mark a shift in enforcement under the Trump administration. (Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP)
(Charles Reed)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A local immigration activist said families are concerned over reports of five Staten Island residents being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents over the last two weeks.
"Many families on Staten Island are deeply concerned and saddened," Julienne Verdi of Move Forward Staten Island said. "I think we all hugged our children a bit tighter last night."
Make the Road New York, a city-wide activism group, announced on Twitter Saturday that five Mexican immigrants in the borough had been detained by ICE.
Confirmed: 5 New Yorkers taken in #ICERaids on Staten Island. Stay tuned for community mobilization. #HeretoStay Make the Road NY (@MaketheRoadNY) February 11, 2017
Daniel Altschuler, a community organizer with the group, told the Advance Saturday that all five of the Mexican immigrants detained were males, and that four have families with children that are U.S. citizens.
"Five of these people were picked up outside their homes and outside the courthouse," he said, "in areas of the North Shore and Mid-Island."
Altschuler says the organization confirmed all the details by speaking to the families affected by the organized raids.
"The impact is tearing families apart," he added.
Eric Phillips, press secretary of the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio, tweeted Saturday that the reports appear credible.
These appear to be credible reports. Mayor is closely monitoring, along w/ NYPD. https://t.co/0ef0aztL0Q Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) February 11, 2017
Gillian Chritensen, the acting Press Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, neither confirmed nor denied the reports of five people arrested in the borough, but said ICE regularly conducts targeted enforcement operations that are dedicated to apprehending deportable foreign nationals.
"The focus of these targeted enforcement operations is consistent with the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Operations Teams on a daily basis," she said.
The most deportations in American history occurred under President Barack Obama's administration. More than 2.5 million people had been removed from the country as of 2015, the last year statistics are available from ICE.
Verdi acknowledged that arrests like these aren't something new under President Trump's administration, but said the arrests combined with his campaign rhetoric were cause for concern.
"It feels as though the Trump administration is following through on its promises, or threats, depending on how you look at it," Verdi said. "We don't want to perpetuate hysteria, but we're working with our allies."
She said the deportation of undocumented immigrants from this country strikes particularly close to home for her, because her grandfather was an undocumented immigrant from Italy.
"I wouldn't be an attorney, mom, or a proud American if ICE had come and taken my grandfather away," Verdi said.
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) released a leaked ICE media release on Sunday that was confirmed by an ICE spokesperson.
The leaked memo indicates that about 95 percent of the those arrested in and around New York City in recent weeks had criminal convictions, but activists criticized the arrests.
"Shame on ICE for putting New York's immigrant communities - four million strong - in a state of panic," Steve Choi, executive director of NYIC, said. "These arrests do nothing but tear families apart, hobble our economies, and corrode the bonds of trust that tie our communities together - all under the false pretense of 'public safety.'"
Representative Dan Donovan said in a statement that he was monitoring the situation, and urged calm until all the facts of the reported arrests were released to the public.
Congressman Donovan released the following statement regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on Staten Island: pic.twitter.com/y1DpDhisSX Dan Donovan (@RepDanDonovan) February 12, 2017
A spokesman for the NYPD said the police have no involvement in the arrests, and Mayor De Blasio took to Twitter to stress that no New York City official, including cops, would ask someone's immigrations status.
Favio Ramirez, executive director of El Centro del Inmigrante in Port Richmond, says several elected officials -- including Councilwoman Debi Rose and Gov. Andrew Cuomo -- contacted him Saturday evening to make sure he was aware of the reported detainments on Staten Island.
Ramirez says that while the "detainments are alarming," he doesn't want to instill fear in any other immigrants living on Staten Island by describing the latest actions by ICE as substantial "raids."
"We're going through a really tough time in our communities," he said, "and yes, we're seeing an increase in arrests, but we knew that would happen once President Trump was elected.
"But when there are a lot of officials arresting a lot of people at one time, that is a raid. Five arrests in eight days is not a raid."
Immigration lawyers and paralegals will be on hand Thursday night at El Centro del Inmigrante at 6 p.m. to conduct an immigration and deportation workshop for community members.
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In this Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, photo released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, foreign nationals are arrested during a targeted enforcement operation in Los Angeles. (Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, arrested hundreds of immigrants throughout 11 states in the last week.
The following is what you need to know about the immigrants who were detained, the reported raids and what ICE is.
WHAT IS ICE?
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003 after the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the former U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service merged together, according to ICE's official website.
ICE is focused on enforcing federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration in order to support homeland security and public safety, the site says.
The agency benefits from an annual budget of approximately $6 billion. This budget is primarily devoted to enforcement and removal operations and homeland security investigations, according to ICE.
HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE DETAINED THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY?
More than 600 people have been arrested in 11 states, including about 40 in the metropolitan area, according to the Daily News.
In southern California, 161 arrests were made, according to NPR.
"The majority of them were felons and those felons which had prior convictions included sex offenses, domestic violence, assault, robbery and weapons violations, just to name a few," Immigration and Customs Enforcement official David Marin told NPR.
According to the Daily News, nearly 95 percent people arrested in the New York area were criminal aliens, fugitives or illegal reentrants.
5 MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS DETAINED ON STATEN ISLAND
ICE detained five Mexican immigrants on Staten Island, according to Make The Road New York, a community organization with an office on Staten Island.
The five men were arrested either outside of their home or at the Richmond County Courthouse.
The immigration status of the individuals was not immediately available, and it is unclear whether any of the individuals had a criminal record.
CHARGES
Individuals with criminal convictions who were arrested during the reported raids will face prosecution; those who are not criminally prosecuted will be processed for removal from the U.S., according to a PIX11 report.
Individuals who have outstanding orders of deportation or who returned illegally after being deported are subject to immediate removal from the U.S., according to the report.
REACTION OF POLITICIANS AND LOCAL ACTIVISTS
Politicians reacted differently to the raids.
Rep. Dan Donovan said he would monitor the situation, asking that no one pass judgment until all of the facts are available.
"Government's first responsibility is to protect our nation," Donovan said in a statement. "I firmly believe that ICE resources should focus on targeting those who pose a threat to public safety, not otherwise law-abiding residents."
Mayor Bill de Blasio showed support for undocumented immigrants, offering information for immigrants seeking legal assistance.
"We will continue to stand with the nearly 40 percent of New Yorkers who are foreign born -- documented or undocumented," de Blasio wrote on Twitter.
"We will use all of the tools at our disposal to protect them from any federal overreach," he added.
Julienne Verdi of Move Forward Staten Island said that "many families on Staten Island are deeply concerned and saddened."
"I wouldn't be an attorney, mom or a proud American if ICE had come and taken my grandfather away," Verdi said.
Flavio Ramirez, executive director of El Centro del Inmigrante in Port Richmond, doesn't seem surprised by the raids.
"Yes, we're seeing an increase in arrests, but we knew that would happen once President Trump was elected," Ramirez said.
Ramirez also said that immigration lawyers and paralegals will be on hand Thursday at 6 p.m. at El Centro del Inmigrante to conduct an immigration and deportation workshop for community members.
ARE THESE DETAINMENTS NEW?
These detainments are not directly connected with Trump's new administration.
The most deportations in American history occurred under President Barack Obama's administration. More than 2.5 million people had been removed from the country as of 2015, the last year statistics are available from ICE.
However, Trump last month broadened the scope of who the Department of Homeland Security could target to include those with minor offenses or no convictions at all, the Washington Post reported.
WHAT SHOULD IMMIGRANTS DO IF APPROACHED BY ICE?
On Sunday, the American Civil Liberties Union, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, legal and advocacy organization, shared tips for immigrants in the event that an ICE officer showed up at their door:
Donovan Trump.jpg
A group of Wagner College professors published an open letter to Rep. Daniel Donovan (R-Staten Island) last Wednesday that strongly criticized President Donald Trump
(Staten Island Advance photo)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Last Wednesday, the Advance published a half-page advertisement paid for by 33 professors at Wagner College.
Denominated "An Open Letter to Representative Dan Donovan," the statement strongly condemns several "actions and executive orders of President Trump and the Trump Administration." While their status as educators may lead some to accord them greater credibility, they merit no such deference where, as here, they've ventured beyond their respective fields of expertise to become rabid political partisans.
Still, it's difficult to fathom how any truly learned person, in any avenue of life, could have made the astonishing factual error that appears in their advertisement. It's set forth twice, in fact, the first in this opening sentence of paragraph two: "On the first day of office, the Trump White House removed from its website any reference to or information about climate change." Similarly, the third paragraph begins this way: "The Trump Administration has also removed from the White House website any reference to LGBTQ rights."
Obama's eraser
Both assertions are flat-out false, a fact these professors could have easily ascertained had they bothered to do even cursory research on the matter. (The error is even more inexplicable insofar as it's subscribed to by three faculty members with the title "Professor of History.") So, for the Wagner college students who are paying tuition to be taught by these people, and for everybody else swayed by their titles, here's the truth.
In the waning days of his administration, and consistent with procedures used by his predecessors, Barack Obama decided that the material posted on whitehouse.gov during his tenure would be preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration. His purpose, which is as logical as it is self-evident, was to give the incoming Trump Administration a pristine website on which to enunciate its own priorities. Obama explained precisely that with a Jan. 17 entry posted on whitehouse.gov titled: "The Obama Administration Digital Transition: Moving Forward." On the day of Trump's inauguration, the Obama administration's postings about climate change and LGBTQ rights were, indeed, gone from whitehouse.gov because Obama -- not Trump -- had removed them. In fact, there was very little at all on whitehouse.gov that day besides Trump's inaugural address.
Gay rights
Culpably ignorant of this fact, the professors built on their false accusation thusly: "We take this as a harbinger of future actions that will attempt to restrict or reverse gains in equality for this community ..." Considered in conjunction with the advertisement's preamble, doing so would "violate basic principles of American democracy." Think about that for a moment, because these professors obviously didn't.
The most significant victory by far for the gay-rights movement occurred on June 26, 2015, the day the U.S. Supreme Court held in Obergefell v. Hodges that the 14th Amendment guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. Decided by the narrowest of margins, the 5-4 decision is destined to remain controversial for two reasons. First, it's legal soundness is highly suspect. Second, and more to the point here, the court's liberal wing, joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, took the issue out of the hands of the people and their elected representatives, and decided it by judicial fiat. While same-sex couples were the clear winners, the democratic process was the clear loser. That, however, doesn't bother the Wagner professors, despite their professed concern about "basic principles of American democracy." Why? For the most simplistic of reasons: They personally like the result.
Those who disagree
Since same-sex marriage is now a constitutional right, Trump can't "restrict or reverse" it, or its legal consequences, any more than he could with traditional marriage. Which is why virtually every lawsuit advancing a gay-rights argument is constructed around the Obergefell ruling. Tellingly, in a post-election interview with Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes," Trump called same-sex marriage "settled," adding, "And I'm fine with that."
Space constraints make it impossible to address the Wagner educators' multiple other attacks on Trump, including his pro-life stance. Still, a general observation is in order. It is crystal clear that these individuals, like the overwhelming majority of others in academia, are fierce liberal partisans. In preparing the Advance advertisement, their ideological myopia so blinded them that they twice built arguments on an evident falsehood. Despite repeated claims of concern for their students, that same partisanship, openly and dogmatically expressed, is an assault on the intellectual integrity of those students who disagree with them.
Do those young people endorse, either overtly or by calculated silence, positions they find abhorrent? Or do they dare challenge teachers who control their grades and, derivatively, their future?
Caring adults don't put kids in that position; bullies do. And the smart bullies make sure they know what they're talking about.
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Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that there will be a road closure on Arch road from St. Maarten Cable TV up to the entrance of the St. Maarten Zoo.
The area where the road repair works will be carried out is a section of Arch road, section of Madame Estate/Paradise Island road/Watling Island road.
The road closure will take place from February 12 up to and including February 17. Road repair works will be carried out between 8.00pm and 5.00am and will entail milling, excavation of the road and recapping.
The contractor responsible is Windward Roads.
Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause.
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In commemoration of International Mother Language Day (February 21), the Honorable Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (MECYS) Ms. Silveria Jacobs invites the general public, schools, poets and literary artists to participate and present in an upcoming SMaatin English Poetry/Storytelling/Narration Competition. This event will be held on Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at the New Government Building on Soualiga Blvd., in Conference Room 1, 6:00 p.m. 7:30 p.m. and is hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization National Committee (UNESCO NatCom) in collaboration with the Department of Culture.
Since 1999, UNESCO has designated February 21 as the annual International Mother Language Day which serves to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by people of the world (www.unesco.org). Knowing, writing and speaking in ones mother language is an essential tool for the transmission and safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Therefore this year we seek to highlight our very own local and mother tongue language SMaatin English in order to increase awareness and inspire pride in our oral traditions, history and cultural expressions. Students and persons of all ages are encouraged to sign up for this competition and will be asked to create and recite poems, tell stories, perform skits and/or narrate from books in SMaatin English. There will be a judging panel and prizes will be given to the top three finalists.
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COSME held a final two-day Steering Committee and Stakeholder forum at the Palms Hotel in Turks and Caicos from February 7 to 8 under the current COSME Programme estimate.
COSME is a 54-month programme with the responsibility to disperse 15 million Euros to projects benefitting participating Caribbean Territories. The funds were made available by the European Union (EU). The programmes overall objective is to contribute to the sustainable and climate-resilient economic diversification and prosperity of Caribbean OCTs (Overseas Countries and Territories) by improving the competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the participating territories.
The majority of the OCTs were represented at the two-day meeting. Sint Maarten was represented by Vanessa Mathew from the department ETT (Department of Economy, Transportation and Telecommunication), Olivia Lake from BAK (Department of Interior and Kingdom Relations), and Pamela Anuska Friday-Illis from the Sint Maarten Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The meetings purpose was to take a final reflection from when the European Union funded the 10th EDF COSME Programme Strengthening the Development of Small and Medium Enterprises of the Overseas Countries and Territories in the Caribbean Region beginning in April 2014and to take a look forward detailing the remaining activities scheduled in the Programme.
Sint Maarten representatives described the meeting as an eye opener with respect to many opportunities and improvements that the country can reap from the programme.
COSME has been very beneficial for Sint Maarten by assisting with the free workshop trainings the ETT department was able to host for small, medium sized enterprises, helping them to grow and expand their business, which in turn contributes to the sustainability and economic diversification of our economy.
The Financial Agreement (FA) of the COSME Programme was signed on September 2012; however the Programme was kick-started and a Team of Experts was not contracted until April 2014, a year and seven months into the d+3 period, leaving a greatly shortened time to commit close to 15 million euros. It can be concluded that the PMU was very successful in overcoming a major obstacle in ensuring the survival of the Programme as all monies have been effectively committed.
Ms Elvia Smith-Maduro, Programme Manager and Representative of Deputy Regional Authorizing Officer, Mr. Neil Smith and the BVI government stated, Over the lifespan of the Programme, the COSME Programme was able to conquer changes and the many other challenges encountered and has survived, and I can say even blossomed, giving in one way or the other significance to COSME on each OCT.
With consultants present from the three servicing consulting agenciesGOPA, ECorys and Steinbeisa number of detailed reports were presented over the two days, sharing results. This included research reports on the ease of doing business in the OCTs.
According to results from the research reports, over 1,000 entrepreneurs under the COSME Programme who specifically reside in the OCT region have attended and benefited from various workshops and/or activities to strengthen their businesses.
COSME programming also targeted government support and policy creation to service the SME business environment. This policy study emphasised the importance and strength an OCT economy can gain when the government creates legislation with SME businesses in mind. Tamara Y. Ebanks, Deputy Chief Officer, Ministry of Financial Services, Commerce & Environment Cayman Islands Government, was very supportive of the study and welcomed the policy recommendations.
The implementation of the Programme will continue for the next 18 months in the OCT regions as approved. These activities continue to support and grow the economies of the OCTs, such as developing island incubators, enhancing the effectiveness of the online incubator CaribConnect.net and offering additional innovation and business management workshops.
A show of appreciation and gratitude for the ongoing support and dedication of the COSME Programme was acknowledged in the form of a plaque presented from the island of Turks and Caicos.
PHOTO CUTLINE: See attached photo.
Missouri-born Amber Wiley knows what makes a particular place stand out. An assistant professor of American studies, Wiley is an award-winning architectural and urban historian. She was raised in Oklahoma City but has lived in Maryland, Louisiana, Connecticut, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and over the course of a year she travelled to seven different countries. Its her business to know places.
This semester, Wiley is busy teaching three courses. Her introductory course, American Cultural Geographies, asks students to answer the question: Has the US become so homogenized that you cant tell the difference between one place and another? The answer is a resounding no. Examining characteristics such as architecture, music, food, religion, sports, and language, students delve into the differences that define regions of the United States. Students in this writing-intensive course are currently penning essays on a place they have been and their experiences there.
Wiley has taught her 200-level course African American Experience two different years at Skidmore. And shes changed it up each time. There is no such thing as the African-American experience, she says. How do you talk about it? Different people have different experiences. But, being a place person, Wiley frames the course around the Great Migration. Students delve into The Warmth of Other Suns, a book that follows the story of three migrants who move from the south and the impact it had on Americafor example, the difference between migrants, immigrants, and refugees, and what happens when all three land in one city, such as Chicago.
Assistant Professor of American Studies, Amber Wiley
Her upper-level course City and American Culture focuses on Washington, D.C., how it came to be, and what it symbolizes to people. D.C.s origin, carved out of two slaves states, paints a disparate socioeconomic picture. Its painted as a neutral town, but the actual day-to-day lives of people who live there tell a different story, explains Wiley. Its why she chose D.C. to discuss how cities form and as a reflection of our nation.
In March, Wiley takes the road to visit another placeNaples, Floridawith the Office of Alumni Relations and College Events. Although shell be in Florida, shell present on research that connects the African American poet Gwendolyn Brooks to the built environment of Chicago. This summer, Wiley will advance her work as a faculty fellow at Skidmore's 2017 MDOCS Storytellers' Institute, whose theme is -- appropriately -- "Space and Place."
And then, maybe, shell stay in one place. Its not likely though.
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Some of my best wetsuit swim experiences have been in these expertly designed suits. This suit is (to quote myself from a previous review of this wetsuit) lightning fast. In 2012 I tested every wetsuit for speed. I swam in all these wetsuits for weeks, and the protocol was 4 sets of short course yards hundreds, on a strict leave interval, trying to keep my efforts even.
What did I find? That nothing outswam a TYR Hurricane 5. Not even the Freak of Nature, TYRs $1,200 suit (costing not much less than twice price of the Hurricane Cat 5). In fact, the Cat 5 was a tick faster than the Freak (this image is from 2 years ago showing Andy Potts racing in the Cat 5 rather than the Freak). This suit was so fast I used it as the measuring stick for every other wetsuit. Further, even the least expensive TYR wetsuits (the Cat 3 and the Cat 1) are fast wetsuits, because the patterns are spot on and the suit is built for speed. (The Hurricane series was built by swimmers for swimmers.)
If you want a really fast, really comfortable, really well made TYR wetsuit buy a Cat 5. The Freak, at $1,200, gives you nothing that the $750 Cat 5 doesnt give you. Take that extra $450 and prepay a monthly delivery of flowers for your sig other until the credit runs out.
These speed trials in which I engaged happened only three years after TYR started making wetsuits. In my opinion, at the time, TYR had jumped to the top of the heap. Nothing beat this suit, and it was marginally (up to a second a hundred in short swims) faster than the T1 De Soto Concept 5 (I wrote about the T1 last week). Only the blueseventy Helix was the Cat 5s equal in feel, in speed, and all-around quality back in 2012 (for reasons Ill be writing about as this series develops).
But time marches on. Just as I wrote last week that the Continental 4000S II is no longer the tire it was in the marketplace because the marketplace caught up, the TYR Hurricane 5 is not the wetsuit it was because the market has caught up. What has happened in the 5 years between then and now? In my opinion, just my observation, TYR has been chasing shiny objects since 2012 (a fluid replacement drink; the mass merchant sales channel), and Roka, blueseventy and others have caught to the Hurricane series in speed.
Remember what I wrote last week! You cant do business with a retailer who doesnt sell a full size run (at least in the main sizes). What does this leave us with?
If you go to Amazon users' reviews for the TYR Hurricane Cat 5 wetsuit there are concerns expressed (that are certainly not specific to TYR!):
"I read the reviews here and researched wetsuit fit," wrote this Amazon reviewer. "The reviews here state that this wetsuit may run "two sizes" too small. So, I am 5'7" and 139 lbs which would be a 'small' so I got a Medium this is still too small The TYR sizing chart seriously underestimates the suit size that is appropriate for a given body size The S/M also proved too small.
And this was from someone who gave the wetsuit a rating of 5.
Review after review complains about having to return suits when bought through the mail. This is not a TYR problem! This is every wetsuit companys problem! Except its not a problem if there is a stated liberal return policy, and this has been TYRs problem. If you go on its site, heres its policy:
"Please Note: Hurricane Wetsuits can be returned for EXCHANGE only. Suits that have been used or gently worn cannot be returned. No exceptions.
I asked TYR about this, and I gave them examples of return policies from Xterra, blueseventy, De Soto, ROKA. Heres a revised policy they came back with this morning, with the addendum that, "Those words are not finalized but they will say something along those lines:
"All TYR products are guaranteed. Feel free to test and try your Hurricane wetsuit in the water. If within 30 days of your purchase date you are not satisfied, we will gladly provide a merchandise refund or exchange for wetsuits purchased via TYR.com, or merchandise credit for wetsuits purchased through an authorized TYR retailer."
I'm satisfied! In my original draft for this review I recommended not to buy this suit, as good as it is, because the return policy is simply not congruent with market realities. Happily, TYR agreed its policy did not align with the brand, and that in practice "9 times out of 10 they accept a return. Because of this tack toward current market policies my stock analysis has now been changed from sell to buy (though Ill be watching to make sure this change is made on its website).
There are two other concerns I have with TYR, and you can read this also on Amazons ratings. First is about some perception of fragility. Mostly this is unfounded, except that this very techie suit needs to be treated with some care when youre putting it on, specifically as you are pushing your foot through the lower leg. The calf area is not robustly designed. I have had no problem with this, but then I always put my foot through a wetsuit leg with either a sock on or with my foot inside a plastic baggie.
One Amazon reviewer pointed this out and noted that he previously, had a 2XU V:2 suit that I've used for some time and thought it worked very well.
If youve read the reviews Ive written since 2012, this is the sort of narrative youve grown used to from me. Last year I wrote about wetsuits for elves versus wetsuits for orcs. The TYR was a wetsuit for an elf and by that I meant a wetsuit for swimmers that wanted a light and delicate feel. The 2XU was a wetsuit for an orc.
What I wrote about the 2XU V:2 Velocity in 2012 is that, while that suit is plenty fast, This suit is a tank. And by that I mean this is not a suit that's going to be prone to seam separations, fingernail tears and rips.
Heres what I wrote about the TYR Hurricane Cat 5 back then: "it is subject to fingernail tears. You've got to be careful when putting this suit on.
Reality check! Any wetsuit made of Yamamoto #39 or #40 rubber, or its Nano rubber, is going to be subject to fingernail tears, altho this is less likely if it the rubber (facing outside) is treated with Yamamoto's SCS coating. Still, TYR is sensitive to the fact that not everyone is hip to how to put wetsuits on and it even includes with the wetsuit purchase gloves to use when putting on its suit.
My second mild objection to TYRs Hurricane line is with the Hurricane 3 wetsuit same patterns as the Hurricane 5 and is made of Yamamoto #38 rubber. That #38 is more durable. But its not as stretchy. Therefore, the suit is not as forgiving when it comes to fit. You need to be more of a precise fit in a #38 suit. All that is fine, just $550 is too much by about $200 for a #38 suit.
Notwithstanding the concerns above I would place TYRs Hurricane line well, the Hurricane 5 at least in the elite class of triathlon wetsuits. Some wetsuits today may be its speed equal but I dont think anything is going to outswim this suit.
All this said, please consider what I wrote last week about whether to buy a wetsuit consumer direct or in-store. The process way outweighs the difference in product. (Consider shops like Trishop in Plano or Fraser Bikes both Slowtwitch Road Show hosts that have Endless Pools in these stores so that you can swim in a wetsuit prior to purchase). Next month Ill celebrate my 30th anniversary since opening the doors of a new company, selling a product to triathletes that no triathlete thought he needed. Though I built and managed my wetsuit brand for 12 years its become clear to me that brand isnt the sizzle unless implicit in the brand is that brands treatment of the customer. The process of obtaining the wetsuit; the conditions under which you obtain it; outweigh the difference between one brand and another.
The Canberra Liberals will call for a review into the territory's bail laws as the ACT parliament prepares to sit for the first time in 2017.
Liberals spokesman Jeremy Hanson accused the government of failing to keep "basic records" on the bail crime rate in the ACT and said the they were "unable or unwilling to deal with the issue".
Canberra Liberals shadow attorney-general Jeremy Hanson has called for a review of the ACT's bail laws. Credit:Jay Cronan
"We've all seen the tragic events of Bourke Street [in Melbourne] and other jurisdictions in response are conducting reviews of bail laws," Mr Hanson said.
"Previously bail in the ACT has been described by the [police union] AFPA as the revolving door and the government has been unable to advise what crimes people on bail have committed.
A Calwell woman who was suing the Canberra Hospital and two doctors over alleged failures stemming from migraine drug treatment has settled the case for $12 million.
It had been alleged that as a result of the alleged failures, Stacey Louise Cave, 40, suffered a stroke and brain damage, and was left dependent on a wheelchair.
A Canberra woman has settled a lawsuit against the Canberra Hospital, a general practitioner and a neurologist for $12 million. Credit:Rohan Thomson
The case stemmed from Ms Cave's use of the drug Deseril over many years to treat migraines, which the former teacher had suffered since she was a teenager.
Since the late 1990s, she had been taking the drug under the supervision of a consulting neurologist and her Woden general practitioner Brenda Jean Tait.
Overseas media have already been making fun of the fact that the biggest benefactor of Trump's multibillion-dollar Mexican wall might just be Mexican cement giant Cemex.
The recent enthusiastic Tweets from Donald Trump confirming plans for a Mexican wall were still on the cards should be greeted with some excitement on local shores. The wall might just prove to be the financial saviour of one of the worst takeovers in Australian corporate history.
Local corporate historians might have been scratching their heads at the mention of that name. Are these the same crazy Mexicans who paid $17 billion in cold, hard cash for local cement maker Rinker?
It was the biggest cash takeover in Australian corporate history, and probably still is given it happened on the cusp of the financial crisis.
Might a Mexican wall prove a financial saviour for one of the worst takeovers in Australian corporate history? Credit:AP
Cemex was not interested in the Australian market Rinker had a massive US operation that complemented Cemex's strong presence there.
It was April 2007 when the deal was sealed, and there were already signs that all was not well with the crucial states in the US particularly Florida and some analysts attributed Rinker's sudden about-face on the deal to indications its internal forecasts for 2008 might have been extremely bleak.
Jan Cameron has lashed the board of troubled infant milk formula group Bellamy's Australia for presiding over a "67 per cent destruction in share value" over the past 12 months.
In a letter to shareholders, Ms Cameron has styled herself as the leader of a "Let's Save Bellamy's Group", as she pursues plans to seize control of the board by dumping the four independent directors of the company.
She also has the chairman of the company, Rob Woolley, in her sights for removal.
Her letter came as it was confirmed that one of her four nominees for the Bellamy's board, Melbourne stockbroker Vaughan Webber, had withdrawn his nomination.
Australian employees at transport giant Toll are expected to bear the brunt of a large job-cutting drive, starting with up to 200 layoffs to be announced this week.
Managers from Toll Group will hold meetings with union officials in coming days to discuss job losses.
Toll is set to slash staff from its global operations. Credit:Andrew Quilty
Toll's managing director, Michael Byrne, said the company had started informing workers of initial plans for 180-200 redundancies, following a review into competitiveness and efficiency.
"This is not a move we take lightly," he said. "We will fully support employees impacted by these changes, including offering redundancy entitlements, redeployment opportunities where available, and career transition support.
Oh dear, exclaims Anne Conway of Mt Cola. "Why the assumption it is only men who climb the RFS fire tower which is actually at Berowra? Like all RFS brigades the members of the tower team include women. Yesterday the first shift on the tower was two women, the second shift, one woman; one man, third shift two men. All really happy volunteers contributing to the NSW RFS."
Now power-saving devices (C8). They are all a con been around for years, declares an exasperated Kit Scally of Narrabundah (Heights). "People are still gullible enough to shell out $25 without even bothering to Google the device."
Frances Boland of Castle Hill has more. "Before the advent of air conditioning, housekeepers in country areas found draping a wet towel over the top and sides of a refrigerator reduced the frequency of motor use. I've found this effective in Sydney's recent heat wave; even when airconditioning is on."
Warm thanks to Ken Wilson of Bell for solving my yellow robin mystery (C8), says Alexandra Szalay of Berowra Creek. "Fingers crossed we can share this charming pair along the Bells Line of Road."
Richard Stewart of Pearl Beach reports. "A primary school teacher was being interviewed on the ABC. Asked how she set homework for the kids, she replied, 'the difficulty these days is to set work where kids have to do their own thinking, so I always set ungoogable questions'. Thus creating yet another addition to the English language. 'Ungoogleable.' Brilliant."
Bill Deane, Chapman Parties should be over Canberrans should support the members of our Assembly taking a collegial approach ("ACT is ripe for a collegial parliament", p14, February 13). However, I will eat my hat if any members vote across party lines. That is extremely unlikely due to the rigid control exercised by the three main parties, who continue to have all of the members in the ACT's Assembly. This is unique every other state or territory-level Parliament in Australia has at least one member from outside the three big parties.
Furthermore, I understand that in most local councils, to the extent the big parties run a ticket they do not generally practice the partisan politics that dominates the ACT's Assembly. Canberrans should take note how the Assembly performs in the next three years, and then consider electing one or more independents in 2020 who are committed to judging issues on the merits so as to allow Canberra to reach its potential. Bruce Paine, Red Hill Farewell to the bakery As mentioned in Megan Doherty's report on the demise of the Yarralumla Bakery ("Butterfly cakes will be missed as bakery folds on rising rents", February 10, p13), rowers were among thebakery's many patrons, most of them from the Canberra Rowing Club.
For my fellow members and I, the decision to close the bakery has come as a huge disappointment. The establishment wasn't so much a bakery as an institution. For years generations of rowers have assembled there, particularly on Saturday mornings, to enjoy coffee and pastries that were second to none. In that time, the staff have become great friends, Scott Gorham and Barbara Booker in particular. One behalf, therefore, of the local rowing community, could I extend to all at the bakery affected by this unwelcome decision our regrets and thanks, and that you find success elsewhere. For us, future post-row gatherings just won't be the same. Robin Poke, Hughes No shred of evidence Jennifer Heywood (Letters, February 11), in dismissing Vyom Sharma's article on homeopathy ("Homeopathy sells dangerous falsehoods", February 9, p19) and the National Health and Medical Research Council's unfavourable report it was based upon, repeats claims she made six months ago when she attacked both the NHMRC and the Australian Government Rebate on Private Health Insurance for Natural Therapies report, which came to similar conclusions, and again fails to provide a single shred of evidence to justify her position.
Ms Heywood tells us that the "NHMRC investigation into homeopathy ... failed almost all the tests that it applied to homeopathy research" but neglects to elucidate any details of this alleged hypocrisy. Finally she presents anecdotal experiences of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and the British royal family as irrefutable proof homeopathy works. Ms Heywood seems to suffer from the endemic, internet-era condition of confusing her desire for something to be true with objectively evaluating evidence to determine whether or not something is plausibly true. Enough misinformation is available on a range of complex topics that almost anyone can think they have an informed opinion when the reality is that very few outside those specific fields actually do. James Allan, Narrabundah
Morrison's moment When Scott Morrison entered parliament with a lump of coal saying this would solve the electricity problems due to the extreme hot weather he was actually holding the major cause of climate change. What does that say about him? Ken Helm, Murrumbateman The SA government should get real. So what if Engie did not switch on its Pelican Point gas plant in a heatwave? It drives up the prices. They sell less for much, much more. Their duty is to their shareholders, not their customers. Capitalism 101. David Clark, Scullin
Once again I am moved to wonder how, if the Federal Government were receiving direct orders from the coal industry, how their behaviour would be any different than what it is now. Mark Chapman, Palmerston Yes, Patrick Jones (Letters, February 11), coal will certainly advance our way of life - into oblivion. Patricia Saunders, Chapman Government response to climate change deserves a lump of coal
Can any of your readers please tell me: why do our political leaders persist in telling the general public (of) the need for clean coal for base load electricity generation? My understanding of clean coal is that it is only cleaner coal generation just as gas-fired generation is cleaner but still pollutes. Have they told the general public of any serious consideration given to geothermal electricity production which, once up and running, generates 24hours a day, seven days a week without emitting pollution, or why it should not be used? The same goes for wave power. Nor can I recall ever being told why they are so opposed to the above generation methods of truly clean, never-ending, power generation. On Sunday the present minister in charge was pushing the need for (hydro-electric) pump storage.
This is all very well but you still need low cost electricity generation to pump the water back up the hill in order for the water to run back down the hill to go through through the turbines, thus generating cleanenergy. No consideration seems to be given to the consequence of severe drought in the water catchment areas. Serious droughts can and do happen. I cannot help but wonder if all the waffle from our political leaders about the need to become the "Clever Country" is just another scam. Coral Talbot, Cooma Sir Henry Wotton back in the early 1600s cynically opined: "An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country." I wondered if there is an equally apt but cynical description for those in government that lie to their country, as has been happening with regard to "clean" coal-powered generators that will not be built, power companies that can legally manipulate power generation to capitalise on demand spikes and deceitful claims about the culpability of renewable energy sources for power outages.
Perhaps these are the "post- truths" and "alternative facts" that we have become accustomed to recently courtesy of the Master Tweeter himself. Ann Darbyshire, Gunning, NSW As the government descended into a kindergarten "show and tell" with its lump of coal (the Speaker being very slow to rule out props), the country was left feeling the results of poor climate policy, to which the PM is a new convert. It's a pity that Malcolm Turnbull doesn't understand that it's the job of the Opposition Leader to destroy the Prime Minister, and it's the job of the Prime Minister to govern the country. His shrill attack on Bill Shorten shows he has no understanding of his role.
Jeff Bradley, Isaacs Malcolm Turnbull has abrogated leadership and replaced itwith flowery language and invective. Rather than leading a sensible debate on the overarching and related issues of climate and energy policy, he is cowering to vested interests and the uninformed rabid right-wing of the Coalition. Surely recent catastrophic weather conditions should be enough to convince him to stop playing political games, accept the advice of his chief scientist and to use his considerable persuasive powers to achieve a sensible and, hopefully, bipartisan outcome. He must also stand up to Donald Trump on this issue.
Dan Buchler, Waramanga Although Lee Welling (letters, February 3) says that an appropriate response to climate change needs to be global, he illogically subscribes to Tony Abbott's argument that Australia's emissions are relatively small, therefore reducing them would make "zero" impact on worldwide levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For a response to be global every country must play its part. How can a country encourage the rest of the world to rapidly phase down fossil fuel use if it hypocritically does not work to rapidly reduce its own emissions? The current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen to 400 parts per million and climate records reveal that this will lead to an increase in sea level of 15 to 20metres within the next 50 to 150 years. What Australia must not do is build new fossil fuel power stations or open up new fossil fuel mines.
Insanely, this is what the Turnbull government is considering doing. The world's future generations are relying on a truly global response to this global issue. Chris Hansen, Rivett At 3.30pm on Saturday the temperature in Penrith, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, reached 46.4 degrees. It would have been nice if Treasurer Scott Morrison and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts could have dropped in for a visit. ScoMo could have pranced around with his lump of coal and told the Penrithians why coal-fired power stations are such a great thing and how they are not cooking the planet. The Senator could have reassured the residents who baked for six hours in temperatures over 40 degrees that climate change is not real just a conspiracy that was cooked up by NASA. Mike Reddy, Curtin
What a fool Scott Morrison is, brandishing a lump of coal in airconditioned Parliament while most of the country outside boils in record temperatures! He says we need more coal for back-up power when the use of coal itself causes global warming, giving rise to the need for more power usage. Morrison, Turnbull and the Coalition are nothing short of reckless, if not corrupt, for their inaction on climate change and they need to be held to account now. Time for a citizen's revolt! David McCarthy, Wallaroo, NSW
The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Energy and Environment willfully and repeatedly misled Parliament and the entire nation about the true causes of the recent South Australian blackouts, despite unequivocal professional advice, and Senator Sinodinos has the audacity to call for less politics in the energy "debate" ("PM told wind not to blame for blackout", February 13, p.4). What can one possibly say that would be printable? Felix MacNeill, Dickson TO THE POINT IN THE SLOW LANE
Near the Kirkpatrick Street/Cotter Road T-junction in Weston Creek there is a sign that has been in place for years stating that the site has been sold for a service station. If anyone in authority, or otherwise, knows when building construction will begin, let alone finished, would they kindly let the public know? John Milne, Chapman REVIEW POST-HASTE In the spirit of government transparency, I look forward to reading the revised look at the salary package of the managing director of Australia Post along with details of the remuneration of the six board members making that decision, especially when services are diminished at the cost of jobs being lost. Johanna Owens, Kingston
SCHOOL OF ENTITLEMENT It seems Ian Macdonald went to the Bronwyn Bishop school of entitlement. Many groups of employees work hard and long hours. I can think of none that receive, regardless of performance, a lifetime reward of 10 business-class trips a year for employee and spouse until death. Ian McKenzie, Canterbury, Vic SIZE DOESN'T COUNT When I walk my trained, placid German shepherd, we often meet small, snarling dogs. Their owners look at me with disdain for the ruckus that ensues. The small dogs are simply protecting their anxious owners. The owner needs to control the dog, no matter what their size.
Natali Rech, Yarralumla VAGUE EXCUSES Failure to prosecute animal cruelty ("200 overheated animals seized in Ainslie", February 11, p2) does the RSPCA's image no good, and vague excuses justifying this lack of action does not inspire confidence. Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla FREIGHT HUB UPROAR
If the freight hub proposal gets up, Canberrans will be protesting at the airport with axes and pitchforks, demanding a curfew. Juha Turunen, Queanbeyan, NSW QUESTIONABLE DEAL To Mr Barnett and the West Australian liberals, I would have said ... deals with One Nation, be careful what you wish for. Alas, too late. Linus Cole, Palmerston
TURNBULL'S TAMPA SA blackout Turnbull's Tampa. Graham Wright, Yarralumla Sell coal, burn coal, heat up the atmosphere, try to cool down, turn on the aircon, blow the big fuse, blame the windmills, burn more coal. Ed Highley, Kambah
Next week, another extraordinary fighter, Katja Iversen, the chief executive of international advocacy group Women Deliver, comes to Australia to muscle up the campaign to protect our right to choose.
The International Planned Parenthood Federation's director-general, Tewodros Melesse, arrived in Australia this week and was thrilled to see that ad. It spells out the mainstream Australian attitude to safe sex and reproductive rights. But he fears that's about to come under pressure.
The first thing he saw when he got off the plane was an advertisement for condoms. And that's really good news.
A foreign ruler is trying to tell you what you can do with your body. And he's not just trying to tell you what you can do with your body, he's putting pressure on governments to stop funding those organisations that help you make informed decisions.
Those who fight for the right to choose are banding together, asking for help and support from all of us. We all need to stand up and fight back. Not just for ourselves but for people everywhere.
Don't assume that just because you live in Australia, this insanity won't affect you. It will and the forces of coercion and control are already coming for you.
When the appalling Donald Trump reinstated what is called the global gag rule, it wasn't quite clear how far he had gone down the road of ruling our ovaries and our right to choose.
But the more distance we have from his barbaric, poorly informed executive order, the clearer it becomes. Here's a pussy-grabbing father of five with three different partners who has signed an order that says US government funding must not go to any health organisation that provides information, counselling or referrals related to abortion, even if abortion is legal in their country. This is much worse. It includes all global health aid provided by the US.
Chances are the answer will be concealed in the process that has delivered you the bargain of a dinner time.
But if the price-quality trade-off is not immediately apparent in your purchase say, the $5 takeaway pizza versus the $12 alternative then you'd have to wonder why.
Consumers usually get what they pay for. Higher prices tend to suggest better quality or reliability plus, with any luck, ingredients sourced ethically.
To that end, every day thousands of Australians eat a Domino's pizza from one of its 600-plus stores. Most of us marvel at how they can sell takeaway food so cheaply or, as disgruntled former Domino's franchisee and Iranian migrant Kamran Talebi puts it, how can we still buy pizzas at 1990s prices?
Now the answers are starting to emerge.
A six-month Fairfax Media investigation has uncovered myriad allegations of underpayment of wages; external audits commissioned by the company that allege "a strong likelihood of unlawful and fraudulent behaviour"; franchisees in distress over the business model; and claims of illegal sales of visas for up to $150,000 a pop to vulnerable migrants desperate for an employer to sponsor their application.
Domino's management, including delivery-boy-to-chief-executive-darling Don Meij, insists these allegations are isolated but being investigated. He says Domino's has systems to root out wrongdoing where it occurs and zero tolerance of wage fraud when it comes to its 14,000-odd workers.
The company said on the weekend that some disgruntled franchisees had threatened to talk to the media. Domino's told the stock exchange on Monday that the Fairfax Media reports "did not reflect the strong financial performance of its franchise network, the high ethical standards required of all employees and franchisees, or the healthy levels of collaboration between the company and franchisees".
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. I'm seeing a chilling parallel with this now with Malcolm Turnbull and his ilk denying what's in front of their eyes while our state burns and people suffer from exponentially increasing temperatures. I despair for my grandchildren. Margaret Grove Abbotsford So it's now officially confirmed: our Prime Minister actively and brazenly lies to us. Well, it worked for his predecessor John Howard (children overboard and, probably, Saddam's weapons of mass destruction), so no doubt it seems like a good idea to him and his mob. But this time the stakes are much higher: saving our world from the massive destruction that is already becoming apparent, or accelerating the process. Gabi Duigu Cammeray Many years ago Labor was regularly accused of being run by "faceless men" backroom boys, hinted to be Communist. Who are the faceless men driving the Coalition energy agenda today? From a party led by a moderate who wanted an emissions trading scheme to a party "led" by the same man today who has succeeded in making an infrastructure failure into a wholesale indictment of clean energy policy per se. What has changed in the Coalition? Who is exercising real power?
Peter Leonard Tweed Heads South What are the odds that politicians will listen to the eminently sensible call from a diverse group for a reliable, affordable and clean energy system (and an end to "partisan antics")? ("Strange bedfellows urge energy action", February 13). The Prime Minister and his ministers knew that they were completely misleading the public about the SA blackout of September 28, 2016 (and again after the more recent temporary blackout last week). The odds seem pretty long that the national interest will take precedence over petty politics and point scoring, if the recent "Pass the Coal" game in Parliament is any indication. Paul Parramore Sawtell Sydney finally breathes a sigh of relief after the hottest February day ever recorded. Not so for some parts of the state where homes are destroyed and disastrous fires are still burning. Nor is it over for Sydney with more heatwave conditions forecast for next weekend. And what of future summers? Yes, Australia's always had heatwaves, but how can anyone be complacent as they get hotter and hotter, and more frequent? The climate is changing, and I despair at the thought of how much more of this, and worse, we are laying down for our grandchildren.
Stopping coal mining and closing coal power stations alone won't reverse the trends, but the government is undeniably making things worse as it continues in its almost fetishistic love affair with coal. Instead of cruelly using the current emergency situations as opportunities to play petty politics, it's time the government recognised the opportunity it has to tackle future disasters before they happen. Let's drop the ill-founded scare tactics about "energy security", and deal with the burning issue of "climate security". Dominic Case Balmain East Young people left to despair as Turnbull wastes energy
I have young people in my family, old enough to vote, who are in absolute despair at the state of politics in this country ("Revealed: Government ignored advice on cause of blackouts", February 13). The latest musings from the federal government add to their woes. They can see the increase in extreme weather events, the need for an affordable, less polluting but consistent energy supply and are looking to their politicians to take a lead. Instead, they find their Prime Minister scoring cheap political shots, resorting to dishonesty to bolster the government's position. Maintaining coal-fired power stations may be essential during the transition to a more secure, sustainable, renewable-based energy market but "clean coal"? Apart from being an oxymoron, even the energy supply companies AGL Energy, Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia recognise coal as a legacy technology, not financially viable unless heavily subsidised, with an operational lead-in time of up to eight years and no financial viability unless operating for 30 years or more. Not surprising then that it's difficult to find investors. By exaggerating the differences between the government and Labor, seemingly solely for political gain, Malcolm Turnbull and his government have moved further from having a bipartisan approach to what is a pressing need for an affordable, environmentally sustainable, consistent energy policy. No wonder there's despair among the young. Perhaps Turnbull should ask young people what they want for their futures. I'm sure it won't be, "clean coal". Judi Rossi Earlwood
Liberals prostitute values with Hanson tie Arthur Sinodinos says that One Nation has "evolved" and is now a "more sophisticated" political movement (" 'They're more sophisticated': Libs defend One Nation deal", February 13). Pauline Hanson needs to be taken seriously, certainly, but that does not mean you have to get into bed with her. The decision by the WA Liberals to give preferences to One Nation is another indication that political survival overrules all other considerations in the Liberal Party. It is a further betrayal of the principles upon which Robert Menzies founded it. Even John Howard put Hanson last on the preference list. Rob Phillips North Epping I have decided to keep count of the number of times I hear a state or federal Coalition politician commenting on One Nation say, "Oh they're not the same outfit as they were 20 years ago".
This ridiculous assertion is being used as the first line of defence as the inevitable preference swap deals emerge. The pathetic justification for accommodating a disorganised cabal of ratbag extremists is only equalled to turning a blind eye to the egregious antics of the Q Society. Gus Plater Saratoga Chic-to-chic with Pauline? It's OK by Arthur Sinodinos. Colin Booth Narrabeen If Arthur Sinodinos thinks that evolution and sophistication consists of xenophobic policies directed towards Muslims rather than Asians, perhaps he should get out more.
John Byrne Randwick I agree the One Nation party is not the same as that of 20 years ago. Accordingly, I have discarded my 40-foot barge pole and obtained one 60-foot long. Jim Banks Pottsville Beach Time for a bill of rights George Williams has once again argued for a bill of rights to protect us against the misuse of existing draconian laws, pointing out that we are the only comparable country not to have one ('With no bill of rights, Australia is ill-prepared for a Down Under version of Trump", February 13).
In 2009 the National Human Rights Consultation chaired by Frank Brennan proposed that Parliament enact a law to protect basic human rights but it was rubbished by the politicians on the grounds that it would threaten the supremacy of Parliament and give judges too much power. In fact the proposed act, if it had been enacted, would have done no such thing as Parliament could always decline to act on a judicial ruling or amend the act. It is time to resurrect these proposals. Andrew Macintosh Cromer Earn, then spend Not content with refusing to leave home, and shamelessly sponging off their parents until they are well into their 20s or 30s, the implication in your article is that some young people (though, thankfully, not Carolynne Wawrzyniak's) believe these same parents should actually feel guilty for spending what's left of their own money on themselves ("No guilt for retirees who spend kids' kitty", February 13). There is no reasonwhy retirees shouldn't enjoy the fruits of their own labour. If anything, their endlessly demanding offspring should feel guilty for the negative impact they're having on their parents' retirement savings as well as for wanting others to fund their lifestyles. Forget trying to make others feel guilty, kids. Why not emulate your parents: work hard, save money and one day you can spend it all on yourselves, guilt-free too.
Merona Martin Meroo Meadow Other side of the coin Ross Cameron's speech was unedifying and most disappointing. But let's not forget those who oppose Christianity. Some could also be considered middle-class "bogans", Vivien Clark-Ferraino (Letters, February 13). The Australian Christian Lobby conference at the Wesley Centre in April last year was disrupted by a lecturer from the University of NSW, Simon Hunt, otherwise known as Pauline Pantsdown, who later addressed a protest group outside. Conferees were provided with lunch by organisers at the last moment, concerned for their safety because of those protesting loudly outside the centre in support of gay rights and marriage equality. They exercised their right to freedom of speech and some of their references to Christians were quite "uncivil" and even far more offensive than Cameron's ramble. Nan Howard Camden
Donald would approve As a nation we pride ourselves on our easy-going nature and casual dress. Yet it's obvious from the last couple of weeks we are far from thse ideals. Each day, during one of the hottest periods on record, I saw men in suits plus a tie looking hot, sweaty and uncomfortable because they were expected to wear this outfit when working in an office. Surely the time has arrived when we can allow men to wear something more casual, such as a pair of shorts or even a dress, seeing as women can wear pants. Con Vaitsas Ashbury It was local ingenuity It was disappointing to read Harold Mitchell's comment that the Israelis invented drip irrigation ("Australia could look to learn from Israel's successful innovations", February 10). Fergus Black, a horticultural researcher in the Victorian Department of Agriculture developed the method now called drip irrigation more than 40 years ago. He termed it "daily flow irrigation" and it later became known as "trickle irrigation" due to the fine trickle of water delivered through a micro tube to the fruit tree. Fortunately his contribution is well documented in the world's scientific literature.
However, many modern aspects of the system can be attributed to Israeli engineers and scientists Graeme Frith Gembrook (Vic) Snails took note It's true ("Snails eating the mail can be a taxing problem", February 13). My father was a practising certified accountant and tax agent. One of his clients had snails eating her mail. When leaving documents in her letterbox, dad took to attaching notes: Snails, please don't eat this mail. It's for Pat, and is very important. It seemed to help. Meredith Williams Dee Why
A clownish display Scott Morrison was close in his puerile display in parliament where he accused the opposition of "coalophobia". The word he was looking for is "coulrophobia" the fear of clowns. I suffered an unexpected bout of it myself, watching his and his colleagues' antics. Brett Jack Bonnyrigg Heights It's good to know there's at least one lump of coal that isn't harming the environment. Barry Riley Woy Woy
Pushing ever more renewable energy into the national electricity network is negligent without new investments in energy storage, Malcolm Turnbull has declared, stepping up his attack on Labor's "complacent" and "ideological" clean energy policy.
The comments came amid a deepening parliamentary furore over the extent of wind and solar power in South Australia, and any risks associated with an over-reliance to household prices and reliability of supply.
Mr Turnbull's comments also followed a call from a broad spectrum of industry, environment and welfare groups who beseeched politicians to cut the antics and seek common ground on energy policy in order to provide cost and investment certainty.
But that call had fallen on deaf ears in Canberra.
Multinational fossil fuel companies exploiting liquefied natural gas in Australia have built up a further $50 billion in tax credits over the past financial year, further delaying any meaningful royalty payments from the massive export sector.
A submission by the Australian Tax Office to Treasurer Scott Morrison's review of the petroleum resource rent tax, or PRRT, shows the LNG sector's combined tax credits, or "carry forward expenditure", grew to $238 billion in 2015-16, having climbed from $187 billion the previous year - or $138 million a day over 12 months.
Oil and gas market experts such as Monash University's Diane Kraal have previously warned that the industry's war chest of tax credits would shield companies like Chevron and Shell from contributing any PRRT "in her lifetime".
The PRRT is the only royalty-like payment that the big LNG projects like Gorgon, owned by Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil, are forced to pay for the billions of dollars in Australian gas they extract and export to Asia.
It is among the more glaring ironies that professional politicians tend to recoil in horror when accused of "playing politics".
But it's an accusation as frequently made in Canberra as it turns out to be correct.
A couple of redolent examples floated to the top of the national cesspit on Monday.
Attorney-General George Brandis noted that this was the very day he would have introduced a bill to legalise same-sex marriage, assuming a plebiscite had returned a yes verdict on Saturday February 11.
On the domestic front, watch this space on the scandal surrounding Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who is under fire for contacting the Russians about Obama's sanctions before Trump's inauguration and then lying about it. Like the proverbial bad tradesman, Trump is reportedly unhappy with numerous staff, including press secretary Sean Spicer and those who crafted his now defeated immigration ban. [Politico] US President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:Bloomberg In Australia, there's a strain of thinking that Turnbull's phone call managed to set Trump back on the straight and narrow with China and Japan. [Peter Hartcher/The Sydney Morning Herald] And while we're in this space, Kevin Rudd says Malcolm Turnbull is no "Robinson Crusoe" when it comes to standing up to tetchy US presidents. The former PM pointed to his own dealings with George W. Bush as a prior example. [My Report/Fairfax] Humming 'anything you can do..." right now...
2. Aus politics Everyone on the left needs to sit up and notice Yassim Adbel-Magied, who was the star of the ABC's Q&A last night. Her debate (at times a yelling match) with the patently anti-Muslim Senator Jacqui Lambie is one of the best fight-backs to the discriminatory views now being normalised by the far-right (and to a degree by the Liberals) that I have seen to date. Passionate but logical, this Sudanese born Australian is a lady to watch and surely has a big future in the debate in whatever forum she chooses.
And now to the ongoing furore of the WA Liberal Party's decision to aid the normalisation of One Nation, the other prominent Senate voice urging discriminatory policies against Muslims. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann. Liberal powerbroker Mathias Cormann is reported to have stepped in to aid the deal with One Nation, along with fellow right-wing conservative Michaelia Cash. Some internal opponents are now blaming the pair. [David Crowe, Rosie Lewis/The Australian] Another former PMs alert: The WA Libs are hoping John Howard will bring some razzle dazzle to their campaign. [Andrew Burrell/The Australian]
Former prime minister Bob Hawke. Credit:James Jessup Bob Hawke, a long-time supporter of Israel, has condemned Israel's expansionist policy in the West Bank and called for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to recognise Palestine. [Oped/Financial Review] The AFR has a big story former Liberal trade minister Andrew Robb has privately pushed Cabinet Minister Kelly O'Dwyer to hold a Royal Commission into the banks, backing Labor's policy. [Joanna Mather, Philip Coorey] Scott Morrison with Christian Porter and Senator Simon Brimingham. Credit:Andrew Meares Scott Morrison and Christian Porter have decided the best way of securing funding for the publicly supported National Disability Insurance Scheme is to tie funding for the NDIS to their welfare spending cuts. (Insert thinking face emoji here!) [Adam Gartrell/Fairfax]
Timely analysis from Laura Tingle on how Christian Porter and Scott Morrison, two charisma-less leadership hopefuls, lack the political touch. [Financial Review] And Scott Morrison's characteristic dismissal of calls to cooperate to reform the energy market earn him sharp criticism from Michelle Grattan, who says his approach is the sort of "arrogance that alienates voters." [The Conversation] 3. French elections Far-right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen has visited Nice and walked along the Promenade des Anglais, where she cited last year's horrific terrorist attack in accusing the government of being soft on extremism. [Sky News] The candidate in the lead, former Socialist minister now En Marche leader Emmanuel Macron, has become the victim of Russian fake news stories and hacking attacks, a sure sign of the threat he poses to Le Pen, whom Putin would favour given she supports quitting the European Union. [Sky News Britain]
There's a really fabulous profile of Macron in the New York Times. My must-read for today. [Adam Nossiter] 4. Avalanche in the Alps Staying in France and an avalanche has killed at least four people in the ski resort of Tignes. [Reuters] 5. New destruction of Palymra
Heartbreaking. Drone footage released by Russia's Defence Ministry shows Islamic State have demolished more parts of the ancient amphitheatre at Palymra. [AP] 6. Press photo of the year AP's Burhan Ozbilici has won the World Press Photo competition for this photo he took of the Russian ambassador to Turkey's assassination.
A "network of sexual perpetrators" used an Anglican church youth group to prey on young boys over a period of decades from the 1970s to the 1990s with church leaders failing to report allegations, a royal commission has found.
In a scathing assessment of Anglican authorities, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found leaders, including former Brisbane archbishop and governor-general Peter Hollingworth, failed to protect children.
The report into Anglican youth group, the Church of England Boys' Society, and the Dioceses of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Tasmania, comes a year after a public inquiry heard harrowing accounts of abuse by clergy and lay people.
The commissioners found the Church of England Boys' Society (CEBS), which still operates in parts of Australia under the name the Anglican Boys' Society and Boys' Ministry Australia, provided a number of paedophiles with easy access to children between the 1970s and 1990s.
"Love struck." "Skip a beat." "Head over heels."
These are slogans from underwear and sex-toy chain Honey Birdette's Valentine's Day sales campaign. Each is attached to an image of a woman in stylised lingerie and passively posed - the last precariously on her knees, on the verge of tipping over.
Stung into action: former Honey Birdette workers, Lee Smyth, 26, Harriet Jane, 21, and Shelley Murphy, 26, at the Valentine's Day protest. Credit:Peter Rae
Critics say the language, including the words "beat" and "struck", continues the brand's alleged dangerous and exploitative workplace practices, as new claims emerge of an ex-staffer being whipped by a customer.
On Tuesday dozens of former staff and supporters gathered at Honey Birdette's headquarters, in Sydney's Surry Hills, to present co-founder and chief executive Eloise Monaghan with a Valentine's Day "break up" letter as part of a campaign to improve the company's workplace safety.
Early Monday morning, on a property west of Scone, a wild dog that has eluded capture for six years all the while killing and maiming sheep, was shot dead.
Once the news of trapper Jonathan Randle's success in destroying the legendary dog was passed onto landholder Norm Black from"Sofia Hill', he cried tears of joy.
'He was so cunning and was always a loner never once did we see him with another dog': The wild dog known locally as Hannibal Lecter. Credit:Singleton Argus
Mr Black's life has been a constant torment since the wild dog moved onto his 2100 acre property way back in 2011.
Since his arrival Mr Black, who turns 80 next month, has witnessed the destruction of 500 of his 15 mircon, fine wool sheep, worth a conservative $50,000, not including the value of their wool.
Xie, a former ear, nose and throat specialist, maintains his innocence. He continues to be supported by his wife Kathy Lin, the sister of Min Lin.
Robert Xie is escorted to a prison truck after being found guilty of the murder of the Lin family. Credit:Michele Mossop
After four trials - two were aborted and a third hung - Xie was found guilty by a majority 11 to one last month.
There was also an alleged illicit sexual motive, the details of which cannot be reported due to statutory non-publication orders.
Min Lin's parents, Feng Qing Zhu (left) and Yang Fei Lin, outside the Supreme Court with photos of their murdered family members on Friday. Credit:Peter Rae
Justice Elizabeth Fullerton has found that each of the five Lin family murders was in the worst category of offending.
"The commission of a series of intentional and brutal killings of five members of a family, including two children, in their family home in the early hours of the morning whilst they were sleeping or on being roused from sleep, in a single episode of brutal and calculated murderous violence, is a course of offending that can only be described as heinous in the extreme," Justice Fullerton said.
The judge said she was satisfied Xie remained a danger to the community.
"The meticulous planning involved in the timing and styling of the murders, coupled with the offender's resolve to execute that plan and then to persist with the infliction of extreme violence with the intention that all occupants of the house should die, despite the active resistance offered by Terry Lin, the youngest victim, as he struggled for his life, is an ample basis upon which to make that finding."
Further, she said, life imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence because of the "far reaching and immeasurable harm done to Miss AB".
An alleged prison escapee believed she had just four months left to serve when she fled a prison farm on the Gold Coast hinterland, a court has heard.
Police were called in to search for Charlotte Bowman, 19, and Jahnessa Jerome, 24, after they allegedly fled the Numinbah Correctional Facility on Friday night.
Charlotte Bowman was found 100 kilometres from the correctional facility. Credit:Toby Crockford
Ms Bowman was located in a Redcliffe shopping centre, some 100 kilometres away, on Sunday and brought back into police custody.
Meanwhile Ms Jerome was arrested in Tweeds Heads, New South Wales at 9.30am on Monday morning. She was due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Queensland Deputy Premier Jackie Trad has emphatically declined the Archbishop of Brisbane's offer to "counsel" her and her colleagues over their views on abortion.
The government will consider legislation to decriminalise abortion in the coming months, prompting Archbishop Mark Coleridge to compare the practise to Nazi Germany, during a pro-life rally in Brisbane on the weekend.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge thinks a fixed Easter weekend is a great idea.
"I think a government that is very strongly opposed to domestic violence but strongly in favour of greater access to abortion has a kind of a contradiction at its heart," Archbishop Coleridge said.
Ms Trad has hit back, first on Facebook where she wrote that while she identifies as Catholic, she disagrees with the church's views on abortion.
A 21-year-old man accused of repeatedly raping the "vulnerable" woman he was caring for will be released on bail despite police concerns he could threaten witnesses or flee the country.
The man from Brisbane's south, who was employed as the disabled woman's carer at the time of the alleged offences, was charged on Sunday with raping the 27-year-old woman 21 times and another eight assault counts.
A man charged with raping a disabled woman 21 times has surrendered his passport. Credit:AFR
He appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday morning, where police prosecutor Sergeant Aydina Pugh alleged he had also threatened the Albany Creek woman.
The court heard details of the alleged offending only emerged when the victim went to Kenya and confided in a friend there.
Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Kate Carnell is putting a simple award for small business on her reform agenda for the year.
Ms Carnell is set to release her reform agenda on Monday and says workplace relations are due for an overhaul, but she admits reform will be "contentious".
Kate Carnell says the workplace awards system is too complex for small business. Credit:Vince Caligiuri
"I want to look at the feasibility of a small business award in workplace relations," Ms Carnell says. "I expect the unions won't be happy about that."
Ms Carnell says the system is difficult for small businesses which have to comply with the Fair Work Act and relevant workplace awards.
A 15-year-old boy has been charged after allegedly leading police on a lengthy car chase in his parent's four-wheel-drive, with four friends along for the ride.
Three teenage girls, aged 13, 14 and 15, were in the car, as well as an 11-year-old boy.
The Ford Territory, belonging to the 15-year-old boy's father. Credit:Courtesy of Seven News
The chase ended only when the teen's Ford Territory ran out of fuel.
The pursuit started in Thomastown about 3am on Monday, when police spotted the teenager's 4WD.
Ercument Turkeli had a simple explanation for why Melbourne's taxi licence holders blockaded the Bolte Bridge, and it's not about a certain rideshare app that is hurting their businesses.
They believe they are getting screwed by the government.
"The key, important point is that we are not against Uber, this is not about Uber," Mr Turkeli said.
"This is about being fair. We just want Daniel Andrews to buy fair."
Big petrol retailers are pushing the price of petrol up by communicating through prices and while this is technically legal, it should be receiving more scrutiny from regulators because it's what researchers call tacit collusion (also known as price leadership).
New analysis of retailers in Perth over a period of five years shows this inflated the price motorists are paying to fill up their tanks, and retailers are making 50% higher profit margins as a result.
New research shows Perth motorists are paying an inflated price to fill up their tanks., Credit:Eddie Jim
My research with Associate Professor Nicolas de Roos at The University of Sydney, has analysed more than 1.7 million unique petrol price data points from 771 petrol stations, examining the evolution of competitive conduct and tacit collusion over a 15-year period. We took into account the retailer's costs, including tax, to work out how much they made of this behaviour.
While we're not suggesting that the petrol retailers are engaged in explicit collusion, the findings present an urgent new challenge for policymakers and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in dealing with markets that are dominated by just a few big players among many small ones.
Jakarta: Animal welfare activists are calling for a ban on transporting dolphins by plane after filming footage that showed them being boxed into crates in a harness to take part in a travelling circus in Indonesia.
Jakarta Animal Aid Network co-founder Femke Den Haas said dolphins in these circuses usually move around the country once a month and can spend up to 40 hours travelling with only margarine or butter to keep them moist.
"They don't use any water, it's dry transport which makes it easy because it's lighter and cheaper for the company," she said.
However the Indonesian government and the company - Taman Impian Jaya Ancol - said the method of transportation met international standards.
Bombs of a different nature were on the minds of military experts in Asia and the US, after North Korea successfully launched what it say was a nuclear-capable missile over the weekend .
Greece underwent its biggest peacetime evacuation ever when about 72,000 people were forced from their homes in the city of Thessaloniki. The cause? A World War II bomb discovered below a petrol station .
The North's state-run KCNA news agency said leader Kim Jong-un supervised the test of the Pukguksong-2. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests, including two last year, although its claims to be able to miniaturise a nuclear weapon to be mounted on a missile have never been independently verified.
And the bombshells keep dropping with the Trump administration.
Most recently, the revelations that National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn had numerous conversations with Russian officials before Donald Trump became President continues to dog the White House.
In a troubling sign for Flynn, even as adviser Stephen Miller got kudos from Trump, for his claim made on Sunday talk shows that when dealing with courts on immigration "the President's powers ... are beyond question", the White House has been silent on Flynn.
For all of the drama of Trump's first weeks in office, there is a movement afoot in US Congress to invite Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to address a joint session of the House and Senate.
Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak met Mr Flynn. Credit:AP Last Wednesday, Flynn denied discussing sanctions - asked if he had ever done so, he twice said: "No." But on Thursday, Flynn backed away from that explicit answer, with a spokesman saying that while Flynn "had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn't be certain that the topic never came up". Then president-elect Donald Trump accompanied by chief of staff Reince Priebus, right, and retired general Michael Flynn in December. Credit:AP Given references in some reports to the existence of transcripts of the Flynn-Kislyak calls, the changed explanation by Flynn can be read as him belatedly realising - or perhaps having been informed - that the detail of his conversation is known in Washington because the US intelligence services were listening in - as, of course, they would be to a call when one of the parties is an ambassador whose country is about to be whacked with sanctions.
Pence, reportedly, is unhappy. Current administration officials are saying that, in explaining himself to the Vice-President before Pence defended him several times, Flynn had parsed the call as an exchange of pleasantries - Happy Christmas and all that. Ominously for the administration, the Post is reporting that the FBI is investigating Flynn's communications with the Russian, either as a stand-alone probe or as part of an ongoing, wider investigation into Russian interference in the election and/or the links between Trump's campaign and Moscow. And, while Democrats are demanding all sorts of action, including that Flynn's security pass be cancelled, Republicans are staying silent - not so much out of support for Flynn as from a belief in some quarters that Flynn was destined to self-immolate. Questions abound: Can Trump afford to retain the services of a national security adviser who "can't remember" what he discussed with the ambassador for such a key world power?
Why did Flynn repeatedly deny the substance of his call to the Russian ambassador unless he knew all along that it was inappropriate - and possibly illegal? How could Flynn not have stopped before picking up the phone to consider the likelihood that the call would be recorded by US intelligence? If no less than nine senior and current officials were willing to hang Flynn out to the Post, what sort of loyalty and respect does he command within the administration? Did Trump, as president-elect, sanction the call? If Flynn was prepared to undermine the then US president on the question of sanctions, what was the extent of his other communications with the Russian ambassador - and what was discussed?
The Trump-Flynn relationship was always going to intrigue, because national security is such a hot-button issue for Trump and because of a contradiction at the heart of a recent considered explanation by Flynn of how security policy might be conducted. On the one hand, he scoffed to The Washington Post's David Ignatius about micro-management by previous administrations, which he likened to a "5000-mile screwdriver", arguing that cabinet agencies should be allowed to do their jobs. On the other hand, he referred to Trump as the chariot driver in Ben-Hur, urging his horses forward. In January, when Iran tested a new missile, Flynn was quickly wheeled out to warn that Tehran was "on notice". But on Sunday morning, Flynn was conspicuously absent from the airwaves. Despite steady attacks and questioning, Trump has been loyal to Flynn. But much of that was based on Flynn's performance during the campaign - as a lone security establishment figure who would deign to share a stage with Trump, even leading the "lock her up!" chants, Flynn had great value. Now that Trump is in office, Flynn might well have reached his use-by date. During the campaign Trump had no hesitation in getting rid of his campaign manager Paul Manafort when awkward questions were being asked about Manafort's Moscow connections.
Another reason for Trump to rethink Flynn's tenure is last week's story of Trump calling Flynn in the middle of the night to ask if the US wanted a strong or weak dollar. Trump is furious about leaks from the administration - but surely that damaging leak had to have started with Flynn telling someone about the call from the President in the middle of the night? It's likely this thing has a way to go. The President's weekend claim that he knew nothing of The Washington Post's bombshell report from nine sources sounded disingenuous. At the same time his undertaking to "look into it" ought to cause discomfort for Flynn. Perhaps a greater warning to Flynn was the administration's failure - perhaps "refusal" is a better word - to field more talking heads for the round of Sunday morning TV talk shows. The only administration official to make an appearance was senior policy adviser Stephen Miller - and just hours after the North Korean missile test, Miller refused to say if Trump still had confidence in Flynn.
"It's not for me to tell you what's in the President's mind," Miller told NBC's Meet the Press. "That's a question for the President. Asked and answered." And asked if the White House had given him any guidance on Flynn's position, Miller said: "They did not give me anything to say." On ABC's This Week, Miller joshed: "I don't have any news to make you today [sic] on this point " But that "no news" answer is news, because the White House is not taking Flynn at his word, as Pence had. Miller was not sent out to defend Flynn, which has to be read as hesitation by Trump and others over Flynn's reliability.
Claim: Richard Gere was taken to a hospital emergency room to have a gerbil removed from his rectum. Rating: About this rating False
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The following is a true account: A 26-year-old male arrives at the ER complaining of rectal bleeding. He is too embarrassed to provide an accurate history but provides the examing doctor a clue: "There might be something stuck in my rear end." Examination reveals a non-tender abdomen, but a rectal exam shows blood coming from his anus. A speculum exam reveals bloody stool and a dead gerbil. Apparently, through the cardboard tubing from a paper towel roll, the rodent had been forced into his rectum. Once the animal was in, the tube was pulled out. The idea is that as the gerbil suffocates, it scratches and claws at the lining of the rectum, providing an intense sensation to the patient. The rodent should then have been defecated, but the swelling and bleeding had caused the retention of the animal. The patient required pain medication and antibiotics after the animal was removed, but was then allowed to go home.
Contrary to widespread public belief, "gerbil-stuffing" (i.e., placing a live gerbil or other rodent up one's rectum for sexual pleasure) is unknown as an actual sexual practice, nor are we aware of a verified medical case of a gerbil having been extracted from a patient's rectum. Despite the assiduousness with which doctors record unusual items removed from patients' rectums in order to write them up as illustrative cases, we haven't yet found a medical journal article involving a gerbil removal. (Doctors, like most people, often repeat urban legends and stories told to them by others as first-person experiences, hence our standard for declaring this true is a peer-reviewed journal article rather than anecdote.)
The notion of gerbilling (not necessarily restricted to homosexuals, as the insertion of items into the rectum for purposes of autoeroticism is practiced by heterosexuals as well) appears to be pure invention, a tale fabricated to demonstrate the depravity with which some allegedly pursue sexual pleasure. (While people do stick all sorts of unusual items up their rectums, they also do so for reasons other than sexual pleasure.)
Like similar legends such as The Promiscuous Rock Star, this tale has been applied to various public figures who are known or believed to be homosexual, and it has stuck with one in particular: Richard Gere. Although the legend homed in on various targets when it first appeared (including a Philadelphia newscaster), it has clung tenaciously to Mr. Gere's name since at least the mid-1980s. Rumors that he had an emergency "gerbilectomy" at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in California have spread far and wide, and countless doctors and nurses claim to have participated in, been on hand during, or heard from a reliable colleague about, the procedure. (Cedars-Sinai is apparently the best-staffed hospital in the world, since literally thousands of different doctors and nurses claim to have been on duty at the time Mr. Gere was allegedly brought in for treatment.)
The rumor's spread was aided by an anonymous prankster who, not long after the film Pretty Woman led to a tremendous increase in Gere's popularity, flooded fax machines in Hollywood with a phony "press release" purportedly issued by the Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, claiming that Gere had "abused" a gerbil. But, as a reporter from the National Enquirer found when he attempted to track down the gerbil story, there were no facts to be had.
Versions of the following gerbilling fiction date back at least to 1993 when a faked United Press International item appeared on the Internet, one that named Vito Bustone and Kiki Rodriguez of Lake City, Florida, as the accident victims. (The gerbil's name was withheld by request of the family.) Other versions have been falsely attributed to the Los Angeles Times with the events said to have taken place in Salt Lake City, Utah. Rest assured that neither news outlet ever published a news article about these fictitious events:
"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski, and his homosexual partner Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong. "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him." At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball." Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.
Sightings: Look for some tongue-in-cheek references to the Gere-bil in the 1996 film Scream. Also, passing mention is made to this rumor during a student bull session in 1998's Urban Legend. As well, in an episode of television's The Vicar of Dibley ("The Easter Bunny"; original air date 8 April 1996), Geraldine (Dawn French) remarks upon Richard Gere's sexiness by saying she wouldn't have minded being the hamster.
2017 Board of Directors Announced by SCSI Trade Association as it Marks its 20th Anniversary
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (Marketwired) 02/13/17 Marking a year in which it celebrates its 20th anniversary, the (STA), established to support and promote SCSI technology used in data storage interconnects, today announced its 2017 Board of Directors.
The longevity of STA is a testament to the continued innovation of SCSI technology, the foundation of todays predominant enterprise storage interface standard Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), said Rick Kutcipal, President, STA and Marketing Manager, Data Center Storage Group, Broadcom Limited. Comprised of representatives from our member companies, our board of directors all make outstanding contributions to the storage industry and will be invaluable as we support a roadmap that extends to 24Gb/s SAS and beyond.
The STAs executive officers and board of directors serve in a governance and fiduciary role by representing the interests of the organizations strategic planning and on-going operations. This translates into topnotch ideas and wisdom that turn into executable programs that benefit all STA members and the storage industry at-large.
President: Rick Kutcipal, Marketing Manager, Data Center Storage Group, Broadcom Limited
Vice President: Greg McSorley, Technical Business Development Manager, Amphenol Corporation
Secretary: Jeremiah Tussey, Sr. Product Marketing Manager (Alliances), Scalable Storage Business Unit, Microsemi Corporation
Treasurer: Chet Mercado, Technical Marketing Engineer/Third Party Alliance, Western Digital Corporation
Cameron Brett, Director Marketing, SSD and Storage Solutions, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc.
Jeff Mason, Principal R&D Engineer, TE Connectivity Ltd.
Gary McCulley, Product Line Manager, Data Center Group, Intel Corporation
Mike Miller, Executive Director, Advanced Development, Seagate Technology PLC
Jay Neer, Industry Standards Manager, Molex, LLC
Michael T. LoBue, CAE, SCSI Trade Association, Executive Director
SAS technology addresses a very large, growing market, said Jeff Janukowicz, Research Vice President, IDC. Storage companies have always been the key players in implementing SAS storage and will remain a constant force in the coming years, ensuring SAS has a long and healthy life.
Amphenol Corporation
Astek Corporation
BizLink Technology Inc.
Broadcom Limited
ConnPro Industries Inc.
Foxconn Interconnect Technology, Ltd.
Fujikura Ltd./DDK
Intel Corporation
Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
Microsemi Corporation
Molex, LLC
Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
Seagate Technology PLC
TE Connectivity Ltd.
Tektronix Inc.
Teledyne LeCroy, Inc.
Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc.
UNH-IOL (Honorary)
Western Digital Corporation
The SCSI Trade Association (STA) was established in 1996 to provide a focal point for members to communicate the benefits of SCSI to the industry. STA promotes the understanding and use of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) technology and influences the evolution of SCSI standards to meet future industry needs. The Association has a ten-member Board of Directors, which oversees the Marketing Communications and Technology Committees and all STA activities. For more information, please visit the STA web site at , send an email to or call the STA office at (415) 561-6273.
Michael LoBue
SCSI Trade Association
415-561-6273
Linda Capcara
TechTHiNQ on behalf of STA
480-229-7090
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A group of scientists has used starlight to test a feature of quantum mechanics that gave Albert Einstein the creeps.
Entanglement is what Einstein referred to as "spooky action at a distance." It's a phenomenon by which one particle can effectively "know" something about another particle instantaneously, even if those two particles are separated by a great distance. It appears to go against the idea that nothing, not even information, can travel faster than the speed of light.
Scientists who study this phenomenon want to be sure that nothing in their experimental setup is somehow creating the illusion of entanglement, perhaps via some physical mechanism or phenomenon that scientists don't yet know about. In an effort to close a possible loophole in entanglement experiments, a group of researchers used starlight as part of their experiment. The researchers say the results of their work provide further support for this "spooky" phenomenon. [Quantum Entanglement: Love on a Subatomic Scale]
Universal speed limit
If humans were to discover an intelligent species living on a planet 10 light-years away, it would take 10 years to send them a message that said "hello," and 10 more years for their reply to come back to Earth. If we discovered a civilization on an even more distant planet, it could take many human lifetimes just to start a conversation.
That's the law, according to Einstein: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so communications conducted over vast cosmic distances come with an inherent delay.
And yet, there is a feature of quantum mechanics that seems to violate that principle. Quantum mechanics is an area of physics that deals with subatomic particles. In this seriously small realm, things behave in a way that can seem totally contradictory to what we experience in the macroscopic world. One quantum phenomenon called entanglement postulates that pairs of entangled particles can effectively exchange information instantaneously. In theory, these particles could communicate instantly over vast cosmic distances.
This idea rattled Einstein; he never fully accepted it. And even today, scientists are working to make sure this strange phenomenon is real.
Entanglement
One of the more famous fables in quantum mechanics is about poor Schrodinger's cat, who got stuck in an uncertain state: the feline was neither alive nor dead until someone opened the box to find out. Uncertainty is another one of the truly freaky features of quantum mechanics. In the real world, something can either be alive or dead; in the quantum world, there's a third option in which the object's state hasn't yet been determined. To break the uncertainty, someone has to measure it (open the box) and force the object (cat) into one state (alive/dead).
Entangled particles also exist, initially, in an uncertain state. Particles can't be alive or dead, so instead think heads and tails. If you flip a coin 100 times, odds are it will come up heads close to 50 times and tails close to 50 times. If I then flip my own coin 100 times, there's a high probability the split will also be close to 50/50. But if our coins are entangled, then the outcome of your flip determines the outcome of my flip perhaps our entanglement is such that every time you flip heads I flip tails. If we flip our coins enough times, our entanglement will begin to become obvious, because my outcome of my flip is no longer random, but determined by your flip, and the odds of my flipping tails every time you flip heads get lower and lower the more we flip.
That's sort of how scientists can measure entanglement. Instead of flipping a pair of coins over and over again, researchers measure the properties in many, many of pairs of entangled particles (entanglement can only be measured in a pair of particles once). But the scientists have to be sure that what they're seeing isn't just random chance.
A statement from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) poses the question, "What if there were some other factors or hidden variables correlated with the experimental setup, making the results appear to be quantumly entangled, when in fact they were the result of some nonquantum mechanism?"
In other words, how can scientists be sure there's not some unseen factor affecting their experiments, and making it seem as though the examined particles are entangled, when in fact they are not?
A physicist named John Bell showed that if entanglement exists, then there must be a minimum degree of correlation between entangled particles when scientists measure them; this is known as Bell's inequality or Bell's theorem.
In some entanglement experiments, the detector measures a property of light particles called polarity; the detector must be oriented in one of two directions, and only photons polarized in the same direction (one of two possibilities) can pass through. In order to make sure that the detector is not somehow influenced by one of those mysterious forces that could corrupt the experiment, researchers will use random-number generators to determine the direction of the detector.
That random choice is made "in the split second between when the photon leaves the source and arrives at the detector," according to the MIT statement. "But there is a chance, however slight, that hidden variables, or nonquantum influences, may affect a random number generator before it relays its split-second decision to the photon detector, the statement said.
This particular "loophole" in an experiment testing Bell's inequality is known as the "freedom-of-choice loophole." In 2014, a couple of scientists got together and came up with a new idea for how to avoid those possible influences, using starlight as the thing that randomly determines the direction of the detector. Now, those researchers have put their idea to the test. [How Quantum Entanglement Works (Infographic)]
"At the heart of quantum entanglement is the high degree of correlations in the outcomes of measurements on these pairs [of particles]," David Kaiser, professor of physics at MIT and co-author on the study, said in the statement. "But what if a skeptic or critic insisted these correlations weren't due to these particles acting in a fully quantum mechanical way? We want to address whether there is any other way that those correlations could have snuck in without our having noticed."
Measuring starlight
Every photon of starlight that reaches a telescope has a particular wavelength. In the new study, which was conducted in Vienna, Austria, the researchers set up a couple of telescopes and started collecting photons (the telescopes and detectors were placed on rooftops at the university, as well as the roof of the Austrian National Bank). They selected a reference wavelength, and each photon that hit the telescope would either have a longer or shorter wavelength than that reference point. A photon with a longer wavelength switched the detector to one orientation, and a shorter wavelength switched it to the other orientation.
"With bright stars like these, the number of photons coming in can be like a firehose," Andrew Friedman, an MIT research associate and co-author on the new study, said in the statement. "So we have these very fast detectors that can register detections of cosmic photons on subnanosecond timescales."
The researchers measured about 100,000 pairs of entangled photons with this method, and their results suggested that the particles were truly entangled.
The most distant stars used in the experiment are about 600 light-years away, which means the photons were emitted 600 years ago. If those photons were somehow tied to the state of the entangled photons, that connection would have to have been established 600 years ago, according to the statement.
"This experiment pushes back the latest time at which the conspiracy could have started," Alan Guth, a professor of physics at MIT and another co-author on the new study, said in the statement. "We're saying, in order for some crazy mechanism to simulate quantum mechanics in our experiment, that mechanism had to have been in place 600 years ago to plan for our doing the experiment here today, and to have sent photons of just the right messages to end up reproducing the results of quantum mechanics. So it's very far-fetched."
The study doesn't fully eliminate the possibility of some mysterious force acting on the experiment, but it certainly puts tighter restrictions on how and when such a thing could happen.
"The real estate left over for the skeptics of quantum mechanics has shrunk considerably," Kaiser said. "We haven't gotten rid of it, but we've shrunk it down by 16 orders of magnitude."
Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida seen in November 2015 as it was undergoing modifications to adapt it to the needs of SpaceX's Falcon rockets.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket briefly fired its engines in a pre-flight test on Sunday (Feb. 12), marking the return to use for a NASA launch pad where astronauts historically lifted off for the moon and later leapt into Earth orbit on the space shuttle.
The three-second static fire on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida was the culmination of a practice countdown executed by SpaceX to verify that both its rocket and the modified pad were ready for launch. The company's maiden mission from the historic NASA site will see the Falcon 9 launch with a Dragon cargo spacecraft to deliver supplies and science equipment to the International Space Station.
"First static fire test of Falcon 9 at historic launch complex 39A completed in advance of Dragon's upcoming mission to the space station," SpaceX wrote on Twitter Sunday. [SpaceX's Rockets and Spaceships in Pictures]
"This is the same launch pad used by the Saturn V rocket that first took people to the moon in 1969," wrote SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk, captioning a photo of the rocket standing on the pad that he posted to Instagram on Friday. "We are honored to be allowed to use it."
The launch complex was first built in the 1960s to support the massive Saturn V, before it was modified to launch the shuttle. The pad has to date hosted 94 launches, including 12 Saturn V rockets and 82 shuttles.
In addition to Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to orbit the moon in 1968, as mentioned by Musk, 39A also served as the departure point for Apollo 11, the first moon landing in 1969; Skylab, the first United States space station in 1973; and the first flight of the space shuttle, STS-1, in 1981.
NASA's last launch from Pad 39A was for the final mission of the space shuttle, STS-135, on July 8, 2011.
SpaceX signed a 20-year lease with NASA for the use of Pad 39A in 2014 and since then has been modifying it to be compatible with its rockets. The Hawthorne, California-based company made structural improvements to the fixed service tower that supported the space shuttle, added new propellant, data and power lines, modified the flame trench and installed new "rainbirds" to deluge the pad with water to combat acoustic damage at liftoff.
Prior to SpaceX's Falcon 9 arriving on the pad, the Apollo 4 Saturn V liftoff (left) and STS-135 space shuttle launch were the first and last to leave Pad 39A in 1967 and 2011, respectively. (Image credit: NASA/collectSPACE.com)
SpaceX also erected a horizontal integration hangar at the base of the pad to process its rockets and designed a new transporter erector launcher (TEL) to move the boosters to the launch platform and stand them vertical for flight. Plans are also in place to remove the shuttle-era rotating service structure, though it was not necessary to complete prior to beginning use of the pad.
The company accelerated its preparation of Pad 39A after a Falcon 9 exploded in September 2016 in the lead up to a static fire at the nearby Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. That pad, now out of service, is currently being repaired with work expected to be complete later this spring, at earliest.
In addition to using Pad 39A to support its space station cargo missions, SpaceX also intends to use the complex to launch astronauts on its Crew Dragon spacecraft to the orbiting outpost beginning as soon as 2018, and support flights of its Falcon Heavy rocket, slated for later this year.
SpaceX's first launch from the pad will be the company's 10th under a commercial resupply services (CRS) contract with NASA.
In addition to crew supplies and equipment, the CRS-10 Dragon spacecraft will bring to the space station several science investigations, including 20 live mice for studies on what prevents vertebrates from regrowing bone and tissue; two Earth science payloads; an autonomous rendezvous technology demo; and an experiment supporting antibiotic drug development.
SpaceX now operates three launch pads and is a building a fourth. In addition to the two in Florida Pad 39A and the under repair LC-40 and one in southern California, Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, the company is also in the early stages of building a new launch pad in Brownsville, Texas.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
North Korea has always talked the talk, and now it seems to be walking the walk as never before.
The nuclear-armed rogue nation appears to be making progress on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which could conceivably allow the Hermit Kingdom to make good on its oft-repeated threat to turn major American cities into "seas of fire," experts say.
"They've probably reached the point where they're going to need to start testing the missiles themselves the whole system," said Joel Wit, senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute (USKI) at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "Most people think that could come sometime this year." [Images: North Korea's Rocket Program]
Last year's successful test-launch of a missile from a submarine suggests that a mobile-strike capability may be within North Korea's grasp soon as well, analysts have said.
North Korean rocket and missile tech: A brief history
The North Korean missile program got its start with the importation of Soviet Scuds, which made their way into the nation in the 1970s. North Korea reworked Scud technology into a number of variants over the years, apparently with the help of Soviet engineers (many of whom fled the USSR after its 1991 collapse).
These versions include the Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6, which are thought to have a range of a few hundred miles, and the Nodong, which experts believe can reach targets 620 miles to 800 miles (1,000 to 1,300 kilometers) away. (It's hard to know anything for sure about North Korea's missiles and rockets, because the nation's government is extremely secretive and works to keep much information from getting to the outside world.)
North Korea has also developed longer-range missiles, including the Taepodong-1, Musudan and Taepodong-2, which have estimated maximum ranges of about 1,500 miles (2,500 km), 2,000 miles (3,200 km) and 3,000 miles to 5,400 miles (5,000 to 9,000 km), respectively.
Taepodong-1 has just one known flight under its belt. In April 1998, a modified space-launch configuration of the vehicle lifted off with a small satellite onboard; Western observers concluded that the launch failed.
The Taepodong-2 failed during a 2006 test flight, its only known liftoff. However, North Korea modified the missile into the Unha space launcher, which lofted satellites to orbit in December 2012 and February 2016.
The Musudan has seen a lot more action. North Korea apparently tested the medium-range missile seven times last year, with just one success, said physicist and missile-technology expert David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program.
Such flights flout United Nations resolutions, which prohibit North Korea from testing missiles and nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has also conducted five known nuclear tests, with the latest one coming in September 2016. [North Korea Looks Strangely Dark From Space In Asia Fly-Over (Video)]
Working on an ICBM
North Korea could conceivably combine several of these existing vehicles to build an ICBM, topping an Unha first stage with a second stage based on the Musudan and adding a third stage of some sort, Wright said. But there's no evidence that the nation is actually doing that, he added.
"North Korea is probably reluctant to turn the Unha into a ballistic missile, because I think they want something that really is a civil space-launch program that they can point to and say, 'This is what countries do. We're launching satellites; it's not a threat,'" Wright told Space.com. "So my guess is, they won't go that route."
The route that Pyongyang appears to be taking instead, experts say, centers on a missile called the KN-08, a likely Russian-derived vehicle that Western observers first spotted in North Korean military parades about five years ago.
"It is much better suited as a militarily effective ICBM than the Unha is," Brian Weeden, a technical adviser for the nonprofit Secure World Foundation, told Space.com. He noted, for example, that the KN-08 can be launched from a truck, whereas the Unha requires a stationary facility.
Work on the KN-08 has apparently been proceeding apace. For instance, in April 2016, Pyongyang ground-tested a large, liquid-fueled engine that could power the putative ICBM and/or a more muscular variant known as the KN-14.
"Using this technology, North Korea's road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the KN-08 or the KN-14 modification, could deliver a nuclear warhead to targets at a distance of 10,000 to 13,000 kilometers [6,200 to 8,000 miles]," aerospace engineer and rocket-propulsion expert John Schilling wrote on 38North.org, a North Korea analysis site, shortly after the test.
"That range, greater than had previously been expected, could allow Pyongyang to reach targets on the U.S. East Coast, including New York or Washington, D.C.," he added.
And North Korea has also been working on a re-entry vehicle, which would protect the warhead during the ICBM's return to Earth's atmosphere from suborbital space. Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held an event during which he stood next to a re-entry vehicle, said Wit, who is also the co-founder of 38 North (a USKI program).
"I think you can be almost 100 percent certain that they've done [re-entry vehicle] tests on the ground," Wit told Space.com.
During a speech on New Year's Day, Kim announced that Pyongyang was in final preparations to test-launch its ICBM. Wit said such a flight could come soon possibly as early as next month, when the U.S. and South Korea hold their annual joint military exercises.
"That could trigger a North Korean response," Wit said.
If ICBM testing does indeed start this year, the missiles could potentially be ready for deployment by late 2019, he added.
Pyongyang also conducted a successful test launch from a submarine in August 2016, sending one of its KN-11 (also known as Pukguksong-2) missiles about 300 miles (500 km) toward Japan. Developing this technology to the fullest extent would make North Korea more dangerous and capable, Wright said.
"That's another thing that people are watching this combination of a missile and a submarine," he said. [North Korea's Rockets and Missiles: 5 Interesting Facts]
The missile that North Korea fired on Sunday (Feb. 12), which traveled 300 miles (500 km) before splashing down in the Sea of Japan, was a land-based version of the KN-11, according to the North Korean news service.
See more
Don't panic
North Korea is famously unpredictable, secretive and prone to outbursts of grandiose and threatening rhetoric; Kim and other officials have repeatedly vowed to wipe out South Korea, Japan and the United States, for example.
But Pyongyang's development of a functional ICBM, if and when that does indeed happen, shouldn't incite panic across the United States, experts said. After all, North Korea has been capable of hitting South Korea and Japan for a while but has yet to do so probably because the nation knows that such an unprovoked strike would be suicidal, drawing a devastating response from the U.S.
And the Kim regime is not suicidal; rather, it appears focused primarily on strengthening and perpetuating its rule, Weeden said.
"It's very clear that they want to send a signal to the West that they can't be messed with," he said. "There's a rationality there."
There are other reasons to doubt that North Korea will launch a nuclear ICBM attack on the U.S. anytime soon.
For example, Pyongyang is thought to possess just a handful of nuclear weapons. A 2015 SAIS report co-authored by Wit pegged the nation's stockpile at 10 to 16 nukes. By 2020, this number could grow to 20 in a "best-case scenario," and to 100 in a "worst-case scenario," the report predicted.
Each warhead is therefore quite valuable to North Korea, Wright said meaning the nation probably won't use its nukes lightly.
"It might be the kind of thing you would like to have in your back pocket, to make people think, 'Well, gee, maybe in a bad situation, they might try a Hail Mary pass and see whether it works,'" Wright said. "But it's not the sort of thing that you're going to be able to rely on other than that."
That's not to suggest that North Korea is all bluster, however.
"I think the best bet is that they would use nuclear weapons if they felt the regime was threatened in a serious way," Wit said. "Of course, the main way that might happen is if there's a war on the Korean Peninsula, and U.S. and South Korean troops are moving north."
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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It sounds preposterous, but it is frighteningly close to the reality that was unveiled by the Guardian on Friday. Together, the GCHQ and NSA monitor Internet traffic by tapping directly into the data stream sent through fiber-optic cables. They are able to copy and cache this data, to be sifted through later as needed.
Those behind this disgraceful program have not even bothered to deny what they are up to. The British spy agency has said it will not be commenting on the program -- but said that whatever they do is in the service of the fight against terrorism and subject to strict legal controls. The NSA has been making this same argument since the Prism program was unveiled earlier this month. What we're doing, they say, is for a good cause. It's all regulated, and we're only looking at the information collected when we deem it necessary.
Chahid El Hafed (Saharawi refugee camps), February 12, 2017 (SPS) -The President of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), Brahim Gali, today received from the representative of the SADR in the Argentine Republic , Mohamed Salem Bachir, the book "Western Sahara. The Forgotten Conflict, "the first work of its kind to be published in Argentine territory, whose author is the lawyer and master in National Defense, Jorge Alejandro Suarez Saponaro.
The work was edited by the Argentine Army University Editorial (EUDE) and it emphasizes that it "accurately describes a reality that deserves attention of the international community".
It should be noted that the author is a guest lecturer of the Free Lecture Series on Western Sahara - unique in the world - of the Institute of International Relations, National University of La Plata (IRI-UNLP).
The book can be purchased at EUDE by requesting it at Av Cabildo 65 (CABA), by phone + 54-11-4576-5651 or by e-mail at [email protected].
You can also request via Distal Books online. SPS
125/090/TRA
Hywel Evans of Morgan Evans & Co Ltd, on the Isle of Anglesey, was awarded the LAA Gavel for the top graduating student, while Harvey Pile of Stags, in Devon, collected the Golden Gavel Dick Harrison Trust award as the top first year student, for the Livestock Market Operations and Management course run by Harper Adams University.
Hywel was joined by six other graduating students who also received their fellowships for the LAA or IAAS respectively during the ceremony, the culmination of four years study while in full-time employment as trainee auctioneers. The course aims to provide the bedrock of knowledge and skills needed by anybody aspiring to be competent in livestock auction practice.
Operating from Gaerwen Auction Centre for Morgan Evans & Co Ltd, Hywel has followed a passion for the livestock auction marketing system, developed since childhood. Hywels uncles still farm cattle and sheep at the Caernarfonshire farm that his father was brought up on, and regular visits to the local auction mart were a feature as he grew up.
In the process of applying for roles in the livestock auction industry, after graduating from Cardiff University with a business degree, I became aware of the Harper Adams course, explains Hywel.
When I was offered the role at Morgan Evans, I suggested undertaking the course to my employers, and they saw the mutual benefit for both the company and my own development.
The course and content is really good, but equally important are the contacts you make across the industry and country. You can share work-based experiences and develop relationships that will hopefully serve you well into the future, continues Hywel.
Equally this is something I take into my role at Morgan Evans. I am not from Anglesey, and initially knew very few of the farmers in our large catchment area. I have worked hard to develop bonds with our customers, both vendors and buyers alike.
The highly anticipated Metallica and Lady Gaga Grammy performance opened with an awkward staged mosh-pit, with Gaga emerging from the crowd of "moshing" backup dancers, and it just didn't get any better from there.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield's microphone wasn't working, but Lady Gaga didn't seem to notice at first. For a few painful verses, Hetfield sang into a dead mic until having to saunter over to share Gaga's while his mic was being tended to by the show's crew.
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Two years after Connecticut lawmakers voted to keep jobs and gambling cash in the state by approving a third Native American tribal casino, this one for the Hartford area, the proposal is languishing in federal court and local governments.
At the same time, the $900 million MGM Resort in Springfield, Mass., is well under construction, on track to lure away business from the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in eastern Connecticut, where revenue has been steadily falling over the last 10 years.
So if less money is being wagered, why does Connecticut need another casino? Thats what some lawmakers and activists are asking, as the state ponders its next move. Others want to do whatever it takes to accommodate a casino expansion to protect jobs and staunch the hemorrhage of Connecticut gambling dollars heading to Springfield.
Bridgeport representatives, recalling the 1995 Senate vote that rejected a casino proposal for their city, still want southwestern Connecticut to be considered as part of an imminent gambling expansion.
State Reps. Ezequiel Santiago and Chris Rosario, Bridgeport Democrats, have introduced legislation that would allow new gambling locations throughout the state, along with competitive licensing processes and a tax of 25 percent on gross revenue from slot machines and table games.
The Shoreline Star (pari-mutuel wagering facility) is zoned, has parking for ample growth and it can be linked to the development under way nearby, Santiago said. It would be beneficial for the Shoreline to team up with the tribes with slot machines, but we are not even given that opportunity.
More Information Declining slots The state's share of casino slot machine revenue over the past decade. See More Collapse
The Indian casinos have a monopoly on the gaming industry, Santiago said. Shoreline is a pari-mutuel that suffered because the tribes got the gaming in the first place. Shoreline Star pays taxes. They hire people, but theyre not getting a seat at the table.
State Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, said, I would not be opposed to slots down at the Shoreline Star, as long as there is local support and a local revenue stream, with a municipal benefit for being a host site.
Its about jobs
State Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, a new co-chairman of the Public Safety and Security Committee, which has oversight on gambling, said he is planning an informational meeting to get the views of a variety of interests out into the open.
First and foremost, I think that we need to have an open and transparent process, Verrengia said in an interview. He also wants to know what effect a third casino, off the tribal reservations, might have on the deal called a compact that then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker signed with the Native Americans a quarter century ago, conceding their exclusivity in exchange for 25 percent of all slot machine wagers.
I think thats a key piece of this, before anyone can make an educated decision on whether or not they explore the expansion of gaming, Verrengia said, stressing that the Kent-based Schaghticoke Tribe, which is still pursuing federal recognition, could demand consideration if the so-called satellite casino gets sited in northern Connecticut.
Theres definitely the possibility of a domino effect, and if we submitted a bill that opened it to everyone, there could be the fallout, Verrengia said. I think we hear over and over again from the tribal leaders, its about jobs. Yeah, it is. There is a job piece. There is also an economic-development piece to this.
And whether youre talking about East Hartford, East Windsor or a tobacco field, I think there is more in the decision-making process than just looking at gaming or just looking at particular jobs. Lets look at how it may impact the areas economic activity.
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen met Friday with Verrengia and other members of the committee to offer an overview, and my office has been in communication with legislative leadership, the administration and the stakeholders about this issue, he said afterward.
We stand ready to provide legal guidance as appropriate and when requested, Jepsen said.
The attorney general has been battling MGM in court since 2015, when the multinational corporation, with resorts as far-flung as Macau and mainland China, claimed its rights were violated by the law passed to allow a new casino.
The District Court agreed that the state has not at least to this point, in light of the limited nature of the special act infringed on MGMs rights and granted our motion to dismiss MGMs lawsuit, and MGM has appealed that decision, Jepsen said. The appeal has been argued, and we currently await the Second Circuits decision.
Opposition
State Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, is part of a new group, including religious organizations and people with gambling addictions, against any gaming expansion.
During a recent news conference with other opponents, he said while the tribes have been promoting the potential jobs and economic benefits of another casino, the industry is well past its prime.
We may be looking at an industry that is at a saturation point, Hwang said. The real concern is, are we looking at a proper economic benefit? Are we opening up a Pandoras box of our constitutional equal protection, in which we are, in essence, allowing a monopoly who control gambling in our states, in exchange for our tribal compact?
Weve not yet done a very good job in the Connecticut General Assembly to understand the full impact and really create the resources to allocate against the plight and devastation of gambling addiction, he said.
Michele Mudrick, legislative advocate for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, one of the 12 groups that in the Coalition Against Casino Expansion, said they want voters throughout the state to be given a chance to decide the issue.
Bob Steele, of Vernon, a former Republican congressman, said gambling addictions are wrecking the lives of many people, including a church treasurer who gambled away an endowment funded by years of bake sales and craft fairs.
The house always wins, he said. The Legislature should require a statewide referendum on any expansion.
However, there is no such statewide approval process in Connecticut law.
State Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, a co-chairman of the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee, said does not favor an expansion.
I think theyre going to have a really tough time finding a place to put it where everybody is amenable to it, Frantz said in a recent interview. I think there are a lot of people who oppose gambling. I dont think were doing much for our state or citizens if we put up another casino.
All I know is, we had much higher expectations of the existing casinos than was feasible, Frantz said. We became very quickly addicted to the revenue stream of the existing two casinos, and now theyre underperforming and the state is hurting.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy admits additional revenue is not the best reason to consider a new gambling location.
I think what the Indian tribal nations within Connecticut are saying is that our market is under assault and we need help in defending that market. Ultimately, that is a question for the Legislature, Malloy said.
I talian state rail operator Trenitalia received the keys to the c2c train franchise earlier, as a Standard investigation showed foreign governments, including the French, German and Dutch states, are pocketing almost 90 million a year in dividends for running UK railways.
As commuters stump up for new-year price rises that make Britains the highest rail fares in Europe, overseas taxpayers are receiving millions in pay-outs from train companies which make their profits from UK passengers.
Govia, the owner of misery line Southern Rail, as well as London Midlands and Southeastern, took dividends of 65 million from its UK rail operations, according to government figures quietly published last year. Just over a third of those, almost 23 million, went to French investor Keolis, which is majority-owned by state rail firm SNCF.
Abellio, which is owned by Hollands state railway operator, pocketed payments of 36 million from running the Greater Anglia and ScotRail franchises between 2014-15, and German state-owned Arriva, whose investments include the London Overground, Chiltern and Cross Country lines, collected almost 31 million of dividends over the same period.
Fenchurch Streets c2c service to Essex was sold last month by Britains National Express to Trenitalia which today began running the trains after the 72 million sale. The deal means 20 out of 28 privatised rail franchises now have state backers.
State investors from Hong Kong, which has a stake in Crossrail and, until recently, London Overground and Qatar, which part-owns Heathrow Express, also have interests in UK rail.
Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald condemned the bizarre structure of our system that means the only nation state on the planet that cant be involved in running British railways is our own.
He added: Millions of pounds are leaking out of the system to support state-owned railways elsewhere. That money should be available to improve services and cut fares.
Of Keolis stake in Govia, he added: It is helping to run the worst service in the UK even before the strikes yet it wants to take critical people off the trains to make even more profit.
A spokesman for train union Aslef said: The system, which palpably isnt working, is haemorrhaging money which could otherwise be used to bring down fares or invest in infrastructure. When the East Coast was in public hands it returned 1 billion to the Treasury.
A s Fidessa suggested opportunities were returning to the stock market, investors decided the opportunity of the day was to buy into the trading software firm after its annual results.
Revenues surged 12% to 332 million last year thanks to the Brexit-induced fall from the pound. They were up 3% on an underlying basis.
The sterling slump also boosted pre-tax profits by 25% to 49 million. They only rose 1% once currency movements were stripped out.
Although it is clear that both the Brexit vote and the result of the US election will create some uncertainty, we believe that we are entering a period where opportunity is returning to the market, chief executive Chris Aspinwall said.
Sniffing out a bargain, investors sent the shares up 84p, or 3.5%, to 2484p.
Fidessa was among the winners on the FTSE 250 as the mid-cap index broke records, up 30.78 points to 18,746.14.
Gains were more muted on the top flight as the FTSE 100 advanced 5.17 points to 7263.92, with heavyweight miners littering the top of the index for another day.
The latest mining sector surge came as US giant Freeport McMoRan said it had stopped producing copper concentrate at Grasberg, the worlds second-biggest copper mine, after Indonesia banned exports.
A potential copper shortage, on top of the strikes at BHP Billitons Escondida, the worlds largest copper mine, sent Antofagasta up 15p to 881p.
Investors piled into Associated British Foods, up 34p at 2534p, after Morgan Stanley raised its rating to overweight and said Primark, its prized asset, could grow profits by more than 40% next year.
That will happen if the discount clothes retailer hikes prices to compensate for a fall in margins as a result of Brexit, which Morgan Stanley analysts think will happen in due course.
Primark remains an excellent long-term international growth story and its margin problems are temporary, the investment bank argued.
Troubled defence firm Chemring was bolstered by a contract with the US Army for 10 of its bomb-detection systems. The shares rose 2p to 193p.
Away from the main market, back-office software firm EG Solutions jumped 10.3p, or 25%, to 51.3p after reporting strong trading in the past six months and a new utilities deal.
A t a time when we are facing an unprecedented refugee crisis, the UK should be fulfilling its role as one of the worlds richest countries by committing to accepting more refugees.
The Government is rightly helping much poorer countries that are sheltering people forced to flee from their homes due to terrible violence. But that doesnt mean we can neglect to house our fair share of refugees.
The evidence suggests failing to offer legal routes to safe havens leaves children at risk of falling into organised crime, while adult women are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. The Government should reinstate the Dubs scheme and continue to welcome lone child refugees to the UK.
Many unaccompanied children that flee war zones are trying to join family members that already live here. An improved system of family reunion would spare these children dangerous and traumatic journeys.
Maya Mailer, head of humanitarian policy and campaigns, Oxfam
T ree-top adventure company Go Ape is opening its second central London site set within the grounds of Grade II listed Alexandra Palace.
Two high rope courses, one for adults and one for children, will open next to the boating lake of the 196-acre park in north London this year.
Organisers promise spectacular views of Canary Wharf, St Pauls Cathedral and The Shard from the highest points of them.
The firm begun in 2002 by Tristram Mayhew and his wife Rebecca, both 48 is to open its Tree Top Junior course for children on March 18.
It will be built in disused woodland against the wall of the boating lakes water dam and be 25ft off the ground at its highest point.
Children over the height of 3ft 3in can try the course, which includes a 55-yard zip wire at the end.
A second, more extreme, course for anyone over 10 years and a minimum height of 4ft 7in will open by the summer, with at least three zip wires and a 15-yard free-fall drop where adventurers will plunge towards the woodland floor, stopping just in time.
Mr Mayhew, an ex-tank commander with the Royal Dragoon Guards, told the Standard the drop was a first of its kind for Go Ape in the UK.
The firms first course for central London opened a year ago in Battersea Park. Other sites are at Black Park in west London, Chessington in Surrey and Trent Park near Cockfosters.
When the new site was given planning permission by Haringey council last year, some locals objected over fears it would disturb wildlife and put peoples privacy at risk.
Height of fun: The Standard's Lizzie Edmonds tries out the zipwire / Alex Lentati
But Mr Mayhew insisted the firm had been working with those concerned to make a site that, as far as he was concerned, everyone is now happy with. He added: A group of people were understandably concerned with the plans when they came out.
But we have listened, addressed those points and made changes, so now I think everyone is happy.
He said the new site was different to existing ones, adding: Battersea is built over a playground, so there was that element.
This one is much more rural, in the trees, and there is more of an element of exploration to it. It will also be much bigger, with more zip lines. Each of our sites is different, which is exciting.
Louise Stewart, the chief executive of Alexandra Park and Palace, said: Were delighted to welcome Go Ape. The tree-top courses add another dimension to the variety of activities and events we already offer.
The Friends of Alexandra Park neighbourhood group said of the Go Ape plans: It is a pity that the peace and quiet of the upper field is lost, but there was a lot of support for a Go Ape course from families who use the park, so on balance we are supportive.
W hether youre spending this Valentines Day alone, or youre simply allergic to all things soppy, weve selected Londons best anti-romance refuges. Heres where to go and what to do this February 14.
Being single can get a pretty bad rap - sad songs have been sung about it, books have been written about it and whole industries are devoted to helping people stop being it.
With Valentines Day looming, awkward questions about your relationship status and plans for the evening await. And if that wasnt bad enough theres a whole host of special events taking place in the capital to help Londoners who are lucky in love celebrate.
But that doesnt mean the dreaded V-Day has to be one to forget if Cupids arrow missed its mark this year. There are plenty of options for those who fancy toasting their single status, or even those in a relationship whod prefer to demonstrate affection on their own non-pink-and-red-tinged, love-heart-smattered terms.
Heres our pick of the best singles-friendly hangouts, romance-free restaurants and anti-Valentines Day events.
Where to eat
Lets not pretend that finding a decent restaurant where you wont be surrounded by couples more interested in chewing each others faces off than tucking into anything on the table is going to be easy on Valentines Day. But a little tactical thinking should mean you can sample some of Londons most delicious dishes, PDA-free. The key is to think anti-romance - establish what would make for the most disappointing date and head straight there.
Standing in a queue, for example, is hardly going to warm anyones heart, so buzzy bars and restaurants are good places to go, especially if theyre newly launched. Try Barbary, Barrafina, Bao or Padella (although proceed with caution as the latters plates of pasta could see you caught in the middle of someone elses Lady and the Tramp moment).
If romantic meals are all white tablecloths and soft seating, anywhere with counters or stools should be a safe bet. Try Spuntino, Koya Bar, Counter Culture or Kiln.
Dirty Burger: Get dirty to avoid the daters / Press image
That also goes for food thats almost impossible to eat elegantly. Pizzas, burgers, burritos and fried chicken are notoriously messy, because nothing says kiss me like a string of mozzarella trailing from the corner of your mouth. Head to Pizza Pilgrims, Dirty Burger or Billy and the Chicks for reassuringly untidy dining.
Some restaurants are going one step further to welcome the lonely this Valentines Day - so devoted is Bens Canteen to supporting singletons that the venue is offering a free Bitter Berry Martini for anyone who turns up with an item of their ex-partners clothing.
Where to have fun with your friends
There are some trusty London venues that can always be relied upon as singles-safe spaces. Gather up all your unlucky in love or V-Day loathing friends and belt out your favourite power ballads in one of Rowans private karaoke booths in Finsbury Park or challenge them to a mini motor race at Four Thieves in Clapham.
If youve been the victim of recent heartbreak, and feel nothing but fury this February 14, why not channel some of that rage with a spot of axe-throwing? Whether you decide to picture your exs face as the target is totally up to you (but we hear it can really focus your aim).
Anti-Valentines Day events
While it might feel like the coupital rather than the capital on the 14, there are London locations that are doing their best to spread love to singles and romanceaphobes alike. If youre in need of a real treat, the Courthouse Hotel is hosting a luxury anti-Valentines evening with a screening of Breakfast at Tiffanys in its private cinema. The ticket price includes new Ball and Chain cocktail blended especially for the occasion, ice cream and popcorn.
Meanwhile singles who shimmy on over to Boondocks Cinema Club can enjoy a special showing of Magic Mike. Tickets include a glass of prosecco, popcorn, mac n cheese, unlimited hot dogs, and unlimited hot guys (on screen only).
50 free things to do in London 1 /66 50 free things to do in London A Cockroach Tour at the Science Museum Get a bug's eye view of the human race with the Science Museum's Cockroach Tour. Step into their shells (literally) and explore how science and technology are influencing our climate. Every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm and 4pm.
sciencemuseum.org.uk Columbia Road Flower Market Come rain or shine, this East End institution peddles its colourful flora every Sunday from 8am-3ish. You'll get the best bargains as it starts to warm down. Check out the adjacent galleries, coffee shops and boutiques which open up at the weekend too. columbiaroad.info Getty Climb up Big Ben Did you know you can wear yourself out climbing up all 334 steps of Big Ben to hear the Great Bell chime the hour up-close? As well as taking in stunning views across London, you can also explore behind the clock faces. Guided tours only at 9am, 11am and 2pm every Monday-Friday. Book ahead.
parliament.uk Getty In-store gigs at Rough Trade East Brick Lane's independent record shop hosts regular free gigs from the likes of Kendrick Lamar (pictured), Gabrielle Aplin and Foals. Wristbands are given out one hour before kick-off.
roughtrade.com Getty Kerb Street Food Markets Making cities taste better one street food market at a time, Kerb are the ultimate foodie guerillas. Find them at King's Cross (Tuesday-Friday), the Gherkin (Thursday) & UCL (last Wednesday of every month). Feast with London's best traders including Mother Flipper burgers and the Meringue Girls (pictured).
kerbfood.com (Picture: David Loftus) Hackney City Farm Give your kids a dose of the countryside in the concrete jungle at one of London's city farms. Our favourite is Hackney City Farm, which is packed with donkeys, pigs and chickens. Open from 10am4.30pm every day except Monday.
hackneycityfarm.co.uk Play table tennis at PING Tables at Earl's Court hangout PING are free on a first come, first served basis. Don't miss tournament Tuesday. Games of Beer Pong are positively encouraged.
weloveping.com Alfie's Antiques Market A hidden gem full of gems, this Marylebone market is an indoor haven for antiques, vintage, collectables and 20th Century design. Open 10am-6pm Tuesday to Saturday.
alfiesantiques.com Gigs and club nights at the Social This central London bar has been going for 15 years. Theres a great range of weekly club nights with a mixture of resident and guest DJs spinning the tunes from house and disco to funk and hip-hop, plus showcases of some of the best new bands around.
thesocial.com Lunchtime concerts at St-Martin-in-the-Fields Every Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 1pm you can listen to tomorrow's classical music stars, from pianists to choirs, play and sing for free at this beautiful church on the edge of Trafalgar Square. No ticket required. stmartin-in-the-fields.org Nike Training Club You can register for these free womens exercise classes via Facebook around two weeks in advance. Theres yoga, running and general fitness training sessions held in a mixture of indoor and outdoor locations including Clapham Common, Victoria Park and the exercise space in the Nike Town shop.
facebook.com/NikeTrainingClubUK Walk the Tamsin Trail in Richmond Park Walk, run or cycle around the seven mile perimeter of London's largest royal park and try to spot a herd of Red Fallow deer (pictured). Don't worry - there are plenty of tea stops along the way.
royalparks.org.uk Popcorn at Heaven One of London's biggest weekday club nights, Popcorn is one for hedonists who like to dance to house, hip hop and even cheese for seven hours on a Monday night. Just grab a wristband from G-A-Y Bar in Soho for free entry.
popcorn-heaven.com The Queen's House at Greenwich Designed by Inigo Jones in 1616, this Italian Renaissance-style mansion marked a departure from Tudor architecture and houses a fine art collection of maritime paintings. Open Daily 10am-5pm.
rmg.co.uk Guided tours of Tate Modern Tate Modern is spectacular to look at just from the outside (approach from the Millennium Bridge for the best view) and you can also join a free tour lasting 45 minutes and led by in-house experts, at 11am, 12pm, 2pm & 3pm. No booking required unless for a group of more than 10.
tate.org.uk Karaoke at Paradise by Way of Kensal Green Think you've got the X-factor? Hire the private karaoke room (which takes up to 25 guests) for no fee every Monday and Tuesday. Boy George (pictured) has had a go. There's even a button to press to order booze. Call 020 8969 0098 to book.
theparadise.co.uk Friday Night Skate Can you hold your own on rollerskates? Join a marshalled street skate (bladers welcome) which meets at Wellington Arch in Hyde Park at 8pm every Friday. Weather dependent.
lfns.co.uk Evensong at Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey is always open to those who wish to worship. Come for the evensong service to hear the dulcet tones of the Abbey choir. Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday at 5pm or Saturday & Sunday at 3pm.
westminster-abbey.org Meditate at Inner Space Those who need some respite from the grind of life can drop in to Inner Space for free lunchtime and evening meditation and positive thinking classes.
innerspace.org.uk Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace Everyone should watch the Queen's Guardsmen in action at least once in their life. The changing of the guard takes place at 11.30am on odd days (2, 4, 6 etc) throughout the month.
royal.gov.uk Ain't Nothing But The Blues Bar This Soho stalwart claims to serve up the best blues on this side of the pond seven nights a week. From Sunday to Thursday, entry is free all sweet night long and it's free before 8.30pm on Friday and Saturday.
aintnothingbut.co.uk Watch a trial at the Old Bailey Anyone can attend the public galleries of London's premier criminal court the Old Bailey to watch trials in session. Be warned, you can't take in bags, cameras or mobile phones and there's no cloakroom. Open Monday to Friday, 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm.
cityoflondon.gov.uk Rex Features New Act Night at the Comedy Cafe Theatre Forget big arenas and ticket prices to match, this night in Shoreditch is where many a comedy star, including Jimmy Carr and Mickey Flanagan, cut their teeth. Every Wednesday at 7.45pm.
comedycafetheatre.co.uk Natural History Museum Volcanoes, dinosaurs and a full-sized blue whale skeleton are just some of the wonders of the Natural History Museum.
nhm.ac.uk NHM The Curve Gallery at the Barbican Centre The Curve is always hosting exciting installations that carry no charge but might come with queues, such as Random International's Rain Room (pictured).
barbican.org.uk Gigs at Birthdays This mini bar/club has staged many a free gig, including an impromptu one from Bloc Party (pictured) that prompted massive queues. Make sure you refuel upstairs first.
birthdaysdalston.com Ceremony of the Keys This 700-year-old ceremony is the nightly locking up of the Tower gates. Its a popular event and for dates in 2014 youll need to apply in writing, but online bookings are being taken for January 2015 onwards.
hrp.org.uk Piano recitals at Bar Nightjar Recently voted the world's second best bar for its stupendous cocktails, this Old Street speakeasy also does a fine line in live music. Most nights there's a charge, but entrance to Piano Tuesdays is on the house.
barnightjar.com Whitechapel Gallery Around since 1901, the Whitechapel Gallery can be counted on for pioneering new talent in contemporary art - think Rothko and Frieda Kahlo. The best part? Admission to exhibitions is free.
whitechapelgallery.org Turner Collection at Tate Britain The Clore Gallery at Tate Britain boasts the world's largest collection of Turner paintings. Over 300 oil paintings, sketches and watercolours chart his development from boyhood to mature master and elevator of landscape art.
tate.org.uk Turner, Joseph Mallord William 1775-1851, Norham Castle, Sunrise c.1845 (Tate) Portobello Road Antiques Market Yes you will have to wade through SLR-wielding tourists, but wandering up the two-mile Portobello Road is still a good day out: roam antiques stalls, stock up on bargain bowls of fruit and veg, and explore the fashion market. Open every Saturday from 9am-10am.
portobellomarket.org Rex Features Backpacks, trails & workshops at the V&A Borrow a backpack for your mini art fiends (suitable for 5-12 years) and embark on hands-on activities, jigsaws, stories, puzzles and games to be enjoyed in and around the V&A. No need to book, available every day from the Sackler Centre.
vam.ac.uk Victoria and Albert Museum, London Mediatheque at BFI Southbank Like old movies? The BFI has a ready-to-watch archive of nearly 3000 films and TV series. Simply log on at a viewing station and get reacquainted with old classics from London Town (pictured) to Ab Fab.
bfi.org.uk Courtesy of BFI Mediatheque The Alibi Dalston hotspot The Alibi is always free entry. Don't miss the dive bar's film (Monday) and karaoke (Tuesday) nights .
thealibilondon.co.uk Lunchtime recitals at The Royal Opera House The ROH holds regular lunchtime recitals where you can catch rising orchestral and choral stars. Seats can be reserved online nine days before the concert and always go fast. They also run free backstage tours for nosey parkers.
roh.org.uk Peter Mackertich courtesy of the Royal Opera House Good gym 'Do good, get fit' is the mantra at play here. Join this group of runners and and you'll be sent on community-helping missions such as visiting the elderly. Everyone wins.
goodgym.org Angel Comedy On most Saturday nights the likes of Tony Law (pictured) will tickle your ribs for free from 8pm.
angelcomedy.co.uk The Wellcome Collection One for curious cats, this free gallery is all about medicine, life and art through the ages. Make the most of the library, cafe and temporary collections such as Death: A Self-Portrait (pictured). Don't miss their uber-popular Thursday night events.
wellcomecollection.org Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Lunchtime music at the Royal Festival Hall Find a seat in the Clore Ballroom and simply listen. You'll be treated to jazz, folk and world music from rising stars and established ensembles. Every Friday
southbankcentre.co.uk Parliament Hill The view from here is one you need to see and will revive even the most world-weary Londoner, especially on a clear day. And there's a lido nearby for brave swimmers.
cityoflondon.gov.uk The Wallace Collection A treasure trove in a historic townhouse setting, the Wallace Collection allows you to gawp at old masters, vintage armour, porcelain and furniture. Open to art buffs seven days a week, 10am-5pm.
wallacecollection.org Be in the BBC audience Get your 15 minutes of fame and apply for tickets to be in the audience of a BBC TV show. These guys are entranced by Question Time...
bbc.co.uk Friday nights at Catch Every Friday is free at this Kingsland Road bar and club. Expect anything from live bands to Nineties dance, indie and hip hop.
thecatchbar.com Speakers' Corner Speeches and debates have been taking place at the north-east end of Hyde Park since the 1800s. Stop by to hear wide-ranging views on a huge variety of topics. Or why not rock up and give a speech yourself?
royalparks.org.uk
Pic: Alex Lentati British Museum Not only is it a rather stunning piece of architecture, the British Museum is also an archive of fantastic art and artefacts from all over the world, including the Rosetta Stone and Elgin Marbles. Find anything from African textiles to a virtual autopsy of an Egyptian mummy. Open daily 10am-5pm.
britishmuseum.org Trustees of the British Museum Borough Market Rain or shine, Borough Market is a great place to refuel after a walk down the river, with hog roasts, lamb burgers and many other culinary delights. A real London institution. Full market open Wednesday-Saturday.
boroughmarket.com Lectures at LSE LSE puts on regular public lectures and everyone is welcome. Expect star speakers - past guests include Kofi Annan (pictured), Bill Clinton and Mervyn King.
lse.ac.uk LSE / Nigel Stead Broadway Market Sandwiched between London Fields and the Regent's Canal, this old Hackney market is now a hipster hunting ground. Get on your fixie and munch on the trendiest galettes, store up on fresh veg and have a mooch around the vintage clothes stalls. It's easy to while away a day at the cafes which spill on to Broadway. Open on Saturdays 9am-5pm.
broadwaymarlet.co.uk Eric Huang Flickr CC World music and exhibitions at Rich Mix East London's premier cultural centre, Rich Mix hosts open mic spoken word nights, exhibitions, acoustic music (with free cake!) in its bar.
richmix.org.uk Museum of London 450,000 years of London history are on display in the permanent galleries at the museums City and Docklands locations and you can even browse a number of collections online.
museumoflondon.org.uk
If this year youve realised that youre the love of your life (and good for you if so) why not step up your self-care regime to full blown self-love and book yourself in for a treatment at Bhuti eco wellbeing spa and sauna?
Or, the kind people at Urban Massage are offering singles the chance to de-stress with a massage and cocktails at their Celebrate Singledom event on Monday night. Tickets cost just 5 with a massage included in the price.
However, if youre determined that this be your last Valentines Day alone then why not try out these pleasingly non-cheesy chances to meet someone special? Archer Street cocktail bar is putting on a singles night complete with salsa lessons. And for those who really hate to date, Feeling Gloomys Down with Dating night (tickets available on the door 7) is the place to meet likeminded grumps.
P rince William today launched the Centrepoint Helpline as it was hailed a major step towards ending youth homelessness.
He joined Evening Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev at the services central London HQ, listening in to one of the first calls and chatting to staff and volunteers.
The helpline - the first national Freephone service for 16 to 25-year-olds facing homelessness - is a reality thanks to Evening Standard readers.
Our Young and Homeless Helpline appeal, run alongside The Independent and the i newspaper, has raised 3.25 million to fund the service.
Homeless appeal: The Prince helped launch the phoneline with Evgeny Lebedev / Jeremy Selwyn
As Prince William arrived, he was greeted by Mr Lebedev, who told him the appeal had reached 3.25million.
The Prince said he was very pleased and called it a very successful campaign.
During the training session, the Prince went through a practice call with Centrepoint staff member Samia Meah, where she pretended to be a young person at risk of eviction for rent arrears.
He joked to miss Meah after the call You didnt hang up on me. Thats a good start.
The Prince and Mr Lebedev then listened into a 20 minute call taken by Carys Lewis, one of the Centrepoint Helpline advisors, from one of the first callers to the helpline.
The teenager had been sleeping rough in London and spending the night in all night cafes after leaving home following the breakdown in his relationship with his parents.
Training: Prince William listened in on a call from a young homeless person / Kensington Palace
He said had sought help for his homelessness from his local authority but to no avail so far.
After listening to his situation, Ms Lewis texted him details of how to get into a Winter night shelter to get off the streets short term and also suggested a day centre for young people where he would be able to get more long-term help with housing, getting into work and benefits.
The Prince was clearly moved by the young persons plight, and said the way the call was handled was really good.
Young and homeless: The boy who called in had been living on the streets / Kensington Palace
He said: If nothing else, you take the time to listen to them, to tell them their options. Prince William also asked to be kept informed about the teenagers journey to hopefully be helped out of homelessness.
Mr Lebedev said: Im delighted to have launched the helpline with the Duke of Cambridge today. It was his call to arms in November that spurred us on to launch the campaign.
Youth homelessness is an unacceptable blight in modern Britain. The helpline will save lives and rescue countless more from vulnerable and perilous situations.
Launch: The Duke of Cambridge arriving at The Mix in London to launch the Centrepoint Helpline / PA
None of it would have been possible without the hard work of hundreds of people behind the scenes - Centrepoint, Standard staff, as well as the thousands of readers who have given so generously - so Id like to thank them.
Calling for action in November, William wrote a letter to Standard readers saying: When a young persons life falls apart they have nowhere to go.
Young and homeless: The helpline will help countless young people who are facing homelessness / Alex Lentati/ Jeremy Selwyn
"This is why we are launching the Centrepoint Helpline. [It] will provide the information and support young people need before they become homeless.
Over the past decade I have met hundreds of courageous and inspiring young people trying to escape homelessness. Unfortunately their courage alone is not enough.
The prince has thanked readers for their incredible support during the appeal.
Fun and games: The Prince played a post-it note game with residents during a hostel visit / Getty Images
At the launch today he met staff from Centrepoint and from The Mix, the partner charity that will help deliver the helpline.
After being welcomed by Centrepoint chief executive Seyi Obakin, he and Mr Lebedev took part in a training session then sat in on the first calls.
Prime Minister Theresa May, who gave her backing to the appeal in December said: "The launch is a big step forward in the fight against the scourge of homelessness.
Centrepoint helpline:The Prmie Minister Theresa May backs the Evening Standard's Christmas campaign
"Its the culmination of months of campaigning, fundraising and generosity on the part of so many people, including the readers of the Independent, The i, and Evening Standard.
"There can be no acceptance of rough sleeping in modern Britain thats why we are taking action to tackle the causes of homelessness through our 50 million trailblazers fund, and investing in services that take people off the street.
"With government action and support from people across society, this helpline can make a real difference to those people teetering on the brink of rough sleeping."
Centrepoint campaign: Streets Of London Poem | Hussain's House
It is hoped the service will become the first stop for young people who are facing homelessness or already living on the streets.
It aims to end the current postcode lottery of advice - currently, at least 30,000 of more than 150,000 young people who each year ask for help with homelessness from local authorities are believed to be turned away with no support.
As well as providing housing support, experts will advise on issues that often lie behind homelessness such as mental health problems or family breakdown.
Homeless charity: Centrepoint CEO Seyi Obakin at a sleepout event with Sadie Frost (NIGEL HOWARD) / NIGEL HOWARD
Staff will plug into a nationwide network of contacts, ensuring people can be directed towards local help.
Mr Obakin said: Today, with the launch of the helpline, we take a major step towards realising our ambitious goal to end youth homelessness.
In many towns and cities youth homelessness is reaching crisis point.
Centrepoint poem about homelessness
"Our research shows that for each young person sleeping on the streets, dozens more spend night after night on sofas of extended family and friends and, in some cases, in the beds of strangers.
Some of these young people will have fled constant family arguments or violent partners, others will have exhausted the generosity of friends and find they have nowhere else to turn.
It doesnt have to be this way. Intervening early and decisively can change a young persons future.
Labour leader: Jeremy Corbyn hailed the incredible response of readers / JEREMY SELWYN
That is what we now aim to do with the helpline.
Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn hailed the inspiring response the helpline appeal has had, saying: One in three young people seeking specialist help are being turned away by councils because of a lack of resources.
That's why this helpline, reform to 'intentionally homeless' rules and proper funding for local government is so badly needed.
Jeremy Corbyn visits Centrepoint
Im pleased that readers have donated in such numbers and I think the incredible response to this appeal shows peoples determination to make sure that homelessness has no place in a 21st century Britain."
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron added: Thanks to the generosity of those whove supported this appeal, many lives will be changed for the better.
"This helpline will be crucial for those who have been let down time and time again.
Centrepoint campaign: Sadiq Khan backs the Evening Standard's Chirstmas appeal
And London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: The overwhelming response to [this] fundraising appeal is a tribute to how concerned people are about this problem.
"Centrepoints new helpline will be a lifeline to many vulnerable young people.
Kumba Kpakima, 18, who became homeless when her life fell apart after the death of her mother when she was 15, said: I think the campaign has been great.
Homeless appeal: Mayor Sadiq Khan praised Londoners / PA
"More people are aware of how [homelessness] can affect anyone. Its not drug addicts, its bad things that happen to people which are out of their control.
"It is something that a lot of people go through and it doesnt have to be the breaking point in their lives. It has changed peoples attitudes.
Im pleased the helpline is here. It will be a lifeline for people in a state of emergency who need help immediately, and people who just need someone to talk to and some advice.
Centrepoint resident interns at the Evening Standard
The aspiring journalist, who has met Prince William and did a weeks work experience with the Standard during the appeal, said the experiences had given me more confidence
Its good to know there are people out there who want to give opportunities to young people like me, they want to support us and see us do well, she said.
Thank you to everyone who has supported the appeal.
B uckingham Palace is offering one tech-savvy individual 30,000 per year to run Queen Elizabeths personal Twitter account.
A job advertisement has been posted on the Queens official website seeking a digital communications officer to join her fast paced and dynamic team.
The right candidate will be tasked with writing posts about HRHs latest charitable work, to her 2.77 million Twitter followers.
The full-time role also entails writing posts on the Queens Facebook and YouTube channels, making sure her majesty is keeping pace with the digital world.
Naturally, there will be strict guidelines in place, so youre unlikely to be uploading selfies or videos of the Queens corgis. Instead youll be letting the world know about her state visits, award ceremonies and Royal engagements.
It's the sheer variety of challenges you'll face, the advert explains. And it's joining the team who engage the public and media, with the work, role and relevance of The Royal Family.
This is what makes working for the Royal Household exceptional.
As well as a handsome annual salary, the job also promises comprehensive benefits package
Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe 1 /13 Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe Royal Collection staff member Roxy Gilhooley arranges pantomime outfits worn in the 1943 production of Aladdin, Steve Parsons/ PA Curator Caroline de Guitaut arranges an evening gown worn by The Queen, in the Green Drawing Room Steve Parsons/PA A member of staff from the Royal Collection walks past a selection of hats worn by The Queen, Steve Parsons/PA Royal Collection staff member Roxy Gilhooley arranges an evening gown in the Crimson Drawing Room Steve Parsons/PA A member of staff from the Royal Collection arranges a white silk-crepe gown featuring 2,091 chiffon shamrocks worn by The Queen during the historic first State Visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011 Steve Parsons/PA selection of hats worn by The Queen, during a press preview for Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from the Queen's Wardrobe, an exhibition at Windsor Castle in Berkshire Steve Parsons/PA urator Caroline de Guitaut arranges a selection of dresses worn by The Queen, in the State Dining Room Steve Parsons/PA A selection of hats worn by The Queen, during a press preview for Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from the Queen's Wardrobe, an exhibition at Windsor Castle in Berkshire. Steve Parsons/PA Curator Caroline de Guitaut arranges an evening gown worn by The Queen, in the Green Drawing Room Steve Parsons/PA Royal Collection staff member Roxy Gilhooley arranges a selection of dresses worn by The Queen, in the State Dining Room Steve Parsons/PA
This includes 33 days of paid holiday (inclusive of Bank Holidays), a 15 per cent employer contribution pension scheme, as well as training and personal development.
Having successfully ruled the country for more than six decades, we reckon the Queen knows a thing or two about keeping her staff happy.
Fancy applying? Put your application in by visiting the Royal Households website.
S omebody inform Johnny Depp, Roman Abramovich and Dan Bilzerian - because high-class concierge service Quintessentially is launching a floating private members club on the worlds largest superyacht.
The 220 metre-long vessel dubbed 'Quintessentially One' costs around 2,000 per night to board, and will drop its anchor at some of the worlds most glamorous events, like the Monaco Grand Prix to Cannes Film Festival.
The yacht cost 250m to build, and contains a bespoke wine and cigar cellar, an onboard spa, a personal stylist, an oyster and champagne bar and an underwater bar.
Five billionaires have paid 8.5m each towards the cost of launching the luxury liner in return for a private suite. The rest of the 250m bill has been footed by Quintessentially, who will operate the ship as a private members club for its well-heeled members.
As well as hosting parties on the yacht around high-profile events in the celebrity calendar, the vessel will operate as a hotel, with a restaurant run by the Mayfair institution The Wolseley.
In the summer of 2019, it will begin travelling around Europe and stop off in St Tropez, Cannes and Marbella before spending the autumn in Greece, Dubai and Beirut.
Over the winter months, the ship will head to the warm waters of Miami and St Barthelemy before heading to Granada for the Port Louis Granada Sailing Festival. Its final stop, in 2020, will be Rio - just in time for the carnival
Aaron Simpson, co-founder of Quintessentially, told the Daily Mail: 'This is a wonderful way to cater and meet the demands of Quintessentiallys global members when they all descend on the same high-profile events which currently dont have enough supply.
'It will be the worlds largest floating private membership club. Where the traditional cruise model is to go somewhere, dock and get off, we will dock and people will want to get on.'
The vessel, which will set sail in 2019, will be 131ft longer than the worlds biggest private vessel, Azzam.
The downside? Membership for the floating club comes in at a hefty 15,000-a-year.
If youre already looking into extending your overdraft, theres some further bad news - getting on board is strictly by invitation only.
A group of moped-riding robbers raided a luxury jewellery shop at knife-point in a busy shopping centre in the City of London.
Four suspects are believed to have made off with jewellery from a Fraser Hart store on the ground floor of One New Change before fleeing on high-powered mopeds, just before midday.
Officers swooped on the shopping centre following reports of a knife-point robbery and closed it off to the public while investigating.
Nobody was injured and it is unclear how much jewellery was stolen in the raid.
Pictures of the aftermath showed confused City workers gathering outside the cordoned-off shopping centre at lunchtime.
The ground floor of the shopping centre remained closed while police investigated / John Mason
Journalist James Beech told the Standard: I turned up just before 1pm to get my lunch like many other City workers only to see the police and One New Change security and information staff man the tape across all entrances.
It still appears to be an active crime scene as I have just left the centre and part of it is still taped off.
The ground floor of One New Change remained closed to the public at 2pm, although shoppers could still access the other floors.
City of London Police said there had been no arrests.
A spokesman added: Today at 11.33am City of London police were called to reports of a knifepoint robbery at a jewellery store in One New Change.
Four suspects are believed to have been involved with two high-powered mopeds.
Several items of jewellery were taken. Nobody was injured.
Cordons have been put in place on the ground floor with no public access to pedestrians.
Officers continue to investigate.
The Standard has approached Fraser Hart for comment.
A n aspiring fashion designer was stabbed to death after an argument at a student party flared into violence.
Lemou Ange Lauric Lebato, 22, from Hackney, was found suffering a knife wound in Albion Street, Leicester, at 4am on Saturday.
He was rushed to hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
Detectives believe the young man was attacked following a row at a university party in a block of flats which spilled out into the city centre street.
Friends of the former Hackney Free secondary school pupil, known as Lauric, gathered last night outside his home in Woodberry Grove last night to lay flowers and candles in his memory.
One school friend, who did not want to be named, revealed he had spoken to Mr Lebato just days before his death, adding: We were talking about new designs for an idea hed had for a clothing line.
Just one of the great ideas that he wanted to accomplish, but his life has been sadly cut short.
He was a great lad, funny and always had a smile on his face. I hope he is remembered as a genuinely good man and friend. Hell be missed.
Its crazy how you could be in the same vicinity with people who are willing to kill others.
Another friend said: He was a great guy - its devastating that this has happened to him.
Police in Leicester have urged students who were at the party to come forward, as well as anyone who may have witnessed the attack at about 4am.
A police spokesman said: Students, taxi drivers, delivery drivers, business owners opening and closing businesses, and revellers on a night out could all have information which will help the investigation.
A 21-year-old man who stabbed a "charismatic" aspiring architect to death in front of horrified families in an east London park has been jailed.
Bradley Dos Reis Pais Quaresma, 20, was knifed during a brawl in Stratford Park on July 21 last year.
A large gang of men gathered at the park around 3.15pm and fight broke out, the Old Bailey heard during a three-week trial.
The supportive and fun brother was stabbed in the neck and chest and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Following the fight, Mario Albino Te, of no fixed address, fled and boarded a train to Paris from St Pancras International, the court was told.
Behind bars: Mario Albino Te / Metropolitan Police
He was captured by French police and returned to the UK.
During sentencing at the same court on Monday, Te was jailed for 11-and-a-half-years after being found guilty of manslaughter.
He was found not guilty of murder on February 7.
Paying tribute to Tes victim, Mr Dos Reis Pais Quaresma's family said: "'Saudade' is a word that only exists in the Portuguese language, a feeling of longing, melancholy and pain due to being unable to be in the presence of the person you care for.
Mario Albino Te running from Olympic Park
"Bradley was an adorable, charismatic, understanding and true companion.
A supportive and fun brother and a loyal friend, anyone that crossed Bradley's path fell in love with his radiant smile and kind heart.
"His life is now past, his present non-existent and his future stolen, erased with a knife.
Only 20 years old, Bradley had his whole future ahead of him.
"He planned on getting into university and studying architecture - he will never have the opportunity to graduate, he will never have the opportunity to succeed.
He will never have children of his own or grandchildren. His life is over; his body buried in the ground, his memory a painful one."
Detective Chief Inspector Gary Holmes added: "This was a very sad case and my heartfelt sympathies go out to Bradley's family who have shown great dignity throughout the trial.
"When jailing Te, the judge spoke of the shock and horror that members of the public at the park, including young families and children, experienced when they saw Bradley and his injuries.
A man has come forward after a woman was allegedly attacked for asking a couple to stop having sex on the Tube.
Police launched an appeal after the woman was apparently assaulted between midnight and 1am on a Northern line service as the train reached Kennington.
According to detectives, the victim had approached the couple and asked them to stop as they performed sex acts in the carriage in front of shocked passengers.
The man, who police said was engaged in a sexual activity, allegedly became aggressive, spitting and pushing the woman.
Police released an image of a man they wanted to speak to about the incident on January 14.
British Transport Police have now said a man and woman had contacted them and were helping officers with their investigation.
There have been no arrests or charges, added the spokesman.
A high-flying banking executive was killed by a single punch in a senseless attack over a chat with a group of young women about high heels and baby pictures in leafy south-east London, a court heard.
Oliver Dearlove, 30, was friendly and polite as he chatted with the women in the street after a night out in Blackheath, on August 28 last year, jurors were told.
The casual exchange, lasting no more than 20 seconds, prompted Trevor Timon, 31, to fly into a rage and launch his "unprovoked and senseless" attack, the court heard.
Timon, of Heavitree Road, Plumstead, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of murder.
Prosecutor Anthony Orchard QC told jurors: "The attack upon Oliver Dearlove took place on a warm August bank holiday evening, in the quiet leafy streets of Blackheath.
Devastating loss: Oliver Dearlove with girlfriend Claire Wheatley
"He stood on the pavement not far from a nightclub. The attack was unprovoked and senseless. It appears to have been motivated by the defendant's perceived sense of grievance that Oliver Dearlove and two of his male friends were talking to a group of young women, whom Trevor Timon knew."
The victim lived with his long-term girlfriend in New Eltham and worked in the City as a banker, the court heard.
On Saturday August 27 last year, he was on a night out with friends in Blackheath, ending up at Zerodegrees bar and restaurant until just after midnight.
Timon was in the nearby Morden's nightclub along with the women, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The women left the club, followed by Timon, just as Mr Dearlove and his friends emerged from Zerodegrees and set off in the same direction, the court heard.
Killed: Oliver Dearlove, 30 / LinkedIn
Mr Dearlove had politely asked one of the women if she was hurt after she took off her high heels and began walking slowly along Tranquil Vale.
She laughed and replied: "You know what, my feet are killing me", jurors were told.
She went on to tell Mr Dearlove that it was her first night out since giving birth, and he commented to his friends: "She had a baby four weeks ago, doesn't she look well?"
The woman produced pictures and Mr Dearlove was "very polite" as he complimented her on having a beautiful baby, jurors heard.
Timon, who knew the group of women, allegedly stormed in and demanded to know what they were talking about.
He allegedly shouted: "Who the f*** are you boys?" and told Mr Dearlove: "If you don't move on, I'll knock you out."
Killed: Oliver Dearlove, 30 / Metropolitan Police
One of the women stood between them and told Timon to "just go", jurors heard.
Mr Orchard said: "The next thing that happened was the defendant hit Oliver Dearlove.
"The punch skimmed her face. She saw Oliver Dearlove fall and as he fell his whole body twisted. She screamed 'He hit him, he hit him'."
Planning to start a family: Oliver Dearlove and girlfriend Claire Wheatley
The victim, who was punched in the head and neck, collapsed in the street and was pronounced dead less than 24 hours later.
Asked why he did it, Timon allegedly told one of the women: "I'm pissed off."
Mr Orchard said the defendant had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denies murder.
He said the only issue was whether he intended to cause Mr Dearlove "really serious bodily harm" when he punched him.
The trial continues.
Additional reporting by Press Association.
P olice have released CCTV images of a witness they want to speak to after an 81-year-old woman was raped in south London.
Scotland Yard said the victim was taken to hospital after the attack, which happened shortly after she had left the number 155 bus in Balham on Friday evening.
The victim got off the bus in Balham High Road at about 8.30pm before she was followed by her attacker.
She was taken to a secluded area near Rinaldo Road and raped twice, police said.
Detective Inspector Melissa Laremore (SOECA) said: "My team are keen to trace a male witness seen on Rinaldo Road, Balham on the evening of the incident.
He was wearing a jacket with a distinctive American flag design on the back. A CCTV image of this man has now been released. I would urge him to come forward and contact police.
Police want to speak to a male witness seen in Rinaldo Road on the evening of the incident / Met Police
In addition to this, the victim's distinctive red Marks and Spencer's jacket went missing after the attack.
My investigators are working to trace it in and around the local area as it is of important evidential value. If you have any knowledge of its whereabouts, please get in touch."
A 41-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the incident.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 020 8649 3105 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
T wo police officers have been rushed to hospital after being spat at by a contagious man in east London.
Tower Hamlets police were called to Epping Close, in Millwall, around 4pm on Monday over reports of a domestic incident inside a flat.
A man, aged in his 50s, allegedly spat at two police officers who arrived to deal with the situation.
Both officers were rushed to St Thomas Hospital in central London as a precaution as the man was believed to be infectious, Scotland Yard said.
The man is being held at an east London police station on suspicion of assault.
He was also arrested on suspicion of domestic related matters.
Enquires continue.
W ork has started on the 1 billion transformation of the derelict Docklands site, where titles such as the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express were once printed, into a new town next to Canary Wharf.
The latest development in the rapidly regenerating Isle of Dogs will create 722 homes, two parks, a waterfront promenade on the Millwall Outer Dock, a healthcare centre and a 1,200-space secondary school as well as shops, bars and restaurants.
The demolition of the former Westferry printworks was officially started in front of media tycoon Richard Desmond whose company Northern & Shell owns the 15-acre site and his wife Joy and son Valentine.
Mr Desmond, the owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star newspaper titles and the OK!, new! and Star magazines, bought out a 50 per cent share in the works from the Barclay brothers, the publishers of the Telegraph titles, for an estimated 30 million in 2008.
He said: My company, Northern & Shell, was the first owner, developer and occupier in 1982 in London Docklands and we moved our publishing business and headquarters there.
This helped our small business to expand and we have been proud to be associated with the regeneration of London Docklands for 35 years.
This connection was reinforced with our acquisition of the Express Newspapers group in 2000 together with its groundbreaking printing operation, Westferry Printworks, which provided hundreds of jobs for the people of Docklands and the surrounding area.
I am therefore delighted to be implementing our vision for the next generation of Docklands residents with our new neighbourhood here in the centre of Londons Docklands, just minutes from Canary Wharf.
The printworks, built between 1984 and 1986, were once the biggest in western Europe.
The development finally won planning consent in August 2016 after a long battle with Tower Hamlets council, which initially rejected the scheme on grounds it did not provide enough affordable housing.
However, the decision was taken out of the local authoritys hands by Boris Johnson, who approved the development in April last year in one of his final acts as Mayor.
A row with a local sailing club over the effect that the schemes nine towers of up to 30 storeys would have on wind conditions on the dock has been resolved after Northern & Shell pledged to cover costs and expenses incurred as a result of any wind impacts.
A north London bookshop owner is tweeting Piers Morgan every line from the first Harry Potter book following the Good Morning Britain presenter's spat with JK Rowling.
Simon Key, co-owner of the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, has already sent 275 tweets to Morgan, and plans to send a total of 32,567.
It comes after Morgan told Rowling "this is why I've never read a single word of Harry Potter" during a furious Twitter row.
The first message Mr Key sent was the very first line of the book: "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."
He told Sky News: "I'm doing it because Piers clearly spends all day on Twitter staring at his timeline.
"He clearly needs a bit of a break from all the abuse, so as he mentioned that he hasn't read any JK Rowling, rather then having to tear himself away from Twitter to read it, I'd tweet him."
Piers Morgan and JK Rowling became embroiled in the row on Saturday after Morgan was told to f*** off on a US panel show.
The Harry Potter author expressed glee at the broadcaster being sworn at by Australian comedian Jim Jefferies while discussing US President Donald Trumps travel ban on Real Time With Bill Maher.
The row was sparked when she tweeted: Yes, watching Piers Morgan being told to f*** off on live TV is *exactly* as satisfying as I'd always imagined."
A selfish rogue builder sparked emergency road works in south London after tipping 10 metres of concrete into a sewer.
Furious Thames Water bosses have released images of the aftermath of the irresponsible act which show hardened concrete blocking the sewer under Hanover Park, Peckham.
Britains biggest water company branded the act a complete waste of time and money as motorists face weeks of disruption while the sewer is cleared.
Workmen have been forced to completely replace the pipe that was destroyed by the concrete.
Spokesman Stuart White said: Normally blockages are caused by fat, oil and wet wipes building up in the sewer but unfortunately in this case it's concrete, so we can't jet it through.
It's in there and it's set to the pipe, so we need to remove the pipe and replace it with a new one.
"This is very frustrating, a complete waste of our time, and not the first time damage has been caused by people pouring concrete into our sewers.
After fixing the problem, we will investigate and then reclaim the costs from whoever is responsible."
He also urged Londons to bin anything other than toilet roll, dirty water and human waste to avoid vile floods seeping into the capitals streets.
A mystery motorist has clocked up around 1,500 in fines after leaving his supercar parked illegally for two weeks in Mayfair.
The man, believed to be a businessman from Dubai, left the Porsche 918 Spyder, worth around 1million, parked on a single yellow line outside a private members club.
A witness said a ticket has been placed on the car every day by traffic wardens, and someone has removed the tickets every few days, but the car had not been moved.
The worker told the Sun: He got a ticket every day. Every few days someone came and cleared the tickets off the windscreen one of his gofers I think.
But everyone thought it was strange that he didnt come and actually take the car away.
The car is a limited edition model, with Porsche only ever making 918. It first went on sale in 2014 for 625,000.
A fter a few stylish teases last month, Samantha Cameron unveiled her new fashion brand Cefinn yesterday with a glossy spread in The Sunday Times. Those seeking a slice of Camerons style may wish to head to the lines website, where the collection is exhibited by two striking models, one of whom, it must be said, seems a bit slender.
Cefinn offers a range of garments up to a size 14, excluding the fuller-figured woman. The restrictions arent rare brands such as Stella McCartney also stop at 14 but Cos, Whistles and Joseph, with which The Sunday Times aligns Cefinn in the design department, at least goes to 16. In an interview accompanying yesterdays shoot, Cameron described her demographic as a woman whos busy, juggling lots of things, who loves fashion but is not obsessed by it.
Some have questioned online how willowy the models used in the promotional shots are, but when The Londoner called the Cefinn office to ask whether the models were representative we got a reply from Sam Cameron herself. Cefinn is committed to working with healthy models, she said.
Cameron has previously shown awareness of models health. Back in 2011 she hit the headlines by appearing dismayed as she watched a particularly slender model on the catwalk at an Erdem London Fashion Week show.
Despite this, the British Fashion Council of which Cameron is an ambassador has resisted banning size-zero models, although it always maintains that the health of its catwalkers is of great importance.
A link to the Cefinn wesite is here.
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Samantha, naturally, looked rather well coiffed in the photoshoot which accompanied the interview. And no wonder: Lino Carbosiero is still her secret weapon. The hairdresser sparked a cronyism row back in 2014 when The Londoner wondered why Lino had been given an OBE, noting that hed also been David Camerons hairdresser. Yesterday Lino tweeted a picture of himself styling Sam Cams hair. Still a cut above the rest.
David Miliband, ever a mover and shaker
Whither David Miliband? Reports vary. Miliband the elder has applied to head the UN Development Programme but he faces French opposition, we understand.
Also in the running is Segolene Royal, former Socialist presidential candidate and mother to Francois Hollandes four children. En garde.
There are whispers too that Miliband is renting offices with London ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi whatever the truth, its a hint that he might leave his International Rescue Committee charity job.
The demand for Dave will be to the irritation of brother Ed, who unsuccessfully applied to a UN job last year. David needs Government backing for the UN job. Theresa May will surely want to keep such a powerful Labour thinker in the US.
Spin wizards take the Bafta crowd to a whole new level
Dave Benett/Getty Images for Gre
To Holborns Rosewood Hotel last night, where Harvey Weinstein and Grey Goose threw their annual post- Bafta party. Stephen Fry lounged with Weinstein and Amy Adams, but Adams soon waged a dance-off against Felicity Jones, before Aaron and Sam Taylor-Johnson showed them how it was done. Isabelle Huppert and Noomi Rapace held court on the terrace while Rising Star Award winner Tom Holland was inseparable from young actress Ella Purnell, though the two did have photogenic competition from models Immy Waterhouse and Dudley OShaughnessy.
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In the competitive legal world, how does an ambitious QC set himself apart? Criminal barrister Jeremy Dein QC has been busy building a flattering internet profile for himself; from his chambers website to his YouTube channel. He even appears on Google reviews, with a five-star rating. An excellent barrister highly recommended, writes Lee Dein. Sadly for Jeremy, keen observers at Legal Cheek have pointed out that this review comes from none other than his wife.
All change at Conde Nast?
The Londoner hears whispers of a tectonic shift in the publishing world. The word around fashion land is that Conde Nast International, leviathan US publisher of Vogue, Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, has been bought by Apple after a bidding war with Amazon. No one can confirm this but evidence suggests something is afoot: here, both Alexandra Shulman, UK Vogue editor, and Nicholas Coleridge, Conde Nasts president, are moving on, while the groups US brands have been restructuring and moving some publications from print to online only, which looks like a tightening up in advance of a sale. And its a promising new era for Conde Nast, whose titles have benefited from Donald Trumps pugnacious attacks: he tweeted that Vanity Fair was way down, big trouble, dead! after it printed a negative review of his steakhouse.
But this London gossip has been met with a flat denial from Stephen Quinn, Vogues publishing director, while Apple gave no credence to the claims. So why is this rumour continuing to persist?
And the Apple in Courtneys eye is ...
WireImage
Rocker Courtney Love was at a pre-Grammys party this weekend and bumped into Tim Cook, Apple CEO. And boy, did she take the chance for some free tech advice. Thanks for helping me recover my iTunes account, she wrote on Instagram. She clearly couldnt get an appointment at the Apple store.
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Tweet of the day: Our deepest apologizes [sic] for the earlier typo.
US Department of Education fails to make amends for misspelling the name of author and civil rights activist WEB Du Bois, pictured. All hial the idiocracy.
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Rebel alliance of the day: Hamiltons Lin-Manuel Miranda snapped a selfie with JK Rowling at the Baftas and captioned it with the closing words of the Harry Potter series: All was well.
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M ost Britons oppose a so-called hard Brexit and are not prepared to leave the European Union without a reasonable exit deal, a new poll has found.
The survey, conducted by ICM for online campaigning organisation Avaaz, found that just 35 per cent of the public said they backed Britain leaving the EU without an agreement with other nations.
If the UK reaches the end of the two-year negotiating period without a deal it would be forced to fall back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs, which some MPs have claimed would badly damage the economy.
The poll was conducted on the day the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to trigger Article 50, the process which formally starts the Brexit process.
It suggests Mrs May would face a significant backlash if she allowed the country to crash out of the EU without a deal. She has previously said she is willing to quit the block without reaching a deal if she does not think it is satisfactory for Britain.
Woman admits to voting brexit on Question Times because of straight bananas
It found that 54 per cent of those surveyed backed extending negotiations or calling a second referendum if a deal could not be reached. Thirty-four per cent of those people said Mrs May should return to the negotiating table if a Brexit deal was not reached.
But 20 per cent backed halting the exit process while a second referendum is held to vote on the terms of Britains departure from the EU.
Brexit Bill backed: Theresa May allowed to start EU exit negotiations
The latter option is backed by the Liberal Democrats and a cross-party group of MPs including Labour MPs Heidi Alexander and David Lammy, as well as Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake told the Guardian the survey proved the governments position was indefensible.
He told the paper: Our best hope of stopping a ruinous hard Brexit that nobody voted for and few want is if the public rally round to fight it, as Brexit grows more unpopular.
That means uniting many who voted leave but now want to avoid the economic catastrophe of quitting the single market, and who want to protect those European citizens who contribute so much to Britains economy and society.
M inisters are ready to join moves to topple Speaker John Bercow, the Tory MP leading the revolt claimed today.
Backbencher James Duddridge also insisted there would be a vote on whether MPs have confidence in the Speaker after they return from the half-term recess.
Mr Bercow infuriated many Conservative MPs by recently telling students in Reading that he voted for Remain in the June referendum on Britains membership of the EU.
He was already under fire for backing MPs calling for Donald Trump to be barred from speaking in the historic Westminster Hall in Parliament during his State visit expected in June.
Former Foreign Office minister James Duddridge claimed Mr Bercow had broken his employment contract effectively with MPs by speaking out on policy issues.
He told BBC radio: I have received reassurances that there will be a free vote for ministers and ministers have been on the phone to me over the weekend, as well as backbenchers, as well as people of all political parties saying if it comes to a vote of no confidence they will vote with me... against Speaker Bercow.
Tory moves which could have ousted Mr Bercow were launched at the end of the last Parliament but failed.
John Bercow defends his comments on Donald Trump
A fresh attempt would risk damaging Parliaments standing, particularly abroad, as it is likely to be seen as targeting Mr Bercow for being a Remainer.
It could also undermine the position of Speaker as Mr Bercow would be the second to be ousted since 2009 when Michael Martin was forced out, compared to none in the 300 previous years.
However, a number of the MPs who defended Mr Bercow in 2015 are arch Leavers and even some of his traditional allies are voicing concerns.
Conservative Conor Burns criticised him for grandstanding over Mr Trump.
He told BBC radios The Westminster Hour, said: I hope the current controversy will pass and that John Bercow will be able to step aside as he said within the next year or eighteen months.
Liberal Democrat chief whip Tom Brake, though, defended Mr Bercows handling of parliamentary debates.
John Bercow 'strongly opposed' to Donald Trump address to Parliament
Clearly, those in support of Brexit, are getting, in my view as a Remain supporter, more than their fair share of time, he added.
Mr Bercow is also credited with defying David Cameron to pave the way for the EU referendum.
A spokesman for the Speaker said; The record shows that he has rigorously facilitated the raising of concerns of those on both sides of this argument, as he does on every other issue.
It was not clear if the motion of no confidence tabled by Mr Duddridge would be debated.
However, Commons Leader David Lidington warned at the weekend that the Speaker must command the confidence of the whole House.
Braintree Tory MP James Cleverly tweeted: The whole point of Speakers political impartiality is that I should never know whether I agree with him or not.
L abour and Ukip stepped up their election campaigns in the crunch Stoke Central by-election with 10 days to go before voters head to the polls.
Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said: Ukip winning in Stoke Central will be game, set and match for Brexit.
Every voter in the constituency has the opportunity to send a powerful signal to Remain MPs sitting in Leave constituencies that theyd better not attempt to frustrate the will of the people.
Some wards in Stoke were 81 per cent in favour of leaving the EU at the referendum, despite its former MP Tristram Hunt being firm for Remain.
Labours new elections co-coordinator, Wansbeck MP Ian Lavery, said he was pretty confident Labour could hold onto Stoke. However Gordon Browns top pollster, Deborah Mattinson said it could be a challenge: What we dont know about Stoke is how well organised Ukip can be.
If they cant win this seat then they cant win any seat.
A senior Tory today warned Theresa May to accept more child refugees or risk her party being seen as knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Nicky Morgan said ministers must explain the effort they put in to finding homes for unaccompanied children after it was revealed fewer than 400 will be housed in the UK instead of the 3,000 anticipated by many MPs.
Writing for Tory website Conservative Home, the former education secretary said: As a party known for strong economic management, the Conservatives must work double hard to avoid appearing to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The vocal pro-Remain MP, axed from her education brief by Mrs May, said how Conservatives treat unaccompanied asylum-seeking children matters as our approach to them also goes to the heart of the kind of party we want to be. And what kind of country we want to live in.
Image problem: Theresa May is told Tories risk being seen as knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing / Sky News
She warned that not helping some of the most vulnerable children on the planet could affect the next election as it would form the basis of judgments voters make on the party.
Local authorities were expected to house 3,000 youngsters through the Dubs scheme and would receive support payments from central government for each child.
Mrs Morgan said: If a tough decision has to be made, ministers have to explain why they have made their decision and how hard they pressed local authorities.
Labour peer Lord Dubs, who forced Whitehall to take the children with his amendment to the Immigration Act 2016, handed in a petition to Downing Street on Sunday asking Mrs May to take more lone children.
He said: All the Government needs to do is put out a new appeal to local authorities asking who can take more children.
Mrs May has stressed that the Dubs scheme is only one of a number of routes by which vulnerable children can find sanctuary in the UK.
She added that 20,000 people, many of the children, would be brought to Britain by 2020 under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.
F ire crews rescued a bell-ringer from the top of Worcester Cathedral when he was hoisted up into the air after getting tangled in rope.
The bell-ringer, 51-year-old Ian Bowman, was on a tour of the Cathedral when the accident happened.
While in the bell tower, Mr Bowmans foot became caught up in the rope. He was pulled up into the air and then dropped back down.
The fall left him with back and head injuries - rendering him unable to make his own way down the 100ft-high bell tower at the historic cathedral.
Worcester Cathedral: The man became stuck at the top of the building after suffering back injuries
Worcester and Malvern fire crews were called to rescue Mr Bowman but, due to the stretcher being too wide for the narrow stairs, were forced to winch him down through a hatch in the ceiling of the cathedral.
Fire crew: He was winched down through the ceiling (@HWFireGCWills)
He was taken to hospital where he was treated for a cut to his head and back pain.
It is not yet known whether he has fractured his spine.
Back injuries: The man was taken to hospital / @HWFireGCWills
Fire Brigade spokesman Grant Wills told the Daily Mail: Mr Bowman was in the top part of the tower when some rope hoisted him up and then he was brought back down.
He fell about eight to 10ft but the tight spiral staircase meant it was difficult to mobilise someone with his injuries.
Our rescue team of 15 people lowered him 100ft through the hatches to the ground floor.
This was a challenging rescue for our crews, but one we regularly practise for, including at the cathedral itself.
Mr Bowman is recovering at his home in Devon.
L ondoner Becky Charlton today described how she and her three crewmates battled mountainous waves to row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic in one of the worlds toughest races.
Ms Charlton, 28, who works in HR for Canary Wharf finance company Northern Trust, said they were forced to deploy their emergency parachute anchor on only the second day of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge.
It was pretty scary, she said. The bad weather system was driving us back and the big waves meant we were unable to control the boat and we could not get it in the right direction. The waves turned the boat side-on so we tried to row hard to turn the boat around but we couldnt do it.
Captain Sarah Hornby, who turned 31 during the crossing, decided to deploy the para anchor on the Ellida, which keeps it steady in heavy seas.
Ms Charlton said: You have to sit in two tiny cramped cabins and just wait it out. The worst thing was knowing that we were going in the wrong direction and we couldnt do anything.
The team landed safely in English Harbour, Antigua last week, after 55 days and 13 hours on the ocean. Ms Charlton and fellow rowers Ms Hornby, Charlotte Best, 30 and Kate Hallam, 33, were raising money for Mind UK and Women for Women International.
Ms Charlton said: I have this memory of rowing at night with big waves coming in, it was quite scary. It was a baptism of fire for ocean rowing.
H uman rights lawyers are seeking to put Australia on trial for crimes against humanity over the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers on two Pacific islands.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has been asked to examine the use of offshore camps on Nauru and Papua New Guineas Manus where hundreds of men, women and children are detained indeterminately.
In a 100-page submission, the International Human Rights Clinic at the Stanford Law School in the US and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) have summarised practices on the islands over the last decade and harrowing accounts of conditions.
Doctors who have been on the islands regard the levels of self-harm among refugees as being at epidemic proportions, according to the lawyers.
Omid Masoumali, a male refugee on Nauru, died by self-immolation in April last year and a few days later a woman set herself on fire and suffered serious burns to over 70 per cent of her body.
Reports on conditions on the islands, which were leaked last year, claimed seven child sexual assaults and 59 physical assaults.
Dr Ioannis Kalpouzos, lecturer at City Law School, University of London and GLAN chairman, said: We are witnessing the normalisation of crimes committed against the worlds most vulnerable population - refugees.
He added: It is a physical and mental suffering they are going through.
The most up-to-date figures record 390 people, including 45 children, detained on Nauru and 872 on Manus, about 3,000km and 1,000km from Australia respectively.
Hundreds of others who were sent to the islands since 2008 are no longer in formal detention but have been forced to remain on the islands.
The camps have been used to detain people who arrive in Australia by boat without a visa and seeking asylum. They are told they will not be settling in Australia but are not offered any other viable resettlement alternative.
A team from Stanford Law School investigated the situation and collected first-hand accounts of the conditions on the islands but were not able to see the camps first-hand.
The submission has been made to the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, which deals with cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
There is no indication how long the court prosecutors office will take to assess the case or whether it will be accepted.
T his image of a gun-wielding Turkish policeman standing over the body of the country's Russian ambassador who he shot dead moments earlier has won a major photography prize.
Burhan Ozbilici, an Associated Press photographer, took the photo which won the World Press Photo competition.
It captured the moment after policeman Mevlut Mert Altintas drew a handgun and shot Ambassador Andrei Karlov at a photo exhibition in Ankara on Dec. 19.
In the image, the gunman, wearing a suit and tie, stands defiantly, pistol in his right hand pointed at the ground and with his left hand raised, his index finger pointing upward.
His mouth is wide open as he shouts angrily.
The ambassador's body lies on the floor just behind Altintas.
The winning image announced. Monday was among 80,408 photos submitted to the prestigious competition by 5,034 photographers from 125 countries.
The jury awarded prizes in eight categories to 45 photographers from 25 countries
The eclectic selection of winners highlighted the dominant news topics of the last year - including conflict in Syria and Iraq, the migrant crisis, the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Olympic Games in Rio.
Among winning nature photos were images depicting humanity's devastating effect on wildlife, including a gruesome photograph of a poached rhino with its horn hacked off and another showing a turtle swimming while enmeshed in a green fishing net.
Among other winners, Jonathan Bachman of the United States, a photographer for Thomson Reuters, won the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an image of Ieshia Evans being detained in Baton Rouge during a protest on July 9 over the death of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by police.
Ms Evans stands bolt upright in a flowing dress as two police officers in heavy body armor and helmets move to take her into custody.
AP photographer Vadim Ghirda, based in Romania, won second prize in the Contemporary Issues - Singles category with an emotionally charged photo of migrants crossing a river as they attempt to reach Macedonia from Greece.
Another AP photographer, Felipe Dana, came third in the Spot News - Singles category for his image of an explosion in Mosul, Iraq.
B urberry confused Dev Patel with Riz Ahmed as it made an embarrassing Twitter faux pas at the BAFTAs.
The actors were both wearing the British brand on the red carpet when their names got mixed up.
The fashion powerhouse posted a tweet about Patel - but accompanied it with a picture of Ahmed.
The tweet read: Celebrating the EEBAFTAs in London this evening, Best Actor in A Supporting Role winner #DevPatel wears a @Burberry custom-made navy tuxedo."
The gaffe was swiftly deleted and replaced with the correct picture of Patel.
The brand also posted another tweet detailing Ahmed's clothing: "Actor @rizmc wearing a grey mohair tuxedo on the #EEBAFTA red carpet at the @RoyalAlbertHall this evening."
Eagle-eyed users were quick to pick up on the error, with one saying the brand should 'be ashamed of themselves'.
Another called for the brand to apologise for the gaffe, tweeting: "No apologies for the earlier f*** up?"
A spokesperson for Burberry told Standard Online: "We have aologised directly to Dev and Riz for the mistake. We are incredibly sorry, it should not have hapened.
"We are checking processes to ensure it doesnt happen again."
Patel took home the Best Supporting Actor gong for his role in Lion at last night's event.
BAFTA Film Awards: Winners room round-up
The actor - who rose to fame in teen drama Skins - looked overwhelmed as he collected the accolade from Felicity Jones at the Royal Albert Hall.
Wow, that just happened, he said on taking to the stage. This is so overwhelming. I sit at home and watch this with my family, who are here with me tonight.
La La Land picked up the most gongs including Lead Actress, Original Score, Best Director for Damien Chazelle, Best Cinematography and the coveted Best Film.
British Academy Film Awards 2017 1 /56 British Academy Film Awards 2017 Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William Daniel Leal-Olivas- WPA Pool/Getty Image Emma Stone Dominic Lipinski/PA Nicole Kidman Dave Benett Emily Blunt Dominic Lipinski/PA Amy Adams Chris Jackson/Getty Images Michelle Williams Dave Benett Naomie Harris Dave Benett Penelope Cruz Chris Jackson/Getty Images Emma Stone PA Nicole Kidman Ian West/PA Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William Dave Benett Thandie Newton Dave Benett Sophie Turner Dominic Lipinski/PA Laura Whitmore Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Holland Dave Benett Daisy Ridley Dominic Lipinski/PA Felicity Jones Dominic Lipinski/PA Hannah Bagshawe and Eddie Redmayne Dave Benett Meryl Streep Dominic Lipinski/PA Taylor Hill PA Dev Patel Ian West/PA Holliday Grainger Dave Benett Isabelle Huppert Dave Benett Jamie Dornan and Amelia Warner Dominic Lipinski/PA Viola Davis and Julius Tennon Ian West/P Andrew Garfield Ian West/PA Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabet Eberstein Ian West/PA Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Dave Benett J. K. Rowling and Neil Murray Dominic Lipinski/PA Ella Purnell Dominic Lipinski/PA Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard Dave Benett Julia Stiles and Preston J.Cook Dave Benett Julia Stiles Dave Benett Mel Brooks Ian West/PA Elize du Toit and Rafe Spall Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Ford Ian West/PA Wire Edith Bowman Dominic Lipinski/PA Anya Taylor-Joy Ian West/PA Carmen Ejogo Chris Jackson/Getty Zoe Ball Ian West/PA Jessica Brown Findlay Dominic Lipinski/PA Host Stephen Fry Dave Benett
See the full list of winners here.
E mma Stone and Casey Affleck picked up the top acting prizes at this years BAFTAs while La La Land was named Best Film.
Following on from their Golden Globe wins, Stone and Affleck were crowned Leading Actress and Actor at Sunday nights star studded ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall.
Stone was awarded for her role in Hollywood musical La La Land, something she described as the greatest working experience of my life.
On collecting the award she said: This country and the US seems to be going through a bit of a time.
BAFTA 2017 winners 1 /24 BAFTA 2017 winners Leading Actress Emma Stone, winner of the Leading Actress for La La Land Guy Levy/BAFTA/Rex Winners Emma Stone, Mel Brooks and Casey Affleck at the EE BAFTA British Academy Film Awards, Leading Actress Emma Stone with the award for Leading Actress in the film La La Land alongside Director Damien Chazelle Ian West/PA Best British Short Animation Khaled Gad, (left) Anushka Kishani (second from right) and Elena Ruscombe-King (right) with the award for Best British Short Animation for Love Story Ian West/PA Leading Actress Emma Stone with the award for Leading Actress in the film La La Land Ian West/PA Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer Babak Anvari, Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill and Lucan Toh with the award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Under the Shadow Ian West/PA Best Supporting Actor Dev Patel, winner of the Supporting Actor award for "Lion", and presenter Felicity Jones Dave Benett Best Supporting Actress Viola Davis with the award for Best Supporting Actress Ian West/PA Best Supporting Actor Dev Patel with his award for Best Supporting Actor Ian West/PA Best Adapted Screenplay Luke Davies with the award for best Adapted Screenplay for the film Lion Ian West/PA Costume Design Madeline Fontaine with the award for costume design for the film Jackie Ian West/PA Original Music Justin Hurwitz with the award for Original Music for the film La La Land Ian West/PA Best Film not in the English Language Gabor Sipos, Laszlo Nemes and Gabor Rayna with the award for Best Film not in the English Language for Son of Saul Ian West/PA Best Special Visual Effects Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R Jones, Adam Valdez with the award for Best Special Visual Effects for the film The Jungle Book alongside Daisy Ridley (left) and Luke Evans (right) Ian West/PA Best Documentary Ava Duvernay and Howard Barish with the award for Best Documentary for 13th Ian West/PA Best Cinematography Linus Sandgren with the award for Best Cinematography for the film La La Land Ian West/PA EE BAFTA Rising Star Tom Holland with the award for rising star Ian West/PA Best British Film Ken Loach with Rebecca O'Brien, Dave Johns and Paul Laverty and the award for Best British Film Ian West/PA
I think it's so special we were able to come together tonight thanks to Bafta, to celebrate the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it can help people to feel a little less alone."
Celebrating: Emma Stone and Casey Affleck with Mel Brooks (REX)
Stones co-star Ryan Gosling missed out on the Leading Actor award to Manchester By The Seas Affleck who paid tribute to Kenneth Lonergan.
The reason I'm here is because of Kenneth Lonergan and his sublime screenplay, that really dignifies everyday lives and their struggles with great compassion, he said.
I will never be able to express my gratitude to him.
All smiles: Dev Patel with his Best Supporting Actor gong / Ian West/PA
British star Dev Patel was overwhelmed as he was awarded the Best Supporting Actor gong for his role in Garth Davis film, Lion.
Wow, that just happened, he said on taking to the stage. This is so overwhelming. I sit at home and watch this with my family, who are here with me tonight.
BAFTA Film Awards: Winners room round-up
Viola Davis fought off competition from Hayley Squires, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris and Nicole Kidman to take the female equivalent for her role in Fences.
British Academy Film Awards 2017 1 /56 British Academy Film Awards 2017 Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William Daniel Leal-Olivas- WPA Pool/Getty Image Emma Stone Dominic Lipinski/PA Nicole Kidman Dave Benett Emily Blunt Dominic Lipinski/PA Amy Adams Chris Jackson/Getty Images Michelle Williams Dave Benett Naomie Harris Dave Benett Penelope Cruz Chris Jackson/Getty Images Emma Stone PA Nicole Kidman Ian West/PA Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William Dave Benett Thandie Newton Dave Benett Sophie Turner Dominic Lipinski/PA Laura Whitmore Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Holland Dave Benett Daisy Ridley Dominic Lipinski/PA Felicity Jones Dominic Lipinski/PA Hannah Bagshawe and Eddie Redmayne Dave Benett Meryl Streep Dominic Lipinski/PA Taylor Hill PA Dev Patel Ian West/PA Holliday Grainger Dave Benett Isabelle Huppert Dave Benett Jamie Dornan and Amelia Warner Dominic Lipinski/PA Viola Davis and Julius Tennon Ian West/P Andrew Garfield Ian West/PA Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabet Eberstein Ian West/PA Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Dave Benett J. K. Rowling and Neil Murray Dominic Lipinski/PA Ella Purnell Dominic Lipinski/PA Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard Dave Benett Julia Stiles and Preston J.Cook Dave Benett Julia Stiles Dave Benett Mel Brooks Ian West/PA Elize du Toit and Rafe Spall Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Ford Ian West/PA Wire Edith Bowman Dominic Lipinski/PA Anya Taylor-Joy Ian West/PA Carmen Ejogo Chris Jackson/Getty Zoe Ball Ian West/PA Jessica Brown Findlay Dominic Lipinski/PA Host Stephen Fry Dave Benett
The US star paid tribute to August Wilson, who wrote the play upon which the film is based, as she picked up the gong.
When my father took his last breath, one of the thoughts that went through my mind was, 'Did his life matter?' And August answers that question so brilliantly, she said.
Because what he did is said that our lives mattered as African-Americans. The people who did not make it into history books, but they have a story, and those stories deserve to be told. Thank you, August.
La La Land picked up the most gongs including Original Score, Best Director for Damien Chazelle and Best Cinematography.
Outstanding British Film went to Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake while Manchester By The Sea picked up Best Screenplay.
Full list of winners:
Best Film
La La Land
Leading Actor
Casey Affleck
Leading Actress
Emma Stone
La La Land - Trailer 2
Best Original Screenplay
Manchester By The Sea
Best Adapted Screenplay
Lion
Outstanding British Film
I, Daniel Blake
I, Daniel Blake - Trailer
Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davies
Best Supporting Actor
Dev Patel
Best Director
Damien Chazelle
EE BAFTA Rising Star
Tom Holland
Best Cinematography
La La Land
Best Hair and make-up
Florence Foster Jenkins J Roy Hellend and Daniel Phillips
Florence Foster Jenkins - trailer
Best Original Score
La La Land
Costume Design
Jackie
Sound Design
Arrival
British Short Animation
A Love Story
Best British Short
Home
Production Design
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Best Editing
Hacksaw Ridge
Hacksaw Ridge - Trailer
Best Documentary
13th
Film Not in the English Language
Son of Saul
Animated Film
Kubo and the Two Strings
Visual Effects
Jungle Book
The Jungle Book - Trailer
Best debut by a British writer, director or producer
Under The Shadow
Fellowship Award
Mel Brooks
D rake treated himself to a late night takeaway following his Manchester concert, spending a staggering 1500 on pizza.
The Canadian rapper, who is currently on tour in the UK, made the mammoth Dominos order on Saturday night following his show at the Manchester Arena.
The order was so large that it had to be delivered to the stars hotel in three cars, with 10 members of hotel staff having to ferry it up to his room, a source told Metro.
Drake is partial to some late night food as he reportedly spent over 500 at chicken restaurant Nandos while in Leeds last week.
According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, a friend of the rapper went to the restaurant to pick up the order at around 10.30pm last Thursday.
Other customers bore the brunt of Drakes massive order, with one diner complaining that theyd had to wait until the star had been served before they could get their food.
Paddy Mulachy wrote on Facebook: Just popped into Nando's for a pre-sell out meal and we aren't being served because Drake has ordered 600 worth of chicken wings!
Drake performed a number of sell-out shows in the capital before setting off on the rest of his UK tour.
Speaking on stage at the O2, he said: I owe my whole career to London. This is my favourite city in the world.
London is the most inspiring place in the world the people, the music, the women. This was probably the most fun Ive had at a single show in my life.
D ebbie Harry was in high spirits at this years Elle Style Awards, ruling the red carpet in her very own crown.
The iconic musician, who is gearing up for the release of the 11th Blondie album, joked around in front of the photographers at the annual fashion event at 41 Conduit Street on Monday night.
While everyone else struck their most sultry poses as they arrived at the ceremony, Harry didnt seem to be taking it all too seriously.
The superstar showed up with her guitarist Chris Stein, who joined her for a posing session before stepping back to take his own photographs of Harry.
Life and soul: Debbie Harry jokes around on the red carpet (PA) / Ian West/PA
The pair will be performing together in London this summer having just been announced as headliners for the BST Hyde Park.
A host of fashion world stars joined Harry at the ceremony, hosted by style bible Elle Magazine.
Back to black: Thandie Newton keeps it black in a floor length gown (PA) / Ian West/PA
Model Arizona Muse wore a hot pink silk gown while British model Eliza Cummings opted for a dramatic sheer embroidered gown.
A number of actresses joined the fashion elite, including Poldarks Eleanor Tomlinson who braved the cold in a cropped top and skirt.
Rising star Sasha Lane, who starred in Andrea Arnolds 2016 film American Honey, went for something a bit more edgy in a gaping, buttoned-up dress and pink boots.
Nocturnal Animals actress Ellie Bamber wore a formal, off-the-shoulder gown, while her co-star Zawe Ashton kept it a bit more casual.
Music world stars including Beth Ditto, Stormzy and Izzy Bitzu also showed off their fashion credentials as they put in an appearance at the annual party.
E mma Stone clearly wasnt a fan of Zoe Balls line of questioning at the BAFTAs.
The La La Land star who won Leading Actress for her role in the Hollywood musical kicked off this years ceremony with a frosty red carpet interview.
Stone, 28, was stopped by Ball as she made her way into the Royal Albert Hall, London, and asked if she had prepared a winners speech.
The actress looked bemused before rolling her eyes and replying: Oh God. Well see.
You know, Im just going to enjoy the show. Thats what Im going to do.
Stone looked equally as unimpressed when Ball referenced the news that she is set to play Cruella de Vil in Disney's upcoming 101 Dalmatians spin-off.
Ill just say the one word to you Cruella, Ball said.
Bafta
Stone replied: What about her?
After Ball asked whether or not it was happening, the actress remained tight-lipped and said: We will see, its very early so well see how it all pans out.
British Academy Film Awards 2017 1 /56 British Academy Film Awards 2017 Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William Daniel Leal-Olivas- WPA Pool/Getty Image Emma Stone Dominic Lipinski/PA Nicole Kidman Dave Benett Emily Blunt Dominic Lipinski/PA Amy Adams Chris Jackson/Getty Images Michelle Williams Dave Benett Naomie Harris Dave Benett Penelope Cruz Chris Jackson/Getty Images Emma Stone PA Nicole Kidman Ian West/PA Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William Dave Benett Thandie Newton Dave Benett Sophie Turner Dominic Lipinski/PA Laura Whitmore Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Holland Dave Benett Daisy Ridley Dominic Lipinski/PA Felicity Jones Dominic Lipinski/PA Hannah Bagshawe and Eddie Redmayne Dave Benett Meryl Streep Dominic Lipinski/PA Taylor Hill PA Dev Patel Ian West/PA Holliday Grainger Dave Benett Isabelle Huppert Dave Benett Jamie Dornan and Amelia Warner Dominic Lipinski/PA Viola Davis and Julius Tennon Ian West/P Andrew Garfield Ian West/PA Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabet Eberstein Ian West/PA Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Dave Benett J. K. Rowling and Neil Murray Dominic Lipinski/PA Ella Purnell Dominic Lipinski/PA Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard Dave Benett Julia Stiles and Preston J.Cook Dave Benett Julia Stiles Dave Benett Mel Brooks Ian West/PA Elize du Toit and Rafe Spall Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Ford Ian West/PA Wire Edith Bowman Dominic Lipinski/PA Anya Taylor-Joy Ian West/PA Carmen Ejogo Chris Jackson/Getty Zoe Ball Ian West/PA Jessica Brown Findlay Dominic Lipinski/PA Host Stephen Fry Dave Benett
Stone was honoured for her role in Damien Chazelles Oscar nominated film on Sunday night.
On accepting the Leading Actress gong she said: This was one of the greatest working experiences of my life.
Referencing the political climate in the UK and the US she continued: This country and the US seems to be going through a bit of a time.
I think it's so special we were able to come together tonight thanks to Bafta, to celebrate the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it can help people to feel a little less alone.
La La Land took home five awards including the coveted Best Film.
BAFTA Film Awards: Round-up
See the full list of winners here.
T he team behind La La Land say they are in talks to transform the hit film into a stage show and would love to bring it to the West End.
Speaking after the musical won five awards at last nights Baftas, including best film, best director for Damien Chazelle and best actress for Emma Stone, producer Jordan Horowitz said a theatrical version would include several changes, including new songs.
He told the Standard the songs were indelible but added: I dont necessarily know what the stage musical looks like. I think well write more songs and there will be work to do... well have to figure out what about the story we want to keep.
Horowitz, who said he would love to see the show on a London stage, hopes its success will lead to more Hollywood musicals, because they are joyful and speak to the exuberance of the human spirit.
BAFTA 2017 winners 1 /24 BAFTA 2017 winners Leading Actress Emma Stone, winner of the Leading Actress for La La Land Guy Levy/BAFTA/Rex Winners Emma Stone, Mel Brooks and Casey Affleck at the EE BAFTA British Academy Film Awards, Leading Actress Emma Stone with the award for Leading Actress in the film La La Land alongside Director Damien Chazelle Ian West/PA Best British Short Animation Khaled Gad, (left) Anushka Kishani (second from right) and Elena Ruscombe-King (right) with the award for Best British Short Animation for Love Story Ian West/PA Leading Actress Emma Stone with the award for Leading Actress in the film La La Land Ian West/PA Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer Babak Anvari, Emily Leo, Oliver Roskill and Lucan Toh with the award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Under the Shadow Ian West/PA Best Supporting Actor Dev Patel, winner of the Supporting Actor award for "Lion", and presenter Felicity Jones Dave Benett Best Supporting Actress Viola Davis with the award for Best Supporting Actress Ian West/PA Best Supporting Actor Dev Patel with his award for Best Supporting Actor Ian West/PA Best Adapted Screenplay Luke Davies with the award for best Adapted Screenplay for the film Lion Ian West/PA Costume Design Madeline Fontaine with the award for costume design for the film Jackie Ian West/PA Original Music Justin Hurwitz with the award for Original Music for the film La La Land Ian West/PA Best Film not in the English Language Gabor Sipos, Laszlo Nemes and Gabor Rayna with the award for Best Film not in the English Language for Son of Saul Ian West/PA Best Special Visual Effects Robert Legato, Dan Lemmon, Andrew R Jones, Adam Valdez with the award for Best Special Visual Effects for the film The Jungle Book alongside Daisy Ridley (left) and Luke Evans (right) Ian West/PA Best Documentary Ava Duvernay and Howard Barish with the award for Best Documentary for 13th Ian West/PA Best Cinematography Linus Sandgren with the award for Best Cinematography for the film La La Land Ian West/PA EE BAFTA Rising Star Tom Holland with the award for rising star Ian West/PA Best British Film Ken Loach with Rebecca O'Brien, Dave Johns and Paul Laverty and the award for Best British Film Ian West/PA
La La Land composer Justin Hurwitz, who won the Bafta for original music, said he had many, many ideas for songs that did not make the cinema, including an unused title track.
He said: It was going to be in the middle of the movie but we nixed that. Then it was going to be over the end credits and we nixed that at the last minute.
Emma Stone on the red carpet at the BAFTAs 2017
The cast and crew continued the celebrations after the awards, at the Albert Hall, and a dinner at the Grosvenor House hotel in Park Lane. But Stone, who had a cold, said: Im on medication... I have to head to bed.
Best supporting actress Viola Davis, best actor Casey Affleck and rising star winner Tom Holland were among those with more staying power at Harvey Weinsteins after-party in Holborn.
Director Ken Loach criticised the Governments brutal benefits system after his I, Daniel Blake won outstanding British film. But Tory MP Tim Loughton branded the speech the usual predictable drivel.
See the full list of winners here.
M eryl Streep may not have picked up an award at this years BAFTAs but she won over the audience with her incredible reaction to Cirque du Soleil.
The circus group gave Streep a fright with their daring acrobatics as they kicked off the annual ceremony at Londons Royal Albert Hall on Sunday night.
The Hollywood star who was nominated for Leading Actress held her head in her hands as one female gymnast was catapulted into the air before landing on her co-stars shoulders.
Struggling to watch, Streep took off her glasses and covered her eyes.
She later looked close to tears as she threw her hands in the air and applauded the gymnast for diving off of a tower of humans.
Viewers deemed Streeps reaction incredible and called for it to be immortalised as a meme.
One viewer tweeted: "Meryl Streep's reaction to Circ du soleil has been the greatest moment of 2017 so far #BAFTAs."
Another posted: "Meryl Streep's reaction to @Cirque is possibly one of the best things I've seen this weekend #BAFTAs."
Streep later enjoyed a kiss with host Stephen Fry after he plucked her out of the crowd.
The former QI host set his sights on Streep after explaining that it has become a tradition for him to kiss a nominee ahead of the ceremony.
Streep looked honoured to have been chosen and grabbed Fry around the neck as she pulled him in for a kiss.
The act was met with cheers from the audience before Fry made his way back on stage.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrive at the 2017 Bafta Film awards
Emma Stone and Casey Affleck were among the big winners, taking home the coveted Leading Actress and Actor gongs for their roles in La La Land and Manchester By The Sea respectively.
La La Land was crowned Best Film with Damien Chazelle taking Best Director.
British Academy Film Awards 2017 1 /56 British Academy Film Awards 2017 Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William Daniel Leal-Olivas- WPA Pool/Getty Image Emma Stone Dominic Lipinski/PA Nicole Kidman Dave Benett Emily Blunt Dominic Lipinski/PA Amy Adams Chris Jackson/Getty Images Michelle Williams Dave Benett Naomie Harris Dave Benett Penelope Cruz Chris Jackson/Getty Images Emma Stone PA Nicole Kidman Ian West/PA Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William Dave Benett Thandie Newton Dave Benett Sophie Turner Dominic Lipinski/PA Laura Whitmore Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Holland Dave Benett Daisy Ridley Dominic Lipinski/PA Felicity Jones Dominic Lipinski/PA Hannah Bagshawe and Eddie Redmayne Dave Benett Meryl Streep Dominic Lipinski/PA Taylor Hill PA Dev Patel Ian West/PA Holliday Grainger Dave Benett Isabelle Huppert Dave Benett Jamie Dornan and Amelia Warner Dominic Lipinski/PA Viola Davis and Julius Tennon Ian West/P Andrew Garfield Ian West/PA Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabet Eberstein Ian West/PA Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Dave Benett J. K. Rowling and Neil Murray Dominic Lipinski/PA Ella Purnell Dominic Lipinski/PA Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard Dave Benett Julia Stiles and Preston J.Cook Dave Benett Julia Stiles Dave Benett Mel Brooks Ian West/PA Elize du Toit and Rafe Spall Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Ford Ian West/PA Wire Edith Bowman Dominic Lipinski/PA Anya Taylor-Joy Ian West/PA Carmen Ejogo Chris Jackson/Getty Zoe Ball Ian West/PA Jessica Brown Findlay Dominic Lipinski/PA Host Stephen Fry Dave Benett
Click here for the full list of winners.
.
U S star Ryan Gosling was unable to attend the BAFTAs due to a "family matter".
Gosling, 36, was in the running for Lead Actor for his role in Hollywood musical La La Land, which picked up five out of a potential 11 gongs at Sunday night's ceremony.
A representative for Gosling told Standard Online: "Unfortunately Ryan had to stay in LA to attend to a family matter.
"He is regretful that he could not be here."
Gosling - who shares two children with his wife of five years Eva Mendes - missed out on the Lead Actor gong to Manchester By The Sea's Casey Affleck, but his co-star Emma Stone took home Lead Actress.
BAFTA Film Awards: Round-up
Stone - who is also nominated for an Academy Award - said making the film was the "greatest working experience" of her life so far.
This country and the US seems to be going through a bit of a time," she said on collecting the award.
I think it's so special we were able to come together tonight thanks to Bafta, to celebrate the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it can help people to feel a little less alone."
La La Land had the biggest haul of the night, scooping Best Film, Best Director, Original Score and Best Cinematography.
Other winners included Dev Patel and Viola Davis who were honoured with the Best Supporting Actor and Actress gongs for their roles in Lion and Fences respectively.
British Academy Film Awards 2017 1 /56 British Academy Film Awards 2017 Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William Daniel Leal-Olivas- WPA Pool/Getty Image Emma Stone Dominic Lipinski/PA Nicole Kidman Dave Benett Emily Blunt Dominic Lipinski/PA Amy Adams Chris Jackson/Getty Images Michelle Williams Dave Benett Naomie Harris Dave Benett Penelope Cruz Chris Jackson/Getty Images Emma Stone PA Nicole Kidman Ian West/PA Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William Dave Benett Thandie Newton Dave Benett Sophie Turner Dominic Lipinski/PA Laura Whitmore Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Holland Dave Benett Daisy Ridley Dominic Lipinski/PA Felicity Jones Dominic Lipinski/PA Hannah Bagshawe and Eddie Redmayne Dave Benett Meryl Streep Dominic Lipinski/PA Taylor Hill PA Dev Patel Ian West/PA Holliday Grainger Dave Benett Isabelle Huppert Dave Benett Jamie Dornan and Amelia Warner Dominic Lipinski/PA Viola Davis and Julius Tennon Ian West/P Andrew Garfield Ian West/PA Hugh Grant and Anna Elisabet Eberstein Ian West/PA Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Dave Benett J. K. Rowling and Neil Murray Dominic Lipinski/PA Ella Purnell Dominic Lipinski/PA Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard Dave Benett Julia Stiles and Preston J.Cook Dave Benett Julia Stiles Dave Benett Mel Brooks Ian West/PA Elize du Toit and Rafe Spall Dominic Lipinski/PA Tom Ford Ian West/PA Wire Edith Bowman Dominic Lipinski/PA Anya Taylor-Joy Ian West/PA Carmen Ejogo Chris Jackson/Getty Zoe Ball Ian West/PA Jessica Brown Findlay Dominic Lipinski/PA Host Stephen Fry Dave Benett
See the full list of winners here.
S tephen Fry kicked off this years BAFTAs by hunting down Meryl Streep for a kiss.
Fry, 59, made his move on the Hollywood star as he resumed his role of host at the 70th annual awards bash at Londons Royal Albert Hall.
He said it has become a tradition for him to kiss a nominee ahead of the ceremony, and set about plucking Streep out of the star studded crowd.
He said: Its tradition for me to share a kiss with one nominee.
Pucker up: Stephen Fry and Meryl Streep lock lips / Jonathan Hordle/Rex
Streep looked honoured to have been chosen and grabbed Fry around the neck as she pulled him in for a kiss.
The act was met with cheers from the audience before Fry made his way back on stage.
The tradition was started five years ago when Fry asked Brad Pitt to blow a kiss to the audience watching at home.
Stars talk politics on BAFTA red carpet
He has since locked lips with Cuba Gooding Jnr and last year encouraged Leonardo DiCaprio to pucker up with Dame Maggie Smith for his Kiss-Cam.
Streep will be hoping to take home the coveted Leading Actress gong at this years ceremony.
She has been nominated for her role as the titular character in Florence Foster Jenkins.
She faces tough competition from Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Emma Stone and Natalie Portman.
Other stars up for awards include Dev Patel and Viola Davis for Best Supporting Actor and Actress respectively.
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.
In the British House of Commons, their equivalent of our speaker of the house petitioned the membership to not allow the newly elected American president, Donald Trump, to speak before that august body. This was in response to a petition circulated by and signed by over a million British citizens in response to the travel ban imposed by President Trump on immigrants from seven primarily Muslim nations.
The prosecutors with the General Prosecutor's Office requested the National Integrity Agency (ANI) to verify the wealth declarations submitted by former president Traian Basescu. According to the Press Relations Bureau of the General Prosecutor's Office, the prosecutors classified the case in which Traian Basescu was investigated for money laundering in relation to the sale of a plot in Baneasa (north of Bucharest) to businessman Costel Casuneanu.
The prosecutors have reopened the investigations for committing false statements, in which respect ANI was notified to evaluate Traian Basescu's wealth declarations.
Agerpres
Member of the European Parliament Victor Negrescu conveyed in an open letter addressed to Nigel Farage, that the former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) shouldn't talk about corruption since, in his turn, he is investigated for corruption by the European Parliament, and underlined that Romania's membership to the European Union (EU) should not be used as a political theme for winning over votes.
"Mr. Nigel Farage, Romania doesn't take democracy lessons from the person guilty for the Brexit! and, much less, lessons in fairness from a man investigated by the European Parliament for corruption and abuse of office! I'm talking about the investigation in which you are charged, alongside Paul Nuttall and almost half of your party MPs for embezzlement, worth approximately 500,000 GBP. I'm astonished by the courage you have to come out publicly with such attacks, taking into account you need to give some answers to justice," Victor Negrescu mentioned in a press release sent to agerpres. on Sunday.
According to the quoted source, the Romanian MEP believes that Nigel Farage acted as an enemy of Romania and of Romanian people, after he made several slanderous statements regarding Romanians.
"I request that, from now on, before coming out publicly with slanderous statements regarding Romanians and Romania you do your homework and correctly inform, because what you claimed during the Leading Britain's Conversation (LBC) radio broadcast is as false, as general and as populist as can be. It's no wander you constantly have extremist positions since, for you, the truth depends on the person who speaks it. I cannot accept for a person suspected of corruption to claim he's better than an entire nation. Through all that you said about Romanians, over the past years, you acted as an enemy of my country and of my fellow nationals," Negrescu added, according to the release.
Furthermore, the Romanian MEP underlined that "Romania has all merits to be in the EU."
The former leader of the British euroskeptic formation UKIP, Nigel Farage, had on Friday evening a hot dispute with a listener who intervened during his radio talk-show (LBC show), the British politician claiming that Romania should not be allowed in the EU because it hadn't finished the transition after the communist regime and it is, in his opinion, a county where corruption is "endemic," following these assessments the listener in question accused Farage of being racist, the article published by the daily Express points out.
Farage also suggested that the UK exiting the EU occurs in a suitable moment, because he deems "incredible" for his country to be in a political union with Romania.
Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu on Monday welcomed leaders of the National Coalition for Romania's Modernisation (CNMR) to discuss Romania's taking in European funds and ways to improve the process. In a press statement released by the Government, Grindeanu is quoted as encouraging dialogue between the Government and the NGO headed by Alexandru Cumpanasu.
"Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu today had a first meeting with leaders of the National Coalition for Romania's Modernisation as part of conversational demarches between the two organisations. The prime minister encouraged a continuation in cooperation through regular meetings of the coalition's members and members of the Government as well as governmental specialist teams to identify together the best solutions for each priority areas," the statement says.
Talks focused on the absorption of European funds and ways to improve the process, with Minister-delegate Mihaela Toader unveiling a schedule for the period immediately ahead. Education Minister Pavel Nastase unveiled the Government's vision of how to develop education and research, both of which are priority areas for the incumbent government, the statement says.
Also discussed were transparency and efficiency in the public administration, the use of energy and natural resources, a new bill on uniform public pay, and the IT&C industry. "Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu underscored that all these priority governmental areas should be approached in terms of national interest and common good," reads the statement.
Agerpres
KANSAS CITY, Mo. A program in Kansas City, Missouri, that sold off dozens of eyesore houses for just a dollar last year hopes buyers are willing to pay a bit more for another batch of fixer-uppers.
The Land Bank of Kansas City's latest promotion, which starts with an open house Tuesday, is offering roughly 50 homes for $999 apiece, nearly a year after 32 homes in worse disrepair were snapped up for just a buck.
The available houses will be listed on the Land Bank's website . Buyers will have 120 days to address immediate code issues and one year to complete a rehab that makes the structures livable. Renovations could cost tens of thousands of dollars, the Land Bank cautions while pitching the homes as "excellent opportunities" for first-time home buyers.
"If you've got skills if you're a contractor or a (building) tradesman this would be a great deal to get into a home," said Ted Anderson, the Land Bank's executive director.
Although last year's buyers were rewarded with an eventual $8,500 rebate the amount it would have cost the city to flatten those houses no such deal applies this time, Anderson said.
"In this case, the houses aren't on the eve of being demolished and are in better shape," he said. These "homes are structurally sound and just need a little love, and vision, to bring them back to life."
The program is part of a larger Kansas City effort to deal with dangerous, abandoned houses that have attracted squatters and crime. The city is devoting $10 million to tear down up to 800 houses, with the Land Bank's program intended to save some of those targeted.
Applicants for the $999 homes must undergo a background check. Registered sex offenders and people with drug-dealing or prostitution convictions are disqualified.
Anderson said it hasn't been decided how long the $999 homes will remain up for sale.
SINGAPORE China's state-owned Sinochem is in early talks with Noble Group to buy an equity stake in the embattled trader, three sources familiar with the matter said, in a move that would help it gain access to the commodity trader's global supply chain.
Taking a stake in an internationally active trading house like Noble would help Sinochem, a big oil, gas and petrochemical company, in its ambitions to become a more globally active energy trader, and also develop China's gas industry.
The discussions are taking place as Noble looks to rejig its business units, cut debt and boost liquidity to fight a long-term downtrend in commodity prices.
In November, Hong Kong-headquartered Noble said it had met its capital raising target of $2 billion as it sold assets, completed a rights issue and restructured its operations.
The sources said the talks have not been completed and there is no assurance that a deal will be finalized.
They said senior Noble executives visited China in recent months to hold talks with Sinochem's management, and both sides also met at Noble's U.S. regional hub in Stamford, Conn.
The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Sinochem did not immediately return a request for comment, and an external spokeswoman for Noble declined comment.
Noble already has the backing of Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. (CIC), which participated in the company's rights issue last year. The capital raising followed a slump in investor confidence as Noble's accounting practices were questioned by Iceberg Research.
CIC has a 9.6 percent stake in Noble, while Noble Chairman Richard Elman holds a stake of about 18 percent.
The size of the planned stake or the amount to be invested by Sinochem has not yet been finalized, and any deal could face scrutiny in China as authorities there try to control capital outflows, sources said.
The appeal of Noble for Sinochem is likely to be access to its global supply chain.
A Sinochem source said the company was still conducting due diligence on Noble, which typically takes six months to a year. He said the company was looking at Noble's North America energy trading, which could complement Sinochem's existing portfolio.
Noble specializes in shipping and storage logistics, rather than owning large production assets or refineries, and is also a major player in gasoline blending in the United States.
Noble is also targeting Asia's emerging liquefied natural gas (LNG) market as a core growth area, while Sinochem is likely to play a key role in China's plans to expand its natural gas sector to reduce the share of polluting coal in its energy mix.
Access to Noble's LNG trading network could help with the Chinese plans.
Foresight Energy, citing "positive business momentum reflected" in its preliminary fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 results, said Monday it is working with Goldman Sachs in an effort to refinance its debt.
In preliminary, unaudited results, the St. Louis-based coal company reported a net loss for 2016 of $178.8 million, or $1.37 per unit, on sales of $866.6 million on sales volumes of 19.3 million tons. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was $308.8 million in 2016, down from $338.11 million, the company said.
ATLANTA They are the stuff of legend, wielded by hit men and by James Bond. For decades, buying a silencer for a firearm has been as difficult as buying a machine gun, requiring a background check that can take close to a year.
Now, emboldened by the election of Donald Trump as president, the industry has renewed a push in Congress to ease those restrictions, arguing that it'll help preserve the hearing of gun users.
"We look at this as a Second Amendment issue. We look at it as a health issue," said Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "The decibel level of a fired gun, even the lowly .22-caliber, can cause hearing damage."
Since the 1930s silencers have been regulated under the National Firearms Act, facing the same paperwork, $200 tax and background checks required to buy a machine gun.
A background check to buy most firearms must be completed within three days, or the sale automatically goes through. But the process for a silencer and weapons regulated under the NFA can take eight months or more. Each silencer carries a serial number that can be tracked. Eight states outlaw the sale or possession of silencers.
Despite the barriers, silencers have gained in popularity. In 2008, when West Valley City, Utah, based SilencerCo was formed, about 18,000 silencers were being sold each year by the entire industry. These days the company, which has 70 percent of the market, sells that many each month.
One of its founders, CEO Josh Waldron, said he suffers hearing loss and still deals with a ringing in his ears from when he went hunting for mule deer as a teen with his father's .243 rifle.
Waldron and other advocates say one of the biggest benefits is for hunters who need to be able to hear what's around them and detect the movements of prey something made more difficult if they're wearing ear protection.
"You need your senses when you're hunting," Waldron said while attending this year's gun industry SHOT Show convention in Las Vegas. "What this is doing is taking the hearing protection that one would wear off your head and putting it on your gun."
Silencers, more technically called suppressors and nicknamed "cans," were invented in the early 1900s by MIT-educated Hiram Percy Maxim, who also invented a muffler for gasoline engines. They were brought under NFA regulations after Depression-era game wardens were concerned hunters would use them to poach.
Advocates say it's misleading to call them silencers because they don't mute the noise a gunshot makes so much as muffle it. They cringe at the images fed by Hollywood that show them as a tool of assassins and others looking to kill people without detection.
"It's only in the movies where you put on a suppressor or as they call them in the movies, a silencer and all you hear is 'pfff'. That's not real life," Pratt said.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina, is a sponsor of the "Hearing Protection Act," the latest attempt to pass such legislation. It's previously been met with resistance, especially under President Barack Obama and among Democratic lawmakers who view it as a gun-promotion issue.
It doesn't hurt now that Trump's son Donald met with SilencerCo and was videoed trying out their products.
"I'm cautiously optimistic," Duncan said. "Don Junior, who is an avid hunter himself, has come out in favor of this particular legislation. And so he gets it. That gives us a little bit of juice within the White House and the executive branch. And hopefully we can tap that energy and have it transfer over to the legislative branch."
Suppressors generally lower the sound level by 20 to 35 decibels, leaving most guns still louder than your average ambulance siren.
Critics say efforts to ease the restrictions will allow more criminals to use them and will make it difficult to detect when and where a shooting is taking place. There aren't many cases to point to in which a silencer was used during a crime. Gun-control advocates say that shows that tightly regulating them is working, while the gun industry says it's more an indication that criminals aren't apt to use them even if restrictions are eased.
Lindsay Nichols, senior attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, scoffs at the idea that making it easier to buy a suppressor is motivated by protecting someone's hearing.
"They're not about protecting people's ears. In fact a good pair of ear plugs and ear muffs work just as well as a silencer and they don't pose a risk that a criminal is going to use them in a violent crime," she said, adding: "This is clearly something that I think that a lot of people can see through. They can see this is really about profits for the gun industry."
Ed Turner, a former police officer and the owner of Ed's Public Safety, a gun shop in Stockbridge, Georgia, said he's scaled back the number of silencers he carries because of the hassle of buying one.
"To say that it's going to enhance a criminal element, I think that's kind of ludicrous," Turner said. "Criminals don't abide by laws anyway... They're getting them off the street. They're stolen."
NEW DELHI India's navy is in the hunt for a new foreign fighter jet after rejecting an indigenously made aircraft as too heavy.
The navy last month invited manufacturers to pitch for 57 planes for its aircraft carriers, a multi-billion dollar order the government had hoped would go to the state-run producers of India's Tejas, a combat aircraft 33 years in the making.
India, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian buyers are expected to intensify efforts this year to develop indigenous warplanes, military officials said, due to anxieties that the United States may be less engaged in the region under President Donald Trump.
But their hopes of manufacturing state-of-the-art warplanes could still be decades away as countries need more time to master the technology, experts said.
"It's been long on ambition short on success," Richard A. Bitzinger, senior fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said of the drive.
"These things are being done because of techno-nationalism. They are done because these countries perceive of themselves as rising powers."
As part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make-in-India" campaign, scientists will showcase the Tejas warplane at an air show opening in Bengaluru on Tuesday. But the jet remains a work in progress, with only three in service with the air force.
South Korea, supported by Indonesia, has multi-billion dollar plans to develop a twin-engined KF-X fighter jet, while Taiwan said this month it plans to build 66 jet trainer aircraft that could eventually help it manufacture a combat plane.
Chang Yeoung-keun, an adviser on the KF-X fighter jet project and a professor at Korea Aerospace University, said full development of the plane and its technologies will take decades.
"South Korea needs to develop core technologies of the jets, not just shells," he said. "I am skeptical. South Korea may be able to develop core technology in 30 to 40 years, but they have to develop them in 10 years, with current fighter jets aging."
India's struggle
Cleared by the government in 1983, the Indian plane was meant to be the backbone of the air force due for induction in 1994.
Instead, it suffered years of delay with scientists trying to build the world's most modern light combat aircraft from scratch, including the engine.
In December, the navy chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba, said the sea version of the plane was "not up to the mark" and it could not take off from an aircraft carrier once weapons were loaded.
A source in the navy said that the plane for years has failed flight tests when taking off from a 200-meter carrier deck with weapons on board. That prompted the navy to issue a request last month for information for a foreign fighter to fill the gap, the first stage in a long procurement process.
Boeing Co. has pitched its F-A/18 Hornet, that the U.S. navy flies from its carriers, to the Indian defense ministry, including an offer to build it locally.
Sweden's Saab AB said on Friday it will offer the naval version of its Gripen fighter to the Indian navy.
India's top defense scientists said they were disappointed by the navy's decision and that fighter aircraft development was a challenge everywhere, including with the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35.
"Look at the F-35, with all the might of the multinational effort, is still evolving," said a source in the aeronautical development agency which is spearheading the LCA effort.
"There are no shortcuts."
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. Authorities say the maintenance chief at a western Kentucky coal mine has been indicted on charges of falsifying a safety record and lying to federal inspectors.
U.S. Attorney John E. Kuhn Jr. said in a statement on Monday that the charges against Daniel L. Couch Jr. stem from safety inspections last year at Murray Energy's Paradise No. 9 Mine in Muhlenberg County.
The indictment says a federal Mine Safety and Health Administration inspector visited the mine on May 17, 2016, and found no record of required fire suppression checks for the week of May 1-7. Two days later, the inspector returned to find the record book changed to show that inspections had taken place on May 7.
Couch was also charged with making false statements to investigators.
Federal court records don't indicate whether Couch has an attorney.
A woman in south-central Texas is suing Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, claiming the restaurant's red beans and rice contained flesh-eating New World screwworms that have ravaged her body over the past two years.
In a 10-page lawsuit filed last week, Karen Goode of San Antonio claimed that Popeyes and its franchisee Z&H Foods knew or should have known about the parasite when they served her in spring 2015.
The screwworms, according to the lawsuit, entered Goode's digestive tract and laid eggs, which embedded into the interior lining of her small intestine, then hatched and started eating Goode "from the inside out."
Goode's attorney, Patrick Stolmeier, called it a "pretty horrible situation," saying Goode has been losing "massive amounts of blood and tissue" as the screwworms have been "eating themselves out of her body."
"She's just hoping she can heal and get healthy," he said of Goode. "She's just trying to hang on at this point."
Popeyes said in a statement that it was aware of Goode's claims and that the franchisee has been working with her for more than a year to "to address her concerns."
"We don't discuss details of litigation, but we can tell you that we understand that, while investigating this matter, the franchisee has worked with outside parties who have found the claims to be unfounded and false," Popeyes spokeswoman Renee Kopkowski said in a statement. "We can also assure you that the side dishes at this local Popeyes and all Popeyes restaurants have a strict standard and are cooked and maintained at 165 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that would make it impossible for bacteria or other foreign matter to survive the cooking process.
"Popeyes makes food safety a top priority," the statement read, "and we put the safety and welfare of our guests first, so we will continue to investigate this matter."
Female New World screwworms lay their eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals and humans and, when the eggs hatch, the maggots infest and feed on the host, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The damage may be fatal, according to the agency.
Screwworms were eradicated in the United States several decades ago. Then last year, the parasite was found in deer from National Key Deer Refuge in Big Pine Key, Fla., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to an earlier Post report, the New World screwworms infesting the Florida deer were not supposed to be in the United States. In the 1950s, the USDA embarked on an ambitious project to rid the country of the agricultural pest. Its plan was a bit closer to "kill it with fire" than "shoo, fly" with gamma radiation and X-rays supplying the fire.
The government raised young screwworms by the millions, and bombarded the larvae with gamma and X-rays. Thus rendered infertile, the adult flies were released en masse across the Southeast and West. By the end of the 1950s, a "fly factory" in Sebring, Fla., churned out 50 million sterile flies a week. Unable to find fecund mates, the U.S. screwworm population crashed, first in pockets and then across the country.
By the end of the 1960s, the fly had vanished from the United States. In each subsequent year, the lack of screwworms has saved the livestock industry $900 million, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate.
The Agriculture Department also set its sights southward, helping eliminate the flies in Jamaica, Mexico and parts of Central America. Panama marks the "buffer zone" between the fly zones in South America and the screwworm-free north, Edward B. Knipling, the son of the entomologist who came up with the birth control plan, told NPR in June.
U.S. infections since the eradication effort have been isolated cases, typically the result of traveling abroad.
Stolmeier, Goode's attorney, said Goode was infected not long before authorities found the parasite in Florida.
He argues in Goode's lawsuit that Popeyes failed to properly inspect the food as well as train employees to inspect the food, remove or recall the damaged goods, or warn Goode that the meal would be dangerous to eat.
It claims that the defendants "allowed food to become adulterated with flesh eating screwworms and sold to [Goode] for the purpose of [Goode] consuming food, when they had actual or constructive knowledge it contained flesh eating screwworms, knew it posed an unreasonable risk of injury to [Goode], and disregarded their duty owed [Goode] to make her safe from risk of injury from ingesting flesh eating screwworms."
The suit claims Goode was infected with E.coli and Helicobacter pylori, a bacteria that attacks the stomach, causing peptic ulcers, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Her attorney said she had to have a surgical procedure on her neck and has some paralysis in one of her arms.
Goode is seeking at least $1 million in damages for medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life, among other things.
The Karpeles Manuscript Collection Library was conductor Philip Barnes latest pick as the venue for the concert Sunday afternoon by the St. Louis Chamber Chorus. On display were several documents in the hand and from the typewriter of Eva Peron that dovetailed nicely with the concerts theme, Revolution and Revelation.
Right off the bat, the stirring lyrics of Let Tyrants Shake Their Angry Rod by American composer William Billings set the tone. In a strong declamatory voice, they described how, in the Revolutionary War, the British vetrans flee before our youth and genrals yield to beardless boys.
His other piece on the program, Lamentation Over Boston, recalled the Boston massacre of 1770. It is a powerful call to arms to Let horrid jargon split the air, and rive my nerves asunder to defeat the enemy. In both, the choir made the most of the straightforward harmonies and bracing, four-square rhythms.
In a similar voice, Robert Schumanns Drei Mannerchore aus dem Revolutionsjahr 1848 reveals his passion for European revolutionary movements, cheering them on with Victory is yours, my nation of heroes! Who would be permitted to take it from you? The music is more refined than Billings, but the sentiments are no less rousing and immediate.
Schumann is a somewhat unexpected source for this kind of material. On the other hand, Dmitri Shostakovich is well known to have had problems with the Soviets who found some of his work lacking proper socialist realism. But earlier in his career, his setting of a cycle of poems by anticzarist revolutionary writers won the Stalin Prize in 1952. Three of these settings proclaim that our cause shall not fail and warn, they were victorious, but in the twilight of their years a final sacrifice still awaits.
Three Songs of Democracy find composer Roy Harris setting poems of Walt Whitman in modern harmonies that effectively characterize terms such as open air, farms and trades. In addition, rich vertical harmonies reinforce the democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.
A similar robust muscularity is evident in the text painting and dynamics of Zoltan Kodalys narrative of Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple. The crowds of traders materialize in complicated, dynamic phrases; by way of contrast, in a house of prayer they are softer and more relaxed.
While both Granville Bantocks Invocation to Pan and Hanns Eislers An den Strassen zu singen (with its Give way! Give way! Give way! refrain) are a bit more ambitious, the loudest and longest applause of the afternoon went to Brittens atmospheric, harmonically rich and technically interesting Advance, Democracy and Melissa Dunphys setting of public testimony given by Philip Spooner before the state of Maine in 2009 regarding the Marriage Equality Bill.
What Do You Think I Fought for at Omaha Beach contains many dissonant, close intervals, a challenge the chorus ran through without breaking a sweat and which brilliantly illuminated the changing emotions of the text.
ST. LOUIS August A. Busch Sr. lay uncomfortably in his bed at Grant's Farm. In pain from heart disease and gout, he had endured a bad night. When his chauffeur, Anton Feichtinger, entered the bedroom about 8 a.m., Busch asked him to turn on the radio "and get some music."
"While I was doing that, I heard a report," Feichtinger told a coroner's jury one day later. "... I turned and he was lying on the bed. The gun was on the right on the other bed, pitched away."
Busch, 68, committed suicide on Feb. 13, 1934, by shooting himself once in the abdomen, just below his heart, with a pearl-handled .32-caliber revolver he kept by his bed. Shortly beforehand, unknown to anyone, he had scribbled a brief note saying, "Goodbye precious mommie and adorable children." He had underlined "precious" and "adorable."
Busch had been president of Anheuser-Busch Inc. since 1913, when his father, Adolphus Busch, died on a visit to Germany. Adolphus Busch, son-in-law of founder Eberhard Anheuser, made the company big and prosperous. His son managed its survival through the anti-German bias of World War I and Prohibition, which ended in phases during 1933. August A. Busch Sr. also had built the Bevo Mill, roughly halfway between his mansion on Gravois Road and the brewery south of downtown.
The St. Louis County coroner's jury gathered in the mansion's hunt and trophy room. After the chauffeur testified, Dr. P.E. Rutledge of Kirkwood described giving Busch morphine seven hours before the gunshot. Rutledge said Busch had been "almost like an insane person, with a staring look in his eyes."
The jurors acted quickly, ruling his death "suicide due to long illness, causing him distress and agony."
Thousands of mourners, from senators to brewers, gathered at the mansion to glimpse the bronze casket, blanketed with lillies of the valley. During the service inside, Daniel N. Kirby, Busch's lawyer and friend, said, "As worthy son of a noble father, he was as great a leader in saving the industry as his father had been in creating it."
Busch had directed that he be buried in Sunset Burial Park, within sight of Grant's Farm, rather than at Bellefontaine Cemetery where his parents, Adolphus and Lilly, were interred in a Gothic mausoleum. As the procession moved up Gravois to Sunset, mourners plucked orchids from decorations as keepsakes. St. Louis police, brought in to help county deputies, had to push the crowd away from the grave.
Alice and August A. Busch Sr. had five children. Their fourth was August Jr. "Gussie" who would take over the company in 1946.
ST. LOUIS Police said a 6-year-old girl fatally shot in her home early Monday may have been killed by another child in the house while the victim's mother and her mother's boyfriend were sleeping.
Officers were called to a home about 1:30 a.m. in the 6300 block of Minnie Avenue, police said. They found 6-year-old Mi'Kenzie Bostic suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. She was soon prounounced dead.
Three other children, 3, 4, and 9, were in the home at the time. Police believe Mi'Kenzie was shot by the oldest child in the home while her mother, 27, and that woman's boyfriend, 31, were asleep.
Police said the other children were not hurt. Police did not give relationships between the other children in the home, the victim and the adults.
Police took the woman and her boyfriend into custody and were seeking charges against them.
UPDATED at 3 p.m. Monday with identity of victim.
ST. LOUIS John Chung heard screams for help through his upstairs bedroom window. He looked to the street below and saw two men struggling alongside a car that was rolling, as if in neutral.
Chung, 37, ran downstairs. On the way, he heard the gunshot.
That shot ended the life of a man who had traveled to St. Louis with his wife to visit their daughter and her newborn baby, neighbors say. The fatal shooting on the 3800 block of Juniata Street one of three in St. Louis Friday night has shaken to its core Chungs Tower Grove South neighborhood of tidy brick homes and well-kept front yards two blocks from the park.
St. Louis is a city full of murders, lamented resident Richard Buthod, who stood with a crowd of neighbors late Sunday in a subdued candlelight vigil for the victim and a show of support for their neighborhood. I do not understand the violence.
Police on Monday identified the victim as Kenneth Spalter, 72, of Pound Ridge, NY, a small town in Westchester County near New York City. Police said two men approached Spalter and a woman, 71, as they were getting out of a car and demanded their keys and car. Spalter struggled with the suspects, and one of robbers shot Spalter once, killing him.
At the time Chung looked, he said, the robber on foot was trying to escape and the victim was grabbing him by the arm, calling for help , as his gray BMW rolled into a neighbors car.
Chung heard but didnt see the gunshot. Spalter's wife told him a car had pulled up and the person in it fired, hitting the victim in the throat.
When I opened the front door the victims wife said he had been shot. I ran and got a clean kitchen towel to put on the wound to stop the bleeding, Chung said . He was falling and stumbling down and I caught his head and saw the gunshot wound and applied pressure to it. He was just trying to breathe.
The wounded mans wife was on her cellphone talking to a 911 dispatcher as other neighbors started coming out of their homes. The dispatcher gave directions to Chung to conduct CPR on the man. Chung attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while another man held the victims nose and Chungs wife applied chest compression.
I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth but he was at a bad angle on the steps and I just didnt want to move him, Chung said. . . . He was already fading.
Paramedics arrived . The Chungs later were told he had died before being taken away.
Chung said the neighborhood has come together and provided meals for the family.
About 100 neighbors gathered on the street Sunday night for a short candlelight vigil to show the family of the victim our shared pain, as Buthod put it.
Another area resident, Debra Knox Deiermann, said the gathering doubled as a public display of support for the neighborhood, which she said has seen a noticeable uptick in robberies and carjackings recently.
We had a neighbor come over to watch the election returns last November, and on our front porch, which was well-lit, she had a gun put in her face, she said. The assailant took the womans bag and ran, shooting twice in the air, she said.
This is a nice neighborhood. For years, it has been a beautiful place to live, with wonderful neighbors, and it still is, Deiermann said. We just have to do something about the crime.
Barbara Gilchrist, president of the Tower Grove Heights Neighborhood Association and an organizer of the vigil, told the crowd the tragedy was worsened for happening during what should have been a joyous occasion, a couples visit to their new grandchild. She urged them to be the embodiment of love for our neighbors in the face of rising crime.
Its horrifying, she said. Horrifying.
The leader of a Missouri Ku Klux Klan group was found dead of a gunshot wound near the Big River by a family in the area to go fishing.
An autopsy revealed that Frank Ancona, 51, had been shot in the head, officials said.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said one man was arrested on an unrelated warrant, and that an investigation into the death was continuing.
Right now no one has been charged in his death, but that may change tomorrow, Jacobsen said.
Ancona, of Leadwood, Mo., called himself an imperial wizard with the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. A website for that group features an image of Ancona in a white hood and robe standing in front of a burning cross.
He has been quoted in stories in the Post-Dispatch about KKK leafletting in Desloge. His group was also at the center of a legal fight over a gathering of members at Fort Davidson State Historic Site, a Civil War battlefield in Pilot Knob, Mo.
Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey reported that Ancona was last seen by his wife, Malissa Ancona, Wednesday morning.
Jacobsen said he learned Thursday on Facebook that Ancona had gone missing. Later, a Federal Forestry Service employee located Anconas vehicle on a forestry service road off Route P in Potosi.
Deputies responded on Friday and located the vehicle and secured it, said Jacobsen. We left deputies at the scene and secured it overnight due to the loss of light.
On Saturday morning, a search by members of the Potosi Fire Protection District and the sheriffs office revealed evidence of a burn pile near Anconas vehicle, Jacobsen said.
Officers executed two search warrants and arrested one man on an unrelated drug warrant out of Washington County. While officers were waiting for a warrant to be issued, the dispatch center received a call from a woman who was taking her family fishing that they had located a body near the bank of the Big River near Belgrade, Mo., about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis.
The coroners office determined that the body was Anconas and that he died from a gunshot wound to the head, Jacobsen said.
The St. Francois County Sheriffs Department and Missouri Highway Patrol were assisting in the investigation.
JENNINGS A man died Saturday after a speeding driver ran a stoplight and crashed into two other vehicles, police said
The crash was at 3 p.m. at the intersection of Lucas & Hunt Road and Hord Avenue.
St. Louis County police said a passenger in a Hyundai sedan speeding west on Lucas & Hunt Road was fatally injured in the crash. Police at first believed that the man had been shot in his lower body, but later learned after an autopsy that the puncture wound had come from the crash.
Authorities identified the passenger as Michael Simmons, 22, of the 4700 block of Begg Boulevard in Northwoods.
The driver of the Hyundai was in critical condition at a hospital.
ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY A Missouri Ku Klux Klan leader might have been shot in his sleep because he had told his wife he wanted a divorce, St. Francois County Prosecutor Jarrod Mahurin said Monday after filing murder charges.
It may have been a marital issue, he told a reporter. He said Frank Ancona, 51, was shot in the head between 2 and 3 a.m. on Thursday.
Malissa Ann Ancona, 44, of Leadwood, Mo., and her son, Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., 24, of Belgrade, Mo., were charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with physical evidence and abandonment of a corpse.
Jinkerson shot his sleeping stepfather in the bedroom of the victims home in Leadwood, sheriffs Detective Matt Wampler wrote in an affidavit accompanying the charges. Anconas body was taken in Jinkersons vehicle to an area outside Belgrade, where it was dumped near the Big River, Wampler wrote.
Ancona called himself an imperial wizard with the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
A website for that group features an image of Ancona in a white hood and robe standing in front of a burning cross. His wife is shown next to him in another photo.
The Park Hills Daily Journal said Ancona was reported missing Friday, when his employer called Leadwood police to say that he failed to show up work Wednesday or Thursday. A neighbor said Ancona had a job delivering parts for a St. Louis auto supply company.
Malissa Ancona told investigators that he had been sent on a trip deliver a part, but the employer denied that, the newspaper said. She told authorities she had last seen her husband Wednesday.
When investigators searched the Ancona home Saturday, they found extensive blood evidence in the master bedroom, officials said. Malissa Ancona told police in a recorded interview that Jinkerson shot her husband, and she helped clean up the blood and tried to cover up the crime, Wampler wrote.
Mahurin said that both Ancona and Jinkerson were involved in disposal of the body and the cleanup.
Police also found a safe that had been broken open. Frank Anconas guns were missing. Malissa Ancona told police her husband took them and was planning to file for divorce when he returned from his work trip.
Frank Anconas abandoned car, found before his body was, appeared to have been wiped down, the prosecutor said, based on a chemical smell. Nearby was a pile of what appeared to be burned clothing, he said.
Mahurin was not aware of any significance to the site where the body was left, other than it was nearby.
The prosecutor said Jinkerson did not live with the Anconas but stayed with them occasionally. He called Jinkersons relationship with Frank Ancona so-so, saying that there had been issues in the past but not lately.
Both defendants could be arraigned as early as Tuesday, he said. They were held in jail without bail.
Jinkerson also faces unrelated charges of property damage and attempted stealing, and was jailed over the weekend on a warrant that was issued after he was accused of violating his probation in a 2016 drug possession case.
Eric Barnhart, a lawyer who represents Jinkerson in other cases, reacted to the murder charge by saying, I dont believe it for a second that he did it. Barnhart said he did not know if he will represent Jinkerson on the murder charge.
Barnhart also said he did not believe that Jinkerson was involved in any hate groups. The young man was attending a local college, the lawyer said. Jinkersons Facebook page says he is studying computer science at Mineral Area College in Park Hills.
Leadwood police referred a reporters questions to the St. Francois County Sheriffs Office and the Missouri Highway Patrol, which were not available for comment.
On Friday night, Malissa Ancona had said on Facebook that her husband was missing and asked that anyone with information call the police. In online comments the next morning, she thanked friends for their good wishes and wrote, My heart is breaking.
James Russell, 58, who lives next door to the Ancona residence, said the couple had lived there for about five years.
Russell said he frequently heard Malissa Ancona screaming at her husband. Russell said he did not hear any gunshots on the day in question. But he did hear the banging of metal on metal in the predawn hours. Russell said he presumes that Malissa Ancona was seeking access to her husbands safe.
He described Frank Ancona as a good man who was working to change attitudes about the Klan. Russell said Ancona hosted a few small Klan gatherings at the house in recent years, including one in which Ancona and perhaps 10 others wore robes and burned a cross.
Everybody is talking about the Klan thing, but they are living in the past, Russell said, Frank was trying to improve the Klan and make it a force for good.
Ancona has been quoted in stories in the Post-Dispatch about KKK leafletting in Desloge. His group was also at the center of a legal fight over a gathering of members at Fort Davidson State Historic Site, a Civil War battlefield in Pilot Knob, Mo.
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate organizations, said that Anconas group was not very significant at all. This was one of the smallest groups out there.
Potok said the members received a lot of attention because they frequently handed out leaflets. He said he would be surprised if there were 40 members spread out among chapters in Potosi, Hayden, Idaho and Pennsylvania.
Ancona had been in a dispute with other Klan leaders, Potok said, who accused Ancona of being secretly Jewish and Malissa Ancona of being a Wiccan. Both were untrue, Potok believes, but the accusations are typical of the Klan world today, which consists of 29 different named organizations, each one claiming to be the one true Klan and denigrating the others.
Tony Rothert, who as legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri had represented Ancona in his court fights, called him a complicated and conflicted man. Rothert estimated his followers numbering in the low double digits.
I and the (ACLU) found his views abhorrent and would say so. He understood that and recognized how unrealistic his views were at some level, Rothert added.
An old Twitter page for Malissa Ancona contains links to Anconas group and describes her as a member. Lately on social media, however, she was focused on creating a no-kill shelter for pets.
Russell, the neighbor, said Frank Ancona grew up in the Potosi area.
The Ancona home is a small, white frame house in need of repairs. Chicken wire is stapled across the posts of the front porch. Russell said Malissa Ancona had many pet cats, several of which were seen wandering the property Monday. Two dogs were barking inside the home.
An American flag was nailed to the front porch. Next door, on the other side from Russells home, is a blue mobile home where the victims father lives. Out back is a white shed bearing two faded flags the American flag and the Confederate battle flag.
Family at Frank Anconas daughters home declined to comment to a reporter.
Leadwood, a town of about 500 people, is near Park Hills, about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis. As its name implies, it used to be the home of a lead mine and is in the heart of Missouris old Lead Belt.
Kim Bell of the Post-Dispatch and The Park Hills Daily Journal contributed to this report. Tim ONeil reported from Leadwood.
The Feb. 9 death of a St. Louis doctor in group of islands near Haiti and the Dominican Republic was an accident most likely from a fall while rock climbing, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police say.
An autopsy conducted Feb. 15 showed Dr. John McGurk, 32, died of multiple blunt injuries, police said. His death was ruled an accident.
McGurk was a doctor at Missouri Baptist Medical Center employed by BJC Medical Group. His body was found near a rocky cliff three days after he checked into the Blue Horizon Resort. Police there said he was reported missing by hotel management last Wednesday and found the next day. Authorities said they had difficulty recovering McGurk's body because of the secluded beach location and the tide. The U.S. Coast Guard was assisting.
Dr. McGurk was on staff at Missouri Baptist Medical Center and began practicing in 2014, according to BJC. He graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and finished his residency in internal medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the Washington University School of Medicine.
JEFFERSON CITY A leading state lawmaker warned Monday that Missouri may have to build a new state prison to accommodate a growing inmate population.
During a hearing on the Missouri Department of Corrections proposed budget, Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick said new figures appear to show the state is on track to fill up its current fleet of 21 prison facilities.
Fitzpatrick, a Shell Knob Republican who is chairman of the House budget committee, said the state may be on a collision course with the need for a new lock-up.
According to DOC reports, the prison system was designed to house 31,540 inmates, but currently has more than 32,000 prisoners.
After hovering at about 30,000 inmates from 2006 to 2011, the number of prisoners has jumped over the past five years, including by more than 500 inmates last year, newly named DOC Director Anne Precythe told the budget panel.
Precythe told reporters later that she will spend the next year investigating ways to avoid building a new facility.
That would definitely be the goal, Precythe said.
For example, she said a rewrite of the criminal code, as well as other changes to the states approach to sentencing could keep low risk offenders in their own communities where they have a better chance to successfully rehabilitate their behavior.
Precythe, a former prison official in North Carolina, said Monday she is not ready to begin outlining the types of policy changes that are needed to begin lowering the number of offenders behind bars.
We would definitely know by next year what the future looks like for the state of Missouri, Precythe said.
The discussion of building a new prison comes amid a national trend that showed prison populations were beginning to decrease.
It also comes seven years after Missouri Chief Justice William Ray Price Jr. floated a plan that would close one of the prisons by putting a spotlight on the states criminal sentencing guidelines.
By diverting 2,000 offenders from prison, the judge said the state could save about $33.7 million, which is the cost of running one state prison facility.
In 2012, the Legislature and former Gov. Jay Nixon approved a package of legislation aimed at chipping away at the prison population.
At the heart of the plan was more intensive community supervision. For example, probation officers could mete out immediate, 48-hour jail stays when an offender violates a rule of supervision, such as failing a drug test.
Amid the daily torrent of tweets, feuds, real news, fake news, facts, alternative facts and sundry controversies emanating from the Trump White House, its difficult to separate wheat from chaff, substantive issues from shiny objects.
This one is a big deal: Before President Donald Trumps Jan. 20 inauguration, Michael T. Flynn, then the national security adviser-designate, engaged in private communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and discussed the Obama administrations sanctions against that country.
Then Flynn repeatedly denied doing so, sandbagging among other people Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Five days before the inauguration, Pence said on CBS Face the Nation that they did not discuss anything having to do with the United States decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.
Pence should be furious. Flynn should be fired.
The Washington Post reported Thursday night that before and after President Barack Obama announced the sanctions and expulsions of 35 Russian diplomats on Dec. 29, Flynn held conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, signaling that Russia could expect better treatment after Trump took office.
U.S. intelligence agencies routinely monitor Russian diplomatic communications, something that Flynn, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, should have known. The Post said nine sources within the U.S. government and intelligence communities had verified that the sanctions were discussed. There was no explicit promise that the Trump administration would lift the sanctions. But considering Russian President Vladimir Putins decision not to retaliate with his own sanctions and expulsions, he clearly got the word.
Obama imposed the punishments, citing consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian cyberattacks had interfered with the Nov. 8 election. He also closed two Russian facilities in the United States used in the cyberattacks. Trump has dismissed the reports of Russian involvement as an attempt to tarnish his election victory.
Flynns actions may be a violation of the 1798 Logan Act, an obscure law that forbids private U.S. citizens from negotiating disputes with foreign governments. No one has ever been prosecuted under the act.
But Flynn, and Trump himself, violated the one president at a time tradition, intended to warn foreign governments that whatever confusion lies in the transition of power, the U.S. speaks with one voice.
Moreover, by repeatedly lying about what he did, the already controversial Flynn has destroyed whatever credibility he might have. The national security advisers post is not subject to Senate confirmation. Trump himself must decide whether lying to the American people, and to his own vice president, merits the same condemnation as, say, Alec Baldwins performance on Saturday Night Live.
Flynns actions should finally move Congress to investigate the ongoing relationships between Trumps advisers and the Russian government. Something is not right here. Someone must tell the president that the special relationship is supposed to be with Great Britain.
What has happened to our powers of discernment and our ability to see these people for what they are, which is that they care nothing for us?
Former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected Germanys president on Sunday, the 12th person to hold the largely ceremonial post in the post-war era.
Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who had served as foreign minister until last month, won 931 of the 1,239 valid votes by lawmakers and representatives of Germanys 16 federal states. There 103 abstentions and 14 votes were invalid.
Mr Steinmeier, Germanys former foreign minister, strongly criticised Donald Trump during the US election campaign.
When asked in August about the rise of right-wing populism in Germany and elsewhere, Mr Steinmeier criticised those who make politics with fear.
He cited the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, the promoters of Britains exit from the European Union, and the hate preachers, like Donald Trump at the moment in the United States.
The daily Berliner Morgenpost billed Mr Steinmeier as the anti-Trump president.
After Bundestag president Norbert Lammert announced the results, all representatives held a standing ovation except for a few dozen members of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The anti-immigrant AfD, which has no lawmakers in the lower house but holds seats in 10 of Germanys 16 state parliaments, is forecast to be the third-largest party after a general election on Sept. 24.
The AfD filed its own candidate, who received 42 votes.
I have faith in him to lead our country in these difficult times, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term, said after the vote.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had congratulated Steinmeier in a telegram and invited him to visit Moscow.
Steinmeier last year drew criticism when he said NATOs decision to stage military maneuvers in eastern Europe amounted to saber-rattling. His Social Democrats prefer a softer stance towards Russia than Merkels conservatives.
Russia wants the European Union to lift sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea and backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The German constitution mandates that a special assembly is convened to elect presidents. It includes 630 lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house and an equal number of representatives from the federal states.
Current President Joachim Gauck steps down on March 18
Bringing back Spittels Essentials of Surgery for todays medical fraternity View(s):
Dr. R.L. Spittels book, Essentials of Surgery reprinted and annotated by Dr. Lakshman Karalliedde and Dr. Philip Veerasingam will be launched on Wednesday, February 15, at 11.30 a.m. at the Lionel Memorial auditorium, Wijerama House, No 6, Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 7. Prof. A. H. Sheriffdeen, Dr. Wilfred Jayasuriya and Dr. Premini Amerasinghe, will be the speakers at the launch. All are welcome.
We see further afield, because we are sitting on the shoulders of Giants who preceded us.The great objection to new books is that they prevent our reading old ones Joseph Joubert (French Essayist 1754-1824).
The editors Dr. Lakshman Karalliedde and Dr. Philip Veerasingam felt a compelling need to re-introduce the whole book as his ( Dr. Spittels) practice relied on fundamentals observe, record, tabulate, communicate which utilise all five senses. It would have been futile to update Dr. Spittels book written in his inimitable manner. It was within our scope to provide annotations, indicating briefly the advances in diagnosis and management that have taken place subsequently.
Dr. Philip Veerasingam, one of the editors wrote: Meticulous attention to detail in his observations makes Dr. Spittels book timeless.
In his foreword, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, (Honorary), University of Colombo A. H. Sheriffdeen writes, This launch of Volume 1 of the reprint of the book, Essentials of Surgery by R.L.Spittel, F.R.C.S.Eng. first published in 1932 when he was a Surgeon at the General Hospital, Colombo, (now The National Hospital of Sri Lanka) and Lecturer in Clinical Surgery, Ceylon Medical College, (now The Medical Faculty, University of Colombo), together with annotations by experts is timely and welcome. It gives the reader an opportunity to appreciate the tremendous strides this discipline and medicine as a whole, has taken since then.
The book was written in the pre-antibiotic era, when viruses and genetics were unknown, and when anaesthesia was in its infancy and when the only imaging investigation available at that time was X-rays. His objective was to present a concise alternative to larger textbooks, so that, as stated in his preface, that if fundamental principles are thoroughly grasped by the student, their application in diagnosis and treatment becomes a habit of the mind, then the subject of surgery becomes both interesting and simple. The book achieves this and more, displaying at the same time the authors attributes of a true scientist, a good doctor and surgeon whose practice was based on these foundations together with his skills as a good medical teacher.
There were no specialties at that time. General surgeons also treated patients with Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) problems, Venereal diseases ( Sexually Transmitted Infections), Orthopaedic problems, Neurosurgical, Vascular, Urology, Leprosy and of course problems of surgical Oncology. In addition to text book descriptions of these conditions, the reader would recognize and appreciate the authors unique style of descriptive talents.
The next feature of this launch is the addition of annotations to put the text into modern perspectives. As undergraduates, we were told that 50% of what we are teaching you today would at some time in the future be proved to be wrong. The problem is that we do not know which 50%! Prof. Graham Taylor, Imperial College, London.A discerning reader would readily note some of these, if not all the errors, in what were at that time in history, truisms in surgery. The annotations give evidence based accounts of modern advances compiled by experts to give a modern twist to this absorbing book.
Dr.Premini Amerasinghe who was gifted this book by her uncle Dr. Spittel when she was a medical student, encouraged a reprint and annotation that would display Spittels descriptive writings.
Dr. Wilfred Jayasuriya will speak on the versatility of Spittels intellect which enabled him to practise surgery in Veddahland and conclusions about essentials of surgery. Dr. Jayasuriya considered that professional updating a work through annotations was one of the main methods of literary/historical study by which ancient texts like the Bible or the Mahavamsa are made comprehensible and relevant to the present scene.
The book would be an ideal companion for present undergraduate and post-graduate students of surgery.
The book priced Rs. 1950 will be available at the launch and thereafter at Sooriya Publishers, 109 Ven. S. Mahinda Mawatha, Col. 10 and leading bookshops
Cathy Bell
Recreation Advisor
Sport Bay of Plenty
People across the Bay of Plenty ditched their cars, buckled their helmets and pushed the pedal for Go by Bike Day last week.
Sport Bay of Plenty set up pit stops around central areas and encourage people to make the most of the freebies on offer, as well as the chance to win bike shop vouchers.
Schools also got involved by setting up their own pit stops or separate bike related activities.
The schools are a great channel to getting more kids on bikes, and with the buzz that can be created around Go by Bike Day and with the enthusiasm we can build, the more likely the kids will ride their bikes again! It is also a great opportunity to reinforce road safety, says Sonia Lynds, Recreation Team Leader at Sport Bay of Plenty.
In the Eastern Bay of Plenty the Whakatane Bluelight group participated by doing bike safety checks for the children, with children being rewarded with bells for their bikes and ice cream vouchers.
Katikati in the Western Bay of Plenty held their first pit stop this year which translated into two successful rides over the weekend.
The Rotorua Bike Festival kicked off a ten day festival with Go by Bike Day, attracting all sorts of commuters including families, school children, seasoned riders and even dogs!
A great time was had by all with over 800 cyclists across the Bay of Plenty supporting the clear message biking is healthy and fun, it creates positive experiences for young and old and teaches responsibility. Its never too late to start biking.
The Aotearoa Bike Challenge continues through February, and its not too late to sign up. www.lovetoride.net/bop/
Some useful (or not) information
The good will of the public is invaluable to St John and the organisation must never lose sight of that fact.
This is the message from Norm Harris, Knight of St John, to those who attended the opening of the new Katikati St John Ambulance Station on Saturday.
Norm, a former Katikati resident, congratulated the community on raising $800,000 for the new station, a feat he says is not altogether surprising, given Katikatis previous generosity to the ambulance service.
In 2006 Katikati raised more than $200,000 to pay the salary of a second full time St John officer for the town.
In the 1980s, the community got behind the construction of its previous station, which was part of the towns community resource centre.
Norm urges St John to value the support of communities like Katikati, saying it is the actions of its officers, volunteers, area committee and members of its youth wings which create public goodwill, not the size of the organisations PR campaign.
In front of around 100 invited guests, Norm, on behalf of St John, officially took procession of the new station, in a ceremony during which Mike Williams, chairperson of the Katikati St John Area Committee formally gifted the complex to St John.
Before the gifting ceremony, kaumatua Paeahi Wanakore blessed the building, as he led the official party inside.
Well respected local brothers Gary and Kevin Taylor unveiled the plaque commemorating the official opening; a duty they were asked to perform in recognition of the contribution both in kind and in funds, they had made to the complex through their company Taylor Brothers.
Mike Williams told the gathering that when the area committee and a co-opted fund raising committee embarked on the project to raise $800,000, they felt the task was daunting, but achievable. In fact with a sense of optimism, the fund raising venture was called St John 365, build in year.
The project received an early and welcome boost of a $500,000 bequest from a local Katikati resident and the town went on to raise $320,000 thanks to donation from individuals, families and organisations, and from a number of events including the Rocky Horror Halloween ball.
An artwork by Shayne Bartlett in the foyer of the building names the individuals and organisations who donated funds to the building.
Construction of the building came to a temporary halt when the main contractor went into voluntary liquidation but thanks to local builder Ian West of Westco who stepped up to complete the building, it was finished on time.
Mike says St John is grateful to Ian and the local contractors who continued to support the project, even though some were hurt by the failure of the original contractor.
The new building, he says is earthquake and future proofed. It has storage and sluice facilities, over-night accommodation, showers and toilets, offices and a common-room-kitchen plus an adjoining meeting room which will be available for community use.
The invitation-only official open was followed by an open-station event in the afternoon when the public was invited to view the new facility.
Kaumatua Paeahi Wanakore and Rev Brendan Gibbs led the guests into the building, watched by St John representatives, during the blessing of the new Katikati St John Ambulance Station.
A St John colour party presents the St John colours during the official opening of the new Katikati St John Ambulance Station.
Well respected local brothers Gary and Kevin Taylor unveiled the plaque commemorating the official opening of the new Katikati St John Ambulance Station.
Norm Harris, Knight of St John and Mike Williams, chairperson of the Katikati St John Area Committee at the new Katikati St John Ambulance Station.
Trade Minister Todd McClay will visit Mexico today to meet his counterpart, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and discuss the future of trade between our two countries.
Mexico is already our largest trading partner in Latin America, and there is huge scope to further advance our economies, boosting trade and investment, and working together more closely in the Asia-Pacific region, says Todd.
This will be the Governments first formal contact with Mexico since the United States withdrawal from the TPP agreement.
It is timely that we sit down and discuss how to move our trading relationship forward. I expect our discussion to include next steps for TPP, bilateral trade opportunities and greater involvement with the Pacific Alliance, Mr McClay says.
New Zealand is a trading nation, trade liberalisation and fair access to markets are essential for the continued growth and stability of our economy. The Government will continue to push for better access for New Zealanders and our exporters in all parts of the world.
On the trip, Todd will also meet with New Zealand companies in Los Angeles who are successfully doing business in the US and creating jobs both in New Zealand and the US.
Source: Office of Todd McClay.
Passengers wanting to travel between the Costa del Sol and the UK this year will find more options available as the total number of seats available is to increase by 15%.
"In total there are around 3.5 million seats on flights to the Costa del Sol, a third of which connect Malaga with London airports," said the president of the Costa's tourism authority, Elias Bendodo at the end of last week.
Outside London, the UK airport with the most flights to Malaga is Manchester, with 417,000 seats available.
Airports that have increased the number of flights to the Costa del Sol include Belfast (up 31%), Glasgow (up 19%), and Birmingham (up 28%).
On Friday the first passengers on the new Jet2.com flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh were welcomed with a Scottish-themed cake.
Police were trying on Monday to locate the driver of a hire car that was involved in a hit-and-run incident in Benalmadena on Sunday.
A 41-year-old Swedish man suffered multiple contusions after his bike was hit by a car on Avenida del Sol at 7.25am. The driver failed to stop after the accident.
The vehicle involved, a Nissan Note, which turned out to belong to a car hire firm, was located in Torremolinos on Monday. Its damage was consistent with the broken pieces of bumper and fog light found at the scene of the accident.
The victim was rushed to Malaga's Clinico hospital after the accident.
INFORMATION When: Until 3 March. Monday to Saturday, 11am to 2pm. Where: Espacio Creativo, Calle Baja del Mar 14, Almunecar. Further info: Facebook: Annabel Keatley. Phone 699 801 613 (for paper workshops).
English artist and paper-maker, Annabel Keatley, will be holding an exhibition and paper making workshops in her gallery-cum-shop, Espacio Creativo, in Almunecar from Monday 13 February.
A total of 24 artists from Spain, the UK, the Netherlands and Argentina will be exhibiting work made especially for the exhibition, titled 'mini cuadros', in which each piece is no bigger than 12 x12 centimetres. Among the artists is a ceramist, a sculptor and a budding 15-year-old from London, who Annabel says "is very talented and I know how important it is at that age to get your work noticed".
During the three-week exhibition, Annabel will also be running two paper-making courses. The first, on Sunday 19 February will focus on making paper from esparto and banana leaves, and the second, on 26 February will teach participants about making decorative paper. Places are limited to five people so booking is essential.
Annabel, 50, has lived in Spain for 20 years, having studied art and printmaking in Edinburgh and then the Chelsea School of Art. She has won a number of arts awards which have allowed her to travel to Spain and Russia in the past.
She has held many exhibitions in the two countries as well as in the UK, where she still has gallery space in London and Somerset. She now lives in Almunecar and has a partner and two children.
Several dozen parents, teachers and community members gathered into the auditorium at George Wythe High School on Feb. 2 for a public forum to discuss the latest developments with the Wythe County School Boards Capital Improvement Plan.
Superintendent Jeff Perry began the discussion by dispelling rumors of a plan to consolidate all Wythe County high schools.
That is not on the agenda and that is not what were looking at, Perry said.
Perry also eased worries of potential kickbacks to contractors, explaining that contractors understand that the designs they create are done at risk and that the contract will go to the lowest responsible bid.
During the forum, Perry introduced the latest conceptual designs for an addition to GWHS that will house Scott Memorial Middle School.
In addition to questions regarding the functionality of the plans, Perry also heard concerns from people who called the plan a band aid solution.
George James, a parent who served on the CIPs steering committee last year, expressed his disapproval of the current plan.
We talked about doing it right the first time, James said, adding, When the Board of Supervisors says we cant give you this, but well give you this, we should tell them, thank you, but no thank you.
James said he was in favor of waiting five or 10 years for the project to be done as originally intended.
That plan included the creation of a new high school to be built in front of the current George Wythe site which would include classrooms, an administration building, a fine arts building and an additional gym adjacent to the current auxiliary gym. The plan would have also included renovations to the current George Wythe building, which would have accommodated Scott Memorial Middle School.
Supervisors denied funding for the estimated $37 million plan last August.
In an effort to make the plan more financially feasible, Perry said the project was broken down into smaller phases.
Phase one of that plan is to build an addition onto the science wing of GWHS to accommodate SMMS students.
That would run an estimated $8 million, Perry said.
The school board would also like to build an additional dining hall and gym, which would bring that total to around $12 million. Additional climate control would run an extra $500,000.
Discussion became more passionate as the evening went on, as more and more folks expressed their dissatisfaction with applause from the audience.
Rusty Jones, a parent of a SMMS student, said he was also on board for waiting it out until 2023 when county debt payments drop substantially, even though his own child would no longer benefit from a consolidation.
Weve managed to struggle through. I think we could manage to do it right, he said. In the meantime, there could be a few elections that could change some things too.
Jones later made mention of $10 million in funds being dumped into the Expo center.
Its time to let them know about it, he said. A promise was made and a promise has been broken.
Nikki Clawson, a resident new to the area, said that while she found the town of Wytheville attractive, the schools were not up to par.
A town is judged by its schools, she said. If you want to bring people into the community, before we can talk about economic development, we need to look at fixing the wiring [at the schools].
One attendee recalled his first time entering GWHS as a freshman in the 1950s and called for the audience to take their concerns to the Board of Supervisors.
The best product weve got coming out of Wythe County is our children. Weve got to put pressure on the board.
Jones, who spoke several times during the two-hour meeting, spoke once more, asking By a show of hands, how many people think this is a good solution? To which not a single hand rose.
How many want to take it to the Board of Supervisors? he asked.
When nearly everyone in attendance raised their hands, Jones said, Youve got to get behind us.
Suggestions of voting out supervisors were thrown around, but Jones later called for reason, saying that the supervisors were good people and that they just needed to hear from the community.
Another man suggested the supervisors were unaware of what the community wanted simply because no one ever came to Board of Supervisors meetings to let them know.
Several audience members, as well as Perry, encouraged others to take their concerns to the next Board of Supervisors meeting.
I think that all of us, including the school board, wanted more and our original proposal was for a lot more, Perry said the following morning. I think that none of us are 100 percent pleased with the scope of work included in this, but I think individuals need to let their voices be heard, because this all comes down to funding. It may be one thing to voice support with the school board, who is already in support of it, but support also needs to be voiced with other entities.
The next supervisors meeting will be held in the county administration building board room Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. A time is allotted for public comment.
A joint work session between the two boards Feb. 10 brought the supervisors up to speed with phase one of the current plan.
Supervisors expressed concerns for other schools and both boards spoke of a subcommittee to focus on maintenance to ensure facilities dont end up in the kind of states they are currently in.
The school board will officially present phase one of the current plan to the Board of Supervisors during the March 31 budget hearing.
Jasmine Dent Franks can be reached at 228-6611, ext. 20 or at jfranks@wythenews.com.
A Tribe Called Quest,
In this Nov. 12, 2015 file photo, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, from left, Jarobi White, and Malik Isaac Taylor aka Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest pose for a portrait at Sirius XM studios in New York.
(Brian Ach | AP)
A Tribe Called Quest performed at the 2017 Grammy Awards Sunday night with Best New Artist nominee Anderson .Paak, making the biggest political statement of the night.
The hip-hop group, which also paid tribute to late rapper Phife Dawg, performed a medley of songs from classics like "Award Tour" to recently released "We the People." The chorus from the latter, from ATCQ's final album "We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service," includes the lyrics:
All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go
If the message wasn't subtle enough, the performance also included criticisms of President Donald Trump, referring to him as "President Agent Orange." The rappers protested the proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, praised the U.S. courts for blocking Trump's "Muslim ban" and brought out a variety of guests that appeared to be from different countries around the world.
I just want to thank President Agent Orange" (via @Walldo) pic.twitter.com/41XNnaQ0zU Only Hip Hop Facts (@OnlyHipHopFacts) February 13, 2017
Busta Rhymes also joined ATCQ for a performance of "The Donald," which is less of an attack on the former "The Apprentice" TV star and more of an ode to Phife Dawg, dubbed "Don Juice." The song was also on "Thank You For Your Service," released just before Trump won the 2016 election.
The high-energy performance concluded with a one-word message: "Resist."
Richard Gere
Actor Richard Gere attends a press conference for the film 'The Dinner' at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Feb. 10, 2017.
(Michael Sohn | AP)
North Syracuse High School graduate Richard Gere is speaking out against President Donald Trump.
The actor said Trump's "biggest crime" is "conflating two words: refugee and terrorist."
"A refugee is someone who seeks refuge; it is someone we need to help," Gere told media at a news conference at the Berlinale, also known as the Berlin International Film Festival. "The number of hate crimes in the U.S. went up enormously when Donald Trump began running for president. There are leaders who spread fear. It's happening here, too."
According to THR, Gere spoke after the world premiere of his new film "The Dinner," Oscar-nominated director Oren Moverman's adaptation of the Herman Koch's novel, on Friday. The actor plays a gubernatorial candidate who learns his son and nephew have committed a crime.
British actor Steve Coogan, who plays Gere's brother in the political thriller, said his character likely suffered from mental illness "but compared to the president of the United States, it looks more like a mild headache."
Variety reports Gere, 67, also encouraged less hate and divisiveness in politics.
"We need to be more careful how we talk to each other. We are all in this together. We are all human beings, and we have to live together on this little planet," he said.
"The Dinner," also starring Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall, opens May 5.
APTOPIX India Eid al Adha
Indian Muslims offer prayers on Eid al-Adha at a Mosque at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010.
(Pawan Sharma / AP)
To the Editor:
Let's reconsider and support the tunnel solution to the I-81 challenge for our great city.
Years ago, while serving my country in the United States Navy aboard ship, I found myself in Cochin, India. I had an opportunity to fly up to New Delhi to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra. In my humble opinion she is the most magnificant building on the planet.
A tour offered for $100 covered all expenses, including air fare and hotel accommodations. I didn't want to spend the money. Bad decision. Today it would cost me thousands.
My craft, my passion, is architecture and I regret to this day not taking advantage of that great opportunity. Adventures like that come along once in a lifetime if you're lucky.
Syracuse is in a position right now to embark on an adventure of sorts and we must get it right. We are faced with a critical decision regarding the I-81 challenge. A choice will be made based on a decision on how best to rebuild and improve our highways. A decision that will impact our city for generations to come.
Again, I regret to this day not following the "smart path" to visit the Taj. Money, of course, is always a consideration, but I pray that the powers-that-be, the decision makers, don't lose sight of the prize and sell our amazing city short.
Does Syracuse have the purpose and resolve to get it right without regrets?
James Oliver Secor
Manlius
An Upstate New York Family Court judge has ordered a drug-addicted prostitute not to have any more children until she is fit to care for them, and the decision has sparked some controversy in the legal community.
Patricia Gallaher
Monroe County Family Court Judge Patricia Gallaher, who retired in December, ordered defendant Brandy F. to stop getting pregnant after her fourth child was born premature and exhibiting signs of drug withdrawal, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported.
The child was taken from Brandy on Gallaher's order, after the woman admitted ingesting crack cocaine, methadone and alcohol during the course of the pregnancy. In her ruling, Gallaher said Brandy would be required to regain custody of her newborn son before she could get pregnant again.
"The testimony in this case clearly established that the mother had little or no prenatal care, that the baby was born prematurely with a positive toxicology for illegal drugs, and that the mother admitted use of illegal drugs during her pregnancy," Gallaher wrote in the decision.
Gallaher continued with a frustrated parting shot at her time spent as a judge, according to the D&C.
"This court has seen about a half dozen seemingly 'nice couples' show up as respondents in neglect cases where both are addicted to heroin and literally throwing their lives away -- and the lives of their children -- in just this year," she wrote.
Gallaher, in the decision, said her goal was to allow Brandy to stabilize herself so she could properly care for her children. The ruling also orders county case workers to periodically direct Brandy to family planning services.
The intent, she said, is not to jail or otherwise punish Brandy for getting pregnant, but to force both the mother and social workers to properly address the problem.
According to the Democrat & Chronicle, Gallaher previously served as a clerk for retired Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor, who issued a similar ruling in 2004 which made national news. That ruling was overturned by a regional appeals court, which said that a family court judge didn't have the legal authority to issue such an order.
The Monroe County Public Defender's Office and the New York Civil Liberties Union are now preparing to appeal Gallaher's order, saying that it violates Brandy's constitutional right to privacy.
"I understand why the judge may have had good intentions here," KaeLyn Rich, director of the Genesee Valley chapter of the NYCLU, told the D&C. "When it comes to interpreting here, we don't want to set a precedent that the court has the authority to tell a woman not to get pregnant or a man not to procreate."
In the 2004 case, the NYCLU and Planned Parenthood opposed the ruling, and wrote, "The implications of this condition are far-reaching. It would permit unprecedented state intrusion into private decisions concerning reproductive health," according to the D&C.
Weather feature
The weather on Tuesday and Friday in particular will be calm and quiet in Central New York this week.
(Ellen M. Blalock / The Post-Standard)
Syracuse- Central New York is dealing with dangerous travel conditions as snow and wind buffet the region today. The remainder of the week, however, does not look so bad.
Snow and wind will gradually taper off throughout the day on Monday. Road conditions will remain hazardous, especially through the morning hours. Conditions will improve during the afternoon as the snow largely ends and the winds begin to lessen.
By this evening, some breaks in the clouds are possible and wind gusts will drop below 25 mph. This will set up a chilly overnight, with morning lows Tuesday in the single digits and low teens.
Winds will turn towards the south by Tuesday morning and warmer air will return out ahead of the next weather system. Along with some periods of sunshine, the south wind will help boost temperatures towards 40 degrees.
A weak system will bring rain and snow showers to Central New York Tuesday night through Wednesday, followed by some lake effect snow on Thursday.
Clouds will thicken in the afternoon and some rain and snow showers will enter from the northwest Tuesday night. Scattered rain and snow will persist through much of Wednesday, with highs topping out in the mid 30s. The precipitation should generally be light.
As the system responsible for the scattered showers moves off the coast of New England, colder air will funnel into Central New York. A period of lake effect snow is likely for Thursday.
With northwest winds in place, lake effect snow will be in and around Syracuse. How well developed and how heavy the snow gets is uncertain, but at this time, it does not look to be a major event.
Temperatures on Thursday will not escape the 20s.
High pressure builds in by Friday, ending the lake snows and setting the region up for a quiet end to the week. Highs Friday look to be around 30 degrees.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The winter storm that's blanketed Central New York in snow is causing travelers some headaches.
Several flights at Syracuse's Hancock International Airport have been delayed or cancelled, according to a website that tracks flights.
Amtrak also posted a "Northeast Region Travel Advisory" on its website Sunday, alerting its customers that some travelers may see delays between Boston and New York on Monday.
"Allow extra time to get to the station and be extremely careful with possible slippery conditions in stations, on platforms and in the doorways of trains," Amtrak wrote.
At Hancock airport, flights from Syracuse to cities, including Boston, Toronto, New York City and Chicago were cancelled Sunday, according to the airport's website.
The winter storm reached Upstate New York Sunday morning, putting the entire region under severe weather alerts. A mix of sleet, rain and snow caused slick, slushy roads.
There were numerous reports of minor crashes throughout Central New York. In Oswego County, a 911 dispatcher reported a flurry of crashes Sunday afternoon along all of Interstate 81. In Onondaga County, a pickup truck with a snow plow attached to the front crashed into a pole on Makyes Road in the town of Onondaga. There were no reports of injuries in that crash, but the road was briefly closed. State police on the Thruway also reported a minor crash near the toll booth by Exit 34A in East Syracuse.
The National Weather Service has issued winter storm warnings for nearly all of Upstate New York through Monday afternoon.
Central and Western New York are expected to receive lake effect snow through Monday. The Syracuse area could see 10 to 14 inches of snow, as well as wind gusts up to 35 mph during the winter storm, according to the weather service.
"This Winter Storm Warning means heavy snow and some ice is expected or occurring. Heavy snow is forecast that will make travel very dangerous," the National Weather Service wrote in its winter storm warning. "Only travel in an emergency. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency."
Check our weather page for more updates.
snow map
National Weather Service shows how much more snow it predicts cities and towns in Upstate New York will see Sunday night and Monday.
(Nation)
REMSEN, N.Y. -- Three Oneida County school districts and a college in Madison County announced Sunday that school will start later than usual Monday morning.
Remsen, Rome and Waterville appear to be the first school districts in Central New York to call for a two-hour delay Monday.
Morrisville State College also cancelled all classes until 10 a.m. Monday, according to its website.
Across the state, dozens of schools in the Albany area and in Downstate New York also announced Sunday night that they would be closed or delay the start of school Monday as a "complex winter storm" sweeps through the state.
The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings Sunday and Monday for nearly all of Upstate New York. The storm started off as rain and sleet in most areas, then turned into snow. Roads were slick and slushy, causing numerous crashes.
The National Weather Service predicts another 6 to 8 inches of snow will fall between 10 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday in Syracuse, Canastota, Cortland and Hamilton; and another 8 to 12 inches during that same time frame in Auburn.
Impacts from the winter storm will include "hazardous roads from snow and ice," the weather service said in its latest briefing. There also could be tree damage, scattered power outages from ice, snow and strong winds late Sunday and Monday, especially in northeast Pennsylvania and the Catskills; and those in the northern portion of Central New York likely will see blowing and drifting snow Monday, the briefing said.
Snow is expected to continue overnight through Monday morning, then it is expected to taper off or turn into snow showers by Monday afternoon.
If you know of any other school closings or delays, please comment below.
Check syracuse.com Monday morning for more updates, including any additional school delays and closings.
Cybersecurity startup Capsule8 this week announced that it has raised US$2.5 million to launch the industrys first container-aware, real-time threat protection platform designed to protect legacy and next-generation Linux infrastructures from existing and potential attacks.
CEO John Viega, CTO Dino Dai Zovi and Chief Scientist Brandon Edwards, all veteran hackers, cofounded the firm. They raised seed funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as individual investors Shandul Shah of Index Ventures and ClearSkys Jay Leek.
The cloud has catapulted Linux to the most popular platform on the planet, and now the use of container technology is exploding, said Bob Goodman, a partner at Bessemer. Yet there has been no world-class commercial security offering focused on securing the Linux infrastructure until now.
Capsule8 is solving the difficult problem of providing zero-day threat protection for Linux, whether it be legacy, container or some combination of the two, he added.
Linux Focus
Windows protection tends to focus on find the bad executable, which makes sense in that environment because bad executables are ubiquitous in an attack, noted Capsule8s Viega.
However, that approach doesnt work well in a Linux environment, so Capsule8 focuses on detecting and protecting against system compromise, he told LinuxInsider.
The other typical approach in Linux is a network appliance, Viega said. However, there is not much context on the network, particularly as end-to-end encryption starts to become ubiquitous in the enterprise, so this approach doesnt find much and leads to many spurious alerts.
The result is that most Linux compromises either go undetected or are a surprise companies find their data on a forum at a later date and they find they had no clue they were attacked, he explained.
Among the most noteworthy incidents, the company cited the massive breach at Yahoo, which went undetected for years until the stolen data showed up on the Web.
While Linux-based systems present many of the same security problems as Windows-based systems, the biggest difference in attacks can be found around malware, according to Mark Nunnikhoven, vice president of cloud research at Trend Micro.
While we do regularly see malware targeting Linux systems, its a more common occurrence that the malware implanted on Linux systems is there to be distributed to Windows clients connecting to that Linux system, he told LinuxInsider.
On the defensive front, theres a stark contrast in the amount of effort required to support the rapidly changing software on Linux platforms, Nunnikhoven pointed out.
Given the nature of Linux and GNU, release cycles are a bit more erratic, and theres a lot more variation that requires a mature and robust response by security providers, he said.
Customer Base
Capsule8 already has signed up customers for its prerelease product, including SourceClear and Namely.
Capsule8 is the first product that supplements SourceClears predeployment detection with runtime threat protection for Linux systems, CEO Mark Curphey said.
There are three core principles that should guide decision making when adopting new technology, suggested Daniel Leslie, director of cybersecurity and technology at Namely. They are scalability, maintainability and security.
Protecting infrastructure at scale without sacrificing stability or performance is essential, he said.
Analytics vs. EDR
Capsule8 likely will take an agent-based approach primarily focused on visibility, speculated Adrian Sanabria, senior analyst for information security at 451 Research.
Theyre talking about gathering tons of details about whats going on with the operating system, processes, applications, network connections, file activity, etc., he told LinuxInsider.
I think EDR (endpoint detection and response) is actually the best and closest comparison I can find it is more like that, based on the details I can find so far, Sanabria maintained.
Theres a big difference between security analytics products and EDR, in that EDR products tend to be workstation-based, and none of them are container-aware that I know of, he pointed out.
On the container side, theres a lot of competition already, Sanabria continued, but none of the container security startups are doing Linux security. The one exception would be Trend Micro. The latest release of Deep Security includes container-aware support, and the product actively defends against attacks, whereas it sounds like Capsule8 will initially just be a monitoring product.
Commercial container security is probably Capsule8s best bet for growth, he suggested.
451 does a lot of enterprise surveying on a regular basis, Sanabria noted, and Ive got to say, Linux Security is one thing Ive never seen on the list of pain points even at the bottom of the list.
Young Jedi Palmer Luckey came in from the political cold on Wednesday to deny that he stole proprietary code from ZeniMax Media, in the little-known companys blockbuster US$2 billion lawsuit against Oculus VR and its overlord Facebook.
ZeniMax has alleged that in 2012, when Luckey was just a video game enthusiast in southern California, he corresponded with John Carmack, the iconic former ZeniMax programmer behind Doom, who was then technical director of its Id Software unit. Carmack used proprietary hardware and software information to develop the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, according to the lawsuit ZeniMax filed in U.S. District Court in Dallas.
ZeniMax spent millions of dollars to develop its proprietary technology in virtual reality and immersive technologies, according to the complaint, which argues that Luckey lacked the expertise to develop the virtual reality headset on his own.
Carmack left ZeniMax in 2013 to become chief technology officer at Oculus. Prior to his departure, he illegally downloaded thousands of proprietary documents that he took with him to the new company, the suit alleges.
A year later, Facebook announced a $2 billion cash and stock deal to acquire Oculus.
Keeping a Low Profile
Luckey for the most part has been incommunicado since last fall, following publication of areport that he secretly helped fund Nimble America, an Internet group dedicated to sh*tposting memes designed to malign Hillary Clinton. Luckey apologized on his Facebook page following the disclosure.
ZeniMax attorneys on Wednesday did their best to knock boy wonder Luckey off his perch, according to reports, pointing out that he lacked the expertise to develop sophisticated virtual reality technology on his own.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, swapping out his casual hoodie for a suit and tie, on Tuesday testified that he never even heard of ZeniMax. He also disclosed that his company actually paid about $3 billion for Oculus, a figure that included incentives to retain workers and meet targets.
Were eager to present our case in court, Oculus said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Matt Steinfeld.
Oculus and its founders have invested a wealth of time and money in VR because we believe it can fundamentally transform the way people interact and communicate, the company added. Were disappointed that another company is using wasteful litigation to attempt to take credit for technology that it did not have the vision, expertise or patience to build.
Legal Fallout
The ability to prove an intellectual property case such as this one often comes down to specific evidence like emails, documents and eyewitness testimony, noted Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research.
This is one of those low probability, but high impact events our industry dreads, he told TechNewsWorld. If ZeniMax can prove that their trade secret was divulged in good faith and then used by others who were not supposed to have access, then they probably have a case to extract damages from the parties exactly involved.
The damage to Facebook might be limited if there were no way for Facebook to know about the trade secret, Teich added.
I dont think Zenimax will be able to enforce licensing on any other companies in the industry, he said.
This case is unlikely to do any long-term damage to Facebook, said Lewis Ward, research director for gaming and VR/AR at IDC, though he conceded that hes not familiar with the details of the litigation.
Any way you cut it he told TechNewsWorld, the costs associated with this case will be dwarfed by the billions of dollars Facebook has already invested in Rift and will pour into the system over the next five years to make it conform to Facebooks vision.
The sci-fi world has lost a gem of an actor.
Richard Hatch, the star of the original science fiction series Battlestar Galactica, passed away on Feb. 7 due to pancreatic cancer. He was 71 years old. He is survived by his son, Paul.
Hatch is best known by his fans for his role of Captain Apollo in the original 1978 run of the sci-fi series. He also appeared in the 2003 rebooted Battlestar Galactica as Tom Zarek.
Pancreatic Cancer
According to Hatch's son Paul, Richard died peacefully after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was in hospice care until his last breath.
"In spite of significant roles in other series and motion pictures over the following decades, his connection with the original Battlestar as well as the remake created an international following among science fiction fans," according to the statement on the actor's website.
"While continuing his acting career, Richard was a popular figure at comic book conventions, science fiction forums and even hosted his own cruise ship events."
Hatch spent most of his later life getting involved in reviving the Battlestar series in different media such as film, TV, online webisodes and comic books.
Battlestar Galactica And Other Shows
Hatch came to fame for playing the role of Captain Apollo in the short-lived space saga Battlestar Galactica. Apollo was a Viper spacefighter of the Battlestar Galactica space ship. He was also famous for his friendship with Lieutenant Starbuck, and his romance with Lieutenant Sheba.
Born in 1945 after the war, Hatch began TV work in 1970 in the soap opera All My Children. He also did guest appearances on popular primetime shows such as Hawaii Five-O, Nakia, The Waltons, and Barnaby Jones.
He gained his first major role in 1976 as Inspector Dan Robbins in the series The Streets of San Francisco, a role that won him an award from a German magazine.
Then in 1978 came the series Battlestar Galactica that starred Hatch as Captain Apollo. Though the show was only one season long, it was enough to earn Hatch a Golden Globe nomination.
He appeared in the 2003 TV reboot of the series as Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician.
Hatch also appeared in movies, such as those made-for-TV ones, like The Hatfields and McCoys, Last of the Belle and Deadman's Curve.
The Battlestar Universe Sends Its Sympathies
Edward J. Olmos, who played alongside Hatch as Admiral Adama, tweeted:
"Richard Hatch you made our universe a better place. We love you for it. Rest In Peace my friend @SoSayWeAll the Admiral!"
Executive producer Ronald Moore called Hatch "a good man, a gracious man, and a consummate professional."
Bear McCreary, the show's composer, also sent his condolences via Twitter.
"I share tragic news with a heavy heart. Richard Hatch is no longer with us. Goodbye Tom Zarek / Apollo," McCreary tweeted.
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The same chemicals responsible for mediating feelings related to the pleasure of sex or recreational drugs also mediate the experience of musical pleasure, according to new research conducted at McGill University. The study is the first to correlate that the brain's 'opioids' are involved in musical pleasure.
The research, published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, used new means of understanding the brain's chemical reactions. Previous research employed brain mapping in identifying the areas of the brain that are active when musical pleasure occurs, correlating it only implicitly with opioids.
Pleasure From Music, Similar To The One From Sex Or Drugs
As part of the research, the team of scientists who conducted the study blocked brain's opioids with naltrexone, a drug usually prescribed as a treatment for addiction disorders. The researchers evaluated the subjects' response to music, finding that even their favorite songs were unable to cause any feelings of pleasure.
"We administered NTX to a group of naive participants in a double-blind placebo controlled experiment, and assessed musical reward using a combination of objective and subjective measures. Further, we controlled for musical experience, state, and trait anxiety, arousal, and the familiarity of the music. We instructed participants to choose their own favorite piece of music, and we also presented experimentally verified "neutral" music (neither happy nor sad) as a control for emotional valence and intensity," noted the research.
According to the researchers, although the findings weren't surprising as they confirmed the scientific hypotheses, the subjects' impressions were fascinating.
"[...] But the anecdotes -- the impressions our participants shared with us after the experiment -- were fascinating. One said: 'I know this is my favorite song but it doesn't feel like it usually does.' Another: 'It sounds pretty, but it's not doing anything for me,'" noted cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin, senior author of the study.
Sexual intercourse, alcohol consumption, gambling, or other activities people enjoy can create addiction and negatively influence the lives of those who practice them abusively. From this point of view, a better understanding of the brain chemistry responsible for the anatomy of pleasure is a highly relevant research path of neuroscience. However, it was only recently that researchers have developed the necessary tools to conduct these types of brain studies on people.
Previous research has shown that listening to music affects the levels of serotonin, epinephrine, dopamine, prolactin and oxytocin. Consequently, listening to music can produce feelings of pleasure, and people mention music among the top ten things in their lives that bring them most pleasure, above money, art, and food, according to the study.
Brain Connectivity And Pleasure
Another research had shown that a minority of people, approximately three to five percent globally, can't feel joy in music. According to that study, the cognitive link between listening to music and reward has a reduced connectivity, which makes it possible for people not to feel any pleasure when it comes to music.
Poor brain connectivity is also the cause of other issues related to cognitive ability, such as the inability of feeling pleasure in hearing a human voice in children who suffer from ASD.
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Robotics is not a new concept in technology but not many people know that the field actually goes back at least 500 years into the past. That is why the Science Museum in London offered a glimpse into the evolution of the field of robotics with its "Robots" exhibit, which was unveiled on Feb. 7.
Most people simply associate robots with boxy mechanical contraptions, futuristic Sci-Fi characters like R2D2 and C3PO, and more advanced humanoid androids that mimic the look of famous personalities but "Robots" shows that these marvels of technology has been around far longer than people imagined.
People usually look to the future when the topic of robots comes up so Curator Ben Russell patiently charted down the history and evolution of robots from the simplest mechanical contraption to more advanced automatons that are closer to people's imaginations.
"Coming face to face with a mechanical human has always been a disconcerting experience. That sense of unease, of something you cannot quite put your finger on, goes to the heart of our long relationship with robots," Russell said.
Russell also noted that many of the old robots were used to express faith-an interesting observation that shows religion and science co-exist even in the old days. To prove this, one of the early automatons in the exhibit is that of a mechanical monk built in the 1560's. The monk, which is on loan from the Smithsonian, can walk, lift a crucifix and rosary, move its lips, and beat its chest in an act of repentance.
There is also an animatronic baby complete with an umbilical cord on display which is, honestly, a little disturbing as it wriggles about while stuck on a wall. Of course, T-800 from "Terminator: Salvation" is also on display to represent almost everything people fear about a dystopian future caused by the uprising of Artificial Intelligence agents because why not?
There are also robots that mimic human actions ranging from walking, singing, and dancing to those which "read" news and tell stories about how robots make decisions.
"When you take a long view, as we have done with 500 years of robots, robots haven't been these terrifying things, they've been magical, fascinating, useful, and they generally tend to do what we want them to do," Russell expressed.
The exhibit is divided into five sections representing different period in history (and the future) and will remain in London's Science Museum until late 2017, however, the robotic Swan display will only be exhibited until Mar. 23.
In the 4th quarter of 2017, the exhibit will pack up to go on tour, starting with the launch of the Manchester Science Festival in mid-October. "Robots" will then be exhibited in Newcastle's Life Science Centre in 2018, Edinburg's National Museum of Scotland in 2019, then go on an international tour until 2021.
There are around 100 robots in the exhibit so, if you want to know which ones are the most interesting, you may want to take a look at Russell's recommendations in the video below.
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Scientists using NASA's Hubble Telescope have observed comet-like debris surrounding a white dwarf. This is the very first time that scientists have observed such an event, even more so with a comet that's rich in elements that are essential for life.
The white dwarf WD 1425+540 is roughly 170 light-years away from earth and can be seen in the constellation Bootes, also known as The Herdsman. It was first discovered in 1974 as a part of a wide binary system.
Scientists were using the W. M. Keck Observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study the white dwarf's atmosphere when they observed the comet-like object falling into the star, being damaged as it did.
Halley-Like Comet But Larger
Upon examining the surface of the comet, they found that it has a structure very similar to Halley's comet except that it is 100,000 times larger and its surface has significantly more water in it. What's more, spectral analysis showed that it is rich in life-building elements such as carbon, oxygen, sulphur and nitrogen.
These findings could be evidence of a belt of comet-like bodies surrounding the white dwarf, not unlike our own solar system's Kuiper belt.
Icy Comet-Like Debris
While observations of debris surrounding white dwarfs are not new, as up to 50 percent of them have been observed to be polluted with scattered remains of passing celestial bodies, this is the first time that scientists observe icy, comet-like debris around the once giant star. This is also the first object observed outside our solar system that has a composition similar to Halley's comet.
The finding is relevant to scientists especially because of the comet's high nitrogen content. In our own solar system, comets and other celestial bodies with these elements continue to float around the Kuiper belt as a sort of remnant from when the solar system was formed. In fact some even believe that it is through these comets that life on earth came to be. Finding these elements in comet debris surrounding a white dwarf 170 light-years away could be evidence that these icy bodies are also present in other planetary systems.
"Nitrogen is a very important element for life as we know it. This particular object is quite rich in nitrogen, more so than any object observed in our solar system," says Siyi Xu of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, lead of the very team that made the discovery.
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Sprint, the fourth largest U.S. wireless carrier, has come up with a spectacular plan that may give its rivals tough competition.
In efforts to attract customers, Sprint is all set to offer unlimited data plans for five lines at $90 per month.
The offer from Sprint is a limited period one and comes soon after rival T-Mobile launched its One Plan, which started at $70 for a single line. The latter's subscribers can also avail four lines for just $160, which is inclusive of fees and taxes.
Sprint announced its new plan on Feb. 10 and it will entitle the carrier's subscribers to plenty of benefits. From Feb. 10, customers will be able to take advantage of the limited period offer.
"Sprint understands the value of unlimited data to our customers. Customers do more with their phones every day and they want to use them without limits. With our new offer, you can sign up for a plan that allows you to surf and stream all you want and not worry about overage fees and charges," said Roger Sole, the carrier's chief marketing officer.
Sprint's Unlimited Plan: How It Works
To avail of the five lines for $90 offer from Sprint, those interested have to first sign up for the Unlimited Data, Talk and Text plan with the carrier by using AutoPay.
This will entitle the subscriber to get the first line for just $50 each month. By adding the second line for a family member or friend, one will simply need to pay $90 each month, which works out to $45 per line.
If the subscriber wants to add more users to the Sprint plan like loved ones or children, they will get the third, fourth and fifth line free of charge.
Any Caveats?
The promotional scheme introduced by Sprint is strictly for new subscribers and not existing ones. With the latest plan, one can enjoy unlimited text, talk, and data for a nominal amount each month. The price, however, is not inclusive of any taxes and surcharges. After these, the plan works out to an additional $5 to $25 extra per month.
There is also an activation fee of $30 for each line. This works out to a one-time fee of $150 for all five lines.
Moreover, the fine print reveals that while subscribers will save till March 31, 2018, after this period, they will have to shell out different charges. The first line will set them back by $60 instead of $50 each month. The second line will cost $40 per month. The three additional lines will cost $30 each per month.
Moreover, the carrier asserts that data throttling could occur when there is "congestion."
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Huawei is planning to release another phone under its affordable brand on Feb. 21, a week before the Mobile World Congress starts in Barcelona.
The company has achieved a lot of success with its Honor brand, which caters mostly to midrange and budget markets. It has confirmed the Honor V9 launch with an official teaser that was posted on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, which showed Chinese swimmer Sun Yang as the official endorser for the said phone.
Honor V9 Specs
With the up-and-coming launch of the V9, the brand now appears to be adding more to its lineup of affordable phones that have great specs. The Honor V9 phone has recently passed the TENAA certifications, which is China's counterpart to the FCC.
From the outside, it will have a unibody metal design and a 5.7-inch QHD 2.5D curved glass display. Under the hood, the V9 will also be powered with Huawei's very own octa-core Kirin 960 2.4 GHz SoC. The phone will also be available in either 4 GB or 6 GB of RAM. It will also be equipped with either 64 GB or 128 GB of internal storage that can be expanded using a microSD card.
The phone will weigh in at 184 grams (6.5 ounces) and will have 157 x 77.5 x 6.97mm measurements. It is expected to be the first phone in Huawei's Honor brand to have the Android 7.0 Nougat running out-of-the-box, on top of Huawei's EMUI 5.0 skin.
Honor V9's Camera Features
Huawei's newest smartphone will also have a dual camera setup at the back, which will have a dual-tone LED flash system and Laser autofocus sensors. The main shooter will have 12 megapixels (color) while the second rear camera will have 2 megapixels (monochrome) reducing noise and producing an image with superior sharpness and contrast when combined. The front of the phone will have an 8-megapixel selfie camera.
The phone will be powered up by a 3,900mAh non-removable battery and will have fast charging support. Aside from these features, it will also have a fingerprint sensor and will ship with two SIM card slots.
Note that these specs are not yet official, but we'll know for sure once the phone officially launches in China. All things considered, this phone will be a worthy successor to the Honor V8, which was sold in China only. The V9 is expected to be sold in different markets this time around. Pricing for the Honor V9 should be between $350 and $430.
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An Iranian baby who was temporarily banned from coming into the United States because of President Donald Trump's immigration order will soon have her life-saving heart surgery in Portland.
The 4-month-old girl Fatemeh Reshad has had a series of diagnostic studies to prepare her for the surgery since she was admitted to the OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland on Tuesday, Feb. 7.
Fetemeh's Heart Defect May Kill Her
Fatemeh was born with a congenital heart disease. In normal and healthy hearts, the blood pumps to the body, returns to the heart, and goes into the lungs where it collects oxygen before going back to the heart again.
In Fatemeh's case, the blood flows from the body and into her heart but instead of passing by the lungs, the blood is pumped back into the body sans getting oxygen from the lungs.
Normal hearts circulate blood in a series of circulation flowing from the heart to the body and then to the heart and lungs and then back to the body but in Fatemeh's case, her heart works more like in parallel circulations with one circulating blood in the body and the other circulating blood in the lungs.
If the child's heart condition is left untreated, doctors said that it can permanently damage her lungs and may even eventually kill her.
"Four-month-old Iranian infant Fatemeh Reshad will undergo heart surgery soon to treat a life-threatening congenital heart defect called transposition of the great arteries with ventricle septal defects, and pulmonary arterial hypertension, a condition if left untreated can cause irreversible damage to the lungs," the OHSU said in a statement released on Feb. 10.
Heart Surgery To Correct Fatemeh's Heart Condition
Laurie Armsby, of the OHSU's Division of Pediatric Cardiology, said that the procedure known as cardiac catheterization was conducted on the infant on Friday to know the extent of the injury to her lungs went well.
Armsby said that despite the excess blood that passes through the child's lungs, the results were encouraging and doctors believe they can proceed with the surgical operation needed to correct her condition as planned.
Irving Shen, of the OHSU's Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery who will perform the surgery, explained that the heart defects of the girl can be repaired by closing the holes in the heart and reconnecting the transposed arteries to the right pumping chambers of the heart.
If all goes well, the health care team expects the child to stay in the hospital for up to three weeks.
Doctors in Iran told the baby's parents that she needed surgery for her condition. Unfortunately, her family's tourist visa was abruptly canceled when Trump issued an executive order that bans the entry of people from seven countries including Iran.
A Seattle judge issued a temporary restraining order on this ban on the same day that a waiver was granted for the child. The baby's family chose to get her treated in Portland because of the OHSU's known expertise in treating heart conditions as well as because of the location's proximity to the family's relatives.
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The Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada was teeming with activity late last month, but it had nothing to do with testing alien technology, nuclear bombs, or any other project shrouded in conspiracy theory.
This time, the U.S. Air Force focused on improving operations to achieve better results during warfare.
The Air Force held a Red Flag 17-1 on Jan. 24 to test out its multi-domain operations, and made a literal killing with its improved results of a 15:1 kill rate. That is, the U.S. Air Force claims its joint strike fighter eliminated 15 opponents for every F-35 that was shot down.
That is a pretty impressive result if the numbers are accurate. But it would not have happened without the cooperation of kinetic and non-kinetic duty officers who worked together not only to maintain the F-35 A Lightning II but to assess all possible types of threats in combat and put a stop to them.
F-35 In Electronic Warfare
The non-kinetic duty officers are responsible for addressing cybersecurity, cyber threats, and other types of electronic warfare. Their inclusion in the assessment and operations is actually a good idea since current warfare has gone beyond weapons and ammunitions.
"We are bringing the non-kinetic duty officers into the fight at Red Flag. These experts in ISR and cyberwarfare are the newest weapons in our command and control arsenal," 25th Air Force Operations Division Chief, Lt. Col. Neal, said.
The Red Flag is also a good way to test how each element works together to get the best results.
"The realistic warfare challenges at Red Flag create an ideal environment for capabilities, like NCCT, to prove their worth in a time-sensitive, task saturated scenario involving the integration of multiple ISR assets," 25th Air Force Operational Integration Branch Chief Garland Henderson said.
Air Forces Cyber Forward Director Col. Robert Cole said the integration of kinetic and non-kinetic forces would allow planners and fighters to scope a situation more effectively with their capabilities and limitations considered. This will then prepare those involved and help them in taking the best course of action that yields maximum effect against their adversaries.
"This course has proven its worth, as it not only provided curriculum bridging the air, space and cyber effects in warfare, but it also produced a multi-domain NKDO team readied for Red Flag 17-1," 25th Air Force ISR Operations Integration and Exercises Deputy Chief Joe Delgado said.
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T-Mobile has One Plan (and free pizza) and Sprint offers a $90-unlimited plan for new subscribers. Starting Feb.13, Monday, Verizon joins the frenzy with a new unlimited data plan.
The Verizon Unlimited plan is, of course, designed to lure new customers. Heres everything you need to know about this offer:
Verizon Unlimited Plan Cost And Other Details
Verizons new unlimited data plan will give subscribers unlimited data, talk, and text with AutoPay and paper-free billing for $80 a month. The same deal is being offered for $45 per line for four lines or $180 per month plus fees.
The price of the unlimited plan will also go up after a year.
Verizon is offering an introductory plan that gives you unlimited data on your smartphone and tablet on the best 4G LTE network in the country. With Verizon Unlimited, you also get HD video streaming, Mobile Hotspot, calling and texting to Mexico and Canada and up to 500 MB/day of 4G LTE roaming in Mexico and Canada - included, the carrier said in a press release.
Subscribers can also add connected devices such as GizmoPal by LG for $5 each per month.
While overseas, one can get a TravelPass for $10 per day with a 500 MB daily limit and 2G speeds once you go beyond the cap.
Verizon Unlimited also includes Mobile Hotspot with 10 GB of 4G LTE data at no charge. The data speed will switch to 3G once user hits 10 GB.
Is Verizon Unlimited Really Unlimited?
The carrier promises best wireless experience for its customers but just like other unlimited data plans, one might wonder if there is a catch. And you should not miss this detail.
To ensure a quality experience for all customers, after 22 GB of data usage on a line during any billing cycle we may prioritize usage behind other customers in the event of network congestion. While we dont expect to do that very often, network management is a crucial tool that benefits all Verizon customers, Verizon said.
Verizon Unlimited vs. T-Mobile One, Sprint, And AT&T
T-Mobile has launched its own version of an unlimited plan in January called T-Mobile One Plan. It offers a single line plan for $70 and the deal goes as low as $40 per line for four lines on a what you see is what youll pay for scheme.
Meanwhile, Sprints new unlimited data plan will cost new subscribers $90 per month for five lines exclusive of taxes and other fees. This deal will be offered on a limited-time basis and higher charges may apply in the future. Users also need to deal with slower data speeds when network congestion occurs.
AT&T offers a stream plus surf all you want with unlimited data if you have AT&T wireless and DIRECTV. The unlimited plan pricing starts at $100 for the first smartphone and $40 for additional smartphones, tablets or connected car. You can add a basic phone for $25 or a wearable for $10. AT&Ts unlimited plan also comes with a 22 GB data usage threshold and other things in fine print.
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The list of automobile manufacturers and tech companies that are allowed to test self-driving cars in California has grown to 22, as the state's Department of Motor Vehicles has given the necessary permits to Japanese carmaker Subaru.
Subaru, added to the list on Feb. 9, joins companies such as Volkswagen, Google, Tesla, Ford, and NVIDIA, among many others, which are allowed to carry out tests for self-driving cars in the state.
Subaru EyeSight Technology
After Subaru was added to the official list kept by the California DMV, there were speculations on what kind of technology the automobile manufacturer is planning to test within the state.
Subaru currently has its EyeSight technology installed in some of its vehicles, with EyeSight offering advanced driver assistance features that promote safety first and foremost. Among the features offered by EyeSight are cruise control optimization, traffic movement monitoring, lane swerving warnings, and pre-collision braking that applies full braking force upon the detection of an emergency situation.
EyeSight is currently available in the Forester, Crosstrek, Legacy, Impreza, WRX, and Outback models of Subaru, but with the approval for testing in California of self-driving technology received by the company, EyeSight could soon be expanding its presence among Subaru vehicles with upgraded features.
Subaru Joins Self-Driving Car Race
Subaru is said to be working on features that are activated while vehicles are running of speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, including the ability to automatically start and stop while stuck in a traffic jam. The company is also looking to add automatic steering around curves and lane switching, which are considered to be semi-autonomous driving features meant for highway use, by the year 2020.
It is unknown, however, on whether Subaru will be testing any of these planned features in California with the permit that it just received, or whether the company will be focusing on another new feature entirely.
Fuji Heavy Industries, the parent company of Subaru which is in the process of changing its name to Subaru Corporation, previously hinted that it was moving forward with the development of self-driving cars when it announced last year that all of the next-generation models of Subaru will be on the same design platform. The common platform, which will cover all sedans, crossovers, gas-powered, and all-electric vehicles, will help in the reduction of costs related to engineering and manufacturing, and will also aid in the reduction of vibration and noise while improving comfort and stability.
Fuji Heavy Industries then added that the improvements that will be brought about by the common design platform was necessary so that the necessary straight line stability for self-driving cars would be achieved.
Self-Driving Car News
According to the California DMV, the company that has shown the most progress in the development of self-driving cars is Google's Waymo unit, with the division's autonomous vehicle only having 0.2 disengagements for every 1,000 miles driven last year. A disengagement is when a driver needed to take over operations of a self-driving car.
Ford, another company allowed to test self-driving cars in California, recently made a $1 billion investment in startup Argo AI. Uber, meanwhile, had its self-driving car testing booted out of the state late last year.
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A still unidentified French businessman has filed a lawsuit blaming Uber for allegedly causing his divorce. He is demanding that the ride-hailing company cough up 45 million or around $48 million as reparation for his troubles.
Reports revealed that the plaintiff, who lives in Southern France, used his wife's iPhone to order an Uber service when meeting his lover. To cover his tracks, he signed off of the app before handing the device back.
Uber Notification Bug
Unfortunately, there appeared to be a notification bug in the app that, despite his being signed out, allowed it to keep on receiving notifications related to his account. Naturally, it gave his wife the ability to check his comings and goings every time he used Uber's service.
While the said app was not able to provide real-time tracking, it still sent the Frenchman's wife plenty of information to determine whether he is lying or not.
For example, if the cheating husband called home saying he will be working late on a particular day, the wife will inevitably learn of the lie if he has spent his evening on an Uber ride, meeting his mistress instead.
One should remember that the Uber notification allowed the recipient to know specific details about an Uber order such as the name of the Uber driver, the car's plate number as well as the time of arrival.
An iPhone-Only Problem
The bug cited in the lawsuit only involved Uber's app for the iPhone. It was also older and is said to have been fixed by an Uber update released last Dec. 15.
French newspaper Le Figaro sought to authenticate the glitch and found that the notification issue was indeed true. Its report identified the mismanagement of the so-called tokens as the culprit behind the bug. The Uber app is supposed to revoke these upon sign out.
Android devices are reportedly not affected by the issue and this includes those installed with the older versions of the Uber app.
"My client was the victim of a bug in an application," David-Andre Darmon, the lawyer representing the cheating businessman said."The bug has caused him problems in his private life."
Darmon did not explain why they are asking for an incredible sum of money from Uber. The ride-hailing company is also not helping in this respect as it chose to remain silent save for a statement that stressed how it is the company's policy not to comment on individual cases. The company pointed out, however, that it is committed to protecting the personal data of its users.
Parties to the lawsuit, which has been filed in Grasse, are expected to begin their legal tussle next month. Uber has previously sustained setbacks in its brush with the French legal system.
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A 1-year-old boy in Maryland has been taken to the hospital after showing symptoms of being poisoned, according to authorities. Now his grandmother is being charged with child abuse following what is believed to be a methadone overdose.
According to the Charles County Sherriffs Office, it was tapped Friday by the Maryland Department of Child Protective Services about the incident.
Methadone Overdose
On Feb. 9, Thursday, a mother rushed his infant son to Calvert Memorial Hospital after noticing that the baby was acting lethargic, appearing very non-responsive and exhibiting signs of poisoning. The baby was under his grandmothers care in Lusby.
At the emergency room, the staff started to treat the patient with a few doses of Naloxone, and the baby was afterwards transferred to another hospital, Georgetown University Medical Center, for further observation.
From there, specialists determined that the baby experienced a methadone overdose, was treated properly, and then monitored for any cardiac or respiratory problem. He was listed under critical or acute status.
The grandmother is now in police custody and charged with first-degree child abuse, as well as first-degree assault, and distribution of a controlled dangerous substance.
In Focus: Prescription Painkiller Overuse
Methadone is a synthetic opioid, which is used as therapy for chronic pain. In a study of increases in drug and opioid-related overdose deaths in the United States, the CDC saw some progress in preventing methadone deaths, with rates declining by 9.1 percent in 2010 to 2015.
However, rates of deaths involving other opioids such as heroin and synthetic ones apart from methadone likely through the illicitly manufactured fentanyl climbed sharply overall and across different U.S. states.
Methadone has been found to account for as much as a third of opioid-related overdose deaths involving single or multiple drugs in states that participated in the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which was more than any opioid other than oxycodon, stated the CDCs Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) released in March last year.
In September last year, however, the number of U.S. infants born addicted to opioid drugs was found to have doubled in less than a decade.
More babies were seen born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, characterized by withdrawal symptoms developing after babies become addicted to the drugs their moms used while pregnant. It could be heroin or prescription opiates that the mothers took, the study reported.
Babies suffering from this syndrome may undergo tremors, seizures, excess crying, poor feeding, sleep issues, fever, rapid breathing, and blotchy skin. After they are born, they usually remain for a few weeks in the hospital in order to receive low doses of methadone, which is used for weaning addicts off heroin and prescription opiates.
Sharp rises in this condition, according to researchers, correlate with the well-established increase in prescription opioid abuse.
These symptoms may go away, but it is not assured that the sufferers will not experience development problems later in life. In 2015, the government passed The Protecting Our Infants Act of 2015, which requires the Department of Health and Human Services to implement a study and produce recommendations for treatment and prevention.
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Samsung Group's chief Lee Jae-yong has been questioned by the South Korean prosecutor's office regarding his role in the influencing-peddling scandal involving the country's President Park Geun-hye. He showed up Feb. 13 at Seoul's prosecutor's office.
This is the second round of questioning involving Lee, after he along with key Samsung executives was grilled by authorities last January.
South Korean Rasputin
Prosecutors have been focusing on Lee's donations to non-profit organizations backed by Choi Soon-sil, the President's confidante and more popularly known as South Korea's female Rasputin.
Choi is Mrs. Park's childhood friend and is the daughter of Choi Tae-min, a cult leader. She is the primary person of interest in the corruption scandal involving President Park.
The allegation is that Choi has masterminded and intervened in government policymaking despite holding no official government position due to her influence on the President. She was particularly accused of forcing South Korean chaebols such as Samsung to donate huge amounts of money in exchange for boons.
Samsung Bribery
Lee's name has been dragged in the political scandal for his $37.3 million donation to Choi-backed organizations. He was also accused of funding the equestrian career of Choi's daughter. Authorities believe that they were made to secure Choi's support for the merger of two Samsung companies, Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries.
The initiative eventually pushed through after South Korea's National Pension Services approved the $8 billion-merger. The prosecutors are now probing the details of such approval to determine whether Choi or Lee's donations had influence on NPS's decision.
Lee and Mrs. Park's Impeachment
Establishing Lee's role in the bribery accusation against Choi is crucial in validating Mrs. Park's impeachment. The South Korean parliament has stripped her of her power last December but the country's Constitutional Court will still decide whether such move was legitimate. She is currently being held in detention.
Back in January, Lee was grilled for 22 hours but the prosecutors failed to secure a warrant for his arrest. He has maintained his innocence and will likely invoke the same talking point at this juncture. Reports indicated that investigators could seek the same warrant again based on Lee's statements.
Two Samsung executives are said be currently being considered as suspects as well. These are both serving as officers of the Korea Equestrian Federation.
Samsung Electronics' share fell 1.25 percent the same day Lee was questioned by authorities. Analysts, however, stated that the incident will not affect Samsung's market performance.
"The issue will have limited impact on share prices, except if the worst-case scenario happens, since political issues previously did not have a big influence on share prices or earnings," Hyundai Securities's Bae Sung-young, said.
Since taking over the reins at Samsung, Lee has been credited for initiatives that are making the company more compact.
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Theres a big task ahead for New Zealand authorities after a recent major mass animal stranding on its shore.
Now the mission is to move the carcasses of about 300 whales that died in the mass stranding on Farewell Spit in Golden Bay, an event that saw more than 400 pilot whales washed up on a narrow stretch of land. The incident last Friday, Feb. 10 was marked as the third largest mass stranding seen in the country.
The carcasses are poised to be moved to an area not open to the public, where the bodies will be buried in the sand dunes further up the area on South Island.
Carcass Disposal
Its a big job, said Trish Grant of the Department of Conservation, adding it would take a couple of days to perform the job since it can only be done during low tide.
On Monday, Feb. 13, workers started piercing the carcasses to release gas that has built up during decomposition. Wearing protective gear, they spent the morning piercing holes in the carcasses using knives and long needles to prevent explosion of such gases.
From there, diggers will be tasked to move the hundreds of heavy bodies to a location in the sand dunes, particularly in a portion of the local nature reserve typically not accessible to the public. The agency earlier considered leaving the bodies fenced where they were, but changed the decision out of safety concerns regarding the rotting carcasses.
Mass Stranding Concerns
Days after this large stranding event, authorities confirmed that another 240 pilot whales were stranded overnight at Golden Bay. The whales, however, were able to self-rescue: The tide came in and they successfully floated off and swam out to sea, Reuters reported, quoting DOC spokesperson Herb Christophers.
It is not exactly known why these mass strandings occur, but beached whales are not uncommon in the area. Golden Bays shallow muddy waters, for one, confuse the sonar of the marine mammals, leaving them prone to stranding with an ebb tide.
Other theories remain: the whales may have been driven to land by sharks, as bite marks were seen on one of the casualties. It could also be the shape of the coastline as well as the shallow tidal waters.
New Zealand has among the highest stranding rates worldwide, where around 300 whales and dolphins end up on its beaches each year. Farewell Spit is usually host to these incidents, where one of the biggest occurrences, last February 2015, left half of 200 beached whales dead.
Pilot whales are not classified as endangered, but their population is yet to be determined in the waters of New Zealand. University experts performed necropsies to find out what led them to troop to the shores.
There are other major stranding events elsewhere in the world. In southern Chile back in December 2015, an episode of red tide pushed more than 300 whales on the shore of a remote area. Madagascar beaches saw some 100 whales stranded in 2008, with three-quarters of them perishing. In 2002, anti-submarine sonars were suspected to be behind a mass whale beaching that killed some 25 beaked whales.
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Electronic gadgets today are indispensable. Be it home or at work, we use gadgets such as smartphones, laptops and tablet PCs for every kind of activities like shopping, banking, paying bills, paying EMIs, watch movies and shows, download music, click pictures, maintain budget, track fitness and physical activity levels among other things. As tech enthusiasts we also try to get the latest and updated gadgets that suit our pockets. Let us check out some of the best gadgets tech enthusiasts can own in 2017.
Every phone maker is striving to showcase its path breaking technology to customers. Apple, Samsung, Nokia are some of the premium brands that are expected to come up with some fantastic editions of their phones. A thinner, lighter iPhone 8 with an additional all glass variant and more responsiveness is what you can expect this year form this leading revolutionary smart phone brand. Samsung lovers can expect the Galaxy Edge S8 to be a notch higher than its predecessor with a new virtual personal assistant, 4K display and second rear camera.
This year, Nokia is all set to make its foray into the Android world with its D1C that will be powered by Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 64 bit processor, Android 7.0 Nougat operating system and an internal storage of 32GB RAM. Many of these phones have exclusive launches on online stores and you can check out Flipkart Offers to get one of them.
Apart from these leading names, you can also get cutting edge technology budget phones from other brands like Oppo, Moto, Vivo, Mi, Gionee, etc. with a host of features to meet all your functional requirements. Word is out that Microsoft is working on the Ultimate Mobile Device that is expected to be launched in 2017 with Microsofts prominent operating system though it remains to be seen what it exactly will be! Samsung is also expected to release its foldable smart phone, a design that is has been working on for several years and will convert a tablet into a phone for users on the go! Using coupons from Paylesser India allows you to buy all electronic gadgets at extra discounts.
Just the way we need various gadgets, we also need accessories to make them perfect. Headsets like the HTC Vive 2VR, Bluetooth speakers, external hard disks, pen drives, power banks, on-the-go pen drives, etc. are some additional stuff that you need buy when you buy yourself a gadget. You can also store unlimited data like photographs, documents, etc. and access them even while you are on the move with various storage devices. These accessories not only make protect the gadget, but also make it extremely convenient for us to optimally operate and use them.
Our lives are incomplete without gadgets. We need them for various purposes to accomplish various tasks. This is the reason it is worthwhile to invest in the latest technology and stay updated. Now that you what to look forward in 2017, gear up for some of the best investments of your life.
Flipkart, Nokia, Android 7.0 Nougat
Arce stressed that "this table has a vital importance to continue giving certainties and solutions, above the whims, subway agreements and political calculations". | Read More
A 17-year-old student at Scotlandville High School is in Parish Prison after he was found Monday morning carrying a loaded handgun during a random search just a week after a fellow student fired three shots in a crowded courtyard at the large north Baton Rouge high school.
Quantae Kentrell Gray, 17, was booked into the Parish Prison on counts of illegal carrying of a weapon on school property and violation of a weapon free zone.
Bail set at $110,000 for teenager accused in Scotlandville High shooting Bail was set Wednesday morning at $110,000 for a teenager accused of firing a gun at Scotlan
Casey Rayborn Hicks, a spokeswoman with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriffs Office, said Gray, an 11th-grader, was found at about 10:15 a.m. with a black .40 caliber Glock 23 semiautomatic handgun, which had 8 rounds loaded in a 13-round capacity, inside his backpack.
The School Drug Task Force conducted the search with the help of the Constable Offices K9 division, Hicks said.
Its the first random search at the high school, which is located at 9870 Scotland Ave, since the shooting Feb. 6. No one was hurt in the incident.
The Feb. 6 incident and the one Monday are the only cases during the 2016-17 school year where students were caught with guns in their possession at the high school, Hicks said.
Adonica Duggan, a spokeswoman for the school system, said there were two other cases in which guns were found in the possession of students so far this school year, one at McKinley High and one at Woodlawn High.
Louisianas Zero Tolerance law specifies that schools are required to recommend expulsion when a student brings a gun to school. The student can appeal that recommendation.
Duggan said random searches occur regularly at middle and high schools.
We try to do them weekly, Duggan said. It depends on availability of the dogs.
Gray would not give a statement when he was taken into custody Monday.
Hicks asked that any students with information concerning this incident or similar incidents, call the Sheriffs Office at (225) 389-5000 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at (225) 344- STOP or (225) 344-7867. Students can also text "CS225" plus their message to CRIMES (274637), she said.
Editor's note: This story was changed Feb. 15, 2016, to correct the number of guns found at McKinley High School so far this school year. There was only one gun found at the school, according to the Sheriff's Office.
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A victim of the Phillips 66 natural gas pipeline explosion who was taken to the Baton Rouge General Medical Center Regional Burn Center was listed in good condition Sunday night, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The victim, whose identity has not been released and who is still in the hospital, was transported to Baton Rouge for care Thursday evening after the the fire that started in the St. Charles Parish community of Paradis.
Meanwhile, the Thibodaux man who has been missing since the explosion is presumed dead, the company said in a statement Saturday.
Josh Helms was an eight-year veteran of pipeline work and had joined Phillips 66 last year, the statement said.
"Our deepest sympathies go out to Joshs family, friends and co-workers," read a statement from Phillips 66.
The blaze also sent another worker to a local hospital, who was released Friday.
A small fire continues to burn at the site Sunday night, said Phillip 66 spokesman Dennis Nuss, but it is expected to be out Monday.
PORT ALLEN Efforts are underway by some city leaders to rename a portion of La. 1 in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Garrett Brown, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, says having the stretch of state highway within the city limits dedicated in King's honor is a top priority for the organization right now.
While support for renaming the road is growing among the city's elected officials, the final say rests with the state.
City Councilwoman Ray Helen Lawrence said she doesn't see anything wrong with the idea. And fellow Councilman Brandon Brown called King one of the" most influential individuals" that ever lived.
The sentiments were echoed by newly-seated Councilman At-Large Carey Williams.
"With this being Black History Month, we wanted to take a go at it," Brown said. "It could be the 'MLK Expressway' or 'Martin Luther King Boulevard.' As long as it's in his name we would be OK with this. This man changed the country."
Brown said he finds it "ridiculous" that Port Allen, a majority black town, doesn't already have a street named after King.
The topic was briefly discussed at City Council committee meetings last week when members of the NAACP approached officials with the proposal.
Mayor Richard Lee hoped to get a resolution of support from the council, but things were left on a somewhat uncertain note after Councilman Hugh "Hootie" Riviere questioned whether the council should really be involved in the effort.
"With La. 1 being a state highway, I'm really not sure we have anything to do with it," he said Tuesday.
And Riviere is right. State law exclusively gives to the state Legislature the power to name and/or memorialize state highways.
That means city leaders would have to convince the district's state representatives to introduce a bill in an upcoming session asking that the portion of La. 1 that passes through Port Allen be changed.
The mayor said he hasn't reached out to State Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Brusly or State Sen. Troy Brown, D-Napoleonville yet, but he intends to do so soon.
"It's just an idea right now," Lee said.
No public explanation was given in mid-November when state District Judge Trudy White embarked on a three-month leave of absence, and none was offered Monday when the Baton Rouge jurist returned to the 19th Judicial District Court from her paid hiatus.
"Good morning everyone. I'm Trudy M. White, and I'm back. It's so good to be back," she said after entering her sixth-floor courtroom in the 19th Judicial District Courthouse.
White, who has not commented publicly why she was off from Nov. 14 through Sunday, offered no explanation for her absence when she took the bench Monday morning.
"I have no comments," she said later in the day in a text to a reporter with The Advocate.
Valerie Willard, deputy judicial administrator and public information officer for the Louisiana Supreme Court, said the high court had no statement or comment on White's return.
Retired 21st Judicial District Judge Bruce Bennett handled White's docket while she was away. He was appointed by the Supreme Court, which has not disclosed the reason for her leave of absence.
White, a former Baton Rouge City Court Judge, has served on the 19th Judicial District Court since 2009. She was re-elected in 2014.
Her opponents in that election, Gideon Carter III and the late state Rep. Alfred Williams, sharply criticized her during the campaign for appearing in a video -- inside a courtroom -- with a man in an orange prison jumpsuit who promoted her candidacy. White has said she did not authorize the release of the video with comedian Jomo Jenkins.
White pointed to her judicial experience and integrity during her re-election effort.
Media reports last year called into question why White allegedly repeatedly orders and forces defendants appearing before her to use a specific home supervision company called RHI. The firm's owner, Cleve Dunn Sr., and his son have worked for her judicial campaigns, according to the reports.
White has cited the state's Code of Judicial Conduct in declining to comment on the matter.
State education leaders, allies of Gov. John Bel Edwards and even teachers are embroiled in a dispute on just how far the state should go to trim testing in public schools.
State Superintendent of Education John White has recommended modest changes in test schedules.
A panel named by Edwards favors much more, including an end to annual science testing in third through eighth grades.
Group recommends teacher-evaluation overhaul, other major changes in public schools A panel named by Gov. John Bel Edwards recommended major changes in public school policies T
And teachers disagree on whether fewer tests will downgrade the importance of key subjects, especially science.
Nathan Cotten, president of the Louisiana Science Teachers Association, criticized the plan by the governor's panel to limit science testing to the fifth and eighth grades only for elementary and middle school students.
"Should testing be reduced, then you basically reduce the emphasis on the subject," said Cotten, an educator in Terrebonne Parish.
He said the first thing kids ask when they are given tests is whether they will be graded.
"If there is no accountability for it, it loses its importance," Cotten said.
But Jordan Thomas, a sixth-grade English/language teacher in Shreveport, said the state's test volume needs to be reduced.
"It is really about students learning the content, not just filling in the bubbles," said Thomas, a member of Edwards' advisory panel.
The spat stems from public school changes prompted by a federal law called the Every Student Succeeds Act.
State officials are putting together a plan to submit to federal officials by April 3, and tests are a key topic.
Here are key questions surrounding Louisiana public school revamp After more than a year of public hearings, forums and debates, key questions remain on just
White proposed in September, and reiterated that view on Feb. 6, to make some exam changes, including a limit on end-of-year state testing to no more than two percent of the instructional minutes in a school year.
However, he offered no plans to make sweeping changes in science or other exams.
"State tests validate that learning is happening in every classroom for every child," according to a statement issued by Sydni Dunn, press secretary for the state Department of Education.
White declined comment.
Others are pressing for bigger reductions.
Donald Songy, education policy adviser for Edwards, said tests will be a central issue when officials try to reach agreement before any state plan is submitted to the U. S. Department of Education.
"Teachers, parents -- just about everyone is saying we are testing children too much," said Songy, former superintendent of the Ascension Parish School District.
He noted that the ESSA law does not require annual science tests, and that one, state-mandated exam in elementary and middle schools is enough.
"Science is still going to get taught," said Songy, a former science teacher himself.
"It is going to be tested," he said. "The question is how many times are we going to have to put a kid in front of a computer for a standardized test."
Edwards made reduced testing one of his campaign themes in his 2015 run for governor, and has repeated that view since.
Gubernatorial panel weighing fewer student tests Public school students would take fewer tests under a plan being reviewed by a panel to stud
Ironically, a review panel is set to meet in New Orleans on Monday to finalize science standards used in public schools.
The guidelines have not been updated since 1997.
The dispute on how many tests should be eliminated has to be resolved quickly.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is set to meet next month to finalize the state's plan.
That deadline stems from plans by White and others to have the new rules take effect for the 2017-18 school year.
Michael Faulk, superintendent of the Central School District, said the proposed cut in science testing is in line with ESSA and its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind law.
"A lot of science is hands on," said Faulk, a member of the governor's advisory panel on the issue.
The governor's group also wants to end annual state tests in social studies for students in third through eighth grades.
Thomas said the sheer number of exams has become an issue.
"There are kids that come home and have such testing anxiety," she said.
"It is almost like they become robots," Thomas added. "Really, you lose some of the validity of the test. You are not sure if you are actually getting an accurate picture of what your students really know."
Cotten said the chief complaint of parents is daily quizzes, not the annual exams under fire.
"It is not state testing that they are talking about," he said.
Songy said he has ongoing talks with White.
"We are having some very constructive conversations," he said. "I can't predict how it is going to work out."
After falling victim to an unsophisticated con in May for nearly $50,000, East Baton Rouge Parish school officials immediately reported the theft to the Sheriffs Office.
The school district, however, failed to formally notify Louisiana Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera until six month later.
As soon as local governments have reasonable cause to suspect misappropriation of public funds or assets," a 2001 state law requires that they notify the Louisiana Auditor's Office as well as local district attorneys.
The school systems failure to disclose the theft to the state agency right away was revealed Monday morning when Purperas office released the school systems most recent 2015-16 fiscal year annual audit.
The Legislative Auditor gave the school system's annual audit a D grade, which it reserves for audits that contain instances of fraud and abuse. The private firm that conducted the audit for the school system, though, gave it an "unqualified opinion," meaning that overall its finances and practices are sound and that the phishing did not "materially affect" the school system's financial position.
On May 5 and May 6, former Chief Business Operations Officer Catherine Fletcher wired a total of $46,500 to someone who claimed via email to be Superintendent Warren Drake, even though the real Drake was working in an office next door.
Copies of those email exchanges include a number of suspicious details. The emails for the fake Warren Drake came not from the superintendents email address but from officialdetailsemail@sent.com, and this person asked that the money be wired variously to Rosa a oboadey in the Bronx, Johnson Chepkwony of Brooklyn and Sylvester Namutedi, also from Brooklyn. In the emails, the fake Warren Drake is terse, and his punctuation is often incorrect or missing and his English is stilted.
The scheme was not uncovered until a third phishing attempt on May 9 was halted by the district's Chief Financial Officer James Crochet, who had just returned from a work trip. That same day, Fletcher alerted the Sheriffs Office of the wire transfer fraud. Sheriffs deputies quickly enlisted the help of the New York Police Department.
A combination of a partial bank refund and an insurance payout has allowed the school system to recoup all but $10,000 of the stolen money.
The school system on Nov. 3 gave a public presentation on the fraud to the School Board.
Bradley Cryer, director of local government for the Legislative Auditor, said his office did not receive a formal notification until Nov. 21.
Its more of a technical violation, but one we take seriously, Cryer said.
Cryer acknowledged that his office had learned about the case informally months earlier from a CPA involved in the investigation. That informal notification prompted a follow-up call from agency staff to the school system to inquire about what was going on, Cryer said.
Cryer acknowledged that the law in question contains no specific penalties for those who violate it and said every year his agency learns after the fact about thefts it should have learned about much earlier. He said the intent of the law is to make sure the auditors office is aware of potential financial fraud so it can sufficiently monitor the cases or, if need be, launch its own investigation.
In this case, the auditing firm Postlethwaite & Netterville conducted a $10,000 investigative audit but found no evidence that Fletcher or any current or former school employee profited from the fraud. As part of the corrective action plan they prepared for the school system, auditors reminded appropriate staff of the requirement to report all instances of theft to the Legislative Auditor.
East Baton Rouge Parish school administrator who fell for "phishing" scheme retires The top business manager for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system who fell for an unsop
Fletcher went on leave Dec. 1 and filed for retirement effective March 17 after 11 years on the job. She's since been replaced by Crochet, who was promoted Wednesday to chief business operations officer and worked his first day Monday in his new job.
Gov. John Bel Edwards speaks at a press conference at the State Capitol Friday, Jan. 6, 2017, on the states plan for spending $1.2 billion in flood-relief funding recently approved by Congress. He's flanked by Restore Louisiana Task Force co-chairs Jimmy Durbin, left, and Jacqui Vines, center. A meeting of the task force scheduled for earlier in the day in Livingston was cancelled because of a winter weather advisory
Gov. John Bel Edwards, right, talks with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, left, before they tour an area on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East damaged by a tornado Tuesday morning.
Tawfik Assali, 21, center, of Allentown, Pa., embraces his sister Sarah Assali, 19, upon her and other family members' arrival from Syria at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. Right is Mathew Assali, 17, who arrived today. Attorneys said Dr. Assali's brothers, their wives and their two teenage children returned to Syria after they were denied entrance to the United States on Jan. 28 although they had visas in hand after a 13-year effort. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Although it seems all the rage in education circles, we wonder about the application of "value-added" judgments in measuring how much schools are really teaching students.
A value-added weight has been part of Louisiana's accountability program for schools, but a new plan would drastically increase it. The plan was endorsed by the Accountability Commission Wednesday, and now goes to the state education board.
It deserves a great deal of discussion.
Under the change, school performance scores that make up the grades will include a first-ever academic growth factor 25 percent for all students. The new rules would triple the value of yearly growth in the classroom, which is 7 percent now and only applies to struggling students.
As so often in education, this is a formula for the adults more than the children. In assigning a performance grade to schools, it would place more emphasis on a school's progress in meeting basic standards rather than the achievement of the standards themselves.
And the proposal could be worse, as some argued for a 35 percent weighting.
Instead of formulas and percentages, what is the effect of value-added metrics like this one? A struggling student is helped by his teacher, who deserves every bit of credit for bringing along his reading skills, and as a result his test scores go up and under the new plan the school performance score gets a big boost.
But if the boy is still reading at a 4th grade level in 7th grade, what is more critical, the value-added metric of the dedication of the teacher, or the fact that he is in serious academic trouble, and the school is failing his future? The latter is what we must measure.
Another case might be the girl in a magnet school with parents dedicated to her learning. She is going to grow academically in the classroom, but a value-added standard means a harsher school performance assessment because the growth in her scores is limited. That's because academically, she doesnt have as far to grow as a struggling student.
Debbie Meaux, a commission member and president of the Louisiana Association of Educators, said schools rated "C," "D"and "F" stand to benefit the most. "The "A" and "B" schools are going to have a big problem when they have to go out into the community and explain why they dropped," she said.
True, and certainly the schools must be concerned with their gifted children. But the social costs of inflating school grades with value-added scores are in those "D" and "F" schools.
"This is a value judgment," said Jessica Baghian, assistant superintendent for assessments and accountability for the state Department of Education. "There is no right answer."
Yes, there is a right answer. It is to base school performance scores on results, because while value-added boosts are valid and necessary, they are not sufficient if students fail to achieve academically enough to work and live in an increasingly technological society.
A 2008 artists rendering of Veterans Avenue in Biloxi if the proposed South Beach Resort and Casino were built. (Courtesy Guice & Guice Agency via Biloxi Sun Herald)
A Canberra family of five was involved in a horror crash on the Kings Highway, with bystanders flipping the car off its roof and pulling three children and their mother from the wreck.
On Monday, the male driver was in a critical condition at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, having been airlifted from Batemans Bay Hospital on Saturday afternoon after suffering head injuries in the crash.
Crash on the Kings Highway, near Braidwood on Saturday. Credit:Naomi Birkett
Police said the family had been driving east along the Kings Highway near Braidwood when the car started to come off the road. The driver had tried to correct the van before it came up a wire safety barrier, hitting a guardrail and flipping, landing on the driver's side before resting on its roof.
Passers-by stopped and righted the vehicle flipping it back onto its wheels before they pulled the mother and three children from it. They were unable to pull out the 42-year-old father, who remained trapped in the car until NSW Fire & Rescue freed him.
The heritage-listed block, built in 1939, consists of the old fire station and seven brick homes - one on each corner and duplexes between.
Nearby resident Rebecca Scouller, who says the redevelopment sets a precedent that could ruin the heritage values of the precinct, took the case to the ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal on Monday.
The heritage-listed property on the corner of Fitzroy St and Manuka Circle, Forrest, that neighbours say is not being developed in line with the heritage values. Their attempt to appeal was knocked back this week. Credit:Rohan Thomson
The owner of the property on the corner of Manuka Circle and Fitzroy St has been embroiled in on ongoing round of development applications and objections from neighbours and inner south residents. Two stopwork notices were reportedly issued in 2015 , one for an unapproved steel frame on the roof that was subsequently removed, and another for an unapproved upper floor at the rear.
A group of Manuka residents has failed in an attempt to halt redevelopment of a building in the heritage-listed Forrest fire station precinct, with the ACT government successfully arguing that its decisions in the precinct cannot be appealed.
In October 2015, the planning directorate approved plans from owner Tomislav Kasunic for a two-storey extension for a house, an office, and two carports.
In November 2016, a second application to extend the building to add a second office and a car stacker was rejected. The planning directorate said the 160 sq m office was too big given the Forrest planning code required offices to be "limited in scale". The proposal replaced all the front landscaping with parking and driveways and was dangerous for pedestrians, and would remove all private open space. While there was a rooftop area with umbrella, it had never been approved. Noise from the air-conditioning unit would impact the adjacent block. The proposal did not meet disability rules, was inconsistent with the lease, and heritage had withdrawn its support, the November decision said.
But the decision was reversed in December 2016 after the proposal went to the government's "major projects review group" - a high-level group set up to give an "agency-wide perspective on complex development proposals".
In its December 21 decision, the planning authority said after a site visit it was satisfied the driveways were not dangerous, the air conditioning units were adequately screened, paved areas and the rooftop space were satisfactory, and open space requirements were met, taking into account the rooftop and proximity to Telopea Park. While it was not in line with some housing code rules, it met the criteria for privacy and separation. A new lease had been lodged, and an accessible parking spot would be provided.
Ms Scouller and the Kingston and Barton Residents Group have complained over many months about the proposals and the work. Ms Scouller says a ground-floor extension at the rear of the building was approved by the heritage unit on the basis that it was a laundry, but it runs the entire length of the house, with approval now given for another storey on top.
A four-year decline in youth offenders reversed last year when the number of young people caught in criminal activity rose in the ACT.
Young offenders increased 17 per cent to a total of 416, the first time the figure had risen since 2011, and higher than the 5 per cent growth in offending among all age groups.
The rate of young people caught in criminal activity has risen in the ACT. Credit:Getty Images.
The youth offender rate increased by 15 per cent from 1022 per 100,000 people in 201415 to 1176 among young people aged 10-17 years, compared to a 3 per cent increase for all age groups, the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show.
The rise comes despite efforts to reduce offending among youth after the 2012 Blueprint for Youth Justice in the ACT, a strategy to keep young people out of the justice system.
Rob Scott has been named the new Wesfarmers managing director to succeed Richard Goyder, who will step down from the role towards the end of this year.
Mr Scott, who is currently head of Wesfarmers' industrials division, will become deputy chief executive immediately before joining the board as managing director after the company's annual meeting in November.
The 47-year-old has been touted as the likely replacement for Mr Goyder for some months. This talk firmed after Bunnings boss John Gilliam stepped aside in December amid speculation he was not one of the candidates for the top job.
Chairman Michael Chaney said Mr Scott, a former Olympic rower, had shown himself to be an "outstanding executive and had demonstrated his leadership and commercial capability". His appointment continued Wesfarmers' "unbroken tradition of appointing its chief executives from within the group".
If you fail to lodge your annual tax return on time, the tax man may accept late lodgement due to "extenuating circumstances".
Over the past few years, the Australian Taxation Office has rejected the following reasons given by taxpayers as being "extenuating". They include:
EXCUSE 1: "Snails eat our mail, so your lodgement demand letter must have been eaten."
EXCUSE 2: "I had a fight with my wife and she works for my tax agent so I couldn't meet with him".
When the world's scientists emerge from their labs and take to the streets there must be something very important at stake. For the most part, scientists are most unlikely activists and public figures. We've been explicitly taught, perhaps erroneously, that our profession is above politics. Yet, an unprecedented series of "marches for science" through major cities across the globe in April will bring leading scientists, including Nobel Laureates, together around both a political, and a more fundamental, challenge.
On the face of it, the planned marches, including those in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, are a protest against US President Donald Trump's anti-science stance on critical global issues, such as the irrefutable contribution of human activity to climate change, and his steady stream of "alternative facts".
But, there's something bigger in play. That is, the rise of a wider "post-truth" political culture in which opinion and ideology are overriding facts, and in which populism, not a credible evidence base, is informing policy-making well beyond the new US administration. As such, we scientists find ourselves with an unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, role to play in the public arena.
But, why march in defence of a method? Science is not the only lens through which we can understand the world, nor is the scientific method immune from challenge.
Elizabeth Oliver is a Sydney GP. 0914: Fifteen minutes with a young man who just lost his leg. We make a list of the things he will think about when he can't take his mind off the gun in his uncle's garage. (0932: Check stoic man's ECG and send him to hospital. Three hours later he is having heart surgery. He survives.) 0940: Three minutes silence with a woman with finger marks on her neck. Does she want to talk today? Nope. Talk about migraines instead. Maybe next week. 0953: Insert contraceptive implant into giggling 18-year-old.
1004: Attend to 18-year-old who has fainted. Call from nursing home three new urinary tract infections, someone is delirious and Bert's family are here from Perth and want to talk. Can I come by? 1010: Determine whether 89-year-old is fit to drive. 1027: Explain to young man that men as well as women can carry sexually-transmitted infections, and he should be treated for that discharge. Screen him for depression. Not depressed, yet, but he is injecting testosterone and has a secret abscess he'll let me see. 1045: Explain to woman with nine years of symptoms unresponsive to dry needling, crystal healing and zinc replacement that she probably has coeliac disease. 1056: Reassure first-time mum with post-natal depression that she is not evil. Organise support.
1115: Shout at 92-year-old that she's gained four kilograms of fluid. Receive beatific smile in return. Jiggle medications. Stop the four least useful of her 15 medications and arrange to review tomorrow. 1132: Repeat child with fever consultation. 1148: Repeat child with fever consultation. Notice child has stopped growing. Re-book to investigate. 1203: Advise local butcher she should invest in Hepatitis A vaccine prior to Thailand trip, for all our sakes. 1212: Phone call from lab blood count from yesterday's patient with the night sweats is weird. It looks like cancer. Call haematologist. He's busy.
1218: Repeat child with fever consultation. 1230: Notice suspicious mark on bricklayer's arm while taking blood pressure. A notorious no-show, I won't see him for six months. Biopsy today. 1254: Lunch! Call the haematologist again. Call the patient with the weird blood to request he come in today. Quick reading to brush up on weird blood. Paperwork. Visit nursing home. General practice costs 7 per cent of Medicare's budget. The frontline is starved, and the idea that we can build a tower to Mars with the money we'll save by starving it further is madness. GPs save Medicare money by keeping people out of that economic sinkhole, the hospital. If we keep one patient a week out of intensive care, five a week out of hospital, we are worth it.
I assess three to four infants a day who don't need a bed in emergency, and I send the declining asthmatic who does. I jiggle medications to keep people stable. Last month I saw a socially-isolated man who wanted to quit the cannabis making him psychotic. I saw him every two days for a fortnight, encouraging him through withdrawal. I can only imagine the cost of an admission to the mental health unit for drug-induced psychosis, but it's probably more than $185.25. Often an expensive test isn't going to change what we know or do. Having invested 11 years and more than $100,000 in my eyes, ears and mind, utilising these before a multinational pharmaceutical or pathology company seems wise and cost-effective. But the more I get squeezed, the less time I'll spend. The government doesn't want to pay me and neither do the people. While my expenses go up, my income doesn't. Can we all stop looking surprised when we have to pay a GP? People in Saba jackets complain to me about "crap bulk-billing doctors". It's like whinging that McDonald's gave you reflux. For GPs, it's becoming one or the other a gap payment, or eight patients an hour. I haven't burnt out yet, but soon I'll have to start either charging a gap or doing Botox parties of an evening. If you want better care, pay a gap or write to your MP. Preferably both. You get what you pay for, because your government won't.
Supermarket giant Coles is to trial limiting the number of items that shoppers can scan through self-serve checkouts, directing people with more than 12 to a traditional staffed lane. While the company says it's not related to a recent crackdown on checkout theft, it's hard not to see it as further crumbling of the great self-service experiment.
Coles says that self-serve checkouts are more convenient for customers. But isn't the real point to boost the company's profits by cutting the wage bill? Part of doing that means shifting work back onto the customer.
Self-serve checkouts are only the latest move in a basic big business strategy: squeeze the producer, squeeze the workforce and squeeze the consumer.
Why are all the goods on shelves in open aisles? So you, the customer, can do the work of gathering groceries that a store clerk used to do. Electronic payments rather than cash? Now you're doing their banking for them. Self-service checkouts? You're scanning and packing your own shopping, a job that used to be done by two people.
Dr Carolyn Allport was widely known as a strong voice for the values of the university sector (including academic freedom), a passionate advocate for the rights of women, a dedicated campaigner for recognition of, and restorative action for, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and a lifelong supporter of social justice and the labour movement.
Allport grew up in a working-class environment in New South Wales where her family lived firstly in Kogarah and subsequently in Sefton in the Bankstown area. She spent many hours playing on the street, mixing it with the neighbours and at the Birrong public pool where she won many local and regional swimming titles. She went on regular weekend trips in her family's FJ Holden and spent many happy times holidaying in the river areas around Taree.
Carolyn Allport served as president of the National Tertiary Education Union from 1994-2010.
Dux and school captain of Sefton High, she developed a preternatural interest and understanding of blues and syncopated music. Growing up in such an environment in the 1950s and early 1960s inevitably involved family discussion about the cause of labour. It was no surprise when Allport joined the local ALP branch in the late 1960s, just in time to cast her vote in a federal pre-selection ballot for a young Paul Keating.
She won a scholarship to commence studies at the new Macquarie University in 1968, ironically being one of many working-class beneficiaries of the 1960s Menzies expansion of the Australian university system. She gained a bachelor of economics degree (with honours) and commenced work as a young Macquarie academic in 1974.
It's no surprise that feelings ran high at a recent Melbourne City Council meeting to vote on laws aimed at banning homeless people from sleeping on city streets. This is a complex and important issue, involving vulnerable, often desperate people.
We agree with lord mayor Robert Doyle that the debate over how best to address this issue should be conducted with civility and respect on all sides. Just as workers, visitors and residents of Melbourne's centre are entitled to go about their day without being harassed by beggars or feeling intimidated by makeshift camps, those people who find themselves with so few choices that they would sleep on the exposed footpaths of the city deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Turning the homeless camps into protest sites also does little to solve the broader issue.
The homeless and supporters outside Flinders street station in recent days, before being forced to move by police. Credit:Penny Stephens
There can be no quick fixes; the response to this problem needs to be varied and well substantiated. But as other countries have shown, homelessness can be solved, or at least greatly reduced, in a respectful, sensible way. Nothing genuine will be gained by new laws broadening the definition of camping, if the root causes of this situation are not addressed and alternative accommodation is not available.
In January, more than 30 homelessness, housing and social services organisations wrote an open letter making two strong points about homelessness; first that a key cause is the lack of affordable housing, particularly public housing, and, second, that this is a long-term issue which cannot be solved by sanctions and edicts.
Any relationship expert will tell you that certain things are vital to keep a partnership strong. Respect. Communication. Not involving One Nation. Stuff like that.
However, the Liberals have announced that they're giving their upper house preferences to One Nation in regional areas, rather than the Nationals, in the upcoming WA election in March.
It's fair to ask why the Liberals would carry this abandonment of the party that's allowing them to govern while knowing that it only takes one disgruntled Nats-aligned MP to cross the floor and the government no longer has a majority.
However, the answer blind terror of being ousted in WA means that survival takes precedence over trivial matters like "legislating anything at all after giving One Nation the balance of power". That, after all, is a problem for after the election.
Melbourne's Victoria University has launched a review of administrative processes after staff and students demanded an apology over a controversial anti-Islamic event featuring Liberal defector Cory Bernardi and outspoken backbencher George Christensen on Friday.
The Q Society event attracted more than 100 anti-racism protesters outside Victoria University's city convention centre, with a bus transporting guests blocked for more than an hour and clashes between attendees and activists.
The "Halal Choices" dinner, part of a two-night fundraising tour billed as part of a defence of free speech, was raising money for the legal defence bill of outspoken Q Society member Kirralie Smith, who is being sued for defamation over videos she made about halal certification practices.
Literary journal Overland published a letter of protest expressing alarm and disappointment to the university council and vice-chancellor Peter Dawkins from 75 current and former staff and students, campus organisations, Victorian Greens MP Colleen Hartland and writer Jeff Sparrow.
Those running Australia's network of detention camps in the Pacific could be charged with crimes against humanity under a fresh push for international prosecutions.
A group of international lawyers lodged a 110-page submission at the International Criminal Court on Monday, urging prosecutors to urgently investigate conditions on Nauru and Manus Island.
The submission co-ordinated by lawyers from Stanford University in the US and the Global Legal Action Network is the latest and most detailed of a string of legal complaints about Australia's conduct.
A separate petition in November called for every Australian prime minister from John Howard onwards to be investigated for crimes against humanity in the treatment of asylum seekers.
End of the day. What happened?
one of the government's key reforms - its welfare omnibus legislation - looks dead in the water after the Nick Xenophon Team said it would not support it;
- its welfare omnibus legislation - looks after the said it would not support it; this leaves the legislation - which includes changes to childcare - without enough support in the Senate;
the government has not yet said what will happen to the various measures contained in the legislation;
MPs gathered to listen to the government deliver its annual progress report on Indigenous disadvantage ; but
; but the report was not encouraging.
My thanks to Alex Ellinghausen and Andrew Meares for their superb work and to you for reading and commenting.
You can follow me on Facebook.
Andrew, Alex and I will be back in the morning. Until then, go well.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Two major awards shows on at the same time, albeit with a vast pond separating them.
While the stars of the big screen hot-footed it to chilly London for the Baftas, the musicians headed to Los Angeles for the Grammy Awards.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was the headline attraction on the red carpet at the British Academy Film Awards, however another royal - the world's unofficial queen - Beyonce, stole the show at the Grammys.
Full skirts and chests that were more heavily adorned than the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree lit up the Baftas red carpet, thanks to Nicole Kidman in a plunging Armani Prive dress with jewel-encrusted bodice and Emily Blunt in a McQueen gown that had more embroidery than a CWA fete.
Seems normal: designer tees have become a bit of a thing this season . But there was something special about this shirt...
Actress Kate Bosworth is seen arriving at the Calvin Klein Collection fashion show with new chief creative officer Raf Simons during New York Fashion Week on February 10, 2017 in New York City. Credit:Getty
US actress Kate Bosworth attended the Calvin Klein show at New York Fashion Week over the weekend in a t-shirt featuring the US fashion brand's new logo.
Someone get this woman a suburban market stall and a good intellectual property lawyer.
Yes, Kate Bosworth is making counterfeit designer clothes using iron-on transfers for New York Fashion Week. She is the unexpected anti-capitalist hero of our age.
"New @calvinklein Logo Font created by the incomparable [new Calvin Klein chief creative officer Raf Simons] & [graphic designer Peter Saville]," Bosworth captioned a picture of the shirt on Instagram, adding, "iron on decal by me".
The shirt looks great, by the way. No misspellings (although a "Calvin Kleim" shirt would have been a great front row talking point) and a smudge-free transfer.
Would probably retail in the $7-10 range at a tiny, plastic-scented boutique in a CBD train station called "Sassy Babe" or similar.
Sydney is facing a once-in-a-generation enrolment surge, a NSW Upper House inquiry into inner-city schools has heard, as the NSW Department of Education struggles to keep up with demand.
The comment, from the department's executive director of asset management Anthony Perrau, is contained within the inquiry's final report, which made seven recommendations when it was tabled in parliament on Monday.
The inquiry heard the city was hurting from the closure of three inner-city primary schools during the 1990s, a lack of communication between the department and the City of Sydney, and high remediation standards for contaminated land earmarked for schools.
Lord mayor Clover Moore said the decision to close three schools in the 1990s was reflective of an attitude "towards the end of the '90s that people in this area would not be having children".
Job and funding cuts were given a "pain" ranking in documents prepared for Queensland's former Liberal National Party government, the ABC reports.
The ABC has obtained confidential documents from the period when Campbell Newman's government culled thousands of public service jobs, and slashed spending on various government programs.
Former Queensland premier Campbell Newman. Credit:Robert Shakespeare
The broadcaster cited one document, prepared for the LNP's Cabinet Budget Review Committee, that detailed savings that would flow from axing 220 jobs and 20 per cent of the budget from the environment department.
The ABC said each of 19 savings proposals was given a "pain threshold ranking" ranging from one to four, with one described as "easiest".
It has been called "Australia's most significant heritage site" and West Australian Premier Colin Barnett has said its listing on UNESCO's World Heritage list is "inevitable".
Despite this, federal and state governments have failed to seek World Heritage listing for the Burrup Peninsula Aboriginal rock art, despite the Commonwealth inviting states to nominate potential heritage sites a little more than a year ago.
And no government has extensively engaged with the Aboriginal custodians to ascertain their opinion of how best to manage the art.
Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Craig Bonney said: "The process required for Murujuga to apply for World Heritage status has not yet been explored and would only occur after the Murujuga board and community were fully informed of the pros and cons."
A Liberal Party promise to give courts the power to jail women for refusing to remove burqas has been rejected by the Andrews government, which claims the opposition is "racing into an alliance with One Nation".
Opposition leader Matthew Guy on Monday announced plans to outlaw "disrespectful behaviour" in courtrooms if elected next year. The new offence would cover deliberate actions that undermine a judge or magistrate's authority.
The opposition want to bring in new laws outlawing "disrespectful behaviour" in Victorian courtrooms. Credit:
Under the controversial proposal, women who refuse to remove the burqa or niqab in Victorian courtrooms could be jailed for up to two weeks or fined $1500. Headwear such as a turban or skullcap would not be subject to the legislation because it does not obscure the face.
Mr Guy claims the proposed law is not aimed at any specific group but could be applied to political activists, criminals and people who had religious objections to removing face coverings.
Sexual crimes detectives are investigating after a woman in Melbourne's south-east awoke to find an intruder hovering over her bed.
On February 5, the offender slipped through an open window in the woman's Hampton Park home as she lay asleep in her bed.
A man armed with a knife has threatened a female postal worker in Kingston at lunch time on Monday. Credit:Marina Neil/Fairfax Media
She woke to find the man leaning over her and she screamed for her father.
The male fled the house and the victim was physically unharmed.
That's it for Melbourne Express today. Watch out for a story and picture of one of Australia's most endangered species, who just happens to have heart-shaped feet. The Lord Howe Island stick insect breeding program at the Royal Melbourne Zoo is giving us a look at some hatchlings and their proud, and loving, parents.The loving couple spend their days in dark retreats, with the male clasping the female in a protective embrace. Nice.
So far our results show Melbourne Express readers don't spend any money on Valentine's Day - 78 per cent say "nadda". About 12 per cent say they spend less than $50.
Watch out for pics and reviews of the Guns N Roses gig at the MCG tonight. If you are there, send us a picture.
Check you tomorrow.
A teenage boy has been stabbed with a pair of tweezers at a public school north-west of Melbourne.
Officers were called to Copperfield College in Sydenham on Monday morning after a teenage boy stabbed another boy about 11.45am.
Paramedics confirmed they took a high school-aged boy to Sunshine Hospital with lower body injuries.
He is in a stable condition.
The other boy is currently assisting police with their inquiries.
It comes about a year after police were called to the school after a student suffering from mental health problems damaged property at the school with a piece of wood.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
Support is available for anyone who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline 13 11 14 and Kids Helpline 1800 551 800.
A cruise ship stranded in Melbourne with mechanical failure is set to be repaired and return to sea on Tuesday afternoon, the vessel's operator says.
The Norwegian Star, which departed Sydney on February 6 carrying more than 2000 passengers, lost engine power and became stranded about 30 kilometres off Victoria's east coast on Friday.
The problem lay with the ship's azipod propulsion system, which ground to a halt, although the vessel did not lose power completely.
The ship was towed back to Melbourne's Station Pier just before midnight on Saturday, with passengers told they could be forced to wait up to five days before the vessel could continue on.
One of Wayne Brown's final acts as he lay dying on the floor of his parents' house was to tell police that his brother had stabbed him.
The 38-year-old was still alive when police and paramedics were called to the Cranbourne home last June, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Wayne Brown, who was killed by his brother in their parents' Cranbourne home in 2016. Credit:Victoria Police
He was at his parents' house with his parents, his partner and their daughter on the night he died.
Victoria Police summary released on Monday says that other family members initially would not tell them who had stabbed Wayne or offer details about the weapon used in the attack.
There are fears a second Esperance man has lost his life in floodwaters after his car was found abandoned in a river on Sunday and a land and air search remains unsuccessful.
The 74-year-old had been driving to Ravensthorpe on his way through to Perth on Saturday but called his wife to say he was returning home because he was having engine trouble on the flooded roads.
Taylor Street bridge in the East Northam on February 9 before major flooding. Credit:Karen Morgan
His car was found submerged in the Jerdacuttup River, about 150 kilometres from Esperance about 6am on Sunday.
This comes after the body of a 68-year-old father of two, also from Esperance, was found on Sunday, about half a kilometre away from his car which had been caught in fast-moving waters at a crossing north of Esperance.
Los Angeles: An Australian military expert who worked for the Australian government and US Special Operations Command has been jailed for five years in the US for distributing child pornography.
Adam Cobb, 48, educated at Australian National University, University of Sydney and University of Cambridge, had built an impressive career and was working as a professor and director at the esteemed US Naval War College in Rhode Island when arrested in 2015.
Defence analyst Adam Cobb in his North Sydney Apartment in 2001. Credit:Quentin Jones
Cobb admitted to meeting a 17-year-old British girl online, exchanging explicit images and having a sexual relationship with her that was recorded on video and also engaging in "sexual text messaging" with a 16-year-old Maryland girl.
Dr Cobb advised the federal government, the RAAF and Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove in East Timor. He was arrested in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in April 2015 on a US federal warrant for receipt and distribution of child pornography. Dr Cobb allegedly uploaded images of child pornography to the social networking site Tumblr.
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Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
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For both heroes and villains in The Walking Dead, safety from hordes of undead killers often amounts to a wall: a fence around the abandoned prison of Season 3, walls around idyllic communities like Woodbury, Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom, and a combination of both for ultra-baddie Negans factory turned sanctuary (plus a few gnashing zombies impaled on sticks).
Who gets the protection of a wall, who doesnt, and who gets to decide are questions the shows characters have had to grapple with long before Season 7s midseason premiere, Rock in the Road. Often, its Rick & Co. who find themselves at the mercy of strangers behind walls. Lucky for them, few have ever turned them away. As one leader of a walled-in community says in this episode, The Walking Deads heroes are essentially refugees, roaming across violence-ravaged southern America in search of a more stable, safer life.
That phrasing might not have been controversial two months ago when The Walking Dead went on winter break. Now, our cultures so rancorous even cookie-cutter Budweiser commercials spark boycotts for daring to depict an immigrants story. Labeling the gun-toting, tribe-oriented, white male-led American heroes of the show refugees feels almost bold in Trumps America. Almost.
Its certainly a strange time for one of conservative Americas favorite shows.
Gregory, sniveling leader of the Hilltop, congratulates himself for taking in a handful of said refugees (Maggie and Sasha, namely) at great risk to his own safety, then uses this one professed good deed to excuse himself from doing more. No surprise there: Gregory has long been too afraid and too inept to effectively lead or protect his people. A woman, Maggie, has proven far more capable in that regard.
To stay put behind a wall, to maintain the status quo, and to refuse to rise up against an abuser in power is what heroes dont do, this season asserts, as Rick seeks to unite three communities against Negan. Despite regular terrorizing from Negans goons (and the tragic loss of an entire case of whiskey), Gregory falls squarely in the do nothing camp. But a small chunk of more courageous Hilltop denizens break ranks to join Maggie and Ricks resistance.
Kingdom leader Ezekiel, meanwhile, also hesitates to join Ricks cause. In him, the show pauses to mull whether living under subjugation to avoid escalating conflict is actually doomsday wisdom, not cowardice. It helps that Ezekiel is leagues more likable than Gregory: hes got a pet tiger, a hilariously bizarre way of speaking, and he is kind. Most importantly, he seems to care for his people above himself.
But even here, its clear whose side youre supposed to be on: Ricks. Everything surrounding Ezekiel urges him to fight off oppression: the I Have a Dream speech by Martin Luther King Jr. that he reads to a boy falling asleep, with its last words free at last. The fable Rick relays about a little girl who gets her hands dirty eliminating an obstacle that everyone else simply worked around (the episodes namesake rock in the road) is another call to action.
A teenage boy named Benhimself prone to venturing outside the Kingdoms walls to check on avowed hermit Carollays out the stakes for Ezekiel in the simplest terms: Theyre gonna risk everything if we help them or not, he says. And if we dont help them, if we turn away, they cant win. If they do somehow, they will have saved us and we wont have done a thing. To end Negans tyranny is a moral imperative, Ben stresses: If youre asked to be the hero, be the hero.
Still, Ezekiel cites the carnage his group endured the last time they ventured outside their walker-proof walls as reason to turn Rick down. He manages to make the decision sound pragmatic rather than spineless (what with that accent and all), but the show comes down on it all the same: You call yourself a king? You sure as hell dont act like one, growls Daryl. This is different, reasons Rick. The dead dont rule us.
Thats a tenuous statement at best: the dead do rule, really, and its only minutes before the next teeming horde threatens to end them all. On a highway outside the Kingdom, Ricks gang finds a wire set up with explosives, which they carefully dismantle and steal for their upcoming face-off with Negan. Its a good plan, on the off-chance that Rosita and her heroically bitchy snarl dont slay the Saviors single-handedly. (They might. Girl is pissed.)
This operation sets up the effects centerpiece of the episode: a jaw-dropping display of scale and carnage in which Rick and Michonne mow down the horde with the wire set up between two cars. Its a thrill to watch, but quickly followed by an improbable moment in which both heroes escape unscathed from an awkwardly prolonged rush of walkers. Have these zombies fingernails rotted away? Were they just full and feeling lethargic? Questions linger.
On the topic of incompetence, Gabriel, having seemingly reverted to his life as a perpetually sweaty, anxiety-wracked loose cannon, disappears with the contents of Alexandrias pantry. The Saviors, in town searching for Daryl, show mercy upon discovering that their monthly tribute of food has vanished, but Rick assembles a search party straight away. This brings us a sweet moment between Aaron and his partner Eric, who is understandably reluctant to let Aaron go. The show needs more of this couple, really.
The word BOAT scrawled onto the last page of a notebook leads Ricks search party to a lake he and Aaron visited weeks agoand straight into what seems like a trap, with both men suddenly surrounded by an enormous group of scowling strangers. One of those strangers is likely the one whose boots were spotted on Alexandrian soil at the end of the last episode, though their identity isnt revealed here. Only time and footwear will tell.
If these strangers are yet another new group, theyll continue what has so far been the best part of an otherwise bleak season: the expansion outward, past Alexandria and Negans compound, to the worlds in between. Its what brought us the delightfully loony Kingdom and the fascinating tribe of well-armed women at Oceanside. Alternating between groups has allowed the show to breathe a little, and afforded it a welcome break from the standoff between Rick and Negan.
What Rick needs on his side is numbers, hence his appeals to both Gregory and Ezekiel. If he gets this new group of strangers on his side, his problems may be solvedbut hell have to welcome them in to Alexandria first. Thats a daunting thing. But strangers have welcomed Ricks group past their walls before; if anyone knows the value of taking that chance, its him.
A mercenary air force that became a symbol of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is back in actionthis time in Central Africa, supporting a shadowy American U.S. Special Forces commando operation targeting the Lords Resistance Army.
In late January, a source on the ground in Central African Republic spotted a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter with the registry number N408RC carrying American Special Forces troops. The LRA, a cultish band of thieves and rapists led by warlord Joseph Kony, is most active in the forested region where Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo meet.
In 2010, President Barack Obama deployed around 100 Green Berets and other personnel to Central Africa to help local forces hunt down Kony and the LRA. Seven years later, Operation Observant Compass continues, mostly unnoticed by the press. The Pentagon asked Congress for $23 million to extend the operation through 2017.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Sikorsky helicopter that The Daily Beasts source observed in Central African Republic belongs to Illinois-based EP Aviation, LLC.
EP Aviation was once a subsidiary of Academi, the Virginia-based company that was formerly known as Blackwater. The EP stands for Erik Prince, Blackwaters founder and the younger brother of billionaire U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
The copters appearance is a reminder of the tangled web of corporate relationships that support the Pentagons expansive shadow wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africaand some of the companies ties to wealthy, powerful American politicians.
During the height of the Iraq War, Blackwater managed a for-profit army in Baghdad that included Little Bird helicopters and other aircraft. The U.S. State Department and Defense Department have awarded Blackwater and its successors contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In Iraq, Blackwater's diminutive Little Birds usually carried a crew of fourtwo pilots and two door gunners armed with assault rifles. With their very corporate-looking blue-and-silver paint schemes, the Blackwater copters became icons of a grinding, unpopular war.
The Little Birds were also symbols of Blackwater's heavy-handed tactics. The company and its employees in Iraq were involved in several suspicious killings -- and worse. In September 2007, Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square. Four of the mercenaries went to prison for the killings.
Blackwater's aviation operations were also controversial. One Little Bird was shot down in Baghdad and its five-man crew was killed. Another Little Bird crashed in Iraq and the two pilots died. The company lost several other aircraft in fatal accidents in Iraq.
In 2004, a Blackwater transport plane crashed in a mountain canyon in Afghanistan, killing the three crew and three U.S. troops who were passengers. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the pilots deliberately flew a risky flight path through the mountains. "I swear to God, they wouldn't pay me if they knew how much fun this was," the cockpit voice recorder captured one pilot saying shortly before the crash.
Dogged by lawsuits, Prince sold Blackwater in 2010 and moved to the United Arab Emirates. He subsequently founded Frontier Resource Group, a company that reportedly provides pilots for the Emirates brutal air war in Libya. Princes new company also tried to skirt U.S. regulations in order to sell attack planes to Salva Kiir, one of two warring strongmen in South Sudan.
Prince has reportedly advised President Donald Trump, who appointed DeVos as education secretary despite stiff opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans. DeVos contributed millions of dollars to the campaigns of senators who voted to approve her appointment.
Following Princes departure, Blackwater changed its name several times and came under new ownership. In 2010 it sold EP Aviation and other aviation assets to Illinois-based AAR, also known as Airlift Group, a self-described provider of world-class expeditionary and conventional aviation solutions. Around 60 ex-Blackwater aircraft continue to be registered in EP Aviations name.
AAR did not respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.
U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa rely heavily on innocent-looking, civilian-style aircraft. Some are actually military aircraft that wear civilian paint schemes. Others are civilian aircraft operating under contract with the Pentagon. On Feb. 6, the Defense Department awarded AAR/Airlift Group a $204-million contract to support U.S. forces in Africa through January 2018.
According to the military's official "Central Africa Task Order," dated November 2016, American troops in the region need at least two fixed-wing planes in Entebbe, Uganda; another two fixed-wing planes in Nzara, South Sudan; plus five helicopters in Obo, Central African Republic. U.S. Special Operations Command was not able to fulfill an interview request before this story's deadline.
The civilian planes and copters transporting American commandos in their hunt for Kony and the LRA can expect to come under fire, according to the military's official work statement, dated October 2016. "In the event a contractor operating a mission is illuminated or 'spotlighted,' or is fired upon in the air or on the ground, the crew shall note the date, time and approximate area from which the event originated," the statement noted.
But unlike Blackwater's Little Birds in Iraq, the mercenary copters in Central Africa aren't armedand cannot shoot back.
BUCHAREST, RomaniaWhat happens when the population turns against the populists? Just such a drama is playing out in Romania, a country of 20 million people where hundreds of thousands have poured into the streets in the biggest mass protests since the end of communism.
On Sunday night the energy of the anti-government rally on Victoriei Square was reminiscent of a huge rock festival. Protestors were drumming, playing trumpets, whistling, singing, and dancing. In the bitter cold, a river of people streamed from all directions of Bucharest to the heart of the revolutionary movement. To get warm, people were jumping up and down with the flags of Romania and the United Nations in their hands. A cheerful group of young men served hot tea. By 9:30 at night, the square was packed with thousands of people and more were coming. An enormous blue, yellow, and red national flag was floating over the crowd. Hotii Hotii (Thieves! Thieves!) protestors chanted.
One of the big banners unfurled at Sundays rally said: The day we give in is the day we die.
The slogan was linked to the famous tragedy that happened at the Collective nightclub in 2013, where 64 people were killed in a fire during a concert by the band Goodbye to Gravity. Mass protests against the corruption (the nightclub had no authorizations for much of its construction) led to the resignation of the countrys prime minister. One of Goodbye to Gravitys songs was called The Day We Die.
The issue that sparked these new demonstrations today was a new and stunning example of corruption: the governments attempt on Jan. 31 to decree immunity for many of its members who are under investigation. But the discontent behind the protests runs much deeper than that.
At first, the political labels attached to some of the players seem very different from those in other countries, where weve seen the rise of right-wing populists who now govern in Hungary and Poland, and are serious contenders for power in the Netherlands and Franceall with more than a little encouragement from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Romanias government, elected just last November, is dominated by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), is supposed to be pro-Europe, and Romania has raised the ire of Moscow by allowing components of the NATO missile defense shield to be based there.
Yet among the protestors there is a rejection of the governments arrogance, and to a considerable extent the demonstrations are an assertion of power by the younger, more cosmopolitan generation in defiance of the older, more provincial forces that have dominated politics, the same sort of divide one sees not only in European politics but in the United States, where big cities voted overwhelmingly against President Donald Trump.
The epicenter of the Romanian protests is here in Bucharests Victoriei Square, where the spirit these last few days has been upbeat, almost triumphant.
After almost watching this growing public anger day after day, the Romanian government finally reacted: Justice Minister Florin Iordache resigned this week. But clearly that's not enough for these demonstrators.
Night after night, even as they stood out in the freezing cold, people in the crowd were smiling and cheering. Some wrapped themselves in Romanian national flags, others waved caustically witty signs or tooted their enthusiasm on plastic trumpets. On Saturday, thousands were chanting: Resign! Thieves! as drummers beat a frenetic rhythm and protest slogans were projected on the side of a building
Romania, one of the last countries to join the European Union in 2007, had become an EU star in the fight against corruption. Its prosecutors, now led by 43-year-old Laura Kovesi, have gone after prime ministers, ministers, mayors, and law enforcement employees. But in November the PSD, which actually is conservative leaning, won an election marked by a low turnout and widespread apathy.
That changed when one of the first big acts of the government, Emergency Ordinance No. 13, was announced late on a Tuesday night almost two weeks ago. It would be, essentially, a get out of jail free card for officials if the bribes they took could not be proved to more than $48,000. Hundreds of officials already imprisoned for corruption could have walked; prosecution of many others would be impossible.
People instantly took to the streets to defend the rule of law. Many were furious. Their war on corruption was one of the countrys proudest accomplishments, and they wanted their reputation back. On the first Sunday after the decree, an estimated 600,000 turned out.
As governments are wont to do whenever they are caught out, Romanias began to flirt with a conspiracy theory. Officials suggested that George Soross Open Society Foundation had somehow financed this huge anti-government movement. In fact, the cleavages in Romania quickly became apparent. The PSD is popular among a more provincial electorate while it has infuriated and Romanias urban populations. The Orthodox Church backed the government, while the EU and another branch of government, the largely ceremonial presidency held by Klaus Iohannis, were supporting the resistance movement.
One of the protestors out in the square, a young linguist named Alina Vaculea, has been coming there every day after work and staying in the freezing wind until late at night. Clearly a woman of strong spirit, Alina knows exactly what she wants: a return to the war on corruption. Alina seemed chilled to the bone in the cold wind but did not leave the square. The pawn you sacrifice does not impress me! read the banner in her hands, alluding to the resignation of the justice minister.
Romanians wanted to move forward, away from their repressive communist past: the period from 1947 to 1989 when people were too terrified to join any political protests. In recent years, the Romanian street has brought down governments. But the shadow of the old Iron Curtain imposed by Russia has remained over the country, clouding its future.
Any politician saying the words, I am pro-Putin is dead in Romania, but Putins spirit is quietly creeping in, being imported, says Sorin Ionia, an analyst with the Expert Forum. Going back to anti-democratic methods of rule was exactly why people protested on Victoriei Square, says Ionia.
In fact, it was not some American-oriented non-governmental group affiliated with Soros, but Facebook that has helped Romanian civil society organize mass protests and overthrow governments in the past decade. The latest movement grew from about 13,000 people protesting against a non-transparent mining project in 2013, to over 30,000 coming out after a lethal nightclub fire in 2015the protestors were convinced that the disaster was caused by corruption. Both times, the anti-government rallies lasted for weeks before prime ministers resigned. Most of the activists were members of multiple anti-corruption groups on Facebook, which have announced their agendas and built up their networks.
After the governments emergency decree announced on Jan. 31 the reaction was instantaneous.
One of the Facebook pages called Corruption Kills had a photograph of a toilet seat featuring the party leader, Liviu Dragnea, and other members. Flush them down! it said. One minister gone is not enough. People on the square want to see Dragnea behind bars for abuse of power, and and they want the rest of his government to resign.
Last Thursday night, as the momentum of the protests continued to build and the justice minister resigned, professional musicians Valeriu Borcos and Eduard Gabia could barely contain their excitement. They said they were going to sign up on Facebook for Thursday and Friday protests, and for the upcoming weekend rallies. Their cheeks were chapped pink after many nights protesting outside. The two were veterans of the revolution, they joked in an interview with The Daily Beast.
The minister of justice leaving today is our small victory but this is just the start, we cannot trust anybody in the PSDthey passed one corrupt law, they can do it again, said Borcos. We see so many bad examples, anti-democracy processes both in Europe and in post-Soviet states, we should not allow our government to drag us back.
with additional reporting by Christopher Dickey in Paris
Jenny Packham by Emily Shire
I do believe the regal glamour and irreverently preppy attire on display at Jenny Packhams New York Fashion Week show on Sunday would have charmed me, rain or shine.
However, the fact that the audience was a noticeably less fashionable melange of utilitarian umbrellas and dreary, knee-length, abominable snowmen coats drew a lovely contrast to the fanciful yet edgy ode to British pomp and regality that defined Packhams designs.
When I stumbled into the gallery at Skylight Clarkson Square and nearly took out someones eye with my impossible to close umbrella, I realized that this was my first NYFW venture where I actually felt my lack of sartorial commitment matchedor almost matchedthe rest of the attendees.
The frigid rain and slushy snow plaguing Manhattan seemed to defeat all but the most devoted fashionistas. However, that meant for the moderately drenched crowd, Packhams attire, with all their sequins, crystals, and brocade was all the more welcomed.
Titled The Heritage Collection, Packhams 36 outfits were inspired by the idiosyncrasies and cliches that define the British identity, according to the press release, which was also accompanied by a card of artist Magda Archers God Bless You Maam.
Archers illustration depicts a young Queen Elizabeth in an almost too cool to be proper manner with bold colors and shock of lime green writing. That same saucy (but affectionate) thumb-biting at classic British styles made Packhams collection so fascinating yet accessible.
The Kinks Village Green Preservation Society blared as wedgewood blues and tartan patterns aboundedincluding in a silk chiffon gown and a sexy cocktail dress that was paired with a crimson leather jacket.
In another cheeky nod-and-wink to British culture, a gray satin crepe t-shirt with Pearly Queen emblazoned on the front was paired with a silk neckerchief and pearls.
Perhaps the clearest example of Packhams glamorously chic twist on a British classic was her trench coat. Instead of the typical tan or taupe in poplin or cotton, Packham offered one made of bonded lace brocade in metallic silver, complimented by a bulldog neckerchief.
Even with British idiosyncrasies and cliches as a clear guiding theme, the sumptuous embellishments and beading that was just as much present in Packhams fall NYFW show last September was, thankfully, present in this collection.
A molten silver sequin halter gown evoked the 1970s rock star glamour that rippled through her previous show. A stunning illusion tulle dress was adorned with gunmetal crystals and metallic sequins. My personal favorite may have been a midnight blue crepe gown with gold and ivory crystals.
Yet, even with all the fanciful glamour, all the tulle and the crystals, there is something about Packhams designs that are delightfully aspirational, if not accessible.
These are not haute couture designs that are more abstract art than actual attire. You may not be able to afford the same gowns worn by the Duchess of Cambridge or Oscar-nominated Viola Davis as she just did for the BAFTA award show this weekend), but you can fantasize about wearing them. And on a miserable, gray winter Sunday in New York City, one could use a good fantasy.
Vaquera by Brea Tremblay
This crowd is the L train after the Graham stop, my seatmate murmured. For those of you who are not intimately familiar with the nuances of outer borough public transit in New York, he was talking about neighborhoods where hipsters are so hipster, they are no longer just bringing back vinyltheyre insisting on bringing back cassettes.
Tonights Vaquera show took place in the ballroom of the National Ukrainian Home in the East Village. Downstairs, locals were enjoying borsht.
Upstairs, I watched a woman in an Elizabethan collar and hot pants lounge in the front row and sip a beer while we waited for the show to start. The things people brought to this show were truly delightfulbeers and coffee yes, but also a French bulldog. More fashion shows should have puppy guests.
Props continued to be a theme when the lights went down. A toolbox stood in for a purse, a chefs hat capped the finale dress, and manufacturing-ready yellow rubber gloves were accessorized with a lobster bib tie and a real, dripping bag of ice.
The clothes had a compelling, if unsubtle, interplay of traditionally masculine and feminine fashion. A black-and-white checked skirt combo was paired with Doc Martens while a cropped jacket was matched with a hardhat and classic pumps.
In the shows literature, Vaquera said their purpose was a constant exploration of American tropes and how theyre sold to us.
They went pretty literal with ita kicky little jacket and a cocktail dress with a ten-foot train were both made of actual flags. And most of the clothes were punctuated by nudityside boob there, exposed ass here. As a side note, is it just me or are there way more butts out to play this year?
I have not gone a day without seeing full-frontal cheeks. But speaking of, between that nudity and the lobster bibs and American flags and puppies and the beer guzzling, delightfully-dressed hipster weirdos in the front row and the faint smell of Ukrainian food being served downstairs, this show was a great time. God bless this America.
DVF by Tim Teeman
As Jonathan Saunders, the chief creative officer of Diane von Furstenberg, was wearing one of New York Fashion Weeks ubiquitous pink pro-Planned Parenthood badges it seemed reasonable to ask how political he felt the week felt to him.
No. No politics, Saunderss handler said. The handsome Saunders himself looked pained.
Saunders was standing just to the left of a group of models sitting and standing, wearing his third collection since taking creative charge of the label in the middle of last year. A New York Times article made the persuasive case that his efforts to redesign and reconceptualize the DVF image, from the template set down by its same-name founder (married to Barry Diller, chairman of IAC, which owns the Daily Beast) had been one of skill and stealth, with none of the visible fallouts and drama that have characterized other handings-over-of-reins.
Had it been intimidating taking on the label? Not at all, no, Saunders, who is originally from Glasgow, Scotland, told The Daily Beast. I think the brand has a lot of identifiable features about it that kind of make you believe in it.
It is a believable brand with believable ethos, founded by a woman who believed in creating beautiful clothes that had creativity at their core. This wasnt solution dressingplain black dressesbut about mixing bold colors and prints together but still remaining sensual and feminine. Having those tools to work with makes it an easy brand to work on.
Sundays show was set in Sean Kellys art gallery, on a windswept drag of 10th Avenue best described as keep walking till you hit Hells Kitchen, well away from the Fashion Week madness of Clarkson Square.
Guests sipped champagne and chilled water. The models sat on staging blocks, and wore a beautifully tailored clothes that spoke of hippy chiclots of yellows, oranges and burgundies in layers and swathesbut edged up slightly, and made rockier.
A white skirt with black stripes came with a brown sweater and a candy pink neck-muff. Coats were left loosely hanging, decorated with stripes collar and at the wrist. One covered a red and white geometric-design dress. Leopard print sneaked in subtly to finish off a blue handbag. The boots were mod-sexy: white with gold stripes, or sleek and black with little kerchiefs.
For Saunders, this was an eclectic mixture of African and Japanese textiles, and that kind of way of girls expressing themselves in an imaginary and creative way. It reminds you of the moment in the 1970s when this brand was founded.
Saunders said that bias-cut scarves gave outfits the kind of movement that shows why the eccentricity within the collection is an important, key part of it.
And on a rainy, grim afternoon in New York, where slate-grey skies and slush lurked outside, his DVF vision proved a sunny, boho blast of paradise.
Kate Middleton took center stage Sunday night at the BAFTAs in London, the British film awards of which her husband, Prince William, is the chief patron.
Brushing aside rumors that organizers had been worried that Kate might overshadow the nominees and winnerswho included Nicole Kidman, Emma Stone, Meryl Streep, and Emily BluntKate and William were the undisputed stars of the night, with the actors craning in their seats to get a better view of the royals as they were the last to arrive at the venue.
William has been president of BAFTA since February 2010, and both he and the Kate have supported the organization by attending events and fundraisers, but this is the first time they have attended the awards ceremony together.
There were reports that the organizers were nervous that Kates presence would overshadow the nominated actors and winners, and it is certainly the case that the British newspapers are all leading with images of Kate this morning.
However with the BAFTAs up against the Grammys for global attention this morning, its arguable that without Katewho wore a floral McQueen gownbeing there, the BAFTAs might have passed entirely unnoticed internationally.
According to previous reports, one BAFTA source said, It was expressed by senior staff within BAFTA that Kates attendance will totally distract from all the film stars there, while another added, Most people think William will end up getting his way by bringing Kate, but its created awkwardness because her attendance shouldnt have been in question.
BAFTA dismissed the speculation, saying: It is completely untrue that BAFTA has suggested that our president attend on his own. We would be delighted to welcome Their Royal Highnesses any year they are able to attend.
The ceremony, hosted by Stephen Fry, saw La La Land win the Best Film and Emma Stone win Best Actress gongs, while Ken Loachs I, Daniel Blake won the Outstanding British Film award.
I, Daniel Blake tells the story of a carpenter who is frustrated by the state welfare system after injuring himself at work.
Prince William presented The Fellowship award to Mel Brooks, who declared, I think BAFTA has made unerringly good choices tonight, especially me. I want to thank Harvey Weinstein for having nothing to do with this award. I want apologize to the Duke and the Duchess and Prince Philip for the American Revolution. We were young.
MADRIDEight months ago he regained his freedom, but he hasnt gained back the 50 pounds he lost in his 10 months as a kidnap victim in Aleppo.
Still, Antonio Pampliega gestures energetically and his eyes sparkle when he talks about journalism. He is a sort of paradoxical paradigm of those who are still willing to risk everything to bring to the world a story that fewer and fewer people want to hear. He knows only too well that death and suffering are not alternative facts, and theres no better way to tell the truth than on the ground from as close to the action as possible.
Pampliega knew his way around in Syria, or thought he did. As a freelancer and working for the French wire service AFP he had been there 12 times before his kidnapping on July 12, 2015, at the hands of the Nusra Front, the al Qaeda franchise in the area.
For better or worse, through hardship and terror, he became an expert on that war. And even with its wounds still fresh in his memory, he went back to the conflict zone over Christmas, this time in Iraq.
***
One of the toughest moments for Pampliega was the kidnapping and murder of his friend, American journalist James Foley, in the summer of 2014.
Jim was a great guy, says Pampliega, a very great person and an exceptional human being. Committed to his profession and to the Syrian people. I remember that he carried out a campaign to raise funds to buy an ambulance and send it to the hospitals of Allepo, which at that time had no way of moving the wounded. This war changed our lives and opened our eyes. We understand that in addition to being journalists we are people
Pampliega doesnt mention his comrades who abandoned the country after that. On the contrary, he says that Foleys murder only confirmed his own commitment to remain in Syria. His murder did not change anything, Pampliega insists. On the contrary, two days after the news I traveled to Iraq to work there. Our commitment is with the profession but also with the people. We are the eyes of the world and without us we would not know what happens in these places.
Pampliega has no illusion of immortality, no ice water in his veins. Naturally, his friends death affected him. Ive considered leaving, he admits, but I do not want fear to scar me for life. Im a journalist, I do not know how to do anything else, and I do not want to do anything else.
So Pampliega stayed, surviving in the precarious role of a freelancer whom all the media are ready to use but for whom few or none are willing to take responsibility and protect. Forgetting the worst horrors of 2014, Papmpliega crossed the Turkish border aided by Islamist groups to film the scene there for an investigative television program. As they made their way through fields sown with mines, machine-guns lit sky overhead. But he made it to the other side. And he had managed to record it for the program Infiltrados directed by one of the most renowned investigative journalists in Spain, Melchor Miralles. The images left the viewers stunned. The moment seemed historic and unique. And it certainly was. But not for Pampliega. He had been there, done that so many times before, and would go there and do that again.
***
The first time Pampliega entered Syria in December 2011, he learned about the way the Assad regime dealt with information: face the informational silence of Assad. With the help of smugglers he crossed into the Jabl Zawiya area of Idlib, where other reporters had been. The Syrian regime crushed the villages that journalists visited killing hundreds of people, Pampliega recalls.
Crossing the border of a country at war is like throwing oneself into the void on a bungee cord, but with no certainty that the cord will not break. The moments before entering illegally to any country are a clash of sensations. Uncertainty. Fear. Tension. An adrenaline kick, says Pampliega. These are the good things that this profession gives you sometimes, and that help you to feel alive.
Often the smugglers ask for too much money and you cannot trust them because they can end up selling you to the highest bidder, says Pampliega. Terrorist groups put a price on the heads of the war reporters, and although many civilians protected them, others did not hesitate to betray them and sell them for a handful of silver.
The Syria that Pampliega saw on his first visits now no longer exists. It was totally different from what we know today, he says. The Syrians went out into the streets to demand freedom, to demand that Assada dictator, lets not forget itleave. They wanted to decide. They wanted to live Five years later I do not recognize Syria or the Syrians. Jihadist groups have hijacked the revolution to make it their own. They have perverted and tainted it. I hope that the madness that has spread in Syria will end and that the Syrians will be free. But Im afraid this will only make things worse.
***
On July 12, 2015, neither the protection he thought hed bought nor the long experience he had served to prevent his kidnapping.
Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez, Angel Sastre, were traveling together in a van with a translator who was taken with them but released days later. Their disappearance in Aleppo, in the north of the country, was not known until July 21, when their families and the government of Spain began working tirelessly to try to recover them.
The spies of the Spanish National Intelligence Center (CNI) never completely lost track of them, it seems. The government intercepted hours after their abduction a video of the Spanish hostages put out by the kidnappers, but at the request of the CNI the media in Spain refused to air it.
At the time, I was the director of Neupic, a Spanish organization that acted as an intermediary between journalists and newspapers and television, and I had had the opportunity to work with Pampliega over the previous few months. His stories, usually on video or in photographs, were always shocking, always bringing home the human face of conflict.
The night we learned of his kidnapping I also spoke to the television production team for which he was recording the Syrian war. They are experienced journalists, veterans of a thousand battles. They were not so much worried as they were utterly disconsolate. I later learned that the CNI was convinced that the risk of being killed in the first days of abduction was very high.
For three months, the three journalists kidnapped were together. They practically did not see the sun and spent most of the time in cells. They were not beaten or mistreated. They were fed, but very little, so they lost between 30 and 50 pounds each. With a strenuous effort they were able to organize themselves mentally to dedicate time each day to sport: either to walk by the cell, or even to go outside to the patio and to take the air, when that was allowed. In the fourth month came a devastating psychological blow: They received another blow when the kidnappers decided to separate them.
Meanwhile, the Nusra kidnappers sent proof of life tokens to the families of Pampliega, Lopez, and Sastre, while constantly moving the victims from one place to another, to try to disorient the CNI. The Spaniards shared their captivity with a pregnant German woman, and with another journalist, the Japanese Yumpei Yasuda.
On one occasion, a few weeks after Christmas 2015, they were transported to the border with Turkey. It seemed his release was imminent. But something went wrong and they were sent back to their cells. There were still four long months before they would tread Spanish soil again.
On May 8, an Air Force Falcon moved them from Turkey to the air base of Torrejon de Ardoz in Madrid, putting an end to ten months of kidnapping.
The moment I talked to him, about half a year after his release, Pampliega was contemplating his return to Syria, for the first time since the kidnapping.
Why? I asked, incredulous.
Because I look at our lives beside the lives of those who are suffering in the war. We owe them the loyalty of reporting on what is happening. We are the eyes of those who cannot see and the voice of those who cannot speak.
***
All sides in Syria have their hands stained with blood, but, the regime is directly responsible for the current situation in Syria, says Pampliega. Its brutality has managed to radicalize the Syrians until they become worse than the regime itself. But the Syrians do not pose a threat to Europe. None of the attacks in Europe have been committed by Syrian citizens. They already have trouble enough trying to try to survive without worrying about atacking the West. The current situation has made Assad seem the least bad, but it is just an erroneous impression. He is a despot who has crushed his people with no restraint.
Chemical weapons are an example. The Assad regime used chemical weapons in Ghotta in September 2013, he says. Assad has shown that it does not quicken his pulse to kill civilians. He has been doing it since March 2011. He has left more than 300,000 dead on the way. And the use of chemical weapons is just another sign of his proclivity for killing.
Of course, it is not the regime that takes all the blame for the conflict. The cruelty of jihadists is, unfortunately, well known by the international community, not least because the so-called Islamic State produces relentless, gruesome propaganda.
I ask how did terrorists developed their video marketing plan? How do they turn their executioners and victims into actors? Do they drug the captives to make them play their painful roles, even moments before filming their beheading?
The Islamic State has turned what started as videos of Bin Laden in a cave in Afghanistan into Hollywood blockbusters, says Pampliega. The technical means come from the money that ISIS gets from the sale of oil and other buinesses. Money can but anything And the protagonists of the videos are not drugged, or at least one doubts they are. Rather you should ask yourself how many times they have been through simulated executions? Thats why theyre so quiet. They re-live the same scene thousands of times and they do not know if it is true or it is a lie. Until in the end they really do kill them.
Despite his kidnapping, Pampliega has no inclination to support the least bad Assad regime.
Im still on the same side, I have not changed sides, he says. Im on the side of civilians. Of the Syrians. Neither the regime, nor the rebel groups care about them. They both use them at will. In the end they are in the middle, unprotected and helpless. It is a shameful that its said we journalists take sides. We must always be on the side of those who suffer the most, on the side where the bombs fall. And Ill always be on that side. In Syria or wherever .
I insist on asking if there is any hope that the war will have a happy ending and he insists on answering no.
No, no, no. There is no happy ending for Syria, nor for the Syrians, he says.
ROMEPope Francis has been criticized in the past for not taking a harder stance against pedophile priests. His Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has been slow to start, condemned for missteps surrounding the forced leave of absence for Peter Saunders, one of two commission members who is a victim of clerical abuse. And the group faced accusations last year that it was out of touch and irrelevant because it wasnt even involved in training new bishops about how to handle clerical-abuse accusations. But writing in the preface of a hard-hitting new book, I Forgive You, Father by Swiss clerical sex-abuse survivor Daniel Pittet, Pope Francis makes it abundantly clear where he stands on this issue. In doing so, he asks the uncomfortable questions for which everyone familiar with the sordid history of clerical sex abuse have long wanted answers.
How can a priest at the service of Christ and his church cause so much harm? writes Pope Francis. How can someone who devoted their life to lead children to God, end up instead to devour them in what I call a diabolical sacrifice that destroys both the victim and the life of the church? Some of the victims have been driven to suicide. These deaths weigh on my heart, on my conscience and that of the whole church.
Two years ago, Francis met Pittet, who was systematically raped for four years starting when he was just 8 years old by his parish priest in Switzerland. He supported Pittets desire to meet his abuser, who was never punished by secular or church authorities, but instead moved from Switzerland to France, where Pittet says he abused hundreds of boys.
Pittet says that when he met the pope, they wept together over the sins of the priest who, when Pittet faced him, showed fear, but no remorse for his crimes, he says.
It is an absolute monstrosity, a horrible sin, radically against everything that Christ has taught us, Francis writes about Pittets personal story, which he has shared with thousands of others. I thank Daniel, because testimony like his breaks down the wall of silence that has covered scandals and suffering, shedding light on a terrible dark era in the life of the church. They open the way to a just mending and to the grace of reconciliation, helping pedophiles to become aware of the terrible consequences of their actions.
However strong Franciss prose may be, Pittets cuts deeper. I was only 8 years old. I was a shy, fragile child. He was the sympathetic priest, considerate with me, a little boy with no family and a depressed mother, he writes. He should have protected me, instead he felt the my weakness, emptiness and took advantage. I was raped for four years, he abused me without guilt or remorse. He did the same with impunity with a hundred other boys.
Pittet does not sugarcoat the horror. He made up an excuse and brought me into a room. He closed the door. I could not run away. I was petrified. When he finished, he told me that this remains between us, he writes. I spent years thinking that I was the only one to suffer those nightmarish afternoons, trying to forget his body on me.
Clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church was featured in the 2016 Oscar-winning film Spotlight, which highlighted an expansive coverup that is apparently still going on worldwide.
A recent book called Lust by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittapaldi, one of two journalists tried by the Vatican legal system for publishing leaked documents, charges that Francis has done next to nothing on clerical sex abuse since his election four years ago. He also outlines dozens of cases in Italy that he says have been self-censored by the press not willing to stand up to the Holy See.
The Australian Church is also mired in a messy investigation into alleged sinning priests, which has called into question the Vaticans No. 3 cleric, Cardinal George Pell, who testified by video conference last year. According to the Royal Commission investigating thousands of abuse claims, more than 7 percent of Australian prelates were or are involved in the systematic rape and abuse of children over the last 60 years.
And making it even harder for the victims to be heard, the reputation of victims advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, has been sullied after two of its members resigned in scandal amid allegations that the group took financial kickbacks from lawyers it recommended to victims to help them sue the church. The lawsuit, lodged by a former SNAP employee, alleges widespread financial abuse and systematic coverup that may be hard to bounce back from, essentially leaving the victims silenced.
The pope writing the preface of a victims story will not make up for decades of silence and sin by the church, but it does lend weight to the victims, putting one of the least-expected allies in the fight against the churchs crimes in their corner.
Two close congressional allies of President Donald Trump have proposed to defund the international organization that monitors and helps to prevent nuclear-weapons tests.
S. 332, the bill filed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), would restrict funding for the preparatory commission for the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, also a Republican, has proposed a companion resolution.
The effect of the bill, were it to become law, would be to strip away potentially all of the roughly $30 million the United States provides annually to the Vienna-based Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, which employs 260 people from 70 countries. The U.S. contribution accounts for around a quarter of the commissions yearly budget.
The commission runs a global network of 337 nuclear monitoring stations to help enforce the treatys ban on atomic explosions. The ban makes it very difficult for countries to develop nuclear bombs for the first time, or for countries that already have them, to make more powerful bombs, the commission explains on its website. It also prevents the huge damage caused by radioactivity from nuclear explosions to humans, animals and plants.
Any move by the United States toward reducing commitment to the CTBT or resuming nuclear testing would without doubt trigger similar actions in other nuclear weapon states, Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in New York City, told The Daily Beast. Such a development would undermine U.S. national security and international efforts to restrain nuclear weapons development.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was one of the crowning achievements of international nuclear disarmament efforts during the Cold War. Negotiators hammered out the treaty between 1994 and 1996. One hundred eighty-three countries subsequently signed the treaty and 164 ratified it, including nuclear powers France, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
In 1999, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, joining several other nuclear powers including Israel, India, Pakistan, China, and North Korea that havent yet formally signed on to the test ban. India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all violated the nuke-test ban. The United States has, since 1992, abided by its own policy barring nuclear tests.
Owing to the hold-out countries, officially the test ban remains in legal limbo. In practice, however, the commission functions as though the ban were in full effect. Even before entering into force, the CTBT is saving lives, then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in 2011.
A ratified Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is in the United States best interest, and so is the norm against testing nuclear weapons that the CTBT exerts right now, even in the absence of full ratification and entry into force, Laura Grego, a nuclear expert with the Massachusetts, told The Daily Beast.
Heres an exampleChinas warheads are heavy enough that they cannot put very many of them on their missiles, Grego added. China would need additional nuclear testing to develop a lighter warhead. If it were free to test and thus develop a lighter warhead, China would have the potential to field more, perhaps significantly more, warheads without expanding its current missile force.
In September 2016, the UN Security Council passed a resolution urging hold-out countries to ratify the test-ban treaty. The United States voted in favor of the resolution.
Wilson has portrayed his defunding measure as a common-sense reform. Congress never ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, so it is only logical that we should no longer fund the preparatory commission for its implementation, Wilson said in a statement.
The congressmans lack of concern over nuclear proliferation is consistent with Trumps own atomic nonchalance. Trump has urged Japan and South Korea to develop nuclear weapons and threatened to scrap the international deal with Iran that limited that countrys atomic bomb program. In a phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Feb. 9, Trump derided New START, the 2011 treaty that limits the United States and Russia to 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads apiece.
Wilson insisted his bill wouldnt make Americans less safe. This bill will leave in place only the funding for the international monitoring system aspect of the preparatory commissionwhich improves our global nuclear detection capability, he said. Nuclear deterrence is a critical part of protecting American families, and this legislation protects that capability.
But thats not true. All the commission does is monitor the planet for atomic tests. If you defund the commission, you defund the monitoring, tootheyre one and the same. The international monitoring system thats part of the [test-ban organization] feeds back into an international data center, Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told The Daily Beast. So theyre not going to fund the people who read the computer screens when the data comes in?
Lewis said Cotton and Wilsons bill is, in part, a thinly veiled attack on the pro-ban United Nations, another institution Trump has attacked. Can you imagine hating the U.N. so much that youre willing to kick yourself in your own nuts? Lewis said. This is madness.
The jolting arrival of the post-truth era in American politics has sent George Orwells 1984 zooming to the top of Amazons bestseller list. But for a deeper understanding of the threat fake news and alternative facts pose for us, its not Orwells dystopian novel that we should be reading; its political philosopher Hannah Arendts Vietnam War-era essay Truth and Politics, which marks its 50th anniversary this month.
Arendt was born in Germany, fled the Nazis, and rose to prominence in 1951 with her three-volume history, The Origins of Totalitarianism. In Truth and Politics, she provides an analysis of political lying that speaks to an America as divided today as it was in the 60s by the Vietnam War.
Truth and Politics appeared in the Feb. 25, 1967 New Yorker at a time when Arendt was still being criticized for her controversial Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Along with a companion essay, Lying in Politics, which Arendt published in 1971, Truth and Politics puts into historical perspective the internal dangers to the body politic that come when political leaders engage in the mass manipulation of facts.
Instead of Orwells Ministry of Truth, Arendt provides her readers with a lesson in how defactualized thinking becomes normalized. In her concern with the process by which the dividing lines between actual facts, invented facts, and opinion get blurred, Arendt draws on the ideas of founding father James Madison, who in his famous essay 49 in the Federalist Papers observed that all governments rests on opinion but worried over the threat posed to a young democracy by manipulated opinion.
Early in Truth and Politics, Arendt makes clear that she is not talking about an idealized version of politics. No one has ever doubted that truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other, she sardonically notes. She then goes on to say that lies told to deceive the enemy in wartime or to keep secrets from the public are not her concern when it comes to the relationship between truth and politics.
It is organized lying, designed to sway how voters think, that Arendt believes is the great political threat to democracy. Combatting mass falsehoods is always an uphill battle, she warns. Here her argument echoes the line that Jack Nicholson popularized in A Few Good Men, the 1992 film in which as a Marine Corps colonel on trial, he shouts at the lawyer questioning his judgment, You cant handle the truth.
Arendt believes that political liars take advantage of supporters who dont want to deal with the truth in the form of unwelcome facts, and as a result, political liars have a decided, initial advantage over truth tellers. Political liars can tailor their facts to fit the hopes of their audience and, by doing so, have plausibility on their side. The false facts that are liars stock and trade are what those listening to them want to believe.
But as far as Arendt is concerned, when liars prevail, it is not merely that falsehood wins out over truth. The whole political system is turned on its head: fact and opinion become interchangeable.
The first loss caused by political lying, Arendt points out, is, ironically, in the value of opinion. Freedom of opinion is a farce, she contends, unless it comes with factual information. Facts and opinions, though they must be kept apart, are not antagonistic to each other; they belong to the same realm, she writes. Facts inform opinions.
But the second loss caused by political lying is the most dangerous of all in Arendts judgment. It is the loss of the desire to establish the truth. When lying becomes epidemic, what follows, she contends, is a peculiar kind of cynicisman absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established. The result is that the sense by which citizens take their political bearings in the world is destroyed.
The good news, Arendt points out, is that it is difficult to reach this level of cynicism. Liars can get away with single falsehoods, even multiple falsehoods for a while, but there is a point at which lies become counterproductive. When those who are lied to find that their lives are made worse by the lies, they come to disbelieve the lies.
For Arendt, its crucial to avoid reaching this extreme point. In the case of Vietnam, she believed at the time that the press played a crucial role in exposing the governments lies about the success of the war, and at the end of Lying in Politics, she emphasizes the importance of what is crucial todaya press that is free and not corrupt.
That a half century after the Vietnam War, the press should again be under attack from another president and his administration makes this turn of events a welcome historical parallel. For Arendt, there is nothing banal about defending the truth when it is under siege. She is lyrical on that subject, observing in her conclusion to Truth and Politics: Conceptually, we may call truth what we cannot change; metaphorically, it is the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us.
Nicolaus Mills chairs the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College. He is author of Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and Americas Coming of Age as a Superpower.
Depending on who you talk to, Kurt Nimmo, a former editor for Infowars, left the conspiracy-peddling website after being a demonstrably lazy stafferor he was fired in a sudden and acrimonious manner by the sites red-faced major-domo, Alex Jones.
But the real story, whatever it is, is only slightly less muddy than the fever swamps through which its writers trudge each day to deliver stories about Lady Gagas satanic Super Bowl performance and the imminent assassination of President Donald Trump.
Nimmo told The Daily Beast this week that he joined Infowars in 2008 and rebuilt the website. He left the publication in July 2016, and has since been working for NewsBud, a site run by the conspiratorially minded whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Nimmo also periodically writes for his own blog, entitled Another Day in the Empire.
Since his exit, Nimmo has noticed the general framework and voice of the site shift into becoming essentially a pro-Trump propaganda outfitsomething that he perceives as an abandonment of Infowars initial focus on the New World Order, or as Jones would call it, the establishment.
I disagree with Alex Jones on Donald Trump, Nimmo said in an email to The Daily Beast. I believe Donald Trump is an enabler of crony capitalism, the same as his predecessor. I also believe he will not end the wars started by Bush and continued by Obama. I cannot support a man who will further war and murder. Alex Jones has more or less ignored this and considers Trump a patriot and a defender of the Constitution. This is clearly wrong.
Joness turn as the anguished, chest-thumping id to the presidents ego has been well-documented in the 2016 election. Trump has even appeared on Infowars for an interview with Jones and praised the rage-filled radio hosts reputation as amazing. And even now, after he made it to the highest office in the land, Trumps longtime friend and former adviser Roger Stone often hosts Infowars and credits it in part for helping Trump make it to the Oval Office.
Nimmo doesnt see the Trump fandom as an asset in any sensebut rather a tacit endorsement of war crimes and he speculates that his disagreement with the Trump agenda could have contributed to his axing.
Support for Trump also means supporting waterboarding, killing the families of suspected terrorists, squandering trillions more on a bloated military, supporting Israel despite its crimes against humanity, omitting Saudi Arabia from the list of terrorist states, and further militarizing police in the U.S., Nimmo told The Daily Beast. Alex Jones previously opposed most of these things, with the exception of Israel, which he has refused to criticize.
He pointed specifically to the fact that Infowars has not commented on a recent raid in Yemen that reportedly killed an 8-year-old and other civilians. (There is one recent article on the site that contends the Obama administration may have had something to do with tipping off al Qaeda militants about the ensuing raid).
They have not commented on this, so the conclusion is, at least tangentially, that Infowars.com supports Trumps war on innocent civilians, Nimmo concluded.
The unconditional Trump love is not all coming from one source though.
Nimmo also takes issue with the content produced by Paul Joseph Watson, the stubble-faced British video-blogger and writer for the site who goes by @PrisonPlanet on Twitter. During the 2016 election, Watson pushed stories about untrue allegations that Hillary Clinton had brain damage and he has become a favorite of the alt-right for his popular videos declaring that Islam Is Not a Religion of Peace. He was also recently duped into publishing a false story about the imminent release of a video showing Trump saying the N word.
If we are to judge Paul Joseph Watson by his editorials and tweets, he is an Islamophobe little different than Geert Wilders or Pamela Geller, Nimmo said, referring to the Dutch politician and the writer who both share anti-Islam sentiments. He has embraced the alt-right philosophy on Islam. I disagree with this. The United States government and the military-industrial complex are far more threatening to our liberty than a gaggle of crazy Islamists, many supported by the CIA and Saudi Arabia.
While theyve rarely worked in the same physical space, ironically enough Nimmo credits Watson for being the person who got him his job at Infowars.
He did more or less get me the job in 2008, he recommended me to Alex Jones after reading my blog, Nimmo told The Daily Beast. Not sure what this has to do with anything. He wasnt claiming back then Islam would destroy the world. In fact, he wrote radical jihadis were created by the CIA and British intelligence. Guess he doesnt talk about that much anymore.
In the past few months, Nimmo has vocalized his disdain for the current version of Infowars, calling Jones a snake oil salesman and referring to the outlet as infotrump on Twitter. After The Daily Beast made Watson aware of these criticisms from the former employee, he lashed out at Nimmo in an email.
So the criticisms are we sell products to fund ourselves (the horror), Watson wrote in an email to The Daily Beast, referring to the Super Male Vitality product among others on the sites store. Maybe we should be mouthpieces for Gulf State dictatorships to make money like CNN instead? Because thats more noble?
Also, we support Trump. Wow guilty as charged, Watson continued.
He went on to describe Nimmo as an essentially good-for-nothing employee.
Basically, I got him the job in the first place, Watson said. He was hardly ever in the office and spent most of the time sleeping in his New Mexico trailer. I visited [the Infowars headquarters in] Austin once and the only time I saw him for the whole 3 weeks was when he announced he was going home to sleep because his computer had broken. Alex fired him because he was on a substantial wedge and basically did nothing by the end of it. After he left, no one even noticed he had gone, he was that insignificant.
Nimmo contested the fact that, as Watson put it, he was paid well for little work.
I hope you do not plan on using that Watson bit about sleeping in the article, Nimmo told The Daily Beast in response to Watsons claim. Its not true. Before Jones hired staff, I worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day often, and on Christmas, which Jones praised.
Its just bullshit from a mean-spirited Islamophobe, Nimmo said of Watsons critique.
Nimmo claimed that the animus was coming from the fact that theyre scared shitless of the Food and Drug Administration examining the supplements sold on the site.
And theres another thing, according to Nimmo. He wasnt axed because he did a bad job.
I will tell you the official reason I was fired, Nimmo told The Daily Beast. Alex Jones had agreed verbally when I asked to move back to New Mexico from Texas for reasons related to my wifes health. After I moved, he called and fired me, citing tax and retail sales issues (?) with New Mexico. It had nothing to do with performance issues, as Watson intimated. I have a letter stating this signed by Jones.
Nimmo provided the letter to The Daily Beast for review but did not want the content published. It confirmed that Nimmo was terminated after he moved. Jones has not responded to requests for comment via email or text message.
I dont know if revealing this is part of the confidentially agreement, but I cannot consent to Watson lying about it, Nimmo continued. I was told by other former employees he was also angry about my repeated requests for health-care insurance. My wife and I are in our mid-60s and I find it unconscionable for a multimillion-dollar operation not to provide health insurance for employees. I merely do not wish for the article to say I was let go due to poor work performance.
Another former staffer at Infowars, Joe Biggs, who left the site at the end of 2016, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview that he didnt know about the details of Nimmo leaving the company.
I dont know what happened between him and the employers and why he might be bitter, Biggs said. I dont have anything bad to say whatsoever.
He called Nimmo a cool dude and a great writer, and similarly praised Watson and the work hes done for the site.
Hes a motivated, dedicated guy, Biggs said of Watson. He doesnt mind pushing boundaries.
Both Biggs and Nimmo spoke about confidentiality agreements they signed to work at Infowars.
Whatever we do we decide to do, Biggs told The Daily Beast. It prevents rumors from being spread.
Yet in Nimmos eyes, he sees Watsons critique as reason enough to explain his own truth.
Watsons remarks amount to an ad hominem attack, Nimmo said. He has no evidence to back up his claim. I worked remotely for over two years. I redesigned and rebuilt the Infowars website and hired the editorial staff. Watson was in Britain, he had no idea of my work schedule or habits. He has no evidence to back up his claim. Frankly, its bullshit. Its baseless defamation.
But given the fact that InfoWars has published stories about terrorist attacks being false flags and openly speculated about satanic connections to the Clinton campaign, the facts arent all that important.
Thirty years ago, Democrats gave the Supreme Court confirmation process a bad name. When they killed the nomination of President Ronald Reagans first nominee to fill a vacancy, a new term was invented: To Bork. The term meant to kill a nomination through character assassination, slander, and ideological attacks regardless of the competence of the person who was being considered.
Today Judge Neil Gorsuchs supporters are warning that the Democrats should not Bork President Trumps nominee. Given Gorsuchs stellar professional record, his competence does not seem to be in question. At least from the leaked remarks about his meeting with Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, he appears to have a healthy unease with President Trumps aggressive statements about the judiciary.
But there are many reasons for Democrats to consider using their power to filibuster his nomination. After Republicans refused to confirm former President Obamas nominee Merrick Garlandleaving many Democrats to feel like this is a stolen seatthe president could have sent a consensus nominee. After having lost the popular election by large numbers and now stimulating fears that he wont respect our system of checks and balances, this was the moment to demonstrate that he understands the tensions hes helped create. Rather than a pick intended to please the right, he could have selected someone who Democrats could have felt good about supporting even if it came from this administration.
But he did not. With Gorsuch, Trump has put forward a nominee who comes from the most conservative part of the judicial spectrum. As an originalist who is a favorite of the Federalist Society, Gorsuch has a very conservative record on key issues like religious rights, reproductive rights, gay marriage, gun rights, criminal justice and more. There is good reason to believe that he would uphold the principles of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and pose a serious threat to a number of important public policies. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, writing in The New York Times, warned that Gorsuch refused in their closed-door interview to answer rudimentary questions about executive power, campaign finance, voting rights or the constitutionality of Trumps refugee ban.
As Senate Democrats consider whether or not to filibuster this nominee, they should take another look at what went down when Senators were considering the case of Robert Bork. Rather than a model that they need to avoid, it in fact offers an important lesson about the legitimate reasons to to block a high court nominee.
In 1987, Senator Ted Kennedy led the Democratic opposition to defeat a candidate who was far to the right on core principles and would have posed a real threat, in their minds, to fundamental social rights achieved after many decades of social struggle. They also believed that it was wrong for the president to select such a rightwing nominee after Democrats had regained control of the upper chamber in the 1986 midterm elections.
The battle over Bork began after Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, a swing vote on the court, announced on June 26, 1987, that he would be retiring from the court. With the president facing a major investigation into the Iran Contra scandal, this appointment could be his last chance at legacy building. Democrats warned the White House that they expected a nominee who could win broad support.
Reagan didnt take their advice. On July 1, the president announced his pick was the 60-year-old Robert Bork, who had been on conservative Supreme Court shortlists for over a decade. A Yale professor, Richard Nixons former solicitor general, and a former federal appeals court judge who preached originalism, which calls for a strict adherence to the Constitution regardless of how social, legal and political norms have changed over time, Bork was seen as Reagans farewell gift to the right.
Kennedy, one of the leading liberal voices within the Democratic Party, would have none of it. Given that conservatives had pointed to Bork as a model nominee for his intellectual record, liberals in the Senate had been doing background work on him already and had a good feel for just how conservative his views were. Kennedy believed that placing Bork on the Court would result in huge risks to the major gains in social justice that had been achieved since the 1960s. He perceived Bork to be an extremely ideological figure, despite Borks own claim that he opposed activism, and predicted that the conservative drift of the Court with him on it would result in serious threats to abortion, voting rights, affirmative action, environmental regulation and much more.
Bork had written an article challenging the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and he opposed the Supreme Courts one-man-one-vote ruling on legislative apportionment. He had been a major opponent of the Supreme Courts Griswold v. Connecticut a landmark right to privacy decision in 1965 which was the basis for Roe v. Wade. The court responds to the press and law school faculties, he said. Replacing a moderate vote with a right-winger would fundamentally change the court.
Bork also had a major role in the Saturday Night Massacre under President Richard Nixon. This was the moment when Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox who was investigating Watergate. When Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus refused to carry out the order and resigned, Solicitor General Bork agreed to carry out the action. While conservatives praised Bork as a man of principle and integrity, Democrats remembered how he had carried out a corrupt presidents dirty work. His decision in 1973, argued one law school professor, raise serious questions about the extent to which he, as a judge, would require the federal government to adhere to constitutional and other legal limitations.
After Reagan announced the appointment, Kennedy took to the Senate floor 45 minutes later to make a dramatic speech intended to mobilize opponents against this confirmation. Robert Borks America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.
The charged rhetoric was no accident. I knew my speech was red-hot even before I delivered it, Kennedy recalled, I wanted it that wayimmediate and fierybecause I wanted to frame the debate. I knew I was making myself a target by being so heated in my rhetoric, but it was a price I was willing to pay to keep this man off the court.
It worked. The People for the American Way broadcast television ads depicting Bork as a dangerous extremist who would undermine the rights of most Americans. In one ad, the actor Gregory Peck warned that if Bork wins a seat on the Supreme Court itll be for lifehis life and yours. Ralph Neas, the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights warned that A Bork nomination, or the nomination of anyone who would jeopardize the civil rights accomplishments of the past 30 years, would most likely precipitate the most controversial and confrontational legislative battle of the Reagan years. Womens organizations announced that they could not stand for an Associate Justice who was hostile to the gains that women had made since the 1970s, including on reproductive rights. The ACLU, in a rare stand against a Supreme Court nominee, said no, calling Bork a radical not a conservative.
Judge Borks writings make it crystal clear, said the organizations executive director Ira Glasser, that he thinks the highest right in this society is the right of local majorities to make law and to impose their morality on the rest of society.
Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, a Republican, complained that these organizations turned him into an absolute gargoyle, into a beast.
Although conservatives expressed outrage, the truth is that confirmations were political long before 1987. As the historian David Greenberg has written , the Senate rejected George Washingtons nominee for Chief Justice in 1794 and the right worked hard to block Thurgood Marshall when Lyndon Johnson appointed him to be the first African American Justice in 1967. Liberals stopped Richard Nixons nominations of Clement Haynsworth in 1969 and G. Harrold Carswell in 1970. So despite the complains, the mobilization against Bork was nothing more than familiar for most senators.
Conservative organizations conducted a public relations campaign of their own. The right paid for their own ads, they lobbied senators, and they built public support for this important nomination.
Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee who was running for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 presidential election, opposed Borks nomination but tried to conduct the hearings in a fair manner. Some Democrats were pretty hard hitting, but they focused on very important policies. Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum attacked Bork for having made a ruling on the appeals court that allowed a chemical company to provide a choice to female employees between being fired or being sterilized. During the hearings, most of Borks answers were unconvincing, and often tortured or totally contradicted his own record. He came off as arrogant and odd. Senators were upset when he said that serving on the Court would be an intellectual feast, which suggested to many that he would not consider the actual impact of his decisions. He looked and talked like a man who would throw the book at youand maybe the whole country, observed Tom Shales, the television critic for the Washington Post.
The committee voted on Oct. 6 to reject the nomination by a vote of 9 to 5. Bork refused to withdraw his name while he blamed the process as partisan and unfair, laying the groundwork for the term that would bear his name. A crucial principle is at stake in the way we select the men and women who guard the liberties of all the American people. That should not be done through public campaigns of distortion.
On Oct. 23, the Senate rejected the nomination by a vote of 58 to 42. A few Democrats like David Boren and Ernest Hollings voted in in support of nominee, but most of the party went the other way. Six moderate Republicans voted against him. Kennedys campaign had worked. Bork was too radical.
Today, Senate Democrats have good reason to Bork Gorsuch. Since Republicans broke the confirmation process when they refused to even hold hearings on Garland, it is incumbent on their party, which controls the White House and Congress. The fix is for Republicans to send a moderate and a pragmatist who will move the divided court to the center, not to the right. As they did in 1987, though, Democrats face a nominee who comes from the far right and he symbolizes presidential choice that is clear statement of defiance. With this nomination, Trump proves again that he is a president whose power comes from dividing, not uniting.
Rather than remembering the Bork appointment as something that to avoid, this is a time to look back at Senator Kennedys campaign as a model for how to handle Gorsuch in the coming weeks.
Europeans love to bash America, and such snobbery usually is deployed to conceal very real, and very deep, flaws. Europe stood aghast at President Donald Trumps clumsy travel ban. Britains parliamentary speaker even declared that The Donald would not be welcome to address the House of Commons. And yetoblivious to the hypocrisy of it allthe U.K. in collusion with France has just canceled a scheme called the Dubs Amendment set up to provide safe passage for child refugees.
And so as America learned of the 3-0 decision from the 9th District Appeals Court striking down Trumps travel ban, the U.K. was busily deporting 50 unaccompanied children a day, sending them back into the arms of smuggler and trafficker gangs, and back into modern slavery, the chair of the House of Commons home affairs select committee, Yvette Cooper MP said, in the slum camps around Calais and Dunkirk.
With French support, Prime Minister Theresa May has doubled-down. She knows that nobody can legally stop her from forcing this measure through. The party with the majority in Parliament forms our government, by default. Our legislature is our executive branch. While America proves once again that at least it benefits from the separation of powers. We, on the other hand, love to conceal the holes in our glass houses with Star Spangled Banners.
The 1951 Refugee Convention guarantees asylum to any individual facing persecution. But what should concern us about both Trumps now failed travel ban, and this latest British decision, is not merely dry argumentation over law.
Most troubling is the direct effect on vulnerable children.
Not much has changed since international legal regulations to protect refugees were put in place 65 years ago. Childrenparticularly unaccompanied children fleeing conflictare just as likely to be abducted, abused and harmed as in the past. The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) recently released a video campaign switching between the stories of 12-year-old Ahmed from Syria, and 92-year-old Harry from Germany. Despite being separated by over 70 years, the two monologues contain great similarities. UNICEFs film compares todays Syria conflict with historical footage from World War II. But what differs between now and World War II is the indoctrination and exploitation of children by extremist and terrorist organisations.
My organization Quilliam just released a report called Refuge: Pathways of Youth Fleeing Extremism backed by both UNICEF and UNESCO. Coupled with our previous report on ISISs use of child soldiers, what we discovered is harrowing.
Jihadist terrorists are systematically radicalizing children. There is no doubt about that. And there are those who will argue we can completely avoid the security threat posed by jihadist-indoctrinated children precisely by issuing blanket travel bans against refugees. Such a blinkered view is nothing but an attempt to hope and pray that the outside world simply goes away. It wont.
Just as President Barack Obamas inaction in Syria contributed to a power vacuum into which stepped Vladimir Putin, Iran, Hezbollah, and ISIS, our current inaction over child refugees will achieve nothing except to facilitate the black market in human trafficking for terrorists.
According to the European Police Agency (Europol), 10,000yes thats 10,000child refugees have already gone missing. In 2015, 340 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing in the U.K. alone.
These children are actively being targeted by jihadists.
According to our latest report, the so-called Islamic State is offering up to $2,000 a head to families in camps in a bid to recruit their children. They are also offering to pay the trafficking fees. The sense of debt this creates will be used to instill loyalty in the children, just as sex traffickers do with the women, girls, and boys they exploit.
About this there is no doubt. Our report found 263 instances of propaganda referring to refugee youth by five jihadist organisationsal Qaeda, Taliban, Islamic State, Boko Haram, and al-Shababover the last eight months. These references reflect an extremist obsession with young people, both as soldiers and as young mothers for the next generation.
We cannot simply turn away from this brewing problem. Between the foolhardiness of Angela Merkels now infamous Open Door policy and the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut (while missing the nut) approach of travel bans, we must devise sensible, mature, and efficient policies to address this growing concern before it is too late.
For if we continue to simply hear no evil, see no evil, speak no eviljihadists will be glad to step in to commit plenty of evils on our behalf. And the lack of a proper safeguarding system in place will leave the door wide open for jihadist child soldiers to become Europes next major threat.
When news broke last year that conservative economist Stephen Moore had acquiesced to Donald Trumps protectionist policies, political observers were stunned. After all, as the founder of the Club for Growth, Moore had worked to defeat Republican politicians who didnt pass his purity litmus test on issues like free trade; now he was championing one for president!
I used to be unilateral free trader, Moore said in November. But the political reality is theres a backlash against trade. Whether we like it or not we better adapt the rules in ways that benefit American workers more, or free trade is not going to flourish.
His comments went over like a lead balloon. One friend told him he must have been drunk when he made them. Economics professor Don Boudreaux fired off a sharp-elbowed open letter to Moore. Moore is the definition of a high-falutin intellectual, except that now hes embraced some FDR-style down-home populism because its politically convenient, scolded Ben Shapiro at Conservative Review. And for every person who spoke out publicly, dozens were murmuring at conservative conclaves and cocktail parties. Moore had become the Ted Olson of trade.
Moore isnt cowed by the critics. These guys can sit in ivory towers, he said when we spoke over the phone last Friday, but if youre not convincing people in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Flint, its not going to get you very far.
To be fair, his comments were generally misinterpreted as his having switched sides, but a better criticism would be that he accepted defeat. Im a free trade guy. Im with Richard Rahn. Im with Art Laffer, and all the rest of them, Moore assured me. But we as free-market people better do a better job of figuring out how to sell free trade. To go around saying, Adam Smith did this or that doesnt go a long way, he lamented.
Until recently, though, it did go a long way. So much so that wearing an Adam Smith necktie (still available) was how the fashion-conscience free marketer could signal his devotion to the pioneering father of capitalism. Once worn in the Reagan White House, this necktie is still the de rigueur uniform in some circles, worn smartly with kahkis and a blue blazer (which are assigned during your first internship in the conservative movement).
Its an outward sign of how, in modern times, Republican philosophy has been decidedly free trade. To the extent that protectionism existed in modern American political thought, it had mostly lain dormantoccasionally trotted out in campaigns by failed populists hoping to pander to the Rust Belt workers or labor unions.
It was widely understood that David Ricardo had it right; by specializing in what each country did best, free trade was more efficient. It was also a win-win; specializing in what you do best (and trading for what you dont) made everybody more prosperous. It was acceptedgoing back to the Smoot Hawley Tariff Actthat protectionist trade policies were not a panacea and might even be disastrous.
Multilateral deals were accepted as more efficient than dozens of bilateral deals, because importers and exporters could deal with one set of rules and thereby reduce compliance costs. It was accepted that consumers benefitted from free trade; cheap products at Wal-Martand the fact that an iPhone is affordableare thanks to free trade. And it was a given that having mutually beneficial trade relationships with other nations would also have national security implications. (In the case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Americas abandonment of the deal only opens the door for China to fill the vacuum).
But in record time, Donald Trump changed all of that by cancelling TPP, promising to renegotiate NAFTA, threatening to impose tariffs, and generally favoring bilateral deals over multilateral ones.
Nobody has ever accused President Donald Trump of being an orthodox conservative. But it is his penchant for protectionist trade policies where his apostasy is most stark.
In an attempt to remain onboard with this new Republican president, free traders have had to concoct self-soothing theories and coping mechanisms.
Some fiscal conservatives, like Steve Moore, simply point out the political realities. Not only have the American people spoken, but also the Republican primary base has spoken. This is Trumps party now.
To stomach this concession, it helps to be reminded that so many of Trumps other positions are quite goodmaybe even good enough to make up for his trade protectionism.
[Trumps] broad policy goals are pro-growth, CNBC Senior Contributor Larry Kudlow told me last November. And I understand there are glitches, Kudlow continued. I understand trade is a glitch. But on the main, youve got tax reform, regulatory reform, big healthcare changesObamacare and so forth. Unshackle energy. Hes got the basic building blocks right.
This is not an absurd argument. It is reasonable to recognize that no candidate and no administration is going to fully reflect your exact set of policy preferences and priorities, says Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). I dont think we should be disparaging people who say in my judgment the good of x, y, and z outweighs the bad of a, b, and c.
Others hope that his talk of tariffs is really just an opening gambit in a game designed to cut better trade deals in the future. Since he prides himself on being a negotiator, this could just be his opening bid, postulates the aforementioned Richard Rahn, a free-market conservative who advised presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush on economic matters.
Trumps argument that he isnt against free tradebut that he just wants fair trademight be sophistry, but its still a great line. While there is truth in saying that Trumps statements are usually negotiations, Trumps abandonment of TPP suggests that hes not merely negotiating.
One of the most optimistic theories comes from Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who suggests Trumps pro-growth positions might render his trade policies moot (instead of merely making them tolerable). In Norquists world, trade isnt the problemthe real culprits are taxes, onerous regulations, and labor unions that drive up the cost of hiring American workers. Wheres [America] hollowed out? he asks rhetorically. I dont know. Look at labor union concentration.
Norquist scoffs at the notion that globalism is the real problem with the economy. The Chinese people dont write EPA regulations, he says. China doesnt create union labor laws that damage workers as long as they get more union dues.
Ultimately, Norquist believes that Trump will turn around the economy, and then Americans will be more open to free-trade agreements. Its sort of like Nixon going to China, he says. I think Trump can pass more and better trade deals with a growing economy than Hillary Clintonor even another Republicancould.
To be sure, not everyone is so optimistic. The aforementioned George Mason University Professor Don Boudreaux rejects the notion that there a tradeoff. Cut taxes? Bunk, Boudreaux barked in a letter to The Wall Street Journal last October. Trump famously promises to raise taxes on Americans who buy imports. Reduce regulation? Rubbish. Trump promises more government intrusions into Americans commerce with foreigners.
Others worry that Trumps protectionism is tantamount to crony capitalism. Its true that if you have a totally free market, there will still be winners and losers, concedes Andy Roth, Vice President for the Club for Growth (a group I have spoken to in the past), but thats called competition and its what drives our economy. Protectionism amounts to swapping Trumps hands for Adam Smiths invisible hand. When the government protects the sugar industry, Roth explains, the sugar companies and workers win, but the candy companies and their workers lose. So do consumers.
The truth is that almost every conservative economist concedes that free trade is a better economic policy that brings the most prosperity to the most people. But free-trade purists have their work cut out for them. For one thing, the benefits to consumers are dispersed, while the alleged benefits of protectionism (for example, saving a factory) are concentrated. This makes free trade seem esoteric and theoretical, while protectionism seems simple and tangible.
For this reason, support for free trade has always been an inch deep and a mile wide. Unlike one of the key issues (like life or taxes), free trade hasnt been a moral issue for most conservatives. Aside from a handful of committed free traders, it was always a box you checked on a list of policy preferencesbut not a hill anyone wanted to die on.
I think Steve Moore, Grover Norquist, [and Larry] Kudlow, theyre all sort of supply-side, low-tax guys, said Daniel Ikenson, a free-trade advocate who works at the libertarian Cato Institute. So thats their primary issue, I think. I think theyre rationalizing to a certain extent.
The real story here isnt whether free trade is good or bador whether its a deal-breakerbut that so many prominent free-traders have given up so easily.
This is the way free trade ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
The search for the killer of a prominent Ku Klux Klan leader has ended in his own bedroom, according to law enforcement officials in Washington, County, Missouri who charged his wife and stepson with murder on Monday.
KKK imperial wizard Frank Ancona, 51, was shot and killed as he lay asleep in his bed on February 9, according to a probable cause statement . Franks wife, Malissa Ancona, 44, and his stepson, Paul Jinkerson Jr., 24, have been charged with first degree murder, felony armed criminal action, tampering with physical evidence, and abandonment of a corpse. Following Franks murder, the pair allegedly moved his body into Jinkersons car and dumped him near a river bank, where he was found by a family out on a fishing trip on Feb 11.
The Daily Journal reported that Malissa allegedly admitted to investigators that her son, Jinkerson, was the one to shoot Frank and she had attempted to hide evidence to cover up the crime. Officers exercising a search warrant found a safe in the home had been pried open with a crowbar and all of its content removed. Police say Franks gunswith the exception of the pistol he usually carried with him at all timeswere missing from the property.
Malissa was taken into custody on Sunday. Jinkerson was already in custody on an unrelated charge that may or may not be related to his Facebook post from January 19: I don't care what anyone believes. i did not rob Roy's car wash. No one knows the story. Yes I was there, but i took no part in it. i will not be blamed for something I didn't do. Believe what you will, he wrote.
Malissa and Frank were married in 2010. Photos of their wedding posted online show the pair dressed in head-to-toe Klan garb.
On Facebook, Franks relatives immediately pointed fingers at Malissa, noting strange postings by the woman, including one the day after Franks disappearance looking for a roommate. Malissa told investigators she had posted the ad because Frank threatened her with divorce before leaving on a work trip an assignment his employer disputed .
Malissas Facebook page is littered with news reports about violent crimes in the area and posts urging followers to assist in the placement of rescued cats. But on the day after Franks murder, Malissa posted , My husband is missing do please if anyone sees anything call the police.
Until Malissa and her sons arrest, white supremacists speculated Franks disappearance and suspicious death could be the result of an assassination operation conducted by the U.S. government, while anti-racists and groups like the hacker collective Anonymous posted news of Franks murder with the hashtag #DeadAssKlansman . A GoFundMe page set up by Frank Ancona III to raise money for his fathers funeral expenses was taken down on Monday after being flooded with messages from posters celebrating the murder.
Frank Anconas groupthe Missouri-based Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (TAK)stand for WHITE SUPREMACY and KEEP[ING] THIS A WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY, according to the who we are, section of their website. It is the largest Ku Klux Klan organization in America.
The media will tell you The KKK is dead, gone, irrelevant. They have tried since the birth of the Klan to downplay the influence and power of the KKK, Frank wrote in 2011 .
The TAK experienced an uptick in membership from 2012 to 2013, but also splintered due to rumored infighting and conflicts over how to spread their racist message .
After a leafleting campaign to gain new members garnered national attention, Ancona sought to temper the KKKs message in public spaces, telling a reporter in 2014 , We dont hate people because of their race. We are a Christian organization. Because of the acts of a few rogue Klansmen, all are supposed to be murderers and wanting to lynch black people and were supposed to be terrorists. That is a complete falsehood.
In another rebranding attempt in 2013, documented in a Discovery film on the KKK , Ancona is shown organizing a sparsely attended event where robed klansmen offered ham sandwiches to the needy at a local park.
And following Anonymouss hacking into the Traditionalist American Knights website and doxxing of Ancona in 2014, the imperial wizard met with a representative from the hacker group at a Steak and Shake to discuss the police shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown. Anconas group unsurprisingly supported Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Brown.
After Malissas arrest, likeminded white supremacists gathered online on the racist forum Stormfront, to offer their condolences for the member they knew as Missouri hellbilly.
No, Abraham Lincoln never uttered the words of the headline to this pieceat least not for certain, although two of his contemporaries insisted that he had. Most scholars dismiss them as fake historythe natural successor of fake news that gets old without becoming true.
Yet the sentiments have returned to the public mind, now that the Republican National Committee elected to besmirch Lincolns Birthday by tweeting another spurious quote to mark the Great Emancipators 208th birthday on February 12: Its not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years.
Now, assuming that it is easy enough to mistake Lincoln for Charlemagne, or Mae West, just two of the sources to whom the quote is often attributedstill, one must wonder what precisely the Party of Lincoln was trying to communicate by choosing this quotation (not malice toward none or government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth) as the Lincolnian sentiment that seemed most fitting and proper to recall on the anniversary of his birth.
The party eventually removed the quote, but not before President Trump posted it to his Instagram account , where it remains up as of this writing.
Nor is this the first time prominent Republicans have undertaken to circulate Fake Lincoln History. On an earlier and far more consequential occasion, the fakery came from a much more lovable figure, but with an even more insidious intent. And its well worth remembering.
The year was 1992. The scene was the Republican National Convention in Houston. Republicans were about to re-nominate President George H. W. Bush for a second term. The odds against a Bush second term were growing wider, but the future must have seemed bright on the evening the partys much-loved former president, Ronald Reagan, arrived at the speakers rostrum to rouse the faithful to a renewed dedication to modern Republican ideals.
He did so by invoking the name of Lincolnby reminding the delegates of a set of principles Reagan declared had been eloquently stated by Lincoln generations earlier. The 40th president went on to quote what he described as the 16th presidents most enduring maxims.
Here was a hallowed set of principles, said Reagan, that had stood the test of time and deserved to be repeated to fortify America against a resurgent liberalismin the person of another unknown, dark-horse Southerner who had just unexpectedly won his partys nomination: Bill Clinton. Here are the maxims Reagan reintroduced that memorable evening:
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
To no ones surprise, the convention floor erupted in delirium. TV cameras captured the faces of emotional delegates, some in tears. Lincoln still matteredespecially as channeled by Reagan.
The former President had brilliantly resurrected a tablet of political commandments more eloquent than any arid party platform or windy acceptance speech. No one had ever said it better than the Great Emancipator as revivified by the Great Communicatora truly magical combination. As politics and performance, even liberal Democrats admitted it was good.
As it turned out, it was too good to be true. The fact is, Lincoln had never uttered a word of it. The lines turned out to be the work of an obscure German-born minister from Brooklyn by the name of William Boetckerand they dated back to only 1916, 51 long years after Lincolns death.
That year, Boetcker published a tract entitled Lincoln on Private Property. The pamphlet featured a unique but honest format: the true words of Lincoln on one page followed by interpretive quotations from Boetcker on the next.
The ideas quickly found an appreciative audience among conservatives. Republican clubs clamored for copies, and the booklet went into new editions in 1917, 1938, and 1945.
Unfortunately, in each subsequent reprint, Boetcker receded into the background until Lincoln was receiving sole and undeserved credit for aphorisms he had never uttered. One edition boasted that the words appeared merely at the inspiration of Boetcker. By the time Reagan got around to quoting these lines, their true source had faded into the shadows.
When the truth finally surfaced, a Reagan spokesman, scrambling for an explanation, pointed out that the former president had done all his own research. As sole author of the speech, he had found the so-called Lincoln quotations in a book called The Toastmasters Treasure Chest by Herbert V. Prochnow. It was passed off as a forgivable mistake.
Few of the millions who heard Reagan that summer night ever read the explanations or the corrections published in newspapers during the days following his remarks. Nor did they learn that Reagan had wisely omitted two of those bogus, Boetcker-authored quotestwo that did not seem to fit his call for fealty to Republican principles, 1992-style. After all, how could a chief executive who had presided over the accumulation of the largest federal deficit in the nations history possibly say the following?
You cannot keep out of trouble spending more than your income.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money
But while Reagan wisely removed those two from his recitation, he had said enough to lay indelible, if spurious, claim to Lincolns political blessings. It took a veteran New York Times writer who also happened to be a Lincoln scholarmy old colleague, Herbert Mitgang to burst the balloon the following day.
Yet three full years after Mitgang had discredited Reagans Lincoln references, the most widely read newspaper columnist in the nation blithely published the Boetcker quotes once againas Lincolns. The words Reagan had quoted still seemed genuineat least to Ann Landers, who published them as authentic Lincoln advice on July 26, 1995.
Needless to say, many of Lincolns authentic words rank as truly timeless. And they deserve to be reiterated and recollected as we endure another Fiery Trial, as the 16th president described the harrowing Civil War. Binding up the nations wounds might be a good way to honor Lincolns example, his sacrifice, and his gift for composing what amounts to American scripturethat was his recommendation at the Second Inaugural Address that one listener, Frederick Douglass (whos still doing a great job, according to the current White House ) called a sacred effort. On an earlier occasion, Lincoln aptly warnedare we still listeningA house divided against itself cannot stand.
But of all the great words Lincoln wrote and spoke, I dont think any resonate as powerfully at this particular moment as those he utteredspontaneously, it might be added, never Lincolns strong suit, and thus far from the crystalline perfection of his carefully prepared prosewhen he spoke before a crowd of American citizens and American immigrants at Chicago near Independence Day, 1858. The approaching Lincoln-Douglas debates would focus almost exclusively on the national sin of slavery, but on this particular day, Lincoln boldly confronted another American shortcoming: intolerance for foreigners who sought refuge and opportunity in the embrace of our free country, and in turn provided honest labor, and eventually, brave service in the fight to preserve the Union and destroy slavery.
Then, as now, extreme Nativisits argued that America was for Americans onlythose born and bred here, though so many of those, of course, traced their origins to foreign shores as well. What, precisely, had the founders intended when they considered inclusiveness in crafting the documents that created our democracy? That was the issue Lincoln pondered on that summer afternoon in 1858.
And it was meant not just for its Chicago audience, but for the journalistswho sent stenographers to transcribe Lincolns long, off the cuff remarks so they could be widely published.
Appearing just a week after Independence Day, Lincoln rambled nostalgically about the iron men who had established the country four score years earlier.
But he had his eye on foreign men, too, perhaps because so many filled the audience that day, maybe because he sought once and for all to expunge his own Know-Nothing stigma, but certainly as well because he did believe the foreign-born could become full participants in the American dream. Though in the hands of the stenographers, his thoughts seemed uncharacteristically garbled, the effect was magical.
Aside from the men descended by blood from our ancestors, Lincoln acknowledged, we haveamong us perhaps half our people, who are not [T]hey aremen that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find none. [T]hey cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselvespart of us, but when they look through that old Declaration they find that those old men say that We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and then they feel thatit is the father of all moral principle, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote the Declaration, and so they are.
To cheers from the polyglot crowd, Lincoln concluded majestically: That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. During the 21 hours of debating that would begin in a few Lincoln never stretched the four corners of the Declaration of Independence more generously or more eloquently. For the rest of his liferight up to his last annual message to Congress, when he not only reiterated his support for immigration, but actually offered to have the federal government pay for transatlantic voyages so more immigrants could journey hereLincoln remained committed not to building walls, but to opening doors.
Perhaps that is the legacy worth remembering in his 208th birthday weekrather than the ridiculous notion that what Lincoln really cared about were such anodyne notions as the life in our years.
Unless, as Lincoln may well have thought, but never wrote, you really can fool not only all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the timebut, sadly, all the people all of the time. Lets hope not.
Harold Holzer, Jonathan F. Fanton Director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York, is the author, coauthor, or editor of 52 books on Lincoln and the Civil War era, and won the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and four other awards for his 2015 book, Lincoln and the Power of the Press. Appointed to chair the 2009 national Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by President Clinton, he received the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush, and wrote an essay on Lincoln in the inaugural program for President Obama. Holzer previously wrote about the Reagan-Lincoln incident in an essay coauthored with the late Governor Mario M. Cuomo in 2000.
Obama Calls Out Dr. Oz for Selling Political Snake Oil
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The former president took shots at Dr. Oz for his endorsement of quack medical products while campaigning for John Fetterman in Pittsburgh.
Italian prosecutors have charged oil giants Shell and Eni with international corruption offences, as the companies struggle with the fallout from their controversial 2011 purchase of an oil licence in Nigeria.
Several senior executives from the two companies - including Eni's current CEO Claudio Descalzi - have also been asked to stand trial individually over the $1.3 billion deal, along with former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete.
In a statement issued yesterday, Eni said it had no involvement in the "alleged corrupt conduct subject to investigation".
Shell declined to comment when approached by Energydesk. Individuals briefed on the matter said the company had not yet received notice from the Italian prosecutors.
But last month, in response to the Nigerian courts decision to temporarily revoke the licence, the company said: "we are aware of the Italian prosecutor's investigation and we hope to show that there is no basis to prosecute Shell. Shell takes this matter seriously and is co-operating with the authorities."
A document issued by the public prosecution office in Milan shows Italian legal officials are seeking charges against four Shell executives, including the chairman of the Shell Foundation, Malcolm Brinded.
Brinded was an executive director at the company at the time of the OPL 245 deal, as well as chairman of the board of trustees at the Shell Foundation, the company's independent charity. He left Royal Dutch Shell Plc in 2012, but retains his post at the foundation. The Shell Foundation declined to comment on this story.
The UK Department for International Development (Dfid) is partnered with the Shell Foundation on a 65 million project aimed at promoting clean energy across Africa and Asia. Energydesk asked Dfid if it will look at its relationship with the Shell Foundation in light of the charges. A spokesperson said:
"We are monitoring this situation closely and understand that at present no legal action has been taken."
OPL 245 - the 9 billion barrel question ...
The fallout from the purchase of oil licence OPL 245 has dogged both Shell and Eni for years. The license is thought to hold around nine billion barrels of oil.
It is alleged in the document released by Italian prosecutors that both companies knew money paid out as part of the deal would be used to make payments to named Nigerian officials and politicians. The FT reports that Shell and Eni both say they made payments directly to the government and did not make any arrangements with any third parties.
Franklin County native J. Travis Thorp is now the commanding officer of the nuclear powered, fast attack submarine USS City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705), stationed at Silverdale, Washington.
Thorp will be the ships last commanding officer and will lead a crew of personnel through the submarine's final operations and decommissioning.
We are in the process of decommissioning, so we have to take particular care as we inactivate the ship, Thorp said. We work in an intense industrial environment in the shipyard as we operate some ship's systems and we deactivate and dismantle others. My boat is really near the end of her 34-year life cycle, so we have to make sure she completes her service to the U.S.A. right.
As captain, Thorp is directly responsible for leading, training and ensuring the safety and welfare of the personnel under his command.
Getting to this job in the Navy is a dream come true, Thorp said.
Thorp is also responsible for the timely completion of upkeep and maintenance on all his submarines systems and the nuclear reactor, ensuring proper response to casualty situations and the execution of all orders and directives received from his operational commander.
I am fortunate to also have an excellent group of officers and crew under me, too. In the Navy, usually the best and brightest join the submarine force. And that seems true about the folks on my boat.
Each week the crew conducts quite a bit of tactical and operational training, he added.
Even though we are in shipyard, we have to stay sharp on our war-fighting skills, Thorpe said. Because my sub is nuclear powered, the training on and oversight of our engineering systems is always very important.
But, we make sure to take care of ourselves, too, with frequent physical fitness training and lots of events where we can involve our families. There are over 120 sailors on my boat, not including their dependents, who count on me every hour of every day.
Thorp is a 1993 graduate of Franklin County High School and was the first Franklin County native to attend the United States Naval Academy. He graduated from the academy in 1997 with a bachelors degree in chemistry.
Throughout his naval career, Thorp has been stationed in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Hawaii and Alaska, eventually serving as executive officer on USS Ohio (SSGN 726) in Bangor, Washington.
Thorp also served as an intelligence action officer in Arlington and director for special operations of submarine forces in Norfolk. His most recent tour of duty was as the Submarine Squadron Fifteen Deputy Commander for Material Readiness.
Thorp qualified in submarine warfare on USS Louisiana (SSBN 743). He earned a masters degree in engineering management from the Catholic University of America and a masters degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.
He has served on commands that have been awarded Battle Efficiency E awards and the Arleigh Burke Fleet Trophy, among other citations.
Thorp is the son of David and Betty Thorp of Rocky Mount. He and his wife, Erin, have two sons, Logan and Riley. They live on Naval Base Kitsap Bangor in Silverdale, Washington.
[This job] means a lot to my family, too, Thorp said. They have followed me around the world for years now to different homes and different schools. But, they would say the same thing as me its about the people. My boys told me their favorite thing about the Navy is all the new friends they make at each duty station.
Thorp credits his wife for keeping the family organized and happy and for holding down the fort while he is away.
She, too, has grown a huge network of friends worldwide that know what military life is like, Thorp said. Of course the vital support we get from other friends and family and the communities back home can't be discounted, either.
Thorp said he wishes his tour could last longer and he feels privileged and honored to serve on the submarine, to be part of the greatest military on earth and to be an American.
The motto for my boat is, For God and Country, he said. Aint that right!
Asian markets moved into positive territory on Monday, taking a cue from the U.S. last week after markets climbed to new high on improved risk appetite as investors shook off geopolitical concerns over North Korea's weekend ballistic missile test.
Economic data in the region has also been relatively buoyant, with Japan's economy expanding for the fourth straight quarter at an annualized rate of 1.0 percent in October to December period, supported by solid exports and capital expenditure.
Also last Friday, China's trade figures for January had topped forecasts, with exports up 7.9 percent from a year earlier and imports up 16.7 percent.
The Nikkei Stock Average (Nihon Keizai Shinbun: .N225) closed up 0.41 percent or 80.2 points at 19,459.15 after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's weekend visit to the U.S. and first meeting with President Trump.
Over the weekend, Trump set aside harsh rhetoric about Japan stealing American jobs and taking advantage of U.S. defense aid over the weekend, and reaffirmed that "U.S. commitment to defend Japan through the full range of U.S. military capabilities, both nuclear and conventional, is unwavering," in a joint statement.
South Korea's Kospi (Korea Stock Exchange: .KS11) wavered for most of the session, but ended up 0.17 percent or 3.57 points at 2,078.65. The index's gains were capped as the market grappled with news of North Korea's latest missile test.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday morning, and on Monday morning, Pyongyang said that the test of a new missile type at the weekend was successful and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
This will also be the first test of Trump's pledges to get tough on the hermit state, and comes on the heels of Trump's weekend meeting with Abe and his phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping last Friday.
South Korea's finance ministry said it would act swiftly in case financial markets show signs of volatility in the wake of North Korea's missile launch on Sunday.
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Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee was summoned again by the special prosecutor's office for further questions on bribery charges related to a political scandal involving President Park Geun-hye. Last month, Lee was questioned for more than 22 hours, but a court rejected a warrant to arrest him.
Samsung Electronics (Korea Stock Exchange: 593'A-KR) fell 1.04 percent, while Samsung Engineering lost 3.5 percent and Samsung C&T (Grey Market: SSGQF) plunged 1.57 percent.
The Shanghai composite (Shanghai Stock Exchange: .SSEC) posted its fourth consecutive session of gains, up 0.64 percent or 20.52 points at 3,217.22 and Shenzhen composite (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJSZ) closed 0.75 percent or 14.42 points at 1,964.75. By mid-afternoon, Hong Kong's Hang Seng (Hong Kong Stock Exchange: .HSI) index was up 0.52 percent.
Australia's ASX 200 (ASX: .AXJO) closed up 0.7 percent or 40.1 points at 5,760.7, supported by its energy sub-index, which was up 1.44 percent and its materials sub-index, which added 2.24 percent.
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (ASX: BEN-AU) stock dropped 4.83 percent after it reported that its half-year net profit after tax from ordinary activities rose just 0.1 percent.
Major U.S. indexes continued its uptrend last Friday on the back of President Donald Trump's promise of a tax plan in the near future. The Dow Jones industrial average (Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJI) up 0.48 percent at 20,269.37, the S&P 500 (INDEX: .SPX) gained 0.36 percent, at 2,316.10 and the Nasdaq (NASDAQ: .IXIC) composite ended 0.33 percent higher at 5,734.13.
The dollar index , which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, traded at 100.79 at 3 pm HK/SIN. The yen (: OSEJPY=) weakened to a two-week low against the firmer dollar, at 113.64, while the Australian dollar was at $0.7668.
The greenback had been under pressure on Saturday, after Trump responded to a question about currency devaluation at a joint press conference with Japan's Abe, saying "we will all eventually...be at a level playing field" and added that "that's the only way you can fairly compete in trade."
"The dollar fell immediately after the comments but quickly recovered, suggesting that at least for now, the prospect of tax policy changes is the dominant driver for the dollar," said Rodrigo Catril, currency strategist at National Australia Bank, in a Monday note.
Brent crude futures slipped during Asian trade, down 0.26 percent at $56.55 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures fell 0.28 percent to $53.71.
India's consumer price index is due later in the day.
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Many investors like to look for momentum in stocks, but this can be very tough to define. There is great debate regarding which metrics are the best to focus on in this regard, and which are not really quality indicators of future performance. Fortunately, with our new style score system we have identified the key statistics to pay close attention to and thus which stocks might be the best for momentum investors in the near term.
This method discovered several great candidates for momentum-oriented investors, but today lets focus in on Louisiana-Pacific Corporation LPX as this stock is looking especially impressive right now. And while there are numerous ways in which this company could be a great choice, we have highlighted three of the most vital reasons for LPXs status as a solid momentum stock below:
Short Term Price Change for Louisiana-Pacific Corp.
A great place to look for finding momentum stocks is by inspecting short term price activity. This can help to reflect the current interest in a stock and if buyers or sellers have the upper hand right now. It is especially useful to compare it to the industry as this can help investors pinpoint the top companies in a particular area.
With a one week price change of 16.3% compared to an industry average of 2.4%, LPX is certainly well-positioned in this regard. The stock is also looking quite well from a longer time frame too, as the four week price change compares favorably with the industry at large as well.
Longer Term Price Change for Louisiana-Pacific Corp.
While any stock can see a spike in price, it takes a real winner to consistently outperform the market. That is why looking at longer term price metricssuch as performance over the past three months or year-- and comparing these to an industry at large can be very useful.
And in the case of LPX, the results are quite impressive. The company has beaten out the industry at large over the past 12 weeks by a margin of 19.1% to 10.4% while it has also outperformed when looking at the past year, putting up a gain of 69.6%. Clearly, LPX is riding a bit of a hot streak and is worth a closer look by investors.
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Louisiana-Pacific Corporation Price
Louisiana-Pacific Corporation Price | Louisiana-Pacific Corporation Quote
LPX Earnings Estimate Revisions Moving in the Right Direction
While the great momentum factors outlined in the preceding paragraphs might be enough for some investors, we should also take into account broad earnings estimate revision trends. A nice path here can really help to show us a promising stock, and we have actually been seeing that with LPX as of late too.
Over the past month, two earnings estimates have gone higher compared to none lower for the full year, while we are also seeing that one estimate has moved upwards with no downward revisions for the next year time frame too. These revisions have helped to boost the consensus estimate as a month ago LPX was expected to post earnings of $1.35 per share for the full year, though today it looks to have EPS of $1.47 for the full year, representing a solid increase which is something that should definitely be welcomed news to would-be investors.
Bottom Line
Given these factors, investors shouldnt be surprised to note that we have LPX as a security with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and a Momentum Score of A. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here .
So if you are looking for a fresh pick that has potential to move in the right direction, definitely keep LPX on your short list as this looks be a stock that is very well-positioned to soar in the near term.
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Leistikow: Hawkeyes uncover much-needed star in Kaleb Johnson
After a 200-yard day, Johnson seems as surprised as anybody that he has a starring role for the Hawkeyes down the stretch.
NORWALK Members of the Norwalk Board of Education said they were blindsided Monday by an alternative school facilities plan put together by state and local officials over the weekend.
"I have been involved in Norwalk government since 1982 and I have never seen such an underhanded political stunt in all those 35 years, said Mike Lyons, chairman of the Norwalk Board of Education. Im sitting here in utter astonishment that these people would play political games like this with the wellbeing of our children.
The alternative plan, which would include upgrades to all 19 of Norwalks existing public schools, was seen as an outward display of opposition to the School Facilities Study and Master Plan Recommendations already approved by the board, particularly from Mayor Harry Rilling who said in January he would support school plans put forth by the board.
State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, state Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, state Rep. Chris Perone, D-Norwalk and Rilling authored the alternative plan called the Fix It First Proposal Modernizing Norwalks Public Schools.
As we started looking at these projections, it became very, very clear that we want to give students the best infrastructure they possibly can, but we also have an obligation to the taxpayers to make sure we spend their money wisely, Rilling said. And this plan here allows us to fix some very, very critical issues in a lot of the different schools.
Duff and the other leaders argue the forecasted swell in districtwide enrollment the driving force behind Norwalk Public Schools officials swift action to push facilities plans forward isnt enough to justify the construction of a new school.
Instead, the alternative plans include changes such as a one-story addition to Cranbury Elementary School, a two-story addition to Columbus Magnet School and an addition to Jefferson, which is considered by many to be the school with the most urgent needs as it is currently operating at 171 percent of its capacity. Major repairs to Norwalk High School and minor repairs to Brien McMahon High School were also included.
They believe the work could be completed simultaneously at all schools in three years, and estimate their plan would cost $132.5 million with a $32.5 million reimbursement from the state. Though those figures are Duffs estimates based on a former facilities plan.
This is an ambitious three-year plan to fix it first, Duff said. We dont want to have parents waiting 5, 10, 15 years. Weve laid out over a $100 million plan to fix all 19 schools in the public school system. Then we can have conversations about new schools. But we really feel very strongly that we should be looking at fixing our schools first, not making parents wait, not dangling some sort of potential construction only to have it taken away like has been done here at Jefferson and Cranbury and other schools Thats why were here today. Fix it first, protect taxpayers and help parents and students.
A board divided
While many school officials were caught off guard by the announcement of the alternative plan, two board members Shirley Mosby and Yvel Crevecoeur, who abstained from voting when the board approved its plans attended the press conference and supported the alternative plan.
We should make sure that all children are taken care of at the same time, so thats why I strongly support this where its going to touch all of our children that are in need now and in the future, Mosby said.
Meanwhile, Mike Barbis, chair of the Board of Educations Facilities Committee, was one of the many school officials taken back by the announcement of the new plans, made just a few days after the board hosted state legislators at Columbus Magnet School to review the already approved Board of Educations facilities plan.
Barbis said Duff and Morris were in attendance and neither made a mention of their alternate plan.
The Board is shocked that these politicians would do this without consulting with anyone in the school administration or the Board of Education, even remaining silent about it at that Friday meeting, Barbis said. Is pulling political stunts like this the way to rebuild our schools?
With all the NPS people involved in facilities there, that would have been a perfect time to bring up alternatives, Lyons said Monday. Instead they played dumb, and then this morning sand-bagged us with this half-baked alternative plan based largely on obsolete plans from over a decade ago."
The politicians who put forward the plans had no prior communication about them with the Board of Education or Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski prior to the what is perceived to be a political event, said Spokeswoman Brenda Wilcox Williams, in a statement on behalf of the school district.
There are many questions regarding the outlined plan, which appears to be based in part on a now-outdated document from 2012, the statement reads.
The new proposal doesnt appear to conform to the districts updated Facilities Master Plan completed last year or the Board of Educations Strategic Operating Plan, according to the statement. It also doesnt meet current building standards, account for swing space to house students during construction or provide enough seats for Norwalks growing enrollment of students.
It is doubtful that the majority of the Board could approve such a plan, which may not be practical, factually accurate and has had no community input, the statement reads.
Officials said the Board of Education would have no further comment on the alternative plan until Rilling has the opportunity to meet with board members and share his ideas.
The approved plan
Under the plan already approved by the Board of Education in January, Columbus Magnet School would move into a newly constructed pre-K-8 school campus at the site of the former Nathaniel Ely School. The current Columbus Magnet School building would be renovated to house a K-5 intradistrict magnet school with an International Baccalaureate Early Years Programme.
Ponus Ridge Middle School would be transformed from a middle grades school into a full-fledged pre-K-8 STEM-themed magnet campus. Jefferson Science Magnet School would lose its temporary trailers and magnet-school status and return to being a neighborhood school.
The plans are estimated to cost $245.5 million and be completed in two phases over 10 years, though Norwalk Director of Finance Robert Barron recommended earlier this month the city only provide funding to cover about 42 percent of the plan.
kkrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
kschultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz
NORWALK In an effort to reduce opioid abuse, State Representative Terrie Wood, R-Darien, has introduced legislation that would require pharmaceutical companies to pacakage opioids in blister packs.
The move, Wood argues, would reduce inappropriate access to prescribed opioids and prevent tampering or incorrect dispensing of opioid-based medications.
Blister packs come in a sheet with each pill individually sealed in plastic, usually against a cardboard backing. Prescription painkillers, those most often associated with the opioid epidemic, traditionally are distributed loosely in pill bottles. Woods bill, HB 5733, would require all pharmaceutical manufacturing companies to package opioids dispensed in the state of Connecticut on blister packs.
The national opioid crisis has a firm foothold here in our state, leading to innumerable heart-wrenching tragedies in our communities from the struggle with addiction, Wood said. We have taken some important steps in response to this crisis, but there is much remaining for us to do. My proposal will add another weapon to our arsenal to combat this scourge.
Wood said requiring pharmaceutical companies to distribute opioids in blister packs would ensure they are distributed in correct quantities and with proper labeling of the dosage and contents, which she said would help prevent incidents of accidentally dispensing the incorrect dosage. Additionally, it would make any tampering with the medications obvious.
A 2013 study by the Healthcare Providers Service Organization, titled 2013 Pharmasist Liablitiy: A Ten-Year Analysis found 32 percent of patient claims against pharmacists involved patients receiving the wrong dosage of a medication, while 44 percent of claims originated from patients who received the wrong drug altogether.
Wood believes the bill does not unnecessarily over-regulate access to opioid medications for those who legitimately need it.
According to data from the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, there has been a significant increase in the rise of overdoses related to opioids and heroin in Connecticut. From 2014 to 2015, heroin deaths increased by 27 percent, and of the 723 people who died of an overdose in 2015, 415 were heroin related and another 107 were related to fentanyl, a powerful opiate often mixed with heroin.
Wood testified Wednesday in favor of her proposal before the Legislatures General Law Committee. The bill remains in the General Law Committee where it awaits action.
kkrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
DailyFX.com -
Talking Points:
Asian markets managed to stay up, for the most part, as risk appetite continues to dominate
News of a weekend ballistic missile test by Pyongyang made life trickier for the Kospi
But the Nikkei and the ASX pushed on up
Most Asian markets were in the green on Monday, thanks to strong Wall Street leads at the end of the previous week, managing to rise despite news of another missile test by North Korea.
During the session came news that Japans economy expanded for a fourth straight quarter, according to preliminary official numbers for the final three months of 2016. Gross Domestic Product growth was actually below estimates, if not by very much, but the Nikkei managed to shrug this off and close up 0.5%. There was also some reassurance to be had from Japanese Premier Shinzo Abes weekend talks with US President Donald Trump, from which much of the latters apparent protectionist ebullience was notably lacking.
Australias ASX 200 benchmark added 0.7%, helped as ever by the material and energy sectors. One index which was stymied by Pyongyangs latest test was, unsurprisingly, Seouls Kospi. But even that crept into the black as the Asia session wound down. South Korean investors had more than missiles to worry about. Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee was summoned by special prosecutors once again for questioning related to a political scandal involving President Park Guen-hye.
Last Fridays storming trade numbers seemed still to have Chinese shares back as a new week got under way, with stocks in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong all up by around 0.6%
The US Dollar continued to gain as markets eye Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellens testimony on Capitol Hill, due Wednesday. Both the Yen and the Australian Dollar were lower against the greenback. Crude oil prices slipped back through the session, despite a lack of obvious news, with both Brent and US benchmarks losing about 0.3% apiece.
Were into the second month of the first quarter. How are DailyFX analysts forecasts holding up?
Story continues
--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research
Contact and follow David on Twitter:@DavidCottleFX
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When the Democrats pick their new national chairman later this month, the choice will send a signal about the partys direction as it sets out to recover from the erosion that began even before Hillary Clinton lost the White House.
If they choose Rep. Keith Ellison, an African-American congressman from Minnesota who is one of two Muslims in Congress, they will opt for an outspokenly liberal course and, in effect, turn the party over to the forces of insurgent 2016 candidate Bernie Sanders.
If they elect former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, the son of Dominican immigrants who held elected local and statewide appointed posts in Maryland before taking two top positions under former President Barack Obama, they will choose a more centrist direction.
And if they pick the relative unknown who has emerged as the most interesting alternative to the two perceived front-runners, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, they will elect a millennial from the industrial belt region that rejected Democratic candidates in 2016.
With 447 voters, the Feb. 24 election is the kind of political contest that is notoriously difficult to predict. Ellison, Perez and Buttigieg (pronounced Boot-edge-edge) have the most organized support and got the best receptions among the nine candidates last Saturday in Detroit at the third of four party-sponsored forums for Democratic National Committee members.
The others include four who have held significant positions within state and local parties: longtime New Hampshire Democratic Chairman Ray Buckley, South Carolina Democratic Chairman Jaime Harrison, Idaho Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown, and Jehmu Greene, an African-American from Austin, Texas, who was executive director of the states Young Democrats before holding several party posts in Washington and serving as a Fox News contributor. Interestingly, none of the top seven is a straight Anglo man.
The candidates range in age from 27 to 59, ensuring a chairman younger than the partys geriatric congressional leadership. While Ellison has the most big-name endorsements, followed by Perez, those may not mean much in a party that lacks major power brokers.
None of the nine fits all of the jobs requirements: spokesman, organizer, manager, fundraiser. But they agree on the need to provide the help for local and state parties that has been lacking in recent years, to reach out to the partys multiple constituencies, to make the party more transparent and accessible, and to stand up to President Donald Trumps efforts to overturn Obamas policies.
Given the high feelings among many Democrats these days, one consideration may be which candidate members feel can best make the anti-Trump case. Buttigieg got a leg up on his better known rivals as the only candidate to join one of the Jan. 21 womens marches against the new presidents policies while the others were at a Florida conference for major donors, a point he noted to cheers in Detroit. After the DNCs Jan. 28 forum in Houston, Buttigieg, Perez and Harrison joined protesters against Trumps travel ban at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The high profile supporters for Ellison, 53, led by Sanders, include Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and liberal icons Gloria Steinem and Rep. John Lewis. He agreed to leave his House seat if elected, heading off one major argument against him.
Perez, 55, who led Obama administration voting rights efforts as assistant attorney general for civil rights before becoming Labor secretary, was endorsed recently by former Vice President Joe Biden. He is also backed by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former DNC chair and a key Clinton supporter; several unions including the Food and Commercial Workers, Plumbers, Bricklayers, Carpenters and Firefighters; and an array of Texas Democrats, including party chair Gilberto Hinojosa.
Buttigieg, 35, a Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan veteran who came out as gay during his first term as mayor, backed Clinton in 2016 but doesnt mention it much. He has the endorsement of Steve Grossman, party chairman during Bill Clintons administration. Alluding to the perception the Ellison-Perez battle is a proxy fight for the divisive 2016 Clinton-Sanders fight, he said, This is not a time to re-litigate an old battle.
What I bring to the table is a little bit different, he said in Detroit, warning that, If you do what youve always done, youre going to get what youve always got.
Whoever wins will become an important anti-Trump voice. But as Democrats struggle to counter Trump in middle America, the young South Bend mayor raised a potentially crucial question: Should the Democratic Party do something different?
oroville dam
Authorities ordered the evacuation of almost 200,000 residents in several northern California towns Sunday evening, as a rapidly eroding section of a dam appeared on the verge of collapse.
"Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered," the Butte County Sheriff's Office posted on Facebook.
"Operation of the auxiliary spillway," the sheriff's office said, had led "to severe erosion that could lead to a failure of the structure. Failure of the auxiliary spillway structure will result in an uncontrolled release of flood waters from Lake Oroville."
Anticipating the failure of the dam's auxiliary spillway, officials in the northern California town frantically attempted to drain water from the main spillway, at a clip of 100,000 cubic feet a second, according to The Sacramento Bee. Helicopters dropped sand and rocks into a sinkhole in the spillway to stem the erosion.
"It's uncontrolled. It's uncontrolled," Department of Water Resources spokesman Chris Orrock said when asked how much water could be released should the spillway fail.
Later Sunday evening, officials said the threat of collapse from erosion had diminished, according to The Sacramento Bee. Water levels fell to a point at which little or no water flowed out of the emergency spillway, which Orrock said was the main factor in its erosion.
An evacuation center was set up in Chico, a nearby town north of Oroville, the sheriff's office said on Twitter. Traffic heading out of Oroville appeared to slow to a crawl as thousands of residents attempted to flee. Residents of seven towns in neighboring Yuba and Sutter counties were also instructed to evacuate. The number of residents ordered to evacuate totaled at least 188,000, the Associated Press reported.
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oroville dam
Unexpected erosion this week resulted in a massive sinkhole forming in the dam's main spillway, a mile-long concrete gutter that controls the flow of excess water. Officials initially shut off the flow of water down the spillway, but heavy rainfall on Saturday caused the dam to overflow for the first time in its 49-year history, according to the Associated Press.
The overflow triggered the first-ever use of the dam's emergency spillway, which itself began showing signs of damage, causing officials to issue the evacuation warnings.
The deterioration was severe and rapid. Just four hours before the evacuation warnings, around midday Sunday, another Department of Water Resources spokesman had said he didn't anticipate the failure of the spillways. The dam itself is structurally sound, the spokesman had added.
At 770 feet, Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the US. It could take up to $200 million to repair the damaged spillway, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Pic of Oroville Dam. Main dam at right (not damaged), main spillway in center (damaged), emergency spillway at left (imminent collapse) pic.twitter.com/CycNz2Aaix David Cole (@DavidColeAIA) February 13, 2017
JUST IN: Authorities order residents in low-lying areas of Oroville, Calif., to evacuate as dam is predicted to fail https://t.co/2x3ZloKOqw pic.twitter.com/UVXxgiHMWj ABC News (@ABC) February 13, 2017
Portion of the structure that could potentially fail is the Emergency Spillway at Oroville Dam. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/ZMacKuDCdP David Biggar (@DavidNBCLA) February 13, 2017
NOW WATCH: Archaeologists discovered an ancient 26-foot statue that may depict a pharaoh from over 3,000 years ago
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Start your journey looking for Abraham Lincoln in Alton and have your National Park Service passport stamped at the same time.
Visitors looking for traces of Abraham Lincoln in Alton can get their National Parks passport stamped at the Alton Visitor Center, 200 Piasa St., or the Hayner Genealogy & Local History Library, 401 State Street, which represent local tie ins to the federal Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area. Passports can be stamped starting today.
National Park Service Passports will be available for sale at the Alton Visitor Center the week of Feb. 13.
Alton was named an official Looking for Lincoln community in September which is part of the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area (ALNHA).
That designation allowed local officials to become part of the ALNHAs National Park Service passport program.
Visitors who have a National Park Service Passport to Your National Parks can collect cancellation stamps at specific sites in participating Looking for Lincoln communities.
There are a total of 21 Looking for Lincoln passport sites in Illinois.
Being a passport stamp site is really an added benefit for the region, Alton Regional CVB President and CEO Brett Stawar said.
We have a rich Lincoln heritage in Alton and bringing in the passport will give visitors a great reason to come walk with us in Mr. Lincolns footsteps. The popularity of the National Park Services passport program will be another reason to love our destination.
The passport program provides opportunities for visitors to explore the communities where Lincoln lived, worked and traveled in Illinois. Passport stamps are free to collect at each location.
To become a Lincoln passport stamp center it is important that the sites be accessible to the public and be staffed during regular operating hours.
The locations are strongly encouraged to have a connection to Lincolns life and times.
Having the Hayner Genealogy & Local History Library serve as a passport stamp site was a great way to showcase the librarys ties to Abraham Lincoln, Stawar said.
According to Lacy McDonald, manager of the genealogy library, the library has many historic books about Abraham Lincoln and generally has Lincoln exhibits throughout the library system.
In the mid-1850s Lincolns law partner, William Herndon was a speaker in the Alton Library Associations lecture series.
We have books from the 1800s about Lincoln and some items reportedly owned by Mary Todd Lincoln at the library, McDonald said.
We also have an original letter from Mr. Lincoln to Simeon Ryder that is dated from 1844. Being a passport site is very exciting for us and we are thrilled and looking forward to being part of the Lincoln experience.
The Looking for Lincoln National Heritage Area covers 42 Illinois counties, includes over 300 Lincoln historic sites and five scenic byways.
Lincoln National Heritage Gateway communities include Springfield, Bloomington/Normal, Quincy, Alton, Charleston and Danville.
For all of your local Lincoln traveling adventures, go to VisitAlton.com/Lincoln.
The Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine (SIU SDM) is hosting an Open House from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16 to showcase its renovated clinic on the Edwardsville campus.
The clinic is equipped to provide a full scope of dental services, including preventive dentistry, cleanings, fillings, crowns and bridges, dentures, surgery, root canals and implant procedures. The clinic also is equipped to perform simple and complex pediatric dental care. It provides additional training laboratory space in support of the Clinical Certification Course of the SDMs International Advanced Placement Program.
We are excited to embark on the next advancement for the School of Dental Medicine, said Dr. Bruce Rotter, dean of the SIU SDM. By reopening the Edwardsville clinic, we will be able to expand the scope of our available care, provide that care to a greater demographic and provide an even higher level of training to our students.
The Edwardsville clinic was originally built in 1997 to add additional program capability for the SDM. However after 10 years, it was necessary for the school to give up occupancy of the building for several reasons including rental costs, increased space availability in Alton and a need for consolidation. Following several years of leased occupancy by various businesses, the University reacquired the building.
Rotter pointed to many benefits to reopening the clinic at SIUE:
Ability to provide services to the Edwardsville campus students, staff and faculty will have the option of choosing the School of Dental Medicine for their treatment needs without the commute to Alton
Expanding childrens access to dental care programs
Expanding specialty training programs with greater access to specialty care
Providing a referral service for complex cases that require faculty expertise, while providing training for students and residents
The $3 million project was funded from private donations, SDM Clinic Operation, SDM equipment use fees, Parking Services revenues for repairing and surfacing the parking lot, and University Plant funds.
The clinic will open to the public beginning March 1. It is located at 195 University Park Dr.
The SIU School of Dental Medicine students manage approximately 35,000 patient visits each year at its patient clinics in Alton and East St. Louis. In addition, students offer oral health treatment, screenings and education to more than 10,000 people annually through a wide variety of off-campus community outreach events. These opportunities provide students the training they need to graduate and become highly skilled dentists. The School of Dental Medicine is a vital oral health care provider for residents of southern and central Illinois, and the St. Louis metropolitan region.
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Linkedin Tobias Basuki (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
A few days ago in this newspaper Sylvie Tanaga wrote an article titled Chinese-Indonesians caught up in the storm of identity politics, which raised many questions. It certainly captured the mixed feelings of hope and fear Chinese-Indonesians in Indonesia have had since the 1998 reform era in light of recent events.
I do, however, differ strongly from the authors assertion that Chinese-Indonesians continue to be perceived as a common enemy, if not a threat, to the status quo. It is certainly a feeling perceived by many Chinese-Indonesians, especially those aware of the long history of anti-Chinese sentiments and riots.
This fear and perception, though, is very counterproductive, and is quite far from the truth. It is open to debate but the following are arguments why I think it is inaccurate and unwise for those of Chinese descent in Indonesia to take on this view.
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Linkedin Inforial (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia Tue, February 14, 2017
Thanks to the development of smooth road access to the Sukasari district, the more-than-50-year isolated region has now become open.
The pulse of local residents can now be strongly felt and even people from outside Sukasari have started to come to the region.
The region offers hidden natural attractions that remain untouched. Sukasari, the land of which is mostly covered in forest, turns out to have its own Grand Canyon.
The Grand Canyon is called Curug Tilu and it is situated in Ciririp village, Sukasari district, Purwakarta regency.
To reach the destination, visitors can take advantage of either the Cikao Bandung Jatiluhur road or the ManiisSukasari road. Cikao Bandung Jatiluhur connects directly to a segment of the smooth Sukasari road. It takes about 40 minutes for visitors to reach Ciririp village.
The ManiisSukasari route is not recommended yet as the road remains under construction by the local administration.
To reach the Curug Tilu area, visitors must take a small 1-kilimoter-long road from the main road.
Prior to reaching Curug Tilu, visitors will first be greeted by a traditional bamboo grotto with palm fiber as its roof. The grotto is known as Pos KOMP@S (Komunitas Pecinta Alam Sukasari Sukasari Nature Lover Community).
That is the place where a community led by Muhammad Arifin, 32, has been working to develop eco-tourism since 2013.
We see the open road access conducted by [incumbent Purwakarta regent] Dedi as an opportunity. Why not? The nature that has remained intact has tourism potential that we can introduce to the public at large and we have to take care of it, said Arif during a discussion at the Purwakarta Communication and Informatics office.
Arif explained that facilities for visitors to enjoy when visiting the Curug Tilu homestay were already available. The homestay, located on the edge of a curug (waterfall), is complete with a hammock and swimming pool. The facility package, priced at Rp 50,000, includes nasi liwet (rice cooked in coconut milk, chicken broth and spices)
Actually, we have yet to set the price of nasi liwet. The portion of the rice is enough for five persons. So you do not have to cook it yourself, he explained.
Visitors will be surrounded by the beautiful sight of a green natural panorama and stony mountain contour. The water appears green, precisely like the Green Canyon in Pangandaran district, West Java.
Arif acknowledged that he has been relying on young people in Ciririp village to manage the tourist activities. KOMP@S, which he leads, plans to further develop local tourism by offering river tubing and body rafting.
Frankly speaking, what we have done is far from optimal because our members are still limited to young village people. We want it to be better. But thank God, we see between 20 and 30 visitors daily in [Curug Tilu]. They come from Jakarta, Karawang and Purwakarta, he said.
The local youth have promoted the area through their social media accounts to attract more visitors.
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Linkedin Liu Jing (China Daily/Asia News Network) Mon, February 13, 2017 16:48 2091 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bfbbb89 2 Lifestyle China,demography,sex-ratio,gender-gap Free
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, there's more bad news for men who haven't got a date for tomorrow.
It's estimated that in the next three decades up to 30 million men of marriage age will have trouble finding wives.
Experts blame the crisis mainly on China's gender imbalance dating back to the 1980s, reports the People's Daily.
"China's growing high male-female sex ratio at birth has lasted for almost 30 years and the accumulative effects of this will lead to a 30 million surplus of men at marriageable age over the next 30 years," Zhai Zhenwu, professor of population studies at Renmin University of China, said.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that by the end of 2015, there were 704 million male citizens and 670 million female citizens on the Chinese mainland. On average, 114 boys were born for every 100 girls, compared to the world average of 103 to 107. Among the population born in the 1980s, there were 136 bachelors to every 100 single women and among those born in 1970s, the number of single men increases to 206.
Zhai explains that the skewed ratio is caused by Chinese people's preference for boys over girls and the development of technology that enables parents to find out the gender of their baby before birth and have an abortion if they are not satisfied.
Read also: Seven ways to survive Valentines Day as a single
Even in the 21st century, China's average sex ratio at birth once reached as high as 121 boys to 100 girls and in some provinces, the it even climbed to an astonishing 130 boys for every 100 girls.
The most serious problem created by the imbalance is the so-called Guanggun (literally bare branches, or left-over men).
Unless the bachelors all choose to marry women older than themselves, there will be 30 million men unable to find a partner," Zhai predicts. The estimate is based on the standard sex ratio at birth. If the ratio in China falls slower than expected, the number of single men will be even higher.
According to Wang Guangzhou from the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, today about 4 percent of men aged between 35 to 59 are unmarried, while only 0.4 percent of women in the same age range are single.
Wang says men with less education, lower social and economic status often bear the brunt. In 1990, only 12.7 percent of the "bare branches" between 35 to 59 had less than six years of education. The number rose to 15 percent 10 years later.
Lu Yilong, professor of sociology and population studies at Renmin University of China, said that the gender gap may encourage unaffordable dowries, women trafficking, sexual crimes and other social issues.
In the long run, the deficit in female population and low fertility rate will further shrink the working population and fasten the aging of the overall population, Wang Guangzhou cautions.
Other sociologists believe that female job seekers may face more sexual discrimination in their career path as a result of the unbalanced sex ratio.
Read also: Want a baby girl? Keep blood pressure down, study shows
In November, 2002, fetus sex identification for non-medical reasons and sex-selective abortions were officially forbidden in China. However, it is difficult to regulate the practices due to deficiencies in the regulation and development of technology.
Wang predicts that more girls will be born after 2015, when all couples in China were allowed to have a second child.
However, Zhai says the possibility of further policy changes should not be ruled out. According to the goal set in the National Plan on Population Development (2016-2030), by 2020, the boy-girl ratio at birth should be equal or lower than 112 to 100 and the ratio by 2030 should be stabilized at 107 to 100. This means it will need 13 years to bring the ratio to normal and then the country has to deal with the left-over men born in the past three decades and in the following 13 years.
Wang suggests that China should put more effort into making and implementing laws to regulate sexual determination and protect the rights of female citizens on a national scale. He also proposes a data-sharing platform which will raise awareness about the unbalanced sex ratio at birth.
Experts agree that the key is to change people's traditional preference for boys and work towards gender equality.
The sense of gender equality is still weak currently. Traditional bias against girls can only be changed with urbanization, industrialization and education, Zhai says.
"We need to educate the next generation and create the soil for gender equality," Zhai adds. "The bare branches crisis will not be resolved until the young people's view on child-bearing is changed."
Topics :
This article appeared on the China Daily newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin Sebastian Partogi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017 09:26 2092 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bfa37e3 4 Books identity-politics,religious-issue,Indonesian-politics,democracy,Book,book-review,book-recommendation,#2017RegionalElections,2017RegionalElections,YennyWahid Free
With the upcoming gubernatorial election in Jakarta, many have seen escalating disagreement among people across religious and political lines, particularly on social media, where people become engaged in heated debates and many netizens add fuel to the fire by spreading false news and incendiary information.
This is why American social psychologist Jonathan Haidts 2012 book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (Vintage Books) is a timely read.
To provide wider comprehension of the book, Tempo media group, with bookstore Periplus Indonesia, organized a discussion called Bangsa yang terbelah: refleksi menguatnya intoleransi (A Nation Divided: Reflections on Growing Intolerance) late last month.
The discussion featured Jaringan Gusdurian national coordinator Alissa Wahid, Driyarkara philosophy academy boarding house advisor Greg Soetomo, as well as Nurcholish Madjid Society foundation head Muhamad Wahyuni Nafis. The discussion was moderated by senior Tempo media group editor Hermien Y. Kleden.
All speakers in the forum expressed concern over increasing bigotry and conflicts created by political and religious beliefs in Indonesia.
Quoting her late father, the late former Indonesian president and prominent Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) scholar Abdurrahman Wahid, Alissa warned of the Talibanization of the country.
[The Talibanization of Indonesia] hasnt happened yet, but there is a stronger tendency toward religious-based disunity, Alissa said.
Read also: Indonesia's Pakistanization: 'Your cousins are your potential enemies'
Muhamad, on the other hand, warned that the true test to our unity as a country would not happen in Februarys Jakarta gubernatorial election but instead during the 2019 presidential and legislative elections.
Todays condition can sow the seeds of conflict [in 2019]. We have learned from history that the first and biggest horizontal conflict happened when Muslims fought Muslims, Muhamad said, referring to the Sunni-Shia schism following the death of Prophet Muhammad in the year 632.
The most puzzling thing about the current political religious war is how many people seem to have lost reason, with many highly educated people trading bitter condemnations against others who are religiously and ideologically different through social media handles or WhatsApp groups.
Many people have wondered, how come people who are highly educated, who earned degrees in the United States, for example, fall into the trap of bigotry? All this time, people somehow assume that knowledge broadens peoples minds to be more open, but [Haidt explained that] its not true, Alissa said.
Haidt concludes in the book that the more advanced an individuals rational thinking capabilities, the more capable they are of justifying their harmful actions.
Read also: Managing communist-phobia in Indonesia
Citing several examples, the writer argues that morality is not guided by rational thinking but by intuition. This is why religion and politics are so divisive, because they touch upon our gut feelings. Humans are governed by six pillars of value, a spectrum that varies in proportion according to different ideological leanings: care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/ betrayal, authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation.
This is why, according to Haidt, to effectively combat bigotry, one needs to have immersive experience in a different environment from her/his religious and cultural backgrounds.
He cited his own experience when his empathy for Americas Republicans rose after living with religiously conservative people in India.
You dont have to devise ambitious projects to counteract bigotry and prevent conflict. You just need to communicate with people across different religions and ethnic groups and create discussions with them and let your circle expand, Alissa said, echoing Haidts notion of immersion.
Greg Soetomo, however, added some caveats against the book, arguing that it did not present a balanced multidisciplinary approach in discussing the issue of religious and political divisiveness.
The book is poor in references to sociology or politics, particularly in terms of field research results from both fields. As if these subjects have been swallowed by its philosophical and psychological approach, Greg said.
This is where Muhamad shared his political and social understanding on the issue, filling the gap left by Haidt.
Do people become religiously intolerant because of religious [dogmas] or because of social, political and economic variables? Muhamad pondered during the discussion. If you look at religious extremists who become brides [hard-liner term for suicide bombers], you will become aware that their lives are destitute.
Therefore, Muhamad believes it is unfair to create stereotypes in observing bigotry.
Its inaccurate to depict Islam as an agama keras [tough religion] because we know that terrorism exists in every religion. Terrorism has more to do with human beings sikap batin [spiritual attitude], embodied characteristics like petty-mindedness and the desire to take shortcuts in solving problems, Muhamad explained.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017 16:47 2091 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bfbb82d 1 Health workplace,sick,employees,office,contagious-presenteeism,#workplace,health,#health Free
Whether youve caught the common cold, a burning fever or the occasional sore throat, it is better to skip work rather than infect your co-workers with germs.
Dr. Peter McGough, medical director at the University of Washington health clinic in the United States, said, as quote by the Seattle Times, that if you have a fever over 38 degrees Celsius, or if youre aching all over, it is a good sign to stay home.
Going to the office when you are sick is called contagious presenteeism, and, according to Bloomberg, it makes the modern open office plan a breeding ground for catching illnesses.
Dr. McGough further says that workers experiencing acute symptoms of flu or any other illness need to stay at home because viruses are most contagious at their preliminary stage. However, he also said that If they cover their mouth and wash their hands, it may be okay.
Read also: Staying up late, the healthy way
It is even worse for people in the service industry to go to work when they are under the weather, because they could potentially affect the health of their customers and guests.
Dr. McGough believes that those who choose to go to work when they are ill tend to be people with limited or unpaid sick days, or people who feel like they will be disappointing their respective coworkers and bosses if they call in sick.
Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health in Seattle and King County in the state of Washington, also recommends self-quarantine during periods of illness and emphasizes the importance of the flu vaccine.
There are multiple respiratory viruses circulating and your current misery may be due to one of the non-influenza viruses, with the real flu still to come," he added. (nik/kes)
By Jesus Aguado and Angus Berwick MADRID (Reuters) - The Bank of Spain's former head and seven other Spanish regulatory officials will be placed under investigation over their roles in the ill-fated listing of the now state-controlled bank Bankia , a court ruled on Monday. The Bank of Spain said three of the eight - all top officials from its supervisory and inspection units - would resign on Tuesday because they did not want to affect the central bank's functions while testifying as part of the case. Bankia became a symbol of Spain's banking crisis when it was nationalised in 2012 through a 22.5 billion euro (19.04 billion pounds) bailout just a year after it was floated, wiping out its shareholders and triggering lengthy legal action. Spain's High Court said on Monday it would investigate former Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez and five other central bank officials. Two top officials of the CNMV stock market regulator at the time of the Bankia flotation - its former head Julio Segura and his then deputy Fernando Restoy, who is now at the Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements - were also placed under investigation. In the ruling, the High Court said there was evidence linking the officials to "criminality", after investigators studied emails from Bank of Spain inspectors who had warned against giving Bankia the go-ahead to float. "The emails' contents leave no doubt about the decisive information the Bank of Spain's management had in advance about (Bankia's) unviability and the fallacy of the results presented by the inspection team of the Bank of Spain," the court said. Investigating judge Fernando Andreu has now to formally notify the former and current officials when they must appear in court, a spokesman for Spain's High Court said. Fernandez Ordonez stepped down a month before the end of his six-year term as governor in 2012 at a time when a mounting pile of toxic assets at Spanish banks threatened to push the country into a bailout. The Bank of Spain declined to comment on Fernandez Ordonez's behalf and he could not immediately be contacted for comment. The CNMV said it respected the court's ruling but was convinced that the flotation was carried out correctly with professionalism and diligence. The Bank for International Settlements, which acts as a forum for the world's major monetary authorities, did not immediately reply to a request for comment regarding Restoy, who chairs its Financial Stability Institute. After restating its accounts in May 2012, Bankia revealed an almost 3 billion euro loss for 2011. Bankia replaced both its chairman and chief executive in 2012 and has bounced back from the losses that triggered its nationalisation. The government said in December it plans to privatise it before the end of 2019. The Spanish state, which owns 66 percent of Bankia, created it in 2010 by grouping together seven lenders which had been toppled by the country's property market crash. (Additional reporting by Rodrigo de Miguel; editing by David Holmes and Adrian Croft)
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Linkedin Sebastian Partogi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13 2017
A book discussion shares an effective way to fight social discord stemming from political and religious differences.
With the upcoming gubernatorial election in Jakarta, many have seen escalating disagreement among people across religious and political lines, particularly on social media, where people become engaged in heated debates and many netizens add fuel to the fire by spreading false news and incendiary information.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
The Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) has expressed doubt over the governments newly-launched gross-split sliding scale for the oil and gas upstream industry in its ability to apply to exploration industry contracts.
The contractors for the exploration industry are apparently not interested in the new scheme, as there is uncertainty over whether it could actually benefit them, Sammy Hamzah, Apindo chairman for energy and mineral resources, said on Sunday.
The gross-split indeed solves problems in the industry, but only for production contracts industries. However, it can be difficult to apply it to exploration contracts, as the split that the new scheme offers is not as interesting as a net split, Sammy said during a discussion at the Press Council secretariat in Jakarta.
(Read also:Pertamina uses gross-split to manage eight oil and gas blocks)
There were two things that contractors for exploration contracts wanted, namely legal certainty and options, he added.
The government should give [contractors] an option. Why does the government not provide the option for them to choose either the gross-split or other schemes? Why is the [gross-split] being forced? he said.
Investment in the exploration industry was reportedly stagnant for five years after regulation No. 22/2001 was approved, Sammy said, adding that it even declined after the five years of stagnancy.
He blamed the problem on the inconsistencies of follow-up regulations that came about after the regulation in 2001.
The government has recently introduced the gross-split scheme, which will release it from the duty to reimburse exploitation costs to contractors during the length of their contracts, forcing companies to carry the burden of these costs themselves. (yon/bbn)
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Linkedin Markus Makur (The Jakarta Post) Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara Mon, February 13, 2017
A Catholic church in the regency of Manggarai on Flores Island, East Nusa Tenggara, is encouraging its members to properly dispose of waste and to refrain from littering.
The public awareness campaign comes in response to the habit of some Ruteng residents to throw their household garbage into the river.
We have been calling on the congregation at every Sunday mass to keep the environment inside and outside the church clean. From time to time, we deliver sermons about keeping the environment in our neighborhoods clean, Rev. Lian Angkur, a Catholic priest in Ruteng in Manggarai regency, said Monday.
Rev. Angkur added that the church was also working with the young generation and NGOs related to waste management to sort plastic and non-plastic trash.
Yuvensius Janggat, an environmental activist from Village Prosperity, lamented recently that residents of Ruteng often threw trash into the rivers. Janggat said the citys dump site was already overloaded, with the administration bringing 27 tons of trash to the pit every day.
Manggarai regent Deno Kamelus said the administration and the Manggarai Council had deliberated a regulation to punish people for littering river areas. The regency had also told residents to take out household garbage only after 6 p.m., for city sanitation workers to pick up in the morning. (evi)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
As many school-aged children in Depok, West Java, do not have birth certificates, the city administration has advised parents to undergo the documentation process of such certificates through schools.
Depok Civil Registry and Demography Agency (Disdukcapil) head Misbahul Munir said the administration had instructed schools to assist in the process. The schools would submit requests to the city technical management unit (UPT) in the citys 11 districts, which have been tasked to accommodate the process, he said as quoted by wartakotalive.com on Monday.
Misbahul added that the lack of birth certificates could hinder the students from pursuing higher education, particularly in the registration and administrative process.
He said that two UPTs, in Cimanggis and in Tapos, had begun actively processing the birth certificate requests and hoped for more involvement from other units in the future.
We appreciate schools and UPTs that have actively participated in assisting in efforts to issue birth certificates for the children. Hopefully more people will submit requests to the UPT, he said. (fac)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Mon, February 13 2017
Nobel laureates in a variety of science fields recently gathered in Jakarta as part of the International Peace Foundations Bridges event, engaging local minds in Dialogues toward a culture of peace. In a country that has been struggling with scientific research and development, scientists Sir Richard J. Roberts and Sheldon L. Glashow spoke about the importance of research funding, fostering interest in the sciences and boosting relevant industries in Indonesia with The Jakarta Posts Tama Salim and Liza Yosephine. Here are excerpts from the interview:
Question (Q): As a developing country Indonesia is falling behind in scientific progress. Is there any way for us to catch up scientifically is there a shortcut? And how important is catching up?
Robert (R): Well, I mean, let me start off at least. So, one of the things thats happening in the developing world is the adoption of smart phones.
Cellphones, sort of went, people went from having no phones to having cell phones and they didnt bother with a land line and everything that went in between. And I think this was very smart. [...] And so, I think, yes, you can often skip areas of development that have taken place.
But what this means is, you have to be aware of what is going on in the rest of the world. And again this is why the internet can help. And I think the internet has been incredibly valuable.
Glashow (G): In Africa, this took some positive action by certain national governments because they had to, the stations had to be built, the towers had to be built.
Theyre not very expensive, as things go. Had that not been done, this explosion could not have taken place. So there is an infrastructure issue in this regard.
Q: Most of our state funds are allocated for infrastructure projects because we are still building our nation. So how can we legitimize the need for new technologies in other sectors?
R: One thing I dont have a good feel for is to what extent the government encourages entrepreneurs, helps entrepreneurs to get started and develop new industries. So this is something that the governments can do very well if they choose to do so.
One of the things is to make sure there are small amounts of funds available to get entrepreneurs started. Often they dont need very much.
G: There are also various international NGOs that can be helpful. But they only can be helpful with the cooperation of the government.
R: Because its the legislation that is necessary. And the other question is; do you overregulate?
One of the problems with GMOs [genetically modified organisms] is that because of the activists that have been against GMOs, there are just horrendous regulations in place. And so the small farmer, or the small researcher who might develop a new crop, it can cost so much to bring it to market that it will never get developed.
Again, this is an area where I think governments can play a huge role in limiting the amount of regulation that is necessary to bring your crops into being. [...]
Entrepreneurs work best when there are very few regulations, and the real entrepreneurs are the ones working in an area where there are no regulations whatsoever to start of with.
Its only after the entrepreneurs have shown what can be done, that all of a sudden the government decides theyve got to start regulating them.
So, the government is able to play a really significant role if it chooses to. [As] Shelly says, there are international funding agencies and NGOs, places that will be glad to help.
Q: Indonesias entire R&D budget is US$1.3 billion this year, and 75 percent of it is state managed despite calls for more involvement by the private sector. How do you see the role of government, in funding scientific research?
R: I think it very much depends from one field to another. That its different. For instance if you want to think about medicine, as an example. If you leave medicine solely to the private sector, you end up with the pharmaceutical disaster that we have in the US where the pharmaceutical companies will develop drugs that you have to take for the rest of your life.
Theyre not interested in trying to cure disease.
G: Or prevention.
R: They dont want prevention. Because they cant make money. They want something where they can constantly make money. So I think here again is a case where, you can learn from what has happened elsewhere in the world and perhaps adopt a new system in which you encourage research that will lead to prevention, that will lead to cures.
This is something that I think you almost certainly have to do, from the government and from charitable contributions. [...]
This is maybe a way in which one could get philanthropic individuals and then fund some area that many of them will support, so instead of spreading the money too far they really find some areas that are worth supporting. Medicine, I always think is a very good [example] because you have a healthy population, one in which [the population] is getting vaccinated and preventing many illnesses.
Q: The Indonesian education tradition breaks students into two groups: life sciences majors and social sciences majors. But when it comes to job-hunting, most of them inevitably go into management and/or banking. How do you cultivate an interest in continuing the pursuit of science for life?
R: Well, you just have to make sure that jobs are available.
That means developing industries that need scientists and making sure that these industries are available and there are jobs available for people.
Maybe paying them properly. You know, most people, when they first get started, theyre actually more interested in getting enough money to live than they are in anything else. What very often happens is managers make more money than scientists. Pay them properly, and you will have no problem in attracting them into these areas.
G: Yeah, that was the problem in Vietnam when I spoke to the minister of science in Vietnam, he wanted to expand the scientific capability of the country. [...] The problem is very simple. The salaries are so low in the universities that professors have to get contracts with industry and work in industry, they have no time at all to pursue other research.
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi and Damar Harsanto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
The governor is back:Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama (right), who is seeking a second term in office in the Feb. 15 gubernatorial election, is seen together with caretaker governor Sumarsono during the administration hand-over ceremony at City Hall on Saturday. Ahok returns to work on Monday after taking leave to campaign for re-election.
Just a day after taking back the reins as Jakarta governor, Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama faced an immediate challenge when parts of the capital were hit by flash floods on Sunday as a result of heavy downpours in West Java.
The Ciliwung River overflowed on Sunday evening, inundating some 700 homes in flood-prone areas of Kampung Arus, Kramatjati, East Jakarta, by up to 70 centimeters. Residents salvaged their belongings to higher ground in anticipation of worse to come.
The Jakarta Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) said incessant rain on Sunday in the upstream area of Bogor, Wst Java, had led to an increase in the water level at the Katulampa sluice gate in Bogor. Authorities raised the status at the Katulampa sluice gate to alert level 3, two counts off the top alert level.
The agency also warned residents of some areas along the Ciliwung River, such as Srengseng Sawah, Rawajati, Kalibata, Pengadengan, Bukit Duri, Cililitan and Kampung Melayu, to anticipate floods.
Separately, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) forecast that thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds would occur throughout Sunday in South Jakarta as well as in Bekasi and Depok, both in West Java.
Flooding has become an annual issue in the metropolis. With 14 rivers flowing through the city from upstream areas to the south and the Java Sea to the north and 40 percent of the area located below sea level, Jakarta is vulnerable to flooding.
Commenting on the latest flooding, Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat said the situation had eased off.
Thank God we see flooding easing now. There was heavy rain last night until this morning, but we are seeing the inundation quickly recede, Djarot said on Sunday. He attributed the reduced flooding to the administrations river-management efforts.
Djarot said the administration would ensure that river normalization would continue.
We dont want to let any projects be delayed. We found some cases of [delay] during our latest impromptu visits. We will focus on immediately settling those cases, Djarot asserted.
(Read also: Ahok returns to City Hall this weekend)
The Jakarta administration has conducted dredging work on rivers to alleviate flooding.
Ahok said earlier that he hoped Jakarta would be free from floods by 2022.
During the hand-over ceremony on Saturday, Ahok expressed his gratitude toward Sumarsono, who had acted as interim governor for about three-and-a-half months. Ahok praised Sumarsono for his hard work to resolve a dispute over the management of the Bantar Gebang dump site in Bekasi.
The landfill, which used to be managed by private parties, is currently managed by the Jakarta administration.
Sumarsono mentioned in the memorandum that he had secured as many as 136 plots of land for the construction of the citys first ever mass rapid transit (MRT).
Although the governor has come back to City Hall, Ahok will spend most of Monday at the Agriculture Ministrys auditorium in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, where a blasphemy trial against him is still ongoing.
The next hearing is expected to present expert witnesses from Ahoks camp to counter the charges.
One of Ahoks lawyers, Humphrey Djemat, said the four expert witnesses were Muhammad Amin Suma, a professor from Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), criminal law experts Mudzakkir and Abdul Chair Ramadhan, as well as Indonesian language expert Mahyuni.
Ahok-Djarot return to office ends three-months of campaign leave Flooding affects some 700 homes in East Jakarta
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Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13 2017
Jakarta-based employee Gizela Cindy has lost count of how many times she has visited Yogyakarta over the past several years with friends or family.
One thing that attracts the 23-year-old woman in particular is the folklore that is an inseparable part of each cultural heritage site in the province. Prambanan temple in Sleman regency, for instance, comes with a background of the legend of the unrequited love of prince Bandung Bondowoso for princess Roro Jonggrang.
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Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar, Bali Mon, February 13, 2017
After failing to answer the polices summons on Friday, the spokesman for the hardline Islam Defenders Front (FPI) Munarman finally reported to Bali Police on Monday for his first questioning as a suspect for allegedly insulting pecalang (traditional Balinese security guards).
Munarman arrived at the Bali Polices special crimes directorate office in Denpasar on Monday afternoon by himself and without a lawyer.
He was questioned in relation to his alleged remarks on the pecalang in June last year, Bali Polices special crimes director Sr. Comr. Kenedy said, adding that Mondays questioning followed the second summons police had issued for him.
In a discussion with Kompas media, Munarman had protested at how the media giant did not provide fair coverage of his group. He allegedly said that there were no news reports on pecalang who, he claimed, sometimes threw stones at Muslims houses and banned Muslims from performing prayers.
Munarman refused to comment to journalists on his arrival at the police office.
Police started the investigation following a report filed against him by an interfaith group in Bali in January. The Bali Police have accused Munarman of violating the Electronic Information and Transactions law (UU ITE) on spreading information to incite hatred, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.
Munarman and his lawyer lodged a pretrial motion last week challenging the polices move to charge him
Denpasar District Court has scheduled the first hearing of the pretrial challenge for Monday next week.
(Read also: FPI leader questioned for allegedly insulting rupiah)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
PT Freeport Indonesia spokesperson Riza Patrama has said that the company has not agreed on the conversion of its contracts of work (CoW) to special mining licenses (IUPK) with the Indonesian government.
We have not agreed because we have not seen the guarantee for investment certainty, Riza said, as reported by tempo.co on Monday.
Previously, the Indonesian government had announced that it had approved contract conversions for gold and copper miner PT Freeport Indonesia and copper producer PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara, allowing them to continue exports of their partially processed minerals.
(Read also: Indonesia approves Freeport, Amman contract conversion)
The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry had announced that after the issuance of the IUPK, Freeport could apply for an export permit from Indonesia after exports had been prohibited pending smelter construction.
As required by a revised government regulation that has partially lifted the ban on exports of raw and partially processed minerals, the two companies have reportedly converted their CoWs into IUPKs.
Riza said Freeport would sign the IUPK issued by the government if the agreement included investment stability with legal and fiscal certainty, as the CoW had.
He said such certainty was important for Freeport's long-term investments in Indonesia. (bbn)
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Linkedin Syamsul Huda M. Suhari (The Jakarta Post) Gorontalo Mon, February 13, 2017
The Gorontalo Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) after having removed all campaign paraphernalia by Feb. 12 at 12 a.m. has admitted to facing difficulties in preventing netizens from campaigning through social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.
In a Facebook group called Gorontalo Satu, which has almost 14,000 members, several personal accounts were still submitting campaign posts for candidates No. 1 and No. 3: Hanah Hasanah Fadel-Tony Yunus and Zainuddin Hasan-Adhan Dambea.
Another group, called Portal Gorontalo, with more than 188,000 members, had some posts with images campaigning against a particular candidate pair.
(Read also: Jakarta election battle goes on as netizens ignore cooling-off period)
Bawaslu Gorontalo head, Siti Haslina Said, said her agency was having a hard time ensuring that social media adhered to the rules of the cooling-off period from Feb. 12 to Feb. 14. We cannot do much about this, especially to those campaigning using personal accounts, she said Monday.
The offline world, however, was easier to manage. As of Monday morning, Bawaslu Gorontalo, in cooperation with the police and the Transportation Agency, had taken down about 80 percent of campaign paraphernalia from the streets throughout Gorontalo province.
At 12 a.m. on Sunday, the Election Supervisory Committee [Panwaslu] in each of the six regencies and municipality began taking down the paraphernalia, Haslina said.
The officers also visited bus terminals and asked drivers to peel off campaign stickers. (evi)
Rex
Sectors of the UK economy which are heavily reliant on EU nationals are starting to experience skills and labour shortages, with research suggesting that the squeeze could be down to fewer EU workers seeking jobs in Britain in the wake of last years Brexit vote.
Despite a record number of national job vacancies - about 748,000 according to ONS data - UK bosses are finding it difficult to hire the right candidates due to a shortage of available workers, according to a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the Adecco Group. The survey shows that almost half of all the vacancies are in the retail and wholesale, manufacturing, health and accommodation and food services industries.
The report, which was based on data from over 1,000 employers, also shows that more than a quarter of employers also believe that the EU nationals they employ are considering leaving their jobs and possibly the country in 2017.
This is creating significant recruitment challenges in sectors that have historically relied on non-UK labour to fill roles, Gerwyn Davies, labour market adviser for the CIPD, said. He said that people who fill those role tend to be particularly vulnerable to the prospect of future changes to EU immigration policy.
He said that with skills and labour shortages set to continue, theres a risk that many positions will be left unfilled which in turn could act as a brake on output growth in the UK in the years ahead.
The growth in the number of non-UK nationals from the EU working in the UK almost halved from an average of more than 60,000 per quarter in the nine months leading up to the June referendum to just 30,000 in the three months to September 2016, said CIPD, citing ONS data.
John Marshall, chief executive at The Adecco Group for the UK and Ireland, said the big decision that Britain took last year is beginning to show in the UK labour market.
Whilst the outcome of Brexit negotiations is still uncertain, employers access to EU migrant workers is likely to change. Investing in young people is a solid long-term strategy, but employers also need to face the facts and prepare for a situation where they might lose access to significant numbers of skilled EU workers in the near future, Mr Marshall said.
Story continues
Last month, campaigners have urged Prime Minister Theresa May to end the uncertainty affecting millions of EU citizens living in the UK by guaranteeing their right to remain in the country after Brexit.
A joint statement issued by the 3 million campaigners whose aim it is to to preserve the rights of British citizens in Europe and Europeans in the UK after Brexit and several migrant rights groups, called for a guarantee to be made before Article 50 is triggered.
Ms May has set a deadline of the end of March to begin renegotiating Britains position in Europe.
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13 2017
Even though the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN) has granted a lawsuit filed by Bukit Duri residents against an eviction by the city administration, residents appear to doubt Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama will obey the ruling.
We have been notified that we will have a new hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court on Feb. 14. I heard the Jakarta administration will submit evidence to justify the eviction, Bukit Duri resident lawyer Vera Soemarwi said on the sidelines of a discussion over the weekend.
Vera added that the court in its decision had ordered the administration to pay compensation to the evictees, adding that the 94 plaintiffs had demanded Rp 1 trillion (US$75 million) in compensation.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
Gus Irawan Pasaribu, the chairman of House of Representatives Commission VII overseeing energy and mineral resources, has said the House is currently drafting a bill that will serve as the legal basis for a special energy holding company for state-owned enterprises in the energy sector.
Gus said the holding company would coordinate at least four state-owned enterprises in the energy sector.
First, a company that deals with the upstream oil and gas businesses; second, a company that will manage the affairs presently being handled by the Upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Special Task Force (SKKMigas); third, a company for the downstream oil industry; and fourth, a company for the downstream gas industry.
All the companies will fall under the purview of the special energy holding company, Gus said as reported by kompas.com on Monday.
Under the new system, Gus said the position of Pertamina, as a national oil company, would be different from private oil and gas cooperation contract holders.
(Read also: Pertamina eyes more cashless transactions at gas stations)
Currently, to get a contract, Pertamina also needs to follow the tender. With the new oil and gas law, the authority for exploration will be held by the special state-owned national oil company, Gus added.
Meanwhile, the deputy minister at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Archandra Tahar, said the government did not have a position on whether the ruling on SKKMigas would be included in the oil and gas bill. He also said the government had not discussed the issue. (bbn)
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13 2017
Although the active campaigning period has ended and the regional elections have entered the cooling-off period from Feb. 12 to Feb. 14 until polling day on Feb. 15, this has not stopped some candidates from canvassing, a corruption watchdog says.
Racing against time, candidates effort to win over voters are, on the contrary, escalating, with some trying to literally buy votes with cash, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Donal Fariz has warned.
Vote buying has occurred in Bekasi regency and Banten during the campaign period. We believe vote-buying practices will become more frequent during the cooling-off period, Donal said during a discussion at the ICW office, South Jakarta.
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Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
In a bid to eradicate unfair business practices in the health sector, which drives up health costs, and to provide affordable quality healthcare services, the Health Ministry has joined hands with the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU).
One of the challenges faced by the countrys health sector concerns the pharmaceutical industry, the ministrys director general for pharmaceutical and health equipment, Maura Linda Sitanggang, said.
A report submitted by Indonesia to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2014 stated that the basic problem in the countrys pharmaceutical sector is the relationship between doctors and companies, as doctors for commission frequently acted as agents for companies.
The report said these doctors would allegedly receive bonuses from prescribing specific drugs from certain companies.
Many believe the practices have prevented patients from receiving options in the medicines they should be prescribed.
The KPPU found in its internal study that doctors who allegedly acted as agents for pharmaceutical companies would allegedly receive as much as 30 percent of the marketing fee.
This, coupled with the fact that the country still imports 90 percent of its raw materials for the industry, have made some drug prices exorbitantly high, especially when it comes to high-quality medicines.
On Friday, the ministry signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) where the KPPU aimed to monitor the health industry more closely, especially on health services and drugs. The MoU will specifically monitor for the adherence of a 2015 ministry regulation that stipulates patients must receive information on the options they have on medicines with the same content, but may vary in price.
We will actively monitor [the implementation of the regulation] with pharmacist associations, KPPU chairman Muhammad Syarkawi Rauf said.
In Indonesia, prescribed drugs can be divided into three groups, namely patent, off-patent (branded generic), and generic. Off-patent drugs are patented drugs repackaged with a new brand. The price is lower compared to patented ones but are still much more expensive than generic substitutes.
The problematic one are the prices of off-patent drugs, which are very expensive. If theyre offpatent, it means that there are generic drugs [that can be substituted], Linda said.
The report also showed an example on how patients could pay much higher prices for drugs prescribed by their doctors. For typical illnesses like the common cold, doctors were found to have prescribed off-patent drugs and vitamins, with a combined cost that could stand at Rp 265,400 (US$20).
But there are currently two alternative medications for the cold, both of which are much cheaper. The first alternative would cost only Rp 131,800, while the cheapest alternative costs Rp 19,350. Both drugs have the same basic content, thus are equivalent with the off-patent variant.
Linda said since the ministrys regulation came into effect in 2016 less complaints had been received by the ministry, however, it would strengthen monitoring to ensure patients had more options.
Furthermore, with help from the KPPU, Linda said the ministry expected the implementation of the regulation to become more effective in the future.
In the long run, the ministry is hoping the countrys pharmaceutical industry will take off so that it can produce cheaper alterna- tives to off-patent drugs.
However, it might take at least a decade before the sector can produce as now the country still lags behind in supporting research and innovation, which makes up the industrys core.
We have a 15-year roadmap, which in the end aims to transform our pharmaceutical industry into an innovative industry. The first five years will focus on cooperation and transfer of technology. The second five years will focus on acquiring the technology. And the last five years is when we start creating [our own] new products, she added.
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said on Monday that the government would wait for the government of Saudi Arabia to provide compensation for Indonesians killed and injured in the collapse of a crane at the Al-Haram Grand Mosque in Mecca in 2015.
Lukman explained the Indonesian government had completed the administrative documents in regard to Indonesians who were victims of the tragedy as required by the Saudi authorities.
We asked the government of Saudi Arabia to provide the compensation to us as soon as we completed the required documents but they asked us to wait as they preferred to distribute the money simultaneously with other countries' victims, Lukman said.
According to Lukman, the governor of Mecca had been appointed to assure compensation was paid to all victims as the Indonesian Consulate General Office in Jeddah continued to monitor the process.
Saudi Arabia has pledged to the Indonesian government that it will provide 1 million riyals (US$266,607) in compensation for every dead or permanently disabled victim of the collapsed crane, and 500,000 riyals for the less badly injured.
Twelve Indonesians were killed during the incident last year while 49 were injured. (dan)
(Read also: Indonesian haj victims feel abandoned by Saudi)
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
The first day of the regional election cooling-off period on Sunday saw the battle for Jakartas top post continue to rage, with netizens ignoring the General Elections Commission (KPU) request to keep the three days before the election free of disputation.
On Twitter, many accounts and buzzers are still tweeting campaign-related posts, either endorsing or mocking the respective candidates. As of Sunday evening, the social media giant had several hashtags related to the candidates.
Many netizens supporting incumbent pair Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama Djarot Saiful Hidayat tagged #BadjaKembaliKerja to mark the first day of the pair returning to office as active governor and deputy governor.
The occasion was turned into campaign material by the pairs supporters.
Other netizens used the hashtag to mock Ahok, writing that he was should have been suspended as governor because of his ongoing trial for blasphemy.
Buzzers endorsing Ahok were also still active encouraging netizens to vote for him.
Meanwhile hashtag #GuePilihAgus was also going viral, with posters endorsing the Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni ticket, mostly posting photos of the pair. The hashtag recorded around 7,200 tweets as of Sunday evening.
There is also the hashtag #SaatnyaJakartaBerSATU. Many netizens refer to Agus-Sylvi as candidate No. 1 and satu means one. Some have used it to satirize the pair by undermining its programs.
Supporters of Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno have also enthusiastically joined the fray, with some promoting the pairs OKOCE entrepreneur center.
The KPU has prohibited all campaign-related activities from Feb. 12 to 14. Under Article 187 on the 2016 Regional Elections Law, anyone who campaigns beyond the period determined by the KPU could face a maximum three years imprisonment or fines of up to Rp 1 million (US$75.07).
In addition, a 2016 KPU regulation stipulates that during the cooling-off period, no mass media or broadcasting institution may broadcast ads, candidate track records or political party statements, either negative or endorsing, about any of the candidates.
However, it appears voters social media accounts fall outside this prohibition.
KPU commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay acknowledged the commission had no authority to stop campaigning on social media and could do nothing other than call on people not to campaign during the cooling-off period.
We admit that current regulations arent enough to cover this matter. Well find a way in the future, Hadar said.
Political communications expert Hendri Satrio of Paramadina University said no one could stop netizens because social media use was personal and free expression was guaranteed under the Constitution.
The prohibition only applies to the candidates and official supporters and volunteers, but for individuals, its difficult. And this can influence voters, because they still have Monday and Tuesday to think before deciding whether they will stick with or change their choice, Hendri said.
Hendri added that social media would not be the only influence on voters, but also personal messengers, such as messenger groups on WhatsApp, Line and Blackberry Messenger. Theyre also powerful, he said.
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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has instructed Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly to meet with House of Representatives leaders to speed up deliberation of amendments to the Terrorism Law.
Jokowi summoned Yasonna to the State Palace on Monday to brief him on the deliberation, which has been stalled on the roles of law enforcement bodies in counterterrorism.
The process has been dragging [at the House]. We need to reach a common understanding on the issue in order to speed up the discussion of the law. Its been around one year now but it's nowhere near completed, Yasonna told reporters at the State Palace on Monday.
(Read also: Women playing greater role in terrorism)
He said the recent growing protests against US President Donald Trumps controversial immigration policy could inspire domestic radical groups to carry out attacks in Indonesia.
Dont let something happen first before we move to speed up the discussion of the law at the House, Yasonna said.
Yasonna said the House and the government were still discussing whether to expand the definition of terrorism in the revision of the law and whether to strengthen de-radicalization programs in the future. (wit)
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Linkedin Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Semarang Mon, February 13, 2017
Dozens of people allegedly destroyed and burned the Struggle Tent, which was erected by Mount Kendeng farmers in protest of the construction of cement factories in the Pati and Rembang regencies on Friday evening following a blockade carried out by the anti-cement camp earlier in the day.
Ngatiban, one of the farmers who reported the case to the Central Java Police in Semarang, said he knew some of the perpetrators. I knew six of them, he said, adding that he knew them as people who supported the construction of the cement factory in Rembang regency operated by PT Semen Indonesia.
So far, it has been the first violent conflict to occur between residents who supported and residents who opposed the construction of the cement factory.
The farmers said the alleged vandalism happened at 8 p.m. on Friday, when there were eight people in the tent, six of them women. The anti-cement farmers had the tent erected since 2013, when they began their movement.
(Read also: Kendeng farmers blockade cement factory)
Accompanied by Ivan Wagner from the Semarang Legal Aid Institute (LBH Semarang), 11 farmers reported the case to the police. Seven of them were eyewitnesses of the destruction and four were farmer activists from the Mount Kendeng Community Network.
Ngatiban said he saw one of the perpetrators recording the action and that eight people inside the tent did not fight back as they felt afraid.
The factory in Gunem district, Rembang regency, began construction in June 2014 and cost Semen Indonesia Rp 4.9 trillion (US$367 billion).
Semen Indonesia corporate secretary Agung Wiharto told The Jakarta Post on Friday that although the construction had almost finished, the company halted the project after Governor Ganjar Pranowo issued a decree on Jan. 16 to revoke their environmental permit. We obeyed the law. We have laid off 3,000 workers but we kept 400 people to maintain the assets, he said. (evi)
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Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram Mon, February 13, 2017
Panca Nugraha
The Jakarta Post/Mataram
The Mataram Immigration Office in West Nusa Tenggara deported Choi Chung-hyun on Monday due to a visa violation.
We deported him [Choi] today from the Lombok International Airport because he misused his visa. He claimed to be a professor from a university in Korea, Mataram Immigration officer Rahmat Gunawan said.
Rahmat explained that Choi came to Indonesia using a tourist visa six months ago. However, he opened an education course under the name PT Elite Academy Korea. The immigration office found out later that Choi sat as deputy director of the company.
Immigration officials became suspicious after Choi requested a visa extension in Mataram a week ago.
There were some irregularities and so our team looked into his activities and we found out that he misused his visa. Therefore we immediately deported him because he had a tourist visa but he opened up a commercial business here without paying taxes, Rahmat said.
The Mataram Immigration Office recorded that they have deported 20 foreigners in 2017 alone, including from China and Timor Leste. Last year, they deported 112 foreigners from several countries due to visa violations. (yan)
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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
Representatives of Muhammadiyah visited President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo at the State Palace on Monday to invite him to open the organizations tanwir (enlightenment) meeting in Ambon, the capital of Maluku, next week.
The meeting which is just one level below the organizations most important event, the congress is scheduled to take place from Feb. 24 to Feb. 26 to discuss nation issues with 400 top executives of the organization and some ministers.
The tanwir will also discuss global affairs, but the events agenda does not include the selection of a new Muhammadiyah chairman, unlike the congress," Muhammadiyah secretary general Abdul Muti told reporters.
(Read also: Extremism becoming more common: Muhammadiyah)
The countrys second-largest Muslim organization with some 30 million followers says it chose Maluku as the location for its second-biggest event, because the province has been through a special period of social harmony following violent sectarian conflict a decade ago.
The President, along with the organization and the city administration of Ambon, will launch two projects, namely the University of Muhammadiyah and the Moluccas Muhamadiyah Hospital. (dan)
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Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
Private carrier Sriwijaya Air plans to open direct flights from Surabaya to Jayapura in Papua, starting from Feb. 24.
Previously, passengers with the airline on flights to and from Papua had to pass through cities like Ujung Pandang in South Sulawesi.
"There is rising mobility through this route. With this flight, passengers can fly back and forth between Surabaya and Jayapura in a matter of a few hours," Sriwijaya Air senior manager for corporate communications Agus Soedjono said in an official statement.
(Read also: Sriwijaya Air to offer regular flights to China)
The flights will be available four times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
The airline will deploy Boeing 737 800 NG with a capacity of 189 passengers for the flight.
Sriwijaya Air currently operates 54 domestic and regional routes. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
Two alleged robbers, identified only as IM, 19, and M, 20, were shot dead by Medansatria Police officers in Bekasi, West Java, on Sunday. The police claimed the suspects attacked the officers while resisting arrest.
Both of the robbers fired at police officers using homemade firearms, Medansatria Police chief Comr. Sukadi said as quoted by wartakotalive.com on Sunday. He said the men were known to be ruthless robbers.
Sukadi explained that his officers received a report on Sunday from residents living near a well-known dining area in Medansatria. The residents became suspicious about five men riding three motorcycles in the area. They circled the location several times.
The officers directly visited the location to investigate the men. The men noticed the police presence and tried to escape.
Two of them managed to flee, while another one, WS, 23, was arrested by the officers.
The officers also seized three homemade firearms, six 38-caliber bullets, five 39-caliber bullets, a machete, a screwdriver, an L key and three T keys from the three men. (vny/evi)
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Linkedin Fathiya Dahrul and Harry Suhartono (Bloomberg) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017
Indonesian business tycoon Tahir is keen to gain control of PT Bank Permata, a larger rival to his PT Bank Mayapada International, as he seeks to put his lender in the ranks of the nations biggest banks.
Tahirs Mayapada Group wants to buy the 90 percent of Permata that is owned by Standard Chartered Plc and PT Astra International and merge it with Bank Mayapada to create Indonesias largest non-government bank by assets after PT Bank Central Asia, he said. The group has been buying shares of Permata from the market since November, said Tahir, who uses only one name. Standard Chartered and Astra own 45 percent each in Permata.
A merger will help Tahir, whose businesses range from health care to media and real estate, to expand Bank Mayapadas footprint and compete more effectively with state-run lenders and BCA. Tahir is betting financial services will be among the businesses best placed to benefit from the expansion in Southeast Asias largest economy, and said hes confident of tackling a surge in bad loans at Permata that has weighed on the stocks performance.
Permata, in my guess, is facing a tough time on the nonperforming loans, Tahir said in an interview at his office in South Jakarta. I dont see the reason why Standard Chartered needs to keep Permata. My strategy is, if the shareholders of Bank Mayapada can have a chance to buy out Bank Permata, then it must be merged with Bank Mayapada."
(Read also: Mayapadas new shareholder seals final approval)
A spokesman for Standard Chartered declined to comment on Tahirs interest in Permata and said the U.K. bank is committed to Indonesia, a market that it considers to be strategically important. Tira Ardianti, head of investor relations for Astra, said it will continue to support Permata. A spokesman for Permata didnt respond to e-mailed request for comments.
Permata is Indonesias fifth-largest private-sector bank, with assets of 171 trillion rupiah ($12.8 billion). Its gross non-performing loans ratio was 4.9 percent in the quarter ended Sept. 30, according to its website. Thats higher than the 3.2 percent average among the nations top banks, Financial Services Authority data show. Mayapadas ratio stood at 2.4 percent at the end of September, according to Indonesia Stock Exchange figures.
Moodys Investors Service said on Feb. 9 that pressure on Permatas negative outlook remained because of deteriorating asset quality and profitability, as well as uncertainties over future support from its existing key shareholders.
Mergers between smaller banks can help them speed up their growth rate and bolster their books, said Andy Ferdinand, head of research at PT Samuel Sekuritas Indonesia. By moving into the top tier, they will be allowed to do more businesses by the regulator, he said.
At least three banks have offered to finance Mayapada group in an acquisition of Permata, Tahir said. If it fails to complete a takeover, the group will scout for another lender, he said.
Bank Mayapada is Indonesias 11th-largest non-state bank, with assets of 53.8 trillion rupiah. A merger with Permata will spawn an entity with about 400 branches and more than 10,000 employees. Bank Mayapada had a market value of 12.3 trillion rupiah as of Friday, less than Permatas 16.1 trillion rupiah. Permata rallied as much as 5.4 percent to 785 rupiah on Monday, the highest intraday level since May 11.
Shares of Permata have gained 38 percent this year after sliding at least 35 percent in each of the previous two years. Mayapada is 21 percent lower in 2017 following two years of advance. (dan)
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Linkedin Haeril Halim, Apriadi Gunawan and Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Medan/Medan/Makasar Mon, February 13, 2017
Despite tough immigration policies introduced by United States President Donald Trump, American representatives in Medan and Makassar have begun to resettle Rohingya Muslim refugees, giving light to the countrys recently eclipsed image as the worlds beacon of democracy, freedom and tolerance.
The refugees from Myanmar whose boats washed ashore in Aceh two years ago, have passed interviews conducted by the US Consulate in Medan, North Sumatra, with the assistance of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Juha P. Salin, US Consul for Medan confirmed the transfer of Rohingya refugees to America, adding that the process would be conducted gradually.
These cases are being processed continually and those who have the approved travel documents can travel to the US, said Salin.
He refused, however, to confirm the number of Rohingya refugees who had been permitted to resettle in the US.
Trump had ordered a fourmonth hold on allowing refugees into the US and a temporary ban on travelers from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, which he said would protect Americans from violent Islamists.
The executive order has been blocked by the lower courts, but immigration authorities have continued to conduct raids across major cities in America.
The Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph R. Donovan has reassured Indonesia that the executive order will not affect the American value of religious tolerance.
Both Americans and Indonesians are very tolerant people at their core and I believe that these values that we share, the importance of tolerance and respect for religious beliefs, particularly other peoples religious beliefs, are the kind of values that will prevail in both of our societies, Donovan said earlier.
(Read also: Rohingya refugees in Indonesia worried by Trump presidency)
The resettlement process for Rohingya refugees in Indonesia began in November after the US Consulate in Medan started to interview the 184 Rohingya Muslims, stranded in Aceh.
The process, however, did not involve Rohingya refugees stranded in Medan for a longer period of time.
About 800 Rohingyas are currently staying in Indonesia, all of whom have been granted refugee status by the UNHCR.
According to a Rohingya refugee who was not included in the resettlement process, at least three had already flown to the US in the resettlement program.
Yudi Kurniadi, the head of North Sumatra Immigration Office, said Trumps policy had not affected the asylum applications of Rohingya refugees because Myanmar was not on the list of Trumps banned countries.
Several Rohingya refugees were sent to the US this month. This was the first batch since the inauguration of Trump as US President, Yudi told The Jakarta Post.
Yudi said the refugees from the province sent to the US over the past few months were only those from Myanmar. Some others had been sent to Australia and Canada.
Medan hosts 2,089 refugees, 390 of whom are from Afghanistan, 363 from Sri Lanka, 490 from Myanmar, 283 from Somalia, 279 from Palestine and 129 from Iran.
Their destination countries include the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
In Makassar, South Sulawesi, Zarida, another refugee from Myanmar currently living in the city, is also scheduled to be sent to the US on Feb. 14.
Zarida has been staying in Makassar since 2013. The city hosts 1,900 refugees from the Middle East and 60 from Myanmar.
Ramli, the head of the South Sulawesi immigration office, said Zaridas departure to the US was facilitated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
She passed the verification process and so she will be sent to the US on Feb. 14, said Ramli.
Zarida was first discovered as an undocumented immigrant four years ago in the city.
She was later verified and granted refugee status under the supervision of the IOM.
US begins to resettle Rohingya refugees, transferred from Indonesia Myanmar not subject to Trumps executive order
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Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Majalengka Tue, February 14 2017
Despite slow progress and tight deadlines to obtain cash and acquire land, province-owned enterprise Bandara Internasional Jawa Barat (BIJB) is upbeat that it can open the Kertajati Airport in the first quarter of 2018.
Located in Majalengka, West Java, the new airport, worth Rp 10 trillion (US$750.36 million), may need 1,800 hectares for its multi-phase development.
BIJB president director Virda Dimas Ekaputra said that despite the fact that overall progress had only reached 30.1 percent for the land side, or non-airstrip part of the airport, the firm was optimistic it could finish the construction of the airport in November and start operations in March next year.
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Linkedin Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, February 14 2017
A contemporary adaption of Wiro Sableng as a feature film has caught the eye of 20th Century Fox and is set to be released in 2018.
The Indonesian literary scene has given birth to numerous anti-hero characters whose stories have been accepted by many as folktales.
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Linkedin News Desk (Associated Press) Dhaka Mon, February 13, 2017
A Malaysian aid ship was heading to a Bangladeshi port Monday bringing relief goods for some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who've fled Myanmar.
Shaheenul Islam, the military's public relations spokesman, said the ship anchored near Sonadia island off the coastal district of Cox's Bazar then had to be sent to Chittagong because the island had no unloading jetty facilities.
"There has been a change after the ship anchored near Cox's Bazar town. Now it is heading back to Chittagong seaport where the port authorities will arrange everything," Islam said. "This is purely an issue of how the goods would be unloaded, no other issues are involved."
"There will be an official handing over ceremony tomorrow morning and then the goods will be sent to Teknaf," he said.
(Read also: US accepts Rohingya refugees from Indonesia)
Ali Hossain, chief government administrator in Cox's Bazar, said they had received a list of goods to be unloaded from the ship, but the plan was changed as Malaysian authorities wanted better handling infrastructure.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are camping in Teknaf officially and in unregistered camps.
The ship is carrying around 2,300 tons of food, medicine and other supplies.
Rohingya Muslims have long faced discrimination in majority-Buddhist Myanmar.
More than 300,000 have been living in Bangladesh for decades, while about 66,000 more have crossed the border since October amid renewed persecution and targeted attacks by soldiers and majority Buddhists in Myanmar's Rakhine state. (dan)
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Linkedin Ming Teoh (The Star/Asia News Network) Mon, February 13, 2017
Its Valentines Day on Feb 14 and perhaps its short notice to book last-minute flights. Maybe you can keep in mind these suggestions for next year for that romantic getaway. But why wait till that comes around again, you can be romantic any time and perhaps that would be much more appreciated than to wait for a designated day.
Ubud, Bali
Stone road on the top of the hill in Ubud, Bali. Theres nothing quite like waking up to padi field views from your Balinese villa in Ubud. (Shutterstock/-)
Theres nothing quite like waking up to padi field views from your Balinese villa in Ubud. Ubud is about 40km from the Ngurah Rai (Denpasar) International Airport in Kuta and easily accessible by taxi. Its fairly easy to get around. You can rent a car to bring you around, or even hop on a motorbike, or bicycle.
As a hub for traditional arts and crafts, and dance, the town offers many attractions including the Ubud Art Market where you can buy souvenirs and even decorative items for your home. Visit the beautiful Tegallalang padi terraces for a scenic walk; sacred Ubud Monkey Forest which is a nature reserve-cum-temple complex comprising three temples; Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave), a major archaeological site with relic-filled courtyard, wall-rock carvings, caves, bathing pools and fountains; Puri Saren Agung (Ubud Royal Palace); or enjoy a romantic couples spa. Dine at one of the many restaurants with breathtaking scenery of the sun setting over padi terraces.
(Read also: Eight of the most romantic hotels around the world)
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Angkor wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Besides the extensive Angkor temples to explore; enjoying the sunset from the temple tops; and the many photographic opportunities available, there are also many other things to see and do in Siem Reap.(Shutterstock/File)
The gateway to the Angkor ruins never ceases to strike a chord of romanticism in adventurous couples. After all, it is the filming location for Angelina Jolies Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Besides the extensive Angkor temples to explore; enjoying the sunset from the temple tops; and the many photographic opportunities available, there are also many other things to see and do in Siem Reap.
Visit Les Chantiers EcolesArtisans Angkor, an art centre where you can see traditional techniques employed in wood- and stone-carving, silk painting, lacquerwork, and other artisan skills; and also purchase clothing, accessories, and home deco items at Psar Chaa (market); ; Phare the Cambodian Circus, which is a performing arts circus and uses no animals; and the Angkor National Museum. There are also many cosy cafes and restaurants where you can savour Khmer and fusion cuisine.
(Read also: 'Love Bridge in Nusa Penida opens late February)
Hanoi, Vietnam
Stroll around the tranquil Hoan Kiem Lake, which surrounds Ngoc Son Temple, an island pagoda in the middle of the lake.(Shutterstock/Xita)
Stroll around the tranquil Hoan Kiem Lake, which surrounds Ngoc Son Temple, an island pagoda in the middle of the lake. It is a popular spot to people-watch and hangout. Take a walk through the Hanoi Old Quarter where you can experience the real Vietnam of old colonial architecture, endless streams of two-wheelers (motorcycles, scooters and bicycles) and other four-wheeled vehicles weaving through narrow streets, around pedestrians and traders; souvenir stalls; and coffee shops offering scrumptious Vietnamese delicacies.
You can also visit the Hanoi Opera House to enjoy Vietnamese opera, dance performances, sketches, and music concerts by international artistes; Dong Xuan Market, where you can buy clothing, accessories and souvenirs; watch the Water Puppet Theatre; and visit other places of interest like the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long; Temple of Literature; Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum; and Perfume Pagoda. Dine at romantic restaurants that offer Vietnamese and fusion cuisine with spectacular night views of the city skyline.
Krabi, Thailand
If you love the beaches, sea, and sun, then fly to Krabi, Thailand. Learn how to make authentic Thai cuisine at one of the four cooking schools; enjoy a stimulating couples spa or Thai massage; go on a longtail or speed boat tour to Railey Beach, Phi Phi Island, Koh Lanta, Ko Hong, Ko Poda and Ko Gai (Chicken Island); and hike in the Thung Teao Forest Natural Park to the Emerald and Crystal Pools where you can take a dip; or the Klong Thom Hot Springs which is nearby. You can also visit Wat Tham Sua (Tiger Cave) and Phra Nang Cave Beach. For active couples, you might enjoy scuba diving, snorkelling, rock-climbing or kayaking too. Enjoy the spectacular sunset views as you dine at one of the beach side restaurants serving authentic Thai or fusion cuisine.
(Read also: Seven ways to survive Valentines Day as a single)
Hong Kong
Hong Kong promises to be a shoppers paradise where you can definitely find the perfect gift for your loved one.(Shutterstock/ProjectD)
From upmarket malls at Admiralty, Central and SoHo; to endless retail outlets at Causeway Bay, on Hong Kong island; to Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district and Mong Kok where the Ladies Market is located, on Kowloon island; Hong Kong promises to be a shoppers paradise where you can definitely find the perfect gift for your loved one. But more than that, its also a gourmands delight. Some of the delicacies you can savour together with your loved one are dimsum; seafood; wanton noodles, and beef brisket noodles. Be inspired by a breathtaking night view of the city skyline from Victorias Peak (The Peak), the highest point of the island. Whats more, there are also restaurants up there where you can enjoy either Western, Chinese or Japanese cuisine.
Or, if you prefer, go on a ferry boat ride to enjoy the spectacular night harbour and city skyline view from ground level. Just head to Star Ferry Pier (Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier). Theme park enthusiasts can enjoy exciting rides and shows at Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park Hong Kong. Enjoy a leisurely stroll at Kowloon Park or go for a performance at Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
This article appeared on The Star newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017 17:11 2091 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bfbe584 1 News Airbnb,#Airbnb,neighbors,complaints,Airbnb-Neighbors,travel,#travel,Accommodation Free
Due to a growing number of complaints from neighbors of Airbnb hosts about unpleasant strangers entering their vicinity, the accommodation-sharing site has introduced an avenue for them to give feedback.
Airbnb Neighbors is an additional tool in the companys ratings function. It serves as a platform that allows dissatisfied neighbors to publicly disclose their issues with listings situated nearby to them.
According to The Verge, neighbors can visit Airbnb Neighbors and choose from four categories to voice their concerns. These categories comprise noise and parties, problems with common space (parking and trash), criminal activity or general concerns about the hosts. Their comments will be anonymous and the company has confirmed that it will respond promptly to the opinions of neighbors.
(Read also: Recommended Airbnb rentals in Bandung for Instagrammers)
"Well treat each case seriously and ensure that we give hosts and their neighbors the opportunity to resolve their concerns themselves, wherever possible," stated Airbnb.
The company also said hosting was a big responsibility and that misbehavior would eventually lead to suspension or removal from the Airbnb community.
According to The Wall Street Journal, "complaints were previously handled through the General Help section on Airbnbs website, which is built primarily for renters and hosts.
This led to many neighbors of Airbnb hosts taking to social media platforms like Twitter and Reddit to complain. (nik/kes)
Oprah Winfrey will take a cruise this summer in a place she's never been before: Alaska.
The trip launches a partnership between O, The Oprah Magazine, and Holland America Line, according to an announcement Thursday by the cruise company and Hearst magazines.
The partnership will include programming for 300 Holland America cruises developed in collaboration with O magazine. Onboard activities designed to "bring the magazine to life" will include meditation, tai chi, healthy cooking demonstrations, a book club and more.
The cruises will take place this year and next year in North America and the Caribbean. Four trips will feature appearances by members of the "SuperSoul 100," a group of entrepreneurs, authors, artists and others deemed inspirational by Winfrey.
(Read also: 24 cruise ships slated to visit Lombok throughout 2017)
The inaugural Alaska trip on Holland America's Eurodam ship will embark from Seattle July 15 and will visit Alaskan ports in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. The itinerary also includes a day of scenic cruising through Glacier Bay National Park and a stop in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, before returning to Seattle July 22. Berths in interior cabins for the trip begin at $1,999 per person plus taxes and other fees.
Winfrey will be onboard for part of the trip. Also scheduled to join the trip is Gayle King, O magazine's editor at large. The magazine is holding a contest awarding three readers passage on the ship.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, February 13, 2017 18:19 2091 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bfc766f 4 News Indonesia,Youth,Happiness,varkey-foundation,#youth,research,#research Free
Indonesian youths are among the happiest in the world, according to a survey as reported by tempo.co on Monday.
The study, conducted by the UK-based Varkey Foundation education charity, was based on in-depth opinion polling by London-based research and strategy consultancy Populus on the well-being, priorities, ambitions and beliefs of more than 20,000 youths aged 15-21 years old in 20 countries. It stated that Indonesian youths had topped the list with a score of 90 percent, followed by Nigeria (78 percent) and India (72 percent).
The survey found that Indonesian youths ranked the highest on emotional well-being with 40 percent of them having a "good overall emotional well-being by not thinking about their problems too much, and not feeling anxious, bullied, unloved or lonely. Following Indonesia are China and Germany, both with 36 percent, Nigeria with 34 percent and Israel with 28 percent.
(Read also: First-born children have higher IQs, study suggests)
Up to 22 percent of Indonesian youths said they feel they get enough sleep, exercise regularly and devote enough time to rest and reflection," which ranked them in the third position with Nigeria on top.
Young people are passionate believers in the right to live the life that they choose, whatever their background, free of prejudice of all kinds, said the foundation's chief executive Vikas Pota in a press release. However, they are a generation that is deeply pessimistic about the future of the world. They are not strongly influenced by politicians and think that their governments are doing far too little to solve the refugee crisis one of the greatest challenges of our age.
The pessimistic attitude is said to come from worries regarding the future, such as extremism and terrorism, as well as conflicts and war. (wir/kes)
More this afternoon on the attack by white supremacists Saturday night of two men outside the Clockwork Bar at 21 Essex St. The men were beaten and slashed by a gang who apparently took offense to an anti-fascist sticker on one of the victims cell phones.
Today the owners of Clockwork Bar are out with a statement:
Clockwork Bar would like to express its concern for the victims of the attacks on Feb. 11 on Essex and Hester streets. Our hearts go out to them. And we pray for a speedy recovery. We would also like to state clearly that Clockwork Bar does NOT endorse, sympathize, nor invite the views and beliefs of Neo-Nazi, supremacist hate groups. These groups and their views are not welcome at our establishment. They have never been, nor will ever be invited or allowed in our bar. We apologize for what happened and are taking steps to prevent future instances as well as working with the NYPD to increase awareness and security for our patrons. Furthermore, it is fundamental to Clockwork Bar, its ownership and staff that we are not a Neo-Nazi, white supremacist or hate group association establishment. Clockwork is about music, friendship and good times. Anything else is hereby prohibited.
As the New York Post first reported, two 27-year-old brothers were attacked by a gang of six or seven men. They were wearing matching vests with patches that read, 211 Crew, a white nationalist organization. The victims were punneled and scut with a knife, and both required treatment for head wounds.
The cell phone sticker read, New York Anti-Fascists. DNA Info noted that the group is, dedicated to combating fascist cultural and political organizing.' It was recently part of a violent protest at NYU. The website also reported that John Young, the one suspect arrested so far, is from Washington, D.C.
Gothamist has more details on the 211 Crew.
The 211 Crew/211 Bootboys are a New York City area skinhead group. Rather than explicitly espousing Nazi or white supremacist ideology, bands that perform as part of the crews oi punk scene couch their rhetoric and the lyrics in ultra-nationalism and Islamophobia, meaning white skinheads make common cause with minorities who espouse ethno-nationalism while also sometimes associating with outright neo-Nazis. Members organize the annual Oi! Fest in New York, which last year was forced to move venues after one night due to outrage about its content. Video of the event showed attendees openly making Nazi salutes despite what appeared to be organizer Dennis Davilas pre-show exhortations for fans to tone down the Nazi stuff.
Clockwork Bars owners are scheduled to meet with officers at the 7th Precinct tomorrow.
According to the New York Post, two men were attacked last night outside Clockwork Bar on Essex Street by a group of white supremacists.
The incident happened at around 12:30 a.m. as the 27-year old twin brothers walked out of the punk dive bar at 21 Essex St. The Post reported that a gang of six or seven skinheads took offense at an anti-fascist sticker of one of the brothers cell phones. Heres more from the story:
The beat down happened when the brothers, both 27-year-old Columbia graduate students noticed the large group of skinheads hanging inside one of their usual haunts called Clockwork on Essex Street and decided to head for the exits around 12:30 a.m. On the way out the door, they ran into a group of smokers outside who noticed the sticker on one of their phones reading New York City Anti-Fascists.
One of the victims, who asked the Post not to use his name, said, One of the guys sees [my brothers] phone, grabs it and starts screaming, I know what the f that means, I know what the f that sticker is, you need to get the f out of here.
He throws the phone on the ground and they just start jumping us right in front of the bar, said the man. The brothers were beat up by the gang, some of whom were using brass knuckles. Cops said they were wearing matching vests with patches that read, 211 Crew. Thats a known white supremacist group.
When the brothers tried to get away, they were chased down Essex Street and Hester Street. The gang then continued attacking the brothers. The victim explained, One of the guys pulled a knife on my brother first and starts slashing at him. Then the guy with the knife starts coming over to me His buddy grabs him and I guess at that point they all decide to run off.
Undervover cops happened to be driving by, spotted the victims and stopped to find out what had happened. The brothers were able to identify one of the suspects, who was still hanging out in the area. Police arrested 29-year-old John Young. According to online court records, Young was charged with second degree gang assault, grand larceny and menacing with a weapon. Several accomplices have not yet been caught.
One of the victims said, I didnt think something like this could happen. This is crazy I didnt think they would be so brazen as to patronize a bar in Manhattan like that. I go there all the time and never felt a bad feeling.
One of the men needed five staples to close a head wound. The other brother also suffered a head wound and required two staples. They both had cuts and bruises.
UPDATE Feb. 13, 3:35 p.m. See more information here, including a statement from the owners of Clockwork Bar.
Jorge Mu-Oz | AFP | Getty Images. London copper hit its highest levels in 20 months Monday as closures of two of the worlds major mines amplified concerns of a supply shortage.
London copper hit its highest levels in 20 months Monday as closures of two of the world's biggest mines amplified concerns of a supply shortage.
In early trading Monday, the three-month London Metal Exchange contract rose 0.10 percent to $6,097 per metric ton, its highest level since May 2015 and a continuation of the upwards trend seen since last week, when production was halted at two key sites.
Miners in Chile's BHP Billiton site, the world's largest copper mine, last week walked out over a wage dispute, prompting the firm to announce Friday that it would not meet its upcoming contractual obligations on metals shipments. Meanwhile, an export ban has caused Freeport-McMoRan to cease work in Indonesia after it failed to reach an agreement on a new mining permit with the government.
Prices leapt 4.4 percent Friday as tensions heightened, taking the metal to a 17-month high.
Since then, Reuters reported over the weekend that more than 300 vandals broke into property at BHP Billiton and forced contracted workers to stop working, causing the metal to rise to $6,204 a tonne in volumes of around 8,000 lots in Asian trading Monday.
But does this signal the start of a chain reaction for base metals or, rather, does it say precious little?
According to a press note from Kit Juckes, macro strategist at Societe Generale, it's a sector worth watching, "given the tendency for commodity prices to correlate."
However, Vivienne Lloyd, senior analyst at Macquarie, believes the impact is set to be more limited.
"Copper rallying has a bullish effect on the other base metals, as we saw last Friday, but less so on other commodities such as energy," she told CNBC by email.
"It seems more likely to be a short term rally based on recent disruption events," said Lloyd, who believes a long-term run is unlikely.
"A sell-off when (BHP Billiton) goes back to work would be the most probable trigger for a reversal," she said, however suggesting that the troubles for Freeport-McMoRan in Indonesia could be somewhat greater.
Story continues
"In the interim, however, uncertainty remains around Grasberg (Indonesia). We think PT Freeport Indonesia will move to reduce operations this week due to the export ban, which is likely to spark another short term up-trend."
Today's market shifts are also riding on the impact of stronger-than-expected Chinese data released last week, in which exports and imports were up, subsequently boosting metal prices.
More From CNBC
North Korea has reportedly fired a ballistic missile in its first such test since Donald Trump became president of the US.
Details of the launch, including what type of missile it was, were scant. But Trump has backed early criticism by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who is currently on a visit to the US.
Heres everything you need to know.
What do we know about the launch so far?
File footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with letters reading: The North fired a missile (Lee Jin-man/AP)
There was no immediate confirmation from the North, which had recently warned its ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
South Koreas joint chiefs of staff said the missile was fired early on Sunday from around Banghyon, in North Pyongan province.
The military in Seoul said it flew about 310 miles its believed to have splashed down into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Japans chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said the missile did not hit Japanese territorial seas.
What type of missile was it?
South Korea officials say the North Korea missile flew 500km. SK military "is bracing for another possible launch." https://t.co/TjnZmhHSKr pic.twitter.com/BWVcRPmi1f Jim Roberts (@nycjim) February 12, 2017
Kim Jong Un said in his New Years address that North Korea had reached the final stages of readiness to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would be a major step forward in its efforts to build a credible nuclear threat to the United States.
But news agency Yonhap said that while determinations were still being made, the missile launched early on Sunday was not believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Kim Dong-yeop an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul speculated the missile could be a Musudan or a similar rocket designed to test engines for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the US mainland.
Analysts are divided, however, over how close the North is to having a reliable long-range rocket that could be coupled with a nuclear warhead capable of striking US targets.
Do we know why this may have happened now?
Trump backed early criticism by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (Susan Walsh/AP)
While Pyongyang has been relatively quiet about the transfer of power to the Trump administration, its state media has repeatedly called for Washington to abandon its hostile policy. They have vowed to continue its nuclear and missile development programmes until the US changes its diplomatic approach.
It also reaffirmed its plan to conduct more space launches just days ago. These plans have been criticised because they involve dual-use technology that can be transferred to improve missiles.
How has Trump responded?
#ICYMI: Joint Statement with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on North Korea. pic.twitter.com/qEC87FKB1D Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017
Trump and Abe held a brief press conference in Palm Beach, Florida, where Abe called North Koreas reported launch absolutely intolerable.
Trump followed Abes condemnation by saying in part: I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%.
Trump: 'I just want everybody to understand & fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%' (2/2) Jamie Roberton (@jamierobITV) February 12, 2017
What might happen next?
People are wondering how Trump will deal with this latest development.
Has slim window of opportunity to change US-#NorthKorea relations closed w/ #missile launch? Watching to see how #Trump handles challenge. Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) February 12, 2017
Meanwhile, South Koreas acting president and prime minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said his country would punish North Korea for the missile launch.
According to the Foreign Ministry, South Korea will continue to work with allies including the United States, Japan and the European Union to ensure a thorough implementation of sanctions against the North and make the country realise that it will never be able to survive without discarding all of its nuclear and missile programmes.
The Brexit Bill sailed through to the House of Lords, there was a resignation from the Shadow Cabinet, the Queen celebrated her Sapphire Jubilee - she's been on the throne for 65 years and we found out Donald Trump did in fact wear a bathrobe at some point in his life. Of course none of this has anything to do with music, but what can you do? It's also Valentine's tomorrow. If cheesy old love songs aren't quite your thing this week, this lot of new tunes will get you through.Sublime With Rome are an alt-dub trio from California. Their blend of reggae, alternative rock, hip hop and dub is masterful, hypnotic and catchy, with relatable lyrics. Wherever You Go' is a frank depiction of the battle between passion and love, something the world isn't seeing a lot of at the moment.Male trio Banfi are back with second single 'Rosedale House'. "I swear if we could just go back..." is a poignant lyric repeated throught the track - Banfi we agree! The melody fills the void in your heart - a reminder of the past that is not so bitter, rather its sweet. This juicy track is finger-tappingly catchy!Kristeen Young is no stranger to the big guys of the post-punk world - collabarating with the likes of Dave Grohl, the late David Bowie and Morrissey. Her new single 'NICE' is a positive perferation of the ear drums - it's a hallucination of sharp, rough and ready rock against Young's distinct voice, perfect for expressing the lows of this weeks events. Young a New York City-based artist, has recently toured as Morrissey's main support.Quartet Skinny Living have teamed up with UK Rap star, Barney Artist for their latest single 'Only I'. The mix of Skinny Living's acoustic soul sound and Barney Artist's fluid hip hop makes this track dynamic and powerful. Add in the lyrics which reflect on a real life situation - it's hard not to sit up and listen. Skinny Living - Only I feat. Barney Artist is taken from Skinny Living's Debut EP titled III (3) which is out now.New Zealand songstress Rousseau continues her journey with new single, 'Desert Road'. A pounding electro-pop beat balanced with the ethereal lull of her voice makes this track out of this world. The lyrics particularly resonate "everything is changing.." for us and for Rousseau, who has seen a whole host of success. The track, marks her latest release building up anticipation for her debut EP "hello, i know you're busy", which comes out in April 2017.East London alt-rock band Evawolf have released their new single 'Yellow Ribbon', the title track for their upcoming debut EP, which comes out on 3rd March. The track's melody gives pace and solidifies the band's iconic sound - thumping drums with lyrics and vocals that make memories to last. Their sound is unforgetable.Leeds band KOYO have dropped their techo-electronic fused track 'Tetrachromat'. The beat is psychedelic, hynotising, piercing, almost melting away reality with its futuristic feel, but the lyrics bring a contrasting realism - "ready for the day..." is repeated continously and after listening, I feel ready for the day.'Shake Well' is the new single from the Californian four piece People Flavor. The track certainly has an 80s feel, with a cool rock vibe. The beat is infectious, and the lyrics more so. The track is magically manipulating, lifting you out of the blues and well, into jazz hands.SAINT WKND has presented 'Golden', his debut single, featuring Australian indie group Hoodlem. The track's trip hop and indie blend creates a genius combination. This, intertwined with the youthful lyrics makes this track audibly stunning. The track comes from SAINT WKND's debut EP Golden Youth which is out later this year.
Yale University are renaming the residential Calhoun College after computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper, and people are welcoming the change for a multitude of reasons.
Yale will rename Calhoun College for Grace Murray Hopper 30 M.A., 34 Ph.D. Yale University (@Yale) February 11, 2017
Not only is it a great decision to honour a trailblazing female scientist, but it also deals with the controversy surrounding the colleges original namesake. John Calhoun was a 19th century alumnus who ardently supported slavery, who Yale President Peter Salovey says was a white supremacist at odds with the universitys values.
Salovey had announced in April that the school would keep Calhouns name in order to not erase history, but says this is an exceptional case because promoting slavery was Calhouns principal legacy.
Many people are loving the fact that Hopper is the new choice: a mathematician turned-Navy rear admiral, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer used towards the end of WWII and her list of achievements are seriously impressive. It seemed like an excellent way to honour International Day of Women and Girls in Science on Saturday.
@Yale Ph.D in 1934. Amazing Grace! ( that was actually her nickname) David J. Simon (@djsimon7) February 11, 2017
@Yale Great timing, to announce naming for Grace Murray Hopper on #WomenScienceDay Kay Endriss (@ekendriss) February 11, 2017
Given Calhoun was someone who contended that slavery was a positive good, people are pleased that his name is no longer associated with the university.
@Yale Yes! As a Calhoun alum, I applaud your doing the right thing. #HopperCollege Heather McIlhany (@hmcilhany) February 11, 2017
@Yale yay! John c Calhoun was ruinous to US and we still suffer for the effects News Reader (@bbdevices) February 11, 2017
But the decision has not been welcomed by everyone. Some people think it opens up a whole can of worms, especially as the namesake of the university itself was no angel (Elihu Yale was a member of the East India Company and accused of corruption).
@Yale Time to change the name of your university then. Timothy Day (@TR84Day) February 11, 2017
And others accuse the university of trying to smooth over the atrocities of the past.
@Yale Erase historical facts to make everything nice and fluffy. Ms Mint (@themsmint) February 12, 2017
Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera has since resigned from a voluntary position at the university in response to the decision.
Resigned yeterday as Associate Fellow of #CalhounCollege at #Yale. Been an honor but intolerant insistence on political correctness is lame. Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) February 12, 2017
Yale said in a statement Sunday that it respected Riveras decision, but said its choice to rename the college was based on principle, not political correctness.
With Valentines Day fast approaching, Im here to present you with a survival guide for those of you who are jetting off with your significant other for this romantic season (youre welcome).
Going abroad with your significant other for the first time is a huge step to take in a relationship and is sure to be an experience neither of you will ever forget. New place, new people, new language, new foods - there are so many exciting things for you lovebirds to explore.
But as well as it being an exciting experience, I think we can all agree that it is also very nerve-wracking. So here is a list of five tips on how to survive your first holiday with bae!
1. Dont freak out
Ok, so I totally understand that this is easier said than done, but here are a few things you can do to help calm your nerves.
First, I would recommend that you dont dissolve into a bag of nerves before the holiday is even in sight. Sometimes anticipation is better than the thing itself, so take this time to enjoy the excitement for whats to come and spend time with one another talking about how excited you are.
Dont hold back from this - whilst you might feel that you wont stop going on about it even though you cant help it, chances are your significant other feels the same and is just as pumped as you are.
2. Plan properly
This one is probably the most important, because the worst thing that could happen is that you get to where youre going and neither of you have a clue what to do next. This usually happens if youve spent a lot of time on the pre-preparation, but it doesnt have to be this way. To ensure that you dont waste time figuring out the next step when you get to your hotel, the best thing to do is plan in advance what you can do with your time. Some popular tourist spots like Rome and London offer special passes that, for a price, will grant you access to the citys main attractions along with a guided tour. So to make the most of your time, and do your research.
3. Know what to pack
Knowing what to pack is essential. You have to be aware of where youre going and for how long. In other words, dont lug a suitcase full of three months worth of your summer wardrobe if youre going to Germany in the middle of winter for a week.
This said, you must make sure you also dont pack too little. One of the things I find most useful when packing for a holiday is to write down a massive checklist of everything you might need. This includes clothes, shoes, toiletries etc. then for each day that youre there, plan your outfit and make sure its packed. This would be even easier to do if you follow tip two and know what you need to pack for.
And of course, always bring a spare! Another thing to consider is that since youre going on holiday with your significant other, there will be a crossover in your lists of what you need - so communicate and make sure you both know whos bringing what or youll end up with unnecessary amounts of toothpaste and no shampoo!
4. Help each other out
One of the biggest changes I experienced when I stopped being single and became one half of a couple is that you find yourself understanding that you cant only think about yourself, because you find yourself involuntarily worrying about your significant other - whether you can help it or not. This is definitely something to consider when travelling together. As much as you can, you should both help each other out, whether that be physically, financially or otherwise. As long as you are both aware of this (comforting) fact, it will make everything go a lot smoother on your travels, wherever they may be.
5. Have fun!
This is the most important one on this list, because with all the nerves and anticipation, it can be easy to forget to have fun then before you know it, your long awaited holiday is over in the blink of an eye. So wherever youre going and whatever you end up doing, it is absolutely paramount that you both enjoy yourselves while youre doing it, because, really, isnt that what this is all about?
So theres an essential guide to surviving and enjoying your first holiday with your partner. From experience, I can guarantee that it will be everything you want and more - as long as you follow these five easy tips. Happy travels lovebirds!
At the height of last summer, a remarkable Italian professor by the name of Sofia Corradi travelled to Spain to receive the prestigious Carlos V European Award.
In a ceremony presided over by the Spanish Royal Family, the award, some of whose previous recipients include Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev, might well have gone to Corradi for her personal achievements alone. Her remarkable career includes work at New York Citys Columbia University, at the UN Commission on Human Rights, and at the London School of Economics. Corradi has taught for over fifty years at the Three State University in Rome, authoring countless journals in several languages, including English, French, Spanish and Russian. In a ceremony presided over by the Spanish Royal Family, the award, some of whose previous recipients include Helmut Kohl and Mikhail Gorbachev, might well have gone to Corradi for her personal achievements alone. Her remarkable career includes work at New York Citys Columbia University, at the UN Commission on Human Rights, and at the London School of Economics. Corradi has taught for over fifty years at the Three State University in Rome, authoring countless journals in several languages, including English, French, Spanish and Russian.
was garlanded instead But Corradi, the second woman to receive the award,for an achievement that has changed the lives of millions across the continent: The Erasmus Exchange Programme, which this year marks its 30th birthday. Corradi began lobbying for such a program in the 1960s, it taking her over 20 years to get it up and running in 1987.
Today, Erasmus, named after a 15th century philosopher who travelled the world in search of new knowledge, allows students to immerse themselves in nearby, but often very different, European countries.
The award committee, which seeks to emphasise achievements of diversity, understanding and freedom, chose Corradi with the knowledge that over 3.5 million European students in 28 countries, and across 4,000 universities, have benefited from her legacy since the program began. Evoking Carlos V, after whom the award is named and whose empire it was said the sun would never set, the professor added that in a more peaceful world than the one we see today Erasmus will become a global project, on which the sun will also never set.
I can remember the excitement with which I read an email from the University of Oslo last spring, informing me that theyd be delighted to have me as an Erasmus exchange student in Norway for a year. Since arriving here I have greatly enjoyed the programmes two main benefits the lack of any additional tuition fees, and the opportunity to meet students from all a
the largest receivers and senders of foreign students round Europe. Spain, France and Germany are both; the UK ranks fourth, but sends only half as many students as it receives.
Whilst here, I have met students from beyond Europe, from places such as Korea, Australia and the United States, but it still seems as if us Europeans have the best deal. According to the Insitute of International Education, about 10% of all European students now study abroad, in comparison to just 1% of US students whole enrol in similar programmes. It is not difficult to understand why the Italian writer Umberto Eco wrote in La Stampa a few years ago, hailing the programme for creating a new generation of young Europeans.
recent studies Ecos comments were more literal than he may have intended, ashave found that a quarter of all Erasmus students meet long-term partners on their overseas adventures, and that such relationships have produced an additional million European babies since 1987.
As well as serving as an enabler of new relationships, Erasmus is also good for the CV and life prospects, as it has been found exchange students have enjoyed a higher level of mobility after graduation, with two in five going on to work in other countries, and a third settling down with a foreign life partner.
Whilst here in Norway, I have met many people, particularly those from very far away, who have fallen in love with the country as well as people and have resolved to move back here in the future. The same must certainly be the case for countless others across the continent.
said Erasmus was falling behind the times However, the programme is not without its critics. A few years ago, one of its co-founders, Franck Biancheri,. In the 1980s, Biancheri had worked to convince then French President Francois Mitterrand to back the scheme, but a few years ago, he said it was no longer delivering value for money, and that in future it should focus instead on entrepreneurships rather than funding exchanges.
Corradi herself Erasmus costs more than 440 million Euros a year, and in these austere times an expensive programme aimed entirely at young people is obviously going to draw criticism from some quarters.has had to dismiss attacks that the programme only benefits the wealthiest, saying that exchange grants, which vary greatly in amount depending on the country, are only piecemeal: "Erasmus funding was always aimed to cover only the additional expenses that foreign students have on top of what they would normally spent in their own countries," she has said.
But despite these shortcomings, the proof of the pudding is surely in the post-exchange indigestion. Returning home from their time abroad, hundreds of students have reported the boredom, anxiety and depression they have felt after their exchanges ended. "The former Erasmus student knows that when they return, their homes feel less glamorous, their towns colder, their universities seem like dumps, the television still shabby and their friends lousy," said Fiorella de Nicola, an Italian student who devoted her sociology thesis to the 'Anthropology of the Erasmus student.'
told Cafe Babel Post-Erasmus syndrome, as de Nicola called it, is perhaps the most difficult part of studying abroad, but the more acute the suffering obviously means the more the student has enjoyed themselves. "At home, life becomes very simple again and a little empty because all the new things are one of the components of the Erasmus experience," Juliane, who went to study modern languages in Glasgow,. "You head back home afterwards and you realise that everything is exactly the same as it was when you left. Yet inside us, everything has changed."
In an attempt to overcome this problem, some former Erasmus students have tried to host international parties and embark on further foreign trips, although it seems unlikely that the sensation of being abroad can ever be fully re-created.
possibly endangers At a time when the freedom and relative stability of the European continent looks increasingly fragile, and when other tenants of the European Union such as the Euro and the Schengen free movement policy face uncertain futures, the Erasmus exchange programme, though imperfect, has been an unquestionable success story. Britains vote the leave the European Union in the same summer Corradi received her awardour countrys future access to the scheme. The decision, which needless to say most young British voters did not endorse, is a direct challenge to Corradis belief in openness and freedom. I can remember well the first morning of post-Brexit Britain, when I received a torrent of emails frantically reassuring me that my impending move to Norway would still go ahead.
Beyond that, however, the future looks less certain. The fate of Erasmus for British students is about as clear as the rest of the governments agenda for our EU withdrawal, but leaving the community does not necessarily mean our access to the scheme will end, as many non-EU countries, such as Turkey, Switzerland, and of course Norway, are still fully involved in the magnificent project. It is therefore the job of the many current and ex-students in Britain who have benefited from the programme in the last 30 years to defend our access to a scheme, which so many previous generations, for whom Europe was a strange and distant place, could only dream of.
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What exactly is a Shot of History? Its a Podcast where Wyandotte resident Stefani Manard and her co-hosts Devin Foether and Trico Lutkins pick a historical topic and discuss it in detail, all while drinking.
Since the debut last year, they have recorded 50 episodes. The most recent was recorded live at The Old Shillelagh in Downtown Detroit with a live audience watching.
Anyone who wants to catch up on episodes can find the podcast on iTunes and like the show page on Facebook.
The trio also has a Shot of History book coming out in the next few months. It was through their mutual interest in making independent comics and books that they all met.
Lutkins is one of the founders of Source Point Press, one of the largest independent comic publishers in Michigan.
Manard published both a prose book and a comic in 2016 under her own banner of Scapegoat Press. Foether also works with Source Point Press.
(Adds OECD)
BRUSSELS, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The European Commission is disappointed that Swiss voters rejected plans to overhaul corporate taxes and will consult with European Union governments on how to proceed, the EU tax commissioner said on Monday.
Voters on Sunday blocked the tax system revamp, sending the Swiss government back to the drawing board as it tries to abolish ultra-low tax rates for multinationals without triggering a mass exodus by those companies.
The vote put non-EU member Switzerland on a collision course with the EU and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of rich countries. The Swiss had promised to meet international standards and end by 2019 special low tax rates that benefit around 24,000 foreign companies.
"The Commission is very disappointed by the results of a referendum in Switzerland," European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici told a news conference.
"The rejection of the reform and referendum means we need to redouble our efforts when it comes to taxation. The Commission plans to consult the member states so we can decide together how to proceed," he said.
The OECD said in reaction to the referendum result that Switzerland could still meet its international obligations, but must lose no time in finding a solution.
"Switzerland's partners will expect it to implement its international commitments within a reasonable time period and this need not happen within the context of a wider reform, which could take longer than the two years originally foreseen for these changes," OECD tax director Pascal Saint-Amans said.
Most Swiss recognise that the country needs reform to avoid being blacklisted as a low-tax pariah. But new measures proposed to help companies offset the loss of their special tax status fuelled fears among voters that regular taxpayers would have to pay more.
Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer warned in the vote's aftermath on Sunday that Switzerland could be blacklisted as a low-tax pariah or that other countries could start double taxation of Swiss-based companies.
Story continues
It could take a year for the federal government and cantons to come up with a new plan, and even longer to implement it. At the same time, competition on company tax rates could be ramped up by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration or post-Brexit Britain.
"There will certainly be other countries seeking to entice corporations away from Switzerland," Maurer told the Swiss broadcaster SRF. "That begins today."
Business leaders warn that the vote has created uncertainty and left Switzerland in legal limbo while it works out a new plan for taxes, but Credit Suisse left its forecast for Swiss economic growth this year at 1.5 percent.
Leftist groups that led the successful campaign to block the tax package called for making shareholders contribute more to financing the corporate reforms, perhaps via taxes on capital gains or dividends.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Waverly Colville in Brussels; Additional reporting by John Miller and Michael Shields in Zurich and Leigh Thomas in Paris; Editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Tom Heneghan)
How many people have already voted absentee in South Dakota ahead of Election Day?
elections
Larsen & Toubro, India's diversified engineering giant and Europe's largest missile manufacturer, MBDA, signed a pact to manufacture missiles as a part of the `Make In India' program and to meet the expanding requirements of the armed forces.
The 51:49 joint venture will develop missiles of all sorts for the Indian Army, Air Force and the Navy and employ nearly 500 engineers to design anti-tank, anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapons, officials from both companies told reporters in Delhi on Monday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid fresh emphasis on re-arming forces after nearly a decade of political neglect. Under the umbrella of the `Make in India' policy some of the largest weapons makers have made a beeline to India, the biggest importer of arms in the world. The Indian Army, Navy and Air Force have floated global tenders to buy new artillery pieces, submarines and fighter aircraft and update Soviet era defence equipment such as radars, anti-aircraft batteries and missile systems.
To begin with the L&T-MBDA joint venture will develop a fifth generation anti-tank guided missile, missiles for coastal batteries and high speed target drones. The two companies have worked together since the past six years and MBDA has a 5-decade presence in India's defence procurement.
The time has come for us to gear up and start manufacturing on the shop floor," A.M. Naik, Group Executive Chairman at Larsen & Toubro, said. The picture that is emerging in India's defence sector is that we should have a partnership with a global player.''
Larsen & Toubro has 9 units engaged in the manufacture of defence equipment such as hulls for nuclear powered submarines, artillery guns for the infantry, communication equipment for soldiers, missile targeting equipment and ships. Larsen has been a part of India's defence set up since the 1960s when it began fabricating nuclear reactors for the Department of Atomic Energy. Later, L&T diversified into the space sector by making rocket components for Indian Space Research Organization and then started making prototypes of defence equipment for local ordinance factories.
The advent of the Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre has seen a lot of attention being paid to local manufacturing of defence equipment since 2014 and private players such as L&T, the Tatas, Mahindras and Reliance Defence have jumped into the fray to snatch a piece of the defence budget.
Naik said he was hoping defence sales would account for an annual Rs.10,000 crore to Larsen's topline by 2018-19. He was hopeful that the government would place an order worth Rs.4,600 crore for 155 mm Howitzer guns over the next six months
The reason behind the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) pitching chief minister Nitish Kumar as the Prime Ministerial candidate has finally been decoded.
The RJD headed by Lalu Prasad is a coalition partner in the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar, along with the Congress.
The whole idea behind endorsing Kumar as PM material came to fore on Monday when a former RJD minister on Monday projected RJD chiefs deputy chief minister son Tejashwi Yadav as the successor of Nitish Kumar.
The country will face the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 during which we will project Nitish Kumar as the PM candidate. In such a situation there will be a vacancy for the chief minister of Bihar which will automatically get filled up by Tejashwi Yadav, former RJD minister Surendra Prasad Yadav told the media on Monday. The development comes amid the Congress trying hard to project party vice-president Rahul Gandhi for this job.
Yadav who is currently a RJD legislator from Belaganj seat in Bihar Assembly said they would not tolerate any other as the chief minister of Bihar other than Tejashwi who is suave and has experience in running the state administration as well.
PM Nitish ko banayenge aur CM Tejashwi ko, he asserted. The ex RJD minister made this announcement while the deputy CM was in southern Bihar town of Gaya to address a division-level public meeting which was attended by an impressive crowds comprising mostly youths.
Yadavs demand got instant support from another party leader and Bihar disaster management Chandra Shekhar. He (Tejashwi) is fit for the job. The ease with which he is discharging his duty without getting involved in any controversies, Tejashwi indeed deserves to be the next CM, said the minister. He though added the deputy CM needs to gain a little bit more experience.
Last year, RJD chief Prasad himself had lent his full support to Kumars PM dream announcing his party would be the first to back his candidature for countrys top job.
Yes, of course, there is no second thought on this, was how Prasad had told the media on being asked if the RJD would support Kumar for PM. He added there wouldnt any more pleasure than seeing someone from his own state becoming the Prime Minister.
Observers say the idea is not all of a sudden but is latent with a strong political meaning. According to them, the RJD himself cant contest any election for his conviction in the multi-million dollar fodder scam and hence he wants to somehow put his son on the throne of Bihar.
Reports said his desire got a sudden boost after seeing Akhilesh Yadav on the throne of UP in a quiet shifting of power within the family.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar asked civil service officials to meet people more often to resolve and sort out their problems, if possible on the spot.
"Occasionally abstaining from routine official works, you must meet more frequently with the people to resolve their problems. If possible, settle the issue of the people on the spot," Sarkar told the Tripura Civil Service (TCS) officials on Sunday night.
Addressing the 24th biennial two-day conference of the TCS officials, he said: "If the chief minister can meet the people directly thrice a week, why can the officials not meet at least one day in a week."
In Tripura, around 325 TCS officers in different important positions are the most significant backbone of the administration of the Left-ruled Northeastern state.
Sarkar, Chief Minister of Tripura for the past 19 years, said that if the officials commit a mistake or fault unintentionally, the government will try to exonerate them, but if the officials do blunder or error deliberately, then severe action will be taken against them.
"Don't do your work like a mechanised doll, carry out the assigned task like a leader, not mere a government servant. Officials must perform their job, irrespective of religion, caste and creed," the chief minister told the officials.
He asked the officials to utilise the natural and human resources properly for the benefit of the people and development of the state.
"The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government at the Centre has created a difficult situation in the country. After the abolition of the Planning Commission, there is no scope of discussion with the Centre about the financial difficulties of the state," said the 68-year-old Left leader.
He said: "After the elimination of Planning Commission, Tripura has been getting Rs.1,500 to Rs.1,700 crore less amount from the Centre annually. Despite financial crunch, taking loan from the market, we are maintaining the developmental works in the state."
In a solemn ceremony, the Army on Monday paid homage to the gallant soldiers late Lance Naik Bhandoriya Gopal Sinh Munimsinh and Sepoy Raghubeer Singh at Badami Bagh Cantt in Srinagar.
Major General KK Pant, Chief of Staff Chinar Corps, laid wreaths on behalf of the Corps Commander and all ranks of the Corps.
Tributes were also paid by officials from civil administration and other security agencies that included the Divisional Commissioner of Kashmir, IG Police and Joint Director IB.
The two soldiers were martyred in an encounter with terrorists at Kulgam in Kashmir. Their bodies were flown to their native villages for last rites.
The 33-year-old Lance Naik B Gopal who hailed from village Gokulchand Chali Chamanpura in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and served in the Army for 14 years is survived by his wife B Hemavati.
Sepoy Raghubeer Singh was 31 years old and had served for 13 years. He belonged to village Makholi in Chamoli, Uttarakhand and is survived by his wife Rekha and a six-year-old son.
A news report over the weekend stated that China has warned India to stay off its own colony Sri Lanka. For China, India is a major competitor in Asia. On the one hand, it has suggested that India join the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and One Belt One Road (OBOR) projects which it has initiated while conversely it has ensured that India is kept at a distance in every international forum. While borders remain peaceful, transgressions continue although a strong Indian response indicates that India is capable of responding. The Indo-China border dispute lingers on, with China raking up the Arunachal Pradesh and Dalai Lama issues at frequent intervals. Chinese actions and words have always been at variance.
To embarrass India, it has repeatedly blocked the UN from designating Azhar Masood as an international terrorist despite the West joining hands with India to push the case. It has also prevented Indias entry into the NSG. It would never accept India as an equal in the UNSC. Its support to Pakistan is well known, hence it would never permit anyone to criticise it in any international fora. It continues to arm Pakistan, ensuring that it remains a thorn in Indias military and economic development. Its involvement in the CPEC and Gwadar port only enhances security concerns for India.
China is now seeking to become a dominant power in the sub-continent, offsetting India. While it cannot influence the region directly by political means, it has begun employing its economic lever. It has enhanced its investment in Nepal aiming to reduce Indian influence and has bulldozed its way into Sri Lanka, taking over the Hambantota port on lease for 99 years. Its investments in Myanmar and base in Coco Islands are designed to counter Indian domination in the Indian Ocean. It has provided submarines to Bangladesh as also increased economic investments in the country. China is in secret talks with the Taliban, while seeking to gain leverage in Afghanistan. In the Maldives, with the present government being anti-India, Chinese investments have increased and it is also likely to develop an airport there. The only country where it has yet to make deep forays in Indias vicinity is Bhutan.
Most countries in the sub-continent are economically weak. They desperately seek investments and infrastructure development. Presently, Indias influence in the neighbourhood is such that heads of state make New Delhi their first port of call. While India provides them with aid and seeks to incorporate them in its growth, however being a democracy it takes time before promised investments take root, since funds are dependent on nature of projects, as against China which moves much faster.
A clear case has been the Chabahar Port in Iran. India has yet to make any headway as it still awaits Irans response, prior to transferring funds for commencement of the project, while in Chinas case, the intention to develop the CPEC was announced in Nov 2014 and it has already been operationalized. In addition, Chinas economy is five times the size of Indias.
Chinas investment in the region is pushing India to a secondary position. The investment also opens doors for Chinese goods, which are much cheaper and result in reduced Indian imports. Thus, nations end up with an adverse balance of payments which China can subsequently exploit. Indias attempts to challenge Chinese power in both Mongolia and Vietnam made almost no progress. Mongolia buckled under Chinese economic pressure and agreed to never invite the Dalai Lama again, while gently ignoring Indias offer of aid. Vietnam though still in touch with India for military purchases, is moving forward cautiously, mainly due to Chinese offers of investment and development. Even the Philippines, a close US ally, melted to Chinese economic offers and was even willing to break its American shackles.
China may be militarily superior to India, however is unsure of challenging it with an assured measure of success. Hence it follows the transgressions route. It is also aware of Indian influence in the region, which has existed for decades. Further, militarily it cannot influence the region and has therefore commenced employing its economic power to show that economic might can change balance of power in any region.
Simultaneous to investment, Chinese media representing Beijing warns India against interfering, blocking or hampering their investments. A clear case has been the unrest following grant of land in Sri Lanka for which China blamed India. In Nepals case, it has warned India against interfering in its investment and development activities once the anti-India government of Oli was replaced. By issuing such statements it conveys a message that it is willing to challenge India for a leadership role in the region.
Chinas increasing investments are in the shape of loans; and China leverages these effectively. It has already succeeded in Sri Lanka and would soon do so in Nepal and Maldives. Recent reports indicate that Chinese submarines have begun docking in Chinese-run ports in Sri Lanka, enhancing security concerns for India. While Pakistan is a Chinese province in almost every sense of the term, considering its depth of investment, the others are likely to follow.
India has been observing these developments but has been unable to match Chinese investments or stem its actions. Its only option is to continue diplomatic engagement, as also remain a strong supporter for the region. It needs to monitor Chinese military cooperation with countries of the region. However, diplomatically India needs to tread with caution, as deterioration in ties could easily push fringe nations into the Chinese fold, enhancing security concerns. For countries in the region, playing the India versus China card would benefit them in the short term, as they have nothing to lose while the big brothers battle it out. The long term may be different, when China begins claiming its pound of flesh.
The writer is a retired Major-General of the Indian Army.
Sundays firing of a ballistic missile by North Korea was not wholly unexpected in the context of Pyongyangs nuclear ambition. True it was not an ICBM test, but it has nonetheless served to ratchet up the pressure on Donald Trump who has vowed what he calls 100 per cent support for Japan. It was more than a coincidence that he addressed the press conference in the company of the visiting Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. The missile was launched towards the Sea of Japan (East Sea), whose waters could turn out to be as choppy as those of the South China Sea.
The trilateral equation becomes sharper still with North Korea having posited itself against the US and Japan. Though details about the missile are yet to be determined, it is said to have flown for about 500 kilometres before plunging into the sea. President Kim Jong-Un has without question conveyed a two-pronged message ~ the first to his ebullient counterpart in the White House, now grappling with a welter of sensitive issues and the consistently losing battle in the courts. In parallel, Kim is seemingly anxious to draw global attention to the Norths nuclear and missile capabilities. Arguably, he might have resorted to armed provocation to test the response from the new US administration. He has taken a risk that is dangerously real. While President Trump has not spelt out his pledge on 100 per cent support to Japan, Prime Minister Abe has condemned the test as absolutely intolerable , one that has been a clear provocation to Japan and its allies. Assuming that it was a celebratory launch to mark the February 16 birthday of Kim Jong-Il, late ruler and father of the present, it begs the query as to whether such muscle-flexing was really necessary at this juncture? It shall not be easy to dispel the charge of provocation.
Aside from the diplomatic implications in the immediate perspective, the missile test flies in the face of UN resolutions that have barred North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology. It is a measure of the consistent defiance that as many as six sets of UN sanctions, that have been imposed ever since Pyongyangs first nuclear test in 2006, have failed to halt its nuclear strategy, masquerading as a test of defensive weapons ~ a euphemism if ever there was one.
Last year the country conducted several tests and launches in its quest to develop a nuclear weapons system capable of hitting the US mainland. Washington has reiterated it will never accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed nation; Sundays launch poses a test for Trump, who will need the help of China, the Norths closest ally, to deal with the reclusive state. This is the paradox of trans-Atlantic geopolitics.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the India-ASEAN Dialogue partnership. In a thoughtful manner Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier last month reached out to the President of Philippines Rodrigo R. Duterte through a message iterating Indias steadfast support and commitment to the regional architecture. True, the message is occasion-specific. But more than what meets the eye at least two major reasons can be attributed to the Prime Ministers message to President Duterte.
First, Duterte did an absolute turn around, when he reached out to China disowning the traditional strategic and security alliance with the USA. Not long ago Philippines itself had moved the International Court of Arbitration challenging Chinese claims on the South China Sea. Later the Hague-based international court gave its verdict in favour of Philippines, which was disregarded by Beijing.
India has supported the principle of freedom of navigation and had also welcomed the Hague ruling much to the chagrin of China. Thus the decision to reach out to President Duterte suggests a partial course correction limited to bilateral relations with Philippines under the new regime, although it does not suggest any fundamental dilution of Indias stance on South China Sea.
Second, Philippines will be chairing the ASEAN summit sometime later this year. The 10-member grouping is primarily an economic entity. In recent years it has been playing a very significant role in regional geopolitics. Although USA continues to be the reigning power in the region, there are signs of its slow withdrawal under President Trump, whose major foreign policy action was the decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the economic outfit of the political architecture of ASEAN.
Philippines, the main anchor of the security architecture of USA in the Asia-Pacific, has also distanced itself from Washington under Duterte. Thus, there are question marks over the Pivot to Asia policy articulated and pursued by USA under President Obama, although President Trump has made no secret of his stance on South China Sea. Mr. Obama had tried to co-opt India in the Pivot to Asia policy.
As of now there is no indication, unlike on the issue of fighting terrorism, as to the extent to which the US would like to engage India in its Asia-Pacific strategy. It is highly unlikely that the South China Sea dispute issue would be raised at the ASEAN summit meeting given the emerging bonhomie between President Duterte and China.
It is pertinent to mention in this context that Vietnam, the major party to the South China Sea issue has reached out to China to manage maritime differences. Only last month the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong visited China and had a candid exchange of views on maritime issues. The two sides pledged to basic and long term solutions to the dispute.
China, a rising power and the second largest world economy, poised to replace USA in a few years, has challenged American supremacy in the region. In fact the spat over the South China Sea is in a way a jockeying for power in the region. While China has the economic clout to oblige member countries, they are wary of its strategic intent. A number of countries in the region have maritime disputes with China.
The US with its nuclear-equipped armada is the net security provider in the region. It is in this backdrop that the countries of ASEAN look forward to India for its benign role for peace and stability in the region. Often strategic analysts, particularly those belonging to the West have painted the construct of a zero-sum game between the two Asian giants in the region. Historical baggage of the cold war, Chinas past strategic behavior, its military might and the nature of its political regime have coloured this kind of a binary approach.
It is worth introspecting whether it is desirable for India to acquiesce in the US Pivot to Asia policy. India can as well meaningfully engage with ASEAN countries economically, politically and culturally. There is, however, some perception in strategic circles that Indias foray into the South China Sea is a counter to Chinas footprints in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), besides its desire to explore hydrocarbons in the South China Sea, and advocating freedom of navigation and sea lanes of communication. Since India has iterated these positions time and again, it makes little sense to harp on these issues without any provocation. These gestures should send a positive signal to China.
Strategic partnership with the countries of the region, however, should be made more robust including defence and security relations. India should, however, avoid acquiescing in the US policy of balancing China.
The nature and structure of geo-politics have changed in recent years following the end of the cold war. Not only has there been a paradigm shift from the Atlantic to Asia-Pacific, but the grammar of geopolitics has changed. In these times of uncertainty and unpredictability, Indias strategy in the Asia-Pacific should remain sacrosanct, but its tactics can be tweaked taking into account the unpredictability of US policy towards Asia-Pacific and the churning taking place in the region, particularly after the leadership transition in Philippines.
India should add more economic content to the comprehensive strategic partnership with the countries of the region, particularly in IT and the IT-enabled services sector. Defence and security cooperation should also continue, but it should not give the impression that India is teaming up with USA to contain China. China is Indias neighbour. Engagement with China is not an option, but a strategic necessity.
The writer is a former senior fellow with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views expressed are personal.
China on Monday firmly opposed the affirmation made by the US and Japanese leaders that the US-Japan security treaty covered China's disputed islands in the East China Sea.
"China expressed grave concern at and firm opposition to the statements made by Japan and the United States," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
"We firmly oppose that Japan asked for the endorsement of the United States on its illegal territorial claim in the name of the US-Japan security treaty." he added.
China and Japan lay claims to the disputed islands in the East China Sea. While China calls them as Diaoyu, the Japanese have named them Senkaku.
A joint US-Japan statement issued over the weekend after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington affirmed that a clause of the US-Japan security treaty covered the Diaoyu islands.
"Diaoyu island and its affiliated islets are China's inherent territory. No matter what anyone says or does, the fact that the Diaoyu islands belong to China cannot be changed," Geng said.
"China will never waver in its determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added.
He said Japan and the United States should speak and stop making false statements so as to avoid complicating relevant issues and casting a shadow on regional peace and stability.
The joint US-Japan statement also mentioned China's reef construction in the South China Sea.
Geng said that China's construction on its own islands was "totally within China's sovereignty and has nothing to do with militarisation".
Geng said the leading cause of militarisation in the South China Sea was that some countries had sent aircraft and vessels to show military force or drive a wedge between countries in the region.
He said China had indisputable sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea and its adjacent waters.
He added that China was committed to solving differences with countries directly concerned in a peaceful way, and safeguarding stability in the region with ASEAN countries.
"We urge the United States and Japan to view the South China Sea issue objectively and rationally and do more to contribute to the peace and stability of the South China Sea, not the other way around," Geng said.
Pakistan on Monday appointed Tehmina Janjua as Foreign Secretary the first woman in the country to take up the top diplomat's post.
She will replace Aizaz Chaudhary who was appointed as the new Ambassador to Washington.
Janjua, presently serving as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, will assume the new post in the first week of March 2017, a Foreign Office statement said.
She will be the 29th Foreign Secretary.
Janjua, a seasoned diplomat with a career spanning over 32 years, holds a Master's degrees from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, and Columbia University, New York.
She also served as spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 2011.
Janjua served as Ambassador of Pakistan to Italy from December 2011 to October 2015.
Her appointment belies media reports that Abdul Basit, envoy to India, was to be the top diplomat.
The Islamabad High Court on Monday imposed a ban on Valentine's Day celebrations across Pakistan.
The order came during the hearing of a petition arguing that the day was not part of Islamic tradition and should be banned, the Dawn reported.
According to the court order, Valentine's Day related festivities have been banned in public places.
The electronic and print media have also been told not to give coverage to any promotion of the day.
Last year, President Mamnoon Hussain urged Pakistanis not to celebrate Valentine's Day.
South Korean military on Monday said North Korea has developed a new road-mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), based on a technology of submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
According to a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official, North Korea test-fired a new solid fuel-powered IRBM based on SLBM technology.
North Korea on Sunday launched a ballistic missile Pukguksong-2. It flew towards the East Sea for 500 km after blasting off at an altitude of 550 km.
Following the launch, the JCS said it could be an advanced version of intermediate-range Musudan ballistic missile, which soared as high as 1,413.6 km and travelled 500 km during a test-flight in June 2016.
The Seoul military changed the Sunday assessment, saying top North Korean leader Kim Jong Un probably instructed the development of a longer-range ground-based missile based on technology of the SLBM, which was test-launched in August last year.
The new missile was fired from a crawler-type mobile launcher and the South Korean military put its range at anything between those of SLBM and Musudan missiles.
The North korea-owned SLBM is believed to have a range of 2,000-2,500 km, with the estimation of Musudan range put at 3,000-3,500 km. The Pukguksong-2 may have a range of 2,500-3,000 km.
Musudan, dubbed Hwasong 10 by Pyongyang, is known to put the entire territories of South Korea and Japan as well as US military base in Guam in its target range.
The Sunday launch may mean North Korea's development of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in addition to KN-08, called Hwasong-13 by North Korea.
The KN-08 was displayed for the first time during a 2012 military parade, but it has yet to be publicly tested. North Korea is believed to have its upgraded version called KN-14, which also has not been tested before.
The new rocket engine, which North Korea tested in September, was believed to be used for the ICBMs or Musudan missiles.
Some estimate the first-stage propellant of the ICBMs may be composed of four engines used for Musudan missiles.
The advent of Pukguksong-2, which is based on SLBM technology, may indicate the development of an upgraded ICBM version based on the new IRBM technology.
North Korea's KCNA news agency said the Sunday launch re-confirmed the separation of vehicles at the stages and verified the position control and guidance in the midcourse and re-entry sections.
It took North Korea just six months to develop the surface-to-surface IRBM following a successful test in August last year of the SLBM, called Pukguksong-1.
At least 14 people, including two senior police officers, were killed and 85 others injured when a suicide bomber struck on Monday evening outside the Punjab Assembly in Lahore during a protest, police officials said.
Inspector General of Police (IG) Punjab Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera said six police officials were among the dead, including two senior officers, while 85 people were also injured in the attack, which he said had targeted police officials present at the site.
The Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.
"The suicide attacker was on foot," Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Chief Mohammad Iqbal told media.
Senior Superintendent of Police Operations Zahid Mehmood and Deputy Inspector General (Traffic) Lahore Capt (retd) Ahmad Mobin were among those killed in the attack.
Hours earlier, DIG Mobin had been seen on television, mediating with the protesters gathered at the site.
Mobin was reportedly at the site to negotiate with protesters for an end to the sit-in and to clear the area.
A large group of chemists and pharmaceutical manufacturers were gathered in front of the provincial assembly to protest a government crackdown against the sale of illegal drugs. There was a significant presence of law enforcers in the area while the protest was ongoing.
Rescue services, including ambulances and fire tenders, rushed the scene soon after the attack. An emergency was also declared in all hospitals of Lahore. Majority of the casualties were shifted to Mayo Hospital and Ganga Ram Hospital.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and reiterated Pakistan was in decisive fight against terrorism. He lauded the sacrifices of the slain security personnel.
Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa instructed local military commanders and intelligence agencies to provide all necessary assistance to civilian authorities and arrest those responsible, a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) read.
In a notification issued on February 7 to the Home Secretary, Punjab, the Provincial Police Officer and DG Pakistan Rangers Punjab, the National Counterterrorism Authority (NACTA) warned of a possible terrorist attack in Lahore.
NACTA directed that all vital installations, including important buildings, hospitals and schools, be kept under strict vigilance.
Last year, on Easter Sunday, at least 75 people were killed and over 340 injured in a suicide bombing that hit the main entrance of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in Lahore.
The attack targeted Christians who were celebrating Easter. Of the 75 dead, 14 were identified as Christians and the rest (61) as Muslims. The majority of victims were women and children.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a group affiliated with the Tehree-e-Taliban, had claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack led to worldwide condemnation and national mourning throughout Pakistan. In a result, Pakistan launched a widespread counter-terrorism operation in south Punjab, killing prominent leaders of banned outfits and arresting more than 200 people.
Tehmina Janjua was on Monday named Pakistan's new Foreign Secretary, becoming the first woman to become the country's top diplomat.
Janjua, who pipped several senior colleagues including High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit, will succeed Aizaz Chaudhary who was appointed as the new Ambassador to Washington.
Presently serving as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, she will take over as the country's 29th Foreign Secretary in the first week of March 2017, a Foreign Office statement said.
A seasoned diplomat with a career spanning over 32 years, Janjua holds a Master's degrees from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, and Columbia University, New York.
She also served as spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 2011.
Janjua served as Ambassador of Pakistan to Italy from December 2011 to October 2015.
Her appointment belied media reports that Abdul Basit, envoy to India, was to be the top diplomat.
Had seniority been the only criterion, he would have been a certainty.
Sources said that he was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's first choice for the job in 2013 when he was asked to return to Islamabad from Berlin. But, Sharif changed his mind and picked Chaudhry instead for the post.
Basit was sent to India as High Commissioner. But, sources said this time Basit was out of favour with Sharif, who is believed to be displeased with his hosting of Kashmiri separatists in New Delhi.
With the change of the Foreign Secretary, major reshuffle would take place in Pakistan's envoys in important capitals, sources said, adding that changes will also take place within the Foreign Office as well.
US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday announced the creation of a bilateral committee that will deal with the challenges posed to women in the workplace and how to increase their participation in the economy.
The two leaders participated at a White House round table with business executives and entrepreneurs within the framework of Trudeau's official visit to Washington, EFE news reported.
"In order to create economic growth and well-paying jobs we must assure the economy is a place where women can work and thrive," said Trump in brief remarks at the beginning of the round table.
Trump said that it is necessary for the US to adopt policies to keep women in the workforce, make it easier for them to both hold a job and deal with family issues and increase their access to capital.
Meanwhile, Trudeau emphasised the need to break down the "significant barriers" that continue to exist for women in the workplace and create more pathways to success.
Seated at the side of the Canadian premier was Ivanka Trump, the President's daughter who during the election campaign helped her father promote a tax plan to provide childcare and more affordable daycare centres.
Ivanka, who has a very close relationship with her father, still does not have an official title or duties within the new government.
The White House said that the bilateral Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs is a sign of both Trump and Trudeau's commitment to eliminating barriers to the economic participation of women.
After becoming Canada's Prime Minister in November 2015, Trudeau fulfilled one of his campaign promises and named an equal number of women and men to his cabinet.
Trump, on the other hand, has selected very few women or minorities for his cabinet posts.
This was the first bilateral meeting between the two leaders since Trump became President on January 20.
Trump is expected to discuss with Trudeau his aim to renegotiate at the earliest opportunity the North American Free Trade Agreement signed by the US, Canada and Mexico more than 20 years ago.
In Canada, both conservatives and liberals feel that NAFTA, implemented in 1994, has been a key element in their country's economic well-being by enhancing trade between Ottawa and Washington to the point where they are now the world's two top trade partners.
Meanwhile, Trudeau wants to avoid conflictual issues, including immigration or the taking in of refugees in his meeting with Trump, so that the pair may establish a good relationship as quickly as possible.
After a private luncheon, Trump and Trudeau are scheduled to hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House.
James Hetfield of "Metallica" performs "Moth Into Flame" Sunday night at the 59th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)
Foreign nationals are arrested during a targeted operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers aimed at immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens in Los Angeles.
General Dynamics Corporations GD business unit, General Dynamics Land Systems has won a contract from the Government of Canada to upgrade 141 Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) III vehicles.
Contract Details
The contract is worth $308.7 million (CAD $404 million), which came after an LAV III upgrade contract awarded in 2011 and extended the service life for 550 vehicles upto the year 2035.
The latest contract is part of Canada's Light Armored Vehicle III Upgrade Program to provide the country's military with updated ground-based platforms. This upgrade program delivers vehicles in the new LAV 6.0 configuration, which covers the life-saving double-V hull, development of protection and mobility, onboard vetronics and capability for future growth as well as modularity.
The upgrades will improve the performance and survivability of the Canadian vehicles and cut long-term maintenance costs. Additionally, it will also bring in reliability and accessibility of equipment for training and deployment.
About the LAV III Vehicles
The LAV III version is the third generation of the LAV family of Infantry fighting vehicle, which entered into service for the first time in 1999. It features double-V hull technology and add-on armour that provides crew members with the latest in protection against mine blasts, IEDs and other threats. The third version was built to respond to a need for greater payload and protection levels.
The LAV III has been purchased by different customers in a wide range of variants. In the 19972006 time frame, Canada obtained 651 vehicles that includes six variants of LAV III. The vehicle has been also deployed for operations in the Balkans, Africa, Haiti, and most recently in Afghanistan.
Why General Dynamics?
General Dynamics Land Systems is the leader in Light Armoured Vehicle platforms. It offers the forces with the most advanced technologies combined with combat-proven survivability.
General Dynamics has had a long-standing strategic alliance with the U.S. as well as international defense establishments, backed by its consistent efforts on trying to meet its commitments in terms of maintaining product and service standards, along with delivery timing.
Price Movement
General Dynamicss stock has improved about 41.6% in the last one year, outperforming the Zacks categorized Aerospace/Defense industrys gain of 34.1%. This could be because General Dynamics consistently maintains a strategic alliance with the U.S. Department of Defense, which allows it to enjoy a steady flow of contracts. The stocks performance is in line with that of its peers like Boeing Co. BA, Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. HII and Engility Holdings, Inc. EGL.
Story continues
Zacks Rank
General Dynamics currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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Goldman alum and former US ambassador warns Trump: You can't govern alone
President Donald Trump should not ignore the vast "knowledge base" embedded in the various federal agencies when crafting his foreign policy agenda, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman told CNBC on Monday.
"The capabilities and qualities of the people that I interacted with at the embassy and the highest levels of the U.S. government are as good as any people that I've worked with anywhere in the world," Heyman said on "Squawk Box." That's high praise from a diplomat who served three years in the Obama administration and for 33 years at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).
Trump has leaned on Goldman alums in key administration posts. Ex-Goldman banker Steven Mnuchin is expected to be confirmed as Treasury secretary Monday evening. Gary Cohn, who left his No. 2 executive spot at Goldman, serves as director of the White House National Economic Council.
Heyman said it appears Trump did not engage in the large part of the infrastructure of the U.S. government before releasing some of his early executive orders. That's been "causing him some difficulties" recently, the former ambassador added.
The president has suffered two defeats in court over his executive order temporarily banning entry into the U.S. by travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries that have raised concerns about being hotbeds for terrorism.
"The president should utilize the knowledge base that we have in the various departments," Heyman said. "This is a resource for the White House to tap into. I think it's a mistake not to tap into that."
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On his weekend flight to Florida with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, US President Donald Trump said he would be signing a brand new order on immigration early this week as his original executive order was quashed by the appeal court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to lift a restraining order on February 9. The appeal followed a ruling by a federal judge in Seattle against the travel ban ordered by the Trump administration.
The presidential executive order on January 27 had barred entry of people from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Syria to the United States. It imposed a 90-day ban on residents from these seven predominantly Muslims countries and a 120-day suspension of refugee intake.
We will not allow people into our country who are looking to do harm to our people, Trump said at a White House news conference. The Trump administration is still considering to move the Supreme Court.
The travel ban continues to face stiff resistance from the tech companies.
Around 130 companies, mostly from tech industry, banded together to file a legal brief on February 5 at the appeal court against Trump's order. This is for the first time that Silicon Valley tech firms have come together so vociferously against the federal government.
The signatories included Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Uber, Airbnb, eBay, Netfix, Twitter and Intel. A few non-tech firms such as Levi Strauss and Chobani have also signed the brief.
The order affected even green card holders from the listed countries who were outside the US. Tech companies reacted swiftly. They asked their overseas staffers to rush back to the US.
Faced with disruptions following the ban order, several tech firms collected contributions to fight the executive order legally. Companies offered free service to help out those affected by the order. Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, quit Trumps business advisory team in protest. Workers under the banner of Tech Solidarity took out rallies in New York, Seattle, Boston, Portland and other cities.
The amicus brief of the tech firms said the order was a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years.
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Photo: AP
Here are the chief arguments being raised by the tech circle
Immigrants or their children founded more than 200 of the great iconic companies on the Fortune 500 list. These giant corporations created huge wealth of about $4.2 trillion and created millions of jobs for Americans.
Immigrants are among the great inventors, entrepreneurs, political leaders, scientists and artists. They continue to be a driving force in the American economy.
Tech firms rely on foreign workers for ideas and talents from diverse backgrounds. A ban would hurt diversity, which is crucial for innovation and growth of American companies. It puts barriers to bringing great talent and investment to the US. The ban could impair the ability of US companies to compete globally.
The blanket ban on a few countries inflicts significant harm to the US economy in general.
The order disrupts ongoing business operations as a good number of workers belong to the banned countries. Talented immigrants contributed to the tech industry, growth and prosperity of the United states and the world.
The ban order polarises the American society and alienates a section of people. In order to become a healthy inclusive society, we have to find means to connect people, not separate them.
Actions of the federal government restrict international trade.
The US is a nation of immigrants. People of all ethnicity should have the same opportunity in the US. People wait for long years to come to the US. Closing doors on countries or saying no to alien refugees is un-American. The ban affects the countrys global image. It fundamentally contradicts American values and multinational culture of the corporates.
Blanket entry ban on citizens from a few Muslim countries is not the best way to make America safe.
Rajkummar Rao's new film, Newton, directed by Amit Masurkar, is a comic take on the hullabaloo around the elections.
Rao plays an earnest government employee named Newton (originally Nutan) Kumar, who arrives at a nondescript village in Chhattisgarh. The tribals who live in the Naxal-hit area, and he, are poles apart. His job is to set up and supervise a polling office and get people to vote. It leads to situations both hilarious and poignant, as he discovers the problems there.
Between police forces trying to keep dissent at bay and Maoists trying to make a point, the locals' loyalties lay divided. More than that, they are afraid to come out and votesomething that Newton wishes to change.
The film made its world premiere at the Berlinale 2017 in Berlin. According to reports, the audience responded positively to the film, with thunderous applause and praise coming in from critics.
Newton also stars Pankaj Tripathi, known for his roles in Gangs of Wasseypur and Masaan, along with Raghubir Yadav and Anjali Patil.
Masurkar is no stranger to acclaim from international quarters. His last film, Sulemani Keeda (2014)an insight into the lives of two low-key Bollywood film writing partnerswas praised for having much to appreciate.
Amid all the commercial hits and flops that outline Bollywood, every year, a small handy number of indie films are released. Some of them, like Newton, premiere at international film festivals.
At the Toronto International Film Festival, one of the most coveted festivals around the world, films such as Miss Lovely (2012), Ship of Theseus (2012) and Parched (2015) presented Indian cinematic talent at its best.
So happy 2 share tht our film #NEWTON wil have it's world premier at Berlin i'national film festival.Congrats team @ManMundra @Amit_Masurkar pic.twitter.com/4CPuayojmp Raj Kummar Rao (@RajkummarRao) January 18, 2017
In 2013, Ritesh Batra's Lunchbox was screened at Cannes, and won many awards including the Grand Rail d'Or award. Similarly, Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan (produced by Drishyam Films, the ones backing Newton) won an award at Cannes in 2015.
The violent-drama Titli (2014), directed by Kanu Behl, travelled to all the major film festivals including Cannes and BFI London, besides winning awards for best film and best actress (Shivani Raghuvanshi).
The political stalemate in Tamil Nadu is likely to end soon as the Supreme Court is all set to deliver its verdict in the disproportionate assets case against AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala on Tuesday.
A bench of justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Amitava Roy will deliver its verdict at 10.30 am on a bench of petitions, including the one filed by the Karnataka government, challenging the Bangalore High Court order on May 11, 2015 acquitting Sasikala and late former chief minister J.Jayalalithaa.
Jayalalithaa was the main accused in the case. Earlier, a trial court had convicted Jayalalithaa, Sasikala, and her two relatives V.N. Sudhakaran and Elavarasiin the case on September 27, 2014.
The trial court had sentenced the late leader to four years in jail and imposed a Rs 100 crore fine in the disproportionate assets case. The trial lasted for 18 years.
The case is pertaining to allegedly amassing disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 66.65 crore during Jayalalithaa's first term as chief minister from 1991 to 1996.
A section of the media reported that the two judges will read out the judgment separately on Tuesday, sparking off speculations that the top court would deliver a split verdict. In that case, the case will again be referred to a larger bench for further hearing.
If the apex court upholds the trial court verdict, it will leave Sasikala in dire straits as she cannot anymore continue her race for the chief minister post. She will have to set aside and pick one of her loyalists to the top post.
However, if the apex court quashes the High Court order, it will be a major shot in the arm for Sasikala politically and morally.
The political turmoil in the state started on Tuesday last when O.Panneerselvam launched an open revolt against Sasikala saying he was forced by the party chief to resign from the chief minister's post. He set off the rebellion after a meeting of AIADMK MLAs elected the party chief as the legislative party leader paving way for her elevation as the chief minister.
Brightening hopes for the resolution of impasse over appointment of judges to the higher judiciary, the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday said the new Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointments in the High Courts and the Supreme Court was likely to be finalised by the end of the month.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice J.S.Khehar and Justice N.V.Ramanna said that the finalisation could happen "may be within this month". The bench was hearing a petition filed by Haryana-based advocate Satya Veer Sharma seeking greater transparency in appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
The judiciary and the government have been locked in a tussle for over a year on the drafting of the new MoP, with the apex court rejecting many of the proposals made by the Centre, arguing that they would end up compromising the independence of the judiciary.
A five-judge bench headed by Khehar had struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), a law which had been passed by Parliament, as being unconstitutional. As it struck down the NJAC, the bench said a new MoP needed to be drafted to bring in greater transparency in the appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
However, former chief justice T.S.Thakur was at loggerheads with the Centre on the issue of appointment of judges. On more than one occasion, he had even pulled up the government, saying it was causing great harm to the judiciary by blocking appointments.
The MoP had been stuck in an impasse, with the collegium headed by Justice Thakur sending back the draft prepared by the government, rejecting several clauses in it. After Khehar took over as the CJI, there were expectations that he would work towards a resolution of the differences between the government and the judiciary on the issue.
The earlier MoP was drafted by the government in 1999.
A 20-year-old BJP worker was brutally murdered allegedly by CPI(M) activists in Kerala's Thrissur district on Sunday night.
According to media reports, Nirmal was stabbed during an altercation at a local temple festival. Although he was rushed to the hospital, he succumbed to the injuries.
Following the murder, the BJP has called for a strike in the district on Monday.
According to media reports, police suspect that personal rivalry was behind the incident.
This incident comes barely a month after another BJP worker was murdered in Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's constituency Dharmadam in Kannur.
Thousands of protesters in more than a dozen Mexican cities took to the streets on Sunday to express their fierce opposition to US President Donald Trump, portraying the new leader as a menace to both America and Mexico.
Waving Mexicans flags and hoisting anti-Trump signs in both Spanish and English, some vulgar, many protesters also heaped scorn on their own president, deriding Enrique Pena Nieto as a weak leader who has presided over rampant corruption and violence at home.
Trump and Pena Nieto have been locked in battle over their countries' deep ties for months, even before Trump won the presidency with promises to get tougher on immigration and trade from Mexico.
Mexico fears Trump's policies could send Latin America's second biggest economy into crisis.
In a rare display of national unity, marchers and organisers came from across the country's deeply polarized political factions, encouraged in part by a pro-march ad campaign by Televisa, the country's dominant broadcaster.
In the Mexican capital, two separate marches were set to converge on the iconic Angel of Independence monument on the city's leafy Paseo de la Reforma avenue.
"He's such a bad man and he shouldn't act the way he does," said 62-year-old marcher Jorge Ruiz about Trump, who expressed particular anger at how the former reality TV star has insulted migrants.
One marcher carried a larger-than-life painted Trump mannequin, portraying him as an outlandish cartoon character, while others carried pinatas resembling the US leader wearing floppy Mexican hats bearing pro-Mexico slogans.
"His policies are a global threat that go against pluralism and diversity and they represent a particular threat to Mexico," she added.
Three weeks into his administration, Trump has vowed to move ahead with construction of his signature border wall, which he has repeatedly said Mexico will pay for, as well as signaling a new push to deport millions of unauthorised immigrants from the country.
While organisers of the marches promoted them as non-partisan, many singled out Pena Nieto as a major obstacle.
"We're also marching today to demand that our own rulers put an end to corruption and so much loss of life here and actually look out for the good of the country, not just themselves," said 28-year-old office worker Victor Robledo.
Last month, a poll showed that Pena Nieto's approval ratings had hit a record low at just 12 percent, the lowest level of support for any president in decades.
"Mexicans demand respect, we want bridges not walls," read one banner carried by nearby marchers. "Trump you diminish America," read another.
Maria Paro Cassar, an organiser, said Trump has made Mexico and Mexicans in the United States "his favorite target."
Stanford University Campus
Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and 14 other universities filed an amicus brief on Monday challenging President Donald Trump's immigration order.
The brief stated that the executive order has already caused "damaging effects" at American universities.
"These costs are significant and directly affect amici's ability to pursue their missions," the brief read. "And they are being experienced absent any evidence that amici's lawfully-present students, faculty, and scholarsall of whom have already undergone significant vetting by the governmentpose any threat to the safety or security of the United States or amici's campuses."
The brief, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, was signed by the presidents of Brown, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Yale.
The brief adds to mounting backlash from the higher education community over an executive order signed by Trump that bars citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days and bars Syrians indefinitely. The order, signed on January 30, also halted all refugee immigration to the US for 120 days.
The order is temporarily on hold after a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order on enforcement of the ban and the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling.
The Ninth Circuit court, which decided last week to uphold the temporary restraining order, ruled that "under the 'third party standing' doctrine, injuries to the state universities give the states standing to assert the rights of the students, scholars, and faculty affected by the Executive Order."
"The Executive Order prevents nationals of seven countries from entering Washington and Minnesota," the Ninth Circuit judges wrote. "As a result, some of these people will not enter state universities, some will not join those universities as faculty, some will be prevented from performing research, and some will not be permitted to return if they leave."
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In early February, the presidents of 48 American colleges and universities delivered a searing letter Trump taking aim at his order's "extreme vetting" procedures.
The letter, drafted by Princeton's president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, and the University of Pennsylvania's president, Amy Gutmann, and signed by 40 other college presidents said:
"This action unfairly targets seven predominantly Muslim countries in a manner inconsistent with America's best principles and greatest traditions. We welcome outstanding Muslim students and scholars from the United States and abroad, including the many who come from the seven affected countries ... This executive order is dimming the lamp of liberty and staining the country's reputation. We respectfully urge you to rectify the damage done by this order."
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President Reuven Rivlin and his wife Nechama last week celebrated Tu BShevat Seder attended by a group of terror victims who lost both of their parents in terror attacks and farmers from all across the country.
Among the families who took part in the event were: brothers Shlomo and Didi Dickstein whose parents were killed in 2002 in a shooting along with their brothers Shoval, aged 10; Hila Libeskind accompanied by her husband, Beni, Hilas parents were murdered on their way home to Jerusalem after visiting her aunt in Gush Katif; Yeshurun Gavish whose parents, grandfather and elder brother were killed in their home in Elon Moreh; Sisters Hodayah and Ruchama Imas whose parents were murdered near the settlement of Beit Chaggai; Vicky Djan whose parents were murdered on their way to a vacation in Eilat; and Sisters Neta Halevi and Naama Zoref who lost their parents in suicide attack in 2006.
This group was organized by the OneFamily Organization, a leading Israeli NPO founded to support terror victims and their families.
Chantal Belzberg, CEO of OneFamily, have said: I want to thank you, Mr. President, for receiving and embracing this special group of terror victims who lost both of their parents in a single terrorist attack. Many of them also lost siblings and other family members at the same time. Since the beginning of the second Intifada, the Moms and Dads of 16 different families were murdered together, leaving 72 children behind, many of whom watched their parents murder.
A Man is like a tree in the field. No branch of a tree can survive without being connected to a tree trunk, and no tree trunk can survive without its roots holding it steady and giving it water. Children whove been cut off from the unwavering strength, stability and support of their parents, and disconnected from the roots of their family tree, get blown away by a gust of wind. Tu BShevat reminds us of our responsibility to be the roots and the stable trunk for every young branch, human being, that is vulnerably left to face the vagaries of life alone added Belzberg.
President Rivlin have addressed the guests saying, For you terrorism is not an old memory, but an open wound. Mankind has learned from nature from the trees the ability to regenerate, to heal, and continue to go forward. You are living expressions of the ability to grow, to live, and to move forward. I thank you all, and am glad we are able to celebrate Tu-BShevat together. We celebrate Hatikvah, the hope to live in our country, in the land flowing with milk and honey.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Against the background of the publication of January 2017 incoming tourism statistics, which show an increase of 27% in January 2016 and a record number of 210,000 tourists, the International Mediterranean Tourism Market IMTM closed in Tel Aviv.
The Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said that: For the last few consecutive months, we have witnessed record figures in incoming tourism to Israel. This is no coincidence but rather policy. The marketing activities and the steps that we are taking to brand Israel in the campaign Two Cities One Break are proving themselves time after time. The dramatic increase teaches us that Israel is seen as an attractive and varied tourism destination. I am convinced that if we continue this path we will see additional significant increases in the future.
210,000 tourist entries were recorded in January 2017, as opposed to 165,000 in January 2016, an increase of 27% and 25% more than January 2015. 188,200 tourists arrived by air, 23% more than January 2016 and 27% more than January 2015. About 22,000 tourists entered through the land borders, 76% more than in January 2016. There were about 12,000 day visitors, a 23% increase on January 2016.
In this years IMTM, the presence of Turkey was particularly noted, after several years hiatus in attendance. Tourism Minister Yariv Levin met with his counterpart the Turkish Tourism Minister Navi Avci and they held a joint press conference. Minister Levin also met with other tourism ministers and leading figures in the global tourism industry who came from overseas to participate in IMTM.
The Tourism Ministry arranged several activities to encourage incoming and domestic tourism, including, among others:
The TEDxTelAvivSalon, the first of its kind relating to tourism issues. Four lecturers opened a door to the world of tourism. Omer Bogger, CEO of Eatwith Noam Klinger, Tzippora Nussbaum and Dr. Eran Ketter.
In the second Tourism Ministry hackathon, a competition to develop tourism apps using data provided by the ministry, the app Livetrip, which offers tourists the possibility to locate attractions, restaurants etc on a map and watch short videos, won first prize of NIS 10,000. In second place and for a NIS 5,000 prize, Triplan, which for the first time, allows tourists to connect directly with licensed tour guides. Third place and a NIS 2,500 prize went to Mebo-Israbot, a smart personal assistant that can speak and help the tourist with everything related to their visit in Israel.
A panel via Skype took place with the directors of the Israel Government Tourist Offices in Germany, India and China covering the marketing activities in those destinations.
The Tourism Ministry also held a conference to mark seven years of activity developing rural tourism in the Druse and Circassian communities. In recent years, the ministry has invested tens of millions of shekels in improving tourism infrastructure and establishing tourism incubators to help small tourism-related businesses in these villages. The conference included encounters with some of the people behind the success stories in the Druse and Circassian tourism enterprise, as well as tastes of ethnic cuisine and folklore.
In addition, IMTM presented social tourism initiatives of women working from their homes in the Jerusalem area and beyond.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Israel Police are summoned hundreds of times monthly by light rail inspectors.
Passengers at times are detained by light rail inspectors if there are problems with their smart cards, which are often due to technical malfunction. Police are summoned on the average of seven times daily.
In fact, MK Uri Maklev has learned that inspectors detain more passengers because they do not always summon police. He is concerned that police are bothered by this so many times daily, preventing them from addressing far more important matters. Maklev also points out that all too often the problem is technical in nature and not non-payment explaining the smart cards malfunction or it is not clear to passengers as to what they are required to do.
Maklev feels the light rail inspectors are too aggressive as often passengers err and their non-payment is not the result of an intentional act.
Maklev explains Take for example a woman comes to Jerusalem with her three-month-old infant for a medical visit and used the light rail for the first time. She purchases a one-time card but is not aware she needs to validate it upon entering the train. She is taken off the train and four inspectors surround her and police are summoned as if she is a suspected terrorist. All of this because they fear she stole a single ride. This is not and should not be a police matter but police are cooperating with inspectors and respond to calls, and this is a part of the problem.
Maklev made his remarks in a Knesset query to Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who responded he does not want to have police become in involved in these matters, but pointed out a policeman may be at the station and he may become involved at times. He explains Israel Police tries to respond to all calls whether it come from citizens or light rail inspectors. We are happy to lessen the workload in any and all cases viewed as a waste of police personnels time.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A 13-year-old terrorist was apprehended in the act, using a slingshot to hurl stones at mispallalim visiting Kever Rochel. The masked youth was apprehended and taken into custody along with seven others arrested in recent days for their alleged participation in attacks.
During his questioning, the 13-year-old suspect admitted to other attacks as well. He will soon be indicted as police report they are continuing to bring these offenders under lock and key.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
It is a rainy day in Jerusalem but this did not prevent Amona refugees from traveling to the capital on Sunday, 16 Shevat to protest their plight near the Prime Ministers Office. They carried signs Dont leave us homeless, calling on the cabinet to discuss their plight and arrange for alternate housing as per the agreement signed on December 18, 2016 between the government and residents. In that agreement, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promised to have a new community in the same general area, on state land, in place by the end of March 2017.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem / Photo Credit: )
Officials have ordered residents near one of the nations biggest dams to evacuate the area, saying a hazardous situation is developing after an emergency spillway severely eroded.
The emergency spillway of the Oroville Dam in Northern California could fail within an hour unleashing uncontrolled flood waters from Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said on Sunday afternoon.
People in downstream areas need to leave the area immediately, the department said.
Residents of Oroville, a town of 16,000 people, should head north toward Chico, and other cities should follow orders from their local law enforcement agencies, the Butte County Sheriffs office said.
Water began flowing over the emergency spillway at the dam on Saturday after heavy rainfall damaged the main spillway.
Unexpected erosion chewed through the main spillway earlier this week, sending chunks of concrete flying and creating a 200-foot-long, 30-foot-deep hole that continues growing. Engineers dont know what caused the cave-in, but Chris Orrock, a spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said it appears the dams main spillway has stopped crumbling even though its being used for water releases.
About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville is one of Californias largest man-made lakes, and the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam is the nations tallest. The lake is a central piece of Californias government-run water delivery network, supplying water for agriculture in the Central Valley and residents and businesses in Southern California.
(AP)
Marine Le Pen is calling to expand the EU law prohibiting one from maintain dual citizenship with nations that are not EU members. She sites this is the case for Israelis as Israel is not a member of the European Union.
This means French Jews who hold Israeli citizenship would be compelled to give up one of them. The same would hold true for the estimated over 33,000 Jews living in Germany as a Green Party poll favors imposing the law on Israeli nationals.
Le Pen last week told France 2 TV that if elected in the upcoming elections, this is one of the laws that she would implement, banning dual citizenship for non-EU nations including Israel. This would impact an estimated quarter of a million French Jews residing in Israel today while maintaining their French citizenship. Le Pen explains if elected, she would not exempt them from the new law.
She stressed if those Jews living in France decide to give up French citizenship, they would not be compelled to leave but they simply have to select their loyalty.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning addressed the media prior to the closed session of the weekly cabinet meeting. Mr. Netanyahu began by addressing his imminent departure for Washington where he will meet with President Donald Trump for a first time.
Tomorrow I will leave for Washington to meet with President Donald Trump. We have known each other for years, but this will be his first meeting since being elected President of the United States and mine as Prime Minister of Israel. This is also a very important meeting for Israels security, Israels strengthening international position and our overall national interests.
Ahead of the meeting, I have held many discussions in recent days with the heads of the security establishment, the National Security Council, the Foreign Ministry and, of course, I have also held additional consultations. I hear and understand that there is great excitement ahead of this meeting, with all different kinds of motivation behind it, but I have only one motivation: My supreme consideration is to be concerned, first of all, for the security of the State of Israel, to strengthen the steadfast alliance with the US, and to strengthen our other national interests which are fundamentally connected to the strength of ties with the US. This requires a responsible and considered policy and thus I intend to act. I have navigated Israeli-US relations in a prudent manner and I will continue to do so now.
We will submit to the government a proposal to extend the tenure of IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkott by an additional year. The Chief of Staff enjoys my great appreciation and I am certain yours as well. I think that this is reflected in the regard of Israels citizens. Continuity in building up the strength of the IDF and our preparedness regarding various challenges are, of course, important.
Regarding these challenges I would like to reiterate: In the face of recent events such as the firing at Eilat and in other areas, we have a very clear policy. We will respond strongly and aggressively to any attack. We are not prepared to accept a passive drizzle and we make it clear that whoever attacks us will pay dearly. We are not set on escalation, but we do not fear at all to respond strongly to whoever would attack us.
Finally, several days ago I was informed of the possibility of the appointment of Salaam Fayyad to a UN position. I said that the time has come for reciprocity in the UNs relations with Israel and free gifts cannot be constantly given to the Palestinian side. The time has come for positions and appointments to be made to the Israeli side as well. Should there be an appropriate appointment, we will consider it.
Trumpyahu: The perfect couple
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has received requests [but not a formal complaint] inquiring as to why it is not canceling the semicha of former Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger in light of the him pleading guilty to charges of accepting bribes.
In fact, a precedent was set during Rabbi Metzgers tenure as Chief Rabbi as the Chief Rabbinate for a first time ever, canceled the semicha of a rav who was found to be involved in stealing Sifrei Torah, a rav who was serving as Rabbi of Moshe Brosh. There have been other cases as well so asking to do so against Rabbi Metzger would not be a precedent-setting act.
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel Rabbinical Council is being called upon to cancel Rabbi Metzgers rabbinical ordination. At present, the Chief Rabbinate Ethics Committee is probing the matter.
If a formal complaint is filed, which the Chief Rabbinate states has not yet occurred, the Ethics Committee will submit its recommendations to the Chief Rabbinate Rabbinical Council for a decision.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
While Naftali Bennet and members of his Bayit Yehudi party are calling on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to annex areas of Yehuda and Shomron and to address these matters with President Trump in his upcoming White House meeting, Mr. Netanyahu has a different agenda.
Prior to his departure for his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, the cabinet met on Sunday 16 Shevat for hours, discussing many matters of urgency. For the Prime Minister, the matter that tops his agenda with the new US administration is the Iranian threat, and this is the message he plans to deliver to Mr. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Mr. Netanyahu is hoping to make the Iranian threat a matter of top priority for the US administration in the Mideast. Realizing the matter of the PA (Palestinian Authority) will be on the agenda, Mr. Netanyahu will agree to resuming talks without preconditions. Over recent years PA Chairman Abu Mazen however has refused, explaining decisions that have been made in previous negotiations must be the starting point.
Regarding the communities in Yehuda and Shomron, Mr. Netanyahu is more likely to learn what the new presidents agenda and rather than handing over a list of demands including annexation and other demands. There is no doubt the passing of the new Regulation Law to legalize over 4,000 buildings throughout Yehuda and Shomron was not timed to take this upcoming meeting into consideration. While the Trump administration did not outright condemn the passing of the law as other countries did, the White House did make it clear the passage of the law was not advantageous to peace-making efforts.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman blames the Defense Ministry for the growing debt being incurred by northern district hospitals. He explains that the hospitals are continuing to treat Syrian refugees but the funding for the treatment, which is supposed to come from the Defense Ministry, has not been released despite committing to underwrite the cost of care for the refugees.
A meeting is planned for Thursday, 20 Shevat, involving the director-general of the Prime Ministers Office towards having the funds released. Litzman warns if the funds, including retroactive payments are not handed over, he will prohibit hospitals from accepting refugees for he is unwilling to have his ministry flip the bill for their care.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
China, facing criticism that it is not doing enough to pressure North Korea to drop its nuclear program, said Monday that the root cause of North Korean missile launches is Pyongyangs friction with the United States and South Korea.
North Korea fired a banned ballistic missile on Sunday, its first test since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. The missile, launched as Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Florida, is believed to have flown about 500 kilometers (300 miles) before splashing down in international waters.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China opposed the launch, which violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for an end to North Koreas nuclear and missile tests.
China is North Koreas largest source of trade and aid, and Trump has complained that Beijing is not doing enough to pressure Pyongyang. Beijing counters that its influence is overstated and suggests that Washingtons refusal to talk directly to North Korea is impeding progress toward a solution.
The root cause of the (North Korean) nuclear missile issue is its differences with the U.S. and South Korea, Geng told reporters at a regular briefing.
Geng said China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has been completely and comprehensively implementing Security Council resolutions on the nuclear issue. He said Beijing has been striving for a settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue by proactively engaging in mediation and promoting peace talks.
Although generally dismissive of sanctions, Beijing has signed on to successive rounds under the U.N. Security Council, and last month banned more items from being exported to North Korea, including plutonium and dual-use technologies that could aid its nuclear program.
Geng urged all sides to refrain from provocative action and said China would continue participating in Security Council discussions in a constructive and responsible way.
Beijing appears concerned that the U.S. and South Korea will speed up the planned deployment of an advanced missile defense system in South Korea designed to counter a missile attack from the North following the latest launch. Beijing objects to the system because it would possibly be able to observe Chinese military movements.
Shi Yuanhua, a Korean studies professor at Shanghais Fudan University, said that from Pyongyangs perspective, it was a good time to launch a missile because the new U.S. administration hadnt decided what approach to take with North Korea, and Beijing was at odds with Washington and Seoul over the anti-missile system.
Whether or not to abandon nuclear weapons concerns North Koreas core national interests and there is no way for China to get it to change its stance with a few words of persuasion, and it cant solve the problem by applying a ban on exports, Shi said.
The key for solving the problem lies in the hands of the U.S. If the U.S. is willing to sit and talk with North Korea, China will be happy to promote it, he added.
A Communist Party newspaper said in an editorial Monday that the timing of Sundays launch, a day after the end of Chinas 15-day Lunar New Year period, suggests Beijings participation in U.N. Security Council sanctions is having a positive effect. Last year, North Korea launched a long-range rocket on the eve of Chinas most important holiday, in a snub to its chief ally.
(AP)
After months of scoffing at the thought, Verizon seems ready to concede that unlimited data is really making a comeback in the wireless industry. The company on Monday started offering its customers the Verizon Unlimited plan, which is designed to compete with similar offerings from each of Verizons three national competitors.
The Verizon Unlimited plan costs $80 a month for a single line or $45 a month per line for a family of four. With that, customers receive unlimited voice, data and text messaging although Verizon says that after any single line uses more than 22 GB of data in a month, mobile data speeds may be slowed down for the plan. To sign up and receive the advertised price, customers must enroll in autopay and paper-free billing.
The unlimited plan also allows customers to extend their phones data connection to a laptop or other device for up to 10 GB of high-speed data; after 10 GB, the mobile hotspot connection gets slowed to 3G speeds. Travelers to Mexico and Canada will also get 500 MB of 4G LTE per day during their visits. Verizon offers unlimited HD video streaming with its plan.
Verizon is the last major U.S. carrier to make a return to unlimited data and it wasnt long ago that Verizon execs were pooh-poohing the idea.
At the end of the day, people dont need unlimited plans, said Fran Shammo, who was then the companys chief financial officer, at an investor conference in September.
Carriers such as Verizon and AT&T had been moving away from unlimited data plans for years, arguing that consumers would be better served by buying smaller plans with data caps. But critics of data caps, and even some Internet providers, argued that data caps are these days just another way of making money. When customers go over their limits and incur an overage fee, that revenue stream goes toward supporting the service providers operations. Some diehards remain on old unlimited plans that they signed onto years ago, and in an effort to push those consumers to switch, carriers have repeatedly raised prices on those grandfathered plans.
Competition by smaller carriers, however, began to reverse the trend away from unlimited data. T-Mobile, whose broader assault on the wireless establishment has proven successful by siphoning millions of subscribers away from its rivals, now advertises only a single plan to new customers that offers unlimited data by default. Sprint also provides an unlimited data option to its customers.
Many of these unlimited plans come with a catch, however. For instance, T-Mobiles plan limits your streaming video quality to 480p, while Sprint applies quality restrictions to audio and online gaming as well as video. AT&T, meanwhile, sells an unlimited data plan but requires those customers to subscribe to DirecTV to get it.
Verizon describes its new plan as introductory, which leaves it unclear whether Verizons advertised prices are merely promotional; asked whether the rates were a limited time offer, Verizon spokeswoman Kate Jay said that the company intends to develop this further with a range of network and service options.
Were committed to having an unlimited option in our portfolio, said Jay. As technologies and things change, there could be evolution. But were committed to having that option.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post Brian Fung
For anyone living with the delusion that Israel will one day be at peace with the Hamas regime in Gaza, this illusion has become even more unlikely following elections in Hamastine.
Elected to replace Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was Yahya Sinwar, a senior member of Hamas military wing and one of the terrorists released by Israel in the infamous Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal.
Hamas Prime Minister Yahya Sinwar will however still be working with Ismail, who is going to replace Khaled Meshal, who headed the political bureau of Hamas. The newly-elected 52-year-old Hamastine PM is a known hard-liner and radical, as well as a senior official in Izzadin el-Kassam, the partys military wing.
Prior to being released by Israel in the Shalit deal, he served 22 years in prison for murdering his own people, those suspected of collaborating with Israel. He was also a part of the planning of the 1994 kidnapping and murder of IDF soldier Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman HYD.
(YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Support: Former Bank of England governor Lord King has stuck up for Brexit voters
Lord (Mervyn) King recently told an audience at the London School of Economics how he resented constant suggestions that anyone who voted Brexit 'must be either ignorant, uneducated, stupid or racist'.
Were the former Bank of England governor's comments aimed at anyone in particular, I wonder?
A well-placed source tells me Merv, 68, has been especially agitated by the Financial Times's sourpuss tone since the referendum.
City grandee and merchant banker Ken Olisa is recorded in the court circular as having 'received' the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at Sunday night's Bafta awards.
This was in his capacity as Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, which requires natty, bow tie-wearing Ken, 65, to be the point man for any visits the royal family make within the capital.
A tedious-sounding role, but it'll be Sir Ken before long, surely. Even in these banker-bashing times.
Blackstone group founder Stephen Schwarzman, whose wealth is put at 9billion, hosted an exotic 70th birthday bash at his sprawling estate in Florida's Palm Beach on Saturday.
Around 600 guests, who included Barclays chief Jes Staley and gawky Citigroup boss Michael Corbat, were entertained inside a two-storey tent by acrobats and a performance by eccentric pop star Gwen Stefani.
Meanwhile, a gondolier languidly steered a punt around a vast swimming pool. All sounds in the best possible taste, I must say.
City lawyers Clifford Chance, one of the so-called 'magic circle' of legal firms, has announced it managed to retain only 67 per cent of its trainees over the past year.
That's despite the firm paying newly qualified associates a princely 85,000 a year.
The remaining mites now have their work cut out. The firm has just been appointed by Co-op Bank to assist with the unenviable task of finding them a buyer.
Apropos hapless civil servants losing 5.5billion of taxpayers' money on failed schemes, as revealed in yesterday's Daily Mail, a report commissioned by David Cameron in 2010 on government efficiency observed of Whitehall: 'The process is shocking.
There's no reporting, there's no accountability. You could not be in business if you operated like this.' It was written by Sir Philip Green, back in the days when he was still considered something of a business guru.
A plunge in small firms joining the Citys junior stock market could be down to thriving public investment through crowdfunding websites, analysts claim.
Just one business joined the AIM market in January cement maker SigmaRoc, which raised 46.5m. Nine companies left.
While AIM has been a key source of cash for growing firms as it allows them to sell shares to the public experts put the slump in listings down to the rise of crowdfunders which let the public invest directly in private companies.
Change of direction: Just one business joined the AIM market in January, while nine companies left
Crowdfunders often promise huge returns for backers when small firms grow big enough to be sold or go public. But the industry has been criticised for a lack of transparency and there are fears that naive investors are unaware of the risks, with many businesses likely to fail.
Chris Boxall of Fundamental Asset Management said: The large number of crowdfunding possibilities means that earlier stage businesses can obtain funding through the crowd route far quicker and cheaper than venturing on to AIM, often at valuations bordering on the ridiculous that wouldnt be achieved through an AIM listing.
Public markets can also prove tricky for earlier stage businesses as shareholders often lose patience quickly, causing increased share price volatility. The London Stock Exchange may have missed a trick by not developing its own separate crowdfunding venture, which would also have served as a potential feeder for AIM.
Crowdfunding is growing rapidly and is believed to be outperforming private equity for investment into new businesses.
Leading crowdfunder Seedrs, which is backed by star fund manager Neil Woodford, was last week named as the top investor in private companies in the UK.
Seedrs and its nearest rival Crowdcube together accounted for 21 per cent of non-listed, high-growth investment in the UK, according to research by data analysts Beauhurst. The companies were only founded in 2012 and 2011 but funded more than 250 companies last year.
The potential threat to AIM comes as the City is keen to keep its place as a global financial centre in the wake of the Brexit vote.
Launched in 1995 as a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, an AIM listing means small companies can raise money by selling shares to the public. As the only one of its kind in the world, it has drawn hundreds of companies to London and is seen as a major feather in the Citys cap.
Businesses that have used it to raise cash include fashion retailer Joules, the Hotel Chocolat chain and publisher Time Out Group. Yet it also has critics who say it is under-regulated. At the end of January, 973 firms were listed on AIM with a total market value of 84.7bn. Thirty-eight firms floated on AIM last year, raising 1.1bn and ending the year with share prices up an average 39 per cent.
Oil and gas firm Eco-Atlantic listed on AIM last Wednesday, saying London investors could help fund its work in Guyana.
Last month the City had a major vote of confidence as Saudi Aramco, the worlds biggest oil company, said it was considering listing on the London Stock Exchange. Rare Earth Minerals also floated in January.
Banking software group Misys is understood to be mulling a return to the London Stock Exchange, in a boost to Londons flotation markets.
The London-based company, owned by tycoon Robert Smith, had been due to float in October but ditched its plans due to market uncertainty.
Centre stage: Misys is owned by tycoon Robert Smith (pictured with his wife, former Playboy model Hope Dworaczyk)
But it is believed that advisers are now discussing bidding for listing as soon as this summer, although no formal process is under way.
In 2012 Smiths company Vista Equity Partners paid 1.3bn for Misys, which builds financial software and employs about 4,700 people globally.
It planned to raise 500m in a flotation that would have valued it at about 5.5bn. But it cut the price of its IPO and then dropped its plans, altogether as companies including Pure Gym and Mountain Warehouse did the same.
Misys declined to comment.
Checking in
Thomson owner Tui will update the market on first-quarter trading this week as the City looks for indications that a strong trend in bookings last year has continued into 2017.
The travel giant reported in September that British holidaymakers had shrugged off worries over the Brexit vote and plunging pound with strong demand for trips abroad.
Carry on abroad: In September Thomson owner Tui reported that holidaymakers had shrugged off worries over Brexit and the pound
Cosy job
Former Tesco director Jill Easterbrook is to become chief executive of cosy catalogue fashion brand Boden.
The company sells most of its clothes online but is now opening more shops around the country.
Large chips
ARM Holdings has posted a 45 per cent surge in profits following its 24bn takeover by Japanese tech giant Softbank last summer.
The company, which designs microchips for most of the worlds smartphones, reported a third-quarter profit of 406m.
Water vote
Workers at Dee Valley Water say they will not appeal a High Court ruling last week that allows the takeover of their company by Severn Trent.
Staff had either bought or were gifted shares so they could vote down the bid over concerns about their jobs, but a judge decided their votes should not count.
Theyre off
William Hills biggest shareholder, Parvus Asset Management, which owns 14 per cent of the stock, is reportedly now pushing for a sale of the bookmaker despite having blocked a takeover by Canadian gambling firm Amaya last year.
The private equity owners of Agent Provocateur are close to securing a buyer for the troubled lingerie chain.
Advisers to 3i, which took control of the firm in 2007, are understood to have drawn up a shortlist of three suitors.
The potential buyers include former La Senza owner Lion Capital, specialist turnaround group Endless and French women's fashion brand Etam.
The planned deal follows a long period of dwindling sales and an accounting scandal.
Smalls change: The owners of Agent Provocateur are close to securing a buyer for the troubled lingerie chain
Private equity group 3i this winter wrote 39million off their investment in Agent Provocateur, taking the value on the books down to 3million.
But 3i bosses are thought to be keen to agree a deal worth more than the brand's outstanding debts of 30million.
They brought in experts from Alix Partners, a firm that specialises in helping troubled companies, to revive the lingerie seller.
The planned overhaul was expected to involve closing around 30 per cent of its 111 stores in 29 countries, and reducing staff by a third in its HQ in London.
But investment bank Rothschild was also brought on board to see if it could find a buyer.
And forensic accountants from Big Four firm KPMG were drafted in to trawl the books because of suspected 'accounting irregularities'.
All this corporate wrangling is a far cry from Agent Provocateur's origins as the brainchild of Joe Corre, the son of former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and punk fashion designer Vivienne Westwood.
Corre founded the business with his then wife Serena Rees in 1994. Their original shop in London's Soho became a destination for celebrities and supermodels as well as ordinary women.
Glamorous women of all vintages have been photographed in Agent Provocateur's risque underclothes, from Marie Helvin in a corset to Daisy Lowe in a leopardskin catsuit.
The City branch, in the old Royal Exchange, is an annual site of pilgrimage for bankers at Christmas, blowing a bit of their bonus on a cheeky gift for the girlfriend, mistress, or even wife.
IN BRIEFS: AGENT PROVOCATEUR Stars to have modelled for the brand include Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss (pictured) and Maggie Gyllenhaal The first Agent Provocateur shop was opened in December 1994 in Soho, central London
The company was founded by Joe Corre and his then wife Serena Rees
Corre, 49, is the son of Dame Vivienne Westwood and one time manager of Sex Pistols Malcolm McLaren
The company has 111 stores in 29 countries
Stars to have modelled for the brand include Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss and Maggie Gyllenhaal
But some of its adverts have bee criticised for being 'degrading to women'
Female sales staff are dressed in fitted pink housecoats so they look like naughty nurses. One early marketing slogan was 'More S&M than M&S'.
3i bought a big stake in Agent Provocateur back in 2007 for a sum never officially disclosed, but thought to be around 48million.
Sir Stuart Rose, who went on to be boss of Marks & Spencer and later a leading light in the campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union, was installed as chairman.
The private equity firm became involved as a result of Corre's divorce from Rees, after she embarked on a relationship with Paul Simonon, the former bass player with The Clash.
The nitty-gritty of 3i's involvement with the couple's business empire was overshadowed by salacious gossip about the split.
But in the heady days before the credit crisis private equity firms were desperate to buy into luxury brands.
Rees left the business but Corre stayed on as creative director. He later resigned, and has a lawsuit outstanding against 3i claiming they didn't pay him enough for his stake.
He no longer has a holding. 3i, which recently put another 4million into the business, tried to sell in 2014 but no deal transpired.
The private equity firm is tight-lipped about the nature of the accounting irregularities at the underwear-seller, though these are thought to involve an overstatement of profits.
The latest figures, for the year to March 28, 2015, show that profits fell by more than 20 per cent to 3.7million. Agent Provocateur has delayed publishing its accounts for the year to March 2016.
Japanese giant Toshiba is expected to confirm it is withdrawing from new nuclear projects outside Japan, dealing a big blow to plans for a new power station in the UK.
It has been reviewing its investment in overseas nuclear projects and is set to make a decision about its future as soon as today.
Toshiba has 60 per cent of Nugen, the firm which plans to build a 10billion nuclear plant at Moorside, near Sellafield, Cumbria.
Toshiba has 60 per cent of Nugen, the firm which plans to build a 10billion nuclear plant at Moorside, near Sellafield, Cumbria (pictured)
But it is embroiled in an accounting scandal, and faces multi-billion dollar write-downs of its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric.
If it pulls out of the project in Cumbria, the UK government will need to find new backers.
Chris Jukes, the GMB union's senior officer for Sellafield, said: 'A new build at Moorside is part of a vital broader and home-grown energy mix built, maintained and operated by British workers.
'That is why we are calling on the British Government to commit the investment that is lost by Toshiba pulling out and for the British and Japanese governments to work together on a broader solution.'
Unite union's national officer for energy Kevin Coyne said: 'This is potentially a deeply troubling development and points to the need for the Government to take a more strategic approach.'
Mr and Miss Freshers, Temakhosi Mndzebele and Mpilo Ginindza pose after being crowned as the freshest of them all .
MATSAPHA The only thing the students who attended the annual Kwalusenis freshers ball wanted to see was the who the 2017 freshest king and queen would be, and that is exactly what they got.
Bachelor of Social Science students Mphilo Ginindza and Temakhosi Mndzebele were crowned Mr and Miss Kwaluseni Freshers 2017.
The two won the hearts of the judges who included Miss Swaziland Linda Hutchinson during what was a very tight competition, as all the students had an array of supporters. The Miss Freshers pageant saw 14 students take part while the Mr Freshers pageant had 12 young men vying for the crown.
The pageant was held on Friday night and started just after 11pm at the Kwaluseni Campus Multipurpose Hall.
In was not easy to tell as all the students seemed to be confident as they all wanted to take it home.
The contestants first walked on the ramp in pairs as they introduced themselves to the fully packed hall. MC for the night was local comedian Mdura who kept everyone entertained with his occasional jokes.
Soon as the couples segment was over it was time for serious competition and first to be judged were the male contestants . Who paraded in formal wear making sure that the judges and audience had a good look at them. They were followed by the female contestants who were stunning in evening gowns.
As they walked through the well prepared ramp which had a red carpet on it, the judges took time analysing the contestants from head to toe, trying to make sure that they make the right choice.
The Ocean Fresh truck landed in this position after its driver failed to turn. (Pic: Bongiwe Dlamini)
MBABANE A truck that was fresh from ferrying food parcels ploughed into the wall fence of a homestead and further crashed into a gate of another home.
Four men aboard the truck were lucky to be alive after its driver failed to make it through a turn.
The truck, branded Ocean Fresh, was said to be from Buhleni at the Buganu festival to Ludzidzini when the accident occurred. According to eyewitnesses at the scene, the truck was driving at high speed and the driver, Sabelo Mabuza (40), is suspected to have failed to negotiate the turn. According to a traffic police officer who resides at Lobamba, he thought the driver was tired as they had been delivering food parcels to Buhleni for the buganu festival. I think he relaxed when driving up the road not aware that hell miss the turn, said the cop.
The truck first hit a wall fence before hitting metal fencing poles, driving through the trees and landed on a concrete gate pole at a Gamedze homestead. One of the witnesses who saw the whole accident said the truck was driving at a high speed before it hit the wall fence. Ifike lana seyindiza seyita netihlahla beyitikhukhula, narrated the eyewitness.
Aboard the truck were three passengers and one of them sustained serious head injuries and fractured legs. Samkeliso Lokotfwako who is estimated to be in his 30s is said to be the most injured of the three. According to an eyewitness, Lokotfwako was on the passenger seat, on the side that the truck was officer damaged.
The traffic police who rushed to the scene when he heard the loud bang said when he got there, two of the passengers were trapped and he and other members of the public tried to save them.
MBABANE About 18 000 orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs)from four constituencies will be receiving cash grants from the Deputy Prime Ministers (DPM) office.
This is through the implementation of an OVC Social Safety Net Pilot Project with the technical and financial support of the World Bank and European Union.
The DPM, Paul Dlamini, in an interview said the money ranged from E100 to E200.
He said children aged between zero to five years would receive E100 w
hile those aged 6-11 would receive E150 and those above 12-18 would get E200.
According to the Principal Secretary in the DPMs office, Khangeziwe Mabuza, the programme is aimed at providing a regular and predictable cash transfer to chronic and extreme poor households with orphans and vulnerable children in order to promote fostering and human capital development of the children.
The project is currently being implemented in four pilot constituencies, one constituency per region namely Madlangempisi, Mkhiweni, Hlane and Somntongo, said the PS through a press statement.
MANZINI- Could government have been misinformed prior to implementing the religious ban in schools?
This is one question that various religious leaders have.
As such, some of the leaders have resolved to send a delegation to the Ministry of Education and Training to engage them in a bid to make right any misinformation they had about other religions. ased in South Africa, Educational Consultant Ahmed Mukadam, suggested to the church leaders who were present on Friday during the Interfaith Dialogue that they choose people who were respected and known to the government to organise a meeting with the Ministry of Education and ask what the reasons were behind their decision.
If the government is being fed information that is incorrect, make it right. Ask what the problem is, ask what their fears are, ask how those fears can be solved, ask if they thought this decision was practical especially in the world that we live in, Mukadam said.
He advised that the engagement between the parties be open and continuous and involve other ministries as well. He shared how in the beginning of democracy in South Africa, it was resolved that religious groups would be involved in the countrys decision making processes provided that human rights were not taken away.
MANZINI Luciano Zavales widow wants E9 million from the government.
Laura Fransisco Malhanguani is the widow of the late Zavale, who met his death in June 2015, after he was arrested by the police and taken for interrogation on charges of theft.
He later died while in police custody and an inquest regarding his death was initiated.
The findings of the inquest are yet to be made public.
She has now taken the government to court through family lawyer Leo Gama, demanding that the government pays her E9 million as compensation for loss of support.
According to Laura, while still alive, her late husband took care of her and their five children as she was unemployed.
She believes that the police officers had a legal duty to ensure that no harm befell her husband while he was in their custody.
In her particulars of claim, Laura submitted that on or about June 12, 2015, the Zavale was arrested by certain police officers stationed at the Manzini Police Station and detained him there.
At the Manzini Police Station, while in the custody of the police, certain officers unlawfully caused the death of Luciano Zavale by asphyxiation either intentionally or negligently, she alleged.
MBABANE The deputy head teacher of Bahai High School has to constantly watch her back while conducting her duties after her superiors wife attacked her with a pair of scissors, suspecting her of having a love affair with her husband.
Gabsile Dlamini (born Hlatshwayo), who is employed by government under the Ministry of Education and Training, is alleged to have attacked the deputy on January 30, 2017 in full view of pupils, teachers and other staff members.
Her husband, Mangaliso Dlamini, is both the head teacher and Grantee of the Bahai schools.
Adulterous
Mangaliso alleged that his wife, whom he married through civil rites and in community of property, accused his deputy of being in an adulterous relationship with him.
Mangaliso mentioned, in court papers, that his marriage to Gabsile, which still subsists, has been rigged with problems which they are working hard to resolve. He alleged that his wife has time and again accused her of cheating with the female employees in the school.
Gabsile, according to her husband, also accused him of having extramarital affairs with other staff members at the school.
MBABANE Government is bringing back top-up fees! The Minister of Education and Training, Phineas Magagula, has submitted to Cabinet a proposal to reintroduce the top-up fees and reviewed FPE grants.
This proposal was disclosed to executive members of the teaching fraternity in a meeting held with the minister late last year.
The executive of the Swaziland Principals Association (SWAPA) emerged from the meeting excited about the prospects of the top up fees return and better FPE grants.
The issue of top-up fees has been a thorn in the education sector since the inception of the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme in 2010. These sentiments were expressed by Welcome Mhlanga, who is the Deputy President of SWAPA. He said they were already planning for a follow-up meeting with the ministry.
Mhlanga expressed joy that a meeting with the ministry unveiled that their long-standing grievance towards the review of the FPE grants was something government was working on.
He said during a courtesy visit to the ministry, the minister revealed that they had already prepared and sent proposals to Cabinet requesting a review of the said grants.
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By Prem Calvin Prashad
The hastily written and implemented ban on entry for people from seven predominantly Muslim countries was met with swift condemnation and protests by Queens activists and other opponents at Kennedy Airport.
On hearing that arrivals from those countries were being detained by Customs and Border Patrol, thousands of protesters descended on Terminal 4, joined by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and partner organizations.
Of the seven counties in the ban Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Syria and Somalia there have been no terrorist attacks committed by these nationals in the United States.
The 9/11 assault was committed not by refugees, but rather visa holders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Egypt none of which are subject to the ban.
The perpetrators most infamous attack by refugees the Boston Bombings hailed from the former Soviet Union. Other attacks, such as San Bernardino, Orlando and last years bombing in Chelsea were perpetrated by American citizens.
Though the order appears to build on a 2011 order by President Obama to enhance vetting from these nations, the former policy did not cause the large-scale cancelation of travel for otherwise innocent persons.
Proponents of the ban have conflated the presence of fundamentalist terrorists in these countries as an indictment of every person visiting the United States.
Conflicting numbers from the White House and Justice Department have put the number of visas canceled by the ban at between 60,000 to 100,000.
Queens-based activists, having worked for years with immigrants both documented and undocumented joined the protests. Jackson Heights-based DRUM led a coalition of community groups to declare Kensington, Brooklyn, a hate-free zone.
Kensington is one of New Yorks most diverse neighborhoods and also the home of some 300 refugees of genocide from the Darfur region of Sudan.
Organizers discussed the implications of current federal policy on their lives. Israt Audry, a youth member with the group, decried the policy moves as normalizing the blatant Islamophobia and anti-immigrant policies and practices and a gateway to attacking the rights and lives of all marginalized communities.
The effort follows up a similar gathering in December to declare Jackson Heights a hate-free zone.
Sadhana, a Richmond Hill-based progressive Hindu organization, joined the Jan. 28 rallies at JFK. Sunita Viswanath, of Brooklyn, a board member of the organization, spoke at that rally, citing concerns that Indians were likely to be mistaken as Muslims and subject to bias attacks as a result of the ban.
Also in Richmond Hill, the Indo-Caribbean Alliance, citing the assault of Rabeeya Khan, a Guyanese Muslim Delta employee at JFK, condemned President Trumps actions and rhetoric and joined the Jan. 28 protest.
The group also organized a Feb. 2 town hall at its offices in Richmond Hill to discuss the immigration order with the community.
The temporary ban, currently 90 days, which also includes a 120-day ban on refugees and permanent ban on Syrians fleeing civil war, was in theory imposed to review screening and vetting of persons from those countries.
A lack of clarity on the review practice and unclear language that has excluded even documented persons green card and visa holders has stoked suspicions that the ban will be made permanent.
There are also suspicions that the hastily worded and implemented order was a loyalty test for federal agencies, with the State Department and Justice Department noting concerns (and facing prompt retaliation) and Customers and Border Protection and Homeland Security reportedly continuing to enforce the ban in spite of a court injunction.
Activists groups have also been rallying for New York City to secure data pertaining to the IDNYC municipal identification program and protect the future of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program known as the Dream Act.
The Long Island City, NY-based carrier, JetBlue Airways Corporation JBLU posted a significant rise in air traffic for the month of Jan 2017. Traffic measured in revenue passenger miles (RPMs) came in at 3.86 billion, up 8.6% year over year.
On a year-over-year basis, consolidated capacity (or available seat miles/ASMs) expanded 7.7% to 4.64 billion. Load factor or percentage of seats filled by passengers increased 70 basis points to 83.3% in the month. Load factor increased as traffic growth outpaced capacity expansion in January. The low-cost carrier registered a completion factor (system wide) of 97.9% for the month with 72.8% flights on schedule.
Operating revenue per available seat mile (RASM: a key measure of unit revenues) decreased approximately 8.5 % on a year-over-year basis. Holiday placement hurt the metric to the tune of approximately five points. Also, winter storm Jonas contributed to the significant decline in RASM for the month. JetBlue had anticipated the decline in the metric and consequently predicted a decline in RASM in the band of 89% in January, while releasing its fourth-quarter results last month.
Price Performance
JetBlue Airways shares displayed significant pricing weaknesses in the last one month, mainly due to the lackluster RASM guidance for January. With the prediction coming true, shares do not seem to be in for a respite. In the last one month, the companys shares declined 9%, while the Zacks categorized Transportation- Airline industry gained 1.2%.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
JetBlue Airways carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Investors interested in the airline space may consider stocks like Alaska Air Group ALK, Copa Holdings CPA and Delta Air Lines DAL. All three stocks hold a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.
Copa Holdings has a solid history with respect to earnings per share, having outshined the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the last four quarters by an average of 38.6%.
Story continues
Alaska Air Group too has reported better-than-expected earnings in each of the last four quarters with an average beat of 5.5%. The average earnings suprise at Delta Air Lines over the last four quarters was 2.22%. This Atlanta-GA based airline behemoth has outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in three of the last four quarters.
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JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU): Free Stock Analysis Report
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Strong defense, pair of goals from Shaye Bailey hands Freedom WPIAL Class 1A championship
A shutdown defense and a pair of second-half goals from junior Shaye Bailey led the Freedom Bulldogs to a convincing 3-0 win over Springdale Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on meetings between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's and President Donald Trump (all times EST):
3 p.m.
President Donald Trump says there will be "tweaking" to the U.S. trade agreement with Canada.
Speaking at a news conference with Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump suggested that he was content but had some unspecified objections to trade with Canada through the North American Free Trade Agreement. The president has targeted the two decade-old pact for criticism, saying it caused factory jobs to move to Mexico.
"We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada," Trump said Monday.
Trump has threated to leave the three-country trade agreement unless portions are renegotiated that protect U.S. workers. Trump has threated a border tax on American companies that shutter their domestic factories and import goods from Mexico instead.
Canada is the single largest source of foreign oil imports into the U.S. market.
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2:25 p.m.
President Donald Trump is reaffirming the U.S. relationship with Canada as he begins a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trump says America "is deeply fortunate to have a neighbor like Canada."
He says the two countries share much more than a border, including shared values and defense interests. And he's commending Canada's contribution to the effort to defeat the Islamic State group.
Trump says that both countries are stronger when they work together and is pledging to work with Trudeau "in pursuit of our many shared interests."
He is also touting a meeting the two convened at the White House. He says, "the full power of women can do better than anybody else."
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1:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are stressing their "profound shared economic interests" as they meet for the first time.
The neighboring leaders released a statement Monday. They promised to "work tirelessly to provide growth and jobs for both countries."
Story continues
The statement also noted that "Canada is the most important foreign market for thirty-five U.S. states, and more than $2 billion in two-way trade flows across our shared border every day."
Relations with the U.S. are crucial to Canada. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S., while 18 percent of U.S. exports go to Canada. There are fears among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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12:35 p.m.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brought a personal gift to President Donald Trump Monday.
Trudeau brought a photo of Trump with Trudeau's father, the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Trump says it is a picture of the two at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.
Trump says he knew Pierre Trudeau and respected him "greatly." He said he would keep the photo in a "very special place."
Trump and Trudeau had their first face-to-face meeting Monday. Trump spoke during a round table discussion on women in the workforce.
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12:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump says he is looking to work with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ease access to capital for female entrepreneurs.
Trump and Trudeau are taking part in a round table discussion about women in the workforce as part of their first official meeting.
Trump says the "system is not working so well for entrepreneurs" particularly for women.
Trudeau adds that having "women in business is a powerful leverage for success."
Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, attended the meeting and helped recruit participants and set the agenda.
The two countries will announce a joint task force and are expected to discuss issues like childcare and maternity leave.
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11 a.m.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is at the White House to meet with President Donald Trump.
Trump welcomed Trudeau with a handshake Monday, as the leaders met for the first time.
Their schedule includes private talks and a round table conversation about women in the workplace.
Trudeau and Trump have different world views. The liberal Trudeau champions free trade and has welcomed 40,000 Syrian refugees. Trump has taken a protectionist stance on trade and wants to crack down on the inflow of migrants and refugees.
Relations with the U.S. are crucial to Canada. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S. There is a fear among Canadians that they could be hurt as Trump targets Mexico in a re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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9 a.m.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Washington, aiming to build a relationship with President Donald Trump that doesn't threaten trade.
In the first face-to-face meeting with the new U.S. president, Trudeau will talk about free trade at the White House. The two leaders will also participate in a roundtable discussion about women in the workplace.
The prime minister's plane landed at Dulles airport Monday morning after heavy winds forced a change from Andrews Air Force base.
GREEN ISLAND - Village officials on Sunday declared a snow emergency for the community starting at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 14.
All vehicles must be moved during the snow emergency or risk being ticketed and towed. They will not be allowed back on the streets until snow removal is completed.
Streets are generally plowed in the following order, but are subject to change based on various emergency conditions that may arise:
Clinton Street
Tibbits Avenue
George Street
Hudson Avenue
Arch Street
Bleecker Street
Center Street
Paine Street
James Street
High Street
West Street
John Street
Mohawk Street
Swan Street
Lafayette Street
Lafayette Park
Lower Paine Street
Hamilton Street
Market Street
Albany Avenue
Lower End side streets including Walnut, Harlem, Saratoga, Pine and Whitehall
Lower Hudson Avenue
Fines are $50, the fee for towing is $75 and there is a storage fee of $5 per day after the first 24 hours.
Village officials recommend motorists check with a police officer, or someone in charge of snow plowing operations, before parking cars on any street you may think has been plowed.
Residents can call the Green Island Police Department at 655-7854 or the Village Office at 273-2201 during regular business hours for more information.
Trash collection also has been adjusted due to the weather with garbage normally picked up on Tuesday being picked up Thursday.
ALBANY -- City police have identified the 25-year-old man shot dead inside a Clinton Avenue home early Sunday morning as Alonzo Garaycochea.
Detectives believe the Albany man knew his killer, acting police Chief Robert Sears said Monday.
"We're fairly confident it's not a random killing," Sears said. He said detectives are still working to piece together the circumstances of the homicide.
Officers arrived at the home, located between Henry Johnson Boulevard and N. Swan Street, at about 12:15 a.m. Sunday after a 911 caller reported a shooting, Albany police spokesman Officer Steve Smith said.
Garaycochea was shot once in the torso, Smith said. The 25-year-old was treated at the scene and taken to Albany Medical Center, where he later died, Smith said.
Smith declined to describe the suspect or the relationship between the killer and the victim.
Police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call the department's Detective Division at (518) 462-8039.
SCHENECTADY -- An early morning fire inside a Congress Street home displaced 10 people Monday, the American Red Cross reported.
The Northeastern New York Chapter of the international aid organization helped eight adults and two children, ages 6 and 12, the Red Cross said in a news release.
The Red Cross provided the victims with financial assistance for necessities, such as shelter, food and clothing. Volunteers also offered emotional support and comfort kits containing personal care items and stuffed animals for the children, the organization said.
In 2016, the Red Cross responded to more than 400 home fired and other disasters in the 24 count Eastern New York Region, helping more than 2,000 local residents last year, the organization said.
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Albany
Police suspect a man charged with crashing into a vehicle Feb. 4 on Washington Avenue is the same person who three minutes later killed a 21-year-old woman in Washington Park before driving away.
Jose A. Martinez, 30, of Albany was charged with a parole violation during a midnight raid on Friday at his Hunter Avenue home, Albany police spokesman Officer Steve Smith said.
Police ticketed Martinez for allegedly rear-ending a 2015 Chevrolet at the intersection of Henry Johnson Boulevard and Washington Avenue at 3:57 a.m. They say he fled, driving his Jeep east onto Central Avenue, west onto Spring Street and north through Washington Park, where Rajine Martinez was hit at 4 a.m., acting Police Chief Robert Sears said. He said he knew of no relation between Jose Martinez and Rajine Martinez.
The former University at Albany student was semi-conscious and lying in the middle of Washington Park Road before she was hit, Sears said. Two bystanders had been trying to help her, he said.
Police are still working to determine why she was unconscious and in the roadway, Sears said.
The driver fled, witnesses told police. Rajine Martinez was taken to Albany Medical Center, where she died.
City police said they found the green Jeep they believe was involved in the hit-and-run the next day. Officers are running forensic tests on the vehicle, Sears said.
Police charged Jose Martinez with leaving the scene of a property damage accident, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and following too close. They said he is being held at Albany County jail on a parole violation connected to a September 2015 drug-related conviction.
Sears said detectives are working to collect enough evidence to charge him in the fatal crash.
Rajine Martinez, a 2013 graduate of Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School, once had artwork displayed at a juried show at Columbia-Greene Community College. She received a state Education Department Scholarship for Academic Excellence, according to web posts by the RCS school district.
Rajine Martinez was last registered at UAlbany in spring 2016, according to the school.
Martinez posted on her Facebook page that she was a psychology major and worked at Camp Wilton, a state summer camp in Saratoga County for the developmentally disabled.
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call the Albany Police Detective Division at 462-8039.
emasters@timesunion.com 518-454-5467 @emilysmasters
Albany
Police believe Alonzo Garaycochea knew his killer.
"We're fairly confident it's not a random killing," acting Albany Police Chief Robert Sears said.
On Monday, city police said Garaycochea was the 25-year-old man shot dead Sunday morning inside a Clinton Avenue home.
The Albany man was the father of a 7-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl.
"My daughter is not going to know her father. She is not even going to remember him," said Odaliz Acevedo, the mother of Garaycochea's daughter, Leya-Marie London. "He made her laugh."
Officers arrived at the Clinton Avenue apartment, located between Henry Johnson Boulevard and North Swan Street, at about 12:15 a.m. Sunday after a 911 caller reported a shooting, said Officer Steve Smith, a police spokesman.
Garaycochea, who was shot once in the torso, died at Albany Medical Center Hospital, Smith said.
Acevedo said Garaycochea was shot inside the apartment where he had been living with his current girlfriend and a roommate. The killing marks Albany's first homicide of 2017. Last year, two people were killed.
"We don't really know what happened," Acevedo, 29, said. The Albany woman said detectives have only told her the basics. She has heard conflicting rumors from friends.
Smith declined to describe the suspect or the relationship between the killer and the victim. Sears said there is no threat to the general public.
Garaycochea, who worked at a McDonald's on Central Avenue, loved to cook and dreamed of going to culinary school, Acevedo said.
"He used a lot of lemon pepper," she said with a laugh. "He used to make his own creations."
Garaycochea, who loved to make music, rapped under the name Zoe Rage. He nicknamed himself "The King," Acevedo said.
He grew up in Washington, D.C. but moved to Albany to be close to his two children, she said.
"He was so caring," Acevedo said. "He always wanted to help anybody and make sure everybody surrounding him was OK."
Police are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call the department's Detective Division at 462- 8039.
emasters@timesunion.com 518-454-5467 @emilysmasters
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Saratoga Springs
A drug raid Friday at a Cherry Street apartment alerted city police to suspicious activity at a neighboring building and led to a larger drug bust.
The 6 a.m. raid on 18 Cherry St. netted 8 grams of cocaine and 50 grams of marijuana.
At 16 Cherry St., police found powdered heroin, tar heroin and 300 baggies of fentanyl worth more than $4,500, city police spokesman Lt. Robert Jillson said Monday.
"This is significant for Saratoga," Jillson said. In the rear apartment at 16 Cherry, police charged Steven M. Boice, 27, of Saratoga Springs and Brett J. DiSanto, 26, of Greenwich with two felony counts of drug possession. Boice also faces a felony charge of possessing a weapon. Police found a 12-gauge shotgun and a modified AR-15 rifle with four empty 30-round magazines.
Next door at 18 Cherry St. Apt. 2, Robert J. Stamfli, 25, of Saratoga Springs was charged with criminal possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor. Savannah L. Myers, 23, of Greenfield Center and Zachary B. Wood, 21, of Ballston Spa were each charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, a violation.
More charges are pending, Jillson said.
wliberatore@timesunion.com 518-454-5445 @wendyliberatore
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In October, Andrew Cuomo said something that sounded odd. He said he wasn't a politician.
Hmm, I thought. He sure seems like a politician, given that he is, you know, a twice-elected governor who is obviously angling to be president.
But what do I know? I've never been a politician, and maybe I really don't know what it means to be one. Perhaps the governor was right.
Nope.
More Information Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse
There can be no doubt now. Conclusive proof that Cuomo is, in fact, a politician arrived as an email after Thursday's snowstorm. The subject line: "Governor Cuomo Helps Stranded Motorist on Sprain Brook Parkway."
Now, many ordinary Joes and Janes would stop to help a stranded motorist. You may have pushed a stuck car this winter. It is the decent and neighborly thing to do, the kind of simple act that keeps society civilized.
But I'm guessing you didn't issue a press release immediately after, because only a politician would think to do that. Only a politician would attempt to capitalize on a routine act of kindness. Only a politician would be so blatantly shameless and self-serving.
Of course, the email detailing the Westchester County rescue came with a link to photos, which were also posted to the governor's taxpayer-funded website.
The action shots show Cuomo, wearing cargo pants and weather-inappropriate shoes, doing not especially heroic things. In one, he has a knee in the snow as he hooks a tow line to a blue sedan. In another, he is apparently trying to push the stuck car.
That's when a normal human being would have yelled, "Hey dummy, put down the camera and help me push this stuck car!" But professional politicians are different. They see no point in doing something unless a camera is capturing it.
It's like a variation on the tree-in-the-forest philosophical quandary: If a governor pushes a stuck car out of snow and the masses never find out, did it really happen? Clearly, the answer is no.
After six years of watching Cuomo as governor, we know this: He reacts to snowstorms like a dog who has spotted a leash. He gets excited, frenetic even, and he dashes around telling the apparently obtuse citizens of New York that this snow stuff can be darn slippery and that planes might not leave on time.
Sadly, one New Yorker ignored the warnings and ventured out onto the Sprain Brook, forcing the governor and what appear to be state troopers to save the day.
Did the troopers need the governor's help? I think we know the answer to that question.
Did they want it? Ditto.
Looking at the photos of Cuomo battling the elements along the roadway, you could almost forget that just one day earlier he was giving a self-congratulatory speech within the warm confines of Schenectady's new casino, which was apparently as difficult to construct as an Egyptian pyramid.
"They said you can't do it, it's impossible," Cuomo told the crowd.
Who said that? Who are these unnamed people who are always telling the governor that reasonably achievable things can't be done? Why does he keep these gloomy naysayers around?
"It really is a dream come true," Cuomo said of the casino. "We would be talking about this project sometimes and I would just say, 'It's just too great. It's just too unbelievable that something this grand and powerful was going to happen.' But it did."
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At which point, many in the crowd must have wondered if he was still talking about the casino or if he had inadvertently switched to a speech about the resurrection.
Cuomo spawns cynicism like stagnant water spawns mosquitoes, and so it was no surprise that there were immediate skeptics of the Great Sprain Brook Parkway Rescue. They noted that we had also been subjected to photos of the governor helping a stranded motorist last winter.
It kind of makes you wonder if the daring Democrat and his staffers drive around during snowstorms looking for stuck cars in need of gubernatorial help.
"There's one! Pull over!"
"No, governor. That car is just parked."
There's a trendy term for what occurred along the Sprain Brook on Thursday fake news. And it doesn't say much about the state of journalism that the press release succeeded. Stories about Cuomo's rescue were reported statewide, with the once-proud New York Daily News even concluding that "Cuomo sprang to the aid of a stranded motorist."
Sprang? Sigh.
None of the reports I saw interviewed the motorist or the governor about the rescue. That's just as well, because we know exactly the words Cuomo would have uttered.
"They said you can't do it, it's impossible."
Wade Wolfe felt very much at home recently addressing teacher Nathan Lawsons eighth-grade science class at Jarman Middle School.
Even though the vice director of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex is one of the top leaders of a more than 10,000-person workforce delivering $3.4 billion of assets each year to the Air Force and Department of Defense, he told the students there was no other place in the world he would rather be than here, right now, today.
After all, hes a Jarman Rocket, too.
In fact, I sat in this very classroom in 1980, Mr. Wolfe said as the students passed around his Jarman school yearbook, eyeing his photo as a young Midwest City student. I have wrestled with the decisions that youre wrestling with right now: What do I want to do for the rest of my life?
Mr. Wolfe and other Tinker Air Force Base professionals took time out Jan. 20 to participate in the Jarman Middle School Career Day. They were among eight professionals from various fields telling students about their personal journeys that led them to successful careers.
Mr. Wolfe, who grew up the son of a single mother on Stansell Drive in Midwest City, told students that he first thought medical school was his best choice, so he studied pre-medicine in college.
The vice director ended up, though, earning several degrees in finance, accounting and business administration. He told students that whatever careers they pursue, by either going to college or going through one of Oklahomas vocational-technical programs, giving yourself flexibility to make job choices is key.
Youre all destined for something great, Mr. Wolfe said. Its just are you brave enough to grab a hold of what you want? Your dreams should scare you a little bit.
Col. Chris Mathews, 72nd Aerospace Medicine Squadron commander, told Ms. Kelly Browns eighth-grade pre-algebra and algebra I students that he did not like school at all through high school.
He was interested in mechanics like fixing cars and joined the Air Force, where he helped repair and maintain B-52 bombers. The Air Force paid him to take college classes at night and he soon discovered he liked to learn other subjects.
Later, the big switch happened, the colonel said. As an airplane mechanic, he said he got to know Air Force pilots who were required to have college degrees and were supposedly considered the smartest guys in the force.
Talking to them, he figured out that being smart wasnt the whole picture. Knowledge and hard work are other factors, too.
They didnt even know how to change the brakes on their cars. Are you kidding me?
Every one of you is smart, the physician said. Youre smart enough to go to medical school, or law school, or do whatever you want to do. The difference is the work you put into it and getting the knowledge. The real difference between an A and a C is time. The person getting that A is putting more time into it. You can get an A in anything if you study it long enough and learn it.
Fifteen-year Air Force Capt. Eric Hineman, executive officer to Brig. Gen. Mark Johnson, OC-ALC commander, spoke about his early fascination with planes to students in Ms. Kim Millers U.S. history class.
He said his grades in high school were terrible, but took off later when he began studying aviation a field he was passionate about. He told students to look for jobs that they like doing.
Learn things, the captain said. College is not the only answer. Trade schools are good, too. My father-in-law is the president of a heating and ventilation company and he has a huge problem finding welders and guys who can use their hands.
I know some plumbers who make more money in a couple hours than I do in a day. Thats pretty cool.
Reservists from the 513th Air Control Group finished their last day of Sentry Aloha 17-01 on Feb. 3 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, marking a full two weeks of successful missions in one of the best training events in the unit's history.
The Sentry Aloha exercise was hosted by the Hawaiian Air National Guard's 154th Wing and involved multiple fighter, refueling and cargo aircraft primarily from Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units.
It's been absolutely amazing, said Lt. Col. David Cavazos, the Sentry Aloha Detachment Commander. We've controlled about 325 aircraft and have trained in every facet of capability that we need to be proficient in for mission execution.
The daily missions have included simulated offensive and defensive scenarios involving Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft, involving as many as 26 airplanes at a time.
For the 513th, Sentry Aloha offered a higher level of training than possible in the continental United States, he said.
The reservists deployed to Hickam Field and flew 100 percent of the missions planned, despite encountering multiple maintenance issues with the E-3 Sentry.
It's vital for us to get every sortie that we can, Cavazos said. Every mission set is a rare opportunity, and we want to take full advantage of each one. Hats off to our reserve maintainers; their experience and dedication is what got this jet ready and kept it flying.
Tech. Sgt. Isaac Van Cleave, a radar specialist assigned to the 513th Maintenance Squadron, was one of the maintenance Airmen ensuring the E-3 Sentry was ready for flight each day.
One night we were out working on the jet until 2 a.m., Van Cleave said. We always make sure we have enough people to fix the issues, but were out there until the job is done.
The maintenance challenges that came with Sentry Aloha gave Van Cleave, a traditional reservist, a change to refresh his troubleshooting skills.
I've been able to break some of the rust off, he said. Radar is a big system, so there's a lot of stuff we don't see too often. It's a good time to dig back into the technical orders, get my hands dirty with the jet and get reacquainted.
The 513th also used Sentry Aloha as a test bed for new software, hardware and communications capabilities for the AWACS platform.
We validated a $1.8 million E-3 software upgrade during the exercise and identified errors and points for improvement, said Maj. Anne Ridlon, the chief of tactics for the 513th Operations Support Squadron. We also coordinated efforts with Navy EA-18G Growlers, which gave us some unmatched jamming training in an environment which is rarely seen in other training.
During the exercise, the AWACS reservists flew nine missions with a total of 46 hours in the air.
[February 13, 2017] OnDeck Partners With Wave To Launch "Lending By Wave" Small Business Financing Powered By OnDeck
NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Wave, a leading provider of financial services and software for small businesses, and OnDeck (NYSE: ONDK), the leader in online lending for small business, today announced a partnership in which Wave will offer OnDeck business loans and lines of credit to its customer base. The new offering, "Lending by Wave," will be available to Wave customers in the United States and Canada. Under the partnership, Wave will leverage OnDeck's market-leading online small business lending platform to streamline and automate the business borrowing experience, allowing its customers to access OnDeck loans within the Wave ecosystem. "Cash flow and access to capital are essential for small businesses to grow, but often hard to get, because traditional financial institutions can't serve this segment effectively," said Kirk Simpson, CEO and co-founder of Wave. "Our partnership with OnDeck reinforces Wave's commitment to improving access to a full scope of small business financial services, and provides small business owners a better option than going to a bank for the funds they need to succeed." "OnDeck is excited to partner with Wave to enable its business owners to increase their access to working capital, saving Wave users valuable time, effort and money as they grow their businesses," said Charlie Deutsch, vice president of platform solutions, OnDeck. Launched in 2010, Wave is a full-ervice online financial platform that brings together both financial services and software for small businesses, and has signed up 2.3 million customers around the world.
As the leader in online lending for small businesses, OnDeck's advanced lending technology and staunch dedication to customer service has enabled the company to deliver more than $5 billion dollars in capital to over 60,000 businesses across the United States, Canada and Australia. About OnDeck
OnDeck (NYSE: ONDK) is the leader in online small business lending. Since 2007, the Company has powered Main Street's growth through advanced lending technology and a constant dedication to customer service. OnDeck's proprietary credit scoring system the OnDeck Score leverages advanced analytics, enabling OnDeck to make real-time lending decisions and deliver capital to small businesses in as little as 24 hours. OnDeck offers business owners a complete financing solution, including the online lending industry's widest range of term loans and lines of credit. To date, the Company has deployed over $5 billion to more than 60,000 customers in 700 different industries across the United States, Canada and Australia. OnDeck has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and operates the educational small business financing website www.businessloans.com. For more information, please visit www.ondeck.com. OnDeck, the OnDeck logo, OnDeck Score and OnDeck Marketplace are trademarks of On Deck Capital, Inc. About Wave: Launched in 2010 Wave is transforming small business Fintech with innovative financial services (lending, payments, and payroll) and award-winning free software (invoicing, accounting, receipt scanning, personal finance). Wave has already signed up 2.3 million small- and micro-business customers around the world, adding tens of thousands a month. For more information, please visit waveapps.com. Media Contacts: OnDeck
Jim Larkin
[email protected]
203-526-7457 Wave
Neil Shankman
[email protected]
416 521-9141 x143 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ondeck-partners-with-wave-to-launch-lending-by-wave-small-business-financing-powered-by-ondeck-300405991.html SOURCE On Deck Capital, Inc.
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[February 13, 2017] Reinvent Banking With Newgen at the 14th Annual Technology Conference in Texas
SAN ANTONIO, Texas, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Newgen Software Inc., a leading global provider of banking software solutions, today announced its participation as Event App Sponsor at the Annual Technology Conference, from 15th to 17th February, at Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort & SPA, San Antonio, Texas. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130912/638839 )
Attendees can engage with Newgen experts at the event to understand how the changing technological landscape has affected the banking experience in recent years. This event will provide banks with the clear view how they can leverage technology to gain sustained competitive advantage. Speaking on this participation, Mr. Anand Raman, VP-Sales and Marketing, Newgen Software Inc. said, "The conference is a great platform for banking stakeholders acros the region to understand what's plaguing the bankers today. They can get a glimpse of technologies that can address issues like cybersecurity, compliance, fraud, risk assessment and discuss how Newgen's product suite can help banks transform their services to deliver one-of-its kind experience to its customers."
He further added, "Attendees can have one-on-one discussion with our experts to learn more about Newgen's configurable, unified commercial lending platform. Our platform seamlessly integrates with core banking systems and other applications to provide one configurable unified platform for processing loans, which allows banks to customize processes as per their business needs, offer multiple loan types from one single platform, do real-time changes without business disruption and ensure scalability to capitalize on every lending opportunity." Newgen is one of the few players in the market today that has a stellar range of banking solutions that caters to multiple line of businesses including commercial and retail lending, commercial and institutional loan (C&I), commercial real estate loan (CRE), small business administration (SBA) loan, online account opening and trade finance. Newgen's banking solutions are built on a core BPM framework that makes the solution adaptable and scalable as per future industry requirements.
About Newgen Software Inc. Newgen Software Inc. is a global leader in banking process automation with more than 200 leading banks and financial services institutions as its clients. Newgen's banking process management framework automates critical business processes for banking institutions across commercial lending, consumer lending, customer on-boarding, online account opening, trade finance, digital and mobile customer experience strategy. Newgen offers flexible on-premise and cloud-based solutions to its banking customers. Visit http://www.newgensoft.com/ for more information
Media Contact:
Asif Khan
[email protected]
SOURCE Newgen Software Inc.
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[February 13, 2017] Visible Alpha Introduces a New Level of Transparency in Investment Research through the Launch of its Premium Platform
NEW YORK, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Visible Alpha, an investment research technology firm founded by some of the world's leading investment banks Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and UBS today announced the commercial availability of its new investment research platform with content contributed by more than twenty research firms. By normalizing the underlying data behind research analysts' financial models and forecasts, Visible Alpha improves the way investors consume and analyze sell-side research services across every aspect of their workflow. With Visible Alpha, intelligent consensus models on more than 1,500 companies across all sectors are now available. Over the past year, more than 140 asset managers have participated in Visible Alpha's beta program to evaluate the fundamental drivers of these companies, uncover investment controversies between analysts and discover valuable insights that were previously inaccessible. By employing advanced machine learning supported by a team of more than 130 financial analysts and sector specialists, Visible Alpha extracts the data and logic in analysts' spreadsheet models. The platform provides deep comparable and consensus views across hundreds of line items, such as unit sales, pricing and margins for individual products and key financial, divisional and operational metrics for each company. "In conjunction with our founding brokers, we ientified a challenge in effectively communicating analysts' insights," says Roma Greening, Global Head of Contributor Relations at Visible Alpha. "With a growing roster of sell-side and independent research firms on board, we can now bridge that communication gap and provide a more integrated experience for investors. This is the first of many industry-wide challenges that we plan to take on together."
"Sharing the Visible Alpha platform and its growing suite of analytical tools with the investment community is very exciting, and we are incredibly grateful to our content partners, beta release participants and our investors for their support and feedback," said Scott Rosen, CEO of Visible Alpha. "By providing a new level of transparency and context, we believe Visible Alpha will dramatically improve the value of communication between all market participants." Last month, Visible Alpha announced its acquisition of ONEaccess, a leading corporate access, resource tracking and broker valuation platform. "With the Visible Alpha platform now available and the integration of the ONEaccess technology well underway, both sides of the market can now value and measure the research and other content propelling the market conversation in new and differentiated ways," Rosen added.
About Visible Alpha Visible Alpha is transforming the way Wall Street firms collaborate on research, financial models and other services. With more than 200 employees globally, the rapidly growing company combines advanced data correction methodologies, a secure distribution network and sophisticated analytical tools on the front end to drive efficiencies and transparency into the research process and help firms generate alpha in new and differentiated ways. Visible Alpha is backed by firms including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and UBS. For more information on Visible Alpha, please visit www.visiblealpha.com. Media Contact
Eric Soderberg
Forefront Communications for Visible Alpha
914-414-2884
[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/visible-alpha-introduces-a-new-level-of-transparency-in-investment-research-through-the-launch-of-its-premium-platform-300406021.html SOURCE Visible Alpha
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[February 12, 2017] KIST-MIT Team Uses Spin Waves to Achieve the World's First Non-Electrical Memory
An international research team has discovered the key to unlocking "non-electrical" memory, moving us beyond the realm of ultra-low power memory for the very first time. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170212005056/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) Dr. Seonghoon Woo, senior research scientist at the Center for Spintronics at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), conducted joint research with Professor Geoffrey Beach of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT (News - Alert)), resulting in the discovery of a non-electrical method for realizing memory through the use of propagating disturbances in he ordering of magnetic fields. Such disturbances are known as "spin waves".
The world's first experimental findings on spin wave-generated memory were published in Nature Physics, the most prestigious scientific journal of its kind, on the 31st of January, 2017 (Korean Calendar). These findings showed that magnetic textures called "domain walls" could be driven non-electrically via spin wave bursts on a nanowire. For many decades, researchers around the world have actively studied domain walls due to their high mobility, stability, and cheap manufacturing cost-all of which make them a suitable power source for next-generation memory applications that could replace current technology such as DRAM and NAND flash. However, no one had found a way to reduce the relatively large electrical current threshold required to set the domain walls into motion. Without a way to reduce power consumption, domain wall-based memory would have no advantage over conventional devices already on the market. Dr. Woo and Professor Beach took a novel approach to their research by looking beyond the concept of setting the domain walls into motion electrically. Their research demonstrated that forcing two domain walls to collide into each other was a highly effective way of generating strong bursts of spin waves. And by utilizing these waves, the research team could set a nearby domain wall into motion without using any electricity at all. This achievement implies the possibility of a future in which memory is generated non-electrically.
According to Dr. Woo, "The low-power issue has become more important recently thanks to the significant increase in information that smart devices are expected to handle. This new approach using spin waves would contribute greatly to memory-related industry." View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170212005056/en/
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[February 13, 2017] Worldcore Payment Institution Teams Up With BioID and Presents Face Recognition Authentication at FinovateEurope 2017
NUREMBERG, Germany and PRAGUE, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Worldcore also launches mobile phone top-up for 600+ operators in 150+ countries; localizes website to 4 additional languages Worldcore and cloud biometrics developer BioID announced a joint project in which BioID's facial recognition will be used to secure Worldcore, adding a second form of biometric authentication called FaceKey. (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466933/Worldcore_CMO_FaceKey.jpg )
Web video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJoYjslFPKo&ab_channel=Worldcore "From the earliest days of banking, security has always been key to the financial services world, but it has, unfortunately, been associated with an increasingly painful user experience," says Worldcore CEO Alex Nasonov. "Delivering a simple, intuitive experience for online financial services has always been central to our mission. With our new FaceKey authentication, based on BioID's advanced face recognition technology, we can extend this philosophy to user authentication." "With its broad and flexible offeing, Worldcore is a true innovator in the online financial services market, and we are pleased to help them continue to improve their services," said BioID CEO Ho Chang. "Facial recognition represents an excellent combination of security and convenience that is ideally suited to online payments, providing the virtual-world equivalent of face-to-face transactions."
Worldcore has rolled out a new payment option that allows payments to be instantly sent to a mobile phone account holder's balance. Mobile phone recharge is available for 150+ countries with a 0% fee. Worldcore website is now localized in four additional languages. "Localization of our website to the French, German, Spanish, and Polish communities will enable us to reach our growth plans for 2017. More languages will be also added every 1-2 months," comments CEO Nasonov.
About Worldcore Worldcore global payment platform offers a wide range of payment solutions for individuals, e-commerce, and most business verticals, including execution of SWIFT/SEPA bank transfers, prepaid debit cards, mass payments, and international money transfers to any Visa/MasterCard/UnionPay payment cards around the world. Worldcore and VoiceKey are registered trademarks, owned by EUPSProvider s.r.o., a Czech Republic-licensed payment institution regulated by Czech National Bank. About BioID BioID is a cloud biometrics company with advanced solutions for both public and private clouds. The company makes strong, convenient, privacy-assured face, iris, and voice recognition available to everyone, on any device, anytime, anywhere so people can be protected in the cyber world and forget about passwords. Privately held with R&D based in Germany, BioID has offices in Switzerland and the US, and its technology has been proven through many years of use at enterprises, banks, and government institutions. Worldcore Presents FaceKey Biometrics Authentication https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJoYjslFPKo&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Worldcore Contact: Sean Patterson
PR/Marketing
Worldcore
pr @worldcore.eu
+420-777-878-985 (CZ Mobile/FaceTime/iMessage)
Kremencova 186/7
110 00 Praha 1-Nove Mesto
Czech Republic SOURCE Worldcore Prague
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[February 13, 2017] Global Supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio X CIROC Get Ready to Share a Year of Dazzlingly Hot 'Arrival' Celebrations
LONDON, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Top Model Offers Fans an All-Access-Pass to Her Life in the Most Exclusive Locations, With the Hottest People at the World's Biggest Parties, Beginning with a Never-Seen-Before Mario Testino #ONARRIVAL Campaign Image As one of the world's most in-demand talents, Brazilian style icon, model, fashion designer and actress Alessandra Ambrosio is the embodiment of 'living your dream' and 'having arrived'. (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467050/CIROC_Alessandra_Ambrosio_1.jpg )
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467051/CIROC_Alessandra_Ambrosio_2.jpg )
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467052/CIROC_Alessandra_Ambrosio_3.jpg )
As the luxury vodka at the heart of the globe's hottest celebrations and events, CIROC has partnered with Alessandra for its # ONARRIVAL campaign, to follow her year of exciting 'arrivals' at the biggest fashion events and on-trend party destinations. From walking the world famous Victoria's Secret runway to collaborating with luxury brands including Dolce and Gabbana, Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, Rolex and Calvin Klein, Alessandra's fast-paced career and glamourous lifestyle is truly a celebration of what's hot. Her elegance and lively character has made her one of the hottest models of the fashion industry, and the perfect embodiment of CIROC's playful luxe attitude. Partying with the fashion elite to the high energy CIROC beat, exclusive moments with Alessandra will be shared across CIROC social media platforms throughout the year, giving fans access to the 'must see' and 'must be seen at' party destinations and iconic culturalevents - from summer hotspots to New Year celebrations.
To celebrate the CIROC #ONARRIVAL collaboration, Alessandra will also star in the brand's latest photography campaign, shot by the undisputable king of fashion photography and CIROC global creative partner Mario Testino. A series of three, iconic never-seen-before images will be released across the year, immersing fans in Alessandra's A-list lifestyle. The images will be supported with exclusive behind-the-scenes content, giving a rare glimpse into what happens behind fashion's most famous lens. The first image, released today, reveals Alessandra's glamourous backstage preparations in 'Hair and Make-up' as she prepares to celebrate at one of the hottest parties in the world. Alessandra Ambrosio said, "I'm so happy to partner with CIROC for their 'On Arrival' campaign. It's amazing to be part of something that raises a glass to success and is at the heart of the biggest celebration moments around the world - I'm so lucky to be at lots of them! I really do believe in celebrating life at every moment, and I'm really looking forward to bringing CIROC and my fans along on my journey and giving them behind-the-scenes access to the biggest moments of my year."
Mario Testino said, "The 'On Arrival' campaign is about celebrating the greatest moments of your life, and shooting this campaign with Alessandra has been amazing. She has this quality that captivates everyone when she walks into a room. Alessandra is that person who captures the style and sparkle that CIROC represents." Samantha Reader, Global Marketing Director for Diageo Reserve added, "CIROC 'On Arrival' is all about celebrating moments of success and being at the forefront of what's hot, so we're really excited to be working with Alessandra as one of the biggest talents of today and once again collaborating with Mario Testino to capture the vibrancy of the partnership. CIROC is for those who dream big, aspire to greatness and recognise the importance of celebrating success when it arrives. Alessandra embodies this in everything she does, and we're looking forward to celebrating with her this year." Follow the celebrations at:
#ONARRIVAL
CIROC
Instagram: cirocvodka
Twitter: @CirocVodka
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CirocVodkaOfficial
Exclusive Behind the Scenes Content can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/CirocVodka
Alessandra Ambrosio
Instagram: alessandraambrosio
Twitter: @angelalessandra
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Alessandra/
Mario Testino
Instagram: mariotestino
Twitter: @mariotestino
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mariotestino/
SOURCE CIROC Ultra-Premium Vodka
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By Emily Chow
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Already under fire for widespread environmental damage, Malaysia's once lucrative bauxite mining industry is facing a likely death knell from neighbouring Indonesia's move to allow a resumption of exports.
This time last year, Malaysia was the world's biggest supplier of the aluminium-making raw material to top buyer China, but its exports tumbled after government action aimed at reining in the little regulated industry.
The latest move could spell the end for a sector that only sprang to life in late 2014 after Indonesia banned ore exports, and illustrates the risks facing miners across Southeast Asia from increasingly uncertain government policy.
Copper giant Freeport-McMoRan Inc warned last week it could slash output from Indonesia amid a long-running dispute with the government, while the Philippines has ordered the closure of more than half the country's mines on environmental grounds.
"Policy risk is huge in mining right now," said Daniel Morgan, mining analyst at UBS in Sydney. "In supplier policy, you've got changes to Indonesia's mining policy, the Philippines and Malaysia."
A host of mining operations sprang up along Malaysia's bauxite-rich east coast to fill a supply gap after Indonesia in 2014 barred exports of mineral ores in a bid to push miners to build smelters.
In 2015, Malaysia shipped more than 20 million tonnes to China, well ahead of nearest rival Australia and up nearly 700 percent on the previous year. In 2013, it shipped just 162,000 tonnes.
But the dramatic rise came at a cost as largely unregulated miners failed to secure stockpiles of bauxite. The run-off from monsoon rains turned rivers and coastal seas red, contaminating water sources and leading to a public outcry.
The government imposed a mining moratorium in early 2016, and shipments to China from existing stockpiles fell to 165,587 tonnes in December, with little indication the government is set to change its mind.
Story continues
MINING BAN
Malaysia's natural resources and environment ministry said any decision to lift the moratorium would be based on how well miners follow regulations to preserve the environment rather than economic gain.
Recent rains in Kuantan have caused some bauxite runoffs from existing stockpiles, minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar told Reuters.
"The heavy rains proved that the mitigation was not adequate. Now by having this before me, I am not yet prepared to allow them to start the operations," he said, declining further comment on the topic.
Indonesia introduced new rules last month that will allow exports of nickel ore and bauxite and concentrates of other minerals in a sweeping policy shift, but did not specify when it would resume exports.
The announcement could be the final nail in the coffin for Malaysia's industry, as its miners expect China to switch to Indonesia's better quality and cheaper ore, due to lower production costs.
"Indonesian bauxite miners kept a lot of stockpiles ... They can sell cheap," said a miner from local company based in Kuantan, a key bauxite mining area in the state of Pahang.
"If the volume coming out of Indonesia is over 10 million tonnes, Malaysia has to say goodbye."
Unlike recent ructions in nickel supply from Indonesia and the Philippines that pushed up prices, Malaysia's near exit from bauxite has had little impact on the supply chain as new suppliers emerged, particularly in Guinea in West Africa.
"Some of these commodities are pretty plentiful, like bauxite for instance," noted UBS's Morgan. "When we talk to aluminium companies in China, we haven't detected that they're worried about a bauxite shortage."
The greater effect may be on Malaysia's export-based economy where bauxite surged to become a key mineral shipped to China, its largest trading partner. At a bauxite price of $50 a tonne, Malaysia's 2015 exports were worth over $1 billion.
The scandal-tainted Prime Minister Najib Razak's government is pushing to boost revenue as he prepares for a tough election that has to be called by end-2018.
"There will be less export income," said Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director of Singapore based research centre ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. "The loss of jobs at a time when common people are facing economic difficulties will have political impact that is unwelcomed by the government."
(Additional reporting by Joseph Sipalan and Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Editing by Praveen Menon and Richard Pullin)
[February 13, 2017] S. Korea's Ajou University Team Wins 11th GATSBY CREATIVE AWARDS for Video Commercial
OSAKA, Japan, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mandom Corp., Osaka City, held a ceremony in Harajuku, Tokyo, on Jan. 28, 2017, to announce winners of the 11th GATSBY CREATIVE AWARDS, including the Greatest GATSBY Award, as part of an event to promote the company's flagship GATSBY brand. Outline of the 11th GATSBY CREATIVE AWARDS Launched in 2006, the GATSBY CREATIVE AWARDS event, now in its 11th year, has grown into one of Asia's largest video commercial competitions for students aspiring to be a professional video creator as well as entry-level students, focusing on GATSBY, the men's grooming brand from Mandom, as the subject for shooting. Out of a total of 1,472 video commercials submitted by students from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the U.S., those of the 8 countries and regions were invited to apply, and 25 works were picked for the final screening on Jan. 28 at Harajuku Quest Hall in Tokyo. At the final screening, Korea's Ajou University team, "ADengers," won the Greatest GATSBY Award with "The Last Pride of Man 2," a video featuring Moving Rubber Spiky Edge with a strong spike-holding power. While the winning team received an extra prize, their work will be aired on Korean terrestrial TV and also be exhibited at the Cannes Festival of Creativity. Grand prix: The Greatest GATSBY Award To be aired on Korean TV as part of Mandom commercials, date unknown
To be exhibited at Cannes Festival of Creativity
500,000 yen prize money
prize money Commemorative gift
Mandom products
Title: The Last Pride of Man 2 Team: ADengers (Korea) School: Ajou University Panel's comment: There was a surprise in the middle of this work which made us wonder what was going to come. Eventually, it was well answered at the end by using a product. There was the tag line at the end, as it should be, making it a real model commercial.
Photo: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M100411/201702108713/_prw_PI1fl_lCBd6jk7.JPG
Video: http://award.gatsby.jp/11/international/ Runner-up: The GATSBY Award 200,000 yen prize money
prize money Commemorative gift
Mandom products Title: Everyone's Spiky Team: Spiky Platoon (Taiwan) School: Ming Chuan University For more information, please visit the GATSBY CREATIVE AWARDS official website:
http://award.gatsby.jp/11/international/ To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/s-koreas-ajou-university-team-wins-11th-gatsby-creative-awards-for-video-commercial-300406054.html SOURCE Mandom Corporation
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[February 13, 2017] Australian Banks Tell Apple - It's Not About Your Fees, It's About Access to NFC
The following is a press release from Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, and Westpac. The group of Australian banks applying to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for permission to jointly negotiate over access to Apple (News - Alert) Pay and the Near Field Communication (NFC)* function on iPhones, have today announced they have narrowed the application to solely focus on open access to the NFC function. Open access to the NFC function on iPhone (News - Alert) is required to enable real choice and real competition for consumers, and to facilitate innovation and investment in the digital wallets available to Australians. Without open NFC access on iPhone, no genuine competition in the provision of mobile wallets is possible and Apple will have a stranglehold on this strategically important future market. The four banks making the application - Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, and Westpac - have responded to concerns raised in the ACCC's finely balanced draft determination, and proposed to remove from consideration items the ACCC considered may lead to a public detriment. In the applicants' response to the ACCC, the applicants have addressed these concerns by removing collective negotiation on the potential to pass-through the additional fees Apple wishes to impose on the payment system (i.e., the requested collective negotiation will be in relation to NFC access alone), and limiting the authorisation term to 18 months - half the original term sought. Open NFC access would enable the delivery of substantial public benefits to Australian consumers, not just in payments, but across retailing, loyalty programs, building or member lounge security, and other NFC-use cases. As a result, the applicants have again been supported by nearly all of Australia's leading retailers, as well as competitors in the provision of payments services to merchants. The applicants flatly reject Apple's unsupported assertins that the application is about an objection to the fees that Apple wishes to impose, rather than NFC access. Apple's conspiracy theories about "Trojan horse fees" are similarly dismissed by the applicants as fantasy.
Apple recorded over $US7 billion in services revenue, which includes Apple Pay fees, from their customers in the last 3 months of 2016 alone, and hopes to double that over the next four years. With their services business set to become the size of a standalone Fortune 100 company this year, Apple is the leading expert on deriving fee revenues from iPhone users, not the applicants. "The applicants are ready, willing, and able to participate in Apple Pay, alongside being able to offer their customers their own mobile wallet products," payments specialist and spokesperson on behalf of the applicants, Lance Blockley, said.
"This application has always been about consumer choice, and allowing competition between the makers of mobile wallets to offer the best products and features they can to determine which mobile wallet consumers will use. The applicants want to put up their digital offerings head to head with Apple Pay, and let the market and individual consumers decide which best suits their needs. "Open access to the NFC function, as occurs on the world's most popular and widely installed mobile operating system Android (News - Alert), is important not just to the applicants and mobile payments, but to a range of NFC-powered functions across many sectors and uses. This has global implications for the use of NFC on smart phones. "The application seeks permission to jointly negotiate with Apple; this is not an attempt to delay Apple Pay from entering the Australian market. The applicants expect that Apple Pay would be offered to their customers alongside open access to the NFC function. Any delay or frustration will be as a result of Apple refusing to negotiate. "Apple is not a bank or a credit card scheme, and Apple cannot on their own complete a mobile payment. Nor are the applicants manufacturers of mobile phones - both parties need each other to bring strong mobile payment offerings to the market." The applicants look forward to the ACCC's final decision, and believe their submission further demonstrates the net public benefits of the application, and substantially removes any risk of public detriment. *Note to editors: "NFC" or Near Field Communication is the technology that supports the short range wireless communications between a retailer's payment terminal and the contactless payment card, smartphone or other device being used to pay. NFC technology is inside every modern smartphone, and all contactless capable credit and debit cards. NFC supports far more than contactless payments, and makes life easier and more convenient for consumers around the world by making it simpler to make transactions, exchange digital content, and connect electronic devices with a touch. On the Android operating system, any installed application can access and use the open NFC function. On the iOS and iPhone operating system, only Apple is currently allowed access to the NFC function. Further information, including video, is available at http://nfc-forum.org/what-is-nfc/ View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170212005069/en/
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[February 13, 2017] APR Applied Pharma Research and Aghraas-Cigalah Announce the First Distribution Agreement of the Innovative Solution to Treat Chronic Wounds, Nexodyn AOS, in Middle East Markets
After the successful agreements with Angelini in Italy and US and the Renhe Group in China, APR Applied Pharma Research s.a. - Swiss, independent developer of science driven and patent protected healthcare products - is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with Aghraas-Cigalah - a leading Middle East pharmaceutical company - to commercialize the innovative wound cleanser Nexodyn AcidOxidizing Solution (AOS) in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Omar, Kuwait and Barhain. Nexodyn AOS is indicated for debridement, irrigation, cleansing and moistening of acute and chronic wounds like diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, lower legs and vascular ulcers, post-surgical wounds, cuts as well as abrasions, burns and other lesions. Thanks to its innovative technology TEHCLO, developed and patented by APR, Nexodyn AOS creates an unfavorable environment for the growth of microorganisms. As it contains hypochlorous acid, it can prevent contamination by exerting a local antimicrobial effect on wound surface, whereas the low pH may favor the release of oxygen in the injured tissues. The convenient and easy-to-use spray formulation completes the product's profile, providing healthcare professionals and patients with a new tool for an optimized wound care. In September 2016, APR presented an overview of the pre-clinical and clinical features of Nexodyn AOS during a satellite symposium at the fifth Congress of WUWHS (World Union of Wound Healing Societies) held in Florence (Italy). "With this launch, Aghraas-Cigalah aims at strengthening its position within the Middle East wound cleansing market whose value is around USD 130 Mil. This helps us to build a growing market share in the sector while addressing important unmet medical needs." - states Yasser Naghy, CEO of Aghraas-Cigalah. "We are very roud of this further Nexodyn AOS launch in the Middle East market as it confirms our product to be a unique option to actively cleanse any kind of acute and chronic wound. - said Paolo Galfetti, Chief Executive Officer of APR - While cleansing the wound bed, this innovative product is able to modulate the lesion's microenvironment contributing to the control of the microbial burden, protecting from the risk of local infection, as well as sustaining physiological healing. We believe that this product, for its adaptable use along the whole continuum of wound care, offers our partners the opportunity to exploit the growth forecasted in the wound cleansing market worldwide."
About Nexodyn AOS Nexodyn AOS is an acidOxidizing spray solution, characterized by pH<3, RedOx >1000mV and stabilized Hypochlorous Acid (>95% of free chlorine species) - intended for use in the debridement, irrigation and moistening of acute and chronic wounds, ulcers, cuts, abrasions, burns and other lesions.
Nexodyn AOS has been developed based on APR's proprietary and patented technology TEHCLO enabling the production of super-oxidized solutions containing free chlorine species, of which stabilized Hypochlorous Acid (HClO) in very high concentration (> 95%). A wide array of non-clinical experiments and clinical observations suggest Nexodyn AOS to act as a valid support to the activation of the physiological processes that restart wound healing, in presence of a favorable safety and tolerability profile. About APR Applied Pharma Research s.a. APR is a Swiss, independent developer of science driven, patent protected healthcare products. The Company identifies, develops and licenses science driven, value added products designed to address patient or consumer needs in niche or rare therapeutic areas on a global basis. In particular, APR's business model is currently focused on 2 (two) pillars: (i) internally developed and financed (alone or together with our co-development partners) proprietary, value added products to be licensed to healthcare companies for their commercialization, and (ii) support to third party projects by offering added value R&D services under contract and fee for service arrangements. APR has a balanced pipeline of revenue generating branded products marketed in all major markets combined with a compelling pipeline of products at different stage of development. APR has entered into licensing and partnership agreements with pharmaceutical companies in over 70 countries with international sales on a worldwide basis. www.apr.ch About Aghraas-Cigalah Cigalah is a key player in the Middle East and North Africa healthcare market with a total turnover exceeding 1 billion dollars. Cigalah is covering many therapeutic areas through collaborations and partnerships with key pharma multinational corporations including Bayer, BI, Takeda, Amgen and Gilead. Cigalah is significantly expanding its presence in the Arab States of the Gulf Cooperation Council thanks to Aghrass Healthcare Limited. Access to medicine is one of the key objectives for Cigalah, as we believe patients should get their treatment based on the latest advanced standards. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005448/en/
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[February 13, 2017] Former Israeli Mossad Director Tamir Pardo Named Sepio Systems' Board Chairman
BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tamir Pardo will join Sepio Systems to serve as chairman of the board as part of the company's expansion. "Cyber attacks on critical infrastructure and financial institutions are a major threat to the global economy," notes Mr. Pardo. "Most cyber security products protect the internet, applications, and dataSepio's security suite addresses an attack vector underserved by current market solutions. I look forward to addressing these challenges as Sepio's leader." Mr. Pardo began his military service at age 18 with the Israeli Special Forces where he served as an officer. He joined the Mossad in 1980, and served in field and technical positions until he rose to become Director of Operations and Technology. In January 2011, Mr. Pardo was appointed by the Israeli Prime Minister to lead the Mossad, serving as Director. He proudly served in this role until January 2016. Under Mr. Pardo's command, the Mossad received numerous prestigious decorations for operations and technological innovations. "We are proud to have Mr. Pardo on our team and confident that his experience, vision and leadership will impact results," notes Yossi Appleboum, Co-CEO of Sepio Systems. Sepio Systems, a cyber security copany protecting organizations against device supply chain attacks, will introduce its Supply Chain Security Suite at San Francisco's RSA Conference on February 13. The platform combines hardware and software to stop rogue hardware before it damages normal operations of an organization. It isolates and contains potential attacks without degrading system performance.
"Penetrating supply chainsonce done only by governmentshas become a common attack vector of criminal organizations," notes Mr. Appleboum. "Sepio's suite secures organizations against supply chain attacks. Our product closes the supply chain's 'open door'; voiding supply chain attacks." Several financial institutions and corporations are evaluating the suite. The company expects to begin fulfilling orders during the second quarter of 2017.
About Sepio Systems Sepio Systems was founded by cyber security experts from private industry and government agencies, with global recognition and decoration in combating supply chain threats. Sepio Systems is headquartered in Maryland with offices in New York, South Carolina and the Research and Development Center in Tel-Aviv. The mission of Sepio Systems is to protect organizations from the existing threat of supply chain attacks. For more information about Sepio Systems solutions and supply chain attack risks, visit www.sepio.systems, call +1 (240) 660-8690 and follow us on LinkedIn. Media Contact:
Blue Studios, LLC
Allyson Ruscitella
571.230.0157 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/former-israeli-mossad-director-tamir-pardo-named-sepio-systems-board-chairman-300406004.html SOURCE Sepio Systems
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[February 13, 2017] MTS Launches MTS Money Wallet, Unique Service to Combine All Payment Solutions
MOSCOW, February 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" or the "Company" - NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, launches MTS Money Wallet, that enables users to get an easy "one-click" access to MTS's financial services and be rewarded with bonuses and loyalty points. The new service combines all payments tools on one platform - electronic wallet, bank cards, and customers' mobile account balances. Not just a payment system, MTS Money Wallet is a hub for all of MTS's financial services. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121115/AQ14468LOGO )
Vasyl Latsanych, Vice President for Strategy and Marketing at MTS, believes the launch of MTS Money Wallet marks the transformation of the smartphone into a functional and versatile financial tool. "Today we are entering into a new era of mobile and financial services. We created the unified ecosystem, which would become a convenient, transparent, and secure alternative for cash and bank cards. The initial functions included in the service only mark the beginning of our journey. We will combine all possible payment solutions with leading loyalty programs. We believe that cash and cards will become redundant in near future. All we'll need for comfortable communications and financial management is a smartphone". MTS clients got an option to make payments and money transfers from the e-wallet through a smartphone or MTS website. There is no need to open a bank account or issue a bank card. Users are able to access the MTS Money Wallet through the iOS and Android apps or the MTS Money Wallet website (www.dengi.mts.ru). The service is available for both individuals and businesses. Once signed up to the service, MTS Money Wallet customers will have access to their platform, where they can add payment cards to their wallet. Customers will then be able to make purchases online and transfer funds from MTS Money Wallet without having to re-enter their bank details each time. The user-friendly interface also makes it quick and easy to check wallet balances. The issuer of electronic money is MTS Bank. All MTS Money Wallet users are automatically enrolled onto the MTS Bonus program, which offers loyalty points and access to exclusive offers and discounts. The service will be updated every month taking into account feedback from customers. sers can email their feedback to [email protected].
Extra advantages of MTS Money Wallet: CONVIENIENT MONEY TRANSFERS: the user can simply indicate the phone number of the money recipient and choose the account (either mobile account balances or MTS e-wallet)
SIMPLIFIED IDENTIFICATION AND INCREASED LIMITS ON TRANSACTIONS: MTS subscribers are identified automatically and get an immediate access to money transfers and payments on websites of foreign companies with the limits for a single transaction up to 60,000 rubles or 200,000 robles (for customers of MTS Bank) MTS Money Wallet will be enhanced with the following functions during 2017:
SERVICE AVAILABILITY FOR ALL CLIENTS: both MTS and non-MTS customers will be able to use all the functions of the service except payments through mobile account balances
PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND STORES: contactless payments through either the app or USSD/SMS.
MTS MONEY BUTTON on online merchants to allow one-click purchases from devices connected to the service.
INTEGRATION OF MTS MONEY INTO MOBILE BANKING: clients of MTS Bank will be able to monitor their bank cards, make money transfer, and get bank products
MIGRATION OF 'EASY PAYMENT' CUSTOMERS to MTS Money Wallet. MTS Money Wallet has evolved from the MTS Money app, which launched in August 2016 and allowed customers to make in-store contactless payments. The service is developed in partnership with MTS Bank and Runet Business Systems. *** For further information, please contact in Moscow:
Joshua B. Tulgan
Director, Department of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC
Tel: +7-495-223-2025
E-mail: [email protected]
Learn more about MTS. Visit the official blog of the Investor Relations Department at www.mtsgsm.com/blog/ * * * Mobile TeleSystems PJSC ("MTS" - NYSE:MBT; MOEX:MTSS) is the leading telecommunications group in Russia and the CIS. We provide wireless Internet access and fixed voice, broadband and pay-TV to over 100 million customers who value high quality of service at a competitive price. Our wireless and fixed-line networks deliver best-in-class speeds and coverage throughout Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Turkmenistan and Belarus. To keep pace with evolving customer demand, we continue to grow through innovative products, investments in our market-leading retail platform, mobile payment services, e-commerce and IT solutions. For more information, please visit: www.mtsgsm.com. * * * Some of the information in this press release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of MTS, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "will," "could," "may" or "might," and the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We do not undertake or intend to update these statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. We refer you to the documents MTS files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the Company's most recent Form 20-F. These documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained in the section captioned "Risk Factors" that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements, including, among others, the severity and duration of current economic and financial conditions, including volatility in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; the impact of Russian, U.S. and other foreign government programs to restore liquidity and stimulate national and global economies, our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so, strategic actions, including acquisitions and dispositions and our success in integrating acquired businesses, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, our competitive environment, dependence on new service development and tariff structures, rapid technological and market change, acquisition strategy, risks associated with telecommunications infrastructure, governmental regulation of the telecommunications industries and other risks associated with operating in Russia and the CIS, volatility of stock price, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks. * * *
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[February 13, 2017] IDIS Receives Two Prestigious Video Surveillance World Class Product of Korea Awards
IDIS, South Korea's largest surveillance manufacturer, announced today that the company has received two esteemed World Class Product of Korea awards from the Ministry of Trade Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Korean Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). The annual program evaluates Korean companies and their global exports from across an array of industry sectors, including ship building, plastics, petrochemicals, electronic goods, and security products, among many others. For any given product to be selected, the global market needs to exceed $50M and be twice the size of the Korean domestic market, with exports accounting for more than 30% of the same product sold in Korea. In addition, total Korean sales of that product must be ranked top five in terms of global market share and in 2015, sales of Korean IP dome cameras and network video recorders (NVRs) ranked fifth in the world, with more than five percent market share, qualifying them to be evaluated within this highly-respected awards program. Each company is appraised by its relevant industry association, where the findings are then presented to MOTIE and KOTRA for final evaluation. IDIS and other Korean surveillance manufacturers were judged using stringent criteria by a panel of experts from the Korean Electronics Association (KEA) over the course of many weeks. In addition to financial data, the judges also looked for assurance of product quality, reliability, technical capabilities, and marketability. IDIS proved, based on 2015 inancial data, that export sales of both its IP dome cameras and DirectIP NVRs, met the benchmark of more than $5M of global exports annually.
Joon Jun, President of the Global Business Division, said, "Our level of exports clearly demonstrates that customers around the world recognize and appreciate the quality and reliability of IDIS products. This recognition really cements the fact that IDIS has grown to become a true global player in the world security market. IDIS recently kicked off its 20th anniversary and celebrated two decades of innovation at Intersec in Dubai, UAE, and these awards clearly demonstrate why IDIS has been at the forefront of surveillance for over 20 years. We fully intend to continue that trend through our commitment to research and development and by remaining first to bring new technologies and products to market. "I'd like to take this opportunity to thank KEA, MOTIE, and KOTRA for their partnership approach and to all the judges for their time spent in evaluating IDIS and its products as well as all the other Korean companies involved."
To learn more about IDIS and its Total Solution, visit www.idisglobal.com, and to follow all of the 20th anniversary events, visit www.idisglobal.com/idis20. ISC West attendees will have the opportunity to see these award-winning and other IDIS innovations in action at the IDIS booth #18059 April 5-7, 2017. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005024/en/
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[February 13, 2017] North Highland Announces New Board Members
ATLANTA, Feb. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The North Highland Holding Company, Inc., parent company of management consulting firm North Highland, announced today the addition of two new members to its Board of Directors. The new board members are Anne Game, currently Managing Director and Atlanta Market Lead at North Highland, and William Douglas, previously Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. "We're thrilled to welcome Anne and Bill to the board. Their experience, expertise, reputation and passion for North Highland make them very well suited to these roles. We know that both will be excellent contributors to the board's work on behalf of the firm," said Rear Admiral Marsha Evans, non-Executive Chairman of the Board. With more than 30 years in the consulting industry, Game has been with North Highland for more than a decade. As Managing Director, she's led the growth of several key accounts for the firm, both in Atlanta and globally. Among other responsibilities, Game serves as executive sponsor for several firm-wide initiatives, including inclusion and diversity, executive leadership development and account management; she previously led the Chicago office. Douglas is a 30-year veteran of the Coca-Cola system with extensive international experience. He joined Coca-Cola Enterprises in July 2004, serving as the CFO from 2005 to 2013. As Executive Vice President and CFO, Douglas oversaw the 2010 transformation of CCE into a European operating company, eabling a return of nearly $7 billion in cash to shareowners in the following years. Beginning in 2013, Douglas served as head of CCE's Supply Chain team, before retiring in 2015.
Game and Douglas are replacing current board members Dave Peterson and Frank Mueller, who are both retiring from the board. Peterson is one of the founders of North Highland, serving as CEO until 2005, and then non-Executive Chairman of the board until 2012. Most recently, he served on the Audit & Finance Committee and the Nominating & Governance Committee. "It goes without saying that North Highland would not be here today if it weren't for Dave. Words cannot express our gratitude to him and all he has done for the firm during the past 25 years. While I know he's looking forward to devoting time to his passions outside of North Highland, he'll always be a part of our family, and part of the heart and soul of who we are," said North Highland CEO Dan Reardon.
Mueller served on the North Highland Board of Directors for 10 years and most recently was Chair of the Compensation Committee and part of the Audit & Finance Committee. "In his more than 10 years of service on our board, Frank has been a strong voice of reason, a strategic advisor, and a champion of growth," said Reardon. "We sincerely thank him for his dedication to North Highland. Both Dave and Frank will be missed, but their presence will continue to be felt long into the future." About North Highland North Highland is a global management consulting firm known for helping clients solve their most complex challenges related to customer experience, performance improvement, technology and digital, and transformation. We add value and support our clients across the full spectrum of consulting, from strategy through delivery. We bring the big ideas, then we make them real. North Highland is an employee-owned firm, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., with more than 3,000 consultants worldwide and 60+ offices around the globe. The firm is a member of Cordence Worldwide (www.cordenceworldwide.com), a global management consulting alliance. For more information, visit northhighland.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Media Contact:
Jennifer Marsh
404-975-6335
[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/north-highland-announces-new-board-members-300406225.html SOURCE North Highland
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[February 13, 2017] HGS Hiring 170 Positions in Charlottetown, PEI Customer Experience Contact Centre
Join job fair on Feb. 16, 2017 or apply online CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island, Feb. 13, 2017 /CNW/ -- HGS Canada (a subsidiary of Hinduja Global Solutions Limited (HGS), a company listed in India) announced it will hire 170 positions in its Charlottetown customer experience contact centre in March to support a new media and communications client. The company is hosting a job fair on Thursday, February 16, 2017 at the Red Shores Racetrack & Casino, 21 Exhibition Drive, Charlottetown. HGS will begin interviewing candidates to fill 170 positions scheduled to start in the next few weeks at its 81 Hillstrom Avenue contact centre. HGS is hiring these new roles to meet increasing client demands as part of HGS's overall growth in Canada for 2017. HGS previously announced the availability of 1,225 new positions across the country. Read the full press release here:
http://www.teamhgs.com/newsroom/press-release/hgs-hire-1225-positions-canada-2017. "HGS Canada is experiencing tremendous growth thanks to the continuous trust of our clients and their increasing needs for our service," said Ross Duff, Senior Vice President Operations for HGS Canada."We look forward to partnering with a skilled and talented workforce in Charlottetown and will continue to demonstrate our commitment to this community and to the province as a whole."
HGS is recruiting permanent, full-time inbound customer service agents, team leaders, and administrative roles. These positions are ideal for applicants who enjoy problem solving and helping people within a customer service environment. Previous customer service experience and basic computer skills are an asset. Applicants interested in a career with HGS can apply directly at the job fair between 10 am7 pm, where a team of recruiters will be on hand to assist with the application process and answer any questions. Former HGS employees are welcomed and encouraged to apply. Applications are also being accepted online at www.JoinHGS.com. HGS is committed to career path development and regularly promotes successful team members to management positions. In fact, over 90 percent of HGS Canada management positions are promoted from within. HGS provides a competitive compensation and benefits package, including dental, medical, and vision insurance, paid training; and bonus & incentive opportunities.
About Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS)
HGS is a leader in optimizing the customer experience and helping our clients to become more competitive. HGS provides a full suite of business process management (BPM) services from traditional voice contact center services and transformational DigiCX services that are unifying customer engagement to platform-based, back-office services and digital marketing solutions. By applying analytics, automation, and interaction expertise to deliver innovation and thought leadership, HGS increases revenue, improves operating efficiency, and helps retain valuable customers. HGS expertise spans the telecommunications and media, healthcare, insurance, banking, consumer electronics and technology, retail, and consumer packaged goods industries, as well as the public sector. HGS operates on a global landscape with around 44,000 employees in 66 worldwide locations delivering localized solutions. For the year ended 31st March 2016, HGS had revenues of US$ 507 million. HGS, part of the multi-billion dollar Hinduja Group, has more than four decades of experience working with some of the world's most recognized brands. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hgs-hiring-170-positions-in-charlottetown-pei-customer-experience-contact-centre-300406229.html SOURCE Hinduja Global Solutions Limited (HGS)
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[February 13, 2017] Carbon Black and Arrow Electronics Partner to Bring Next-Generation Antivirus Security (NGAV) to the Mass Market
Carbon Black, the leader in next-generation endpoint security, today announced a strategic distribution relationship with Arrow Electronics, the leading value-added distributor in providing cybersecurity solutions to the broader security-partner ecosystem. Arrow's network of global value-added resellers will sell all of Carbon Black's solutions including Cb Defense, Carbon Black's Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV). "With the proliferation of enterprise devices and the internet of things, it's no secret the market is looking for robust endpoint security solutions," said Shannon McWilliams, who directs the dedicated security practice within Arrw's enterprise computing solutions business. "We are excited to collaborate with Carbon Black on bringing Next-Gen Antivirus to Arrow's marketplace of security resellers and helping our reseller ecosystem solve increasingly sophisticated enterprise threats."
Cb Defense is a leading NGAV solution that protects businesses from the full spectrum of modern cyberattacks, delivering the best endpoint protection with the least amount of work. Using a combination of endpoint and cloud-based technologies, Cb Defense stops more attacks than legacy AV and machine-learning AV. Its deep analytic approach inspects files and identifies malicious behavior to block both malware and increasingly common non-malware attacks that exploit memory and scripting languages. Said Ken Hammond, Carbon Black's vice president of worldwide channel: "The market wants prevention and is rapidly shifting away from traditional AV. There is currently a huge demand from customers for a leading NGAV solution. By combining Cb Defense with Arrow's vast network, Carbon Black is greatly increasing its global footprint, providing high margins for resellers, and continuing to stay at the cutting edge of keeping businesses protected from cyber attacks."
To learn more about the Carbon Black's NGAV solution, Cb Defense, now available through Arrow, please email [email protected]. About Carbon Black Carbon Black is the leading provider of next-generation endpoint security. Carbon Black's Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV) solution, Cb Defense, leverages breakthrough prevention technology, streaming prevention, to instantly see and stop cyberattacks before they execute. Cb Defense uniquely combines breakthrough prevention with market-leading detection and response into a single, lightweight agent delivered through the cloud. With more than 7 million endpoints under management, Carbon Black has more than 2,500 customers, including 30 of the Fortune 100. These customers use Carbon Black to replace legacy antivirus, lock down critical systems, hunt threats, and protect their endpoints from the most advanced cyberattacks, including non-malware attacks. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005709/en/
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[February 13, 2017] Utilidata and National Grid Announce Reforming the Energy Vision Project
Utilidata announced today a partnership in Clifton Park, NY with National Grid intended to deliver energy savings to electric customers in the town as part of the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) Demand Reduction Demonstration Project. National Grid will install Utilidata's Volt/VAR Optimization (VVO) technology - AdaptiVolt - on the electric system in Clifton Park, enabling the utility to capture energy savings from the electric grid without requiring any action from customers. "The REV demonstration project in Clifton Park is designed to test a variety of innovative solutions to reduce demand and improve the efficiency of the electric distribution system in Clifton Park," said Carlos Nouel, National Grid's Vice President of New Energy Solutions. "The benefit of Utilidata's AdaptiVolt technology is that we can enable savings for all customers by optimizing voltage." Utilidata's AdaptiVolt solution leverages real-time information from the distribution grid to optimize the delivery of electric power. By optimizing distribution delivery voltages, the technology helps to reduce energy usage at customer locations. In addition, the technology can improve the overall distribution reactive demand, and thereby reduce losses and save energy as electricity travels through the electric distribution system. Unlike traditional energy efficiency measures, this enables the utility to save energy without customer action and those savings can be passed on to all customers. "With our technology, we expect to help National Grid achieve a three percent reduction in energy demand," said Josh Brumberger, Utilidata's Chief Commercial Officer. "In Clifton Park, that equates to an annual savings of more than 5.99 million kilowatt hours thereby avoiding over 4,216 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Working together, we'll provide disribution system insights that improve reliability and power quality for local residents."
About National Grid National Grid (LSE:NG; NYSE:NGG) is an electricity and gas company that connects consumers to energy sources through its networks. The company is at the heart of one of the greatest challenges facing our society - to create new, sustainable energy solutions for the future and developing an energy system that underpins economic prosperity in the 21st century. National Grid holds a vital position at the center of the energy system and it 'joins everything up'.
In the northeast US, we connect more than seven million gas and electric customers to vital energy sources, essential for our modern lifestyles. In Great Britain, we run the gas and electricity systems that our society is built on, delivering gas and electricity across the country. National Grid delivers electricity to approximately 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. It manages the electricity network on Long Island under an agreement with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), and owns over 4,000 megawatts of contracted electricity generation, providing power to over one million LIPA customers. It is the largest distributor of natural gas in northeastern U.S., serving approximately 3.4 million customers in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. For more information please visit our website: www.nationalgridus.com. About Utilidata: Utilidata, Inc. is a global software company, backed by leading venture capital firms, that works with electric utilities across North America and the Middle East to enhance energy efficiency and grid security. The company's patented technology captures real-time data from the electric grid, providing utilities, including American Electric Power, National Grid, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, with actionable insights to save energy, mitigate issues caused by distributed energy resources, and better detect grid anomalies. Utilidata has partnered with Raytheon (News - Alert), a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense-grade cybersecurity solutions, to help utilities proactively detect, defend against and respond to cyber threats. The company has a world-class production, research and development facility at its headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island. For more information, please visit utilidata.com or follow @Utilidata on Twitter (News - Alert). View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170213005738/en/
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A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017
crime
TOKYO/JAKARTA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Japan's Mitsubishi Materials Corp aims to replace workers and resume operations at Indonesia's main copper smelter in early March after a labor strike forced it to halt operations except for the refining process on Jan. 19, a spokesman said.
The Gresik smelter, owned by PT Smelting, produced about 190,000 tonnes of copper cathode in the year to March 2016 and had planned to produce 260,000 tonnes this financial year through March 31, without taking into account the impact from the strike, Mitsubishi Materials spokesman Hiroshi Shimizu told Reuters.
PT Smelting is 60.5 percent owned by Mitsubishi Materials, while Freeport-McMoRan Inc's Indonesian unit holds 25 percent. The Gresik smelter on Java island takes up to 40 percent of Freeport's output of copper concentrate from its Grasberg mine in Papua province, the world's second-largest copper mine.
"PT Smelting has sent notice of dismissal to its about 300 workers late last month and is now hiring new workers with an aim to resume operations as early as March," the spokesman said.
Indonesia introduced new rules on Jan 12 that require miners including Freeport to develop additional smelting capacity and halt their exports until they obtain new permits.
As a result of the rules, Freeport warned it could be forced to slash output by around 70 million pounds of copper per month and lay off workers at Grasberg, PT Smelting's main source of copper concentrate.
As of Monday, Freeport had not resolved the permit issues, a Jakarta-based spokesman told Reuters. He declined to comment on Grasberg's production status.
"Exports are still banned as a result of the regulations that were issued in January," Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama said. "There has been no agreement."
The Mitsubishi Materials spokesman said PT Smelting has also stopped exporting anode slime, a byproduct of copper concentrate processing that includes other metals such as gold and silver, due to the new rules.
Story continues
Previously, Mitsubishi had sent anode slime to its Naoshima plant in western Japan to extract gold and silver, providing the company with additional revenues from the operation.
"We have applied for an export permit with Indonesian government and we hope to resume exports of slime when PT Smelting restarts operations in March," the spokesman said.
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi in TOKYO and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
Update, 2/21/2017 8:35am PST: Humble Bundle announced that it raised $6.43 million for the American Civil Liberties Union, Doctors Without Borders, and International Rescue Committee via the Humble Freedom Bundle. The company matched $300,000 of those donations-slash-purchases.
Humble Bundle raised $300,000 for the American Civil Liberties Union, Doctors Without Borders, and the International Rescue Committee in just 90 minutes. The proceeds were raised via the Humble Freedom Bundle (opens in new tab) that offers 47 games and books in exchange for a minimum payment of $30.
Humble Bundle often supports various organizations with dedicated "bundles" of discounted games and books. The company usually lets customers decide how their payments are split up--all the money can go to a charity, for example, or it can be split between the charity and Humble Bundle itself--and features a "pay what you want" scale along with some higher tiers which require minimum payments. The service, then, is all about freedom.
The Humble Freedom Bundle differs in that 100% of proceeds will go to rights organizations, and Humble Bundle vowed to match donations up to $300,000. This special bundle also offers just one tier--people can donate as much as they want, but they'll only get those 47 titles if they cough up at least $30. But the company did leave open the possibility that more games, books, and tiers will be added before the promotion ends on February 20:
We were not able to add every game in time for our launch, so we will be trying to add more content from interested developers over the course of the promotion. Keep an eye out for more content will be added to this bundle this Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time, but no guarantees!If you already paid for the $30 tier, you'll automatically receive the additional content once they're added!
This bundle includes many noteworthy games like Stardew Valley, Super Meat Boy, The Witness, and many others. It also features the R in a Nutshell desktop reference guide, novels from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cory Doctorow, and The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy: Practical Tips for Staying Safe Online, among others. Humble Bundle didn't just take whatever it could get for this effort; it assembled a long list of high-quality products.
Here's what Humble Bundle said about this Freedom campaign:
We humbly remember that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and we proudly stand with developers, authors, and charities that champion liberty and justice for all.This special one-week bundle features over $600 in incredible games and books for just $30. 100% of your payments will go to the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Rescue Committee, and Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Humble Bundle will proudly match your contributions up to $300,000.We chose these three organizations because of the inspiring work they do in providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and displaced people as well as in defense of justice, human rights, and civil rights.
The campaign is likely inspired by President Donald Trump's executive order banning immigrants and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries. Almost 100 tech companies (including Microsoft, Intel, Apple, and Facebook) filed a brief challenging the order. Almost 16,000 bundles have been sold at the time of writing.
The Humble Freedom Bundle will run until February 20. Every game can be downloaded from Steam--all for Windows, some for Mac and Linux--and several are DRM-free. All the books are also DRM-free so they should be compatible with anyone's reading platform of choice.
The common will for direct expansion and deepening of bilateral relations between Greece and Vietnam at all levels was confirmed during Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias' official visit in Hanoi
The common will for direct expansion and deepening of bilateral relations between Greece and Vietnam at all levels was confirmed during Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias' official visit in Hanoi, on the anniversary of 10 years from the opening of the Greek embassy in the Vietnamese capital and 40 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The contacts between the two officials revealed the mutual intention to intensify contacts that will promote bilateral cooperation in all areas, from economic, commercial, maritime, to tourism and culture.
Among the most important agreements is the one to promote cooperation between the two countries in multilateral forums-including the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN) with the EU and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) ASEAN-EU, with Vietnam saying that it is ready to act as a gateway to further promote and facilitate cooperation between Greece and ASEAN, as well as the EU and ASEAN, but also Greece and Vietnam in its relations with the EU, acting as a gateway to Europe.
"We respect Vietnam and its brave story, and for me is a life dream to be here and I am very happy to be the first Greek Foreign Minister to visit Vietnam," Kotzias said in a joint press conference with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Bhin Minh.
"Vetnam is a synonym of national resistance and human dignity, which are the highest human values for the protection of human life and national sovereignty," he added.
"That is why," Kotzias added "we are preparing to further promote cooperation between Greece and Vietnam, in all possible fields, from business and shipping to the EU. We can be, for Vietnam, the gateway to the EU," he underlined.
On his part, Minh said that "Vietnam and Greece have shared forty years of diplomatic relations and since then we have seen very positive developments in our bilateral cooperation."
The Vietnamese Foreign Minister described his talks with Kotzias "very constructive" and expressed his appreciation for the visit of Kotzias in Hanoi.
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
Germany is committed to making a success of Greece's bailout program, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday
Germany is committed to making a success of Greece's bailout program, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, when asked if Greece leaving the eurozone was an option.
"For years, eurozone member states, including Germany, have shown active solidarity with Greece with the goal to bring this country to a path of sustainable finances and economic growth," Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference.
"It is a mission that has dragged on for many years and we are holding on to it," he added.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer added: "We want to keep the eurozone whole, including Greece, and we will support everything that helps Greece. That's why we want the aid program to continue to be successful."
Source: Reuters
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
US-based Cargill, a leading provider of food and industrial products, plans to invest in major development projects in Egypt, said a report.
The US company is presently working on a major grain storage project in the Egyptian port of Daqahleya in a bid to boost its storage capacity by another 42,000 tonnes, reported Daily News Egypt, citing the Minister of Industry and Trade Tarek Kabil.
Kabil was speaking after meeting a Cargill delegation, headed by Roger Johnson, the regional director for Europe and the Middle East.
The company is planning more investments in the key sectors of agriculture, food and grain storage and transport logistics, said Johnson.
The key projects include plans to expand its vegetable oils production unit in Borg El Arab.
With Egypt offering great investment opportunities, Cargill plans to boost its investments in the country to $300 million, he added.
The largest cyber security gathering in Saudi Arabia with over 600 experts in attendance will be hosted this month in Riyadh.
The 2nd Annual International Cyber Security Conference (ICSC) is being organised by the Ministry of Interior (MOI) represented by National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), in partnership with Naseba on February 27 and 28 at the Security Forces Officers Club.
VIPs, CEOs, CIOs, CISOs, IT and security managers representing the nations critical national infrastructure organisations, private sector and academia will take part in the event.
Saudi Arabia has climbed four spots to become the 16th biggest economy in the world in 2016, fueled by its commitment to sustainable growth through economic diversification and technological transformation.
However, with the widespread use of technology, the risk of cyber threats from hackers, insiders, organised criminals, and foreign governments, has reached new heights, said a statement.
Enhancing the nations cyber security infrastructure to combat these threats, develop relevant standards, share critical information and educate stakeholders have become a key priority, it said.
Committed to supporting the Kingdoms bid to safeguard its critical networks, leading solution providers such as STC, Spire Solutions, TCC, Raytheon, SecurityMatterz, Advanced Electronics Company, Attivo Networks, BT, Fortinet, Innovative Solutions, Kaspersky, Northrop Grumman, PhishMe, Darktrace, Paloalto Networks, Protection Group International, Symantec and VirtualForge will be holding private one to one meetings with the attendees.
Dr Abbad Alabbad, communication and strategic development executive director, NCSC, highlighted that one of the key objectives of the conference is to facilitate national, regional and international collaboration between government, industry and critical infrastructure organisations.
Nicholas Watson, managing director, Naseba, highlighted that effective information and knowledge sharing within and across industries is crucial to help mitigate cyber threats and attacks. The conference emphasises this, in addition to facilitating business transactions, partnerships and deals between the key stakeholders and vendors.
Sanjeev Walia, CEO of Spire Solutions, the lead sponsor of the conference, noted: At a juncture when the region is targeted by advanced cyber attacks, cyber security is mandatory for every organisation and in Spire Solutions, we work closely with organisations to protect their business by helping them understand, detect and manage cyber security threats in an effective way. Our team will demonstrate some of the niche solutions available today such as deception technology, endpoint security, automated threat hunting, and advanced threat exposure management. TradeArabia News Service
Oman's Special Economic Zone Authority in Duqm (Sezad) has awarded contracts worth RO84.7 million ($219 million) involving four key infrastructure projects within the free zone area.
This comes as part of Sezad's efforts to make Duqm a city that attracts business activities and investments and a favourite destination for work and residence, remarked Yahya bin Said bin Abdullah Al Jabri, the chair of board of directors of Sezad after signing the contracts.
The scope of work includes construction of protection dams and major and secondary drainage channels with capacities sufficient to drain wadi waters through collecting rainwater and discharging it in the sea in a safe manner and based on the volume of rain expected in the Duqm area, he stated.
There are also plans to set up a system to drain surface water and provide the appropriate protection for the projects currently being implemented in the area, said Al Jabri.
Sezad signed a major agreement with Premier International Projects Company for the construction of two protection dams - one over Wadi Jarf measuring 19.4 m in height and 1.6 km long with a storage capacity of 32.8 million cu m, and the other on Wadi Sai (16.4 m high and 3.3 km long) with a storage capacity of 17 million cu m.
The project will be completed by the end of 2019 at a cost of RO27 million ($70 million), stated Al Jabri after inking the deal with Mohan Babu, the managing director.
The other major agreement worth RO49.7 million ($129 million) for the construction of two drainage channels was inked with a joint venture of Serka and Rajab and Aidi Earthmoving Company
The first channel, Wadi Jarf Channel Valley, is about 12 km long and 340-650 m wide at the final exit at the sea, while the second, Wadi Sai Channel, is 10 km long up to the meeting point with Wadi Jarf Channel of 90-320 m wide.
Hunkar Adali, the authorised representative of Serka, and Fathi Said Ayedeh of Rajab and Aidi Earthmoving Company, signed the agreement for the executing companies.
Sezad also signed agreements for the construction of the Interface Roadway Project at Duqm (Section 4) at a cost of RO7.2 million ($18.6 million), which was awarded to Al Hajri Trading Company.
The project involves the construction of an interface road from the main road (Sultan Said bin Timor Road) that extends along Duqm from the south to the power station, in addition to another link passing through the site of Sebacic Oman Company situated to the north of Duqm Port, said Al Jabri after signing the deal with Al Hajri Trading Company chairman Nasser bin Khamis bin Juma Al Hashar.
As per the deal, Al Hajri will build a 2.2-km dual carriageway and 3-km-long single roads in addition to two dual entrances to Duqm Refinery running 574 m long.
The scope of work includes traffic signals, two roundabouts, concrete channel for rainwater drainage measuring 3,830 m long, concrete box culverts, streetlighting, and protection of existing services.
Sezad also awarded a contract to Al Sarooj Construction for a 790-m-long service road in Duqm along with development of parking spaces for 63 buses, pedestrian paths and concrete channel for rainwater drainage.
The work also includes concrete culverts, streetlighting, parking spaces and protection of existing services, stated Al Jabri after signing the agreement with Simon Karam, the chief executive of Al-Sarooj Construction.-TradeArabia News Service
In order for the Arab civilisation to regain its past glories, the Arab world should begin by comprehending the indicators for the future, said UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Sheikh Mohammed made the remarks today while addressing a panel of the World Government Summit, which was attended by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, said a Wam news agency report.
Sheikh Mohammed referred to a "clear message" he gave to the Arab governments 12 years ago that "you must change, or you will be changed."
"As we talk about resuming civilisation, we need hope. I am optimistic because it is the man who makes civilisation, economy and prosperity. If the Arab and Muslim man succeeded in building a civilisation in the past, they are capable of resuming it," he added.
Sheikh Mohammed said the Arab world possesses all potentials, including human resources, education, fertile lands and will power.
"The only thing missing is the management. The management of governments, economy, resources, infrastructure and even management of sports. We are 300 million, almost equal to the population of the United States, but look how many medals they win in the Olympic Games. We have failures in certain areas that need to be addressed."
Asked about his greatest personal achievement, Sheikh Mohammed said: "The UAE has many achievements that my brother His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, my other brothers, and I, are very proud of. I believe the biggest achievement is the building of the UAE citizens, the citizens who are capable of everything, including running the economy."
He recalled that when the federation was founded by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, "we were just 40 university graduates. Now, we have 77 universities, teeming with thousands of students. We have a programme to reach Mars, fully run by young Emiratis."
Answering a question how the UAE managed to balance economic and tourism openness with security, Sheikh Mohammed said: "The world's problems are open-ended and we have to grow for the interest of our people and our country. If we said 40 years ago let us stop until it is safe, we would'nt achieve anything. We have people who carry out their duty of keeping us secure, while we are engaged in developing our country."
Sheikh Mohammed said the UAE has no recipe for success, but to endeavour, learn, gain expertise and importantly, appreciate the value of time.
"We do not boast perfection. We still learn every day and we waste no time because for us, time is like a running river. The experiment of the UAE speaks for itself for whoever wants to emulate it. All I can say is that we have advanced qualities in leadership and management," he said.
Sheikh Mohammed praised UAE's special relations with Egypt, describing the latter as "the heart and soul of the Arab world."
On how to develop civilisation through separating religion and politics, he said: "During the pre-Islam era, tribes fought and invaded each others and when Islam came, the civilisation started. Today, there are people with half or no knowledge at all, who blow themselves up in Europe and America in the name of faith. Their interpretation of Islam is completely wrong. It is a tolerant faith that calls for peace for all people of the world, not only Muslims. They just want to kill men, enslave women and refer that to religion. They simply know nothing."
Asked if he believed in conspiracy theory, he said: "Yes. Nations plot against other nations. They plot against you because you plan wisely for the welfare of your people. Conspiracies are there since the beginning of the world. However, we cannot only blame conspiracies. Our country suffered conspiracies, criticism, media wars and economic wars, but they only made us stronger."
On the future of UAE relations with the US under the administration of President Donald Trump, Sheikh Mohammed said: "Our relations are built with governments, not individuals. We will talk to the new President, exchange views and build our relations on the mutual interests of our countries and peoples. If you ask me whether previous administrations made mistakes, I would say yes. They destroyed Iraq and they supported Arab revolutions. Instead of turning Iraq into a model state for the Arab world, the country has become the worst example."
Sheikh Mohammed also praised the active participation of women in the UAE, saying 70 percent of women are university graduates.
"About one third of the cabinet is made of women. We believe that no community can function without women's involvement. Soon, women will occupy 50 percent of the cabinet portfolios."
Asked how he manages to be very active, holding meetings, inspecting government facilities and riding horses, he said: "In the UAE, if the day was 48 hours, we would have four cities of the Dubai likes. In fact, we would have two of the UAE likes. Time management is very important. We have to organise our time by making room for physical activity and meditation."
Sheikh Mohammed concluded by speaking about the youth. He said: "When we decided it is time to appoint a minister for youth, I was told that the youth lack experience. I said I do not want their knowledge or experience, I just need to know what they can give us. We contacted universities and we held meetings and then we had (the current Minister of State for Youth Affairs) Shamma AlMazrui, who came up with the idea of youth committees and youth councils in each emirate and even abroad. Today, Shamma has the biggest youth ministry. In fact, she has the biggest ministry in the world."
Scania has signed an agreement in principle with the Iranian province of Isfahan and Shahr-e Atiyeh investment company for the delivery of 1,350 buses for public transport for Isfahan and four other Iranian cities.
The first of these new buses will be in operation at the end of 2017, said a statement.
Two memoranda of understanding have been signed in Tehran, in the presence of the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and the Swedish Minister for EU Affairs and Trade Ann Linde, by Henrik Henriksson, president and CEO of Scania, Hamid Akbari Rad, member of the board of Scania's Iranian partner Oghab Afshan, the Governor of Isfahan and the managing director of Shahr-e Atiyeh.
There is a clear need to expand and renew public bus systems in Iran. With the two MoUs, Isfahan, 450 km south of Tehran, and four other leading and far-sighted Iranian cities, will get sustainable public transport solutions.
The new buses are equipped with engine technology that offers the lowest emissions levels in the country.
Iran is one of Scania's top 10 bus markets globally. Privately owned Oghab Afshan has been Scania's bus partner and distributor in Iran since 2000. The company employs close to 1,100 persons in its Scania operations, including 860 in the bus factory.
"Together with our partners, we have a strong presence in Iran with comprehensive industrial operations and an extensive service network," said Henriksson. "We look forward to developing this market even further to provide the best services and sustainable transport solutions to our customers."
Iran continues to be an important market for Scania. Its two established and privately owned distributors Oghab Afsahan and for trucks, Mammut Diesel, have a solid presence in the country, the statement said. - TradeArabia News Service
An Etihad flight enroute to the UAE from Ireland was diverted to the Al Minihad Air Base in Dubai following a security threat, said a report.
According to Gulf News, flight EY42 was travelling from Dublin Airport to Abu Dhabi on Friday when a security threat on board alerted the crew. The plane was rerouted to Dubai for further security checks.
The crew completed all necessary inflight checks as per procedure, with no abnormalities found, then followed the authorities instructions to undergo further security checks at the Air Base, the report quoted an Etihad Airways spokesperson as saying.
Throughout this process, the passengers remained at the Air Base and were provided with refreshments according to the spokesman.
Passengers were then brought to Abu Dhabi Airport by police escort buses, and were received into the city after being processed through the terminal, it said.
The precise cause of the diversion is not yet known.
Leading online travel company Rehlat, which is celebrating its anniversary this month, has debuted its website for the Egypt audience - www.rehlat.com.eg - to mark the milestone.
Rehlat, which operates for Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia respectively, has made its mark in the Middle East travel industry offering comprehensive services with a localised approach for the travellers.
Commenting on this milestone, Rehlat founder Bader Al Bader said: We are proud of what we have accomplished in this short span. What started out as a single office in Kuwait today has spread over to Dubai, India, and Egypt. As one of the key contributors to the world economy, the OTA sector has been growing and we are fortunate to have started at the right time to help travellers get their flight tickets and hotel bookings done faster, easier and hassle-free."
The new website from Rehlat (www.rehlat.com.eg) adds to the growing portfolio and takes the commitment of Rehlat to next level with the Middle East geography. The OTA has also announced an inaugural offer of EGP330 ($18.4) worth coupons for travellers who subscribe to the newsletter, which ensures they dont miss out on the frequently updated offers and deals. - TradeArabia News Service
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Valentine's Day is just around the corner and it's going to be a busy time for couples who are spending the holiday in tourist destinations. However, this day is not only for lovers because single people can enjoy solo travel for this holiday as well. Here are five Valentine's Day destinations for people without dates.
Pacific Coast Highway, California. There's no better way to enjoy some solo traveling than a nice road trip. According to Travel & Leisure, the Pacific Coast Highway is a classic route that will give travelers a scenic view of California"s magnificent coastlines. With a good number of restaurants and stunning beaches, the thought of not having a date for Valentine's Day wouldn't even bother you.
Asheville, North Carolina. The Appalachian mountains is a must-see sight when visiting Asheville. It's also home to the biggest residence in the US, the Biltmore, where George Vanderbilt resided. But what's beautiful about Asheville as a is its hippie and artistic vibe that would give solo travelers a sense of freedom.
Wickaninnish Inn, Canada. Spending some time in Tofino's Wickaninnish Inn during winter might not be your typical holiday. However, it's one of the best places for travelers to be lazy and spend a cozy time in front a warm fireplace while watching strong winds and falling snow outside the window.
Texas Hill Country. According to USA Today, it's going to be Wine Lovers Celebration month in this place and it's going to be one of the best Valentine's Day destinations for solo travelers. With a good amount of inns, B&Bs, gift shops, eateries and wineries, it's the perfect definition of a homy-hearty destination.
Norther Lights, Canada. Catch the Aurora Borealis in Churchill by joining group trips that would tour you around the edge of Hudson Bay. Another must-see attraction is the polar bear migration.
Celebrating Valentine's Day without a date is not a big deal. With these five Valentine's Day destinations, solo travelers can have a memorable trip all by themselves.
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Hawaii has always been a top destination when people get stressed because of the fast and hectic lifestyle in the city. With its soothing beaches and tropical flavors, one can always find Hawaii a piece of paradise on Earth. One new restaurant name Fete is attracting a lot of buzz in the busy streets of Nu'uanu Avenue and Hotel Street that feature a merge of New York and Hawaii flavors.
Fete doesn't have a name-brand chef and definitely doesn't receive media attention to boost its popularity. They only boast of good food, one of a kind service and nothing more. The 17 hundred square-foot space was bordered with plate-glass windows that pull toward eyes of hungry people. Once inside one can immediately see the iconic red-bricked wall which is signature of Chinatown buildings.
The interior is decorated with reclaimed wood, blown-glass light fixtures and a living fern wall that accents the modern wooden features. The dining area can accommodate approximately 40 guests with an additional 10 seats at the full service bar. There are also another 5 front row spots at the chef's counter where the action all happens. The restaurant also features a basement for storage which is rare to see in this part of the states.
Fete is the baby of the couple Robynne Maii and Chuck Bussler who moved back to Honolulu, Hawaii to be with Maii's family. According to Frolic, the couple spent decades on New York City working on different fine dining restaurants, teaching and catering to others. The classic techniques and knowledge they obtained in New York merged with the native, fresh and seasonal ingredients resulting to simple yet elevated dishes.
The menu at Fete is very simple in itself. As per Honululu Magazine, the menu only contains two salad options, a single type of soup, several snacks and appetizers, six choices for main dishes and four types of desserts. One of their best sellers is the mouth-watering Chaz Burger which is priced just right with only $16. The house-choice cut was grounded to perfection with just the right meat-fat ratio which makes the patty juicy and flavourful. Hawaiian Kula tomatoes where then added together with native Cow pika moon, roasted garlic aioli and home-blend ketchup.
Another must order is the Grilled Pulpo or octopus. The restaurant is very proud of its wonderful and tender octopus with just the right amount of char. The whole dish is topped with shaved celery and fingerling potato salad spiced with rosemary.
In general, Fete is the best combination of Brooklyn and Hawaii that features local produce and a functional bar for drinkers and beer fans. This husband and wife owned restaurant will surely bring the elegant and elevated island flavors for a refreshing getaway.
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Lithuanian Department Of Tourism Head Jurgita Kazlauskiene announced her resignation after it was discovered the Lithuanian tourism promotion photos used in the social media campaign were of locations outside the country.The State Tourism Department director gained instant Internet fame after the media reported about the Department of Tourism luring foreigners with photos not located in Lithuania.
The department made a Facebook page titled "Lithuania. Real Is The Beautiful," according to BBC, and the page used stock photographs available from Shutterstock and Flickr. The BBC noted the irony of the campaign, mentioning that even Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skverlenis joked about the gaffe but immediately said in social media that he would initiate an investigation into the matter.
In its earlier attempts to contain its public relations damage, the Lithuanian Department of Tourism said the page had reached through travelers through communicating "emotion" or the urge to travel to Lithuania to travelers. The campaign began in October 2016 to boost the country's tourism economy.
Kazlauskiene was head of Lithiuania's Department of Tourism since January 2015. She might have received ire regarding the error but many claim the content marketing service is heavily to blame for the use of irrelevant stock footage. According to The Baltic Times, a spokeswoman for the department said that the content marketing company had not violated any contract conditions and said the department did not specify the location of the photographs it needed.
Despite receiving online flak, Lithuania is still a celebrated tourism spot. According to Lonely Planet, Lithuania is recognized as "one of Europe's gems" with Vilnus still beautiful with its old age but modernized buildings, bustling nightlife and the character and charm of the Baltic region's beaches. Lonely Planet advises visiting "The Hill of Crosses" in Siauliai or the lake castle found in Trakai Historical National Park.
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Marine archaeologists from the maritime museum, Sjohistoriska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden found what looks like remnants from a Vasa-era warship called Blekinge. The ship was believed to have sunk in 1713 when the country was in war with Russia and its allies.
According to The Lonely Planet, the archaeologists found the ship near Karlskrona naval base where it was thought to be the first ship to be built at Karlskrona shipyard. Unlike the ship, Vasa, the Blekinge survived decades and even participated in the past war between Denmark and Sweden.
The infamous Vasa warship sank around 1,300 meters when it first launched into the sea in 1628. It is now on display at the Vasamuseet, The Vasa Museum.
The same report also quoted Jim Hensson, curator of archaeology at the Swedish National Maritime Museums, saying, that the Blekinge was around the same size as the Vasa, about 45 meters long and with between 68-70 cannons - the Vasa had 64." He further stated that the ship might have downed on purpose when the Swedish economy was in trouble.
At the height of the war, constructions at the Karlskrona shipyard had to stop, and the Blekinge was sunk so as to use its canons like a barge to defend Karlskrona. However, it led to the demise of the Swedish Empire.
Archaeologists have planned to conduct studies and excavations to know the history of the warship, and it had improved tactics and battleship designs all through the years. They would likely explore the deck area of the ship which was covered in many sedimentary layers.
"Part of her is embedded in deep layers of sediment," Hansson said. "We believe there could be a relatively in-tact level of the deck under it. The ship's not at all as well preserved as the Vasa, but the part which lies outside of the pier could be better preserved."
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The "19 Kids and Counting" couple Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar who are pro-life are more than happy to announce that they have added one kid to their large brood. An Arkansas judge granted the request of the couple that they be given the custody of Tyler, 9, the son of Michelle Duggar's niece Rachel Hutchins.
The young boy was born to his unwed mother when she was a teenager. When she was arrested for a felony case of breaking and entering, her son was taken by Mrs. Duggar's sister Carolyn to take care of him. However, she died last July and the Duggar couple took him at their home. They then requested to be named as Tyler's permanent guardians.
It was a happy occasion for Michelle Duggar who still wants to have another child despite her large family. Her last delivery was to a stillborn child named Jubilee Shalom.
The Duggars shared on their official Facebook account the legalization of the entry of their 20th child into their family as reported by Daily Mail. Rachel Hutchins will be allowed supervised visits to his son as she is on probation for three years. She gave up custody of her son because she is homeless and unemployed and cannot support her son.
The Duggars became famous when their family was featured in the show "19 Kids and Counting." However, following the exposure of their son Josh Duggar's child molestation scandal, the show was canceled by TLC according to TV Line. Two of the grown-up and married women in the family formed "Counting On" featuring Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald.
The Duggar family continues to grow bigger every year as adult members of the family marry and bear children. They continue to get their fans' support even if they are no longer visible on television. The increases and achievements of the family continue to capture the interest of their followers.
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Last February 9th, the Michelin Guide France for 2017 has awarded 70 stars to different luxury establishments. And one of the hospitality establishments awarded with this high-profile recognition is Cheval Blanc Courchevel, who got its third Michelin star at their restaurant Le 1947.
Le 1947 is currently headed by Chef Yannick Alleno, who also owns a successful, multi-awarded restaurant in Paris, Le Pavillon Ledoyen. Le 1947 is the only restaurant in Courchevel that has three Michelin stars, an honor bestowed upon Alleno because of his creativity and gastronomic mastery of all the dishes he make at the restaurant.
This 49-year-old chef is famous for executing exquisite dishes that burst with extraordinary flavors, making Alleno an irreplaceable asset in Cheval Blanc Courchevel. Since his arrival in Le 1947, guests have been coming back to be treated with a one-of-a-kind luxury dining experience in the French Alps.
Speaking about Cheval Blanc Courchevel's latest achievement, Chef Alleno said: "I feel an immense joy and I thank the Michelin Guide for the support it shows us with this new distinction. The restaurant is a marvelous setting; it is truly up there where modern sauces are born."
"I am delighted for Monsieur Arnault, with whom our group shares his fundamental values of excellence and creativity. Thank you as well to the teams at LVMH Hotel Management who have supported us since our first day in this crazy gamble to reinvent French cuisine. An enormous bravo to Gerard Barbin whose work ethic and consistency are exceptional, bravo to all of you and thank you."
Le 1947 is one of the restaurants housed in Cheval Blanc, and its name was inspired by the prestigious vintage of Chateau Cheval Blanc. The restaurant features exquisite French Cuisine, and only a limited number of guests can dine at the restaurant every night, because according to their website: "In complete intimacy, the restaurant welcomes a limited number of guests per night to orchestrate a full culinary immersion whilst looking after the smallest details."
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